Amanda Knox

The Amanda Knox murder trial resonated with me for several reasons, she was a University of Washington student and Seattle resident like I had been, and the celebrity circus-like atmosphere called to mind another notorious miscarriage of justice with O.J. Simpson. The documentary Amanda Knox (2016) looks at how the travesty ran out of control. The case should have been solved by Occam's Razor, the eventual convicted murderer was know for break-ins and sexual assault-his DNA was found all over the victim's room. The victim had been sexually assaulted, there were some oddities that the prosecution took to be a cover up and proceeded to make Knox and her short term boyfriend the principal suspect due to her "inappropriate behavior following the grisly murder. The police questioned the young, upset people under duress and mucked up the investigation from the get go. It was obvious that there was international pressure on them to solve the case quickly and this is one of the main factors that led them down the wrong road. The fact that most of the prosecution's cases rested on presumed theories without any solid proof stoked by an amoral scandal-monger press corp that would print anything whether or not it was true. That desperation led them to tell Knox that she had AIDS when in jail and then released her prison diaries-calls to question the legality of such an act as well. The smug prosecutor refuses to admit he made a mistake and today conspirator theorists types still believe she got away with murder. It is the obvious of O.J.-where a man clearly guilty with physical proof is set free for being famous-her an infamous woman is convicted for being an attractive, sexually active woman. In the end the Italian high court over turned the conviction and they were set free-so eventually justice prevailed.