Trial of the Century: The Story of Amanda Knox

Second Trial and Acquittal

Photo by Stephen Brashear/Getty Images

The fight wasn’t over for Amanda Know and Raffaele Sollecito. By November 2010, an appeal was in full swing. A court-ordered review found that independent experts discovered multiple errors in the gathering and analysis of the DNA evidence first submitted, while no traces of Meredith Kercher’s DNA had been found on the alleged murder weapon located in Sollecito’s kitchen.

A year later Knox and Sollecito were found not guilty of the murder and acquitted. The judges, Claudio Pratillo Hellmann and Massimo Zanetti stated that there was a “material non-existence” of evidence to support the initial guilty verdicts. Cleared of murder, Knox was still sentenced to three years for falsely implicating Patrick Lumumba, but as she had already served more than this she was immediately released.