Meredith Kercher, a British exchange student at Perugia’s University for Foreigners, is found dead on Nov. 2 in the cottage she shared with Amanda Knox and two other women. She had been stabbed in the throat with a knife.
Days later, Ms. Knox is summoned by local police for questioning. Her contradictory accounts of that night – at one point in questioning, she confessed to being home at the time of the murder – transformed her from a witness to a suspect. She accuses a local bartender, Congolese immigrant Patrick Lumumba, for whom she and Ms. Kercher worked. Mr. Lumumbu is arrested and imprisoned on suspicion of murder. Mr. Lumumba is later released based on a solid alibi.
On Nov. 22, Knox casts doubt on the veracity of her early November confession, saying it was made under severe stress, exhaustion, and emotional duress.
