Years after one of the most highly publicized murder cases of the 21st century, Amanda Knox is trying to take her own story back with the new Hulu eight-part series, The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox.
I was gripped by the first two episodes, which dramatize her life story before she landed in Perugia, Italy for a year of college study abroad to confronting the Italian prosecutor who wrongfully put her behind bars for the November 2007 murder of one of her roommates, British student Meredith Kercher.
For those who don’t recall the basics, Knox and her then boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito and Congolese national Patrick Diya Lumumba (Knox’s boss at the bar where she worked) were arrested five days after the murder. Kercher’s throat had been slit in the bedroom of the apartment she shared with the other young women.
A few weeks later, a man named Rudy Guede was detained in Germany and extradited to Italy and Mr. Lumumba was released without charge.
In October 2008, Guede was sentenced to 16 years behind bars (he’s now free) and a judge ruled that Knox and Sollecito would face a murder trial, where they were found guilty of murder and sexual violence and sentenced to about 25 years in prison.
In October 2011, Knox and Sollecito were acquitted, but in January 2014, their convictions were reinstated.
Yet in March 2015 the Italian court acquitted Knox and Sollecito in a final verdict.
Twisted tale, indeed.
In the years since, Knox has been trying to clear her name in the court of public opinion, even returning to Italy last year with her husband, their child and her mom to come to some sort of reconciliation with the Italian authorities who wrongfully accused her and made her into a monster in the press.
Grace Van Patten portrays Knox in the series, from age 20-35 and Giuseppe De Domenico plays her boyfriend. They had only been together for eight days when the murder occurred and were spending the night in his apartment when it happened.
The first episodes show them as a young couple in love, exhibiting PDA at the crime scene and at the police station, making you want to scream, “Please stop!”
But the inappropriate behavior is not what got them arrested. The Italian authorities grilled both of them for hours on end without any attorneys present and for Knox, who did not speak fluent Italian and was only sporadically granted a translator, the scenes are incredibly difficult to watch.
You really feel for this young American girl who was in a situation completely out of her control, yet you understand how under the circumstances, especially with the language barrier, her story may have had some inconsistencies, including first hiding marijuana use.
The series, which was executive produced by Knox and Monica Lewinsky (another woman who has worked for decades to rebuild her reputation) and This Is Us showrunner K.J. Steinberg, explores how public opinion and bias shaped the case.
Even now, there is criticism on how the series gives such short shrift to Kercher, whose life came to such a gory and untimely end.
Still, we will be tuning in to see how the rest of the story is told.
