Murder of Meredith Kercher

Murder Of Meredith Kercher

Meredith Kercher, a British university exchange student from Coulsdon, South London, was murdered in Perugia, Italy, on 1 November 2007. Kercher, aged 21 at the time of her death, was found dead on the floor of her bedroom with stab wounds to the throat. Some of her belongings were missing, including cash, two credit cards, two mobile phones, and her house keys.

Rudy Guede, an Ivory Coast native raised in Perugia, was convicted in October 2008 of having sexually assaulted and murdered Kercher, and was sentenced to 30 years, reduced on appeal to 16 years in December 2009. Also tried were Amanda Knox, an American exchange student and flatmate of Kercher, and Knox's then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, an Italian student. Knox and Sollecito were convicted on charges of sexual assault and murder in December 2009, and sentenced to 26 and 25 years respectively. Their convictions were overturned on appeal in October 2011 by a panel of six jurors and two judges. In an official statement of their grounds for overturning the convictions the judges wrote there was a "material non-existence" of evidence to support the guilty verdicts at the trial. The appeal judges further stated that the prosecution's theory of an association between Sollecito, Knox and Guede was "not corroborated by any evidence" and "far from probable".

The murder and subsequent events, especially Knox's arrest and trial, received worldwide press coverage, often in the form of salacious tabloid reporting, particularly in Italy and England. Some observers criticised the media for not describing the case accurately and dispassionately, as they believed it could influence the court case.