Amanda Knox Speaks Out About Life After Notorious Murder Case: 'Some Days Are Really Hard'
Amanda Knox is speaking out about the aftermath of her famous murder case — and she says that it’s hard for her to know who to trust.
In a Thursday interview on NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, the 31-year-old opened up about her difficulty with meeting new people. “I worry that when I meet people, they will have a great conversation with me face to face,” she says, “and I’ll think that we had a human connection, but then they’ll walk away and go to their buddies and say, ‘Yeah, I talked to the killer Amanda Knox.'”
Knox was an American student studying abroad in Perugia, Italy in 2007 when she was accused of brutally murdering roommate Meredith Kercher, 21, who was found half-naked with her throat cut in her bedroom.
Knox, who was 20 at the time of the killing, and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were both convicted of the murder. Prosecutors alleged the crime had taken place during a sex game run amok, though hard evidence against the young couple was scant.
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Knox and Sollecito spent four years in prison before their convictions were overturned in 2011. However, the pair were convicted again in absentia in 2013 before being acquitted again.
In 2015, Italy’s highest court eventually exonerated her and then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito. A third person, Rudy Guede, was also convicted of Kercher’s murder and remains behind bars.
In January 2019, the European Court of Human Rights ordered Italy to pay $20,000 in damages to Knox for failing to provide her legal assistance during her initial questioning after Kercher’s murder, according to the AP.
The case garnered international headlines, and made Knox an infamous household name.
In the interview, Knox also admitted that it can be hard to know what people think of her. “I’m a real human being too and I’m trying to do the best I can with what life has given me,” she tells Holt. “I don’t think I’m the most resilient person in the world. I just know that I take it day by day.”
She adds: “Some days are really hard and some moments are really hard.”
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Now, Knox is working with the Innocence Project, where she is trying to help others who were wrongfully convicted of crimes.
“Looking at other stories of people who have been similarly flattened and dehumanized and put into a box has given me perspective on my own experience,” she tells Holt. “It has allowed me to share an openness with them that I don’t think they experience in the greater world.”
