Ten years on, Amanda Knox says she’s still mourning the death of Meredith Kercher — whether her critics like it or not.
On the anniversary of Kercher’s slaying in Perugia, Italy, the cleared murder suspect penned an open letter sharing memories of their time together but lamenting that she was never given time to grieve her dead friend.
“There are some people who believe I have no right to mourn Meredith. They believe that I had something to do with her murder — I didn’t — or that Meredith has been forgotten in the wake of my own struggle for justice — she hasn’t,” Knox wrote in Westside Seattle.
“I hate it that my memories of her are buried beneath the years of suffering Raffaele and I endured in the wake of her murder. And it’s depressing to know that mourning her comes at the price of being criticized for anything I say or don’t say today.”
The Seattle native known as “Foxy Knoxy” spent four years behind bars for Kercher’s 2007 murder in Perugia — where the two were housemates while studying abroad — before being acquitted in 2011. The decision was then reversed — but she was cleared a second time in 2015.
Among her fond memories of the time the two spent together are sipping espresso after class, sharing clothes and sunbathing on the terrace.
“And I remember the last time I saw her, ten years ago today, slinging her purse over her shoulder and waving goodbye to me on her way out to meet up with her British friends,” Knox writes.
But she says it’s difficult to think about those times because she has to “dig through a decade of suffering just to reach them.”
“My memories of Meredith are buried beneath the horrific autopsy photos and crime scene footage I saw, the slurs I was called, the death threats I received (and still receive), the false accusations I fought, the years of wrongful imprisonment I endured, the multiple trials and slanderous headlines that juxtaposed our names and faces, unfairly interlocking her death with my identity,” she writes.