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Killer Thriller: Amanda Knox - Famous For A Murder She Didn't Commit · Legally Brunette

0:06
Speaker 1: Amy Roboc and TJ.
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Speaker 2: Holmes present Killer Thriller with your host Alisa Donovan. Hey everyone,
0:15
Speaker 2: Elisa Donovan here and this is Killer Thriller. Today. We
0:20
Speaker 2: are talking about one of the most infamous and controversial
0:23
Speaker 2: true crime cases of the modern era, the case of
0:27
Speaker 2: Amanda Knox. In November of two thousand and seven, Amanda
0:32
Speaker 2: was a twenty year old American student studying abroad in Perusia, Italy,
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Speaker 2: when her roommate, twenty one year old British student, Meredith Kircher,
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Speaker 2: was brutally murdered in the house they shared. Within days,
0:44
Speaker 2: the Italian police arrested Knox, along with her brand new boyfriend,
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Speaker 2: Rafaele Solechito. What followed was nearly a decade of legal chaos, convictions, appeals, retrials,
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Speaker 2: and a global media frenzy. Amanda spent almost four years
1:02
Speaker 2: in an Italian prison, and then only years later years later,
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Speaker 2: Italy's highest court ultimately cleared her of the murder. She
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Speaker 2: is the executive producer of The Twisted Tail of Amanda Knox,
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Speaker 2: which revisits the investigation, the headlines, and how she became
1:19
Speaker 2: the center of an international spectacle. Amanda, thank you so
1:23
Speaker 2: much for being here today.
1:25
Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for having me.
1:27
Speaker 2: I have to say straight away, I truly I'm in
1:32
Speaker 2: awe of you as a human being, and I just
1:36
Speaker 2: want to say that this series is phenomenal, that it's heartbreaking,
1:42
Speaker 2: and it's beautiful, and it's I just I can't say
1:46
Speaker 2: enough great things about it. So well, thank you, brilliant, thrilled.
1:52
Speaker 1: Thank you. I mean, it was a work of love
1:54
Speaker 1: for so many people who took part in it, and
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Speaker 1: I'm just really it could have been a very terrible experience,
2:01
Speaker 1: and I think that I was very held and honored
2:06
Speaker 1: over the course of the making of the whole entire
2:10
Speaker 1: series by everyone involved, and so that that I'm really
2:13
Speaker 1: really grateful for and I do not take for granted.
2:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very apparent. You know, there are a multitude
2:20
Speaker 2: of reasons why any thing narrative is successful, and usually
2:25
Speaker 2: it is every piece that matters, you know, And in
2:28
Speaker 2: this case, it's so beautifully crafted and it's so unique
2:33
Speaker 2: that it's you know, tell me about how much input
2:37
Speaker 2: you had in terms of the creativity of it and
2:40
Speaker 2: the kind of almost fantastical nature at times, it's really vibrant.
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Speaker 2: That was really.
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Speaker 1: The inspiration for having there be whimsy and magic even
2:57
Speaker 1: was I think was something that I had always wanted
3:01
Speaker 1: to be a part of something like this, because I,
3:05
Speaker 1: as a person, have always felt like pigeonholed in as
3:11
Speaker 1: like a tragic figure, as a true crime tragedy figure,
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Speaker 1: and that's not who I am, that's not you know,
3:19
Speaker 1: I'm a Harry Potter fan. Like I went to Italy
3:24
Speaker 1: because I wanted to become a translator of poetry. Like
3:27
Speaker 1: I'm a very whimsical sort of poetical person, and so
3:33
Speaker 1: we wanted that to come through. And when I was
3:35
Speaker 1: talking to our showrunner kJ Steinberg, I mean, she's the
3:40
Speaker 1: one who really had the vision for how this show
3:44
Speaker 1: would be. And when she came to me, we were talking,
3:47
Speaker 1: like we spent a lot of time together as we
3:49
Speaker 1: were like thinking about how do we approach the show,
3:53
Speaker 1: And something that stuck with her was that the night
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Speaker 1: that all of this went down, I was with Raphael
4:01
Speaker 1: watching my favorite movie Ameli. But then you know, and
4:07
Speaker 1: and that movie itself is sort of like whimsical and
4:10
Speaker 1: magical in ways, and so she was like, wow, that
4:14
Speaker 1: that is the stylistic approach that we want to take
4:18
Speaker 1: to represent Like how you approach the world, and we
4:22
Speaker 1: want to show that like when tragedy happens in real
4:27
Speaker 1: people's lives, like it's not like you you're prepared for it, right,
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Speaker 1: Like my my journey was supposed to be a magical,
4:38
Speaker 1: wonderful experience doing study abroad, and that's what my mindset
4:42
Speaker 1: was when tragedy happened to strike. And so it was
4:47
Speaker 1: really important for us to approach telling this story not
4:52
Speaker 1: in the typical way, which is like, you know, every
4:56
Speaker 1: moment feels like it's a foreshadowing of what's to come,
5:00
Speaker 1: and like, yeah, like I like the character of me
5:04
Speaker 1: was completely blind sided. And so in a way, we
5:07
Speaker 1: wanted to sort of get our audience in that sort
5:10
Speaker 1: of in that mental space of being like a young
5:13
Speaker 1: person with like love, hopes and dreams and everything's going
5:16
Speaker 1: well and then they're blind sided, because that's really that's
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Speaker 1: really how it feels to go through these kinds of experiences.
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Speaker 2: Yeah no, And that's that also helps to really explain
5:27
Speaker 2: so many of the things initially that were twisted, right
5:32
Speaker 2: that they show images of you this you know, in
5:35
Speaker 2: the press when it was in real time, whether it's
5:40
Speaker 2: hugging Raphael or doing something and the way images can
5:44
Speaker 2: just be twisted when you create your own story, which
5:49
Speaker 2: is what the press did. I mean, I remember all
5:52
Speaker 2: of this I very distinctly when it was happening, and
5:57
Speaker 2: I this whole series is I found it really hard
6:03
Speaker 2: to watch sometimes because it's it's so real, and the
6:11
Speaker 2: depth of feeling and the nuance is so real, and
6:15
Speaker 2: I mean it's almost asphyxiating at times, and it's miraculous
6:21
Speaker 2: that you didn't lose your mind entirely completely, like just
6:25
Speaker 2: totally lose your mind. So is it hard for you
6:29
Speaker 2: to watch the series? Like how what is that experience? Like?
6:34
Speaker 1: You know, what's so interesting that I found was that
6:39
Speaker 1: it was a lot harder for people who knew me
6:44
Speaker 1: to watch the series than it was for me to
6:47
Speaker 1: watch the series, because you know, I lived that very
6:53
Speaker 1: claustrophobic existence, right, Like, I think for me the more
6:59
Speaker 1: the moments that really that was the hardest for me
7:02
Speaker 1: was in the making of it, so like I was
7:04
Speaker 1: really concerned about getting certain scenes right because there was
7:12
Speaker 1: a lot of misunderstanding around how things were talked about
7:18
Speaker 1: later on by people who weren't there, and so I
7:21
Speaker 1: really wanted to get it right, Like if we're putting
7:25
Speaker 1: people in the room with me. We need to get
7:27
Speaker 1: it right so that people can understand what my mindset
7:31
Speaker 1: was in this specific circumstance or that. And I remember
7:34
Speaker 1: breaking down sobbing when we finally finished shooting the interrogation scene,
7:40
Speaker 1: because like that scene was so important for me to
7:44
Speaker 1: get right, not just on a personal level, but also
7:47
Speaker 1: like on the level of just we as people do
7:52
Speaker 1: not have access to interrogation rooms. We don't really know
7:55
Speaker 1: what it's like unless we're there, And so I really
7:57
Speaker 1: wanted to get it right. And of all the people
7:59
Speaker 1: that were there, I was the only one who had
8:01
Speaker 1: lived through that, So like I was the one who's
8:03
Speaker 1: like really trying to like make sure, Okay, here's and
8:06
Speaker 1: not just like from my perspective, but also like here's
8:09
Speaker 1: perspective of the cop. They have been up for like
8:12
Speaker 1: seventy two hours straight. They are losing their minds a
8:15
Speaker 1: little bit, Like what is everyone's dynamic in the room,
8:19
Speaker 1: what do people know versus? That's really important. But like,
8:24
Speaker 1: in terms of just watching the show in general, I
8:27
Speaker 1: found that, you know, my family or my friends who
8:31
Speaker 1: watched it, like they knew because they had lived through
8:35
Speaker 1: it with me. What I had gone through, but they
8:37
Speaker 1: hadn't been in the room with me, and that was
8:40
Speaker 1: really hard for them to watch because they got so angry,
8:47
Speaker 1: like everyone was so.
8:48
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I mean that scene is it is devastating
8:53
Speaker 2: to watch. It's incredibly well done. And I want to
8:58
Speaker 2: talk about the policewoman in it. But did they did
9:01
Speaker 2: they really hit you? Did they physically hit you?
9:04
Speaker 1: Yes? Yes, yeah, And you know, like it's interesting, there
9:10
Speaker 1: was a lot going on in that room that you know,
9:14
Speaker 1: they didn't hit me strong enough to like give me
9:18
Speaker 1: a concussion. It was more just like the startling hostility
9:23
Speaker 1: and aggressiveness of it that was communicated, and that was
9:27
Speaker 1: already amping up through the yelling and the lying to me,
9:30
Speaker 1: like all of that, and then of course that tempered
9:33
Speaker 1: with the other cop who's trying to be the nice one,
9:35
Speaker 1: who's saying, oh no, she just doesn't remember, you know,
9:39
Speaker 1: telling his colleagues lay off her, stopping so hard on her,
9:42
Speaker 1: like she just doesn't remember, like introducing like all of
9:45
Speaker 1: that was part of this like cocktail of overwhelming stimuli
9:52
Speaker 1: that led me to like not understand what was real
9:56
Speaker 1: or not anymore. And I like the fact that Grace
9:59
Speaker 1: like Grace stan Patten, who plays me in the series.
10:03
Speaker 1: She had so much on her shoulders as an actress,
10:08
Speaker 1: like the she had to portray, like even just in
10:11
Speaker 1: that scene alone, she goes from, Oh, I'm just here
10:16
Speaker 1: at the police office to answer questions, and I'm just
10:18
Speaker 1: kind of tired and I don't really want to be
10:20
Speaker 1: answering questions anymore, Like I just kind of want to
10:23
Speaker 1: like all, I was just here to wait, and I, Okay,
10:26
Speaker 1: I guess I'm gonna have to answer questions. But then
10:29
Speaker 1: it starts getting like wait a second, why are you
10:31
Speaker 1: being meet? Like why are you mad at me? And
10:33
Speaker 1: then like wait, what what do you mean? They what
10:36
Speaker 1: do you mean? He says, I wasn't there? Like what what?
10:38
Speaker 1: And like like the psychological journey that she goes on
10:42
Speaker 1: in that scene is is incredible, and she she just
10:48
Speaker 1: portrayed it so well.
10:50
Speaker 2: She let's we we got to talk about her for
10:53
Speaker 2: a minute. I I don't I don't even know what
10:58
Speaker 2: to say about this. This woman's performance. It is spectacular
11:03
Speaker 2: on every level. How did she come to the project
11:07
Speaker 2: and were you familiar with her before?
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Speaker 1: I was not familiar with her before. But that's also
11:12
Speaker 1: you know, that's not unusual for me. I'm not like
11:15
Speaker 1: I don't know actresses or actors like I don't and
11:18
Speaker 1: especially you know, she's younger than me, so I wasn't
11:22
Speaker 1: fully aware of her, and so when she was brought
11:26
Speaker 1: to my attention, I thought, Okay, interesting, let's check her out.
11:30
Speaker 1: And I saw I watched Tell Me Lies, and I
11:32
Speaker 1: was really intrigued by her ability to portray like depth
11:41
Speaker 1: of character, like she she's very good at there are
11:45
Speaker 1: layers to her characters. And I think that the thing
11:48
Speaker 1: that really made me realize that we had like gotten
11:53
Speaker 1: it right was actually when the first time that I
11:57
Speaker 1: saw her like just in like they're over the course
12:02
Speaker 1: of like casting and getting the people ready to get
12:05
Speaker 1: into character, there are there's these moments where you just
12:09
Speaker 1: have the character like in costume, like they'll do they'll
12:13
Speaker 1: just sort of like put the character in what their
12:15
Speaker 1: costume is going to be and sort of like film
12:18
Speaker 1: them being in character, not even saying anything, just sort
12:20
Speaker 1: of being in character. And when I was when I
12:24
Speaker 1: saw the footage of her just like being in character
12:27
Speaker 1: of me, I like I had to step back. So
12:30
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, how did she know?
12:33
Speaker 2: Wow?
12:33
Speaker 1: You know, how did she know like it, so like them,
12:37
Speaker 1: Like she she had incredible instincts. She also had really
12:39
Speaker 1: good questions as an actress. So she's like she obviously
12:43
Speaker 1: had you know, watched all these different interviews of me
12:47
Speaker 1: that are out there. But like, interviews of a person
12:50
Speaker 1: are of a person in a very specific context. Yes, right,
12:53
Speaker 1: it's not how they are when hanging out with their
12:55
Speaker 1: friends or what they are. And so like when she
13:01
Speaker 1: when we talked about you know, the skip in my
13:04
Speaker 1: step or the slight sing song to my voice, or
13:07
Speaker 1: the fact, like I remember her distinctly asking me, how
13:11
Speaker 1: is it that you communicate with your husband in nonverbal ways? Oh?
13:16
Speaker 2: I love it. Those are the good questions.
13:18
Speaker 1: They're so good and so like it was really really
13:22
Speaker 1: thoughtful character building on her part. And of course she
13:28
Speaker 1: had to do that for the various stages of me
13:31
Speaker 1: that she portrayed over the course of this show, Like
13:33
Speaker 1: at the youngest, she plays me at fifteen years old,
13:36
Speaker 1: and at the oldest she plays me at thirty five,
13:39
Speaker 1: and so that's a comp and that's a person who's
13:42
Speaker 1: gone through a lot of shit in the meantime. Yes,
13:46
Speaker 1: so she had to play that transformation and I think
13:49
Speaker 1: she just held it so well while also speaking a
13:52
Speaker 1: foreign language.
13:53
Speaker 2: By the way, right, it's a pretty phenomenal performance in
13:58
Speaker 2: every aspect. This is hard to discuss because I remember thinking,
14:18
Speaker 2: this person, you also went through the major trauma of
14:23
Speaker 2: losing a friend, and it seemed as though you were
14:27
Speaker 2: never even given an opportunity to grieve that person. And
14:32
Speaker 2: it's such a specific relationship you had that was new
14:36
Speaker 2: and young, and that thing where you can bond sort
14:38
Speaker 2: of immediately with someone, and so can you talk a
14:42
Speaker 2: little bit about that, like how did you were you
14:47
Speaker 2: ever able to even grieve Meredith.
14:51
Speaker 1: That's a really great thank you for pointing out, because
14:53
Speaker 1: a lot of people who have talked to me in
14:56
Speaker 1: the past have sort of forgotten that part of how.
14:59
Speaker 1: I lived in a bedroom right next door to this,
15:03
Speaker 1: this young woman's bedroom. We borrowed each other's clothes, we
15:07
Speaker 1: went grocery shopping together, we baked cookies together. Like I
15:11
Speaker 1: didn't know Meredith for very long, but we were very
15:14
Speaker 1: close in the short amount of time that we got
15:18
Speaker 1: to know each other. And so coming home to discover
15:23
Speaker 1: that she had been raped and murdered in her own
15:26
Speaker 1: bedroom after someone had broken into our home was just
15:31
Speaker 1: like catastrophic and honestly just like so so overwhelming in
15:38
Speaker 1: the moment that like I sort of like disassociated and
15:42
Speaker 1: like couldn't believe it was happening. And I think, and
15:46
Speaker 1: you're right, like when I was in the midst of
15:48
Speaker 1: going through this, like I didn't have time to process.
15:54
Speaker 1: Like as soon as the crime scene would was discovered,
15:57
Speaker 1: suddenly I was in It was like in a police investigation,
16:02
Speaker 1: and like at the like I was like I no
16:05
Speaker 1: one was sitting me down. Was a therapist to like
16:07
Speaker 1: say how are you feeling? That was not I did
16:10
Speaker 1: not get any of that kind of support. I got,
16:13
Speaker 1: you know, who does she know? What did you see?
16:16
Speaker 1: But like I was just like sort of bombarded with
16:18
Speaker 1: like Okay, now I'm part of a police investigation, so
16:21
Speaker 1: like I'm process, like I'm just trying to sort of
16:25
Speaker 1: output what is being asked of me.
16:28
Speaker 2: And at this point you didn't speak Italian very well
16:31
Speaker 2: or you didn't speak fluently certainly at that point.
16:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, like I could I could say things like
16:36
Speaker 1: dove la biblioteca, like where is the library? Like I'm
16:39
Speaker 1: not you know, I'm not I'm not remotely fluent, and
16:42
Speaker 1: so I am attempting to communicate with people who don't
16:45
Speaker 1: speak the same language as me. Sometimes there's an interpreter,
16:47
Speaker 1: sometimes there isn't. Like I'm just doing the best I
16:50
Speaker 1: can and I'm not sleeping. I'm being questioned for you know,
16:55
Speaker 1: ten hours a day, Like it's just so no time
16:58
Speaker 1: to process. This person is gone in my life and
17:01
Speaker 1: then I'm in prison and I'm suddenly in survival mode
17:04
Speaker 1: for the next eight years of my life. And in
17:07
Speaker 1: a way, one thing that this show really allowed me
17:11
Speaker 1: to do was grief. Like I didn't I didn't really
17:16
Speaker 1: know that that was going to be a big part
17:19
Speaker 1: of it. But like even when talking with kJ Steinberg,
17:23
Speaker 1: who again is just was the most incredibly thoughtful and
17:27
Speaker 1: like soulful person to work with, and actually Monica too,
17:32
Speaker 1: because Monica Lewinsky, who eped on this project, like she
17:36
Speaker 1: understands from her own life how like being at this
17:41
Speaker 1: you know, at the center of a firestorm means that
17:44
Speaker 1: there is like collateral damage that impacts tons of other people,
17:49
Speaker 1: and so like, for for Monica, it was really really
17:54
Speaker 1: important that we fully dimensionalize my family La Raphaela's family,
18:02
Speaker 1: because these are all people who aren't the ones who
18:05
Speaker 1: are in the headlines, but who are absolutely having their
18:08
Speaker 1: lives turned inside out because of what is happening. And
18:11
Speaker 1: then for caj like she's looking at this like, well,
18:16
Speaker 1: here's two young girls who went to go study abroad
18:21
Speaker 1: and only one of them survived, and like and then
18:25
Speaker 1: the other one in a way was forgotten, and so
18:28
Speaker 1: like a part of something so important to kJ was
18:32
Speaker 1: to show who this young woman was. And we have
18:36
Speaker 1: this incredible British actress who played her, and it just
18:40
Speaker 1: like shows we show her in those like quiet moments
18:45
Speaker 1: that like I got to interact with her, you know,
18:48
Speaker 1: like when we're when we're sort of goofing around in
18:50
Speaker 1: the bathroom she's giving me a little temporary tattoo, or
18:53
Speaker 1: when we're going out to the flea market together and
18:56
Speaker 1: eating ice cream, Like those are like the real moments
19:00
Speaker 1: that I got to witness this young woman who had
19:05
Speaker 1: her whole life ahead of her. And and and we
19:10
Speaker 1: like end the series on me going back to my
19:14
Speaker 1: house to say goodbye, which I never got to do.
19:20
Speaker 3: You know, that is an incredibly I was very moved,
19:25
Speaker 3: as I said, by so much of this series and
19:28
Speaker 3: those moments, like I just they're stunning, and.
19:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, sorry, No, I mean it's not fair. It's not
19:47
Speaker 1: fair that the world got to know Meredith as a corpse, right,
19:53
Speaker 1: you know.
19:55
Speaker 2: I mean this is really you get to do her
19:59
Speaker 2: this this service. It is very much a you feel
20:04
Speaker 2: that she was a very vibrant person, Like do you
20:08
Speaker 2: feel a real personality and a spark to her? And
20:16
Speaker 2: do you know if her family has seen the series
20:20
Speaker 2: or if they do see it, do you hope they do?
20:23
Speaker 2: What do you hope they see in it? Yeah?
20:26
Speaker 1: I really hope they do. I do know though that
20:31
Speaker 1: at least the last I heard when it was announced
20:35
Speaker 1: that we were filming and developing the series, I think
20:38
Speaker 1: it was their attorney who spoke out. And their attorney
20:42
Speaker 1: has always been incredibly negative towards me. He's never really
20:50
Speaker 1: he's never acknowledged my innocence for one thing. And he's
20:54
Speaker 1: the way that his attorney has always framed it is
20:56
Speaker 1: that concern about me and like was at the expense
21:03
Speaker 1: of concern for Meredith, and so he sort of blames
21:07
Speaker 1: me for Meredith being forgotten in the midst of all
21:11
Speaker 1: of the scandal.
21:12
Speaker 2: This is like another part of this that just infuriates me.
21:17
Speaker 2: And for you trying to you know, tell your own story.
21:24
Speaker 2: You didn't ask for any of this. You didn't create
21:28
Speaker 2: these false stories that the media really did. And then
21:32
Speaker 2: the prosecution just ran with and do you. So let's
21:38
Speaker 2: talk about the you know, there's a lot of talk
21:41
Speaker 2: about the main prosecutor, Menini, but there are also several
21:47
Speaker 2: women that were a part of the police team and
21:51
Speaker 2: the prosecutorial team, right, and in the series, it certainly
21:56
Speaker 2: makes it seem as though the female policewomen they assumed
22:00
Speaker 2: your guilt from the beginning. Can you is that accurate?
22:03
Speaker 2: And what do you think that's about?
22:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, one thing that was really important to me,
22:08
Speaker 1: and this was something that we were discussing early on,
22:11
Speaker 1: especially when we were talking about casting and how do
22:14
Speaker 1: we portray my prosecutor and the police around him. And
22:18
Speaker 1: one thing that I really fought for was to not
22:23
Speaker 1: show him just sort of operating alone, because he wasn't.
22:27
Speaker 1: He didn't operate alone. He absolutely was. He was in charge,
22:32
Speaker 1: he was the one who was in charge of the investigation,
22:34
Speaker 1: but he was he was depending upon a team of
22:38
Speaker 1: people who also influenced his decision making. And that team
22:43
Speaker 1: of people had a number of very influential women in it,
22:48
Speaker 1: like the head of the homicide division in the in
22:51
Speaker 1: Perusia was a woman, and she you know, I was
22:55
Speaker 1: interrogated primarily by a woman, So I think it was
23:00
Speaker 1: really important to like, I think the way that this
23:04
Speaker 1: story has been told is like in the past has
23:07
Speaker 1: just been oh, one misogynistic guy, right, you know, took
23:11
Speaker 1: over this case. And it's like, well, it's more complicated
23:14
Speaker 1: than that. Like, if you buy into the premises that
23:18
Speaker 1: they make, like the fact that only a woman would
23:21
Speaker 1: cover another woman's body with a blanket, you can logically
23:25
Speaker 1: deduce a lot of the stuff that they logically deduced.
23:29
Speaker 1: The problem is their premise, and that is where I
23:33
Speaker 1: think it's a really interesting examination of like people didn't
23:37
Speaker 1: It's not like people just made up stuff maliciously. They
23:41
Speaker 1: made up stuff that made sense to them without realizing
23:44
Speaker 1: that they had drawn a conclusion that was wrong from
23:50
Speaker 1: the very beginning, from.
23:51
Speaker 2: The beginning, right yeah, like based in zero evidence, because
23:54
Speaker 2: that's what I think was so confusing reading about in
23:58
Speaker 2: the papers and things, I remember thinking, but wait, wait
24:02
Speaker 2: a second, why did she do this? Like it never
24:05
Speaker 2: made any sense there, It never made any logical sense, unless,
24:09
Speaker 2: of course, you know, you're a psychopathic killer, you know, right,
24:15
Speaker 2: so it never made any logical sense, but that this
24:20
Speaker 2: idea that once something is said and it's put into
24:22
Speaker 2: the pipeline, it's impossible to unravel it and then it's
24:28
Speaker 2: like it just kept Yeah, that's.
24:30
Speaker 1: Really yeah, like the I think the engine of the
24:34
Speaker 1: series and like the theme, Like the great theme of
24:36
Speaker 1: the series is something that kJ Steinberg came up with,
24:39
Speaker 1: which was the anatomy of bias, Like how how does
24:45
Speaker 1: how do you how do you derive this story from
24:49
Speaker 1: certain biases? And what is the difference between a fact
24:52
Speaker 1: and an opinion? Like that is like the key thing
24:56
Speaker 1: because again, like if you if you're if what you like,
25:01
Speaker 1: if what you see is a body covered with a blanket,
25:06
Speaker 1: that is a fact. There is a body, it's covered
25:08
Speaker 1: with a blanket. An opinion is that only a woman
25:11
Speaker 1: would cover that body with a blanket. But if you
25:14
Speaker 1: think your opinion is a fact, then that that leads
25:19
Speaker 1: to a whole body of work. That right, and like
25:24
Speaker 1: that that is the key thing. So it doesn't take
25:26
Speaker 1: like an evil mastermind to come up with these false stories.
25:30
Speaker 1: It just takes someone who doesn't recognize that there the
25:35
Speaker 1: difference between an opinion and a fact on a.
25:37
Speaker 2: Fact, right, do you think there is a general bias
25:54
Speaker 2: against American women in this it's a very provincial culture
25:59
Speaker 2: in this tiny town in Italy.
26:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you know, I do think that that played
26:04
Speaker 1: a role. So Perusha, Italy is a small town. It
26:09
Speaker 1: also is a student town. It has a student population
26:13
Speaker 1: that is quite significant. There are two universities in a
26:17
Speaker 1: small town, and a lot of the foreign students who
26:20
Speaker 1: come to stay there are only there for like three months.
26:25
Speaker 1: So I was actually scheduled to be there for a
26:27
Speaker 1: whole year. For nine months. I was there for a
26:29
Speaker 1: school year, so I was going to be there much longer,
26:33
Speaker 1: and I was more prepared to like really settle in
26:37
Speaker 1: and like create relationships. But like there is and I
26:41
Speaker 1: think this is true of young people, like it was
26:43
Speaker 1: for some people. Their study abroad experience is a little
26:47
Speaker 1: bit like an extended spring break, right, Like everything's just
26:50
Speaker 1: a little bit more like you're doing a little less
26:53
Speaker 1: homework and having a little more fun and so like
26:57
Speaker 1: there was this kind of assumption or it was a
27:01
Speaker 1: very easy thing for people to sort of do, was
27:04
Speaker 1: to say, oh, here's an American girl gone wild, like
27:09
Speaker 1: we've seen on all of the Girl Gone Wild tapes,
27:12
Speaker 1: who who now that she's out of the United States,
27:15
Speaker 1: has become unhinged and has orchestrated a murder orgy.
27:21
Speaker 2: Like right, it's like that jump from A to triple Z, Like,
27:28
Speaker 2: I don't that was I.
27:30
Speaker 1: Think there was also a little bit something that I
27:33
Speaker 1: was not prepared for, which was an American girl is
27:37
Speaker 1: considered exotic in Italy, like I like, I've I've never
27:42
Speaker 1: in my life, you know, in Seattle, but treated or
27:48
Speaker 1: quite considered exotic, and so suddenly to suddenly be oh,
27:56
Speaker 1: like that was just like what are you talking about?
27:59
Speaker 1: Like so that like that level, I just like didn't
28:03
Speaker 1: understand that. And I think that that also played a
28:07
Speaker 1: role in the hyper sexualization of me at like and
28:11
Speaker 1: the eroticization of as a young person was because I
28:15
Speaker 1: was exotic and other And.
28:17
Speaker 2: Do you think things got better? It seemed as though
28:19
Speaker 2: did they get better once you started to really learn
28:23
Speaker 2: and speak Italian? Do you feel like that had to
28:25
Speaker 2: define better? Well?
28:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean because by the time, you know, by
28:32
Speaker 1: the time I was two years in and I was,
28:36
Speaker 1: you know, two years into my trial, I was fluent
28:39
Speaker 1: in Italian by then. But that's when I got convicted,
28:41
Speaker 1: like the train had already left the station, and there
28:44
Speaker 1: was little to nothing that I could do about it.
28:47
Speaker 1: Once I became fluent, it did mean that I was
28:52
Speaker 1: able to better navigate my life in prisonsolutely, and I
29:02
Speaker 1: was better able to express myself in a court of law.
29:05
Speaker 1: But like I was trying to dig myself out of
29:08
Speaker 1: a grave at that point, Like there was already so
29:12
Speaker 1: much stacked against me that little old me speaking quasi
29:19
Speaker 1: fluent Italian, like it's there was still the problem of
29:23
Speaker 1: people not believing me that part. I.
29:27
Speaker 2: Well, two things. One, the legal system in Italy it
29:33
Speaker 2: is diametrically opposed to the American system. And you know,
29:38
Speaker 2: I always feel like, oh, our legal system is so
29:41
Speaker 2: flawed in so many ways, and then I see this
29:44
Speaker 2: and I say, holy crow, it is far better than
29:50
Speaker 2: what was going on there, Like can you talk about that?
29:52
Speaker 2: Were you aware of how the botch DNA that nothing
29:57
Speaker 2: There was literally no evidence that actual placed you there,
30:02
Speaker 2: aside from the fact that you lived in that house,
30:05
Speaker 2: so of course your DNA would be in various places.
30:09
Speaker 2: But were you aware of how sort of outrageous this
30:15
Speaker 2: was the way the trial was going?
30:18
Speaker 1: So no, and to be fair, Like I didn't know
30:22
Speaker 1: really anything about our judicial system either. Like again, I
30:26
Speaker 1: was a twenty year old kid who was into Harry Potter,
30:29
Speaker 1: Like I didn't. I was not watching the CSI I
30:33
Speaker 1: was not watching Law and Order. That was just not
30:36
Speaker 1: that wasn't. So I was the most ignorant person approaching
30:41
Speaker 1: these systems that were way more powerful and way bigger
30:46
Speaker 1: than me. And so it was an education. It was
30:49
Speaker 1: an education for me as I was going through it,
30:52
Speaker 1: and then it became an education for me after I
30:54
Speaker 1: came out and I was able to learn more about
30:56
Speaker 1: our system and compare the differences. But like it was
30:59
Speaker 1: a talk, it was also an education for again k J.
31:03
Speaker 1: Steinberg are showrunner and the writers of this series, because
31:07
Speaker 1: they also had to like learn about these like interesting
31:10
Speaker 1: little like specific, weird little things about the Italian system
31:16
Speaker 1: that are not over here in the US. And I
31:19
Speaker 1: think that that absolutely deserved the ameile treatment. Like yeah,
31:23
Speaker 1: you know, like yes, that great scene of sort of
31:26
Speaker 1: like going through the courtroom and being like, Okay, who's
31:28
Speaker 1: that guy, who's that guy? Who? Yes, what's going on here?
31:31
Speaker 1: And and so the fact that like criminal cases are
31:34
Speaker 1: tried at the very same time that civil cases are tried,
31:38
Speaker 1: and that evidence that can be used for the civil
31:40
Speaker 1: trial cannot be used for the criminal part of it.
31:44
Speaker 1: But the jury is supposed to be able to hear
31:46
Speaker 1: both and be able to determine which is relevant. Like that,
31:51
Speaker 1: that is just something that would be inconceivable here in
31:54
Speaker 1: the United States. And just the overwhelming Like you're in
31:58
Speaker 1: a courtroom and there's not just a prosecution, and there's
32:00
Speaker 1: all of these lawyers that are civil attorneys who are
32:02
Speaker 1: acting as prosecutors. So you're just like, you know, there's
32:06
Speaker 1: like five prosecutors against one, you know, one or two
32:09
Speaker 1: defense attorneys, and you're right, right, like yeah, it's it's wild,
32:15
Speaker 1: but you know, like to be fair here. I don't
32:17
Speaker 1: know if you're curious about this or not, but there
32:19
Speaker 1: is something I'm sure I am. Well, there's a there's
32:22
Speaker 1: an interesting tweetl Oh. Of course. The other major difference
32:27
Speaker 1: between the Italian inquisitorial system and our adversarial system is
32:31
Speaker 1: that prosecutors in Italy are are less. They're not considered biased.
32:40
Speaker 1: They're they're considered like the first judge, and that's why
32:44
Speaker 1: the judge, like, that's why they are in charge of investigations.
32:48
Speaker 1: Is because they're the ones who are supposed to be
32:51
Speaker 1: like judging what the police are doing and and guaranteeing
32:58
Speaker 1: like the you know, the the legal and the human
33:01
Speaker 1: rights of what how the investigation is unfolding. But and like,
33:04
Speaker 1: if you were to ask my prosecutor, he says, well,
33:06
Speaker 1: that's much better than the adversarial system because I'm I'm unbiased.
33:12
Speaker 1: But I'm like, dude, you are so fucking biased.
33:14
Speaker 2: You're so biased.
33:15
Speaker 1: What do you think you think you're not biased? Like
33:18
Speaker 1: you're in charge of the investigation, whereas like in our system,
33:22
Speaker 1: there's a little more separation between the police and the prosecution.
33:26
Speaker 1: The police build the case, then they present it to
33:28
Speaker 1: the prosecution, and the prosecution has to determine whether or
33:31
Speaker 1: not it merits being brought forth in a trial. Now,
33:37
Speaker 1: of course, there's also bias in that because police work
33:39
Speaker 1: very closely with prosecutors. There's like insider blah blah blah.
33:43
Speaker 1: Like the system is imperfect. But an interesting thing that
33:46
Speaker 1: the Italian system does, which I think is unequivocally better
33:50
Speaker 1: than here in the United States, is that all verdicts
33:54
Speaker 1: in Italy have to be motivated. So what that means
34:00
Speaker 1: is that a verdict is handed down, and then the
34:03
Speaker 1: jury and the judge have to write a document explaining
34:08
Speaker 1: why they came to a specific verdict. They have to say,
34:11
Speaker 1: this is the evidence that we looked at. We found
34:13
Speaker 1: this testimony to be reliable, this testimony not reliable. We
34:17
Speaker 1: believe this expert not that expert. And what that does
34:22
Speaker 1: is it allows you to take that document and then go, well,
34:26
Speaker 1: that doesn't you know, that's not logical, or that doesn't
34:28
Speaker 1: make sense, or that testimony recanted, whatever it may be.
34:31
Speaker 1: It's not like this sort of sacred and secret mystery
34:35
Speaker 1: that you have to guess about when you when you
34:39
Speaker 1: appeal something. Here in the United States, the jury's decision
34:42
Speaker 1: is secret and sacred, and all you can know about
34:46
Speaker 1: how they came to their conclusion is the verdict. That's it.
34:50
Speaker 1: So like that's a huge difference that And I think
34:55
Speaker 1: the possibility of correcting an injustice is made easier by
35:02
Speaker 1: the fact that there is a document that explicitly lays
35:06
Speaker 1: out here's how we came to our determination, and then
35:10
Speaker 1: someone later on can come and say, well, I have
35:13
Speaker 1: evidence to the contrary.
35:14
Speaker 2: Right, right, that is, I mean, we could use a
35:17
Speaker 2: little bit of that for sure.
35:20
Speaker 1: It's transparency. I mean, it's just transparansparency right now.
35:24
Speaker 2: All right, we're gonna leave it there for today, But
35:26
Speaker 2: there is much more of this fascinating conversation with Amanda
35:30
Speaker 2: Knox still to come.