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Legally Brunette: The Amanda Knox Interview · Legally Brunette

0:01
Speaker 1: Hi, guys, Welcome to another episode of Legally Brunette. I
0:04
Speaker 1: will be your hostess today Emily Simpson with my co
0:06
Speaker 1: host Jane And I have to say, I am so,
0:10
Speaker 1: so super excited because I am sitting here next to
0:13
Speaker 1: Amanda Knox, and I have to tell you, I don't
0:17
Speaker 1: get starstruck very often, like at all. I've been on
0:21
Speaker 1: reality TV for years and years, but sitting across from
0:25
Speaker 1: you is such a full circle moment. First of all, well,
0:28
Speaker 1: I graduated from law school in two thousand and five,
0:31
Speaker 1: and then everything that happened with you is in two
0:33
Speaker 1: thousand and seven, so well, you were newly aware I
0:38
Speaker 1: was an attorney, so I was following it. And then
0:41
Speaker 1: I'd say, maybe, I don't know how long ago, maybe
0:43
Speaker 1: like six or seven years ago, I went to LA
0:44
Speaker 1: and I saw you speak.
0:46
Speaker 2: Might have been it might have been about ten years ago.
0:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not sure with context, I don't remember exactly,
0:51
Speaker 1: but it was for mcl credit and you were speaking
0:54
Speaker 1: somewhere in LA and I went and I just I
0:58
Speaker 1: found you so compelling and interesting and I didn't get
1:01
Speaker 1: the opportunity to meet you. And this was prior to
1:05
Speaker 1: doing a podcast, and all these things. So having you
1:07
Speaker 1: sitting next to me, I feel like it's just like this,
1:09
Speaker 1: like it was meant to be.
1:10
Speaker 3: Like it's a full circle moment. I wish to get you.
1:19
Speaker 1: I don't have to do any episodes, all right, Well,
1:23
Speaker 1: let's just do a little background on you for our
1:25
Speaker 1: viewers or for our listeners. Amanda Knox is an American author, journalist,
1:29
Speaker 1: and public speaker who was wrongfully convicted of murdering her
1:32
Speaker 1: roommate Meredith Kircher while studying abroad in Italy back in
1:36
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven. Amanda spent nearly four years in
1:39
Speaker 1: prison before Italy's highest court exonerated her back in twenty fifteen.
1:44
Speaker 1: Since her release, Amanda has become an advocate for criminal
1:47
Speaker 1: justice reform and media ethics. Most recently, and this is important, guys,
1:52
Speaker 1: because if you haven't watched this yet, Amanda teamed up
1:55
Speaker 1: with Monica Lewinsky to produce Hulu's The Twisted Tale of
1:58
Speaker 1: Amanda Knox. And I will have to tell you I've
2:00
Speaker 1: watched all of it except for the finale episode. It
2:03
Speaker 1: is amazing, Like it is truly so well done.
2:08
Speaker 3: Because I have watched.
2:10
Speaker 1: We were talking about prior to recording this but we
2:13
Speaker 1: were having a conversation where I said, I've watched every
2:16
Speaker 1: documentary about you that's out there, and I feel like
2:20
Speaker 1: I get pieces here and there, and I learn a
2:23
Speaker 1: little bit more when I watch this documentary or I'll
2:25
Speaker 1: see something else and I'm like, oh, I didn't know that,
2:26
Speaker 1: and I learned a bit a little bit more. But
2:28
Speaker 1: actually watching this Hulu series, I feel like I finally
2:33
Speaker 1: have a full picture of everything that happened, of everything
2:38
Speaker 1: you went through. I have a deeper understanding of Raphael
2:41
Speaker 1: and who he is, and his family and how they
2:44
Speaker 1: were affected, and those are all the things that don't
2:47
Speaker 1: show up in a documentary.
2:48
Speaker 2: So it's truly truly was it then, so that people
2:55
Speaker 2: trying to put it together, well, you were actually in it?
2:58
Speaker 4: I think yeah. I think that's one aspect to it.
3:00
Speaker 4: And it's something that Monica and I are really trying
3:03
Speaker 4: to push the Hollywood industry to to really embrace, is
3:08
Speaker 4: the idea that like the source can be a create,
3:12
Speaker 4: like a can can bring creative input. It's not just
3:14
Speaker 4: there to like authenticate everything, but really to have a
3:18
Speaker 4: creative voice. And that's something you know that I'm eternally
3:23
Speaker 4: grateful to everyone we worked with on this show that
3:25
Speaker 4: they actually treated me like a legitimate creative partner. And
3:29
Speaker 4: it's true, like there's the show does something that a
3:33
Speaker 4: documentary is not going to do, because a documentary is
3:36
Speaker 4: interested in you know, journalistic you know, investigation into a case,
3:42
Speaker 4: and so they're they're focused on the case and there
3:45
Speaker 4: it's less about the humanity of the people who happen
3:50
Speaker 4: to be the subject of those facts. And so what
3:54
Speaker 4: the Hulu series attempts to do is it's it's it's
3:58
Speaker 4: going to ping all those all those true crime fans
4:00
Speaker 4: out there who are like interested in like the intricacies
4:03
Speaker 4: of the case, like it's still there.
4:05
Speaker 3: Oh, it's fair, it's fairly.
4:06
Speaker 4: But on top of that, there is like human stories
4:10
Speaker 4: that you wouldn't otherwise get, like that relationship that I
4:15
Speaker 4: developed with my prosecutor, which has nothing to technically to
4:18
Speaker 4: do with the case. It's it's a personal story to me, Like,
4:23
Speaker 4: as somebody who has gone through this terrible experience, how
4:27
Speaker 4: do I make sense of it? And what do I
4:29
Speaker 4: do about it? Once I finally have my freedom and
4:31
Speaker 4: my agency back that was stolen from me, and so
4:35
Speaker 4: what what do I do with it? When it's returned
4:37
Speaker 4: to me. And then you know, there are other aspects
4:39
Speaker 4: of it, Like you mentioned raphae La. One of this
4:42
Speaker 4: one of my things that was really important to me
4:44
Speaker 4: in depicting this show is like when raphae La and
4:48
Speaker 4: I met, Like this was five days before the crime occurred,
4:53
Speaker 4: so like we were at the very beginning of like
4:56
Speaker 4: what was going to be what you know, what you
4:58
Speaker 4: see in the the romance movies of like the blossoming
5:04
Speaker 4: of this like beautiful young love relationship. And then we
5:07
Speaker 4: go through this nightmare together and what that does to
5:11
Speaker 4: two young people who care about each other, Like it
5:14
Speaker 4: tears it us apart, it puts us back together, but
5:17
Speaker 4: in a completely new way and with all of our
5:19
Speaker 4: broken pieces. And so I'm really excited you'll. I can't
5:23
Speaker 4: wait for you to see the final episode.
5:25
Speaker 2: It's eight parts.
5:26
Speaker 4: It's eight parts. And I co wrote the final episode
5:29
Speaker 4: with the creator and showrunner kJ Steinberg, who I have
5:34
Speaker 4: to shout out, like if no one in like if
5:37
Speaker 4: no one's heard of kJ Steinberg, Like I hope everyone
5:41
Speaker 4: recognizes her after this because she was incredible. She I mean,
5:46
Speaker 4: you followed the story, like you know how convoluted it
5:49
Speaker 4: is and how like so many twists and turns, and
5:53
Speaker 4: like you know, crazy things come up, and she had
5:56
Speaker 4: to like really sift through all of that and make
5:59
Speaker 4: sense of it and turn it into something that, again
6:02
Speaker 4: the true crime fanatics can enjoy, but also just anyone
6:06
Speaker 4: who's a human being could relate to.
6:09
Speaker 1: Well, for me, it's the perfect amount of both, because
6:12
Speaker 1: I'll tell you I'm a true crime fanatic. My husband
6:14
Speaker 1: will tell you, I mean is acat I turns out?
6:18
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean anytime I do watch what Happens
6:22
Speaker 1: Live or anything, They're like, tell us what reality shows
6:24
Speaker 1: you watch.
6:24
Speaker 3: And I'm like, I don't I watch? I mean I watch.
6:27
Speaker 3: I didn't.
6:29
Speaker 1: I watch Forensic Files that night to go to bed,
6:31
Speaker 1: like this is what I watch. So for me, your
6:34
Speaker 1: series was so good because it was it is true crime.
6:37
Speaker 1: I mean, you follow the story from the beginning to
6:40
Speaker 1: the end, with the court case, with everything going on,
6:44
Speaker 1: so you do satisfy that need. But then when I
6:46
Speaker 1: watch a documentary, I'm always left thinking, well, what happened?
6:50
Speaker 3: Do they still talk?
6:52
Speaker 1: How what's her? What does her mom think about all
6:54
Speaker 1: of this? I was always wondering about your mom.
6:56
Speaker 4: Was Monica's Like, Like when Monica first reached out to
7:00
Speaker 4: me to do this project. Like her big thing was, like,
7:05
Speaker 4: what we think of when we think of a shamed
7:06
Speaker 4: person that's in the public imagination, is we only think
7:09
Speaker 4: of that one person. We think of them as like
7:11
Speaker 4: like this isolated incident, and no, like they're a human
7:15
Speaker 4: being who belongs to people, and the bad stuff that
7:18
Speaker 4: happens to them also happens to everyone that they love
7:22
Speaker 4: who's trying to Like.
7:23
Speaker 2: You're right, when you see the news or documentary what
7:26
Speaker 2: you just see someone in shackles, for lack of better words,
7:28
Speaker 2: and you just kind of think it's just them, it's
7:31
Speaker 2: just them that that's on the stand, right, But really
7:34
Speaker 2: it's everything else. Everyone around them is shaty.
7:38
Speaker 1: And that's why I brought up her mom, because I think,
7:40
Speaker 1: when I watch your series, I have children, So I'm
7:45
Speaker 1: not even relating to you as much as I'm relating
7:48
Speaker 1: to your mother. Yeah, And that's why I feel so
7:50
Speaker 1: deeply connected to her. That's why I asked her, not
7:52
Speaker 1: your mom, but I asked how she was. I love
7:56
Speaker 1: to I felt such a connection to your mother because
8:02
Speaker 1: I thought I have a daughter, she's twelve, and I thought,
8:04
Speaker 1: if my daughter is studying abroad, I would do this.
8:07
Speaker 3: I would be on a plane, I would I would
8:09
Speaker 3: be there. I would be.
8:11
Speaker 1: Saying all the same things that she's saying and annoying
8:13
Speaker 1: you the same ways that she annoyed you. I would
8:15
Speaker 1: be doing all of those things. And I felt I
8:18
Speaker 1: could feel her heart, Like how how horrible that was
8:21
Speaker 1: for her to go through that.
8:22
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know that's something that I think people underestimate
8:26
Speaker 4: in this story, is like even just how much of
8:28
Speaker 4: the story is my mom's story? Right, Like, Okay, I
8:31
Speaker 4: was a twenty year old kid, a naive, you know,
8:34
Speaker 4: something really bad happened to me when I'm studying abroad.
8:36
Speaker 4: But like my mom was only forty five when this happened,
8:41
Speaker 4: and she also was in a way like this was
8:44
Speaker 4: a growing up experience for my mom as well, Like
8:48
Speaker 4: talk about like the worst thing that you could possibly think,
8:51
Speaker 4: like like two young girls go to study abroad and
8:55
Speaker 4: only one of them survives, and the one of them
8:57
Speaker 4: that survives is in prisonly facing the rest of her
9:01
Speaker 4: life in the visa so far away, and like what
9:03
Speaker 4: do you do? And like as a mom, as a mom,
9:06
Speaker 4: like I'm a mom, now I know that what my
9:08
Speaker 4: mom went through was worse than what I went through.
9:10
Speaker 4: She would have traded places with me in prison in
9:13
Speaker 4: a second, but she couldn't. She had to leave me
9:16
Speaker 4: there every single time she went to visit me, and
9:19
Speaker 4: there was only so much that she could do. She
9:21
Speaker 4: was in so many ways like the world was on
9:24
Speaker 4: her shoulders and she had to figure it out. But
9:26
Speaker 4: also there was only so much she could do, and
9:28
Speaker 4: so she was helpless and juggling that feeling and then
9:31
Speaker 4: also trying to be a mom to her other daughter,
9:33
Speaker 4: who is like trying to navigate. Like this whole thing
9:37
Speaker 4: is like such a human story with so many different elements,
9:40
Speaker 4: and I'm so glad that, like again, my creative partners
9:44
Speaker 4: in this project really appreciated and valued and pushed to
9:47
Speaker 4: have that be a part of it.
9:57
Speaker 1: How did you and Monica get connected? So I did
9:59
Speaker 1: say that she called you, So did that come out
10:01
Speaker 1: of the blue? Had you never met her before?
10:03
Speaker 3: And all, oh no, no, no, oh, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah.
10:05
Speaker 4: I've known her since twenty seventeen. So the documentary about
10:10
Speaker 4: my case on Netflix came out in twenty sixteen, and
10:15
Speaker 4: as a result of that, it was actually that documentary
10:19
Speaker 4: was the sort of shifted the conversation or at least
10:21
Speaker 4: public perception around me a little bit, so that people
10:25
Speaker 4: started to think, oh, maybe, just maybe this girl is
10:29
Speaker 4: innocent and has like a story to tell of her own.
10:32
Speaker 4: And so I was invited to give a public talk
10:36
Speaker 4: for the first time, and I was I accepted, but
10:39
Speaker 4: I was really really scared.
10:41
Speaker 3: Now was this in Italy?
10:42
Speaker 4: No, it was not in Italy. This was in Seattle,
10:45
Speaker 4: And it was funny. It was for this like conference
10:50
Speaker 4: where the theme of the conference was controversy, and so
10:54
Speaker 4: the person invited a lot of people who had controversies
10:57
Speaker 4: around them and so invited me. I was the low
11:00
Speaker 4: controversy kids in Seattle. But also Monica Winsky was invited
11:05
Speaker 4: among a number of other people. And when I heard
11:07
Speaker 4: that she was going to be there, I asked the
11:09
Speaker 4: organizer if they could put me in touch, because, you know,
11:13
Speaker 4: after coming out of prison, it's not like I just
11:16
Speaker 4: got my life back. You know, I'm still you know,
11:20
Speaker 4: to this day, I'm still the girl accused of murder.
11:23
Speaker 4: And I carry the stigma of that accusation everywhere I
11:27
Speaker 4: go because I did not exist in the public imagination
11:30
Speaker 4: until I was existing in the most horrible way possible.
11:34
Speaker 4: Like all people know me, and also like it's the
11:40
Speaker 4: it's very likely going to only be the only thing
11:42
Speaker 4: anybody knows me for, because like, how could I possibly
11:45
Speaker 4: accomplish anything in this world that could define me more
11:49
Speaker 4: than this thing that was global and for you know,
11:53
Speaker 4: nearly a decade defined me and defined my life that
11:56
Speaker 4: it was something I had nothing to do with. So like,
11:59
Speaker 4: I was just overwhelmed by this feeling, and especially because
12:03
Speaker 4: you know, even after I got home, people were still
12:06
Speaker 4: calling me a psychopath who got away with murder. People
12:08
Speaker 4: were telling me to shut up and disappear, and like
12:12
Speaker 4: there was this constant sort of energy towards me of like, well,
12:16
Speaker 4: you know, you're not the true victim because your roommate
12:19
Speaker 4: was the one who was murdered, so you should just
12:21
Speaker 4: shut up and be grateful that you're alive. And and
12:25
Speaker 4: like just like this really like cruel energy toward me
12:28
Speaker 4: that was certainly like wanting to just put me down.
12:32
Speaker 4: And you know, something my husband has been you know,
12:37
Speaker 4: to this day, this is something I deal with. My
12:38
Speaker 4: husband really pushes back and goes well until we change
12:42
Speaker 4: every single person's mind in the entire world, until there's
12:45
Speaker 4: anyone on this planet who thinks you might have had
12:48
Speaker 4: something to do with your roommate's murder. You have every
12:51
Speaker 4: right to like tell your story again and again and
12:55
Speaker 4: again until it gets into everyone's thick skulls that you
12:58
Speaker 4: had nothing to do with it. You didn't ask for
13:01
Speaker 4: this right.
13:01
Speaker 3: That's a really smart perspective.
13:03
Speaker 2: You're always on the defense.
13:04
Speaker 4: I'm always on the defense, and I am trying to
13:07
Speaker 4: tell a bigger story now because like, coming out of
13:10
Speaker 4: this experience, I didn't know anything about the criminal justice system.
13:14
Speaker 4: I didn't go to law school. I was going to
13:15
Speaker 4: school for creative writing. Like I was the opposite of
13:18
Speaker 4: a true crime nerd. And I came out and was
13:22
Speaker 4: became aware of a whole world of people who have
13:25
Speaker 4: this happened to them that I didn't know. I had
13:27
Speaker 4: no idea, and I didn't know that the things that
13:29
Speaker 4: happened to me in Italy are happening here in the
13:31
Speaker 4: US all the time. I was shocked to discover this,
13:35
Speaker 4: and so I was feeling like this internal compulsion to
13:39
Speaker 4: like tell my story because one of the weird things
13:41
Speaker 4: about my story is that it's almost like a gateway
13:44
Speaker 4: drug for people to get into like criminal justice, like
13:48
Speaker 4: awareness and reform is people think, oh, you know, wrongful
13:52
Speaker 4: convictions happen to other people, but they don't happen to
13:54
Speaker 4: someone like me. And then I came along, you know,
13:57
Speaker 4: the college educated white girl from the suburbs of Seattle. Like,
14:01
Speaker 4: if it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone,
14:04
Speaker 4: and it's everyone's problem. So anyway to get back to
14:07
Speaker 4: the story of how I met Monica, I was invited
14:09
Speaker 4: to come speak. I was, you know, finally sort of
14:11
Speaker 4: getting this feeling like I have a story to tell
14:13
Speaker 4: and it's very important. It's not even just about me,
14:17
Speaker 4: but like I had spent my you know, entire adult
14:19
Speaker 4: life with people not believing me, and you know, putting
14:23
Speaker 4: everything I say through like the worst possible filter, always
14:27
Speaker 4: trying to strip me of context, always trying to derive
14:29
Speaker 4: the worst possible thing that anything I say. And so
14:32
Speaker 4: I'm terrified to speak to people. I feel like everyone's
14:37
Speaker 4: just telling me to shut up. And there's like one
14:40
Speaker 4: person in the world who I can imagine knows what
14:44
Speaker 4: that's like and has started to push back. Like this
14:49
Speaker 4: was when Monica was writing the Vanity Fair articles. This
14:52
Speaker 4: was when Monica was doing her Ted talk. She was
14:54
Speaker 4: talking about online bullying of public shaming. So I look
14:58
Speaker 4: to her as like the one exam of somebody who
15:01
Speaker 4: was finally like taking a stand and like demanding a
15:04
Speaker 4: space for her voice. And she was like a model
15:08
Speaker 4: to me. So I reached out to her. She invited
15:11
Speaker 4: me up to her hotel room. She was very nice,
15:14
Speaker 4: she gave me all this like great advice, and then
15:18
Speaker 4: we stayed in contact and we always check in with
15:21
Speaker 4: each other. And then she did Impeachment where she executive
15:25
Speaker 4: produced Impeachment, the story of her experience, and she had
15:28
Speaker 4: learned a lot from doing that, and she was continuing
15:32
Speaker 4: to develop things in Hollywood and she wanted to basically
15:35
Speaker 4: she wanted to like pave the path for another person
15:39
Speaker 4: to come behind her. And that was me.
15:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, so well that's amazing. So you get a call
15:44
Speaker 1: from her and she's like, let's produce a show.
15:47
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, she said, would you be interested? Like, I've
15:50
Speaker 4: done this thing, and you know, here's here was what
15:53
Speaker 4: my experience was, like, here's what I hope your experience
15:56
Speaker 4: would be like. And I was like, yeah, you know,
16:00
Speaker 4: people have been asking me for years to do that
16:02
Speaker 4: kind of thing, and I always resisted one because back
16:07
Speaker 4: when people were asking me. A lot of times they
16:09
Speaker 4: just wanted to tell the horrible story of what happened
16:13
Speaker 4: to me, and it was just limited to that, and
16:16
Speaker 4: I was like, you know what, I'm not interested in
16:19
Speaker 4: telling a story about the horrible thing that just happened
16:21
Speaker 4: to me. But by this point I had already reached
16:24
Speaker 4: out to my prosecutor, and so I knew that my
16:27
Speaker 4: story wasn't just a bad thing that happened to me.
16:30
Speaker 4: It was what I was doing about it, and that
16:33
Speaker 4: I felt really felt like my story, it wasn't just
16:37
Speaker 4: someone else's story. It was like there was something that.
16:39
Speaker 3: Got me where you finally had control.
16:42
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, and where I had taken control, right, and
16:44
Speaker 4: when I recognized what I had control over, and like
16:48
Speaker 4: that journey of trying to figure out what it means
16:51
Speaker 4: to be free, Like, you know, I had my freedom
16:54
Speaker 4: stolen from me, but even after I was like freed,
16:58
Speaker 4: I wasn't free. And I feel like there's this universal
17:01
Speaker 4: human experience of like feeling trapped in your own life
17:05
Speaker 4: and trying to make sense of it and trying to
17:08
Speaker 4: recognize how to be an effective agent in your own
17:11
Speaker 4: life and to accomplish what you want to accomplish and
17:15
Speaker 4: define yourself on your own terms. I feel like that
17:18
Speaker 4: is a very universal thing. But that has been like
17:20
Speaker 4: the story of my life. My entire adult life has
17:23
Speaker 4: been pushing back against false narratives and really trying to
17:26
Speaker 4: find myself on my own terms. And this is how
17:30
Speaker 4: I did it. And that felt like a story I
17:33
Speaker 4: was very proud to tell. And so when I explain
17:36
Speaker 4: that to Monica, she was like, oh my god, oh
17:37
Speaker 4: my god, Oh my god. Yeah. And then we told
17:40
Speaker 4: all of the you know, producers, and they're like, oh
17:42
Speaker 4: my god, oh my god, my god. Right, and everyone
17:44
Speaker 4: was like, oh my god, my god. And now here
17:45
Speaker 4: we are, so.
17:46
Speaker 3: Can we can I ask you a question about your prosecutor? Yeah.
17:49
Speaker 1: Now, the last episode before the finale, I I the
17:54
Speaker 1: way it ended to me was so like my heart.
17:57
Speaker 1: I had like heart palpitations. You're at home and you're
18:01
Speaker 1: finding out this is the Italian Supreme Court, whether they're
18:04
Speaker 1: going to kick it back to a lower court or
18:08
Speaker 1: whether they're gonna definitively Yeah.
18:11
Speaker 4: So, just for those who don't know, in the Italian
18:14
Speaker 4: legal system, the way that it works is both prosecutors
18:18
Speaker 4: and defense attorneys can appeal verdicts, because no verdict is
18:24
Speaker 4: definitive until the Supreme Court validates it. So what that
18:29
Speaker 4: meant for my case is that I went through Let's see,
18:32
Speaker 4: how many trials did I do. I had one trial
18:34
Speaker 4: where I was found guilty. Then I had another trial
18:37
Speaker 4: where I was found innocent, and then I had another
18:40
Speaker 4: trial where I was found guilty, and then I had
18:43
Speaker 4: another trial where I was found innocent. So I had
18:45
Speaker 4: like all of these different trials because it just kept
18:48
Speaker 4: pingponging through the courts. And so I was in prison
18:51
Speaker 4: for four years, on trial for eight and it was
18:55
Speaker 4: in this what we depict in this show is this
18:58
Speaker 4: like limbo space where like, yeah, okay, I'm home, I'm free,
19:01
Speaker 4: but I'm facing extradition like I you know I do.
19:05
Speaker 4: I'm not able to live my life because I'm still
19:08
Speaker 4: like with the legal acts hanging over my head. So
19:11
Speaker 4: we get the final verdict. I'm acquitted, you know, definitively,
19:15
Speaker 4: no one's ever going to try to put me in
19:16
Speaker 4: prison for murder again. But the verdict left open the
19:21
Speaker 4: possibility that I might have been home when the crime occurred.
19:27
Speaker 3: See, I never knew that, and I don't know.
19:30
Speaker 1: I feel like maybe in any documentary or i'd ever
19:33
Speaker 1: watched about you or anything.
19:35
Speaker 3: I never learned that. I don't know if I just
19:37
Speaker 3: didn't see it or.
19:38
Speaker 4: I mean, it's like a nuanced thing that's in the
19:40
Speaker 4: court document, Like you have to read one hundred page
19:42
Speaker 4: court document to appreciate that. But like that was what
19:47
Speaker 4: my attorneys called a contentina, which means it's a little contentment.
19:53
Speaker 4: So it was like the courts were trying to say, Okay,
19:55
Speaker 4: the prosecution is really really wrong. Amanda's innocent, she didn't
19:59
Speaker 4: do this crime. But you know, the police weren't crazy
20:03
Speaker 4: to think that she was there because maybe she was.
20:06
Speaker 4: And it's like, what do you mean maybe I was there? Yeah,
20:10
Speaker 4: I was just there and my friend was getting murdered
20:12
Speaker 4: and I was about it.
20:14
Speaker 3: What are you talking about?
20:15
Speaker 4: And like, and it left open this possibility that like
20:18
Speaker 4: I'm in some way like connected to this, and I'm
20:21
Speaker 4: I'm withholding the truth from the family of you know,
20:25
Speaker 4: Meredith's family, Like, oh if I'm if I was there,
20:28
Speaker 4: well I know exactly what happened, why aren't I revealing
20:31
Speaker 4: the truth? It brands me, if not legal, a liar,
20:36
Speaker 4: implies it And so I'm left still with like and
20:39
Speaker 4: it's and it leaves me also in this place of like, well,
20:42
Speaker 4: you're not totally innocent, right, so you're not. You didn't
20:45
Speaker 4: get harmed like you you were there, you you know,
20:48
Speaker 4: And it's just it's had this like really deep difficult
20:54
Speaker 4: consequences for me.
20:56
Speaker 1: In my life, and I can see that on the screen.
20:59
Speaker 1: She does an incredible job playing.
21:00
Speaker 4: Grace van Patten.
21:01
Speaker 3: I mean, first of all the Emmys, I can't even
21:04
Speaker 3: when I watch it.
21:06
Speaker 1: It's never even in my mind do I think this
21:08
Speaker 1: is an actress playing Amanda Knox.
21:10
Speaker 3: Like she's you.
21:11
Speaker 1: Yes, she she looks like you, but she also has
21:15
Speaker 1: is she is you like she does?
21:18
Speaker 3: It is so it really is.
21:20
Speaker 1: And I also didn't know this, but her sister plays
21:23
Speaker 1: your sister.
21:24
Speaker 4: I know, and I didn't know that. It's so great too,
21:27
Speaker 4: because like the way that they're like physically different is
21:30
Speaker 4: also the way my sister and I are physically different.
21:32
Speaker 4: Like my sister is taller and blonder than me, and
21:35
Speaker 4: so her sister is taller and blonder. It's perfect, such
21:40
Speaker 4: great casting. My sister has been watching the show and
21:42
Speaker 4: like live texting me every time she's watching it, and
21:44
Speaker 4: she was just like Oh my god, Anna van Patten.
21:46
Speaker 3: Like, how did she know?
21:49
Speaker 4: She's got my sister's snark? It's amazing.
21:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I tell you that moment when you're speaking
21:55
Speaker 1: to Carlo, your attorney, and he's like, Amanda, this is great.
21:58
Speaker 1: You know, like they can't ever come after you again. However,
22:01
Speaker 1: you know there's this little thing where they said, you know,
22:04
Speaker 1: you might have been in the room, but like, don't
22:05
Speaker 1: worry about that.
22:06
Speaker 3: And then in your her face, your face, you're like.
22:10
Speaker 1: You're just as as someone watching I can tell that,
22:14
Speaker 1: like you're you're not okay with that.
22:16
Speaker 4: And then that's when everyone's like cheersing and having champagne,
22:20
Speaker 4: saying it's over right, and I'm like, it's not over right,
22:24
Speaker 4: It's not right. This is not over for me. Right.
22:27
Speaker 4: That verdict means that it is not over for me. Now?
22:30
Speaker 1: Is that the moment when you decide that you're going
22:33
Speaker 1: to reach out to him or do you have to
22:34
Speaker 1: mould it over?
22:34
Speaker 3: Think about it and then you come up with that.
22:37
Speaker 4: I mean the way that this series, like there's there's
22:40
Speaker 4: certain things that the series doesn't show because like it's
22:43
Speaker 4: only eight episodes, Like the actual first time that I
22:47
Speaker 4: went back to Italy was not to go see my prosecutor.
22:50
Speaker 4: I went one time before that.
22:52
Speaker 3: That's when you give a speech.
22:53
Speaker 4: Yeah, I gave a public talk for the Italy Innocence Project,
22:56
Speaker 4: which didn't exist at the time that I was on
22:59
Speaker 4: trial and everything, but it was around that time. And
23:04
Speaker 4: again part of this was being within the innocence movement,
23:07
Speaker 4: Like I was meeting other wrongly convicted people, and I
23:11
Speaker 4: was asking them questions about like how they were processing
23:15
Speaker 4: being wrongly convicted and what did they think about their
23:18
Speaker 4: prosecutors and some you know, I love xonaies and freed
23:23
Speaker 4: people are some of the most like zen people you
23:26
Speaker 4: will ever meet. Like they are like, we've had to
23:30
Speaker 4: live with It's not just PTSD, it's like prolonged trauma.
23:36
Speaker 4: That's like trauma on top of trauma off top of
23:38
Speaker 4: trauma for years, and we've had to develop like this
23:41
Speaker 4: radical ability to either utterly disassociate or just like accept
23:47
Speaker 4: reality the way it is and just try to make
23:50
Speaker 4: your life worth living regardless. And what that means is
23:53
Speaker 4: we tend to have a more humanistic view of people,
23:57
Speaker 4: and I think we tend to be less focused on
24:00
Speaker 4: like bitterness and anger and more light and were just
24:03
Speaker 4: more haunted by like the why of it all, Like
24:06
Speaker 4: why did this happen to me?
24:07
Speaker 3: Why?
24:08
Speaker 4: And that if you really really genuinely have that like
24:11
Speaker 4: deep curiosity in you, it leads you to wonder about
24:16
Speaker 4: the people who harmed you. And like, for me, at
24:19
Speaker 4: the very least, like I always assumed not that my
24:23
Speaker 4: prosecutor or the cops were like bad people, but they
24:26
Speaker 4: were convincing themselves that they were right. And if they, like,
24:31
Speaker 4: if they believe that they're good people and they're doing
24:34
Speaker 4: the right thing, how could they possibly go down this
24:36
Speaker 4: path and how could they possibly do this harmful thing?
24:40
Speaker 4: And the one thing that I always heard from people
24:43
Speaker 4: in the innocence movement was that they never apologized, Like
24:47
Speaker 4: they never like if you were confront a prosecutor or
24:50
Speaker 4: a cop with a wrongful conviction, they always deny it.
24:52
Speaker 4: They always dig in their heels, And so there was
24:56
Speaker 4: almost no point, Like I was I sort of I
24:58
Speaker 4: started mentioning this to my friends in the innocence movement
25:01
Speaker 4: that I was curious and I wanted to reach out
25:02
Speaker 4: to my prosecutor, because you know, if I'm going to
25:05
Speaker 4: be curious about this, why don't I just go to
25:06
Speaker 4: the source. Why don't I just ask him directly? Why
25:09
Speaker 4: did you look at me when there was clearly the
25:12
Speaker 4: evidence of who raped and murdered my roommate? Why did
25:14
Speaker 4: you look at me and think there's my rapist and murderer?
25:18
Speaker 4: Like what is it? What is it about me? Like?
25:20
Speaker 4: How is that possible? And so why don't I just
25:23
Speaker 4: go directly to the source and ask him? And everyone said,
25:28
Speaker 4: I think everyone was nervous for me. They were like,
25:31
Speaker 4: we just don't want you to go through yet another
25:36
Speaker 4: traumatic thing, which is putting yourself out there, really making
25:40
Speaker 4: yourself vulnerable, and just having this guy like get defensive
25:45
Speaker 4: and mean to you again, like we don't want you
25:48
Speaker 4: to just have more harm on top of harm. But
25:51
Speaker 4: I just I couldn't get it out of my head,
25:53
Speaker 4: like I felt like I had something to do, something,
25:57
Speaker 4: not just something to get like I original. Yes, of
26:00
Speaker 4: course I wanted him to admit that he was wrong
26:02
Speaker 4: and do all those things, But eventually I figured out
26:05
Speaker 4: that it wasn't even so much what I needed to
26:07
Speaker 4: get from him. It was more like what I needed
26:10
Speaker 4: to give him. I had something to get off of
26:13
Speaker 4: my chest, and so I went to go do it.
26:17
Speaker 4: And you'll see in the final episode how that ultimately transpired.
26:22
Speaker 4: But like I corresponded with him for two years before
26:26
Speaker 4: before meeting him, Yes, because of the pandemic. So I
26:30
Speaker 4: don't know when anyone else was doing the pandemic. But
26:32
Speaker 4: I was just writing letters to my prosecutor.
26:34
Speaker 1: Now it's interesting that he wrote back because he could have.
26:37
Speaker 4: Just yes, he couldn't, to his credit.
26:39
Speaker 1: Ripped it up and been like Amanda Knox and you know,
26:42
Speaker 1: but he wrote back.
26:43
Speaker 4: He did, and you know, to his credit, and I
26:46
Speaker 4: think that the show really really attempts to give him
26:49
Speaker 4: credit where credits due, like to really understand his context,
26:53
Speaker 4: who he is as a person, what his history is,
26:55
Speaker 4: but also to acknowledge like he didn't have to go
26:58
Speaker 4: on this journey with me, he didn't have to respond,
27:01
Speaker 4: but he did, and you know, we are still in
27:06
Speaker 4: contact to this day. Now.
27:08
Speaker 1: I read that, I read that you do exchange letters,
27:11
Speaker 1: and do you exchange Christmas cards and things like that.
27:14
Speaker 4: Text messages?
27:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, really, so I would assume that if you're at
27:19
Speaker 1: that point where you're exchanging text messages. And again I
27:22
Speaker 1: haven't watched the finale, so I don't know exactly what happens,
27:26
Speaker 1: but I assume there's a level of understanding or something
27:28
Speaker 1: that happens during that meeting.
27:31
Speaker 4: Yeah, yes, there there is, and it's I mean, it's
27:36
Speaker 4: great for television because it's full of conflict in the
27:39
Speaker 4: sense that it's like it's not just a Kumbaya fest, right,
27:43
Speaker 4: Like there is conflict, and there's to this day like
27:46
Speaker 4: unresolved conflict. But there's also again like there's this there's
27:52
Speaker 4: something that happens outside of the courtroom, which is this
27:56
Speaker 4: like need, this universal human need for connection, for understanding.
28:03
Speaker 4: And the thing that like you'll see depicted so which
28:08
Speaker 4: so well by by Grace and Francisco a Quadrali, is
28:13
Speaker 4: that desire to be understood one person to another, not
28:19
Speaker 4: just me to him, but him to him to me.
28:23
Speaker 1: Did you see him differently after meeting in person? Were
28:26
Speaker 1: you able to maybe see his perspective? I will tell
28:30
Speaker 1: you I I knew he was wrong the entire time,
28:34
Speaker 1: but I had a hard time hating him. So I
28:36
Speaker 1: think you did a good job of depicting him in
28:39
Speaker 1: a way where you know he's wrong, and you know
28:43
Speaker 1: the path he's going down is wrong, and you know
28:44
Speaker 1: he keeps it's like he keeps trying to make this
28:46
Speaker 1: fit even though it doesn't fit, and he's he's hammering it.
28:50
Speaker 1: But for some reason, I couldn't ever hate him. And
28:53
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's because you shared in the
28:55
Speaker 1: series a little bit of his backstory and where he
28:57
Speaker 1: came from, so that the viewer does have some compassion
29:02
Speaker 1: towards him. And I think that was great that you
29:05
Speaker 1: did that, because I felt like it wasn't just like,
29:07
Speaker 1: this is my perspective and I'm going to go down
29:09
Speaker 1: this road of like my perspective and make this series
29:12
Speaker 1: the way I want to make it from my perspective,
29:14
Speaker 1: which it is to a certain extent, but you're also
29:17
Speaker 1: open to allowing the person watching to have a different
29:21
Speaker 1: interpretation of each character as well and kind of form
29:24
Speaker 1: their own opinion. And I think that's what is so
29:26
Speaker 1: real about it.
29:27
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was very very intentional because my perspective, my
29:32
Speaker 4: like my personal perspective is that every single person who
29:39
Speaker 4: played a part of this like perfect Storm of Insanity,
29:42
Speaker 4: is understandable, is ultimately relatable if we tap into those
29:50
Speaker 4: universal human drives and like I do, and I think
29:57
Speaker 4: that this is a really really important service for us,
30:00
Speaker 4: actually the innocence movement, because I do not think that
30:03
Speaker 4: painting people in black and white terms and as heroes
30:07
Speaker 4: and victims and villains actually helps us understand how wrongful
30:10
Speaker 4: convictions happen and what to do about it. I think
30:13
Speaker 4: it really matters to understand that like harm can happen
30:19
Speaker 4: even when everyone thinks that they're doing the right thing.
30:32
Speaker 2: Do you feel the prosecutor is now a better prosecutor
30:35
Speaker 2: for having prosecutor because.
30:38
Speaker 4: He's retired.
30:41
Speaker 3: Because anymore?
30:43
Speaker 4: Okay, well, I think he's a better person.
30:46
Speaker 2: Okay, almost almost the same thing. So he has a
30:49
Speaker 2: better understanding of what took place, mistakes that were made,
30:54
Speaker 2: or things that could be different or that you know,
30:57
Speaker 2: I don't know, but I don't want to put words
30:59
Speaker 2: in people's mouths or any experiences. But he basically has
31:02
Speaker 2: a different understanding of what took place now that you
31:05
Speaker 2: two have connected in a more personal level. Yes, after
31:09
Speaker 2: it's all been pushed behind us. Yes, yeah, yeah, and
31:13
Speaker 2: I've not been retired. Do you think it would help
31:16
Speaker 2: him in prosecuting more? I guess objectively?
31:22
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I don't know. I don't know for
31:25
Speaker 4: sure about that. What I can say is that I
31:29
Speaker 4: think the fact like I before me and I guess
31:34
Speaker 4: since me also, but he never had been approached by
31:38
Speaker 4: someone that had he had prosecuted before. I am the
31:41
Speaker 4: only person that he's ever prosecuted who has reached out
31:45
Speaker 4: to him and wanted to talk to him on a
31:48
Speaker 4: human level and wanted to like understand who he is
31:50
Speaker 4: as an actual person. And that deeply impacted him. He
31:57
Speaker 4: he talks about it as like one of the most
31:59
Speaker 4: important things that's ever happened to him. So how has
32:03
Speaker 4: it changed him? I don't I couldn't tell you all
32:07
Speaker 4: the ways, but I know that it has.
32:12
Speaker 1: You know, I want to ask you because the last
32:15
Speaker 1: couple of episodes we've done, this wasn't even on purpose,
32:18
Speaker 1: but the last two cases we've done all revolve around
32:20
Speaker 1: false confessions.
32:22
Speaker 3: And when I watched you Know.
32:24
Speaker 1: Your series, and you're you're being detained, and I assume,
32:26
Speaker 1: because we talk about this all the time when you're
32:28
Speaker 1: when you're going to the police station, you assume you're
32:30
Speaker 1: there helping.
32:32
Speaker 4: Yes, well and right, absolutely so yeah, So weird facts
32:39
Speaker 4: about wrongful convictions. So the majority of time that people
32:43
Speaker 4: are getting wrongly convicted, first of all, they're men, and
32:45
Speaker 4: first of all, they're usually men of color, and at
32:49
Speaker 4: least poor some you know, like these are sort of
32:53
Speaker 4: very common traits to it. But like most of the time,
32:56
Speaker 4: there's a you know, something bad happens, there's a crime
32:59
Speaker 4: that occurs, and then an eyewitness sort of points them
33:03
Speaker 4: in the wrong direction, or the police like get like
33:05
Speaker 4: an idea description of somebody in their mind and they
33:07
Speaker 4: go towards that person and they get tunnel vision and
33:10
Speaker 4: they go after it, and then you know, all these
33:12
Speaker 4: years later, the you know, the DNA proves them innocent,
33:15
Speaker 4: and you know, they go through the process of like
33:17
Speaker 4: interrogating that person. And in one and four murder cases,
33:21
Speaker 4: like we're talking people who have everything at stake, they
33:26
Speaker 4: confess to under the pressure of these interrogations, which involve lying,
33:31
Speaker 4: which involve you know, sometimes third degree techniques, although those
33:35
Speaker 4: technically aren't legal. And and so I think I think
33:41
Speaker 4: that just very fact suggests that there's something wrong with
33:45
Speaker 4: the way that we do interrogations. If in one and
33:48
Speaker 4: four murder cases where everyone where someone an innocent person
33:53
Speaker 4: has no motivation whatsoever and has everything to lose if
33:57
Speaker 4: they falsely confess, they start making false admission and implicating
34:00
Speaker 4: themselves in a crime, there is something deeply deeply wrong
34:03
Speaker 4: with the way that we interrogate people.
34:04
Speaker 3: Absolutely, But a lot of.
34:08
Speaker 4: The time, like what happens is like they just happened
34:10
Speaker 4: to get the wrong person, and then you know, ten
34:12
Speaker 4: twenty years go by and they finally test the DNA
34:15
Speaker 4: and they prove that it was somebody else. In my case,
34:18
Speaker 4: what's so fricking weird is that we knew from the
34:23
Speaker 4: DNA evidence who committed this crime within weeks. The problem
34:28
Speaker 4: was that I had already been arrested because I had
34:33
Speaker 4: already been interrogated and falsely confessed or you know something
34:38
Speaker 4: my prosecutor likes to point out, as he says, you
34:40
Speaker 4: didn't falsely confess, you falsely accused someone. And it's like,
34:44
Speaker 4: regardless of what how you describe it, I was put
34:48
Speaker 4: through an interrogation where the exact same techniques were implemented,
34:52
Speaker 4: and what they told me was that I had witnessed
34:55
Speaker 4: the crime and that I didn't remember it, so I
34:59
Speaker 4: was lied to. They told me they had, you know,
35:01
Speaker 4: undeniable proof that I was physically present when this crime occurred.
35:05
Speaker 4: They told me that I was a witness, that they
35:08
Speaker 4: weren't accusing me of doing the crime, but they were
35:10
Speaker 4: accusing me of covering it up, and they were telling
35:12
Speaker 4: me that I was clearly scared. I was clearly a
35:16
Speaker 4: good girl. I obviously wanted to help the police. But
35:20
Speaker 4: what happened is I had been so traumatized about why
35:23
Speaker 4: by what I had witnessed, that my brain just blacked
35:26
Speaker 4: it out. However, if I was going to prove that
35:30
Speaker 4: I was on the side of the good people, I
35:32
Speaker 4: had to tell them what I couldn't remember. And so eventually,
35:38
Speaker 4: and this is happening in the middle of the night,
35:39
Speaker 4: like I'm sleep deprived, I've already been questioned for days
35:42
Speaker 4: on end, Like I'm just like losing my fucking mind.
35:45
Speaker 4: It's in a foreign language. Eventually, I'm like, I start
35:48
Speaker 4: to question myself. They've painted this false reality around me,
35:52
Speaker 4: and my mind is trying to make sense of it.
35:54
Speaker 4: And so I finally cave and I'm like, I guess
35:57
Speaker 4: you must be right. I guess I must have witnessed.
35:59
Speaker 2: So fest inaccurately. But when you confessed at that moment,
36:04
Speaker 2: you truly thought, possibly this is what happened. What they're
36:08
Speaker 2: telling me is what happened. It wasn't let me confess
36:11
Speaker 2: to try to get out of something or to lessen
36:13
Speaker 2: the charge, to leave them.
36:15
Speaker 4: I started to think that I was crazy.
36:18
Speaker 2: Now if I can ask, I know, I don't know
36:21
Speaker 2: what it's like in Italy and the way they interrogate
36:23
Speaker 2: and prosecute. But had you not said anything going back
36:27
Speaker 2: in time and you didn't say anything, said I want
36:28
Speaker 2: to turn any blah blah blah, and you didn't say anything,
36:31
Speaker 2: and then they came across that DNA evidence, do you
36:33
Speaker 2: think they would have then let you get away, like
36:38
Speaker 2: like released you, I should say, as a suspect. Yeah,
36:42
Speaker 2: they had the tunnel vision and they were stuck with
36:45
Speaker 2: you and they had to make it work.
36:46
Speaker 4: I don't think I ever would have been arrested had
36:49
Speaker 4: I not been coerced into So.
36:50
Speaker 2: Again we're going back to the when you're being pulled
36:53
Speaker 2: in for a crime that you had nothing to do with.
36:56
Speaker 2: This seems to be a trend is to keep your
36:59
Speaker 2: mouth shut, yes, and request an attorney so you don't
37:03
Speaker 2: do anything incorrect exactly.
37:05
Speaker 4: So they can't use anything you say against you.
37:08
Speaker 2: Yeah. See, getting an attorney doesn't mean to get away
37:10
Speaker 2: with a crime. No, It also just means so I
37:12
Speaker 2: know what the hell is going on?
37:15
Speaker 4: Right? Yeah?
37:16
Speaker 2: And also then you're saying, do you have an attorney
37:18
Speaker 2: sitting there saying no, these are your rights and we're
37:20
Speaker 2: going to help you, and you're not alone.
37:21
Speaker 4: And you don't have to sit here in the middle
37:23
Speaker 4: of an interrogation in the middle of the night, like
37:26
Speaker 4: you don't know, Like, no one told me that I
37:29
Speaker 4: was even a suspect. I was again, they said they
37:31
Speaker 4: were interviewing me as a witness, and so like I
37:34
Speaker 4: had no idea they told me when they arrested me,
37:38
Speaker 4: they didn't tell me they were taking me to prison.
37:40
Speaker 4: They told me they were taking me to a holding
37:41
Speaker 4: place for my protection and that it would only be
37:44
Speaker 4: for a few days.
37:45
Speaker 2: And you had every reason to think that that was correct,
37:47
Speaker 2: because you're like, there's this been horrific murder that took
37:50
Speaker 2: place in my apartment. I don't know who's if I'm next,
37:53
Speaker 2: So you probably had every reason to think, Okay, I
37:55
Speaker 2: want to go be safe.
37:56
Speaker 4: Yep.
37:57
Speaker 3: You know it's it's such a common theme because we
38:00
Speaker 3: through so many cases, the interrogations in the middle of
38:02
Speaker 3: the night, and.
38:04
Speaker 2: What cop is wanting to work in the middle of
38:06
Speaker 2: the night.
38:06
Speaker 4: They want to crack you.
38:08
Speaker 1: And I'm telling you a lot of people say to
38:10
Speaker 1: me when you know, we talk about these cases and things,
38:13
Speaker 1: and a lot of people don't understand how someone could
38:16
Speaker 1: confess to something that they didn't.
38:18
Speaker 2: Do, because they just see the news and they hear
38:21
Speaker 2: he confessed, and that's all. That's all we think. We
38:23
Speaker 2: don't think the day was, how did they did the
38:28
Speaker 2: interrogator say, we have DNA evidence and all this false stuff.
38:32
Speaker 3: They lie to you because they're allowed to light.
38:37
Speaker 4: You know, like there are and again you don't even
38:41
Speaker 4: have to be hit because like these methods that are legal,
38:46
Speaker 4: legal I disagree with, absolutely incredibly effective at getting people
38:53
Speaker 4: to confess, even guilty or innocent.
38:57
Speaker 2: My thing is admit nothing, deny everything, and demand proof.
39:01
Speaker 4: So you never but try explaining that to someone whose
39:04
Speaker 4: friend's just been murdered. Like I had every reason to
39:09
Speaker 4: want to cooperate with the police.
39:11
Speaker 2: I mean, you were young, I was.
39:15
Speaker 4: Experience and obeyed police officers. I have military in my family,
39:19
Speaker 4: like you know, uniform means authority. Figure it means someone
39:23
Speaker 4: that you can trust and that you have to obey.
39:26
Speaker 4: That's what that meant to me. Now, uniforms means they
39:30
Speaker 4: have an authority. Make me scared, Like to this day,
39:33
Speaker 4: like I go through airports and like I see people
39:35
Speaker 4: in uniform and I just like cringe, like and I'm
39:38
Speaker 4: trying to get over that because I know that it's
39:41
Speaker 4: not everyone, but just the like knowledge of how much
39:44
Speaker 4: power that they have over you, Like that's scary to me. Now,
39:48
Speaker 4: I don't look at someone in uniform and go, that's
39:50
Speaker 4: someone who's there to protect me. I look at that
39:52
Speaker 4: as someone who me.
39:54
Speaker 2: Very much lighter level. My father always told me at
39:57
Speaker 2: this time that he was pulled over. Drug were planted
40:00
Speaker 2: on him and he was arrested, and he stayed the
40:02
Speaker 2: night in jail, and he had if he did it,
40:04
Speaker 2: he would have told me, right, I mean, my dad
40:06
Speaker 2: would have told me, oh, yeah, I smoke potware. But
40:08
Speaker 2: he didn't, and they threw it in the in the car.
40:10
Speaker 2: They arrested him. He spent the night in jail and
40:13
Speaker 2: to this, and then he the next day he was
40:16
Speaker 2: released and whatever. But and he also has very little memory.
40:19
Speaker 2: When I ask him what happened, I'm like, how would
40:21
Speaker 2: you not remember the one time you were in court
40:23
Speaker 2: being a defendant. Anyway, he tells he still gets he
40:27
Speaker 2: doesn't like police, and specifically in New York to police department,
40:31
Speaker 2: or excuse me, New York, the Newport Beach Police Department.
40:34
Speaker 2: He's still sixty seven years later, has a beef with them,
40:38
Speaker 2: and that was a very small interaction compared to what
40:41
Speaker 2: some people go through. Well, so it's understandable that you
40:44
Speaker 2: would be that way.
40:44
Speaker 4: And it's hard because like holding people accountable for the
40:48
Speaker 4: harm that they cause, Like the whole system is sort
40:52
Speaker 4: of against those of us who are a victim of
40:54
Speaker 4: the system, Like those of us who are victims of
40:57
Speaker 4: the criminal justice system don't have great recourse, like it's
41:01
Speaker 4: it's it seems like everything and everyone wants it to
41:05
Speaker 4: be our fault, like we are victim blamed like crazy, Oh,
41:09
Speaker 4: it must be your fault that you were suspicious. It
41:11
Speaker 4: must be your fault that you got them to think
41:13
Speaker 4: that you had something to do with it, Like.
41:16
Speaker 2: What doesn't happen to me, Yes, my roommate doesn't get murdered.
41:20
Speaker 2: I don't get in these situations. I'm not guilty. I
41:23
Speaker 2: don't do these things. You must be guilty because you're
41:26
Speaker 2: involved in all this.
41:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what's interesting, And I'll tell you this
41:37
Speaker 1: because I have a pretty large platform on Instagram, So
41:39
Speaker 1: I posted that I was interviewing you, and I asked
41:41
Speaker 1: people to ask questions that they.
41:43
Speaker 3: Would like to ask you. They mean to you, No,
41:45
Speaker 3: not at all.
41:46
Speaker 1: Some people, I mean the mean to me because of
41:49
Speaker 1: other reasons, because of me, not because of.
41:53
Speaker 3: Anything you've done.
41:55
Speaker 1: But it was so interesting to me that I will
41:57
Speaker 1: tell you that a reoccurring question that I gets over
42:00
Speaker 1: and over and over, and this is so telling as
42:02
Speaker 1: to your story is do we finally know who did it?
42:07
Speaker 1: And it's so this is when you talk about her case,
42:11
Speaker 1: this is this was interesting to me in your in
42:13
Speaker 1: your series because you show Rudy Getty, who's the person
42:16
Speaker 1: who his DNA is everywhere.
42:18
Speaker 4: He's clearly hasty breaking entering.
42:21
Speaker 3: He committed the crime. He admits it.
42:24
Speaker 1: He's on the phone and they record it right and
42:26
Speaker 1: he even says that Amanda wasn't there, wasn't there, she
42:30
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with it. He goes to the
42:32
Speaker 1: fast track trial or whatever. And in the series, it's
42:37
Speaker 1: so interesting because I'm sure it's absolutely accurate, but there's
42:40
Speaker 1: no one there at his trial.
42:42
Speaker 3: He's he goes on trial for this murder.
42:45
Speaker 4: That's the huge, biggest murder, huge in Italy's history.
42:49
Speaker 1: It's global it's all over the media. The man who
42:54
Speaker 1: actually committed the crime is on trial. There's no one watching,
42:58
Speaker 1: there's hardly any media, there's.
43:00
Speaker 3: No press coverage.
43:02
Speaker 1: And to this day people still say did they find
43:05
Speaker 1: the person who actually did it? That just goes to
43:08
Speaker 1: show you that the media had no interest in people
43:14
Speaker 1: knowing that that's not a good story, who actually committed
43:17
Speaker 1: the crime.
43:18
Speaker 4: That's where the media ethics part of my right.
43:21
Speaker 2: My journalism would follow through on that, but that but
43:24
Speaker 2: they didn't. They didn't, They didn't care.
43:26
Speaker 3: And it is not globally known. She's globally known.
43:31
Speaker 1: You say Amanda Knox, and I would say nine out
43:33
Speaker 1: of ten people probably your name, and can probably once
43:37
Speaker 1: you start to talk about it, can be like, oh yeah,
43:40
Speaker 1: I remember that you say his name. Nobody knows nobody,
43:45
Speaker 1: I would say, the general public doesn't even know it
43:47
Speaker 1: was ever solved. And that is such a testament to
43:51
Speaker 1: how much the media just latched onto you and how
43:55
Speaker 1: you were sensational. You were young, you were pretty, you
43:58
Speaker 1: were in Italy, you made with your boyfriend. They thought
44:01
Speaker 1: that was weird whatever, and they just went with that.
44:04
Speaker 1: And then all the crowds outside your trial that latched
44:07
Speaker 1: onto it without knowing anything about the case, about not
44:11
Speaker 1: really knowing any of the facts, not following anything, not
44:14
Speaker 1: understanding how the forensics and the DNA and everything was
44:19
Speaker 1: just botched. It was a terrible investigation. They just knew
44:23
Speaker 1: you yep, yep.
44:24
Speaker 2: And the end result of Rudy's.
44:27
Speaker 4: Trial yeah, well yeah, so he elected for what they
44:32
Speaker 4: call a fast track trial in Italy's witby trial, Yes,
44:35
Speaker 4: speedy trial. So it wasn't a trial by jury. It
44:38
Speaker 4: was just within a judge kind of like the I
44:41
Speaker 4: guess we would call it our like I don't know,
44:43
Speaker 4: there's not really an equivalent here in the US, but like,
44:45
Speaker 4: just a judge found him guilty and he was sentenced
44:49
Speaker 4: to thirty years, but they were reduced to sixteen on appeal,
44:55
Speaker 4: and then he got out of prison after thirteen years,
44:58
Speaker 4: and now he is on trial for sexually assaulting another
45:02
Speaker 4: young woman.
45:03
Speaker 2: Took place after he was released. Yes, yeah, so he's
45:06
Speaker 2: a career criminal.
45:07
Speaker 4: I mean, he's clearly got issues with women. And it's
45:13
Speaker 4: so frustrating to me because the truth about what happened
45:18
Speaker 4: to my roommate matters. The truth matters, and the thing
45:24
Speaker 4: that like all these institutions that we trust, like they failed.
45:31
Speaker 4: The Italian justice system failed. I mean, yes, Rudy did
45:35
Speaker 4: go to prison for this crime, but he was not
45:38
Speaker 4: actually held fully accountable for the crime, Like he was
45:40
Speaker 4: never even accused of breaking and entering into our house.
45:44
Speaker 4: He was never accused of stealing from Meredith, all of
45:47
Speaker 4: these things that he did. And so he was let
45:50
Speaker 4: off with a lighter sentence.
45:51
Speaker 2: Clearly too early because he just came got out.
45:53
Speaker 4: Too early, and and you know, points the finger at
45:58
Speaker 4: me to this day, as soon as he was arrested
46:01
Speaker 4: suddenly now I'm you know, he latched onto this. I
46:05
Speaker 4: meant he got an attorney who convinced him to take
46:11
Speaker 4: the lesser guilt and say, oh yeah, sure, Amanda was there.
46:15
Speaker 4: And and you know, to this day does that he
46:22
Speaker 4: takes advantage of the obsession people have with the idea
46:27
Speaker 4: of me being guilty and uses it to slide underneath,
46:32
Speaker 4: you know, like to not take accountability for his crimes,
46:34
Speaker 4: like he is not the person who is known for
46:36
Speaker 4: Meredith's death. No, and that's obscene, and and the fact
46:41
Speaker 4: that like no one's even following up to like know
46:43
Speaker 4: what else is going on with him, Like very very
46:47
Speaker 4: little media coverage of him whatsoever.
46:50
Speaker 3: I know, I get.
46:51
Speaker 4: People complain about everything I do every day.
46:54
Speaker 1: That's that's what is crazy crazy to me. Now, when
46:58
Speaker 1: I watched The Dark Commentary on Netflix that you did
47:01
Speaker 1: a few years ago, they show an interview with you,
47:02
Speaker 1: but they also show I would have to tell you,
47:04
Speaker 1: this guy.
47:05
Speaker 3: Drives me nuts. I just have to ask you, Nick
47:07
Speaker 3: Pisa ah.
47:08
Speaker 4: Yes, or as my family likes to call him, Nick
47:10
Speaker 4: Pisa shit.
47:11
Speaker 3: Yes, I like that.
47:12
Speaker 4: I like that.
47:13
Speaker 1: Okay, I've been on reality TV for a long time.
47:16
Speaker 1: I get a lot of crap. Not like I would
47:17
Speaker 1: never compare, no.
47:19
Speaker 3: Comparison at all. We can we bond, I understand it,
47:22
Speaker 3: but not to the extent that you have.
47:24
Speaker 1: But I have never I always make fun I always
47:26
Speaker 1: make fun of people that come onto my Instagram and
47:28
Speaker 1: call me horrible names and send me horrible dms, And
47:30
Speaker 1: I think, what kind of people are these? That you
47:32
Speaker 1: watch a reality show and then you feel compelled to
47:35
Speaker 1: say something to me, like can it not just be
47:37
Speaker 1: entertaining for you? But anyway, I will tell you, Nick
47:39
Speaker 1: Pisa is the only person I have ever felt compelled
47:41
Speaker 1: to find on Instagram.
47:43
Speaker 3: You did. I looked for him because wait, what's his part. Well,
47:49
Speaker 3: he wrote for the Daily Mail.
47:50
Speaker 2: Yes, oh yes, I know who he is.
47:52
Speaker 4: He was one of the journalists who really like staked his.
47:56
Speaker 2: Career in the headlights. He loved Yeah, he liked his
48:00
Speaker 2: name being in print. Yes, I remember him.
48:02
Speaker 3: He said it was better than sex.
48:03
Speaker 4: Yeah, he said that. And you know what he's conveying though,
48:08
Speaker 4: is like a true thing about the media, which is
48:11
Speaker 4: that they were rewarding him for that behavior. So just
48:15
Speaker 4: print anything, doesn't matter how scandalous, doesn't matter what the
48:18
Speaker 4: source is. Just print it because anything that has Foxy
48:21
Speaker 4: Noxy and the headline is going to do well for us.
48:24
Speaker 4: And he did that, and he would you know, he
48:26
Speaker 4: actually was one of the people who and this is
48:29
Speaker 4: this is how what journalism has descended to. But like
48:32
Speaker 4: in the lead up to my acquittal, nobody knew what
48:35
Speaker 4: the verdict was going to be, obviously, so he just
48:37
Speaker 4: wrote two completely separate articles ahead of time, like describing
48:42
Speaker 4: our reactions.
48:43
Speaker 3: Just you know, like imagine because he's fabricated.
48:47
Speaker 4: He's fabricating. He is not doing journals if he's just fabricating,
48:50
Speaker 4: like oh Amanda's crying, blah blah blah. And they accidentally
48:53
Speaker 4: The only reason I know this is because they accidentally
48:54
Speaker 4: put to the wrong one. Wow, and then they took
48:58
Speaker 4: it off like within twenty four hours. But like that
49:01
Speaker 4: shows you the level to which like journalism has descended
49:05
Speaker 4: because everyone's trying to be the first person to publish,
49:09
Speaker 4: and to be the first person to publish.
49:11
Speaker 3: You have to make shit up. Yeah.
49:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like was the President Nixon that had two
49:18
Speaker 2: different speeches for if the men actually survived landing on
49:21
Speaker 2: the moon versus if they didn't survive. Yeah, we'll save
49:24
Speaker 2: that for another day. Okay, Yeah, so this but this
49:29
Speaker 2: is someone's livelihood, someone's feelings, someone's you know.
49:33
Speaker 4: This is journalism, right, This is yeah, journalists, not just
49:36
Speaker 4: that commending someone or I can understand how the president
49:40
Speaker 4: would anticipate, like, okay either way, but those.
49:44
Speaker 2: Are his words. He wrote what he believed, should they
49:49
Speaker 2: have not survived, what he felt. This is someone writing
49:52
Speaker 2: about you.
49:54
Speaker 4: Exactly well and and doing it from a journalistic lens, right,
49:57
Speaker 4: Like I'm reporting the fact.
49:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, where's the integrity of the one of these facts.
50:01
Speaker 4: You're reporting that you're just making up? Right now?
50:05
Speaker 2: Okay, because that's his nickname that your family has.
50:08
Speaker 1: I like that Nick piece of the ship. I feel like
50:09
Speaker 1: Nick owes you an apology. Have you guys have you
50:12
Speaker 1: ever had with him?
50:13
Speaker 4: No? No, lots of people owe me apologies.
50:16
Speaker 3: Well yeah, I.
50:19
Speaker 4: Mean it's funny because like the people who have apologized
50:22
Speaker 4: to me are the ones who are like least involved,
50:27
Speaker 4: you know, Like I here's an example of someone who
50:30
Speaker 4: apologized to me months and it was just like so amazing.
50:33
Speaker 4: And I actually interviewed her on my podcast. But she
50:36
Speaker 4: was a model who was very young, very young model
50:39
Speaker 4: when I was going through everything, and she was hired
50:43
Speaker 4: to do a model like a photo shoot that she
50:45
Speaker 4: didn't even know what it was ahead of time, but
50:47
Speaker 4: it turned out that it was an Amanda Knox themed
50:49
Speaker 4: photo shoot. So they were like they were showing off clothes,
50:54
Speaker 4: but like Amanda's in a prison cell doing yoga, or
50:58
Speaker 4: Amanda's holding up a knife and she's covered in blood.
51:02
Speaker 4: It was for vice. They were thinking they were being clever,
51:05
Speaker 4: and she like did it because she was like, I'm,
51:09
Speaker 4: you know, an aspiring model. I just do any job
51:11
Speaker 4: that I can. But in the aftermath, she was just
51:14
Speaker 4: haunted by it for years and she was like, oh
51:17
Speaker 4: my god, what did I just do? And like it
51:20
Speaker 4: what is a man? Like she was thinking Amanda might
51:23
Speaker 4: see these one day and like, oh my god, and
51:26
Speaker 4: so she was just in fact, I did, and I
51:28
Speaker 4: was like, oh my god. And then years go by
51:31
Speaker 4: and she finds me on Instagram and dms me just
51:34
Speaker 4: to say, hey, I don't know if you ever saw these,
51:37
Speaker 4: but I participated in this thing and I feel awful
51:40
Speaker 4: about it. I feel so awful, and I just wanted
51:43
Speaker 4: to tell you, like, I'm so sorry for being part
51:46
Speaker 4: of the oparatus that was depicting you in this like
51:50
Speaker 4: completely dehumanized way. And so, you know, like she could apologize.
52:00
Speaker 4: I think that other people are just so deeply in
52:04
Speaker 4: bed with what they did that it's really hard to
52:07
Speaker 4: like pull back.
52:09
Speaker 3: If there's one person that you could get an apology from,
52:11
Speaker 3: who would it.
52:11
Speaker 4: Be my prosecutor.
52:14
Speaker 3: So so I'm going to assume when you read with him,
52:16
Speaker 3: there isn't an apology.
52:17
Speaker 4: So what you will? It's it's really interesting what happened.
52:24
Speaker 4: I don't want to give it away, but like I
52:28
Speaker 4: didn't walk away with nothing.
52:29
Speaker 2: Okay, you know, so stay tuned.
52:32
Speaker 4: Stay tuned, my friends, Okay, stay tuned. Okay, human humans
52:37
Speaker 4: are really interesting.
52:39
Speaker 3: Now did he did he know you were making the series? Yeah?
52:43
Speaker 3: Did he give input or anything? Or was it basically
52:46
Speaker 3: like we're going to hire an actor to be you?
52:47
Speaker 4: And yeah, I mean, like I asked him who he
52:50
Speaker 4: thought should play him. Yeah, it was really funny that
52:53
Speaker 4: I'm not going to say who he said. Yeah. But
53:00
Speaker 4: you know, I also feel completely within my rights to
53:03
Speaker 4: have boundaries, and this was one of them. I like
53:06
Speaker 4: I told him about it, like I kept him informed
53:08
Speaker 4: as it was going on, But I did not feel
53:10
Speaker 4: at all like I needed to involve him in the
53:12
Speaker 4: project because it is very much from my perspective, like
53:16
Speaker 4: it is my story of going back to confront him
53:19
Speaker 4: and everything that led up to that moment. So like
53:21
Speaker 4: I've I felt very strongly that, like, this is my
53:27
Speaker 4: time to tell it the way I would tell her.
53:29
Speaker 2: Right, So we should watch this knowing exactly that that
53:32
Speaker 2: this is not just someone who tried to search the
53:34
Speaker 2: internet and pull it together and recreate this.
53:37
Speaker 4: It was Rair exactly. And and again, like I have
53:42
Speaker 4: to give credit to the creator and showrunner Kagie Steinberg,
53:45
Speaker 4: because you know, technically she is the creator and showrunner
53:48
Speaker 4: of the show. It is her vision. But we like deeply,
53:51
Speaker 4: deeply aligned in so many, so many ways. And when
53:54
Speaker 4: she would come to me with like ideas, I would
53:56
Speaker 4: be like, yes, oh my god, Like the Ameilee sequences,
54:00
Speaker 4: like inspired sequences, those were her idea. She was trying
54:03
Speaker 4: to like figure out how to tap into, like what's
54:05
Speaker 4: special about my perspective and the fact that I was
54:09
Speaker 4: one watching am May Lee when this crime occurred, and
54:12
Speaker 4: two was actually compared to Ameilee by other attorneys in
54:16
Speaker 4: the corps. And she was like, well, clearly, like we're
54:18
Speaker 4: doing an homage to Ammeilee. And I was like, yes,
54:20
Speaker 4: that's amazing, and I think it does. It accomplishes something
54:24
Speaker 4: that again you don't see in your typical true crime biopic,
54:27
Speaker 4: Like it's really attempting to like be artistic and nuanced
54:30
Speaker 4: and creative and really exploring what it means to be
54:34
Speaker 4: me and how I perceive the world.
54:37
Speaker 3: Where are you right now?
54:38
Speaker 1: I mean, I know you're married, and you're happily married,
54:40
Speaker 1: and you have children and you've moved on, and but
54:43
Speaker 1: is it important for you to always still have a
54:45
Speaker 1: voice and to be out there and to be a
54:47
Speaker 1: part I know you're a part of the Nison Center,
54:48
Speaker 1: which I am too. Which is amazing because then we'll
54:50
Speaker 1: get to see each other a lot more going forward.
54:53
Speaker 1: But is that is that where you're at or is
54:55
Speaker 1: it your voice? Is that where we're at with you?
54:58
Speaker 2: Yeah?
54:58
Speaker 4: I mean the way that I've been thinking thinking about
55:00
Speaker 4: it is like I've spent all of these years really
55:04
Speaker 4: dealing with like dark stuff, Like I've been processing all
55:09
Speaker 4: of this like really dark dense reality that has that
55:14
Speaker 4: my life has been entrenched in, and I finally sort
55:17
Speaker 4: of turned it into the fertilizer I need to like
55:21
Speaker 4: just blossom. And so I'm feeling all of these like
55:26
Speaker 4: all this creative energy and like and and and advocacy
55:30
Speaker 4: energy just like shooting out of me. And and I'm
55:33
Speaker 4: and I'm finally like finding partners who recognize my value
55:38
Speaker 4: in that and and don't just try to like tell
55:40
Speaker 4: me to shut up and disappear. And and so I've
55:43
Speaker 4: got a lot to say. I've learned a lot from
55:47
Speaker 4: this process. And and as my husband says, until we
55:52
Speaker 4: convince every single person in the world that I didn't
55:54
Speaker 4: deserve to be accused of a crime, I will keep
55:57
Speaker 4: explaining it to people if they need correction, right right.
56:00
Speaker 2: You know what to do?
56:01
Speaker 4: Yeah, I got well, you know, like that's never been
56:04
Speaker 4: really like my goal. That's just like my husband is just.
56:06
Speaker 2: Like sospective to you though, why you're doing what you're doing,
56:10
Speaker 2: and it's okay to do what you're doing and.
56:12
Speaker 4: Speakers absolutely, and you know what what happened to me
56:15
Speaker 4: is still able to happen to other people because there
56:17
Speaker 4: are still like again, the way that we interrogate people
56:20
Speaker 4: in this country, it follows the same playbook as what
56:23
Speaker 4: happened to me in Italy, and that is happening to
56:26
Speaker 4: people right now. And so I have a very clear
56:31
Speaker 4: vision of how we can change the system for the better.
56:34
Speaker 4: And as long as like my voice in my story
56:36
Speaker 4: can help do that, I will keep doing that.
56:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, that's still empowered I and I love to
56:40
Speaker 1: hear you speak because you speak so well and you've
56:42
Speaker 1: gone through so much. But it's it's from such a
56:44
Speaker 1: human perspective, which I think is that's what people can
56:47
Speaker 1: take away from it.
56:48
Speaker 3: It's just what you.
56:49
Speaker 1: Went through and where you are now and how you've
56:52
Speaker 1: come out and how you're empowered now. You don't want
56:54
Speaker 1: to be the wilting flower in the background that's afraid
56:57
Speaker 1: to use your voice because you're afraid people are going
56:59
Speaker 1: to think that you had something to do with it.
57:01
Speaker 1: You've just you've moved past that, and you're like, I'm
57:03
Speaker 1: going to stand up here on this stage.
57:05
Speaker 3: I'm going to tell you exactly what happened, and you're
57:06
Speaker 3: going to listen to me.
57:07
Speaker 4: I got some mom energy. Now, I'm a mom. I
57:10
Speaker 4: have two young kids, and like.
57:12
Speaker 3: Mom energy, I tell you, something happens when you have kids.
57:15
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, it's like you have to make the world
57:17
Speaker 4: better for them, absolutely, Like it's not just about you anymore,
57:21
Speaker 4: and they should be better to them than it was
57:23
Speaker 4: to me.
57:23
Speaker 1: And things that you didn't think that you would ever
57:24
Speaker 1: be able to do before. Now you have children and
57:26
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, you're just yeah, absolutely do it.
57:32
Speaker 4: Well.
57:32
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us. This has been
57:34
Speaker 1: such an amazing conversation. We appreciate you so much, so
57:38
Speaker 1: make sure you watch.
57:38
Speaker 3: It on Hulu.
57:39
Speaker 1: It's called The Twisted Tail of Amanda Knox. You will
57:41
Speaker 1: not be disappointed and I want to know all your
57:44
Speaker 1: thoughts on what you guys think about it, So please
57:46
Speaker 1: DM me and we'll continue this conversation again later.
57:49
Speaker 4: Sounds great.
57:50
Speaker 3: Thanks for being here.
57:51
Speaker 2: Thank you