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Killer Says Knox at Scene
During his Wednesday appeal hearing, the 22-year-old man convicted of murdering Meredith Kercher in 2008 says he did not kill or rape the 21-year-old British student and that he saw Seattle student Amanda Knox fleeing the murder scene as Kercher lay bloody and dying. Rudy Guede, whose testimony comes two days before the murder trial of Amanda Knox and her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, is scheduled to resume in Perugia, Italy, also told the court that he overheard the two women shouting and Kercher scream while he was in the shower. "I went into the corridor and looking out of the window saw going away the outline of Amanda Knox. I didn't know what had happened, a few minutes earlier everything had been calm and then this had happened," said Guede. Guede's feces and blood were found at the murder scene but his attorneys have asked that witnesses and evidence be re-examined in the appeal, particularly the towels Guede allegedly used to try to stop Kercher from bleeding. The prosecutor told the judge that reexamination is "a waste of time." Guede is currently serving a 30-year sentence outside of Rome.
wiseone
Rudy Guede's testimony appears plausible because his fingerprints are not on the knife. Maybe he did or did not try to save kercher's life by attempting to stop the blood with towels. However the fact remains Kercher was killed by her throat being slit and Knox's DNA was on the knife handle.
hfb1053
His testimony sounds sketchy, at best, to me. He says he was taking a shower and then went to check. All of this could be true and they may be scapegoating him but I don't think it points to Amanda Knox as being the killer either. Perhaps, as is often the case, the police focused on the wrong people from the start.
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n--Y--maladapteddjanimaequeen
Just like the legal system in Italy is so fair and unbiased. Look at how long it is taking to try this white girl. And how long did it take to convict the black guy? They sent him up the river before they even processed all the evidence. I hope that male pattern baldness bit*h gets life. She did it.
piktor
Guede asked for a fast-track trial.
whipmawhopma
djanimaequeen - I agree with you that Amanda Knox 'did it' or was an agent in the murder, though of course that is only an opinion.
Rudy Guede specifically asked for a separate and 'fast tracked' trial. The speed of his trial had nothing to do with being a 'black guy'.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=5762914&page=1
His lawyers thought that there wasn't enough evidence to convict and didn't want him tried along with the other two.
The outcome of the trial was perhaps related to his being a 'black guy', or maybe not.
Italy is an interesting place. I read 'The Dark Heart of Italy' by Tobias Jones earlier in this century, and I was left with the impression that in a trial part of the weight of whether to convict or not was the general impression that the locals had about the defendant, how outraged the locals are by the crime, and how brazen the defendant was in denying the crime, plus the support of friends and family. Perhaps not unlike Italian opera.
Hence someone like Silvio Berlusconi, who would be ruined as a politician in the United States by now, is still Prime Minister of Italy. It's not just proof that seems to count in Italy.
Which isn't to say that Italian doesn't have a racism problem, particularly among the northerners.
Rudy Guede seems to be an uncharming person, and mostly a freeloader, based on what I've read about the him and the trial, but I sincerely believe that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and not an agent in the murder of Meredith Kercher.
piktor
If you have followed this case, it becomes mukier by the day.
Some arguments point to Knox and Sollecito, some do not.
Nothing makes real sense. Knox has given three or four different versions of the night in question. Sollecito says he remembers nothing from that night.
The prosecution has some stron evidence but does not have "definitive" evidence. Their theory of events that led to a murder sometimes makes sense, sometimes it sounds like a farce.
The parents of the slain girl are convinced Knox/Sollecito are guilty, the same as several judges that have reviewed the case and recommended the pair be put on trial.
Maybe all the equivocating by Knox/Sollecito will send them to jail in the end.
AmericanPravda
I don't know what Knox is guilty of, but she certainly is guilty of something; either murder or an accomplice to murder.
Her behaviour directly following the murder was, to say the least, odd. Nevertheless, it was behaviour in keeping with a guilty person with severe psychiatric problems.
speekup
This case only gets murkier and murkier. How can we imagine the extent of damage to this poor young woman developing and ending in less than 10 minutes, which is what you would gather from Rudy's account? And there's too much evidence to believe these are totally the "wrong people." His DNA is there and the other two have never had an alibi except for transparent lies, so they're in it too (unless you really believe in marijuana induced total amnesia). But there may never be clarity.
whipmawhopma
speekup - "His DNA is there"
He was frequent guest, being a mooch. So of course his DNA was there. He also stated that he attempted to help Meredith Kercher so yet more opportunity to contaminate the crime scene. Oh, and he had sex with the victim in the very recent past, so there's more DNA.
speekup
ww,
I don't get your point here about the DNA, but above you say that Rudy was "at the wrong place at the wrong time." To anyone who knew Meredith it was seen as absolutely impossible that she would at that time have had voluntary sex with him or even allowed him to touch her. She was on her way home to study that night and she was a dedicated student, she had a boyfriend she really cared for---and she just wasn't the type. So if he molested her sexually, as his DNA shows, seems to me he was sort of in the "wrong place."
piktor
speekup -- The storyline does not make much sense, as told by the three accused. The prosecution's story is equally weak and not believable. There is a dead girl, nonetheless.
whipmawhopma
speekup - Well, then. There always seems to more to this story.
whipmawhopma
speekup - Specific to DNA, if you can think of anybody's home that you've frequented, then you've left DNA there. It's constantly falling off or out of our bodies. From reading what there is to read on this story, Guede was known to have been in their dwelling, so the DNA would have been expected present.
As for the sex, that might be a different matter, but quite often it boils down to the typical he said \ she said, except that the she in this case is dead. Guede could be guilty of murder, but he seems more like a patsy and a fool.
pinkypete
His new story is just too perfect. It is carefully drafted to hit all the unsolved issues raised in the Knox trial, and gets him off the hook completely: he was just there taking a poop on the toilet grooving to his ipod when this horrible murder broke out. Nice fiction, carefully crafted.
donnybrkgr
Feces? Were there ANY fingerprints on the knife?
piktor
The knife was picked up at Sollecito's. Knox had bought the morning after the murder two bottles of bleach. There is a receipt with the date and time of purchase. The store owner remembers her that early morning because she was the first client. She says she left Sollecito's at 10AM and went straight to her apartment. Does not mention the bleach or the store where it was purchased. The knife was cleaned with just one fingerprint left on it, not Guede's.
If all this points to Knox/Sollecito, well, how will the jury react?
speekup
The bleach receipt didn't finally pan out as relevant; the one found was evidently from many weeks previous. Another store employee has said she never saw Knox that morning and she was working the register. Also, to WW (above) as far as I've read, no one who lived in, or frequented, the murder apartment ever saw Guede visit there. He did occasionally hang out with the guys downstairs who were more stoner types. So Guede's DNA at the scene was probably only from the murder night. The evidence is all pretty "iffy" but I do think Knox, and probably Sollecito too, will be convicted, because iffy or not, there's a lot of it.
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