Deadly exchange

Investigators found that 21-year-old Meredith Kercher had slowly choked to death from a stab wound to her throat, alive for perhaps an hour or more, lying on her back, drowning in her own blood.

Reporter Richard Owen is covering the story for the London Times.

Richard Owen: The judge's report on this says that she died a slow and agonizing death.

The revelation of the murder began here a quarter mile away from the crime scene when a woman in this apartment building discovered that a cell phone had been tossed in her garden. She called the police and they traced the phone to one Meredith Kercher.

As the police approached Meredith Kercher's house to return the apparently stolen cell phone, they saw two people outside. Amanda Knox and her boyfriend, Raffaeale Sollecito. They told the cops that it looked as though someone had broken into the house.

Amanda told the police she'd spent Thursday night, Nov. 1, at her boyfriend Raffaele's house and returned home about 10:30 a.m. Friday morning only to see her front door open and spots of blood on the bathroom mat.

Despite the very troubling signs of a break-in, Amanda says she still took a shower then went to get her boyfriend. That's when the police showed up about 12:30 p.m.

Richard Owen: The police then find that Meredith Kercher's bedroom door is locked and they break--and that Amanda and Raffaele are concerned about this--they break it down and they find her body with her throat cut.

The electrifying story went international when Italian investigators--based on early forensic evidence--theorized that Meredith had been killed because she refused to play along in a group sex game.

Who'd been in the house? Who held the knife or knives? The crime scene technicians gathered bags of evidence from the cottage as detail after shocking detail was leaked to reporters.

The media had a field day when it found Amanda's MySpace webpage. Her online nickname was "Foxy Knoxy." She'd posted a leggy glam shot of herself as well as a disturbing short story about a rapist who says about women, "A thing you have to know about chicks is that they don't know what they want ... you have to show it to them."

Amanda was played as the American with the ice-cold eyes.

Her boyfriend Raffaele had a webpage site too with that ghoulish photo of him holding a meat cleaver.

He described himself as "Christian ... honest peaceable sweet but sometimes totally crazy."

Dennis Murphy: Sollecito says that he has a taste for marijuana. He enjoys it, it calms him down.

Owen: He does. He admits that.

Raffaele also blogged that he sought out "extreme sensations."

His story was he'd never been at the house that night. He was home watching the movie "Amelie" and downloading stuff on his computer.

Amanda told the police she was with her boyfriend the whole night after spending the evening smoking marijuana.

Richard Owen: Her first story is that she was at Raffaele's flat. And came back the next morning with him to find, to find the body, a tale of shock on the part of a flat mate. Except that according to police and witnesses she showed very little emotion when questioned by police. However she insisted that she was not there.

But that first account from Amanda was about to change in eye-popping fashion.

Then the Italian papers were leaked a juicy morsel, more about Amanda and Raffaele's weird demeanor, a growing theme in the coverage.

On Saturday, the day after Meredith had been found murdered, Amanda and her boyfriend reportedly made a spectacle of themselves shopping for lingerie in a store off the city's main square, making out, and talking loudly about getting it on.

Richard Owen: Their conversation was clearly overheard by the store keeper who took the money at the till and heard, heard them saying this to each other the day after her flat mate’s body has been discovered. This is very odd behavior.

Dennis Murphy: This is really hot underwear and we're going to have a great time tonight?

Owen: It was, precisely right. It is a couple of thongs and why don't we go home and, as you say, have a great time in bed.

By this time Italian authorities were bugging every phone call placed and received by the young lovers. Amanda is reported to have said to Raffaele "I can't keep this up."

The two were brought in for repeated questioning at the police station. Amanda insisted Meredith was "sweet and sensitive,” a friend she loved living with.

But the investigators were getting their lab work back and the pair's alibi didn't match what they were finding. They'd seized the boyfriend's knife collection.

An analysis of his computer revealed that he hadn't been on-line for hours downloading as he'd claimed.

And authorities wanted to know why both Amanda and Raffaele turned off their cell phones the night of the murder at almost exactly the same time, 8:40 p.m. Was it to avoid being tracked by the cell phone towers?

Four days after the body was found, Amanda and her boyfriend were arrested as suspects.

That's when Amanda cracked and came out with a totally new story. Yes--she had been at the house the night Meredith was murdered and -- a startling new detail -- so was her boss from the bar, Patrick Lumumba.

Amanda said she'd arranged to meet Lumumba at the nearby basketball court about 8:30 p.m. the night of the murder and together they walked the short distance to the rental house to await Meredith's return from her night of pizza and a movie.

Richard Owen: Well, then she said that he had desired Meredith. He had wanted to go to bed with her, basically, and that she had helped him to meet Meredith. That at the cottage Patrick had disappeared into Meredith’s bedroom, that she, Amanda, was outside the bedroom ... and as Patrick Lumumba attacked her flat mate and she put her fingers in her ears and doesn't remember what happened afterwards.

Lumumba was arrested at his apartment. But if Amanda thought that her new story, laying the murder on Lumumba, would get her and her boyfriend off the hook, it didn't work.

Her mother had flown in from Seattle for a prison visit.

(Amanda's mother talking to press)
She's sure that as the investigation continues the truth will come out and she'll be proven innocent, it's gone with one tragedy with the death of Meredith to know the tragedy that my daughter's living in. It's a terrible situation.

There were plenty of forensic details still to process and sort through, but the authorities were confident the three had been in on it together. Lumumba, Amanda and the boyfriend in a haze of drugs and sexual thrill-seeking had ended up murdering Meredith Kercher. Case closed.

But there was a problem with Case Closed. A big one. The forensic experts had found irrefutable evidence of a fourth suspect in the house, a man.

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