"I miss her," Knox wrote.
Amanda Knox has published an essay memorializing her former roommate, Meredith Kercher, on the 10th anniversary of the young British woman’s brutal slaying.
“Ten years ago tonight, my friend was raped and murdered by a burglar when she was home alone in the apartment we shared while studying abroad in Perugia, Italy,” Knox wrote for Westside Seattle on Wednesday.
Now 30, Knox recounted time spent with her roommate as beautiful and banal, calling Meredith “my closest friend in a new and exciting time in our lives.”
Knox and Kercher lived together with two Italian women in a four-bedroom, ground-floor apartment in Perugia, a well-known artistic and cultural hub often frequented by travelers and students studying abroad.
“I remember that I loved her accent,” Knox wrote. “I remember the time I wanted to get dressed up and she happily loaned me a pair of her tights, like a big sister.”
Trips to the grocery store, joint-ventures to explore a new city they could temporarily call home and moments spent discussing future plans bonded the young women, Knox wrote.
That all came crashing down on Nov. 2, 2007, when Kercher was found dead in their apartment.
Knox was accused of killing Kercher in the apartment they shared. In 2009, she and her then-boyfriend, 23-year-old Italian student Raffaele Sollecito, were convicted of stabbing Kercher to death.
Knox and Sollecito's convictions were eventually overturned and they were freed on appeal two years later.
A third man, 20-year-old Rudy Guede, was ultimately convicted of Kercher’s murder. He remains behind bars.
“My memories of Meredith are buried beneath the horrific autopsy photos and crime scene footage I saw, the slurs I was called, the death threats I received [and still receive], the false accusations I fought, the years of wrongful imprisonment I endured, the multiple trials and slanderous headlines that juxtaposed our names and faces, unfairly interlocking her death with my identity,” Knox wrote.
Because of this, Knox wrote she has “never been allowed to mourn her.”
“There are some people who believe I have no right to mourn Meredith,” Knox wrote. “They believe that I had something to do with her murder — I didn’t — or that Meredith has been forgotten in the wake of my own struggle for justice — she hasn’t.
“Either way, they feel that Meredith and I are inextricably linked, so it’s simply not fair that I haven’t lost everything, as she has. They are wrong,” she continued. “This day of mourning belongs to everyone whose lives Meredith touched.”
She noted like everyone else who cared for Kercher, her entire life changed because of Kercher’s death.
“I hate it that my memories of her are buried beneath the years of suffering Raffaele and I endured in the wake of her murder,” Knox wrote. “And it’s depressing to know that mourning her comes at the price of being criticized for anything I say or don’t say today. But most depressing of all is that Meredith isn’t here, when she deserves to be.
“She is painfully missed by everyone who loved her. I miss her, and I’m grateful for the memories of our time together.”
