Amanda Knox sheds tears of joy on hearing that she will be returning home.

by Evan Schwartz ’13

Four years after being arrested for the murder of her British roommate, Meredith Kercher, 24-year-old Amanda Knox has been released from Italian custody, and has returned safely to her home in Seattle, Washington. Speaking for myself, Knox’s release is four years late!

On November 1, 2007, Kercher was raped, stabbed, and robbed in the flat she shared with Knox. Three suspects were arrested for the murder: Rudy Guede, a resident of Perugia, Amanda Knox, and Raffaele Sollecito, an Italian student and Knox’s boyfriend.

All three were charged for the murder, although the Italian courts could not produce any direct DNA evidence tying Knox or Sollecito to the murder. All evidence pointed at Guede, including numerous pieces of DNA found around the crime scene, which allowed the Italian court to charge him a 16 year sentence for the rape and murder.

The tabloids around the world caught hold of this case as tensions flew surrounding their verdicts. The fact that Knox is an American being tried overseas is just incredulous, due to the fact that the government had no circumstantial evidence against her. The Italian government is just too stubborn to admit that they were wrong. Believe it or not, Italians, you are people too; everyone makes mistakes!

On October 3, Knox and Sollecito were released from Italian custody after an appellate court found them, as everyone has already known, not guilty of the murder. It is comforting to know that even after four years, justice has been served, and the innocent set free.