A Bitter Sweet Week: Kercher, Knox and Sollecito

Meredith Kercher

This week must have been a bitter sweet week for the parents of Meredith Kercher, Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito. The Italian court this week acquitted Amanda Knox and Rafaele Sollecito of the murder of Meredith Kercher. Now put yourself in the shoes of the parents of these three young people.

Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito have spent nearly 4 years in prison for the murder of Meredith Kercher. It has taken the Italian courts this long to realise that the case against these two was effectively non-existent. The forensic evidence was unreliable and, without it, there was no clear evidence that either Amanda Knox or Rafaele Sollecito were responsible for the murder of Meredith Kercher.

Amanda Knox

If I was the parents of these two innocent young people I would be extremely happy that they have now been acquitted and eventually released from prison. I would however also be furious that it has taken the Italian justice system this long to reach this conclusion. 

Their pathetically slow system, of hearing the appeal on only one day a week, has resulted in two innocent young people wasting 4 years of their young lives in a prison. Time they can never regain and reputations that, despite the innocent verdict, will always be tarnished with a hint of doubt about whether they really were innocent or if they were just lucky enough to beat the justice system.

Raffaele Sollecito

Of course, the parents of the late Meredith Kercher must themselves be devastated. While I am sure they are happy that the two innocent young people have been released, they still wanted justice for their daughter. The police have always claimed that more than one person had been involved in the murder. 

So, with only one person remaining in jail for the murder, does this mean that someone who was involved in the murder of their daughter, is walking around a free person, with very little to no hope of being caught, because so much time has passed since the murder. 

Did the Italian police, because of their incompetence, stop their investigation into the murder of Meredith Kercher too soon? Did the Italian police squander the time that they could have used to find and arrest the real murderer, by pouncing on two innocent victims, for the sake of getting the job done quickly?

A final thought. What is happening to our media? What has happened to objective and factual reporting? It is more and more evident that most journalists have moved from reporting facts, to a position of choosing the message that they wish to relay to readers, listeners and viewers. The media manipulates the audience based on the message they wish to portray. Amanda Knox was branded as guilty very early in this case by the media, predominantly based on her appearance, which media decided, portrayed some truth about an evil menacing and conniving young women. The journalists who covered this story and who did so should be ashamed of themselves. And if we were a member of that audience that accepted the manipulation of the media and too decided that she was guilty, shame on us too.