All Blog Posts from Crimesider

PERUGIA, Italy - American college student Amanda Knox was found guilty of murdering her British roommate and sentenced to 26 years in prison early Saturday after a year-long trial that gripped Italy and drew intense media attention.

Her Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito was also convicted and sentenced to 25 years.

They were also convicted of sexual assault in the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher, a 21-year-old student from England.

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PERUGIA, Italy - An Italian jury has reached a verdict in the trial of American Amanda Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, who are standing trial for the murder of Knox' British roommate Meredith Kercher.

The court is expected to announce the verdict at 6 p.m. EST, from the eight members of the jury, including two judges, who were sequestered in a room in the Perugia courthouse.

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PERUGIA, Italy - As her lawyers make their last efforts to convince a jury of her innocence, Amanda Knox also made a final statement to the court and swore she was not an "assassin" in the 2007 murder of her British roommate Meredith Kercher.

Knox addressed the court in Perugia, Italy Thursday, before the eight members of the jury go into deliberations.

Her voice breaking as she fought back tears, Knox said in Italian she is "scared of having the mask of an assassin forced" onto her.

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PERUGIA, Italy - The murder charges against Amanda Knox are "pure fantasy" according to the American student, who addressed an Italian court over the weekend.

Knox, along with two others, is accused in the fatal stabbing of her British roommate Meredith Kercher.

Italian prosecutors, in their closing arguments, said Knox and her Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, should be convicted on charges of murder and sexual violence for the 2007 slaying.

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PERUGIA, Italy - Minutes before her death, British student Meredith Kercher was fighting with her American roommate Amanda Knox, according to Rudy Hermann Guede, the man already convicted of killing her.

There was a loud scream and Kercher ended up dead, the Ivory Coast native said at the opening of his appeal in a Perugia, Italy court.

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ROME - Forensic experts and other defense witnesses will be taking the stand as an American student and her former Italian boyfriend try to defend themselves against charges they killed her British roommate.

The trial of Amanda Knox and co-defendant Raffaele Sollecito in Perugia, central Italy, reopens Monday after a summer break of nearly two months. A DNA expert and consultant for the defense is expected to challenge some of the evidence collected at the crime scene.

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ROME - Thirty women. Eighteen parties. Guests willing to supply sex "if the need arises."

Two Italian newspapers published what they described Wednesday as excerpts from prosecutors' interrogation of a businessman who said he paid dozens of women to attend parties at Premier Silvio Berlusconi's Sardinia villa and his Rome residence.

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Video Courtesy Of NBC's Today Show

NEW YORK - The best friend of Amanda Knox, the American college student charged with murdering her British roommate in Italy, testified in court this weekend. Meanwhile, Knox’s defense attorneys tried to poke holes in the prosecution's case.

Knox and her Italian former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, are on trial on charges of murder and sexual violence in the 2007 slaying of Meredith Kercher in Perugia, central Italy. Both deny wrongdoing.

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Perugia, Italy - Amanda Knox's mother spoke to the Early Show Saturday Edition this weekend and tried to punch holes in the prosecution's murder case against her daughter.

Knox's mother, Edda Mellas, testified Friday and was in court as a spectator on Saturday. Speaking from outside the courthouse, Mellas told Early Show Saturday Edition co-anchor Chris Wragge, "One of the big things you don't hear a lot about is the fact that, at the actual crime scene, there's no, no physical evidence of Amanda - not a hair, not a fingerprint ... nothing. "The DNA (prosecutors say was found at the scene) is so insignificant - it's this tiny spot, it's not blood, it could well have come from ... who knows where."

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PERUGIA, Italy - The mother of Amanda Knox, the American student accused of killing her British roommate in Italy, said Friday that her daughter and the victim "got along great."

Amanda Knox is on trial on charges of murder and sexual violence in the 2007 slaying of Meredith Kercher in Perugia, central Italy. Her mother, Edda Mellas, took the stand on Friday. She said there were no problems between her daughter and Kercher.

"They got along great," Mellas told the eight-member jury. "She told me about the fun things she and Meredith did," she said, without elaborating.

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