All Blog Posts from Crimesider

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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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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PERUGIA, Italy - Amanda Knox, the American student who denies murdering her British roommate, testified that she was shocked by the death of a woman she considered her friend, and said a “crescendo” of police pressure led her to accuse an innocent man.

Knox, 21, from Seattle, had already told the court on Friday that she was not in the apartment she shared with Meredith Kercher on the night in 2007 when the British woman was slain.

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PERUGIA, Italy - Amanda Knox, the American student accused of killing her British flatmate, took the witness stand for the first time Friday, telling the Italian court that she occasionally used drugs at the time of the 2007 slaying.

Knox also repeated her position that she spent the night of the murder, in November 2007, at the house of her co-defendant and ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito in Perugia, central Italy.

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PERUGIA, Italy - Former University of Washington study-abroad student Amanda Knox is scheduled to testify later this week at her murder trial in Italy. The 21-year-old from Seattle and her former boyfriend are accused of killing her housemate in November 2007. Prosecutors say Meredith Kercher was stabbed in the neck and sexually assaulted.

Kercher's mother took the stand last weem and siad she will never get over her daughter's brutal death, who was just 21 when she was found slain in Perugia on Nov. 2, 2007.

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PERUGIA, Italy - The family of a British student killed in Italy in 2007 arrived Friday to testify at the trial of an American student and her ex-boyfriend who are charged with murder and sexual violence.

Meredith Kercher, a 21-year-old student from Leeds University in England, was found stabbed to death on Nov. 2, 2007 in the house she rented in Perugia, central Italy. Her roommate, Amanda Knox, also 21, and Knox's former boyfriend, 25-year-old Raffaele Sollecito, are standing trial. They deny wrongdoing.

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