Murder in ancient Perugia

Clint Van Zandt • Profile • E-mail

The brightly colored Ferris wheel that sits high atop a hill in the idyllic university community of Perugia, Italy, turned slowly in the cool night air.  No passengers were brave enough to ride on the wheel as to do so would put them face to face with the cold air that warned of the coming of winter.  After all, you could see Perugia from just about anywhere from this hillside, even without the benefit of a Ferris wheel ride.

It was about a mile from the turning Ferris wheel, in a rented house overlooking the same community, that 21-year-old British exchange student Meredith Kercher was murdered.  Halloween night was party night in Perugia, but the young students who call this beautiful community home seem to see most nights as party nights.  Kercher apparently fit right in with the hundreds of students and other young and not so young men and women who strolled through the large piazza or town square.  Her costume that evening included fake blood, perhaps a terrible harbinger of her fate within the next 24 hours.  Like many others that Halloween eve, Kercher walked from bar to bar, party to party in celebration of the holiday 

Kercher’s new American roommate, 20-year-old Amanda Knox from Washington state, worked part-time at Le Chic, one of the local bars.  Le Chic was owned by Patrick Lumumba, a 40-something-year-old man from the Congo.  Lumumba had complained about Knox, indicating that she spent more time socializing with the young men that came into the bar than working the busy tables as a waitress.  Lumumba appeared to like Kercher when he met her and talked about hiring her, perhaps with her replacing Knox.  However, this was not the only point of contention between the two young women. 

One report said Kercher was having second thoughts about her new roommate Knox, who shared the multi-bedroom house at via della Pergola 7 with Kercher and two other young women.  As the story goes, Kercher had told her father of her displeasure with the number and type of men that Knox brought into their shared residence, and of Knox’s lack of responsibility in taking her turn in cleaning the house and in generally cleaning up after herself.  The short three-week relationship appeared to be in trouble.

The next day, Nov. 1, was All Saints Day, celebrated by the closing of the local colleges, so Kercher slept in.  She would eventually wind up at the local residence of two friends from the UK where she shared food and a movie, eventually walking home later that evening.  Knox told authorities that she and her new boyfriend, 23-year-old Italian student Raffaele Sollecito, the son of a prominent doctor, were together that evening.  Knox would then tell police other versions of her whereabouts that fateful night.

One story has her with Sollecito at his apartment, where she had previously spent the night.  A second version has her at her own residence along with Kercher.  In that version Lumumba, her possibly soon-to-be ex-boss, has come by because he wants to have a relationship with Kercher.  Knox, who admitted that she and Sollecito had been smoking hashish for part of the day, told police that Kercher and Lumumba went into Kercher’s bedroom, followed by the sound of screams and loud thuds from the room.  Knox said she covered her ears so not to hear what was going on, what she would conclude was the assault of Kercher by Lumumba.

Knox, however, would soon revert back to story No. 1, indicating that Sollecito was her alibi for the evening.  Sollecito, however, has also told different versions of his activities the night Kercher was brutally murdered, to include being with Knox and being alone in his apartment for hours while he surfed the Internet and spoke to his father on the phone.  Forensic police, however, say that they can find no indication of purposeful activity on Sollecito’s computer that night, and they have been unable to confirm any telephone call between Sollecito and his father.

Notwithstanding the various stories told by Knox and her boyfriend, what has been confirmed is that Meredith Kercher died a violent death in the closing hours of Thursday, Nov. 1.  Italian telephone police were led to the local area the following morning when a neighbor reported finding two cell phones abandoned in her yard. The two cell phones (one Italian and one British), were quickly traced to Kercher and her nearby residence. As police arrived, they found Knox and Sollecito talking together outside of the home. 

The young couple explained they had spent the night together at Sollecito’s apartment, and that Knox had returned home to shower and change clothes.  Knox said she had found blood in a bathroom and, believing this strange, looked around the residence and found Kercher’s bedroom locked.  Knox told Sollecito of her concerns and Sollecito allegedly called his sister, who worked for the police, who told him to call the Italian equivalent of “911.”  He would tell the arriving telephone police that he had completed this emergency call shortly before the police arrived, but his cell phone records don’t support this timeline. 

The police then entered the residence, forced open the locked bedroom door, and found Kercher nude and dead from stab wounds to her neck.  The local police and homicide detectives were then called to the scene, along with the local prosecutor.  Investigators found it strange that Knox, whose house key they say would open any room in the house, hadn’t used her key to check on Kercher.