THE VICTIMS OF PERUGIA’S MONSTER

When Rudy Guede murdered Meredith Kercher, November 1, 2007, in Perugia, Italy, her family had a reasonable expectation of justice for her and a satisfactory investigation into her death. By June 2013 they have neither. The amateurish investigation was twisted to implicate her innocent roommate, Amanda Knox, Amanda’s friend, Raffaele Sollecito and, briefly, Amanda’s employer, Patrick Lumumba. The Perugian Public Prosecutor, Giuliano Mignini, created a theory that would rival the Italian soap opera “Un Posto al Sole.”

In one version of Mignini’s fevered imagination Meredith is the saintly murder victim who comes home early from a dinner party to study for school, but first she has a romantic interlude with Rudy Guede; they had made a date the night before at a Halloween party. Meredith complains bitterly that Amanda has stolen her rent money and tells Rudy how much she hates the American. Rudy is on drugs, what kind is not specifically mentioned, but he doesn’t offer any to Meredith as the lovers engage in “heavy petting.” Rudy leaves her half-naked in the kitchen to use the toilet just before Amanda and Raffaele arrive. They are stoned out of their minds on nuclear powered marijuana and the thought of her roommate’s sexual activity excites Amanda. She goads Raffaele and Rudy into a group sex encounter by swiveling her hips, batting her eyes and promising the men “intense sexual pleasure.” The unwilling Meredith chaistly puts her clothing on and runs to her bedroom, only to become trapped and set upon by a trio of drugged up, horny psychopaths. Meredith fights valiantly to save herself from a “Sex Game Gone Wrong,” but The Evil Fox, Amanda, and her Sex Slaves, Rudy and Raffaele, overwhelm the sacrificial virgin and, while Amanda and Raffaele hold her down, Rudy rapes her in the ultimate humiliation.

Meredith hurls insults as she is violated which angers Amanda, and in a fit of insane rage Amanda tortures Meredith by pricking her with a knife, then, in a “crescendo of violence,” plunges it into the powerless victim’s throat. While Meredith lays dying, Amanda coldly orders Guede to hop around on his bloody left foot to thoroughly confuse the police as she and Raffaele use another roommate’s bedroom to stage a break-in. Unbeknownst to the hapless Rudy, Amanda and Raffaele have also “cleaned up only their DNA” in Meredith’s bedroom, leaving his behind; the racists have set up the “poor black boy” to take the fall.

By intuition alone the intrepid Prosecutor, Giuliano Mignini, and Napoleoni’s Flying Squad thwart the Evil Fox and her Horndogs, toss them in prison and throw away the key while the crowd cheers and horns blare.

Rudy Guede, after turning state’s evidence, receives a light sentence because he valiantly tried to save Meredith by stanching the flow of blood; somehow he found the strength to be concerned for her welfare after he had just raped her in a sexual frenzy. This is reason, he explains, why his bloody fingerprints are all over the scene, his DNA is all over her Meredith Kercher’s body, and his bloody footprint is on the pillow case under her naked butt. The sly Evil Fox uses an all-powerful PR Machine to pull strings in the hallowed halls of Washington DC and Rome; the Powers That Be free her and Raffaele from prison while placing the blame on poor Rudy and chivalrous Mignini. Today the criminals cackle manically on sun-soaked beaches while servants bring them little umbrella drinks, the brave Perugian Clan continue their quest to return the Evil Fox and Her Sex Slave to prison.

Verdi could not have created a more dramatic tragedy, yet Mignini tries to one up him by writing multiple theories of the crime. In the tradition of the master writing a libretto, he evolves his hypothesis to cover up the holes as they are pointed out to him; it is a hallmark of this murder investigation. And it is almost as if Mignini is trying to please his audience, “Oh you don’t like that theory? How about this one?” The behavior of the police and public minister’s office has rendered Meredith’s murder investigation into a confusing mess, but perhaps that was the plan all along.

The facts are much simpler; Rudy Guede murdered Meredith Kercher in a bungled home invasion.

Dr. Mark Waterbury’s book, The Monster of Perugia – The Framing of Amanda Knox, describes how the investigation into Meredith Kercher’s murder became a Juggernaut out of control crushing the people caught in its path. This Monster has affected hundreds of innocent people to date. Ironically, had the investigation been properly conducted, only Meredith Kercher and Rudy Guede’s community would have been affected, no one would ever have heard of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito.

Giuliano Mignini used slightly evolving versions of the aforementioned scenario as his prosecutorial theory during the 2008 Pretrial and the 2009 First Trial and when the local cops and judges signed off on it they created a situation where factoids overruled facts. The Perugian authorities ignored the copious amounts of Rudy Guede’s DNA found inside Meredith’s bedroom and all over her body, as well as his bloody finger and shoe prints. Guede, after some prodding, worked out a deal with Mignini and fell in line with the Sex game Gone Wrong rationale after first saying Amanda and Raffaele were not involved. In fact, every prosecutorial witness changed his or her original statement to fit into Mignini’s Reefer Madness polizieschi. The Supreme Court halved Guede’s 2008 Fast Track trial guilty verdict in 2010; he is eligible for parole before 2020. Some reports say as early as 2014, only seven years after he killed a promising young woman.

Amanda and Raffaele spent four years in prison for a crime they did not commit, Amanda because she is a college girl having sex and Raffaele for not selling “that whore, that cow” down the river. A vendetta against Innocence and Integrity continues in Perugia, led by Mignini and supported by tainted evidence: A few cells of contested DNA versus copious amounts of Guede’s uncontested DNA.  The university students were found innocent on appeal in 2011 and released from prison, their 2009 guilty verdict overturned because “the crime never happened.”

But the Court of Cassation, Italy’s Supreme Court, sent their case back down to the appeal level for review in March 2013. In late June 2013 the judge’s motivation will explain why and a new appeal trial will start in 2014 to address their concerns, just about the time that Rudy Guede could be paroled. Then the case will return to the Court of Cassation about 2016 for what will hopefully be a final ruling, except under the Italian judicial system the SC could return the case multiple times to the appeal level before they are satisfied. It could take a few more years or a few more decades. Perugians call it “The Amanda Knox curse,” but in reality it is the “The Mignini Curse” and it’s been haunting Perugia for decades as the public record of the esteemed minster shows.

This is also what Perugia calls justice for Meredith.

ETA: March 2015, Amanda and Raffaele were found innocent and exonerated by the Court of Cassation, because “the crime never happened.”

Victimology is a study in how a crime victim’s behavior may have contributed to their situation, how victimization affects a person or a group and the nature of relationships between perpetrators and victims. Meredith, Amanda, Raffaele, their families, friends and supporters can easily provide an entire book on the subject, in fact, this case is already being studied and used as an example in several disciplines; including media studies, law enforcement and the judiciary.

There was a time when no one was a victim of the injustice in Perugia. Meredith, Amanda and Raffaele were students at the universities, average people living average lives, until Rudy Guede entered their world. Meredith (British) and Amanda (American) were studying abroad for the first time and Raffaele (Italian) was nearing completion of a degree. Meredith was slain in the apartment that she shared with Amanda and two Italian women; her body was found the morning after her murder.

Meredith Kercher, 21, is the ultimate victim, the first victim. She was murdered in her bedroom during a violent home invasion robbery. Rudy Guede, the original victimizer, stabbed her in the throat during the struggle and then added insult to injury by stripping her as she lay dying, to simulate “intimate” relations. Evidently this is his poor, and perverted, attempt to establish an alibi. He later went dancing, perhaps spending some of the money he stole from her. He is currently in prison for the murder and will be released by 2020; he took a deal that assured early release if he kept his mouth shut and did what the prosecutors wanted. Additionally, Guede was caught red-handed burglarizing a business in Milan six days before he killed Meredith, but was released to Perugian authorities and put on a train home where he continued his crime spree.

Had the Perugians not interceded on his behalf, Meredith would be alive today instead of a murder victim. The supreme irony.

Amanda Knox, 20, became the next victim, but of the injustice that occurred because Public Prosecutor Mignini and the police allowed themselves to become prejudiced toward her personally instead of allowing the evidence to lead the investigation. Amanda was persecuted and found guilty of murder by a corrupt court in 2009. After enduring years of character assassination in the media, fueled by leaks from Perugian authorities, the appeal court overturned the murder charge in 2011 and released her after four years in prison. Amanda is the victim of the tabloid media who devoured her in an obscene feast and spit out Foxy Knoxy, she was paraded in front of the world as the hip-swiveling mastermind of a Satanic Rite, or sexual game, or a catfight. Ironically, we’re not really sure because the prosecution hasn’t made up its mind yet; there are at least three theories recorded in court documents. The cruel tabloid articles, based on these theories, have produced a bewildering number of “reports” which have only served to confuse the public. The result is thousands of hateful remarks directed at an innocent young woman. It’s shameful.

Raffaele Sollecito, 23, was also falsely accused and found guilty of murder in 2009. He was victimized by the Perugians for not lying to implicate Amanda and so spent six months in solitary confinement, then three and a half years incarcerated with sexual predators, as punishment for his honesty and integrity. Along with Amanda, he was found innocent on appeal and released in 2011. Raffaele was also the victim of the tabloid media and online trolls but to a lesser extent, fortunately for him. He endured being largely ignored or treated as a mindless drone, a willing slave of Amanda. Ironically, Raffaele is the epitome of an Italian Gentleman; he exemplifies attributes that are all but missing in Perugia.

Diya “Patrick” Lumumba, 36, owner of a local club, Le Chic, and Amanda’s employer, was also a victim of false arrest along with Amanda and Raffaele. During an illegal interrogation police forced Amanda to “visualize” Lumumba as the murderer, then used the false information to arrest him at home, terrify his family, shock his neighbors and cripple him financially. Lumumba had an airtight alibi that was ruthlessly ignored until the real murderer, Rudy Guede, was arrested. Patrick spent two weeks in prison and was brutalized while incarcerated. After his release Lumumba sued Amanda for slander; ironically this survivor of the war-torn Congo, who understands police brutality better than most, dismissed the coercive interrogation techniques used on a student 16 years his junior. One can only surmise that he is afraid for his own and his family’s safety. Patrick is a victim of the Perugians and, ironically, a victimizer of Amanda.

The Kercher’s, ironically, are victims of their own lawyers as well as Rudy Guede, their daughter’s murderer. The Perugian legal team misled and deceived them regarding who actually killed their beloved daughter; they were led to believe that her own friend did the monstrous deed. The poor family should not have experienced the farcical trials that followed the investigation into Meredith’s death or faced the mounting legal bills that have trapped them in the judicial system. In John Kercher’s book Meredith, he tells of his confusion at what was happening in Perugia and frustration at the lack of transparency from his legal team.

If their own lawyers won’t tell them the truth, who can they trust?

When the Knox and Sollecito Families became victims of the Perugian justice system and the tabloid media, their sanity and parenting skills were questioned. They were terrorized by death threats, strangers followed family members, pictures were taken by paparazzi who also rifled through their mail, made phone calls at all hours and stood on their doorsteps demanding interviews. All of this is frightening and intrusive behavior.

The Knox family hired a crisis management team, Gogerty Marriott, to protect them from the Razzi Tsunami and then, ironically, was accused by the perpetrators of trying to influence public opinion. All the while the Perugians, tabloids and trolls produced hundreds of lurid and false stories that centered on madness, sex and Satanism, not justice.

Then there is the financial burden, quoted in the millions, and any money from the book deals quickly disappears because of the crippling legal bills. These ordinary people are waging an extraordinary war to find justice, correct public opinion and save their children from the corrupt Perugian justice system.

The psychological effect on these students and their families is devastating not only by the court battles, but also as the memory of Meredith is repeatedly used as a pity party in an effort to emotionally affect public opinion. Justice must be sought for Meredith, but not by victimizing innocent people. Amanda and Raffaele are also stressed out because everything they say and do is twisted to present them as guilty to the public, “paralyzing” them, as Amanda says, so that they are unsure how to defend themselves. Several recent interviews demonstrate how the reporters badger Amanda and Raffaele about behavior (taken out of context and demonized by the tabloid media) rather than discussing the evidence, or obvious lack thereof. Then chide them for taking time to choose their words carefully, alluding that they are not being truthful instead of considering that they are afraid to give the media another chance to misquote them.

The friends of the Kercher, Knox and Sollecito families are victims too, their worry and anguish is matched with the victim families. They were the first to speak out in support of and, in the case of the Knox family, the first to lend money or organize fundraisers to help pay travel and court costs. In some cases, they were the first outside the families to be targeted by the tabloid media who hunted, harangued or misquoted them. They were the first to lend a shoulder to cry on and the first to welcome Amanda and Raffaele back home. The emotional toll on hundreds of people is devastating and cannot be overlooked; they are victims of the Perugian system that tormented their friends.

The Italian People are victims because the prosecutorial salaries, trials and incarceration of Amanda and Raffaele are paid by their taxes; some sources quote the taxpayer price tag in the millions, multimillions by the time the trials run their course. One galling illustration of the financial burden is 182,000 Euros spent on a computer animation of Public Prosecutor Mignini’s theory of the murder; it was shown in court only one time and rejected as “unacceptable.” It was deemed a poorly produced cartoon by many, just one example of tax money flagrantly spent during the investigation into Meredith’s death. Ironically, unjust trials seem to be a form of cottage industry in Perugia.

Taxing the Italian people adds to the money extracted from the defendants as the Kercher, Knox and Sollecito bills are also in the millions. The hard-earned money of all three innocent families is in the Perugian coffers, ill-gotten gains paying their abusers salaries. Blood Money.

Meredith’s British girlfriends became victims of the Perugians when they were squeezed for information about Amanda. Schoolgirl gossip became “proof” that Amanda was a callous murderer. In conjunction with the false information leaked by the Perugians, the ladies were used to further the agenda of the prosecution by tainting public opinion. They became a tool the media used to judge Amanda by; in reality they were all in shock and numbed by the horror of Meredith’s death. The British Virgins, as they are known, did not know that Amanda was a target when they met with the police and much of their testimony can be called hearsay. Imagine how they must feel by now, five years later, realizing that not only is their friend dead, but their words, in grief and shock, are used to start a Smear Campaign against innocent people. Ironically, the ladies were every bit the party girls they proclaimed Amanda to be, just like the other 20,000 or so college women in Perugia.

Many of the volunteers who elected to defend Amanda, Raffaele and their families became victims of the Perugians and the Trolls. Some ended up on a list of foreigners that Mignini tried to sue for slander; some were targeted by Internet Trolls, anonymous bullies using a keyboard as weapon of mass destruction. Though screen names were initially used, eventually true identities of supporters were revealed online and then the taunts would begin. The victims include journalists, authors, professionals and regular folks. Authors Douglas Preston (Mignini’s victim before Amanda), Nina Burleigh and Candace Dempsey have all been targets of the online the Smear Campaign in an attempt to silence them. Preston and Burleigh recently wrote of their victimization experiences and the comment sections of their articles were carpet bombed by trolls.

Ironically, in retribution for speaking the truth, personal information of these victims was tattled in article comment sections, Facebook or the Hate Site forums. Homes, businesses, children, spouses and pets were “discussed” with creepy familiarity. Employers were threatened with legal action and were provided only the prosecutorial point of view, implying that the employee was actively supporting murderers. More than once supporters found themselves explaining to their employers what “those people” were talking about.

The Hate Sites claim to have “100 Lawyers” and regularly threaten the unaware with libel.

The behavior is specifically to intimidate, to get family and supporters to stop spreading the truth that Amanda and Raffaele were completely innocent of harming Meredith. To stop the public from learning the truth that only Rudy Guede’s DNA was left at the murder scene and that he confessed to being there when Meredith was murdered.

The Smear Campaign that began in Perugia generated two Hate Sites (True Justice for Meredith Kercher and Perugia Murder File), both of which then collected and shared vast amounts of information about the court proceedings, court documents, Amanda, Raffaele, their families, friends and supporters, especially the ones who managed websites or wrote articles about the case. The members have alerts set up to “patrol” the internet; when a supporter posts an article the guilters “pile on” in the comment section and ridicule the author in their forums.

The insults often reference personal information specifically designed to humiliate or intimidate, for example Perugia Murder File has collected pictures of me and because I am a plump, middle-aged lady I became victim of their “fat jokes.” As if being fat or middle-aged is a crime.

The Hate Site members also mount letter-writing campaigns to influence and/or threaten websites who host any supporter, as well as anyone who interviews Amanda or Raffaele. Several times in the past supporters were witness to these efforts as the members publicly complied lists of “questions” that the interviewers “should ask” the students. These forums also share the names, physical addresses and emails of the targets on their websites; they encourage “everyone” to write to Katie Couric, Diane Sawyer, Anderson Cooper or whoever the next target is.

These people claim to support Meredith’s family, but by obscuring the truth and defaming innocent people it is truly impossible to understand how this helps anyone discover what happened to that poor girl.  They spend day after day trying to force Amanda and Raffaele into fantastical scenarios that science does not support (can never support), no matter the word count or how many descriptive nouns are piled on. And their verbosity is unparalleled, millions of words have been devoted to smearing Amanda and Raffaele. The average person reading these forums would think that the innocent students, their families and their supporters were the worst of mankind, but aren’t such individuals really just projecting their own faults onto blameless people?

The Kerchers, jmho, need the Defense Team. Ironic, don’t you think?

The level of victimization emanating from tabloids and hate forums rivals the worst case of Internet bullying seen so far; it has affected innocent people in a global arena. The information compiled will be on the Internet for years, if not forever, and the grandchildren of these 20-somethings will be future victims.

The Perugians, both the law enforcement and judicial systems, continue the victimization by terrorizing these two young university students; they stole four years of freedom, crippled the finances of their families and cost the Italian taxpayers millions.

Worst of all, the Perugians lied to a grieving family.

During the initial investigation in 2007 Meredith Kercher’s body told the truth, but the Perugians refused to listen. Don’t help them by perpetuating their lies. Don’t victimize the victims. Learn the truth. Speak the truth. The truth has already set Amanda and Raffaele free.

Now let’s free Meredith Kercher.