From the Author:
Candace Dempsey talks candidly about Murder in Italy, the true story of Amanda Knox, the U.S. college student convicted of killing Meredith Kercher her college roommate. Interview by Amy Mikel of Seattlest
I'm a Italian-American writer whose life got sideswiped by the Amanda Knox case. Before I got pulled in, I'd been a magazine editor, a newspaper editor and a Web producer at MSN. I'd written for many newspapers and magazines, including The Chicago Tribune, and many of my travel stories had been anthologized. I fully intended to do a travel book called "From Rome to Africa," but once I began covering Amanda's case, I couldn't write about anything else.
Everything changed in November 2007. I'd just returned from the Rome to Tunisia adventure when I heard that British student Meredith Kercher had been murdered in Perugia, Seattle's sister city. Amanda Knox, the main suspect, was from Seattle, my hometown. She was an honor student at the University of Washington.
All of that struck me as horribly ironic and sad. Because who hasn't dreamed of Italy? Who wouldn't want to study there? I'd dreamed of doing that myself, but I'm the middle child of seven children. I worked my way through college. I could barely afford my tuition, let alone anything extra.
Why has the Amanda Knox case mesmerized the world?
It's a once-in-a century crime story. Sex, drugs, lies, videotape, money, beautiful young people. Characters that John Grisham couldn't invent. Trial by media in Italy, the U.S. and the U.K. Paparazzi. British tabloids. Facebook, MySpace, leaked diaries, wiretaps, a prosecutor under indictment.
It reads like a novel, but it's all true: Two lovely college students from two different nations dream of studying in a hilltop town and become roommates. Right after Halloween night, one roommate is stabbed to death; the other is locked up for killing her. Why? How? What does it mean? Who's telling the truth?
The Amanda Knox case is a train wreck. I couldn't look away. I still can't.
When did you start covering the Amanda Knox case?
Right away. I wrote about Meredith's horrific murder on my blog, hosted by seattlepi.com, and got a tremendous reaction from all over the world. But nobody wanted to talk about the victim. They only wanted to shout about this horrible Amanda Knox, aka "Angel Face," "Foxy Knoxy," "Luciferina." The girl the Italians called "a huntress of men, insatiable in bed." I didn't know anything about Amanda Knox. Didn't know anybody who knew her. But my readers wanted her lynched. They said it was too bad that Italy didn't have the electric chair.
That made me curious. Who killed Meredith Kercher? How did Amanda Knox become the prime suspect? Could she possibly be innocent?
In those days Amanda Knox's guilt was simply assumed, everywhere in the world. She was Meredith's killer. Case closed. I wondered how we could be so sure. She was an excellent student and had no motive. No criminal record. She'd known Raffaele Sollecito, her boyfriend and supposed co-conspirator, only six days. Raffaele had never met Rudy Guede, their alleged co-conspirator.
So I started checking the facts. I wrote "Trial by Trollerazzi," and "What If She's Innocent?" I reaped the whirlwind.I got attacked all over the blogosphere. Murder in Italy grew out of all that.
Can you give me a rough timeline of how Murder in Italy came together?
In February 2008, I pitched Murder in Italy at the Whidbey Island Writers' Conference. By then I had many sources in Italy and the U.S. and was working on the Amanda Knox case 24/7. At Whidbey I met thriller writer William Dietrich, a Pulitzer-prize winning investigative reporter, and he gave me tips on how to research a crime tale. He referred me to his agent, Andrew Stuart, who sold Murder In Italy to Penguin/Berkley Books.
Also at Whidbey I met Erik Larson, the author of The Devil in the White City and he advised me to write Murder in Italy in chronological order, focusing on Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox. That's what I did.
Instead of just reproducing the courtroom drama, I used the testimony to weave a mystery story, a la Ann Rule of Seattle, my favorite crime writer. The book unfolds like a movie, starting with a happy Italian Halloween. I divided it into three acts, ending with Amanda and Raffaele's conviction.
Were you ever concerned that you wouldn't be able to get your hands on enough of the source material to research and write a book?
Never. Perugia is like a true crime store. Italians leak everything from autopsy photos to letters, diaries, videos, and wiretaps. All of those I used in the book, along with the courtroom testimony. I went to Perugia often, at great personal expense, and interviewed the key players, including prosecutor Giuliano Mignini. In addition, the suspects all kept Facebooks, MySpace pages. I interviewed Amanda's family and friends, in Seattle and Perugia. I was in court when Meredith's friends testified; I used their actual words in the book, never needing to invent or exaggerate anything. As one tabloid reporter said in regards to the amount of information out there, "It was a feast."
In fact, my only problem was trimming the book down. My fabulous editor, Shannon Jamieson Vasquez, said I had enough for eight books. She's Italian-American, had studied in Perugia, is fluent in Italian, and had edited many mystery books. She helped me decide what to leave in, what to take out.
What has the overall reaction been to your book?
I love it when people tell me that Murder in Italy reads like a novel. That means I've told a good tale, as well as done the hard reporting. I also like it when people come to my readings, have opposite ideas about Amanda's guilt, and yet can have civil conversations. That never happens on the Internet, where everything is polarized and vicious. I've had husbands and wives disagree completely about the case and yet tell me that they enjoyed talking to each other about my book. I also love to hear from readers and find out what they think.
From the Back Cover:
In Perugia, Italy, on November 2, 2007, police discovered the body of a British college student stabbed to death in her bedroom. The prosecutor alleged that the brutal murder had occurred during a drug-fueled sex game gone wrong. Her housemate, American honor student Amanda Knox, quickly became the prime suspect and soon found herself the star of a sensational international story, both vilified and eroticized by the tabloids and the Internet.
Award-winning Italian-American journalist Candace Dempsey gives readers a front-row seat at the trial and reveals the real story behind the media frenzy.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.