Her beauty has dimmed considerably over the past two years, and it is this change of circumstance — as much as new DNA evidence and forensic findings and a distinct shift in public opinion — that may very well lead to a lesser sentence, if not an acquittal, of Amanda Knox.
Since her arrest in the 2007 murder of her 21-year-old roommate Meredith Kercher, her case has riveted much of the western world. Knox, then a 20-year-old college student from Seattle, was studying abroad in a small town in Italy, a blithe and frivolous girl who dubbed herself “Foxy Knoxy” online. She shared an apartment with Kercher and two other young women, both Italian law students; all three maintained they were not home the night of Nov. 1, 2007, when Kercher was stabbed to death in her bedroom.
Knox quickly fell under suspicion, and her bizarre behavior in the immediate aftermath — making out with her boyfriend as police recovered Kercher’s body, doing yoga and cartwheels in the police station as she awaited interrogation — only fed into the theory that cops and prosecutors were working up: They believed that Knox and her boyfriend of two weeks, Raffaele Sollecito, had brutally murdered Kercher after forcing her to participate in a ritualistic orgy gone awry, Knox’s defiant denials and curious lightheartedness further proof of her amorality.
The Italians developed a complicated relationship with Amanda Knox, vilifying her as a sexually rapacious American woman while also voting her 2008’s “Woman of the Year” in their version of People magazine, praising her honey-streaked hair and incandescent skin as “bella!” It’s this very tension that informs Nina Burleigh’s fascinating new book, “The Fatal Gift of Beauty: The Trials of Amanda Knox,” which explores the ways in which Knox’s physical presentation worked against her. For all those annual studies that show attractive people make more money, are perceived as smarter, friendlier and kinder, and have an easier time procuring favors — if ever accused of homicide, they’re advised to play that stuff down.
As the concurrent Casey Anthony case proved, the notion that a young, attractive, privileged white woman could commit such a deviant crime strikes many as both shocking and fascinating, with looks as the ultimate determining factor in how much interest the public expresses. The frumpy and unattractive Susan Smith, who drove her children into a lake, was swiftly dismissed as a monster. Same with Andrea Yates, who killed her children in a bathtub, and Aileen Wuornos, whose distinction as one of the few female serial killers in history was not enough to blunt her unfortunate physiognomy.
“The archetype of femaleness that holds sway in Italy is primeval and strangely pagan,” Burleigh says. “Women are viewed as soothing and maternal, but also terrifying in a sexual way. This case hooked into that.”
Perugia, the town in which Knox lived, is incredibly provincial, nearly every doorway studded with images of the nursing Madonna. “It’s a town of Masons and occult clubs,” Burleigh says. “It’s spooky.” Perugia’s a suspicious, closed-off culture, extreme even in a country that still makes it nearly impossible for women to file for divorce yet has a prime minister who’s appointed showgirls to Parliament.
“The Italians are not an assimilated people,” Burleigh says. “They have a pretty schizophrenic, vexed attitude toward the female.” And their legal system is Byzantine, with the accused considered guilty until proven innocent. Once on trial, Amanda Knox’s odd behavior once again worked only to damn her. She breezed into court in jeans and flowy tops, flashing wide smiles to family members, passing chocolates, doodling or zoning out during testimony. Meanwhile, the female head of the homicide division showed up every day “in skin-tight white jeans with her cleavage hanging out,” says Burleigh. “She looked like a black-haired Donatella Versace.”
For her part, Knox did nothing to play down her beauty the way Casey Anthony did — a shrewd suppression of sex appeal that burst out the day after her acquittal, Anthony showing up to court in a beehive, wearing candy-colored pink lip gloss and a tight sweater, grinning uncontrollably.
“Nobody advised Amanda to dress appropriately, to look somber,” Burleigh says. “She had no gravitas. Now you see her in the appeal — she wears appropriate clothing, never smiles. She looks grave.”
Burleigh — who initially thought Knox guilty until she began her own investigation — admits that Knox’s behavior is disturbing. In the book, Knox comes off as borderline mentally retarded, incapable of understanding why it’s not a good idea to do yoga at the police department or joke around at your own murder trial.
“Amanda’s incredibly naive and sort of odd,” Burliegh says. “I don’t know 100% what she did that night, but she did not stab Meredith to death.”
Evidence presented by the defense in Knox’s appeal, currently underway, proves as much — as does the arrest, confession and conviction of Rudy Guede, whose fingerprints were found all over the crime scene and who is now serving a 16-year-sentence in the murder of Kercher. Amanda Knox got 26 years — one more than her former boyfriend Sollecito.
Though her case now looks promising, Knox and her family have been warned not to be overly optimistic. Logic and facts have not won out so far, and the prosecutor in the case has gone on record as stating that even though Knox wasn’t in the room, he still thinks she’s guilty. “It’s really like a pagan rite,” says Burleigh, “the inevitability of the way this girl had to be paraded out as a beauty and then punished for her sado-sexual appetites.”
Knox herself has learned not to say much, but she’s expressed upset at her depiction in the Italian press and especially a recent Lifetime TV movie that she claims has defamed her. And she seems to have wised up to what may really determine her fate here: “I am shocked by the media invasion of my life,” she has said, “and the speculation on my skin.”