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When Innocence Doesn't Matter: Ordeals of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito
A narrative of relevant events before, during, and after the murder of Meredith Kercher on November 1, 2007 in Perugia, Italy by retired Forensic Engineer Ron Hendry. A major focus is on missteps and misconduct by the police and prosecution that led to the murder conviction of two exemplary university students, Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito.
As the narrative progresses, the Author points out an assortment of failures by the police in their investigation and interpretation of the crime scene. The Author then describes several instances of misconduct by both the police and prosecution during the illegal interrogations and the later all out effort to develop evidence toward the conviction of the two innocent students.
Following the narrative is a section of arguments with regard the bogus evidence, indicators of the innocence of Amanda and Raffaele, a fundamental investigation flaw, and recommendations for improvements in laws to better protect the innocent.
Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were tried for the murder of Meredith Kercher and related charges three times with two guilty verdicts and one innocent verdict in between. Along the way they spent four years in prison for crimes they did not do. Their long legal battle abruptly ended on March 27, 2015 when Italy’s highest court vacated the latest guilty verdict and declared they were innocent.
The Author is retired Forensic Engineer Ron Hendry, who in June of 2010 was provided extraordinary access to police crime scene videos and photos. His analysis uncovered several important findings overlooked by the police investigation with one being that the victim’s bra had been torn off by hand instead of being cut off. Another important finding was that sloppy handling of bloody boots by the police had led to deposits of blood under the victim’s bed that the police later claimed had been made during a cover-up of the crime immediately after it occurred.
A series of articles containing his findings and reconstruction work were published in the Injustice In Perugia www.injusticeinperugia.org website in the fall of 2010.
The full set of police crime scene photos analyzed by the Author in 2010, are now available on the internet. Selected police crime scene photos are used to illustrate points and actions depicted in the narrative.
Author Ron Hendry published an earlier e-book entitled “The Single Attacker Theory of the Murder of Meredith Kercher” in August 2013 which was focused on a detailed graphic description of the night of the murder. He has previously written and published a sports history book entitled “Athens Day in the Sun”, which is available in hardback on Amazon. In 2014, he authored an eight part investigative series on the murder of Kent Heitholt, which was published on the Justice for Kent Heitholt Facebook and the Injustice Anywhere sites.
As the narrative progresses, the Author points out an assortment of failures by the police in their investigation and interpretation of the crime scene. The Author then describes several instances of misconduct by both the police and prosecution during the illegal interrogations and the later all out effort to develop evidence toward the conviction of the two innocent students.
Following the narrative is a section of arguments with regard the bogus evidence, indicators of the innocence of Amanda and Raffaele, a fundamental investigation flaw, and recommendations for improvements in laws to better protect the innocent.
Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were tried for the murder of Meredith Kercher and related charges three times with two guilty verdicts and one innocent verdict in between. Along the way they spent four years in prison for crimes they did not do. Their long legal battle abruptly ended on March 27, 2015 when Italy’s highest court vacated the latest guilty verdict and declared they were innocent.
The Author is retired Forensic Engineer Ron Hendry, who in June of 2010 was provided extraordinary access to police crime scene videos and photos. His analysis uncovered several important findings overlooked by the police investigation with one being that the victim’s bra had been torn off by hand instead of being cut off. Another important finding was that sloppy handling of bloody boots by the police had led to deposits of blood under the victim’s bed that the police later claimed had been made during a cover-up of the crime immediately after it occurred.
A series of articles containing his findings and reconstruction work were published in the Injustice In Perugia www.injusticeinperugia.org website in the fall of 2010.
The full set of police crime scene photos analyzed by the Author in 2010, are now available on the internet. Selected police crime scene photos are used to illustrate points and actions depicted in the narrative.
Author Ron Hendry published an earlier e-book entitled “The Single Attacker Theory of the Murder of Meredith Kercher” in August 2013 which was focused on a detailed graphic description of the night of the murder. He has previously written and published a sports history book entitled “Athens Day in the Sun”, which is available in hardback on Amazon. In 2014, he authored an eight part investigative series on the murder of Kent Heitholt, which was published on the Justice for Kent Heitholt Facebook and the Injustice Anywhere sites.
492 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 16, 2015
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April 10, 2025
I found this book as I was looking for something that described the italian justice system in English, specifically about mistrials, so that I could use it to compare the elements that lead to a mistrial in my home-country to the USA. As much as this book gave great insight into the errors made during the investigation phase, I would have appreciated a more detailed analysis of the justice system. In fact, Ron Hendry does a very good job at reconstructing the crime starting from the actual evidence and by highlighting all the errors and misconducts by police investigators and the prosecutor. For this reason, his work was used as reference even in some italian true crime podcasts (in fact, that's where I firstly heard about it). However, I think that some nuances of how the italian justice system works were a bit lost in translation, making it harder to be considered a good reference point for professionals in the field. It's not easy work for sure, having to compare a civil law system to a common law one since they have different rule sources and praxis, but I think that this makes finding the right words to translate technical terms even more important, in order allor the English reader to create assosciations to its own professionals and institutions. I had quite some fun in taking notes for my reading-pals while I was reading it!
Please note that nothing the author wrote in this book is wrong in itself: the research is there and is very valid. I'm just stating that the quality of this work deserved a tidbit more attention in its translation from Italian to English.
Please note that nothing the author wrote in this book is wrong in itself: the research is there and is very valid. I'm just stating that the quality of this work deserved a tidbit more attention in its translation from Italian to English.
Displaying 1 of 1 review