Amanda Knox's innocence Madison Paxton: Amanda Knox's best friend can't wait to hear what drifter Rudy Guede, Knox's supposed conspirator, will say in court on June 27.
Madison Paxton simply can’t believe the Amanda Knox headlines, even after nearly four years of reading them. Like the ones claiming that Knox’s freedom now hangs on the word of convicted child killer Mario Alessi or the upcoming testimony of drifter Rudy Guede, a man of many alibis who originally said Amanda wasn’t even at the crime scene and he’d never met Raffaele Sollecito, supposedly a co-conspirator. Rudy will have to answer questions in court for the first time on June 27, an earthshaking development that’s barely registered in the press.
“The trial is about the evidence,” says Madison, often described in the Italian media as Amanda’s amica della cuore (friend of the heart). ”When the reporters say Amanda has to prove her innocence, this implies a huge flaw in the system. She’s not supposed to have to prove her innocence. You can see what she’s up against because people really do have that mentality. If you’re in that defendant chair, then you’re guilty until you can prove you’re innocent.”
Madison moved to Italy in November and hasn’t missed a single hearing in the ongoing trial of Knox and Raffaele Sollecito. The former lovers are appealing their conviction for the murder of Knox’s British roommate, Meredith Kercher. Rudy Guede, who left “grave evidence” at the murder scene, saw his sentence diminish from 30 to 16 years after he fingered them during his appeal in November 2009. He spoke in open court sans proof or cross-examination. Now, Amanda and Raffaele will finally get to face their accuser, a right granted all defendants in the U.S. and United Kingdom.
Madison had a front-row seat last weekend when five prison inmates testified for the defense, creating major fireworks. The notorious Alessi, jailed in the same prison, testified that Rudy told him the two college students “had nothing to do with the murder of Meredith Kercher and things went in a very different way than what you read in the papers or see on TV. ”
Although Rudy has denied that conversation, other prisoners testified they’d overheard him talking to Alessi or learned the story from someone else. Former mobster Luciano Aviello claimed his brother was the real killer.
“It felt so bourgeois to have all the journalists tweeting about these criminals, because they weren’t all murderers. The reporters had no problem with Curatolo,” says Madison, meaning super witness Antonio Curatolo, a homeless man who admitted during the appeal that he was using heroin on the night of the murder (Nov 1, 2007) and changed the day he claimed to see Amanda and Raffaele near the crime scene–finally settling on Halloween. A disaster for the prosecution.
“You know you’re in a bad place when your prosecutor relies on a homeless drug addict who’s in jail,” says Madison. “What’s missing in the coverage is the hypocrisy of the prosecution, their willingness to use inmates who don’t have anybody to back them up, while simultaneously critcizing us for using inmates who do have witnesses to back them up. They’re willing to use inmates and people found in newspapers, but they criticize us.”
When she’s in court, Madison tries to see the events as if she were a defendant. “If I were in their place, I would just desperately want people to use the slightest bit of common sense and rationality. People say these things, but they don’t actually think of what it takes to kill another human being. They just say, oh, there was a brutal rape or murder. I don’t think they visualize in their heads the actual brutality. I don’t think they imagine the horror of it.”
As for the prosecution’s sex game crime theory, which paints Amanda as the instigator and the two young men as mere pawns, Madison points out: ”Rudy doesn’t speak English, Amanda didn’t speak much Italian, and Raffaele spoke minimal English. How did Amanda orchestrate this and convince them to do it? Was this the most macabre charade ever? How did she pull that off? Because she could not.
“I’ve been here seven months. I can order food. I can get around. I could never express my deeper feelings in Italian. I couldn’t possibly convince somebody I’ve known only six days (ndr. as Amanda knew Raffaele) to rape and murder somebody, but that’s the prosecution theory.”
Whatever happens, Madison will stay in Italy until the appeal ends, in September or October. She’s impressed that the judge has allowed independent DNA testing for the first time and that he started the proceedings by saying, ”The only thing we know for certain is Meredith Kercher is dead.”
The defense is feeling more upbeat, since the experts found that the DNA samples were either too scanty to test or had deteriorated in police custody.
Madison says Amanda has changed since the first trial, that she’s older, more self-confident, more willing to speak up and defend herself.
“I am feeling much more hopeful than last time, certainly,” Madison says. “There is a still a very chaotic feel to the trial. That hasn’t gone away. Sometimes it’s like a movie set with the characters coming in and out, shuffling. But it feels more genuine this time. Based on the questions that you hear the judges asking, you feel like they’re actually trying to find the truth and not just find guilty verdicts. The assistant judge asks just as many questions as the main judge. I haven’t seen any jury members sleeping.”
What would she ask Rudy Guede if she could?
“Obviously I would make a desperate plea to his conscience. I know, based on what other people tell me, that he’s claimed that he was there and somebody else did the murder.
“As for Amanda, I know she’d like to say, ‘You say you’re not a killer, but if you’re keeping Amanda and Raffaele in jail, then you are a killer, then you are taking their lives away. Whether Rudy took Meredith’s life or not, I don’t know. If so, then he’s taken three people’s lives.’”
As for the famous prosecutor Giuliano Mignini, Madison says he speaks up less during this trial. The proceedings don’t revolve around Amanda’s sex life or Mignini’s orgy gone wrong crime theory. So far, nobody has suggested that the crime occurred during a satanic ritual or under the spell of Manga comic books. Nobody has portrayed Amanda, a University of Washington honor student, as a girl gone wild.
“I’m still waiting for the name-calling,” says Madison. “It does seem more professional in the courtroom, less sensational, even the media coverage. There’s a much more sympathetic tone toward Amanda and Raffaele than in the past. It was much more whore and she devil before. It was amazing what people could get away with.
“The prosecutors still have not been affectionate toward Amanda, but they haven’t stood up and called her Luciferina or anything. Maybe they will in closing arguments.”
Here’s an ABC News wrapup on the Amanda Knox case.
By: Candace Dempsey
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