Kercher killed by neck wounds from two knives, a Florence court wrote

FLORENCE, ITALY – A Florence court said Tuesday that the 2007 murder of British exchange student Meredith Kercher was killed by neck wounds from two knives, one wielded by American girl Amanda Knox and the other by the ex boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito.

“The homicidal intent of the aggressors is clear. Once the assault became sexual, and in the face of the victim’s resistance, the attackers decided to end Meredith’s life in order to silence her and thereby escape punishment,” the judges wrote. The reason? Possibly over the cleanliness of their apartment, and not by a drug-fueled sex game gone awry.

In their written explanation of their January 30 decision to find Knox and Sollecito guilty of murder, the judges pointed to “reliable” evidence placing both defendants in the Perugia flat where Kercher was killed in “the immediate moments after the murder”.

Knox got 28 and a half years and Sollecito 25 years at the retrial, which they are now appealing to Italy’s supreme Court of Cassation. Judges said Kercher was raped and stabbed to death as a result of a “mounting quarrel” with Knox, ruling out the initial prosecution theory that Kercher was killed after a drug-fuelled sex game gone wrong that also involved Sollecito.

Sollecito and Knox have both already served a total of four years in prison, including pre-trial custody, after their initial conviction in 2009. Knox is now in America while judges prepare an extradition request that is unlikely to be granted. Sollecito is in Italy ahead of the high-court re-appeal, expected later this year.