Kercher Killer Refutes Clearing Amanda Knox & Raffaele Sollecito but Evidence Sticks to Him, Not Them

Rik Merchant, Yahoo! Contributor Network
Mar 14, 2010 "Share your voice on Yahoo! websites. Start Here."

University of Washington student Amanda Knox and the Italian student, Raffaele Sollecito, whom she had dated for a few days before the murder of British student Meredith Kercher, in Perugia Italy, were convicted on December 4, 2009 for Kercher's murder along with other related charges. A third person was convicted nearly a year earlier- Ivorian Rudy Guédé- on October 28, 2008 for the murder and for sexual assault of the murder victim. Guédé was sentenced to thirty years of prison, since commuted to sixteen. Knox and Sollecito were sentenced to 26 and 25 years respectively.

Guédé reportedly told cellmate Mario Alessi, a convicted child murderer, that Knox and Sollecito were not in the cottage on Thursday night November 1 2007 when Kercher was murdered. It was the night that began the long weekend of All Saints Day- the night when the four Italian male housemates from downstairs were away as were the two Italian female housemates from upstairs. Knox was at Sollecito's apartment, where she would spend the night. Kercher was at home of friend Sophie Purton until shortly before 9pm. She walked partway home with another friend and then carried on alone. She entered the cottage alone and called her mother from her cell-phone at 8:56pm. The call was cut off.

Alessi was videotaped making his statement of Guédé's alleged confession to him that Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were not at the murder scene. The statement of the confession tells of Guédé and a man whom he met a few days earlier in a club going to the cottage at Via della Pergola 7. The involved story tells of the two men being admitted by Kercher and of a dialog among the three.

The men started to caress and touch her- Kercher was very frightened. Guédé went to the toilet (his feces where found in a toilet the next morning). When he returned from the bathroom, Kercher was on her back on the floor, mounted by his friend who was masturbating on her. Guédé took over his friend's position on Kercher. His friend took out a knife, which Alessi said Guédé described as a pocketknife with an ivory handle. The friend held the knife to Kercher, whose movements caused her wounds.

Guédé left Kercher and went to get a towel. He tried to staunch the bleeding. Guédé's friend said they would have to finish her off otherwise 'this prostitute will make them rot in hell'. 'But the guy continued to strike her many times'. Then, while Guédé held the towel to Kercher's neck, his friend ran away. Guédé stayed there 'until he saw the girl had stopped breathing'. Then, he also left the bloody scene.

From his Viterbo jail cell, Guédé wrote a 500-word letter dated March 7 refuting that he made any such confession to Alessi. "To his putrefied statements, it is my intention to put in writing that I have never confided in this filthy being," Guédé said. He ended the letter with the following- "...I hope that sooner or later judges will realize my total non involvement in what was the dreadful murder of the splendid and marvelous girl Meredith, by Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox."

This last statement conflicts with other statements made by Guédé, including one that is more in line with his alleged confession to Alessi. Guédé did not know Knox and Sollecito at the time of the murder. He was a drifting acquaintance of one of the Italian housemates downstairs- one of the housemates was a boyfriend of Kercher's. He had seen Knox and Kercher around and was said to have fancied both. In an early statement regarding the murder night, Guédé said that he went to the toilet. When he returned from the toilet to Meredith's room, he saw another man and saw that he had attacked Kercher. As in the alleged confession to Alessi, Guédé said he took a towel and tried to stop the flow of blood. The attacker left the cottage. And then so did Guédé.

Guédé has also told the story of his being at the crime scene with another man there before. CBS News discovered that while Guédé was in prison in Perugia in 2007 and 2008, he told his Ivorian birth-father that he was with a man at the crime scene. He refused to name the man. This conversation between Guédé and his father was recorded. It is part of Guédé's Perugia case file.

On another occasion, Guédé told this story to his defense lawyers. He told them that he had had sexual relations with Meredith. He told them that she was attacked by another man while he was sitting on a toilet. The defense lawyers said that Guédé had also told them that he upon exiting the bathroom, he confronted the attacker who then ran away. Guédé said he was afraid and so he also fled.

It was as Guédé became familiar with the accusations against Knox and Sollecito in the early days after the murder that he first drew one innocent and then the other into his sordid story. However, Knox's DNA was not found at the murder scene. Sollecito's DNA was found on Kercher's bra clasp, which was collected 47 days after the murder and was repeatedly handled by the Polizia Scientifica, whose gloves may have already been contaminated, One man accidentally dropped the bra clasp onto the floor and then picked it up to place into an evidence bag. The bra clasp had been moved around before its collection. Dated police photos show the clasp in two different locations. One photo was taken soon after the murder, the other was taken 47 days after.

Guédé's DNA was found throughout the crime scene and inside Kercher's body. No murder weapon was ever found. The knife that Chief Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini held up as the murder weapon was a random knife taken from a drawer of utensils in Sollecito's apartment because it seemed extra clean. It had Knox's DNA on the handle and five DNA cells in a scratch in the blade belonging questionably to Kercher. Forensic technician Dr. Patrizia Stefanoni has since amplified away the cells, which could have given rise to far more than 60,000 profiles when necessarily factoring in room for error. Low Count Number DNA is inadmissible in a U.S. courtroom. The two outlines in blood of the murder knife do not match Sollecito's kitchen knife.

After leaving the murder scene, Guédé has maintained that he went to a disco that night. He fled Italy for Germany the next day. He was arrested there when trying to board a train without a ticket. He was soon extradited to Italy.

The evidence against Rudy Guédé:
Rudy admitted he was in the room.
Rudy's DNA was found all over the crime scene.
Rudy's DNA was found in and on Meredith's body.
Rudy's DNA along with Meredith's blood, was found on Meredith's purse.
Rudy's excrement was found in the toilet.
Rudy's shoe prints, set in Meredith's blood, were found in the bedroom and hallway.
Rudy's handprints, in Meredith's blood, were found on a pillowcase in Meredith's room and on her wall.
Rudy had a cut on his right hand that was still visible when he was arrested.Rudy fled the country.

Source: sfgate Alessi video; injusticeinperugia;