her face and name were everywhere. media pour trade her as an exchange student gone wild. and they sent her there, on iffy evidence and shaky testimony that would later crumble. so after four years in prison, amanda knox went free, came home, spent a year and a half putting it behind her. now he's learning from the italy supreme court that the verdict that freed her wasn't the last word. drew griffin now on her nightmare and how it all began.

in italy a british exchange student raped and murdered in her room. >> it was horrible. the young lady bled to death. >> amanda knox, her american roommate, is charged with the crime. >> my husband called me and said they've arrested amanda. >> a media frenzy rife with tales of cover-up and sex games turned deadly all centered around the beautiful young student dubbed foxy knoxy by the tabloids. convicted of murder, then freed after spending four years in prison when her conviction was overturned. now in a seemingly never ending turn of events, amanda faces trial again. in what has become another haunting chapter of murder abroad.

as manlda knox was going into her junior year of college. her mother recalls amanda, the fresh-faced 20-year-old, intent on adventure. >> she was going to study abroad going into college somewhere. she didn't know where yet. >> amanda would decide on perugia, italy. her sister deanna remembers when she moved into this house which she shared with three other girls, two italians and one british student named meredith kercher. why was she so set on that apartment? >> i think because of the people really. it was close to the college and her roommates are the sweetest people in the world. >> but after only six weeks in italy on the night of november 1st, 2007, amanda's overseas adventure would take a bizarre turn. amanda claims she slept over with her boyfriend raffaello sollecito that night. according to her, they cooked dinner at his house, smoked

hashish and made love. on that same night, meredith kercher returned to the home she shared with amanda after watching a movie with friends. sometime between 11:00 p.m. and midnight a witness living in these apartments across the street claimed to hear a scream and multiple footsteps running away from the house in opposite directions. the next day knox says she returned home to shower and change clothes. then she noticed something was wrong. one roommate's room was turned upside down. a rock on the floor and a broken window. meredith kircher's door was locked, and she wasn't answering her cell phone. >> i got the phone calls about when she came to her house and amanda kept saying i've gotten ahold of everybody. i can't get ahold of meredith. she's not answering her phone. her door is locked. there was lots of concern. and i said, okay. you know, call the police, and

she did, and, you know, the police came, and then they had actually one of the other roommates' boyfriends broke down the door because the police wouldn't do it. >> behind meredith's bedroom door was her body covered by a blanket, blood everywhere. meredith had been sexually assaulted, stabbed, and slashed in the neck. a bloody handprint left on the wall. bloody footprints on the floor. as police began to process the crime scene, suspicion soon began to fall upon amanda. partly due to what police believed was a faked forced entry through the window. observers also thought amanda's behavior was odd. she and raffaello stayed in the living room while the others broke into meredith's room. francesca maresca is an attorney hired by the victim's family. he says amanda's behavior was enough to make her a suspect.

>> translator: the famous behavior of amanda knox cannot be justifiable if we compare it to the way normal people behave. >> in this video, amanda and her boyfriend raffaello comfort each other outside the house. but at the police station witnesses say they laughed and made faces, heightening suspicions about them. to amanda knox and raffaello sollecito, the police station would become all too familiar over the coming days. her father, curt, recalls the week after the grisly discovery. >> between the time that they actually found meredith and when amanda was arrested, there was roughly a 90-hour time frame and i'm ballparking the numbers there. during that time, amanda was in the police station for questioning for, i believe it was, 52 hours. >> as the days passed, the interrogations became longer and more intense.

without a lawyer, amanda continued to talk to the police, a decision her mother, edda mellas, regrets to this day. >> you know, would have, could have, should have. i should have insisted that she leave the country. i should have insisted that she not talk to anybody. i should have gotten her a lawyer immediately. >> meanwhile, media interests surrounding the crime began to surge. information was leaked to the press almost daily. reports stating the victim knew her killer, or even a woman committed the crime went viral. soon articles were reporting that meredith kercher was the victim of a sex game gone wrong. >> in italy you could make up a story or you could say you heard it from some guy that was laying in a ditch, and you can write the story, and then all of a sudden it goes viral. >> as the media circus grew, so did the pressure on police to

solve the case. on the night of november 5th, the police interrogated amanda all night and into the next morning. it was during this session amanda confessed she was at the house that night. her boss patrick lumumba was there as well. at that point amanda knox officially ceased to be a witness. she became the suspect. the police held a press conference later that day announcing to the world they had solved the crime, case closed. according to police, meredith kercher had been killed because she would not take part in a sex game, a sex game orchestrated by amanda knox, her boyfriend, raffaello and patrick lumumba. >> translator: i've always said that this is a crime that was born of succession. it was step by step. there was no planning. >> all three were arrested and charged with murder, but the

tabloid press turned their attention to one of the accused in particular, amanda. when the papers hit newsstands next day, foxy knoxy would be all over the front page. in the weeks and months that followed their arrests, new evidence would emerge. a knife found in the apartment. both amanda's and meredith's dna on it. meredith's bra clasp tested positive for raffaello's dna. a homeless man came forward claiming to have seen the couple near the house on the night of the murder. >> we kept thinking, oh, this is a big mistake. it will get cleared up, and then it just got really weird with the trial, and, you know, it just kept going and going and going. >> the world was captivated. two attractive young women, one accused of killing the other. so what really did happen to meredith kercher and is amanda

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[ sirens ] with an investigation nearly finished and three people under arrest, the press began to focus on who is amanda knox? the picture they painted wasn't very flattering. >> i think some of the biggest problems that have happened with my sister have come from the media.

the whole angel face with cold eyes. the whole foxy knoxy thing. >> to know the real foxy knoxy, you have to go back to amanda's hometown, seattle, washington. >> amanda was born here in seattle in the summer of 1987, the day before i turned 25, so our birthdays are one day apart. >> born into a middle class family, her mother a schoolteacher, her father an accountant, divorced when amanda and her sister were still very young. >> and so growing up, it was -- i spent the majority of my time with my mom. it was every other weekend that me and amanda went to our dad's. >> always active, amanda earned her nickname foxy knoxy at a young age and not from where you might have thought. >> and soccer is where she earned that nickname that -- >> oh, yeah. >> that's come back to haunt

her. >> oh, yeah, at the age of 8. you know, the 8-year-olds who don't know anything but call each other all kinds of funny nicknames gave her foxy knoxy. >> she was not a typical teenager. amanda was driven and focused, unlike most eighth graders, amanda wanted an academic challenge. so for high school, she chose seattle prep, a prestigious private school that her parents could not afford. amanda was scholarshipped out to seattle prep, so it's not like she was given a silver spoon or anything by any means. >> chris johnson, an english teacher at seattle prep recalls a girl who was different from her classmates. >> she was so diligent that she signed up for an extra english class at a time when she could have had a free period. she took an extra class so she stood out. >> and as for boys, did she have many serious boyfriends before? >> no. she was definitely a very late bloomer. i don't even remember a boyfriend until college.

>> she knew very early on that she wanted to see the world. >> i think amanda started talking even in middle school about wanting to travel and to see different places. >> amanda would take her love of adventure to the university of washington where she would major in linguistics. her friend andrew seliber describes a woman open to the world. >> i think it was her just open personality to, you know, see the good things in people and have always a positive attitude about everybody and everything in the world. >> in college amanda knew she wanted to spend a year abroad, but to do that, she would have to raise money that her parents did not have. how did she do it? >> she had to save $10,000. she lived extremely frugally and spent no money on anything and then worked several jobs at a time, numerous jobs at a time, saved every penny.

>> amanda chose to study in perugia, italy, a small town in the center of the country in the late summer of 2007, amanda and her sister, deanna, traveled there to get her settled. on the very first day in town, deanna found amanda a place to live. >> we were walking around, and the first thing amanda did, of course, was go down to her university. so we walked down there, and she went inside, and i sat outside and this girl came up and was posting something on the fence right next to where i was sitting. and i looked over, and it said -- all i could read because i don't speak italian was apartmento. >> and that was the apartment? >> uh-huh. that was it. >> once settled in perugia, amanda seemed to be living her dream. >> the first set of pictures she ever sent me were of the little house that she had found, and i was kind of looking at her going you have that kind of a view out of your backyard? and it was really -- you know, i

was very happy for her. >> and just eight days before meredith's murder, amanda met a boy, an italian student named raffaello sollecito. was she falling in love? did she sound like a girl who was in love? >> she sounded like a girl who was infatuated with this young man who was showing her around. they went over the assisi, so there was definitely a big infatuation there. i don't think they had time to fall in love by the time they were arrested. >> amanda knox, devoted daughter, student, lover? according to this man, murderer. is amanda knox evil? with the bing it on challenge to show google users what they've been missing on bing. let's bing it on. [fight bell: ding, ding] how many here are google users? what if i was to tell you that you would actually like bing way more than google when it came to the results? prove it.

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almost immediately after police say she confessed to her crime, amanda knox recants. she tells her parents she broke under stress. in court she would tell jurors how a police officer struck her from behind, how she was denied

water, food, a translator and how she says under pressure by police she was asked repeatedly to dream up, imagine scenarios for how it could have happened. cnn traveled to perugia, italy, to sit down with the lead prosecutor of amanda knox. for three hours he answered our questions and his critics that he prosecuted knox with little evidence, that he played on emotions and rumor rather than fact, and that the linchpin of his case, the so-called confession of amanda knox was coerced out of a frightened college student. nobody hit her? >> translator: no, absolutely not. >> was she asked to imagine scenarios? so she's lying? >> translator: absolutely. you either see the person or not. i can't ask a person what he or she imagines. this question would make no sense.

>> that's not all that wouldn't make sense because it turns out virtually everything amanda knox told her interrogators the night of her so-called confession was a lie. amanda knox in this statement told police she was in the house the night of the murder and saw her boss, nightclub owner patrick lumumba, and meredith kercher go into meredith's room, and she heard screams. amanda's statement adds, "i am very confused. i imagined what could have happened." police apparently didn't bother to check the facts about lumumba. they immediately arrested amanda knox, raffaello sollecito and patrick lumumba for the murder of meredith kercher. the police announcing to the public, case solved. giuliano mignini admitted to us, even without any evidence, he knew almost the moment he arrived and laid eyes on amanda know and raffaelleo they were

involved in the murder. prior to the forensic investigation, prior to everything really, your intuition or your detective knowledge led you to amanda knox and raffaello sollecito? >> translator: after the first few weeks we were convinced because of the behavior of the two people and especially amanda that they were both involved in a crime. >> but almost immediately after the arrests, mignini had a problem. the third suspect patrick lumumba had an airtight alibi. he was in his crowded bar that night. he could not have been involved. then the actual forensic tests came back. >> when i looked at it, i was horrified. >> greg hampikian is a forensic biologist at boycee state

university and director of idaho's innocence project. he also was working with the knox defense team. he says italian investigators did a good job processing the crime scene, collected excellent evidence, but clung to shakier evidence that proved their theory, a classic error, he says, a prosecutor who trusted his gut feeling instead of the science that at that time was pointing to another suspect. >> they didn't like the way amanda behaved, whatever that means, and so they wanted to investigate her and raffaello and her boss. when the dna is finally processed, it's not any of their suspects. so what do you do? what would you do? you let them go. >> as patrick lumumba was being released from jail, investigators analyzing the bloody evidence left at the crime scene found an entirely new suspect. his name? rudy guede, a known petty criminal from the ivory coast

who fled to germany shortly after the murder. it turns out guede's handprint made in meredith kercher's own blood was found in the victim's room. guede's dna found inside the victim's body in her vagina. his dna on her clothing, on her purse, his feces even found on used toilet paper left near an unflushed toilet down the hall and something else. guede didn't even know raffaello and had only met amanda a few times with neighbors. >> knowing all of that and when he got extradited from germany back to italy, we thought, thank god, this is over. >> it wasn't. prosecutor mignini simply swapped suspects. amanda knox, raffaello sollecito and now rudy guede had come to meredith kercher hoping to

include her in an orgy. when kercher refused, they pulled out knives and killed her. giuliano would stick to his instincts despite forensic evidence. you were fixated, according to the defense, on amanda knox and raffaello sollecito and kept imaging new scenarios that made these two people guilty. >> translator: no, absolutely not. i did what i did because i was convinced given the evidence that had been gathered that they were responsible. i am absolutely convinced. >> rudy guede, the african drifter, was quickly convicted and sent to prison, implicating amanda and raffaello after which his sentence was reduced. in 2009 mignini would bring his

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[ speaking foreign language ] one of italy's most notorious murder trials, the case against amanda knox henry boyfriend was getting under way. basing his case mainly on circumstantial evidence. the prosecutor giuliano mignini would begin to present witnesses. one who claims to have seen the couple near the home the night of the murder. two others would come forward saying they heard a scream. one of them also hearing footsteps running in different directions, but magnini now would also present scientific evidence, he said, proves amanda and raffaello's guilt. two dna samples. raffaello's skin cells on meredith's bra clamp collected

46 days after police first showed up at the murder. and what one expert called an inconclusive sample of what could have been meredith's dna found on a knife collected at raffaello's apartment. on the handle of the knife, amanda's dna. according to prosecutor magnini, because the victim had never been to raffaello's apartment, the knife must be the murder weapon. but tests for blood on the knife turned up negative. prosecutors explained it's because the knife had been wiped clean. forensic expert greg hampikian says finding dna but no blood makes it highly unlikely the knife was used in a bloody murder. he also says it's surprising the prosecutor was even allowed to admit such a small, unexplainable sample as evidence. >> would this have made it into a u.s. court? i don't think this would have made it onto a u.s. lab report.

>> what also made it into court was amanda's so-called confession. in a quirk of italian law, the confession was thrown out of the criminal case against knox, but jurors heard it anyway as part of a civil case being tried simultaneously. in court jurors heard mignini's evidence of guilt, then when they went home each night, they heard the news from a tabloid press gone wild. sensational headlines about the murder suspect dubbed foxy knoxy were rampant. completely fabricated stories of how amanda knox engaged in sexual orgies, satanic rituals, how she bought bleach to clean up the crime scene. all of it according to the prosecutor himself lies. with no conclusive evidence their daughter was guilty, the knox family would enter the courtroom just after midnight on saturday, december 5th, 2009 believing prosecutors had simply not proved the case.

the jury had deliberated for 13 hours. in a moment that haunts him to this day, curt knox heard the verdict in italian. guilty. >> these two kids were innocent, and to have them say guilty, it was just devastating. it was literally devastating. and, you know, i mean literally the people that were in the courtroom were kind of like ooh! >> doug preston is a best-selling author that dreams up chilling murder plots in his writing shack on the cold coast of maine. 11 years ago he had an idea to write a chilling tale, but in a warmer location. >> i moved to italy to write a novel, and we rented a house in the tuscan hills just outside of florence. ♪ >> his research began with

trying to learn about the italian justice system. teaming up with an old italian crime reporter named mario spezi, he soon was intrigued about a serial killer italy had yet to catch. the monster of florence who killed eight couples from 1968 to 1985 then vanished. >> when you are a novelist, you are just making things up. but this was real. >> preston would quickly abandon his work of fiction for the real thing and began to learn how the monster targeted young lovers engaging in sex, mostly in cars in the hills above florence, killing first the man and then dragging the woman out of the car, mutilating and removing her genitals. for 17 years always using the same gun, the same knife, killing again and again as police failed to solve the case. >> yes, again and again the police arrested innocent people, interrogated them brutally,

thought that they had extracted all kinds of really important confessions from them. >> preston says with the suspects in custody, the monster would kill again. police chased wild theories of a satanic cult. preston and spezi began to write of a lone killer and terrible police work. >> the book, you know, to be honest, really criticized their investigation very thoroughly, and it wasn't just criticism. it presented irrefutable evidence that the police were on the wrong track. >> before the book could even be released, police focused their attention on the authors. mario spezi's villa was raided, his notes confiscated and the journalist placed under arrest, though later released without charges. police surmised spezi knew so much about the killer that he just might be the killer. then preston's phone rang. >> i thought it was a joke. then they said, no, mr. preston, this is not a joke. we are coming to get you. this is obligatory.

you tell us where you are. that will save everyone a lot of trouble. >> preston would find himself at the door of the prosecutor's office here in perugia where he thought he would spend a few minutes answering just a few questions. >> i had never understood how brutal, psychologically brutal an interrogation is. you feel absolutely helpless. >> and the chief interrogator was and is? >> giuliano mignini, this prosecutor who -- let me tell you something, he knows exactly what he's doing. >> giuliano mignini was the prosecutor for both the monster and the meredith kercher cases, just like during amanda's interrogation, preston also says he was asked to imagine scenarios of how the crime could have occurred. >> i was terrified. i thought, these people have the power to put me in jail for the rest of my life. >> preston says he was

questioned for two hours. he left the meeting and wrote everything down, including the time he went in and the time he left. which is why giuliano mignini's recollection of that meeting with preston is so puzzling. >> translator: it lasted about 20 minutes. no more than that. and it was the first time i had met preston. around 20 minutes. >> i interviewed doug preston, and that is just not true according to him. he said the interrogation lasted two hours. >> translator: i don't remember now how long he was interviewed for. i believe it was about 20 minutes. perhaps half an hour. perhaps who knows? about an hour. i'd have to look at the statement. however, what is certain is that when you make a statement, that person must tell the truth, and i challenge some of the things he said. >> and let me read to you what he said about it.

i began to sweat. the public minister began repeating the same questions over and over and over again. >> so i said, wait a minute. i said, are you -- are you -- do you think i've committed a crime? and that's when mignini said, yes, we don't think it. we know it. we know you have committed a crime. we have the proof. and you are going to confess to it. >> it sounds very similar to what amanda knox described. >> translator: it is completely different because i interrogated preston, amanda was interrogated by the police. preston wasn't arrested. amanda was arrested. the two things are completely different. they have absolutely nothing in common apart from the fact that i was the public prosecutor in both cases. >> amanda knox describes to her lawyers the very same techniques, aggressive questioning, asking to speculate, confronted with

so-called evidence of criminal activity that police didn't have. fearing he would soon be arrested, in 2006 preston fled italy and has never returned. but the tables were beginning to turn for the prosecutor as the main witness against amanda knox was called into question. when you have diabetes... your doctor will say get smart about your weight. i tried weight loss plans...

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justices, and mignini's tactics, his investigation he would not wait for the forensic evidence to be processed. he already had his suspicions. within days, he announced the horrific crime was "solved." dr. mignini, sit possible that a prosecutor facing his own troubles perhaps rushed to judgment to solve the sensational crime? >> translator: i did not take any opportunity, because that day i just happened to be on duty. so i did not take an opportunity. >> the morning after our interview with giuliano mignini, the prosecutor spots our camera, walks towards me, and off camera asks what i thought of the interview the night before, if i thought he was being truthful. clearly, mignini is now

concerned about his own reputation, and his case against amanda knox. the tabloid press still enamored with foxy knoxy is beginning to tell a different story. amanda and raffaello have appealed their convictions. and a new judge and jury were in the driver's seat. the appeal hearing was under way. by now they had both been in prison for four years. raffaello sollecito has shaved his head. knox rarely smiled. fox's family said the couple who had meet just eight days before the murder hadn't communicated since their arrest. march 26, 2011. amanda mouths, are you okay? it is a tender moment in what would be a strange hearing. attorneys cross examine an old witness. he is the homeless man who lived

in this park, and originally told the court he saw amanda and raffaello near the crime scene the night of the murder. before any testimony, cameras are ushered out of the court and the police bring in the star prosecution witness that the jury would find laughable. the homeless drug addict could no longer remember the exact night he saw the couple. he was confused. it could have been halloween, or the night before the murder. then he dropped a bombshell, admitting he was under investigation for drug dealing at the exact moment he became a star witness. in our interview the night before, the prosecutor told us he had no idea that the tramp, as he called him, was telling the truth. >> translator: if he says he saw them and states it under oath, we have to believe him unless given reason not to.

it's not as if the crime had been filmed. >> was he offering his testimony in hopes of getting a favor in court? >> translator: no, he didn't get any favor at all. the witness presented himself and gave a statement. that's all. we took his statement because the evidence was relevant. >> so you believe the testimony of a homeless heroin dealer? >> translator: i don't want to comment on the judicial proceedings regarding this individual. because he was tried for another matter, something completely different that had nothing to do with this trial. so for this trial, he is a witness. >> with the prosecutor's main witness heavily scrutinized, it left only the scant dna evidence. and that too was about to be challenged. business trips add up to family time.

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with the prosecution's main witnesses again being challenged on appeal, the case against amanda knox and raffaello sollecito seems to be hanging on two very small pieces of dna evidence. two months after our interview with prosecutor giuliano mignini, a court-appointed review of the forensic evidence would find the evidence itself is worthless. the spot found on the knife, it turns out, was not even blood and the dna evidence on the bra clasp is so small, it is scientifically worthless. further testing impossible because the genetic material, if there was any, was ruined in police storage. mignini still insists the forensic evidence proves his case, but the independent italian experts have determined the evidence should not be used.

it is a final blow to his prosecution. >> do you have any doubt, any doubt in your mind that you convicted the wrong people? >> translator: listen, i am very sincere so if i made certain requests it's because i was absolutely sure they were responsible, otherwise if i had had any doubt, i would have asked for an acquittal for lack of evidence. >> october 3rd, 2011, amanda knox is allowed to address the judge and jury finally. >> translator: i haven't murdered. i haven't raped. i haven't stolen, i wasn't there. i wasn't present at the crime. >> hours later, a verdict is reached.

knox realizes the jury believes her story. and sinks in the arms of her attorney. the murder convictions are overturned. both are to be set free immediately. 30 hours after a sobbing amanda knox leaves an italian court, a now smiling amanda knox and her family arrived to cheers in seattle. amanda knox is home, speechless but finally approaches the podium. it's the first time she has spoken publicly since her release. as she approaches, she's reminded this time to speak in english. >> thank you to everyone who's believed in me, who's defended me.

who's supported my family. my family's the most important thing to me right now. and i just want to go and be with them. so thank you for being there for me. >> for the past year and a half, amanda has spent time with her family and friends, studied creative writing at the university of washington, got reacquainted with her old boyfriend, raffaello. >> we talk about relationships with friends, about movies, books. we are almost a brother and sister. >> she also has a new boyfriend, james toronto. the two reportedly live together in seattle. things were finally becoming normal again. but her ordeal was not over. >> also shock waves in italy. >> after the prosecutor appealed his case, italy's highest court announced a shocking decision tuesday.

to overturn her acquittal. amanda knox's attorney said the ruling is disappointing but it's hardly a time to panic. the supreme court has a much narrower scope of review, all they're supposed to do is to look and see whether or not the appellate court jury acted within its jurisdiction and according to the proper rules. it does not relitigate or it does not reconsider or re-evaluate or reopen the facts. and that's why everyone remains reasonably hopeful without prejudging what they will do. >> for amanda knox, it's now a waiting game. >> she, as well as her family, have acted with the utmost courage, persistence, patience, grace, dignity throughout all these proceedings. but like everyone else, they're waiting for what the decision will be. >> if she's ultimately convicted

again? >> the italian government may say to the united states, bring us amanda knox. she's been duly convicted in our courts. you have signed an extradition treaty with us. we want her back. >> all this discussion about extradition is not nearly in play. the other thing you should know, while we are hopeful there was simply affirmed, the prior wrongful conviction, there is nothing that would lead anyone to believe in any of the evidence that there would be any other verdict one of not guilty because there's an absence of evidence in this case. >> unlike in years past, time is now on amanda's side. >> the italian legal system, the extradition system. time doesn't get measured in months. it gets measured in years. she is looking at many years of legal proceedings but also many years of freedom in the united states before there's even the possibility of that she's extradited back to italy.