As dramatized in The Twisted Tale, the dynamic between appearance and perceived guilt was further complicated in Knox’s story when hair belonging to a Black man was discovered at the crime scene. In the show, Knox, addled from hours of rough interrogation in Italian, falsely accuses Patrick Lumumba, the owner of a local Congolese bar where she worked as a server, of Kercher’s murder. Although she immediately retracts the statement in writing, the damage is done: Lumumba is taken from his home and jailed for two weeks, costing him his business and his family’s happiness in Italy. (The real culprit, an Ivorian man named Rudy Guede, is later captured in Germany.)
In the show as in real life, the sensationalized coverage continues as Knox serves prison time. But things take a turn in the courtroom. The prosecution falls apart during the appeals process, when experts uncover the reckless handling of evidence and the fabrications by Mignini and his team. In 2011, after four years in prison, Knox was released and her sentence overturned. In a re-trial in 2014, she was convicted again; then the Italian Supreme Court definitively exonerated her in 2015.
Her life since has included milestones that once seemed impossible and a gradual reclamation of her narrative: marriage, motherhood, advocacy for the wrongly accused, a couple of memoirs, and a podcast with her husband, Christopher Robinson.
Knox with The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox star Grace Van Patten in August
Photo: Getty Images
