Amanda Knox Speaks Out on New Netflix Documentary, Being 'Wrongfully Convicted'
— -- Amanda Knox, the Washington woman who was accused of murdering her roommate in Italy, said she is speaking out in a Netflix documentary to "explain what it feels like to be wrongfully convicted."
"What I'm trying to convey is a regular person like me, just a kid who was studying abroad who loves languages, could be caught up in this nightmare where they're portrayed as something they're not," Knox, 29, said today on 'Good Morning America." "I think I'm trying to explain what it feels like to be wrongfully convicted, to either be this terrible monster or to be just a regular person who is vulnerable."
The documentary, "Amanda Knox," investigates the murder of Knox's then-roommate, British student Meredith Kercher, while the two were studying in Perugia, Italy, in 2007. Knox was initially convicted by an Italian court of killing Kercher, but that decision was overturned on appeal in October 2011, after she had spent four years in prison.
Knox returned to the U.S. but was convicted again in 2014 and sentenced to prison. In March 2015, Italy's highest court overturned that decision. The ruling ended the possibility of any further trials for her.
Knox said that one year after that ruling, she is "redeveloping" her relationships with friends, family and a world where she is not "being hunted down." She hopes to use her voice and the attention on her case to help other people who have been exonerated.
"A lot of times their stories go overlooked, and I think that it's our moral duty to examine the cases of a wrongfully convicted person from the perspective of their humanity," Knox said. "To really demand that we have objective looks at their cases and the facts of their case, as well as them as people, as opposed to demonizing in the way that I was."
Knox's boyfriend at the time, Raffaele Sollecito, makes an appearance in the documentary. Like Knox, he was convicted for the murder, eventually acquitted and released from prison. Rudy Guede, the third suspect in the case, sought a separate fast-track trial. He was convicted of Kercher's murder and is serving a 16-year prison term.
The Netflix documentary, made with Knox's participation by filmmakers Rod Blackhurst and Brian McGinn, premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in September.
"What I really appreciate about this documentary is that it's good journalism, in the sense that they give you the reliable facts of the case and they say, 'Decide for yourself,'" Knox said. "By showing who was a part of it, not just me, not just my co-defendant but also the prosecutor and the media, they're shedding more light on what happened than all the speculation that's been put out there combined."
Kercher's family did not participate in the documentary. Knox said that she knows the attention accompanying the film will be difficult for the Kerchers but that for them it is "never going to end."
"That's the really sad part about this tragedy — is that as soon as the prosecutor made it about 'Amanda, it has to be Amanda,' they took away the fact that this case is about her and what the truth was about what happened to her," Knox said. "She's been lost in all of that, but that doesn't change the fact that we have also an obligation to everyone that could potentially be innocent to find out the truth for the sake of the victim and the sake of them as well."
Knox, whose memoir, "Waiting to Be Heard," was released in 2013, has rebuilt her life in her hometown of Seattle. She has graduated from the University of Washington and writes for a small newspaper.
She said she next plans to attend graduate school and also wants to continue to "put forth my passion" for the exonerated.
"I've healed because other people have reached out to me. Other exonerees, other experts have reached out to me, and I feel like it's my turn now to turn the attention towards them," Knox said. "To have this negative thing that happened to me and the attention put on me put towards them, because their stories are important, and I don't think we quite recognize that yet."
"Amanda Knox" will be available for streaming on Netflix beginning at midnight on Sept. 30.
