When Amanda Knoxarrived in Italy in September 2007, the University of Washington student thought she was embarking on an exciting junior year abroad.
But just a couple of months later, she was wrongfully convicted of murder and sent to an Italian prison, marking the beginning of a yearslong legal battle to clear her name.
A new limited Hulu series, โThe Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox,โ takes a fresh look at Knoxโs wrongful imprisonment and ultimate exoneration. Knox is an executive producer of the series.
Multiple documentaries, books and podcasts have explored Knoxโs story over the years โ and while Knox participated in some of these, she says she had more agency than ever in the creation of the new Hulu series.
In an interview with TODAY.com, Knox says the show is โthe story of how one woman is attempting to reclaim a sense of agency in her own life.โ
โYears ago, I hadnโt figured out โ what was the story, what was this horrible thing that happened to me? I felt like it wasnโt even my story. I was just the girl accused of murder. I was a helpless victim. Today, I have confronted my past. I have confronted my adversaries, and I have emerged a person who feels truly free,โ she says.
With the eight-episode Hulu series premiering Aug. 20, hereโs a look back at the real story of Amanda Knox.
Who is Amanda Knox?
Knox, 38, is an activist, writer and podcast host from Seattle, Washington. She first made headlines when she was accused of murdering her roommate while studying abroad in Perugia, Italy, in 2007.
Her story quickly became tabloid fodder as she began a yearslong journey through the Italian justice system. Knox spent about four years in an Italian prison and faced multiple trials.
She was ultimately cleared of all murder charges, althoughan Italian court upheld her conviction of slander in 2025.
Following her convictions and release, Knox became an advocate for other wrongfully incarcerated people. She has since reflected on her experiences in multiple books, podcasts and television projects.
What was she accused of?
Knox was accused of stabbing her 21-year-old British roommate, Meredith Kercher, while the two shared an apartment in Perugia, Italy.
Kercherโs body was found in November 2007. She had been stabbed multiple times and had been sexually assaulted.
Knox, then 20, was charged with murder, along with her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito. Both Knox and Sollecito have always denied any involvement in the killing.
Another man, Ivory Coast-born Rudy Guede, was subsequently arrested in Germany and also charged with the murder after his bloody handprint was found on the scene, Dateline reported in 2007. Guede has maintained his innocence, as he reiterated in an interview in 2022.
Prosecutors alleged that Kercher had been killed during a dispute related to a sex game gone wrong, according to Dateline. Knox and Sollecito maintained their innocence, saying they had been spending time with each other the night Kercher died.
Knox also faced slander charges for accusing her former boss, bar owner Patrick Lumumba, of participating in the murder.
Lumumba was imprisoned for two weeks but was later found to be innocent. Knox claimed she implicated Lumumba under coercive interrogation by Italian police, according to the BBC.
โI never wanted to slander Patrick. He was my friend, he took care of me and consoled me for the loss of my friend. Iโm sorry I wasnโt able to resist the pressure and that he suffered,โ she said in court in June 2024, the BBC reported.
Lumumba later sued Knox for slander.
What happened during the trials?
Knox faced three trials for the murder and sexual assault of Kercher.
First trial
In the initial trial, which spanned from January to December 2009, prosecutors alleged that Knox stabbed Kercher in the throat during a dispute, NBC News reported at the time.
In his closing argument, lead prosecutor Giuliano Mignini claimed Knox tried to strangle Kercher. Prosecutors said a knife with Knoxโs DNA on the handle was found at Sollecitoโs house, while the defense argued that the knife in question did not match Kercherโs stab wounds, according to NBC News.
The prosecution also accused Knox and Sollecito of attempting to cover up the murder by staging a burglary, according to NBC News.
In his closing argument, Mignini accused Knox of killing Kercher for personal reasons.
โAmanda had the chance to retaliate against a girl who was serious and quiet,โ he said, NBC News reported Mignini as saying. โShe had harbored hatred for Meredith, and that was the time when it could explode. The time had come to take revenge on that smug girl.โ
Knox wept in the courtroom as Mignini described Kercherโs wounds during his closing argument, according to NBC News.
In a statement to the court in April 2009 before the jury began deliberations, Knox maintained her innocence.
โIโm afraid of being labelled as someone that Iโm not, as doing things I didnโt do and having the killerโs mask forced on me,โ she said, according to France 24.
She also told the jury, โIt is up to you now.โ
Sollecito also denied having killed Kercher.
โI didnโt kill Meredith, and I wasnโt in that house the night of the crime,โ he said, France 24 reported.
At the end of the first trial, Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison, and Sollecito was sentenced to 25 years.
Guede, meanwhile, opted for a separate fast-track trial, and was found guilty of murder in October 2008. He was sentenced to 30 years behind bars, although his sentence was later reduced. He was ultimately released in 2021 after serving 13 years, according to the BBC.
Second trial
In a second trial in Italy in 2011, Knox and Sollecito appealed their initial convictions. They were both acquitted and freed, and Knox returned to the U.S. By that time, she had spent about four years in prison in Italy.
Then, in 2013, Knoxโs acquittal was overturned by the Italian Court of Cassation, the equivalent of the Supreme Court, and she faced a retrial for Kercherโs murder, according to NBC News.
Knox vowed to remain in the U.S. as the retrial unfolded, saying at the time she was preparing herself for the โworst-case scenario.โ
โI have to prepare in my mind what that would be like. I thought about what it would be like to live my entire life in prison and to lose everything, to lose what Iโve been able to come back to and rebuild,โ she told TODAY in September 2013. โI think about it all the time. Itโs so scary. Everythingโs at stake.โ
In 2014, Knox and Sollecito were convicted again of Kercherโs murder. Knox remained in the U.S. and was sentenced in absentia to 28 ยฝ years in prison, while Sollecito was sentenced to 25 years.
Third trial
In 2015, Knoxโs and Sollecitoโs murder convictions were once again overturned by Italyโs highest court in a retrial.
Knox released a statement following her final exoneration.
โI am tremendously relieved and grateful for the decision of the Supreme Court of Italy,โ her statement read, in part, according to NBC News. โThe knowledge of my innocence has given me strength in the darkest times of this ordeal.โ
Knox spoke to the media in front of her parentsโ Seattle home on March 27, 2015, after her exoneration.
However, her legal battles in Italy were not completely over. Even after her murder charges were overturned, the slander conviction she had received for wrongly implicating Lumumba in the killing remained on her record.
In 2024, an Italian court reconvicted Knox of slander and sentenced her to three years in prison. She did not return to jail, however, as the new sentence counted as time already served, NBC News reported.
โThe irony is that while being wrongly convicted of slander, Iโm the most slandered person in this whole saga,โ Knox wrote on X in January 2025 after an Italian court upheld the slander conviction.
โThe police, prosecutor, media, courts, and the killer Rudy Guede, have all slandered me to no end,โ she wrote.
Why was her conviction overturned?
Knox and Sollecitoโs convictions were overturned due to โglaring errorsโ in the investigation of Kercherโs murder, Italyโs highest court said in 2015, according to NBC News.
In a written opinion, the Italian court said no biological evidence of Knox or Sollecito had been found at the scene of the crime, while the third person convicted, Rudy Guede, had left โcopiousโ biological evidence.
The court also accused police and prosecutors of โstunning weaknessโ and โinvestigative bouts of amnesia,โ and accused authorities of bowing to public pressure to find โone or more guilty parties to offer up to international public opinion.โ
In the 2013 retrial, a forensic expert testified that the knife that had allegedly been used in the crime had no traces of Kercherโs DNA on it.
Experts also claimed that a material found on the blade of the knife in question was starch, not blood, according to NBC News.
Forensic experts also testified that investigators may have contaminated pieces of evidence by using the same gloves to handle different items, and failed to properly document and analyze DNA evidence in the aftermath of the crime, NBC News reported.
Where is she now?
Today, Knox is a writer, public speaker and podcast host who advocates for wrongfully incarcerated people. She has opened up about her experiences in two memoirs, 2013โs โWaiting to Be Heardโ and 2025โsโFree: My Search for Meaning.โ
Knox spoke at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on April 26, 2025.
Amanda Edwards / Getty Images
She is also involved with multiple organizations fighting for criminal justice reform, including the Frederick Douglass Project for Justice and The Innocence Center, according to herofficial website.
Knox has also hosted multiple podcasts about wrongful conviction, justice reform, and resilience, including โLabyrinthsโ and โHard Knox.โ
Knox married writer and podcast host Christopher Robinson in 2020.
โChris and I have been married now for as long as I was imprisoned, and together for as long as I was on trial,โ she wrote in an Instagram post on Feb. 29, 2024, celebrating their fourth wedding anniversary.
โHe has balanced the scales of my life away from injustice and pain and towards love and hope,โ she continued. โChoosing him as my person was the best decision Iโve ever made.โ
In October 2021, Knox revealed that she and her husband had welcomed their first child, Eureka Muse Knox-Robinson, months earlier. She said she initially kept her daughterโs birth private because she was โstill nervous about the paparazzi bounty on her head,โ she told The New York Times.
Knox and Robinson also welcomed a son, Echo, in September 2023.
In 2019, the couple bought a home on Vashon Island near Seattle. Residents of the small island community were supportive of her and her family, starting a Facebook group called โFriends of Amanda,โ Knox told the Mercer Island Reporter in 2022.
โItโs been nice being part of a small community as opposed to singled out under a harsh, international spotlight,โ she said.
