How did Meredith die?
One of the most contentious aspects of the case is if Meredith Kercher was murdered by one person, or by several. Obviously, the scenario (such as it is) promoted by the prosecution is that a group of three, Amanda Knox, Raffaele Sollecito and Rudy Guede, committed the murder together, though there have been some later versions where Amanda was relegated to a bystander role. The defense has always maintained that there was only one murderer, and for Knox and Sollecito that killer is Guede. Guede himself claims to not have seen the actual murder, but in all his tellings there is only one individual on the site and over the body, even when he later changed his story to claim he had heard Amanda while sitting on the toilet previously.
In the trials, duelling experts gave their opinions on how the murder happened and how many participated. Of the seven experts that opine in the Massei trial, two said the evidence indicated one killer, one said multiple, three said the evidence couldn't tell either way, and the final said the same as the last three, but also thought it was "hard to believe" there weren't multiple attackers. The experts also gave multiple different theories of how the murder occurred, what happened in which order and where, as well as when and how the sexual assault occurred.
Reading through their reports and testimonies, I am struck with how limited the scopes are for most of them. Most don't take into account evidence outside the physical body of Meredith, or when they do, they look at only a couple of aspects. The UACV analysis, meant to be comprehensive, makes a lot of assumptions that are not evidenced and in some cases turned out to be completely wrong.
In this I hope to give a comprehensive account of the evidence and which theory fits it the best.
The body
Meredith Kercher was found on the floor of her bedroom, lying on her back. Her right leg and arm rested on a duvet that had been folded over the rest of her, only exposing her left foot and the top of her head. A pillow had been placed under her hips, and her legs spread, the right leg bent at an angle and her left arm bent up to her face. Her head was between her bedrest and the closet, turned to the left, with her cheek and left hand resting on a pair of boots.
The only thing she was wearing was a longsleeved beige t-shirt under a short-sleeved white t-shirt, both rolled up to expose her chest. A pair of jeans, a pair of panties and a bra were found by her feet, and a white tennis sock was on the carpet to her left, aside two red sneakers. The second sock was found underneath her, while the clasp of the bra was found underneath the pillow. The right strap of the bra was soaked with blood, and aspirated blood drops covered the left cup.
Meredith's jeans, panties and bra, the outline of her left foot in the top left corner
The autopsy was performed by professor Lalli. Meredith's body had the following injuries:
- Broken blood vessels in her eyes
- Bruising around and cartilege injuries in her nose, as well as bruises and scrapes both inside and outside her mouth, and deep bitemarks in her tongue.
- Three superficial cuts on her left cheek, the longest 2.2 cm, the other two 0.6 cm each.
- Five round or oval bruises along the jawline, three on the left side, two on the right, measuring between 0.5 cm and 2.5 cm.
- On the right side of her neck, a single stab wound measuring 1.5x0.4 cm, with a depth of 4 cm, the tract ending by the jawbone. This wound cut through the right superior thyriod artery. It is surrounded by a bruised area and two abrasions, 0.5 and 1.5 cm long respectively.
- On the middle-to-left side of the neck, a gaping wound 8 cm long, with clear edges and a bruised and scraped border of 0.2 cm near the front edge. The wound has three tracts, 8 cm deep, passing the epiglottis, fracturing the middle left of the hyoid bone and piercing the oropharynx and larynx. In front of the large wound is a grazed area about 1 cm wide.
- To the right of and parallel to the large open wound is a smaller stab wound, 1.4x0.3 cm, its tract vanishing into the larger wound's after ca 2 cm. In front of it is a 2 cm long grazed area. Between the two wounds is a bruised area.
- On the left side of the neck, near the shoulder, are three superficial parallel abrasions, 1.5 cm at the largest, 0.8 at the smallest.
- On the outer and back part of her right elbow are two bruises, both measuring 1.2x1 cm and 1.5 cm apart. Further down, on the middle and outer part of her right forearm is a bruise measuring 1.8x1.4 cm. And on the palm of the right hand are small, superficial cuts, one measuring 0.6 cm and two measuring 0.3 cm. On the left palm is another superficial cut, 0.6 cm.
- Bruising has occurred on both sides of the front hip. On the left side of the thigh are three small faded bruises, 1 cm wide and 5 cm apart. On the front side of the middle part of the right leg is a 2 cm wide bruise.
- Under the scalp are some bleeding areas and dead tissue.
The scene - objects, blood and DNA
Blood was found on and around the inner handle of Meredith's door. Just inside the door were three partial prints in blood from a left shoe, Nike Outbreak 2.
The bed was covered only by a bottom sheet, with two bloodstains (9.5x2 and 14x3 cm) on either side of folds indicating someone had sat there. A brown bag of fake leather, two terrycloth socks and a blood-soaked ivory-colored terrycloth towel were on the sheet, as well as a notebook and a book named "Modern History" EDIT: (real title "Storia Moderna") with blood on its upper right edge. Bloodstains was found on the exposed slats near the head of the bed as well as on the floor below. On the wall behind the bed, 61 cm above the floor, is a small irregular blood stain. 1.2 meters from the floor, above the bedstand, were two parallel bloody lines.
Blood and objects in the bed area
Small blood drops were found at the base of and in front of the desk, and a large spatter with hair growths on the floor next to the left side of the window.
Blood and hair near the desk area
On the floor in front of the closet is a large, elongated blood stained area, 69x40 cm, stretching counterclockwise towards Meredith's final position. The blood contains hairs and aspirated blood stains the closet door as well as the floor in front. On the left inner side of the closet, 35 cm from the floor are four curved bloody streaks, with a bloody smear on the outside. A blocked off area on the floor was consistent with the dictionary found nearby. Besides her shoes, a cloth bag was also found on the mat.
Under Meredith's head was a widening pool of blood, soaking a blue waterbottle and the leather boots on which her head and hand rested. Underneath the duvet, by her head and beneath the left edge of the closet was a light blue Adidas jacket, heavily soaked in blood primarily on the right shoulder.
Under Meredith and the duvet (besides the second sock and the jacket) were a green terry towel, stained with blood and an ivory terry towel, soaked with blood, along with a white top sheet, stained with blood. On the part of the pillow that was below her hips, were four more shoeprints from the same left Nike Outbreak 2 shoe EDIT: and a bloody handprint.
A blood spatter analysis by the scientific police came to the conclusion that the large wound (which was the origin of the aspirated blood) was afflicted from a position 30 +/- 7 cm from the right wall, 33 +/- 7 cm from the closet door and 40 cm from the floor. The analyst presented three possible scenarios for her neck to be in that position, one with Meredith on her back facing away from the closet, another with her on her stomach, facing the closet, and a third much the same except she was on her knees. The UACV considered the third most likely.
While all the blood in the room that was tested turned out to be from Meredith, another profile was found on the leather bag on the bed, on the cuff of her Adidas jacket, on the bra and finally inside her vagina. That profile belonged to Rudy Guede.
What do the experts say?
These are the involved experts:
Anna Aprile and Mariano Cingolani, hired by the GIP
Mauro Bacci and Vincenza Liviero, hired by the prosecution
Gian Aristide Norelli, hired by the civil party, the Kerchers
Francesco Introna, hired by the defense, Sollecito
Carlo Torre and Walter Patumi, hired by the defense, Knox
First, cause of death. Lalli who performed the autopsy, put cause of death as a combination of hemorrhage and asphyxiation (as evidenced by the burst blood vessels in her eyes). When the thyriod artery was severed, severe bleeding began, and the damage to the throat caused aspiration, blood entering the airways and blocking the air. The wounds were caused by a single-edged, sharp blade. He did not see the breaking of the hyoid bone as related to strangulation. Aprile and Cingolani place the knife wounds before manual strangulation, as evidenced by bruises around the jaw and possibly the broken hyoid bone. Norelli says manual strangulation was followed by the knife wounds, which in turn were followed by blocking the mouth and nose with a hand. Liviero places strangulation before the knife wounds, while Bacci doesn't think there was a strangulation attempt at all, and sees the mouth and nose wounds as attempting to silence the victim. Introna agrees and shows that the complete collapse of the pharynx and larynx was more than enough to cause asphyxiation without further strangulation.
Where the all agree is that death came after 7-10 minutes after afflicting the large wound, after which Meredith would be incapable of speaking or screaming.
Lalli considered the cuts on the palms of her hands to be defensive wounds, while not having an explanation for the other bruises on arms and legs. Aprile and Cingolani agree with the palm wounds and claim the bruises on arms and legs are from restraint. Liviero thinks the limited defensive wounds indicates a sexual assault by multiple people, with one who restrains, and the UACV believes the limited defensive wounds in themselves indicate multiple attackers. Patumi, Torre and Introna, meanwhile, claim the bruises are either old and unrelated (hips and legs) or more likely caused by a fall than grasping. As Introna points out, there are only two bruises on the elbow, and both on the same side.
Norelli, the only expert who outright claims there had to be more than one attacker, explains his reasoning as there being no repeating actions (i.e. one stab to the right side was followed by a stab to the left) or that Meredith didn't simply leave the location, though even he admitted he had no biological or scientific elements to confirm his theories. On the other side, Torre and Introna both said they saw no reason at all for there to be more than one attacker. Outside that, their scenarios deviated wildly. Torre thought the shirts had been rolled up and bra removed before she was stabbed in the neck, from the front while on her back as the aspirated blood on her breasts were not deformed. Introna has Meredith stripped from the waist down when the killer surprises her from behind, pushes up her shirts and cuts her bra, before pushing her down, assaulting and stabbing her. Moreover, Introna also corrects the measurements used by the UACV to credibly put three attackers and Meredith in the same space.
Looking at all the experts, those that favor multiple attackers seem to both downplay the defensive wounds and play up the restraining marks, but in the end it's not credible to say either exist. Grasping at the blade would not produce those limited wounds, and people grabbing and holding Meredith while someone else assaulted her would not produce those limited bruises. And while Norelli seems to believe that Meredith could just attempt to run, or Massei thinks she could have squared up and fight since she knew karate, that only works if the attack is immediate. Because a knife can both attack... and threaten. In the end, though, it is clear that there is no physical evidence of more than two people in the room, so the only reason to consider multiple attackers is if there is no single attacker theory that fits the evidence.-
Tangent - The knife
>Since all the reports and testimonies took place before the independent experts Conti and Vecchiotti removed the kitchen knife from Raffaele's kitchen (31.2 cm, blade 17.5 cm) as a credible murder weapon, that knife was something every expert had to reckon with. Lalli had, before the kitchen knife had even been tested, proclaimed one of Raffaele's pocket knives (blade ca 8 cm) as a compatible weapon. Aprile and Cingolani, while acknowledning the kitchen knife couldn't have made the wound to Meredith's right side, concluded that the knife was "not incompatible" with the large wound. Bacci and Liviero upgraded that to "compatible". Introna and Torre raised issues with the knife, for one there was evidence that it had been inserted multiple times without being fully retracted (three tracts and cuts to the edge of the wound), yet all tracts had the same depth, 8 cm. Not only would the knife have to be partially inserted to the same length three times, but with enough force to crack the hyoid bone. And both that power and control would, in the scenario favored by the UACV, be performed while wielding a 31.2 cm knife reaching from behind the victim in an area 40 cm from closet and floor at most.
My theory
The lack of defensive wounds and restriction marks indicates to me that the attacker initially used his knife to threaten the victim into submission. When that stopped working, the knife was quickly used to create the right side neck wound, as the copious amounts of blood were found on multiple locations in the room, and the blood on the right side of all of Meredith's garments indicates she was upright for a while after it was inflicted. The large, mortal wound was inflicted last, close to the ground, and after that there was nothing more Meredith could do. The front attack by the closet, with Meredith on her back, presented as an option by the UACV and adopted by Torre, just doesn't work with the placement of the neck wound and the spatter. She was either on her knees, or in my opinion more likely, on her stomach, while her killer stood behind and above her, reaching around.
Where I believe both Torre and Introna went wrong is that they place the sexual assault before the murder. Perhaps it is a difficult concept to envision, a killer stripping and assaulting a dying woman choking on her own blood, but when you look at the evidence it all fits. Torre places Meredith on her back to account for the blood on her breasts, but there were similar drops on the cup outside as well. The bra, panties and jeans are all found in the same position, where Meredith ended up.
In a lot of this I follow the sequences of Ron Hendry, who wrote independently for Injustice in Perugia. While some aspects (like Meredith's attempted phone call) can't have happened (since the CCTV was late and Meredith was not at home when that call was attempted), it is the best overview I have seen, court experts included.
In the end, the biggest strike against the multiple people theory is, as Introna pointed out, that there just isn't enough space
First point, the discovery
Admittedly, this is based solely on one piece of evidence, but an important one. A plastic bag was found on the floor in the hallway just outside Meredith's room. In the bag was (among other things) the book she had borrowed from Robin Butterworth to read that night, and was due to return the following morning. Also in it was the vampire makeup she had brought to Robin and Amy's place the previous evening, Halloween. It was a bag she had to have carried when she came inside just after 21:00. So why is the bag in the hallway? Unlike her canvas bag that her friends testified she carried, this wasn't a shoulderstrap bag but a regular plastic bag carried in her hand. It would fall to the ground if she opened her hand, and the only reason she would do so in the hallway is if she was surprised. The killer could have come up from behind, but I find it more likely that she turned around at a sound and spied the killer coming out of the large bathroom.
Second point, the threat
The positions and blood traces, second point
She desperately tries to run inside her room and lock behind her, but the killer is too fast. He pushes his way into her room and wraps his left arm around her while placing his knife at her left cheek, causing the small cuts. We don't know what he did or said at that point, but the threat is obvious - fight back and be cut. Yet something happens, perhaps Meredith screams, and the killer clamps his left hand over her mouth to quiet her. But at this point he has lost control of her and as she begins to squirm, he pushes his knife into the right side of her neck. Cutting the thyroid artery causes a large flow of blood and it also handicaps Meredith. Her Adidas jacket, shirts and bra become saturated at the right side. We see blood on the slats and floor, and possibly on top of the bed as well (as there was a stain on the book and possibly more on the top sheet). The duvet and the pillow are perhaps pulled to the ground here, causing the blood stained book to make the mark on the wall. While he uses his size to try and control her, someone - either the killer or Meredith - puts their bloody hand against the wall to try and regain balance.
Third point, the fall
The positions and blood traces, third point
It doesn't work, or it works too well, and the two stumble backwards. It only takes two or three steps to slam into the desk, sending drops of blood to the floor. The killer grabs at her hair to try and regain control, tearing at her scalp. They either slip or fall forward, Meredith hitting the ground violently, possibly with the killer on top of her, or remaining standing over her.
Fourth point, the stab
The positions and blood traces, fourth point
After pulling her hair, the killer grabs her jaw to push her head back, exposing her throat. He takes his knife and puts it in, scraping across her skin first. He pulls it out completely, then stabs again at the same angle, this time all the way through, pulling in and out to widen the wound. Meredith exhales a spray of blood on the closet door and collapses to the floor, incapacitated.
Fifth point, the move
The positions and blood traces, fifth point
The killer grabs her by the right arm and pulls her towards the bed, and in doing so flips her on her back. Perhaps his initial intention was to place her on the bed. She feebly grabs at the closet before the killer lets her go, placing her in the position in which she was found. For whatever reason, the killer goes into the bathroom to get a towel, and places it by her throat where it is immediately soaked. He goes into the bathroom to get a few more, notices he has blood on his pants, so he takes off his shoe and sock and rinses the pantleg in the bidet. Water mixed with blood pooling under his right foot causes a bloody footprint when he steps on the bathmat. When he returns it must be clear that he can't stop it.
Sixth point, the assault
The killer, traumatized and high on adrenaline, decides to assault Meredith. When he moves towards her his left shoe steps on blood and then the pillow, barely noticing. He pulls off her jacket (if it hadn't already come off), shoes (if they hadn't already been kicked off) and socks, followed by her jeans and panties. He rolls up her shirts and cuts off her bra, and as he does this aspirated blood from Meredith's ruined neck land on the cups of her bra and then the naked skin underneath. He then he puts the pillow under her hips EDIT: (leaving his bloody handprint on it) and spreads her legs for access. But whatever he does, does not go the whole way, and the rush ends. Meredith is either dead or very close to it by then.
Seventh point, the escape
The bloody shoeprints, seventh point
The killer tosses the duvet over his victim. He searches her purse and gets Meredith's phones, credit cards, cash and keys. As he leaves the room and locks Meredith's door behind him, he leaves gradually fainter prints from his left shoe that completely fade before he reaches the outer door. There he unlocks the door and shuts it behind him, not realizing that the door is faulty and will slide open on its own if not locked with a key.
The killer
So not only is it quite possible for there to be only one killer, the evidence lines up with it. As I mentioned above, only two people left DNA at the crime scene. Meredith, in copious amounts of blood, and Rudy Guede in four spots. While the Nike Outbreak 2 shoes that made the shoeprints were never found, an empty box that had held such shoes was found at the apartment of Rudy Guede. EDIT: And the bloody handprint on the pillow? It belonged to Rudy Guede.
Even without dissecting his self-serving stories, all evidence points to a single man, Rudy Guede.