Murder of Meredith Kercher

Short Biography

Meredith Susanna Cara Kercher (28 December 1985 – 1 November 2007) was a British student on exchange from the University of Leeds who was murdered in Perugia, Italy, on 1 November 2007. Kercher, aged 21, was found dead on the floor of her bedroom. By the time Rudy Guede's bloodstained fingerprints at the scene were identified, police had charged American Amanda Knox and her boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito. The subsequent prosecutions of Knox and Sollecito received international publicity, with American forensic experts and jurists taking a critical view of the evidence supporting the initial guilty verdicts. Knox and Sollecito were released after almost four years following their acquittal at a second-level trial, and in 2015 they were exonerated by the Supreme Court of Italy. Guede was tried separately at a fast-track procedure; in October 2008 he was found guilty of sexual assault and murder. He exhausted the appeals process and is currently serving a 16-year sentence.