I find her demeanor and behavior, and that of Raffaele Sollecito to be entirely inconsistent with guilt. This isn't definitive, of course... but let's keep some things in mind:
- Casey Anthony - Found not guilty but most likely was guilty. Since her acquittal she has been almost completely off the radar. She is not even involved with her own family anymore, the same family she threw under the bus in a desperate attempt to shift the blame to anyone she could. Her behavior matches someone who knows she got away with something, and has slunk off into the shadows.
- O.J. Simpson - Murdered two people, evidence CLEARLY established this, and when he was acquitted he gradually faded from the public eye and never had much of a media presence after the fact. He did release a VHS tape to try to get money, and wrote a book many years later (in which he basically confessed), and did behave criminally again in Las Vegas. However, all of these actions were tied together by the same thing. He lost a civil case and was desperate for money. That is what drew him out, but in large part, despite these few moments, his life since the acquittal has mostly been in obscurity and avoiding the public eye. Again, consistent with consciousness of his own guilt.
I simply don't believe guilty people exhibit the kind of SUSTAINED passion about their innocence and perpetual presence in the media attesting to that innocence, that Knox and Sollecito have had. I've listened to both their audiobooks, and nothing about their lives or behaviors at any time was in any way consistent with vicious, sadistic murderers or guilty parties. Nothing. The only reason they were in the situation they were, was what happened in that police station over the course of a couple of key days. Watch
"The Confessions" from PBS Frontline if you haven't, and it will open your eyes very wide to how false confessions (even with elaborate detail) can be elicited from innocent people.
Also, it is not just their presence in media and their sustained passion about their innocence, it is how they come across.
There is not a whiff of attention seeking, there is not the slightest hint of some sort of ditsy Casey Anthony who just feeds off of attention and loves the fact that some people find her attractive. Knox exhibits none of this whatsoever. She comes across as a broken woman, traumatized, shocked, but with a steely resolve to try to draw attention to not only her own plight but the fact that this happens to other people. Sollecito comes across fairly similarly, but language barrier and the fact that I think he went into it with a little bit stronger constitution, have kept him slightly more upbeat.
Knox comes across as someone who desperately wishes she was not in front of a camera, but is compelled to be there for principled reasons.
I think when this all began she was a naive, selfish young woman. Not untypical of a lot of young people from first world western nations these days. Concerned with her own doings and desires, but in no way evil. Just young, spoiled, and with a lot of maturing left to do. I think what she has gone through since has been a crash course in the harsh realities of the world and I think a great deal of her "life force" has been sucked by it.
From everything I've read, almost all of the forensic evidence has been horribly botched, interpreted in highly questionable ways, or misrepresented by both officials and media.
My understanding is that any foot prints found of Knox at the apartment are well within what you'd expect to be there since she lived there, and since she obliviously walked around parts of the apartment after the murder before the body was discovered. A lot of the blood evidence and things with the luminol, etc, have been horribly misrepresented.
I believe the prosecutors and police engaged in a very deliberate campaign to get the media firmly on their side, and scruples were nowhere in sight.
Someone who was born there, who is ethnically Italian, whose father lives there, who still probably has a lot of affection for his country even after how it's treated him. And above all, someone who is rock solid confident in his own innocence, and still has perhaps more naivety about the system eventually getting it right, than he should have had. A lot of their faith was restored by the overturning of the guilty verdict, and I agree that they should have retained more of the cynicism they learned, but I think they were desperate to believe their nightmare was over.
I think he wanted to demonstrate to his country and the world that he was innocent, unafraid, and would face his situation with dignity.
And btw, if it's true he was "suspiciously near to the Austrian border" AFTER this new ruling came down, I don't blame him one bit. All those high ideals and confidence in his innocence eventually can (and should) be trumped by self-preservation instinct and a return of his cynical understandings. Frankly I wish he'd successfully disappeared. But, let's hope their Supreme Court gets it right.