Being cleared of murdering her roommate wasn't exactly easy. But the hard part, Amanda Knox says, is living under siege and constant shaming. "I have learned that condemnation doesn’t stop once you’re found innocent," Knox writes in USA Today. "From the moment I walked out of prison, my family and I have focused on healing and rebuilding our lives. But the beast of media sensationalism wasn’t satisfied," she says. Tabloids tailed her, classmates posted pictures of her online with "lewd and aggressive commentary." Threats sent her to self-defense classes and "everywhere I lived, I had an escape plan, just in case." This isn't the first time Knox has spoken out about the "Kafkaesque nightmare" that began with her arrest in 2007, at age 20, after roommate Meredith Kercher, 21, was found with her throat slashed. (Kercher's family believes Knox is guilty.)
In 2013, Knox published a memoir, "Waiting to be Heard," asserting her innocence, and last month a Netflix documentary took a microscope to the case. "Either I’m a psychopath in sheep’s clothing, or I am you," Knox intones in a voice-over. Since Italy's highest court exonerated her and her ex-boyfriend of all charges in 2015 (one man was convicted), Knox says she's tried to get her life back on track while pelted with hate mail calling her a "murderess," "psychopath," and "whore." All that media scrutiny helped in one sense, Knox writes, drawing "experts and advocates to my defense. And because of their hard work, I now have opportunity to voice my experience and humanity as an exoneree." She promises to continue sharing her story. "I will not disappear. I will advocate, I will bear witness." (Read the full piece here.)
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