Wednesday, November 11, 2009
LA7 TV’s Documentary On Meredith’s Case #2 The American Segments
Posted by Nicki
Below: One of many good images of Seattle which included some specially taken from the air
Below: The home of the Knox family where Curt Knox and daughter Deanna were interviewed
Below: Curt Knox being interviewed and showing four childhood photographs of Amanda Knox
These are childhood images of Amanda. The FOAK is quite independent of our family. They concentrate on analysing the case and raising money for us. They are nothing to do with the family! The Kerchers lost their daughter, but we can still hope to get ours back.
Below: One of the childhood photographs shown of Amanda Knox, seen here playing a guitar
Below: Amanda Knox’s sister Deanna Knox being interviewed in the garden of her father’s home
Below: Segment with part of a YouTube video showing Amanda Knox aopparently a bit drunk
Below: A Seattle street with crowd; many lively crowd scenes here and in the UK were included
Below: First of four students at University of Washington; only one strongly believed Knox is innocent
Everything is possible. It’s always a possibility - you have to study her personalty in depth and the eventual psychological motivations which could have led her to commit the murder. It’s the only thing I can say. I don’t know whether she took part in the crime.
Below: Second of four students at University of Washington; only one strongly believed Knox is innocent
The story changed so many times that I think she is guilty. She changed versions several times. I’ve stopped following the story because the media try to take away attention from it and then go back to make the interest in it rise again. But I think that she is guilty.
Below: Third of four students at University of Washington; only one strongly believed Knox is innocent
I knew her, yes, we were at high school together at Seattle Prep. [Q: And you were in the same class?] Yes, in the same class. [Q: And what do you remember?] She was very nice - a nice person, I didn’t know her very well ... I could never have imagined that she could be involved in such a thing. It’s a tragedy because I believe she didn’t commit the murder. I follow the trial and it’s sad because for me, she seems innocent. I don’t really believe that she committed the murder.
Below: Fourth of four students at University of Washington; only one strongly believed Knox is innocent
I don’t know - I haven’t any idea. I think that this case has been manipulated too much by the media. It’s very difficult to discern between media sensationalism and the truth. So it’s difficult to express an opinion.
Below: Dr Taso Lagos of UW spoke weirdly of cultural differences - and Knox somehow being the real victim
Below: Offices of Seattle magazine The Stranger where campaigner for truth Charles Mudede works
Below: Charles Mudede, perhaps first US journalists with an in-depth piece sympathetic to Meredith
Here we don’t talk enough about Meredith, and that is always because of the distance. We don’t talk about who this wonderful English girl really was. I don’t know whether you’ve noticed it, but in the American press, yes, Meredith is named as the person killed, but they talk very little about her and about what her parents are undergoing. You have to consult the English papers to read this; you don’t find it in the American ones. This is the result of an attitude which is favorable towards Amanda, because you don’t have a connection with the victim as you would have, say in England.
Amanda was a bar attendant and also worked in an art gallery in the university area. She was a student of European languages. She practised yoga and played soccer: all characteristics of a normal American education. Amanda grew up in a middle class family in West Seattle, differently from how the British press described her as a rich girl. She isn’t. Amanda belongs to the middle class, typical of this city. Here there aren’t many poor people, or rather there are, but not a whole lot as in other cities. While the rich tend to not make themselves very visible.
There seems a dark side to Amanda’s personality. I think this dark side is the same as in many young people of her age. She wanted to experiment, at times with drugs, at times with sex. When I did research on her I found a police statement where it was written that Amanda had taken part in a party that ended up badly. She had to defend herself in court on charges of disturbing the peace, but it was nothing sensational. I don’t believe that her dark side is something exceptional even. The idea that she was beaten up and maltreated by the Perugia police makes me laugh - it’s an exaggeration. I mean the police have to do certain things which may seem a bit nasty but this is not unusual - it happens here too.
Below: One of various shots of grounds of Seattle Prep where Amanda Knox went to school
Below: Two of Amanda Knox’s teachers describe experiences with her as seemingly normal
Below: Andrea Vogt, American reporter based in Italy, provides some excellent in-depth commentary
“She was a girl like so many others here in the Pacific north-west. She was sporty, she liked playing sport, going out. She spent so many of these beautiful days running or playing football. That’s what the girls here in this area do.”
Posted by Nicki on 11/11/09 at 04:35 AM in The officially involved, The wider contexts, Seattle context, Excellent reporting, Amanda Knox
Comments
4/28/11
Deanna Knox in recent interview said Amanda had fallen into a tunnel. I think she subconsciously means the tunnel where Lady Diana was killed. Diana was far from home, far from the people she really loved. Sudden catastrophe, then notoriety, like Amanda’s being far from Seattle, a sudden catastrophe and rise to notoriety.
In Paris in 1997 the Princess and Dodi al Fayed son of a billionaire had a last romantic dinner (the last supper, as at cottage before Meredith was killed) and Dodi was possibly going to give Lady Di an engagement ring. Rumors swirled about their love affair since Diana was divorced from Prince Charles. Four people were in the car that night. Four people were in the cottage. Four people close to Deanna Knox are left after her sister’s incarceration. These four are herself, her mother, her father, and her stepfather. I think she sees Edda as “other”, as foreign with a heavy German background, and Chris as similar to Edda in being “other” (as in not her bloodkin, maybe a Scottish or Greek? background in his family?). So she is in a vehicle with her natural father and herself as linked, and with two people she doesn’t feel as close to.
The royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton to occur April 29th, 2011 has revived the history of Diana and Prince Charles, and Diana’s tragic death in Paris.
The dark tunnel represents the pursuit by paparazzi that Deanna Knox has faced along with her family, and the media spotlight that literally killed Diana Spencer, “Queen of Hearts”, England’s Rose.
I think Deanna Knox sees Lady Di as a symbol of her sister and of herself and ironically as a symbol of Meredith, the Britisher, whose body was transported back to England for burial like Lady Di’s body was. One million bouquets were placed at Kensington Palace in Diana’s honor. Hillary Clinton went to Diana’s funeral.
Dodi Fayed, his British bodyguard named Trevor Rees-Jones, Lady Di and the French driver, Henri Paul who was loaded on antidepression meds and tranquilizers on top of his many shots of liquor, sped away from the Ritz Hotel in Paris at around 11:30pm August 30, 1997. They hoped the decoy car would lure paparazzi in other direction. However, the press was not fooled, and they chased on motorcycles as Henri Paul sped in the Mercedes 600SEL limo into the tunnel, his speed in excess of 100miles per hour.
At ll:30 pm their car crashed in the Place de L’Alma underpass, by the Seine River. Henri Paul swerved to avoid a slow moving car and he hit the kerb, then crashed into the concrete roof support and the car flipped 4 times before coming to a halt. Dodi and the driver were killed instantly. The British bodyguard in the front seat was injured but airbag may have saved him, Diana was seriously injured. A never found white Fiat had made contact with the Mercedes. There was an unknown white car mentioned in Meredith’s case.
Lady Diana was hard to extricate from the wreckage. She had suffered internal bleeding, was moaning, “What’s happening?” and “Leave me alone”. Her heart had literally been moved from the left side of her chest to the right by the impact. She was bleeding and a medical doctor happened to pass and he gave her oxygen. At 1:00am (now August 31, 1997) Princess Di arrived at Pitie Salpetriere Hospital where she was given every effort to keep her alive: blood, heart massage for nearly 3 hours, surgery to repair the ruptured left pulmonary vein, but it was useless. She was pronounced dead at 3:00am. The paparazzi were arrested, many of whom had swarmed the car and hopped on top of it to snap photos of the dying Princess. They at one point interfered with medical help.
To me the four persons in the car represent the varied nationalities in this murder case: British, American, Italian, African. The woman is killed in a foreign country. She was just beginning to find happiness when her life was snuffed out, as Diana was finding a new life after divorce and Amanda was finding a new life without her family. Deanna is now finding a new life without her sister and without normal college plans. Everything has changed for Deanna since her sister’s arrest and conviction.
Dodi was born in Egypt (north Africa) but attended Sandhurst, went to Los Angeles and married, divorced, and produced Oscar winning movies like “Chariots of Fire”, FX and other films. Rudy was born in Africa (Ivory Coast) where they speak French. Rudy was in a foreign country, so was Dodi.
The driver represents Rafaelle who had an expensive car and is a natural citizen of the country where tragedy occurs (substitute Italy for France). Raffaele was known to be loaded on drugs. Henri Paul was intoxicated and on drugs. Trevor Rees-Jones is a symbol for Curt Knox, the bodyguard of Deanna and Amanda who could not save Amanda but managed to survive the wreck of their lives although injured. Rees-Jones went on to write a book, despite his brain injuries.
The four people in this tunnel became famous and known worldwide because of the death of the British woman in the vehicle. Meredith’s death has brought the spotlight to the otherwise unknown Knox family.
When Princess Diana was killed so young, Tony Blair was caught up in the grief and spoke as Prime Minister. The Royals were in crisis. Britain was in a state of shock. The world watched and wondered.
I see the symbols of Deanna’s tunnel mixing and merging as they do in dreams. Each one is a composite, not a simple A=B. Dodi may represent Meredith as he is the swarthy one who is also British in some ways. Dodi may represent Meredith because he was killed instantly and in his own car, like Meredith was in her own room. Trevor-Rees Jones may be like Raf because he may be the only one to survive, whereas the “old Amanda” has died even if she serves time and leaves prison one day. The “old Deanna” has died, the death of innocence so to speak.
Deanna’s image of Amanda falling into a tunnel may be a realistic but pessimistic foreboding that Amanda will not make it out of this tunnel, she will not be found innocent at the appeal.
Deanna has spoken of her hopes (nay, dreams) that her sister’s conviction might be overturned on appeal and her beloved sister will be home by late summer to walk on the beach with Deanna again and talk of their plans, their dreams. Deanna then says it’s not just a dream, she does believe this will happen. It seems to me Deanna is going off into the “land of dreams” just like her sister when pain becomes too hard to cope with.
The crucial 90 minutes between when Princess Di was discovered crushed and bleeding in the back seat of the mangled Mercedes and when she died at the hospital after paramedics and doctors battled in vain for 3 1/2 hours to save her, is like the brief time between Amanda’s arrest in 2007 and what will most likely be her confirmed sentence after appeal ends and conviction is upheld. This remains to be seen.
There has been a brief window of hope, but it has been during this same time that Amanda’s many statements and writings have raised eyebrows and her guilt has been detected, and although there is still time for this appeal to churn out some new information to affect the court’s decision, it will probably end in a continued guilty verdict and then a long incarceration. That is an extension of the tunnel, on into future time. Darkness, being underground, not normal but dark and unhealthy, somewhat suffocating, trapped as in prison.
I think Deanna may see herself as similarly trapped in a dark underground tunnel dealing with her sister’s imprisonment and her family’s emotional struggle for years to come. Deanna has still a long way to go before she can escape the situation her sister has landed her in.
Posted by Hopeful on 04/29/11 at 12:53 AM | #
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