Amanda Knox "traumatized" by media firestorm surrounding her return to Italy
Amanda Knox's return to Italy for the first time since she was acquitted in 2011 of the murder of her roommate has reignited a media firestorm. The lawyer for the family of the victim, Meredith Kercher, told CBS News the spotlight has reopened old wounds.
Knox returned to Italy for a criminal justice conference hosted by the Italy Innocence Project, an organization that works to free those wrongly imprisoned. She was only at that conference with her fiancé for a few minutes Friday morning before the glare was apparently too much. An organizer told CBS News she was "traumatized" by the media. She did return to the event later.
Before coming to Italy she posted pictures and published an essay, writing, "While on trial for a murder I didn't commit, my prosecutor painted me as a sex-crazed femme fatale, and the media profited for years by sensationalizing an … unjustified story."
Knox, originally from Seattle, served four years in an Italian prison for the murder and sexual assault of her roommate, Meredith Kercher. She left Italy when she was acquitted in 2011 but later was found guilty again in absentia in a third trial. She was finally exonerated by Italy's supreme court in 2015.
Knox said her return to Italy was either a homecoming, a deployment or madness.
"I guess it can be a homecoming, deployment and madness," said Seth Miller, the executive director of the Innocence Project of Florida. "This is a place where something really bad happened to her and I think it's natural that there would be some anxiety and worry about coming back to this place."
In the essay, Knox refers to herself a journalist and explains she's working on a true crime podcast which attempts to "re-humanize" those "thrust into the media spotlight."
While she managed to dodge the media on Friday, we do know she has her own personal videographer following her, meaning we can't exclude the possibility that some of this is being choreographed for her own camera.