The Biggest Meredith Kercher Theories: What Really Happened?
The death of Meredith Kercher would become one of the biggest international murder cases in 2009. The 21-year-old British exchange student was found in a pool of blood in the Italian home that she shared with three other women, including American Amanda Knox.
Three people would be arrested and charged with Kercher's murder, and one of them was Knox. Ultimately, Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were controversially convicted and acquitted for the crime two times. Recently, the third convict, Rudy Guede, was released from prison after serving 13 years, per The New York Times.
The start of the whirlwind case began the night Kercher died on November 1, 2007. Her cause of death was by stabbing. Yet, the motive for what led to her murder came with varying accounts. One of the commonly believed explanations for Kercher's death was that Knox, her ex-boyfriend, and Kercher were all involved in a violent sex game that led to the British student's death. But when the couple went on trial for the second time, the motive was said to be bad blood between the two roommates (via The Atlantic).
The night of the murder
Over the years, no one has been able to really explain what happened the night Meredith Kercher died. Knox reportedly signed a confession letter stating that she walked in the house, and her boss, Patrick Lumbumba, killed Kercher as she was in another room (via Biography). However, he had an alibi and was never charged. Then Sollecito apparently was at his own apartment the night of the murder but admitted Knox could've left at one point. Initially, the pair claimed they went to the house the next day and found Kercher's body.
Guede on the other hand said he was at the crime scene but didn't kill anyone, nor did Knox or Sollecito. But his 2014 testimony made an Italian court revisit the case when he stated that the two roommates were not on good terms. Then in 2015, both Knox and Sollecito were acquitted for a second time (via Biography).
The theories that might explain Kercher's death
So what really happened? There are several theories that have tried to surmise what happened the night Meredith Kercher died. Along with a possible sex game gone awry, there's the added theory that maybe Knox and Kercher didn't get along because of their differing views on sex (via Lessons From History). The theory deduces that in trying to get Kercher to take part in a sexual encounter with Sollecito and Guede, Knox and the two men banded to kill her (via Bustle).
But because DNA evidence couldn't place Knox nor her boyfriend, most of the blame lay on Guede, who left a bloody fingerprint at the scene. Yet, prosecutors simply did not believe that he committed the crime alone and maintained that the trio acted together. There is also the possibility that Knox and Sollecito didn't even know Guede, making it impossible for them to orchestrate a crime together (per The Guardian).