Italian detectives testify in student’s murder trial

PERUGIA, Italy – A young American woman charged with murder in Italy turned cartwheels and sat on her boyfriend’s lap in the police station after the killing of her apartment mate, Italian investigators testified at the trial Friday.

The court in this central city heard testimony from detectives who inspected the apartment where 21-year-old Meredith Kercher, a Briton, was found stabbed to death Nov. 2, 2007.

Kercher’s roommate, University of Washington student Amanda Knox, and Knox’s Italian former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, are charged with murder and sexual violence. They have pleaded innocent and looked tense and somber when they were escorted into court by police guards.

Domenico Giacinto Profazio, the former head of the Perugia police detective squad, recounted the investigation that led to charges against the two defendants and a third suspect convicted in a separate trial last year. Rudy Hermann Guede of the Ivory Coast was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Profazio said Knox and Sollecito had a “strange attitude” when they were taken to the police station for questioning following the discovery of Kercher’s body. He said that on one occasion Knox sat on Sollecito’s lap.

“I told them it was not appropriate,” Profazio said. He also recalled other officers reporting that Knox was doing cartwheels and splits in the station.

Prosecutors allege Kercher was killed during what began as a sex game, with Sollecito holding her by the shoulders from behind while Knox touched her with the point of a knife. They say Guede tried to sexually assault Kercher and then Knox fatally stabbed her in the throat.

Profazio testified that records show Knox’s and Sollecito’s cell phones were switched off at around 8:30 p.m. on the night of the slaying, making their whereabouts untraceable.

A second witness, police officer Marco Chiacchiera, said no record was found of a telephone call that Sollecito claims to have received on his apartment landline phone at 11 p.m.

Sollecito maintains he was in his own apartment and doesn’t remember if Knox spent part or all of the night with him.

Knox initially told investigators she was in the house when Kercher was killed and covered her ears against the victim’s screams. Later, she said she wasn’t there.

A third witness, Monica Napoleoni, who heads Perugia police’s homicide squad, described the crime scene and Kercher’s body.

“Her eyes were opened. She has been massacred,” Napoleoni said, adding that a blood-soaked bra was also found at her feet.

Napoleoni recalled feeling that Sollecito and Knox seemed “indifferent to everything” when they were at the police station for questioning. “They would make faces, kiss each other, while there was the body of a friend in those conditions,” she said.

During Friday’s testimony, DNA evidence that prosecutors say points to Knox and Sollecito was also listed.

Prosecutors say Knox’s DNA was found on the handle of a knife that might have been used in the slaying, and the victim’s DNA was found on the blade. The knife was found at Sollecito’s house.

They say they found Sollecito’s DNA on the clasp of the victim’s bra, although his defense team says the bra bore multiple DNA traces and maintain the evidence might have been inadvertently contaminated during the investigation.