It's utterly despicable that the girl jailed for killing my daughter has become a celebrity
By John KercherLast updated at 8:20 AM on 2nd December 2010
From Meredith Kercher’s father, a passionate attack on the cult of 'Foxy Knoxy'
Last week, I switched on my television to see the parents of the young woman convicted of taking my daughter’s life proclaiming her innocence. And, once again, I felt the pain and the anger and the raw grief resurface.Amanda Knox was found guilty of killing my daughter Meredith at the house they shared in Italy three years ago. Yet since that act of horrific violence, Knox, it seems, has been accorded the status of a minor celebrity.
Sometimes it seems that there is no escape from her or her jaunty nickname, ‘Foxy Knoxy’ (doubly hurtful, for the way it trivialises the awfulness of her offence).
Cherished memories: John Kercher misses daughter Meredith every day
Kurt Knox and his ex-wife Edda Mellas have never expressed their condolences to our family for our grievous loss. There has been no letter of sympathy; no word of regret. Instead, I have watched them repeatedly reiterate the mantra of their daughter’s innocence.
Alas, I fear there is more yet to come. Their TV appearance last week, trailed for two days as if it were some exclusive media coup, coincided with the resumption of Knox’s appeal against her conviction.
This appeal, like the initial court case, will drag on for months, while the dark tunnel between my family and our ability to grieve for Meredith in peace becomes ever longer.
If Knox doesn’t get the result she wants, our agony will be even more protracted: she may then take her case to Italy’s Supreme Court in Rome. Put simply, our ordeal could go on for years.
'To many, Knox seems an unlikely killer. Yet to my family she is, unequivocally, culpable'
Knox and her former boyfriend, Italian Raffaele Sollecito, are serving jail sentences of 26 and 25 years respectively for their heinous crime. A third person, drifter Rudy Guede, convicted with them, is also in prison.
Yet it is Knox who still exerts such a hold over the media. As a journalist myself, I know the reason why. Knox is young, attractive and female. To many, she seems an unlikely killer.
Yet to my family she is, unequivocally, culpable. As far as we are concerned, she has been convicted of taking our precious Meredith’s life in the most hideous and bloody way.
And the sadness is, the nature of that death too often prevents us from celebrating her life. She has become ‘Meredith Kercher, murder victim’, not Meredith Kercher, our lovely, intellectually curious daughter.
So, today, I’d like to redress the balance and tell you about our irredeemable loss. About the Merdeith we knew and loved.
Minor celebrity status: Amanda Knox at her appeal hearing in Italy last week
On November 1, the third anniversary of her death, I gathered with the rest of the family in the cold, grey cemetery where she is buried. One by one, we laid bright flowers on her grave and left messages. Mine said simply, ‘I miss you’.
Along with our own handwritten notes, there were dozens from Meredith’s friends.
They write as if she’s still with us, telling her about their new jobs, their boyfriends.
They remind her of all the wonderful times they had, of the shared laughter. And like us, they hope — really, they do — that Meredith might somehow know what they have written.
None of us, you see, wants to forget her for even one second. So she is here, among us, everywhere. She lives on in the public memorials, with trees planted in her honour at her old school and university, and in the private ones, too.
At her home in Surrey, where she lived with her mum during the university holidays, her room remains as it always was. It is not a shrine; but neither will it ever be disturbed.
'All we want now is the peace to be able to celebrate her life. Is that so much to ask?'
I wait to hear the cheerful cadence of her laughter. Even now, the memory of it has the power to make me smile.
People also always remember Meredith’s kindness and caring nature. She never gave the impression of being studious, but she was. She worked quietly and assiduously for her degree. But she was generous too. Several friends commented that she would lend out her lecture notes to anyone who asked: to her, it was second nature.
But Meredith, of course, was not perfect. Punctuality was never one of her qualities.
The last time I saw her, during a weekend trip back to London, she breezed into the Italian restaurant where I was waiting for her a full hour late. Yet when I saw her, wreathed in that famous smile, my annoyance instantly evaporated.
The vision of her delightedly showing me the new boots she’d bought that day is one I continue to hold dear.
The next thing we knew, we were travelling to Italy to identify her body.
And then there was the ordeal of the court case, the details of which have been picked over too often to bear repeating here.
Glamorised: Actress Hayden Panettiere is playing Knox in a new film about the events of Meredith's death
Two years after her death, we were told that we could finally take Meredith’s possessions home with us. I expected a large suitcase full of her belongings, which we could all cherish.
Instead, I was given a small, battered case. Her beloved clothes had all been taken for forensic tests. Not even her treasured possessions were sacrosanct.
So we concentrate on the happy memories instead. Meredith was a Christmas baby, and as the festive season approaches, we hold in our hearts the memory of her 21st birthday, celebrated in a local Italian restaurant. None of us could have dreamed it would be her last.
Meredith meant so much to us all. Our lives have, of course, moved on, but not a minute passes when she is not in our thoughts. And the question that nags insistently at us is: ‘Why?’ Why was she taken from us prematurely and with such horrific brutality?
Like all grieving parents, we sometimes wonder what she would be doing now if she were still with us. She would have graduated with her degree from Leeds University in 2009. But, of course, we were never able to share her pride in reaching that milestone.
She was, however, awarded a posthumous degree, and her sister, Stephanie, collected it for her. Every student in the vast hall rose to their feet to applaud her that day. The standing ovation lasted a full minute, and my eyes brimmed with tears.
Sometimes, even now, I find it hard to believe she is not still with us. Her passing is easier to bear if I pretend she has just gone away for a while; that some day soon she will ring me — her voice bubbling with laughter and enthusiasm — to tell me about her latest adventure.
Meredith was the baby of the family, the beloved youngest child. Her mum, her siblings and I cherish every memory of her short life. It is her untimely and horrific death we would all prefer to obliterate from our minds.
All we want now is the peace to be able to celebrate her life. Is that so much to ask?
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