Resolution and Its Absence

Meredith Kercher

From our experience, if there is one term survivors of murder victims hate, it is “closure.” Law enforcement officials, commentators and even well-meaning friends speak of closure as if it is the final goal to be sought in any criminal justice preceding, a theoretical threshold that will allow the survivors to “get over it” and “get on with their lives.”

Every individual who has been “touched” by murder, however, knows there is no such thing as closure and that it is not even an ideal to be sought. You may get on with things, but you are not the same person after a friend or loved one has been murdered. You assimilate the act and the loss into your own personality and your own orientation to life.

What survivors seek, instead, is resolution. And in the six years since the murder of Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy, there has been none.

Meredith’s flat mate Amanda Knox and Amanda’s boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were convicted of the murder, explained as a drug-fueled sex orgy gone wrong (as if one could ever go right). The only problem with the trial from our studied perspective was that it was based on absolutely no evidence and a ridiculous theory of the case. The court of appeals recognized this flagrant miscarriage of justice, overturned the verdict and freed the two defendants after four years of hard time behind bars. Then last spring, the Court of Cassation – the Italian Supreme Court – reversed the finely reasoned appeals court decision and ordered the two to stand trial again. The trial is currently in progress, though progress in Italian jurisprudence is a relative term.

The irony, of course, is that the actual and sole killer, Rudy Guede, is already in prison for the murder, though he will be released in a few years because of his “cooperation” with legal authorities.

There are three parties who will not only never have closure, but because of this high court-ordered travesty, are being denied resolution as well.

Amanda wants nothing more than to clear her name and properly mourn her friend Meredith as she has not been allowed to do thus far. Because she comprehends the real dynamics of the crime and its motive, she also has to live with the haunting realization that had she not been spending the night of November 1, 2007 at Raffaele’s flat, she easily could have suffered the same hideous fate as Meredith. Since she is an American citizen, at least she doesn’t have to return to Italy and face re-imprisonment if the current trial goes as wrongly as the first.

Not so for Raffaele, who is an Italian citizen and will have to face the music if he is re-convicted of a crime he did not commit. He also knows, as do all of us who have studied the case, that he is being tried, essentially, for not “throwing Amanda under the bus” by saying she had planned this murderous orgy and led him to it. He has stated that he would rather spend the rest of his life in prison than save himself by condemning Amanda, whom he had only known for a week.

And most of all, there is the Kercher family, which has been re-victimized time and again by Italian authorities who have convinced them that Amanda and Raffaele killed their daughter. From our extensive experience with families of murder victims, it is essentially important to them to know and understand the truth about what happened and to be able to direct the passion in the proper direction. If they could be brought to the understanding that Amanda was their daughter’s friend, they might be able to derive comfort and connection from talking to her and mourning with her.

The truth might not always set you free, but it does help bring resolution. And that is what these three parties desperately need after all these years.

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