The man who was convicted of raping and killing student Meredith Kercher while she studied abroad in Italy was released from prison last week, and even though evidence suggested he acted alone, he is still claiming innocence and blaming others for the crime.
Rudy Guede was released from prison early last week, spending just 13 years in prison for the 2007 rape stabbing death of Kercher, who was 21 at the time of her death. Guede told British tabloid The Sun that he was innocent, claiming: “I’ve got blood on my hands because I tried to save her not kill her.”
He further claimed that he wrote a letter to Kercher’s family saying how “sorry” he was “for their loss.”
“I have written a letter to them in which I explain to them how sorry I am but it’s too late to say sorry for not doing enough to save Meredith,” Kercher said. “The court accepted that I tried to save her by putting towels on her wounds.”
“The court convicted me of being an accessory to murder purely because my DNA was there but the [legal] documents say others were there and that I did not inflict the fatal wounds,” he further claimed.
Guede was convicted of raping and murdering Kercher in a fast-track trial with no press present, so it is unclear what the legal documents in that course say. Guede has lied and changed his story about his involvement in Kercher’s death numerous times.
For example, he initially said that he had a date with Kercher the day she was murdered and that he did not have sex with her but came out of the bathroom to see a man holding a knife and standing over her body. He claimed Amanda Knox – Kercher’s American roommate who was wrongly convicted of the murder – wasn’t at the murder scene, but later changed his story to say that she was. His story also repeatedly change to fit with news reports of the crime and investigation.
His bloody fingerprint was found at the crime scene, and a bloody palm print was found on her pillow under her naked body. He could not explain the palm print. Reports indicate that it was only his DNA that was found at the scene and that his story didn’t match forensic evidence.
Even though Guede committed the crime, Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were convicted and spent four years in jail and many more years in legal limbo as the Italian court repeatedly retried them. The litigation was finally stopped by the Italian Supreme Court, which resulted in their acquittal.
Knox had pleaded with Guede to “restore my reputation,” but Guede refused, instead insisting “I know the truth and she knows the truth.”
Knox has been fighting to clear her name from the media for years, last year telling Good Morning American that “The only reason you know I exist is because [of] what he did, and that is a grave injustice.”
Earlier this year, Knox wrote a powerful piece on Medium about the continued use of her story to generate movies and media clicks.
“Does my name belong to me? My face? What about my life? My story? Why does my name refer to events I had no hand in? I return to these questions because others continue to profit off my name, face, & story without my consent,” she wrote.
She also criticized those who emphasize her rather than Kercher.
“This focus on me led many to complain that Meredith had been forgotten. But of course, who did they blame for that? Not the Italian authorities. Not the press. Me! Somehow it was my fault that the police and media focused on me at Meredith’s expense,” she wrote. “The result of this is that 15 years later, my name is the name associated with this tragic series of events, of which I had zero impact on. Meredith’s name is often left out, as is Rudy Guede’s. When he was released from prison recently, this was the NY Post headline.”