📝 The Transcript

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Presenter in theatre motioning around stage in theatre; superimpose images of living spaces e.g. sink and door

It was the morning of November 1st 2007, a university exchange student – let’s call her K – returned from her boyfriend’s house to her flat in Italy. K came home and noticed that the door was open. She went in to have a shower. In the bathroom, K saw that there was some blood in the sink. She also noticed that her flatmate’s room was locked shut. After her shower she went back to her boyfriend’s house and returned with him to the flat to try and knock down the flatmate’s door. At the same time, the Police arrive – coincidentally – looking to return the flatmate’s phone which had been found nearby and handed into them. The police break into the locked room and this is where they discover the body of K’s flatmate. She had been murdered.

Presenter in theatre talking to camera, superimpose case timeline and suspects investigated

The police immediately leap into action. They shut down the crime scene and start conducting long interviews of K and her boyfriend. During the days of vigorous interviews, K changes her story to say she actually was at home when the murder occurred and she implicates her boss in the murder.

After 4 days of interviews, the police arrested K, her boyfriend and her boss. Two weeks later, test results come back for physical evidence collected at the crime scene. DNA is matched to K and the victim from a knife found in K’s boyfriend’s house which the police determine to be the murder weapon. In a turn of events though, fingerprints and DNA are also matched to a new person – R – who had fled the country. R is then extradited and arrested, and K’s boss is released from custody following corroboration of an alibi. R is charged with murder along with K and her boyfriend, who the police believed to be involved.

In 2008, after opting for a separate, fast trial, R is convicted of the murder. At the same time K and her boyfriend are detained as a judge decides they should also stand full trial on murder charges. Both K and her boyfriend maintain their innocence but are found guilty in 2009 and imprisoned.

In 2010, a second trial began (as is standard in Italy). During this trial, K and her boyfriend are acquitted and after having spent almost 4 years in prison, K returns to her home country and her boyfriend returns to his home in Italy.

This is not the end however. In 2013, another Italian review court declares the appeal verdict invalid and orders another retrial. The result of this trial reinstates K and her boyfriend’s original guilty conviction but they do not return to prison. Instead, in 2015, the supreme court overturns this second conviction and rules on a final acquittal of K and her boyfriend, declaring them innocent of the murder of K’s flatmate.

So what caused this confusing entanglement of K and her boyfriend in the murder of a friend and flatmate? To answer that question, we can get a clue from the media coverage at the time. Let’s have a look.

Montage of media coverage with voice-over

A media frenzy surrounded this case. The murdered woman was a British national and as such the case acquired immediate international attention.

The event that peaked the media’s interest in this case was an early press interview given by the police on the day K, her boyfriend and her boss had been arrested, during which they disclosed: “It’s an ugly story in which people that this girl had in her home, friends, tried to force her into relations which she didn’t want”.

This statement launched public imagination into a narrative that the murder was the result of a “sex game gone wrong”. It peaked interest into K, who became villified. Reporters began to call K “a […] psychopath with a pretty face masking a liar and a killer”. Other incriminating nicknames also became popularised and photos were published showing K and her boyfriend hugging and kissing the day the body was discovered and then later going lingerie shopping.

Multiple reports were made about false evidence in the case linking K directly to the murder. Other facts were misinterpreted or exaggerated in the press to continue the narrative that K and her boyfriend were “sex-crazed party people”.

The jury in the first trial were free to read the papers, watch the TV coverage and talk with friends and family about the case. It was revealed later that jurors were coming to the Judge saying they were confused, that what they were hearing on TV about the case was different to what they were hearing in the courtroom.

Presenter in theatre sitting in audience stalls talking to camera (as though a sitting jury member)

Several key pieces of forensic evidence were presented at court to convict K and her boyfriend of this murder. One of these was a knife that had been identified as the murder weapon. Investigators found traces of the victim’s DNA on the blade as well as K’s DNA on the handle.

K’s boyfriend was linked to the crime by DNA traces found on a piece of the victim’s clothing that was recovered from the scene six weeks after the murder.

No DNA from K nor her boyfriend were found elsewhere at the scene and the prosecution suggested that the pair had been careful to selectively clean up. No evidence existed of any phone calls or texts between K or her boyfriend, and R, the other man convicted. Footprints, handprints, and multiple DNA sources linked R firmly to the murder and his involvement was never disputed.

Dozens of witnesses were called to testify during the original trial leading to the conviction of K and her boyfriend after R.

Considering all this evidence, was this a fair ruling?

Presenter standing in theatre centre stage talking to camera

In the end, K and her boyfriend’s convictions were overturned with the judge stating that there were, quote: “stunning flaws” made in the original case. Findings concluded that the evidence linking them to the crime were unreliable due to the high likelihood of contamination throughout the processing of the scene and analysis of the exhibits.

It was determined that police forensic scientists made many mistakes during the investigation meaning that the DNA found on the blade of the knife was not reliably the victim’s, and that the piece of clothing used to link K’s boyfriend to the crime scene was mishandled and therefore his DNA had likely been accidentally transferred.

Further holes were made in the case including that the knife submitted as evidence was falsely assumed to be the murder weapon and that K had been subjected to great psychological pressure in the initial interviews which lead to false statements being made.

• So why was this forensic evidence accepted at the time?
• Why did investigators seemingly go to so much effort to convict two additional people for this murder?
• And what about the Italian court system? Was it just as well that the procedure in place meant that an automatic second trial was conducted following the guilty verdict?

🧠 Thought exercise

• Was the original trial’s decision fair or not? What was it that made this decision happen?
• What do you think caused the confusing entanglement of K and her boyfriend in the investigation?

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