Shocking truth of student's murder

STUDENT Meredith Kercher had her throat cut after she refused to take part in a sordid sex game with her flatmate and two men, police said last night.

STRUGGLED Meredith Kercher STRUGGLED: Meredith Kercher

Meredith, 21, was said to have struggled wildly as she fought off repeated attempts to force her into the perverted group sex session.

During the violence she was stabbed in the neck with a penknife at the house she shared with American Amanda Knox, 20, in the central Italian city of Perugia.

Last night, police were trying to piece together the final moments of the shocking tragedy after arresting Knox, the American’s Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, 24, and bar owner Patrick Diya Lumumba, aged 37.

Knox, who likes to call herself “Foxy Knoxy”, and the two men were being held on suspicion of conspiracy to commit manslaughter and sexual violence.

Police are said to have detained them after Knox broke down and confessed. One officer said: “The story kept changing and didn’t square. In the end she just collapsed. What she told us helped bring the case to a close but it was only a matter of time.”

All three had earlier posed as bereaved friends. Sollecito even told how he discovered the body, saying: “There was blood everywhere.”

The three were arrested as Meredith’s father, John, and her family were still reeling from reports that she may have “engaged in sexual activity” shortly before her death.

But after a six-and-a-half-hour post mortem examination, the Italian pathologist initially said she had not been raped.

Yesterday, however, pathologist Luca Lalli said: “Now there has been this breakthrough and I can speak freely, all I want to add is that I cannot rule out that sex took place under the threat of violence.”

Perugian police chief Arturo de Felice said: “All three participated in this crime. The motive was sexual and the victim rebelled. She was a victim, pure and simple.”

However, Italian news agency reports claimed it was Lumumba who actually cut Meredith’s throat.

Italian Interior Minister Giuliano Amato also spoke publicly about the murder, saying: “It’s an ugly story in which people who this girl had in her home, friends, tried to force her into relations which she didn’t want”

Part of the police investigation will centre on whether any of the suspects were under the influence of drugs.

Leeds University student Meredith, from Coulsdon, south London, was discovered partially clothed under a blood-soaked duvet in the early hours of last Friday. Meredith, described by her family as “beautiful, intelligent, witty and caring”, had spent the evening celebrating Halloween.

Detectives believe the sex game was suggested shortly after the group returned home.

Mr Felice said Meredith was “uncomfortable with the sexual tone” of the conversation and fought back when attempts where made to force her to take part. When her body was found, she was naked except for her top which had been rolled up to expose her chest. The post mortem revealed bruising which suggested she had been grabbed from behind.

Police sources said fingerprints found on Meredith’s two mobile phones as well as records of calls made and received were crucial. One officer said: “The flat where Meredith was killed was full of evidence. There was blood, fingerprints and other bodily substances.”

The dead girl’s father told how he was struggling to come to terms with the idea his daughter might have had sex shortly before she died.

He said: “Meredith was just not that sort of person. She would never have got involved in anything like that.”

Meredith, known as Mez, arrived in Italy at the end of August as part of a one-year exchange programme.

According to her family, she had been “pursuing her dream” and had thrown herself into life in the Italian city. She had been due to return home this weekend for her mother’s birthday.

Last night it emerged that Knox, from Seattle, Washington, arrived in Perugia two months ago for a year-long exchange course studying Italian. She got a job at a bar called Le Chic owned by Congolese-born Lumumba, who was studying music at the university.

Knox, calling herself Foxy Knoxy, wrote in her MySpace blog: “I’ve been working at a bar called Le Chic. It’s a really small place owned by this man from the Congo.”

Knox, who lists her hobbies on the social networking site as “people watching and day dreaming” also describes how a flatmate called Laura ending up sleeping with a handyman.

In another blog, she talks about getting “smoked up” – slang for using marijuana.

Pasquale Pisco, owner of Merlin’s bar where Knox attended a Halloween party, said: “When I saw Amanda at the police station after Meredith’s murder she was very cool and calm.

“I remember thinking how collected she was and how well she was taking it. Then when I heard she had been arrested that picture of her flashed through my mind and it sent a shiver down my spine.”

Sollecito was studying computer sciences at the university. Described as unassuming and bookish, he had told reporters how he discovered Meredith’s body. He said: “It is something I never hope to see again. There was blood everywhere. My girlfriend was crying and screaming ‘How could anyone do this?’”

Sollecito claimed Meredith had gone out with an English friend while he and Knox had attended the  party at Merlin’s bar.

He said: “The next day Amanda went back to take a shower. When she arrived the front door was wide open.

“Then she went into the bathroom and saw spots of blood.” Sollecito claimed she panicked, ran back to his home and they returned together.

“It was eerily silent and the bathroom was speckled with blood like someone had flicked it with little spots,” he said.

Sollecito claimed the sight of Meredith’s blood-stained body made Knox scream. He added: “It was hard to tell if it was Meredith at first. It was horrible. It seems her killer came through the window because it was smashed.”

But last night photographs of Sollecito discovered on his internet blog site  belied the bookish image. One showed him dressed in a doctor’s outfit holding a meat cleaver in one hand and a container of bleach in the other. An entry on his site described  travels to Prague, Nuremburg and the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau.

He said in his blog: “I’m very honest, peaceable, sweet but sometimes totally creazy (sic).” He also described himself as “Christian” and said his favourite sport was kick boxing.

Lumumba is said to be a relative of Patrice Lumumba, the first elected president of the Republic of Congo, who was assassinated in 1960.

Since arriving in Perugia in 1988, he has become one of its most respected citizens, dedicating much of his time to cultural events.

Three years ago, he met a Polish  student more than 10 years his junior and the couple subsequently married and had a child.

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