Meredith Kercher’s sister says she cannot understand why nobody else has been charged with murdering the British student after court rules Rudy Guede did not act alone
- Stephanie Kercher spoke out days after 15th anniversary of sister’s murder
- Stephanie questioned why no one else charged with her sister’s murder
- She also paid tribute to her sister and her memorable and contagious smile
- Leeds University student ‘Mez’, 21, was found dead in her room in Italy in 2007
Meredith Kercher’s heartbroken sister has questioned why no-one else has been charged with murdering her sibling after the only man jailed was freed after serving just 16 years – despite the court ruling he did not act alone.
Stephanie Kercher, 39, spoke out just days after the 15th anniversary of Meredith’s murder and after Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, who were both accused of the killing and later cleared, were pictured meeting up in what was slammed as a ‘poor taste’ reunion.
Leeds University student Meredith, 21, was found stabbed to death in the bedroom of the house she shared with American Knox in the Italian hill-top town of Perugia on November 2, 2007 and drifter Rudy Guede was later convicted of her murder and released last year after serving 16 years of a 30 year sentence.
According to the court file, judges said Guede acted ‘together with Knox and Sollecito’ but did not materially carry out the murder – although Knox and Sollecito were later cleared after serving four years and Stephanie has now questioned ‘who the others are’ in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
Stephanie Kercher, 39, (left), pictured with her sister (right), spoke out just days after the 15th anniversary of Meredith’s murder
Leeds University student Meredith, 21, pictured, was found stabbed to death in the bedroom of the house she shared with American Knox in the Italian hill-top town of Perugia on November 2, 2007 and drifter Rudy Guede was later convicted of her murder and released last year after serving 16 years of a 30 year sentence
She said: ‘I swear, I just don’t understand this, I don’t understand why if Rudy Guede was convicted of acting with others why the trial can’t be reopened and those responsible found.
‘A lot of time has passed and that does not attenuate anything and I’m left with a deep sense of disappointment because the judges’ reasoning (on Guede ) does not coincide with the outcome of the trial.
‘Guede’s sentence says he was involved with others in the murder but where are the others ? With this ending I just see lots of unanswered questions.’
Stephanie also spoke out on the reunion picture of Knox and Sollecito and told the Italian paper: ‘Let’s say I would have appreciated more if the 15th anniversary of Mez’s death the attention had been focused more on her memory.’
When asked if she thought Guede alone was responsible for her sister’s murder, Stephanie replied:’ The answer to this question must come from the Italian judicial system, as I have already said instead it leaves many questions unanswered.’
Stephanie also spoke out on the reunion picture of Knox and Sollecito, pictured, and told the Italian paper:’ Let’s say I would have appreciated more if the 15th anniversary of Mez’s death the attention had been focused more on her memory’
Last year Guede, 34, following his release from jail pointedly suggested that Knox, 35, ‘knows the truth and I know the truth’ and he has repeated his claims in a book out last month called The Benefit of the Doubt. Pictured: Guede in 2020
Then, paying tribute to Meredith, she added: ‘Her smile was memorable. Its contagious when I look at her photo. She was fun loving, intelligent and caring with family and friends, especially my mother.
‘If I close my eyes I can still see her, hear her, the void she has left can never be filled, the pain will always remain even with the passing of time. There will always be a place for her in my heart and thoughts.
‘She was very interested in politics, like my mother. She loved writing and for that she took after my father. I’m sure that if she’d lived her life she would have made a great impact on the world.
‘I always think of her and I have a memories box which I lovingly keep. After she died with my parents we put her homework, school books and photographs inside so that we could always have it with us, a piece of her close to us.’
Then speaking of the stop start court cases that went on for years in Italy, Stephanie said: ‘The length of the trial was a wound that made it all the more difficult to mourn. Attending hearings was really hard and above all it was tough for my parents.’
Paying tribute to Meredith, Stephanie added: ‘Her smile was memorable. Its contagious when I look at her photo. She was fun loving, intelligent and caring with family and friends, especially my mother. Pictured: Stephanie at a news conference in 2011
Then speaking of the stop start court cases that went on for years in Italy, Stephanie said: ‘The length of the trial was a wound that made it all the more difficult to mourn. Attending hearings was really hard and above all it was tough for my parents.’ Pictured: Meredith’s family at a press conference in 2014
Last year Guede, 34, following his release from jail pointedly suggested that Knox, 35, ‘knows the truth and I know the truth’ and he has repeated his claims in a book out last month called The Benefit of the Doubt.
In it he insisted he was innocent of Meredith’s murder and repeated the verdict that if he was ‘convicted with others and Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were cleared where are the others?’
He also repeated claims made at his trial that Meredith did not get on with Knox – despite the American claiming they did – and that Meredith had told him she had taken her rent money.
Guede – who says he was using the bathroom at the time Meredith was stabbed – said: ‘I heard a voice, it sounded like Amanda and then I heard Meredith, she said ‘You and I need to talk.’ Pictured: Guede in 2007
Guede – who says he was using the bathroom at the time Meredith was stabbed – said: ‘I heard a voice, it sounded like Amanda and then I heard Meredith, she said ‘You and I need to talk.’
He added that when he came out he had found Meredith lying on the floor in a pool of blood and that as he looked through the blinds of the bedroom he saw Knox fleeing along with an unidentified man.
Knox and Sollecito were arrested four days after the murder and initially convicted twice before being eventually cleared while Guede was jailed after his bloody fingerprints and DNA were found at the scene but he insists these were left as he attempted to save Meredith’s life.
The couple revealed they had met up earlier this year in the Italian town of Gubbio, which they had planned to visit the day Meredith’s body was found but they were unable to do so because they were being questioned by police.
Knox and Sollecito were arrested four days after the murder and initially convicted twice before being eventually cleared while Guede was jailed after his bloody fingerprints and DNA were found at the scene but he insists these were left as he attempted to save Meredith’s life
Stephanie’s words come after Meredith’s heartbroken family released an emotional tribute to her marking the 15th anniversary of her murder – just days after pictures of former suspects Amanda Knox and ex-lover Raffaele Sollecito smiling together at a reunion in Italy were slammed as ‘poor taste’.
Leeds University student Meredith, 21, was found lifeless in her bedroom of the apartment she shared with Knox in the Italian hilltop town of Perugia on November 2, 2007.
The Kercher family have always maintained a respectful silence following the death of Meredith and in their statement, it emerged parents John and Arline had died within weeks of each other in 2020.
In a tribute to Meredith, who was known by the nickname Mez, her surviving siblings said: ‘Every anniversary of Meredith’s death gives us pause for thought, but of course as with anyone who has lost a loved one – especially in such tragic circumstances – it does not take an anniversary to remember them; it’s something you carry with you every day.
‘Fifteen years has passed in the blink of an eye but yet we have lived a lifetime in between – something Meredith sadly, was never afforded.
‘Losing both our parents within just four months of each other in early 2020 brought its own tragedy but we can take some solace in knowing that they are now united with Mez and no longer have to live with the grief which consumed them.
‘Meredith will always be in our thoughts and forever in our hearts.’
Meredith Kercher, from Coulsdon, Surrey, was killed just three months after moving to Italy for a study abroad programme at Perugia’s prestigious university (pictured: in an undated photo released in November 2007)
Meredith’s parents Arline (centre) and John (right) Kercher – who both died in 2020 – and her sister Stephanie (left) at a press conference in Perugia in November 2007
Covid curbs had meant little was known of 74-year-old Arline’s death, but she is thought to have died at a hospital in Carshalton, Surrey, during the initial phase of the pandemic and is buried next to Meredith in Croydon cemetery, south London.
Brave Arline earned widespread praise for the dignified manner in which she dealt with the aftermath of Meredith’s gruesome killing, when she was stabbed and sexually assaulted while an exchange student in Perugia, Italy.
Arline travelled to the country to identify her daughter’s body, vowing to fight for justice alongside her ex-husband and Meredith’s father John, even though they divorced in 1997.
Tragically, she never got the closure she wanted and questions have once again resurfaced after Rudy Guede, 34, who was convicted of Meredith’s killing, was released from prison after serving 13 years of a 30-year term and made the pointed suggestion that Knox ‘knows the truth and I know the truth’.
Supported by her two remaining devoted children, Arline rarely spoke about the family’s anguish but once described it as a ‘nightmare’ while insisting ‘there are a lot of unanswered questions that seem to have been ignored’.
Her death in May 2020 was four months after her ex-husband John, 77, passed away.
He was found in a road close to his home in Croydon, south London with two fractured legs, a broken arm and a head injury in January 2020 and died in hospital three weeks later.
At a later inquest a coroner was unable to conclude whether he had died from a hit and run incident.
American Knox, 35, and computer engineer Sollecito, 38, were initially arrested and convicted twice of the brutal murder and spent four years in jail before being eventually cleared on appeal by Italy’s Supreme Court over lack of evidence.
Amanda Knox (left), from Seattle, was falsely convicted of Meredith’s murder twice and served four years in prison and Raffaele Sollecito (right), 38, originally from Milan, was convicted alongside his former lover
Amanda Knox (pictured speaking in 2019, file photo) wrote an article called ‘Patrolling the Trolls: The Sorry State of Reporting Online Abuse’ – recalling when she received death threats in prison
Meredith Kercher’s killer Rudy Guede (pictured waving from the window of a volunteer centre in 2016, file photo) was formally released from prison 13 years after the grisly murder
Meredith, from Coulsdon, south London, was in Perugia as part of her university course year abroad.
Knox and Sollecito met earlier this year in the town of Gubbio, the place they had planned to visit the day Meredith’s body was found. They had not seen each other for ten years and described it as a ‘bitter-sweet reunion’.
A source close to the family told MailOnline: ‘Of course they have seen the picture of Knox and Sollecito together in Italy but they don’t want to comment publicly on that as neither of them are of any interest to them – and they don’t want to add to their media visibility.
‘What they have found astonishing is the timing of the decision to publicise this reunion, [it] beggars belief in terms of respect for Meredith.’
Knox and Sollecito were arrested four days after the murder and convicted along with Ivory Coast drifter Guede, whose bloody fingerprints and DNA were found at the scene.
He is now working in a local library in Viterbo and has written a book called ‘The Benefit of the Doubt’ and has continued to insist he is innocent of Meredith’s murder.
In an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera, Guede, said:’ I was convicted of acting in conjunction with Knox and Sollecito but the judges said I didn’t materially commit the crime so if they are innocent who was I supposed to have been with ?’
Guede confirmed he was in the house at the time and added: ‘ I was there, I’m not denying it. I wasn’t in a corner. I was with Meredith and we had been making out, we started to have sex but I then went to the bathroom, we didn’t have any condoms.’
He has always insisted that when he came out he found Meredith on the floor fatally stabbed and a man and a woman in the house. Guede added:’ The man said ‘Let’s go they will find the negro.’
Guede said: ‘What I will never forgive myself for is not doing enough to save Meredith. There were not enough towels to soak up the blood, I panicked and I fled. For this I will never forgive myself. I accept I behaved badly but I am not a murderer.’
Detective tracked Guede down to Germany after listening in on Skype calls he made to a friend in Italy and he was later extradited to face trial.