The Forgotten Killer: Rudy Guede and the Murder of Meredith Kercher (Kindle Single) Read Free Page A

interrogators repeatedly and insistently suggested his name to Amanda.)
    The announcement generated headlines across Europe and the U.S. Mignini and the Perugian police were lauded for their swift resolution of the case.The crime scene had still not been analyzed, but that was unnecessary, as Police Chief Giobbi explained: “We were able to establish guilt by closely observing the suspects’psychological and behavioral reactions during the interrogations. We don’t need to rely on other kinds of investigations, as this method has enabled us to get to the guilty parties in a very quick time.”
    But then, over the following weeks, the crime-scene reports began to come in. Despite a laborious search, not one speck of Amanda’s DNA could be found at the violent and bloody crime scene. Instead, multiple DNA traces of an unknown fourth person were discovered there. Not only was his DNA found on the victim, but it was also found inside her. His bloody palm print was on a pillow underneath her body. Feces in an unflushed toilet at the murder scene turned out to be his. He was quickly identified as a drifter and knife-wielding housebreaker named Rudy Guede, who had fled the country two days after the murder. He was extradited from Germany and charged with murder.
    Under ordinary circumstances, Amanda and Raffaele would have been released. But that didn’t happen. Many powerful people, from the chief of police to the head of the celebrated Flying Squad of elite investigators that had come up from Rome—not to mention Mignini himself—had been behind the triumphant “case closed” announcement. These were important people with careers to protect. Mignini was especially vulnerable, as he was under indictment for abuse of office, his trial looming. What would happen to their careers if they admitted making an appalling mistake and were forced to release three innocents?
    Mignini and the police continued to insist Amanda and Raffaele were killers. The authorities were forced to release Lumumba, as the bartender had a dozen alibiwitnesses who had seen him at his bar the night of the murder. But Amanda and Raffaele had no alibis except each other. Mignini simply substituted the new suspect, Rudy Guede, for the old suspect, Lumumba. Now the murder was a conspiracy between those three—even though Raffaele had never met Guede, and Amanda knew him only in passing.
    When it came time to present the case in a preliminary court hearing, Mignini explained their motive: The three had perpetrated an occult, ritualistic, sexual killing that was originally planned for Halloween but which had been postponed a day, to November 1. (He would later propose other motives for the crime, after his occult theory was met with criticism from his fellow prosecutors and a judge.)
    Amanda and Raffaele remained jailed in Capanne Prison awaiting their trial while police assiduously assembled the “evidence” against them, ignoring all other lines of investigation. Eight months passed before they were actually charged with murder: That was how long it took to develop the “evidence.” In the United States, suspects typically cannot be held more than 72 hours without being charged.
    Mignini’s proposed motive—that the murder was an occult rite—may seem far-fetched to American readers, but it was no surprise to those who knew Mignini. That had also been his theory of motive in the Monster of Florence case. The Monster, Mignini maintained, was no lone psychopathic serial killer; it was a group, a satanic cult, perhaps dating back to the Middle Ages, of powerful men—doctors, pharmacists, and even noblemen—who needed female body parts to be used as the host in their black masses.
    But there are other aspects to Mignini’s background that may shed light on his “occult Halloween ritual” theory of the murder. There is a notorious Italian Web site run by an extremist far-right organization known as the Legitimate Association of Throne and Altar. On