Amanda Knox’s Instagram Murder Joke Triggers Social Media Attention

Amanda Knox’s Instagram Murder Joke Triggers Social Media Attention
Amanda Knox prepares to leave the set following a television interview in New York, on Jan. 31, 2014. (Mark Lennihan/AP Photo)
Jack Phillips
2/27/2019
Updated:
2/27/2019

Amanda Knox, the Washington woman who spent four years in an Italian prison following her 2007 conviction of the murder of a fellow college student before she was acquitted, made a joke about the case.

Knox, 31, posted on Instagram that she was playing a murder mystery party with friends, saying that again, she was falsely accused as the killer.

She was given the role of “Countess of Lovelace,” a Victorian-era woman who was accused of killing the owner of an art gallery, Fox News reported.

Knox suggested that the fictitious story was similar to her own.

“Victorian London: A priceless painting goes missing and the owner is found both poisoned and stabbed. And would you believe it, I, the Countess of Lovelace, am accused,” she said on Instagram.

“Also acquitted, all in 4 hours. Better than 4 years,” she then said, sharing to photos of the event. Knox is seen sitting on a couch with her arms crossed, and her friends are nearby.

Some people slammed the joke as distasteful.

Amanda Knox, center, is escorted by Italian penitentiary police officers from Perugia's court after a hearing, central Italy, on Sept. 16, 2008. (Antonio Calanni,(AP Photo, File)
Amanda Knox, center, is escorted by Italian penitentiary police officers from Perugia's court after a hearing, central Italy, on Sept. 16, 2008. (Antonio Calanni,(AP Photo, File)

“You have no shame,” one Instagram user wrote.

“Anything for attention,” another said.

“Murder, your favourite subject!” a third person said.

In the case, she was accused of killing Meredith Kercher, a fellow exchange student who shared her apartment.

Amanda Knox, left, talks to reporters as her mother, Edda Mellas, right, looks on outside Mellas' home in Seattle, on March 27, 2015. (Ted S. Warren/AP Photo, file)
Amanda Knox, left, talks to reporters as her mother, Edda Mellas, right, looks on outside Mellas' home in Seattle, on March 27, 2015. (Ted S. Warren/AP Photo, file)

The body of Kercher, who was from the United Kingdom, was found the Perugia apartment in November 2007.

The American woman and her boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were found guilty, but their convictions were later overturned.

Knox’s conviction was overturned by the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation in 2011, and she returned to the United States that same year. In 2014, she was sentenced to prison in absentia until the Italian high court overturned that decision in 2015.

The European Human Rights Court ordered Italy to pay her $20,000 in damages in January 2019, saying she wasn’t provided proper legal aid.

“Ms. Knox had been particularly vulnerable, being a foreign young woman, 20 at the time, not having been in Italy for very long and not being fluent in Italian,” the court said, Fox reported.

Amanda Knox on the final day of the Meredith Kercher murder trial on December 4, 2009 in Perugia, Italy. A man currently in an Italian prison claims that he can prove the innocence of Amanda Knox by confirming the guilt of his own brother. (Oli Scarff/Getty Images)
Amanda Knox on the final day of the Meredith Kercher murder trial on December 4, 2009 in Perugia, Italy. A man currently in an Italian prison claims that he can prove the innocence of Amanda Knox by confirming the guilt of his own brother. (Oli Scarff/Getty Images)

“It is impossible to compensate Amanda for four years in prison for a mistake. There will be no amount. We are not looking for compensation of damages. We are doing this on principle,” Dalla Vedova, Knox’s attorney in Italy, was quoted by the news outlet as saying.

Knox began working as a freelance journalist after her acquittal and is working with the Innocence Project.

“This group was built by [lawyers], scientists and intellectuals who are trying to prove facts and understand how things get blown out of proportion. They are emotionally and intellectually there for me. They understand that we already had to pay for our lives with the things we didn’t do,” Knox told Rolling Stone in 2017, adding that it was “crazy” she had to prove her innocence.

An immigrant from Ivory Coast, Rudy Guede, was convicted in the death of Kercher. He’s serving a 16-year jail term for the case.

Amanda Knox arrives in court before the start of her appeal trial in Perugia's courthouse on Jan. 22, 2011. (Tiziana Fabi/AFP/Getty Images)
Amanda Knox arrives in court before the start of her appeal trial in Perugia's courthouse on Jan. 22, 2011. (Tiziana Fabi/AFP/Getty Images)
This undated file photo released by the Italian Police on Nov. 3, 2007, shows 21-year-old murdered British university student Meredith Kercher. (AP Photo/Italian Police)
This undated file photo released by the Italian Police on Nov. 3, 2007, shows 21-year-old murdered British university student Meredith Kercher. (AP Photo/Italian Police)
Rudy Hermann Guede, left, of Ivory Coast, on Dec. 22, 2009. (Stefano Medici/AP Photo)
Rudy Hermann Guede, left, of Ivory Coast, on Dec. 22, 2009. (Stefano Medici/AP Photo)
Jack Phillips is a breaking news reporter with 15 years experience who started as a local New York City reporter. Having joined The Epoch Times' news team in 2009, Jack was born and raised near Modesto in California's Central Valley. Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/jackphillips5
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