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For those who followed the blog during its early days, you know the Amanda Knox situation has been a popular subject for us.

Well, she's back in our lives.

Rudy Guede, the Ivory Coast immigrant who is one of three being held for Meredith Kercher's murder, has implicated Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito as being present at the time of the murder.

Six months ago, this may have been a significant development. Now this just seems to be another ploy by the Italian police and court systems to hold Knox and her boyfriend behind bars.

I am one of the many who believes that Knox was involved in this in some way. But every day and every "convenient" development (Italy's Supreme Court was about to hold a hearing determining if there was enough evidence to keep Knox in custody) just makes this case lose any credibility.

I think it's fairly clear that neither Knox or her boyfriend are not breaking at this point. I think it's also pretty clear that Mr. Guede is guilty of something, judging by his fleeing to Germany after the murder and his willingness to change his story as often as he wants. Both of these facts point to us never really knowing what happened that night.

And now with Knox's parents becoming vocal, the mainstream media is only helping to dumb down this investigation. Do we really need to hear over and over that these parents don't believe their child is a sadistic, sex-crazed murderer. What parent would admit to that?

On top of that, why has no one ever talked about the poor girl who got killed? Know and her sleaze-looking boyfriend get all the press, when we really know very little about the victim.

This is going to continue for years. We'll most likely never be able to tell what happened that night, but there is one thing we can count on.

The "Amanda Knox" show is no where close to being cancelled.

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It appears that Amanda Knox has no problem answering questions, but the one issue she won't go near is the only one anybody wants to hear about: what happened the night Meredith Kercher was murdered. From this morning's P-I:

Thursday, Turin daily La Stampa published excerpts of a prison interview with Knox, who was visited by an Italian politician, Osvaldo Napoli, earlier this week.

According to the report, Knox said she did not want to answer any questions about "that night" because she did not want to be influenced by outside information. When she sees news about the murder case on TV, she changes the channel, Knox was quoted as saying.

But despite her unwillingness to clarify that flip-flopping story of what happened Nov. 1, the article claims, Knox - perhaps hoping to help sway the judge who will decide sometime today whether she remains behind bars - has expressed confidence in the Italian judicial system.

"What I have to say I want to say only to the judge. And to my attorney. We get along. He gives me a sense of security," Knox told Napoli. "I have faith in your justice system. I don't feel abandoned and I am not afraid, really. I have faith in Italy. I'm waiting. I'm serene. Everything will be clarified."

Meanwhile over at The Times Online, they've got a nice update on some of the details from the suspect's court appearance, which took place this morning.

Amid dramatic scenes in court, Ms Knox broke down in tears as she insisted that she was not at the Perugia cottage when Ms Kercher, 21, had her throat cut.

She told the judge: “I am innocent, I was at Raffaele’s house the whole time.” Speaking in English she added: “I want to tell the truth.”

Crying to the judge? Sounds like that "faith" in the Italian justice system was lost somewhere between her jail cell and the courtroom.

Other notable court developments, as mentioned in the article:

• It was the first time Knox and her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, a Romeo & Juliet for the 21st century, have seen each other since their arrests earlier this month.
• Knox reportedly apologized to the judge "for the trouble" she brought on Patrick Lumumba, the Congolese bar owner she initially fingered as Meredith Kercher's rapist and murderer. I guess it's okay to lie to police, so long as you apologize afterwards? Please. The fact that Knox brought a presumably innocent man into the picture and ruined his life cannot be overlooked with a simple apology. Hopefully the judge has the common sense to realize it.
  
• Not surprisingly, attorneys for both of the suspects are working to place the blame on Rudy Hermann Guede, a drug dealer from Perugia arrested in Germany who was recently linked by DNA evidence to the crime scene.
  

In my mind, there's very little question that Guede is fucked. He has admitted to being at the scene of the crime and to having sex with Kercher (sex he claims was consensual, but which still places him closer to the victim at the time death than either of the other suspects currently behind bars). Now it's just a matter of who will take the fall with him.

It looks like Sollecito is the most likely candidate, The Times Online's article implies: Guede is now claiming that he heard Kercher muttering her killer's name in her final moments alive. Can you guess what she said?

His description of the man and his claim that Ms Kercher tried to name her killer by uttering the sound “af” with her dying breath appear aimed at pointing the finger at Mr Sollecito.

Guede, who is in Germany awaiting extradition to Perugia, had equally suggestive statements about Knox.

Mr Guede claims that while he was in the house he saw Ms Kercher discover that money was missing from her bedside table, and says that she accused Ms Knox (who he did not say was present) of stealing the cash to pay for drugs.

The plot thickens. No wonder attorneys for Sollecito and Knox are so aggressively pointing the finger at Guede...it's part of the never-ending blame game.

But, as I pointed out in an earlier post, authorities are saying that Kercher didn't die immediately - it took time for her to slowly bleed out. Did Guede sit with her during that time, which has been estimated to be as long as an hour, instead of alerting authorities? That seems like the only way he could have been there to hear her "dying breath."

No updates yet on whether Knox and Sollecito will remain behind bars, but the article seems confident that the judge will make a decision sometime today.

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Hope you all haven't filled up on pumpkin pie, because this evening, those tireless reporters from across the pond bring us a late night Thanksgiving treat: Rudy Hermann Guede, the convicted drug dealer and YouTube buffoon recently arrested in connection with Meredith Kercher's slaying, has been officially linked to the victim's body.

And it gets better. According to reports from The Times Online, DNA found on Kercher's corpse offers definitive proof that Guede had sex with the victim the night of her death.

Someone better stick a fork in Guede: like so many other turkeys on this fourth Thursday in November, he's done.

There seems to be little argument against his presence in Kercher's bedroom that night, judging by the evidence as reported:

Last night’s results showed Mr Guede’s DNA matched that found on a tampon which indicated that Ms Kercher had what was described as “violent” sex on the night she died. It also matched the DNA found on toilet paper in the bathroom.

The article claims that Guede has admitted to being in the house when the murder occurred, but that  an unknown "Italian man" committed the crime. The only Italian man I've seen mentioned so far in connection with this case is Raffaele Sollecito. Is that who he is referring to? Or is it someone else entirely? One way or another, the simple fact that Guede admits presence but denies any wrongdoing makes it clear that like Sollecito and Amanda Knox, this suspect has joined in the never-ending blame game.

When speaking to a German judge, the Times Online reports, Guede even went so far as to claim that he was in the bathroom when the actual crime was committed and (valiantly, no doubt) attempted to resuscitate the victim after finding her throat slit.

But wait...don't earlier reports say it took Meredith Kercher an excruciatingly long time to die? I'm no doctor, but I'm almost positive that you can't resuscitate someone who is still alive and conscious.

Judging by their response in the article, Guede's lawyers are desperately trying to keep this new DNA link from sinking their case:

One of Mr Guede’s lawyers, Vittorio Lombardo, said the test results did not mean his client was guilty. He said: “These results need to be carefully looked at. Rudy has not denied being in Meredith’s house, and the tests do not say that the sex was not consensual.

“Rudy maintains he was in the bathroom when Meredith was killed, and these tests do not show anything which contradicts that.”

Keep on working for that paycheck, Vittorio. We'll see whether the sex was consensual - and whether "Rudy" was actually in the bathroom at the time of the attack - as more details are revealed.

Meanwhile, the featured story at CNN.com this evening relates to Amanda Knox's recently released jailhouse note (which we reported on earlier today). Nothing too exciting about this piece, although it does give a little more of the text from Knox's note regarding why she initially placed blame on her employer Patrick Lumumba:

In her statement, Knox said she saw Lumumba in "flashes of blurred images."

"I saw him near the basketball court. I saw him at my front door. I saw myself cowering in the kitchen with my hands over my ears because in my head I could hear Meredith screaming," she wrote.

"But I've said this many times so as to make myself clear: These things seem unreal to me, like a dream, and I am unsure if they are real things that happened or are just dreams my head has made to try to answer the questions in my head and the questions I am being asked.

Then, the quote of the century:

"But the truth is, I am unsure about the truth."

And that's what they used to hold Lumumba in custody for two weeks?

Jesus. Maybe the Italian judicial system really is fucked.

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That didn't take long.

Rudy Hermann Guede, the fourth suspect named by police in the murder of Meredith Kercher (and subject of the bizarre YouTube video we wrote about yesterday), has been arrested in Germany on suspicion of sexual assault.

He was reportedly caught after falling into a trap that so many criminals in the technology age seem unable to avoid: while he may have been careful to cover his tracks in the real world, Guede's ultimate downfall was his inability to do the same in the digital one.

From The Telegraph:

Police confirmed that he was caught after sending a message to the Daily Telegraph on the Internet.

Police monitoring his Facebook account recorded a message that Guede sent late last night.

At that point, he became traceable through the IP address of the computer he was using.

In the message, Guede said he was aware he was the target of an international manhunt, and wanted to clear his name. He wrote: "I know that [I am a suspect]".

He added: "The reson [sic] I want to talk with police man, cause the news give at me a wrong profile."

Betrayed by your IP address. An all-too-common occurrence nowadays. When will people learn?

The Times Online, meanwhile, is reporting Guede claimed that at the time of his arrest, he was "on his way back to Italy to give himself up." Oh, Rudy...what a stand-up guy.

Judging by the reports, this suspect doesn't seem to be the most beloved man around. The 62-year-old patriarch of an Italian family who adopted him gives us some dirt in The Telegraph:

The father, Paolo Caporali, 62, told the Italian national newspaper La Repubblica: "It is pointless to hide the fact that for me, Rudy was a disappointment. I hoped to help him build a future, I thought I had given him an opportunity. But as the months passed I understood I was mistaken, that my hopes were all met with delusion.

"He said he was at school, but he skipped class. He preferred to spend the day in front of the television or with video games. He had little wish to study, and even less to work." [Emphasis, again, added by the Seattle Crime Blogger - Ed.]

The same article reports that even Georgio Armani, the fashion designer whose photo with Guede (above) has been making its way around the web, was quick to cover his own ass:

On Monday the Armani Group released a statement saying the photograph of Guede with Mr Armani was taken as a tourist photo at the Armani/Nobu Bar in Milan at Mr Guede's request. It said: "Obviously, Mr Armani has never known Mr Guede."

Most likely a wise move. A leading figure in the fashion world, Armani would have some explaining to do further down the line if he didn't nip any possible speculation in the bud.

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Remember the Amanda Knox video that swept the Internet after her arrest, purported to show the young suspect drunk with some friends (a video that has since been removed from YouTube)?

Well, another YouTube video has been discovered, this one said to be of Rudy Hermann Guede, the man police have identified as their fourth suspect in the murder of Meredith Kercher. And this clip is even stranger than it's predecessor. Better watch while you can, because it seems quite likely to be taken offline in the coming days.



I don't really know what to say about this. But in a world dominated by what Monica Guzman at the P-I's Big Blog has aptly called "the court of public opinion," this can't be a good opening statement for Mr. Guede.

This video is just one of a few interesting developments in the Kercher case today. More updates to come this afternoon, when I get home from work and have time for more analysis.

Thanks to the Times Online for finding and publishing the link to the above video.