Amanda Knox 'Traumatized' By Media Coverage As She Returns To Italy

On Thursday, Amanda Knox returned to Italy for the first time since being released from prison in 2011 following her acquittal for the murder of her college roommate Meredith Kercher. Though, according to reports, her return visit hasn't gone well so far.

The decision to go back to the country was made so that Knox would be able to attend a criminal justice conference that was hosted by The Innocence Project, an organization and center for studies that works to prevent wrongful imprisonment. However, upon arrival, the American was met with a barrage of media coverage. One event organizer told NBC News that Knox left the event on Friday after she was "traumatized" by the media.

Before embarking on her trip, the American penned an essay for Medium earlier this month regarding her decision. "While on trial for a murder I didn't commit, my prosecutor painted me as a sex-crazed femme fatale, and the media profited for years by sensationalizing an already sensational and utterly unjustified story," she wrote.

According to CBS News, when previously discussing Knox's decision to return to Italy, Seth Miller, the executive director of the Innocence Project of Florida, said the visit would be either "a homecoming, a deployment or madness."

Knox, who served four years in an Italian prison, was exonerated by Italy's supreme court in 2015 after a lengthy legal process. Following her arrival in Italy, her trip was slammed as "inappropriate" by a lawyer who was hired to represent Kercher's family. Continuing, he said that "inviting her to a technical panel on justice was a mistake."

Accepting the invitation to speak at this conference was not the first step the 31-year-old has made in order to rewrite her public narrative. In 2013, she published a book, "Waiting to Be Heard," which was a memoir detailing her experience in Italy's criminal justice system. She has also appeared in a Netflix documentary titled "Amanda Knox," hosted a podcast called "The Truth About True Crime," and started working as a reporter on "The Scarlet Letter Reports," a collaboration between Facebook and Vice Media that explores being exploited and scrutinized by the media.

Knox is slated to participate in the aforementioned panel, which reconvenes on Saturday, to discuss wrongful convictions at the Italian Criminal Justice Festival in Modena.