Meredith Kercher is “Unsolved Mystery,” Amanda Knox Walks Free

An Italian judge declared the murder of Meredith Kercher, an unsolved mystery, as Amanda Knox returned home to Seattle, Wash. on Wednesday, but the Kercher family disagrees.

It was a bit of a shock, Stephanie Kercher, Meredith's sister, told The Associated Press Tuesday. It's very upsetting ... We still have no answers.

The Kerchers, who have no doubt of Knox's guilt, are infuriated over the attention she's garnered throughout the trial.

As a journalist myself, I know the reason why. Knox is young, attractive and female. To many, she seems an unlikely killer, John Kercher wrote in The Daily Mail tabloid in December as the appeals trial got under way. Yet to my family she is, unequivocally, culpable.

Knox and her Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were originally convicted in 2009 and incarcerated for four years in an Italian prison for the sexual assault and the brutal stabbing of Knox's British roommate, Meredith Kercher. This Tuesday, however, an Italian court of appeals threw out the conviction due to doubts over DNA evidence, angering the prosecution and stunning the Kercher family.

In this whole case - going on four years - Meredith has been forgotten, Stephanie Kercher said in a recorded interview on RAI public television this month. The attention has completely moved from Meredith to Amanda and Raffaele, she said. She was lovely, kind and we lost her.

Prosecutors continue to claim that Meredith was brutally murdered in a drug-fueled sexual frenzy with Amanda Knox, Raffaele Sollecito, and a third man. They do not believe that Meredith was murdered by a single assailant.

If the two released yesterday were not the guilty parties, we are obviously left to wonder who is the other guilty person or people? We are left back at square one, Lyle Kercher, Meredith's brother, told The Associated Press.

Claudio Pratillo Hellman read the verdict in the Italian court of appeals on Monday that cleared Knox and Sollecito and claimed that Rudy Guede, the only person currently convicted of Kercher's killing, is the only person who can say whether he acted alone, the Italian news agency ANSA reported.

It will remain an unsolved mystery. Nobody can say what the facts are, Hellman said. The only one is Rudy Guede.

Guede, an immigrant from the Ivory Coast who grew up in Perugia, Italy, was convicted at a separate trial and is now serving a 16-year sentence. Convicted on much stronger evidence than Knox and Sollecito, Guede has now lost all his appeals, UPI.com reported.