With new testimony, Amanda Knox case still unclear

Amanda Knox - and her family awaiting anxiously some 6000 miles away - thought that Monday was going to be a good day.

Perhaps the best day in three years.

Knox was due in Italian court for an appeals trial regarding her involvement in the murder of her British roommate in 2007, and rumors have been swirling in the media that testimony from a prisoner she has never met could exonerate her of the crime.

But the 24-year-old American, who was sentenced to 26 years in prison in 2009, instead heard a mix of accusations and exculpations, making an already confused and controversial trial more of both.

Knox was convicted of the murder of Meredith Kercher, who was found stabbed to death in the house she shared with Knox in the Italian university town of Perugia. The court ruled that Knox and her then boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito slit Kercher's throat in a possible drug-fuelled sexual assault.

After what many thought would be a big break in her favor, estimony from Rudy Guede, who was also implicated in the murder, has left Knox shocked and anguished. Guede, who was sentenced to 16 years for his role in the murder, was expected to be testifying in Knox's favor, but instead may have permanently sealed Knox's cell.

Guede, who was born in the Ivory Coast and moved to Perugia when he was a boy, said in court that Knox and Sollecito were in the house on the night of the murder. A lawyer for the prosecution then read a letter written by Guede in 2010 to a newspaper that stated that Knox and Sollecito committed the horrible homicide of a splendid young girl, Meredith Kercher.

I've always believed this. I've always said who was there in that house on that cursed night, Guede told the Italian court.

A defiant Knox told the court that the only time that Rudy Guede, Raffaele and I were in the same space has been in court. I'm shocked and anguished. He knows we weren't there and have nothing to do with it.

In October 2008, Guede was convicted of the murder and sexual assault of Kercher. Police found his DNA on Kercher's body and on her clothing. They also found shoe and hand prints in Kercher's blood that they attributed to Guede.

Knox did hear testimony in her favor. As expected, prison inmate and child killer Mario Alessi said that Guede told him that his friend actually killed Kercher. Another witness claimed that his brother, a mobster, killed the British student. The man, Luciano Aviello, said that his brother planned on robbing the house when he saw Kercher and he put his hand to her mouth but she struggled. He said he got the knife and stabbed her.