Amanda Knox was behind bars when she befriended a Catholic priest.
The mother of two, who spent nearly four years in an Italian prison, has written a new book, “Free: My Search for Meaning.” It recounts the struggles the 37-year-old endured in attempting to reintegrate into society. Knox also reflects on what it was like returning to a more normal life, including seeking a life partner, finding a job and walking out in public.
The Seattle native, who identifies as an atheist, told Fox News Digital prison chaplain Don Saulo not only became her best friend during those years but also gave her hope when she felt hopeless.
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“He was a good man, a friend and a philosopher,” Knox told Fox News Digital. “He was the family who was there for me in prison when the rest of my family couldn’t be physically there with me. And he was someone who wasn’t just kind to me, but who was willing to engage with me on a philosophical level. He saw my humanity. And he genuinely wanted to spend time with me.
“He spoke to me in terms of his ideology and his faith, but there were truths in what he said,” she shared. “It would shift my perspective from one of utter despair to one of hope. And on days when I didn’t have hope, he showed me how to find value in the experience that I had. The idea that if you pray to God for strength, he doesn’t give you strength, he gives you an opportunity to be strong — that resonated with me.”
Knox was a 20-year-old student in Perugia studying abroad when her roommate, Meredith Kercher, was found stabbed to death in 2007. The 21-year-old was found in the cottage they shared with two Italian women.
The case made global headlines as suspicion fell quickly on Knox and her boyfriend of just days, Raffaele Sollecito.
Knox wrote that while she was in prison, a nun had approached her. But when Knox told her she wasn’t religious, the nun replied that she was “no better than an animal without God.”
The priest, on the other hand, suggested they could talk about whatever Knox wanted at his office.
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“I don’t remember how he broke the ice,” Knox wrote. “By asking how I was doing? All I know is that I found myself gushing [in] desperation.”
Knox also described how she would sing from her cell. Saulo, who overheard her one day, asked if she’d ever played instruments. When Knox told him that she used to play the guitar, he exclaimed, “I have a guitar!”
“You could play it during mass. You could even come to my office to practice,” he told her.
Knox admitted she “didn’t love the idea of mass,” but the idea of leaving her cell to play the guitar was “one small link to the life I was living before this nightmare.”
“And so began our musical relationship,” Knox wrote. “Once or twice a week, I was allowed to spend an hour in Don Saulo’s office practicing hymns on the guitar, and then, during mass on Saturdays, I’d play and sing those religious tunes.”
She also described how Saulo had a small electronic keyboard and taught her to play the piano. And when he learned she loved studying languages, he began teaching her Latin phrases.
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Knox said Saulo’s kindness brightened her dark days. She told Fox News Digital standing up for yourself in prison meant violence.
“I think a lot of people might imagine just horrible things between inmates, and it’s true,” said Knox. “I was surrounded by women who were either struggling with mental illness, drug addiction or just general PTSD from long-term abuse and neglect.
“There was a lot of dysfunction in the community of women that I belonged to. But, without a doubt, the worst experiences that I had were with the male guards, who had absolute power over me and who I could not protect myself from.
“I was in a locked room with them, and they had the key,” Knox recalled. “If I ever spoke up, no one would believe me because [to them] I was the lying murdering whore.
“I was absolutely at the mercy of male guards who tried to take advantage of me … and it was just horrifying,” Knox claimed.
In her book, Knox wrote that Saulo “never judged me, never told me who I was, even as the world called me a monster.”
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“I felt supported by him in cultivating a mindset of compassion and empathy and gratitude, that it was this mindset that would allow me to understand what had happened to me,” she wrote.
One of the people she dedicated her book to was Saulo, “for holding my hand when no one else could.”
“I remain an atheist, but Don Saulo taught me to value much of the wisdom in the teachings of Jesus,” she wrote. “Turning the other cheek, the golden rule, a radical refusal of judgment, an acceptance of all people – high and low, sinner and saints. No one deserves God’s grace, and yet, it is there for everyone. This is how I think about compassion. It is not kindness if it is reserved for the just, the good, the kind.”
Rudy Hermann Guede of the Ivory Coast was eventually convicted of murder after his DNA was found at the crime scene. The European Court of Human Rights ordered Italy to pay Knox damages for the police failures, noting she was vulnerable as a foreign student not fluent in Italian.
Knox returned to the United States in 2011 after being freed by an appeals court in Perugia and has established herself as a global campaigner for the wrongly convicted. Over the years, she has attempted to clear her name.
Today, Knox is a board member of The Innocence Center, a nonprofit law firm that aims to free innocent people from prison. She also frequently discusses how high-profile cases affect loved ones on a podcast she hosts with her husband, “Labyrinths.”
Guede, 37, was freed in 2021 after serving most of his 16-year sentence.
Knox told Fox News Digital she was “haunted” by the spirit of Kercher.
“I think about her every day, especially when I consider what could have happened to me,” she explained. “My fate very well could have been hers, and her fate could very well have been mine. We were both two young women who went to study abroad. Our lives were ahead of us. Everything was going well for us. And then a man broke into our home and killed her.”
“If it hadn’t been for the fact that I just happened to meet a young, kind man five days before the crime occurred, I would very well be dead too now,” she continued.
“When I think about her … [I have] just the utter realization of the fragility, the impermanence and preciousness of life. What a privilege it is to live. And how important it is of a task to fight for your life and to make it worth living while you have it. I think about that.
“One of the biggest things that I’ve had to struggle with is unpacking the fact that a friend of mine’s death is wrapped up in my identity. … My identity is twisted up in [her family’s] deepest pain. The truth of what happened to her and the justice that was denied to her is an ongoing, painful thing for me and many others. When people say, ‘Meredith has been lost in this story,’ they’re not wrong.”
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Knox said she tried reaching out to Kercher’s family “a bit ago,” but has gotten “radio silence.” Fox News Digital reached out to Kercher’s family for comment.
“I just wish … they would connect with me so that we can grieve together and try to make meaning out of this tragedy together,” said Knox.
Knox knows she can never return to her old life. But she hopes, after telling her story, she can move forward with her family. That, she said, gives her hope today.
“There’s never going to be a day when every single person in the world is going to realize that I’ve been wrong and harmed,” said Knox. “I have to then ask myself, ‘Can I live with that? What can freedom mean to me today?’
“I think that has been a really important shift in my perspective that I try to convey in the book, going from feeling that I am trapped in my own life … to feeling like I can push forward. It’s allowing me to feel like I can make choices again in light of all this backstory. That gives me momentum.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
