The jury is expected to issue a verdict on Knox in the next few days. Unfortunately, as several recent articles point out, Knox has already been tried in the court of public opinion - and lost. Anyone following the trial of Amanda Knox by now probably knows not only the basic story—in brief: Knox is accused of murdering her roommate Meredith Kercher while on a semester abroad in Italy—but also the intimate details of Knox's life, from her toilet-flushing habits to her sex toy of choice. The trial has painted over Knox again and again, casting her first as a sex-crazed sadist, and then as a sweet, overgrown child. It's come to the point where Amanda Knox, the 22-year-old from Seattle, has been completely lost behind all the lurid layers. Her "angelic" face has provided the perfect canvas onto which both prosecution and defense have projected discordant images, each supposedly grounded in analysis of Knox's behavior.

Today Knox revealed that she is "scared of having the mask of an assassin forced onto me." She reportedly appeared in tears, trying desperately to convince the jury of her innocence. She said she has been trying to remain calm even though she is "disappointed, sad and frustrated" after spending two years behind bars. She also says she remains "confident and certain in what I know."

But it may prove difficult for the jurors to separate fact from fiction. And there has been a lot of fiction in the trial. In closing arguments, the prosecution described Knox as a "Luciferina," a "dirty-minded she-devil." One prosecutor, in what seems like an attempt to create a real-life version of one of those sepia-toned flashback scenes from CSI, stood in front of the jury and asked them to imagine what Knox could have said to her roommate before raping and murdering her:

You are always behaving like a little saint. Now we will show you. Now we will make you have sex.

Of course, there is no evidence Knox ever said this. There is also no evidence that she was even in the room. But they're not even saying she said this, just that she might have. Timothy Egan for the New York Times' Opinonator asks:

What century is this? Didn't Joan of Arc, the Inquisition and our own American Salem witch trials teach civilized nations a thing or two about contrived sexual hysteria with a devil twist?

Answer: apparently not.

Amanda Knox Revisited [Opionator]
Amanda Knox Has Lost The Battle For Public Opinion [Newsweek]
US Suspect Knox Urges Italain Court To Free Her [AP]

• He went on to say that Knox is a "clean-faced young girl, swept away by a tsunami." • Two California girls, ages 12 and 14, have been arrested for attacking a 13-year-old classmate - twice. The girls lured the victim, who they believed had been talking shit about them, to a field, telling her that they had some belongings of hers to return. Police caught the attackers after they posted videos of the beatings on YouTube. • Accused Cleveland serial killer Anthony Sowell has been indicted on murder charges in the deaths of 11 women, plus dozens of other counts, including kidnapping, abuse of a corpse, attempted murder, assault and rape. Authorities say many of the 10 identified victims were homeless addicts he lured into his home. • NPR's Richard Gonzales, who grew up in Richmond, California, returned to see how the town is coping after a teenage girl was gang-raped at the high school. He spoke to sophomore Lizette Franco, who said, "We don't want it to be our identity, because there is so much more to Richmond than what they're portraying in the media. We're not animals. We're not savages. We're students striving to be better people." •  Former track star Marion Jones has announced plans to sign up with a W.N.B.A. team. Jones, who was busted for steroid use and has since toured the country speaking to students about making good choices, says she hopes the W.N.B.A. will provide a larger platform for her message, as well as a "second chance." •  Good news: According to the DCist, a bill instituting same-sex marriage has just passed in the D.C. council. Ben Smith from Politico notes that this is "a sign that same-sex marriage has really become a quite mainstream Democratic cause, one embraced equally by a Massachusetts court and an urban City Council." • The Senate is expected to vote today on an amendment that would increase health insurance benefits for women in the first vote on the health care overhaul legislation. The amendment was introduced by Senators Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine and inspired by the recent and controversial mammogram and Pap smear recommendations. "My amendment guarantees screening for breast cancer, yes, mammograms," Mikulski said. "We don't mandate that you have a mammogram at age 40. What we say is discuss this with your doctor, but if your doctor says you need one, my amendment says you are going to get one." • Zeituni Onyango, the half sister of President Obama's late father, gave an interview to the Associated Press in which she said she's anguished over not having contact with the family after it was revealed that she'd been illegally living in U.S. public housing for years. She isolated herself from the family after the inauguration because she didn't want her immigrations problems to hurt his presidency. "Before, we were family. But right now, there is a lot of politics, and me, I am not interested in any politics at all," she said. • South African President Jacob Zuma said today - on World AIDS Day - that the government will make sure that all HIV-positive babies receive treatment. There are also plans to expand testing and treatment for pregnant women. •  Sarah Palin's absurdist memoir Going Rogue has sold 1 million copies, a HarperCollins spokeswoman reveals. The publisher has increased the print run accordingly, to 2.8 million. • Asma Hanif, who runs a Baltimore domestic violence shelter for Muslim women says, "My biggest problem was that if you send a Muslim woman to be counseled in a shelter that's run by Christians, then what the people say is the reason why you're being beat is because of that religion. We do not want Islam to be the focal point of domestic violence." She added that in other shelters, "There may be situations - such as, there would be men that were there, or there wasn't any place for them to pray, or maybe there was an issue with the food." • An online poll of 1,027 people by the Tylenol Canadian Pain Survey found that women report experiencing headaches more often than men, and they experience somewhat more pain than men. "Pain doesn't discriminate against gender; however, with headache pain, women tend to be more expressive in reporting their pain than men, and tend to be more proactive in managing it," said Dr. Gary Shapero, a family physician who has studied headache and pain management. • Salon owner Cindy Vong is fighting the Arizona Board of Cosmetology's decision to ban flesh-eating fish foot treatments. "The board knows nothing about spa fish therapy, so its reaction is to shut it down," said her lawyer. "The board's action is more about protecting cosmetologists from competition than it is about protecting consumers against anything except wet feet and smooth skin." • On Thanksgiving, a woman and her brother were fighting over whether their parents are too old to be watching their children, when he allegedly threw extremely hot pecan pie at her after it was heated in the microwave. She was treated for first and second degree burns to her neck, face, and chest. Her brother is expected to be charged with aggravated assault. • 26-year-old Swedish father Ragnar Bengtsson has given up his months-long attempt to pump milk from his breasts. "All he got was sore breasts," said the host of a local show that was following the progress of the "Milkman." However, Bengtsson isn't walking away empty handed: He's flying to the U.S. to appear on - of course - The Tyra Banks Show. •

Just when you thought the Amanda Knox murder trial couldn't become anymore luridly bizarre, defense attorney Giulia Bongiorno went ahead and upped the ante. The prosecution, you'll recall, has made the case that the 22-year-old, in concert with ex-boyfriend Rafael Sollecito and friend Rudy Guede, murdered Knox's roommate, British student Meredith Kercher during a night of sinister debauchery in 2007. Bongiorno, however, paints a different picture. A candy-colored one! As UPI reports,

Bongiorno, in a blistering critique of the prosecution's case in the hotly debated trial, compared Knox to the naive character played by actress Audrey Tautou in the French film "Amelie," which Knox and Sollecito contend they were watching together the night Kercher was slain..."There is a more simple truth to Amanda," the Web site quoted Bongiorno as saying. "She looks at the world with eyes of Amelie: A naive, slightly extravagant, spontaneous young girl who is 60 percent imagination and 40 percent reality."

Of course, this is largely apiece with the embattled case, in which Knox has been treated, always, as a decidedly female killer. Her demeanor and appearance - viewed by some as preternaturally calm and cheerful - have been criticized. Certainly, presenting the young woman as a cheerful naif would be a much more attractive explanation for behaviors like sporting "All You Need Is Love" tees, going on lingerie-shopping sprees, doing cartwheels, and riffing on rabbit shaped sex toys, then the sociopathic callousness the prosecution has suggested. Coverage of the case, and of Knox, has always been aggressively pink-hued. The Daily Mail, that arbiter of taste, quickly took up the attractive student's MySpace nickname, "Foxy Knoxy" and described her as, for starters, as "like a Hollywood diva sashaying along the red carpet."

If the prosecution has its way, she's what the Guardian termed "a manipulative femme fatale who helped to kill her friend in an orgiastic sex game" - the ultimate villainness out of B-movies. If the defense is to be believed, she's instead the ingenue. It makes us wish, not for the first time, for some more nuanced female characters - and a swift end to the sensationalistic tragedy.

Attorney: Knox Naive Like Movie's 'Amelie' [UPI]

Amanda Knox's Court Demeanor In The Spotlight [Seattle Times]
The Friends Back Home Intent On Telling The 'Real Amanda Knox' Story [Guardian]
The Foxy Knoxy Show: Smiling Murder Suspect Makes Grand Entrance As Trial Begins [Daily Mail]

Earlier: Prosecutor In Amanda Knox Trial Pushes For Life In Prison

Knox, 21, took the stand for the first time on Friday, after being arrested in November 2007 shortly after the murder of British student Meredith Kercher, 21, in Perugia, Italy. Speaking in English and fluent Italian, Knox said that on the night of the murder she was at her Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito's house and that the two smoked marijuana, watched Amélie, had sex and fell asleep, reports the New York Times. When she returned the next morning, she says the door to her apartment was open and Kercher's door was locked, and eventually she decided to call the police. Four days later she and Sollecito were arrested on charges of murdering Kercher in a sex game gone awry and tampering with the crime scene to make it look like a robbery.

Knox testified that during her interrogation, police said the "wanted a name" and pressured her to accuse her boss at the bar where she worked, Patrick Lumumba, of the crime. According to MSNBC, Knox said a policewoman hit her twice in the head:

"Do you remember? Do you remember? And then boom! On the head," Knox said, mimicking the slap in court. "I went: mamma mia! And then again, another boom!" ... "It didn't hurt, but it frightened me," she said of the slaps.

After hours of questioning and what she described as "a steady crescendo... of 'I don't know,' 'you're a stupid liar', 'maybes', and 'imagines' that..." she gave written testimony saying she was in the kitchen blocking out Kercher's screams while Lumumba committed the murder. Knox says she wrote the statements in an attempt to focus her thoughts after police spent hours trying to put ideas in her head. "I wasn't sure what was my imagination and what was reality," she said.

Knox explained:

When I said "Patrick" I actually started to imagine a kind of movie, images that could have explained the situation, Patrick's face, then [Perugia's] Grimana square, then my house on the night of the murder.

Lumumba has been cleared by prosecutors and is suing Knox for defamation.

Prosecutors asked Knox why she told her mother that she felt bad about sending Lumumba to prison in a bugged phone call from prison, but failed to tell police he was innocent. She said she didn't trust the police anymore because in her first few weeks in jail she was tested for HIV and told she had AIDS, before another test two weeks later proved she was negative, reports The Independent.

Knox also told her mother she was concerned that police found her kitchen knife at Sollecito's house. Forensic experts testified that it has Kercher's DNA on the tip and Knox's on the handle, but she said she wasn't upset because she knew it was the murder weapon. "I was worried because for me it was impossible. I didn't know how it could be there," she said. Attorney Anne Bremner, spokeswoman for Friends of Amanda, told Time that video from the crime scene proves police collected evidence incorrectly, and that the kitchen knife actually, "doesn't match an outline of the knife on the bed."

During cross examination on Saturday, Knox was asked by prosecutors to reveal details about her personal hygiene, sex life and drug use. She told them that she slept with Sollecito the first time she met him, and she was questioned about a $279 municipal citation she received for a party she and her friends held at the University of Washington, asking if the party involved "alcohol, drugs, people throwing rocks" and "naked people inside." Knox said the citation was just a noise violation.

She also denied that she was friends with Rudy Guede, the 22-year-old Ivory Coast native who has already been jailed for 30 years for murdering and sexually assaulting Kercher, the BBC reports. On Friday Guede told the press from prison, "You know you were there, Amanda, tell the truth."

In a sad concidence, Knox's testimony this weekend coincided with what would have been her college graduation. Knox's family and friends will testify for the defense next, with her mother, Edda Mellas, taking the stand on Friday.

In the video below from the Today show this morning, Curt Knox says he thinks his daughter stood up well to aggressive questioning from prosecutors.

American Testifies In Her Murder Trial In Italy [The New York Times]
Amanda Knox: Slain Woman Was a Friend [MSNBC]
Knox In The Witness Box: 'I Did Not Kill Meredith' [The Independent]
How Strong Is The Evidence Against Amanda Knox? [Time]
Lawyer Challenges Knox Testimony [BBC]

As you'll recall, Knox and her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, 24, are accused of murdering and sexually assaulting British student Meredith Kercher, who was found semi-naked with her throat cut in her bedroom in the house she shared with Knox in November 2007. Rudy Guede, 21, from the Ivory Coast, was already convicted of Kercher's murder and rape and sentenced to 30 years in prison in October. Prosecutors say that Sollecito and Knox held Kercher down while Guede raped her in a sex game gone wrong.

While Sollectito and Knox are both standing trial, not surprisingly, the Italian media frenzy has focused on Knox. "Foxy Knoxy" was the highest ranked woman in an Italian "personality of the year" poll in December, and the BBC reports that the Italian media has treated her as a "Lady Macbeth figure." Yesterday, much of the court proceedings dealt with how to handle the case considering the intense public interest. Francesco Maresca, a lawyer for Kercher's family sought to have the proceedings closed to the public and media, "to protect the memory and dignity of the victim and the Kercher family have lost a child." Prosecutors were not opposed to a closed trial, but the defendants wanted the case public. "We are going to demonstrate that there is no evidence against Raffaele Sollecito," said his lawyer, according to The Sun. The judge ruled that the trial will remain open, and more than 150 press passes have been issued for the court.

Earlier this week, the Kercher family appealed to the court to have a book about the case impounded, according to The Guardian. The book is based mainly on Knox's diaries, which were confiscated by the police, and reveals details about the students drinking and partying lifestyle. The publishers refused to stop distribution of the book, saying in is already in circulation. The author says that the book doesn't influence the trial because the diaries are part of evidence that will be submitted in court.

Knox and Sollecito have already been in jail for 14 months, and the trial could drag on for as long as a year, since in Italy only one to two hearings are held per week. Six members of the jury, three men and three women, were sworn in today and 250 witnesses are lined up to testify. Italy does not have the death penalty, so if convicted, the pair would face a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Foxy Knoxy Appears In Court [The Sun]
Italy Focuses On 'Foxy Knoxy' As Trial Opens [BBC]
Meredith Kercher Murder Trial To Be Held In Public, Judge Rules [The Guardian]

If you'll recall, Guede had the most damning evidence against him, as his bloody handprint was found beneath Kercher's dead body. If Guede has been convicted, why are Knox and Sollecito still being brought up on charges?

According to Time, "Knox's sexual history has been widely reported, with prosecutors linking her past to their allegation that the victim was forced into an orgy. (Even last week, Italy's leading daily Corriere della Sera reported that Knox had to fend off lesbian advances of a fellow prisoner.)" In addition, prosecutors believe that Knox and Sollecito held Kercher down while Guede attempted to rape her. Besides Knox's "slutty" past and some circumstantial evidence (like Knox's DNA found on the knife that killed Kercher — a kitchen knife from their shared apartment that Knox would have used for cooking), there is no clear reason why prosecutors have stumbled on this particular series of events as the explanation for Kercher's death.

Meredith Kercher's poor family is mildly heartened by Guede's conviction. "It's important to remember that at the end of day we're here because our sister Meredith was murdered. 'Pleased' is not the appropriate word, 'satisfied' is the best we can say," Meredith's brother Lyle told reporters.

When Amanda Knox heard she would be standing trial for Kercher's murder, she burst into tears. For now, her lawyers are trying to get Knox out of the Italian prison where she's been held for the past year and into a hostel run by a Catholic charity. If she's found innocent, as at this point is truly seems she is, I hope Knox gets a boatload of money to write a memoir about this surreal and awful period of her life.

'Foxy' Amanda Knox to Stand Trial in Italy Murder [Time]
The Accused [Radar]
Meredith Kercher's Family 'Satisfied' After Drifter Rudy Guede Is Jailed For 30 years [Telegraph]

Earlier: Murder Suspect Amanda Knox Accused Of Satanic Orgy Plot

Lawyers for Knox's side say that this is a mere "presumed scenario" with no real evidence to back it up. Many media reports, including a thorough Radar feature, note that prosecutor Mignini has had it out for Amanda Knox since the murder occurred.

As discussed last week, Radar's Sarah Horne reported that, "Lisa Pasko, a criminology professor at the University of Denver who specializes in young women who commit violent crimes, has been following the case and does not believe that Knox participated in Kercher's murder…She likens Mignini's behavior to that of the very vocal prosecutor in the Duke rape case, former Durham County district attorney Mike Nifong, who improperly leaked information to the media in order to beef up his case against the accused lacrosse players."

Amanda herself took the stand during a closed-door hearing today in Perugia, and proclaimed her innocence. An obviously emotional Knox told the court "Meredith was my friend… I had no reason to kill her." As for the other two men allegedly involved, Rudy Hermann Guede has requested a "fast-track" trial and has admitted to being in the room when Kercher died. Though Knox and Sollecito have no prior records, the Radar article pointed out that Guede is a "petty criminal who had a history of home invasions with a knife," and according to the Guardian, a pillow with Guede's bloody hand print was found beneath Kercher's body. The case against Sollecito seems to be based mostly on the fact that he liked violent Japanese Manga comics that depicted murder scenarios.

Kercher's parents are lodging a claim for financial compensation in the aftermath of Meredith's death, and according to the Daily Mail, their lawyers will argue that "'this was a particularly violent crime and that all three [Knox, Sollecito and Guede] were present and responsible for her death."

U.S. Student Accused Of "Satanic" Slaying [AP via CBS News]
The Accused [Radar]
Knox Accused Of Stabbing Meredith [Guardian]
Meredith's Parents Lodge Claim For Murder Damages After Court Is Told She Was Attacked For Refusing To Take part In Drug-Fuelled Orgy [Daily Mail]

Earlier: True Crime

This news comes on the heels of new developments in the Natalee Holloway case, which still remains the mother of all missing white woman news stories. The three suspects who were originally detained in the Holloway case, Aruban brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe and Netherlands native Joran van der Sloot, have been arrested again as "new material in the investigation" has surfaced. The trio were the last people to see Natalee alive and will appear in front of an Aruban court today. Natalee's dad is also attempting to search for her body, telling the AP that he thinks Natalee's "body was thrown into deep water that has not been adequately searched." We really hate to break it to a grieving father, but it's been over two years since Natalee went missing. Her body, if it was buried at sea, was fish food a long time ago.

Finally: An update in the investigation of alleged murderess, Amanda "Foxyknoxy" Knox. The day after she killed roommate Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy, in the midst of what is believed to be an "'extreme' sex game," Amanda Knox bought panties with her boyfriend and fellow murder suspect Raffaele Sollecito (whose name we keep confusing with Anne Hathaway boyfriend, real estate crook Raffaello Follieri). Anyway! The day after Kercher's death, Knox bought two g-strings and told Sollecito in front of the shopkeeper, "After I get you back home, we are going to have wild sex."

Suspects in Holloway Case To Appear In Aruba Court Friday [CNN]
Letter To Suspect Says Missing Illinois Woman Spotted [CNN]
Knox 'bought underwear after Meredith murder [Telegraph]
Mississippi College Student Missing For A Week [Concrete Loop]

Earlier: What Do You Do With The "Missing White Girl" Story?
Don't Hate Alleged Murderess Because She's "Ivory Soap Ad" Beautiful
Media Glare Often Reflects Off Skinny White Women

Anyway, beyond imagining the potential orgy scenarios that led to Kercher's slaying, the most interesting part of the case is the way Knox, whose MySpace handle is foxyknoxy, is being portrayed by the press.
According to Time:

There has been a stream of photos downloaded from the Internet showing the strawberry blond linguistics major in a variety of settings, always looking like she'd just stepped out of an Ivory soap ad. Italian papers have reported that she's gotten fan mail in jail, including one letter calling her: "bellissima!" Those who are convinced of her guilt no doubt will hate her even more because she is beautiful.

A Murder Year Abroad? [Time]
Meredith Kercher Murder May Have Been Premeditated [Times of London]
Italian Murder Puts American Student In Spotlight [International Herald Tribune]
Related: Amanda Knox [MySpace]