Meredith Kercher’s father revealed new details Monday about his daughter’s life and family’s anguish when they learned of her death.
Meredith was just 21 when her body was discovered in the house she shared with then-University of Washington student Amanda Knox in Perugia, Italy.
The Daily Mail on Monday published an excerpt from John Kercher's new book, Meredith: Our Daughter's Murder and the Heartbreaking Quest for the Truth, in which he complains that the world has focused too much on Knox.
“Meredith was a beautiful, intelligent and caring girl whom everyone loved, and her story deserves to be told,” John wrote.
John, who didn’t attend the retrial of Knox and her former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, wrote the book on his own. Knox and Sollecito were found not guilty of Meredith’s murder last October in a verdict watched around the world.
“The media’s glare throughout the trial and appeal process has been fixed almost entirely on Amanda Knox,” John wrote.
There have been books written about Knox and there was a TV movie. Next year, Knox is scheduled to release her own account of the ordeal in a book deal reportedly worth nearly $4 million.
John Kercher’s book includes his desperate attempts to reach his daughter after news spread in the British media that, “a female British student (had) been found murdered in Perugia. I call(ed) Meredith … the phone (rang) on and on, and still there (was) no answer.”
Eventually, a reporter called John.
“I shall never forget her words. ‘The name going round Italy,’ she says, ‘is Meredith,’” John wrote.