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Rudy Guede: Portrait of Meredith's murderer as he begins 30 year sentence
Murderer Rudy Guede was identified by police after his bloody fingerprint was found on a cushion at the scene of the crime.

The 21-year-old Ivory Coast national had given his fingerprints when he applied for an Italian identity card several years earlier.

He was known to police after being stopped and searched several times and was known as a petty thief and small time drug dealer.


Guilty: Drifter Rudy Guede was sentenced to 30 years in jail for the sex murder of British student Meredith Kercher

Guede had arrived in Italy in 1992 as a five year-old child with his father Roger, who left his wife behind in west Africa to seek work in Italy where he had a sister.

At first they lived on the outskirts of Perugia, which has a large community from the African country,  and quickly managed to integrate with Guede attending a local school.

Roger found work as a labourer and so stayed there rather than move to Lecco near Milan where his sister lived.

But when Rudy was 15 Roger went back to Africa, leaving his son behind in the care of, remarkably, a multi-millionaire Paolo Caporali who had occasionally employed the boy in odd jobs.

Caporali affectively adopted Rudy and gave him work at a  farmhouse bed and breakfast the  family owned.

"We gave him an opportunity, even though we knew he was a liar and had been in trouble, but we wanted to give him a chance," said Caporali.

"We took him in as a son,  but he was more interested in other things than studying and work.  We gave him a job but we had to sack him because he was never there.

"In the end we asked him to leave our home because we just couldn't cope any longer and we have had no contact with him for more than a year.



Behind bars: Rudy Guede leaves with penitentiary police after a court hearing in Perugia last month


'I thought I could help him to build a future, but with the passing of time I realised I had made a mistake. 

'He was a tremendous liar, saying he had been to school when he had skipped lessons and watched TV and played video games all day. '

Not even a promising basketball career with Perugia, sponsored by Caporali's coffee business, Liomatic, could keep  the six foot Guede more into sport than crime.

Perugia is an Italian university town and with its high proportion of students out looking for a good time it was a potential gold mine for petty drug dealers and petty criminals such as Guede.

In the summer of 2007, after being sacked from the bed and breakfast and spending a few weeks working as a barman in Lecco where he lived with his  aunt, he  returned to Perugia where he rented a flat in the centre.

By this time Meredith and Knox had also moved to Perugia.

Guede  became friendly with four male students who lived in the flat below Meredith and Knox.

One of them Stefano Bonassi told police when questioned after the murder that Guede had told him how he was "infatuated" with Knox and how he would like to have sex with her.

In September and October Guede was linked to three break-ins - two in Perugia and one in Milan. In the first he was disturbed as he rifled through the belongings of a barowner.


Justice seen to be done: Meredith Kercher's father, John, leaves the tribunal in Perugia last night

Cristiano Tramontano told police he challenged Guede who was armed with a large knife and he ran off. 

Guede also carried out another break-in at the offices of a local lawyer in Perugia  and at the end of October he was arrested in Milan after breaking into a school.

There he was found in possession of a  laptop and mobile stolen in the burglaries as well as a large flick knife,  but he was freed and made his way back to Perugia where he met Meredith.

Following the murder Guede went out dancing in the Domus nightclub - a popular student haunt in Perugia - and was seen there by several witnesses in the early hours.

But as the hunt for him intensified he fled Perugia and went to Germany on a train, evading police as he first went to Milan and then crossed the border.

Detectives contacted his friends and one,  Giacomo Benedetti, came forward in mid November to say that he had been contacted by Guede via a Skype internet phone call from Germany.

In the meantime Guede himself through his Facebook site had also been contacted by journalists and he told them: 'I'm innocent. I am not a bad man. I want to sort this out. The police have got it wrong about me.'

Police listened in to the Skype conversations between Benedetti and Guede as he pleaded his innocence but described his fear at returning to Italy saying he would be implicated.

For hours police eavesdropped on the conversation and through internet technology managed to trace him through the server address to a cafe in Mainz.

Benedetti had persuaded him to return so that he could clear his name and Perugia Flying Squad chief Giacinto Profazio dispatched the  head of the city's murder squad Monica Napoleone to arrest him as he crossed the border into Italy.

But before they could 'get their man' Guede was picked up by a zealous train guard for not having a ticket, arrested and his identity emerged and he was held for two weeks in Germany before being deported back to Italy.

One thing is certain: Rudy didn't belong in the upstairs flat in the cottage. He had never been a lodger, boyfriend, guest or anything else. Yet police found his DNA on the victim, inside her body, on her purse and in other locations. His conviction was no surprise.


Amanda Knox murder trial: Taking aim at Rudy Guede

By Candace Dempsey

Coming up: On November 18, Rudy Guede's appeal begins and will last perhaps two days. On November 20, the trial of Amanda Knox and Raffaaele Sollecito reopens with closing arguments. On November 27, the much-postponed verdict in the abuse-of-power trial for prosecutor Giuliano Mignini may finally arrive, but ... could be delayed once again. The rumor is that it may not be announced until after the verdict in the Knox/Sollecito trial. That may come as early as December 3-5.

Rudy Guede mugshots taken before the murder of Meredith Kercher in 2007



Lawyers for Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito promise huge surprises when the world's most tabloid-genic murder trial restarts September 14.

Shockers can't be good news for supposed conspirator Rudy Guede. He opted for an abbreviated trial, got slammed with 30 years, and will appeal the guilty verdict on November 18. All three are accused of murdering and sexually assaulting Meredith Kercher, a British exchange student, in Perugia, Italy, on November 1, 2007.

The problem for the prosecution: It never showed Rudy conspiring with the co-conspirators. Now PMs Giuliano Mignini and Manuela Comodi must cool their heels in Judge Giancarlo Massei's courtroom. The defense teams for Amanda and Raffaele get to speak. Look for Raffaele's team to take direct shots at Rudy Guede.

They point out Raffaele never met Rudy--except in court, never the best place to socialize. Nor has Rudy been eager to establish a buddy relationship. He's always said he was a stranger to Raffaele, Amanda's Italian boyfriend, a wealthy doctor's son.

Erasmus scholar Meredith Kercher
Everyone agrees Rudy did meet both of the beautiful foreign girls, Meredith and Amanda. But only because he played basketball with the boys who lived in the downstairs flat from them at via Della Pergola 7, in the house where the murder occurred.

No one saw either girl out with the club-loving loafer, a jobless 20-year-old, hard-pressed to pay his rent. Amanda did place him on a police list of visitors to the downstairs flat, but couldn't even provide his name. Stefano Bonassi, one of the downstairs boys, said Rudy had been over only two times, one night falling asleep on their toilet.

Police admit Rudy never called or emailed Meredith, Amanda or Raffaele. Police found no trace of them in his apartment, nor did they discover his DNA in Raffaele's flat. Yet he is supposed to have participated in a sex game with the three college students that ended in Meredith's refusal and death. A theory for which the prosecution has presented little evidence, other than numerous attempts to portray Amanda as sluttish and manipulative. A black widow. Judge Paolo Michelli, during the pretrial, took the conspiracy for granted. He boasted that he began his reasoning with all three suspects in the murder room. So much for innocent until proven guilty.



One thing is certain: Rudy didn't belong in the upstairs flat in the cottage. He had never been a lodger, boyfriend, guest or anything else. Yet police found his DNA on the victim, inside her body, on her purse and in other locations. His conviction was no surprise.

Police nabbed Rudy the old-fashioned way. They found his bloody hand print on a pillowcase under the victim. They matched it to his Italian ID card and launched an international manhunt. They tracked him down in Germany, where he'd fled, sleeping on trains and river barges. German police brought him in on November 20, nearly three weeks after Meredith died. He eventually admitted he'd been in the flat on the night she was murdered, but claimed they had a date and another man had stabbed her to death. Rudy also claimed to have seen this man--a tall left-handed Italian--and grappled with him, accounting for the cuts police found on Rudy's hands. He said he was so rattled that he took off after this encounter. Too panicked even to call for an ambulance, he left Meredith to bleed to death. He went home to change out of his bloodstained pants. He topped off the evening by joining friends at the Domus disco at 2:30 a.m. All of this by his own admission.


Before the trial shut down for the summer recess, Sollecito's team managed to wedge in Rudy's previous brushes with the law, including two break-ins in which he allegedly entered via windows and was armed with knives.

Both teams have sought to portray Rudy as the lone wolf of Piazza Grimana. Now they're getting some help from the press.

This week the Italian glossy Oggi posted stills from CCTV camera footage taken on November 1 beginning at 7:41. Reporter Giangavino Sulas says the photos show a figure dressed like Rudy Guede leaving the parking garage and heading over to the cottage--and then coming back about 20 minutes later. The young man in the wool hat does wear a "husky" coat very similar to the one Rudy was wearing when arrested. The figure is also wearing the same shoes that Rudy admits to wearing on the night of the murder: Nike Outbreak 2s, with the telltale white stripe on the bottom.

When Rudy fled Perugia, he took those shoes with him and dumped them somewhere in Germany. Much later he admitted that--while wearing those shoes on the night of the killing--he had made the bloody shoe print next to Meredith's bed. Prosecutors had blamed that print on Raffaele even when his lawyers made an appeal to the Supreme Court in Rome in April 2008. In fact, it was considered grave evidence against him.

Rudy admitted the truth in late May 2008, too late to help Raffaele, and only after police had discovered the empty Nike Outbreak 2 shoebox in his flat and matched that model to the bloody shoe print. Only then did he say, "Yes, the print is mine" to PM Mignini in a face-to-face.

Bloody shoeprint of Rudy Guede



According to Oggi, defense experts will now display many more Rudy footprints from the murder room. Professor Francesco Vinci, of the University of Bari's department of Forensic Medicine, has examined the pillowcase on which the victim lay. Judge Massei granted him permission to enter Rome's forensics lab from Judge Massei. What he saw astonished him.

As Oggi says: "With the use of Crimescope which helps to select prints, treated chemically with fluorescing products, he found on the pillow case five good prints (3 superimposed) of a left shoe that delineates a sole that corresponds and measures exactly to a Nike Outbreak 2, size 45. Thus the foot of Guede. The disconcerting thing is that on that pillowcase the forensic police found only 2 traces: one of Guede and the other of a woman size 37."

The police have tried to pin the latter print, not too convincingly, on Amanda. "Today the discovery of Prof. Vinci bewilders everyone. On this cushion only the youth of color has 'walked.' The report of the professor will be presented in court at the re-start of the trial and will surely be at the center of a clash between experts. Will he succeed in establishing the truth?"

Oggi contends that all of the blood-stained footprints in Kercher's bedroom are Rudy's size 11 Nike Outbreak 2 shoeprints. Lorenzo Rinaldi, the director of print identity in the Rome forensic police division said that in court in May 2009. Oggi goes further, saying there are no women's shoeprints in the room at all. And all of the prints appear to be from Rudy's left foot.

Patrizia Stefanoni note: Courtesy, Perugia Shock

Look for more fireworks over the missing data that made Judge Massei close down the trial early. Adriano Tagliabracci, a well-respected forensic geneticist, will be back on the stand on Monday, addressing that very issue. The judge shut down his testimony when it was discovered that defense lawyers hadn't received all of the evidence analyzed by the forensic police in Rome. The judge demanded it all be turned over by the end of July. (Note: Judge Massei has now ruled that the defendants were not wronged by documentation withheld for a year and a half. Their lawyers continue to press for complete documentation. Many questions remain unanswered).

The rumor is the defense received many pages, but not the key information they were seeking.

As Oggi says: "They foresee other interruptions because Giulia Bongiorno, Luca Maori and Luciano Ghirga, the defense lawyers of Sollecito and Amanda, will question at least two super experts: one on the bra clasp of Mez on which was found the DNA of Sollecito, and the other on the knife, the presumed crime weapon, on which was found the DNA of Amanda and that of the victim." We can expect "a fiery trial phase: the defense has announced sensational findings of a degree to demonstrate the innocence of the two ex-lovers and also the construction of false proof against them."

The drawing below is from the Oggi story. It shows the five footprints from the murder room and--an even bigger surprise--a Rudy-attributed footprint from the famous room with the broken window (a room once occupied by Filomena Romanelli). The defense contends Rudy Guede broke in that way; the prosecution insists the broken window was part of an elaborate staging.

We'll be hearing more about all six footprints in court. Below you can see the two images that will highlight the debate at the re-start of the hearing. Oggi says: "To the left, a diagram of glass lying next to a shoe print left by Rudy Guede. For the lawyers of Amanda and Raffaele this is another sign against the Ivorian: it would show that he entered the house after breaking down a window. To the right, the five prints that, to his astonishment, Prof. Vinci (Sollecito's expert) found on the pillowcase of the cushion on which lay the body of Meredith. There is an entire left shoe print and the sole is of a Nike Outbreak 2 number 45, the same worn by Guede the night of the crime."



Patrizia Stefanoni note: Courtesy, Perugia Shock


From Oggi: Glass on the tile next to Rudy's shoeprint in Filomena's room, where a broken window was found. Five shoeprints in the murder room on a pillow case under the victim's body. (right).

Note: The left photo shows exhibit A on the tile; the right shows the five left shoe prints on the pillowcase, one in the center, 3 overlapping ones in a group a half-step to the left, and one below the other 4, turned to the right.

* Feet of a killer: Here is another set of footprints, said to be Rudy Guede's, heading across the living room floor.

Amanda Knox and Sollecito guilty of Kercher murder

 
Miss Kercher had been studying Italian on an exchange programme

American student Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend have been found guilty by an Italian court of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher.



Knox, 22, bowed her head and burst into tears as she was jailed for 26 years for murder and sexual violence.

Italian Raffaele Sollecito, 25, looked impassive as he was given 25 years.

Miss Kercher, 21, a Leeds University student from Surrey, was found with her throat slit in Perugia in 2007. Knox had denied killing her in a sex game.

But prosecutors said Sollecito held her down while Knox stabbed her to death.    We have obtained truth and justice for this tragic event


Knox buried her head in her lawyer's chest, sobbing, after the judge read the verdict to a hushed court.

Miss Kercher's family lawyer, Francesco Maresca, said they were satisfied with the verdict.

He said: "They got the justice they were expecting. We got what we were hoping for.

"With what we got with the Guede sentence last year, we have obtained truth and justice for this tragic event."

Knox's family, meanwhile, left court in tears, fighting through the crowds of journalists gathered outside. Her father, Curt, told the BBC "we will fight on".

The court ordered Knox and Sollecito to pay one million euros to Miss Kercher's mother and the same amount to her father.

Her siblings would each receive 800,000 euros, the court ruled.

The pair committed the killing with small-time drug dealer Rudy Guede, 22, who was jailed for 30 years for murder and sexual violence last October.

Miss Kercher's semi-naked body was found in a pool of blood with her throat slit in her room.

She had been sharing a house with Knox, also a student, on her year abroad in the Umbrian hilltop town.

Media work as American university student Amanda Knox sits in court for a murder trial session in Perugia December 4, 2009.