Where is Amanda Knox now? True story behind Disney+’s Twisted Tale explained

The experience of Amanda Knox after she was wrongfully convicted of the murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher in 2009 is being explored in a new Disney+ true crime drama, The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox.

Knox, now 38, travelled to Italy as an exchange student in 2007 to study in the city of Perugia, where she shared a flat with Kercher. In November of that year, Kercher was found murdered in the apartment; she had been sexually assaulted before she was killed.

Police arrested Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, for the murder, thus began the American student's quest to prove her innocence, which is explored in the Disney+ series. Here is everything you need to know about the true story behind the series.

What happened to Amanda Knox?

Knox was arrested shortly after Kercher's body was discovered on 1 November, she and Sollecito were questioned by police over several days without a lawyer present. During this interrogation, Knox implicated Patrick Lumumba, the owner of a bar where she worked.

Lumumba was arrested and spent two weeks in prison following the accusation, which was later proven to be false. Authorities believed Knox had accused Lumumba of the killing in order to divert attention away from herself. She and Sollecito were arrested and charged with murder on 6 November 2007.

This was followed by the arrest of Rudy Guede on 20 November, whose DNA was found at the crime scene and who was extradited from Germany and later convicted. Despite his arrest, the prosecution did not drop charges against Knox and Sollecito.

The pair maintained their innocence throughout their arrest but the media were frenzied in reporting about the case, particularly around Knox, even going so far as to give her nicknames like "foxy knoxy". Their initial trial began in 2009 where prosecutors alleged the pair had carried out the murder with drug dealer Guede.

Prosecutors argued that DNA from Knox and Kercher found on a knife in Sollecito's apartment which police believed was the alleged murder weapon and linked the pair to the murder, while a bra found after the murder was said to have Sollecito's DNA. At the end of the trial, Knox was sentenced to to 28 and a half years in prison and Sollecito to 25 years.

When the case went to appeal court in 2010, forensic experts said in court they could not be certain that DNA on the alleged weapon was that of Kercher, and Knox's defence team argued that there was no trace of Knox's DNA at the murder scene. Experts also argued that because DNA procedures weren't followed the evidence could have been contaminated.

A court-ordered review of the contested DNA evidence revealed several basic errors in the gathering and analysis of the evidence, and it was concluded that no trace of Kercher's DNA was found on the knife. Knox and Sollecito were acquitted in October 2011.

Speaking in 2019 after visiting Italy for the first time since her acquittal, Knox reflected on the way in which she was portrayed in the media and the traumatic experience of being wrongfully convicted. Per Sky, Knox said that she felt it was "impossible" to have a fair trial because she was seen as "the dirty, psychopathic, man-eating Foxy Knoxy" by many people.

She said : "They convicted that doppelganger. That person was sentenced to 26 years in jail," she said. The verdict fell upon me like a crushing weight. I could only suffer in silence from my prison cell."

While she was acquitted for Kercher's murder, the Italian court upheld Knox's conviction of defamation for falsely implicating Lumumba in the killing.

Who killed Meredith Kercher?

Weeks after Kercher's murder in 2007, Rudy Guede was arrested on suspicion of being involved in her killing. In 2008, Guede opted for a fast-track trial, which ensured there would be no media presence in court.

Guede claimed that while he was with Kercher on the night of her death someone else had killed her while he was in the bathroom. He initially said Knox wasn't in the apartment, but later claimed she had been there when Kercher was killed. However, evidence was found not to support any of Guede's claims.

He was later found guilty for the murder and sexual assault of Kercher in October 2008. He was sentenced to 30 years imprisonment, which was later reduced to 16 years. Guede was released from prison in 2021 after it was ruled by an Italian court ruled that he could complete his sentence through community service.

Where is Amanda Knox now?

Since being acquitted Knox has become an activist for those facing wrongful convictions, and is a journalist and author. She has written two memoirs about her experience, Waiting to Be Heard and Free: My Search for Meaning, the second of which was released in 2025.

In an interview with People following Free's release, Knox reflected on her experience since being acquitted of Kercher's murder saying that she feels "haunted by Meredith" but "not in that bad way that people project onto me", adding that she feels her late friend's spirit "keeps reminding me of this valuable life and the privilege it is to live."

Returning to normal life proved next to impossible for Knox after being accused of murder, she said: "As someone who went to prison I was very aware of what it felt to have your freedom taken away from you and I kept fantasising about getting my life back, and I kept thinking I am living somebody else’s life by mistake and I just want to go back home, eat some sushi and go back to college again.

"When I came home, I was rudely awakened to the fact that life no longer existed for me, not just because of these external forces like paparazzi chasing me down the street, stalking me where I lived, receiving death threats and all of that, I had changed too. I was no longer an anonymous student; I was Amanda Knox, the girl accused of murder. That was my legacy, and I had to grapple with that."

Knox wrote Free in order to try and come to terms with her experience and, in the process, forgave the prosecutor in her case. She also found that while what she went through was "really extreme and isolating", it also helped connect her to other people.

After returning to America, Knox met author Christopher Robinson in 2011. The pair became close friends before falling in love, and they married in 2019. They share two children together, a girl and a boy born in 2021 and 2023, respectively.

In her interview with People, Knox shared how lucky she was to find Robinson: "What distinguished him was how not interested he was in the worst experience of my life… he gave me the grace and space just to be a person and to be a flawed person. Because one of the burdens of being accused of a heinous crime is that you feel like you have to be perfect just to prove your innocence every single day."

As well as being an author and activist, Knox has said that she loves comedy and hopes to write and perform stand-up comedy specials in the future.

The first two episodes of The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox is out now on Disney+, new episodes air every Wednesday.