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Dramatic closings in the tech exec trial. Debate over DNA analysis in a quadruple homicide. And Dennis Murphy on Amanda Knox.

December 05, 2024 /

This episode covers the ongoing trial of Nima Momeni, accused of murdering tech executive Bob Lee, and the Canaro brothers' murder case in New Jersey. Guests include Brittany Tom and Brenda Breslauer, who provide updates on these significant criminal cases.

Brittany Tom discusses the emotional closing arguments in the trial of Nima Momeni, where the prosecution played Bob Lee's desperate 911 call. The call reveals Lee pleading for help after being stabbed, while the defense claims he was not the aggressor.

Brenda Breslauer shares details about the Canaro brothers' case, where Paul Canaro is accused of murdering his brother Keith and his family. The prosecution argues financial motives, while a judge decides on the admissibility of advanced DNA evidence in the trial.

The episode also features updates on other criminal cases, including the sentencing of Sarah Boone for the suitcase murder and the Colorado dentist James Craig, who faces new charges related to his wife's murder.

Additionally, Dennis Murphy reflects on the Amanda Knox case, recalling its sensational nature and the impact it had on public perception and media coverage.

TLDR

The episode discusses the trials of Nima Momeni and Paul Canaro, plus updates on other criminal cases.

Episode

28:35
00:00:00
Hi, good morning. How are you? Good. We're all excited about the tree lighting. You're listening in to Dateline's morning meeting in 30 Rockefeller Center.
00:00:10
What was the motive if he was already the ex? Great question. Our editorial team is catching up on breaking crime news around the country.
00:00:17
Was this murder for hire? Did someone know that he had plans for something? They were about to start jury selection and the attorney said we've had it with him.
00:00:25
So it's crazy. Welcome to Dateline True Crime Weekly. I'm Andrea Canning. It's December 5th, and here's what's on our docket.
00:00:36
Six years after a man was accused of murdering his brother's entire family at their New Jersey mansion,
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a judge hears arguments about whether cutting-edge DNA analysis can be used against him at trial.
00:00:47
What he decides has the potential to impact all New Jersey criminal cases going forward.
00:00:52
In Dateline Roundup, we'll fill you in on an unexpected twist in the case of a dentist accused of poisoning his wife.
00:00:59
And the Florida woman convicted of murder by suitcase takes the stand at her sentencing.
00:01:04
I didn't mean for this to happen. To the entire planet, please forgive me. Plus, she was one of the most famous defendants in the world.
00:01:13
An American student abroad charged with a horrifying crime. Fifteen years ago this week, Amanda Knox was convicted of murdering her roommate, Meredith Kircher.
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Dennis Murphy reflects on his time in Italy covering this sensational case. Here I was before this house that was all over the headlines called the House of Horrors.
00:01:31
And it turned out to be all of that. But first, we're heading out to San Francisco for the final days of the trial that's become the talk of the city and beyond.
00:01:40
In April of 2023, a 911 dispatcher took a call at 2.30 in the morning. There's a male screaming help saying someone stabbed me.
00:01:51
Advise he's bleeding out. He is outside on the street. On that call, Bob Lee, a 43-year-old tech executive and father of two, asked for help 47 times.
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He died on an operating table at San Francisco General Hospital a few hours later.
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Another tech entrepreneur, a man named Nima Momeni, was arrested and charged with killing Bob.
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And his trial, which we've been covering, began this October. On Monday, the prosecution played Bob's 911 call to open their closing arguments.
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There aren't any cameras in the courtroom, but Dateline producer Brittany Tom has been reporting on the trial for the past couple of months.
00:02:27
And she joins us now to let us know how both sides left things with the jury. Brittany, thanks for coming back on the podcast.
00:02:33
Thanks, Andrea. The prosecutor beginning his closing arguments with that 911 call is pretty intense, Brittany.
00:02:40
Yes, the room was silent as he simply just played that 911 call. Bob is pleading with the operator for help, and I think it was an effective way to start closing.
00:02:49
His family was sitting in the front two rows, and even though some of them had heard this call before, they were visibly very emotional.
00:02:56
In contrast, the prosecutor pointed out that Nima never called 911 or talked to police about what happened.
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Even though in his testimony, he claimed it was one of the most traumatic experiences of his life.
00:03:06
Let's remind listeners briefly, what is the prosecution's theory of the case as they presented it in court?
00:03:13
Right. So prosecutors say the evidence shows Nima was angry at Bob because he had introduced Nima's little sister, Kazar Momeni, to a man who may have sexually assaulted her.
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They've argued that Nima took a knife from his sister's kitchen, drove Bob to a secluded area under the Bay Bridge,
00:03:32
stabbed him three times, then threw the knife over the fence. Okay, the defense, of course, has a very different theory about what happened that night.
00:03:39
Nima and his sister had testified that Nima actually wasn't angry with Bob at all.
00:03:43
And Nima even said on the stand that by the time he and Bob ended up in that secluded place in the car,
00:03:49
they were friendly, trying to figure out where they wanted to go afterwards. He testified he then made a bad joke and Bob flipped on him, took out a knife from his pocket.
00:03:58
Nima claimed that they tussled with the knife a little bit and he pushed the knife away.
00:04:03
Eventually, the knife went on the ground and he threw it over a fence so Bob couldn't pick it up again.
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He then said Bob walked away calmly on his phone and he didn't look like he had any injuries at all.
00:04:12
A major point of disagreement between the two sides is who brought the knife. The prosecution is saying Nima had it, and they seem to be saying that just taking the knife from his sister's apartment indicates that he had intent.
00:04:27
Yes, they said that for sure, that Nima intentionally took the knife from his sister's apartment, then chose to drive Bob to a secluded area, a place he was very familiar with because he had a lot of friends that lived in the area.
00:04:39
And on top of that, even though the defense said, oh, they were on great terms, they were friendly, the prosecutor actually argued, oh, this was actually kind of a ruse to be chummy and pretend because he was actually very upset with Bob.
00:04:52
That also shows intent. Nima's lawyer addressed the knife in his closings as well.
00:04:57
How did he counter the prosecution's story that it was in Nima's possession? Nima's lawyer brought up how tiny the knife was a few times.
00:05:06
He actually brought a cardboard cutout of the knife and showed the jury how small it was.
00:05:12
So the prosecution's theory is that Nima pulled it from a set of knives at his sister's apartment.
00:05:16
The paring knife was missing. So the defense makes this point. Of all the knives around, he picks the smallest, most beat-up knife to commit a murder.
00:05:24
And, you know, Nima has this big jacket on. He could have concealed a cleaver if he wanted to.
00:05:29
So what did the defense say about how the knife got to the crime scene then? So Nima testified that he never brought a knife, didn't have any weapons on him.
00:05:37
And then in the defense's closing argument, he played a new video that the jury has never seen before.
00:05:42
A video that the defense attorney claims the prosecution had buried in thousands of hours of surveillance footage and it turned over.
00:05:50
So the video shows Bob and his friend Bo outside of a social club. This happened earlier in the night before Bob saw Nima And in the video you can see Bob is using a small narrow object to scoop what the defense is alleging to be cocaine out of a baggie Nima attorneys say
00:06:07
that small object is actually the paring knife that was used in the attack. He's basically saying
00:06:13
that Bob had that paring knife the entire night and his client had no possession of it. Then after
00:06:19
court, Krista Lee, Bob's former wife, told the media that that wasn't a knife at all. It was
00:06:24
actually a collar stay. It's a piece of plastic that comes inside of a men's button-down shirt.
00:06:29
It also can be metal. That's how Bob typically liked to do cocaine, not with a knife.
00:06:34
Oh, interesting. Okay. This jury has a lot of evidence to go through, and the judge has given them some pretty clear instructions on the charges.
00:06:42
Yes. So the charges range from premeditated murder, so first degree, second degree, to voluntary manslaughter, which the judge described as basically imperfect self-defense.
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and the least serious crime is involuntary manslaughter. And then, of course, there's also
00:06:57
not guilty. They were sent to deliberate Wednesday. I guess it's anyone's guess how long it'll take to
00:07:04
reach a verdict. Yeah, we really don't know. The defense made a point stating that we all know that
00:07:11
Nima's team doesn't have to prove Nima killed Bob in self-defense. It's the prosecution that has to
00:07:16
prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Nima intentionally murdered Bob. Brittany, you live
00:07:20
in the Bay Area. What are people saying about this case, this trial? Yeah, I mean, from the very
00:07:26
beginning when this case broke to even to this trial, this has been in the headlines in the local
00:07:30
papers. Everyone's kind of heard about it. I think a lot of eyes are watching. The people in the Bay
00:07:35
Area are curious what the jury is going to decide on. Well, we will wait and see. Thank you, Brittany.
00:07:41
Thanks. Yeah, we'll be at the courthouse waiting for the verdict. next up when a wealthy businessman and his family were brutally murdered at their home
00:07:52
six years ago questions swirled about a possible hit for hire until police arrested the man's
00:07:58
brother we've got the latest from the courtroom for our next story we're heading to a new jersey courtroom where a judge is weighing whether a
00:08:16
prosecutor can use cutting-edge science in a disturbing quadruple murder case in november 2018
00:08:23
just a few days before thanksgiving two fires broke out at the homes of two brothers paul and
00:08:28
Keith Canaro. Paul and his family got out alive, but his brother Keith was not so lucky.
00:08:35
When first responders got to his house, they discovered that Keith had died, but not in the fire. He'd been shot repeatedly. His wife and two children were also dead.
00:08:45
Tonight, an outpouring of grief for a family police say was targeted and murdered in their
00:08:50
own home. But by whom? A week later, investigators came up with a stunning theory. Paul Canaro had
00:08:57
killed his brother and his family, and then set fire not only to his brother's house, but to his
00:09:02
own to cover up the crime. He was charged with their murders and two counts of arson.
00:09:08
Producer Brenda Breslauer, who has been covering the case for Dateline, is here to tell us what
00:09:12
prosecutors believe is Paul's motive and why science is now taking center stage in the courtroom.
00:09:18
Hey, Brenda. Hi, Andrea. So first of all, very interesting that this involves two brothers.
00:09:24
What do we know about them, the Canaros, and their relationship? Yeah, that's kind of the crux of the whole story here.
00:09:32
They appeared to be close. According to press reports, Keith was the best man at Paul's wedding.
00:09:39
And when Keith built a tech company from scratch, he brought in his older brother, Paul.
00:09:45
Keith owned a mansion in Colts Neck, an affluent neighborhood in New Jersey. And he lived there with his wife, Jennifer, and two children.
00:09:53
11-year-old Jesse and Sophia, who was eight. Yeah, I've been to Colts Neck. It's an absolutely
00:09:58
beautiful area of New Jersey. What can you tell us about Paul? So Paul lived in nearby Ocean Township,
00:10:07
about 12 miles away. He had a more modest home, but he also drove a Porsche. And a family friend
00:10:13
told NBC News that the brothers treated each other with love and respect. Take us to the day
00:10:18
of the fires. What exactly happened? Okay, well, starting about 5 a.m., police got a call from
00:10:25
someone at Paul Canero's home. Then around 1230, two different neighbors called 911 to say they
00:10:35
could see smoke coming out of Keith's house. The 911 operator told one of them to walk over and
00:10:41
check it out. Oh, my God, there's blood here. It's a corpse. It's what? Somebody is dead here.
00:10:48
It was Keith. And what makes this story so incredibly tragic is that it wasn't just Keith,
00:10:54
it was the rest of his family as well, right? Yeah, his wife, Jennifer, and the two children,
00:11:00
Jesse and Sophia were found dead inside the house. The children had been stabbed.
00:11:05
And then about a week later, as you mentioned, Paul was arrested and charged with the four murders.
00:11:12
Wow. So what exactly happened here between these two brothers? Do we have a motive? Has the prosecution released that yet?
00:11:22
The prosecution has said the motive was financial. According to a police document, there had been arguments over money.
00:11:29
And the day before the murder, Keith forwarded an email to a family member saying,
00:11:35
money had gone missing from the businesses. Paul Canero was also charged with theft.
00:11:40
How has he responded to all of this? Has he said anything? He has pleaded not guilty,
00:11:46
and he maintains his innocence. The murders happened back in 2018. Six years later the case is in court but still not in trial What is happening I know it been a long time Part of it COVID of course and then some back and forth on these DNA issues A pretrial hearing has now
00:12:08
been going on for three weeks. It centers on the issue of whether the prosecution can present
00:12:13
certain DNA evidence to the jury at the upcoming trial. The labs used a cutting-edge software
00:12:19
called StarMix, which the defense is arguing is not reliable. I've never heard of StarMix. It
00:12:26
sounds like something right out of a sci-fi movie. How does it work? It does sound like something out
00:12:31
of a sci-fi movie. So StarMix is a computer software program that takes a sample of DNA
00:12:37
that may be from multiple people, a complex sample, and uses mathematical modeling to separate them
00:12:44
out, and it can get results from much smaller samples of DNA. So in this case, it was used to
00:12:52
analyze more than a dozen samples from bloodstained jeans and gloves, latex gloves, that were found in
00:13:00
Paul Canero's basement after the murders. One stain on the jeans revealed nothing when it was
00:13:05
examined using the traditional DNA method, according to a prosecution expert. But when it was run
00:13:11
through StarMix, she was able to identify the source as Paul's nephew, Jesse, the 11-year-old.
00:13:18
Is the assumption by the prosecution that Paul thought that his jeans and the glove would burn
00:13:25
in the fire? I mean, why would you leave these items in your own basement? Right. Well, that is something the prosecutor did allege, that there were two reasons for the fires.
00:13:35
One was to make it look like the whole family was being targeted, and the second was
00:13:41
to burn the evidence. But Paul's defense team says that StarMix can't be trusted.
00:13:47
Right. I've been watching the testimony and the back and forth has been quite heated.
00:13:53
Paul is being represented by the state public defender's office. Their forensic experts are
00:13:59
questioning whether enough research has been done on this software to establish its error rates and
00:14:05
its limitations. And the other thing that's interesting is they're arguing that the method
00:14:11
is particularly problematic when it comes to analyzing the DNA of relatives. There's an
00:14:17
increased risk of a false positive. This hearing doesn't just have implications for this case. It
00:14:23
goes beyond that. That's true. It really is a test case for the state of New Jersey. It's being heard
00:14:29
by one of the top judges in the county. And what he decides has the potential to impact
00:14:34
all New Jersey criminal cases going forward. Very long preliminary hearing. When will
00:14:40
Paul Canero's jury trial begin? That's projected to begin at the end of March and last about six
00:14:47
weeks. Okay. Thank you, Brenda, for your insight into this disturbing case. You're welcome.
00:14:53
Up next, it's Dateline Roundup. The Florida woman convicted of leaving her boyfriend to die in a suitcase learns her fate.
00:15:02
And prosecutors say the Colorado dentist accused of poisoning his wife has a new target.
00:15:07
Plus, Dennis Murphy remembers the Amanda Knox case. Welcome back. Joining me for this week's Roundup is Dateline producer Sue Simpson. Hey, Sue,
00:15:27
welcome back. Thanks, Andrea. Hi. Okay, first up, more stunning headlines in the case involving
00:15:33
Colorado dentist James Craig. We mentioned his trial was set to begin in our last episode,
00:15:38
But there have been a couple of massive twists we didn't see coming. Before we get to that, just remind people what this alleged crime is and who James Craig is.
00:15:49
James Craig was charged with murdering his wife, Angela Craig, by poisoning her protein shakes back in 2023.
00:15:56
He pleaded not guilty. And his trial was on the docket to begin this month. But on the day of jury selection, his legal team actually withdrew from the case.
00:16:06
Do we know why? Well, Andrea, here's what we know. According to the 18th Judicial District Attorney's Office, his defense attorney said his client was persisting in a course of action that he reasonably believed is criminal or fraudulent. That's a quote from the document. And two, that his client was insisting on action that, quote, he considers repugnant or has a fundamental disagreement with.
00:16:31
The attorney didn't say what that action was, which he found so repugnant, but something happened the next day which could give us a clue.
00:16:41
That's right. So the following day, prosecutors filed two new charges against Craig, solicitation to commit murder and solicitation to commit perjury.
00:16:50
He allegedly tried to persuade an inmate to commit murder for him. Do we know who his alleged target is?
00:16:57
The Aurora Police Department says the intended target was an Aurora police detective who investigated his wife's murder case.
00:17:06
Major twist there. So when do we expect this trial to begin? Great question. Court documents show the trial has been postponed indefinitely, so we shall see.
00:17:18
All right. So next, we've got two sentencings out of Florida to talk about from two big cases we've covered on the podcast.
00:17:25
The first one we're going to talk about is Sarah Boone. She is the defendant in the so-called suitcase murder trial.
00:17:31
Yeah, so Sarah Boone was accused of zipping her boyfriend, George Torres, into a blue suitcase and leaving him to suffocate.
00:17:38
Sarah pleaded not guilty, and she testified on the stand that she acted in self-defense.
00:17:44
She alleged she'd suffered previous abuse at the hands of her boyfriend. The jury didn't buy that and convicted her after less than two hours of deliberation.
00:17:53
The sentencing was earlier this week We heard victim impact statements from George children and his mom He my son I love him And I miss him a lot My family miss him a lot too
00:18:08
And Sarah testified as well. Sarah did, and she compared herself to a broken vase.
00:18:15
Kentu Sukeroi is a kind of Japanese ceramic style, which means to repair with gold.
00:18:20
When a ceramic piece breaks, an artisan will fuse the pieces back together again using liquid gold or gold dust lacquer.
00:18:27
And each piece becomes more beautiful because it has been broken. Sounds kind of odd.
00:18:32
It is odd. And Boone went on to say that all of the gold that held her together was forgiveness.
00:18:39
She said she forgave Torres for beating her senseless, and she rattled off a bunch of other allegations of abuse.
00:18:46
I didn't mean for this to happen. Forgive me, George. Forgive me, Torres family.
00:18:53
Forgive me, Judge Kranick. To the entire planet, please forgive me. Once Boone was finished, the prosecutor was not shy about what he thought of her testimony.
00:19:03
It's all about Sarah Boone. Everything's about Sarah Boone, about how she is the victim.
00:19:10
What was her sentence? She was sentenced to life, life in prison. All right. And the second big sentencing this week was Ashley Benefield. The former ballerina
00:19:21
was convicted of the 2020 killing of her husband, Doug Benefield. So, Sue, what is the news there?
00:19:27
So, we weren't sure this sentencing was actually going to happen until a few days ago.
00:19:31
Remember, Benefield's team asked for a new trial based on alleged juror misconduct.
00:19:37
But just before Thanksgiving, the judge rejected the motion and sentencing did take place on Tuesday.
00:19:43
There were some victim impact statements from Doug's family. We heard from his daughter, Eva, who's been very vocal throughout all of this.
00:19:51
Ashley, since the day you shot my father, I've only had one question to ask you. Why?
00:19:57
Did Ashley give a statement? She did not. All right. What did she get? The judge sentenced Ashley to 20 years in prison with credit for time served, followed by 10 years of probation.
00:20:09
Okay. Lots of updates, Sue. Thank you so much. Lots of news. Thank you, Andrea. followed Meredith's roommate, Amanda Knox. Prosecutors said the American college student
00:20:47
had murdered Meredith. Amanda's supporter said she'd been railroaded by the Italian authorities.
00:20:53
Just after midnight on December 5th, 2009, the judge read the verdict. Amanda Knox, guilty of the murder of her roommate, Meredith Kirchhoff.
00:21:04
Dennis Murphy covered the case from the very beginning and is here to tell us why this case
00:21:08
got so much attention and what happened next. Hey, Dennis. Hey, Andrea, how are you? Good.
00:21:14
So, Dennis, your first report came out in December of 2007. So let's take a listen.
00:21:21
The awful crime here on Via Sant'Antonio would quickly have been forgotten as yet another
00:21:26
head-shaking statistic. Sad, but not all that uncommon, except for the authorities' chilling
00:21:32
theory of the murder. You flew out to Perugia, Italy for this first report. In fact, in that
00:21:38
clip we just played, you're standing outside the student housing cottage where Amanda Knox and her
00:21:43
roommate Meredith Kircher lived. Do you remember what was going on when you filmed that? Oh, I so
00:21:49
well remember standing there looking at that little building, Andrea. Here's Perugia, this medieval
00:21:54
beauty of a town known for making chocolate and educating students. And yet here I was before this
00:21:59
house that was all over the headlines called the House of Horrors. And it turned out to be all of
00:22:04
that. So remind us, what exactly was the prosecution's theory about what happened,
00:22:10
what they say she did? Well, our most interesting stop on that trip, we went to the office of the
00:22:16
chief prosecutor, and he sat us down and he took us through this very lurid operatic theory of the
00:22:22
crime. He said there were three people involved here. It was three on one. It was a sex game
00:22:27
gone wrong, Amanda Knox holding the victim with a knife under her chin, her boyfriend of just a few
00:22:34
days, an Italian boyfriend, and a third man who sexually assaulted the roommate. And it all took
00:22:39
place in that little cottage, the House of Horrors. And you were getting some information from the
00:22:46
Italian papers leaked by the prosecutor, right? The Italian authorities leaked every bit of
00:22:52
information I think they had at the time, especially to the British tabloids. The media
00:22:56
had a field day when it found Amanda's MySpace web page. Her online nickname was Foxy Noxy.
00:23:04
Who was Foxy Noxy, this young woman seen in her high school photo playing soccer? And it was
00:23:10
nothing more than that. That was an allusion to her ability to play soccer. But somehow this
00:23:15
appellation that she was known as Foxy Noxy became this portrayal of a promiscuous young American
00:23:21
woman. I mean, were you thinking, how in the world does this young woman girl get a fair trial if all
00:23:27
of this is out there in the public? Exactly. The court of public opinion had decided, we've seen
00:23:32
her in the paper every day. What is she doing? Giggling while she's buying lingerie with her
00:23:37
boyfriend. What is the story we hear about being in the police station doing cartwheels? It all
00:23:42
added up to guilty on that side of the Atlantic. Amanda changed her story at one point.
00:23:47
she didn't. They bring her in, and she doesn't have an attorney, and she's being interrogated
00:23:53
by the homicide detectives in Italian. And she gives up what they said at the time was
00:24:00
like a confession, where she seemed to implicate herself by being in the house. She recalled the
00:24:05
screams of Meredith. And the other thing that happened is that they said, who is the third man?
00:24:10
And Amanda Knox, under interrogation, gave up the name of her boss, the owner of a small cafe where
00:24:16
she part-time waitressed in town. And she said, he was the guy. He's your third man. None of those
00:24:21
things turned out to be true. Amanda's trial, no surprise, was a complete circus.
00:24:25
cameras galore. I wasn't in Italy at the time, but I was watching the coverage, of course,
00:24:31
and I remember feeling so sorry for her. She was so disturbed. Her face was just,
00:24:36
just it revealed everything that was going on. Yeah, the verdict. She was very dramatic. She's
00:24:43
found guilty. Sobbing, sobbing at her table. And just like that, it was over. 26 years for Amanda,
00:24:50
25 for her one-time boyfriend. So much has happened since this guilty verdict. What happened next?
00:24:57
Well, it goes to an appeals court. And here it very interesting because everything shifts to Amanda Knox favor They throw out all of the forensic evidence as junk science incompetently collected and processed And then there a second trial And once again she was found guilty And then the
00:25:16
appellate court did something interesting. They not only said there is not enough evidence to
00:25:20
support a guilty verdict, they said she did not do it. You've got the wrong person here. So after
00:25:26
nearly four years in prison, she was completely exonerated. And the boyfriend? The boyfriend was
00:25:31
let go too. So I think I read that she's working on some type of documentary. She went back to
00:25:37
Perugia. I think you could say that the events of her early 20s have really shaped the person she
00:25:43
is today. She's living back in Seattle, as I understand it. She's married with children
00:25:46
and has become a vocal advocate for those who are wrongfully accused, wrongfully convicted.
00:25:54
And yes, she went back to Perugia to revisit it all. It's not a case that she lets go. And
00:25:59
And unfortunately for Amanda, Andrew, it's not a case that a lot of members of the general public will let go either.
00:26:07
Yeah. It like does anyone not know the name Amanda Knox at this point And she doesn deserve that And no one really remembers the name of the victim that easily Meredith Kircher You can call that up as easily as you can call up Foxy Noxie Right Dennis what a fascinating story you covered Really interesting looking back on this Thank you for joining us and sharing your memories
00:26:31
It's been interesting to retrieve some of these memories again. Yeah. Thank you.
00:26:35
That's it for this episode of Dateline True Crime Weekly. Coming up this Friday on Dateline,
00:26:42
she was a murder victim without a name until strangers gave it back to her. To those armchair detectives and their partner,
00:26:49
she was as important as you or me. It doesn't matter what walk of life you come from.
00:26:57
Everybody's a person. That's the way they should be treated. Watch Keith's story, The Woman with No Name,
00:27:03
airing this Friday on NBC at a special time of 1015, 915 Central. And be sure to check out Josh's brand new original podcast series, Deadly Mirage.
00:27:13
It's the story of a young couple living in the California desert who seemed to have it all
00:27:17
until the husband was found murdered and investigators uncovered a web of dark secrets The body lay on the shop floor the man shaven head leaning against the front left tire of a service truck There was a dime hole in his chin and a pool of blood
00:27:35
slowly congealing on the concrete floor. The first two episodes are available now,
00:27:51
wherever you get your podcasts. Dateline Premium subscribers get early access to episodes
00:27:56
and can listen ad-free. Thanks for listening. Dateline True Crime Weekly is produced by Frannie Kelly
00:28:02
and Katie Ferguson. Our associate producers are Carson Cummins and Caroline Casey.
00:28:08
Our senior producer is Liz Brown-Korloff. Production and fact-checking help by Sarah Kadir.
00:28:14
Veronica Mazzaka is our digital producer. Rick Kwan is our sound designer. Original music by Jesse McGinty.
00:28:20
Bryson Barnes is head of audio production. Paul Ryan is executive producer and Liz Cole is senior executive producer of Dateline.
00:28:27
Okay, thanks Jane. Bye everyone.

Badges

This episode stands out for the following:

  • 85
    Most intense
  • 80
    Most dramatic
  • 80
    Most heartbreaking
  • 80
    Most talked-about

Episode Highlights

  • Amanda Knox's Conviction
    Fifteen years ago, Amanda Knox was convicted of murdering her roommate, Meredith Kircher.
    “This case became a media sensation.”
    @ 01m 17s
    December 05, 2024
  • The Canaro Family Tragedy
    A judge weighs whether DNA evidence can be used in a quadruple murder case.
    “Paul Canaro was charged with the murders of his brother and family.”
    @ 07m 58s
    December 05, 2024
  • Sarah Boone Sentenced to Life
    Sarah Boone was sentenced to life in prison for the suitcase murder of her boyfriend.
    “I didn't mean for this to happen. Please forgive me.”
    @ 19m 12s
    December 05, 2024
  • Amanda Knox's Trial
    The court of public opinion had decided, leading to a media circus around her trial.
    “Amanda's trial, no surprise, was a complete circus.”
    @ 24m 21s
    December 05, 2024
  • Exoneration After Four Years
    Amanda Knox was exonerated after nearly four years in prison due to lack of evidence.
    “They said she did not do it. You've got the wrong person here.”
    @ 25m 20s
    December 05, 2024
  • Life After Prison
    Amanda Knox becomes an advocate for the wrongfully accused after her release.
    “She's become a vocal advocate for those who are wrongfully accused, wrongfully convicted.”
    @ 25m 46s
    December 05, 2024

Episode Quotes

  • I didn't mean for this to happen. To the entire planet, please forgive me.
    Dramatic closings in the tech exec trial. Debate over DNA analysis in a quadruple homicide. And Dennis Murphy on Amanda Knox.
  • It's all about Sarah Boone. Everything's about Sarah Boone, about how she is the victim.
    Dramatic closings in the tech exec trial. Debate over DNA analysis in a quadruple homicide. And Dennis Murphy on Amanda Knox.
  • What is she doing? Giggling while she's buying lingerie with her boyfriend.
    Dramatic closings in the tech exec trial. Debate over DNA analysis in a quadruple homicide. And Dennis Murphy on Amanda Knox.
  • She was very dramatic. She's found guilty. Sobbing, sobbing at her table.
    Dramatic closings in the tech exec trial. Debate over DNA analysis in a quadruple homicide. And Dennis Murphy on Amanda Knox.
  • She's living back in Seattle, as I understand it. She's married with children.
    Dramatic closings in the tech exec trial. Debate over DNA analysis in a quadruple homicide. And Dennis Murphy on Amanda Knox.
  • It like does anyone not know the name Amanda Knox at this point?
    Dramatic closings in the tech exec trial. Debate over DNA analysis in a quadruple homicide. And Dennis Murphy on Amanda Knox.

Key Moments

  • Tree Lighting Excitement00:04
  • Murder for Hire Question00:17
  • 911 Call Intensity02:16
  • Emotional Family Reaction02:49
  • Life Sentence for Boone19:12
  • Public Opinion23:27
  • Guilty Verdict24:43
  • Legacy of the Case26:07

Tension Over Time

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown