In the days and weeks following the discovery of Meredith Kercher's body, Italian police found no physical evidence linking Amanda Knox to the murder. But then, they didn't need it: they could tell Knox was guilty just by looking at her. "We were able to establish guilt," said Edgardo Giobbi, the lead investigator, "by closely observing the suspect's psychological and behavioural reaction during the interrogation. We don't need to rely on other kinds of investigation." Giobbi said that his suspicions were first raised just hours after the murder, at the crime scene, when he watched Knox execute a provocative swivel of her hips as she put on a pair of shoe covers.
Little about Knox's behaviour during that time matched how the investigators imagined a wrongfully accused woman should conduct herself. She appeared too cool and calm, they said – and yet also, it seems, oddly libidinous. One policeman said she "smelled of sex", and investigators were particularly disturbed by a video that first appeared on YouTube, shortly after the investigation began, which showed Knox and Raffaele Sollecito in each other's arms outside the cottage in which Kercher was murdered, as the investigation proceeded inside.
In fact, the video is anything but sexy. Knox, looking wan and dazed, exchanges chaste kisses with Sollecito, who rubs her arm consolingly. But the police professed shock. "Knox and Sollecito would make faces, kiss each other, while there was the body of a friend in those conditions," tutted Monica Napoleoni, head of Perugia's murder squad. A detective said he complained to Knox when she sat on Sollecito's lap, describing her behaviour as "inappropriate". Knox later explained to Rolling Stone magazine, via an intermediary, that she had been pacing up and down when Sollecito pulled her on to his knees to comfort her. The only strange thing about this is that an explanation for simple physical affection became necessary.