Through the Labyrinth: Amanda Knox on Coercion, Media, and Advocacy

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_04]: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal, medical, or mental health advice. The views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business, individual, anyone, or anything.

[00:00:24] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm Sarah Edmondson.

[00:00:25] [SPEAKER_08]: And I'm Anthony Nippy Ames. And this is A Little Bit Culty.

[00:00:30] [SPEAKER_08]: Cults are commonplace now. From fandoms to fads, we're examining them all. We look at what happens when things that seem like a great thing at first go bad.

[00:00:38] [SPEAKER_04]: Every week we chat with survivors, experts, and whistleblowers for real culty stories told directly by the people who lived through them. Because we want you to learn a few things that we've had to learn the hard way.

[00:00:49] [SPEAKER_08]: For example, if you think you're too smart to get sucked into something culty, you might be prime recruitment material. And who knows? You could already be in a cult. If you're not aware of your programming, you're probably being programmed. So keep listening to find out.

[00:01:02] [SPEAKER_04]: We'll talk about all sorts of topics on the show, but be aware, this podcast might contain stories that could be alarming to some of our listeners. So please check our show notes for more detailed descriptions and take care of yourself.

[00:01:15] [SPEAKER_08]: Subscribe to our Patreon for Thursday bonus episodes, Q&A, and all sorts of exclusive content. That's patreon.com slash a little bit culty.

[00:01:22] [SPEAKER_04]: Welcome to season seven of A Little Bit Culty.

[00:01:39] [SPEAKER_04]: Welcome back everybody to this week's very special episode of A Little Bit Culty. This is season seven and an episode we've been waiting to record for a very long time.

[00:01:47] [SPEAKER_08]: Very excited to get going on this one.

[00:01:49] [SPEAKER_04]: This is a silver lining for us. Spending time with guests is always an honor, of course, but this is one I've been looking forward to ever since I was connected to Amanda Knox by our mutual friend, Whitney Cummings.

[00:02:02] [SPEAKER_08]: Name dropping?

[00:02:03] [SPEAKER_04]: Just a little name drop there.

[00:02:04] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.

[00:02:05] [SPEAKER_04]: Whitney FaceTimed me with Amanda after she had been roped into accidentally endorsing the case that the loyalists were presenting that Keith Raniere had been framed and that there had been tampering with evidence.

[00:02:19] [SPEAKER_08]: The We Are Is You movement.

[00:02:21] [SPEAKER_04]: They jumped on the Amanda Knox bandwagon knowing that she would help them shine a light on the apparent alleged prosecutorial misconduct, which of course has proven to be false.

[00:02:33] [SPEAKER_04]: That's how I connected with Amanda Knox.

[00:02:34] [SPEAKER_04]: I wasn't super aware of her story when it was breaking because I was in a cult and not really watching any news.

[00:02:40] [SPEAKER_08]: I was somewhat peripheral and didn't know the magnitude of the abuse that went on, which we get into.

[00:02:45] [SPEAKER_04]: Regardless, Amanda Knox is really a household name all over the world.

[00:02:49] [SPEAKER_04]: She's an activist for criminal justice reform.

[00:02:52] [SPEAKER_04]: She's got a hit podcast called Labyrinths, which is stellar, and she's the author of the best-selling memoir, Waiting to be Heard.

[00:02:59] [SPEAKER_08]: Super busy.

[00:03:00] [SPEAKER_08]: She's got a new book, Free My Search for Meaning, which is set to be released next year.

[00:03:04] [SPEAKER_08]: I think it was March 25th.

[00:03:06] [SPEAKER_08]: She's also a major public figure now.

[00:03:08] [SPEAKER_08]: I can't even count the number of movies and documentaries that have been focused on her story.

[00:03:11] [SPEAKER_08]: And we watched the one, the Netflix one, called Amanda Knox.

[00:03:14] [SPEAKER_04]: And we think it's important to watch that documentary, especially if you're not super familiar with the details.

[00:03:18] [SPEAKER_04]: Because in our interview with Amanda, we really tried our best not to have her repeat the gory details.

[00:03:25] [SPEAKER_08]: Correct.

[00:03:25] [SPEAKER_08]: Our conversation with Amanda focused on what happened after her story became an international news saga and how that happened as well.

[00:03:31] [SPEAKER_08]: We talked about why she merged publicly, when she didn't have to, and how that decision has affected her life.

[00:03:36] [SPEAKER_08]: We touched on many other things, her brief brush with NXIVM as well.

[00:03:41] [SPEAKER_04]: That's right, Nippy.

[00:03:42] [SPEAKER_04]: We just, we don't want to put her through that again.

[00:03:44] [SPEAKER_04]: I know I'm personally sick of telling my story.

[00:03:46] [SPEAKER_04]: She must be too.

[00:03:47] [SPEAKER_04]: But if you want to fully dive in, the Netflix doc that Nippy just mentioned is a good place to start.

[00:03:52] [SPEAKER_04]: Just type in Amanda Knox, the movie.

[00:03:54] [SPEAKER_04]: And for those who don't know her very long nightmare, we'll do our very best to give the cliff notes briefly right now.

[00:04:00] [SPEAKER_08]: Amanda's from Seattle.

[00:04:01] [SPEAKER_08]: And when she was 20 years old, she was studying abroad in Perugia, Italy.

[00:04:04] [SPEAKER_08]: That's in the middle of the boot, a couple hours drive north of Rome.

[00:04:07] [SPEAKER_08]: After spending the night at her boyfriend's, she returned home to find her roommate, Meredith Kircher, murdered in her dorm room.

[00:04:13] [SPEAKER_04]: That's when the nightmare really began.

[00:04:15] [SPEAKER_04]: A bumbled police investigation implicated her and her then-boyfriend for murder.

[00:04:21] [SPEAKER_04]: While Amanda was behind bars, she became a plaything for tabloids all over the world to mock.

[00:04:26] [SPEAKER_04]: They called her Foxy Noxy, making fun of a MySpace handle she made as a teenager in her soccer-playing years.

[00:04:32] [SPEAKER_04]: They also said she was promiscuous and uncaring and evil and terrible things.

[00:04:37] [SPEAKER_04]: All of this went on for many years, all over the world, before any of the facts were clear.

[00:04:41] [SPEAKER_08]: And here are the facts.

[00:04:43] [SPEAKER_08]: Amanda was completely innocent.

[00:04:45] [SPEAKER_08]: The charges were false.

[00:04:46] [SPEAKER_08]: She didn't murder anyone.

[00:04:48] [SPEAKER_08]: The DNA evidence proved she wasn't even in the room where the rape and murder took place.

[00:04:52] [SPEAKER_08]: And the person who did murder Amanda's roommate was sentenced to 30 years behind bars,

[00:04:56] [SPEAKER_08]: but eventually paroled with a sentence of community service.

[00:04:59] [SPEAKER_08]: He was released in 2021.

[00:05:01] [SPEAKER_04]: Amanda spent four long years behind bars for a crime she did not commit.

[00:05:06] [SPEAKER_04]: In 2015, Italy's highest court finally exonerated Amanda and her then-boyfriend,

[00:05:11] [SPEAKER_04]: Raffaele Solicito.

[00:05:12] [SPEAKER_04]: But you don't just get over something like that.

[00:05:15] [SPEAKER_08]: No, you don't.

[00:05:16] [SPEAKER_08]: So we focused our conversation with Amanda on her life now, her activism, and her journalism.

[00:05:21] [SPEAKER_08]: How she's attempted to heal and deal with serious PTSD.

[00:05:24] [SPEAKER_04]: It's an intense conversation, but one of the best we've ever had on the show.

[00:05:28] [SPEAKER_08]: We hope you enjoy it and learn from someone who we both admire immensely.

[00:05:33] [SPEAKER_04]: Here's our conversation with Amanda Knox.

[00:05:47] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm so mad right now.

[00:05:48] [SPEAKER_04]: It was before I started it.

[00:05:49] [SPEAKER_04]: And he even started-

[00:05:49] [SPEAKER_04]: I get his hair, I get it.

[00:05:51] [SPEAKER_04]: Like, he knew your story better than I did.

[00:05:53] [SPEAKER_04]: I think being in America-

[00:05:54] [SPEAKER_04]: Did you follow it when it was going on?

[00:05:55] [SPEAKER_08]: I followed it peripherally, and then I got a little bit more interested when you got off,

[00:06:01] [SPEAKER_08]: and then it was out of my lexicon for a while.

[00:06:03] [SPEAKER_08]: But I was happy to see that you got off.

[00:06:05] [SPEAKER_08]: I didn't know-

[00:06:06] [SPEAKER_08]: Why or how.

[00:06:07] [SPEAKER_08]: The ins and outs of how badly they got it wrong, and then we'll get into it, I'm sure.

[00:06:12] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.

[00:06:12] [SPEAKER_08]: But I was watching it, and I was like, I was pissed for you.

[00:06:15] [SPEAKER_04]: And we were so mad.

[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_08]: I was so pissed, especially with the lawyer.

[00:06:19] [SPEAKER_08]: And we'll get into it, I'm sure.

[00:06:21] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, we certainly will.

[00:06:22] [SPEAKER_04]: But I also want to thank Whitney Cummings for bringing us together originally.

[00:06:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Always got a shout out, Whitney.

[00:06:28] [SPEAKER_02]: She's the best.

[00:06:29] [SPEAKER_02]: She is the most epic matchmaker.

[00:06:33] [SPEAKER_04]: She really is.

[00:06:34] [SPEAKER_04]: I think she FaceTimed me while you were there for like a Thanksgiving dinner.

[00:06:38] [SPEAKER_04]: Does that sound right?

[00:06:39] [SPEAKER_04]: Ah, God, what was I-

[00:06:40] [SPEAKER_04]: Was it Thanksgiving?

[00:06:41] [SPEAKER_02]: I think maybe I was just making her food, and she was like, you can make food.

[00:06:48] [SPEAKER_04]: That sounds like something she would do.

[00:06:50] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:06:51] [SPEAKER_04]: So again, for me, it was more peripheral in my life.

[00:06:54] [SPEAKER_04]: Like I did not know the details at all.

[00:06:56] [SPEAKER_04]: I had not read your book.

[00:06:57] [SPEAKER_04]: I had not watched the documentary.

[00:06:58] [SPEAKER_04]: I hadn't deep dived.

[00:07:00] [SPEAKER_04]: So we have since then, obviously.

[00:07:03] [SPEAKER_04]: And our audience may be like, wait, was Amanda Knox in a cult?

[00:07:07] [SPEAKER_04]: And obviously, you were not in a cult.

[00:07:10] [SPEAKER_04]: Everyone else was.

[00:07:12] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that's trending these days.

[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, right?

[00:07:15] [SPEAKER_04]: But there's a reason why you're on the podcast.

[00:07:17] [SPEAKER_04]: Yes.

[00:07:17] [SPEAKER_04]: And for us, it was very clear when we heard how you were coerced.

[00:07:20] [SPEAKER_04]: So and we'll like summarize the whole story in the introduction.

[00:07:24] [SPEAKER_04]: But what's the Venn diagram of your story and our story in terms of coercion?

[00:07:27] [SPEAKER_04]: We just take us back to that element of it.

[00:07:30] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:07:31] [SPEAKER_01]: So the key thing that we have in common is in a moment of vulnerability in our lives, we

[00:07:38] [SPEAKER_01]: were led to believe that we were insane, that we didn't have agency in our lives.

[00:07:44] [SPEAKER_01]: And we were coerced into, in my case, implicating myself and others in a crime that I had nothing

[00:07:51] [SPEAKER_01]: to do with.

[00:07:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And in your case, you know, just deep diving into this cult that was meant to make you feel

[00:07:59] [SPEAKER_01]: like you were working on yourself.

[00:08:00] [SPEAKER_01]: And instead, you were just submitting yourself to the will of this authority figure.

[00:08:04] [SPEAKER_04]: Well said.

[00:08:05] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I, in my way, was submitting myself to an authority figure that I also thought

[00:08:10] [SPEAKER_01]: that I could trust, which was the police and the police who in the few days between the

[00:08:17] [SPEAKER_01]: discovery of my roommate's murder and my arrest, I was put through a total of 53 hours of questioning

[00:08:25] [SPEAKER_01]: over five days.

[00:08:26] [SPEAKER_01]: What they will say is that they were just interviewing me as a witness.

[00:08:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And therefore, I was never entitled to anything like Miranda rights or a lawyer or any kind of

[00:08:36] [SPEAKER_01]: defense.

[00:08:37] [SPEAKER_01]: I just waltzed in one day and spontaneously combusted slash confessed to being involved in this crime.

[00:08:45] [SPEAKER_01]: And so they were forced to arrest me.

[00:08:47] [SPEAKER_01]: And then they proceeded on their long, long ordeal of having to prove how I was involved in my

[00:08:55] [SPEAKER_01]: roommate's murder, even though there was no physical proof to that effect and no motivation.

[00:09:00] [SPEAKER_01]: And no history of violence and all of that.

[00:09:03] [SPEAKER_01]: So now, again, this is like from my perspective, from their perspective is they were certain from

[00:09:11] [SPEAKER_01]: the get go, just from investigative intuition, that the crime as it presented itself, that

[00:09:17] [SPEAKER_01]: someone broke into our home and raped and murdered my roommate was actually staged.

[00:09:22] [SPEAKER_01]: They believed from day one that somebody in the house who lived in the house was involved

[00:09:28] [SPEAKER_01]: and that they had staged a fake break in.

[00:09:31] [SPEAKER_01]: And what actually had happened was some kind of sex orgy that resulted in death.

[00:09:38] [SPEAKER_01]: And they landed upon me because they didn't like how I behaved in the aftermath of discovering

[00:09:45] [SPEAKER_01]: that my roommate was murdered.

[00:09:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And when they finally had access to forensic evidence and all pointed to, lo and behold,

[00:09:54] [SPEAKER_01]: a known local burglar who had a history of breaking and entering and being aggressive towards

[00:09:58] [SPEAKER_01]: women, instead of turning around and saying, oh, shoot, we were wrong.

[00:10:03] [SPEAKER_01]: We made a mistake.

[00:10:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Let's release these innocent people and put the real guy in jail.

[00:10:07] [SPEAKER_01]: They instead just orchestrated a new scenario where I was the leading aggressor towards my

[00:10:15] [SPEAKER_01]: roommate, who in their mind was this pristine, virginal person.

[00:10:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was this dirty whore.

[00:10:21] [SPEAKER_01]: And I had convinced these two young men, my boyfriend, who is also my alibi and this young

[00:10:27] [SPEAKER_01]: burglar who I had no relationship with, who also didn't know my boyfriend.

[00:10:31] [SPEAKER_01]: I just sort of one night out of the blue, convinced them to come home with me and rape my roommate

[00:10:37] [SPEAKER_01]: for me and then hold her down so I could stab her to death.

[00:10:40] [SPEAKER_01]: That's their scenario.

[00:10:42] [SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, it's...

[00:10:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Where to begin?

[00:10:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Where to begin?

[00:10:48] [SPEAKER_04]: What's it like to even say that now?

[00:10:49] [SPEAKER_04]: Like 17 years later, I'm sure you're so sick to death of trying to explain this whole shit

[00:10:53] [SPEAKER_04]: show to anybody.

[00:10:54] [SPEAKER_04]: But like to say that now, like it's just, it's so, it's so obscene and also just so unlikely.

[00:11:00] [SPEAKER_04]: Like it's just, it's so obvious what happened.

[00:11:02] [SPEAKER_04]: The fact that they spun this thing and then you're in jail for four years because of it.

[00:11:06] [SPEAKER_04]: Like this is why we're mad on your behalf still.

[00:11:09] [SPEAKER_04]: Perhaps you're past the anger, but what's it like at this?

[00:11:14] [SPEAKER_05]: I don't know.

[00:11:15] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what stage you're at.

[00:11:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't.

[00:11:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I've got contact anger.

[00:11:19] [SPEAKER_01]: It's funny.

[00:11:20] [SPEAKER_01]: People say that like you go from one stage to another.

[00:11:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And I find that like you rediscover, you rediscover grief and you rediscover anger as new things

[00:11:31] [SPEAKER_01]: happen in your life, right?

[00:11:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, so I'm a mother now.

[00:11:34] [SPEAKER_01]: That's a new thing in my life.

[00:11:35] [SPEAKER_01]: And that has given me a whole new perspective for which to feel mad.

[00:11:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Because one, if it were up to them, I never would have been able to be a mother.

[00:11:45] [SPEAKER_01]: So my children wouldn't exist.

[00:11:47] [SPEAKER_01]: And two, I now as a mother can appreciate what my mother was going through as I was going,

[00:11:53] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, imprisoned and on trial and blown up in the media and turned into this like character

[00:12:00] [SPEAKER_01]: femme fatale person that didn't exist.

[00:12:02] [SPEAKER_01]: So like I can appreciate that on a whole new level.

[00:12:06] [SPEAKER_01]: My mom's level of desperation and suffering.

[00:12:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And I feel new, new experiences of anger as a result of that.

[00:12:15] [SPEAKER_01]: At the same time, though, like with time, I have really, really come to see how human

[00:12:23] [SPEAKER_01]: of a mistake was made.

[00:12:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Like it really comes down to like day one, all of the detectives that were involved in this

[00:12:32] [SPEAKER_01]: case just all sort of made the decision.

[00:12:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, they were led by the head prosecutor because in Italy, prosecutors actually

[00:12:40] [SPEAKER_01]: lead investigations.

[00:12:41] [SPEAKER_01]: They aren't separate from detectives and the piece who do the investigation part.

[00:12:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Like they are very much involved and are leading the investigation.

[00:12:50] [SPEAKER_01]: They were just convinced from day one of something that was not true so that the actual

[00:12:55] [SPEAKER_01]: thing that happened, someone broke into our home and raped and murdered my roommate,

[00:12:59] [SPEAKER_01]: could not be true.

[00:13:00] [SPEAKER_01]: They just did not believe that.

[00:13:02] [SPEAKER_01]: And so therefore, all of the logic follows from that false premise.

[00:13:07] [SPEAKER_01]: If it is true that it was a faked break in and someone in the house was involved, well,

[00:13:14] [SPEAKER_01]: then it makes sense that they then went on these like logical steps and built their house of

[00:13:19] [SPEAKER_01]: cards.

[00:13:20] [SPEAKER_01]: But the problem is that the initial investigative instinct that they had was wrong.

[00:13:26] [SPEAKER_01]: And it was shaken over the course of this trial because ultimately we were able to show that

[00:13:33] [SPEAKER_01]: like, no, this guy has a history of breaking and entering like this.

[00:13:36] [SPEAKER_01]: There's no reason to think that he couldn't have like broken into our house.

[00:13:40] [SPEAKER_01]: There's no evidence of any other people at the crime scene.

[00:13:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, what are we talking about?

[00:13:44] [SPEAKER_01]: So here we are shaking this foundation.

[00:13:46] [SPEAKER_01]: The house of cards tumbles.

[00:13:48] [SPEAKER_01]: I get out of prison.

[00:13:49] [SPEAKER_01]: But in the meantime, there's this stigma that's left behind.

[00:13:53] [SPEAKER_01]: There's this idea that like, well, she was accused of this crime.

[00:13:57] [SPEAKER_01]: There's got to be something to that.

[00:13:59] [SPEAKER_01]: And so to this day, people think, oh, well, maybe she wasn't involved in the crime itself,

[00:14:04] [SPEAKER_01]: but maybe she was there when it happened.

[00:14:06] [SPEAKER_01]: And maybe that's why the police got it wrong.

[00:14:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe Amanda was there and hiding when the guy, you know, whatever.

[00:14:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, there's like a lot of theories and it's built in big part because the final result

[00:14:20] [SPEAKER_01]: of this whole like giant case that took eight years, all that.

[00:14:24] [SPEAKER_01]: The final ruling says that I was present at the crime when it happened.

[00:14:30] [SPEAKER_01]: I just wasn't involved, which is absurd.

[00:14:32] [SPEAKER_01]: It's patently absurd.

[00:14:33] [SPEAKER_01]: There's no reason to think that.

[00:14:34] [SPEAKER_01]: But that's what the final word is on it.

[00:14:38] [SPEAKER_08]: So what are the incentives behind that, though?

[00:14:41] [SPEAKER_08]: Like they establish a premise.

[00:14:43] [SPEAKER_08]: What's driving that?

[00:14:44] [SPEAKER_08]: I mean, the name of our podcast is a little bit culty.

[00:14:46] [SPEAKER_08]: And one of the things about cults is you can't challenge them.

[00:14:48] [SPEAKER_08]: So they have this premise.

[00:14:49] [SPEAKER_08]: And that to me seems where the major abuses of power went on.

[00:14:53] [SPEAKER_08]: And like, how does that happen?

[00:14:56] [SPEAKER_08]: Like, I don't know.

[00:14:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, and it comes back to that one sort of experience that we have in common,

[00:15:02] [SPEAKER_01]: which is what happened in my interrogation room and what was I coerced into, quote, saying or signing a statement or whatever.

[00:15:10] [SPEAKER_01]: I signed statements under duress that said that I was present when this crime occurred and that I heard Meredith screaming.

[00:15:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And the final ruling of the case says that the only way that I would know that Meredith was screaming is if I were there.

[00:15:27] [SPEAKER_01]: There was no other way for me to have known that Meredith screamed when someone attacked and murdered her.

[00:15:32] [SPEAKER_01]: And my argument is I feel like anybody who's getting attacked is going to be screaming for their life and fighting for their life.

[00:15:40] [SPEAKER_01]: But the court's final ruling was Amanda could not have known that Meredith screamed unless she was physically there.

[00:15:47] [SPEAKER_04]: So this obviously still affects you out in the world.

[00:15:51] [SPEAKER_04]: What's it like?

[00:15:52] [SPEAKER_04]: You asked me on your podcast, how do you be normal?

[00:15:54] [SPEAKER_04]: Like, how do you like how do you live your life?

[00:15:57] [SPEAKER_04]: I just wonder what it's like to walk around knowing that if people recognize you, some people might question your goodness or think that you did it or what?

[00:16:06] [SPEAKER_04]: Like what?

[00:16:07] [SPEAKER_04]: How does that affect you on a day to day basis?

[00:16:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, it's a big question that I've had to grapple with for a long time, because when I first came home, like I spent four years in prison just fantasizing about what it would be like to come home.

[00:16:22] [SPEAKER_01]: I was fantasizing about eating sushi.

[00:16:24] [SPEAKER_01]: I was fantasizing about going back to school.

[00:16:26] [SPEAKER_01]: But above all else, I was fantasizing about the idea of being able to go back to being an anonymous college student because that's what I was.

[00:16:33] [SPEAKER_01]: I never should have blown up into this huge story that everyone knew about.

[00:16:37] [SPEAKER_01]: I never should have been the girl accused of murder.

[00:16:39] [SPEAKER_01]: And in my mind, I was holding on to this hope that once I was acquitted, I would get to go back to that life of being an anonymous college student.

[00:16:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And I very, very quickly discovered that that was not available to me.

[00:16:56] [SPEAKER_01]: There were helicopters following me from the airport back to my house.

[00:17:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Like and for months on end, I could not go outside without somebody following me and putting a camera in my face.

[00:17:07] [SPEAKER_01]: It was it was horrible.

[00:17:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And then, of course, the trial prolonged.

[00:17:11] [SPEAKER_01]: It's prolonged for another four years.

[00:17:12] [SPEAKER_01]: So during those four years, whenever there was a new development in the case, the paparazzi would come again and there would be pictures of me.

[00:17:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And then I would go to class and students would take pictures of me and post them on social media with really unkind commentary.

[00:17:26] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I think some people feel like what it was like is people coming up to me every day and being like, you're a murderer, you stupid bitch.

[00:17:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Or like some, you know, some cameras in my face every day.

[00:17:37] [SPEAKER_01]: And it wasn't like that.

[00:17:39] [SPEAKER_01]: The problem was that I never knew.

[00:17:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Like I never knew if any single person that I did not know personally was there to exploit me, was there to threaten me, was the guy who was sending me death threats and saying that he knew where I worked and knew where I lived.

[00:17:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Like I didn't know.

[00:17:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And so navigating the world felt very I felt very like an alien dropped in an alien planet.

[00:18:02] [SPEAKER_01]: I felt like I did not belong.

[00:18:03] [SPEAKER_01]: I did not know what my place was anymore.

[00:18:05] [SPEAKER_01]: And I felt completely trapped by this identity that had been thrust upon me, which was girl accused of murder.

[00:18:13] [SPEAKER_01]: And I struggled for years with trying to figure out now what?

[00:18:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Like even after I was definitively acquitted, it doesn't mean that like girl accused of murder goes away.

[00:18:25] [SPEAKER_01]: I remain the girl accused of murder.

[00:18:27] [SPEAKER_01]: And I've had like my first inkling of like realizing that there was another way through this or a way out of this or not even out of it, like a way to live with this was when I met other wrongly convicted people.

[00:18:42] [SPEAKER_01]: And I saw that like some people go, you know, all of our circumstances are very different.

[00:18:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And I don't think anyone that I have met has ever had the kind of media attention that I have had.

[00:18:54] [SPEAKER_01]: That said, lots of people have had horrific media attention.

[00:18:58] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the Central Park Five had a whole like ad in the newspaper taken out by former President Donald Trump that was calling for the death penalty in that case.

[00:19:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Or, you know, like the West Memphis Three were called, you know, Satanist murderers and it made the rounds.

[00:19:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And so going back to a normal life after that is a challenge because of that public perception piece.

[00:19:22] [SPEAKER_01]: But then there's also like the internal personal piece.

[00:19:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Like I am not the same person as I was after having come through this.

[00:19:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Like not only is the world not allowing me to go back to being anonymous college student, but I like what am I going to do?

[00:19:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Like pretend that it didn't happen?

[00:19:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Like am I not like is that not a huge part of who I am and a part of the way that I've now learned to process the world and the people around me?

[00:19:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And now I'm hyper aware of when people start throwing false accusations at people, even for like the most minor of things or, you know, like or misconstruing people.

[00:20:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Like I am very, very hate to use the word triggered, but like I get really, really like when somebody accuses me of something that I didn't do,

[00:20:15] [SPEAKER_02]: even if it's just not having, you know, started the dishwasher correctly or whatever it is.

[00:20:21] [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you know?

[00:20:25] [SPEAKER_01]: And so like it's a part of me.

[00:20:27] [SPEAKER_01]: It's a part of what I care about now.

[00:20:28] [SPEAKER_01]: I can't help but look at the world through a very specific set of life experiences.

[00:20:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that in the end, I am a better person for it, I think is what I've come to realize.

[00:20:44] [SPEAKER_01]: And so in a weird way, there is a sense of gratitude for the experience as painful as it is,

[00:20:57] [SPEAKER_01]: because I feel like I am now in a position to avoid making the kinds of mistakes that were made towards me by other people.

[00:21:07] [SPEAKER_01]: And I look at the people who made the mistakes that happened with me.

[00:21:11] [SPEAKER_01]: And I actually, in addition, in addition to feeling anger, I also feel pity because I think I would not want to be that person.

[00:21:20] [SPEAKER_01]: If I had to choose between being me and the person who hurt me, I would much rather be me.

[00:21:27] [SPEAKER_01]: That's what an elevated.

[00:21:28] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.

[00:21:29] [SPEAKER_08]: It's a testament to your character with your capacity to turn your story into wisdom.

[00:21:34] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, thanks.

[00:21:35] [SPEAKER_04]: One thing I will say I feel pretty solid in is that I would have handled prison in a similar way.

[00:21:40] [SPEAKER_04]: I would have gotten in real good shape, learned Italian.

[00:21:42] [SPEAKER_04]: Like when I read how you handle prison, I'm like, that's what I would do too.

[00:21:44] [SPEAKER_04]: I wouldn't, I would make the most of this.

[00:21:46] [SPEAKER_08]: I would have gone right after that law.

[00:21:49] [SPEAKER_02]: This is a personal development opportunity.

[00:21:52] [SPEAKER_02]: It's in my bones.

[00:21:53] [SPEAKER_08]: Sermon seminars.

[00:21:54] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.

[00:21:56] [SPEAKER_08]: I've been lifting in the yard.

[00:21:57] Yeah.

[00:21:58] [SPEAKER_04]: You would have, you would have like been a personal trainer for the other.

[00:22:01] [SPEAKER_04]: Anyway.

[00:22:01] [SPEAKER_04]: There you go.

[00:22:02] [SPEAKER_04]: Was there a moment when you, it was definitely a prison hustle.

[00:22:06] [SPEAKER_07]: For cigarettes.

[00:22:08] [SPEAKER_04]: Was there a particular moment when you decided to embrace this other side and be public and not just hunker down and be a hermit and try to just shut it all out?

[00:22:17] [SPEAKER_04]: Like you were already public, obviously.

[00:22:19] [SPEAKER_04]: That was to the most unfair extremes.

[00:22:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:22:22] [SPEAKER_04]: But you continue to be public.

[00:22:23] [SPEAKER_04]: Was there a decision to, like when you made that switch to like embrace this?

[00:22:27] [SPEAKER_01]: A lot of decisions, right?

[00:22:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, so when I realized that anonymity and just being a normal person was not a route that was available to me, a part of me still clung to the hope that like, oh, so being acquitted wasn't enough.

[00:22:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe if people hear my side of the story, that will be enough.

[00:22:47] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I decided to do a very public thing, which was write a memoir that I hoped that people would read.

[00:22:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And then like the small little voice inside of me was like, maybe then they'll leave you alone.

[00:22:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Ha ha ha ha.

[00:22:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Not what's going to happen.

[00:23:00] [SPEAKER_01]: So I put my memoir out there.

[00:23:02] [SPEAKER_01]: I subject myself to the media rigmarole, which is both publicizing a book, but also at the same time defending myself on a public stage.

[00:23:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Because by the time my book came out, I had been reconvicted.

[00:23:15] [SPEAKER_01]: So now all of the journalists who were going to interview me about my, you know, being acquitted of a crime now get to say, did you or did you not murder Meredith Kircher and put me through yet another sort of interrogation experience and question my sexuality and question my motives and all of that.

[00:23:35] [SPEAKER_01]: So I went through that.

[00:23:38] [SPEAKER_01]: It was a terrible experience.

[00:23:39] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm still glad that I wrote my memoir and that it's out there and that people can read a firsthand experience of what my experience of the trial was like.

[00:23:48] [SPEAKER_01]: That said, it didn't accomplish what I thought it would accomplish, which would, you know, sate the appetite for foxy Noxy content.

[00:23:58] [SPEAKER_01]: It did not.

[00:24:27] [SPEAKER_01]: It was a good thing to say about how that story is told.

[00:24:29] [SPEAKER_01]: And I very slowly found my voice in that regard.

[00:24:37] [SPEAKER_01]: The first thing I did was I took up the opportunity to start writing, but under a pseudonym.

[00:24:44] [SPEAKER_01]: So I wrote after my memoir, I wrote for a local newspaper under a pseudonym.

[00:24:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Then I was invited to host a series about publicly shamed women, which is like adjacent to my experience for Vice.

[00:25:01] [SPEAKER_01]: And I really enjoyed that experience because I got to apply what I knew personally and viscerally to what I was seeing was happening to other people.

[00:25:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And in this case, women who are in the public eye.

[00:25:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And then I just I kept following these threads like I kept pulling these threads of like, oh, this experience happened to me, but it didn't just happen to me.

[00:25:23] [SPEAKER_01]: It happened to these people and these people.

[00:25:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, my God.

[00:25:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Like there's this whole drama and morality tale and ethical conundrum that is unfolding before my eyes that I didn't really appreciate before it.

[00:25:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Like I understood what it felt like viscerally through my own experience.

[00:25:38] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I just kept I feel like I was doing therapy for myself by like acknowledging how things were affecting other people in other ways, but for similar reasons that they happened to me.

[00:25:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And I sort of processed my experience by understanding other people's experiences.

[00:25:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Another example was when I started podcasting.

[00:25:58] [SPEAKER_01]: The reason I started podcasting wasn't because I woke up one day and was like, you know what?

[00:26:02] [SPEAKER_01]: I should have a podcast.

[00:26:03] [SPEAKER_01]: It was because someone reached out to me and said, we're doing a true crime podcast and it's going to be about the Jonestown massacre.

[00:26:11] [SPEAKER_01]: And we thought you would be an interesting person to be the host.

[00:26:16] [SPEAKER_01]: And I said, well, I have a lot of thoughts about true crime content.

[00:26:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that just from some cursory research into the Jonestown massacre, I feel like the people, the victims of that crime got a really bad rap.

[00:26:29] [SPEAKER_01]: And people sort of make fun of them and say, oh, drink the Kool-Aid, the sheeple.

[00:26:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And I felt like that was deeply irresponsible.

[00:26:36] [SPEAKER_01]: And I felt like there was an opportunity to flip that script.

[00:26:41] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I connected on a deep level with the survivors of that horrible event in history.

[00:26:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And it was really, really cathartic and validating.

[00:26:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I just kept pursuing it.

[00:26:54] [SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know.

[00:26:55] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I feel like, do we really make choices in this life or do things happen to us and we just try to make the best of them?

[00:27:03] [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like that's how I do it.

[00:27:05] [SPEAKER_02]: I don't have a five-year plan.

[00:27:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Things happen in life that throw you through loops.

[00:27:10] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I feel like my approach has always been look around you, keep your eyes open, do the best you can with what comes before you.

[00:27:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's how I ended up where I am today.

[00:27:22] [SPEAKER_02]: It's kind of a helpless, helpless perspective.

[00:27:27] [SPEAKER_04]: Hey, Calti listeners.

[00:27:29] [SPEAKER_04]: As you probably know, Nippy and I are working on a manuscript for our first book together.

[00:27:33] [SPEAKER_04]: And as you probably also know, maintaining control is important to us.

[00:27:37] [SPEAKER_04]: That's why we've decided to produce our book with the Self-Publishing Agency or TSPA.

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[00:27:57] [SPEAKER_04]: So if you're like us and you have a story or a message that's burning to be told, we highly recommend TSPA as your go-to partner.

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[00:28:18] [SPEAKER_04]: Go to theselfpublishingagency.com.

[00:28:20] [SPEAKER_04]: That's theselfpublishingagency.com to start your very own publishing journey today.

[00:28:28] [SPEAKER_03]: Enjoy.

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[00:31:51] [SPEAKER_08]: The thing that struck me when you were just talking is like this should be called the Meredith Kirchner story and not the Amanda Knox story.

[00:31:56] [SPEAKER_08]: Tell me about it.

[00:31:58] [SPEAKER_08]: Which is the saddest fucking thing about this whole thing.

[00:32:00] [SPEAKER_08]: It's like the sad thing about the story is that, you know, someone lost their life.

[00:32:04] [SPEAKER_08]: And as a result of that, you lost four years of your life.

[00:32:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Of the two of us, I was the lucky one, right?

[00:32:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Like I got to finally go home from Italy.

[00:32:15] [SPEAKER_01]: We both were at the same like moment of our lives when we, you know, came together in Perugia and rented rooms in the same house together.

[00:32:27] [SPEAKER_01]: We both were young and had everything going for us and were a little naive about the world, but also just like discovering ourselves.

[00:32:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Like we had everything going for us.

[00:32:39] [SPEAKER_01]: It's the happiest time of a person's life that you can live.

[00:32:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And of the two of us, I was the one who got to go home.

[00:32:48] [SPEAKER_01]: She did not.

[00:32:49] [SPEAKER_01]: And I mean, even in the immediacy of realizing after like trying to decipher a bunch of Italian people screaming that like it was Meredith who was dead in her room.

[00:33:03] [SPEAKER_01]: My first immediate thought was, oh, my God, like, thank God I'm alive.

[00:33:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Like if I had been home that night, I would have been murdered, too.

[00:33:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And so like the fact does not escape me that I am alive today by luck.

[00:33:24] [SPEAKER_01]: I met Raffaele, my co-defendant and boyfriend, five days before the crime occurred.

[00:33:30] [SPEAKER_01]: So if I had not just happened to meet him and you know what even like weirder is I went to the classical music concert when I met Raffaele with Meredith.

[00:33:42] [SPEAKER_01]: And it just so happened that she had to leave at intermission because she had other plans for the rest of that day.

[00:33:48] [SPEAKER_01]: So she went with me, sat next to me.

[00:33:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And at intermission, she got up to go and because she had somewhere else to be.

[00:33:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And it just so happened that Raffaele came and sat in her spot.

[00:33:58] [SPEAKER_04]: Wow.

[00:33:59] [SPEAKER_01]: And so like the little things that happened that were the reason I'm alive today to even tell the tale do not escape me.

[00:34:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And when I personally think about it and I know that this well, I don't know.

[00:34:14] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what her family thinks.

[00:34:15] [SPEAKER_01]: I know that as far as I know, they still believe that I was somehow involved in the crime and that I've not been forthcoming with what truly happened.

[00:34:26] [SPEAKER_01]: But I don't know if their thinking has evolved since then.

[00:34:29] [SPEAKER_01]: They have been very quiet about that.

[00:34:32] [SPEAKER_01]: The thing that they have complained most about and justifiably is that the case about her and the truth about what happened to her got lost in the whole narrative of what happened in this case.

[00:34:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's a completely justified response to what happened.

[00:34:47] [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like the way I think about us is we are two sides of the same coin.

[00:34:53] [SPEAKER_01]: So it was me and Meredith and fate flipped the coin and it just landed the way that it did.

[00:35:02] [SPEAKER_01]: And I got to go home.

[00:35:04] [SPEAKER_01]: And so how I live with that is very different than how people would want me to live with it.

[00:35:11] [SPEAKER_01]: The thing that I hear from a lot of people is you lucky bitch like you should just disappear because you're an offense to Meredith's families.

[00:35:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Like the memory of Meredith, like the fact that you're alive here and you get to get married and you get to have children like, you know, Meredith is never going to get to get married and never going to get to have children.

[00:35:29] [SPEAKER_01]: You should just shut up and disappear because you're an offense to Meredith's memory.

[00:35:33] [SPEAKER_01]: What?

[00:35:33] [SPEAKER_01]: That's what I get a lot.

[00:35:35] [SPEAKER_01]: But what I feel is that I have the opportunity to live my best life and have a family and get married and have children and she doesn't.

[00:35:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And if anything, that gives me a sense of more purpose in embracing that that I have because she can't.

[00:35:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not going to let people yelling at me make me feel bad about something that we all would wish for her.

[00:36:08] [SPEAKER_01]: It honors her.

[00:36:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:36:11] [SPEAKER_04]: I knew I was going to cry at some point in this episode, but wasn't expecting it right then.

[00:36:16] [SPEAKER_08]: That's powerful.

[00:36:17] [SPEAKER_04]: It is really powerful.

[00:36:18] [SPEAKER_04]: And I'm so glad you have that perspective and bring that forward and what you do.

[00:36:22] [SPEAKER_04]: And it's clear that you are not only so intelligent and articulate and principled, but that you continue to be public and want to glean as much as you can to educate.

[00:36:36] [SPEAKER_04]: When did you start getting involved in justice reform and what have you learned from that or what do you want people to know?

[00:36:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:36:42] [SPEAKER_01]: So, again, like the first time that I attended an Innocence Network conference, it was really an eye-opening experience because, you know, I grew up in the suburbs of Seattle to a middle class white family.

[00:36:56] [SPEAKER_01]: So what that meant, at least for me, is that I'd never really ever thought about the criminal justice system in my whole life.

[00:37:05] [SPEAKER_01]: It was not really something that was on my radar.

[00:37:08] [SPEAKER_08]: Let alone the Italian criminal justice system.

[00:37:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Much less the Italian criminal justice system.

[00:37:13] [SPEAKER_01]: I just I wasn't a true crime person.

[00:37:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Like I was reading Harry Potter.

[00:37:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I was not reading, you know, the latest, you know, mystery novels or whatever it is.

[00:37:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I grew up not really understanding the criminal justice system, just having the perspective of, oh, well, if the police tell you to do something, do it.

[00:37:31] [SPEAKER_01]: That's that's what my education was.

[00:37:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Dare not to do drugs because the policeman came to your room and told you not to.

[00:37:38] [SPEAKER_01]: That's what I knew.

[00:37:39] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I went into a room full of hundreds of other people who had been through this experience.

[00:37:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And I looked very different than the vast majority of them.

[00:37:50] [SPEAKER_01]: One, because I'm a woman, first of all.

[00:37:52] [SPEAKER_01]: So the vast majority of people you're going to meet who have been wrongly convicted are men.

[00:37:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's just a factor of, you know, crime in general.

[00:38:01] [SPEAKER_01]: It's usually being more violent.

[00:38:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Men are more violent.

[00:38:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Men are committing more crimes.

[00:38:06] [SPEAKER_01]: It's just the fact of the matter.

[00:38:08] [SPEAKER_01]: So as a result of that, you're going to see more men wrongly accused of crimes.

[00:38:11] [SPEAKER_01]: But on top of that, you're going to see a lot of people who had the cards stacked against them.

[00:38:17] [SPEAKER_01]: So they're poor.

[00:38:20] [SPEAKER_01]: They don't know how to speak the language properly.

[00:38:26] [SPEAKER_01]: They're minorities.

[00:38:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Like there are people who are more vulnerable in the criminal justice process.

[00:38:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And as a result, that's you're going to, again, see more of this.

[00:38:37] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's interesting, like I walked into a room full of people I never thought that would share one of the most important experiences of my life.

[00:38:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And they would have a perspective that was such that I did not have to explain myself to them.

[00:38:53] [SPEAKER_01]: I think that was like the biggest shocking realization walking into a room full of hundreds of other wrongfully convicted people was that I was not burdened with the need to explain myself.

[00:39:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Which is what I felt when I was walking around the rest of the world.

[00:39:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Right?

[00:39:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Like girl accused of murder.

[00:39:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Explain yourself.

[00:39:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Explain yourself.

[00:39:15] [SPEAKER_01]: In that room, I did not have to do that anymore.

[00:39:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was shocked with this realization of I came from a place in this world where nobody had to think about this.

[00:39:26] [SPEAKER_01]: And even some of the people came up to me and they said, thank God, Amanda, you're here.

[00:39:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Because before the little white girl from Seattle got wrongly convicted, nobody really believed that this was real.

[00:39:35] [SPEAKER_01]: And it gave me like here I am in this room full of people who really know that this is a real problem and they're trying to find solutions and they're they're trying to change laws to make it so that things are more transparent or that it's easier to bring new evidence to light.

[00:39:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Like all of these kinds of things.

[00:39:53] [SPEAKER_01]: So it struck me that, oh, my God, this is not just this like niche thing that nobody knows about.

[00:40:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Like people know about this.

[00:40:01] [SPEAKER_01]: It's just not everybody knows about this.

[00:40:04] [SPEAKER_01]: There's a like a room full of hundreds of people who know everything about this.

[00:40:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And then there's the rest of us.

[00:40:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And I came from the world of the rest of us and I felt like I could act as a bridge between this room full of experts and impassioned people and people with lived experience and the rest of the world that didn't think they ever had to think about this.

[00:40:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And that has become a very fulfilling way for me to process this experience is sharing it and making an understood that not only are we all actually vulnerable to this experience.

[00:40:37] [SPEAKER_01]: If it happened to me, it can happen to anyone.

[00:40:39] [SPEAKER_01]: But also that we all are implicated in it because, again, this is the entertainment infotainment that is built on people's worst experiences and horrific crimes that happen to people.

[00:40:55] [SPEAKER_01]: And the way that we consume these stories directly impacts the outcome of these stories.

[00:41:03] [SPEAKER_08]: There's a demand for them.

[00:41:04] [SPEAKER_01]: So there's a demand for them and there's a demand for a certain kind of story.

[00:41:08] [SPEAKER_01]: We want a very black and white story.

[00:41:10] [SPEAKER_01]: We want heroes and villains.

[00:41:11] [SPEAKER_01]: We want definitive conclusions.

[00:41:13] [SPEAKER_01]: And we don't want the stories retold in a new way 20 years later.

[00:41:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Like there's this resistance to nuance and to human frailty and to the reality of the situation, which is that we get it wrong.

[00:41:28] [SPEAKER_04]: We get it wrong and it's people.

[00:41:30] [SPEAKER_04]: Like I was struck with that with watching the Netflix talk and it's why I messaged you.

[00:41:34] [SPEAKER_04]: Are we happy?

[00:41:35] [SPEAKER_04]: Do we like it?

[00:41:35] [SPEAKER_04]: Because sometimes they do get it wrong.

[00:41:38] [SPEAKER_04]: Like Docutainment Sarma from Bad Vegan was somebody we had on and has also become a friend.

[00:41:43] [SPEAKER_04]: And they didn't portray her right, in our opinion, based on what we know.

[00:41:47] [SPEAKER_04]: They left it as maybe she did do something.

[00:41:51] [SPEAKER_01]: That is the whole – like so that is the true crime like morality tale that they tell.

[00:41:57] [SPEAKER_02]: The end is maybe she did, maybe she didn't.

[00:42:00] [SPEAKER_02]: We'll never know.

[00:42:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:42:02] [SPEAKER_02]: And that's just like so annoying.

[00:42:04] [SPEAKER_04]: It's so annoying.

[00:42:05] [SPEAKER_04]: And we do forget that there are people – like I remember I'd read your book first and then I watched the documentary.

[00:42:10] [SPEAKER_04]: And when the first time Raffaele came on screen, I like started to cry.

[00:42:13] [SPEAKER_04]: I was like, oh my God, that's what he looks like.

[00:42:14] [SPEAKER_04]: He's a person.

[00:42:15] [SPEAKER_04]: He's a person, not a character.

[00:42:18] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:42:18] [SPEAKER_04]: What's your experience of the media now?

[00:42:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:42:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, a healthy dose of skepticism is really important.

[00:42:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And not just for the media that automatically you go, oh, you know, like if people are just being like death penalty this guy, I'm obviously like very skeptical from the get-go because it's that message.

[00:42:40] [SPEAKER_01]: But also I have to be skeptical of the kinds of news that comes to me that I tend to subconsciously or consciously like to hear.

[00:42:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And I've learned this because I have been burned.

[00:42:53] [SPEAKER_01]: I wrote a big Atlantic article piece about how I advocated and advocated for this guy named Yen Zuring who I believed was innocent based upon expert DNA witness testimony.

[00:43:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And it wasn't until years later that I was able to speak with other DNA expert testimony people who called foul on how the DNA had been misconstrued by some of Yen Z's advocates.

[00:43:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And I just was I was so embarrassed because I had made the very mistake here.

[00:43:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Here I am like trying not to make the mistakes that had happened to me.

[00:43:36] [SPEAKER_01]: I am making the very mistakes because I liked the story of him being innocent.

[00:43:42] [SPEAKER_01]: And I didn't want, you know, like so I had to reckon with how I am also capable of making those mistakes.

[00:43:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I have to approach with skepticism things that come my way, which is hard as an advocate because sometimes people bring something to you that's very urgent and that they're just trying to raise awareness because there's a deadline.

[00:44:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Mine in a lot of cases like with a death penalty case.

[00:44:12] [SPEAKER_01]: But it doesn't give you enough time to really like do the due diligence and the research.

[00:44:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And so like you have to like take a step back and take your time, like make sure that you take your time to do your due diligence.

[00:44:25] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's hard in a day and age where we're all busy, yet we all care.

[00:44:31] [SPEAKER_01]: And we are tempted by easy answers and easy ways to engage that don't really ground themselves in the complicated messiness of reality.

[00:44:44] [SPEAKER_04]: The other way we connected over the past few years was that somebody tried to rope you into helping Keith Raniere and his wrongful conviction.

[00:44:53] [SPEAKER_04]: Can you tell us that story?

[00:44:54] [SPEAKER_01]: So I was messaged by Nikki Klein back when that was all big in the news and she reached out to me.

[00:45:05] [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't actually know anything really about NXIVM.

[00:45:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Believe it or not, I'm not a true crime person.

[00:45:11] [SPEAKER_02]: So on my like just when I'm, you know, casually during my day, I'm not just looking up new true crime stories.

[00:45:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Or sex cult.

[00:45:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Or sex cult.

[00:45:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:45:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's not my bag, baby.

[00:45:23] [SPEAKER_08]: But you're mine.

[00:45:26] [SPEAKER_08]: Until it was.

[00:45:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Until it was.

[00:45:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And now here you are.

[00:45:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:45:30] [SPEAKER_01]: So it came a little bit out of the blue.

[00:45:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And what I was told was that there is this secret group within NXIVM, but it's all consenting adults and the media is being hysterical about it.

[00:45:45] [SPEAKER_01]: And they're just wanting to like pin something on this guy because he's such a charismatic figure, blah, blah, blah.

[00:45:52] [SPEAKER_01]: But like, here's the censure.

[00:45:54] [SPEAKER_01]: We have proof that the prosecution has committed misconduct.

[00:45:58] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, interesting.

[00:46:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[00:46:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I'd be curious to know more about this misconduct that the prosecution has reportedly done.

[00:46:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was told, well, we can't show you the proof of the misconduct until like you sign on to support Keith.

[00:46:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, that's not how this is done.

[00:46:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, it's not like you.

[00:46:27] [SPEAKER_01]: And I had like these long conversations with not just Nikki, but also other people within the group who sort of came on to legitimize this claim.

[00:46:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, we are consenting adults.

[00:46:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, this is a travesty.

[00:46:41] [SPEAKER_01]: There was also this like pitch to me of like, you're going to break this story and it's going to make you huge and you're going to be famous for it.

[00:46:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, you are barking up the wrong tree because I have a bad relationship with fame.

[00:46:56] [SPEAKER_01]: So if you're trying to tempt me with that, it's not going to work.

[00:46:59] [SPEAKER_01]: It's not my flavor.

[00:47:00] [SPEAKER_01]: And ultimately, it all came down to the one thing that I was willing to do was say, okay, if there is like prosecutorial misconduct, then this case should be looked at.

[00:47:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And I like signed something to that effect.

[00:47:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And then like the world blew up and was like, Amanda supports NXIVM.

[00:47:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, oh, God, what am I into now?

[00:47:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I backed away and let the thing play itself out.

[00:47:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And then I just didn't hear back from Nikki.

[00:47:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And then I heard through the grapevine that she had finally gotten herself out of the cult.

[00:47:35] [SPEAKER_01]: And I still have not heard from her.

[00:47:39] [SPEAKER_01]: I actually reached out to her to be like, hey, are you OK?

[00:47:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And I haven't heard back.

[00:47:45] [SPEAKER_01]: I think maybe because she's embarrassed.

[00:47:48] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.

[00:47:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe she can't talk.

[00:47:49] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.

[00:47:50] [SPEAKER_01]: But there definitely were long phone conversations where I was like,

[00:47:56] [SPEAKER_01]: you realize that you can't just ask journalists to legitimize your version of things without providing evidence.

[00:48:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Like you don't get to get to like dangle the prospect of evidence in order to get like that's not how journalism works.

[00:48:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And she seemed to be like, well, why would we give you evidence if we can't trust you?

[00:48:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, but that's not the point.

[00:48:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Like you either have evidence or you don't have evidence.

[00:48:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And then you provide that to journalists.

[00:48:28] [SPEAKER_08]: You earn my trust by showing me that you have evidence.

[00:48:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes. Yeah.

[00:48:32] [SPEAKER_01]: And she wanted basically like collateral from me in order to provide me, the journalist, with evidence.

[00:48:39] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, that's not.

[00:48:40] [SPEAKER_01]: And that was like that was my big red flag.

[00:48:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I was like I even told her that I was like, look, that is a weird red flag for me because that's not how this works.

[00:48:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, so it was it was a definitely I got a minor taste of the NXIVM experience.

[00:48:57] Yeah.

[00:48:58] [SPEAKER_04]: A little bit of gaslighting, a little bit of coercion.

[00:49:03] [SPEAKER_01]: A little bit of like, you know, love bombing, a little bit of dangling.

[00:49:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Dang.

[00:49:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:49:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was just like but I like the thing was I didn't want it in the sense of like I was not in a place emotionally or I was not in a vulnerable place emotionally.

[00:49:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Where I felt like I needed them.

[00:49:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Like they were coming to me and they needed me.

[00:49:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, OK, well, I would like the one thing that they sort of I think latched onto or recognized was that as somebody who has survived this experience.

[00:49:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And I have a little bit of survivor's guilt where I feel like as a result of surviving a wrongful conviction, I do feel deep down a sense of duty to if somebody comes to me and asks for help doing something to help.

[00:49:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Trying to find some way to help because how could I say no when so many people came and helped me and came to my defense.

[00:50:00] [SPEAKER_01]: And so there was a part of me that like kept trying to talk to her and say like trying to figure out, can I help this person?

[00:50:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Like this person is coming to me asking for help.

[00:50:10] [SPEAKER_01]: How do I say yes?

[00:50:11] [SPEAKER_01]: But I kept like seeing red flags and being like, I can't say yes to that, you know, like I can't.

[00:50:18] [SPEAKER_01]: So it was it was tough for that reason.

[00:50:21] [SPEAKER_01]: If she's listening to this, no judgment.

[00:50:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Like you were in a cult and you believed in what you were doing.

[00:50:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Like that's the thing.

[00:50:29] [SPEAKER_01]: I am coming from a place of like, again, I sort of feel bad for you.

[00:50:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And like I do not feel any bad feelings towards Nikki Klein or any of the other people who talked to me over the course of that.

[00:50:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Like I just hope that they're OK and that they're out of the bad situation that they were in that brainwashed them into thinking that they were doing the right thing by trying to brainwash me.

[00:50:57] [SPEAKER_04]: For more context on what brought us here, check out my memoir.

[00:51:00] [SPEAKER_04]: It's called Scarred, the true story of how I escaped NXIVM, the cult that bound my life.

[00:51:05] [SPEAKER_04]: I narrate the audio version and it's also available on Amazon, Audible and at most bookstores.

[00:51:10] [SPEAKER_04]: And now a brief message from our little bit culty sponsors.

[00:51:13] [SPEAKER_04]: And remember, when you support our sponsors, you're supporting this podcast.

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[00:53:58] [SPEAKER_07]: Break time's over, people.

[00:54:00] [SPEAKER_07]: Let's get back to this episode of A Little Bit Culty.

[00:54:03] [SPEAKER_07]: It's a good one.

[00:54:04] [SPEAKER_04]: So you have this holistic experience.

[00:54:07] [SPEAKER_04]: And I think one of the things that, you know, when I first really deep dive into your story, I was like, oh, wow, she's been gaslit for so many years.

[00:54:16] [SPEAKER_04]: And I don't think that—

[00:54:18] [SPEAKER_02]: To this day.

[00:54:19] [SPEAKER_02]: To this day.

[00:54:20] [SPEAKER_02]: To this day.

[00:54:21] [SPEAKER_02]: People just to my face saying, you were there.

[00:54:23] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, no, I wasn't.

[00:54:24] [SPEAKER_02]: And they were like, you just don't remember it.

[00:54:26] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, no, you're just making things up.

[00:54:30] [SPEAKER_04]: Is it any better now that it's become a more understood term or that people understand gaslighting but also false confessions?

[00:54:38] [SPEAKER_04]: Like, what was it like in the moment where you realized that you were a victim of a false confession?

[00:54:43] [SPEAKER_04]: That's the proper term, right?

[00:54:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[00:54:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:54:45] [SPEAKER_01]: False confession or false admission.

[00:54:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:54:48] [SPEAKER_01]: So I, again, knew nothing about interrogation techniques.

[00:54:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And this—the coercive things that happen in interrogation rooms between people who are either suspected or, in my case, they were suspected that I was involved.

[00:55:04] [SPEAKER_01]: They didn't actually, like, have a definitive—I don't think at the very beginning they thought that I was the murderer.

[00:55:11] [SPEAKER_01]: I think they thought I knew who the murderer was or was covering up for the murderer.

[00:55:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And so they—and this is another way that they say I wasn't entitled to an attorney—was they said, we weren't accusing you of murdering her.

[00:55:23] [SPEAKER_01]: We were just accusing you of covering up for the murderer.

[00:55:27] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, that's still a crime.

[00:55:28] [SPEAKER_01]: So you're still accusing me of a crime.

[00:55:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, so what happens in interrogation rooms that lead to wrongful convictions is the biggest thing that I care about as an advocate.

[00:55:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And, in fact, on Labyrinths, we're right now doing a really big deep dive into what's going on in interrogation rooms and what we can do about it for an upcoming miniseries on false confessions.

[00:55:56] [SPEAKER_01]: That's great.

[00:55:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Because it's the gaslighting.

[00:55:58] [SPEAKER_01]: It's the worst part of my experience was not, you know, having to stand there when the jury read the verdict and said, you're guilty.

[00:56:06] [SPEAKER_01]: You're sentenced to 28.5 years in prison.

[00:56:09] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, that was not my worst day.

[00:56:11] [SPEAKER_01]: My worst day was sitting in that interrogation room and being made to feel absolutely crazy and being slowly worked on and yelled at and slapped and made to think that my memories of my life and my true memories were not real, that I had repressed my real memories, and that I just had to go along with what the police said when they lied to me.

[00:56:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I did not know the police could lie to you.

[00:56:39] [SPEAKER_01]: I did not know so much of what I know now.

[00:56:41] [SPEAKER_01]: And all of these things are avoidable, right?

[00:56:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I don't think we can avoid investigators having hunches about cases that end up being wrong, right?

[00:56:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, the fact that the investigators in my case thought from day one that someone in the house was involved because they just did not believe the break-in scenario, that I can't control.

[00:57:05] [SPEAKER_01]: That's just like a human nature.

[00:57:07] [SPEAKER_01]: They, you know, they were trained investigators.

[00:57:10] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, they were doing their job.

[00:57:12] [SPEAKER_01]: They were wrong.

[00:57:13] [SPEAKER_01]: They had a hunch and it was wrong.

[00:57:14] [SPEAKER_01]: There's nothing I can do about that.

[00:57:16] [SPEAKER_01]: What you can do something about is changing the way we talk to people when they are in police custody.

[00:57:22] [SPEAKER_01]: You can change the way that and make it harder for police officers to coerce innocent people into implicating themselves and others in crimes they didn't commit by using the methods that so far are condoned and legal.

[00:57:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Isolation.

[00:57:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Isolation.

[00:57:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Withholding food and water.

[00:57:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Withholding bathrooms.

[00:57:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Withholding, like, keeping you up at night.

[00:57:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, all of these things which are coercive methods.

[00:57:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Lying.

[00:57:50] [SPEAKER_01]: The hugest one.

[00:57:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Lying.

[00:57:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, telling you that painting a false reality around you and making you try to grapple with that false reality in a logical way and ultimately forcing you down this hole that, again, implicates yourself or others.

[00:58:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And once you come out of it, you feel dazed and confused.

[00:58:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And by then it's too late because once there's a confession, the jury, like, you can point out how coercive it was all you want.

[00:58:21] [SPEAKER_01]: People just do not believe that they would implicate themselves or others in a crime if they didn't do it, if they were innocent.

[00:58:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that that is turning around a little bit because people are calling it what it is, gaslighting.

[00:58:36] [SPEAKER_01]: And it is something that we've all experienced, unfortunately.

[00:58:39] [SPEAKER_01]: I think to greater or lesser degrees in our lives, somebody has lied to our face and made us feel a little crazy at some point.

[00:58:47] [SPEAKER_01]: And what is horrible is that is also institutionalized in our police force.

[00:58:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And it doesn't need to be.

[00:58:55] [SPEAKER_01]: You don't need to gaslight people in order to fight crime.

[00:59:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Sorry to say, you don't.

[00:59:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And so that's my biggest point of advocacy that I feel like is a very doable, common sense change that we can make that would save so many people and save all of us the trouble of having to pay for these expensive trials of innocent people that we don't need to have happen.

[00:59:22] [SPEAKER_08]: So I have two questions after watching.

[00:59:24] [SPEAKER_08]: Well, not two questions.

[00:59:26] [SPEAKER_08]: I have a problem with the two people.

[00:59:28] [SPEAKER_08]: The media, which I think is the perpetrator and in a lot of ways needs to be addressed with what's going on everywhere in the world right now.

[00:59:35] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.

[00:59:36] [SPEAKER_08]: Without the media, I think a lot of the problems would go away.

[00:59:39] [SPEAKER_08]: And Manini?

[00:59:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, Manini, my prosecutor.

[00:59:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Giuliano Manini.

[00:59:44] [SPEAKER_08]: And Pisa.

[00:59:45] [SPEAKER_08]: What's his name?

[00:59:45] [SPEAKER_08]: Nick Pisa.

[00:59:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Nick Pisa, or as my family referred to him, Nick Pisa shit.

[00:59:49] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, that's fair.

[00:59:51] [SPEAKER_08]: Totally fair.

[00:59:52] [SPEAKER_08]: Those two people watching the documentary didn't seem to have any real awareness or sensitivity to the pain they cause.

[01:00:00] [SPEAKER_08]: Not just you, but like a slew of other people and doing it.

[01:00:03] [SPEAKER_08]: And I'm wondering how you feel about that.

[01:00:06] [SPEAKER_08]: And are there any ramifications for them?

[01:00:09] [SPEAKER_04]: Do they get held accountable at all?

[01:00:11] [SPEAKER_08]: Can they be?

[01:00:12] [SPEAKER_08]: What's your feelings and thoughts on those two?

[01:00:15] [SPEAKER_08]: And those for you listening, it's in the Netflix doc.

[01:00:17] [SPEAKER_08]: Sorry if we get a little bit in the weeds for you.

[01:00:18] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, check it out.

[01:00:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, there's some extensive interviews with both my prosecutor who led the investigation.

[01:00:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and there is...

[01:00:28] [SPEAKER_08]: Air quotes and lead.

[01:00:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[01:00:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[01:00:31] [SPEAKER_01]: And one of the very prominent journalists in the case, um, he is one of many such figures.

[01:00:40] [SPEAKER_01]: But he made a lot of headlines and was on the ground from day one.

[01:00:45] [SPEAKER_01]: And so he was really reporting for, in air quotes, reporting, um, on the case.

[01:00:51] [SPEAKER_01]: What I thought was so interesting, um, about hearing them from their point of view was, to your point, their lack of self-awareness of how they were making mistakes and committing harm.

[01:01:10] [SPEAKER_01]: And so, um, they were rewarded for their behavior.

[01:01:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And so, why would they question themselves?

[01:01:26] [SPEAKER_01]: And of course, they would get defensive if somebody from outside of their bubble calls them into question or tries to say, like, you're doing it wrong.

[01:01:34] [SPEAKER_01]: They would say, well, what do you know?

[01:01:35] [SPEAKER_01]: You're not an investigator.

[01:01:36] [SPEAKER_01]: What do you know?

[01:01:37] [SPEAKER_01]: You're not a reporter.

[01:01:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you don't know what this world is like.

[01:01:40] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm getting, you know...

[01:01:41] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's hard to argue with them when it is true.

[01:01:45] [SPEAKER_01]: He is getting paid to make those headlines.

[01:01:48] [SPEAKER_01]: We are buying his product.

[01:01:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And on the flip side with Mignini, it's fascinating to me that, like, one of the things that he'll do is he'll complain.

[01:02:02] [SPEAKER_01]: He wrote a whole book about the case that came out, gosh, in, like, 2022 that shows his perspective.

[01:02:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And he complains a lot about the media because it was criticizing him.

[01:02:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And he says the American media was like a mafia clan that was against him and they don't understand Italian law.

[01:02:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And if you only...

[01:02:23] [SPEAKER_01]: So mansplaining Italian law and saying, if you only understood Italian law, you would understand that I was right all along and that she should never have been acquitted and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[01:02:32] [SPEAKER_01]: And again, it's like, because you are so entrenched in your perspective, you cannot be wrong.

[01:02:42] [SPEAKER_01]: And that, I think, is...

[01:02:45] [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't take an evil person for that to be the case.

[01:02:49] [SPEAKER_01]: It does not take, you know, even a corrupt person necessarily.

[01:02:52] [SPEAKER_01]: It's a person who is working within a system that is broken and is broken in particular ways that lead to these outcomes.

[01:03:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I look at a figure like Giuliano Mignani and Nick Pisa who are greatly lacking in a certain kind of self-awareness that would actually question it, question it because their identities are wrapped up in their belief systems about who they are and what they do.

[01:03:27] [SPEAKER_01]: And so they cannot be as wrong as they were from their perspective.

[01:03:34] [SPEAKER_08]: And they're paid for it.

[01:03:35] [SPEAKER_04]: It was actually pretty remarkable, especially with Nick Pisa, the way that he was speaking because he...

[01:03:39] [SPEAKER_04]: I couldn't believe it.

[01:03:39] [SPEAKER_04]: He was so...

[01:03:40] [SPEAKER_08]: I could not believe it.

[01:03:41] [SPEAKER_04]: He was so not self-aware.

[01:03:43] [SPEAKER_04]: It was kind of like an accidental gift to show how...

[01:03:48] [SPEAKER_04]: Vap it.

[01:03:48] [SPEAKER_04]: How you said broken, vap it, sensational, wrong.

[01:03:52] [SPEAKER_04]: Like he was just enjoying it.

[01:03:53] [SPEAKER_08]: He was like, what more could you ask for in a story?

[01:03:55] [SPEAKER_08]: And I was like, are you fucking kidding me?

[01:03:57] [SPEAKER_08]: Is there people?

[01:03:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:03:59] [SPEAKER_01]: And yet for him, their headlines and their stories and their characters and he's just doing what he's paid and rewarded to do.

[01:04:07] [SPEAKER_01]: And yes, sure, publications have insurance policies so that they can pay out for the very few instances where someone stands up and defends themselves and demands that someone right the wrong that the media did to them by misrepresenting them.

[01:04:23] [SPEAKER_01]: But very often the laws are not in favor of the person who is victimized.

[01:04:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Same goes with prosecutors.

[01:04:31] [SPEAKER_01]: There's prosecutorial immunity.

[01:04:33] [SPEAKER_01]: There are whole systems in place that make it really difficult to hold these powers accountable.

[01:04:40] [SPEAKER_01]: And really, like the job of the media is to hold the legal side of the situation accountable.

[01:04:49] [SPEAKER_01]: And in this case, it just utterly failed because it's incentives.

[01:04:53] [SPEAKER_01]: So that is the media's job.

[01:04:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it is.

[01:04:55] [SPEAKER_01]: By definition.

[01:04:56] [SPEAKER_01]: It is.

[01:04:57] [SPEAKER_01]: By definition, that's their job.

[01:04:59] [SPEAKER_01]: However, the incentive structures that are now the basis, the foundation of media, which is get as much attention as possible, is not compatible with get it right.

[01:05:12] [SPEAKER_08]: But no.

[01:05:13] [SPEAKER_08]: I can remember, and this is as political as I'm going to get.

[01:05:15] [SPEAKER_08]: I can remember in 2016 or whenever Trump was coming into his reign of terror in the media.

[01:05:23] [SPEAKER_08]: And he was doing one of his, I call them forums, but he was doing one of his rallies, whatever you want to call it.

[01:05:29] [SPEAKER_08]: And he stops and he looks at the media and he goes, CNN's here.

[01:05:34] [SPEAKER_08]: He goes, you love me, don't you?

[01:05:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Ugh, ew.

[01:05:37] [SPEAKER_08]: He goes, ratings are great for you, aren't they?

[01:05:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[01:05:39] [SPEAKER_08]: He goes, you can't keep your cameras off me.

[01:05:41] [SPEAKER_08]: It was like he knew the incentives.

[01:05:43] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[01:05:43] [SPEAKER_08]: He knew that what you're going for is the ratings.

[01:05:46] [SPEAKER_08]: I'm the guy that's going to give you those ratings.

[01:05:48] [SPEAKER_08]: You can't turn me off and you can't hold me accountable either.

[01:05:52] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.

[01:05:52] [SPEAKER_05]: He was very right about that.

[01:05:54] [SPEAKER_08]: Well, he was right about that.

[01:05:56] [SPEAKER_08]: And he was overt.

[01:05:57] [SPEAKER_08]: He's like, you can't stop it.

[01:05:59] [SPEAKER_08]: He's like, you can't stop your obsession because it means that you have to stop the machine from doing what it's doing.

[01:06:05] [SPEAKER_08]: And that's kind of what I think the power he knew that he held.

[01:06:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:06:09] [SPEAKER_08]: And I remember seeing that and going, oh my God, he's right.

[01:06:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:06:13] [SPEAKER_01]: It's both really gross and really right.

[01:06:16] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.

[01:06:16] [SPEAKER_08]: And really right.

[01:06:17] [SPEAKER_08]: And I was like, oh, so what that does is it draws everyone into that game because it's game theory.

[01:06:23] [SPEAKER_08]: It's game theory at that point.

[01:06:24] [SPEAKER_08]: It's kind of like when steroids came into baseball.

[01:06:27] [SPEAKER_08]: If you wanted to play baseball and be good, you had to do steroids.

[01:06:29] [SPEAKER_08]: If you want to compete with Donald Trump, you got to get in the pigsty with him.

[01:06:32] [SPEAKER_08]: Yep.

[01:06:33] [SPEAKER_08]: And everyone's done it.

[01:06:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:06:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:06:35] [SPEAKER_01]: He chose the one venue where nobody can take their eyes off him, which is politics because politics is by definition the public interest.

[01:06:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And so like you can't not have a camera on him.

[01:06:47] [SPEAKER_08]: And any media that tries to hold him accountable just gets, it's not popular.

[01:06:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Nope.

[01:06:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's hard because like he's really good at finding ways of pushing against norms without breaking overt laws.

[01:07:01] [SPEAKER_08]: Well, there's truth to some of the things that he's saying too.

[01:07:04] [SPEAKER_08]: And I think that's where the layman's susceptible.

[01:07:06] [SPEAKER_08]: They're like, well, that's, he's caught the voice of the layman and he'll just ride that.

[01:07:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.

[01:07:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I imagine that's something that a cult would do too is they will like put little truths within a bigger lot.

[01:07:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[01:07:19] [SPEAKER_04]: Wasn't Jim Jones, since you probably researched him more than we have, he was really good at doing that.

[01:07:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[01:07:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[01:07:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And really like baiting people's race fears, especially fears that there was going to be a whole new Holocaust that was going to happen in the U.S.

[01:07:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's why we have to go down to fricking South America to protect ourselves and our children.

[01:07:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Like all of that was.

[01:07:41] [SPEAKER_08]: He leveraged the black community pretty successfully.

[01:07:44] [SPEAKER_08]: Yes.

[01:07:44] [SPEAKER_08]: Very successfully.

[01:07:45] [SPEAKER_01]: And he did so by doing some things that were technically honorable.

[01:07:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Like he was, he was one of the first people to actually adopt a non-white kid.

[01:07:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Like he was one of the first people who like had a multi, you know, ethnic family and people saw that as like the future and as enlightened.

[01:08:07] [SPEAKER_01]: And if he hadn't gone on to become a cult guy who murdered everyone who followed him, like maybe we would be celebrating him as like a civil rights person.

[01:08:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Like that's what's nuts.

[01:08:18] [SPEAKER_04]: Has anybody, I'm sure not McNini or Nick Pisa, but has anyone reached out and apologized for misrepresenting you or, you know?

[01:08:27] [SPEAKER_01]: No one's ever reached out.

[01:08:29] [SPEAKER_01]: No.

[01:08:29] [SPEAKER_01]: I have reached out and been in correspondence for years now with my prosecutor.

[01:08:35] [SPEAKER_04]: Wow.

[01:08:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:08:36] [SPEAKER_01]: I can't speak about that a lot right now, but I do have a book coming out next March.

[01:08:42] [SPEAKER_01]: That's going to get all into that.

[01:08:45] [SPEAKER_01]: It's called Free.

[01:08:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Free.

[01:08:47] [SPEAKER_01]: So if you are interested about that, sorry?

[01:08:51] [SPEAKER_04]: What can you tell us about your new book?

[01:08:52] [SPEAKER_01]: So Free is coming out on March 25th and it is all about the sort of now what question.

[01:09:02] [SPEAKER_01]: It was the memoir that I could not have written at the time that I wrote my previous memoir, which was really like just defending myself on a huge stage.

[01:09:10] [SPEAKER_01]: This is an actual like memoir of how am I answering that now what question?

[01:09:16] [SPEAKER_01]: How do I process this experience?

[01:09:18] [SPEAKER_01]: How do I find my place in the world again?

[01:09:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And one of the answers to that was this journey that I went on to develop a relationship and to try to understand the man who had me arrested and accused me of a crime that I did not commit.

[01:09:32] [SPEAKER_04]: I know when we spoke on your pod, I said something and you said, I can't talk about it yet.

[01:09:38] [SPEAKER_04]: So we'll cut this out if you still can't talk about it.

[01:09:40] [SPEAKER_04]: But you're like, I've been burned again.

[01:09:41] [SPEAKER_04]: Was that in regards to him?

[01:09:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, so there is yet another example of how I was burned by someone who I thought was an innocent person who was actually a guilty person.

[01:09:53] [SPEAKER_01]: Again, in my new book.

[01:09:55] [SPEAKER_03]: Okay.

[01:09:56] [SPEAKER_01]: And this one is a really bad one.

[01:09:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Like this is a really, really, it got scary for me.

[01:10:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[01:10:03] [SPEAKER_01]: I can't give you too many details, but.

[01:10:05] [SPEAKER_04]: No problem.

[01:10:05] [SPEAKER_01]: It was really bad and I felt really like I survived it, but it could have gone a really bad way.

[01:10:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And afterwards, I really was struggling with the fact that I had made such a big mistake and put myself, my freedom, my family in jeopardy all because I wanted to believe someone and I was wrong.

[01:10:34] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, I guess we'll have to wait till March 25th.

[01:10:36] [SPEAKER_04]: Sorry, guys.

[01:10:37] [SPEAKER_04]: If it's okay.

[01:10:38] [SPEAKER_04]: That's fine.

[01:10:38] [SPEAKER_04]: Maybe you'll come back and talk about it.

[01:10:41] [SPEAKER_04]: I remember in your book talking about prison and also imagining I would crave sushi and doing sit-ups, all those things.

[01:10:48] [SPEAKER_04]: You had this vision of coming home and walking.

[01:10:52] [SPEAKER_04]: The image that you held in your mind was opening a door and seeing everyone you loved in one room.

[01:10:57] [SPEAKER_04]: Did you get to do it?

[01:10:58] [SPEAKER_04]: And what was it like?

[01:10:59] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, yes.

[01:10:59] [SPEAKER_01]: And so here's the thing.

[01:11:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I came home and my family gave that to me.

[01:11:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Like we couldn't actually go to my home, like the house that I grew up in, because it was surrounded by, you know, TV, camera, vans and all of that.

[01:11:13] [SPEAKER_01]: So instead we went to my aunt's house and everyone and not just my family, but also like my college friends, like everyone was there.

[01:11:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And it was very joyous.

[01:11:25] [SPEAKER_01]: And it was also at the same time really overwhelming because I had just spent four years locked in a box and I only got to talk to my family members for like one hour a week.

[01:11:40] [SPEAKER_01]: And suddenly I was just like inundated with it.

[01:11:45] [SPEAKER_01]: It was like I was an old computer trying to process new technology information like I could not compute.

[01:11:51] [SPEAKER_01]: And I got really overwhelmed and also really struck by how much everyone had changed with time.

[01:11:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, like my cousins had gone from children to young adults.

[01:12:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Like they had low voices and huge shoulders.

[01:12:07] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was just like, oh, my God.

[01:12:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Like it was a shock to my system.

[01:12:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And I didn't eat for a week because I was just like high on adrenaline and like I couldn't sleep.

[01:12:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And I kept being afraid that if I went to sleep, I would wake up in prison and I was just like hallucinating everything.

[01:12:26] [SPEAKER_01]: And I kept speaking in Italian without realizing it.

[01:12:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Everyone was like, speak English.

[01:12:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, lo sto facendo.

[01:12:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I had like a like awkward transition mentally to being around people and not just staring at a wall.

[01:12:47] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, like that's what I was used to.

[01:12:49] [SPEAKER_01]: And at a certain point I had to retreat back into my childhood bedroom and be quiet.

[01:12:58] [SPEAKER_01]: And then my mom started worrying.

[01:13:02] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, so.

[01:13:04] [SPEAKER_08]: That's when you know things are back to normal.

[01:13:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, exactly.

[01:13:07] [SPEAKER_02]: She's like, we have a washing machine.

[01:13:09] [SPEAKER_02]: You do not have to wash your underwear in the sink.

[01:13:12] [SPEAKER_02]: You know that.

[01:13:12] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, oh.

[01:13:16] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't have PTSD.

[01:13:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Just scrubbing my knees.

[01:13:18] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm totally fine.

[01:13:19] [SPEAKER_05]: Everything clean, clean, clean.

[01:13:22] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[01:13:23] [SPEAKER_04]: Is there anything that we didn't ask you that you want to share with our listeners that you think is important?

[01:13:29] [SPEAKER_01]: I think the only other thing that I would say is that the other like big sort of grieving challenge that I was surprised to encounter was when I got pregnant with my daughter.

[01:13:43] [SPEAKER_01]: So my first, you know, my first kid, I all of a sudden felt an immense amount of urgency to be over it so that I wouldn't pass on my trauma to my daughter.

[01:14:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Like I did not want like I felt like I was living in the shadow of the worst experience of my life.

[01:14:07] [SPEAKER_01]: And once I was pregnant with my daughter, I was paranoid that I was going to curse her to live in the shadow of the worst experience of my life.

[01:14:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I really felt an accelerated sense of responsibility to address my own trauma and pain in such a way that I could be a model to my daughter that I could feel good about.

[01:14:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Because I was going to be a model to my daughter anyway.

[01:14:38] [SPEAKER_01]: So I wanted to be a model for my daughter that I could feel good about.

[01:14:42] [SPEAKER_01]: And that really also sort of accelerated that choice to develop a relationship with my prosecutor.

[01:14:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Wow.

[01:14:50] [SPEAKER_01]: How admirable.

[01:14:52] [SPEAKER_04]: Are you still on the journey?

[01:14:54] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[01:14:55] [SPEAKER_04]: You're still healing?

[01:14:56] [SPEAKER_01]: I think I'll be healing the whole.

[01:14:58] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm still going to be healing again.

[01:15:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Like because it's not like you just go through the stages and then you're done.

[01:15:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, yeah, the things continue happening in your life that especially because it's happened at such a developmental part of my life that it's become a psychological and emotional touchstone.

[01:15:16] [SPEAKER_01]: So if something is happening to me today, a part of me sees it through the lens of having been in prison.

[01:15:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And sometimes that's really helpful because I go, you know what?

[01:15:26] [SPEAKER_01]: This is not prison, so it's not that bad.

[01:15:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Or, you know, other times it's like this is a little too close and I'm feeling really scared and uncomfortable.

[01:15:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe I shouldn't be.

[01:15:36] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, like maybe the fact that I think this person is lying to me is not actually them gaslighting me.

[01:15:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe they just have a different point of view.

[01:15:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Like there's a lot of like ways that I could either be exaggerating things or under exaggerating, you know, like so I'm still grappling with how this experience has both sharpened my perspective and potentially distorted it.

[01:15:58] [SPEAKER_08]: And each level reveals the next kind of obstacle for you, right?

[01:16:04] [SPEAKER_08]: Like Sarah and I have kind of attained some of the things that seemed unattainable, but problems still exist.

[01:16:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah.

[01:16:13] [SPEAKER_02]: If that makes sense.

[01:16:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, if you think that problems are suddenly not going to be happening in your life, that is.

[01:16:19] [SPEAKER_08]: And I like the problems way more.

[01:16:21] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[01:16:22] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[01:16:23] [SPEAKER_08]: So, you know.

[01:16:24] [SPEAKER_04]: How do we get all the boys to baseball at different times?

[01:16:27] [SPEAKER_08]: Don't yell.

[01:16:28] [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.

[01:16:29] [SPEAKER_08]: I'm talking to myself.

[01:16:32] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, they'll get to baseball if they want to get to baseball.

[01:16:35] [SPEAKER_02]: They'll get to.

[01:16:35] [SPEAKER_02]: That's true.

[01:16:36] [SPEAKER_04]: I can't remember if I shared this.

[01:16:37] [SPEAKER_04]: I was on your podcast, but in regards to healing, the thing that kind of – the metaphor that I love, we actually got from Evan Rachel Wood, who would be a great guest for you.

[01:16:47] [SPEAKER_04]: Cool.

[01:16:47] [SPEAKER_04]: I will look into that.

[01:16:48] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I'm happy to connect.

[01:16:49] [SPEAKER_04]: That would be awesome.

[01:16:50] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, is that she said her healing from her deal with Marilyn Manson was, you know, she recognized that there's a light at the end of the tunnel, and there would be, and then there'd be another tunnel.

[01:17:01] [SPEAKER_04]: And then there'd be another light, and then another tunnel.

[01:17:03] [SPEAKER_04]: And I like that better than how I –

[01:17:05] [SPEAKER_08]: That's kind of what I'm saying.

[01:17:06] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[01:17:06] [SPEAKER_04]: I experience more as in waves, like, okay, it's calm, and then I get, like, knocked down by a tsunami, and then it retreats, and then I get knocked down again, which I feel a little bit more aggressive.

[01:17:16] [SPEAKER_04]: I like the tunnel metaphor better.

[01:17:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Did you see Interstellar?

[01:17:18] [SPEAKER_04]: I did not.

[01:17:19] [SPEAKER_04]: You did.

[01:17:19] [SPEAKER_04]: You did?

[01:17:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, the – I'm, like, haunted by the planet with the wave.

[01:17:25] [SPEAKER_08]: Dude.

[01:17:25] [SPEAKER_08]: Did I see that?

[01:17:26] [SPEAKER_08]: That, like, was a little too metaphorically real.

[01:17:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, like – so, yes, it was close to the black hole, so, like, time was happening, like, really fast for them.

[01:17:35] [SPEAKER_01]: But, like, I think the thing that really, like, just blew my mind about that planet is you're, like, in two feet of water until there's, like, a –

[01:17:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Tsunami.

[01:17:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, enormous wave.

[01:17:45] [SPEAKER_01]: There's just a wave that's circling the planet, and it's enormous.

[01:17:50] [SPEAKER_01]: It is 20, you know, skyscrapers high, and there's no way to survive it, and it just plows you, and then you, like – yeah, anyway.

[01:17:59] [SPEAKER_01]: I was just, like –

[01:18:00] [SPEAKER_01]: That's Amanda Knox in Perugia 2000.

[01:18:04] [SPEAKER_04]: Yes.

[01:18:05] [SPEAKER_06]: Interstellar.

[01:18:06] [SPEAKER_02]: Just reading Harry Potter with your boyfriend.

[01:18:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Yep, and then just smoking a joint.

[01:18:13] [SPEAKER_08]: It's the name of the episode.

[01:18:14] [SPEAKER_08]: It was too real.

[01:18:14] [SPEAKER_02]: It was too real, that movie.

[01:18:18] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm so happy to see you laughing.

[01:18:19] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm so happy to see you with your babies, and, you know, I hope you don't mind me sending you different songs on Spotify that represent freedom every now and then.

[01:18:28] [SPEAKER_00]: I love it.

[01:18:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.

[01:18:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Music is also my love language.

[01:18:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.

[01:18:36] [SPEAKER_08]: If you like the show, please consider supporting us by giving us a rating, a review, and subscribe on iTunes.

[01:18:41] [SPEAKER_08]: Cults are commonplace now, and we're looking at them all, and every little bit helps.

[01:18:46] [SPEAKER_08]: Hit that subscribe button so you don't miss an episode.

[01:18:51] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, everybody, that was our episode with our new friend, Amanda Knox.

[01:18:56] [SPEAKER_08]: She's way more evolved than I am.

[01:18:58] [SPEAKER_04]: Don't forget, she's got a new book, free, My Search for Meaning, being published in March 2025 by Grand Central Publishing.

[01:19:05] [SPEAKER_04]: You can preorder now on Powell's or Amazon or wherever you buy your books.

[01:19:09] [SPEAKER_08]: I am going to preorder right now.

[01:19:11] [SPEAKER_04]: I already did.

[01:19:12] [SPEAKER_08]: Thank you, everyone.

[01:19:13] [SPEAKER_08]: Till next time.

[01:19:31] [SPEAKER_04]: A Little Bit Culty is a Trace 120 production.

[01:19:34] [SPEAKER_04]: Executive produced by Sarah Edmondson and Anthony Nippy Ames, in collaboration with Amphibian Media.

[01:19:39] [SPEAKER_04]: Our co-creator is Jess Temple-Tardy.

[01:19:42] [SPEAKER_04]: Audio engineering by Red Cayman Studios, and our writing and research is done by Emma Diehl and Kristen Reeder.

[01:19:47] [SPEAKER_04]: Our theme song, Cultivated, is by the artists John Bryant and Nigel Aslan.