I heard a podcast interview with Amanda Knox; I was impressed. She’s well-spoken and expresses herself in an open and honest manner. I read her recent book; I was even more impressed. She’s a delightful writer and reveals herself to be a wisdom seeker in the face of tragic misfortune. If you’re wondering, who is Amanda Knox?—there’s no need to wonder if you’ve had access to the media over the past 20 years. She’s the young American accused of murdering her housemate while they were studying abroad in Italy, and whose trial blew up into a media circus. In this blog post, I’ll answer a few burning questions you may have, as a natural result of your being exposed to the extravagantly raving-mad media: Was Amanda Knox wrongfully convicted? Where is Amanda Knox now? What does she say in her 2025 memoir?

Was Amanda Knox Wrongfully Convicted? Her First Memoir

Knox’s most recent book is her second memoir. (I almost wrote, “Knox’s most recent release is . . .” That would have been an unfortunate choice of words.) Her first memoir, Waiting to Be Heard, was first published in 2013. An edition with a new afterword was published in 2015.

Knox was convicted of murder in 2009 and sentenced to 26 years in prison. She was imprisoned in Italy for about 4 years, and then her conviction was overturned, and she was released to her home in Seattle. Two months before the publication of Waiting to Be Heard, the Italian Court of Cassation annulled her acquittal. For a long time, she did not know whether she would be reconvicted and deported back to Italy.

This first memoir tells the horrific story of Knox’s housemate’s murder, Knox’s interrogation by the Italian police, the trial, and so on. I have not read this book and thus cannot comment on it.

Was Amanda Knox Wrongfully Convicted? Her Second Memoir

Knox’s second memoir, published in 2025, is called Free: My Search for Meaning. I read it and loved it and will comment on it. This memoir focuses on several different parts of her life:

• Who she was as a young adult/child before the murder of her housemate
• A brief summary of the facts of the murder and her police interrogation (she covers this in more detail in her first book)
• Her 4 years in prison and how she grew as a person during imprisonment
• What it was like to return to Seattle, famous (or infamous) and hounded by the media
• What it was like to have her acquittal overturned and again be in danger of being imprisoned for decades
• How she was able to find herself and her purpose back home in America: her personal family life and public advocacy
• How she made contact with her prosecutor, forged a fragile friendship with him, and returned to Italy to meet with him

This is all so very dramatic and traumatic. A lesser person would have crumbled amidst these horrific life experiences, all exaggerated and distorted by the international media.

Amanda Knox lived through extraordinary circumstances, but her courage and wisdom can provide lessons for all of us. At every moment of her story, she finds ways to resist mistreatment and focus on whatever self-agency she has. Even when she has very little self-agency, she has some, and she capitalizes on that.

When she’s in prison, she finds ways to help others and engage in personal learning and growth. When she’s supposedly free in Seattle, but still caught within her false public persona and hounded by paparazzi, she finds ways to tell her own story and create a mindset that psychologically frees her from the media trap. When it turns out that she’s not going to be re-imprisoned, she makes the completely unnecessary decision to go back to Italy, on two separate occasions. She feels that returning to Italy is best for her and others, though it is incredibly risky, logistically complicated, and personally terrifying.

Let’s Cut to the Chase: Was Amanda Knox Wrongfully Convicted?

Yes, indeed. She was very much wronged.

I say this not as an expert who has examined every piece of evidence, but as a mere book reader and thinker. That being said, her story rings true to me, and the facts, as I know them, very strongly support her side.

Yes, during her all-night police interrogation, she implicated herself and two others; but she was young and trying to understand and speak a foreign language, and furthermore, it’s well known that brutal interrogation tactics often result in false confessions. This seems to be what happened to Amanda Knox.

There’s also DNA evidence that strongly implicates someone else as the murderer.

Furthermore, I highly doubt that Free is a pack of lies. It’s an extraordinarily perceptive and wise book, and I don’t say that about many books. Sure, according to Humbert Humbert, “You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style” (Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita). That’s a nice line—but in reality, most murderers don’t have a fancy prose style. And, of course, Humbert Humbert is not just fancy, but self-involved, brutish, sadistic, and insane.

Amanda Knox is none of this. Her writing is not fancy, but rather, a fount of candidness and psychological strength. It reveals a young woman grappling with her life, which in 2009 had suddenly become very upsetting, very public, and very difficult to endure, and has remained that way ever since.

Where Is Amanda Knox Now? And What Does She Say in Her 2025 Memoir?

As always, it’s impossible for me to give you all the wisdom in this book. You’ll have to read it yourself for that. But here are some tidbits:

Where Is Amanda Knox Now? Wisdom on Enduring Prison (Applicable to Any Life Struggle)

When Knox was in prison, her mom kept telling her there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Knox knew that this philosophy helped her mom, but she also knew it wasn’t the right philosophy for her.

“I was not stuck in a tunnel, with nothing to do but wait for the light. I was in the midst of an extraordinary opportunity for personal growth.”

While in prison, Knox did not just wait around to be freed. Instead, she read books. She had long conversations with a priest about life and spirituality, even though they had very different beliefs. She drew piano keys on paper so she could practice piano in her cell. She worked on her Italian and other language skills. She practiced enduring a terrible situation with strength.

All of this personal growth shines through in her memoir. She was in prison when she was supposed to have been studying at a university, and yet she was still able to educate herself.

Where Is Amanda Knox Now? Wisdom on Being a Public Figure (Applicable to Anyone Who Has Been Bullied or Socially Attacked)

Upon returning home to Seattle, Knox did not feel fully free. She was now a public figure, and she felt trapped inside the story the media told and continued to tell about her.

“What helped was to remind myself, over and over again, that none of these people actually hated me. They hated an idea of me. Which meant that I was lucky, in a way. The hate was so extreme, so widespread, so irrational, and based on such an outrageous pack of lies, that I was gradually able to divorce myself from the object of that hate. . . . Sure, the thing they hated looked like me, it shared my name, and I would bear the downstream consequences of that hate in the practical realities of trying to build a life for myself, but I was not hated.”

That’s a seriously advanced psychological technique that we would all do well to learn.

Where Is Amanda Knox Now? Wisdom on Overcoming Trauma

Knox felt utterly alone in her predicament as a public figure who was being harassed. She could not resort to legal help because the standards for defamation are much higher for public figures than for ordinary citizens.

In a poetry class at her university, she meets a young woman who loves to write poetry. They start meeting at a cafe outside of class hours, to talk about their own poems. One day, Knox’s friend meets her at the cafe and tells her that she realized who Knox is.

Knox panics, thinking her new friend will now accuse her of being a murderer, or worse, sell her secret, heartfelt poetry to the tabloids.

But the opposite happens. Her friend reveals that she experienced trauma, too—a completely different kind of trauma, but still trauma. Her friend basically says, I get you.

“In an instant, she had revealed to me a life-saving truth: you don’t have to experience the same trauma as someone to understand and connect with them. A small part of me started to wonder if perhaps I was not doomed to loneliness after all.”

Find your tribe. Your tribe doesn’t have to be exactly the same as you. Your friends can and will be different from you. You can still share a similar perspective.

Was Amanda Knox Wrongfully Convicted? Where Is Amanda Knox Now?

I highly recommend this book to all wisdom seekers and life journeyers. Was Amanda Knox wrongfully convicted? Yes. Where is Amanda Knox now? Living her best life. She has a husband and children, and she regularly speaks out against wrongful convictions and supports fellow exonerees.

And by the way, do read the ending of Free, where Knox describes befriending the man who prosecuted her, even returning to Italy to talk with him in person. It’s an extraordinary story of personal strength and growth.

If you are currently experiencing a difficult life situation, how can you use what self-agency you have to work toward personal learning and growth? How can you find ways to help others as you help yourself?

Featured in this post: Free: My Search for Meaning by Amanda Knox (2025) Buy it now

Also mentioned: Waiting to Be Heard by Amanda Knox (originally published in 2013, with a new afterword in 2015) Buy it now