An Italian court overturned Amanda Knox's murder conviction on Friday, bringing a close to a saga that has taken the world and media by storm ever since her British roommate was found stabbed to death eight years ago.
Lawyers for Knox, now 27, said she was "very worried" in the days leading up to the verdict, according to USA Today.
But it appears those worries were laid to rest after Italy's highest court issued a final ruling Friday evening overturning her conviction for the 2007 stabbing death of Meredith Kercher. The court also overturned the murder conviction for her Italian ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito.
"I am tremendously relieved and grateful for the decision of the Supreme Court of Italy," Knox said in a statement. "The knowledge of my innocence has given me strength in the darkest times of this ordeal."
Knox, of Seattle, did not return to Italy to hear the verdict. But lawyers for her ex-boyfriend were there, and they stressed upon the six-panel judge during closing arguments that Sollecito's and Knox's 2014 guilty verdicts were flawed.
"He is an innocent who became wrapped up in spectacular and gigantic events that, like Forrest Gump, he did not fully realize," attorney Giulia Bongiorno said as she compared the now 30-year-old Sollecito to the dim-witted character famously portrayed by actor Tom Hanks.
Bongiorno said her client "was watching cartoons" at home when Kercher was killed, according to USA Today.
Kercher, 21, was found dead, sexually assaulted with her throat slit and multiple stab wounds at the flat she shared with Knox in the town of Peruggia. The case initially splashed across headlines as a twisted sex game gone awry, with Knox, her boyfriend, and another man named Rudy Guede as the prime suspects.
Knox, who at the time was studying abroad in Italy, initially said she was at the apartment when the murder occurred but had nothing to do with it.
She later said she was coerced into making those claims, according to USA Today.
Meanwhile in the U.S., the case maintained a strong media presence, captivating the public and ending up as a Lifetime channel movie starring Hayden Panettiere.
Knox and Sollecito were fist convicted for Kercher's death in 2009. The American had already spent four years in prison and was looking at another 28 when a court of appeals overturned the verdicts in 2011.
But the acquittal was thrown out by Italy's high court in 2013 and the case was tried again by a Florence appeals court, according to USA Today.
The Florence court convicted both again in 2014, and Knox faced a 28-and-a-half year sentence until Thursday's verdict.
The court later rejected the sex game theory. Guede, whose DNA was found on the victim, is now serving a 16-year sentence for Kercher's murder.
