Rudy Guede, Not Amanda Knox, Killed Meredith Kercher — He Is Currently a Free Man

During the Dec. 4, 2009, episode of The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, the veteran journalist broke the news of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito's guilty verdicts.

According to transcripts from the show, the former couple was looking at 30 years behind bars in an Italian prison after being convicted of the 2007 murder of Meredith Kercher. Knox was handed a 26-year sentence while Sollecito got 25. In March 2015, they were both exonerated.

Italy's highest court overturned their convictions after finding flaws in the original investigation. According to forensic experts, the DNA used against Knox and Sollecito was unreliable.

There was more definitive DNA evidence found at the scene of the crime connecting a third person to Kercher's death. Rudy Guede was also arrested and convicted, but he was never exonerated. Where is Guede now? Here's what we know.

Six days after Kercher was killed on Nov. 1, 2007, Italian police announced that Guede was a suspect. This was also on the heels of a previous arrest that occurred a few days before the murder. Guede had broken into a nursery school and was found with an 11-inch knife he had stolen from the kitchen, reported ABC News.

Police were able to link Guede to Kercher's murder via a vaginal swab that contained traces of his DNA. Guede's bloody palm print was also on Kercher's pillow, beneath her body. In October 2008, he was found guilty of murder and subsequently sentenced to 30 years in prison.

This was reduced to 16 in 2009, and by November 2021, Guede was released after serving only 13 years in prison.

In February 2024, the Associated Press reported that Guede was "placed under 'special surveillance' for allegedly abusing a former girlfriend." The unnamed woman filed a complaint against Guede in the summer of 2023, resulting in a restraining order barring the 36-year-old from being within 500 meters (yards) of the woman.

He also had to wear an electronic bracelet. He denied all allegations against him.

Kercher, a British student, and Knox were both studying abroad in Italy and were sharing an Italian villa in Perugia, Italy. They also shared the flat with Filomena Romanelli and Laura Mezzetti, two Italian students.

By all accounts, the roommates liked each other and were hanging out up until the night of the murder. On that evening, Knox spent the night at Sollecito's and didn't return until the following morning. Details of the crime scene were described in the 2011 book Death in Perugia.

When Knox got home, she found the front door was open. Upon discovering that Kercher's bedroom door was locked, Knox assumed she was still asleep and proceeded to take a shower in the bathroom she shared with her slumbering roommate. She later noticed feces in the bathroom toilet that Romanelli and Mezetti shared, which was later identified as Guede's. Knox went back to Sollecito's, but the couple returned a few hours later.

Sollecito was the first person to notice that Romanelli's bedroom window was broken, and was concerned about the fact that Kercher was still not responding in her locked bedroom.

They contacted the police, who refused to open Kercher's door. A male friend of Romanelli's forced his way in around 1:15 p.m. They discovered Kercher's bloody body under the duvet. She had been sexually assaulted and fatally stabbed.