Amanda Knox and her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito’s lives were endlessly modified following the 2007 death of Knox’s roommate, Meredith Kercher.
Knox was attending the University for Foreigners in Perugia, Italy, as an exchange student when her roommate was found brutally murdered of their apartment. Police immediately suspected that Knox and her recent boyfriend, Sollecito, were in some way involved in Kercher’s death, setting off an eight-year legal battle that went all of the method to Italy’s Supreme Court — twice.
Knox and Sollecito were only dating for eight days on the time of their arrests, and while their romantic relationship ended shortly after, the 2 became trusted allies in a battle against the very best levels of the Italian justice system.
Keep scrolling for a have a look at Sollecito’s relationship with Knox, the 2 murder trials and what his life is like now:
Why Was Raffaele Sollecito Arrested?
Sollecito had nearly accomplished a pc science degree at Perugia University in Italy when he met Knox at a classical music concert in October 2007. Their whirlwind romance lasted just over every week before Knox and Sollecito were arrested by Italian authorities in reference to Kercher’s death.
During a 2012 interview with Anderson Cooper, Sollecito admitted it was a mistake to initially cooperate with police without hiring a lawyer.
“The police, they wanted it,” he recalled. “The detectives had their eyes on us because the starting. I didn’t feel the necessity to have a lawyer, I didn’t touch anything, I didn’t get into the murder scene. It was unimaginable to me that I’d ever be charged for a murder like that.”
Sollecito and Knox were charged with murder and sexual assault in November 2007. While Sollecito and Knox at all times maintained their innocence, there have been contradictions of their alibis. For instance, Sollecito said he was watching cartoons on his computer at his own apartment on the night of the murder, though his PC records couldn’t confirm his claim.
Knox told investigators that she was at Sollecito’s apartment on the night of Kercher’s murder, though Sollecito admitted he couldn’t be certain they were together all night. Knox and Sollecito each later conceded that they’d smoked marijuana on the night in query, so that they couldn’t entirely recall details of the evening, in line with ABC News.
A 3rd person, Rudy Guede, was arrested as well and convicted of killing Kercher in October 2008 as a part of a fast-tracked trial. He was ordered to serve 30 years in prison, but was released in November 2021 after securing a reduced sentence.
What Happened in Raffaele Sollecito’s Trials?
Sollecito and Knox were convicted twice of Kercher’s murder under controversial circumstances. The pair were initially found guilty following a highly-publicized trial in 2009, just for an appeal to overturn the decision two years later. (Knox had been serving a 26-year sentence, while Sollecito was given 25 years behind bars.)
The Italian Supreme Court took up the case in 2013 and ruled to overturn the appeals and order a brand new trial to happen. The next 12 months, Sollecito and Knox were convicted a second time and ordered back to prison, in line with NPR.
Knox returned to the U.S. after her first successful appeal in 2011 and, consequently, was tried in absentia. Sollecito remained in Italy and was briefly sent back to prison following the second conviction.
Raffaele Sollecito in March 2015. Franco Origlia/Getty Images
When Sollecito appealed the trial result once more, the Italian Supreme Court took up the case for a second time and ruled to overturn Sollecito’s second conviction, formally exonerating him in March 2015. The high court ruled that Sollecito and Knox could never again face criminal prosecution in connection to Kercher’s death.
Sollecito spoke to NBC News on the time in regards to the end of his and Knox’s long, legal nightmare.
“Everybody was pushing me… we were in type of a frenzy… a chaos of happiness,” he remembered. “It was great, it was really great … It looks like the air is more fresh … the air of freedom feels very nice, it smells nice!”
Why Did Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox Split?
Knox and Sollecito’s fates were tied together long after their romantic relationship ended.
Chatting with Cooper in 2012, Sollecito recalled keeping in close contact with Knox for 4 years after they were sent to separate prisons in 2009. He admitted his family encouraged him to talk out against Knox to be able to secure a lesser sentence.
“On the plate, there was my life or throw Amanda under the bus,” he insisted. “I cannot walk on the road being a free man realising I’m responsible for a 20-year-old innocent spending the remaining of her life in prison.”
The romantic aspect of Knox and Sollecito’s relationship faded before their trial, though they remained close friends. When the pair were initially released following their first appeal, Sollecito visited Knox and her family in Washington.
Amanda Knox‘s memoir didn’t just address her time in prison — she also shared many unfiltered confessions about her sexual history, challenges in her dating life and more. Free: My Seek for Meaning, out now, offers rare insight into Knox’s life after she was wrongfully convicted for Meredith Kercher’s death. Knox, 37, didn’t just break […]
“After I have a look at her I get stuck somewhat bit, I used to be nervous,’ he told Katie Couric in a 2012 interview. “I still had the psychological wounds of this nightmare that passed in prison. Her image brought up the image of the nightmare.”
He went on, “After she hugged me, I realised that Amanda is the Amanda that I dated for that week. She’s not the Amanda that was ‘the ghost Amanda’ during those 4 years.”
What Is Raffaele Sollecito’s Life Like Now?
Each Knox and Sollecito moved on with their lives at the same time as the appeals and retrial process took place within the 2010s. Knox married creator Christopher Robinson in February 2020 and so they now share two children.
Sollecito pursued a profession as a software engineer and moved to Milan to run his own business. He later announced his engagement to his girlfriend Andreea Mihaela Burtea, though it is just not clear in the event that they are still together.
Sollecito wrote a memoir in 2012 called Honor Sure: My Journey to Hell and Back with Amanda Knox, wherein he reflected on retreating from the general public eye after his first successful appeal.
“Despite the fact that Amanda and I shared the identical unjust fate, the case was at all times about her,” he wrote. “I vanished thus far from public view that I believed of myself… as Mr No person.”
Raffaele Sollecito, Amanda Knox, Grace Van Patten and Giuseppe De Domenico in August 2025. Theo Wargo/Getty Images
Knox and Sollecito publicly reunited periodically over time, most recently on the world premiere of Hulu docudrama The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox in Recent York City in August 2025.
The previous couple posed with actors Grace Van Patten and Giuseppe De Domenico to advertise the two-episode streaming series based on Knox’s book Waiting to Be Heard: A Memoir.