American Student Held in Study Abroad Murder Probe

This is a rush transcript from "On the Record ," November 7, 2007. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, HOST: An American college coed is in jail in Italy. She's being detained in connection to a murder.

Amanda Knox is a 20-year-old college student from the University of Washington. She is studying abroad in Italy. Her roommate was 21-year-old British college student Meredith Kercher. Meredith was found dead in her bed. Someone slit her throat.

Now Amanda is being detained and questioned about the murder. Also being questioned are Amanda's boyfriend and a bar manager. Police say that the killing was probably sexually motivated.

Richard Owen, reporter for The Times of London, has been following the story. He joins us on the phone from Italy. Richard, when did this happen? And what more details can you give us about this murder?

RICHARD OWEN, TIMES OF LONDON: Well, Meredith, as you say, was found dead. That was last Friday morning. She appears to have died between Thursday evening and the early hours of Friday morning, police think between midnight and 2:00 AM. And as you say, one of her housemates, Amanda Knox, has been arrested over the murder, allegedly involved in it. Also, her Italian boyfriend — that's Ms. Knox's Italian boyfriend — Raffaele Sollecito and a Congolese man who owned a bar and is also a part- time musician here in the hill town of Perugia.

VAN SUSTEREN: Do you know — I mean, I understand Amanda is being detained. She's not charged. But do you have any idea what Amanda is saying to the police as to what happened?

OWEN: Yes, indeed, because the transcripts of what she told the police have been published in the Italian press today. Initially, of course, she denied that she'd even been there that night. She said she hadn't returned to the house at all. But she then changed her story. She was called in for questioning by the Italian police and allegedly collapsed, crumbled as they said, and began to reveal more of what actually happened.

According to her version, she now says, yes, she was present that evening when Meredith died. She even heard screams from the bedroom and put fingers in her ears to stop hearing this. But she says the man in the bedroom was the Congolese man, and thereby implying that he was responsible for what happened.

VAN SUSTEREN: Now, Amanda's boyfriend is also — apparently is being brought in or he's being detained for questioning. I assume he's being questioned separately from Amanda. Do you know if he is saying something consistent with what Amanda's story is about what happened, or is he saying something different?

OWEN: Well, kind of — there are a lot of discrepancies, actually, a lot of holes in these stories, the Italian police say. And he actually says he wasn't there at all. And sometimes she says he was and sometimes she says he wasn't. At one point, she said she couldn't remember whether her own boyfriend had been there that evening or not. He claims that he was in his own home that evening and that his father, who's a distinguished doctor down in Bari in southern Italy, called him on his land line at 11:30 in the evening, and so he can prove that he wasn't there.

On the other hand, the police say, first of all, some footprints found in blood in the house are compatible with the boyfriend's footprints, and also that a knife found in his possession is again compatible with the likely murder weapon.

So police think they're looking at some kind of party late on that Thursday evening that would involve sexual activity and went badly wrong.

VAN SUSTEREN: Indeed. Richard, thank you. And of course, we're going to continue to follow this as it develops, an American college student in custody, being questioned about a murder.

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