Meredith Kercher's Family and Their Italian Lawyer Slam the Edinburgh Stand-Up Show.Nearly two decades after Meredith Kercher's murder in Perugia, Amanda Knox is once again at the center of a controversy that Italian commentators are watching unfold with a familiar mix of frustration and déjà vu. Her Edinburgh Fringe comedy show, "Cartwheel," running through August 17 at the sold-out Gilded Balloon Teviot, has drawn condemnation from Meredith's family and from the family's longtime Italian lawyer.For Italians who followed the original case, first the murder, then the arrest of Knox and her then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, then years of trials, convictions, appeals and a final 2015 acquittal by Italy's Court of Cassation, the show lands as an uncomfortable reminder that the case never really achieved closure in public memory, even after the courts closed it definitively under Italian law.The Italian Lawyer Who's Calling It "Deplorable"The most prominent Italian voice in the controversy belongs to Francesco Maresca, the lawyer who represented the Kercher family throughout the original Perugia trial and has remained closely associated with the case ever since. Maresca has publicly described the show as offensive and deplorable, both toward everyone still touched by the case and specifically toward Meredith's memory. In Italy, where Maresca is a familiar figure from nearly two decades of trial coverage, his comments carry particular institutional weight, functioning almost as the case's own legal epilogue being reopened in real time. A Verdict That Was Final, a Memory That Wasn'tWhat makes the Italian reaction distinct is this underlying tension: under Italian law, the matter is completely settled. The Cassazione's 2015 ruling fully and definitively acquitted both Knox and Sollecito, closing the legal chapter for good. Rudy Guede, whose DNA was found at the crime scene, was convicted separately and released in 2021 after serving 13 years. There is no ongoing Italian legal process left to reopen. And yet a definitive legal verdict has never translated into a settled public memory, either in Perugia or across Italy more broadly. Each time Knox revisits the case publicly, a book, a Hulu docuseries in 2025, and now a stand-up show, Italian coverage treats it less as new information about the crime than as a fresh referendum on how much control Knox should have over a story that isn't hers alone to tell. Stephanie Kercher's Direct AppealMeredith's sister, Stephanie Kercher, has remained the family's most visible voice, asking Knox directly to imagine the situation reversed, to picture how she'd feel if the same thing happened to a sister of her own. She's described her family's pain as immense, something that, even two decades later, they still find genuinely difficult to put into words and continue discussing regularly among themselves. She's also warned that letting a real murder case become the basis for a stand-up routine risks setting a troubling precedent for how other victims and their families could be treated by future productions, an argument that has resonated particularly strongly in Italian commentary, where the case is still widely seen as a matter of ongoing public sensitivity rather than closed history. Knox's Claim About Meredith Draws Particular AngerKnox has defended "Cartwheel" by insisting she's joking about her own ordeal, the wrongful conviction, years in prison, and the global media circus that followed her, rather than about the murder itself. She's gone a step further, suggesting that Meredith, whom she's described as intelligent and refined, might even have appreciated the show's sense of humor. That particular claim has landed especially poorly in Italian coverage of the story. Commentators have pointed out that Knox has no real basis for speaking on Meredith's behalf, and that the suggestion risks appropriating the voice of a young woman who never had the chance to weigh in on how her own death would eventually be portrayed on a British comedy stage, an objection that echoes a broader discomfort in Italy with how thoroughly Knox's own narrative has, over nearly twenty years, come to overshadow Meredith's. A Story That Keeps Returning to the Same QuestionFor Italian audiences who lived through the original trial's saturation coverage, from the tabloid nickname "Foxy Knoxy" to years of appeals hearings covered live on Italian television, "Cartwheel" doesn't feel like a new controversy so much as the latest iteration of an old one. The Fringe Society has confirmed it has no plans to intervene, citing its commitment to artistic freedom, and the show remains sold out through its full run. What's left, from Perugia's perspective, is the same unresolved question that has followed Knox through every book, interview and television project since 2015: whether a story this genuinely was hers to keep retelling, or whether Meredith Kercher's family gets a say in when, and how, that retelling finally stops. Ph: lev radin / Shutterstock.com

Nearly two decades after Meredith Kercher's murder in Perugia, Amanda Knox is once again at the center of a controversy that Italian commentators are watching unfold with a familiar mix of frustration and déjà vu. Her Edinburgh Fringe comedy show, "Cartwheel," running through August 17 at the sold-out Gilded Balloon Teviot, has drawn condemnation from Meredith's family and from the family's longtime Italian lawyer.For Italians who followed the original case, first the murder, then the arrest of Knox and her then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, then years of trials, convictions, appeals and a final 2015 acquittal by Italy's Court of Cassation, the show lands as an uncomfortable reminder that the case never really achieved closure in public memory, even after the courts closed it definitively under Italian law. The most prominent Italian voice in the controversy belongs to Francesco Maresca, the lawyer who represented the Kercher family throughout the original Perugia trial and has remained closely associated with the case ever since. Maresca has publicly described the show as offensive and deplorable, both toward everyone still touched by the case and specifically toward Meredith's memory. In Italy, where Maresca is a familiar figure from nearly two decades of trial coverage, his comments carry particular institutional weight, functioning almost as the case's own legal epilogue being reopened in real time. What makes the Italian reaction distinct is this underlying tension: under Italian law, the matter is completely settled. The Cassazione's 2015 ruling fully and definitively acquitted both Knox and Sollecito, closing the legal chapter for good. Rudy Guede, whose DNA was found at the crime scene, was convicted separately and released in 2021 after serving 13 years. There is no ongoing Italian legal process left to reopen. And yet a definitive legal verdict has never translated into a settled public memory, either in Perugia or across Italy more broadly. Each time Knox revisits the case publicly, a book, a Hulu docuseries in 2025, and now a stand-up show, Italian coverage treats it less as new information about the crime than as a fresh referendum on how much control Knox should have over a story that isn't hers alone to tell. Meredith's sister, Stephanie Kercher, has remained the family's most visible voice, asking Knox directly to imagine the situation reversed, to picture how she'd feel if the same thing happened to a sister of her own. She's described her family's pain as immense, something that, even two decades later, they still find genuinely difficult to put into words and continue discussing regularly among themselves. She's also warned that letting a real murder case become the basis for a stand-up routine risks setting a troubling precedent for how other victims and their families could be treated by future productions, an argument that has resonated particularly strongly in Italian commentary, where the case is still widely seen as a matter of ongoing public sensitivity rather than closed history. Knox has defended "Cartwheel" by insisting she's joking about her own ordeal, the wrongful conviction, years in prison, and the global media circus that followed her, rather than about the murder itself. She's gone a step further, suggesting that Meredith, whom she's described as intelligent and refined, might even have appreciated the show's sense of humor. That particular claim has landed especially poorly in Italian coverage of the story. Commentators have pointed out that Knox has no real basis for speaking on Meredith's behalf, and that the suggestion risks appropriating the voice of a young woman who never had the chance to weigh in on how her own death would eventually be portrayed on a British comedy stage, an objection that echoes a broader discomfort in Italy with how thoroughly Knox's own narrative has, over nearly twenty years, come to overshadow Meredith's. For Italian audiences who lived through the original trial's saturation coverage, from the tabloid nickname "Foxy Knoxy" to years of appeals hearings covered live on Italian television, "Cartwheel" doesn't feel like a new controversy so much as the latest iteration of an old one. The Fringe Society has confirmed it has no plans to intervene, citing its commitment to artistic freedom, and the show remains sold out through its full run. What's left, from Perugia's perspective, is the same unresolved question that has followed Knox through every book, interview and television project since 2015: whether a story this genuinely was hers to keep retelling, or whether Meredith Kercher's family gets a say in when, and how, that retelling finally stops. Ph: lev radin / Shutterstock.com