ENCORE: FREE My Search For Meaning With Amanda Knox

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Welcome to the shit show.

Things are going to get weird.

It's your fae villain, Kale Lauer.

And you're listening to Barely Famous.

Today on the podcast, we have Amanda Knox, and I'm so excited to talk to you about your new book.

Thank you.

Yeah, having me.

So I read the entire book, and I have to say that I vaguely knew who you were.

Okay.

But this is my first real impression of you.

I vaguely heard about your case, and I was kind of glad after reading the book that I didn't prejudge you.

Yay!

And I just wanted to know so, I had so many questions and initially started forming forming questions on like a document.

And I was like, oh, I can't wait to ask her this.

And then everything was pretty much answered in the book.

So I thought that was really nice.

And as you can see, I tabbed so many things.

Some of the things that are just,

I think a lot of people can resonate with, but so much of it I did tab to bring up today.

Awesome.

I was thinking this morning while I was getting ready, like.

What do you want from this interview?

Because I want to tell your story in the way that you want to be heard the same way that you describe in this book.

You don't want to be remembered as the girl accused of murder.

And so I don't want to perpetuate that.

If I don't know what that is.

Sure, sure, sure, sure.

Yeah.

I mean, I think the big thing that I hope from this interview is honestly that people will read free My Search for Meaning.

Yeah.

Because like, there's this impression that like my story is encapsulated in this what, this bad thing that happened to me.

And

now it's over and the end, my story's over.

And that happens to a lot of exoneries.

I'm not the only one who has had the experience of the worst experience of your life being so utterly defining.

And then the minute you get out of prison, you eat your first hamburger.

I call it the hamburger moment because it's always like a McDonald's hamburger.

They're like, oh, look, they're eating a McDonald's hamburger for the first time after 20 years in prison.

The end.

And what really is the case is that a whole human drama unfolds behind that curtain, where that is for the first time the person living their life and like discovering who they are and answering that now what question after having been forced to survive in an insanely unfair and and traumatic experience and so what I like to say is that you know I've written a book before this I've met written a memoir before this called waiting to be heard I'm very proud of it I wrote it at a time of my life where I felt like I needed to react to this huge, incredible narrative that had been made about me without any sort of input from me.

And it was in reaction to that that I was explaining, here, this is this terrible experience that happened to me.

And

this is what it looks like from my perspective to be on trial for this crime.

This book is not

that.

This book is

what I've done in response to that.

This is, if Waiting to be Heard is reactive, this is a book about how I've lived my life proactively and how I've been really human because it is not like, you know, look at me and how good I am.

It is like, oh my God, look at all these mistakes I made because I am still processing this traumatic experience in my lived life and how it's had repercussions that have been unexpected and so it's so, such a huge part of my, of who I am and how I have tried to grapple with.

the existential problem that we all face, which is who are we?

What is our role in the world?

How do we try to make the world a better place and leave it better than how we found it?

Right.

And in the book, you actually quote, there's a quote where you talk about how telling your story is your, it's trauma, but also it's healing.

Yes.

And I, I definitely feel like you, I got the message in the book.

Do you know what I mean?

Cool.

And I think you did a great job.

I, there, there are certain parts in this book where I literally wrote in the margin crying, sobbing, chills.

And I just, and it's, and, and you talk about in this book how you don't have to go through a similar situation as somebody else to be able to empathize and relate to them.

And that was something that I really resonated with because there were so many things that you described.

I was on teen mom, you know, like I wasn't accused of murder or, or any serious crime.

And so I, you know, but I still related to so many things that you said in this book in trying to find myself, which is what you're describing.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And I think that was a big takeaway for me because, you know, again, like when I was writing my first memoir, Waiting to be Heard, I felt utterly estranged from the rest of humanity and that I constantly had to explain myself to people.

And in this book, this is where I've realized that, oh my God, this insane, very, not unique, but very uncommon experience that I went through has resonance with everybody's human experience.

And I slowly came to realize that and realize that, no, I was not estranged and ostracized from the rest of humanity.

I belonged.

And in fact, my experience had an important role for helping other people to understand their experience as well, because ultimately, the questions that we are all facing are the same.

When you've done work with the Innocence Project, whether it be Italy or anywhere else, have you talked to other exonerees about that experience about and the realization that you relate to more people than you even know, or more people can relate to you than you know?

Yeah, I mean, I think that is a really defining factor of a lot of exonerees: is we have felt like the world put us at a distance and we were, we were, we were called monsters.

And we're trying to like reclaim our place in humanity again.

And that involves an exchange of mutual trust because it's not just that we want the world to trust us.

We want to trust the world again.

And so like finding that place and those and those moments of connection and realizing that our experience is not just our own is a way that we can not just, you know, feel better about the world and learn learn to trust each other again, but also try to get people to understand what are the causes of wrongful convictions in the first place.

What is this impulse to judge other people that we have deep inside of us?

And how do we confront that in a way that we are being responsible to each other?

Have any, maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.

Have any outlets ever reached out to you and apologized to you for your betrayal?

You know what?

Actually,

one person has ever apologized to me, like directly.

No, I take that back, two people.

David Spade apologized to me because he like cracked a joke about me.

Like there was this one point where

I was potentially going to write like an advice column for the local newspaper, just, you know, like, hey, some advice.

As someone who's been through a whole hell of a lot of shit, like, here's some things I've learned, here's some advice.

And like on his show, he cracked a joke about how like it was going to be called Dear Stabby.

And it was just like a very unkind,

like really dismissive joke towards me.

Right.

And

I

don't even know how it like came up.

I think I might have told a comedian friend of mine or not.

I don't know how he, like, I don't know, even if he found out that I was hurt by it, but like he DM'd me on Instagram to say, hey, I realized that that was a really shitty joke and I'm sorry.

And I was just like, damn, David Spade, thank you.

And then another person I actually interviewed on my podcast

was a young woman who was a model,

or is a model, still is a model, but like back in the day, very young model, who had been hired by Vice

to

pose as me in a

or in an Amanda Knox-themed photo shoot where there were various different scenes, but a lot of them were like sexily posing in a prison cell or like at the one, the big, the main photo was her holding a big meat cleaver covered in like blood.

And, um,

and she, you know, it was just like a random job that she had.

It was very last minute.

She just showed up and was posing as me.

And then only years later did she realize like, oh my God, what what was I a part of and of course she was not the person who had orchestrated and and come up with a theme of this shoot like she was probably the least responsible for that shoot sure but she was the face okay and she felt horrible that like her image was used to portray me in that kind of way and so she reached out personally again on Instagram social media isn't all bad um to just say like I'm really sorry and then like I had her on my podcast um to discuss what that experience was like for her.

Had you seen the photos?

Oh, oh, you did?

I had seen the photos.

I had seen the photos years before and been hurt by them, but I never thought that anyone would reach out to me and like explicitly apologize.

Right.

I mean,

it feels to me after reading this, like, I know that you are,

after reading this, you know, you want to be kind and have sort of empathy for people and try to understand them where they are.

But I don't know how you continue on without being angry.

Do you ever go back and forth with that?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, I think a big misconception that I think people have is that if you are angry, you're only angry.

Or if you are, you appear not angry, then you do not experience anger.

Like, that is not the case.

And I think if you were to interview a lot of exoneries, you would see that like there is this level of like weird peace about them.

Like a lot of, not all of us, but a lot of us have this very forgiving, generous attitude towards the people who have harmed us.

And I think that's in part due to the fact that our trauma was not just a trauma of an instant, right?

It wasn't just the moment we were wrongly convicted and sentenced to, in my case, 26 years in prison.

It was the fact that it just kept going.

You are still in a, you wake wake up and you're still in a prison cell where you shouldn't be and years go by where you live with this trauma that keeps asserting itself and keeps reopening the wound every single day.

And there's only so much that like, there's only so much anger you can hold while you are surviving an ongoing protracted, prolonged trauma.

And so you learn to

hold the trauma and also hold on to what you need to survive that protracted trauma.

And what you need to survive often is not anger.

It is a sense of like acceptance and acknowledgement of the imperfections of reality and other human beings.

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You described how you got to that place in this book, but even as I was reading it, that was something that I couldn't relate to that.

Because when I think you talked about putting yourself in someone else's shoes,

I was trying to do that.

Yeah.

And the place that I got to is just anger.

Like, I don't, and I think that you're incredibly brave and strong for having that mindset and getting to that place because putting myself in your shoes, I really feel like I would be so angry all the time.

I mean,

here's the thing.

The anger is there.

It's just not the only feeling, right?

I'm still angry, you know, like it's because it's an angering situation.

It is an injustice.

And so I experience anger to this day.

I experience hurt to this day because there are still ways that I'm continuing.

This protracted trauma is not over for me, right?

Like I just got a little while ago, I just got reconvicted of the lesser crime in this case.

And, you know, they say that I was sentenced to three years time served.

And like, that's bullshit.

And like, I'm still fighting an ongoing drama of being the girl accused of murder and the girl who's guilt adjacent.

And like all of that is still happening.

And so there are still triggers.

And I think even Even if, say, I had been acquitted and everything was actually, actually over and everyone agreed that like I had nothing to do with it and I never had to explain myself to another human being ever again.

That doesn't mean the anger anger goes away because you are still experiencing.

I love this image of grief that I once heard that it's, I think a poet described it as carrying a box that you can't really quite get your hands around.

So you're constantly always like awkwardly positioning yourself to carry it.

And then you think you have it for a while, but then your arm gets tired.

And so you have to move it around again and hold it in a new way.

And I think that is this, that is true about life because we are not static human beings.

In every moment we are changing.

Becoming a mom forced me to hold that grief in a completely new way.

And so

what is what inspires that emotion of anger is, again, these renewed triggers.

But at the same time, it's not the only feeling that I feel.

I feel sadness.

I feel gratitude.

I feel gratitude that I'm alive,

that

I have the opportunity to speak to someone like you who's bothered to find out who I am.

Don't make me cry.

And

I'm so lucky that I get to have a family.

I mean, there's so many ways that I am so,

so lucky.

But I wish that people would give you the chance and I got frustrated for you.

It was really hard to read certain aspects because you know i went i know that you've done other podcast interviews and so i went to go look after i read the book i went to look and i'm like i just dude tissues i'm sorry like i'm like i get so i got frustrated because i could feel the pain and the conflict that you have gone through and what you're still going through and so i i got frustrated when i was like reading the comments because i'm like you guys have no idea the internal struggles that you're you're gonna face for the rest of your life and you know i do feel like everyone owes you something

Well, and I know that you don't feel that way necessarily.

Right.

I mean, we all owe each other something, right?

Like, I don't pretend that I'm the only person who has ever had a shitty thing happen to them, you know?

Right.

You've had a shitty thing happen to you.

I just don't happen to know about it.

Right.

Kind of everyone knows about the shitty thing I had happened to me.

And that's another weird thing that you can either be really upset about or really grateful for, because I never have to pretend that someone doesn't know the shitty thing that I've gone through.

They know it, and that I don't have to have the burden of wondering if I should hide it or tell it or not.

So it's just kind of there.

It's just there for everyone to see and to scrutinize if that's what they feel like they want to do.

And that, but it's an opportunity for me to build a bridge with another human being and they can decide to walk that bridge or not.

And if they do, great.

If they don't, okay.

Like this is life.

And

so I feel like, yes, there is anger, there is grief, but there is gratitude because there is always, always, always opportunity within the pain.

Right.

You know?

Yeah.

I wrote Chills in the Margin here where you talk about meeting Antoine Day and Josh Keeser, and they told me, they told you their stories.

Josh just texted me yesterday by,

yeah, because we obviously remain good friends.

And I owe Antoine a...

a call.

Thank you for bringing him up because we're in the exonerie band together.

And so I have to talk to him about what's going on at the Innocence Network conference this year.

But anyway, no, but that's incredible.

I mean, when you speak of gratitude, I mean, getting to know other people that have that share some of the same experience as you has to be somewhat cathartic, right?

Oh, totally.

Yeah, absolutely cathartic.

And also, so grateful that I get to encounter people and have something in common with people that I never would have met or had any reason to have a relationship with.

You know, like that's what an amazing thing.

In part of the book, you talked about how certain scandals and things like that are

um

painted in a way that you brought your own self up and it and it's you know the amanda knox scandal or amanda foxy noxy or um you brought up monica lewinski yes and i thought that was so interesting and i never really had that perspective that we're erasing what bill clinton did yes or what ken star did or whatever you know like and I there's I was so angry and hurt by that because truly

it was you know all of this was about Meredith's death, right?

And Rudy.

Yes.

And he gets off the hook and nobody really remembers him.

I had to Google him because I was like, I don't even actually know who committed the murder.

Right.

A lot of people don't know who committed the murder.

A lot of people don't know that he is being investigated, right?

Actually, the investigation is over.

He has been indicted with sexual assault of another young woman.

So he's going on trial for having sexually assaulted another young woman now that he's been out.

So like, nobody knows that because nobody cares about him because he's not the name and face associated with his own crimes.

Because drama sells, or what?

Like, what do you think it is?

I mean, I think people like simplifying things.

So, you know, they want one name and one face associated with one story.

And the

media

and I think the prosecution in the case realized that the most compelling narrative was focused on me for, you know,

the reasons, the reasons.

And as a result of that, like, it's, it's simplifying it for the audience.

Like, if you throw too many words and adjectives and things to remember about a story, it's not going to remind people of what like of what the product is, right?

Like, it's Target, it is Macy's, it is Amanda Dox.

Like, it is a product.

So, if you think about it as a product that someone is selling you, then it makes sense that it has its own little trademark, its own little logo.

Like that is what is being sold to people.

And, but the problem is, this is a real-life tragedy that has many victims.

And the way that it has been packaged as a product is a misrepresentation of that reality.

No, 100%.

And I was, I mean, just reading it, I was like, these are not characters in a movie.

These are not characters in a book.

These are real human beings that are affected for the rest of their lives.

And I mean, I don't even know.

I don't know how someone is able to get through things, some of the things that you've been through.

Um, I really, I truly don't do no,

right, because what else?

I wrote on the side here, bring this up.

Um, you wrote, I desperately wanted to merely be judged for who I actually was, for what I'd actually done, but I wasn't even sure how much blame rested on the rest of the world and how much rested on me.

I none rested on you, in my opinion.

Yeah, I I've slowly come to that realization.

So

this part of the book that you're talking about is me grappling when I, especially when I first came home with the amount of blame that was being put on me for my own wrongful conviction.

So there was this sense that like, even if I wasn't guilty of the crime, I was guilty of being

thought of as guilty.

So people were sort of attributing to me blame for the bad thing that had happened to me.

And again, like, this is something that you see all the time in wrongful conviction cases, where there's this sense of, okay, fine, you didn't do it.

This eyewitness thought it was you.

So, like, you know, what else were we supposed to think?

And it's, and there's this like shocking amount of

unwillingness for the people who are charged to hold people accountable for crimes to not hold themselves accountable.

And there's a scapegoating of the wrongly convicted person as if they are responsible for everything that happened when really we are the least responsible and we had the least amount of power for what happened.

Sort of like that model that did the pictures, right?

Exactly.

Exactly.

So how do we change that?

Like, you know, because I consume media, I scroll on TikTok, I read headlines, but I also, you know, I have the podcast and I want to set the record straight.

How do I, as a consumer of all of this and

in just the general public, how do we change that?

That's a great question.

So, there are a couple of things that people can do.

One is become a little more literate about how media is made.

How is this product that is being sold to you made?

And what are the incentive structures behind that product that is being sold to you?

Is it an oversimplification of reality?

Is it a story that is meant to trigger your primal impulses?

And

is that true or is that not true?

If you are like, one choice people have to ask themselves is: do I want to be consuming this product?

Just because it's being shoved down my throat doesn't mean that I actually have to consume it.

Do I want to be consuming this product?

And if I do want to be consuming this product, which is totally fine, because like I'm not going to like judge somebody for being interested in true crime, these are real human life stories that

are important, not just to the people who are directly impacted, but they have like this

resonating effect on society.

Like it makes sense that we care about crimes, even if they happen across the world, because it is a human dilemma of like how we are hurt and how the institutions are supposed to support us.

So it makes sense to want to care about that.

But if that is true,

then know why you are consuming that product and then make sure that you are consuming the right product.

You know, like if you want to, if you want to get healthy, you don't just listen to McDonald's when they say that their hamburgers are healthy for you.

You, you go and you learn what's healthy for you.

And so get, get the things that you need from the products that are being offered to you.

And don't just sort of take the easy way out and just be like, oh, this is the thing that's happening to me.

That's what it is.

I think that would be a big factor.

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When I was growing up on reality TV, it was always, I would get really upset about some of the edits and they would say, we have to make this digestible for the audience.

We have to make sure that when this is edited, it makes sense to the viewer, even if it's skewing the story and how it actually happened.

It has to make sense to the viewer.

And I would imagine that that's sort of the same way that.

Yeah, makes sense to the viewer is a very patronizing way of saying, like, I need to make this black and white because otherwise the audience is going to be too dumb to appreciate the nuance.

Right.

And fitting, you know, a circle into a square or what.

the prosecutor did to you in in fitting fitting the evidence into his theory, right?

Exactly.

So, and that's really sad because I did read, and I don't know how much you want to talk about it.

We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to, but you know, you reaching out to your prosecutor and holding him accountable, but also giving him a chance to explain himself.

Totally.

Yeah, I think the thing I want to,

again, I really hope people will read this because it is a complex

development in my story of like reaching out to my prosecutor, developing a relationship with him, and having this dialogue that was not just about the case,

but also was about the case and how it has, how it has developed and evolved over time.

Like, that is a really interesting story and it's a fascinating, even just like,

I mean, it should be in like a psychology case study.

It should

the whole time I was like, what is going on?

And you really didn't have a whole lot of support in going to talk to him and developing this relationship.

I know that you mentioned that your husband was overall supportive, but you know, your parents

were so angry.

Was crazy.

I was a little bit like, I don't know that I would do this just because I would be so angry.

So here's the thing, though.

Like someone told me, asked me the other day,

what do you do when the whole world's against you?

Yeah, what do you do?

What do you do?

And I said, well, over the years, I've discovered that

the only thing that can sort of stop someone in their tracks.

And by in their tracks, I mean in the tracks of their their just like already developed thoughts about you,

is to surprise them.

But how do you do that?

You do what no one would expect you to do, reach out to your prosecutor.

Everyone expected me to hate him and run away from him for the rest of my life.

I hated him for you.

And, you know, it's tempting to hate and run away from people when you've been victimized.

And I felt like

that wasn't enough for me because I had unanswered questions, but also I was a part of me, the sort of a rebellious part of me was like,

what can I do that everyone doesn't expect me to do?

Right.

But when he still wouldn't apologize, how do you get to the place where you can

be okay with that?

I have, I actually have a good analogy for this.

Okay.

So in life,

you cannot control.

Right.

You cannot control what's happening in your life.

So I explain it like there's a difference between going shopping and going thrift shopping.

Okay.

When you go shopping, you have a list of things that you need.

You go to the store,

you find them where you expect to find them.

You get them and you take them home.

I think a lot of people think that life is like shopping, but life is actually thrift shopping.

Thrift shopping, you go.

And if you have a list of things that you need to get from the thrift store, you are inevitably going to be disappointed because they may or may not have the things that you need in your size.

So, like, if you go into a thrift store and you're looking for that specific little black dress that you saw in the catalog that's going to fit you perfectly, you are going to walk away from your life disappointed.

Okay.

But instead, if you go to the thrift store with an open mind and are ready to to receive whatever it is the thrift gods have in store for you, a mushroom lamp, for instance,

then you are going to find yourself pleasantly surprised by, and you're going to find your life an enjoyable experience because you are open to discovering things that you needed, that you didn't know you needed.

And so for me, as a very curious person, I'm very, very curious.

Instead of having expectations of people, I try to give people the opportunity to pleasantly surprise me.

Okay.

And to like allow myself to know that there are are certain needs that I have, but that those needs can be met in unspecified ways.

So what do I need when I ask my prosecutor to apologize and to say he was wrong?

What do I need there?

Well, I need him to recognize that I am a human being that was misunderstood and hurt as a result of that misunderstanding.

And even though he is, to this day, incapable of saying, I was wrong and I'm sorry, he is capable of saying many other things

that

touch upon that need that I have, that deep down need.

And

I don't want to give him away.

So read the book.

Definitely read the book.

But do you know what I mean?

I do, but I also, like,

are you okay with where it stands today with your prosecutor, where your relationship, or do you still have a relationship with him today?

Yeah, yeah.

Are you texted me happy Valentine's Day?

He did?

Yeah.

See, I don't know.

I don't know how it's so complicated.

It is complicated.

It's not just a like, it's not black and white.

Yeah, no.

It's so not black and white.

So

are you okay with where your relationship stands with him today?

Do you feel like you got what you needed?

Do you know that bluey episode where

that bluey episode where Bingo is pressing the yes, no button at the same time?

Yes.

Yes, no.

Okay.

And there's a great Zen saying.

I practice Zen.

There's a great Zen saying where

a Zen monk went to his master and said,

Master,

basically, how am I doing?

And

his master said, you're perfect just the way you are, and you could use improvement.

And that's exactly what it is.

I mean, that's exactly what reality is.

It is this paradox of if you really, really sit with things as they are,

you realize that they are okay.

No matter what's going on, if you really just like sit with it,

it's okay.

And also, it can use some improvement.

That's

how I feel about your prosecutor.

I don't want to mispronounce his name, so I will.

Oh, yes.

Yeah.

Giuliano Mignini.

Giuliano Mignini.

Okay.

I feel like I was pretty close.

I silently read it, but I was close in my head.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

I also mispronounced Hermione's name for years.

I thought it was Hermione.

Okay.

Until like book four when J.K.

Rowling specifically spelled it out.

Is she French?

Like, is that a French name?

Hermione?

No.

I think it's a Greek derivative.

Oh, that makes sense.

Okay.

I don't know.

I also wrote implicit bias here.

Before I was wrongly accused, I never gave the criminal justice system a second thought because I belonged to a class of people who didn't have to.

Yes.

And I feel like that's one of the things in this book that so many many people can resonate with, even not sharing your same experience.

Absolutely.

That's true.

And that's why, and that's a thing that I hope people come away from it as well.

Because when I look at my role, like, okay, so life gives you whatever it is that it gives you.

And you get to decide what you're going to do with it.

And one of the things that life gave me was the opportunity, like you said, to connect with other people who had gone through this experience, but whose stories never made it to me because I was living in my little suburb in Seattle reading Harry Potter and not like, and it wasn't in the news and nobody was talking about it.

And one of the, I will never forget one of the first things that someone told me, which was like,

you know,

thank God you got wrongly convicted, Amanda, because if it wasn't for you, this little white girl from the suburbs in Seattle, college educated, who got wrongly convicted, no one would believe that it was was real.

And that,

like,

to this day, it gives me chills because it's an unfortunate reality, but it's true.

And I think that many people

didn't really empathize or even know about the wrongly convicted person's experience until they heard about it through me.

And so, like, when I look at that is like, it can be just a sad thing, that's true, or it can be an opportunity.

It can be an opportunity for me to build a bridge between that world and the world that didn't know about it.

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I think that yours was, like I said, I vaguely knew who you were before.

I didn't do a deep dive or anything prior to, you know, reading your book and everything, but I had heard that you were wrongly convicted.

And I then, after that, heard about, you know, like Khalif Browder.

I don't know if you know who he is.

That was a tragic story.

And

Greg Kelly.

I don't know if you've ever heard of Greg Kelly.

I don't know about Greg Kelly.

What's his story?

His story is that he was wrongly convicted for child molestation.

Which is like one of the worst things you could ever be accused of.

I mean, and he was a college, he was going to go to college and then potentially be drafted to the NFL.

And so huge story.

And it ended up

the,

I don't, I guess the, not the suspect, what is the word I'm looking for?

The, the person who actually did it was right in front of their face.

Ugh.

And you're just like, and, and they go on to be criminals in other ways.

And you're like, where?

Open your eyes.

What is going on here?

That is the story.

That's the, like.

And that's one of those tragic consequences that I think people don't really appreciate about wrongful convictions is like in the vast majority of wrongful conviction cases, an actual crime occurred and they got the wrong person, which means that the person who did do the crime is somewhere out there.

And possibly committing more crimes.

And very likely committing more crimes.

Exactly.

And that's heartbreaking.

When I Googled Rudy and I saw that he was, he had, I mean, this wasn't his first

crime.

No, right.

He was not an unknown entity.

he had he had a history of breaking and entering he hadn't murdered anyone yet but as we know the progression the progression the escalation

it just continues yeah so now you work with the innocence project

what other advocacy work do you do so so the innocence project um was is based in new york there are lots of innocence projects i think this is a really good um distinction and i think a lot of people have a misunderstanding that like there's one innocence project there are actually many innocence projects i am on the board of something called the innocence center which is an entirely separate innocence entity but they're all like innocence organizations.

They all do the same thing and they're based in different places.

So the Innocence Project here in New York primarily works in New York, although because they're such a big and you know well-established organization, they often give assistance elsewhere.

Like

a recent case that the Innocence Project here in New York was working on was in Hawaii, this like horrible murder of this young woman named Dana Ireland that for 25 years, they had the wrong people.

And then they finally found the, they finally found the person who did it using like genetic genealogy.

Anyway, it's a long, crazy story.

I'm actually,

I'm hosting a podcast about it that's going to be coming out later

called Three.

So look out for that.

Yeah, what, can you just mention what your podcast is?

I know it's Labyrinth.

Yes, but

my podcast is called Labyrinths.

It is produced and host with me and my husband, Christopher Robinson.

And we talk about, we talk to people.

It's not just criminal justice related.

It's the idea being, again, that we all have an interconnected reality, which is we all at certain points in our life feel lost and we have to find our way again.

So I talk to people about those kinds of experiences.

But I also occasionally

guest host other podcasts.

And one of those that I'm doing is called Three.

It is with Audio Chuck and the crime junkie crew.

And we are looking into the case of Dana Ireland and the discovery of who actually committed the crime and the subsequent wrongful convictions of Ian Schweitzer and his brother and another man named Frank Pauline.

And I haven't heard of these cases and that's so heartbreaking because

I was talking to somebody yesterday about how people on the internet, they don't even have law degrees or investigation experience, but they can help.

And if there are more eyes on a case,

it's possible that they could make a break or they could do something helpful.

Absolutely.

And, you know, a great example of this, have you ever seen Don't Fuck With Cats?

Yes.

Yes.

I saw that.

So like the manpower, like one of the, one of the major causes of wrongful conviction is just lack of resources that investigators have to pursue cases.

And one of the great ways that people can assist with a case is by

donating that manpower.

And that goes for, you know, innocence projects, anything.

Like I remember there was an incredible amount of work that people did for my own family while I was being wrongly convicted.

Amazing things that they were doing that they didn't have to do, like just cataloging all of the evidence, translating court documents because it was all in Italian.

Some people were donating hours just translating court documents for my family.

Other people were database specialists.

And so they were taking this influx of crazy information and just organizing it.

Like even just the process of organizing all of the stuff that goes into a case is incredibly overwhelming.

So having someone with a specialization in that can really, really help people.

Or you're a media specialist.

You could give, you could donate media training to somebody who's coming out of a wrongful conviction and wants to tell their story, but doesn't know how.

Like, you know, I'm going to be doing a panel at the Innocence Network conference this year that's specifically about media training and what to keep in mind when you want to tell your story and you want to partner with somebody in the media world to tell your story and what outlet you might want to use.

That's really interesting because I would imagine you were sort of thrown into media, you know, coming actually the entire time, not even just coming out of prison.

But, and so you probably had no idea how to essentially conduct yourself in an interview or how to.

No, I was media traumatized before I was media trained.

There's a lot to be said there because, I mean, it sort of perpetuates the, you know, any theories that are clearly outrageous.

But, I mean, you're like, oh, well, she, she looked a certain way or she adjusted herself a certain way or she didn't shed a tear.

So she's guilty, obviously.

Right.

You know, and she's like

traumatized.

I mean, I would love to talk to an exonerie and help them with media training.

I don't know that, I don't know if I'd be a good fit for it, but I would at least try.

Absolutely.

And you never know because, like, every exonerie is different.

I think that's another thing to remember: we're all different people.

We're not the same person.

Right.

You might like, maybe you try connecting with one person and it's not a good fit.

And you try connecting with another person and you guys hit it off.

Like, you know, there's, we're all human beings.

And I think the thing that people underestimate is like how much was taken from an exonerary.

And so how much there is opportunity to give.

Right.

And there's like so much potential in within, just like there's so much potential within every one of us.

Like really like giving someone an opportunity to like access parts of themselves that they might not even know about is

an incredible gift.

When you started with the Innocence Project, was the innocent Italy's Innocence Project or Innocence Project of Italy the first time that you developed a relationship with the Innocence Project in any branch?

In fact, while I was going through everything, the Italy Innocence Project didn't exist.

Oh.

It formed after my

everything that I went through.

Because of what you went through or just a coincidence?

I mean,

I wouldn't say it was only because of me.

Sure.

There are lots of wrongful convictions.

And I think, you know, the, so Luca Luparia and Maria or Martina Cargosi are the two people who are the only

innocence.

People think Innocence Project, they imagine like 100 people working on it.

It's a lot of times it's like one or two people who like start an organization and they just like do a bunch of pro bono work.

And so that's the case in Italy.

It's Luca Luparia and Martina Cagosi who are working on

any, you know, like all of these issues.

And it's not just working cases, it's also working legislation, trying to like change the laws to make it possible to overturn wrongful wrongful convictions.

So, like, that is all work that they are doing pro bono and by themselves.

So, anybody who can offer like some support in that regard is great.

So, they didn't exist while I was going through everything, and I didn't know anything about the Innocence Project.

As far as I knew, I was the only person who was who had ever gone through this experience.

Like, that I literally was like that ignorant.

And it wasn't until I came home and I connected with other innocence organizations who reached out to my family to support my family.

Then I realized the true scope of not just what I had been through, but like this institutional global human problem.

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I didn't realize that there was an Innocence project in any other country i just thought it was in california in the united states yeah no um it's it's so

the first ever innocence project began here in new york which is where we are in case anyone's wondering

but then from there

um different organizations started popping up around the country and then

either

There were attorneys here who are working on innocence projects who decided to bring them out of country.

A good example of this is Justin Brooks, who is like solely responsible for there being any innocence projects in all of South America.

He like just because because he has connections and he can he speaks Spanish and he has all these connections with South America, he just brought that work to South America and helped establish organizations in different countries there.

Okay, amazing.

Yeah, exactly.

And he is, again, is on the board of the Innocence Center, the

project that I am like directly affiliated with.

But then, you know, other countries just were inspired by the work of the Innocence Project and decided that they wanted to form their own, like, again,

individual people.

Right.

One person, like, one of my favorite people is Bill Oberly of Alaska.

Again, single guy who decided that instead of retiring from his lawyer job, he was just going to fully commit himself to pro bono innocence work in his retirement by himself in Alaska.

Just because he's a good person, you know?

Just because he's a good person and he believes in it and he could do it.

So now he has, you know, some people working with him, but like

he was by himself.

And he's not like, you know, he's not a fundraiser.

He's not a politician.

He's a lawyer.

He just, he knows the law.

Right.

And so he just plugs away.

And a lot of times it's just this like plugging away day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year.

And 80% of the time, you don't win.

80% of the time.

Even with help from the Innocence Project.

Yeah, absolutely.

80% of the time, the Innocence Project is taking on cases and there just isn't a way to help this innocent person.

Why?

They've exhausted all their appeals.

The DNA was not

saved, so it couldn't be tested.

There are a million things that can go wrong.

And in a lot of the, especially older cases where they've already gone through all of their appeals process and there just isn't a process to, there isn't a hearing that they can have that would reconsider their case.

How many appeals are allowed?

I mean, it depends

per case.

Yeah, yeah.

I would say that like, you know, there are technical, like there are things that happen on the state level.

There are things that happen on the federal level.

So like there, it's, it depends case by case where it is, what's going on.

But yes, so like there, there reaches a certain point where the United States government said, you had your chance, too bad.

And that's why actually Mark Godsey, who is a former prosecutor, now head of the Ohio Innocence Project, is attempting to change laws internationally to make innocence a human right.

So the idea, because right now, like if you are innocent of a crime, you are not guaranteed freedom.

You're not, if you, if you can prove you're innocent, it doesn't mean that you are guaranteed to be freed or found innocent.

All that you are guaranteed is a fair trial.

And if you have exhausted the process of of a fair trial, tough nuts.

So what we are trying to do or what he is trying to do and just sort of by we, I mean the innocence movement, we are trying to establish a human right to, if you can prove your innocence, then it doesn't matter where you are in the legal process.

Like you deserve to have a chance to be freed.

That's incredible.

And I just, how can people, just everyday people contribute to the, to helping something like this, like a movement like this?

I mean, again, one big way is to look up your local innocence project.

Okay.

That's really key.

Is it's like find what's happening locally.

The best thing that you can do is look at what's happening on the ground where you are.

Okay.

And then so find those people who are doing that work locally.

Sometimes it's in your state, sometimes it's in like an area, like the Midwest Innocence Project is a project because they cover like three different states.

Okay.

Or for instance, the Idaho Innocence Project used to exist, but they ran out of funding.

So now a lot of the cases that the Idaho Innocence Project was working on have now been brought on to the Innocence Center, which is what I work with.

And so they're working on Idaho cases, even though they're based in California.

And so, like, there's a lot, like, it's a little shifty.

You have to do a little bit of research, but like, find out what's going on locally and then ask, like,

this is, this is who I am.

This is what my area of expertise is, what I can offer.

Even if it's like, I can offer a monthly donation.

Great.

If I can offer to help read case files, like, I have some experience in that.

I can offer to like help you correspond with

the person in prison just so that you can, like, I can help them keep up to date with what's going on.

Like, there are a million different little tiny tasks that could be, that manpower would lend to.

So anything like that.

I'll be curious to see if Delaware has anything.

If you work in airlines, by the way, or you work in any kind of transportation, like someone donated

their miles to my family so they could more cheaply travel to Italy.

I wanted to ask you about that, if you don't mind, your family.

When I was reading the book, and

you did touch a little bit on your, your first memoir, but I,

you're, just to clarify, your family moved to Italy, or your mom was a school teacher, so she couldn't move there, but, but somebody hosted your, your stepdad, is that right?

Yes.

So someone in my family, after I was arrested, was always in Italy for the entire duration of my imprisonment in Italy.

So we rent, for the first three years, we rented, or we, they, my family, rented a tiny apartment on the outskirts of Perusia.

And someone was alone there sitting around waiting to come see me for one hour a week.

Did they work while they were there?

Well, it depends.

So like, depending on what their job was.

My stepdad, who spent the majority, he was the one who spent the most time in Italy.

He works in tech so he could do his work remotely right my mom who is a school teacher could only go when she was on break but you know she's a school teacher so she has the summer off so she could come see me in the summer she could see me on spring break she could see me during winter break that's when I would see my mom so it really depends on when people could get time off of work but I would imagine that became incredibly expensive because you still have a mortgage or rent to pay in the United States and then you have you know the I know how much it costs to fly overseas and then you have multiple people and then you have siblings right And then lawyer fees on top of all that.

And then you use the proceeds from your first memoir to pay your family and your legal team, which I thought was incredible for you to do.

I thought I was incredibly lucky to be able to do.

I'll cry right now.

I will cry.

So when I was telling the girls this morning, I was like,

why am I so emotional about your story?

Because it's fucking emotional.

That's why.

I was telling the girls, like, you know, how

I felt like your hands were tied, but you did everything you could.

I mean, that's all we can do, you know?

But you didn't deserve any of this.

And so.

And neither do any of any of the,

right, right.

But I just, I thought it was incredible, but then I had so many questions because I'm like, how, how is that possible that your family could, you know, be there every single week?

And I read that in the book.

And it was like, well,

I mean, people could go into bankruptcy doing that.

You know what I mean?

Just trying to be there to support you.

And I also, also, which was so weird to me is that I had never heard of your family supporting you during this entire time.

None of that was part of the media headlines.

None of that was, you know, in the research.

It was, there was a lot of things that, you know, I told you after I read, I googled and

couldn't find anything about the family support and how in this book, you talk about you, you grew up with a very happy childhood.

And none of that was mentioned.

And it wasn't talked about that you, you know, had a sibling and, you know, you guys were really close and a tight-knit family and you were with your oma and like all of this.

And so I just, just, if it can happen to you, it could happen.

And, you know, so many of us don't even think twice.

So you said that, but so many of us don't think twice about the fact that it could happen.

And your stepdad, I thought, was really incredible.

And I'm, I have a blended family as well.

And, you know, my partner is a stepdad to, you know, some of my other kids.

And I was thinking about how incredible that relationship must be for you with your stepdad to have been willing to do that.

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

I mean, he stepped up.

He was, he went into dad mode.

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

And it made me emotional because I'm like you know your family really banded together for you yeah and like especially considering that they're like I had sort of grown up with like my mom's over here and my dad's right here and they're very close okay but they don't really mix because like their breakup was not sure

was not consensual we'll say and so like there was this like understanding that like here's my mom's world here's my dad's world also culturally they were very different my mom was born in germany and so i had a very german upbringing um you know growing up eating Ruladen and Zvetkin Knöl and all of that, like that was mom's house, and then dad's house was like hamburger helper and hot dogs, you know, like Mr.

All-American.

And um, so that was like a really interesting way to grow up because it sort of infused in me this like deep, deep knowledge that the world has many cultures and many ways of being, and they're all cool, they're just different.

Um,

but

they like without question immediately banded together your biological parents my biological parents to save me like

put like this is how you do parenthood like my parents are so dope because like whatever their like individual personal bullshit like

doesn't matter it doesn't matter

like it doesn't matter i'm honest honestly honored that you are willing to be emotional with me because like it's emotional for me you know like

and it, I mean, it taught me so much about how to be a parent today.

Like, it just doesn't matter what all of my shit is.

It is, I am there.

I am for her.

I am for my son.

I am for my daughter.

Like, no question.

So, sort of to switch gears a little bit, with you saying that your, your mom and dad kind of banded together.

They did band together, not kind of, they banded together for you to save you.

Has that sort of shifted the dynamic now that you

it has?

So, like, does everyone get along?

i mean in the way that a family gets along yeah

but like yes in the way that in the sense that like now we can hang out with each other and and in ways that we didn't before just because like we've trauma bonded in a you know in a new way yeah and that's great like there's an openness now that wasn't quite there before there was this feeling before of like

I had two separate families and it doesn't feel that way anymore.

It feels it's a united family that is just big and complicated and full of history.

Layered.

Yeah, layered.

But you would want that for your own kids, right?

You have two kids of your own and you want them to feel that.

I really, really appreciate you bringing up my family.

We could talk about them more if you want.

Well, in the sense that like, I think that people, another sort of misconception I think that people have about

wrongful convictions is that like they only ever happen to the person that is the person going to prison.

Like that, that is the one person who is being impacted by this wrongful conviction.

And it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no.

What you said in the book, I mean, you have

three sisters?

I have three younger sisters.

Yeah.

And you missed four years of their lives.

And not just them, like my cousin, like absolutely.

My aunts and uncle, like, you know, but like, yes, if we're talking about like that like core, yes, I missed, like, my youngest sister was nine years old when I went to prison.

And she was 13 when I got out.

So much happened.

So much happens in that period of time.

In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't feel like four years is a lot.

But when you're reading, when I was reading your book, I was like, no, four years is, I mean, especially with siblings.

I mean, four years can make a world of a difference.

Absolutely.

Or like, I remember my cousin coming to visit me once.

So my family also is very tight-knit.

So I grew up like very close to my cousins.

And because I'm the oldest of all of them, like I was constantly babysitting them, taking them out places.

Like, you know, I was taking my cousin to the zoo constantly.

And I loved it because I'm obsessed with the zoo, even though it's like some of them aren't ethical.

But actually, the one, the one in Seattle is ethical, so we're going.

Don't go to the one in Madrid, Spain.

Okay.

I recently went.

Don't go.

Don't go.

All right.

Noted.

And I remember just like, I hadn't seen him in years and I hadn't really given, you know, you get pictures, like, I was allowed to have picture, like 10 pictures with me of my family in my cell.

And I just sort of coveted them.

And, and, but they're like these static images of people.

And then he came the one, like the one time that he was allowed to come,

he showed up and he was suddenly, he went from being here

to here,

from like here to here, and from hi to hi.

And I was just like,

oh my God.

And you just didn't even expect for that to be.

No, I was not expecting it.

No.

I was just shocked.

Because I think about my own kids and the, I mean, looking back at videos of my own kids from nine to 13 is,

I mean, it's like I don't, they're two different people.

And so when you're, I mean, seeing people that you're close to and you haven't seen them for four years or three years even, and now it's a different person, you, you, you realize how much you possibly missed out on.

Right.

And also, how much are they missing out on you?

Mm-hmm.

Because like I'm just crying back

because also, like, I think the thing that sort of shocked me,

especially when I came out, was not really knowing how much I had changed and

coming out and realizing that I was not the person who went in

and realizing that my own family, who had been attempting to hold my hand throughout this entire experience,

really

like physically couldn't do that with me.

They had not lived the same experiences as me.

And so it was like we were walking on paths together, but they were different paths and we were encountering different things along the way.

And then we met up on the other side as if we had been walking this path together, but like I had seen very different things that they had seen.

And now we had to rediscover who each other was.

And I'm sure that presented its own set of challenges because

it was probably a shock to them just as much as it was to you to realize that.

Oh, and let's like, if we're going to get really real right now, let's also talk about how understandably

there was this sensation that even though everyone knew that it was not my fault,

the trauma that they all experienced was associated with me.

And so there was a kind of sense of

all of our lives got put on hold and all of us went through this horrific thing because of you.

Me.

And then you feel like what do I do?

How do I make up for that?

How do I, like, how do I?

I didn't even know all the things that they were going through because I was stuck in a box.

And then I come back and I'm like, oh,

now my nine-year-old sister has panic attacks all the time.

Oh,

now my, my other sister,

you know, she had to drop out of college.

And, and, like,

what do I do about that?

There are certain things that I can't do anything about, and that's hard.

I have to give like so much credit to my sisters, especially my younger sister, Deanna,

because she was carrying so much pain.

As

the sort of de facto older sister, after I was put in prison, she felt a lot of the burden of like being the older sister.

And that left some deep, deep scars.

And that took the form of resentment towards me.

And it got to the point where we were really struggling.

But like she

came around and like

re

reconnected with me in a way that I have never, you know, talk about like

someone coming around and like

owning their own shit, but also

acknowledging, like, just seeing the world clearly and being willing to like have the grace and the gratitude and the forgiveness.

Like she came to me and like, I have never experienced like the kind of grace that my sister had towards me

and the willingness to like acknowledge my experience that she could not have lived herself.

Like

my sister is incredible.

I'm so proud of her.

But that's the story that so many people don't have.

That's, that's the side of all of this that people, they need to read about it.

Would you say that you guys are closer now then?

Oh, yes.

Yeah.

How could you not?

How could you not?

Yeah.

yeah i mean either it destroys your relationships or it makes you stronger and so like your hope is like what can i do from this painful experience that's not just going to break me or break us yeah how do how do we together like find the opportunity in the pain do you think that

the when your mom was instilling in you to be kind do you think that that also your your sister also had that in her because of your mom and that's how you guys were able to sort of empathize with each other and come full circle for each other you know that's a great question that i should talk to my sister about yeah you know i don't want to speak for her but you know like we were raised by the same mom so you'd think like because it was it seemed to be pretty impactful for it was very very like a very defining moment for me in my youth so when my mom just sort of offhand like oh you know you know you could be smart you could be beautiful but what i really want is for you to be kind and it just like stuck with me

making peanut butter sandwiches you know like it was this tall you know like something that just sticks with you forever and then you're and it makes you wonder what i'm gonna say to my kid that's gonna stick with them forever and it's like i hope he's not gonna send them to therapy no literally when you when i read that in your book i'm like i don't know how many things i've said to my kids and i'm like please don't let it be the wrong thing that sticks with them please and that and that's the thing you don't have control over you know except like be mindful of what you're conveying you know and that's so hard though in the moment because like you could say something when you're when you're so mad or you're so frustrated and and totally you just never know what they're gonna remember or like really hold on to yeah and I think that's where the practice of like meditation and mindfulness can really help because like you don't want to be at the mercy of whatever is the first thought that comes to your mind or the first thing the words that are you feel the impulse to come out of your mouth you want to be

You want to have like just a step away from that like immediate impulse and to be able to like really consciously decide: do I really want to be saying that?

Right.

Or do I

want to be doing that?

Everything.

Well, we could talk about where to find your book.

Yes.

So, I guess where you find books.

Barnes and Noble, Amazon.

Yeah.

I mean, it's published by Hachette.

So if you, I guess this is coming out after it's coming out.

So don't pre-order it.

Just order the damn thing.

It comes out March 25th.

You can get it on Amazon.

You can go to Hachette and order it, or you can, whatever.

Check your Barnes and Noble's are going to have it.

and i am going to be popping around a few places to like um or if you want you could reach out to amandanox.com leave a message if you want um you can maybe like i can you can send me your book and i can sign it or send a message you know like those whole things so if you want to come and get in contact with me amandinox.com there's a contact form um that's where you can find anything about my work labyrinths um

uh you know all all of the stuff that i that i work on and labyrinths is her podcast labyrinth is my podcast um the innocence Center is the Innocence organization that I work with, but I also do a lot of like fundraising and helping work with other innocence projects.

Do please look into your local Innocence project.

I'm so happy that you came.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, thank you so much.

It's been great.

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