Speaker 1: Pushkin hay Slight Changers. A quick heads up, This is
Speaker 1: part two of my conversation with Amanda Knox. If you
Speaker 1: haven't listened to part one, we released it in the
Speaker 1: Feed last week. I highly recommend you go back and listen.
Speaker 1: You won't want to miss the full story. Okay, now
Speaker 1: onto the show.
Speaker 2: I have all of.
Speaker 3: This psychological baggage that I'm carrying with me, and the
Speaker 3: last thing I want to do is to pass that
Speaker 3: on to my daughter. So I have to figure this out.
Speaker 3: Is this puzzle of my trauma. I have to figure
Speaker 3: it out, and I have to figure it out.
Speaker 2: Now, like yesterday.
Speaker 1: Amanda Knox has spent a decade trying to move on
Speaker 1: from the worst thing that ever happened to her, being
Speaker 1: wrongfully convicted of murder, and she's felt haunted by one question,
Speaker 1: in particular, why why was the lead prosecutor, Giuliano Mignini
Speaker 1: so determined to vilify her?
Speaker 3: I couldn't understand how like very immediately, like from day one,
Speaker 3: people and particularly Giuliano Mignini, saw guilt in me that
Speaker 3: wasn't there, And I realized that the only way to
Speaker 3: truly understand was to ask him.
Speaker 1: On today's show Amanda confronts the man who helped put
Speaker 1: her behind bars. I'm Maya Shunker, a scientist who studies
Speaker 1: human behavior, and this is a slight change of plans,
Speaker 1: a show about who we are and who we become
Speaker 1: in the face of a big change. It is shocking
Speaker 1: to me how many people still believe Amanda Knox is
Speaker 1: guilty of murder, despite the lack of forensic evidence. The
Speaker 1: real killer was identified and sentenced in two thousand and
Speaker 1: eight after his DNA was discovered all over the body
Speaker 1: of the victim, Meredith Kircher. Meredith was Amanda's roommate at
Speaker 1: the time. Amanda was initially sentenced to twenty six years
Speaker 1: in an Italian prison, and she spent nearly four years
Speaker 1: behind bars before being acquitted on appeal. But even after
Speaker 1: Amanda's release, after she returned to the US, the prosecution
Speaker 1: continued to pursue her, and at one point they reconvicted her.
Speaker 1: After a painful multi year legal battle, Amanda was finally
Speaker 1: definitively exonerated in twenty fifteen by Italy's highest court. The
Speaker 1: years of public vilification and fear have taken a massive
Speaker 1: emotional toll on Amanda and recently, she made a bold
Speaker 1: and surprising decision to reach back out to her prosecutor.
Speaker 1: I wanted to know why. She told me part of
Speaker 1: it had to do with becoming a mom and wanting
Speaker 1: to unpack her trauma for the sake of her young children.
Speaker 1: We started our conversation by going back to the moment
Speaker 1: she received her initial prison sentence at age twenty two
Speaker 1: and what it all meant for her long held dream
Speaker 1: of one day having a family.
Speaker 3: The minute they handed down that twenty six year sentence
Speaker 3: to me, I did the math, and I knew what
Speaker 3: my body was capable of and what it was not
Speaker 3: capable of, and I reasoned that I had not just
Speaker 3: been condemned to prison time. I had been condemned to infertility,
Speaker 3: which was devastating for me because I had always wanted
Speaker 3: to be a mom, Like my mom made me sign
Speaker 3: a contract in Green cran when I was like six
Speaker 3: or seven years old, because I was already talking about
Speaker 3: wanting to be a mom, and as a very young
Speaker 3: single mom, she was like, I'm gonna make you sign
Speaker 3: a contract that says you're gonna wait until you're thirty
Speaker 3: to be a mom, because I seriously.
Speaker 2: Like already like six or seven.
Speaker 3: I was like, I can't wait to be a mom,
Speaker 3: and she's like, will see so yeah, So to be
Speaker 3: given the opportunity to like get out of prison as
Speaker 3: a young person, still within my fertile years, I was
Speaker 3: still up against a huge challenge, right Like I was
Speaker 3: still the girl accused of murder, which felt very, very
Speaker 3: ostracizing and very limiting to me at that point, and
Speaker 3: so I still was at a loss of how I
Speaker 3: was going to be able to have a family and
Speaker 3: have a career and be a mom, Like, who would
Speaker 3: ever want to date Amanda Knox with all the baggage
Speaker 3: that comes with it. I was estranged from the world.
Speaker 3: And then I got very, very lucky. In twenty fifteen,
Speaker 3: I met for the first time my husband, and to
Speaker 3: Chris's credit, he did not allow himself to be influenced
Speaker 3: by all of the crap that was said about me
Speaker 3: in the world. And I'm so grateful to him, because
Speaker 3: if you really want to go down that Amanda Knox
Speaker 3: rabbit hole, you can find whatever you want, and it's
Speaker 3: very scandalous.
Speaker 2: Here's a lot. And so he's.
Speaker 3: Always been very mindful of being respectful of my humanity,
Speaker 3: and allowing me to be the one to share with
Speaker 3: him those moments of extreme life that I have lived.
Speaker 1: So you and Chris get married, and you start trying
Speaker 1: to have children, and then one day you find yourself
Speaker 1: staring at a positive pregnancy test. Can you bring me
Speaker 1: back to that moment and how things unfolded from there?
Speaker 3: I mean, that moment was feeling like finally something was
Speaker 3: going right in my life, like finally I was getting
Speaker 3: back something that meant so much to me. Like all
Speaker 3: the other things had been taken from me were so intangible,
Speaker 3: but here was a true and tangible thing that had
Speaker 3: been taken from me and that I had gotten back.
Speaker 3: And so it truly felt like this gift and this
Speaker 3: reclamation of my life. And then to have that to
Speaker 3: you know, show up at the obgi N and to
Speaker 3: hear them say there is no heartbeat, I like, I
Speaker 3: wasn't prepared for that loss, because it had already that
Speaker 3: this was my win. You know, I was not aware
Speaker 3: of all of the statistics and how common it is
Speaker 3: to miscarry all of that, Like, I just didn't know.
Speaker 3: I had never been pregnant before, and so this is
Speaker 3: the first time I had ever been pregnant, and then
Speaker 3: for that to end in failure sent me down a
Speaker 3: spiral of fear and pair and being triggered and wondering
Speaker 3: if I was infertile because of things that had happened
Speaker 3: to me in prison and the lack of health care,
Speaker 3: Like I had no idea why it didn't work and
Speaker 3: why this being just didn't continue to be and like
Speaker 3: just that weird limbo space of like not even knowing
Speaker 3: how to grieve, and so that that was really hard.
Speaker 3: And I had this thought in my head, which is
Speaker 3: so stupid, but I thought, like, didn't I deserve to
Speaker 3: have this thing go right? Like all of these things
Speaker 3: had gone wrong in my life, why didn't this thing
Speaker 3: go right?
Speaker 2: Why?
Speaker 3: It almost felt like I was being punished again, Like
Speaker 3: why am I being punished? Like what did I do wrong?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I found so much resonance in the reaction that
Speaker 1: you had to the miscarriage, beyond your expected grief, this
Speaker 1: feeling of cosmic and justice right that since you had
Speaker 1: suffered so much in the past, the universe in some
Speaker 1: way owed you a perfect pregnancy, which is so stupid,
Speaker 1: but it is such a natural part of our psychology.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a concept that I've been exploring lately
Speaker 1: called belief in a just world, which basically says that
Speaker 1: we get what we deserve in life, we get out
Speaker 1: what we put in. Good people get good things, bad
Speaker 1: people get bad things. And how much any one of
Speaker 1: us believes in a just world varies quite a bit.
Speaker 1: But what was so interesting to me is that you
Speaker 1: maintained your belief in this kind of justice despite everything
Speaker 1: you went through, Like you still, in this visceral way,
Speaker 1: felt that the moral scales should balance in the universe.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a really interesting way of framing it, because
Speaker 3: you're right, I had every reason to believe that there
Speaker 3: was no justice, and I could be absolutely cynical about reality,
Speaker 3: and of course I lost my baby. What else was
Speaker 3: I going to do? And like the fact that it
Speaker 3: really blindsided me is demonstrative of the fact that I
Speaker 3: am very, very stubbornly optimistic.
Speaker 2: In the end, I guess, yes.
Speaker 1: That's what I glean from it, for sure, because I
Speaker 1: could totally imagine having the opposite response, just one of
Speaker 1: sheer cynicism, just extreme nihilism. There's no meaning or purpose
Speaker 1: or semblance of order in the universe. And it's so
Speaker 1: funny because despite my knowledge of this concept, and despite
Speaker 1: my understanding of how irrational it is to believe this,
Speaker 1: I fall prey to this so often, even though, of
Speaker 1: course my rational brain is like, there's no such thing
Speaker 1: as being entitled to anything in this world, right, And
Speaker 1: so I just your story has so many exceptional components
Speaker 1: to it. But what I find so captivating are these
Speaker 1: themes is that emerge from your story that all of
Speaker 1: us can relate to. I mean I related to that.
Speaker 1: I related to the story that you described of wanting
Speaker 1: kids from the time that you were six or seven
Speaker 1: years old. I was having imaginary calls with my neighbors
Speaker 1: about my rambunctious kids, and then I was like, I.
Speaker 4: Loved how you were already like a jaded mom, you know,
Speaker 4: a little Bobby, such a terror Martha or whatever names
Speaker 4: I was using at the time, And it's so cute,
Speaker 4: and I'm.
Speaker 1: Curious to know. So what it was that compelled you
Speaker 1: to motherhood, Like what were your hopes and dreams?
Speaker 3: I think that it has to do with just how
Speaker 3: awesome of a mother I have. I've always felt, always, always,
Speaker 3: always that I was cradled by her, like that I
Speaker 3: was supported by her, that any time that something could
Speaker 3: ever go wrong in my life, I could turn to
Speaker 3: her and she would be there. And so I really
Speaker 3: was given a model of what an ideal mom is
Speaker 3: from a very young age, and of course that has
Speaker 3: proved itself over the course of time. My mom has
Speaker 3: been there for me and through extreme circumstances. But it
Speaker 3: all comes down to that love for another being that
Speaker 3: goes beyond any love that you could have for yourself.
Speaker 3: It is just that wholehearted embrace of another person that
Speaker 3: I just know intuitively because it was given to me
Speaker 3: from the day I was born.
Speaker 2: I wanted to do that.
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, it's very stirring to hear you describe that
Speaker 1: relationship and what a gift she gave you. Today, I'm
Speaker 1: so delighted to share that you're a mom to two kids.
Speaker 1: You have your daughter, Eureka, your son Echo.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm in the thick of it.
Speaker 1: I'm curious to know about your experience of motherhood and
Speaker 1: how it's been informed by you by the trauma that
Speaker 1: you faced. And one of the most primal instincts that
Speaker 1: parents have is to protect their children from harm and suffering.
Speaker 1: I mean, you write that your first words to Eureka
Speaker 1: after she was born, were I'm sorry, Yeah, And it
Speaker 1: was just in response to the fact that, like every newborn,
Speaker 1: she was crying, right she came out of the womb crying,
Speaker 1: and you felt that just visceral instinct to protect her
Speaker 1: from pain. And as someone who has been through so
Speaker 1: much needless suffering in your life, I want to understand
Speaker 1: how that's informed how you think about your role as
Speaker 1: a parent to both Eureka and Echo.
Speaker 3: Yeah, trauma has really interesting ways of presenting itself in
Speaker 3: your life. And I feel like grief and the processing
Speaker 3: of traumatic experiences manifest in different ways as you change
Speaker 3: and grow as a human being over time. And one
Speaker 3: of the big ways that I have been sort of
Speaker 3: forced to process everything that happened in Italy was becoming
Speaker 3: a mother and feeling that sense of urgency, like even
Speaker 3: while she I was still pregnant and she was on
Speaker 3: the way, but I'm getting bigger and bigger, and I
Speaker 3: can feel her and I know she's coming, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: oh my god. I was like thinking, like, I have
Speaker 3: all of this psychological baggage that I'm carrying with me,
Speaker 3: and the last thing I want to do is to
Speaker 3: pass that on to my daughter. So I have to
Speaker 3: figure out how do I hold my arms around that,
Speaker 3: how do I keep that to myself, and how do
Speaker 3: I try to derive something good from that? My daughter
Speaker 3: is following me in my wake, and so I'm hoping
Speaker 3: that I'm planting seeds and not just dropping garbage in
Speaker 3: my wake for her to encounter. I want those to
Speaker 3: be things that are of value, that can be of
Speaker 3: assistance to her in her life. And so I was thinking, Okay,
Speaker 3: I have to I have to figure out, I have
Speaker 3: to figure this out. This is this puzzle of my trauma.
Speaker 3: I have to figure it out, and I have to
Speaker 3: figure it out now, like yesterday, and and one of
Speaker 3: those puzzle pieces was what is the difference between pain
Speaker 3: and suffering? Because one is inevitable and the other is not.
Speaker 3: And indeed, like by giving birth to her, her first
Speaker 3: experience of the world was pain. And I felt so
Speaker 3: bad about that, Like it didn't it didn't even occur
Speaker 3: to me that that would be her first ever experience
Speaker 3: outside of the womb until it was happening. And then
Speaker 3: obviously she was being squeezed out and it was not
Speaker 3: pleasant for her, and she's coming and she's screaming and
Speaker 3: I'm just going, oh my god, I'm so sorry. Like
Speaker 3: I have given existence to you, and that existence is
Speaker 3: going to be painful, and I can't take that away.
Speaker 3: As much as I want to, like as much as
Speaker 3: I wish that I could take that pain that you're feeling,
Speaker 3: I can't.
Speaker 2: And I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3: But the one thing that I do know that I
Speaker 3: can teach her is that there don't have to be
Speaker 3: layers of pain on top of the pain that we
Speaker 3: inevitably experience. There don't have to be meta experiences of
Speaker 3: pain on top of pain that make it harder to
Speaker 3: get past the immediate pain that we feel. Pain is
Speaker 3: an automatic feeling that you do not choose to feel
Speaker 3: as a result from certain things that happen.
Speaker 2: So you jam your toe in the door jam.
Speaker 3: You feel pain, or you lose someone that you love,
Speaker 3: you feel pain. Suffering is the pain of feeling that
Speaker 3: you shouldn't be feeling. That pain is when you convince
Speaker 3: yourself that the world isn't as it should be, and
Speaker 3: therefore there is a level of pain on top of
Speaker 3: the pain that cannot be resolved, and that doesn't really
Speaker 3: go away until you accept reality as it is. It
Speaker 3: is a pain that will persist because the world isn't
Speaker 3: the way that you think it should be. The world
Speaker 3: just is the way it is. And so I try
Speaker 3: to always accept the pain that just comes with being
Speaker 3: a being in the world, and to allow myself to
Speaker 3: let go of the meta levels of pain that come
Speaker 3: from me imposing my ideas about how the world should
Speaker 3: be on the way the world is and being able
Speaker 3: to demonstrate that to my daughter is one of my
Speaker 3: greatest weird silver linings to this cloud of like, Oh,
Speaker 3: I've learned a very extremely valuable skill over the course
Speaker 3: of this very extreme circumstance, which is recognize that difference
Speaker 3: and to know what to do about it.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So is it correct to say then that you see
Speaker 1: your role as a mom as not to shield your
Speaker 1: children from pain, which is inevitable and probably a vital
Speaker 1: part of growth, but instead to equip them with the
Speaker 1: cognitive tools they need to be able to differentiate between
Speaker 1: pain and suffering and to learn, in the throes of
Speaker 1: suffering how to climb their way out. Totally, you talked
Speaker 1: about yourself as being this just like unfailing optimist, right,
Speaker 1: you can almost can't help your optimism but which is
Speaker 1: a wonderful genetic disposition to have. You know, many of
Speaker 1: us form our beliefs about how the world works based
Speaker 1: on messages that we receive in childhood, right, And obviously
Speaker 1: your children will absorb messages from so many places. One
Speaker 1: day they will read your Wikipedia page, they will read
Speaker 1: the articles. But before that moment in time, what kind
Speaker 1: of philosophy are you trying to instill in your children
Speaker 1: about the kind of world they're growing up in.
Speaker 3: Oh my, that's a great question, because that's a really
Speaker 3: interesting question because I've not posed it to myself that way.
Speaker 3: I've more posed it. As you encounter hardships in your life,
Speaker 3: what do you do about them? I'm thinking of all
Speaker 3: the times that baby Echo pulls Eureka's hair and how
Speaker 3: frustrated she is by that, and I try to explain
Speaker 3: to her, like I'm going to talk to him, but
Speaker 3: I want you to know that he doesn't understand yet.
Speaker 2: And I feel like adults are like that too.
Speaker 3: Some people are just not cognitively there to acknowledge that
Speaker 3: something they've done to harm someone, even if it was unintentional,
Speaker 3: is meaningful. And you can do something about that, and
Speaker 3: you can learn from it like that that is still
Speaker 3: a skill that adults are learning to this day. And
Speaker 3: I think that maybe is a way of thinking about
Speaker 3: the world that I'm trying to impart on. Eurekas like, yes,
Speaker 3: like sometimes things happen and they shouldn't have happened, and
Speaker 3: we can do our best to try to make sure
Speaker 3: that doesn't happen. But I can't promise you that it
Speaker 3: won't because some people are not ready to learn from
Speaker 3: their mistakes yet.
Speaker 1: It is a very optimistic posture to have because you
Speaker 1: are you are allowing for redemption in everyone. You're granting
Speaker 1: people a growth mindset, essentially that there is room for
Speaker 1: that edification to happen right absolutely insight they need.
Speaker 3: I think it would be an unrealistic expectation to not
Speaker 3: expect people to grow, because I feel like we all
Speaker 3: tend to grow, especially when we encounter obstacles are hardship.
Speaker 3: I am always looking for an opportunity to grow in
Speaker 3: what happens to me, and so maybe I'm just projecting
Speaker 3: that perspective of humanity onto everyone else.
Speaker 1: With this perspective in mind, do you feel like, in
Speaker 1: your heart of hearts you can truthfully share with your
Speaker 1: children that you still believe the world is a fundamentally
Speaker 1: good place filled with fundamentally good people.
Speaker 2: Hm uh hmm.
Speaker 3: Do I believe that the world is a fundamentally good
Speaker 3: place full of fundamentally good people.
Speaker 2: I think that.
Speaker 3: Unless you're truly a psychopath, you encounter the world with
Speaker 3: the idea of wanting to do your best in it,
Speaker 3: and therefore you want to achieve not just what is
Speaker 3: good for you, but what is good for other people too.
Speaker 3: Maybe you have some people's best interests over others. But
Speaker 3: I do think that we all think of ourselves as
Speaker 3: a hero of our own story. We're all good guys
Speaker 3: in our minds, which I think lends to the intention
Speaker 3: to be a good guy, even if ultimately we trick
Speaker 3: ourselves into thinking that the bad that we're doing is good.
Speaker 1: You're saying, even for those people, there are justifications in
Speaker 1: place that at least make them think best. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that they're acting in alignment with their axioms. However
Speaker 1: flawed their axioms are, for example, exactly exactly so.
Speaker 3: I feel like the drive to do the right thing
Speaker 3: or be a good person is in everyone. The problem is,
Speaker 3: how is that drive manifesting itself. That is where I
Speaker 3: can't make any promises because the world is full of
Speaker 3: crazy idea and people get attached to them and then
Speaker 3: try to manifest them as an expression of trying to
Speaker 3: be a good person.
Speaker 1: Have you thought about how you plan to share your
Speaker 1: story with your kids one day and when that might be,
Speaker 1: and do you find yourself kind of rehearsing parts of
Speaker 1: it in your head, you know, as you go about
Speaker 1: your life or fall asleep at night.
Speaker 2: Well, the cats out of the bag already.
Speaker 1: Which is how old is Yureka? Now?
Speaker 3: She is three and a half, and it's coming up
Speaker 3: because a lot of the work that I do is
Speaker 3: around criminal justice reform and telling my story. I'm executive
Speaker 3: producing a Hulu show that's based upon my first memoir,
Speaker 3: Waiting to be Heard. And so my daughter, just by
Speaker 3: virtue of being around me, has become aware that there
Speaker 3: is a story, and she has asked me what is
Speaker 3: that story? And I always take this position of be
Speaker 3: honest in an age appropriate way, So I tell her
Speaker 3: a very condensed and simplified version of the story, which
Speaker 3: is when mommy was younger, Mommy went to Italy and
Speaker 3: someone hurt her friend, and then the Italian police hurt mommy,
Speaker 3: and mommy was sad for a long time and she
Speaker 3: was in jail. But then mommy was freed and mommy
Speaker 3: came home and Mommy met Papa and we fell in love,
Speaker 3: and then we had you, and now mommy's happy.
Speaker 1: Sorry. I don't mean to get emotional. Sorry, can I
Speaker 1: just say, like, I am so happy that you get
Speaker 1: to have this like as my friend.
Speaker 2: Thanks mamma.
Speaker 1: It fills me with the deepest joy that, uh, something
Speaker 1: that meant so much to you, Oh my gosh, no,
Speaker 1: thank you, something that meant so much to you is
Speaker 1: something that you you get to have in this lifetime.
Speaker 1: Like it's unspeakable joy for me.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Maya.
Speaker 3: I mean, I feel really really lucky, Like I am alive,
Speaker 3: I am healthy, I am safe, I have a home,
Speaker 3: I have a husband, I have children. Like all of
Speaker 3: the things that I thought were gone are here and
Speaker 3: I'm so lucky. So thank you for feeling that with me, though,
Speaker 3: because like it's true, it like any one of those
Speaker 3: things in a moment could have been taken away, and
Speaker 3: so that is not lost on me.
Speaker 2: Every day I wake up in the morning, We'll.
Speaker 1: Be back in a moment with a slight change of plans.
Speaker 1: The chief prosecutor in Amanda's wrongful murder conviction was a
Speaker 1: man named Giuliano Minini. From the start, Minini clung to
Speaker 1: his bizarre and unfounded theory that Amanda killed Meredith as
Speaker 1: part of a sex field satanic ritual, despite no real
Speaker 1: evidence to support it. This narrative caught on like wildfire
Speaker 1: in the European tabloids, and public opinion turned against Amanda
Speaker 1: before the trial even started. Minini ignored crucial DNA evidence
Speaker 1: from the real killer, and he relied on statements Amanda
Speaker 1: had made under duress when she was interrogated for more
Speaker 1: than fifty hours in the days following the murder. The
Speaker 1: High Court that definitively exonerated Amanda would later cite glaring
Speaker 1: errors and investigative amnesia in the case. And so when
Speaker 1: I heard that Amanda recently reached out to her prosecutor,
Speaker 1: I was. She told me she was compelled by one question,
Speaker 1: the why question.
Speaker 3: Why did this happen to me? I still couldn't really
Speaker 3: figure it out, and it really bothered me because I
Speaker 3: couldn't understand how like very immediately, like from day one,
Speaker 3: people and particularly Giuliano Mignini saw guilt in me that
Speaker 3: wasn't there, and I didn't understand why. But I was
Speaker 3: not satisfied with a lot of the sort of answers
Speaker 3: that were proposed by people around me, which is, ah,
Speaker 3: he's an idiot, or ah, you know, he's a corrupt guy,
Speaker 3: and he didn't care if you were innocent or not.
Speaker 2: He just wanted to blame somebody.
Speaker 3: Like there were a lot of different messages coming my
Speaker 3: way about what his motivations were, and none of that
Speaker 3: felt true. I could like, I could not imagine him
Speaker 3: just sitting back in his you know, prosecutor's office, Like
Speaker 3: he's not sitting there with mister Burns's fingers cackling about
Speaker 3: how he has an innocent girl in prison and who
Speaker 3: cares if she's guilty or not. Like he is a
Speaker 3: person who believes that he is doing the right thing,
Speaker 3: and that he who believes that he's a good person,
Speaker 3: and yet and yet he was capable of so much harm,
Speaker 3: and not just harm to me, but like harm to
Speaker 3: everyone involved, principally Meredith's family, who are now left with
Speaker 3: this confusing idea of like, what really happened to our daughter?
Speaker 3: Was this girl in on it or not did she
Speaker 3: get away with it? Like? The idea like that is
Speaker 3: that is psychological torture when they deserved closure, and they
Speaker 3: deserved direct and clear answers to what happened to Meredith.
Speaker 2: And so.
Speaker 3: I I wanted to understand why, and I realized that
Speaker 3: the only way to truly understand was to ask him.
Speaker 1: I'm interested in the fact that you were so quickly
Speaker 1: willing to give him the benefit of the doubt in
Speaker 1: terms of his intentions and motivation. Right, you very quickly
Speaker 1: did away with the reductionist versions of him. He's just evil,
Speaker 1: he's ego obsessed. You know, all he cares about is
Speaker 1: his reputation, blah blah blah. And to me, this hearkens
Speaker 1: back to the philosophy you shared with me earlier, which
Speaker 1: is this feeling that by and large, people try to
Speaker 1: be good and sometimes they just don't understand yet.
Speaker 3: Right, Yes, So, having gone through the experience of being
Speaker 3: viewed in the worst possible light and being viewed as
Speaker 3: a monster as this like black and white villain, I
Speaker 3: intuitively felt that I shouldn't do the same thing, which
Speaker 3: is to think of another human being in those terms.
Speaker 3: And I I really did want to see the good
Speaker 3: in him. I wanted to understand how he was the
Speaker 3: hero of his own story and then hopefully change his mind,
Speaker 3: like I'm gonna be honest, Like I thought, if only
Speaker 3: he could see who I really was, Like he didn't
Speaker 3: know me from anybody, and he came to know me
Speaker 3: in the context of a murder investigation, so of course
Speaker 3: he's going to see me from this sort of suspicious,
Speaker 3: adversarial lens. I mean, I knew what that felt like.
Speaker 3: As soon as I discover that this crime scene was
Speaker 3: in my house and that my roommate had been murdered,
Speaker 3: suddenly everybody seemed more sinister. I started to think, Oh
Speaker 3: my god, could that guy who once gave me a
Speaker 3: ride on a Vespa home maybe he's the murderer because
Speaker 3: he now knows where our Like who knows like that?
Speaker 3: It gives you this like cognitive opening where suddenly everything
Speaker 3: can be seen in the worst possible light. And I
Speaker 3: was wondering and like, is it possible for me to
Speaker 3: have a relationship with him that isn't adversarial and that
Speaker 3: is coming from a place of really wanting to understand?
Speaker 3: But how do you do that? And one of the
Speaker 3: things that I realized was it was not going to
Speaker 3: work if I came in with an adversarial stance. I
Speaker 3: couldn't just write him a letter and be like, doctor Juliantomannini.
Speaker 2: How dare you? You know you were wrong? And how
Speaker 2: dare you?
Speaker 3: And you know, like that was not going to get
Speaker 3: me anywhere, because that was going to set the terms
Speaker 3: of our relationship in these terms that we had known
Speaker 3: all along, that these adversarial, accusational terms. And instead I
Speaker 3: tried to think, what in the world do we have
Speaker 3: in common? Because we have something in common. Every person
Speaker 3: has something in common, and if I could only find
Speaker 3: common ground with him, maybe that would be.
Speaker 2: The first step.
Speaker 3: And it wasn't hard for me to find that common
Speaker 3: ground with him. It was right there to see, which
Speaker 3: is that this case got out of control in the media,
Speaker 3: and everyone, not just me, got turned into a sort
Speaker 3: of two dimensional cartoon version of ourselves. And I knew
Speaker 3: that he felt misrepresented in the press, and so I
Speaker 3: reached out to him and I said, I don't know
Speaker 3: who you are. All I know is that you are
Speaker 3: my prosecutor and you're scary. Therefore, but like I know
Speaker 3: that you were misrepresented in the press, and I was
Speaker 3: misrepresented in the press, and I feel like we have
Speaker 3: that in common. And I'm wondering, do you want to
Speaker 3: talk to me about who you really are? And you know,
Speaker 3: never underestimate the element of surprise because I surprised him,
Speaker 3: and I surprised him so much. We ended up corresponding
Speaker 3: over email for years before I actually ever met him
Speaker 3: in person. And I can't tell you so much of
Speaker 3: it was like the banal stuff of just like talking
Speaker 3: to your uncle who lives in another country, like oh,
Speaker 3: how are the dogs doing? Oh? You know, like, oh,
Speaker 3: I went on a walk today and it was a
Speaker 3: beautiful rain, you know, like I love the rain. So
Speaker 3: I'm learning things about him, like I learned that he
Speaker 3: loves to listen to Wagner. I learned that he's super
Speaker 3: into Lord of the Rings and you know, and like
Speaker 3: he sees himself as like King Theoden and me like Aowin.
Speaker 3: And it's just like but like these little moments that
Speaker 3: are like you do.
Speaker 2: You know what you're saying? Like they are It seemed
Speaker 2: like he was always.
Speaker 3: Sort of dropping little hints to me about like how
Speaker 3: he really felt about the case through these little personal details,
Speaker 3: like does he understand what it means. If he's such
Speaker 3: a big Lord of the Rings fan, he knows that
Speaker 3: aowen's worst fear is to be locked in a cage.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you felt like there are these little nuggets
Speaker 1: of contrition. Is that right? Yeah? Contrition?
Speaker 2: And then I kept questioning myself. I was like, am
Speaker 2: I reading into this?
Speaker 3: Or like a really great example where he sent me
Speaker 3: this movie to watch. He said, oh my gosh, you
Speaker 3: have to watch this movie. It's one of my favorite
Speaker 3: movies about Detective Micrae and it's a case where Detective
Speaker 3: Migree realizes that somebody that he had condemned to death
Speaker 3: for murder is actually innocent, and so he orchestrates this
Speaker 3: man's secret release from prison and then follows him around
Speaker 3: until he finds out who the real murderer is.
Speaker 2: And I'm just like, what, Like is he is this him?
Speaker 2: Like I kept thinking, is this him admitting that he
Speaker 2: was wrong? Or am I reading too much into this?
Speaker 3: And so like there was a lot in the correspondence
Speaker 3: that gave me hope to believe that he was on
Speaker 3: the cusp of like telling me, but maybe not telling
Speaker 3: me because he didn't want it. In writing and so
Speaker 3: is he finding other ways to tell Like, so it's
Speaker 3: been this weird unraveling of a code, and also like
Speaker 3: just allowing myself to just accept it for whatever it is.
Speaker 1: How did your family react to hearing that you wanted
Speaker 1: to reach out to this guy? Like were they at
Speaker 1: all convinced by your curiosity, by your need to understand? Why?
Speaker 2: No is the short answer to that question.
Speaker 1: So with your family to be clear, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I get it.
Speaker 3: And like, honestly, if this had happened to my daughter
Speaker 3: and I was now watching her have empathy and compassion
Speaker 3: and curiosity for her the person who had harmed her,
Speaker 3: I would be afraid that she would be setting herself
Speaker 3: up for pain that she didn't have to feel. And
Speaker 3: I would ask of her, like, what do you think
Speaker 3: you need from this person? Why are you holding on
Speaker 3: to this person as if you need him to be better?
Speaker 3: And you know that's a legitimate that's a legitimate question.
Speaker 1: Why does he have to be in unlock for any
Speaker 1: exactly in your life?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: That's giving him a kind of power that he simply
Speaker 1: doesn't deserve exactly.
Speaker 3: And actually that was a crucial question that I asked
Speaker 3: myself as I got closer and closer to meeting with him,
Speaker 3: is I like, I had to face this idea of like, wait,
Speaker 3: am I just in a weird Stockholm situation and I'm
Speaker 3: like fixated on him?
Speaker 2: And do I actually need him?
Speaker 3: And I had a conversation with this person named David Zelman,
Speaker 3: and he suggested to me the idea that I did
Speaker 3: not in fact need to talk to Juliata Menedi, that
Speaker 3: I did not need anything from him, and then he
Speaker 3: gave me this very very radical idea that maybe, just
Speaker 3: maybe I might be feeling so drawn to him because
Speaker 3: I have something to give him. And that was the
Speaker 3: switch that flipped for me where I thought, Yes, this
Speaker 3: is not about him and what he is capable of giving.
Speaker 3: This is about me and what I am capable of giving.
Speaker 3: And I know that I am capable of being kind
Speaker 3: to this man, and by God, I am going to
Speaker 3: do it and no one can stop me. And that's
Speaker 3: what it ultimately came to be about. It's not about him.
Speaker 3: It's about me and what I have in me and
Speaker 3: what I feel compelled to give that didn't need to
Speaker 3: be given, and that was not even asked for.
Speaker 1: Yes, well, because notably when you did actually meet him
Speaker 1: in person. You brought your husband with you, you had
Speaker 1: your daughter with you. He was not in writing. But
Speaker 1: he didn't extend an apology.
Speaker 3: Right Yeah, so what he did say versus what he
Speaker 3: didn't say, right, Like, he didn't say I'm sorry, he
Speaker 3: didn't say I was wrong, but he did say I
Speaker 3: believe you. He said, if I were asked to prosecute
Speaker 3: this case again, I would not.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: He said that me reaching out to him was one
Speaker 3: of the most important things that had ever happened to him,
Speaker 3: and he said that he was in awe by it.
Speaker 3: And I think the really interesting thing to think about
Speaker 3: is you can come away from an experience like that
Speaker 3: being deeply disappointed or being pleasantly surprised, and it's really
Speaker 3: your choice. Like the answers that I got from him
Speaker 3: were not always satisfying, but they were interesting and they
Speaker 3: were revelatory. There was a person who I was talking
Speaker 3: to who was just like, so frustrated by the end
Speaker 3: of reading my books. She was like, I mean, he
Speaker 3: gives you this, but he doesn't give you that, Like
Speaker 3: what is he you know? What is going on here?
Speaker 3: And I was like, honey, like there are two ways
Speaker 3: of looking at the world. You either look at the
Speaker 3: world like a department store or like a thrift store.
Speaker 2: Now a department store.
Speaker 3: You can go in and you can get the little
Speaker 3: black dress that you saw on sale online and in
Speaker 3: your size whenever you want. And that's how it is.
Speaker 3: And you can pretend that the world is like that,
Speaker 3: but that's not really how the world is. The world
Speaker 3: is really like a thrift shop. You go in and
Speaker 3: you don't know what you're gonna find. And if you
Speaker 3: have your mindset on that little black dress that you
Speaker 3: saw online that's in your side to find it, you
Speaker 3: are not.
Speaker 2: Going to find it.
Speaker 3: But if you are fixated on only finding that, you
Speaker 3: are not going to be able to find the things
Speaker 3: that appear to you that you may be just delighted
Speaker 3: by that you are not expecting, like a mushroom shaped lamp.
Speaker 2: It's you know, like, so this is like how I
Speaker 2: don't know that.
Speaker 3: It's like such a silly way of like thinking about it,
Speaker 3: but like I try to encounter the world and life
Speaker 3: and people like you would a thrift store, and like
Speaker 3: being open to being pleasantly surprised instead of having these
Speaker 3: very specific expectations that will lead to disappointment. My mom
Speaker 3: was not satisfy. She was disappointed. She was looking for
Speaker 3: that black dress in her size. She wanted him to
Speaker 3: say I was wrong and I'm sorry, and I'll do
Speaker 3: everything in my power to make it right. And he
Speaker 3: didn't say any of those things, and she wasn't able
Speaker 3: to hear what he was able to say. He said
Speaker 3: that he wanted to be a source of healing in
Speaker 3: my life, that he didn't want me to suffer anymore
Speaker 3: for what I had been through.
Speaker 2: And I heard that.
Speaker 3: I could hear that in a way that my mom couldn't,
Speaker 3: And so I came away from that experience feeling healed,
Speaker 3: not just by what he said, but also by the
Speaker 3: fact that I had put myself in a position in
Speaker 3: order to hear it.
Speaker 1: You mentioned him being in awe. I, frankly, I think
Speaker 1: we all are, because what I see is just masterclass
Speaker 1: for the rest of us what it means to bridge
Speaker 1: one of the greatest gaps that can exist between two humans.
Speaker 1: I mean, it is a masterclass in human empathy. You know,
Speaker 1: your book is called Free, and you've spent years searching
Speaker 1: for freedom, both from behind bars and then after you
Speaker 1: were released, And God, I hate that this is true,
Speaker 1: but even recently, just for listeners to know, you were
Speaker 1: found guilty of slander for statements that you made in
Speaker 1: the days following Merediths murder. Police interrogated you for over
Speaker 1: fifty hours over five days, and under extreme coercion, you
Speaker 1: ended up implicating your boss at the time in the
Speaker 1: murder of Meredith. And despite your appeal, despite the fact
Speaker 1: that a European high court found Italy to be in
Speaker 1: violation of your human rights during the interrogation, Italy Top
Speaker 1: Court still upheld this conviction. In twenty twenty five. This happened.
Speaker 1: And so I mean, like so frustrating. I'm just like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, it's so frustrating. And so what I
Speaker 1: want to ask aman is like, what have you learned
Speaker 1: about freedom? What is freedom to you?
Speaker 3: For me, freedom means being able to see and engage
Speaker 3: with the world with a clear mind, because if you
Speaker 3: are engaging with the world as it should be, you
Speaker 3: are perpetually going to be ineffective. You're going to encounter
Speaker 3: obstacles because you're going to be thinking about what to
Speaker 3: do in the terms of what you think the world
Speaker 3: should be like, and not the world as it is.
Speaker 3: And I think the reason why I had such an
Speaker 3: effective approach to Minnini was because I saw clearly the
Speaker 3: situation for what it was, and that gave me a
Speaker 3: degree of freedom of choosing how I wanted to engage
Speaker 3: with it. There's a Zen saying, I'm a Zen practitioner
Speaker 3: that if you really really sit with the world and
Speaker 3: with reality in the present moment, and you just sit
Speaker 3: and look at it clearly, you'll realize that it's okay.
Speaker 3: It's not good, it's not bad, it's it's okay. You
Speaker 3: are okay, and being okay is a great place from
Speaker 3: which to choose how you are going to be in
Speaker 3: the world. You're not coming from a place of fear,
Speaker 3: You're not coming from a place of anger. You are
Speaker 3: coming from a place of being okay and choosing to
Speaker 3: be your best self in the next moment. And that
Speaker 3: makes me feel like, no matter what the external circumstances
Speaker 3: I'm facing are, like, I know that I am free
Speaker 3: to act the way I want to.
Speaker 1: Despite the fact Italy's highest court upheld Amanda's slander conviction,
Speaker 1: she won't need to return to prison because of the
Speaker 1: four years she already spent wrongfully incarcerated To hear more
Speaker 1: of Amanda's reflections on motherhood and the story of her
Speaker 1: relationship with her prosecutor check out her new book, It's
Speaker 1: called Free My Search for Meaning. Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed this episode, we in the Slight Change
Speaker 1: Family would so appreciate it if you could share it
Speaker 1: with your family and friends. And you can sign up
Speaker 1: for my free newsletter at Changewithmaya dot com. Join me
Speaker 1: next week, when we hear from author and podcast host
Speaker 1: Mel Robbins on her battle with control.
Speaker 5: I just started to say, let them. At any moment
Speaker 5: in my life where things just felt stress with traffic,
Speaker 5: let them the person's root in front of me, wet them.
Speaker 5: My mom's in a bad.
Speaker 2: Moot, let her read a bad move.
Speaker 5: And so I just started saying, let them, let them,
Speaker 5: let them, And it was so profound.
Speaker 1: That's next week on A Slight Change of Plans. A
Speaker 1: Slight Change of Plans is created, written and executive produced
Speaker 1: by me Maya Schunker. The Slight Changed Family includes our
Speaker 1: showrunner Tyler Green, our senior editor Kate Parkinson, Morgan, our
Speaker 1: producers Britney Cronin and Megan Luvin, and our sound engineer
Speaker 1: Erica Huang, Louis Scara wrote our delightful theme song and
Speaker 1: Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. A Slight Change of
Speaker 1: Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries, so big thanks
Speaker 1: to everyone there, and of course a very special thanks
Speaker 1: to Jimmy Lee. You can follow A Slight Change of
Speaker 1: Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Schunker. See you next week.