by | Apr 12, 2025 | Fox News
Amanda Knox was behind bars when she befriended a Catholic priest.
The mother of two, who spent nearly four years in an Italian prison, has written a new book, “Free: My Search for Meaning.” It recounts the struggles the 37-year-old endured in attempting to reintegrate into society. Knox also reflects on what it was like returning to a more normal life, including seeking a life partner, finding a job and walking out in public.
The Seattle native, who identifies as an atheist, told Fox News Digital prison chaplain Don Saulo not only became her best friend during those years but also gave her hope when she felt hopeless.
AMANDA KNOX GIVES WARNING TO STUDENTS WANTING TO STUDY ABROAD, 10 YEARS AFTER BEING ACQUITTED OF MURDER
“He was a good man, a friend and a philosopher,” Knox told Fox News Digital. “He was the family who was there for me in prison when the rest of my family couldn’t be physically there with me. And he was someone who wasn’t just kind to me, but who was willing to engage with me on a philosophical level. He saw my humanity. And he genuinely wanted to spend time with me.
“He spoke to me in terms of his ideology and his faith, but there were truths in what he said,” she shared. “It would shift my perspective from one of utter despair to one of hope. And on days when I didn’t have hope, he showed me how to find value in the experience that I had. The idea that if you pray to God for strength, he doesn’t give you strength, he gives you an opportunity to be strong — that resonated with me.”
Knox was a 20-year-old student in Perugia studying abroad when her roommate, Meredith Kercher, was found stabbed to death in 2007. The 21-year-old was found in the cottage they shared with two Italian women.
The case made global headlines as suspicion fell quickly on Knox and her boyfriend of just days, Raffaele Sollecito.
Knox wrote that while she was in prison, a nun had approached her. But when Knox told her she wasn’t religious, the nun replied that she was “no better than an animal without God.”
The priest, on the other hand, suggested they could talk about whatever Knox wanted at his office.
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“I don’t remember how he broke the ice,” Knox wrote. “By asking how I was doing? All I know is that I found myself gushing [in] desperation.”
Knox also described how she would sing from her cell. Saulo, who overheard her one day, asked if she’d ever played instruments. When Knox told him that she used to play the guitar, he exclaimed, “I have a guitar!”
“You could play it during mass. You could even come to my office to practice,” he told her.
Knox admitted she “didn’t love the idea of mass,” but the idea of leaving her cell to play the guitar was “one small link to the life I was living before this nightmare.”
“And so began our musical relationship,” Knox wrote. “Once or twice a week, I was allowed to spend an hour in Don Saulo’s office practicing hymns on the guitar, and then, during mass on Saturdays, I’d play and sing those religious tunes.”
She also described how Saulo had a small electronic keyboard and taught her to play the piano. And when he learned she loved studying languages, he began teaching her Latin phrases.
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Knox said Saulo’s kindness brightened her dark days. She told Fox News Digital standing up for yourself in prison meant violence.
“I think a lot of people might imagine just horrible things between inmates, and it’s true,” said Knox. “I was surrounded by women who were either struggling with mental illness, drug addiction or just general PTSD from long-term abuse and neglect.
“There was a lot of dysfunction in the community of women that I belonged to. But, without a doubt, the worst experiences that I had were with the male guards, who had absolute power over me and who I could not protect myself from.
“I was in a locked room with them, and they had the key,” Knox recalled. “If I ever spoke up, no one would believe me because [to them] I was the lying murdering whore.
“I was absolutely at the mercy of male guards who tried to take advantage of me … and it was just horrifying,” Knox claimed.
In her book, Knox wrote that Saulo “never judged me, never told me who I was, even as the world called me a monster.”
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“I felt supported by him in cultivating a mindset of compassion and empathy and gratitude, that it was this mindset that would allow me to understand what had happened to me,” she wrote.
One of the people she dedicated her book to was Saulo, “for holding my hand when no one else could.”
“I remain an atheist, but Don Saulo taught me to value much of the wisdom in the teachings of Jesus,” she wrote. “Turning the other cheek, the golden rule, a radical refusal of judgment, an acceptance of all people – high and low, sinner and saints. No one deserves God’s grace, and yet, it is there for everyone. This is how I think about compassion. It is not kindness if it is reserved for the just, the good, the kind.”
Rudy Hermann Guede of the Ivory Coast was eventually convicted of murder after his DNA was found at the crime scene. The European Court of Human Rights ordered Italy to pay Knox damages for the police failures, noting she was vulnerable as a foreign student not fluent in Italian.
Knox returned to the United States in 2011 after being freed by an appeals court in Perugia and has established herself as a global campaigner for the wrongly convicted. Over the years, she has attempted to clear her name.
Today, Knox is a board member of The Innocence Center, a nonprofit law firm that aims to free innocent people from prison. She also frequently discusses how high-profile cases affect loved ones on a podcast she hosts with her husband, “Labyrinths.”
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Guede, 37, was freed in 2021 after serving most of his 16-year sentence.
Knox told Fox News Digital she was “haunted” by the spirit of Kercher.
“I think about her every day, especially when I consider what could have happened to me,” she explained. “My fate very well could have been hers, and her fate could very well have been mine. We were both two young women who went to study abroad. Our lives were ahead of us. Everything was going well for us. And then a man broke into our home and killed her.”
“If it hadn’t been for the fact that I just happened to meet a young, kind man five days before the crime occurred, I would very well be dead too now,” she continued.
“When I think about her … [I have] just the utter realization of the fragility, the impermanence and preciousness of life. What a privilege it is to live. And how important it is of a task to fight for your life and to make it worth living while you have it. I think about that.
“One of the biggest things that I’ve had to struggle with is unpacking the fact that a friend of mine’s death is wrapped up in my identity. … My identity is twisted up in [her family’s] deepest pain. The truth of what happened to her and the justice that was denied to her is an ongoing, painful thing for me and many others. When people say, ‘Meredith has been lost in this story,’ they’re not wrong.”
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Knox said she tried reaching out to Kercher’s family “a bit ago,” but has gotten “radio silence.” Fox News Digital reached out to Kercher’s family for comment.
“I just wish … they would connect with me so that we can grieve together and try to make meaning out of this tragedy together,” said Knox.
Knox knows she can never return to her old life. But she hopes, after telling her story, she can move forward with her family. That, she said, gives her hope today.
“There’s never going to be a day when every single person in the world is going to realize that I’ve been wrong and harmed,” said Knox. “I have to then ask myself, ‘Can I live with that? What can freedom mean to me today?’
“I think that has been a really important shift in my perspective that I try to convey in the book, going from feeling that I am trapped in my own life … to feeling like I can push forward. It’s allowing me to feel like I can make choices again in light of all this backstory. That gives me momentum.”
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by | Apr 12, 2025 | Fox News
South Carolina executed a man by firing squad on Friday after appeals were denied by the state and U.S. Supreme Courts earlier this week.
Mikal Mahdi, 42, was convicted in the 2004 killings of an off-duty police officer in Calhoun County, South Carolina, and a convenience store clerk in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He was sentenced to death for the murder of the officer and life in prison for the clerk’s murder.
Mahdi had the choice of dying by lethal injection, the electric chair or firing squad – and he chose the latter. The Associated Press reported that he did not give a final statement nor look at the nine people witnessing his execution before a hood was put over his head and shots were fired by three prison employees who volunteered for the act. He was declared dead less than four minutes later.
Prison officials announced that he requested ribeye steak cooked medium, mushroom risotto, broccoli, collard greens, cheesecake and sweet tea for his last meal.
CONDEMNED SC MAN’S CASE ABOUT ‘APPROPRIATE PUNISHMENT’ AS HE AWAITS ‘INHUMANE’ FIRING SQUAD EXECUTION: LAWYER
Mahdi was sentenced to death in 2006 after he admitted to killing off-duty Orangeburg Department of Public Safety Capt. James Myers, 56, on his property on July 18, 2004.
Myers had been shot at least eight times and his body was burned when his wife found him in their shed, which was near a gas station where Mahdi attempted to purchase gas with a stolen credit card. He left a vehicle he had carjacked in Columbia at the gas station and was later arrested in Florida while driving Myers’ unmarked police truck.
Mahdi also admitted to murdering convenience clerk Christopher Boggs three days before he killed Myers. Boggs was shot in the head twice while checking Mahdi’s ID, according to The AP.
SECOND SOUTH CAROLINA INMATE CHOOSES EXECUTION BY FIRING SQUAD
Mahdi’s lawyers entered a final appeal to the South Carolina and the U.S. Supreme Courts, but it was rejected earlier this week.
They argued that Mahdi was not fairly represented by his original lawyers as they did not call on relatives, teachers or other people who knew him during the case, adding that they also ignored how the several months Mahdi spent in solitary confinement as a teen impacted him.
Prosecutors, on the other hand, said Mahdi’s nature was “violence” and said he solved problems with brutality, mentioning how he stabbed a prison guard and hit another worker with a concrete block during his years on death row.
He was also caught with tools that could have been used to escape, including sharpened metal that could have acted as a knife, prison records stated.
The execution on Friday marked the second time a South Carolina inmate has been put to death by firing squad in the past five weeks and the fifth execution overall in the state over the past eight months.
Following Mahdi’s death, the Palmetto State now has 26 inmates on death row – only one of those people has been sentenced to death in the past decade.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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by | Apr 11, 2025 | Fox News
“Real Time” host Bill Maher revealed details Friday of his meeting last week with President Donald Trump at the White House, saying Trump was more gracious and good-humored than he expected.
“You can hate me for it, but I’m not a liar. Trump was gracious and measured,” Maher said. “And why isn’t that in other settings- I don’t know, and I can’t answer, and it’s not my place to answer. I’m just telling you what I saw, and I wasn’t high.”
Maher mocked those who treated the White House visit like it was “some kind of summit” brokered by their mutual friend Kid Rock, calling them “ridiculous.”
“I have no power. I’m a f—ing comedian, and he’s the most powerful leader in the world!” Maher exclaimed. “I’m not the leader of anything, except maybe a contingent of centrist-minded people who think there’s got to be a better way of running this country than hating each other every minute.”
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Maher shared a printout of the insults Trump had leveled at him over the years, which Trump signed with “good humor.”
“And I know as I say that, millions of liberal sphincters just tightened. ‘Oh, my God, Bill, you gonna say something nice about him?’ What I’m gonna do is report exactly what happened,” Maher said, adding he “didn’t go MAGA. And to the president’s credit, there was no pressure to.”
The HBO host expressed his surprise about how Trump laughs, something he said he had never seen him do in public, telling his audience, “He does, including at himself.”
“And it’s not fake. Believe me, as a comedian of 40 years, I know a fake laugh when I hear it,” Maher said.
Maher credited Trump for being “much more self-aware than he lets on in public,” revealing the subject of the 2020 election came up during his tour of the White House and that he “didn’t get mad” how Maher brought up Trump’s rare admission that he had lost.
“Look, I get it. It doesn’t matter who he is at a private dinner with a comedian. It matters who he is on the world stage. I’m just taking as a positive that this person exists. Because everything I’ve ever not liked about him was, I swear to God, absent at least on this night with this guy,” Maher said.
“I’ve had so many conversations with prominent people who are much less connected, people who don’t look you in the eye, people don’t really listen because they just want to get to their next thing… None of that was him, and he mostly steered the conversation to ‘What do you think about this?’ I know, your mind is blown. So is mine.”
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Maher said there were several moments where he cracked a joke at Trump’s expense or contradicted him on various topics, but it was “no problem” between the two of them.
“I never felt I had to walk on eggshells around him,” he told his audience. “And honestly, I voted for Clinton and Obama, but I would never feel comfortable talking to them the way I was able to talk with Donald Trump. That’s just how it went down. Make of it what you will. Me? I feel it’s emblematic of why the Democrats are so unpopular these days.”
Maher recalled the “most surreal” part of the entire experience was when he returned home to watch “60 Minutes” and saw a clip of Trump from a podium “ranting” and shouting insults.
“And I’m like, ‘Who’s that guy? What happened to Glinda the Good Witch?'” Maher quipped. “‘And why can’t we get the guy I met to the public guy?’ And I’m not saying it’s our responsibility to do that. It’s not. I’m just reporting exactly what I saw over two-and-a-half hours. I went into the mine, and that’s what’s down there.”
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“A crazy person doesn’t live in the White House, a person who plays a crazy person on TV a lot lives there, which I know is f—ed up. It’s just not as f—ed up as I thought it was, and I have no illusions now that I’m back to work at my job, that he might start a new list,” Maher said, holding up the printout of Trump’s insults to him. “Because I don’t have a good feeling and will be critical about a lot of what he’s doing- the trade war and disappearing people, ruling by decree, threatening judges, gutting the government with glee.”
“But I also think he now understands I have a job to do, or at least he did on this night, because he said to me early on that he’d seen our last episode, which was the Friday before this dinner, and he said, ‘I thought maybe you’d be nice, but you hit me really hard.’ I did because I’m not going to pull my punches that presidents get to propose a third term for themselves. He understood that, and without animus, that doesn’t mean he’s not going to try to do it,” he continued.
Maher said he walked away with nothing from the White House except “hats and a very generous amount of time and a willingness to listen and accept me as a possible friend, even though I’m not MAGA, which was the point of the dinner.”
He went on to share his favorite moment was when they both said they heard from a lot of people who liked how they were having dinner together, and how they agreed they didn’t like those who didn’t want them to meet.
“Don’t talk, as opposed to what? Writing the same editorial for the millionth time and making 25-hour speeches into the wind. Really, that’s what liberals have? He takes the piss out of everybody else, and we can hold ours?” Maher continued, taking a swipe at the recent marathon Senate floor speech made by Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J.
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by | Apr 11, 2025 | Fox News
The Navy recently deployed another warship, which successfully repelled multiple Iranian-backed Houthi attacks, to secure the southern border.
USS Stockdale, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, left Naval Base San Diego on Friday to support U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) southern border operations, in accordance with President Donald Trump‘s recent executive orders.
The executive orders included a national emergency declaration and clarification of the military’s role in protecting the territorial integrity of the U.S.
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“Stockdale’s departure reinforces the Navy’s role in the Department of Defense’s coordinated efforts to comply with the order,” according to a statement from the Navy.
The ship will continue operations with an embarked U.S. Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment.
In February, Stockdale returned to San Diego after a seven-month independent deployment to the U.S. 3rd, 5th and 7th Fleet areas of operation.
PENTAGON DEPLOYS NAVY WARSHIP THAT FOUGHT HOUTHIS TO NEW US SOUTHERN BORDER MISSION IN LINE WITH TRUMP ORDER
It joined the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and remained in 5th Fleet following the departure of the ABECSG.
While in the 5th Fleet, Stockdale “successfully repelled multiple Iranian-backed Houthi attacks” during transits of the Bab el-Mandeb strait and escorted operations of U.S.-flagged vessels in the Gulf of Aden, according to the Navy.
It also engaged and defeated one-way attack uncrewed aerial-ship cruise missiles, according to officials.
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Stockdale sustained no damage and its personnel were uninjured.
Stockdale will join the USS Spruance and USS Gravely, two other Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers, which were sent to the border in March, Fox News Digital previously reported.
“As the DoD’s lead for implementing border-related executive orders, USNORTHCOM continues to support critical Department of Homeland Security capabilities gaps, with Stockdale making a vital contribution to these efforts,” the Navy said.
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by | Apr 11, 2025 | Fox News
This weekend at Augusta National looks like it will be one for the ages.
The leaderboard is stacked with golfers who have combined for 10 major championships all within three shots of each other at the top, and the players at even par (eight shots back) or better have a combined 24 major wins.
Fifty-four players made the cut Friday, and the playing has been superb. The cut line was a mere 10 strokes back of the lead. It’s a long shot for those guys, but they’re not out of it.
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It has the attention of President Donald Trump, an avid golfer.
Fox News Digital’s Paulina Dedaj was on Air Force One with the president Friday and asked Trump who he’d “like to see win the Masters.”
He’s apparently rooting for everybody.
“They’re all friends of mine. They have some great ones. Scottie Scheffler’s great. Bryson [DeChambeau] is great. Justin Rose, they’re all friends of mine,” he said.
“It’s going to be a very good Masters. Looks like it’s going to be a very good Masters. Some fantastic golfers at the top.”
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He’s right. Justin Rose’s 8-under leads the pack, while DeChambeau is a stroke back. McIlroy is two shots behind the leader along with Corey Conners.
Scottie Scheffler, Tyrrell Hatton, Shane Lowry and Matt McCarty are all sitting at 5-under par. Other big names within striking distance include Viktor Hovland and Jason Day at 4-under; Ludvig Aberg, Hideki Matsuyama, Patrick Reed and Collin Morikawa at 3-under; and Xander Schauffele, Tommy Fleetwood and Brian Harman six back at 2-under.
Major champions at 1-under or even include Bubba Watson, Justin Thomas, Matt Fitzpatrick and Wyndham Clark.
A win for Scheffler would make him the first back-to-back winner at Augusta since Tiger Woods in 2001 and 2002. Meanwhile, McIlroy is making his 11th attempt to complete the career grand slam and is still eyeing the long-coveted green jacket.
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