After spending four years in prison, Ms. Knox's first taste of freedom came in the form of a hectic travel schedule aimed at returning her home to Seattle as quickly as possible. Ms. Knox traveled overnight by car from this medieval town to Rome, where she boarded a U.S.-bound flight with a layover in London.
In the wake of her departure, Italy was left to soul-searching over how the Perugia court—and the Italian justice system in general—could swing so dramatically in its assessment of Ms. Knox.
In her first trial, Ms. Knox was depicted as a demonic figure and she and her then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were convicted two years ago of murdering U.K. national Meredith Kercher in a 2007 sexual assault. The appeals court repudiated that ruling on Monday, overturning the murder conviction and setting Ms. Knox free from a 26-year prison sentence.
News of the verdict drew hundreds of Perugians to the courthouse to protest the ruling, shouting: "Shame on you!" On Tuesday, the verdict was splashed across the front pages of Italian newspapers that questioned whether the appeals ruling had been unduly influenced by a perceived media campaign to free Ms. Knox. Other headlines raised questions about whether Italian trials should continue to heavily rely on circumstantial evidence, like that used to convict Ms. Knox in the first trial, when there is a lack of physical evidence and clear motive.
"Last night's verdict will certainly give traction to new bitter polemics over the workings of justice in our country," wrote Fiorenza Sarzanini in a front-page editorial in Italy's biggest daily Corriere della Sera.
A major turning point in the appeals trial was the court's decision to allow an independent panel of forensics experts to review DNA evidence that had been used by prosecutors to convict Ms. Knox and Mr. Sollecito in the first trial. Prosecutors said the traces of DNA found on the handle of a knife, the alleged murder weapon, matched Ms. Knox. But the panel of experts delivered a report to the appeals court, saying the amounts of DNA found on a knife were too small to make a conclusive match to anyone.
Lyle Kercher, brother of the late-Ms. Kercher, said his family was struggling to comprehend how the appeals court could overturn a decision that was "so certain two years ago."
Mr. Kercher also hinted at contradictions in the Italian justice system's approach to prosecuting Ms. Knox and Mr. Sollecito in one trial while granting a separate fast-track trial to Rudy Guede, an Ivory Coast national.
The 24-year-old Knox dissolved into tears as the verdict was read in a packed courtroom after 11 hours of deliberations, and needed to be propped up by her lawyers on either side. (Click player at left to see Knox's tearful appeal to court)
Two hours later Knox was in a dark limousine that took her out of the Capanne prison just outside Perugia, where she had spent the past four years, and headed to Rome.
"During the trip from Perugia to Rome Amanda was serene," said Corrado Maria Daclon, the secretary general of the Italy-US Foundation, who was with Knox in the car. "She confirmed to me that in the future she intends to come back to our country."
The prosecution's case was blown apart by a court-ordered DNA review that discredited crucial genetic evidence used to convict the two in 2009.
While waves of relief swept through the defendants' benches in the courtroom, members of the Kercher family, who flew in for the verdict, appeared dazed and perplexed. Meredith's older sister Stephanie shed a quiet tear, her mother Arline looked straight ahead.
There was little joy Tuesday for the Kerchers as Knox and her family put Italy behind them, reports "48 Hours Mystery" correspondent Peter Van Sant.
Speaking at a hotel in Perugia Tuesday morning, Kercher's brother said the family felt as though they had been thrown back to "square one" after Knox and Sollecito's acquittal.
"That's the biggest disappointment, not knowing still," said Meredith's sister Stephanie Kercher at the news conference. "Knowing that there is obviously someone, or people, out there who have done this."
The Kercher family stressed that they respected the court's decision, and they wouldn't want anyone innocent spending time behind bars for no reason.
"We respect the decision of the judges but we do not understand how the decision of the first trial could be so radically overturned," the Kerchers said in a statement. "We still trust the Italian justice system and hope that the truth will eventually emerge." (Click player at left to watch Kercher family give statement)
The Kerchers had pressed for the court to uphold the guilty verdicts passed two years ago, and resisted theories that a third man convicted in the case, Rudy Hermann Guede, had acted alone. Guede, convicted in a separate trial, is serving a 16-year sentence.
The verdict reverberated through the streets of this medieval hilltop town, where both Knox and Kercher had arrived with so much anticipation for overseas studies programs four years ago.
Hundreds of mostly university-age youths gathered in the piazza outside the courtroom jeered as news of the acquittals spread. "Shame, shame," they yelled, adding that a black man had been made to shoulder all of the guilt for the murder.
Prosecutors said they would appeal to the nation's highest criminal court, after reading the court's reasoning due out within 90 days.
"Tonight's sentence is wrong and confounding," prosecutor Giuliano Mignini told the ANSA news agency. "There is a heavy conviction for slander. Why did she accuse him? We don't know."
Just before deliberations began Monday, Knox tearfully told the court she did not kill her roommate.
"I've lost a friend in the worst, most brutal, most inexplicable way possible," she said of the 2007 murder of Kercher, who shared an apartment with Knox when they were both students in Perugia. "I'm paying with my life for things that I didn't do."
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