"I'm a little overhwlemed right now," Knox said, adding that looking down from the airplane on her flight home was surreal.
"Thanks to everyone who believed in me, who has defended me, who supported my family," Knox said before tearing up. "My family's the most important thing right now and i just want to go be with them."
Knox then appeared to be too overcome with emotions to continue.
After Italian prisoners gave her a boisterous send-off, Amanda Knox made her way home to America on earlier Tuesday, holing up with family on the upper deck of a jetliner to Seattle as she enjoyed her first full day of freedom since her murder conviction was reversed.
Knox's mom, Edda Mellas, told the crowd before Knox spoke that "It's because of the letters and the calls and just the amazing support we've received from people all over the world" that they've been able to get by.
Friends and family who held spaghetti dinners, bowling events and concerts to raise money for Knox's defense waited anxiously for her plane to touch down -- a moment that took four years to happen.
"We all are as happy as can be. I can't tell you how long we've been looking forward to this day," her grandmother Elisabeth Huff told The Associated Press outside her home in West Seattle, a tight-knit community a few miles across Elliott Bay from downtown.
Knox's father, Curt, later spoke to reporters outside his house, where there was a small welcome home party but no sign of his daughter.
He said Amanda "needed her space" and had not agreed to any media deals. "She has been in a concrete bunker for four years."
Curt Knox said Amanda would like to return to the University of Washington at some point to finish her degree, but for now "the focus simply is Amanda's wellbeing and getting her reassociated with just being a regular person again".
He said he was concerned about what four years in prison may have done to his daughter. "What's the trauma … and when will it show up, if it even shows up?" he said. "She's a very strong girl but it's been a tough time for her."
Her lawyer described the Knox family's situation as a "gruelling, four-year nightmarish marathon that no child or parent should have to endure".
"Meredith was Amanda's friend. Amanda and the family want you to remember Meredith and keep the Kercher family in your prayers," he said.
On Tuesday the family of Meredith Kercher said that they were back to "square one". Monday's decision "obviously raises further questions", her brother Lyle Kercher said. "If those two are not the guilty parties, then who are the guilty people?"
Rudy Guede's conviction for the murder of Meredith Kercher is the only one that still stands. His sentence was cut to 16 years in his final appeal. His lawyer has said he will seek a retrial.
The prosecutor, Giuliano Mignini, has expressed disbelief that the convictions of Knox and Sollecito were overturned and said he will appeal to Italy's highest criminal court after receiving the reasoning behind the acquittals, due within 90 days.
"Let's wait and we will see who was right. The first court or the appeal court," Mignini said. "This trial was done under unacceptable media pressure."
Anne Bremner, a Seattle defence lawyer and spokesman for Friends of Amanda Knox, said Amanda was looking forward to having a backyard barbecue, being outside on the grass, playing football and seeing old friends.
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