[Kyra Phillips, Cnn Anchor:] All right, we are pushing forward now at the top of the hour. Finally, a jobless number that dipped. The latest figure showed the unemployment rate in the U.S. dropped a couple of percentage points in November to 10 percent. It's the best jobs report since December of 2007 when experts say the recession began. And it gave the president, some quote, "some modestly encouraging news" to talk about today during his listening tour on jobs. He visited a factory and a community college in the Allentown, Pennsylvania area. And the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, in Belgium trying to galvanize support for the war in Afghanistan. NATO's promising to provide 7,000 more troops from at least 25 countries. So, will she walk free or spend the rest of her life behind bars? American exchange student Amanda Knox sitting in an Italian jail cell right now while the jury decides whether she's guilty of slashing a roommate's throat during an alleged sex-fueled rampage. Knox made a plea a teary-eyed plea, rather to the jury yesterday, saying she didn't want a killer's mask forced upon her. Here's Erica Hill.
[Erica Hill, Cnn Correspondent:] All eyes on Amanda Knox today as she entered the courtroom to declare her innocence one last time. Speaking in Italian, the 22-year-old American told jurors she's not what the media has dubbed her, the "Devil with an Angel's Face." "I fear to lose myself, to have the mask of assassin force upon me," Knox said. "I fear to be defined by someone I am not." Earlier, her Italian ex-boyfriend also addressed the court asking for his life back and saying he hopes the real killer confesses. Their testimony on the eve of jury deliberations marking perhaps the most dramatic moment in this year-long trial. It is a sensational case. And it's no mystery why.
[Unidentified Male:] I do not think we would be here today if this young woman Amanda Knox was not American, was not young, was not pretty.
[Amanda Knox, Accused Of Murder:] Are you taking movies right now?
[Unidentified Female:] Yes.
[Hill:] Knox, a foreign exchange student from Washington State and her former lover are accused of killing her roommate, 21-year-old Meredith Kercher in 2007. Prosecutors say the British woman was the victim of a sadistic sex game with Knox taunting her and her ex- boyfriend and another man Rudy Guede, sexually assaulting her. While the victim was being held down, the prosecution contends, Knox cut her neck with a kitchen knife. Prosecutors say Knox hated Kercher and admitted to being in the flat when the murder took place. Knox says Kercher was her friend and she was not there when the young woman was killed.
[Knox:] They called me a stupid liar. And they said that I was trying to protect someone.
[Hill:] The third suspect Guede was tried separately, convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison. He is appealing. Prosecutors say there is a mountain of evidence against Knox, including a knife they say was the murder weapon and has Knox's DNA on it. Her defense attorneys have tried to tear holes into the case, arguing the evidence has been tainted and contaminated by shoddy police work. Knox's parents believe authorities made their daughter a scapegoat and are confident the jury agrees.
[Curt Knox, Amanda Knox's Father:] She knows she had nothing to do with this. And, you know, they just can't put an innocent person behind bars.
[Edda Mellas, Amanda Knox's Mother:] There's no way that with no evidence they could convict her of a crime she didn't commit.
[Hill:] If convicted, Knox could spend the rest of her life in prison. And her fate could be decided within days.
[C. Knox:] We have to try to do our best to put on a face that it is going to work out.
[Mellas:] And we keep telling her that that it's taking way longer than we ever expected but she will get out of there. And she's innocent. And they are not going to put an innocent 20-year-old in jail for 30 years. It's just not going to happen.
[Hill:] Erica Hill, CNN, New York.
[Phillips:] Well, she looks like a typical college kid, but when it comes to murder cases, looks can be deceiving, and the jury's still out on this one. Still, it seems everyone has an opinion about Amanda Knox. Our Paula Newton is live in Perugia, Italy. Paula, what are you hearing right now? And do you think that we'll get a verdict today?
[Paula Newton, Cnn International Correspondent:] We still believe we'll get a verdict. The jury's been deliberating for about eight hours now. The estimate was that they would go anywhere between 10 and 15. This could go right into the night, Kyra. And, you know, what has been so fascinating for me is every time I've come here to cover this story, everyone believes she will be convicted, everyone in this town. I have met very few people who believe she will be acquitted. You can imagine how that makes Amanda Knox's family feel, considering they continually say she is absolutely innocent and that the prosecution has fabricated lies, fantasies, really, to make up this whole story Kyra.
[Phillips:] So, any word on the pending lawsuit against Amanda Knox's parents?
[Newton:] Well, one thing that's clear here, look, there are so many lawsuits flying around, Kyra, on one end and the other, whether she's guilty, whether she's pronounced not guilty. When this trial ends in the next few hours and we're only going to go a few more hours here, even if it goes into tomorrow there will be lawsuits, there are defamation cases. There will be appeals. You will be hearing a lot more about this case, and I'll tell you why, Kyra. Those close to the prosecution have told me, we still don't know exactly what happened there. They do believe Amanda Knox and her former boyfriend did kill Meredith Kercher, along with Rudy Guede, but they don't know exactly why, exactly how all the evidence isn't stacking up the way it would in a murder case that might be really a closed and shut case. There has been a whole cloak of mysteries surrounding this. And get this, Kyra. We now have released to us they will not let us show it on the air, but the prosecution showed me today, frame by frame, what looked almost like a Lara Croft video that was a reenactment of what they believe happened that night. In the middle of it, they put in some very graphic pictures of the autopsy of Meredith Kercher. This was shown to the jury for 23 minutes. And I can bet you, Kyra it had a great impact on me I'm sure they're going back to that entire scenario that I was privy to a few hours ago. And yet, even for me, believe me, it raised more questions than it did really answer anything about this case Kyra.
[Phillips:] Paula Newton, we'll follow the case with you. Appreciate it. Evidence speculation? Well, this international whodunit is sparking a legal firestorm among lawyers here in the U.S. Two experts told Anderson Cooper a lot of these clues just don't stack up.
[Douglas Preston, Writer/journalist:] When you examine the evidence and there is a mountain of evidence out there you see that it's all bogus. I'm not saying some of the evidence is bogus or there's a misinterpretation of it. This evidence is manufactured, it's bogus, the science used for those DNA studies is completely it's pseudoscience. It verges on fraudulence. There's no evidence that she was involved in this crime.
[Lisa Bloom, Cnn Legal Analyst:] Here's how I approach this case. The prosecution's theory is preposterous. It's that this young college girl participated, or even was the ringleader, in the rape and murder of her peer. That's extremely unusual for a young female to do. But it's possible. So let's look at the physical evidence. There's very little physical evidence to connect Amanda Knox to this crime. There's no evidence connecting her to the crime scene itself. There is her DNA on the knife, which the prosecution expert said couldn't even for certainty that that was the murder weapon. And there is her DNA in the house because she was housemates and lived there. But the whole theory doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
[Phillips:] Well, a lot of speculation, as you can see, but no answers until the jury returns a verdict. So we'll just have to wait and see. The White House jobs listening tour. President Obama in Allentown. Boy, times have changed since Billy Joel sang about it, wouldn't you say?