Perugia , Italy ( CNN ) -- Who is Amanda Knox ? Is she a two-faced she-devil , angelic and compassionate to some but Satanic and Lucifer-like to others ? That 's what Carlo Pacelli , the lawyer for a man Knox falsely accused in the 2007 murder of her roommate , Meredith Kercher , called her as he summed up his case last week . Is she `` Foxy Knoxy , '' as the British tabloid press leered and sneered at her within hours of her exoneration in Kercher 's murder Monday ? Or is she the fresh-faced girl from Seattle she still appears to be , even after spending nearly four years behind bars before her conviction was quashed ? Is Knox simply the victim of character assassination , painted falsely as a `` femme fatale '' by prosecutors and media the world over ? Defense lawyer Giulia Bongiorno advanced that theory in her own closing argument . She compared Knox to Jessica Rabbit , the hourglass-shaped , husky-voiced cartoon character who insists in the movie `` Who Framed Roger Rabbit ? '' that she 's not bad , she 's just `` drawn that way . '' Five women and three men on a jury here weighed in decisively on who Knox is Monday , throwing out the five most serious charges she was originally convicted of in connection with Kercher 's death and releasing her from prison . Audible gasp in courtroom as verdict is read . The jury also freed Raffaele Sollecito , her former boyfriend who became her co-defendant . Their release came at the end of an appeal lasting just over four months and feeling much more like a re-trial than an appeal as understood in the United States or Kercher 's native Britain . Lawyers battled on two fronts -- DNA evidence and Knox 's character . Police scientists argued that a knife found at Sollecito 's home had traces of Kercher 's DNA on the blade and Knox 's DNA on the handle . And they testified that a bra clasp belonging to Kercher and found in her room had Sollecito 's genetic material on it . Experts appointed by the court questioned police handling of the evidence , suggesting authorities ' sloppiness could make the DNA results unreliable and should make them inadmissible in court . Prosecution witnesses , meanwhile , maintained that the tests were valid -- leading to highly technical and sometimes heated courtroom arguments and prompting the prosecution to ask for new DNA tests , a request the judge rejected . No end to Knox as pop culture obsession . Knox and Sollecito do not have airtight alibis for the night of November 1 , 2007 , when Kercher 's throat was slashed , her semi-naked body left under a bed cover . Their cell phones and Sollecito 's computer were switched off at the time of the murder , depriving them of potentially exculpatory evidence . But while they can not prove they were not at the scene of the crime , their defense team says the prosecution can not prove that they were . There was no physical trace of them in the room where Kercher died , Knox and Sollecito 's lawyers insisted . They argued that the crime was solely the work of drifter Rudy Guede , who was convicted separately and is serving 16 years . His DNA was all over the crime scene , the defense said . That may have been enough for the jury to set Knox and Sollecito free . Defense lawyer Luciano Ghirga reminded the jury repeatedly Monday morning that the prosecution needed to prove its case `` beyond a reasonable doubt '' -- a standard he made a point of saying was rooted in Italian law and was not imported from America , in a nod to the nationalistic tensions that have sometimes seemed to underpin this case . The jury must have had sufficient doubts to overturn a verdict rendered by eight of their compatriots less than two years ago . That means that either Knox and Sollecito were the victims of a miscarriage of justice then , or that Kercher is now . Only Knox and Sollecito themselves may know which it is -- because nearly four years after Kercher 's death , incontrovertible evidence about whether Knox and Sollecito were involved remains maddeningly elusive . CNN 's Hada Messia and Mallory Simon contributed to this report .
Knox was cleared in the 2007 death of her roommate . The defense maintains prosecutors ca n't prove her involvement . Knox spent four years behind bars .