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twenty-three—there was only one girlfriend before Amanda—he was actively, somewhat morbidly, fixated on sex. He masturbated constantly, according to many of his university acquaintances. And a counselor in his college dorm would testify to once walking in to see a “bestiality scene” on Raffaele’s computer.
    Amanda and Raffaele had been lovers for only one week when Meredith was killed. The relationship was fresh and passionate, but it was not monogamous for Amanda. She was still romantically linked to DJ, her old boyfriend from Seattle, and was still bedding casual acquaintances. Amanda told her Greek friend Spiros that she felt slightly guilty starting up with Raffaele when she still had feelings for DJ, who was kept in the dark about her life in Perugia even though they
talked on Skype and e-mailed often. Two nights after Amanda and Raf got involved, she also hooked up once more with Daniel de Luna, the friend of her downstairs neighbors, and later included him on the list of sex partners in her prison diary. Nevertheless, Raf bragged to friends that he and Amanda were having sex three or four times a day, usually under the influence of marijuana or hashish. His father was not happy about the romance. In an intercepted phone conversation days after the murder, he told his son to “erase” Amanda from his mind. “Cancel her out.” After Raffaele’s arrest, his father told ABC News, “She has ruined my son’s life. I damn the day he met her.”
    While Raf appeared to have a bottomless bank account, Amanda had always struggled to pay her own way. She worked three jobs while attending university back in Washington and scrimped to save the money for a year abroad. She worked every night but Monday at Patrick Lumumba’s Le Chic bar, waiting tables and handing out flyers for the bar’s events. But Patrick had been heard to complain that Amanda spent more time talking and flirting with customers than she did selling drinks. He was about to fire her and was considering hiring Meredith for her job. Amanda was scheduled to work on November 1, the night after Halloween.

    Italians do not celebrate Halloween, but the next day, All Souls’, is an important holiday. That’s the day when the spirits of the dead come to visit the living, and family members light candles and leave flowers at the graves of their loved ones. Perugia emptied out for the long holiday weekend. Both Laura and Filomena, eager to avoid the debauchery sure to accompany the foreign students’ Halloween parties, made plans to stay away. Filomena went to her boyfriend’s house, and Laura went home to Viterbo. Giacomo and the guys downstairs all went home to visit the graves of their aunts, uncles, and grandparents. Both Amanda and Meredith stayed out late on Halloween. Amanda worked at Le Chic and then went to a party until 5 A.M.; Meredith party-hopped until 6:30 A.M. Amanda then went to bed at Raffaele’s and returned home around 11 A.M. the next day to take a shower and change clothes. Meredith was there alone, and they chatted briefly. Amanda later recounted that Meredith’s jowls were still stained with the fake blood of her vampire costume. Raffaele arrived soon after Amanda got out of the shower, and the two went off to Amanda’s bedroom, where they say they had sex and took a nap.
    Giacomo had left a key to the lower apartment with Meredith and asked her to look out for their adopted
stray cat and water the marijuana plants he kept under fluorescent lights in a narrow hallway. Meredith studied for a few hours, trying to finish a paper that was due on Monday, and then went downstairs to water the pot. When she finished, she sent Giacomo a flirty text message saying how excited she was to see him when he got back.
    Around 3 P.M., too tired to study, Meredith left via della Pergola to visit her friend Robyn Butterworth, then twenty-two. She did not say good-bye to Amanda and Raffaele, who were still in Amanda’s room. Amanda and Raffaele