Amanda Knox, right, arrives from Rome with family members at Heathrow Airport London, Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2011. Amanda Knox headed home to the United States a free woman Tuesday, after an Italian appeals court dramatically overturned the American student's conviction of sexually assaulting and brutally slaying her British roommate. (AP Photo/Pool)
Amanda Knox, right, arrives from Rome with family members at Heathrow Airport London, Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2011. Amanda Knox headed home to the United States a free woman Tuesday, after an Italian appeals court dramatically overturned the American student's conviction of sexually assaulting and brutally slaying her British roommate. (AP Photo/Pool)
A reporter knocks on the door where a "welcome home" sign is posted at the home of Curt Knox for his daughter Amanda Knox on her expected arrival later in the day Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2011, in Seattle. It's been four years since the University of Washington student left for the study abroad program in Perugia and landed in prison. The group Friends of Amanda Knox and others have been awaiting her return since an Italian appeals court on Monday overturned her conviction of sexually assaulting and killing her British roommate. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
In this image made from amateur video accessed by APTN, Amanda Knox, right, embraces an unidentified person at Rome's Leonardo da Vinci airport, Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2011. Amanda Knox was leaving Italy a free woman Tuesday, the morning after an Italian appeals court dramatically overturned the American student's conviction of sexually assaulting and brutally slaying her British roommate. The Italy-US Foundation, which has championed Knox's cause, said the American was at Leonardo da Vinci airport in Rome boarding a flight to London, where she will catch a connecting flight to the United States. (AP Photo)
Francesco Sollecito, father of Raffaele Sollecito, meets reporters outside his home in Bisceglie, Italy, Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2011. Amanda Knox headed home to the United States a free woman Tuesday, the morning after an Italian appeals court dramatically overturned the American student's and her one time boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito convictions of sexually assaulting and brutally slaying their British roommate. Knox and Sollecito were convicted in 2009 of sexually assaulting and murdering Kercher, a 21-year-old British student who shared an apartment with Knox in Perugia. Both had been in prison since Nov. 6, 2007, four days after Kercher's body had been found at the apartment. (AP Photo/Donato Fasano)
Amanda Knox's father Curt Knox, center back, and other members of the family check in at Rome's Leonardo da Vinci airport Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2011. Amanda Knox was leaving Italy a free woman Tuesday, the morning after an Italian appeals court dramatically overturned the American student's conviction of sexually assaulting and brutally slaying her British roommate. The Italy-US Foundation, which has championed Knox's cause, said the American was at Leonardo da Vinci airport in Rome boarding a flight to London, where she will catch a connecting flight to the United States. (AP Photo/Max Rossi, Pool)
LONDON (AP) ? After Italian prisoners gave her a boisterous send-off, Amanda Knox made her way home to America on 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.
Reporters on board the British Airways flight hoping to talk to Knox, now a tabloid staple on two continents, were blocked on the stairs by a flight attendant who politely informed them that the family would speak publicly only after the plane touched down at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. It was unclear whether Knox herself would speak then.
Knox's life, spent in prison for the last four years, turned around dramatically Monday when an Italian appeals court threw out her murder conviction in the death of her British roommate. The decision, fueled by doubts over DNA evidence, stunned the victim's family and angered the prosecution, which insists that she was among three people who killed 21-year-old Meredith Kercher.
Knox left Perugia's Capanne prison Monday night amid cheers that a companion compared to those at a soccer stadium.
Hundreds of inmates ? most of them in the men's wing ? shouted "Amanda, ciao!" and "Freedom!" as she walked into the central courtyard, said Corrado Maria Daclon, head of the Italy-US Foundation, which championed Knox's cause.
"They were screaming like crazy," said Daclon, who accompanied Knox in her first hours of freedom. Daclon said Knox jumped a little for joy and waved to the prisoners.
She was soon on her way home, protected by the darkened windows of a Mercedes that led her out of the prison in the middle of the night, and then Tuesday morning to Rome's Leonardo da Vinci airport.
"Those who wrote, those who defended me, those who were close, those who prayed for me," Knox wrote in a letter released just hours before leaving the country, "I love you."
Knox thanked those Italians "who shared my suffering and helped me survive with hope," in a letter to the Italy-US Foundation, which seeks to promote ties between the two countries.
"During the trip from Perugia to Rome, Amanda was serene," said Daclon, who was with Knox in the car.
Knox flew from Rome to London, where she took a direct flight to Seattle, flying business class with full-length seat and menu options including champagne, smoked salmon and prawn salad.
At least nine members of media organizations were on board, but a British Airways attendant on the flight blocked them from the plane's secluded upper deck "to preserve the privacy" of passengers. The attendant, quoting a Knox family member, said media were not allowed to contact Knox or her family on the flight but were welcome to attend a news conference later in Seattle.
"WELCOME HOME AMANDA," read the marquee at a record store in the neighborhood where Knox grew up. Another welcome sign was hung at her father's house.
"We always talked about what we would do when she gets home," said her uncle Michael Huff. "... She wanted to lay down on the lawn, her grass."
Huff said his niece was able to handle her ordeal because "she's a strong kid. She's unbelievable." ''We always knew that she was innocent. It was trying to get the court to see that," Huff said. "The defense team did a fantastic job to show that."
To Knox, the verdict means freedom after four years behind bars and under the spotlight of an international press focused on her every word or gesture. The case has been a cause celebre in the U.S., and a staple of British tabloids, which took to calling her "Foxy Knoxy."
"FREE," said local newspaper La Nazione on its front page, dominated by a huge photo of a crying Knox, overwhelmed by emotions as the verdict was read out Monday night in a packed courtroom in Perugia.
Her grandmother Elisabeth Huff said that when she heard the verdict, "I felt like a huge rock fell off me."
"It was like the weight of the world had gone. Now I can look forward to sleeping at night. We were just jumping with joy," told The Associated Press outside her Seattle home Tuesday afternoon.
Kerchner's family said during an emotional news conference Monday that they were back to "square one."
"If those two are not the guilty parties, then who are the guilty people?" asked Lyle Kercher, a brother of the victim.
Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini expressed disbelief at the innocent verdicts of Knox and her former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito. He 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 told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "This trial was done under unacceptable media pressure."
Prosecutors maintain that Knox, Sollecito and another man killed Kercher during a lurid, drug-fueled sex game. Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison and Sollecito received 25, but the prosecution's case was blown apart by a DNA review ordered during the appeals trial that discredited crucial genetic evidence.
Prosecutors maintain that Knox's DNA was found on the handle of a kitchen knife believed to be the murder weapon, and that Kercher's DNA was found on the blade. They said Sollecito's DNA was on the clasp of Kercher's bra as part of a mix of evidence that also included the victim's genetic profile.
But an independent review ? ordered at the request of the defense, which had always disputed those findings ? found that police conducting the investigation had made glaring errors in evidence-collecting. The two experts said below-standard testing and possible contamination raised doubts over the attribution of DNA traces, both on the blade and on the bra clasp, which was collected from the crime scene 46 days after the murder.
The review was crucial throwing out the convictions because no motive has emerged and witness testimony was contradictory.
The highest court's remit is to rule on whether any procedures had been violated, and the hearing generally takes one day in Rome. Defendants are not required to attend.
If the highest court overturns the acquittal, prosecutors would be free to request Knox's extradition to Italy to finish whatever remained of a sentence. It is up to the government to decide whether to make the formal extradition request.
One conviction in the slaying still stands: that of Ivory Coast native Rudy Hermann Guede. His lawyer said Tuesday he will seek a retrial.
Guede was convicted in a separate fast-track procedure and saw his sentence cut to 16 years in his final appeal. He says he is innocent, though he admits being in the house the night of the murder.
Defense lawyers maintain that Guede was the sole killer, while prosecutors say that bruises and a lack of defensive wounds on Kercher's body prove that there was more than one aggressor holding her into submission. However, they could never quite explain how Knox and Sollecito, who had been dating for less than a week, would be involved in an extreme sexual scenario with somebody only one of them barely knew.
The highest court, in upholding Guede's conviction, said he had not acted alone. However, the court's ruling does not name Knox and Sollecito as Guede's accomplices, saying it was not up to the court to determine that.
Kercher family was perplexed, saying, in Lyle Kercher's words, that the decision "obviously raises further questions" since Guede's conviction remains. "As far as I understand, the courts agree he wasn't acting alone."
___
Alessandra Rizzo reported from Perugia, Italy. Associated Press writers Colleen Barry in Perugia, Phuong Le and Haven Daley in Seattle and Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.
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