Amanda Knox Rejected Offer to Leave, Wanted to Console Kercher's Dad

ROME, July 17, 2009 — -- In the days after Amanda Knox's roommate was found murdered, Knox turned down an invitation from a relative to visit her in Germany saying she wanted to answer the investigators' questions and to meet and console her slain roommate's father, according to court testimony today.

Knox's relative testified in Perugia, Italy, today as the testimony phase of the lengthy trial nears as an end. Testimony will wrap up Saturday and the court will take a break until September when closing arguments will be presented.

Knox, 22, of Seattle, and her Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, 25, are on trial for the murder of Meredith Kercher, the British student who was Knox's roommate. Both girls were on study-abroad programs in the picturesque little hilltown in Italy.

Dorothy Craft Najir, the first-cousin of Knox's mother Edda Mellas, told the court that she urged Knox to come to Germany after the murder.

"I told her to come see me in Germany so she could calm down," Najir said. But Knox said no. "She said she wanted to help the police and answer their questions," Najir added.

Najir also said that Knox had told her that she wanted to meet Kercher's father "to tell him what she thought happened. She wanted to console him, be nice to him, and tell him what she knew." Knox never got a chance to meet Kercher's parents.

Kercher was found dead in a pool of blood on Nov. 2, 2007, her throat slit. Just days after the murder Knox and Sollecito were taken into custody. A third person, a drifter from the Ivory Coast, Rudy Guede, 22, has been convicted of participating in the sexual assault and murder – the result of a sex game gone wrong, prosecutors believe – and was sentenced to 30 years in prison.