Quotes of the Week: 'She Thought This Was the End of a Nightmare'
The best quotes of the week.
March 30, 2013— -- intro: As Amanda Knox tries to put her murder trial behind her, an Italian court ruled this week that the American student should be retried for the 2007 murder of her roommate. Click through to read Knox's reaction and to catch up on the week's top stories.
quicklist: 1title: 'She Thought This Was the End of a Nightmare'text: Amanda Knox was "shocked" by Italy's Supreme Court ruling this week that she must be retried for the 2007 murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher.
Knox spent four years in prison before an Italian appeals court threw out her murder conviction in 2011 and she had been hoping the court would uphold the appeals court ruling and end her six-year ordeal.
Instead she was told that the marathon legal battle would continue for her and for her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, who had been convicted along with her.
The court also refused to vacate her conviction for slander over her identifying her employer, Patrick Lumumba, as the person who killed Kercher. It was a statement, she claims, she made under police duress.
"She is shocked and very sad," Knox's lawyer Carlo Dalla Vedova said. "She thought this was the end of a nightmare."
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quicklist: 2title: 'Katelyn Wanted the Prom to Go On. That's Her. That's Katie Bug.'text: Katelyn Norman, a Tennessee teenager whose bucket list rallied and inspired supporters from all over the country, died Friday after a two-year battle with osteosarcoma, an aggressive bone cancer.
Katelyn, 14, died at East Tennessee Children's Hospital at 8:19 a.m., according to hospital spokeswoman Erica Estep.
After fighting the cancer for two years, she was told last week that it had spread and there was not much more doctors could do. She was sent home to spend her last days with her family, but returned to the hospital on Tuesday when she was having trouble breathing.
Katelyn made a bucket list that included attending a prom, a last slow dance, learning to drive a car, a day with each sibling and seeing Italy.
A special prom for her was planned for Tuesday night in LaFollette, Tenn., but during the day Katelyn was having difficulty breathing and had to be taken to the hospital. Doctors told her she couldn't go to her special prom, but she didn't want that to stop others from going.
"Katelyn wanted the prom to go on. That's her. That's Katie bug," Sharon Shepherd told ABCNews.com.
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quicklist: 3title: 'I Kind of Thought, 'No, She Is Never Going to be Identified.''text: A severed head found on a golf course 24 years ago has been identified using DNA evidence and may be linked to a serial killer, New Jersey police said Wednesday.
The head of 25-year-old Heidi Balch, who worked as a prostitute around Manhattan in 1988, was found on a Hopewell Township, N.J., golf course, in 1989, but was only identified this month after collaboration between the New Jersey State Police and the Hopewell Township Police Department.
"It was shocking," said Hopewell Township Police Chief George Meyer, who was one of the detectives called to the scene after the head was found near the seventh hole.
"Periodically, over the years, detectives would pick up the case and make efforts at identifying her," he said. "I kind of thought, 'No, she is never going to be identified.'"
A break came when detectives realized the dumped head matched a story from serial killer Joel Rifkin, who claimed to have dismembered and dumped a victim named Susie around New Jersey.
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quicklist: 4title: 'Customers Love Smartphones, Everyone Hates Contracts.'text: T-Mobile, the fourth largest U.S. cellular carrier, has announced sweeping changes to its phone plans.
"Customers love smartphones, everyone hates contracts," John Legere, president and CEO of T-Mobile USA, said on stage Tuesday at the company's Uncarrier event. And with that the company killed the idea of two-year contracts.
That might sound awesome and fairly simple, but it can get a bit complicated when you start digging into the details, especially for those of us who have gotten so used to the two-year contract system.
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quicklist: 5title: 'The Commutation Power Is a Responsibility Gov. Branstad Takes Very Seriously.'text: The governor of Iowa held a rare public meeting Wednesday to discuss whether he should set free a convicted murderer serving a life sentence, who many believe is contrite and deserves a second chance.
Rasberry Williams, 66, is serving a life sentence for the 1974 murder of Lester Givhan, a neighbor who owed Williams a $30 gambling debt. Williams waited for Givhan to leave a Waterloo, Iowa, pool hall where he shot him once before turning himself over to police.
Already, the Iowa Board of Parole, the prosecutor who put Williams away and the judge who sentenced him have said the inmate's sentence should be reduced with the possibility of parole, meaning Williams could walk free.
Despite those recommendations, the decision falls solely on the shoulders of Gov. Terry Brandstad, a Republican who in two terms and 18 years in office has commuted the sentences of just two prisoners.
"The commutation power is a responsibility Gov. Branstad takes very seriously," his spokesman Tim Albrecht told ABC News.com.
Williams' case has been considered by three previous governors, but following the parole board's recent 4-0 vote to change his sentence, his chances are better now than ever before.
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quicklist: 6title: 'I Apologize for the Insensitive Term I Used.'text: Rep. Don Young, who used the term "wetbacks" to describe Mexican immigrants in a radio interview Thursday night, issued a full-scale apology Friday afternoon for using the derogatory slur after a barrage of criticism from Republicans and Democrats.
"I apologize for the insensitive term I used during an interview in Ketchikan, Alaska," Young, R-Alaska, wrote in his second statement in a 24-hour period. "There was no malice in my heart or intent to offend; it was a poor choice of words."
In his earlier statement, Young excused his use of the smear as "a term that was commonly used" during his days growing up on his father's ranch in central California, but in his second statement, the 21-term congressmantried to leave no ambiguity about his remorse.
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quicklist: 7title: 'I Think It Is Important to Put the Video in Context.'text: The IRS owes you an apology. So says the agency itself, following revelations that its employees spent $60,000 making two parody videos, one of them inspired by the TV show "Star Trek."
In a public rebuke of the agency, Rep. Charles Boustany, R. La., chairman of the Ways and Means Committee's subcommittee on Oversight, said in a statement Friday: "There is nothing more infuriating to a taxpayer than to find out the government is using their hard-earned dollars in a way that is frivolous. The IRS admitted as much when it disclosed that it no longer produces such videos."
The IRS, attempting to justify its having made this video and a second one parodying "Gilligan's Island," offered up the following humanah, humanah-like response:
"I think it is important to put the video in context," wrote acting Commissioner Steven T. Miller in a letter to Boustany March 22, "and [to] outline what has transpired with respect to training and videos since 2010."
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