Ferris Wheels and Murder Verdict in Perugia

PERUGIA, Italy Dec. 10, 2009— -- It is holiday season in the picturesque Italian city of Perugia. The Ferris wheel is up in on the plaza overlooking the gently rolling hills of Umbria. Nearby, at an open air market, artisans from around region sell their goods: salami, prosciutto, fine olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and an array of cheeses.

But this season the city famous for its chocolates, has become infamous for something else: the murder conviction of Seattle college student 22-year-old Amanda Knox, and her former boyfriend, engineering student Raffaele Sollecito, 25.

Early Saturday morning, a jury of six local residents of two judges sentenced Knox to 26 years and Sollecito to 25 years in prison for the murder of Knox's British roommate Meredith Kercher in November 2007.

Knox's family had flown in from Seattle to be by her side, and had to fight their way through a media mob to hear the verdict. When the lead judge read it out in the packed courtroom, in Italian, at first Knox's mother, Edda Mellas, wasn't sure what was happening.

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"I heard someone gasping in the audience back where the public stood. I heard someone say 'no, no,'" Mellas told "20/20" anchor Elizabeth Vargas in her first interview after the verdict.

"I heard other people weeping back in the public area…and then I could see Amanda …she put her head down then she started to cry...she lost it. We all did."

It was a devastating moment for the Knoxes, who believed the defense had presented a strong case and whittled away the prosecution's evidence and minimized the attacks on Knox's behavior and character.

The Knox family has spent the past two years shuttling back and forth from Seattle to Perugia, doing everything in their power to free the young woman who had come to Perugia to study Italian, and ended up less than two months later arrested for Kercher's brutal murder.

From that moment on, Knox has been at the white-hot core of an international firestorm, labeled by the paparazzi as an icy killer and defended by supporters as an innocent victim of a zealous prosecutor who presented scant evidence and a shifting motive. And now her conviction has ignited a new round of debate.

"Colpevole" – guilty – screamed the headlines in the Italian papers the morning after the verdict.

For Kercher's family, the verdict is seen as bittersweet vindication.