Amanda Knox's Sisters 'Hoping for the Best' As Appeals Trial Concludes

Sept. 28, 2011 -- Every week for the past four years, at least one member of Amanda Knox's family has made the trip to the Italian prison where the American student is being held.

This morning, Knox's parents, step parents, aunts and sisters made what they hope will be their final visit to the prison as the appeals case in her 2009 murder conviction nears its conclusion and what Knox hopes will be a verdict that will free her from a sentence of 26 years.

"She's doing really good," Knox's sister, Deana, told "Good Morning America" today in an exclusive interview from Italy with Knox's two other sisters, Ashley and Delaney, after their visit.

Knox, 24, and her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, 27, were convicted in 2009 of murdering Knox's British roommate Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy, where both women were spending a year abroad to study. Knox has been sentenced to 26 years, while Sollecito got 25 years in prison.

"I cherish every moment I get with her because you don't know when it could be your last," Knox's younger sister, Delaney, who had not seen her sister in two years before today's visit, told "GMA." "But I'm hoping for the best and things are going good."

Knox's family said they now see new reason for hope in the final days of the often tense trial. Knox herself looked more optimistic in court this week as her lawyers urged the judge and jury, "If you have any doubt about the DNA evidence, you must set her free."

At the end of Tuesday's session, Edda Mellas, Knox's mother, told ABC News that she saw Knox smile for the first time and asked her daughter, "'Can you feel the light?' because today's hearing was great."

"I think we got past all of the hard stuff in the last couple of days," Deana said on "GMA." "We finally started the good days with all the defense and she was really happy that process has begun."

The judge presiding over the appeal by Knox and Sollecito said that the final arguments were moving along so quickly that a verdict could come as soon as Saturday. It had originally been anticipated to be delivered early next week.

A key moment in the trial still to come will be when Amanda Knox addresses the court, either Friday or Saturday. Knox will be the last person to speak before the six jurors and two judges retire to decide whether to overturn her murder conviction and set her free, or increase her 26 year prison sentence to life in prison.

Knox's family has said she has been working on the statement, which she plans to deliver in Italian, for more than three months.

"She really wants to just show the court who she really is," Deana said on "GMA." "She doesn't want them to believe the character that all the prosecutors have played out. She wants them to know who she is."

Knox's Sisters Plan for Future Together

Knox's lawyers have spent much of their defense rejecting prosecution arguments that painted Knox as a sex obsessed "she devil."

The prosecution has used images of Knox and her Sollecito embracing outside the Perugia cottage where Kercher was killed and later at the police station while waiting to be interrogated to reinforce an image of Knox being more interested in sex than her slain roommate.

Knox's lawyers have, instead, compared their client to Jessica Rabbit, the sexy but tender and loving cartoon character in the movie "Who Killed Roger Rabbit."

Defense lawyer Giulia Bongiorno paraphrased Jessica Rabbit's famous line from the movie in which Jessica's draws, "I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way."

Knox's sisters described their own time in Italy during the trial as "really difficult."

"I'm not used to the cameras in my face," said Ashley, referring to the high level of media interest the case has drawn in Italy.

"It's hard, everything being said in an hour," she said of the family's brief visits with Knox in the prison reception room where the walls have been, at times, sprayed with anti-Knox graffiti, including "Amanda is a whore."

On Monday, with Knox and her family in the courtroom, prosecutors showed the emotion packed autopsy photos of Kercher's nude and bloody body.

"I was surprised and shocked," Deana said of the decision by prosecutors to show the images in court, without warning. "I know it's not something that I would like to see."

During the initial trial and earlier in the appeals hearing, the courtroom had been cleared whenever those photos were introduced. But on Monday, the lawyers did not clear the room, allowing the public to view the photos. The prosecutor later said it was an oversight.

"Amanda told me a lot about Meredith before everything happened and she seemed like a sweet girl," Deana told "GMA." "If that was someone in my family I would never want that to happen so I was a little shocked by his actions to show those pictures."

Knox's lawyers will make their summations on Thursday, followed by summations and statements by Sollecito and Knox.

For Knox's sisters, the final days of the trial are spent looking ahead to what they hope to do with their sister, back home in the U.S.

"Of course hug her and never let go," Ashley said of what she plans to do first if her sister is freed. "And then just catch up on the four years we've missed of her not being there, and do some fun things we both love to do."

Watch full coverage of the Amanda Knox case on "20/20" Friday at 10 p.m. ET.