Four years of trials, and sentences came to an end on Oct. 3 when Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito were cleared of homicide convictions for the 2007 sexual assault and murder of Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Italy.

Knox, Sollecito and Kercher were all college students in Perugia. Kercher shared an apartment with Knox and two other young women. Knox and Sollecito, formerly a couple, were thought to have killed their fellow student.

In 2009 Knox and Sollecito were found guilty of the stabbing of Kercher and were sentenced to 25 plus years in Italian prison. However, the case was largely based on DNA evidence that legal experts called “flimsy and suspect.”

Knox received the most media coverage because, even though she was an American student from Seattle studying abroad, Italian officials insisted the trial take place in the country the crime was committed.

Crying in front of the court earlier in the day, Knox presented her statement in Italian: “I did not kill, I did not rape, I did not steal. I was not there,” Knox said. “I want to go back home. I want to go back to my life. I don’t want to be punished. I don’t want my life and my future to be taken away for something I didn’t do.”