From Scotland to Seattle, stories saturated the mainstream media last weekend with the headline, “Police: Knox did cartwheels after murder.”

The reports were referring to Italian police investigators who stated in court that Amanda Knox “acted inappropriately” while performing some curious calisthenics just four days following the murder of her British roommate, Meredith Kercher.

Knox, of West Seattle, is on trial with her boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, for the group murder of Kercher in Perugia, Italy, where Knox attended college on a University of Washington foreign exchange program, and where, on the night of Nov. 1, 2007, the murder took place.

A third suspect, Rudy Hermann Guede, has already been convicted of the murder and is serving time.

The prosecution claims the three converged in a deadly sex ritual and killed Kercher.
 Reports say that on Nov. 5 Knox performed cartwheels, consistent with what they claim as Knox’s "strange behavior" she exhibited on other occasions shortly after the murder. But according to Chris Mellas, Amanda Knox’s stepfather, what began as an exaggeration from the prosecution quickly became a myth in the press.

“Amanda accompanied Raffaele to the station where he was then interrogated by Monica Napoleani, the Perugia chief of homicide. Amanda was there to support him, as he had supported her before, when she was interrogated,” said Chris Mellas. Chris Mellas is the husband of Edda Mellas, Amanda’s mother. Both live in West Seattle.

“She was actually sitting alone in a separate room waiting for her boyfriend, and Napoleani said in court Friday (Feb. 27) that when she went to get some water she walked by the room where Amanda was and saw Amanda ‘doing the splits.’ She said she thought this was ‘odd behavior,’ and that Amanda should have instead appeared to be mourning the loss of Meredith. The tabloid press further sensationalized her statement by changing ‘the splits’ to ‘cartwheels,’ and the mainstream press ran with that. ”

“Amanda does yoga to calm herself down and relieve stress, and she told her father and me that’s why she was doing the splits. Also, in those four days she was in mourning over Meredith, which followed her outrage. Six hours after the discovery (of the body) she was like, ‘Let’s find the bastard who killed her.’”

Chris Mellas will fly to Italy this week to attend the trial and to support his stepdaughter. He will relieve her father, Curt, who has been there for several weeks. Family members rotate so that at least one relative is with Knox during the trial.

In Italy trials like these are held only on Fridays and Saturdays to allow jurors to work during the week, and to spend nights at home.