2007
2 November: Meredith Kercher, a 21-year-old exchange student from Coulsdon, Surrey, is discovered with her throat cut in her bedroom at her flat in the Italian town of Perugia. Her body is partially clothed and under a duvet.
4 November: a postmortem examination reveals evidence of sexual activity at some point before Kercher died.
6 November: police arrest Kercher's American flatmate, Amanda Knox, then 20; Knox's boyfriend, Italian student Raffaele Sollecito, 23; and Congolese Diya "Patrick" Lumumba, 38, who runs a local bar. Police claim Kercher was murdered because she refused to take part in violent sex. Knox is said to have broken down and confessed to the crime and implicated Lumumba. The three are held on suspicion of conspiracy to commit manslaughter and sexual violence.
7 November: it is reported that Knox told officers she covered her ears to the sound of screaming coming from Kercher's bedroom.
9 November: Judge Claudia Matteini rules that the three suspects can be held for up to a year while the investigation continues.
11 November: Kercher's body is flown home. Knox's mother, Edda Mellas, says Knox did not hear Kercher's screams the night she died but was with Sollecito at his house.
15 November: DNA is reportedly found on a kitchen knife belonging to Sollecito, with Knox's DNA near the handle and Kercher's on the blade. Police are unsure whether the knife is from Sollecito's kitchen or the house the women shared.
19 November: a fourth suspect is named as Rudy Hermann Guede, 20, from the Ivory Coast. He is thought to have left Perugia for Milan after Kercher died.
20 November: Guede is arrested in the German city of Mainz after travelling without a ticket on a train bound for Frankfurt. Lumumba is released without charge.
22 November: Guede admits being in Kercher's house on the night of the murder but says an Italian man he did not know committed the crime.
30 November: a court in Perugia rejects Sollecito and Knox's appeals to be released from Capanne prison after lead investigator Giuliano Mignini warns the court they might go on the run if set free.
6 December: it is revealed that Guede has been extradited from Germany back to Italy.
2008
9 September: Guede's lawyers say he will ask to be prosecuted separately from Knox and Sollecito in a fast-track trial after talk of a possible pact between the former lovers to frame him.
16 September: all three suspects appear before a judge in the first of a series of pre-trial hearings in Perugia. Judge Paolo Micheli grants Guede's request for a fast-track trial.
26 September: Knox and Sollecito come face to face in a closed courtroom for the first time since being jailed after the murder.
28 October: after 11 hours of deliberation, Judge Micheli sentences Guede to 30 years for the murder of Kercher. He also orders Knox and Sollecito to stand trial for murder and sexual violence.
30 October: Judge Micheli rules that Knox and Sollecito will remain in prison while they await trial.
2009
16 January: the trial of Knox and Sollecito begins.
6 February: on the first day of evidence, Sollecito tells the court he is not violent and has nothing to do with the case.
6 June: Kercher's parents, John and Arline, give evidence. Mrs Kercher says she will never get over her daughter's murder.
12 June: Knox gives evidence in fluent Italian. She says she accused Lumumba "in confusion and under pressure" and that a police officer hit her on the head during her interrogation.
21 November: prosecutors ask for life sentences for Knox and Sollecito.
4 December: Knox and Sollecito are both found guilty of the murder. Knox is sentenced to 26 years in prison and Sollecito to 25.
5 December: Knox's family say they will immediately begin the process of appealing against the verdict.
2010
24 November: Knox and Sollecito return to court in Perugia for the start of their appeal.
11 December: Knox breaks down in tears as she makes an emotional courtroom appeal against her conviction, saying she was the innocent victim of an "enormous mistake".
16 December: Italy's highest criminal court upholds Guede's conviction and prison sentence, which was slashed to 16 years in his first appeal.
19 December: the court allows a review of the DNA evidence used to convict Knox and Sollecito.
2011
27 June: Guede gives evidence for the prosecution in the appeal process and confirms the contents of a letter he wrote to his lawyers in 2010, which included a direct accusation against Knox and Sollecito.
25 July: experts tell the appeal court that the forensic scientists who helped convict Knox made a series of glaring errors. The genetic evidence was tainted by the use of a dirty glove and failure to wear protective caps, they claim.
7 September: the appeal court rejects a prosecution request for new DNA tests, saying they would be unnecessary. Prosecutor Manuela Comodi reportedly says she can envisage Knox and Sollecito being cleared.
3 October: final appeal hearing.
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