The legal ordeal, and anguish, of West Seattle-raised Amanda Knox, and her former Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, continues. Both were aquitted Oct. 3, 2011 of all murder charges of her British college roommate, Meredith Kercher, stabbed to death in their shared apartment Nov. 1, 2007 in Perugia, Italy, also the town where trial took place.

Early this morning West Coast time, an Italian court ruled they must stand trial again. Legal experts, at least here in America, are reporting that it is doubtful Knox will return to the courtroom in Italy. She lives in Seattle where she studies at the University of Washington. However, Sollecito is more vulnerable as he lives in Italy.

See the West Seattle article about the overturned appeal here.

The West Seattle Herald began reporting on Amanda Knox, her family, friends, legal experts and investigators at Salty's Restaurant on Alki in West Seattle during a fundraiser for her in Jan., 2009, and continued to write over 45 articles about Knox as she was held at Capanne Prison for nearly four years, until her release. Our articles were referenced by the BBC, CNN-TV, Wikipedia, and various Italian press outlets.

Criminal investigator, Paul Ciolino, who worked on, and appeared in, CBS 20/20 investigations slamming the prosecution and, in his view, their clumsy investigation techniques, spoke at Salty's during that fundraiser, and is believed to have coined the phrase, "This is a railroad job from hell" in reference to the conviction of Knox and Sollecito. He spoke to the West Seattle Herald by phone this morning, March 26, from his Chicago office about the overturned acquittal.

"This puts the whole thing back in play again," he said, with outrage in his voice. "This is merely an appellate court decision saying the lower court f***ed up. (Unlike America's system) there is no such thing as double jeopardy over there because they have a right to appeal a decision.

"Amanda is a political football, and not so much a murder suspect," he continued. "They know she didn't do it. Anyone with half a brain knows she and Raffaele weren't involved in this thing. This is about national pride, about showing who's boss in Italy. They are sending the message that, 'You cannot bigfoot us. You can't outspend us. We're going to show you who runs this country and it's not some little American twit from Seattle.'"

Ciolino said the cases lead prosecutor Giuliano Mignini "is a hero over there."

He added, "Mignini is the hammer that hit America in the head. He is a national treasure in that country. The Italians love a conspiracy. Common sense and evidence doesn't enter into the picture."

Paul Ciolino was the primary investigative advisor to the Innocence Projects at: Northwestern Law School, The Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, and DePaul University, Center for Justice in Capitol Cases, College of Law, all in Chicago. He was a co-founder and primary instructor on investigative tactics at the first Conference on Wrongful Convictions and the Death Penalty held at Northwestern Law School.