Last March a made-for-TV documentary called "The Trials of Amanda Knox" aired in Seattle on TLC about the West Seattle U.W. student currently serving a 26-year jail sentence outside Perugia, Italy for the murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher there. A new cable-TV movie is scheduled to air on the Lifetime Channel in mid-2011. Some reports are calling it “Tangled,” while others are saying the title is “The Amanda Knox Story.”

Hayden Panettiere, 21, who starred as Claire Bennet on the hit TV series, Heroes, will portray Amanda Knox. It has been widely reported on TV, including Inside Edition, and in newspapers nationwide, including the Chicago Sun-Times, that Panettiere met with Knox in prison “as part of her preparation to play Amanda Knox.” However, this is untrue.

“I can confirm that Hayden did not meet with Amanda,” Les Eisner told the West Seattle Herald by email. Eisner is Vice President of Corporate Communications with Lifetime Television.

Reached by phone in Perugia Oct. 2, Amanda’s stepfather Chris Mellas told the West Seattle Herald, “By judicial decree Amanda could not receive such a visitor, only her family and close friends. Reports that Hayden Panettiere visited Amanda in prison are false.”

There are also numerous reports worldwide that the family of Amanda Knox will “block” the Lifetime film. This is also untrue, according to family members.

“Our lawyers have expressed that it is not the appropriate time to release a film, before the appeals process, but neither our lawyers nor we have said we would block the film,” said Mellas. “We have heard that the film’s producer said the film would not contain a verdict of innocence or guilt, and that it would allow the viewer to make his own decision.

“I have no criticism about making this film,” Mellas added. “Maybe they’re coming out with a story that will be good for Amanda. Lifetime has done a lot of good stories, with a platform of advocacy for wrongly accused prisoners. But I have never spoken with any of these people.”

“I would love to know why no one has ever bothered to ask the family anything or why it’s being said that the actress has visited Amanda in jail when she has not,” said Janet Huff, Amanda’s aunt, also a West Seattle resident, of the filmmakers involved.

Also being falsely reported is that the Lifetime movie will star Colin Firth and be directed by Michael Winterbottom. In fact Winterbottom, who Mellas has spotted around the Perugia courtrooms lately, is scheduled to direct another film about the Meredith Kercher murder trial, starring Firth as an investigative reporter. Both Winterbottom and Firth are British. Firth’s wife, Livia Giuggioli, is an accomplished Italian film producer.

“What I am hearing here in Perugia is that the whole thrust of that film is that there is a murder, and how the media treats the release of information. There won’t even be a character named Amanda,” said Mellas.