An American living in a beautiful foreign town is arrested and convicted of a sensational rape and murder. A U.S.-based innocence campaign takes hold, seeking to debunk a flawed police investigation, until local courts reverse.
It may sound like Amanda Knox's story, but it's also the tale of Eric Volz, a California native convicted, then exonerated, of killing a former girlfriend in Nicaragua.
Volz's long, slow work to rebuild his life shed light on the road that Knox, exonerated by an Italian court last week, is just beginning. Volz, who was in prison more than a year, said it took him weeks before he stopped being "hypervigilant," startling even when a car door slammed. For more than a year he couldn't sit
comfortably alone in a coffee shop.
"In some ways, regaining your freedom at home is harder than getting out," said Volz, now 32 and free for four years.
Knox's challenge likely is bigger than that of Volz or several other high-profile detainees who regained their freedom, including two American hikers released on bail after more than two years in an Iranian prison, because she has become a tabloid staple.
A vocal group believes Knox got away with murder, and Italian prosecutors plan to appeal her acquittal to the country's highest court. British tabloid reports suggest Meredith Kercher's family may sue Knox if she seeks to profit from her story.
Volz met with the Knox family in Seattle last summer, offering advice. As he suggested,
Amanda Knox, more than a week after her return, remains hidden from the press but reconnecting with family and friends.
Her father, Curt Knox, said last week that she "just wants to feel what it's like to be outside of prison." He told KOMO radio, "It's going to take some time before we figure out what the new normal will be."
"Gringo nightmare"
Volz found himself in trouble when his former girlfriend, Doris Jimenez, was raped and murdered in 2006 in the Nicaraguan surfer town of San Juan del Sur. Volz had co-founded a magazine there and also worked as a real-estate agent.
Despite an alibi supported by 10 people and phone records that showed he was more than 80 miles away, Volz was convicted and
sentenced to 30 years in prison. Under pressure from a U.S. innocence campaign and with the help of a skilled legal team, Volz was released just before Christmas 2007.
After reclaiming a sense of security, Volz found it therapeutic to write a book, "Gringo Nightmare." But he was a target of suspicion, mostly by Nicaraguans, for years, and said hate mail surged when Volz called for Knox's release on his website.
"It's a very strange feeling to see the world
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