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Father to memorialize slain student Meredith Kercher in new book

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The father of Meredith Kercher, the British student whose death was at the heart of a controversial case in Italy, will publish a book remembering his daughter, it was announced Tuesday. Kercher was killed in 2007 in the apartment she shared with American student Amanda Knox in Perugia, Italy.

Knox and her former boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were initially convicted in the case, which drew significant international attention. Her conviction was overturned in the fall of 2011, when Knox and Sollecito were acquitted on appeal. Knox, freed, returned to America. She secured a book deal of her own, with HarperCollins, for $4 million.

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The Associated Press reports that the book by John Kercher, “Meredith: Our Daughter’s Murder and the Heartbreaking Quest for the Truth,” will be published by Hodder & Stoughton in England and the U.S. on April 26. The publisher describes the book as ‘a celebration of Meredith’s life and an account of the family’s ‘ongoing quest for justice.’’

PHOTOS: The Amanda Knox case

In short excerpts from the book posted at the Daily Mail, Kercher describes the day he learned of Kercher’s death. ‘’I hadn’t been able to get through to Meredith on her mobile, which was very unusual, but I tried to keep calm by telling myself the victim couldn’t possibly be Meredith.’ Yet he was about to be plunged into a parent’s nightmare: Kercher was found dead in her room, her throat slashed and her body bearing more than 40 stab wounds and signs of sexual assault.

Members of Kercher’s family -- her mother, sister and brother, but not her father -- were present at the court when the decision was made acquitting Knox and Sollecito.

‘While we accept the decision that was handed down ... we are now left obviously looking at this again and thinking how a decision that was so certain two years ago has been so emphatically overturned now,’ said brother Lyle Kercher. ‘For us, it feels very much almost like back to square one, and the search goes on really to find out what truly happened.’

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