Investigators are convinced that they have identified most, if not all, of the people responsible for last month's murder of a British exchange student here but are still at a loss as to the motive of the crime.
Meredith Kercher, 22, was found November 2 with her throat slashed in the house she shared in Perugia with three other girls.
Three people are currently in custody in connection with her murder: Kercher's 20-year-old American roommate Amanda Marie Knox; the roommate's 24-year old Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito; and 21-year-old Ivory Coast national Rudy Hermann Guede.
Although investigators are in the dark in regards to the motive, they said the forensic evidence they have gathered against the three suspects is rock solid.
In an 18-page report released on Wednesday, police said their investigation and the evidence ''proved a direct relationship between the suspects and the victim and the presence of the suspects in the apartment at the time of the attack on Meredith''.
The report also said that the crime had been committed by ''two or more people who had access to the apartment and thus did not need to break in''.
Police are convinced that Knox and Sollecito were the ones who tried to thoroughly clean the scene of the crime, to the point that only one of Knox's fingerprints had been found in an apartment where she had lived for months.
This based on the fact that two empty bottles of bleach were found in Sollecito's apartment which his maid told police were not the same brand she always used there.
Police also found a large kitchen knife in Sollecito's kitchen which had the victim's DNA on the blade and Knox's DNA on the handle.
Knox's blood was also found in the bathroom she shared with the victim which police suspect was left from a nosebleed after the apartment was cleaned, indicating she was there after the murder.
An examination of Sollecito's computer revealed that it had not been used just before and after the estimated time of death, from 9pm to 2am on the night between November 1 and 2, thus contradicting the student's claim that he had been working alone on his thesis that night.
Police also have a footprint left in Kercher's blood which matched the size and make of sneakers owned by Sollecito.
The evidence against Guede, who fled to Germany after the murder, from where he was extradited this month, included the fact that police found his bloody fingerprint on Kercher's pillow and his DNA in the toilet at the scene of the crime and in a vaginal swab of the victim.
Guede has admitted being at the scene of the crime but denies any involvement and claims he saw the killer.
A preliminary hearings judge last week denied him bail on the grounds that his testimony was ''contradictory, incomplete, unlikely and illogical''.
Similar arguments were used to deny bail to Knox and Sollecito at the end of November.
In the first days of the investigation police also arrested Democratic Republic of Congo national Diya 'Patrick' Lumumba, 38, but he was released November 20 after no evidence was found to implicate him in the murder, except testimony by Knox who later retracted her statements.
The release of the long-term Perugia resident and pub operator coincided with the Guede's arrest in Germany.
