ROME, Nov. 24 (UPI) -- U.S. student Amanda Knox said being jailed for murder in Italy at the age of 20 was akin to having "all the threads of my life" suddenly "stripped away."
Knox, now 23, was set Wednesday to begin her first appeal of the 26-year prison sentence she drew for the slaying of British housemate Meredith Kercher, the Italian news agency ANSA reported.
"When I went to prison at the age of 20, I was starting to weave together the threads of my life and it's as if someone suddenly stripped away all these threads," Knox wrote to the president of the Italy-USA Foundation who visits her in jail.
The Seattle-born coed was one of three people convicted in the 2007 slaying of Kercher, 21, who was found with her throat cut in the house she shared with Knox in the Italian town of Perugia.
Her appeal will be heard together with that of her Italian ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito who received a 25-year-sentence.
Two movies about the murder are currently in the works.
