Ellington

Italy is often regarded as having one of the richest storytelling traditions, a fact local journalist and author Candace Dempsey holds in high regard.

“I come from an Italian-Irish background,” Dempsey said, “and both of those are storyteller [cultures]. But they’re oral traditions, and I wanted to write it down.”

Dempsey has known for most of her life that she is a storyteller. One of the first stories she ever wrote, at age 8, documented the drive between Pullman and Spokane.

After receiving a bachelor’s degree in English from Washington State University and a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Oregon, Dempsey realized her desire and became a professional storyteller.

In 2007, after encouragement from friends, Dempsey created a blog called Italian Woman at the Table. Falling back on her love of all things Italian, she wanted to share that love with her readers.

“I was going to write about the Italian experience,” Dempsey said. “I was so fascinated by that. Anything that was Italian, I wanted to write about. So I started my blog just for fun.”

After returning from a trip to Italy, Dempsey learned about the Halloween 2007 murder of British exchange student Meredith Kercher and the suspected involvement of UW student Amanda Knox.

At that point, Dempsey’s blog took a different turn.

“I became obsessed, because every day there was some colorful new character, some twist in the plot,” Dempsey said. “I would look at each new development and check it against what I could find out myself.”

Dempsey interned at The Spokesman-Review in Spokane at the beginning of her career. She was the reporter for the court and police beats, and Dempsey said this training was beneficial for following the Knox case.

She was taught to check all her facts independently of the information the police offered, and she was shocked to find that fact-checking is not a common practice in Italian newspapers.

“I was surprised that people would get so angry with me [for verifying facts], when that’s what a reporter is supposed to do,” Dempsey said.

But her accuracy and fairness while examining the evidence made her one of the most knowledgeable American journalists on the case. Dempsey was also one of the first to remind the public that Knox hadn’t been convicted when the case began, and some anonymous online commenters maligned her for that stance in the comments section of the blog.

“I did argue for Amanda’s right to a fair trial and her right to tell her story in open court,” Dempsey said. “Everyone deserves those rights.”

The Italian culture-focused blog was hosted for a short time on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s website before Dempsey devoted it to the Knox case and true crime.

“I met Candace at [a Society of Professional Journalists] event and invited her to blog (as an independent publisher) on seattlepi.com,” wrote Michelle Nicolosi, the executive producer of the site, in an e-mail.

Dempsey recently stepped back from the blog and pieced together case evidence in Murder in Italy.

“It’s different from my blog in that it’s not day-by-day, looking at the evidence,” Dempsey said. “It’s actually spinning a tale.

“When I make points in the book,” she continued, “it’s never my intuition, it’s not mere suspicion. … I’m quoting actual documents or court transcripts.”

Murder traces the almost two-and-a-half years since the crime, from the daily routines of Kercher and Knox, as told by their housemates, through the trial and potential appeal processes.

Dempsey is now touring the Pacific Northwest promoting the book. She’ll be reading at the University Bookstore tonight at 7 p.m.

“I love talking to readers,” Dempsey wrote in an e-mail. “I met one couple where the husband thought Amanda was guilty and the wife felt the opposite. And they couldn’t wait to finish the book. They were enjoying debating the evidence.”

Reach reporter Ashleen Aguilar at weekender@dailyuw.com.