Though reporting on the rape and murder in Italy of British student Meredith Kercher has been at fever pitch in Europe for several weeks, it was only last night that Dan Abrams thought the case worthy of an hour of his furrowed brow. And now that the floodgates have opened, expect incessant interest in the pretty 20-year-old suspect at the center of the investigation, Amanda Knox, or "Foxy Knoxy" as she styled herself on her (now private) MySpace page.

The Seattle student, on a year-abroad program in Perugia, is alleged to have held down her roommate while her boyfriend and an acquaintance raped and then murdered her. Friends and family of the accused have said it sounds implausible of the girl whose online profile gushed "I love things like good wine, rock climbing, backpacking long distances with people I love, yoga on a rainy day, making coffee, drinking tea, and lots of languages ... I'm twenty years old and I like new things. Ooh, and soccer, and roller coasters, and Harry Potter." Hardly the type to participate in a gang rape, they contend.

But! Knox's creative writing included a story called "Baby Brother" in which a pair of brothers rape a woman, which might be what she meant by "new things," but doesn't quite seem like something out of Hogwart's.

Meanwhile, as Knox awaits formal charges in an Italian prison, the media are whipping themselves into a lather over the possibility that a hot woman could be a cold killer. A Yahoo message group has even sprung up to settle once and for all the question of whether or not Foxy Knoxy is indeed "foxy."

Commenter Moonwitc thinks not. "No shes is a dirty little murdering whore who will get her just desserts when shes banged up in prison." Another poster, Chipmunk, added: "She has a pretty face, but she's an ugly person."