Two bright, pretty young women choose to spend part of their college experience studying in a foreign country. Then, little more than a month after they begin sharing an apartment together, one is found brutally murdered and the other is charged with the slaying. I am referring, of course, to Meredith Kercher, a 21-year-old British student killed two years ago in Perugia, Italy, and Amanda Knox, now 22 and hailing from Seattle, Wash. Amanda was convicted this week after a year-long trial and sentenced to 26 years in prison.  With my own 21-year-old daughter preparing to depart on her travel and study abroad experience in just a month, I find this story contains all my own worst fears about what my child could encounter so far from home. While I’ve experienced first-hand the joys and expanded horizons that overseas travel provides, and our older daughter survived and thrived during her own foreign study several years ago, I also know there are dangers that a naive, albeit bright, young woman may face. I’ve followed the Amanda Knox case almost from the beginning, at least in part because her family lives in the Northwest and she attended the University of Washington. The story was often in the news as her parents tried to counter all the salacious stories the Italian press pumped out over the last two years — most based on wild rumors and imagination rather than fact. Print and television newsmagazine reports which closely examined the police investigation and prosecution tactics have convinced me that Amanda and her then-boyfriend have been wrongly convicted. Apparently, I’m not alone.  After the verdict, Washington’s Senator Maria Cantwell cited the “negligent handling of evidence by investigators,” harsh treatment Knox received after her arrest and the fact that jurors weren’t sequestered and were exposed to all the highly negative news coverage throughout the trial. She also stated that she had serious concerns about whether anti-Americanism tainted the trial. Is it likely that my own precious child will be murdered or wrongly accused of a horrific crime while she travels? No, but nevertheless I will be sure to share with her an article from Global Traveler‘s July 2008 issue by Leif Pettersen about what to do when facing an encounter with legal authorities overseas. Along with all the magazine’s great articles on destinations she’ll be visiting, I’ll include Ron Bernthal’s piece from May 2009, “Safety First.” While Jenny’s school has advised its students on guarding against pickpockets, drugged drinks and travel scams, I’m not sure they’ve covered what to say and NOT say when involved in a crime (as victim or accused) in a foreign country. I’m not one of those parents who wants to wrap her child in cotton and protect her from all the bad things in the world. I trust her instincts, resourcefulness and brains to get her through most of the situations she’ll encounter as she travels (she has survived quite nicely on her own in Chicago these last three years, after all!). I believe she will return enthused about all she will have seen and experienced and wiser for facing the wider world on her own. That won’t keep me from sharing those articles with her, though, and praying for her safe return every day she’s gone. — Patty Vanikiotis, proofreader