No DNA evidence to place Amanda Knox at the murder scene The appeals court agreed to a prosecution request that fresh testing be carried out on a minute trace of DNA on the kitchen knife that was allegedly used to stab Kercher to death. It had previously gone unexamined because forensic experts said it was too scant to produce reliable results. The handle of the knife bore traces of Miss Knox's DNA, but her lawyers said that was no surprise because it came from a kitchen drawer in her boyfriend's flat. Alessandro Nencini, the judge in charge of the retrial, also agreed to hear testimony from Luciano Aviello, a member of the Camorra mafia, who has claimed that his brother killed Miss Kercher during a bungled robbery and that Miss Knox, now 26, is innocent. As well as Miss Knox and Mr Sollecito, none of the Kercher family was in court for the retrial. But Kercher's family sent a letter to the judge in which they said they were keen to see crucial pieces of evidence reviewed. "We desperately want to discover the truth and to find justice for Meredith, who was taken away from us so brutally and unnecessarily," the family wrote. Nothing will bring back our beautiful Meredith ... but we need to know what happened and she at least deserves the dignity of truth. Kercher, from Coulsdon, Surrey, was found stabbed to death in her bedroom, in the house she shared with Miss Knox and two young Italian women, in Nov 2007. Miss Knox and her ex-boyfriend were found guilty of sexual assault and murder in 2009 but were then acquitted in 2011. In March this year the Supreme Court in Rome ordered a retrial, saying the appeals court judges had "underestimated" the evidence against them and made serious errors in their review of the case. The hearing was adjourned until Friday.