Amanda Knox gets engaged while murder case lingers in Italy

While the murder case against Seattle’s Amanda Knox trudges along back in Italy, the former University of Washington student is reportedly getting set to tie the knot.

Knox, now 27, got engaged last week to Colin Sutherland, a 27-year-old musician who recently moved to Seattle from New York, according to Jonathan Martin at The Seattle Times.

The couple have reportedly known each other since middle school, Martin says, and Knox confirmed their engagement in an email.

Related: Amanda Knox quietly writing for West Seattle newspaper

Knox remains embroiled in the Italian murder case that brought her to worldwide attention after her British roommate, Meredith Kercher, was found brutally killed in the house they shared in Perugia, Italy, in 2007 just a month after she traveled there to study abroad for a year.

Knox was convicted of murder by an Italian court along with her then-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito in 2009 and sentenced to 26 years in prison.

An appeals court overturned her conviction in June 2011, and Knox returned to Seattle.

She resumed her studies at the University of Washington and published her memoir while prosecutors in Italy appealed her conviction.

An upper court re-convicted Knox and Sollecito in 2014, which the pair are appealing to Italy’s highest court. Italy could try forcing her to return there to again stand trial. But Knox, who has steadfastly proclaimed her innocence, has vowed not to return voluntarily. As Martin reports, Italy could seek her extradition, but Washington’s congressional delegation would make it a political fight and seek to block the effort.

In the meantime, Knox has graduated from the UW, works at a local bookstore, and has been writing for the West Seattle Herald.