PERUGIA, Italy -- According to Italian news reports on Thursday, new bloodstains that had been previously undetected, including bloody footprints, were found at the Perugia, Italy, cottage where British student Meredith Kercher was found slain last November.

Using the forensic chemical luminol, police found seven new bloodstains at the crime scene, including bloody footprints in both Kercher’s and University of Washington student Amanda Knox’s bedrooms, reports said. Seattle woman Knox is a suspect in the Kercher homicide case.

Italian authorities are now testing the bloodstains to identify them.

Lawyers for Knox said they would argue next week at a hearing that Knox should be released from jail and put under house arrest.

On Wednesday, another suspect in the case, Ivory Coast immigrant Rudy Hermann Guede, told investigators that he had seen both Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, her boyfriend at the time of the slaying, at the cottage the night Kercher was killed.

All three suspects are being held in an Italian jail on suspicion of having sexually assaulted and killed Kercher, who was found with her throat cut at the cottage that she shared with Knox on Nov. 1.

News reports said that Guede told police he had sex with Kercher on the night of her slaying but denied killing her. Guede said he was in the cottage’s bathroom when an intruder entered. Guede told investigators, "When I came out of the bathroom I saw a male figure. I put my hand on his shoulder and he had a knife in his hand."

In testimony in December, Guede said he had not seen the intruder’s face clearly, but told investigators on Wednesday that the man who entered the cottage was Knox’s boyfriend, Sollecito. He added: "I also heard Amanda Knox. She was at the door. I saw her there."

Guede contends that Kercher and Knox "hated each other" and had a disagreement over money.