Intruders broke into the sealed apartment in central Italy where exchange student Meredith Kercher was slain and performed a satanic ritual, police say.
The intruders ransacked the apartment, lit candles in various rooms and left three kitchen knives stuck into the furniture.
Another knife was placed on top of a police evidence bag.
Police believe the burnt candles found inside the apartment, in Perugia, were used as part of a satanic ritual, UK newspaper The Sun reports.
But the intruders did not disturb the bedroom where Kercher was found stabbed to death in November 2007 in what is believed to be a sordid sex-murder.
"This is really terrible news," a lawyer for the Kercher family was quoted saying. "I have no words to express how much additional distress this will have caused the family."
The break-in was discovered yesterday during a routine inspection. Police believe the intruders broke in some time after January 16, the last time an official visit was made inside the property.
Kercher, a 22-year-old exchange student from Leeds University in England, had been living in the normally quiet university town of Perugia for two months before her brutal murder.
Prosecutors allege that Kercher was killed after refusing to take part in a sex game with her American flatmate Amanda Knox and Knox's ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito.
Knox, 21, and Sollecito, a 24-year-old Italian engineering student, have both denied murdering Kercher.
A third defendant, 20-year-old Ivorian Rudy Guede, has already been convicted and sentenced to 30 years behind bars for his role in the murder.
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