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Nancy Grace
Jodi Arias Murder Trial Day One
Aired January 02, 2013 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
NANCY GRACE, HOST: Tonight, live, Mesa, Arizona. They meet at a conference in Vegas and fall hard for each other. But when the flame burns out and they break up, she moves 300 miles to pursue him, even converting to Mormonism to get her man.
Bombshell tonight. The dead body of 30-year-old Travis Alexander found slumped over on the shower floor in his five-bedroom luxury home, shot, stabbed 29 times and beaten to death, the violence so brutal it resembles a mob hit. But then photos on a digital camera emerge, naked photos of Travis Alexander, naked in the same shower where his dead body is found.
Also on that same camera, highly provocative nude photos of then 27-year- old Jodi Arias, the girl who had everything.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That attractive young woman singing Christmas carols behind bars could soon be on death row.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) blessings (ph) of him, but putting a bullet through his head.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jodi Arias killed Travis Alexander. There is no question about it. The million-dollar question is what would have forced her to do it?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There`s blood here. And that`s Travis. He`s in the shower. He`s dead.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A friend of mine is standing in his bedroom. And he hadn`t heard from him for a while.
JODI ARIAS, CHARGED WITH MURDER: I really don`t remember the day at all.
911 OPERATOR: You think he`s dead?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: His roommate just went in there and said there`s lots of blood.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She slit his throat as a reward for being (INAUDIBLE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you -- I have to ask you this. Did you kill Travis Alexander?
ARIAS: Absolutely not.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They even have Jodi`s palm print in his blood.
ARIAS: I witnessed Travis being attracted by two other individuals.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jodi Arias changed her story yet again. She acted in self-defense.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jodi, were you ever afraid of Travis?
ARIAS: I`ll pass on that question.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In just those two minutes, Jodi had to make a choice. She would either live or she would die.
ARIAS: No jury is going to convict me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why not?
ARIAS: Because I`m innocent. And you can mark my words on that one. No jury will convict me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: That`s from ABC`s "GMA" and "Inside Edition."
Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us.
They meet at a conference in Vegas and fall for each other hard. But when the flame ultimately burns out and they break up, then she moves 300 miles to pursue him, even converting to Mormonism to get her man. The dead body of 30-year-old Travis Alexander found slumped on a shower floor, shot, stabbed 29 times, violence so brutal it resembles a mob hit. But then naked photos on a digi-cam emerge.
We are live there in Arizona and taking your calls. Straight out right now to Bonnie Druker from our team at the courthouse. Bonnie, first day of trial, what happened?
BONNIE DRUKER, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Nancy, this was a dramatic scene. When the prosecution got up there, Travis Alexander`s family began to cry. Jodi Arias cried. Basically, the prosecution said this was so violent, and the defense is basically saying this was self-defense, Nancy.
GRACE: OK, I just heard you say Jodi Arias cried in front of the jury. Eh! Eh! Eh! Eh! Eh!
Beth Karas, has the jury seen the naked photos? And I`m not at all concerned about the photos being naked, I`m concerned about the timing of the digital camera photos. How was the jury reacting to the evidence laid out in the opening statement?
BETH KARAS, LEGAL CORRESPONDENT, "IN SESSION": OK. The jurors paid very close attention. I didn`t see anyone getting emotional. They`re allowed to take notes, and they did. They actually heard from two witnesses, also.
They`ve seen some of the photos. They`ve heard about all of them, but they`ll see more of them later. The defense actually introduced some pretty raunchy photos in opening statement of what Travis took of Jodi hours before she killed him. I mean, they were about as raunchy as they can get, naked photos. And they were trying to show that Travis was somebody who really...
GRACE: Hey, Beth, I`m showing...
KARAS: ... was using Jodi Arias for sex.
GRACE: I was showing shots right there -- Liz, I think you`re showing some of the shots from the shower. Look at the time stamp, 5:29. This is the day that he`s killed. Within four minutes after these shots are taken -- that looks like there`s just movement and the camera`s still taking pictures, like when your Blackberry is in your pocket and you`re moving and it`s taking pictures inside your pocket.
KARAS: OK...
GRACE: And then there are other photos, as well, taken of his dead body there in the shower. This is a graphic photo. I`m going to warn you before I show it to you next time. I didn`t realize it was coming up. That is Alexander dead in the shower of his five-bedroom home.
Out to you, Jean Casarez. Take it from the top. What happened?
JEAN CASAREZ, LEGAL CORRESPONDENT, "IN SESSION": Well, prosecutors are saying in this death penalty trial that Jodi Arias killed Travis Alexander in three different ways. First of all, that she stabbed him in the heart when he was in the vulnerable defenseless position...
GRACE: Jean! Jean!
CASAREZ: ... of just taking a shower.
GRACE: Jean! I want you to go back to the beginning. I want the timeline from when they met.
And he`s a very handsome young guy, a motivational speaker, he`s in sales. They meet at some kind of conference in Vegas. There`s Arias as she was when he was dating her, when she was texting him, what, a couple hundred times a day, moves to Arizona to be with him, converts to Mormonism to convince him to marry her. That`s what she used to look like.
She has makeovers behind bars now, right, Jean? Take it from the beginning.
CASAREZ: The beginning would be 2007.
GRACE: Right.
CASAREZ: That was at that convention in Las Vegas. And then for about five months in 2008, they dated. That was over. But the minute it was over, she moved to Arizona to be closer to him.
GRACE: Well, wait. I want to clear up something you`re saying. I`ll let you clear your throat.
Christina Estes, anchor/reporter KTAR. Jean referred to it being over. They got together in a fever hotter than a pepper sprout (ph). Well, that flame burned out. He called it off. It was over. But it wasn`t over for her, was it, Christina?
CHRISTINA ESTES, KTAR: Well, not according to prosecutors. They say that Jodi didn`t want to end the relationship. The defense says otherwise and says that Travis is the one who wanted to continue seeing her.
GRACE: OK. Back to you, Jean Casarez. He broke it off, did he not?
CASAREZ: He broke it off, but that was after she had gone into his e-mails and found out that he was dating somebody else at the same time she thought that she was in an exclusive relationship. So in fact, I think she broke it off.
But then, according to what side you believe, you better believe that they kept in contact, e-mail, instant messaging, texting, and getting together for sex. And she did move to Mesa, Arizona, after that to be closer to him. But finally, it wore itself out and she moved from Mesa back to hometown in California where she lived with her grandparents.
GRACE: OK. What leads us up to the dead body in the shower?
CASAREZ: That in 2008, June of 2008, she, prosecutors say, broke into that house with the intent to commit a felony. In other words, she wasn`t invited by Travis Alexander. And she went -- came all the way from California. And it began -- and the pictures tell the story, that they apparently were engaged in sex and then it became something very different, premeditated murder, prosecutors say.
GRACE: Back out to you, Bonnie Druker. In court today, a lot was happening in the opening statements. As a matter of fact, isn`t it true the prosecution actually showed a clip of Arias? Normally, when people are charged with murder or they are a suspect or they`re even a person of interest, they lay low. But Jodi Arias was all over the media. She even went on, I believe it was "Inside Edition" -- play me that clip, Liz -- and said that no jury would ever convict her.
What about it, Bonnie? Did they play that in the opening statement?
DRUKER: Nancy, that was -- yes, I mean, that was definitely what came up. It was actually the last thing that the prosecutor played. And I can tell you it was very, very uncomfortable. I mean, Jodi Arias is sitting there, and you see her on this massive screen saying, No jury is going to ever convict me. Well, let`s see what happens now.
GRACE: We are taking your calls. Lisa, Wisconsin. Hi, Lisa. What`s your question?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, Nancy. Thanks for taking my call. It`s great to hear about the kids and your family. I was just wondering if this woman pursued to the point she actually stalked him, what would possess her to stab and shoot him? He was stabbed 27 times.
GRACE: Oh, Lisa in Wisconsin, guess what we found out? The body was in such decomposure, they actually missed two stab wounds. We now know it was 29 stab wounds. There were so many stab wounds, they couldn`t even make them all out.
Now, remember, he was stabbed 29 times, including a big slit from ear to ear. So when you see the photos which I`m not going to -- Liz, do not show the photos again without me warning the viewers first, OK?
One of the slits goes from ear to ear. That`s likely the cause of death. There`s a stab wound to the heart, ironically. Also, there is a bullet wound -- a bullet that goes from the top of the right eyebrow. And it seems to me, and I don`t know how the state`s going to argue this, Beth Karas -- it seems he was shot when he`s already there naked in the shower, down, because the bullet enters from the top above the right eyebrow and lodges downward -- the trajectory is downward -- in the left cheek.
So he`s shot, he`s stabbed, he`s beaten. What do they say about that, Beth?
KARAS: OK. It`s interesting. The prosecutor, Juan Martinez (ph), basically gave a chronology of the order of the wounds. This was really interesting because the scene itself told a story.
And he`s not killed -- he doesn`t die in the shower. He`s dragged into the shower and washed off. He`s shot in the head probably post-mortem, Nancy. You`re right that the slash to the throat, one of 29 knife wounds, was probably -- was the fatal one. The stabbing in the heart was first. And he fought back. He grabbed the knife. So some of those wounds of the 29 are defensive wounds. He grabbed the blade of the knife, so his hands are cut.
And so he`s stabbed in the heart. It would have eventually been fatal, not immediately fatal. He was fighting. She gets him -- he`s (INAUDIBLE) maybe he collapses. He`s is getting weak. She slits his throat, and at the end of the hallway that goes to the master bathroom, leading to the bedroom.
And then there`s evidence that she has now dragged him -- she`s dragging him into the shower and shoots him somewhere I think along the way. There`s no exit wound. And I don`t know where the shell casing was found. And she puts him in the shower, and he`s crammed in the shower almost like in a fetal position. His stomach is bloated from the decomposition and the fluids.
And his -- and his face is -- he`s crammed in a corner. And you can see the big wound on his neck. And it`s all dark red. But there`s not blood around him, the way you would expect it to be. She washed him off.
GRACE: To Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst and author, she was referred to as his, quote, "dirty little secret." I don`t understand. Why was dating Jodi Arias a dirty little secret? What, she wouldn`t fit in with his church congregation?
BETHANY MARSHALL, PSYCHOANALYST: Oh, you know, the defense is just trying to blame the victim, paint him in a bad light, make him out to be almost like some sexual pervert or someone who is betraying his faith.
But the fact is, Nancy, she used sex to have power over him. I`m sure what happened, as any young man will do, he started dating other women, living a free life. She got stuck in rejection, seduced him continually in an attempt to have power over him and to reassure herself that she was desirable to him.
And the day or the night of the murder, just like "Basic Instinct," she had sex with him to put him into a powerless state, and then she went in for the kill.
GRACE: Well, Bethany, I know that you`ve got all your degrees and your Ph.D. and all that, but I don`t need a Ph.D. to tell me what happened, all right? She moves back 300 miles to try to get him back, all right? So she goes over there. They`re having all this crazy wild sex.
Let me just point out she went into the home with a gun with her. But then he tells her he absolutely is going to go on a trip to Cancun the next day with another woman. Uh-uh! She was not having any of that, all right? That`s when everything goes sideways.
Let`s take a listen to that SOT on "Inside Edition."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARIAS: I know that I`m innocent. God knows I`m innocent. Travis knows I`m innocent. No jury is going to convict me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why not?
ARIAS: Because I`m innocent. And you can mark my words on that one. No jury will convict me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARIAS: I would be shaking in my boots right now if I had to answer to God for such a heinous crime.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you -- I have to ask you this. Did you kill Travis Alexander?
ARIAS: Absolutely not. No, I had no part in it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So you had nothing to do with Travis Alexander`s death?
ARIAS: Nothing to do with it.
I witnessed Travis being attacked by two other individuals.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who?
ARIAS: I don`t know who they were.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jodi, were you ever afraid of Travis?
ARIAS: I`ll pass on that question.
No jury is going to convict me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why not?
ARIAS: Because I`m innocent. And you can mark my words on that one. No jury will convict me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: And now she`s claiming self-defense. Now, another interesting thing is that she has taken to song behind bars. As a matter of fact, she won "American Idol Behind Bars," the behind bars "American Idol" contest.
What is it that she won, Matt Zarrell?
MATT ZARRELL, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER (via telephone): She won extra meals, apparently. She won extra food, a great turkey dinner, I believe.
GRACE: I understood that she won, like, a stocking of treats and a turkey dinner for herself and her cellmates.
Let`s take a listen to Jodi Arias behind bars.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARIAS: (SINGING) -- in sin and error pining `til he appeared and the soul felt his worth. A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn. Fall on your knees...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: OK, guys, please stop. I don`t know if that`s the one that won her "American Idol Behind Bars," but Arias has taken to song. Not only that, she`s had a complete makeover and taken to the media over and over and over to declare her innocence.
Unleash the lawyers, Eleanor Odom, death penalty-qualified, joining me, veteran prosecutor. Also with me out of Atlanta, Peter Odom.
The problem with that is, as we saw in opening statements, Peter, is that the Constitution doesn`t protect you when you want to gab to journalists.
PETER ODOM, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Right.
GRACE: In fact, the prosecution can just play it right in the opening statement!
PETER ODOM: They can. They can. I mean, and the -- but the prosecution here has a problem.
GRACE: Really? What?
PETER ODOM: They have three exculpatory statements, meaning three statements of her showing that she`s not guilty. They have to play them all and then argue that two of them have to be a lie, or they`re all a lie.
GRACE: But Eleanor -- Eleanor, the thing that Peter Odom is leaving out of that scenario is that all three exculpatory statements are different. One is, What? Who? What? And the other one is, OK, I was there, but a man and a woman completely -- you know, they`re disguised. I didn`t really see their face. They attacked him and they killed him, and I was afraid they`d come kill my family, so I ran. And then finally, it`s degenerated into self-defense.
Peter Odom left out that tiny detail, that all of these exculpatory statements -- they`re all different!
ELEANOR ODOM, PROSECUTOR: Right, and they`re all just a pack of lies, Nancy, because even if you took her last one as true -- let`s pretend that she killed him in self-defense. Why didn`t she say -- why didn`t she call police? Why didn`t she go, Oh, my God, this guy was trying to attack me. Had to protect myself.
She is going to go down for this, Nancy, because all of these statements are lies. She can`t just explain her way out of this one.
GRACE: And you know, I want to go to Dave Hall, who`s a very dear friend of Travis Alexander. Dave, when you just heard me laugh -- I`m not laughing at a murder. I am a tangential victim of murder. My fiance was murdered just before our wedding.
What is so amazing to me, almost laughable, is changing your stories to three widely divergent stories about the death of Travis Alexander and thinking that just because she`s beautiful that we`re going to buy into it. Like, we`re blinded by her beauty and her singing behind bars?
You saw Jodi Arias the day after Travis`s murder. What did you observe?
DAVE HALL, FRIEND OF TRAVIS ALEXANDER: Well, about 12 hours after Travis was murdered, she was up here in Utah hanging out with me and my business partners, going to some business functions and out to eat with us. And one thing that stood out to me was it`s the middle of June, it`s almost 100 degrees, and she`s wearing a long-sleeved shirt. And this is not someone who was ever known to be modest in her attire, and you can see that from a lot of the provocative photos that she`s been seen with. So the long- sleeved shirt...
GRACE: Dave Hall, hold on. I`m curious. I`m curious. You said the day after, she went out to eat. And you know what strikes me wrong? Can I see Dave Hall, please? Because Dave, I recall when my fiance was murdered. I could not eat. I don`t know how long passed (ph). I lost down to about 89 pounds. I couldn`t eat. I couldn`t even stand the smell of food. It made me sick.
And I remember the first thing I put in my body after his murder. I drank a glass of orange juice. It had been so long since I ate or drank.
So the night after he`s stabbed 29 times, including a slit that goes from ear to ear across his neck, she`s out having dinner?
HALL: Yes. And looking back at that night, there was nothing in her demeanor that made us think, Wow, you`re acting weird today. The long- sleeved shirt, definitely, as we look back, that was a little bit weird, the new hair color, the fact that her license plate on her car was upside- down. All these things in retrospect definitely were clues.
But you know, just because someone shows up with a different color hair and long-sleeved shirt, you don`t question, Hey, who did you kill?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) you obsessed with him?
ARIAS: I wouldn`t use obsession. I would say...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Her going into his cell phone, snooping.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A stab wound to the heart.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Was there jealousy?
ARIAS: On my end, not so much jealousy. Maybe a sense of insecurity.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And she found things there that she didn`t like.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: His throat was slit.
ARIAS: There was sort of a breach of trust in our relationship.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Her suspicions about his flirtations.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: His body was dragged to the shower, and he`s shot in the head along the way.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Travis` friends say after dating a few months he tried to break it off and told them this.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s hard to say no to a woman that sneaks into your house, crawls in your bed, and tries to, you know, seduce you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: You are hearing part of that from ABC`s "GMA."
Welcome back, everybody. We are live in Mesa, Arizona, bringing you the latest in the case of Jodi Arias. A lovely -- on the outside anyway -- gorgeous young woman charged with murder one in the brutal death of her lover, found stabbed 29 times, shot, bludgeoned in the shower of his luxury home.
We are taking your calls but, first, to you, Matt Zarrell. I -- I get the whole meeting at the car out front, she moves 300 miles to be near him. She converts to Mormonism to try to get him to marry her. I wanted to focus in on now and hone in on the day of the murder. What happened?
ZARRELL: OK, Nancy, from what prosecutors have laid out in their -- in court today, and they laid it out based on a lot of photographic evidence because there are three sets of photographs that tell you the timeline of what happened that day.
At about 1:40 to 1:45 there are photos of nude -- a nude Travis Alexander and a nude Jodi Arias, among shots taken include Travis -- Travis Alexander naked on his bed. There`s a bottle of petroleum jelly in the shot that Arias actually introduced him to. There`s also additional shots of Arias on the bed, also in seductive poses. Then there`s the second set of photos of him in the shower, where you see now, or you see him naked in the shower --
GRACE: Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, wait. Jodi Arias introduced him to who?
ZARRELL: The prosecutor said that Jodi Arias was the one who introduced him to this petroleum jelly that was seen in one of the photos of Travis Alexander naked in his home the day he was murdered.
GRACE: What, are you talking about a sex aid, Matt?
ZARRELL: Yes. The significance, Nancy, is that the defense is saying that Travis Alexander was the one manipulating Jodi Arias from the get-go. But obviously the prosecutors are trying to show that Jodi Arias had a lot of influence over Travis Alexander because of this -- one example would be this jelly that Arias introduced Alexander to.
GRACE: OK, go ahead.
ZARRELL: OK. So the second set of photos is around -- just before 5:30. These are photos of Travis posing in the shower. There`s water running down on him. Most of the photos are of the waist up. Now the pivotal photo is 5:30, it shows Travis sitting in the shower. And you see part of his back side. So 5:30 he`s alive.
Then we`ve got the third set of photos prosecutors call inadvertent photos. 44 seconds after the photo of him alive in the shower, you see the photo of the ceiling light. That is when prosecutors say -- that photo you`re seeing right there, that is when prosecutors say the attack is taking place. There`s then another photo about a minute later that shows Travis` head and arm, and you see him bleeding profusely.
So within two minutes of him being alive in the shower to the photo taken at 5:32 in 16 seconds he is already bloody and near the sink. Then there is an additional photo at 5:33, 32 seconds, which prosecutors say is Arias actually dragging Travis Alexander into the shower. You can see Travis` shoulder and you can see the trim of the hallway.
GRACE: OK. From what I understand, Matt, as laid out in the prosecution`s statement, and -- Beth, let me go to you on this. She comes over in the wee morning hours, 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. that night, and he is up on his computer, right?
KARAS: Yes. And she --
GRACE: So then --
(CROSSTALK)
KARAS: According to the defense -- yes, she`s too tired to have sex. They have sex later in the day.
GRACE: So, Matt, how -- she gets over there at 3:00 or 4:00 a.m.
ZARRELL: Yes.
GRACE: Why?
ZARRELL: OK. Well, we - the defense hasn`t laid out exactly why, but let me take you through what happened because she arrives at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning. Travis is on the computer. We know that from computer records. He`s actually looking at some YouTube videos. They go to sleep until about 1:00 p.m. When they wake up they begin to engage in sexual activity. Travis had gotten a new camera and wanted to take pictures with his new camera so Arias took some photos of Travis in these nude photos that we have seen.
Then later on in the day they`re in Travis` living room, they`re poring over pictures from all the trips that they`ve been on. There`s a problem on Travis` computer. He actually had a virus on his computer and he was angry and took the CD and threw it against the wall.
The defense says that Arias immediately went into what they quote, protective mode, and tried to calm Travis down and Arias allegedly knows that the quickest way to calm Travis Alexander down was sex. So Travis and Arias had sex right on the computer table.
GRACE: I want to go back to Travis` friend, Dave Hall. He actually saw and spent time with Jodi Arias the day off one of his best friends was brutally murdered.
Dave, when you`re hearing all of this scenario unfold, it sounds as if the defense is painting a -- a picture of someone completely different than the friend that you knew, Travis Alexander. It sounds like somebody completely different.
HALL: You`re right. It is someone completely different and, keep in mind, we only have Jodi`s side of the story at this point being brought forth. We don`t have Travis` side of the story, what really happened around the murder scene and stuff. You know, thankfully we do have some photos to corroborate some of the sexual activity, more importantly, to corroborate the murderer in this case.
GRACE: What was your impression of Jodi Arias when you first met her?
HALL: You know, when I first met her, she was an attractive girl and I was happy for Travis finding someone that he liked, but as I got to know her there was just something evil about her. And Travis knew very well that we went out with our wives to do stuff that don`t bring Jodi around because --
GRACE: Why?
HALL: -- none of his friends likes Jodi.
GRACE: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back it up. Back it up. Who didn`t like Jody?
HALL: None of Travis` friends liked Jodi.
GRACE: Why?
HALL: You know, there was just something really weird about her. And when she spent time with you, you even got more creeped out. And Travis brought her up to Utah and spent time at my house. So Travis and Jodi had spent time, in fact, spent an entire week at my house. And just the things that she did while she was at my house just creeped me and my wife out.
GRACE: Like what?
HALL: And so -- just the way she acted in our home, the way that she had this awkward silence about her. The way that she almost had no soul. You could almost see right through her. It`s not someone that you could sit down and have a conversation. She was very mysterious.
GRACE: You know, I find that so interesting, what you`re saying, Dave Hall, and I know it doesn`t mean anything in a court of law. I know that. But I am so intrigued with what you`re saying. It`s almost as if -- you know, we consider ourselves the top of the food chain, you know. But when you`re around somebody, you get an instinct. You get a feeling.
And I don`t know why we get those, what we call hunches, but all of his friends had the same feeling about her. I find that -- I find that very, very telling.
Out to the lines. Pat in Georgia. Hi, Pat. What`s your question?
PAT, CALLER FROM GEORGIA: Hi, Nancy. We grew up in about the same era, and I have never seen this kind of violence when I was growing up that you can do this and not live with your conscience. And she may be right. She may not be convicted considering Casey Anthony wasn`t.
GRACE: To Aaron Brehove, body language expert, you have been studying every video of her, every appearance she has made. What have you learned, Erin?
AARON BREHOVE, VOICE ANALYSIS AND BODY LANGUAGE EXPERT: Well, we see she`s a terrific liar. She -- there`s very little difference when she is telling a lie and when she is telling the truth. When she said she never had anything to do with his death, we see there`s -- there`s one small tell we see and we do -- we do see, though, she`s closing her eyes a little bit before she gives her answer. And she is holding back a little something. But she has very tells. She`s very calm and collected even when being very deceptive.
This is really unusual. And maybe why she thinks she can get away with it. Why she said -- no jury will ever convict her because she is such a good liar.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jodi arias killed Travis Alexander. There is no question about it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He`s dead. He`s in his bedroom.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: His neck had been slashed from ear to ear.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Stabbed 27 times.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The million-dollar question is what would have forced her to do it? Who do you think killed him?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have no idea.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jodi loved Travis.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I didn`t hurt Travis.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jodi had to make a choice. She would either live or she would die.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Relationship with her?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Violent?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Pass on that question.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We think he`s dead. His roommates just went in there and said there`s lots of blood.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You didn`t stab him 27 times?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I`d never -- that`s heinous.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: That is Arias on "Inside Edition." Yet another of her media appearances. She is certainly not shy. I know that much about her.
Straight out to you, Dr. Bill Manion, medical examiner, joining me tonight out of Philadelphia.
Dr. Manion, of course, I`ve given it my own lay person analysis, but when you are bludgeoned, stabbed, and shot in the head, how do you determine the true cause of death? And why has the number changed in the last hours from 27 stab wounds to 29 stab wounds?
DR. BILL MANION, M.D., MEDICAL EXAMINER, BURLINGTON COUNTY, NJ: Well, the body was partially decomposed, and that`s a very tedious autopsy when you have 27 stab wounds, 29 stab wounds, each wound you have to measure the length, the width. They did determine that the knife had one blunt edge and one sharp edge.
It`s probably something like a butcher knife because the deepest wound was about 5 1/2 inches long. The width of the blade was at least an inch, an inch and a quarter. So it was probably a butcher knife that was used.
The bullet track did not cause any injury to the brain, believe it or not. It penetrated the bottom of the skull but was not a fatal wound. So the gun shot to the head was not -- was not fatal. The fatal wound would have been the wound that struck the (INAUDIBLE) the large vein that goes right into the heart and, of course, the wound across the neck that that was quite forceful because it actually severed the airway.
It cut the airway right across and then cut the right internal jugular and right carotid artery.
GRACE: Right.
MANION: So I would suspect, if he was laying on his left side and she was right-handed that she could have -- switched that knife across his neck very forcefully. But to transect the airway that shows a lot of power, a lot of intent with --
GRACE: You know, another interesting thing, to you, Dr. Bethany Marshall, the fact that she allegedly bathed him after murdering him, that she dragged him, put him in the shower, and then got warm water and poured all over his body and cleaned him up. Then she took all the bed sheets off and washed them. That`s where they found the digital camera.
It was, I guess, in a pair of pants or in the bed sheets somehow that she put in the washer and they just took the SIM card out and retrieved everything on it. I mean the -- but the bathing the dead body with warm water. What is that?
MARSHALL: But wasn`t that the ultimate power and ownership? He belonged to her and nobody else, not even the law or anybody who was going to come across that crime scene, was going to determine or have any thoughts about it. It was all up to her. She owned him.
And as the victim`s friend who`s on the show tonight said, this woman was soulless and we know about sociopathy, it`s that sociopaths are profoundly detached, emotionless, callous. She only wanted one thing and that was to possess him. Other than that, she loved no one.
GRACE: Back to you, Harry Hauck, former NYPD, Hauck Consulting.
Harry, we were talking about bathing the body with warm water after all the stabbing, the profuse bleeding. And other things lead to a staged scene. Definitely a cleanup but a staging of the scene. What did you observe?
HARRY HAUCK, FORMER NYPD, HAUCK CONSULTING: Well, you know, I don`t know if there`s so much a staging of the scene because if it is, it`s -- you would tend to think if you`re going to stage a scene you want to make it look like it was a suicide or some other kind of accidental death.
But apparently here, what I`m finding very interesting, Nancy, what nobody is commenting about, is the fact that if the prosecution says that the first wound was to the chest, and that was a debilitating wound, then he never saw that coming. So she is using in her defense that they had some type of an argument and that she had to protect herself. It doesn`t look like that happened.
GRACE: Well, not only that, Jean Casarez, if it was self-defense, which is her third and latest story, why didn`t she text him a few days after the murder and say, hey, when are you going to deposit that check, Jean?
CASAREZ: Consciousness of guilt. That`s what prosecutors will say. But I think the chronology of all of this is critical, and I think one thing we`re forgetting, too, she is saying, I did all this. Self-defense. But yet there are 10 stab wounds in his back? And prosecutor`s theory after she shot him in the heart, he staggered to where the faucet was, in the sink in the bathroom and then she started stabbing him in the back.
That`s self-defense?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A friend of ours is dead in his bedroom.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I saw him curled up in the -- he`s curled up in the shower.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jodi.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The person that -- the person who committed this killing sits in court today.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The explanation for that will come out soon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: We are taking your calls. Out to Tammy in Colorado. Hi, Tammy. What`s your question?
TAMMY, CALLER FROM COLORADO: Hi, Nancy. Love your show. You`re my hero, hon.
GRACE: Thank you. What`s your question, dear?
TAMMY: My question is clearly she`s a scorned woman. And as soon as she found out about the other gal, about going to Cancun, whatever vacation he had planned, that`s what put her over the edge. But my question is, she just made a comment in that little clip saying that they were attacked in his home. Well, obviously, if they would have been attacked so viciously, they would have told someone.
Like Travis would have told his best friends, his parents, somebody would know this information. So I`m just wondering if you guys investigated that at all.
GRACE: Out to you, Beth Karas. What do you know?
KARAS: Well, I mean, her second story of the three was that she was attacked in the home but that the attackers said the same thing will happen to her if she told the police and they had seen her address on her license. And that`s her explanation for not telling anyone. But of course in the face of even more and mounting forensic evidence pointing the finger at her being the one and the only one who did this, then she changed the story to self-defense.
And that`s -- that happened in the past year. So that`s what she`s asserting now. So there really doesn`t seem to be much credibility to the two intruders attacking --
GRACE: Yes. I mean, at this point Beth is right. Now we`ve got to deal with her most recent version, which was self-defense. All the other stories are out the window now except to show that her story has changed. The only story the prosecution is dealing with now is her story of self- defense.
To Bonnie Druker, our team member there at the courthouse. You have been sitting in the courtroom with many of Travis`s friends all during the day. What has been their reaction?
DRUKER: Nancy, a lot of tears from the family. A lot of shaking heads. And everyone stunned. They do not believe this was domestic violence, there is no way, there is no how that Travis Alexander attacked Jodi Arias.
Shaking a lot of heads, looking at me, giving me some eye signals, and everyone`s just amazed that the defense literally has the chutzpah to come out and say this.
GRACE: Well, what I find very telling, to Peter and Eleanor -- first to you, Peter Odom, you`re the defense attorney. How can it be self-defense when she stabs him 10 times in the back, Peter?
PETER ODOM: Well, she`s got -- I mean, she`s laid out this broad story that she`s going to have to support. What she`ll probably claim is that she had to make sure he was dead because she was in such danger and she might have gone overboard with the violence. I mean it`s a -- it`s a story that she`s going to have to tell, Nancy, because that`s how she`s laid it out.
GRACE: Eleanor, please.
ELEANOR ODOM: Well, Nancy, just think about what she said in that one interview to -- "Inside Edition," where she said whoever did this, whatever happened, it`s heinous. I would use those words that she used to -- right back at her and say what she did was heinous in describing and laying out all those stabbings.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: We remember American hero, Army Sergeant 1st Class Glenn Whitten, 31, Mesa, Arizona, killed Afghanistan. Also served Iraq. Two Bronze Stars, three Purple Hearts, six Army Commendation medals. Loved war movies, music, the Chicago Bears, cat, being a father. Mother Amy, brother Jed, sisters Melinda and Julie. Daughter Arianna. Fiancee Megan.
Glen Whitten, American hero.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He had a grouping of wounds back here behind his neck, on his shoulders. He had some on his head.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi, so what`s going on?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These -- he`s dead. He`s in his bedroom in the shower.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. OK. How did this happen? Do you have any idea?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. We have no idea.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: OK, Liz, you`ve got to rack that up again. I`ve got -- you can, like, maybe soften that high note. But please re-rack that again.
We are taking your calls, everybody. We are live there in Mesa, Arizona, bringing you the latest in what appears to be one of the most brutal murders that has ever taken place in Mesa history.
Play that back for me, Liz, please.
I can totally see her committing a murder. Now, remember, this is in the "American Idol" competition behind bars. And she won. She is certainly not curled up in the fetal position pining for her lover. She`s going for the turkey dinner for her and her cellmates.
OK. Just want to hear this high note.
Here it comes.
OK. That`s enough.
Everybody, we`re going to be back in the courtroom bright and early tomorrow morning 0900, and we`re taking you there with us.
"DR. DREW" up next. I`ll see you tomorrow night. And until then, good night, friend.
END
