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Nancy Grace
Nancy Grace Mysteries -- Jodi Arias
Aired January 04, 2013 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JODI ARIAS, CHARGED WITH MURDER: I didn`t hurt Travis. I would never hurt Travis. I would never harm him physically.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The petite 28-year-old is accused of murdering her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander.
ARIAS: I wouldn`t use obsession. I would say -- I don`t know.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: His neck had been slashed from ear to ear.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He had been stabbed 27 times and shot in the face.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did you kill Travis Alexander?
ARIAS: Absolutely not. No, I had no part in it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Police say DNA evidence, including a bloody palm print, found at the scene links Jodi Arias to the murder.
ARIAS: There is an explanation for that. It doesn`t prove that I committed a murder. And I didn`t commit a murder.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NANCY GRACE, HOST: I think what has intrigued so many people, so many court watchers, so many legal eagles with the Jodi Arias case is, in part, the physicality of the defendant, Jodi Arias. Many people -- not me, but many people believe that she is beautiful, extremely attractive, very sensual and charismatic.
And as a matter of fact, it`s not just physically that that seems to be her description, but apparently she, used her femininity to, let me say, stalk the victim in this case. In this case, Travis Alexander, also a motivational speaker, highly charismatic, successful, physically attractive, educated. He seemed to have it all, as did she.
JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL, HOST, "ISSUES WITH JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL": This is an absolutely fascinating case because of the contrast between the defendant -- demure, beautiful, petite, soft-spoken -- and the horrific nature of this crime, almost 30 stab wounds, gunshot, blood everywhere. How do you reconcile those two?
And then there`s the back story of the sex as caught on camera. Then there`s her arrogance, pronouncing to the world that, No jury is ever going to convict me. It`s unbelievable!
ELLIE JOSTAD, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: I think what`s so interesting about the Jodi Arias case is that here you have a woman, who from outward appearances, seems to really have it together. She`s obviously beautiful. You have a victim who`s also this young, handsome, accomplished guy, and it`s a story that people can really relate to.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARIAS: I lived in Palm Desert, California. He lived in Mesa. So our friendship was really over the phone. Every night, you know, when all was said and done, when his day`s work was done and my day`s work was done, you know, he would inevitably call. And we would talk for a while, anywhere from, you know, a half hour, or sometimes it would end up being four hours. Then we`d fall asleep. And things like that. And then, you know, with time, it just kind of progressed into a little bit more and a little bit more until we decided to make it more official.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE)
ARIAS: No, we never lived together, actually. I spent a lot of time at his house and we spent a lot of time traveling. But no, he had all male roommates.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JOSTAD: It`s a breakup gone -- if the prosecutors are to be believed, it`s a breakup gone horribly, horribly wrong. You have Jodi Arias, who allegedly wanted to continue this relationship with Travis and wouldn`t take no for an answer, and essentially just started stalking him, started reading his e-mails and his text messages -- I mean, Sort of the typical horror story for anybody that`s had a bad breakup where the ex just kind of won`t go away.
GRACE: Police, authorities, believe that Travis Alexander was murdered five days before the discovery of his body. His body was found completely naked, crumpled up in an extremely odd position in the bottom of the shower in his five-bedroom luxury home.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God!
911 OPERATOR: 911 emergency.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes?
911 OPERATOR: OK. What`s going on?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What?
911 OPERATOR: What`s going on?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A friend of ours is dead in his bedroom. We hadn`t heard from him for a while. We think he`s dead. His roommate just went in there and said there`s lots of blood. I didn`t go in, but I can give you the phone to someone who went in there.
911 OPERATOR: Yes, please, can you?
(END AUDIO CLIP)
JOSTAD: It turned out that his roommates -- he had a large house and had a couple of guys that rented rooms from him -- turned out they hadn`t seen him in a while, either. They actually thought that he was out of town on business, something like that.
So when the friends decided they really needed to figure out where Travis was, his bedroom was locked. They were able to find a key and get in there. And they were the ones who discovered the body.
He was found in the shower in his bathroom. He`d obviously been dead a while. There was blood all over the bedroom and the bathroom. There were signs of a violent struggle, blood splatter, pooling blood, dried blood.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: This was an extraordinarily violent crime, and it starts out in the shower. And authorities say that Jodi Arias shoots Travis in the face, but he`s still conscious. It disorients him. And then he takes off running.
He manages to get down a hallway, and then another confrontation occurs, and that is where authorities believe Jodi Arias begins stabbing, stabbing Travis repeatedly, and at one point, right through the chest. That is believed to be possibly the fatal wound.
She also allegedly slices his throat ear to ear. And then authorities believe she takes the body back to the shower and rinses Travis`s body off.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello.
911 OPERATOR: Hi. So what`s going on?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He`s -- he`s dead. He`s in his bedroom, in the shower.
911 OPERATOR: OK. How did this happen? Do you have any idea?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. We have no idea. Everyone`s been wondering about him for a few days.
911 OPERATOR: OK, well, she said that there`s blood. So is it coming from his head? Did he cut...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, it`s all over the place.
911 OPERATOR: Is there any weapons around?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don`t know. Not that I saw.
911 OPERATOR: How many people are in the house?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There -- how many of us are in the house right now, just the five of us? Five of us.
911 OPERATOR: OK. I need all of you outside.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Outside. OK, we`re going outside.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
GRACE: Five days had passed. Interesting, when police found his body, his body had not only been positioned in that location -- staged, as we call it -- but he had also been bathed postmortem. Apparently, according to police, Jodi Arias gets warm water and she bathes the bloody body of her lover, Travis Alexander, as he lies there crumpled up in the bottom of the shower stall.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARIAS: And there was a sense of uncertainty at times and a sense of excitement and there was an excitement about the future. And we just had a lot of fun together, and it was one of those things where it was very fun while it lasted. And when we decided to break things off and become just friends, we continued to be friends. And that`s just how it went.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Five days pass. A woman who was supposed to leave the next morning following the murder with Alexander on a trip to Cancun was highly suspicious because he never showed up. They didn`t go. Days pass, and friends finally enter the home. Another friend tells them the code, how to get in, and they`re all there together. They go into the home.
They immediately are hit with a stench. They know something is horribly wrong. They begin to see blood in the home.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
911 OPERATOR: What`s her name, Tracy?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jodi. I don`t know her last name, but...
911 OPERATOR: Anyone know her last name?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Does anyone know Jodi`s last name? Taylor might, the best friend, but he`s not here. He`s on his way here.
911 OPERATOR: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And the (INAUDIBLE) just got here.
911 OPERATOR: OK. There should be an officer arriving, as well.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. Are you a police officer?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, he`s here.
911 OPERATOR: OK, I`ll go ahead and let you go.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, thank you.
911 OPERATOR: Thank you. Bye-bye.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Bye.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
GRACE: They call 191 upon the discovery of Travis`s body, and within that 911 call it`s very compelling that even in that call, they say that there`s a girl, a girl that`s been stalking Travis, a girl named Jodi.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: Jodi Arias meets Travis Alexander at a conference that takes place in Vegas. Where else? And they immediately steam up. They fall in love, and only when the flame burns out about five months later do they somewhat break it off.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARIAS: We met at the Rain Forest cafe in the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How long ago was that?
ARIAS: It was in September of 2006.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What was it about him when you saw him that kind of drew you to him?
ARIAS: There wasn`t really any initial magnetic attraction. At the time, I shook his hand, and he said, Hi, I`m Travis. I said, Hi, I`m Jodi. And his name was just another of many names that I had to remember. I was meeting hundreds of people that weekend. We were all there for a big convention.
And so it was right after I had finished eating with a group of people, and we got up and shook hands with a few people. He was among them. And then we began to walk throughout the casino.
And he made it a point to keep walking next to me and keep me engaged in conversation. And we just -- you know, by the time we made it around to the big gold lion in front of the lobby, we just -- we had discovered a couple of common interests, and that sort of thing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Travis and Jodi Arias met way back in 2006 at a convention. And he`s this handsome salesman and motivational speaker, and she`s this beautiful aspiring photographer. And they click. There was this instant connection.
But it was several months later that they officially started going out. And almost immediately, friends became concerned, friends of Travis, saying that this woman came on too strong, too fast, seemed obsessed with Travis.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARIAS: He was very uplifting, very uplifting person. He had every -- he knew every one of my buttons. He could bring me up or down, you know, at the drop of a hat. But mostly, he brought me up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: They exchanged something like 82,000 e-mails. They talked on the phone a lot. So it was a very intense relationship. And then when they broke up, they didn`t really break up. Their relationship just went underground. It became a toxic secret.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARIAS: Our relationship, it was just an average -- I don`t want to save average. Nothing is average with Travis. But any problems that we had, they occurred really right toward the end, and that signaled the end of our relationship. It`s nothing that we continued to dwell on and try to work out.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What was the one thing that finally you said, This is it?
ARIAS: It was -- it was just a breach of trust.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JOSTAD: So Jodi Arias and Travis Alexander met in 2006 at a conference, a work conference. And they kept in touch, even though she was living in northern California, he was living in Arizona. They were going to visit each other, once the relationship got more serious, at sort of the halfway point between the two of their homes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARIAS: We hung out throughout the weekend, had a lot of fun, exchanged phone numbers. And it was one of those things where I didn`t expect him to call, but he called me the very next day. And so I was, like, Oh, hi. And you know, we just -- he`s a good conversationalist. He just kept me engaged in conversation constantly. And you know, he wanted to know about me, and people like to talk about themselves. So you know, it was just -- one thing led to another and we became great friends.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JOSTAD: But you know, Travis Alexander`s friends say it was clear that he didn`t intend to marry Jodi Arias and that he didn`t really see a future in this relationship.
However, his friends and Travis Alexander`s family believed that Jodi Arias did consider this a serious relationship. She at one point moved to Arizona to be closer to him. She converted to the Mormon faith in order to be closer to him. He was a devout Mormon.
And there was a real imbalance there. He apparently didn`t see this going anywhere, and Jodi Arias had big plans for their relationship.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Was there jealousy on the (INAUDIBLE)
ARIAS: I would say, on my end, not so much jealousy, maybe a sense of insecurity. But that`s just me. On his end, sometimes. I don`t think it was warranted, but I took it as a compliment.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Here`s the kicker. They never really break it off. They continue a sex-only relationship after that. Travis Alexander is clearly dating and pursuing other women, while in contrast, Jodi Arias picks up and moves nearly 300 miles to be closer to Travis Alexander in her bid to win him back.
Not only that, she even converts to Mormonism in an attempt to become Mrs. Travis Alexander.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: There are reams of photos of the two of them naked in provocative positions, I guess during sex. Then apparently, the afternoon passes. And then the next thing you know, three or four hours later, there`s suddenly more photos. There are timestamps on the photos in this digi-cam. Of course, it`s gone through the wash cycle, but all cops do is take out the sim card, and there are all the photos.
JOSTAD: This is something that I don`t think I`ve ever heard of in a murder case. There were pictures on that camera of the victim right before his death, and then a picture of him after his death.
GRACE: So several hours pass, and there`s a new set of photos on the digital camera. And the first one is of Travis Alexander naked, again, in the shower. He`s taking a shower.
The next one, whether taken on purpose or inadvertently, is up. Like, there`s movement, and like when you put a Blackberry or an iPhone in your pocketbook and it`s on the camera icon, and it`s taking cameras of the -- taking photos of the inside of your pocket the whole time.
Apparently, after this one shot of him taking a shower, there`s suddenly movement, inadvertent shots taken from this digital camera. The next one takes shots of him dead.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARIAS: Well, it`s not -- it`s all public information, but it`s nothing that I`m really comfortable talking about, and it`s nothing that he nor I ever intended to be made public. It`s something that we intended to keep private.
But now that all of this has been thrust under a microscope, everybody knows about it, so part of it -- part of me says why bother trying to skirt around the issue, and the other part of me says, you know, have a little discretion.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Authorities say after the murder, Jodi drives to Utah, where she`s meeting up with a work colleague of Travis`s, a guy that she may have some kind of budding relationship with. And he is very put off by the fact that Jodi is wearing long sleeves. It`s very hot out, and he`s wondering why is she wearing these long sleeves, and then also notices that her hand is bandaged, indicating she may have some cuts underneath that bandage. So very, very suspicious behavior on Jodi`s part.
JOSTAD: We know from the autopsy report that Travis Alexander had numerous cuts and stab wounds all over his body, a gaping wound on his neck.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And then to find out, you know, it was her -- it made me so sick. Like, how creepy is that, that somebody could kill somebody and then act like she didn`t and act like they had this perfect little relationship and go on her Myspace page and post al that stuff of her and him together. And you know, it was actually her that did it. That`s, to me, sick.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: There are 29 stab wounds. One of them, the most horrific, goes from ear to ear in a big smile across his throat. There`s another stab wound almost directly to the heart, multiple stab wounds on his torso.
There is a gunshot wound clearly taken when he was already down, since Arias is shorter than Alexander. The trajectory path reveals that the shot comes in above the right eyebrow and goes downward and lodges -- there`s no exit wound. It lodges in the left cheek.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: Even though Jodi Arias, then 27 years old at the time, was very calm, cool and collected when police first question her about Travis Alexander`s death, DNA told a different story. There was a palm print in the home. The palm matched up to Jodi Arias. And the DNA matched not only Arias but Travis Alexander, as well. It was his blood.
That leads police back to Jodi Arias. They`re convinced she was on the scene of the murder. Her response? She asked police could they wait for her to put on makeup and fix her hair before she leaves her place.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARIAS: Well, I spent a lot of time at his house. But because it`s more than just that kind of DNA, there is an explanation for all of that and that will all be made known very soon.
Again, it doesn`t prove that I committed a murder. And I didn`t commit a murder. I didn`t hurt Travis. I would never hurt Travis. I would never harm him physically. I may have hurt him emotionally, and I`ll always regret that. But you know, the explanation for that will all come out soon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Following up on the tip from friends pointing toward Jodi Arias, authorities examine the evidence, and there`s a lot of forensic evidence. There`s blood, there`s hair, there`s a bloody palm print, there`s fingerprints. And guess who the blood matches up to? Jodi Arias. So there is a bloody palm print with not only her blood but Travis`s blood mixed together, and that is one of the smoking guns in this case.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello. Can I speak to Jodi, please?
ARIAS: This is Jodi.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, Jodi, this is Detective Steve Flores (ph) from the Mesa, Arizona, Police Department.
ARIAS: Oh, hey. How are you?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good. I just got a message from my patrol officers that you need to talk to me about something.
ARIAS: Well, I just wanted to offer any assistance that I might have. I was a really good friend of Travis`s and...
(END AUDIO CLIP)
GRACE: It wasn`t long after her initial story to police that she knew nothing about Travis`s death, and in fact, she had not been in touch with him very much, that her cell phone had died and had been dead for 10 hours and she was completely out of touch, that her story changed. Her story morphed into her being at the scene of the murder but that she had nothing to do with it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARIAS: Well, there`s a lot of forensics suggesting that I was, you know, in his house. Of the evidence that they presented to me, I was asked the question, If you were presented this evidence and you were a third party, what would you think? And you know, I need to be honest. The evidence is very compelling. But none of it proves that I committed a murder. None of it proves that I committed a crime. What it does substantiate is what I did tell detectives.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: When police first went to question Jodi Arias, she said, Oh, I wasn`t there. I wasn`t anywhere near the crime scene. I haven`t talked to Travis in a couple of months.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That was around April that you last saw him, right?
ARIAS: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You haven`t been back in town since then?
ARIAS: No, I haven`t at all.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
GRACE: Her second story to police was that she was there in Travis`s home with him when, suddenly, a man and a woman, unbeknownst to her, in disguise, dressed so she could not make an identification -- she would not be able to identify them in a lineup -- suddenly came in, burst into the home, attacked Travis, murdered him brutally and told her that if she went to the cops, she and her family would get the same. That was her second story.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What have you heard so far?
ARIAS: I heard that he was -- that he passed away and that it was -- I don`t know, I`ve heard all kind of rumors. I heard there was a lot of blood. I heard that his roommates found him, or his friends found him or people were -- I`m sorry, it`s all -- I`m upset.
But I heard that nobody was able to get ahold of him for almost a week, and that was about the last time I spoke to him, too, which is actually why I thought I -- my friends said I should call you anyway and let you know the last time I talked to him.
I used to talk to him quite regularly. I used to live there. I live in northern California now. But after I moved -- I moved a few months ago. And after I moved, we just kept in touch very regularly and kind of fell back a little bit, but cut down to a couple times a week, but I haven`t heard from him. I talked to him on Tuesday night. I looked at my phone records on the Internet to check, and I definitely talked to him on Tuesday night.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JOSTAD: Jodi Arias gave -- well, is going to give, we believe, yet another version of what really happened the day that Travis Alexander was killed. We know that she first said she hadn`t seen Travis Alexander in a while. Then when confronted with evidence that she was indeed in the home with him around the time he was killed, she then said, you know, No, it was these masked intruders that broke in, tried to kill us both. I barely got away.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARIAS: I really don`t remember the day at all. I just remember when I got the phone call. And it was late, 10:30, I think.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who called you.
ARIAS: A mutual friend of ours.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And what did he or she say?
ARIAS: He didn`t say much because he didn`t know much. And he just said, Something has happened and I don`t have a lot of details. And I said, Well, what can you tell me? And he, again, I just don`t have a lot of details. And I thought, Well, maybe it`s a mistake. Are you sure? And he said, I`ll let you know when I know more, but you`re the first person I thought to call.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What was going through your mind?
ARIAS: It was a shock, the feeling of shock and sort of disbelief. And there wasn`t -- it was a real restlessness because I didn`t know. And I felt -- I don`t know. You just don`t know -- until I actually got confirmation of what had happened, that`s when things really began to sink in.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What did you do once you got more information? What did you do?
ARIAS: It was over the phone, and so I just remained as calm as possible and -- well, I got confirmation from his bishop, who actually confirmed it. And at that point, it was just about me holding it together over the phone and crying as silently as possible while he told me what he knew.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JOSTAD: Now we believe she`s going to claim that this was actually self-defense, that Travis Alexander was sexually abusive, was essentially someone she was so afraid of that she had to respond with deadly force, and that self-defense -- she was just defending herself. That is how Travis Alexander wound up dead.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So you had nothing to do with Travis Alexander`s death?
ARIAS: Nothing to do with it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He was stabbed some 27 times and shot once in the left cheek. Who could have done this to him?
ARIAS: I don`t know.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who do you think killed him?
ARIAS: I have no idea.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: Now, there are a lot of ways that Jodi Arias could have conceivably explained away why she was at the scene with a dead body. She could have said she happened upon it. She could have said she heard him outside screaming and she came inside. There are a number of things she could have done. But the real clincher in this case is a digital camera, a digi-cam.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How would you describe your relationship with him?
ARIAS: We dated for -- we dated for, like, five months, and we broke up. And we continued to actually to see each other for quite a bit, you know, right up until I moved.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When did you guys break up?
ARIAS: We officially broke up June 29th of last year (INAUDIBLE) We, even though we broke up, were no longer boyfriend and girlfriend, we decided to remain friends. But you know, like, I kind of feel embarrassed talking about this, but it was more like (INAUDIBLE) but it wasn`t boyfriend and girlfriend. It was more like, kind of (INAUDIBLE) you know what I mean?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, OK. So you guys were not, like, romantically together at any time or...
ARIAS: We were intimate, but I wouldn`t say romantic as far as a relationship goes. We were in no way headed towards marriage or talking about anything like that. (INAUDIBLE)
(END AUDIO CLIP)
GRACE: The bed sheets, all of the bedding had been taken off Travis`s bed and put in the washer, along with some clothes. And in the sheets or in his clothes somewhere in that wash machine was a digital camera, and the digital camera -- she basically took her own crime scene photos.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Authorities believe that this was a premeditated murder, that she brought the gun and the knife that was used to kill Travis Alexander, and went there with an agenda because she was furious that he wanted to ultimately end their relationship.
Remember, they had officially broken up, and then they kind of remained friends with benefits. And there are indications that Travis wanted to end that, too. He was going away on a vacation with another woman. And authorities believe Jodi Arias was jealous and was rageful and resentful, and that that is the motive for murder.
GRACE: Another interesting and telling fact about the wounds to the body is that many -- I believe 10 of the stab wounds were to his back. And those wounds alone show that this murder was not self-defense.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARIAS: I don`t -- I wouldn`t use obsession. I would say -- I don`t know. I think that when more evidence comes out, it`ll be very telling that it was a two-way street.
And Travis was a wonderful person, but he was also a very persuasive and he was hard to say no to. And it was hard -- you know, he wouldn`t allow me to not answer his text message. If I didn`t respond, he would keep calling and keep calling until I did. And so to me, that wasn`t obsessive behavior on his part, it was just -- I took it as a compliment. He wanted to talk to me, OK, that`s great.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Were you obsessed with him? Those are the allegations they made.
ARIAS: No.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Now many people, if they were charged with murder, if they were a suspect in a murder, if they were even a person of interest in a murder, would lay low. But not Jodi Arias. She loves the camera and the camera loves her right back.
Within days, she was out and about. She even had dinner with a group of Travis`s friends the night after he`s murdered, and by her own words, it was self-defense. She was there on the scene, stabbed him multiple times, as she says, in self-defense, including 10 stab wounds to the back.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARIAS: I don`t know who did or said it first, but I know that some things were said because I was on the road that week. So you know, I think that because, you know, as much as Travis and I told ourselves and everyone that we were just friends, I think that our behavior was not as clandestine as we tried to make it.
So there were times when people would see certain ways we would behave and maybe wonder. I know that he got -- he lamented a lot that he got a lot of grief from his friends about the amount of time that we spent together and...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did they not like you?
ARIAS: I don`t know that it was so much that. I think they were more concerned with his future prospects for marriage and where his focus was. And his focus was definitely on that, and marriage is -- you know, he viewed marriage as an important step in his spiritual progression, and I think he took it seriously.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: She`s out as if she doesn`t have a care in the world, out having dinner, laughing and talking. Now, the day after Travis Alexander`s murder, she was observed with cuts on her hands and fingers. At the memorial service, she was observed smiling, almost laughing at his memorial service.
And she has taken to the airwaves and given one interview after the next, vowing that she will not be convicted, that no jury will convict her.
(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)
GRACE: When a felony occurs, robbery, and a death happens, that`s felony murder. You don`t have to intend that a death occur. In this case, the state is claiming as a second alternate theory felony murder, that Travis Alexander died during the commission of a felony, that being burglary.
Now, you may ask, he let her in. How can that be burglary? Here`s how. She comes in with a gun that, coincidentally, was stolen from her grandparents` home, where she lives, a few days before the murder. She comes into the home armed with a lethal weapon.
Not only that, burglary, by definition, is entering or remaining in a structure. So the fact that she remained in the structure, his home, and a death occurred equals a burglary.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: I think that that`s a two-sided coin in that not only is it compelling to the court watcher, the casual observer, all of us on the outside looking in, but it also presents a conundrum.
It`s almost as if the eye is tricking the mind in that you see someone handsome or beautiful. You know they`ve got a great job, a great education, a beautiful home, everything. They`re young. They`re healthy. Yet she is charged with this heinous, this -- in fact, a crime so brutal, it`s akin to a mob hit on Travis Alexander.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Jodi Arias has become a bizarre celebrity behind bars. First of all, when they arrested her, the first thing she says is, Can I please have time to put on my makeup first? So that gives you an indication of her mentality. She has done jailhouse interviews and has actually been photographed putting on her makeup in preparation for these interviews. So she`s very concerned about her appearance.
JOSTAD: Well, Jodi Arias has been pretty productive behind bars. She`s a high school dropout, but actually got her GED. She taught herself Spanish.
GRACE: Jodi Arias has certainly not wasted any time behind bars. Besides apparently having several makeovers, she has continued her education. She has learned Spanish. She has learned sign language.
And she has taken to song. As a matter of fact, Jodi Arias won the "American Idol" contest, the "American Idol Behind Bars" contest, with a moving rendition of "Oh, Night Divine." And the reward for that, the award was a turkey dinner for her and her cellmates. And thankfully, it was captured on video.
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ARIAS: (SINGING) Oh, holy night, the stars are brightly shining. It is the night of our dear savior`s birth. Long lay the world in sin and error pining `til he appeared and the soul felt its worth. A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn. Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angel voices! Oh, night divine, oh, night when Christ was born, oh, night divine, oh, night, oh, night divine...
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GRACE: As to Travis Alexander, who seemed to be the all-American good guy, the defense is painting him as a -- an almost demented control freak, abusive.
So it seems as if everything we see on the surface belies the underside, the truth of what each side is alleging. The only issue is who`s telling the truth? Or are they both telling the truth?
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