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Jane Velez-Mitchell
Jodi Arias: Sex and Secrets on Trial; Will Crime-Scene Photos Sway Jodi Arias Jury?
Aired January 08, 2013 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL, HOST: Graphic and grisly images in the Jodi Arias death penalty trial today, as the prosecution makes it clear that Travis Alexander died a violent, slow and very painful death at the hands of Jodi Arias.
Will the jury look at these brutal images and believe Jodi Arias` claims of self-defense, or will they call it a rage killing?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
VELEZ-MITCHELL (voice-over): Jodi Arias, back in court for day three of her death penalty trial, with a new look and fresh tears. Will the jury believe her emotional outpourings? Or will they think she`s just acting, like she did when she called detectives and pretended she knew nothing about Travis Alexander`s death?
Tonight, the secrets revealed in today`s testimony. And the very graphic photographs of the victim and the crime scene, as prosecutors try to prove Jodi Arias was a jealous woman, obsessed with Travis, and filled with rage.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He`s dead. He`s in his bedroom in the shower.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Had what appeared to be dried blood on his neck. Appeared to be a neck wound from ear to ear. His face was dark purple, almost black.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Has he been threatened by anyone recently?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, he has. He has an ex-girlfriend that`s been bothering him.
JENNIFER WILLMOTT, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Jodi Arias killed Travis Alexander. The million-dollar question is what would have forced her to do it?
JODI ARIAS, MURDER SUSPECT: I didn`t commit a murder. I didn`t hurt Travis. I would never hurt Travis. I`d never harm him physically.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was this self-defense?
WILLMOTT: What would have forced Jodi? It was Travis` continual abuse. And on June 4th of 2008, it had reached a point of no return.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Tonight, the Jodi Arias murder trial turns unbelievably grisly as the prosecution lays out the bloody crime scene and the gruesome autopsy photos. Will the horrifically violent way Travis Alexander died show the jury this was a rage killing, and not self-defense?
Good evening, Jane Velez-Mitchell coming to you live.
The gorgeous 32-year-old photographer admits -- yes, she admits -- "Yes, I stabbed my ex-boyfriend 29 times, slit Travis Alexander`s throat from ear to ear and shot him in the face." But she claims it was all in self-defense.
Travis` family shook their heads with anger and grief. They sobbed in court as they watched this parade of gruesome photos. And we have to warn you, these photos are exceptionally graphic. These evidence photos show Travis` bruised, bloody, decaying, body.
His hands. Look at them. They tell a horror story. Look at the knife wounds. Deep cuts that are plain to the naked eye.
The prosecutor seemed intent on showing the pain Travis went through in a long, agonizing, even torturous death, involved stabbing and throat slitting and a shot through the head. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My examination did show that the jugular vein and the carotid artery on the right side were both cut.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How deep is this wound?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It goes all the way back to the spine. So it`s three inches, four inches.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: At first Jodi Arias told cops, "Oh, I wasn`t even there when Travis died." And then she said, "Oh, it was a home invasion and I escaped."
Well, now she says, "Yes, I killed him, but in self-defense after repeated psychological abuse and sexual degradation."
Listen to this. And we have to warn you, this language is graphic, but it was said in open court.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLMOTT: As Travis would explain to Jodi, oral sex really isn`t as much of a sin for him as vaginal sex. And so he was able to convince her to give him oral sex. And later in their relationship, Travis would tell her that anal sex really isn`t much of a sin compared to vaginal sex. And so he was able to persuade her to allow him to have anal sex with her.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: So will a jury believe Jodi Arias killed in self- defense? Or did the prosecutor today prove how a petite Jodi could have savagely murdered her much larger ex-boyfriend?
I want to hear from you. Call me: 1-877-JVM-SAYS, 1-877-586-7297.
Straight out to our very own senior producer, Selin Darkalstanian. Selin, you were in court today as these graphic photos were shown. What was it like, and what was the reaction for victim Travis Alexander`s family?
SELIN DARKALSTANIAN, HLN PRODUCER: Jane, for the first time today, actually, Travis Alexander`s family got up and walked out of the courtroom. Before, when they were showing graphic photos earlier last week, they were looking down. They were crying. They were trying to cover their faces.
But today it was just too much. They got up, and they walked out of the courtroom. You have to understand, these are horrific, horrific autopsy photos, different angles of stab wounds. They had, you know, certain photos of his back with stab wounds, nine wounds going in one direction, showing, you know, stab wounds going like this. They had -- the skull has stab wounds on it. His midsection. His legs. I mean, his entire body was butchered. It was a horrific, horrific scene.
Obviously, the entire courtroom, reporters, the public, it was a somber mood in the courtroom. Everybody was quiet watching these photos go by, and it was the worst, obviously, for the family, who got up and left.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: The prosecution spent the first part of the day basically soaking in blood. Soaking the jury, metaphorically, at least, in the bloody crime scene photographs. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The hallway and floor, including the red staining from the hallway. Red staining on the carpet in the master bedroom. From different vantage points of some of the red staining. That is red staining that was on the carpet, in the master bedroom.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that a close-up of it?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, it is.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Look at these bloody hands. We`re going to show you again. These are extraordinary. And we have with us, we`re very delighted to have Dr. Lawrence Kobilinsky, forensic science -- scientist of note. What do these hands say? I mean, the prosecutor says this was a rage killing by an obsessed woman who was a stalker.
The defense says, "Oh, no, this was self-defense." But what do these crime scenes tell you?
DR. LAWRENCE KOBILINSKY, FORENSIC SCIENTIST: Well, first of all, Jane, it`s obvious this victim is in a state of advanced decomposition. The body is already turning dark. You see the discoloration on the hands.
We also see extensive wounds on the hands. This was not simply self- defense. I`ve never, in my career, seen self-defense with such incredible -- an attack like this.
I think we said 29 stab wounds. Not only to the hands and the torso, but to the heart. That is a fatal blow. And he would have exsanguinated if it were just that. But there`s a lot more than that.
And so, clearly, this is a crime of rage. This is -- doesn`t seem to me to be self-defense.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes. And let`s talk a little bit about Jodi Arias. OK. We`re going to show you a little bit -- that`s another one of the crime scene photos. Look at that. Look at that sink. I mean, that tells a story, that sink.
And, in fact, prosecutors say that he stood over that sink, essentially bleeding to death as he was repeatedly attacked by Jodi Arias in -- in what is also a torturous and painful death.
And I want to go out for a second to Beth Karas. Because we`re seeing so many of these photos. And of course, they just -- they`re like a punch to the stomach when you look at something like this, this bloody sink.
But they also tell a story that the prosecution wants to tell about how long it took Travis Alexander to die. Why he wasn`t able to fight back, even though he`s bigger than Jodi Arias, and also how he must have suffered.
And if you drop that graphic there, you can see that is his body right there, his body in the shower. Beth Karas, how long did it take him to die?
BETH KARAS, TRUTV`S "IN SESSION": Well, it probably took him a couple of minutes. We haven`t heard an actual time, because it really is impossible to say.
But the medical examiner said today that, in his opinion, the stab wound to the heart, which was one of three major fatal wounds, wasn`t immediately fatal, and would have been the first one.
Because there`s no way, with a shot to the brain, a gunshot to the brain, or the slashed throat that was three to four inches deep and severed his windpipe and went all the way down to the spine, that he could have continued fighting and had defensive wounds.
And because he had defensive wounds on his hands, those deep, knife cuts that you were just showing when -- you were showing his decomposed hands, but you saw the knife cuts. He could not have gotten those wounds unless the first one, or one of the early wounds, was to his heart. And then he started probably, I mean, losing a lot of blood, getting dizzy. He stood over the sink. He was probably spitting blood, dripping blood.
And it`s possible, as he`s bent over the sink, that he got those nine stab wounds on the upper -- upper back, and they`re about an inch deep. They were -- they didn`t go into the chest cavity, but there were several of them at a diagonal.
And then he may have, bleeding, you know, sort of stumbled down the hallway, which is about 12 feet, to the bedroom, where he probably collapsed, and then his throat was slashed at the end of the hallway, the entrance to the bedroom. He was alive, said the M.E., when his throat was slashed, and then she dragged him back to the shower and shot him on the way.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: We`re showing -- thank you for that, Beth. And we`re showing some crime scene photos that devastated the family, especially the photos of the victim`s body, particularly his hands.
Now all this time, as the family of the victim races out of the courtroom because they can`t handle it -- and it`s totally understandable - - Jodi Arias, let`s show Jodi Arias in court today. And she is crying. There she is. And you can see her. Well, she becomes very emotional. She is crying during the showing of these photos.
So, Jordan Rose, you`re an attorney out of Phoenix, Arizona. She has been sobbing through most of this. And you see her usually with a Kleenex in her hand, putting her hand to her nose and crying. Do you buy her tears?
JORDAN ROSE, ATTORNEY (via phone): You know, today she was clearly counseled on her previous, sort of Angelina Jolie meets Octomom sexy persona that she was playing. And today she comes in looking like -- I don`t know, a dejected librarian hiding her nose job and her lip injections that she kind of flouted last week.
She curls the front bangs and tries to look a little sheepish. And she`s really a chameleon, for sure. And it makes her seem sort of virginal in contrast with the sexually deviant photographs that are going to be shown to the jury quite soon.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, and speaking of that...
ROSE: She looks like she`s working for a Kleenex endorsement right now.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, speaking of that, we`re going to debate that on the other side, because some say, well, why did she even go to trial? The evidence against her is so completely overwhelming.
But we have an attorney on the other side who says, "Oh, no, not so fast." Perhaps it`s a Casey Anthony, O.J. Simpson who have given people who were facing overwhelming evidence some hope that they could be acquitted or maybe she does have a case for self-defense? You`re going to hear and we`re going to debate it on the other side.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The view of the laundry room. These photographs depict the washing machine and the contents of that washing machine.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What are we looking at there?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That`s a digital camera that was found inside of the washing machine. There was a memory card inside the washing machine. It was also collected.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARIAS: I practically lived there, even when I was there. I spent the night there several times a week while I lived there. I came over and cleaned his house a lot. He sort of -- he paid me a little bit every month to keep his house nice and clean, sort of like a housekeeper.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you remember seeing an e-mail from Mr. Alexander to Miss Arias where he provides her a picture of the French maid outfit that he would like her to don when she cleans his apartment? Or his home, excuse me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. That doesn`t sound familiar.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Oh, Jodi Arias has been crying since the start of this case. And we`re going to show you her tears in a moment.
Now, we all remember the Casey Anthony case, where Casey cried repeatedly in the courtroom before the jurors, but then -- before the trial when her daughter, Caylee, was missing -- not really but supposedly -- Casey wasn`t emotional at all. Remember this?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When did she start watching over your child?
CASEY ANTHONY, ACQUITTED OF MURDERING HER DAUGHTER: It`s been within the last year and a half, two years that she started watching Caylee.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Now Jodi Arias also turned on the waterworks every day, but she sounded also very matter of fact and unemotional when she was talking to cops right after Travis Alexander`s body was found.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARIAS (via phone): I never really dated anyone since. And he told me that he hadn`t dated anyone since, but then he told me after that that he has. So it`s all been kind of weird because we kept our dating lives sort of from each other. Like a don`t ask, don`t tell policy sort of.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. Let`s bring in all our top attorneys that we have gathered tonight. Lisa Bloom, legal analyst for Avo.com, author of "Swagger," you talk about boys` swagger. But this is sort of a female. Is this female theatrics at work?
LISA BLOOM, LEGAL ANALYST, AVO.COM: Yes, frankly, her attorney is very smart, and her attorney masterminded this new look. The very mousy look with the glasses. I love that she looks over the glasses to read. Most of us look through glasses to read. And she sits there crying. She may be crying because she knows she`s going to prison, Jane.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: But, Nishay Sanan, you are a criminal defense attorney out of Chicago, and I understand that you believe that she actually has a viable self-defense argument? Huh?
NISHAY SANAN, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: She does. She does have a valid self-defense argument.
You know, just because everybody`s focusing on the crime scene and these gruesome pictures, it doesn`t mean she doesn`t have a valid self- defense scheme. It could be 26 puncture wounds. It could be 5.
What happens is you go into fight or flight. When she was being attacked by Travis Alexander, she went into fight mode. And then you keep going until you believe, or in your mind the job is done to where your attacker can no longer attack you.
And I think the defense is doing a great job in portraying the relationship between Travis and Jodi during the time frame when his family, his friends, all believed that he was this good Mormon who went to church, was doing the right thing, was not going to have sex. The defense has prayed him -- portrayed him to be living this double life, and I think they`re setting this defense up perfectly.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Jordan Rose, attorney out of Phoenix, you disagree?
ROSE: Vehemently disagree. I mean, if these crime-scene photos are the definition of self-defense, Lindsay Lohan`s the definition of stability.
I mean, remember today was more about proving murder than premeditation. Because, in our state, and our state Arizona wants to see her put to death, they`ve got to first show she killed him. Then they`ve got to show it`s been premeditated. And in order to put her to death, they`ve got to show that the injuries were unusually cruel.
And in doing that, it thwarts her self-defense claim, stabbing him repeatedly in the back. That`s fine and well to say that she has a great self-defense claim if the facts stated that in any, any regard. But that is just a stretch. There is nothing out there...
VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. Nishay, I want to give you a chance to respond.
SANAN: Well, yes, there could be stab wounds in the front. They could be in the back. It doesn`t matter when you go into that fight mode, which she did because she was being attacked by Travis Alexander, you keep going. You don`t just stop after you stab someone once when you`re worried about yourself, your own life, your own fears. You keep going until you believe or until your mind believes that job is done.
And what happens here is there may have been multiple stab wounds. And that`s what the prosecution has to focus on. That`s what they have to do to play on the emotions of this jury to try to defeat this evidence.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Dr. Kobilinsky, forensic scientist, you`ve seen so many crimes. You`re saying this is a classic overkill where she keeps killing him. Even after he`s dead she`s still going after him.
KOBILINSKY: There`s no question in my mind, he was obviously incapacitated after being subjected to 29 stab wounds, including penetration of the heart.
But then, he was able to move a little bit down the hallway, and then to have the throat slit. I mean, you can follow the pattern through blood spatter, and if there was arterial severance, there would have been arterial spurting. And that`s, again, more evidence for the pattern that took place.
But then, he`s totally incapacitated. Shooting him in the head, that is really overkill. So much emotion. So much rage. There`s no other explanation.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: On the other side, we`re going to take you through this killing that went on for minutes, and show you exactly what happened and in what order. It`s astounding.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Towards the end of their relationship, after they had kind of broken up, and he had put some distance between them, it really was an obsession type of a thing. And the way he described it was that she was really stalking him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was a few weeks before -- like, before we went, again, I told him, "Maybe you should take somebody else to Cancun with you." And there wasn`t anyone else that he wanted to take.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: There wasn`t anyone else that Travis Alexander wanted to take to Cancun. He was scheduled to leave right after he ended up dying for Cancun with that girl. That was the good girl he wanted to take, and prosecutors believe that Jodi Arias, who was his sort of secret sexual hookup, was in a rage, jealous, and also stalking him, furious that he didn`t consider her marriage material.
Let`s go out to the phone lines. Brenda, Indiana, your question or thought. Thanks for your patience. Brenda, Indiana.
CALLER: Hi, Jane, yes. I love your show.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Thank you.
CALLER: I just wanted to ask, they said today in court that she dropped his camera and that he grabbed her and spun her around, and that`s when it all happened, in like a minute. Where in the heck did she get the knife from all of a sudden to start stabbing him with? No one`s mentioned anything about that.
Shanna Hogan, journalist and author of "Picture Perfect," a new book about this case that you are working on. Where do prosecutors believe she got the knife and the gun?
SHANNA HOGAN, JOURNALIST/AUTHOR: Well, with the gun, the prosecutors believe that it was stolen from her grandparents` house like on the May 28, which was just a week before the murder. There was a reported burglary at the house, and the only thing missing was a 25 caliber weapon. And that was the same caliber weapon used in the crime.
As for the knife, the prosecutors haven`t said where they think it came from. But the defense has a theory that the knife came from Travis cutting tassels to tie her up. That was somehow left in the bathroom, and then during the attack she grabbed the knife.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes, the defense claims that Travis tied her up in a kinky sexual acting out, and of course, both sides agree that they did have sex in the hours before this killing occurred.
Lynn, Tennessee, your question or thought -- Lynn.
CALLER: Yes, Jane, how are you?
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Good, thank you.
CALLER: Well, you know, that don`t look like no self-defense to me. She drove, what, 1,000 miles, to do this to him? You know what? She`s a scorned woman, and he dumped her. And she drove all the way there, probably took her clothes off. They had sex, and then she planned on killing him before she left there. I already know that.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Joe Gomez, that is a very good comment by Lynn from Tennessee. That people have to take into consideration that she drove from her home in California, all the way to Mesa, Arizona, to have sex with him.
So, meanwhile, the defense is arguing, oh, she was the victim of this sort of sexual deviant is how they`re trying to paint him, to the horror of his own family. But she`s the one who drove across state lines to see him.
JOE GOMEZ: Exactly, Jane. And not only that, but she, you know, apparently brought a gun to a love fest. And you just have to look at the grisly pictures here. The hallway is splattered in blood. The carpet is stained in blood. The sink is -- it`s just so grisly. The savageness, and the depravity that we see in this case seems to have no end, Jane.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Absolutely. And Christine, North Carolina, quick question or thought, Christine?
CALLER: Yes, Jane, hey, I love you and Rico and your mom and what you do for everybody.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Oh, thank you.
CALLER: And I just want to say, like the other caller, you know, her driving 1,000 miles, and bringing a gun with her, I believe she was sexually active with him. Every picture you see of them they`re smiling, happy, this that and the other. She does not look like an abused woman. I`ve seen abused victims. And I`m a rape survivor. I know what that`s like.
And so I don`t buy these tears in the courtroom. I mean, she`s guilty of first-degree murder. She deserves the death penalty, and I hope the jury can see through her fake, you know, just the way she acts. It`s just wrong. And what she...
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Christine...
CALLER: Totally disgusting.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: I want to thank you for sharing your personal story and thank you for calling. And we are going to have a whole breakdown of how Travis Alexander was killed on the other side.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARIAS: To me that wasn`t obsessive behavior on his part. It was just I took it a compliment. He wanted to talk to me? OK, that`s great.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But were you obsessed with him? Those are the allegations they made.
ARIAS: No. No, not at all.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL, HLN HOST: Here`s how prosecutors say the murder of Travis Alexander actually happened. They say Jodi starts stabbing Travis in the shower, stabbing him right in the heart. But Travis grabs at the knife and stumbles to the sink where he drips and spits blood.
Prosecutors say Jodi stabs him repeatedly in the back, and in the scalp as he stands there bleeding out. Then Travis stumbles down the hall towards the bedroom. The prosecutor says he gets only a few steps inside his bedroom before probably falling to his knees, where they say Jodi slashes his throat from ear to ear.
Jodi then allegedly drags him down the hall, hauling him to the sink area. Cops say that`s where she shoots him in the forehead even though he`s most likely already dead. Prosecutors say Jodi then puts Travis` dead body back in the shower, rinsing it off, leaving his body for his roommates to find.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: So, is that the self-defense of a young woman who says that oh, he got rough with her because she dropped his new camera? Or was this the rage killing of a woman who was furious because he was about to take another woman to Cancun on vacation?
Let`s debate this with our two attorneys, Jordan Rose attorney out of Phoenix and Nishay Sanan. Jordan we`ll start with you.
JORDAN ROSE, ATTORNEY: This is the weakest defense I have ever seen. This woman is alleging that because she dropped -- caused him to drop a camera he freaks out enough to cause her to have to kill him, and not only just kill him in self-defense, but stab him 29 times, and do all these brutally outrageous, unusually cruel things to the body. It`s terrible.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Nishay Sanan, how can you argue self-defense?
NISHAY SANAN, ATTORNEY: Well, it`s just exactly as you laid out the facts. He attacks her. She starts stabbing him. He doesn`t fall to the ground. He walks to the sink. So she continues, in fear of herself, continues to stab him, then what does he do? He doesn`t fall to the ground. He walks towards the bedroom.
She, as your other guest said, she`s freaking out. She doesn`t know if he`s going to come after -- if he`s going to come after her again or what he`s going to do. He doesn`t fall to the ground, he keeps moving, even every single time she does something to him.
(CROSSTALK)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: And how do they explain, however, that she brings a gun with her that she pretended was stolen from her grandfather`s house a week before? I mean you --
SANAN: Well, what evidence -- there`s no evidence --
VELEZ-MITCHELL: -- you suddenly drop a camera and suddenly attacks you, well, how -- are you a psychic that you knew to bring a gun to the occasion, because you knew that you were going to drop the camera and he was going to attack you? I mean --
SANAN: Well, what evidence does the prosecutor have that she brought the gun? All they have is a missing gun at the grandparents` house. That`s it. There`s been no evidence put forth that she brought the gun.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. Lisa Bloom --
SANAN: What they have is a man attacking a woman.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Lisa Bloom, legal analyst, avo.com and author of "Swagger"; whatever you think about the sexual relationship between these two and whether or not he was hypocritical in pretending to the world allegedly that he was a virgin Mormon while secretly having sex with her. Whatever you think about that, does that alter the nature of this crime scene?
LISA BLOOM, LEGAL ANALYST: Of course not. And let me correct a very important misstatement of the law. Self-defense has to be a reasonable fear, reasonable fear of bodily harm or injury. Once you stab someone, or shot them and they are down, you can`t continue stabbing and shooting until they`re dead. Once the threat has been eliminated, because a person is disabled or injured, you`re supposed to get out of there.
I mean the law that this attorney is advocating would essentially negate any respect for human life and you know that. That is not the law of self-defense that you can just snap and stab and stab and stab 27 times and shoot somebody until they`re dead. That is just not the way it works.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Nishay is self-defense really or defending a client, I should say, really about basically buying any ridiculous story that that defendant, that client gives you, without using any kind of filter as to whether or not it`s realistic? Is that what defense law has become today?
SANAN: No, it hasn`t. The facts are present for putting up a self- defense. They have battered woman syndrome involved in this self-defense. And the facts are there to support this defense as a reasonable defense. They`re going before a jury in a case where their client is looking at death. They`re just not going to throw everything to the wall and see what sticks. They need to protect her.
And that`s exactly what they`re doing by setting forth the fact that Travis Alexander attacked her. And I disagree with your other guest here who says that once the person`s down -- your own facts as put forth by your forensics says that he wasn`t down. He kept moving. He went from the sink -- from one room to the sink, from the sink to the bedroom. He was never down.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Ok. Jordan?
ROSE: She is going to have an awful time trying to prove that she had any injuries that would warrant such a defense, such as self-defense claims. I mean she didn`t go to the police for five days. There`s no ability to show injuries that would sustain her self-defense claim. And this woman is going to have to put on some massive charm offensive in front of the jury, get up there and talk battered woman syndrome with no proof. It`s impossible -- terrible.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Now, she did have some injuries, because once she left the crime scene, she went to Utah, and was hanging around, and canoodling, you might say, with one of the victims, Travis Alexander`s co- worker, with whom she also apparently had some kind of budding love interest with.
So, Lawrence Kobilinsky, to the point, if she has this other gentleman had said well, yes, she looked a little odd. She was wearing long sleeve shirts and had cuts on her fingers, would that do the trick to say oh, well, this is self-defense?
LAWRENCE KOBILINSKY, FORENSIC SCIENTIST: Jane, from my perspective you`ve got to look at the crime scene, you`ve got to look at the physical evidence, and you have to ask the question, is it consistent? Is her behavior -- is her argument of self-defense consistent with the crime scene evidence? And it seems to me not to be.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, and on the other side of the break, we`re going to talk about the warning signs. This did not happen in a vacuum.
Travis` friends say they immediately, and it`s on the 911 call, they immediately told cops, look at this young woman, she`s been stalking and harassing our friend. That on the other side.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That is reddish brown staining and reddish brown substance that was inside and on top of the sink in the master bathroom.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What are we looking at there?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Those were some hair and fiber-like materials that were found around the shower stall that were designated to be collected as items of evidence. She was actually just indicating the hairs that you see here on the floor.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But you can see the red staining in this photograph.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELEZ-MITCHELL: We`ll be back with more Jodi Arias in just a moment. We have a whole bunch to tell you about tonight. But tomorrow we also have an exclusive interview. We will talk with one of Travis Alexander`s very best friend a man named Mark Brummet. This will be the first time that he has spoken publicly since his very dear friend`s death. He calls Travis Alexander his hero. He says the two of them did everything together.
We`re going to talk to him tomorrow on this show, 7:00 p.m. Eastern. Please join us for that.
In a moment we`re back with more unbelievable evidence.
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MARIE HALL, VICTIM`S FRIEND: She had followed us on the first date that we went on.
JODI ARIAS, ON TRIAL FOR MURDER OF TRAVIS ALEXANDER: I wouldn`t use obsession.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jodi Arias moves from Palm Desert, California to Mesa, Arizona.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The first thing you notice is all this blood just outside the hallway here on the carpet.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Red staining on the carpet in the master bedroom.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There`s blood everywhere -- lots of it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A closer view of it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At this point I`m starting to think oh, something might be wrong. I said you need to find out where she is.
ARIAS: It was hard to fully move on, I think because we continued to spend a little bit too much time together.
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: Long before Travis Alexander was killed, there were many red flags in Travis and Jodi`s relationship. When one of Tyler`s (SIC) friends was on this show I asked him about that. Check this out.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of the stories I`ve heard are that she would always follow around him and the girls that he was dating. And I`ve heard stories of her watching them sleep or I`ve heard stories of her watching through windows or doorways. And there`s stories also of allegedly her slashing his tires two nights in a row outside his girlfriend`s house.
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: Listen, we`ve all gone through breakups, but Travis` friends say she slashed his tires twice, sent anonymous e-mails to Travis` new girlfriends, and did various other things that were incredibly stalker- ish. After they broke up she moves from California to Travis` hometown of Mesa, Arizona; and just a couple of days before he`s killed friends say that Travis discovered Jodi hacking into his Facebook account.
Lisa Bloom, I mean, if you take all of that, and if the prosecution successfully presents that in a cogent fashion at closing, with all this forensic evidence, and the hand -- the blood on the hands of the stab wounds, I mean how could you say all of this is self-defense?
BLOOM: It`s a very, very difficult road for the defense in this case. I think the prosecution has a mountain of evidence. I don`t want to prejudge it. Let`s hear all the evidence as it comes in. But, boy Jane, I mean usually someone who is a victim of domestic violence is not going after the guy in the way that she did.
And she certainly appears to be a stalker. She appears to be crazy, evil, vindictive, horribly violent; don`t forget she lied twice. If this was self-defense, why not pick up the phone and immediately call the police and say, "Oh my God, he was attacking me, but he`s here, please come and try to save his life." I mean none of that happened.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Dr. Kobilinsky you said that you thought her attorney is doing her a disservice. Tell me.
KOBILINSKY: Well, I think she`s facing capital punishment, and if she were offered a plea bargain, I think it would be foolhardy not to consider that in a strong way. I mean the evidence is pointing in one direction. It`s not terribly ambiguous.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Shanna Hogan, you`re covering this from the very start. Was she offered any kind of plea deal at any point?
SHANNA HOGAN, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: Her attorneys urged her to take a plea deal and she has been adamant from the beginning that she would not plead to this case. And for most of the time she was saying that she was completely innocent, that she had nothing to do with the crime. So it wasn`t up until 2011 where she decided to say that she killed him in self- defense.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right.
Now, let`s talk about Jodi`s appearance in court. This is fascinating. Let`s take a look. Day one of the trial, Jodi, we`re going to show this to you, she looks rather serious in a black sweater, there she is, and a very dark hair. She used to be a blonde, remember?
Then day two she adds color. She`s got a green blouse, and still looking rather attractive.
Day three, today, oh, oh, now she`s suddenly wearing glasses. All right. Did her eyesight go bad over the weekend? All right. Then at lunch she adds a dark blue blazer and then takes it off after the split.
So, Joe Gomez, do you remember Casey Anthony with her pastel button- down blouses? Is there some defense handbook that says you have to get your client to wear pastel shirt with a collar, especially if she has a reputation as being a sex maniac?
JOE GOMEZ, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: It`s certainly interesting, isn`t it, Jane, that suddenly she puts on the grandma glasses and adopts sort of a librarian look as though to distance herself from the savagery that is being depicted here by the prosecution.
But look, I mean the chips are just stacked so heavily against her. We have the gun thing, the fact that she allegedly stabbed Travis so many times. And if this was in self-defense why did she only have apparently cuts on her fingers. She wasn`t cutting up vegetables, Jane. She was in a fight for her life. She should have had more defensive wounds in other parts of her body.
Given the savage nature of this attack, the bloodstains across the hallway, in the sink, literally painted practically everywhere in the house.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: But --
GOMEZ: It shocks me.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: It`s like deja vu all over again. I was in this exact same chair, saying the same thing, hearing the same kind of things about many, many high profile clients whether it was Casey Anthony or Michael Jackson during his child molestation trial. And then previous to that the O.J. Simpson case. There was no such thing as an open and shut case.
More on the other side.
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ARIAS: Well, I just wanted to offer any assistance. I was a really good friend of Travis`. I heard that he was -- that he passed away, and that, it was -- I don`t know, I`ve heard all kinds of rumors. I heard there was a lot of blood.
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: Take a look at this photo. We`re going to analyze it afterwards. This is what is believed to be the photo of the actual crime in progress. Take a good look at it. Our expert forensic scientist Dr. Lawrence Kobilinsky is going to analyze it in just a moment. What do you see?
Ok. We`ll be right back with an analysis.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Has he been threatened by anyone recently?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, he has. He has an ex-girlfriend that`s been bothering him and following him and slashing tires and things like that.
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. Now we`re going to show you once again the inadvertent photo that the prosecution says captures the act of Travis Alexander being killed, being murdered, according to prosecutors. This is a first. Take a look at it.
This is the camera, first of all, that prosecutors say was being used and Jodie claims, oh, yes, you know, I dropped it and he got mad at me. The prosecution says she accidentally clicked on it as the killing occurred. There`s the photo.
Now let`s drop the banner so we can study it, everybody study it together. The prosecution says you can see Jodi`s foot in the background. The defense says, uh-uh. This actually shows Travis` head and arms are raised, and they, therefore, question, that oh, she was killing him. Well, he was still attacking her and she was defending herself.
I`m looking at it. Honestly, I can`t figure it out at all. So our expert, Dr. Lawrence Kobilinsky, I know it`s hard but try to give us something here because this is bizarre.
KOBILINSKY: It`s important because it`s a time stamped photograph. And apparently it illustrates the events during the act, during the attack. It does appear there is a hand and an arm and a head. The prosecutor is indicating that her foot is in the photo as well, but it`s very difficult to see.
And it`s not so much what I think of the photo but what does a juror think about it this? Does this really tell a story? Does it say anything about self-defense, or does it show somebody who is really trying to protect --
VELEZ-MITCHELL: You see where my name is, Jane, there`s a little blood above that. Is that body part right there, are you saying that`s his head or her foot?
KOBILINSKY: I think so.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: His head?
KOBILINSKY: It appears to me to be his head.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: That`s his head and then the foot is that little thing in the background, sort of. That looks like a potato almost like in the background.
KOBILINSKY: Yes, that`s what the prosecution is alleging.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Absolutely fascinating. Let`s go to the phone lines. Marie, Kentucky, your question or thought, Marie.
MARIE, KENTUCKY (via telephone): Hi. I am confused about something.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Sure.
MARIE: Apparently in the very beginning of this trial there was mention of her handprint being -- or it being on like a door frame.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes.
MARIE: My question is, I thought it was said that there was both his blood and her blood in the handprint.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes, yes. That`s true.
MARIE: Somebody want to unconfuse me or --
VELEZ-MITCHELL: No, that`s true.
MARIE: In other words, if both people`s blood was found, she was injured in some way.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Oh, ok. I guess that goes to Nishay Sanan, criminal defense attorney, who is saying that there is a self-defense. Is this something that could be used to argue that, oh, yes, she is bleeding, too?
SANAN: It could be. I mean you have the mixture of two bloods. So if they`re saying she wasn`t injured or she wasn`t trying to stop him from attacking her, this clearly goes to show she was cut up. And it could have been when he was attacking her or when she was trying to protect herself with that knife.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right.
SANAN: It goes to show she did have injury.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. Jordan Rose, 10 seconds.
ROSE: She has to charm the jury. She has to get up there and do sort of an O.J. But the thing that`s different is that she`s not O.J. We don`t know her and love her beforehand, and she doesn`t have the money to put on the defense and put on all those expensive experts to prove her self- defense claim.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. More on the other side.
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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.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With the throat wounds and the head wound, I don`t think this person could have had purposeful activity, meaning I don`t think they could have raised their arms to defend themselves.
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VELEZ-MITCHELL: Now, ok, the prosecution has been showing the hands of the victim to show that this was a violent, vicious killing of a jealous woman, overkill as it were, and Lisa Bloom, the caller mentioned a very good point. If, in fact, there`s a palm print showing that it`s not just his blood, as you can see he is cut there in the crime scene photos, but also her blood mixed together in a palm print, could that be enough to give one jurors the idea that maybe she was cut as well if she was defending herself?
BLOOM: I don`t think so, Jane. If you take a knife and you stab somebody 27 times and that person is, of course, fighting for his life, you are going to get some wounds on yourself as well. I mean there`s just no other way about it.
It doesn`t mean they`re defensive wounds, that he was attacking her. Simply the act of stabbing over and over and over again means you`re going to cut your hands.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes, and he had tried to grab the knife, according to prosecutors, and that`s one of the reasons that he had some cuts, was that he was grabbing the knife, Lawrence. Kobilinsky. You were making a similar point that when you`re killing somebody, you do get hurt in the process.
KOBILINSKY: Yes. Lisa is absolutely right. I`ve worked on a lot of cases where one person stabs another and that is exactly what happens. The knife gets bloody, your hand slips, and you end up cutting yourself. So having a palm print with two sources of blood, victim and suspect, is not a big surprise and really doesn`t argue for self-defense at all.
VELEZ-MITCHELL: And the key difference between the victim and the accused is that one is a man, one is a woman and Travis Alexander was much bigger. He was 5`9; he was 189 pounds at the autopsy, meaning he was even heavier before he was killed. She`s 5`4 and 115 pounds.
And so you have to wonder how is it that a 5`4 petite woman can overpower an older man -- a stronger man. Well, a gun is the great equalizer. That`s what we call the great equalizer, a kid with a gun. A teen with a gun can wipe out as we know a lot of people, sadly.
Tomorrow we have the victim`s very good friend. Join us for that tomorrow.
Nancy next.
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