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Dr. Drew
Jodi Takes the Stand; Child Prisoner Safe
Aired February 04, 2013 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. DREW PINSKY, HOST (voice-over): Arias courtroom shocker.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The defense calls Jodi Arias.
PINSKY: Jodi speaks, telling jurors that she wanted to die.
JODI ARIAS, ALLEGED MURDERER: I had plans to commit suicide.
PINSKY: Why she says she had to kill Travis Alexander.
ARIAS: He attacked me and I defended myself.
PINSKY: And how her past may have played into all of this.
ARIAS: My mom began to carry a wooden spoon in her purse. She would hit us with it.
PINSKY: How did she do?
We`ll get into it right now. Let`s get started.
(MUSIC)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PINSKY: Good evening. Indeed, we`re going to get into this.
Joining me this week, my co-host, psychologist Wendy Walsh.
And a reminder that the little boy who was kidnapped and held in an underground bunker for almost a week has been rescued. He`s safe tonight.
WENDY WALSH, CO-HOST: It`s good news.
PINSKY: This is very good news.
Wendy mentioned --
WALSH: Every mother in America.
PINSKY: Every mother in America, that`s the big story tonight. But we also have our takes on the Jodi Arias having taken the stand today, jaw- dropping confessions, including intentions to kill herself, allegations of abuse at the hands of her parents.
Take a look at this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You told us that your dad hit you with a belt. Did he leave welts?
ARIAS: He didn`t leave welts as often as my mom, she also used to belt. He would just shove me into furniture, tables, chairs, knocked me out momentarily. My mom began to carry a wooden spoon in her purse. If we were misbehaving, she would use it on us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PINSKY: Joining us to discuss this stunning testimony today, Judge Karen Mills-Francis and forensic psychologist Cheryl Arutt.
But first, I want to go to "In Session" correspondent Beth Karas.
Beth, you were there, was anybody expecting Jodi to take the stand today? I was sitting in my office and I heard people just yelling, Jodi`s going to the witness stand.
BETH KARAS, CORRESPONDENT, "IN SESSION": No. At least I had no notice whatsoever and neither did any of the people around me.
Court was in a break, the jury was out of the courtroom. The lawyers had been at a side bar. They go back to their table. The next thing I see, Jodi Arias is walking up to the stand. And I thought, hmm, maybe they`re going to have a little hearing outside the presence of the jury, for some reason, she needs to testify.
Then, I said, no, no, no, they just want to get her on the stand before the jury walks in. And indeed, there she was on the stand, I think it`s because her experts will follow and that she really need to testify before the experts because the experts could not have said what Jodi told them when they`re explaining the conclusions they reach about PTSD and battered women syndrome.
WALSH: So, Beth, was this, you think, a secret they kept? Or do you think they suddenly decided this is the time?
KARAS: Well, no, this was probably their strategy, but it was a secret. I mean, they didn`t want people to know, they didn`t want people to be ready. I suppose they`re hoping that Juan Martinez isn`t ready for his cross- examination of her. But there`s time because at the rate this direct examination is going, he won`t be cross-examining her until Wednesday.
PINSKY: Oh, no kidding. OK. So, yes, she`s got to about age 20 in the testimony today and she`s got to bring us all the way up another decade or so.
Anything stand up for you, Beth?
KARAS: Well, you know, I think what stood out for me is what she didn`t say. I mean, OK. Her parents would knock her around a little bit. But I have covered cases where there`s real abuse. I mean, severe compared to this.
A lot of people around the courthouse are saying, this is abuse? But maybe, you know, it put her in a certain frame of mind to develop tolerance to, you know, abuse. Maybe it became, you know, what she knows and identified with. I don`t know.
But it wasn`t as extreme as I thought. I thought there might have been sexual abuse, none of that. I don`t think she`s lying about this because I think if she was going to lie, I think she would`ve done a better job at it.
WALSH: But, Beth, I think, Dr. Drew, you can explain this.
PINSKY: Yes.
WALSH: But even if you have -- we say just have some kind of physical abuse. It doesn`t have to be sexual. It doesn`t have to be crazy, right?
PINSKY: No. Physical abuse, being hit with an object repeatedly shatters what we call the upper limits of the brain`s ability to regulate. It changes how you regulate your emotions, changes how you relate to people, you no longer can trust.
And it causes a traumatic reenactment pattern that Jodi clearly manifested. She then went out in the world in her young adult life and found boyfriends who were equally abusive if not more so than her parents.
WALSH: So, she actually looked for guys who would be kind of like that?
PINSKY: You notice what she says. She described on the stand that she is at a fair, basically. She`s at a fair, a carnival, and she sees a guy dressed like somebody from the renaissance who is into vampires and she -- her brain goes, that`s the guy I`m attracted to.
Now, if that doesn`t tell you there was huge sort of motivation there, I don`t know what does. And he ends up being a horribly abusive guy that threatens to kill her and her family.
I want to go out to Judge Karen.
Jodi on the stand, a good move or bad, Karen?
JUDGE KAREN MILLS-FRANCIS, TV`S "JUDGE KAREN": You know what? There`s very few rules in the law that ever require the defense a burden -- put a burden on the defense, because the defense has alleged self-defense, it`s considered an affirmative defense. That means that the defense has to put forth evidence of abuse and the only person alive that was there is Jodi.
So, how -- you know, they can`t put forth that she was in fear of her life and she used this deadly force unless she testifies, because there`s no other witness. And they have to first put forth evidence of self-defense and then this burden is going to shift back to the prosecution once the defense rests to prove to this jury beyond a reasonable doubt that she wasn`t acting in self-defense.
WALSH: But judge, would they even put her parents? You say no one`s alive to attest to the abuse. Her parents are alive and well. Her mother`s in the courtroom. Would they even call the parents?
MILLS-FRANCIS: No, no, the defense -- the defense to the murder is self- defense.
PINSKY: Right.
MILLS-FRANCIS: So she`s the only person there.
The other problem, though, is that she said her mother broke her brother`s arm and her mother carried around a wooden spoon. Well, mom has been sitting in the courtroom all this time being very supportive. There`s no - -
PINSKY: There she is. She`s right along you.
MILLS-FRANCIS: There`s no parent/child privilege. The state in rebuttal can call mom, can call brother, can call boyfriends.
PINSKY: It will be interesting. So, they may bring them up to see whether or not this is substantiated.
MILLS-FRANCIS: So it`s risky.
PINSKY: But, Karen, I want to know if it passes your sniff test, you`re not one to hold back on your opinions. Let`s have it.
MILLS-FRANSCIS: You mean what I heard today?
PINSKY: Yes.
MILLS-FRANCIS: No, no, no. I heard somebody who is afraid of being electrocuted, killed, executed, however you want to call it --
WALSH: I think that`s all of us, actually.
PINSKY: Her neighbor, I must say --
MILLS-FRANCIS: I mean, but she`s -- no, you know, afraid of the death penalty. This girl has told so many stories.
PINSKY: Yes.
MILLS-FRANCIS: And now, she`s come up with a reason why she said no jury would ever convict me. Oh, because I was going to kill myself.
Guess what you`re going to hear on cross-examination. Why were you going to kill yourself? And why didn`t you kill yourself? It`ll be interesting to see what those answers are.
PINSKY: Cheryl -- yes, Karen, I agree.
Cheryl Arutt, I`m going to give you that question. Why do you think she didn`t?
CHERYL ARUTT, PSY.D., FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGIST: Well, I wonder if she really had any intention to kill herself. She seems to be more dangerous to other people than to herself.
(LAUGHTER)
PINSKY: Seems that way. Seems that way.
ARUTT: I think, you know, in this case, a lot of the people who have similar types of personality issues that I am seeing here are really into self-harm and self-destructive. But this case is different from that.
And when I heard her say she planned to commit suicide, I thought that could really backfire on her because that could come across as that she didn`t really care about her life all that much.
PINSKY: Oh, I see. Interesting.
WALSH: And, Dr. Drew, are they mutually exclusive? If you tend to act out and harm others, does that mean you don`t hurt yourself or both?
PINSKY: Acting in and acting out can be in the same person, right?
Now, let`s talk -- you and I and Cheryl are going to talk about the borderline personality disorder I think we all sort of dancing around as a possibility here. Even though I want to be clear, most -- not most, because someone is a borderline does not mean they`re a murderer or violent.
WALSH: Right. In fact, there`s more chance they`ll do self-harm, I say.
PINSKY: Self-harm and suicide is what you worry and that`s what Cheryl`s alluding to. We`re going to get into all that.
Thank you, Beth Karas, for the report from the ground level.
KARAS: My pleasure.
PINSKY: Next up, more of Jodi`s startling testimony.
And later, what does Travis` friend think of this testimony? He will tell us after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
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.
At the time I had plans to commit suicide. So I was extremely confident that no jury would ever convict me because I didn`t expect any of you to be here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PINSKY: We are discussing Jodi Arias` testimony in her own murder trial today.
Back with me this week, my co-host psychologist, Wendy Walsh.
Judge Karen, what do you think of what you heard? You said you were very suspect of the voracity of this woman`s testimony. And I -- what I just heard on the --
WALSH: Voracity, you mean like -- is she telling the truth, right?
PINSKY: Is she telling the truth? But "The Inside Edition" thing seemed so specific. Here`s why no one`s going to convict me and today, we hear, oh, I had a suicide plan.
MILLS-FRANCIS: Right.
You know what I see? I just see a woman on her way to the death chamber.
WALSH: Ooh.
MILLS-FRANCIS: I was looking at the statute in Arizona. Let me tell you about the justifiable use of deadly force. That`s basically self-defense in Arizona.
There`s two elements. There`s a defendant reasonably believed that she was in danger of bodily harm herself. And the second element is that the defendant used no more force than would`ve appeared necessary to a reasonable person.
PINSKY: OK.
MILLS-FRANCIS: That`s the second element here.
PINSKY: Yes.
MILLS-FRANCIS: No more force than what would`ve appeared reasonable -- 27 stab wounds, a gun shot wound, I think that the defense knows what they`re up against. They got to give this woman a defense. She`s got to say something to this jury.
She`s got nothing to lose but her life either way.
PINSKY: Ooh.
MILLS-FRANCIS: I think that just throwing everything at the wall and trying to decide if there`s something that will stick.
WALSH: Well, that is a two-parter, Judge.
And, Dr. Drew, what about, does she have a reasonable belief that she`s going to be attacked? That she`s going to be threatened? But it`s reasonable to her, perhaps, because maybe she`s imagining some of these things.
PINSKY: Right. Now, Wendy, you bring up something really important.
Now, this is a hard thing for our audience to get their head around. And, Cheryl, I`m going to have you ring on this as well.
With the history they`re developing here, this abuse history that they`re alleging which may or may not have happened. If you bring somebody up to say that`s why I was violent, you could also equally argue, Cheryl, could you not, that`s what could make someone distort a relatively minor kind of, you know, move on the boyfriend`s part as some sort of attack. She might flip into some sort of rage state because it reminds her of something of the past.
ARUTT: Yes. Well, you`re alluding to some of the things that happened when people have been traumatized and they get into a habit of disassociating.
PINSKY: Which she sounds, by the way --
WALSH: What is disassociating for people who don`t get that.
PINSKY: How she appears in court today, disassociated.
ARUTT: Disconnected.
PINSKY: Yes, disconnected.
ARUTT: Disconnected, not there. If somebody can`t actually escape from a terrible situation, it`s like they leave in their mind and they cut themselves off from what they`re feeling. And she very well may have had trauma in the first three years of her life that complicated her ability --
MILLS-FRANCIS: The problem is the law -- the law doesn`t ask if Jodi Arias reasonably believes that this was possible.
ARUTT: That`s absolutely right.
MILLS-FRANCIS: The law asked what a reasonable person would have believed they were in danger. That`s the problem.
WALSH: Yes, Judge, if she`s a reasonable person, she wouldn`t be on trial here and she might not have this whatever personality disorder we think she has, right? So how can we expect her to behave reasonably?
ARUTT: Even if they get part one, they`re not going to get part two in self-defense in this case.
FRANCIS-MILLS: They`re not going to get part two.
PINSKY: All right. Let me take a call, guys.
We got Marissa in Pennsylvania wants to ring in here.
Go ahead, Marisa.
MARISA, CALLER FROM PENNSYLVANIA: Dr. I can`t tell you how disgusted I am. I don`t think any of this testimony even matters. I mean, my God, Jodi is so vile and she`s just as arrogant as can be enough to get up on the stand.
First of all, she attacked a vulnerable, defenseless man who was naked in the shower while she was dressed. To claim that this is self-defense is heinous. Her defense is absolutely beyond -- I can`t even believe. This is disgusting.
WALSH: Well, I wonder -- the question is, I wonder how many jury members feel exactly like you.
PINSKY: That`s going to be interesting.
Let`s hear from Eve in New Jersey.
Eve, you have similar feelings?
EVE, CALLER FROM NEW JERSEY: Dr. Drew, there`s a piece of this puzzle that was missing on what happened in that bedroom. Travis` friends speak about what a great guy he is, he`d give a shirt off their back, but not one of them knew that he was even still seeing Jodi. They didn`t know Travis, he`s a motivational speaker -- by definition good or bad, they`re manipulators.
PINSKY: Eve, Eve, I`m so glad you wanted to hear from one of his friends, because that`s what I have next. I have a good friend of Travis Alexander who is going to react to both, I hope what`ve just said and there he is now and Jodi`s claims of abuse.
And later, I`m going to collect my jurors -- that`s right -- from the scene on -- in the courtroom. They`re in the room with her right now and they`re going to tell us what they`re buying or not buying about what Jodi is selling today.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARIAS: The argument escalated and he approached me and spun me around, and he was very much into martial arts, so he had some kind of hold. I guess it was called a stranglehold. So he started strangling me. I almost passed out. I fell on my knees.
I said something to him like -- what did I say? Something to the effect of -- my family would be very upset if they found out what you just did. And then he began to describe in detail how he would kill each member of my family.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PINSKY: There you go. That was Jodi Arias testifying about a violent clash with her former boyfriend. The man she was with prior to Travis Alexander. It was one of her boyfriends way back. We haven`t heard about the history coming forward to Travis yet.
I`m back with my co-host Wendy Walsh.
And joining me now is Travis Alexander`s friend Taylor Searle.
Taylor, thank you for joining us. I really do appreciate it.
WALSH: Hi, Taylor.
TAYLOR SEARLE, TRAVIS ALEXANDER FRIEND: Hello.
PINSKY: How did you react to Jodi`s testimony today?
SEARLE: You know, when I was watching it, I think one of the main things I thought was how out of her league Travis was, as I heard about the other guys from her life and her history.
PINSKY: You mean he wasn`t a vampire?
SEARLE: She had so much going for her.
PINSKY: He wasn`t a vampire?
SEARLE: Yes.
PINSKY: He didn`t strangle girls. He didn`t -- he wasn`t one of the cool kids that she seemed to like?
WALSH: So what did this say to you, though, Taylor?
SEARLE: Travis was going places.
WALSH: Exactly. So, what did this say to you?
SEARLE: It says to me that, I mean, Travis -- Jodi was just the wrong thing at the wrong time for him and just turned out to be a disease that he picked up. And something that dragged him down.
And as he`s going through his life trying to progress, I look back and hear this testimony and I just -- it`s just so -- I`m frustrated that this happened and that people are thinking that because things he did in his personal life made him deserve this or because Jodi`s mom hit her with a wooden spoon, he deserved this. It`s just frustrating and it`s hard to collect all my thoughts amidst all the frustration and kind of anger.
PINSKY: You knew Travis. Tell us who he was and how that stands out against how he`s being painted.
SEARLE: You know, I was just thinking about that caller who just asked that question or made the comment. And who Travis was -- I don`t think we should judge him by what he did in the private moments of his bedroom that now we all know about or the private messages he sent. If you look at the thousands of people whose life he touched and motivated to be better in their lives, that`s who he was -- was someone who wanted to make things better for other people and the things he was trying to overcome in his life, he turned into --
PINSKY: And, Taylor, and let me ask you real quick. He had a pretty traumatic childhood, as well, didn`t he? I keep hearing stories about trouble with his parents and all things?
(CROSSTALK)
SEARLE: Yes, he was effectively homeless. His parents were drug addicts.
WALSH: Really?
SEARLE: He spent a lot of time living in a trailer, in somebody`s backyard, in a tent, a camp site. It was several kids, no parents. It wasn`t until, I think, he was in his young teens that he really lived in a house with a stable guardian.
WALSH: Wow. So he`s come a long way in his growth.
PINSKY: Right.
WALSH: But yet, there was this -- you say thus Jodi. What did you mean?
PINSKY: Well, one thing about males and, Cheryl, I`ll have you ring out on this, as well with Wendy and I. Males that go through emotional abuse can get a little sexual addiction. And I wonder if Judy was an expression of that. And I don`t mean to cast -- I`m not being, I hope you don`t take this as disparaging, it`s just a way of trying to explain what might have happened. As you say, Taylor, a disease. It may be that.
ARUTT: Let`s be clear --
PINSKY: Cheryl, go ahead.
ARUTT: Let`s be clear, though, that even if that were the case, Taylor, nobody is saying that then means that Travis deserved what happened to him. Nobody deserves to be murdered because they do anything in particular in the bedroom.
PINSKY: But it helps us sort of crystallize what Taylor`s saying about Jodi being a disease. She could be that expression of that for him. And she was, of course, manipulating him with all of her stuff and taking advantage of that.
WALSH: What you`re saying is there is a world of difference between --
SEARLE: I`ll tell you. That`s the truth.
WALSH: Go ahead, Taylor?
SEARLE: I was just going to say. That`s the way Travis painted the picture of Jodi to me when we would talk about. He would always prop her up as one of the choices he could make at a crossroads where Jodi would be his booty call option or he could go another direction and find girls to actually marry and settle down.
And that`s kind of what we usually talked about and that`s how he framed her. He was physically attracted to her but that`s pretty much all that was there.
PINSKY: And, unfortunately, she --
MILLS-FRANCIS: Well, I have a question, though --
PINSKY: Karen, real quick, I have 15 seconds. We`ll answer that after the break.
MILLS-FRANCIS: What I`ve read is this woman stalked him, that she slit his tires, that she broke into his Facebook page. Why would he open the door at 4:00 in the morning for her? Why?
WALSH: Exactly, and Dr. Drew`s going to explain, I bet you.
PINSKY: Well, we`re going to get into that, Karen. I`m going to have you reframe that question. We`re also going to talk about a T-shirt and some clothing. What did that tell us about Judy and Travis?
And later, remember the kidnapped child in Alabama? Rescued now from the underground bunker. What happens to him now? We`ll talk about that when we get back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Travis had a T-shirt made, a T-shirt made proclaiming his ownership of Jodi. Can you tell what`s in this photograph?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It appears to be a pair of women`s panties, pink in color, and a gray T-shirt.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And -- sorry, go ahead.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The gray T-shirt has Travis Alexander -- Alexander`s.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PINSKY: That is the extent to which Jodi`s defense team was going to try to portray Travis as sexually manipulative and possessive.
WALSH: But I don`t think it meant much.
PINSKY: I don`t think it does either. It didn`t go very far.
I`m back with co-host Wendy Walsh psychologist, and Taylor Searle. Taylor was a friend of Travis.
Travis, I didn`t make anything of that. I guess you guys had a clothing line at one point. It could have been just a playful thing he was doing, right?
SEARLE: Yes. He and I thought that we could try to make something of it. But it was just for play. And that kind of gives me insight into having real skepticism about these shirts and underwear that they`re saying he made.
I`m willing to bet money he did not make those. And if he did, it was meant as a joke.
WALSH: So you think she did?
SEARLE: Not as I own you. I`m very possessive. I`m guessing she did it.
PINSKY: She may have actually been saying, "Hey, look at me, I`m yours" kind of thing.
WALSH: Yes, someone loves me. He has his name on my butt.
SEARLE: One of the things -- one of the things that makes me think that is right after he was found dead, six hours later, she flooded Facebook with pictures of them almost to try to cast herself as I was his girl. I`m missing my man.
PINSKY: Marking him.
SEARLE: And that`s just her M.O. with me is that she`s trying to establish herself as his.
PINSKY: Now, Karen, I want to go back to you and I want you to ask that question we got before the break of Taylor. Go ahead.
JUDGE KAREN MILLS-FRANCIS, TV`S "JUDGE KAREN": Before I do that, though -- you know, and I`m not defending what this defendant did at all. But you know, let`s not rewrite the script. We heard testimony from the victim`s previous girlfriend that they were supposed to get married and he actually broke up with her for Jodi. He converted Jodi to Mormonism.
He took her on trips. He included her on outings with his friends. And for now, one of his friends to say, well, she was just a booty call, I mean, I just don`t think it`s fair to what this relationship was about. I believe these were two damaged people, which takes me back into what i was asking is, if you know this woman is crazy, if you know she`s slashing your tires twice, she`s broken into your Facebook page --
WALSH: Crawled in your doggy door.
MILLS-FRANCIS: Stalking you.
SEARLE: Yes.
MILLS-FRANCIS: Exactly. And that she drives from her state to your state unannounced four o`clock in the morning, you open the door, and you have sex with her. I say it speaks to the dysfunction. It doesn`t justify what happened. But if the victim was a woman and it was the other way around, we would be asking that question.
PINSKY: OK. Taylor, bring us -- bring this -- shed some light on that for us. That is an interesting question.
SEARLE: Well, it`s all points that -- I mean, they`re all facts, but there`s a timeline associated with it. When he did meet her, he was very into her and did go out of his way to spend time with her. But when he broke up with her and when he was dating the other girls, there was a transition point where he shifted gears and really wanted to move away from Jodi.
And that`s when she became the stalker, as we all say. That`s when this crazy behavior started. And --
WALSH: But, Dr. Drew --
SEARLE: And why he opened the door 4:00 a.m. that morning, I have no idea.
WALSH: You have no idea because you`ve never been in that situation. And, you explain to me on the commercial break how this was a perfect storm kind of relationship. Explain to the audience what you meant by that.
PINSKY: Well, it`s hard for people to get their head around, but we have, you know, a woman who may have been severely physically abused who is sort of love addicted and stalking and has these horrible relationships and now finds a nice guy who becomes sort of sexually compulsed with her who himself is an emotional abuse survivor.
Their -- as Karen said, their dysfunction sort of met and got them sticky. Got them stuck together. And that`s why Travis couldn`t get quite away from her, and she wouldn`t allow him to go away because she was stalking him. It is kind of -- at least from the standpoint of what kept them together. It`s kind of a perfect storm of motivational problems.
Same thing, Karen, that got him to open the door at 4:00 in the morning. Anybody healthy goes, what the hell are you doing, boy?
WALSH: Let me tell you, Taylor, if anyone -- any girl was as creepy as Jodi at the very beginning of the relationship, you would have cut it off. But he -- He tried in many ways to kind of wean her, right? It sounded like he was trying to get her off, but yet, he was always pulled back in, usually through sexuality.
PINSKY: It was chipping like a drug addict.
WALSH: Just like a drug.
PINSKY: And listen, and I can`t say this strongly enough, Taylor, and i hope you`ll permit us to have this conversation. We`re just trying to understand it in no way --
WALSH: Oh, we`re not blaming Travis.
PINSKY: No. Travis -- this is -- if anything --
SEARLE: Yes. I`ve taken no offense.
PINSKY: We want to understand so we can -- because it`s complicated to say this one`s all evil and this one`s all -- that`s just simplifying something that`s actually kind of complicated. Nowhere --
MILLS-FRANCIS: And maybe your viewers can learn from this. Your viewers can learn in their own relationships.
PINSKY: That`s exactly the point.
WALSH: Yes. Those viewers need to learn to not open that door.
PINSKY: And Cheryl, give us two seconds on traumatic reenactments and then I`m going to go to Cynthia in Alabama. Go ahead, Cheryl.
CHERYL ARUTT, PH.D., FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGIST: Well, when people feel worthless or damaged from trauma, they want something better, but they can`t quite take in something better. So, they want to kind of return to the scene of the crime and have somebody similar enough to the abuser but then make it come out different.
WALSH: That`s a great way to describe it.
ARUTT: Thank you.
PINSKY: And then it ends up being the same. Cynthia in Alabama -- Cynthia.
CYNTHIA, ALABAMA: Oh, yes. Dr. Drew?
PINSKY: Yes, ma`am.
CYNTHIA: Thank you for having me.
PINSKY: Pleasure.
CYNTHIA: I am 57 years old. I was a victim of abuse from my father that was hit with a belt, a bull whip, and was strangled almost to death.
PINSKY: Oh, I`m sorry.
CYNTHIA: I am 57 years old. My father, God bless his soul, was murdered now in 1987. But, I`m telling you right now, there`s no way I was abused as a child would I ever grow up at 57 now and think about doing anything like this to anybody.
PINSKY: Yes.
CYNTHIA: And I`m going to tell you another problem, too. They let Casey Anthony go. There.
(LAUGHTER)
WALSH: That`s a problem.
(LAUGHTER)
CYNTHIA: -- OK.
WALSH: OK. That is -- your story is so tragic, but I want Dr. Drew to explain to us that how some people have a biological predisposition to, you know, have terrible effects of some abuse and some people come out relatively unscathed as it sounds you are.
PINSKY: Resiliency gene, environment interaction, we`ll get to all of that next. We got to go.
Coming up, if there ever was to be an observer in the courtroom, it was today. I`ll be joined by a couple of women who were there in the peanut gallery there.
And a little later, the boy is safe after his kidnapper, alleged kidnapper, is killed. Will the kid be OK? Wendy and I are going to discuss this. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JODI ARIAS, ON FORMER BOYFRIEND`S PARENTS BEING "HOARDERS": His parents were very heavy smokers, so there was always a haze hanging out in the living room and there was a lot of, I don`t know what it`s called, I guess tar or something running down the walls. It was packed with a bunch of things. I don`t know what it was. Just various odds and ends.
I guess, they were hoarders. The kitchen was very dirty. The bathroom was very dirty. The linoleum was coming off the floor and the shower was kind of falling apart. His parents would sit in the living room all day and watch TV and smoke.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PINSKY: OK. Now in that footage, Wendy, Jodi is describing the home environment of her ex. I think it was the vampire kid. She moved in with this guy for a while and what she`s describing was a living environment where there eventually was no power and they had to like gerrymander something. You see how she described the horrible environment they were living in.
WALSH: I just wanted to go in there with rubber gloves and a mask.
PINSKY: -- clearly like either physically or mentally ill -- and she goes on to say, well, you know what, they end up in a nursing home. All of a sudden, they`re in a nursing home. Like, you`re not going to explain that? I mean, oh, my God. You leave with these people for months and months and they end up in a nursing home?
WALSH: And yet, she could be so attracted to a guy who comes from this home and that`s not a red flag to her. Not only is that a red flag, it may very well be something that attracted her.
PINSKY: Interesting. That is Wendy Walsh, of course, psychologist, my co- host this week.
Now, I want to go out to Cheryl Arutt. I think this speaks volumes about, we were talking earlier, Wendy asked about the gene environment interaction. We`ve been talking about disassociation that disconnect. She describes something horrific. She was living in squalor with parents who were like severely ill.
She seemed to miss all that. They ended up -- people she lived with ended up in a nursing home months later. Oh, well, we go (ph). Don`t you agree that`s -- to me, that was one of the most telling pieces of testimony.
ARUTT: Yes, she was very disconnected from her -- from what she was saying the content of what she was saying. And she has had this sort of flat way of expressing herself whether she`s telling the truth or not telling the truth.
PINSKY: Well, Cheryl, I`m going to stop you. Karen, I think, this is going to -- wants to ring in on that very point. So, go ahead, Karen. Judge Karen.
MILLS-FRANCIS: You know what`s really sad is that we`re all talking about this as though she`s telling the truth.
(LAUGHTER)
MILLS-FRANCIS: This woman has told so many lies. I mean, she`s telling this story and we may hear on rebuttal that there was no such boyfriend and his parents are alive and well and living in Colorado somewhere.
(LAUGHTER)
(CROSSTALK)
WALSH: Yes, but could this be her truth? Could she be believing it, you know?
MILLS-FRANCIS: It`s all her truth or it`s all whatever she feels she needs to say to get this jury to have sympathy. I don`t think they have any sympathy for her yet.
PINSKY: I think they -- I think the one thing the defense did do is they made her a little more -- more of a person. And it`s harder to put a person in the electric chair.
WALSH: But you mentioned the word flat before, her delivery. Flat to me means like --
PINSKY: Disconnected.
WALSH: She`s not crying there. You know, her face isn`t even like withholding anything. There`s no real emotion there.
PINSKY: And Taylor, for you, that must have been -- you said frustrating. Imagine, that`s the part that`s almost bordering on offensive.
SEARLE: Yes. I mean, obviously, she`s been doing more than painting in jail. She`s been fabricating this persona that she wants to sell to the jury of I`m wearing these homely shirts and hair and glasses and I look like i couldn`t hurt a mouse and I`m going to talk with a soft voice and look at the jury every time i get a question.
I mean, she`s thought this act through. She`s practiced it, and it`s just, I see it as completely an act.
PINSKY: Hey, Taylor, let me ask you a random question. I was watching her video pretty carefully today. She has like a scar right in the middle of her chin. Was that a piercing scar? Did she have like one of those big knobs in her chin at one time, do you know?
SEARLE: Well, maybe when she was vampire hunting, but I`ve never seen any kind of piercings.
PINSKY: OK. Let`s talk to Susan in Florida. Susan, go right ahead.
SUSAN, FLORIDA: Yes, Dr. Drew.
PINSKY: Yes, ma`am.
SUSAN: I`ve been listening to Jodi Arias and her defense team. And, as a trauma nurse who has been on the front lines for defending women, children, even men who have been battered, I am outraged. Just totally outraged that what they are doing is they are making -- it`s an insult to real victims.
And to Travis Alexander, to tell you the truth. This girl, what she`s coming across in her testimony is she acts like somebody that never wanted to have limits placed on her.
PINSKY: Yes, it`s true.
SUSAN: Whether it was as a child --
PINSKY: It`s true.
SUSAN: Whether it was as a young teen.
PINSKY: Yes.
SUSAN: It was -- and Travis telling her no, I don`t want to date you, i do not want to marry you, I am not taking you to Cancun.
WALSH: She doesn`t like the word no. That`s for sure.
SUSAN: She doesn`t like the word no.
PINSKY: And the parents may have become desperate and that may have been what evoked some of the stuff that she`s alleging. But let me ask you this, Susan --
SUSAN: But you know what, there are battered women.
PINSKY: That`s a point. I want to ask Susan. What do you think we do? I bet we`re going to hear experts that are, you know, experts in domestic violence and experts in trauma coming on this courtroom soon. How do we preserve the understanding and the protection for the people who actually are victims?
SUSAN: We have to continue out in the community with our boots on the ground and any -- anybody that works in the mental health profession. Anybody to please always don`t discard or -- if Jodi had come to me and presented herself and asked for my help, you have to always validate their claim when they come to you.
PINSKY: Right. But don`t -- Susan, your point is one, I make all the time, don`t wait until it`s too late. Whether you`re the victim or a perpetrator, your obligation is to reach out to somebody like Susan or Cheryl or Wendy or me, that`s -- once you wait too long, you`re going to get Judge Karen. That`s where you`re going.
MILLS-FRANCIS: Yes.
PINSKY: And that`s --
MILLS-FRANCIS: Dr. Drew --
PINSKY: Karen, real quick. I`ve got to go.
PINSKY: Most battered women are living in a home with the man who`s battering them. OK? They don`t show up at somebody`s house at four o`clock in the morning unexpected and say, oh, my God, i was battered. You should`ve kept yourself in California.
PINSKY: Thank you to Taylor Searle for joining us. I do appreciate it. Also Judge Karen Mills-Francis, Karen, it`s always a pleasure. Dr. Cheryl Arutt, thank you, as well.
Next up, we`re going to talk to my jury. We call it my jury. This is a couple of women who actually eyewitnesses to Jodi`s testimony. They were in the courtroom. And later, what is next for the little boy hostage just freed from an underground bunker.
WALSH: That`s the one I want to talk about.
PINSKY: You and I will talk about it. It`s all coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PINSKY: I`m back with my co-host this week, psychologist, Wendy Walsh. It is time for what we call Dr. Drew`s jury. We have not convened our jury since the Casey Anthony case. It is insight from observers inside the Arias courtroom. Incredible day to be there.
Joining us are Katie Wick and Kathy Monkman. Both had front row seats when Jodi Arias was suddenly called to the witness stand. Katie, I`m going to go to you first. You`ve been to other trials. You heard this testimony before. Does this testimony pass the sniff test for you? What does your instinct tell you?
KATIE WICK, DR. DREW "JUROR": Well, first of all, Drew, when we heard that she was going to come testify, you could hear a pin drop. It was absolutely incredible. We were shocked. Based on the testimony we heard today, absolutely not. She looks real cute and real soft and delicate. She has a little side ponytail, a little blouse.
Some of the jurors, they started to kind of get tired. They started to start yawning and rubbing their eyes, leaning back in their chair. They stopped writing so many notes as they were when she took the stand. Absolutely not. I don`t believe one word coming out of her mouth.
PINSKY: Interesting. And Kathy --
WALSH: You`re saying the jury sort of sat up on their seats and stopped losing the yawns? Does that what you mean? When she came up?
WICK: No, they started sitting up -- yes, when she came up, they were very interested, taking copious notes, and then, towards the end about 30 minutes in when we were on, i think it was boyfriend number two or three, they sat back and they just we have a lot of them to get through still. So --
PINSKY: Yes, that`s right. I mean, that`s right. We`ve got another decade or so. Kathy, now, you`ve been to other trials. You guys see -- see, you know, I`m a clinician. I don`t have a frame of reference to know whether this testimony passes the sniff test when someone`s in the position that Jodi Arias is.
We`ve heard Judge Karen saying, no, this is just a woman trying to save her life. Kathy, what do you think?
KATHY MONKMAN, DR. DREW "JUROR": Oh, I think that she`s completely bland. I think that her affect does not match at all what she`s saying. When she said she was nervous, she doesn`t appear nervous. I found her rambling in her details very incredible. The things she can remember, the things she can`t remember. I did not find the jury very compassionate toward her.
Just I had a perfect view of the jury and of Jodi. I didn`t see any of them like leaning forward in those kind of behaviors that you do when you are compassionate toward someone and listening to their story. I just frankly didn`t believe most of what she was saying anyway. The wooden spoon, none of it. I didn`t buy it.
WALSH: So, you two were in the courtroom all day listening to it. And you don`t believe it. Do you think there`s a chance any of the jurors believed it?
WICK: Yes, I do. And that`s what I`m fearful of, especially after the Casey Anthony trial. I just -- even though she didn`t take the stand, I just feel Jodi -- we know from the outside looking in what we know the intricacies that had been on the press and the media. So, the jury doesn`t. And I think that she could have a chance that she continues to play this woe is me.
I was abused, therefore, it justifies me killing, brutally murdering my boyfriend. I think it possibly could.
PINSKY: Kathy, let me -- Kathy disagrees, but let me sure I heard Kati. Are you saying not just that she won`t get the death penalty, but she might basically walk?
WALSH: Well, she can`t just walk.
WICK: I don`t think she`s going to get the death penalty.
PINSKY: OK. That`s what you`re saying. She`s admitted to killing the guy, if it`s self-defense.
WICK: Right.
PINSKY: Kathy disagree, go ahead.
MONKMAN: I disagree because what she`s saying, even if you just look at the content of what she`s saying, first of all, you have to believe her. And this jury already knows she`s an accomplished liar. And her affect is not matching her words. She does not come across as credible.
But if you just take the words of what she`s saying, even the words -- this is not severe abuse. And a lot of those jurors are going to have experienced the exact same thing and they didn`t grow up and murder somebody brutally.
PINSKY: OK. That`s different.
(CROSSTALK)
MONKMAN: She didn`t have bones broken.
WALSH: Ladies, you got to listen to this. I`m always amazed, Dr. Drew, when people, the general public, the general belief, is that if you were sexually abused, if you were only knocked unconscious once that it`s not that bad.
PINSKY: It can be bad for a given individual. We all come into our life with our genetic reserves, our resiliency, and some people can be relatively minor --
WALSH: And we`re talking about a small child.
PINSKY: I understand. None of this is good, ladies. Please don`t think that any of this if it happened to anybody is an OK thing. It`s parenting at its worst whether it`s small "T" or big "T" trauma. It`s all not good. But listen, you guys, thank you very much. I want to have you back. Are you going to be in the courtroom tomorrow?
WICK: We will be in the courtroom the rest of this week.
MONKMAN: I`m not tomorrow.
PINSKY: Well, I`ve got to get you guys back in here and hear more what you say because you give us that sensibility we just can`t get, unless, we`re in the room and you guys have seen other trials. I really appreciate you being here.
Next up, the little boy who had been held underground in a bunker. This, he`s safe tonight. We`re going to talk about what is next for him and what he may have suffered down there and what he needs to do all after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PINSKY: All right now. The five-year-old who had been kidnapped from his school bus and then held in an underground bunker for nearly a week was rescued this afternoon. The man suspected of taking Ethan was apparently killed. The boy, as I understand, was a special needs child.
He`s in the hospital tonight for an evaluation. He`s there with his family. And get this, his sixth birthday is Wednesday.
WALSH: Oh, this is a story that has been like in my heart and my stomach as a mother for this last six days.
PINSKY: Can you imagine?
WALSH: Oh, I can`t imagine. Yes, the trauma for the boy, and even the trauma for the parents. Terrible.
PINSKY: Yes. Now, let`s talk about the trauma for the boy. Now, an average kid properly attended to can do really well. They`re very resilient. I mean, I`ll point people to Elizabeth Smart. Remember, she`s doing remarkably well now. She`s gotten married.
WALSH: She`s a little older.
PINSKY: She was older. But again, as I understand, she`d got treatment. Her parents were realistic about the needs and if they get treatment soon and thoroughly, things can go well. This was a special needs kid. Is that going to work for him or against him?
WALSH: Well, you know, I know a lot about Asperger`s syndrome because my nine-year-old daughter has been diagnosed with Asperger`s. And it`s a syndrome where you tend to sometimes not have what they call a theory of mind. It just means you don`t have empathy that the other person --
PINSKY: -- kind of content. Don`t appreciate the content of mind.
WALSH: Right. You can`t really empathize or understand. So, this scares me for this little boy because when you`re a kidnap victim, the only way to get out is through psychology. So, you`ve got to try to imagine however crazy it is, how crazy -- what the crazy thought process of your person, but you can`t.
PINSKY: Yes.
WALSH: So, my question I have for you is, I was really interested to know what medication they lowered down into that thing. Do you think they could`ve tried to sedate the kid a bit just to keep him from having wild tantrums like --
PINSKY: Yes. Well, certainly, they could have. And there`s a whole range of medicines that doctors are using in young kids, but that`s not typically what you do, though, is it?
WALSH: No, but in that situation, because they know that if this kid suddenly spun out of control into a tantrum --
(CROSSTALK)
PINSKY: -- something of that order, anti-epileptic medicine --
WALSH: I don`t know.
PINSKY: I will find out. We`ll talk about it.
WALSH: Yes. The shooter could be frustrated and suddenly, you know --
PINSKY: Right. If the kid is too while. I think prognostically, I think he`s going to do well. What do you think?
WALSH: I think so. I think if they can keep him a secret to the media doesn`t get at him or the family, if they can stay private and get all the interventions that they need, then --
(CROSSTALK)
PINSKY: And I hope they take advantage of that because those are available. Wendy, thank you, really interesting day. Good to see you, as well. Jodi Arias, weback on the stand tomorrow. And I will have Wendy back, I will have my great panels together for you guys, as well. I want to thank you all for watching. Thank you all who called in tonight. You`re excellent callers.
And a reminder that "NANCY GRACE" starts right now.
END
