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Nancy Grace
Jodi Versus the Prosecutor
Aired February 25, 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)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You don`t know if you killed him, right?
JODI ARIAS, CHARGED WITH MURDER: I can`t really say. It wasn`t in my mind. Like, it was kind of not there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you imagine how much it must have hurt Mr. Alexander when you stuck that knife right into his chest? That really must have hurt, right?
(CROSSTALK)
You were here when he testified, right?
ARIAS: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So it could be that he did place his hands between your legs, right?
ARIAS: No. It could be he was full of crap. He didn`t go there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So you are saying that Mr. Burns is full of crap.
ARIAS: When he said he got near my vaginal area, absolutely.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have blood on your hands, wouldn`t you think that the blood came from Mr. Alexander?
ARIAS: I had cuts, too.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... situation where you`re saying that you cut yourself on your right hand, right?
ARIAS: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You`re left-handed, right?
ARIAS: I`m both.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You`re ambidextrous, is that what you`re saying?
ARIAS: Yes, depending on the activity.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Didn`t you just tell me previously that you knew that Mr. Alexander was dead?
ARIAS: It`s hard to -- it`s hard to explain.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ma`am, what is hard to explain about a person breathing or not breathing? What is so difficult -- why is that a difficult concept for you?
ARIAS: Because I`d never killed anyone before.
Norma Sarvey.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And Norma Sarvey is Mr. Alexander`s grandmother, right?
ARIAS: That`s right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You actually sent Ms. Sarvey irises, right?
ARIAS: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So you as his killer, then, are sending these items to her.
ARIAS: I wrote them a letter. I don`t know if it`ll ever make it to them. I don`t know if they`ll even read it. But that`s the only attempt that I`ve made, other than I made -- I called his grandmother, and -- and you know, I expressed my sympathies to her. And I mailed -- I sent flowers to her. I sent her 20 white irises.
And the reason I chose irises was because when Travis and I were discussing baby names, he said of the girls names, you know, he liked the name Iris. You know, he liked the name Hinckley (ph) and Megan (ph) and Reagan (ph). And I thought Hinckley was an interesting name for a girl`s name. It`s actually a last name.
But Iris was among those. And I thought, Well, that`s a flower and I`ll just do that. So it was my own symbology, meaning -- meant something to me. I don`t -- I didn`t tell them that. I don`t think that they realized that, but that`s OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you remember what you wrote them in the letter?
ARIAS: It was something very simple, short and sweet. I don`t remember exactly. But I did leave my phone number and I told them that if they ever need anything to please call me. And I told them that they`re in my prayers now and always.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NANCY GRACE, HOST: Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us.
Bombshell tonight. Day after day, Jodi Arias on the stand, dragging murder victim Travis Alexander through the mud. Then her defense emerges. It`s all a huge gap. Yes, she says stabbing Alexander 29 times, stabbing, slashing from neck, ear to ear, chest, heart, back, leaving him dead in the shower stall -- she tells the jury she cannot remember a thing.
In the last hours, the cross-examination of Jodi Arias goes on. We are camped outside the Arizona courthouse, bringing you all the latest. Jean Casarez at the courthouse -- Jean, before you go back into the courtroom for testimony, I think the most stunning -- of all the many things that she said today, the most stunning detail was that even though she doesn`t really know that Travis is dead or alive, it`s all a big blur, she has the wherewithal to send his grandmother flowers upon the grandmother learning of Travis`s murder?
How much do you think that grandmother wanted to pick that vase up with her bare hands and throw it to the ground when she learned Jodi Arias was a suspect?
JEAN CASAREZ, "IN SESSION": Nancy, this is an elderly lady. There is one person not in that courtroom. His grandmother is not in there. But today she was. And Jodi made it relevant because she sent her flowers saying, You are in my prayers. She sent her irises, 20 of them, because she says that she and Travis talked about children`s names, and he loved the name Iris for a girl.
GRACE: You know what, Jean? I can`t tell you what a bad taste that is leaving in my mouth.
CASAREZ: Oh!
GRACE: I mean, it`s horrible enough what she`s done, but then when you think grandmother -- I think of my grandmother, my grandmother Lucy. I think of her. I think of when my fiance was murdered. And to think the killer would send his mother or grandmother flowers?
I mean, Jean, what is the jury doing during all of this?
CASAREZ: You know, Nancy, they`re taking it all in, taking notes. They`re looking. But this is an elderly person. The jury now thinks about a grandmother that had to bury her grandson. That came before the jury today, and that`s something that people aren`t thinking about.
GRACE: And you know, Travis lost his parents. His parents are dead, is my understanding, Jean. And so here`s Travis Alexander. He`s got his grandmother. And I`m just thinking, what if somebody killed my child, you know, God -- I hate to even say that, and then they send me flowers?
Maybe I`m overreacting to that.
Out to you, Alexis Tereszcuk, senior reporter, Radaronline.com. And it almost seems, Alexis, is that she`s acting as if the romance of some sort is still going on between her and Travis Alexander. She`s still talking about what they were going to name children. Hello? You murdered him! Why are you talking about what he was going to name your little girl you were going to have with him?
ALEXIS TERESZCUK, RADARONLINE.COM: And she wouldn`t even admit that she knew that Travis was raised by this grandmother. She said, Well, we had never spoken about it, but then she changed her story and said, Well, I did visit with her once. And the prosecutor kept saying, But you knew how close they were, that he was reared by this woman. This is his caretaker. This is basically his mother.
And she kept jumping around it and not admitting that she even knew that. And then she finally was talking about her future plans. Yes, we talked about baby names and Iris was one of them. And then if you notice in the interview she gave with "48 Hours," the people that she said they wanted to name it, Reagan and Hinckley, well, isn`t Hinckley a shooter, also?
GRACE: Out to clinical psychologist Seth Meyers. Dr. Meyers, I`m just thinking this through. In one moment, we hear her describing driving in the desert. She gets a Costco bottle of water and literally washes her hands. Reminds me of Pontius Pilate -- washes the blood off her hands from the murder. And then she picks up the phone and orders some flowers for his grandmother. What does that say?
SETH MEYERS, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: Well, it shows she`s being extremely conscious about covering her tracks, trying to, you know, cross all her T`s and dot her I`s. There are really two different parts of her personality, one of which is the unconscious stuff. It`s all full of rage and fear of abandonment. But the part that you`re seeing when she reaches out to the grandmother, when she tries to make nice...
GRACE: Did you just say fear of abandonment?
MEYERS: Absolutely.
GRACE: Are you talking about Jodi Arias has fear of abandonment?
MEYERS: Absolutely. I think that that is...
GRACE: Huh. Well, then, why would you stab somebody`s tires and hack into their e-mail and their bank account? She -- no telling what she did to all of her other boyfriends. Of course they left her! I don`t know where you`re getting fear of abandonment. But go ahead, you`re the shrink.
MEYERS: Well, here`s the thing. She basically had to remove him from this world because him alive and still rejecting her is not something that she could tolerate.
GRACE: Wait a minute. Wait! The "him" you`re referring to was about to take a sexy trip to Cancun with another woman. I don`t know about fear of abandonment, but I think she just went bat crazy for the moment, angry that he was going to take this other woman to Cancun after a marathon day of sex with her, Jodi Arias. And in the shower he goes, yes, we`re going to go to Cancun in about 48 hours or so, and she went ballistic out of anger. And anger is not a defense.
But what I`m honing in on, Seth, or trying to -- I`m seeing red right now over this. When I think of my grandmother in the position she put Travis`s grandmother in? Uh-uh. But what I`m asking is, what does that reveal about her personality that she can disassociate from the blood caked dry on her hands and under her fingernails and send flowers, irises? She had the wherewithal to remember their conversation, and I guess she thought it was a romantic and poetic gesture to send irises.
MEYERS: Well, I think the major part of her pathology is that she creates her own reality moment to moment, and she creates it in a way that is convenient for her. There`s a part of her that almost wants to be the best little girl in the world, so she`s trying to reach out to the grandmother, make herself seem like she`s a nice, decent person.
GRACE: OK. I guess -- I`m trying to interpret that. You`re saying that she wants to be that perfect girl in everyone else`s eyes.
With me, Seth Meyers, and he`s taking your calls, and we definitely need a shrink tonight.
Liz, I want to hear Arias talking about this. Do you have the sound? Let`s hear it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARIAS: I wrote them a letter. I don`t know if it`ll ever make it to them. I don`t know if they`ll even read it. But that`s the only attempt that I`ve made, other than I made -- I called his grandmother, and -- and you know, I expressed my sympathies to her. And I mailed -- I sent flowers to her. I sent her 20 white irises.
And the reason I chose irises was because when Travis and I were discussing baby names, he said of the girls names, you know, he liked the name Iris. You know, he liked the name Hinckley (ph) and Megan (ph) and Reagan (ph). And I thought Hinckley was an interesting name for a girl`s name. It`s actually a last name.
But Iris was among those. And I thought, Well, that`s a flower and I`ll just do that. So it was my own symbology, meaning -- meant something to me. I don`t -- I didn`t tell them that. I don`t think that they realized that, but that`s OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you remember what you wrote them in the letter?
ARIAS: It was something very simple, short and sweet. I don`t remember exactly. But I did leave my phone number and I told them that if they ever need anything to please call me. And I told them that they`re in my prayers now and always.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARIAS: Travis`s family deserves to know what happened, and because I may be the only person that will ever be able to say what happened that day, at least for now -- I believe that one day all things will be made known, and so they`ll know who did this and they`ll know what exactly went down and they`ll know what happened.
But I just know that if it were my brother, I would want to know. And I feel that above all things, they deserve to know what happened and they deserve to hear how things went down. Again, if it were my brother, I`d want to know what his last minutes were like and what was being said and things like that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At some point, isn`t it true that you, quote, unquote, "adjusted" him?
ARIAS: I helped him adjust himself.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You didn`t get on top of him and grind on top of him with your clothing on?
ARIAS: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That`s not anything that you did, right?
ARIAS: I did not grind on him.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your genitalia did not rub against Mr. Burns`s (ph) genitalia, correct?
ARIAS: That`s correct. I got off from being on top of him. I was on top of his stomach.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With your legs spread, or no?
ARIAS: I don`t recall. We were in the love sack.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Pardon? I know you were in the love sack, but I`m asking whether or not you were straddling his stomach area.
ARIAS: I think I might have been.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Just so you know, Dictionary.com, "symbology, the art of expression through symbols." The symbology of sending his grandmother 20 irises -- and why 20? Why not a dozen? Why not two dozen? Whey 20? That`s a whole `nother can of worms.
But sending his grandmother irises after she murders him because they were going to name their child, their girl child, Iris -- why would she do that to, basically, his mother? His mother`s dead. His grandmother raised him. Why would you do that?
Unleash the lawyers. With me, John Manuelian, LA, Shelli Wojohn, Atlanta. First to you, Shelli. Why?
SHELLI WOJOHN, ATTORNEY: I think it plays into the shameful aspect that she was feeling. I think that...
GRACE: What?
WOJOHN: ... the whole battered woman`s syndrome, the issues with the abuse. I think she was feeling shame, and it was some way of acknowledging that shame that she was feeling...
GRACE: What shame?
WOJOHN: She was stating in her cross that she had shame in the acts that she was having with him and the sexual acts and the relationship and the abuse. And it`s a way to acknowledge, but at the same time sort of give in to what she was feeling with that -- with the flowers.
GRACE: Let`s analyze what Shelli has just said, that Jodi Arias was feeling shame about, what, about all that bootie sex she was having? All right, she was having shame about that, and so she, what, stabs him to death and then calls FTD. Now, I know I`m not a shrink. I`m just a lawyer, but Manuelian, that really doesn`t hang together for me.
JOHN MANUELIAN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: I think clearly, Nancy, she didn`t want to get caught, so she`s acting as though she didn`t do anything wrong...
GRACE: Well, at least you`re telling the truth, Manuelian. At least you`re telling the truth.
MANUELIAN: Well, it is what it is. You can`t change the facts. But you know, those are the facts that the defense attorneys have to play with right now. And they`ve got to spin it in a way that actually helps her.
GRACE: OK. Out to the lines. Rachel, Mississippi. Hi, Rachel. What`s your question, dear?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello, Nancy.
GRACE: Hello, dear.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Please, please tell me that the prosecution is going to give the jury information describing the behaviors of sociopaths or psychopaths.
GRACE: You know what? I don`t know how they can get that into evidence unless she is diagnosed as a sociopath. It`s much like statistics. For instance, I was trying a rape case, a serial rape case, and the defense wanted to bring in statistics about the number of rapes in that area. Well, of course, that was inadmissible because it had nothing to do with the case I was trying. So unless she is diagnosed as a sociopath -- which obviously, she is -- they`re not going to be able to get that in.
Now a lot of people have been railing on the prosecution about he`s being to hard on her. As a matter of fact -- out to you, Alexis Tereszcuk -- I recall you asked me in the last few hours, Do you think he`s being too hard on her?
Where`s Tereszcuk? I can`t see her. Where is she? There she is. Wasn`t that you that asked me that? You know, do you think he`s being too hard on her? Was that you that said that?
TERESZCUK: It was, you`re exactly right, because that`s what I was hearing last Thursday when the prosecutor was hammering her with those questions. So many people -- even in my office, people were saying, Oh, he`s being too tough to her.
But you were right on. And everything that you`ve said I`ve told people. You said that you have to be this aggressive going up against this woman because you have to pull off the mask so that you can see the devil that is Jodi Arias.
GRACE: You know, Alexis, here`s the thing. I`ve had defendants on the stand. They could be uneducated. They could be illiterate. They could be -- have Ph.Ds and have a whole lot of money and a fancy position. All of them, in their own way, have pulled the wool over the eyes of everybody around them. As Rachel in Mississippi said, a sociopath.
To get Jodi Arias to ever tell the truth -- that may never happen, but the facade that she has created and convinced so many people that it`s true has to be cracked. It has to be taken off for them to see what`s really going on.
Jean, you`re in the courtroom every minute. Has there been any crack in Arias? Can you tell who she really is yet?
CASAREZ: I don`t think there`s been a crack yet. But I cannot even tell you the dynamic in the courtroom! It is much more animated. It is much more combative. The emotions are there. And I think the cracking has started today.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: To Matt Zarrell. What was it she was saying in court just a couple of hours ago about being so ashamed about lying to everyone in different situations?
MATT ZARRELL, NANCY GRACE PRODUCER: Yes, Nancy, she has lied to a number of people, including Ryan Burns, Leslie Yudi (ph), her family, Travis`s family, you name it.
And one thing that`s interesting here, Nancy, is while she was talking about lying to Ryan Burns, the prosecutor implied that she was using Burns as an alibi, that she had never met Burns before, she had only communicated through text messages, phone calls and e-mails. And then all of a sudden, she was traveling thousands of miles out to Utah to visit him, coincidentally the same week that she killed Travis Alexander.
GRACE: And what was her explanation, Matt Zarrell, about why she was lying to so many people and giving all these different stories?
ZARRELL: Well, it depends on what time you talk to Arias about this because the word that she keeps using is shame, that she was ashamed and embarrassed.
GRACE: You know, though, Matt Zarrell, this is what I believe. The point that must be made to this jury is she`s telling the jury that she lied to so many people and gave so many different stories because she was ashamed. Then why should we believe that she is not lying to the jury? If she would lie to Travis Alexander`s poor little old grandmother, to all of his friends, to an ex-boyfriend, you don`t think, Matt Zarrell, she would lie to this jury to save her own skin?
ZARRELL: Well, that`s what the prosecutor has spent so much time talking about, is her lying, and specifically her lying on the stand. She talks about her state of mind all the time. She didn`t know what to do. She didn`t know her frame of mind, but had the presence of mind to leave a voicemail on Travis`s phone.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The whole interview, you gave excuse after excuse as to why you weren`t the person that had done this, right?
ARIAS: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Were you there to tell the truth?
ARIAS: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That wasn`t the truth, was it, that you were there to help them, was it.
ARIAS: No, that was not the truth.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, if being arrested had already occurred, then why didn`t you tell the truth?
ARIAS: I was ashamed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you having problems remembering what you said a couple minutes ago?
ARIAS: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So what you`re telling us is that you left him to die, didn`t you.
ARIAS: I don`t believe that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Safe to say that the whole interview was a lie, right?
ARIAS: Not the whole interview, but anything regarding my presence there on June 4th, yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What that means is that you knew it, you just didn`t want to deal with it. That`s what you`re saying, right?
ARIAS: I don`t know how to answer that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Didn`t you just tell me previously that you knew that Mr. Alexander was dead?
ARIAS: It`s hard to -- it`s hard to explain.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Man, if that prosecutor asks her, The sky is blue, right, Jodi Arias? She`d say, Well, no, not exactly. You know, it`s more a periwinkle. She is not giving in -- let`s go in the courtroom, Liz.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARIAS: I considered if I told the truth, then I would have to explain why. And if I had to explain why, then I would have to go back for our whole history, back to things that he was very ashamed of, that I was ashamed of, that I just didn`t want to get out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right. But didn`t you just in this trial, haven`t you through eight days tell us all of that stuff?
ARIAS: Yes, I think it was nine days.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, nine days. You have a good memory. For nine days, you told us all of that stuff, didn`t you?
ARIAS: Yes. It wasn`t based on my memory. Someone told me nine days.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What? What do you mean? What did you just say? Somebody told you what?
ARIAS: You said I had a good memory because I corrected you, but it wasn`t based on my memory. Someone had said I was on the stand for nine days, so that`s why I said nine.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So what you`re testifying to isn`t necessarily what you know, then is what you`re telling us, right?
ARIAS: That`s what I believe.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you testifying based on what, something somebody told you instead of what you know?
ARIAS: In that case, yes, the nine days.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, no, not in that case. I`m talking about what you`re telling us here today. Are you telling us these things because you know them or because somebody told you?
ARIAS: The things I`m saying right now are because I know them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Except for the number of days you were on the witness stand, right? That one -- somebody told you that one?
ARIAS: Someone told me that one and it sounded accurate.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And so you use that to correct the prosecutor? Right?
(CROSSTALK)
ARIAS: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With regard to that day, you said that all of this stuff, information, whatever you want to call it, was out there and you didn`t want it to come out, right?
ARIAS: It wasn`t out there. I didn`t want it to be out there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So what you`re saying is, I guess, is that you`re being a good Samaritan, right, in lying?
ARIAS: I wouldn`t say that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That`s argumentative.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You were saying that you didn`t want this stuff to come out about Mr. Alexander and your relationship with him, right?
ARIAS: That`s right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you think that that`s an excuse to not tell the truth, that you wanted to hide information?
ARIAS: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So you did hide information in addition to lying, right?
ARIAS: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But the detective isn`t the only person that you lied to, right?
ARIAS: That`s right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You lied to a lot of people, right?
ARIAS: Everyone.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And there`s different reasons that you had for lying to everyone, right?
ARIAS: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, when you were in the Maricopa County jail, you tried to kill yourself, right?
ARIAS: No, Siskiyou County jail.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Siskiyou County jail. So you do remember that. And when you tried to do that, you took some Advil? Do you remember telling us about that?
ARIAS: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And what you did then is you took some -- a razor, right?
ARIAS: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And that you cut yourself, right?
ARIAS: It was a nick.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was a nick. And because it stung so much that you said, no, this is not the way for me to go, right?
ARIAS: I didn`t say that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You said it stung and that`s why you stopped, isn`t that what your direct testimony was?
ARIAS: That night, yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you nicked yourself and it hurt, right?
ARIAS: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I think the word that you used, stung, right?
ARIAS: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To use your standard now of how you stopped because it stung. Can you imagine how much it must have hurt Mr. Alexander when you stuck that knife right into his chest? That really must have hurt, right?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Objection, argumentative.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sustained.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You knew that you had killed Mr. Alexander at that point, right?
ARIAS: It`s hard to describe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: We are taking your calls, and that was the climax of that portion of cross-examination, where Jodi Arias actually says she tries to kill herself with a -- I guess a Bic (ph) razor, and, boom, it nicked her and it stung. So as the prosecutor said, ooh, that`s not the way for me to go. Aaron Brehove, body language expert, weigh in.
BREHOVE: We`re watching her unravel right now. So we see her, she is giving answers. She says, yes, I was there to help him. And then the prosecutor says, I don`t think that`s why you were there. That`s not true, is it? Her response is, I don`t know. It may not be. And then eventually she says no.
She is unraveling. She is starting to give answers and then she`s retracting them seconds later. She is not as good as she thinks she is at telling these lies, and she continues. It`s exhausting. We just want to get to the answers at this point, and she`s not doing it. She might have a fighting chance. The jury might start to like her if she just admits to what she did wrong and comes clean at this point.
GRACE: You know, Marc Klaas, I would like to see the prosecutor connect those dots, like when he was just saying, and it`s for the jury because I`m sure they`re exhausted by now after putting up with her all these days on the stand, but for instance when he said, you lied to everybody to suit your purposes? Yes. And the obvious point is, and you`re lying today to suit your purposes, and you`ve been lying for the last 10 days to suit your purposes, isn`t that true, Ms. Arias? That is connecting the dots.
KLAAS: And that`s absolutely correct. There`s a couple of things about lying, Nancy. When you`re lying all the time to everybody, it becomes impossible at a certain point, particularly when you`re under the scrutiny that she is under right now, to keep track of all the lies you`ve told. And, also, when you lie to everybody all the time, you have no credibility. So nobody will ever know when she is telling the truth and nobody can ever trust that she is telling the truth.
GRACE: Now I don`t know, Marc Klaas, if the prosecution is going to pick up on this because they`ve got so many details that they can cross- examine her on, but I got an e-mail from one of our viewers, Kathy Brinker (ph), who says, finding the interview between Arias and Detective Flores where he asked did Travis own a gun, she answers, not to my knowledge. And use that, because her testimony is now that she knew all along Travis had a gun. She`s the only person in Travis` life who knew he had a gun. But that it was up way in the back of a top shelf in a closet, and that in this mad dash to save her life, she climbs up on something, reaches back as he`s right in hot pursuit, and gets the gun, and that somehow it goes off. Hold on, listen to this, Marc. We pulled it up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
POLICE: But then I don`t understand why. Why you took a gun with you.
ARIAS: Oh, I didn`t.
POLICE: Where`s that come from then? Where did you get it? Everybody says he didn`t have one. Where did you get it? If you didn`t take it? Did he have one in the house?
ARIAS: Not to my knowledge.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: And so now that story has totally changed to her benefit, Marc Klaas.
KLAAS: Well, sure, of course it does. Everything is to her benefit. You know, this is so disturbing on so many levels, Nancy. This is a woman who spent nine days on the witness stand telling a tale concocted by her and her lawyers that was nothing more than a character assassination, that accused this man of every kind of abuse you can imagine, that accused him of being a pedophile, but the only thing we know for certain is that his slashed body was found in a shower stall. Yet his brothers and sisters have to sit there in the courtroom day after day after day, listening to her and her team spew these lies in some effort, I guess, to gain sympathy from the jury, and there`s nothing they can do about it. If they emote, they`ll cause a mistrial.
GRACE: Liz, move in on Marc for me. Give me a close-up of Marc, because I know what you`re wearing on your lapel. You`re wearing a picture of your daughter, Polly. And I thought I knew it all when my fiance was murdered just before our wedding. But now that I have children, I know that there is a greater pain than losing a fiance. Can you imagine if the killer of your child sends you flowers, Marc Klaas?
KLAAS: Well, irises are the cheapest flowers you can buy for somebody. I think that`s at the bottom of the whole iris story. They were just very inexpensive.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: After weeks of seemingly irrelevant, innocuous testimony from Jodi Arias on the stand, finally, this week, we get to the day that Travis Alexander was slaughtered -- slaughtered in his own shower. Her story begins to veer almost out of control, and what I mean by that is that she is starting to catch herself in one inconsistency after the next. That`s what happens when you talk too much.
Let me tell you this, Arias` lawyers better be worried about cross exam. They`ve taken a very big gamble putting her on the stand. I don`t believe it`s going to pay off for them.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARIAS: I just knew something awful had happened because I had blood on my hands and my feet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And so you knew that those were from Mr. Alexander, didn`t you?
ARIAS: I think I did, yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You had been at Mr. Alexander`s house, right?
ARIAS: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There had been a fight, right?
ARIAS: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you had done something, right?
ARIAS: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And this doing something had caused Mr. Alexander to bleed, right?
ARIAS: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And so if that`s the case and you have blood on your hands, wouldn`t you think that the blood came from Mr. Alexander?
ARIAS: I had cuts, too, so --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So you`re thinking that the cuts could have come from you stabbing him?
ARIAS: I didn`t have any recall of stabbing him at that point in time.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, then, so you don`t have any idea where you cuts came from then at that point?
ARIAS: No. I cut myself on June 4th early in the morning before we went to bed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: Joining me right now in addition to Jean Casarez, Alexis Tereszcuk, Matt Zarrell, Beth Karas is joining us straight out of the courtroom. Beth, the significance of the cuts on her hand, explain.
KARAS: Well, she has shown the jury a very injured finger, the ring finger of her left hand, saying that that is the result of Travis Alexander attacking her, kicking her in January of the same year she killed him, 2008. Now she has bandaged hands, she says her right hand hours after killing Travis Alexander. To explain the cuts on her hand she says she cut them on a glass earlier on the same day she killed Travis Alexander. And when she saw friends in Utah 15 hours after killing him, she said she cut them on a glass at work.
The bottom line is she says it was her right hand that was cut, and when asked whether or not it`s possible her left hand was cut, which is where the broken finger was, she said it`s possible but they weren`t bandaged.
Let`s see if the state is going to go anywhere further with that, because the state maintains that broken, deformed finger is from when she killed Travis Alexander, that he never did it in an act of domestic violence. That`s the state`s position.
GRACE: Well, you know, Jean Casarez, you and Beth were in the courtroom from morning, noon and night. Feel free to offer them the footage that we`ve amassed with her finger as straight as it can be during her testimony in court and in photos that she posted and we believe took after the finger was broken by Travis Alexander. I`d be happy to give that to them.
Everybody, we are taking your calls. Liz in New York, hi, Liz. What`s your question?
CALLER: Hi, Nancy. I have a quick comment and two quick questions. No. 1, I don`t know if anybody noticed today when she was sparring with the prosecution about him banging his hand on the door frame and then they were having communication problems, and she said, yes, we`re having communication problems, watch her lawyer laugh behind the prosecution thinking she got the best of him, when really she looks like a psycho sociopath.
And two quick questions, the camera. We`re talking about the camera. If that was dropped and he went into such a rage, wouldn`t that camera have been damaged? S wouldn`t it have been dinged, scratched, dented? And this Matt McCartney thing coming up over and over again. Is he on the witness list? Because they keep talking about betrayal. I think he`s going to come in rebuttal with a bombshell to blow her out of the water.
GRACE: You know, Liz in New York, that`s a great point. To you, Jean Casarez, let`s pick it up about Matt McCartney to start with. What about Matt McCartney and how does Jodi Arias believe that McCartney betrayed her?
CASAREZ: She hopes he won`t betray her, and she, in all these interviews, said he won`t betray her, and that is, Liz is right, that is the question, is he going to betray her? He`s the one that we believe would testify in her defense that he saw the broken finger and also saw marks around her neck when she was allegedly strangled by Travis Alexander. But I don`t think we have the end of that story yet.
GRACE: Is he on the witness list?
CASAREZ: I don`t know if he`s on the witness list or not. He`s not in the courtroom, so possibly.
GRACE: And, Jean, who is the ex-boyfriend? There are so many, it`s hard for me to keep track of them -- not judging. Jean, who is the ex- boyfriend that she was sending out written code on the "Star" magazine about what he should tell police?
CASAREZ: I think it was Matt McCartney. I think that`s who it was. So that`s why the story is not completely told yet on that one.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GRACE: And out to you, Beth Karas. What about the camera? Has the camera itself been admitted into evidence?
KARAS: Well, it has, we saw photos of it. No, I didn`t notice any damage to the camera, so I can`t say whether or not there is evidence that it fell, the way she says. But two of the three accidental photos were taken upside down, so it does appear that during the course of the killing, Arias dropped it on its top twice, and that`s how the accidental photos were taken.
GRACE: Well, it seems to me, though, hold on, hold on with that reasoning right there. If she`s saying she dropped it and then he came after her, then why was she dropping it during the struggle, Beth? How can that be?
KARAS: She has this memory loss, right, so I don`t know that she`s going to be able to answer any of those questions, but I do expect Juan Martinez to take her through the killing blow by blow. Showing her photographs. You are telling me you don`t remember this? You don`t remember stabbing him nine times in the back? What about when you drew that knife across his throat, all the way back to his spinal cord, and then dragged his body back to the shower? What about when you picked up the camera and deleted every one of those incriminating photos and then threw it in the washing machine with the clothes? She`s not going to remember any of this, because she says she has no memory of it. So I think the questions will just speak for themselves.
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GRACE: We remember American hero Army Private 1st Class Anthony Justisen (ph), 22, Wilsonville, Oregon. Purple Heart, Bronze Star, Combat Action Badge. Parents Steven, Shawna, sisters Tenille, Samantha, Kimberly. Brothers Nathan, James, Jeremy. Anthony Justisen. American hero.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is my best friend in the whole -- in the whole -- is that wide world? Is that what it says?
ARIAS: Whole world.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So he is your best friend in the whole world. And you`re saying that about an individual who had just hit you, right?
ARIAS: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That speaks against that, doesn`t it?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Objection, argumentative.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRACE: And the significance of the journals, Alexis Tereszcuk, writer, (inaudible), is what?
TERESZCUK: What they are showing is that Jodi is -- what the prosecution is trying to show is that she is not telling the truth. She has never once written down that he hit her, she has never once written down that he choked her. She never wrote anything anywhere, in any of her journals, that she had been physically attacked at all by Travis. Every single journal is happy, happy love. I`m in love with Travis. Oh, we may break up, but I know we`re going to be best friends forever. Nowhere in her journal does she ever write that Travis abused her, which is what her defense is now, so the prosecution is trying to show that she`s lying now because she never told anybody this and she certainly didn`t write it down in her most secret place.
GRACE: Susan in California. What`s your question, dear?
CALLER: My question is, how is it that Nurmi was able to go over to her while she was on the stand and whisper back and forth for so long. I`ve never seen that happen before.
GRACE: How was Nurmi able to approach her on the stand? Typically that is allowed when a lawyer, an attorney, is showing you an exhibit. That is when you are allowed, in most cases, to approach the witness on the stand.
Everyone, as we go to break, a special good night from friends Jan and Mary, including retired law enforcement. Thank you, ladies, for being with us. And happy birthday to Tom Cartwright, retired lawyer, who can still crack a contract, and every Palm Sunday sings a solo in church, Jerusalem. Here he is with teacher and wife Mary. "Dr. Drew" up next. I`ll see you tomorrow night, 8:00 sharp Eastern, and until then, good night, friend.
END
