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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Sex, Lies and Audiotape: The Jodi Arias Trial
Aired March 09, 2013 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening.
Welcome to this 360 special report, "Sex, Lies and Audiotape: The Jodi Arias Trial."
To call her capital trial extraordinary would be understating the case, the defendant's third week on the stand and almost unique in the country answering questions from the jury, some of which were deeply skeptical of her story that she killed her boyfriend in self-defense.
Reporting tonight for us is 360's Randi Kaye -- Randi.
RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Anderson.
For 17 days, Jodi Arias has been on the witness stand inside this courthouse behind me, trying to explain to jurors why she had no choice but to kill Travis Alexander. The prosecution tells a very different story, of a woman dangerous and obsessed.
But all seem to agree the relationship was explosive, sex, stalking, sordid details.
Tonight, Jodi Arias in the fight for her life.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KAYE (voice-over): As the week began with Jodi Arias still on the stand, there was a single critical question in play. Would her story hold up?
QUESTION: Would you agree that you're the person who actually slit Mr. Alexander's throat from ear to ear?
KAYE: The prosecutor had grilled Jodi?.
JODI ARIAS, DEFENDANT: Yes.
KAYE: The defense then tried to mitigate the damage.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you want to kill Mr. Alexander on June 4?
ARIAS: No, that was not a goal of mine.
KAYE: Now it was the jury's turn. The 12 people who would decide Jodi's fate submitted hundreds of questions, and the judge read them aloud, one by one, from their sex life. SHERRY STEPHENS, JUDGE: Did you enjoy having sex with Travis?
ARIAS: For the most part, yes, I did, very much.
KAYE: To her unpredictable memory.
STEPHENS: In the moments of stress or fog, how do you recall what happened in those moments if it affects your memory?
ARIAS: I don't recall clearly what happens in those moments. Sometimes, I have a general sense of what's going on and sometimes I don't.
KAYE: To the consequences of her actions.
STEPHENS: Why were you afraid of the consequences if you killed Travis in self-defense?
ARIAS: I was -- I believed that it's not OK in any circumstance to take someone's life, even if you're defending your own life.
KAYE: Jurors peppered Jodi on every detail.
VINNIE POLITAN, HLN HOST: When do you see a jury asking someone whose life they literally have in their hands get the opportunity to question her about everything, why did you do this, why did you do that, why wouldn't you do this, how is it you did this, why not just do that, it's unreal, and I think that these questions demonstrate that the jury is like, really, Jodi Arias, really, that's your story?
KAYE: If jurors were skeptical, it's likely because this is Jodi's third version of The story, her third attempt to explain what happened to Travis Alexander.
It was early June 2008, and roommate Taylor Searle was worried about Travis.
TAYLOR SEARLE, ROOMMATE OF TRAVIS ALEXANDER: He called me one day and said, hey, I have totally broken it off with Jodi.
KAYE: Travis told Searle that he had confronted Jodi about hacking his Facebook account and sent her a blistering message.
SEARLE: After he read back to me the message he sent, my comment back to him was, aren't you afraid she might try to hurt you or something? Because that was really harsh. She's definitely going to get the message that he does never want to talk to her, see her, or be around her ever again.
KAYE: Since their breakup, things had been complicated between them. They still had an active sex life. At the same time, Jodi was acting out against Travis.
SHANNA HOGAN, AUTHOR, "PICTURE PERFECT": She slashed his tires. She broke into his e-mail account. She just did these crazy stalking behaviors. KAYE: So it may not be surprising when Jodi left on a road trip June 2, 2008, she said she was going to Utah, but turned up instead in Mesa, Arizona, at the home of Travis Alexander.
POLITAN: Not like 8:00 at night, but early morning hours. Travis is there, according to her, and he's online, and they go to sleep. But when they wake up, then they get back to what Travis and Jodi always do, which is engage in sex.
And they didn't just engage in sex. They brought cameras into play, Travis taking pictures of Jodi, Jodi taking pictures of Travis, neither one of them wearing any clothes.
KAYE: At 5:30 p.m., Jodi took the last picture of Travis alive. He was in the shower. Then the details and Jodi's memory get foggy. Days later, Jodi turned up in Utah, and Travis' friend David Hughes thought she was acting strange.
DAVID HUGHES, FRIEND OF TRAVIS ALEXANDER: When I saw her in the parking lot, and I noticed the cut fingers, and then she also flipped the license plate upside-down on her car. There was weird things like that that stood out, long-sleeved shirts in the middle of the summer.
KAYE: And that wasn't all.
(on camera): On June 4, she left a voice-mail for Travis. On the 6th, she sent a text two days after the killing, and on the 7th, an e-mail. Why would she do that?
BETH KARAS, TRUTV: There's no question she was putting distance between herself and the crime. She needed law enforcement to believe she wasn't even in Arizona.
KAYE (voice-over): Meanwhile, back in Arizona, no one had seen Travis Alexander for days. So a handful of concerned friends went looking for hip.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God.
911 OPERATOR: Nine-one-one emergency.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A friend of ours is dead in his bedroom. We hadn't heard from him for a while. His roommates just went in there and said there's lots of blood.
KAYE: Travis' body had nearly 29 stab marks, including the slash across his neck from ear to ear. There was a gunshot wound over his right eyebrow, and massive amounts of blood all over the master suite, soaked into the bedroom carpet and all over the bathroom, the sink, the mirror, the floor. His friends had immediate s suspicions about who did it.
911 OPERATOR: 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. Her name is Jodi.
KAYE: But when investigators reached Jodi by phone, she insisted she hadn't been near Mesa in months. This was version one.
ESTEBAN FLORES, DETECTIVE: That was around April that you last saw him, right?
JODI ARIAS, DEFENDANT: Early April.
FLORES: You haven't been back in town since then?
ARIAS: No, I haven't at all.
KAYE: As the phone call ended, Jodi offered a final thought.
ARIAS: What if I had just gone down there? What if I had never moved and I would have been there and I could have come help?
KAYE: But hair, a handprint, and pictures show Jodi had been in Travis Alexander's house the day he died.
FLORES: What if I could show you proof you were there?
ARIAS: I wasn't there.
FLORES: You need to be honest with me, Jodi.
ARIAS: I was not at Travis' house. I was not.
FLORES: You were at Travis' house. You guys had a sexual encounter, which there's pictures.
ARIAS: Are you sure those pictures aren't from another time?
FLORES: Positive, absolutely positive.
KAYE: By now, it was July. Jodi was in police custody. But she was still sticking to version number one.
FLORES: This is absolutely over. You need to tell me the truth.
ARIAS: Listen, the truth is I did not hurt Travis.
This is his shower.
KAYE: Then, the very next day, Jodi changed her story.
KARAS: She talked about two intruders coming into the house, and that they attacked Travis, and they're attacking her, and she gets wounded in the incident, and he's being stabbed and he's yelling and he's screaming and telling her go to the neighbors and get help.
ARIAS: They didn't discuss much. They just argued.
FLORES: About what?
ARIAS: About whether or not to kill me.
FLORES: For what reason?
ARIAS: Because I'm a witness.
FLORES: A witness to what?
ARIAS: Him, of Travis.
FLORES: Of Travis' murder?
KAYE: Jodi took version two to the court of public opinion months later, on the show "Inside Edition."
ARIAS: I witnessed Travis being attacked by two other individuals.
QUESTION: Who?
ARIAS: I don't know who they were. I couldn't pick them out in a police lineup.
KAYE: And she made this bold prediction.
ARIAS: No jury is going to convict me.
QUESTION: Why not?
ARIAS: Because I'm innocent, and you can mark my words on that one.
KAYE: Soon, a jury will decide if Jodi's prediction was right or wrong.
For weeks, Jodi has been making a case for version three, that she killed Travis Alexander because she had to.
POLITAN: Story one, I wasn't there. I wasn't there. What are you talking about? Version number two, all right, I was there. But there were these two ninjas that came in and they killed Travis and they threatened to kill me and I was able to get out of there. Story three is what we're hearing at trial. Yes, I was there. And I did it, but I did it in self-defense because Travis was going to kill me.
KAYE: For Jodi Arias, whether this version sticks or doesn't could be a matter of life and death.
Coming up, will Jodi Arias pay the ultimate price?
POLITAN: The road to the death penalty here is paved with premeditation. That's what the prosecution has to prove.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The state of Arizona vs. Jodi Ann Arias, indictment, count one, first-degree murder, premeditated murder.
KAYE: It's been more than four years since friends discovered Travis Alexander's dead body crumpled up in his bathroom shower.
MIMI HALL, FRIEND OF TRAVIS ALEXANDER: They said that they saw blood, that there's blood everywhere. I stopped looking. Then the roommate ran out and said he's dead, he's dead.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jodi Arias killed Travis Alexander. There is no question about it. The million-dollar question is, what would have forced her to do it?
KAYE: While Jodi admitted killing Travis Alexander...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you kill Travis Alexander on June 4, 2008?
ARIAS: Yes, I did.
KAYE: ... she claims self-defense, that she was forced to kill Travis.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In just those two minutes, Jodi had to make a choice. She would either live or she would die.
POLITAN: In a death penalty case, you want sympathy. You need an explanation for the defendant's actions and what they did.
KAYE: The defense's explanation was to blame the victim.
KARAS: I wanted to know what he did that would justify her action.
KAYE: "In Session"'s Beth Karas has been in the courtroom every day of the trial.
KARAS: And I want to know after stabbing him nine times in the back, and in the heart, and in the abdomen, and slicing him, and he has defensive wounds as he's stumbling down the hall, what was going through your mind when you took that knife and drew it across his throat?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How long did you date Travis for?
LISA DAIDONE, FORMER GIRLFRIEND OF TRAVIS ALEXANDER: I would say about seven to eight months.
KAYE: The defense calls witnesses, including a Mormon ex- girlfriend to try and shatter the version of Travis as the pure Mormon man, what they claimed was nothing more than a facade.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let's talk about the first time that you broke up. What was the reason for that? DAIDONE: I came to the understanding that he was cheating on me.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you know who he was cheating with?
DAIDONE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Who was that?
DAIDONE: Jodi Arias.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jodi was Travis' dirty little secret. Despite projecting himself as a good and virginal Mormon man, someone who was a temple member, from the moment he met Jodi, he was pushy and pushing her to have a sexual relationship with him.
KARAS: Travis Alexander, there's no question he was conflicted. He was trying to be a good Mormon and probably was, except when it came to Jodi Arias, who would have sex with him, and they kept it a secret. But if this got out, that if people knew about this, it would hurt his reputation in his community. It would hurt his standing in his church, in his social circle. It might have hurt him professionally.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In your religion, is premarital sex allowed?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did Travis claim to be a virgin?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, he did.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did he seem happy to be a virgin?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And did he seem proud?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
TRAVIS ALEXANDER, VICTIM: Why don't we just talk for a little bit about happy things and get normalized for a moment? And then we will see where it takes us.
(LAUGHTER)
KAYE: The defense with Jodi on the stand also used Travis' own words to attack his character.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When you hear this call, it's -- it's crucial to understand the difference, the difference between the type of person that Travis portrayed himself to be vs. the things that he said on this recorded call.
ALEXANDER: That was so hot. That actually sounded like -- the way you moan there, it sounds like, it sounds like you're a 12-year- old girl having her first orgasm. That's so hot.
KAYE: Jodi's attorneys argue that Travis was just the last in a long line of people, family and boyfriends, who had physically and mentally abused Jodi.
KARAS: It appears their strategy was that everything that happened in her life from her childhood and through all of the relationships with men culminated in this killing.
KIRK NURMI, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Your life was pretty ideal up until about age 7. Was something different after age 7 or...
ARIAS: I think that is the first year my dad started using a belt.
KAYE: Jodi told the court that her brawny father inflicted great pain.
ARIAS: As I became a teenager, my dad would get rougher and rougher. He would just shove me into furniture, sometimes into the piano or things like that, into tables, desks, chairs, whatever was around. He would just push me really hard and I would go flying into that.
KAYE: And with her mother looking on from the front row, Jodi also accused her of being abusive.
ARIAS: My mom began to carry a wooden spoon in her purse. If we were misbehaving, she would use it on us.
NURMI: What do you mean by use it on you?
ARIAS: She would hit us with it.
NURMI: She hit you hard?
ARIAS: It felt pretty hard, yes.
KAYE: She said those spankings by her mother and father left welts and painful memories.
NURMI: How did you feel when your own mother was beating you?
ARIAS: When I was younger, I remember feeling -- I didn't have a word for it then, but I can describe it as betrayed and confused.
And as I got a little bit older, it would just really make me mad.
KAYE: Jodi portrayed herself as the victim of a string of bad choices when it came to men, describing one abusive relationship after another, especially Travis Alexander, admitting that she loved him despite his being what she described as demeaning, physically abusive, and controlling.
ARIAS: He body-slammed me on the floor at the foot of his bed. He called me a bitch and he kicked me in the rubs. And that hurt for real.
KAYE: A somber Jodi recalled that the day Travis baptized her, what was supposed to be a new beginning turned out to be more of the same.
ARIAS: I was in my church clothes. He was in his church clothes. The kissing got more passionate, more intense. And then he spun me around. And he bent me over the bed, and he was just on top of me. I didn't think anything was -- I thought he was just going to keep kissing me. He began to have anal sex with me. And...
NURMI: After this encounter, on this spiritual day, how did you feel about yourself?
ARIAS: After he left, shortly after he left, I felt -- I didn't feel very good. I kind of felt like a used piece of toilet paper.
KAYE: For the victim's family sitting in the courtroom, the portrayal of an allegedly domineering and sexual Travis was difficult to hear.
NURMI: Do me a favor and take a look at this exhibit and see if you recognize it.
KAYE: Text messages from Travis appearing to treat Jodi as his sex slave.
NURMI: He says that this photo shoot is going to be one of the best experience of your life and his. He also says "you will rejoice in being a whore, that the sole purchase is to be mine to have animal sex and to please me in any way I desire."
POLITAN: The defense is trying literally to trash Travis.
NURMI: You're still willing to be tied to a tree if that's what he wanted.
POLITAN: Attack his character.
ARIAS: Assertive, aggressive, and authoritative.
POLITAN: Make the jury dislike him.
ARIAS: He said I looked like a pure whore.
POLITAN: Hate him, loathe him, because he's the bad guy, he's the evildoer, he's the sexual deviant. This guy is bad news and he's the one who ruined Jodi Arias' life. He's the one that made her do it.
KAYE: To the defense, it was Travis the monster, Jodi, his victim. But to the prosecution, it was all an unsustainable lie.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When do you decide to tell the truth, when you're in this court and no place else? Is that what I'm hearing from you? ARIAS: No.
KAYE: Next: exposing Jodi's lies.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just because you're in this court doesn't mean you have to tell the truth. Right? I mean, that's what you're telling us, right?
ARIAS: That's not what I'm telling anyone.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KAYE (voice-over): This was Jodi Arias on "Inside Edition" in 2008.
ARIAS: No jury is going to convict me.
QUESTION: Why not?
ARIAS: Because I'm innocent, and you can mark my words on that one. No jury will convict me.
KAYE: This is Jodi Arias now.
ARIAS: I made that statement in September 2008, I believe it was. And at the time, I had plans to commit suicide. So I was extremely confident that no jury would convict me because I didn't expect any of you to be here.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And that you saying that you're going to not be convicted because you're going to commit suicide.
ARIAS: That's correct.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're saying that you're innocent, right?
ARIAS: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you believe that no jury would convict you because you're going to lie your way out of it, right?
ARIAS: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Objection. Argumentative.
STEPHENS: Sustained.
KAYE: Jodi Arias has since admitted to killing Travis Alexander, but claimed it was a justified split-second decision to save her own life.
POLITAN: The road to the death penalty here is paved with premeditation. That's what the prosecution has to prove. So where do they go for premeditation?
KAYE: They go to what they say was Jodi's attempt at a cover-up, like wanting a less conspicuous rental car for the drive to Travis' house.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You didn't want the color red, correct?
ARIAS: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The color red seems to stand out, doesn't it?
ARIAS: I don't know. I just heard they get more tickets.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right, and so it had to do with the police department, right? You did not want to stand out.
KAYE: Borrowing gas cans from a former boyfriend.
POLITAN: The gas cans. She didn't want to leave any trace behind that she was ever in Arizona, because story number one was I wasn't there, so she fills the gas cans up with gas so she doesn't have to stop at any gas stations in Arizona.
KAYE: And just hours after killing Travis, calling his cell phone and leaving a message.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the tape number 365.
ARIAS: My phone died so I wasn't getting back to anybody. And what else? Oh, I drove over 100 miles in the wrong direction, over a hundred miles, thank you very much. So, yes, remember New Mexico? It was a lot like that, only you weren't here to prevent me from going into the three digits, so fun, fun. Tell you all about that later.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And the reason that you went to great lengths to do that was if there was any suspicion, it wouldn't be drawn to you, correct?
ARIAS: Not immediately. That was the point, yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right, you wanted to -- the police to look elsewhere, right?
ARIAS: I guess.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And so you called Mr. Alexander and you left him a message, right?
ARIAS: Yes.
But let me know, and I will talk to you soon. Bye.
COMPUTER VOICE: End of message. To delete this message, press seven. To save it in the archives, press nine.
KAYE: But Jodi's effort at a cover-up didn't work. Ultimately, she confessed and took the jury step by step through the grisly details of the killing, starting with her dropping Travis' new camera.
ARIAS: At that point, Travis flipped out again. He stood up and he stepped out of the shower, and he picked me up as he was screaming that I was a stupid idiot, and he body-slammed me again on the tile.
He told me that a 5-year-old can hold a camera better than I can. As he was screaming at me, there was spit coming out -- or maybe it was water. But I was getting wet, and when I hit the tile, I rolled over on the side and started running down the hallway.
So I ran into the closet and I slammed the door. And as soon as I got in there, I began to run.
I remembered where he kept the gun.
KAYE: According to Jodi, she had discovered the weapon on a previous visit.
BETH KARAS, TRUTV'S "IN SESSION": And she said she was cleaning in his closet and she found on the shelf this gun, and it was a .25 caliber gun.
ARIAS: I grabbed the gun. I run out of the closet. He was chasing me. I turned around, and we were in the middle of the bathroom. I pointed it at him with both of my hands. I thought that would stop him. If someone were pointing a gun at me, I would stop, but he just kept running. He got like a linebacker. He got kind of low and grabbed my waist. Before he did that, as he was lunging at me, the gun went off.
POLITANO: There is zero evidence, independent evidence, evidence other than words out of Jodi Arias' mouth, that establish Travis Alexander as a gun owner. There is none.
JUAN MARTINEZ, PROSECUTOR: Your grandfather also had guns, didn't he?
KAYE: Prosecutor Juan Martinez's theory was that one week before killing Travis, Jodi had staged a burglary at the home she shared with her grandparents.
MARTINEZ: You heard what items were taken, including a .25 caliber hand gun. You heard that, right?
ARIAS: Yes, I heard that.
POLITANO: Prosecutors were questioning this burglary because they believe the .25 caliber gun that was allegedly stolen from her grandfather's house was actually the gun Jodi Arias used to shoot Travis Alexander.
KAYE: When Travis's body was found in the shower, there was only one bullet wound but almost 30 stab wounds. And he'd nearly been decapitated. An unforgettable scene that Jodi claims she doesn't remember. ARIAS: I have no memory of stabbing him. I was in the bathroom. I remember dropping the knife, and it clanged to the tile, made a big noise, and I just remember screaming. I don't remember anything after that.
There's a lot of that day that I don't remember. There are a lot of gaps. Like I don't know if I blacked out or what. There's a huge gap.
KARAS: She had such memory recall of things from years before. Details of meals and how many people were in the elevator and what happened on this date and what kind of sex she had on that date. And when it came to slicing and stabbing Travis Alexander 29 times, she had no recollection.
MARTINEZ: Are you saying that you're having a hard time remembering things that are happening now that you shot him?
ARIAS: Yes.
MARTINEZ: So it appears, then, that your memory becomes faulty immediately upon you shooting him?
ARIAS: Yes, things get very foggy from there.
MARTINEZ: That's immediately -- the shot takes him down, and it creates a fog for you, is that what you're saying?
ARIAS: It begins to create a fog.
MARTINEZ: You said that, right? What right do you have to do that? You seem to have a double standard here.
KAYE: Martinez was relentless about Jodi's memory lapses.
MARTINEZ: Even though you're in a fog, I'm asking whether you acknowledge that you removed the gun from the crime scene.
ARIAS: Yes.
MARTINEZ: If you were in a fog and you hadn't -- didn't know what you were doing, why take the gun, ma'am?
KAYE: The prosecution also attacked Jodi's claims of self- defense.
KARAS: How can you assert self-defense when you can't even describe what you were defending yourself against? Really, she cannot describe any of the slashings and stabbings and what justified that.
MARTINEZ: Does that refresh your recollection?
KAYE: Martinez used his cross-examination of Jodi to try to take apart the defense's story of an abusive Travis.
KARAS: She claims that her disfigured ring finger on her left hand was caused by Travis Alexander in a domestic violence incident.
KIRK NURMI, ARIAS'S DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Could you hold up your hand for us so we could see?
KAYE: She'd shown her still-crooked finger to the jury, but Martinez confronted her with this picture, no bent finger, taken months after the alleged incident.
MARTINEZ: You don't have a bent finger here in Exhibit 453, do you?
ARIAS: My finger is bent there.
MARTINEZ: You're saying that your finger is bent there?
ARIAS: Yes.
JUDGE SHERRY STEPHENS, PRESIDING OVER TRIAL: Ms. Arias, please take the stand.
KAYE: After days of tough questioning and gripping testimony, the defense would try to bring the sympathetic Jodi back to the witness stand.
STEPHENS: Please be seated.
KAYE: Next...
NURMI: You write that "Travis, you're beautiful on the inside and out." Did you mean that?
ARIAS: Yes.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MARTINEZ: You indicated, for example, that Travis Alexander, that you saw him masturbating to a picture or pictures of young boys, correct?
ARIAS: I only saw one picture.
MARTINEZ: That's a lie, isn't it, ma'am?
ARIAS: I wish it was a lie.
MARTINEZ: Ma'am, were you crying when you were shooting him?
KAYE (voice-over): For a week, Jodi Arias was grilled on the stand.
MARTINEZ: When you cut his throat, were you crying then?
ARIAS: I don't know.
KAYE: Sobbing as prosecutor Juan Martinez went on the attack.
MARTINEZ: You're the one who did this, right?
ARIAS: Yes.
MARTINEZ: So then take a look at it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Please be seated.
KAYE: Finally, the storm subsided, and on day 14, Jodi returned to her comfort zone, with her attorney, Kirk Nurmi, taking over questioning.
NURMI: Did you make a conscious decision that "I want to kill Travis Alexander"?
ARIAS: No, that was never a thought.
POLITANO: Well, the contrast couldn't be greater, right? Juan Martinez on the attack, going after Jodi, going after her -- this this, right, right, right?
And then Kirk Nurmi takes over. Turn on the brakes. We're going to slow things down a little bit. Give Jodi Arias some space to breathe.
KAYE: The prosecution had painted Jodi as a self-serving, calculated liar, so Nurmi immediately went into Operation Image Repair.
NURMI: You were asked several questions about taking personal responsibility and how you blamed everyone else.
KAYE: He said Jodi had been brave to testify at all.
NURMI: Were you forced to testify?
ARIAS: No.
NURMI: Did you do so with the idea that the lies you told would be called into question?
ARIAS: Yes.
POLITANO: The truth is, Jodi Arias had to testify in this case. She's claiming self-defense. There's no videotape, and there's no independent witnesses. The only way you get to argue self-defense is with some evidence of it. And the only evidence of self-defense in this case had to come from one place and one place only: Jodi Arias's mouth.
KAYE: Arias had a lot to explain, like writing the victim a personal note and delivering it at his memorial.
NURMI: You write that, "Travis, you're beautiful on the inside and out." Did you mean that?
ARIAS: Yes. KARAS: This letter and other things she has said and written are mind-boggling. She slaughtered this man, and she almost cut his head off, and she's acting like, "I love you and the world is a better place." Hello. She didn't want anyone else to have him if she couldn't have him. The world is a better place in her mind because no other woman can have him now.
NURMI: There were other times...
KAYE: Then, Jodi reminded everyone just how violent she says Travis really was.
NURMI: Were you kicked while you were on the ground?
ARIAS: Once, I was, yes.
KAYE: Next, Travis Alexander's appetite for sex took center stage.
NURMI: Fantasy or is this reality?
KAYE: Arias no longer needed to describe the explicit details.
TRAVIS ALEXANDER, MURDER VICTIM (via phone): You got to admit, though, there's not many guys that would do that.
KAYE: Travis would speak for himself.
ALEXANDER: You cannot say I don't work that booty. The pictures I'm going to take are so hot.
KAYE: One graphic fantasy after another.
ALEXANDER: I didn't like the Pop Rocks as much as I liked the Tootsie Roll Pop, though. I need a 69 fix, too.
ARIAS: Sixty-nine fix?
ALEXANDER: I'm going to get some great shots. Start touching yourself. I mean, it's going to be like legitimate porn.
NURMI: You weren't enjoying that physically. You were enjoying the attention you were getting from him, is that correct?
KAYE: And it doesn't end there. The defense wants to make it known that Travis Alexander finds pleasure in pain.
ALEXANDER: I (EXPLETIVE DELETED) every day, sometimes two to three times a day.
ARIAS: Are you serious?
ALEXANDER: There's been many times when you've been, like miserable, and I've like raped you.
KAYE: Nurmi's point: that Travis Alexander wanted to have Jodi anytime he wanted her, unconcerned with how she was feeling.
POLITANO: This was bad. You've got the victim talking about raping the defendant. You've got the recording. The jury hears it. The jury sees it.
Again, this turns the attention away from Jodi Arias onto Travis Alexander. Who is the bad one here? Is it Jodi Arias or is it the guy who's talking about raping Jodi Arias?
NURMI: But to kill Mr. Alexander because of him attacking you?
KAYE: Jodi provided a teary explanation for why she feels guilt despite pleading self-defense.
NURMI: What in your mind did you do that was wrong?
ARIAS: I feel like maybe it should have been me and that maybe -- that I made it out of there, and I didn't have a choice, but maybe I did have a choice. Because I could have just let him do what he was going to do and not fought back.
KAYE: It seemed one juror, at least, wasn't buying it.
KARAS: Juror No. 1, this was one of the seven women. She sits in the front row in the seat closest to the witness box. And this woman is just like a big -- not even covering her mouth, a big yawn. It's like, oh, no. Please, I don't know how many people caught it, but you know, some of us did.
NURMI: Did you want to kill him on June 4, 2008?
ARIAS: No.
MARTINEZ: Objection. (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
STEPHENS: Sustained.
NURMI: Then why did it happen?
ARIAS: I just remember panicking. And I remember thinking he's angry, and I remember him coming after me. And he was coming after me, and he was coming after me, and he wasn't stopping.
NURMI: Did you have any other choice?
ARIAS: When I was cornered, I didn't feel like I did.
KAYE: Next, the jury's questions.
STEPHENS: "Would you decide to tell the truth if you never got arrested?"
ARIAS: I honestly don't know the answer to that question.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
STEPHENS: "Why is it that you have no memory of stabbing Travis?"
ARIAS: I can't really explain why my mind did what it did. Maybe because it's too horrible.
KAYE: After more than four weeks on the stand, accused murderer Jodi Arias faced new questions.
STEPHENS: "Why did you put the camera in the washer?"
ARIAS: I don't have a memory of that. I don't know why I would do that.
KAYE: Questions posed not by the prosecutors or the defense but by the jury.
STEPHENS: "How do you determine when you will tell the truth and when you will not tell the truth?"
KAYE: Arizona is one of a handful of states that allows jurors to question defendants, including those facing the death penalty.
POLITANO: On every trial, the most dramatic moment is when the jury speaks, when they deliver their verdict. This week was pretty close to that.
STEPHENS: "Why did you take the rope and gun with you?"
POLITANO: It's rare that jurors ask question. It's rare that a criminal defendant takes the stand, and it's rare that someone is facing the death penalty.
STEPHENS: "Why didn't you call 911?"
KARAS: I have never in all of my years of trying cases or reporting on cases seen anything like this.
KAYE: As Judge Sherry K. Stephens peppered Jodi Arias with more than 200 questions submitted by the jury...
STEPHENS: "Did you ever take pictures of yourself after he hit you?"
ARIAS: No, I did not.
KAYE: ... Jodi was pressed to detail her relationship with the victim, Travis Alexander, and the circumstances surrounding his brutal death.
STEPHENS: "Why would you continue to sleep with Travis after you learned of his child porn issues?"
ARIAS: That was not a side of Travis that -- that he wanted to even exist.
POLITANO: They're taking her story, and the different times she's testified, and matching it up against prior testimony. But you know, you said this over here, but then you said that over here. Which is it? It's almost as if this jury is given Jodi Arias another round of cross-examination.
STEPHENS: "Do you know what time you left Travis' house on June 4, 2008?"
ARIAS: I don't remember the exact time.
STEPHENS: "What happened to the clothes you were wearing on June 4, 2008?"
ARIAS: I don't remember.
STEPHENS: "You say Travis had attacked you before June 4, 2008, but would apologize to you after he did it. So why was the June 4, 2008, incident so different?"
ARIAS: June 4 was escalated. On prior occasions, I never feared for my life. It wasn't until after that incident when I reflected back on it that I realized I could have died.
KAYE (on camera): And no matter how many times they heard her version of the crime, they wanted to hear it again. They wanted her to walk them through it.
KARAS: This case comes down to those seconds, no more than two minutes inside the bathroom. That's what this case is all about. What happened in Travis Alexander's master bathroom, and was Jodi Arias reasonable in her reaction?
KAYE (voice-over): It started, Jodi says, after she dropped Travis's new camera.
ARIAS: He got very angry, and he stepped out of the shower. He lifted me up from the crouched position. And he body-slammed me on the tile.
KAYE: Jodi says she ran for the gun in Travis's closet as he pursued her.
ARIAS: I just wanted him to stop so I pointed the gun at him, hoping that that would just make him halt. And it didn't. Instead, he lunged at me right around the time that the gun went off. And I didn't mean for it to go off.
STEPHENS: "Why not run out of the house to get away?"
ARIAS: After I shot him, after the gun went off, we fell over, and he was trying to get on top of me. It's hard to describe the fear. It was like mortal terror.
STEPHENS: "Would you agree that you came away from the June 4 incident rather unscathed, while Travis suffered a gunshot and multiple stab wounds?"
ARIAS: As far as making comparison of physical injuries, him versus mine, yes, I would have to say that's a relatively accurate assessment.
POLITANO: I thought that the majority of these jury questions were just oozing with skepticism. I mean, listening to the way they're asking it, you could almost hear the attitude in the questions.
STEPHENS: "Would you decide to tell the truth if you never got arrested?"
ARIAS: I honestly don't know the answer to that question.
KAYE (on camera): It's so interesting to watch Jodi Arias in court, because with almost every single answer, she turns to the jury and answers it. Why is she doing that, and will that be beneficial to her?
KARAS: The more they are interacting with her -- and I say interacting, she's looking at them day in and day out -- perhaps the less likely they will send her to the death chamber.
STEPHENS: Ladies and gentlemen, are there any other questions from the jury at this time? Mr. Nurmi, you may follow up.
KAYE (voice-over): Now defense attorney Kirk Nurmi asked Jodi Arias the only question that seemed to matter.
NURMI: So Jodi, that is the ultimate question. Why should anybody believe you now?
ARIAS: Like I said before, all of my -- I lied a lot in the beginning, and each of those lies tied back directly to two things. Travis and protecting his ego -- I mean, his reputation. And my own, partially. And to relate it to any involvement in his death.
So I understand that there will always be questions, but all I can do at this point is say what happened to the best of my recollection. And if I'm convicted, then that's because of my own bad choices in the beginning.
MARTINEZ: Objection. Irrelevance. Begs a premise of the jury.
STEPHENS: Sustained.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAYE (on camera): We've now heard from the defense, the prosecution, and even the jurors. In the days to come, the trial turns to experts, in an effort to explain how this could have happened; what caused Travis Alexander his life; and why Jodi Arias suddenly became a killer.
I'm Randi Kaye. Thanks for watching. Good night.
