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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
"Murder First Degree: Inside the Arias Trial"
Aired July 04, 2013 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANNOUNCER: The following is a CNN special report.
RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening. I'm Randi Kaye.
It was a shocking trial, revealing details of sex, stalking, and secrets. Now, five years after Jodi Arias killed her former boyfriend, after five months of riveting testimony and a conviction for first-degree murder, the jury deadlocked over whether Jodi deserves the death penalty.
As Jodi's fate continues to hang in the balance, she still faces life in prison or a death sentence.
Tonight, you can watch the testimony, weigh the evidence, and you decide what Jodi's penalty should be. We want to warn you, it is graphic. And the images and the language may be too explicit for young viewers.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KAYE (voice-over): A sordid story of sex, lies --
JODI ARIAS, CONVICTED MURDERER: I'm not guilty.
KAYE: -- and audiotapes.
TRAVIS ALEXANDER, VICTIM: Certainly, the best times are when we just for a freaking romp session.
(LAUGHTER)
KAYE: The trial of Jodi Ann Arias has finally come to a dramatic end.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The state of Arizona versus Jodi Ann Arias, verdict, count one. We, the jury, find the defendant as to count one, first-degree murder, guilty.
KAYE: It was a trial that transfixed the nation.
VINNIE POLITAN, HLN HOST: This is a case, this is a story, this is a criminal defendant unlike any other we have ever met before.
Jodi Arias, beautiful young woman, accused of brutally murdering her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander, a young guy. They seemingly had this great sexual relationship. But then she stabs him 29 times, also decapitates him, shoots him in the head. CROWD: Justice for Travis!
KAYE: It's a verdict that delivered justice for Travis Alexander.
(CHEERS)
POLITAN: I think justice won. I mean, I listened to the same evidence that the 12 jurors listened to. I was convinced. Jodi Arias wasn't attacked -- no, no, no. Travis Alexander was the one who was attacked, slaughtered and killed.
KAYE: This tale of passion gone wrong has already cost Travis Alexander his life.
Now the jury had to decide whether it would cost Jodi Arias hers. Jodi made an unusual appeal to spare her life, arguing she would be productive in prison.
ARIAS: My hair was past my waist, and I donated it to Locks of Love. If I'm allowed to live in prison, I will continue to donate to that organization for the rest of my life.
I'd like to implement a recycling program. I'd like to start a book club or a reading group. Additionally, I've designed a t-shirt which 100 percent of the proceeds go to support non-profit organizations which also assist other victims of domestic violence.
KAYE: In the end, the jury couldn't come to a unanimous decision on whether Jodi Arias deserves life in prison or to die by execution. Under Arizona law, that means a new jury will have to step in to decide Jodi's sentence. But she stands convicted of first-degree murder.
POLITAN: I think the evidence in this case was overwhelming about her obsession and her fatal attraction to Travis Alexander.
KAYE: An attraction that began in, of all places, Sin City.
DAVID HUGHES, FRIEND OF TRAVIS ALEXANDER: We were there for a convention. Our company had had a big event there. I was there in Las Vegas with him.
KAYE: Travis Alexander was a motivational speaker, compelling and effective. He was also a close friend and co-worker of David Hughes in the fall of 2006.
HUGHES: And I knew that he was single and he was always looking for Ms. Alexander.
KAYE: Enter saleswoman and aspiring photographer Jodi Arias.
HUGHES: And I told Travis, hey, there is this cute girl that I work with. You should meet her. And he goes, introduce me. So, I introduced them and then they were able to develop a relationship pretty quickly from there. POLITAN: They met in Vegas. The night they met, it seemed that things heated up very quickly, because Jodi Arias has said within a week or so, they are having sex in a car.
KAYE: Jodi and Travis had an instant physical connection, a whirlwind romance, but a long-distance one with her in Palm Desert, California, and him five hours away in Mesa, Arizona. Still, that wouldn't slow them down.
Shanna Hogan is the author of "Picture Perfect," about the Jodi Arias case.
SHANNA HOGAN, AUTHOR, "PICTURE PERFECT": From the very beginning, Travis and Jodi were almost in constant communication. They talked every day. They exchanged thousands of e-mails and text messages.
KAYE: Jodi was so attracted to Travis that she converted to the Church of Latter Day Saints because Travis was a Mormon.
HUGHES: She started to inquire more about the LDS faith, and ended up joining the church, which I'm sure that brought their relationship -- made it even stronger.
KAYE: To outsiders, Travis and Jodi appeared devout, a pure Mormon couple. But appearances, as was often the case with these two, would prove deceiving.
HOGAN: Secretly, behind the scenes, Travis and Jodi's relationship was not pure, it was not chaste. They had this intense sexual relationship that they kept hidden from everyone.
KAYE: But Jodi couldn't keep everything hidden, especially from Travis' longtime friends, many of whom found his new love a bit odd and a bit troubling.
HUGHES: We don't like Jodi coming over to our home. We feel very uncomfortable with her in our home.
KAYE: David Hughes recalls a chilling encounter between his brother, his sister-in-law and Jodi Arias.
HUGHES: Well, they are having this conversation trying to convince Travis to break up with her, she is right outside the upstairs door listening to the whole conversation. And she walked in and she just had this face on like she was the devil, and she was going to commit a murder right then and there.
HOGAN: Right away, Travis' friends were concerned. It was clear that she liked him a lot more than he liked her. Travis wanted a normal life. Jodi wanted to be with him more than anything. And it was an extremely unhealthy bond that they shared.
KAYE: Jodi and Travis burned red-hot, at least for a while. But by the summer of 2007, however, their relationship had cooled, in part because of Jodi's increasing jealousy over Travis' interest in other women. HOGAN: Jodi went through his phone and discovered these flirty messages to other women, and she decided to end the relationship at that point. But, at the same time, Travis was looking to end the relationship.
KAYE: Jodi and Travis did break up. But that didn't mean they weren't still friends with benefits.
HOGAN: Clearly, Jodi enjoyed her sexual life with Travis. But it must have been tormenting. In her diary, Jodi writes about how she loves Travis so fully and completely that she doesn't know any other way to be, that he was just her entire focus, and she was extremely obsessed with him.
KAYE: So obsessed, apparently, that Jodi never took her eye off of Travis, no matter how far apart they were.
HUGHES: I absolutely know that she was stalking him many times. Just like when she went in through the back door when he was kissing another girl on his couch, and she's spying on him. That's what's really happening there.
HOGAN: She slashed his tires. She broke into his e-mail account. She hacked into his Facebook page. She broke into his house and stole his journals. She read his diary. She just did these crazy stalking behaviors.
KAYE: Jodi has long denied stalking Travis. Then, on June 4th, 2008, she made one last visit to her estranged lover's home, arriving in the wee hours of the morning.
POLITAN: 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.
But it's what they do. It's what they have always done since they met.
KAYE: Coming up, a sex-fueled afternoon explodes into an orgy of violence.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KAYE (voice-over): Monday, June 9th, 2008, 90 minutes until midnight in a Mesa, Arizona, community called Mountain Ranch. Nobody has heard from Travis Alexander in five days. So, a handful of concerned friends went looking for him.
HOGAN: Through another friend, they get the code to the garage. They go inside the house. It smells. There is a foul odor hanging in the air.
They found their friend pale and lifeless on the shower floor.
CALLER: Oh, my God.
911 OPERATOR: Nine-one-one emergency.
CALLER: 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 .25 caliber gunshot over his right eyebrow, and massive amounts of blood all over the master suite, soaked into the bedroom carpet and splattered all over the bathroom, the sink, the mirror, the floor. His friends had immediate suspicions about who did it.
911 OPERATOR: Has he been threatened by anyone recently?
CALLER: Yes, he has. He has an -- his 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'd been nowhere near Mesa for months. This was version one of her story.
ESTEBAN FLORES, DETECTIVE: That was around April that you last saw him, right?
ARIAS: Early April.
FLORES: You haven't been back in town since then?
ARIAS: No, I haven't at all.
KAYE: But investigators are able to place Jodi at the crime scene, thanks to a handprint, hair, and Travis' camera discovered in his washing machine.
BETH KARAS, CORRESPONDENT, IN SESSION ON TRUTV: Can you imagine when the police found the camera? And they said, oh, the camera is destroyed. It's been through the washing machine. But they take that little memory card and they find these photos.
And Detective Flores got the call, you're not going to believe this, what we have got.
KAYE (on camera): The memory card survived the wash?
KARAS: The memory card survived the wash.
KAYE (voice-over): Those photos lay out a timeline. At 5:30 p.m., Jodi uses the camera to take the last picture of Travis alive. He's in the shower. KARAS: She's taking pictures of him, and probably said to him, oh, let me get a picture of you seated, because she needed to level the playing field. She's able to stab him in the heart.
KAYE: Investigators say there is a struggle in the bathroom and then Jodi follows Travis into his bedroom.
KARAS: He falls. Maybe he's on his hands and knees, and that's when she did the coup de grace across his neck and then turned him over and turned him around and dragged him down the hall.
KAYE: This is at 5:32 p.m. It is one of three accidental photos taken after the last shower picture. Prosecutors will later claim it's Jodi's leg over Travis' upper body as she prepares to drag him back to the shower.
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.
KAYE: During that same interview, there was this -- yoga moves, stretches, and even a headstand.
POLITAN: I believe it tells that you Jodi Arias is trying to get comfortable in that room, and she's not able to get comfortable because she has to change her story, because investigators have more evidence than she thought they were going to have.
KAYE: The very next day, Jodi decided to change her story to version two.
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 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: Then, in 2010, two years after the murder, Jodi's lawyer files a court document indicating Jodi will change her story yet again. She would finally admit to killing Travis, but claim it was self-defense.
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, I was there, and I did it, but I did it in self- defense because Travis was going to kill me.
KAYE: Coming up, the trial. Jodi takes the stand to give her side of the story.
ARIAS: He called me a bitch and kicked me in the ribs.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The state of Arizona versus Jodi Ann Arias, indictment. Count one, first degree murder, premeditated murder. KAYE (voice-over): It's been more than four years since friends discovered Travis Alexander's dead body crumpled up in his bathroom shower.
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: After telling two different stories about her innocence, Jodi now admitted under oath that she was the killer.
KIRK NURMI, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Did you kill Travis Alexander on June 4, 2008?
ARIAS: Yes, I did.
KAYE: But she denied the charge against her, that she had planned Travis' murder.
NURMI: Why?
ARIAS: The simple answer is that he attacked me, and I defended myself.
KAYE: She pled not guilty, claiming self-defense, that she was forced to kill Travis.
JENNIFER WILLMOTT, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: 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: That's what they have to do in a self-defense case.
KAYE: "In Session's" Beth Karas has been in the courtroom every day of the trial.
KARAS: They have to blame the victim. They're saying, look, he was attacking me. He was about to kill me. I had no choice.
Her problem is that self-defense, you can use force when you are being threatened. But you have to use equal force.
KAYE: The defense called witnesses, including a close friend, to try and shatter the image of Travis as the pure Mormon man.
WILLMOTT: In your religion, is premarital sex allowed?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.
WILLMOTT: Did Travis claim to be a virgin?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, he did. WILLMOTT: Did he seem happy to be a virgin?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
WILLMOTT: And did he seem proud?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
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. She would have sex with him. And they kept it a secret.
But if this got out, it would hurt his standing in his church, in his social circle. It might have hurt him professionally.
KAYE: Jodi was, in the words of her defense attorney, Travis' dirty little secret, something he vividly demonstrated in this lurid phone call.
ALEXANDER: You, you are hot. Start touching yourself.
WILLMOTT: 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 versus the things that he said on this recorded call.
ALEXANDER: That was so hot. That actually, so 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.
NURMI: 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: 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's sole purchase is to be mine to have animal sex and to please me in any way I desire."
KAYE: Jodi even accused Travis of being a pedophile.
ARIAS: I walked in and Travis was on the bed masturbating.
He started grabbing at something on the bed. And I realized they were papers. And, as he was grabbing the papers, one -- one kind of went sailing off the bed, and it was a picture of a little boy.
POLITAN: The defense is trying, literally, to trash Travis.
NURMI: You were 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 evil doer. He's the pedophile. 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.
JUAN MARTINEZ, PROSECUTOR: When do you decide to tell the truth? When you're in this court and no place else? Is that what -- what I'm hearing from you?
ARIAS: No.
KAYE: Coming up, the prosecutor goes on attack.
MARTINEZ: Just because you're in this court doesn't mean you have to tell the truth, right? That's what you're telling us, right?
ARIAS: That's not what I'm telling anyone.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
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. No jury will convict me.
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.
MARTINEZ: And as you say that, you're referring to not being convicted because you're going to commit suicide? ARIAS: That's correct.
MARTINEZ: You're saying that you're innocent, right?
ARIAS: Yes.
MARTINEZ: And you believe that no jury would convict you because you are going to lie your way out of it, right?
NURMI: Objection, argumentative.
JUDGE: 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: For starters, prosecutor Juan Martinez goes to what he says was Jodi's attempt at a cover up, like wanting a less conspicuous rental car to drive to Travis's house.
MARTINEZ: You didn't want the color red, correct?
ARIAS: Yes.
MARTINEZ: The color red seems to stand out, doesn't it?
ARIAS: I don't know. I just heard they get more tickets.
MARTINEZ: Right. And so it had to do with the police department, right? You did not want to stand out.
KAYE: And just hours after killing Travis, calling his cell phone and leaving a message.
MARTINEZ: This is the number 365.
ARIAS (via telephone): My phone died, so I wasn't getting back to anybody. And, what else? Oh, and I drove a hundred 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.
MARTINEZ: And the reason you went to great lengths to do that was because if there was any suspicion, it wouldn't be drawn to you, correct?
ARIAS: Not immediately, no. That was the plan.
MARTINEZ: Right. You wanted the police to look elsewhere, right?
ARIAS: I guess.
MARTINEZ: So you called Mr. Alexander and you left him a message, right?
ARIAS: Yes.
KAYE: But despite her early efforts at a cover-up, Jodi now took the jury through the grizzly details of the killing, starting when she dropped Travis's 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 five-year-old could hold a camera better than I can.
When I hit the tile, I rolled over on the side and started running down the hallway. I went into his closet and I slammed the door.
KAYE: Then, Jodi reached for a .25 caliber gun she said Travis kept on the shelf.
ARIAS: I grabbed the gun. I ran 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. But before he did that, as he was lunging at me, the gun went off.
POLITAN: There is zero evidence, independent evidence, evidence other than words out of Jodi Arias' mouth, that established Travis Alexander as a gun owner. There is none.
MARTINEZ: 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 handgun. You heard that, right?
ARIAS: Yes, I heard that.
POLITAN: 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 used by Jodi Arias to shoot Travis Alexander.
KAYE: When Travis's body was found in the shower, there was only one bullet wound but almost 30 knife 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. It 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.
BETH KARAS, CORRESPONDENT, TRUTV'S "IN SESSION": She had such memory recall of things from years before: details of meals, how many people were in the elevator, what happened on this day, what kind of sex she had on that date, but 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 your memory becomes faulty immediately upon you shooting him?
ARIAS: Yes, things get very foggy from there.
MARTINEZ: That 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.
KAYE: A psychologist for the defense testified that the fog was caused by the stress of Travis's attack.
DR. RICHARD SAMUELS, PSYCHOLOGIST: It appears as if she suffers from dissociative amnesia. And according to the research, the more intense the trauma, the more likely and the more complete the amnesia.
KAYE: Dr. Samuels said Jodi's amnesia was caused by posttraumatic stress disorder, PTSD. Another defense expert testified that Jodi was a victim of domestic violence.
WILLMOTT: Given everything that you have reviewed, that you've read in this case, that you've seen, do you have an opinion, an ultimate opinion, in your expertise, about whether or not Ms. Arias was in an abusive relationship?
ALYCE LAVIOLETTE, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE EXPERT: Yes, I believe she was in an abusive relationship.
WILLMOTT: And do you believe, in your expert opinion, that Jodi was a battered woman -- or is a battered woman?
LAVIOLETTE: Yes, I do.
KAYE: But Martinez tore into the defense experts.
SAMUELS: I'm sorry. I don't see it that way. MARTINEZ: Right. You wouldn't see it that way, because you have feelings for the defendant, right?
SAMUELS: I beg your pardon, sir.
MARTINEZ: You seem to be having trouble answering my questions. If you have a problem understanding the question, ask me that. If you want to -- do you want to spar with me? Is that -- will that affect the way you view your testimony?
WILLMOTT: Objection. Argumentative.
JUDGE: Sustained.
KAYE: And on his final exchange with Jodi Arias, Martinez made, perhaps, his most important point. That she is a liar.
MARTINEZ: So you lied to him, right?
ARIAS: Well --
NURMI: Objection, argumentative. Asked and answered.
JUDGE: Sustained.
MARTINEZ: You didn't tell the whole story then, right? That's what you said, right?
ARIAS: That would be accurate.
KAYE: And, with that, prosecutor Juan Martinez abruptly ended his grilling and gripping cross-examination of Jodi Arias.
Next, jurors get a turn to ask questions.
JUDGE: "What is your understanding of the word 'skank'?"
KAYE: A hint of what they might be thinking.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARTINEZ: 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?
NURMI: Objection. Argumentative.
JUDGE: Sustained.
KAYE (voice-over): In Arizona, lawyers aren't the only ones who can grill witnesses. After weeks of testifying, Jodi Arias faced questions from the jury. JUDGE: This is the time set for the court to ask the questions you have submitted.
"How is it that you were so calm on the television interviews?"
POLITAN: It's rare that jurors get to ask questions. And this jury asked hundreds and hundreds of questions to the witnesses and to the defendant herself. I mean, this is the woman who's facing murder one charges and the death penalty, and the jury asking her questions -- some of them very, very important questions; others, a little sarcastic.
JUDGE: "What is your understanding of the word 'skank'?"
KAYE: They had questions about Jodi's sex life with Travis.
JUDGE: "If you didn't want to be tied up to a tree, why would you go up and look for a place where he can do that?"
KAYE: Questions about her killing Travis.
JUDGE: "Were you mad at Travis while you were stabbing him?"
KAYE: And question after question about Jodi's many lies.
JUDGE: "Why did you decide to tell the truth two years after the killing?"
"Why did you wait for so long to tell the truth?"
"Would you decide to tell the truth if you never got arrested?"
ARIAS: I honestly don't know the answer to that question.
POLITAN: I believe the jurors who asked those questions did not believe her.
KAYE: After the barrage of questions and testimony from a few more defense witnesses --
NURMI: At this point, the defense rests.
KAYE: Next up, prosecutor Juan Martinez with rebuttal witnesses.
Martinez worked to cast doubt on every aspect of Jodi's story. Both what she claimed happened and what the defense witnesses said was her state of mind.
Clinical psychologist Janeen DeMarte had conducted a 12-hour clinical interview with Jodi.
MARTINEZ: And after that, did you have an opinion as to what the diagnosis was in this case?
DEMARTE: I diagnosed her axis 2 borderline personality disorder.
MARTINEZ: What does that mean?
DEMARTE: You can think of it similar to what we see in teenagers, often. This sense of immaturity -- there's unstable interpersonal relationships, unstable emotions and an unstable sense of identity. Meaning, who am I as a person? There's this constant fluctuation. There's a lot of manipulation.
KAYE: The defense attempted to discredit DeMarte's diagnosis by calling one last witness.
WILLMOTT: Do you have an opinion with regard to whether or not Dr. DeMarte has an adequate understanding of how to administer these tests and make a diagnosis?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
WILLMOTT: OK, what is that opinion?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She does not appear to have either an adequate understanding of their uses or their interpretation or the actual ways those tests are to be used.
KAYE: Finally, closing arguments.
POLITAN: The key for the prosecution is premeditation. Premeditation in this case is the road to first-degree, which is what then puts this case into the death penalty phase. Premeditation, that she reflected upon her plan to kill Travis Alexander. Doesn't have to take a week, doesn't have to take a month. Could just be a moment.
But he has to prove that Jodi Arias planned the killing, had time to reflect on it and then acted on that plan.
MARTINEZ: This individual, the defendant, Jodi Ann Arias, killed Travis Alexander. And even after stabbing him over and over again, and even after slashing his throat from ear to ear, and then even after taking a gun, shooting him in the face, she will not let him rest in peace.
But, now, instead of a gun, instead of a knife, she uses lies. And she uses these lies in court when she testified.
She's an individual who is manipulative. This is an individual who wants to play the victim.
KAYE: Then, it was the defense's term, with Kirk Nurmi making their case.
NURMI: It's not even about whether or not you like Jodi Arias. Nine days outs of ten, I don't like Jodi Arias.
POLITAN: Anything less than first-degree is a victory for the defense here. So what you want to play is obviously their story of self- defense, that something happened in the heat of passion between these two people, who, at one time, were linked as lovers. NURMI: Jodi Arias says Travis Alexander yelled at her for dropping the camera. He called her stupid. He says even a 5-year-old could hold a camera. And then he jumps out. And then he attacks. And then he holds her down.
And she remembers that, on a previous occasion, when he held her down, he had choked her to the point where she lost consciousness. She feared that it might go farther. This time was different. He was angry. He was angry in a different way.
She was in reasonable fear that he was going to end her life.
KAYE: After four months of testimony and 18 days of Jodi Arias taking the stand, her fate rested with the jury.
JUDGE: Please be seated. The record will show the presence of the jury, the defendant and all counsel.
Ladies and gentlemen, I understand you have reached a verdict.
KAYE: It would take just over 15 hours to reach a verdict.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The state of Arizona versus Jodi Ann Arias, verdict, count one. We the jury duly impaneled and sworn in the above entitled action upon our oaths do find the defendant as to count one, first-degree murder, guilty.
POLITAN: Wow. Wow. Twelve people all agreeing that this was premeditated murder. Huge win for Juan Martinez.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Juror number four, is this your true verdict?
JUROR NUMBER FOUR: Yes.
KAYE: The victim's family breathed sighs of relief, while the public celebrated outside.
POLITAN: You have more of a reaction from Travis Alexander's siblings who are all seated behind everything, and you can hear them, you can see them. Some are hugging, others are just breaking down and crying.
KAYE: Jodi Arias' reaction, measured.
POLITAN: I don't think Jodi Arias was shocked. But I think this is a confusing part of her life because I think she always got her way, because she took advantage of her looks, she took advantage of who she was and she was able to talk her way through everything. But you can't talk your way out of first-degree murder.
KAYE: But Jodi wasn't finished talking. As the case moved into the sentencing phase, Jodi focused on convincing the jury that she deserves to live.
ARIAS: Over the years I've spent in incarceration, I've received many requests from women to teach them Spanish or American sign language. Because my case was pending I just didn't have the time. In prison, I will.
Until very recently, I could not have imagined standing before you all and asking you to give me life. To me life in prison was the most unappealing outcome I could possibly think of. I thought I'd rather die. But as I stand here now I can't in good conscience ask you to sentence me to death.
KAYE: Hours after Jodi appealed to the jury to spare her life she went on a media blitz, appearing on several TV programs.
REPORTER: So you really are never going to tell the truth about what went down in that bathroom?
ARIAS: I don't know what you mean by that. Because I've told the truth.
REPORTER: OK.
ARIAS: I didn't know that you were a hater when you came to interview me.
REPORTER: A lot of people out there feel the only true justice for Travis Alexander is for you to get a death sentence.
ARIAS: That's not justice. That's revenge.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We the jury, duly impaneled --
KAYE: After three days of deliberations --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No unanimous agreement.
KAYE: -- the jury deadlocked 8-4 for the death penalty. The judge has dismissed the jury, and now a new panel will be selected to sentence the convicted murderer to either life or death. It's yet another twist in the trial that's riveted the nation.
POLITAN: First thing that drew me to this case, and I said this one is going to be different than any other trial, was watching Jodi Arias sit down with black-and-white stripes in the jail and hold a press conference for the media.
ARIAS: Don't roll the tape yet.
POLITAN: But before the press conference she goes into her little compact. I don't know where you get these in jail. But she's powdering her nose.
And I'm thinking to myself, she's powdering her nose for a press conference. She's just been arrested for murder. Who is this woman Jodi Arias? And what is this trial going to be like?
But we found out. It's a trial like no other.
JUDGE: You are excused.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAYE: The Jodi Arias trial hasn't been short on surprises. Judge Sherry Stephens has declared a mistrial in the penalty phase because of the jury's inability to agree on a sentence.
Now, Jodi and the victim's family will have to endure a new trial only to decide her sentence, set to begin July 18th. An entirely new jury will be chosen, and so the case continues.
I'm Randi Kaye. Thanks for watching this special report.
