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JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL

Astonishing Testimony in Jodi Arias Trial

Aired January 3, 2013 - 19:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL, HOST: Tonight, jurors hear Jodi Arias spinning an intricate web of lies in a phone call with cops the day after Travis Alexander`s body was found. An astonishing testimony about sexually explicit e-mails. Do they point to a woman killing in self-defense or in a jealous rage?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VELEZ-MITCHELL (voice-over): Tonight, an award-worthy performance from Jodi Arias as she phones the lead investigators in the Travis Alexander murder case right after his body`s found. Jodi spills secret after secret and tells lie after lie, even grilling the detective about what he found, pretending not to know anything, even though she now says she killed Travis in self-defense.

We`ve got full coverage tonight and an interview with one of Travis` close friends, who says he was no sexual deviant but was one of the most inspirational people he`s ever met.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I received a phone call from a fellow officer stating that the female by the name of Jodi Arias wanted to talk to me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (via phone): Talk to, what`s your relationship, kind of rocky, and a little -- got a little crazy at times, or...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She sounded dangerous. She had broke into his e-mail accounts and his bank accounts. She would sneak into his house through the doggy door.

JENNIFER WILLMOTT, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Jodi Arias killed Travis Alexander. The million-dollar question is, what would have forced her to do it?

JODI ARIAS, ON TRIAL FOR MURDER: He would send me, um, really dirty e-mails.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why was he upset?

WILLMOTT: Travis left Jodi no other option but to defend herself.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Tonight, heart-wrenching photos of the crime scene and stunning secrets pouring out from the Jodi Arias murder trial as the jury hears Jodi spin a web of lies from her own lips.

Good evening. Jane Velez-Mitchell coming to you live.

The gorgeous 32-year-old is accused of stabbing her ex-boyfriend 29 times, slitting Travis Alexander`s throat from ear to ear, and shooting him in the face. Will Jodi`s brazen phone call to police, the very day after Travis` body was discovered, ruin her self-defense claims? Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARIAS: Well, I just wanted to offer you assistance. I was a really good friend of Travis`s, and I heard that he was -- that he passed away and that it was -- I don`t know -- I`ve heard all kinds of rumors. I heard there was a lot of blood.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Jodi Arias drove 1,000 miles from her home in Yreka, California, to Travis` home in Mesa, Arizona, where the couple spent the afternoon having sex and taking naked photos.

And now the kinky sexual nature of their relationship is on full display in open court. Moments ago, the lead investigators revealed some sexually explicit and degrading messages that Travis sent Jodi during an argument. We have to warn you, the wording is very graphic, but this is what was said in open court.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you remember seeing e-mails in which Mr. Alexander referred to Ms. Arias as a, quote, (EXPLETIVE DELETED) wonder?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hearsay. Objection.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As a slut?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As a whore?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: But the prosecutor pointed out the only reason Travis wrote those words is because he felt that Jodi was degrading him sexually. Again, this is some graphic material.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With regard to that reference involving that particular comment, why was that comment made as indicated in that document?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: References to being used sexually by Ms. Arias.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What is it saying?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Specifically, let me read it from here: "I think I was little more than a (EXPLETIVE DELETED) with a heartbeat to you."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: So will the jury believe the defense story that Jodi is an abuse victim who killed Travis in self-defense? Or will they think she`s a jealous woman lying to cops to cover her tracks?

What do you think? Call me: 1-877-JVM-SAYS; 1-877-586-7297.

Straight out to "In Session`s" Beth Karas. Beth, late this afternoon, the jury was shown a series of gruesome photos of the crime scene. We want to warn our viewers: we`re not showing you, by any mean, the worst of them, but giving you a sense of some of the photos. And in there, there`s the bathroom. You can see the victim, Travis Alexander, in some of these shots. His body, parts of it in the shower. Various blood stains. And we`ll show them to you. Again, these are just a tiny little sliver of some of the photos.

But, Beth, tell us about these photos and the significance to the state`s case.

BETH KARAS, TRUTV`S "IN SESSION": Well, Jane, these photos are gruesome indeed. Very bloody, and they tell a story. It is a story that Juan Martinez told yesterday in his opening statement and he will tell again, I assume, in closing arguments. Because it`s the pattern of the blood drips, blood spatter that -- and pooling of blood that probably explains the sequence of -- of the wounds as they were inflicted, and how hard Travis Alexander fought for his life.

We haven`t even seen the worst of them. That`s coming up next week, and that`s the big pool of a blood at the end of a hallway leading into the master bedroom where his throat is slashed, where she really finishes him off.

And even though we saw so much blood today, spatter and drips and pools of blood throughout the bathroom and various areas -- there`s a big bathroom. There was a toilet room, and then there`s a room where the double sink is. And then there`s the bathroom, and then there`s the shower where he was found. There`s a linen closet, where there`s a -- there`s a box. Looked like a box of, like, Xerox paper. And there`s -- there`s blood stain, like a couple of inches of it, because there was so much blood. It soaked up the box.

Anyway, it tells the story.

We see the shell casing from the one shot that was fired near the sink. According to the prosecutor, that`s the third wound that was -- was inflicted. Third major wound. The first one was the stab wound to the heart, where he starts fighting. He stands over the sink. It`s just full of blood, and there`s -- there`s spatter. He`s probably spitting up blood. He`s spitting. He`s dripping. There`s some swipes, like, maybe he did it or she`s cleaning up.

And then he -- staggered down the hallway. We haven`t seen those photos yet, because her palm print is in blood in the hall -- wall, and then his throat is slashed. He`s probably getting weak; he falls. She slashes his throat.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Unbelievable.

KARAS: Drags him back to the shower and shoots him in the head along the way.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, Susan Constantine, jury consultant, do we have Susan?

SUSAN CONSTANTINE, JURY CONSULTANT: I`m here.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: OK. You`re a body language expert. These photos, I`ve got to tell you, they`re gruesome. We gasped as we were watching them and we`re showing -- we`re blurring. I mean, that`s his body right there. We`re blurring it. OK. We`re not being gruesome, but the jury is seeing all of it.

In opening statements, they saw very, very graphic photos of private parts of the defendant`s naked body. Need I say more? What impact is all of this going to have on the jurors?

CONSTANTINE: A tremendous impact. You know, imagine you know, seeing that yourself. Seeing those photos, and it becomes a visual imprint inside your brain that they were going to -- they`ll probably have to have counseling afterwards to get over this. This is not something you can just look at a picture, put it down. Like when we saw in Casey Anthony. We saw some photos, but not graphic bloody photos.

This is so catastrophic that it`s really going to hit to the core of their beingness that I think they`re going to have a tremendous time not only just getting over the pictures but emotionally being able to handle the stress of seeing such a gruesome sight.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Selin Darkalstanian, you`re our producer on the ground. You were you court, and you`re monitoring reaction to the testimony and the photos. What was the reaction to these photos?

SELIN DARKALSTANIAN, HLN PRODUCER: Jane, today the sister got up and actually walked out of the courtroom. Yesterday they were all sobbing. I think today the shock was even worse. Even though we don`t see his body in every single photo, the blood alone is enough to tell the story. It`s almost like the bloody photos of the sink are worse than seeing a photo of the body itself, of the victim.

And I have to say that this is the second day in a row that the prosecution has ended court with gruesome photos of the crime scene. So two days in a row, that jury is going home with those photos clear in their heads. They`re also going home seeing the family members crying, sobbing, walking out of the courtroom. That`s two days in a row that they`re leaving court with those memories in their minds.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And that is the family of Travis Alexander right there. You can see them burying their heads and weeping and sobbing.

Jodi Arias was also crying, but she`s been crying waterworks from the start. Opening statements on.

Here`s what we know Jodi admitted. She has admitted, "Yes, I killed Travis Alexander." She stabbed him, slashed his throat, shot him, saying it was self-defense.

Before she admitted that, however, she calls cops, right around the time Travis` body is discovered, and she`s offering to help detectives. Detective Flores, the lead detective, calls her back the next day and he records the conversation. Given what we know, listen to this recorded conversation as Jodi repeatedly lies and deceives the detectives on the call.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARIAS: Was there -- like, any kind of weapon? Or was there -- was there a gun?

He had his tires slashed -- I don`t remember when it was. It was last year sometime around Christmas, I think.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was around April that you last saw him. Right?

ARIAS: Early...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You haven`t been back in town since then?

ARIAS: No. I haven`t at all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. She asks about the weapon used. A gun. She knows. She knows the answer to that. She shot him.

She talks about Travis` tires being slashed. Travis` friends say Jodi is the very one who slashed those tires. And she lies about not being there that night.

So Dr. Robi Ludwig, why on earth would a woman who has killed somebody and then run away and not reported it, say it was self-defense -- now she`s claiming self-defense. Why on earth would she call cops the day after the body is found?

DR. ROBI LUDWIG, PSYCHOTHERAPIST: I think she`s covering her tracks, and she wants to see what the police know, and if she`s gotten away with murder. So I think she`s checking. It`s part of the checking behavior.

And this woman also was a stalker. So it`s a way to stay connected to the case and to her former lover.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes. I think it`s part of her obsession with Travis Alexander that she cannot keep herself away. And there`s an old saying: the criminal always returns to the scene of the crime. Not literally, but sometimes metaphorically or figuratively, she`s returning to the crime. She can`t stay away. It`s her addiction.

Your calls on the other side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In a 2008 jailhouse interview, Jodi Arias denied having anything to do with the brutal killing of her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander.

ARIAS: I would be shaking in my boots right now if I had to answer to God for such a heinous crime.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have you ask you this. Did you kill Travis Alexander?

ARIAS: Absolutely not. No. I had no part in it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So you had nothing to do with Travis Alexander`s...

ARIAS: Nothing to do with it.

I witnessed Travis being attacked by two other individuals.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who?

ARIAS: I don`t know who they were.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jodi Arias changed her story yet again. She acted in self-defense.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jodi, were you ever afraid of Travis?

ARIAS: I`ll pass on that question.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Prosecutors argue jealousy drove Jodi to kill Travis.

Both sides agree Jodi and Travis had sex shortly before she killed him. The prosecution`s first witness, who was a very pretty Mormon woman Travis was dating before he died. He had planned to take her on a trip that he had won to Cancun. Listen to her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He wasn`t paying for any of it. That it was a place that I`d been to with my own family and felt very comfortable with this place. I knew how fun it was, and the fact that we were going with the family, and we were staying in separate rooms. I felt very comfortable going with my friend.

I think part of him still hoped maybe that I would end up liking him. So I -- I initially thought that that`s why, is he was trying to get me to like him, you know, to go with him to Cancun.

Even a few weeks before, like, before we went, again I told him, "Travis, maybe you should take somebody else to Cancun with you," and there wasn`t anyone else that he wanted to take.

(END VIDEO CLIP) VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. Yes. She wasn`t interested in Travis, but Travis was reportedly interested in this modest Mormon woman, and she told Travis she just wanted to be friends, but it seems that Travis wanted to take her on vacation to Cancun.

Meanwhile, we`ve established that he was having sex with Jodi Arias, but he doesn`t want to take her on vacation. So the prosecution believes that Jodi became enraged that Travis seemed to value this other woman more than he did her. And they`re saying that`s the motive to kill, not this self-defense.

I want to bring in a very special guest, Aaron Mortenson. This is an exclusive interview we have with Aaron, and Aaron was a good friend of Travis Alexander`s, and he also met Jodi Arias, I believe, about three times.

Aaron, thank you so much for joining us. The family is clearly -- the family of Travis Alexander is clearly very upset that things are being twisted, in their opinion, to make it look like Travis is sort of this person living a double life, and pretending to be a virginal Mormon while secretly conducting this affair.

I want to give you an opportunity to tell Travis`s story. He`s not here to defend himself. He can`t put any of this into context. How would you describe Travis Alexander?

AARON MORTENSON, FRIEND OF TRAVIS: Thank you, Jane.

I guess I would say, a lot of people would describe Travis as a motivational speaker. I think that`s probably accurate. If you can imagine having, like, a motivational speaker as part of your intimate group of friends, close people that you speak with, that would be a characteristic portrayal of my relationship with Travis.

He was an inspiring person. He motivated me to become my best self. I think, like the incoming tide, I would say Travis helped rise [SIC] the boats. I would describe him as a motivational friend.

And I think motivational speakers get to where they do in life by overcoming trials and striving to become better people, and I think that`s a good indication of who Travis was. He helped inspire me to be a better person. And I miss him, and I think the world misses his presence.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And what about this description by the defense that he was living this double life, and that he was having -- they`re really trying to paint -- and please don`t blame the messenger. This is all in open court. They`re trying to paint a picture of somebody who wanted very kinky sex with Jodi while presenting to the world as somebody who was maintaining abstinence until marriage.

And I want to give -- again, he`s not here to tell his side. So I want you to speak as much as you can for his -- his values, vis-a-vis dating and relationships.

MORTENSON: I think Travis and I were in similar circumstances at the time that he and I were friends during that time when -- in Arizona. We -- we were -- we spoke a lot about trying to improve in different facets of our lives. And I think I don`t get the impression that Travis ever told me that he was a perfect person, but he had big goals and he wanted to achieve things. And he wanted to improve in lots of areas of his life. And I had the impression that he was in the process of doing that.

I guess I would say the times when I met -- that I spent with Travis, for example, he would spend time trying to make the world around him better.

There is an example, for one instance, where I invited Travis out to a restaurant with some friends, and Travis showed up not knowing everybody. He excused himself, and went to the rest room. I watched him as he didn`t go to the restroom, and went and found the waiter and pulled out his wallet. And the waiter came up later and said, you guys are free to go. Everyone didn`t know what happened. And I later thanked Travis for picking up the tab for all these people he didn`t know. And he said he was disappointed that I even noticed because he was such an anonymous giver and he said, pay it forward. You know, he wanted the world to be a better place by his influence.

And -- and I guess that`s the Travis Alexander that I know and the character of the person who I intend to protect. And he motivated me to be a better person in that regard.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Very quick call. Joshua, Indiana. Thanks for your patience. Your question or thought, Joshua?

CALLER: Yes. I think a woman`s obsession can be much more dangerous than a man`s.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: A woman`s impression or...

CALLER: Obsession.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: ... obsession? Oh! Obsession. Well, I don`t think it`s a contest. I think that, clearly, she seems very obsessed with Travis Alexander, to the point where, even in death, after she now admits she killed him, she calls the lead detectives the day after his body is found, because she cannot stop being involved.

Is it like an addiction to drugs or alcohol? We`re going to talk about that and take more of your calls on the other side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They were going at it, and yes, they are engaged in sexual relations in these photographs.

This shows a frontal view of a woman.

Then there`s another photograph at 1:44 p.m., and it shows this woman`s back end. And they`re nude. Just taking photographs.

At 1:44:50 p.m., there`s a photograph of the victim, and clearly, he`s excited.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARIAS: ... and, um, that we deleted with the intention of -- that wasn`t -- that wasn`t a one-time incident. I mean, there were many times where, you know...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You took pictures?

ARIAS: Yes. Pictures, whatever and in any kind of media, and it was deleted.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, at least from Jodi`s phone call with Detective Flores, the lead investigator, it appears that Jodi was trying to portray her relationship with Travis as very much about sexual role playing.

Listen carefully to the audiotape that was played in open court today, and this is tape of Jodi talking with the lead detective, and he`s secretly recording it. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARIAS: I practically lived there, even when I was there. I spent the night there several times a week while I was there. I came over and cleaned his house a lot. He paid me a little bit every month, sort of like a housekeeper.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you remember seeing an e-mail from Mr. Alexander to Ms. Arias where he provides her a picture of the French maid outfit that he would like her to don when she cleans this apartment, or his home. Excuse me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. That doesn`t sound familiar.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Was this part of a theme of sexual role playing? That`s what the defense is maintaining.

Jodi`s attorney claimed Travis made this T-shirt for Jodi that read, "Travis Alexander`s," apostrophe "S," and that was his way of saying that he owned her. This is the defense. This was put in the defense opening argument, OK?

But Kim Lasota (ph), former prosecutor, death penalty expert out of Phoenix, Arizona, if two consenting adults are playing games, sex games, dominant and submissive, whatever, is it relevant whatsoever to her claim that she killed him in self-defense?

KIM LASOTA (ph), FORMER PROSECUTOR: Well, I -- it`s largely irrelevant, I would say. I think what they`re trying to do is sort of demonstrate that he`s sexually deviant or different in some ways, that it will be easier for the jury to think that he could have actually provoked her to kill -- kill him in the way that she did, with all the stab wounds, the gunshot and the slit throat, which obviously, they face a very difficult task in convincing the jury of that. So they`re trying to soften the jury up, as to Travis Alexander.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, we`ve got to go back to psychotherapist Robi Ludwig. There`s no connection, is there, between people who play consensual sex games and a propensity towards violence? You could just as easily be violent if you were somebody who never had sex at all.

LUDWIG: Exactly. I mean, what I will say, though, is probably the moment that Travis had sex with Jodi, he marginalized her in some way. And Jodi probably thought that great sex would intrigue him or seduce him successfully, which didn`t happen.

You have to remember, at the end of the day, Travis was a Mormon, and he probably thought that sex was vile in some way and Jodi was vile if she was engaging in these actions with him, but he was experimenting.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Shanna Hogan, journalist, you`re writing a book about this case, and I understand you`re including a lot of information about his religious background as a Mormon, which advocates no premarital sex. Your thoughts?

SHANNA HOGAN, JOURNALIST: Yes. I mean, he was a Mormon, and this was shocking in the LDS community. But they were also adults in their late 20s, and that`s what adults in their late 20s in a relationship do. They have sex.

So you know, talking to some of his friends, and they`re all saying the same thing: they didn`t judge him for this. They saw him as a person who was trying to live by his best standards and just, you know, slipped from that. And when a woman was in his bed, you know, jumping in naked, he gave into that, like a lot of men would do.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: More on the other side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She knew that the one thing that calms his temper the quickest is sex. So as she`s telling him, "It`s OK. I`ll fix it. Don`t worry," Travis grabbed her and spun her around.

Afraid that he was going to hurt her, Jodi was actually relieved when all he did was bend her over the desk.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: State of Arizona versus Jodi Ann Arias.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I saw him curled up in the -- he`s curled up in the shower.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You haven`t been back in town since then?

JODI ARIAS, ON TRIAL FOR MURDER OF TRAVIS ALEXANDER: No, I haven`t.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She told him she hadn`t seen him in months but investigators were able to recover photographs from a digital camera that told a different story.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Miss Arias told you Travis (inaudible) with his two fists --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I had an immediate suspicion that it was Jodi who had done this.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There`s was a print left on the wall in blood that led investigators to Jodi Arias.

ARIAS: I would be shaking in my boots if I had to answer to God for such a heinous crime.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: More tears in the courtroom today. And there is Jodi Arias, and she was crying all day, but she was also crying yesterday most of the day during opening statements. So it`s been a regular display of waterworks since this trial started, but the family of the victim, Travis Alexander`s family, and friends, packed into the courtroom, and they are devastated. You see them there with their heads hanging low, hearing some gruesome testimony, and seeing some very gruesome crime photos.

We are not showing you by any means of worst of the crime photos that were shown in court today and we`re blurring them, because they show, and we`ll show you them right now, Travis Alexander`s body in the shower after he has been murdered, shot in the head, his throat slit and stabbed 29 times and then dragged into the shower where prosecutors maintain that Jodi Arias washed him off in an attempt to clean up the crime scene, and this is all happening at his house in Mesa, Arizona.

That`s the sink he apparently staggered at one point to the sink and literally bled over the sink. The really sad part about this is that he wasn`t killed instantly. This was a long struggle and a very violent death.

Jodi, then, the day after his body is discovered calls -- actually, she called the day of, but she actually begins a conversation with the lead detective the day after his body is discovered, and the lead detective tape records it, and she`s a regular Chatty Cathy on the phone with this lead detective, Detective Flores. And she tells him all about how she and Travis would exchange passwords, and that he even sent very mean messages to her.

Listen to this phone conversation that was caught on tape.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was also some talk about you spying on his e-mail and Facebook account and other things.

ARIAS: He gave me his -- he gave me his Facebook password and his MySpace password and I gave him my Facebook password and my Gmail account password. And I really (inaudible) bad because it was kind of dumb; we did that months and months ago and we thought, what can we do to try to re- establish trust between us? Travis, when he got upset would send me really mean e-mails. He would send me mean text messages.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And one of the things that came up in this call that`s extremely creepy. I don`t know if you can read the title of this book, but it`s "1,000 Places to See Before You Die" and she mentions that, oh, she and Travis were reading this book and going to various places.

Aaron Mortensen, our exclusive guest, a friend of Travis Alexander`s. I want to thank you for joining us. And speaking for a man who cannot speak for himself anymore, this struck me as particularly sinister, creep and weird that she would be purportedly reading this book "1,000 Places to See Before You Die" with a man that she ultimately killed in a very gruesome fashion.

You met Jodi Arias three times. What struck you about her?

AARON MORTENSEN, FRIEND OF TRAVIS ALEXANDER: I guess, Jane, the way I`d answer that is, by just telling you one of the times that I met her, I was asked to give the eulogy at Travis` memorial service, and I showed up there kind of humbled with that responsibility, and opportunity to paint the picture of this man, and intimidated as I saw that there were more than 1,000 people in a small church room.

And Jodi was one of the people that came to that memorial service, which would have been a week after he passed away. And after I had spoken and used some images to kind of talk about Travis and some things that I remembered of him, she came up to me afterwards and was, you know, sad and then she asked if she could have a digital copy of what I had written and the pictures that I had used to kind of tell the story.

In retrospect, you know, I guess that seems kind of bizarre with everything that we`ve learned about her since then.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes. It`s creepy. It`s down-right creepy, and especially now that we know that she`s admitted, "Yes, I did kill him," claiming self-defense.

Let`s go out to the phone lines -- the very patient Crystal, Iowa. Thank you for your patience, Crystal. Your question or thought?

CRYSTAL, IOWA (via telephone): Yes, hi. She says that she stabbed him in self-defense. I don`t know about you but if I`m going to stab somebody in self-defense, I`m going to stab the person, I`m going to run away and I`m going to call the cops. I`m not going to hang around and stab him another 27 times, and then take pictures and stuff like that.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Absolutely. Shanna Hogan, journalist/true crime author, how can the defense explain the sinister, weird, creepy photos that she took before and after the crime scene and what exactly did she do after killing him?

SHANNA HOGAN, JOURNALIST/TRUE CRIME AUTHOR: I think the defense is really going to be in a problem here. I mean not just the actual act, the 27 stab wounds -- 29, 27. Just being able to, like, the prosecutor`s going to try and present the fact that he stabbed and shot him after he was almost dead. So you know, the overkill here is monstrous and it`s going to be really, really difficult for the defense to overcome.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Tim La Sota, former prosecutor, she then takes off to Utah to visit another guy who she`s got a budding love interest with who is a co-worker of the deceased, the victim. And he says she`s got cuts on her hands, she`s got bandages and she`s is wearing a long-sleeved shirt. How does that fit into the state`s case?

TIM LA SOTA, FORMER PROSECUTOR: All of this is a big problem for Jodi Arias, as has been mentioned. I mean, her actions after this simply, to many people, do not look like the actions of someone who has had to kill someone in self-defense. I mean she changed her story three times.

I thought the caller had a very good point, that most people, if they have to make a -- do a violent act in self-defense don`t stick around and wait to see what happened. They get out of there. So, yes, I think it`s all a big problem. I think it will be very interesting to see how they try to explain all of this assuming Miss Arias testifies which I`m assuming she`ll have to.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Well, not only that, we have photos of all the washing, the beddings she stuck in the washing machine along with the sim card from the camera in an attempt to destroy evidence.

On the other side, we`re going to show you some of those photos.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Behind the smiles and these photographs there was a whole another reality for Jodi -- a reality that Travis raided because in reality, Jodi was Travis` dirty little secret.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Coming up we`re going to show you photos that were shown in open court today of the crime scene and it is bloody and it is violent. Yes, Jodi Arias is crying through all of it. But let`s remember, she told several story about not being there and then it was a home invasion and she finally admitted, yes, she killed him.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you know of him having any weapons at all in the house?

ARIAS: His two fists really. (inaudible).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No handguns or rifles or --

ARIAS: No. He wasn`t one (inaudible).

(inaudible)

ARIAS: No, he was more into, like, wrestling and UFC. And you know, he said he bought a punching bag.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And now we`re going to take you inside the crime scene, show you photos that were shown in court today. These photos of Travis Alexander`s house which we`re going to show you a second. It`s in Mesa, Arizona and it was presented in court today.

There is the inside of his house. So jurors are getting a real sense of what his -- what his home looked like, and I think it`s so important. I remember the Casey Anthony case. I thought prosecutors made a big problem, big mistake by not taking the jurors right to the crime scene.

It`s a very nice home in Mesa, Arizona. You can see, there is the washing machine that pops down in the camera that Jodi tried to destroy by putting it in the washing machine and also, take a look at all of this bedding that she -- there`s a whole bunch of bedding in there. Take my word for it. This is the sim card which she apparently tried to destroy that had the incriminating photos. Sexual photos beforehand, then photos prosecutors say of the actual killing and then photos of the dead Travis Alexander afterwards.

Believe it or not, even though she deleted them, put them in the washing machine and pressed go, they still were able to get those photos out.

Susan Constantine, jury consultant; we`re being told by those in court that jurors were averting their faces at the gruesome photos which we blurred. I mean, I saw them and I gasped and we blurred them before we showed them out of respect for the victim. But you can see his body right there. It`s a bloody crime scene -- blood all over the sink. How does that impact them?

SUSAN CONSTANTINE, JURY CONSULTANT: It impacts them quite a bit. In fact what they`re doing when moving their head to the side, they`re creating a shield, a protection -- creating a barrier between the photos and themselves. So the fact that they`re actually moving their heads that way is increasing the disgust level, and could be, increasing the hatred level, which is exactly what the state will need to do in order to get this conviction.

So to increase that -- that impression that they have through those photos, I think it`s going to be very remarkable.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Lauren, California -- going out to the phone lines. Lauren, California -- your question or thought. Lauren?

LAUREN, CALIFORNIA (via telephone): Hi, Jane. My question is I`m a little taken back by her claim of self-defense because how can a person claim self-defense when they have no defensive wounds on their body?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Excellent question. Beth Karas, you`ve been in court. That`s a really good point.

BETH KARAS, CORRESPONDENT, TRUTV: Well, you know, we don`t know that she had no defensive wounds on her body, because by the time she`s arrested it`s July 15th, 2008. Nobody actually saw them, and if she testifies, I know that`s a big if, maybe she`ll say that she did indeed have some wounds and she`ll give whatever explanation for not reporting it, and waiting basically to be found and telling all of these lies. I don`t know if it will be a winning argument, but she may say that she had some injuries.

Now, a number of the injuries -- well, not a number, but at least four injuries of what we`re calling stab wounds, are really just slash wounds because Travis Alexander grabbed the knife blade. He had three slashes on his left hand and one on his right hand and it`s -- it seems to correspond with grabbing the knife.

The prosecution says he was stabbed in the heart first so he probably grabbed the knife, staggered to the sink. Let all that blood out that we saw. Staggered down the hall, started you know, getting weak, dropped. She slit his throat. Dragged him back, shot him in the head and put him in the shower.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Come to think of it, we heard and we read that she went up to Arizona to visit a co-worker of Travis` who was another love interest, and he said that she had bandages on her hand; so that`s the thing that`s scares me, Tim La Sota former prosecutor, death penalty expert.

I never predict an open and shut case. I sat through the Michael Jackson child molestation case which is so-called open and shut -- acquitted on all charges. I sat through the Casey Anthony case which was supposedly an open and shut case -- acquitted as we all know.

The problem with evidence is that you could play it either like you could use the cuts on her hands to say she was hiding a murder. She could also turn around in her closing argument, or when she takes the stand and say, oh, yes. These are my defensive wounds.

LA SOTA: There`s no question about that, and, Jane, I guess all of this proves that there is no such thing as an open and shut case. You mentioned Casey Anthony. The jury there bought into what I thought was a very farfetched theory. A lot of other people did, too, and now with that evidence of the Google search, it`s looking even more clearly like that.

I mean I guess that you just hope you get a, you know, a jury that listens to the evidence and sort of can sort through what is a legitimate defense claim and you know, what is a farfetched theory that is the best that defense can come up with in a given case. We`ll see what happens.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And gender is an issue. Gender is an issue and most of the jurors on this panel are male. That -- when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: We`ve been talking about how there`s no such thing as an open and shut case. The forensics here are overwhelming. She`s at the crime scene, and she openly admitted she did it but she`s claiming self- defense.

So this overkill, how will that play? We`re going to talk to a psychotherapist about her possible strategy.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Travis tied Jodi up, tied her to the bed with this rope. He used a knife to cut the rope when it was at the appropriate length. They engaged in sexual activity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: You might say that the defense is using the kinky sex defense, but here`s what the prosecutor got the lead detective to say today about the absence of any rope in Travis home.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did any officers look underneath the bed?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did they look behind the headboard?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was there ever a knife found anywhere near there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was there ever any rope found anywhere near, in other words any of the strands that we`re talking about, were any of those found anywhere near the bed?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: All right. So, Selin Darkalstanian, you`re there in court and you hear the opening statement, oh, kinky sex right before he was killed and there was a rope. Well, the prosecutor laid it out. There was no rope found in the home.

What has the reaction been? Because you know, it could provoke anger if you feel like for an example an opening statement is made up of whole cloth.

SELIN DARKALSTANIAN, HLN PRODUCER: Honestly, I think today everybody was so shocked that none of that matters. I think when you see blood and you see gruesome photos of a body and you see the body -- those things don`t matter. I mean you`re looking at the jury, you`re seeing their reaction; you`re looking at the family and seeing their reaction. Those things Jane are almost irrelevant.

I mean maybe they`re important in the case but when you`re looking at the reaction, nobody even -- I think the details get lost in what the photos evoke.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Susan Constantine, jury consultant, we have a mostly male -- they haven`t figured out who is going to be the alternates. That happens at the end of the case but before they deliberate. But it`s a mostly male panel at this point. Is this sex talk going to impact them differently than if it was a mostly female panel?

CONSTANTINE: Well, let`s look at also too the age factor of some of those jurors because most of them are elderly. There`s one gentleman that`s 20 years old who might connect more with the defendant, but on the other hand, when you`re talking about the sexual promiscuity and so forth and they`re older, you know, I think especially with what your last expert was talking about, you can`t get past those photos.

But here, let`s talk about the demographic fact. Go ahead.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes, no, I didn`t say anything. But we only have ten seconds. Do you think the male is going to react differently? Yes or no.

Constantine: No.

ROBI LUDWIG, PSYCHOTHERAPIST: I think it`s very possible because she`s very pretty. And you know, it could create a different kind of response, sex sells. Guys, even though they`re older, in their head we don`t know what age they`re at.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes, sex is a wildcard --

LUDWIG: Yes.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: More in a second.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARIAS: I never really dated anyone since, and he told me that he hasn`t dated anyone since but then he told me that he has. It`s just all been kind of weird because we kept our dating life sort of from each other like don`t ask, don`t tell policy sort of.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELEZ-MITCHELL: And beats me why she would call the detective right after the body is found and offer advice of, oh, you should look here or there. She may think that she`s being clever but she implicated herself a lot.

Let`s go to the phone lines; Rhoda, Florida -- your question or thought, Rhoda.

RHODA, FLORIDA (via telephone): Yes, Jane.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes, hi.

RHODA: hi, thanks for taking my call. I`d like to know about the gun that she had. Was that registered to her and purchased legally? And my second question would be, who`s paying for her defense?

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Ok. Well, the gun, they never found a gun, but cops say that there was a very suspicious break-in at her family home a week before where she claimed her grandpa`s gun was stolen, and it`s the same caliber as used in the killing.

And my understanding is that these are public defenders, that she`s not paying for it.

Robi Ludwig, you had a theory because you say, well, she`s a stalker. Is she crazy? What do you think?

LUDWIG: She clearly has a personality disorder. I would say she has a borderline personality disorder. They can`t tolerate rejection. It brings up this feeling of a void. She may have felt that Travis was really hers. He didn`t have a right to leave her and it offended her sense of herself that no one should leave her. That was wrong and it created such a rage that she retaliated in kind with violence.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes, and I remember studying borderline personality disorder for another case that I covered. And I thought it was fascinating what the psychotherapist said was that borderline personality people don`t know where they end and someone else begins.

LUDWIG: Right.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: So therefore, they see somebody that they say, I want that, I want their car, I want their house, I want their life and they just move in.

LUDWIG: I feel like a person -- I feel like a whole person when Travis is in my life and when he`s not in my life or rejecting me, who am I, what am I? I`m a nothing and can`t tolerate that feeling.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Yes, and one of the reasons why this is such an important case for us to cover is that these are extreme examples of dysfunction that a lot of us exhibit in small ways in our daily lives. So it`s really good information to learn about, let`s say borderline personality disorder so that you can recognize it in someone else.

LUDWIG: Right.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Do you have someone in your life who sort of thinks they own you and thinks at any time they see something that you have that they like that they can take it. You know, it`s kind of like the friend who comes to stay and stay for dinner and --

LUDWIG: Well, the female stalker can be a lot more dangerous than they seem. In some cases they`re dismissed. They`re women; they`re not so powerful.

VELEZ-MITCHELL: Good point.

Nancy is up next with more on this case.

END