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NANCY GRACE

Jodi Arias Takes the Stand

Aired February 4, 2013 - 20:00   ET

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


NANCY GRACE, HOST: Breaking news tonight. We are live outside the Phoenix courthouse. Bombshell tonight. Jodi Arias on the witness stand in her own defense.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The defense calls Jodi Arias.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you solemnly swear the testimony you are about to give will the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

JODI ALEXANDER, CHARGED WITH MURDER: Yes, I do.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you kill Travis Alexander on June 4th, 2008?

ARIAS: Yes, I did.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why?

ARIAS: The simple answer is that he attacked me and I defended myself.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You said that no juror would convict you.

ARIAS: No jury is going to convict me.

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. I didn`t expect to be here. So I could have easily said no jury would acquit me, either. So I was very confident that no jury would convict me because I planned to be dead, probably the most bitter words I`ll ever eat.

My dad started using a belt. My mom began to carry a wooden spoon in her purse.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Good evening. I`m Nancy Grace. I want to thank you for being with us.

Bombshell tonight. Jodi Arias on the witness stand in her own defense. Let`s take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you kill Travis Alexander on June 4th, 2008?

ARIAS: Yes, I did.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why?

ARIAS: The simple answer is that he attacked me, and I defended myself.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 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 because I just -- I didn`t get why -- I don`t know. I understood that I was being punished, but I would just be mad at her a lot over (ph) that because it hurt.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because you still love her.

ARIAS: Yes, I love my mom.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Even though she was still beating you, you still loved her.

ARIAS: Yes. It put a strain on our relationship, but I still loved her, of course.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m sorry? I didn`t hear the last part.

ARIAS: I still loved her.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And why was that (INAUDIBLE)

ARIAS: I still loved him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You mentioned a point in time when bobby (Ph) moved in with an individual named Matt.

ARIAS: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. And I believe you were talking about how at the end of your relationship with Bobby, you moved into your grandparents` home, correct?

ARIAS: Yes. I moved out of that woman`s (ph) house and into my grandmother`s house.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And what city is your grandmother`s house located in?

ARIAS: Yreka.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And did you live there just with your grandmother, or was anyone else living there?

ARIAS: My grandfather also lived there and their dog, Ringo.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Were you close to your grandparents? How was your relationship with them?

ARIAS: I felt close to my grandparents, not like lovey-dovey close, but they seem -- they`re very down-to-earth people. Well, my grandfather is -- my grandmother is very down-to-earth, and I can just tell her anything and it doesn`t really faze her.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why didn`t you move back in with your parents?

ARIAS: Well, I didn`t want to get back to that environment. We got along very well after I moved out, and I wanted to keep it that way.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. What -- tell us about your life after you moved back to your grandparents` home. Are you still working at Denny`s? Do you go back to school? Just kind of describe your life for us.

ARIAS: Yes. After that incident occurred with Bobby -- I had worked at Denny`s for about a year at that point. And if you`re a full-time employee at Denny`s, or I think a minimum of, like, 32 hours a week, you get vacation benefits. And so I decided to use that time to spend away from him, and I flew back to Costa Rica for a week-and-a-half.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And am I correct in assuming that was to spend time with Victor?

ARIAS: No. He didn`t live in the house anymore. I stayed with my -- the same family, but he had moved out and moved on.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So you spent about a week-and-a-half, it sounds like, with Victor`s family, not with him.

ARIAS: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And kind of assessing your life? Is that fair to say?

ARIAS: Yes, I spent a lot of time just reflecting and healing from that, and I felt in a lot better place by the time I came back.

Victor actually -- I did see Victor three days before I flew back. So he took me out to dinner and that was it, and then drove me to the airport.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When you say healing from that, what are you talking about, healing from the relationship with Bobby?

ARIAS: Yes, because we kept going back and I kept hearing about incidents where he was trying to hook up with other girls and -- but then he would deny it. And I didn`t see anything, so I -- there was just a lot of turmoil. We were arguing still, and then the physical incident that happened. And I needed to just remove myself from the situation so that I could allow my heart to move on a little, and so that break from him, I thought, had helped me a lot.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So at some point in time, you were in love with Bobby, right?

ARIAS: Yes, very much, a lot more than I was Victor. Bobby was, like, my first true love.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. So once you have spent some time in Costa Rica and you`ve, I guess, used your vacation time at Denny`s, you come back to Yreka, I presume?

ARIAS: Yes, I did.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And what -- how do you proceed in your life?

ARIAS: I went back to work and...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: You are seeing accused killer Jodi Arias on the stand in her own defense. This was the million-dollar question. Will she take the stand and subject herself to cross-exam? Well, so far, it has been extremely innocuous testimony, but we`re getting into testimony where she`s seemingly saying her parents beat her. She says her mom carried around a wooden spoon in her pocketbook to spank the children with.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You`re just now telling us that your mother carried a spoon with her. What did she do with that spoon?

ARIAS: It was a wooden kitchen spoon that she would keep in her purse, and if we were misbehaving, my brother and I -- this was before Angela and Joseph were born, although it continued through that point -- if we were misbehaving, she would use it on us. Sometimes she would pull the car over, and you know -- if we were just being brats or something.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you mean by "use it" on you?

ARIAS: She would hit us with it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She hit you hard?

ARIAS: It felt pretty hard, yes. It left welts.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It left welts on your body?

ARIAS: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Beatings, the pushing into furniture, that sort of thing with your dad continued throughout your high school years.

ARIAS: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Were those the incidents you were talking about before, about being pushed into the post and the furniture, or were there other incidents?

ARIAS: That happened when I was in high school. There were a few things that happened right before we moved.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: OK, maybe I`m crazy, but I think I just heard her say her mom hit her with a wooden spoon. I mean, think about it. If Jodi Arias was your daughter, what would you do? I don`t spank, but what if you had Jodi Arias, who we know -- out to you, Bethany Marshall. You`re the shrink. We know that Jodi Arias beat her brother in the head with a baseball bat when she was 5. So frankly, I don`t know if the mother spanked her enough with that wooden spoon.

So that`s where we`re going with this defense, the wooden spoon defense?

BETHANY MARSHALL, PSYCHOANALYST: Oh, I would carry a spoon in my purse, too, if I was her mom! You know what? Nancy, the language she uses to describe the so-called abuse doesn`t even get close to what real victims of abuse sound like. She says, I felt betrayed. What child says they feel betrayed when a parent beats them? When an adult reports childhood abuse, they say, I felt like I was a bad person.

So clearly, she`s malingering the abuse. Malingering when you make up a fictitious incident to get out of some punishment. So it`s just a story.

GRACE: OK, let`s go back in the courtroom, Jodi Arias on the stand in her own defense.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARIAS: Well, so she was able to say this is really who he is so he could get identification. We finally figured that out and so...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let me interrupt. I want to make sure we`re clear here. Even after the incident that what you are describing as an isolated incident of violence, even after the point in time when you find him -- find letters that -- or evidence that he`s being unfaithful with you, and you come back from Costa Rica, you`re going to move on. You decided a romantic relationship isn`t going to work. Are we to understand...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: OK, according to her, every single boyfriend cheats on her! I`m seeing a recurring theme. He cheated on me, so I stabbed him to death.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ARIAS: ... he promised to cut ties with her and not have any contact with her anymore. And it was -- it wasn`t physical. It was on line only. She lived in Louisiana. And I think he was still talking to her, but he promised me, You`ll never have to see me talking to her. So it was implied that he might talk to her, but he`ll never do it in my presence. So it was kind of strange.

But -- and then again, the physical incident was isolated, so you know, if he need clothing, I would -- I didn`t, like, buy him a whole wardrobe. I didn`t have that kind of income. But if he needed a few shirts or something -- he was really into "South Park," so he saw these "South Park T-shirts one time and he wanted those. I bought them, a sweatshirt, jeans, that kind of thing, just some kind of clothing for him because his parents weren`t able to provide that at that point. They were in a rest home.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You told us that your dad hit you with a belt.

ARIAS: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: After age 7.

ARIAS: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did he leave welts?

ARIAS: He didn`t leave welts as often as my mom. She also used a belt. He -- my dad was very intimidating, so I don`t think he needed to hit us quite as hard to get the point across.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did -- did -- the beatings from your mother and father, did they continue?

ARIAS: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Whoa-oh! That was the question he didn`t know the answer to. He said, Did your father leave welts? And she said no. OK, that backfired.

So so far -- out to you, Jean Casarez -- Jean at the courthouse. Jean, I`ve got, Mommy hit me with a wooden spoon. I mean, think about it, Jean. If Jodi Arias was your daughter, I`d sleep with the door locked and a bulletproof vest with a collar around my neck, I`d be so afraid. So OK, Mommy spanked her with a wooden spoon and Daddy hit her with a belt but never left welts. And one night when she stayed out all night long, he slapped her.

All right, that`s what I understand so far. Did I miss something?

JEAN CASAREZ, "IN SESSION": Yes, that she said that he pushed her into the doorframe.

GRACE: That`s right.

CASAREZ: That was the worst he ever did, pushed her into the door molding. And -- but the welts she had testified before came from the wooden spoon.

GRACE: OK. So I did -- I recall that he did state -- she did state the father pushed her one time and she ran into -- she fell into the door molding.

All right, so far, this is what the defense is offering as a self- defense. They`re starting back before age 7 with her mother spanking her with a wooden spoon. I don`t know if that`s going to work.

Alexis Tereszcuk, senior reporter, Radaronline.com, a lot of ladies -- there`s mom sitting in the courtroom right now. Alexis, a lot of ladies and men on this jury probably have spanked their child with a lot worse than a wooden spoon.

Don`t get me wrong, Alexis. I`m trying not to spank the twins, have made it to age 5. Lucy`s only been spanked one time when she slapped John David. That`s it.

I don`t know if I could say the same if I was trying to raise Jodi Arias, who beat her brother in the head with a baseball bat.

ALEXIS TERESZCUK, RADARONLINE.COM: And it started out so explosively with the defense. The very first thing they said was, Did you kill Travis Alexander? And she said yes. And then they go into this back story when she was 7 years old and (INAUDIBLE) and she`s got the most detailed story I`ve ever heard of something that happened almost 20 years ago. I don`t know she`s remembering it all. She remembers the exact day that she broke up with a boyfriend when she was 15 years old.

They`re really giving a lot of information to this jury that has absolutely nothing to do with Travis Alexander.

GRACE: Unleash the lawyers. Parag Shah, defense attorney, Atlanta, Eric Schwartzreich, defense attorney, Miami.

Eric, we`re seeing a cycle here. It goes on and on, everybody she dates. And we started at what, what was it, at age 12 her first boyfriend at the ferris wheel or the whatever it was at the fair? Why am I hearing this? I don`t know.

But it goes all the way back, and every one of them were bad seeds. They all cheated. They did this. They did that. I heard more about her getting a spanking with a wooden spoon from her mother, which I`m sure she deserved, than I heard about her slashing her lover`s throat from ear to ear. Why is that, Eric?

ERIC SCHWARTZREICH, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Nancy, we`re taking that wooden spoon and we`re stirring the pot. Here`s the bottom line. She works at Denny`s, but this is their grand slam. She had to testify. The window was shrinking. There was so much going on in that courtroom, she had no choice but to get on the stand. And now you might lose a battle, but you need to win a war.

This is a death penalty case, Nancy. So she gets on there, she talks about her past. She talks about this wooden spoon, the abusive relationships, Mommy did this to me. And we`re hoping or the defense is hoping that some jurors find some connection with her.

She`s told more tales than Pinocchio, this girl.

GRACE: OK, Eric...

SCHWARTZREICH: But now she`s in the courtroom, Nancy, and they have to listen to her.

GRACE: You`re right. She better do a Hail Mary, Schwartzreich. And to you, Parag Shah. Here`s the deal. Having prosecuted child abuse and child molestation cases in the pits, in inner city Atlanta, for a decade, to me, child abuse is -- and this is from a parent that doesn`t spank yet - - burning the child with cigarettes, beating the child, chaining the child up, leaving bruises on the child. So far, I`ve heard a wooden spoon and Daddy slapped me when I stayed out all night, and one time he pushed me and I fell into a doorjamb.

OK, none of that is good. I`m not saying that`s good. But that is not going to carry a self-defense case. I`m just telling you, Parag.

PARAG SHAH, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, I think what`s going to happen is the testimony is going to build up to show a more severe type of abuse as her life continued on with these boyfriends. And that`s going to be the main emotional connection she`s going to try to need to make with the jury so that they don`t give her the death penalty.

GRACE: Parag, Parag, you and Eric, you both courtroom veterans. We all know that self-defense is objective. It is not subjective. It goes along with the eggshell skull theory in civil law, where the jury`s got to decide what`s reasonable to them. And because Mommy spanked her with a wooden spoon when she was 7, that`s not going to carry self-defense now when she stabs Travis Alexander 29 times, slashing his throat.

OK,let`s hear it from the horse`s mouth. Roll it, Liz.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you kill Travis Alexander on June 4th, 2008?

ARIAS: Yes, I did.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why?

ARIAS: The simple answer is that he attacked me and I defended myself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: Bombshell tonight. Jodi Arias, in her murder one trial, accused of slashing her lover to death, 29 stabs plus a gunshot wound to the head just for good measure, takes the stand in her own defense. Conventional wisdom -- never put your client on the stand. Well, they did it. It`s a Hail Mary pass.

Here`s the kicker. We`re hearing more about her Mommy spanking her with a wooden spoon than we are about the day she murdered her lover, 29 slashes with a butcher knife.

All right, take a look, Aaron Brehove. You`re the body language expert. This is a key moment in court. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you kill Travis Alexander on June 4th, 2008?

ARIAS: Yes, I did.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why?

ARIAS: The simple answer is that he attacked me and I defended myself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: All right, Aaron, to me, she was more believable on "48 Hours" when she said two ninjas dressed in black murdered Travis Alexander. That story was better than what she just did. She listened to the question, turns very stiffly to the jury and goes, Yes, I did, and turns back. He asked a question, she responds, I defended myself, and turns back, looking away from the jury.

I want to hear your thoughts, Aaron.

AARON BREHOVE, BODY LANGUAGE EXPERT (via telephone): Well, she`s been lying consistently. We saw her on the interviews, and she was believable there. And she`s less believable here, which is a surprise.

You`d expect to see a little bit of emotion at some point. And we see she just gets quiet. She wants to act like she`s been suppressed, she`s been hurt her whole life. And this is part of the act that she`s putting on. She`s a great actress, but she`s not doing that great of a job right now.

This is something she`s consistently lying (ph), and we don`t see anything really coming out. I can`t see any part of her testimony that you could really trust. And this is consistent. If she doesn`t start to become trustworthy and tell some -- tell some truths, she`s not going to be believable to anybody, as she`s not believable right now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARIAS: I know that I`m innocent. God knows I`m innocent. Travis knows I`m innocent. 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.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Now, that is Jodi Arias on "Inside Edition."

Everybody, Jodi Arias on the stand in her own defense. Now, this is what she said just moments ago regarding her vow that no jury would ever convict her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You gave an interview with "Inside Edition." Do you remember seeing that tape?

ARIAS: Yes, I do.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And in that tape, you said that no jury would convict you, something to that effect. Do you remember saying that -- remember saying that?

ARIAS: Yes, I did say that. 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. I didn`t expect to be here. So I could have easily said no jury would acquit me, either. I couldn`t say that, though, because there was an officer sitting...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: I call a BS on that one.

Liz, play me back "Inside Edition" one more time, please.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARIAS: I know that I`m innocent, God knows I`m innocent, Travis knows I`m innocent. No jury is going to convict me.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Why not?

ARIAS: Because I`m innocent. And you can mark my words on that one. No jury will convict me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Unleash the lawyers, Parag Shah, Eric Schwartzreich.

You know what, she sure pulled the tiger by the tail. You know when you have a tiger by the tail you can`t hold on and you can`t let go, and that`s just what she did because on "Inside Edition" which I hope the prosecution plays back, she says they will not convict me because I`m innocent, because everybody knows I`m innocent.

She did not say they`ll never convict me because I`m not going to be here for a jury trial. I`m going to be dead. I`m going to commit suicide. So she is totally busted herself, Schwartzreich.

ERIC SCHWARTZREICH, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: She has two ways to go. She can play the "I`m innocent" or she can say suicide. The issue with the suicide, Nancy, is we have some sympathy. Remember, there`s going to be a death penalty phase if there`s a conviction in this case. They hear that there`s remorse and that she feels sorry for what she did and notice how when she was asked, did you kill, not did you murder.

GRACE: That`s not what she said, Parag Shah. If you listen to what she said, I played it twice just so the two of you could hear it. She said no jury will convict me because I`m innocent, and she was smiling, actually laughing at the time. Did you see that? Do you have a monitor in your studio?

She said they`re not going to convict me because I`m innocent, and laughs, not because I`m contemplating suicide.

PARAG SHAH, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: If she acted in self-defense, then she is innocent.

GRACE: Yes. Well, that`s not what we`re talking about.

SHAH: So she`s fine. She`s innocent.

(CROSSTALK)

SHAH: She said she was innocent.

GRACE: Let`s talk to somebody that can make --

SHAH: And self-defense is innocence.

GRACE: OK. Thank you. Good deflect, guys.

Out to you, Jean Casarez, OK, let`s listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARIAS: I know that I`m innocent. God knows I`m innocent. Travis knows I`m innocent. No jury is going to convict me.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Why not?

ARIAS: Because I`m innocent and you can mark my words on that. No jury will convict me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: OK. She didn`t laugh. She is smiling.

Jean Casarez, do you see the conflict in her testimony when she actually said?

JEAN CASAREZ, LEGAL CORRESPONDENT, "IN SESSION": Watch out for cross- examination, Nancy. Watch out. Because that`s the first place Juan Martinez is going to go. There are numerous challenges here, Nancy. One has to do with the boyfriend by the name of Victor Arias. He lived in Costa Rica. She testified that he wouldn`t let her talk to guys. Wouldn`t let her out of his sight. Very possessive.

Well, that`s a controlling boyfriend, Nancy, right? Bordering on emotionally abusive. Do you know what she did? She e-mailed him, got him out of her life. Said I`m moving on. I can`t take this. She didn`t stay in an abusive relationship with this guy.

GRACE: We are taking your calls. We are at the courthouse.

Out to Maxine in California. Hi, Maxine. What`s your question, dear?

MAXINE, CALLER FROM CALIFORNIA: Hi, love you. You know the t-shirt and the shorts that`s got --

GRACE: Oh, yes.

MAXINE: -- his name on them.

GRACE: Yes.

MAXINE: OK. I`ll lay you odds that she bought those, had those picked up to entice him. She is a manipulator.

GRACE: Oh, Maxine, there`s more than that. More than that.

OK, everybody, here is your crazy, (INAUDIBLE) shot for the day. There`s Jodi Alexander`s underwear, her pink underwear and T-shirt that says, "Travis`" in the possessory manner. And "Travis Alexander`s" in the possessory manner.

But here is the crazy part, Jean Casarez, the photos that she took of those, weren`t they after he was murdered?

CASAREZ: Not only after he was murdered but a couple of days before she was arrested. That`s when the photo was taken that you`re looking at right now. But, Nancy, let`s go back to opening statements from the defense. They said to the jury, you will hear as evidence that Travis bought those for Jodi in April of 2008, and he gave them to her, and that`s after they had broken up.

GRACE: You see, that doesn`t even make any sense, Jean. And the fact that she is taking this picture well after she`s murdered him -- OK, Parag Shah and Eric Schwartzreich, I hate to pick on you guys, but she is claiming that he treated her as a possession. It seems to me she`s taking the -- she`s constructed this defense, Schwartzreich, and she`s taken these photos in the event that she gets arrested.

The photo that she took of these underwear in which he possessed her, the photos after she murders him.

SCHWARTZREICH: Nancy, you can give an aspirin a headache. But here`s the bottom line, Nancy.

GRACE: Thank you.

SCHWARTZREICH: You`re very welcome.

GRACE: I`ll take that as a compliment.

(LAUGHTER)

SCHWARTZREICH: It is a compliment to you, Nancy. But the bottom line is this. There -- they need to paint her -- they need to show that she is twisted, that she is sick, that there`s issues, that she`s abused, that she`s battered. You bloody the victim. That`s what they`re doing. They`re saying he purchased that. Travis Alexander`s underwear, he made the purchase, he`s controlling, he`s the bad guy. That`s what the defense is doing.

GRACE: OK. Matt Zarrell, you`ve been studying this all day long as we watched the testimony together. What did the underwear have to do with this whole self-defense theory?

MATT ZARRELL, NANCY GRACE STAFFER, COVERING STORY: Well, the idea the defense is trying to say is that Travis Alexander was controlling. The problem is as we`ve talked about is the evidence did not -- the photos were not being taken until over a month after the murder.

In fact, Nancy, the defense`s own expert admitted it appeared the photos was posed, that these images were staged.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hi, Jodi.

ARIAS: Hi.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How are you feeling right now?

ARIAS: Nervous.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, let me ask you this. Is this a position you ever thought you would find yourself in, testifying here today? Well, you`re speaking very quietly, are you nervous today?

ARIAS: Yes. Yes, I am.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What`s that?

ARIAS: Yes, very nervous.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Could you do me a favor and pull the mike a little closer to you?

Jodi, if you could, first of all, do us all a favor, again, I know it`s difficult. I know you`re nervous, you told us before.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Objection.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But if you could just speak up a little louder, make sure everybody can hear you, OK?

ARIAS: OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: How self-serving. You know, I would have been all over him like a cheap suit. That was totally objectionable.

Jean Casarez, not only legal correspondent but also practicing lawyer, Jean, to say how do you feel? Irrelevant. Irrelevant. Self-serving, number one. I would be on him like a cheap suit objecting every single time to stop the flow with Jodi Arias.

CASAREZ: Right.

GRACE: What was -- the defense attorney doesn`t know those type of questions are inadmissible?

CASAREZ: You know, Juan Martinez has objected but he is not disrupting that testimony like we`ve seen in the past. He`s letting it flow, but he`s sitting at that table, he`s got his pen in his hand listening intently as has been the jury. Not many notes from them. And I think he`s just waiting for that cross-examination. This is all about credibility, Nancy.

GRACE: Jean, I`ve got to tell you something, I believe the ninja story more than I believe the story she just told the jury. Looking at her, her demeanor, the way she said it, the way she looked -- she paused, looked at the jury, said, yes, I killed him. Looked away. Very robotically. It said I was just defending myself and looked back. Her story about the two -- the man and woman dressed in solid black, the ninja killers was more convincing than this.

Hey, Liz, let`s hear some courtroom.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How did Bobby treat you?

ARIAS: I thought he treated me well until I discovered that he was wasn`t being faithful.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. And when in your relationship did you discover that?

ARIAS: We had gone -- he was on party line a lot and he talked to this woman --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: OK, brace yourself. Jodi Arias is talking about yet another bad boyfriend that cheated on her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As it relates to your parents, how was your interest in art received? Did they encourage that? How did that - how was it received by your parents?

ARIAS: They didn`t discourage me by any means, but they were lukewarm, I`d say. You know, oh, that`s nice. They weren`t really moved by it, I don`t think. I was getting a lot of praise from my classmates and my art teacher and other people. But I didn`t really get that from them. They were just a little bit indifferent.

He wanted to move to San Francisco and he had all kinds of wild ideas, which were -- they seemed fun but they were just not where I was, so at that point I broke up with him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you mean wild ideas?

ARIAS: Well, he entertained the belief in vampires and he thought let`s go to San Francisco and see if we can find some real vampires. And, you know, I used to read Ann Rice novels at the time. It didn`t seem realistic to me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: OK. Matt Zarrell, yet another boyfriend seems to be the cause of all of her problems, but this one she says never cheated on her. What did he go online and look at a dating Web site or something like that? Now he`s the bad guy?

ZARRELL: Well, Nancy, you`ll be familiar with this term, love letters. We heard about letters with Travis Alexander and Jodi Arias. Arias alleges that he -- she discovered her boyfriend at the time was sending love letters to this girl that she -- that he desired.

GRACE: OK. And the point is? Where -- how is that -- how is that going to tie in to stabbing Travis Alexander 29 times? Her old boyfriend sends somebody else a love letter. Help me out, Matt.

ZARRELL: Well, I guess the idea is that person treated Arias bad but didn`t attack Arias like Travis Alexander attacked Arias in the shower.

GRACE: OK. Dr. Bethany Marshall, this is all just a big setup. She is going through every boyfriend. I think we went back to age 5, the first time she ever rode a Ferris wheel with somebody or some ride at the fair. And they`re all bad boyfriends, according to her they all cheat. They`re all horrible. They`re all bad relationships, but how is that getting me one inch closer to a valid self-defense?

BETHANY MARSHALL, PSYCHOANALYST, AUTHOR OF "DEALBREAKERS": Well, it`s a good question. The defense is trying so hard to portray her as someone who is vulnerable with no capacity to protect herself, lost in life, victim to a string of really bad boyfriends who cheated on her. But because her affect is so flat and she`s so steely and such a poor actress, what she is coming off as is as someone who will throw everybody under the bus, someone who is toxic, who poisons other people`s reputations, and these jurors are going to listen to this story and they`re going to think of somebody in their life who told untrue, poisonous, toxic stories about them because we all know somebody like that, somebody who stabs you in the back when you walk out of the room.

So they`re also going to think she`s so acting -- she`s so worldly. I mean, who knows about those 800 or 900 numbers when you are in your late teens?

GRACE: Bethany, I just wonder what these boyfriends went through. I would love if the prosecution dug a couple of them up. I wonder if she slashed their tires, stalked them, broke into their e-mail account. I think there was one named bobby where she was reading his e-mails and found something that she found to be objectionable. Hold on.

Let`s take some calls. To Greg in Arizona. Hi, Greg. What`s your question?

GREG, CALLER FROM ARIZONA: Hi, Nancy. How are you doing?

GRACE: Good, dear.

GREG: I have two questions.

GRACE: OK.

GREG: Are they just going to toss away the gun thing just like they`re tossing away the, oh, I want to commit suicide or I`m going to commit suicide and that`s why I said no jury is going to convict me? Are they going to say that, oh, I had the gun because I was battered and I was going to use it for protection and that takes away from premeditation? I mean -- and also where`s the --

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: Go ahead.

GREG: And also where is the body language expert? She looks like she`s a narrator, she`s an animated narrator playing with her hand, she -- you know, she`s totally coached.

GRACE: Completely coached. Completely coached. And, you know, another thing I noticed, out to you, Jean Casarez and to you, Aaron Brehove, body language expert.

First to you, Jean. You know, she cried all the way through the trial but she is like a robot on the stand trying to tell the story.

CASAREZ: So far. So far. Until we get to the part about Travis, right? And you know, devil`s in the details, Nancy, as you taught me many, many years ago with one of these boyfriends at least she admitted she was very jealous, that emotion she admits to.

GRACE: And what about it, Aaron? Jean`s confirming it. She cried at the drop of a hat --

AARON BREHOVE, VOICE ANALYSIS AND BODY LANGUAGE EXPERT: Well, I think it`s a great --

(CROSSTALK)

GRACE: -- throughout the trial but now she is testifying like she`s a mannequin in Sachs Fifth Avenue.

BREHOVE: So, yes, you can see that she`s very coached. And she`s a good actress but she doesn`t bring any emotion then. She states things very calmly, she`s comfortable telling these lies. There`s no emotion there. That`s what everybody sees here. That`s why it seems so odd to everybody.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARIAS: My mom didn`t carry fear factor with her so I think she`s more forced. So her blows felt a lot worse actually.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Physically or emotionally?

ARIAS: Both.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: In that Phoenix, Arizona, courtroom, Jodi Arias on the stand in her own defense.

We are taking your calls. Straight out to Beth Karas.

Beth, what a bombshell day in the courtroom. Jodi Arias on the stand. What did you make of her demeanor?

BETH KARAS, LEGAL CORRESPONDENT, IN SESSION (via phone): Well, let me tell you, first of all, Nancy, after the witness before her finished and court was in like a little hiatus, a little break, I see -- you know, there`s a side bar, and then I see Jodi wander up to the stand and I thought, are they going to say something to her like out of the jury`s presence what`s going on?

Then I realized, oh, no, she`s actually testifying. So it caught all of us by surprise because so many times the defendant will testify at the end of the defense case. But she`s testifying before her expert so her experts can now rely on all the things she`s going to say and it won`t be inappropriate hearsay for them to have said it because she will have testified. So that`s why they put her on first.

Her demeanor, she is very calm. And she has such a recall of detail. Pay close attention when she gets cross-examined. If she continues to have this kind of recall on detail or if she`s going to all of a sudden start to forget things or not remember things. Pay close attention.

GRACE: You know what, Beth, that`s so true. Very often when I would cross-examine a defendant or co-defendant, they would have a great recall until it got to the moment of the crime and then suddenly they were looking the other way, or they don`t remember, it`s just a big blur, I`ve heard that more than once.

Now, Beth, she seems to be testifying very robotically. This is a person that cried at the photo of a dog. All right? And she is -- she is stone cold looking at that jury.

KARAS: She is. And you know what? There was a break in the afternoon in the middle of her testimony. It was the afternoon court break 20, 30 minutes. Her testimony was a little different before and after the break. She looked at the jury after the break. She wasn`t looking at them as much when she was answering the questions. After the break, she was. She`d look at her lawyer for the question and she`d look at the jury as she answered. That was a marked difference I noticed in the afternoon.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GRACE: We remember American hero, Marine Sergeant John Rankel, 23, Speedway, Indiana, Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Afghanistan Campaign Medal, parents Trisha and Kevin. Step parents Don and Kim, brothers Tyler and Nathan,

John Rankel, American hero.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ARIAS: It was a wooden kitchen spoon that she would keep in her purse. If we were misbehaving, she would use it on us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 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.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GRACE: Feeling betrayed after her mom spanked her with a wooden spoon, just to put that in context.

Out to Lakeesha in Virginia. Hi, Lakeesha. What`s your question, dear?

LAKEESHA, CALLER FROM VIRGINIA: Hello, Nancy, how are you doing?

GRACE: I`m good.

LAKEESHA: I`m calling, I want to ask a question. You know, Jodi Arias, when she was going to her interview with Detective Flores and she said, well, Travis never hit me, Travis never abused me, he never put his hands on me, he never hurt me emotionally, but I did hurt him emotionally. So how are you going to claim self-defense? How can you call that? That`s to me, that`s not self-defense.

GRACE: Lakeesha, that`s what I`m saying. So if he never abused her in all that time that they were actually dating and then on that day up until about 50 seconds before he was stabbed and down, there was no attack.

So you`re telling me, Beth Karas, in about the defense says -- in about 50 seconds, he attacks her so violently that she runs and gets a knife and a gun and comes out and he`s dead, all of the attack, the running and getting a knife, the gun, and the death all happens in 50 seconds, that`s impossible.

KARAS: Impossible. She had to have had both weapons with her. At least the gun with her. They may say the knife was there anyway because the defense is claiming he had tied her up with some silk rope. But there was no rope found there. There were little pieces consistent with tassels from the pillows that were found in various places in the bedroom on the stairs. But she had to have gone in there with the knife and the gun close by.

GRACE: Beth Karas, Jean Casarez, at the courthouse, Alexis Tereszcuk, what a day in the courtroom.

Everybody, "DR. DREW" up next. I`ll see you tomorrow night 8:00 sharp Eastern, and until then, good night, friend.

END