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CNN Live Event/Special
"Murder First Degree: Inside the Arias Trial"
Aired May 11, 2013 - 21:00 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: Hello. I'm Randi Kaye.
It was a shocking trial, revealing details of sex, stalking and secrets. Now, five years after Jodi Arias killed her boyfriend, after four months of riveting testimony, we have a verdict -- guilty of first-degree murder.
Tonight, watch the testimony, weigh the evidence yourself, and you decide whether you agree or disagree with the jury's decision and whether Jodi deserves the death penalty.
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, it could cost Jodi Arias hers. She faces the death penalty.
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.
VID 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: And a normal healthy life was something Travis had wanted desperately since growing up in Riverside, California.
HOGAN: Travis' childhood was full of poverty, neglect, physical violence.
HUGHES: His parents were both addicted to drugs. And so, he wasn't raised by his parents. He was eventually -- his grandmother is the one that raised him. But, yes, it was a tough upbringing.
KAYE: Jodi, too, has said she didn't have it easy growing up, that she was no stranger to abuse.
HOGAN: She grew up being very artistic. She played the flute. She had a lot of brothers and sisters and was very close with them all. So Jodi's childhood was fairly ideal compared to Travis', but she does describe like incidences of physical violence.
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 is 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.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God.
911 OPERATOR: Nine-one-one emergency.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A friend of ours is dead in his bedroom. We hadn't heard from him for a while. His roommates just went in there and said there's lots of blood.
KAYE: Travis' body had nearly 29 stab marks, including the slash across his neck from ear-to-ear. There was a .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?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 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, 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.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 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.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 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.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In just those two minutes, Jodi had to make a choice. She would either live or she would die.
POLITAN: In a death penalty case, you want sympathy. You need an explanation for the defendant's actions and what they did.
KAYE: The defense's explanation was to blame the victim.
KARAS: 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.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In your religion, is premarital sex allowed?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did Travis claim to be a virgin?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, he did.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did he seem happy to be a virgin?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And did he seem proud?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
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 are hot. Start touching yourself.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When you hear this call, it's -- it's crucial to understand the difference, the difference between the type of person that Travis portrayed himself to be versus the things that he said on this recorded call.
ALEXANDER: That was so hot. That actually sounded like -- the way you moan there, it sounds like, it sounds like you're a 12-year- old girl having her first orgasm. That's so hot.
KAYE: Jodi's attorneys argue that Travis was just the last in a long line of people, family and boyfriends, who had physically and mentally abused Jodi.
KARAS: It appears their strategy was that everything that happened in her life from her childhood and through all of the relationships with men culminated in this killing.
KIRK NURMI, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Your life was pretty ideal up until about age 7. Was something different after age 7 or --
ARIAS: I think that is the first year my dad started using a belt.
KAYE: Jodi told the court that her brawny father inflicted great pain.
ARIAS: As I became a teenager, my dad would get rougher and rougher. He would just shove me into furniture, sometimes into the piano or things like that, into tables, desks, chairs, whatever was around. He would just push me really hard and I would go flying into that.
KAYE: And with her mother looking on from the front row, Jodi also accused her of being abusive.
ARIAS: My mom began to carry a wooden spoon in her purse. If we were misbehaving, she would use it on us.
NURMI: What do you mean by use it on you?
ARIAS: She would hit us with it.
NURMI: She hit you hard?
ARIAS: It felt pretty hard, yes.
KAYE: 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 phone): 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.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 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.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 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 asking 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 out 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.
JANEEN DEMARTE, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: I conducted the four tests we've already discussed.
MARTINEZ: And after that, did you have an opinion as to what the diagnosis was in this case?
DEMARTE: After looking at that, taking into consideration her behavioral observations and all of the different pieces of information that I had, yes, I did.
MARTINEZ: And what was that?
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.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 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.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 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.
POLITAN: Juan Martinez closing arguments, clear theme is manipulation. That Jodi Arias manipulates everybody, including the members of the jury by lying to them. Lying to Travis. Lying to investigators. That's a theme throughout.
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.
POLITAN: Single count against Jodi Arias, first-degree murder. If they don't find first degree, they can go down to second degree. If there's no premeditation, if they find it was done in the heat of passion, then it's manslaughter. Or if they believe self-defense, then it's not guilty.
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. Juan Martinez convinced 12 people that it was her attacking him, that she planned it, it was her idea and she executed it.
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: Minutes after the verdict, Jodi would do more talking, this time with a local TV station.
REPORTER: Just a couple of minutes ago, you heard the verdict from the jury. What are your thoughts?
ARIAS: I think I just went blank. It was unexpected, for me, yes, because there was no premeditation on my part.
POLITAN: I've prosecuted cases. I've been covering the nation's biggest trials for more than a decade. I've never seen this. You've just been convicted of first-degree murder and the first thing you do, you don't huddle with your lawyers, you don't talk to your mom.
KAYE: Jodi talked about her possible death sentence.
ARIAS: I said years ago that I'd rather get death than life and that still is true today. I believe death is the ultimate freedom. So, I'd rather just have my freedom as soon as I can get.
POLITAN: She's saying, I'd rather die than spend life in prison.
KAYE: That's up to the jury to decide.
POLITAN: Well, next for Jodi Arias is sitting in front of those same 12 jurors, the eight men and four women who found that she premeditated the killing of Travis Alexander and they're going to decide whether or not she lives or dies.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Juror number two, is this your true verdict?
JUROR NUMBER TWO: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Juror number three, is this your true verdict?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAYE: Welcome back. There you have it, a first-degree murder conviction against Jodi Arias. But the arguments don't end there. Now, the prosecution will attempt to prove the murder was especially cruel and warrants the death penalty. More witnesses will be called and victim impact statements given. The defense may offer its own witnesses and offer the jury reason to spare Jodi's life.
Stay tuned to CNN for the latest developments. I'm Randi Kaye. Thanks for watching.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
