Jodi Arias Jury's Questions Suggest Doubt Over Investigation

Jan. 16, 2013— -- Jurors in the Jodi Arias murder trial asked questions today suggesting they had doubts about the investigation into the murder of her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander.

Arizona is one of only three states that allow jury members to pose questions to witnesses after prosecutors and attorneys have finished their questioning.

Today, on the eighth day of Arias' trial in Maricopa County, the jury had several questions for the lead detective in the murder investigation.

The jury submitted multiple handwritten questions to Judge Sherry Stephens after the testimony of Detective Esteban Flores of the Mesa, Ariz., police department:

"When interviewing Mr. Alexander's roommates, did they ever show concern for his extended absence?"

"Did you ever check into their alibis?"

"Did Mr. Alexander have another boarder living in the house (and) were fingerprints of the boarder taken to see if they matched the scene?"

The questions suggested that the jury has not completely bought the prosecutions' argument that Arias, a jealous ex-girlfriend, drove to Alexander's house in 2008 and had sex with him before stabbing him 27 times and shooting him. His body was found five days later.

Arias faces the death penalty if convicted.

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Arias has admitted to killing Alexander, but told police it was in self defense. She initially lied to investigators about Alexander's death, saying at first that she was not in Arizona when Alexander was killed and, later, that she was there and witnessed intruders kill Alexander, according to interrogation tapes played in court this week.

But the jury remained doubtful, according to the questions they submitted after Detective Esteban Flores had finished his testimony today. Flores was the lead detective who spent hours interviewing Arias and encouraging her to confess to the murder.

The questions focused on whether police had investigated any other suspects before landing on Arias, asking about Alexander's two roommates and whether they noticed he hadn't been seen around the house for multiple days.

"They believed he was in Mexico already," Flores responded, referring to a trip to Cancun Alexander had planned to take shortly after the time of the killing.

The jury asked about the roommates' whereabouts during the attack.

"One was working, and the other was staying at his girlfriend's home, house sitting for her parents," Flores said.

He also said police analyzed the blood and handprints found at the scene of the crime, which matched Arias', and found that there were no matches to either of the roommates.

The questions came after eight days of evidence and testimony from the prosecution showing that Arias lied about her involvement with Alexander and his death. The defense has yet to call its own witnesses or lay out an alternate theory for Alexander's death.

Earlier in the day, they argued that Arias requested an inconspicuous rental car for her road trip to kill ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander, flipped the license plates upside down, and returned it with "Kool-Aid"-colored stains and missing floor mats, prosecutors said in court today.

In a police interview a month later, Arias repeatedly denied killing Alexander or being in his hometown, and asked cops if they could check the red light cameras near his home, noting that they could capture her license plate number. She also suggested that they search the rental car she had used for evidence.