Jodi Arias: 'No Jury Will Convict Me' for Murdering Ex-Boyfriend
Jodi Arias is charged with stabbing her ex-boyfriend to death in 2008.
Jan. 10, 2013— -- The jury in the Jodi Arias murder trial watched a television interview today in which Arias said "no jury will convict me" for killing her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander.
Arias added that she could never imagine committing such a violent act as killing Alexander.
"I understand all the evidence is really compelling," she said in the interview. "In a nutshell, two people came in and killed Travis. I've never even shot a gun. That's heinous. I can't imagine slitting anyone's throat."
She went on to tell the interviewer, "No jury will convict me and you can mark my words on that. ... I am innocent."
Arias made the statements to the television show "Inside Edition" after she was indicted for murdering Alexander. Months later, she would confess to killing him in his Mesa, Ariz., home and say it was in self-defense.
Jodi Arias Murder Trial: Full Coverage
Photos of Key Players and Evidence in the Jodi Arias Murder Trial
The tape was played on the fifth day of testimony in Arias' trial, in which police allege that she carried out the murder with such brutal force that she stabbed Alexander 27 times, slashed his throat from ear to ear, and shot him in the head.
Arias, now 32, has claimed Alexander was a controlling and abusive "sexual deviant" who she was forced to kill in self-defense.
She could face the death penalty if convicted of Alexander's murder.
The defense petitioned the court to declare a mistrial at the end of testimony today, but the request was denied by Judge Sherry Stephens. Arias' attorneys claimed that testimony presented by Det. Esteban Flores about whether Arias shot Alexander first or at the end of the attack was different from his earlier testimony and, therefore, affected whether Arias was "especially cruel" during the killing -- but Stephens denied that it had any effect.
The jury also watched as dozens of photos of blood-spattered walls, flooring, stained carpets and blood smeared sink were explained in detail by a forensic analyst from the Mesa Police Department, who noted that on many of the stains water had been mixed with the blood and diluted it.
The prosecution has alleged that Arias tried to wash away the evidence of the killing with water.
Prosecutors spent much of today and Wednesday using Arias' recorded statements and other testimony to prove that she lied about her relationship with Alexander, where she was when Alexander was killed, and even where she worked as a bartender.
The testimony today suggested that Arias lied to her new boyfriend Ryan Burns about working at a bar called Margaritaville in her hometown of Yreka, Calif.
"Is there any restaurant in Yreka called Margaritaville? Has there ever been?" prosecutor Juan Martinez asked Nathaniel Mendes, a former detective with the Siskiyou County Sheriff's Office in California.
"No, sir," Mendes replied.
Mendes testified that Arias worked at a restaurant called Casa Ramos in Yreka, not a bar called Margaritaville, as she told Burns.
Mendes also went over receipts showing that Arias rented a car the day before she killed Alexander, and noted that she went to a rental outfit 90 miles from her hometown despite two businesses that rented cars in Yreka.
Arias told friends and investigators that she rented a car to go on a road trip to visit Burns, in West Jordan, Utah, on June 3, 2008. She showed up at Burns' house a day late with cuts on her hands, but told Burns that she got lost driving and that the cuts were from broken glass at her Margaritaville bartending job, according to Burns' testimony Wednesday.
The trail of receipts showed that Arias drove from California to Alexander's hometown of Mesa, Ariz., on Tuesday, June 4, 2008.
There, the pair had sex and took sexually graphic photos of one another, according to photographs and the opening statement of Arias' lawyer. Shortly after the tryst, Arias killed Alexander, both sides agree.
Burns testified that Arias never mentioned going to Alexander's house when she arrived at his home in Utah. He said he did not know that Arias and Alexander were still sexually involved, and that she told him they had broken up.
When she arrived at his home 24 hours after killing Alexander, she seemed "normal," he said. The pair kissed and cuddled, and went out with Burns' friends, where she laughed and made conversation.
Prosecutors have played recorded phone conversations between detectives and Arias in the weeks after Alexander's body was found. She could be heard apparently lying multiple times to investigators as they asked about the last time she spoke with Alexander and her trip to Utah.
