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Arizona boyfriend killing: Jodi Arias' murder trial still focused on sex

PHOENIX -- Jodi Arias acknowledged Wednesday during her Arizona murder trial that she enjoyed, even instigated, raunchy sex acts with the victim contrary to previous testimony that he coerced her to perform them, at times making her feel like a prostitute.

Under aggressive questioning by prosecutor Juan Martinez, Arias said she was blossoming sexually and the couple's antics were helping her grow.

Martinez has been working to poke holes in her stories and has noted the duplicity of her portrayal of Travis Alexander, trying to show jurors she is lying, as he works for a first-degree murder conviction and the death penalty.

Arias has said throughout the trial that Alexander coerced her into performing raunchy sex acts, while phone recordings played for jurors and text messages shown in court seem to indicate that she enjoyed participating.

"So when you tell us you felt like a prostitute it seems to be contradictory?" Martinez noted.

Arias said he is misunderstanding the context of the text messages and calls, during which one segment played for jurors has Arias telling Alexander, "You are amazing. Seriously, you made me feel like a goddess."

Martinez noted the call, which Arias recorded, came shortly after one of the encounters Arias claimed made her feel like Alexander was using her for sex.

"You were actually into it as much as he was, right?" Martinez asked.

"Yes," Arias said.

Martinez then read for jurors salacious text messages between Arias and Alexander, one of which has Arias describing how she wanted to be treated "like a dirty little schoolgirl."

She previously testified that was just one of Alexander's "deviant" sexual fantasies that made her uncomfortable.

"You did enjoy dressing up though, right?" Martinez asked.

"Um, yes," Arias replied.

"It was a consensual mutual relationship sexually speaking, wasn't it?" Martinez prodded.

"Yes, always," Arias said.

"No indication that you were offended?" the prosecutor continued.

"Correct," Arias replied.

Martinez also questioned Arias over her repeated lies to authorities, friends and family in the days after she killed Alexander. She first claimed to know nothing about the killing, then later blamed it on intruders, providing descriptions of the attack by two masked people in several media interviews. She eventually settled on self-defense. She was too ashamed and frightened of the consequences to be truthful, she told jurors.

Martinez noted that even her lies were changing as she spoke to various media organizations.

"I couldn't keep my stories straight," Arias said.

The prosecutor also noted how Arias has alternately described Alexander as a cheating womanizer, an angry man with a violent temper who once choked her into unconsciousness, while simultaneously a caring, loving boyfriend.

Arias is charged in the June 2008 death of Alexander in his suburban Phoenix home. She says she dated him for about five months before breaking up but continued to see him for sex up until the day she killed him. She was forced to fight for her life after Alexander attacked her, she said, but police say she planned the killing in a jealous rage.

Arias has said Alexander invited her to his Mesa home on the day of the killing for sex. His body was found about five days later. He had been shot in the head, suffered 27 stab and slash wounds and his throat was slit.

Of the day of Alexander's death, Arias says he was in a rage, body-slamming her and chasing her around his home.

She said she grabbed a gun from his closet, and fired it as they tussled, but doesn't recall stabbing him. She said she remembers putting a knife in the dishwasher and disposing of the gun in the desert as she drove from Arizona to see a man in Utah, where she spent the night in his bed as she worked to create an alibi and avoid suspicion. She even attended Alexander's memorial service about 10 days later.

Arias' grandparents reported a .25 caliber handgun stolen from their Northern California house about a week before the killing -- the same caliber used to shoot Alexander -- but Arias says she knows nothing about the burglary and brought no weapons to his home.

Posted: 03/03/2013 02:51:58 AM PST
March 3, 2013 10:53 AM GMTUpdated: 03/03/2013 02:51:59 AM PST


Leonard Cohen never gets old.

I mean that both literally and figuratively. As far as the latter goes, I'd already seen Cohen five times in recent years. Yet, I still was counting down the days until I could see him again on Saturday at the Paramount Theatre, during the first half of a two-night stand at the beautiful downtown Oakland venue.

The result was the same as ever: It was an incredible pleasure to witness Cohen sing such musical masterpieces as "Tower of Song," "Bird on the Wire" and "Dance Me to the End of Love." His performance was every bit as strong as the one seen by fans (including me) back in November at the HP Pavilion in San Jose.

The added bonus, of course, was that this performance wasn't at a hockey arena. No knock on the Pavilion, which is a fine place to see shows, but Cohen's greatness is certainly magnified in an intimate theater setting.

His songbook -- which truly ranks as one of the finest in popular music history -- is downright timeless. Yet, the singer himself is proving to be just as ageless a wonder.

Sure, technically speaking, this Canadian legend is 78-years old. Yet, he sure didn't act like a man approaching 80 as he poured his heart, soul and remarkable energy into his generous set. He took the stage right after 8 p.m. and was still there as the clock ticked past 11:30 p.m.

As the concert drew to a close, with such significant offerings as "I'm Your Man," "So Long, Marianne" and "First

We Take Manhattan," Cohen was still going strong, working the stage with passion and delivering his words with gusto. Bruce Springsteen could take a listen from this guy.

I can hardly wait for my next dance with Cohen.

Follow Jim Harrington at http://twitter.com/jimthecritic, http://www.facebook.com/jim.bayareanews and http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/category/concerts.

Lord Jim wrote:From the clips I've seen her behavior on the stand has been very strange...

She seems to smirk very inappropriately, (though all of a sudden for the first time in the trial at the end of last week, she started crying; as though she had been told this was something she ought to do.) and I also think that the defense may have gone too far in changing her appearance; yes, you always want your client (especially a woman in a case as lurid as this one) to look more conservative and reserved for court, but they went so far with the "librarian look" it could turn off jurors by looking like a really cynical ploy....(The jury has seen plenty of photos of how she appeared prior to this)

Character witness for Jodi Arias pulls out, citing threats and inner turmoil

By Diana Alvear and Erin McClam, NBC News

A woman who planned to testify as a character witness for Jodi Arias in a bid to spare her life decided Monday that she couldn’t go through with it, saying she had received death threats and was deeply conflicted about the case.

Lawyers for Arias, who was convicted earlier this month of the frenzied murder of an ex-lover, quickly asked for a mistrial in the sentencing phase on the grounds that a witness had been intimidated. The judge denied the request.

The potential witness, Patricia Womack, is a childhood friend of Arias who planned to testify about Arias’ abusive childhood. Besides the threats, she said that her heart went out to the family of Travis Alexander, whom Arias was convicted of killing.

“I couldn’t do it,” she told NBC News in an email. “I feel there is so much good in Jodi to be saved but then also someone’s dear life was taken.”

Court abruptly adjourned for the day after lawyers for Arias said they had no witnesses to call. It remained possible that jurors in the sentencing phase would hear from Arias herself, perhaps Tuesday.

Karen DeSoto, a defense lawyer and legal analyst for MSNBC, said there were ways of overcoming Womack’s feelings of intimidation.

“If she really is scared, then turn the cameras off,” she said. “There’s a lot of ways to cure whether somebody can testify. Clear the courtroom.”

After the judge, Sherry Stephens of Maricopa County Superior Court, denied the mistrial request, lawyers for Arias asked to be taken off the case. The judge denied that request as well.

Arias, 32, was found guilty May 8 of first-degree murder. She admitted to killing Alexander after a day of sex. She shot him in the face, stabbed him more than 20 times and slit his throat ear to ear. At trial, she claimed self-defense.

Jurors, after hearing tearful statements from Alexander’s brother and sister, ruled that Arias had been “especially cruel,” a finding that made her eligible for the death penalty under Arizona law. The same jury is considering whether to sentence her to death.

Arias was briefly put on suicide watch after the conviction. Hours after the verdict, she told an Arizona TV station that she would rather get death than life and that death was the “ultimate freedom.”

Sheriff’s officials said Monday that Arias had been returned to the regular population at the county women’s jail after spending five days on suicide watch in a psychiatric ward, The Arizona Republic reported.

where she spent the night in his bed as she worked to create an alibi