Original subtitles

♪♪

I didn't commit a murder. I didn't hurt Travis.

I would never hurt Travis.

I would never harm him physically.

I may have hurt him emotionally, and I'll always regret that.

♪♪

♪♪

Hey, everyone.

Welcome to "How It Really Happened."

I'm Hill Harper.

On January 2nd, 2013,

the sensational murder trial of Jodi Arias finally begins.

It had been more than 4 years since Travis Alexander

was found brutally murdered in his Mesa, Arizona, home.

Was Jodi Arias the victim of an abusive boyfriend

who attacked her and forced her to defend herself,

or was she an obsessed and vengeful lover

who planned to murder Travis for dumping her?

The graphic details of their sex-fueled relationship

were about to be revealed to a captivated worldwide audience.

Tonight, the case against Jodi Arias.

Here's "How It Really Happened."

♪♪

Velez-Mitchell: On the evening of June 9th, 2008,

Mimi Hall, a friend who was supposed to go

to Cancún with Travis Alexander

goes to Travis' house and knocks on his door.

Where is Travis Alexander?

Nobody's seen him in days.

Nobody's answering the door. She can't get in.

Other friends show up.

Velez-Mitchell: They all go in through the garage,

and they get into the house,

and right away they notice something smells kind of funny.

Skoloff: There is blood everywhere,

blood trail leading from the bedroom

down the hallway into the bathroom.

Velez-Mitchell: Travis' roommate sees Travis Alexander

dead, slumped in a crumpled heap in the shower stall.

Oh, my God! 911 emergency.

Yes. Okay, what's going on?

A friend of ours is dead in his bedroom.

His roommate just went in there and said there's lots of blood.

As the 911 call goes on, the operator's asking,

"Do you know anyone who could possibly want to hurt Travis,

who could possibly do this to Travis?"

Has he been threatened by anyone recently?

Yes, he has.

He has an ex-girlfriend that's been bothering him

and following him and slashing tires and things like that.

And do you know the ex-girlfriend's name?

And the response on the end of the line is,

"Yes, her name is Jodi."

♪♪

Dave Hall: I thought at first, "There's no way

that could do it because she's 110 pounds.

He's solid muscle, great shape.

She couldn't have done it."

The murder was beyond brutal.

It was savage.

It was rage. It was passionate.

It was disturbed.

Travis Alexander was essentially killed three times.

Stabbed straight in the heart, stabbed in the back.

His throat was slit.

And there's a shot to the forehead.

Skoloff: Things started to move pretty quickly

once the evidence starts coming back in.

There's evidence that somebody had tried

to clean up the crime scene.

Hogan: In the master bedroom,

the sheets and comforter are off the bed.

Skoloff: They had been washed, and there's a digital camera

in there as well that had been washed.

They managed to extract deleted photos from the memory card

that was in the digital camera.

They are shockers.

They are the murder before, during, and after.

Skoloff: You could see Travis, a portion of his body,

bloodied on the floor, and you see a foot,

which is not too far of a leap for the detective

to eventually determine that that's Jodi's foot,

and that's Travis being murdered.

A grand jury is convened

and indicts Jodi for first-degree murder,

and within a week, detectives are up in California

placing her under arrest.

There were three stories that Jodi Arias said.

Number one, that she wasn't there, knew nothing about it.

Number two, that she was there, but it was two masked intruders

that came and murdered Travis in cold blood.

And number three, she did it.

She was there.

But it was all in self-defense

because she believed that he was going to kill her.

Jodi Arias had a pretty idyllic upbringing.

She was just fun and happy.

Skoloff: She was raised by loving parents

who ran a restaurant up in California.

Patti: Growing up with Jodi, she was the kind of girl

that you just always wanted to be around.

She's just the sweetest thing,

and she was a great friend to have.

Gentle, demure, intelligent,

all perfect words to describe a young Jodi Arias.

There was nothing strange about Jodi when she was a kid.

Skoloff: As she grew older, from friends,

family, ex-boyfriends, it did become apparent that

while she was still this sort of sweet, gentle young woman,

she had some odd tendencies to be very jealous

and would lash out.

She always had to be with a guy.

She was a relationship chameleon.

She would kind of alter her personality

based on the guy she was dating

and really kind of form her life around them.

Jodi was -- she was sort of lost.

She didn't really know who she was,

who she wanted to be, and was sort of searching for herself.

Hogan: While she had big dreams, she wanted to be an artist,

she actually supported herself as a waitress.

Casarez: She was working in a restaurant,

and someone told her about prepaid legal,

which was a way that she could make other income,

so she was given CDs.

She listened to them.

She liked the idea,

and that led her to the convention in Las Vegas

where she met Travis Alexander.

Skoloff: A handsome young man who was an up-and-comer

in his business who was smart, who was nice to her,

who was just everything Jodi had been looking for in a man,

and she latched onto him, and she was not going to let go.

♪♪

Casarez: They really hit it off.

They start to have a long-distance relationship.

They are hot and heavy.

She even converts to the Mormon faith,

but somewhere along the line, it all turns around

and becomes an extremely toxic relationship.

There were plenty of signs that Jodi was not a good girlfriend.

Velez-Mitchell: Travis falls asleep, and she sees his cell phone,

and she takes it and starts looking at it and snooping,

and she discovers that he has communications

with some other women.

Skoloff: Travis started seeing some odd things in her,

this obsessive, jealous behavior,

and broke it off with Jodi.

There were a lot of fights.

There was breakup sex. There were more fights.

There was more breakup sex.

Pinsky: She's sort of a love addict,

he's sort of the sex addict.

They are engaged in that addictive dance.

Abdelhadi: They'd have a break, and he was dating

somebody else for a minute,

and then they'd get back together.

I'd just keep saying the same thing over --

"Well, go meet another guy."

But then she would say things like, "But I love him.

And if I can't have his babies, I don't know what I'll do.

If I can't have him, I don't know what I'll do."

♪♪

Hogan: They were off and on for quite a while,

and then after Travis broke up with Jodi

and it seemed like it was really over

and he started to move on,

Jodi got the notion that she was going to move to Mesa.

Who breaks up with somebody and then moves across

state lines from California into Arizona

and takes up residence 10 minutes from the person

she just broke up with?

Is this normal?

Many would say yes,

that a long-distance relationship doesn't work,

and so then they move to the same city

and then they see if it's going to work.

Skoloff: Here's this gorgeous young bombshell

who just wants to have sex and do whatever he wants,

whenever he wants it.

Velez-Mitchell: All his friends that I spoke with

said that Jodi became like a drug for Travis,

and because she was in the vicinity

and because she was willing to come over late at night,

he would have sex with her,

and that was their relationship.

Skoloff: But Jodi was never going to be the person

that Travis looked to marry.

He's starting to see other women.

He wants to look for that Mrs. Right,

that perfect Mormon woman,

but he cannot pull himself away from the sex

and the fun he's having with Jodi on the side.

He kept her his dirty little secret throughout that period.

♪♪

Casarez: Having moved to Mesa,

Jodi's erratic behavior just seemed to intensify.

It became scary and a little creepy.

Travis Alexander was being stalked by Jodi Arias.

She starts breaking in and sorting through his drawers.

She snuck into his house through the doggy door.

Hogan: At one point when he starts dating another girl,

she is caught looking through his window watching them kiss.

Skoloff: Travis was in his house one night with another woman

he was seeing and came out

and found that his tires had been slashed on his car.

Everybody assumed it was Jodi.

It was all this odd behavior that was happening

that really should have been many, many red flags for Travis

to just put a complete end to it.

There's a break in their relationship.

Jodi moves back to Northern California.

A few months go by.

They rekindle through social media, e-mail, text, flirting.

Skoloff: But it just appeared Travis couldn't bring himself

to completely break it off,

and eventually that would be his downfall.

♪♪

Woman: He lunged at Jodi in anger,

knocking her to the ground in the bathroom

where there was a struggle.

Jodi's life was in danger.

Oh, my God.

They are going to now do to his character

what Jodi did to his body.

♪♪

I think that being in love

and loving someone are two different things,

and there was a point in time

where we were in love, but it was short-lived.

♪♪

Tonight, secrets, sex, and a murder

literally caught on camera, all exposed in open court

on the very first day of the Jodi Arias trial.

The beautiful 32-year-old sobbed as the prosecutor accused her

of stabbing her ex-boyfriend 29 times,

slitting Travis Alexander's throat from ear to ear

and shooting him in the face.

I was in the courtroom for the entire trial

for what we knew was going to be a love story gone wrong,

but we didn't know all the twists

and turns that this trial would take until it started.

Skoloff: The public was so enthralled by this case.

Darkalstanian: People at work were sitting on their computers

and they were live streaming it,

and then there were people at home watching it on television.

I am here...

Skoloff: It became such a media circus.

We had media in from around the world covering this case.

It's just a bloody, crazy mix of love, lust, passion,

secrets, sex, and more sex

and lies, lots of lies.

That's what drew people in, to see how it would turn out.

♪♪

This is not a case of whodunit.

The person who "done it," a person who committed

this killing sits in court today.

It's the defendant, Jodi Ann Arias.

It was Juan Martinez's case, and he hammered hard on this --

Jodi was a sociopath.

He was killed in three different ways.

A stab wound to the heart would have killed him.

Obviously, the slitting of the throat would have killed him,

and the shot to the face would have killed him.

Juan Martinez is a very good prosecutor.

Hogan: He's extremely intelligent.

He's very quick on his feet and very aggressive,

especially when it comes to defendants.

She planned to come and kill Mr. Alexander

with that .25 caliber and that knife

from May 28th on.

That's what the evidence shows.

Casarez: But Jodi Arias' defense attorney,

Jennifer Willmott, in her opening statement,

came out of the box with her own shocking statements.

Willmott: Jodi Arias killed Travis Alexander.

There is no question about it.

The million-dollar question is,

what would have forced her to do it?

The defense presents a case where, "Yes, our client did it.

She killed Travis, but she killed him in self-defense,

and that everything that happened afterwards

was just a scared young woman trying to cover up something."

Velez-Mitchell: It doesn't take long for her

to start putting Travis on trial,

and in one of the most shocking twists,

she immediately begins to paint Travis

in this horrific light as this abusive womanizer.

In reality, Jodi was Travis' dirty little secret.

Despite projecting himself as a good and virginal Mormon man,

someone who is a temple member, from the moment he met Jodi,

he was pushing and pushing her

to have a sexual relationship with him.

The defense painted Jodi as the victim who had been

in this destructive relationship with Travis,

and that had slowly evolved into something

where he had gotten increasingly violent over time.

Willmott: He lunged at Jodi in anger,

knocking her to the ground in the bathroom,

where there was a struggle.

Jodi's life was in danger.

In that one minute, had Jodi not chosen to defend herself,

she would not be here.

What she was saying is, "I was reasonably afraid

that he might kill me,

and so I am justified in this domestic violence situation."

Some women found her as an inspirational figure

that she had somehow killed the guy

who was sexually assaulting her,

and that that somehow made her brave.

Because Arias was somebody who appeared to be somewhat

gentle, frail,

appeared to some that she was very pretty,

that gave this self-defense

a very good chance of succeeding.

♪♪

The day the sex tape was played in court was riveting.

This is a dead man, and it sounds like he's alive.

His voice is filling the courtroom.

I'm going to tie you to a tree and put it in your [bleep].

Oh, my gosh.

♪♪

This isn't a two-sided story.

This is a multifaceted story.

There are many sides to this story,

and I just don't feel like mine has been represented.

Tonight, as we wait to see if Jodi Arias

will take the stand in her murder trial,

this week that just ended goes down as one of the most

sexually explicit trials ever shown on TV.

Is Jodi's defense team putting on a desperation defense?

Martinez: Once the theory of the case changed to self-defense,

the prosecution became much more difficult.

Those are the most difficult cases to prosecute

because you have two people that are involved.

One is the accused, the defendant,

who admits to killing.

And then on the other hand, you have the victim,

but the victim is dead,

and there's no way for the prosecution

to go to them and say, "Is this true?"

or "Is this not true?"

So those kinds of cases

are the kind that are just ripe for acquittal.

♪♪

Skoloff: We journalists covering the trial

obviously were wondering, you know,

"Is Jodi going to take the stand?"

Typically, in these sorts of cases,

you don't see the defendant take the stand.

Jackson: Never, never, because so many people think

they can talk themselves out of anything and everything, right?

"Oh, don't worry, I'll use charm.

I can do this. I can do that."

Skoloff: There's just too big of a risk.

♪♪

But it happened, and we were all blown away in the gallery

when they said --

Judge: Mr. Nurmi, calling your client?

Nurmi: Yes. The defense calls Jodi Arias.

Darkalstanian: You could hear a pin drop.

It was the moment we were waiting for.

Judge: Ms. Arias, please stand to be sworn.

Woman: Raise your right hand.

Do you solemnly swear the testimony

you're about to give will be the truth,

the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

Yes, I do. Thank you.

Once Jodi takes the stand, I mean, the defense really

has to get the elephant in the room out of the way.

Did you kill Travis Alexander

on June 4th, 2008?

Yes, I did.

For Jodi to be innocent of the crime by self-defense,

the jury would have to believe her version of events.

Why? Um...

The simple answer is that he attacked me,

and I defended myself.

He's an abuser, and she was the victim.

There are so many dates and so many text messages

between Travis and Jodi,

and the defense is trying to show the control

and the power that Travis had over Jodi

even after she moved back to Yreka,

the names he would call her.

The 26th of May, they got into a dramatic fight.

Skoloff: This sort of angry text message exchange.

Travis is saying some pretty terrible things to her.

Martinez: He makes what is probably

an extreme derogatory comment of a sexual nature.

Calls you a three-hole wonder.

Yes.

-And a slut. -Yes.

And a whore.

Yes, and many other things.

There's no doubt Travis was not a nice person to Jodi.

He used her.

He abused her -- emotionally at least.

But to be fair, he was caught in an emotional web

that was evoking all sorts of feelings that no doubt

surprised the hell out of him.

♪♪

There was even a story from Jodi

that she was sleeping at one point one night

and woke up to Travis performing sex on her.

Jodi, what happened after you fell asleep

on his oversized chair?

Um...

I awoke to him

pulling my pants off,

and I was groggy,

and then he was spreading my legs

and starting to perform oral sex.

She sort of likened that to being assaulted,

sexually assaulted.

Was that something that you wanted?

Um...

I mean, it wasn't really discussed.

And then the defense team doubles down

on what will be the character assassination

of Travis Alexander.

She comes up with domestic violence.

That he had once choked her into unconsciousness.

He squeezed my neck,

and I couldn't breathe and I was --

I just, everything turned gray really fast and then went black.

And --

Did you fear for your life that day?

Um...

It went so fast, I didn't have time to think,

"Oh, my God, he's going to kill me."

If Travis had a problem with domestic violence,

you would have heard it from one of the other girls

he's ever dated in his life.

Lots of stories, but very little evidence to back it up.

Tonight, an unbelievable, extraordinary day in court.

Jodi Arias accuses the man she viciously killed

of being a pedophile.

I walked in, and Travis was on the bed masturbating,

and I got really embarrassed.

What was the photograph of?

It was a picture of a little boy.

Skoloff: She came up with stories that she walked in on him

in his bedroom looking at pictures of little boys.

Could you guess how old for us the little boy was?

Oh, 5-ish, 5, 6.

Jackson: She dragged his reputation through the mud

by telling all of these things

that you can't prove or disprove.

Casarez: Investigators find no child pornography

at all on Travis Alexander's computer

or pornography of any kind.

Bombshell tonight.

We learn Arias in the weeks before Travis' murder

dyes her hair and tape records herself

luring Travis Alexander into phone sex.

The day the sex tape was played in court was riveting.

[ Jodi laughs ]

Listening to the sex tape in court

was the creepiest experience

that I've ever had in a courtroom.

[ Jodi laughs ]

This is a dead man, and it sounds like he's alive.

His voice is filling the courtroom.

Skoloff: It is a -- just a lumping of phone sex and arguments

and talk about marriage and talk about Mormonism

and back to phone sex.

Velez-Mitchell: The defense took those moments

that didn't show Travis in his best light,

twisting it to make him seem like a pervert.

Hall: He made mistakes, as we all do.

Unfortunately, some of Travis' mistakes

were caught on audiotape.

Jackson: If you're asking me whether, perhaps,

he said some things to her,

maybe took advantage of her sexually, exploited her, yes.

Do I think that that warrants

a throat-slashing from ear to ear,

a stabbing in the heart, and a shot in the head?

No.

He lifted me up as he was screaming

that I was a stupid idiot.

He charges out of the shower, grabs Jodi,

body slams her to the ground, starts beating on her.

When I finally came to,

I saw that there was blood on my hands.

Welcome back to "How It Really Happened."

For more than a week, Jodi Arias spills out the details

of her erotic affair with Travis Alexander.

The TV trial captivates the nation and the world.

Jodi insists Travis had a hidden dark side as a cruel abuser,

and now she's about to tell the jury her version

of what really happened on the day of the murder

when she says she was forced

into a deadly fight for her life.

Velez-Mitchell: On June 4th, 2008, at about 4:30 A.M.,

Jodi Arias rolls into Travis Alexander's home.

According to her, because he invited her.

He let her in the house. He's like, "Ah, devil's candy.

Oh, one more time."

They spend some time surfing the Internet,

listening to music.

Hogan: They take a nap. They sleep for a while.

When they wake up, they have sex.

According to Jodi, Travis had a sexual fantasy

that he wanted to tie her up.

He did. He tied me up.

Nurmi: Where did he tie you up?

The bed.

He had gotten some soft rope that Jodi said that he went down

and got a knife to cut.

Jodi: He created two nooses at the end

of the rope for my wrists

and slid it behind the back headboard of the sleigh bed

so that when you pull it, it's like you're tied up.

He cut the rope into the length

it would take to tie her arms to the bed

and left the knife on the nightstand.

According to Jodi, Travis wanted to take naked photographs

of each other while they were laying in bed.

Jodi: He got a new camera that he was excited about,

and he wanted to play around with it.

Nurmi: And "playing around with it"

meant taking these pictures?

Yes.

-What was that, Ms. Arias? -Yes.

They decided to take a photo shoot in the bathroom,

a naked photo shoot in the shower stall

of his master bathroom.

Jodi: I'm taking pictures of him.

We were trying out different poses.

I don't know. It was a little weird

because the background wasn't that great.

The water was okay.

According to Jodi, as she's taking these photographs

of him in the shower,

she accidentally drops the camera.

Slipped out of my hand, and I went to --

it didn't, like, fall right away.

I kind of caught it, and then I --

I caught it like a football.

Like, it bounced, and I almost caught it,

but I didn't catch it, and it landed on the mat,

and then it rolled onto the tile.

And it breaks, which sends Travis into a rage,

just a furious rage.

Jodi: He stood up, and he stepped out of the shower,

and he picked me up.

I was crouching, but he lifted 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 5-year-old can hold a camera better than I can.

When I hit the tile, he was -- I rolled over on the side

and started running down the hallway.

Hogan: Jodi said that she got up, ran away, ran into the closet.

Skoloff: Where she knew he kept a .25 caliber pistol.

She said she grabbed the gun.

Skoloff: And continues to sort of run away,

but he is in pursuit, in aggressive pursuit.

I grabbed the gun. I ran out of the closet.

He was chasing me. I turned around.

We were in the middle of the bathroom.

I pointed it at him with both of my hands.

I thought that would stop him, but he just kept running.

He got...like, a linebacker.

According to Jodi, she fears for her life at this point.

He's lunging at me. The gun went off.

[ Gunshot ]

I didn't mean to shoot him or anything.

I didn't even think I was holding the trigger.

I just was pointing it at him,

and I didn't even know that I shot him.

And he's just screaming, angry,

and after I broke away from him, he s--

he said, "[Bleep] kill you, bitch."

After that, she claims she blacked out

and didn't remember stabbing him.

Jackson: Her story is that, "I was in a fog at the time.

I'm just clueless as to whether what happened."

Hogan: She assumed that she stabbed him with the knife

that was used to cut the rope which Travis had gathered

to have some sort of sexual game with her earlier that day.

She remembers nothing after that

until she sort of snaps out of this fog

more than 200 miles away at the Hoover Dam.

Jodi: When I finally came to, I saw

that there was blood on my hands

and I didn't have my shoes.

I didn't know where my shoes were.

I was in the middle of nowhere, so I pulled over.

Skoloff: On the side of the road in her car with blood

all over her hands thinking, "Oh, my God, what just happened?

I must have killed Travis."

I knew that it was really bad, and that --

...that my life was probably done now.

Hogan: She still had the knife and the gun,

so she dropped it in the Lake Havasu,

and she continues on a road trip

to meet her new boyfriend in Utah.

She drives there. They end up making out.

She watches movies with him.

She spends the night.

She gets in her car the next morning

and goes back to California,

resumes working as a waitress and resumes her life as normal,

as if nothing had ever happened,

waiting for Travis' body to be found.

Why she didn't call 911, why she didn't call police,

why she didn't call anyone to let them know...

I was scared, and I couldn't imagine calling 911

and telling them what I had just done.

Skoloff: Something did occur that made her snap.

This was all planned out.

All the building blocks of this case

for premeditation and cover-up are starting to come together.

She knew that she was coming to kill him.

I would be shaking in my boots right now

if I had to answer to God for such a heinous crime,

but I'm very grateful that this is one thing

I will never have to answer to.

I've done many things that are shameful,

but this is not one of them.

June of 2008, she, prosecutors say,

broke into that house with the intent to commit a felony.

In other words, she wasn't invited by Travis Alexander,

and she came all the way from California.

Hogan: Jodi believed that Travis was going to marry a girl

who he was dating at the time.

Travis lets Jodi know he's going to be going to Cancún soon

and that Jodi is not going with him.

I think she went there saying,

"He will either take me to Cancún,

or I'm going to go to plan to murder him."

This road trip that eventually ended in Travis' death

is very telling in terms

of whether this was premeditated or not.

The big mystery was that there were no records

of Jodi's trip from California into Arizona.

Skoloff: Prosecutors say Jodi begins

at a rental car place at the airport.

And so you're in Yreka, and you decide, instead,

to rent the car from Redding, California, right?

Yes.

All the building blocks of this case

for premeditation and cover-up are starting to come together.

And the car he offered you initially was red, right?

Yes.

And you told him that you didn't want the red car, right?

That's right.

She didn't want something flashy that would be noticed,

like a red car.

Skoloff: Along this journey she stops and visits an ex-boyfriend

who she hangs out with for a while,

and then makes a really strange request

before she gets back on the road.

You wanted to get some gas cans from him, right?

Jodi: Yes.

Skoloff: Which is just sort of an odd request

given that you're driving on a main highway in California.

After getting the gas cans from her ex-boyfriend,

she goes to a Walmart and buys two more gas cans.

There are gas stations every few miles.

Why would she need gas cans?

Police believe that she was trying to avoid

stopping at any gas stations on the way to Arizona.

Where she'd have to use her credit card

or maybe get caught on surveillance camera.

Martinez: As she came into Arizona,

there was no electronic trail of her being here,

and there was no physical trail of her coming through.

Right before she crosses into Arizona,

her phone is turned off

and remains turned off for over 12 hours.

Skoloff: So that authorities can't come back later

and track her movements

by triangulating cell service with cell towers.

She knew that she was coming to kill him.

♪♪

Prosecutors obviously narrow in on the fact

that this was all part of Jodi's plan.

Hogan: Everything that Jodi did to try and create mystery

and distance herself from this crime

actually just created a trail that led right back

to showing the premeditation involved.

Skoloff: We open the trial with,

"We all know who killed Travis Alexander,

but the big question is, why?"

Prosecution says just brutal rage and jealousy.

She realized, "If I can't have him,

nobody's going to have him."

Me and my team speculated

that she had borderline personality disorder.

And that was eventually confirmed

in the psychological testing that was presented in court.

Aggression and hostility is a very common feature

in borderlines.

She feels like Travis' life is her life,

and it's never enough.

She just would not leave him alone.

Martinez: Where were you taking the photographs

when this happened?

Outside the shower.

-Pardon? -Outside the shower.

The confrontation between Juan Martinez and Jodi Arias

was absolute theater in that courtroom.

Martinez: Everybody knows that tearing is something

that can be very effective in showing

that an individual is sympathetic

and to a certain extent, to be believed.

Ma'am, were you crying while you were shooting him?

I don't remember.

Were you crying when you were stabbing him?

I had to do something at that point

to bring the jury back to why we were there,

and that this woman that was crying

was the same woman that had been at Travis' house

on June 4th wielding a knife and had a gun.

How about when you cut his throat, were you crying then?

[ Sniffling ] I don't know.

And you're the one that did this, right?

Yes.

And you're the same individual that

lied about all this, right?

Yes.

The only thing that is going on here

is that you're trying to persuade these people

to find you not guilty.

♪♪

I'm Jane Velez-Mitchell live outside

the Maricopa County Courthouse here in Phoenix, Arizona,

and the crowds are gathering as word has spread

that the jury deliberations have begun.

The jury was instructed that they could obviously

find her guilty of first-degree murder.

Skoloff: What was very important in the conclusion of this case

for the jury to consider was it was intent.

The prosecution's claim throughout the whole trial

was that this was clearly a premeditated attack.

She intended to kill him in the most brutal way possible.

We today heard the defense closing argument

and then the prosecution's rebuttal closing argument,

But the defense case was all about one big theme --

Sex, lies, love, dirty little secrets.

Skoloff: Clearly, the defense's side, they want the best outcome,

and the best outcome is that this jury believes Jodi Arias,

and if they believe her, she's acquitted,

and she walks out a free woman.

If jurors believed the prosecution case,

then they would convict her of first-degree murder,

and she would face life in prison

or possibly the death sentence.

Female reporter: The jury has been deliberating

ever since Friday afternoon.

Woman: We, the jury, duly impaneled

and sworn in the above-entitled action --

This is huge, huge news.

...upon our oaths do find the defendant

as to count one, first-degree murder...

Jodi Arias, Phoenix, Arizona,

as we've been watching this trial unfolding,

we now know that a verdict has been reached

in the Jodi Arias trial.

The jury has been deliberating ever since Friday afternoon.

What are we now, Wednesday? Yes.

This is huge, huge news.

Casarez: It was a long trial --

51 days.

18 of those days,

Jodi Arias was on the stand herself.

It seemed like the trial would never end,

but it finally did, and we were just waiting for that verdict.

Justice for Travis!

It was mayhem outside. Every single press outlet

was there from across the country.

There were helicopters above.

There were cameras everywhere.

There were a lot of spectators.

Hogan: Every seat was full.

I remember I was in the back row,

and everyone was just silent

waiting to hear what the verdict was going to be.

Woman: 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.

[ Cheering, shouting ]

Hogan: People were cheering.

People were thrilled and seemed personally vindicated

that Jodi was going to go to jail.

[ Screaming ]

I remember that the emotion I saw

was the family of Travis Alexander.

They were shaking.

They were tense, but it was the justice

that they had sought for so long

that they now heard coming from the mouths of the jurors.

Judge: Juror number seven, is this your true verdict?

Man: Yes.

Juror number nine, is this your true verdict?

Man 2: Yes.

There was finally an end to the story.

Juror number 13...

I was overcome with emotions.

I'm glad they came to the verdict they did.

Shortly afterwards, Jodi's led out of the courtroom

and into a cell.

She gives an interview to a local Fox reporter

in that jail cell, during which she goes on and on

about how she would prefer to get the death penalty.

The worst outcome for me would be a natural life.

I would much rather die sooner than later.

Longevity runs in my family. I'm pretty healthy.

I don't smoke, and I would probably live a long time.

This was just remarkable to say

given that this is just before the penalty phase

of the trial is going to start, when jurors are going

to determine whether she lives or dies.

She's telling reporters she'd rather die.

You may proceed.

Before the jury begins to deliberate to determine life

or death for Jodi Arias, she gets to plead her case.

To me, life in prison was the most unappealing outcome

I could possibly think of.

I thought I'd rather die.

But as I stand here now, I can't in good conscience

ask you to sentence me to death because of them.

Asking for death is tantamount to suicide.

♪♪

Grace: The bombshell tonight --

The verdict is... there is no verdict.

In the last moments,

the Jodi Arias jury has filed into the courtroom

and announced they cannot reach a unanimous verdict

as to life or death for Jodi Arias.

The jury hung, meaning the jury

did not reach a unanimous conclusion

as to whether or not she warranted death.

Velez-Mitchell: Folks here still reeling,

in shock over the no-decision decision

by the jury, who deliberated

more than a dozen hours over 3 days,

and then announced to the world,

"We cannot decide whether Jodi Arias should live or die,"

leading everyone to ask, "Now what?"

Hogan: A year and a half after the verdict,

there is a second trial just to decide her punishment.

Jackson: Now they pick another jury.

That final jury hung 11-1.

11-1.

There was one holdout, and because of that one holdout,

she didn't get the death penalty.

Ultimately, she was sentenced by the judge.

It is ordered the defendant shall be incarcerated

in the Department of Corrections

for the rest of her natural life with no possibility of parole.

She's rotting in prison. She'll die in prison.

All I can really hope is that there's no hole in the system

where Jodi Arias could ever get out.

I honestly wanted the death penalty,

but the fact that she's never going to see

the outside of that prison

is probably a good thing to the Alexander family.

They can finally let these wounds heal.

♪♪

This Jodi Arias story, you couldn't make it up.

Hogan: These two people who were hopelessly

attracted to each other,

but were so damaging to be together.

The lesson I've learned from this case --

Be careful who you let into your life.

There's a lot of victims in this whole trial,

first and foremost his family.

Not to mention every person that was his friend,

everyone he ever went to church with.

I guarantee you, I'm not the only person

that cried myself to sleep after watching trial footage.

Jodi: To this day, I can hardly believe

I was capable of such violence,

but I know that I was, and for that

I'm going to be sorry for the rest of my life,

probably longer.

I was horrified by what I'd done,

and I'm horrified still.

The millions who followed the Jodi Arias murder trial

and watched her testimony and TV interviews wanted to know,

who is she really?

Spectators found it hard to see the slight,

seemingly fragile young woman on the witness stand

as a killer who planned and committed the vicious

and bloody murder of Travis Alexander.

The psychologist who took the stand for the prosecution

testified that Jodi likely had borderline personality disorder,

a mental illness characterized by chronic feelings

of emptiness and abandonment,

dysfunctional and chaotic relationships,

and fierce anger,

behaviors one mental health expert

has said fit Jodi to a T.

Thanks for watching.

I'm Hill Harper. Good night.

♪♪