Trial Blunders! 17 Questions That Have Tripped Up Jodi Arias
April 24 2013, Published 6:24 a.m. ET
Murder defendant Jodi Arias has proven to be a master manipulator and habitual liar, but some of the questions thrown at her during the mammoth trial have tripped up the defendant, and RadarOnline.com has gathered the top curveballs that have confused Travis Alexander's femme fatale killer.
1. Would you decide to tell the truth if you never got arrested?
"I honestly don't know the answer to that question," Jodi replied bluntly.
2. You remember dropping the knife and screaming, but you don't remember taking the gun or rope with you. Is that correct?
"In a sense, that's correct. I remember that, dropping the knife and screaming and that memory came much later," said Arias, citing her infamous memory lapse for not being able to give a coherent answer.
3. Had you ever had any firearms training or fire a .25 caliber pistol prior to this event?
Instead of a simple "yes" or "no," Jodi fumbled, saying: "Never fired a gun, but I was relatively familiar with them. Not formally trained. But relatively familiar. Just -- I don't know. Not formally trained."
4. How did Travis' anger escalate after you shot him?
"He -- I don't remember the words he was saying but he was angrier. He was screaming more, he was cursing more. And we had fallen over right after that shot occurred and he was grabbing at my clothes and grabbing at me,"she replied. "And, again, as soon as I broke away, he threatened my life so that was definitely an escalation in his anger. That's how I interpreted it."
5. Did you enjoy having sex with Travis?
"For the most part, yes, I did very much," she replied, despite repeatedly painting Alexander as a violent sexual predator in her testimony.
6. Did he force you to do things you didn't want to do?
Once the jury had heard endless sexually suggestive texts from Jodi to Travis heard her faking an orgasm on the phone, this question was understandably a little tricky for her to answer! "There were things I was uncomfortable with. I didn't feel all together forced. I went along with it. So I didn't -- he didn't physically force me or anything like that," she stumbled.
7. Why did you wait for so long to tell the truth?
"Again, it took -- it took a long time -- it took a long time for me to get to this point. I never wanted to admit to this. And I had written out all my suicide letters. I sent in the note -- I wrote something on the envelope to my grandmother, do not open until November 10, 2008," she said, avoiding directly answering the question. "I was hoping to be dead by then. I was, like, giving myself a little time to get my affairs in order. That date rolled by and then more time rolled by and I was still here. So, with the evolution of just time and the years, a couple of years that went by, it was a gradual process and I began to feel not right about keeping it in instead."
8. How many times did you try to kill yourself?
"I believe that was in California when I took apart my razor and was going to do that. That was the only serious attempt I had made. Other than that, it's just like ideation, thinking how I might be able to do this or that, things like that," she said of her half-hearted suicide attempts that involved collecting Advil for an overdose.
9. How can you say that you don`t have memory issues when you can`t remember how you stabbed him so many times and slashed his throat?
"I can`t explain why," said the defendant who can recall what she ordered in Starbucks seven years ago but not stabbing her ex-boyfriend 29 times.
10. Did you see a doctor for your memory issues?"
"I don't believe that I have memory issues that are really persistent," she replied. "I just have trouble processing things under stressful circumstances. And June 4 is kind of in a class of its own."
11. Did Travis ever tell you he kept his gun loaded?
"He told me of one time he considered loading it, but he assured me that it was not loaded," she explained, describing the .25-caliber firearm she allegedly found in his closet and then shot him with.
12. If you did not think the gun was loaded, why chance grabbing a gun that may not be loaded instead of just running outside?"
"I grabbed the gun not because I intended to shoot him. I grabbed the gun because my thought is, 'If a gun is pointed, you stop, whether it`s loaded or not,'" she claimed. I've always been taught you don't point guns at people, period, just as a safety precaution. So I only imagine what I would do in that situation if a gun was pointed at me. I would stop. And I was hoping that it would have that effect on him." Instead she did pull the trigger, as the bullet wound to Travis' face proved.
13. How many men were you willing to be involved with at the same time?"
"Well, it depends on the level of intimacy. As far as a boyfriend, I have one boyfriend at a time," replied Arias despite admitting to leaving the bloody crime scene in Arizona and driving directly to Utah into the arms of another man. An intimate partner, one at a time. In the church, you are encouraged to go on... In the church you're encouraged to date around and find somebody that you might be compatible with and not to get too serious with somebody that you don't think you would be very compatible with," she said, bizarrely bringing religion into the answer about sex and serial dating.
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14. Have you ever taken medication for your memory issue?:
"No," she said.
15. How is it that you remember so many of your sexual encounters, including your ex-boyfriend, but you do not remember stabbing Travis and dragging his body?
"I don`t know how the mind works necessarily," said the defendant. But I know that that was the most traumatic experience of my life. When I'm under a stressful situation, it`s as if my mind -- you can imagine a computer that freezes. It's turned on, but it's not functioning. And you can hit the keys, but nothing`s happening. Just like the sound waves are hitting my ears, but the brain is not computing.
16. Why did you take photos of Travis' bloody corpse after you killed him and then put the camera in a clothes washer?
"I don't know why I would have done that," said Jodi, unable to come up with a plausible explanation for her cold-hearted and crazy act.
17. Did you ever take pictures of yourself after he hit you?
"No, I did not," she replied, refusing to expand on her answer.
