Jodi Arias Asks Jury Not To Give Her Death Penalty, Still Insists She's Victim Of Domestic Violence
May 21 2013, Published 3:11 p.m. ET
Jodi Arias begged for life in prison and asked for the jury to spare her the death penalty for murdering Travis Alexander on Tuesday but still insisted that she was a victim of domestic violence.
Using slides to illustrate parts of her life, Arias calmly told the jury that Alexander's death was “the worst mistake of my life.” It was a strange and seemingly cold plea for life and Jodi barely said she was sorry.
“I loved Travis and I looked up to him,” Jodi, 32, said about her feelings for the man the jury said she used “extreme cruelty”. to kill.
“At one point he was the world to me,” she said.
In her 19 minute statement to the jury Jodi showed a slide show of pictures from her life, but the shots displayed her with her family and friends and not with Travis.
“This is the worst mistake of my life,” she said about stabbing Travis 29 times, shooting him in the face and slitting his throat.
“The worst thing I’ve ever done, the worst thing I’ve ever seen myself doing.”
Jodi maintained during the trial that she was a victim of domestic violence from Travis.
Jodi told the jury that she was stunned at her own actions regarding the brutal way she killed Travis in the videos shared by AZCentral.com.
“Before that day I wouldn’t even want to harm a spider,” she said.
“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 even longer.”
Jodi also spoke about Travis’ family and how she avoided looking at them during the trial, saying it was too painful and she wondered about his grandmother, who passed away in 2012.
“Knowing that I may have inadvertently induced her passing destroys me.”
Jodi told the jury that she was going to be a model prisoner, and noted that she has donated her hair to the charity Locks of Love three times since her arrest and said that she will participate in many programs to improve her life and the lives of other prisoners.
“I didn’t know that if I got life instead of death I could become employed and self-reliant. I didn’t know then that if I got life there were many things I could do to affect positive change and contribute in a meaningful way. In prison there are programs I can start and people I can help,” she said.
Jodi ended her statement pleading with the jury to spare her life, and said she didn’t actually want the death penalty when she said she did.
“I made many statements and each time I said that I meant it but I lacked perspective.
“I couldn’t image standing in front of you asking you to give me life. To me life in prison was the most unappealing outcome. I can’t in good conscious ask you for death because of them,” and pointed to her family.
“Either way I am going to spend the rest of my life in prison. I’m asking you to please please don’t do that to them.
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“I want everyone’s healing to begin and I want everyone’s pain to stop. Thank you.”
The jury will begin deliberations folowing closing arguments to decide if Jodi Arias should be given the death penalty for the murder of Travis Alexander.
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