Jodi Arias Trial: Lacking Evidence, Defendant Reads Diary to Explain Ex-Boyfriend Accusations

Jodi Arias' defense team mounted a fresh attack Monday to counter the following week of intense, detrimental cross examination by the prosecution. 

A photographer from California, Arias is charged with the the gruesome first-degree murder of her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander in June 2008, in which she allegedly stabbed the then 27-year-old man 27 times, slit his throat, shot him in the head and left his bloodied corpse crumpled over in his bathroom shower.

Over four increasingly heated days of cross examination, prosecuting attorney Juan Martinez consistently focused on the numerous inconsistencies, contradictions and outright admitted lies in Arias's stories seeking to underline her utter lack of credibility. Martinez pointed out that none of Arias's accusations of Alexander's allegedly abusive behavior have been backed up by the numerous emails, diary entries, text messages or recorded phone calls between the two already shown in court. 

Much of the defense's case rests on this portrait of Alexander. Arias has testified throughout the trial about the couple's equally violent and volatile relationship, claiming he was sadistic towards her, was possibly a pedophile, and was "emotionally detached." But the man she's described is nothing like the Alexander his friends knew, according to the Associated Press.

Arias has already admitted to lying about Alexander's death to just about everyone. She first claimed she was never at Alexander's home the day he was killed, then she invented the masked intruder angle, and finally she backtracked to admit she killed the victim, but claimed it was in self-defense, as he attacked her in the shower, forcing her to fight for her life. She claims she lied so often because she was "ashamed" she killed Alexander in self-defense and because she was afraid of revealing the details of their kinky sexual relationship. Arias has testified throughout the trial about her lover's supposed double life: a devout Mormon virgin on the surface, but a "sexually deviant" abusive control freak underneath.

After a week of deflating testimony by Arias, Martinez seemingly needing little help to draw virtually every one of her accusations against Alexander into question, the defense attempted to prove Arias's version of her ex-boyfriend by reading torn-out pages from her diary where she complains about Alexander and references committing suicide, according to ABC News.

"Who besides yourself had access to your journals?" defense attorney Kirk Nurmi asked Arias.

"Well, Travis would read them," Arias responded. "There was the potential that Travis could read something in there, and also the biggest reason was the law of attraction, which was a huge philosophy at that time in my life."

With a straight face, Arias claimed that she never wrote of Alexander's alleged abuse or pedophilia in her journal because of her devotion at the time to the "law of attraction." She said she believed thinking positive thoughts would inspire positive changes in her life, and negative thoughts would attract negativity. 

"How would writing about Travis being violent in your journal violate this law of attraction?" defense attorney Kirk Nurmi asked.

"One thing it encourages is that if you're in a relationship to focus only on their good qualities, as opposed to harping on somebody's faults," Arias explained.

Martinez noted last week, among many inconsistencies, that Arias never wrote of a supposedly brutal fight her and Alexander had in January 2007, when she claims he threw her to the ground and kicked her in the ribs and hand, or an incident where she claims she walked in on Alexander masturbating to pictures of young boys.

To further elaborate on this portrait of Alexander, Arias read a page from her diary where she said Alexander made her "sick" after she caught him kissing another woman at his home.

"I don't understand it and at times have a hard time believing it. He makes me sick and happy, makes me feel sad and miserable, and makes me feel uplifted and beautiful. I shouldn't be wording it as if he makes me feel those things. It all originates from within. All of my darkness if fruit of my own creation, it originates within," she wrote in one entry.

The prosecution has alleged that Arias and Alexander had become distant in the weeks before the killing, and Alexander was trying to get Arias to leave him alone. Alexander's friends claim that Arias was stalking him and was "possessive and jealous." 

Arias then read a passage describing having suicidal thoughts. She claimed she had written several such entries in her journal that she'd torn out. 

"I just wish I could die. I wish that suicide was a way out but it is no escape. I wouldn't feel any more pain," Arias wrote.

Arias faces the death penalty if convicted, the Associated Press reported. The trial resumes for the 53rd day Tuesday.