After over a week of build up in the trial of Jodi Arias, the 32-year-old finally described the fateful day she brutally killed her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander in what she claimed was self-defense.
A photographer from California, Arias is charged with the the gruesome first-degree murder of her ex-boyfriend Alexander in his Arizona home in June 2008, in which she allegedly stabbed the then 30-year-old man 27 times, before slitting his throat and shooting him in the head. After first claiming she was never at Alexander's home that day, she then said masked intruders were to blame for his death, and then eventually backtracked to say she killed the victim in self-defense when he attacked her in the shower, forcing her to fight for her life. Arias faces the death penalty if convicted, the Associated Press reported.
Arias continued to paint an increasingly twisted portrait of her relationship with Alexander as she took the stand for the ninth day Wednesday. She claimed the two had been having violent sex in the hours leading up to Alexander's death, and that he had been agitated and hostile most of the day over minor inconveniences such as a CD he found scratched, according to ABC News. Arias says she pacified Alexander by granting his sexual desires for tied-up sex, anal sex, filming a sex tape, and a nude photo shoot in the bathroom where he was eventually discovered dead.
Evidence emerged earlier in the trial that showed Arias killed Alexander while she was photographing him nude in the shower.
While taking the photos, Arias says she accidentally dropped Alexander's camera, and he became enraged. Next thing she knew, he slammed her into the floor of the bathroom.
"At that point, Travis flipped out," Arias said, and called her a "stupid idiot," USA Today reported.
Soon after, Alexander was chasing her down the hall of the bathroom and she ran into a walk-in closet where she remembered he kept a gun. "He had already almost killed me," she said.
"I pointed it at him with both hands," Arias said, believing that would be enough to stop him. However, Alexander charged at her, head down, "like a linebacker," she said, and she shot the gun.
"I didn't mean to shoot," she insisted. "It went off."
But the shot wasn't enough. Alexander continued to run at her, and then things get very blurry, Arias claimed.
"He wouldn't stop ... I have no memory of stabbing him," she said. "There are a lot gaps that day... a lot of things I don't remember that day."
She does, however, remember dropping the knife and screaming after she allegedly stabbed him 27 times. "It was like mortal terror," she said.
The images found on Alexander's camera were time stamped, police said, so the photographs may be a key piece of evidence in determining the veracity of Arias' account of events. According to USA Today, the last image of Alexander alive shows him sitting in the shower stall, peering up at the camera. The next photo is a blurred shot of the ceiling, suggesting this is when Arias dropped the camera. Then, just one minute later, the camera unintentionally captured a shot of Alexander flat on his back with a bloody neck.
Arias has testified throughout the trial about the couple's equally violent and volatile relationship, claiming he abused her and was "emotionally detached." But the man she's described is nothing like the Alexander his friends knew, according to the Associated Press.
Alexander's friends claim that Arias was stalking him and was "possessive and jealous." The prosecution has alleged that the pair had become distant in the weeks before the killing, and Alexander was trying to get Arias to leave him alone.