The 19 weeks of testimony, judging Jodi Arias' contradictory stories, the graphic tales of violence and sex, returning a guilty verdict; all of it paled in comparison to the "gut-wrenching" process of determining whether Arias deserved the death penalty, according to three now-dismissed jurors from the trial.
Following more than 13 hours of deliberation, the same eight men and four women who convicted Arias of first-degree murder informed Judge Sherry Stephens last week that the only thing they could agree on, was that they would have to choose a "non-unanimous agreement" as a final sentencing verdict. After the jury announced it could not agree whether Arias deserved the death penalty or life in prison, Judge Stephens declared a mistrial in the penalty phase of the trial, and dismissed jurors from proceedings.
Jurors refused to comment after the verdict was announced, and avoided interviews with media on their way out of the courtroom, but now there former Arias trial jurors are speaking out about their experiences.
"We can't come to a decision, and it was gut-wrenching. It was absolutely awful," said juror No. 6, Diane Schwartz, to ABC News.
The jury determined Arias was eligible for the death penalty during the "aggravation phase" of the trial; and it only took jurors three hours of deliberation to decide Arias had killed Travis Alexander in a "cruel, heinous, or depraved" manner that would warrant the death penalty; but in a trial that personified the interminable convoluted despair of the American legal system, a clean end may have been nothing more than wishful thinking, a detail Schwartz and her fellow ex-jurors, Kevin Spellman and Marilou Allen-Coogan, seemed to acknowledge.
Jurors determined Arias had been lying throughout virtually all of her testimony relatively quickly, but could not reach a unanimous agreement during the penalty phase. An inside source with knowledge of the jury situation said jurors were split 8-4 in favor of the death penalty, CNN reported.
While the jury was deadlocked in its sentencing decision, Schwartz, Spellman, and Allen-Coogan, all favored sentencing Arias to death, although, they admitted the decision did not come easily.
"It was a very trying experience," said Spellman, a.k.a. juror No. 13. "How do you weigh a person's life?"
"For me, it was the brutality and then the way that he was treated after death and shoved in a shower and left," added Allen-Coogan. "That's pretty brutal."
"Based on what we saw and the evidence presented, it was very apparent that we weren't being told the truth in a lot of the matters, and there was a lot of cover-up," Allen-Coogan said, adding that she thought Arias was attempting to manipulate jurors with her story.
A 32-year-old waitress and aspiring photographer from California, Arias was found guilty May 8 in the gruesome premeditated first-degree murder of her ex-boyfriend, 30-year-old Travis Alexander, in June 2008. Arias confessed to killing her former lover, so her guilt wasn't up for debate-but her intent was. Arias' defense revolved around on the beliefs that she could not premeditate murder, or fully comprehend or take responsibility for her actions because Alexander abused her so intensely that it fractured her psyche, and Arias was forced to kill Alexander in self-defense because she feared for her life due to his alleged habitual physical and emotional abuse.
Medical examiners found that Arias stabbed Alexander 27 times, primarily in the back, as well as the torso and the heart, slit Alexander's throat from ear to ear with so much force it almost decapitated him, shot him in the face, and dragged his bloodied corpse to the shower where she left him crumpled over - all in 106 seconds.
During the 19 weeks of testimony, the defense was unable to produce a single piece of evidence to corroborate its claim that Alexander physically abused Arias. As the state's attorney noted repeatedly, no police reports or any other documents support Arias' portrayal of the couple's supposedly violent relationship.
"The state proved their case. It was premeditated," Allen-Coogan said.
Spellman also didn't buy into Arias' version of events, and believed she was lying. "I noticed pretty early on, when Jodi tells a story, she babbles," said Spellman. "She has no poker face."
Arias confessed she lied about Alexander's death to various sources several times before eventually admitting she had killed him. At first, Arias told authorities she was never at Alexander's home the day he was killed. Then, when a bloody handprint on the wall confirmed she was at his home through DNA evidence, she admitted she was there, but insisted two masked intruders killed him. Finally, two years later, she backtracked to admit she killed the victim, but claimed it was in self-defense, saying Alexander attacked her in the shower, forcing her to fight for her life. Arias 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 sexual relationship.
There were early indications that jurors were having difficulty agreeing on Arias' sentence. After just one day of deliberations, the jury requested help from Judge Stephens in court Wednesday, claiming they were stuck.
"I felt like we had failed the system," Schwartz said. "As I walked out, I remember looking towards the prosecution table. I thought, 'They won't even look at us.'
"I immediately, as I was stepping down, told them, 'I'm sorry,'" she said. "It was heartfelt because I was. I was very sorry."
With the jury deadlocked, prosecutors must now decide whether to continue their pursuit of the death penalty for Arias. State's attorney Juan Martinez could possibly offer Arias a plea bargain that wouldn't require a new jury, but that likely depends on just how confident he is in his ability to once again argue for Arias' execution. Prosecutors have not yet announced their plans for the case.
If Martinez demands the death penalty, the trial will enter jury selection all over again for the sentencing phase, which would reportedly begin July 18. If the second batch similarly can't come to a unanimous decision, Judge Stephens would then have two options. Either sentence Arias to life in prison with no possibility of parole, or sentence her to life in prison with parole possible after at least 25 years behind bars. The judge does not possess the authority to sentence Arias to death.
Regardless of the trial's outcome, Spellman said he knows how Arias should have been sentenced. He said Arias' fate is already sealed.
"She is sentenced to death no matter what," he said.
Prosecutors have not announced their future plans for the case. Currently, proceedings in the trial are set for a June 20 status conference. The trial is set to resume the penalty phase July 18 if attorney Martinez continues to pursue the death penalty for Arias.