Pressed incessantly to describe the fateful day she killed her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander in 2008, Jodi Arias crumbled on the stand Thursday, weeping inconsolably, once again claiming she could hardly remember the day.
"Ma'am, were you crying when you were shooting him?" prosecuting attorney Juan Martinez asked, according to The Associated Press.
"I don't remember," Arias replied, sobbing.
"Were you crying when you were stabbing him?" said Martinez.
"I don't remember," Arias said quietly.
"How about when you cut his throat, were you crying then?" Martinez boomed.
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 27-year-old man 27 times, slit his throat and shot him in the head.
Martinez has pounced repeatedly on Arias throughout the trial for the numerous inconsistencies and admitted lies in her stories, and her seemingly convenient memory loss of the most important aspect of the trial, sniping that it was interesting her memory of killing Alexander was so spotty, yet you "can tell us what kind of coffee you bought at Starbucks sometime back in 2008."
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.
Seeking to further underline her lack of credibility, Martinez hammered Arias on the numerous contradicting accounts she provided to authorities, news, friends, and family in the days after Alexander was killed. Martinez pointed out how often her lies changed as she spoke to different sources.
Arias tried to explain away many of the inconsistencies in her stories, claiming her memory was foggy the day Alexander died. Arias has wavered back-and-forth between providing surprisingly acute details surrounding the murder to claiming she has little to no memory of certain pieces of the case, such as the actual act of killing Alexander, saying her memory of the fateful day has "huge gaps," according to The Tri-City Herald.
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. 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.
Martinez noted that during the day Arias claims she was lost in a fog, she was still thinking clearly enough to methodically and "meticulously cover her tracks" and dispose of evidence.
Martinez said Arias wasted no time in trying evade authorities after Alexander's killing. He drew attention to her behavior in the hours following his death suggesting she was planning out her alibi "immediately" - trying to clean up Alexander's home, calling Alexander's phone and leaving a message, dumping the alleged murder weapon in the desert, throwing away her bloodied clothing, and then driving to visit a man in Utah for a romantic rendezvous. Arias even played the part of concerned friend days later when police found Alexander's body, calling authorities, friends, and even her Mormon bishop, as she tried to find out what police knew and whether "anybody was onto you," Martinez contended.
"Why would you even think of taking the gun unless you really knew what was going on?" Martinez asked.
"I can only speculate because I don't remember," Arias said.
Arias eventually admitted she left the voice mail because she was trying to evade police.
"There would be no other reason to leave a dead man a telephone message would there?" Martinez pointed out.
"Um, that was my goal," Arias responded.
Martinez then brought up Arias' repeated claims to authorities in the years following the killing that Alexander never owned a firearm, accusing her of lying once again to avoid arrest.
"Yes, years it took me to admit it," Arias recognized.
Attempting to poke even more holes in Arias' claims, and establish evidence of pre-meditated murder, Martinez noted the entire idea that Alexander owned a gun in the first place was suspect. Authorities have reportedly also said they don't believe Alexander owned a firearm, and no one has testified in court to support Arias' story that Alexander kept a gun in the closet, according to The Herald. Martinez drew attention to the fact that Arias' own grandparents had a .25 caliber handgun stolen from their home in northern California just one week prior to Alexander's death, the same caliber used in the killing.
"You brought the gun from Yreka, didn't you?" Martinez snapped.
"No," Arias maintained.
Arias faces the death penalty if convicted, the Associated Press reported. Cross examination resumes for the 52nd day of the trial Monday.
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