Arizona woman charged with killing boyfriend tells jurors she had abusive childhood, contemplated suicide

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Woman accused of killing boyfriend testifies

In surprise move, Jodi Arias takes stand in her murder trial

PHOENIX – A woman charged in the savage stabbing and shooting death of her lover told jurors Monday how she endured an abusive childhood at the hands of her parents and planned to commit suicide after she killed her on-again, off-again boyfriend.

Jodi Arias' testimony was a surprise move by defense attorneys in a sensational murder trial in Phoenix that has become a daily fixture on cable news with its lurid stories of sex, lies, religion, betrayal and violence. Arias, 32, could become just the fourth woman on Arizona's death row if convicted.

Arias' testimony aimed to portray her as a childhood abuse victim and naive teenager who stayed with boyfriends even after they cheated on her and became violent at times.

Defense attorneys claim it was a similar scenario throughout her relationship with Travis Alexander, a successful businessman and motivational speaker, who Arias killed in June 2008, she says, in self-defense.

She is charged with killing the 30-year-old man in what prosecutors describe as a fit of jealous rage after she found out he'd planned to take a trip to Mexico with another woman. Authorities say she stabbed and slashed him 27 times, slit his throat from ear to ear and shot him in the forehead, leaving his bloody body in the bathroom of his suburban Phoenix home to be found five days later by friends.

Arias claims it was self-defense as Alexander attacked her after inviting her to his home for sex on the day of the killing.

Her trial began in early January with a series of salacious details about a torrid romance between Arias and Alexander after they met at a Las Vegas conference in late 2006. She claims they dated for about five months, then broke up but continued to see each other for sex up until the day of his death. She initially told police she knew nothing of the killing, then later blamed it on masked intruders. She finally admitted her involvement, but claimed self-defense -- kill or be killed by the enraged man.

She testified Monday that she lied early in the investigation about not being at the scene of the crime because she planned to commit suicide so there would never be a trial.

"At the time, I had plans to commit suicide. So I was extremely confident that no jury would convict me because I didn't expect any of you to be here," Arias told jurors. "I planned to be dead."

In a soft-spoken voice, Arias calmly described how an idyllic childhood in California turned abusive when she was about 7 years old. She said her parents beat her with belts and wooden spoons, and the abuse later escalated into shoving her into furniture and slapping her in the face for misdeeds such as sneaking out of the house.

Her mother sat in the front row of the courtroom and showed no emotion as Arias described her childhood.

Arias then went on to recount other stories from her youth that sometimes turned bizarre. She described meeting a high school boyfriend at a carnival when she was 15 and he was 18. Arias said the two dated for a while, but she broke it off because "he had all kinds of wild ideas."

"He entertained the belief in vampires," she said, adding that he wanted the pair to move to San Francisco to hunt them.

She said a few months after she broke up with the boy, she learned he was so distraught over the relationship's demise that he had slit both his wrists and tried to kill himself.

Arias said she reconnected with him about "19 months" later after a man she met in her father's restaurant had told her that the "second coming" of Jesus Christ would occur in late 1997.

"I was really naive and I kind of believed him," Arias testified. She wanted to warn her former boyfriend, she said.

But she said it wasn't long until the relationship turned stormy. She discovered he had been exchanging romantic emails with another woman, but she continued to date him.

Later, she said he tried to strangle her and told her "how he would kill each member of my family."

Throughout the trial, defense attorneys have tried to depict Alexander as a liar and cheat who told Arias and other girlfriends he was a devout Mormon saving sex for marriage, while in reality he was having sex with multiple women, cheating on some with others. Prosecutors have portrayed Arias as a jealous ex-girlfriend who couldn't let go of Alexander and stalked him for months after their breakup until finally snapping and killing him.

Authorities say they found her hair and bloody palm print at the scene of the killing, along with time-stamped photographs on a camera discovered inside Alexander's washing machine that place Arias there on the day he died. The photos included one of Arias nude on his bed, one of Alexander alive in the shower, then one of his body on the bathroom floor.

Defense attorneys have yet to explain why Arias apparently attempted to clean the scene and what happened to the weapons.

Authorities say Alexander was shot in the head with a .25 caliber gun, the same caliber Arias' grandparents reported stolen from their Northern California home about a week before the killing.