Accused murderer Jodi Arias told jurors in court that she killed Travis Alexander in self-defense, but doesn’t remember stabbing him nearly 30 times. “I just remember dropping the knife, being very freaked out and screaming,” Arias, 32, said after two weeks of explicit direct testimony about her sex life. She says the knife was the same one Travis Alexander – with whom she often engaged in kinky sex – had used that afternoon when he tied her up. Facing the death penalty if convicted, Jodi Arias says her memory of the June 4, 2008 slaying finally clears up when she put the knife in the dishwasher. Driving off barefoot, she brought the rope she said Alexander had used to tie her up and a gun that she pulled from his closet before shooting him. “I was very scared and very upset … I just wanted to die,” she testified. “I thought, ‘My life is probably done now.'” She says she decided to bury those feelings and try to act normal as she drove north into Utah to visit another man she already had plans to see. At that point she says she … Tossed the gun in the desert. Dropped the rope in a Dumpster near St. George, Utah. Washed the blood from her hands with bottled Costco water she had in her car. Put on a spare pair of work shoes. The man she met, Ryan Burns, earlier testified that Jodi Arias was frisky and affectionate when she visited on June 5, the day after she killed Travis. Arias testified that she kissed Burns and cuddled with him after killing Alexander because, “I felt safe right there and, I figured, I just wanted to seem normal.” “I wanted to feel like I didn’t just do what I just did.” Arias’ testimony was the long-anticipated centerpiece of her defense. Once that’s done, prosecutors are expected to spend days trying to pick it apart. Arias talked about how she and Alexander, a charismatic Mormon motivational speaker, had an off-and-on relationship – one sometimes violent or sadistic. She says she had arrived at his Mesa, Ariz. home at 5 a.m. and took photos and video of themselves having sex. That sounds pleasant enough. However, Alexander allegedly became enraged with her – for giving him badly scratched CDs of photos of their trips together, then for dropping his camera. She says that as Travis Alexander chased her through a walk-in closet “like a linebacker,” she grabbed a gun that she knew he kept on a top shelf. She says she held up the gun, expecting that Alexander would stop charging at her, but he didn’t. That’s when her memory becomes hazy, she says. “The gun went off, I didn’t even mean to shoot, I didn’t know my hand was on the trigger,” Arias testified. “I have no memory of stabbing him,” she added. Jurors have already heard graphic testimony that Alexander was shot in the head and repeatedly stabbed, and that his throat was slashed ear to ear. Arias testified she remembers standing in his bathroom, dropping the knife on the hard floor, and thinking, “that I just couldn’t believe what had just happened.” Arias also testified that she still loves Alexander: “It’s a different love but yes, I do.” Since the slaying, Arias has changed her story, first saying she had no connection, then saying two masked intruders killed Alexander and almost killed her. “I basically told everyone what I could remember of the day, and that the intruder story was all B.S.,” Arias said Wednesday afternoon at the close of her testimony. Prosecutors suggest Arias killed Alexander out of jealousy after he pushed her out of his life and started dating others, and that the gun was actually one she stole.
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Jodi Arias Does Not Remember Stabbing Boyfriend 30 or So Times
