SALINAS, Calif.- It's a story, that's been making national headlines. Jodi Arias is charged with stabbing her ex-lover 27 times and shooting him to death in Arizona. Now she's taking the stand in her own murder case.
We're finding out she's from Salinas and portions of this dramatic case, stem from her time living and working on the Central Coast. Arias is claiming self-defense in the killing, because that ex-boyfriend, she said, was abusive and controlling.
Arias said she felt like a prostitute and lived in fear of Travis Alexander's jealousy. His friends said she's lying about being abused. In a Phoenix, Arizona court room, detail after detail continues to unfold about the complicated and twisted relationship between 32-year-old Jodi Arias and her ex-boyfriend 30-year-old Travis Alexander.
On Monday, Arias told jurors that even though Alexander lived in Mesa, Arizona, while she lived in California, they started a relationship that became physical quickly, as he tried to convert her to the Mormon faith. She claims she was sleeping in his bed and awoke to find him having sex with her.
"We fell asleep and I woke up and he was on top of me. My first thought was uh oh, because it wasn't the act itself but how it would affect our relationship or the spiritual consequences of it," said Jodi Arias.
According to a TruTV courtroom blog, Arias said she at one point she lived with a different ex-boyfriend in Big Sur and worked at Ventana Inn, which she said Alexander he got very jealous about. The Salinas Californian said Arias was born in Salinas and spent some of her childhood in Monterey County. Arias said her chain of bad relationships stems from childhood abuse. She told jurors she didn't stop having sex with Alexander after he became abusive because she loved him.
"I didn't have a lot of self-esteem at that time, I was just kind of a doormat and I didn't assert myself and I was in denial," Arias said.
In the courtroom, jurors learned Arias never went to a hospital for injuries she claims she suffered and never reported anything to police. Authorities said Arias shot Alexander in the face, stabbed him 27 times and slit his throat, then left him in a shower in his Mesa home. She claims it was self-defense. But prosecutors argue she brutally attacked Alexander in a jealous rage after he tried to end their relationship.
Arias could face the death penalty if she's convicted of killing of Alexander. According to our affiliate in Phoenix, Wednesday was her sixth day and on Thursday she'll be back on the witness stand and she may describe the day Alexander was killed.
