Jodi Arias looks toward the jury during her sentencing phase retrial on Thursday, Dec. 18, 2014 in Maricopa County Superior Court. Transcripts of her secret testimony during the sentencing retrial were released Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2015.(Photo: Tom Tingle, The Arizona Republic)
PHOENIX — Jodi Arias got right to the point.
On the third question of her secret testimony Oct. 30, after asking her name and if
she had been convicted of murder, Arias' defense attorney, Jennifer Willmott, laid it out.
"And did you kill Travis Alexander?" Willmott asked.
Arias answered with one word: "Yes."
"When is the first time that you admitted that to anyone?" Willmott followed.
"In 2010."
READ: Transcript from Oct. 30, 2014, testimony
READ: Transcript from Nov. 3, 2014, testimony
"This happened in 2008, didn't it?"
"Yes."
"Why did it take you two years to admit that ... that you did it?"
Arias responded: "It took me that long to be able to admit to myself that — that I did it."
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So begins the contested and controversial transcript of two days of testimony.
Arias, 34, was found guilty of first-degree murder in 2013, but the jury that convicted her was unable to reach a unanimous decision as to whether she should be sentenced to death or to life in prison.
A second jury was impaneled in September 2014 to only consider the life or death sentence. But on Oct. 30, as the first of the "mitigation" witnesses took the stand — that is, witnesses whose testimony might convince the jury to choose life — Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sherry Stephens asked the press and the public to leave the courtroom.
The first trial had been such a circus, and so many witnesses had been harassed, even threatened, the reasoning went, that many witnesses would not testify in the second trial if they would be exposed to the same public scrutiny.
USA TODAY
Jodi Arias defense appeals secrecy decision
The identity of the first witness was not revealed at that time.
The Arizona Republic and KPNX-TV, which like USA TODAY is owned by Gannett Co. Inc., immediately sued for access to the courtroom and the testimony, joined by other local media outlets. After Stephens refused to reverse her decision, they took the matter to the Arizona Court of Appeals, which ruled in favor of the media on Nov. 3.
The witness, it was discovered, was Arias herself.
But she had only been allowed on the witness stand for two days before the Court of Appeals ordered a stop to the secrecy.
USA TODAY
Appeals court: Jodi Arias testimony must be made public
According to a early look at the transcripts, the testimony begins with Arias expressing her remorse and explaining that her bizarre behavior in the hours and days surrounding the murder — placing a call to Travis Alexander's voice mail, driving to Utah to visit a potential suitor — were attempts to cover her tracks.
While on the stand, Arias describes her life before meeting Alexander, and gets well into the early days of her relationship with him, material that was aired in open court during the first trial.
The testimony ends abruptly when Stephens receives a copy of an order from the Court of Appeals siding with the media and informing her that the secret testimony must stop.
Contributing: Kimberly Torres, The Arizona Republic.
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