Jodi Arias Even Lied in Her Diary After Travis Alexander Was Dead

Steven Seagal Calls Sheriff Joe’s Posse Critics ‘Embarrassment to Human Race’

Feb 102013

Matthew Simmons/WireImage(NEW YORK) — Hollywood action star Steven Seagal has a few choice words for critics of his latest role.

On Saturday, the actor and martial arts expert guided members of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s volunteer posse through a simulated school shooting. Members of the volunteer posse, some of them armed, began patrolling areas surrounding schools in Arizona’s most populous county, Maricopa, which includes Phoenix, in January.

Seagal’s involvement was called a “mockery” by an Arizona state legislator, while a group of protesters also voiced their concern over Arpaio’s school posse protection plan.

“Anybody who has criticized me or the sheriff for standing up to help the children, in my opinion, is an embarrassment to the human race,” Seagal told reporters on Saturday.

Two dozen high school students volunteered to participate in the simulation Saturday, while SWAT deputies posed as the shooters.

In one scenario, which was allowed to be filmed, students hid under cafeteria tables while under siege by a gunman, who was then taken down by volunteer posse members.

“I want everybody to know that we are going to be around those schools and if you do something, we will be armed and we are going into the schools to save our kids,” Arpaio said on Saturday.

The volunteer posse, which is nearly 3,500 members strong, has been used to patrol shopping malls during the holiday season, scope out undocumented immigrants, and investigate President Obama’s birth certificate.

Seagal occasionally worked as a deputy for the Jefferson Parish sheriff in Louisiana and had a reality show Steven Seagal: Lawman.

Arpaio, the self-styled “America’s Toughest Sheriff,” began sending armed posse members to patrol schools in January, following the Newtown, Conn., elementary school massacre and a more local threat that resulted in the Dec. 20 arrest of a 16-year-old student at Red Mountain High School in Mesa, Ariz., for a plot to bomb the school and shoot the students and faculty.

“We’re not going to wait for all the politicians,” Arpaio said. “Talk, talk, talk.”

Jodi Arias Expected to Testify This Week

Jan 292013

ABC News(PHOENIX) — Alleged killer Jodi Arias is expected to take the stand this week and will try to convince an Arizona jury that her third version of how her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander died — that she killed him in self defense — is what really happened when she stabbed and shot him in his bathroom.

Her attorneys will also try to paint a sympathetic picture of Arias as a soft-spoken aspiring artist and photographer who was a recent and devout convert to Mormonism.

Her lawyers will have to overcome the prosecution’s image of a woman who can glibly lie to friends as well as police, about things as mundane as where she worked to how she killed Alexander.

“I don’t know how she can not take the stand, getting her up there you can have her crying and sobbing, saying she loved him, how horrible it was. I can’t conceive how you wouldn’t,” said Melvin McDonald, a criminal defense attorney and former judge and prosecutor. McDonald has opposed Arias’ prosecutor Juan Martinez in the past.

“She has got be likeable, tearful, show remorse for what happened. She has got to talk about the great times they had, talk about how he turned on her, how he was mean and ugly and demeaning, and the pictures he took and the pressure he would put on her, that sort of stuff,” McDonald said.

Arias, now 32, has been in jail since admitting to killing Alexander, 29, in 2008. She dated Alexander for a year and continued to have a sexual relationship with him for a year after they broke up. Her attorneys claim she killed him in self-defense, and that he was a controlling, abusive boyfriend who took advantage of a nice girl who fell in love.

Alexander’s friends, however, have depicted Arias as a jealous woman and a stalker. Prosecutors argue that her jealousy drove her to plot Alexander’s murder, driving from California to his house in Mesa, Ariz., to have sex with him, luring him into a vulnerable position, and then stabbing him 27 times and shooting him in the head.

The jury in the case will have to sort through the divergent portraits of Arias, who sits in court each day in conservative blouses and large glasses and who cries each time prosecutors discuss Alexander’s death.

Hikers Trapped by Raging Flood Waters Rescued in Arizona

Jan 272013

Jupiterimages/Thinkstock(TUCSON, Ariz.) — Search and rescue teams rescued dozens of hikers Saturday who were stranded by raging flood waters in Bear Canyon near Tucson.

The teams used ropes and flotation devices to rescue the 40 to 50 adult and children hikers who were trapped in high waters after heavy rains caused surprise floods. Waters apparently rose in Bear Canyon hours after a heavy downpour ended. Police responded to 911 calls on foot and in the air and used infrared technology to locate the stranded hikers.

A Pima County Deputy said police were able to rescue all of the hikers who called in.

Jodi Arias’ Jailhouse Art Sells for $300 on eBay During Murder Trial

Jan 222013

ABC News(PHOENIX) — Drawings by Jodi Arias, the California woman facing the possibility of the death penalty for stabbing and shooting her boyfriend, are selling like collector’s items online.

Colored pencil drawings by Arias have fetched hundreds of dollars so far on eBay, where a supporter outside of the Maricopa County jail has been posting and selling drawings she composes inside.

At least two drawings by Arias, one of actress Grace Kelly and one of an unidentified female model, are still posted on eBay for sale, with current bids at $300 and $405, respectively. The money will go toward Arias and her family, according to the descriptions with the items.

“All profits go towards Jodi’s family traveling expenses to the trial, other fees, and of course money for Jodi so she can eat better food than what they serve in jail,” some of the descriptions have said.

The drawings are being sold by an anonymous eBay user, 0817soldierofchrist, who declined to comment when reached by ABC News. The next two items to be posted, according to the user, will be drawings of Frank Sinatra and Lucille Ball.

Arias, 32, has admitted to killing former beau Travis Alexander in his home in 2008, claiming it was an act of self defense against an abusive lover.

Prosecutors, however, argue that Arias only admitted to killing Alexander and claiming it was self defense after she was caught, telling investigators multiple times that she had nothing to do with the murder and was not in Mesa, Ariz., when Alexander was killed. She later changed her story to say he was killed by two masked intruders, a man and a woman, before admitting that she killed Alexander.

Prosecutors allege she killed Alexander out of jealousy during a 24-hour road trip to Mesa.

Arias was an aspiring photographer when she was arrested in July 2008, nearly one month after Alexander’s body was found.

The drawings posted on eBay have received free advertising from one of Arias’ most vocal supporters, the website JodiAriasIsInnocent.com. The person who runs that website, identified to ABC News as S.J., said they are not directly involved in the sale or auction of the drawings.

“All the artwork has been hand drawn by Jodi while she has been incarcerated,” the website owner added.

Arias’ attorneys are expected to begin presenting her defense on Tuesday, Jan. 29, after the prosecution rested last week. The trial took a one-week hiatus this week.

Jodi Arias Even Lied in Her Diary After Travis Alexander Was Dead

Jan 172013

ABC News(PHOENIX) — Jodi Arias, who has admitted to lying about killing her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander, even lied in her diary in the weeks after his death, according to entries obtained exclusively by ABC News.

The page of diary entries, found in court motions, was seized by police from Arias’ bedroom in her grandparents’ California home. The entries are dated from June 10 through June 13, 2008, days after Alexander was shot and stabbed to death on June 4. His body was found by friends on June 9.

Arias, now 32, has admitted killing Alexander, claiming it was in self defense and that Alexander, 30, was an abusive lover.

The page begins “.. that Travis is dead. What happened?!? Travis, what is this?”

The next entry is dated June 11 and said in part, “Last night was so hard… I wanted so badly to call Travis, but knowing he wouldn’t answer was too much to bear. And knowing he wasn’t calling me anytime soon was just killing me. I broke down as I climbed into bed and just cried and cried and cried until I fell asleep.”

Testimony in her murder trial that cited her phone records showed that Arias did call Alexander four times after she killed him and as late as June 15. The first call was just hours after he died and one call lasted 16 minutes, which Verizon official Jody Citizen suggested indicated Arias was listening to Alexander’s messages and possibly deleting her own messages to him.

On June 12, Arias wrote to her diary, “It just feels like he hasn’t called me in too long. I hear him singing. I hear him laugh.”

And in the final entry on the page, Arias wrote on June 13 that she sent 13 white irises to someone she called “Mums.”

“Travis always told me he liked the name Iris for a girl…If I ever have a son I’ll name him Alexander,” she wrote.

The diary entries are the latest twist in the Arias investigation. Police interrogation tapes played in court over the last few days shows her adamantly denying that she traveled from her home in California to Alexander’s home in Mesa, Ariz., on the day Alexander was killed.

When presented with overwhelming evidence that she was present and that she killed Alexander, she tells Detective Esteban Flores, “I’m not the brightest person but I don’t think I could stab him. I think I would have to shoot him continuously until he was dead.”

At another point while still insisting on her innocence, she tells Flores, “If, IF I had it in me.. [I would] make it as humane as possible… make it quick.”

Alexander was stabbed 27 times, his throat was slashed and he was shot in the head.

Arias eventually admitted to Flores that she was in Mesa that day, but claimed that Alexander was killed by a masked man and woman who took her driver’s license and threatened to kill her if she told anyone.

The prosecution claims that Arias killed Alexander in a jealous rage after one last tryst in which they took nude photos of each other. The assault began as Arias was taking pictures of Alexander in the shower, prosecutors claim.

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