Secret Jodi Arias transcripts released to media

Jodi Arias got right to the point.

On the third question of secret testimony Oct. 30, after asking Arias her name and whether she had been convicted of murder, 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."

"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."

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 consider only the life or death sentence. But on Oct. 30, before 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 media 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.

The identity of the first witness was not revealed at that time.

The Arizona Republic and 12 News immediately sued for access to the courtroom and the testimony, joined by other local media outlets. And 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, during the second day of Arias testimony.

The witness, it was discovered, was Arias herself.

But she had been allowed on the witness stand for only two days before the Court of Appeals ordered a stop to the secrecy.

Arias' defense attorneys appealed to the Arizona Supreme Court, which, on Jan. 8, refused to issue a stay of the Court of Appeals order. Then Stephens ordered that transcripts be made available to the media. They were handed over Tuesday morning.

According to 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 Alexander's voice mail, driving to Utah to visit a potential suitor — were attempts to cover her tracks.

There was nothing in the testimony that hadn't come out repeatedly during the 19 days Arias spent on the witness stand during her first trial. In fact it was far less, and because there was no cross-examination by prosecutor Juan Martinez, it was one-sided in Arias' favor.

Arias spoke about suffering physical and emotional abuse at the hands of her parents as a child, told about leaving home at 18 before she had graduated from high school. And she spoke about boyfriends she lived with until she met Alexander in September 2006.

They were at a convention in Las Vegas for the multilevel marketing company Alexander worked for. He walked right up to her and introduced himself, and wooed her aggressively over the next few days even though she told him she was living with a boyfriend.

The next weekend they met again and had sex for the first time, she told the jury. She talked about his distant demeanor in public, and presented the relationship as mostly sexual on Alexander's part. Shortly after their first sexual encounter, for example, when Alexander was passing through Arias' town on his way from Mesa to California, they met again for a quick tryst in Arias' car, after which Alexander immediately got back in his own car and went on his way, according to Arias.

That's where the testimony ended.

Before it could go further, Stephens received word that the Court of Appeals had ordered the secret testimony to cease as the judges pondered the issue. In a subsequent ruling, the court identified the witness as Arias and ruled that she could not testify in secret.

Martinez, the prosecutor, immediately asked that the testimony be stricken if he could not have the opportunity to cross-examine Arias, according to the transcript. That discussion was tabled.

Whether Arias takes the stand again remains to be seen. And even if the testimony is stricken, it could be difficult to erase the brief but unpleasant portrait it painted of Alexander.

Trial resumes today, and the defense is expected to continue focusing on pornographic files found on Alexander's computer despite police testimony in both trials that there was none.

Willmott and her co-counsel, Kirk Nurmi, have asked Stephens to throw out the prosecution's intent to seek the death penalty for Arias, alleging prosecutorial misconduct, false testimony and withholding of evidence.

Stephens was supposed to rule on the matter Monday but decided to wait until after a defense computer-forensics expert finishes his testimony.

Kimberly Torres contributed to this article.