• Jodi Arias penalty phase postponed; man accused of threatening to blow up courthouse

    Jodi Arias was on suicide watch after she said she preferred death over life in prison. NBC's Diana Alvear reports from Phoenix.

    By M. Alex Johnson, staff writer, NBC News

    A man holed up in a Phoenix hotel was arrested and accused of threatening to bomb the courthouse where jurors were to begin deciding whether convicted murderer Jodi Arias should get the death penalty, authorities said Thursday.

    The penalty phase of Arias' intensely watched trial had been scheduled to begin early Thursday afternoon in Superior Court in Phoenix before the same jurors who convicted her Wednesday of first-degree murder in the 2008 killing of Travis Alexander. But court authorities announced without explanation Thursday that the hearing had been postponed.

    Later in the day, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office said in a statement that its deputies had arrested an 18-year-old man who it said had posted threats on Twitter saying he had planted a bomb in the courtroom and planned to die in a shootout with police.

    The man was identified as Laquint H. Cherry, described as "a local area resident." He was being held on a felony terrorism charge.

    Cherry resisted officers' attempts to persuade him to surrender from his room in a hotel near Interstate 10 in Phoenix for several hours, all the while tweeting "threatening messages about not being taken alive" and warning that he would "kill the cops surrounding him," the statement said.

    "Eventually, Cherry was arrested without incident," it said.

    The Twitter account allegedly used by Cherry couldn't immediately be confirmed as authentic by NBC News, but it includes specific tweets cited in the sheriff's report.

    Some of the tweets say its user is armed; speaking to reporters Thursday afternoon, Sheriff Joe Arpaio confirmed that "we found some ammunition in his room."

    The sheriff's office suggested that the threatening messages were intended for Arpaio as much as for jurors, court officers and spectators in the courtroom. It noted that a new sheriff's headquarters under construction had received bomb threats, and it said "an actual bomb was mailed to the Sheriff, but was intercepted."


    "Therefore, our awareness for these kinds of threats is heightened," it said.

    The arrest adds another twist to the already bizarre tale of Arias' arrest and trial, adding the larger-than-life personality of the highly controversial Arpaio, 75, to the mix.

    Full coverage of the Jodi Arias trial

    Arpaio is nationally famous as "America's Toughest Sheriff" for his department's crackdowns on illegal immigration and treatment of inmates in the county's jails. The U.S. Justice Department has sued Arpaio, alleging racial profiling.

    Arpaio also was a prominent advocate of investigating Barack Obama's eligibility for the presidency, declaring a year ago that he believed that a birth certificate the White House released in 2011 was a forgery.

    He survived a recall petition in 2007 and was re-elected last year with 52 percent of the vote.

    Follow M. Alex Johnson on Twitter and Facebook.

    Related:

    Jury finds Jodi Arias guilty of first-degree murder

    Tweeting from her cell? 'Jodi Arias' Twitter account swiping at prosecutors, pundits

  • Jury finds Jodi Arias guilty of first-degree murder

    Jury finds Jodi Arias guilty of murdering boyfriend, Travis Alexander. Convicted murderer faces possibility of death sentence. NBC News' Chris Clackum reports.

    By Becky Bratu, Staff Writer, NBC News

    Convicted killer Jodi Arias is on suicide watch after an Arizona jury Wednesday found her guilty of slaying her one-time boyfriend.

    Arias, 32, admitted she killed Travis Alexander in 2008 but claimed self-defense. Arias faces life in prison – potentially even the death penalty – for first-degree murder.

    Courthouse erupts in emotion after a jury finds Jodi Arias guilty of first degree murder.

    The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office said Arias was put on suicide watch in light of statements she made to a local Fox affiliate following the verdict. 

    "At the conclusion of this interview and in light of some of her statements during the interview, Arias was brought to jail and per Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, was placed on suicide protocol," a statement from the sheriff's office read. "Until she is released from suicide protocol by Sheriff’s officials, no further media interviews of inmate Arias will be permitted."

    In the interview with KSAZ, Arias said she would "rather get death than life" and that death was the "ultimate freedom."

    "I think I just went blank... I just feel overwhelmed. I think I just need to take it a day at a time. It was unexpected for me. There was no premeditation on my part," Arias said.

    "I said years ago I'd rather get death than life and that still is true today. I believe death is the ultimate freedom, so I'd rather just have my freedom as soon as I can get it," she added.

    In reaction to the verdict, Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery issued the following statement: "Today's verdict closes the guilt phase of State v. Jodi Ann Arias. However, the pursuit of justice on behalf of Travis Alexander continues."

    He added, "We look forward to the next phase of the proceedings, where the State will present evidence to prove the murder was committed in an especially heinous, cruel, or depraved manner."

    The sentencing phase begins Thursday at 4 p.m. ET. The jury will weigh aggravating factors, including whether the crime was "cruel." The prosecution must prove that beyond a reasonable doubt for the jury to sentence Arias to death.

    If the jury decides the crime was not cruel, Arias will be sentenced to life in prison.

    If the jury decides it is cruel, the defense will begin mitigation, presenting witnesses to Arias' character, including experts on her mental state.

    This process could last up to a month.

    The Arias case has been the most watched murder trial this year, as 17 weeks focused around the soft-spoken defendant told of kinky sex and horrific violence.

    Led by Juan Martinez, the prosecution argued that Alexander’s murder was premeditated. On June 4, 2008, Arias drove from Yreka, Calif., to Mesa, Ariz., where she showed up at Alexander’s home.  She’d rented a car, dyed her hair, turned off her cell phone—apparently to make her harder to identify, her movements harder to track. Her mission, prosecutors said, was murder.

    Arias and Alexander had broken up after a hot but secretive affair. Arias said on the stand, she began acting out Alexander’s every pornographic fantasy. The woman even converted to Alexander’s Mormon faith, but he nonetheless broke up with her and began dating—chastely, he told her—other women.

    According to the testimony of some of Alexander’s friends, Arias did not take the breakup well, and began stalking her former beau and slashed his tires. Her extreme jealousy culminated in Alexander’s gruesome murder, the prosecutor argued.

    A jury finds Judy Arias guilty in the death of her one-time boyfriend in Arizona.

    Arias admitted to killing Alexander after a day of sex. She shot him in the face, stabbed him more than 20 times, and slit his throat from ear to ear. But at trial she claimed it was in self-defense.

    “Jodi had to make a choice. She would either live or she would die,” defense lawyer Jennifer Willmott told the jury in her opening statement.

    Testifying in her own defense, Arias told the jury Alexander had been abusive and demeaning. On the day of his killing, she said it all started off with sex play—each photographing the other—but ended in violence when she dropped his camera—and, she claimed, he attacked her.

    “He lunged at me and we fell…. And I got up and he's just screaming angry and after I broke away from him he said [I’ll] ‘f------ kill you, bitch,’” she said on the stand.

    Tearfully, she then told the jury she did not remember stabbing Alexander.

    In his closing arguments, prosecutor Martinez painted Arias as manipulative, telling the jury last week that the woman had “scammed” Alexander.

    “Are you going to allow her to scam you?” he asked.

    NBC News' Diana Alvear contributed to this report.

     

  • Arizona woman accused of lover's death sent flowers to family after killing

    AP Photo/The Arizona Republic, Tom Tingle, Pool

    Prosecutor Juan Martinez asks defendant Jodi Arias a question about her diary during cross examination testimony in Maricopa County Superior Court in Phoenix.

    By Tim Gaynor, Reuters

    PHOENIX — A woman charged with capital murder in Arizona testified on Monday that she sent flowers to her former boyfriend's grandmother days after killing him, which prosecutors said showed the lengths to which she went to cover her tracks.

    Jodi Arias, 32, could face the death penalty if convicted of murdering 30-year-old Travis Alexander, whose body was found in the shower of his Phoenix area home in June 2008. He was shot in the face, stabbed 27 times and had his throat slit.

    In graphic testimony about her relationship with Alexander, Arias has admitted to killing him but said it was in self defense after he attacked her when she dropped his camera while taking pictures of him in the shower.

    The prosecution contents Arias killed Alexander in a jealous rage.

    Prosecutor Juan Martinez told an Arizona court on Monday how, several days after the killing, Arias sent 20 irises to Alexander's grandmother, who had helped to raise him in southern California.

    "You went out of your way to contact Mr. Alexander's family, didn't you?" Martinez asked Arias. "You actually sent ... her irises ... and in addition to that you attached a note, right?" he added, saying the note indicated the grandmother was in her prayers.

    "Yes," Arias replied, before Martinez shot back that she lied about feeling sympathy for Alexander's grandmother as "just a way to assuage your guilt."

    "That wasn't my thought," Arias replied.

    The testimony came on the second day of cross examination by the prosecution during which Martinez sought to depict Arias as a jealous schemer who tried to cover her tracks by lying to friends, family and police after killing Alexander.

    The court heard on Monday how, after Arias was arrested in July 2008, she gave a contradictory story to a detective investigating the killing, telling him that she was not present at Alexander's home on the day of his death.

    Martinez confronted Arias with how she subsequently changed her story a day later after learning that her fingerprints and a photograph retrieved from Alexander's camera placed her at the scene of her lover's killing.

    "You changed your story to comport with the forensic evidence that he was telling you about. ... You did not want any consequences regarding the killing of Travis Alexander, right?"

    Arias said she was not "concerned about consequences."

    During aggressive cross examination, Martinez also questioned Arias about an alleged attempt she had made to kill herself with a razor in jail, following her arrest, in which she stopped after she "nicked" herself.

    "You stopped because it stung. Can you imagine how much it must have hurt Mr. Alexander when you stuck that knife right into his chest, that really must have hurt right?"

    Arias' attorney objected. Her eyes brimmed with tears, although she did not respond.

  • Jodi Arias set to be grilled on stand in murder trial

    Tom Tingle / The Arizona Republic via AP

    Prosecutor Juan Martinez asks defendant Jodi Arias a question about her diary during cross examination testimony in Maricopa County Superior Court in Phoenix.

    By Brian Skoloff, The Associated Press

    Jodi Arias resumes testimony Monday in her Arizona murder trial after the start of a withering cross-examination last week by a prosecutor working to poke holes in her numerous stories.


    She is charged in the June 2008 stabbing and shooting death of her lover in his suburban Phoenix home. Arias claims self-defense, while authorities say she planned the attack on Travis Alexander in a jealous rage. Testimony has been ongoing since early January.

    Arias, 32, lost a bid last week aimed at getting a reprieve from a potential death sentence if convicted of first-degree murder after the Arizona Supreme Court swiftly denied her motion that claimed a detective committed perjury in the case. Her attorneys have filed multiple motions for mistrials, all of which have been denied.

    She was set to resume testimony Monday for her 10th day on the witness stand.

    Last week, prosecutor Juan Martinez hammered Arias with intense questioning about her inability to recall crucial details in the case, yet noted it was puzzling that she can remember "what kind of coffee you bought at Starbucks sometime back in 2008."

    Arias smirked at times while Martinez stammered in frustration, and the judge admonished both to stop talking over each other as the questioning grew heated and the two traded barbs.

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    Martinez resumes his cross-examination Monday likely continuing to focus on Arias' repeated lies.

    Arias first told authorities she knew nothing about Alexander's death, then later blamed it on masked intruders before eventually settling on self-defense.

    She said she was scared of being arrested, had been contemplating suicide and didn't want to sully Alexander's name with accounts of his violent behavior and lurid details of their sexual relationship, given his public persona as a devout Mormon who was saving himself for marriage.

    Of the day she killed Alexander, Arias says she remembers him in a rage, body slamming her and chasing her around his home.

    She said she grabbed a gun from his closet, and fired it as they tussled, but didn't know if she hit him. She had no explanation for the 27 stab and slash wounds he suffered, or his slit throat, or how he ended up stuffed in his shower.

    According to court records, however, she previously told police before her trial began that Alexander was unconscious after she shot him, but then "crawled around and was stabbed."

    She says she remembers putting a knife in the dishwasher and disposing of the gun in the desert as she drove from Arizona on her way to Utah. And she immediately began planning an alibi.

    Arias' grandparents reported a .25 caliber handgun stolen from their Northern California house about a week before the killing — the same caliber used to shoot Alexander — but Arias claims to know nothing about the burglary. She says she brought no weapons to Alexander's home on the day she killed him, undercutting the prosecution's theory of premeditation.

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