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.

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.

Tom Gianni / AP

In this courtroom sketch, Drew Peterson, left, sits before Will County Judge Edward Burmila as his defense team sought to convince the judge to grant him a new trial at the Will County Courthouse in Joliet, Ill., on Wednesday, Feb. 20. On Thursday, a new trial was denied and Peterson was sentenced for 38 years.

Former Bolingbrook police sergeant Drew Peterson rocked an Illinois courtroom on Thursday when he screamed out his innocence before a judge sentenced him to 38 years in prison for the 2004 drowning death of his third wife, Kathleen Savio.

"I did not kill Kathleen!" the normally cool Peterson shouted into a courtroom microphone from the witness stand.

Without missing a beat, his dead wife's sister, Susan Doman, shouted back, "Yes, you did! You liar!" before the judge ordered sheriff's deputies to remove her from the courtroom.

"I wasn't going to take the devil. I wasn't going to let him say that," Doman later told reporters.

In the long statement on his innocence, Peterson blamed Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow for what he described as an obsessive investigation. In tears at times, Peterson told the court he was being sentenced to the Department of Corrections to die.

"I think the only thing left to make this case more true to form would be cruel and unusual punishment," he said. "I don't think anybody would care, because nobody cares. I can't believe I spent 32 years protecting the constitution that allowed this to happen to me."

Also on NBCChicago.com: Full coverage of the Drew Peterson murder trial

He took issue with a law passed by the Illinois General Assembly in in July 2009 that allowed hearsay to be admitted as evidence in cases where prosecutors believe the victim was killed specifically to prevent them from testifying. The law was dubbed the "Drew Peterson Law."

"Hearsay is a scary thing," Peterson told the court. "It requires no proof of truth. Anything can be said and no one is accountable."

He said the statements made against him were from "women trying to better position themselves in a divorce. ... Everybody lies in a divorce."

Still, he said he loved his ex-wife.

"She was a good mom," he said, tearing up. "She did not deserve to die. But she died in an accident."

Glasgow thought little of Peterson's statement but said the emotional outburst exposed the real Drew Peterson -- the one capable of murder.

"We all got an opportunity to see a psychopath," said Glasgow.  "When he got up on the stand and that shrill, kind of feminine screech that he didn't kill Kathy, that's the guy that killed Kathy. You got a glimpse into his soul."

Peterson was found guilty in September of murdering Savio. Her death was initially ruled an accident, after neighbors found the 40-year-old aspiring nurse's body in a dry bathtub at home. It was Stacy Peterson's 2007 disappearance that prompted authorities to take another look at Savio's death and eventually reclassify it as a homicide. Drew Peterson is also a suspect in the disappearance of Stacy Peterson -- who was 23-years-old when she vanished -- but he hasn't been charged in her case.

Thursday's ruling came just a couple hours after Judge Edward Burmila denied a motion by defense attorneys to give the former cop a new trial and essentially means Peterson, 59, will spend the rest of his life in custody. The judge gave Peterson four years' credit for the time he has served since his 2009 arrest.

Illinois does not have a death penalty.

"I pray that during the last minutes of his life, he is able to clearly see her and she is watching his descension into hell," Savio's brother, Henry, told the judge.

Peterson's attorneys vowed to wage an appeal.

Also on NBCChicago.com: Sentencing up next in Jackson family saga

"We all have some very viable issues. We're putting our big boy pants on, we're going to go with these issues, and we're going to be back here. We're confident of that,' said attorney John Heiderscheidt.

In two days of testimony, Peterson's current legal team argued for a new trial alleging the former lead attorney, Joel Brodsky, botched the first trial by calling divorce attorney Harry Smith to the stand.

Smith testified that Peterson's fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, told him her husband killed Savio and that he warned Stacy she had to tell someone. Several jurors said that bombshell testimony led them to convict Peterson.

During the sentencing hearing Savio's sister, Anna Marie Savio-Doman, asked the judge to give her sister "justice, once and for all."

"One of the hardest things for me is knowing the pain and fear that Kathleen must have suffered at the time of her murder," Doman said. "The horror and betrayal she must have felt when she realized that someone she had trusted and loved more than anything was actually killing her."

Henry Savio said Peterson terrorized his sister, brutalized her and drowned her.

"I will be mending my family, including my family's relationship with Kitty's children, while he is rotting in jail for the rest of his life," he said. "While he is in jail, I hope that Kitty is what he sees every night before he sleeps and I hope that she is haunting him in his dreams."

"He took Kathleen's future and now she has taken his."

NBC Chicago's Kim Vatis, Lauren Jiggetts, Lauren Petty, Courtney Copenhagen, Lisa Balde and BJ Lutz contributed to this reported. Additional reporting by The Associated Press.

This story was originally published on Thu Feb 21, 2013 2:51 PM EST

A former high school valedictorian is on trial for murder in the beating and stabbing death of his mother in their suburban Michigan home.

Jury selection commenced Tuesday in 22-year-old Jeffrey Pyne's trial, the Detroit Free Press reported. Oakland County Circuit Judge Leo Bowman began weeding out prospective jurors who might have a bias in the case out of a pool of 200, according to the newspaper.

Pyne is charged with the first-degree murder in the death of his 51-year-old mother, Ruth Pyne, and prosecutors are expected to argue he was angry with his mom and killed her, the Detroit Free Press reported. There's no physical evidence linking Jeffrey Pyne with the murder, the defense has argued, according to the newspaper.

Judge Bowman's staff attorney Vicki King told NBC News Wednesday that once jury selection is concluded, opening statements are expected to begin Friday.

Watch US News crime videos on NBCNews.com

Ruth Pyne, who reportedly had a history of mental illness, was found dead inside the the garage of the family's Highland Township, Mich., home in May 2011, the Detroit Free Press reported.

Jeffrey Pyne was indicted in October 2011 and remains in jail without bond, according to the Detroit Free Press. His family maintains that he is innocent, The Detroit News reported.

An autopsy of Ruth Pyne's body indicated she was struck repeatedly in the head with an object and was stabbed 16 times in the neck, according to the News.

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M. Spencer Green / AP

Joel Brodsky, attorney for former Bolingbrook police officer Drew Peterson, wipes his brow before entering court for jury instructions on Wednesday in Joliet, Ill.

A day after the prosecution and defense presented closing arguments, the jury in the first-degree murder trial of Drew Peterson began deliberations Wednesday.

Peterson, a former Bolingbrook, Ill., police sergeant, is charged in the 2004 drowning death of his third wife, Kathleen Savio. The prosecution alleges that Peterson, 58, murdered Savio and staged her death to look like an accident. The defense on Tuesday argued that no one asked Peterson if he killed his wife because everyone could see it was an accident, NBCChicago.com reported.

Related: Prosecution hammers Drew Peterson in closing arguments

After hearing five weeks of evidence, the jury began deliberations at 10:37 a.m. ET Wednesday. Judge Edward Burmila read 15 minutes of instructions to the jurors, saying that they should start with the presumption that Peterson is innocent and only convict him if they find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, The Associated Press reported.

"The defendant is not required to prove his innocence," Burmila told jurors.

The jurors made several requests in the first few hours, NBCChicago.com reported. They requested Peterson’s phone records from the weekend Savio died and autopsy photos of Savio’s body. They also wanted a letter written by Savio that described her fear that Peterson would kill her, but the judge only allowed them access to a heavily-redacted version. The jurors’ request for a transcript of the testimony from Rev. Neil Schori and attorney Harry Smith was denied by the judge, and instead the transcript was read back to them by a court reporter.

The seven-man, five-woman jury is faced with considering a few propositions, according to NBCChicago.com: That the defendant performed the acts that caused the death of Savio, and that when the defendant did so, he intended to kill or do great bodily harm to Savio. Or they must consider whether Peterson knew that his acts created a strong probability of death or great bodily harm to Savio.

If any one of these propositions are found to be not proven beyond reasonable doubt, the judge said the jury should find Peterson not guilty.

Peterson could spend up to 60 years in prison, if convicted.

"He's emotionally and mentally prepared for whatever happens," his lead attorney, Joel Brodsy, told reporters after closing arguments Tuesday.

The Associated Press, as well as NBCChicago.com’s BJ Lutz, Glenn Marshall and Lisa Balde contributed to this report.

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Updated at 7:30 p.m. ET: The defense at the trial of Drew Peterson, accused of killing his third wife, rested Wednesday after the former Illinois police officer stood in a Joliet, Ill., courtroom and told the judge he had chosen not to testify.

The statement came after Peterson’s older son, Thomas, 19, testified that he never believed his father killed his mother, Kathleen Savio.

See more on this story on NBCChicago.com

Drew Peterson has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder of Savio, found dead in her bathtub in 2004. Savio’s death was initially ruled an accident but was re-examined and reclassified a homicide after Peterson’s fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, disappeared in 2007.

Thomas Peterson was 11 when Savio died. At the time, he and his brother were staying with Drew and Stacy Peterson at their home just blocks from Savio's house.

"I believe that my dad is innocent," he said.

"Are you here to support your father?" defense attorney Joel Brodsky asked.

"Yes, sir," he said.

Thomas Peterson told jurors he saw no change in his father's demeanor around the day his mother died, saying Drew Peterson was his usual jovial self.

"There was nothing out of the ordinary," Thomas Peterson said. "I would remember if there was."

He said that when his father broke the news about their mother's death to them, he seemed genuinely distraught.

"I have never seen someone so shaken," Thomas Peterson told jurors. "It was troubling to see."

The teen, a valedictorian of his Bolingbrook, Ill., high school class and a current student at the University of Pennsylvania, last year withdrew himself from the wrongful death suit filed on his behalf by his aunt and grandfather. His younger brother, Kristopher Peterson, followed suit when he turned 18 years old earlier this month.

Related: Judge denies request for acquittal in Drew Peterson murder trial

Thomas Peterson's testimony came after some key medical testimony from two pathologists who said Savio's injuries were consistent with an accidental death. Dr. Jeffrey Jentzen said he thinks Savio died by an accidental drowning after slipping and falling in her tub.

"As I mentioned before, this is a classic injury caused by a fall, especially in an area where there are numerous areas for the body to strike," said Jentzen, who up until 2008 was the chief medical examiner in Milwaukee.

Related: Drew Peterson trial stalls as judge challenges pathologist's testimony

His testimony was in contrast to that offered last week by Dr. Larry Blum, who performed the second autopsy on Savio's body. As a witness for the prosecution, Blum said someone falling in the tub would have spread their extremities in an attempt to break their fall. Additionally, he said the tub's edges were not pronounced enough to cause the two-inch, straight-line wound on her head.

Peterson's attorneys disputed Blum's testimony.

"It was an accident," said attorney Steve Greenberg. "It's always been an accident, it's still an accident, it'll be an accident when we do the closing arguments, it'll still be an accident when the jury comes back."

Related: Former colleague testifies Drew Peterson said life better if 3rd wife dead

Prosecutors said their list of rebuttal witnesses include Dr. Larry Blum and Dr. Michael Baden.

Closing arguments could follow Thursday, and the jury would be expected to start deliberating. With the Labor Day weekend ahead, it's not clear what the judge will decide in terms of timing and days off.

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Will County Sheriff's Office / AP file

Drew Peterson is shown in a May 2009 booking photo.

Updated 4:00 p.m. ET: The judge presiding over the Drew Peterson murder trial ended court early Wednesday to give defense attorneys time to consider whether they still want to pursue a mistrial after a question to a witness from prosecutors prompted jurors to be escorted out the courtroom, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Judge Edward Burmila asked Peterson's defense team to consider the testimony of Thomas Pontarelli be stricken from the record as part of a compromise to their motion for a mistrial with prejudice. If granted, Peterson could not be retried again on the same charges.

During the trial in Joliet, Ill., Will County Assistant State's Attorney Kathleen Patton asked Pontarelli about Peterson being angry with him for helping his ex-wife, Kathleen Savio, change some locks in her home.

Peterson, a former Chicago-area police officer, is on trial for the murder of Savio, who was found dead in her bathtub in 2004. 

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Patton asked Pontarelli, who lived next door to Savio, if he had felt intimidated by Peterson. Pontarelli replied he had been, saying "yes ... he accused me of changing the locks. I said I didn't, but I got his message yesterday. "

Asked what the "message" was, Pontarelli told jurors about a 2004 incident where he found a .38-caliber bullet in his driveway, prompting outrage by defense attorney Steven Greenberg.

Greenberg immediately objected, the Tribune reported.

After Pontarelli and the jurors left the courtroom, Burmila asked Patton if she would be able to demonstrate that Peterson had been the one who left the bullet.

She told him she could not. 

"What is the purpose of you trying to let the jury think that Mr. Peterson put a bullet in the driveway of Mr. Pontarelli." Burmila told Patton. "Why would you do that? You are going to leave the jury with the impression that the defendant put it there." 

"This is not negligence or over zealotry, this is intentional," Greenberg said.

Drew Peterson trial: No hit man testimony allowed, judge rules

Prosecutors argued they had not tried to poison the jury.

Burmila told prosecutors the statement about the bullet was not supported by any evidence and that their actions were "very troubling."

"The state's argument makes absolutely no sense to the court whatsoever," he said.

Savio's death was initially ruled an accident, but suspicions were raised after the disappearance of Peterson's fourth wife, Stacy, in 2007.

Her body has never been found and she is presumed dead. Peterson maintains that she ran away with another man.

The trial has been a heated contest between both sides from the start, with the defense motioning for a mistrial on the first day and prosecutors making 25 objections during the defense's opening statement. 

Pontarelli testified that he helped Savio install a deadbolt lock on her bedroom door in 2002. He said Peterson asked him not to help his ex-wife and to not change the locks on the front door, to which Pontarelli said he did not do.  

Earlier this week Pontarelli's wife, Mary, testified her son had changed the locks to Savio's front door.

Thomas Pontarelli told jurors of an incident while helping Savio move some of Peterson's belongings into the garage one day, when Peterson arrived and told him "Any friend of hers is an enemy of mine."

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Pontarelli recalled the night that he, Mary, his son Nick and Peterson discovered Savio's body. He said he entered the bathroom after hearing a scream and saw her lying in a clean, and "pristine" bathtub.

He testified that after Peterson checked her pulse, he made a phone call, telling the person on the other line "people were going to think he did it."

The Tribune reported defense attorney Joel Brodsky would not say whether the trial would continue.

"The ball is always in the the judge's court," he said.

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Will County Sheriff's Office / AP file

Drew Peterson, shown in a 2009 booking photo.

Jury selection appears to be one thing going quickly in Drew Peterson's murder trial.

A jury of 12 was selected before noon Tuesday, the second day of selection. Eight jurors were picked during 12 hours of vetting on Monday. At least one of them lives in Bolingbrook, Ill. and one of them is a recent graduate of Bolingbrook High School.

Alternates must now be chosen.

See the original report at NBCChicago.com

The vetting of potential jurors began after the former Bolingbrook police sergeant waited more than three years in jail following his arrest in the death of his third wife, Kathleen Savio. Savio's body was found in a dry bathtub in 2004 in the midst of an ugly divorce.

"Good morning ladies and gentlemen," Peterson said Monday as an introduction to the jury pool. "I'm Mr. Peterson."

The jury pool has remained in a holding pattern since they were chosen two years ago and told by a judge to avoid watching or reading anything about the Peterson case. One potential juror Monday admitted to watching the Lifetime movie, "Drew Peterson: Untouchable."

Related: Jury selection kicks of for trial of ex-cop Drew Peterson

"We're going to be very careful and deliberate to find a jury that's going to be as fair and impartial as possible," said Peterson's attorney Joel Brodsky, "and who's going to judge this case on the evidence, or better, the lack of any evidence."

The trial has been delayed because of appeals over whether hearsay evidence can be allowed. Will County Judge Edward Burmila ruled Monday Peterson's attorney can object to each bit of hearsay as the trial goes on.

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How much of that type of evidence ends up being allowed could make or break the prosecution's case.

Peterson's attorneys said he is nervous but confident jurors will find him not guilty.

The case received nationwide attention after Peterson's fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, mysteriously vanished in 2007 and has not been found. Peterson is not charged in Stacy's disappearance, and though some believe he had a role in her disappearance, his attorneys have said she left for another man.

NBCChicago.com is operated by WMAQ, NBC News' station in Chicago.

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Will County Sheriff's Office / AP, file

Drew Peterson, seen in this May 2009 booking photo, is charged with murder in the drowning death of his former wife Kathleen Savio.

Jury selection began Monday in the long-awaited trial of suburban Chicago ex-cop Drew Peterson, who is accused of murdering his third wife, Kathleen Savio.

Savio's body was found in a dry bathtub, her hair soaked in blood, in 2004.

Peterson, 58, is a former police sergeant at the Bolingbrook Police Department. He is also a suspect, but not charged, in the 2007 disappearance of his fourth wife, Stacy Peterson.

The start of Monday's vetting process to select 12 jurors signifies the end of a three-year wait for the 200-person jury pool in this case. Appellate court battles over hearsay statements slowed down the process, the AP reported.

The vetting process generally takes a few days, but jury questioning could be more involved, considering the high-profile nature of this case.

Officials originally deemed Savio's death as an accident. But when Stacy Peterson disappeared, authorities exhumed Savio's body, did a second autopsy and reclassified the death a homicide, The Chicago Sun-Times reported.

At the time of her March 1, 2004, death, Savio and Peterson were getting divorced, according to the Sun-Times. As part of the divorce battle, Savio was threatening to take a part of Peterson's pension, according to reports.

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Potential jurors are being questioned about their prior knowledge of the much-publicized case. The AP reported that one of the questions was whether they saw the 2011 TV movie, "Drew Peterson: Untouchable," according to Peterson's lead attorney, Joel Brodsky.

"I believe we’re going to get a jury out of this pool,” Brodsky said before going into court Monday morning, according to the Sun-Times.

Brodsky said the trial is expected to go on for a month, NBCChicago.com reported.

Peterson has two children with first wife, Carol Brown, according to WGN Radio in Chicago. There were unreported allegations of harassment and abuse in the Peterson's second marriage with wife Victoria Connolly.

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