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.

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.

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.

She's "attempted to manipulate you.”

That’s what the prosecutor told the jury Thursday, as closing arguments began in the most watched murder trial of the year: the Jodi Arias case.  It’s been going on for 17 weeks, with a made-for-TV mix of kinky sex, horrifying violence, and, at the center of it all, a slight, soft-spoken defendant who admits she killed her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander.

The question for jurors is: Why?

Rob Schumacher / Pool via The Arizona Republic and AP

Defendant Jodi Arias listens to prosecutor Juan Martinez make his closing arguments during her trial at Maricopa County Superior Court in Phoenix on Thursday, May 2. Arias is charged with first-degree murder in the stabbing and shooting death of Travis Alexander.

The prosecution, led by Juan Martinez, tells it this way:  On June 4, 2008, Jodi Arias drove a thousand miles from Yreka, Calif., to Mesa, Ariz., where she showed up at Travis’ 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 say: murder.

Arias and Alexander had broken up after a hot but secretive affair.  Alexander, according to friends, was a successful salesman who liked the ladies.  He was also a member of the Church of Latter Day Saints whose Mormon religion disapproves of premarital sex.

Travis’ friend Aaron Dewey, who knew them both well, told Dateline’s Josh Mankiewicz:  “Jodi became Travis’ drug.  He was able to get something from her that he couldn’t get anywhere else with the good Mormon girls that he typically dated.”  Soon, Arias said on the stand, she was acting out Alexander’s every pornographic fantasy.

But while Arias may have been a hot girlfriend, she was not, apparently, Travis’ idea of a good Mormon wife.  Friends said that even though she converted to his faith, he broke up with her and began dating—chastely, he told her—other women.

According to Alexander’s friends, who testified in the trial for the prosecution, Arias apparently didn’t take it well.   Alexander’s friends say she stalked him and slashed his tires.  The prosecutor argued that she eventually killed him.

The killing was shocking in its violence.  After a day of sex, Arias admitted, she shot Travis in the face, stabbed him more than 20 times, and slit his throat from ear to ear.

At trial, Arias testified she killed Travis in self-defense.  In her opening statement defense lawyer Jennifer Willmott told the jury,  “Jodi had to make a choice. She would either live or she would die.” 

Arias testified in her own defense—a marathon 18 days on the witness stand.  She told the jury that Alexander demeaned and sometimes abused her throughout their relationship.  She testified that the day she killed him started off with sex play—each photographed the other—but ended in violence when she dropped his camera—and, she claimed, he attacked her.

Her testimony: “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 tearfully testified that she had no memory of stabbing Travis. 

Arias’s sensational testimony made this case a TV and Internet event.  A Twitter handle in her name, @JodiAnnArias, run by a friend had more than 35,000 followers at last count.

But only 12 people ultimately matter… The jurors who will decide her fate.  Today, in closing arguments, prosecutor Juan Martinez told them: “This individual, the defendant, Jodi Ann Arias, killed Travis Alexander.... . Even after slashing his throat from ear-to-ear, none of you will convict her. Taking a gun, shooting him in the face. Absolutely none of it was her fault. It`s Travis Alexander`s misfortune. Everybody else is wrong."

“She scammed him. Are you going to allow her to scam you?.”

The defense is expected to present closing arguments on Friday. The jury will consider a wide range of possible verdicts, including first-degree murder, second-degree murder, manslaughter, and not guilty.  If Arias is convicted of first-degree murder, the jury will also have to decide whether she deserves the death penalty.

Dateline has been covering the Jodi Arias trial from the start.  After the verdict, watch for an hour-long report on the case, with new interviews and new information you won’t see anywhere else.

Related content:

• Jodi Arias' 18 days on witness stand could save her life: experts

   

Tom Tingle/Pool via AP

Jodi Arias answers written questions from the jury during her murder trial March 7.

In three long and bizarre weeks on the stand, Arizona murder suspect Jodi Arias said little that would convince 12 jurors she was acting in self-defense when she shot and knifed her lover — but she may have saved her own life by testifying, legal experts said.

Many attorneys who have closely followed the sensational, sex-drenched case say they would be stunned if Arias isn't convicted of murder and the real question is whether she will escape execution.

"This is not a case about guilt and innocence. This is a case about death and life," said Mel McDonald, a former judge and federal prosecutor who is now a Phoenix defense lawyer.

"I don't think the defense had a choice," he said. "Before she took the stand, she established herself as a serial liar, as someone who murders a man and goes to bed with another guy the next day. Every part of her was so dark. They had nothing to lose."

Arias, 32, contends she killed boyfriend Travis Alexander in 2008 when he attacked her after a sex romp, but she initially told police she knew nothing about his death and later tried to pin the slaying on masked intruders. She portrayed the victim as an abusive brute with a kinky interest in young boys.

But prosecutors say it was a premeditated killing steeped in jealousy. An autopsy showed she stabbed Alexander more than two dozen times, slit his throat, shot him in the forehead and left him in the shower for five days while she tried to cover her tracks, taking time out for a passionate encounter with another man.

With no one to corroborate Arias' version of events — and nude photographs from his digital camera undercutting her timeline — her lawyers took a risk by calling her as a witness.

"The problem is, once she's up there, you as her counsel lose control," said Phoenix defense lawyer Julio Laboy.

Prosecutors were able to corner her with inconsistencies. In often-graphic testimony, Arias described Alexander, a Mormon, as the aggressor. They confronted her with X-rated text messages that suggested she was a more-than-willing participant.

Hard-nosed deputy county attorney Juan Martinez was relentless in his cross-examination of Arias, even shouting at her, but experts said she may have squandered any sympathy with her smirking responses.

"Her demeanor on the stand was demonstrative of a person who has some personality disorder," Laboy said. "The jury takes away from that, 'Oh, here's another different version of Jodi.'"

Arizona allows jurors to grill defendants, and those who will decide her fate had plenty to ask: they submitted 220 written questions, many focusing on the apparent lies she'd told and the gaps in her memory about what happened the day of the killing.

"They don't seem to like her very much," said defense lawyer Richard Gierloff, who noted one juror even asked Arias if she could define the word "skank," which Alexander allegedly called her, according to her testimony.

But Gierloff and other lawyers noted that Arias doesn't need all of the jurors to like her — she only needs one to feel enough of a connection that they will be reluctant to vote for the death penalty.

So while Gierloff thinks Arias' 18-day stand was far too long, Laboy said there may have been a method to the madness.

"She had 18 days of eye contact with the jury. Even when she was admitting she lied in the past, she did so with eye-to-eye contact," Laboy said. "She needs just one juror to think, 'I can't kill this person, she has sat here with me for 18 days.'"

Under Arizona law, all 12 jurors must agree on the death penalty. If they can't, prosecutors can empanel a second jury, or even a third, for a do-over of the penalty phase. If the third jury is hung, the judge will decide between 25 years to life or life with no possibility of parole.

Before the sentencing, the defense usually tries to show there are enough mitigating factors that Arias' life should be spared, and puts on witnesses to back up those claims.

But don't expect Arias, if she is convicted of first-degree murder, to reprise her turn as star defense witness.

"It will avail a defendant nothing to get up on the stand and testify about what a miserable, rotten life they've had," Gierloff said.