Jodi Arias Stands Tough After Three Days of Cross-Examination

By Howard Breuer

02/26/2013 at 07:30 PM EST

Jodi Arias

Charlie Leight/The Arizona Republic/AP

Jodi Arias, the photographer who says she stabbed her Mormon lover and shot him in the head in self-defense after he repeatedly demeaned and harmed her, isn't letting the prosecutor in the case push her around.

On Tuesday, after spending roughly half of the first two months of her trial on the witness stand and in her third day of cross-examination, Arias, 32, continued to shrug off prosecutor Juan Martinez's attempts to rattle her and expose her as a manipulative and jealous lover who told "a litany of lies" to avoid the death penalty.

The biggest lie, according to the prosecution: that she has no recollection of stabbing Alexander nearly 30 times or slashing his throat from ear to ear.

As he paced in Phoenix courtroom Tuesday morning, Martinez asked Arias whether she had trouble with her memory or trouble answering truthfully: "You don't know? You don't know what you just said? Didn't it just happen? You can't even remember what you just said?"

"I think I'm more focused on your posture, your tone, and your anger," Arias replied, which seemed to make Martinez angrier. After a conference with the judge, Martinez stood in different spots, asking Arias if she was more comfortable depending on where he stood.

Martinez suggested Arias was manipulative and insincere after Travis Alexander's June 2008 slaying. He described Arias attending his memorial service in Mesa, Ariz., where she chatted with Alexander's friends (including a new girlfriend of Alexander's with whom he was supposed to fly to Cancun the week he was killed); calling a police detective offering to help; and sending his grandmother, Norma Sarvey, 20 white irises and an 18-page sympathy letter saying two masked intruders killed him and almost killed her.

Arias testified she was untruthful to Alexander's family in telling about how he died because, "I felt the alternative was worse."

Martinez also questioned Arias's unsubstantiated testimony that he enjoyed viewing inappropriate images of young boys.

Martinez played for the court a TV interview in which Arias described Alexander as a thoughtful and romantic person who was beautiful on the inside. "So you think that someone who masturbates to images of boys is beautiful on the inside?" Martinez asked.

"I don't think that aspect of him is beautiful at all. I think it's sickening," Arias unflinchingly replied, adding that Alexander "hated those parts of himself," she said, and "believed he could get better."