Minutes after a jury rendered its verdict Wednesday, finding Jodi Arias guilty of first-degree murder, she said she’d rather be executed if given the choice.
In the 32-year-old’s mind, it beats the heck out of life in prison.
“The worst outcome for me would be natural life,” she says.
“I believe death is the ultimate freedom, so I’d rather have my freedom as soon as I can get it,” Arias told FOX10 in Phoenix of her desire to be killed.
Jodi Arias went on to say that, since she is not a smoker and longevity runs in her family, she could expect many years in prison if she got a life term.
As such, she would take the death penalty in a heartbeat.
The jurors who delivered the guilty verdict after two days of deliberations return today for the penalty phase, in which both sides argue over her punishment.
The judge will have the final say on the death penalty.
After her conviction, Jodi Arias offered a message to the victim’s family members, who stared her down each day from the front row of the courtroom.
She says she hopes Travis Alexander’s family is “able to find some semblance of peace and remember their brother the way they wanted to.”
Arias says she killed Alexander in self-defense – he was stabbed 27 times and had his throat slit and was shot – and was surprised the jury’s verdict.
At least the first-degree murder part, which entails planning.
“I was fairly confident I wouldn’t get premeditation, because there was no premeditation,” says Arias, who the jury must have felt lacked credibility.
What do you think? Should she get the death penalty?