Jodi Arias Trial: Jurors Shown Photos of Victim’s Dead Body in Shower

JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images(PHOENIX) — Prosecutors in the Jodi Arias murder trial showed jurors a photograph of her former lover, Travis Alexander, lying slashed and lifeless in a pool of blood in his shower.

The gruesome scene was introduced on the second day of Arias’ trial, along with a slew of evidence, including a man’s bloodied T-shirt.

Defense attorneys for Arias portrayed Alexander as a controlling and abusive lover to the Arizona woman who killed Alexander in self-defense.

Evidence emerged Thursday showing they exchanged electronic messages filled with sexually crude references about each other, and the jury heard a recorded phone call between Arias and Police Det. Esteban Flores where Arias said the couple was so distrustful of each other that they shared their online passwords.

“He gave me his Facebook password and MySpace and I gave him my Facebook and Gmail account. Reason we did that [is] because we thought, ‘What can we do to reestablish trust?'” she said. “It didn’t work.”

In a case that is already being compared to the dramatic 2010 murder trial of Casey Anthony, Arias, 32, is facing the death penalty if convicted in the capital murder case.

She is accused of stabbing Alexander 27 times, slitting his throat and shooting him in the head in the shower of his Mesa, Ariz., home in June 2008. A jury will have to decide if she is a cold-blooded murderer or was a victim of domestic violence, as she claims, who was forced to kill.

In the most dramatic moment Thursday, prosecutors showed the jury a graphic photo of Alexander’s face and body where he was found.

Earlier, the prosecution introduced emails between the couple. On cross-examination, a defense lawyer asked Flores whether Alexander referred to Arias in those emails with a crude sexual term as well as other insulting words.

“Do you recall her saying he had said several mean things to her?” defense lawyer Kirk Nurmi asked.