Jodi Arias is on trial for allegedly murdering her Mormon motivational speaker ex-boyfriend, and she keeps getting compared to Casey Anthony.

Both women are young brunettes who got caught lying to prosecutors in high-profile murder cases.

But there's one big difference between the courtroom dramas: Arias is actually taking the stand in her own defense this week.

Arias says she killed her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander in self-defense in June 2008, but she initially told investigators she knew absolutely nothing about his death, Fox has reported.

Then, the 32-year-old Mormon convert told authorities masked intruders entered Alexander's house and fatally attacked him.

Alexander was stabbed 27 times, shot twice in the head, and nearly decapitated, according to various news reports.

Like Arias, Casey Anthony also got tripped up in lies. She pretended her daughter Caylee was kidnapped by a nanny before finally telling police the 2-year-old drowned in the family swimming pool.

Anthony decided not to take the stand in her own defense, a decision that paid off. (In a stunning verdict, a jury found Anthony not guilty of killing her daughter.)

Arias, who could be put to death, is taking a gamble by taking the stand in her own defense.

As Christine Pelisek writes in the Daily Beast, "Some court watchers believe Arias had no choice but to roll the dice with the jury and attempt to explain away her lies."

She also has a chance to win some sympathy. In testimony this week, Arias read exerpts from her journal saying that she wanted to kill herself, ABC News reported.

"I just wish I could die. I wish that suicide was a way out but it is no escape. I wouldn't feel any more pain," she wrote, according to ABC.

Like Anthony, Arias has managed to attract some sympathy online through the website jodiariasisinnocent.com.

SEE ALSO: Lifetime's Casey Anthony Movie Made The Prosecutor Look Like An Idio

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The murder trial of 32-year-old Jodi Arias is truly bizarre.

Arias, a pretty brunette who comes across as a little off, keeps getting compared to Casey Anthony because she got caught lying to investigators before her salacious trial.

She's accused of plotting to kill her Mormon motivational speaker ex-lover Travis Alexander. He was stabbed 27 times, shot twice, and nearly decapitated.

Arias initially told investigators she knew nothing about the murder, then blamed it on masked intruders, and finally said she killed him in self-defense. Alexander abused her and liked to look at child porn, she says.

If the case weren't weird enough, Arizona is one of a handful of states that lets jurors submit their own questions for judges to read. (This is a fairly controversial practice.)

HLN TV's Graham Winch live-blogged the trial and wrote out each of more than 100 questions jurors asked her. A lot of them involve sex, and here is one of the more bizarre questions from a juror, according to Winch's blog.

“Travis stated on the phone sex conversation that he did not like Spider-Man. Why did he buy you Spider-Man underwear if he did not like that character?”

Arias eventually explains that the underwear reflected a "preference" of his that she was "dumb enough to go along with," according to Winch's live blog.

There apparently hasn't been any evidence that Alexander had a history of violence or an interest in underage porn, the AP has previously reported.

SEE ALSO: How The 'Mormon Casey Anthony' Is Different From The Real Casey Anthony

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The murder trial of 32-year-old Jodi Arias is one of the most salacious in recent memory.

Arias stabbed her motivational speaker ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander 27 times back in 2008.

Prosecutors say she killed him because she was jealous of another woman he moved on to. She claims he was abusive and sexually controlling, and that she killed him in self-defense.

Alexander, a devout Mormon, often demanded oral and anal sex to skirt the religion's rules about pre-marital sex, Arias has reportedly testified.

This week, the jury hearing her case had the opportunity to ask its own questions about her relationship with the man she allegedly murdered.

They asked Arias some detailed questions about her sex life, according to HLN TV's Graham Winch's live blog of the trial.

One question seemed to get at the heart of Arias' allegation that Alexander coerced her into sexual situations that made her uncomfortable.

"If you didn't want to be tied to a tree then why did you look for a tree in the forest for him to do that?"one juror asked, according to Winch.

Another question could have been related to Arias' allegation that Alexander was sexually attracted to young children.

“Travis stated on the phone sex conversation that he did not like Spider-Man. Why did he buy you Spider-Man underwear if he did not like that character?”

Arizona is one of only three states that lets jurors ask their own questions. Some lawyers oppose the practice because they fear it makes the jurors less impartial.

Indeed, one question seemed to reflect a juror's judgment: "Do you feel the guys in your life cheated on you because you were controlling?"

If convicted of premeditated murder, Arias could get the death penalty.

SEE ALSO: How The 'Mormon Casey Anthony' Is Different From The Real Casey Anthony

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PHOENIX (AP) — Jurors in Jodi Arias' murder trial made it clear they aren't satisfied with her stories about why she killed her lover, then methodically covered her tracks and couldn't recall much of anything from the day.

Arias answered about 220 questions Wednesday and Thursday under an uncommon Arizona law that allows juries to quiz defendants through written questions read aloud by the judge — and the bulk of the queries indicated that at least some jurors don't believe her.

The questions largely focused on Arias' contention that she has memory lapses during times of stress and cannot recall crucial details from the day of the killing, along with queries about why she never tried to help save the victim's life and repeatedly lied about her involvement.

Many questions were pointed in tone, and seemed to portray a jury struggling to come to grips with Arias' ever-changing version of events.

Arias is set to resume testimony Wednesday.

Throughout Arias' nearly three weeks of testimony, she has described her abusive childhood, cheating boyfriends, dead-end jobs, a raunchy sexual relationship with the victim and her contention that Travis Alexander had grown physically abusive in the months leading up to his death, once even choking her into unconsciousness.

Alexander's two sisters have sat in the gallery's front row each day, often shaking their heads in disbelief, rolling their eyes and crying softly, a box of tissues in front of them on a rail. Arias' family has shown little emotion, sitting largely stone-faced across the room.

Arias is charged with first-degree murder and faces the death penalty if convicted in Alexander's June 2008 killing in his suburban Phoenix home. Authorities say she planned the attack in a jealous rage, but Arias says it was self-defense when Alexander attacked her after a day of sex.

Arizona is one of just a few states where jurors in criminal trials can ask questions of witnesses. In many other states, it's up to individual judges to decide whether it's permissible.

"Why were you afraid of the consequences if you killed Travis in self-defense?" asked one juror in a question read by the judge.

"I believed it was not OK ... to take someone's life even if you were defending yourself," Arias replied softly.

"Would you decide to tell the truth if you never got arrested?" another juror asked.

Arias paused briefly, thinking.

"I honestly don't know the answer to that question," she said.

Experts say the sheer number of juror questions and their context don't bode well for the defense.

Phoenix criminal defense attorney Julio Laboy is convinced the jury isn't sold.

"I think the message here is, 'I think you're lying and I want to have you answer my questions directly,'" Laboy said.

"They're asking very specific questions, like when do you lie and when do you tell the truth," he added. "Obviously, at least one juror doesn't believe a word she is saying."

None of her allegations of Alexander's violence and her claims that he had sexual desires for young boys have been corroborated by witnesses or evidence during the trial, and she has acknowledged lying repeatedly but insists she is telling the truth now.

At the conclusion of juror questions Thursday afternoon, Arias' defense attorney began to query her again over her responses. Both sides have the opportunity to question her but only on specific points raised by jurors.

"Why should anybody believe you now?" defense attorney Kirk Nurmi asked Arias.

"I understand that there will always be questions, but all I can do at this point is say what happened to the best of my recollection. If I'm convicted than that's because of my own ..." she said, before prosecutor Juan Martinez objected and cut her off.

Martinez then began his own grilling, which will continue Wednesday.

Laboy said Arias has been on the witness stand long enough.

"Let Jodi's voice just end," he said. "Jurors may not be happy if they don't have the last word."

Alexander suffered nearly 30 knife wounds, had been shot in the head and had his throat slit before Arias dragged his body into his shower, where it was found by friends about five days later.

Arias has acknowledged that she then dumped the gun in the desert, got rid of her bloody clothes, and left the victim a voicemail on his mobile phone within hours of killing him in an attempt to avoid suspicion. She says she was too scared and ashamed to tell the truth.

She initially told authorities she had nothing to do with the killing then blamed it on masked intruders. Two years after her arrest, she settled on self-defense.

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Thirty-two-year-old "Mormon Casey Anthony" Jodi Arias killed her ex-boyfriend back in 2008, and now the details of their bizarre relationship are coming out during her salacious murder trial.

“He was my ex-boyfriend. He was kind of like a best friend in a way because we were still very close," Arias told a jury Thursday, according to HLN TV."The best way to put it is that it was complicated."

The ex-boyfriend in question, Travis Alexander, was stabbed roughly 30 times, shot twice, and nearly decapitated in his Mesa, Ariz. home.

Police say Arias plotted his demise because she was jealous he'd moved on to another woman.

Arias says Alexander, a Mormon motivational speaker, was an abusive pedophile, and that she killed him in self-defense.

It's fair to say that she's not the most trustworthy defendant.

Her multiple lies to prosecutors have earned her the nickname "Mormon Casey Anthony," and jurors' questions for her indicate that they doubt her story.

But "complicated" is probably a pretty accurate way to describe their relationship.

The two met in Vegas in 2006, but Alexander's friends say he tried to break things off with her just a few months after they started dating, ABC has reported.

Arias converted to Mormonism during their brief relationship. After it crumbled, they continued sleeping together — even though the Mormon faith forbids premarital sex.

Alexander's friends say Arias was obsessed with him after the breakup. His former coworker Julie Christopher saw the two together at a business conference a few weeks before his death, CBS 5 reported.

They didn't come off as a couple, but Arias seemed infatuated with him, Christopher says.

"When she was sitting next to me at that event, she goes, 'He changed my life, he changed my life. He's so amazing,' and then she keeps on taking pictures," Christopher told CBS 5. "She (Arias) was, like, totally obsessed with Travis."

Alexander appears to have encouraged her obsession, at least a little. He apparently let her take nude photos of him in the shower the day she killed him.

Twenty-four hours after she killed Alexander, Arias had lunch with her friend Leslie Udy, one of the prosecution's witnesses, the Associated Press reported.

Arias told Udy that she and Alexander were officially over, Udy testified. But Arias said she thought she and Alexander "would always be friends."

SEE ALSO: How The 'Mormon Casey Anthony' Is Different From The Real Casey Anthony

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Jodi Arias has testified for 17 days in a murder trial that's devolved into a cable TV soap opera.

The 32-year-old mutilated her Mormon motivational speaker ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander back in 2008. Prosecutors say Arias plotted his demise and they're seeking the death penalty.

Arias admits killing Alexander but says he was an abusive pedophile who attacked her first. (The jury hasn't seen any evidence to back up either of those two allegations).

During her seemingly endless testimony, Arias has revealed raunchy details about her sex life with Alexander. The woman herself is something of an enigma, though some details about her life and psyche are emerging.

An 'Almost Ideal' Childhood

She was born in Salinas, Calif. and went to Yreka Union High School, where she was a "good girl" who didn't seem the slight bit off, her close high school friend Tina Ross told HLN TV.

She grew up with both of her parents, four siblings, and grandparents who lived nearby. She told the TV show "48 Hours" that her childhood was "almost ideal,"ABC reported.

Arias, an aspiring photographer, dropped out of high school in the 11th grade, though.

Aimless In Her 20s

During her 20s, she worked a series of dead-end jobs and cycled through relationships with cheating boyfriends, she told jurors in the Arizona courtroom where she's being tried, according to the AP.

She eventually got a job with a company now known as LegalShield, which pays its "work from home" sales force on commission.

It was through this work that she met the man she'd kill. They got together at a 2006 conference in Las Vegas for Prepaid Legal Services, as it was then known.

A Complicated Relationship

At the time, Arias was living in Palm Desert, Calif., and Alexander was in Mesa, Ariz., but the two struck up a long-distance relationship. They exchanged 82,000 emails, according to court records cited by The Huffington Post.

After just two months of dating, Arias converted to the Mormon faith, according to ABC. She seemed to focus her entire life around Alexander. Alexander's friend Dave Hall told HLN TV that she never spoke about her past and didn't seem to have any friends.

Alexander told his friends that Arias hacked into his Facebook account and slashed his tires after they broke up, according to multiple news sources.

"She (Arias) was, like, totally obsessed with Travis," Alexander's friend Julie Christopher told CBS 5.

"A Walking Embodiment Of Sociopathy"

Crime expert Scott Bonn told HuffPost's Dave Lohr that Arias is a textbook sociopath.

Sociopaths have something "severely wrong" with their consciences, according to "Psychology Today," and Arias has remained mostly composed during her televised murder trial.

"She is really a walking embodiment of sociopathy in many ways," Bonn told HuffPost. "The ironic thing about that, I believe, is that is part of the intrigue. There's a disconnect: How can this pretty young woman be responsible for this reprehensible, incomprehensible act?"

Arias' belief that she can convince a jury that she stabbed Alexander nearly 30 times to defend herself also reflects a classic sociopathic trait: narcissism.

Arias initially told investigators she knew nothing about Alexander's murder, and then blamed it on masked intruders before finally claiming self-defense.

"This self-defense position that she is taking is the third in a series of realities that she's created, none of which is consistent with the other," Bonn told HuffPost. "It's consistent with a sociopath personality. She's so narcissistic and enamored with herself that she thinks she can make it believable."

SEE ALSO: Jodi Arias Had A 'Complicated' Relationship With The Ex She Mutilated

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AKRON, Ohio (AP) — A self-styled street preacher could face the death penalty on his convictions for murder, kidnapping and robbery in a plot to lure men with Craigslist job offers and rob them.

The same jury that convicted Richard Beasley, 53, Tuesday night of killing three men and wounding a fourth must return March 20 to consider arguments from both sides on whether jurors should recommend the death sentence.

Beasley, who uses a wheelchair because of back pain, slumped forward when the verdict was read in a hushed courtroom. His mother sobbed and relatives of the victims hugged and wiped away tears.

"I'm satisfied, I'm satisfied. I didn't have a doubt," said Jack Kern, father of Timothy Kern, 47, of Massillon, who was slain.

Jurors and attorneys for both sides remain under a gag order pending the sentencing and left court without commenting.

Prosecutors, who had asked jurors to use common sense and convict Beasley, labeled him the triggerman in the 2011 plot with a student he mentored. Brogan Rafferty, 16 at the time of the crimes, was convicted and sentenced last year to life in prison without the chance of parole.

Given his age, Rafferty wasn't eligible for the death penalty.

Prosecutor Jonathan Baumoel told jurors there was no reasonable doubt that Beasley plotted the killings, and he presented three possible theories for aggravated murder — planning the crimes, doing them with a kidnapping or doing them with a robbery. "He was the mastermind behind this plot," Baumoel said.

Prosecutors said the victims, all down on their luck and with few family ties that might highlight their disappearances, were lured with offers of farmhand jobs.

One man was killed near Akron, and the others were shot at a southeast Ohio farm during bogus job interviews.

The slain men were Ralph Geiger, 56, of Akron; David Pauley, 51, of Norfolk, Va.; and Kern.

The survivor, Scott Davis, testified that he heard the click of a gun as he walked in front of Beasley at the reputed job site. Davis, who was shot in an arm and knocked the weapon aside, was hoping to move from South Carolina closer to his family in northeast Ohio.

"I spun around," testified Davis, who told a harrowing story of running through the woods and hiding for seven hours. "I was worried about bleeding to death."

Prosecutors said it was a miracle that Davis, who also was the star witness at Rafferty's trial, survived the encounter with Beasley in Noble County, 60 miles east of Columbus.

"Only by the grace of God did he escape with his life," Baumoel told the jury.

It was Davis' escape on Nov. 6, 2011, that led authorities to find Pauley's body in the same area where Davis was shot. Geiger's body also was found in Noble County. Kern's body was found in a shallow grave near an Akron-area shopping mall.

Beasley, who returned to Ohio from Texas in 2004 after serving several years in prison on a burglary conviction, testified that he met with Davis and that Davis was the one who pulled a gun in retaliation for being a police informant on a motorcycle club investigation in Akron.

Beasley's lawyers had said that investigators targeted him based only on a hunch and that the identity theft and robbery motives prosecutors offered were baseless.

Rafferty had said the crimes were horrible but he didn't see any chance to stop the killings. He said he feared Beasley would kill him and his family if he tipped off police.

SEE ALSO: This Satanic Craigslist Posting For A Legal Job Was So Creepy It Actually Got Removed

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There are people on the internet claiming to offer contract killing services for hire.

They advertise their wares via Tor, an anonymous and decentralized network of websites that exist off the grid and out of sight of Google, Facebook, and conventional web browsers.

And in an effort to keep payment out of sight, transactions all take place with Bitcoin, a digital currency that is similarly decentralized and anonymous.

Whether these guys are legitimate or not, you can use the specialized Tor browser you can find and communicate with them. It's illegal, of course. But here they are.

C'thulu purports to be a collection of former soldiers from the French Foreign Legion that will kill for you.

They want $10,000 in advance and $10,000 upon completion.

Anyone communicating with them will need this, their public PGP key. This is a series of characters used to encode a message such that only they can decode it.

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Business Insider received some criticism over the weekend from readers — and, truth be told, internally from our own staff too — who wondered why we published an article on how to hire an assassin on the internet.

The story describes the hidden services on Tor, an anonymously encrypted "undernet" that exists in parallel to the regular internet. It's used by people who want to surf the web in complete privacy and anonymity. It's also used by criminals to prevent law enforcement from tracking their web browsing.

Some of the web pages viewable via Tor offer hitmen for hire.

One reader, using the screen name "Shame on Business Insider," addressed his/her comments to the author, Dylan Love:

What's next Dylan, the secret underground web of child porn? Or in your twisted morality is that worse than murder?

You should remove this post. It's profoundly not okay.

One of Dylan's colleagues emailed to ask:

Are we sure we want to run this article? ... Kind of creepy and twisted, no? And it's our lead story.

I'm Dylan's editor, and I commissioned the story. Here's why we chose to do this.

First, the vast majority of people have no idea Tor exists. The fact that it does — and the fact that it offers access to what purports to be a vast, unchecked playground for criminals — is news. It's probably news to a lot of law enforcement officers too, particularly those not assigned to cyber-crime beats. People need to know this thing exists.

We previously published a guide to using Tor so that ordinary people — and law enforcement — can actually see what's going on themselves. We also noted that you could buy drugs on web sites via Tor in a completely untraceable way.

Second, sunlight is disinfectant. Ignoring Tor will not make its underworld go away. Nor will it cause fewer people to use it — it exists precisely because most people don't know that it exists. Ignoring criminal activity in the hopes of preventing it is a bit like ignoring a series of home burglaries in the hopes that the thieves would get bored of being ignored.

So, yes, some of the things you can see via Tor are unpleasant. We do not endorse them, obviously.

But they are news and the public needs to know about it.

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MONUMENT, Colo. (AP) — The executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections was shot and killed when he answered the front door of his house, and police are searching for the gunman and trying to figure out if it had anything to do with his position.

Tom Clements was shot around 8:30 p.m. Tuesday in Monument, north of Colorado Springs, said Lt. Jeff Kramer, of the El Paso County Sheriff's Office.

Kramer said investigators have not ruled anything out, but it could have been related to his job.

"As the director of the Department of Corrections or any similar type position, it could in fact open someone up to be a target of a crime such as this. Although we remain sensitive to that, we also want to make sure that we remain open-minded to other possibilities as well," Kramer said.

A family member called 911 to report the shooting and officers found Clements, 58, dead. Search dogs have been called in to comb through a wooded area around Clements' home, and authorities were going house to house trying to find out what neighbors heard and saw.

Clements lived in a wooded neighborhood of large, two-story houses on expansive 2-acre lots dotted with evergreen trees in an area known as the Black Forest. Long driveways connect the homes to narrow, winding roads that thread the hills. Clements' home was out of view, behind a barricaded of crime-scene tape in the road.

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper appointed Clements to the post in 2011 after he served for more than three decades in the Missouri Department of Corrections. He replaced Ari Zavaras, a former Denver police chief who led the department under two governors. The department operates 20 adult prisons and a juvenile detainment system.

After Clements was appointed, Hickenlooper praised Clements for his approach to incarceration, saying Clements relied on proven methods to improve prison safety inside and programs that have been shown to improve successful outcomes after offenders are released from prison.

In a statement released early Wednesday and sent to department employees, Hickenlooper said he was in disbelief over the killing.

"As your executive director, he helped change and improve (the department) in two years more than most people could do in eight years. He was unfailingly kind and thoughtful, and sought the 'good' in any situation. I am so sad. I have never worked with a better person than Tom, and I can't imagine our team without him," Hickenlooper said.

While Clements generally kept a low profile, his killing comes a week after Clements denied a Saudi national prisoner's request to be sent to his home country to serve out his sentence. Homaidan al-Turki was convicted of sexually assaulting a housekeeper and keeping her as a virtual slave. Clements said state law requires sex offenders to undergo treatment while in prison and that al-Turki had declined to participate.

The governor said he's awaiting further details on the killing but called a news conference for Wednesday morning.

Hickenlooper ordered flags lowered to half-staff at public buildings until the day after Clements' funeral. Arrangements are pending.

Clements is survived by his wife, Lisa, and two daughters, Rachel and Sara. Hickenlooper asked the public to respect their privacy.

Clements worked for 31 years in the Missouri Department of Corrections, both in prisons as well as probation and parole services. He received a bachelor's degree in sociology and a master's degree in public administration from the University of Missouri.

Government leaders in Missouri are mourning the loss. Clements was the former director of Adult Institutions for the Missouri Corrections Department and had been with the Missouri department since 1979.

George Lombardi, director of Missouri's Department of Corrections, said Clements was "just a very good, decent person."

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon said in an emailed statement that Clements "dedicated his professional life and his considerable skills to public service and protection, and the citizens of Missouri join the people of Colorado in mourning this tremendous loss."

___

Associated Press writer Steven K. Paulson in Denver and Maria Sudekum in Kansas City, Mo., contributed to this report.

Now Watch: Why Obama Can't Pass Gun Control

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PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A jury weighing murder charges against a Philadelphia abortion provider heard grim testimony about unorthodox procedures used on inner-city clinic patients.

Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, faces the death penalty if convicted of killing seven late-term babies after they were born alive. He is also charged with third-degree murder in the overdose death of a 41-year-old refugee who sought an abortion in 2009.

Medical assistant Adrienne Moton admitted Tuesday that she had cut the necks of at least 10 babies after they were delivered, as Gosnell had instructed her. Gosnell and another employee regularly "snipped" the spines "to ensure fetal demise," she said.

Moton sobbed as she recalled taking a cellphone photograph of one baby because he was bigger than any she had seen aborted before. She measured the fetus at nearly 30 weeks, and thought he could have survived, given his size and pinkish color. Gosnell later joked that the baby was so big he could have walked to the bus stop, she said.

Defense lawyer Jack McMahon disputes that any babies were born alive and challenges the gestational age of the aborted fetuses.

Jurors saw Moton's photograph of the boy called "Baby A" on a large screen in the courtroom, which took on a bizarre look Tuesday as witnesses testified near a hospital bed with stirrups and other aging obstetric equipment. Denied the chance to bring jurors to the shuttered inner-city clinic, prosecutors are instead recreating a patient room in court.

The mother of "Baby A" testified later in the day, describing a painful three-day abortion process that started at Gosnell's other clinic in Delaware. She was 17, had an infant daughter and was told by Gosnell she was 24 weeks pregnant — the legal limit in Pennsylvania, but not in neighboring Delaware, where abortions are banned after 20 weeks.

The woman said she given abortion drugs in Delaware and sent home each of the first two days, then was directed to the West Philadelphia clinic the third day to have the fetus expelled. She was in severe pain by then, pain that only worsened the following week, she said.

Her aunt had taken her to the clinic and paid the $1,300 fee, and they had not told her mother.

"I never felt pain like that, ever," the woman said. "I couldn't talk to anybody and tell anybody."

But the teen ended up being hospitalized for two weeks with a large abscess and a blood clot near her heart. Prosecutors say she is one of countless patients injured during botched abortions or unsanitary conditions.

Moton, 35, had lived with Gosnell's family during high school because of problems at home, then went to work for him years later. She earned about $10 an hour — off the books — to administer drugs, perform ultrasounds, help with abortions and dispose of fetal remains from 2005 to 2008.

She once had to kill a baby delivered in a toilet, cutting its neck with scissors, she said. Asked if she knew that was wrong, she said, "At first I didn't."

Abortions are typically performed in utero.

Moton has pleaded guilty to third-degree murder, which carries a 20- to 40-year term, as well as conspiracy and other charges. She has been in prison since early 2011, when Philadelphia prosecutors arrested Gosnell, his third wife, Pearl, and eight other employees. Most of them have pleaded guilty and are expected to testify.

McMahon told jurors in opening statements Monday that Gosnell returned to the impoverished neighborhood after medical school when he could have struck it rich in the suburbs. He called the prosecution of his client, who is black, "a lynching."

But prosecutors believe Gosnell made plenty of money over a 30-year career using cheap, untrained staff, outdated medicines and barbaric techniques to perform abortions on desperate, low-income women.

And they say he made even more on the side running a "pill mill," where addicts and drug dealers could get prescriptions for potent painkillers. Authorities found $250,000 in cash under a mattress when they searched his home in 2010.

The trial resumes Wednesday morning.

SEE ALSO: Anti-Abortion Activists Ask Supreme Court To Let Them Display Images Of 'Mutilated Fetuses'

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Casey Anthony filed for bankruptcy in January after paying hefty fees to defend herself against charges she'd killed her 2-year-old daughter.

Now a woman who's dubbed the "Mormon Casey Anthony" is racking up her own legal fees in a case accusing her of brutally killing her ex-lover. Only taxpayers are footing the bill.

ABC15 reports today that taxpayers might spend more than $1 million on defending Jodi Arias, a 32-year-old woman who claims she killed her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander in self-defense.

A communications director for Maricopa County, Ariz., where Arias is being tried, told ABC 15 Arias' defense team has already cost $838,000 and that expenses continue to grow.

Arias is represented by Kirk Nurmi and Jennifer Willmott. Jose Baez, Casey Anthony's lawyer, called her defenders "very good lawyers" in an interview with CBS 5.

"I like Mr. Nurmi's laid back demeanor," Baez told CBS. "I think these two lawyers complement each other very well, and I think they're doing the best they can with the evidence they have."

To be sure, her lawyers have a difficult task. Arias initially told investigators she knew nothing about her ex-boyfriend's death and then blamed it on masked intruders before finally claiming self-defense. Alexander, a Mormon motivational speaker, was stabbed 27 times, shot in the head, and nearly decapitated.

The 32-year-old murder defendant's lawyers took the unusual step of having her testify in her own defense. Some jurors have signified they doubt she's telling the truth.

SEE ALSO: Meet The 32-Year-Old At The Center Of The Incredibly Salacious Mormon Murder Trial

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ROME (AP) — Amanda Knox was waiting anxiously Monday to hear whether her ordeal is over or whether she will face trial again, as Italy's top criminal court considered whether to overturn her acquittal in the murder of her roommate.

"She's carefully paying attention to what will come out," attorney Luciano Ghirga said as he arrived at Italy's Court of Cassation. "This is a fundamental stage. The trial is very complex."

Prosecutors are asking the high court to throw out the acquittals of American Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend in the murder of 21-year-old British student Meredith Kercher, and order a new trial.

Knox, now 25, and Raffaele Sollecito were arrested in 2007, shortly after Kercher's body was found in a pool of blood in her bedroom in the rented apartment she shared with Knox and others in the university town of Perugia, where they were exchange students. Her throat had been slashed.

Knox and Sollecito were initially convicted and given long prison sentences: 26 years for Knox, 25 for Sollecito. But in 2011 the appeals court acquitted them, criticizing virtually the entire case mounted by prosecutors in the first trial. The appellate court noted that the murder weapon was never found, said that DNA tests were faulty and added that Knox and Sollecito had no motive to kill Kercher.

After nearly four years behind bars, Knox returned to her hometown of Seattle and Sollecito resumed his computer science studies.

In the second and final level of appeal, prosecutors are now seeking to overturn the acquittals, while defense attorneys say they should stand.

The court can decide to confirm the acquittal, making it final, or throw out the Perugia appellate court ruling entirely or partially, remanding the case to a new appeals court trial.

In that case, Italian law cannot compel Knox to return to Italy, although a court could declare her in contempt of court, which carries no additional penalties.

Prosecutor general Luigi Riello argued before the court that there were ample reasons "not to bring down the curtain on the case."

Riello said the appellate court was too dismissive in casting aside DNA evidence that led to the conviction in the lower court, arguing that another trial could make way for more definitive testing.

Neither Knox nor Sollecito was in court for the hearing, which opened with a summary of the gruesome murder, although Sollecito's father attended.

Defense attorneys said they were confident the acquittals would be upheld. "We know Raffaele Sollecito is innocent," said Sollecito's attorney, Giulia Bongiorno, who called the entire case "an absurd judicial process."

A verdict could come later Monday.

Knox and Sollecito have both maintained their innocence, though they said that smoking marijuana the night Kercher was killed had clouded their recollections.

Prosecutors have alleged that Kercher was the victim of a drug-fueled sexual assault.

A young drifter from Ivory Coast, Rudy Guede, was convicted of the slaying in separate proceedings and is serving a 16-year sentence. Kercher's family has resisted theories that Guede acted alone.

The lawyer for the Kercher family, Francesco Maresca, was in court Monday.

The court is also hearing Knox's appeal against a slander conviction for having accused a local pub owner of carrying out the killing. The man was held for two weeks based on her allegations, but was then released for lack of evidence.

Riello argued that conviction should stand because "you cannot drag in an innocent person while exercising your right to a defense."

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A 52-year-old German immigrant by the name of Christian Gerhartsreiter is on trial this month in Los Angeles for the 1985 murder of California man John Sohus.

While Gerhartsreiter is little known, many have heard of his alter-ego, Clark Rockefeller. Rockefeller was the subject of Lifetime movie, "Who is Clark Rockefeller?" and a fantastic 2009 Vanity Fair profile.

His case may be the most unbelievable case of fraud in modern America. Now, if Gerhartsreiter is found guilty in Los Angeles, it may include a grisly double murder too.

"Clark Rockefeller"

In the 1990s, Gerhartsreiter, who is believed to have snuck into the country as a teenager, managed to convince many of New England's elite that he was the moneyed son of George Rockefeller and Mary Roberts.

He was so convincing that he managed to marry Sandra Boss, a high-earning Mckinsey executive with degrees from Stanford and Harvard Business School. The couple had a child together, living entirely off of Boss' salary, said to be in the range of $2 million a year.

The couple eventually separated; Boss became suspicious of her husband's identity (she hired a private detective who confirmed he wasn't a Rockefeller) and his behavior was increasingly bizarre.

Gerhartsreiter responded by putting his $800,000 divorce settlement in gold coins and abducting their daughter. After an international manhunt, he was caught and sentenced to jail in 2009 for the kidnapping and assault and battery, with the jury rejecting the defense of insanity.

The court case revealed some other tall tales by Gerhartsreiter, according to the Boston Globe,  including "his work with the international Trilateral Commission; the blame he bore for the collapse of the Asian financial markets; and that he ended seven mute years as a child with the word 'woofness.'"

ABC News had more details from an FBI profile, noting that Gerhartsreiter "does not use metal utensils, will not eat bread unless it is white Pepperidge Farm with the crusts cut off, and that he met Sandra Boss at a Clue party where she was dressed as Scarlett O'Hara and he was Colonel Mustard. The two fell for one another while speaking Klingon, the language spoken by some on the TV series 'Star Trek.""

After that trial's publicity, Gerhartsreiter was traced back to Germany, where his birth parents said they had not seen him since 1978. Gerhartsreiter refused to accept this, instead claiming former actress Ann Carter had raised him (a claim she later denied).

The Murder Twist

The new trial in Los Angeles began earlier this month and relates to another time in Gerhartsreiter's life and another identity — Christopher Chichester.

John Sohus and his wife disappeared in 1985 in San Marino. Sohus' alcoholic mother told friends that the pair had gone on a top secret mission for the government. Nine years later human remains were found under the Sohus' home — the remains appeared to belong to John Sohus, and he appeared to have been bludgeoned to death, hacked to pieces, and put into plastic bags. His wife's remains have not been discovered.

For decades the case was unsolved, but as more details come out about Gerhartsreiter's past, he has emerged as a clear suspect.

A "Christopher Chichester" was known to have rented a guest house from Sohus' mother at the time. The same man later tried to sell witnesses an Oriental rug that appeared to have a bloody stain on it, according to the Los Angeles Times, and had the victim's truck after his death.

One piece of Sohus' body was found in a plastic bag stamped with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Gerhartsreiter studied at the university during the time that that logo was in use.

This week the court heard testimony from a girlfriend who lived in New York with Gerhartsreiter during the late 1980s that he acted bizarre when a police officer attempted to contact him about the murder. Gerhartsreiter — then living as Christopher Crowe — apparently dyed his hair black and his eyebrows blonde.

Gerhartsreiter's ex-wife, Boss, is expected to testify in the case, which may well bring out more details.

Gerhartsreiter may never testify in the trial himself — defense lawyers are refusing to say if he will or not, according to the Boston Herald — so jurors were shown an August 2008 interview of Christian Gerhartsreiter onNBC's "Today", wherein he offers an oblique denial.

The denial comes around 11 minutes into the video below, but the entire interview is fascinating to watch — for example, the moment where Gerhartsreiter puts on a Scottish accent and recites Robert Burns.

Will He Be Convicted?

One big problem with the murder case is that events took place so long ago, at least two witnesses have failed to recognize Gerhartsreiter in court, the Los Angeles Times reports, and a lot of the evidence in the case is circumstantial at best.

Gerhartsreiter's defense rests upon pointing the blame towards John Sohus' wife Linda, arguing that she was more physically capable of killing her husband in such a violent manner (at 6 feet tall, Linda was almost a foot taller than Gerhartsreiter).

While nearly everyone agrees that Gerhartsreiter is an unusual guy, convicting him of murder may be a much harder task.

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ASHTABULA, Ohio (AP) — Witnesses say the 25-year-old man accused of walking into an Ohio church and fatally shooting his father after an Easter service Sunday was yelling about God and Allah after the killing.

Police say Reshad Riddle walked into the Hiawatha Church of God in Christ in Ashtabula and killed his father, 52-year-old Richard Riddle, with a single shot from a handgun Sunday afternoon.

Associate Pastor Sean Adams told The (Ashtabula) Star Beacon newspaper that worshippers started screaming, ducking down and calling 911 on cellphones after the shooting.

"It was terrifying," Adams told the newspaper. "The children were screaming and people were dialing 911. We were afraid to breathe."

Adams said Reshad Riddle then continued into the church, still holding the gun, and yelled that the killing was "the will of Allah. This is the will of God."

Reshad Riddle was quickly subdued by officers, who arrived just moments after the shooting. They say he has been mostly cooperative.

The Plain Dealer newspaper in Cleveland reported that another church pastor said congregants were leaving when they heard a gunshot.

"People pushed me into a back office and said, 'Somebody's here with a gun,'" said the Rev. David Howard Jr. "The guy was outside hollering and acting crazy."

County Coroner Pamela Lancaster said Richard Riddle's wound was "immediately fatal."

Ashtabula Police Chief Robert Stell said the younger Riddle offered no motive for the shooting.

"Witnesses at the scene said the shooter entered church and made some references to Allah, but we are not sure if that was a motive or if there was a family problem," Stell said. "There is no indication that the father and son had a bad relationship. Everyone thinks this was very surprising."

Court records show Reshad Riddle has an extensive criminal record.

Ashtabula County Common Pleas Court records show he was arrested and charged with two counts of felonious assault, kidnapping, abduction and tampering with evidence in 2006.

Records show that in 2007, Reshad Riddle was charged with felonious assault, and in 2009 he was charged with possession of drugs, tampering with evidence and possession of cocaine.

According to police reports, one of the felonious assault charges stemmed from an incident when Reshad Riddle allegedly attempted to cut his girlfriend's throat. Capt. Joseph Cellitti said the young woman's neck had been cut with a knife and she suffered bruising on her side and chest.

Church parishioners said Reshad Riddle was a member of the church as a child, but did not attend services regularly as an adult.

"No one would have thought twice about him being here with his family on Easter," Adams said. "His family (has) been members here for years and years."

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Amanda Knox, who's now 25, became a household name in 2007 after she was accused of murdering her study-abroad roommate in Italy as part of a bizarre sex game.

An Italian appeals court ruled the DNA evidence was "flawed" and overturned her conviction in 2011. But last week the bizarre Italian court system struck down her acquittal and ordered that she be re-tried— meaning that she could be found guilty again.

Amanda Knox's story begins in 2007 with her decision to study abroad in Perugia, a quiet Italian city just north of Rome famous for its university and its chocolate festival.

Knox was studying Italian and creative writing at the University of Washington. Her parents and friends described her as friendly and book-smart, Rolling Stone reported.

Source: Rolling Stone

Knox, who was then 20 years old, rented this house with three roommates, including British student Meredith Kercher.

Source: Candace Dempsey in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

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Police in Kaufman County, Texas who are investigating the murders of two prosecutors have found a new "person of interest," the L.A. Times reports, citing a federal law enforcement official.

Investigators are looking into a former local official in Texas who was fired in a corruption probe. The former official, whom the Times didn't name, was allegedly caught on camera stealing and then arrested, the law enforcement source told the Times.

The two prosecutors who were killed, DA Mike McLelland and Assistant DA Mark Hasse, prosecuted this person's case.

The fired local official allegedly made threats against McLelland and Hasse since losing his job and allegedly threatened to burn down the home of another official.

The man's attorney, David Sergi, told the Times that his client "denies making threats against prosecutors" and was approached by police Saturday night, when he agreed to a gunpowder residue test. Sergi added that the house burning threat was "way overstated."

Local affiliate KPRC spoke to a man named Eric Williams on Tuesday who says he was questioned by police. (It's not clear whether he's the person referred to in the LA Times story.) He's a former Justice of the Peace who lost his job last year after he was convicted of stealing three computer monitors from a county building, KPRC reports.

Williams says he has "absolutley" no grudge against his prosecutors, and that police have not indicated he's a "person of interest."

Police are also looking at the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, a white supremacist prison gang, as a possible culprit for the unprecedented killings.

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The most intriguing nugget from the big Boston Globe profile of the Tsarnaev Brothers (the brothers suspected of carrying out the Boston Marathon attack) is this one:

Gym owner Allan said that Tamerlan had once introduced him to an American, Brendan Mess, whom Tamerlan described as his best friend.

Two years ago, Mess and two other men were brutally killed in a Waltham apartment where they were found by police with their throats slit and their bodies covered with marijuana. The murders remain unsolved.

Nobody states that there's a connection, but obviously now everyone's wondering if there is one.

The murders were a big deal at the time, due to the disturbing, grisly nature of the crime.

This video by the local CBS affiliate captures the reaction:

As months went by without a resolution, the case got more attention.

From The Braindeis university paper in November 2011:

Nearly two months after police officers rushed to 12 Harding Ave. on a September afternoon and found three men dead in a triple homicide; nearly two months after reporters from every Boston TV station stood behind the yellow crime scene tape, surrounded by flashing red and blue lights, demanding updates from Middlesex District Attorney Gerard Leone and airing interviews with neighbors on the nightly news; and nearly two months after three men under the age of 40 were stabbed to death in the neck just three miles from Brandeis University, law enforcement is still searching for answers, officials said Thursday.

The seasons have turned since the warm night on Sept. 12 when detectives began an investigation into the triple murder of Brendan Mess, 25, of Waltham; Erik Weissman, 31, of Cambridge; and Raphael Teken, 37, of Cambridge, who graduated from Brandeis in 1998 and majored in history. Updates on the investigation have not been noticeable.

After describing the apartment that night as a “very graphic crime scene” Leone later released a statement saying that “based on the present state of the investigation, it is believed that the victims knew the assailant or assailants, and the attacks were not random.”

And a year later from the Waltham Patch (September 2012):

A year after the triple murder at 12 Harding Ave., investigators say they are still actively investigating the case and pursuing leads.

Today, Sept. 12, marks one year since the murders of Raphael Teken, of Waltham, Erik Weissman, of Cambridge and Brendan Mess, of Waltham, at 12 Harding Ave. 

Nobody has been arrested in connection with the case and police never publicly named any suspects. Mess had been living in the second floor unit of the house. 

“Solving this case remains a priority for this office. We have not forgotten about Brendan, Erik or Raphael. Our hope remains that we are eventually able to provide justice for the victims’ families,” said Stephanie Chelf Guyotte, the Middlesex District Attorney's office spokesman, in an email to Waltham Patch.

Almost certainly, this case will get renewed attention.

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America is truly an exceptional nation. 

It's not because of our education system, our economy or our scientific establishment. 

No, America is really only exceptional when it comes to the number of guns, the frequency of gun murders, and the shockingly high number of annual gun deaths.

Other countries don't have the problems that the United States does. Other industrialized countries don't have tens of thousands of gun deaths per year, or regular mass shootings, or a population as armed as it is violent. 

Other countries don't have America's gun problem. 

Here, we take a look at the data that shows why America is so unlike the rest of the world when it comes to the popularity and the abuse of guns. We'll look at the role that policy-makers play in the gun control debate, and we'll look at what can be done. 

It isn't pretty, but it's important. Hundreds of thousands of American lives hang in the balance. 

When Americans kill one another, they usually use a gun. In fact, Americans use guns to murder each other twice as often as they use any other murder weapons.

In 2015, it is projected that for the first time in decades more people will die by guns than by motor vehicles.

At the current rate, 339,000 Americans will die by guns over the next 10 years. That is roughly equivalent to the current population of Tampa, Florida.

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — After door-to-door sweeps proved fruitless, law officers urged residents of a small town in Northern California to lock their door and keep a close eye on streets and yards for a man who stabbed an 8-year-old girl to death in her house.

The attacker, only described as wearing a black shirt and blue pants, was the subject of a broad search Sunday by the sheriff's departments of Calaveras and surrounding counties, the California Highway Patrol and the state Department of Justice.

Eight-year-old Leila Fowler was stabbed to death on Saturday at the home in Valley Springs, Coroner Kevin Raggio said. The town has about 2,500 people.

"This is way too close to home," Julia Poland, who took her 13-year-old daughter to an afternoon news conference on the search, told the Modesto Bee. "This kind of thing does not happen here."

Leila was found by her brother — reported by local media to be 12-years-old — after he encountered a male intruder in the home. When the intruder ran away, the boy found his sister stabbed. She was pronounced dead at a local hospital, officials said.

Authorities spent Saturday night and into Sunday conducting a door-to-door sweep of homes scattered across hilly terrain, checking storage sheds and horse stables, and even searching attics.

"It is a difficult area to search, it's rural, remote," sheriff's Capt. Jim Macedo said.

Mass notifications alerted residents about the incident and the search for the suspect, officials said.

"I was working on my tractor and a CHP copter kept flying over my house," area resident Roger Ballew, 35, told The Associated Press on Sunday.

A SWAT team showed up at his house Saturday night and told him to stay inside, Ballew said.

"It was nerve-wracking, I didn't sleep well," he said.

Investigators on Sunday were interviewing several people, but no suspects had been named by late afternoon. Investigators were checking out tips that had come in to the sheriff's office, including leads and tips that came from outside the county, officials said.

"It's just terrible," area resident Paul Gschweng told Sacramento television station KCRA. "What can I say about it, it's just a tragedy."

The station reported that a neighbor told police that a man was running from the girl's home after the incident.

Investigators were asking area residents to call authorities if they had any information, or knew of anyone who may have unexplained injuries, or may have left the area unexpectedly after the girl was killed.

Valley Springs is a community of about 2,500 people in an unincorporated area of Calaveras County, known as "Gold Country," in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, about 60 miles southeast of Sacramento.

The county became world-famous in 1865 with Mark Twain's short story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," according to the Calaveras County Chamber of Commerce website.

SEE ALSO: FBI Makes New Arrest In Obama Ricin Case

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