Convicted killer Jodi Arias has a new boyfriend, according to a new tabloid report.
Arias was convicted last year of stabbing and shooting ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander in 2007.
Though the jury convicted Arias, 34, they couldn’t reach a decision on a penalty, triggering a retrial where a new jury will try to decide whether she should get the death penalty or only spend life in prison.
The new boyfriend “has become her lifeline,” a person described as a close friend of Arias told the National Enquirer.
“Jodi told me, ‘He has helped me stay sane. Writing and talking to him gets me through the days.’”
Though she was found guilty of murdering Alexander, Arias still gets about 80 postcards a month from admirers--including the new boyfriend, the report claims.
The unnamed man lives near the Estrella Jail in Phoenix where Arias is currently being held. They started out writing to each other before moving on to regular phone calls, the source said. They have met face to face but the facility doesn’t allow conjugal visits.
The man is trying to keep Jodi’s spirits up by noting that only one juror needs to have a problem with the death penalty sentence for another hung jury, which would lead to Judge Sherry Stephens choosing between life in prison with or without the possibility of parole.
Meanwhile, there could be a mistrial because another juror was dimissed from the panel.
Legal analyst Beth Karas, formerly of HLN, said that a juror approached her in the courthouse hallway and asked her, “Are you Nancy Grace?”
Karas, a lawyer and journalist, reported the encounter to the court and the juror was dismissed.
Grace is in Phoenix to cover the retrial.
The latest dismissal is the second in the first two days of the trial. “Two jurors in two days is not a good record,” Karas told Radar Online.
Five alternates remain to back up the 12 sitting jurors.
