second chance today, wednesday, may 22nd, 2013. announcer: from nbc news, this is a special edition of today, with matt lauer live from moore, oklahoma, and announcer: from nbc news, this is a special edition of today, with matt lauer live from moore, oklahoma, and savannah guthrie, live from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. and good morning, everyone. welcome to a split edition of today on a wednesday morning. i m matt lauer in moore, oklahoma. morning, everyone. i m savannah guthrie in studio 1a. and, matt, i guess the question this morning is, do officials now believe that everyone is accounted for and are they moving forward with recovery efforts? yeah. they ve gone through, they say, every structure that was damaged by the tornado, savannah. they have put those red xs on them. they don t think any other people will be found in the buildings. there are a few people who are still unaccounted for. however, if there is one piece of good news, officials say the
meaningful ways. let s listen to what she had to say. i made many public statements that i would prefer the death penalty to life in prison. each time i said that, though i meant it, i lacked perspective. until very recently, i could not have imagined standing before you all and asking you all to give me life. to me, life in prison was the most unappealing outcome i could possibly think of. i thought i d rather die. but as i stand here now, i can t in good conscience ask you to sentence me to death because of them. asking for death is tantamount to suicide. either way, i m going to spend the rest of my life in prison. reporter: she also said that if they spare her life, she can teach her fellow inmates to speak spanish and read and write and she d donate her hair to locks of love. toure? okay. diana alvear. thanks. [ phil ] when you have joint pain and stiffness.
nbc s diana alvear is live outside the courthouse in phoenix. diana, it was something, perhaps, fascinating to watch the woman who previously said that she wants to die now saying there s no reasons why i should live. reporter: exactly right, toure. this was not defiant jodi arias. this was pentitent jody air whereas. she begged the jury to spare her life, so she could spare anyone nr more pain. she finally admitted, this is the greatest mistake of my life, i can t believe i m capable of this horrifying violence, saying she didn t kill spiders up until 2008. she talked about her artwork, how she would never get to be a mother. she tried to humanize to the jury, i m not this horrible person. if you spare my life, i can contribute to society. that s how she described her turnaround to wanting the death penalty a couple years ago to now wanting her life spared. she said she could contribute in
0 24 hours ago, life in moore, oklahoma, was monday business as usual. strong storms were in the area, but then at 3:40 eastern, everything changed. tornado warning issued, residents ran for cover in a town all too familiar with tornadoes and then touchdown. we re watching more severe weather this afternoon in tornado alley. as of now, nothing expected as destructive and terrifying as what we experienced monday. moore, oklahoma, bore the brunt of it. entire neighborhoods flattened, brick homes demolished. a hospital and schools destroyed. the official death toll is at 24 but is expected to rise. the governor describing it as a two-mile wide lawn mow eer blad destroyed nearly 5,000 homes and businesses. this time experts fear the damage footprint is twice as large. here s the 1999 path, and here s yesterday s. you can see the town of moore smack in the middle. the oklahoman ran this headline this morning, worse than may 3rd, the monster returned. the article then captured the worst fear
defens defense. she would prefer the death penalty over life in prin. there was talk she was going present her art work. at this point that s not going to happen today. court is supposed to go back into session tomorrow, but i ve said this before, we ve learned to expect anything in this case and anything happened today. absolutely. so there was a delay, diana, at the beginning of the day as we understood. was this all related to this witness who said that she had been intimidated or threatened somehow? reporter: absolutely, tamron. here s what happened. they had a character witness named patricia will mack, a childhood friend of jodi arias and she was going to speak about her character and abusive childhood and saying she had gone through so many things in her life and talk about the good of jodi arias. she said she just couldn t take it. she d had death threats on her life, and she wanted to talk