On January 2, 2013, nearly 5 years after the brutal murder of Travis Alexander, the trial of the state of AZ vs Jodi Ann Arias began.
Jodi has been an inmate at Estrella correctional facility since the summer of 2008. She was officially charged and arrested in CA on July 15, 2008 (Side note~this is the same day that Casey Anthony was arrested in Orlando, FL).
Beautiful, charming, sexy and oh so manipulative is Jodi Arias. She was a woman used to having her way. Men quickly folded to her beauty and sex appeal. This was not a women used to rejection or defiance from others. You could tell by her relationship with her mother. Jodi believed she could fool anybody. In fact, she has claimed that her IQ was as high as Einsteins!!. (It's not). While she did score on the high end of the IQ spectrum (119) she is no Einstein.
Shortly following her arrest she sat down with reporters. She told her story of the night of June 4, 2008 confidently and with very little emotion. She smiled and joked with reporters as she applied makeup...her behavior was the definitiin of bazar. Then again, this is the same woman who asked Det, Flores if she could fix her makeup before being booked into the jail so she could achieve that high school cheerleader look in her mugshot. After all, it was gonna be on the news. Hey, a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do, right?
At one point Jodi decided that she wanted to defend herself. A shocked Judge Sherry K Stevens asked her if she realized the severity of the case but agreed to allow 'Einstein' to defend herself as long as a public defender was present during the course of the trial. This decision, however, was short lived. She quickly realized that she was in way over her head in 2011 when she tried to submit letters into evidence that she claimed Travis Alexander had written to her apologizing for hitting her and admitting to being sexually attracted to children. The letters were quickly dismissed. Jodi had yet another ex boyfriend (Matt McCartney) forge the letters. She then had her mother try to sell them to the National Enquirer. It quickly became evident that her first attorney refused her request to submit the letters as evidence. Jodi had two attorneys resign from her case because she wanted things done her way. You know Einstein is much smarter then some public defender. She was also caught trying to send messages encrypted in two magazines. Looking at the words written near the spine of Star and Photography magazines alone, they would mean nothing. But put together she was telling someone (I believe this was also Matt McCartney) that what he had told her attorneys directly contradicts what she had been saying for the past two years and to get down there (to the jail) so that they could fix this. Clearly, Eistien was not a lawyer or a very smart criminal.
Between Jenny's lack of experience, Nurmi's lack of enthusiasm and Einstiens incedible arrogance and uncontrollable lying, it was a constant uphill battle for the defense team. Both attorneys have each started their own firms in the years leading up to the trial. . Kurt Nurmi tried to withdrawal from the case by filing several motions claiming that he was suffering financially due to the difference in pay he was receiving as Arias's public defender compared to working independently. The motions were denied but he did end up making significantly more then his co-counsel, Jenny.
Juan Martinez was the star of this show. When he spoke, you listened. His passion is contagious. He is like an actor or storyteller. He can take you places with his words. It is impossible to lie to him because his teqniqes make it impossible for a liar to answer the questions and make sense if they aren't being completely honest. He did cross the line at times and some people were put off by his aggressivness but the majority loved him. He was the voice of Travis. God forbid I needed a prosecutor to speak for one of my loved ones, this is definitely the man I would want on my team. He even caused waves when, one day, instead of leaving the courthouse through the back doors, he left through the front where he was mobbed by fans wanting autographs. Martinez was shocked and I'm sure a little embarrassed. He wasn't a celebrity and wasn't trying to be one. The next day the defense made a huge deal about it and asked for a mistrial even calling an HLN reporter to the stand, shocking viewers everywhere. Actually, I believe they asked for a mistrial at lease twice a week....
His closing arguments were so powerful that he brought millions of people to tears. His ability to think on his feet became painfully evident when, while describing the suffering that Travis had endured, which the defense claimed was a mear two minutes..... He said "let's see how long two minutes are and you decide if it was quick enough for him to not have suffered". He then managed to bring Travis into the courtroom (not for the first time) giving him two minutes of complete and utter silence that seemed to go on and on. Sobs were the only sound as the seconds dragged on. It was painfully obvious that Travis suffered incrediblely in those two minutes. And if two minutes seemed to last that long for court watchers, my God, imagine how poor Travis must have suffered in those two minutes, from the beginning of his attack until she slit his throat, killing him immediately. Again, the details of which came first, the gun shot wound to the head or the stab to the heart, are unclear. It would appear to make more sense that she shot him as he sat in the shower, overestimating the damage a .25 cal would do and underestimating Travis's will to live.
Juan Martinez argued that she stabbed him in the chest while he sat....naked, wet and volnerable. He stumbled out of the shower to the sink while Arias repeatedly stuck the knife into his back and to the back of his head creating chips in his scalp from the force of the blows. He painted a terrifying picture of Travis watching in the mirror as Arias attacked him. He tried to grab the knife. He tried to fight for his life...defensive wounds to his hands show that he did not go easily. He stumbled down the hall, leaving an arch in blood that appeared to be from Travis trying to balance himself against the wall as he bled out slowly and painfully. He lost the battle and fell at the end of the hall, where it was obvious that this was where his throat had been slit from ear to ear, cutting his jugular vein, his vocal cord and almost decapatating him. Bruises on his legs showed that she stomped and kicked him while he struggled to get away. After killing him in a jealous rage she dragged his body back into the shower where she washed his lifeless body, trying to erase any trace of herself away. Juan Martinez said that "not only had she taken his life, she'd also taken his dignity".
With a cup, she used the water from the shower to wash away as much blood as she could. It was obvious that she was not expecting the mess that comes when you stab someone repeatedly. This is another reason why I think that the gun shot came first. I've heard it said over and over on HLN...why would you bring a knife to a gun fight? Why would a 120lb 5'5" woman attempt to stab her 180lb 5'11" lover? He could have easily overpowered her. The only thing that makes sense, in my mind, is that she shot him and he didn't just die, as she expected. Maybe she tried to shoot again and the gun jammed? .25 cal guns are notorious for jamming. Or maybe he took the gun from her, not knowing that she also had the knife. These are things that will forever be unknown. The state argued that she brought the knife, as well as the stolen gun. Jodi, however, had another story about the knife. She said that during their sex games, Travis had used a rope to tie her to the bed. Except she kept mixing up her story. It depended what day it was but sometimes she said her hands were tied and other times it was her legs. Anyway, Travis had brought the knife to the room to cut the rope. Problem with that? There was NO evidence of a rope ever being in that room. And he had a sleigh bed, making it very difficult to tie someone's hands or legs to the bed. The only thing that we know for sure is that Jodi Arias brutally murdered Travis Alexander.
As you can see, the Jodi that appeared in court was a completely different picture of the Jodi that Travis had known. The defense tried to make her look more homely. They gave her a bad haircut and glasses (which, oddly enough, she took off anytime she had to read something). Personally i think she would have made more progress had she looked like herself. Everyone knows that beauty doesn't hurt. (Duh). Besides, why would her attornies make her look like a meek, quite battered women when they knew she wasnt going to hehave that way. Her story changed once again during her trial. She admitted that she had killed Travis Alexander on June 4, 2008. And she killed him...get this...in SELF DEFENSE. Suddenly the victim was on trial as well as Jodi herself. The defense painted a picture of Travis as a violent abuser who assaulted Jodi physically and sexually. They even accused him of being a pedophile. According to Jodi she had walked in on him masterbating to photos of a young boy. But when you lie, it becomes difficult to keep your stories straight. She told her expert witnesses that the pictures of the child porn were on his laptop (Alyce LaViolette, the DV witness testified to this). A search of his computer proved that not only was there no child porn on his computer, there was in fact NO porn of any kind on there. She later claimed that it wasn't on the computer, they were photos, actually. A search of his home showed nothing like that existed.
Jodi claimed that she was Travis's 'dirty little secret'. That he used her. She claimed that he told her that the law of chastity only applied to vaginal sex. But being that Jodi was also Mormon, you would expect that she would know what the law of chastity meant. During the recorded phone call between them he was very graphic, telling her that he wanted to 'tie her to a tree and put it in her ass all the way'. Jodi's response? She giggled and said 'that is SO debasing...I like it". She (apparently) got herself off twice during this phone sex session (although she claimed that she had faked it because she needs BOTH hands to get her off..duh). After the moaning stops, Travis, obviously not knowing he was being recorded, is heard saying "you are so hot...you sound like a 12 year old girl having her first orgasm". I would agree it wasn't the smartest thing to say (this was her 'proof' of pedophelia) but in the heat of the moment you sometimes say things that in retrospect don't sound so good. The funny thing is that Jodi herself told him in text messages that she wanted to be fucked like a naughty little school girl....she thought the pigtails were 'hot'. It was obvious that they both enjoyed the role playing. Travis Alexander may have been guilty of breaking the law of chastity but he was in NO way attracted to children. This was a HUGE blunder on the defenses part. She was accusing her murder victim of being the most vile and disgusting thing a human being could be with NO supporting evidence but her words, which at this point were worthless.
Perhaps the most damaging piece of evidence against her (besides all of her lies) was her journals. She kept detailed journals from the time she was a teenager. Not once in her journals did she ever utter one bad word against Travis. On the contrary, she filled pages and pages professing her love for him. How wonderful he was and how she would love him forever. She claimed that she didn't document his 'abuse' because of the 'law of attraction'. For anyone not familiar with the law of attraction:
The law of attraction is the name given to the belief that "like attracts like" and that by focusing on positive or negative thoughts, one can bring about positive or negative results. Jodi spent a whopping 18 days in the witness stand!!! Something that is unheard of. She told detailed stories of everything from the time she was a child. She seemed to remeber things like what she had for breakfast in 1997. However, she claimed to have no memory of stabbing Travis or slicing his throat and that she she suffered from PTSD. She claimed that he was angry that day. He first got upset when a CD would not work. Jodi, being the wonderful girlfriend that she was, knew that the only thing that would control his violent outbursts was sex. She said that he grabbed her by the arm, turned her around, bent her over a desk and proceeded to have 'rough vaginal sex' with her. This, she claimed, calmed him for the moment. Her story then continues with their photo shoot. She told Det Flores back in 2006 that she had 'convinced' him to let her take photos of him in the shower. On the witness stand she told the jury that Travis had been working out and had asked her to take photos of him. She said that the camera slipped out of her hands and Travis lost it. He yelled at her that she was a "stupid idiot" and that "a five year old could hold a camera better then her". He then came out of the shower and 'body slammed' her onto the tile floor, knocking the wind out of her. She somehow managed to roll away and run out of the bathroom and down the hall. At the end of the hall, the closet door was to the right and the stairs to exit the house were to the left. Rather then running out of the house (out of fear that he'd catch her, never minding the fact that he was completely nude and still wet from his shower) she decided to run into the closet where she remembered he kept a gun (there is no proof that Travis owned a gun or any signs of a gun like bullets, gun cleaners...etc at his home). She claimed that she climbed on one of the shelves and got the gun from on top of the shelf. It was proven during rebuttal that if she would have stepped onto one of the shelves, it would have tipped, due to the fact that they were 'floating shelves'. She claimed that she never intended to actually shoot him...she thought it wasn't even loaded. She told the jury that she pointed the gun at him hoping that it would make him stop. This is so rediculous because if it was his gun, he would know whether the gun were loaded or not. Somehow, the gun went off as he 'lunged at her'. Juan Martinez, being the brilliant man that he is, asked her to step off the stand and demonstrate his 'linebacker lunge'. It was clear that Jodi was not expecting this. She stood on the courtroom floor pretending not to understand his question (in reality you could see her wheels turning. This was not something she had anticipated. After stalling for a little longer then she should have, this was what she demonstrated to the jury...
She told stories of how he had attacked her physically four times and called her terrible names..slut, whole, a three whole wonder, that's my fave :). The problem with that was those pesky journals she had kept. On one occasion in which she claimed that Travis had 'broken her finger' kicking her in the ribs while she shielded herself. She held up her crooked finger in court for all to see. In her first journal entry after this 'incident' she begins with 'I haven't written because there has been 'nothing noteworthy to report'. Another alleged attack supposibly took place on the day she told Travis she was moving back to Yreka. They were in his car and according to her he punched her in the side of her head. That day she wrote about her talk with Travis, only according to her journal, they had talked and instead of a punch to the head, he gave her "three tender kisses" and told her that he wanted to remain friends with her. Now, I know about the law of attraction. It doesn't imply that you should lie to yourself. Juan tore her to pieces on the stand, asking her while she apparently sobbed if was crying when she shot him, stabbed him and slit his throat'. She went to to toe with him though. She smirked at him, refuses to agree on even the most minute details and was caught contradicting herself over and over. One example of her nonsense lying is that Juan asked her how it was that she remembered what she had to drink at Starbucks five years ago but remembers NOTHING about stabbing Travis. She said that she always got a strawberry frapachinno at Starbucks. In another part of her testimony, she said that she met someone at Starbucks and drank an iced latte. Come on Jodi...really?? She was far from what a typical battered women would be like. The jury submitted over two hundred questions for Jodi which dripped with sarcasm. Among those questions were "How is it that you remember so many details of your sex life but nothing about stabbing Travis 30 times?", "Have you ever seen a Dr about your memory problems?", "Did you enjoy having sex with Travis?" and my personal favorite "After all the lies you've told, why should we believe you now?". Jodi was obviously stressed that day...you couldn't tell by her demeanor but her ginormous cold sore that popped up out of nowhere. When asked about why she would make the statement that no jury would convict her, she said it was because she planned to kill herself before the trial, so how could she be convicted if she were dead. It wasn't the first time or the last that Jodi claimed or threatened to kill herself.
During her trial, with the world watching, she recruited her jailhouse girlfriend (Donavan Bering) who had been released, to be her voice on the Internet. Jodi had her very own twitter account. A first in the criminal community. She called her once lover girl every night and quoted what to tweet out to the world. She took shots at Nancy Grace and even at the prosecutor, Juan Martinez!!!
She spent her time in prison drawing and painting. She also sold these drawings, first on eBay (they eventually got taken off of the site after people became outraged by it) and then on her official site http://jodiariasisinnocent.com/
with people paying anywhere from hundreds to
thousands of dollars for her 'original'
art. It was later discovered that these paintings were copies of copywrited photo ads found in magazine. I mean really....how does she get away with this stuff?!? The murder trial was plastered all over news channels and newspapers. Logging onto the Internet was impossible without seeing or hearing something about Jodi. The jury was not sequestered. AZ does not sequester jurors. This has been discussed at great lengths by attorneys who believe that this could result in grounds for an appeal. Three of the jurors were dismissed for various reasons throughout the trial. Jodi's mother sat in court day after day, never missing a moment. She was never alone, usually accompanied by her twin sister or Donovan and towards the end, Jodi's grandmother. Closing arguments began on May 2013, exactly four months after opening statements. After many delays by the defense, the trial came to a dramatic end on May 8, 2013. Jodi's fate was now in the hands of the jury.
Part 3- The Verdict will be posted ASAP.
Thanks for reading :)
Jennie, this is Excellent!
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