Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - JODI ARIAS NEW LEGAL PUSH?

Episode Date: August 31, 2025

Jodi Arias stabs her boyfriend, Travis Alexander, 28 times, shoots him and leaving him to die in his shower. In 2025, she remains in jail, serving a life sentence for murder.  Currently held at the Arizona State Prison Complex - Perryville, Arias has mounted multiple appeals of her conviction, including alleging prosecutorial misconduct and a biased atmosphere during the trial.  All have been denied. Now Arias reals in a new post on her Substack,  one of her top priorities is pursuing PCR,   post-conviction relief. It's a legal maneuver that allows inmates to challenge their convictions or sentences based on new evidence or constitutional violations.   It's a move most recently used by Scott Peterson. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Why won't she go away? I'm talking about Jody Arias, convicted in the brutal murder of her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander, stabbing him at least 29 times. There were so many stabs you couldn't really tell because they were overlapping, plus shooting him in the head. leaving this young guy with his life in front of him to decompose in his own shower?

Well, apparently, she's preparing another legal challenge to her conviction. I'm Nancy Grace. This is crime stories. I want to thank you for being with us. Arias, still behind bars at Arizona's parable state women's prison serving life without parole, has reemerged through prison. created artwork sales and a new blog on substack. Oh, my goodness. She has a blog on substack, her and top mom, Casey Anthony. She states, quote, it might be difficult for some to

grasp, but flirting is not among my priorities. Really? Because you're constantly luring in sad sack, love-lorn guys trying to get money. Quote, it's a waste of time and does nothing to serve my goals. Oh, okay. She added, her new focus is P, C. R. Post-conviction relief. Quote, my art, which is basically tracing pictures out of magazines, my writing, oh dear Lord, and manuscripts that may or may not ever be published. What? Post-conviction relief? Okay. An appeal is on the way. Another appeal that is. It ain't over yet. Well, who is Travis Alexander? Who is Jody? Arias. First of all, take a listen to this. Jody Arias grew up in California. When she was younger,

her parents moved around a lot, ultimately settling in Wairika in Northern California near the Oregon border. Arias was part of a larger family with four siblings. Picture perfect author Shana Hogan tells CNN, compared to Alexander's upbringing, Arias's was more idyllic, but not without its own problems. She grew up being very artistic. She played the flute. She had a lot of brothers and sisters and was very close with them all. So Jody's childhood was fairly ideal compared to Travis's, but she does describe like incidences of physical violence. The area's family opened a Mexican restaurant where as a teenager, Jody worked as a waitress. She developed a passion for photography and as an adult shot weddings and the like. Wanting to make more money and be more

successful, Arias packs up and moves to Palm Desert, a California resort town. Once in Palm Desert, Arias becomes interested in pursuing the network marketing of prepaid legal. You're hearing our friend John Linley at crimeonline.com. We know a lot about Jody Arias in her life, seemingly an idyllic childhood. But what about Travis Alexander? Now, we know Travis was good-looking, charismatic, and entrepreneur, even a motivational speaker, but things weren't always so great for him. As a matter of fact, Travis was born to drug-addicted parents, and he suffered a lot as a child. His parents were poor. They neglected him.

They abused him. He was teased and bullied. He had very few friends. He even ran away at just 10 years old to go live with his grandma. and that was where he became involved in the Mormon church. And he thrived there with me, an all-star panel to break it down and put it back together again. Renowned psychologist joining me out of Manhattan, Karen Stark, you can find her at Karenstark.com. That's Karen with a C.

Robert Crispin, former cop, now private investigator at Crispin Special Investigations.com. Alexis Tereschuk, crime online.com, investigative reporter who covered this case from the very, very beginning and special guests joining us. Defense attorney Kirk Nirmie. Kirk Nirmie is actually

written the book trapped with Miss Arias and you can find it on Amazon. He's also cast member Radical Body Transformation, now season three on Amazon Prime. You know, I want to go first to you, Alexis Terez,

a lot of people don't know how Travis grew up and why it's so phenomenal that he turned his life around. I mean, he was born to drug-addled parents that literally abused him, wouldn't give him enough food, wouldn't take care of him. I remember him saying that he would be teased by canned food as a child, but he didn't know how to use a can opener. And that just broke my heart, Alexis. And then he turns into this great-looking, awesome guy, entrepreneur, motivational speaker. It's pretty incredible. Do you think it was the grandmother or the Mormon church that turned his life around?

I think it was both of them. He was so lucky to get out of that terrible lifestyle that he had, poor kid with his abusive parents, and his grandmom took him in. He really considered her his mother. and so she is the one that introduced him to the Mormon church and that those two things together completely turned his life around and his sister talks about how that was a big transformation for their family and it was such and it became so important to him to to lead a very religious life and to follow the tenants of the church and to do to do things to make his grandmother

proud to Karen Stark psychologist joining me from Manhattan Karen it's so great to talk you and boy do I need a shrink to figure out these two but you know this is a lot I'm learning now about Travis Alexander I never knew about his childhood and what he lived through and I'm just finding it how he how he turned his life around really starting at about age 10 is pretty amazing Karen it's amazing and it's also um says a lot about his determination to make life be better that he had that awareness at age 10 and could tell that there was more that he wanted to do. And you think about really the strength that he had to be able to witness the kinds of things that he did and create this incredible life for himself, a motivational speaker.

And I'm sure that he used that background in his speaking, you know, the fact that he had overcome something with such a young age. Or Karen Stark, I mean, you're the shrink, not me. But I know you said he was so young, but he wanted to turn his life around. I didn't know anything like that at age 10. I was out building pine straw forts and throwing pine cones and riding my bike, you know, until I had to do my homework at home and have supper. So it's hard for me to relate to a 10-year-old knowing they need to turn their life around.

I see from my arms here psychology viewpoint I would say he just got somebody that loved him and responded to that that's absolutely part of what happened Nancy but you do have awareness at age 10 especially if you come from the traumatic background so that wasn't your experience and you were able luckily to have the kind of life where you could come home do your homework ride your bike but more hand he saw things and was around things that even though developed in me, he was young, he understood that this was better for him being with his grandma. And I'm sure, I just feel so sure that he took that in and understood he wanted to do well with his life.

Not everybody would do that, but he did. Take a listen to Travis Alexander. This is our cut too. Now remember, Travis goes to live with his grandma at age 10. He gets heavily involved with the Mormon church. and between grandma and the church, they turn this child's life around. He becomes a very successful entrepreneur and motivational speaker and heavily involved still with the Mormon church. Take a listen to him speaking at a legal seminar in Vegas.

When I first started training in things like that, you can imagine the first thing I would hear a lot of is, by the way, he's single. and uh that's right i am waiting he's going to get me that's been going on for six years Alexander speaking at that legal seminar in Vegas, and he's making everybody laugh by self-deprecating humor, talking about he would mention he's single, ladies come and get me, but that he's been single now trying to get dates for the past six years. That's when everybody started laughing. And this guy is handsome. He's educated. He's successful. And, you know, there's really no surprise that he met and started dating Jody. but take a listen to our friend John Lemley at Crime Online. Travis Alexander worked for prepaid legal services as a salesman and motivational speaker. Please have you welcome to the front of the room, Mr. Travis, Alexander. Friend Taylor Cyril tells HLN Alexander was good at it.

He really had a great way of influencing those around him, including myself, to always strive to be more. And that's the thing that he really helped those around him understand is that we are some. and we're always going to be striving to be more. Tanisha Sorensen says her brother was well liked. Very popular and very active. He did a lot of conventions where he would dress up in character and, you know. So I didn't really understand that about him, Kirk Nirmie. What kind of a motivational speaker was he?

Would he talk about turning his own life around and inspire other people to do the same? Well, it was within the context of his prepaid legal business. just talked about the legal insurance business where he met Jody at this convention in Vegas. So he would motivate with his own story and he would talk to people about, you know, bettering their economic circumstances through working with prepaid legal and motivate them in their sales careers. Well, you're absolutely right yet again, Kirk Nirmie.

Take a lesson, our forensic crime online. Travis Alexander and Jody Arias meet because of prepaid legal. After moving to Palm Desert, Arias becomes interested in a sales position with the network marketing company, and she attends a seminar in Las Vegas. Alexander is there as well. Friend David Hughes tells CNN, he told Alexander about the beautiful single girl on his team. We were there for a convention. Our company had a big event there. I was there in Las Vegas with him, and I knew that he was single, and he was always looking for,

Miss Alexander, and I told Travis, hey, there's this cute girl that I work with. You should meet her, and he was introduced me. And so I introduced them, and then they were able to develop a relationship pretty quickly from there. Outside the Rainforest Cafe at the MGM Grand Hotel, Alexander introduces himself. Hughes tells the rest of the story. He said, hey, listen, do you have a nice dress? Because I'd like to take you to the formal executive dinner with me as my guest. After the banquet, Travis Alexander and Jody Arias hang out until about 4 a.m., talking and getting to know each other.

The next morning, Alexander tells friends he's found the woman that he wants to marry. Oh, my goodness. Karen Stark. Again, I need a shrink after one night with Arias, he wants to marry her? Well, yes, he did say that, Nancy, and that does sometimes happen. Obviously, there was this huge attraction between the two of them. Now, wait a minute. Karen Stark, hold on, Karen Stark. Now, wait a minute. Now, didn't you know your now husband for a long time before you guys became red hot and got married? It was not love at first sight, was it? No. Well, it might have been love at first sight, but it didn't mean we got married or I talked about marrying him right away. But, however, there are people that actually do feel that they meet someone. They have love at first sight. They are very attracted.

Don't you think a slow burn is a better idea, like a crock pot, not red hot? Okay, yes. It's probably, in my opinion, it would probably be better if things slow down as a crack pot. But red hot is often the case, Matt, it doesn't surprise me at all. Well, that is what happened here. Take a listen to John Lemley. Travis Alexander and Jody Arias' relationship became red hot. Quickly. Within a week, the couple is having sex in a car. And according to Picture Perfect author,

Shana Hogan, they were inseparable. From the very beginning, Travis and Jody were almost in constant communication. They talked every day. They exchanged thousands of emails and text messages. They traveled extensively together from Carlsbad Caverns to the Grand Canyon. Travel was a passion they shared. But despite their similarities, there was one major difference. Alexander is more Mormon, Arias is not. Well, not then, according to Alexander's brother. She started to inquire more about the LDS faith and ended up joining the church, which I'm sure that brought their relationship, made it even stronger. Another obstacle to their relationship is distance. Arias lives in California, Alexander,

in Arizona. Okay, whoa, wait a minute, wait a minute. Alexis Torres-check, didn't you leave out a couple of facts. So they meet and in one week they're having sex in a car. They are. They were some instant attraction there. I can't believe it wasn't the first night in Vegas. Why not? So this is the thing that was a problem. And this starts as a very early problem in their relationship because in Travis's religion, it is very important not to have sex before marriage. And he knows this he's been a devout Mormon at this point for over a decade and he knows that this is something that's very important in the religion however they can't resist it they're both young they're both very attracted to each other and so they do have sex but it becomes something that

he wants to hide so he wants to hide the fact that they're having sex do i understand that correctly yes well you know what um i don't know why it's seemingly okay for men to have multiple sex but then when a woman does it she's like a slut but if a virgin is what Travis Alexander is looking for well he's barking up the wrong tree take a listen to this religion is very important to Travis Alexander and in the Mormon faith chastity and marriage and age is very important as friend Chris Hughes explained to ABC 2020 and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterty Saints in these singles congregations that they've got

set up across the world. When you turn 31, you're out. You know, like you have to go to a regular congregation, almost like you're getting moved from the main toy box to the broken toys. You know, like the broken toys go over here. So Travis is feeling the pressure to settle down and start a family. Within a couple of months of their meeting, Arias has converted to the Mormon church. In fact, Alexander baptized her. One would think that would strengthen the relationship. But now they are both following Mormon tenants, and an important one is sex before marriage is a sin, and Jody and Travis were sinning a lot. In her journals, Arias describes their sexual fantasies in details, and this was causing moral dilemmas for Alexander.

She had to Kurt Nirmie joining us, legal commentator, author of Trapped with Ms. Arias, star on Amazon Prime's body transformation. Kurt, tell me what happened. I mean, she converts to the Mormon faith because of Travis Alexander, but yet Travis is then plagued because of the sex, right? Right, and Nancy, Travis was plagued by this idea of having a sexual relationship because it was taboo. All his friends were in the Mormon church. We heard clips of Chris Hughes talking about the need for chastity, everything else. So this was a big problem for him in terms of his peer group and in terms of his social status with his company because he had this image of being this Mormon man

in search of the perfect Mormon girl. Backing up a bit, she is also living with a man in California. So they begin this kind of meeting at the Hughes' house, having this relationship, and it's all meant to be kind of secret. And he ultimately, he wants this Mormon wedding. He wants all these things. And based on that, to kind of bring some legitimate, me see to it, they are working towards being the Mormon couple, and she begins the process of

conversion. I want you to hear this. She describes starting with oral sex in a parking lot near a Starbucks, it goes on to anal sex. As a matter of fact, the day that Travis Alexander baptizes her at the Mormon church, they go straight back home, they make a beeline, back to the apartment, back to the home for more anal sex. Gene Gassarous, very quickly, this is intended to paint a bad picture of Travis Alexander, that he basically used her for sex and then ignored her, mistreated her, took her for granted. That's the picture I'm getting, right?

He was her spiritual advisor who baptized her, and she seemed to follow everything he said. To Alexis Terescia at crimeonline.com on Twitter, she's at Swimmy 2009. Alexis, tell me about their relationship because I remember distinctly an anecdote about Travis Alexander going to the mall to buy her her favorite centibon and leaving it on her car, all kind of sweet things. They had a really sweet relationship. He would tell her just how much he adored her, also how attracted he was to her. They traveled together. They were in San Diego. They were in waterfalls.

There were lots of pictures. They were this very happy, very young, successful couple up and coming. Travis owned his own house. He was very successful at a very young age. And they seemed perfect to everybody that would look at it. Guys, I want you to take a listen to our friends at 2020. Travis and Jody have been dating for a couple of months when his friends started noticing there's something off with Jody. something not quite right for example one night we're all in the hot tub there's four of us you know

this is a time to chat and hang out well jody is like climbing on Travis while we're trying to have this conversation she was all over him I mean like eighth graders whose parents are out of town like straddling his lap and sucking on his neck and Travis just kept pushing her off and he's like Jody, get off me, like, what are you doing? And I look at Chris, I'm like, does she not realize we're sitting here? The love, the infatuation, the red-hot romance begins to turn sideways. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Convict a killer Jody Arias will not go away and is now harping on about PCR post-convictive.

relief, which means she's failed in all of her appeals through the normal channels and is now trying a new route. Think Scott Peterson. You know what? What is this, Karen, start this crawling all over him? Why does a grown woman do that with somebody she's dating? She's to wessey, and she absolutely has to have that kind of intensity in her relationship. It's not that she really feels anything.

that she needs to control. She needs to be over him and make sure that he's doing the things that show that he's attached to her and only to her. Take a listen to our cut 12. This is Mary Ellen Resendez

at ABC 15. Travis Alexander called Brent and Dr. Hyatt and their family, his Arizona family. He ate dinners with him often and on at least two occasions brought Jody Arias with him. I didn't really see much of a future in it.

I don't know. really know that he did either. But apparently, Travis Alexander thought there was. Guys, in addition to Alexis Tereschuk, Joseph Scott Morgan, Karen Stark, and Kirk Nirmie, now joining me a new and very critical guest today. A longtime friend of both Travis Alexander and Jody Arias, the author of our friend Travis, Christopher Hughes, joining us. Chris, thanks for being with us.

Hey, you're welcome. How does it hit you, Chris, to hear us talk. about the beginnings of the relationship between Arias and Travis when you look back on it. Well, it's surreal. I mean, it's, you know, things like this aren't supposed to happen in your life, but it happened in my life. And, you know, in some ways it feels like a bad movie that I watched. You know, it's been so many years now.

But, you know, it wasn't a movie. It was real. It happened. How did you know them? I met Travis at church. I moved from Fort Worth, Texas to Riverside, California back in 2001, I think. And I was in that church a couple of weeks, and the bishop asked me if I would teach a Sunday school class. And so I volunteered to teach the class every Sunday.

And I think it was my second week. Travis was the superintendent, or, you know, he was over all the Sunday school teachers. And he was just hanging out of my class one day to make sure that I was staying on Texas. and doing a good job and I quoted from the book How to Win Friends and Influence People there's a poem in there called Father Forgets and I read the poem

and then I ended the class and Travis walked up to me and said Father forgets from how to win friends and influence people and I was like oh you know you read those kind of books you know you read that stuff and he's like of course and we hit it off from that moment And then he asked me, he was looking for ways to make additional income, and he asked me what I was doing, and I told him a little bit about it.

And he decided over the next few days that he wanted to join me. And so we were inseparable from that week going forward. We became best friends and business partners. And we were together literally every day in those early days of our friendship and our business together. But then where does Jody Arias fit into Sunday school? Well, Jody didn't have religion. I don't know what she was doing religiously or spiritually before she connected with Travis. But a few months after Travis and I started working together, we went to a convention.

Our company had conventions every year, big 10,000, 15,000 conventions. And I think we're at the MGM Grand this one year. And Travis met Jody Arias there. She had just become an associate with the company. company and she heard that there was going to be this big convention and if she wanted to be successful in the company she should probably go and so she decided to go and Travis and Jody met there and you know then they became inseparable for a long period of time we were just describing earlier playing sound of how friends noticed areas would just crawl all over him

literally. There's just no other way to put it. And I also heard that as her relationship was described with other men. So this wasn't just about Travis. Did you witness their relationship, Chris? Yeah, I did. I mean, that was me in the soundbite. And I was sitting in the hub with Travis and my then-wife, Sky. And it was just really bizarre to watch. And their relationship really began to bud and grow and develop in my house, you know? I mean, at the time, Jody was still living with a boyfriend that she had purchased a home with, and she had told Travis that they were divorced, but that he couldn't come to her house because that would be really awkward.

She lived in the, in the desert, Palm Desert area, Palm Springs area in California. Travis was living in Mesa, Arizona, and so he would actually drive. drive past her house on his way to my house to rendezvous and she would come over and hang out and they they would stay for days at a time and in fact just an interesting side note sometimes jody would show up without Travis and unannounced and would stay for a couple of days or longer and so yeah they would come over and they were there a lot and so we watched all of this happen at first i really really liked jody i thought she was great i thought she was great i thought She was smart.

I thought she had a great handshake. I thought she had good eye contact. She seemed to be able to talk about any subject that came up. But then as she was in my home day after day after day, you know, then you start to see the oddities and the bizarre behavior and crawling all over. I got to hear this. I got to hear the oddities and the bizarre behavior. Please tell me. Well, so she takes an interest in the Mormon church.

because Travis wanted a Mormon girlfriend or a Mormon woman to be in his life. And she just was, in my opinion, she was doing everything that she could to get Travis to commit to her and to like her. For example, we're watching the UFC, you know, cage fighting basically. And Jody is why, and it's loud, you know, my kids are running around the house and there's people there and we're eating pizza and hanging out and the TV's really loud. And she's walking back and forth in front of the television reading her book of Mormon, you know, or reading her Bible. I don't know what she was reading, but she had her scriptures in her hand. And we're like, what is she, you know, like, get out of the way. Like, what are you doing?

She's walking around the house trying to show everybody how spiritual she was while we're trying to watch, you know, a blood sport. Cage fighting. Yeah. And then Travis would get up oftentimes. Anytime Travis got up to go to the bathroom, to go anywhere, do anything around the house, Jody would wait just a few seconds, and then she would get up and follow him out of the room. And there were multiple times where we came around the corner to see what she was doing, and we caught her evening on Travis's conversations, or if you just sitting on the toilet,

you know, behind the closed door in the bathroom, she's got her ear up against the door trying to figure out what he's up to and what he's doing. And that was from the very, very beginning. It's not like, oh, I caught my boyfriend cheating, so I got to, you know, I follow him around everywhere. Nothing like that has ever happened at this point. She's just following him or following him around. Okay, that's totally freaky. You know, Alexis Tereschuk, crimeonline.com, investigative reporter, also with leadstories.com. I know you're hearing Chris Hughes and Karen Stark talking.

That's, you know, when you get a hold of somebody that's. starts, you know, following you around and following you to the bathroom. I told you, Alexis, I read my husband's emails one time. I thought I was going to die. My eyes started to bleed. They were so boring. It was awful. I kept thinking, oh, I got to find something, just something. Nothing. There was nothing. I've never done it again. I thought my head was going to blow off. If you've got to follow somebody around and listen to the bathroom door to hear if they're on the phone, then you've got the wrong person, either they're making you insecure or you just don't mix with that person. I would hate to live a life like that, Alexis.

And she, for your example with the emails, that's exactly something she did. She would go through Travis's email and forward them to herself and delete things out of his email. She was like a stalker from the beginning. Christopher Hughes, friend of Travis and Jody, author of Our Friend, Our Friend, Travis. Chris, did the friends notice there was something wrong with the relationship? Yeah. It was kind of a freaky thing that happened. But yeah, I mean, most people that knew Jody, well, let me put it to this way. Most people that met Jody through Travis or through the business didn't like her, just instinctively or intuitively. And most of the people that didn't

like her were women. And most of the women that didn't like her warned Travis, like, hey, she's not right. There's something not right about her. I don't know what it is. I don't get a good feeling from her. And he hated it. And one night, it happened in my own home. It was such a freaky experience. But Travis and Jody, well, I guess that comes on a little later, but Sky and Jody went in the kitchen. Travis and I were in my office. And I get a text. My phone is on my desk face up and sky texted me and she said she's driving me crazy get her out of here and as soon as i saw it Travis was standing behind me i flipped my phone over and i started laughing because it was so awkward and i was hoping that Travis didn't read it but i had a feeling that

he did and he said what's going on i said what i was giggling just so uncomfortable and and he said I saw that like what's going on I said Travis we need to talk and he said well start talking he's really upset because he liked her so much and I said well let's let's wait till after dinner you know I want Sky to be there there's things that she's observed and that I've observed and I'd like to have a conversation with you together so later that night Travis and Jody getting a little spat she goes to bed earlier at least we thought she did and then Travis and sky and I, the three of us were sitting on my bed, in my bedroom, behind a closed and locked door, and we were talking for hours. And we had just gotten to kind of the, I don't know,

the high point of the conversation or the whole point of the conversation, trying to tell her, and I remember Sky, passionately was saying, Travis, you'll understand, like, we think she's dangerous. And he was defending her and saying, dangerous, you're kidding. She wouldn't hurt a fly, you guys. She's so sweet. She's so nice. And right as he's defending her, Sky, she has kind of a sixth sense. And she put her finger to her lips to tell us to be quiet.

And then she pointed at the door and she lift. You know, she didn't even whispered. She kind of just lift. She's out there. And Travis looked mortified. He's thinking, no way. No, she's not. And Skye's, you know, nodding her head up and down saying,

yes she's out there she's out there and Travis right in the middle of our conversation he jumps off the bed and rips the door open and there's jodiarius with her face to the door listening to our conversation at midnight upstairs on the opposite end of the house from where her bed she had her own bedroom in her house and it was the scariest I mean literally that moment was one of the if not the scariest moments of my life because Because of her face, she had this evil, and it's not 2020 hindsight. You know what I mean? Like, oh, she was a murderer and, oh, yeah, that night was really scary.

We talked about it that night. In fact, Travis was so embarrassed by this because he's literally defending her and saying she's so nice and so sweet and so normal it wouldn't her to fly while she's eavesdropping in somebody else's house at midnight outside our bedroom door. And so he's embarrassed. He said, Johnny, go to bed, you know, come talk to you. What are you doing? She's like, is everything okay?

Everything's fine. Like, go to sleep. I'll come talk to you later. So she shuts the door and I said, Travis, case in point, bro. Like, that's what I'm talking about. Who does that? Nope, normal people don't do that. And then the conversation continued for maybe another hour.

And we caught her again. We caught her again eavesdropping on our conversation. We caught her the second time. I said, Travis, get her. out of here dude i was like go down there go handle that like we're done conversation's done if you don't get it there's nothing i mean there's nothing more i can do but what jody said was excuse me what sky said was she said Travis we're afraid we're gonna find you chopped up in her freezer that's what that's what sky said moments before we discovered that jody was eavesdropping

outside our bedroom door Chris you got to tell me you have to tell me what was it that she did What was it about her that made you feel that? That made Sky feel that. What did she do? Well, at this point, you know, keep in mind, she had already admitted to us that she had been stealing, getting into Travis's emails. She already admitted she'd been getting into a cell phone. She'd been tracking his conversations with other women. And keep in mind, they were not in a relationship.

They were just trying to figure out they wanted to be in a relationship. She's following him around the house. She's becoming like a chameleon. we watch her personality shift from one person to the other, depending on where she goes and who she's with and what she's doing. And so it was all of those things that were kind of creeping us out in the background. But once we saw that she's in our house and she's eavesdropping on a very private conversation, and it was the look in her face.

It was a cold, murderous, and again, not 2020 hindsight after she killed him. Sky and I were holding hands, laying the bed at 2 o'clock in the morning, And she said, Chris, did you see that look? I said, of course I saw that look. One of the scariest things I've ever said, and she said, seeing, excuse me, and she said, do you think our kids are safe? Should we go and get the kids and bring them into our bedroom? And then she said, Chris, she's evil.

She could burn our house down. Like that's what was, it was that look that was so frightening that gives you chills and causes the hairs on the back. your neck to stand up. I've never experienced anything like it before nor since. Take a listen to our friends at crimeonline.com. It didn't take long for the relations to cool, partly because of Travis Alexander's interest in other women. Here's picture perfect author, Shana Hogan. Jody went through his phone and discovered these Florida messages to other women, and she decided to end the relationship

at that point. But at the same time, Travis was looking to end the relationship. And Partly because of Arias' possessiveness. The couple did end the relationship, but continued to be friends with benefits. Things finally began to cool down. How? Well, Jody actually moved about 1,000 miles away from Travis. He was living in Phoenix, Arizona. She at this point had no job.

She wasn't living with him. She wasn't living with any of other ex-boyfriends. She kind of had no options. She had no boyfriend, no job. So she moved back home to Wyrka, California, which is kind of right on the border of California and Oregon. It's very northern California. Her family owned a restaurant, and she moved back there. So they were not really in contact in person, but they kept up their very spicy sex, phone sex conversations.

Alexis, hold on, hold on. So they break up. Wait, wait, let me go to Chris Hughes, a longtime friend of Travis Alexander's. Did he reveal to you that he and Jody have broken up? You know, it's all so fuzzy to me. I mean, I really, in all the conversations I had with Travis, I don't ever remember him telling me he was with her, you know. Hey, she's my girlfriend now.

You know, we're in a committed, loving relationship. We never had that conversation. So there was no conversation to be had on the back end, you know, just to say, hey, we're update, we're broken up now. But the only thing that he ever did say to me is he would complain. He would complain about her, you know, little things here and there. He never told me about the big things, because if he told me about the big things like flashing his tires and stealing things from his house, you know, I would have been like, you know, I told you, did I tell you? Didn't I tell you she was nuts? So he wouldn't, he would never tell me about the big, like really violating psychotic things that she was doing.

And I had to find out about much, much of this after the fact, unfortunately. Well, you're absolutely right, Chris Hughes. Take a list of our friends at ABC's 2020. I absolutely know that she was stalking him many times. Just like when she went in through the back door when he was, you know, kissing another girl in his couch. I mean, she's spying on him. That's what's really happening there. She slashed his tires, she broke into his email account, she hacked into his Facebook page,

she broke into his house and stole his journals, she read his diary, she just did these crazy stalking behaviors. Okay, whoa, wait, it's just like drinking from the fire hydrant. There's just so much here. You can't drink it all in it once. Alexis Tereschuk, speaking of her showing up after they're broken up, okay, so they break up, she shows up at his home what a coinky dink

that is when he has a date with another woman now you know she was hacking into his email and texts his phone messages she knew they had a date and so she was hanging around stalking out as a you know really watching

could have been arrested could have been arrested for being like a peeping tom for trespassing and can you imagine you've got a date you don't really know the person and you're potentially sharing your first kiss on the sofa and then out of the corner of your eye you see Jody Aries's head loom up behind the bushes. And this terrified not only Travis, but all his roommates were really afraid of her. And then he gets up one morning and his tires are slashed, his new car.

And they immediately, there's not even a question anyone's mind. They're not thinking, oh, this is maybe some teenage pranksters in the neighborhood. Nope, everybody knew it was Jody Arias. There wasn't a share, what is the phrase? An ounce of doubt, I believe them. A shred of doubt. Shred. Oh, thank you.

Yeah. And what about that, Chris Hughes? He never told you that he suspected Jody Arias of sledding his tires? Towards the very end, he did because it was, I mean, it had gotten out. You know, we were all talking about it because it happened twice. It didn't just happen one time. It happened twice. And it was on his BMW, and anybody's ever owned a BMW, those tires are about, you know, three to $500 each.

And it was devastating. You know, financially, he wasn't in a good spot. And here's this cycle pass cutting his tires. And I remember the second time, he didn't even know what he's going to do. He was so distraught financially, you know, he couldn't pay for another tire. It's like how many times do I have to do this with this woman? Wow. So did he ever talk to you about when she kind of like rose up in the window while he was kissing his new date?

No, he wouldn't dare. He never brought that up. Well, speaking of stalking, staking out, the two were technically broken up, but one thing seemed to hold them together. A hot sex life. Listen. There you are right, though, in the bath. Oh, good. Oh, when we took a bath together?

Uh-huh. That was surreal, like, honestly. And I think, I mean, maybe the candlelight. Like, some of bubbles all had something to do with it, but you are amazing. You made me, seriously, you made me feel like a goddess. Like, I wasn't saying you were, like, worshipping me, but you were, you made me feel like I was the most freaking beautiful woman on the whole planet. Right?

I so felt like I was a goddess. And so, aside from all those warm, fuzzy feelings, but, like, it was so sad. It was so sexy and it was so hot and oh gosh. Oh, I'm all that. I'm all that. I wasn't how much because you were fricking. You are hot. Yeah.

You are. You are. Seriously? I don't want to . Because I'm touching yourself. Yeah, I'm already. Alright. I just started this.

Ah. I'm going to tell you. I'm going to tie you to a tree and I'm going to tie you to a tree and oh my gosh. That is so debasing. I like it. Okay, so that's just a tiny tidbit of the fantasy life and the phone sex life that Arias was serving up. and Travis Alexander fell for it and yes he went along with it

yes he continued to have sex with Jodi Arias to Alexis Tereschak joining me crimeonline.com Alexis how was Jody Arias still seeing Travis Alexander I mean she lives a whole state away

she would drive down and meet him and they would meet up they would have their secret rendezvous And, in fact, he even told her that he was going to take her on a trip. He was going on a business trip where he was, it was a reward for the highest sellers. And he was going to take Jody on this trip to Cancun, Mexico with him. So even, but this is what he told her. Now, is that the same trip he ended up planning to take another woman?

Yep. Changed his mind after things went. They had kept up their phone sex. They saw each other. She would drive down there secretly. But then he told her, I'm not taking you anymore. I'm going to take another woman. And her response was to drive all the way, I guess, across the desert, to get to him and have a day of marathon sex to convince him to take her.

Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Jody Arias convicted in the brutal murder of her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander, stabbing him at least 29 times. There were so many stabs you couldn't really tell because they were overlapping, plus shooting him in the head. Let's take a look at the facts that supported her guilty conviction. Here we see her driving across the desert for this day of marathon sex to convince Travis Alexander. that he should take her to Cancun and not him. Chris Hughes, long-time friend of Travis, did you know there was the Cancun business trip coming up? Absolutely, yeah. Travis and I were supposed to go together.

We had been planning it for a long time. He never mentioned to me that he was going to take Jody. Well, I shouldn't say he never mentioned. I don't remember it at this point if he did say he was going to be taking Jody. but these things you qualify, you know, and then it's several months. I mean, maybe even six months more that you have to wait before you actually take the trip. And so the last, I don't know, maybe the last month of Travis's life, he had this major scheme, you know, he had this plan. He was so excited about it because he was dating, well, he was interested in a new, this new woman.

She was not really interested in him. She just was more about friendship, but he had this whole plan about, you know, hey, if she sees me in my element and sees me with all of my colleagues and how I am with you guys and how I am with your kids, you know, maybe she'll see a different side of me and start to like me, you know, in a romantic way. So he was putting this whole thing together and, yeah, we were we were supposed to be on that trip together. So on the eve of the trip, Jody Arias literally crosses the desert to convince Travis Alexander that she was the best one to go with him to Cancun. Take a listen to Zach Billings speaking to me. That day I remember, I was actually watching a movie with my girlfriend at the time or my wife now. and I remember getting a knock on my door and Travis' friends came to the door

and they said, have you seen Travis? And I said, well, no, I haven't seen Travis. He's supposed to be in Cancun or out on vacation right now. And they said, yes, he is, but he's supposed to be here with me, with Mimi. And so I said, well, have you checked his bedroom? And that was my first thought. So they said, well, no, we have, and the door is locked. and I said, I think he keeps a spare set of keys downstairs.

So I went downstairs, and I searched for him and grabbed a few sets of keys and came back upstairs and tried a few different sets of keys, and one of them happened to be his bedroom key. And as soon as the door was opened, my heart just sank. On the right-hand side, I did end up seeing a pool of blood and looked down the hallway and saw just blood strewn throughout the hallway. and my heart just sank. I ended up going into the closet

that's adjacent to the hallway and it opens up to the bathroom as well. And that's when I saw his body and I came back out and I just told everybody he's dead. I called 911. What's going on? Our friend of ours is dead in his bedroom.

We hadn't heard from him for a while. We think he's dead. His roommate just went in there and said there's lots of blood. I didn't go in, but I can give you the phone to someone who went in there. Yes, please. Can you? Hello. Hi, so what's going on?

He's dead. He's in his bedroom in the shower. Okay. How did this happen? Do you have any idea? No, we have no idea. Everyone's been wondering about him for a few days. She said that there was blood. So is it coming from his head? Did he have friends? It's all over the place. Hold on just a moment. Okay. Okay, you're a good friend of Travis's.

Yes, I am. Okay. Has he been depressed at all, thinking about committing suicide, anything like that? I don't think he'd been seeing me commit to that. He's been really depressed because he broke up with this girl, and he was all upset about that. But I don't think he would actually kill himself over that. Has he been threatened by anyone recently? Yes, he has.

He has an ex-girlfriend that's been bothering him and following him and slashing tires and things like that. Do you know the ex-girlfriend's name? Her name is Jody. But no one had reported her behavior to police as the rest of that 911 call goes. You are hearing the 911 call when friends find Travis Alexander not only stabbed multiple times but shot dead in his shower stall. Listen to this. The roommate, when was the last time he saw Travis? Was it three days ago?

Um, that, uh, do you guys, when was the last time we got off that? Like, I mean, Travis, they want to know if that's the time I mean. Last time I saw him was, what, last Thursday or Friday? The last time I never seen him was last third day. Okay. One was that me? Me too. Um, or last Monday. She talked to him last Monday. Okay. And everyone is out of the house. There's no one else in the house. No, no one's in the house. Okay. And what is your name? Michelle. I need to ask a friend something here. I'm giving the phone to me. Okay. Um, here. Hi. Hi. She's a train in business. Right. Okay. And this is, okay, the tub is in his bedroom? Yeah. Yes, this is the bathroom off Travis Alexander's bedroom. The phone has now been handed off to another friend named Mimi. Listen. I didn't go in, but from what I heard, his roommate went in. There's blood in his bedroom behind the door. and probably and then he said it's all over and then they went in the bathroom and he's in his shower so we don't his his um his bedroom is where in the house it's upstairs um and if you go up the stairs it's on the left it's the first door on your left it's the only door on your left

okay and um and it's just a big master sweet bedroom up there And she's talking to his friend right now. There's a girl that's been stalking him and being, and she's trying, and he's trying to, might not have some information. I hope my phone doesn't die. I'm on, like, one bar of battery. Okay. Well, I'm just going to keep you on the phone until officers arrive.

Either officers or paramedics arrive, okay? Okay, I think I can hear the sound. You were hearing a very disjointed but shocking 9-1-1 call. But to Chris Hughes, longtime friend of Travis Alexander, inspirational speaker, author of a number one Amazon bestseller, our friend Travis, the Travis Alexander story. Chris Hughes is with us. Chris, do you remember when Travis's body was found, stabbed over 20? times and shot in the head. I do. I'll never forget it. I was in Mexico waiting for Travis. He was supposed to arrive

the next day. And I'd been calling him and no answer and no reply to texts or anything. And so I actually was going to call the police to do a check on him. And my then wife, Guy said, well, you know, they'll just check the outside of the house. We need to have somebody go in. And so it's just interesting how this whole story played out. We called other friends who showed up just after those people that we just heard, you know, that other group of friends had showed up and found Travis. And I was waiting for a phone call back from the friends that we sent over. And it was the middle of the night that I got a call from a friend. And I'll never forget what he said. He said T-Dog, which is what we called him, he said, Chris T-Dog is dead. You know, Alexis to rest,

crimeonline.com investigative reporter, that 911 call started a series of events that I will never forget. Alexis, you and I have covered a lot of 911 calls together, and I've played a lot of 911 calls for juries. But what's so interesting is the raw emotion and so often the dead-on accuracy, these witnesses that find his body say, he's had a girl stalking him. I mean, right then they're calling it exactly there was no oh maybe somebody broke in and did this maybe he did this to himself they knew immediately who it was and they named it they didn't even say oh maybe i shouldn't say nope Travis's friends who were there shaking their voices are shaking with emotions say Jody this woman has been stalking him he is very upset because she's been bothering him so

much and they said oh and he would not have killed himself this is the result of somebody else killing him. I mean, let's get real. Joe Scott Morgan, Professor Forensics, kill yourself, what, stabbing yourself? What was it? 20? They couldn't actually tell 29 times. Some people would argue back and forth, 27 versus 28 versus 29, because there were so many stab wounds. They were on top of each other. So you couldn't really tell how many times he was stabbed plus shot in the head and left a decomposed in his own shower. Yeah, and that's the key, Nancy. Hey, listen, the reason they couldn't actually come to a definitive number was because decomposition was in a moderate to advanced stage. And so you couldn't fully appreciate, but what the friends saw when they walked in

was an absolute horror show because what they could, you don't need an MD in order to understand or make a diagnosis in that moment because there is bloodstaining everywhere. He's crumpled up in the bottom of this bath in this, you know, in this, in this shower stall. and he's literally crumpled up in there, in my opinion, because he was deposited there. He wasn't killed in the shower. He was killed elsewhere, and then he was placed in the shower, and he was essentially thrown away. He was essentially left behind. To Alexis Choreschuk, crimeonline.com investigative reporter, isn't it true?

The last person known to be with Travis Alexander before he's murdered is Jody Arias. Why was she there? They were broken up. Exactly. She seems like she was there. She wanted to go on this trip to Cancun. Travis had really just done so well in work and he was getting this big trip. And he told her, I'm not taking you. I am taking another woman. So she comes in from out of town to try to convince him to take her and spend the night with him. It's like a wild night, which was...

Hold on. Whoa, whoa, a wild night. What do you mean? They went partying? Nope. They had wild sex. And the reason that I know this, What happened in someone else's bedroom is because there were pictures of their wild night, including she was tied up in his bed. In the aftermath of Travis's brutal murder, 29 stab wounds and one gunshot wound to the head. Right there, let me pause to Professor Forensics Jacksonville State University, Joe Scott. What does that tell you? 29 stab wounds, gunshot wound to the head. how many times over was Travis Alexander killed?

Multiple, Nancy. And she, you know, the thing about it is, is that the injuries that Travis sustained, there's any number of them that are lethal in this particular case. Amazingly, the gunshot was not. Amazingly, the gunshot wound that he sustained, which entered right above his right eye and the round actually lodged in his left cheek, there was no hemorrhage in that wound track. So that gives us an indication. And that was probably done after death. But where she really killed him was, or his death, his march toward death started in that shower. She actually

nailed with the knife his Vena Kava, which is a large vessel that comes off of the heart. And when we look at the scene, you can see that he has projectile blood all over the sink. He had an awareness of this, Nancy. He tried to fight her off. He had interest. He had interest. to his hands that were consistent with Sharpeforce injuries, defensive wounds. And, of course, as he crawled away, just trying to get away, Nancy. She slit his throat almost from ear to ear. She went through not just his juggler vein, not just his carotis, but she also cut his trachea that supplies lungs with air.

And when you see this scene, when you see it, it is an absolute bloodbath, Nancy. Guys, of course, in the aftermath of Travis's murder, Arias, of course, is questioned because she was there that day. Take a listen to what Jody Arias tells KTVK. To know that he was stabbed some 27 times and shot once in the left cheek. What could have done this day? I don't know. Who do you think he killed him? I have no idea.

Do you think that it was a random thing or somebody that knew him? I mean, this is a guy that you were pretty close to. This was a guy I was close to at a time when we were really trying to move apart from each other. So, I mean, there were certain details about his life that I never did know about. And there were even more details that I did not know about as well as details about my life that he didn't know about because I had moved on, I had moved to California. California. So we were making a sincere effort to grow apart and to be apart and to move on. But nonetheless, he did remain a close friend of mine. And I just can't be good.

Take a listen to more of what Jody Arias says. Where do you at Travis's house home Wednesday? Absolutely not. I was nowhere near Mesa. It was more near Phoenix. I wasn't even close to him. What if I could show you proof you were there? Oh, that changed in mind. I wasn't there. Can you be honest with you, Joey?

I was not at Travis's house. Was not. Was not at Travis's house. But then that pesky little digicam, Alexis Terezchuk, raises its ugly head, as if it were a little monster. What else was revealed on the digicam and where was it found? So the camera was actually found in the washing machine in Travis's house, which means that somebody was trying to hide it. So it was thrown in there and washed, but the police were able to take it and had a SIM card in it. So it was like a little tiny floppy disk, if anyone remembers that. And it had all the

images on there. So the police were able to pull this up. So they see the naked pictures of Jody tied to the bed from their wild sex night. But then they also see pictures of Travis naked in the shower, standing up alive, looking at Jody covered in water. And after that, there are a couple of shots that actually show basically the crime being committed. And that shows, you know, her, I believe her arm is in there. And this is what the police say, oh, my gosh, we basically have photographic evidence. Kirk Nirmie, who was appointed to represent Jody Arias,

trial. So I'm not sure how you would get around that at trial because your client travels across the desert with a not red rental car with gas cans full of gas, gets there, has a marathon day of sex trying to convince Alexander to take her to Cancun, not his new girlfriend. It's all on digicam. And at the end of that series of sex photos, whoa, there's jokes. There's just a to Arias's leg and a pair of her pants on a bloody crime scene. Oops. I guess the real killer snuck in and used her digicam. All right, Nancy.

Remember, by the time I got the case matters were worse because after Detective Flores confronted her with these pictures, proof she was there. She comes up with this story about two mask intruders coming into the bathroom, killing Travis and threatening to kill her if she said anything. The masked intruders, you're absolutely correct. How could I forget the masked intruders, and they weren't just masked? Take a listen to this. I turn around.

There are two people there. One was a guy and one was a girl. I couldn't tell that at first, but I could just see one was a girl. And I assumed the other was a guy because they're billed and then their voices. I remember if they were wearing, like, maybe jeans. What did they say? One was in all black. One was in jeans.

Did you say anything? What words did you hear? What phrases? Who is that? Who is that? I thought he was by himself or alone or something. And he was like, shut out, just finish it. And Travis was screaming the whole time.

He wasn't screaming like a girl. He was just like, like he was in pain. Like he was, like, shocked. Like, oh, you know. He took home. I ran. And he stopped me. He stopped him.

Oh, I was like, he was still, like, conscious and still alive. You just loved them there. Kirk Nirmie, I never thought this would happen, but I actually, just a tiny, tiny sliver of me, actually feel sorry for you because your client changes her story from I wasn't there to, okay, okay, okay, you've got me on the digit cam. I was there, but I didn't do it. Two ninjas did it, dressed in solid black, a man and a woman. They murder Travis and I run out and save my own life, but I don't call police. Okay. What?

Kirk, when you hear what you're confronted with, but you've got to somehow try to explain away to a jury, what's going through your mind? Well, remember, see, I think your sympathy for me in this situation should be a little more than slight because this is the beginning of her press tour, right? She famously goes on national TV, talks about the ninja story. She goes on to, you know, talk about their sex life and everything else.

about the relationship that paints herself in the best light. She's enjoying this limelight. This makes it all the worse. And she famously does an interview where she says, no jury will convict me. So again, like I said earlier, the cards were definitely attacked against me. The reality was there.

And keep in mind, this wasn't just a murder case. This was a death penalty case. I had to begin to figure out a way to try to save Ms. Arias' life. That became my priority. Man, that's really hard when your client goes on TV. and changes stories, including a male and a female ninja did it. Chris Hughes joining me, longtime friend of Travis Alexander's. Chris, when you heard they, I didn't do it, changed to a man and a woman ninja did it,

and I fled to save my own life. How did that strike you? It's preposterous, you know? I mean, I don't know what else to say. It's just, where was she going with that? And you know what's interesting about Jody Arias? Well, there's lots, obviously interesting. But she says that as she was leaving the house, she said, quote,

I did something I was ashamed of. She said there was a little girl playing in the front yard, and she said that she, Jody said that she backed up without looking behind her. so no mention of leaving Travis Alexander you know dying inside this house at the hands of these two ninjas she was ashamed of herself for backing out of the driveway

without looking behind her as it moves forward I want you to take a list like evidence is mounting take a listen to our cut 32 This is ABC's Ryan Owens. But prosecutors allege Arias is a stalker who brutally attacked her ex in a jealous rage when she found out he was seeing other women.

A mountain of forensic evidence, including pictures taken on this camera found in Alexander's washing machine. Prosecutors say Arias literally tried to wash that evidence away. But on its memory card, detectives discovered not just those racy photos from the couple's sexual encounter the day of the murder. but a series of 20 shots of Alexander posing in the shower minutes before his death. Prosecutors say Arias put down the camera and picked up a knife, stabbing her unsuspecting victim. The most damning picture comes after the camera was dropped. The jury saw a shot of what appears to be Arias actually moving the bloody body. Prosecutors say she was especially cold-blooded after the crime.

Hey, what's going on? This is all midnight. They played this voicemail, Arias left on Alexander's phone a few hours after she killed him. Morbidly enough, she invited a man she knew was dead to come visit her. During the police interrogation, of course, we see areas on closed circuit TV doing headstands and singing and talking to herself. But you got to hand it to veteran defense attorney Kirk Nirmie, who is left. wondering, what am I going to do now? Take a listen to Kirk Nirmie and a valiant Hail Mary in court. Something did happen in this moment of time.

And the point of this, I think, is what this evidence shows you, is that either what happened is that Jody Aries defended herself and didn't know when to stop. Or she gave in to a sudden heat of passion from a moment. a fight that began up in that bathroom and that what she did she did under that sudden heat of passion demonstrative of that is this idea she doesn't remember any of it so what I'm saying to you ladies and gentlemen is ultimately if Miss Arius is guilty of any crime at all it is the crime of manslaughter and nothing more.

Chris Hughes, where were you when the guilty verdict was announced? I was in the courtroom. Can you describe that moment? Yeah. I mean, it felt like it would never come and every second felt like an eternity and I remember my heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest and I remember feeling short of breath and always having to remind myself to breathe and taking deep breaths and you know it feels it almost as I look back now I mean it feels like a dream state but when we got the guilty verdict

you know it doesn't make any of this go away right it was a weird thing you'd think that there would be some sort of relief and I guess there was some relief to a degree but it just wasn't what I had hoped you know because I realized in that moment, but though she was guilty, Travis wasn't coming back. Convicted killer Jody Arias now signaling a brand new legal push to defeat a jury's

guilty verdict. Fat chance, Arias. Oh, well, fat chance. I mean, there's always a chance like a snowballs chance in hell, but there is a chance. There is a chance. We wait as justice I'm false. Goodbye, friend. This is an I-Heart podcast.