Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Killers Amongst Us: Jodi Arias Stabs Naked Lover Dead In Shower (episode 4)

Episode Date: May 31, 2021

We know the ending. Jodi Arias stabs her boyfriend, Travis Alexander, 28 times, shoots him and leaves him to die in a shower. How did it happened? How did a whirlwind romance end in murder? The couple meet in Las Vegas at a job related seminar. After just a few hours, Travis Alexander tells friends he's found the woman he wants to marry. As the relationship develops, friends begin to take notice of odd behavior, but warnings to the enamored Alexander initially went unheeded. Alexander began to show interest in other woman. Friends find Travis Alexander's body in his shower stabbed and shot and the hunt is on for the killer. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Hi guys, Nancy Grace here. Welcome back to Killers Amongst Us, a production of iHeart Media and Crime Online. You think you found the one you really got to catch, even though all your friends are saying, no, no, no, he slash she is poison. Get away. But they just don't understand. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Killers Amongst Us. Thanks for being with us. Take a listen to this. 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. 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? It's all over the place. Hold on just a moment. 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's been thinking about it. 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 flashing tires and things like that. And do you know the ex-girlfriend's name? Her name is Jodi. 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, you guys, when was the last time I saw him was last Thursday or friday. seen him the last thursday last Tuesday or last mone 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. And what is your name? My name is Michelle. I need to ask a friend something here. I'm giving the phone to me. Okay. Hi. Hi. Okay. And this is, okay, the tub is in his bedroom

yeah yes this is the bathroom off travis alexander's bedroom though 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 uh and probably and then he said it's all over and then they went in the bathroom and he's in his shower. Okay, and his bedroom is where in the house? It's upstairs, 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 it's just a big master suite bedroom up there. And she's talking to his friend right now. There's a girl that's been stalking him and he's trying to uh you might know 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 know you are hearing a very disjointed but shocking 911 call.

Joining me right now, Alexis Tereska, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter and with LeadStories.com. Joseph Scott Morgan, professor of forensics, Jacksonville State University, author of Blood Beneath My Feet, star of Poisonous Liaisons on the True Crime Network. We're now New York psychologist, Karen at karenstark.com. Legal commentator, cast member, Radical Body Transformation Season 3, Amazon Prime. And author of Trapped with Miss Arias, Kirk Nermy at kirknermy.com. 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, my then wife's 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, 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 Tereschuk, 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 emotion. 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 of 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 to decompose 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 need an MD in order to understand or make a diagnosis in that moment because there is blood staining 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 Cherezchuk, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. Isn't it true the last person known to be with Travis Alexander before he's murdered is Jodi 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 at 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.

Hold on. Whoa, 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.

Okay, Kirk Nurmi. You know, I could go so many directions right now. Kirk Nurmi, author of Trapped with Miss Arias on Amazon. What do you do as a defense attorney when your client with her digicam takes photos of herself in a sex marathon just before the lover's found dead in the shower how do you get around that well nancy you really don't i mean you can't play any cards that you haven't been dealt and there is a reality that was already cooked into this case from the moment i received it karen start new york psychologist joining us you can find her at karenstark.com.

Karen with a C. Karen, hey, I'm not knocking it. I'm not judging it. But how exactly do you take selfies of yourself having sex in the act? I mean, and keep them, those shots on your digicam of you butt naked. I mean, isn't anybody afraid that that i mean would get out you would think they would be afraid nancy but people do it quite often more than you would expect and think about all the people that did get in trouble for taking selfies of body parts and sending them to other people.

So it's as though they forget that the Internet is not a safe place to do things like that. Oh, man. Well, you know what? This definitely places her there just before. But the reality is, Chris Hughes, longtime friend of Travis, the fact that she was there, actually, Alexis, didn't she literally cross the desert with gas cans in her trunk so she wouldn't have to stop to get to Travis Alexander? She did.

And she rented a car. She didn't use her own car. She rented a car. And first they wanted to give her a red car. Places always want to give you a red car. And she said, no, I don't want that car because red cars are too recognized. So she had planned to be as incognito as possible. Then she bought a couple of gas cans at a local Walmart about an hour away from where she lived, again, to hide what she was doing. So it was farther away from her house. And she filled those gas cans with gas so that she would not have

to stop in the desert. So there would be no trace of her with a credit card or even you know a video of her going into a gas station so she managed to make it all the way across the desert his arizona house without stopping because she had planned this ahead of time did she know before she started her trek across the desert and her rented, not red, car and her gas cans full of gas, did she know at that time Travis Alexander was taking another woman to Cancun? Yes, she did. Because he had promised, he had offered to take her in the beginning of the year, and then he told her no, he wasn't taking her, he was taking someone else. And in fact, he was seeing someone else, someone that he really considered a girlfriend or a potential girlfriend

and Jody knew I mean Chris Hughes you're hearing Alexis Tereschuk you really made no bones about it he said we're broken up I'm dating somebody else I'm taking her to Cancun. Not you. He was very clear. He was not misleading her, Chris. Yeah, and so why she showed up that night, I mean, it's just, it's, I wish I, you know, knew the truth. But really, Chris, was it out of the ordinary? Didn't she always show up when she wasn't supposed to? Yeah, she did. But they had a terrible fight where, I mean, it looked like the end.

You know, they were fighting on Google chats and going back and forth. Fighting about what? They broke up. What's there to fight about? It's over. Well, that's a really good question. And it's another one of those mysteries. But it was the last interaction that I know about that went back and forth between them.

And he was saying things to her like, you hurt me worse than the passing of my own father. You know, you're a terrible person. You're despicable. You're the devil's daughter. I mean, he was so angry about something. And we don't know exactly what that was. And she never defended herself. It was so weird.

She just sat there and took it. And then the conversation ended. And later, she comes back online and says two things that you're wrong about. She, and she said, I didn't steal your journals and I didn't slash your tires. She didn't defend herself against all the other things that he said about her. And when I saw that, I just said to myself, you know what, that that's her trying to cover up for what she's about to do. She picked the two violent things that he said and she disputed them. She said, you're wrong about those things.

But she never defended herself against all the other attacks. And then she shows up in the middle of the night and does what she does. I mean, it was just so, yes, she did show up. And it's not odd that this woman showed up in the middle of the night. But, you know, what was that about? So that's something the cops have to figure out. It's not unusual for her to show up. But would she actually kill?

Arias emerges not long after listening to Zach Billings speaking to me. The first time I saw Jody after the murder and after we found his body was the following Monday at Travis's memorial service. How did she behave? She seemed a little bit differently. I mean, she came in, she's normally blonde, came in with brown hair. She came up to me, gave me a hug and said, isn't this just horrible? Wait a minute, what did you say about brown hair? Oh, she's normally a blonde haired girl or was when I knew her.

And then that week I happened to see her with brown hair, different color hair entirely. So in the middle of all this, finding out that Travis Alexander has been brutally murdered, she dyes her hair? Correct. And I asked Zach Billings, did she ask you about finding the body?

She asked me just a brief of what happened as far as my interaction with anybody else. Had the police talk to me. And she already knew at that point that I had seen the body and just asked what the process was going through, what I was going through. In other words, I think she was feeling him out to see what he knew. Back to Alexis Tereschuk, CrimeOnline.com. Alexis, a lot of defense attorneys would argue what happens at a funeral is irrelevant. I disagree. What did you learn about what happened at the funeral, Alexis? Well, Jody was talking to all of Travis's friends as if nothing had

happened, as if none of them suspected her. And she was talking especially to his grandmother, this grandmother who had raised him and who loved him as her own son and was saying how sorry she was and just how devastating all of it was. It's just crazy that Jodi acted like nothing happened to show up at the funeral to chris hughes longtime friend of travis author of our friend travis the travis alexander story do you remember the funeral yeah i um there was two two memorials well there was a memorial in arizona and then there was a um a funeral in california i i opted not to go to arizona I didn't see Jodi Arias. And when it came to the funeral in California, she was actually en route to the funeral. And I thought, who does this woman, like, who does that? And so a friend called me just out of the blue, and he said, hey, man, I just, now you got to keep in mind people didn't know it wasn't not everybody knew that Jody did this only those of us that were uh close to Travis and that knew her

had had you know put two and two together but this guy innocently calls me and he says uh hey man I just got off the phone with Jody and and she's on her way to the funeral. And, and I said to him, I said, Hey, she did it. She's the one who did this. And he said, no way. And I said, yeah, I said, you know what? Why don't you call her back and just tell her that Chris Hughes said she ought not come, you know, don't come. And so he said, he called her back and told her. And then a few minutes later, we get word that she, quote unquote, had a flat tire or had mechanical problems. And she didn't end up showing up at the funeral. Thank God.

Well, of course, 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 of 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

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 cava, 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 injuries to his hands that were consistent with Sharport's 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 jugular vein, not just his carotids, but she also cut his trachea that supplies the 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 Jodi Arias tells KTVK. and shot once in the left cheek. What? Who could have done this to him? I don't know. Who do you think 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. 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 Jodi Arias says. Where did you go?

I traveled to South Carolina. Absolutely not. I was nowhere near Mesa. I was nowhere near Mesa. I was nowhere near Phoenix. I wasn't even close to him. What if I could show you proof you were there? Would that change your mind? I wasn't there.

Can you be honest with me, Jodi? I was not at Travis's house, but then that pesky little digicam, Alexis Tereschuk, 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 Jodi 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 Jodi 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 of her committing this crime. Kirk Nermy, a veteran trial lawyer who was appointed to represent Jodi 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 jody 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 masked 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 turned around. There were 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 of their build and their voices. I remember they were wearing maybe jeans. What did they say? One was in all black. One was in jeans. Did they 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 up, 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 off. I ran, and he stopped me. And he stopped you? And Travis, he was still like conscious and still alive kirk nurmy 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 digicam. I was there, but I didn't do it. Two ninjas did it, dressed in solid black, a man and a woman. They murdered Travis, and I ran out and saved my own life, but I don't call police. Okay. What? Kirk, when you hear what you're confronted with,

what you've got to somehow try to explain away to a jury, what's going through your mind? Well, remember, 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 um 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 stacked 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. It'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 the, I didn't do it, change 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, it's where, where, where was she going with that? And you know, what's interesting about Jodi Arias? Well, there's lots, obviously interesting, but she says that, 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 Jody said that she backed up without looking behind her. So no mention of leaving Travis Alexander 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 listen.

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. Arias's defense, which is expected to start next week, will have to overcome 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. It's too graphic for us to show, but 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? It's almost 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. But let me know and I will talk to you soon. Bye.

Karen Starr, New York psychologist. Did you just hear that? She leaves a message on Travis's phone after she kills him, inviting him to visit her. That shows you, Nancy, doesn't it? That she is so smart when it comes to trying to cover her tracks. And she knew exactly what she was doing. So she wanted it to look like she knew nothing, hadn't been involved, and she was just innocently calling him to invite him to come visit her. And that is not a person who didn't know right from wrong, which has so much to do with her being a psychopath. She's smart.

She knew exactly what she was doing and has no feeling about it. During the police interrogation, of course, we see Arias on closed circuit TV doing headstands and singing and talking to herself. But you got to hand it to veteran defense attorney Kirk Nermey, who is left wondering, what am I going to do now? Take a listen to Kirk Nermey 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 Jodi Arias defended herself and didn't know when to stop or she gave in to a sudden heat of passion from 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 Arias 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, you know, going to beat out of my chest. And I remember feeling short of breath and always having to remind myself to breathe and, and taking deep breaths. And, um, you know, it feels it, 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 that though she was guilty, Travis wasn't coming back.

Killers amongst us. Justice. Aries is convicted. She is making money behind bars, selling her, quote, artwork and fleecing the lovelorn men who actually send her money. She's actually just been thrown a bone. She is in a lessened security area of the jail. I don't know what they're thinking. Was it justice? Maybe. But for friends and family, there is no justice. Nancy Grace, Killers Amongst Us, signing off. Goodbye, friend.