Criminology - Jodi Arias

Episode Date: January 28, 2024

In June 2008, Travis Alexander was discovered dead inside his bathroom. He was scheduled to leave the next day to meet up with friends for a vacation in Cancun, Mexico. Almost immediately, Travis's friends started pointing the finger at one person, his ex-girlfriend Jodi Arias. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss Jodi Arias and the murder of Travis Alexander. Jodi was suspected from the start because of the obsessive and stalking-like behavior she displayed after the breakup. Then, the crime evidence linked her in a way that would have been difficult for any defense attorney to overcome. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. So, everyone, and welcome to episode 292 of the criminology podcast. This is Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Morf, how you doing, man? I'm doing good. Just celebrated my 27th wedding anniversary yesterday with my wife and had a little bit of fun with her,

spending time with her and the kids and back to work today. What's new with you? Well, first of all, I want to congratulate you, man. That is an amazing milestone. I'm coming up on 28. And so my wife and I were talking about it the other day, you know, we've been married over half of our lives. It's kind of amazing. It is. And on one hand, it seems like it's gone by really fast. On the other hand, you start thinking about all the things you've been through. And, you know, it doesn't seem like it was that. quick so well it depends on the day and what's going on yeah and if and if you're on the way's uh naughty list or not yeah i had an issue yesterday where uh somebody ran into one of the big electric poles and split it in half and so i was without power for nine nine and a half hours my wife and i were and um it was so strange you don't realize that you can't really do anything with outpower. Yeah, it makes you think about what life was like before electric. Yeah,

yeah, no doubt. Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Angela Lonell, Cindy Morrison, Michael McDougall, Sarah, and Teresa Reeves. So that's a lot of great new support. We really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks to everyone that supports the show. It really helps us out. and for anyone else that would like to, you can do so by going to patreon.com slash criminology. And just a reminder, for those of you that haven't done so yet, grab your pass to CrimeCon, coming to Nashville at the Gaylord Opry land, May 31st to June 2nd, 2024. Yeah, CrimeCon, of course, is the biggest true crime convention in the world where you get to rub elbows with the who's who in the true crime universe and hang out with your favorite podcasters on

podcast row. And if you're going, be sure to use our promo code criminology. When you check out at crimecon.com, that's going to save you 10% on your standard badges. And be sure to stay tuned because we'll be letting everyone know where our annual criminology slash T-Cat meetup is. And before we get started with this week's episode, just a quick heads up about a correction regarding a detail from a couple episodes back in the case of Amy Mahalovic. In that episode, we mentioned a suspect in the case.

being Dean Runkle and that he was the subject of a 2019 tip from his ex-girlfriend. We just want to correct that and say that while he was the subject of tips, he was not the subject of the 2019 tip. That person is a second unnamed suspect. And once again, Runkle's never been charged in his case and has presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. All right.

So now that we have all of that out of the way, let's jump into this week's case. And this is one that a lot of our listeners are, probably familiar with because it was in the news quite a bit. We're talking about the murder of Travis Alexander at the hands of his ex-girlfriend, Jody Aries. The murder case of Travis Alexander began with a concerning voicemail left by his friend Chris Hughes. According to ABC News, Chris's voicemail said,

T dog, you better be dead, bro. Why aren't you calling me back? At the time, Chris was obviously joking. having no idea that those words would come back to haunt him. It was early in June 2008, and Chris and his wife's guy were in Cancun, Mexico, where Travis and his friend Mimi would eventually arrive and join them. When Travis hadn't answered any of their calls or texts, the Hughes's first figured that Travis was just busy,

getting ready for the trip from Mesa, Arizona, to Cancun. But then Travis missed a very important, video conference that he was supposed to be hosting. This is when they started to get concerned about him and when Chris left that voicemail. Nothing Travis was doing could be so important that he would miss the call and not get back to Chris and Sky, who were waiting for him in another country for a very much anticipated vacation. That's when the concern really set in. By June 9th, it became clear to his close friends that Travis wasn't just too busy to get back to them and that something was clearly wrong. It had been five days since anyone had seen or heard from him,

and he was scheduled to leave for Cancun the next day. Mimi, who was supposed to travel with Travis, and two of their mutual friends decided to stop by his house and see what was going on. The house was locked, which was odd, because Travis normally kept the door unlocked when he was home. The other people, running rooms from Travis, didn't even have keys to the house because it was always unlocked, or they had the code to the garage for when Travis wasn't home. A call to yet another mutual friend would produce the code to the garage door, which let the three into the home. In the den, they noticed Travis's cell phone and laptop on the desk. One of Travis's roommates, Zach Billings, was inside the house, upstairs in his room with his

girlfriend, Amanda. They were surprised to see the three pop out of the garage. Zach and Amanda had heard them knock, but they weren't expecting anyone and Travis wasn't home. Zach just didn't answer the door when it wasn't for him. so he ignored them. They explained that they were looking for Travis, but Zach figured he had already left for his trip to Mexico. Mimi knew that they weren't scheduled to leave until the next day.

So this was very suspicious. One of the friends decided to check Travis's room, but the door was locked. They searched the house and ended up finding a key that worked. When he opened the door, he saw the carpet was covered in blood. He followed the blood to the bathroom where he found the body, of Travis Alexander dead in his shower.

Immediately, a frantic call to 911 was placed. A third roommate, Enrique Cortez, was still asleep upstairs. They woke him up and told him what happened before Mesa PD arrived. This would have been a very horrific scene for the individuals inside that house. One of the things that really stands out to me is the fact that there were, there were a number of people living in the house, renting rooms from Travis, days had gone by. He had been dead for at least a few of those days, but yet they didn't know it, apparently. Yeah, and I think when you have a situation like this where you sort of have roommates on different

schedules and maybe not coordinating stuff, it leads to a little bit of, you know, confusion, missing each other, not knowing what the other person is doing. And I think that sort of compounded everything here. And somehow Travis just was missed. But to me, it seems odd that you do have this amount of people that are in and around the home, people that knew Travis, saw him frequently, heard from him. But after days, he somehow slipped through the cracks and nobody realized that he was unaccounted for. Practically before the investigation had even started,

Travis's friends were warning detectives on the scene that Travis had been murdered, and they knew who did it. Months ago, he had broken up with his girlfriend, Jody Arias, and she had been causing trouble for him ever since. According to ABC News, the roommates told Detective Esteban Flores that she was a stalker. She was an ex-girlfriend, and she wouldn't leave Travis alone. For police, this was clearly a great lead. Whenever there's a bad breakup, and issues following the breakup, the ex-partner is always someone the police want to talk. to her right away, and this was the case with Jody Arias. Though Jody had lived with Travis and Mesa while they dated, after their breakup, she moved back to Eureka, California, with her family.

While Detective Flores was waiting for more detectives and investigators to arrive, Jody called Travis's friends, the ones on the scene, standing outside his house, which was now a crime scene. She said she was wondering what was going on with Travis, but no one would tell her anything. Jody and Travis met in September 2006 at a business convention for prepaid legal services, Inc. in Las Vegas. Sparks flew from the moment they saw each other. Sky Hughes would later tell Yahoo News during the dinner. They just talked the whole time. She seemed to like him as much as he liked her. They ended up talking until 4 a.m. Sky added, the next morning, he tells me that he's found his wife, and this is the girl that he wants to marry. Initially, his friends were excited

for him. Chris Hughes told ABC News, it was cute, you know? I mean, I was like, okay, I mean, like, good for you, Travis. It was cute to watch. Toward the end of November, just one month into their relationship, Jody converted to Mormonism for Travis, as he was a member of the Church of Latter-day Saints, something that was very important to him. It was actually, Travis who baptized Jody. Jody Arias herself would later tell ABC News. It was emotional. It was spiritual. It was powerful. It's a feeling that like everything just comes right into alignment and nothing can go wrong. Travis and Jody were both taking things very quickly. In an email to Chris Hughes, Travis gushed about Jody writing, I went from intrigued by her to interested in her, to caring about her

deeply to realizing how lucky I would be to have her as part of my life forever. She's amazing. It's not hard to see that whoever scores Jody, whether it be me or someone else, is going to win the wife Lotto. While he was excited about their relationship and head over heels for Jody in the beginning, Travis started to have doubts. In his mind, they were sinning by having premarital sex, something that's forbidden by the Mormon faith, and it was like neither of them could control themselves around each other. Travis's friend Dave Hall told ABC News. He was always incredibly strong in the church. But after meeting Jody, some of the conversations were about the challenge of morality because this girl is in his life. So I think it's very clear, you know, from the quotes

from Travis directly and the quotes from some of his friends that the two fell in love with each other pretty quickly. I think you used the term more of head over heels. That seems exactly like what it was. And sometimes in new relationships, people click and things just start moving really fast. But oftentimes it's a bad thing because people don't really know each other. And then they start to realize things about each other or find things out that might be a challenge for their relationship. I think that's pretty common. You know, in that beginning period, a relationship. Nothing can go wrong, right? In your mind, everything is great. This person is great. And I think what we do is tend to overlook certain things, maybe brush them off. They're not as big a

deal because, you know, of the bliss or the euphoria that people are feeling. And even in this relationship, it seems to have been that way. But then, you know, Travis starts to, you know, notice some things or wrestle with some things that maybe he doesn't like about Jody. And it wasn't long before friends began to warn Travis that Jody was bad news. Jody became very jealous and possessive of Travis and would even eavesdrop on his conversations with his friends. Sky recounted to ABC News, I started seeing things that were just disturbing. After five months together, Travis broke things off. After this, Jody moved from her home in Palm Desert, California, to the Mesa area.

Though they weren't together anymore, it was clear that she moved there to be closer to Travis. She would show up at his house, unannounced, even going so far as to use the garage code, to get inside without him knowing. Shanna Hogan, an author and journalist who covered this case told ABC News. sometimes Travis would be angry. And other times he would jump into bed right with her and they would have sex. Apparently, some of Travis's friends had an inkling that Jody may be dangerous. As Sky explained ABC News, from very early on, she was completely obsessed with him,

adding, I said Travis, I'm afraid we're going to find you chopped up in her freezer. Now here they were, standing outside of Travis's home, which was now a crime scene, with his bloody body inside, which is why their suspicions immediately turned to Jody Arias. As Detective Flores and the other investigators entered the front door of the home, they were hit with a smell of decomposition. Apparently, Travis had been dead for days in his room. Yet somehow, his roommates didn't realize something was wrong, which is odd. Because if you've ever smelled decomposing remains,

it's an unmistakable and strong, overpowering smell. And I think this goes right back to our earlier conversation, right? you have these roommates. You had people in and out of that house during the time that Travis was dead inside his room. And this thought of what you know Morph would have been just a horrible smell permeating throughout the house. How does that not cause the alarm bells to go off? Yeah, to me, it seems like something they would have noticed, but not knowing, exactly out of the house and how close they were to Travis's room. You know, maybe there's an explanation for why they didn't notice it.

But then again, the police noticed it as soon as they came through the door. So I have a hard time reconciling all of that. And it's not just us. I mean, this is something that many people have pointed out online. I mean, obviously, we're not pointing fingers at these roommates or anything like that. It's just a strange detail of the case. As to the crime scene, Detective Flores told ABC, News. The first thing I thought was there was a major struggle in here, that it was deeply personal.

Somebody knew him. Somebody wanted to make sure that he was dead. The crime scene was gruesome. Travis had been killed days earlier and decomposition had begun by the time he was discovered. Officers found a spent shell casing in a pool of dried blood on the floor. It was still clear, despite the state of his body, that he had been statured. stabbed almost 30 times, shot in the head once with what turned out to be a 25 caliber bullet and had his throat slit nearly ear to ear. Being shot in the head was not immediately fatal. His cause of death was officially determined to be sharp force trauma to the neck and torso. The slit throat and certain punctures to his chest were both fatal on their own.

This was a brutal murder and a case of, overkill. Clearly, something that seemed like a crime of passion and very personal. Investigators noticed that the bedding had been stripped from Travis's mattress. A later search of the entire house would reveal that his bedding was in the dryer. A red stain on the front of the washer was swab and it tested positive for blood. Inside the washer, there was a digital camera with a memory card inside. The camera's bag was in Travis's room. The camera's room. And lying on the floor open. And I get why police would think this was personal, right?

You have the overkill that normally, not always, but normally tends to be a sign of someone who knew the victim making it very personal. You know, one of the big things here, though, for me is really what type of murderer kills someone in such a gruesome fashion? as the one that we just laid out. And then takes the time to strip bedding and wash it. That just doesn't make any sense. And then obviously the digital camera and the memory card and all of that inside the washer is extremely strange.

Yeah, the only thing I can think of is that maybe they wanted to try and wash evidence off of, you know, their DNA off of the betting or something along those lines, any trace of them that might be found and possibly thinking that by throwing the camera in there, if there's anything in there, it might get destroyed by the washing cycle. So that's the only thing I could think of for them putting all that stuff in the, in the washer. But that in and of itself, to me, even strengthens the argument that this was a murder, by someone who knew Travis was most likely in his bed. That's personal.

And most likely was the subject of photographs that would have been on that camera. On June 10th, Jody called detectives asking for information. Detective Flores, who was still at the scene, spoke to her and recorded their call. She gave a lot of information. According to Jody, she and Travis had dated for five months but had broken up the previous June. She moved out of Travis's home in April and said she hadn't been back to the state of Arizona since. She claimed she was and had been up in Eureka near the Oregon border, except for one recent trip to Utah. She told police that she and Travis had spoken on June 4th, but he hadn't responded to an email she sent to him on the 7th.

Chris Hughes, who was in Cancun, hadn't heard from Travis since noon on June 4th. Looking at his phone, this was the last anyone heard from. from Travis. Enrique, one of Travis's roommates, recounted to police that everything seemed normal on Wednesday the 4th. He had seen Travis that morning, and Travis mentioned he had a conference call that evening. When he got home later that day, Travis was on the phone, and Enrique assumed it was the conference call he had mentioned. The next day, Thursday, June 5th, Enrique got home from work around 6 p.m. But the door to the house was locked, and he had to go through. through the garage, which was not normal. Inside the house, all of the furniture in the living room

had been moved, and a new floor cleaner had been left out. This was also odd, but Enrique figured Travis was preparing to clean the floor or had just finished. That evening, Enrique's girlfriend, Kim, arrived. They were going to the temple together as usual. Kim noticed that Travis's ring, which was engraved with CTR for Choose the Right, and his watch were on the counter. She had never seen Travis without them on, so she thought it was a little bit odd. She was also suspicious of the dog ate placed upstairs, keeping Travis's dog, Napoleon, upstairs. The dog was normally allowed in all areas of the home. She also noticed that he didn't have any food, so she poured some food into his bowl.

Zach saw Kim taking care of Napoleon and figured Travis left for Cancun early. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency. We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020. Blood and Water. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

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That's M-O-N-A-R-C-H money.com slash podcast for your free trial. Monarchmoney.com slash podcast. Welcome to another round of Drawingboard or Mero Board. Today we talk brainstorms with UXROMB. designer Brian. Let's go. First question. You thought you'd see everyone's idea in the team brainstorm, but you've got a grand total of one. Drawing board or Mero board? Drawing board, right? Because in Mero, the team can add ideas now or later. And with privacy mode, we can keep them

anonymous until they're good to share. Correct. Next, you need the best way to explain your idea, but all you have is a few sticky notes. Drawing board or Mero board? Drawing board, because, you know, in Mero, I could record videos at text, images, his links and digital sticky notes, of course, present my thoughts the way I want. Right again. Now, you're looking for a past idea you thought was just genius. Only you could find, oh, there it is. Drawing board or Miro.

All our finished and unfinished work lives in one place. And he's one. Join over 60 million people getting ideas noticed in Mero brainstorms. Get your first three boards for free at Miro.com. That's MIRO.com. On Sunday the 8th, Travis missed church. He didn't often miss church, but he did have to travel for work, which would cause him to miss church sometimes. Those who knew him figured he was out of town on a business trip.

On June 16th, Detective Flores got a call from a woman named Clancy Talbot. She was from Salt Lake City and remembered seeing Jody Arias there on June 5th. Their mutual friend Ryan Burns mentioned that although Jody had left her home in California on Tuesday, the 3rd, she didn't show up in Salt Lake City until Thursday the 5th. It's only about a 12-hour drive. Clancy Talbot found this suspicious and Detective Flores concurred with her. Ryan had also shared that he couldn't get a hold of Jody for 20 hours during her trip. Jody claimed that she got lost and decided to pull over and sleep so her phone was off. But Clancy Talbot also noticed that while Jody normally had platinum

and blonde hair, it was now dark brown. The sudden change of appearance was a red flag, but that missing chunk of time during her trip that directly lined up with the time that Travis could have been killed really seemed suspicious. Also on the 16th, Detective Flores interviewed Travis' ex-girlfriend Lisa. She had dated Travis after he and Jody broke up, but their relationship had ended long before he was murdered. She too suspected Jody.

Lisa even recalled an incident from November or December 2007 when she and Travis were dating. He had been at her house late at night when there was a knock at the door. No one was there when they answered, and when they investigated, they realized that someone had slashed both of their tires. The next night, Travis was at her house again, when there was another knock. Just like the night before, no one was there. This time, someone had slashed Travis's tires again. They suspected Jody was the culprit, but couldn't prove it.

The next morning, Lisa received an email from a John Doe, calling her a horror and basically warning her to stay away from Travis. She had always thought that it was Jody, who said that, again, had no proof. She also remembers the time that Travis took a call from Jody while they were hanging out together. She told ABC News. It was almost as if she knew we were together at the time. So I'm just going to come out and say it more. If I'm getting a real fatal attraction vibe here, you know, the word obsessive. was used earlier in describing Jody areas.

Normally, that's not a good thing to be so obsessed with a person, especially when that relationship ends. And the obsession doesn't stop. And now you have, you know, these incidents where people's tires are being slashed. Travis's tires were slashed twice on back-to-back days. Now, there's no way they could have known for sure that it was Jody. And then you add in this email that Lisa received calling her a whore. I mean, this is some very strange stuff.

I mean, my thought is if you're Lisa, you're a little scared about what's going on. Yeah, and it had to be frustrating to suspect that it was Jody. but not have any way to prove it. But, you know, all through this case so far, we've been talking about Travis and Lisa suspecting Jody did this. And his friends we mentioned earlier thought right away that Jody was the one that had murdered him. So at every turn here, Jody's name keeps coming up as someone that was likely to blame for all this stuff that happened to Travis. And one of the thoughts that I had was this is a little bit different from many of the cases

that we do. You know, someone is murdered. There's not always like one person that everybody kind of throws out there as the person who they believe could have done it. But that seems like exactly what happened in this case. It was almost as if everyone who knew Travis, Jody, they were saying, this probably was Jody. And I think the overwhelming input, from all these people that knew Travis thinking it was Jody. And along with the fact that Jody and Travis had broken up recently, I think that probably in the minds of detectives definitely sent Jody to the top of the suspect list. On June 17th, multiple friends of Travis, including Jody, went to the Mesa police headquarters

and voluntarily gave saliva samples and fingerprints the three friends who had gone to his house, to check on him, gave follow-up interviews, and so did his roommates. But Jody refused to speak without an attorney. A computer forensic specialist, Detective Michael Melendez, was able to recover multiple images from the camera found in Travis's washing machine, even though the photos had been deleted. On June 19th, Detective Flores got to results. The first photo, timestamped June 4th at 522. p.m. was of Travis in the shower. A few photos showed him hamming it up for the camera naked.

At 5.30 p.m., a photo was taken, but this time Travis was sitting down in the shower. At 531 p.m., a photo of the ceiling above the shower was taken, likely an accidental snap during the struggle. At 533 p.m., a photo was taken while the camera was upside down. Likely another accidental capture. It showed Travis lying on his back with his neck and chest covered with blood. In this photo, the leg and shoe of someone standing over Travis is visible, they were wearing dark socks or shoes with a pair of striped blue sweatpants that had a zipper on the back of the legs.

The last photo taken depicted the bloody bathroom hallway floor. It took Detective Melendez additional time and work to recover some of the more damaged images from earlier in the day, but he was able to do it. At 1.40 p.m. on June 4th, Travis's camera took a photo of Jody nude on his bed. Five more photos of her, and two nude photos of Travis followed. This proved that Jody had lied about not seeing Travis in a year. She had seen him just before his murder, and had taken photos with the very camera that took photos of him before, during, and after his death. The results were powerful and damning. So, you know, no doubt, Morp, this was a pretty big bombshell, right? You called it powerful and

damning. It definitely was the fact that these pictures proved that Jody had lied about not seeing Travis and not just that, but she had seen him just before his murder and had taken photos with, you know, that camera. I go back to this thought. that some people have about deleting things, meaning that they're gone forever. And that's just not the case. Yeah, I think a lot of people are just naive in that.

And we've seen time and time again with so many cases that things that you think are gone or are recovered. But I wonder why wouldn't Jody just take this camera and throw it in a river someplace? It doesn't make sense to me. Why should we just leave it there to, you know, thinking, is going to do the trick. I don't have to take it. Yeah, she obviously thought the washing machine

would damage it to the point where the photos would never be recoverable, but she was wrong. On June 21st, Jody called Detective Flores again. She complained that she wasn't able to attend Travis's funeral, which had been held in Southern California because she had gotten a flat tire on the way. She also asked if there were any updates in the case. She also asked, she also asked, about how she could get some items. She had left behind at his house, but also said that they weren't that important. Though she had initially refused to speak without an attorney,

she changed her mind and gave a telephone interview on June 25th. According to Jody, she left Eureka on the third and rented a car in Redding, California. From there, she stopped in Monterey to try and see a friend, but never did, before heading to Las Vegas, Nevada. there she was finally able to find her cell phone charger but got lost and decided to pull over and sleep she pulled off the road for about ten hours resting and then by the time she made it to salt lake city for a prepaid legal conference it was almost noon on thursday the fifth she spent some time with ryan burns that day and took a nap before heading back to eureka around two or three a m she made it from salt lake city to eureka to eureka without stopping or getting lost. Ryan Burns, however, told Detective Flores that Jody left the Monterey area around 11 p.m. on Tuesday.

She was supposed to meet him the next morning for the conference, but she didn't show up. She didn't call him to inform him of her whereabouts until 11 p.m. on Wednesday. At that time, she said she was about 100 miles away from Las Vegas and had gotten lost, driven in the wrong direction, and ran out of gas. So I think we need to break some of this down and, you know, maybe pass it through the plausibility

meter. The first thing for me is Jody saying that, you know, she got lost, decided to pull over and sleep. Okay, that's not unheard of. People pull off the road. They're tired. They need a little rest. But 10 hours is a long time. to rest in your car.

I mean, I can't even sleep 10 hours in my bed. So that jumped out at me as being a little strange. And I think one of the things is when you start spinning lies to cover your tracks, some of them are going to not be real feasible or real believable. I think it was pretty clear to investigators that this story sounded like some BS on Jody Aris's part. Well, and I think the other thing you have is Ryan Burns and other people who either interacted with Jody or were supposed to do something with Jody. They're kind of blowing up her account as well. On June 26th, a partial palm print left in blood in the bathroom doorway was identified.

It was a match to Jody Arias's left hand. On July 3rd, the N.A testing revealed that the blood in that palm print, belonged to both Travis and Jody. A hair stuck the blood on the wall was also a match to Jody's. Detective Flores discovered that about one week before Travis was killed, a 25 caliber gun was stolen from Jody's grandparents' house. This was the same caliber gun used to shoot Travis. The totality of all the evidence against Jody Arias was overwhelming.

And on July 9th, Jody's 29th birthday, a grand jury in Maricopa County, Arizona, returned an indictment on charges of premeditated first-degree murder. or in the alternative, just first-degree felony murder. Just six days later, on July 15th, Jody Ann Arias was arrested in California at her grandparents' home. According to Fox 59 news, upon her arrest, Jody denied any involvement in Travis's death, telling detectives, I don't even hurt spiders. On September 5th, she was extradited to Arizona. I don't even hurt spiders. So obviously, I could not be a murderer.

I'm not sure that's the best offense, but you mentioned it more. I mean, just the amount of evidence got to the point where it really was overwhelming. You know, when you're talking about blood and, you know, this DNA testing where you have the mixture of both Travis's and Jody's blood together, Jody's hair stuck to the wall in blood. you know, this is some stuff that's going to be really hard for a defense attorney to dance around. How are you going to explain that away? And if all that's not enough, you also have the digital camera that puts her at the scene. So it seems like it was just a mountain of evidence in total.

Six days after arriving back in Maricopa County on September 11th, Jody entered a plea of not guilty. She was very vocal while awaiting trial. The day after pleading not guilty, she gave an interview to the Arizona Republic, maintaining her innocence. On the 24th, Jody went on inside addition, against the advice of her counsel, and again maintained her innocence, but this time admitted to being at the home when Travis was killed. On Halloween, prosecutors filed a notice of their intent to seek the death penalty in the case. On June 23, 2009. Jody went on 48 hours, also against the advice of her counsel, and claimed that while the two were taking photos of each other with his camera, there was a home invasion,

and one of those intruders killed Travis. She couldn't give a description because they were wearing masks, and she claimed that the reason she didn't come clean about this earlier was due to their threats to her and her family, if she ever talked about the attack. no one believed this new version of events. And it really seemed, you know, extremely far-fetched. And that's why her attorneys advised her not to do it. Some more of you and I have talked about this before. There is a reason why defendants get counseled. And a lot of times, you know, defense attorneys will advise their clients, you know, do this, don't do this. And it just shocks me. Fresh air, longer days, a chance to reset. This season, let therapy be part of your spring cleaning.

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Visit growtherapy.com slash book now to get started. That's growth therapy.com slash book now. Growtherapy.com slash book now. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. How often defendants, especially in some of these high profile cases, go against the advice of their counsel. I'm just wondering what Jody thought was going to be the benefit of going on inside edition, going on 48 hours. Did she think that she was going to win over the public by doing these interviews? And then there's the whole issue of all of a sudden coming up with this home invasion story.

You know, putting it out there so far down the road, it just seems like a horrible strategy. And I think that's what happens in these cases with people that commit these crimes. They lie about it. And then when evidence proves that they're lying, they have to spin that lie into another lie. So now Jody knew that her, you know, she's on camera at the scene of the attack. Her DNA, her palm print, that stuff's all found at the crime scene. So now to get around her being connected to it by physical evidence, now she has to come with the story of how she could be there, but still not be the killer.

And it just, it gets to a point where it's just preposterous. The story is so unbelievable that, you know, what jury is going to buy that story. but in her mind, maybe she's so delusional that she thought it would work. Yeah, that might be a good word, delusional. I'm always shocked. I don't know why I'm still shocked, but I am when it seems as though these people think they're so smart. They're smarter than everyone else that their words alone are going to trump the evidence.

They're going to, I'm going to be able to explain all of this. and people are going to understand that I didn't do it. And it just never works. By August 16, 2010, Jody's defense strategy had shifted. Her defense counsel filed a request to submit letters written by Travis into evidence as part of the foundation for a self-defense claim. In their motion, the document read, defendant argues that the letters are relevant to her claim of self-defense

and that she was a victim of previous sexual and physical abuse by Mr. Alexander. So first Jody claimed she had nothing to do with Travis's murder and had no information about it. Then she claimed that she was at the scene when home invaders killed Travis. Now she claimed that she did kill Travis, but it was because she had to in self-defense. Jody claimed that while they were using his camera, she dropped it. And Travis attacked her in a blind rage. Jody claimed she threw the gun into the desert somewhere near the Hoover Dam. She also claims she doesn't remember stabbing him or anything in between shooting him and getting rid of the gun.

Most of Travis's friends and family don't buy this story at all. Travis's brother Stephen told CBS News. The self-defense story was just a joke. My brother didn't even own a gun. An expert for the defense testified that Jody was suffering from symptoms of of post-traumatic stress disorder, explaining why she couldn't remember the rest of the attack, while experts for the prosecution testified that she had borderline personality disorder. Okay, this is pretty normal, right? Something we see in a lot of trials, experts on both sides

with differing opinion. It seems to be the norm. The defense is saying, okay, she has post-traumatic stress disorder. The prosecution's experts are saying, nope, she has borderline personality disorder. But you can see why Travis's family would take this self-defense story hard. You know, they know Travis. They know what kind of person he is. They even said it. The guy didn't even own a gun. So if it is self-defense in the heat of the moment, then you have to ask the question, why did she have the gun in the first place? And it just so happens to be the same kind of gun that was stolen from her grandparents. And I think we see this time and time again in trials.

The defense tries to shift blame to the victim and make it look like the defendant is justified in doing what they did to them. Well, and let's be fair, there are cases where, you know, people are forced to defend themselves. And those cases are serious and they have to be taken as such. This one just seemed so far-fetched to believe that it was self-defense. On January 2nd, 2013, after a very long delay, Jody's trial finally began. It was a long trial. On February 4th, Jody took the stand to testify in her own defense. On the stand, she said, the simple answer is, he attacked me and I defended myself.

Her story would change yet again to include that she had seen Travis masturbating while looking at a photo of a child. Travis's brother Stephen was disgusted by Jody's claim. He told CBS News. Her mission was basically to murder my brother again for a second time by destroying his reputation. Sexually charged phone calls between Travis and Jody were played and photos of both of them naked were shown in court. Jody remained on the stand until March 13th. The prosecution put forth their theory that Travis. murder was heavily premeditated. Jody ran a car and once she got to Mesa, Arizona,

she removed the license plates so it would be harder to identify. Before leaving California, she dyed her blonde hair brown so that she would also be harder to recognize. In May 2008, she borrowed two five-gallon gas cans and purchased the third in preparation of her 1,027 mile one-way journey. She clearly did not want to be seen purchasing a large amount of gas at one time or have to stop anywhere in Arizona where she could be caught on camera like a gas station. 15 extra gallons would ensure that she could make it to and from Arizona unnoticed. Prosecutor Juan Martinez laid out what Jody did saying she went to great lengths to make

sure that no one could tell she was there. And by and large, she was successful, except for that one mistake, referring to the gas cans, she probably would have gotten away with it. And we've talked about the evidence at the murder scene itself. That was damning and it mounted up very quickly. But here you have this evidence of premeditation. You know, removing license plates, getting a bunch of gas cans to make sure that, you know, you can make this drive without ever having to stop at a gas station, changing your hair color. I mean, these are things that just scream out premeditation. And they fly so much in the face of the self-defense theory. And I think that's the thing that's hard to get around when you come up with all these lies and these BS stories of what really happened.

the evidence that's recovered later on seems to tell a different story, seems to tell the truth and, you know, cast out on everything you're saying. On May 8, 2013, after 15 hours and five minutes of deliberation, the jury found Jody Arias guilty. On May 15th, the jury found that she was eligible for the death penalty. Years later, Jody would tell Fox 59 news. I said years ago that I'd rather get death than life, and that is still true today. Adding, I believe death is the ultimate freedom, so I'd rather just have my freedom as soon as I can get it. At a sentencing trial, two juries could not aground whether or not Jody should be sentenced to death. Eventually, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sherry Stevens had no choice but to declare a mistrial.

She then sentenced Jody to life in prison without the possibility of parole on April 13, 2015. The final sentencing jury had just one person unwilling to send Jody to her death. The other jurors were angry and outspoken about their deliberations. One juror told USA today, the 11 of us stride for justice but to no avail. We absolutely feel the penalty should have been death. It turned into a pride thing, standing her ground. A second juror explained. A third juror said the one holdout had her mind made up from the beginning,

and another juror even cried as they expressed how upsetting it was for months of trial to end with no verdict. The lone holdout, known as Juror 17, eventually spoke out, two, telling the Washington Post. I feel like I'm being judged. I didn't ask for this. I just showed up for jury duty. Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery had to release a statement after Juror 17's name, address, and even photos of her home appeared online. Montgomery wrote, anger and frustration at suspected actions, inconsistent with our jury system does not provide justification for death threats or disgusting characterizations of what should happen to someone's person. In early 2020, Maricopa County prosecutor Juan Martinez was disbarred. He was accused by the state bar of Arizona, of leaking information

like Juror 17's name, to Jennifer Wood, a blogger he was having an affair with during the trial and of lying to investigators about it. Before being disbarred, he was dismissed from the Maricopa County Attorney's Office after allegations of sexual harassment going back several years and being accused of retaliating against those who filed reports against him. Phoenix Arizona Ethics Attorney Karen Clark, who had filed multiple complaints regarding Martinez during Jody's trial, told Arizona Central, prosecutors are held to the highest ethical standards. And for far too long,

Martinez abused his position of trust and also abused women along the way. And I agree with that. You know, prosecutors have to be held to the highest ethical standards. And it does sound like this guy was doing a bunch of shady stuff. But what I really want to talk about

is this woman known as juror 17th. You know, she said it. I just showed up for jury duty. And so many of us do. Now, very few of us end up on a high profile trial like that of Jody Arias. But I just wonder if the treatment of someone like juror 17 gets into the minds of some jurors. Maybe they're a holdout. Maybe they don't believe someone is either innocent or guilty when the rest of the jury is going the other way, how does that play? Morif, I mean, could someone ultimately give in because they don't want the retribution or the retaliation that would come from people finding out the way they were thinking or the way they voted? Yeah, it's obviously a big decision.

too, you're voting to send someone to their death, you know, and I don't know what her personal beliefs are or views on on the death penalty. I'm sure that was maybe something they asked pre-jury selection, but you definitely want to get it right. And I've never been on a jury, but the fact that 11 of the 12 were pretty strongly convinced in one direction, and this one juror wasn't not sure how to explain how one person can have such a different view from the other 11. No, I don't either, but obviously she had those views. What scares me is that as a society, there are people in it who, you know, would want to do this woman harm solely based on, you know, how she voted in a trial.

That's a scary thought. Lawrence Kirk Nirmie, one of Jody's defense attorneys, has all. also been disbarred. He apparently violated ethics when he wrote a book about the case without Jody's permission. Despite this, in March 2020, the Arizona State Court of Appeals denied Jody's motion for a new trial based on this misconduct. The state court judge, Judge Jennifer Campbell, wrote, Arias was convicted based upon the overwhelming evidence of her guilt, not as a result of prosecutorial misconduct. The overwhelming evidence of Arias' guilt has reflected through her own admissions and is clearly set forth within the record would not have permitted any reasonable

juror to acquit her of the charged defense. And with that, Jody Arias has remained in prison ever since. Jody Arias, who is now 43 years old, remains at Perryville Prison Complex in Goodyear, Arizona. In 2021, she was transferred to a low security wing and allowed to work in the prison library. Her former cellmate, Donovan Bering, shared information. about her life behind bars telling AZFamily.com. The mail guards really liked her. But then she flirted a lot, explaining that she got a lot of stuff that the other inmates didn't get because she was very sexual, very sensual.

Donovan Bering, who has multiple tattoos that were done by Jody while in prison, ultimately agreed with the jury's decision, saying it was the right thing. because of all the evidence and just all that I knew about all the different stories and stuff and the way that she acted. And she had no remorse. In 2003, on the 10-year anniversary of the guilty verdict, Donovan Bering said, I just hope that people would eventually let it go because it keeps going on and she keeps getting money and she keeps getting all the fame. The notoriety of the case and attention on Jody has resulted in some people supporting her, and there's still a website dedicated to,

to her innocence, and she maintains an online art gallery where people can buy prints of her work. As far as Travis's family, our friend Travis, the Travis Alexander's story by Sky and Chris Hughes was published in 2015. It was very important for them to let the world know who Travis truly was and not let the world be swayed by the words of the obsessed and jealous woman who took his life. And that is one of the truly sad things about some of these cases. I mean, number one, you have an individual who lost his life. But then, and we talked about it kind of during the trial, it often seems as though this person who lost their life is then dragged through the mud. Their reputation is smeared. The defense is trying to paint them as a villain, a bad person.

that has to be extremely hard on family and friends because they're still dealing with the loss of their relative or their friend, their loved one, and to have to sit in court and hear what they know are lies told about this person, that must be infuriating. Yeah, and that's the tough thing about trials because sometimes these families have to listen as the defense and sometimes in this case where Jody took the stand they have to listen to them sort of tear apart the victim's life and make them look bad and you know it's really victim blaming victim shaming and and making it look like they're to blame for what happened to them and along the way there's disgusting things that all in a attempt to paint a picture casting down

on the actual murderer that's on trial. So very, very sad that families have to go through that. You know, as we wrap this one up, this was a huge case. I mean, it was picked up by the media in a big way. I think one of the reasons for that, you know, is the salacious nature of the murder. You had the pictures. You had Jody Arias herself, even her cellmate. said it. You know, she acted very sexual, sensual. You have this kind of femme fatal element to the case. And that obviously is going to be picked up by the media. And the one thing I'm left asking is how exactly did this happen? Why did she decide she was going to do this? We talked about it being premeditated. But at the same time, based on those photos on the camera, you know, it seems

as if Travis in those photos was a willing participant at first. And he was hammed, we said he was hamming it up for the camera. So it's not like she went there, barged in on him and just killed him. She spent time there with him. And there were photos of her nude on his bed. So what happened at the end to make her go through with her plan that she

had obviously thought out? Well, first off, the one thing I don't think it was, was a, a snap on the part of Travis. I just don't see that because of the premeditation, the bringing the gun. These were two people who had a relationship. It was very obvious to me that they were physically attracted to each other. I don't think there's any doubt about that. So she makes this decision that she's going to go see Travis. Did she have it in her mind that she was going

to kill him. It's kind of hard not to think that she did. Why would you need the gas cans? Why would you, you know, need to kind of make this elaborate lie about pulling over at the rest stop and and all of that? And why would you bring a gun with you? I really think that she was so jealous, so obsessed and so upset that she couldn't be with him, that she decided that, you know, she couldn't have her, nobody could. But when she got there, she was able to disarm him. They had, you know, a time together. I'll say it that way. And then eventually she picked her moment. And it almost makes me wonder if maybe she gave him a chance and talk to him about something and depending on what his answer was or what he had to say,

maybe she wasn't going to go through with it, or maybe he got angry and she didn't like his answer, his reply, and decided to go through with her plan. But I think there's any way you look at it, she definitely, this was premeditated, and whatever happened will never have those answers at the very end, but she definitely went through with it. Well, and what you're saying does make a lot of sense.

could she have gone there with the thought that, you know, I'm going to talk to him, try to get back together. But if he rebuffs me, it's over. And maybe that's exactly what happened, even though, you know, they had a sexual encounter. Ultimately, he wasn't going to get back together with her. And maybe she didn't like that answer. And that's why she did what she did. But she planned it out just in case. That could absolutely be how it went down. Yeah, and this is just one of these cases of so many where as a, as a normal person looking at this, I say to myself, why would she resort to this? There's other fishing to sea, move on and find a new relationship. Why resort to murdering somebody taking a life and giving up your freedom? It just, it doesn't

make sense in so many of these cases we discuss. But therein lies the problem. You're trying to make sense, and we all do, of something that doesn't make any sense. You know, you said it kind of the average person looking at this would say, hey, this person doesn't want to be with me. Fine. I'll move on. I'm an attractive person.

I'll find somebody else. but obviously in her mind that's not what she was thinking and maybe that's where the obsession part comes in she wanted Travis and no one else and if she couldn't have him then nobody else was going to but that's it for our episode on Jody Arias the murder of Travis Alexander if you love the show that you haven't done so yet take a minute go out give us a five-star rating you can leave a review also keep telling your friends that word about mouth about the criminology podcast goes a long way. If you want to find us on social media, we're on X with a handle at criminology pod.

You can also find us on Facebook by going to facebook.com slash criminology podcast. And you can join our Facebook discussion group, criminology podcast, discussion and fans. So that's it for another episode of criminology. But Morp and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then for Mike. and morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.

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