Murder: True Crime Stories - SOLVED: The Jodi Arias Case 1

Episode Date: January 20, 2026

Before the headlines and the courtroom drama, Travis Alexander’s story began as a whirlwind romance. In Part 1 of this two-episode series, Murder: True Crime Stories traces Jodi Arias’s troubled past, her pattern of volatile relationships, and the intense bond she formed with charismatic motivational speaker Travis Alexander. As Jodi reshaped her identity to fit Travis’s world—converting to his faith, moving closer to him, and refusing to let go—their relationship spiraled into a toxic cycle of control, jealousy, and obsession. This episode sets the stage for a tragedy that was quietly building behind closed doors. If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Murder True Crime Stories to never miss a case! For Ad-free listening and early access to episodes, subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. Murder True Crime Stories is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios 🎧 Need More to Binge?  Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse TikTok: @Crimehouse Facebook: @crimehousestudios YouTube: @crimehousestudios To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, Crime House community. It's Vanessa Richardson. Exciting news, conspiracy theories, cults and crimes is leveling up. Starting the week of January 12th, you'll be getting two episodes every week. Wednesdays, we unravel the conspiracy or the cult, and on Fridays we look at a corresponding crime. Every week has a theme. Tech, bioterror, power, paranoia, you name it. Follow conspiracy theories, cults and crimes now on your podcast app, because you're about to dive deeper, get weirder, and go darker than ever before. This is Crime House.

We all want to put our best foot forward. Whether it's at the office in class or a social gathering, we're showing the world the best version of ourselves. But when we're at home and our guards are down, we probably act a bit different, looser, less buttoned up. That doesn't mean we're pretending when we're out in public. After all, it's impossible to owe you be on, but for some people, it really is an act. People who came across Jody Arias at school or at work

said she was a sweet, easygoing girl, someone you just wanted to be around. But behind closed doors, she completely transformed. The real Jody was violent and unpredictable. You never knew when she might snap. Her family hoped it was just a phase that she'd grow out of. Instead, she turned into a monster. And by the time anyone realized what she was truly capable of, it was too late to stop her. People's lives are like a story. There's a beginning, a middle, and an end. But you don't always know which part you're on. Sometimes the final chapter arrives far too soon, and we don't always get to know the real ending. I'm Carter Roy, and this is Murder, True Crime Stories, a crime original powered by Pave Studios. New episodes come out every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday,

with Friday's episodes covering the cases that deserve a deeper look. Thank you for being a part of the crimehouse community. Please rate, review, and follow the show, and for early, add free access to every episode, subscribe to Crimehouse Plus on Apple Podcasts. This is the first of two episodes on the murder of 30-year-old Travis Alexander in Mesa, Arizona, by his ex-girlfriend, Jody Arias. Today, I'll introduce you to Jody and the Arias family. As a young girl, Jody struggled to find her place in the world. After her son, several failed relationships, she thought she'd finally found stability when she met Travis Alexander in 2006. But Travis wasn't so sure. And when he decided to end things, 27-year-old

Jody decided if she couldn't have him, neither could anyone else. Next time, we'll see just how far Jody was willing to go to get revenge. After Travis went MIA, his friend sounded the alarm, but by then it was too late to save him. What came next was one of the most high-profile murder investigations in modern history. All that and more coming up. Growing up in a big family can be challenging. With so many people around, well, there's bound to be disagreements and chaos, but it also means there's plenty of love to go around. That's the kind of family Jody Arias had. She was born in Salinas, California on July 9, 1980, to parents Bill and Sandy. The details are murky, but Jody had an older half-sister, who most people assume was Bill's daughter from a previous

relationship. Once Bill and Sandy got together, they wanted to have more kids, and Jody was their first. After her, they had three more, one girl and two boys, and according to Jody's parents, she had a happy and stable childhood. Jody was a creative kid and especially loved photography. Her grandparents even lived nearby, which meant she got extra love and attention. But early on, there were also some warning signs. Jody seemed to struggle with impulse control from a young age. One babysitter reportedly called her an exceptionally aggressive kid. For example, when she was six years old,

Jody hit her younger brother Carl over the head with a baseball bat. And as she got older, that aggression led to outright rebellion. When Jody was around 12 years old, her family moved from Salinas to Wyrika in Nye. northern California near the Oregon border. For a while, it seemed like things might be different. But then, when Jody was 14, her parents caught her growing marijuana on the roof of their house using Tupperware containers and makeshift planters. Not sure what to do, they called the police. Jody didn't get in any legal trouble, but after that, everything changed. It was obvious to

and Sandy that she didn't trust them anymore. Seemingly, overnight, she started keeping even more secrets and lying about pretty much everything. Not only that, but she barely even spoke to them. It was difficult for Bill and Sandy to deal with, but her silence was probably better than the alternative because when Jody wasn't ignoring her family, she was abusing them, verbally and physically. One time she even punched her mother. It was a stark contrast to the version of Jody that showed up at school every day. According to Jody's classmates, she was sweet and soft-spoken.

One friend described her as a good girl who didn't seem to have any sort of behavioral issues. If anything, she was seen as the quiet and creative type. Her favorite subject was art where she got to spend hours drawing. So it wasn't exactly a surprise that she was into more unconventional guise, too. In 1995, when she was a freshman in high school, 15-year-old Jody went to a local carnival with some friends. While she was there, she met 18-year-old Bobby Juarez. It was the dead of summer, but Bobby was wearing a full black suit and a high-collared white shirt. Despite his put-together appearance, Bobby wasn't exactly the same.

the most motivated person. He'd just graduated high school, but instead of going to college or getting a nine to five, he spent most of his time playing video games and drifting through life. Jody didn't seem to care about any of that. Bobby was older, cooler, and more interesting than any of the guys she knew. By all accounts, Jody seems smitten with him. After they met, they spent the next few months talking on the phone regularly. And on New Year's Day in 1996, Bobby and Jody officially became boyfriend and girlfriend. It was Jody's first real relationship, and it was full of ups and downs. In the early stages, Bobby said he wanted to move to San Francisco with her to hunt vampires.

Jody wasn't one to take the traditional route in life, but that was a bridge too far, even for her. she broke things off with Bobby. It didn't last long, though. Soon enough, she gave him another chance, and this time Jody was determined to make it work. At that point, Bobby was 20 years old. He could do whatever he wanted, and Jody was desperate for that same kind of independence.

So even though she was only 17 years old and still in 11th grade, she decided to drop out of school and move in with him. Their parents were horrified, but Jody didn't care. The two happily bounced around from place to place before landing in Oregon later that year in 1998. They found an apartment and a roommate, a man named Matt McCartney. Jody was thrilled to finally have a place to call her own away from her parents. But being an adult wasn't easy, and Jody was in for a little. a rude awakening. Now that she had bills to pay, Jody got a full-time job at a Denny's restaurant.

Neither Bobby nor Matt had steady gigs, so Jody was the primary breadwinner, and she worked long hours to make ends meet. When she came home, all she wanted to do was relax. But the apartment she shared with Bobby and Matt was small, and pretty soon, the tight quarters led to tension. and violence. Bobby had a temper, and according to Jody, he abused her multiple times, going as far as choking her, and even breaking her finger. Despite the abuse, Jody stayed in the relationship and kept providing for everyone. At some point, though, she started to feel resentful.

After all, she was the one working to keep the lights on while Bobby spent his days at home, free to do whatever he wanted. and it bothered her that she didn't know what he was doing. The thought gnawed at her, and soon she started getting paranoid. She didn't like that she couldn't keep tabs on Bobby every second of the day and convinced herself that he was cheating on her. By August of 1998, 18-year-old Jody finally acted on her instincts and logged into Bobby's email account.

What she found confirmed her worst fears. Bobby had been exchanging flirty messages with another woman. Heartbroken, Jody ended their relationship. But within a few months, someone else caught Jody's attention. Her roommate, Matt McCartney. But Jody didn't approach him right away. She was strategic, cunning and knew exactly how to get what she wanted. wanted. And she didn't care who she had to manipulate along the way.

In August of 1998, 18-year-old Jody Arias broke up with her boyfriend after learning he was messaging other women. But she didn't seem all that upset, because before long she set her sights on Matt McCartney, her roommate. Although Jody was interested in Matt, she didn't immediately come on to him. Instead, she took a more calculated approach. His family lived in another part of Oregon, and Jody had met them before. To them, she seemed like a sweet, kind young woman. They were upset to learn that she and Bobby had broken up, and they wanted to make sure she

landed on her feet. So when they heard that she needed a place to stay, they let Jody move in while she searched for work and tried to rebuild her life. the next few months, Jody became deeply involved with the McCartney family. She bonded with Matt's sister and helped take care of her kids. Of course, she also kept hanging out with Matt, and by January of 1999, they were sleeping together. A year later, Jody and Matt were officially an item. The couple bounced between California, Oregon, and Colorado over the next year and a half as they pursued work opportunities. Even with the changing scenery and multiple new jobs, their relationship seemed

stable, and Jody was all in. And by this point, she'd become interested in some of Matt's spiritual beliefs, which included things like Buddhism and Wicca, which is a modern pagan religion. It also seemed like this was when Jody started to bleach her hair blonde, which she would do for many years. From the outside looking in, it seemed like Jody was transforming herself into Matt's ideal partner. But it still wasn't enough. In May 2001, Matt took a seasonal job in Crater Lake, Oregon. That summer he worked and lived at the National Park there while Jody lived 70 miles away so she could work at an Applebee's. Things were going well until the end of the summer. And that was when one of Jody's coworkers told her they'd heard a rumor that Matt was cheating.

As soon as she found out, Jody drove to Crater Lake to confront him. When she arrived, Matt admitted to the affair, but claimed it was purely emotional. He insisted they hadn't slept together. Jody broke up with him anyway. After that, Jody needed a fresh start. She moved around and dated other people. but nothing seemed to stick. Then she met Daryl Brewer.

In 2002, Jody was working at a spa in Big Sur, California. Daryl was her boss, and her relationship felt different from her previous ones. That might have been because Daryl was 42 when they started dating, a full two decades older than 22-year-old Jody. Despite the age gap, Jody was the mature, stable, presence in the relationship. She even acted as a pseudo-parent to Daryl's young son. It was unconventional, but it seemed like the relationship was working. Jody and Daryl spent the next three years building a life together. By 2005, they were ready for a big change. They bought a house in Palm Desert,

California in the Coachella Valley. They were looking forward to the future, and Jody was eager for a more stable career. So she was thrilled when she landed a job at a company called Prepaid Legal in 2006. It was a subscription-style legal insurance company that offered access to lawyers 24-7. Jody thought it was her chance to finally become financially stable. In reality, it operated like a multi-level marketing scheme where getting to the top was much more difficult than advertised. That September, Jody traveled to Las Vegas, Nevada for a prepaid legal services company conference. She was still an independent contractor for the company and wanted to move up. Going to Vegas was a great opportunity to network and learn. While she was there, she met a 29-year-old man

named Travis Alexander. He was a highly successful, charismatic motivational speaker and recruiter at prepaid legal. And when the two struck up a conversation, it was clear to both of them that their chemistry was electric. Travis ended up inviting Jody to accompany dinner that night, and after the event, they stayed up talking until morning. By the next day, Travis was already telling friends he thought he'd met his future wife.

Here's what he wrote about Jody at the time. 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. Travis was from Riverside, California, and like Jody, he came from a big family. He was one of seven kids. But unlike Jody, Travis was not raised in a good environment. His parents struggled with drug abuse, and he often experienced neglect and instability because of it. When Travis was eight years old, he moved in with his paternal grandparents, who were Mormons and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as LDS.

As a result, religion became a central part of his identity, and he remained very active in the LDS Church. Travis used that faith to find some structure in his life and eventually found success in his role with prepaid legal. He had no idea that after he met Jody, it was all about to unravel. For the moment, though, they went their separate ways. After the conference, Travis went back to his home in Mesa, Arizona,

while Jody returned to Palm Desert. Daryl had no idea about her connection with Travis or the fact that Jody had been keeping in touch with him, but he could tell that Jody was different somehow. She'd suddenly become obsessed with religion, specifically Travis's religion. Just a few weeks after meeting him, Jody had fully immersed herself in Mormonism. She read church literature, attended LDS meetings, and even abstained from sex since Mormonism forbids sex before marriage. Within a couple of months, Jody had officially converted, and Travis was the one who baptized her. For Jody, it was a fresh chapter, a commitment to purity, God, and a future that in her mind probably included Travis. But it was also the

end of something, her relationship with Darrell. Shortly after she converted, Jody left him and her old life behind. By February 2007, 29-year-old Travis and 26-year-old Jody were officially in a long-distance relationship. Travis was still in Mesa, and Jody had moved in with her grandparents in Wairika, California. But the couple met up frequently and spent time traveling the country together. on work trips and vacations. On the surface, they seem like a happy and pious couple who are committed to the LDS community. But behind closed doors, they weren't following some of the church's teachings. Despite the religion's restrictions around sex, Travis and Jody's relationship turned physical, and most of the time, Jody was the one initiating. She'd always been a sexual person and that

that didn't change once she was converted. She even brought her childhood love of photography into the mix, and the two often took photos before and during intercourse. Travis wasn't the perfect Mormon either. He had sex before, but doing it this much was starting to weigh on him. That didn't change how he felt about Jody, though. They kept getting more serious, and eventually, he introduced her to his friends. From the start, those friends got a strange feeling about Jody. They noticed she was always glued to Travis's side and would literally cling to him in public.

Sometimes she even straddled him in front of everyone and gave the stink eye to any woman who so much has looked his way. It didn't take long for Travis' inner circle to voice their concerns. His friends sat him down and begged him to take a step back. One of them even told Travis, I'm scared I'm going to find you chopped up in this girl's freezer. Travis took their advice seriously. As much as he cared about Jody, it was starting to become too much for him.

Jody must have sensed this shift. She could feel Travis slipping away and became progress. aggressively more paranoid. She started going through his emails and phone, probably to see if he was thinking about leaving her. Travis caught her doing this on multiple occasions and finally decided he'd had enough. After about five months of dating, he ended things. But Jody wasn't ready to let Travis go.

In her mind, she was the right girl for him. She was sexy, spiritual, and willing to do anything to make it work. So instead of accepting his decision and getting on with her life, Jody did the opposite. Shortly after being dumped, she packed up her car and moved to Mesa, Arizona, the same city where Travis lived. Usually a move is a fresh start. But for Travis Alexander, it was the beginning of the end. When 26-year-old Jody Arias met 29-year-old Travis Alexander, she thought it was fate. Although she was in a serious relationship at the time, Jody was instantly attracted to Travis,

and he felt the same way. So after months of getting to know one another, Jody ended things with her boyfriend Daryl Brewer and started dating Travis. The relationship didn't last long, though. Jody was clingy, possessive, and paranoid. After five months, Travis broke up with her. But Jody wasn't going to let him go so easily. When she told her friends she was moving to Mesa, Arizona in the summer of 2007, they were stunned.

They thought things were over between her and Travis and didn't understand why Jody would move to his city. But to the 27-year-old, it made perfect sense. After all, she'd completely changed her identity for Travis and molded herself into a devout Mormon. So to Jody, the breakup just meant she needed to try harder. Jody reached out to Travis as soon as she got to Mesa. And despite breaking up with her, Travis responded.

They started talking regularly again. And for a while it seemed like maybe they could repair what had been broken. But then Jody went off the deep end. Jody knew Travis's garage code and would regularly sneak into his house. And if she couldn't get in that way, she'd crawl through the doggie door. Travis was definitely frustrated with her, but he didn't seem overly alarmed by her behavior. probably because he was still attracted to her. If he came home to find Jody had snuck into his house,

he would either tell her to leave or sleep with her. And each time they had sex, it reinforced Jody's belief that Travis still had feelings for her. Over the next few months, this toxic cycle didn't just continue, it grew. Jody and Travis kept sleeping together, having phone sex, and meeting up during work trips out of state. But that didn't mean they were back together. Although Travis kept seeing Jody, he was actively looking for a devout Mormon girl to marry. Jody wasn't oblivious to this, not because he told her, but because she was keeping close tabs on him.

What started with her peeking at her. his emails quickly became much more concerning. Soon, Jody was following Travis around and watching his every move. Around this time, she also started recording their phone calls, which were often explicit and highly sexual. It's not clear what Jody was planning to do with these conversations. Maybe she just like knowing she had something tangible that Travis didn't want anyone to hear. After all, he was very active in the Mormon community and had publicly claimed he was saving himself for marriage. If his friends or members of the church heard those recordings, his reputation would be ruined. Regardless of why Jody made these recordings, she wasn't doing

anything with them just yet. But now she had ammo in case things went south. And pretty soon, they did. Not long after Travis broke up with Jody earlier that summer, he met a woman named Lisa. They started chatting at a church event and began casually dating, but decided to take things slow. When Jody heard about Lisa, she absolutely freaked out. She was so angry, she reportedly slashed Travis's tires on two separate occasions. occasions. She also started stalking Lisa too. One time, she showed up at Lisa's house and banged

on her windows before running away. Despite all of this, Travis just couldn't seem to stay away from Jody. They kept sleeping together, even though Travis was dating Lisa. But the situation was a ticking time bomb, and eventually it blew up. Sometime in February 2008, Lisa found out about Travis and Jody. At that point, she decided she'd had enough of both of them and broke things off with Travis. It seemed like the door was open for Jody and Travis to get back together, except it turned out Jody wasn't as single as she let on. In January, she'd started a long-distance relationship with a guy in Utah named Ryan Burns.

It seemed like Jody was serious about him. She'd even met Ryan's family. But in reality, she was still sleeping with Travis. And it's not clear if Travis knew about Ryan either. It was like Jody and Travis were each other's kryptonite. And since they were both in Mesa, their toxic love affair continued with late-night visits, secret hookups, and emotional chaos. But before long, things finally came to a head.

Jody and Travis were planning to go on vacation to Cancun, Mexico. They had their reservations lined up and everything. Then suddenly at some point in April, Travis told Jody he was going to bring a woman named Mimi instead. Jody was so upset that she left Mesa and went back to California to live with her grandparents. For the first time in a while, it looked like the toxic cycle was really over. Travis saw Jody's move as a chance to breathe again. He even confessed to a friend that he was ecstatic about it, saying, I'm getting my life back.

This is a whole new start. But whatever hold Jody had over him wasn't so easy to escape. They kept having phone sex and sending each other dirty text messages. Here's an excerpt from one of the less explicit ones Travis sent to Jody in May of 2008. When I'm all by my lonesome, I have no desire to think of anyone else in my scandalous fantasies. because from my own experience, nothing is even enjoyable compared to you. Just a few days later, Jody published a cryptic blog post about the law of attraction, saying that it wasn't just about chemistry, it was about destiny too.

By then, it had been a couple months since she left Mesa, and she was desperate to see Travis in person. There was just one problem. She was still dating Ryan. In the end, Jody planned a whole road trip full of her relationships past and present. She decided to go see her ex, Daryl in California, then Travis in Arizona, and finally Ryan in Utah. On June 2, 2008, Jody rented a car and headed over to Daryl's in my mom. Monterey, California as planned. After that, she started the 1,000-mile drive to Arizona.

She arrived at Travis's place at around 4 a.m. on June 4th. But it was just a short pit stop. After spending the day in bed with Travis, Jody got back on the road and headed for Utah. Nobody knew about Jody's visit. Travis was also seeing someone else by then, and of course, Jody was with Ryan, so the whole thing was very hush-hush. But after Jody left, Travis went completely M-I-A. That evening, he missed an important work call, which was extremely unlike him. In the days that followed, Travis didn't answer any text or calls. At some point, his friends started to worry, when they knew something was wrong, they just didn't know what. Eventually, they learned the truth.

And it was far more horrifying than anyone could imagine. Thanks so much for listening. I'm Carter Roy, and this is Murder True Crime Stories. Come back next time for part two on the murder of Travis Alexander and all the people it affected. Murder True Crime Stories is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. here at Crimehouse, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support.

If you like what you heard today, reach out on social media at Crime House on TikTok and Instagram. Don't forget to rate, review, and follow Murder True Crime Stories wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly makes a difference. And to enhance your Murder True Crime Stories listening experience, subscribe to Crime House Plus on Apple Podcasts. You'll get every episode early and ad-free. We'll be back on Thursday. Murder True Crime Stories is hosted by me, Carter Roy,

and is a crime house original powered by Pave Studios. This episode was brought to life by the Murder True Crime Stories team, Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benadon, Natalie Pertzowski, Marky Lee, Sarah Camp, and Russell Mash. Thank you for listening. Looking for your next listen? Hi, it's Vanessa Richardson, and I have exciting news. Conspiracy theories, cults, and crimes is leveling up.

Starting the week of January 12th, you'll be getting two episodes every week. Wednesdays we unravel the conspiracy or the cult, and on Fridays we look at a corresponding crime. Follow conspiracy theories, cults, and crimes now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen.