Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - The Craziest Ex Girlfriend - The Jodi Arias Story

Episode Date: November 17, 2025

Jodi Arias brutally murdered her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander, a charismatic Mormon salesman from Mesa, Arizona. The pair had met two years earlier at a business conference and quickly began a passionate but toxic relationship marked by jealousy, obsession, and sexual tension that clashed with Travis’s religious values. After he tried to end things and invited another woman on a Cancun trip, Arias drove from California to Arizona, where she stabbed him 27 times and shot him in the head.

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And Jody appears to really, really want a boyfriend. Like she just wants someone to love. And one day in 2006, she finally gets that opportunity. Because she goes to a work conference in Las Vegas. And there she meets this guy, Travis. And Jody thinks Travis. is foin, and Travis thinks she is foin. Now, she's actually dating someone else during this time, but she doesn't seem to care.

She now likes Travis, and they hit it off instantly and they hang out the entire conference. Now, unfortunately, the two of them live in different states. She lives in California while he lives in Arizona. But that doesn't stop them. She immediately dumps the guy that she's dating to focus all her energy on Travis. Not only that, but Travis is actually a Mormon, and his long-term relationship goal is to marry another Mormon. Well, that's not going to stop Jody. She's straight up converts. Like right away, she's just like, well, I'm a Mormon now.

Here's actually a picture of her getting baptized into the church. I believe Travis is actually the one who baptizes her. And so from here, Travis and Jody officially start dating in a long-distance relationship. And everything's going well. They're having fun, they're calling each other all the time, they're traveling together, they're doing, you know, all sorts of coupley things. Not only that, but their physical relationship is apparently very spicy. Now, he is a practicing Mormon, so he feels like it is sinful to be smashing before marriage,

but I guess that doesn't stop them. They hook up as often as they can, and they talk dirty on the phone and through text, and sometimes they even hook up in the car. Like, damn, wait till you get home. Anyway, you get the point. They get physical and this apparently causes Travis to feel a lot of guilt, but whatever. He still does it. Now, Travis has a set of friends who try and look out for him.

These friends are convinced that Jody is not good for him and also that she's a little nuts. And to be fair, they're not exactly wrong. Jody will sometimes get jealous and possessive and go through Travis's emails and his social media. and she's just like generally spying on him at all times. Sometimes she even follows him to the bathroom and waits outside to see if he makes a phone call or anything. But I guess it doesn't bother Travis enough to push him away. Because like he even buys her a shirt and a short set with his name on it for Valentine's Day. You see there's this Travis Alexander's.

And so I guess it's that kind of relationship. But anyway, then around 2007, things start to change. So, these two have only been dating for like four or five months at this point. And one day, Jody is snooping through Travis' phone, like she often does, and she sees that he's been texting with other women. Now, she already knows that he's a flirtatious guy, but this time, I guess he crossed the line and they end up breaking up. Now, you would think that this would be the end of it.

But no. Jody's crazy ass actually moves to be closer to him. She literally packs up all her stuff and moves from California all the way to Arizona to live just a little bit away from Travis's house. And so they do this whole, they're technically broken up, but they still smash thing. And to make it worse, Jody starts helping him out by cleaning his house for money. I guess he just like gives her the work. Imagine breaking up with someone and then they just show up at your house like, hey, can I vacuum your living room? Alright, but anyway, to be fair to Travis, he actually does try and move on and date other women.

However, strange things keep happening in his life. Like, his tires get slashed and his social media gets hacked, his journals go missing, which is probably the result of Jody acting crazy. And like one time she wants to get into his house, but she doesn't have access, so she just like straight up crawls in through the doggie door, like a freaking psychopath. path. But anyway, here's where their on-again-off-again relationship starts to go wrong. Through all of this, Travis and Jody continue to smash, even though he's trying to move on. But Jody, she's not trying to move on. She wants Travis back and she wants him all to herself.

Regardless, he's actively going out on dates with other women trying to find someone new. And eventually, he does meet one particular nice woman, and he thinks she is full. While Jody, she decides to move away from Arizona back to California and live with her grandparents. But despite not being in Arizona anymore, she still wants to be with Travis. Like she still calls him, she still stalks his social media, and she still just keeps showing up in his life. All the while, they seem to keep up the occasional phone sex thing too. And so now we're in like 2008. And around this point, Jody finds out about a child.

trip Travis is going on to Cancun, Mexico. I guess it's like a yearly company trip, and I think he's allowed to invite people to go with him. And he decides to not invite Jody to go with him, but you know who he does invite to go with him? That other woman that he likes. And so Jody finds this out, and she's apparently all pissed off, and she is not going to let him run off to Mexico with some other woman. So she goes and she steals a pistol from her grandparents. And then several days before Travis is set to leave for Cancun, Jody packs the gun in her bag. And then she suddenly just shows up at Travis's house to say hi.

Now by this point, Travis and that other woman are still going to Cancun, but they're just going as friends. I guess they ultimately decided not to date. But I don't know if Jody knows this or if she even cares. And so Travis lets her into his place. So they're hanging out. And one thing leads to another and they start smashing. And they're apparently having a real good time and Travis has gotten a new digital camera and so they decide to take some spicy photos of one another in the bed and apparently in the shower too.

Now, it's at this point that Jody decides that it's time to make sure that no. No other woman can have Travis and that she needs to unalive him. And so she gets a knife that I guess she had hidden somewhere. And boom, she starts stabbing him over and over and over again. She actually stabs him 27 times. Then to make sure the job is finished, she cuts his throat. Then, I guess to really make sure the job is finished, she shoots him in the head. Now, here's the really wild part.

Remember that digital camera that he had? Now, I don't know if she took the pictures on purpose or by accident, but a picture is taken of Travis while he's dying on the bathroom floor. And obviously, I can't show you the picture. It's awful, but it exists. Then, once Travis is unalived, Jody drags his body to the shower to wash it. I guess she's trying to clean up his body and maybe stage the crime scene. I'm not sure what her full plan is.

But afterwards, she tries to mess up the digital camera, and she throws it in the washing machine along with all the bed sheets. Then she just leaves the place, like nothing happened. Like she didn't just murder the guy she's in love with. Anyway, so eventually police investigate all this. And immediately, Travis's friends bring up the fact that he has this nutty ex-girlfriend, Jody. So, of course, they searched Travis's place, and along with other evidence,

find the digital camera with all those spicy picks on them. And these pictures are time stamped, placing her at the scene of the crime. And so, bam, they arrest Jody. Here's her mugshot. And ultimately, she goes to trial, and she's found guilty, and she's sentenced to life in prison.