It took three weeks to seat the eleven men and seven women on the panel. Besides one Hispanic juror, everyone else was non-Hispanic Caucasian. They appeared to range in age from their late twenties to their seventies. A couple of people stood out more than others: One woman had a two-tone bob cut, platinum blond and rosy red, and one older male had lots of tattoos. All eighteen were of equal importance. The ones who were going to be alternates would not be chosen until after closing arguments, right before deliberations. Even then, the alternates might still be switched into the regular panel if someone were to be dismissed. These eighteen were also going to have the power to ask questions of any witness they wished, via the judge, so they were going to play a far greater role than most juries do.
Judge Sherry Stephens would be presiding over the proceedings. She was a slim, put-together woman whose wavy, dirty blond hair brushed the shoulders of her black robe. Often seen peering thoughtfully over her brown framed glasses, she was first elected to the bench in 2001, after serving eleven years as assistant attorney general in the Organized Crime and Fraud section of the Arizona Attorney General’s Office. She had attended the same law school as all three attorneys, Arizona State. The Arias case would be the most high profile of her eleven years on the bench.
The trial was going to be taking place in the new Maricopa County Superior Courthouse, which had opened the year before on February 14, 2012, the one hundredth anniversary of Arizona’s statehood. The room itself was a windowless courtroom on the fifth floor, with dull, tan paneling, a jury box with two rows of nine thinly upholstered swivel chairs, tables for both the prosecution and defense, the judge’s bench with attached witness box, and places for the court clerk and court reporter to do their work. The American flag and flag of the State of Arizona, directly behind Judge Stephens’s bench, added the only color.
To get to the fifth floor, everyone had to pack into the available elevators at the east bank, so passionate supporters of both sides and the very few who were neutral would occasionally find themselves face-to-face in the same elevator car, as they rode to and from each session. Despite the painful circumstances, Jodi’s family and Travis’s family would somehow find the courage to remain cordial. They never spoke, but once in a while would glance at one another during court proceedings when the other wasn’t looking. The truth was that both parties were in an unimaginable nightmare of a situation.
The courtroom was filled to capacity on Wednesday, January 2, the day after New Year’s. Travis’s friends and family dominated the gallery, far outnumbering Jodi’s supporters. All seven of his siblings, Gary, Greg, Samantha, Tanisha, Hillary, Allie, and Steven filled the front rows behind Juan Martinez’s table. Some brought their spouses with them. Many had traveled a long way to be in Phoenix for the opening remarks. Work schedules and financial restraints would prevent most of them from being in court frequently, but Tanisha, Steven, and Samantha would attend the proceedings nearly every day. Travis’s mother had died in 2005, three years before her son was murdered. His father had died in 1997 in a tragic motorcycle accident on Travis’s birthday while Travis was on his Mormon mission. The bedrock of the family, his grandmother, had passed away just days before jury selection got under way. Her heart had been broken over Travis’s death, and it appeared she had never recovered from it. In a matter of days, Travis’s supporters would be wearing blue ribbons in solidarity for their lost friend and brother.
It wouldn’t be long before Jodi’s side was also wearing ribbons, but theirs would be purple, the symbolic color for victims of domestic violence. On their side of the room, behind the defense table, sat Jodi’s mother, Sandy Arias. Like Tanisha, Samantha, and Steven, she would come just about every day for the duration. Sandy often took notes in an open, spiral notebook that had an image of Mickey Mouse on its cover. Sandy’s twin sister, Jodi’s Aunt Susan, would often be at her side. Jodi’s father would attend from time to time, but his failing health kept him closer to home in Yreka. Two of Jodi’s four siblings, Joey and Angela, would come to support their sister when they could. Nobody knew that the trial would drag on for months.
By 10 A.M., reporters, local court buffs, and other people piqued by the scandalous nature of the crime filled the remaining seats. With cameras permitted in the courtroom, and the accounts of steamy sex certain to be broadcast to the world, this was a big trial. CNN’s sister network HLN would carry the proceedings, often live or with a modest delay, gavel to gavel for most of the trial. As it progressed, voyeurs everywhere would come out of the woodwork, driving halfway across the country for a chance to get inside the court, coordinating their vacations to coincide with key testimony. So great was the public’s obsession with the trial that Jodi Arias would even be spoofed in a skit on Saturday Night Live.
At precisely 11:01 A.M., Judge Stephens took her seat on the bench. Jodi, dressed in a black shirt, her brown hair in feathered bangs, was already sitting at attention at the right side of the defense table next to her two attorneys when the jury filed in. Within seven minutes of their arrival, the court clerk stood to read the indictment against Jodi.
The moment the clerk had finished, Juan Martinez sprang from his chair and launched into his opening remarks, which gave jurors a taste of the gruesome evidence to come.
“This is not a case of whodunit,” he began, his voice booming. “The person ‘whodunit,’ the person who committed this killing, sits in court today. It’s the defendant, Jodi Ann Arias. And the person that she ‘done it’ to is an individual by the name of Travis Victor Alexander, a former boyfriend of hers, an individual she was in love with, an individual that was a good man, an individual that was one of the greatest blessings in her life. And, this love? Well, she rewarded that love for Travis Victor Alexander by sticking a knife in his chest. . . . She slit his throat as a reward for being a good man and in terms of these blessings; she knocked the blessings out of him by putting a bullet in his head.”
Martinez recapped the relationship between Travis and Jodi, explaining that it had been Travis’s misfortune to have ever met Jodi Arias, and described the murder scene in details so graphic that some of Travis’s family began weeping. For the past four years, they had tried not to be consumed by the gruesome details of their brother’s last moments, but now they were forced to confront them in all their hideousness. Tanisha’s eyes burned with indignation as the prosecutor displayed a diagram of Travis’s master bedroom suite, the scene of the crime. “Somebody had taken the time to manipulate, stage, change the appearance of the scene.” he said, directing the jury’s attention to the large poster board at the center of the courtroom and pointing out the many areas in the bathroom where blood was found. “The body was found inside the shower and the killing had obviously taken place somewhere else because there was blood all around. . . . Right there on the sink it’s clear that the victim had stood over that and bled. . . . There were some drags marks down that hallway,” referring to the hall that led from the bathroom to the bedroom.
Then he moved on to the cover-up. “Whoever had done this killing had also taken the time to wash the body down . . . with this big cup, had taken it and had poured it all over the body so that basically there was almost no blood on the body; it was just bloated from decomposition. Whatever evidence was there is not going to be there anymore because the body had been washed.” Martinez explained that the killer had removed the murder weapons (the gun and the knife), had taken a towel and tried to clean the area, and that someone had taken the bedding and run it through the washer and dryer. Martinez talked about the camera found in the washing machine that contained so many of the naked and incriminating photos.
Finally, he talked about the attack itself, which he broke down into three phases. “This was a very violent attack that took some time. . . . There was a stab to the heart area, that was not immediately or rapidly fatal and what that means is: he’s stabbed and he still lives, he still can walk, he can still stand, he can still grab, he can still speak.”
/> Prosecutor Martinez was encouraging those listening to visualize the bloodied victim staggering around with a deep chest wound, but he was not done. Moving on to phase two, he explained how Travis’s “[t]hroat was slit from ear to ear and that one was rapidly fatal which means it would have killed him very quickly because of the blood loss.” The prosecutor emphasized the word killed with a clap of his hands. He moved on to the final phase of the attack, the gunshot to Travis’ head. “Since that involved the brain . . . according to the medical examiner that one was also rapidly fatal.”
After summarizing the three-pronged attack—chest wound, throat slice, gunshot—the prosecutor then doubled back to describe how Travis, as he battled for his life in the moments before he expired, accumulated many defensive wounds. “Mr. Alexander did not die calmly. He fought. . . . The first injury was the one to the heart. And when that was inflicted Mr. Alexander at some point began to fight and what he was able to do was grab the knife but he grabbed the blade of the knife so he has cuts on his hands as he’s fighting, presumably for his life.” The prosecutor raised his hands and jabbed as if mimicking how a reeling Travis lurched toward the knife only to slice his own hands before staggering to the sink and leaning over it. “Mr. Alexander was able to get up . . . go over to the sink, stand there and bleed.”
Sitting at the defense table Jodi Arias hid her head behind her long hair and blew her nose with a tissue as though she might be crying. At times, she seemed to be mumbling to herself. The prosecutor described how Travis was ferociously attacked from behind at the sink, stabbed repeatedly in the back and rear of his head. “Whoever done it, basically followed him around . . . went to finish him off and cut his throat. But, they weren’t through with him . . . This individual—the killer—then dragged him . . . and finished the job, as if it needed to be finished.” Prosecutor Martinez explained further that by the time Travis was shot in the face he was likely dead, “So, Mr. Alexander probably didn’t feel that one.” It was a rare moment of understatement.
Shifting from the victim to the accused, Martinez next reiterated the various stories Jodi had told police in the days, months, and years following Travis’s murder. There was an odd symmetry. Just as there were three phases to the attack, there were three phases to her lies: One was that she hadn’t been there; two was that masked intruders did it, and, finally, self-defense.
To punctuate Jodi’s lies, the prosecutor played several snippets from Jodi’s jailhouse interview with Inside Edition, in which she proclaims her innocence. He then used Jodi’s own words to illustrate her arrogance. “No jury is going to convict me . . . and you can mark my words on that.”
Martinez implored jurors to “mark her words” and return a guilty verdict.
Jurors were given a ten-minute recess before hearing from Jennifer Willmott, who would give opening remarks for the defense. She appeared poised and self-possessed in a tailored gray jacket and skirt as she crossed the courtroom to address the panel of jurors.
“Jodi Arias killed Travis Alexander. There is no question about it. The million dollar question is: What would have forced her to do it?” Willmott posed this question in a confident voice, suggesting Martinez was wrong about what happened during the final minutes of Travis’s life. “Throughout this trial you will hear that Jodi was indeed forced. In just under two minutes we go from the last picture taken of Travis in the shower . . . to the picture of Travis’s body. You can see the foot in the front with his head and his shoulders and blood clearly on his shoulders. In just those two minutes, Jodi had to make a choice. She would either live or she would die.”
From this, Willmott immediately segued to perhaps the biggest challenge for the defense, Jodi’s utter lack of credibility: “Jodi did not always tell the truth about what happened that night. She was scared, scared about what had happened, and scared about what she had done. She had absolutely no experience with police interrogation before and, so, when they talked to her she wasn’t always truthful. Her fear and her panic about what had happened led her to tell different stories.” Then, Willmott added her own monumental understatement. “You will learn that what she said, those stories, were not the truth.” Travis’s family hugged each other for support and glared with visible anger at the defense attorney as she began praising the defendant. “Throughout this trial, you will learn more about Jodi Arias. Much more about Jodi. You will find that she is an articulate, bright young woman who’s a very talented artist and photographer. But, most of all, what you’ll learn is that Jodi loved Travis. And, so, what would have forced her to have to take Travis’s life on that awful day? In order to answer that question, we have to go back to the beginning, back to before she and Travis met,” Willmott explained.
Less than one minute into the remarks, Jodi seemed to suddenly cry into her hands, but, then, just as quickly she regained her composure, eventually leading to a debate over whether she was actually shedding tears or faking them. Either way, Jodi’s outburst did not distract her lawyer, who continued with her commentary, telling the jurors about Jodi’s stable four-year relationship with Darryl Brewer, about her dreams of being an artist and of financial stability, about the real estate market crash and how Darryl’s and her finances had crashed along with it. She next described Jodi’s trip to Las Vegas to attend the Pre-Paid Legal Convention, where she first met Travis. “Travis spent a lot of time with Jodi wowing her with how important he was,” Willmott said, in a not so subtle swipe at the dead man. The defense attorney then described how Travis introduced Jodi to Mormonism, gave her The Book of Mormon, began sending missionaries to her house, and convinced her to convert.
Just as the prosecutor did, Willmott displayed photographs, showing jurors several of Jodi and Travis posing together, snuggling and smiling for the camera on some of the trips they had taken. There was another photo from Jodi’s baptism, which showed Jodi and Travis dressed in the white baptismal clothes of the Mormon faith. Then, slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, Willmott began to pivot toward Travis’s character, taking baby steps toward her full-fledged strategy to blame the victim.
“On the outside, looking in, it really appeared like they were involved in a very loving and healthy relationship. But nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, behind the smiles in these photographs there was a whole other reality for Jodi. A reality that Travis created. Because, in reality, Jodi was Travis’s dirty little secret.”
Dirty little secret: The catchy phrase was immediately picked up for news headlines. It would become so associated with the trial that, months later when Lifetime network aired a made-for-TV movie on the case, they called it Dirty Little Secret. “Despite projecting himself as a good and virginal Mormon man,” Willmott continued, “someone who is a Temple member, from the moment he met Jodi he was pushing and pushing her to have a sexual relationship with him.” Pacing just a few feet from where the murder victim’s family sat sobbing, she accused their dead loved one of hypocrisy, arrogance, rage, and intimidation. “As Travis would explain to Jodi, oral sex really isn’t as much of a sin for him as vaginal sex. And so he was able to convince her to give him oral sex. And, later on in their relationship, Travis would tell her that anal sex wasn’t as much of a sin as vaginal sex and so he was able to persuade her to allow him to have anal sex with her.”
Shock rippled through the courtroom. While those who’d followed the case closely for months knew about the sexual nature of their relationship, many people were caught off guard by these explicit sexual details. It turned out that Jodi’s defense was just getting started.
“And so, while he continued this façade of being a good and virginal Mormon man, he was inwardly dealing with his own sexual issues . . . In Jodi, he found somebody who was easily manipulated and controlled, someone who would provide him with that secretive sexual relationship that he needed while, on the outside, he could still pursue the appropriate Mormon woman.” Portraying Jodi as a meek, frightened, submissive female eager to obey her abusive dominant
male partner, Willmott continued, her flat voice and nasal tone belying the provocative content of her words. “Jodi wanted nothing but to please Travis . . . at some points during their relationship he would tell her you know you really ought to see, date somebody else. But, the moment she would even text another man or talk to another man Travis would instantly degrade her, yell at her, embarrass her, and humiliate her. So, Jodi learned very quickly how to deal with Travis’s temper . . . by being humble, compliant, and agreeable.” What she left unsaid was why Jodi, if she were so put upon by Travis’s behavior, would keep tracking him down to get another dose of it.
Willmott then moved on to paint Travis as a womanizer saying, despite all the sex he and Jodi had, he still pursued other women on the side, which prompted Jodi to break up with him in June 2007. “He begged her for forgiveness . . . Travis sent Jodi a poem that apologized for his behavior . . . Travis showered her with attention, he was nothing but sweet and kind.” Making it seem as though Travis cajoled Jodi into moving from California to Mesa after their official breakup, Willmott kept upping the ante.
“You’ll hear how Travis degraded Jodi to his friends. . . . You’ll hear that he often referred to her as a stalker or claimed that she was crazy. And if she did anything like speak with another man or text another man he would further degrade her by calling her names, names like slut, and whore.” However, Willmott’s big theme was the sexual secrecy. “The more Travis distanced himself from Jodi to his friends the easier it was for him to keep control of her . . . for his own sexual needs.”
From there, she turned to domestic violence, promising to deliver an expert who would explain how “a lot of times domestic violence comes from control through verbal abuse.” The defense attorney explained that, because victims are ashamed of what happens to them, and believe it will get worse if they take action, domestic violence often goes unreported. This was designed to address Jodi’s failure to ever mention being battered by Travis in either her journals or conversations with friends.
Exposed: The Secret Life of Jodi Arias Page 21
