Throughout 2007, while dating Jodi, Travis and Lisa spoke more often, eventually becoming good friends. Several times she went over to his house to make cookies. On another occasion, Travis threw a hip-hop-themed party at his house, which Lisa attended.
The more she got to know Travis, the more he impressed her. She began to see him as a “spontaneous, caring, driven individual, who loved faux-paint and sang show tunes.”
Over time, Lisa, who had since broken up with Steve Bell, began to have feelings for Travis. So when Travis asked her out in early July, she said yes. Lisa and Travis began spending much of their time together. Soon they were a couple.
While Travis had been sexual in his past relationships, with Lisa he portrayed himself as a virgin. And by all accounts their union remained chaste—Travis and Lisa never had a sexual relationship.
* * *
While he began building a relationship with his new girlfriend, Travis and Jodi seemed unwilling to move on from each other.
The day after their breakup, Travis called Jodi. On the phone, she claimed he begged for another chance. The conversation turned intimate, then sexual, according to Jodi. By the end the tension had vanished and Jodi found herself once again hopelessly in love.
Although they were no longer a couple, they resumed their regular routine. He could call late at night, sometimes at 4 A.M., and they would talk for hours. Jodi began to leave her phone at her bedside so she would not miss a call from Travis. At the time, she seemed hopeful they would reunite.
“I believed he had the potential to change,” Jodi said.
Two weeks after the breakup, Jodi made the astonishing decision to leave California and move to Mesa. Despite the fact that they would no longer be a couple, Jodi would later say Travis strongly encouraged the move. She claimed he loaned her money to relocate and let her store her possessions in his garage.
“Travis painted a nice picture of the benefits of moving to Mesa,” Jodi said. “He said we could hang out more and figure things out.”
But those close to Travis say he strongly objected to Jodi’s plans and that they fought about the decision. In mid-July, Travis was on a fourwheeling trip with friends from Prepaid Legal, including Mike Bertot, a burly Prepaid Legal associate in his thirties, with dark hair and a goatee.
During the trip, Travis was largely distracted, talking and texting with Jodi about her decision to relocate.
“He was not thrilled about her moving to Mesa by any means,” Mike said. “He was arguing with her over the phone and by text most of the time.”
Throughout their arguments, Mike overheard portions of their conversation.
“You have no reason to be in Mesa,” Travis said. “You have no friends here. It didn’t work out with us. I don’t want you that close to me.”
Toward the end of the conversation, Travis said, “I’m hanging up now.”
Afterward, Travis complained to Mike that Jodi only decided to move after they broke up.
“I just told him, ‘watch your back,’” Mike said. “That’s some crazy, stalker stuff. A normal person wouldn’t do anything like that.”
Either way, in late July, Jodi relocated to Mesa. She had planned to rent a room in a house owned by a Mormon woman. When those plans fell through, she wound up renting a room from a person she had never met who she found through a Mormon housing Web site.
The house was just four miles away from Travis—a ten-minute drive—at 9634 East Nido Avenue in Mesa. The 2,000-square-foot home was a spacious one story, with three bathrooms and three bedrooms—one of which Jodi rented.
But when Travis discovered how close she would be living to him, he was upset, Jodi admitted.
“Travis found out it was so close to him he freaked out about it,” Jodi later told detectives.
Not only was it very close to Travis, Jodi was also in the boundaries of his singles ward. To avoid any conflict, Jodi said she decided to attend a different ward.
Jodi soon found work as a waitress at Mimi’s Cafe and later at P.F. Chang’s Chinese restaurant. In addition, she continued to sell Prepaid Legal insurance.
In Mesa, Jodi also pursued her passion for photography—registering her photography business through the Arizona Corporation Commission in 2007. She booked some photography jobs, but business was slow and she struggled for money.
To help her financially, Travis paid Jodi $200 a month to clean his house twice a week.
For a while, Travis and Jodi got along fine with her living in Mesa. Because she did not have many friends locally, Travis focused much of his attention on helping her become acclimated.
On July 28, 2007, Travis turned thirty. Jodi celebrated her ex-boyfriend’s birthday—baking a square cake with chocolate frosting. On the cake she wrote in green icing, “Happy Birthday T-Dogg.” She lit the green candles, his favorite color, and snapped a photo, posting it on his MySpace page.
It would be Travis’s last birthday. He wouldn’t make it to thirty-one.
CHAPTER 15
Late at night, Jodi slipped into Travis’s house through the unlocked front door. Creeping quietly up the stairs, careful not to disturb his roommates, she stepped into his bedroom. Stripping off her clothes, she crawled into his bed, stirring him awake with a lustful kiss.
Night after night, this became a routine for Travis and Jodi. Despite their breakup, they continued their lurid sexual affair throughout the time she lived in Mesa. Only now, their encounters were even more clandestine.
Behind the double doors of Travis’s bedroom, they slept together in secret—getting together for sex three to four times a week.
Late at night, after his roommates had gone to bed, Travis would text Jodi. “I’m getting sleepy…”
“That became like his code word for I’m going to sleep so come over here now,” Jodi recalled.
At other times, Jodi enticed Travis with graphic and erotic text messages. By tempting him sexually, her grip on Travis remained firm.
“I want to grind you,” she sent in text messages. “My pussy is so wet.”
According to Jodi, by this point there was no longer any pretense of finding loopholes in the Law of Chastity. They were now having regular vaginal intercourse, in addition to other sexual acts.
“By then we were engaging in all sorts of activities without any boundaries,” Jodi said.
Travis and Jodi’s sexual relationship continued throughout 2007, unbeknownst to Lisa Andrews.
But it was lust, not love that drew Travis to Jodi. Although they remained intimate, he told many friends he had no intention of marrying Jodi.
With Travis, Jodi appeared content with the “friends with benefits” relationship. But Jodi’s attachment was much deeper. While she tried to keep the encounters casual, she was still madly in love with Travis and remained sexual with him, in part, because it gave her a chance to remain close.
“We were blurring boundaries because we were still sleeping together,” Jodi said. “It kept my heart more involved than maybe it should have been.”
* * *
Travis and Jodi had a fiery relationship. When they weren’t being intimate, they argued frequently.
During their fights, at times Travis lost his temper, spewing angry, hate-filled words. Jodi would later claim he was jealous and controlling, and when enraged, terrifying.
During their fights, as she attempted to suppress an emotional outburst, Jodi would tremble, tormented by her inner turmoil.
“When he got mad at me I would visibly shake,” Jodi testified. “I would feel some sort of trepidation or apprehension or unsettled.”
With her own ongoing issues with anger, however, it was Jodi who often initiated or escalated their feuds. She intentionally did things to raise Travis’s ire, including snooping on his phone and hacking into his e-mail.
Over the next few months, Travis would grow weary of Jodi. His frustration became evident in multiple text messages he sent to her throughout 2007 and 2008.
“I’
m sick of you playing stupid, and dealing with childish tactics.”
“It’s just always something, Jodi. It just gets old. You don’t care about anything that doesn’t involve you. Just give me a pardon from any madness. I don’t need it. It was wearing me out.”
“Just forget it. I know how you operate.”
“If you’re tired of me, leave me alone.”
A vicious cycle began where Travis and Jodi would argue, make up, and have sex.
As their feuds escalated, so did their sex life—becoming increasingly kinky. While in the beginning they didn’t progress to the point of intercourse, they now began acting out their most raunchy fantasies.
“Sometimes when we got together he was very loving and romantic. Sometimes it was just very animalistic,” Jodi said. “Afterwards when he was done he was done for a while.”
At times, Travis seemed at war with himself. He seemed to realize the relationship was unhealthy and was aware he was compromising his beliefs while at the same time presenting himself as an icon within the church. But the temptation was just too great.
During this period of his life Travis had several late-night, in-depth talks about his relationship to Jodi with his friend Dave Hall. Travis confessed to Dave that his relationship with Jodi had spiraled beyond his control.
“He told me they had messed around way too much and he had told his ecclesiastical leader and he was on probation with the Church because of that problem. He was working his way back through the process of repentance,” Dave said. “Jodi was his Achilles’ heel. He thought he had enough strength to tell her no but she kept coming over and throwing herself at him.”
During these talks Travis never alluded to the fact that they had sexual intercourse, only that they had “messed around way too much physically.”
Travis explained his relationship with Jodi as hot and cold. During the day they could fight, but at night their relationship would turn sexual. This was something that caused Travis great remorse, according to Dave.
“After she leaves I feel guilty, I feel horrible,” Travis told Dave. “I hate myself for letting her back in my life.”
“Why do you even talk to her?” Dave asked.
“It’s hard to say ‘no,’ when someone throws themselves at you,” Travis explained.
Most of the people in Travis’s life, however, did not know the truth about Jodi. As far as anyone could tell, they were just friends.
The back-and-forth with Travis kept Jodi on edge. When Travis was loving, he was the man of her dreams. If they were fighting, she was dejected. Her emotions hinged on the status of her relationship with Travis.
And as her desperate desire for a future with Travis slipped further and further away, Jodi grew depressed and talked about killing herself.
Throughout 2007 and 2008, Jodi kept a journal where she regularly wrote passages about her life and relationship with Travis. The pages were filled with love and pain, hope and despair, dreams of building a future with Travis and plans to commit suicide if that future never came to pass.
On August 26, 2007, she wrote of her overwhelming love for Travis.
“I love Travis Victor Alexander so completely that I don’t know any other way to be,” she wrote. “I wish I didn’t because at times my heart is sick and saddened over all that has come to pass. I don’t understand it and, at times, I still have a hard time believing it. He makes me sick and he makes me happy. He makes me sad and miserable, and he makes me feel uplifted and beautiful.”
* * *
Even after their breakup, Travis and Jodi continued to travel the country together. Throughout 2007, he maintained his goal of checking off destinations listed in 1,000 Places to See Before You Die.
While he was dating Lisa, he never asked her to accompany him on his trips. Just as he did with Jodi, Travis kept Lisa compartmentalized in a separate aspect of his life.
In the summer of 2007, Travis and Jodi took several trips. With them during two of these excursions were Travis’s friends Dan Freeman and Dan’s sister, Desiree. Dan was lanky, with short brown hair, a neatly trimmed beard, and deep-set blue eyes. Desiree was pale with a round face and stick-straight brown hair.
While living in Mesa, Jodi had befriended Dan Freeman and often went to his family’s home for Sunday dinner.
In front of Dan and Desiree, Travis and Jodi acted like a couple. While the siblings witnessed several fights between Travis and Jodi, both were under the impression that the couple generally enjoyed each other’s company.
For their first vacation the foursome toured the Grand Canyon. There, they hiked down a remote trail on the edge of a cliff passing through tunnels and steep descents.
After touring the Grand Canyon, they stopped by Sedona, a city in the northern Verde Valley region of Arizona, where they explored the Red Rocks and a stunning array of red sandstone formations. The Red Rocks form a breathtaking backdrop to the small city. When illuminated by the rising or setting sun, the formations appear to glow in brilliant orange and red.
Throughout the trip, Jodi snapped several photographs. In one picture, Travis posed with his hands on his hips standing in front of the Painted Desert. In the background the bright blue sky met the horizon of the red rock plains, resembling a postcard.
Later that summer, Travis, Jodi, Dan, and Desiree planned a weekend trip to Havasupai, an isolated Indian reservation featuring spectacular waterfalls.
As they were preparing to leave for the trip, Travis and Jodi got into an argument. Jodi had overpacked her luggage and when Dan tried to take some items out of the bag, Jodi burst into tears and ran upstairs. Travis chased after her, and in the bathroom they argued loudly, until Dan came upstairs.
Eventually they all got in the car and left for the trip. For half an hour Jodi stared vacantly out the window, not saying a word. By the time they made it to Havasupai, however, they had made up.
That night they camped, sleeping in hammocks. The next morning, hiking around the plains, they came across a hidden oasis in the arid desert—the Havasupai Falls.
Located in a remote canyon of Havasupai, the spectacular waterfalls are called paradise on Earth. The tallest of the waterfalls is Mooney Falls, its water tumbling 190 feet into a large blue pool.
Staring up at the waterfalls, Travis was in awe. As he looked on, Jodi snapped photos of him from behind, the entire falls in view. Later they stripped off their clothes, changed into their swimsuits, and swam in the natural pool.
In one photo, Travis and Jodi were in their swimsuits at the base of the falls. The water foaming around them, Jodi was seated on Travis’s lap, both arms wrapped around his neck. In her left hand, she held Travis’s chin.
In the picture Jodi was smiling wide and bright. Travis, however, looked uncomfortable. The corners of Travis’s mouth were upturned slightly in a contrived grin.
While adventurous, these trips were costly. Jodi and Travis split their expenses, with Travis funding his portion with the money he had withdrawn from the equity of his house. Over the course of 2007, however, Travis noticed his business began to suffer. The more time Travis spent with Jodi, the less time Travis devoted to Prepaid Legal.
Soon, Travis’s wealth was depleted.
* * *
While Travis continued to be sexual and take trips with Jodi, he was simultaneously attempting to build a more virtuous future with Lisa Andrews.
Several times he tried to end it with Jodi. But the more Travis pulled away, the more Jodi seemed to cling to their relationship. She called Travis constantly and spent much of her time at his house. She seemed to be reliant on Travis for daily advice, spiritual questions, and moral dilemmas.
When Travis was home he rarely locked his front door. Jodi would often show up, unexpectedly, and let herself inside.
When Lisa first began coming by Travis’s house, she noticed how often Jodi was around. Travis explained that Jodi was just his friend. As time went on, however, Jodi’s constant presence made Lisa uncomfortable, cr
eating discord between the new couple.
In the beginning Travis wasn’t forthcoming about Lisa, explaining to Jodi that she was just a friend. But based on what she had learned through reading his text messages and e-mails to Lisa, Jodi knew the relationship was much more serious.
“He swore they were just friends and he wasn’t in the least bit interested,” Jodi later wrote to a friend. “But the feeling persisted … he said I was crazy to think that, so I left it alone.”
On one occasion, after her shift at P.F. Chang’s, Jodi went to Travis’s house unexpectedly. She later said she thought Travis was not at home, and was bringing over food for his roommate.
Jodi entered through the front door where she encountered Travis standing near the kitchen island with another woman—Lisa Andrews.
“I was mortified. I immediately turned back and walked straight out the front door,” she said. “I was really embarrassed because I thought he wasn’t home.”
Jodi got in her car and drove away. Travis jumped in his car and chased after her. When he caught her he told her that Lisa was just a friend and that he was showing her his house.
On another night, Jodi went to Travis’s house unexpectedly to retrieve an item from the boxes she left in his garage. She tried entering though the side door of the house, but found it was locked. Walking through the backyard, she headed straight to the porch’s sliding glass door. Inside, she could see a blue glow flickering from the TV.
Peering through the glass door, Jodi could see two people kissing passionately on the couch. The woman appeared to re-hook her bra. The man stood up and wiped his mouth. He turned toward the door and Jodi saw it was Travis.
Ducking quickly out of sight, Jodi burst into hysterical sobs. Seeing the man she loved kissing another woman was overwhelmingly painful. The next day Jodi went to Travis’s house, finding him in the laundry room painting the walls.
Picture Perfect: The Jodi Arias Story: A Beautiful Photographer, Her Mormon Lover, and a Brutal Murder Page 12
