Before she left, Jodi wrote a message in Travis’s memorial book.
“Travis you are beautiful on the inside and out. You always told me that. I never stopped believing in you. I know you always believed in me. Thank you for sharing so much,” she wrote. “This world has been blessed because you have been here. I love you.”
* * *
Following a second service in California, Travis Alexander would be laid to rest at Olivewood Memorial Park in Riverside on June 21, 2008.
His gravestone was a simple slab with a white silhouette of a Mormon church. Engraved on the stone were the words IN LOVING MEMORY OF TRAVIS V. ALEXANDER. Below his name were the dates: 1977–2008.
In the bottom left corner was an oval black-and-white portrait of Travis—a peaceful smile across his face.
CHAPTER 26
The day of the memorial service in Mesa, Jodi received a phone call from Detective Esteban Flores. He wanted to know if she would be willing to come voluntarily to the station for an interview and to provide fingerprints and DNA samples.
“We need to be able to exclude you from anything we find in the house,” the detective told Jodi.
Jodi said she was leaving the following day but would make every attempt to come in for an interview.
Flores also contacted Mimi Hall, Dallin Forest, and Michelle Lowery. The next day at 3 P.M., Jodi arrived with Dallin, Michelle, and Mimi at Mesa police headquarters.
They each gave voluntary buccal swabs, providing DNA samples from the inside of their cheeks, and were fingerprinted.
Dallin, Michelle, and Mimi all volunteered for follow-up interviews. Jodi, however, said she was no longer willing to talk. She said she had discussed the situation with a friend who convinced her that many people had been talking about her involvement in Travis’s death. She now felt uncomfortable about talking without consulting an attorney.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Flores said.
Later, Zachary Billings and his girlfriend, Amanda McBrien, came back for follow-up interviews and to provide fingerprints and saliva samples.
In the interview with Zachary, Flores asked about the digital camera. A few months prior Zachary said he had consulted with Travis on the purchase of a camera. Flores told Zachary the box and bag were located inside the home.
Zachary told Flores the make and model of the camera that Travis purchased. It was the same camera found in the washing machine.
Flores also conducted a follow-up interview with Enrique Cortez. Regarding the washing machine, Enrique said he had not done any laundry that week. Flores explained that he had found religious undergarments in the washer, which Enrique identified as belonging to Travis.
“I’m the only person in the house besides Travis who wears that underwear,” Enrique said.
Detectives asked if he had detected an unusual odor in the house. Enrique said he first noticed the stench on Monday at around 9 P.M., after returning to the house following a church activity. He never asked anyone about it.
* * *
Continuing his investigation, Detective Flores interviewed several of Travis’s friends.
Among the first people Flores spoke with were those who last communicated directly with Travis—Chris and Sky Hughes. According to Travis’s phone, the last outgoing text from Travis to Chris was the last known contact he had had with anyone.
When they heard about what happened, both Chris and Sky immediately thought of Jodi. They knew she had been obsessed with him. In fact they had witnessed many of the encounters firsthand. They relayed these stories directly to the detective.
“Besides Jodi, does Travis have any enemies?” the detective asked.
“No. No one,” Chris said. “Everyone liked Travis. I could not think of anyone who would ever want to harm him.”
On June 16, Flores also called Travis’s former girlfriend Lisa Andrews, to follow up on an alleged car vandalism that had occurred outside her property.
Lisa explained that in December 2007, Travis had been at her house when there was a knock at her door. When they looked outside no one was there. The next day Travis discovered his tires had been slashed.
“We thought it was a random act until the next night,” Lisa said. “The same thing happened again.”
On the morning of December 8, Lisa received the hostile e-mail, addressed from a John Doe.
“You are a shameful whore. Your Heavenly Father must be deeply ashamed of the whoredoms you’ve committed with that insidious man,” the e-mail began.
Lisa strongly suspected Jodi had sent the e-mail, although she had been unable to prove it. Lisa provided a copy of the e-mail to detectives. She also mentioned one other incident. Weeks later when she was at Travis’s house, the tires on her car were slashed as well.
After the interview with Lisa, Flores returned a call from Clancy Talbot, who had left a message for the detective. Travis’s friend Clancy had been in Utah and was at the Prepaid Legal seminar on the week of June 2, when Jodi didn’t arrive as expected.
“That day several people tried calling Jodi but her phone was off,” Clancy recalled.
When Jodi arrived on June 5, she seemed to be acting odd and her hair had been dyed brown. Although it was over 100 degrees outside, Jodi wore a long-sleeved shirt and had bandages on her fingers.
When Clancy learned that Travis had been murdered, her mind was reeling. She thought of Jodi and her strange story of being lost and sleeping in her car.
“What do you know about Travis and Jodi’s relationship?” Flores asked.
“Ever since Travis told Jodi that he no longer wanted to see her, Jodi had been very clingy,” Clancy said. “She had been acting very Fatal Attraction.”
* * *
Over the next few days detectives combed Travis’s block, interviewing several of his neighbors.
Few of the neighbors knew much about Travis. Most were aware he worked from home and traveled frequently. They were used to seeing people come by—especially on Wednesdays when Travis threw his UFC parties. For the most part, however, Travis kept to himself in the neighborhood.
No one remembered seeing or hearing anything odd on the last few days of Travis’s life. However, several remembered Jodi.
Amanda and Chris Click lived directly across the street from Travis. About six months prior Chris remembered seeing a blonde around the residence driving a silver Infiniti, he told detectives. Travis was often seen arguing with Jodi outside the residence. Shortly after the funeral he saw the same female exiting Travis’s backyard. Only now her hair had been dyed brown.
Dave Prusha, who had been to a Prepaid Legal conference, was the only neighbor of Travis’s who had actually met Jodi. On the day of the memorial service he saw Jodi once again.
Initially Dave was surprised to see that the normally blond Jodi had darkened her hair. Jodi began talking about Travis’s death. She mentioned how Travis always kept his doors unlocked.
“As she talked about Travis’s death, I was surprised how disconnected and distant Jodi appeared,” Dave Prusha told detectives. “She stared at me with a blank expression, showing no emotion as she spoke about Travis.”
CHAPTER 27
The phone rang in Detective Esteban Flores’s office on the afternoon of June 19, ten days after Travis’s body was found. Glancing at the caller ID, he saw it was Detective Michael Melendez, a computer forensic investigator.
“You’ve got to come down here,” Melendez said excitedly. “I have some photos you have to see.”
A few minutes later, Flores stepped into Melendez’s office. Melendez was sitting at his desk, his stare fixed on his computer screen. Animatedly, he spun around in his chair. “Check this out.”
He told Flores he had retrieved images from the memory card found inside the washing machine. Although the pictures had been deleted, he had been able to restore the images—and they were unbelievable.
Melendez clicked his mouse and a photo of Travis Alexander appeared on the screen. He was standin
g in his master bathroom shower, his head tilted up, the water splashing his face. His arms were crossed, with his fists covering the center of his chest.
“The time stamp is June 4, 2008, at 5:22 P.M.,” Melendez said.
Flores’s eyes went wide. Someone had photographed Travis on the last day of his life in the exact location where his body was discovered.
Melendez clicked again, slowly shuffling through a few more photos of Travis showering, posing awkwardly for the camera. Seconds after the first photo, Travis turned away from the lens. The next few were of Travis’s backside. Six more were close-ups of Travis’s face as he showered.
In one of the last haunting photos, Travis was staring directly into the camera’s lens, the water dripping down his face. His expression was stern, his eyes slightly red. It was time-stamped 5:29 P.M.
At 5:30 P.M. Travis was sitting on the shower floor with his right side exposed to the camera. The lower right quadrant of his body was captured in the image.
“That’s the last photo of him alive,” Melendez said. “The next picture was taken forty-four seconds later.”
A blurry, dark image appeared on the screen of the ceiling above the shower floor. It was out of focus as though the camera was moving at the time and was taken by accident. It was time-stamped 5:31:14.
The next photo was taken at 5:32:16—just sixty-two seconds later. The image was also dark and unclear. The photo was shot while the camera was upside down, also possibly by mistake.
“I had to enhance it to make sense of it,” Melendez said.
He clicked on the screen to display the enhanced photo. It took a moment for Flores to make sense of what he was seeing.
“My God,” Flores muttered.
The photo was of the back of Travis’s head. Blood was dripping down his arm—consistent with the neck wound. Someone was standing in front of the body.
Flores studied the image closely. All that was visible of the suspect was the person’s right pant leg and a foot. The person was wearing a dark-colored sock or shoe with striped sweat pants that had a zipper on the back of the cuff. It was difficult to tell the color of the pants, but they appeared to be blue or black.
Flores would later compare the photo with crime scene pictures, matching together sections of the blood puddles with identifiers in the picture. The photo was taken at the northern end of the bathroom hallway, away from the shower, where the largest amount of blood was located at the scene.
“There’s just one more,” Melendez said.
The last picture was too dark and also had to be enhanced. It had also been taken when the camera was upside down. In the corrected image Flores recognized a close-up of the bathroom hallway and baseboards, which were smudged with blood. Next to the baseboard was a blurry image of a figure on the floor. It appeared as if the body was being lifted or dragged.
The pictures were unbelievable evidence. This meant that the killer had photographed the victim while committing murder. But Melendez pointed out that these weren’t even the most salacious photographs he had discovered on the memory card.
“I retrieved several other photos from earlier that afternoon,” he told Flores.
The second batch of photos had been taken four hours before Travis was murdered—starting at 1:42 P.M. on June 4.
Melendez clicked on the first photo. On his screen a slightly blurry image of a woman appeared. Flores immediately recognized Jodi Arias.
In the photo Jodi was nude, sprawled across Travis’s bed. She was propped up on her elbows. Her hair was in two braided brown pigtails, her expression blank. In another she was on her back, her head turned to the side. The next two pictures were X-rated close-ups of Jodi’s anus and vagina.
At 1:44 P.M. Travis was naked, lying on his back in the bed, next to a small bottle of K-Y Jelly, a sexual lubricant. His head rested on the pillow. Most of his face was blocked by his right arm.
At 1:47 P.M. Travis was glancing at the camera. His hand gestured with two fingers in the air—the sign for peace.
There were six photos total—four of Jodi and two of Travis.
Flores now had proof Jodi was lying about not seeing Travis since April. She had been there on the day of his murder.
* * *
On Saturday, June 21, Detective Flores received a call from Jodi. The call went to voice mail.
“Hi, Detective Flores. It’s Jodi Arias calling in regards to Travis Alexander. It’s Saturday, I’m not exactly sure what time. But maybe you’re off; if so I hope you’re enjoying your day off. If not, if you could give me a call back.” Jodi left her phone number. “Thanks. Talk to you soon. Bye.”
On Monday, Flores returned her call.
“What can I do for you?” Flores asked Jodi.
Jodi said she had called on Saturday because she was having a bad day. She had missed Travis’s funeral in Southern California because she said she got a flat tire on the way to the airport.
“I was also calling to see if there are any updates on the case,” Jodi said.
Flores said he was not at liberty to discuss updates on the case because it was an open investigation.
Jodi then mentioned what she had earlier said about not wanting to give an official statement before consulting an attorney. She said she now regretted it.
“I’m now willing to talk,” she said. They scheduled a phone interview on June 25 at 10 A.M.
Before hanging up, Flores asked just one question.
“Did you send Travis an e-mail about coming down to visit him?” he asked.
Jodi admitted she had sent an e-mail about a week or so before he was found. When Travis hadn’t responded Jodi said she assumed he was probably in California. She was planning on staying in his home while he was away in Cancún.
“Travis had an open door policy,” Jodi said.
At the end of the conversation Jodi asked how she could retrieve belongings she left at Travis’s house. She realized she left some clothing behind.
“It’s nothing very valuable,” Jodi said. “I don’t want to bother anyone about it.”
* * *
On June 25, Flores contacted Jodi for the scheduled interview. By then, Flores knew Jodi had been lying to him about her whereabouts on the day of the murder. The goal of the conversation was to get her story on tape. Throughout the conversation Flores led Jodi to believe they were still clueless about the murder.
“The reason I wanted to talk to you was to figure out what was going on the week we found Travis,” Flores said. “We’re still trying to figure out the day this happened.”
At Flores’s prompting, Jodi again reiterated the story of her whereabouts the week of June 2.
“He knew I was taking a road trip that week. And he was kind of guilting me because he knew I was going to Utah, not Arizona,” Jodi said. “I didn’t tell Travis this, but I was going there to meet somebody.”
To avoid making him jealous, Jodi said she didn’t admit to seeing Ryan Burns.
“I did talk to him on Tuesday night,” she said. “It was brief. I was just calling to check in and say hey. I was calling people because I was bored on the road. He was nice and cordial, but he was acting like he had hurt feelings.”
After getting lost Jodi said she slept in her car. By the time she reached Salt Lake City it was late in the morning on Thursday, June 5. She participated in the last day of the conference and spent time with Ryan Burns.
Once again Jodi explained her relationship with Travis and her move to Arizona. She also admitted to their ongoing sexual relationship.
“There was certainly a romantic side, or an intimate side,” Jodi said. “But we weren’t exactly on the path to marriage. And we both knew that.”
Once again Flores asked her about the suspicions Travis’s friends had.
“Some people have some unpleasant stuff to say about you,” Flores said. “I don’t know why, you seem like a pleasant person.”
“The only thing I can think of was I was at his house a lot,”
Jodi said.
Toward the end of the conversation, Flores asked Jodi about the camera.
“Did you discuss the purchase of the camera with Mr. Alexander?” he asked.
“Yeah, I remember that,” Jodi said. “He called me for advice because I’m a photographer.”
Jodi added that she knew he ended up purchasing a camera. “I don’t remember what he got, but it sounds like it was a really nice camera.”
“So you never got to see the camera or anything?” Flores asked.
“No,” Jodi said.
“We found it and it’s pretty much ruined and we have no idea why someone would destroy his camera,” Flores said. “You never saw or touched the camera?”
“No,” she repeated.
Flores knew she was lying—he had proof that she had used the camera on the last day of Travis’s life.
When he got off the phone with Jodi, Flores calculated the trip using her route. The drive from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City took Jodi forty-eight hours to complete. Even allotting ten hours to rest, the trip should have only taken twenty-nine hours.
Next, Flores calculated the distance of a similar trip through Los Angeles, then to Mesa, and back to Salt Lake City. Allowing ten hours to rest, the entire trip would have taken thirty-seven hours to drive. It would have left ten to eleven hours to spend an afternoon photographing Travis and murdering him in the shower.
* * *
After speaking with Jodi, Flores called Ryan Burns to corroborate Jodi’s story about meeting him in Salt Lake City. Ryan said Jodi had called him on the night of June 3 and planned to meet him the next day. About twenty-four hours later Jodi called him with the story about getting lost and driving in the wrong direction.
Ryan told Flores that many of his friends in Utah were pointing the finger at Jodi. At that point, he didn’t believe it was possible.
* * *
As the days turned to weeks Jodi seemed absorbed by an impending sense of doom. While she tried to appear collected, fear and paranoia ate away at her.
Picture Perfect: The Jodi Arias Story: A Beautiful Photographer, Her Mormon Lover, and a Brutal Murder Page 23
