Killer Girlfriend: The Jodi Arias Story Read online

  Killer Girlfriend: The Jodi Arias Story

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Foreword

  Chapter 1 The Killing

  Chapter 2 Jodi and Travis

  Chapter 3 The Loves of Jodi’s Life

  Chapter 4 ‘I’m Travis Alexander’

  Chapter 5 The Mormon Courtship

  Chapter 6 Lighting the Fuse

  Chapter 7 The Breakup: Jodi Unravels

  Chapter 8 A New Beginning

  Chapter 9 Bubble Baths, Porn and Phone Sex

  Chapter 10 The Road Trip

  Chapter 11 ‘Her Name Is Jodi’

  Chapter 12 The Investigation

  Chapter 13 ‘I Don’t Even Hurt Spiders’

  Chapter 14 ‘No Jury Is Going To Convict Me’

  Chapter 15 Travis Alexander: In Memoriam

  Chapter 16 ‘The Person Who Done it … Sits in Court’

  Chapter 17 #Jodiarias

  Chapter 18 The Bulldog

  Chapter 19 The Prosecution

  Chapter 20 The Body

  Chapter 21 Jodi Takes the Stand

  Chapter 22 The Jury Has Reached a Verdict

  About the Authors

  Killer Girlfriend

  The Jodi Arias Story

  By

  Brian Skoloff

  and

  Josh Hoffner

  Copyright© 2013 Brian Skoloff and Josh Hoffner

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN 978-1-939116-38-3

  For additional information contact:

  www.killer-girlfriend.com

  bskoloff@gmail

  [email protected]

  Published by Waterfront Digital Press

  WatersideProductions.com

  2055 Oxford Avenue

  Cardiff, CA 92007

  Acknowledgements

  This book came together in short order, and we believe it provides a gripping and entertaining comprehensive account of the entire Jodi Arias and Travis Alexander saga. We hoped to not only provide readers with a full account of the case, from the killing to the verdict, but to delve deeper into the lives of both Jodi and Travis before they met each other and embarked on a tragic journey.

  We’d like to thank our editors, Katie Oyan and Anna Jo Bratton, for their tireless efforts aimed at making sure the book offered a true and factual account of the case, and did so in a way that flowed from start to finish.

  We’d also like to thank San Francisco-area criminal defense attorney Michael Cardoza for his never-ending encouragement throughout this project and Los Angeles-area criminal defense lawyer Mark Geragos for providing insightful offerings on the legal system. Phoenix criminal defense lawyer Julio Laboy also contributed a great deal of insight for the book.

  Wild About Trial founder Alison Triessl wrote the foreword that put this book into the context of the social media environment that helped make the case such a national sensation, and Wild About Trial reporter and digital artist Michael Williams contributed incredible work on the book’s cover and website.

  We offer a big thanks to Waterfront Digital Publishing and Vook, along with our agents, Bill Gladstone and Jack Jennings, for their constant support and encouragement.

  And lastly, we’d like to thank our managers at The Associated Press for affording us the opportunity to pursue this project, and the entire company for giving us a platform to tell this story and so many others over the years.

  Brian Skoloff and Josh Hoffner

  Foreword

  This country has watched its share of mesmerizing criminal trials over the past 20 years.

  Much of the media attention began with O.J. Simpson and his ensuing case dubbed the “Trial of the Century.”

  The immense public interest only continued with the likes of Scott Peterson, Conrad Murray, Robert Blake, Phil Spector, Casey Anthony, Drew Peterson and a handful of others.

  But nobody could have foreseen the impact that an unknown Northern California waitress would have on changing the media’s approach to following criminal trials. This book is the story of Jodi Arias and the trial that captivated a nation as it became a cable TV news sensation and lit up the world of social media like no other before.

  Over the past year, my company, Wild About Trial, has scoured the country looking for the most interesting criminal trials, often relying on the steady stream of content from The Associated Press in populating our site.

  We are a website and mobile app designed to provide live streaming of trials accompanied by a complete interactive experience including live tweeting from inside the courtroom, legal analysis from our staff of attorneys, official court documents, and community forums.

  From day one of the Jodi Arias trial and continuing on through the start of deliberations, we saw a dynamic shift in how viewers consumed every facet of the case.

  In this modern era of instantaneous news, the public demanded up-to-the-second updates on every element of the trial. They read stories from the AP and other news organizations, but they also wanted to watch it live, in real time, and wanted to peek behind the curtain. So they went to the only logical place today’s public goes to find immediate information: Twitter.

  An entire interactive community developed around the Jodi Arias trial.

  Wild About Trial placed a reporter in the courtroom live tweeting every update on the case and answering viewer questions, providing the site’s followers with the next best thing to being inside the courtroom itself.

  As the online conversation developed, many viewers began to feel left behind if they missed even a single day. The Jodi Arias trial became much more than water cooler talk. It became a must-watch event _ and people were watching it everywhere, on their home or work computers and even on their mobile devices so they never had to miss a moment.

  The authors of this book are veteran Associated Press journalists who have each spent more than a decade covering the nation’s most newsworthy stories from the 9-11 terrorist attacks to Hurricane Katrina, the Fort Hood shootings, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the Colorado movie theater massacre and the Scott Peterson murder trial, just to name a few.

  They are able to bring this wealth of experience into their narrative to provide a complete account of the facts in this sensational trial, as well as provide a greater context to understand why the story of a small-town woman accused of murder captivated so many.

  This book provides the first comprehensive account of the case from the day Jodi and Travis Alexander met to the killing, Jodi’s arrest, her ensuing trial and finally, the verdict, written by a journalist who sat in the courtroom throughout every twist and turn of the four-month trial, along with his veteran AP editor. It is a gripping page-turner that covers the entirety of the Jodi Arias saga, perfect for the most avid Jodi Arias trial-watcher or even those just trying to find out what all the fuss is about.

  Alison Triessl

  Wild About Trial, Founder; co-founder and CEO of the Pasadena Recovery Center; Attorney.

  Chapter 1

  The Killing

  “Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.” —William Congreve

  Travis couldn’t help himself. Jodi was every man’s dream. The sex was fantastic. She was up for anything, you name it. The petite, brown-haired — sometimes blonde — seductive 27-year-old was a pleaser, willing to satisfy Travis’ every kinky desire.

  On this day in June 2008, the 30-year-o
ld Travis was ready for more. He was preparing to head off on a trip to Cancun with a devoutly Mormon woman who made it crystal clear she wasn’t interested in anything beyond a platonic relationship.

  But Travis had Jodi. And despite wanting to marry a good woman of faith, he had carnal desires that deeply conflicted with the man he presented himself to be publicly and the private lust he harbored behind closed doors.

  Jodi served a purpose. She was never Mrs. Right, just Miss Right Now as Travis fulfilled his sexual needs before hopefully meeting The One.

  This never sat well with Jodi.

  She arrived at about 4 a.m. from California during what was supposed to be a road trip to see another man in Utah. Arizona was hundreds of miles off her course, but she couldn’t resist Travis’ charm and her overwhelming desire to please him. She was blinded by her love for the handsome, confident and outgoing professional who gave rousing motivational speeches to cheering colleagues at conferences across the country. His smile lit up the room and melted her heart. It was never clear whether Travis had invited Jodi to come to see him on that day. Authorities contend he had not, but Jodi insisted he begged her to come.

  The two crawled into his king-size bed together. When they awoke in the afternoon at about 1 p.m. in Travis’s tidy four-bedroom home in Mesa outside Phoenix, the day began like so many others with the pair, naked and sexual.

  But according to police, that’s not all Jodi had in mind. She came for revenge. She came to teach Travis a lesson. She came to kill.

  Less than five hours later, Travis would be dead.

  Exactly what happened during those remaining hours of Travis’ life is known only by two people — Travis and Jodi — and Jodi is the only one still alive to fill in the gaps.

  ***

  According to Jodi, the day began with steamy sex and eventually devolved into a harrowing fight for her life.

  Her rendition of the final hours of Travis’ life - and what came after - follows:

  Travis always wanted to tie her to the bed for a raunchy romp, so she complied. He loosely tied her wrists to his headboard before the sex began.

  Travis later had other plans — for the two to take nude photos of each other, yet another deviant fantasy he privately harbored. Jodi naked in pigtails on the bed, splayed out on his mattress. Graphic, pornographic, close-up photos of Jodi’s genitalia. A photo of Travis lying naked on his back.

  Just a few hours later, Travis wanted her to take photographs of him in the shower, proud of his newly fit body after months of working out ahead of the trip to Mexico.

  One photo of Travis in the shower was taken at about 5:30 that evening. Another was taken a short time later, a chilling tight shot of Travis’ face, water beads dripping from his cheeks, his eyes focused in a serious gaze.

  Jodi then accidentally dropped his new camera, sending him into a rage. He lunged in anger, body slamming her to the tile floor. She managed to escape his firm grasp and wriggled free.

  Travis chased her from the bathroom in a fury. She ran into his closet to retrieve a .25-caliber pistol he kept on a shelf, then fled out another door at the opposite end in a dash for the hallway — with Travis still in pursuit and clearly enraged.

  He lunged at her again. She fired the gun, but didn’t know if the bullet struck him. He just kept coming. And now Jodi’s memory failed her. Her mind grew foggy, the trauma of the attack washing her brain of any recollection of what happened next.

  She conceded she must have stabbed him numerous times, but can’t recall where she got the knife, or anything after that until she finds herself about 280 miles north near the Hoover Dam in Nevada, pulled onto the side of the road, her hands drenched in blood. She knew something terrible had happened, but just couldn’t remember the details.

  “I must have killed him,” she thought to herself. Stricken with fear and shame, Jodi ditched the gun somewhere in the desert — she has no idea what she did with the knife — and headed north to Salt Lake City to see the other man. But not before starting a chain of events aimed at meticulously creating an alibi to avoid suspicion.

  She would later claim she was never at Travis’ house that day. She sent him text messages and emails within hours of killing him, and left him a message on his mobile phone apologizing for not being able to make it for a visit that day, as he had wanted.

  Jodi then continued north to Salt Lake City where she met the man and spent the night in his bed kissing and cuddling as if nothing had happened. As if she hadn’t just washed Travis’ blood from her hands. As if Travis was still alive and not crumpled dead in his shower with nearly 30 stab wounds, his throat slit from ear to ear so deeply she nearly cut his head clean off, a bullet hole in his forehead.

  She would go on with her life, returning to Northern California for her regular waitressing shifts, and her normal routine for roughly the next month until her arrest.

  Then came the lies.

  First, she wasn’t there.

  Next, masked intruders carried out the attack and she escaped.

  Two years after being jailed on a first-degree murder charge, and faced with irrefutable evidence of her involvement in the killing, the self-defense story emerged. And to this day, she is sticking to that story.

  ***

  Police present a much more chilling scenario of Travis’ death, one of blind rage and vengeance, an attack so ferocious it’s hard to imagine the soft-spoken librarian-like woman later seen in a courtroom could have been behind it.

  Authorities say Jodi snapped, tired of being used by Travis for sex while he courted other women he had hoped would be the marrying type.

  Travis didn’t even know Jodi was coming, let alone would be arriving armed with a .25 caliber pistol she took from her grandparents, making sure he would never get the chance to fulfill his dreams of becoming a family man and settling down with another woman.

  After the day of sex, Travis took a shower. Jodi begged him to let her take photos while he washed off. He caved, begrudgingly.

  Then something set her off. Something he said. Something he did. The way he looked at her with disgust. She was reminded of the times he called her a whore and a skank, when he said she was nothing more to him than a “three-hole wonder.” And of the trip he planned to take to Mexico with another woman. He never invited Jodi. This enraged her.

  At some point, Travis’ guard was down, he was comfortable, not expecting the murderous rage that was about to be unleashed on him. Jodi was about to carry out her plan.

  She pulled out a knife and suddenly began stabbing him in the chest. Travis was stunned. He struggled to grab the blade. It sliced through the tender skin of his palms. He stumbled in a daze around the bathroom, at one point hunching over the sink, where blood spilled out everywhere.

  Jodi stabbed him again and again, in the chest, in the back, in the head. He struggled to speak, gasping and gurgling, in shock by the blitz attack and the sheer pain of the deep gashes all over his body.

  He began to lose strength as he bled profusely. Jodi then went in for the kill, and with a powerful slashing motion cut his throat wide open. Blood was now spewing from his neck.

  The medical examiner would later conclude this knife wound was likely fatal as Travis would have quickly bled to death, both his carotid arteries that deliver blood from the heart to the brain severed.

  But Jodi wasn’t done. At some point, she pulled out the gun and polished Travis off with a single shot to the forehead. Authorities would later claim he was already dead at that point, and the gunshot was just one final salvo of rage. Jodi dragged his mutilated body back into his shower, where washed off much of the blood.

  She then began to clean the scene, but left blood everywhere along with her hair and bloody palm print. She deleted the nude photos, and put the camera in Travis’ washing machine then turned it on, for whatever reason leaving behind evidence of her involvement.

  Later, she simply grabbed her things, walked out the front door to her car and drove off as
if nothing had happened.

  Chapter 2

  Jodi and Travis

  “I will find an eternal companion that enhances me exponentially and countless other goals that at one point I dare not even dream” —Travis Alexander

  By now, the world is familiar with Jodi Arias. She went on trial for Travis’ death in January, and her story has provided an endless fascination to people around the world.

  The image of a bespectacled Arias sitting in a Phoenix courtroom — often crying and wearing drab outfits — has become a daily fixture in the news for the last four months.

  The story of Travis and Jodi is one of troubled upbringings, passion, love, betrayal, the Mormon church, and most notably, sex, something that would remain a constant theme throughout her trial.

  Jodi Ann Arias was born on July 9, 1980, in Salinas, Calif., a city best known as the hometown of John Steinbeck and often referred to as the “salad bowl of the world” because it is such a prolific agricultural region.

  Her parents are Bill and Sandy Arias.

  Bill owned restaurants all through Jodi’s childhood — and still does to this day. Sandy also worked in the family restaurant until she became a dental assistant in the early 1990s. Jodi joined the business herself as a teenager, waiting tables after school and on weekends.

  Jodi was the oldest of four siblings, including brothers Carl and Joseph and sister Angela. She was closest to Carl in age, and she fondly recalls an idyllic early childhood with him that involved bike-riding, tree-climbing, camping, roller-skating and playing with friends in their cul-de-sac in Salinas. She played the flute, enjoyed art and took karate lessons.

  The family left Salinas when she was about 11 and moved to Santa Maria, about an hour north of Santa Barbara, where Jodi spent her junior high years. The family eventually settled in the former gold rush town of Yreka, located in far Northern California near the Oregon border.