Conviction: The Untold Story of Putting Jodi Arias Behind Bars (33 page)

“Now, at that point in time, how old are you . . . and how old was Mr. Brewer?”

“I was twenty-two . . . he was forty-two.”

“How did you feel about dating someone that much your senior?”

“I wasn’t so much concerned about dating him as I was concerned about how other people might view it,” Arias replied. “I found Darryl very attractive. He was tall. He was, you know, handsome, beautiful eyes, that kind of thing. We were very compatible, our personalities. I don’t know, I saw him as, like, a George Clooney type, like, he’s older but attractive. And we had lots of similar interests.”

Arias also testified in detail about their four-and-a-half-year relationship, which included their decision to buy a house together, and the events that led up to their breakup.

“Right off the bat, he told you that he didn’t want to get married?” Nurmi suggested.

“He made his intentions very clear that he liked me and he was attracted to me and he was okay with being with me, but he said, ‘I don’t see myself getting married again.’”

“And how did that sit with you?”

“I was young at that time. So it didn’t bother me. I figure I’ll have many years left. And I enjoyed being with him so that’s what I did. I just enjoyed the time we had together.”

After discussing the house Arias and Brewer bought together in Palm Desert, Nurmi moved on to the status of their relationship. “Okay . . . the fall of 2006 . . . what was going on with your relationship with Mr. Brewer?” Nurmi inquired. “Were you still happy, or describe that for us?”

“I still loved him. We weren’t really progressing in our relationship. I was no longer twenty-two. I was twenty-six now, so I began to question where I was going with my life. Was I going to have a family with this person? And so it really didn’t seem that way. And at the time my goal was marriage and children, at least someday. . . . And so at age twenty-six, I was more than halfway through my twenties, and I wanted to begin focusing more on that. . . .”

Things got worse when Brewer informed her that he wanted
to move to the Monterey area to be closer to his son from his first marriage, who would now be attending school in Pacific Grove, meaning she would soon be without a boyfriend as well as a financial partner.

Arias said she began actively looking for ways to get on her feet monetarily. She thought she had found the answer in March 2006, when she was cleaning out her closet and came upon a DVD about Pre-Paid Legal Services, which had been given to her months earlier by her manager at the California Pizza Kitchen, where she had worked for a time.

“He asked me where I saw myself in five years,” she recalled of their exchange. “He said he was going to be retired. I thought it was a bold statement because he was about my age.”

Arias said she had planned on throwing the video away, but after watching it, she liked what she saw. “It seemed like something that . . . I might have success with,” she said, recalling that she promptly went online to sign up and purchase a membership.

Her online membership resulted in a call from a woman named Michelle, an associate of PPL who gave her “tons of supplies, DVDs to pass out to other people, magazines, marketing materials.” Arias admitted she didn’t do anything with the materials. And when Michelle called a few months later to invite her to a PPL event in Daniels Summit, Utah, she couldn’t go because she was attending her cousin’s wedding. But when Michelle phoned again in late summer to invite her to the PPL convention taking place in Las Vegas that September, she agreed to attend. Arrangements were made for Arias to carpool from Southern California with Michelle and another woman, Lenore, and the three would share a room at the MGM Grand, where the event was being held.

“I had never attended a convention, so I didn’t really know what to expect,” Arias said, explaining that she hadn’t packed items such as a fancy dress for the more elaborate events or a bikini to enjoy the outdoor swimming facilities.

“While you were at this convention, did you ever meet an individual by the name of Travis Alexander?” Nurmi inquired, mentioning the subject of this criminal prosecution for the first time in nearly two days, signaling an end to the extended tour of Arias’ life.

The narrative she would spin about her relationship with Travis, via Nurmi’s questions, was akin to Cinderella’s story, with Arias playing the lead role. In her telling, when she first encountered her Prince Charming, she was standing at the Rainforest Café, in the lobby of the MGM Grand, watching the crowd of people part.

“I saw somebody walking toward me, kind of fast paced, and I noticed it was a guy,” Arias began. “And I thought he was going somewhere, because he had a purpose. So I stepped out of the way. I thought he needed to walk past me. But he stopped right in front of me and stuck his hand out and introduced himself.”

Arias seemed to be reliving the magic of the moment from the witness box as she recounted how Travis invited her to be his guest at the prestigious executive director banquet, a function similar to a formal ball, scheduled for that evening. Arias remembered that she at first turned him down, because she didn’t have a dress appropriate for the occasion and there was no time to shop for one. Her rendition even included a fairy godmother in Travis’ friend Sky Hughes, who just happened to have a dress that Arias could wear that night.

“Okay. Tell us what the banquet was like for you?” Nurmi inquired.

“It was nice,” Arias related. “I was somewhat accustomed to that level of dining because of my serving experience, but I was always the server, never the guest. . . .”

“It sounds to me like, then, that you were to some degree getting intoxicated by the success you were seeing. Is that fair to say?”

“I don’t know if intoxicated would quite be right, but it definitely made a big impression on me.”

Arias said that at the PPL event the following day, Travis invited her to sit by his side on the floor with the executive directors, which was “special pass” seating, where she would sit with him over the next two days of the convention.

At the end of the weekend, Travis indicated he would call her, and Arias admitted, “I didn’t really expect him to call, but that’s kind of where we left it.”

“And you talked about breaking up with Mr. Brewer. When did you do that?” Nurmi asked.

“I got back from the convention on Sunday and I broke up with Darryl on Thursday that week.”

As she had done when she started dating Matt, Arias was leaving her current boyfriend as soon as she had another man in waiting, someone she saw as a prince. But there would be no glass slipper waiting for Arias when she returned to Palm Desert, as Travis was unwilling to play the role of Prince Charming, a part she wanted him to play. So, Arias made sure that Travis would never have any happily ever afters.

T
he prosecution of Jodi Ann Arias had been a hot topic of nightly cable news shows since the trial started on January 2, 2013, and people traveled across the state each day hoping to secure a seat in the gallery. Demand was such that those wanting to get seats, which were available on a first-come, first-served basis, started to line up hours before court started. But interest from both the media and court watchers heightened when Arias’ testimony turned to graphic details of her sexual relationship with Travis Alexander, culminating in the introduction of the sexually explicit phone call Arias recorded on May 10, 2008, where the two are heard moaning and squealing in the throes of a masturbatory climax.

I was surprised at defense counsel’s decision to question Arias in such painstaking detail about her sexual behavior with Travis, turning the trial into a Masters and Johnson sex clinic while avoiding the issue of her premeditation of the murder. It seemed Nurmi was attempting to emphasize Travis’ involvement in the sexual activity, while at the same time, minimizing Arias’ participation by saying it was not her choice to have sex, but rather a result of her inability to say no.

But although he wanted the jury to see Travis in a negative light, Nurmi failed to acknowledge that Arias was enjoying these encounters and, as she would be heard lamenting in their sex tape, she was concerned that the sexual growth that she had enjoyed so much with Travis would be stunted by being with a less adventuresome partner.

“I worry that I might feel like a wilting flower is all, who never really blossomed to her full potential, at least in the sexual world. . . . I still have plenty of blossom time left. . . .”

The jurors endured what seemed like endless testimony about each and every sexual episode Arias and Travis had, no matter how embarrassing the details. Her recollection of their first time together centered on the weekend they spent at the Murrieta, California, home of Travis’ friends Chris and Sky Hughes, approximately a week after Arias met him at the convention in Las Vegas.

“Did you feel uncomfortable going to Murrieta to spend . . . a couple of days in this home with people you barely knew?” Nurmi began.

“. . . It had been discussed ahead of time . . . that I could stay the night,” she replied dispassionately. “They had an extra bedroom and they wanted me to attend church with them in the morning. So I agreed to that.”

“When did you first kiss Mr. Alexander?” Nurmi asked.

“We all went to bed,” Arias recalled. “And he came into the bedroom I was staying in. I assumed there was probably going to be some kissing or some kind of talking or hanging out. We talked every night that entire week. So, that’s when we kissed.”

“. . . Was there conversation first? Did he just come in and start kissing you?”

“There was no conversation. I thought there was going to be, but there was no conversation,” Arias said.

“. . . Okay. Was he touching you?”

“. . . We were getting intimate. We were making out, basically. . . . At that point, we were laying on the bed. We were side by side, facing each other, kissing. . . . It began to lead to more.”

“What do you mean by ‘more’?”

“Well, I don’t really recall how it happened, but he began to remove my clothes.”

“. . . When he began to remove your clothing, was that surprising to you?”

“It was really surprising, but it was more—I felt apprehensive, but I was going with it. . . . I wasn’t expecting that. So I didn’t want to tell him no. So I was just going with it,” she answered.

“Why didn’t you want to tell him no?” Nurmi asked.

“I didn’t want to do anything that would displease him, not because I feared, like, he would get angry or anything. But I didn’t want to—I didn’t want him to feel rejected. And I didn’t want him to get his feelings hurt. I didn’t want to spoil the mood. . . .”

“Why would rejecting him at this point in time be such a big deal to you?”

“At this point in time, I wasn’t really accustomed to saying no. . . . It was hard for me to tell somebody no. . . .” she answered, obviously forgetting that she had already testified that she was the one who refused to have sexual relations with Darryl although they were living under the same roof.

This response was apparently designed to illustrate Arias’ vulnerability in her relationships with men, which ignored how assertive she had been in relationships with her previous boyfriends. She broke up with Bobby after snooping and finding letters he had sent to another woman using the library computer; drove hours to chat with Bianca, who she believed was involved with Matt, before confronting him and breaking off the relationship, and ending it with Darryl to be with Travis.

Arias testified that at some point during their evening escapade in Murrieta, Travis removed his clothing, which included his temple garments, undergarments worn by Mormons beneath their clothing.

“This is embarrassing,” Arias said coyly, before matter-of-factly regaling the court with minute and intimate details of her sexual encounter with Travis.

“I understand how it might be, but it’s important to share this with us. So, if you could please tell us what happened next?” Nurmi asked in a reassuring tone.

“He began to perform oral sex on me,” she replied in a low whisper.

“And was this comfortable?” Nurmi prodded. “. . . Were you comfortable when this oral sex was going on?”

“I was comfortable. It was dark. I mean, the lights were off, so that made it a little bit more tolerable . . . I mean, I knew what he was doing, for sure. But it was just—it felt like it was much too soon. And I mean, I couldn’t exactly rewind at that point.”

“. . . Why didn’t you voice your discomfort?”

“I didn’t want him to have that impression. I wanted to at least appear like I was enjoying it as much as he seemed to be. . . .”

“So you were attempting to give him the impression that you were enjoying things?”

“Yes.”

“. . . Okay. What happened after he performed oral sex upon you?”

“He asked for reciprocation.”

“And how did that request make you feel?”

“At that point, I had taken it that far. I was kind of glad he was done. And I was just willing to reciprocate at that point,” she answered, describing her sexual response as if it were an act of charity.

Without pausing, Nurmi asked Arias to outline the details of her next meeting with Travis, which occurred several days later. Travis phoned to say that he would be passing through the Palm Desert area and wanted to give her a copy of the Book of Mormon. Uncomfortable with Travis coming to the house she shared with Darryl Brewer, Arias said she arranged for the two to meet at a nearby Starbucks, where they ordered
drinks and Travis told her about the Word of Wisdom, an LDS doctrine that prohibits the consumption of coffee, tea, alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drugs, after which the two agreed to find a place because, according to her, “he was horny.”

Arias claimed that they drove to a park near the Starbucks and Travis told her he wanted to “receive oral sex,” so she complied. “I felt an attraction to him and the feeling was mutual. . . . I don’t know, I wanted to do what he wanted to do,” she said, ignoring that she didn’t have to drive to the park to be with him.

Arias admitted to feeling disappointed in herself, especially because Travis left within minutes of ejaculating, but she felt better after he called her later in the day apologizing for the way he had treated her.

Arias said that after her encounter with Travis at Starbucks, she began receiving visits from Mormon missionaries, hoping to introduce her to the church and relate their beliefs. She said she spoke to Travis on the phone almost daily, but the two didn’t see each other again until a month later, when they met at a hotel in Ehrenberg, Arizona, a small town just across the Colorado River from California. Arias said they chose that location because it was a halfway point between Mesa and Palm Desert and admitted that sexual intimacy “was kind of the purpose of the trip.”

Her stated disappointment with his having left right after he climaxed during the previous encounter did not deter her from agreeing to meet him at a hotel to spend time together, which seemed hypocritical if, as she claimed, she really didn’t want to just have sex, but also wanted some romance.

She described the weekend as being more about sex than romance. “There was oral sex that weekend. . . . We did what I guess he called—at the time he called it grinding . . . just being together but not actually having intercourse. It’s something that I guess a lot of Mormons do. But they’re not supposed to. . . . There are different terms for it, [such as] the Provo Push. . . .”

“When you weren’t engaged in sexual activity, how was he treating you?” Nurmi asked.

“He wasn’t treating me bad. He just seemed checked out, you know, the whole time we were checked in, he was just kind of distant. I thought we connected a lot over the phone. And it was different when we were together . . . there wasn’t much of a mental or emotional connection like there was on the phone.

“It was just primarily physical,” Arias added in a voice so low that Nurmi implored her to speak up so the jury could hear her response.

When he asked if she considered herself to be in a relationship with Travis at this point, she said, “No,” adding, “It was definitely not anything defined. We were sort of seeing each other, but we were definitely not boyfriend and girlfriend.”

Not ready to leave the hotel encounter behind, Nurmi pressed her to list the number of times she and Travis engaged in sexual activity that weekend. When Arias said three, he asked her to again describe them.

“The first night it was the grinding, and the next night it was the oral sex,” she recounted.

“Okay. And what was the third night?”

“It was oral sex also, before we left.”

“Okay. Did he ever express a desire during this weekend to engage in anal sex with you?” Nurmi asked, to which Arias said, “Yes.”

She further asserted that after the weekend in Ehrenberg, she felt “a little bit used.”

“What do you mean, though, that you felt used?” Nurmi pressed.

“Well, you know. He gets a hotel room. I show up. We hang out. We have sex. He’s not really there, present, he’s not really mentally present. I’m getting a lot of attention, but only while we’re engaging in sexual activity. And then we check out. And he takes off. And I kind of feel like a prostitute.”

Arias testified that she called Travis several times after the
weekend, but didn’t hear back from him until Tuesday, when he left a “very nice message” on her phone, and the two resumed their frequent phone calls, which she said were both “spiritual” and “sexual” in nature.

The trial became even more lurid when Nurmi showed Arias the first of two photographs that Dworkin had found on her hard drive, and asked her to identify what the picture contained. “It’s an erect penis,” she said, which she claimed Travis sent to her cell phone on November 11, 2006.

“Is this something that you solicited?” Nurmi asked, as he displayed the first photograph on the monitor so that it flashed up on all the courtroom screens.

“Not directly,” she replied, looking down. “I didn’t expect a photograph, but we were flirting.”

“. . . This was a picture of his erection that he sent you, is that right?”

“Yes,” Arias said, explaining that she was at a PPL event listening to speakers when she and Travis began texting. “It turned flirty and then it turned sexual. And it went on for hours, actually, back and forth, just trying to be witty and top each other’s last comments.”

“. . . So he sent you two photos that day?” Nurmi solicited, showing Arias the second photograph, also featuring a man’s erect penis.

“Yes, consecutively,” Arias said matter-of-factly, telling jurors she had left the meeting and was in a restaurant with others when she opened the photo files and then quickly closed her phone so no one could see them.

Because these photos were sent during Travis and Arias’ courtship, more than a year and a half before Arias killed him, there didn’t appear to be a reason to introduce the pictures and make them part of the case other than to denigrate Travis in front of the jurors.

Arias testified that fifteen days later, on November 26,
2006, Travis baptized her into the Mormon Church during a small service in Palm Desert. After the ceremony, she said, Travis followed her back to her house in his car and the two were again intimate, this time engaging in anal sex for the first time. But the two didn’t start dating exclusively until February 2007, although even then, Arias claimed that Travis hid their relationship from most of his friends.

Arias testified that they broke up four months later, on June 29, after Arias went though his phone while he was napping and found numerous text exchanges with other women, leading her to believe he was being unfaithful. Still, she claimed that Travis called her the day after their breakup, telling her that he was horny and promising to change. Less than a month later, Arias moved to Mesa, and according to her, the two continued their sexual relationship.

“Were you acting as a couple in public?” Nurmi asked.

“No, we were even more clandestine,” Arias said, claiming the two had late-night rendezvous about three or four times a week.

She also alleged that Travis started being physically abusive to her, beginning with an incident in October 2007, when he pushed her down on the ground as she tried to leave the bedroom during an argument. “We were arguing, and I got up to leave, and he wasn’t done making his point, and he wanted me to stay, so I guess he could finish yelling at me.”

“What did Mr. Alexander say when he pushed you down?” asked Nurmi.

“He said—he said ‘no,’ like, five times fast, ‘no, no, no, no, no, you’re not going anywhere.’”

According to Arias, the two made up and their sexual relationship continued, during which time she alleged to have witnessed something so disturbing on January 21, 2008, that it changed the course of their relationship.

“I walked in and Travis was on the bed masturbating. And
I got really embarrassed, even though we have been intimate more times than I could count, it was just kind of awkward walking in on him like that.