Conviction: The Untold Story of Putting Jodi Arias Behind Bars (37 page)

“That wasn’t why.”

“Well, no, you were very offended. You just told us that, right?” I followed up, using the same verbiage from the inquiry initiating this line of questioning.

“I didn’t say ‘very,’ but yes, I was offended . . . I was hurt,” she said, now taking issue with the modifier to the word “offended.” It appeared she was turning her focus to the words in order to avoid answering a question that might portray her in an unflattering light.

“Ma’am, didn’t you just say ‘offended’?” I asked in a raised voice. “And did you just say it was a good word?”

“Yeah, there are many descriptors to use.”

“But you just said it was a good word, right?”

“Yes, I think,” she replied.

“You ‘think’ means you don’t remember what you just said.”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? You just said ‘offended’ is a good word. And when I used it, then you took issue with it. Is it a good word or is it not a good word?”

“It depends on how you use it.”

“I asked you the question, you were offended, and you said ‘offended’ is a good word, right? . . .” I continued, knowing I had to expose what appeared to be a word game to her.

“I think so, yes.”

“Well, you ‘think so’ means you don’t know, right?”

“I don’t know,” she confirmed.

“This just happened. How is it that you are not remembering what you said?” I asked, implying that it was not a memory problem.

“Because you’re making my brain scramble,” Arias said.

“I’m again making your brain scramble,” I said, referring to earlier questioning when she had used the same excuse. “So in this case in particular, the problem is not you, it’s the question being posed by the prosecutor, right?”

“No.”

“Yes or no,” I continued, talking over Arias.

“I was saying ‘no’ when you interrupted me,” Arias sniped, in what seemed an attempt to wrest control of the questioning.

“So, in this case, you’re looking to point the finger at somebody else again?”

“No, it’s my fault,” she said in what appeared to be a change of attitude, if only for the purposes of this question.

“Well, you’re saying it’s the prosecutor that’s asking you the questions and creating a problem for you, right? . . . You said, ‘it’s the way you’re posing the questions,’ right?”

Knowing she had painted herself into a corner, Arias again said she didn’t know.

“So, how is it, if it just happened, you can’t even remember what you just said?”

“I think I’m more focused on your posture and your tone and your anger. So it’s hard to process the question,” she said, trying to deflect the attention away from her answers and onto my conduct.

“. . . You’re saying you are having trouble telling us the truth on the witness stand, right?”

“Absolutely,” she remarked without pausing, finally admitting what had been obvious from the beginning of her testimony.

“You’re telling us you’re having trouble telling us the truth because of the way the questions are being posed, right?”

“I have no problem telling the truth,” Arias shot back, returning to earlier form.

“. . . And you indicated that the prosecutor’s posture is aggressive, right?”

“I didn’t say aggressive. . . . It’s not the problem with your posture, it’s that it creates a problem with me processing what you’re saying, because I’m focused more on your posture than the content of the questions,” she answered.

“. . . Ma’am, with this issue of posturing, do you remember back on July 15, 2008, when Detective Flores interviewed you? . . . And he was sitting down, right?” I asked, knowing that I could prove that she had a problem answering questions truthfully irrespective of the posture and demeanor of the person making the inquiries.

“Yes.”

“And his voice was very quiet, right?”

“Yes.”

“And when he was asking you these questions and his voice was very quiet, you still lied to him, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“So, it doesn’t have anything to do with the volume of the questions then, does it, as to whether or not you’ll tell the truth?”

“I will always tell the truth,” Arias replied, without realizing she had just been untruthful.

“. . . So you told the truth to Detective Flores back then, right?”

“I mean here under oath,” she clarified.

Much has been made of the assertive attitude I adopted during my cross-examination of Arias, as this exchange illustrates. But any other approach would have been ineffective, as she would have controlled the questioning by picking and choosing the questions she would answer.

Recalling Arias’ direct testimony about the photographs of
a man’s erect penis that Travis had allegedly sent to her cell phone, I asked if she had found the photos “offensive.”

“Not at all, actually,” she said.

“. . . And so when you were telling us about how it was that you received this, you didn’t mean to tell us that you were offended by it, right?”

“No, I was not offended.”

“In fact, it was something that you liked, right?”

“I did like it, yeah,” she admitted, which served to cast doubt on the validity of including the photographs as part of her case.

“. . . And you also sent him pictures of yourself?” I said, referring to several photos of Arias topless that she sent to Travis.

“Yes, I did,” she admitted, agreeing that she didn’t find anything wrong with exchanging pictures of this nature.

Arias also acknowledged that she had been the one to introduce K-Y personal lubricant into their relationship. “And it was used as part of these sexual encounters that the two of you had?”

“Yes . . . It made our activities more enjoyable,” she explained, which called into question the defense’s claim that sex was something Arias engaged in because she couldn’t say no.

“. . . When you say that you felt like a prostitute, that’s at odds with what you’re telling us or what we’re hearing here about the K-Y?”

“Well, you’re talking about two different incidents, so, yes, it would be at odds,” she clarified.

“So your participation, if you will, in these activities was equal to his, right, wasn’t it? . . . So, any derogatory statement such as ‘I felt like a prostitute’ isn’t really representative of what was going on, right?”

“It was. But it was my fault for feeling that way, because I allowed it,” Arias answered.

“Well, I know that you allowed it, and you felt that way . . .
and you say that you felt like a prostitute, but when we hear, for example, these partial clips of this sexual conversation,” I said, referring to the graphic sex tape that Arias recorded on May 10, 2008, “it looks like you’re the one that’s moving it along, not him?”

“Is that a question?” she challenged.

“It is a question,” I replied.

“What’s the question?” she posed, seemingly eager to chastise me in front of the jurors.

“The question is, isn’t it true that you were the one to move it along?”

“I’d say it was mutual,” Arias said, clarifying that she didn’t feel like a prostitute during the sex, just afterward.

“Well, this is suggestive of you being as much of a participant in these activities as he was, right?”

“Yes. And I was.”

To drive home the point that Arias had not only been a willing participant, but that she had enjoyed her sexual relationship with Travis, I pointed to another event that she had described on direct examination as making her feel like a prostitute. According to Arias, the two engaged in oral sex on the porch of her house in Mesa, fulfilling one of their fantasies, during which Travis supposedly ejaculated on her face, threw some chocolates at her, and left.

“Well, when he jizzes on my face and throws candy my way and walks away without a word, it kind of feels like I was a prostitute,” Arias remarked, at which time I moved to introduce several text messages the two had exchanged about carrying out this same scenario for a second time, with the only difference being now Arias was the one soliciting it.

“And this is what the text message reads . . . ‘the reason I was asking about later tonight is because I want to give you a nice BJ.’ BJ stands for what?” I asked.

“Blow job,” Arias said matter-of-factly.

“. . . Right, and in addition to it, you say, ‘and I’d like a generous facial in return’ . . . that means you want him to ejaculate on your face, right?”

“That is correct,” she admitted.

Directing Arias’ attention back to the May 10, 2008 phone call that she recorded, I suggested that it also provided a glimpse into what her views were about the sexual relationship between her and Travis. “And in fact in it you indicate that you want to blossom sexually, right?”

“Yes.”

I was able to have Arias admit that she had been the one to propose dressing up like a “horny little school girl” in a text message she sent to Travis in February 2008. “Okay, let’s read it: ‘I want to fuck you like a dirty, horny little school girl.’ So that implies that you’re dressed up in a certain fashion, right?”

“Yes.”

“And it also implies or indicates that it’s you who likes this sort of activity and looking like a horny little schoolgirl, right?”

“Yes,” Arias replied, casting doubt on the legitimacy of her earlier claim that it was Travis who preferred this activity.

Arias also conceded that part of what the two discussed during their phone conversations was just fantasy and had not actually occurred. “And so that if he says he wants to tie you to a tree and stick it up your ass, that could also be seen as fantasy, right?” I said, referring to a comment made by Travis that Arias took issue with on direct examination.

“Yes.”

“That never happened, did it?”

“No.”

She had now admitted that she was not victimized by Travis and was a willing participant in their sexual games, using her words and actions to fan their heated flame. In her haste to prove that she was always right, Arias had also exposed herself as someone who was unduly combative, unlike the victim she
was trying to portray. The pillars of sand supporting her self-defense claim had started to crumble under the weight of her assertiveness. Her need to always be right had blinded her, and she could not stop herself from turning her back on the role of victim, a critical part of her defense.

O
n Wednesday, February 26, Jodi Ann Arias described her trip to Arizona to kill Travis Alexander as a “road trip” that was “partially vacation, partially a business trip,” unaware that her portrayal would provide the entry point for my inquiry about the gas cans. I had purposely waited until I was near the end of my cross-examination to introduce the existence of the third gas can, in order to maximize the impact. This irrefutable evidence would prove that Arias had premeditated Travis’ murder, so I wanted it to be the last testimony the jury heard from Arias.

Arias’ admission that her trip had been partially for business allowed me to ask questions about the receipts police had found in the Airwalk shoebox seized during the search of her grandparents’ house on July 15, 2008. And while I made it appear that my interest in the receipts had to do with Arias’ plan to use them as deductions on her income tax, I was actually paving a path to the topic of the gas cans.

“When you say partially a business trip, what you’re saying is, for example, that if you went to buy gas, that’s something that could be deductible, correct?” I solicited. “. . . In fact, since you were going to go to Utah, going to a gas station, it would make sense to save the receipts so that you could deduct them from your income taxes, right?”

“That’s right,” Arias replied, clueless as to what my inquiry was about to reveal.

“And in this particular case, it wouldn’t matter whether you paid with cash or a credit card, right?”

“Yes.”

“. . . So you did at least pay attention to the receipts you got, for example, from the gas station, right?”

“What do you mean, pay attention?” Arias asked warily.

“Kept them.”

“Yeah, I threw everything in a shoebox,” she confirmed.

She discussed renting the car at the Redding airport, saying that either her brother’s neighbor or sister-in-law dropped her off on the morning of June 2, 2008, although she could not recall for sure whom it had been. Arias agreed that she rejected the red car first offered to her by Ralphael Colombo because she had heard that drivers of red cars “get more tickets.”

After establishing that the white Ford Focus she ended up renting that day had a gas capacity of just over twelve gallons, I reminded her of her calls to Darryl Brewer in late May, when she had asked to borrow the two gas cans. “So you did have these discussions with Mr. Brewer and you decided to get the gas cans. Why didn’t you just go and buy some gas cans?”

“Because they were expensive,” Arias replied.

“When you say they were expensive, how much is a gas can today?”

“I don’t remember. But it wasn’t in my budget for my travels.”

“And you wanted two of them, right?”

“I don’t know. I guess whatever he had.”

“So if he would have had six, you would have taken six?”

“No, they wouldn’t have fit.”

“And these gas cans, when you picked them up, where did you put them?”

“In the trunk.”

“. . . And what color were the gas cans?”

“They were red.”

Arias testified that after leaving Brewer’s house, she drove to Salinas, where she had a manicure.

“And then you left Salinas and continued on your trip, right? . . .”

“That’s correct.”

“About what time was it?”

“Afternoon. But I don’t know what time,” she answered, believing she had anticipated my next question.

“You told us about the gas cans from Mr. Brewer, right?”

“That’s right.”

“But you forgot to tell us something else, didn’t you?”

“You haven’t asked me yet,” she stated smugly.

“Well, isn’t it true that there were more than two gas cans involved here, right?” I asked. I had waited almost the entire trial to ask this question.

Arias’ face had a noticeable reaction. I could see her eyes widening behind the lenses of her glasses. “Yes,” she answered.

“You never testified about a third gas can, did you?” I said.

“No,” she answered, some of the smugness leaving her face, at least for the moment.

“This third gas can, you actually bought it in Salinas, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Arias answered. And for that one instance, I saw a cornered look in her eyes.

“And you bought it from Walmart, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did,” Arias said with a hint of trepidation in her voice.

“And not only do you have two five-gallon gas cans, you have another gas can. What’s the capacity of this one?” I asked.

“It was the same—no, I think it was—I don’t know. It was the same size, I think,” Arias said appearing as though she was trying to regain her composure.

“You think—so now you have a capacity of fifteen gallons, right?”

Arias remained impassive. “At that moment I did,” she said.

“Well, you’re saying at that point you had that capacity. Was there something involving these gas cans that would not allow you to fill them up to their capacity later on?”

“Yes, there was.”

“And what is that?” I asked, curious to see what she would come up with in her attempt to discount this evidence.

“I returned the gas can,” she said flatly, staring back at me, unwilling to back down. I took a second to stare back, knowing that nothing could be further from the truth.

Amanda Webb, a loss-prevention supervisor at Walmart, where Arias admitted she bought the third gas can, had already checked their records and determined that Arias had not returned to the store for a refund that day, as she was now claiming.

Chelsey Young, a manager with Tesoro Companies Inc., had examined the gasoline transaction records at my request and found that Arias had made three separate purchases of gasoline during the same visit at their Salt Lake City, Utah, gas station in the early morning hours of June 6, 2008, starting at 3:54
A.M
. The first purchase was a pay-at-the-pump transaction where Arias paid $41.18 for 10.672 gallons of gasoline. The second transaction, which was initiated seven minutes later at 4:01
A.M
., was also conducted at the pump, where she purchased an additional 5.091 gallons at a cost of $19.65. The third and last transaction, which took place at 4:05
A.M
., was performed inside the station’s minimart, where Arias bought an additional 9.583 gallons, which cost her $36.98.

In all, Arias stocked up on 25.346 gallons of gasoline, paying a total of $97.81, during that single visit. This large amount of gas could only have been pumped if she had three five-gallon gas cans, because the maximum amount she would have been able to carry with two gasoline cans and a full tank of gas in
her car was approximately twenty-two gallons. It seemed that the cost of killing Travis Alexander had been relatively cheap, because it only cost Arias around $100.

“You returned it back, right?” I continued, giving her a last chance to back away from her previous answer.

“Yes,” she replied, refusing to grab the olive branch I offered.

“So that now you have a capacity of still ten gallons, right?”

“Yes.”

“Maximum, right?”

“Yes.”

“. . . Ma’am . . . one of the things you were telling us is that you were very financially strapped, for lack of a better phrase, right?”

“That’s right.”

“. . . So if you want to save on gas, why is it then that you are willing to pay thirteen dollars for a gas can, which would increase, if you will, the price of travel . . . by thirteen dollars?”

“That wasn’t a calculation I made when I bought it. That’s why I returned it.”

“Do you have a receipt that you took it back?”

“I didn’t get a receipt,” she answered, expecting the jury to believe that Walmart had suspended its practice of issuing receipts for refunds, at least for that one transaction.

“So Walmart didn’t give you any documentation whatsoever that you took that gas can back?”

“I don’t think so,” she said, reverting to her fallback response.

“. . . I just want to be clear about this. You believe when you took that gas can back, Walmart did not give you any written documents evidencing that or showing that?”

“I don’t recall,” she said, resorting to the other tried and true response she employed to avoid giving an answer.

Wanting her to believe that she was in the clear, I moved the cross-examination to other parts of her trip, knowing that I was going to come back and address the gas cans one more time.

Arias admitted that she stopped at Starbucks, where she bought a strawberry Frappuccino.

“And while you were there, you called Mr. Burns, right?”

“I don’t know if I called him from Starbucks. I know we talked a few times that night.”

“And the plan was for you to still go up to Utah, right?”

“Yes.”

“And if you were to leave Pasadena at about that time you said you were going to leave, you would have arrived up in the West Jordan area about maybe ten, eleven o’clock the next morning, right?”

“If I drove straight through, I think that’s right,” Arias said, agreeing that the drive would take about twelve hours.

“But in talking to Mr. Burns, you never told him that you were not going to go straight to Utah, did you?”

“. . . No, I didn’t tell him that,” Arias conceded.

Returning the inquiry to questions about Arias’ stop at the Starbucks in Pasadena, I asked her to describe what happened after she purchased her drink and used the restroom, and after she came out to her car and found some skaters hanging around in the parking lot. “When you come out, you see there were these skaters laughing near your car, correct?”

“Not like laughing loud, just kind of snickering,” Arias maintained, appearing unwilling to agree with anything I said.

“. . . How many were there?” I asked.

“There were three,” Arias said.

“And as you get ready to leave, you turn your lights on . . . and as you turn your lights on something catches your eye, right?”

“Not till I begin to back out,” Arias corrected me.

“Why do you care that something’s out in front of you if you don’t know anything about your license plate?”

“Because it was a reflector. It was reflective. I just kind of put two and two together like maybe I should check what that is real quick before I hit the road.”

Arias claimed that she pulled back into the parking space, turned off her lights and got out of the car to investigate, finding a license plate that was covered in bugs lying on the ground. When she looked at the front of her car, she noticed her license plate was missing and a ton of bugs similar to those on the license plate were on the front bumper area, prompting her to throw the license onto the floorboard of the car before getting on the road that night.

“Did it ever occur to you to investigate the license plate in the back to see whether or not it matched?”

“Not right there,” Arias answered. “I was more concerned with getting in my car and locking the doors.”

Arias admitted that after her stop at Starbucks, she called Travis to let him know that she was coming to Mesa. She blamed him for her last-minute decision, claiming he guilted her into coming to Arizona.

“One of the things that you told us was that the reason that you came out here was that he had an ability, according to you, to just basically guilt you into doing things, right?”

“Yeah. But in a sweet way,” she responded, romanticizing Travis, whereas before she spent the majority of her time on the stand vilifying him.

“Well, guilt is guilt, whether it’s sweet or bittersweet, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yes.”

“And so it’s not a very positive thing to be guilted into something, right?”

“I don’t know. . . . It kind of felt good when he was doing it,” she replied.

I wasn’t sure why she was now taking this position. Perhaps she wanted to make herself more sympathetic to the jury, or perhaps she just wanted to be contrary with me.

“Why call him after you already gassed up and everything and you’re on your way to Utah? . . .” I asked.

“Why? Because I was calling him prior to the trip; he kept guilting me, would be the term. And to be honest, it was flattering and I enjoyed hearing it.”

Arias claimed that Travis had begun guilting her into coming to Mesa since learning about her trip to Utah about one week before she was scheduled to depart.

“And it’s something that you keep saying that he keeps guilting you, that’s the phrase you’re using, right?”

“Yes,” Arias replied with an inappropriate grin.

“And you know, you smiled there like it was something pleasant.”

“Yeah. He was very sweet about it.”

“. . . If he’s guilting you and you already have another beau or another person out there, why do you keep exposing yourself?”

“Well, Travis had that effect on me, I guess you could say,” she told me, blaming it all on his charm.

“Well, it was because you liked it, isn’t it?”

“I did like it.”

“. . . And so you decided that instead of going to see Mr. Burns, you were going to instead come to see Mr. Alexander, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And it was your decision, solely, right?”

“Yes,” Arias admitted, contradicting her claim on direct examination that Travis’ hold over her was so great that he had somehow convinced her to abandon her trip to Utah and come to Mesa for him.

February 28 marked the fifth and final day of my cross-examination of Jodi Ann Arias. This would be her thirteenth day on the stand, during eight of which she had been under direct examination by defense counsel Laurence Nurmi. She was beginning to appear weary, likely as a result of our heated exchanges as I pressed her on topics she wanted to avoid, prompting her to engage in verbal fisticuffs, exposing the woman behind the librarian look.

Historically, jurors do not like when defendants are oppositional with the prosecutor, because it appears they have something to hide. Yet Arias continued to evade the specifics of the killing claiming she didn’t remember as I began to wind down my cross-examination with questions about Travis’ murder.

On the courtroom monitors I displayed a police photograph of Travis’ body on the floor of the shower and asked, “Where were you taking the photographs when this happened?”