Conviction: The Untold Story of Putting Jodi Arias Behind Bars (38 page)

“Outside the shower,” she replied, her voice laden with apparent emotion.

“Pardon?” I asked.

“Outside the shower,” she repeated, this time breaking into sobs.

I didn’t want jurors to be left with this sympathetic image of Arias on the witness stand crying, so I continued with a string of questions to focus on what she had done to Travis. “Ma’am, were you crying when you were shooting him?” I asked.

“I don’t remember,” Arias responded, keeping the story straight through her tears.

“Were you crying when you were stabbing him?” I continued, unswayed by her display of emotion.

“I don’t remember.”

“How about when you cut his throat, were you crying then?”

“I don’t know.”

“So take a look, then,” I said, again directing Arias’ attention to the photograph on the monitor. “And you’re the one that did this, right?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re the same individual that lied about all this, right?”

“Yes,” she admitted, tears falling onto her cheeks.

At this point Judge Stephens called for a lunch break, instructing all parties to be back in the courtroom by 1:25
P.M
. By then, Arias would have had time to prepare responses to my questions about where she was standing in the bathroom just before the killing, so I abandoned this line of inquiry.

That afternoon, I questioned Arias about her version of what happened while she and Travis were alone that resulted in her killing him. She recited the same lines she had delivered on direct examination, saying that she was in a fog and could not remember anything except that he said, “Fucking kill you, bitch!” and that she had to defend herself.

I had not expected that she would deviate from the script, she had followed on direct examination where she admitted that she had taken with her the rope they used in their supposed sexual playing, the gun she had used to shoot him in the face, and the knife that she used to slash his throat, and that she had deleted the photographs from the camera, all things she could not deny.

My last line of questioning involved the three messages Arias left for Travis after she killed him. She called while on the road to Utah around midnight of June 4, 2008, leaving him a voice message which I played for the jury. “And that’s you lying on the message, right?”

“Yes,” Arias admitted.

The next day, June 6, she sent him a text message inquiring about when he was going to deposit the $200 check she had given him as a partial payment for his BMW. “And you did
that, again, so that you could cover up what you had done, right?”

“Yes.”

On June 7, she sent him an e-mail discussing her imminent travel to Arizona and asking to stay at his house while he is away in Cancún. One of the reasons she claimed she wanted to stay at his house is because of the “cozy” bed. “. . . You’re sending it to him even though you know he’s dead, right? It’s a way to stage the scene, right?”

“I think so, yeah. That was my goal, I think,” Arias answered, her response emblematic of the way she had answered most questions on cross-examination, where she failed to fully take responsibility for her actions.

And with that, I ended my cross-examination.

When court resumed on March 4, Nurmi conducted his redirect examination of Arias, which went on for almost two full days, taking us to March 6, the day Judge Stephens began to read the more than one hundred questions jurors had for Jodi Arias.

Among the jurors questions were several insightful queries about Arias’ claim that she had returned the third gas can in Salinas.

“What happened to the gas cans after the road trip in June of 2008?” was a question from one of the jurors.

“They went back to my grandmother’s house where I went back to eventually. And I was taking a road trip to Monterey and had intended to bring them to Darryl. But I never made it to that road trip,” Arias contended.

“When you purchased the gas at the ARCO in Pasadena, why didn’t you just fill everything up at the pump so that it was all under one transaction? Why do three separate transactions?” another juror posed.

“What, what I do recall is when I filled the gas cans, rather
than have just a loose gas hose somewhere, I didn’t have anywhere to put it. So I hung it up. And when I hung it up, that ended the transaction. So, that’s probably why,” Arias said. “If I could have, you know, put them back in the trunk or whatever and then started the car or vice versa, I didn’t want to just set it on the ground, so I hung it up. I know that ended the transaction. So that’s probably why there was more than one and maybe I was topping off the gas tank for another.”

“In testimony on March 5, 2013, you mentioned filling a third gas can,” another juror began. “When and where did you get this can?”

“Can you repeat that?” Arias asked apologetically.

When the question was reread by Judge Stephens, Arias hesitated, as if trying to conjure up a plausible explanation. “March 5?” she repeated slowly. “I believe that was—that was a hypothetical. I didn’t get—I had a third can when I originally purchased one in Salinas. I returned it before leaving Salinas.

“So what we were doing is throwing out a hypothetical as to why would I only put two gallons in a third tank or third can. So that was a hypothetical. I only had two gas cans with me,” Arias asserted.

On March 7, Nurmi conducted a follow-up direct examination of Arias, seeking to clarify answers she had provided to the jury questions. When he was done, I began my follow-up cross-examination. I had waited until the last possible moment to expose that Arias had actually taken the third gas can on the trip, which helped prove that she had premeditated Travis’ murder.

“One of the things that we know, ma’am, is that you told us that, well, when you decided to take this trip, that you contacted Mr. Brewer because you wanted to take some—get some gas cans from him, right?” I began.

“Yes.”

“It’s been established that there were two gas cans, each with the capacity of five gallons or a little bit over, right?”

“That’s my understanding.”

“Well, you were there, right?”

“Yes.”

Over repeated objections from Nurmi, I pressed Arias about her gas purchases and her claim that she had returned the third gas can to Walmart the same day she purchased it.

“And, ma’am, one of the things that you said was that the reason that you did this was because you—it was expensive, and it didn’t seem to make sense to you to get that gas can, right?”

“In hindsight, I realized it didn’t make sense,” Arias answered.

“All right,” I said. “So why is it—why is it, then, ma’am, that you showed up with three gas cans in Salt Lake City?” I asked the question because the amount of gas Arias bought at the Tesoro gas station was more than the capacity of the car’s fuel tank and the two gas cans and required an additional five-gallon can.

“Objection,” Nurmi snapped. “Beyond the scope of the question . . .”

Judge Stephens called a sidebar to explore Nurmi’s position, ruling that I could proceed.

“So why is it you had the three gas cans in Salt Lake City, ma’am?” I asked one more time, eager to hear how Arias would respond.

“I don’t even recall going to Salt Lake City,” she claimed, her answer compounding the egregious harm she had already done to her credibility. “I went to West Jordan. And I went—”

“Hold on,” I said, stopping her midsentence. “First, let’s break that down. You’re saying you don’t remember ever even going to Salt Lake City ever on June 6, 2008?”

“I don’t even know where the city limits end and begin. To answer the gas can question. I went to Mesa with two gas cans.”

I first took Arias through the receipts from the Tesoro gas
station in Salt Lake City, forcing her to admit that she had indeed stopped there before confronting her with the bank statements from Washington Mutual detailing her transactions. “And when we are talking about this exhibit, do you see three transactions to the Tesoro in Salt Lake City?”

“Yes, I do,” Arias conceded.

“You were in Salt Lake City, Utah on June 6 of 2008, weren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“. . . And you did indicate to us that you did buy a third gas can in Salinas, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did,” Arias reluctantly confirmed.

“. . . Ma’am, would it surprise you that Walmart in Salinas does not have any record of any refund—”

“Objection,” Nurmi spoke over me. “Argumentative. Beyond the scope.” Judge Stephens called the parties to the bench for another sidebar, then ruled that I could continue with my inquiry.

“. . . You said you got a refund in cash, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Would it surprise you that Walmart doesn’t have any record for [the return of] a gas can on that date of June 3, 2008?”

Even faced with this undeniable evidence, Arias stuck to her script. “Considering that I returned it, that would surprise me.”

“Pardon?” I said, after she equivocated on an answer that should have been indisputable. “. . . It would surprise you? Because you claim you returned it on that date, right?”

“Yes, I did, and I received cash for it,” Arias continued to argue to the bitter end.

And she refused to admit that she had used the third gas can in Salt Lake City even though Tesoro representative Chelsey Young would testify in rebuttal as to the three transactions and the amount of gasoline she purchased, and Amanda Webb
would tell the jury that Arias had not returned the gas can for a refund.

After Jodi Arias had finished her eighteenth day of testimony, which included answering questions for the jury, the defense opted to call two additional witnesses, Richard M. Samuels, a psychologist, and Alyce LaViolette, a social worker, in what appeared to be an effort to bolster Arias’ testimony that she couldn’t remember the specifics of the killing and had been physically and verbally abused by Travis.

Samuels was a clinical and forensic psychologist, who had been in practice for thirty-three years and had conducted over one thousand psychological assessments. He administered a number of tests to Arias, including the MCMI-III (Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory–3) and Post-Traumatic Stress Diagnostic Scale (PDS), which is a forty-nine-item self-reporting instrument designed to aid in the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). As Samuels explained it, PTSD can result from a person’s experiencing, witnessing, or being confronted by a traumatic event that involves death or serious injury, and responding with intense fear, helplessness, or horror.

After speaking with Arias in a clinical interview in which she discussed negative aspects of her relationship with Travis, reviewing documents such as Arias’ diary and the police report, and hand-scoring the PDS, Samuels had arrived at the opinion that she met the diagnostic criteria for PTSD, identifying the major traumatic event in her life to be the death of Travis Alexander.

Samuels’ opinion was not well founded and was easily discounted because Arias reported in the PDS that the traumatic event that triggered her PTSD was the killing of Travis by two strangers, one of the other stories she told before she admitted the “truth.” Arias’ lack of candor during the testing voided any results on the PDS and called into question Samuels’ opinion based on its results.

Alyce LaViolette was a psychotherapist with a master of sci
ence degree who billed herself as an expert in marriage and family therapy. LaViolette was not licensed as a doctor, which prohibited her from administering any personality tests. Her opinion was based solely on a review of documents such as the witness interview summaries conducted by the defense investigator and LaViolette’s own interviews with Arias.

Her approach in deciding whether Arias was a victim of domestic violence required that she forget Arias’ past trespasses against the truth. She applied something called the Law of Attraction to decode Arias’ writings, determining that Arias’ failure to mention any physical and verbal abuse meant that it
did
exist. Not having interviewed Travis was not a problem for her because, as she testified, “ninety percent of all communication is nonverbal.” She based her conclusions on what Arias told her about Travis’ actions.

In support of her opinion, LaViolette relied on a self-created Continuum of Aggression and Abuse, which she argued showed that Travis had abused Arias. Her lengthy list of speaking engagements spoke to her bias, which included offering keynote addresses with titles such as “Was Snow White a Battered Woman?” and “Snow White, Gender and Domestic Violence.”

And when I cross-examined her about secondary gain, the concept that an individual may be deceitful if it is to their benefit to not tell the truth, she answered, “If you were in my group, I would ask you to take a time-out, Mr. Martinez.”

Both of these experts appeared to have done more harm than good to the defense case, because Samuels was duped by Arias into giving an opinion based on a story that she had already admitted wasn’t true, and LaViolette was further undermined, as she seemed to believe that even Snow White was a battered woman. Both of them had relied on the word of Jodi Ann Arias, someone who had been proven a liar.

Besides Chelsey Young and Amanda Webb, one of the other witnesses I called to testify in rebuttal was Janeen DeMarte,
Ph.D. I had retained Dr. DeMarte, a licensed clinical psychologist, to assist in determining the accuracy of Samuels’ PTSD diagnosis and LaViolette’s Battered Woman Syndrome finding.

Dr. DeMarte interviewed Arias on three separate occasions, reviewed a tome of documents and viewed Arias’ interviews with
48 Hours
. She also administered a battery of psychological tests.

Based on her examination, Dr. DeMarte concluded that Arias’ presentation did not meet the diagnostic criteria for PTSD as indicated by Samuels, and instead determined that Arias’ symptom presentation was best characterized by Borderline Personality Disorder. People with Borderline Personality Disorder are often adolescent-like, engaging in childish behavior with simplistic problem solving strategies. Dr. DeMarte also opined that Arias did not fit the profile of a woman suffering from Battered Woman Syndrome, as LaViolette had found.