Killer Girlfriend: The Jodi Arias Story (13 page)

And they soon did. Jurors appeared to grow weary of the often-redundant questioning and Jodi’s repeated stories, virtually the same thing over and over for days on end.

Now came the day of the killing. Jurors perked up. And the courtroom gallery was now packed, not an open seat anywhere.

Jodi explained how she has no recollection of stabbing Travis, slitting his throat or even whether she actually shot him during the fight at his home she described as a battle to save her own life.

Up to this point, Jodi had recalled every single event in her life, dating back decades, in precise detail, right down to specific clothes she wore on a random day, dates, times. But that all changed once she got to the day of Travis’ death.

Now, Jodi said, she had a “huge gap” in her memory.

She explained why she lied about her involvement, again noting how she planned to commit suicide and how she didn’t want to tarnish Travis’ name with lurid details of their sexual relationship, given his public persona as a devout Mormon. She also said she was scared of being arrested, and wanted to keep up the farce to avoid suspicion.

“I just have always heard ‘Don’t admit to anything,’” she told jurors, explaining she had never been in trouble with the law before and just didn’t know how to respond to anyone’s questions.

“I knew my life was pretty much over,” she told jurors, tears welling up in her eyes.

Spectators whispered to each other in the gallery, wondering whether the tears were for Travis or if Jodi was just petrified at the prospect of being convicted and possibly put to death.

“Do you remember stabbing Travis Alexander?” Nurmi asked.

“I have no memory of stabbing him,” Jodi replied. “I remember dropping the knife and it clinked on the tile. … And I just remember screaming. I don’t remember anything after that.”

“I didn’t mean to shoot him or anything,” she went on to explain. “He was angry at me and he wasn’t going to stop. … It was like mortal terror.”

She said she never called authorities because she was scared.

“I couldn’t imagine calling 911 and telling them what I had just done,” Jodi said. “I was scared of what would happen to me.”

She never once expressed remorse for Travis’ death, but instead repeatedly referred to her life being over _ either by suicide or arrest.

Her inability to remember key facts of the killing stood in stark contrast to her previous testimony when she recalled the exact type of flavored coffee she ordered at Starbucks in the days leading up to the attack, specific dates of sexual encounters and road trips, and in-depth accounts of stories from 10 years ago.

***

It was now the prosecutor’s turn to cross-examine Jodi, and it would not be cordial. Martinez would unleash a hail of anger on her, trying to trip her up and get her off script after she had two years to rehearse her testimony while incarcerated.

His questioning grew so heated at one point that the judge admonished Jodi and Martinez to stop talking over each other. Jodi mocked Martinez at times, smirking while he stammered in frustration as she alternated between tears and poise, sheepishness and sheer contempt.

“Do you have memory problems, ma’am?’’ Martinez hounded.

“Sometimes,’’ Jodi replied.

Martinez hammered back, noting it’s puzzling that she can’t remember

such crucial details of the killing, yet “can tell us what kind of coffee you bought at Starbucks sometime back in 2008.’’

“When do you have memory problems?” Martinez asked, raising his voice. He had set himself up.

“Usually when men like you are screaming at me or grilling me or someone like Travis,’’ Jodi replied calmly, aiming to portray Martinez as the same sort of angry man as Travis working to break her spirit.

The exchange was a high point of drama amid the series of barbs the two traded for days on end.

Martinez would return to the lies, the crux of his case against her. He questioned Jodi about her changing stories, specifically asking about her contention that Travis had broken her finger in a fight before his death.

Martinez reminded Jodi that she told a detective a different story of the broken finger after her arrest.

“Then you testified about it in this court and you gave us another story of how this happened, right?” he said, his voice growing louder with each word.

“No,’’ Jodi said defiantly.

Martinez noted that Jodi made no mention of injuring her finger in a fight with Travis in her journal, where she kept pages of intimate details from her life.

“And no one knew about this supposed or claimed injury to your finger until after you killed Alexander, right?’’ he said.

“That’s right,’’ Jodi replied.

Jurors later watched a video clip of an interview Jodi did with CBS’s “48 Hours” in July 2008 while she was in jail.

“Travis’ family deserves to know what happened,” Jodi said on the show.

Martinez then abruptly stopped the recording.

“They did deserve to know what happened but did they deserve that lie?” Martinez asked pointedly, noting how at the time of the interview, Jodi was still sticking to the story about the intruders killing Travis.

“I guess not,” the ever-evasive Jodi replied.

“Can you imagine how much it must have hurt Mr. Alexander when you stuck that knife into his chest?” Martinez snapped at her loudly.

Defense attorneys immediately objected, and Martinez moved on. He didn’t need an answer. He just needed to drive home the point that Travis suffered tremendous pain as she attacked him, a detail he would need to prove to get a shot at a death sentence.

Jodi had now been on the witness stand for 11 days. Her testimony dragged on. And it soon became clear she had been up there too long. She began to slip off script, her quick-witted responses during questioning from her own attorneys shifting to reactive barbs with Martinez. His plan was working. He was wearing her down.

She went from describing in very clinical terms finding Travis “masturbating” to child pornography to using phrases like “jerking off.” She no longer referred to him “ejaculating” on her, but instead called it “jizz.” For the prosecution, Jodi was showing her true colors. And it played right into their hands.

Martinez noted the conflicting details in Jodi’s stories about Travis then and now.

She told authorities, media, friends and family that he was a great person who treated her well. Martinez pointed out text messages she sent Travis just months before she killed him.

“Travis, I thank you for being such an amazing friend. You are a rock, a light and an inspiration,” Jodi wrote. “I love you dearly.”

Martinez remarked how these messages were sent after Jodi said Travis had been physically abusive on numerous occasions.

“This is not in line with the person you have been talking about, is it?” Martinez prodded.

“Yes, it is very consistent with how he was,” Jodi replied.

“You’ve been telling us before how he was mean?” Martinez said.

“Yes, he also was that,” Jodi answered softly, seemingly unsure of how she should respond.

At times, Jodi held her own. She became snarky, almost cocky, responding to his yes or no questions by saying, “sure,” and “If you say so.”

“I’m not having a problem telling the truth,” Jodi said at one point.

“But you are having a problem answering my questions, right?” Martinez shot back.

Jodi said the prosecutor’s anger was confusing her, making her forget crucial details or answer concisely.

Martinez repeatedly referred to her “litany of lies.” He had to keep reminding jurors that Jodi had proven herself to be a liar time and again, and things were no different now that she was on trial for her life.

The prosecutor then went on for his most powerful material _ the photos of Travis’ bloated, decomposed and mutilated body. Jodi sobbed uncontrollably, burying her face in her hands.

“Ma’am, were you crying when you were shooting him?” Martinez said.

“I don’t remember,” Jodi replied, weeping.

“Were you crying when you were stabbing him?” Martinez asked.

“I don’t remember,” Jodi said softly, her sobs punctuating the silence of the courtroom.

“How about when you cut his throat, were you crying then?” the prosecutor asked, the pitch in his voice reaching an obviously angry tone.

Jodi sobbed as jurors studied her every move.

Martinez continued to press her over the lies, pointing out the absurdity of Jodi leaving Travis a voicemail on his mobile phone within hours of killing him.

Jodi had said earlier that she was trying not to get caught.

“There would be no other reason to leave a dead man a telephone message would there?” Martinez noted.

“Um, that was my goal,” Jodi replied.

Martinez later displayed another photograph of Travis’ body, his back covered in stab wounds.

“If he’s being stabbed in the back, would you acknowledge at that point that he’s no threat to you?” Martinez asked.

“I don’t know,” Jodi responded while still crying, repeating over and over that she just doesn’t remember what happened that violent day.

“How could he possibly be a threat to you?” the prosecutor continued.

“I can only guess. I don’t know what you’re asking me,” Jodi responds, obviously flustered.

“All of these lies, ma’am, are meant for your benefit so you can escape responsibility,” Martinez noted at one point.

Jodi looked back confused.

“You would have been satisfied to avoid any responsibility for the killing of Mr. Alexander, wouldn’t you?” Martinez said.

Jodi paused briefly before replying: “Relieved.”

Her testimony at this point began to grow redundant as her defense attorneys worked to blunt the sting of the prosecutor’s ferocious cross-examination.

“Were you forced to testify?” Nurmi asked.

“No,” Jodi said.

“When you chose to testify, did you so do with the idea that the lies you told would be called into question?” Nurmi asked.

“Yes,” Jodi said, having no problems answering her own attorney’s questions.

“Did you go to Mr. Alexander’s home on June 4 with the intent on killing him?” Nurmi said.

“No, I didn’t,” Jodi said. “That was never a thought … He was trying to kill me so I was defending myself.”

It was now the jury’s turn to ask Jodi questions under an uncommon Arizona law that allows panelists to quiz defendants through written questions read aloud by the judge. The bulk of the queries, about 220 in all, indicated that at least some jurors didn’t believe her.

They largely focused on Jodi’s contention that she has memory lapses during times of stress and cannot recall crucial details from the day of the killing. They also included queries about why she never tried to help save Travis’ life if this was indeed self-defense then repeatedly lied about her involvement.

Many questions were pointed in tone, and seemed to portray a jury struggling to come to grips with Jodi’s ever-changing version of events.

“Why were you afraid of the consequences if you killed Travis in self-defense?” one juror asked in a question read by the judge.

“I believed it was not OK … to take someone’s life even if you were defending yourself,” Jodi replied softly, addressing jurors directly with a firm yet gentle gaze.

“Would you decide to tell the truth if you never got arrested?” another juror asked.

Jodi paused briefly, thinking to herself.

“I honestly don’t know the answer to that question.”

Chapter 22

The Jury Has Reached a Verdit

“This is a manipulative individual who will stop at nothing, and who will continue to be manipulative and will lie at every turn.”

It was May 2 as Martinez delivered his dramatic closing arguments. He spent an entire day savaging Jodi as a manipulative liar who will do whatever it takes to save herself and demonize Travis.

He alternated between his trademark boisterous rants and a soft-spoken, cordial approach that hadn’t been seen from the hard-nosed prosecutor throughout the trial. He slammed his hand down on the table for effect then switched to a whisper-like tone. He sounded like a preacher giving a Sunday sermon — powerful pauses interspersed with dramatic inflections and evocative imagery to connect with the jury.

“It’s like a field of lies that has sprouted up around her as she sat on the witness stand,” Martinez said of Arias’ 18 days of testimony. “Every time she spat something out, another lie.”

Jodi maintained a steely demeanor for the first half of the day, constantly scribbling notes with her pencil and occasionally gently shaking her head. Then she folded under the heavy emotions brought on by photos from the scene of the killing that Martinez displayed for the jury late in the afternoon. She broke down in tears and constantly looked down or away to avoid seeing the images of Travis’ bloody and mutilated corpse.

There wasn’t a dry eye in the front row of the gallery reserved for Travis’ family. They sobbed, reached for tissues and looked on in horror as they relived that terrible June day one more time.

The next day, the defense sought to turn the tables by casting Jodi again as the victim and Travis the aggressor. They had plenty of evidence from emails, phone calls and text messages.

Nurmi began his argument with the words: “fear, love, sex, lies and dirty little secrets.” That’s what this case is all about, he said. He repeated the phrase several times, underlining for the jury that Travis was nowhere near a saint in his treatment of women, including Jodi.

Nurmi then employed a bold tactic by saying: “It’s not about whether or not you like Jodi Arias. Nine days out of 10, I don’t like Jodi Arias.”

The prosecution objected, prompting Nurmi to move to another element of the case.

He went on to attack the prosecution’s contention that Jodi committed first-degree murder, asking a series of questions aloud to the jury: Why would she rent a car and create such a paper trail if she was indeed engaged in a covert, murderous act? Why would she bother staging a burglary at her grandparents’ house if she could have just taken the .25-caliber gun herself? Why would she put a license plate on her car upside down knowing that such an act would be a sure-fire way to get pulled over by police and caught? Why wouldn’t she just kill Travis the minute she walked in the door of his house if she indeed was a calculated, cold-blooded killer?