Chris mentioned that he and his wife, Sky, were supposed to meet Travis in Cancún on June 10 for the Pre-Paid Legal seminar and business vacation. Before departing, he had tried to reach Travis, but his cell phone mailbox was full and he had not been answering. Chris assumed that his friend was probably busy, and that they would catch up once they were together in Mexico. It wasn’t until he and his wife were in bed in their Cancún hotel room that they got the call that Travis was dead. Sadly, Travis’s last known communication had been his noontime text message.
It was close to 4:30 P.M. when the crime scene investigators concluded their search of 11428 East Queensborough Avenue. Detective Flores’s final chore was to secure the premises and turn them over to Travis’s next of kin. Police had been able to locate one of Travis’s sisters, Samantha Alexander, a police officer with the Carlsbad Police Department in Carlsbad, California. But it wasn’t until the following day that Detective Flores was able to meet with a member of the Alexander family. Travis’s two older half brothers, Greg and Gary, had traveled from Riverside, California, after learning of their brother’s death. While Travis was always in their hearts, both men confided that they hadn’t been keeping up with their kid brother’s day-to-day life since his move to Mesa. More important, neither man had any inkling of who could have perpetrated this horrific crime.
The morning of June 12, 2008, Detective Flores arrived at the office of the Maricopa County medical examiner to attend the autopsy of Travis Victor Alexander. The office was located in the Forensic Science Center, a state-of-the-art facility on West Jefferson Street in downtown Phoenix. Dr. Kevin Horn, a medical examiner for the county, would be conducting the postmortem exam. Blessed with movie-star looks, the slim, dark-haired doctor was nevertheless pensive and somber. He had been with the ME’s office since 2001, joining the staff six years after his graduation from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, in Baltimore. His role as ME was to examine deceased individuals and certify a cause and manner of death.
As is protocol, Dr. Horn was present when the seal of the zippered body pouch containing Travis’s body was broken and the body was laid onto the steel table. Dr. Horn’s general examination found a “slightly heavy-set” Caucasian male, “69 inches in length and weighing 189 pounds.” There was evidence of “moderate decomposition” as indicated by “bloating, green discoloration, and multifocal skin slippage with purge exuding from the nose and mouth.” A visual examination of the body did not yield any scars, tattoos, or other identifying body features. A modified sexual assault kit was collected. However, no trauma or other abnormalities of the mouth, anus, or genitalia were observed.
The savagery of the victim’s injuries was not lost on Dr. Horn, or Detective Flores, who was standing off to the side and anxious to learn if the doctor’s findings would reveal any helpful pieces of evidence or other information that would aid in his homicide investigation. Dr. Horn found that Travis had multiple lacerations and punctures, as well as a single gunshot wound to the head. He also observed numerous sharp-force injuries of the head, neck, torso, and extremities.
An examination of the head revealed two “oblique linear full thickness incised wounds of the right and left posterior scalp.” Each measured two inches in length. There was also a 1¼-inch stab wound on the lower scalp, just below the right earlobe, and a 1¼-inch shallow incised wound on the upper left forehead, within the hairline.
The wounds on Travis’s neck were the most severe, with a number of shallow stabs around his upper neck along with a gaping incision that stretched across the upper neck. The slit of Travis’s throat measured six inches across. It was determined that this incision both transected and perforated the entire upper airway, the strap neck muscles, the right jugular vein, and the right carotid artery. Basically he had been cut ear to ear, and all the way down to his spine. Dr. Horn determined that Travis was still alive when his throat was cut, because of the large amount of hemorrhage, which requires a beating heart.
A number of sharp-force injuries were also discovered on the torso. Of particular interest was a cluster of nine stab wounds on the upper right and left side of Travis’s back that ranged in size from three-quarters of an inch to 1½ inches. The wounds were all concentrated within a 6-×-5½-inch area, with blunt and sharply incised ends that penetrated the soft tissue of the back and impacted the ribs and lateral aspects of the vertebral bone, but stopped short of penetrating the chest cavity. They were clustered together between his shoulder blades; were similar in size, depth, and direction; and appeared to have been done in rapid succession, likely when Travis had his back to his attacker.
Stab wounds also littered Travis’s upper and lower chest, the most severe of which was a 1½-inch gash to the right chest that both penetrated and perforated the area near the sternum at the third and fourth right ribs. This wound was about 3½ inches deep and penetrated a major vein near the base of the heart.
An examination of Travis’s hands, which had been enclosed in paper bags to preserve any evidence, tested negative for gunpowder residue. His fingernails were short, and none appeared to be broken, except for the right thumbnail, where an incised wound approximately of one-quarter inch had clipped off a portion of the nail. A 1¼-inch deep incision had penetrated the group of muscles at the base of the thumb, near the wrist, partially severing the muscles and tendons at the base. Horn determined a “sharp-edged object” had made the injuries, all likely defensive wounds. The presence of hemorrhage associated with some of the wounds led him to determine that the injuries had occurred while the victim was still alive.
Moving on to the gunshot wound, X-rays of the head were performed to determine the location of a bullet that had entered the body just above Travis’s right eyebrow. Dr. Horn noted a one-eighth-inch circular gunshot entrance wound. There was no apparent exit wound. Dr. Horn determined the wound trajectory was right to left and downward, with the track of the bullet indicating that it had perforated the front skull, then reentered the facial skeleton near the midline, terminating at the left cheek. He was able to recover the small-caliber projectile where it had lodged behind Travis’s face. The medical examiner photographed it and retained it as evidence to be turned over to police.
In his initial report, Dr. Horn concluded that the lacerations and puncture wounds found on Travis’s body were consistent with a single-edged weapon at least five inches in length. The lack of stippling, gunshot residue, or soot around the gunshot wound indicated the gun was fired from no closer than two to three feet away. The knife wounds to his back had not entered the chest cavity, so they also were not fatal. Obvious defensive wounds to his hands showed that he had attempted to protect himself during the attack. According to Dr. Horn’s report, the fatal wounds inflicted on Travis were the single stab wound to the center of his chest, which punctured his superior vena cava, a major vein, and the final throat slicing. The official cause of death was determined to be “sharp force trauma of the neck and torso.” The manner of death was homicide.
CHAPTER 6
T-DOGG
Travis Victor Alexander was unlike any man Jodi had ever encountered. All of her previous relationships had been with men who were either unconventional, uninterested in marriage and children, or unable to offer financial stability. Travis appeared the antidote to all that; he had looks, charisma, confidence, solid religious beliefs, an interest in finding a wife and starting a family, and he was financially successful. Being someone who wanted to help others, he seemed willing to share himself with Jodi. He managed to be conventional, almost princelike, yet he was exciting and energetic.
Part of Travis’s need to help those in trouble came from his own difficult and abusive upbringing. He was born on July 28, 1977, the first child of Gary David Alexander and Pamela Elizabeth Morgan Alexander. Pamela was Gary’s third wife. She was twenty-four and Gary was twenty-nine, with two children from a previous marriage, when their beautiful green-eyed boy arrived, joining half brothers Gary and Greg. Pam and Gary
Alexander would go on to have two daughters, Samantha and Tanisha. The family lived in Riverside, California, a large inland city in Southern California, about sixty miles east of Los Angeles, with the reputation of being one of the nation’s most polluted “smog belt” communities.
By all accounts, this was not one big happy family. Travis’s parents were both drug addicts, hooked on methamphetamine, one of the hardest addictions to treat. Pam and Gary were both self-absorbed and controlled by their addictions, and their children suffered tremendously in their care. In the self-help memoir Travis was in the process of writing at the time of his death, titled Raising You, he spoke of a father who was rarely around, and who eventually abandoned the family. He described his mother as a woman who, despite good intentions, had started a family too young. Once she became addicted to drugs, she was incapable of providing reliable, loving care for her children, not even able to meet their most basic needs. The children had no one to cook a hot meal, do the laundry, clean the house, shop for food, help with hygiene, or care for them when they were sick. Pam would go on weeklong drug benders, then crash in bed for days. Meth turned her into a monster.
Travis, being protective of his kid sisters, took on a lot of responsibility, beginning a pattern of caring for people that would continue throughout his life. Travis described terrible beatings at the hands of his mother, who would go after any child who dared to wake her as she slept off her latest high. To endure the wrath, Travis mastered a way of twisting in such a way as to deflect the blows to less sensitive areas of his body, such as his back and arms, where not only did it hurt less, but the bruises could be hidden from the school’s teachers and other concerned adults.
With his mother sleeping off the drugs, he and his siblings were left to fend for themselves in a filthy house on Allwood Drive. There was very little food and no prepared meals, and the children would hunt through the kitchen for anything that was edible. They often had to eat things that were spoiled. Travis recalled once scarfing down a piece of moldy bread he had scavenged from the refrigerator. He spoke of feeling teased by the canned foods in the cupboard, which he longed to eat, if only he had known how to use a can opener.
The filthy conditions in the house encouraged cockroaches. “My sisters and I found some amusement in the fact that an entire colony of albino roaches had broken out so that the house looked like a bunch of moving salt and pepper crawling on everything,” he wrote. “To this day I only have one phobia, roaches. There was nothing more disgusting to me than to wake up to feel roaches crawling on my body.”
With neither parent working, the family eventually lost the house. They moved to an old, beat-up camper shell in an aunt’s backyard. The shell was four feet tall by five feet wide by six feet long, and was situated next to the garage, where the washer and dryer were kept. The washing machine was not hooked up to the plumbing, so every time somebody did wash, dirty wash water pooled in the backyard, creating a swampy, germ-infested mess that the children had to muddle through whenever they left their “shell.”
Travis recalled that his sisters, his mother, and he had lived in that camper shell for more than a year. There was no shower, so they would have to go for days without washing. Travis said he didn’t mind being dirty. He said he was actually afraid of bathing because one time he had spilled some water in a bathroom and his mother accused him of urinating on the floor. Furious, she had shoved him into a wall.
The unpredictable family violence, fueled by drug abuse, left the children perpetually frightened and apprehensive. Travis recalled countless fights between his mother and father that required police intervention. He remembered a time when his mother emptied a revolver into his father’s car, and according to Travis, he was standing on the other side of the front door when his father kicked it down and stormed into the house. His father then retaliated by chopping up his mother’s belongings with an axe. Gary and Pam Alexander separated when Travis and his sisters were young, but as the years went by, Travis would welcome two more sisters, Hillary and Allie, and another brother, Steven.
School did not provide a respite for Travis. He was a shy kid, with few friends. “When your clothes are as dirty as the rest of you, and you stink and have lice, you don’t make a ton of friends,” he wrote of his school days. “Sadly, as you could imagine, I was mocked for my appearance. Nothing too harsh; nowhere close to what was said at home. I will not give much detail on that, as I feel it is inappropriate to state. I will say, though, I have never heard in any movie, on any street corner, or amongst the vilest of men any string of words so offensive and hateful, said with such disgust as was the words that my mother said to my sisters and me.”
In spite of the hardship, Travis had fond memories of watching Sesame Street with his siblings, and of visiting his great-grandfather Vic, whom he credited with teaching him the alphabet. Vic was his mother’s grandfather, and while she didn’t have very much family, and fewer that she actually liked, she adored her grandfather. He lived only an hour south of them, but because Travis’s mother did not want Vic to know about her addiction, they only visited twice a year. She’d get herself together enough to take the kids for a visit, which Travis always looked forward to. Vic would take everyone out for pizza or on walks with the dogs, then he’d challenge Travis to a game of checkers and pull out some of the other toys he kept at his house for the kids.
The goodbye hug was the moment Travis cherished the most. When it was time to go, Travis would run to hug Vic goodbye. Vic’s mood would suddenly turn serious. He would grab Travis by the shoulders, shake him, and utter the following words: “Travis, you need to know that you are special, that there is not anything that you can’t do. There is something great inside you. You’re special, Travis, don’t you ever forget it.” His words were always followed by a hug so tight and stiff, it would squeeze the breath from Travis’s body.
Travis would channel these words from Vic whenever his mother’s cruelty became too much. When she was coming down from drugs, she would be exceptionally nasty, telling her children how miserable and worthless they were and complaining how they had ruined her life. As hurtful as her words were, Travis found solace and inspiration in Vic’s words of encouragement. “Every time I would feel her fist sink into my back, I could feel Grandfather’s hands on my shoulders, and I knew she couldn’t reach what was great inside of me,” he wrote.
In Travis’s account, he was six years old when he decided there was a God. He had spent the entire day screaming for his paternal grandmother to come and take him for the weekend. “I screamed so long and loud that I actually woke up my comatose mother long enough to beat me for waking her up,” he recalled. “When she went back to bed I went back to screaming to God. Sure enough that evening [my grandmother] came and picked me up, while my mother slept.” The problem was, he always had to return home when the weekend was over.
The filth, the beatings, the hunger, and the humiliation became almost too much for Travis. By the age of ten, no longer able to stand the conditions, he ran away. Even though he didn’t go far, just a few blocks away to the residence of his father’s parents, his grandparents Jim and Norma Jean Sarvey, he never planned on going back. He strode into the house, positioned himself in the middle of the living room, and announced, “I am going to live with you now!” to which his grandmother agreed. Though Travis’s determination to escape his mother was clear, what was less clear was why there was no earlier intervention to take the children away from their abusive mother.
In many ways, Travis’s decision to seek out his grandparents was not a surprise. He was particularly fond of his grandmother, whom everybody called Mum Mum. Born in the middle of the Great Depression near Oklahoma City, Norma Jean Sarvey was feisty and self-sufficient. She loved the outdoors and spent a good deal of her leisure time camping, fishing, hunting, and shooting. She liked to cook and attended church regularly. She was also a huge dog lover, with a particular affinity for pugs.
Norma was known for her broad s
mile and gave Travis the love, structure, and security he craved. She described him as an easy boy to raise. Travis had equal admiration for Mum Mum. According to friends, he liked to quote Abraham Lincoln when expressing his fondness for her. “All I am, or can be, I owe to my angel (grand) mother,” he’d say, altering the quote just slightly to make it applicable to his grandmother.
Norma was also an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), and she introduced all of her grandchildren to its teachings. She belonged to the Jurupa Stake Center, the Mormon church on Serendipity Road in Riverside. At first the other kids in the ward viewed Travis as the kid who never came to church, but over time he became a welcome and regular member.
As he got older, Travis settled into a normal and wholesome life with his grandparents. He attended Rubidoux High School, one of four high schools in the district. The contemporary, one-story building on Opal Street had a brick façade and great views of Mount Rubidoux from its classrooms and playing fields. Travis kept mostly to himself there. He was introverted and shy and often chose to eat his lunch alone in the school library, away from the social scene in the cafeteria. Not the scrawny kid of his youth, he no longer smelled and was not dirty, but the memory of the pain of previous rejections still lingered.
Exposed: The Secret Life of Jodi Arias Page 7