Exposed: The Secret Life of Jodi Arias

by Velez-Mitchell, Jane

  In Willmott’s sweeping opening statement, she also accused Travis of having had a possessive nature, citing the T-shirt that Jodi claimed Travis made for her which stated “Travis Alexander’s.” In her remarks, Willmott spoke about the T-shirt as though it were fact that Travis had made it; yet, once again, Jodi was the only source of that information. Those close to Travis later insisted that he would have written “T-Dogg’s” and not “Travis’s,” saying that Jodi probably had it printed herself.

  Willmott had now gotten to the late history of the two. She said by April 2008, “Jodi had had enough because she found out that once again Travis was pursuing other women even though he was having her in his bed.” So, she said, Jodi moved from Mesa back to California, settling in her old hometown of Yreka. “Even though she moved, Travis didn’t let her go. He continued emailing, texting, and calling. He guilted her about leaving him. And, the thing is, with the type of relationship they were in, the minute Travis was nice to Jodi and caring to Jodi, she fell right back into that relationship with him.” As Willmott explained, they weren’t even in the same state, but Travis continued to “use Jodi for his own sexual desires through the phone and phone sex.”

  Jennifer Willmott then dropped the bombshell that would propel this case into a new stratosphere of public interest. “You’ll actually hear a recorded phone call . . . between Travis and Jodi that’s very explicit,” Willmott explained, alluding to the graphic sex tape Jodi had recorded just a couple of weeks before she had killed Travis. “Travis talks about how he’s going to Cancún with somebody else. Jodi knew that, and she expresses absolutely no dismay about it whatsoever, and this was just weeks before he dies.”

  Again, Willmott reverted to her motif that Travis led a double life. “Most importantly, when you hear this call, it’s crucial to understand the difference, the difference between the type of person that Travis portrayed himself to be versus the things that he said on this recorded call. Because while he was supposed to be this virginal Mormon man who didn’t want to have any type of relationship with Jodi and she just wouldn’t leave him alone, in this phone call he talks about his fantasies, his fantasies with Jodi of tying her to a tree and putting it, forgive me, in her ass all the way. That’s Travis. And, then, when Jodi pretends to climax during this phone call, Travis tells her that she sounds like a twelve-year-old girl who is having an orgasm for the first time. And then he tells her ‘it’s so hot.’ These comments are not comments of a man who is being relentlessly stalked and who does not want to have any contact with Jodi. These are comments of a man who has a real problem with the comparison to the person he portrays himself to be and who he’s supposed to be versus . . . his own private reality and the person who he really was.”

  Willmott’s explanation of what would be on the sex tape caught even the most seasoned trial watchers off guard. While plenty of people knew that Jodi and Travis had broken Mormon laws and had premarital sex, few, if any, were aware of just how graphic the content of the phone sex tape was. From this opening it was clear that their sexual relationship and Travis’s apparent hypocrisy over it would be used as evidence to an extent that no one could have predicted.

  However, Jodi’s defense attorney knew she could not argue that Jodi killed Travis over hypocrisy. “So, what would have forced Jodi? It was Travis’s continual abuse. And on June 4 of 2008, it had reached the point of no return and, sadly, Travis left Jodi no other option but to defend herself.” Willmott had finally gotten to her version of motive. “On that horrible day, Jodi believed that Travis was going to kill her. He threatened to kill her, and—given her experience with him—she had no reason to not believe him.”

  The final summary of the defense attorney’s thirty-five-minute-long remarks gave jurors a window into Jodi’s version of the killing itself. Willmott claimed it was Travis who had beckoned Jodi to Mesa and then, after arriving at Travis’ home at about 4 A.M. and sleeping until around noon the next afternoon, Jodi woke up with Travis, and they had sex.

  While both sides agreed they had sex, Willmott’s narrative couldn’t have been more different than what the prosecution laid out. Even the kind of sex they had was in dispute, with the defense alleging that bondage had played a role. “Travis always had wanted to tie Jodi up and he had done it before,” Willmott said. “He had tied her up with rope before but the rope he had used had really hurt her. So, this time he was prepared. . . . He had rope that was soft . . . and he was ready. And, so Travis tied Jodi up, tied her to the bed with this rope. He used a knife to cut the rope when it was at the appropriate length. They engaged in sexual activity.” Left unsaid, of course, was that this story also conveniently placed a knife at the scene.

  Jennifer Willmott then got to the part of the trial that she acknowledged would make most everyone cringe with embarrassment, but especially her client who dropped her head down and sighed because she clearly knew what was coming. Willmott explained that Travis was playing around with his new camera. “These are the photos Travis took of Jodi, very up close.” Indeed, the jury would see gynecologic photographs, tight shots of Jodi’s vagina and anus. In one Jodi is on all fours and he is aiming the camera at her from behind, very up close. Willmott was getting closer to the killing, but first she described how Jodi and Travis went downstairs and got on the computer. However, there was a problem, because Travis was not able to upload pictures.

  “Well, Travis’s temper flared and he took the CD and he threw it up against the wall in the den. Jodi went immediately into protective mode . . . ‘I’ll fix it, don’t worry about it.’ And, as she was telling him, she knew the one thing that calms his temper the quickest is sex . . . Travis grabbed her and spun her around. Afraid that he was going to hurt her, Jodi was actually relieved when all he did was bend her over the desk, pull her arm up behind her back, pull her pants down and have quick and rough vaginal sex with her, ejaculating all over her back. When Travis was finished, Jodi was allowed to go to the restroom.” Travis’s family, some with their arms folded, listened silently, their faces contorted with derision and frustration.

  Jodi’s attorney said the two then went upstairs and Travis, now sexually sated, became charming again, convincing Jodi to take some photographs of his newly buffed physique while he was naked in the shower. Willmott did not address how this claim directly contradicted what Jodi had told Detective Flores about Travis’s shyness over being photographed in the nude or her earlier insistence that it was her idea for him to pose in the shower because she had been inspired by a Calvin Klein ad. Willmott said Jodi began taking tasteful, waist-up photos of a dripping wet Travis. “She was snapping picture after picture after picture . . . These pictures are ultimately found and time stamped.” She went through the prosecution’s most powerful evidence, the photos taken during the killing itself, and tried to spin it. “The next picture is taken when Jodi accidentally drops Travis’s camera. You can see it’s not an intentional picture ’cause, one, it’s blurry and, two, it’s of the ceiling . . . Jodi accidentally drops Travis’s camera and as that camera was falling that was enough for Travis because he lunged at Jodi in anger, knocking her to the ground in the bathroom where there was a struggle. Jodi’s life was in danger . . . In just a minute, from this picture we go to the next picture, where it’s Travis’s body. He’s clearly injured already, in a minute. Now that very brief moment of time, a minute, is not the result of premeditation. It is not the result of a planned out attack.”

  With that prosecutor Martinez dove in calling, “Objection. Argument.”

  The judge refereed, “Sustained.”

  Willmott tried again. “The evidence will show it is not the result . . .”

  Martinez interrupted again. “Objection, argument.”

  The judge hit pause. “Counsel approach.”

  As the two sides argued at the judge’s bench, Jodi’s mother sat expressionless, whispering occasionally with her twin sister. Travis’s family huddled together. Tanisha, in particular, revealed her ang
uish through her body language, hanging her head, then looking up and staring at the courtroom, as if to ask: Who is on trial here? My brother? Soon, Willmott was back with a very short wrap-up. “In that one minute, had Jodi not chosen to defend herself, she would not be here. Thank you.”

  With that, opening statements were done. The war between truth and lies had begun.

  CHAPTER 16

  THE PROSECUTION

  The courtroom was pulsing with anticipation as Juan Martinez called his first witness. It was not lost on anyone that the prosecutor chose Mimi Hall as witness number one; after all, she was the woman that Jodi Arias probably considered her biggest rival at the time of Travis’s death. It had been Mimi who Travis had invited to Cancún instead of Jodi; Mimi was the one he had a crush on.

  As Mimi strode to the stand it was clear why Travis would have been attracted to her. With a slender build, tasteful clothes, good carriage, refined features, and curly brown hair, Mimi Hall had good looks and a classy demeanor. Mimi told the court that she had met Travis during a church service in early 2008. “I gave a talk, and he commented on how well I did.” The two went on three dates that couldn’t have been more G-rated and wholesome. First, they went to Barnes and Noble where they had some hot chocolate; next to a place to paint pottery; and finally for an afternoon of rock climbing in Tempe. After the third date, Mimi let Travis know she just wanted to be friends. “He understood and thanked me for telling him directly,” she recalled. “We continued to see each other at church and had a book and film club. A fun friendship.”

  “Did he ever berate, scream at you?” Martinez asked.

  “No,” was her instantaneous reply.

  In response to questions about sex before marriage in the Mormon faith, Mimi said it was a serious sin that could be punishable with excommunication. As far as she was concerned, Travis had been a perfect gentleman. “I felt very safe with Travis,” she explained. “An awkward hug goodnight was the extent of anything.” It couldn’t get more Mayberry than that.

  “How often did you and Travis speak? Did he ask you to go somewhere?”

  Mimi recalled that the two communicated virtually every day via text, phone, or email. “He invited me to go to Cancún,” she recounted. “When he first asked, I wanted to think about it. I knew he liked me more than I liked him. There were probably a couple of days between being asked and actually saying yes.” Mimi agreed to go to Cancún as a friend, because she would be rooming with another single female on the trip. Mimi said she and Travis had been in contact until the week before they were scheduled to leave for Mexico. Then, it just went silent. “I didn’t see him at church on Sunday, so I texted him. He didn’t respond. I began to get worried . . . I was scared something might have happened to him because he had a stalker.”

  Mimi went on to recount the night of Monday, June 9, 2008, when she went to Travis’s house to check on him because they were supposed to be leaving for Cancún together the following morning. She explained how she noticed there was a “real bad smell” inside Travis’s house, detailing the horrific moment when Travis’s roommate, who’d opened Travis’s bedroom door with a spare key, ran back out and said, “He’s dead.” Mimi also revealed that, at Travis’s memorial service a week later, the defendant had approached her, introduced herself, and commiserated with her over the tragic events.

  Martinez thanked Mimi for her cooperation and turned over the questioning to defense attorney Kirk Nurmi. Mimi was clearly a strong prosecution witness, but defense attorneys always try to use cross-examination of state witnesses to make their own points. Given that Mimi was born into the Mormon faith, the defense attorney’s point of focus was how her religion handles sex and sin. He wanted to expound on the LDS view of sex before marriage. He asked Mimi how a person could repent for a sin in the Mormon faith. Mimi said she didn’t know the process, as she had never known anyone who had gone through it. When asked about the seriousness of sex before marriage, she said it was the third most serious sin, after murder and adultery.

  “Can you describe what temple worthy means?”

  “Someone who has gone through a couple of interviews and repents when he makes a mistake. Serving in their calling.”

  When asked if Travis was temple worthy, Mimi said she didn’t know. “I assumed he was since he was an active member. He was also a priesthood holder.”

  Then, Nurmi asked several questions about Mimi’s decision to accompany Travis to Cancún. “Did he tell you he was dating Jodi Arias?” he asked.

  “No,” Mimi replied.

  “He told you he had a stalker?”

  “He didn’t say a name at all, but said she followed us on a date. I suggested he get a restraining order.”

  “You said you gave him advice about a restraining order. You said you were scared of this stalker?”

  “I’m scared of any stalker,” Mimi responded.

  “He never said Jodi Arias was his stalker?”

  “No,” Mimi said.

  On redirect, Martinez asked Mimi what Travis had told her about his stalker.

  “She slashed tires, sent emails, followed us on a date. She’d sneak into his house through the doggie door.”

  “Do you know whether he was temple worthy or a priesthood holder?” Martinez posed.

  “I think he told me he was not worthy to go to the temple. I actually remember him talking about how he used to work in the temple. He said he was no longer worthy to go. I didn’t ask why, that’s private . . .”

  The next witness was Sterling Williams, a patrol officer with the Mesa Police Department. In a familiar strategy, the prosecutor seemed to be alternating personal accounts with forensic and police testimony. Officer Williams had been summoned to Travis’s home on June 9, 2008. He described going directly upstairs upon his arrival that day, and leading fire personnel to the body. “They didn’t work on him,” he recalled. “They visually inspected him and were able to declare that he was deceased.”

  Officer Williams said the body was “crammed in the bottom of the shower stall” and appeared to have “a neck wound from ear to ear.” In a grisly aside, the officer said Travis’s “neck wound would bubble, gasses escaping from the body,”

  During the officer’s brief testimony, Martinez introduced three gruesome crime scene photos of the body that had been taken at the scene. Travis’s sister Tanisha immediately began to sob and leaned forward in her front row seat to avoid even a glimpse of the graphic photos displayed on monitors all over the courtroom. Other siblings silently cried and turned their heads away from the screens. The pictures depicted Travis’s nude body crumpled in the shower stall, clean of blood despite the gaping neck wound. At the sight of her handiwork, Jodi covered her nose and mouth with her hand. Occasionally, she dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. Many observers remained convinced that Jodi was faking her sobs, and in their coverage of the case, Dateline NBC even referred to being unable to spot actual tears. Prosecutor Martinez contended that Jodi had attempted to stage the scene, possibly to delay detection. When the defense had no questions for Officer Williams, the judge declared the proceedings officially over for day one.

  The prosecution’s case continued for eight more days. Day two was filled with the testimony of two law enforcement witnesses from the Mesa Police Department, Homicide Detective Esteban Flores and Heather Conner, a crime scene technician and latent fingerprint examiner. Flores, the lead investigator, was there to testify to the very lengthy phone call he had with Jodi on June 10, 2008, the very day after Travis’s body was found. He said Jodi had called the Mesa police department twice right after the news of Travis’s death broke, but he had not actually spoken with her until then. The entire call, just over thirty minutes long, was played for jurors, who could hear Jodi’s phony ignorance of Travis’s death. “I heard a lot of rumors, and that there was a lot of blood,” Jodi could be heard saying to Flores.

  During the call, Jodi appeared to pump Flores for information to see what the cops knew, and wher
e their investigation was headed. She asked about what had happened, but the detective couldn’t oblige. She denied she had even been with Travis, claiming she hadn’t seen him for months and hadn’t spoken to him for days. At one point, she sounded emotional when the detective told her that people were pointing the finger at her. “Gosh,” she had responded with feigned hurt and surprise.

  In addition, Jodi had countered by volunteering a false suspect, suggesting the detective should check out one of Travis’s former roommates, a guy Travis had kicked out, and even giving the cop his name. “He got kicked out because he was considered like borderline sexual predator, not like a rapist, but coming onto girls and it is just really looked down upon in the church.” She suggested this ex-roommate was big and dumb and “a little bit thuggish.”

  She told Flores she and Travis kept their relationship secret from people, and that she had moved to Mesa because of Travis and she had moved away because of him. When the detective had challenged her with a question about jealousy issues, she said both she and Travis were jealous and that he would send her “mean emails” when he got upset with her. Still, she expressed regret at not having been with him when he was attacked.

  For the detective’s cross-examination by the defense, Kirk Nurmi focused on things Jodi had said that bolstered her claim of being victimized by Travis. In particular, there was the French maid’s outfit, the “ropish material,” found at the scene, and emails that had already been put into evidence by the prosecution.

  He began with the French maid’s outfit. “Do you remember seeing an email where [Travis] provides [Jodi] a picture of the French maid’s outfit that he would like her to don while she cleans his home?” he posed.