Exposed: The Secret Life of Jodi Arias

by Velez-Mitchell, Jane

  Jodi spent the first few days of her testimony recounting her relationships with three previous boyfriends. She began with Bobby, her first boyfriend and the person she moved in with after she left home. For the most part, she talked about him fondly, remembering how he liked dressing in eighteenth-century Goth. And even as she went on to claim that he was occasionally abusive toward her, her demeanor remained flat. They ended the relationship “mostly because of housekeeping issues,” adding there was no lingering anger or obsessive feelings once they were no longer an item. While Bobby had managed to stay out of the trial vortex, never taking the witness stand, sources who had investigated Jodi’s time with Bobby described the end of their relationship very differently, hinting that, as she would later do with Travis, Jodi had remained obsessed with Bobby for a long time after their breakup and stalked him.

  Matt was another ex Jodi had once lived with. She was as cheerful walking through that relationship with Nurmi as she had been with Bobby. In fact, she was so soft-spoken that, at one point, Judge Stephens asked the jurors if they were all able to hear her. Concerning Matt, Jodi said he was kind, spiritual, and treated her well. Their relationship did include sex, but she loved him, so sex was only part of it. After about a year and eight months, when Jodi learned he was being unfaithful, she confronted him in person, and the relationship was over. The ending was not heated or violent. Rather, it was tearful and emotional, but it was over. Again, the other side was never told.

  Nurmi proceeded to ask Jodi about what happened next. She said she moved to Big Sur, where she met Darryl Brewer. The four years of their relationship had no evidence of violence or disrespect. Darryl, when he was on the stand just a few days earlier, had already corroborated everything Jodi revealed. On the stand now, Jodi confirmed that their main sticking point had come when she had found a new spiritual calling in the Mormon faith and had decided to be celibate until she found a marriage partner, a decision that by her own account did not last long. She also agreed that their breakup was remarkably simple and mature, despite their long history together. If one were looking for anger or resentment in Jodi’s body language about any of these men, it just wasn’t there. She openly and confidently answered Nurmi’s every question, no matter how titillating or embarrassing it might have been.

  Then came Travis. Because he was unable to speak for himself, Jodi was the only one in the relationship left to talk about what had gone on between them. Lots of prior witnesses had attested to certain things they had seen, or overheard, or discussed with one party or the other. However, they weren’t in the bedroom with them. Even if Travis were alive, he and Jodi may have defined the relationship completely differently, as in every classic he said, she said scenario. Here, however, there was only she said. Jodi’s version had little to no chance of being taken seriously because the prosecution had already established her as a profligate liar.

  On the other hand, the portrait of Travis seemed hard to believe as well. Until this point, he’d morphed from man into saint, which wasn’t realistic either, and the defense had the added obstacle of taking on Mormonism, morality, and hypocrisy as it tried to find a saleable story line in the torrid sexual landscape of Travis and Jodi. While the defense attorneys themselves may not have relished attacking the victim of such a brutal, angry murder, they had an obligation to defend their client. They knew Travis had been admonished by his church for losing his virginity outside marriage long before he had ever met Jodi. If there was to be any kind of meaningful defense, it had to build on the reasonable assumption that Travis was not absolutely chaste and pure of mind, while Jodi mercilessly cajoled him into the bedroom to fulfill her one-sided, insatiable sex drive. That scenario just wasn’t realistic, and the defense would emphasize this point in its attempt to represent Jodi as best it could.

  Of course, to those around Travis, the experience felt very different. To them, Jodi was slaughtering Travis twice, first by physically killing him, then by attacking his character in an equally vicious fashion, knowing full well that he was no longer there to defend himself.

  Nurmi took no time in getting Jodi to talk about when she met Travis for the first time at the Las Vegas convention, moving her swiftly along to when they first had oral sex, which she testified was exactly one date and about ten days later. Nurmi paused so Jodi could delve into every minor detail, not wanting her to broad brush it for the sake of the jurors, who had sworn they had no opinion on the case during its exposure in the press. Yes, Travis had come into a guest bedroom where she was sleeping; yes, they started to French kiss when she had been expecting conversation or at most, minor kissing; yes, he started taking off her clothes; yes, he was in his temple clothes, but they undressed him together; yes, the oral sex went both ways. Nurmi wanted Jodi to let the jury know why she had been so willing to jump into sex this quickly. As one of Travis’s friends pointed out, any born and bred Mormon girl who was asked for oral sex on a first date would have slapped the man in the face.

  Perhaps trying to sound like a reasonable person, Jodi took some responsibility, albeit in a rather backhanded way. She didn’t mind at all that he liked her sexually, and the way she described it, it would have been way more awkward to get out of it after a certain point of no return rather than just go with the moment, so to speak. They were two consenting adults, and even though it moved faster than she would have liked, she didn’t have the will or inclination to hold back. Even assuming it happened the way she said it did, questions still remained about what aspect of Jodi’s behavior had made Travis correctly conclude that she was the kind of girl who wouldn’t slap him.

  And so the testimony went, Jodi recalling incident after incident of sex between the two with a straight face, while the audience blushed and the jurors squirmed. The explicit nature of the sexual discourse went far beyond what even the most seasoned court veterans had expected. Jodi was very comfortable with Nurmi, so Jodi actually seemed more like an intern on a clinical assignment or an observer of sexual behavior rather than someone who had done the things she was talking about. Sometimes, she’d laugh, sometimes, she’d act more coyly, but she seemed to be dead serious. Her ability to recall detail was astonishing, unless, of course, she was making it up. After all, these episodes had happened years earlier, and she could even remember the kind of drink each of them ordered at a Starbucks on their second date, which, coincidentally, also ended in a one-way oral sex act on Travis. Jodi again said the feeling of attraction was mutual, but she was beginning to feel degraded.

  Prosecutor Juan Martinez sat stewing on the side, but without any seriously dramatic outbursts. He knew he would get his chance. He would occasionally feverishly write down a note on his legal pad or lean over to exchange a whisper with Detective Flores, who was sitting beside him at the prosecution table.

  Meanwhile, Jodi continued to follow Nurmi’s prompts, discussing the spiritual toll the sex was having on Travis and her. She talked about Travis giving her The Book of Mormon and her baptism into the faith a month later. She explained to the jurors what her interpretation of chastity was, especially when she relied on Travis to be her guide. Her recollection of a night of sex right after the baptism, including the first anal sex of the relationship, outraged the audiences in and out of the courtroom. Based on frequent media surveys done throughout the trial, the majority of people following the case considered this story and many of Jodi’s other sexual anecdotes to be a lie. Their opinion was that there was no way in hell Travis would do that on the very night he baptized her into his religion, no way in hell.

  Jodi had spent a week on the stand when, on Monday, February 11, the attack on Travis’s character was ratcheted up. If trial watchers thought the details of their sex life to date had been uncomfortable pornographic fabrications, the story she was about to relate was despicable. More awkward, Jodi’s father Bill Arias was in the gallery with her mother Sandy. He looked tired and beaten down and always had on his now-oversized outdoor jacket, appearing as though he was just ar
riving or just about to leave. He tended to lean away from Sandy, rather than lean close in, more of a posture of solidarity. Jodi’s younger brother Joseph was also present. The two were expected to be at the trial for the remainder of the week.

  The testimony began with Travis’s supposed Valentine’s Day gifts to Jodi soon after they became a couple in February 2007. One of the gifts, according to Jodi, was a package of boys’ Spiderman underwear, which were ill-fitting and tight. She said Travis told her she was “hot” in them and wanted her to wear them in the future for “sexual interaction,” the term Nurmi used. Next, Nurmi directed Jodi to a May 2007 between-the-sheets incident that Jodi claimed was their first vaginal intercourse.

  Jodi explained, “I wanted to stay with the Law of Chastity, felt our relationship would be blessed if we followed that.” Nurmi, followed up with a question, “When you went to sleep, were you dressed?”

  “Wore cotton shorts, pretty high,” Jodi answered.

  Nurmi had another follow up. “When you woke up, what was happening?”

  “He was in the act,” Jodi replied. “My first thought was uh-oh. Worried about spiritual consequences.”

  While there’s no doubt they ultimately did have sexual intercourse repeatedly, a lot of people suspected this particular incident never took place, at least not the way she described. Not only was Jodi slathering it on thick when it came to her own spirituality, but many questioned how Jodi could remain asleep during the process of having Travis remove her shorts and penetrating her vaginally. According to her testimony, when she became aware of what was happening, she got out from under him and performed oral sex on him. “He began to quicken his pace. I don’t know if I scooted out . . . He pushed my head under the covers.” And why did she go along with something that she was now painting as degrading? “I just wanted to follow through,” was her nonanswer answer. She said no words were ever spoken about it, as she lacked the “moral courage” to bring it up, adding that they still spent the rest of the weekend together.

  Jodi moved through their timeline together, their trips to Disneyland, Huntington Beach, the Sacred Grove, and Niagara Falls. The problem with Jodi was no one really knew where any of her lies began and where they ended. She added more sexual details than travelogue tidbits but, of course, that was the purpose of the testimony, to show Travis’s insatiable sexual appetite. She talked about them breaking up over the phone, because she had discovered that he was cheating on her, but they were still going on trips together.

  “Why, after you get back to California, are you still willing to put up with this?” Nurmi asked his client. Jodi said she was in denial, and that the sexual interactions made her feel loved. Nonetheless, according to Jodi, they broke up on June 29, 2007.After the breakup, Jodi moved to Mesa. She said Travis encouraged the move and had listed the positive attributes of living there. That, of course, was contrary to what Travis’s friends said outside court—that he “freaked out” when he learned she was moving to Mesa—but, for now, jurors were left with the impression that Travis actually wanted her to be nearby. Jodi explained that they continued a sexual relationship, but that it was essentially a secret life, with no signs of affection for each other in public. She needed money, and he hired her to clean his house. An indignant Nurmi displayed a drawing of a woman in a French maid’s outfit that Travis purportedly suggested via an email that Jodi wear while cleaning. Though she never wore such clothes, the defense strategy was to pile on as much questionable conduct by Travis as they could to prove that Jodi was his dirty little secret, and that he emotionally abused her.

  “When you were cleaning the house, working as his maid if you will, did he ever express desire to have sex with you while you were working for him?” Nurmi asked.

  “Occasionally.”

  “How did you feel about that? You’re at his house, and he wants to have sex with you.”

  “It wasn’t unpleasant . . . it made me feel good.”

  With Nurmi’s prompting, Jodi began a lengthy list of “wheres,” now that the two were finally able to have access to each other regularly, something that had not happened during the preofficial and official portions of the relationship. In addition to Travis’s house, the clandestine trysts took place in Jodi’s car or behind the bushes on the front porch of her house. Jodi testified that the porch scenario occurred more than once and was a sexual fantasy of Travis’s.

  “He wanted to drive up to the house,” she began, “it was a more private porch, stucco column, a big bush that created a shadow—it would occur at night—drive up to the home, have me come out of the house, me give him oral, he ejaculate on my face, and he would drive away.” She said they did this three times, and once, he dropped Toblerone candy on the grass beside her for a reward.

  No wonder her father never took off his coat, in case there was a chance to escape and avoid hearing more of his daughter’s kinky sexual history. Jodi even said on the stand how embarrassing these stories were to relate with her parents sitting in the front row. Nonetheless, that purported self-consciousness didn’t stop the sex narrative from continuing—sex on the freeway in Texas, sex here, sex there, anal sex, oral sex, vaginal sex, and finally, after a day with so much sex that even the most prudish were desensitized, Nurmi brought it all back home to the boys’ Spidey underwear and sex. This was where the story sank to a new low.

  On January 21, 2008, Jodi said, she’d gone into Travis’s room to retrieve a porcelain angel he had given her, and she’d caught him masturbating.

  “I got kind of embarrassed. Kind of awkward. I was headed toward the dresser. Trying to think of something funny or witty. He started grabbing at something, papers. One of them went sailing off his bed and landed faceup near my feet. A photograph.”

  “What was in the photograph?”

  “A picture of a little boy.”

  “How old?”

  “Five-ish, six.”

  “Was the boy dressed?”

  “In underwear, like briefs.”

  Jodi described being horrified, of running from the room feeling nauseous. Travis was calling her name, but she ran for her car. She got home and threw up in the bathroom. She discovered that Travis had left her three voice mails but she was so repulsed, she drove right to the temple center to try to collect her thoughts. Finally, she thought maybe she was actually saving little boys from Travis’s advances because of her willingness to wear boys’ underwear, that she was mitigating his sick obsession. Also, she thought Travis himself had been violated as a child, and this was his acting out. She might be the vessel that would swing his obsession away from children. With her as a pliant, flexible sex partner, he would be the normal, heterosexual man he wanted to be. When she was done with her story, much of it through weak attempts at tears, she admitted that she still didn’t want to end it with Travis because of the idea that she was saving him.

  With this testimony, Jodi certainly wasn’t saving herself. The backlash was immediate and ferocious from the public watching the trial on television. Jodi’s accusation that Travis had the tendencies of a pedophile made people furious with her, and they vented their rage by calling television and radio shows, and writing scathing posts online. It appeared that Jodi Arias had just surpassed Casey Anthony as America’s most hated female.

  What had begun as a critique of Travis’s character and proof of his involvement in their sexual relationship had metastasized into something far more grotesque. Like the suggestion that she had suffered abuse at the hands of her parents, this accusation had come out of nowhere. Never had she spoken about it in any of her previous interviews, and no evidence of child pornography had ever been found on any searches of Travis’s property, physical or digital. One news producer noted the theatricality of her story, how a photo flew through the air and just happened to land faceup at her feet—just one of many convenient occurrences in Jodi’s lies. There was little believable about her tale; yet the fact that she had the audacity to tell it spoke volumes. To hear such a
n extreme story from a source with so little credibility displayed an arrogance and a boldness that was disturbing. This was a woman who would apparently say anything about Travis, go to any lengths, in her quest for freedom. It was hard not to hear these extreme allegations about Travis without replaying Jodi’s famous words to the media: “No jury will convict me.” The same brand of assuredness that had led her to proclaim her future freedom meant she would stop at nothing in her search for vindication.

  The courtroom gallery was aghast and incredulous, although the jurors, true to their oath, showed no particular reaction. Nobody but Jodi was crying. Travis’s sisters, in their front row seats, shook their heads in disbelief, their expressions revealing their disgust over what the defense was doing to their dead brother’s reputation. By the time the day ended, with Jodi testifying that Travis physically abused her by kicking her in the ribs and breaking her left ring finger, the sentiment against Jodi had coalesced. From that moment forward she would be universally despised.

  CHAPTER 19

  THE SEX TAPE

  In the aftermath of Jodi’s outrageous allegations of pedophilia, few thought that the defense would be able to top itself. As it turned out, Nurmi and Willmott were just getting warmed up.

  The following day included a highly anticipated piece of evidence, salacious fodder for the trial junkies. There had been a lot of buzz about the recording that Jodi had made of Travis and her engaging in phone sex, and this was the day that the tape was finally going to be played. Judge Stephens spent quite a bit of time telling the gallery audience that the testimony they were going to hear was going to be more sensitive and sexually explicit than usual, and that any spectator in the gallery could raise his hand and excuse himself now, before proceedings got under way, if he thought this was something he would not be able to handle. Not a single hand went up.