Over the next few days several of Travis’s siblings traveled to Mesa to search for answers and to make his final arrangements.
Travis’s older brothers, Greg and Gary, were the first to arrive and to speak directly with detectives. Although they asked many questions, they were given few answers. To avoid compromising the investigation, detectives kept many of the details quiet.
Both Greg and Gary told investigators they hadn’t been close with Travis since he moved to Mesa and had no idea who could have done this to him.
The day following the discovery of the body, Hillary and Samantha also arrived in Mesa, along with Travis’s best friend, Deanna Reid. They, too, were told little. With no clues and scant information, all they could do was pray.
Over the next few days, Greg expressed his disbelief at the loss on a memorial Web page established for Travis.
“Travis, little brother this is so hard to accept,” Greg wrote on June 12. “Who would ever hurt you? I love you, and I promise I will never rest until I see justice. I love you.”
* * *
Stepping inside the house on East Queensborough Avenue was eerie for Travis’s family.
By June 13, police tape no longer cordoned off the house. Homicide detectives had completed the search, confiscating much of the personal property deemed evidence. Still, to the family it was impossible to forget that this had once been a crime scene—that it was where their brother had died.
It was strange how much of it appeared normal, just as Travis had left it. Food in the refrigerator had only just begun to spoil. It felt like Travis had gone on vacation, as if he would come through the front door at any moment.
As the siblings traveled deeper inside the house, however, they discovered the remnants of the investigation. In the den, the computer cords sat at the edge of the desk next to a faint outline in dust where Travis’s laptop had been. Upstairs in the hallway was a large rectangular hole in the wall, where a piece of the drywall had been removed.
A section of blood-stained carpet had been cut from the master bedroom. In the bathroom, light pink streaks marred the white floor trim where areas were tested for blood. Black fingerprint dust smeared the doors.
Although a crime-scene clean-up team had been brought in to scrub the blood from the bedroom and bathroom, no amount of cleanser could erase all traces of the murder.
For the next few days the family inventoried their brother’s belongings. Sorting through his possessions was emotionally draining. The house was filled with memories of Travis—his journals, his books, his furniture, his clothes.
In the den, they discovered a quote printed out and pinned to the wall. It read: “The difference between a stumbling block and a stepping stone is the character of the individual walking the path.”
It was so like Travis to keep inspirational reminders to battle through life’s difficulties. At a time like this it helped to remember Travis’s character.
While in town making arrangements for the funeral, Travis’s sister Hillary Wilcox visited the Mesa Arizona Temple. She sat in the Celestial Room, a space in the temple where individuals pray, meditate, and converse with God. In most temples, celestial rooms were elegant, beautiful, and brighter in decor than other rooms.
After an hour sitting in the room, Hillary became lost in thought. Suddenly, she was struck with an overwhelming sense of peace. She felt Travis’s presence—in her mind she could see him in heaven. She knew he was where he needed to be.
“I was gazing and I totally saw my brother with that big cheesy smile just as happy as can be,” Hillary said. “I know that he’s there and I know he’s so happy. I know this is true and we will see him again one day.”
* * *
In the days following the discovery of Travis’s body, Jodi contacted several of their mutual friends, inquiring about the details of the homicide. Among the people she spoke with was Travis’s bishop.
Jodi had been convinced that Travis had found the woman he wanted to marry, but the bishop said it hadn’t worked out with Mimi.
“Mimi wasn’t interested in Travis,” the bishop told her.
Jodi seemed surprised. In her mind Travis was moving toward marriage.
“It was the bishop who told me that she essentially turned him down,” Jodi later told detectives. “I didn’t know that Mimi didn’t feel that way.”
Jodi confessed to the bishop her ongoing sexual relationship with Travis. As he explained the process of repentance, Jodi asked an unusual question.
“Should I tell Mimi that Travis and I were sleeping together?” she asked.
“No.” The bishop shook his head. “Nothing good would come of that.”
To several of Travis’s closest friends, Jodi confessed the true nature of their sexual relationship. Following his death, it seemed as if she wanted people to know that Travis wasn’t the devout Mormon he presented himself to be.
While seemingly in the throes of grief, life generally went on as normal for Jodi. She worked her job, spent time with her friends and siblings, and made plans for future trips.
And she continued to develop her budding relationship with Ryan Burns. Over the next few weeks they continued to speak nearly every day and exchange e-mails. During many of their conversations Jodi talked about Travis and the investigation into his murder. Mostly, however, they discussed their new relationship.
In one conversation, Jodi brought up their sexual encounter in Utah and why it hadn’t progressed further.
“I didn’t want you to regret anything that happened,” Ryan told her.
Jodi complimented him on his restraint.
“I’m a big girl,” Jodi said. “You don’t have to protect my feelings.”
* * *
In the days following the discovery of Travis’s body, suspicions about Jodi swelled. Those closest to Travis, who had witnessed some of the more bizarre encounters between the couple, were all but certain that Jodi was the killer.
Others who had befriended Jodi throughout the time she lived in Mesa believed it was impossible. A tension formed between Travis’s groups of friends.
As the whispers grew louder, several people mentioned to Jodi what people were saying. She became increasingly aware she was being identified as a murder suspect. Later, she told her mom and dad she was worried—but not because she had anything to do with the crime. Jodi was bothered her name was being sullied.
“I told them that a lot of people were dropping my name. And I said I’m not worried about it because I didn’t do it but it’s hurting my reputation,” Jodi later told detectives. “It’s casting me in a bad light.”
When Sandra Arias heard her daughter’s name was being tied to a murder investigation, she grew concerned. Jodi had been desperately in love with her ex-boyfriend and, on the day of the murder, she had been out of town. Sandra knew her daughter had mental issues, but it seemed unfathomable she would resort to murder.
“Did you go to Arizona?” Sandra asked Jodi.
“No. I was nowhere near Arizona,” Jodi insisted. “I have gas receipts and everything to prove it.”
* * *
Intertwined with questions about who had taken Travis’s life, his friends endured a wide range of emotions. Each of his loved ones seemed to handle the loss differently.
Some delved further into their faith, believing Travis was with God. Others found it difficult to see how this could be part of God’s plan.
For Taylor Searle, it was a struggle to find meaning in something so heinous. If everything happens for a reason, what could the reason be for this?
Travis had given so much of himself to others, impacted so many lives. But he hadn’t been done with his mission—there was so much more he wanted to accomplish. It was heart-wrenching to know he wouldn’t have the opportunity to fulfill many of his life goals.
“He really wanted to be a force in the world for good. He had that dream, he believed it, and I thought he really could have accomplished it,” Taylor said years later
. “Now he’s gone. When I think of things from a divine perspective, like if he was put on this earth for a reason, then that totally sucks that the world just got robbed of such a great person.”
Taylor didn’t want his friend to be forgotten, his memory to be tarnished. He wanted to find some way to keep Travis’s memory alive. Shortly after the murder Taylor began moderating a Facebook group called In Memory of Travis Alexander.
It started as a way for his friends and family to share memories and photographs and keep up-to-date about funeral arrangements. It would grow to become much more.
Initially, Sky Hughes felt a sense of regret about Travis’s death. In the days and weeks before the murder, she knew he had been upset about things going on in his life—especially with his breakups with Lisa and Mimi. Sky lamented the fact that she hadn’t done more.
“He had been really down and stuff had been really bothering him,” Sky recalled. “I didn’t know the extent of it, but I felt like I should have just gone and picked him up and brought him to my house, where he would have been safe.”
Later, the regret would be replaced with a hole in her heart that could never be filled.
“There was just such a huge void when Travis died,” Sky said. “Travis was one-of-a-kind. There’s no one like him. With everyone in his life that he left there was such a big void because he was such a big personality and impossible to replace.”
CHAPTER 23
What remained of Travis Alexander was deposited on a cold aluminum table in the Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s Office. A high beam of light above him, the body was prone, chest protruding forward, propped on a body block.
It was 9:30 A.M. on June 12, 2008, and Travis had been dead for more than a week. For the past day and a half, his remains had been sealed in a body bag and stored inside a morgue refrigerator awaiting the autopsy, which is required after any suspicious death.
From the observation bay, separated by glass, Detective Flores, along with another detective, observed as forensic technicians swabbed Travis’s flesh, clipped his fingernails, plucked his hair, and drew blood. The samples were collected and bagged for DNA testing.
Another forensic technician photographed the body, while the medical examiner, Dr. Kevin Horn, began the autopsy. Tall and powerfully built, with blue eyes, carefully coifed brown hair, and a neatly trimmed beard, Horn was a graduate of the University of Maryland. Since 2001, he had been working with the Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s Office, during which time he had performed more than six thousand autopsies.
Wearing blue latex gloves and a long white coat, Dr. Horn began by inspecting the condition of the body. The cadaver was veined by a motley of pink and purple discoloration. Flesh appeared waxy as the skin had begun to slip away from the muscle. The stomach was severely distended—the result of gas formation following death.
Travis’s face looked emaciated, the withered lips pulled back, exposing the upper teeth. The eyelids were black and swollen.
Passing the ultraviolet light over the torso, Dr. Horn counted each gash. There were four lacerations to the upper torso—including one in the center of the chest and three to the belly. Studying the depth of each puncture wound, Horn determined the murder weapon was a single-edge blade, at least five inches in length.
One of the cuts had pierced Travis’s pectoral muscle below his right nipple; another on his abdomen was six inches in length. The wound to the center of Travis’s chest penetrated at a straight angle, plunging more than three inches through the rib cage. It would have bled considerably, and without immediate medical attention would have been fatal.
Near the top of Travis’s head was a small cut. To the back, left side of the neck was another gash about an inch in length.
There were two large slices—each about two inches long—across the top and back of Travis’s head. Horn would later shave portions of the scalp to get a better look. The cuts were so deep they had chipped away at the bone of his skull, leaving two small divots. Because the scalp wounds had bleeding associated with them, Horn determined they likely occurred before death.
To further document the internal injuries, Horn X-rayed the body, revealing a small bullet lodged in Travis’s cheek. Horn leaned close to the body to inspect the wound. On Travis’s forehead, directly above the right brow, was a small, round puncture, previously masked by discoloration.
On the X-ray, Horn traced the trajectory of the bullet. It had entered above the brow, ripping downward through Travis’s face, coming to rest in his cheekbone. Examining the wound, Horn found no soot or gunshot residue, which would be present if the gun had been fired in close proximity to the victim. Because of the lack of stifling it was determined to have been fired at least three feet away.
Horn cut away the flesh of the left cheek and, using a metal protractor, fished inside the gash to retrieve the bullet. He dropped it in a metal tray where it fell with a dull thud.
The bullet was small caliber. Based on the location of the wound, Horn would later determine the bullet had passed through the right frontal lobe of the brain. A potentially fatal wound, it would have caused rapid incapacitation and eventual death, according to Horn.
Later, Horn would examine the brain. Due to decomposition, however, the brain had softened and begun to liquefy. Because no hemorrhaging was visible, it was impossible to determine if the bullet had been fired when Travis was alive, or after he had died.
The most significant injury was the gash to the throat. The tissue around the wound had dried and retracted. Horn lifted Travis’s head and measured the wound, which was six inches across. Slashing three to four inches deep, to the back of the spine, the knife had severed the airway and windpipe below the larynx and voice box.
“The jugular vein and corroded artery were both cut,” Horn later said. “It goes all the way back to the soft tissue at the front of the neck and stops at the bone.”
It was a deadly wound, causing almost immediate death by exsanguination.
Next, Horn examined Travis’s hands. The palms were purple and red, the fingernails black. The ridges of the hands were stained with blood. The left hand was the darkest in color, where the blood had pooled in the palm. Both hands appeared skeletal, the fingertips moss green from decay.
Five wounds marred Travis’s hands. Horn recognized the injuries immediately as defensive wounds—those that occur when a victim attempts to protect themselves during an attack. Most were on Travis’s left hand, which is typical if the attacker is holding the weapon in the right hand.
During the attack, a chunk of Travis’s right thumbnail had been lopped off. The knife split the webbing between his thumb and index finger. The deepest wound was nearly two inches on the palm of his left hand. Because of the hemorrhaging associated with the injury, it was clear the cuts occurred before death.
Horn then turned his attention toward the lower part of Travis’s body. The legs had begun to dry and shrivel, showing early signs of mummification. The shins were bruised and legs were scraped. There was tearing of the skin on the back of the ankles, consistent with being dragged.
Propping the body on its front, Horn inspected Travis’s backside, which was magenta and purple, due to lividity when the blood settled to the lowest part of the body.
Clustered together on the upper back between the shoulder blades were nine puncture wounds, which were shallower than those on the front of the torso. Whatever force was applied had not been significant enough to cut through the bones.
Starting at the top of each shoulder and meeting at the breast bone, Horn made a Y-shaped incision across Travis’s chest with his scalpel. Cutting away the soft tissue with the blade, he pulled back the skin and muscle, exposing the rib cage. Using cutters, Horn sheared through each side of Travis’s rib cage, and set the chest plate aside, exposing the organs.
Horn removed each organ—weighing and measuring the stomach, liver, and lungs. Next, he carefully made an incision to the pericardial sac to examine the heart. There
was a small cut to the superior vena cava, the large vein that receives blood from the head, arms, and chest, and empties into the right atrium of the heart. The puncture in the center of Travis’s chest had also pierced his heart.
Horn would later determine that three of Travis’s injuries would have been fatal—the slashing of the throat, stab to the chest, and bullet to the brain.
“The one to the chest had not caused immediate death,” Horn said. “The throat and the head would have been immediately incapacitating.”
Travis had died primarily from rapid blood loss. His death would have been excruciating.
Around 11:30 A.M. Dr. Horn completed the autopsy. He filled out the death certificate: Travis Victor Alexander, white male, 5'9", 190 pounds. Dead at the age of thirty. The manner of death: homicide.
In life, Travis’s Mormon faith had been unwavering. If his beliefs were indeed true, Travis’s spirit was far away from this grim pathology office. When his heart stopped beating he would have sloughed off his physical body and returned to the spiritual state.
His friends and family would take comfort in the knowledge that he was in a better place.
If Travis was anywhere but here, he was in a better place.
CHAPTER 24
The caller was anonymous, the message was short. It was a female voice and she claimed to have information about the death of Travis Alexander.
“Police need to investigate a person named Dustin Thompson,” the woman said. “He may have information regarding Travis Alexander’s murder.”
The tip came into the Apache Junction Police Department from a local cell phone number two days after Travis’s body was discovered. That same day Flores got the tip. Tracing the cellular phone number, he determined it belonged to a man named Dustin Thompson, a friend of Travis’s.
Flores reviewed the records on Dustin. They showed he was married to a woman named Ashley Thompson, who was employed at a Dillard’s Department Store distribution center in Gilbert.
At 3:30 P.M. the next day—June 12—following observation of the autopsy, Flores and Detective Domenick Kaufman met with Ashley at the department store.
Picture Perfect: The Jodi Arias Story: A Beautiful Photographer, Her Mormon Lover, and a Brutal Murder Page 21