Picture Perfect: The Jodi Arias Story: A Beautiful Photographer, Her Mormon Lover, and a Brutal Murder

by Hogan, Shanna

  She decided she needed to get away from Yreka. She told her parents she would soon be leaving town. Bill Arias was disturbed by his daughter’s latest revelation, and asked her what was the reason for her sudden move.

  “I can’t tell you what’s going on,” Jodi told her father. “All I know is I have to leave.”

  “Why?” Bill said.

  “I might get blamed for something,” she said.

  “What?” he pressed. “What could it be?”

  “I can’t tell you,” Jodi said.

  Jodi wouldn’t say anything more. She began packing boxes and making arrangements to move away. She told several people she was relocating to Monterey, California—where she would be in close proximity to two ex-boyfriends: Darryl Brewer and Matt McCartney.

  In late June she went to a nearby car rental agency and rented a 2007 Chevrolet Cobalt.

  On July 1, she also bought a gun—a 9mm.

  * * *

  By late June, detectives received cell phone and financial records for Travis Alexander and Jodi Arias.

  The phone records were valuable evidence. Using cell phone pinging technology to determine which cell towers the phone signal bounced off of, investigators would be able to approximate Travis and Jodi’s whereabouts during the week of the murder.

  Sorting through Travis’s records did not yield any surprises. During the last week of his life, he stayed in the East Valley—traveling between Mesa, Gilbert, and Apache Junction.

  His last phone call was on the afternoon of June 4. Each subsequent call went to voice mail. By the time his phone had been confiscated, the voice mail box was full. There were twenty-three messages, four that had been reviewed and saved, and nineteen that had gone unchecked.

  Jodi’s phone records, however, were much more interesting.

  The afternoon of June 2, cell records traced her six-hour drive from Yreka to Los Angeles. Late that night, calls began hitting off towers near San Francisco traveling south toward Monterey.

  The next day, June 3, at around 8 P.M., calls were placed around Los Angeles, near Santa Fe Springs. At 8:16 P.M. she made her first call to Travis Alexander that night. The call was short, lasting about five minutes. At 8:34 P.M. she called Travis once again.

  Shortly after, the calls stopped. For the next twenty-seven hours Jodi’s movements were impossible to trace. Her phone was turned off, and all the calls went straight to voice mail.

  The next call on her phone was made around 11:20 P.M. on June 4—the last day of Travis’s life. The signal bounced off a tower along the Interstate 93, about forty-five miles north of Kingman, a small Arizona city about two hundred miles northwest of Mesa. When she was twenty-seven miles south of the Nevada border, Jodi phoned Ryan Burns.

  Twenty-eight minutes later, at 11:48 P.M., she called Travis’s phone, speaking for 168 seconds. At 11:53 P.M. she called Travis once again, the connection lasting sixteen minutes.

  On June 5, starting at 12:37 P.M., the calls hit off towers near Las Vegas. By 11 A.M. the calls switch to a register off Salt Lake City, Utah. This was consistent with a path through Las Vegas en route to Salt Lake City, Utah. By June 6, Jodi’s phone was back in California.

  Jodi’s bank and credit card records were also unusual. The activity documented her many stops as she drove through California, beginning on the morning of June 2.

  At 10 A.M. she arrived in Monterey, where she made three cash deposits. Five hours later, at 3:22 P.M., she made a purchase at a Walmart in Monterey.

  The activity continued through Pasadena, where she made several purchases at a gas station around 8:30 P.M. All traceable purchases then ceased for more than twenty-four hours.

  The next purchase began on June 6 at 10:38 A.M. in Reno, Nevada.

  * * *

  On June 26, Flores received a call from the Mesa Fingerprint Identification section.

  “I was able to I.D. the bloody print on the bathroom wall,” the senior print analyst said. It was matched to the left palm print of Jodi Arias, the analyst confirmed. Further DNA testing would need to be completed to determine whose blood was on the wall.

  On July 3, the Mesa crime lab contacted Flores with results from the DNA typing. The bloody palm print was a mixture of DNA from two individuals. One was the victim, Travis Alexander; the other was Jodi Arias.

  The match was decisive—matching Jodi on all sixteen genetic markers.

  That same day, using DNA typing, the long hair found in the hallway, stuck to the wall with blood, was also identified as Jodi’s. Flores now had a solid case against her.

  On July 9, Jodi celebrated her twenty-eighth birthday—that same day a warrant was issued for her arrest.

  CHAPTER 28

  On the night of July 14, 2008, Jodi Arias was at her grandparents’ house packing her belongings in boxes and stuffing her clothes in suitcases.

  From his vantage point outside the residence, a detective from the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Department surreptitiously monitored her every move. He relayed the information to Mesa homicide detectives who were stationed at the local sheriff’s office in Yreka.

  “It looks like she may be attempting to flee,” the officer told Detective Flores on his cell phone. “I can see her through a bedroom window. She’s packing to go somewhere.”

  Earlier that day Flores, along with two other Mesa detectives, had flown to California to arrest Jodi Arias for the first-degree murder of Travis Alexander.

  Accompanying Flores was Tom Denning, a stout twenty-year veteran of the Mesa Police Department who wore a wide mustache that took up most of the width of his face.

  At 3 P.M. the Mesa investigators met with local detectives from the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Department to brief them on the case, obtain a search warrant, and formulate a plan to take Jodi into custody.

  After locating Jodi at her grandparents’, a local California officer was sent to survey the residence. Out front of the house at 352 Pine Street, parked in the driveway, was a 2007 Chevrolet Cobalt—Jodi’s rental car. The officer watched as Jodi periodically stepped outside the house to load the luggage into the back of the car.

  At 9:45 P.M. a car pulled into the driveway. Inside the vehicle was a woman the officer recognized from a driver’s license photo he viewed earlier at the station—Sandra Arias, Jodi’s mother. When Jodi saw the car from her bedroom widow, she stepped outside and got into the passenger seat. Moments later Jodi got out of the car and went back inside the house as Sandra drove away.

  The rest of the night the house was quiet. An officer continued to monitor the house until midnight with orders to arrest her if she attempted to leave. Meanwhile, with Jodi under surveillance, Mesa detectives convened at a nearby hotel to plan their next move.

  Upon arrival in Yreka, Flores discovered intriguing new evidence. On May 28—six days before the murder—Jodi’s grandparents had reported a burglary. Among the only items taken was a .25 automatic pistol—the same caliber weapon that had been used in Travis’s homicide.

  It was decided that the burglary would be used as an initial guise for the arrest. In order to alleviate the possibility of a potential stand-off, a Yreka police officer was recruited to contact Jodi under the pretense he was investigating the theft.

  At 6:30 A.M. the following morning, the detectives from Mesa and Yreka met out front of the residence. An officer rang the doorbell, Jodi answered.

  “Jodi Arias,” he said. “Can I speak with you for a moment?”

  When Jodi stepped onto the porch, she was placed under arrest. She calmly complied, placing her hands behind her back as the officer read her Miranda Rights.

  “Do you understand your rights as they’ve been read to you?” the officer asked.

  “Yes,” Jodi said, seemingly unfazed. She paused. “Is there any way I can get my purse so I can get my makeup?”

  The officers told her that would not be possible. Detective Flores placed Jodi in the back of a police cruiser and transferred her to the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s De
partment.

  * * *

  Once Jodi had been taken into custody, two search warrants were executed on both her grandparents’ and parents’ residences. The detectives started at the grandparents’ house.

  In the room where Jodi had been staying, they found several boxes scattered across the floor. Sergeant Mark Hilsenberg, of the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Department, sifted through the boxes while a crime scene investigator photographed the premises. Lean and lanky, with sharp features and graying hair, Hilsenberg served in the army as a light infantryman before joining the police department in California, where he had worked for more than a decade.

  Hilsenberg searched for guns, weapons, and anything else that could be related to the murder. Inside the boxes, he found clothes, books, and personal journals. Among the possessions were also two knives, which he seized to be tested.

  In the storage room, locked inside a gun cabinet, the detective discovered a box of ammunition marked for a Winchester .25 caliber. The box, however, contained ammunition for a .22 caliber weapon. Someone had filled the box with the wrong caliber bullets.

  Meanwhile, Detective Denning searched through miscellaneous paper documents for anything of evidentiary value. In one box, he located a receipt for a Hi-Point 9mm gun. By the July 1 date on the receipt, it appeared Jodi had purchased a weapon after the murder. She had taken possession of the gun on July 11, after a mandatory ten-day background check.

  Another significant item was a confirmation receipt from Budget in Redding, California. Jodi had rented a car from June 2 through June 7—dates consistent with her trip to Utah and Travis’s murder. There were also multiple receipts that documented her trip in California, Nevada, and Utah. The receipts would later be used to help fill in the gaps.

  Later, Denning would review the information on MapQuest. Jodi’s grandparents’ house in Yreka was more than a hundred miles away from Redding. Jodi would have had to drive 1 hour and 47 minutes to rent the vehicle. A simple search on the Internet showed there were numerous rental car facilities along the way, including one in Yreka itself.

  Did she go to another town in a planned attempt to avoid detection? Denning wondered.

  As Denning continued searching through the documents, Jodi’s grandfather Carlton Allen approached him.

  “You are wrong about Jodi,” he said in a gruff voice.

  Carlton insisted Jodi was working on the dates of the murder. He told detectives they needed to release Jodi immediately.

  Unruffled, Denning insisted, “We have probable cause to arrest her, sir.”

  “Once I prove she wasn’t even in Arizona, I demand you to release my granddaughter,” Carlton said.

  “Sir, we would not have traveled this far if we were not sure about our case,” the detective said.

  “Once I prove she was working in Yreka, you will let her go. We’re going to sue the Mesa Police Department.”

  Eventually, Carlton asked if he could leave the house to obtain proof. Denning told him he was not being detained and was free to come and go as he pleased.

  Jodi’s grandfather left, and Denning continued his search. Around 1 P.M. he had concluded the search of the house, and had moved on to the Chevrolet Cobalt parked in the driveway.

  While he was searching the vehicle, Carlton returned. He walked up to the detective and tried to hand him a sealed envelope.

  “Here. I have proof.” Carlton pushed it toward him. “After you look at this, you are going to let my granddaughter go.”

  Denning refused to take the envelope. “I applaud your efforts, sir. But I’m sure this would prove nothing.”

  Ripping open the envelope, Carlton unfolded three pages of photocopied records and displayed them in front of Denning’s face. The detective scanned the documents—they were records of Jodi’s payroll dates at the Purple Plum. Carlton flipped through the pages, which showed Jodi’s last day was May 31.

  Denning explained that it proved nothing for his cause. The victim had been murdered days later on June 4, he told Carlton.

  Carlton dropped his head. “I apologize. I was just trying to help my granddaughter.”

  “I respect your efforts,” Denning said. “I would probably do the same for a member of my family.”

  Meekly, Carlton stepped back inside the house. Denning continued his search of the car.

  “Luggage and other personal effects had been placed inside the vehicle prior to Jodi’s arrest,” Denning later recalled. “It was apparent Jodi was preparing to leave based on what was inside the vehicle.”

  Zipping open one of the suitcases, the detective discovered mostly clothing and personal items. Tucked inside was also a box of 9mm ammunition—bullets that could be used for the gun Jodi had recently purchased. In the car, however, no weapon was found. Because a 9mm had not been used in the murder, the bullets were not considered evidence.

  After completing the search of Jodi’s grandparents’ house, detectives transitioned to the residence where Jodi grew up, at 1021 South Oregon Street.

  The premises were secured and photographed. It was quickly apparent that Jodi had not lived in the house for years. Few of her personal effects were discovered. In one room, however, detectives did seize a box of .25 caliber ammunition.

  Also confiscated during the search of both houses were CDs and DVDs, two USB drives, three laptops, and a hard drive.

  The searches were all concluded by 1:40 P.M.

  * * *

  Weeks later, detectives would receive a call from Jodi’s mom, Sandra, inquiring about the 9 mm that Jodi had purchased. Sandra said she had reason to believe Jodi had hidden it somewhere inside the rented Chevrolet Cobalt. Somehow, detectives had missed it during the search of the car.

  Eventually, detectives would track down the rental car in San Francisco, where a Hertz rental employee had located the weapon while servicing the vehicle.

  Later, Detective Nathan Mendes would drive to Redding to speak with Raphael Colombo Jr., the owner of Budget car rental office. Tall and brawny with thick black hair, Mendes was a seasoned detective for the Major Crime Unit for the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Department.

  Mendes presented Colombo with a photo lineup of six petite young women with dark hair. Almost immediately Colombo pointed to the photo labeled number five—Jodi Arias.

  “Except she had blond hair,” Colombo told Mendes.

  Jodi returned the car a day late—on June 7. Upon inspection Colombo noticed that the floor mats in both the back and front were missing. He also discovered some mysterious stains in the backseat, which he cleaned.

  Mendes asked to see the vehicle and Colombo located it on the lot. He pointed out the faded stain in the middle of the backseat.

  “I’m sure it wasn’t there when she picked it up,” Colombo said. “I know my cars. I’m meticulous about my cars. When she brought it back there was a stain.”

  The car was towed to the state crime lab for testing.

  CHAPTER 29

  Jodi Arias sat at the edge of her chair, her gazed fixed on Detective Esteban Flores as he repeated her Miranda Rights.

  “You do have the right to remain silent,” Flores said slowly. “Anything you say may be used against you in a court of law.”

  Jodi was wearing a dark blue short-sleeved T-shirt and tight white pants. As she listened, she rested her elbows on the table in front of her.

  It was the evening of July 15, and Jodi was seated across from Flores in an interrogation room at the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Department. The small room was furnished with a round table, two small paintings, and table lamp. Mounted on the wall, a digital video camera recorded the interrogation.

  After Jodi waived her rights to an attorney, Flores, in his low, breathy voice, began by explaining some of the facts of the case. Many details of the investigation had not yet been released, he told her.

  “I believe you know some of these details and that you can help,” Flores said.

  “I would love to help you in any way that I
can,” Jodi said politely.

  For a third time, Jodi repeated the account of her whereabouts on June 4, using a manila folder to draw a map of her road trip through California and into Utah. Flores now confronted her with the gaps in her timeline.

  “I have a problem with this trip,” he said. “I’ve gone over and over it in my mind and on paper and there are still twenty-some odd hours unaccounted for.”

  “Did I tell you I got stranded?” Jodi interrupted, listing a litany of excuses for the holes in her story.

  But Flores was done playing games. The road trip made no sense, he said. “Do I believe you came to visit Travis? Yes. I truly believe it.”

  Again, Jodi attempted to explain away the inconsistencies, but Flores told her he wasn’t buying it.

  “See the confusion that we’re having?” he said, his tone more forceful. “Were you near Travis’s house on Wednesday?”

  “Absolutely not. I was nowhere near Mesa. I was nowhere near Phoenix,” she said, leaning toward Flores.

  “What if I could show you proof you were there?” He paused. “Would that change your mind?”

  “I wasn’t there.” Jodi shook her head.

  “Be honest with me, Jodi. You were at Travis’s house. You guys had a sexual encounter—of which there’s pictures,” he said. “And I know you know there are pictures, because I have them.”

  In an earlier conversation, Flores had told Jodi the memory card located inside the digital camera had been destroyed. Now, he revealed the truth—that the deleted images had been recovered. “I have pictures of you in Travis’s bedroom with Travis.”

  “Are you sure it’s me?” Jodi asked inquisitively. “Cause I was not there.”

  Flores persisted. “Why did you go to see Travis that day? And what did you do?”

  “I would never hurt Travis”—a phrase Jodi would repeat multiple times throughout the interrogation.

  “I know you took pictures in the shower right before he died.”

  “I don’t think he would allow that.” Jodi shook her head.

  Flores laid out the case for Jodi, writing down the evidence against her on the back of the file folder—the photos, Jodi’s hair in the bathroom, DNA on wall, and the bloody palm print. “You left a palm print at the scene in blood.”