During one of their visits, Dr. Samuels and Kirk Nurmi confronted Jodi and encouraged her to reveal the truth. And for the first time in two years, Jodi admitted her involvement in the crime.
“I lied,” she said through tears.
Over the next few visits, Jodi began presenting a new version of her relationship with Travis, claiming Travis was physically and sexually abusive. On the day of the murder, he attacked her, throwing her to the ground. Jodi picked up a gun and shot Travis in self-defense, she said. After that, she said her memories were a blank.
Jodi claimed she had kept it all secret because she still loved Travis and wanted to protect his reputation.
With this new story, Nurmi and Washington began building a new case based on her claims of self-defense. But the attorneys also faced a problem. In Jodi’s multiple media interviews she had claimed an entirely different account of the crime. These statements would most certainly be used to discredit her in court.
If Jodi was to be believed, her attorneys needed proof. Fortunately for her defense, evidence was about to be delivered.
* * *
In the summer of 2010, Kirk Nurmi received an anonymous e-mail. Attached were electronic copies of handwritten letters, dated between November 27, 2006, and May 27, 2008.
The letters were a series of dark confessions, revealing disturbing acts of pedophilia and sexual deviance. They were signed Travis Alexander.
Seemingly authored by Travis, the letters were correspondence he had with Jodi throughout their relationship. In one, Travis asked Jodi to wear “boy’s briefs,” that he could “rip off,” and requested her to perform oral sex on him while he wore one of his shirts with engraved cuff links so he could see his initials.
In another, dated March 2, 2008, Travis admitted to hitting Jodi, “in the face,” and claimed that marrying her would help erase his “deviant” thoughts.
These mysterious letters were peculiar. Throughout Jodi’s life, it seemed anonymous strangers were constantly coming to her rescue. If her boyfriend was cheating, someone always delivered a warning. When Travis wouldn’t commit, a stalker’s e-mail convinced him otherwise. Now, with her life hanging in the balance, evidence appeared out of nowhere to help prove her case.
At first, Jodi’s attorneys were excited by the letters, believing they backed up Jodi’s claims of abuse. In 2010, Nurmi submitted the letters to the court to be reviewed by experts, who would determine if they could be used as evidence during Jodi’s trial.
Meanwhile, Jodi’s attorneys urged her to cut a deal. If she would admit to second-degree murder, she could get out in a few years. Perhaps she would still be young enough to marry and start a family.
Jodi agreed to negotiate a plea, and on October 26, 2010, Nurmi and Washington submitted a plea proposal for second-degree murder.
When Juan Martinez saw the documents, he balked. His case for premeditated, first-degree murder was overwhelmingly strong.
Martinez didn’t even bother to respond.
CHAPTER 35
Jodi gripped the microphone stand with both hands and closed her eyes. Her long brown hair was parted down the middle, and she wore a pink thermal under her baggy prison stripes.
“O Holy Night! The stars are brightly shining,” she sang in an almost angelic voice. “It is the night of the dear Savior’s birth.”
It was December 2010, and while families everywhere were celebrating the holidays, Jodi was performing this Christmas carol behind bars. Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a man notorious for media stunts, had organized a unique holiday celebration—a jail-wide prison caroling contest.
Contestants—held on charges ranging from burglary and DUI to rape and murder—participated in the singing contest. Along with Arpaio, the inmates were judged by detention officers dressed as Santa Claus.
Competing against fifty other inmates, Jodi won the top prize. That Christmas, she was awarded with a special turkey dinner and a stocking full of presents.
* * *
In July 2011, Jodi’s attorneys made another plea offer for second-degree murder. This time her attorneys pressed for a plea, citing the “collateral damage” that would impact Travis’s friends and family if the true nature of his relationship with Jodi was revealed.
A trial would reveal that Travis exhibited “extremely demeaning, degrading, and abusive behavior,” the plea read. Evidence including Travis’s texts, e-mails, and voice mails would “paint a tawdry picture not of a choir boy steadfastly practicing his faith, but of a playboy expert manipulator and sexual deviant.”
“Mr. Alexander carried on numerous relationships that while in and of themselves are really not a big deal,” Nurmi wrote in the plea. “However, when you consider them in the context of all parties’ relationship and affiliation with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, they become a very big deal.”
If the case went to trial, and details of Travis’s secret life were revealed, it would cause further pain.
“Personal friendships would be affected, and most of all very poignant and cherished memories of Mr. Alexander would be tarnished,” Nurmi wrote. “The relationship was chaotic and unhealthy to say the least.”
By this point, Jodi was unconcerned about the death penalty. If the jury knew the details of her relationship with Travis, she felt there was little chance she would be executed. If she lost at trial, the most severe sanction she would likely receive was life without parole. Due to this Jodi had no incentive to plead to anything but second-degree murder, Nurmi insisted.
“Ms. Arias is willing to resolve this case,” Nurmi wrote, “because she has grave regrets for the falsehoods she told the media after Mr. Alexander’s death and how such falsehoods might have caused the family even more pain.”
Martinez consulted with Travis’s family, but his siblings wanted no part of it. Again, Martinez rejected the offer.
* * *
By the summer of 2011, Jodi and her attorneys were at an impasse. The trial date was fast approaching, but there was a problem.
The “pedophile letters” had been analyzed by handwriting experts who concluded they were forgeries. Someone had used Travis’s writing to create the messages. It appeared as if samples of his writing, possibly taken from his journals, was later cut up and used to create the letters.
In addition, these letters were copies. The originals could not be produced, Jodi claimed, because they had been destroyed.
But Jodi said she had someone who could back up her claims. During her relationship with Travis, Jodi said she had shown them to her ex-boyfriend Matt McCartney.
A few days later, Jodi’s attorneys interviewed Matt McCartney about the letters, and he claimed he could verify the originals.
* * *
In August 2011, Juan Martinez was visiting the Estrella Jail for a deposition when he noticed Jodi in the visitors’ area meeting with a large, middle-aged woman.
As Juan waited for a prisoner he planned to interview to be brought out from lockdown, Jodi handed something to one of the guards to be passed to the woman. It was two magazines—a Digital Photo Pro and an issue of Star, which featured a cover story about Casey Anthony, who had been arrested for the murder of her two-year-old daughter, Caylee. Ironically, throughout Jodi’s trial, she would often be compared to the Florida woman, who seemed to exhibit similarly erratic behavior after her daughter’s death.
The guard flipped through the magazines and seeing nothing out of order, was about to hand them to Donavan Bering’s friend, Ann Campbell.
But something about the magazines raised Martinez’s suspicions.
What could be the possible point of providing magazines to someone on the outside? he thought. Jodi is up to something.
Martinez intercepted the magazines, asking the guards to hold them. He called his legal assistant and asked him to get a warrant.
When Ann realized the magazines were being confiscated, she left the visitors’ area. An hour later, Martinez had seized the magazines. Flipp
ing through the pages, at first he didn’t notice anything peculiar.
Then, on one of the pages he noticed the faintest of writing. Printed neatly in pencil near the binding on page 20 of the photography magazine were the words, “You testify so.”
Martinez flipped through the pages carefully examining every inch of the page, while writing down what he found.
On page 37 were the words, “We can fix this”; on 40, “Directly contradicts what I’ve been saying for over a year.”
The messages made no sense. They were written in some sort of code.
Back at his office, Martinez and his legal assistant pored over the magazines trying to decipher the code.
That’s when Martinez noticed a series of numbers. In the Star, at the bottom of one page was the following set of numbers: 43, 40, 56, 20, 37, 54. Each number corresponded to a page from the photography magazine that contained part of the message.
Once deciphered and strung together, the entire message read, “You fucked up. What you told my attorney the next day directly contradicts what I’ve been saying for over a year. Get down here A.S.A.P. See me before you talk to them again and before you testify so we can fix this. Interview was excellent! Must talk A.S.A.P.!”
This was incredibly damming for Jodi’s case. From jail it appeared she was soliciting false testimony.
It didn’t take much detective work for Martinez to figure out the intended recipient. Just days earlier Matt McCartney had spoken with Jodi’s attorneys about verifying the letters mysteriously submitted to the defense.
From the messages, it seemed Matt had failed in backing up Jodi’s claims.
* * *
Matt never acted on Jodi’s suggestion that he see her before talking with her attorneys, and in fact never testified in court. Shortly after the incident, and based on expert testimony, the judge ruled the letters would be inadmissible in court. When Jodi’s attorneys informed her that experts had ruled the letters forgeries, Jodi was incredulous. The letters were her only “proof” of Travis’s true character, and were necessary to her defense.
On August 8, 2011, on the eve of her trial for first-degree murder, Jodi sat at the wooden defense table. Beside her at the table were her public defenders Victoria Washington and Kirk Nurmi. With her hands neatly folded in her lap, Jodi stared straight ahead.
When the time had come, Jodi stood to address the judge.
“Your honor,” she said. “I’d like to represent myself.”
The judge gave her an inquiring look.
“Ms. Arias, do you have any experience?” Judge Stephens asked.
“No,” Jodi said meekly.
“Do you have a law license?”
“No.”
“Have you even read the statute you’re accused of?” the judge asked.
“No,” Jodi replied.
The judge explained the complexities of the legal system and informed Jodi that she would face a severe disadvantage in choosing to represent herself. Jodi acknowledged these difficulties but told the judge she wanted to proceed.
Stephens granted the request, but did not allow her to fire her attorneys completely. Nurmi and Washington were to remain as advisory counsel and be ready to step back in as her attorneys if needed.
Jodi, the high school dropout, would go up against Juan Martinez, a prosecutor with a reputation for going straight for the jugular. It would be a battle for her life.
Although the trial was scheduled to begin August 9, 2011, Jodi’s legal maneuver caused another lengthy delay.
Jodi seemed determined to get the letters admitted into evidence. With the assistance of her attorneys, Jodi filed several motions. The prosecutor immediately countered with motions of his own to preclude the letters as evidence, pointing out Jodi’s documented history of lying.
“Defendant had previously attributed the crime to intruders. She now argues that all of the letters must be admitted to support her domestic violence defense,” Martinez wrote in a motion.
The judge ruled against Jodi, barring the letters from being admitted during her trial. Less than a week later, on August 15, Jodi was back in court.
Only now, she wanted to reverse her previous request. She told the judge she realized she was not qualified to represent herself.
“I’m over my head,” she admitted.
Stephens reinstated her defense counsel.
* * *
Following Jodi’s brash courtroom move her relationship with Nurmi and Washington became acrimonious. On many of their legal decisions Jodi openly expressed her dissension. Her defense came to believe Jodi was a difficult client.
On December 16, 2011, Victoria Washington filed a motion to withdraw from the case, which was granted six days later.
Nurmi also attempted to withdraw from the case multiple times, citing in several motions that he had opened a private practice. However, it was too close to the trial date to completely replace Jodi’s entire defense team and his motions were all denied.
Washington was replaced—postponing the trial once again. In January 2012, a new attorney was assigned to assist in representing Jodi.
In her early forties, Jennifer Willmott was pretty, with shoulder-length brown hair and a round face framed with heavy bangs and thick-framed glasses. In court she wore designer suits and high heels, which added an extra few inches to her petite frame.
Willmott received her undergraduate degree from the University of Arizona in 1992. Three years later she graduated from the Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. After finishing law school, she joined the Maricopa County Office of the Public Defender. As a trial attorney, she defended thousands of cases ranging from misdemeanor DUI charges to homicides.
Willmott was a smart, capable attorney—a necessary complement to Nurmi’s somewhat relaxed style.
With her new attorney came a new twist to Jodi’s defense. Once it became clear that the letters would not be submitted in court, Jodi’s attorneys began submitting motions claiming Travis “became angry when she dropped his camera” and she was forced to kill him in self-defense, according to court records.
* * *
By the summer of 2012, it had been four years since the murder of Travis Alexander. For those who loved him, the pain of his loss was still overwhelming. His friends and family spoke of him constantly. Many also kept memories alive on a Facebook page dedicated to his memory, which by then had amassed more than a thousand friends.
“Travis, you will be missed as a leader, a mentor, a teacher and one who lead and inspired many,” wrote a friend. “We will keep your memory alive in hearts, minds and by our actions. May you now enjoy the blessings promised by our Savior. Until we meet again.”
“You have truly touched more lives than one could ever count,” wrote another. “You have a more important work to do now and will be missed.”
Travis’s family found some comfort in knowing how much he was truly loved and how many people were touched by his story.
* * *
On December 14, 2012, the Alexander family suffered another tragic loss. Shortly before the trial was scheduled to begin, Travis’s beloved grandmother Norma Sarvey passed away at the age of eighty. Norma was laid to rest alongside the murdered grandson she had raised at the Olivewood Memorial Park in Riverside.
As they grieved for both their grandmother and brother, Travis’s siblings prepared for their chance at long-awaited justice.
By the end of 2012, when it appeared the trial date was near, they rented a house in Phoenix. Travis’s sisters, Samantha Turbeville and Tanisha Sorenson, and their brother Steven Alexander vowed to come to court every day, partially to show the jury that their brother’s loss was felt deeply.
Jodi’s family also wanted to show support for their daughter. In late 2012, Sandra Arias quit her job as a dental assistant to be able to attend the trial. By then Jodi’s father was in poor health and on dialysis, and could not regularly make it to court.
Meanwhile, med
ia outlets from across the country were booking tickets to Phoenix, for what they deemed would be the trial of 2013.
CHAPTER 36
Four and a half years after the murder of Travis Alexander, the trial of the State of Arizona vs. Jodi Ann Arias was called to order on January 2, 2013.
The trial—one of the most high-profile in Arizona history—would take place inside a cavernous, wood-paneled courtroom on the fifth floor of the Maricopa County Superior courthouse.
Perched at the center of the room sat Judge Sherry Stephens, a slight woman with shoulder-length, honey blond hair. From behind her oval-framed glasses she peered down on the court.
To the judge’s right, Juan Martinez scribbled notes on a yellow legal pad. At his side was Detective Esteban Flores, who was assigned to assist with the prosecution.
Across the aisle, on the opposite side of the room, defense attorney Kirk Nurmi lounged in his chair. Seated next to him at the heavy wood table, Jennifer Willmott periodically whispered to Jodi.
More than four years in jail had a dramatic effect on Jodi—transforming her from a sexy seductress to a dowdy schoolmarm. She appeared frail, having shed about twenty pounds from her already thin frame. Her dark-brown hair was cut bluntly below her shoulders with a thin wisp of bangs and she wore mousy, horn-rimmed glasses. On the first day of trial, Jodi was dressed in gray slacks and a baggy, black blouse concealing the bulge of an electronic stun belt worn by accused murderers.
Throughout the testimony, Jodi often dabbed her eyes with a tissue and wiped tears away from her cheeks. When graphic crime scene photos were shown to the court, she hid her face behind her hand or hair.
In the front row behind the defense, Sandra Arias sat quietly with her twin sister and the occasional family friend.
Huddled together behind the prosecution was a revolving group of Travis’s loved ones. Fixtures each day were Travis’s sisters Samantha and Tanisha, and their brother Steven Alexander.
The back three rows were comprised of an array of TV reporters from network news and court commentary shows. A television camera stationed in the last row broadcasted the testimony, while a satellite link provided a live Web stream on dozens of sites. Millions tuned in to watch the trial; the most dedicated crime followers packed the courtroom’s visitors’ gallery, at times waiting for a seat for hours.
Picture Perfect: The Jodi Arias Story: A Beautiful Photographer, Her Mormon Lover, and a Brutal Murder Page 28