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UNMARKED: A True Crime Podcast
12: Jodi Arias Is Innocent? Competing Perspectives on a Murder Case
00:38:42
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- [00:00]
James Buddy Day
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- [00:16]
Narrator/Advertiser
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- [00:47]
James Buddy Day
I remember being in Phoenix, Arizona to sit down with a group called Jodi Arias is Innocent. The name and the mission are self explanatory. They believe that Jodi Arias, one of the most infamous murderers in America, shot, should be released from prison.
- [01:05]
Narrator/Advertiser
Police announced the arrest of Jodi Arias today.
- [01:07]
Jodi Arias
I'm here with Jodi Arias. Is that how you say your last name?
- [01:10]
Alice LaViolette
Jodi Arias.
- [01:11]
James Buddy Day
Okay. Jodi Arias was convicted of murdering her ex boyfriend Travis Alexander in his home. His body was discovered on June 9, 2008 in the shower of the master bedroom four days after he was killed.
- [01:27]
Jodi Arias
You know I'm not an evil person.
- [01:29]
James Buddy Day
I know you're not.
- [01:30]
Jodi Arias
And I'm not a promiscuous person.
- [01:33]
James Buddy Day
What followed was chaos. An obsessed lover filled with jealousy and rage. Nonstop speculation.
- [01:41]
Narrator/Advertiser
According to friends, Aria stalked Alexander for
- [01:44]
James Buddy Day
months in a trial that unfolded in real time before a national audience.
- [01:49]
Alice LaViolette
This case became a public spectacle.
- [01:53]
Chad Perkins
Everyone was talking about it, news stories, 24 hour news. Things were picking it up and you know, all around the clock.
- [01:59]
James Buddy Day
And at the center of it, a 28 year old woman. Her story shifting, fracturing, reshaping itself every time it was told.
- [02:07]
Alice LaViolette
And then when her friends called her
- [02:10]
Jodi Arias
and told her that he died, she totally freaked out. Like she knew nothing about it. I mean, how could somebody do that?
- [02:17]
James Buddy Day
Now nearly every convicted killer that I've ever spoken with claims they're railroaded. But this group, Jodi Arias is Innocent isn't arguing that she didn't kill Travis Alexander. They're arguing something more complicated.
- [02:32]
Narrator/Advertiser
Arias legal team has filed a new appeal alleging prosecutorial misconduct. Arias now claims newly surfaced evidence supports her defense and is asking to be released.
- [02:43]
James Buddy Day
I've reviewed her entire appeal, more than 300 pages. I've spoken with her supporters. I've gone back through the evidence and now I'm questioning whether or not Jodi Arias should still be in prison.
- [02:57]
Narrator/Advertiser
The defendant shall be incarcerated in the
- [02:59]
Jodi Arias
Department of Corrections for the rest of her natural life with no possibility of parole.
- [03:03]
James Buddy Day
So I'm gonna lay out what I found. We'll walk through the case, examine the evidence that Jodi has provided me, and in the end, you can decide for yourself. I'm James. Buddy Day. This is unmarked. For more than a decade, I've tried to convince Jodi Arias to speak with me on the record. She hasn't. Since her trial and incarceration, Jody no longer trusts anyone to tell her story. She believes that the truth can only exist in one place. The court. I told her what I was planning to do. That I'd go back through the evidence, read the appeals, speak to her supporters. That I would tell the story with or without her participation. And if I got something wrong, I'd own it. The last time I asked her to speak on the record, she wrote me back in an email. She said, you can do all of that without me. If you believe as you say, then my inability to participate won't stop you. Thanks for your persistence, Buddy. I really hope she means it. I hope this episode sparks conversation. And I hope when I go back to her again that she'll decide to speak. Until then, here's what you need to know. Travis Alexander's body was found in his Mesa, Arizona home on June 9, 2008. Police found blood spatter across the bathroom and down the hallway. Police also found the killer's fingerprints in the washing machine. They found Travis's camera still intact, containing time stamped photographs taken minutes before his death. The images were graphic. The fingerprints and the photographs belonged to Alexander's ex girlfriend, Jodi Arias. She initially denied any knowledge of the crime, despite forensic evidence placing her at the scene. During her interrogation, she laughed, sang and did headstands. When confronted with the evidence, her story changed. First she claimed a home invasion.
- [05:24]
Jodi Arias
Just held the gun to my head. And he was like, you don't go anywhere. And he told the other girl to finish it.
- [05:33]
James Buddy Day
It's just so far finish.
- [05:35]
Jodi Arias
I can't believe it. Why would they do this to him?
- [05:38]
James Buddy Day
What were they arguing about?
- [05:40]
Jodi Arias
What did they say? They didn't say a lot. They were white Americans from what I could tell.
- [05:45]
James Buddy Day
Later, she said she acted in self defense. You killed Travis Alexander on June 4, 2008?
- [05:53]
Jodi Arias
Yes, I did.
- [05:56]
James Buddy Day
Why?
- [05:59]
Jodi Arias
The simple answer is that he attacked me and I defended myself and the
- [06:04]
James Buddy Day
image of A young, attractive killer ex girlfriend willing to speak publicly is what drew national media attention. While in custody, Jodi Arias appeared on Inside Edition. Coverage exploded. Celebrity commentary followed. Even Donald Trump weighed in, tweeting she was, quote, as guilty as it gets. CNN built a channel around the case called Headline News. Viewership climbed into the millions. Before jurors had even heard the case. Nancy Grace declared Jodi Arias unequivocally guilty.
- [06:44]
Alice LaViolette
Arias spews lie after lie, trying to convince the media she's innocent.
- [06:49]
James Buddy Day
The striking thing about the case is that it depends if entirely on perspective. Seen one way, Jodi Arias looks calculating, manipulative, capable of extraordinary violence. But seen another way, she looks unstable, emotionally trapped and deeply human. The facts don't change, but the interpretation does. So from here on, we're going to examine this case through both lenses. The best place to begin is 2006, when Jodi Arias and Travis Alexander meet at a conference in Las Vegas for a company called Prepaid Legal Services. But to understand what that meeting meant to her, you have to back up from Jody's point of view. She's 26 years old and still trying to assemble a stable sense of who she is. She doesn't arrive in Las Vegas grounded or settled.
- [07:55]
Jodi Arias
Yeah, I guess me coming from Salinas, I always walked the doors. I used to go to sleep at night and I would hear gunshots. We weren't in a bad neighborhood.
- [08:02]
James Buddy Day
Throughout this episode, you'll hear from Jodi in her own words, from multiple interrogations she willingly took part in after her arrest.
- [08:11]
Jodi Arias
Our neighborhood neighbor in another neighborhood, it wasn't that great. And gunshots carried and there. Because Salinas is agricultural and there are a lot of fields, and I used to think that they were hunters in the field.
- [08:21]
James Buddy Day
To separate fact from fiction, I've arranged to speak with Alice Leviolet. She's one of America's leading experts on domestic and intimate partner violence. In 2013, she was retained by the defense team to evaluate Jodi Arias in prison. If you want the full conversation with Alice La Violet, including her personal account of what it was like to testify in one of the most watched trials in America, it's available inside our Patreon called Unmarked Case Files, the archive behind this podcast.
- [08:55]
Alice LaViolette
I went and I spent eight hours the first day. No food, no water. We sat and talked for eight hours. The next day, I went in for six. And I found her to be credible.
- [09:10]
James Buddy Day
Prior to 2006, there are allegations of abuse in the Arias household, but the picture is unclear. Conflict is documented. However, yelling and volatility confirmed by her
- [09:23]
Alice LaViolette
siblings when she got involved in prepaid lethal. Yeah, she came from a certain amount of trauma, I would say. Her father was emotionally abusive to mom and even to Jody. He was a guy taking a lot of steroids and she was also one of four children and she was different than the other three kids. She was very artistic. She was more kind of woo woo, if you will. She was just a different person. She was odd man out in the or odd girl out in the family.
- [10:02]
James Buddy Day
As a teenager, Jody's relationship with her parents is strained. She's arrested at one point for growing marijuana. She's reportedly highly secretive, easily provoked and increasingly isolated.
- [10:16]
Alice LaViolette
If you deal with untreated trauma, you got a problem when you've got that degree of trauma.
- [10:24]
James Buddy Day
Jodi drops out of high school and leaves home to live with her boyfriend. She works odd jobs and drifts. At 23, she begins dating Darryl Brewer, her former manager at a luxury resort where they both work. Brewer is 42 years old at the time. The relationship escalates quickly. They buy a house together in Palm Desert, and as Jody recalls, her parents never visit.
- [10:51]
Jodi Arias
I had a house with a free bedroom and a bed and a pool and everything you could want. And they never came to visit me once. It's my first home. I'm sorry. This is all stupid and it's irrelevant.
- [11:02]
James Buddy Day
The relationship doesn't last. By 2006, Arias and Brewer break up. She's working three jobs, but loses the house and tells her parents she's planning to file for bankruptcy. At this point, the pattern is becoming clear. Years later, Jodi Arias will be diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, a condition defined not by violence, but instability, unstable identity, unstable relationships, intense emotions, and an overwhelming fear of abandonment. What matters here is not the label, it's what the diagnosis helps explain. Someone with bipolar personality disorder doesn't experience the world in gradients. They experience everything in extremes. Connections feel like survival and rejection feels existential. And that's why Jody is drawn to the prepaid Legal Services Convention in 2006. PPL is a legal subscription service. How it works is you pay a monthly fee for access to legal help, but the business relies heavily on multi level marketing. These companies thrive on ambition and aggressive sales culture, motivational audio, personal reinvention, a constant hustle. It's not Wolf of Wall street, but it's close.
- [12:38]
Alice LaViolette
Prepaid legal. The focus was on the power, positive thinking, kind of, you know, intention.
- [12:46]
James Buddy Day
When Jody finds ppl, it offers exactly what she's been missing. Certainty, identity validation, and a community that Rewards intensity. But the ppl convention means the opposite to Travis Alexander.
- [13:03]
Alice LaViolette
When she met Travis at prepaid legal, she was with friends and he was one of the speakers. He was already kind of up the pyramid, if you would.
- [13:15]
James Buddy Day
His upbringing has made him the kind of hustler that thrives in these types of organizations. Charismatic, outgoing, charming, and not afraid to push limits. Now, Travis had a very troubled childhood. His parents struggle with crystal meth addiction. This according to Chad Perkins, one of Travis's closest friends, who told us about those early days.
- [13:43]
Chad Perkins
He was raised in a really rough part of town and just going to his house kind of freaked me out because it was a really scary, sketchy place. His mom had some substance issues and would leave when he was younger. Before he went to his grandma's. She would leave for like a week or two at a time. And I remember Travis saying that he had to like, eat dog food and whatever was. Whatever was around, he had to scrounge and there was just. Everything was just covered in cockroaches.
- [14:11]
James Buddy Day
Arrest records show that many of Travis's seven siblings did not escape their home life unscathed. Convictions for controlled substances, theft, methamphetamine manufacturing. It continues to plague the family for years. Travis Alexander's father dies in 1997. During Travis's teenage years, during an adolescence marked by violence and instability.
- [14:38]
Chad Perkins
I think like talking to him about his pre church life, he would tell me that, like he would fight all the time. He used to fight all the time. Like before he came to church, he would just get in fights for the sake of getting in fights. Like someone would agitate him and he would just want to go and fight.
- [14:55]
James Buddy Day
Eventually, Travis is taken in by his grandmother, but even then he continues to struggle with anger and impulse control until he finds something that offers structure and meaning. The church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints.
- [15:11]
Chad Perkins
Travis and I were in a church pre missionary program. Like they have a little program to like help missionaries get ready to be missionaries. And so we met in that class. I remember he was trying really hard to be more like churchy. He really wanted to be better. His grandma was religious and he really, really loved his grandma because his grandma basically raised him. So he wanted to, you know, be better for her.
- [15:37]
James Buddy Day
For Travis, the Mormon church and ppl offer the version of himself he's trying hard to live up to. But even then he's divided between who he had been and who he is trying to become.
- [15:51]
Chad Perkins
He had a really difficult time having a real genuine relationship. Once someone was interested in him, he just kind of like lost interest. It wasn't, it was, it was very like a game ish thing for him. It was very cat and mouse. He really loved flirting, but once it came to actually opening his heart to somebody and settling in, he really, really struggled with that.
- [16:14]
James Buddy Day
To Travis, Jody embodies an escape from rules, from expectations, from consequence. But for Jody, Travis represents structure, status, certainty, and someone worth anchoring to.
- [16:29]
Jodi Arias
Most women just fall all over themselves for Travis because he's nice and he seems like the whole package.
- [16:36]
James Buddy Day
They fulfill something in each other that neither one has on their own.
- [16:41]
Jodi Arias
We mixed really well for a time and I really did see like inside. He was an amazing person, he was a good person, he was a generous person. He gave so much.
- [16:54]
James Buddy Day
He spends a time of lot in that first week. Everything moves quickly. The relationship becomes intimate almost immediately, even as Travis tries to reconcile his faith and public life.
- [17:06]
Alice LaViolette
They do okay as long as the energy for new love covers up the fear. But when the the fear starts showing, then you wind up seeing what happens.
- [17:19]
James Buddy Day
For Jody, she's attaching. For her, intimacy is not casual, it's anchoring, it's identity forming. Where Travis is compartmentalizing, he's trying to keep parts of himself separate. And that tension has to be resolved. And they arrive at a solution that serves them both. On November 26, 2006, Jodi Arias is baptized in into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
- [17:51]
Chad Perkins
He mentioned that he had met Jody and that he was teaching her the gospel or baptized her or something like that. I'm not sure where that was in the point. I don't recall exactly, but I know that she was coming to church and she was like working with him a little bit and he was really smitten by how beautiful she was.
- [18:07]
James Buddy Day
For Jody, the baptism isn't a gesture, it's a vow, a way of proving she belongs in Travis's way world. She later testifies that after her baptism, the intimacy becomes more extreme. For Travis, it's desire colliding with discipline, a line he keeps crossing, then pretends isn't there.
- [18:31]
Chad Perkins
Travis was very honest, more than most, about being curious. But when it comes to sharing what you're going through as far as like sexual experiences or any kind of sin at all in the church, it's very taboo to share and talk about that.
- [18:47]
James Buddy Day
I've looked through all the text messages presented at trial and they're intense, sometimes romantic, sometimes explicit, sometimes degrading, and sometimes very aggressive in tone. On paper, the exchanges appear consensual, but consent, control and power can look very different depending on where you're standing. And Jody and Travis break up within about six months. Over the next two years, Jody continually travels back and forth between California and Arizona.
- [19:22]
Jodi Arias
He's so generous. When I moved there, he let me store all my stuff there because I went from, I went from a house to a room. And so I had artwork, I paint, art supplies, photos, books and books and books and books.
- [19:41]
James Buddy Day
It's in this time period that the relationship evolves into something else. A carefully guarded secret. You guys had a different kind of relationship.
- [19:50]
Jodi Arias
You guys were happy to see each
- [19:52]
James Buddy Day
other, but for some reason he couldn't outwardly show it in public.
- [19:57]
Jodi Arias
He, he was, he was afraid of his image.
- [20:00]
James Buddy Day
And to him his image was everything.
- [20:02]
Alice LaViolette
This is a guy who cared very much about his image. A guy who had a secret relationship. Obviously they were both, you know. Jody describes it as addictive and I would say it is very addictive relationship. Real highs, real lows. I mean, it's like an adrenaline junkie, you know?
- [20:22]
James Buddy Day
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- [20:27]
Narrator/Advertiser
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- [21:04]
James Buddy Day
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- [21:06]
Narrator/Advertiser
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- [21:52]
James Buddy Day
From Travis's point of view, this is not his future. He wants to marry a good Mormon woman. For Jody, being Travis's secret is temporary. A speed bump she believes they'll eventually move past. She excuses his behavior. She reframes it.
- [22:09]
Jodi Arias
He told me on several occasions it saddened him and it bothered him. He had two friends in particular that gave him a very hard time about our friendship. But I think they did it out of concern for his future, his, like, his marital status.
- [22:30]
James Buddy Day
When speaking with Arias's supporters, this is the period that they point to as evidence of abuse. They argue that Travis Alexander used isolation, shaming, and control to manipulate Jody. Maintaining intimacy while withholding commitment. And they're not just talking in abstractions. They point to a discernible pattern in their electronic communication messages that are harsh, demeaning at times, and intentionally withholding. I won't read them here, but the tone is unmistakable.
- [23:06]
Alice LaViolette
I started reading the things he'd write to her. He called her names, he put her down, and she didn't have anybody to talk to. One of the things I would say is they both lived in isolation. In isolation is a really. Well, it's pernicious. Travis had this side of his life completely secret, so he. He was isolated in effect. And, you know, that doesn't bode well for anybody.
- [23:44]
James Buddy Day
Not that this justifies any subsequent violence, but it does show a relational dynamic built on control and emotional asymmetry. Eventually, Travis begins to date another woman, most notably a fellow Mormon named Lisa Andrews. This is Jody's father, Bill Arias, telling investigators what he remembers.
- [24:10]
Ryan Burns
She called me crying hysterically.
- [24:12]
James Buddy Day
When she decided to moved to Mesa, Arizona, she snuck up in his house and she looked in the window and
- [24:18]
Ryan Burns
she saw him there on the couch with another woman. And here she was planning on marrying
- [24:22]
James Buddy Day
this guy, so she just left. What happens next remains unexplained, and I've scoured the court records, police reports, and trial testimony to try and put it together. Lisa Andrews reports that her car tires are slashed multiple times in 2007. Now, from Travis's point of view, he believes Jodi is responsible for this. And he notes other suspicions about her escalating behavior to his friends and family. This, again, is Travis's close friend Chad Perkins.
- [24:58]
Chad Perkins
In January of that year, we had a phone conversation, and I asked him, like, what about the girl you were dating? And he was like, oh, it's crazy. There's like this Fatal attraction stuff, and, like, I'll tell you all about it when I see you in person, but it was crazy.
- [25:12]
James Buddy Day
Now, the sentiment wasn't limited to Chad Perkins. Investigators later confirmed that Travis Alexander described Jody as a, quote, stalker to multiple people in his life. That matters. But it's also difficult to know how much weight to give that characterization. Even as he pulls back publicly, Travis remains in regular contact with Jody. Through phone calls, emails, and texts, he sustains emotional and, at times, sexual intimacy in private.
- [25:45]
Chad Perkins
In June, they were still having a sexual relationship. So, like, I. And that seems very. Travis seems very human to me that he really didn't want to be with her. He knew it was unsafe, but it was very pleasurable and very gratifying.
- [25:58]
James Buddy Day
From Jody's perspective, the contact never really stopped. The calls, emails, and texts signal that the relationship still matters.
- [26:08]
Alice LaViolette
The only person that said she was a stalker was Travis telling people that, because I think he was really hiding the relationship. But I had emails saying, hey, come on over to the house. I'm not home yet. There's stuff. There's guac in the fridge. You have a key. None of the stuff that supports the stalker allegations.
- [26:35]
James Buddy Day
The tipping point is a trip to Cancun. Travis Alexander is scheduled to leave on June 10, 2008, a reward he earns for a strong sales performance with ppl. On paper, it's a business incentive, but in reality, it throws a harsh light on the tension that's already building between him and Jody because it becomes clear that Travis plans to take another woman on the trip. From Jody's point of view, it's hard to imagine this landing softly. For someone with borderline personality disorder, that kind of rupture can feel catastrophic. But Jodi Arias denies being upset about Cancun. Listen to how she explains it.
- [27:21]
Jodi Arias
We found out about Cancun a year prior, right about the time we broke up. And so, like, I never really assumed that I had a ticket there.
- [27:30]
James Buddy Day
Months leading up to the trip, Jody and Travis were speaking on the phone for hours at a time. It strains belief that Cancun, scheduled just days after his death, never came up.
- [27:43]
Jodi Arias
And, you know, as things went on, it was just never discussed. So there was never any discussion.
- [27:48]
James Buddy Day
Then, shortly before the trip, something changes. Jody attends another PPL conference and meets someone new. If Cancun represented rejection or replacement, PPL once again offers what it had before. Certainty, identity, and a community that rewards Jody's intensity. This is Ryan Burns, the man Jody met at that conference. Recalling their first encounter.
- [28:17]
Ryan Burns
I went to the Conference for the company we were working with. I went there with a few of my buddies. Most of us were single guys. So of course we were at conventional in business, but we're also scoping out, you know, what's going on because this is probably a better place to meet somebody, you know, than at the bar or something. We saw her and a friend that she was walking with, and instantly, you know, my buddy Michael was like, dude, let's go talk to those girls.
- [28:40]
James Buddy Day
Like many of Jody's relationships, it escalates very quickly.
- [28:44]
Ryan Burns
At 11 o', clock, almost like I could put my phone down on the coffee table and I could tell somebody, like, watch 11:01 every night, four or five times a week, she'd call and we'd talk for a long time. Travis came up a few times in our conversations, and I had never really known their history. So any conversations about Travis was just positive things. He was a great guy. Just didn't work out. You know, we had different goals in mind, and so we just learned that it just wasn't a good fit. That was the entire relationship that I
- [29:14]
James Buddy Day
knew of with Travis and Jodi at this point. We're three days before the murder. Jodi Arias tells both her parents and Ryan Burns that she's planning a road trip from California to Utah before attending another sales convention in Los Angeles.
- [29:33]
Ryan Burns
I was in Salt Lake City. She was in Northern California somewhere, and she said, guess what I said? What? She said, I'm going to be going on a little road trip and I want to stop by Utah and come and see you. I was like, awesome. That'd be great.
- [29:48]
James Buddy Day
Jody did end up in Utah, but before that, she ends up somewhere else entirely. She goes to Mesa, Arizona, to Travis Alexander's house, where the murder takes place. Now the question is why? On Monday, June 2, 2008, Jody set out. But why did she change her destination from Utah to Arizona?
- [30:13]
Alice LaViolette
She changed her plans. And she changed her plans because Travis kind of said, please come out. He contacted Jody and he said, don't you love me anymore? Aren't you? And he sort of guilt tripped her, and that's when she changed her plans to actually stop there before she went to Utah.
- [30:32]
James Buddy Day
At trial, the prosecution scrutinizes this trip in extraordinary detail. They argue that her actions reflect intent, that she's concealing her movements in order to murder Travis Alexander. But another reading is much more mundane. Jodi Arias made planned stops, visited friends, and used a debit card to pay for gas. She created a trail that was easy to follow. And even if she does intend to arrive at Travis's house discreetly, that alone would not have been unusual. The relationship had been kept private for years. This again is Ryan Burns, who is a first person witness to Jody's plans.
- [31:14]
Ryan Burns
It was about that time around 9 or 10 o', clock, she was going to be leaving Southern California to come straight to Utah, which I was trying to talk her out of that because it was like, that means she's going to be driving at 2am, 3am, 4am, five at 6am, like in the middle of night. And she's like, no, I'm good.
- [31:27]
James Buddy Day
What we know is that at approximately 4am Jody arrives at Travis Alexander's home in Mesa. At the time, Travis has two roommates, Enrique Cortez and Zach Billings. Both are asleep.
- [31:42]
Jodi Arias
Zach was there.
- [31:43]
James Buddy Day
Zach and Enrique was the other one. There's no evidence of forced entry and roommates later testify that Travis sometimes let people in through the garage using the keypad rather than keys. This is Enrique Cortez, who was in the house on that night.
- [32:01]
Ryan Burns
Some people knew Travis's garage code like I did.
- [32:05]
James Buddy Day
Like if he was going to be gone and needed something to feed Napoleon, they could just let themselves in and out of the garage. Timestamps on the digital camera found at the scene tell us that Arias and Alexander took a series of nude photographs of each other in the early morning hours. The last known image of Travis alive is timestamped at approximately 5:29am There are several photos just before that, around 5:24am and they show Travis inside the shower.
- [32:37]
Jodi Arias
Is that the one with him in the shower? Yeah. He had water all over his face. He took a nice picture of him. He would never let me take pictures of him in the shower.
- [32:50]
James Buddy Day
He was. Sometime after the final photograph, Travis Alexander is killed. And this is where perspective collapses.
- [32:59]
Alice LaViolette
She said that he wanted her to take pictures of him from the waist up from the shower because he'd been working out and she dropped the camera and that he got really pissed off about that.
- [33:16]
James Buddy Day
According to her account, Travis became enraged. They struggle. She went to his bedroom and retrieved a gun.
- [33:24]
Jodi Arias
The gun went off. I didn't mean to shoot him or anything. I didn't even think I was holding the trigger. I just was pointing it at him and I didn't even know that I shot him. It just went off and he was. He lunged at me and we fell really hard against. Against the tile, toward the other wall.
- [33:46]
James Buddy Day
There is no competing narrative because Travis is no longer alive. From this point forward, the only account of what happens Comes from Jody and from the physical evidence left behind. So to understand what unfolded in those final minutes, we have to set testimony aside and look instead at the blood evidence. That's where the sequence becomes clear. Inside the bathroom, investigators documented a U shaped blood pooling pattern that begins near the shower and culminates at the sink. The sink itself is covered in active blood flow, along with Travis Alexander's palm prints. Clearly visible, it indicates that Travis was alive, upright and bleeding heavily. When he reached the second sink, he had enough strength to brace himself and look into the mirror with his back to Jody. It's evidence of a pause in the violence. Now, this pause could indicate confusion, shock, or a moment when the danger felt temporarily contained. And whatever the explanation, the blood evidence tells us that Travis moves from the sink into the hallway, where the confrontation escalates. The autopsy later confirms that Arius stabbed Alexander three times fatally, while his body bears more than two dozen superficial wounds. What the evidence shows is not a clean, singular act, but a frantic, chaotic struggle. One that unfolds across multiple spaces. One that neither person appears to have fully anticipated.
- [35:25]
Alice LaViolette
Frankly, you know, James, I think when somebody starts stabbing somebody, I don't think they stop because stabbing is very personal. And I think you lose your cortex. I think you go right into your primitive brain, and it's all about survival.
- [35:41]
James Buddy Day
And this is further illustrated by Jody's behavior after the murder. Jody's actions are not especially careful or sophisticated. They're clumsy and disorganized. She places Travis's camera inside the washing machine, where it's later found by police. She leaves fingerprints. She leaves behind ample evidence that ultimately lead investigators straight to her. And that matters because it complicates the idea of a meticulously planned crime.
- [36:12]
Alice LaViolette
If it was premeditated, she could have shot him at the door. They were having sex, he was asleep. She could have killed him then. I don't think it was premeditated. Battered women's defense is not a get out of jail free card. But I never thought it should have been first degree. I thought it should have been second degree murder or voluntary manslaughter.
- [36:37]
James Buddy Day
But all this is why I've come to question whether Jodi Arias should still be in prison. Because the trial is where all of these perspectives and interpretations are supposed to be weighed. And they weren't from the beginning. During one of the most salacious trials in American history, Arias legal team argued that the prosecution delayed the handover of evidence, prejudiced the jury, and made improper arguments that went way beyond the evidence.
- [37:09]
Alice LaViolette
I didn't know what a media circus was and this was absolutely immediate circumstances circus. And I, I was stunned by it and I was stunned and I started getting death threats the second week.
- [37:23]
James Buddy Day
And for years these allegations were dismissed.
- [37:26]
Alice LaViolette
They would throw anything and see if it stuck. They said I would be arrested for perjury and I didn't perjure myself.
- [37:35]
James Buddy Day
But Something happened in 2019. Something changed. The State Bar of Arizona filed a formal disciplinary complaint against Juan Martinez, the lead prosecutor in the Arias case.
- [37:49]
Narrator/Advertiser
The State Bar of Arizona announced today that Juan Martinez consented to disbarment, effective immediately.
- [37:56]
Alice LaViolette
Juan Martinez had me called into chambers with the judge and said I was leaking information on the case, which I didn't. He was though at the time he was leaking information on the case.
- [38:12]
James Buddy Day
Barr investigators concluded that there was probable cause that Martinez violated professional rules governing attorneys. The complaint alleged that Martinez leaked confidential non public information during the Arias trial, that he lied to bar investigators about those leaks, and he repeatedly sexually harassed women working in the Maricopa County Attorney's office. And get this. Not only has the Jodi Arias prosecutor been disbarred, her own defense attorney was also disbarred after the case. Kirk Nurmi, the attorney who defended Arias, agreed to be disbarred for writing a tell all book and violating numerous legal ethics and client confidentiality. This doesn't answer all the questions of guilt, but it explains why we're still talking about the Jodi Arias case and why Jodi Arias is innocent even exists in the first place. There's no closure here. It's all a matter of competing perspectives.
- [39:18]
Alice LaViolette
I mean, what she did, that's terrible. That Travis was killed and terrible. Did the criminal justice system give her a fair trial? I don't think so.
- [39:28]
James Buddy Day
So is Jodi Arias really innocent? We don't know. And that's the problem. Not because the evidence is thin, not because the facts aren't disturbing, but because this case doesn't turn on a single truth. The whole thing turns on interpretation. And because the courtroom where those interpretations are supposed to be tested slowly, carefully, fairly, where evidence is weighed without spectacle, where process protects truth, even when that truth is uncomfortable, the question at the center of this case will remain open. Not did something terrible happen? But did we get this right? And that may be the most unsettling verdict of all. There's more to this conversation than what made it into this episode. The full extended interview with Alice La Violette, including the portions where we go deeper into the relationship between Arias and Alexander, is now available inside our Patreon unmarked case files. That's where the longer calls Primary Documents and Ad Free episodes live. If you want to continue this discussion, it's linked across our socials. This episode of Unmarked was produced by John Nadeau and edited by J. Dave Alderson. Our additional producer is Jesse Demarais. We've got much more coming soon and if you're still here, you're already part of what is making this work. Tyler redick here from 2311 Racing. Another checkered flag for the books. Time to celebrate with Chumba. Jump in@chumbacasino.com let's shamba. No purchase necessary. BTW group void where prohibited by law. CTNC 21 sponsored by Chumba Casino.
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Narrator/Advertiser
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James Buddy Day
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James Buddy Day
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James Buddy Day
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