This trial is brought up from time to time. I haven't really watched it but have read the updates including the more salicious stuff from the trial.

Someone at work here mentioned the trial at lunch. This is with both mormons and nonmos sitting at the table. The mormons kept strangely quiet about this subject and didn't say a word about the trial nor offered any personal opinions.

We didn't talk about the graphic sexual stuff...just stated that she converted to mormonism because she thought she was going to marry her BF. All the nonmos said, being spurned by your mormon lover is no excuse to kill him or her. No mention of possible pre-1990 temple rituals performed on him.

Still the mormons at the table had n-o-t-h-i-n-g to say about the trial.

Being spurned was no excuse, but Travis was having a very good time while knowing that he still wanted to take a virginal Molly to the temple (per his comments to a friend that Jodi was not "wife material.") That comment puts the Mormon church into the spotlight.

The nevermo guys that I know, if they had a woman who was trying that hard to sexually please them, they'd be in heaven. They might break up for other reasons, but not over purity issues.

All the evidence seems to indicate that she was obssessed with him, and he was toying with her. When she realized the truth of their situation, she "corrected" him.

I just heard one of their phone sex recordings on Nancy Grace and Travis said something about wanting her to be a twelve yr old girl or wanting to f*ck a twelve yr old, something like that. I'm horrified. I think she's scary. But now I wonder about him.

But to your point no_mo, you're right, the tbms are strangely quiet on the abject. Kinda like they were real quiet after the lost the election. I wonder if this kind of stuff is causing anyone cog dis?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/12/2013 12:25AM by FormerLatterClimber.

All I can say is......yuck...

Well, like I said in another post, "better that one man should perish, than ....."

Or would BY be proud of her in that she took him up on his advise about a javelin or something like unto it?

Better that one man should perish than ....a whole bunch of victimized kids...? °_°

And BY probably would've said, "thou woman, <spits in the dirt> what makes you think you can carry out a blood atonement on a man? Woman know thy place! Now it's your turn woman! --
yeah verily I say unto you, womenfolk that don't know their place shall get the javeline."

Sump'n like that.

I need to see the actual transcript before I can assess it further.

That being said, talking dirty is not grounds for murder.

Especially now that we live in a post-Shades of Grey era, we can't pretend that sex is all missionary these days.

Agreed, although with talking dirty, and including a child in your fantasy sends not just red flags, but blaring alarm bells. If having child porn downloaded on your computer is a crime, then this seems comparable, in a way. The psychology of someone like this is frightening.

I've watched a few days of the trial and she strikes me as very disturbed, an actress, always measuring what she's about to say regarding the impact it might have on her. She's creepy. I wouldn't want to be found alone in a room with her that's for sure.

Ya, some of his lines are very creepy. I'm with you on that 100% on that point.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/12/2013 12:01AM by archytas.

Archytas, I'm resurrecting this thread because I heard the phone sex recording again on HLN. What Travis said was something about a twelve year old girl having her first orgasm. I couldn't figure out if he was saying she sounded like that or if he wanted her to make that sound.

What is also interesting is that the peanut gallery, I mean pundits who are commenting on the case said something interesting. They asked each other about their turning point in this case. One of them said his turning point was that sex tape. But when I thought he would say it was Travis' comments about a child, he surprised me by referring to how she seemed "into it" on the recording, and her demeanor, that this wasn't a woman being dominated. I just thought she sounded like the run of the mill phone sex operator. I think it was odd that he would single that out as a "turning point" for him in the case, and not mention what Travis said at all! Very disturbing ...

The Prosecution is making Jodi read 2nd Nephi 9:34

"Woe unto the liar for he shall be thrust down to hell."


Classic.

Utah's PM TV news didn't cover the 47% videotaper either.
Big story tonight was the new pope.

I understand there was a gun/bullets involved in the crime scene so maybe that was the cause of death. However, weren't there some pre-1990 temple rituals being performed on him by Jody Arias as part of the events that took place during his murder?

First Token of the Aaronic Priesthood - The execution of the Penalty is represented by placing the thumb under the left ear, the palm of the hand down, and by drawing the thumb quickly across the throat to the right ear, and dropping the hand to the side.

Second Token of the Aaronic Priesthood - The Execution of the Penalty is represented by placing the right hand on the left breast, drawing the hand quickly across the body, and dropping the hands to the sides.

First Token of the Melchizedek Priesthood, or the sign of the Nail - The penalty is represented by drawing the thumb quickly across the body and dropping the hands to the sides.

I've been following the Jody Arias trial like a person who needs an intervention, if you get my drift.

It has become clear to me that Travis Alexander was an above-average Mormon, pretty much straight arrow, repressed sexually and diverting that energy into PrePaid Legal, where he was a star. He was a motivational speaker and was writing a book on character and the successful life.

He was handsome, funny, rich, and the oh-so-important turning 30. Most of us know that a single guy who is 30 and not married is not unusual in the Real World, but in Mormondom, he is on his last year. When he turns 31, he will be "sent back" to the family wards as a reject, someone not good enough for the cupcakes. He will be sitting on a pew next to somebody's Cheerio-throwing toddler instead of being surrounded by nubile Mormon virgins offering plates of cookies for single-ward Family Home Evening.

Then along came Jodi. Offering a platter of sexual delights, all under the table. She even joins the church so he can continue to look straight arrow while they explore 1000 Places to See Before You Die - most of them on her body. At first, they are just a happy couple falling in love and having lots of sexy fun. He loans her plenty of $$, let's her use his car, stay at his house, etc. She moves to Mesa and lives separately (for appearances) but spends most of her time at Travis Alexander's house. She earns $1700 her first year at Prepaid Legal. Working the program? Not so much.

Over the next year he discovers she's a sociopathic parasite with no respect for personal boundaries. He has been loaning her money; she promises to pay him back "right away." He gives her his BMW; she blows up the transmission. She begins scaring his friends and her own roommate.

She is increasingly more possessive and intrusive, invading his email account, his Facebook, his bank accounts, his computer, his car, his house. They are on and off and she begins spying on him and entering his house, hiding in the closet, being in his bed when he comes home from dates. She follows him around in Mesa. She slashes his tires; he replaces them. She slashes them again. She has gone Glen Close on him and he tells his friends if he is discovered dead somewhere, she is to blame.

She moves back home to Yreka, ending up at Grandma's house back waiting on tables. She has lost Daryl, lost the house she co-owned with Daryl, lost her upline mentor in PPL, and Travis is telling people she is a stalker.

Meanwhile he's still having phone sex with her and talking up what they are going to do on his visit to Yreka, where she has moved back home, but he never comes on the visit. He tells Jodi he wants to get married but that she is not marriage material. Suddenly their "we remain friends" tone changes. He threatens her that he will tell her family, her PPL and all their Mormon friends "what she has done" (we are not sure which of her many personal affronts/thefts/intrusions he is talking about) He calls her a sociopath, says she's the worst thing that ever happened to him and orders her to never email him, call him, or bother him again.

He finds out he is going to Cancun with someone else. Well, she will fix that. She will drive to Mesa and give him a godfather offer. One he can't refuse. She stages a fake robbery at her grandparents' home (where she lives) and takes her grandpa's gun, a .25. She starts recording their sexy talk. She begins setting him up.

"Take me to Cancun or I will blackmail you with this phone sex tape I recorded and these sexy time photos of my (unattractive and cavernous) privates and you naked on your bed that I took WITH YOUR CAMERA! HA HA!"

If that doesn't work, I have also packed a ninja outfit and a gun along with my Cancun bikini and sunscreen I bought for each of us on the way down, so here's the deal:

Take me to Cancun and shut your piehole or die.

Travis, unbeknownst to Jodi, has been to the bishop and told all. He cannot be seen with Jodi because he has promised to never see her again as part of his repentance process. If he shows up with her in Cancun, he will be breaking his probation and will be sent up for excommunication. If he is ex'd, he loses his reputation with mostly-Mormon PPL and his gig as a motivational speaker is gone. No one will buy his book. He will lose his house, which he is hanging onto by a thread. Jodi has been an expensive experience. He can't afford any more losses because of her.

He says "No." So she kills him Lizzie Bordon style with a 5" blade, stabbing him 29 times, mostly on his back, including deep wounds on the head which damage the skull. She slashes his throat because being stabbed to death is noisy business and he keeps screaming. He fought her off with hands and feet and when she finally shoots him "because I saw in his eyes that he was still there," she drags him back into the shower to wash off her blood (from her cut hand) which has dropped on his body.

Her idea is to rinse off all DNA so there is no evidence of who did this terrible, terrible thing to this wonderful, wonderful guy. And she continues with that story until her palm print and her hair are identified at the crime scene. And the photos of her naked on his bed, timestamped, showing she was definitely in Mesa, on Travis' bed the day he died.

She tries to behave like a normal person would after their almost-fiance (her words) is brutally murdered. Unfortunately, her narcissism and love of attention sparkles in her eyes and her smile on her booking photo when she was arrested for capital murder...eerie. She begins her life as a prison celebrity.

She graciously gives an interview to 48 hours in which she says, "No jury will convict me. You can mark my words on this--no jury will convict me because I'm innocent."

At trial she confesses she killed him but claims it was self defense. She begins to implement her threat to Travis' family that if they didn't let her take 2nd degree murder and settle for 20 years, she would "drag Travis' name AND the Mormon church through the mud."

They refuse and ask for the death penalty. Arias begins testifying to Travis' "problem" of pedophilia about which there is no corroborating evidence of any kind. I don't consider the statement he made about Arias sounding like a 12 year old girl having her first orgasm to be about sex with a minor, rather a slam on Arias' fake little-girl voice (we have heard it from time to time in the trial--sort of Three Faces of Eve scary).

That's my novella description of what went on. My personal conclusion (just my opinion) is that he's a normal guy, only a "pervert" when compared with the starched template of normal asexual Mormonism. Of course he made a mistake taking advantage of her and tried to compensate by helping her out with work and financially, certainly out of some guilt.

Who has not made a fool of themselves at some time in their lives over a sexual thing? Had a period of "whoredom"? Picked a partner with a huge unacceptable-to-Mormon fault like smoking, drinking, or cooking your pet rabbit?


Anagrammy

Not exactly in a nutshell, but that's what

I haven't really followed the trial, but thanks to you I'll sound like a subject matter expert if it ever comes up.

Thanks, Anagrammy! :)

+1

My sociopath/narcissism spidy sense has been going off like crazy where Jody is concerned.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2013 10:15AM by sstone.

An excellent recap. Thanks for doing that. And for putting to bed the nonsense that this was about temple rituals. It was about stabbing him to death from the back and then when that didn't do the job, cutting his throat and shooting him in the face.

What a tragedy.

Other than hoping that he'd take her to the temple, I doubt she new anything about what went on there. Her interest in Mormonism was as superficial as she was.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2013 11:53AM by Devoted Exmo.

I too have been watching this stuff too much. I disagree with a few of your details but think you have the big picture spot on. I particularly like your portrayal of Travis, which I think is empathetic and accurate. Does he sound like a jerk sometimes? Sure, but he was clearly rewarded for letting that element of his personality out of its cage in a way that many other people would also have done. He was a good man whose childhood set him up for an addiction to a woman like that, and I think his desire to escape and the difficulty he had in doing so are both understandable.

Having praised your insight, I'm now going to offer a hypothesis that is probably as far-fetched as the temple oath theory. It would be interesting to hear if anybody thinks this is possible.

I'm interested in Jodi's artistic side. She thinks that art is part of her personality, and I wonder if someone with no soul does not sometimes find photography as a way to capture the spirit in other people's eyes. Going a step farther, maybe a person like her would be fascinated by movies and find meaning in the repetition of artistic themes.

What I mean is that parts of the drama she enacted seem to repeat scenes from various motion pictures. We know about the spiderman underwear, which could have been lifted from the Cameron Diaz flick. There is also the stalking in Fatal Attraction, with the attempted suicide--which Jodi says she contemplated--the attempted revenge, use of the knife, etc. But if this copycat theory is correct, the most powerful motif would be the shower scene in Hitchcock's Psycho: a flashing knife, a lifeless body at the bottom of the stall, a spreading pool of blood. Perhaps she only planned to kill Travis but then he got in the shower and she saw an opportunity to fulfil her plans in a more "artistic" fashion. Some of the photos she took of him in the shower are eerily similar to those in Psycho.

Another suggestive episode was her account of the ninjas, their use of a gun that jammed, etc. That story in the 48 hours interview sounded very much like the story of Travis's near death at the hand of thieves. Intentionally or not, she mimicked a very powerful experience that she heard him describe, one that was deep in emotion and probably terror.

Again, I'm reaching for straws here. But perhaps an empty person with artistic inclinations finds meaning in re-enacting emotionally powerful scenes that she has encountered in art and in other people's lives. I once worked with a sociopath who would sometimes imitate other people's stories and experiences as a way of suggesting that he was normal, then look around to see others' reactions in order to gauge whether he had succeeded. My very tentative theory is that Jodi may unconciously have been doing something similar--trying to achieve emotional and artistic meaning in a life that is otherwise empty.

Excellent opinion, Inspired Stupidity, I agree that a sociopath recreates emotionally powerful scenes. They do not have feelings like Empaths do. Therefore they struggle to fit in with humanity and are reduced to copying what looks like authentic humanity. Perpetual actors/actresses who have to mimic human emotions, they are merely empty human shells.

I had seen some of her photos but I still didn't have a feel for Jodi's "artistic" side.

Here are some paintings she has sold on ebay to help her family with travel costs. With formal training I think she could have been a very good artist. I was more impressed with her painting/ drawing than her photos.

http://www.ebay.com/csc/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=jodi+arias&LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&rt=nc

The eyes in most of her portraits are oddly flat and lifeless. I like her self portrait, though. It's like she gets herself, but few others.

She has decent rendering and good shading. With training, she could be good.

Other people have noticed this similarity as well.

When attempting to visualize this murder, I could not help but think that she chose the same weapon Glen Close chose in Fatal Attraction. Remember the fight scene was preceded by unconventional sex on the kitchen sink, if I am remembering correctly.

Arias claimed Travis raped her up the rear on his desk in his office before she followed him upstairs to kill him.

Am I hearing Madame Butterfly?


Anagrammy

Yes, Travis raped her before she followed him upstairs, took a number of staged, pseudo-professional photos of him, and then killed him. The rape must have disappeared into the fog while she took the photos, at which point the memories returned.

As for the knife, when I was a kid a police officer told me about various attacks he had suffered while on the job. People who shoot guns, he said, were cooler and more distant. It was those who used knives who were truly vicious. They wanted to see their victims facial expressions and feel their bodies as they inflicted the wounds.

I bet Arias's first attack was with the knife.

Um. Killing is bad, BTW.

That's a great summation, Anagrammy. I would only add a few tidbits.

She actually started recording the phone sex before she moved back to California. I thought the date was long before the murder so that it seems she was probably recording it so she could blackmail him (or destroy any future relationship) should he try to move on with another LDS woman.

She put her hair in ponytails to look like a 12 year old girl during sex. Her idea of role playing. On the sex tape she mentions how much he liked what she did and he tells her he loves the ponytails. It sounded to me like it was her idea and she was setting up this conversation to make him sound like a pedophile in the future by bringing up their role playing with her in ponytails. He then says she sounds like a 12 year old girl having her first ******, etc. Sick. But I think it was something kinky she did and it surprised him that he liked it. He sounds very unsophisticated. She led him down that path and then recorded it on purpose for future blackmail to keep him from being able to form normal relationships with LDS girls.

Her story to police was that he called her a "psycho" rather than sociopath. My theory is that she stabbed him in the shower to reenact the movie "Psycho" because he called her psycho. It was her symbolic way of punishing him. (She said in her 48 Hours interview that her sending irises to his grandmother was "symbology" because he wanted a daughter named Iris. She's into "symbology.") The gun just helped in forcing him to sit down so she could stand over him and stab him in the heart to disable him before she slit his throat.

Another chilling part I recently realized is that she went up to Mimi Hall at the memorial service, the girl he was taking to Cancun. She had never met her but Mimi testified that Jodi went up to her and asked if she was Mimi Hall. Then introduced herself and asked how she was doing.

All this shows she wanted to enjoy the hurt she would cause to everyone he had loved (his grandmother included). His sisters claim she smiles at them in the courtroom.

She could not get enough by just killing him, she wanted to do as much harm to him after death as she could by hurting the people he loved. And so she's gone forward with her false claims that he was a pedophile.

She's a vampire. Hope she gets the death penalty.

I could not agree more. She loves knives. Imagine how much power it takes to stab a tire. I couldn't do it.

I shudder when I think of her in a hate-filled fury stabbing him IN THE HEAD so hard that the knife took divots out of his skull.

It takes a lot of force to plunge a knife deeply enough to hit the vena cava.

AND after all the blood-drenched stabbing she still had enough rage to grab his head and cut him all the way back to the spine. OJ Simpson style.

Incidentally, speaking of copying the movie "Psycho," a poster on websleuths posted photos from the movie which are eerily similar to the photos she took. Even ending with the body slumped in the bottom of the shower.

Details: Date of only sex tape recorded May 2, 2008, only one month before the murder on June 4, 2008. Before she left to go kill him, he called her a sociopath in a text and threatened to tell everyone the terrible things she had done. He said she was the worst thing that ever happened to him.

I think they lost the spirit.


Anagrammy

Wow, I didn't realize the sex tape was a month before. Don't know if its been discussed before, but it was so obvious on the tape how she was baiting him asking if he ever worried about being sexually unhappy if he married a Mormon girl, because she claimed, she was worried about withering sexually if she married the kind of temple worthy guy she was looking for.

Her art seems eerily similar to Hitler's art. None of the humans in her art seem to have a soul in their eyes. Hitler was known as a great artist too but if you look at the people in his paintings they look like stick figures, unnaturally stiff without human emotion. Jodi's art looks similar to me. And I'm sick of her "photography" that consists mainly of self portraits or of her and Travis all taken on a timer. Photographing yourself does not make you a photographer!

I totally agree with the theory about her not having empathy and imitating empathy by watching how others do it. That's why she watches the jury all the time, she's trying to read them. She's trying to extract what she can do to make them find her guilty of manslaughter so she can get out in a few years once they add up the 4 she's served.

Everyone on TV has been commenting on the video just released showing her get into a headstand in the interrogation room when the detective left her alone. People seem to think this shows she's off her rocker. It's the complete opposite, this girl is a master at taking control of herself. The handstand and the yoga poses were ways to take control of her emotions and center herself so she would not get swept up by fear. She's fearless because she's deliberate in ways that normal people with normal emotions cannot be.

None of us could stab a person viciously as she did because our bodies would react with emotion--she has complete control over her body because she's disengaged with her sympathetic nervous system.

Thanks for the summary, Anagrammy. She sounds like your basic sociopath. It's a shame that Travis came into her sphere.

Ooo, I'm glad I clicked on this thread. Thank you, Anagrammy, for writing the first summary that made this case make any sense at all to me.

Hey

Does anybody know if they checked for a footprint on the shelf she claims to have stepped and/or a handprint on the higher shelf where she claims to have grabbed?

The prosecutor has already pointed out that the area doesn't seem to be disturbed at all, but it seems the lack of relevant prints would help seal this one.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2013 07:38PM by archytas.

I offer my thanks as well, Anagrammy. That was an excellent summary.

I was reading about the murder case online.

BAsed on the photos of evidence posted on some new websites, I can hardly believe how much force was used to kill Travis Alexander.

The knife was driven into the skull even.

You mean her script and the role she is playing???

I'm having a hard time accepting all of their sexual escapades as factual the way she tells it. Did they do all of the sexual things she claims they did? I doubt it. It's too scripted. Too rehearsed.

The way she lies, and creates scenes, again, just seems way too scripted, and rehearsed. Her whole testimony is scripted to make Travis into an abusive, sexual pervert and monster that she had no choice but to kill in self defense.

Some of their phone sex sounded scripted also.

Her "fog" claim is part of her script. The gun, the knife, are all scripted into the "fog." She is clearly following all of the claims of her psychologist (or whatever he is) and making her story fit like a glove! (Couldn't resist!)

She's had four or five years to come up with her testimony on the stand, which she sometimes gets mixed up and confused. He clearly has rehearsed this thousands of times, which is clear when she corrects herself. I've watched her enough times, I can calculate what her expression, blocking, and "business" is going to be.

There may be 2% truth to any of her testimony, from what I have observed. The 98% that is left is a well scripted, honed, rehearsed story line that might have been written for a XXX play!

I'll be surprised if she doesn't get the death penalty.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/16/2013 08:34PM by SusieQ#1.