An Arizona woman is accused of being so obsessive about her ex-boyfriend that investigators believe she stabbed and shot him, leaving him to die in his bathroom.
Jodie Arias stands accused of killed her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander, in June 2008 after the couple ended their relationship in June 2007 and Alexander began dating another woman that December.
Arias, now 32, and Alexander, a then 30-year-old Mormon motivational speaker, met in September 2006 at a conference in Las Vegas in September. After talking on the phone almost every day for months, Arias moved to Mesa, Arizona to be with Alexander in February 2007. She was even baptized into the Mormon church. According to Alexander’s friends and family, Arias quickly became obsessive about her boyfriend and was extremely jealous. When their relationship ended five months later, Alexander’s family says she began stalking him. He reportedly even told them he believed Arias had gotten into his Facebook account somehow.
After he began dating another woman in December 2007, Alexander told family and friends Arias slashed his tires on two separate occasions. Still, despite her alleged behavior, Alexander was reportedly involved in a sexual relationship with Arias in the months prior to his murder.
According to his friend, Alexander found it “hard to say no to a woman that sneaks into your house, crawls in your bed and tries to ... seduce you.”
On June 9th, 2007, after not hearing from their friend in days, two of Alexander’s friends went to his house to check up on him. When they entered they found his body on the floor of his bloody bathroom. It was later determined he had been dead since June 4.
When police spoke with Arias, she initially denied she had been at Alexander’s home that day, but when investigators discovered a water-logged digital camera in his washing machine and were able to recover many photos, Arias changed her story to one of many tales prosecutors say she told.
On the camera were naked photos of both Arias and Alexander, many of which they both posed for. Each was time stamped and even photos that had been “deleted” were recovered. Shockingly, not all the photos of Alexander were taken when he was alive. Investigators say 5:30 p.m. was the final photo of Alexander alive, he was either in the shower or had recently stepped out. After that, photos of him bleeding on the floor were taken.
Alexander was stabbed 27 times, shot once in the face, and had his throat slit from ear to ear.
Arias’ DNA was found in a number of places, including her hair on the bloody bathroom wall. Her palm print on a wall was also found in Alexander’s blood on one of the walls.
With evidence mounting against, Arias confessed that she had been at her ex-boyfriend’s house, but maintained she did not kill him. She would later change her story again, saying she saw two people attack Alexander, but said she did not know who they were and would not be able to pick them out in a police line-up.
Again, Arias would change her story, this time confessing to killing him, but claiming it was in self defense after Alexander grew angry and violent when she dropped his camera. She would also go on to claim he was both sexually and physically abusive and even tried to submit “evidence” that he was a pedophile. However, the letters she attempted to submit (she was representing herself) allegedly written by Alexander, were revealed to be forgeries.
Arias eventually told a judge she was “over her head” and asked to have her legal team reinstated. But just as her story changed numerous times, so too hard her legal representation.
Her attorney withdrew from the case in December 2011, and she is not being represented by Jennifer Wilmot and opening statements for the case began today, Wednesday, January 2.
Arias has pled not guilty to first-degree murder, and now faces the death penalty. Should he be convicted, Arias would be the fourth woman on death row.
