Jodi Arias; the sequence of events

[Nali87]

I am not understanding something, so I know I missed something along the way in this case. If JA only shot TA one time, and I understand the bullet lodged in his cheek, where did the bullet come from that was laying in the blood on the floor?

It's not a bullet laying in the blood, but the bullet casing.

 

[danzn16]

I am not understanding something, so I know I missed something along the way in this case. If JA only shot TA one time, and I understand the bullet lodged in his cheek, where did the bullet come from that was laying in the blood on the floor?

It was a casing that comes out the top of the gun and flies away from the shooter. It is on the back of the bullet that holds the primer/propellent. Here's a video of a gun being shot and you can see the casings flying out of the top:

[video=youtube;5BTkMRgJiZg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BTkMRgJiZg[/video]

 

[CourtsInSession]

Thank you both for the explanation about the bullet and casing. I didn't realize there were two parts to a bullet. I thought when you shot a gun, the entire bullet was shot out at your target. Obviously I wouldn't make a very good shooter.

 

[Softail]

I was watching AC's special last night. There was a portion they showed where she said "He spit". Since there is always a little bit of truth in everything she says, I want to watch that part again. It was when she was talking about the murder. Then she said, "or maybe it was just water". Anyway, I'm going to try to find it. He probably was spitting in the sink, and it was another Freudian slip.

If anyone else remembers this, please post the clip in the meantime.

Found it! Starting at about 4:30 she says there was SPIT. I do believe that is a slip, and he did begin to spit at that point. She stabbed him first! "There was spit coming out"

[video=youtube;hBNSypqlybc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBNSypqlybc[/video]

 

[pip]

Having been reading on the main thread all morning, I am willing to change my vote! The pictures of Travis seated in the shower would give perfect angle for the shot to the forehead - Jodi above him and looking down as Travis looks up. The angle would most likely do what other posters suggested and miss the brain completely and go through the sinus to the cheek, especially with the small caliber, I forgot about. With this scenario, I can absolutely believe the shot came first, and he was still able to make his way out of the shower and the stabbing began. (Thank you to the posters who brought this out!)

Just want to say, I don't post much because a lot of the time I am reading at work (yes, I'm one of those), and I forget what I wanted to say by the time I get home, just thanks to all for keeping this going. (And for all the laughs I had over the "nasty" pictures!) I do so much enjoy this board!

I agree. I also believe in that photo he looks stunned and fearful like he knows his life is coming to an end. She must have been holding him at gunpoint. She could not accomplish this with a knife. He would have jumped out of that shower and fought for his life. If you believe that that photo shows fear and that his life was being threatened, how could it not have been the gun she was tormenting him with?

 

[molly333]

Jody has been asked what was different about that day. She keeps saying, I was in mortal fear. I knew I was going to die. I would be dead if I hadn't grabbed the gun.

I listen to her speak and wonder, --in mortal fear over dropping a camera? According to her, Travis was in a good mood, allowing her to take calvin klein pictures of him--or was it cancun pictures?--in the shower. He was showing off his buff, according to her. Also, according to her, she was crouching next to him deciding what pictures to keep. That means the camera did not fall far.

So--where does this talk of mortal fear come from? It makes no sense from her story. How do we go from happy pictures in the shower to mortal fear in 60 seconds?

I believe that Jodi is telling us some of the truth. I believe she was not the one in mortal fear, Travis was, and you can see it in that last frontal picture of his face. That is the look of mortal fear.

The last picture of him taken before the ceiling shot shows his body from the neck down. He is sitting in the shower. We cannot see his head in this picture. But where is his right arm? Was he covering his head with it right after she shot him?

IMO

 

[zaza]

Yes, and wouldn't there be more blood in the shower stall than there was when the photo of him after death was taken if he was shot in the shower first? Or, did the water run for the 5 days it took to find the body? I don't think he was shot in the shower and I don't think the shooting came first. I think she might have stabbed him in the back first while he was posing with his back to the camera and his arms up in the air. In the picture of his face with the water on it, look at the look in his eyes...sort of a mixture of pain and disbelief. Was that picture taken after the one with his back to the camera, or before. I am not really familiar with the sequence of the photos.

She washed off the body and the shower stall after she killed TA.

 

[thelmadawg]

Yes, and wouldn't there be more blood in the shower stall than there was when the photo of him after death was taken if he was shot in the shower first? Or, did the water run for the 5 days it took to find the body? I don't think he was shot in the shower and I don't think the shooting came first. I think she might have stabbed him in the back first while he was posing with his back to the camera and his arms up in the air. In the picture of his face with the water on it, look at the look in his eyes...sort of a mixture of pain and disbelief. Was that picture taken after the one with his back to the camera, or before. I am not really familiar with the sequence of the photos.

I'm thinking she used the gun as a control weapon at first. Perhaps that look was when she opened the door with the gun pointed at him. She then had him turn around and stabbed him in the back. Though not fatal, He slumped to a sitting position. There appears to be blood beneath him? (She might shoot him at this point in the sitting position) She thinks he's incapacitated, or dead and momentarily goes to do something else. He is somehow able to get out of the shower and to the sink where he aspirates. She begins to stab him unmercifully in a rage. he's crawling away. She slits his throat. She Turns him over and stabs in in the chest then drags him back to the shower.

Truly awful to imagine.

 

[wilsodh]

Hi all,

In support of my post #258 above and the thesis that Travis was shot 1st, I've been doing a bit of digging in the literature on gunshot wounds to the head.

One generality that can be made is that penetrating damage to the frontal lobes is the least likely to be incapacitating and life threatening. I quote from two sources (bbm):

"Generally speaking, the nearer the bullet track is to the base of the brain, the more dangerous is the injury.... Of the less severe injuries, perforations of the frontal lobes are the least serious, and those of the occipital region are also not very dangerous to life." (Gunshot Wounds. C.G.Spencer)

"Just as in the case of gunshot wounds of the heart or major blood vessels, individuals can perform tasks and survive wounds of the brain, especially if the injury involves only the frontal lobes... In documented cases of suicide, individuals have fired a bullet through their frontal lobes, and then fired a second, fatal gunshot wound to the basal ganglia." (Gunshot Wounds, Practical Aspects of Firearms, Ballistics, and Forensic Techniques. Vincent DiMaio, M.D.)

The second reference above describes some examples. Included was an elderly man who shot himself in the temple with a .32 caliber revolver. The bullet perforated both cerebral hemispheres. Following this, he was conscious for at least two hours during which time he talked with his wife, a visiting nurse, and EMS personnel.

There is another case (with photo) described in which an elderly man shot himself in the right temple with a .357 Magnum. The wound was so devastating, it blew off the front and top of his head above the temple. Nonetheless, he lived for an hour and a half without any life support, highlighting the non-critical nature the frontal lobes for sustaining life.

I quote again from the second reference above (bbm):

"In addition to such a head wound not immediately causing incapacitation, in some instances individuals who have been shot do not initially realize it. This is not uncommon in combat situations, where the noise, violence, and activity so distract an individual that he may not realize he has been wounded."

Now, Dr. Horn is a Medical Examiner. But he is NOT a specialist in traumatic brain injury. His testimony that Travis would likely have been immediately incapacitated is completely unfounded by the evidence that was presented. Horn is out of his realm of expertise when he speculates about Travis being incapacitated. More seriously, he presented an unfounded scenario aligned with the state's preferred sequence of events that could be very damaging to the defense. If Travis was shot first, it is consistent with Jodi's story. If Travis was shot last, Jodi is lying. Obviously the prosecution prefers that Travis be shot last.

When Travis was shot in the shower, he was probably shocked about what had just happened: his ex, with whom he had just had sex that afternoon, had just fired a handgun aimed at his face/head. He would have known he was hit, but may not have known how serious it was. When Jodi tried to fire a second time, the gun jammed. Travis would have realized he was in mortal danger, and his 'fight or flight' adrenaline kicked in. Jodi left the bathroom to get the knife. As she was leaving, Travis might have hissed "I'll kill you bltch!" per Jodi's testimony. Travis got up from the shower and headed to the sink to look in the mirror at his injury and where all the blood was coming from. He might have assumed Jodi, with a jammed gun, was no longer an immediate threat. Hence, he faced the mirror, bent over the sink as his blood dripped, steadying himself with wet hands on the counter in front of the sink. Blood was filling his sinus and mouth, he aspirated some blood, and coughed.

Seconds later, in the mirror, he saw Jodi coming at him with the knife. He turned to face his attacker.....

Dave

 

[R.U.Kidding!]

I know Jodie did this and it was premeditated:

What I have a problem with is how this 5'4" women could inflict this much damage on someone. I am hoping one of JM's ploy's on questioning Jodie is to get her so outraged she will exhibit that crazy outrage and anger it took for her to be that "Girl" that COULD do this.

I mean watching her on the stand , her acting is good enough to believe she did not have this Monster side. She is very quite, and seems to not get ruffled upon some pretty tough questioning. I would love to see JM get her angry enough to go psychotic.

For me this would be the perfect behavior to prove my belief that the killing went down like this:

>While Travis is in that ackward sitting position in the shower she stabbed him in the heart (his face shows the fear of seeing that knife).

>Jodie continues stabbing him while he is trying to get up.

>He makes it to the bathroom sink where he is coughing up blood from injury to his lung, while she makes the next 9 stab wounds.

>He makes it out of the bathroom into the hall , falls on all fours.

>She then slits his throat

>Drags him back to the bathroom and shoots him in the head, with the gun she brought.

>Gets in the shower and washes him and her off.

>Then proceeds to do the cover-up. Fortunately not knowing the camera will come in to play as well as the "rope" excuse for getting the knife having no foundation--there is no rope- found--where did the knife come from?

This all becomes painfully possible to imagine only if she loses it on the stand.
Hope JM has taken precautions.

 

[danzn16]

But one thing no one has been able to explain... How was there little to no blood in the cranial cavity if he was shot first, conscious and able to fight back or at least resist, and then stabbed to death?? Lots of time for blood to entire the cranial cavity... How can you make up for this info?

 

[zaza]

FINALLY someone got it right! We may be outnumbered 2:1 in the voting, but I think this is the only sensible scenario given all the information we have.

I'm assuming most readers here have listened carefully to the police interrogation tape? There is a very telling point when Jodi describes Travis after he was shot by the 'intruder'. She says: "He was still alive!". The way she says this sends chills up my spine. She expressed a combination of surprise and emotion that was clearly genuine. This was the emotion she felt when she shot him in the shower. She fully expected a head shot would be immediate death. But it wasn't. She was very surprised when Travis was far from dead or incapacitated. She also indicated in the interrogation that the gun jammed. I think this was also an element of truth. Finally, if you'll recall, she describes that IF she were intending to kill Travis, she would do it humanely by shooting him until he was dead. She said this for two reasons: 1) this was her intent from the start when she brought the gun with her (which obviously she did); and 2) by describing this to the detective, she sets up a contrast with what the crime scene actually portrays. That is, why on god's green earth would she undertake to stab and butcher her ex when a gun would have been much cleaner and efficient?

So she expected Travis to die in the shower with a head shot while he was sitting down. The angle matches the bullet trajectory. But he doesn't die. She pulls the trigger again, and the gun jams. At that point she leaves the immediate scene to get the knife. Travis, stunned, stumbles to the sink, not knowing quite what to do. His sinus has been penetrated by the bullet, spilling blood into his mouth and lungs (as he breaths in through his nose, he aspirates blood). He coughs, and blood projects onto the mirror. Jodi returns with the knife, and starts trying to finish him off. He sees her in the mirror and turns to defend himself, acquiring defensive wounds. Mortally wounded and unable to stop the attack, he attempts to flee down the hall, where he falls and succumbs to additional stabs in the back and finally the throat slash. She is ferocious in her attack because she really wants him dead quickly, as the whole thing has turned from a carefully planned execution into a brutal nightmare. And she probably doesn't want him to suffer unnecessarily (as she indicated to the detective). What appears to be over-kill in cases like this is really just an attempt to end the life of the victim quickly. Stabbing rarely results in immediate death.

Ok, so what about Horn's testimony? Like the poster above, I was not at all persuaded by his suggestion that Travis would have been immediately incapacitated by the head shot. On what basis does he believe this? People often get shot in the head and don't go down immediately. It depends on what part of the brain is injured, the caliber of bullet, etc. The medical literature is full of cases of people with brain injuries who don't seem to be terribly affected by the injury. Sadly, suicides by gunshot to the head often fail to achieve the objective. This is particularly true of gunshots from the side into the temple. Some of us also seem to have forgotten that Horn stated that brain tissue degrades quickly upon death, and it was not possible for him to determine the extent of hemorrhaging. I'm frankly shocked that the defense let him get away with putting his scenario out there without vigorous cross examination and presenting an alternative scenario by expert witness. As this is a critical point in the trial, this mistake is huge.

For those who believe Jodi would have brought a gun as part of her plan, and yet bring upon herself all the mess, horror, and uncertainty of a knife attack as her first act of violence, I would recommend a careful re-listen to that police interrogation. There are haunting elements of truth to her story. Jodi was methodical. From the gas cans, to the staged robbery to get the gun, to all she did to try and cover her tracks. It makes absolutely no sense that she would have used a knife as the weapon of choice. She wanted a clean kill in the shower. Minimal mess, minimal DNA exposure to clean up. A scene of bloody mayhem is the last thing she would have wanted.

Dave

Contrary to the theory that JA wouldn’t want to make a mess by stabbing, I don’t think a mess was a real concern of hers. I think her rage was so tunnel-vision-focused on wanting to kill him that she fantasized about it for probably most of the drive to TA’s house. She wanted to hurt him, she wanted him to know it, she had to be in complete control in order to get to that end, and she had to devise a plan that would put him in a vulnerable position so she could finally unleash the rage that was driving her. She was going to be in complete and total control until that moment where she submits to her uncontrollable murderous rage-filled attack.

I think she brought both the gun and the knife and maybe the rope (though I have doubted the existence of the rope for the most part) with her. That kind of rage, intensified and escalating in her mind over time, the course of days, is obsessive. It seizes the mind and drives all thoughts to one end – the death of the person who inflicted or opened the deep, inner, gaping, painful wound that is unbearable to live with. JA would have been completely possessed by the obsession to kill TA. With that single-minded end as the goal, she would have been relatively calm and collected as she carried out her mission. You can see how calm and collected she is as she testifies in the courtroom – the only time she loses her composure is when JM grills her and that’s for the purpose of appearing to be a defenseless victim at the hands of the state rather than an angry combatant. It is this very focused, cool, calm, and collected demeanor that manipulates TA into allowing her to visit him - that she is coming for a booty call – using her sexual wiles to seduce him into letting her visit him, engage in sex, and then later, in the shower she uses her charm to flatter TA into the photo session. Getting him to sit on the floor of the shower was the only way she was going to render TA vulnerable enough to finally carry out her ultimate goal.

Although I'm beginning to agree that the gun was probably used first, I don't think it had anything to do with the messiness of stabbing.

 

[meanddblj]

didn't doc horn say no blood was in the sinus/mouth area??

 

[katydid23]

I agree. I also believe in that photo he looks stunned and fearful like he knows his life is coming to an end. She must have been holding him at gunpoint. She could not accomplish this with a knife. He would have jumped out of that shower and fought for his life. If you believe that that photo shows fear and that his life was being threatened, how could it not have been the gun she was tormenting him with?

That is exactly what my 24 yr old DS son said as well. I showed him the picture of travis's face and asked if he thought the crazy ex gf had a knife or a gun. He said that if it were a knife, then he would have jumped out of the tub and tried to wrestle it out of her grasp. He believes that if TA had not been shot already that he would have been able to overpower her. Even if she got in a few stabs, he could have gotten it away eventually and stabbed her a few times as well.

But if he had a bullet in his head, then her would be much slower and weaker and it allowed her to get out of there unscathed.

 

[Nezumi]

I am not understanding something, so I know I missed something along the way in this case. If JA only shot TA one time, and I understand the bullet lodged in his cheek, where did the bullet come from that was laying in the blood on the floor?

That's not a bullet. It's the casing that ejected from the shot that she fired.

 

[Chewy]

I always wondered if she squeezed soap or shampoo on the floor to make it slippery for him.

 

[Chewy]

I voted shot him first. She had the gun with her since that was her plan to shoot him. Like others have said when he did not die from the gunshot wound and staggered to the sink that was when she got a knife maybe from the bedroom and started stabbing him. I also think she slit his throat to make it look like a much stronger person would have done it adding credibility to her ninja story.

She only made up the ninja story because she got busted by the camera.

This video seems to have explained it well.

[video=youtube;Z8MxOfIWlFc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8MxOfIWlFc[/video]


I think she had the gun to control him, but she also had the knife with her the whole time.

She planned to stab him to death. She planned the whole thing and thought she'd get away with it.

 

[scorpio24]

didn't doc horn say no blood was in the sinus/mouth area??

I believe he stated there was no blood there or, more importantly, in the cranial cavity, meaning he had essentially bled out by the time he was shot. There are some better technical responses earlier in this thread from folks in the medical profession.

 

[scorpio24]

I always wondered if she squeezed soap or shampoo on the floor to make it slippery for him.

That's an interesting point! It would also have made it easier for her to drag him.

 

[gcharlie]

Posted this in another thread, but this one is more appropriate..

The only way I can make sense of the totality of the wounds is if the ME is off on his opinion that the gunshot wound would have immediately rendered Travis unconscious and unable to defend himself. Even the ME says he does not have complete information because he can't track the bullet through the brain. There's no testimony about what functions are controlled in that part of the brain or why it would necessarily have immediately incapacitated Travis completely.

Minor4th:

Thanks for being the jury foreman. I was one who went for stabbing first, but what I struggled with was where and how she shot him last for him to end up with the wound.

I have to admit, you did sway me to consider that he was in fact shot first and to accept the casing in the blood. I can't find a logical explanation for this, but I am hopeless when it comes to physics. Could it be that it was propelled (as opposed to rolling) from its original position in the fight for Travis's life and landed in the blood?

TA's defensive wounds to his hands came during the multiple (6) stabs to his frontal wounds.

I think if TA had been shot first and then stabbed in the heart, JA probably thought that he was dead at this point. She may well have left the bathroom at this point. Still alive, he steadied himself at the sink, where he the blood spray was found. Weak, but still alive, he attempted to escape the master suite.

Mere seconds later, JA realized TA was not dead and raged after him with the knife, first with the head wounds and then straddling him, with the 6 stab wounds to his back. Adrenalin must have been flowing with him surviving the gunshot and the frontal attack, giving her the strength to lift his head and deliver the final slice of his throat. I do believe that this was the last and final blow with the knife, which she then dropped on the floor in the hallway.

The Me said TA would have rapidly lost consciousness after the neck wound, but still would have been alive for several minutes. The bruises and contusions on his feet and ankles occurred after she had dragged him to the bathroom and while she was trying to get his body into the shower.

Absolutely horrific having to think about this and write it down. I cannot bring myself to look at the autopsy pictures (can only read the report) and it must have been a scene of pure terror and madness.