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
