Retrial for Sentencing of Jodi Arias - Day 3

[daisydomino]

Why do you think there was a fight? And, why do you think he was just stunned?

I'm sure there was a fight because of the defensive wounds on his hands. Nobody grabs a knife like that unless he's trying to stop it hitting him again.

 

[wendiesan]

Slightly O/T, but is anyone else fed up with hearing a 34 year old adult described as a young girl?

Using the state’s own expert to make his point, Nurmi told the packed courtroom that Dr. Janeen DeMarte diagnosed Arias with Borderline Personality Disorder and this “mentally ill young girl” then met her victim, Travis Alexander.

http://www.hlntv.com/article/2014/10/24/jodi-arias-recap-death-penalty-retrial-week-1

JA was 28 when she murdered Travis Alexander. She was not a minor. She was not a child, and she hadn't been a girl for 10 years. Nurmi can make JA sit on a footstool beside him, and it still won't turn back the clock enough for Jodi to be a girl, let alone a young girl.

If the roles were reversed, would anyone buy the refrain that a 28 year old man is really a young boy? Would the original jury have had any problem deciding between the DP, or LWOP, or LWP?

 

[TexMex]

Another heinous aspect of this is the length of time and great effort she put into this murder. Jodi could not accept that after everything she had tried to get Travis to commit to her the only time he was willing to devote to her was late night booty calls or phone sex. He had turned 30 and decided he was going to find a girl to marry and she was not going to be that girl.

So she decides that she will kill him. But she thinks she is smart enough to do it and not be caught. She stages a clumsy robbery of grandpas gun. Rents a car away from her hometown. Borrows gas cans from an ex, dyes her hair and after calculating the mileage one more time, buys an extra gas can so she can enter and exit Arizona without stopping to refuel. She fills up and turns off her cell phone. Instead of hitting the freeway north to SLC she drives all night to Mesa. Once there she waits until it's just the two of them and he's not suspecting anything terrible after she'd been in his home 12 hours sleeping, having sex, taking pictures of each other. Then she sticks a knife into his chest while he's cornered in the shower. This is where her plan goes south. He didn't just fall down and die! Oops. She hadn't counted on him fighting back. He had defensive wounds from trying to grab her knife, he had defensive wounds on his feet. Nine stabs in his back as he tried to get away. There was so much blood. How dare he not just fall after the first wounds in the shower? He was supposed to be contained there. Not much clean up. But now there was blood everywhere. No possible way to clean it up. She had to realize at some point that her blood was at the scene from her cut finger. All she could do was run away. She had driven a thousand miles to commit a murder

 

[TexMex]

The bullet casing could have been tossed around during the fight. I just don't understand how Flores originally missed the bullet on top of conjulated blood.

I also don't believe Travis was completely incapacitated from the gunshot. I think he was stunned and still capable of crawling down the hall until he was getting closer to the exit.

I don't think Flores missed the casing. He found it himself. He arrived. He interviewed the roommates and friends. Checked the downstairs, laundry machine (with blood smear in it). Then once upstairs, before the ME arrives, Flores finds the small casing in a pool of blood, not easily visible (page 10 of his report)

 

[daisydomino]

Another heinous aspect of this is the length of time and great effort she put into this murder. Jodi could not accept that after everything she had tried to get Travis to commit to her the only time he was willing to devote to her was late night booty calls or phone sex. He had turned 30 and decided he was going to find a girl to marry and she was not going to be that girl.

So she decides that she will kill him. But she thinks she is smart enough to do it and not be caught. She stages a clumsy robbery of grandpas gun. Rents a car away from her hometown. Borrows gas cans from an ex, dyes her hair and after calculating the mileage one more time, buys an extra gas can so she can enter and exit Arizona without stopping to refuel. She fills up and turns off her cell phone. Instead of hitting the freeway north to SLC she drives all night to Mesa. Once there she waits until it's just the two of them and he's not suspecting anything terrible after she'd been in his home 12 hours sleeping, having sex, taking pictures of each other. Then she sticks a knife into his chest while he's cornered in the shower. This is where her plan goes south. He didn't just fall down and die! Oops. She hadn't counted on him fighting back. He had defensive wounds from trying to grab her knife, he had defensive wounds on his feet. Nine stabs in his back as he tried to get away. There was so much blood. How dare he not just fall after the first wounds in the shower? He was supposed to be contained there. Not much clean up. But now there was blood everywhere. No possible way to clean it up. She had to realize at some point that her blood was at the scene from her cut finger. All she could do was run away. She had driven a thousand miles to commit a murder

She was really not counting on how much clean up there would be. She anticipated a lot of it, but there was so much more fighting than she expected. She knew she'd have to have a gun! The laundry, that's where she blew it. She ran out of time when she was doing the wash and chucked in the camera. She deleted the photos, but she didn't know they'd survive the washing machine. To Detective Flores: "Really?!?"

 

[MeeBee]

I don't think Flores missed the casing. He found it himself. He arrived. He interviewed the roommates and friends. Checked the downstairs, laundry machine (with blood smear in it). Then once upstairs, before the ME arrives, Flores finds the small casing in a pool of blood, not easily visible (page 10 of his report)

Yeah I've heard nothing of Flores missing anything let alone the bullet casing. And usually, if these things are missed a big deal is made by the defense. Far as I can tell he was very thorough.

 

[Sedonia Sunset]

HP
Nurmi just showed the witness a photo of the cabinet the gun was stolen from. Several other guns can be seen in the photo.

The other guns, which appeared to be hunting rifles, were "high powered and more lethal correct," Nurmi asked.

"Depending on which ones they are," Friedman replied.

High-powered hunting rifles might have been a tad more noticeable to her intended prey.

 

[TexMex]

She was really not counting on how much clean up there would be. She anticipated a lot of it, but there was so much more fighting than she expected. She knew she'd have to have a gun! The laundry, that's where she blew it. She ran out of time when she was doing the wash and chucked in the camera. She deleted the photos, but she didn't know they'd survive the washing machine. To Detective Flores: "Really?!?"

Yes,,
IMO she imagined the killing would happen like in the movie Psycho. Her victim is trapped. She attacks, maybe five/six slashes with her knife, her victim falls down and his blood goes down the drain.
Instead, she hurts him bad in the chest but he staggers out and tries to get away..27 stab wounds and she finally decides to cut his throat as he gets to the end of the hallway, pretty close the bedroom door. There was no possible way to clean up the scene plus she wound up leaving her blood and palm print behind

Lol....the "really?..." During the interrogation was epic.

 

[Sedonia Sunset]

A few thoughts after I got caught up..
Nurmi's point on how Jodi had MULTIPLE opportunities to kill him quick and fast without him knowing what was coming so to say. Seriously Nurmi? The opposite of that is that Jodi killed him slow and WAITED until he was AWARE so that the very last moments of his life was that of pure terror at the hands of the woman he trusted and cared for. Ugh, nice mitigation?

She wasn't there to just kill him; what's the point in THAT. Boom! He's gone. That would be kind of a letdown as far as her rage and need for retribution goes. No, she wanted him to KNOW. She wanted to TORTURE him; most of all, she wanted to make him PAY!

 

[Tiger09]

I'm going to hypothesize that they keep referring to CMJA as "girl" because mentally she is very much like a teenager, which falls under girl territory. I've actually been served by teens at McDonald's that seem to have better social skills than Arias. Why do I think this?

She seems to live in a fantasy world. She believes that if good things will happen, then only good things will occur. Sure, there's the whole Secret thing, but there's a difference in a kid wanting a bike and a woman in her late 20's attempting to will a man into marry her and throwing fits like a spoiled child when she doesn't get it. The fact that it took her going to prison to get her GED. I'm positive that was a strategy suggested by her defense team. Arias has remained an eternal teen, sponging off partner to partner, family member to family member, utterly refusing to better herself and get better paying work. Or stay at work without leaving and crying or not going. She simply took the easy way out. It's easy to lie. It's easy to play the stupid, poor victim. And when that didn't work cry abuse. Oh that's not working? Well, um Travis was uh a uh something worse than that, yeah. See? It's the eternal he pinched me omg.

So how could they call her anything but a girl? She has always acted like a petulant child.

 

[fifteen89]

Considering she killed him 3 different ways(overkill) and especially slitting his throat nearly decapitating him and making sure he saw her, I think she well qualifies as the worst of the worst.

I was thinking about this the other day wondering what other murders resulted in the death penalty in Arizona. Wendy Andriano is the only one in my memory and I felt she deserved it too. Her husband was already dying, just not fast enough for her. Anyone here know what other crimes landed people on death row in Arizona?

Looking at how Travis was killed and her ridiculous stories afterward (from two intruders to "are you sure it was me?" to fog to pedophilia to "I'm a survivor"), I can't see how Jodi wouldn't deserve death.

 

[Tiger09]

I don't see how any juror didn't vote death after she very sarcastically quoted Travis' s brother in her student council speech at the last trial.

 

[TexMex]

True. And her lies are very manipulative and childish. Like telling Juan that she returned the gas can to the same Walmart shortly after she left the Starbucks that's in the same shopping center lot. How dare everyone just not accept her word?! Instead, Juan produces a witness to testify that every receipt from every register was gone through and that gas can had NOT been returned for cash as Jodi had lied. Juan asked her: why did you have three cans in SLC if you still maintain you returned the third? Then, not relying on her TWO receipts she had saved for her gas she bought after leaving Ryan's home...Juan pulls out her bank statement which showed three separate gas purchases within minutes of each other at the same Tesoro station.
Did she really expect no one to look into her transactions? To just believe things because she said so?
Unbelievable!

I'm going to hypothesize that they keep referring to CMJA as "girl" because mentally she is very much like a teenager, which falls under girl territory. I've actually been served by teens at McDonald's that seem to have better social skills than Arias. Why do I think this?

She seems to live in a fantasy world. She believes that if good things will happen, then only good things will occur. Sure, there's the whole Secret thing, but there's a difference in a kid wanting a bike and a woman in her late 20's attempting to will a man into marry her and throwing fits like a spoiled child when she doesn't get it. The fact that it took her going to prison to get her GED. I'm positive that was a strategy suggested by her defense team. Arias has remained an eternal teen, sponging off partner to partner, family member to family member, utterly refusing to better herself and get better paying work. Or stay at work without leaving and crying or not going. She simply took the easy way out. It's easy to lie. It's easy to play the stupid, poor victim. And when that didn't work cry abuse. Oh that's not working? Well, um Travis was uh a uh something worse than that, yeah. See? It's the eternal he pinched me omg.

So how could they call her anything but a girl? She has always acted like a petulant child.

 

[fifteen89]

She was really not counting on how much clean up there would be. She anticipated a lot of it, but there was so much more fighting than she expected. She knew she'd have to have a gun! The laundry, that's where she blew it. She ran out of time when she was doing the wash and chucked in the camera. She deleted the photos, but she didn't know they'd survive the washing machine. To Detective Flores: "Really?!?"

Lucky for us, she blew it from the very beginning stealing Grandpa's gun. She's definitely not as smart as she believes she is because it was all downhill from there.

 

[geevee]

The bullet casing could have been tossed around during the fight. I just don't understand how Flores originally missed the bullet on top of conjulated blood.

I also don't believe Travis was completely incapacitated from the gunshot. I think he was stunned and still capable of crawling down the hall until he was getting closer to the exit.

I don't believe he was shot first for a few reasons, but it's always surprised me that she would put this out as a defense considering if she had shot him first then she was simply torturing a badly wounded, defenseless man with a knife before she finally killed him with the neck slash - seems like her attorneys would have warned her that it would look even worse to the jury for her. At least with the gun last he had a fighting chance, but not having been shot in the head first.
But the gun didn't come first, not with the wounds to his hands and the casing where it was found so in my mind it's academic, but what a dumb defense.

 

[Wagara]

I dont think her plans were all that flawed...its the execution of the plans that she failed at. Using her card instead of cash, buying all the gas at the same place, and leaving the camera were mistakes she could have avoided and the palmprint should have been wiped. These things were her downfall. She was actually successful with getting in and out of AZ without getting caught. She was smart but she was stupid too. Using her bank card was really stupid.

 

[Madeleine74]

Considering she killed him 3 different ways(overkill) and especially slitting his throat nearly decapitating him and making sure he saw her, I think she well qualifies as the worst of the worst.

I know that and it is extremely brutal and I am not discounting the brutality of the crime, not one bit. At the same time, I still don't put her in the same category as the following:

- the Petit family murderers (4 victims, 3 killed, including 2 minors, burned alive in their home, rape of youngest daughter & mom)
- the Manson family murderers (7 people killed over 2 nights, including an 8-month pregnant Sharon Tate & her fetus)
- Ted Bundy, serial killer, rapist, murderer
- Richard Ramirez, serial killer, rapist
- Anyone who has kidnapped & murdered a child (like: David Westerfield, Richard Allan Davis, Alejandro Avila)
- The torture and murder of little Teghan Skiba
- Mass murderers: Sandyhook Elementary, etc.
- Darlie Routier (slaughtered her 2 young sons)

I'm not saying Travis' murder isn't heinous. I'm not saying it wasn't cruel. And I'm not saying there isn't a good argument for death for her. I'm saying *I* don't consider her and this murder case in the same category as the above murders. YMMV.

But let's consider other women who killed men in a most heinous and cruel fashion

- Susan Wright - tied her allegedly abusive husband to their bed and then stabbed him 200 times, using 2 different knives, then attempted to bury him in some dirt along the outside patio.

- Melanie Maguire - killed and dismembered her husband, put his body parts into 3 different suitcases and then in a body of water.


There are others of course. These 2 did not get the DP. Maybe they should have, I don't know. But they didn't.

 

[ElleElle]

Why do you think there was a fight? And, why do you think he was just stunned?

To start, look at page 7 of Dr. Horn's autopsy report:

"Nervous System"

The dura meter and falx celebri are intact"

Sorry, I cannot attach the pdf or the link, I did a Google search for it and it was under Murderpedia.

 

[geevee]

To start, look at page 7 of Dr. Horn's autopsy report:

"Nervous System"

The dura meter and falx celebri are intact"

Sorry, I cannot attach the pdf or the link, I did a Google search for it and it was under Murderpedia.

Isn't that part of the report exclusive of the injury detailing?

 

[TexMex]

To start, look at page 7 of Dr. Horn's autopsy report:

"Nervous System"

The dura meter and falx celebri are intact"

Sorry, I cannot attach the pdf or the link, I did a Google search for it and it was under Murderpedia.

Dr. Horn testified that was a typo. He was crystal clear in his testimony about the damage caused by a shot to the head in this area of the brain

http://jodi-arias.wikispaces.com/Horn+Final

"Your report stated there was no damage to the dura mater membrane. Can you explain how the brain can be damaged without damaging the membrane?"
Horn: I, ah, let me review my report... it’s the usual protocol with the report so clearly the dura mater had to have been perforated so that would be a typographical error in my report.

Horn: A bullet as it passes through something soft like brain, will create what is called a temporary cavity, and you see that in ballistic gelatin when you test fire a bullet through gelatin. You see it in the ballistic labs. It’s the same concept in the brain. You get a very large open area that squashes the brain around it into the skull around it, and then that will collapse back down ... and you may be able to see a wound track, but in this case, we don’t. But it damages areas of the brain away from the frontal lobe, even only passing through that one part of the brain, other areas of the brain are involved and damaged.
Martinez: So if it was the first shot, what is your opinion as to whether or not Mr. Alexander would have been incapacitated?
Horn: He would have been incapacitated.
Martinez: And would this have been an immediate sort of reaction, seconds?
Horn: Yes.
Martinez: By seconds, how many seconds would you indicate?
Horn: A second or two. He would collapse to the ground and be unresponsive.
Martinez: I don’t have any other questions. Thank you.