I am starting to believe that Jodi might have thought Lisa was just a "side chick," and not a woman that Travis was actually in love with and wanted to marry. I don't think she knew the seriousness of his feelings for Lisa until she stole the journals and read the May email he'd composed for Lisa.
AND
I agree that she knew about Lisa. She met Lisa in May 2007, but she didn't know that Lisa was any different from any of the other women, like Chiatanya, etc.
IMO the only way the could possibly have thought Lisa was no different is if she didn't snoop his texts and emails and journals all along, and I'm quite sure she did.
Even Travis the trusting acknowledged, in April 2008, that the had been invading his privacy in those specific ways for a whole year. And even the lying liar wrote in her own journal in fall 2007 that she kept on “finding” info about Travis, “horrible” stuff, that justified her suspicions about him, and her “insecurity” about how he actually felt about her.
Travis joked with other women about making babies and the like, but he didn't talk with them about marrying. He didn't routinely say I love you to them. The knew the difference. That's why she slashed his tires, and then Lisa's too. And why she sent Lisa that vile email and stalked them on dates.
And IMO, knowing that Travis loved Lisa was one of her motivations for throwing herself full force at him sexually, especially in January and early February, when marriage to Lisa was very much on the table. I think she did so to show him what he wouldn’t get with the inexperienced and good Mormon Lisa, and because IMO she knowingly used sex as a weapon against Travis, to make him feel self-doubt, guilt, self-loathing, and overall--weakened by his lack of resolve, and unworthy.
I agree she probably felt victorious when Travis broke it off with Lisa in February for the final time. But....she also knew, if she was snooping, that Travis was already pursuing Mimi BEFORE he broke off with Lisa, and that Sky and Chris were thrilled with his choice of Mimi.
The closely monitored the Mimi situation to see how much a threat she posed, including lying in wait for Travis after his rock climbing date, and keeping track of how many dates Travis had taken Mimi on. Whatever Travis may have written about Lisa or Mimi in his first stolen journal, the almost certainly read every last word, since she definitely had his journal in her possession mid-March, at the OKC convention, the same journal she stole altogether on March 18.
I concluded a while ago that the likely wrote most of her March journal entries after the fact. What she wrote so understates and ignores the emotional reality of what was going on as to be unbelievable, or, downright scary, because of the rage her bland entries completely concealed.
Everything she had done and said and sacrificed and plotted since the fall of 2006 had failed. The has a definite aptitude for creating her own reality, but even with her gift for delusion she’d have to spin hard to make Travis asking her to leave Mesa and no longer being willing to help her financially as anything other than what it was---a rejection. Travis not only wasn’t going to marry her, he was perfectly fine—happy, even, that she’d be living 1,000 away.
By the last week in March she'd concluded, rightly so, that Mimi wasn't going to be "the One." I think it's likely she thought Travis had already given up on Mimi by then (she quotes TA's journal, basically, saying just that). Much of what she wrote (and said) about Mimi before and after killing Travis mocks Travis for his ever calling her the One. In any case, I don’t think the ever felt threatened by Mimi, because I don’t think she believed Travis ever had any chance of marrying her.
.
I think Travis wrote at the end of March about Lisa and about needing the out of town knowing the would read it, and that she wrote a goodbye in his journal as a way of saying she had done so. I think the fight they had on her way out of town when Michelle the Spy came up was about Travis telling her thanks for the memories, but I need to get married now, you do too, it'll be better for both of us when you're gone, and I still think Mimi is the One.
The one thing that JA kept repeating and kept going back to in her explanations was how she found about how he'd been seeing Lisa "all along" after he and Lisa had broken up. She wears that statement like an excuse or pity badge. I don't know about the listening in the house thing, but if it happened, maybe Travis got her to believe something different about what she'd heard.
IMO, Travis had no motivation or interest in lying about or downplaying his interest in Lisa to the . Why would he? He had told the he wasn’t interested in a relationship. He had made it exceptionally clear to her that he did not want her to move to Mesa. He was dating Lisa openly, talking openly to his friends about Lisa, even talking to his bishop about Lisa, openly. Everyone around him seems to have known that Travis was dating with marriage in mind. He was dating Lisa. He was not dating the .
I think the reality is closer to what the wrote in her journal in the fall of 2007 (whatever else she was trying to imply): that Travis didn’t want to talk with her directly about Lisa or anyone else he might date, because she had “become like Deanna,” getting extremely upset when she knew Travis was interested in someone else. (The must have snooped Travis telling someone something like that, probably not mentioning Deanna at all, because she also writes that it’s a good thing Travis didn’t tell her that directly, because it would have pissed her off).
Her walking in on Travis and Lisa embracing and sharing I love you’s comes directly from Travis, texting with Michelle in the beginning of April. Travis also tells Michelle that what bothered him most about the walking in on him (and her other Lisa-related intrusions) was that the was causing HERSELF pain and hurt feelings.
The did carry on and on in every medium available to her before and after murdering Travis that she did NOT know about Lisa until the very eve of leaving Mesa. Utter BS, for the reasons above and more. Why was she so prolific with this particular lie, and so insistent that her lie was true?
Two reasons. IMO---if she didn’t even know about Lisa, she couldn’t be responsible for tire slashings, stalkings, mean texts, and that vile email, etc.
And, secondly, because her lie targeted Lisa in the same lying breath of feigning empathy with her. The was saying—Travis didn’t feel anything special for you, Lisa, because he cheated on you with me the entire time the two of you were together. And I’m just as much a victim as you in that, because just as you didn’t know about ME, I didn’t know about YOU either. We were both victims of Travis, who didn’t love either one of us.
But then the May 2008 email to Lisa lets JA know that she hadn't outlasted Lisa at all, and Travis was really and actually in love with Lisa. Wow. That had to be some pain to read and realize.
The May letter to Lisa. Travis used the past tense... that the had taken/deleted a letter (email) he had SENT to Lisa. Who knows what was actually in the letter. What he did NOT write was a declaration of love for Lisa. He was being respectful of her decision to date someone else, didn't want to spook her, and most importantly, IMO, had indicated he was ready to move on too, after he cleared the air with her. He even joked about wanting to become rich and famous just so his ex-GF's, including Lisa, would regret their bad decision not to stay with him.
No wonder she wasn't journaling in April. She was too busy obsessing over his words in his journal, probably checking the facts against texts and emails. All the while, she was getting more and more angry. Travis probably thought maybe she didn't have the journal because she was still acting all peachy keen.
Who knows if she was keeping a journal in April. She kept and/or manufactured only what she wanted LE to read.
Personally, I think she was already borderline homicidal when she left Mesa, and was pretty occupied most of April and the first 2 weeks of May manufacturing a written, online, and on-tape bogus record of Travis relentlessly in sexual pursuit of her, and so besotten with her that the mere mention of another man’s name by her drove him into a jealous frenzy.
