April 4. The day she left Mesa. Most likely.
(Note- she’s tired because she spent most of the previous day, April 3, not-leaving, last texting Travis at 11:30pm that she missed him already....then returning to sleep in his driveway for another night.
Earlier on April 3 she had emailed him: "I know I’m making the right decision… I used to be so spiritual. I’m not myself… Don’t think I don’t enjoy making love to you. I have enjoyed making love to the man I love but it wasn't under the right circumstances. We’ve both stretched it farther than it should have naturally gone but intact it remains. This time away from each other will help us both. That is my prayer and that is what I sincerely believe. "
After her return that night Travis wrote in his journal: "Jodi keeps leaving but hasn’t left. (...) I think she is having a hard time. But I think I’d be better off and so would she if she got out of here.")
April 4.
At 1:46 pm. Travis asks Michelle what she’s doing for the next couple of hours.
The killer texts him about 20 minutes later; TA’s text to Michelle likely was sent right after the killer left…..again. She wants to let him know she’s at Signal Butte and Route 60. All of 10 minutes away from his house, maximum; Rte 60 is the highway out of town.
TA replies briefly: No accidents. He need not have worried. She wasn’t going to have any because she still wasn’t going anywhere. She tells him a few minutes later she is so exhausted she can’t keep her eyes open, around 3pm she tells him she wanted to go to Costco with him that morning (he says sorry, didn’t know), she says she would have jumped at the opportunity. He tells her- “Se la vie, go to sleep.”
Not happening. Her immediate reply is that she’s trying, but the seat doesn’t recline. Minutes later she informs him she’s at a gas station at Sossaman and Baseline. She’s still only no more than 10 minutes away from T’s house, having zig zagged back in his direction.
Travis tells her he doesn’t know what to say, that it’s curious why she’s driving in the wrong direction if she is so worried about gas. He says- You’ve been gone for 2 hours. Why are you doing this?
She responds immediately that she just couldn’t find a place to park. Close to 10 minutes later Travis (after calming down??) texts her--I think we both know this is a ploy.
She tells him he’s wrong, that she can’t sleep, and that she’d driving again. It’s around 4PM.
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I’m pretty sure from the full text record for April 4 and 5 that she did leave Mesa that afternoon, though it wouldn’t be terribly surprising if she took one more lap around his house in that UHaul.
From Mesa she drove to Pasadena to get the Helio (and whatever else) from Gus. A 6-7 hour trip. She isn’t at her sister’s house in Hollister CA until April 6. From Pasadena to Hollister- a 5-6 hour drive.
She’s off the radar for all of April 5. No texts in or out, and she’s not anywhere she’ll admit to being. What symmetry. A 24 hour gap in her road trip timeline both leaving Mesa and on her murder trip back.
She tells TA by text at 8pm on the 6th she’s at her sister’s house, will be driving to Redding and then Yreka the next day (April 7). In her journal she writes that she slept in the UHaul on the 2 previous nights (April 4th and 5th).
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Travis texts at 10:27pm, after a party at his house where he seems to have finally pieced together the Michelle spy lie.
What’s curious is that the killer claims her cellphone drowned in cocoa before she left Mesa. She’s already been to Pasadena and has the Helio. Is he reaching her on the Helio, then?
TA to JA text, 10:27 PM. (from J blogspot)
“ Don’t call. Don’t text me anything. The next text I want is this Michelle K that is friends with Elena that nobody knows but who knows details about my life. Not one other thing ever. (You have 15 minutes to reply) but you won’t.
Why. Because it’s a F’ing lie. So either tell me the truth or give me your imaginary friend with the worst BS story you have ever told or leave me alone. It’s a lie like no other.
You have screwed up your story so bad you can’t mend it. You have til tomorrow (to tell me) this person’s information before I tell the Hughes, Leslie Udy, the Freemans, your parents, and anyone that matters about all the crazy things you’ve done.”
From text records context, the killer called him within a few minutes, and they spoke for slightly less than an hour at most, at which point Travis texted with Elyse about what the killer had just told him, including that she snuck in and slept on his couch and left before he woke up, and that she used to drive around his house almost every night (and this what she admitted to!).
Elyse responded- that’s insane. She needs serious help.
All she wants to know is if his video has people talking about her again, and all he wants to get her to say is anything that will bring attention to him.