I have always found it hard to believe that JA would have shot TA in the head in order to finish him off.
I believe JA went to Mesa to kill TA and she carried a gun and a knife or knives with her.
JA had to choose a time to kill TA; that is, she was waiting for an opportunity.
One candidate would have been tying up TA during sex.
JA sagaciously thought about offing him in the shower. So JA dressed packed and got her weapons in place ie into pants pockets and then posed as the shower photographer. She lured him into a vulnerable position while in the shower.
Diversion=
TA was physically larger more agile than JA. TA was athletic a wrestler. So a direct attack at him would likely have been problematic and uncertain. If JA had attacked TA and failed the entire enterprise would have ended in a disaster.
If JA had access to both a gun and a knife why in the world would she use a knife to initiate an attack on a victim that was both larger and stronger than she was?? Even with the element of surprise an opening knife thrust to the chest or body would have been very very RISKY.
It makes NO sense.
Given a choice of weapons you merely pull out a gun and shoot TA in the head FIRST. With this lethal wound, normally you would be done with it and the murder completed inside the shower stall. Unfortunately JA did not aim correctly and did not kill him with the first shot. The head shot did not render him unconscious.
(I maintain the shell casing was disturbed and moved from its initial resting place during the ensuing melee)
IMPROBABLILITY OF SHOOT LAST
JA successfully plunges a knife into TA chest and back over 20 times. Then because TA still would not die JA straddles him; pulls his neck up and slices his throat open with a single stroke from TA left to right.
He exsanguinates over a minute or so.
The scene is horrendously bloody. The effort needed to kill him was vastly underestimated. TA 185 lbs body is lying bloodied in the bedroom. JA needs to pick up the corpse by the shoulders and drag him some 5 yards back into the bathroom. This scenario has complicated her clean kill and escape fantasy.
JA manages to get the corpse back into the bathroom. WHY, oh, WHY would you take out a gun to finish him off since he was already very much dead? JA s interests were to kill him and quickly get on the road towards SLC.
Makes NO SENSE.
JA hands and fingers were saturated with slippery blood. Why take out a gun,
it, and shoot with slippery hands??? By this time JA was certainly in a state of panic. She had a bloody mess to attend to PLUS she had to insure that there was NOTHING implicating her or putting JA at the crime scene. Why do something gratuitous devoid of any value?
I just read the Wiki link about Travis.
