SIDEBAR #8- Arias/Alexander forum

[elementary]

Very hostile and rather condescending.

And based off his comments I gather he did not think highly of Travis and the names he called Jodi. He never referred to Travis by his name only "him". He said almost glowing things about Jodi (that very oddly mirrored DB's comments in his interview) And the way he said he "firmly" believed Jodi was mentally, emotionally and verbally abused.

I think that those are all very telling features. He's the anti DP poster child isn't he? In a kool-aidy kinda way. Heh. I am sure anti-DP folks would take the drum up for him.

 

[m1279]

Reed Timmer predicts an active day today.

I'm in central Iowa and it's getting pretty dicey here. Sirens going off, wind is insane, temps just dropped about 15 degrees.

 

[Hope4More]

BBM

Yes, exactly - that is EXACTLY the vibe I got from him. Even when he was talking about he felt bad for Travis' family...that was only after asked specifically by the reporter what he would say to the Alexander family. I never saw anything on his face which suggested he felt real sorrow and sympathy for them...

The more I think about it, the angrier I get.....

Cognitive dissonance. I think he felt genuinely sorry for T's family. He also felt sorry for JA. He did not feel sorry for Travis. He made sense of that mish-mosh by rationalizing that the suffering of T's family was awful, but irrelevant to his decision; that to decide anything based on their suffering would be to act on emotion, which they were told not to do.

I'm all for dissecting what jurors thought, but it contributes not very much to see them as one dimensional peeps who think only in black and white and in a straight line. We are all messier than that, and flawed.

 

[gngr~snap]

Here's my version of Jodi as a mother

Big pregnancy announcement
Lots of showers (she is kinda greedy)
Blogs, pictures, Jodi's pregnancy would be the biggest thing to hit the west, Facebook would charge her for all the extra pics (how do you take those face selfies and get that belly in there too?)

Then.....

dramatic miscarriage, very dramatic, probably caused by intruders who attacked her.


because while Jodi would revel in the attention she got from pregnancy (in my version, it's fake) there's no way she'd allow a baby to steal attention from her. Never.

A pregnancy would be a commodity Jodi could play up. Same with the grief after losing the baby. But an actual baby? She'd throw it in a dumpster if , we know how much she values human (and pet) life.

Or hit it in the head with a baseball bat...


IMO she never really wanted kids. Leaving home at 17. About 10 years of living with "men" and she as far as we know was able to avoid pregnancy. I don't think she was using her head and waiting for marriage and financial stability. If she had wanted a baby, she would have gotten pregnant without thinking how the partner felt. She talked about having a baby with Travis ,yet she had a problem with him interacting with his "family".
I dunno, I think the whole wanting to be a mother thing was to make someone on the jury feel sorry for her.
Based on what I have heard about JA she was not "gaga"
over other peoples babies or children.
I never have heard from the Hughes if JA even interacted
with their children. I bet not. That is a good thing!!!

jmo
Thank goodness she is not a mother!

Sent from my SGH-T679 using Tapatalk 2

 

[elementary]

I wasn't trying to get "personal". Only stating my opinion.

What logic are you using? That because they didn't DEBATE it wasn't a deliberation? That isn't logical. It is your opinion. The definition itself shows debate is not necessary to deliberate. You can't MAKE someone feel the same way you do, no matter how long you "hammer" it out. You continue to insist that no debating happened therefore no deliberation happened.
I showed you that even in the actual definition of deliberation, there is no mention of debate. It states conversation, discussion. The juror on Dr Drew stated they did discuss it.
If you still feel that they did not deliberate and did not do their job, you are entitled to your opinion. I have no stake in trying to sway you.
It just seems opposite what a definition of deliberation actually is.
I was actually trying to help you release your anger or frustration over the situation. I will stop trying and you feel however you want to feel.

Maybe THIS is what happened in the jury room? Some give reasons they feel one way (definition of deliberation), the other doesn't feel that reason is valid. No matter how much one try to make the other see their point of view, no resolution, therefore: hung jury.

I did highlight the part of the other post that bugged me- the assumption that disappointment informs the post. Please.

And now you want to help me release my anger????? And I'm not supposed to be offended????

I have largely enjoyed your posts and agreed with many of them, so I am not getting this turn of events.

I am not persuaded that the jury did much beyond sharing and stating their views. I am still waiting for the articulate juror that helps me understand. They were deadlocked at hour 2. They were shocked that there was a mistrial. They had a doofus for a foreperson. Why should I believe that everything else was kosher?

ETA: It's not about feelings.

 

[polleypockets]

I think when she says "becuase of my poor choices" in that sentence, she's ACTUALLY SAYING HER POOR CHOICE WAS FOCUSING ON TRAVIS TO GIVE HER THOSE THINGS. IMO, she doesn't even mean "poor choices" as in the MURDER. She is sooooo twisted up in the head.

It's along the lines of her saying in another interview, that she was so "dumb" when she talked about trying to please Travis.

sadly imo i don't think she feels her bad choices are committing murder, but rather that she was caught and couldn't get out of it

 

[aa9511]

I agree that the 2 mitigators you have listed above are not appropriate factors at all for leniency in this case.

However, it sounds like from what the jurors are saying, including the foreperson, that the mitigator that made the difference was verbal abuse, plus potential abuse by the parents, not the two that you have listed. Some felt that it was relevent enough to vote life.

I think we could all debate mitigation for hours upon hours here, and never agree, much like the jury. Like many others have said, mitigation is a personal thing. There is no definitive right or wrong answer.

Abuse is one of the best mitigators out there and defense teams know it. How many times do you hear it get thrown around in cases.. and it makes everybody pause for a moment. Some see through it, some don't. As much as I don't like it, it's a smart move for the defense to use it.

And that makes me even sadder and sicker for victims. But that's part of our system. Hard one to swallow.

If I may, I have issue with the notion that penalty phase and mitigation is a "personal" thing and jurors can just come up with things. It IS personal, but personal to the extent that it has to be FROM EVIDENCE presented, and it has to be SUBSTANTIALLY PROVEN, MEANING IT IS MORE OFTEN TRUE THAN NOT TRUE. Let's say some jurors took the text message as verbal abuse...okay that's fine...they are SILL not done though...it has to be SUBSTANTIALLY PROVEN. Did Travis verbally abuse Jodi more often than no?? I don't think so.

Getting to what mitigating factors are there is NOT PERSONAL. IT has to be presented in evidence, and it has to be substantially proven. Now, once they decide what mitigating factors there ACTUALLY ARE, then yes, after that it is "personal." Meaning someone can give one mitigating factor more weight than someone else would.

ARRIVING AT WHAT MITIGATING FACTORS THERE ARE IS NOT SUBJECTIVE, IMO. So...based on what I stated above...NONE of the "abuse" should have been a mitigating factor, because NONE WAS SUBSTANTIALLY PROVEN. YET, we hear from many jurors that the 4 who voted life, there MAIN mitigating factors was ABUSE. SO that is all wrong to me.

MOO. That is what I took from reading the jury instructions, and that's how I would have approached it had I been in deliberations.

 

[anagrammy]

BBM

You just got me thinkng...do you think Travis threated to tell RYAN BURNS about her stalking ways???? Didn't Travis and Ryan know each other? And didn't Travis know she was talking to Ryan B?

I know many on here think Ryan B was just an alibi, but I have had this nagging feeling that JA thought he was the (next) ONE. Something about the way she talked about him in the interrogation tapes -- example, she said she had researched Salt Lake City, and it seemed lke a wonderful place with many museums, many hiking trails, etc.. Sounded to me like she was planning to move there!! And in the text messages with him, she seemed VERY interested in him and willing to please him. I think she had put all her hopes into Ryan B. by the time of that May 26th text message. Perhaps Travis was threatening to do something that JA knew would derail this future relationship with RYan????

I honestly think this is the reason for her attack on Travis. Not only had he dashed her dreams of a life with him, but he was also threatening to damage her NEW HOPE and new dream of life with Ryan. I saw a pic of him from before, he was really handsome.

IMO, there was more to the attack then just that she couldn't have him, so no one could. By that point, she had TOTALLY de-valued him. She hated him thoroughly as she made her road trip down from Yrecka. It wouldn't matter to her if someone else had him, b/c she viewed him as disposable by that point. I really, really don't think that was the reason for her killing.

Her saying "i had to move on" in his interrogation tapes - that was her saying Travis wouldn'd LET me move on with Ryan. She felt his would threaten any future relationships she had. That's why she hated him so much.

Very good points. One of the greatest lies that CMJA has NOT been held accountable for is that Jodi "loved" Travis Alexander, wonderful inside and out. No.

The other day I was watching one of the Snapped Episodes or maybe it was Mystery Detectives--anyway, in part of the trial sequence the medical examiner gave the information that the injury penetrated (listed all the layers) to a depth of 3-1/2"-- same as the fatal chest wound suffered by TA.

THEN the prosecution gets up and shows the physics of the blow and how she would have to have him immobile plus the amount of armswing that would be required to give the blow sufficient force to kill a man his size (through that much fat/muscle). There had to be no backward motion on his part, he had to be standing up against a wall or on the floor, and it was a roundhouse stab.

This has always been a problem for me in the scenarios where she stabs him as he is crouched in a protective position in the shower.

My point here is not to launch into a sequence of events discussion but to think instead about the hatred that was inside Jodi Arias that she was able to summon AFTER a round of photo taking of his wonderful physique??????? It's easy to picture that much anger if you are in a big fight breaking up and there is money and children at stake.....

But as the OP here points out, what is sufficiently at stake for her to rush to Arizona before he could go to Cancun and silence him forever?

I do not buy the "if she couldn't have him she didn't want anyone to have him." SHe is a SOCIOPATH people-- she doesn't love people, she owns them. When you love people, you do things that benefit THEM and not necessarily you. When Jodi did something for Travis, it was manipulative. "Here honey, I baked you cookies (because I am in your house uninvited)."

If a sociopath gives something, they expect something back. If they get something, they don't expect to give something.

I believe the failure to pay for the car was a big issue between them after they split up. He clearly expected her to pay for the car she ruined. She fully expected NOT to pay for it because ...he got sex for free for so long? That would explain him calling her a , wouldn't it?

Raise your arm in a stabbing motion 28 times. Imagine that much anger having been suppressed in a murder plan. The energy it takes to keep a murderous rage boiling is substantial... and why leave a check on the desk after she killed him?

I think they quarreled about the money she owed him and she used giving him a check as a pretext for the visit. After weaseling herself in, she was there to gather photographs and make recordings to use for blackmail to keep him from preventing her from attaching herself to Ryan Burns (or someone else single/rich/Mormon in Prepaid Legal) Dr. Samuels commented that she seemed to be circulating among the available young successful men in PPL.

Both Mormonism and PPL had RULES which had to be met before the rewards were given. There were quotas to meet, behavior to avoid, time to put in before a Temple Recommend would be issued or enough work done to earn $100K. Jodi Arias liked the kind of job where her success was a matter of opinion--like photography. She left a promotion to a wedding planner job because that's hard work-- and you can't pretend to be successful. Those brides will eat you alive and you will never work again if you f up even one wedding.

CMJA liked road trips because on the road she is judged by her appearance--her expensive sun glasses and fancy clothes and Mercedes or Prius. Having the appearance of success made her feel powerful and successful without having to do any work.

Now she had a successor for Travis lined up and he had the gall to threaten to ruin her opportunity to flea hop at PPL. When he told the PPL crowd at Cancun that Jodi expected to be paid for sex, or that she had diverted his commisions to herself by hacking his PPL records, she would have to start from scratch.

Casa Verde in Yreka, working as a waitress. Living in her grandmother's guest room. Travis Alexander was threatening to make her stay low class Yreka. That's why he had to die...she had no plan B because Mormonism plus PPL= tons of rich handsome naive men who are inexperienced sexually.

Where could she find that bonanza elsewhere?

Too bad someone just didn't point her to NuSkin.

Anagrammy

 

[STEADFAST]

I think that those are all very telling features. He's the anti DP poster child isn't he? In a kool-aidy kinda way. Heh. I am sure anti-DP folks would take the drum up for him.

I'm against the death penalty, but it doesn't follow that I agree with the jury foreman's conclusion that Travis was abusive. In fact, I find it highly offensive for Travis to be posthumously abused by Jodi and her defense team. I'm also stunned that anyone on that jury would fall for the smear campaign. I blame much of it on ALV, too, who deliberately left the impression that there were many, many other instances not shown to the jury of verbal abuse by Travis when she knew there were none at all. Unforgivable, IMO.

 

[Hope4More]

I think that those are all very telling features. He's the anti DP poster child isn't he? In a kool-aidy kinda way. Heh. I am sure anti-DP folks would take the drum up for him.

He's very much not a posterchild for anti-DP. If the killer had conformed more to his notions of what a killer looks like, I can very much see him taking the lead to have her put to death, with the same certainty of self he's expressing now.

 

[MidwestMama]

I'm in central Iowa and it's getting pretty dicey here. Sirens going off, wind is insane, temps just dropped about 15 degrees.

Oh, geez. Keep yourself safe. And thanks for the warning... I'm in IL and it likely is headed our way.

 

[PrincessSezMe]

Do you have a link or photographic evidence?

Squirrels don't poop! lol


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

LoL, I have to clear this one up (quickly cause I'm at work).

When we first moved into our house we had a problem with squirrels. One got into the house, and someone had left the basement door open so he ended up in our family room. Freaked both my kids out to the point of hysteria! My hubby chased him out the patio door with a broom. After he was gone I had squirrel droppings from one end of the room to the other. And he had traversed across every piece of furniture in the room leaving his "droppings" behind him. Took me forever to clean up!

Yes, Emily, squirrels DO poop. :floorlaugh:

 

[deedee21]

I'm in central Iowa and it's getting pretty dicey here. Sirens going off, wind is insane, temps just dropped about 15 degrees.

Stay safe. I saw the news. Tornado watches in many states.

 

[Horace Finklestein]

I have to disagree. Travis was enraged alright, he was livid, but he was doing more than telling it like it is. His response to her was not merely harsh but vitriolic, and the words and expressions he used were designed and intended to objectify, dehumanize and annihilate.

Vitriol like that cannot be taken out of context; its very source is toxic; its voice betrays someone very at home, learned, and practised with the language of hatred and abuse. It has a second-nature quality--it flows. This kind of abuse may need a trigger, but it is not a one-off, born-full-grown kind of thing.

I tend to disagree, too, that he intended, at the moment of his abusive tirade, to get her out of his life once and for all. He was dismissing her as a human being and, at the same time, paradoxically and actively engaging her. Neither of them were just going to walk away.

She provoked that response. You can't provoke someone then play a victim when they blow up. She was a good manipulator and deserved every bit of his accurate tirade. Not abusive at all, very specific and honest.

 

[gngr~snap]

Very good points. One of the greatest lies that CMJA has NOT been held accountable for is that Jodi "loved" Travis Alexander, wonderful inside and out. No.

The other day I was watching one of the Snapped Episodes or maybe it was Mystery Detectives--anyway, in part of the trial sequence the medical examiner gave the information that the injury penetrated (listed all the layers) to a depth of 3-1/2"-- same as the fatal chest wound suffered by TA.

THEN the prosecution gets up and shows the physics of the blow and how she would have to have him immobile plus the amount of armswing that would be required to give the blow sufficient force to kill a man his size (through that much fat/muscle). There had to be no backward motion on his part, he had to be standing up against a wall or on the floor, and it was a roundhouse stab.

This has always been a problem for me in the scenarios where she stabs him as he is crouched in a protective position in the shower.

My point here is not to launch into a sequence of events discussion but to think instead about the hatred that was inside Jodi Arias that she was able to summon AFTER a round of photo taking of his wonderful physique??????? It's easy to picture that much anger if you are in a big fight breaking up and there is money and children at stake.....

But as the OP here points out, what is sufficiently at stake for her to rush to Arizona before he could go to Cancun and silence him forever?

I do not buy the "if she couldn't have him she didn't want anyone to have him." SHe is a SOCIOPATH people-- she doesn't love people, she owns them. When you love people, you do things that benefit THEM and not necessarily you. When Jodi did something for Travis, it was manipulative. "Here honey, I baked you cookies (because I am in your house uninvited)."

If a sociopath gives something, they expect something back. If they get something, they don't expect to give something.

I believe the failure to pay for the car was a big issue between them after they split up. He clearly expected her to pay for the car she ruined. She fully expected NOT to pay for it because ...he got sex for free for so long? That would explain him calling her a , wouldn't it?

Raise your arm in a stabbing motion 28 times. Imagine that much anger having been suppressed in a murder plan. The energy it takes to keep a murderous rage boiling is substantial... and why leave a check on the desk after she killed him?

I think they quarreled about the money she owed him and she used giving him a check as a pretext for the visit. After weaseling herself in, she was there to gather photographs and make recordings to use for blackmail to keep him from preventing her from attaching herself to Ryan Burns (or someone else single/rich/Mormon in Prepaid Legal) Dr. Samuels commented that she seemed to be circulating among the available young successful men in PPL.

Both Mormonism and PPL had RULES which had to be met before the rewards were given. There were quotas to meet, behavior to avoid, time to put in before a Temple Recommend would be issued or enough work done to earn $100K. Jodi Arias liked the kind of job where her success was a matter of opinion--like photography. She left a promotion to a wedding planner job because that's hard work-- and you can't pretend to be successful. Those brides will eat you alive and you will never work again if you f up even one wedding.

CMJA liked road trips because on the road she is judged by her appearance--her expensive sun glasses and fancy clothes and Mercedes or Prius. Having the appearance of success made her feel powerful and successful without having to do any work.

Now she had a successor for Travis lined up and he had the gall to threaten to ruin her opportunity to flea hop at PPL. When he told the PPL crowd at Cancun that Jodi expected to be paid for sex, or that she had diverted his commisions to herself by hacking his PPL records, she would have to start from scratch.

Casa Verde in Yreka, working as a waitress. Living in her grandmother's guest room. Travis Alexander was threatening to make her stay low class Yreka. That's why he had to die...she had no plan B because Mormonism plus PPL= tons of rich handsome naive men who are inexperienced sexually.

Where could she find that bonanza elsewhere?

Too bad someone just didn't point her to NuSkin.

Anagrammy

Now this makes me wonder. Travis was a business man. I have never heard if he "sold" JA his car was there any type of written agreement ?
Would we even know ?

Just a thought -doesn't really matter now I guess.

Eta: people are like furniture to BPD's. They can drop them as if they never had even met them. JA speaks about her "reputation" in Flores interview and even after she was found guilty, maybe it wasn't that no one else could have him.
She silenced him. Ugg who knows...
Sent from my SGH-T679 using Tapatalk 2

 

[MidwestMama]

I did highlighte the part of the other post that bugged me- the assumption that disappointment informs the post. Please.

And now you want to help me release my anger????? And I'm not supposed to be offended????

I have largely enjoyed your posts and agreed with many of them, so I am not getting this turn of events.

I am not persuaded that the jury did much beyond sharing and stating their views. I am still waiting for the articulate juror that helps me understand. They were deadlocked at hour 2. They were shocked that there was a mistrial. They had a doofus for a foreperson. Why should I believe that everything else was kosher?

ETA: It's not about feelings.

Geez. No matter what I say I am making it worse.
It isn't personal. I have enjoyed your posts too. We just see things very differently.
Let's just agree to disagree. I won't respond on this issue any further.

 

[Hope4More]

I'm in central Iowa and it's getting pretty dicey here. Sirens going off, wind is insane, temps just dropped about 15 degrees.

Getting somewhere safe is more important than posting here! Go get safe!

 

[elementary]

I think when she says "becuase of my poor choices" in that sentence, she's ACTUALLY SAYING HER POOR CHOICE WAS FOCUSING ON TRAVIS TO GIVE HER THOSE THINGS. IMO, she doesn't even mean "poor choices" as in the MURDER. She is sooooo twisted up in the head.

It's along the lines of her saying in another interview, that she was so "dumb" when she talked about trying to please Travis.

Re in blue: I find that a real trend in society in diminishing the power and egregiousness of an act. It's right up there with the convict saying she "made a mistake" in savagely slaughtering Travis.

 

[dani]

When we lived in Arizona we would summer in Flagstaff (much cooler). My husband saw the squirrels one day so we bought some unsalted peanuts in the shell. My DH started sitting outside about 5:00 pm everyday with his beer and peanuts. When a squirrel came around he started tossing him peanuts, already shelled. Soon the squirrel, we called him Alvin, would come up to my DH and sit up with one little paw on my Dh's cowboy boot and wait for his peanuts.

Neighbors started coming over to drink beer and talk everyday. Rex gave them peanuts. One of the neighbors said, "You know, you don't have to shell them. The squirrel will shell it himself." Rex said, "Not Alvin!" So the neighbor tossed Alvin a peanut in the shell. Alvin walked over to it, turned up his nose and went back to Rex for more shelled peanuts. So you can even spoil the little critters.:seeya:

Quoting myself here for the "rest of the story":

The next summer when we went back to Flag Alvin showed up at our doorstep. Rex got his peanuts and beer and went out and sat down and started shelling. Alvin went away for a minute, but came back with 3 baby squirrels and she took up her position with one paw on Rex's boot and waited patiently for her treats with the babies at her side. Turns out "Alvin" was "Alvina". She had given birth in the spring, apparently. Long story short, Rex had to shell peanuts like a madman to feed "his brood". We were impressed that she remembered where the GOOD handouts were and that she knew 5:00 was dinner time.

 

[LambChop]

I agree that the 2 mitigators you have listed above are not appropriate factors at all for leniency in this case.

However, it sounds like from what the jurors are saying, including the foreperson, that the mitigator that made the difference was verbal abuse, plus potential abuse by the parents, not the two that you have listed. Some felt that it was relevent enough to vote life.

I think we could all debate mitigation for hours upon hours here, and never agree, much like the jury. Like many others have said, mitigation is a personal thing. There is no definitive right or wrong answer.

Abuse is one of the best mitigators out there and defense teams know it. How many times do you hear it get thrown around in cases.. and it makes everybody pause for a moment. Some see through it, some don't. As much as I don't like it, it's a smart move for the defense to use it.

And that makes me even sadder and sicker for victims. But that's part of our system. Hard one to swallow.

The ironic thing is that defense never proved abuse from her family. We never saw any of the other siblings up on that stand testifying how abusive their mother and father were to Jodi. She was restricted. Really???? That's abusive? As far as physical abuse, JM proved that the viewing of the pedo material never happened. She was working that day, had his car and Travis had Family Night at church that night. It never happened so that makes the argument about the pictures where he knocked her down and breaking her finger pretty much a lie also. Does anyone think the jury caught when Flores said there was nothing in the attic? Jodi claims she helped Travis move the Christmas decorations to the attic in January. Another lie.