In the most widely televised case since the 2012 trial of Casey Anthony, we the people have a front row seat to the biggest trial of the year, the Jodi Arias trial. A trial filled with lies, sexual deviance, religious disregard, and the prosecution would allege, a premeditated killing of good boy turned bad, Travis Alexander.  Now you want to watch don’t you?! The advent of courtroom cameras has made soap operas a thing of my past. No need for Victor and Nikki of Young and the Restless fame!  NOTHING is better than a real life sex-scandal-gone-bad.  Jodi Arias has drawn us all in with her blunt sex talk and her disregard for the facts of what happened that fateful day she murdered Travis Alexander. From beginning to end, the timeline of events will have you yearning for more. So lets examine the case.

WHAT IN THE MORMON HELL HAPPENED?

Jodi Arias, easily the newest Femme Fatale, meets Travis Alexander at a Pre-Paid Legal Conference (insert all PPL jokes here) and they become friends. Two months later she converts to the Mormon Church, as Travis, is a Mormon.  Several months later they begin dating. Shortly thereafter he allegedly teaches her that anal sex, oral sex, and anything OTHER than vaginal sex won’t keep them out of heaven, so they should go for it.  And they do. Again and again. They text about it. She secretly records their conversations about it. They email about it. They plan to meet in empty fields to commune with nature while he wants to “tie [her] to a tree and put it in her ass all the way”, to which she replied “That is so debasing! I like it!” They break up to make up several times over the course of the following year though they continued their physical relationship (friends with benefits anyone?).  While they are broken up, Travis accuses her of breaking into his Facebook account, email account, and basically becoming a nuisance.  She allegedly emailed other women he was dating and just made being a Mormon player really hard on a brother.  But, like many other red-blooded men, he still let her come over for a little recreational sex.  The week before Travis’ death, a .25 caliber gun goes missing from Jodi Arias’ grandparents house, allegedly stolen in a home invasion.

A week later, Jodi Arias goes to Travis Alexander’s house, and as you see below, does nude photo time with him in the bedroom and shower, and then kills him. Slits his throat ear to ear, stabs him in the back 29 times, and shoots him in the head.

Photo taken of Travis moments before he is killed

IS SHE PLEADING THE “JESUS MADE ME DO IT” DEFENSE?

Jodi Arias claims Travis Alexander was angry at her for dropping his camera during her shower photo session and he lunged at her like a linebacker. So of course, she had to kill him in self defense. Why don’t we believe Jodi? Probably because this is Jodi’s third story about what happened to Travis. This is a woman who at first claimed she didn’t do it at all.  She even went to the police station to voluntarily give a DNA and fingerprint sample at the beginning of the investigation.  She attended Travis’ funeral and sent sympathy  messages to his family. Then when her bloody handprint, hair, and DNA was found mixed with Travis’ congealed blood on the floor and wall of the bathroom, she was arrested. Suddenly there was a  story about being there during a home invasion where a man and woman broke into Travis’ house with guns drawn and she blew past them and barreled out the front door leaving Travis in the house.  When that story fell apart, she then claimed that it was self-defense because Travis was a violent pedophile who she had previously caught masturbating to pictures of young boys, and she feared for her life.

WHAT DOES THE EVIDENCE SHOW?

There’s a knife (that can’t be found), a gun (that can’t be found), some rope (that can’t be found), a digital camera she “washed” in the machine, bloody towels, pre-death photographs, blood EVERYWHERE throughout the house, DNA evidence, and a body left to decompose over 3 days before it was found.

Over the past month, we have seen Jodi Arias as a shy, withdrawn, on direct examination where she remembers everything down to the minute of things that occurred 5 years ago. On cross examination however, she is combative, elusive and when asked a question she either doesn’t know, doesn’t remember, or doesn’t care to answer.

THE JURY

The Arizona jury that will decide whether or not Jodi Arias gets the death penalty has 12 jurors and 6 alternates—7 women and 11 men.  These men and women will have to decide if Jodi Arias is guilty of first degree murder. That means that she was premeditated in the killing. That she planned and carried out her attack. Well we know that she rented a car and filled up gas cans so she didn’t have to stop for gas. We also know that his friends say Travis never owned a gun, although Jodi alleges she “found” a gun in the closet and “found” a knife somewhere in the bedroom. Don’t we all keep steak knives in the vanity drawer? Jodi would have us believe we do.  I’m not convinced that the men on the jury have bought into Jodi’s meek and mild act.  She has proven to be so dramatic and combative that I think she has done herself a disservice to this predominately male jury.

WHERE ARE WE NOW?

Stay tuned for the rest of the Jodi Show. She is finally off the stand, the jury has asked their questions (weird, I know), and we are now seeing rebuttal witnesses that are blowing her story OUT of the water. Everyday it’s a new shocker. Keep watching and I promise to keep blogging.