Tell Me The Crime
One tells the crime. One hears it for the first time. Tell Me The Crime is a weekly true crime podcast where real-time reactions meet careful storytelling and the psychology behind the case.
Tell Me The Crime
Episode 10: The Story That Kept Changing — The Jodi Arias Case
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Travis Alexander’s friends knew something was wrong.
Not “murder” wrong.
But wrong.
She showed up unannounced.
She seemed to know things she should not know.
She inserted herself into his life even after the relationship was over.
Then Travis missed a trip.
His friends went to his house.
And they found him in the shower.
Stabbed more than 27 times
His throat cut.
Shot in the head.
And the woman everyone had already been worried about…started telling stories.
First, she was never there.
Then, intruders did it.
Then, finally ... she admits the shocking truth
Travis's friends knew something wasn't right. Something was off about her that they couldn't put their finger on it. Then one day Travis misses a trip. So they show up to his house and find him in the shower, stabbed over twenty-seven times, throws his leg and a gunshot wound to the head. The woman they were worried about. The stories just didn't add up. And yeah, you're gonna have a hard time speaking today, so you should warn people. Yeah, bad cankerosaurs everywhere.
SPEAKER_02Really bad.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I put the numbing gel.
SPEAKER_00So she's told me that I need to do most of the speaking today. So we're gonna keep her, you know, she's gonna be a little bit quiet, but you can still do the ah, and you know, I give you the effect. Exactly. So I told you last week that I would do um a gruesome one, a crazy murder story, actual crime story. So um today's episode is about Jodi Arius.
SPEAKER_02Okay Wait, hold on, Jodi Arias? I feel like I have heard that name. Is that in a show?
SPEAKER_00Possible. It's it's possible that you've heard it because it's it was a pretty big case. Um and she was in the news quite a bit. It's um it's about someone whose story kept changing after a pretty gruesome murder of her boyfriend. So let's get into it. Okay, so the um the boyfriend's name was Travis Alexander.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Um and the thing that's really disturbing is it's not just a gruesome murder, it's that it's kind of psychologically terrifying the way that things happened with her and the way that she was clinging on to things and changing the narrative. So it's it's a pattern that she continually had, right? And we'll get into that a little bit deeper. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about um Travis first. So Travis Alexander was 30 years old. Um, he was living in Mesa, Arizona. Now, he was deeply involved in the Mormon um Latter-day Saints community.
unknownOkay?
SPEAKER_02In Arizona.
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm. In Arizona. And that meant structure, accountability, and visibility, right? He wasn't just religious, he was embedded in that world. Have you heard of the Latter-day Saints before?
SPEAKER_02The Latter-day what?
SPEAKER_00Saints. It's a it's a Mormon community.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's a Mormon community, very highly religious. It's kind of like what we watched on the show the other day.
SPEAKER_02The unchosen.
SPEAKER_00The unchosen, yeah.
SPEAKER_02But the unchosen is more like the closed Christian Christianity.
SPEAKER_00Right, right, right.
SPEAKER_02But this one is not.
SPEAKER_00Well, this one is a clo i I mean, it is a community, right? They often live together in communities. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Um, the name again, saints?
SPEAKER_00The latter-day saints. Yeah. It's a Mormon community.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um, okay, so this is important that he was he was pretty religious, right? And that um he actually didn't start that way, though. Okay, so he he grew up in a very different environment. His parents struggled with meth addiction. His early life was unstable. And eventually he and his siblings moved in with their grandparents because of all of this, right? So it was a very chaotic environment growing up. And that's where things changed, right, when he moved in with the grandparents. Um, that's where he found stability and structure, and of course, Mormonism. And he really leaned into it hard, right? He built a life around discipline, success, and community. Okay. So he's really he's really turned his life around to this new sort of self, sense of self.
SPEAKER_02Which is understandable.
SPEAKER_00Which is understandable, right? You grow up in a chaotic environment. One of the things that you want to do is you know find that stability that makes you feel safe, right? So now let's talk a little bit about Jodi. Okay, so Jodi Arius um enters that world, and she doesn't come from the same kind of structure, right? She um had a very unstable upbringing, so sort of like his, you know, unstable at the beginning, but hers never really, you know, got into that structure the way his did later. She had more conflict with her family, less clear identity, and then when she meets Travis, things escalate fast.
SPEAKER_02What do you mean by the unclear identities for Jodie?
SPEAKER_00So when you're in an unstable environment, it's hard to get a sense of yourself. You don't know what to latch on to, you don't know sort of, you know, what your um well, what your identity is, what your your sense of of self is, what your sense of belonging actually is in those cases, right? So um when she finds Travis, that's a little bit different, right? Like I said, he came from an unstable environment as well, but then he turned things around and he got structure and reliability and you know um everything that Jody didn't have at the time. So this was very different for her. Um and when she meets him, she ends up converting to Mormonism shortly after meeting him. Okay, so that's a big thing, right? What is the motion? It's a religion.
SPEAKER_02What is the motive for her?
SPEAKER_00Well, I mean, she one of the themes that you'll see over and over in this case is that she really tends to mold herself to the person that she's dating.
SPEAKER_02Oh. Right. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00So a lot of people do that, right? They they blend their self-identity into someone's identity that is more stable than them. Right? So that instability, you know, becomes more stable when they're able to identify with someone who comes from, you know, the structured, reliable background. So they take on that identity in order to feel that sense of self and stability. So um she converts to Mormonism, and that's you know, not just a religious decision, it's an identity alignment, like we said. So let's talk about now their relationship dynamic. Now it's emotionally intense, it's sexually active, okay, and I'll we gotta think about that one for a second, and psychologically unstable. Okay, so here's the contradiction, right? Travis tells his friends she's not the one.
SPEAKER_02Oh no.
SPEAKER_00Right? But he keeps seeing her.
SPEAKER_02What? That's not fair.
SPEAKER_00It's not fair, right? It's it's not very nice, of course. Um, but I mean it happens, right? It it does happen. People are flawed, right? And they're getting something out of it, but they just you know They're not ready to let it. They're not ready to let they're not ready to commit, right? Sometimes you meet someone and they're not ready to commit.
SPEAKER_02Well, but they're in relationships, so he was committed to her in a sense, right?
SPEAKER_00Sure. Um but it doesn't mean he's committed to her for long term. Right? True. So, I mean, yeah. I'm not I'm not proud of it, but yeah, I've had I've had relationships like that where I'm not, you know, you know, I'm just ri not ready to commit yet, and it's kind of just a a fun relationship, but I don't ever purposely try to string anyone along. It's just looking back on it now, it's like, oh, yeah, that could have been misleading, you know?
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00Um, okay, so he she gets this combination, intimacy and rejection, right? Which is is powerful and it keeps that bond alive.
SPEAKER_02Intimacy and rejection. Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00So she's getting the intimacy, they're having sex constantly, right? But he's also saying, don't, you know, this is not a long-term thing. Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_02So he actually made it clear to her.
SPEAKER_00Well, um, I I guess so. Yeah, I get I guess he did make it clear that it wasn't going to be a long, long-term thing. Apparently they had like a very tumultuous relationship. It was on again, off again. It was very it's like they was very sexually intense, but they were push and push and pull, yeah, exactly. Push and pull. Exactly. That's exactly what it was. Yeah, that's not healthy. It was not healthy at all, no. Now, um, I mentioned too that you know it's a sexually active part of things, and and the reason I said that that's important here is because in the Mormon community, oh, it's not allowed, you're not supposed to be having sex before marriage, right? So that's kind of a thing that he also had to keep secret from the community, which you know, because he had his life turned around, he had everything, you know, put together, and so that was not exactly something that that was you know uh comfortable for him to share, right? So both of them have these conflicting, you know, cognitive um elements to them, to their personalities, right? So they have you know, or not to their personalities, but to their mental states, I guess. Okay. Um now friends start noticing some patterns, right? She starts to show up unannounced, right? She sometimes already knows how to get inside places like a garage code or access without anyone ever telling her, right? So she's showing up completely unannounced. And that's a little bit sketchy, right?
SPEAKER_02Well, to his place, right?
SPEAKER_00Not just to his place. She sh starts showing up to events, um, like friends' events that you know that she was not invited to. She seems to be inserting herself into his life constantly. Right? So here's the other thing too, is that she goes through his things, his emails, his messages, his private information, and she basically knows things that she really shouldn't know.
SPEAKER_02Like what?
SPEAKER_00Well, like I said, she knows passwords to things that she shouldn't know passwords to.
SPEAKER_02She knows where someone's privacy.
SPEAKER_00She knows where people are going to be showing up. Like she she shows up to events unannounced, not invited. She just how does she even know about those things? Well, it's because she's gone through his things and knows his his calendar and knows that he sent messages to his friends about this and that. So it's it's really, you know, it's a it's a very, very unhealthy dynamic, right? Yeah. Um, okay. So she's still around, um she's uh still connected and still involved even after they eventually break up. Okay. So, you know, this push and pull relationship is just not healthy. Um and they do eventually um break up.
SPEAKER_02Who initiated that?
SPEAKER_00Well, we'll get into well, it was it was Travis, right?
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00But we'll we'll get into that a little bit more. But you know, uh all of these signs, right? Sud, you know, every sign on its own, maybe, you know, oh, you know, she looked through my phone or something, right? Sure. One time that happens, or you know, twice it happens, it might not be a huge red flag, but it's all of the things that she did combined together that really scream red flags, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I mean, although it's your partner, but you know, your partner still has some privacy.
SPEAKER_00Exactly.
SPEAKER_02And you can come make it and ask.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and if you and if you have to feel like you're you need to do that, then maybe you don't trust each other. You know what I mean? Like if you feel like you have to go through things like that, then you probably don't trust each other, right? I mean, like you and I have an open policy with pretty much everything.
SPEAKER_02Like And I don't care about that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah no, you don't care at all, and I don't I don't care either. Like you go through like you can go through my phone anytime you want. Like you know my password, I leave it around you all the time. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Uh but that's the thing though, like I don't know, with with a kid, for example, if you say, hey, don't do it, we'll do it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's true.
SPEAKER_02But that's very true. No, like in relationship, I think, in the relationship, trust is really needed.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02Well, but every couple has uh different approaches.
SPEAKER_00Very true. So um, so I guess, you know, individually none of this screams danger, all these signs, but together it starts to feel like something isn't quite right. So they break up. Um, Travis eventually breaks up with her, or tries to anyway, right? But again, she's she's still kind of sticking around and you know, being a little bit invasive, having a hard time letting go. And Travis starts dating other women. And some of them he starts to date more seriously, right? And um he wants he tells his friends he wants someone more aligned with his religious values, right? Yeah. Because, you know, it sounds like she just adopted this um religion because he was Mormon, right? So he she didn't really believe in those things. It was more of a hey, he's doing it, so I'll do it too. Um But here's the thing, right? He doesn't fully cut Jody off.
SPEAKER_02That's not good either.
SPEAKER_00No, no, it's not good either at all. He keeps everything alive, right? So he's still sleeping with her.
SPEAKER_02That's not good.
SPEAKER_00He's still talking to her, right?
SPEAKER_02Even though he's over there, exactly.
SPEAKER_00So so he's giving her hope, right? When he probably shouldn't. And I'm not trying to blame anything on him whatsoever, because what she does is absolutely horrifying. Um, but yeah, it's um yeah, it's probably not a good idea. Get things get messy to to keep seeing someone when uh you're trying to break it off with them.
SPEAKER_02And then he's forming um another relationship with somebody else. I mean, that that is not cool, bro.
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm. Yep, yep, exactly. So um he basically said, like, I just I don't want you as my future. Um, but in the past.
SPEAKER_02He said to her, yeah.
SPEAKER_00He basically told her, I don't, I don't see you as my future partner, but uh, you know, he basically said I'll still fuck you.
SPEAKER_02Well you know, like in that case, essentially the girl should be able to make a decision, right? Like, do you want to be a good one?
SPEAKER_00But a g but think of you know how her I mean, yeah, sure, he could he she could just walk away, but she comes from a very unstable environment and she's not very stable at all, anyway, right? So she is deriving a lot of self-um worth and I guess like self-identity from this relationship because, like I said, she kind of merges herself into whoever she's dating, right? Turns herself into whatever they are doing, and that's a problem because he's now making things unstable for her, so now she's living losing part of her self-identity.
SPEAKER_02It's like delusional, delusional but clear self-identity. I don't know how to put that. It's like she has a sense of belonging, but it's not real either.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. Yep, exactly. So um, so the the uh ambiguity here for her becomes pretty dangerous because she's highly attached, she's already sensitive to rejection, the push and pull, and um she's organizing her identity around it. So um let's talk about the day that the murder happens, okay? So on um June 4th, 2008, Jody Arias was at Travis Alexander's home in Mesa, okay? Um and this is where the evidence becomes pretty devastating. So a digital camera was found in the washing machine after the murder, and I'll tell you about the murder, but after the murder, a digital camera was found in the washing machine, damaged but recoverable. And investigators recovered images that the memory card photos of Travis um showed him alive that day. There were sexual photos of him and her and her, and later images connected to the attack timeline. So the prosecutors, of course, the lawyers used the camera as evidence against um against Jody, right? Um so that's really what sort of broke the case open, is is finding that camera.
SPEAKER_02Well, that's a good thing.
SPEAKER_00Not a confession, yeah. Not a confession, not a witness seeing the murder. It was just a camera. Um, and a damaged camera that she tried to destroy, right? She threw it into the laundry machine hoping that that would destroy the camera, which is really to me is. How do you not, yeah, why not just like pull out the card and smoke? Exactly. Pull out the card and destroy it. Like why would you I don't know, why would you take that chance?
SPEAKER_02She was just so angry and that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. But okay. The actual murder, okay? Um this, you know, this this violence and the murder that happened is is is pretty, you know, is pretty aggressive. So Travis was found dead in the shower, and he had been stabbed twenty-seven times. And his uh and his throat was slit. And he had a gunshot wound to the forehead. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_00And yeah, so which is which is crazy, right? So I mean, clearly, 27 times his throat was slit and a gunshot wound to the head. What does that tell you about, you know, the state of mind that that person must have been in to do that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, she was holding a lot of um anger and hate and maybe she was also planning to do that for a long time. She was just waiting for the chance, right?
SPEAKER_00Well, yeah, that's possible, but generally speaking, when people have like such a gruesome case like that where they've been stabbed that many times, it usually indicates that the person reacted emotionally.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00So like very emotionally, kind of in the moment, like she was super angry. Right? 20 because you can kill someone with much less than 27 stabs. 27 stabs is like she's going and not stopping, right? And then a gunshot to the head just to make sure that like that's just that's aggression, that is anger, and like I want to murder you, like bad.
SPEAKER_02I'm really glad that you're safe until today.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. What are you what are you telling me you're gonna kill me later?
SPEAKER_02Or no, I mean, like if you share like this kind of relationship, right? Oh yeah. No new. That's true, that's true.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I've had some yeah, I've had some state unstable relationships for sure. Um, so yeah, yeah, the the the invasiveness, yeah, definitely stands out to me as well. But luckily, yeah, I'm still alive, so that's good. Yeah. Okay, so um, okay, so you know, it's not just killing, this is overkill, right? Um, and like I said, it's it's it's suggestive of uh an intense emotional arousal, rage, panic, humiliation, desperation, or a highly personal attack. Now it doesn't really tell you motive, but it does tell you that it wasn't a neutral attack. Um, it wasn't detached, you know, this was intimate violence. And you know, that's in line with how it was um portrayed too, in the sense that they had spent the day together and they were emotionally intimate that day. Uh not just emotionally intimate, but also sexually intimate. Um because the photos showed that, right?
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So, after the murder, right? Something um you know, shifts after the murder. Okay, she um doesn't panic, but she cleans, she wipes surfaces, she attempts to destroy evidence, she puts the camera in the washing machine, right? Then she goes from chaos to control. So you know, she she gets you know absolutely intense and then tries to clean things up and control things.
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So, like I said, they found the camera and they found the memory card and they were able able to recover um information. And uh initially she denies everything. Okay, so the first version of her story, right? She tells three stories throughout this entire thing, right? This is this is the thing that gets really interesting, right? So she does obviously get you know uh busted in the end, but she did have three different stories, and she's essentially in all of them trying to control the narrative and make herself not seem like this horrible murderer, right? She's trying to shift the narrative so that each story, you know, she had to do it or she didn't do it at all, right? So the first story was pretty simple. She wasn't there. Um that's just basic denial, right? She um said that nothing happened, she wasn't there at all, right? Then um evidence placed her there, right? The camera. So the story had to change. And her second story was that two intruders broke into Travis's home, killed him, and attacked her. Okay, so um ABC summarized that after uh first saying that she was nowhere near the crime scene, Arya told police that um she was present and then two intruders murdered Travis and threatened to kill her family if she talked. Okay, so that was her second story. That's not just a small adjustment in the story, that's a complete narrative reconstruction. So she completely shifted the narrative, right? From going from not being there at all to two intruders came in and killed them and then threatened her, right?
SPEAKER_02I think that's a pretty big jump.
SPEAKER_00It's a massive jump, right? She's no she's no longer not there, she's now a witness to the murder, right? Um, and not just a witness, she's also a victim in this scenario. And then the late then later the story changed um a third time. She admitted to killing Travis, but claimed self-defense.
SPEAKER_01Hmm.
SPEAKER_00So the arc is I was not there, I was there, but intruders did it, and then I killed them, but I had to. So the progression is is psychologically rich, right? Each version moves closer to the actual reality of things, but each version still preserves her self-protection, right? So she has this sense of, oh, I had to do it, or right, in both of those second scenarios, she had to do it, right? None of them she admits to doing it because she was jealous or anything like that. So in each case, there's a sense of controlling how she's viewed, right?
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00Um, so the interrogation is one of the most interesting parts because um of how things change, right, and how things uh shifted as those narratives change, right? Um, okay. So a weak lie gets replaced by a stronger lie, right? Is is essentially what happens throughout this whole case. And then it gets modified. And when the evidence is just overwhelming, you know, the person tends to give a partial truth wrapped in some new justification. And that's really what was happening with her case, right? It's exactly what makes this case um interesting, right? Um so there are three levels of defensive storytelling, right? There's first denial, I was not there. Second, externalization, I was not there, but someone else did it. Third, justification, I did it, but it was necessary. And those are not just random stories, right? They're psychological maneuvers. Each one protects the self-image. Each one tries to control how other people interpret the same facts. Okay. Um in Jody's case, the intruder story is uh is a is a clear case of manipulating narrative, right? It has villains, it has danger, it has threat to her family, and it explains why she didn't come forward. It turns from suspect into survivor, right? Which is sort of the psychological function of the story here. So it's not meant to hide facts, it's meant to transform the identity from killer to victim. Um now, her friends apparently had seen a bunch of warning signs, right? I told you at the beginning she was kind of showing up to places that she shouldn't have. It was uh pretty obvious that there was something wrong with her, right?
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00So before the murder, the concerning behavior was about access and control. And after the murder, the interrogation behavior is about access and control, but now over the narrative, right? So before she wanted to access Travis, and after she wanted to access the story, right? So before she seemed unable to tolerate his separateness, and then after she seemed unable to tolerate a version of events where she was simply guilty. So that's the through line. She is is control. Right. This is why the case is not just about obsession, it's about what happens when attachment becomes fused with control. Now the trial, right? It was highly public. Uh the friends testify, they describe the same patterns. She was always around, she was knowing too much, she was not letting go. And now, in hindsight, those things feel really different, right? Because now those things are pretty terrifying to the friends because they were warning signs that, you know, in in combination, they were they were dangerous warning signs that this person couldn't let go. She she needed to control those things or she didn't feel safe. Um, Jodi testifies, and she seems pretty calm and controlled, and even at times she seems detached. Right, which is it's very interesting, right? It's very different from what the the evidence of the murder suggests. This this whole case is about attachment, identity, rejection, and control. And um, in the end, what happens is uh she is convicted. I mean her story changed three t three different times.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but the jumps between stories are pretty huge.
SPEAKER_00They're massive changes. It's not like a tiny little detail change. No, she was she was shifting the entire story.
SPEAKER_02Which is pretty easy to detect, you know?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. And so at the end of the day, um she was convicted of the murder.
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00Uh it was pretty clear, right? It was very obvious evidence that it was her. Um, and she was convicted to life without the possibility of parole in prison. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So did she deserve it?
SPEAKER_00No, not from what I saw. I mean, she didn't even admit to it, right? She was saying it was complete self-defense.
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00And I watched a couple of um clips of her up on the stand, too. She was trying to play the victim, right? And you know, not she certainly didn't say, Oh yeah, I did it. Like, and I I was just angry and I lost it. You know, it was nothing like that. Um but anyway, so at first, you know, this looks like a brutal killing, but underneath it's really just something else. It's a relationship that never fully ended, right? He kind of strung her along a little bit, but again, not his fault that he got you know murdered. That's just crazy. And it's really about a person who couldn't let go, and a story that kept changing until it just couldn't anymore. So she couldn't control him, and because of that, um, she ended up killing him, right? So that is the story for today. I know, I know. It's uh pretty crazy. So Jody Arius, um, the story that kept changing. Mm-hmm. So Travis Alexander, the victim, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_02That's sad.
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm. So, anyway, that is the story for today. And I know you your voice is probably dying, even though you didn't talk too much and it was mostly narrative-based today. Um, yeah, uh, hopefully uh your voice is better by next week.
SPEAKER_02It's not my voice, it's my lips and it's your lips. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's true. I mean those giant canker sores on your giant canker sores.
SPEAKER_02But I really enjoyed the story.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's good. Well, I hope the listeners also enjoyed it.
SPEAKER_02Well, what's your main takeaway?
SPEAKER_00My main takeaway is um look out for those red red flags, you know, the the combination of those red flags. Not every single one of them is going to be damning evidence on its own, but as a collective, look out.
SPEAKER_01That's dangerous.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Okay, well, thank you so much everyone for listening to Tell Me the Crime episode 10, and we will be back next week with Fabriana giving us a story.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I would get Rick offer from my things. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. Alright, thank you.