Exposed: The Secret Life of Jodi Arias (48 page)

The difference between first-degree and second-degree murder was premeditation. Second-degree murder was an intentional killing that did not require premeditation by the defendant. The presumptive sentence for second-degree murder was sixteen years, but the judge could go up or down by six years, so the range in Jodi’s case was ten to twenty-two years. Given that she’d already been behind bars for almost five years awaiting this moment, if she got
murder two
she could—hypothetically—be out in five years with credit for time already served, a prospect that horrified Travis’s family and friends.

The defense had requested that jurors also be allowed to consider an even lower form of homicide—“manslaughter,” by sudden quarrel or heat of passion, which carried a presumptive sentence of ten and a half years. As with second-degree murder, the judge would have discretion in sentencing. She could go down to seven years or up to twenty-one. Again, Jodi would get credit for the nearly five years she had already served.

Once jurors had heard their final instructions, two women and one man from the panel were randomly selected as alternates. That left eight men and four women in the final panel to deliberate Jodi’s fate.

Deliberations began around 3:40
P
.
M
. that Friday and lasted for fifty minutes before jurors were dismissed for the weekend. They returned on Monday, May 6, to begin their first full day in the jury deliberation room. A crowd had begun to form outside the Maricopa County courthouse. Camera crews, producers, and reporters were converging on the courthouse steps mingling with the supporters of Travis Alexander, who were also huge fans of prosecutor Martinez, everyone anxious to be there when the verdict was finally read.

Inside, Jodi was confined to a holding cell in the bowels of the courthouse, where she waited for word on her fate. There was no TV or phone, and she was not given anything to write with, which meant no doodling or journaling during her confinement there. Her meals were served to her in the “tank,” and only her attorneys were allowed to see her.

Attorneys from both sides had returned to their respective offices, and would be summoned to the courthouse if the jury had a question or a verdict. Nurmi did not have an office downtown, but Willmott’s office was only five minutes from the courthouse. Martinez’s office was in a building across the street, about a block away. Many of the other critical parties, including family members on either side, were scattered in residences or hotels ready to come in for a juror question or when word hit that a verdict had been reached.

Monday, May 6, saw no verdict, nor did Tuesday, May 7. The tension was palpable in the fifth-floor hallway of the courthouse, where reporters and others involved in the case would hang out, hovering near the doors to the courtroom where the verdict would ultimately be announced. With every passing hour, it became exponentially more nerve-racking. Outside under the beating Arizona sun, the gathering crowd was getting antsy, journalists interviewing one another as deadlines came and went. The reporters had really gotten to know the most colorful trial watchers, including the woman known as “Cane Lady.” Earlier in the trial she had asked prosecutor Juan Martinez to autograph her cane and he graciously agreed, only to have the defense accuse him of misconduct. As the jury deliberated five floors up, Cane Lady sat in the hot sun, the center of a cluster of fervent pro-prosecution citizens who were nervous but confident the jury would see it their way.

At a little before 2:30
P
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. on Wednesday, May 8, the jury notified the judge’s bailiff that—after deliberating fifteen hours and five minutes—they had reached a decision.

Word quickly spread that the verdict would be read at 4:30 that afternoon, giving the media two hours to reinforce their armies. Soon several hundred spectators from the community and beyond had formed a crush at the base of the courthouse steps. Chants erupted. “Justice for Travis!” one woman called out and dozens of others joined her, repeating the phrase over and over. The cameras rolled.

Inside the courtroom, Travis’s siblings filled the gallery’s first row behind the prosecutor. Many of his friends were also present, including his ex-girlfriend, Deanna Reid, and best friends Chris and Sky Hughes. Jodi’s mother and aunt were seated several rows back from their usual spot behind the defense table, and neither woman betrayed much emotion. Jodi’s maternal grandmother was there looking stoic but frail. Several people fanned themselves with sheets of paper, adding some movement to a packed gallery that was otherwise eerily quiet.

Once Judge Stephens took her seat at the bench, the anticipation in the courtroom was overwhelming. For two very long minutes, not a word was spoken.

Jodi, dressed in a tasteful black pantsuit, sat quietly next to her attorneys. From her expression, it seemed apparent that she did not believe the jury would find her guilty of the most serious charge of premeditated murder. She swallowed hard when the judge finally addressed the court. “Ladies and gentleman, I understand you have reached a verdict,” Judge Stephens began, noting that the verdict form had been handed to the bailiff. After silently reviewing the form, the judge handed it to the clerk.

“We the jury, duly empaneled and sworn, upon our oaths do find the defendant as to Count One, first-degree murder, guilty.” the clerk declared to gasps and cries of elation from some in the gallery. Travis’s siblings and close friends hugged one another, some smiling, some sobbing, most doing a little bit of both. It was an emotional catharsis after almost five hellish years of living in limbo waiting for justice. Jodi fought back tears, but it was clear to all that she was shocked, saddened, and taken aback. “Five guilty of premeditated, zero felony, and seven premeditated and felony,” the clerk continued. In other words, all twelve jurors believed it was a premeditated murder and seven of them believed it was
also
felony murder.

“Is this your true verdict?” Judge Stephens, always the epitome of reserve and professionalism, asked. She then instructed the clerk to poll each juror individually.

Jodi looked forlornly from juror to juror, as if wishing that one of them would change his or her mind if he or she would just look back at her. But her magical-thinking powers had proved to be as phony as her stories. There was no whooping or hollering inside the courtroom, although outside, the crowd erupted in jubilant cheers.

Because of the advance notice, the courthouse area was a mob scene of massive proportions, with most everyone excitedly cheering and chanting “Justice for Travis!” It was absolutely festive, everyone having waited so long, months and years, for justice. There were no statements on the courthouse steps by the trial attorneys. When the guilty verdict was reached, there were still two phases left to the case, so no one talked.

As usual, Jodi showed her perverse brilliance for pulling focus and bringing the attention back to her. Within a half hour of the verdict, Jodi gave an exclusive interview to reporter Troy Hayden of Fox 10 Phoenix in the secure area of the courthouse where inmates are held. When asked how she felt upon hearing the verdict, Jodi said, “I think I just went blank. I just feel overwhelmed. I think I just need to take it a day at a time.”

Jodi admitted she had not expected the verdict the jurors had reached. “There was no premeditation on my part. The whole time I was fairly confident I wouldn’t get premeditation, because there was no premeditation.”

She told Hayden the worst outcome for her would be a sentence of “natural life” in prison. “Longevity runs in my family, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my natural life in one place. I am pretty healthy, I don’t smoke, and I would probably live a long time, so that is not something I am looking forward to.” Jodi’s next statement would grab the next day’s headlines and reportedly devastate members of her family.

“I said years ago that I would rather get death than life and that still is true today,” she told Hayden. “I believe death is the ultimate freedom, so I would rather just have my freedom as soon as I can get it.” When asked about the moment she was driving in the desert, and came out of the fog, if she would do things differently if she had the oppportunity, Jodi answered in the affirmative. “I would turn around and drive to the Mesa police,” she said. She didn’t know how the outcome would differ, but said, “It would have been the right thing.” Interestingly, with that question, Jodi had a chance to turn the clock back a few more hours to the master bathroom and say she would have pivoted left and out the door to safety instead of into the closet to allegedly get a gun. In other words, she could have said she wouldn’t have killed Travis. But she didn’t say that, perhaps because she has no regrets.

E
ven though the jury had found Jodi Arias guilty of first-degree murder, the trial was far from over. Ahead of the jury was the “aggravation phase” of the trial, where the very same jury who had convicted Jodi needed to decide if the murder was “especially cruel.” The prosecution was delighted with the way things were going, but the next phase was just as critical if Martinez was going to succeed in getting the death penalty. He regarded the number of wounds alone as especially cruel, but he still didn’t want to take any chances. He was certain that the number of wounds coupled with the defensive wounds would prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Travis had suffered a painful death almost beyond imagination. He also would argue that the gunshot was the last of the fatal wounds, and may have even been administered after Travis was already dead.

The aggravation phase was scheduled for the following day, but was postponed until May 15. Thus the next phase began at noon that day, same place, same intense Phoenix sun blazing down on the loyal crowd of trial watchers, most of whom were hoping Jodi would pay the ultimate price. Mr. Martinez only called one witness for the prosecution, Dr. Kevin Horn, the medical examiner who had performed the autopsy on Travis. He had also been the rebuttal witness a few days earlier, so the jury was quite familiar with his opinion. It was often shared with terms so graphic that the faint of heart grew queasy. His hyper-clinical language, tied to a face and a savage crime, the jumble of familiar words spoken without any emotion was actually more gut-wrenching than a dramatic recounting would have been; the descriptions of Travis’s injuries morphed into something macabre, supernatural, grotesque, nauseating, and shocking. This time the focus of Dr. Horn’s testimony was on how long and how much Travis suffered before he died.

Again, Dr. Horn described what he had determined to be the first fatal wound, a knife thrust to the chest that cut a major blood vessel. The stab wound probably took two minutes to kill Travis, meaning he was conscious during much of the rest of the assault on his back, head, and torso. Dr. Horn reminded the jury of Travis’s defensive wounds, so important to his determination that the knife attack happened first. The cuts on Travis’s hands were likely the result of trying to wrestle the knife out of Jodi’s hands. The next fatal wound was the slash across the throat, which would have required considerable effort. Dr. Horn thought there was a possibility that the neck had received more than one assault before it was successful. “It could also be that there are several attempts to cut the throat in the same area,” he testified. “The skin would offer some resistance to the knife, the airway itself is firm cartilage, so there would need to be some effort.” In between the infliction of these fatal wounds, Travis was stabbed multiple times in his back, head, torso, and legs.

One more time, the testimony was unbearable to Travis’s family and friends. They wept openly in agony and distress as once more, the pictures of Travis, his body riddled with deep stab wounds and gouges, were slapped down on the projector and put up on the monitors around the room. After the corpse and crime scene photos were over, Martinez did something that was truly inspired. He asked everyone in court to pause with him in silence for two minutes to illustrate just how long it had taken for Travis to die. Never did any courtroom sit through a longer two minutes. The seconds seemed to go on and on and on. The already traumatized audience was shaken when the prosecutor finally began speaking again. “The last thing [Travis] saw before he lapsed into unconsciousness was that blade coming to his throat,” he said. “And the last thing he felt before he left this earth was pain.”

The defense didn’t have much to add. Jennifer Willmott offered that the adrenaline rushing through Alexander’s body may have prevented him from feeling much pain during his death. She also suggested that although the first wound was not immediately fatal, Travis’s moving around would have caused him to bleed faster, thus hastening his death and shortening his period of suffering.

The jury didn’t need long to come to a unanimous decision. In one hour and thirty-three minutes, they agreed with the prosecution: the murder was especially cruel. The state had proven that “the victim consciously suffered physical and mental pain, distress or anguish prior to death” and “the defendant knew or should have known that the victim would suffer.”

Now that Jodi was eligible for the death penalty in the premeditated first-degree murder of Travis Alexander, next up was the penalty phase of her trial. Had the jury found the aggravating circumstance, especially cruel, was not proven, the jury’s role would have been finished and Judge Stephens would have determined Jodi’s sentence: natural life with no possibility of release or a life sentence with the possibility of release after twenty-five years. Now, under Arizona law, the same jury that had reigned during the guilt and aggravation phases would sit in judgment of whether Jodi would die for her crime.

The first part of the penalty phase was devoted to victim impact statements. This was the moment many in the Alexander family had been waiting for. They had watched patiently while their nemesis spewed her lies and skewered their brother. But now they would finally have their moment in front of the court and the world.