Mark My Words
Alexander's digital camera was discovered in the home's washing machine, apparently destroyed in a wash cycle. Digital photos which had been deleted were recovered from the camera's intact sim card by forensic experts. Images of both Alexander and Arias before and after the killing place his time of death at approximately 5:30pm on June 4th. Other evidence pointing to Arias recovered at the scene included bloody strands of hair and a bloody palm print on a bedroom wall. Lead Detective Esteban "Steve" Flores remarked he'd never had a case with so much physical evidence.
Arias gave authorities a series of stories about her whereabouts on June 4th and the circumstances of Alexander's death but eventually confessed to the killing, asserting self defense. She has been charged with first degree (premeditated and felony) murder. Prosecutor Juan Martinez is seeking the death penalty. Notable quotes by Arias in media interviews following her arrest on July 15, 2008:
The evidence is very compelling. But none of it proves I committed a murder.
No jury will ever convict me. Mark my words.
What's a Witness to Do?
To date, she has been admonished untold times by Judge Sherry Stephens to "wait for the question," "answer the question," "answer the question, yes or no," "listen carefully to the question," "answer only the question," "do not volunteer information," "if you need to clarify, you can do that on redirect." Is it any wonder Maricopa County Prosecutor Juan Martinez is getting exceptionally testy with her? LaViolette's irritating the hell out of me... and tainting her credibility. I think I'll keep a tally of judicial interventions today...
Witness Admonitions (to LaViolette): 3x
Sidebars (due to LaViolette's refusal to properly answer questions): 6x
Jury Directives (to recall previous testimony to supplement LaViolette's refusals): 4x
Is Jodi a Manipulator?
Not according to the testimony of Ms. LaViolette. There is SO much evidence to suggest that Jodi is a master manipulator that it's almost impossible to believe LaViolette saw "no evidence" of it. For example, when Travis would go on a verbal tirade about Jodi's bizarre, infuriating behavior, Jodi "manipulates" him into calming down by refusing to engage. On other occasions, she "manipulates" Travis with sexual encounters. She manipulated her attorney, Kirk Nurmi, into not resigning by threatening suicide. LaViolette witnessed a meek, soft-spoken little Jodi, afraid to stand up to Travis because that's how Jodi presented herself in her infamous journals and during the 44 hours of interviews with LaViolette... during which time Jodi was absolutely "credible". And that, my friends, is the magic of manipulation. Lies? What lies?Is Jodi a Narcissist?
Not according to the testimony of Ms. LaViolette. Do I really have to refute this? Jodi doesn't have low self esteem. On the contrary, she has what might be described as delusions of grandeur. I mean, seriously, who writes a manifesto from jail, has copies made and then autographs them for when they get famous? Not someone with low self esteem.Is Jodi a Stalker?
The short answer is, "Hell yeah!"LaViolette was retained by the Arias defense team for a narrowly-defined purpose: to regurgitate Jodi's claim of being abused by ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander in order to bolster her claim of self defense in his killing.
On direct, Ms. LaViolette testified at length to explain the nature of domestic abuse and used her trademark "Continuum of Aggression and Abuse" chart to illustrate various stages and intensities of abuse. Yet, on cross examination, she repeatedly tries to distance herself from the relevance of the chart in the context of this trial. Today, she refused to even admit the first type of abuse listed under the category of "Terrorism" refers to "Stalking" even though that's clearly the term used. She insists that the Continuum refers only to Abuse and that abusive stalking requires the victim to exhibit fearful behavior (not just feel fearful). By that standard, Ms. LaViolette "sees no evidence of stalking" on the part of Jodi Arias. The fact that Travis told someone he was "extremely afraid" of Jodi due to her stalking is not credible to LaViolette since he continued to "engage" with Jodi after saying that.
Let's look at some stalking behaviors exhibited by Jodi which Ms. LaViolette asserts do not qualify as abusive stalking:
- Continuing to call an ex-boyfriend who hangs up on you
- Leaving a sack of groceries on your ex-boyfriend's doorstep
- Confronting your ex-boyfriends new girlfriends
- Crashing an ex-boyfriend's party and refusing to leave
- Moving a thousand miles to an ex-boyfriend's general neighborhood
- Peeking in an ex-boyfriend's window, watching him make out with another woman
- Crawling through your ex-boyfriend's doggie door when he's not home
- Stealing an engagement ring intended for another woman from your ex-boyfriend's house
- Reading your ex-boyfriend's email
- Searching through your ex-boyfriend's phone and reading text messages
- Sending text messages to "other women" from your ex-boyfriend's phone, pretending to be him
- Slashing your ex-boyfriend's tires (twice)
Despite LaViolette's protests, the points Martinez made on cross examination are resounding loud and clear with court watchers everywhere... that Travis and Jodi were both abusers... that Jodi was, by far, the more dangerous of the two... and that LaViolette will never admit that her biases affected her conclusions about the nature of their toxic relationship.
This whole "Jodi isn't a stalker because Travis didn't call the cops on her" testimony by LaViolette is pure sexist crap and pisses me off!!! If a female doesn't call the cops on a male abuser, it doesn't mean she wasn't abused (because not all women report). Yet if a male doesn't call the cops on a female stalker, it's proof positive he isn't really being stalked. Does she have any statistics to prove that men habitually call the cops on female stalkers? Leaving gender out of it, what if the Stalker was so sneaky that the Victim didn't even know it was happening? What then? Would she (LaViolette) continue to assert that no stalking occurred? Or would she just appropriate some other word for it? I understand she has a "special" definition for purposes of domestic abuse but I would assert that it's a bullshit definition, utterly devoid of any semblance of rational logic!!!
Is Jodi Mentally Ill?
On May 26, 2008, just days before his murder on June 4, Travis called Jodi a "sociopath" in a text message. LaViolette believed that statement was nothing more than a meaningless, angry abusive rant. Excuse me? The word sociopath should have set off bells and whistles to any licensed psychotherapist. LaViolette should have wanted to know why Travis called Jodi that instead of just dismissing it. At the very least, she could have (and absolutely should have) re-evaluated her unquestioning reliance on Jodi's unsubstantiated claims about virtually everything at that point. It appears she did neither. But then that's not her area of expertise. With blinders on, she focuses on domestic violence and apparently fails to recognize mental illness, even in cases such as this where the illness is severe and apparent to even a non-professional. I don't know whether or not Jodi is a sociopath in the strict clinical sense (psychopath might be a better diagnosis), but I do firmly believe she is mentally ill and, as we now know, extremely dangerous. In the same text message chain, Travis told Jodi that she was the worst thing that ever happened to him -- a point I'm guessing not even the combative LaViolette would attempt to argue against.LaViolette testified she found no evidence of Jodi being jealous of Travis's other women. If that's the case then Jodi is indeed mentally ill. She says, "I love, love, love Travis" yet doesn't have the mentality to be jealous of his flirtations and dalliances? Riiiiiiiiiight. Of course she was jealous and she thought she could literally screw Travis into a state of fidelity (there's the narcissist at work). When that didn't work, after a year of trying, she killed him. The Cancun trip was the trigger -- Jodi realized he'd rather go alone than take her with him. In her mind, not gonna happen.
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