Tribute to Travis Alexander

Here's to You

Flower of Sun

Gone too Soon 

Rest in Grace

Bloom once More

"I hope the family can find peace... and remember Travis the way they want to," said the unrepentant evil who murdered Travis Alexander in cold blood.  We will remember Travis as he actually was...

a bright light born out of darkness and despair

one who chose motivation over manipulation

one whose kindness had no boundaries

one who used humor to uplift and inspire

one who preferred goodness to evil

a loving friend to all

And we will remember evil no more.

Arias: Aggravating Phase

PROVEN!

The verdict was read at approximately 3:15 Pacific (5:15pm Central) today, May 15. Arias sat stonefaced, having absolutely no reaction. Court is adjourned until 10:30am Pacific (12:30pm Central) tomorrow at which time the defense will plead for the life of Arias.

Watch the proceedings here, posted on YouTube by croakerqueen123.

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At 12:21pm Pacific (2:21pm Central) the jury was sent off to deliberate this phase of the Jodi Arias capital murder trial.  Already convicted of 1st degree premeditated murder, Arias waits to learn the jury's verdict as to whether her crime will be judged to have been especially cruel.  Options on the verdict form are:

     ___ Proven
     ___ Not Proven
     ___ Cannot Agree

If Proven, Arias will be subject to the death penalty and the trial will move into the Mitigating Phase.  If Not Proven, Judge Stephens will decide whether to impose either a life sentence or twenty-five years to life.  If Cannot Agree, the jury will be dismissed and a new one will be selected to hear a retrial of the Aggravating Phase.

Arias, wearing what appeared to be a dressy, butter-yellow satin blouse, showed two primary emotions as prosecutor Juan Martinez laid out his case for special cruelty.  Vacillating between pity for herself and contempt for Martinez, she turned away from the monitor displaying the gruesome crime scene photos.  During this time, the family and friends of Travis Alexander quietly wept while Sandy Arias sat with her head bowed, displaying no visible emotion.

Kirk Nurmi, wearing an unflattering green shirt and looking oddly like Jabba the Hutt, tried to argue in ridiculous circles.  In his defense, he had nothing at all to work with, but to suddenly say that Travis Alexander didn't suffer because (a) his death was quick and (b) he was in an adrenaline-high "fight or flight" mode was simply an insult to the jury's intelligence.  Equally insulting was his claim that Arias couldn't have known her actions were cruel because she was in her own "fight or flight" fog.

Juan Martinez minced no words in describing the cruelty suffered by Travis Alexander.  In demonstration, he called for two minutes of silence to emphasize how long the brutal attack lasted. As expected, the only witness called by the state was the medical examiner, Dr. Kevin Horn.  Horn's testimony mirrored his previous testimony, describing each of the many wounds suffered by Alexander.

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Other Notes

Judge Sherry Stephens issued a court order to prevent any further media interviews with Jodi Arias until further notice -- presumably at the request of the defense team.

Arias has a new Twitter account to replace the previous one which was taken down.  The new site solicits donations for herself and her family.

Arias: Choosing a Sentence

Convicted of 1st degree premeditated murder, Jodi Arias now faces one of three possible sentences:

• Death by lethal injection
• Life without the possibility of parole
• 25 years to life

Reasonable people disagree on whether the death penalty is ever appropriate.  I do believe it is but that we, as a society, should use it sparingly and judiciously.  What we don't have, and likely never will have, is a clearly defined standard for imposing the death penalty.

Too Ill to Execute?

No.  Anyone who has been closely following the saga of Jodi Arias knows she is mentally ill.  There can be no doubt about that.  However, because she does not meet the standard for legal insanity, she is deemed sane enough to execute.  Just because we all think she's "buckets of crazy" is no reason to cut her any slack here.

Scott Peterson received the death penalty for the murder of his wife and unborn son.  Why would we want any lesser sentence for Jodi Arias?  Perhaps because her victim wasn't pregnant?  Or because her crime was somehow less cruel?  Or because she's an attractive young woman with a nice smile and breast implants?  Or because she displays some talent for art and music?  Would she be any less a danger to society than Scott Peterson?

As is often said regarding pornography, "I can't define it but I know it when I see it."  Well, here's what I believe a death penalty case looks like... 

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16 May 2013 Footnote:
Did I do the right thing by posting the above image?  That question has haunted me every day following my decision to do so.  After much afterthought and reconsideration, I think it was the right thing to do... it illustrates exactly how depraved Jodi Arias is and I think people who may oppose the death penalty need to see it.  She is an evil monster the world can well do without and it's my firm belief the only fitting punishment for her is death.

To the family and friends of Travis Alexander who may (God forbid) stumble onto this post, I want to extend my deepest, most sincere apology for having to resort to such a horrifying illustration to prove a point.  My intent to instruct was never meant to exploit.

To anyone still holding onto the delusion that Jodi Arias is innocent, perhaps you should consider how much self-defense a person is entitled to.  And are you really so willing to take Jodi's word for it -- at face value -- considering what a manipulator and agile liar she's been proven to be?

Arias: The Forged Letters

A couple of times during the trial I heard reference to some mysterious forged letters but never learned any details until today.  Beth Karas on HLN just related the story behind them.

About the time Jodi Arias changed her story to self-defense, she came up with two letters purportedly from Travis where he revealed a sexual interest in little boys.  After much litigation and examination, according to Karas, the letters were determined to be forgeries created by Arias herself while in jail.  The court rightly ruled they could not be presented in court.  Later, the State decided they wanted to use the letters in court to show the depths to which Jodi would go to get out of jail.  But the court ruled against that as well.

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Update 19 May 2013

Here's a little more on the forged letters from the National Enquirer.

Arias: Advice to Move On

Chris Hughes appeared on Dr. Drew on HLN April 29.  A long-time friend of Travis Alexander, Hughes states he and his wife, Sky, did not approve of Jodi Arias and tried to convince Travis to stay away from her. [Edited 4/30/13: My reporting of the interview has been substituted by relevant portions of the show's transcript.]

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Transcript Excerpts

HUGHES: But really, but let me answer your question in short. Travis -- I want to make this as concise as I can. We had Travis come to our room one night just to talk to him about some of these things that you`re asking about that we had observed in Jodi and her behavior. And it`s a long list, a way longer than we have time for tonight.

And Jodi was there, but she was downstairs in a different bedroom and sleeping. And we`re talking for a couple hours. And all of a sudden my wife, she`s got a sixth sense about things, and she says oh, my gosh. She`s out there. You know, she`s whispering this. And we`re all like looking at her, like, who, Jodi? And she said yes, she`s out there. She`s listening. And so, we`re all kind of freaked out and we change the subject for about 30 seconds.

And then, there`s a knock at the door and it`s Jodi. Now, this is (ph) in the late hours of the night. She`s supposed to be asleep in another bedroom. You know, she says, hey, is everything OK? And we`re like everything`s fine. Travis is like fine, I`ll come down to say goodnight a little bit later.

Well, then, we continue our conversation, maybe another 45 minutes to an hour goes by, and my wife gets this feeling again, and she goes she`s out there again. She`s listening. She`s whispering this, of course. And so, Travis jumps off the bed, jerks the door open, and there`s Jodi Arias with the most frightening, evil, I mean, I`ve never seen anything like it before or since, and I`ve seen a lot of things in my 40 years, nothing like what we saw that night.

And we knew -- it was just a feeling that we had that downloaded everything into our minds what this woman was capable of. We knew it in that moment. And as a matter of fact, we told Travis, you go downstairs and you handle that. We`re going to bed. We were so freaked out. And we laid there in bed, my wife and I wondering, like, are our children safe?

You know? Like do we need to go get our kids? How did we get to this place in our life where someone like this is in our house? We saw it. We felt it. We knew it then.

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PINSKY: Welcome back. I`m with my co-host, Jenny Hutt, and our panel and Chris Hughes. Chris was Travis` best friend. His wife, Skye, will join us tomorrow. Chris, first, set the record straight -- well, before we set the record straight on that e-mail issue that LaViolette was mentioning, I want to read you a Twitter here.

It is from Mama Bear Jones. She says, "That story from Chris Hughes was mesmerizing and scary. Jodi is a dangerous, pathological person." My understanding, Chris, is your wife had some interesting nickname for her as well, is that correct?

HUGHES: Yes. She -- after that night, the next day, Skye kicked her out of our house, you know, went down in stairs and just said, look, you`re out. We don`t want you ever to come back. We don`t want to have anything to do with you. And from that day forward, she`s called her, you know, Peyton, from "Hand that Rocks the Cradle" --

HUTT: Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

HUGHES: Yes. And those are her nicknames from that day forward.

PINSKY: How long was that before she actually killed Travis?

HUGHES: That was April 2007. April-ish. It was around April 2007. So, it was a full year later that she killed Travis.

PINSKY: Now, set the record straight on that e-mail. Go.

HUGHES: Well, I`ll tell you this. I love that Ms. LaViolette did all the speaking for Chris and Skye Hughes. It`s just totally bogus, you know? And I`m so glad that I have this opportunity to set the record straight. Here`s the truth of the matter.

Jodi comes to our house unannounced, unannounced and is whining and complaining about Travis and, you know, lying about Travis and all of these things and we`re saying look, move on. If you`re not getting what you want, get out, you know?

PINSKY: Please move on, yes.

HUGHES: Yes. Move on. I mean, but she`s telling us, oh, I had a vision. I had a vision.

PINSKY: Oh, boy.

HUGHES: And I`m supposed to marry Travis.

PINSKY: Oh, boy.

HUGHES: Oh, yes. Yes. And she just couldn`t let it go. And we`re like, look, he`s not committing to you. Move on, you know? And then, my wife says to her --

PINSKY: Chris?

HUGHES: Yes.

PINSKY: Yes. I just want to interrupt you. I know Cheryl has got a question for you. We have such limited time with you. And again, I appreciate you being here. And Cheryl, that kind of vision and the secret and magical thinking is something that has bothered us about her from the beginning.

CHERYL ARUTT, PSY.D., @DRCHERYLARUTT: That`s right, Dr. Drew. That is so scary. Chris, I just want to say, I`m so sorry for the loss of your friend. And when you were -- when you heard the defense make so much of this e-mail that you and were your wife wrote to really try to, it seems kind of handle Jodi, to get Jodi to maybe stay away from your friend, what was that like for you to hear it misused in that way to kind of framed as - - to try to to look like an abuser?

HUGHES: It was outrageous, you know? And if the truth be told, if we could get those e-mails and read them, I retracted in that e-mail feed, I retracted the word abusive, because I said, you know what? That`s over the top. You know, we would say rough around the edges. He was the T-dog. That`s what we called him, you know?

And I -- it`s just crazy that they were able to take this one little sentence out of a long string of sentences, several e-mails back and forth and manipulate my words. And you know, we didn`t get called in to talk about that. You know, anyway, it`s just --

PINSKY: I`m sorry to interrupt. I`ve got to make another break. I cannot let you go. Please, stay here. Jenny, you have got questions, and Mark, you`ve got questions. I`ve got another question about the way Travis being painted as a bad Mormon. We got a lot of stuff. Please don`t go. I`ll be right back with Chris.

 [Full Program Transcript]