Hughes Our Friend Travis

The Travis Alexander Story
1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4835-5316-0
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 265 Seiten

Travis Victor Alexander was a good looking, charismatic, entrepreneur and motivational speaker. He was in the prime of his life enjoying good health, financial success, world travel and a bustling social life. But, things weren't always so good for him. His life began in dismal circumstances, and tragically, it ended worse than it began. He was born to drug addicted parents and suffered many of the worst privations of life. His family was poor and his parents were neglectful and abusive. He was teased and bullied as a small child and had few, if any, friends. Rather than allowing himself to be victimized by his past, he used those negative experiences to propel him into a life of abundance and success. Like many single, thirty-year-old men, he was dating in hopes of finding Mrs. Right, so he could get married, start a family and live the good life. Unfortunately, Jodi Arias, one of the women he dated, was a psychopath who could not accept that he did not want to marry her. After stalking him, stealing from him and violating his privacy in the most vile ways, she planned out and executed his murder. When the case finally went to trial, it became one of the highest profile murder trials in recent history. On May 8, 2013, his killer was convicted of first-degree, pre-meditated murder. During the grueling, ten month trial, which was in large part a circus act of character assassination, lies and fiction, Travis's life was purposefully distorted and despicably misrepresented. Our Friend Travis is a book about the real Travis Victor Alexander; his life, his light, his triumphs, his mistakes, his death and his legacy. NOTE ABOUT REVIEWS OF THIS BOOK: This book includes information about the Jodi Arias murder trial, which was one of the highest profile murder trials in recent history. Some of the convicted murderers few supporters have promised to give this book negative reviews before it has been released. Please consider this when reading the reviews.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hughes, Chris

Leseproben

Background

On the afternoon of June 4, 2008, Travis Alexander was savagely murdered by his ex-girlfriend, Jodi Arias, in the bedroom of his home in Mesa, Arizona. Though no one but Jodi knows exactly why she committed such a heinous crime, several theories have been put forward. Some feel it was because Travis had plans to take another woman on a trip to Cancun, Mexico, on June 10, 2008. Others speculate that Jodi decided that if she could no longer have him, no one would. Still, others feel it was the big fight between them, which occurred on May 26, 2008, that ultimately triggered her decision to slaughter him. We believe it was all of the above. We feel strongly that each of these stressors contributed to her premeditated decision to end his life, specifically the May 26 blowout. It was in the heat of this fight, via text and Google Chat, where Travis would finally see Jodi for the monster that she really is, and he told her so, saying things like:

“I’ve never been hurt so badly by someone!” “You don’t care! It doesn’t serve your evilness!”

“I don’t want your apology! I want you to know how evil I think you are!”

“You are the worst thing that has ever happened to me!”

“Why did you manipulate me into loving you? Why me? I was a good guy! Why did you have to do it to me? Why do you hate me?”

“I’m just tired of all of this, it’s killing me!”

He even called her a sociopath.

Jodi Arias was a twenty-seven-year-old waitress from Yreka, California. She worked incredibly hard to manufacture an image, one that in no way resembled who she really was. She painstakingly and purposefully made Travis’s world her world—his business, his religion, his friends … his life. And all of that was about to go away for her. Travis was her “golden ticket” out of her miserable life. No more jumping from meaningless job to meaningless job. No more moving around. No more struggling to pay the bills. No more living in a tiny, little room in her grandparents’ humble home in a small town most people have never heard of, much less ever been to. Yes, all of that was abruptly threatened, including the status she wrongfully assumed she had achieved by being “Travis’s girlfriend.”

After eighteen months, Travis’s eyes had been pried open. Jodi was about to be exposed for what she really was. Travis was finally moving on. Jodi was attractive, and she knew how to work it. She could find another rising star in the company to manipulate, but maybe she feared that Travis was going to tell the truth about her, ruining her prospects in the only social circle where she had access to people who could save her from her unhappy, little world. Realizing her predicament, she began to plan what she naïvely thought was the perfect murder.

Following that May 26 fight, Jodi asked Darryl Brewer, an old boyfriend she lived with while she was dating Travis, if she could borrow a couple of gas cans for a “trip she was taking to Mesa.” This trip to Mesa, which only Darryl and one other person knew about, would coincide with another trip she had planned to Utah to spend time with Ryan Burns, another rising star in Pre-Paid Legal. Jodi planned this trip to see Ryan after the fight as well. Two days after the May 26 fight, Jodi’s grandparents’ home, where she was living at the time, was robbed. Everything of value was left untouched in the home except a DVD player, a .25 caliber pistol, and $30 Jodi claimed had been taken from her bedroom. It was after the May 26 fight when Jodi evidently decided that her car—a newer, silver Infinity G35—would be too conspicuous to take on her secret trip. She opted to rent a car instead. At first, the rental company offered her a red car. That, too, would be conspicuous, so she refused the car. She wanted something more muted, less conspicuous. Finally, they offered her a white car, which she accepted.

One of her first stops was at Darryl’s house to pick up two five-gallon gas cans she had asked to borrow. She also visited Matt McCartney, another former boyfriend. She also met up with a man that said she borrowed money from him. He reported that she was in a rush to get to Mesa to fix things. Later, she stopped at Walmart to buy a third gas can. She stopped in Pasadena, California, for gas, filling up her car and the three gas cans. She turned off her cell phone. She drove to Travis Alexander’s house in Mesa, Arizona, arriving around four in the morning on June 4. She left Travis’s home in the late afternoon/early evening of June 4. She arrived in Utah on the morning of June 5, and was making out with Ryan Burns before the end of the day.

No one had heard from Travis in days. His mutilated body was found on June 9, 2008, crumpled up on the floor of the shower in his master bedroom. He had been stabbed twenty-nine times, and his throat was slit from ear to ear. He had been nearly decapitated. He had been shot in the face with a .25 caliber pistol. The bathroom and the hallway leading to the bathroom from his master bedroom were covered in blood … a lot of blood. When the police began asking questions, many of Travis’s friends immediately implicated Jodi Arias.

After initially denying a request for an interview because she was “too busy,” Jodi finally agreed to be questioned by the Mesa Police Department on June 19. She was emphatic that she was nowhere near Mesa, and that she had not seen Travis since April. She even gave the investigator the name of someone she felt might have had a motive for killing Travis.

On July 9, 2008 Jodi’s twenty-eighth birthday, she was indicted on first-degree murder charges. On July 15, she was arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder. After spending one night in jail, her story changed. She admitted that she actually had been in Mesa, Arizona, with Travis on the day of his death. She further reported that she barely escaped with her life. She told a farfetched tale of two masked intruders, a man and a woman, claiming that they were the ones who had killed Travis. She could not be clear about exactly what happened because one of the intruders had knocked her unconscious. When she “came to,” she saw blood and heard Travis moaning. While trying to help Travis, the female intruder approached her. Jodi attacked her and a struggle ensued. Then, the man came into the room, put the gun to Jodi’s head, and pulled the trigger. Miraculously, the gun misfired, and Jodi was able to flee from the house. This was not before the intruders reached into Jodi’s purse, pulled out her vehicle registration, and told her they now knew where she lived and that they were going to kill her and her family.

According to Jodi, she had just endured a horrific attack and witnessed Travis struggling for his life. She never called the police. She never called Travis to see if he survived. She never told anyone about the alleged attack. She drove to Utah, spent a romantic evening with Ryan Burns, and then drove back to Yreka, California, settling back into work and her room at her grandparents’ house. She told and retold this story for two years, including in front of national news cameras.

If our memory is correct, it was around May 2010 when Jodi revealed a new tale. According to her, the truth of the matter was that she killed Travis in self-defense. Travis was in the shower. Jodi, using Travis’s new camera, was squatting, taking “tasteful pictures” of him, when she dropped his camera onto the bathmat from about two feet in the air. Outraged, Travis allegedly exploded out of the shower, picked her up, and body-slammed her on the hard bathroom floor. Scared for her life, she got up, ran into his oversized bedroom closet, climbed up the shelving, and grabbed Travis’s gun (Travis did not own a gun.) Jodi claimed Travis came at her like “a linebacker,” and the gun must have gone off because she did not remember shooting him. She described a “fog” that prevented her from recalling critical moments of her tall tale. The next thing she knew, she was driving in the desert. She noticed that her hands were covered in blood, and she “knew something bad had happened.”

Realizing the depth of her troubles, and in a desperate effort of self-preservation, Jodi got creative. Not only did she claim that Travis body-slammed her just prior to her killing him, but she also claimed that he’d beaten her on many occasions throughout their relationship. But she did not stop there. She went on to claim that this man, who was “the man of her dreams” and would be “an amazing father” to her children, raped little boys. Her vile slander has no bounds. Her version of the story ended with her as both victim and hero. She did the world a favor, by doing the “pedophile” in. A jury of twelve of her peers, the national media, and the rest of the world saw it differently. They completely rejected Jodi and her ridiculous tales.

Juan Martinez was the prosecutor. The defense team consisted of two attorneys, Kirk Nurmi and Jennifer Willmott. Also a part of the defense team was Maria De La Rosa, a mitigation specialist. The death-penalty trial, held in the Maricopa County Court in Phoenix, Arizona, began on January 2, 2013. The guilt phase lasted more than four months. Jodi was on the witness stand for a remarkable eighteen days. On May 8, 2013, Jodi was found guilty of first-degree premeditated murder. Within minutes of her conviction, Jodi was providing a pre-arranged media interview. On May 23, 2013, the jury came back hung for the penalty phase of the trial. Four jurors wanted her to have life in prison. Eight jurors wanted her to have the death penalty. In Arizona, when there is a hung jury in a death penalty case,...