SHOCKING details and footage of Jodi Arias’ murder case will be revealed in a new TV show investigating the brutal murder of her ex-lover.
Arias, 41, is serving a life sentence for stabbing Travis Alexander 27 times, slitting his neck and shooting him in the head in his own bathroom in June 2008.
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The couple had been dating for five months before splitting the previous year because Alexander allegedly felt guilty about the sexual nature of their relationship as a devout Mormon.
However, they are said to have remained in contact with each other and a camera found in the washing machine of his Arizona home after his death revealed photos of them having sex on June 4, the day he was killed.
The last photos of him revealed at the trial were those of Alexander naked in the shower.
Moments later, photos showed him bleeding on the bathroom floor with blood gushing from his throat.
In a new episode airing Thursday, Taking the Stand will look back on the unprecedented 18 days Arias took on the stand to claim she was acting in self-defense in Alexanders’ murder.
As she faced the death penalty, Arias claimed that Alexander, a 30-year-old salesman and motivational speaker, was possessive despite his own obsession with his ex.
The jury convicted her after showing photos of the bloodstained towels she allegedly tried to clean and the bathroom covered in Alexander’s blood after his brutal murder.
When friends found Alexander’s body after becoming concerned for his well-being, they immediately pointed the finger at Arias who he said was stalking him.
Yet Arias, then 26, first denied seeing Alexander the day he died, then claimed two men killed him during a home invasion, before changing her story again to self-defense.
The couple met at a PrePaid Legal Services conference in Las Vegas, Nevada in September 2006, while Alexander was working as a sales representative for the company.
He was reportedly quickly smitten with the beautiful and seemingly carefree budding photographer.
Arias and Alexander started dating in early 2007 and she moved from California to Mesa, Arizona to be closer to him.
In an email to a friend at the time, Alexander shared his strong feelings for Arias.
“I went from intrigued by her to interested in her, to caring deeply about her to realizing how lucky I would be to have her in my life forever. … She’s amazing. He’s not not hard to see that whoever tags Jodi, whether it’s me or someone else, is going to win the women’s lotto,” he wrote.
MORMON BAPTISM
Their relationship developed rapidly, with tunes even deciding to be baptized into the Mormon faith in order to be closer to Alexander, but it wasn’t long before cracks began to appear.
She later moved to California to live with her grandparents, but continued a long-distance relationship with Alexander.
The two would take turns visiting each other from state to state for nearly a year and a half.
Arias grew increasingly possessive as some people warned Alexander that they feared she was dangerous.
According to several of Alexander’s friends, Arias would follow him into the bathroom and wait outside the door; listening to his conversations; and forward her private emails with other people to herself.
But that was just the beginning.
Alexander’s friend, Sky Lovingier Hughes, told ABC News that she “started seeing things that were just disturbing.”
“I said, ‘Travis, I’m afraid we’ll find you in pieces in his freezer.’ … From the start, she was completely obsessed with him,” her husband Chris Hughes said.
On one occasion, Hughes was present when Alexander caught her listening to him, behind a closed door.
“There was rage in her eyes. … Sky and I are very scared at this point. She could burn down our house, you know, with all of us in it,” Hughes said.
RELIGIOUS GUILT
Hughes said Alexander was still struggling and suffering from guilt that he and Arias had sex because his religion forbade it.
“They are both sinning in the eyes of his church. Travis wanted to marry a virginal, pure Mormon girl, and by having sex with him, Jodi eliminated herself as potential marriage for Travis,” Shanna Hogan said. , author and journalist who wrote the book “Picture Perfect: The Jodi Arias Story”.
The two eventually separated in 2007 but remained in contact.
Arias claimed that she ended the relationship because she did not trust Alexander, and she later alleged that he was a sexual deviant who physically and sexually assaulted her.
Alexander had asked Arias to join him on a work trip to Cancun in June 2008.
Shortly before the trip, Alexander changed his mind and decided that he would take a friend instead of Arias.
On May 28, Arias’ grandparents’ home was broken into – one of the items stolen was a Colt .25 caliber automatic pistol that was never found.
Arias tried to reach Alexandre on June 2, but he did not answer.
The two eventually spoke for about 18 minutes in one phone call and a second one that lasted 41 minutes.
She left in the wee hours of the morning to drive south to rent a car for a trip to Utah.
ALEXANDER DISAPPEARS
That same day, she rented a car from Budget Rent a Car in Redding, Calif., and on June 3, she was driving to Salt Lake City.
Alexander was scheduled to participate in a conference call on June 4, but missed it.
Arias went to business meetings throughout – she had dyed her hair from blonde to brown and had various cuts on her hands, as her colleague Ryan Burns testified at his trial in 2013.
She went back to Redding and returned the rental car.
The clerk noticed red stains on the seats and missing floor mats, but no verification could be made to attach Arias to the mats or the stains.
On June 9, Alexander’s friends became concerned after not hearing from him and went to his apartment to check on him.
Her friends entered her bedroom and discovered large pools of blood in the hallway, only to later discover her body in the shower.
Alexander was shot with a .25 caliber cartridge.
He had been stabbed at least 27 times and had been shot in the head. His throat had been cut from ear to ear and he was nearly decapitated.
Cuts on his hands suggested he had tried to defend himself.
DNA PROOF
His friends immediately called 911 and named Arias a suspect, citing that Alexander had mentioned she would track him down, hack into his Facebook and had already punctured his tires.
“A friend of ours died in his room, we hadn’t heard from him in a while,” said a woman identified as Marie Hall. “We think he is dead. There is a lot of blood.
“His roommate came in and there’s blood in his room, behind the door and everywhere, then they went to the bathroom and it’s all in the shower.”
When Mesa Police Detective Esteban Flores arrived on the scene, he told “20/20” there was blood everywhere.
Photographic evidence showed blood splatter on the sink, walls and floors.
Police also found a bloody palm print outside Alexander’s bedroom.
They also found DNA linking Arias to the crime scene.
She was accused of violently attacking Alexander in a jealous rage after he wanted to end their affair and planned a trip to Mexico with another woman.
Arias was eventually convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
She is being held in the maximum security unit of Perryville Women’s Prison in Goodyear, Arizona.
Prosecutors had sought the death penalty but failed to get enough votes from jurors to achieve it.
At the time, Arias expressed his preference for execution.
“Death is the ultimate freedom,” she said in a TV interview after the verdict.
“I prefer to have my freedom as soon as I can get it.”
Position Take: Jodie Arias airs Wednesday night.
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