Jodi Arias Trial: Day 16

Jodi Arias will resume testimony this morning at around 10:30 Mountain Standard Time. As you may recall, Arias ended testimony last Wednesday, leaving off at Valentine's Day 2007 and the gifts Travis had sent her. These included melted chocolates (which Arias put in the refrigerator), that tee shirt with "Travis Alexander's" emblazoned on the front, the pink panties with "Travis'" printed on it, and a package of boys' Spiderman briefs. She said she had to have the briefs "let out" because they were too tight in the leg holes.

Since noon MST the court has been on break. Arias's testimony so far has gone to only the end of June of 2007. Travis got this book, 1000 Places to See Before You Die, and they made a trip back East to see Niagara Falls, the so-called Sacred Grove in LDS history (where founder Joseph Smith first saw his "vision"), and the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. During this time Jodi found out Travis was cheating on her by looking at his text messages, but instead of confronting him at that point, she decided to make the best of the situation and continued with the trip. Upon returning from this trip, she did confront him about it. He said he was sorry about it, that those other women didn't mean anything to him, and although they had broken up at around this time, it appears some overtures were made to rekindle what used to be there. Travis, according to what I can remember from Jodi's testimony, would call her at godawful hours of the night (she had moved back to Big Sur and went back to her old employer) and even attempt her to engage in that phone sex shit. I believe this is where the morning testimony ended.

Earlier she describe their first "true" (vaginal) sexual encounter. This was around April or May of 2007, and when she woke up after sleeping overnight in Travis's bed, she found he was on top of her right in the middle of the act. She didn't fight him off or anything, just went along with it. She later engaged in oral sex with him during this same encounter, according to her testimony.

So far there hasn't been any indication that Travis was anything worse than being a lying, cheating little shit holding double standards about women. However, it's early yet in the testimony.

In the afternoon session, Arias talked more about the relationship with Travis and the various fantasies he had. She mentioned he had a possessive streak that he didn't want her to have anything to do with somebody he didn't like, and so forth. They supposedly weren't committed to each other, yet they were still seeing each other to have sex.

The Arias testimony is now in the fall of 2007. More fights, more sex, and she talked about the encounter she had with Travis and another girl he was seeing, Lisa Andrews.

Now she is talking about when she "walked in" on Travis in January of 2008. Afterwards, she urged him to get help.

The testimony is about to wrap up for today. Arias is talking now about her plan to move back to California, and she and Travis got into an altercation where he kicked her hand and injured her finger. She didn't seek medical treatment because she didn't have medical insurance and she also didn't want Travis to get into trouble and didn't want to betray him. She noted she could have lied about it but she didn't do it. He made a splint for her finger. She held up her hand to show how her left ring finger is permanently bent. Arias had loaned Travis $700, but he thought she should stay in Mesa and work another shift so he could borrow more money. Arias said he called her selfish, and then it escalated from there.

I believe earlier testimony noted Travis had some financial problems.

The trial just ended for today. Jodi's testimony now covers March/April of 2008.



Trial can be viewed at the Arizona Republic website, among live streams or can be viewed here on the blog: