Sentencing and beyond- JA General Discussion #6

[TexMex]

Yes! The breathy voice she used with Flores, as well as her trying to make small talk with him as if they were on a date and not in an interrogation room, and she being charged with Murder1. Add to that her schoolgirl giggling here and there. She really is a study in not normal behavior.

But for me, the clincher was her leaning across the table to look at the nude pics, almost putting her fake breasts in his face...:facepalm:

At some point in the interrogation she gets on the floor to demonstrate something. Flores wisely moves his hand towards his gun in case she tries to grab it

 

[TrialWatcher]

Yes! The breathy voice she used with Flores, as well as her trying to make small talk with him as if they were on a date and not in an interrogation room, and she being charged with Murder1. Add to that her schoolgirl giggling here and there. She really is a study in not normal behavior.

But for me, the clincher was her leaning across the table to look at the nude pics, almost putting her fake breasts in his face...:facepalm:

At some point in the interrogation she gets on the floor to demonstrate something. Flores wisely moves his hand towards his gun in case she tries to grab it

GigiG - Yup. :laugh: The schoolgirl giggling is irritating, as is the small talk. It is a fascinating study in how a psychopath behaves when cornered. Her body language is provocative, inappropriate for the occasion. DF freezes when she moves towards him.

TexMex: Re the gun - I have to look at that scene. I never noticed it. I remember the bit when she was on the floor.

Found it, maybe? Do you mean here?
[video=youtube;XTs2DZ3GYJ4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTs2DZ3GYJ4&list=PLrAJFqIjBGeBWQ8jumn4nJ92njqRQwm0k&index=4[/video]

From just under one minute in? I now see Detective Flores move away, move his hand.

 

[ICit]

I have some questions for anyone who has read all the texts:

Did Travis always use sexual talk with JA? Or was it just in the final few months?

Did he use sexual talk with others all along? Or was it just in the few final months?

 

[TexMex]

GigiG - Yup. :laugh: The schoolgirl giggling is irritating, as is the small talk. It is a fascinating study in how a psychopath behaves when cornered. Her body language is provocative, inappropriate for the occasion. DF freezes when she moves towards him.

TexMex: Re the gun - I have to look at that scene. I never noticed it. I remember the bit when she was on the floor.

Found it, maybe? Do you mean here?
[video=youtube;XTs2DZ3GYJ4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTs2DZ3GYJ4&list=PLrAJFqIjBGeBWQ8jumn4nJ92njqRQwm0k&index=4[/video]

From just under one minute in? I now see Detective Flores move away, move his hand.

That's it. At one point she even points to his gun and asks him about it. Then says she just bought a gun...

 

[RickshawFan]

Yes! The breathy voice she used with Flores, as well as her trying to make small talk with him as if they were on a date and not in an interrogation room, and she being charged with Murder1. Add to that her schoolgirl giggling here and there. She really is a study in not normal behavior.

But for me, the clincher was her leaning across the table to look at the nude pics, almost putting her fake breasts in his face...:facepalm:

Man, EF is genius. He keeps leafing through those photos, leafing through them, page by page, then backwards, and then forwards, and then flipping and then scuffing through them, LOL. He's making it seem as though he has hundreds of photos in that binder, so many he can't remember where he put the particular one he wants to look at. And even then, he's not sure if he should, or maybe should select another one. He knows exactly! But he acts like he's pondering and deciding on the fly, then he teases Jodi by going backwards and forwards through the pages some more. Jodi is freaking out (she keeps hiding behind that hair.).

Good performance, Flores.

 

[Hope4More]

At some point in the interrogation she gets on the floor to demonstrate something. Flores wisely moves his hand towards his gun in case she tries to grab it

LOL. That was the first day of her new lifelong reality of being seen for who she really is, though being the , she wouldn't cede the point.

 

[Hope4More]

I have some questions for anyone who has read all the texts:

Did Travis always use sexual talk with JA? Or was it just in the final few months?

Did he use sexual talk with others all along? Or was it just in the few final months?

We only have the texts, but actually, Travis rarely said anything sexual to her at any time between December 2007 and the day she killed him.

IIRC, there wasn't sex talk of any kind between Travis and anyone until January 2008; after that with the it was very occasionally, and almost always initiated by her.

In February and beyond Travis flirted with a fair number of women, sometimes suggestively, but IMO, virtually none of that was sexual. It was just Travis being the Travis his friends have all described as a flirt, which BTW, I interpret as being more about making people laugh than anything else.

In all the texts there are only a few explicitly sexual exchanges. Nurmi made sure every last one between Travis and the was introduced at trial. If you watched the trial you heard/saw them all, though not necessarily in their entirety.

Beyond that, there were a couple exchanges in February (maybe into March, whatever) with one "GF," and then the long exchange with NA55, IMO, very likely Travis himself.

After the was forced to leave Mesa, I can't think of a single time when Travis brought up anything even vaguely sexual with her (I don't think telling her she looks "hot" in the photos she badgered him to look at counts). The did with him, a number of times. Representative example: "I'd like to nail you. Just kidding. Sort of."

 

[Hope4More]

BBM. No Hope, I feel the exact same way, although I do see that what TexMex saying about Travis's being critical of other Mormons (holier than thou) was hypocritical. I don't however hold it against him. Jodi was a far bigger hypocrite. When was it ever discussed what a lousy Mormon she was??? He wasn't harsh, he was honest.

What he said on May 26. I assume whatever objections folks may have about what Travis said relate to calling her a *advertiser censored*, a 3 hole wonder and the like, given that telling her she was evil and a liar was saying the plain objective truth.

IMO, he didn't pull out the *advertiser censored* card to be "mean," and it wasn't randomly chosen.

She may or may not have told him about the sex tape (I think she may have, or did so by phone after the GChat), but she had definitely told him she felt a need to go to her bishop, "stat."

IMO, in terms of what he said on May 26, it's irrelevant whether or not he felt threatened by that, or by the sex tape if she'd brought it up.

What he certainly felt was anger, and gauging the words he chose, anger that was largely very specifically related to sexual activity.

We've discussed recently the possibility (IMO,likelihood) the had "threatened" him before, perhaps repeatedly, about going to her bishop, in the guise of feeling a spiritual need to do so....in order to be a good Mormon.

If true, can you imagine how Travis would have felt when she told him that? Forget fear or whatever. IMO he would have been most likely to feel significant and painful guilt, not just about his own lapses, but because, as she did allegedly bring up to use against him, he had brought her into the faith, baptized her, was (he believed), her spiritual mentor.

Beyond the guilt of "corrupting" her, he would have been in an extremely difficult position. She was in the right. Both of them were obligated to go to their bishop, confess, and repent. As her mentor, he should have agreed, encouraged her to go, and have been proud of her desire to get right. As the person who was involved in the activity and who may well have been reluctant to risk losing his TR again just when he most needed to hurry up and get married? Not so much. (He went to his bishop in late January, but she made sure as soon as she could that there was reason to go again).

I think that well into May 2008 he mostly blamed himself, not her, for their sexual transgressions, and that when he said she was a "better" person, that's what he meant.

By May 26, though, he had seen through that manipulation. He said so -- "you were never who you said you were," and, why did you choose me (to seduce)? And, you tried to ruin me, and " you didn't try to love, you succeeded in hating me," and: your offering up fantasies etc., the "being noble in the sack," was for your own "objective."

He called her *advertiser censored* IMO out of rage because of the times she had in essence held herself as morally superior to him by claiming a need to come clean to her bishop, and there she was, he thought, pulling that crap on him one time too many (going to the Bishop).

*advertiser censored* *advertiser censored* *advertiser censored*. A response to having been deliberately guilted by a unreligious who he thought wanted, above all else, to get him to have sex with her. *advertiser censored* *advertiser censored* *advertiser censored*. Appropriate to the context on May 26, and apt. Jmo.

 

[salberg7]

It was quite interesting for me to see the blatant difference in the killer's interrogation videos and her interaction with Dect. Blaney and Dect. Flores. She flirted with the latter and never connected with the former. I'll bet the killer doesn't have any close female friends. The killer works best on her own- one on one- where she thinks she can control the conversation. Unfortunately the killer thinks way too much of herself and thinks she is the smartest person standing, when in fact she is intellectually challenged and uses her feminine charms to get most of what she wants. She is a bore - so phony. It's easy to see through her now - if only Travis had stayed on the path of no CMJA. No, she had to show up at his home unexpected (as he probably wouldn't have let her in), he knew nothing about her Tuesday night trip (until there she was at 4am) and she managed to talk him into allowing her to stay as I too think he was in the middle of a major JA purge. After all, she lived 1000 miles away. He never in million years expected what was to come. Anyone who believes she killed Travis in self defense is discounting all the crime scene evidence. She is where she belongs and should never get released. Nor will she win on appeal. She's toast ( have a dose of Beano with that humble pie ) not that the killer will ever show any remorse.

 

[Hope4More]

BBM. No Hope, I feel the exact same way, although I do see that what TexMex saying about Travis's being critical of other Mormons (holier than thou) was hypocritical. I don't however hold it against him. Jodi was a far bigger hypocrite. When was it ever discussed what a lousy Mormon she was??? He wasn't harsh, he was honest.

Responding separately to the issue of hypocrisy. The only belief the ever had about Mormonism was that she needed to be one to get Travis to marry her, and that it was a good weapon to use against him when he wouldn't fall to his knees and propose. Because of that, I don't call her flaunting of Mormon tenets hypocrisy, nor her related attacks on Travis. I just call it all manipulation and vicious evil.

As for Travis. We don't know if Travis WAS ever critical of other Mormons for failing in some aspect to be a good Mormon. The ugliness the dwelt upon about Danny J came from her, and it was she, not Travis, who made it about Mormonism. Danny J was also PPL, and IIRC, had been tangentially involved in the messy, back- stabbing PPL regional manager politics that had recently resolved, depriving TA of the position he had in early April been reasonably confident he would awarded. My guess is the brought in Danny J precisely because she knew Travis likely had bad feelings towards him she could exploit.

The only other folks I know of that Travis reliably "bad mouthed" were those he knew to be drinkers, PPL or otherwise. Given what he suffered because of his parents' abuse of drugs, IMO he was perfectly entitled to feel as caustic as he chose (in private) about drinkers, and to avoid being around them (which he did).

And, ugh, Rachel, briefly. Again, we don't know if the ever threw Rachel in his face, and if she did, whether anything she said about Rachel was true (or if what she wrote in her journal about Rachel was true), much less how he responded if the did. If she did, and Travis responded with anger, his anger and or dislike of Rachel could have been for all kinds of reasons having nothing at all to do with her being a Mormon. If she even ever had been.

It was my speculation, and only that, that began this detour. That if Travis disliked Rachel, it likely was because of how he viewed her as a Mormon.

Leaving all the other hypotheticals aside that take us to the point where it's possible to speculate about why Travis would have disliked her (including the assertion that he did).

Lapses are one thing, and I bet TA was far more forgiving of others' lapses than he ever was of his own. If what the said about Rachel was true, though, hers weren't just lapses, but almost (or even altogether) a repudiation of the Church. A divorce, living with her BF, an elopement to Vegas, a secular ceremony on a beach. It's that difference I was alluding to about how Travis might have felt. Yes he lapsed, but he was a devout Mormon and the Church was central to his identity and well being.

 

[RickshawFan]

LOL. That was the first day of her new lifelong reality of being seen for who she really is, though being the , she wouldn't cede the point.

When was that? When she's demonstrating the lay of the land at TA's bathroom? Describing the routes to Las Vegas?

 

[Hope4More]

When was that? When she's demonstrating the lay of the land at TA's bathroom? Describing the routes to Las Vegas?

Actually, what I meant was of Flores knowing she was a cold-blooded murderer and making sure she was no where near his gun.

 

[Hope4More]

How did you form your opinion that Travis was cocky? Or know he had pro-gun views before the trial? My first knowledge about the case was through 48 Hours. I knew little about Travis beyond that he was a victim of a shockingly cruel slaughter by an obvious liar. I wonder how others here got to know about it? I didn't believe Arias' story or any of her lies. Her manner during the 48 Hours interview was beyond bizarre. My first 'real' impression of Travis was that sex tape. For many people - jury too - that was probably their first exposure to a less one-dimensional portrait. It was his own voice. People formed opinions based on what he said, not what Arias said alone.

I have read the texts, emails, watched the trials and feel that I now know more about Travis' through the a range of information and sources. My original impression of hearing his voice and that tape was not favourable. I thought they were both religiously hypocritical but the sexual element was dull drivel. It showed Arias up in a bad light given her play acting on the stand. This was not Travis at his best. Arias banked on a less than favourable impression sticking. Juan Martinez filled the picture in re Travis. We were given broader brush strokes and a wider canvas.

Personally, I don't think the cell phone messages show Travis in a great light at times. Not on their own. That's why I don't think Juan was keen to introduce too many of them. Telling Lisa he loved her one minute, interspersed with his dealings with Arias might not have been received well. Non of these things represent huge issues or abnormal behaviour. The SMS messages show Arias in a much worse light often.

As for the 26 May, I don't think you are in the minority. Quite the opposite. Travis' explosion of anger was understandable given all she had done. Some of the terms used were unfortunate but nowhere near the level of abuse she had subject him to. The jury didn't find that those words justified her actions or excused her from a murder conviction. They were a factor in the death penalty decision though and selective reading by ALV.

It was a huge mistake for the defence team to introduce the tape. Absolutely.

The differences in opinion here on any number of points large and small, now, after all this time and with everyone still here knowing far more than either jury knew, makes me marvel at the wisdom of our jury system, and in equal measure, feel astonished that 11 jurors way more often than not are able to agree on a verdict.

 

[TexMex]

Sack of crawfish for tonight. Garlic butter. Beer iced down.

 

[LinasK]

What he said on May 26. I assume whatever objections folks may have about what Travis said relate to calling her a *advertiser censored*, a 3 hole wonder and the like, given that telling her she was evil and a liar was saying the plain objective truth.

IMO, he didn't pull out the *advertiser censored* card to be "mean," and it wasn't randomly chosen.

She may or may not have told him about the sex tape (I think she may have, or did so by phone after the GChat), but she had definitely told him she felt a need to go to her bishop, "stat."

IMO, in terms of what he said on May 26, it's irrelevant whether or not he felt threatened by that, or by the sex tape if she'd brought it up.

What he certainly felt was anger, and gauging the words he chose, anger that was largely very specifically related to sexual activity.

We've discussed recently the possibility (IMO,likelihood) the had "threatened" him before, perhaps repeatedly, about going to her bishop, in the guise of feeling a spiritual need to do so....in order to be a good Mormon.

If true, can you imagine how Travis would have felt when she told him that? Forget fear or whatever. IMO he would have been most likely to feel significant and painful guilt, not just about his own lapses, but because, as she did allegedly bring up to use against him, he had brought her into the faith, baptized her, was (he believed), her spiritual mentor.

Beyond the guilt of "corrupting" her, he would have been in an extremely difficult position. She was in the right. Both of them were obligated to go to their bishop, confess, and repent. As her mentor, he should have agreed, encouraged her to go, and have been proud of her desire to get right. As the person who was involved in the activity and who may well have been reluctant to risk losing his TR again just when he most needed to hurry up and get married? Not so much. (He went to his bishop in late January, but she made sure as soon as she could that there was reason to go again).

I think that well into May 2008 he mostly blamed himself, not her, for their sexual transgressions, and that when he said she was a "better" person, that's what he meant.

By May 26, though, he had seen through that manipulation. He said so -- "you were never who you said you were," and, why did you choose me (to seduce)? And, you tried to ruin me, and " you didn't try to love, you succeeded in hating me," and: your offering up fantasies etc., the "being noble in the sack," was for your own "objective."

He called her *advertiser censored* IMO out of rage because of the times she had in essence held herself as morally superior to him by claiming a need to come clean to her bishop, and there she was, he thought, pulling that crap on him one time too many (going to the Bishop).

*advertiser censored* *advertiser censored* *advertiser censored*. A response to having been deliberately guilted by a unreligious who he thought wanted, above all else, to get him to have sex with her. *advertiser censored* *advertiser censored* *advertiser censored*. Appropriate to the context on May 26, and apt. Jmo.

Exactly- it's never pointed out how Jodi was never really a Mormon from the moment she was baptized onward. She immediately broke the chastity pledge and took Travis into areas of sex he had no idea about. Yes it's part of her manipulation, and it's that smug hypocrisy that makes me want to slap her face. She holds herself out to be the better Mormon, and although Travis fell down on the premarital sex part ( so he really shouldn't be judging other Mormons), she was the much bigger hypocrit and far worse Mormon. It's rarely pointed out that she only got baptized to snare him, and it bugs me so much that people like Dan Freeman supported her!
She'd already violated the premarital sex rule long before she was baptized. Did the Mormons who came to visit her know she was living/sleeping with Darryl or did they just think they could save her??

 

[GigiG]

Not trying to bore anyone to tears, but after re-watching the interrogation tapes, I came across this post by "Observer" on Kristina Randle's forum:

"... I just figured out how Arias got the idea to try to manipulate the media and public into believing she is innocent by watching her police interrogation tape the day after she was arrested in Yreka. A female police officer tries to convince her to quit denying she murdered Travis and to tell her what happened. She tries to convince Arias she knows she is smart and a good person, that she would want her family and the family to know the truth and that it would help her because otherwise the media is going to paint her as a cold blooded killer. She tells Arias she doesn't think she planned the murder or meant to Kill Travis but that something went wrong and asks her if he promised her marriage and didn't deliver and asks her if it is just happened in the heat of the moment. She tells Arias she can control what the media says about her wanting her to confess to her but instead Arias stares at her and coldly says, "I can't control what the media says" and asks the officer if she can get pictures off her camera for a couple she took wedding pictures of and her sister Angela who is in rehab and asks about money her parents can put in her commissary account. Shortly after that, Arias tells her mother to call the media and Arias holds a press conference stating she is "wrongfully accused" and that begins her long PR campaign of giving several TV and newspaper interviews from the Yreka and Estrella jails from the time she is arrested in July 2008 until after she is convicted of first degree murder in May 2013."

How interesting (and transparent) of Arias to take this bit of information and turn it into a strategy for exonerating herself...

ETA:

I don't want to cast aspersions on Blaney, but the nuanced differences between a big city detective (Flores/Phoenix), and a small town detective (Blaney/Yreka) are pretty clear.

Who knows how things would have worked out had Yreka not been a "Mayberry" kind of place. Several times during the interrogations Arias looked close to confessing. I have a feeling she might have if the "B" team had been a bit stronger. JMO

 

[Hope4More]

Not trying to bore anyone to tears, but after re-watching the interrogation tapes, I came across this post by "Observer" on Kristina Randle's forum:

"... I just figured out how Arias got the idea to try to manipulate the media and public into believing she is innocent by watching her police interrogation tape the day after she was arrested in Yreka. A female police officer tries to convince her to quit denying she murdered Travis and to tell her what happened. She tries to convince Arias she knows she is smart and a good person, that she would want her family and the family to know the truth and that it would help her because otherwise the media is going to paint her as a cold blooded killer. She tells Arias she doesn't think she planned the murder or meant to Kill Travis but that something went wrong and asks her if he promised her marriage and didn't deliver and asks her if it is just happened in the heat of the moment. She tells Arias she can control what the media says about her wanting her to confess to her but instead Arias stares at her and coldly says, "I can't control what the media says" and asks the officer if she can get pictures off her camera for a couple she took wedding pictures of and her sister Angela who is in rehab and asks about money her parents can put in her commissary account. Shortly after that, Arias tells her mother to call the media and Arias holds a press conference stating she is "wrongfully accused" and that begins her long PR campaign of giving several TV and newspaper interviews from the Yreka and Estrella jails from the time she is arrested in July 2008 until after she is convicted of first degree murder in May 2013."

How interesting (and transparent) of Arias to take this bit of information and turn it into a strategy...

ETA:

I don't want to cast aspersions on Blaney, but the nuanced differences between a big city detective (Flores/Phoenix), and a small town detective (Blaney/Yreka) are pretty clear. Who knows how things would have worked out had Yreka not been a "Mayberry" kind of place. Several times during the interrogations Arias looked close to confessing. I have a feeling she might have if the "B" team had been a bit stronger. JMO

I'm not bored. I'm in total agreement that's what happened, about controlling her image, anyway. The takes the most she can get for as little as she can get away with. JM says Flores watched with Blarney and realized a woman's touch only made the more contemptuous. The for the most part barely acknowledged Blarney was there. But that media idea....yep, she glommed right on to it. That and the idea of writing a letter on the spot with which to torment TA's family.

I don't believe she was ever close to confessing, though. Not to Flores or Blarney, any more than she actually "broke down" on the stand that day under cross.

The near tears/crying/suddenly vulnerable and quivering and looking overwhelmed/just about to give you what you expect but wait....games are IMO all part of her tried and true tools of manipulation.

 

[pocketaccent]

I'm in the minority for sure. Maybe not even in the minority, I might be the only one.

I much prefer Blaney's interrogation style to Flores'.
Blaney - I don't believe you. You are lying. You need to start telling the truth.
Flores- I want to believe you, but I can't. What did Travis do to you? Something must have happened that day.

His style is too soft, too sympathetic, too chatty, too comforting even when he says she is lying.
No way I'm putting Flores down. Maybe his style works for many, but not for , IMO. I just don't like his interrogation method and strategy in general.

 

[Hope4More]

I'm in the minority for sure. Maybe not even in the minority, I might be the only one.

I much prefer Blaney's interrogation style to Flores'.
Blaney - I don't believe you. You are lying. You need to start telling the truth.
Flores- I want to believe you, but I can't. What did Travis do to you? Something must have happened that day.

His style is too soft, too sympathetic, too chatty, too comforting even when he says she is lying.
No way I'm putting Flores down. Maybe his style works for many, but not for , IMO. I just don't like his interrogation method and strategy in general.

I think the proof is in the pudding. . Flores' gentle style gave her fathoms of rope with which to hang herself with lies, and she obliged him at every turn. Largely because, IMO, the was arrogant and delusional enough to think she could manipulate him into believing her.

I don't think Blarney did a bad job, and I don't agree with those who think she gave the ideas about abuse etc. the wouldn't have lied about without any assistance. I just agree with JM that she couldn't be effective because the found her too unworthy an opponent/tool.

 

[TexMex]

Blaney interrogating was a plan. They thought Jodi might open up to a female

Martinez says in the book that knowing Jodi now they wouldn't have had a female detective speak with her. They now know Jodi felt women were much harder for her to manipulate than men.