Travis Alexander murder case
The Travis Alexander murder case is a criminal case in US legal history with high media interest . 30-year-old insurance salesman Travis Alexander was killed in his Mesa, Arizona apartment on June 4, 2008 with a head shot, 27 knife wounds and a throat cut. The public interest was so great, among other things, because the trial against the main suspect Jodi Arias took place in front of running cameras and violence and pornography played central roles. The accused got entangled in contradictions that made her appear increasingly unbelievable to the jury. Arias was convicted by the Maricopa County Superior Court of First Degree Murder of her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander on May 8, 2013, and sentenced to life imprisonment with no parole on April 13, 2015.
Prehistory and Murder
Travis Alexander (born July 28, 1977) and Jodi Arias (born July 9, 1980) first met in September 2006 at a conference of a multilevel marketing vendor company that legal expenses insurance markets, the Rainforest Cafe in the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas know . A week later they started a relationship. Alexander was a member of a Mormon denomination , Latter-day Saints Church of Jesus Christ , and baptized Arias there in November 2006.
The love affair ended five months later, but Alexander and Arias continued to have sexual relations. Jodi Arias moved from Palm Desert , California to Mesa, Arizona, where Alexander lived. Less than a year later, in April 2008, Arias moved to live with her grandparents in Yreka , California. According to contradicting evidence presented at the trial, Arias allegedly stalked her ex-boyfriend , broke into his Facebook account and wired his answering machine. On May 28, the grandparents' home was allegedly broken into and a 6.35mm Browning firearm was lost. On June 2, Jodi Arias rented a car in Redding , California, and traveled 4,500 kilometers in the following three days.
Travis Alexander died on June 4, 2008. Friends found his body, mutilated by 27 to 29 stab wounds, five days later in the shower of his apartment in Mesa. Alexander's neck was severed and his head had a bullet wound over the right eyebrow from a 6.35 mm projectile.
Investigations and Trials
The police found Alexander and Arias' DNA in the bathroom . In the washing machine was a digital camera recently bought by Alexander; On the erased memory chip, the investigators found photos that the two u. a. in sexually explicit poses, taken in the early afternoon of the day of the murder, also showed photos with a time stamp from 5:20 p.m. of Alexander in the shower a few minutes before the event of any kind took place. The last photo that Alexander was seen alive was from 5:29 pm. Photos taken less than three minutes later showed him bleeding profusely in the bathroom.
Jodi Arias was arrested in California on July 15 and transferred to Phoenix , Arizona in September . She produced several versions of the crime in the course of the investigation and the trial that began on December 10, 2012. At first, she claimed that she had last seen Alexander in April 2008 and that she had not been in Arizona on the day of the crime. She later admitted that she was in Alexander's apartment on the day in question but was attacked by two intruders who attacked her and killed Alexander. In the last version, she admitted killing Alexander himself in self-defense against domestic violence .
The prosecutor called for the death penalty from the start, while the defense pleaded for reduced criminal liability for self-defense. Several psychologists appeared as experts; At times, Arias' post-traumatic stress disorder due to abuse by her parents and a borderline personality disorder were up for discussion. Arias later claimed to have been mentally, physically and sexually abused by Alexander; an expert suggested that Alexander was already dead when the defendant found him and shot him in the head. However, it was made clear from the start by the investigating detective and the medical examiner who performed the autopsy that the shot clearly came first. However, these two witnesses later changed their version to match the prosecutor's version.
On February 4, 2013, the defendant herself took the stand. On the 18 days of the trial, which was broadcast live by CNN , she got caught up in contradictions, so that on May 8, 2013 the jury considered it to be proven that Arias was guilty of murder, that is to say, passed a sentence that would either result in the death penalty or life imprisonment without the possibility of early discharge. The jury could not agree on the death penalty on May 23, 2013 , which is why the trial was given the status of mistrial (failed trial) and was brought to a close with new jurors who then only had to decide whether or not to impose the death penalty Not. In most other US states that enforce the death penalty, a convicted murderer automatically receives life imprisonment if the jury is undecided. Even in the renegotiation around a year later, which the public prosecutor and the victim family insisted on, the jury could not agree on the death penalty, and it again ended in a mistrial . After that, only life imprisonment with the prospect of early release after 25 years or life imprisonment until death remained as options, since the public prosecutor's office can only apply for the death penalty twice. On April 13, 2015, the court found his sentence and sentenced Arias to life imprisonment with no prospect of early release.
Web links
- Sources to process at CNN (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Huffington Post Jodi Arias Trial: An Over-The-Top Media-Spectacle, May 22, 2013
- ↑ In US law, the penalty in this case is natural life without parole . This means that the convicted person remains imprisoned until her death without the possibility of early release.
- ↑ New York Times Mistrial Set in Penalty for a killer in Arizona on May 24, 2013