At no point in the investigation of Travis Alexander did Jodi Arias convince detectives that she wasn’t in some way involved in the killing. Travis Alexander’s lifeless body was discovered by friends five days after being shot in the head and stabbed 27 to 29 times by his on-and-off lover Jodi Arias.

Despite overwhelming evidence showing that she was at Alexander’s house on the day of the murder, Jodi vehemently denied it. She then conceded to being in the house but stated that burglars killed Travis and intimidated her into silence. She finally admitted to the murder but said that she did it in self-defense. 

Arias is in Perryville Prison in Arizona and is reportedly a manipulative prisoner

After two juries failed to agree on whether to hand Jodi Arias the death penalty, a judge gave her life in prison without the possibility of parole. Since her sentencing, she’s changed prisons several times and is currently in Perryville Prison in Goodyear, Arizona. 

Arias’ appeal attempts have failed. In 2019, she appealed her sentence, citing prosecutorial misconduct. “Arias was convicted based upon the overwhelming evidence of her guilt, not as a result of prosecutorial misconduct,” Judge Jennifer ruled in her dismissal of the appeal. 

Per a video released by Radar Online in 2016, Arias has adapted well to life in prison. A defiant Arias exclaimed:

“If this is what it like to be hated, then keep hating! I’ve had so much love coming in my direction I can’t even respond to it now. We had chicken fajitas here tonight. Really good. A big old pie of caramelized onions, some bell peppers, like, all the works.”

In 2019, Arias claimed to have found love in Benjamin Ernst and was looking forward to marrying him. “If we marry, then he can petition a court to grant us visitation,” Arias wrote to mitigation specialist Maria De La Rosa. For some unknown reason, Arias’ proposed union to Benjamin fell through. 

Arias is reportedly a manipulative prisoner known to flirt with correctional officers to earn privileges. In Cellmate Secrets, Jodi’s former cellmates, Donovan Bering, and her wife Tracy Brown, claimed that Jodi often ‘used her sexuality to get things from other inmates.’

Bering and Brown were shocked to learn that the soft-spoken Jodi, who per Donovan looked nothing like a murderer, stabbed a person over 20 times in a jealous rage. The nature of Jodi’s crimes didn’t affect her friendship with Bering, who kept Jodi’s social media accounts active after her release. 

Donovan and Jodi fell out after Bering realized that Arias ‘had a lot of hate.’ She described Jodi’s reaction after she declined to post something vile about Jodi’s family:

“She got really mad and she said some pretty horrible things. She tried to lash out at me and have people she knew attack me and my family. It made me feel really bad. I felt betrayed. I couldn’t understand it.”

Many speculate that Arias has a mental disorder. A Psychology Today article penned by mental health professionals claims that Jodi might be a sociopath, a pathological liar, and narcissistic.

Travis’ friends warned her of Arias’ before the murder

Lovingier Hughes, Travis Alexander’s friend, told him: “Travis, I’m afraid we’re gonna find you chopped up in her freezer.”

Travis and Jodi met at a convention in Las Vegas in September 2006 and hit it off immediately. Travis’s friends noted the connection, and they were happy for him for a short while. Travis hoped to marry Jodi at some point. He sent the following email to Hughes:

“I went from intrigued by her to interested in her to caring about her deeply to realizing how lucky I would be to have her as part of my life forever. She is amazing. It is not hard to see what whoever scores Jodi, whether it be me or someone else, is gonna win the wife lotto.”

However, Travis’ Mormon faith presented an obstacle. Travis and Jodi were having premarital sex, a Mormon sin that affected Travis’s mental health. Arias converted to Mormonism, much to the delight of Travis, but the couple kept having sex. 

“They’re both sinning in the eyes of the church,” Shanna Hogan, author of Picture Perfect: The Jodi Arias Story, told ABC News. “Travis wanted to marry a virginal, pure Mormon girl, and by having sex with him, Jodi eliminated herself as ever being marriage potential for Travis.”

Jodi’s infatuation with Travis worried Travis’ friends. “She was all over him,” Lovingier Hughes said. “She became very possessive of him.” Alexander’s friend Clancy Talbot said that Jodi was extremely possessive of Travis:

“She just had to sit right by him. She didn’t appreciate when he was talking to another female. She didn’t like the fact that if there was anyone that didn’t know that they were together. She wanted to make that clear.”

Alexander broke up with Arias, but unbeknownst to his friends, the couple maintained contact. At the time of the murder, Alexander was courting another Mormon woman named Mimi. 

Arias claimed that she murdered Travis in self-defense and that he was abusive. “Her mission was basically to murder my brother again for a second time by destroying his reputation,” Travis’s brother, Steven, said. After her conviction, Arias opined that the jury’s verdict was too harsh:

“I was really hoping the jury would see things for what they are. I didn’t expect to walk away. I knew that was a possibility, a slim chance. In a parallel universe somewhere, but certainly not first-degree.”