October 11, 2022 • 43 mins
In the season finale, we’re covering the case of Jodi Arias. If you think you know the story wait until you hear from two insiders who offer a brand-new perspective.
Today's guests are producers Stephanie Lydecker and Jeff Shane. Joining them are Kirk Nurmi and Joseph Scott Morgan.
Kirk Nurmi is a former public defender turned legal expert and author. During his time in the courtroom, he defended hundreds of individuals against serious felony charges. He rose to fame when he defended Jodi Arias during her high-profile murder trial from 2012-2013.
Since leaving the public defender’s office, Kirk has written eight books, which include Trapped with Ms. Arias. His books are available for purchase now.
Joseph Scott Morgan has handled thousands of death investigations, which include over 7,000 autopsies. Joseph also recently worked on the KT studio's documentary Murdered and, Missing in Montana now streaming on peacock. Joseph also hosts his own podcast, Body Bags, which is available to download now.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Falling in love is the best feeling in the world.
You see stars, you feel giddy, But sometimes that makes
you do crazy things, and sometimes that means murder. Just
because the story starts out with once upon a Times
doesn't mean it ends happily ever after. Welcome to Crazy
and Love, a production of Katie's Studios and I Heart
(00:23):
Radio and the season finale of Crazy in Love. We're
examining the infamous case of Jodiarius. Well. You may think
you know the story, We're taking a different approach. Joining
producers Stephanie Lydecker and Jeff Shane are Jody's former defense
attorney Kirk Nurmi, who spent tons of time with the
woman in question, and forensic expert Joseph Scott Morgan, who
(00:46):
covered the complex forensics in the case from the beginning
episode forty eight, the case of the fatal Beauty, the
shocking trial, and the attorney who lived through it. Travis
Alexander had it all going for him. He was a
successful entrepreneur and motivational speaker, and had a bustling social life. However,
(01:12):
he yearned to settle down with someone. In September two
thousand and six, at a conference in Las Vegas, he
was introduced to a beautiful saleswoman named Jodiarius. They had
dinner and talked till four in the morning. The very
day after meeting Jodiarius, Travis emailed a friend quote, I
went from intrigued to her, to interested in her, to
(01:34):
caring for her deeply, to realizing how lucky you would
be to have her be a part of my life forever.
She is amazing. It's not hard to see that whoever
scores Jody, whether it be me or someone else, is
going to win life Slatto. Despite living in different states,
the relationship progressed quickly and became physical. There was just
(01:55):
one problem. Travis was a devout Mormon and wasn't supposed
to be having pre marital relations, but Jody was committed
to making it work. She converted and even had Travis
baptized her. However, early on in their relationship, Jody started
to exhibit some toxic behavior. She was known to go
through Travis's phone, emails and social media accounts. After five
(02:19):
months together, Travis broke up with Jody, but just weeks later,
Jodie moved to Mesa, Arizona, where Travis was living. At
this point, he was dating someone new, and Jodie began
harassing the woman, knocking on her door at all hours
in the night and even slashing her tires. Throughout all
of this, Travis and Jody remained in contact physically and emotionally.
(02:43):
Through this time. Jody was trying to move on as well,
and she began dating a new guy in Utah. On
June four, two thousand and eight, Jodiette plans to drive
out to see her new boyfriend in Utah. On the way,
she stopped by Travis's there. After fooling around, Joe stepped
Travis nearly thirty times, slit his throat, and shot him
(03:04):
in the head. Days later, after discovering his body, the
police also found a camera memory card in the washing machine.
On the card were intimate photos of Travis and Jody together,
as well as grizzly pictures of his dead body. It
led detectives straight to Jody, and she was arrested for murder.
After the arrest and leading up to the trial, her
(03:25):
story changed several times. At first, Jodie denied ever having
been there, Then she said someone attacked both of them. Finally,
she lands it on a story self defense against Travis.
In two thousand thirteen, after a very public trial, she
was found guilty of first degree murder. Jody was sentenced
(03:45):
to life in prison without the possibility of parole after
two juries could not agree on whether to sentence her
to death. Here's Stephanie Kirk. I wasn't aware that as
a public defender, you basically are assigned a case and
you don't really necessarily have the liberty to be able
(04:05):
to decide if you want to stick with it or not.
So how were you assigned to this case from the start?
Back in two thousand and eight, I was working as
a deputy public defender in the death penalty unit of
the Public Defender's Office. That was a specialty unit of
experienced attorneys that had gone through a great deal of training,
had a certain amount of felony cases under their belt.
(04:27):
So my boss came down the hall and he had
a very familiar smirk on his face and an empty
file folder in his hand, and on that file folder
was the name Jodi Arias. Recently, days before the council
she had had been allowed to withdraw from the case
for an ethical conflict, which was something that you know,
(04:49):
I was not privy to but was certainly something that
meant that she was off the case and it needed
to be assigned to new council. And in two thousand nine,
I had no idea who Jody are this was and people,
a lot of people are shocked by that because you think,
how could you not know? But think about two thousand nine,
this was four years before the trial. She had been
on an ABC special Picture Perfect, had done a couple
(05:13):
other tiny interviews, but that was about it. And as
a lawyer, I didn't watch that kind of stuff because
that was my life. So to me, it was just
another name. And the only thing that stood out to
me was the fact that this was a female, because
it is a rare occasion when we have a female
who murders, let alone one who has charged with the
death penalty. When did you first come into contact with
(05:34):
Jody and what was your first interaction with her like?
Or do you prep for a case before you meet
a defendant? You know? The only thing I knew when
that empty file came into my hand because I didn't
have the entire file because that was with the former attorney,
so I couldn't review everything. And one of the things
you want to do as a death penalty attorney is
make sure your client knows who their counsel is, who
their family knows who their counsel is. That sort of thing.
(05:57):
You want to make that contact as quick as possible
and altoly. A defense team is made up not just
a lawyer, but it's of a co council, of an
investigator and a mitigation specialist. So what you want to
do in an introductory meeting is ultimately get as many
of those people together as you can and go down
and so the client has a face he or she
(06:19):
can put to the name. It was a new assignment.
We wanted to see her right away. My initial exposure
to jodieis really sitting down finding that special online and
that was kind of my first foray into the case
that sanitize sixty minute documentary that ABC had put together.
And what was her demeanor like when you first sat
down with her. I always disappoint people ask that question
(06:44):
with my answer because it's quite normal. It was nothing
out of the ordinary. You know, I think people are
expecting to like I was meeting a celebrity, or I
was going to get this sense of evil or what
have you. Just that normal initial meeting with the only
knowledge in my head really being what i'd seen in
the ABC documentary. I also saw the ABC documentary at
the time, So, yeah, if you had seen that when
(07:07):
you met her the first time, was that similar didn't
line up? Yes? I think so. I mean, when you
have those initial meetings with the client facing the death penitalty,
you're really not doing a lot of talking about the
substance of the case, right, You're just you're not probing.
You know that there's going to be a long term
relationship no matter what when we talk about the death penalty,
(07:27):
whatever we think of the defendant, they're always somebody's loved one, right,
They're always somebody's son or daughter, or brother, or best
friend or husband or wife. So you want to kind
of get that connection with not only the client, but
the people that are important to his or her life. Yeah,
that makes sense. That must be an incredibly difficult scenario
(07:47):
to be in. I can only imagine as a parent.
And then, Joseph, how did you first get connected to
the case? Believe it or not, When I got tasked
to be involved in this case with the media, this
was actually my first foray into the media. The producer
at CNN. It's for h l N. She had googled
(08:10):
medical examiner because they needed someone to talk about the
forensics in this case, because it was just so uber
violence all the way through. Do you think you can
look at these autopsy reports and and take a look
at it, and you know the documents that we have.
I was like, yeah, cool, I'll do it, and can
you come on down and and hop on the air
with us? And I began to read over the autopsy report,
(08:32):
you know, everything to do with Travis Alexander. It was like,
Holy Christmas, you know, she she really did a number
on the sky and he was really carved up significantly.
And what really struck me was the fact that some
of the stuff in my estimation appeared to be postmortem,
and based on my career and things that I had
seen to pass, this was just indicative of a level
(08:54):
of anger and psychopology that you know that you only
rarely encounter. That's interesting that you say that, so meaning
post mortem, that the stab, wounds and injuries still continued
after it was very clear that Travis was already deceased.
I think there's some indication of that, but you have
to keep in mind that his body even down for
(09:15):
a while, so there was decay. It compromised a good
bit and he had been down in this closed up apartment,
so it made interpreting some of these wounds, I think
for Dr Horn difficult, but he did a great job.
The one thing that you'll never convince me otherwise is
that the gunshot wound that Travis sustained, that in my estimation,
(09:39):
that was a post warm injury because there was very
little hemorrhage, you know, in the wound track, and there
was no soot deposition, so it wasn't like it was
pressed to his head. It's like the individual stood above
him as he's down and fired them around into his head.
And as a death investigator, that's significant because that's final shot.
(10:00):
If that's the one, it seems that it points to
more extra rage or does that mean she was so
out of her mind potentially that she wanted to just
make sure he was officially dead. If you were to
create a medical legal death investigation textbook and you were
going to do a subsection on overkill, Jodi Arius would
be a subject or Travis Alexander's body rather not her,
(10:24):
but Travis Alexander's body would be a point of reference,
the fact that it's a stab wound. Stab wounds, blood
in bludgeonings strangulations to maybe a lesser degree because they're
not quite as violent, but sharp force injuries and bludgeonings
tend to be very, very personal. You know, when you
see the images at the end, I think it was
(10:44):
the end of the hallway down past the bathroom, there's
like this gigantic blood spot. I can't prove this, but
it always seemed to so that it would be one
of those positions where he would be prone, kind of
face down and you'd have to leverage with her size.
She would have to leverage by putting pressure like with
her knee in the area between his shoulder blades or
(11:08):
mid back, pulling his head back because it looks as
though it's so hyper extended the entry does that when
you threw it back like that, then he finally bled
out right there. For all intensive purposes, she practically decapitated him.
This is a brutal, brutal, sharp force injury case. But
my estimation, again this is only my opinion. When that
(11:31):
last photo in life was taken of him and he's
in the shower and he's kind of doing the look
over his shoulder. It's very haunting. It's at that moment
time where he's attacked and he's attacked from the rear,
and then he's I think he spun through his hands
up and he sustained these kind of defensive on the
(11:51):
palmer aspects of his hands. He's kind of defensive injuries.
And then he stabbed in the chest. But he exits
the shower, goes I think to the sink, because there's
contact traces of blood on the sink where it looks
like his hands were supporting his body. And here he is,
and he's riddled with these holes. And when you look
(12:13):
at the sink, if folks that are listening to this
will take a uh. One of the things I do
with my students is talking about aspirate blood. Fine aspirate blood.
Take an aerosol can of hair spray or something and
sprits it on the on the mirror and it comes
out in these little, tiny little droplets. That's what it
looked like, and it and that's on the surface of
(12:36):
the sink, and it would have been generated probably as
a result of along being penetrated. And then he's hacking.
He's hacking this blood up and as he's hacking, it's
come out of his nose and his mouth and it
kind of turns into this fine spray. It was just
one of those things. You know, you sit there and
you look at it and you think you can actually
kind of see this dance of death that's going on,
(12:57):
and it was horrific. I want to ask her see that.
That's terrific? So how do you, as a defense attorney
take that and bring that into the courtroomind me, you
would imagine any juror hearing that would hate Jody, Like,
how do you spin that? Or can you spend that?
I don't think it's a it's a matter of spin
per se, because you know, I mean, in a death
(13:18):
penalty case, the real goal of a death penalty attorney
is to save a client's life. It's not necessarily the
idea of guilt or innocence, right, And the scenario we
just heard laid out is certainly a plausible one. But
my biggest concern as a lawyer is I look at
(13:38):
the legal ramifications of certain things that are byproducts of
what we just heard regarding the crime scene, and a
couple of words that stand out or rage we heard
that over and over and over again, rage and the
horrific nature of the crime scene. This wasn't some kind
(13:58):
of rand um killing off for something. There was a
real personal element to it, right, which is which is true?
The other thing I turned to when I when I
think about this crime scene is the idea of premeditation.
We hear this theory that this Areas steals this gun
(14:21):
from her parents, she drives down, She's got all these making,
all these preparations, cell phone turned off, what have you.
But when we talk about that as an act of
premeditation and she has this gun in her hand, what
makes sense to a forensic expert looking at the case
might be something that makes doesn't make as much sense
(14:43):
to me or potentially adjure because you think about some
questions that come with all of this, And you know,
we just heard a theory where he is stabbed first
and then shot postmortem or near death. Why does someone
bring a gun with the intent of killing drive fourteen hours?
(15:05):
She has this supposed plan under the states theory that
she is going to go there and kill Mr Alexander. Well,
she doesn't walk into the home at four in the morning,
shoot Mr Alexander and leave right, Why does she then
decide to stab first as opposed to shoot first. So
(15:27):
those are the questions when you talk about premeditation and
rage that you really look at in conjunction with all
the other facts. Each crime scene tells a different tale
in each case. So that's how I'm looking at the
crime scene, and I'm looking at that in terms of
the elements of first degree murder, second degree murder, and manslaughter,
(15:48):
because as a death only attorney, in my quest to
save a client's life, I know that a verdict of
second degree murder saves my client's life, a verdict of
manslaughter saves my client slide. So I'm looking at it
through those eyes. And to me, when you think about
the crime scene and what have you, that rage always
(16:10):
spoke to manslaughter as opposed to some sort of premeditation understood,
and with that theory in mind, is it possible that
maybe she would not have killed Travis that night had
the rest of the evening gone differently? If I remember correctly,
they were due to go on a trip and found
out that he wasn't taking her on vacation. I think
(16:30):
through his emails that she was maybe in But regardless
if he had said to her, we're great, let's get
back together. Was this an avoidable crime or does it
feel like it was something that spontaneously, maybe that rage
took over and there was no turning back. That's the
million dollar question when it comes to this, because you know,
(16:51):
there is that reality out there that she comes to
the house, he lets her in. We know they were
watching YouTube videos it like four in the morning. We
know they had a sexual encounter at about one thirty
in the afternoon. I mean, he's taking pictures of her
nude on the bed at one thirty that afternoon, So
what change and he's he's dead approximately five thirty. We
(17:13):
know from the photographs of the killing what transpired in
those four hours. Travis's friends speculate that, you know, he said, hey,
I'm still going to Cancoon with Mimi I believe her
name was, you know, after they had sex, and that
was the minute of range. But then again, that speaks
to manslaughter. That's really how I'm looking at it when
(17:34):
I put all those elements together, and certainly back in
two thousand thirteen, I believe that there was a strong
probability that that that's what this was. This was a
manslaughter case because I have a tough time and people
hate miss arias and what have you. But we look
at the evidence, We look at the reality that if
(17:54):
somebody who's going to kill someone, are they going to
have sex with that person? I mean, they're gonna have
their potentially have their DNA. Are they going to allow
that person to take photographs of them? Right? Their fingerprints
are going to be on glasses in the house and
the bed, what have you. There's all kinds of possibility
if you're going to do that. And this is a
(18:15):
plan culminated day or initiated days earlier, culminated when you
get to his house. Do you hang out for twelve hours,
especially when your alibi is that you need you're in Utah?
Why do you spend twelve hours at the home, fourteen
hours whatever it was, instead of just going in there
doing it and leaving such a good point. And so yeah, fascinating.
(18:39):
I guess that is the pocket of time that is unanswerable. Frankly,
we're going to take a break. We'll be back in
just a moment. When you first met with Jody, was
(19:02):
she optimistic about being free and what did that look
like in her head? Best case scenario. I don't think
there's any optimism in a death penalty case. I mean,
to me, it's a matter of mitigating tragedy. And I
think having been in a courtroom where the death penalty
was delivered, I sense nothing but pain. So ultimately, you know,
(19:24):
my job as a as a lead counsel is to
try to do everything I can to save my client's life.
And so there's not optimism. There's just hope that the
tragedy that's already took place, and this is a great tragedy.
We shouldn't lose sight of this. In any conversation that
had about this case is you know, you have a
young man who lost his life and a young woman
(19:45):
who threw hers away, and you know, you try to
do your best to mitigate that tragedy if you will.
Such a fascinating job. And you know, again, yeah, life
and death work like no other. Can you walk us
through some what you need to consider as you're preparing
for a case. Well, I mean there's loads of information
that starts coming up and coming through right the what
(20:08):
the prior council had done in the year or so
that she had the case. There's the police reports, there's
the unsanitized versions of the crime scene photographs of stuff
that you know, ABC doesn't want to show. My goodness,
it was one that really sticks with me because of
its innate brutality. There's no denying the brutality of that scene.
(20:29):
I've never seen anything like it. And so you begin
sorting through that, and you begin, you know, asking questions,
and you begin looking at the case as it relates
to those, you know, elements of those crimes. And you're
also looking at it because it's a death penalty case
and a jury is going to be ultimately making the
(20:51):
decision between life and death. You have to start in
conjunction with that. What would drive a person to do this? Right?
That's the question number one? And you know you mentioned
something earlier, it's very rare for a female to be
accused of a crime this large. The obvious question would
be why I think people were captivated by these sexual
(21:13):
undertones and they were very good looking. Did that ultimately
in your opinion, like over arch the story of this
hideous crime. I think that the words silicious comes to
mind a great degree. And back to what the earlier
points of Kurt Mate about the inflammatory nature of the
photos when you submit these photos for evidence, you got
(21:36):
a pre trial on these things, and the lawyers banting
back and forth about what's going to be admitted because
you know, how many photos of a gunshot one do
you need a show photos of stab? When do you
need show To Kurt's point about this being a manslaughter event,
you know, I think out of all of the the graphic,
(21:58):
horrible images of Mr Alexander's body, Travis has remains I
think the thing that stands out most, or the nude photographs,
because you know, when you think about nudity and another
person is allowing that other person to take those photographs,
you're in a very vulnerable position. And the fact that
(22:18):
there's a size difference here. I mean Travis Alexander was
not some diminutive little guy. I mean he's not a giant,
but Jody Arius is small. And now she showed up prepared,
I think, but I don't know that she was really
about doing this. This was a heated event. It's like
something happened in that gap of time that just set
(22:40):
her off man, and she just you know, she couldn't
take it anymore. When you talk about the brutality of
the case and she says it self defense. Is that
possible based on how brutal this path was? In your opinion,
if she was attempting to imply that she was suffering
from some kind of battered syndrome prior to and that
(23:03):
this was an interdictive measure on her part, she might
get see that as self defense. For me, you know,
the things that I board witnessed to, just with the
autopsy report and and the imagery, this seemed as though
she lay in wait for him. I have two questions
for Kirk. One, what do we all make of the
(23:25):
fact that the camera was left in the washing machine?
That always has been a shock. It's one of those
questions that goes along with what happened. It's unanswerable. Logic
dictates it is most likely just inadvertent. You think about
the disorganization of the crime scene and not cover one's tracks,
one makes you think, you know, there's all this intelligence
(23:49):
attributed to miss Arius. So then one, why does she
even allow the photographs to be taken to begin with? Right,
just from a demeanor standpoint, I know we touched on
this earlier too, and that it was, you know, nothing
super notable. Does that change in your experience throughout your
time with miss Arius. You know, you describe it as
being trapped with her. You know, one of the things
(24:10):
that a lot of people don't realize, is it back
in two thousand nine, August of two thousand nine, was
I was assigned to the case. At the end of
two thousand ten, I had done my second death penalty case,
and this was a cold case. It was DNA, no family,
no mitigation. Everything else about is quick of the death
(24:30):
penalty cases you can have, and it still took about
three three and a half months to try. I mean,
empty courtroom, could have heard a pin drop, no mention
on the news, the polar opposite of areas. But the
point I'm making is by the time I got done
with this case in late two thousand and ten, you know,
(24:51):
I realized that death penalty work was not something I
could stay in long term. So I thought, I'm going
to give this some thought, and if I want to
leave the Public Defender's office by the first of the year,
I would do that. So in January of two thousand
and eleven, I decided to resign from the Public Defender's office,
(25:11):
and what would be customary under those circumstances is for
a new public defender to be assigned to the case,
and that I would just simply leave the case behind.
I made the now um almost fatal decision, considering what
happened down the road, that I owed it to my
(25:32):
client to stay through an important hearing she had in February.
So I decided I would stay on until this hearing
in February, and then I would resign from the Public
Defender's office. At that point in time, the judge took
the uncustomary step of saying, well, have you filed a
motion to withdraw? I said no, uh, And she said, well,
(25:55):
you know, she wanted to get me, asked me to
keep it as a contract case, which something that some
attorneys do when they leave. I declined, Um, I had
a sense of where miss Arius this case was going,
and not to the degree that you know, um, Joe
Scott Morgan and others would be talking about it on
HLN and one point three million people would be watching.
(26:17):
I don't think anybody could have envisioned that at some
point in time, at any point in time right that
it became the cultural phenomenon it did. But um, so
you know it was done in this anticipation that I
would leave the case behind, and I, like I said,
I wanted to move on. At that point in time,
miss Arius was assigned h two attorneys to oppose my
(26:40):
motion to withdraw. We went through about three months of litigation,
and ultimately, after that three months of litigation was completed,
the judge had ordered that I keep the case when
I went into private practice. It's astounding to me. That
is astounding. I don't think many people knew that at
(27:02):
the time either. I think many people assumed that you
were a paid defense lawyer for Jodi Arius Well, and
that was one of the lynch pens I think of
the mob against me at that point in time, because
you know, many theories were that, you know, I had
taken this case to be famous, or you know, because
I believe miss arias a story, or some other nefarious reason.
(27:25):
You know. Unfortunately, it was at a time when I
couldn't say, hey, by the way, I'm actually trapped here.
I don't want anything to do with this myth attorney
can't go out and stand up and say, you know,
I don't believe what this client is saying, but I
have to project it in the courtroom. Based on my
ethical responsibility to the client, to the court, and the
(27:45):
entire death penalty process. So yeah, I mean that's why
I named my book Trapped with miss Arius, because I
really was. You ask about demeanor, and there's a different
demeanor there at that point in time, because when I
was at the public Defender's office, it was a different setup,
there was a different kind of institution, there were different
(28:06):
kind of controls, if you will. And when I left
and Ms Arius knew that the judge had ordered me
to keep the case. To her thinking, I would assume
as I kind of became her personal attorney, and so
I was supposed to be there at you know, her
back and call. So that was how the demeanor kind
(28:27):
of change from I was a public defender to maybe
in her mind, her personal attorney because the judge had
ordered that I keep this case. And you know, I'm
not there to be my client's friend. I'm there to
be an objective professional. So I'm looking at what can
save my client's life. It didn't matter to me. I'm
(28:49):
there to do my job, and it's a life and
death job. The stakes could not be any higher. How
do you guys think that the public view of Jody
factored into her time on trial and following. I mean,
we're still talking about this case, you know, ten years later,
and I think the thing that really stood out to me, Kurt,
was the access that the media had to her. And
(29:10):
it creates a real problem for you, and it's a
real handicap. Kudos to you because you said you have
to do your job, and but my lord, you know
the things that you had to overcome just from a
forensic standpoint, because you know, it's almost like one man
against the system. You've got this boat anchor of a client.
(29:31):
You know, that's unpredictable, and to me, it's it's just amazing.
I'd love to hear your thoughts about how that impacted
you as a practitioner. That's an understatement, and that's as
I appreciate your words, and it's it's kind of hard
to react to because it's certainly something that, like I said,
no one could have expected. The media had filed motions
to cover the trial, and you know, we have objected
(29:54):
to those in Maricota County the policies at the time,
and the judge decided that it was okay for the
cameras to be there and one of the things that
I often say to people as we don't always value
things we think will never lose. And for me, on
the day of opening statements, that was my anonymity because
here I was a public defendery. So I still remember
(30:16):
like it was yesterday, the day I parked my red
Purius near the courthouse and started walking to the courthouse
on the day of opening statements, and I remember seeing
four or five portable studios there that were set up
and that had you know, satellite dishes that looked like
they could shoot lasers to mars on them, and chords
(30:38):
all over the place, of reporters on every street corner.
It was literally all over the news, you know, the
death threats that came my way, the harassment. I mean,
our email addresses had to be on every motion we filed,
so my email address was public, so I could get
up do a cross examination of someone and have ten
(31:00):
critiques from across the world. So it was that kind
of state of hyper vigilance when I was in public,
because everybody was watching one point three million what have
you every single day, and then only grew and grew
and grew. When you're going to court and you're having
your car check for bombs so those bombs don't at
the courthouse because people are so angry at you for
(31:25):
defending this person. I can't imagine anything crazier. And talk
about being unprepared walking into it, right now, you are
so prepared to you have these tools. Would there be
any advice for another attorney in your situation have more
success in the in their motion to withdraw? That's the
best advice. But you know, at the same time, Steph,
(31:47):
there's not much you can do because we see a
lot of these cases that are covered, but they probably
don't catch the attention of the world the way Jodi
Arias did. I mean, there's no real advice. I mean,
the only thing I found myself able to do is
kind of a bunker mentality. I had a duty to
the court, I had a duty to the constitution, and
(32:10):
fulfilling that duty meant you kind of put your head
down and did your job. And again during that time,
you really can't be taking on any new private clients
because again your time is being committed to this case.
When ms Arius is awaiting sentencing after she's been found guilty,
she goes down to the bottom of the courthouse and
(32:33):
gives an interview with the local reporter because this is
going to be your last opportunity. The prison doesn't allow
for interviews. The Arizona prisons don't allow for interviews. The
only reason I suspect we haven't heard from this areas
since she was sent to prison. But she goes down
the after the verdict and while she's awaiting sentencing and
gives this interview with this reporter and basically says that
(32:57):
it was my idea to you called Travis Alexander abusive pedophile,
the defense, my creation, etcetera, etcetera, all about this. You know,
ms Arius never does anything wrong. We saw this during
the trial of this kind of persona. And so she
says this, And at the time I've been threatened. My
(33:19):
wife had quit her job because we have a unique
last name, and I know somebody could easily find out
where she was teaching. I mean, they found out where
my co counsel's kids went to grade school. That is correct.
There was a huge safety concern. Just going out in
public was a scary event. But she says this, and
(33:40):
in my head, at that point in time, when we're
waiting for the jury to come back, we're doing the
mitigation phase. This is something I can clear up two
weeks later, when I'm no longer her attorney, I could
come on the show and say that's not true. And
ultimately we know when the jury hung as it relates
to sentencing, then there I am right the sounds of silence.
(34:01):
I can't say anything. So this hatred that has been
cast against me, I can't put any water on that
fire simply because I was still her attorney. I had
five and a half years of my life hijacked in
service of missarius ends, whatever they might be, And ultimately,
(34:22):
you know, when I got done with it and dealt
with the cancer that came out of it, I tried
to run away from everything related to the case, and
I soon learned that I couldn't run fast enough. You
just can't get away from it. So ultimately, after trying
to run away, I realized that I had to embrace it.
If you will, I've never heard such a tale in
(34:42):
terms of being almost handcuffed to a person and having
your career literally hijacked. He is. Indeed, let's stop here
for another break. I want to just asking both of
(35:08):
your reactions to Jody's singing it got a lot of
publicity her singing in the integration room. She continued to
sing when she was in jail. What do you both
make of that behavior? It goes hand in hand with
kind of the super bizarre nature of everything, you know,
kind of intersected. All kinds of bizarre stories were kind
of bubbling up, you know, through the media, and they
(35:29):
would make their way to me and other people that
there was some kind of secret religious cabal that had
come in and executed Travis Alexander, and that Jody Aris
was completely totally innocent of this, and she was set up,
and there were all kinds of things that were going on.
It's really kind of an interesting study because it was
(35:49):
such a focal point in television history and legal history.
It was like the theater of the absurd. You know,
many times I would watch it and I couldn't believe
what I was seeing. And so I think, for me,
the singing thing is just super bizarre to me, you know,
bizarre is the word that comes to my mind. I've
certainly seen a lot of interrogation videos and never saw
(36:12):
anything like that. And then, you know, as a lawyer,
didn't mean anything as it related to the case, and
We have to keep in mind that this interrogation happened
about a month later. It was bizarre and what have you.
But for me, that was something to ultimately give to
(36:32):
the psychologist that would make a diagnosis of miss arius,
because it really wasn't something of value to the case
in general. But her case now is in the post
conviction release stage, which means that you know, she will
soon be challenging my legal services and saying that I
was ineffective as counsel because I didn't do X, Y
(36:55):
or Z right, which is one of the reasons why
I think people going to see the case in a
new light when they see why I did X, Y
and Z, because otherwise she got her conviction overturned and
the family would have to go through that whole ordeal again.
But you know, even now, nine ten years later, there
(37:16):
are her fans petitioning the court that they could be
a part of this hearing somehow, And I think that's,
you know, why we're still here today and why people
are so fascinated by the case, because she does still
enjoy kind of a cult like status, maybe like a
Scott Peterson enjoys as well. Of following years later, I know,
(37:39):
they like the attention, and it's such a double minded thing.
Even as we talk about it, we are talking about
somebody who maybe should be less spoken about. But at
the same time, it's like, how do you prevent it
from happening again, or how do you spot that in
the next one? And are there any other misconceptions just
tough of mind that you you know, want to share
anything else that we might not know about. I think
(38:00):
a lot of people, you know, don't necessarily realize or
connect to the reality that a lawyer arguing a case
does not necessarily believe their clients story. I mean, their
client ultimately is the one that drives the bus. And
if a lawyer cannot disprove what a client is saying
(38:22):
with actual evidence, then they have to present that story,
let the client testify to it, and actually present that story,
because the lawyer is not the one who gets to
decide what the defense is and without going into some
of the things because their case is still pending post
conviction relief. That was something that weighed on me. And
(38:43):
what a lot of people don't realize is that after
the case was over, it was about four months later
that I was diagnosed with stage three non Hodgkinson foma cancer,
and I knew right away that the stress of representing
this areas for you know, although so many years, and
particularly when we when we moved to the portion of
(39:05):
it where my anonymity was taken away in January, that
was the reason that cancer infested my life, and that
also became my motivation for writing the book, which I
think was an ethical response to her choice to go
on there and lie and say that I was the
one that created this defense, and I wanted to do
(39:26):
it in a way that would survive me should cancer
take me away from this planet, you know, before I
had a chance to really actualize all that, and I
made the decision at that point in time that I
wasn't going to live my remaining years the way I
had my prior. So what had happened when the bar
wanted to suspend me for four years? And I think
(39:47):
we had a case of it would have gone to
a judge, and I think we would have made a
very good case that any suspension wasn't warranted. But I
actually requested disbarment. Um. A lot of people don't know that.
A lot of people just read the headlines, you know,
dis barred right. I requested it because I knew that
if I had that safety, you know, that chance to
(40:10):
fall back, that I probably would still be practicing law,
probably still not really living the life I wanted to live.
How fascinating, because Yeah, even just taking it back to
the earlier part of the conversation where you said you
wanted to get out of the death penalty business, I
could imagine I've never had to think of it that way.
How harrowing and heavy that must be to be in
(40:33):
the business of life and death. How is your health now?
Most importantly, I've been blessed. I went into remission in
two thousand and sixteen. In February of one, I was
five years clean. God, blish Man, we're super happy about that.
That is fantastic. And also for Kirk, I mean, honestly,
(40:53):
your story is really an extraordinary one to share in
terms of your personal journey, and thankfully I'm glad to
hear that you're a healthy as well. Where can we
find the book and what can we expect from you next?
You can go to Kirk Nurmi dot com that has
a link to my Amazon author page, and you can
see both my books about the Area's trial as well
(41:15):
as my other books. Can catch me on Court, TV,
Law and Crime Network, what have you. I've got my
weight Lost Journey, my health journey that show. So I'm
anxious to share that with people because as a cancer survivor,
it's it's always a blessing to me to be able
to hopefully inspire cancer patients out there to realize that
when they're going through that chemo chair that it is
(41:36):
temporary and and life can get better on the other end.
In Darius has appeal for a new trial was denied.
As of two she was moved to a medium security
prison in Arizona, where she will remain the rest of
her life. KIRKNRMI is a former public defender, turn legal
(41:56):
expert and author. During his time in the courtroom, he
defends a hundreds of individuals against sirius felony charges. Since
leaving the Public Defender's office, Kirk has written eight books,
including Trapped with Massarius. His books are available for purchase now.
Joseph Scott Morgan has handled thousands of death investigations, including
(42:17):
over seven thousand autopsies. Joseph also recently worked on the
Katie Studios documentary murdered missing in Montana, now streaming on Peacock.
In addition, Joseph hosts his own podcast, Bodybags, which is
available to download now Shameless Plug. If you're enjoying Crazy
(42:40):
and Love, leave us a review and listen to season
three of our hit series The Piked and Massacre. New
episodes there every Wednesday. Wherever you get your podcasts, and
don't forget to follow us on Instagram at Katie Underscore Studios.
Crazy and Love is produced by Stephanie Lydecker, Jeff Jane,
(43:00):
Chris Graves and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound designed
by Jeff Ta. Crazy in Love is a production of
I Heart Radio and Katie Studios. For more podcasts from
I heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Stay safe, lovers,
Falling in love is the best feeling in the world.
You see stars, you feel giddy, But sometimes that makes
you do crazy things, and sometimes that means murder. Just
because the story starts out with once upon a Times
doesn't mean it ends happily ever after. Welcome to Crazy
and Love, a production of Katie's Studios and I Heart
(00:23):
Radio and the season finale of Crazy in Love. We're
examining the infamous case of Jodiarius. Well. You may think
you know the story, We're taking a different approach. Joining
producers Stephanie Lydecker and Jeff Shane are Jody's former defense
attorney Kirk Nurmi, who spent tons of time with the
woman in question, and forensic expert Joseph Scott Morgan, who
(00:46):
covered the complex forensics in the case from the beginning
episode forty eight, the case of the fatal Beauty, the
shocking trial, and the attorney who lived through it. Travis
Alexander had it all going for him. He was a
successful entrepreneur and motivational speaker, and had a bustling social life. However,
(01:12):
he yearned to settle down with someone. In September two
thousand and six, at a conference in Las Vegas, he
was introduced to a beautiful saleswoman named Jodiarius. They had
dinner and talked till four in the morning. The very
day after meeting Jodiarius, Travis emailed a friend quote, I
went from intrigued to her, to interested in her, to
(01:34):
caring for her deeply, to realizing how lucky you would
be to have her be a part of my life forever.
She is amazing. It's not hard to see that whoever
scores Jody, whether it be me or someone else, is
going to win life Slatto. Despite living in different states,
the relationship progressed quickly and became physical. There was just
(01:55):
one problem. Travis was a devout Mormon and wasn't supposed
to be having pre marital relations, but Jody was committed
to making it work. She converted and even had Travis
baptized her. However, early on in their relationship, Jody started
to exhibit some toxic behavior. She was known to go
through Travis's phone, emails and social media accounts. After five
(02:19):
months together, Travis broke up with Jody, but just weeks later,
Jodie moved to Mesa, Arizona, where Travis was living. At
this point, he was dating someone new, and Jodie began
harassing the woman, knocking on her door at all hours
in the night and even slashing her tires. Throughout all
of this, Travis and Jody remained in contact physically and emotionally.
(02:43):
Through this time. Jody was trying to move on as well,
and she began dating a new guy in Utah. On
June four, two thousand and eight, Jodiette plans to drive
out to see her new boyfriend in Utah. On the way,
she stopped by Travis's there. After fooling around, Joe stepped
Travis nearly thirty times, slit his throat, and shot him
(03:04):
in the head. Days later, after discovering his body, the
police also found a camera memory card in the washing machine.
On the card were intimate photos of Travis and Jody together,
as well as grizzly pictures of his dead body. It
led detectives straight to Jody, and she was arrested for murder.
After the arrest and leading up to the trial, her
(03:25):
story changed several times. At first, Jodie denied ever having
been there, Then she said someone attacked both of them. Finally,
she lands it on a story self defense against Travis.
In two thousand thirteen, after a very public trial, she
was found guilty of first degree murder. Jody was sentenced
(03:45):
to life in prison without the possibility of parole after
two juries could not agree on whether to sentence her
to death. Here's Stephanie Kirk. I wasn't aware that as
a public defender, you basically are assigned a case and
you don't really necessarily have the liberty to be able
(04:05):
to decide if you want to stick with it or not.
So how were you assigned to this case from the start?
Back in two thousand and eight, I was working as
a deputy public defender in the death penalty unit of
the Public Defender's Office. That was a specialty unit of
experienced attorneys that had gone through a great deal of training,
had a certain amount of felony cases under their belt.
(04:27):
So my boss came down the hall and he had
a very familiar smirk on his face and an empty
file folder in his hand, and on that file folder
was the name Jodi Arias. Recently, days before the council
she had had been allowed to withdraw from the case
for an ethical conflict, which was something that you know,
(04:49):
I was not privy to but was certainly something that
meant that she was off the case and it needed
to be assigned to new council. And in two thousand nine,
I had no idea who Jody are this was and people,
a lot of people are shocked by that because you think,
how could you not know? But think about two thousand nine,
this was four years before the trial. She had been
on an ABC special Picture Perfect, had done a couple
(05:13):
other tiny interviews, but that was about it. And as
a lawyer, I didn't watch that kind of stuff because
that was my life. So to me, it was just
another name. And the only thing that stood out to
me was the fact that this was a female, because
it is a rare occasion when we have a female
who murders, let alone one who has charged with the
death penalty. When did you first come into contact with
(05:34):
Jody and what was your first interaction with her like?
Or do you prep for a case before you meet
a defendant? You know? The only thing I knew when
that empty file came into my hand because I didn't
have the entire file because that was with the former attorney,
so I couldn't review everything. And one of the things
you want to do as a death penalty attorney is
make sure your client knows who their counsel is, who
their family knows who their counsel is. That sort of thing.
(05:57):
You want to make that contact as quick as possible
and altoly. A defense team is made up not just
a lawyer, but it's of a co council, of an
investigator and a mitigation specialist. So what you want to
do in an introductory meeting is ultimately get as many
of those people together as you can and go down
and so the client has a face he or she
(06:19):
can put to the name. It was a new assignment.
We wanted to see her right away. My initial exposure
to jodieis really sitting down finding that special online and
that was kind of my first foray into the case
that sanitize sixty minute documentary that ABC had put together.
And what was her demeanor like when you first sat
down with her. I always disappoint people ask that question
(06:44):
with my answer because it's quite normal. It was nothing
out of the ordinary. You know, I think people are
expecting to like I was meeting a celebrity, or I
was going to get this sense of evil or what
have you. Just that normal initial meeting with the only
knowledge in my head really being what i'd seen in
the ABC documentary. I also saw the ABC documentary at
the time, So, yeah, if you had seen that when
(07:07):
you met her the first time, was that similar didn't
line up? Yes? I think so. I mean, when you
have those initial meetings with the client facing the death penitalty,
you're really not doing a lot of talking about the
substance of the case, right, You're just you're not probing.
You know that there's going to be a long term
relationship no matter what when we talk about the death penalty,
(07:27):
whatever we think of the defendant, they're always somebody's loved one, right,
They're always somebody's son or daughter, or brother, or best
friend or husband or wife. So you want to kind
of get that connection with not only the client, but
the people that are important to his or her life. Yeah,
that makes sense. That must be an incredibly difficult scenario
(07:47):
to be in. I can only imagine as a parent.
And then, Joseph, how did you first get connected to
the case? Believe it or not, When I got tasked
to be involved in this case with the media, this
was actually my first foray into the media. The producer
at CNN. It's for h l N. She had googled
(08:10):
medical examiner because they needed someone to talk about the
forensics in this case, because it was just so uber
violence all the way through. Do you think you can
look at these autopsy reports and and take a look
at it, and you know the documents that we have.
I was like, yeah, cool, I'll do it, and can
you come on down and and hop on the air
with us? And I began to read over the autopsy report,
(08:32):
you know, everything to do with Travis Alexander. It was like,
Holy Christmas, you know, she she really did a number
on the sky and he was really carved up significantly.
And what really struck me was the fact that some
of the stuff in my estimation appeared to be postmortem,
and based on my career and things that I had
seen to pass, this was just indicative of a level
(08:54):
of anger and psychopology that you know that you only
rarely encounter. That's interesting that you say that, so meaning
post mortem, that the stab, wounds and injuries still continued
after it was very clear that Travis was already deceased.
I think there's some indication of that, but you have
to keep in mind that his body even down for
(09:15):
a while, so there was decay. It compromised a good
bit and he had been down in this closed up apartment,
so it made interpreting some of these wounds, I think
for Dr Horn difficult, but he did a great job.
The one thing that you'll never convince me otherwise is
that the gunshot wound that Travis sustained, that in my estimation,
(09:39):
that was a post warm injury because there was very
little hemorrhage, you know, in the wound track, and there
was no soot deposition, so it wasn't like it was
pressed to his head. It's like the individual stood above
him as he's down and fired them around into his head.
And as a death investigator, that's significant because that's final shot.
(10:00):
If that's the one, it seems that it points to
more extra rage or does that mean she was so
out of her mind potentially that she wanted to just
make sure he was officially dead. If you were to
create a medical legal death investigation textbook and you were
going to do a subsection on overkill, Jodi Arius would
be a subject or Travis Alexander's body rather not her,
(10:24):
but Travis Alexander's body would be a point of reference,
the fact that it's a stab wound. Stab wounds, blood
in bludgeonings strangulations to maybe a lesser degree because they're
not quite as violent, but sharp force injuries and bludgeonings
tend to be very, very personal. You know, when you
see the images at the end, I think it was
(10:44):
the end of the hallway down past the bathroom, there's
like this gigantic blood spot. I can't prove this, but
it always seemed to so that it would be one
of those positions where he would be prone, kind of
face down and you'd have to leverage with her size.
She would have to leverage by putting pressure like with
her knee in the area between his shoulder blades or
(11:08):
mid back, pulling his head back because it looks as
though it's so hyper extended the entry does that when
you threw it back like that, then he finally bled
out right there. For all intensive purposes, she practically decapitated him.
This is a brutal, brutal, sharp force injury case. But
my estimation, again this is only my opinion. When that
(11:31):
last photo in life was taken of him and he's
in the shower and he's kind of doing the look
over his shoulder. It's very haunting. It's at that moment
time where he's attacked and he's attacked from the rear,
and then he's I think he spun through his hands
up and he sustained these kind of defensive on the
(11:51):
palmer aspects of his hands. He's kind of defensive injuries.
And then he stabbed in the chest. But he exits
the shower, goes I think to the sink, because there's
contact traces of blood on the sink where it looks
like his hands were supporting his body. And here he is,
and he's riddled with these holes. And when you look
(12:13):
at the sink, if folks that are listening to this
will take a uh. One of the things I do
with my students is talking about aspirate blood. Fine aspirate blood.
Take an aerosol can of hair spray or something and
sprits it on the on the mirror and it comes
out in these little, tiny little droplets. That's what it
looked like, and it and that's on the surface of
(12:36):
the sink, and it would have been generated probably as
a result of along being penetrated. And then he's hacking.
He's hacking this blood up and as he's hacking, it's
come out of his nose and his mouth and it
kind of turns into this fine spray. It was just
one of those things. You know, you sit there and
you look at it and you think you can actually
kind of see this dance of death that's going on,
(12:57):
and it was horrific. I want to ask her see that.
That's terrific? So how do you, as a defense attorney
take that and bring that into the courtroomind me, you
would imagine any juror hearing that would hate Jody, Like,
how do you spin that? Or can you spend that?
I don't think it's a it's a matter of spin
per se, because you know, I mean, in a death
(13:18):
penalty case, the real goal of a death penalty attorney
is to save a client's life. It's not necessarily the
idea of guilt or innocence, right, And the scenario we
just heard laid out is certainly a plausible one. But
my biggest concern as a lawyer is I look at
(13:38):
the legal ramifications of certain things that are byproducts of
what we just heard regarding the crime scene, and a
couple of words that stand out or rage we heard
that over and over and over again, rage and the
horrific nature of the crime scene. This wasn't some kind
(13:58):
of rand um killing off for something. There was a
real personal element to it, right, which is which is true?
The other thing I turned to when I when I
think about this crime scene is the idea of premeditation.
We hear this theory that this Areas steals this gun
(14:21):
from her parents, she drives down, She's got all these making,
all these preparations, cell phone turned off, what have you.
But when we talk about that as an act of
premeditation and she has this gun in her hand, what
makes sense to a forensic expert looking at the case
might be something that makes doesn't make as much sense
(14:43):
to me or potentially adjure because you think about some
questions that come with all of this, And you know,
we just heard a theory where he is stabbed first
and then shot postmortem or near death. Why does someone
bring a gun with the intent of killing drive fourteen hours?
(15:05):
She has this supposed plan under the states theory that
she is going to go there and kill Mr Alexander. Well,
she doesn't walk into the home at four in the morning,
shoot Mr Alexander and leave right, Why does she then
decide to stab first as opposed to shoot first. So
(15:27):
those are the questions when you talk about premeditation and
rage that you really look at in conjunction with all
the other facts. Each crime scene tells a different tale
in each case. So that's how I'm looking at the
crime scene, and I'm looking at that in terms of
the elements of first degree murder, second degree murder, and manslaughter,
(15:48):
because as a death only attorney, in my quest to
save a client's life, I know that a verdict of
second degree murder saves my client's life, a verdict of
manslaughter saves my client slide. So I'm looking at it
through those eyes. And to me, when you think about
the crime scene and what have you, that rage always
(16:10):
spoke to manslaughter as opposed to some sort of premeditation understood,
and with that theory in mind, is it possible that
maybe she would not have killed Travis that night had
the rest of the evening gone differently? If I remember correctly,
they were due to go on a trip and found
out that he wasn't taking her on vacation. I think
(16:30):
through his emails that she was maybe in But regardless
if he had said to her, we're great, let's get
back together. Was this an avoidable crime or does it
feel like it was something that spontaneously, maybe that rage
took over and there was no turning back. That's the
million dollar question when it comes to this, because you know,
(16:51):
there is that reality out there that she comes to
the house, he lets her in. We know they were
watching YouTube videos it like four in the morning. We
know they had a sexual encounter at about one thirty
in the afternoon. I mean, he's taking pictures of her
nude on the bed at one thirty that afternoon, So
what change and he's he's dead approximately five thirty. We
(17:13):
know from the photographs of the killing what transpired in
those four hours. Travis's friends speculate that, you know, he said, hey,
I'm still going to Cancoon with Mimi I believe her
name was, you know, after they had sex, and that
was the minute of range. But then again, that speaks
to manslaughter. That's really how I'm looking at it when
(17:34):
I put all those elements together, and certainly back in
two thousand thirteen, I believe that there was a strong
probability that that that's what this was. This was a
manslaughter case because I have a tough time and people
hate miss arias and what have you. But we look
at the evidence, We look at the reality that if
(17:54):
somebody who's going to kill someone, are they going to
have sex with that person? I mean, they're gonna have
their potentially have their DNA. Are they going to allow
that person to take photographs of them? Right? Their fingerprints
are going to be on glasses in the house and
the bed, what have you. There's all kinds of possibility
if you're going to do that. And this is a
(18:15):
plan culminated day or initiated days earlier, culminated when you
get to his house. Do you hang out for twelve hours,
especially when your alibi is that you need you're in Utah?
Why do you spend twelve hours at the home, fourteen
hours whatever it was, instead of just going in there
doing it and leaving such a good point. And so yeah, fascinating.
(18:39):
I guess that is the pocket of time that is unanswerable. Frankly,
we're going to take a break. We'll be back in
just a moment. When you first met with Jody, was
(19:02):
she optimistic about being free and what did that look
like in her head? Best case scenario. I don't think
there's any optimism in a death penalty case. I mean,
to me, it's a matter of mitigating tragedy. And I
think having been in a courtroom where the death penalty
was delivered, I sense nothing but pain. So ultimately, you know,
(19:24):
my job as a as a lead counsel is to
try to do everything I can to save my client's life.
And so there's not optimism. There's just hope that the
tragedy that's already took place, and this is a great tragedy.
We shouldn't lose sight of this. In any conversation that
had about this case is you know, you have a
young man who lost his life and a young woman
(19:45):
who threw hers away, and you know, you try to
do your best to mitigate that tragedy if you will.
Such a fascinating job. And you know, again, yeah, life
and death work like no other. Can you walk us
through some what you need to consider as you're preparing
for a case. Well, I mean there's loads of information
that starts coming up and coming through right the what
(20:08):
the prior council had done in the year or so
that she had the case. There's the police reports, there's
the unsanitized versions of the crime scene photographs of stuff
that you know, ABC doesn't want to show. My goodness,
it was one that really sticks with me because of
its innate brutality. There's no denying the brutality of that scene.
(20:29):
I've never seen anything like it. And so you begin
sorting through that, and you begin, you know, asking questions,
and you begin looking at the case as it relates
to those, you know, elements of those crimes. And you're
also looking at it because it's a death penalty case
and a jury is going to be ultimately making the
(20:51):
decision between life and death. You have to start in
conjunction with that. What would drive a person to do this? Right?
That's the question number one? And you know you mentioned
something earlier, it's very rare for a female to be
accused of a crime this large. The obvious question would
be why I think people were captivated by these sexual
(21:13):
undertones and they were very good looking. Did that ultimately
in your opinion, like over arch the story of this
hideous crime. I think that the words silicious comes to
mind a great degree. And back to what the earlier
points of Kurt Mate about the inflammatory nature of the
photos when you submit these photos for evidence, you got
(21:36):
a pre trial on these things, and the lawyers banting
back and forth about what's going to be admitted because
you know, how many photos of a gunshot one do
you need a show photos of stab? When do you
need show To Kurt's point about this being a manslaughter event,
you know, I think out of all of the the graphic,
(21:58):
horrible images of Mr Alexander's body, Travis has remains I
think the thing that stands out most, or the nude photographs,
because you know, when you think about nudity and another
person is allowing that other person to take those photographs,
you're in a very vulnerable position. And the fact that
(22:18):
there's a size difference here. I mean Travis Alexander was
not some diminutive little guy. I mean he's not a giant,
but Jody Arius is small. And now she showed up prepared,
I think, but I don't know that she was really
about doing this. This was a heated event. It's like
something happened in that gap of time that just set
(22:40):
her off man, and she just you know, she couldn't
take it anymore. When you talk about the brutality of
the case and she says it self defense. Is that
possible based on how brutal this path was? In your opinion,
if she was attempting to imply that she was suffering
from some kind of battered syndrome prior to and that
(23:03):
this was an interdictive measure on her part, she might
get see that as self defense. For me, you know,
the things that I board witnessed to, just with the
autopsy report and and the imagery, this seemed as though
she lay in wait for him. I have two questions
for Kirk. One, what do we all make of the
(23:25):
fact that the camera was left in the washing machine?
That always has been a shock. It's one of those
questions that goes along with what happened. It's unanswerable. Logic
dictates it is most likely just inadvertent. You think about
the disorganization of the crime scene and not cover one's tracks,
one makes you think, you know, there's all this intelligence
(23:49):
attributed to miss Arius. So then one, why does she
even allow the photographs to be taken to begin with? Right,
just from a demeanor standpoint, I know we touched on
this earlier too, and that it was, you know, nothing
super notable. Does that change in your experience throughout your
time with miss Arius. You know, you describe it as
being trapped with her. You know, one of the things
(24:10):
that a lot of people don't realize, is it back
in two thousand nine, August of two thousand nine, was
I was assigned to the case. At the end of
two thousand ten, I had done my second death penalty case,
and this was a cold case. It was DNA, no family,
no mitigation. Everything else about is quick of the death
(24:30):
penalty cases you can have, and it still took about
three three and a half months to try. I mean,
empty courtroom, could have heard a pin drop, no mention
on the news, the polar opposite of areas. But the
point I'm making is by the time I got done
with this case in late two thousand and ten, you know,
(24:51):
I realized that death penalty work was not something I
could stay in long term. So I thought, I'm going
to give this some thought, and if I want to
leave the Public Defender's office by the first of the year,
I would do that. So in January of two thousand
and eleven, I decided to resign from the Public Defender's office,
(25:11):
and what would be customary under those circumstances is for
a new public defender to be assigned to the case,
and that I would just simply leave the case behind.
I made the now um almost fatal decision, considering what
happened down the road, that I owed it to my
(25:32):
client to stay through an important hearing she had in February.
So I decided I would stay on until this hearing
in February, and then I would resign from the Public
Defender's office. At that point in time, the judge took
the uncustomary step of saying, well, have you filed a
motion to withdraw? I said no, uh, And she said, well,
(25:55):
you know, she wanted to get me, asked me to
keep it as a contract case, which something that some
attorneys do when they leave. I declined, Um, I had
a sense of where miss Arius this case was going,
and not to the degree that you know, um, Joe
Scott Morgan and others would be talking about it on
HLN and one point three million people would be watching.
(26:17):
I don't think anybody could have envisioned that at some
point in time, at any point in time right that
it became the cultural phenomenon it did. But um, so
you know it was done in this anticipation that I
would leave the case behind, and I, like I said,
I wanted to move on. At that point in time,
miss Arius was assigned h two attorneys to oppose my
(26:40):
motion to withdraw. We went through about three months of litigation,
and ultimately, after that three months of litigation was completed,
the judge had ordered that I keep the case when
I went into private practice. It's astounding to me. That
is astounding. I don't think many people knew that at
(27:02):
the time either. I think many people assumed that you
were a paid defense lawyer for Jodi Arius Well, and
that was one of the lynch pens I think of
the mob against me at that point in time, because
you know, many theories were that, you know, I had
taken this case to be famous, or you know, because
I believe miss arias a story, or some other nefarious reason.
(27:25):
You know. Unfortunately, it was at a time when I
couldn't say, hey, by the way, I'm actually trapped here.
I don't want anything to do with this myth attorney
can't go out and stand up and say, you know,
I don't believe what this client is saying, but I
have to project it in the courtroom. Based on my
ethical responsibility to the client, to the court, and the
(27:45):
entire death penalty process. So yeah, I mean that's why
I named my book Trapped with miss Arius, because I
really was. You ask about demeanor, and there's a different
demeanor there at that point in time, because when I
was at the public Defender's office, it was a different setup,
there was a different kind of institution, there were different
(28:06):
kind of controls, if you will. And when I left
and Ms Arius knew that the judge had ordered me
to keep the case. To her thinking, I would assume
as I kind of became her personal attorney, and so
I was supposed to be there at you know, her
back and call. So that was how the demeanor kind
(28:27):
of change from I was a public defender to maybe
in her mind, her personal attorney because the judge had
ordered that I keep this case. And you know, I'm
not there to be my client's friend. I'm there to
be an objective professional. So I'm looking at what can
save my client's life. It didn't matter to me. I'm
(28:49):
there to do my job, and it's a life and
death job. The stakes could not be any higher. How
do you guys think that the public view of Jody
factored into her time on trial and following. I mean,
we're still talking about this case, you know, ten years later,
and I think the thing that really stood out to me, Kurt,
was the access that the media had to her. And
(29:10):
it creates a real problem for you, and it's a
real handicap. Kudos to you because you said you have
to do your job, and but my lord, you know
the things that you had to overcome just from a
forensic standpoint, because you know, it's almost like one man
against the system. You've got this boat anchor of a client.
(29:31):
You know, that's unpredictable, and to me, it's it's just amazing.
I'd love to hear your thoughts about how that impacted
you as a practitioner. That's an understatement, and that's as
I appreciate your words, and it's it's kind of hard
to react to because it's certainly something that, like I said,
no one could have expected. The media had filed motions
to cover the trial, and you know, we have objected
(29:54):
to those in Maricota County the policies at the time,
and the judge decided that it was okay for the
cameras to be there and one of the things that
I often say to people as we don't always value
things we think will never lose. And for me, on
the day of opening statements, that was my anonymity because
here I was a public defendery. So I still remember
(30:16):
like it was yesterday, the day I parked my red
Purius near the courthouse and started walking to the courthouse
on the day of opening statements, and I remember seeing
four or five portable studios there that were set up
and that had you know, satellite dishes that looked like
they could shoot lasers to mars on them, and chords
(30:38):
all over the place, of reporters on every street corner.
It was literally all over the news, you know, the
death threats that came my way, the harassment. I mean,
our email addresses had to be on every motion we filed,
so my email address was public, so I could get
up do a cross examination of someone and have ten
(31:00):
critiques from across the world. So it was that kind
of state of hyper vigilance when I was in public,
because everybody was watching one point three million what have
you every single day, and then only grew and grew
and grew. When you're going to court and you're having
your car check for bombs so those bombs don't at
the courthouse because people are so angry at you for
(31:25):
defending this person. I can't imagine anything crazier. And talk
about being unprepared walking into it, right now, you are
so prepared to you have these tools. Would there be
any advice for another attorney in your situation have more
success in the in their motion to withdraw? That's the
best advice. But you know, at the same time, Steph,
(31:47):
there's not much you can do because we see a
lot of these cases that are covered, but they probably
don't catch the attention of the world the way Jodi
Arias did. I mean, there's no real advice. I mean,
the only thing I found myself able to do is
kind of a bunker mentality. I had a duty to
the court, I had a duty to the constitution, and
(32:10):
fulfilling that duty meant you kind of put your head
down and did your job. And again during that time,
you really can't be taking on any new private clients
because again your time is being committed to this case.
When ms Arius is awaiting sentencing after she's been found guilty,
she goes down to the bottom of the courthouse and
(32:33):
gives an interview with the local reporter because this is
going to be your last opportunity. The prison doesn't allow
for interviews. The Arizona prisons don't allow for interviews. The
only reason I suspect we haven't heard from this areas
since she was sent to prison. But she goes down
the after the verdict and while she's awaiting sentencing and
gives this interview with this reporter and basically says that
(32:57):
it was my idea to you called Travis Alexander abusive pedophile,
the defense, my creation, etcetera, etcetera, all about this. You know,
ms Arius never does anything wrong. We saw this during
the trial of this kind of persona. And so she
says this, And at the time I've been threatened. My
(33:19):
wife had quit her job because we have a unique
last name, and I know somebody could easily find out
where she was teaching. I mean, they found out where
my co counsel's kids went to grade school. That is correct.
There was a huge safety concern. Just going out in
public was a scary event. But she says this, and
(33:40):
in my head, at that point in time, when we're
waiting for the jury to come back, we're doing the
mitigation phase. This is something I can clear up two
weeks later, when I'm no longer her attorney, I could
come on the show and say that's not true. And
ultimately we know when the jury hung as it relates
to sentencing, then there I am right the sounds of silence.
(34:01):
I can't say anything. So this hatred that has been
cast against me, I can't put any water on that
fire simply because I was still her attorney. I had
five and a half years of my life hijacked in
service of missarius ends, whatever they might be, And ultimately,
(34:22):
you know, when I got done with it and dealt
with the cancer that came out of it, I tried
to run away from everything related to the case, and
I soon learned that I couldn't run fast enough. You
just can't get away from it. So ultimately, after trying
to run away, I realized that I had to embrace it.
If you will, I've never heard such a tale in
(34:42):
terms of being almost handcuffed to a person and having
your career literally hijacked. He is. Indeed, let's stop here
for another break. I want to just asking both of
(35:08):
your reactions to Jody's singing it got a lot of
publicity her singing in the integration room. She continued to
sing when she was in jail. What do you both
make of that behavior? It goes hand in hand with
kind of the super bizarre nature of everything, you know,
kind of intersected. All kinds of bizarre stories were kind
of bubbling up, you know, through the media, and they
(35:29):
would make their way to me and other people that
there was some kind of secret religious cabal that had
come in and executed Travis Alexander, and that Jody Aris
was completely totally innocent of this, and she was set up,
and there were all kinds of things that were going on.
It's really kind of an interesting study because it was
(35:49):
such a focal point in television history and legal history.
It was like the theater of the absurd. You know,
many times I would watch it and I couldn't believe
what I was seeing. And so I think, for me,
the singing thing is just super bizarre to me, you know,
bizarre is the word that comes to my mind. I've
certainly seen a lot of interrogation videos and never saw
(36:12):
anything like that. And then, you know, as a lawyer,
didn't mean anything as it related to the case, and
We have to keep in mind that this interrogation happened
about a month later. It was bizarre and what have you.
But for me, that was something to ultimately give to
(36:32):
the psychologist that would make a diagnosis of miss arius,
because it really wasn't something of value to the case
in general. But her case now is in the post
conviction release stage, which means that you know, she will
soon be challenging my legal services and saying that I
was ineffective as counsel because I didn't do X, Y
(36:55):
or Z right, which is one of the reasons why
I think people going to see the case in a
new light when they see why I did X, Y
and Z, because otherwise she got her conviction overturned and
the family would have to go through that whole ordeal again.
But you know, even now, nine ten years later, there
(37:16):
are her fans petitioning the court that they could be
a part of this hearing somehow, And I think that's,
you know, why we're still here today and why people
are so fascinated by the case, because she does still
enjoy kind of a cult like status, maybe like a
Scott Peterson enjoys as well. Of following years later, I know,
(37:39):
they like the attention, and it's such a double minded thing.
Even as we talk about it, we are talking about
somebody who maybe should be less spoken about. But at
the same time, it's like, how do you prevent it
from happening again, or how do you spot that in
the next one? And are there any other misconceptions just
tough of mind that you you know, want to share
anything else that we might not know about. I think
(38:00):
a lot of people, you know, don't necessarily realize or
connect to the reality that a lawyer arguing a case
does not necessarily believe their clients story. I mean, their
client ultimately is the one that drives the bus. And
if a lawyer cannot disprove what a client is saying
(38:22):
with actual evidence, then they have to present that story,
let the client testify to it, and actually present that story,
because the lawyer is not the one who gets to
decide what the defense is and without going into some
of the things because their case is still pending post
conviction relief. That was something that weighed on me. And
(38:43):
what a lot of people don't realize is that after
the case was over, it was about four months later
that I was diagnosed with stage three non Hodgkinson foma cancer,
and I knew right away that the stress of representing
this areas for you know, although so many years, and
particularly when we when we moved to the portion of
(39:05):
it where my anonymity was taken away in January, that
was the reason that cancer infested my life, and that
also became my motivation for writing the book, which I
think was an ethical response to her choice to go
on there and lie and say that I was the
one that created this defense, and I wanted to do
(39:26):
it in a way that would survive me should cancer
take me away from this planet, you know, before I
had a chance to really actualize all that, and I
made the decision at that point in time that I
wasn't going to live my remaining years the way I
had my prior. So what had happened when the bar
wanted to suspend me for four years? And I think
(39:47):
we had a case of it would have gone to
a judge, and I think we would have made a
very good case that any suspension wasn't warranted. But I
actually requested disbarment. Um. A lot of people don't know that.
A lot of people just read the headlines, you know,
dis barred right. I requested it because I knew that
if I had that safety, you know, that chance to
(40:10):
fall back, that I probably would still be practicing law,
probably still not really living the life I wanted to live.
How fascinating, because Yeah, even just taking it back to
the earlier part of the conversation where you said you
wanted to get out of the death penalty business, I
could imagine I've never had to think of it that way.
How harrowing and heavy that must be to be in
(40:33):
the business of life and death. How is your health now?
Most importantly, I've been blessed. I went into remission in
two thousand and sixteen. In February of one, I was
five years clean. God, blish Man, we're super happy about that.
That is fantastic. And also for Kirk, I mean, honestly,
(40:53):
your story is really an extraordinary one to share in
terms of your personal journey, and thankfully I'm glad to
hear that you're a healthy as well. Where can we
find the book and what can we expect from you next?
You can go to Kirk Nurmi dot com that has
a link to my Amazon author page, and you can
see both my books about the Area's trial as well
(41:15):
as my other books. Can catch me on Court, TV,
Law and Crime Network, what have you. I've got my
weight Lost Journey, my health journey that show. So I'm
anxious to share that with people because as a cancer survivor,
it's it's always a blessing to me to be able
to hopefully inspire cancer patients out there to realize that
when they're going through that chemo chair that it is
(41:36):
temporary and and life can get better on the other end.
In Darius has appeal for a new trial was denied.
As of two she was moved to a medium security
prison in Arizona, where she will remain the rest of
her life. KIRKNRMI is a former public defender, turn legal
(41:56):
expert and author. During his time in the courtroom, he
defends a hundreds of individuals against sirius felony charges. Since
leaving the Public Defender's office, Kirk has written eight books,
including Trapped with Massarius. His books are available for purchase now.
Joseph Scott Morgan has handled thousands of death investigations, including
(42:17):
over seven thousand autopsies. Joseph also recently worked on the
Katie Studios documentary murdered missing in Montana, now streaming on Peacock.
In addition, Joseph hosts his own podcast, Bodybags, which is
available to download now Shameless Plug. If you're enjoying Crazy
(42:40):
and Love, leave us a review and listen to season
three of our hit series The Piked and Massacre. New
episodes there every Wednesday. Wherever you get your podcasts, and
don't forget to follow us on Instagram at Katie Underscore Studios.
Crazy and Love is produced by Stephanie Lydecker, Jeff Jane,
(43:00):
Chris Graves and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound designed
by Jeff Ta. Crazy in Love is a production of
I Heart Radio and Katie Studios. For more podcasts from
I heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Stay safe, lovers,
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