Jodi Arias Wants You to Blame the Victim

The Jodi Arias trial continues, but it looks like the accused murderer is continuing her tactic of making the victim look like someone who deserved what happened to him. She's been on the witness stand for over a week, dancing around the very meat of the matter that the jury needs to hearÂ—the night of the murder. Instead, it seems as though Arias is simply trying to get the jury to know her, so as to be swayed against putting her to death. In the meantime, she's doing what she can to describe Travis Alexander as a liar, as well as a sexual deviant and possible pedophile.

Experts via more than one source seem to agree that Jodi Arias is trying to "elicit sympathy from jurors," to avoid the death penalty if she is convicted of first degree murder. This is a smart tactic for someone who is facing a possible execution in the state of Arizona, but it's also angering. It's hard to fathom the thought processes used by a person who has already confessed to stabbing the man she loved repeatedly before slicing his throat and shooting him in the head (even if she did say it was in self defense).

Prosecutors say jealousy and rage led Jodi to brutally murdering Travis Alexander, contradicting her claims that she acted in self defense. Arias says that Alexander led a sort of double life, pretending to be a devout and virtuous Mormon on the outside while living the life of a sexually promiscuous deviant behind closed doors. She's claimed that he had an attraction to young boys as well.

Who do you believe? Jodi or the prosecution? Do you blame the presumed victim for what happened to him or do you think Jodi acted in cold blood and calculation? While it's easy to believe that this woman could be heartless and brutal monster, it's also worth considering the possibility that she was in an abusive and sexually depraved relationship. There are recordings of phone sex between the two, indicating already that he was not the virtuous and religious person that he was claiming to be on the outside. However, that does not in any way indicate that he was an abusive pedophile who deserved to die.

~*~ Crime analyst and profiler Chelsea Hoffman is the author of "The Sin City Strangler" & many other works. Contact her privately via the "Case to Case" blog or @TheRealChelseaH on Twitter.~*~

Comments: 3

Heather - child of God, C. Feb 18, 2013, 1:22pm UTC

She was angry he was going with another women an a cruise with other people. She appreared to be in a rage over that. Seems pretty clear cut to me. Stole her grandparents gun, came into the bathroom where he was naked .. with a knife and the gun... and had a camera to take the photos.. then later tried to destroy the photos by "washing" the camera. Uh premediated murder... and what was he going to do, harm her with "soap on a rope"? Kinda clear to me she was planning to execute him, and did not do a well thought out plan for the "cover up".. So I'd say there is a huge amount of evidence against her. She might get convicted to a lesser charge... but the fact she brought the gun with her does make it more premeditated than "heat of the moment"... might prevent that from happening. It will be interesting to see what the verdict is. Considering the things she did to disable him and kill him... it was a cruel slaughter of another human being and that too will be hard for the jury to say, oh you poor young woman.

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Barbara R. Feb 20, 2013, 7:06am UTC

I have a very different take on this story. I have no doubt that she is quilty and that she is blaming the victim. From a very different perspecitve I believe that Travis was capable of murder and that somewhere down the road he himself would kill. Sympathise with her in some ways since he was obviously hurting her with his sex play games and took a great deal of pleasure (pun unintended) in using and hurting this girl willing participant or not. I don't agree that she was not battered in the sense of a battered woman knowing that it is possible from past experience I believe to some extent she was and was just to stupid to see it until the very end when she decided to end it. The reasons were obvious to everyone... jealousy and loss of control of him. I will be interested also to see the verdict in this case. They seem to have been evenly matched until the point of the knife and the gun... If she had not killed him, was he a killer in training; I believe yes.

Hope Carson Apr 19, 2013, 8:48pm UTC

I agree with you Barbara except about the evenly matched part. Travis Alexander was a bad guy--not because he had sex with other women or because he was going to take someone else to Cancun but because he controlled this woman & as you say he delighted in causing her pain. The distress and humiliation and physical pain--either thru physical beating or ana sex--were more satisfying to him than the conventional sex. He was also a pedophile because on the tapes he admitted fantasizing about 12 year old girls having orgasms. That alone is an image that should NEVER enter the mind of any adult man. Why is it such a stretch to believe Jodi when she said she saw him masturbating to photos of little boys? It's not. Whether he would have ever killed anyone--who knows? But he was a sadist for sure, and he was mind-controlling her. Anyone who has ever been the victim of such a person can recognize signs of his psychological abuse in Arias' demeanor--her flat affect, with the occasional half-smile that the media interprets as a smirk. I was controlled for 4 yrs by an evil, evil man, and those were the 2 facial expressions he allowed me to wear. If he caught me "moping" (i.e. looking sad, distressed etc) or giving him attitude (i.e. looking angry or too happy which he considered disrespectful) he would go ballistic. Anyhow, Travis was evil. Jodi was, (and is) just dumb, weak, and unfortunate to have met him. she doesn't deserve to be executed or to spend the rest of her life in prison for that.

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Jodi Arias Wants You to Blame the Victim

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