True Crime

Probably only about 15 years. And since she's already been in prison for 5 years that would knock it down to 10. Then she could get out even sooner for good behavior (though she hasn't had good behavior in there so far), it might finally get drilled into her head that she can knock off years of her time if she has good behavior and can convince the parole board that she's remorseful and accepts the blame for what she did as her own (though so far she just can't seem to get it in her head that that's what she needs to do in order for anyone to feel the least bit sympathetic toward her). Getting out of jail even after having to do years as punishment makes all the difference in the world to Jodi. She's relatively young and still would be by the time she got out and could start a new life.

Murder 1 was explained in detail by the judge and also by the prosecutor in his closing. The jury could either decide it was murder 1 because of premeditation or felony murder or both and it had to be unanimous, but some jurors could vote for either premeditation or felony murder or both. As you mentioned, if she suddenly became enraged with him and went down to the kitchen for a knife and back upstairs and killed him that would STILL be premeditation since during the time she took to go down to the kitchen for the knife and back upstairs with it is a reasonable amount of time for her to rethink her actions. Premeditation as explained by both the judge and the prosecutor doesn't have to be a long time at all nor planned out in advance. As long as a reasonable person would believe there was enough time between the desire to kill and the killing to rethink what they were doing it's still premeditation.

Murder 2 would be an unpremeditated sudden killing. Like if she became enraged for some reason and there happened to be a knife right next to her that she suddenly grabbed and stabbed him with without really thinking. This case just had so much evidence of premeditation as well as overkill that I never believed a jury would possibly vote for anything but murder 1. Jodi just wanted to make a deal for murder 2 so she could get out of jail at some point especially with the 5 years that she already put in. That's why she used the threat of dragging Travis's reputation through the mud during trial if they didn't accept a murder 2 deal. Even she knew that if she went to trial it would be a very slim chance of her getting murder 2 or any lessor charge. There was just sooo much evidence in this case that clearly pointed to murder 1. Also, with her going to trail with her third story of the crime made her believability practically non-existent no matter what she said.

Like you, I believe that she decided days beforehand to make this trip to see him in AZ with the plan that either he take her to Cancun instead of Mimi and take her back as his official girlfriend or she would kill him. Even though she planned to give him that choice it's STILL premeditation because she STILL planned to kill him if he didn't do as she wanted. She prepared for his killing and her cover-up in detail... she rented a car for the trip an hour and a half distance from where she lived, she dyed her hair dark just before she left, she calculated how much gas she would need to get in and out of AZ so there would be no record of her having been in the state at all which required that she have three 5-gallon gas cans (two she borrowed from Darryl and one she bought herself at Walmart), she staged a robbery at her grandparents' house where she lived at the time and where she stole her grandfather's .25 caliber gun with seven hollow point bullets, and planned a trip to Utah where she was to see a new love interest. During trial the only part of that the prosecution didn't prove was her having stolen her grandfather's gun (she claims the gun belonged to Travis though no one either knew or thought he had one, and there was no gun accessories in his home like ammunition, cleaning kit, holster, etc., and there was no gun of any kind registered in his name ever. But she also claimed during her interrogation before her arrest that Travis didn't have a gun and would never want one... yet one more of the infinite number of her lies to fit whatever story she used at the time. Her original story and how she prepared for the killing was to claim that she was never at his home that day and never in AZ at all which is what she prepared for before getting there.

The felony murder charge was a bit more confusing. In this case what made it felony murder was that regardless of what you believed as far was whose gun was used the gun was still burglarized - either she stole Travis's gun and took it with her and disposed of it in the desert as she testified, or it was her grandfather's gun that she stole days before, took with her to commit the crime and took away with her and got rid of in the desert somewhere afterward. But there was also another way it would be felony murder and that is that she was not welcome in the home from the time she started to kill him. I think some of the jurors didn't really understand this since it's a bit strange. What it means is that it doesn't matter if she was invited in the home before the killing or not for it to be burglary because from the moment she started to kill him she was automatically no longer welcome in his home, and she stayed for awhile to try cleaning up both him and the crime scene. I can see why some jurors didn't get this bit and why some of them didn't believe it was also felony murder. But they all voted for premeditated murder 1, so it doesn't matter in the end that some didn't believe it was felony murder. I don't think that either the judge or the prosecutor explained that as well as they could have.

As for him using her, I guess you could say that he did in the sense that she practically begged him to. He was always honest with her that he didn't want her as a girlfriend, didn't think she was marriageable material, and that he was actively looking for another woman to marry. His still having sex with her was what SHE wanted and what SHE insisted on though he did take her up on that. In hindsight it wasn't a good idea that he continue to have have sex with her even though he told her that he didn't want her to be his girlfriend nor his wife and was actively looking for another woman to marry. She used him in a way by continually seeking him out and encouraging him to continue having sex with him... she used sex with him as a tool to try to get him to take her back. All he did was take her up on what SHE was insisting on - continued sex with her. And considering she was actively stalking him it's reasonable that he may have continued to have sex with her in order to placate her so that she would either stop stalking him or at least not escalate what she was doing - she had slashed his tires twice and those of a woman he was dating once which is hardly cheap to replace. Having been stalked for years myself by an ex-boyfriend I totally get it about still having sex with them or even taking them back because it's just EASIER than trying to deal with the stalking behavior.

As for her moving back to CA, she had no choice. She wanted to stay in Mesa near Travis. She had to move back because she wasn't working, was broke, was thrown out of the home where she'd been staying, and there was no way on earth Travis would allow her to move into his house since he never wanted her to move to Mesa after he broke up with her to begin with. Even after she moved back to CA though she was constantly traveling back to Mesa to stalk him, and her stalking behavior was escalating.

I really can't fathom what in the world the defense team was thinking with their strategy. They knew they couldn't go with just self-defense since it's only self-defense if just enough force is used to stop the attack. It was abundantly clear with this case that it wasn't self-defense but a overkill rage killing. I'm not sure what else they could have gone with as a strategy, but even the intruder story would have been better than the self-defense story.