Picture Perfect

A Camera Captures A Forbidden Romance, But Will It Also Expose A Killer?

(CBS)  During one of their weekends together, after Jodi Arias had gone to bed, the Chris and Sky Hughes took Travis Alexander aside to express their concerns.

“We were just cautioning him and that went on for, what, an hour-and-a-half, two hours," says Chris. "And then I just said, I'm like, 'She's out there listening,'" adds Sky. "She's out there."

At that moment, the couple says there was knock on the door. It was Jodi and she was not very happy about what she had apparently overheard.

“What really scared us was the look in her eye," says Chris. "I mean, it shook me at my core. It was just this scary -- almost an evil look in her eye that I've never seen before, or since."

Chris says that one look was all he and Sky needed to lay down the law. “We made it very clear to Travis that if you continue with this relationship, you're gonna have to do it at a distance from us," he says. "Because she ain't coming around our kids, she's not coming around our house. This is not gonna be your meeting ground anymore.”

The couple was sure their warning would be reason enough for Travis to step away from Jodi. But they didn’t know their friend as well as they thought they did.

“Unfortunately, what happened is he took whatever relationship they had from that point forward underground," says Chris.

Actually, they took it not so much underground as on the road.

“He called me up one day. He said, 'There's this great book that I found.' It's '1,000 Places To See Before You Die.' And so we began to check those places off the list one by one,” says Jodi. “The first place we saw was the Grand Canyon. And that same weekend, we all went to Sedona. We saw the Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico.”

But it turns out that Travis and Jodi were doing a lot more than just sightseeing.

“Was there tremendous chemistry between the two of you?” asks Maher.

“Yeah in that respect, there was. There was an attraction. And, you know, it found an outlet on occasion, I guess you could say," Jodi replies with a laugh.

Most young couples would call that “outlet” sex. But as devout Mormons, for Travis and Jodi sex outside of marriage was taboo.

“I loved telling all my friends that, yeah, "My brother is a 30-year-old virgin.' But he took pride in that," says Steve Alexander

Celibacy is one of the basic tenets of the Mormon faith. It's one that, as far as his friends and family knew, Travis took very seriously.

Taylor Searle, Brint Hiatt and Aaron Mortenson knew and respected Travis as a close friend and fellow Mormon.

"We all looked out for Travis," says Brint. "You know, we wanted him to find… and settle down with a great girl.”

His friends say it was important for Travis to be married to a Mormon and to remain in the church.

“That was always a goal of his-absolutely. To find a girl that was gonna be a good match for him and marry her," says Aaron.

Travis had told his friends he had no intention of marrying Jodi, which is why they were confused whenever she showed up.

“When I met Jodi for the first time at his house… she kind of announced herself as his girlfriend," says Taylor. "That was a surprise to me at the time because I thought he was, you know, had interest in some other girls… He was always cultivating several relationships."

Adds Brint," He definitely played the field."

Jodi was beginning to realize that as well. “There's sort of a distinctive feeling that comes when you're in a relationship and you have that sneaky suspicion that somebody might be not so-- monogamous. And so…"

She suspected Travis was cheating on her. “I grabbed his phone while he was taking a nap and I just started reading his text messages. And I was really shocked with what I found.”

Jodi says she found messages from a girl Travis had been seeing on the side.

“That's what basically ended his relationship, whatever it was, with Jodi,” according to Taylor.

“We just obviously weren't ready for the kind of relationship that we thought we were having. So it sort of ended from there," says Jodi.

Well, not exactly. Shortly after their breakup, Jodi made a surprising decision. She packed up her belongings and moved -- not further away - but right under Travis' nose, to Mesa, Ariz. It's a move, she says Travis strongly encouraged. “There were (also) some innuendos, I think, as far as we could still hang and spend time together," she says.

“Does 'hang out' translate to have sex? Friends with benefits?” asks Maher. Jodi says, “Sort of."

When asked if Jodi thought she was being used by Travis, she says there was a time or two when she felt that way. "But I also felt that it was mutual. And that maybe I was using him just as much."

As far as anyone could tell, Travis and Jodi were just friends. But their true relationship was still their “little secret.”

"Nobody really knows what was going on behind closed bedroom doors except him and I," she says.

Jodi says she and Travis continued to travel a lot, taking weekend road trips.

And Jodi, always with her camera, continued to document their adventures and, occasionally, other exploits, as well. "We did that on occasion -- more than on occasion. We had made videos and things like that."

“Videos of the two of you together? Would they be described as sex videos?” Maher asks, to which Jodi replies, "“Um, yeah.”

When asked if the relationship was all about sex, Jodi says, "It eventually became about sex."

But Jodi was painfully aware that in the eyes of their Mormon community, they were living a lie.

“We both knew we needed to correct our behavior for spiritual reasons," she says, "but neither of us -- we both lacked the discipline to do it.”

“I think it was very tough for him. I think he was extremely conflicted," says Chris Hughes. "She’s providing a percentage of what, you know, he thought he needed in that point in his life. And he couldn't get away from it.”

Jodi says that she was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with a sexual relationship that seemed to be going nowhere.

“It was a little bit confusing, where you know you love someone and you… it makes… you know, it's hard to think. And I really love this person, but I know I'm never gonna be with him. And I know I'm not gonna marry him… I knew that I needed to make some changes. And the only way it was going to change is if we physically separated ourselves from each other.”

Early in 2008, Jodi did just that. Doing them both a favor, she moved back home to Yreka, leaving Mesa and Travis behind.

“When she moved back to California, that's when it really seemed to him to be a closing point. Where, OK, finally that chapter of my life is over,” says Taylor.

But as it would turn out, the story of Travis and Jodi was far from over.