Picture Perfect

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

(CBS)  It would take the Mesa Police Department’s state-of-the-art forensics lab weeks to process all the evidence gathered at the scene. It only took a few days for the news to reach Jodi Arias at her home in Yreka.

"A mutual friend called us," she says. "But he didn’t tell me about Travis' state. He just said, 'Something is wrong. And I don’t know what it is yet, but there are some police at Travis’ house.'"

Jodi already knew what was wrong, because she says, whoever killed Travis Alexander, also tried to kill her.

"Even to this day, I don't know that I've even fully processed everything," she tells Maureen Maher. "I have nothing but time on my hands to think. And that's when I really begin to try and remember and relive that day.”

Arriving in Los Angeles on the first leg of her road trip, Jodi found herself once again in familiar territory and once again, faced with a familiar dilemma.

“I called Travis. He, of course, said, "Well, you could always swing by Arizona and come see me, too." And I thought, 'No, I'm not gonna do that.' And then, I thought, 'What the heck, you know, it's not too far out of my way.' I immediately called him and I said, 'Guess what?' And he said, 'What?' And I said, 'I'm comin' to Arizona.' And he said, 'Really?' And I said, 'Yeah.' And he's like, 'All right. I'll wait up.'"

Despite the fact that she was expected in Utah the next day, just after midnight on June 4, 2008, Jodi decided to head to Mesa instead.

Jodi says when she arrived at Travis' house between 4 a.m. and 4:30 a.m., he was in his office. He spent the early-morning hours working on his computer as he waited for her to arrive. They talked for a bit and then, both exhausted, she says they went straight to sleep.

“We woke up around, I'd say, 1:00 in the afternoon. When we woke up, we had sex twice -- once in his bed, and once in his office downstairs,” she recalls.

And then, just like old times, Jodi says they pulled out the camera.

“We decided to do another photo shoot where we were going to just get him in the shower, but these were waist-up shots. You know, tasteful shots. It looked really cool because the water -- the way the water was frozen in the image.”

Jodi says earlier, when they had woken up, Travis asked to take photos of her.
"He had just got a new camera and, you know, that was just part of the fun of the toy," she says.

Apparently, it was just a lazy afternoon of fun and games, until, Jodi says, all hell broke loose.

"I heard a really loud pop. And the next thing I remember, I was lying next to the bathtub and Travis was screaming.”

Without warning, Jodi says someone or something had knocked both of them to the floor, leaving her dazed and confused and Travis badly wounded.

“At that point, I sort of was just trying to come around and kind of orientate myself to what was going on," Jodi explains. "And I looked up and I just -- I saw two other individuals in the bathroom. And they were both coming toward us.”

According to Jodi, she was suddenly face to face with two intruders, a man and a woman, disguised from head to toe.

"They were both taller than me. They were covered -- their hands, their gloves -- they had long-sleeved shirts on. They were in all black. He was wearing jeans. But they all -- they had ski masks on. I think they were there to kill him, because they didn’t take anything. To my knowledge, there was nothing missing from the house."

While the woman kept an eye on Travis, Jodi says the man led her down the hall to Travis’ bedroom and then left her there.

“I saw Travis was on the floor in his bathroom on all fours," she says. "As soon as this guy left, I just got up and I charged her. And I ran straight down the hallway. And right before she could turn around even and see what was going on, I shoved her really hard. And she fell over him.”

Jodi says the woman was armed with a knife, but can only "assume" the woman stabbed Travis. "I didn't see her stabbing him. He had some blood all over the floor. And there was some just coming down on his arms and on his hand, his right hand. I started pulling on Travis. And I said, 'Come on, come on, come on.' He finally just said, 'I can't.' And then he said, 'I can't feel my legs.'

Before Jodi could do anything to help Travis, she says she was suddenly outnumbered again.

“The guy came back in and got really angry. At me, I guess. Eventually, he was holding the gun at my forehead. They just kept arguing back and forth [about] whether or not, you know, to kill me."

It’s a terrifying scene. And if what Jodi says is true, what happened next is nothing short of a miracle.

“He pulled the trigger. And nothing happened with the gun. And so, I just grabbed my purse, which was on the floor at that point, and I ran down the stairs and out of there and I left [Travis] there. …I pushed past him and - and his gun. And I just didn't look back.”

It was an unbelievable getaway. Jodi gets into her car and drives away with no one following her.

“I drove forever and ever, until I was in the middle of the desert,” she says.

What is truly unbelievable is that Jodi says she left Travis, who was critically injured, to fend for himself.

Jodi didn’t call 911, she didn’t go to a neighbor and she didn’t call a friend. “I didn't call anybody or tell anybody," she says.

“It's very hard to understand why, especially somebody who was a person of faith, and you loved this man - why would you do nothing, nothing to help him?” says Maher.

“It was -- I was terrified. And I was scared for my life. And I think there was a naïve belief that I could pretend like it didn't really happen,” Jodi says.

That's just what Jodi did when she got back on the road and headed off to Utah.
When she did finally call someone, it was Ryan Burns - not for help, but to say she was on her way to keep their date.

She made one other call to the one person who was in no position to help anyone. "I thought, 'I'm gonna call Travis.' And it just went to voicemail," she recalls. "And I called him again, and it went to voicemail.”

Jodi says Travis was alive when she fled his house. "He was still sort of on his hands and knees, the whole time, until I ran from the room. That's the last that I saw him.”

Jodi spent less than 24 hours in Utah with Ryan and others before heading home to Yreka, never telling anyone about her horrific ordeal. To this day, Jodi claims that she is consumed with guilt for leaving Travis behind.

It wasn't until five days later, when Travis' roommates found his body in his bedroom, locked away, that anyone knew he was missing.

“I know that people will look at me and say, 'Oh, yeah. He really meant a lot to you, didn't he, by the way that you just left him there.' Not only that. It's that they -- they don't even think that this -- they think that this is a fabrication."

Jodi would soon discover that she couldn’t have been more right.

"I knew that it was murder. I knew it was. I knew something in my heart," says Travis' sister, Samantha. "And I immediately thought, 'Jodi.'"