Picture Perfect

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

(CBS)  When the Mesa Police Department began its investigation of Travis Alexander’s murder, they had a house full of evidence and one very strong lead.

Detective Esteban Flores says he heard the name Jodi Arias from day one. "As soon as we began to talk to friends and family, there were certain individuals who gave us that name and said, 'You need to look into Jodi Arias.'"

One of those people was Travis' good friend, Taylor Searle. “The first cop I saw, I pulled out my computer and I said, 'This girl -- I would check her right away.'"

Which is exactly what the detective did. “I received information that she was on a road trip. It just happened to be around the same time period that Travis was killed. And there were about 20-plus hours which were unaccounted for," he says.

Flores tracked Jodi down at her grandparents' house in Yreka. “I called her in for an interview and asked her to come in for fingerprints and DNA samples.”

“Did you tell him the story?” asks Maher.
“No," says Jodi, taking a deep breath. "I think I was wise enough to know that coming to him with that story at this point would be like implicating myself.”

“Initially-- she was all over the place," Flores explains. “She told me that she was never here, and the last time she'd seen Travis was in April. Well, I had obvious proof in my hands that she was here during that time on the day that he was murdered.”

Flores says that ‘proof’ was found by investigators in of all places, Travis’ washing machine. “One of the items that we recovered from the house was a digital camera. It still had a digital card in it that had been erased.”

But there’s erased and then there’s erased. Even though the memory card was wiped clean and the camera had been run through the wash, both were sent to the Mesa Police Department crime lab to see if any information could be recovered.

Flores says, "Our computer forensic unit called me up and said, 'You've got to come down here. I have some photos you need to see. And we were just all amazed."

What they found were dozens of pictures - each one worth more than a thousand words: Flores says the photos showed Jodi Arias and Travis Alexander "in a sexual encounter."

But that wasn't the only thing investigators found.

“There were several photos which were out of focus, dark. We couldn't tell what they were until we were able to enhance them at that time," Flores explains. "We were surprised to find out that those photos were of the victim, Travis Alexander, during the time he was being killed, or soon after. You can't see his face, but the injuries on that person match the injuries that were on Travis."

Another shocking discovery: every image was electronically stamped with the time and date it was taken: June 4, 2008, the date of Jodi’s visit.

Flores says the find is extremely significant to the investigation. "This gave us an actual time when he was last seen alive and when he was dead.”

It was just a few minutes difference between the photos of the sexual poses taken in the shower and of Travis lying on the floor as the victim, making Jodi the last person to be with Travis, according to Flores.

Investigators gathered a lot more on Jodi than a couple of fuzzy photos. All the physical evidence -- fingerprints, blood, hair -- point to the same person: Jodi Arias.

"Theory is that Jodi Arias showed up. They had some type of rendezvous, a sexual encounter," says Flores. "During that time, they took photographs of each other. I believe he was in the shower at that time. Something occurred, and I believe it might be the first gunshot.

Flores says the gunshot wound was not fatal, but it was enough to disorient Travis. "You know, maybe he tried to get out. Maybe he tried to fight back. We don't know. But there was obviously a struggle inside of that bathroom. Somehow, he got close to the bedroom area, which is down a long hallway.”

And then investigators say Jodi viciously attacked Travis with a knife, stabbing him repeatedly. “That's when the last photograph was taken of him," says Flores.

So how did Travis end up back in the bathroom where police found him?

"We believe that he was dragged from that area, back into the shower," says Flores. "His body was washed off… in the shower. And we believe, at that time, that's when the palm print was left on the wall. It's obvious that the print was left with somebody having blood on their hands. And it's not just his blood, it's a combination of her blood as well.”

Investigators say that blood, which was matched to Jodi’s DNA, definitively connects her not only to the scene of the crime, but to the crime itself.

“In many situations where a knife is used, somebody has blood on their hands… And, it's not uncommon for somebody to cut themselves as well,' says Flores.

That key piece of evidence was good enough for the State of Arizona to issue a warrant for Jodi’s arrest. Five weeks after finding Travis’ body, Det. Flores showed up on her doorstep in Yreka. He says Jodi was not surprised.

"One of the things she said to me as soon as she saw me was, 'Is there any way I can get my purse so I can get my makeup on?'" he recalls.

"It was all very surreal. It was nothing like you see on a show like "Cops," Jodi tells Maher. "I don't even remember the handcuffs coming on me. It was all kind of a blur. Like I was watching it all unfold. Like an out of body experience, it wasn't really happening to me.”

But it was happening, and it was just the beginning.