Jodi Arias Was Sentenced to Life in Prison & Tried to Appeal Her Conviction

Tonight, Lifetime is revisiting what could possibly be one of the most notorious criminal cases of the last decade in their new special Jodi Arias: Cellmate Secrets. It will air directly following the airing of Jodi Arias: Dirty Little Secret: Special Edition. 

According to the synopsis, in the new special, “new disturbing information comes to light about Jodi Arias and the murder of her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander as her former cellmates and closest confidants give firsthand accounts of their time behind bars with the murderess.”

The special will feature a double interview of Tracy Brown and Donavan Bering who reveal information they heard from Arias while serving time with her, including “a bombshell new theory about the night of Alexander’s murder.”

Arias Was Sentenced to Life in Prison for the 2008 Murder of Her Boyfriend

MySpaceTravis Alexander & Jodi Arias

Travis Alexander was found dead on June 9, 2008. He had been stabbed multiple times and had a gunshot wound to his head.

Alexander was Mormon, and friends said he was deeply involved in his fate, but he and Arias had had sex multiple times, according to ABC News. The guilt eventually began to weigh on Alexander, friends told 20/20. 

Within months of their meeting, Arias converted to Mormonism, and Alexander baptized her. Their relationship wasn’t working for Alexander, however, and five months after they began spending time together, he broke up with her. A few weeks later, Arias moved to Mesa, where Alexander was living.

In her time in Mesa, friends of Alexander’s believe that Arias slashed his tires twice and tried to scare his girlfriend away by banging on doors and windows. She moved back to California after eight months of living in Mesa. She and Alexander continued talking on the phone, texting and engaging in phone sex, though, according to ABC News.

In June 2008, he was due to attend a company retreat in Cancun, Mexico. When his friends couldn’t get ahold of him and he missed a conference call, they began to worry about him.

On June 9, his roommate Zach Billings opened his door and found a puddle of blood on the carpet. He found Alexander’s body in the shower. Authorities believe that he had been dead for days.

Investigators soon found pictures with timestamps of the day of the murder that showcased Arias and Alexander together. They found out that a .25-caliber gun had gone missing from Arias’ grandparents’ home a week before the killing, and the caliber matched that of the bullet casing found on Alexander’s bathroom floor.

She claimed she and Alexander had been attacked by two masked intruders who wanted to kill Alexander, but authorities did not believe that story and charged her with first-degree murder in Alexander’s death.

She was in prison for more than four years before her trial began.

Arias Said She Killed Alexander in Self Defense

ABCJodi Arias at her trial

At the trial, Arias said she killed Alexander in self-defense after he became angry that she dropped a camera in the washing machine. She said Alexander had abused her several times before.

In May 2013, however, the jury found Arias Guilty of First-Degree murder.

“Everybody in my family was bawling. They were happy. … We were all hugging and just was preparing for the next phase. The sentencing phase,” Steven Alexander said, according to ABC News.

The Arizona Court of Appeals Upheld the Conviction in 2020

Jodi Arias Claims Innocence in Jailhouse InterviewIn 2008 as she awaited trial for murdering her boyfriend Travis Alexander, Jodi Arias spoke to Inside Edition behind bars. The young woman was authorities prime suspect after Alexander was found stabbed 27 times and shot in the head. While the evidence was against her, Arias repeated to Inside Edition she was innocent. In April 2015, Arias was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.2020-04-04T11:30:51Z

In March 2020, the Arizona Court of Appeals upheld Jodi Arias’ murder conviction and life sentence, according to CNN.

Arias appealed the conviction and life sentence, arguing that the trial’s publicity including live media coverage as well as a prosecutor’s misconduct made her trial unfair. The appeal also argued that the jury was not impartial because of the media coverage.

In the ruling, a three-panel judge found that the prosecutor did engage in misconduct by being hostile and agressive “with each witness whose testimony was inconsistent with the state’s theory of the case,” but Arias would not be granted a new trial due to evidence overwhelmingly showing she was guilty.

According to ABC 15, The prosecutor in question, Juan Martinez, has been accused of sexual harassment and of leaking “sealed information to a media blogger whom he was having an affair with, then lied to investigators about it.”

Arias is still serving a life sentence in prison.

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