4 Insane Details from the Weirdest Murder Trial Ever
Between the Boston bombing, Oklahoma's tornadoes, and the abdication of Netherland's Queen Beatrix, most of us have been so wrapped up in this spring's major news stories that we haven't been paying attention to the trial of Jodi Arias.
We've got to admit, "psycho-librarian" is a look she pulls off.
For those of you out of the loop, Arias was convicted of murder after stabbing her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander 27 times, slitting his throat, and shooting him in the head. Yes, this was a murder of Rasputin-esque proportions, but that isn't the craziest thing about Jodi Arias -- what's crazy is everything that happened next.
Arias' Alibi Was That Ninjas Did It
When she was first brought in for questioning for the murder of her ex-boyfriend, Arias' go-to answer was that she hadn't seen Alexander in months, so of course she didn't do it. After the police presented her with DNA and nude pictures taken on the day of the killing that suggested otherwise, Arias said something to the effect of "Just kidding, it was ninjas. Ninjas killed him."
She'd have had better luck blaming it on Jeffrey Dahmer (and he's dead).
Well, she didn't use the word "ninjas" exactly, but she did say that two masked intruders sneaked into Alexander's home and attacked them both while they were in the shower. And when asked why she didn't report the ninjas to the police after they had slit her lover's throat, she replied, "I've grown up around gangs and you don't snitch." Even though it's entirely plausible that criminal organizations such as the Foot Clan adhere to strict codes of omerta, zero point zero people believed her (as any actual ninja assassination would be impossible to notice).
"You see these red feet on our foreheads? Total dazzle camouflage."
So after the masked intruder story fell apart quicker than a wet pancake, Arias coughed up 10 different letters allegedly written by her ex (who was now suddenly a pedophile). One conveniently admitted to hitting her in the face, another claimed he wanted to marry her so he could eliminate his "deviant thoughts," and another asked her to wear boy's underwear so he could rip them off. Shockingly, the judge threw the letters out of court.
Arias responded by claiming her ex had "oodles of cancer" that she was merely removing via "knife-o-therapy."
The Accused Ran a Twitter Account from Behind Bars
Thanks to a friend (and convicted arsonist) with computer access, Arias has a Twitter account with 75,000 followers. During the trial, Arias would come up with tweets that ranged from literary quotes to insults about the prosecutor's height, which she'd relay to her friend via phone calls at night. Before you knew it, Arias' account was reading like a mix between fortune cookie sayings and the wisdom of a 13-year-old girl who couldn't pass language arts but had supreme confidence in herself anyway.
"See me after class, Jodi. And please stop sharpening those pencils."
And She Sells Terrible Art That People Are Buying
Speaking of 13-year-old girls, have you ever been to a middle school art show? They're tough on everyone involved, but you can replicate the experience by looking at Arias' "art" gallery. Behold:
"CAPPUCCINO"
"CAT'S EYE"
"AIR QUOTE ELVIS END AIR QUOTE"
Now, we know people well enough to know that some of them are nuts, so it's not surprising that there are some fools out there who are willing to pay good money for terrible art from a convicted murderer. That's just how people are. And they probably don't care that Arias finds her "inspiration" from makeup ads and photographs of mangled hands.
Arias has a rare eye disorder that renders her unable to see human wrists.
If you're at a point in your life where you're paying money for crappy colored-pencil drawings from a convicted murderer, you deserve to walk away with plagiarized "art."
She Calls Herself a "Survivor"
As previously mentioned, the grand finale of Arias' failed defense was a claim that she only killed her boyfriend in self-defense, that he was abusing her all along. So in a final twist of the metaphorical knife that was literally used to murder another person, she claims to be a survivor of domestic abuse, not a perpetrator of homicide, which you can imagine has real domestic abuse survivors properly pissed, especially when Arias started selling "Survivor" shirts on her website.
Never mind that she claims she's donating the profits to unnamed domestic abuse organizations and that victims' groups want nothing to do with her murder money or that she straight up ripped off the design from cancer survivors ...
.... the true tragedy here was a missed opportunity. Seriously, if you're selling a "Survivor" T-shirt and painting cat eyes without referencing "The Eye of the Tiger," you don't deserve anyone's sympathy.
