The prosecutor who convinced the jury that Jodi Arias planned to kill her ex-boyfriend has revealed the clues that led him to his conclusion—and also said Arias nearly got away with the murder.
Arias stabbed ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander 29 times and shot him in the face, but her lawyers argued it was the result of an impulsive “jealous rage.”
However, prosecutor Juan Martinez says he believed it was a premeditated attack, and sought to convince the jury.
Speaking on the Dr. Phil show this week, Martinez said one key clue came when detectives found Arias had bought spare gas cans before her trip to Arizona to visit Alexander, and filled them with 15 gallons of gas.
“With that information, I started to take a look at some of the receipts that were taken during an execution of a search warrant on her house, and I saw there was a receipt for a five-gallon gas can. So now I knew that I had three five-gallon gas cans – [a total of] 15 gallons,” Martinez told Dr. Phil.
“And I also knew that in an interview with the police, her mother said, ‘Jodi told me that she wasn’t anywhere in Mesa and she had the receipts to prove it.’ So it was clear she was planning to keep certain receipts, but she was also planning not to stop in Arizona for gas, because the 15 gallons allowed her to go through the state of Arizona without stopping for gas.”
The gas cans were the key piece of evidence.
“Even in opening statements, the defense attorney indicated it was a trip she hadn’t planned… but the gas cans spoke otherwise,” Martinez said, adding that Arias dying her hair and removing the license plates from her car were additional details supporting the premeditation.
“She went to great lengths to make sure that no one could tell she was there. And, by in large, she was successful,” he said. “Except for that one mistake, she probably would’ve gotten away with it.”
Martinez was on the talk show to promote his new book: “Conviction: The Untold Story of Putting Jodi Arias Behind Bars.”
