From selling artwork to allegedly manipulating cellmates, Jodi Arias has gained an infamous reputation in prison.
Arizona Department of CorrectionsJodi Arias, pictured shortly before she began her life sentence for murder.
In 2013, the trial of Jodi Arias captivated America. The petite young woman was accused of murdering her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander, in an extremely gruesome fashion. Not only that, but her trial was filled with salacious details about their sex life and her consuming obsession with him.
When Jodi Arias was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison, she largely dropped out of the public eye. But Arias has led an eventful life behind bars at the Perryville prison in Goodyear, Arizona.
Who Is Jodi Arias?
Born on July 9, 1980, in Salinas, California, Jodi Arias told conflicting stories about her childhood. At one point, she claimed that her parents had started abusing her after she turned seven. At another, Arias stated that her upbringing was “almost ideal” and that she and her family were “very close.”
Sandy AriasJodi Arias and her mother, Sandy, in an undated photo.
For their part, Arias’ parents told investigators that their daughter was a “strange person” who might be suffering from bipolar disorder. Her mother said, “Jodi has mental problems, Jodi would freak out all the time. I had quite a few of her friends call and tell me I needed to get her some help.”
Arias dropped out of school in the 11th grade, and, as she testified during her trial, she spent much of her early 20s cycling through dead-end jobs and dead-end relationships with boyfriends who cheated on her.
But in 2006, things seemed to look up when Arias met a young man named Travis Alexander at a Prepaid Legal Services convention in Las Vegas. At the time, Alexander was working as a salesman for the company, while Arias was on the hunt for new networking opportunities at the convention.
Chris Hughes and Sky LovingierTravis Alexander fell hard for Jodi Arias after he met her, but their relationship would quickly sour.
The two immediately hit it off and spent the night talking until 4 a.m. Alexander eagerly told his friends about his encounter with Jodi Arias the next day, seeming to think that he and Arias had real potential.
“She’s beautiful. She’s friendly, has long, blonde hair. Cute figure. She was very sweet,” Alexander’s friend Sky Lovingier Hughes said, according to ABC News. “During the dinner, they just talked the whole time. She seemed to like him as much as he liked her… The next morning, he tells me that he’s found his wife and this is the girl that he wants to marry.”
But Jodi Arias and Travis Alexander’s seemingly promising love story would come to a tragic and shocking conclusion less than two years later.
“She Was Completely Obsessed With Him”
Though they had to navigate a long-distance relationship (Jodi Arias lived in California, and Travis Alexander lived in Arizona), it initially seemed that Arias and Alexander were meant to be. Just a few months into their romantic relationship, Arias even converted to Mormonism for Alexander.
Jodi Arias/MySpaceJodi Arias got baptized into the Mormon faith for Travis Alexander, but he continued to feel guilty about premarital sex.
But their relationship soon became tumultuous. Not only did Alexander purportedly take out his guilt about having premarital sex on Arias, calling her a “slut,” but Arias also became increasingly possessive of Alexander. The two were in constant contact, and exchanged 82,000 emails over the course of their relationship. Arias would also read Alexander’s emails, eavesdrop on his conversations, and even wait outside the bathroom for him.
His friends found her obsessive behavior “disturbing” and Alexander eventually tried to end things with Arias. But this made her obsession even worse. When Alexander started dating other women, he told friends that Arias slashed his tires, hacked into his Facebook, and harassed his dates. She even showed up at his house uninvited. Sometimes, he’d be angry about her sneaking in; other times, they’d sleep together.
“I said, ‘Travis, I’m afraid we’re gonna find you chopped up in her freezer,'” Lovingier Hughes recalled of their increasingly toxic relationship. “From very early on, she was completely obsessed with him.”
Jodi Arias/MySpaceJodi Arias and Travis Alexander had a toxic relationship that ended with Alexander’s murder.
Alexander even remarked that his friends might find him “dead one day.”
Then, on June 9, 2008, they did.
The Brutal Murder Of Travis Alexander
After Travis Alexander’s friends were unable to reach him for five days while they tried to coordinate a planned trip, they went to his home in Mesa, Arizona, and found his body in the shower. The 30-year-old had been stabbed 27 times. His killer had also cut his throat and shot him in the head.
Suspicion quickly fell on Alexander’s ex: Jodi Arias.
Maricopa County Police DepartmentThe bloody crime scene where Travis Alexander was found murdered in 2008.
Though Arias initially denied being at Alexander’s home — she claimed that she had not seen him for two months — damning evidence soon connected her to the scene. Police found a digital camera in the washing machine that contained intimate photos of Alexander and Arias from the day of Alexander’s murder, as well as a photo of his dead body. They also found both Arias and Alexander’s DNA in a bloody handprint on a wall.
At that point, Arias changed her story. She admitted to being at Alexander’s house, but claimed that he’d been killed by two intruders. However, investigators didn’t buy it, and Arias was charged with first-degree murder.
Siskiyou County Sheriff’s OfficeJodi Arias’ mugshot in 2008.
During her trial, Jodi Arias changed her story once again. She claimed that she had been taking photos of Alexander in the shower when she dropped the camera, and he lost his temper. Arias claimed that he had long been abusive toward her, and that she was forced to kill him in self-defense.
“He attacked me and I defended myself,” Arias testified.
But the jury didn’t believe her story. In May 2013, they found Arias guilty of first-degree murder. She was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the crime. So where is Jodi Arias now?
Where Is Jodi Arias Now? Her Life Behind Bars
Jodi Arias is currently serving out her life sentence at the Perryville prison in Goodyear, Arizona. As of 2023, she was being held in a medium-low “custody class” security wing of the women’s prison. Having lost her appeal in March 2020, Arias is expected to spend the rest of her life behind bars.
At first glance, Jodi Arias appears to live a quiet, productive life in prison. After working in a store warehouse and as a porter, Arias worked as a library aide, a position she held from February 2021 until July 2022.
But even behind bars, Arias has courted controversy. She’s sold a number of pieces of artwork online, some of which are valued as high as $2,500. Since none of the paintings are directly related to the murder of Alexander, they apparently do not violate “Son of Sam” laws. However, many people believe that she’s still profiting from her notoriety while in prison — and they’re also upset that she’s maintained a presence on social media.
Arizona Department of CorrectionsJodi Arias is serving out her life sentence at the Perryville prison in Goodyear, Arizona.
Despite Arias’ ongoing infamy — and the brutality of her crime — she has purportedly attracted countless male admirers from behind bars and receives marriage proposals from men “on a weekly basis.” She has allegedly considered a jailhouse wedding and the possibility of having children someday — even though conjugal visits are not allowed in her prison.
And according to some of Arias’ former fellow inmates, she’s also gained a notorious reputation for using her “sexuality” to manipulate prison guards and her fellow prisoners. In the documentary Jodi Arias: Cellmate Secrets (2020), two women who served time with Arias, Donavan Bering and Tracy Brown Bering (a couple), claimed that Arias regularly got away with things that other prisoners didn’t because she “was a very attractive, young girl who liked to flirt and the male guards just ate it up.”
At first, Donavan Bering and Tracy Brown Bering ate it up, too. They even allowed Arias to tattoo them behind bars, using ingredients like mascara and pencil lead. Meanwhile, Donavan Bering ran Arias’ Twitter account after Bering was released from jail in March 2009. And both women considered Arias a friend for a while. But then, Bering began speaking with Arias’ mother.
“When I started speaking to her mom way more than Jodi, I started seeing stuff that didn’t add up, like the stories of her relationships, and how her parents treated her,” she said. “She didn’t really care about anything or anyone but herself. You crossed her in any way, and you suffered.”
After reading about where Jodi Arias is now, discover the story of Shayna Hubers, the woman who became obsessed with her boyfriend Ryan Poston — and then shot him to death in 2012. Or, learn the tragic story of Jolee Callan, whose ex-boyfriend lured her on a hike — then pushed her off a cliff.
