‘Jodi Arias: An American Murder Mystery’ Fetishizes Justice But Solves Nothing

Tony Sokol

The Investigation Discovery special “Jodi Arias: An American Murder Mystery” could be subtitled “Guilty by Insinuation.” Jane Velez Mitchell, who wrote the book “Exposed: The Secret Life of Jodi Arias,” can turn any word into an implication. She can make each individual syllable sound like an accusation. It’s a superpower, really. Mitchell is the main voice of the three-night special event and by the time the first episode finishes airing even the most casual viewer could find a reason to blame anyone and everyone anywhere near Travis Alexander on the night he was murdered.

Insistent raspy voices reassure us that Alexander’s roommate, who slept through a week of rotting corpse stench rendered immune by his fetid bachelor ways, is innocent in the same breath that condemns him with smirking complicity. The ex-girlfriend who was gypped out of a trip to Cancun is cleared until the end of a sentence muddies the waters. The fingers that point at the artistic waitress who becomes the prime suspect have dirt under their nails. Witnesses, defenders, defendants, prosecutors, and investigators imbue every phrase with the finality of a closing argument. At one point, it appears a very good case could be made for Alexander’s suicide. This reviewer personally questioned the alibi of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

So it is with the Jodi Arias case. As final and damning as any evidence presented, no case is open and shut. When she first called the police station to offer assistance to the case, Arias had an airtight alibi. She was nowhere near Alexander’s place. As her travel plans unravel after hours in an interrogation room, going through two detectives, one male, one female (listen to how Mitchell pronounces that Arias only responded to the “man” at the proceedings, it puts the phrase slut-shaming to shame), Jodi changes her story. She admits she witnessed a man and a woman kill Alexander. Then she changes it again. By the time the case came to court Arias admitted she killed the 30-year-old motivational speaker and salesman of the week hall of famer, but says she only did it in self-defense.

The mere notion Alexander could have been a beastly abuser who pushed Arias to such extreme violence is almost universally rejected. Even after films like “Sleeping With the Enemy,” “Burning Bed,” and “Enough” confirm the public consciousness of domestic abuse retribution, the courts still haven’t caught up. John Wayne Bobbitt is forever immortalized in his porno cheapie “Uncut,” but court documents label Lorena Bobbitt as the woman who snapped and snipped. Bobbitt got off by virtue of insanity. But how crazy is it that John Wayne Bobbitt continued to get arrested for battering his girlfriends until he broke his neck in a car accident.

Arias was also diagnosed in various ways by armchair pundits, on and off screen, in the news frenzy online, and by the parade of collateral damage passing over the witness stand. She was called a narcissist because she fixed her hair before taking her mug shot in the documentary. Although, the documentary doesn’t point it out, the murder occurred after the Nick Nolte arrest made a meme of his disheveled pose, open for all to see on any of thousands of mug shot sites. Arias was also labeled bipolar, an obsessive compulsive, a sociopath, psychopath, and a pathological liar. “Jodi Arias: An American Murder Mystery” turns it all inside out, and upside down. They get a lot of mileage out of the video tapes of Arias singing Christmas carols and standing on her head after she is charged. Whether they will get the same mileage out of the very credible allegations Arias was broken on a wheel of abuse remains to be seen. The defendant is obviously no angel, but the victim’s wings are just as clipped.

After an abusive childhood in a house of junkies, the special reveals, Alexander moved in with his strict religious grandmother. He reveled in Mormon outreach, knocking on doors to spread the good news, joining a Mormon-heavy sales team. Rising up through the ranks as a Mormon motivational speaking rock star, he has too many offers to keep to his Mormon vow of celibacy until marriage. The still-to-come teasers are come-hither looks into a hypnotic spiral of sordid speculation.

The documentary can get tawdrier. The filmmakers can cull anything they want from the transcripts: Demeaning language, anal sex, kiddie porn, cosplay roleplay, Mormon guilt, and the End of Days. According to court documents, Arias also dated a vampire hunter when she lived in Yreka, Calif., in the late ’90s. Arias testified that she broke up with him by phone, and he slit his wrists in response. After him Arias dated a Jesus freak who thought the second coming was coming on Sept 23, 1997. Arias testified that he tried to strangle her and threatened to kill her family, going into graphic detail on how he was going to do it. She went back to the wannabe Van Helsing.

One of the almost 30 stab wounds Arias delivered to Alexander went straight through the heart. Was it the law of averages, or did she think she was putting down a bloodsucking freak? The possibilities are almost endless. The investigation could be told as a courtroom drama or a Hammer studio horror movie. In a few hundred years, history may remember Arias as a kind of Countess Bathory of the 21st Century. The photographic evidence, which the documentary only shows a portion of, is graphic. That’s probably not why it wasn’t used in an industry that demands “if it bleeds, it leads.”

The case was a media circus that mesmerized the nation with the promise of a B-movie femme fatale, forever camera ready. “Jodi Arias: An American Murder Mystery” interviews Arias’ public defender Kirk Nurmi, who may have been too focused on keeping Arias off death row to get her an acquittal, as well as Maricopa County deputy attorney Juan Martinez, former Siskiyou County detective Nathan Mendes, legal analysts, pundits, and reporters. They also talk to the people who didn’t take the stand, like Travis’ olfactory sense deprived roommate. It remains to be seen whether the documentary eats its own tale to question how flimsy the evidence actually is

Judging by the first installment of the special, blame will fall everywhere. The advance press promised a twisted tale of “sadomasochistic sex, obsession, and jealousy gone wrong,” and as of the end of the first installment, they are still promising it. Oh, it’s twisted and tawdry. It’s positively fetishistic. It’s tabloid news. “Jodi Arias: An American Murder Mystery” is murder porn. Travis Alexander was brutally murdered, stabbed 27 times, his throat was slit throat from ear to ear. Some reports at the time said he was almost decapitated, and shot in the head. It is almost the definition of overkill. The documentary does its best to outdo it.

“Jodi Arias: An American Murder Mystery” 3-part event airs Sunday, Jan. 14 through Tuesday, Jan. 16 at 10 p.m. ET on Investigation Discovery.