New Reports Emerge About Cancun Trip - Was Arias Supposed To Go?

New reports are emerging about the June 10, 2008 Cancun trip that Travis Alexander was going on - the trip that may have been the catalyst for murder. It was reported last night on Jane Valez-Mitchell's show on HLN that "sources" have revealed that Jodi Arias was supposed to accompany Travis Alexander on the company sponsored trip to Cancun, but Alexander changed his mind and invited Marie "Mimi" Hall instead. Arias has maintained throughout the trial that she was not aware that Travis was taking Mimi Hall - instead, she testified that Travis told her he was taking a friend's babysitter.

Here is the link to Jane Valez-Mitchell's HLN report on this from yesterday's show:

http://www.hlntv.com/video/2013/03/22/was-jodi-booked-cancun-trip-travis

The babysitter story never made sense - she claimed that Travis owed this friend money, and was taking the babysitter to Cancun as a form of repayment for a debt. She couldn't come up with a better story than that after 4 1/2 years?  Travis Alexander was savagely and viciously murdered in the evening hours of June 4, 2008, only days before he was due to board a plane for sunny Cancun. The timing of the murder is no coincidence. Why kill Travis on June 4th? Why not kill him on one of the many other opportunities Arias must have had during her time in Mesa? 

It's hard to say why, if this is in fact true that it hasn't come up during the trial. Perhaps Juan Martinez wanted to have Arias commit to her babysitter story, and present this information during his rebuttal case? The rebuttal case will be interesting, and I have to believe Martinez has saved some of his best arguments for the rebuttal case. Lock Jodi Arias into her stories, and then methodically knock them down one-by-one, like he did when he told her that Wal Mart showed no record of anybody returning a gas can in Pasadena on the date she claimed she did. If he does this during the rebuttal, I don't believe the Arias defense team will have the opportunity to "rehabilitate" Arias's story. The prosecution will have the last word.

If these airline records do exist, I have to believe Juan Martinez has them. Since Arias testified under oath that it was never discussed that she would accompany Travis to Cancun and she was fine with that, he can present evidence to disprove her statements. This would go a long way towards the premeditation of this murder. His closing statement should be powerful. If he sticks to the facts, the evidence and doesn't get too bogged down with the memory issues or her amnesia, or any of the sexual elements of this case, it's fairly simple to see what happened and why. It's one of the oldest motives in known to mankind - jealousy.

Arias was losing control. She was no longer living in close proximity to Travis, she could no longer drive by his home to see who was there, she could no longer follow him on dates - and his friends could speak more freely about their disapproval of Jodi as a partner and wife for Travis. He had sent her that scathing e-mail or text message after discovering she had been breaking into his social media pages, he more than likely changed his passwords and she was slowly being shut out of his life. I guess there was one thing he still couldn't say no to, and he ended up letting a killer into his home - unaware of the horror that was about to be unleashed.

Up next week:  the defense expert on domestic violence, Alyce Laviolette from Long Beach, California.  Again, the expert will offer testimony based on her interviews with Jodi Arias. Arias never filed any complaints of domestic violence against Travis, never dialed 911, never wrote about it in her journal, never talked about it with friends or family. It's her words alone that this report will be based on - which makes it flawed from the start. 

I'm wondering, did Jodi Arias actually have many female friends? Most of the women that we've heard from or about during this trial have been either friends of Travis Alexander's, or women Arias met through Pre Paid Legal, and a few she met through the LDS church functions. What seems to be missing are genuine, "I've known her since 2nd grade" type relationships that most people have.  Arias seems to be more friendly with the males in her life, although ex boyfriends and men that she dated don't seem to have really known her either.  She seems to be a follower, with her identity changing depending on her audience or her love interest at that time. She seemed to be lost and looking to become part of someone else's life, instead of forging a life for herself - maybe she lacked the social skills in that sense. Many people have stated their first impression of Jodi Arias was not good - something was off about her. Just goes to show, you should always trust that little voice inside your head or that gut feeling you have about a person. It's usually right, and we get those feelings for a reason!

Enjoy your weekend!