Farzana Choudhury: The Case Of Jodi Arias

Throughout the entire case, Arias told many different versions of the story about what occurred at the crime scene. At first, “she claimed that she had no knowledge of the crime and that she had last seen Alexander in April of 2008.” She was very cooperative during the investigation, allowing the detectives to swab her DNA and take her fingerprints, and she wanted to help with the investigation. The police were able to recover images from the memory card that was found in the camera. These are the famous pictures that went viral of Alexander in the shower, probably minutes before the murder took place. There were also pictures of Alexander bleeding and of Arias posing nude, all with the same time stamp of June 4, 2008. When Arias was questioned

It was in this interview that her story changed. She finally admitted to being with Alexander on the day of the crime, but claimed two intruders were the ones that murdered him and she was able to somehow get out of the house and make a run for it without any injuries. Farzana Choudhury analyzed Jodi Arias’s interviews to identify the many ways she tried to use deception to prove her innocence. In these interviews, there were many inconsistencies with her stories and she contradicted previous statements she had made. Choudhury discussed how Arias used a linguistic hedge called, equivocation which “suggests Arias is not totally committed to her narrative” (82). Arias was trying to sound credible in her interviews to keep her innocence by not giving away the entire truth about what actually happened at the crime scene. After years, Arias finally admitted that she killed Alexander, but that she had done it in self-defense. According to her, she had dropped an expensive camera and Alexander got mad, screaming and threatening to kill her. She claims she tried to run and get away from him, grabbing a gun from his shelf in the process, and when he lunged to tackle her, the gun went off but she wasn’t aware if he had been shot or not because they were still wrestling. She testified that after that she had no memory of stabbing him and said, "There's a huge gap. I don't

The trial was on multiple news stations and quickly gained a following worldwide. The defense’s argument was that Arias committed the murder in self-defense, while the prosecution depicted Arias as a jealous ex-girlfriend that wanted to get revenge. Saying this was a dramatic case would be an understatement, and the ups and downs of this trial was what kept the public engaged and kept them watching. Michelle Gonzalez explains how the media put Jodi Arias in the spotlight for the crime she committed based on stereotypes and archetypes in her article, “innocent Blood on Manicured Hands: How the Media has Brought the New Roxie Harts and Velma Kellys to Center Stage.” Gonzalez said that, “Arias is categorized as follows: (1) the trickster archetype, and (2) seductress-goddess stereotype” (86). The media portrayed Arias in a certain way to get their audiences wrapped up in the story. She also includes that, “Arias used her feminine wiles to bed Alexander and then murder him; a scheme so provocative and sickening that it would be sure to gain national attention,” (86) to give an explanation as to why this trial was so popular across the nation. The media will build up a story to gain publicity and the suspects become the main characters in their