Conviction: The Untold Story of Putting Jodi Arias Behind Bars (29 page)

Brewer said he was unaware of Arias’ relationship with Travis Alexander, and he was hoping that Arias would be back with him once they resolved the “house issue.”

“Okay. After you moved to Monterey and the house went into foreclosure, what was your relationship with Jodi like during that time period . . . ?”

“I would have to say at that time the relationship was nothing more than an occasional phone call. We were not romantically involved and I had learned that she had left the house and moved to the Arizona area.”

Nurmi’s final question was “And so you remained friends on good terms?”

“We did,” Brewer responded.

Rising from my chair, I wasted no time. I wanted to use Brewer’s final answer that he and Arias had remained friends to start my questioning. Turning to Brewer, I began, “Sir, you indicated that you moved from the Palm Desert home back to [Monterey] in December of 2006, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And when you moved back, she didn’t go with you, right?”

“Correct.”

“And even though time passed, you and she continued to be good friends, right?”

“We talked occasionally.”

“You were friends, then, right?” I asked, continuing the questioning in a quick, staccato fashion.

“Yes.”

“And she knew your phone number, and you knew hers, right?”

“Yes.”

“And that continued on, for example, into 2007, right? You continued to have this relationship where you were sort of friends, where you would call occasionally, right? . . . And the same thing can be said for 2008, correct, you continued to be this sort of sporadic friend, right?”

“I had, yes, sporadic contact, yes.”

“And in fact, back in 2008, she knew your number and you knew hers, right?”

“Correct.”

“And if she needed something she would call you, right?” I asked, to which Nurmi objected.

“Calls for speculation,” he argued, and Judge Stephens sustained his objection.

“Well, sir, isn’t it true that in May of 2008, you received a telephone call from the defendant, Jodi Arias?”

“I could have, yes,” Brewer replied, unaware of where my line of questioning was leading.

“Well, isn’t it true that during that telephone call she was asking you for a favor? Do you remember that?” I asked, knowing what my next question would be irrespective of his answer. “Do you remember that during that favor, she was asking you for gas cans in May 2008 at the very end so that she could make a trip to Mesa? Do you remember that?”

There was a pronounced pause before his one-word answer, delivered in a quiet voice. “Yes,” Brewer replied, to a palpable silence in the courtroom. It was obvious he had been unprepared for the question and was reluctant to respond because he understood the implication of an affirmative answer—Arias had planned the trip to see Travis and it had not been a spur-of-the-moment decision as she was now claiming.

Before this point, there had been times during the trial when I had observed people in the gallery checking their cell phones, looking around, or whispering to their seatmates. It seemed that now everyone’s attention was on the line of question
ing, as it was an untouched area, not discussed in these proceedings in either my opening statement or during my case in chief.

Moving ahead with my inquiry, I asked Brewer, “And she made more than one call asking you for these gas cans to make a trip to Arizona, didn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“In fact, in the first part of June of 2008, she called you again asking about these gas cans to go to Mesa, right?” I asked, feeling the deafening silence in the courtroom.

“Yes,” Brewer responded, appearing tentative.

“And during the first time that she brought up this issue in the end of May of 2008, you asked her why do you need these gas cans? Do you remember asking her that?”

“I do.”

“And she got really testy with you, didn’t she?”

“Not necessarily testy; she said she needed them. She was taking a long trip. . . . I wouldn’t say testy.”

“She wouldn’t answer you, though, why she wanted those gas cans, right?”

“She did answer me.”

“. . . And she told you she was going to Mesa, right?”

“She told me she was going on a long trip, did not say particularly Mesa, no,” he said, changing his earlier answer.

“Well, sir,” I said, before showing Brewer the interview summary that had been turned over to me years earlier by previous defense counsel, which contained that portion of his conversation with their investigator, “let’s go ahead and mark this as an exhibit and see if this refreshes your recollection. Okay?”

Presenting Brewer with a copy of the interview summary marked Exhibit 411, I directed him to read the highlighted portion, which referred to his comment that Arias had gotten testy. “You do admit that you had a conversation with somebody representing the defendant, right?”

“I did have a conversation, yes, sir.”

“And did this refresh your recollection as to the fact that she got testy with you or not?”

“No,” Brewer replied.

“And with regard to going to Mesa, Arizona, does that refresh your recollection or not?” I asked.

“No,” Brewer responded, appearing to dig in his heels. But it was obvious that the damage had already been done, because the jury had already heard him admit that Arias told him she was traveling to Mesa, so his backtracking was ineffectual.

“But she said she was going to go on a trip, right?”

“She did.”

“And that’s why she wanted to borrow the gas cans, right?”

“Yes.”

“And ostensibly the reason that she wanted these gas cans is because she was going to get lost, right?” I asked the question to remind the jury of Arias’ story to Detective Flores that she had gotten lost in an effort to explain the twenty-four-hour absence to him.

“I don’t know that she had any plans to get lost, no.”

“That’s what she told you, that that was part of the reason why she needed the gas cans, right?”

“No,” Brewer said emphatically.

“Sir, she did come by your house on June 3 of 2008, right, before her trip, right? . . . She came by and she had breakfast with you, right?”

“We had some food, yes,” Brewer demurred in an obvious effort to avoid admitting even those facts that were undeniably true, including that food served in the morning is called breakfast.

“And your son was there, right? . . . That was around seven o’clock in the morning, right?”

“Approximately, yes.”

“And while she was there you allowed her to use the e-mail
on your computer, right? . . . And she checked her e-mail, right?”

“Yes,” Brewer affirmed.

“. . . And before she left, though, you gave her two gas cans, didn’t you?” I asked, my voice emphasizing the point.

“I did.”

“They were each five-gallon gas cans, right? . . . For a total of ten gallons that would be available to put in these gas cans, right?”

“The cans would have held ten gallons, yes.”

“What color were the cans?” I asked.

“They were red.”

“And when you gave her these cans, at the time, did you ask her what she was going to use them for or not?”

“At the time, no,” he offered, appearing to bait me into asking about the other times they may have discussed her reasons for wanting to borrow the gasoline containers.

“Okay, let me show you some exhibits,” I said, referring to the ARCO receipts. Arias had made the three gas purchases beginning at 8:42
P.M
. on June 3, 2008, according to the time stamp on the first receipt. “. . . It says it’s pump number 2 and it does give gallons, right?”

“It does,” Brewer acknowledged.

“It’s 8.301 gallons, and then it gives the price and then there’s a payment there, right? . . . And the time I want you to note is 8:42
P.M
., right?”

“Yes,” he admitted, unable to deny the obvious.

I next showed Brewer the second receipt, from the purchase that Arias made four minutes later, at 8:46
P.M
. “. . . About how much gas . . . can you see, how many gallons she purchased there?”

Brewer reluctantly replied, “Looks like 9.954 gallons.”

“That’s approximately close to ten gallons, right?” to which Brewer responded affirmatively.

“. . . Then, if we look at this other one . . . this other exhibit, we’ll go with the time first. It’s 8:53
P.M
., right, see that in the upper left?” I asked, showing him the last ARCO receipt, driving home the point that Arias made three separate gas purchases during that stop.

“And this is for . . . ?” I asked, soliciting from Brewer the number of gallons indicated on this final receipt.

“It looks like 2.77 something,” Brewer said.

“Right, and if we add, let’s say, 2.7 [the amount of gas Arias bought during her last purchase] and round it [referring to the 9.954 gallons shown to have been purchased during the second transaction] up to ten . . . we’re talking about 12.5 gallons, right?” This was the combined amount of gas that had been purchased with cash rather than a credit card at this ARCO station.

“Yes,” Brewer replied.

“. . . Let’s do a little bit of basic math,” I challenged. “Let’s say the car she was driving had a capacity of twelve gallons”—using that number for ease of mathematical computation, although I knew the tank capacity of the Ford Focus was 13.5 gallons.

“Objection, speculative,” Nurmi interrupted.

Pausing my examination, I waited for Judge Stephens, who quickly overruled his objection.

“And if you multiply that by thirty miles per gallon, let’s just say that it’s highway driving,” I continued, “that would be 360 miles, right?”

“I imagine, if your math is correct,” Brewer agreed.

After establishing the potential range of the Ford Focus, I turned to a discussion of the gas receipts from the ARCO station in Pasadena.

“On the other two exhibits [receipts for the second and third gas purchases at ARCO] we talked about, we have roughly the same amount, twelve and a half gallons, did you notice that, do you remember that?”

“Yes.”

“And so, if we’re talking about the same thirty miles to the gallon, twelve and a half, we’re talking about roughly another 360 miles, right?”

“Makes sense.”

“So, if a person fills up, for example, in Pasadena, according to the math that we’re doing, and puts twelve gallons in this car and we’re talking thirty miles, and I understand these are rough figures, you’re talking 360, plus the other twelve and a half gallons, another 360, for a total of 720 miles, right?” I asked, knowing that the distance to Las Vegas from Pasadena through Travis’ house in Mesa, Arizona, was roughly seven-hundred miles.

“Correct.”

As I wound down my questions about the gas cans, I still had one more point to make. “The gas cans, sir, did she ever return them to you?” I asked.

“No,” Brewer replied.

“Ever ask her about returning those gas cans to you?”

“I don’t recall if I ever had a chance to ask her, no.”

Moving on from the gas cans, I then turned my attention to other areas of his testimony, addressing the chronology of his relationship with Arias, with a focus on their sexual dynamic. I wanted to build off the work I’d done through Ryan Burns’ testimony that showed Arias as sexually aggressive, in order to further undermine her claim that Travis was a Svengali who guilted her into submitting to his sexual whims.

I asked Brewer to confirm his earlier testimony that he and Arias had started to date in January of 2003. “And you sort of made it official . . . at the San Francisco 49ers game, right?”

“Yes.”

“And . . . you spent the night together, right?”

“We did.”

“And is that the first time you and she ever had sex?” I asked.

“No,” Brewer replied.

“And you do remember the first time you and she had sex, though, right?”

“I do remember, yes.”

“And she was very aggressive, wasn’t she?”

“We were both aggressive,” Brewer equivocated.

To refresh his memory about his earlier statement to the defense investigator, I showed him the portion of his interview summary in which he had described Arias as “aggressive” during their first sexual encounter.

“It says that, right?” I asked.

“That’s what that says, yes,” Brewer conceded.

“. . . And not only was she aggressive, she was enthusiastic about it, wasn’t she, the sex, I mean?”

“We were both enthusiastic, yes,” he answered, in an obvious attempt to shield Arias.

“And she was comfortable with intimacy, yes?”

“Yes.”

“And at some point you and she even enjoyed, I believe, on two occasions, anal sex, right?” I was forced to ask this question because Arias had maintained that the only person she have ever engaged in this type of sexual activity with had been Travis, and it was at his insistence.

“Possibly once,” Brewer responded.

Ending my cross-examination of Brewer, I started back to the prosecution table, where I caught sight of Detective Flores fighting to hold back an inquisitive smile. As I sat down next to him, he broke the cardinal rule that I had established for him for the trial, which was to never speak to me while court was in session, because we ran the risk of being overheard, as the microphones at the table were very sensitive.

“What the heck was that all about?” he whispered into my ear. “You didn’t tell me anything about the gas cans.”

“I know,” I acknowledged. “No one knew.”

As I sat back in my chair, Flores and I exchanged a glance, wondering how Nurmi was going to address what was clearly a blow to Arias’ self-defense claim.

Nurmi took his opportunity on redirect examination in a direction that I found perplexing. “Mr. Brewer, did your sex life with Jodi Arias involve wearing little boy’s underwear? . . . Did it involve putting her in schoolgirl outfits and pigtails? . . . Did it involve bending her over a desk? . . . Did it involve ejaculating on her face? . . . Did it involve calling her a whore? . . . A slut? . . . A three-hole wonder?” to all of which Brewer replied “No.”

That Nurmi chose to focus on questions about all the things that Arias had
not
done with Darryl Brewer, and in such a vulgar way, was surprising. But what I found even more strange was his failure to address the reason Arias borrowed the gas cans from Brewer and the receipts proving she had purchased gas to fill those gas cans, manifesting her intent to use them on her trip to Mesa.