Exposed: The Secret Life of Jodi Arias by Jane Velez-Mitchell Page A

secretly returned to the library, where she was able to access his account. She then printed the letters at the library and formulated a plan to confront him.
    Impulsively, and seething with jealousy, Jodi called in sick to her job, found Bobby, and handed her evidence to him. While Bobby was understandably shocked that Jodi went to such lengths to trap him, Jodi said she felt righteously angry, calling it her first experience with being jilted and deceived by a man.
    Despite her discovery, Jodi didn’t leave Bobby, possibly because of her fear of abandonment. Jodi said the two broke up so many times that she found herself constantly packing and unpacking all of her things. But she hadn’t reached the point where she wanted to end it for good. Something in her wouldn’t let her detach. What ailed Jodi would become a source of great debate. The entire nation of amateur armchair psychologists and professionals would weigh in on it. Was Jodi bipolar? Did she have borderline personality disorder or detachment/attachment disorder? Did she suffer from narcissistic personality disorder, or was she a sociopath or even a psychopath? These psychological issues would be fodder for speculation both inside and outside the courtroom, with opinions on it at every turn.
    Jodi seemed to make a lot of self-destructive choices, and several claimed that she changed completely after moving in with Bobby. One visitor to their place expressed shock at their living conditions. Others insisted Bobby wasn’t the problem, that some other emotional or psychological issue was rising up in Jodi as she matured into her teenage years. A friend recalled the night Jodi called very upset after an argument. Jodi later claimed that Bobby had tried to choke her during an argument, using his martial arts training to put her in a stranglehold that almost made her pass out. She claimed she had even called 911 for assistance, but said Bobby had taken over the call and had given the operator an excuse. Jodi said she brushed off the assault as an isolated incident and continued to live with him. You have to wonder, given her propensity toward violence, if perhaps Jodi was the one who was violent. She seemed to have a penchant for relationship turmoil.
    Eventually, circumstances pulled Jodi and Bobby apart. Bobby, possibly wanting to get some space between himself and Jodi, relocated across state lines up to Medford, Oregon, fifty miles north. He lived with a roommate named Matt, while Jodi headed south to live for several months with a good friend back in Santa Maria, the town she still loved best and had always missed ever since she had been stripped away from it at the end of eighth grade.
    Living space at her friend’s house was tight, as the family already had five members sharing cramped quarters. Still, they embraced Jodi and lovingly welcomed her into their home. She arrived in the summer of 1999 and stayed through Christmas. She found a job waitressing at a local Applebee’s, but soon became quite lonely. Her best friend had started college that fall and was busy with her studies and playing on the college softball team. With her friend otherwise occupied, Jodi probably began to realize the consequences of her decision to drop out of school and leave her parents’ house. She had tried to re-create the good feelings she remembered from her childhood in Santa Maria, but this was now a different time. Jodi was lost, and she needed to find something or someone to hang on to, to make her feel grounded in the world.
    Perhaps that’s why Jodi just couldn’t seem to get her mind off Bobby. Acting on the possibly faulty notion that Bobby had no car, no food, no money, nothing, that didn’t deter her from reinitiating contact with him. Santa Maria was ten hours from Medford, Oregon, but she made her way to his doorstep with a bagful of groceries left anonymously for him to find. Jodi claimed Bobby instantly knew the care package was from her and called to thank