UNIDENTIFIED MALE: During this phone call we were speaking about, did Ms. Arias identify who she was speaking to?
GUS SEARCY, FRIEND OF JODI ARIAS: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And whom was that?
SEARCY: Travis.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Travis Alexander?
SEARCY: Travis Alexander.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Could you describe for us — you’ve talked about being in this small motor home. So could you describe for us her demeanor after the phone call?
SEARCY: Well, once it got heated, she excused herself, stepped outside. She talked to him for about a half an hour outside, and when she came back in, she was shaking and crying.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Had you seen her act like that before in any of your prior interactions with her?
SEARCY: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you ever see Ms. Arias get mad at Travis?
SEARCY: No.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAN SUSTEREN: And Gus Searcy joins us. Nice to see you, Gus.
SEARCY: Hello.
VAN SUSTEREN: Gus, tell me, how did you know Jodi Arias?
SEARCY: I had gone to Arizona to speak at a meeting where they were all at, and at the — after the speaking, they kind of all go out to dinner. And when I — after dinner, I had actually met — well, I’d met both Travis and Jodi at the event. And then after dinner, she approached me to ask me if I would help her improve her business and do better at what she was doing.
VAN SUSTEREN: So about how long did you — how long did you know her before Travis was murdered?
SEARCY: A little over a year.
VAN SUSTEREN: During that time, did she — did you talk to her often or see her often?
SEARCY: We would talk a couple times a week. We’d see each other probably every two to three months at events somewhere where I was speaking, or at conventions or things like that. But we would talk a couple times a week because in order to help her, there was, like, an accountability, so she had to check in with me so I could see how she was doing and what she was doing and if she was following through with what we had talked about.
VAN SUSTEREN: In all the times that you spoke to her, did she ever confide to you that she was either afraid of Travis or that he had been physical with her or hurt her in any way?
SEARCY: Yes. As it started to progress, as we got to know each other better, in order to work with her, you know, you need to learn what’s going on with someone — you know, is it mental, physical emotional? Why aren’t they succeeding? And it started coming out that she was having problems — that she was upset with him. They were breaking up. They were going back together. And at one point, it became obvious that he was really more using her than anything else.
And then at one point, she called me up one day and she was very upset. They’d had some kind of a fight and she needed to get away. And I said, Well, I happen to be in Las Vegas, about an hour and a half away. Why don’t you just come there and spend a day or so with me there, let things calm down.
VAN SUSTEREN: In — is it though — I asked — I’m sort of curious about whether there was any sort of physical interaction because some guys might be cads and creeps and some women may just pick a fight or there may be verbal fights and a bad relationship. And then there’s the physical relationship, where someone is abusive or afraid of someone. You know, which category did this — these — the relationship — did it fall in?
SEARCY: What I experienced, what I can, you know, testify, what I had witnessed was verbal. I mean, for example, when she came to the motor home, he called her. She didn’t really want to take the call, but she took it. And when she told him, he wanted to get off the phone — when she wanted to get off the phone with him, all of a sudden, he started cussing at her.
And the moment he cussed at her, she winced — ducked like she was ducking a bullet, and then capitulated to talk with him. And then she went outside and spoke with him for about a half an hour. So the moment he exerted any kind of dominance over her, she would cave.
VAN SUSTEREN: The night that he was murdered, as I understand it, she called you. I guess it was into the next morning about 3:00 AM?
SEARCY: About 3:30 in the morning, I had gotten a call from Jodi. And you know, I saw the phone said, you know, it was her. I answered the phone. She was crying. And I asked what’s wrong. And she was crying a little bit, and she said Travis is dead.
And I knew she was crazy about him so I said, What happened? She said she didn’t know. So at this point, keep in mind, I had no reason to suspect anything other than that. I asked, Are you OK? She said yes. I asked, Where are you? She said northern California.
So now, in my mind, she’s, like, 1,200 miles away from where he was. I asked her if she needed a ride. She said no, she was going to rent a car. And I said, OK, well, let me know what happened. I know I’ve been criticized, people say, Well, why didn’t you call the police? Well, why would I call the police? I get calls — lots of times, people die, and if they’re saying they don’t know why they died, I figured, All right, he died, she was notified. They didn’t know the details. And she was 1,200 miles away and going to drive to Arizona, so that’s the call that I got.
VAN SUSTEREN: Do you find it now peculiar, sort of if you look back at because now that makes the fourth story. The first story being at 3:30 in the morning, she said she didn’t know what happened. To the police, she said — for one story is that wasn’t there. To someone else, she said that somebody else did it. And now she’s saying self-defense. Now we’ve now got four stories. Do you find that peculiar?
SEARCY: Probably not as peculiar as you might think. I’m not condoning what happened, by the way. But you know, somebody has just done something really, really bad, you know, there’s, you know, a human experience. You fight or flight, and you’re going to try to do what you can do, in your mind, whether it’s right or wrong, to protect yourself.
So also, I think there was some evidence she wanted to try to protect Travis’s reputation, too. She didn’t really want a lot of this getting out that’s gone out.
VAN SUSTEREN: And you believe that? I mean, you know her, but you know — you know, I look at — I look at the autopsy report. I don’t know her, but I see, you know, he has about 30 knife wounds. He was shot. We got four stories, the woman who said it — I mean, it doesn’t look particularly like, you know, anything else, but — I mean, it doesn’t look like self-defense when you have that many wounds. Now, I’m not saying that it can’t be, but it’s sort of — you know, the odds are against it.
Read the full transcript from On The Record
In new figures released as the Jodi Arias trial closes on its third month — theirs an astonishing factor to the case that’s sure to rile up a few feathers with those who’ve vicariously watched the duration of the trial itself. According to ABC NEWS, the defense in the trial has cost Arizona taxpayers upwards of $1.4 million.
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