A female prisoner serving life behind bars for the brutal murder of her boyfriend has been quietly making thousands of dollars from selling artwork.
Jodi Arias, 44, who was convicted in 2013 of the 2008 murder of her on-off boyfriend Travis Alexander, maintains a website selling a variety of paintings and prints, with one valued as high as $2,500.
She also recently noted on Instagram that she was commissioned to paint a cow for a fan, after ‘someone I really couldn’t turn down asked me to paint one for her office’.
Arias’ murder conviction became a media sensation over a decade ago as she only narrowly avoided the death penalty, however her artwork does not violate any ‘Son of Sam’ laws as she is not profiting directly off her crimes.
The convicted killer claims in her website that she always loved making art from a young age, but stopped for some time when she ‘completely derailed (her) life.’
After taking up painting again, she began selling them on eBay before moving on to selling them through her website that says she uses the revenue to purchase more supplies.
Ten per cent of the profits are donated to charities, while ‘some of it will go towards Jodi’s appeals’, the website states.
Most of Arias’s prints sell between $28 and $39, and she also hawks sets of postcards for $34.95.
When she was recently commissioned to paint the cow, she said on Instagram that a prison guard inspired it’s unorthodox title.
‘An officer interested in the painting’s progress kept asking me how “ol’ girl” was coming along,’ she wrote.
‘She said it several times and it clicked: that’s the title!’
The unearthing of Arias’ prison artwork comes 11 years into her life sentence for the murder of Travis Alexander in his home in Mesa, Arizona.
The couple met in September 2006 at a work conference in Las Vegas, but their relationship was off-and-on for over a year as they often lived in different states.
Prosecutors claimed Arias was a jealous and manipulative girlfriend who raged at Alexander when she found out he had been dating other women.
Arias was said to have discovered Alexander was planning a trip to Mexico with another woman, leading her to plot to murder him.
Alexander was found dead in his shower on June 4, 2008, after sustaining 27 stab wounds, a slit throat and a gunshot wound to the head.
A digital camera found in Alexander’s washing machine also included a number of images of Arias and the victim in sexual poses, and another taken moments after Alexander was murdered.
The image showed him ‘profusely bleeding’ on the bathroom floor, where a bloody handprint was found that contained Arias’s DNA.
Arias initially denied the murder but later admitted to doing so as she claimed it was self-defense after he attacked her.
She was found guilty in 2013 but jurors were undecided over the death penalty and Arias received life without the possibility of parole.
Arias was once one of the most notorious female killers in America, but her artwork reportedly does not violate ‘Son of Sam’ laws, reports the New York Post.
Also known as ‘notoriety for profit laws’ – set up amid fears serial killer David Berkowitz would want to sell his life story – the laws prevent criminals from profiting from the publicity around their crimes.
But Arias’s paintings do not cross the line because the artwork has no link to the murder of Alexander, and the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry reportedly says it is aware of her profiteering.
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