Hey weirdos, it's Ash here, ready to share a little secret.
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I have been listening to the Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Club, which actually Elena recommended to me.
She did not listen to it, but she said, girl, this title sounds so you.
And let me tell you, it did. I've been listening to it while I walk, and I am absolutely loving it.
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I'm Elena. I'm Ash. And this is a mini morbid.
Little tiny small mini morbid. Mini, mini, mini, mini, mini morbid.
Mini morbid, mini morbid, mini morbid. and it's ash centric um i wrote this up and i was just like kind of like what's it called like slap happy And the title of my Google Doc is Ash-centric bitch mini hashtag quarantine. damn I was having a day you were having a day I was having me a day so we're not gonna do too much business at the beginning of this but Like every other episode, we're going to say our shows quickly and then we're going to start shouting out.
We're going to do 10 patrons per episode.
So shows. June 2nd at the Goodnight Comedy Club in Raleigh, North Carolina.
We will be there either June 2nd or another day. let you know june 3rd the comedy zone in charlotte north carolina you too charlotte same day or another day October 11th two shows in Chicago at Talia Hall.
I feel like those are going to happen and I'm very excited about them.
I think so. July 8th at the Comedy Works South in Greenwood Village, Colorado.
Colorado, you and your elevation. We're gonna be there.
Yeah. I lost my place. July 11th at the Wilbur Theater in Boston.
Please, please, please, please. We really want to do that guys.
I want you to see the comedy stylings of Emily Walsh.
I know. Well, either way, we'll have to hopefully, even if it does have to get rescheduled, we'll get her.
If it's not happening, we'll reschedule.
But make sure you're buying tickets either way because they'll be...
They'll be good for whatever date it happens.
So buy up those tickets. Awesome. August 11th, Philadelphia, Punchline Comedy Club.
See you then. Philadelphia, we can't wait to see you because we missed you so much on the original day.
So much. September 16th in Washington, D.C. at the D.C.
Improv. I do that every time. You do. Monuments.
Can't wait to see them. Lit. Two shows are happening September 23rd in Nashville at Zany's.
Nashville, we're coming at you all over you.
And last but not least, go Roadside, go Eagles. is it war eagles war eagle war eagles september 24th huntsville alabama stand up live yes alabama Let's get it.
Let's get it. And now for some Patreons.
Patreons, we're excited. This week, we're starting with a Madonna, Kristen.
Kristen's so hot right now. Then Jill Ostron.
Ostrow, sorry. Jill Ostrow. And then the next one, Jay Gatsby.
What up, Jay Gatsby? Thanks for being a Patreon.
You know, my favorite literary character.
So I appreciate you donating. Sergeant Lexi is next.
Sergeant Lexi. Carly Miller. Carly Miller.
Anna Kinzel. Anna Kinzel. Jenny Caldwell.
Jen Caldwell. Rachel, I'm so sorry if I fuck up your last name.
I'm going to say Panchenko. Rachel Panchenko.
Love you. Ashley Lauren. Ashley Lauren. Two first names.
Two first names. Also, Lauren is my little sister's name, so that was weird to write.
Real weird. Ashley and Lauren, also a clothing brand.
Bye. And then last but not least is Tracy Crispin.
Tracy Crispin thank you so much to our beautiful beautiful Patronuses we fucking love you more than you ever could imagine we couldn't do any of this without you not a single bit of it so we appreciate you so much So March 22nd, 2018 in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
This guy. Eau Claire. Isn't that fun to say?
What's the dessert? Is it an eclair? Yeah, it's an eclair.
Okay, so this is Eau Claire, a little bit different.
But this guy, Don Sipple, is sitting down to eat dinner.
It's 4.15 in the afternoon and he's having himself an early bird special.
We love that. He's stoked. I love that. And then all of a sudden there's a pounding knock at his door and he's not so stoked anymore.
Uh-oh. He opens the door to find a young woman in completely torn clothing.
Her clothing is covered in mud. She's bloody.
Her mouth has dry blood around it. She's barefoot.
And he notices the word boy has been carved into her arm.
I would take a second and then I feel like I might just close that door.
You know, you don't know what's going to happen until you're in that situation because that's a lot to take in.
I'm trying to put myself in that position.
I'm like, I might close that door and be like, I'm gonna finish my dinner.
You know what? Ring didn't exist back then, so you couldn't see who was at the door.
Now you can, so... you can just pretend you can just keep eating your dinner yeah you can just be a really bad samaritan Like, I really want to help everybody, but like, that's the situation.
I don't know if I want to get involved. Yeah, I don't.
That's for sure. That sounds terrible. Yeah, it's horrible.
So she says she's been attacked, obviously.
Obviously. She's just sobbing and she's like really not talking.
She's mostly just sobbing and just saying how scared she is. oh that makes me sad on like a real note I would help this girl no of course anybody would I was totally being a dick before no I know so don obviously calls 9-1-1 asap and they're like do you know her name and he's like hey like what's your name and she's like i don't know i don't know like she's so freaked out she doesn't even know her own name.
Oh my god. And she keeps repeating call Jason Mengel.
Call Jason Mengel. Yes. So earlier that day, Jason was surprised at a coffee shop to see his ex-girlfriend, Ezra.
They used to hang out at this coffee shop all the time.
It's called Racy DeLean's Coffee Lounge.
And it's in this like little like Eau Claire is like a little college town.
It's like really like hipster and like fun.
And like, yeah, I feel like you can picture this coffee shop.
Yeah, I definitely can. So he's surprised to see Ezra at this coffee shop for a lot of reasons.
For one thing, they had exchanged 600 messages the night before and she had never once mentioned that she was going to be in town.
Oh, damn. She had recently moved back home because their relationship ended because of an affair that she had with a friend of theirs.
Oh, so this friend was Alec Woodworth. He worked at the coffee shop.
He was also a substitute teacher, and he was, like, super into...
Like he was really, really into philosophy.
Oh, damn. So a lot had gone down after their relationship fell apart.
Ezra actually accused one of Jason's friends of sexually assaulting her.
Oh, wow. She broke things off not only with Jason but also with Alex and she moved back home.
Okay. The sexual assault case was actually dropped because suggestive text messages were found between Ezra and Jason's friend. that it was like they kind of felt like maybe this wasn't a sexual assault and it was consensual And also, Alex told police that Ezra expressed to him that what happened between her and Jason's friend was consensual, but that she just regretted it. ooh messy messy Yeah, so already a lot is going down.
Yeah. So Jason was surprised when Ezra told him that she was going to go see Alex to show him some of her writings.
Yeah. So Ezra is like this really artsy girl.
She drives a car that has all this artwork of hers that she's done on it.
She likes to write. She likes to paint. That's kind of cool.
She takes really cool pictures, like anything artsy, Ezra's into.
She sounds rad. She does. She sounds really cool.
So she says that she's going to go see Alex to show him some of her writing.
So obviously she was upset with Alex after he told police that like she wasn't actually sexually assaulted yeah so jason's kind of like that's weird that you want to go see him and also she had been telling Jason that they she wanted to get back together with him And she was like, everybody's been, all these men have been manipulating me.
Like, they're trying to keep us apart. Yeah.
I want to be back with you. Like, this is everybody else's fault.
I didn't do anything wrong. So he's like, why do you want to... this is it's hard to follow like I'm stressed out just listening to this I hope I'm doing a good job of being like this is the sitch because it is it's a lot to follow no you are So Jason, he just didn't trust Ezra.
He was like, you know, like, you're not so trustworthy anymore based on everything that's happened.
And so she leaves the coffee shop and she's like, well, cool.
I'm going to see Alex. Like, see you later.
Okay. And he Jason becomes concerned because when he thinks back on like their exchange, he is like.
When I saw her, she seemed like kind of aggravated and unhinged.
And also I was already confused about why she was here and why she was going to see Alex if she was so pissed at him.
And he was like. quote unquote manipulative and why she hadn't mentioned it in their like discussions why she was there it's just weird So he bikes all the way to Alex's house and he wasn't sure what to do when he got there.
So he just started pacing back and forth outside the house.
He's like wicked stressed. He's like a lion.
Literally. He's like, I don't know what the fuck to do.
I'm just going to start pacing. So he's pacing outside of the house and then finally he goes in.
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And he says he remembers that Alex and Ezra both seemed like they were talking about something really intense.
And it seemed like when he walked in, they like put their masks on and they were like, nope, everything's good.
Like we weren't talking like we were just having like a crazy argument or talking about something like crazy.
Something shady. So then as he's trying to get to the bottom of this, like, what the fuck is going on?
The police show up. Oh, because somebody, a neighbor of Alex's had seen Jason pacing back and forth outside and they're like, who the fuck is this dude?
Like. They were like, yo, some lion man is just pacing outside of your house.
You better look at him. I'm concerned for my neighbor because he's got a lot of visitors that seem a little intense.
There's a lot going on over there. So Jason ends up speaking to one officer and another officer speaks to Alex and Ezra together.
So Alex and Ezra are talking to one guy, one officer, and Jason's separately talking to another.
Okay. Jason tells the police officer that he's speaking to that he's really worried about what's going on between Alex and Ezra.
He told them how Ezra's behavior was strange, how he was like, I don't really know what she's doing here.
And I'm just genuinely concerned about the two of them like being together right now.
Yeah. The other officer who ends up speaking with Alex and Ezra was pretty convinced that everything was fine and Honestly, there wasn't anything the police could really do.
No assault has happened. You can't go based off feeling that something is going to happen.
So they end up leaving and Jason talks to Ezra and Alex for a few more minutes and he's like well there's nothing I can do either like I gotta go.
So he ends up peacing out. So then Alex and Ezra decide that they're going to go for a drive together.
So Alex says goodbye. He or excuse me, Jason says goodbye to Alex and Ezra and they go on their drive. okay unfortunately that's the last time that jason saw alex alive oh so after jason left ezra and alex alive it's the last time he saw alex alive Oh, okay.
So after Jason left, Ezra and Alex go for their drive and then...
Later that day, it's Ezra who ends up on Don Sibyl's doorstep saying that she's been attacked.
So she's the girl from the beginning. Oh, that's what I was thinking.
I was like, wait a second. Oh, man. Intrigue.
Intrigue. So she says she's been attacked and eventually she ends up at the hospital to be treated for all these like crazy. stab wounds and the carving in her arm and shit they're obviously they're trying to evaluate what the fuck just happened to this girl So they're like, who attacked you?
Who attacked you? And she's like, I don't know.
I don't know. Like, I can't remember. And then all of a sudden her memory comes back to her and she says it was Alex Wardworth who attacked her. she says he took her to a remote and muddy road to attack her So then the police are like, okay, where's Alex?
And they go looking for Alex and he's nowhere to be found.
Oh no. Yeah. So the detectives go out to Don's house to try to talk to him.
But on the way there, they see like this muddy road and they're like, oh like that must have been the road that she's talking about because it's not so far and they like pull over they check it out and they see these footprints and remember she was barefoot when she showed up Oh, yeah.
So they kind of walk a little ways up the hill and they use binoculars and they end up seeing Ezra's car. and they see a body hanging out of the back seat of the car.
Holy shit. This is like a horror movie. It's literally terrifying.
So they realize there's the body hanging out of half in the car and half out of the car in the backseat.
And it turns out to be the body of Alex Woodworth.
And he's been stabbed 16 times. What? 16 times. the fuck so ezra has a lot to explain about what went down but she can't she can't remember anything between between like um Getting attacked and going to and going to Don's house and ending up in the hospital like that.
She only remembers like little tiny spurts.
Quote unquote. I am so intrigued by this.
Eventually, her memory comes back to her again, like it did when she was like, oh, it's Alex that attacked me.
She says they drove out there. And while they were driving, they were just like talking, shooting the shit.
And Alex finds this knife that was in her car, which also like that's a little bit weird.
Why should you have a knife hanging out in your car?
I mean, what? I mean, have a knife in your car.
That's fine. The next part's really weird.
She says that all of a sudden they're just chit chatting.
And she says, she says this so casually, like this is what people find themselves doing on road trips. that he just starts carving away at her arm with the knife oh yeah she's like yeah he just started carving into my arm just couple things you know You know, as friends, pals do on a good road trip on a good afternoon.
Yeah, it's like you play a little I Spy.
You play a little license plate bingo. And then you just start carving each other's flesh.
It's typical. Typical. So, that's... She says he carved the word boy into her arm because...
During their friendship slash relationship, he found out that she had struggled with gender identity when she was younger.
That's really fucked up. yeah i mean he used to call her boy into her arm for that like jesus well and she says throughout their relationship he used to like joke around with her and call her a boy and she was like I used to upset her because although she did struggle with who she was. when she was younger, like, trying to figure out which gender she identified with, she finally did settle on that she identified as a woman.
Yeah, and that's... So she was like, please don't use against somebody.
Yeah. So she says that's where that came from.
And she says that she told him she didn't identify that way anymore.
Like, please stop carving that into my arms.
Like, that's weird. What the fuck? And then somehow they end up in the back seat and Alex is straddling her and he's ripping at her clothes with the knife.
And she says she's terrified that he's just going to, quote, get what he wants or he's going to kill her.
So she says she grabs the knife from the jagged end of it.
And that's how she gets the cut that's on her hand.
And she just starts stabbing away at him and then she runs.
So what the fuck happened? There's a lot of issues with Ezra's story based on the evidence.
Yeah. One is the carving in her arm. Yeah.
So the carving is on her left arm and so is the wound from grabbing the knife during the attack.
The investigators do believe that Alex was driving, so if he had carved Ezra's arm, he would have been doing it upside down.
And this was like a very... This was very clear lettering.
And also you would assume that he... I guess would be doing it with his right hand upside.
It just it doesn't seem very likely that he's driving and then carving a word upside down into her arm.
So the word was like facing into her. Yes.
Exactly. Okay. That makes sense. So they were like, that's like, that's a lot to believe.
Yeah. I mean, is it possible? Sure. But is it totally pretty far out?
Yeah. Right. And then so that's one thing that they're like, that doesn't really make a lot of sense.
So. They question her a lot about this, and eventually she admits that Alex didn't carve that into her arm.
She did it herself. What the fuck? The other issue I had brought up is that the wound to her hand from grabbing the knife.
So I am going to post a picture of the knife.
It's like I'm not familiar on what kind of like different knives are called.
But this is a very jagged knife. It's almost like what we use when we have the pumpkin carving, if you picture that.
Yeah, like a serrated edge. Serrated, super serrated.
So had she grabbed this knife in a scuffle, her wound would have gone through multiple layers of her skin.
Oh, for sure. This was a ripped apart, ripped apart, like, like horribly gnarly wound.
This was a very superficial wound. Yeah, no.
Nope. And it's also... I mean, you can't really say this now, but then when you start to talk about things later, it is interesting that...
Most of the wounds that Ezra suffered are on the left side of her body, and a lot of them are very superficial.
And I'm assuming she's a righty. I was just going to say, and keep in mind that her right hand is her dominant hand.
Yep. Okay. Okay. Yeah, seeming a little fishy.
So they question her about the carving in her arm and she admits that she did that herself.
So before they get to why the fuck she did that herself.
Yeah, because it's like, okay, we'll explain now.
They're noticing, like I said, that a lot of the things are on her left side of her body.
So they're like, tell us more about what happened.
So she says... everything that happened went down inside the car but the other problem is most of the blood evidence like a lot of the blood that was lost in this fucking attack is outside of the car i was gonna ask that that doesn't make any sense nope sure um And this is, for me, the smoking gun.
The first wound that Alex suffered was a stab wound to the back of his head.
Oh, yeah. I mean, that tells you everything you need to know.
Everything you need to know. That's so fucked.
So fucked. He also... He didn't have very many defensive wounds at all, which points to the fact that he had been taken by surprise. yeah that he was like basically almost incapacitated right by being stabbed in the back of the head yeah Um, and that stab wound to the back of the head along with like all this other conflicting evidence painted a very different picture about what went down that afternoon.
What the fuck? Thank you. ezra's story has so many holes it's like the holes in this it's more than swiss cheese it's like holy holy holy holy shit what happened like don't write a screenplay girl So why did they end up in such a remote area?
Yeah. Why was this knife, by the way, had been taken from her father's home.
So why was it in her car all of a sudden?
And where's the first stab wound to Ezra?
Because she doesn't have any stab wounds.
She just has all these weird superficial cuts and carvings.
Huh. So she claims that they ended up in the backseat and she was so scared she was going to get hurt. or killed, but it's like you were never even stabbed.
Like, that's very strange. Yeah. Yeah. How did they end up in the backseat?
And why is the first stab wound to Alex in the back of his head? yeah and then my biggest question is if this if you were attacked at what point did you carve your own arm and why yeah that's that like i don't understand how that piece fits into this story and that's like very specific too like to to carve boy Right into your arm.
Like what? And it's like. If you were just attacked, wouldn't you just run away as fast as you were?
Especially because you don't know if the person who you supposedly have been attacked with, they could still be alive.
Yeah, absolutely. supposedly. And I wonder if Alex was facing out or in the car.
Like how his body was halfway in and halfway out?
I'm not totally sure because the... picture itself, it's blurred out.
They won't release the actual picture, but I think his head was in the car because that makes me think that she attacked him outside and he tried to jump into the car to get away from her So I'm actually happy you said that because I didn't write it down.
But I watched, there's a good 48 hours episode on this.
And that's exactly what the DA said. Oh, look at me.
That's her theory. Look at me in the DA.
The DA. Look at me in the DA. I'll bring her up a little bit later, too.
So... There's all these questions that we're going to get answers to at Ezra's trial.
Because after Alex's body is found in the car, like I said, having suffered 16 stab wounds, all this evidence leads to something a lot different. leads to something a lot different than what the police thought that they were really dealing with in the first place so ezra is arrested and she's tried for first degree intentional homicide So the prosecution answers a lot of the questions that we're left with and we're trying to answer right now.
And in my mind, their answers make the most sense.
Like this is very cut and dry once they get into it.
The prosecution argues that Ezra went to Alex's house that day, fully intending to kill him.
They argue that she went to his house after taking the knife from her dad's house.
She just quote unquote ran into Jason at the coffee shop where she knew he typically hung out.
And she tells him that she's going to be with Alex.
So that sets up her alibi already. Yeah.
Like, that's perfect. Um, and Ezra's life was literally falling apart because all she wanted was to get back together with Jason.
She was mad because she had an affair with Alex and she wanted to get rid of him.
And she was mad because he's the one that dropped these sexual assault charges. that were going to be happening to Jason's friend because Alex came forward and told the truth.
Yep. So that makes sense. So she this girl is a creative girl.
She's somebody who could paint. She could write.
She loves attention. So this was perfect.
This plan was perfect. for her she paints herself as the victim she writes herself back into jason's life and then she gets all this attention and sympathy for being attacked Holy shit.
So they say that she lured Alex out into this remote area, caught him by surprise by stabbing him in the back of the head. stabs him 16 times which i'm sorry like that clearly points to a crime of passion Yeah, because it's like if you really, because you listen to the number and you're like, holy shit, that's a lot.
But then if you actually take your hand and stab 16 times in the air, that's a lot.
Your arm is going to get so tired. And it's a lot of times.
It's like that's a lot of times to sit there and look at what you're doing and realize what you're doing.
And it's like the first one they were able to conclude was to his head.
And then he suffered a lot to his torso.
And his groin, which I'm, that's very, that's very sexual.
And that's very like, I, that's personal about you.
It's personal. That's personal. So, sorry, I lost my place.
So she stabbed him 16 times and district attorney.
Why can't I talk? District Attorney. The District Attorney.
District Attorney. Andrea Noldloff points out that Ezra most likely planned... Like, you were saying...
She and I personally think that Ezra planned on driving away, but she changed her plan when she realized that she couldn't pull Alex outside of the car.
Yeah. Because I don't think she had obviously accounted for him like trying to get in the car and get away from her.
No. And she's a tiny girl. Like I think. i'm not exactly how tall she was but she's like a pretty like small thin girl yeah and he was like a guy of regular statue so for her to pull him out would be hard I think this played right into her plant, too, of I can walk away barefoot, covered in mud and look even more victimized than I would if I drove away.
Exactly. But I do think that in the beginning she had the intention of leaving him out there and then this almost worked better for her, like you just said.
I don't know. It makes sense. But I wonder if he tried to get back in the car, but... died trying to get back in the car and ended up halfway in and halfway out of the car and maybe she had already planned on what I don't know It's hard.
Well, and that's like a very specific thing that's hard to tell.
Yeah, that's a hard one to figure out if she was planning.
Because I feel like it... she she gets a lot more sympathy with the walking away in the mud and barefoot and And it's just like the perfect dramatic craziness.
She then the prosecution argues that she then spent hours at the time at the crime scene tearing up her own clothes.
And the other thing is, it almost reminds me of the Lululemon murder because it's like she spent so much time making herself look like the victim.
But she didn't – all the cuts were so superficial, and a lot of times when somebody is doing something like that, they're, like, not cutting at their clothes and, like –
They're trying to make it look like they were attacked and their skin was cut through their clothes, but this person is just going for the clothes, not the skin underneath.
And it's like they're not sitting there cutting your clothes and not cutting you.
Just like up and down. It's just... It's like very like Freddy Krueger-esque.
Not convincing. Yeah. Doesn't make any sense.
So... She then spends time at the crime scene carving her own arm for some reason, which that's very psychological.
And this is a mini morbid, so I didn't look too much into that.
So bizarre. Yeah, it's very interesting.
And then she stayed there the whole time and...
None of Alex's wounds actually would have killed him.
None of them would have been fatal. So he could have survived.
Like, he absolutely had police or... first responders gotten there in time, he would have been saved.
But he blew it out. Yeah because Ezra went as far as to take his phone and smash it making sure that he couldn't call for help. so that's an evil woman evil bitch but listen she has an answer for all of this oh i'm sure she does If you see this girl on stand, so I got this because people wrote in and suggested it.
And I read one person's email and they were like, this girl's, like, apology and, like, the whole time she's on stand is probably one of the scariest things I've ever seen in my life.
Oh, I want to watch it. You gotta. I'll send you the link.
So now it's the defense's time to state their version of events.
First of all, so Jason gets brought up to testify, and Ezra... like loses her shit like she is like trying to adjust herself to like look like she's like excited to see him she's smirking at him she's absolutely obsessed with him she's like acting like she's so giddy And she obviously knew that he was going to be there to testify.
So she's dressed in a pink blazer, which...
The DA pointed out that they were trying to make her look like very meek and timid.
Oh, yeah. Like the little girl. That's not at all how she used to dress.
She also used to come into the throughout the whole entire trial.
She comes in with like a different hairstyle every day.
Oh, like her hair is like perfectly done one day.
Her hair is curly and she has bangs. So it's like one day it's all down and like perfectly like coiffed.
The next day it's in a ponytail. Like it's very, very planned.
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And also this next piece is planned.
So she... They ask Jason to identify her and he points at her and she's wearing the pink blazer.
So they're like, can you use an object to identify her?
And he's like, oh, right there in the pink blazer.
So then she adjusts the pink blazer to show that she's wearing a green sweater.
And you find out in the 48 hours that Jason had given her that green sweater while she was in the hospital.
What the fuck? After the attack. The quote unquote attack.
I. Am. Shooketh. So it's like. She's like not.
I don't think she's like taunting him. I think in her mind, like they're supposed to be together.
And she's like, look how much I love you.
But for him, like, it's a huge mindfuck.
I'm literally Googling it right now and I'm seeing these pictures and I am dead.
It's scary as shit. It's so scary. This girl is bonkers.
Bonkers. You have to watch the whole episode of the 48 hours because I was reeling the entire time.
Oh, I gots to. So, wow. So then they put Ezra on the stand.
And in my notes I go, big mistake. huge they should not have fucking put her on the stand because for one thing when they ask her to spell her name She is so fucking excited to spell her own name.
And she goes into this tale. Because her real name is not Ezra.
She was named Monica at first. I had a feeling Ezra was not her real name.
When I was looking at her, I was like, so this is a girl who... really, really wants to be like the hipster princess.
Oh, 100%. She definitely gave herself the name Ezra.
And throughout the documentary, they like... show all these like different pictures from her Instagram and she's like really trying hard to be like hipster girl oh yeah artist nobody gets me la-di-da-da yep We've all been there.
I used to try to be like that too. Didn't work out.
Never named myself Ezra though. So she goes into this story about how she changes her name from Monica to Ezra McCandless because she felt that it fit much better.
And I think McCandless is like, I think he might be like a song.
I think his name is like John McCandless and he's like a free spirit and like all this stuff.
Oh, okay. She was like, I'm a free spirit.
I'm a free spirit. She's stoked to talk about her name.
And then she says that her and Alex were driving and that her car got stuck in the mud.
And that's when this, like, whole anxiety thing started because, like, her car was stuck in the mud and she was so upset and she couldn't breathe because she was so anxious.
Because she's a frail, frail gal. She is, apparently.
So she then changes her story on the stand about grabbing the knife, which I...
I think her lawyer probably told her to do because she was like, yeah, it's like really clear that you didn't grab that knife because a lot more would have happened.
She's like, that story is really plainly bullshit, so you might want to change that.
This time on the stand, she doesn't say that she grabbed the knife.
She says that they're already in the backseat and she's like afraid for her life.
And that she knees Alex in the groin, which causes the knife to fall.
And then she cuts her hand, picking the knife back up.
So it's like not as aggressive. But it still doesn't make any fucking sense.
Yeah, still doesn't. Nope, not at all. So then they end up outside of the car.
So she the first when she was first telling investigators what happened, they were never outside of the car.
Everything went down inside. So now she has to account for all the blood outside of the car.
Of course. So she says they're outside of the car and she stabs him one more time, one more final time in the side before. running away with his phone so that she can call for help because she didn't have a cell phone of her own because... no she's a hipster goddess she doesn't need modern technology who cares i mean but yeah i'm really confused about how she had an instagram though i don't really understand how that worked So that's why she took his phone, she says.
And she says that it ends up smashed because when she was running away, she slips and falls because she's so destroyed. rot and it's so upset she like hurts her arm and then the phone gets smashed so that's how she says it got smashed this bitch has an answer for everything bullshit And then my main fucking question she tries to answer.
They're like, so why did you... She sits there and says she carved her own arm.
Like she finally admits that in the investigation.
So they have to explain that. They don't really explain it.
Her lawyer asks her, like, okay, so how did boy end up carved in your arm?
Like, why did you do that to yourself? And she says that it was a reaction to everything that had just happened.
I'm going to pause and let that sink in.
You were just attacked. No. And then you said you're so scared because you were running away.
So like you're so frantically running away that you end up smashing the phone that you were going to use to call for help.
So when did you then pause and carve boy into your arm?
What? She didn't? That is not what happened at all?
Right. She did that after she was already sure that Alex was dead.
And then she did that to make it look like he was like an abusive, horrible person.
The fact that she was like, that was my reaction.
It's like everything I had just gone through so much.
Oh, honey, no. That's not a reaction. That's not.
Nope. That's not a reaction. So that only leads to more questions, like I said.
Yeah. If you were so busy running away, then where did you get the time to do that?
But that's all she gives you. She doesn't really have much else to say because there really isn't a lot. of ways that you could come up with to defend that probably i would be like i have two questions for you how dare you and who do you think you are those are my final questions so you know how she like ended up with all this memory loss she didn't know what her fucking name was and all this other bullshit So she says after the attack, she experienced this memory loss and it felt like she was in a tunnel.
So she doesn't have answers for certain questions because.
How convenient. Very convenient memory loss.
She says she doesn't know what happened between killing Alex and the time that she ends up at Don's home.
But she does answer questions for some things that happened in between then.
But then when they're talking about this, she's like, oh, no, I can't remember.
I don't remember. Yeah. It's like, cool, go fuck yourself, Monica.
Cool, cool, cool. So the defense brings in Harvard, a Harvard psychologist who actually testifies that trauma can cause memory loss, which that's true.
Of course it can. but not the case here not the case here um so then that's basically the end of the defense's argument they're like you know that's what happened like self-defense like they end their whole defense fucking thing thing on self-defense like she they're still saying she was attacked and she had to do she had to stab somebody 16 times to get away Obviously.
Sorry, I don't buy that. No. So I think...
Ezra was basically a narcissist, and I really think that she believed that she could say she was attacked.
I really think she thought she was going to get away with the claim of self-defense and I think she at the end of this thought that her and Jason were going to get back together and live this happy little life. life oh 100 that was her goal and like i said like she was showing i think she was showing up to trial in these like cute little outfits and these cute hairstyles to one be like I'm so put together like I could never do this and it was also to impress Jason she knows Jason is there exactly that was definitely like that's like the ex-girlfriend you always are you always want to look good in front of your ex mm-hmm exactly you wanted to like look what you're missing and that was what she was doing and he's like i'm all set because you're a psycho murderer because you're a fucking murderer because i'm really afraid of you So it takes the jury three hours to come back with a verdict because, obviously.
Because, you know. because guilty and so guilty of intentional homicide is exactly what Ezra is and that's exactly what the jury decides guilty as charged guilty before her sentencing Ezra reads her apology to Alex's family.
I want to climb through the fucking laptop screen and strangle this girl when she does this.
Oh, this is gonna be bad. quote i want to say and she's fake crying the entire no tears are coming out of course at all the best kind of crying love that She says, I want to say how sorry I am that they have lost their son.
But sorry doesn't cut it in my mind. That word is not enough to show Nope, that word is not enough and never will be enough for this loss.
And then she makes it about herself. I love how she calls it a loss and says that you lost your son, not I took him from you.
Exactly. Like, what a piece of shit. So that's the first shit shit in this.
And then the second shit shit is she goes, I loved Alex very much.
And I also feel a great loss. Oh, I'm sure you do.
Well, maybe you could have changed the events then and not killed our fucking son.
Thank you. And she goes, and I am so sorry.
I said sorry wasn't enough. Cool that you made that about yourself.
You literally like said sorry to them and then you were like, but me too also.
But, like, I'm hurting, too. So, sorry. We're all hurting together.
And his father was probably like, I want to kill this kid.
Oh, yeah. I feel like I'm going to murder her.
Oh, my God. So the judge told her before he read her sentence that he didn't think her apology was sincere at all. and then he sentenced her to life in prison yeah bye Ezra so she'll have to serve at least 50 years before she's eligible for parole Bye, Bish.
Bye. And Alex's father says, this is the most noble thing ever because I give him so much credit.
He says he forgives Ezra because hate is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.
You know, I've heard that phrase before.
It is a really great phrase. It's true. I mean, it really does describe it really well.
But I think it takes a really big person to be able to do that.
So I give him a lot of credit. Oh, I give him more credit than I can even express because I don't know if I could get there.
No fucking way. And then Jason says that he thinks about Alex and Ezra all the time and that he wishes he could go back in time. he wishes he could go back in time and somehow fix this or poor jason he probably feels like he was right there right before it's really sad And he when him and Ezra were together, he thought that they were going to get married.
Like they referred to each other as like husband and wife. that's crazy and i love that she when she was at the um don was it the guy she went to his house Yep.
When she was, like, called Jason. It's like...
And you can hear it. You can hear it on the 911 call.
Like, that's what happened. So this was clearly all to get Jason back.
Oh my god. That is some serious pining. And it's like narcissistic as shit.
It's like... and you really the narcissistic delusional like you thought that all was gonna work When you think that you can murder a person and get somebody back in your life, you are so far gone.
Real far gone. Into the delusion pool. It's real scary.
Holy shit. So that is the case of Ezra McCandless, aka Monica.
I never heard of that. So thank you for doing that.
And thank you to our listeners for suggesting it.
I was going to say thank you to our listeners because I had never heard of it and I was just like flicking through the suggestions because I like to do that for many Morbids.
Me too. And I was like, whoa, got to do this one.
I love that our listeners give us suggestions because there have been so many things that I like I'll flick through them and I'll pick one and I'll just kind of start looking it up and I'm like what What the fuck?
I've never heard of this. There's so many.
And I love that everybody can kind of share that.
We can all share different cases with each other.
I like that too. Some of us haven't, you know what I mean?
It's fun to like share these things with our listeners.
And it's crazy that this happened in 2018 because I don't remember hearing about this at all.
I don't remember hearing it. And that's the thing.
It's like these things happen. And you just don't know.
And maybe like locally there'll be news, but like we don't hear about it.
You would think that that would be like bigger news though.
Like, you would think but like a lot of people hadn't heard about like katrina homer and stuff and that was like a woman found only half of her body like that should be huge news But it's weird what makes news and what doesn't.
There's a lot of things, too, that I can post for the Instagram that you're going to be like, oh, wow, that's wild.
That's amazing. So if you want to go check out our Instagram, you can go do that at Morbid Podcast.
Hit us up on Twitter. A Morbid Podcast. Send us a Gmail for a case suggestion or a listener tale or to tell us that you think we're cool.
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It sure doesn't. And Spotify rules. We hope you keep listening.
And we hope you keep it weird. Weird, but not so weird that you change your own name and you do some crazy shit and you try to get these people to fall in love with you and then they don't and you end up in jail.
And you carve a random word into your arm for no reason at all.
I can't explain it. And you say somebody else did it, which they didn't.
Yeah. And then he admitted that you did it.
You don't have any reason for it. It was a reaction.
Bye. Bye. Thank you. If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
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