The Untold Story of Ezra McCandless: Inside the Mind of a Killer
- jeannemahaffey
- Jun 20
- 17 min read
Ezra McCandless: Killer Girlfriend
Planning a murder is not as easy as movies show. Framing someone for sexual assault is not as simple as some incels claim. But Ezra McCandless believed herself to be a criminal mastermind of exceptional ability.
Ezra’s Teenage Mother and Name Changes
Ezra was born, Monica Kay, to a 14 year old mother on October 6th, 1997. She was raised in her grandmother’s house till her mother, Roselenna, married Joshane Karlen in 2001. Though the marriage only lasted 10 years, Joshane adopted Ezra and remained an involved dad.
Ezra started high school as Monica Karlen. During this time, she began to explore her gender expression. By the time she had settled on her pronouns and identity, she had renamed herself the more gender-neutral Ezra. She was known for being an artistic and nature-loving free spirit. She took the surname McCandless after Chris McCandless. He was the man the book and movie Into the Wild were based on.
Failure to Launch
After high school, Ezra briefly attended college to pursue a degree in Art and dropped out at the end of her first year. When her parents said she needed a job and help at home, she decided to couch surf and sleep in her car. Ezra wandered around until she found herself in the college town of Eaux Claire, WI. There, she had a cute meeting with Jason Mengel, 33, on a bench outside Recey D’Lene’s coffee shop.
Jason and Ezra in Love
One night in July 2017, Jason ended up stranded outside of Recey’s after he got a flat tire on his bike. Recey’s was closing. The nighttime barista, Alex Woodworth, kindly gave Jason some leftover coffee. It was in a to-go cup. Then, he locked the doors and told Jason to sit on the bench. Jason huffed a sigh, which caught the attention of the young lady he hadn’t noticed lying down on the bench next to his. Ezra popped up and asked him, “Well, what’s the matter?”. They went on to talk the night away for hours, exchanging Instagram info before saying their goodbyes. Jason and Ezra would go from texting on Insta to living together in a whirlwind of less than a month.
Jason and Ezra were very passionate about each other. However, problems in their relationship had been there from the start. Jason was a medic in the Army Reserves, requiring him to be away for weeks at a time. Ezra did not react well to the long separations. Jason was also critical of Ezra's affection for the men in their social circle.
On August 8th, 2017, Ezra was at The Joint with Jason. It is a bar near Recey’s. Ezra saw Alex Woodworth. He was not wearing his barista apron. Alex was sitting alone and writing in a journal. She was intrigued by seeing someone writing in a crowded bar and struck up a conversation. Alex recently graduated from the University of Wisconsin. He earned degrees in Biology and Philosophy. Now, he is ready to attend grad school for Philosophy at the University of Oregon. He worked as a barista and was a part-time philosophy teacher at a local high school. He also started a philosophy book club and tutored at the university. He was a gifted academic who spent almost all of his free time reading and writing about philosophy. The two got along well and conversed frequently. Jason pulled Ezra aside to tell her he felt uncomfortable with this. Ezra often said that Jason was being controlling. She felt he did not respect her humanity and independence. Jason backed off, leaving Ezra and Alex’s new relationship to develop.
Control and Betrayal
Ezra often told friends that Jason was controlling. However, Ezra also decided who Jason could see and when. She did not want Jason to hang out with people she didn’t approve of or who didn’t approve of her. Jason had a regular Monday hangout with friends to play Dungeons and Dragons. He tried to get Ezra involved so they could spend more time together. She gave up after one session. To keep Jason from going to these game nights, she would claim to be depressed and say she would harm herself if he left her alone. At the same time, her friendship with Alex Woodworth was deepening. Alex and Ezra spent a lot of time together. Soon, Alex became part of Ezra and Jason’s regular group of friends. Jason grew close to Alex and soon came to know him as a brilliant, caring, and selfless man.
In October, Ezra and Jason experienced a medical emergency. Ezra had been feeling sick with nausea and tiredness for weeks. Jason, who thought he might have given her mono, convinced her to visit urgent care. There, she found out that her mono was a pregnancy. With Jason’s support, Ezra decided to terminate. The only appointment they had was for October 6th, her 20th birthday. In the aftermath, Jason stated he was still deeply in love with her but felt emotionally shut down. The pair became less intimate, and Jason would spend nights on the couch.
By November, Jason said he needed to clear his mind and gain some perspective. So, he and his best friend went hiking in the Redwoods for a week. Ezra struggled with these separations. She used this time to deepen her relationship with Alex. The two began sleeping together.
As their relationship became sexual, Alex fell in love with her. He wrote about his feelings of longing and frustration in his journals. Even though she talked to Alex about leaving Jason for good, she always returned to Jason when he came back from his trips.
Things Fall Apart
By February 2018, Ezra had settled into a routine. He lived with Jason and his roommate, Alex Zink, when he was in town. During the six months Ezra lived with them, she worked at JoAnn Fabrics for only a couple of months. In one interview, Jason said that every time she gave him money, he had to return some of it to her. When he was out of town, she would leave the apartment to have sleepovers with Alex Woodworth and other men.
Things came to a head that February between Ezra and Alex Zink over the living situation. He had reached his limit. In later interviews, he said that while Jason was away that month, he told Ezra to help out or leave. Ezra chose to move out and also break up with Jason, which she did via text.
Life in Limbo
When Jason got back to town, he was sad that he and Ezra were no longer together. He began to create some distance. His friends and roommate discussed their concerns with him. They noticed that Ezra was out all night when he wasn’t around. They also saw how she and Alex Woodworth acted like a real couple when they were together.
The seeds had been planted, but Jason was still in love with Ezra. He saw her whenever Ezra needed to escape the tension at home with her mother. On those nights, he would get a hotel for them, and they would start to rekindle their relationship. One night in early March, Jason had doubts about Ezra and what his friends said. While Ezra showered, he decided to check her phone. What he found shocked him. He was ready to confirm his worst fears about Alex Woodworth. Instead, he learned that Ezra and his best friend, John Hanson, had been together since February.
Jason took photos of the phone screen in case Ezra tried to erase the texts afterward. Here are the transcripts of some of their texts:
[Feb 11th 2018]
John: Nice!
Ezra: It’s stressful looking for places so that would be nice to relive
Ezra: Working out agin dose really make you want to fuck everything that’s moved
Ezra: Might also be a predator
John: A body in motion wants to stay in motion
Ezra: Are you going to pound this anytime soon?
Ezra: Sorry I’m rudeJohn: Not this week. I have Warren. It’s alright to be blunt, just gotta be alright with it coming back your way.
Ezra: Just let me know when I can get my next In-N-Out. ;-) It would also be nice to hang out and do art again. You are more than just a good friend
Ezra: Aw that should be nice he’s such a cool kid
John: Why thank you. He is a good kid. I’m looking forward to spending some dad time with him.
Ezra: That melts my heart. I’d love to paint with him sometime
[February 12th 2018]
Ezra: Feeling like a snake today. What’s wriggling in your mind
John: I’ve been with Warren all day, my mind is pretty preoccupied.
Ezra: That’s understandable, dad time
[February 14th 2018]
Ezra: See something say nothing and drink to forget. Happy valentines
John: That’s beautiful Ezra. Happy Valentine’s
Ezra: I have a way with words John ahah
A Storm of Lies
Jason immediately confronted Ezra with the screenshots. Ezra began to spin a tale that the texts weren’t what they seemed. She wasn’t pursuing a consensual affair with his best friend; he had sexually assaulted her.
She said that on February 4th, she was hanging out with John and his roommate. They encouraged her to drink so much that she ended up throwing up. John took her upstairs to his bedroom. The last thing she remembered before blacking out was someone removing her tights. The next morning, she said she felt strange. After John took her back to Jason’s apartment, he assaulted her again in the bed she shared with Jason.
Jason then called John directly and asked him if he’d slept with Ezra. John denied the affair until Jason showed him the texts he found. Then, John admitted that they had slept together a few times and that it was consensual.
According to Jason, this was enough for him to doubt John, half-believe Ezra, and be confused. He spoke to another friend for advice on what to do next. His friend said that if Ezra was assaulted, she should report it to the police.
Ezra now faced a dilemma; she wanted Jason to believe her story, but she didn’t want to go to the police. She resisted his suggestion by saying that it had been too long and that there was no longer any evidence to support it. What was the point if there was nothing they could do? Jason wouldn’t drop it. He urged her to come forward. Even if it was to alert the police about a bad guy, her action could help save the next girl. And with nowhere else to turn, she agreed to meet with the police.
For over an hour, Ezra sat in an interrogation room with Det. Ryan Prock tearfully shared a convincing story. He talked about being assaulted and humiliated on the night of February 4th. Det. Prock was convinced enough to take her to victim services and investigate her claims.
Later, on the witness stand, Det. Prock explained that he could not get any text records from Ezra. She had deleted them all because they triggered her anxiety. When Dect. Prock interviewed John Hanson, John shared all his texts. These texts showed that Ezra cared more about their affair. They had tried BDSM and sent each other explicit photos. John had also respected Ezra’s boundaries. He then interviewed friends she said had spoken to about the ordeal and that they would back up her story. When he interviewed her friends, they revealed that she was happy when she talked about John Hanson. She was excited about their relationship. She enjoyed being close to him and had a great time with him and his son. They further revealed that she had never hinted at being assaulted or traumatized in any way. One person, though, did tell Det. Prock that Ezra had told him that she regretted the affair, even though it had been consensual. That person was Alex Woodworth.
Winning Back Jason
While the investigation into her assault continued, Jason took the stories about Ezra and Alex Woodworth more seriously. He eventually confronted Alex about sleeping with Ezra. Alex was honest with Jason and admitted that it happened and that he had real feelings for Ezra.
In this case, Ezra did not accuse Alex of assault. He probably wanted to avoid going to the authorities again. In her story, she told Jason that the sex was consensual. However, she said Alex took advantage of her when she was feeling emotionally weak.
Jason didn’t question her story about Alex, but he also asked for space. In later interviews, he said he felt confused and hurt. He was betrayed by two good friends. Many other friends noticed what was happening but kept it from him for months. He was also upset by all the lies Ezra had told during their whole relationship.
Ezra’s response was to confront Alex and tell him that she never wanted to see or hear from him ever again. Alex felt sad about the sudden end of their relationship. However, he did what she asked and left her alone. She still came into Recey’s, where he worked, often.
In Jason’s case, she started a campaign. She constantly texted him and called him. She even showed up in places he went to. She gave him many pages of journal entries. These entries were about her regrets for hurting him. She wrote about how she was working on herself. She wanted to reclaim the real Ezra and their “ancient love so powerful.” In her journals, she represented Alex as a repulsive pest:
“I never gave their number a name in my contacts. I looked at them and did not see beauty. I saw a red nose too big for a face. Their eyes looked dead. A brow jutted out from a large, round forehead. Their smile made me cringe. Pores and veins stood out on their pale, thin skin. It all felt like bugs crawling under my skin
This tactic started working for Ezra. Jason had begun taking her calls again, answering texts, and soon they were seeing each other in person again.
March 21st 2018
Throughout March 21st, Jason and Ezra exchanged 600 texts. The texts were not officially recorded. However, we know from Jason that most of them were Ezra helping him with his concerns about getting back together. Jason mainly struggled with the image of her sleeping with his friends. She encouraged him to let those thoughts go. She wanted him to think of happier things. She reminded him how John and Alex had been mean and cruel in their actions. She felt helpless to resist them.
Finally, she overplayed her narrative. She told Jason she was coming to Eau Claire the next day. She wanted to confront Alex. This was her chance to reclaim herself and find closure. Jason took great exception to the plan. In a later interview, he mentioned something important. He said that after hearing all she shared about Alex being a manipulative abuser, he was confused. He couldn't understand why she would want to be close to him. He told her to email Alex, or send a regular letter, anything but physically confront a monster. It didn’t make sense, either logically or emotionally. It brought back doubts about her honesty. His friends had told him how close Ezra and Alex were. They said she even called him her best friend.
Jason finished the long texts by saying he was done with Ezra. He didn’t want to hear from her unless he contacted her first.
March 22nd 2018
On the morning of March 22nd, Jason was surprised to see Ezra McCandless at Recey’s Coffee Shop. They had broken up, but that was not the only reason. He knew her car tags were expired. Her dad had told her not to drive until she fixed that. She had moved in with him after arguing with her mother about her job situation. She was unusually disheveled and not made up. She talked to Jason briefly. She said she was going to Alex’s place to share her thoughts. Then, she did something new. In the eight months they had been dating, she bought her own coffee and left a tip.
After she left the coffee shop, Jason couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. Ezra had seemed “fired up” to him, and although both she and Alex had betrayed him, he still cared about them both. He got on his bike and rode to Alex’s house. There, he saw Ezra’s car parked. The driver’s side door was open, and the engine was running. He paced outside the apartment building long enough to creep out some neighbors, who then called the police. Before the police arrived, Jason had gone inside and found Ezra and Alex in his bedroom, deep in conversation. The way he found them left him unsettled. In testimony, he said he’d come in and they were “oddly calm” and that they both looked like they were wearing masks. He said he told them he was worried and that he thought they should discuss it in a public venue if they were going to talk. The pair agreed, and they all left the apartment to find the police outside.
Jason told them why he had been pacing outside. He said nothing serious was happening. He just had a bad feeling about these two being alone together because of their troubled past. The police followed that up by briefly speaking to Ezra and Alex. They both said they were fine and that they’d agreed to Jason’s plan of going somewhere more public and neutral to talk. By 1 pm, the pair got into Ezra’s car with Ezra in the driver’s seat, and Alex was never seen alive again.
At 4 pm of that same day, Ezra knocked on the door of Don Sipple, an 89-year-old dairy farmer outside of Eau Claire. He found her at his back door, barefoot, mud-covered, and bloodied, with her clothes tattered. The old farmer let her in, gave her a blanket, and called 911. She said she was pretty sure that she had been attacked, but she couldn’t remember any of the details. She also claimed not to remember her name, but she did ask for Jason Mengel.
By 5pm, Ezra was taken to the hospita,l where she was checked out. Most of the blood she was covered in was not her own. She had shallow cuts on different parts of her body. Notably, there were cuts on her right palm, her thighs, and her left forearm. The word “boy” was carved into her left forearm. When she was settled into a room, she was interviewed by the same police officer, Det. Ryan Prock, to whom she had reported her sexual assault by John Hanson.
In the first interview with Det. Prock, Ezra said she didn't know how she got to Don Sipple’s farm. She also couldn't remember where Alex or her car was. She remembered leaving Alex’s place, and she remembered that at some point Alex had switched places with her and taken over driving. She was sure that something bad had happened. She talked a lot about her gut feelings. She felt anxious about events she could not remember. That night, Jason came to the hospital to see her. Everything was going well for Ezra. Jason thought Alex had attacked her. He also brought her a gift, a hunter green sweater. It would keep her warm in the cold hospital. He was well on his way to getting back together with her.
March 23rd, 2018
As soon as the sun came up on March 23rd, the police went back to Don’s farm. While searching the street near his home, they found a 4-inch serrated folding knife in a ditch. They also found a broken cell phone in pieces. Further up the street, they noticed footprints in the mud going up an unpaved farm access road. Just over the hill on that road, they found Ezra’s abandoned car. The back driver's seat door was open. Alex Woodworth's dead body hung halfway out of the backseat. Alex was cold and stiff with 16 stab wounds to his head, neck, sides, and groin.
By that afternoon, Det. Prock, armed with this knowledge, went to interview Ezra at the hospital again. The second interview went along much like the first. Ezra was repeating that all she could remember were vague feelings of anxiety and unease. Alex had taken over driving at some point. However, she couldn’t remember what happened to separate her from Alex and the vehicle. After the second telling of her vague recollections, Det. Prock confronted her with some of the discoveries they had made on that muddy road by Don Sipple’s farm. When they found Alex’s body and her car, they also found Ezra’s boots and footprints. This made Ezra suddenly remember everything.
Ezra said she was driving with Alex. They talked about Alex’s views on life. Ezra described these views as pessimistic and dark. She also mentioned that Alex needed to realize their affair had hurt others. She was unclear about when Alex took over driving. Her anxiety was so bad that she could not drive anymore. Part of her anxiety came from Alex misgendering her. When they were together, he often called her his boy. From there, Alex drove them out to a deserted country road. Once they arrived, they sat in the car. She tried to keep them focused on their problems. But Alex began talking again about how she was his boy. As he elaborated, he pulled out a knife and carved the word “boy” into her arm.
Ezra claimed to be in a state of confusion and that Alex had lured her out of the car and into the back seat with him. She then claimed he attempted to sexually assault her at knifepoint sexually. She said she was lying in the back, frozen as he cut away at her clothing. The next thing she knew, she was fighting for her life. She grabbed the knife from him with her bare hands. Then, she started stabbing him “anywhere and everywhere.” She fled the backseat, but Alex followed her out, and she was forced to keep stabbing him because he kept trying to grab her. The rest of her story moved between Alex lying on his coat outside her car and Ezra fading in and out of consciousness. Her anxiety grew so strong that she ran away and ended up at Don Sipple’s farm.
Caught
On April 9th, two weeks after Alex’s murder, Ezra McCandless was arrested for first-degree murder. In the weeks that followed, from May to June, her hearings started. The details of Alex’s murder became public. During this time, Jason Mengel finally broke away from Ezra. After the news of Alex’s body being found spread, Jason believed she had stabbed Alex in self-defense. However, when he saw the autopsy photos showing 16 stab wounds, he changed his mind. Alex had been stabbed in the head, neck, stomach, side, and groin. At that moment, Jason realized he could no longer convince himself that Ezra was helpless or a victim. The attack was too brutal to ignore.
The Trial
Ezra maintained her innocence, claiming self-defense, and in October of 2019, she went to trial. Her defense relied on the many personal and academic journals Alex had written over the years. He let Ezra read them during their relationship. Ezra took the stand to defend herself. Her defense team used parts of Alex’s journals and academic work. They told a story about a troubled young man. He was obsessed with bondage and cannibalism. He targeted a naive young woman. She was controlled and abused by her family and partners. Ezra was smart, charming, and clear when she spoke. However, her story and her effort to show Alex as a dark, immoral person did not hold up against the facts. The prosecution used testimony from Alex’s friends, family, and ex-girlfriends. They showed that Alex was a kind and gentle man. He was selfless to his loved ones. Although he had some depressive episodes, he had never been violent with anyone in his life. Ezra’s version of events did not match the physical facts enough to create reasonable doubt or prove self-defense. Ezra was known to be a skilled liar. She caused chaos in her social circles and was a master manipulator.
After a week of testimony, the jury took more than 3 hours to decide. They returned with a guilty verdict for first-degree murder. After the verdict and before sentencing, Ezra did not take responsibility for her actions. She even started a go-fund me campaign to pay for an appeal, but it was doomed to fail. The go-fund-me campaign raised less than $100 and went defunct in weeks. After emotional statements from Alex's family and friends, Ezra was sentenced to life in prison. Her family and cellmate also asked for leniency. She may be eligible for parole after 50 years.
Final Thoughts
Ezra McCandless seemed like an average quirky girl. People who know her would agree that she has a talent for art. She has a fun and interesting personality. She was a good friend until she stopped being one. She was a quirky girl-next-door. She loved sharing her unique interests just like she shared her struggles. That she would be a mooch and manipulative made sense. That she would cheat on her boyfriends made sense. Her accusations against men for sexual assault made sense. What defied sense was her going so far as to brutally murder an affair partner to get back with an ex. It was a terrifying escalation that no one saw coming. You could point to lies and manipulation, but she didn’t have a history of violence.
The world is safer with Ezra in prison for many years. However, it is scary to think there may be other Ezras out there. People you trust, admire, or even love may not be perfect. Yet, they can plan to commit terrible violence.
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