128: Twisted Hipster Love Triangle Ends in Blood Bath | Ezra McCandless
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Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. Recently, I asked Mint Mobile's legal team if big wireless companies are allowed to raise prices due to inflation. They said yes. And then when I asked if raising prices technically violates those onerous two-year contracts, they said, what the f*** are you talking about, you insane Hollywood a**hole?

So to recap, we're cutting the price of Mint Unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes in details. You described to me that yesterday you walked straight down a road and there was mud on you and not too far from Don's house we found a mud road. Well, we followed the mud road and we saw your footprints. Okay. Okay.

Why would we find your footprints on the mud? Hey, true crime besties. Welcome back to an all new episode of Serialistly.

Hey everybody, welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialistly. With me, Annie Elise, your true crime bestie. I'm fresh with a brand new haircut and color. I am ready to talk with you about today's case. It's a wild one. I've got my official Annie Elise, the math ain't mathin' Stanley tumbler because, well, it's not really a Stanley, it's a bootleg, but you get what I'm saying. But,

It's perfect because today in this case that we're talking about, the math really ain't mathin', guys. It is such a roller coaster and bizarre case that it's kind of almost like

If Amber Heard, if Sherry Papini, if Jodi Arias, if they all had one super psychopathic murderous baby, that would be the person we're talking about today. Honestly, it is one of the most wild, wild rides I've ever been on in terms of research, learning all of the details.

It's going to be a doozy. So whatever you're doing today, whether you're listening on your commute into work, listening as you're walking in the neighborhood, or maybe listening cleaning the house, whatever it is you're choosing to do, get ready because you are going to be

Enraged, and I hate this word, but I'm going to use it anyway. Flabbergasted. Why is that word so annoying? It really is, right? All right, so let's get right into it. So in Springbrook, Wisconsin, on March 22nd, 2018, a dairy farmer named Don Sipple heard somebody knocking at his front door. So he went to answer the door, and when he did, he saw a young woman standing there.

She was muddy and she was bloody and she was extremely dirty. Her clothing was also completely tattered and torn and she just looked like a complete fright, a complete mess when he saw her. She also had dripping blood from a wound that was on her arm. It was like somebody had carved the word boy into her flesh.

So the dairy farmer, just absolutely horrified, took one look at her, rushed her inside his house, and then immediately called 911. Now when the paramedics arrived on the scene, this woman claimed that she had no idea what happened or who attacked her. She said that everything had just been a total and complete blur. She didn't know where she was or how she had even gotten there. She didn't even remember her name. It was very, very bizarre.

So immediately, of course, she was rushed to the hospital so that she could get all of these injuries checked out. And at the hospital, officers then arrived to try to figure out what happened. But more, who on earth actually did this to this young woman?

But again, the woman said the exact same thing. She didn't know. Now, initially, police officers thought that maybe this woman was just having trouble remembering the details because everything she had gone through was so traumatic, but that eventually she would end up remembering more of the details later on. A few days later, they asked the woman to come to the police station.

She claimed that she must be having some type of amnesia. However, what the woman didn't know was that the police had located her car. And not only that, but they found a body inside of it. So the jig at this point was up. The police knew that everything that she had originally said was a complete lie. So now the question was, who was this fake damsel in distress?

Well, her name is Ezra McCandless. And much like a novel, I feel like I need to preface who she is before going any further. Because she might be one of the most complex, screwed up, and narcissistic people that we have ever discussed on this podcast. Which is honestly saying a lot because we have talked about some true monsters through and through. So let's get into Ezra.

Good morning, would you state your name and spell it for the record please? My name is Ezra McCandless. Okay, Ezra, I'm going to ask you to speak really clearly into the microphone because you're soft-spoken. Yes. So everybody can hear you. All right? All right. Ezra McCandless is an enigma in every sense of the word. Not only to most everybody she's ever known, but maybe even to herself.

Whether she'd ever admit it or not is a complete different story, though, and we're going to get into a little bit of that later on as we go. But for now, here's what we do know about Ezra. Roselena Gunnelson gave birth to a beautiful baby girl on October 6, 1997. Now, at the time, she was only 14 years old. She named her new baby girl Monica Kaye.

Monica's biological father was never in the picture. However, when Monica was just four years old, her mom's new husband, Joe Shane Carlin, legally adopted Monica. So now she had a new dad and a new name, Monica Carlin. Monica was four years old when all of this happened, as I mentioned. So she really considered Joe Shane to be her dad, and she never really knew anything otherwise. That was until her mom and dad divorced when she was 12 years old.

Monica grew up watching their tumultuous relationship, and she even felt like sometimes her childhood was chaotic. But again, this was her dad, so then even after the divorce happened, she continued to have a close relationship with him. But Monica did have a very strained relationship with her mother.

Maybe it was because her mom was a child at 14 years old who had a child and they essentially grew up together. Or maybe there were other things going on. But the one thing that she always told Monica was to never get pregnant young. That was always her motherly advice because she said to her that that would be the biggest mistake that she could ever make in her life.

She wasn't necessarily meaning that Monica was a mistake, but more than anything, she just didn't want Monica to go down that same road that she did. So later on during high school, Monica decided that she felt more comfortable being masculine and that that aligned with her true identity. At a certain point...

In your life, did you feel that being identified as female did not fit you? Yes. Okay. Why don't you explain how you view your gender? In high school, I found that I felt more comfortable being masculine. It was...

It was how I identified at the time was my alignment was very masculine. So that's when Monica decided to change her name, her full name, to Ezra McCandless. She said that she chose the name Ezra because she saw that name while she was on a family vacation once, and she thought that that name was beautiful and that it felt more gender neutral. Why Ezra McCandless? Why that name? Why Ezra McCandless? Well...

I have gone through a lot of changes in my life regarding identity and what really fits me. And I tried on a few names, but I found ultimately that Ezra fit perfectly for who I am. She changed her last name to McCandless, not because of anything family related, but because she was inspired by an individual named Christopher McCandless from a nonfiction book and film called Into the Wild.

and this man Christopher McCandless was known for his love of nature and philosophies of life just all sorts of beautiful aspirations and this was something that Ezra felt very in tune with and felt like she really related to him and she even thought that by changing her last name to this last name that it would be a way of honoring him in a sense so let me just say this for a while Ezra was going by male pronouns but

but today she leans more into her feminine identity, which we will get into. So that's why I've been using the female pronouns even though at the time she was identifying as male and for the sake of ease and understanding we'll continue using the female pronouns throughout. Now I'm fluid so I lean now more towards my femininity as a woman. Okay.

And has this fluidity been going on for a period of time? Yes, for a few years now. Okay. So after high school, Ezra then went to college.

But it turns out that she was more into the college partying than actually going to college and the educational part of college. At the time, her mom and dad were doing what they could to support her financially, but once she flunked out of school, they told her that they weren't going to continue to fund her lifestyle, especially if she wasn't going to hold up her end of the deal by actually applying herself and paying attention in school, doing the educational elements of college.

So they hoped that by doing this, it would make Ezra begin to take some type of responsibility or accountability for all of her actions, all of her laziness, and that maybe she would come home for a little while, get her life together, and then go back to college. But that isn't what happened. Not at all. Instead, in 2017, Ezra moved to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, where she morphed herself into someone completely different.

Somebody who was the stereotypical starving artist type, if you will. She had short, light brown hair, which sometimes looked almost dark blonde and sometimes almost looked a little bit red too.

She had blue eyes and she also wore glasses. She also had a few piercings, which just made her look a little bit more unique and artistic. So one of her art projects that she had was her car, where she had painted drawings all over on top of this entire vehicle. Just a truly creative like art mobile, if that even makes sense. But trying to paint the picture for you. No pun intended, guys. So what's interesting is that even though her parents were extremely supportive of her,

She told all of her friends that they were very harsh and very judgmental, and she even went as far as telling her friends that her parents didn't support her at all, and that she had no help from them whatsoever.

She portrayed herself as just this free-spirited hipster who could only rely on art as her future. I developed my interest in art when I was as young as five years old. I've always had an interest in art and I've been doing it since then. And I continued to have a passion for it throughout high school and even in secondary school when I decided to

take art and work for a professor of the arts and hang for a gallery. You see, Ezra was different, or at least she tried to be. In her own words, she describes places, people, and events in a very flowery language, where she meticulously romanticizes things as if they are scenes from some sort of indie movie that you had seen at a film festival like Cannes or Sundance or something like that.

And it almost reminds me in a way of Amber Heard and the way that Amber portrayed herself during the Johnny Depp defamation trial. Almost like this dark, lonely, tortured poet at heart who looks at the world through rose-colored glasses all the time but has also been jaded and secretly wants you to ask them about it, feels like they're the smartest person in the room and that's why they use all of this flowery language. Someone like that.

Ezra came across as somebody who had a very deep hunger for knowledge, who had a sense of belonging, and was very empathetic and intuitive. She wants you to know that she's different, she's deep, she's well-read, she's mysterious, she's quirky, she's all of the things.

And I think the term that the young Gen Z kids are using these days is called a pick-me girl. I've tried to wrap my mind around what that means myself, but I'm too millennial to understand it. But somebody who just wants to exude that they are different and everybody kind of take this deep-rooted interest in them. Now, I don't know if I'm dead on with the terminology of the pick-me girl or not. You tell me. I'm old. So anyways, back to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, where Ezra was now living. There was a coffee shop called...

called Racy Delane's, and it was called Racy's just for short, but it was a very hipster, cool vibes type of place. And naturally, that's exactly where Ezra went.

almost daily. But it wasn't just a place for her to make new friends and socialize. It also had Wi-Fi. You see, Ezra didn't have a cell phone, or at least one with a cell phone network plan. She used an iPod as her phone, and she used WhatsApp to call or text anybody, which needs to be connected to Wi-Fi in order to work.

So it was a little bit of a win-win for her. Before she moved to Eau Claire, she had been living with her mom and dad, on and off separately, of course, but still living with her parents. And she would stay at her friends' places here and there as well. She had a part-time seasonal job at a fabric store called Joanne's,

But she still made Racy's, the coffee shop, her go-to spot during the day. That was until she met somebody named Jason Mangle. Back in 2017, Jason was 33 years old and he was working as a National Guard medic and he was a regular at the Racy's coffee shop.

So Ezra ran into Jason one night when she was going out to Racy's after a music festival. Jason was outside smoking a cigarette and let out this really big sigh, and Ezra was curious why he was doing that, or why he was frustrated. Why the sigh? So she asked him, well, what's

What's the matter? And from there, they instantly began talking all night long. And after that, they exchanged information. But she didn't give him her WhatsApp number just yet. She only gave him her Instagram handle.

So the next day, Jason and Ezra began messaging back and forth, and they had what Ezra describes as a fun and flirtatious banter. And apparently, the chemistry and connection kind of just started immediately, and it led to the two of them hanging out. And after that, it was pretty much history. They fell in love with each other almost immediately, and Ezra moved into Jason's apartment in Eau Claire, an apartment that he shared with a few roommates.

So, was this too soon? I mean, absolutely. But Ezra didn't care. Throughout the beginning of their relationship, Ezra still was going to Racy's coffee shop anytime she could.

Like I said earlier, this was a place that almost felt like it was out of a movie. The regulars and the baristas all knew each other, and they're kind of like this massive yet tight-knit friend group, Jason included. Everybody goes there during the day, and even the baristas go there when they're not working on shift. It was just the it place to hang out. One night while at a bar called The Joint with some friends and Jason,

Ezra noticed a man sitting by himself and writing in a journal, almost frivolously writing something down, just kind of in a panic, kind of in a hurry. Ezra thought that he looked very focused on what he was writing, and that made her very, very curious. So she went up to him and she asked him what he was writing about. Well, I was, he caught me right away because I thought it was quite a peculiar subject, cannibalism.

and I was interested in what he meant, what I understood. He was speaking of it philosophically, and I also wanted his ideas and his concepts of literally cannibalism. So we talked back and forth about a few artists that have partaken in cannibalism that he mentioned. We spoke about the anxieties of and what it means for someone to consume another.

Yes, guys, he was writing about cannibalism. He was writing about the philosophies and the erotics of cannibalism. Almost reminds me a little bit of Armne Hamner, the Hollywood star who was under fire the last few years because of his interest in cannibalism with girls that he was dating. It wasn't in a Silence of the Lambs type of way. It was in like a I want to feel full of you kind of

Way gross as that sounds. But it kind of felt in line with what Alex was writing about as well. About the philosophies of it. The erotics of it. Which to each their own I guess. But this guy he wasn't exactly a random guy either. As I mentioned his name was Alex and he was one of Jason's friends.

Alex Woodworth was 23 years old, and Alex studied philosophy in college and was also a part-time substitute teacher. And he also had one more connection to this friend group. He was a part-time barista at Racy's. Alex was kind, he was caring, intelligent, empathetic, and he was truly the type of person that was always there for you.

Alex was no stranger to his own struggles with mental health, but even then, he made time to listen to others whenever they needed somebody to talk to, no matter what. So while working part-time as a substitute teacher and a barista, Alex was applying to graduate schools, and he hoped that one day he could become a philosophy professor. At that time, when we were deep in this discussion, he was...

he mostly talked about the philosophical sense and he also mentioned the fact that often individuals partook in cannibalism because it was in essence a consumption of one's power to take in another's flesh.

All right. Besides cannibalism, did you talk about other things with him that evening? Yes. All right. At some point, was your conversation interrupted by another person? It was. Who came over to interrupt your conversation? My boyfriend at the time, Jason, pulled me aside and he kind of interrupted our conversation. After Jason interrupted the two of them, Alex and Ezra went outside to smoke and they started talking about their love of spiders because they had both noticed that there was a spider sitting on the windowsill.

Their conversation that night ended up lasting around an hour. And afterward, they became friends. Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. At Mint Mobile, we like to do the opposite of what big wireless does. They charge you a lot. We charge you a little. So naturally, when they announced they'd be raising their prices due to inflation, we decided to deflate our prices due to not hating you.

That's right. We're cutting the price of Mint Unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes. See details. Now going back to Jason, Ezra felt like being with Jason was magical.

and even said that the connection that they shared was an ancient type of love. And Jason felt the same way too, at first. But over time, things here and there were starting to wear on him, and other things that Ezra said weren't really adding up. For example, when Ezra and Jason first started hanging out, Jason didn't remember if Ezra said that she was in her early 20s, or if he just assumed.

But ultimately, he believed that she was 23, somewhere around 23, so 23-ish. Later on, once they were already in this very serious relationship and living together at this point, he actually found out that she was just 19.

And remember, Jason was 33 years old. So Jason was confused and kind of felt like Ezra had somewhat lied to him or at the very least misrepresented herself because had he known that she was 19 years old, he certainly would not have been interested. However, at this point, they were already knee deep in this relationship.

So, he decided to just kind of look past it. Kind of like, hey, well, what can I do about it now? Also, Ezra told Jason that getting an apartment on her own was going to be too expensive and said that once she moved in, she would help him out with rent, but that she couldn't afford an apartment on her own. However, once she moved in, she never did help with rent.

Ezra said that she didn't make much money from her seasonal job at the fabric store, and that soon, maybe after some of her art pieces could make her some money, she could then help him with rent or split things more evenly. Except she didn't do that either. But still, Jason loved her, so he looked past this too. But then things really took a turn when Ezra found out that she was pregnant. This was just three months after she started dating Jason.

I was, I wasn't sure what to do at that time. I was scared. I was so young. I was confused as to really what to do. So I decided, I felt rushed. I decided to terminate the pregnancy.

When she and Jason discussed this, they both seemed to mutually agree that the best thing to do would be to terminate the pregnancy. They knew that they wanted to be together and maybe have children sometime in the future, but at this point, they still barely knew each other, and this was completely unexpected and unplanned. So that was the plan, and it just so happened that the next available date that the clinic had for Ezra to come in for a termination was on October 6th.

And that was also her 20th birthday, which I will just say that sounds like a pretty awful way to spend your birthday. Now, even though Ezra made the decision and ultimately went through with getting this termination, she had mixed emotions afterward, which isn't uncommon. Felt very empty after. I felt very... It hurt emotionally and physically, and it made me feel...

And that isn't where the termination aftermath ended either. It also significantly affected Ezra and Jason's relationship. Jason became very distant. He was mostly sleeping on the couch at this point, and Jason began rejecting any and all physical intimacy from Ezra. He wouldn't even hold her hand.

Not only that, but Jason's job required him to be on duty for the National Guard. So he had to go out of town for long periods of time and pretty frequently.

Before, there was still that feeling of excitement when Jason would be back home. I mean, they were still pretty much in that honeymoon phase, but not anymore. Instead, now Jason being away was a perfect storm that allowed them to drift even further apart from one another. There were also some other things that bothered Ezra too. Jason was making her physically uncomfortable.

He never actually hit her or was physically abusive, but he would move very erratically. He would throw things or break things all on purpose. He would also accuse her of very bizarre things, like purposely losing his Sharpie marker. Ezra said that Jason called her stupid, said that she always lost things, and that she should have known better than to touch his stuff. So Ezra started telling some of her friends about what she was going through.

and how Jason was trying to really micromanage and control her and how he would try to tell her that her makeup looked awful and that she shouldn't do it like that because it made her look like a clown, different things like that. She also felt like he was picking on her weight, even though at the time she only weighed about 110 to 115 pounds, but apparently he just really found anything, no matter how small, and he would just pick on her about it.

Now, a lot of this behavior really mimicked some of the behavior that she had witnessed between her mom and dad before they got a divorce.

So this was very triggering for her, almost like reliving a trauma of sorts. And now, on top of her feelings about the termination and her relationship going completely sideways, she needed somebody to talk to, somebody to vent to, somebody who would understand her. And that person was Alex Woodworth. Which I just want to sidebar for a second here, guys.

Jason had actually encouraged Ezra and Alex to become friends or for them to talk because he felt like Alex was also a very deep person that struggled with some issues. So he felt like they could lean on each other in a type of way. Alex and I, we began, he would notice me at the coffee shop and I would notice him more. And we started going on long walks with each other after he would close.

Alex and I, we talked about life itself. I would talk about nature and how I viewed things. And then Alex would talk about how he would view things and his philosophies and his ramblings, as he would say, and things.

Often I was kind of the yin to his yang because a lot of his philosophies countered mine because mine are very in the sunlight, in the sunshine, and his are very much so a rainy day philosophy.

Yes, she believed she was the positive light, the yin to his yang. When they would hang out, they usually discussed Alex's journal and whatever topic he had written about. And they would also have these philosophical discussions with each other, again, about cannibalism. Ezra felt like philosophy was a vessel for Alex, a vessel for him to work through his pain. And that is a direct quote.

Well, as I'm sure you can imagine, not long after, Ezra and Alex's friendship turned into something more. Alex and I started slow. We held hands, we hugged, and we shared a few kisses, and then eventually we became partners. Were you still living with Jason during this time? Yes.

And when she says that they became partners, she was referring to sexual partners. And once the sexual element came into the mix, Alex started journaling about his philosophies about sex, about the world, and he even started talking about nihilism. He talks about Caputo, Abraham, and God. Yes. And the Abrahamic...

story of Isaac and sacrifice. Is that what that relates to? Yes, it does. Okay. He was very fond of that book. It was a staple in his reading and his philosophies. Okay. One of the things that Alex constantly wrote about in his journals was wanting to find poetics of erotics. That's a direct quote. Ezra said that he wanted to explore all aspects of erotics. He

He also wrote about his frustrations with the fact that Ezra was in a relationship with Jason, and he shared this with her. Now here is Ezra reading one of the passages that Alex wrote about her. "If I do not risk myself, I reveal the desire to possess. I am seducing, not loving."

"If I do not invite you to risk yourself, "I become the ethical fool, the willing sacrifice. "I am committed, but to someone who doesn't love me." We had this discussion, as we did in many of our discussions about that I was still in a relationship essentially with Jason. So he felt that because I was still in that relationship, I was not fully committed to just him. What he's saying there is that

It's hard to bear yourself to someone completely, to be vulnerable. He asked me to be vulnerable with him, to essentially come to him flaws and all. And I've often struggled bearing my flaws easily and openly. So it was this discussion in this essay we read together was about how I was

and trying to bear myself to him and as he was asking because he bared himself to me that I should do the same. It's at that time we were becoming intimate, yes. We were very much so falling in love at that time.

So at this point, Ezra and Alex were truly falling in love. They were discussing these obscure philosophies and having these very in-depth discussions about them. They spoke about cannibalism often and what it would actually mean to eat somebody in the sense that you would have a part of them forever inside of you. It was very deep, but also pretty disturbing, if I'm going to be honest. At that time, it was becoming...

very intimate is how I can describe it. We at that time had become sexual partners and we were sharing with each other a lot of ourselves. Alongside my obsession with erotics, I am possessed to write about misery, the failing of happy consciousness. In all honesty, suffering is among my greatest interests.

I am in love with the feminology of illness, both mental and physical, but also with the sub-pathological suffering. The plight of a guilty woman who is sexually promiscuous interests me as much as those with cancer, depression, and dysphoria. Because you are dead to me, this love fails to be truly erotic now.

though it may have been. Instead, we are speaking of cannibalism. Did he continue to have these discussions with you about cannibalism beyond writing about them? All of the time, yes. What would he... Did his expressions or his talks about cannibalism...

go beyond the esoteric or the philosophical from what you heard from him? - Yes, it went beyond philosophy at points when we would discuss erotics of cannibalism. And cannibalism in the sense of individuals in history and through the past and even artists who have partaken in cannibalism because of their ultimate desire to consume that individual

to consume that individual's power, or to consume that individual so that that person they had loved would never leave them. We specifically spoke of individuals, lovers, that partook in cannibalism, and he consumed his partner so that, in essence, by consuming his partner, eating him, because he was passed away, he was never away from him. He had...

Absorbed his essence. Distract me is dehumanizing, unhuman. It is the request of a mind to flesh. It is cannibalism. The words haunt me, confirming that you had died to me. I was lift with a revenant. A facsimile? A facsimile? A facsimile?

of a person who spoke of a warm caress while offering a vampire touch. Discussion. Can you explain what a revenant or not what it is necessarily, but what Alex said a revenant was? Yes, we often talked about a revenant. When we would speak of a revenant or a revenant, we would discuss how...

Essentially, what a revenant is, is an individual come back from the dead, a specter or a ghost of sorts. They have come back to do unfinished business, or it is called retribution, or unfinished business, essentially, is what a revenant comes back for.

It was a topic we often talked about because he would tell me he considered himself a revenant. I know now that you wanted to change me and be changed by me. You asked for...

Okay, let's stop there. When he says, "I saw cannibalism," when you asked to be seen erratically, do you know what he's writing about? Yes.

- When I discussed this with Alex, he was speaking of, he was taking the other person in, he was consuming them wholly. Where they wanted to be seen erotically, lovingly, he was seeing them as something to take in, to possess. - Did Alex tell you whether or not that reference was about you?

Yes. He told me that it was in reference of me because of parallels of someone he was with in the past. Whenever they weren't talking about erotics and cannibalism, Ezra and Alex started to try other things sexually too. Now, in doing all of this, Alex knew about Ezra's past and that at one time, Ezra had been feeling more masculine.

So one of his nicknames for Ezra was boy. And specifically, he liked to say that she was his boy. You see, he preferred her to be more masculine. And he had even told her that she was more confident and that he was more attracted to her when she was that way. His pet names for me mostly were his lamb. He would call me his son, as in S-U-N. And Ezra.

lamb, son, and his goon at times. As we were intimate, he would tell me, and as he would call me his lamb, he would use it in the holy sacrificial way as the lamb of Christ or the lamb of God. He would tell me I was his holy sacrifice. I was his lamb.

Did that have a specific reference, his lamb, in relationship to what's shown on the cover of the Kierkegaard book? Did he say that to you? Yes, we discussed this deeply. The sacrifice that, or what is shown on the book is the story of Abraham and his struggle as he was called to sacrifice himself

his son, which he had an ultimate love for. And he would discuss to me the beauty and everything that was in the lines and in between the lines for him for that novel, as he would read it to me during intercourse. As he would say to me that Abraham, the sacrifice of the son is a sacrifice to God, the holiness of it.

And he considered me his lamb, his holy sacrifice, and all of the love in that and the sacrifice of not wanting to give that up. He also used the word son, S-U-N. Was he referring to anything specific when he told you you were his son? Yes, he had a pet name for...

I know this is embarrassing. This is embarrassing for me. It's in reference to my vagina. The sun, the blaze, the warmth. He would often talk about how my intimate area was his son.

During November and December of 2017, Alex discussed with Ezra the desire to take what you want and do what you will. And this was when things took a turn sexually. Can you tell us some of the, and I know it's very intimate, but some of the details of your sexuality or the sexuality or sex between you and Alex Woodworth?

Alex and I, when we began our relationship, sex was very vanilla, I can say. What does vanilla mean? Just in case people haven't heard that expression. What vanilla means is that it was your average sex. It was missionary. You're what a lot of people would describe as normal sex. I encouraged him to explore himself and things he might want.

And he started, we started practicing and doing these new things that he wanted to express himself. First of all, in terms of sexual position, was there a preferred sexual position from Alex's, that Alex told you he preferred? Yes. What was that? It was called prone, as he informed me. And...

Were you face to face during sex? No, rarely. What position were you in? From behind is what you can call it. He would often express this desire for it. And were there objects he would use that impaired your sight at all?

Yes, he preferred to have my glasses off and he enjoyed to blindfold me. Was there anything specific about lightness versus darkness?

Yes, he liked it to be either soft light, a candle, or he preferred it to be absolutely dark. He enjoyed kind of the mystery of it all in the dark. How did you feel about that? I thought it was interesting and exciting, and I also felt I am very visually impaired without my glasses, so I get a little uncomfortable at times without them.

Eventually, they started doing more BDSM things together while Alex was the dominant and Ezra was the submissive. But during this, Ezra was apparently uncomfortable that Alex didn't want her to have a safe word, but she went along with it anyway. Now, when you are getting into BDSM activity or any type of sexual activity where somebody is a dominant and somebody is a submissive, it is extremely important that you have a safe word. Experiment with whatever you want.

fly your flag however you want it to go but it is very crucial that there be a safe word in place in case there is something that is too painful in case somebody becomes uncomfortable and wants to stop whatever the act is for whatever reason whether it's role-playing whether it's something else it's so important that there is that safe word in play but apparently Alex was very discouraging of that

But Ezra cared for him. Ezra felt like she loved him, so she went along with it, and they continued with how to say Ford. Things also started escalating in a way because they started experimenting with wax play. And this is when you use a candle or wax substance of some sort, and you drip it or drain it onto the submissive. And...

It can be very painful. It can apparently feel nice to some, but it also can be incredibly painful. Now wax apparently wasn't, I don't want to say severe enough for Alex, but maybe it wasn't the pinnacle of like...

sexual peak for him because according to Ezra sometimes Alex would also bring objects like knives into sex he never would cut her during sex but instead he would cut her pants off and then he would use that knife to graze her skin

Eventually during sex, Alex would put Ezra into a chokehold type position, which she let him do because she felt like it was okay for him to explore and express himself. But she wasn't always comfortable with this, since Alex didn't want her having that safe word. Also, there were many times when they were having sex when Alex would either read his philosophies from his journals or from his books out loud. Like,

like during sex, he would recite these things that he had written down, again, to each their own. I just personally would find that a little bit strange. "Susurrum Kierkegaard: Fear and Trembling." "Um, this particular book..." "We discussed it often, and we discussed it the most during very intimate moments of our relationship."

This book was the book he would read from as we were having sex and he would read passages from this book. All right, guys. Now maybe I'm just old or maybe I am just vanilla. And again, no judgment to anybody. I mean, anybody who has a more spicy life, like hats off to you. But when I was researching this case, my mind was literally blown at this point and my jaw was on the ground. I was like, what? What?

people actually do this it's not just a novel like 50 shades which I feel like 50 shades is actually pretty mild in comparison actually I mean again to each their own I was just kind of like oh I felt like I needed to button up my cardigan or something I've been I've I consider myself pretty edgy I've got the tattoos I have a life experience certainly but like even I was kind of jolted by this guy's

I mean, by all means, knock yourself out, do whatever you want. But I'm telling you right now, if someone started reading Danish philosophy from the 1800s to me about existentialism, all of these things during sex,

I don't think that I personally would have quite the same reaction that Ezra did. But maybe that's just me and maybe I need to ask my husband to start reciting some of that to me. I mean, again, to each their own, but I just had to pause here in case you guys were feeling like your brain was exploding a little bit too because you are not alone. Now, meanwhile, as all of this is going down and there is this very serious, very, very serious connection forming and building between Ezra and Alex,

Hello? Jason was still very much Ezra's boyfriend, and he had no clue that any of this was going on. Which, let me actually walk that back a little bit here. He didn't know that something was going on because he couldn't prove it. During their relationship, Jason did confront Ezra about how he was feeling uncomfortable with the way that she was interacting with Alex, and also with some of his guy friends.

But instead, Ezra told him that she treats all of her friends, guys or girls, the exact same way. And she kind of gaslit him in a way as well by saying, you know, if you're feeling insecure or thinking that I would cheat on you, which I would never do, maybe it's just your own issues and you're just projecting them onto me. I mean, it was the literal term and definition of gaslighting.

All the while, Alex and Ezra were texting each other things like, I like your butt. I like your dick. I know. I love how I feel inside of you. But yeah, how dare you ever insinuate that I would cheat on you? I mean, it is...

Kind of bananas, right? Now, while all of this was going on, it was also around the holidays, and Alex wasn't doing well mentally. He didn't understand why, if what he and Ezra had was real love, why she was still with Jason and why she wasn't with him. And Alex told Ezra that if she didn't leave Jason, he was going to take his own life. Then, one night, Ezra found out that Alex did slit his wrists.

So she called Jason, since he was a medic, to help bandage Alex up.

Now, despite knowing how much Alex was hurting, Ezra never left Jason. She continued her relationship with Alex. And get this, guys. Alex was not the only guy that Ezra was into besides Jason. And it was about to be a full-blown chaotic hellfest that was going to unleash. And we are going to get into all of those details as soon as we take a quick break and have a word from today's sponsor.

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Okay, so now we're at the point where Alex is telling Ezra, hey, you've got to leave Jason, otherwise I'm going to take my own life. And he even attempts to at one point by slitting his wrists. But Ezra doesn't leave Jason, even knowing how badly Alex is hurting. And in fact, she was seeing a couple people and had interest in a couple people, not just Jason and Alex. One of Jason's other friends named John was somebody else that Ezra had her eye on.

While Jason was on duty and out of town, and Ezra was living, you know, rent-free in his apartment, she set her sights on John. John and Jason were extremely close also. They were friends for more than four years at that point. They had met back years ago in a Dungeons and Dragons group.

Ezra and Jon knew each other, but there were times where Jason felt like Ezra didn't want him to go hang out with that group of friends to go and play Dungeons & Dragons. And Jason didn't know why exactly. But whenever he would get ready to go out and to go and do that, Ezra would throw these tantrums and she would threaten to take her own life. A couple of months later, things between Ezra and Jason took a dramatic turn. So now we are in February of 2018.

Jason had to go out of town for a few weeks, and while he was away, there was a night when Ezra went drinking with their friends from Racy's, the coffee shop, and everyone then came back to Jason's apartment afterward. Later that night, Ezra and John had sex.

Ezra told John that she wanted him to do it similarly to how Alex did it, without the philosophy, without the knife, without the wax, but she did want the BDSM element, where he was holding her neck.

After this, Ezra and John continued flirting throughout text messages. Now I'm going to read you one of their exchanges just to paint the picture of what the dynamic truly was between the two of them. So to start this thread, Ezra texted John.

Ezra, working out again really does make you want to fuck everything that's moved. Might also be a predator. John, a body in motion wants to stay in motion. Ezra, are you going to pound this anytime soon? Sorry, I'm rude. John, with it coming back your way.

I mean, definitely straight to the point, right? But Ezra was definitely playing with fire.

i honestly don't know what she was thinking now of course i'm not condoning cheating in any way but the fact that she even thought that she could get away with this in such a intertwined friend group is absolutely crazy i mean it's not even a love triangle at this point it's a love square

She has Alex, who she is arguably in a more serious relationship at that point than she is even with Jason. I mean, they're telling each other that they love each other the whole nine yards, and Alex wants her to break up with Jason so that they can be together.

Then you have Jason, who thinks that Ezra and Alex are just friends. I mean, after all, he pushed them to be friends in the first place. And now you have Ezra with John. I mean, it's just a lot. It's almost like you need a flowchart to make sense of it. So while Jason was out of town, Ezra continued to act like nothing was going on. But then one day, she randomly texted Jason and told him she was moving out.

Jason was confused and didn't know why she was doing this or if something had happened. Ezra told him that she was planning to move back into her mom's house, but she would probably bounce between her mom and her dad's house. So when Jason got back into town, he still deeply cared for Ezra, and he didn't know exactly why she moved out to begin with. And he was still there for her when things once again got tumultuous at home and Ezra needed somewhere to go.

Except now, Jason's roommates told him, like, look, this girl is kind of shady. We've seen multiple red flags, and we think she's lying a lot. Nothing is adding up with her, that kind of thing. They told Jason they didn't want Ezra around their apartment at all anymore.

So instead, since Jason wasn't able to bring Ezra to his apartment, Jason bought hotels for Ezra here and there whenever she needed to get away, and Jason would stay the night with her whenever this happened. Then one night, in early March, on one of these visits, after Ezra fell asleep, Jason decided to go through her phone, and that is when he found all of the text messages between her and John. He was dead.

I mean, bamboozled, mindfucked, hurt. It hit him like a ton of bricks. He had suspicions, sure, but nothing like this.

So he took screenshots on Ezra's phone of the messages and then he sent those screenshots to himself. Now can we just pause here for a second and give him some like mad props because that is exactly what he should have done. Now it can't get deleted from his phone and it's not something that Ezra can argue away or try to gaslight him into thinking that he read something that he didn't.

It was brilliant. I mean, chef's kiss perfection. I've been in those moments where I've caught somebody cheating through their phone and I didn't unfortunately think as quickly on my feet and it allowed for things to get erased, wiped,

me to be gaslit into thinking something was a different reality, so I mean, well done, Jason, well done. Now, when he confronted Ezra about this, she first tried to deny it and say that it wasn't what he thought, but ultimately, she admitted it once she realized that he had seen the text messages and realized she couldn't lie her way out of this one.

She told him that it happened when they were still together back on February 4th and also February 5th. And that was before she randomly moved out in the middle of February. But even then, she still said that it wasn't how it seemed. She told Jason that John actually raped her. She said that on the night that everybody was partying, she was so drunk and just throwing up and that there is no way that she could have consented to that.

She said that she laid down in bed and that she felt somebody pulling her tights down. When she woke up, she knew that she had sex because she felt different. But Ezra said that she blacked out and she couldn't really remember and that this had all happened on the night of the 4th. Then, Ezra's explanation for when it happened on the 5th of February, the very next day, she said that it was when her and John went inside Jason's apartment.

and that John straight up pushed himself onto her on Jason's bed, and that this was more of a blatant assault. But what's really interesting here is that that text message conversation between Ezra and John took place on February 11th, a week after these alleged assaults.

But Jason, God love him, somehow kind of believed what she was telling him, and he went to confront John. Now, at first, John denied that they had sex, period. Not at all. But then, when Jason told him that Ezra admitted it and said that it actually was not consensual, John owned up to him. But instead, he said, no, this was absolutely not rape. Not whatsoever. And it was actually Ezra who was pursuing him.

So Jason felt confused, and he didn't know who or what to believe at this point. While confronting John at Bracey's coffee shop, he also decided to confront Alex. Now at this point, Jason hadn't seen the text messages between Alex and Ezra, but he still felt like something might have been going on, so why not shoot your shot and try to confront them and see if you can get the truth?

So Jason and Alex went outside to smoke, and Jason told him how he really liked him, really respected him, and he didn't understand why this was all happening. Basically outright asking him and accusing him of something going on between him and Ezra. Alex apologized to Jason and said that he should have been honest with him a long time ago, but the truth was he was in love with Ezra, and she was in love with him, and he thought that they could be together.

So then Jason confronted Ezra. And since she was literally caught, she admitted that they had started a relationship back in November of 2017. And that was the very first night that she and Alex had sex. And that was one month after the termination. However, Ezra once again spun the details of why this happened, who was responsible, how this happened.

She said that she was lonely and she was sad and she was so depressed after the termination. Also, the fact that Jason was away all the time. And she said that Alex knew how vulnerable she was and that he tried to take advantage of her weakness by basically tricking her into having sex.

So she said, this really isn't my fault at all. He tricked me into this. I was vulnerable. I was weak. And because of you, because you made me get the termination, because you were traveling all the time. Again, trying to make it as though this is Jason's fault, that her actions, her behavior,

There's no accountability. She's trying to make it as though it's his fault. And to make it even worse, she also told Jason that things went way too fast with Alex. And she mentioned some of the things that they did sexually, the things that she wasn't really comfortable with. She said that there were times that he was aggressive and would throw a tantrum almost, but still said that he never raped her.

So Jason was of course extremely distraught, hurt, disappointed, and just felt so confused by all of this.

Despite what Alex, John, and Ezra had done, these were all extremely close relationships, and he didn't know what to do or who to believe at this point. He wanted to believe Ezra, he still loved her, but at the same time, he couldn't deny what was so glaringly obvious and right in front of him. He also didn't know what to do with the fact that Ezra was still continuing to say that things that had happened with John weren't consensual.

So finally, he said something to the extent of, I mean, if you were raped, you should probably go to the police and report it. Maybe nothing will come of it, but at least if he does do this in the future to another girl, the police will have it documented in their system. That kind of thing. Trying to say like, you know, I don't know what to believe, but if it did happen, you should probably just go to the police and help any future victims if that is the case.

So what did Ezra do? She went to the police and she falsely accused John of raping her, which is honestly so beyond messed up. To falsely accuse someone of a crime like that, knowingly, but also to actual victims. It is so sick and just completely disgusting.

Callous and unhinged. But did that matter to Ezra? Of course not. Because even though she had moved out of Jason's house, she still wanted to be with him. And now her relationship with Jason was hanging by a thread. She needed to repair it. She needed to save it. She would do anything to keep him, regardless of the magnitude of her actions.

Ezra also blamed Alex for causing her and Jason's breakup, and she sent Alex a text message on February 24th telling him to never talk to her again.

Now, luckily for John, Ezra's own text messages that Jason now had proved that her claims were completely baseless, and the investigation into what Ezra claimed was closed. So as I said, Racy's That Coffee Shop was a very tight-knit group, and it wasn't long until everybody knew about the blowout between Jason and Ezra. They knew about her relationship with Alex, and also what she had tried to do to John.

Alex was very well liked, so people were starting to see Ezra for who she actually was. Somebody who selfishly toyed with men's emotions and falsely accused someone of rape all because she got caught for cheating. People were talking, and it wasn't good.

But for Ezra to have people talking negatively about her and not believing her, this was a serious issue. She hated it, guys. At one point, somebody even anonymously wrote on the bathroom wall at Reese's, fuck me, along with Ezra's WhatsApp number.

Jason saw this and he knew that it was going to be very upsetting to Ezra, so he covered it up for her. So after all of this, Ezra laid low for a little bit. She was back at home, but continued talking with Jason on a daily basis. She told him that she was going to therapy and started to journal how she felt as part of her therapy, and she also said that she really wanted to get her voice back.

However, a week later, Jason had been drinking at the bar. And while he was there, he found out even more information about Alex and Ezra's relationship. And this information deeply upset him. So Jason and Ezra talked on the phone. And this is when he finally told her, look, I am sick of this shit. And he hung up on her.

That night, Jason received a letter from one of his roommate's girlfriends. The letter was written by Ezra, and she asked the girlfriend to give it to Jason on behalf of her, since he was so angry with her. A few days later, on March 22, 2018, Jason and Ezra spoke on the phone again. Now, at this point, Jason was just checking in on Ezra to make sure that she was doing all right, because that's the kind of guy that he was, despite everything that Ezra had done to him.

Jason said that he was planning on going to the laundromat to do some laundry, but then he might hit up Racy's, the coffee shop. At the time, Ezra was at her dad's house in Stanley, and she told Jason that she didn't have any plans to go to Eau Claire because her car tags were expired, and if she got pulled over, her dad would be really upset with her. So then, as you can imagine, later that day, Jason was extremely surprised when Ezra showed up at Racy's.

Jason was sitting on the bench outside smoking with a few other regulars and was more confused than anything. Because Ezra had just told him that she literally had no plans of even going to Eau Claire. Meanwhile, Ezra went inside, got a coffee, and tipped the barista. And this is something that she never, ever did. She never paid for coffee at Racy's. Usually, Jason would buy it.

But today, there was something different about Ezra. The barista also noticed that Ezra didn't really look like her usual self either. She looked disheveled, she didn't have any makeup on, and this was really weird because Ezra always cared about her appearance and always cared about how she looked. So what was going on today?

Inside Racy's, Ezra met up with a guy named Matt, who she was going to trade some art with. Then Matt and her left Racy's, and they got into her car.

Jason saw Ezra leaving and could tell by her demeanor that she was a little bit fired up. There was something in her eyes that made him know that she was angry. He thought that it was because people were talking about her at Racy's, but he didn't really know why. Jason also knew that Ezra had made a few copies of the letter that she had given him, one for John and one for Alex. He also knew that Ezra wanted to give it to them in person so she could talk through what she wrote.

and jason also knew that ezra wanted to give alex back one of his books and kind of tell him off a little bit give him her last word and also let him know that she didn't appreciate that he barely gave any respect to jason when he and alex spoke about things almost as though now she was trying to be the martyr and defend jason defend their relationship

He also remembered Ezra saying that she was afraid that she might punch Alex in the face in person while she was doing this, while she was talking to him, and that she wanted to make sure he knew how much she regretted ever meeting him.

So with this in mind, he started figuring out and putting all of the puzzle pieces together like, "Oh shit, maybe she's leaving and she's fired up because she's planning on giving Alex the letter that she wrote." So with that, he followed his gut and he rode his bike over to Alex's house. And when he got there, Ezra's car was still running and the door was wide open. This worried him quite a bit.

He knew that given what Ezra had written in that letter, that things could get heated. So he stuck around for a while outside, just to make sure that things didn't get out of hand. He wasn't sure what was going on and if they should be alone. But after about 40 minutes of waiting, he went and he turned off the car and got Ezra's keys from the car. He walked up to the house and he noticed that the door was open. And he stood by the door for a while, just listening in.

Well, while Jason was standing outside of the door, somebody actually called the police on Jason because they had no idea what he was doing. They just saw what they thought was a suspicious man scoping out a house, lingering, and did something to a car and now was standing outside the door. Then while he was standing there, his phone went off. And Ezra could hear Jason's phone go off because he had a very distinct text message tone.

So Ezra yelled down, "Just let him help you!" And Jason got worried that maybe Alex was hurting himself again, so he ran upstairs to see what was going on. He got to Alex and Ezra, who told him everything was fine, that they were just talking. Which Jason thought was a little odd because he did hear bickering while he was outside, while he was standing outside of the door. So Jason told them that it would probably be best if they had this conversation in public so that things would not get out of hand.

Meanwhile, the police showed up because they had received that report of this lingering suspicious person. And at the time, Jason was walking outside, so he talked to them and he let them know what was going on. Then Alex and Ezra walked out of the house and were headed toward Ezra's car. The police asked everybody if everything was okay, and Ezra and Alex assured them everything was fine. So the police left.

Jason again told them his concerns and really felt like they should have this conversation in public, and they agreed. They said they may need to go to a coffee shop, but they don't want to go to Racy's because they didn't want to air out all of their dirty laundry there. So from there, Ezra and Alex left, with Ezra in the driver's seat and Alex in the passenger seat.

Jason sent messages later on to Ezra, which she never answered because she didn't have Wi-Fi. And this apparently worried Jason even more because she wasn't responding. And if she didn't have Wi-Fi, this meant that they must not have gone to a coffee shop. If they had gone to a coffee shop, she certainly would have had Wi-Fi. So later that day, he went to the police department because he couldn't find Ezra anywhere. And that's when he learned that Ezra had been attacked.

But before we go into the details of that, we are going to take one last break to hear from our final sponsors of today's episode.

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So Jason is freaking out at this point because he had just left Alex's house. He saw that they were bickering. They said they're going to the coffee shop. They're going to do this in public. But yet every time he's texting Ezra, she's not responding, indicating that she didn't have Wi-Fi, which meant she wasn't at a coffee shop most likely. So he goes to the police department out of concern and he finds out that Ezra was attacked. But before we get to where Jason learned that Ezra was attacked, here is Ezra's account of what happened.

What we had started talking about is like feelings towards the relationship we had had. He started to now speak about how he felt about my relationship with Jason and how he felt about our relationship ending. I started feeling anxious after our conversation being abruptly over.

I just, and now we were driving and talking about me and Jason and things like that, I started to feel anxious, just uneasy. As a result of my anxiety, I asked him if it would be all right if he could drive for a while. The conversation was more led by him at this point, and he was voicing his opinion about my continuation of the relationship with Jason. When we stopped the car, well, when he stopped the car, he just...

We sat there for a moment and a car passed us. Not much happened. So you're in the mud. You're stuck. Yes. What is Alex doing to try to help you get unstuck? At that point, he was very quiet. He wasn't doing really much. He kind of stepped back and he seemed like he was just letting me look and try to figure this out. I know there's...

been some pictures shown that there's a couple of knives back in the trunk? Yes. Were you aware those were in there? Not consciously, no. Do you know how they got in the back of your trunk? There's always various knives from moving place to place between my mom's and my dad's and from, there was a lot of things in my trunk from moving out of my apartment.

So somewhere between moves. Was one of those knives something Jason had given you? Yes. We also saw a picture of what looked like a steak knife or a kitchen knife. Yes. Did you know that was in there? I didn't know that was in there, no. Did you take those knives out at any time? No. Did you go into your Senate Council to try and get anything to move the car? No, I didn't really look in there.

After not finding anything to move the car, what were you going to do next? Breathe. I was feeling, I was like, oh great, I don't know where I am, I have no idea, I'm stuck in the mud, I don't know what to do, just I need to breathe. I went over to the hitch of the trailer and I decided to sit on it and I was just

trying to breathe through the anxiety and the feelings of being stuck, not knowing where I am. And I was just kind of looking out into the woods, sitting on this hitch of sorts. As I was sitting there, he approached me from behind and he wrapped his arms around me. It was kind of a hug. He held me there for a little while. I kind of tensed. I didn't really reciprocate the hug.

And it was kind of a silent moment between us, but I felt awkward and uneasy, and I wasn't in a time for me to feel like I wanted a hug, I guess. Let me ask you something else. Do you know whether or not Alex had a phone with him? Yes. Did you have a working phone with you? No. You had your iPod, I gather. Yes.

And the phone without the minutes. Yes. All right. Did you ask Alex at any point to make a phone call on his phone to try and get No, a tow truck. No. All right, you could handle it, but you hadn't been able to move the car What are you thinking when you're saying I can handle this what I'm thinking is I don't want to get my car towed because of how expensive it is he suggested that I might want to lay down for a while and maybe just relax and

I just shrugged and was like, all right, maybe. And I decided to walk back towards the car. So she takes Alex's advice and lays down in the back of the car. However, as she laid down on her back, Alex got into the car and positioned himself on top of her, straddling her. He started to describe Ezra in the third person and told her that now it's time to take what he wants.

Ezra is beautiful. Ezra is my shining sun. Ezra, in the sense he kept saying my name and then something after that. Ezra is so handsome. He hadn't talked to me. He's, he's said pet names before. He's

Sweet talked me before but this was different because it was disconnected. It was Third person so in other words are you like before he would say you are this you are they would say you're beautiful. You're handsome You're this you're that but at this point at this time He was saying Ezra is instead of it was more as if I was an object at that point I'm not so sure how

to really think about what was happening. I was a little confused because it hadn't come on to me earlier that day. I didn't think he was going to do this. I was starting to feel my anxiety come back full force. Then he slowly started to take off her glasses and Ezra couldn't see. Then he told her that he was upset that she went back to Jason and now he deserved her.

Next, he took her scarf and put it over her eyes. He asked if she could see him, and she said no. Ezra could feel him start to touch her clothing, and at this point, Ezra wasn't sure exactly what he wanted. He hadn't been like this earlier, back at his house, and she didn't know what was going on now.

He started kissing her, and Ezra pulled her head back a little bit and told him to stop. He tried to kiss Ezra again, and she pulled away again. Then he started touching her sweater. She wasn't sure what he was doing at the time, but noticed that it felt looser all of a sudden.

After that, she took the scarf off that was covering her eyes and she could see that Alex was now cutting her sweater. Next, he started cutting through the shirt that was underneath her sweater. And at that point, Ezra said she felt frozen, like she couldn't move.

I'm just trying to breathe. I'm frozen. I don't know what to do. I'm just, I'm still, I'm limp. I'm not moving or resisting or fighting. I'm just, I'm there. Why? I didn't know what to do. After he cut through her first shirt, he tried to cut through her second shirt. And after that, she felt a prick, like something had cut her. But again, she didn't move.

Next, he moved on to cut her pants. And in that moment, Ezra remembered that when she got back into the car to lie down, she noticed that the center console was open and that her wallet was on the passenger seat. At this point, he had cut through my tights as well. At this point, he had cut through the inner thigh area of my pants and tights. What was different at this point is that I could feel the knife start to graze and

cut into my skin. I feel it on my vagina. I feel it. It's inside the hip region. I could just feel a pinch and I could feel that the knife had been meeting contact with it. Are you moving? At this point, I was still...

frozen. Ezra said that while Alex was doing this in her mind, she was just thinking that he's going to do whatever he wants. He's going to take what he wants. He's going to use her and she doesn't exactly know what's going to happen next, but she knows Alex. She knows his philosophies and she knows how he felt through his own journals. I don't know what to do. I'm terrified. I couldn't move. Had Alex ever cut you with a knife before? No.

What is different about this as you're laying there and he's cutting you with this knife? What's so different about this is that in the past, only clothes had been cut. But this is the first time he ever cut me with the knife. What are you afraid of now? I'm afraid he's going to kill me. I'm afraid he's going to kill me because he has a knife. And I'm afraid that he's going to take whatever he wants and he's just going to finish this.

All of the things you've read about Alex, and I'm not going to go through his books and his philosophies again, were the things that he had talked about with you, the names he had called you, the discussions about sacrifice, consent, did that...

I mean, is your mind swirling? What are you thinking? My mind is running through his words that he deserves this. My mind is running through all of the possibilities of what he could want, of what he's going to take. I was wondering if he was going to kill me and then he was going to kill himself so that he didn't have to be alone.

She says that she started to think that he really was going to kill her. And during this time, she breaks out of her, quote, frozen state that she described being in. When this happens, I bring my leg up.

to position it more between Alex's legs. Yes, I feel him run the knife down a few times the pants and the pants open and then I feel that he punctures my leg. At the point where he's running the knife and cutting you and punctures you, are you, besides the fact that you've brought your leg up, are you moving your leg at any point yet? No, I was just...

closing off the area of my vagina. I know that we're talking about this slowly, but in terms of the time it's taking as he's doing this, what fast, slow? It was very slow at first. It was slow. It was, it felt, it was very slow. And then as I brought my leg up is when it started

to happen faster. Things were starting to happen now. After you feel the puncture in your leg, and he's cut these into your leg, what do you do to try to move? What I'm doing to try to move is I have my right hand gripping the side of the seat. I was just thinking maybe if I can pull myself away, maybe if I can do something

I can get out, I can get away from this, I need to move, I need to start to move. I was screaming at myself internally, "You need to move." When my leg was pulled up, my leg is pulled up and I'm closing off the area of my vagina, I take my hand, my free hand, my left hand, and I grab for and bat at the knife that is puncturing my leg. What do you feel when that happens?

Feel like a pinch or a prick on my hand every time I go to block it So when you feel that cutting into your hand, what do you do with your hand? I pull my hand away Do you do something else then to try to resist him? Yes, my hand My leg is between his knees at that point gripping the seat and

I decided then to knee him in the groin. He reacts and he drops the knife at that point. Instantly, I grab the knife and I have pulled, I've used my arm to pull myself into the footwell and that's when it, that's when everything really starts to happen. You have the knife. Yes. What are you doing with the knife? At this point, I have the knife. I'm trying to get out of the car. I just need

Need to get out. I need to get away is all I'm saying and I can't get out of the car and he's still grabbing for me and this is when I began to Defend myself and stab Alex. You said you grabbed the knife and you yes. Yes. I'm facing What would be forward at this point is the rear of the car? I'm facing Alex, but I

I, my back is pressed against, Alex is in front of me, he's in between, he's not directly in front of me, but he's in between me and the door. You said you're unable to get out, so what do you start doing? What I start doing is defending myself.

I was, as Alex was grabbing me, I started stabbing him anywhere and everywhere I could. I didn't know what was happening. I just needed to get away. I just needed to get out of the car. Were you consciously aiming for any particular place when you were stabbing him? No, it was happening fast, and it was anywhere and everywhere. Do you have any memory of the order in which you stabbed him at all? No. As I'm trying to get out of this car,

As I'm trying to make my way to the open door, Alex grabs me by the throat and I'm pressed my body and my head is pressed against the driver's side back of the seat. It's happening as it was as I was having him. His hand slips from my throat and it moves to the back of my head where he grabs my hair. I remember as he grabbed my hair, he was holding it very tight and he was pulling my face towards him

And I remember that's when I had stabbed him inside the head. It was a response to being pulled so close to his face. When you did that and you're stabbing him and he's grabbing you by the throat, he's pulling your hair, as this is going on, at some point does he let go? Yes. When he lets go, what does he do? He didn't just let go. He had ripped my hair out from my head. And he then...

got out of the car. When he gets out of the car, well, let me ask this, first of all. Before he gets out of the car and you're doing the stabs, are you trying to kill him? No. What are you trying to do? I just want to get away. I need to get out of the car. I need to get away as fast as I could. So why do you keep stabbing him while you're still in the car? Because he wouldn't let go. He wouldn't let me out. I was terrified. He wouldn't let go of you? No. Where?

my throat and my head. - When he lets go and he goes out of the car, do you run after him and keep stabbing him? - No, I was-- - What do you do? - I was crumpled. I was inside the car still, and I was sitting inside the car on the driver's side seat. - At some point, do you get out of the car? - Yes. - And where is Alex at that point in time? - Alex is standing up near what was the green trailer.

What he said to me, what I heard him say to me was that he needed help to go to the bathroom. He needed help doing this. I instantly just wanted to help him. So I got out of the car and I approached him. Well, if you're so afraid, why do you go by him? I just wanted to help. That's my first response is to help someone. When I go to approach to help him, I come near him. And this is when he grabs me again. And he pulls me very close and tight to his body.

Where's the knife? The knife is in my hand still. When he pulls you close and tight to your body, what are you thinking? He's going to kill me. What do you do as you're thinking he's going to kill you? I reached around and just quickly stabbed him in the side, hoping he would let go. Why do you think he's going to kill you at this point as he's grabbing you close? I thought he was going to pull me down to the ground and get the knife.

Ezra stabbed Alex a total of 16 times. His wounds were on his head, his neck, his scrotum, and his sides.

After this, Ezra said she didn't remember what happened and that she may have blacked out for a few hours. And then when she woke up or came to, came to some sort of consciousness, she was running down that muddy dirt road. And that is when she saw that dairy farmer's house, Don Sipple's house. Ezra said she didn't know where her car was. She didn't know where Alex was. Nothing. And

And at this point, police were trying to locate Alex. And without knowing where Ezra's car was, they were at a complete loss. That was until they went back to where Don Sipple lived. And right nearby, they found a muddy dirt road.

As they walked down the road, they could see Ezra's car. It was sitting there, stuck in the mud. And as they got closer, they could see Alex's body hanging outside of the back passenger door. Like I mentioned in the beginning, Ezra said she could not remember anything. However, not long after, police confronted her with how it was possible for the word boy to be carved into her arm the way that it was.

It didn't make any sense for Alex to have been able to do this. And it really did not take much pushing from the police before Ezra admitted that she had done this herself. With that one single admission, Ezra's house of cards quickly began to fall, one after another. There were a lot of problems with Ezra's version of events and version of how things went down.

Number one, she didn't have any defensive wounds and the cuts on her body were extremely superficial and self-inflicted. Number two, with the way that Ezra described the attack in the car, there should have been a lot of DNA evidence to support her claims. But that wasn't the case. The only person's DNA and blood at all in the back of the car was Alex's.

Number three, there wasn't one piece of evidence that suggested things could have happened the way that Ezra told them in any sense whatsoever. There was no way. Number four, the crime scene itself looked like most of the attack took place outside of the car and there was blood on the dirt and the mud and the grass.

Number five, in an interview prior to Alex's body being found, she said that the incident happened at Owen Park in Eau Claire, which the prosecution says was a way to direct authorities away from the real scene. Number six, while Ezra was running to Don Sipple's house for help, she grabbed Alex's phone.

And there are two more major things that stood out that didn't make her sentence and series of events plausible.

That is that Ezra didn't use Alex's phone to call 911. When police found Alex's phone on the road, it looked like it had actually been broken on purpose. There was way more damage than if the phone had just fallen out of Ezra's hand.

The prosecution believed that Ezra did this so that Alex wouldn't have any hope of calling 911. And also, Ezra claimed that she had all of this amnesia, remember? However, she didn't have a single head injury that would medically support any of her claims. Instead, the prosecution believed that she lured Alex out there and attacked him by surprise. After she killed him, she tried to get his body into the car and drive off.

They believed that her plan was likely to dump Alex's body somewhere. However, she couldn't do that because her car was stuck in the mud. So then she came up with Plan B. During the few hours that Ezra claimed she didn't remember, she cut her own clothes, she attempted to stage the scene, all to make it look like he was the one who attacked her.

And the reason that Alex's body was hanging out of the car was because he weighed too much for Ezra to continue moving him, since she was now likely exhausted. So now the big question is why kill Alex? What sense at all did that make?

Well, first of all, with Alex around to tell the truth to Jason, this was a huge problem for Ezra. Remember, she blamed him for ruining her relationship with Jason, someone that she saw that she could easily manipulate, her meal ticket to do whatever she wanted to do without any accountability because she could make him do whatever she wanted. That was the truth of it.

Second, if Ezra could prove that there was something true in what she said in her letter to Jason, that Alex really was this violent person, then maybe they could get back together for good. And I mean, it does sound like a good plan in theory, because how are you going to blame or question a victim of a brutal attack that they barely even escaped alive? It wouldn't be very easy to do that.

Within two weeks after Alex's body was found, Ezra was arrested and charged with first-degree intentional homicide and use of a dangerous weapon. So at first, Ezra tried to plead not guilty by reason of insanity, but then later on, she withdrew that.

Later on, Ezra claimed that the prosecution got everything wrong and she killed Alex in self-defense. Her defense team claimed that Alex was angry that Ezra didn't want to be with him anymore and that she was fighting for her life after Alex forced himself upon her and then attacked her.

She also alluded to the possibility of Alex struggling with his sexuality and that he was actually gay, and that since Ezra was gender fluid, it was a way for him to have what he wanted both ways, and that Alex believed Ezra could only be his. Ezra wore a pink blazer throughout the entire trial, and what's crazy is that her, quote, attack wasn't the only thing that she had lied about either.

she lied through her teeth about almost everything literally everything guys down to the type of person that he was or what he was truly into see it was true that he did have a darker philosophical side to him sure

but Ezra murdered him and then tried to paint him as this aggressive attacker who objectifies women and manipulates them for his own gain. A person that Alex wasn't at all like. It was like she was painting the picture of a monster. The complete polar opposite of who Alex was and wanted to be.

And just as a side note here, for someone who professed to be so into reading all of these novels and using these big flowery words, Ezra really struggled to read during court. Throughout the entire trial, she was putting on a performance for the jury. And it was honestly kind of cringey, kind of secondhand embarrassment.

When Jason walked into the courtroom to testify against her, Ezra had this very giddy look on her face, like she was excited to see him. And she had this look like she was trying to seduce him all over again, not like she was on trial for murder. It was unhinged and bizarre, to say the least. When Jason testified, he was asked if he knew for sure that he was the father when Ezra got pregnant.

Jason responded and said he assumed yes, but that now he honestly didn't know. And I'm telling you, the look on Ezra's face and her expression when he said this was unbelievable. She looked like she was actually trying to kill him with her eyes, if that was even possible. She was irate.

Despite trying to convince the jury that she was this small, delicate, and incapable of premeditated murder person, they found her guilty. At sentencing, Ezra's attorneys asked for the judge to give Ezra a chance at extended supervision, saying that in 20 years, Ezra will be able to show the court that she is no longer a danger to society. In the courts, in Alex's family, but most of all, Alex's parents.

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 and never will be enough for this loss. And I recognize that. I don't think I could ever find words that will be enough to express this, especially to them. The pain they feel is unimaginable. I want to express how sorry I am for this loss because it is such a great loss.

I recognize and completely acknowledge this pain. And I'm so sorry. I loved Alex very much. And I also feel a great loss. And I'm so sorry. And thank you for letting me say this.

In 2020, Ezra was sentenced to life in prison with the eligibility of parole after 50 years. Ezra appealed her conviction. However, a judge ruled that she would not be getting a new trial. And interestingly, Ezra's Instagram account is still completely active. Much like Jodi Arias, she has also been making and selling her own art while in prison. And she's even somehow posted some of her art that's for sale on Instagram.

She also posted a reel from December of 2023 of her in her prison uniform. Her hair is now much longer and bleach blonde with kind of a crimp wave type situation going on. And the reel that she posted was actually just a slideshow of pictures and she was posing with a new guy. Now maybe it's a new boyfriend, I have no idea, but I don't know. I wouldn't put it past love struck Ezra.

The caption on this was just a black heart, which is actually pretty fitting now that I think about it.

Her Instagram account is dirt underscore fiend. So you can check it out if you're interested. It is kind of an interesting thing to go back through. This case was a wild one, a roller coaster. You don't know who's in the wrong, who's doing what, what the truth is. But one thing I'm sure of is that I would never want my child dating Ezra. No offense, but she just seems like a walking red flag.

So we'll see what happens as she's in prison, if she gets eligible for early release in 50 years. And I'm guessing that it's not the last we're going to hear of her. I think we're going to hear about more letters she's writing, this starving artist, this poor victim mentality. I don't know. I don't think we've heard the last from Ezra. But let me know what you think.

Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of Serialistly with me, Annie Elise. I love talking with you guys about these cases and just kind of hanging out with you. I will be back on the mic again very soon with some special episodes. So if you're not following the podcast yet, make sure you take a quick second, follow it. The video version of most of these episodes do get cross-posted on YouTube. However, YouTube is very, very finicky in what they will allow to be posted. So a lot of the times that version is...

censored, filtered,

kind of diluted and watered down a bit, which personally I have a very big problem with because I feel like whenever you dilute what happened in these cases to these victims, you are also diminishing what they went through and what they experienced and what the perpetrator's accountability should be. So it's nice to be able to have the uncensored version over here on the podcast, but if you want the video version, it's over there on YouTube usually, but as a warning, it's usually watered down quite a bit.

So check it out on YouTube if you want the visuals. Otherwise, make sure you're following the podcast so that you don't miss any of these episodes. All right. I will be back with you again very soon. And until then, be nice. Don't kill anybody. All right. Bye, guys.