Sword and Scale - Episode 154

Episode Date: February 2, 2020

Ezra McCandless wove a web of complicated relationships for herself, getting involved romantically with many of the men in her coffee-shop clique in a hipster Wisconsin college town. Things were going well for her until they weren’t, and one person in the exclusive friend group ended up dead.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. We're back. This is season 7, episode 154 of Sword and Scale, a show that reveals that the worst monsters are real. We know we've kept you waiting for a while so we're going to cut right to the chase, get right into the story which I think you're going to find incredibly interesting. But welcome back for our seventh season. We're so excited to have you back for our seventh season. We're so excited to have you back for our seventh year. It was a chilly evening on March 22nd 2018, in Monomony. March in Wisconsin usually brings consistent cold days, and even colder nights. 90-year-old Don Cippell was relaxing inside of his rural,

single-story home near Monomony that late afternoon, probably preparing to eat his dinner. Maybe watch a little jeopardy. When he heard a knock on the door, Don got up and opened the door to find a young, thin, bloodied and muddy girl hyperventilating and crying on his doorstep. She said she'd been attacked and her appearance matched up with her story. Don knew he had to get her to the hospital, but, and this is a good thing to remember if you ever find yourself in a similar situation, he knew that he shouldn't be the one to drive her himself. He didn't know this woman, or where she came from.

He didn't know if she was dangerous, mentally unstable, or even telling the truth about what happened to her. So he promptly called 911 for guidance and an ambulance. The time was 415 pm. This is Don Shippell calling and I have a young lady that just came to my house and some of the attacker, and she needs a doctor. Her clothes are all torn. What is the address you were at? We have a six, four, three, or six, no. Okay.

And is she injured? Yes, she's injured. Her mother's kind of got some blood around it, and her toes are all torn. Okay, and she's by herself. She's by herself. She wants to my whole cheer this recently. Okay, and can you ask her what her name is? Just hold on a second.

Okay. What's your name, ma'am? Blood? She don't know. What's your name, ma'am? What? You don't know? She's in kind of bad shape. She says she don't know. Yep, I have an ambulance and some officers started that way.

Did she say who did this to her? No, she said she was attacked and assaulted them. And she's from a place. Okay. And uh, can you change your name? Could she say where this happened? No, I didn't, I didn't discuss that. Okay. Do you want to stay on the phone with me down there? Sure. Okay.

So the ambulance is on the way? They have ambulance and officers around their way. I'll stay on the phone with you as long as I can. Okay, I'll hang on. Okay. Coming for help. Coming for help. So the sites are bleeding from the mouth doing all whatever injuries she has, as she looks like she's injured anywhere else. Yeah, she looks a little bit, some other bloody marks on her leg a little bit. Okay. And okay, I'm sure all torn. Okay. And how old do you get to guess how old do you think she is? How old are

you, ma'am? 19. 19. Okay. Okay. Okay. How much is coming? You're going to get help. Okay. So she came on foot, correct? Yes. Okay. Yep. She just walked to my door.

Okay. Can you ask her who did this to her? Oh, it's a dragon. Do you have any idea who did this to you? This is how long. No, she can't. She's pretty distraught. Upset and I can see why. Okay. Don, you have some type of blanket or something

and you could get her to wrap her up. Sure I can. Okay. Just hold on. I'm going to lay the phone down here a second. Okay. Her? Yep. She's on, have any shoes on? Okay. And serve all mottied.

Okay. I think she's probably walked quite a ways. I don't know without two tall brothers who came, but. Right. Okay. And is she outside of your residence? Or where is she? No, she's inside. I got her inside. She's inside. Okay. Yep. She's shivering in all these holes. So if you had a good idea that I should have thought of getting a blanket around her to keep her warm, but I got her sitting on a chair. Okay, so I'll keep you on the phone here. This is a strange situation. Why not never seen it? I've been around a long time.

Yeah. Well, the thing you call that's wet, you mean it's a more safe than you know. Oh, and when I got a gunner, I brought her into the house. She wanted me to drive her to a hospital, but I didn't think I should be doing that. Yeah, no, that's perfectly fine. We'll get her to help. She needs to be able to name the ambulance or not also. That's what she needs. We'll get her taken care of. She's got glasses on. Maybe I told her she's 19. Okay. She said the blood on her mouth? Looks like it was dry or... Yeah, it's a little on the dry side now. So I must say I have a little while ago.

I think she's locked right away as maybe. Yeah. I don't know how she's haunted here, but that's okay. Yep. She's down here in the family town. She's right now. There, there, here right now. Please stop there. Okay. All right, I'll let you go. You see what I'm done. Thank you. family.

Dashcam footage from the responding officers on scene recorded the question and answer dialogue between themselves and the victim. It's difficult to hear the questions they're asking her, but what's more important is the way she responds to the officer's questions with hysterical crying. All right. I'm bleeding heavily from anywhere. You know? I don't know. Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello?

This is the wrong person. This is the wrong person. This is the wrong person. This is the wrong person. This is the wrong person. This is the wrong person. This is the wrong person. This is the wrong person.

This is the wrong person. This is the wrong person. This is the wrong person. This is the wrong person. This is the wrong person. In the next clip, you can hear the officers talking with the homeowner Don Cipoll, though the dialogue is overshadowed by the woman's cries. After this woman fails to give officers any helpful information to aid them in identifying her, Don explains that she says she was attacked and she must have walked quite a distance

through the snow in her bare feet. She had no driver's license, no shoes, and her clothing was shredded. The only thing she could tell them was that she was from O'Clair, Wisconsin. She couldn't remember her address or how long she'd lived there, but she knew she was from O'Clair. So are we talking to the government? We don't have anyone here. We don't have a car or anything. Do you work anywhere? You know what your first name is, man?

You know if you have any family or work. You got your wing call for you. She didn't seem to know the answers to any questions the officers asked her, including her own name. But she remembered the name Jason Mengel. When they started to ask her if she had any friends or family they could call, she quickly told deputies that they could contact Jason. Officers figured that they probably wouldn't get much information out of this traumatized teenager until they got her to the hospital and had her evaluated and stabilized.

So she was taken by ambulance to the local hospital where doctors could better evaluate her condition. EAR medical staff noticed a number of scratches and cuts all over the female victim's body. She was now able to tell doctors her name, Monica Carlin. She had a number of sharp force injuries to the palms of her hands, some around her vaginal and inner thigh area, and others clustered in various locations all around her body. All the cuts were deemed superficial, and the blood around them was crusted and dried.

One set of scratches stood out to doctors, a group of minor elacerations on the victim's arm. They spelled out the word boy, Plana's day. She told doctors that her attacker had cut the word into her. At this point, officials had no idea who her attacker was, and when they looked into the name Monica Carlin, they found that this was no longer

the victim's legal first and last name. It had actually originally been Monica J, but she had changed it, then changed it again, to Ezra McCandless, but mistakenly she had given one of her former names to officers and medical staff. When Ezra was finally identified, taken care of and calmed, it was time to sit down with her and figure out what happened the evening of March 22nd. Yeah, I'm tired yet. Yep, fell asleep. Oh, started a week, yes, or a... How are you doing? It sounds like you've been through the van and I'm going to mess going on home. I'm here on a kind of two-fold.

I just kind of try to figure out where Alex might be. So I know we can't find him. Along with Ezra McCannless' car, a man named Alex Woodworth was also missing. Alex was one of Ezra's on and off romantic partners, and police knew that he was with her on March 22. They had visited Alex's home on a call reporting a domestic disturbance just a few hours earlier

that day. Since Ezra was telling investigators she had little to no recollection of what happened to her that evening, that also meant that she didn't have any idea where Alex ended up or where her car was. Okay, we can't find your car either. So let's kind of what I'm here to possibly involve. But first off, I want to know how you're feeling, how you're doing. Not, you should be honest. I'm wondering this morning, and it kind of looked good. Good.

And then I had a meeting with the doctor and the staff and they were trying to figure out which medication they should be on. Okay. And got depression and anxiety and stuff. Yeah. Well, that's great that you're meeting with these guys and get some help and getting in the stuff that you meet and all the medication that you need to make you feel better. Right now things are kind of trying to harm and trying to get things to come to me, but

it just, it's like, just like it keeps getting blocked out, it's like it'll make it really fresh. At this point, knowing that Alex was with Ezra that evening and now presumably had her car, they could safely assume that Alex was the person who attacked Ezra. I know your car is missing and Alex isn't missing and I have no idea if he took it and went someplace or if you crashed

or if he dropped you off and left you at the side of their own took off of the car I don't know and that's something that we kind of would like to know. Do you know how much gas was in your tire? I just filled it up recently and then I had my wallet and like a couple of pennies and stuff in there. Did he have his wallet with him, do you know? I don't know. I just feel like all I can feel is like anxiety and like pain and stuff. I almost feels like kind of like if somebody were blindfolded to you, kind of feeling. So then you get found in the nominee.

How do you get to the nominee? I don't know. I just kind of felt like I woke up and I was scared. So I was just walking down the road. What do you remember about that? I remember being cold. Okay. And that my feet hurt really bad.

How about your car? What do you remember about your car where it was left? I don't know. I don't know about that at all. How about your car? What do you remember about your car where it was left? I don't know, I don't know. I don't know about that at all. I actually, I just remember being really cold. It's kind of like the feeling of like you don't know what's happening and you're scared and you just need to keep walking and walking and running. I don't know. I kind of felt kind of like scared. I don't know how to describe it. How long do you think you're walking before someone follows you? I really don't know. It's very, I keep trying to think about it and it just, it feels like

it just doesn't happen. You try to think about it and all I can feel is just the feelings and not like seeing. Yeah. So if you didn't go to Owen Park, what other park would you have gone to? Phoenix. And here's the first thing. And what about... I mean, the park that's baffling me is how you end up in monomony. I don't know, maybe if I've got pushed out or something, so I was covered in a lot of blood. Did you drive into a swamp? Did you drive into a lake?

I don't. I really remember that. Did he drive into a swamp or a lake? I don't think so. I mean, it's the part that we're having, like obviously you can't find to Alice, you can't find your car. So it's a little concerning to us. I just remember being really scary, being in pain. What were you scared of?

Being hard. By who or what? Alex. Okay. By him doing what though by him like harming me and making me wonder something he wanted what do you mean by that he just he's been upset I've said it me a couple times when I went over because I was kind of seeing Alex for a while I was very confused And he really kind of upset when I was too sensitive or I pain and stuff during those directions

Was Jason was or Alex was Okay, did Jason do something to Alex? What? Alex. Okay. Did Jason do something to Alex? No. Did anybody do it? Did someone else do something to Alex that he's not around?

How things go? Who exactly was this strange woman with temporary amnesia to completely different identities and a host of anxiety issues. Racies Coffee Lounge is an often crowded, trendy hot spot for intellectuals and pseudo intellectuals to hang out day and night. It's inoclar Wisconsin and it opens up pretty early in the morning, staying open all the way until 10pm. A pretty late closing time for a coffee shop. Racies is filled with various floral print couches and a polstered chairs.

It's littered with college students and townies, typing away at their laptops, writing, and talking about philosophy. The kind of place where someone who refuses to listen to problematic podcasts loves to hang out at, and bitch about the patriarchy. You might know a few of those people. This is a place that's clicky, not unlike high school cafeterias, and also not unlike Twitter these days. It's home to small circles of close friends

chatting in various corners of the lounge. The same people could be found there day after day after day. The locals sometimes refer to them as Racy's rats. As a mechanic, a frequent patron of the coffee lounge. A Racy's rat. And it's where she met her boyfriend, Jason Mengel.

Jason has salt and pepper hair, a clean shave and face, and could often be seen sporting a flap cap newsboy style hat. He's the kind of guy that rides his bicycle everywhere. He's well built, good looking, and a military man, a medic for the army to be exact. Based on his use of vocabulary, he comes off as intelligent, and he knows it. Ezra, on the other hand, tries to use big words, but often uses them incorrectly, or displays bad grammar in general. It's no secret that she probably struggled to keep up with Jason's intellect.

So when was that then? When did you guys start going out then? When was it that last nine months would have been in the last summer? We officially started into the lie. But we had been seeing each other for a while before. We actually said, we don you actually said like you know We don't have to make it like Facebook at visually and I'm yeah, we decided like I'm not seeing anybody else for sure You're not seeing you okay, so that was she lived in was here and with you then Or she living in Sanstrasia so why are you guys are going out? She I was some stay here, but didn't live here. She'd stay here from time to time

But okay, she was mostly commuting because I was on the impression she was going back to class. Going back to be, she was doing printmaking. Okay. In the end, her and her. The book had her, the very neck, I can't remember. Okay. She was going to college.

I feel like they're making an art. In August of 2017, Jason Mangle and Ezra Mechanis began officially dating. She was 19. He was about 33, a significant age gap. Jason is clarified that he didn't know how large the age gap was when he first met her. The first time he rode in her car with her, he noticed a tassel from a graduation cap hanging from Ezra's rear-view mirror. He didn't get a chance to see what year it said she graduated, and the next time he was

in her car, the tassel was gone. He didn't think much of it because all the stories Ezra had told him about her life and her experiences seemed like things only a more mature woman in her mid to late 20s would have experienced. Certainly, not things that could have happened to a mere 19-year-old. Ezra has curly, mousey brown hair. The haircut itself is very late 80s, early 90s nerd. She looks like she's straight out of stranger things.

Its shoulder length, very layered, and she has bangs, but her natural curl causes them to curl irregularly around her face, and her thick, rimmed brown glasses. One could easily peg her as a pseudo-intellectual hipster, if one were so inclined. In fact, if you're the kind of person who likes to put a face to a name, go up and look her up. Go to Instagram and search for the username, dirt underscore fiend. Her page is up, and it's public. You can see all the artsy pictures she's taken with paint on her face. Now here's a side note. We wanted to include clips of Ezra herself talking about her name change and her identity in court.

But we had a little issue here with a franchise called Court TV. I've been a big fan since the early days of court TV who has made a recent comeback in the true crime scene and we were really excited to work with them. How we even offered to have Vinnie Palatine on the show to discuss the case. But for some reason, court TV was everything except cooperative. They weren't even willing to let us see the archive footage from the courtroom. Now I know this is very behind the scenes and a lot of you don't care about this kind of stuff, but check this out. It's pretty telling. They wanted to try just $500 per minute to use their footage of the public trial.

Yeah, that's not a mistake. $500 per minute. That's for audio of a trial that is public record. And for some reason, which I still can't figure out, no other news outlets were allowed to film the trial. According to what we were told, all the other media had to stream off the court TV feed. That's quite a business they got there. So needless to say, we are moving forward with this episode without them. It looks like we don't have a future working with court TV on any upcoming episodes which is unfortunate.

Despite this hiccup, though, we hope you get a handle on the people involved in this story and what they are like in real life based on the audio we did get our hands on. And if you do get a chance to see part of the trial, I recommend you do it. In this high profile trial, Ezra explains she chose to change her name before she was legally an adult. She pulled her last name, McCandless, from a nonfiction book about a man named Christopher McCanless. She said that she and Christopher's views on nature and the world aligned in many ways, so she thought it'd be nice to honor him by taking his last name. To give you some context, Christopher McCanless was a young man who became the subject of

a book, and then a feature film called Into the Wild by John Crackauer. Chris chose to leave behind his family, his friends, his car, and all of his money and belongings to live in the Alaskan wilderness. He kept journals and took photos of his experiences, and he eventually died of starvation in a sleeping bag in 1992. Isn't that so preciously millennial of her? To change her name to that of a protagonist from a popular movie, who ends up dead? Probably should have said spoiler there. Anyway, Ezra chose her new first name while on a family vacation. She saw the names somewhere. She was looking for a more unisex name to switch over to.

And this one spoke to her. Does it trend throughout the course of her life, a struggle with identity? She struggled with her sexual identity, her gender identity, and in general, it seemed that she yearned for a group of people to fit in with. Several people in her it seemed that she yearned for a group of people to fit in with. Several people in her life noted that she went back and forth between dressing in a more

masculine way and in a more feminine way. She preferred different pronouns at different points in her life. Her gender identification was fluid to the point that her closest friends and lovers really didn't even know what to call her. They struggled to keep up with what pronouns she preferred at any given time. Was she fluid, non-binary? Jason didn't even really know during the course of their entire relationship. She later said that in high school, she chose to dress in a more masculine way, and now in the present day she chose to embrace her femininity and identify as a woman.

I think we'll just stick to calling her her so that you can follow along the story without getting confused. As the summer of 2017 came to a close, Jason and Ezra's relationship intensified. She was living with them full time. They'd only been together a little over three months when Ezra discovered that she was pregnant with twins. Jason was not excited to be a father and based on Ezra's recollection,

it seemed as though he pushed her into having an abortion. But Jason's recollection is quite a bit different. In any case, the procedure was carried out in October on Ezra's 19th birthday. How perfectly dramatic and morbid. That was then, however, that their relationship quickly changed. Jason began sleeping in another room, and the intimacy between the couple had virtually vanished. But they stayed together through the winter months and Ezra continued living with Jason.

Now here's where things start to get weird. One night, back in August, before her portion, while Ezra was hanging out at a bar called The Joint. She noticed a man with light brown hair in his mid-twenties hunched over the bar, very focused on what he was doing. He was alone, drinking, and writing. As her was, and seems to have always been in the state of mind where she was open to allowing new relationships in her life. Generally, if someone is happy and secure in their romantic relationship, you're earning

for nothing, they don't spend their free time striking up conversations with those of the opposite sex in bars. Believe me, I know, I got some first-hand knowledge of that, unfortunately. But who am I to judge? So Ezra being Ezra, she pranced over the man and hopped onto the black leather stool right next to him and asked, what are you writing about? Just tell me about it. It was then that the strange and complicated relationship between Ezra Mechanless and this

man Alex Woodworth, commenced. Alex Woodworth was a 24-year-old man with his bachelors in philosophy from UWO Claire. And he was in the process of moving on to graduate school to gain his PhD and eventually become a professor of philosophy. Sounds like a high-paying gig. Alex did a lot of journaling. He wrote essay after essay on philosophical topics. And of course, he was a nighttime baristo at the notorious Racy's coffee lounge.

Ezra's boyfriend Jason Mangle knew Alex would worth already through Racy's. I knew we were going to live because I'd walk in home drunk a lot of times. Like, he was kind of like in this weird pause I like. Am I in the guy? Am I in the girl? Am I in the this? Am I in the light? Like, we're very nihilistic a lot of times.

Like, you know, we would write some really weird, I would prove pretty a lot of this stuff at the bar because you'd be like, when those guys are like, dude, you're out of college. Why are you still writing and studying everything? Like, you would write like, a lot of these papers, like, all the time. Okay, I would read some and we were like, this is pretty brutal. It's like about, you know, like there's just a

rape of like, mis-and-matter, like, like, like, there's just a whatever. And like, I would try to like find the connections like, because if there was some kind of like optimism and stuff and then like, here is some kind of strange nihilistic optimism. And then there was a lot of entropy and it was a lot of like, this order and pain pain and I was like, you know, I don't know. I felt like he was comfortable opening up with me completely. Yeah, maybe what would happen in his childhood or in his life. Jason recounts a few things that are key here to understanding Alex as a person. First of all, he drank a lot and often.

Second he was questioning his sexuality, seeming to lean towards being interested in men. Finally, like I mentioned before, he was constantly writing and talking about his strange philosophies. Alex's journals were often titled, as if they were published books. One was titled, Personal Notes, Research Ideas, and the Quest to Understand. Another was called, I met a man walking through a briar patch. He was looking for the rose promised by the thorns. He carried several of these journals with him everywhere, and often shared the contents with his closest friends.

In the past, I felt kind of uneasy about certain things he's talked about and stuff like that. Like what did you talk about? Just kind of his word of thinking and stuff. Because he likes to talk about philosophy a lot. Oh, yeah. And I don't really agree with the philosophy so much because they're just kind of negative philosophies. It's kind of like taking as much as you want kind of philosophies and stuff like that.

But he's never hard at you. The media naturally grabbed onto one particular essay in which Alex discusses the idea of cannibalism. News media just loves doing its job, doesn't it? Just journalizing. Not sensationalizing anything. Anyway, they were quick to peg him as someone who was, quote, interested in cannibalism, leading people to assume that he planned to actually eat someone.

Here's a passage from this essay. Put your hipster hats on and try to decode it. I am oddly preoccupied with the concept of cannibalism. Not quite with actual cannibalism as practiced, but rather with the indwelling metaphors our understanding actually works with. Cannibalism deals primarily with our own awareness of our being flesh. That another human could literally eat me, raises odd anxieties over what I actually am to another. I can be rendered mere meat, reduced to a body in the most vicious way. Beyond anxiety, the phenomenon reaches an odd order truth, an uncanny awareness that cannibalism is not merely eating a corpse deprived of its humanness, but is precisely a consumption

of a human by a human. Cannibalism reaches a root as old as birth. My flesh is my humanity. For both are what is it stake in it, what made me a being is precisely what lets me lose myself so viscerally. Look, clearly writing long essays about cannibalism and a coffee shop or hipster bar should raise a few red flags to anyone who's had discovery idea on for more than a few seconds, even in the background while ironing or making a sandwich.

But Ezra was not scared away. In fact, she was drawn to Alex and his peculiar essays. Alex's unique philosophies don't end there. He was interested primarily in a concept known as nihilism, made famous by the well-known philosopher Friedrich Neesh, a man with the largest mustache you've ever seen. He's known for saying things like to live is to suffer and to survive is to find meaning in the suffering. Catchy, huh? People with chronic existential depression tend to be big proponents of nihilistic philosophy.

Modern day America, everyone's depressed, all the time. In another essay, Alex writes this. Do I wish, desire to die? In a way yes, in another no. For the first, life is misery. Each day is the same, exhausting. For the second, a wager of experiences that outweigh any present pain. The former is inexplicable, the latter in need of comment.

Alex did however deeply enjoy physical and sexual relations with other people. He craved and was obsessed with the prospect of having physical closeness with someone. He mentions that physical intimacy literally gives him a reason to live without it. Perhaps he would have already oft himself. There is little I've enjoyed more than physical intimacy. The contact under covers whilst watching a film, for example, these have a way of grounding and shattering conscience. Regardless of any aporia of reflection, her presence, her breath, against me, the heaves of her chest, cement me, pull me back together.

Indeed, Bliss is her heartbeat, fell. This is so private, so singular of phenomenon, that the reasons for its value are difficult to articulate. Yet, I suspect you can understand that little moments of your own. In a way, the very possibility of experiencing such a state again motivates future life. A funnier, that a future cuddle keeps me alive. That particular passage was written before he and Ezra met, but he began to experience these feelings that deeper he became involved with her. As he and Ezra began seeing each other more often and spending more time together, the relationship naturally progressed into a sexual one.

You may be thinking, if Alex thought he was gay, why is he consistently sleeping with a woman? That's where Ezra's gender fluidity comes into play. Ezra claimed she and Alex only had sex a couple of times, but more recently has divulged that they were carrying on sexual relations regularly alongside Ezra's relationship with Jason. Welcome to 2020. This relationship with Alex though was entirely secret. Ezra was cheating on Jason. really uncomfortable and anxious. Was it, but were those times consensual between the two of you? Yeah, it just felt really wrong for me. Really. Afterwards. Yeah, I felt really anxious and maybe we feel really like

gross and like wrong things like that. My just was like, did you feel anxious and stuff like that? So repeatedly cheating on your boyfriend makes you feel uncomfortable and anxious. Weird. You'll notice Ezra uses words like uncomfortable and anxious quite frequently. And while she uses these words to describe her sexual relationship with Alex to investigators, at other times she describes the relationship as 100% consensual and extremely intimate. He's only kind of healthy once when I was uncomfortable. Well, you mean how? How do you?

Kind of like, kind of like, this kind of like, if this was his arm, kind of like right here. Okay, why was he doing that? Why was he putting his arm around your neck or behind? Is that the best way to describe it? So you're standing up and he's behind you and his arm is around. It was kind of during a time of when things were like getting like into it. Okay, so it was during a sexual act. Yeah. Okay. And it made me quite uncomfortable. I didn't really like the feel that way because I said that I was too sensitive and stuff but he kind of got upset a few times because

he didn't get to like, it's very cool sounding, but he didn't get to like, finish or something. And he kind of, a couple times that has happened and that I just went along with it mostly. Okay, but other than him putting his arm around during intimate times, there was never other any physical harm done to you. Never punched you like it said or kicked you, slapped you, bit you. Well, he has bit me once. That was it. That was during the sexual acts as well. Yeah. Okay. It was too hard. Okay. So other than enduring sexual acts, there was nothing that got through like a physical fight or anything along those types.

No. At the beginning of their sexual relationship, Ezra has described the sex as being simply vanilla. It began to escalate throughout the months they continued their affair, venturing into the BDSM realm, and into some other kinky stuff you may not be able to wrap your head around. Now, for those of you that get up to the about kink shaming, and into some other kinky stuff, you may not be able to wrap your head around. Now, for those of you that get up to you about kink shaming, whatever the hell that is,

it's not like that's what we're trying to do here. Hey, knock your freaky selves out all you want, but it is worth noting that in this particular case, the sexual behaviors of Alex, the intellectual, and Ezra, the pseudo-intellectual, are cringe-inducing. Despite the fact that Ezra says to the detective that she's too sensitive, and that Alex holding her a certain way while having sex made her uncomfortable, she then goes on to say that she encouraged Alex to explore his desires, sexually.

He began to prefer the prone position, commonly known as prone bone. Yeah, we're going there. For those of you that don't have a premium subscription to Pornhub or aren't avid retiders, the prone bone position is when the girl or guy lies completely flat face down while their male partner enters from behind. Kind of like a doggie style if the dog were, let's say, dead. During this sexual act, Alex began calling her his boy and using exclusively male pronouns to describe her. After she told him, she identified as a male in high school. Now Now look, in today's

day and age, there are a lot of people out there who are trans and are just trying to live their best lives. Sure. And that's fun. But it seems pretty clear to any reasonable person that there do also seem to be a lot of the younger population these days that are hopping onto the trans bandwagon because it seems to be popular and it's what the kids are doing. Alex seemed to want to put Ezra's masculinity at the forefront of their relationship. He preferred that side of her. He wanted to have her as a male. So in her relationship with Jason, she was identifying and presenting herself as female and with Alex, she was identifying and presenting herself as female, and with Alex, she was identifying as male

about as fluid as you could get, really. According to Ezra, Alex enjoyed when Ezra didn't have her glasses on during sex. He liked to blindfold her during sex. He also liked the room to have soft light or a candle burning. Not much visibility. Presumably to blur the gender line some more in the cover of darkness.

Though a simple blindfold and dim lights are very common things to include in the average sex life, those things are certainly not where Alex and Ezra drew the line. During instances that seemed straight out of an episode of the Handmaid's tale, Alex would read passages from Soren Kirchegard's book Fear and Trembling, which discusses a biblical tale of Abraham and his willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac, a real Afro-Dijak, huh? Picture it. Dim light, blindfolds, prone bones, and a young and normal looking man squinting

his eyes over philosophical texts, reading passages during the act of sex almost like a ritual. In his obvious, dramatic nature, Alex became worn down by the longing to be in a real relationship with Ezra and desired for her relationship with Jason to come to an end. And one of his many drunken knights, he slid his own wrists and called Ezra for help. It was a while ago when he did it, but he was out drinking because he drinks a lot at night and then he went home and he cut his wrist and stuff and then he texted me about it, how he feels about it and stuff like that.

He's talked about kind of like being overwhelmed a lot and he talks about kind of like his kind of he didn't talk much about his past but he said a few things about like he used to like so far and that he's been kind of violent towards some people some kids and stuff when he was younger Things like that and those parents did I kind of surprise you? Because you kind of when I talked to him, he seemed like a very mellow, laid-back kind of guy Yeah, it really surprised me when he talked about it and he talked about a lot of like I remember the night one or the day after he got himself and I was just, and if you could help them

myself because I was so concerned. I remember you talked about how his parents and stuff had in life. I exercised as a child and just stuff like that really surprised me. So it's just been kind of like, I don't know much about them, but I got a few kind of things about them, but I got a few kind of things. Voters, something like that. So like, I went over to the house and I was just months ago, I can't remember when, but I cleaned up his room and bandaged him all up and I sat and had a talk with him and I was like, do we need to go in and do something? Yeah. And like, people are not going to understand that

this was an act because he said, I got drunk and I accidentally cut myself for the knife But I got the Christmas. I was like this is a really weird place to accidentally cut more was that at them? kind of rest Okay, I was like this is not a place you accidentally cut yourself out Okay, he's like no yet believe me. It was just an accident. I was holding his hand. So I knew he was cheating on my I Know what was I knew what was going on like-wise, I didn't pick her out. I didn't mean to him. OK.

We were still all friends. Jason, an army medic, was eventually the one to help bandage Alex up. Jason told authorities that he knew about Ezra and Alex's infidelity, and yet remained friends with Alex, and stayed in a relationship with Ezra. Are you starting to get a sense of just how bachelot crazy everyone in this story is?

If you're still in the fence about it, and think everyone sounds completely normal, just as American as Apple Pie then hold up, because after the break we'll discuss even more layers of madness to this insane story. Stay with us. I know that I am not your property. I am secondary to you. I believe that you love me, but your love for another is what you place your faith in. I am loved, but in a way that you can always give up. You believe that things can get better with the love

you prioritize, and that means that you believe you will abandon me someday. I am in so much pain because you love me, and still you hope to abandon me to my loneliness again. Can you see that your desire for your priority is also a desire for my annihilation? Can I show you this? Or is my only hope to be that your priority ceases to be so for the development of my own significance? Can you realize that I am your significant other in a way that I benefit from?" This is an entry from Alex's journal about Ezra. In case you didn't pick up on it,

he's expressing his desire that she or he leave Jason to be solely with him. This entry was from December, and at this point Ezra and Alex had only begun sleeping together a little over a month prior. Relationships seemed to move very quickly in this particular circle of friends. Two months later, in February of 2018, Jason had to leave for military training for two weeks. Since Ezra lived full time in the apartment, she went on about her life as usual, waiting for him to return.

On the evening of February 4th, Ezra went out drinking with one of Jason's best friends, John Hanson, and Jason's roommate. They were all drinking that evening, and the men were giving Ezra some flak for not being able to keep up with them. So she pounded down some more booze. Being the slight girl, she is. Ezra began throwing up in the toilet once she arrived back at the apartment with the two guys.

She was visibly intoxicated, and she claims to have climbed in the bed and tried to go to sleep. It was then that she felt John Hanson in bed withather, taking advantage of her inebriated state. He was allegedly sliding down her pantyhose and trying to rape her. She avoided telling Jason at first, but when she finally did, he became irate and insisted that she go to the police. Apparently, it was okay for Alex to have sex with his girlfriend, but John, no. Fuck John. In fact, Jason was the reason this entire investigation was

launched surrounding this sexual assault allegation. One source even says that Jason himself was the one who filed the police report against his friend. So part of our investigation has two, one, for me to talk to you and figure out what happened, what we can do to help you and make sure the police report against his friend. Yeah, but they don't say anything and like remove didn't stuff. They don't really say anything pertaining to it Okay, what what did they say? They just mostly said like Are you were you doing today or are you doing art today just kind of normal stuff? And you said you deleted all of these? Yeah, okay And that's one of the I know you the officer offered to fresh like you and your phone

and like download it. If you're near the daytime, our lab is actually open now. Would you give us consent to download your phone? Depending on the phone, it can be done in as short as a half-hour. It might take a few hours, but it will be done today. Is that something you're willing to do? It's not really something willing to do because it was on an app. It makes Ezra uncomfortable. Whatever she said that night was so uncomfortable that she not only deleted the texts, she deleted

the app used to send them. even me. She was like someone took my brain and they took it apart and they took the best they just pen in with like horrible stuff. Sometimes with emotions and good stuff. She blames someone for making her do things she didn't want to do. It was horrible and it's like when someone is hard to not believe things when someone tells you every day that your own boyfriend doesn't even like you. And they feel super alone and then they tell you like the gratitude creator in this side and then one day they do whatever they want with you. It's horrible. Poor little Ezra, always being victimized.

And I went over to Tomter and I was drinking wine and I didn't get anything that day like at all. So I went to go there and I just don't just do it. They pick me up and you go be there. And he was just talking to me and he said, well, you're like me you're like on the trail like me you know and I'm like why I don't

understand because he has this idea about himself where he's not illistic and that you just do like that he's animalistic and he's not realistic in that I have to do that way because at my age that's when he realized that's what he was. I didn't really understand that because I don't really think I'm full of that. That person, I'm not, I have a pretty good view of the world. I was like, what do you mean? Like what have you done and stuff in the past?

So we're talking about that. And then I just got pretty good line. Then I got started to getting really, really, really tipsy. And I went to the bathroom to go throw up. And so I went to the bathroom running through up and then I started throwing up and throwing up. So John said, I'll take another two go to bed. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna go to bed. But I was getting at the whole moment I remember that night. He definitely like, it was really blurry and it was so much longer. I couldn't even walk straight. I was incredibly drunk and I was in bed and then I don't know what it was like in and out of like kind of like

my hair a little bit and then I woke up and General was like he was inside me and then he kept telling me to require like she kept Shushing me just saying He just kept saying like And he kept calling me like little girl he kept saying like little girl and then he said I'm gonna Finish inside you and I was like that That's not okay. I just went there and portion I can't I'm not on risk control I can't be yet and I can't get pregnant again Alex, Ezra, Jason, John, and a few others were interviewed during the course of this rape investigation. A big deal was made out of the whole thing and rightfully so.

The problem was that these allegations were surprise, surprise, absolutely false. Alex Woodworth later told authorities that Ezra had confided in him, that she had simply engaged in consensual sex with John Hansen Wildrunk and later regretted it. So the investigation was closed, and despite the false rape accusation, everyone went merrily on their way. When Ezra is talking to the officer about the disappearance of her car and Alex Woodworth, and she describes her relationship with Alex,

it should now be clear why the officer seems a little wary of what she's telling him. It's because of this false rape allegation. It's important to mention that Ezra kept active journals as well. Not as many as that Thessian Alex and definitely not philosophical, but she kept recollections of her past experiences, and let me tell you, this woman claims she's experienced a lot of sexual assault. In fact, this is the kind of woman you probably would be well advised to get assigned to

notarize consent form before shaking her hand. And one of her journal entries titled Silence Broken, Ezra recounts her very first experience of alleged sexual assault. I was very young the first time I was abused. With it came nightmares, sleepless nights, and self-isolation driving my mind deep within an endless imagination. I was only seven and had already contemplated ending my life. I was molested more than once in the

home of my neighbor by their sick, strange daughter. There is spelled TH-E-R-E. It made me confused about my body, it hurt my mind. I clearly remember the shame frustration I had. I would say that I don't want to play these games anymore with clear anger in my small voice. This was not the end of this for me. It wasn't long after a family member had taken advantage of me. They wouldn't let me leave the room until

they were finished with me. Confused, angry, scared, my small child mind tried grasping why someone I was taught only to trust could become the monster I was disgusted by. I learned at a young age how to not speak up and accept what was happening even though I knew it was wrong. Another passage speaks of a friend abusing her later on in high school. I would have never thought a best friend could use me the way he did when I was drunk. One night I was crying and terrified by my boyfriend held forcibly by him once again.

I got free and pleaded for his brother to drive me to my grandmother's. He was driving me home and I was drunk and sobbing full of anxiety and he slipped his hand down my shorts telling me this will make you quiet. This will make you quiet. Yeah, sounds really believable there, Ezra. Sounds exactly like what some Japanese anime villain would say right before getting all hen-tie on you. He then proceeded to find a dark road and sexually assaulted me. I cried in the shower that night wondering why.

I caused this to happen to my body again. She finally writes a journal entry about her fabricated experience being raped by John Hanson. The person who I cried to grabbed my throat without asking. It progressed and my body was taken advantage of without protection just after I had been throwing up drunk and stumbling. He knew the pain and fear this would bring me well aware of my operation. I cringed as I heard him shush me and call me little girl.

That morning I lie in bed cold and confused, racing to grasp what had happened in the dark. He described me as his favorite fetish, and once again, I was haunted. As I stared at the ceiling, my mind told me that I had to accept this because who would love me if I didn't become what for many months I was told to. A monster. Manceli, I had broke and submitted and my body was abused again, not long after the night of vomiting. Again, he proceeded to endanger my bind and my body

with the possibility of becoming pregnant. I knew what had happened and went to my other friend for advice and concerns, voicing my anxiety and guilt towards our friendship to only once again for it to return to his desires of making me the boy he wanted. I could only think of maybe this is what I was so suggestional and slept with the parallel of my abuser. In case you missed it, in the last few sentences she's talking about how she went to Alex so that she could vent about her allegations of sexual abuse at the hands of John Hanson. As she claims Alex responded by also sexually abusing her, everybody be raping here.

So she went to this man she claims loved her to cry about her alleged rape and this man responds by raping her. Totes believable. Ezra wrote inner journals of at least these five instances of sexual abuse, but there could have been more from what I've seen. To be as clear as possible here, because some people out there need constant and repeated clarification. We aren't saying that Ezra was never or could never have been sexually

assaulted. Sure, she could have been. But when someone has caught in multiple accusatory lies and repeatedly changes her mind and says she feels dirty and uncomfortable after self-admitted consensual sex with multiple partners, it makes any reasonable person start to question subsequent allegations and scrutinize them with a metaphorical magnifying glass. It calls in the question the validity of all of Ezra's claimed experiences, including the fuzziness of her memory the day she was retrieved from Don Cipal's house. Again, the boy who cried wolf. Doesn't anyone ever read fables anymore? I suppose it's fine because true crime podcasts such as this do serve as modern day fables. Rife with lessons that everyone should learn

and take to heart. The first of those lessons should probably be, don't kill people. It's too bad Ezra doesn't seem to have been a true crime fan or a fan of fables. You see, on the same day that Ezra doesn't seem to have been a true crime fan or a fan of fables. You see, on the same day that Ezra Mechanless showed up bloody and bruised and covered in mud on the doorstep of a good Samaritan with no memory of what happened, on that same day, March 23rd, a body was found.

It was hanging halfway out of the open rear door of Ezra's car. It was Alex. He was dead. And it was a messy death. A colossal and overwhelming crime scene. And just like that, the predator had become the prey. Next time on sword and scale. What happened back there, Ezra? Next time on Sword and Scale. What happened back there, Ezra?

You know, I don't remember. What were you during the number? I remember being real scared. What happened to Alex? I got him off of me. Okay, walk me through this. This is really painful. Well, we kind of need to know what happened.

Okay, we need to know the truth. Yes, that's right. Part two of the Ezra McCannless story will be coming up on Episode 155. But if you want to hear it right now, consider joining Plus. You'll get early commercial free access to regular shows. Over 60 additional Plus episodes with stories you won't hear on the regular show, a pristine high quality high bandwidth 320 kilobyte feed, tons of additional content, periodic physical

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Cattrific. That does it for this episode of Sword and Scale the first regular episode of our seventh season. We hope you've enjoyed it. If you enjoy the show, tell your friends about it and leave us a positive review on iTunes, Stitcher, and Pod Chaser. And until next time, practice your Pronebone technique and stay safe. 1.0-1.1 2.0-1.1 2.0-1.1 you you