Woman Lied About Self-Defense in “Bizarre” Murder: “Would Do Whatever Needed to Be Done”

A man called 911 on March 22, 2018, in Menomonie, Wisconsin after a frantic, bloodied woman ran to his front door, saying she’d been attacked in the woods. She had defensive wounds and cuts on her hands and thighs.

“It’s just strange. It’s bizarre,” said Todd Kurtzhals, former Dunn Co. Sheriff’s Sergeant, on Snapped, airing Sundays at 6/5c on Oxygen. “But the distinctive wound that she had, the one that stood out the most, was the word ‘boy’ carved into her arm.”

The 20-year-old told police her name was Monica Karlen, though she’d legally changed her name to Ezra McCandless. In the hospital, she kept asking for 33-year-old Jason Mengel. She eventually told officers her ex-boyfriend, 24-year-old Alex Woodworth, had attacked her and she’d fought back. But elements of her story didn’t add up — forcing officers to figure out what really happened in those Wisconsin woods.

“I’m thinking, I wonder if perhaps she staged that crime scene,” Kurtzhals said. “And gave herself these superficial cuts to give the appearance that Alex might have attacked her.”

Police began to unravel Ezra McCandless’s relationship with both men she’d mentioned since her attack: Alex Woodworth and Jason Mengel. She met Mengel at an Eau Claire coffee shop when she was 19. They eventually moved in together, but after a pregnancy and abortion, their relationship unraveled. That’s when she began talking to Alex Woodworth, a barista at their favorite coffee shop. That friendship turned into a relationship.

Ezra McCandless. Photo: Oxygen

“Jason learns about this through text messages that he discovers,” said Jeff Truesdell, a former crime reporter with PEOPLE magazine, on Snapped. “And that causes Ezra and Jason to break up.”

That breakup happened just a month before McCandless said she was attacked. Mengel had an alibi for the attack but mentioned to police that McCandless had just broken up with Woodworth. The three still often saw each other at the coffee shop, and the day of the attack, Mengel ran into Candless there, where he told officers she was agitated and looking for Woodworth.

“When she left there, her demeanor was such that Jason Mengel was very concerned for her safety and for anybody’s safety who was around Ezra at that time,” said Mark Pieper Eau Claire police lieutenant, on Snapped. “She wasn’t acting herself.”

Mengel told police that he even followed McCandless to Woodworth’s home and watched her go in to talk to him. Because Woodworth was now missing, this meant that McCandless was the last one to see him.

Police tracked the field and woods where Ezra McCandless said she was attacked and found her car. Shoes, blankets, and other objects were thrown around outside the car. The bloody body of Alex Woodworth was found hanging out the back drivers side door.

“I’ve seen a lot of horrific things, but I wasn’t prepared for what I saw at this particular scene,” Kurtzhals said. “There was a lot of blood around the vehicle, some inside the vehicle. I observed that he’d been stabbed several times, including his neck being slashed.”

McCandless told police she and Woodworth had driven out there to talk when the car got stuck. That’s when she said he attacked her with a knife.

“Alex, by her account, said things to the effect, ‘I deserve this. I want one last time,’” Kurtzhals said.

As explanation for the carving in her arm, McCandless, who considered herself gender fluid, said he was calling her “he” as well.

“And he used to call me, like, ‘boy’ a lot, and stuff like that,” she told police during an interview. “He started carving ‘boy’ into my arm. He started cutting my pants open and stuff, and I didn’t know what to do, and it was really scary.”

But police said the wounds she had didn’t match what she described as happening.

“Looking at Ezra’s injuries, the injuries to her hands, where she said she grabbed the blade, they’re superficial. They’re scratches,” said Ryan Prock, Eau Claire police officer, on Snapped. “If someone’s going to truly grab a knife blade, their hand is going to get cut wide open.”

McCandless finally admitted he didn’t carve “boy” into her arm — she did it herself. There were other holes in her claims of self-defense.

“Several of the wounds were postmortem,” Pieper said. “They were inflicted on Alex after he was deceased.”

“She stayed and stabbed him 16 times,” Prock added. “So, the evidence doesn’t support the claim of self-defense.”

Although police believed Ezra McCandless murdered Alex Woodworth, they didn’t know why, until they learned that she had been reaching out to Woodworth to help her get back together with Mengel before the attack.

“She wanted Alex to get ahold of Jason and say whatever happened didn’t mean anything. It was an accident,” Prock said. “But Alex, I don’t think, wanted to say that, because to him, it wasn’t an accident.”

Her desire to be back in a relationship with Mengel was evident in her phone records.

“The day before Alex’s murder, she sent over 600 messages to Jason, and during that time frame, she was begging to get back together with him,” Prock said. “She was saying anything she could to make herself look like a victim. She thought Jason would maybe look at getting back together with her if she was a victim.”

Police and prosecutors argued she lured Woodworth to the woods to trap him as part of her plan to claim she was attacked.

“She can go back to Jason and say, ‘Look, I told you so. He was trying to sexually assault me. I did my best to fight him off. I told you the whole time that he was the bad guy,’” Kurtzhals said. “And maybe he would take her back.”

In October 2019, her trial began, where she claimed on the stand it was self-defense and she was being attacked. A jury found her guilty of murder. Ezra McCandless was sentenced to life in prison but will be eligible for parole in 2070 at 72 years old.

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