Gruesome Everett murder case featured in Netflix’s ‘Worst Ex Ever’

EVERETT — The murder of Alisha Canales-McGuire is getting renewed attention this week as a new Netflix true crime docuseries turned its attention to her 2017 death south of Everett.

The four-episode series called “Worst Ex Ever” shot up to the top spot on the streaming service’s top TV shows in the United States chart. The fourth and final episode, entitled “Married to a Monster,” follows Lewis’ relationship with Amanda Canales from a chance meeting in a Denny’s through years of physical and emotional abuse to the murder of her sister, 24, and the lengthy police investigation that followed.

Released last week, the documentary features interviews with Canales and her family and friends, her babysitter Abigail Ruggles, Snohomish County deputy prosecutors Jarett Goodkin and Martha Saracino,

The episode includes aerial shots of Everett, including of the U.S. 2 trestle, Highway 529 and downtown Everett. The documentary, produced by the television arm of horror movie stalwart Blumhouse, also uses animated recreations to bring the stories of witnesses to life. In March, the case was also featured in an episode of the Investigation Discovery channel series “See No Evil.”

In 2017, Lewis paid $2,400 to his cousin, Jerradon Phelps, to kill Canales, with whom Lewis shared three children, according to court records.

On Sept. 20, Phelps and his friend, Alexis Hale, drove from Spokane to Everett, where Lewis directed them to the home of his ex-wife — the target.

But when Phelps knocked on the ex-wife’s front door on York Road, Canales-McGuire answered. Canales was on a business trip in New York, so Canales-McGuire was watching her kids with Ruggles. Phelps opened fire, killing Canales-McGuire. Phelps and Hale, who got $200, drove back to Spokane.

With the money, Phelps bought a pair of Timberland boots, a Ferragamo belt buckle and tattoos, among other things, he later testified.

For months, investigators couldn’t tie Lewis, now 37, to the fatal shooting.

Meanwhile, prosecutors moved forward with charging Lewis with assaulting Canales just months before Canales-McGuire’s death.

He was sentenced to three years in prison in that case, which a Snohomish County Superior Court judge called “textbook domestic violence.”

The case eventually broke open in the summer of 2018, when Hale told people at a party that she killed somebody on York Road.

The people she told tipped off the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office.

In 2020, Hale pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Phelps also pleaded guilty and got nearly 32 years.

In late 2021, he testified in the aggravated first-degree murder trial of Lewis.

“I kind of wanted to do it so I could say that I’d done it before,” Phelps testified.

At trial, Lewis’ defense attorney, Michele Shaw, argued her client never said the word “kill” when talking with Phelps.

After a weekslong trial, a jury took just a few hours to convict Lewis. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

At sentencing, Canales called Lewis “pure evil.” She remembered him playing with the children.

“I thought that you loved them, but someone who loved them would never want to subject them to danger and to trauma,” she said, looking up from her written remarks to make eye contact with the defendant in his jail uniform. He stared at her.

She continued: “Did you care that if it was just me home that night, they would have woken up to find their own mother dead, lying in a pool of blood?”

Jake Goldstein-Street: 425-339-3439; jake.goldstein-street@heraldnet.com; X: @GoldsteinStreet.