One Doh From Murder

Sept 20, 2017. In a quiet suburban neighborhood in Everett, Washington (30 minutes north of Seattle) just before 2am, a woman wakes up to the sound of several loud pops. She races downstairs to find another woman lying in a pool of blood just inside the front door and she calls 911. At 1:56am, the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office received a 911 call from the live-in Nanny of 3 kids. She said the children’s aunt, Alisha, was lying face-down in a pool of blood. She can’t tell if she’s conscious because she’s not sure she should touch her or move her. Only that there’s a lot of blood and Alisha is not moving. She didn’t know what happened or if the shooter was still present. When Officer Art Wallin arrived, he cautiously walked up to the home and noticed blood and bullet holes on the front door. The nanny couldn’t open the door for them, as the victim was laying on the floor blocking it from being opened. The officer had to push his way and but realized right away the victim was dead. As he stepped inside the home was toddler boy on a couch in the room just beyond the foyer. He was just staring at the officer and the body with a look of horror on his face. It seemed the little boy had been asleep on the couch at the time of the shooting. The other 2 young kids had been asleep upstairs. And the nanny had gone to bed around midnight and had been upstairs asleep. It seemed that Alisha, the children’s aunt had been on the couch with her nephew. None of them had been expecting anyone to come to the house. The victim was identified as 24 year old Alisha Canales-McGuire, but she didn’t live at this house. She was only there for a few nights to help care for her nieces and nephew along with the live-in nanny while her sister, Amanda, was on a business trip in New York. Officers began processing the scene: Shell casings were found on the ground outside the front door. There were several bullet holes in the area around the door knob. It appeared that Alisha he had opened the door a crack and then peered out at whoever was at the door. And was ambushed. The front door of the house was set back from the garage. It was determined that the shooter had hid around the corner in front of the garage and waited there out of sight of the door, and waited for the door to be opened and then fired 4 shots as they walked towards the door. And then reached in thru the partly opened doorway to wear Alisha was lying on the ground and fired 3 more times. There was no evidence to suspect the motive was burglary or sexual assault. It was clear to detectives that the attacker came with only one objective, to kill Alisha. Alisha Canalas was 24 years old, grew up in Virginia on a farm worked as an aid at an assisted living facility. She was loved by the residents. She was very compassionate and had always been a caretaker at heart. In fact, the day before she was killed she had worked a 20-hour and then went to stay at her sister’s house to help the nanny with her nieces and nephews for a couple of days. Alisha had just gotten married 2 months before her murder. She and her husband were just starting their life together, and trying for a baby to start their own family. They canvased the neighborhood for witnesses. One neighbor told police he heard the gunshots and looked out his window to see someone in dark clothing, about 6 ft talk running down the driveway away from the house. And then saw what he believed to be flashing car lights as if the person had hit their key fob to unlock their car. Alisha’s husband, Brad McGuire, was the first person detectives wanted to interview. He was quickly ruled out as he was at work at the time of the murder. Digging into her life, they could find no one with any reason to do her harm. Police retraced her steps in the days before the attack and came up with nothing. Deputy Art Wallin, the first officer to arrive, had a suspect in mind. He had been to Amanda’s home on York Road twice in recent months for domestic disturbance calls and order of protection violations. Deputy Wallin said in an interview that Amanda’s ex-husband, 30 year old Kevin Lewis was a person that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Based on his dealings with Kevin, he believed he was capable of murder. Had Alisha been killed by mistake? Was the intended victim Amanda? And Amanda wasn’t the only female who lived at the house. There was the live-in nanny. It didn’t appear the shooter took the time to even look at the person who answered the door, just began firing as soon as it was opened. When asked if she believed it could have been her ex, Amanda she was sure of it. She was terrified of him. Amanda Canales and Kevin Lewis had been together for 10 years, married for 8 and had 3 kids together, 2 girls and a boy. But their relationship was toxic. Kevin was emotionally and then physically abusive. Kevin had assaulted her multiple times and threatened to kill her. Kevin was ex-millitary and had firearm training. When they separated, Amanda got an order of protection against Kevin. But things kept escalating. Kevin violated the order of protection twice. And both times Deputy Wallin had been there. The first time Kevin showed up to Amanda’s house in early hours of the morning, around 4 or 5 am and he had been sneaking around the house trying to find a way in. 2nd time he showed up to confront Amanda and started pounding on the front door but she refused to answer. She called police and then listened, hiding in her closet as she could hear Kevin trying to find a way into the house and waited for police to arrive. Deputy Wallin took note that it wasn’t just Amanda that was terrified of Kevin, their 3 children were as well. But police weren’t able to charge Kevin with a crime on either occasion. Their divorced was finalized in June of 2017 but that same month on June 21st, Amanda had been attacked and severely beaten as she exited her car. She had just gotten home, it was late at night, she pulled into the driveway. As she opened the door to get out, she was hit in the head. And then hit repeatedly. She never saw her attacker. she was covered in bruises, had a black eye, cuts, and since she had blood in her eyes she hadn’t actually seen Kevin’s face, but she knew it was him. But since she didn’t actually see him, police couldn’t arrest him. The next month, August, Amanda was granted full custody of all 3 children and Kevin was ordered to pay her $800 a month. He was livid. This was just a few weeks before the shooting. Kevin Lewis seemed to be the most likely suspect. Police knocked on Kevin Lewis’ door in the early hours of the morning to confront him, And they were cautious, assuming he could be armed & dangerous. The found him awake, alert and calm. And he didn’t seem surprised when he was told there had been a shooting at the home of his ex-wife and children. But his cool demeanor quickly changed when they asked him if he had any idea where he ex-wife was. Kevin was confused and said she should be home. The officers purposely didn’t say who had been killed, just that there had been a shooting and that his ex had not been home at the time. Police noticed that the only thing Kevin seemed upset about was that Amanda wasn’t the victim. And not once did Kevin ask about his kids. Not if they were ok, not, where they were now, if they were safe, if they had witnessed the shooting, nothing. Kevin told police he had been home all night with his mother and sister, who both vouched for him. Since they had no probably cause to arrest him at that time, Kevin declined to answer any more of their questions. So police went to work in search of evidence to tie Kevin to the shooting. His house was on a cul-de-sac and there were 2 homes with cameras. One had a good view of Kevin’s driveway. It showed a car pull up to the house at 1:12 am on the morning of the murder. This was about 45 minutes before the 911 call. And a few minutes after the car pulled up a person who looked like Kevin walked out of the house and got in the passenger seat and the car drove away. But the car came back at 1:34 am and Kevin is seen going back into his house and the car leaves. So he did lie to police about being home all night, but it showed that Kevin was in fact back at home at the time of the shooting. So they had to go back and focus on the crime scene evidence. The shell casings were sent to the Washington State Crime Lab. They discovered that the ammunition used was somewhat unique. It was Russian made ammunition with a steel cartridge casing. The lead detective knew it was sold at a local Walmart. So they head to Walmart and they recover video of a customer who recently purchased that ammunition that matched the description of a 6ft tall man like the one the neighbor saw fleeing the scene. But it wasn’t Kevin Lewis. But they were able to match up the time stamp on the video to the store’s receipt records and got a name. This man had a lengthy criminal record BUT had a solid alibi for the morning of the murder. So unfortunately, it ended up being a dead end. At that point, the were out of leads to follow. And the case stalled. In 2018, Kevin assaulted Amanda again and this time he was arrested. He went to trial and Amanda testified that Kevin wanted full custody of the kids and threatened to kill her. And that she was convinced that whoever shot her sister in her home was hired by Kevin to kill her, not her sister. Kevin was convicted of 2 counts of second-degree assault and received 39 months in jail. Then in August 2018 almost a year later, a call came into the sheriff’s office. A young woman called with a tip that she had been at a party in Spokane where a teenage girl had been bragging shooting someone in Everett, Washington. Spokane is on the other side of Washington, about 5 hours away. So at first the tip seemed strange. But the tipster when on to say this girl said she had been hired to kill someone on York Road (which was the street Amanda lived on). But the tipster said that the girl specifically said that the victim had been shot in the head, and that was information that police had not released to the public. And that the killer had hid around a corner and started shooting the victim from there. This was also not public information. Unfortunately the tipster only knew that the woman at the party’s name was Angelika. And that Angelika said she was there for the murder, she was not the shooter. It was her boyfriend, who fired the gun. And then there was one more thing. Angelika mentioned that they goofed and killed the wrong person. Detective Eric Fagan began an extensive search on social media to find Angelika and Jerradon Phelps. Turned out Angelika had multiple accounts with different aliases. But he was able to determine that her real name was Alexis Hale and she was 17 years old. And her boyfriend, was 18 year old Jerradon Phelps. A search of his social media showed he was followed by his aunt, Crystal Phelps. Crystal Phelps was a name familiar to the detectives. Because she was Kevin Lewis’ mother. That made Jarradon and Kevin cousins. So Alexis was 16 at the time of the murder and Jerradon was 18. Niether had a criminal record. But while diving into Alexis and Jerradon’s social media accounts, police discovered some incriminating snapchat videos in the hours after Alisha’s murder. At 3:47am Alexis posted a video she took of Jarradon fanning a giant wad of cash, mostly $100 bills. And Alexis posted a several selfies in a mirror holding a gun up partially covering her face at different angles, and police believed it could be the murder weapon. Detectives were also able to use video she posted that confirmed her location about an hour before the murder took place. Snapchat video showed that at 12:49am, she was in a car travelling on interstate 405 in Bellevue. Which was a short drive to Kevin’s house. From that detectives were able to get a search warrant for her cellphone data & GPS coordinates. The data showed that Alexis and Jerradon had driven from Spokane, where they lived, out to Everett.a They were able to determine that it was the car Alexis was in that picked up and dropped off Kevin after 1am. From there detectives were able to track Jarradon Phelp’s phone to Amanda’s house. It seemed that Alexis and Jerradon had picked up Kevin, who showed them to Amanda’s house, they drove Kevin back home, and then the young could went back to Amanda’s house to kill her. Kevin who was already in jail was charged with murder. Alexis and Jerradon were arrested and interrogated separately. They expected Alexis to turn on her boyfriend, since she had already been talking so freely about the murder. But it turned out that Jerradon had a guilty conscious and broke down in his interview. He admitted around 1am on September 20th, he drove to his cousin kevin’s house. Kevin got in the car, gave him $2400 in cash in hundred dollar bills, showed him a picture of a woman he wanted killed, and then drove with them and pointed out the exact house of the target. Jerradon swore he did not know who the woman was or that she was Kevin’s ex wife. Jerradon even did a video taped walk thru with police as to the events of the night. He told them Alexis had knocked on the front door while he hid around the corner of the garage, thinking that if a young girl was knocking, the vicitim would open the door. As soon as he saw a woman peek he head out the door, he began shooting and walking toward the door. After the 3rd or 4th shot the woman had closed the door and he stepped up on the porch, opened the door and shot 2 more times and then ran. They didn’t realized until later that they had killed the wrong woman. Both plead guilty to first degree murder. Jerradon Phelps was sentenced to 31 and half years in prison. Alexis Hale received 15 year in prison. Kevin pled not guily and went to trial In November of 2021. His cousin, the shooter testified against him stating he agreed to kill someone for Kevin for 2 reasons: money and street cred. In court he said, “I kind of wanted to do it so I could say that I’d done it before.” He said his cousin had sent him a snapchat offering him cash to quote “get someone out of the way”. He asked his girlfriend, Alexis, to help, and Alexis got a pistol from her sister. He also testified that he used the $2400 he was paid to buy a pair of Timberland boots, a Ferragamo belt buckle, some name brand athletic pants and tattoos. He only gave Alexis $200 for her part in the murder. It took the jury 3 ½ hours to convict a now 34 year old Kevin Lewis of aggravated first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. He is forbidden for life to have any contact with his cousin, Amanda or his children. Sources: On the case with Paula Zahn S25 E1 “Zero to murder” The cinemaholic .com People.com Herald net .com