My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 112

Episode Date: March 4, 2019

This week’s hometowns include a murderous babysitter and an animal rescue story.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is exactly right. We at Wondery live, breathe, and downright obsess over true crime. And now we're launching the ultimate true crime fan experience, Exhibit C. Join now by following Wondery, Exhibit C, on Facebook and listen to true crime on Wondery and Amazon Music. Exhibit C, it's truly criminal. Hello and welcome to my favorite murder. It's the mini sewed episode, the little one, a little short one made up of your emails that

you send to us at myfavoritmurdergmail.com. That's it. Tell us your stories. We'll tell you other people's right now. That's how we do it. Should I go first? Sure. Sounds great.

I won't say the subject line. Okay, I'll give it away. Hey, George. Yes. Do you know I say hi Mimi all the time now? Do you? Hi Mimi. Hi Mimi.

Maybe she just needs to be coaxed out of her, let's call it a personality rut that Mimi is in. Have you got her on the lead yet? We just got some CBD with just a smooch of THC in it. Fucking rub it all over, shave her back and then rub it into her spine like she deserves. Give her a good massage. She won't be able to see it if you give her a reverse mohawk on her back. George, I love you.

George? No, you George, I love you. Thank you. Hey George, this happened to a friend of mine as she was moving from Long Beach to the Bay area for school and as a poor college student chose to take a gray hound instead of a flight out. It was a late night ride and most people were fast asleep. She however was wide awake and noticed a younger man sitting a couple rows away who

sent all of her red flags high into the sky. He was talking to himself and obviously debating with someone but that someone was not there. An hour later the man stands up solemnly, walks to the front of the bus and jams a pair of scissors in the neck of the bus driver. The bus driver begins to swerve to the bus left and right, left to right, trying to regain control before ultimately rolling it, sending it onto its side. After the mayhem everyone crawled out and huddled along the wreckage looking for an answer.

My friend looking for the man who was no longer there until they saw him in the moonlight, his shadowy figure hiding in the fields watching them. What the fuck? No, I'm picturing this as the Highway 5, which is one of the creepiest, yeah, desolate, like scary, just-yield shit. Yeah. Nowhere to hide there. Oh, and then there's just the shadow of a man, perhaps a large moon behind him.

And then of course the scissors in his hand. It took the police an hour to get to the wreck and they had to stand there in the cold hoping he wouldn't come back. Oh, so the whole time waiting for the police. Oh my god. They're just hoping scissors doesn't come back. Luckily he didn't and was found in the fields and arrested. My beautiful friend is surprisingly well-adjusted and a boss-ass bitch so I can only surmise

this experience made her stronger. I, for one, would never use scissors ever again. Stay sexy and just book a flight, Nigel. I don't think it's the scissors problem. I think it's the Greyhounds problem. Yes. I think it's the freedom to walk around with scissors on Greyhounds. On transportation.

Why did they do that ad series encouraging people BYOS? Izzers. Why? It really was not well thought out when you really come down to it. This one's called, I'm not going to tell you. Do you love me? I love you. Thank you.

I got thrown off by that. I know. I know. It's okay. It was out of the blue. I love you too. Thank you. Hey y'all.

So, I'm friends with a woman whose friend lives in Chicago. Sounds sketchy but it's real, I promise. There's no way her friend's friend lives in Chicago. There's no way. Chicago. It's fucking bullshit. Her friend is our age, mid-20s, and has been using apps like Tinder and Bumble to try and meet her for keeps man.

Uh-huh. That's a new saying. Is it? That's a new series on Netflix. Oh, you're very... For keeps man. For keeps man. Gross.

Gross. She tries to be smart about it and makes it clear she's not just looking for a hookup, all that jazz. Anyway, so she'd been messaging this guy for a few weeks and they decided to meet up for a first real date. In Chicago, so they took public transportation to get there and when the date was done, apparently went well, the guy recommended that they share an Uber home so he could make sure she gets safe to her house back, you know what I mean?

Yes. Safe to her house back. Exactly. Okay. Okay. So, she agrees. He takes her home, walks her to her apartment, and sees she safely punches in before they say goodbye.

No. Uh-huh. I see what she did wrong here. Beep, beep, beep, beep. Got it. She sees you safely up to your keypad and watch you securely get yourself inside. Let me see where you put your hide a key and safely get you in. Well, this girl gets home from work the next day, notices her dog is going crazy and her

bedroom door is closed. She lives alone and she never shuts her bedroom door, so this fell off. Because her dog is going next, she decides to take him out before going to her room to chain. Good idea. And she's just got this gut feeling, you know? Yeah. While she's taking the dog out, she calls 911 and says, she knows this sounds stupid,

but she thinks something might be wrong in her apartment and can they send someone to check it out? The police get there and in her room, under her bed, is her Tinder date with a freaking knife. With a knife? Mm-hmm. Ooh. He had walked her to her door, seen the punch code to get in the building, and broke into

her apartment the next day. This sounds like that show, uh... That show your mom warned you? Uh, yes. That show all the things you're doing wrong? Yes. They found his car parked behind the building with trash bags. You.

Is that what you meant? You. Yes. I was going to say her, but that's not it. You. They found his car parked behind the building with trash bags, duct tape, and rope inside. This motherfucker was going to kill her. Yeah.

Thankfully, this boss bitch trusted her, got stayed sexy, and didn't get murdered. They, of course, arrested the guy, but it hasn't got a trial yet. Don't know what they can really get you for here, but that has a decent prison sentence. It's fucking true, but hopefully he'll be in jail for a long time, stay sexy, and get a warning dog. Julia. I mean, I feel like, yes, all of that stuff in your car is not good, but I think being under a bed with a knife is everything you need to know about that guy.

It's the trash bags that's incriminating. That's true, because he's too clean, and it doesn't make sense. Do you ever, like, if you walked in and you were like, I don't close my bedroom door, but you're like, that's too much to call the cops about. Okay, I'm going to tell you a story, and I'm going to try to tell you the shortest version of this. I came home from Sacramento, so after I flunked out of college, moved back to Petaluma with my parents.

They didn't want me there. Right. My mother made it very clear. She's like, you got to go be an adult. This is gross. So off times, I would go to Sacramento where all my friends still lived for the weekend, and on this particular weekend, there were drugs involved. When I came home, I was definitely coming down off of some drugs.

Home alone, and making a plan to go meet my friend, blow-drying my hair, the cat starts going crazy. What? Now, we had a cat that was weird, very human. She was very odd. She was standing at my parents in my, she kept darting around and doing these things like she could hear things, and I was just like, what are you doing? And I had the blow-dryer on.

What's the cat's name? That cat was named Mama Kitty. We didn't name her that. She showed up at our house. I just want to know who you're talking about. The longest story in the world. This was a cat that showed up at our house five times. The family came and picked it up four times.

And on the fifth time, they were like, it's your cat. I love it. Mama Kitty chose you. Mama Kitty. Mama Kitty chose my mom because we moved out to go to college. Soon I was back. And she was like, great. And I was like, it's my cat too.

And that's also the cat. I just skipped to the end that when that cat started really doing weird like seizing up and doing stuff, my mom took her to the vet. The vet was like, she's riddled with cat cancer. You can put her down. It'll cost this much money. My mom goes, don't worry about it. I'm a registered nurse.

My mom puts some kind of like, she heard it from her friends. So she puts some kind of tranquilizer like human or horse, something in the cat. She basically is like killing the cat off with her own pills. Oh my God. And she feeds the food to the cat, she cries, pets the cat for the last time the cat goes to sleep. She goes upstairs, takes a nap, comes back down, the cat's gone. She looks outside.

The cat is playing in the backyard in a way she's never seen before. So the cat didn't die. It was just like, I'm high as a kite. So cut back to the night where I am coming down and just trying to relax, blow drying my hair. Cat, this is before she was sick, freaking out and doing like darting around and flinching. Then I look and my parents' walk-in closet door is closed and I'm like, why would that be closed?

It's never closed. So I go try it and someone pushes back on the other side. I run downstairs in my like, no shoes, your arms barely dry. Exactly. Jump in and the only place I know to go because everyone's out of town is my old next door neighbor, Andy withington, who when we were tweens used to beat me up. I wake up Andy withington. It's like 11 o'clock at night.

Please come and check my house. Him and his friend come and we fucking check the whole thing. And then we look into my, like we check everywhere and then we go into my, he opens my parents' walk-in closet door. He's like, Karen, the door was stuck. There's nothing there. And I go, okay, we both look up and the attic entrance was like, you know, the little spare. The piece of wood was turned to the side.

Like the person had gone and then he fucking told you. Yes, and he goes, call the police, call the police. We fucking call the Petaluma police. They show up literally two minutes later because there's nothing going on. And somebody, the first thing we see is a flashlight in the backyard. So we start screaming, but it's a cop. There was like eight cops surrounding the entire house. They walked through the entire house.

There's nobody fucking there. It was all my drug problem. Wait, the, no one was up in the attic. If somebody was in there, they left while I went to get Andy, but there probably wasn't. Yeah, yeah. Like I was just freaking out. Put the wrong way the whole time. Maybe.

But I don't, but I don't think so. I know. I don't think so either. I don't think so. Okay, go. Okay. My favorite murder-sitter. Seth, Karen, Georgia, Steven and beloved creatures.

My mom was a single mom and a righteous badass, but she had some bad judgment. She was the first female police officer in our county, but had an inordinate fear of having her head submerged in water. To overcome this, she took scuba diving lessons and eventually volunteered to be on the water rescue team. Amazing. I know, right? That's so smart.

Yeah. Translation, diving for bodies. Mm-hmm. Fun. I bet you're super into having your head submerged in water now. One of the divers she met seemed like a great guy, patient, kind, great with kids. Somehow she decided he would be a great babysitter for me when she worked late nights. No.

I will guess, because it doesn't say anywhere on here, but I would guess this is 1977. Totally. Yeah, totally. Fast forward about 15 years, Charles Stevenson, who I knew my whole life as Steve Stevenson, intrepid babysitter, beat a woman to death with a pepper grinder and a skillet. He needed money. They had been dating. And when she refused the loan, he decided to kill her.

I was watching Investigation Discovery's Murder in the Heartland, and the very first episode was all about the murder. Oh, my God. Come to find out, he was also suspected in the death of his aunt and uncle as well. I called my mom and told her my babysitter was on Ideas' premiere episode, and after verifying, she said, you just never really know someone, do you? And then she said, he thought you were hilarious. That's how he knew he was fucked up.

Stay sexy and maybe put a little energy into picking a babysitter, Tanya. Oh, my God. From Louisville. He thought you were hilarious. Honey, he loved you. He would have never. Oh, my God. Can you imagine?

Mom, please don't get me killed. No. I'd really hope you'd try hard not to get me killed. Okay, Steve Stevenson. Steve Stevenson. Steve and Charles Stevenson. Looking for a better cooking routine? With meal planning, shopping, and prepping handled, Hello Fresh has you covered.

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That's up to 20 free meals plus free shipping on your first box when you go to hellofresh.ca slash murder20 and use code murder20. Goodbye. What makes a person a murderer? Are they born to kill or are they made to kill? I'm Candice DeLong and on my new podcast Killer Psyche Daily, I share a quick 10-minute rundown every weekday on the motivations and behaviors of the criminal masterminds, psychopaths, and cold-blooded killers you hear about in the news.

I have decades of experience as a psychiatric nurse, FBI agent, and criminal profiler. On Killer Psyche Daily, I'll give you insight into cases like Ryan Grantham and the newly arrested Stockton Serial Killer. I'll also bring on expert guests to dive deeper into the details, share what it's like to work with a behavioral assessment unit at Quantico, answer some killer trivia, and even host virtual Q&As where I'll answer your burning questions. Today, Prime members, listen to the Amazon Music Exclusive Podcast, Killer Psyche Daily, in the Amazon Music app.

Download the app today. Okay, this is called Driving Off Cliffs. Yes. Aloha MFM Ohana. Oh, mahalo. Aloha. Let me start by saying thank you for visiting the Hawaiian Islands. Our pleasure.

Our pleasure. Not just part of your winter spring tour, but also as your vacation destination. We love you here. We love you there too. Oh, my God, we couldn't love you more there. My story takes place in the late 80s in Ventura, California, when I was a white-eyed and impressionable seven-year-old. Somewhere along the way from Goleta to Ventura, my aunt, Rosanna, drove off the highway, well,

off a cliff and into the ocean. My late aunt was a junkie and had knotted off on her drive and plummeted into the Pacific. Don't do heroin. No. She was rescued out of the car and brought to the shore by a brave and anonymous bystander who disappeared after saving her. What? It was Jesus.

It was the Golden State Killer. Oh. That's totally what he went to Goleta and Ventura. That's what I thought this was going to be about. I know. I bet you it wasn't him. No, I bet it wasn't him. I bet you he didn't do that.

I bet you he just killed people. When officials pulled her out of the car, out of the ocean, they noticed a child's car seat in the back and a diaper bag, but no baby. Where was my little cousin, since my aunt was in the hospital unconscious, no one knew where my little baby cousin was. From what I remember of this, my grandmother and family were so upset and frantically trying to find him, total heartbreaking chaos. When my aunt came to, she remembered she'd left him with a friend and she laughed the

whole thing off and walked out of the hospital with nothing more than a broken arm. Heroin. I'm not saying, I'm not adding these under, it was all Goleta. But that's not heroin, like she's a heroin. That's somebody reiterating drug addict. Exactly. For years after this, I had a reoccurring dream that I drove off a cliff and was submerged in a sinking car and had five seconds to get free or be crushed by a giant tsunami.

Needless to say, this event made quite the impression, don't do heroin and don't drive off cliffs. The rainbow of this story is my cousin, who is a highly functioning, successful adult who makes our family proud all the time. Good. Funny how this sort of shit can shape us into the people we are today, SSDGM and warmest Aloha Francine. Oh Francine.

Twisted earth. That was amazing. Oh God, thank God, what a terrible, I was kind of hoping, did you ever hear that story about how Dick. Cheney. Nope. Dick. Cabot.

Dick. I bet his name is Dick either. What's fucking Mary Poppins, Jimmy Sweep? Oh, yeah. Dick Van Dyke. Yes, Dick Van Dyke. That when Dick Van Dyke got rescued at sea by a pod of dolphins. No.

Have you ever heard that story? You made it up. Stephen, will you pull that up while I read this one? I thought that that was going to be like that the baby was in the car and then got on some weird like the top of an aglue cooler and floated and then was rescued by sea lions. You got to have wished. You got to constantly be writing that Disney cartoon. The pods would have known how to unhook the baby seat, which no one can do.

I don't know. Those bottle nose dolphins, boop, right in there, click, right with their little specific nose. Okay. Hard left into positivity. Okay. Hey guys, I was driving into work this morning and heard this on the radio. For some reason, the first people I wanted to tell were you amazing ladies and Stephen,

especially since I know you have a hard time finding something positive to share at the end of the podcast. That's nice. That's very true. A pit bull in New York who had never run away or tried to escape before managed to make her way out of her home in the middle of the night and started barking like crazy running around the neighborhood. Someone woke up to the sound and called the cops.

When the cops showed up, the pit bull started running back to her home causing the police to chase her. I'm going to cry. Yeah, do it. Do it. When the police arrived to the home, they could smell gas and started banging on the door waking up the owner. The police take a look around and found a gas leak in the basement.

Thanks to this dog going about shit in the street, she saved her owner and the home from being blown up. Oh my God. And then this is the next paragraph, we don't deserve animals. I heard this and almost lost my shit in my car and thought you'd appreciate the story. Everyone get an animal. They might just save your life. PS, I recently moved to Illinois where 90% of the murders you talk about happen here.

And listening to this podcast makes me so aware of my surroundings in this crazy state so I can stay sexy and not get murdered. Thanks ladies. Amanda. It's true. Illinois. Oh my God. Please send us animal saving people stories.

Immediately. That's our new fucking call to action. That's a good one. I pictured that pit bull being a little scrappy and scraggly and dark gray. They almost didn't adopt her. She was about to be euthanized, but they were like, let's get her. She's got a giant head. Look how big her head is.

And she's got like 12 teats. She's one of those pit bull moms. Yes. Yes. And that's now you're her baby if you adopt her. That's right. She takes care of you now. I want a pit bull.

Oh, I love that story. That was great. That was a good one. Thank you for that. Send us your fucking pet stories. I'm saving. Steven's got a pet story. This is my pet story.

Okay. It says, yeah, Dick Van Dyke was on Craig Ferguson and he said, have you ever surfed or whatever? And he's like, I stopped after, after I had near death experience, he's like, I woke up out of sight of land and I started paddling with swallows and started seeing fins swimming around me. And they turned out to be porpoises and they pushed me to shore. Send us stories of animal saving human lives.

If you can send us stories of dolphins saving you, I will turn this entire podcast into dolphin saving you. You know, I want a cat saving someone's lives too because they do it too. They do do it. So can we get those also? Me? Your cat, your fucking little kitty, little mommy kitty. Yeah, mama kitty.

She fucking saved your life. Maybe. Maybe or she just pointed out how I was going astray and I didn't need to tighten up my game. How high you were. Yes. That was great. Thanks, you guys.

Yeah, those were good ones. Send my favorite murder Gmail. Thanks for sending them. And stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? Maaaaarr!