My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 114

Episode Date: March 18, 2019

This week’s hometowns include a badass mom and advice about peepholes. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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More than mics are going to pick it up. Hello. Hi. And welcome. Welcome to my favorite murder. The mini soap. That's Karen. Yeah.

And this is the mini soap still. We started the mini soap about, I would say, seven seconds ago, and it's the same one now. It continues to be. It's been four years. Look, you know how this goes. Why are you pretending? What is this willful ignorance?

I also tricked you. It's been three years. Hi. Goodbye. You pretended you knew something and you were wrong. The subject of this first, damn it, I wanted to translate that really quickly and the subject line of this first email is Avril Lavigne almost killed me. Oh my God.

Hi, all. I just listened to the Gator episode and remembered what a piece of shit I was as a teenager, so I wanted to tell you about my near miss hometown murder. In 2005, I turned 13, got contacts, and decided I was hot shit. We all did that. Hey, my best friend and I were super into Avril Lavigne and wanted to be the bad girls of our school so badly that we did a lot of stupid shit like getting suspended from eighth grade for snorting someone's Adderall to sleepover and then parentheses, which coincidentally

is how I discovered I have severe ADHD. Oh. Right? You can't know until you know. Yeah. After we snuck out and egged some cars, my best friend passed out with everyone else while I stayed up and cleaned the entire kitchen. Yeah.

So. That's meth for you. Right? That'll do it. That's that clean pharmaceutical meth called Adderall. So wanting to be bad ass skate girls, we both got skateboards and decided to skate downtown, which was about 12 blocks from my house. It's important that you know just how hard I was trying.

I was wearing a hot pink studded ACDC wife beater, stupid name for a shirt, but you know, a studded belt and a fucking giant etnies. Oh my God. I'm like, I'm with you girl, but 10 years earlier. Yeah, exactly. Neither of us had any idea how to skate. It took us over an hour to get downtown and we, and we definitely did not look cool to make up for it.

We snuck up to the top of a building smoke cigarettes and through poppers, those little things that explode when they hit the ground, people walking by on the street. I love it. And up in Canada, Avril Lavigne is just, it just smiling, smiling in the middle of her mansion. She listens. You know, she listens. She knows.

She's so proud. We all are. When we got home, a cop car pulled up next to us and I was convinced that we were going to get arrested for the poppers, but it turned out these friendly cops had seen an older man following us. Oh, great. Which we had noticed because we were too busy trying to pretend we weren't getting stuck on every fucking sidewalk crack, so they're just like skating home all jerky.

I've got it. Apparently this guy had been reported before for trying to get young girls to go places with him. And we were now skating through an empty neighborhood in the dark. Oh my God. These cops offered to give us a ride home. We rode back in the back seat of the police car on the plastic bench, which we obviously told everyone about the next day at school to perpetuate our bad girl vibe and made it

home safely. Oh. I never skated again and moved seamlessly into a preppy phase, which was much easier to keep up for high school. I'm super grateful for those cops, but also young people don't get into a car with anyone police included. Don't trust anyone. I agree.

SSDGM Phoebe. Phoebe. That's right. Phoebe. Phoebe. Good job, Phoebe. Thank you, Phoebe judge. That was criminal.

All right. This one's called Nerds Save Baby Killer. Hell, wait. Yeah. Okay. Here we go. It's a roller coaster. It is.

Hell yeah or hell no? We don't know. Hey, Karen and Georgia. Elizabeth here from Wisconsin with a very weird story for you guys. She's a newscaster. She's got one hand on her ear. It's Elizabeth here. Right from Wisconsin, from cheese wheel Wisconsin and here's weird news.

Okay. Get serious. I'm taking a biochemistry class, which is definitely the most boring intro to a sentence you've probably read today, but the professor shared the story that I thought was crazy and cool and made me think of you guys. I love that baby killers make us people think of us. Absolutely. So in 1989, St. Louis, this woman Patricia Stallings was accused, tried.

And then 1991 convicted of murdering her three month old infant son. He was taken away by protective services and fostered after she brought him to the emergency room with symptoms of antifreeze poisoning. They do tests and he has ethylene glycol antifreeze in his blood and baby bottle. Not looking great for mommy dearest. So baby goes to foster care while they're locking her up. She still has visiting rights and after a visit with her, he died. Patricia gets first degree murder charges thrown at her because apparently in the late

80s, they started to really care about moms who kill their own babies. It's true. They like suddenly gave a shit. Yeah. Turns out she's pregs with baby number two while in custody waiting for her conviction. Has that baby. And then the baby starts showing symptoms of antifreeze poisoning just two weeks after he's born.

Oh my God. Okay. Wait. Obviously poisoning your baby in prison who got taken away from you immediately is a hard stunt to pull off. So somehow the whole case ends up in front of some biochemists. They do all their awesome science and are able to prove that these babies both had a rare disorder, but not that rare one in 48,000 newborns at the time had it that keep them

from digesting protein correctly. So the ethanol glycol they found in the blood was because of their own inability to do normal body stuff. What? She gets exonerated and as far as I know is out and about in the world living her life. What? Wait, but how was it in the baby bottle? Maybe it was just a spit.

Yeah. Backwash in a baby bottle. Backwash. I don't know. Maybe it wasn't in the baby bottle. I promise. I heard the story before. She's totally didn't do it.

That's so insanely awful. If she hadn't had that second baby, it would, they would have never, that's right. She would have been in prison forever. And also if it wasn't for those biochemists who actually were like, here's, fine, fine, fine, fine. That's fine with it. Okay. Biochemists.

Basically this is just to tell you that you don't even have to be a murderer to be thrown away for something, for some fucked up shit that you didn't even do, which I think is maybe more terrifying than the idea of being murdered myself. Yes it is. Is it? I also suppose it is. Because when you're murdered, you're not there. That's right.

You don't care. When you're like, you lose a child and then you're in jail. 100%. Good God. Also, I suppose maybe take some time to thank your friendly neighborhood biochemists for doing their part to keep the innocent ones out from behind bars. It turns out biochem is kind of hard and I'm glad other smarter people are doing it and helping us with it.

Can't wait to come to your live show this spring, SSDGM, Elizabeth. Yes, Elizabeth is right. Let's thank all the scientists. Thank you, scientists. And that's a really bummer story, but I just think it's so fucking fascinating. Well, yeah, because there's all these assumptions. If those experts don't come in and then it's just the people that are putting the story together themselves.

Yeah. I was like, well, clearly. I mean, of course, ethylene glycol, you know. You know how we all assume ethylene glycol is always antifreeze. That's right. Christ sake. Send us your science stories. Enough of this biochemistry agenda that's constantly getting pushed on this show.

Science. Okay, ready for the subject line? The day I nearly shit my pants. Okay. Uh, greeting you glorious bitches, Steven and adorable fur family. Okay. Easy. Complicated.

But I did not have any cool or bizarre, bizarre stories to share wrong. I could tell you the story of the creature I used to see in my grandparents' house when I was little or the person I would see in an apartment I used to live. Or my experience at the Winchester Mystery House, but those are for another time. But those are all stories of you being on drugs, but that's all you having weird. You probably are myopic in some way and need glasses. And you probably should go to a biochemist and see what the fuck is someone needs a biochemist. But then I remembered this doozy before we attacked this person.

I worked in elementary education for over 20 years and I'd seen many children and parents come and go. One day I asked a mother, uh, one day I had a mother come in to pick up her child and she looked thoroughly shook. I asked her if she was okay and she proceeds to tell me the police had just told her they had been investigating her husband for taking out a hit on her. I thought I heard her wrong, but no. Oh my God.

I find you, I have seen these people daily as they come to pick up their son for many years. So I had a very friendly relationship with both of them. She proceeded to tell me the whole story. Seems the family business they owned wasn't doing well. So to save their business, her husband decided to bump her off. After telling me what was happening, she said she was taking her son, but her husband was still going to be coming to do his regular daily pickup.

I was like, say what now? She told me the police wanted his day to run normally as to not tip him off something was going on. I thought like from now on, it's like, no, you should be in prison. No, no, no, they're letting him do the thing he thought he was supposed to do. The family lived right down the street from the school and the police would be waiting for him in the neighborhood across the street when he pulled into the driveway with the small child.

No, no, no. Okay. Cause let me, I'll keep going. She picked up her son and I was left standing there thinking, I have to talk to this guy like I have no idea that he's about to be ambushed and arrested in like five minutes. Needless to say, I should have won an Oscar for the performance I gave. Needless to say, he was arrested and is still locked up today. Stay sexy and watch out for suburban dads, Jen.

Can you imagine finding out like that? I mean, an affair is bad enough, but no, he's going to kill you. He's going to kill you for money. For like a little kid. He's going to kill you for like 40 grand. The thing of, yeah, I had, oh, the thing of like, I didn't even know this person, but I've been just terrified. It's the worst.

Also, how about teachers have to do everything for almost no money? Yeah. How about you don't put shit like that on them? Absolutely. Tell her the next day. Yeah, exactly. Or how about, how about everybody leaves the school and you put a plain clothes policeman in the school as the vice principal who goes, so sorry, Ms. Huha isn't here anymore.

Yeah. Actually, your wife already took your son, like, get some professionals in there. Don't send a murderer to fucking elementary school. Okay. So this, we have rules. This murder is going to come chitchat with you, but just for like five minutes. So just act like, A, nothing's happening. B, don't be weird.

Because if he figures it out, he might go fucking postal and it'll just don't worry it'll be at your school with children. The crux of this entire investigation is now laying squarely on your shoulder. How's fun? Oh, would he pay 30 grand a year? Good luck with that. Keep it real. Okay.

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slash murder20 and use code murder20. Goodbye. Hey, I'm Aresha. And I'm Brooke. And we're the hosts of Wondery's podcast, Even The Rich, where we bring you absolutely true and absolutely shocking stories about the most famous families and biggest celebrities the world has ever seen. Our newest series is all about the incomparable diva, Whitney Houston.

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Great. Okay. Ugh. Yeah. Greetings, Murderino family. It's fucked up. It's not fucked. Okay.

It's good. I'm from Saskatchewan. Nope. No. Sorry. Here we go. I'm from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. Ugh.

Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. I did it. Sweet. And when I was probably 12 years old, my parents and I went to the small city of Swift Current, Saskatchewan, for a sports tournament of some kind. We stayed in a motel that was right on the edge of town and faced an open field. There were no indoor hallways, so all the hotel room doors faced outside. I guess that's the definition of a motel, right?

Yes. And then there was no parking lot on the side of the motel. We were on. My mom was about to change into her pajamas before bed one night, and she noticed that the curtains weren't completely closed. No. So she pulled them apart to try to overlap them and cover the gap as a fucking light sleeper. I have done that so many goddamn times.

I sometimes think of bringing a clip with me. Do you know what I saw on a Hack Your Life websitey thing? The pants hangers with the closet? Done and done. I know. Say no more. That was not amazing. That's so good.

I know. Back to this. She did this. She saw a man crouched down in front of the window looking in through the crack between the curtains. No. Yeah. She screamed to the man, quickly ran off into the field.

Looking back, I don't think she even called the police or the front desk. In hindsight, it probably would have been a good idea to report that creep. Needless to say, we were all extremely creeped out, especially me, because I had changed into my pajamas directly in front of that window about 30 minutes earlier. Okay. So a year or two later, we had another tournament and switched current. And for some reason, we booked into the same hotel. And once again, fucking parents, man.

And once again, we were staying in a room facing the open field. Ever since the Peeping Tom incident, my family and I were always very careful of keeping our binds completely closed, so I guess we thought we didn't have anything to worry about. At the end of the weekend, I was standing in the doorway, waiting for my parents to be ready to leave and decided to look through the peephole on the motel room door. It was blurry and I couldn't see anything. Hmm. That's strange, I thought.

So I took a step back and noticed that the peephole was screwed on backwards. Has that ever crossed your fucking mind in your life? So the person looking in came in. Yes! Oh my God. When I read this, I was like, that has never crossed my mind. No. Meaning someone could stand outside and look right into our hotel room.

And since there was nothing back there outside the motel and no street lights, someone could literally just stand there looking in and it was likely like no one would ever see them. We were completely horrified by this revelation. I can't stop touching my face. I know! It's so crazy. Until this day, I didn't realize how easy it was to unscrew a peephole and put it in the other way.

Oh my God. I looked at the other motel room doors and a bunch of them were looking backwards as well. Maybe it was just a fucking lazy handyman, but I don't think so. I don't think so. I think it's, if it's someone in that area that likes to crouch around and will be a big person. And his knees are starting to hurt.

So he's like, could I, how do I hack my lot? He has a hotel room hack too. He's like, you know what? I kind of want to post this on YouTube because it's so genius. I went on Gizmodo and it was like, pervert hacks. Pervert hacks. Don't, don't be like a fifties pervert where you peek through a window. No.

Come on, everyone. Oh shit. So basically some creep, probably the same one looking through our window could take his pick of which room he wanted to watch, change, have sex and wait, wanted to watch people change, have sex, etc. My mom talked to the front desk about it and they didn't seem too concerned probably because it was very likely that one of the staff was behind it. Yes.

Who else? So to this day, I always check the peephole in my hotel rooms and I figured the world should know about this to prevent peeping toms everywhere. I'm also taking a risk that a peeping Tom listens to your podcast and is getting an excellent idea from this. Always a risk. But I highly doubt a voyeur would be a murderer. Stay sexy and remember to check your peepholes.

Cheers, Kim T. God damn. Thank you. Kim, that's insane and amazing. Yeah. We all needed to hear that. Yes, for sure. And then it makes me think of just the associated issue.

Remember to take FaceTime off your phone because people can call you on FaceTime, hang up and spy on you through your own phone. But my sister's the only one who calls me on FaceTime. I can't imagine if she's ever going to give a shit what I'm doing. She knows it's boring. No, no. Anyone that gets your phone number can do it. Yeah, but if I don't answer the FaceTime, then it won't work.

Yes, it does. That's what I'm fucking telling you. You don't have to answer it. You can look down and decline it and there's something. Read the article. I believe you. I don't build Apple phones. Explain to me.

As a biochemist. Word for word. How this works. Okay. So the microorganisms get into your FaceTime. All right. Final email for me. Sub-decline.

Happy Mother's Day. Happy Body. Lighthearted. Great. Yeah. This has got everything. Hey, hey. That's a favorite intro so far.

Really? Of three years. Great. Hey, hey. Had to share this story about my badass mom. After she divorced my dad when I was six-ish, she made me and my sister her Murderino best friends. Which included watching movies with her like Silent Slam's and Identity.

What? Identity. Is that that John Cusack movie? Is it? Steven Bessing. So obscure. No. All the, all of the TV crime shows, the 90s and early aughts could make.

And the nightly city news all while we were under the age of 10. You bet I have a nighttime anxiety and door locking OCD now. Cut to that Mother's Day when I'm 11 and my sister's 13. We're from Utah and we do all that outdoorsy shit. So for Mother's Day, my mom wanted to go for a canyon drive. Driving the fields to the canyon, my mom yells holy shit and throws the car to the side of the road in a panic. She tells me and my sister to not turn around or look out any windows of the car until she

gets back. Oh my. And she just runs out of the car. No. Goodbye. I'm your mother. Goodbye. Goodbye.

Forever. Obviously we immediately freaked out and turned around in the car to watch my mom disappear into a ditch. What? My mom had spotted a bloody body that was hidden by the brush. Oh my God. Right? It always makes me laugh that we watched so many gory crime shows and movies together,

but she was now suddenly expecting us not to look. Yeah. No. After a minute, she ran back to the car to grab blankets and have my sister call 911. Turns out this guy had gotten high on Oxy, went to drive his motorcycle up the canyon, lost control, drove into the ditch and into a barbed wire fence, wrapping himself in it and trying to escape and making it so you couldn't see him from the road. Oh my God.

He had been there for eight hours in the sun bleeding out. She helped untangle this guy from barbed wire and hold blankets over him for shade because he was completely blistered all over his body from sun exposure. The cops and paramedics arrived in time to get him to the hospital and save his life. You waiting for that extra lighthearted part? No. I'm crying. Every year on Mother's Day, his wife calls my mom to wish her a happy Mother's Day, thank

her for saving her husband and update her on his medical recovery and sobriety. And you, this happened nearly 17 years ago and she never misses a year. Stay sexy and watch out for barbed wire and prescription drugs. B. I'm crying and that's so lovely, but why isn't he calling her? Uh, yeah. Men. He's working on his recovery.

And that's- I don't mean to turn that- That's a step too far. Yeah. He's probably embarrassed. Holy shit. Yeah. Why isn't he calling her?

His wife sounds amazing. Yeah. God, he got lucky. Yeah. Twice. Yeah. Um, that's horrifying. Mm-hmm.

If she hadn't come along. Yeah. Okay. Uh, this is, here's a hero pet story. Perfect. That we've always wanted. Hello, Steven. Sladies and pets.

What's that mean? Like sleigh ladies, I think. I'm old. Sladies. Here's my hero cat adventure. Uh, I'm highly allergic to cats, but I was at the Humane Society with a friend. Away from the other cat's cages was a gray cat with mange and she looked rough. My abused animal flags were raised and I approached the cage.

Her name was Smokey. She was, and this is like a title, not good with kids. Not good with dogs. Not good with other cats. And she was not good with the staff. Oh. She put a paw out of the cage when I approached and I thought, your cat chooses you was a cliche, but that night I went home with a blanket from her cage to test my allergies.

Like, I just make sure her putting her face in this. It's kind of, I love cats, but okay. Smokey was a fitting name because she looked like a cranky chain smoking butch of an old woman, but a new life, a new name. I changed her name to Slate. She wasn't cranky. She had resting cat bitch face. She was a badass.

She had been at the shelter for eight months. As I signed the paperwork to adopt her, I was asked multiple times, are you sure? Slate hissed and swiped as they tried to put a collar on her. I picked her up off the ground and she stopped fighting. She only swiped once and that's the day she saved my life. What? It was a few months after I adopted Slate. I thought it was just going to be an animal adoption story.

I forgot about the hero part. This is really nice. This is lovely. Oh wait, what's this podcast? This isn't a podcast. No. Okay. It was a few months after I adopted Slate.

I worked third shift, but this night I was home with a cold. The fuck out in a deep, deep medicated coma when the fire downstairs broke out. I was so hard passed out that I didn't hear the alarms go off. My friends were evacuating the older folks, but they had no idea I was home because she was supposed to be at work. Oh right. They had no way of knowing I was asleep in the apartment as it slowly filled with smoke. This was the one only time Slate attacked and it woke me right up.

I got right the fuck out of there holding the cat under my arm. Something that was good was the big quote, weird guy that every apartment has broke his arm, knocking down the door to the apartment with the fire raging inside to save the pet that caused the fire. This lumbering giant ran down the stairs, saw the fire, broke down the door, went into the apartment and saved the kitten. Let's not call him lumbering. I mean, that's rude.

What if he's incredibly graceful? You weren't fucking there in the hallway. She's seen him lumber around the apartment building for years probably. But this is when his body took flight. Right. And he was suddenly the lead ballerina. It was most graceful. So don't discount the quiet.

So don't discount the big quiet guy that needs to do his laundry and don't. Oh, I don't. And don't count out the old cat. Slate lived for another eight years and when she passed away, a friend forged a special earn for her. She went from the cat that no one wanted to the beloved sidekick, SSDGM, Page in New England. Page, she didn't just go to the sidekick. She went to a true hero.

A hero. She woke you up. She knew what you needed. Slate! Go get a cat at the Humane Society, everyone. Also, that's kind of amazing that that cat hated everyone that worked there but reached out and touched her. I was like, listen, can you please get me out of here?

This fucking sucks. These people are insane. They love cats so much. We'll be your best friend. All the other cats here are fucking dicks. If I get out, I'll get a job and I'll pay you back. I swear to God. Get me the fuck out of here eight months.

That's a long time. Also, get this blanket out of here. Put your face in it. I promise you'll love me. Do you know that when we adopted, my old cat, Rory, died tragically but comedically. It was the exact same thing. She was an old gray kind of tabby. She was way in the back of her horrible cage.

She was just like, forget it. Just keep going. When they put you in a room to test it out, the way she behaved was if we were trying to strangle her the whole time. She was scratching at the walls and shit and she peed all over both of us. Oh, pretty. She was feral. Yeah.

Me and Pete were both just like, we gotta get her. You suck and sadist. We were just like, no one's going to take this cat. She's going to die in a shelter. She was also really old. We were just like, come on, you. Come join us. It literally took, because I already had Angus, my big, huge, insane cat.

It took her two weeks. She was just hiding under the desk. Then finally one day she snuck into the TV room. She was like, all right, I guess. Sorry, I didn't... Did she sit on you? Would she snuggly from then on? Yes.

Well, she would come up. She would like, everything was a test. If she came around, you'd have to freeze and just pretend like you were watching TV. And then she would put herself where she needed to be. And then you could pet her and stuff. My cat, Whiskers, who we found as a kitten on the street, Gray and White lived to be 20 years old. And she was like, the fucking best.

Cats are the best. This has been the percast. Steven's been kicked off the percast. And it's now on this feed. Right. And we don't interview anyone. His whole concept. Well, fuck you guys.

Thanks for sending your stories. Send us more hero cat and dog and animal. Parrot stories. Anything. We just, anything from your life. We like it all. Biochemistry. Yeah.

Thanks for writing. Let's hear from those biochemists. That's right. My favorite murder. Gmail. Oh, first responders. First responders. Apparently you haven't been represented enough.

Apparently you hate us. Apparently you're keeping all your good stories to yourself. All right. Well, stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? Yeah.