My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 198

Episode Date: October 26, 2020

This week’s hometowns include funeral home life and an interview with a mobster. 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. Let's see, it's truly criminal. Hello and welcome to my favorite murder, the mini-soad. We read your emails to us, to each other and to you.

You're included in this. This is your special. Congratulations. This is your podcast. Did you know you started a podcast? Oh my God. Congratulations. It's doing good.

It's doing great. We're real proud of you. Do you want me to go first? Sure. If you want. I mean, why change? Why change it up? I mean, dear Stephen, Georgia, Karen, and furry animals, starting with the engineer.

I don't know about that. I'm compelled to tell you about a murder that happened in my hometown of Woodstock, Connecticut. Woodstock is a very, very rural town in the northeast corner of the state. It's primarily middle to upper class with lots of open space and cows. On December 12, 2005, 44-year-old Judy Nyland went out for a jog and never returned. The next morning, police found Judy's body, her head had been beaten, her jogging pants pulled down, her hands tied behind her back, and there was a rope wrapped across the front of her body and around her neck.

Her body was found in a shed located on the property of Woodstock's most famous resident, Carol Spinney. Oh, shit. Do you know who that is? No. Let me tell you. Yes, but no. I'll tell you.

Okay, tell me. Don't worry. Thank you. I'll tell you. Then that name may not jump out at you, but the names of Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch certainly would. Recruited by Jim Henson himself, Carol Spinney was the voice and puppeteer of Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street from its debut in 1969 until his retirement in 2018.

Wow. Now, back to Judy. Finding her killer was not difficult for police since a receipt signed by 36-year-old Scott DOJ, that's how it's spelled, I don't know how it's pronounced, DOJ, was found on the road near Judy's headband and blood. DOJ worked as a caretaker on Spinney's property where Judy's body was found. He claimed he accidentally hit Judy with his car and in a panic, hit her body. He claimed the rope was used to hoist her body up into the shed.

The state's attorney stated that Judy's injuries were not consistent with being struck by a car. In 2007, DOJ pleaded guilty to kidnapping and the murder of Judy. He was sentenced to life in prison. Their DNA evidence linked him to a rape in another town that occurred in 2004. He confessed to the rape and had 20 years added to his sentence. Judy's family later sued Carol Spinney claiming he had foreseeability in hiring DOJ due to his history of burglary, suicide attempts, and marijuana use.

I believe this case was dismissed. Carol Spinney died on December 8, 2019 at his home in Woodstock. Judy Nyland was beloved by the town as she was the social worker at the town's middle school. Every year, the school children pay tribute to Judy's memory with a 5K road race. That's beautiful. Stay sexy and don't get murdered, love Jean, your fellow latch-key poster child. It's such a horrible thing.

Everyone involved. Judy, that's horrible, but oh, God. Yeah. That it would be somehow involved, dragged into your house property or whatever, and then somehow people are trying to say you had something to do with this or you're somehow responsible. Which I'm sure you ask yourself, too. It's not like, could I have done something?

That I have known. Yes. You're like, you're associated with that person. Yeah. That's horrible. That's, that actually, I have to say, that one feels almost like a legit, like, small town secret. Yeah.

Because I've never heard anything like that and you never hear, I mean, you wouldn't have ever heard it. Like, you go to that town and you would never know based on it. Right. Right. That's really sad. Okay. This one starts.

I just found out the slightly spookiest thing that happened on a road I drive on all the time and have to share it with you guys because I know absolutely no one else in my life will be interested at all. The slightly spookiest thing. It was the day after Surrey Police's annual Christmas party in December 2002. That's Surrey, UK, by the way. And they received a call. Not Tom Cruise's daughter, Surrey, okay.

They received a call out saying that someone had reported a car veering off the A3 and it says major road, kind of like a highway, I think. Thank you. With all lights blazing. So this car veers off the road. Police turned up at the scene and weren't able to find anything or really any signs of a crash until someone found a Vox Hall Astra nose down in a ditch covered in undergrowth. Nearby, they found a body and established his identity after checking the registration

number of the vehicle and was later confirmed by dental records. The only thing, the body is reported to have been skeletal or decomposed. Going by forensics, they worked out that the crash had happened almost five months earlier in July. Oh no. It had speculated that the driver had suffered severe injuries and crawled out the passenger side of the car and died in his attempt to climb up the steep embankment. The driver had been wanted by police since July 2002 on robbery charges.

He was last seen enjoying drinks with his friends in West London and his brother had reported him missing. So yeah, in December, a car is seen to come off the road, headlights on. Police find a total car, batteries long expired, covered in undergrowth that crashed in July. Was it a ghost crash, a ghastly replay of what ever went down five months earlier? Or was someone reporting an accident they knew about but didn't want to be involved with and finally their conscious got the better of them? Ghost crash for sure.

Or is there another car and occupants that did go off the road that night and they are still down there? They're down there. This is my biggest fucking nightmare. All of this. All of this. Getting like a crash and then but no one knows you crashed. Yeah.

I'm going to be thinking about this all night and never going to be able to look at that patch of road the same again. B. I want to know that I want to look at that patch of road now and see how cars can disappear in it. It's so easy. If you think of like an embankment, you can't see any part but like the right when you like drive off probably it's such an easy thing to do in my mind.

Is it filled with bushes like over undergrowth and like a lot of like let's clear that shit out. You don't need it in there. Totally. It's highway bushes. Right. Get rid of it. If there's cars down there.

The idea that there's more than one crash like that. I know that they're like, well, we found it and it's like, no, he's three feet away. Oh my God. You know what's funny is the majority of mine were ghosty or ghost based stories. So. Halloween. Right around them. Right.

Everybody wants and I'm sure we asked for them. Although I can't remember. But yeah, there's so many good ones. Okay. So I circled the wrong one. Sorry. God, remember when we used to go in the office and Stephen would hand us the stories all printed out and we would star which ones we were going to use or circle them and we were

near people. And each other. And each other in a small enclosed room. Hello. Well, this one begins. Hello all. I've been searching for something interesting to write y'all about since I started listening sometime this year and then in parentheses, I don't know when because time is nothing.

Today it suddenly struck me that I might have some stories of interest since I spent my youth growing up in a funeral home, but just struck them today. Oh my God, what's normal to you? You know. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Since there's nothing super interesting about growing up in a funeral home, except that

I may have shut my little brother in a casket when we were children. I also thought everyone lived in a funeral home and that's why they were called homes. Additionally, when my family moved into our first non-funeral home, I was confused about where we would put the bodies. As an adult, I also found out that every Christmas, our presents from Santa were hidden in the bottom part of display caskets, the lower part that is never opened during a funeral. Oh my God. But this story is about none of those things.

When I was a teenager, I would sometimes work for my dad at the funeral home, moving flower arrangements, cleaning, creating memory boards, etc. One afternoon, my dad asked me if I had drawn anything behind the clock at work. I was so confused and had no idea what he was talking about. He assured me that he wouldn't be mad, he just needed to know. I told him that I had not and he immediately went back downstairs without explaining any further. I followed him down the stairs to find that he was telling this story to my mom, younger

brother and Chris, the other funeral director who worked the funeral home. Still without explanation, he told me to get in the car. On our 10 minute drive to the funeral home, my dad explained about the clock. He told me that he had taken the clock down a few weeks prior to spring forward for daylight savings. He returned the clock to the wall, no problem. Then earlier that day, while there was a family having visitation at the funeral home, he noticed that the clock had stopped ticking and went to change the batteries.

When he pulled the clock down off the wall, he found that a woman's face had been drawn on the wall. Oh my God. No, no, no, no, no. Once we arrived at the funeral home, my dad very theatrically took the clock off the wall and there it was, a woman's face. But it was not quite a drawing. It looked more like a burn.

You could clearly see the tracing of the hair and eyes, nose and mouth of a skeleton. Now that I'm writing this, it seems insane, but there it was. My dad Chris and I began to share stories of the motion sensor going off in the front entrance when no one was there, hearing our names being said when we are by ourselves and not wanting to go into certain parts of the building. The building was sold off soon after that, and I often wonder if the new owners have experienced anything strange. Hope this warmed your Halloween spirit, SSDGM Kelly.

I'm mad at that one because it's nighttime right now and I have to go to bed soon and it's not going to go well. Sorry. What was that? I just heard a ringing sound. I did too. Was that you? Yeah.

But I don't know what it was because it wasn't my doorbell. The dogs both heard it too. Oh my God, what was that? Karen. What? The little bell in your house or something. What the fuck? It sounded like it was coming outside from the door, not outside, outside, but outside

of the room. What'd you say? It sounded like it was coming from outside the room. And there all, are they looking? No, like if it were the doorbell, my dogs would be going bat shit bananas right now. Hey, what was that? George did not like that. What was that?

Oh my God. Did she know? No. She was like, mom, I'm scared. Oh no. George was coming. Okay. I'm scared.

I'm scared. George. What do I do? I don't know. What was that? You keep going. You have a ghost and we keep going. Hold on.

I just need to tell, I mean, we're leaving this in, right? Yeah, of course. Like this, these dogs will fucking bark. If I like, you know, touch something incorrectly, they'll go off. That noise just happened, which I have these earbuds in, so I didn't, I can't hear what's around me. Yeah. It's like muted.

And they just both turned like this. They didn't stand up or bark or do normal dog things when a noise happens. Was it the oven? Did the oven on? Are you baking a casserole right now like you like to do on Sunday nights? Here's what I don't like. The back door is open. Karen, close the fucking back door now.

Well, let's see if I'm, come back. I'm taking this nail file with me. I don't like this at all. I don't like it either. Who's that? Who's that? Who's that? Karen, who's that child that walked by staying at your house?

Who's that child in the boating clothes? Right. Why is there a 19th century child in your house? I'm so mad at these dogs. It's the only reason I bought you is for moments like this. And Georgia just has her back to me. Okay. All right.

This isn't a scary one. So that's good. Oh, good. Okay. This is called the death bell. I mean, fuck. The death bell at Karen's house. I don't need it.

Okay. My teenage mother questioned a Tucson mobster and then it says, oh, the 70s. Ladies, I love you both moving on. My mom was a teenager living just outside of Tucson, Arizona in a small town called Marana in the mid 1970s. My mom is not a murderer now. She's not a fan of murder, creepiness or swearing. In short, she would hate this podcast.

Hi, mom. What's up? Knowing this, I didn't quite take her seriously when she offhandedly mentioned that she interviewed an Italian mafia boss in high school. Really mom? Mob boss in Arizona? Sure thing. But she proceeded to tell me how in 1974, my straight-laced Catholic grandmother drove

her in their wood paneled station wagon to the downtown Tucson office of Joe Bonanno, head of the Bonanno Italian crime family. Wait, have we talked, have we talked about the Bonanno crime family recently? I don't think so, but it sounds familiar. Everyone, yeah. Then it says the Bonanno's along with the Colombo, Gambino, Genovese, Luce, Crime Families make up the five families of the Italian mafia. So they're like one of the big ones.

Those are my five favorite, yeah, the top five. Top five. Top five favorite. Best. Mafia families. So it sounds like she must have had like a class where it's like interview someone of note in Tucson and she's like, how about Joe Bonanno, the head of the fucking Bonanno Italian crime family?

How did she get that interview? Well, I don't know, it says as a junior in high school, she learned through newspaper research, no internet in the 70s kids, that Joe Bonanno retired to Tucson. My mom in her school girl, Niaviti, assumed his criminal past must be far behind him since he was an old man retired to a warmer climate. Apparently, my grandparents assume the same thing as they voiced no opposition to her plan. She said he seemed like a regular old man who gave the impression that he has done his

time for his crimes and his image was just vastly distorted by the media. Alas, he divulged no mob secrets to my teenage mother, who would surely have eagerly reported them to her English class on Monday morning. My grandma waited outside in the station wagon and tell my mom finally traipse downstairs after inquiring about the crimes of one of America's biggest mob bosses. I can only assume she posed no threat to his criminal enterprises and luckily for my mother, she left her meeting with only a funny story to tell years later. Turns out Joe wasn't done with his life of crime and years after my mom's interview,

he served prison time for contempt of court for refusing to testify in a federal racketeering case. Perhaps sometimes he chuckled to himself in prison remembering the precocious high schooler who had no qualms about interrogating him. We can only hope. Stay sexy and don't take your teenage daughter to meet with mobsters. Jenae. Wow.

That's hilarious. Interview someone of note in your community. Okay. But also, because you know, and I know this factually because I've watched the Sopranos, but like, you know that whole thing where you're not supposed to talk about it directly because it's like, I work in garbage disposal or... Yeah, construction. Yeah, yeah.

Sanitation. Sanitation, thank you. I was like, garbage disposal's not a thing. That's in your... I work in garbage disposal. I work inside it. So she can't, I can't imagine, do you think she said, it's because you're a big mafia guy or she's like, you're one of the best, you know, sanitation management.

Right. You've made so much money through construction and sanitation companies. Yeah. No, I think she knew he was a mob boss and she's like, well, he's done. Maybe he'll tell me about how, what it was like. Dick, what, you know, talk about some of the work parties you used to go to. What? What were your Christmas parties like every year?

What stories could he have told her that he's like, well, I can't tell you that one. That one gets a little gory. Let's see. We'll tell you this one. Yeah. I mean, I kind of love it. I do too. That's awesome.

I wonder if we can get ahold of that high school newspaper. It's not what she was doing it for, her own paper. I don't know. Yeah. Personal paper. Looking for a better cooking routine? With meal planning, shopping and prepping handled, hello fresh has you covered. Hello fresh makes home cooking easy and affordable so you can stay on track and on budget in

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.ca slash murder 20 and use code murder 20. Goodbye. Hey, I'm Arisha 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, Whitney's voice defined a generation and even after her death, her talent remains unmatched, but her incredible success hit a deeply private pain.

In our series, Whitney Houston, Destiny of a diva will tell you how she hid her true self to make everyone around her happy and how the pressure to be all things to all people led her down a dark path. Follow Even the Rich wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad free on the Amazon music or Wondery app. All right, here's my last one. This says, uh, hello, I hope you're all staying positive and testing negative. Sweet, beautifully done.

My 95 year old grandma is an asshole. That's right. I said it. She's incredibly charming, narcissistic, emotionally manipulative and just an overall bitch. She's very wealthy and has her lawyer on speed dial. I have been in and out of her will more times than I can count. Oh my God.

Yeah, we're in it. I love it. We're in it to win it right now. Pretty sure I'm out now because I didn't call her on my birthday genius, but she once asked her daughter, my aunt, if she wanted anything of hers when she died. And my aunt said she only wanted the diamond necklace she's loved ever since she was a little girl. A few weeks later, the velvet box arrived at my aunt's.

She opened it up and saw that it was the necklace setting without the diamonds, a note in the box, a note in the box said, since you love this necklace more than me, you can have it. Oh my God. She fucking sucks on the paper. I have a plethora of stories like that, but the one I want to tell you is how my family suspects that she might have killed her brother-in-law over 60 years ago. My grandpa has five brothers and one of them was named Melvin. Melvin had a huge gambling problem.

Rumor has it that he used to play with Al Capone. Wow. He was always borrowing money from my grandparents and my grandma hated it. One day Melvin and my grandma decided to go for a boat ride on Lake Michigan and my grandma was the only one who came back. What the fuck? She claimed that he got extremely drunk and fell off the boat and drowned. When the body was found and an autopsy was done, it was noted that there was a huge gash

on his forehead in which my grandma explained occurred, to which my grandma explained it occurred when he was falling off the boat. It also came out that Melvin was in more trouble than ever with the Chicago mob and he'd been begging for more money than usual. We think my grandma was over his crap, got him drunk, hit him in the head and pushed him off the boat. The police never questioned her story. I'm sure she charmed the pants off of them, oi vei.

She has never confessed to this or even uttered his name since his death. Thank you for all you do. My father died suddenly a few years ago and he was the kindest, smartest and simply my best friend. He broke the cycle of horrific abuse and became the absolute best husband and father. Till the day he died, he was unfathomably kind to my grandmother, even though she didn't deserve it. She definitely didn't deserve it.

Stay sexy and don't go boating with evil grandmothers. That was beautiful. I mean, this is what I'm in it for. Everything about that, she fucking totally killed him. But what if she didn't, but who cares because she would have, it's not like it was above her. I mean, it's just how do two people on a boat, it's just the two and then one of them falls off and drowns.

Then just think of the acting that has to start the second you've committed a murder and now the whole boat right in, you're like warming up your face, I love New York, I need New York. Hello, officer. That's amazing. Okay. Thank you. My acting.

Thank you. Yes. Okay. This one, I'm not going to say the name. The title. Hi, Karen and Georgia. Every week, I always wish I had a good hometown murder story, but when I heard the request for celeb meetings, I knew I finally had my story to submit.

Victory. Yes. I met Oprah Winfrey. What? Yes. I worked in restaurants in New York for years and years, and then it says too long. And about five or so years ago, when I was working at a trendy upscale Tapas restaurant, my fucking favorite, I sat down for our service meeting and found out that Oprah was coming

and I was selected to be her server. The restaurant was very intense about celebrities, only me, my back waiter and my manager were allowed to speak with her. I was to have a super small section so I could focus all my attention on her. If other guests were to ask her, were to ask about her or try to take pictures, my job was to deflect, deflect, deflect, i.e. is that Oprah? Oh, I don't know who that is. Would you like another glass of wine?

Oprah sat down with Steadman and I approached her acting all cool and casual while freaking out on the inside. She asked me how the margaritas were. I told her they were the best I'd ever had. And then it says honestly, true. My other tables asked me if that was in fact Oprah and I'm sorry, I couldn't deflect. I mean, it's Oprah, I told them to act cool. She was warm and kind and absolutely everything you think she would be.

Her looking up at me and asking me about margaritas is forever burning my memory. The best part was when she got up to leave the restaurant, it was like the Queen of England was exiting the building. She stood up and I'm not kidding, all the other people at their tables waved and stood up and she literally waved goodbye to the whole restaurant as she left. It's like an Oprah and she had a bodyguard, she was safe. Since then, I've gotten to wait on some cool peeps, but no one will ever top Oprah. This was such a New York moment and I can't wait till the day that I can be in a New York

restaurant again with those same feelings of magic. We have been through so much, especially the restaurant industry, which truly has some of the most amazing, creative, interesting people on the planet. Please support your local restaurants in whatever way you can. Stay sexy and live every day like it's the day you meet Oprah, Elise. I mean, I've also been Oprah, but we don't have to go into my home. We don't have to go into my home. But mine doesn't count.

No, it was when I worked in Chicago. Of course, yeah. You work in the building. And she could not have been, you know, I was very much prepared to have it just be all business because her show had just wrapped. They'd just wrapped 25 years of basically like getting an A plus every single day on a daily show. With that show, she deserves every single ounce of everything that she has.

She has taken something which she used to do regular like Jerry Springer style shows back in the early 80s when it started, which is what every show was. And she made that show into what it was herself entirely her amazing. She's a genius and she's super fucking cool and real and understands who she is to other people. I have chills right now. Yeah. She really does.

Like when she would come through the room, it's not like any, it's not, there was never any kind of pretense or like she would come in and be like, Hey guys, like I heard you guys are all meeting today for like she would just come in like she also worked at the company. It was mind blowing. It's almost like that. It could sound pretentious. She walked through the restaurant and waved at everyone, but it's like, but not for Oprah. It's like, no, no, no, it's reality.

She understood. Yes. I like that idea that she understands what she is to other people and that's what I want from her. Yes. Oh my goodness. Yeah. It's really cool.

And she, she's like playing it correctly where she's like almost like has a sense of humor about being in that position of like every single person is going to go home and tell someone I saw Oprah win for you today and they're going to say, what was she like? She was the best. She waved at everyone. Yes. Exactly. You have to look at it from that way.

Remember when we were at Moza? Now I'm, now I just want to talk about restaurant memories because it's so sad and feels like when will it come back? But that's the thing too. If you see like that person, great email and also the waiters and a wait, wait stuff, they're in a very specific position because you have to like, you have to basically immediately pretend your best friends with this person and have no weirdness because you're trying to give them a good experience.

But for the other people, just know if you see a celebrity in a restaurant, do not talk to them while they're eating. No. If there is food anywhere near them. Just wait till, if you love them so much, go outside and wait till they're done. Yeah. But like to do it while they're, you, you're volunteering to make them hate you. Oh my God.

That's true. With just like a spoonful of soup right up to their mouth. Right. And then you're like, I'm so sorry. No, you're not. And then setting up her. Is he going to keep eating while you're hugging Oprah? No.

No. Let me have her gazpacho. She went out special. It sounds like everyone handled their shit there. They did. I love it. It does your stories about scary sounds and ghosts and then also celebrity meetings and I don't know, whatever else you feel like sending.

It's kind of, it's like a rando October. We're just going to do what feels good until we don't feel like doing that anymore. I feel like this whole year has been a rando October. Really? Yeah, it has. You know. One long rando October. That's true.

Thanks guys for listening, persevere and stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie?