My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 199

Episode Date: November 2, 2020

This week’s hometowns include a family massacre and a cult murder.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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, the mini-soad. This is the episode of the podcast, the version of the podcast where we read you your emails. Whatever you write to us, we'll just read it right out loud. That's right. You tell us stories and we read them right back to you. That's the name of the game. We've got so many themes out there still taking Halloween stories. Who cares? Scary haunted stories. Did you ever see a celebrity in real life?

Celebrity Oprah stories are on the fucking rise these days, which I appreciate. People love a theme. Just murder stories too. And grandma, always grandparent stories. Always. Do you want to go first? Sure. This says good old-fashioned Montana hometown story. Oh, it says, hey there. I'm from Helena, Montana, and you would not believe how many hometown stories there are to choose from. I struggled to decide if I would write you about my partner's co-worker who worked with the Missoula Mahler during his killing rampage, the time I accidentally snowshoed through Ted Kizinski's backyard, or the many haunting haunted buildings around town. Needless to say, there are a lot of crazies around here, which I'm sure Chris Fairbanks can attest to.

Yeah. Yes, he can. Without further ado, this is the story of the disappearance of Nylene Marshall. In June of 1983, Nylene attended a picnic with her family at a campground in the Helena National Forest. Around 4 p.m., Nylene and other children went on a walk near Moppan Creek. To see some beaver dams, Nylene lagged behind, and when the other children turned around, she was gone. There were reports that Nylene was seen talking to a man at a jogging suit, but it was never confirmed this man was involved. This area is home to grizzly and black bears, wolves, and mountain lions, so there were thoughts that she had been attacked, but there was no evidence of animal involvement found and her body was never recovered. Two years later,

a man claiming to have abducted Nylene called the National Missing and Unidentified Person System from several phone booths in Wisconsin. Law enforcement also received letters from an anonymous man claiming he had Nylene and was traveling the country. The letters and call transcripts are creepy as fuck, and you can read them on Nylene's wiki page if you want to be scarred for life. In 2017, the Jefferson County Sheriff stated that they had no substantial leads. I know we're supposed to stay out of the forest, but I truly love being in such a naturally beautiful place, and it makes me so angry that fuckers like Nylene's abductor make it dangerous for us to enjoy without worry. I also really enjoy hiking solo and think of every trek

as an opportunity to take back nature from shitty dudes. Stay sexy and always hike with bear mace, a pocket taser, and your trusty emotional support dog, Mads. Wow, I wonder if they were able to prove that that was actually the abductor or just some fucking sicko admitting to it. Yeah, it sounds like they haven't been able to prove anything. That's so horrible. Also, then it also leads into, I think we've talked about this before, but have you ever seen the maps? Tons of people sent me this on Twitter. It's the places where people have gone missing and then the cave systems in America. Oh my god. They're basically kind of a mirror image, or like you could lay one over the other and they're related. Meaning like people

fell in like fell in places or that. I mean, to me, the clickbait version is something came out of a cave and grabbed people and pulled it back in. It's very like the descent. It's very like a horror movie, I think suggestion, whether that actually means that those caves are in national parks where people go missing because there's so many, there's dangers and risks. Or they wandered, they're little kids and they wandered off, which just sounds so likely, but who the fuck knows? It's horrible. What a horrible thing. Wow. Okay, well, I have a pretty classic small town hometown as well. This is called Vintage Unsolved Murder. Hi, Karen, Georgia, Creatures and Mustaches. I grew up in a super small town in the Hudson Valley area of New York State,

where literally nothing happens and we have no sidewalks or bars. Anyway, I have always been obsessed with the story about an entire family who was murdered in the 1930s on their farm a few minutes from my childhood home. The story is referred to as the German family murders and I believe it remains unsolved to this day. On the day after Thanksgiving 1930, the Borden Company of Duchess County sent one of its workers out to check on a local dairy farmer who supplied them with milk after not receiving their typical shipment. The employee arrived at the dairy farmer on nine in the morning to find all four members of the German family stabbed to death. Then it says, I hope that guy got therapy afterwards. Houston, German and his young son Raymond

were found first. They had been stabbed to death in the family's wagon shed. Mabel and Bernice German, Houston's wife and teenage daughter were found in the family's kitchen, both stabbed to death. Bernice's body was found under the kitchen table as if she had tried to crawl away. Although a butcher knife that did not belong to the family was found at the scene and was determined to be the murder weapon, police were unable to find any fingerprints on the knife. They eventually were able to track down who sold the knife, but the man was unable to recall who he had sold it to. Then it says, thanks for nothing. I was also discovered that Mr. German had cashed $150 check that same day of the murder over 2300 in today's money, which led investigators to believe

that the family's murder was likely a robbery. Investigators followed up on several leads, including an elusive mysterious stranger who had been reportedly seen walking around the German's property prior to the murders. In 1933, a neighbor was arrested who was supposedly owed money by Mr. German, but lack of evidence led to the charges being dropped. Other than this, no arrests have been made. I love the story for tons of reasons, but mostly because it has everything, murder, money, a mysterious stranger, but also because it had occurred in almost 100 years ago and is still the craziest thing that has ever happened in my hometown. In this insane world, that's probably a pretty good thing. SSDGM, Megan. Good point, Megan. That's a very silver

lining way to look at it. To a horrible and mysterious, this makes me want to point back to once again, one of my favorite true crime books of all time, The Man from the Train, which is unbelievable. And it has that thing where the idea that someone comes into a small town where people are just the assumption of safety because they're far away from people, they're away from the big city or whatever, and decimates a family and then just walks away and nothing ever happens from that is just crazy. I feel like back then it was just so easily easy to just blend in and be a nameless, faceless person going through town. Yeah, that's crazy. And you could hop on trains again, read The Man from the Train. So good. So good. Oh, this is

okay. Ready? No. Creepy neighbor story. Oh, no. That's all. That's the beginning of the podcast. We're definitely going to do about creepy neighbors. Creepy neighbor story. Yeah. I'm a little late to the game, but as I was painting ornaments for my shop and catching up on MFM parentheses, thanks for keeping me company, I heard your request for creepy neighbors and I had to write in with this guy. In college, I moved into a condo that I would end up living in for several years. I had an older upstairs neighbor who I kind of shared a front and back stoop with. He immediately established himself as a creep. Many times I would either be leaving my apartment or taking out the trash or whatever, only to hear a quiet voice behind me just saying,

hi, or telling me, or telling me I was doing my recycling wrong. Oh, God. Can you imagine that they're whispering? Actually, actually, actually, you don't know the difference between plus. The styrofoam is actually not recyclable. Actually. But he's right on you. He would be standing way too close and scare the shit out of me every time. Fucking creep. That's when the next time you do it before you turn around or whatever, you throw that elbow back. You just throw it back because why are they standing that close to you anyway? 100%. Then you just go, oh my God, I'm so sorry. I didn't know anyone was there. Yeah, because you shouldn't be. So sometimes I just move my elbows away from my body a tiny bit and if someone's fucking standing there,

they deserve that broken nose, motherfucker. I sometimes, look, I'll admit it. Sometimes I do that in Starbucks when people get right on, well, not anymore, but I used to when people get right up on you in line, I would pretend to turn one direction and then just throw my purse over my shoulder and hit them away. Definitely done that. It's always a middle-aged woman and the older woman, a baby boomer woman who's on your ass. So she gets a little purse hit. Yep. Look, this is an enemy. And you have the most gigantic purse ever. Always the heaviest, most enormous purse. So it's actually, it's pretty dangerous. My purses usually can fit a laptop computer in them and then all kinds of other dumb bullshit that I have in there. So just beware. Beware in 2029

when we can go outside again and I throw my purse at you. Anyhow, here we go. Okay. Pretty early on into living at this condo, his toilet started leaking, making a big water stain on my bathroom ceiling and resulting in a hole that looked directly into our bathroom. I bet you he did that on purpose. My roommate and I put a towel up in the hole which vanished. And she said once when she was getting out of the shower, she looked up and made eye contact with someone. So we taped paper over the hole and because we were dumb and in college, we did not give it a second thought to being peeped on. It gets worse. Of course it does. A couple of times I was woken up in the night from a dead sleep by a loud moaning because I'm nosy and I don't didn't see anyone coming or

going from this place. Because you could hear people walk up the stairs. I can only assume he was masturbating face down on the floor. It sounded like he was in the room with me. Oh my God. The last yeah, horrifying. The last story I'll share is the night my boyfriend and I were awoken by a woman screaming. It sounded like someone was being murdered, hearts racing, we had whispered a conversation about what to do. And as we were deciding to call the police, we heard a familiar moaning and then the screams turned into something more sexual. And then this isn't all caps. These people were like 60 years old. The walls were not even that thin. Why were they being so loud? Oh my God. I later found out that the woman leaving the

next morning was his ex-wife. Anyway, pretty soon after the old perv moved out and I still Google search his name every once in a while to see if he's been arrested yet. And that's the creepiest neighbor I've ever had, which is saying something because someone in my childhood neighborhood had a secret meth lab in their basement and got raided by the DEA. And then the sign off is I appreciate you, Allison. We appreciate you, Allison. We appreciate you right back. Wow. So many problems. I hope I'm done in my life with creepy neighbors. Not living in apartments anymore. I feel like I'm safe-ish. But the idea like the problem solving of tape a piece of paper over this when it's like you get your fucking landlord in there, you point out how there's an

eye coming down, like solve it, move, get out of that apartment. You show them your renters rights and that they better fucking fix that hole. Yeah. Move you. They need to move you across the building away from the Batman. That's right. Okay. This one is a follow-up on the 16th Street bombing in Birmingham. So it goes, hi, ladies. I listened to the podcast today and heard George's story about the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama. I currently live in Birmingham and I work for the state crime lab as a forensic toxicologist. A few years ago, I helped plan a forensic science conference and our keynote speaker was the FBI agent, Bill Fleming, who helped bring people responsible to justice in the final investigation. I wanted to mention a few things

that you didn't cover in the podcast. Agent Fleming showed us lots of crime scene pictures or which were just awful. He spoke about interviewing the suspects and how their views hadn't changed. They were still evil, racist, terrorist, even after all this time. I guess the tiger stripes never change. One story he told that really stuck with me was that the ambulances that initially showed up wouldn't take any of the injured people to the hospital because they were black, not even the little girls. It's difficult for me to fathom that kind of hate. I believe that bystanders ended up taking the injured in private cars. Can you fucking imagine? He told us about the corruption and racism in state and federal government that derailed

the original investigation. The governor at the time, George Wallace, was the most racist, white supremacist in history. Give that piece of shit a Google and see what I mean. Good lord. Another photo Agent Fleming showed us stayed with me was a photo of the bridge where the Kehabah boys, those were the hardcore, double hardcore KKK members, would meet to plan their attacks, including the attack on the 16th Street Church. This bridge is still in use to this day. I also wanted to say that the prosecutor who got the conviction in the early 2000s was Doug Jones. He is now a U.S. Senator, Democrat, who beat out the Republican incumbent and sexual predator Roy Moore two years ago. Oh yeah, that's right. He's running again this election, so fingers crossed.

Yes, vote for Doug Jones, vote for Doug Jones. That's right. I'm including some photos of the cars outside that were damaged from the bombing and a picture of the bridge. We should put those up on this Minnesota Post, right? Yeah. I'm so glad things are better-ish now, but what I've learned this year is that we have so much further to go. Black Lives Matter, SSDGM, Mary Ellen. I mean, it's upsetting, but then it's also good to just know more and more background. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Especially this week. Keep it at the front of our minds, you know? Yeah, absolutely. Looking for a better cooking routine? With meal planning, shopping, and prepping handled, HelloFresh has you covered. HelloFresh makes home cooking easy

and affordable so you can stay on track and on budget in the new year. HelloFresh meals are convenient, seasonal, and delicious. Stay cozy all winter long with classic comfort foods available weekly. Why stop with just dinner? Now you can enjoy HelloFresh's expanded menu of quick lunch solutions, weekend brunch, simple side dishes, and amazing desserts. Karen, January is going to be my month for HelloFresh. I am so sick of takeout. I miss cooking so much. I haven't lifted a knife or a pan since early fall, so I can't wait to get back in the kitchen. HelloFresh makes it so easy and also makes it so that my food tastes good, which is hard to do on my own. It gives you everything, everything you need. So get up to 20 free meals with purchase plus free shipping on your

first box at hellofresh.ca slash murder20 with code murder20. 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. 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. 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, we'll 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. I'll finish on it. It's a neighbor story, but it says neighbor stories cult next door. Ladies, non ladies. When I was a teenager, my family lived in the super conservative town of Holland, Michigan. We lived in an apartment building that was one of three in an apartment complex. The largest buildings had maybe 12 to 15 apartments and was entirely occupied by what could be described as the Amish. Keep in mind, this was not a rural area and we were not close to Amish country. So it was weird that they're here in the middle of town were several large families of

Amish folks, not hipsters, real live Amish. They wore old fashioned clothing, rode only bikes, and worked as the apartment's landscapers. One more note, although none of them drove, they did use one parking spot for this black luxury car with dark tinted windows. So several of them would wash and shine this car once a week or so. We used to joke about how truly weird it was and how they must be some sort of cult until one day, and this is on all caps, the FBI came and arrested their leader. Yep, they really were a cult. I did some research and it turns out they had been a liberal sect of Mennonites that had left Pennsylvania following a man they called Leader, and then in parenthesis it says no shit. The FBI had been watching them for years

and Leader was arrested, charged, and convicted of child rape. Oh my god. After he was arrested, some of the families moved away, but some of the creepiest ones stuck around. The Leader's black car is still in the carport and the glassiest eye among them still wash and shine the car. That's my story about living next to a cult. Stay sexy and don't trust your neighbors, Mollie. Wow. Wow, Mollie. You were a peeping, you were like a Gladys Kravitz peeking over the fence, staring at your neighbors and judging. Totally. And then it turned out you were right. And no one believed you until it was too late. Because at first it's like, hey, leave if they want to be Amish and they made it to the big city and they're going to be landscapers,

stop being such a judgy neighbor. And then it's like, no, no, no. Yeah, the child rape part really took a turn. And because I was like, all right. And then it's like, oh, this is the worst. Yeah. Well, also because this is the story of it's separate from being Amish almost nothing to do with this story. This is this thing where it starts as a religion. Everybody's, it's all about being good. And then there's a splinter group. And it's some kind of splinter sect that goes off by themselves because the original is too, you know, restrictive. Totally. Totally. And then as soon as you like agree to go off on that splinter, you're already fucking indoctrinated. And it just keeps heightening from there. Yeah, because you're now rebelling against the original group. So

you have less people around you may have left like your family, you don't have anyone to go back to this podcast. Okay. This last one I have is called spooky grandma Halloween. Hi, MFM fam human and otherwise. So this is not a hometown murder story, but it is my favorite spooky Halloween story involving my late grandmother. And I know you love a good GMA story. My family is from Salt Lake City, Utah. And I come from a long line of Jehovah's Witnesses on my dad's side. As you're probably aware, JDubs, as they call themselves, do not partake in any sort of pagan holidays or celebration. So when my dad was in second grade or so and came home with a letter from his teacher about a Halloween school parade and needing to come to school in costume,

my grandma was a little torn about what to do. After all, she would be shunned if she turned out to be a quote, celebrator. Not crazy. That Friday, a couple hours after sending my dad to school, my grandparents, Donabelle and Francis received a concerning call from my dad's school. On the other end of the line was the principal insisting they come and pick David up immediately. She asked what the problem was. And he explained that David, my dad, had shown up to school, dressed as Hitler, and was waving his arm in the air the way Nazis did. What? My grandma replied, Well, isn't Halloween about dressing up as something scary? And is there anything more evil you could think of? I believe she did end up picking up my poor

unknowing dad from school after the principal realized that she had been the one to get him ready and showed him how to wave his arm during the parade. They had never celebrated Halloween. And so she didn't understand what scary monsters meant. Right. Right. Although Donabelle had a pretty rigid religious belief, I always remember her having a great sense of humor, albeit sometimes inappropriate, and can only imagine that this was the seed she planted that eventually made my dad, sister and myself leave this crazy religion, or possibly why we all also suffer from debilitating anxiety. Anyway, even if this story doesn't end up on the pod, I hope you got a little laugh out of it. I know I do every time I picture my seven year old Jehovah's Witness father dressed up as

the person that put his own people in internment camps. Yeah, Jehovah's Witness. Stay sexy and although dressing up as a Nazi isn't considered cultural appropriation, still don't do it, Bailey. I mean, it's, especially in this day and age, that's like a heart attack story. Oh my God. It's just like, and also a seven year old. Yeah. So there's, it's either, yeah, it's either a family that's never celebrated Halloween before or the most fucked up family of all time. Yeah. It's like, it's like innocent horror, innocent terribleness. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's like, well, and it's also kind of in a, it's in a vacuum. So it's clearly, it's like, okay, here's real quick, here's the holiday. Everyone has to be the scariest, worst thing that they can think

of. Right. So just, you know, and that's, we can in good faith say, give her the benefit of that and say, if that's all she understood, then she was accurate. But however, do not. Don't. Just don't. It ain't funny. Send us your stories. Any of, any of the above that we've mentioned before. And yeah, I love that some were a creepy neighbor cult. There was like, people are combining grandma, grandma, ghost, there's people are doing cross, grandma, crime, grandma, ghost, there's all kinds of things. So you can really make it your own. I love it. And make sure that this week you do something self-care-y, self-care-ish for yourself. For yourself and for someone else, maybe, who might need it. Great idea. Yeah, come on. And other than that, stay sexy. And don't get murdered.

Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie?