My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 200

Episode Date: November 9, 2020

On our 200th minisode, this week’s hometowns include a hotel robbery and secrets in Nebraska. 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. And welcome to my favorite murder. The 200th mini-sode. Can you believe it? 200. We've done. 200 times. Oh, that's so many times. 200 times. The first one was on... Oh, where is it? Stephen, when was the first one? The first one was, I believe, on March 30th, 2016. Wow. And here we are. That was Georgia being like, you know, we can do this more. You know, we can do this again. And then just like, great. Perfect. You know, your entire life can just be this podcast. Just keep coming back

to this apartment. Yeah. Let's do it. And we did. Let's do it. And then we did and you guys played along. That's the coolest part is, of course, in my cynical negative mind, when Georgia first suggested that we do a mini-sode, I was just like, no, it's going to write in. We'll run out of them. Four people will write in. We'll have one episode. Yes. And now we have just thousands and thousands of unread mini-sodes. And so Lily, who collects them for us now, had the great idea that we only do minis that were sent in that first year for this episode, which I love. This is the great get back for the people who jumped on board in the beginning in 2016. Their emails were ignored. They quickly bailed on this podcast and moved on to other more welcoming lands. And now we're going

to read their emails to you. That's right. So let your friend who quit back in 2017 know. But the problem now that I've found with all the options she sent us is that we hadn't yet been like, send us anything lighthearted. So all the ones I had to choose from for neck get really dark. Well, and also, of course, I forgot that was what we were going to do as the theme. So the first one I read, I'm like, I fucking did this one. What's going on? And then I was like, oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, look at the date. And then remembered that there was a whole idea behind this. But no, Lily, I love this idea of such a good idea because we would hear from people when we would do live shows. The people would be like, I sent him my email, but you never got it. You

never read it. And then we send it again because it's fucking buried at the bottom of this, you know. Right. So basically, we Lily dove down into the first couple months of the first year to try to get some of the oldest mini-sode emails that she could find. And so then we from there chose, and you're right, there's lots of just like, it's heavy shit. I mean, obviously, we say that all the time. But there's no happy, there's no grandparent stories. There's no found in the wall story. Should I go first? Sure. Okay. This one's called. Happy is very subjective, by the way. I know. I know. Fucked up prosecutor puts innocent man away. Okay. It says, hi. So I'm from Austin, Texas. And our most well known case around here is the murder of Christina Morton and subsequent

imprisoning of her husband, Michael Morton. In 1986, the day after Michael's birthday, his wife, Christina was found brutally beaten to death in their home while their three year old son was home. Despite Michael being at work at the time, he was questioned by the police as a suspect. I remember him saying something like, I thought if I told the truth, everything would be okay. They couldn't possibly think it was me. With no other suspects, Michael was put on trial. The fucked up prosecutor, while crying himself, the disgusting liar, showed the jury the absolutely brutal crime scene photos and claimed the motive was that Christina would not have birthday sex with Michael. With no witness, evidence or good motive, Michael was sentenced to life in prison. He was 32.

Their three year old son went to live with relatives and eventually hated going to see his dad in prison and stopped going and changed his last name. Fast forward to 2001, pro bono attorneys working for Michael were able to finally get, and here's this is all it caps, evidence that the prosecutor withheld from trial and the defense, including a witness statement from the son describing the killer and saying it wasn't his dad, as well as a bloody bandana found nearby. The bandana was tested and belonged to Mark Norwood, who in the subsequent years had killed two Austin women in the same way Christina Morton was murdered. Morton was freed at the prosecutor, now fucking judge, was held in criminal contempt and served five out of 10 days in jail, a fine

community service and loss of law license, five days in jail for ruining a man's life, his relationship with his son and wasting 25 years of his life. Oh, okay. There is now the Michael Morton law in Texas, which means that the prosecutor needs to give evidence to the defense even without a court order. Crazy to think you could easily be put away in jail for the rest of your life without even doing anything. My family still talks about this case and everyone around here knows about it. Anyway, bye, thanks. I feel like that's, because you said it was from the 80s or 90s. I think it was 85. Let me look again real quick. Yeah. I feel like I've seen that story. Yeah. Or something. I don't think I've seen that one, but similar. I mean, it just happens all the

time. Yeah. It happens all the time and it happens to people of color even more. Right. As we all know now. Okay. Here's my first one. It says multiple hometown murders related to a murderous and this is from May 18th, 2016. So early on. Hey, Karen and Georgia. I've recently been introduced to your podcast. Thanks to the cracked podcast and I am loving it. Once again, Jack O'Brien, host of the crack podcast had us on very early on and exposed us to lots and lots of podcast listeners. Thanks Jack. Really helped us out. He really, it was very nice of him. I'm so glad there are other people like me. I'm from Huntsville, Alabama. And oddly enough, we have several semi-famous murders here, but I'll just tell you about two and a murderous that I'm related

to. The first is Jeffrey Franklin, who in 1998 was 17 and bludgeoned his parents with an axe. He also attempted to kill three of his siblings who were home with him. There were talks of him being a Satanist, but ultimately I believe they narrowed it down to a mixture of prescription medications and a lack of sleep. I bet there's more. I bet there's more to that. But the prescription medication can really fuck, even especially if you're on like an anti-depressant or something like that, that doesn't jive well with it. Yeah, or you have over you mix more than one and you don't, there's like, you know, side effects and shit. Yeah, side effects of some kind. All three siblings lived. That's amazing. Along with the axe, he used a sledgehammer, a butcher's knife, and a

rat tail in the file. The second, yeah, horrifying. The second is more recent. In 2010, I was attending college at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and a teacher in the science building. This is insane. I've never heard this before. A teacher in the science building opened fire on her colleagues during a routine meeting. Oh my God. Uh-huh. Three of them were killed and three more were injured. The survivors did so by pushing Bishop out of the room and barricading themselves behind the door after her gun jammed. Whoa, that's unbelievable. And lastly, I wanted to mention that I'm related to a female murderer. Her name was Viola and she was my grandmother's second cousin. She murdered two brothers living on her property and cut off their limbs and threw body parts out of the car

while driving down the highway in Andalusia, Alabama. The fuck. Thank you so much for the podcast. Love having others who enjoy murder stories as much as me, Callie. Wow. That was actually packed. Yeah. I mean, it was like, it was almost like an anthology of horrible murder stories. Callie, great job. Good job. Back in 2016. Four years ago. Thank you for being here with us. She is no longer a listener. She started her own true crime podcast. She's like, fuck this shit. I got stories. These people are ignoring me. Callie, if you're still, if you're still listening, we'd love to hear from you. Just to give us an update. Tell us another story. Like you said you had a bunch from your hometown. Give us an update. We promise to read it within the year. Yeah,

put it in a subject line. It's me, Callie. I'm coming back. I never left you guys. Right. Why are you so insecure? No one needs that right now. Please be leaders. Please be stronger than that. That's right. Okay. This one's called my mom was strangled and left to die. The good old 80s, man. Oh, fuck. I know. Hi, Georgia and Karen. First things first, you're the realest. And I am so excited to have found your show. As I'm sure you guessed from the title, my mom is still alive. But since you guys are into weird stories, I figured you would enjoy this. Wow. My mom worked at a hotel and she went to the University of Oklahoma back in the 80s. She was closing up for her shift and her manager asked if she wanted him to stay with her while

she waited for the next employee to come in. She said no, because she was a badass woman of the 80s who didn't think about the possibility of danger. And so he left a man. Let's call him Lester since that's a creepy name came in and was kind of pacing the lobby until he finally approached her and demanded that she give him all the money from the drawers. Moments before he had come in, she put money away into the safe box that she didn't have access to, which was not a satisfying answer for him. He jumped over the counter and pushed my mom into the back office, then proceeded to strangle her. When he thought she was dead, he crammed her into the corner of a wall and pinned her body with a filing cabinet and bookcase. I know. Lester started grabbing all

of the money he could when a couple truck drivers came in. They were regulars to the hotel since it was on their route and they knew to expect my mom at the counter. When they asked where she was, Lester decided to pretend that he worked there. Like, what the fuck? Don't mess with truckers, Lester. Meanwhile, he was putting on the charade that the guys weren't buying. My mom started to come too. She tried screaming out, but he had completely collapsed her trachea. So it just sounded like little squeaks. I know. One of the men heard her and asked what it was going on, and Lester was all like, she's crazy, man. Don't worry about it. She's just drunk. She was super out of it, but started to try to pull herself out from the wall, which just caused Lester to pick

up his bags and get the fuck out of there. One of the truckers tried chasing him after him while the other helped my mom, but he wasn't able to catch him. Later that night, Lester was caught because he's a fucking idiot. A bar owner called the police and said, hey, there's this man in here that tried to come in earlier for a drink, but didn't have any money. So I kicked him out. Now he's back and he's waving around a big sack of cash, and it just doesn't seem right. Thank God. Thank God. So fucking Lester sold himself out because he wanted a celebratory beer from the bar where he was originally broke. Oh, when the arrest was made and it was time for court, the weirdness didn't stop. When my mom went to testify, Lester's mom started barking like a dog

and wouldn't stop until police had to restrain her and remove her from the courtroom. I know. He was convicted and was to serve two years in prison, but a couple, two fucking years in prison, but a couple months in, he hanged himself. I'm sorry. This is not a murder story. No, it's okay. But I figured, yeah, but I figured it was weird enough for the two of you. Keep up the amazing work you're doing. Can't wait for more sleepless nights from listening to the gruesome tales. Say sexy, Angelique. Oh my God. I know. At first I was like, we can't read this. And then I was like, this is insane. She goes to testify against him, which is so badass. He only gets two fucking years. Like such a crazy story. And those two truckers who cared enough to ask more than one

question and like, have it not be convenient or they were just immediately like, what is going on? Something is suspicious here. And they stuck with their gut. That's so incredible. I know. It's beautiful and survived and then fought despite the fact, like fought her way out and was like, yes, it's can you go so insane if you are trying to yell to people to help you when you. Oh, okay. Okay. Good job, Angelique. You really nailed it four years ago. Thank you so much for participating. Angelique is now a move to Europe. She has sworn off all podcasts and tells people it's because of this one and the rejection that she felt from never hearing her part. We are so insecure. I just like to imagine all the different stories of the people whose emails are at the

bottom of the pile. They're so mad at us. Yeah. How many people did we like, did we swear, have swear off this podcast because we're like, send us your letters. We'll read them and then we're like, we're not reading yours. Well, it's because we didn't realize we were going to get literally 15,000. We are trying to get to all of your emails, friends. But we're not interested in organizing anything. Exactly. Okay. Classic. The subject line of this is, this might get a little long. Okay. So it's just, it just starts, this is really my friend's story, but I really don't expect him to tell it. I'll do my best. Years ago, I had this friend, let's call him Tim, and Tim was living with two other guys in this apartment and one of them,

Corey, started to get a little weird. The kind of weird where Tim and the other roommate would joke about how if they had to pick one of their friends as a future murderer, they'd pick Corey. But they figured it was probably nothing because who would ever expect their roommate to be a murderer. The morning before the dark night was released, Tim walked into the living room and Corey was on the couch. Corey had been pretty distant for a while, so Tim was a little surprised to see him. Tim did the polite thing and invited Corey to the midnight showing of dark night, but Corey declined. Tim wasn't surprised and was probably even a little relieved. He left the apartment and ran a few errands for a couple hours. When he got back,

he saw a whole bunch of cop cars outside. His interest was peaked and he checked out the first and second floors but saw nothing. When he got up to his apartment, it was filled with cops. The sheriff asked Tim if he knew where Corey was and Tim said no. Did he expect to see him? No. The sheriff left his direct number with Tim to immediately call if he got word from Corey. So Tim called his dad and asked what was going on. His dad said he didn't know but would be watching the news. About an hour later, Tim got a call from his dad who said that there was a middle aged woman shot and killed in New Brighton. Tim immediately grabbed his head and yelled, oh my god, he killed Christine. Here's the story. Corey Gustav was dating this girl who was a little

younger than him. He was 21 and she was 17 at the time of the event, but I don't know how old they were when they started dating. In any case, she broke up with him, citing violent tendencies. Corey didn't take this very well and started stalking her. She and her family filed a restraining order. He didn't take that well either. He was following his ex-girlfriend around one morning expecting her to go to work. He was going to kill her and any other employees and customers there, but she wasn't going to work. So he went to her house and waited for her. She and her mom pulled up a little later. He got out of his car with a gun behind them and demanded to know why she'd broken up with him. And then in parentheses, it just says, really? And then it says, her mom,

Christine, got in between her daughter and Corey and tried to reason with him. So he shot her and his ex and ran away. He fired at her four times, but she wasn't hurt. He's in prison and he won't be eligible for release until 2049 at the earliest because apparently Minnesota takes their murder a little more seriously than some other places. And there's no name. Holy shit, is that it? Is that fucking epic? That was from April 28th, 2016. That one's been sitting in the hopper waiting for us since almost the beginning of hometowns. That's incredible. Oh, I forgot to say. You just never found it. The last one I just did was from May 2016. And the first one I did was from December 1st, 2016.

Oh, okay. And then this one is from January 31st, 2016. Oh, it says this was the fourth email sent into the MFM Gmail. Number four. Oh my god. I think we had just created it. Yes. And remember you and I in the beginning had to find them on our own. And so it would be like, not only we have to record another episode every week, but we'd have to take like, you know, a half an hour or an hour to find all the stories. And finally, months and we're like, Stephen, can you start doing this for us? Like, we don't have time. I'm going to go insane. We do not. At that point, it was already like thousands of emails. So it wasn't just like sifting for a half hour. It was like a whole... Oh my god. It was like a real job. It suddenly became a job. And you had an actual

writing on a TV show job too. Or two. At least one. Yeah. Okay. 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 the new year. Hello Fresh 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 Hello Fresh's expanded menu of quick lunch solutions, weekend brunch, simple side dishes, and amazing desserts. Karen, January is going to be my month for Hello Fresh. 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 and Hello Fresh 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 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, 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. Here's my last one. My Lincoln Nebraska murder story. Dear Karen and Georgia, I want to express my gratitude to you two for starting the podcast recently. So recently, right? Like many kids that were overly grim and painfully awkward in their teenage years, I have a huge interest in serial killers and mass

murderers. I wanted to mention the spree killer from my hometown of Lincoln, Nebraska, Charles Starkweather, which is so crazy. We've never done him. I don't know how well known Starkweather is in other parts of the country, but he has made a definite mark in pop culture. Charles and his girlfriend, Carol Ann Fugate, killed 11 people over two months time in 1959. Charles got the chair and Carol went to prison. I'm 31. So growing up in Lincoln, Starkweather was not widely discussed. I think this was because the murders weren't really that old and Lincoln was still a relatively insular community at the time. At any time, a relative or acquaintance of the victims could be an earshot, especially in South Lincoln. In a way, Charles Starkweather was almost like the

boogeyman. A rite of passage for the local high school kids was to hunt around Waiuka Cemetery and search for Starkweather's headstone. It ends up being quite an ordeal as Waiuka is about 120 plus acres. Not too long ago, I was there just to take a walk and I ran into a couple teenage kids who were looking for the headstone. I thought it was pretty cool that it's still a tradition. My intersection with the murders goes back to my first job in high school, sometime during the summer of 2001. When Carol Ann Fugate was released from prison in the 70s, she moved out of state and kept her head down. During the murder trial, Charles was prepared to take all the responsibility for the murders. Carol maintained that she wasn't a willing

participant, which angered Charles, who changed his story, claiming she was more than willing to assist with the murders. Isn't this what natural born killers is kind of loosely based on? Do you know that I've never seen that movie? Have you? I loved it as a teenager because it's all fucking crazy and scary and now I won't watch it again. It's just like really glorifies violence in an ugly way. The 90s? Yeah. When you go look back on some of the the filmic work of the 90s, it's pretty bleak. Yeah. So that it says a lot of people here have a special kind of hate for Carol. I worked at a country club that no longer exists as a busboy and occasionally as a server. On a slow afternoon, one of the older waitresses gave me her tables and left for the day in a hurry.

As I started to make my rounds to the tables, I noticed some of my coworkers intently staring at me. One of the tables sat Carol Ann Fugate and her husband, who has since passed. They were both very quiet and polite. They tipped well and didn't stay too long. I guess the waitress refused to wait on Carol and that's why she took off. Anyway, I love the show so far and hope you do many more creepily yours, Dak Thompson. And then it says PS. On episode two, when you started talking about the Jean Benet Ramsey murder, I looked up the Wikipedia article to refamiliarize myself. I was stunned to see that the father, John Ramsey, is also from Lincoln. This seems crazy to me as I know as I was well aware of the case as it was

happening in 96-97. I never once heard that John Ramsey is from Lincoln. We got mad secrets in Nebraska. That's awesome. I know. Dax? Is that the name? D-A-K-K, I believe. Let me see. D-A-K-K, Dak Thompson. Amazing email, Dak. That's also that idea of the after effects of an infamous, because at the beginning, Dak said something about, I don't know how well, but I feel like everybody knows about Charles Stark. That idea that, yeah, why wouldn't she have moved to New Jersey or somewhere or Maine or something? It sounds like he said she did, but maybe she was in town because she probably still has family. She didn't murder there. As I'm saying, I'm like, wait, she murdered, didn't they murder her parents? Did they? I don't know. I don't remember, but it's

also crazy too to think. You think of a small town like that. It didn't even cross my mind that, yeah, you could be at a diner talking to your friend about how crazy those murders were, and a victim's mom could be in the booth next to you. I was like, yes, since I'm not from a small town, I hadn't even thought of that. So no one talks about it. It's crazy. Right. Or if you're going to talk about it, you do it in the privacy of your car or in your house or something. You don't like yap about it, which is kind of a good thing to keep in mind. You know what I mean? Yeah, totally. You never know. Just something to consider. You never know. Well, the other thing I liked about this story, because at first I was like, oh,

he's going to tell the story or she's going to tell the story about stark weather. But no, it's like the thing we asked for originally, which was, what's your connection to the hometown murder? And it's like fucking waited on them. It's so old school. Yes. That's that actually, Dak executed the assignment perfectly. Little info. And then was ignored. And so now, and has never listened to the podcast since. Did exactly what we asked for in a really lovely way. Well written. It's vulnerable. Really gave us something. What did we do? We left it in the inbox for five years. And then at the end, he says, I hope you do more of these shows. I hope you do more episodes. Oh, we will, Dak. We will. We will, Dak. Thanks for being

there, Dak. If you're still with us, God bless. God bless. Okay, so this last one is from May 19th, 2016. And I believe that it could qualify as our very first grandma email. Wow. Without being solicited. Holy shit. Okay, let's do it. I love it. And it just starts, hello. Oh, I love your show. I just started listening and have been catching up on all the episodes May 19th, 2016. Cool. This story isn't from my hometown, but it is a story from my grandmother. I only learned about this last year. Apparently, I missed other tellings of this story. After the war, my grandma was working in a hospital in France. She met my grandpa, who was planning to move to Canada, and she decided to go with him. They plan to get married.

The hospital my grandma worked at was run by nuns, most of whom she insists were very nice. That's very ominous. All the other ones were very nice. They're very nice. But there was this one that used to kind of crouch in the corner, rubbing her hands together. When they found out that she was going to get married and move, they were fine with it mostly. One nun was very upset because my grandpa had been married before and gotten divorced. She tried to convince my grandma to stay and become a nun. My grandma didn't want to and that was it. Shortly after, my grandma got a stomach bug and it wasn't serious, but she stayed in the hospital because she worked there and they wanted to keep an eye on her. Soon after moving to the hospital, she got worse.

And after a while, they knew something was wrong and that she wasn't getting better. The doctor eventually came and talked to my grandma and her mother, saying that they knew what was going on and that it would be better if she recovered at home. As soon as she went home, she got better. It was an open secret that the nun who was upset had been poisoning my grandma's food. Holy shit! But my grandma kept working there until she left and isn't upset by it to this day. Grandma! When she told me, I didn't believe her at first because she was so casual. That's my grandma's almost murdered by a nun story. Hey! And that's it. That's the holy male. Oh my God! That is hilarious. Truly my favorite sign off of any email we've ever gotten.

Hey with an exclamation point. This seems like this is where people try to make catchy, funny openers and closers and stuff and give their names in some cases. Yes. That's right. This is just the beginning. It was up to you to make your email what you wanted it to be. They weren't doing this for like to get attention or anything because we didn't because no one listened to the podcast. So we weren't going to get anyone who knew you. Hey! So hey who sent in on May 19th, 2016 and told this truly like a harrowing story, a harrowing grandma story that ends so grandma style. We just, oh stop making a big deal about it back then. And everyone got poisoned. That was how you showed you cared as you basically almost murdered someone. She was like, she liked me. That's all.

She did. Oh my God. That was so much fun. Thank you everyone, early adopters, sending in your stories and ever since. Anyone who sent them in and hasn't had them read yet, we see you. We just haven't seen your email. We hear you. We're digging through. And thanks Lily for coming up with this idea because I think it was an idea whose time had come. Yeah, for sure. So good. Yay. I can't believe 200 episodes you guys. Thank you so fucking much for listening and for making this a thing that you want to listen to and happen. Yep. And for participating with all of your personal and hometown stories. We love you for it and we appreciate it. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, you want a cookie?