My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 241 - Neighborhood Stories

Episode Date: August 23, 2021

This week's minisode is a compilation of neighborhood hometown stories. 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. Do you like podcasting? Do you like podcast and do you like podcasting? It's fun! We're welcome then to my favorite murder the mini-soad where it's basically your podcast we just tell it to you but we make it shorter than the other one yeah because it's not about us that's right and and it's ours and yet and yet it's ours so don't try to take a fucking cut okay here is too dark i haven't too bad and you're on the wrong bucket helping my neighbor ssdgm hello karen georgia

steven and associated pets partly due to my true crime obsession i like to know who my neighbors are which cars they drive and i always have an ear out in case anything is suspicious okay yes i am also a bit nosy i kind of love that yeah i was lying in bed right i was lying in bed watching television one night when i heard a woman screaming that didn't match the audio sure enough when i paused the show the screaming continued oh no i immediately looked out the my bedroom window which overlooks the parking lot of my apartment building i recognized one of my neighbor's cars backing up while a shirtless man was holding onto the driver's door throwing punches into the window and attempting to pull the door open i instantly opened my window and screamed i'm calling the cops

which i think is i've yelled that at fights before sure the cops are coming just that's a good way to break shit up yeah that's right um and the guy took off i got dressed as fast as humanly possible and flew downstairs ran out and got her to get out of the car and back into the building in case he came back where we immediately called 911 turns out she had just gotten into the car and paused to turn her iPod on when out of nowhere this guy opened her door and tried to take her seatbelt off and pull her out of the vehicle she's straight up grand theft auto style she started reversing the car in an attempt to knock him off her and that's when i yelled down the police response was quick and they brought in dogs and a ton of cars they ended up finding

the guy a few blocks north i'm so glad i heard the scream and was able to help and look out for a fellow young woman yeah she was okay physically just extremely shaken up ssdgm always help out when you can keep track of your neighbors and please please lock your door as soon as you get into your vehicle melissa yes that's such a good point melissa and it's really important just there's no reason not to if you're in your car your home base click always done i'd like to i want to tell melissa to bring a weapon with you when you go downstairs to help someone i'm serious like like i have pepper spring next to the door at all times and in my nightstand and in my purse and in my car you're absolutely going to get arrested for misusing that pepper spray i mean i just spray out of the car

window when i'm driving it's really really like the freeing and relaxing no wonder i'm always in a bad mood on the highway i put a tom patty song on real loud and just spray free spraying try it that's great uh uh okay yeah okay this the subject line is zodiac connection and spying on the neighbors um salutations i grew up in south san francisco california about 45 minutes from caron i too hate sacramento i do not hate i should have edited that out um i'm gonna i'm gonna write a love love love letter to sacramento and read it when we do our show there absolutely should uh okay i should have pre read that my mom was about 10 when the zodiac was terrorizing the community area my mom casually mentioned one day that the girl across the street was shot by the

zodiac i'm sorry what my mom is not a murderer and could care less about this oh my god i don't have a lot of details but my nino uncle told me that she was shot in the stomach at ucsf and was either a freshman or a sophomore she was only in the hospital for a week and made a full recovery obviously the neighborhood lost their minds yeah as this was the 60s and everyone was super tight nino said the neighborhood in the city went on fucking lockdown and no one could go anywhere he also um mentioned coming home at 2 a.m when richard ramirez was on his sf tour to an unlocked door i don't know they knew he was in the city and they still left the front door what the fuck nan and papa get it together uh since we're sharing random stories well you are since we're

sharing random stories i basically lived at my grandparents house growing up um and when i was little maybe three or four i heard a lot going out on outside i peeked through the wooden plantation shutters why were those a thing and watch just my neighbor's son was being taken away in handcuffs and tiny whiteies followed shortly by his brother being taken out on a gurney with and this is in all caps a fork sticking out of his stomach no take the fork out between the zodiac and the crazy neighbors next door i was destined to become a murdering out ssdgm angie that's amazing how hilarious is that that was a good one so we're sharing stories yeah it was um um it was like a compilation yeah yeah like let me just add this in i've got a couple okay this one is um

the time my friend's elderly neighbor got arrested and there's a photo that i think stewen's gonna pull up for us okay this is the story when my friend's elderly neighbor got arrested so my friend and i grew up on cape cod in a town called yar myth at the they spelled it out for me thank you oh and i at the time my friend's parents had just decided to move out of her childhood home and moved to florida none of the kids were living there at the time but her youngest sister who was in her mid 20s at the time moved back in while her parents were figuring out what to do with the house cape cod has the highest per capita elderly population in the state so her sister thought nothing of the old guy that lived next door until one day she hears some commotion outside and sees

cops and a swat team members and such surrounding this old guy's house so naturally she goes out to investigate i guess the cops had to tell her several times to go inside because it wasn't safe and she said something like it's my property i can be out here but eventually she goes inside don't uh don't go out there so once the old man came out of his house and finally surrendered to the police it turned out that this old man was no old man at all he was really a 31 year old who had been hiding from the police for four months he was wanted for drug trafficking charges but instead of leaving town he decided to wear a movie grade old man mask and stay in town no way i'm not sure how the cops figured out it was him maybe someone ratted him out or something but it actually

wound up being national news which he all thought was hilarious after all this this now semi-famous picture see below it's more steven of this mug shot next to a photo of him wearing the old guy mask was his was his facebook profile picture for a while let me see holy no he looks like a troll from troll movie uh and uh it's now an important part of the local folk folklore stay sexy and trust no one not even your elderly neighbors cara this guy looks like he was on gilligan's island and it's like gilligan's island old man makeup yes it's not good it's um he looks proud of himself it's nice of her to say movie grade um but it's insulting to movie makeup artists too i mean you know what it is is i bet you he look he that's a false nose for sure yeah and i

bet you he like looked at something online yeah yeah yeah it looks like him as an old man for sure though yeah it's not it's not a great job he probably don't downloaded his picture into a like benjamin button style app where it's like what would you look like super old and then did some kind of a makeup thing on that how do you kind of fun to like walk around town like as an old man and like people treat you differently probably that's right it's like a real tyra banks in the fat suit style social experiment that's right hi georgia and karen i hope y'all are ready for a story because this is the one i always break out um during icebreakers we like you hi we like you constant icebreaker life hi where you're one of us hi uh i live in the south specifically in a town where

everybody knows each other a simple trip to the grocery store usually lasts a few hours because you run into everyone you know i love it you're lucky southern people back when i was in high school i lived with my grandma she was injured in a car accident that we were both in a few years ago and my father passed away and after my father passed away i decided to move in with her to help out we had a neighbor whom my siblings and i adored because he had gorgeous horses oh the politics it really is really every day after school my sister and i would always go to feed his horses apples he would always ask about our grandma and even help her out on various occasions he would come over and help her install things or with tasks that i could not help her out with

while i was at school one night in october my grandmother had to go down the road for work so i was home alone i went into the kitchen to get a snack and i saw a massive fire in his yard there was a glass sliding door in our kitchen so i could see his house 24 7 i didn't really think anything about it because he always had been so kind to our family and i just assumed he was having a bonfire or burning some cardboard he needed to get rid of the next day while i'm eating dinner i see five police cars swerving to his yard with their sirens blazing oh my god well they're sirens what if their sirens were on fire they light them up and drive down the street on fire they were blazing fire with sound blaring is the word you're looking for they then

proceed to burst into his house and bring him out in handcuffs my grandmother and i were beyond confused and when we asked for information the police refused to say anything first turns out the night i thought he was having a bonfire he had killed his wife and was burning her body and the evidence oh my god so our friendly neighbor for so many years turned out to be a murderer and my grandmother and i were in shock for months holy shit thanks for listening y'all and never trust your neighbors jacobe oh my god twist a room 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

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plus free shipping on your first box when you go to hello fresh dot ca slash murder 20 and use code murder 20 goodbye hey i'm mike quarry the host of wonder is podcast against the odds in our next season three mask men hijack a school bus full of children in the sleepy farm town of chow chilla california they bury the children and their bus driver deep underground planning to hold them for ransom local police and the fbi marshala search effort but the trail quickly runs dry as the air supply for the trapped children dwindles a pair of unlikely heroes emerges follow against the odds wherever you get your podcasts you can listen ad-free on the amazon music or wondery app okay this one's called ss dgm'd and maybe broke up a marriage uh uh greetings i went to college at

the university of virginia in charlottesville from 2002 to 2006 years before the town was known only for white nationalism and having quote very good people on both sides oh no when i was there we weren't that worried about white nationalism but we were very worried about a serial rapist who had been assaulting young women in charlottesville since 1997 wow every female student at uva was very aware of the serial rapist the police visited our dorms and told us to be vigilant and there was a quote safe ride program set up to help students avoid walking alone i of course ignored all this advice so one night after a football game i decided to walk to a party alone i nearly jumped out of my skin when the carefully manicured shrubs lighting the street i was walking on began shaking

i quickened my pace but the shaking continued and then i heard a low loud moan this moan was followed by another more angry groan and then a large man lurched out of the bushes directly in my path i was prepared to defend myself and even began to assume some type of karate style stance that felt natural but probably looked ridiculous but instead of attacking me the man simply collapsed under the sidewalk at my feet his cell phone and wallet spilled out of his coat and that's when i had the chance to analyze his attire wrinkled oxford shirt dirty khakis uva baseball cap this was not the serial rapist but a very drunk uva alum it was pretty common for former students to come back attend football games and try to party like they used to he was very very hammered had

scrapes all over his face a huge gash on his forearm he stood up and i was about to offer him help when he began to hit on me to the extent that he possibly could in his condition didn't take long for my fear to transition to anger especially when i saw his wedding ring oh i reached down and picked up his wallet planning on taking whatever cash i found to pay for a cab to the party this was years before uber there was no cash but i did find a hotel keycard i looked at the name on the driver's license let's say it was tom smith called the hotel phone number on the back of the keycard and asked to be connected with the room registered to tom smith when a woman presumably his wife answered i asked hi are you missing your husband

and she she emphatically responded yes i told her where he was well he seriously began to cry and say please don't call my wife please and then oh sorry and then vomited on the sidewalk i it's amazing it's so great i assumed she came to pick him up yeah little did i know i had no reason to be scared of random dudes in the bushes because the following year the serial rapist was arrested and i had already encountered him many many times he worked at the deli at a local grocery store a harris teeter yep i had frequently asked him to cut my smoked turkey super thin thinner i had made him redo it lots of times maybe weekly what i like sandwiches that's what she said defend yourself he was a married father of four and his m o was stalking women for weeks

learning their travel patterns and then breaking into their homes when they were gone and hiding for hours until they came home he would then surprise them usually bludgeon them unconscious assault them and flee he was finally caught when one badass lady who had been assaulted noticed the guy behind the deli counter looked familiar and was acting super weird towards her do i still eat cold cuts yes i do but i never walk alone at night wow stay sexy and never trust a man with a cleaver ricky that is i feel like that's why we all are interested in these stories in the first place because it isn't it isn't a man hiding in the bush i mean in that in that way of what you decide to fear versus what is to be fear right like watch out for guys hiding in bushes

but also watch out yeah for but but it's that thing where it's those people hide in plain sight in those in that real vague bland way yeah where you're like oh that's the guy was bossing around at the grocery store i didn't think twice about him who that's a crazy story so amazing story goes this way it goes that way i mean all the ways the drunk guy though really had it like a full cycle life experience in just in standing with that girl hitting on her crying his wife being called and also almost being robbed but he didn't carry cash sorry i'm assuming that it's a woman it is ricky with k ricky with k okay because ricky the the idea of looking looking into his wallet to get the information on taking care of business was a very generous thing for her to do it was

very kind to a very drunk person and and also smart so smart then you and also then you just have that person's name so they try to come at you in any way it's like back the fuck up tom smith right that seems like one of those things were like later like i wish i had done this i should have done that she fucking did it she did it all real time good job ricky ricky and the flash okay the subject line of this is fbi raid at my neighbor's house two weeks ago oh my god hi all my name is claudia and i am a 16 year old listener claudia go to bed hi claudia i love taylor swift too i have always been interested in true crime and while listening to this podcast wished i had a hometown murder i could share that all changed two weeks ago when my neighbors had

their house raided by the fb holy shit that all changed okay i live in raleigh north carolina a typical sub in a typical suburban neighborhood two streets down from me is the most expensive house in raleigh the houses in my neighborhood are very modest and nothing fancy so this mansion is out of place being at the end of the street with old dirty townhomes here's the story an older russian couple couple lived in the mansion with their also russian housekeeper housekeeper's husband and son the wife was having an affair with the housekeeper's son oh my god the husband found out and hired a hit man to have the son be kidnapped taken into the woods forced to admit he was having sex with the wife uh on video and then be killed holy shit there's a lot of other info that isn't

important but basically the murder plot never went through the fbi found out and raided the house and the couple got busted for money laundering and a ton of other charges my dad also uh told me that they had an apartment downtown filled with guns filled with a little pietta tear downtown sorry if this doesn't make sense my neighborhood is it was perfectly written perfectly honey i know 16 you're always doubting yourself but you nailed it my neighborhood is full of other crazy white people like the cute young couple everyone loved who are busted for having a secret 12-year-old daughter locked in the basement that they had been physically and mentally abusing for years holy shit holy shit she buried the lead she went russian first when this is the fucking oh my god yeah

my next-door neighbor's car has also been broken into three times while everyone was sleeping so maybe it's time to move please don't move away without your parents um claudia don't do it love the podcast and sorry this email was so long i've other fun ghost stories that i will send in a separate email if you're interested we are stay sexy and move out of your country club neighborhood claudia i love it amazing stay at the um pod office if you want that's right okay that was great 16-year-old send us your stories we want to hear from you that's right and go to bed no go to bed uh send us your your stories at my favorite murder at gmail it's lunch time for us stay sexy and don't get murdered goodbye elvis do you want a cookie