My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 246

Episode Date: September 27, 2021

This week's hometowns include IHOP excitement and "the wine I like."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Hello, and welcome to my favorite murder. The mini soap. That's right. I seriously had to think about it. That's okay. Twice. This is what's happening, right? It's Sunday.

I'm lazy with my brain. It's my fun day. That's right. I don't have the run day. That's right. Oh my God. You want to go first? You want me to go first?

I'll go first? Sure. The subject line of this email is hometown, badass mom, murder, all the things. KNG. I'm one of the people who has written to you all a million times. Everything from my badass grandparents, the time I accidentally almost signed up for Scientology, my future mother-in-law, almost encountering the Yorkshire Ripper, and more. But the best things I've ever sent you are about my mom.

As someone who says she is not into murder, my mother has so many direct connections to weird-ass shit. A childhood friend who murdered her parents, a childhood friend who was murdered, she attended Camp Scott, where the Girl Scouts were murdered. Holy shit. Shit. I did. Wow.

She also has a story about sitting in one of the hospital rooms that was memorialized to those murdered Girl Scouts while I was having surgery. But here's my favorite, Billy, that's my mom's story. My mom took a sick day, which is insanely out of character, so she must have felt like absolute shit. She shipped my siblings and I off to school and settled down to a nap to watch daytime TV and all the good sick day stuff. After a while, she heard our dog barking and other noises coming from the kitchen.

She figured it was nothing but decided to go check. Lo and behold, a random absolute stranger is standing in our kitchen. My mom says she didn't panic, she wasn't even scared. She was just so pissed this guy was pulling this crap when she didn't feel good. Before he could even talk, she walked right past him to our home phone that was hanging on the other side of the kitchen and she said, and I quote, I'm calling the police and if you are still here after, I'm going to kick your ass even if I'm sick. Needless to say, that fucker immediately saw himself out, back out of the house.

Don't mess with a sick mama. Did I mention that she's actually very classy and beautiful? She definitely want me to mention that. Warm regards from Oklahoma Gentry. Aw, Gentry and Billy, thanks for writing in about your mom that just the idea of walking past the intruder. Yes, excuse me real quick, behind you, I'm going to grab the phone. That's such, I've had it mom action, you know what I mean?

It's just like, you know what? I don't even give a shit. I don't. That is such a mom, like, this will not stand right now and I'm not even going to react. She momed a burglar out of the house. Pretty badass Billy. Also, her name is Billy and then her child's name is Gentry. There's a lot of like strong country music, female power vibes happening.

That call in that family, Gentry's a rad name. Okay, this is called it wasn't a possum or a vampire. Hey there, true crime queens. Love you and your staff and your pets. Oh, you do too. Off the top. I do too. Oh my God, I drew cute.

I love those people too. Those are all the things I love. Um, off the top, I just wanted to tell you, I'm proud of you for taking a break. Thanks for coming back. My leaf face. Nice. A few years ago, I was home alone with my two kiddos. This one's pretty intense, by the way, a home alone with my two kiddos age four and four

months. My husband is at work. He works in 24 hour shifts. Turns out traumatic incidents only happen during said shifts. It was 1156 PM when I heard a crash outside my house. We live in an old house mid remodel. So there was a pile of tools and debris in the backyard because I was instilled with anxiety from a young age, I started to call my husband to stay on the phone with me while

I made sure it was just a raccoon or possum crawling through our own personal garbage dump. Unfortunately, it wasn't a possum. I heard someone jiggling our locked door handle and then start to hit the back door. I grabbed a bat and dialed 911 as I heard two or three heavy kicks and our back door fly open. Since I was in my room doing my best to block my baby from whatever was coming my way, I yelled for the intruder to leave our home, sprinkled with loud, colorful language, something

along the lines of get the fuck out of my house. You are not welcome here as if it was a vampire and not just a regular old piece of shit mortal man. You are not welcome here. You are not allowed to cross my door. Do not cross. Oh, shit. I know.

He came up the steps from our landing and stood in my hallway. He was staring at me and started yelling that he knew I quote had her as he got closer and closer. He was high and not making a lot of sense. We found out later that he thought I had taken and or was hiding his girlfriend. My four-year-old daughter ran out of her room and was standing face to face with this strange man in our home. I couldn't tell you what I said to her or if I just looked at her, but she bolted behind

me to my bed and covered herself and her little brother with my comforter. Using that and my allowed demands to leave my infant was now wailing. Later the daughter told me she just wanted to protect her little brother by covering him up. Luckily we had just installed our new bedroom door. Prior to this we had been hanging a sheet in the door frame due to the remodel. Luckily my detail-oriented, high-end loving, Taurus-ass husband was insistent on solid core doors.

That's yes. You're a Taurus and that's something you. You know that the one thing I care about more than pets and our staff are solid core doors. That's right. Because you're a Taurus. It's very important to us as the bulls of the horse. That's right. I shut us in and locked the door.

This man took our ladder we had been using in the hallway and started trying to bang down my bedroom door. I was holding it shut with my body weight. My daughter watched as the top gave a little with every hit. Jesus. I remember telling the dispatcher, I am living my nightmare. I remember my daughter saying, please don't let us get dead, mama. I remember my freshly postpartum pelvic floor piecing out during my struggle to keep the

door closed and peeing my pants. He must have seen lights or heard me describe him in detail to dispatch because he ran. Dispatch called my husband, the police came, took prints in our statement. They never tracked down the intruder even though we knew his name due to his prints. Step ahead four months during early fall, I'm driving to a coffee shop and who should walk in front of me but home intruder guy himself. Oh my God. I know.

I followed him from a distance and called the police. He was arrested. When it came to the point of charging him for a variety of reasons, we requested he get mandatory drug alcohol treatment in lieu of any jail time, which we hoped would be a more productive use of time and resources. But who knows. Incredible. Wow.

I know. It's definitely logically more effective than sitting in jail. Totally. And that's that. My daughter and I both went to therapy and we let her talk about it when she needs to. We're doing better now. My advice would be keep some kind of item that could be used as a weapon near your bed. Always have your phone charged in near you.

Never lose postpartum weight so that you're heavy enough to keep your door closed. But if you must, at least pee on the hardwood floor as a secondary line of defense. So lighthearted about this very traumatic thing. It's pretty incredible. Thanks so much, ladies. Even if it doesn't make it on the show, thanks for reading. I actually found your show after this event and it made me feel so much better. Like I wasn't alone for being an anxiety-ridden basket case, keeping an anonymous heart.

Wow. I know. So intense. Yeah. That's crazy. Both our stories, just like you never expected a tutor to come in. I mean, I have a knife in my nightstand. And it's a baseball bat, but, you know, things happen so quickly sometimes you're not going

to be prepared. It's just... Exactly. It's like, that's, you don't know what your nervous system is going to do. And it sounds, it just sounds like our anonymous friend kicked ass, protected her children, did everything she needed to do, and got to the great freedom and joy of peeing on the floor. I totally want to, everyone try it someday in your life if you have an opportunity.

So empowering. To wait yourself. Okay. Your turn. Mm-hmm. Okay. This is a light-hearted, sinkhole story for Karen. Yay.

Woo! Hi, ladies. I've been sitting on this story for a while because, you know, anxiety. But I feel like it's finally time to write in. I'm from Meridian, Mississippi, which I'm assuming is pronounced Meridian, but of course... Sure. It could also be pronounced Meridia, yeah, and then everyone can, you know, tweet us about it.

Let us know. But anyway, I'm going to go with, I'm from Meridian, Mississippi, and when news broke in 2015 that we were getting an eye-hop, Meridianites literally lost her mind. I mean, fair enough, because eye-hop is amazing. Moons over my hammy. However, that is so funny. Girl, that's Denny's. Come on.

This is eye-hop. Shit! What? Say, Rudy Tooty Fresh and Foodie. No, I don't care. Take two. Take two. You can do it.

I'm hungry. So... It's just, you want breakfast. Yeah. Okay. Construction began and the restaurant opened November of 2015. I'm fucking, I already just love this story so much. One of my best friends was eating in the restaurant the first night it was open and said that after

a series of loud booming, an employee ran over to the window and started yelling about an earthquake. Everyone went into a panic and, quote-unquote, ran for their lives outside the building. Once outside, everyone saw a giant sinkhole in the parking lot that swallowed up at least a dozen cars. Oh, shit. Huh? Yeah, a dozen.

Not just one. Yeah, yeah. Like, oh, it's a parking lot's worth of sinkhole. That's crazy. One of which being my friend's mother's. Uh, Janet, the hole, the hole was 35 feet wide, 375 feet long, and 30 feet deep. Holy shit. Miraculously, no one was killed or injured.

Thank God. Yeah. Upon further inspection, it was determined that a drainage pipe collapsed and caused the parking lot to cave in, which caused $3.5 million in damage. Oh, I hop. I mean. A lot of pancakes. My friend was interviewed by countless news stations and was featured in worldwide news

regarding the parking lot collapse. He proceeded to give the most sarcastic interview I've ever seen. And he later told me that he was more concerned about his chicken and waffles sitting in the restaurant uneaten rather than his mother's armada sitting at the bottom of the sinkhole. I'm starving and I agree with everything he's said about it. The armada's gone down. You better care about the armada. On the off chance that you read this email, I would like to acknowledge my best friend

Kelly for making me a murderer now. We love you ladies and we're so thankful for everything y'all do. Thanks for your hard work and bringing so much joy into my life. SSDGM Taylor. Taylor. Great email. Oh, I love it. Nice.

Huge. A huge sinkhole story. It's like there's the thing of like when there's like a sinkhole happens and the cars like kind of like just nose dive into it and they're not like they're still sticking out but a 30 foot deep fucking goodbye to the car sinkhole. Yes, you wouldn't if you were a block away, you wouldn't know cars were ever there. Right. Like it's it's not that's you know that my great love of sinkholes started when we

lived in San Francisco and one night on the way home from a bar, people were like, did you hear about the sinkhole up on I think it was like Russian Hill, one of those fancy very hilly neighborhoods that's and so we went up there and it was literally a block long, the entire street dropped and 30 feet sounds right because it was as if if your car dropped one car, yeah, like height down. It was down there like five cars worth. Oh my God. It was so far down.

Yeah. Richy rich fucking houses and shit. Yeah. Wow. Crazy. That's how it started. So a real deep technical sinkhole in front of the IHOP or on the side of it. We love it.

It's the origin story of love of sinkholes. That's where all my passions begin. That's right. Okay. I'm not going to tell you the name of this one. It actually was sent in to the fan cult and that's where we got it. So, hey, Queens, oh gee, listen, our first time writer. I was telling my dear old dad who has no interest in chew crime about my favorite podcast and

he was surprisingly interested and says, new murder, you know, hey, after trying to explain the quote, you're in a cult, call your dad. We got on the subject of cults somewhere in the conversation. He casually says, did I ever tell you about the time I met Jim Jones? Actually, I think he tried to recruit me to which I responded tell me everything immediately. Just to give you some context. In the early 1970s, my dad was a young medical student in San Francisco and heavily involved in the nation of Islam.

If you aren't familiar with the nation, it's a black nationalist movement that combines religious elements of Islam. The nation was active in the civil rights movement with some of the most notable members being Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali. Well, in the 70s, the people's temple was on the same street as the nation of Islam's temple. Apparently, Jim Jones would make appearances at the nation's temple where he was pretty well received for his views on racial inclusion.

One day, my dad showed up at the nation's temple and was surprised to see a white man Reverend Jim Jones as their guest speaker. According to my dad, he was very charismatic and spoken a way that captivated everyone. After the service, my dad went up to Jones and introduced himself. Somewhere in the conversation, my dad let him know that he was close to graduating from medical school and Jim Jones perked up and said, we could use a doctor when we move our temple soon. Come visit me at the people's temple and we'll talk.

Not long after that conversation, my dad got a residency offer in my hometown of San Diego and the people's temple moved to Guiana. My dad said, even if he stayed in San Francisco, he wouldn't have met with Jones because he quote didn't like the assumptive way he decided that I was going to help him with whatever weird shit he had going on. Way to trust your gut, dad. When he heard about the tragedy in Jonestown, my dad said he was shocked. I didn't know this, but a large majority of the people's temple followers were African-American,

and so it had a deep impact on the black community back in the U.S. who were under the impression that their loved ones were part of a positive movement towards racial unity. To this day, my dad says he encounters patients who had parents or siblings that were members of the people's temple and moved to Guiana to tragically have their lives ended in Jonestown. Anyway, my dad is an amazing human who has been a doctor in San Diego for over 40 years. His office is located in the neighborhood of National City where he serves low income communities of color, and I'm grateful for him for so many ways, but now newly grateful that he didn't unknowingly join a cult.

Stay sexy, and if you're in a cult, call your dad because he may know the cult leader, Ariana. Oh my God, I love that story. I love that it's like, because, and there is a really good documentary about Jim Jones and how kind of how it all got started, and it really did start, his work started in a very positive place because it was that like 70s San Francisco, we are going to be the ones that change like how racist things are in America and in the city or whatever. Inclusion, diversity, and yeah, it just kind of like just tricked people into the sense

of positivity. Well, then he started doing drugs, it's the same fucking story every time. He got high on his own. Then here comes the speed. Yeah, he got high on his own supply and his own power, and those two things combined or not that fucking positive thing. It takes everything and just weirdly ruins it, and I mean, yeah, it's also, it's very cool that that doctor is actually serving communities that need it when you think about

like, yeah. That's the hero of the story. The health care system and yeah, it's just what a badass dad. 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.

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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 Mike Corey, the host of Wondery's podcast against the odds. In our next season, three masked men hijack a school bus full of children in the sleepy

farm town of Chowchilla, California. They bury the children and their bus driver deep underground, planning to hold them for ransom. Local police and the FBI marshal a 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. Here's my last one.

The subject line says heartwarming meat related COVID ghost story. Great. Okay. Yeah. KNG. My uncle Kevin passed away in December due to COVID. He didn't have a wife or kids, but me and my four cousins were heartbroken to lose him so unexpectedly.

A few days later, the five of us got together in our hometown to write a eulogy for a small COVID safe grave side service. We ordered takeout from a local Italian restaurant to eat our feelings. Inexplicably, our order came with a single pork rib wrapped in tinfoil. None of us ordered it, nor would we think of ordering a single rib from an Italian restaurant and it wasn't on the bill. I think one of us ate it, but we started writing the eulogy and ugly crying. So we forgot all about the rogue rib.

Fast forward to this May when we all got together again from my medical school graduation. Congratulations. The whole family got together and we had catering from a local barbecue restaurant. Casually, my other uncle said, Kevin always called this place at a rib because you could add a rib to any order for $2 more. All five of us cousins must have gotten whiplash from how fast our heads turn. Oh my God. I already don't believe in coincidence.

That's the funniest sense of all time. I already believe in coincidence. Look, I already, look, I'm not some sap. I don't believe in coincidence. I mean, you don't think two things can happen in accident. You don't believe that nothing can happen coincidentally. That is your life. Okay.

Let's hear the rest of this. But the chances of us getting a single random rib the night we were writing our uncle Kevin's eulogy, who always added a single rib to his barbecue order are so unbelievably small. We know that this was Kevin saying hi to us and letting us know that he was okay. This was just one of the strange occurrences involving Kevin in the last six months. Another being his sister, my aunt, taking his member card to the casino just to use up the money on it and immediately winning a $10,000 jackpot. Oh my God.

Coincidence. No. Here's my favorite sign off of all time. Stay sexy and remember that love can never really die, jolly, jolly. That was a heartwarming meat-related COVID ghost story. It really gave everything, it delivered everything it offered. It did not overpromise. It actually undersold.

I love, it's so sad that you lost your uncle and I love stories like that of the message you're crying at right now, everyone, especially for someone who doesn't believe in coincidence. Oh, I love it, add a rib. There's no way, there's no way that that there just happened to be at an Italian restaurant at a rib-added, hi Nini. Just imagine, think of one Italian restaurant you've ever been to that offers a side of ribs. No, it's not a thing.

No. There's no Italian ribs. It doesn't cross over that way, it's too specified. It is. I have totally different cuisines. Okay. Rest in peace, Uncle Kevin. Rest in peace.

This one, my last one's called A Catholic Kid at a Sater Dinner. Hey. I just listened to the mini-soad about the margarita, 4th of July debacle, and I knew I had a write-in. Remember when the kid gave all the kids alcoholic margaritas? Yeah. I grew up in a mid-size, oh yeah, we asked for getting drunk as a kid's story. Oh, right.

I grew up in a mid-size town in Connecticut that had a large Jewish population, but I went to Catholic school. I was such a lot of our family friends, you know, my parents' actual friends, not just the parents of my friends, were Jewish. One night when I was about six, we were invited to a Sater Dinner. Being raised Catholic, I didn't understand the traditions or importance, but understood that it was special and I should be on my best behavior. I don't have a ton of memories from the dinner, other than that it was lovely.

I had a good time, some good food, and was able to try some delicious wine. What's clear to me now is that I was given grape juice in a wine glass to be included, to my six-year-old self. I thought that kids drinking actual wine was part of the ceremony, and I just went with it. You're like, I like these people, I like the way they think. This must be a Jewish tradition, and I'm here for it. I'm down.

I mean, it really is, but cut to a few days later, and I was with my mom running errands. We were in the very busy shopping center in town, you know, the one where you see everyone you know, and since it was the early 90s, and my mom just had to run in, I was left in the car. That's another fucking thing we don't talk about. You just used to leave your kid in the car when you'd run errands. Be good. Oh, at the very least running errands, and at the most, I know lots of people whose parents

left them in the car while they went into a bar. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Very common. Stay here, be good. Yeah, don't fight, don't fight, and only come in here if there's an emergency. Right, keep the doors locked. There you go.

What a time. What a time. My first errand was the liquor store, and one of my clearest childhood memories, I stood up on the center console of the Volvo and stuck my head out of the sunroof and screamed across the crowded parking lot, Mom, make sure you get the kind of wine I like. My mom just stood there like a deer in headlights, not knowing what the right reaction was. But again, because it was the early 90s, eventually she just yelled back to sit down and went into the liquor store.

Now that I'm a parent, I can only imagine how much liquor she bought that day. I just want to say thank you both for all you do. I won't go on and on, but just know that I appreciate your openness, your strength, and your friendship. Stay sexy and get the wine I like, Megan. Holy shit, that's awesome. I love kids. Oh, god damn it.

It's also just the, first of all, just a bossy six-year-old, just like, hey, hey. Mom, I'm standing in the, don't stand up in the car, first of all. Get the wine I like. Get the wine I like. I popped my head out of the sunroof like David Lee Roth in a Van Halen video. Also that makes me think of going to, and I know I've told you this story, but when my mom had a friend named Marcia Greenberg and we used to go to their house all the time and they, now I realize they were rich, but I just thought they were like, I liked

their house. Yeah. It was interesting. And we got to go to Passover dinner at their house one time. So I got a bunch, like I got to read and I got a certain special thing. And also they were really wealthy. So there was like a fruit, like display, there was like a fruit, cornucopia fruit kind of a thing.

And I was just like, this is living, like I want to be in the Greenbergs family. I want to be Jewish. Like this is where you, the youngest there, because the youngest, okay, because yeah, the Seder gets to read, they're like the most important, right, you get all this focus and attention. And it's like, now we're all going to turn and let Karen talk for a while where it's like, I don't care. Tell us.

Yes. It was the greatest. The worst though is when you age out of being the youngest and now there's another youngest and you're, I was always the youngest in my family of like, you know, 20 fucking cousins and it's always a little Georgia gets to read the four questions and all that. And then eventually one of my cousins had a fucking kid and I'm not the Seder. I'm just kidding. I don't give a shit.

And you don't get to be the lead in the play in the Jewish, in the Jewish holiday play. That's right. Tough. It is tough. It's not the most dumbest from send us your hometowns. Also, if you want one more little tidbit, we have in the fan called the mini mini. So we mini mini read one more home town and you can, you can. What's it called?

Submit your hometowns there too and make it picked sooner. Yeah, we get, we pick, um, we save the really long cinematic epic tale ones usually for the mini mini. That's right. I mean, we're just saying it might be, it might be worth you investigating. I don't know. Hard to say. It is hard to say because Karen's a tourist.

It's a tourist. Me and my solid core doors. Look, here's the thing about, uh, hollow core doors, which is what we grew up with. Yeah. Is if you kick a hole in one because your sister won't give you the belt to the jumpsuit, your mom made her loan you. Yep. Classic, classic tale.

You're right. The classic legendary story. And you kick a hole in the bottom of her door in a pure rage and you're, you're, because you didn't know your foot would go through the door. You can't stick a Mrs. Grossman huge heart sticker over the hole and think you're going to get away with anything. That's right. Suddenly your sister would have been in trouble and now you're in trouble.

Now clearly I had something. She can't kick her own door in if she's on the inside. Just saying of all the lessons a tourist can teach you, hollow core doors do come into play actually. That's a really good point. That's a great point. The other lesson, stay sexy. Oh, and don't get murdered.

Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an exactly right production. Our producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton, associate producer Alejandra Keck, engineer and mixer Steven Ray Morris, researchers J Elias and Haley Gray, send us your hometowns and your fucking arrays at myfavoritmurder at gmail.com and follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at myfavoritmurder and Twitter at myfavemurder. And for more information about this podcast, our live shows, merch, or to join the fan

cult, go to myfavoritmurder.com. Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe.