My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 252

Episode Date: November 8, 2021

This week’s hometowns include a mafia murder story and a badass warrior queen.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. That's right. We read you your stuff. Also, we're videoing it for the fan cult. That's right. We have makeup on. Bonuses. Do you want to see us wearing makeup and me the same outfit I've worn every day for five years in Georgia, a brand new venture to stress? Well, then sign up for the fan cult, one of the many things you get to have. Can you see I have a little shiner?

Why did Vince hit you right in the face? I know. It's so okay. Moses got his claw stuck under my eye. No. And it left a bruise. I swear it wasn't a mince. You can see there's a little scratch too to prove it. Jesus, are you okay? It was the scariest thing I had. I had this dress on and I had this cute vintage brooch that I now know is haunted because he got so scared of it. He fucking flew in the air, got his claw stuck in my face. I had to like cry him out of it. And it was, it's, I have a fucking shiner. That's crazy. I mean, I can see it and this is Zoom, which I don't have a ton of makeup on. Not great. Yeah. Really nice makeup, by the way. Was your brooch shaped like a cucumber? No, I do cats hate cucumbers. Yeah. I mean,

you see those videos? Oh, they lose their minds. Yeah, they go straight up in the air. Yeah, I had a cucumber brooch on. What is, what was the brooch? It's just a beautiful, old, tiny, you know, like, jeweled thing, like I like to wear. And clearly it's haunted because he fucking got so scared of it and he's not like that. Spirits. Spirits. That's the crazy of whoever, whoever I got it from an estate sale from is clearly haunting it. I thought you said of liver. And then I was like, what? Oh, yeah. Liver, what? Liver feast from fancy feast? That's right. Do you know that my sister, this is how long ago we went to grammar school, my sister in kindergarten brought our cat Taffy to the pet parade at school.

And of course the second Taffy, Taffy with no, nothing but her collar on, like no way to control a cat, saw a dog and scratched my sister directly under her eye, directly, like she could have, yeah, half an inch away from losing her eye. She had that scar for a long time. It took a while to go away. But it was just like thinking, we've talked about this, I know. But I just, it's mind blowing to be like, oh, kindergartners, five years old, bring all your pets to school. Oh, totally. That you're now responsible for whatever happens. Are they going to bite another kid? Don't matter. This was not when parents went to school and stood behind their children all day long, which is how they do it now. But this is also when like you didn't sue if your dog bit,

if a dog bit a kid, it was like, well, the kid shouldn't have been near Vintetta dog. Yeah. And he's apologetic for this name now, but it was named Christopher Columbus. And this little girl was walking through the yard and the dog was out there and she put her face up to the dog and the dog like bit the end of her nose and it was like, well, you shouldn't have put your face in the dogs. It was no like that dog is aggressive to children. No. Well, and also back then it would be like, unless the child herself can argue why she would have some kind of a case or anything, that would be the only exchange. It's just like what the adult yells at you as you run away crying. Well, you shouldn't be bleeding so much. Yeah.

Don't bleed for attention, please. I think I do have a story of old timey things. Okay, let's do, let's do hometowns. Want to? You don't want to just chit chat? I'd love to just chit chat. But you're right. We should get down to biz. I'm a little lonely. Yeah. That's what animals, pets are for and getting your fucking face scratched. Okay. Do you want to go first or me to go first? You can go first. Okay. This is called in 1956, my dad witnessed a murder. Oh, God. Hi, friends. To answer your call for hometown stories, I wanted to share one of my dads. When I told him I wanted to send this story in, he was really nervous. You'll see why, but I assured him no one listened to this podcast, so it would be fine.

Lie to your parents. How would he know? How would he know? Right. My dad is now almost 80 and grew up in Buffalo, New York in the section of the city that was home to a massive population of Italian immigrants, my family being one of them. He describes it as being lower middle class neighborhoods, just families trying to make a better life for themselves in America and doing their best. My grandparents owned a small grocery store, which was subject to local mafia laws. Oh. Like everyone in the neighborhood that local mafia or so would come to my grandparents for a weekly money collection in exchange for what I don't know. Protection. Protection. Watch the sopranos. Protection. Protection. As such, my dad and

everyone in the neighborhood were familiar with these men and justifiably afraid of them. When my dad was around 14, so 1956-ish, he was out around 1am smoking a cigarette with a buddy to end their night before heading to their respective homes. While they were chatting, they hear grunting and yelling and turn to see a man getting stabbed repeatedly under a street lamp. Oh no. I know. As they're watching in horror, the murderer turns to my dad and his friend and says, Butch, Jimmy, go home. That's right. Mid-murder, the man calls my dad by his name. My dad says they knew immediately that the man was local mafia. Why are we naming names on here? Well, it's a long time ago when he's dead.

Bleep. Bleep. My dad and his friend each ran home. My dad said he ran into his parents' room, which he makes a point to say he was never allowed in ever to wake up his dad. That's how serious it was. Freaking out, he tells my grandfather that he just saw a stab a man to death. My grandfather reached his hand from under the bed covers, grabbed my dad's lips, and squeezed them shut. He then let go, turned over, and went back to sleep. Try loose lips, sinks, ships, and families. The next day, my dad asked his friend if he told his parents and what they said. His friend said when he told his father he saw, Kill a man. His father said, No, you didn't. No, you didn't. Butch, Jimmy. No, you didn't. Yeah. I mean, this is 1956. This is horrible. Yeah. Apparently,

that was the one and only time my dad and his friend ever spoke about the incident to each other or anyone else. Years later, my dad was a Marine serving in Naples, Italy. He received a letter from his mother that only contained a news clipping. The headline read that had been murdered in prison by another inmate. My dad said he almost cried tears. He was so relieved. I'm hoping he was in prison for the murder he committed that they saw. But who knows? Stay sexy and don't get murdered, especially you two, because I really love the pod. All the best. See, God, there was a lot of murder in that email. Yeah, that's what we asked for. And I feel like true, true. But once an episode, we got to have something. Dang. I mean, the trauma of being

a child, witnessing something that horrifying, and then everybody being zipped a lip. Yeah. It's like, you go against what you, the morals that you learn, like you're supposed, that's not supposed to happen. And then it's like, we'll shut up about it. Well, and also, you know, if you live in a, it where the mafia rules, there is no option. No. There is no, it's just like a bronx tail. It is like a bronx tail. Beautiful movie. Beautiful movie. Love that movie. Yeah. Me too. The subject line of this email. Licking your finger. Very delicately. Karen's now a secretary from the 1950s. I'm playing a character for that fan call. Oh yeah, for the video. Yeah. If you want to

see how that looked, watch the fan call video. Watch. It was amazing. It was, I drew from all of my college theater classes. You mean theater. I mean theater. Okay. The subject line is, guess who's coming to dinner? A serial killer. Oh, fuck. Karen, Georgia, and MDM fam. What's MDM fam? Got the wrong letters in there? Oh, no. MDM. MDM might be a droid the kids do these days. That's us. And here at Exactly Right Network, we, we force people to take drugs. The old MDM fam. When I was around seven, my older sisters and I stayed with our grandma in a suburb of Albuquerque while my mom was constantly out of town working. Well, my grandma was a bit naive to the ways teens and my sisters took full advantage. This included but wasn't

limited to sneaking pot seeds into her garden and her growing beautiful huge pot plants. Only to have her burn them when she found out what they were. Oh my god. As such, we constantly had people in and out of the house doing typical early 80s drinking and smoking. And as big sisters do, they would have me put on early SNL skits for them and their friends, Rosanna, Rosanna, Dana, Rosanne, Rosanna, Dana being their fave. So back to the nefarious part. One day my sister brought home a stray guy, Sunny, to hang out. No one blinked an eye except for me. His creepy coke bottle glasses and his older age set my inner Charlie's Angel's radar off and I avoided him. He ended up staying a few nights at our house, eating with us, watching TV, sleeping,

day to day stuff until one morning after a few days he was gone to my relief. Fast forward a week later and I walked in on my middle sister on the phone. My mom, grandma, an oldest sister huddled around her. She was on the phone talking to the police about Sunny. Turns out he had murdered his wife with a hammer, put her in a trash bag and tried to burn her body. He then befriended my sister at some suburb party after he befriended her. She killed the wife before he came and stayed with a bunch of women. He then befriended my sister at some suburb party and unbeknownst to her came to our house to lay low on intentionally, basically. Holy shit. And then it says, this is where my love

of true crime began and the story ends. Or does it? I found out Sunny had previously been Marion Albert Pruitt, who in 1979 was given $800, a new name, Charles Sunny Pearson, and placed in the federal witness protection program after testifying about a murder in Atlanta. When he was caught a few months after hiding out at our house, he admitted to killing four other people, but denied killing his wife, Pamela Sue Barker, AKA Michelle Lynn Pearson, because she had also been in witness protection. Eventually, he was executed by lethal injection in Arkansas in 1999. So long story short, not only did we have a slumber party with a killer, we had a witness protected serial killer casually living with us. Holy fuck. Well, stay sexy and only perform SNL skits for family. No name.

God. I mean, this is a murder, a talk full of murder. MDM all the way, baby. MDM. What podcast is that? Because that's like, it's multi-level marketing, but for true crime, where you have to have at least three crimes within email. Wow. That's great. That is hardcore. It's intense. More than a brush. Yeah. All right. This is called, and this one just gives me chills, the one where the garage door almost killed me. Oh, yeah. One of these. Hi, all. I was a child. It was the 80s. I could stop here for the story's sake. I will continue. I was five. My sister was eight and my mom entrusted us to a babysitter who half cared about watching us and mostly cared about watching TV. We were playing outside and after a while of

running around and playing silly games, we decided to play dodge. Dodge ball, you ask? No. We started to play dodge the garage door. My sister would press the garage door button. She's eight. That's sister. She was the only one tall enough to do so and we would run toward the closing door and slide underneath to the outside. I remember playing this at a friend's house. We lived in a condo, so we only had what are those called? The ones that pulled down? No, no, no. We had the parking. Oh, like overhang. Overhang. Yeah, we didn't have a garage, so I definitely played this at friend's houses and I feel like living in a condo complex probably saved my brother's life from doing this. For sure. You know. Carport. Carport. Sorry. Sorry. I had to remember it. No, I'm so.

You gave me a gift that we would then run inside the front door, go around to do it all over again. The exhilaration we felt as we Indiana Jonesed our way under the door was impalpable. It's palpable. Palpable. It's not in. It's not in. It means you can feel it. Palpable. I knew that. Yeah. The closer to the ground it got, the more accomplished we felt. My sister hit the button and we waited for the gap to become challenging enough for our superior skills before we made a break for it. Fuck. This is how it goes. Children's games, they start innocent enough. They start kind of easy, but then they have to progress. Right. Right. You have to get hurt at the end. Like children's games have to end in crying or they don't. Because it's daring and risk and like you're being a baby

if you don't do it. Right. You know. My sister made it through. I did not. I don't. This is terrifying. I don't remember if I slipped or if it was because my little feet were just not fast enough. But when I was halfway through, I became lodged under the door. I screamed for help as it continued to close on me until I could not yell anymore because of the pressure. I could not take a deep breath to call for anyone and then I couldn't breathe at all. I felt the door on my back bearing down. Not being able to breathe when you're desperately trying to do so is terrifying. And I feel like it's cases like this. You can't have a garage door that just doesn't have a sensor anymore. Yeah. I'm sure that's why. Right. My sister. Little kids fucking around Indiana Jones style.

In the 70s and 80s. Yeah. And maybe the 90s. My sister was watching outside in horror. Just when I started to think, I'm really in trouble here. I felt the pressure lift. I wiggled my way out and turned around to see my babysitter standing in the doorway from the house to the garage, mouth open and eyes wide. Girl, you would have been fucked babysitter or not again. Babysitter was sitting in front of like guiding light and then just got a bad feeling. It was like it's been too long. It's quiet and weird. Quiet. What was that scream? She must have heard my screams before they were muffled by almost being squeezed to death and during a commercial break came and pressed the button to lift the garage door off of me. Oh my God. That's hilarious.

I now shudder to think what could have happened if she did not hear me. Fast forward to today. My husband was installing our own garage door and asked if we needed the sensors that stopped the door from closing when something is in the way. Yes. Yes, we do. Yes, we do. And there's no sign off and no name. Oh my God. I know. I know. That's from our new series, They Lived. Hold on one second. Let me blow my nose in my dress. The eight-year-old that lived. There she is, ladies and gentlemen. There she is. There's the queen of the cocktail party. The classy lady we all know in the vintage dress with probably snot on it. We're going to need to send you a box of Kleenex. There's one right over there in the other room. I just don't want to get up. I got Kleenex. Why

didn't I put one in here? Why don't I put one where I record and need a Kleenex every fucking week? Every time. Every time. Every time. Leave that all in, Stephen. I'm not ashamed of myself. Yeah, because you're not ashamed and you know what good content is. That's right. After six fucking years, here we go. This is, hmm, the subject line of this is badass warrior queen. And it just starts high team. Y'all are so great. Strong work. And then a hard emoji. Thank you, teacher. Strong work is really probably the best compliment you can get. Absolutely. I think. I moved from my hometown, Sitka, Alaska, to Natchez, Mississippi in 2019, where my husband and I adopted two wonderful and crazy dogs, Goose and Maverick.

I take my pups on a walk around my neighborhood every day and we typically take the same route. In June, I got to visit home for a couple weeks for the first time in two years, thanks COVID, and had an absolutely magical time seeing my family and friends. When we got back to Natchez, I resumed, there's no, I'm pronouncing that correctly. We'll hear from everyone. Yeah, okay, good. Natchez, I've rise up. When we got back to Natchez, I resumed my normal routine and took Goose and Maverick on a walk. There's a very nice man I always say hi to when I walked by his house. And this time when he saw me, he had the most relieved look on his face and said, thank God. Turns out while I was in Sitka,

a woman was attacked while jogging on the same route me and my dogs take. A man got out of his truck and asked her for directions. When she stopped to help him, he pulled a gun on her and told her, if you run or scream, I'm going to kill you. He grabbed her and dragged her to his truck and started to hit her in the head with his pistol, causing six deep lacerations on the back of her head. The woman saw duct tape and zip ties in the truck. And this badass warrior queen fought this monster off. She kicked, punched and bit her way free. They caught the guy. He returned to visit the crime scene the next day and they arrested him. Holy fuck. The man I greet on my walks thought I was the woman who was attacked because he

hadn't seen me walking in a couple of weeks while I was in Sitka. He told me he was so relieved to see me, which is just so nice to know that sometimes even strangers care about you. Stop, I'm crying. I know. I often think about that woman and how strong and incredible she is. I can't imagine how terrifying that would be and that she was able to use that fear to fight her way free. If I ever find myself in a situation like that, I hope I can harness the same warrior energy. I can't be sure I wouldn't just freeze up in terror, but I know that this podcast helps make me feel more prepared to handle bad situations like a badass. Oh, stay sexy and always remember, it's okay to tell someone to fuck off if they ask you for direction. Teal, she, her.

I feel like I'm going to cry a little bit. I know that was beautiful. Yeah. Well, cause Teal is actually shouting out a survivor, which we always love and is the coolest, but also here's what I really like because yes, it's funny to end it that way. But what I think is really beautiful is this woman is part of her community in her neighborhood. And so she's not saying fear every person around you. Don't say hello to whatever. She knows that man who, who kept an eye out for her. Yeah. Somebody was keeping an eye out for her. It's good to make those connections in your community. Yeah. But if some person giving you bad vibes is just driving by wants you to come over to their truck, you can tell them to fuck right off and you can absolutely

tell them you bite and scratch and you fight fucking dirty and you do what you got to do to not get in that car because that's, that's, you know, I think maybe because I've been walking cookie ever since I got an adorable puppy who wants to meet every single person. And now people know us in my neighborhood and I know who we wave at each other. And it just feels really, it's like my first place, my first real neighborhood where I own a home and it's, it just kind of, there's like a couple people that we're really good acquaintances with. Which is the best way, neighbors wise. That's the best way. But also it's good. That's the power of community. It's like you should be saying hi to people and have people know you and that's like, we're the ones in the

garage drinking beer all the time. She's the one pinned under the garage door drunk with a beer can in her hand. What's up? I got a pap. I'm fine. What's up? Playing the game. Indiana Jones. 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 like early fall. So I can't wait to get back in the kitchen and 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 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 podcast. You can listen ad free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. Here's my last one. It's called Snake Turned Lizard. Dear Karen, Georgia, Stephen and associates, hope you are all doing well. The following story is one that my mother has sworn my entire family to secrecy. However, I believe you will appreciate it. And well, that takes priority. Sorry. Sorry,

mom. Oh, sorry, mom. My youngest brother has always loved snakes. Unlike myself, who has always had what my family considers to be, quote, an overly dramatic fear of them. There's no such thing as being overly dramatic was fucking fear of snakes. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Nothing like your family to just minimize those feelings. Come on. Go to therapy. After years of begging and much to my chagrin, my parents agreed to let him get a small snake. After meticulously going through the pros and cons of each snake at the pet store, he proudly chose a small corn snake, which he named Griffin. With me hiding downstairs, my parents and youngest brother brought Griffin home and helped settle him into his new living arrangements in my brother's room.

About five hours later, my brother came running downstairs upset, saying, Griffin is gone. Just the same day. Yeah, five hours. Immediate results. Children. Now, just some backstory. This same brother had done the exact same thing once before with his fish. He had been convinced that he had seen the fish jump out of the tank and begin flopping down our upstairs hallway. We searched for hours hoping to find the fish before its dead odor stank up our house. Before my brother realized it had just been hiding under some plants in the tank. So keep imagine this whole fucking adventure that this fish never had. Pretty sure I saw the fish leave. No, you didn't, Bobby. Have a great imagination. Shut the fuck up.

So now, with this boy cried wolf situation, you can understand why none of us jumped up right away to help. However, he kept persisting until my mother finally gave in and went upstairs to see what was going on. She came immediately back down and said, he's not kidding. It's really gone. What ensued was a frantic search and rescue mission around the entire house. Like Karen and Nick Terry's beautifully illustrated video of the snake sinkhole story. I sealed myself in my room and quote hated everything. Nice callback. We never found it and have no idea where it went. What? When I say that I did not sleep well for weeks after this, I am not exaggerating. My mom made us all promise never to tell this story to his soul because she was afraid that

none of our friends and family would step foot in our house again, which I'm like great. I'm telling people that there's a snake loose in my fucking house and no one will come over again. Soon after the great escape, my parents got my brother a lizard. This was partially due to the fact he was very upset, but mainly to cover up the fact that people knew of the new pet Gryphon and with it suddenly gone, there would be questions. Oh, yeah. My parents forced him to name the lizard Gryphon. So when it came up in conversation, there was continuity. What? I feel like you just make up as you go along being a parent. You know what I mean? Entirely and also what those parents were worried about. It's so hilarious. It's like,

we can't have the neighbors thinking that there's a loose snake, which is like, I probably ate out of 10 children that get pets, like those kinds of pets disappear within the house at some point or die immediately. Yeah. We need these stories, you guys. Please. This all happened about 10 years ago into this day. No one outside of my household has any knowledge of it, but don't worry. No one listens to this podcast. We're going wide with this. This is I figured the statute of limitations was overdue here and wanted to hopefully bring a smile to your lovely faces. Stay sexy and try not to lose your snake, M. Yeah. Good advice. Send us your stories that are not allowed to be told, you guys. We will not. We will keep it in this little MDM family.

No one will fucking know but us. Only the MDMers. This is a safe space to tell on your family. I also feel like M got what they call phobia immersion therapy with this snake just like could be anywhere. Yeah. Good night. Good night. Good night. Go to bed. You live in the basement. Okay. Here's my last one. Subject line. I'm an only read half of it. Embarrassing checks. Hi, MFM fam. They must mean a MDM. Karen's recent story about Simpson's checks unlocked a memory that I had repressed for reasons you will soon learn. I grew up in a very rural area of Nebraska and I was a quote unquote slightly effeminate child and then in parentheses it says read flaming homosexual who wanted nothing more than to take ballet class with my female classmates.

After being denied my proclivities for dance at a young age, I waited for a chance to express my softer side. The opportunity arose when I was given the freedom to select the background for my checks for my very first checkbook. At the ripe age of 13 and then there's some dashes and it says do teenagers still get checkbooks? No. No grandpa. No one has checkbooks anymore. I was so thrilled to be able to choose the background image for my checks. A variety pack of kittens. Little kittens playing with yarn and cuddling and piles of kitty delight. These were the backgrounds that I felt fully expressed my newfound financial independence. I didn't have a ton of uses for checks as a high schooler so my 200 pack of kitty checks lasted throughout college. I love it so much. He's down

at the Pete's place. Could I write you a check for some quarters for the... Please let me get rid of these fucking checks. Please. Pete's a place. He was always on like 007 in that in that check pack. My bank's mascot is a bear so when I graduated to another set of checkbooks, a wildlife scene of bears anointed my next book of checks. This also feels fitting as I evolved from a kitty obsession to a newfound identity as a bear in the gay community. Yay! Congratulations. Thank you Bank of the West for allowing this little country boy to express its sexual interest through checks. Beautiful. It's beautiful. Much love to the MFM family for keeping me sane through the quarantine. I'm moving to Denmark next week and I will bring my true crime obsession to the Danes.

XOXO Joshua. Joshua, congratulations on becoming you. Just a beautifully written email all about your journey. We are here for you. We are. We are. So hilarious in the middle of Nebraska where, you know, 14 people live. He's just like, check these checks out. Yeah. He'll take whatever he can get as far as like just being able to show him his real self a teeny tiny bit. Just a hint. A hint. Hey, speaking of a hint, this is your hint to join the fan cult because we're about to record a mini-mini-sode for the fan cult and also this video and a million more videos are all still up there and it's cheap and it's fun. The end. And it's fun. And there's more extras every day. Yep. Soon we'll have our own checks. Could you imagine? My favorite checks. Bring

checks back. Thank you. Right in at my favorite murder Gmail. Thank you guys so much for listening. We're big fans of yours. MDM family. Yes, we are. Yeah. MDM forever. Stay sexy. 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 Hailey Gray. Send us your hometowns and your fucking heres at myfavoritmurder.com. And follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at my favorite murder and Twitter at my fave murder. And for more information about this podcast, our live shows, merch or to join the fan cult, go to myfavoritmurder.com.

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