My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 258

Episode Date: December 20, 2021

This week’s hometowns include a new unit of measurement and a rabid beaver.  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is exactly right. 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. Video for the fan cult.

Video version, we blue-dried our hair. You should see the shine on George's bangs. She looks like a doll from the 50s. Thank you, your eyebrows look great. Oh, thank you, they were rushed. Little eyeliner, love it. Do a little wing, just a quick wing. Gotta do it.

You know, it does feel weird to put on this much makeup in the early day. Yes, I love it because now I have the, like, now I'll do something on a Sunday. Yes, right. You know, like now I'm like, Vince, I have makeup on that means we have to go out. You know what I mean? You have to take me some more nights. If I have makeup on, no, I don't care where we go. I just have to leave the fucking house and put some pants on.

If I have makeup on for work. Yeah, yeah. I mean, because it is, I have primer on. Oh, wow. I should go somewhere. Yeah, you can't stay home with primer on. No. You've got your cheekbones are kicking.

I mean, we're just doing it. We're doing it for the love of the email. That's right. So many good ones this week. You want to go first? Sure. Okay. It starts, hi friends.

My mother is a nosy fucking Nelly. She's a pediatric ophthalmologist and then in parentheses, a kid's eye surgeon. Oh, thank you. Thank you. So much to my brother's sister and my horror shopping trips were often plagued with her confronting strangers about their wandering eyes and how it's just a quick 15 minutes surgery. Oh, no.

Mom, please. Yeah, yeah. She's life changing and helps kids and all that. So one Saturday, my mom was on her daily run with my two younger siblings in the stroller and me on my roller blade. It's being pulled along by the stroller. Awesome. We lived in a suburban neighborhood in Spokane, Washington.

So generally pretty safe. We passed one house and my mom suddenly turned us around because she had seen a lone toddler in the front yard. She asked me and then in parentheses in all caps, a five year old what she should do. Should she wait here with eyes on the kid for their adult to return or just carry on with her run? Or should she take the kid and find its home? No, no, don't kidnap the kid.

That's the lot. Don't do that one. Right? You would think. I told her the kid was fine. Yeah. She left us alone in the front yard to play many a time and we didn't want to disrupt the kid's good time.

Well she didn't listen to me, a five year old, and picked up the kid from his front yard and we carried on our way, stopping and knocking on each neighbor's door. She stopped at every house on both sides of the street asking if the neighbor knew who the kid belonged to. Again and again she was told no, that the neighbors did not recognize the kid. Eventually we stopped at the last house, the one my mother picked the kid up from. No, no, no, no. As we walked up their driveway, we noticed a group of adult men standing in the garage

who all turned to stare as my mom approached with the toddler. She asked the group, does this kid belong to any of you? And one brave man stepped forward to claim the kid. I could tell he was super confused about what was happening. She took the kid from my mom as she scolded him saying, you really need to keep a better eye on your kids. I could have been anyone who took your child. Go mom.

I love it. I could have been a bad kidnapper, not a good kidnapper. The men hesitantly thanked her and we carried on our way. I struggled with my mom now but she's definitely a badass and I do have some of that in me too. I love the show. It's got me through dark times and long drives. Abby.

Abby. Your mom is a nosy nally. I understand the struggle. It turns out the kid belonged, was where it belonged and you're a kidnapper now. You're by way of example, you have committed a felony, way to go super ophthalmologist mom that's doing it all. I think the lesson here is you got to listen to the five-year-old. Please.

Please listen to your five-year-old. Who's smarter than a five-year-old? You've already made it five years. You're no longer a baby, right? You're accessing a brand new part of your brain but you don't have any adult bullshit or even older kid bullshit, right? You're like, primed to be smart. Definitely.

But out, the five-year-old recommends. Oh my God, for a second I thought you had long dangly earrings on. Do you love my dangly earrings? Do you love my long? Claire's. All right. This is called Shabbat Shooter. Oh.

Hello, murderinos. Here's an old family story. My mother hails from a long line of East Coast Jews who have consistently celebrated Shabbat every Friday night. Her grandmother, my great-grandmother, was apparently quite the beauty and was all set to marry this guy from town, Hoboken, New Jersey, to be exact, until she met my great-grandfather. The other guy did not receive confirmation of her transferred affections until one Shabbat dinner when he asked my great-grandmother, are you going to marry me or not?

She told him, no, at which point he promptly pulled out a gun and shot her. What? Luckily, it hit her shoulder and went right through, though she was bedridden for a year. Holy shit, my great-grandfather waited for her and helped her learn how to walk again, and they eventually married and had a family. I don't know what happened to the shooter as my great-grandmother was apparently deeply ashamed and refused to talk about it. Her daughter didn't even know until one of her friend's gossipy mothers told her about

it. Whoa, my god. Great-grandma might have felt extremely slut-shamed, but I think it attests to the resilience of the women in my family. My grandmother and mother have plenty of their own stories, but those are not meant for this email. Advocating to end violence against women has become one of my passions, and I'm grateful for all the work you do to promote mental health and safe resources for women and non-women

victims of said violence. Stay sexy, and maybe only bring wine to Shabbat? Rebecca. God, that's... I bet that grandma was... It's also trauma, like it's PTSD that she can't talk about it. That's someone she's the victim of a violent assault. Yeah, it's crazy. You think stuff like that only happens in modern times, but that's a great-great-grandma

story. Yes. Yes. I'm glad this... Rebecca's working towards... You know what, she's using her legacy and doing good because of it. Yeah, using her family trauma for good. Here's to Rebecca. Shabbat shalom.

Shabbat shalom. Okay. The subject line of this email is, did somebody ask about a sinkhole? Oh. Hi, Paul, Holes friends. You want a sinkhole story? Here goes. We're near the Lancaster PA area, and besides quaint covered bridges and roads filled with

horse-drawn buggies, and then in parentheses, cute the first time you see one, but very annoying to get stuck behind in traffic. We've also got a ton of shopping outlets. That's weird. That's what they're known for? I guess so. I don't know why I think that's so funny. One of them had a massive sinkhole open up in the middle of their parking lot that initially

swallowed six cars and continued to grow over the ensuing days and weeks, eventually consuming 150 parking spaces. Oh my God. That's a big one, Karen. That is a biggie, and that's a really perfect way to describe the size of a sinkhole by parking spaces. Yeah, totally. Because that's, then you can immediately picture it in your head.

I don't know what a football field size is. I've never been on a football field. I've been drunk every time I've been near a football field, so you're going to have to give me more accurate and relatable sizes than that, and a parking space is perfect. 150. It just keeps going. Yeah. Imagine.

That's huge. Okay. Then the sinkhole, oh shit, we're fucking around in this first paragraph, we need to get to the second paragraph. Oh my God. What is it? Then the sinkhole caught on fire. What?

No, it didn't. Yes. Someone's lying to make Karen happy. Seriously, on fire. It caused 2 million in damages, and plumes of black smoke were visible from miles around. Cause of the blaze is still officially undetermined, but it is thought to be related to the construction to repair the sinkhole. So SSDGM, and now you know that sinkholes are flammable, and then they included the three

links so that we could watch the burning sinkhole in Lancaster PA. Thank you. Hmm. Dropped in, dropped out with fucking gold. Awesome. That really badass move of just like, don't worry about who I am, worry about the size of the sinkhole, and then it's on fire. And that it's on fire.

The depths of hell, that's why it's on fire, went all the way to the depths of hell. Yeah. Did you access a portal to hell, obviously, at the outlet mall? Right. Where else would you? And I mean, parking lots are hell anyways, especially at malls, so this is like, obviously, it's intertwined. It's like either it was going to be in the parking lot, or it was going to be in that

Nautica store that was in the mall. Either way, you're going to fucking hell, friends. That's right. Stay away from malls. Okay. That's the moral of the story. That's right. Okay.

Hometown rabies story. I was attacked by a rabid beaver. Hello, everybody. You're all doing a great job. A while ago, there was a request for rabies stories, so here you go. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for this.

I don't remember this, but I'm sure we did it. There was a request for rabies stories. There wasn't a request for rabies stories. You and I made the request, like it's so, it was not to the listener. We're getting into bed and pulling up the blankets, like, what kind of story do you want? Babies. Babies.

In 2018, I went tubing down a creek in Ithaca, New York with a bunch of friends and my brother Jake, who was visiting. The water was low, so it was pretty slow going, and we were all spread out along the creek after a few hours. Man, I've never gone tubing, and I feel like I'm missing out on life, just drinking and tubing. You're not. You're not.

You're not. I'm not missing out? Well, as someone who, so I grew up near the Russian River, and that was like the thing to do, and it's fun for a little while, but if you get sunburned at all, it's a nightmare. That's a great example of when the water's slow, you're literally just kind of sitting around with your butt hanging. It feels super weird, like your butt is just hanging down. You have to walk back to where you started to.

That sounds like a nightmare. Or yeah, it depends, or you just take your thing and then swim back. No. I'll be beachside, guys. I'll watch the coolers. There's just, I don't know, it's like, that's for 18-year-olds that are like, it's like college. That's what tubing means to me.

Okay. Well, then I won't fucking do it. I don't want to. I'll try it at the sea. No, I'm good. All right. Are we fighting? I'm forcing you to go tubing.

That's the end of it. Okay. Spread out. We're getting close to the end and suddenly an animal the size of a dog starts attacking my tube. I jump out of the water trying to figure out what's going on and a beaver swims away with my instantly deflated tube towards some of our unsuspecting party downstream. A minute later, I hear screaming from the direction of the beaver.

When I round the bend, I see my brother in the water in his tube trying to get free from the beaver who was chomping on his leg with his giant beaver teeth. Ew. He gets free and up onto the shore, but the beaver is still in the water swimming circles with a taste for blood and we have more friends coming down the creek. Start screaming, everyone. The beaver charges again for all of us on the beach and we have to defend ourselves with the only available weapon, rocks, to sum things up, we made it out of the woods, got my brother

to the hospital and got him some much needed stitches. The beaver did test positive for rabies and my bro and I had to go through a very uncomfortable series of rabies shots. I guess she got bit too. Yeah. Great podcast and great podcast network. That's it. Shout out to my brother, Jake, an NYC art teacher at Clara Barton who was much tougher than

I was about the shots, even though they had to go directly into the bite area, which for him meant between the stitches. And I heard rabies shots are like fucking horrible, right? They're horrible and I think you have to get several rounds of them. Yeah, I think so too. Like it goes on for a while. Yeah. Stay sexy and stay out of Six Mile Creek.

Leah. Okay. I want to, I wish I could see a picture of how big that beaver is because even if it was little, that's really scary. Well, she said the size of a dog. So that could mean, I don't think she means a chihuahua or she would have said chihuahua. Like that must be like a fucking Frank size dog. If you are going to compare something to a dog, you have to give the breed.

Oh, that's true. And we need it to be registered with the American Kennel Association. No mutts. No, we need parking lots. We need spaces. Parking lots. Parking spaces. Is the dog one quarter of a parking spot?

Well then now we know how big this beaver was. That's our unit of measurement from now on, everyone. 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 like 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. Also 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. What makes a person a murderer? Are they born to kill or are they made to kill?

I'm Candace DeLong and on my new podcast Killer Psyche Daily, I share a quick 10-minute rundown every weekday on the motivations and behaviors of the criminal masterminds, psychopaths and cold-blooded killers you hear about in the news. I have decades of experience as a psychiatric nurse, FBI agent and criminal profiler. On Killer Psyche Daily, I'll give you insight into cases like Ryan Grantham and the newly arrested Stockton serial killer. I'll also bring on expert guests to dive deeper into the details, share what it's like to work with a behavioral assessment unit at Quantico, answer some killer trivia and even

host virtual Q&As where I'll answer your burning questions. Hey, Prime members, listen to the Amazon Music Exclusive Podcast, Killer Psyche Daily, in the Amazon Music app. Download the app today. I'm not going to read you the subject line because it's a spoiler. Hi, friends. Have I got a story for you? It has everything.

So many of these emails start. It has everything. It's my favorite. Pre-teen awkwardness, punching, hush puppies, and then in parentheses, the shoe, not the deep fried tree, and a brush with depth. All right. The year is 1991, and I'm a very shy seventh grader with huge glasses and a terrible haircut. In my least favorite class history, I snapped to attention when my teacher begins the day's

lesson about famous American serial killers. What? The day's lesson, children. A seventh grade history class about serial killers. That teacher was bored. For real. It was like, you know what? It was probably right before Christmas or right in May, like right before summer break.

Yeah. Fuck the American Revolution. Let's talk about that. We've had it with all those old dudes. Let's get relevant. Inappropriate subject matter for 12-year-olds may be, but I am wrapped. And at dinner that night, tell my parents and siblings everything I've learned. My dad casually says, oh, I've never told you about my run-in with a serial killer,

have I? Here's the story. In 1973, my baby-faced 19-year-old dad was in the Navy and heading home to Syracuse, New York, from San Diego, on leave. He was dressed in his dress blues and sitting alone reading a book on his 10-hour layover in O'Hare Airport. A man in civilian clothing comes up, clocks his uniform, and asks if he's seen a Lance Corporal in the Marine Corps go by, and my dad apologizes and said he hasn't been paying

attention. The guy then asks if he has anything against brass and shows my dad a military ID that says he's a lieutenant commander in the Navy, and then asks if he wants to go get some drinks. Dad says okay because in those days, a fellow sailor was akin to a brother. When he follows the guy past the airport bar and down the stairs, he starts getting a little confused but thinks maybe there's another bar he didn't see. When the guy walks outside, my dad asks where they're going, and he said, let's get to my place.

It's super close, and I have a lot of booze. Nope, nope, nope. You're inside the airport already. There's bars. It's the 70s, but still, it wasn't an in-out-all-the-time situation. You still had to go through security and stuff. I don't think so, did you? Didn't you?

Oh, maybe you didn't. You could just stroll right up to your gate. Yeah, probably. Yeah, I guess that's true. Dad was not quite convinced. He then happens to look down, and the man's shoes catch his eye. He was wearing gray hush puppies with little gold chains across them, which my dad for some reason found to be a red flag.

Anyway, he's right. Anyway, the guy convinces him to get in the car and offers to call some Playboy bunnies he knows to meet them at the house. Oh, come on. Well, it says in parentheses, the original Playboy mansion was in Chicago. He then asks if my dad is a swinger, my poor sweet baby angel father has no idea what that means. Please.

Honey. He knows. Honey, girl. What that means, so he hesitantly says, yeah, sure. Oh, no. The guy responds with some real dirty talk, the details of which I'll spare you, then proceeds to try to grope him while my dad keeps swiping his hand away and says politely, no, thanks, I'm not into that, why don't you take me back to the airport?

The guy is insistent. No, you'll be fine. You'll have a great time. I'm going to call the girls. I swear, if you don't have a good time, I'll give you 50 bucks. As they turn onto a busy downtown street with lots of traffic lights, my dad plants his escape. He quietly looks to see if the passenger door is unlocked, notices that it is, and when

they finally get to a red light, he swings the door open, jumps out, leans back in and punches the stunned guy in the side of the head, runs across a few lanes of traffic almost getting hit by a taxi. When the driver stops to yell at him, my dad jumps in and asks for a ride back to the airport. He eventually makes it home, tells his then-girlfriend, my mother, and some friends' crazy story and eventually forgets about it. Cut to five years later, my parents are at my aunt and uncle's house on a Friday night eating pizza and watching the news on a New York City station as they do every Friday

night. They had cable, it was a big deal at that time, and all the exciting news came from the city. A news segment begins with a shot of a handcuffed man, and my dad yells at them to turn it up. That's the crazy guy from Chicago I told you about. Friends that crazy guy was none other than John Wayne Gacy. Whoa! Yep.

The one that murdered at least 33 boys and young men and buried most of them in the crawl space under his house, which was about three miles from O'Hare Airport. Oh my God. Right? You better believe that I raised my hand in history class for the first time ever and told that whole tale to my class the next day. My sister also recalls telling it to her second grade teacher, who I'm sure was a horrible kid.

That dad just told that story at the dinner table. He didn't hold back. My dad is a former firefighter, just like home Jim, and has been teaching us lessons about safety for my entire life. He's the reason I'm a murderer, you know, who is always calm in an emergency and knows better than to try to put out a grease fire with flour. Thank you. Let's underline that any chance we get.

And let's be honest, probably also part of the reason I have anxiety entirely, friend. Yeah. Absolutely. Stay sexy and don't be afraid to be judgy about a guy's shoes, Kristen. Kristen painted a picture there for us. That's insane. He was going to be murdered by John Wayne Gacy. If he had just a little bit more, like if he had more time, yeah, like on his layover,

if he was a little more like, yeah, let's party. Who cares? Right. Any number of, you know, I don't know. And the shoe thing is so good. It's like there. It's true. There's indicators.

Yeah. And it's also like him promising like playboy bunnies. No, no, no. You've got to get like the whole thing he did where he manipulated people and then be like, let's play this game with these, these fucking handcuffs and see if you can get out of them. Like he is that is a fucking close call. Crazy. Yeah.

Yeah. This is called Thank God My Mom Still Loves Me. Hello all. In the words of Sophia Petrillo, picture it, J.C. Penny, the women's casual wear department, 1993. Yes. Mm hmm. Wasn't it just called pennies then?

I don't know. They did. I want, there's some brand changes before they closed entirely. Oh, you're right. You're right. Now aren't they gone? No, there's one in the Glendale Galleria. Oh, shit.

My full apologies to the J.C. Penny company and Catalan's. Right. You better. Okay. 1993, J.C. Penny. Now picture hearing a child scream for most of the story here.

They're going to kill us. That child pause for dramatic effect was me. Nice. Let's break it down. It was a Saturday and I had two options. Stay at home with my dad and older sister while they fix things around the house or go to J.C. Penny with my mom.

I chose the latter. Choosing to go women's clothing shopping, one of the first signs I was transgender. Get my hands dirty as if. The trip to J.C. Penny would have been no big deal if not for the movie selection the night before. Friday nights were family movie night and my sister and I picked the 1987 gem mannequin. Okay. Trial fucking great movie.

We loved it. Unbelievable. Loved it. It was a big topic of the day that was mannequins are a big part of our lives. That's right. At first I was super excited at the idea of mannequins come into life to be my friend. But then I connected it to living doll horror movies of the time like Chucky from Child's Play scared the ever loving shit out of me at the time.

Chucky is one of the scariest things that humanity has ever created. That's right. And I soon found only terror in the idea of mannequins coming to life. Fast forward 24 hours later and I'm standing with my mom as she looks through a rack of I have children now early 90s sweaters. There was a group of three mannequins standing in a semi circle looking down at their bracelets. However, in my 60s, exactly, however, in my six year old mind they were looking straight at me.

I began to silent whimper cry. My mom noticed and got down to my level to ask me what was the matter. When I was a little kid, my freak out choice was the sudden freak out. Imagine a hundred year old dormant volcano that erupts one day with no warning. So as soon as my mom asked me what was the matter, I immediately screamed cried at the top of my lungs, they're going to kill us. In what seemed like a blur, my mom scooped me up and was power walking in her four inch wedges out of the store while I continued to scream, they're going to kill us.

Once we got out to the car, I don't remember much as I was in full hysterics. Now at age 34, when my mom and I go to a store together, she always says, no, don't make me power walk you out of here. SSDGM and always remember mannequins are people to Serena. Oh, I love those moments where it's like just classic kid thinking that adults like that's actually a great mom because she was like, I have to get in front of this now and like, you know, make it as low impact as possible, right? Because that is that kind of thing where it's like, it just takes one suggestion of a like,

yeah, maybe, maybe these are incredibly dangerous. Maybe you should leave that toddler alone in its front yard. You know what I was thinking is leave it alone to figure out what's dangerous in this world. The JCPenney in Petaluma, there was a diner, a JCPenney like cafe, wow, that was basically like a small Denny's and there was also a hair salon where my great aunt Anne used to get her hair done. Amazing. So you'd go shopping, she'd be getting her hair done, everybody would meet and eat grilled

cheese sandwiches at the at the JCPenney cafe. It's a whole day. You have a whole day there. You just give your whole life over to the JCPenney corporation. Why not? Is that it? Yeah. Oh my gosh, that's it.

Guys. Great job. We did it. Everyone. You did it. We did it. We all did it. We found a new unit of measurement.

We learned about rabid beavers. We sure did. We sure did. Hey girl. If you wanted to watch this one video and see what we look like when we said these words, go join the fan cult. It's a fun place to be and it's the size of a hundred million parking spaces. It's so many parking spaces and I have highlighter on.

Oh yeah, you do. Look at this. That's Karen. I'm impressed. Sorry to brag, but I'm just trying to put it out there like, you know, this is how you sell. Yeah. This is how you get people signed up for stuff that they can't see.

That's right. You do the tease. You do it. George's wallpaper. It has to be seen to be believed. Sign up for the fan cult. And I have little sharks on my shirt. Do you see them?

Oh yeah. Tiny sharks. Ooh. Tiny sharks. That's really cute. Thank you. Where's that? Mawglock.

Of course. Of course. That's so terrifying. Did you see that news story that sharks are amassing on the East Coast? No. Good for them. They're coming to shore, everybody. Get ready.

All right. We're done. We're done. We're done. Thanks, everybody. Thanks. And stay sexy. 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 Stephen Ray Morris, researchers J. Elias and Hailey Gray, send us your hometowns and your fucking praise 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. Please sign up and hit the like button down below to follow us. Bye! We'll be right back. See you tomorrow.