My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 274

Episode Date: April 11, 2022

This week’s hometowns include a beach day in Barcelona and applying for a job at Dollar Tree. 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. That's right.

It's mini and it's for you. Want me to go first? I'm going to do it. This is called beach bomber in Barcelona. When I was 11 or 12, my mom took me on a trip to Barcelona. One day she left me to find a bathroom while we were spending an afternoon at the beach. A few minutes after my mom left, a man with a large duffel bag walked up to me and started speaking to me in Spanish. I had no idea what he was saying and just kept saying no, assuming he was trying to sell me something.

He proceeded to step the duffel bag under my beach chair and started running away at full speed. 11 or 12 year old. I had always been a cautious slash paranoid person and this was only a few years after 9-11, so naturally I assumed that it was a bomb. Panicked, I began dragging the very heavy bag across the sand and into the water. No. Hoping that I could save myself and the crowd on the beach if I could drag the bag out far enough and run away. After having dragged the bag into the ocean, I ran back to my seat and waited for my mom to return and the bomb to go off. My mom came back and I told her what happened.

Just as I was telling her, the man came back and started yelling at me in Spanish as I shrugged and just pointed to where I had dragged the bag. Turns out he was just asking if he could leave his cooler of beers that he was selling with me while he found a bathroom. The only words I could understand in Spanish were or estreloca, which means are you crazy, which is what he started yelling at me. My mom had a good laugh and I felt terrible that I had ruined his drinks. Stay sexy and always try to save beachgoers from suspected bombs in Barcelona. That guy was totally in the wrong. Yeah. This is what we always say.

Adults should not be asking children for help. For anything. For anything. That's the weirdest. And also, if you sell beers on the beach, how come you don't have a spot to stash your beers if that's kind of what you do for a living? Yeah. And why are you involving children? Why wouldn't you?

And also children that don't speak Spanish. And then you get mad at them. Also, why is the bomb laughing? She should be yelling at him for giving beers to a minor. She's just like, oh my God, anyway, we ruined your stuff. Talk to you later. I hope you learned your lesson. Okay, I'm not going to read you the subject line of this one.

It says, hello, wonderful MFM fam. When I turned 18, my mom said I have to get off my ass and get a job. Apparently, my part-time hustle of doing people's math homework for cash wasn't as lucrative once I was no longer in high school. I wasn't allowed to come home with less than 10 job applications to fill out. Because this was before online applications, I forced my introverted self to get out there and start talking to strangers. I would sit in my car and rehearse what I was going to say. Hello, are you hiring? Can I have an application?

And then rerun different scenarios of how the application exchange process could possibly play out. So I was prepared and wouldn't say anything stupid or embarrass myself. One of the stores I went to was the Dollar Tree. I went in and waited in line to talk to the cashier so I could ask for an application. I was about to go to the cashier when a man came into the store with a long-ass knife. He pointed it at the cashier and said, give me all your money. I'm watching this like, holy fuck, what the hell is happening? The cashier, on the other hand, seemed way too calm about this and said, no, as though he was bored.

Oh my god! And then at parentheses it says, this has clearly happened to him more than once. The would-be robber stared at the cashier for a second or two, shifting his weight and then bolted out of the store, but not without grabbing an armful of 3D Doritos. Remember those? I make it to the cashier and since I had no scenario played out in my mind for how to ask for an application after the store gets held up,

I defaulted to the main line I had been rehearsing. Can I have an application? The cashier looks at me confused and asks, seriously? I said yes and he curiously gave me one. I went home, showed my mom all the applications, and then told her the crazy story about the guy with the knife. She looked shocked and simply threw the Dollar Tree application away. Thanks, mom.

Love your guys podcast and appreciate all you do to make the world a better place. SSDGM, and maybe don't ask for an application after an attempted robbery. Nice. I love the guy who's just like, seriously, like you just saw that and you want an application. He's like, what are you doing? Did you not take in what just happened to us? I'm not sure if this person's name is Nice. It's spelled like Nice, but it could be Nice.

Okay. But I just want to throw that out there. Great job, Nice. Great job for A, starting a business in high school by doing other people's homework. Yeah. B, pushing yourself into uncomfortable out of your comfort zone as an introvert. Yeah. You can see those applications and see standing through an actual crime and then continuing

to ask for applications. You've got the gumption, you know, to succeed. At the Dollar Tree. Nothing phases you. At the Dollar Tree. At the Dollar Tree. You see so much shit. Okay.

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Follow Even the Rich wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. Hello, ladies. I love your show and all the other Gucci stuff. Now let's talk about how a gorilla almost murdered me when I was eight. Oh, I'm a product of the 80s and 90s and an only child. So basically a latchkey kid with minimal supervision. When I turned eight, my parents decided that they were tired of paying for childcare.

So I was now deemed old enough to find my own way home from school and stay home alone for about an hour before my mom usually got home. Eight? Yeah, it wasn't about like, are you old enough? It was like, this is being, this is too much. Just stay home. We're not going to bus. Yeah.

You're not so little that you can't open the front door by yourself. So therefore you qualify. I hated the like people watching who watched the daycare after my school. And so eventually I was like, well, then you don't have to go anymore. Like it wasn't like you're six, you're old enough. It's like, well, this is too much hassle. Yeah. I'm not going to fight about it.

Do what you want. Right. I hated staying home alone, especially since I was raised by a mother who loved scary movies and allowed me to watch them from the ripe old age of five. We had a two story home that often creaked and settled, making me convince someone was always in the house trying to kill me. My daily routine was to let myself in through the front door and run straight across to my dad's office.

I would sit at his desk and call his work. On this day, the secretary answered, told you it was the nineties, and told me he was finishing a meeting and she would put me on hold. From my dad's desk, I can see out the open double doors to the staircase, which wrapped around upstairs so I couldn't see the upstairs at all. While I was sitting on hold, I started to hear the familiar creaks that I despised so much. I told myself over and over, it's just the house settling while silently praying my

dad would pick up the phone and keep me safe. Then I heard what sounded like footsteps. Again, I just repeated, nope, it's the house settling. But then it turned to running. There was no denying that someone was running down the hall upstairs towards the staircase. I froze and all of a sudden a person in a black robe and a gorilla mask comes flying down the stairs at me. I mean, that robe was flying behind them like a cape.

They were running so fast. I threw the phone and dashed under my dad's desk, which was open on the other side so provided literally zero defense. I screamed just as my dad answered the phone. I was in the fetal position under the desk waiting for my untimely death when I started to hear laughing. I mean, can't catch your breath deep belly laughing. I peeked through my fingers that were covering my face to see my mother on the ground rolling

around in pure joy. Nope, I'm going to see that woman. That's fucked up. At the same time I hear my dad frantically yelling, Lindsay, Lindsay, are you okay? What's going on? Yep, my mom, the person who so lovingly brought me into this world, thought it was a brilliant idea to scare the living shit out of her eight-year-old daughter who was already barely able to stay in that house alone.

Needless to say, I refused to be alone in that house after that, which fucking shows her mom now you have to pay for daycare because you ruined it, right? I would come home and either sit on the front porch or at the end of the driveway until my mom would get home. My dad was livid at her, but the damage was done. I bring it up from time to time and all she says is it built character. Love you ladies. Thank you for the amazing podcast and all you do.

Much love, Lindsay. Fuck Lindsay. That's so intense. You know what else builds character? Love from your parents. You know, here's the thing. It's like, of course, we're all going to go through some shit in this life. Yeah.

Why make it like that? Yeah. Don't start it as a parent. Don't be the one. That's fucking crazy. Maybe the mom was scared because she was like, okay, she's an only child. There's never an older sister or brother to fuck with her. She needs to experience some of what having a sibling is like, so I'm going to do it.

Yeah, but if that's the thinking, that's very flawed thinking. Oh, yeah. It's all flawed. It's all very beginning to the end. Severely flawed. You know, it's really upsetting is when people do that, like scare a baby to make a funny video. I mean, that's like my least favorite thing on the planet where it's like what it creeps me out so bad of like what kind of parent wants their child to be like, you know.

That's like, you're supposed to have empathy when you see a baby cry. That's what like makes you want to take care of them instead of just like leaving him alone. So you're purposely making them cry. You have no empathy. Yeah, it's not great. Hey, we're parents. Hey, we're learning experts now. I feel like, sorry, what was the name of the person that wrote that and Lindsay?

Lindsay. I feel like if Lindsay wrote it in, then she now thinks it's funny too. Yes. Yes. So we don't have to feel too bad about it. I'm going to let it go. Okay. This is a badass mom story.

It says, hi, all longtime listener, third or fourth time writer. Hopefully this is my time to shine. Since we can write in about anything these days, I'd like to tell you about the day my badass mom saved me from becoming an emergency room horror story at a young age. Jumping right in, I grew up in the state of the highest elevations and lowest populations, Wyoming. Not sure if this is still the case, but over a decade ago, if you wanted to take your driver's test, you had to clock hours driving with a responsible parent or guardian in the passenger seat. With my deadbeat dad out of the picture, this responsibility fell to my kind hearted and extremely cautious mother,

the kind of woman who looks both ways twice before crossing the street. I'll never know why the universe deemed it necessary to give her an impulsive and headstrong daughter such as myself, but here we are. The supervised driving hours started how both of us imagined, with a super annoyed 15 year old fish tailing on the icy Wyoming roads, while her mother stomped repeatedly on a non-existent break, while circus by Britney Spears thumped merrily in the background. Oh my God.

So cut to May, the month before my 16th birthday. The roads had mercifully thawed and the driving hours could be put off no longer. One evening had been particularly hard on both of us as I tried to navigate the busier streets in our small town. Turning onto a main road, I saw a car coming, panicked, and gunned it. My mom, her knuckles white holding onto her seat, directed me to turn off onto a side street and practice turns elsewhere before trying again. The music in the car blasting, I did just that. A block away from my almost accident, my mom told me to turn the music down.

I saw her listening very hard and turning around to see behind us. She told me that the car I had cut off was tailing us and laying on their horn. What followed was turn after turn trying to lose them and wait out their anger, but they just kept following us. My mom then directed me to pull over and step out to apologize and explain my student driver's status. Her lesson in responsibility was interrupted because before I could slide my mortified teenage body out of the car, the driver of the other vehicle had quickly stepped out to retrieve something from the trunk. To my horror, he had pulled out a metal bat and proceeded to angrily stalk towards our car. Before I could even take a breath, my sweet gentle mama jumped out of the passenger seat full of righteous fury.

The next thing I heard was, you asshole, she's 15 and she's learning. What are you going to do? Beat up a minor for learning how to drive? This sight of my unarmed mom squaring off with this six foot something monster of a man was one I'll never forget as long as I live. His face and the bat fell as he mumbled what looked to be an apology. He got back into his car defeated. My mother triumphant plopped down next to me and directed me to for the love of God drive us home. Oh my God, I'm holding my breath. It's all thanks to this marvelous woman that I not only got my driver's license, but have almost made it 30 years of life, knock on wood, car accident free. Who knew such a gentle caring person would be such a badass when her baby was threatened?

To this day, I try to follow her example and be kind to everyone, but release my mama grizzly when needed. Thank you so much for all you do. You've gotten me and so many others through so much these past few years. More recently, you've made recovering from breaking my foot while on a hike in the Costa Rican jungle. Just a little more bearable. Wow, Jesus Christ. Wow. Stay sexy and maybe bring some pepper spray while teaching your teenage offspring how to drive, Tessa. Oh my God, that's terrifying. Yeah.

That's intense. Yeah, put pepper spray in your car, everyone. Okay, this is Oregon donor hometown. Hi all. I was so touched by George's recent story about Nicholas Green and his family's decision to donate his organs. When I was considering going back to college for nursing, I apprenticed with a home birth midwife for several months. A 10 year old child of one of her clients went into kidney failure and needed a transplant. I signed up immediately to get tested for him. Before my blood work was even completed, he had received a transplant from a deceased donor. I was so surprised at my feelings around his surgery, both so happy for him and so sad that I couldn't have helped.

That feeling stuck with me throughout the next several years and I took a leap to sign up as an anonymous living donor. After almost a year of medical, psychological, and social screenings, I donated a kidney to an unknown recipient in Minnesota three days after graduating nursing school. Wow, I know. I figured the best time to study for my boards was during the downtime recovering from surgery. The best thing about a planned living donation is that I was able to start a chain of donations. I donated to a person who had a willing donor who wasn't a match, their willing donor went on to donate to another recipient with a willing donor who wasn't a match, and so on. Five people received kidneys that day. I like to tell people I was just banking karma points so I can be a cunt on the day to day basis. But it's honestly one of the things I'm most proud of doing in my entire life. I love it. The truth is only 3% of people die in a manner that allows for organ donation.

To help with the more than 100,000 people on the transplant list, check that organ donor box, sign up for a registry for bone marrow donation, give blood, consider living organ donation, and support legislation that will change our system to opt out for those who are strongly opposed to their organs being used. You can't take them with you. Love you both, your rad and help keep me going some days. Caitlin, she, her, they, them. Well, then there's our answer when you were telling that story on the full episode and I at the end said, you know, there's those people that give their kidney like that living donation. Who does that? Caitlin, they do it. Yeah, I didn't really know much about living donors. That's really cool. It's very cool. And yeah, I like this conversation being opened because it's the kind of thing that's like, it's not, I don't know, it's not money. You don't have to have any certain thing except for just like healthy organs to really change lives. It's amazing.

And even giving blood is doing something for other people just on a fucking human to human level. So that's all, that's all planned to do that. All right, here's my last one. Okay. And the subject line is when cultural stereotypes actually happen. Hello to the murdering community and the exactly right network pets included. I can't keep up with the names anymore. I grew up in a village in the UK. My Indian parents owned a shop. One day I came home from school to see a few police cars outside the shop. There was a lot of racism growing up. So it wasn't a huge surprise. But when I asked my dad what happened, I was surprised at his reply. Earlier in the day, a man came into the shop and approached the counter. He showed my dad a long knife and said, give me all the money in the cash register. My dad asked him to repeat himself and then said, okay, in a calm manner. At the time, for some reason, and then in parentheses, it says the 90s. My parents kept the keepings, which is the cash, kept the money in little Pringle cans.

Oh, smart. One for five pound notes, one for 10 pound notes, one for 20 pound notes, which as the day would go on, they would take the profits from the shop to our house. And then it just says, don't ask. So okay, back to the story. Picture the scene. A man with a knife, my dad slowly sits down and makes as if he's gathering the money when he grabs a handful of chili powder and throws it at the man. And then it says, yep, besides the money, my parents kept a Pringle can with chili powder in it. Oh, my god. The man, confused and shocked, ran out of the shop, leaving behind his swag bag, which contained his identity. And in all caps, it says durr. My dad called the police and quickly cleaned all the chili powder away before they arrived. There was a lot of racism growing up, and it's only now that I can look back and realize that my parents were so brave and they just kept keeping on. Shout out to my fellow children of immigrants. The UK would be nothing without immigrant workers. Stay sexy and I don't know, don't try to rob a shop.

And then it says a non, but then it says she her. Wow. Oh my goodness. It's a wonderful, hilarious story. Yeah, chili powder is a great idea. It's basically a mace. It's pepper spray with no liquid. Yeah, it's meta base. And also it's I think it's so unexpected because it's such a good idea.

Yeah. And then when you find the perpetrator, they're like, it wasn't me, but their eyes are watering and their faces bright red from the chili pepper. And you're like, are you sure dude? That's right. Well, great job, everybody. Thank you for all those hometowns and write them into my favorite murder at gmail.com if you want to play along with this fun game. Yeah. And stay sexy. Oh, and don't get murdered. Goodbye.

Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton. Our producer is Alejandra Keck. This episode was engineered and mixed by Stephen Ray Morris. Our researchers are Jay Elias and Haley Gray. Email your hometowns and fucking hurrays to myfavoritmurderatgmail.com. Follow the show and Instagram and Facebook at myfavoritmurder and Twitter at myfavemurder.

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