My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 275
Episode Date: April 18, 2022This week’s hometowns include high-level gaslighting and some facts from a surgeon.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-soad. That's right, where you read you your
stuff. That's right. This time it's being filmed, filmed, you know, for the fan cult. So if you
want to see what Karen just did with her hair, crimp, you know, what shade of pink is surrounding
me today? Answer these burning questions that have been in your heart since before you were born.
Do you want to go first? Sure. This is called cult leader in my backyard. Aloha. I have the
privilege of living in a caretaker's house located on a tropical farm on the island of Oahu.
Lucky. It's a hidden 80 acre farm tucked back in the Koalua range ridges. Sounded good.
The mile long, yeah, sorry if I got that wrong. No, you got it. Thank you. The mile long access road
leading up to the farm property is private road canopied by the vast foliage making it an ideal
place for neighbors to walk. The trailhead to a popular waterfall hike is also located at the
beginning of the road. Both factors cause this private and gate access road to be quite a busy
place with walkers and hikers. One afternoon I was in the carport removing clothes from the
dryer when I see three walkers briskly walking towards the farm fields. Now please understand
that while is acceptable for neighborhood folks to walk the road up to the farm, it is not acceptable
for them to come all the way up and onto the property. Signs are posted and we are accustomed
to telling curious or lost walkers to turn around. I head over to strike up my typical
speech of politely asking them if they are looking for the waterfalls and then offering
directions back down the trail. When I noticed that these power walkers are ignoring me and
walking with the might of Richard Simmons. I continued to call out to them as they marched
up the road now with a little less politeness saying you have to turn around now you are
trespassing on private property. Finally I was able to get in front of their path and cause
them to stop. Irritated that these people were defying my request I continued to instruct them
to turn around. The party consisted of an older man and two women. The man was first to acknowledge
me and barked look how upset you are. Why are you so upset? This caused my blood to boil.
After arguing for a few minutes about the basic concept of private property and trespassing
I recognized the face of the old man as that of the Buddha field. A cult leader known simply as
Michael. And it's M-I-C-H-E-L so I think that's still Michael right? I think so. I would guess so.
I knew that he and some followers lived in the area but never did I think I would be yelling
at him in my own backyard. It was exciting. What's up Merdurena? Still refused to leave and harping
on that the property couldn't be privately owned because it was the Hawaiian Queensland. I looked
at that plastic surgery addicted man right in his crazy cult leader eyes and said you know I saw
your documentary and I loved it. Yes. For those unfamiliar holy hell is a tell-all documentary
exposing the group as a cult and how Michael exploits members sexually and financially. Using
former members for interviews it does not paint Michael in a positive light to say the least.
This got his attention and really ruffled the feathers of the women but it did get them to
turn around and start slowly walking away. Continuing to tell me that the land is Hawaiian
and how they have a right to be there I pointed out that the fact that they are white and certainly
not Kanaka native Hawaiian to which one turned to me and said I am in my heart laughing. I mentioned
that this is not how Ancestry of Lineage works. I couldn't help fueling the fire with a bit of
these loony birds. The final comment was her telling me to get a life to which I replied
bitch you are literally in a cult and you're telling me to get a life get out of here.
Julie is saucy. Julie is also having the most satisfying experience with crazy sociopathic
personalities. She's been in a little bit of a private area of her life and out in the woods
and finally she gets to tell some people off. They marched down the road and I have not seen
them since. Thank you ladies for being yourselves. Much aloha. Stay sexy and be sassy to cult leaders.
Julie. Julie thank you. What great advice. Also I think this is the kind of gaslighting that stops
sane people in their tracks. Yeah. Is when you go to tell people excuse me you're trespassing
hey you have to get out of here ignored ignored now you're worked up. Yeah. And then you say it
again and they say why are you so worked up. So they basically to your face are saying I will not
acknowledge your reality and there is no reason why you should be upset even though I've you've
been trying to tell me something that that is high level gaslighting that of course makes you
emotionally reactive. Right. And then they have the upper hand because now you're reacting.
Cult leader. Perfect. Perfectly done. Julie was not having it. Handled. Let's all be like Julie
this week. Handled it. Okay. I'm not going to read you the subject line of my first one
but it's the reason I kept reading. Hey everybody I've been a fan for years. I actually think
y'all were the first podcast I ever listened to or at least enjoyed. Thank you. The ultimate
compliment. Sorry. Yeah. Sorry this American life. I mean Jesus but never had a reason to write in
that is until I heard the topic of this week's podcast was Amy Fisher that was like at this point
a month ago probably a couple weeks ago. Go back and listen if you haven't just do a plug of our
own show during our own show. I was listening at the gym and at the moment I heard her name I
literally dropped the weights I was holding because I was so excited to finally have something to say.
So let's get into it. I grew up on Long Island and when I was 12 or 13 one Saturday night my
family went to go hang out with one of my mom's childhood friends and her family. This was nothing
out of the ordinary. We hung out with them all the time and always in the same format. The adults
would congregate in the kitchen around a bottle of wine while the kids went off to the playroom slash
basement. You know a classic you kids occupy yourselves so we can have a moment of peace
arrangement. Very familiar actually. They had a son between mine and my brother's age so it
worked out perfectly. Being the youngest I never got dibs on the PlayStation. So while the older
two boys played Mortal Kombat or whatever I would just fool around at the pool table and that's what
I was doing when this woman came down into the basement and asked if I wanted to play pool with
her. I'd noticed her earlier when we first got there. I figured she was just some other friend of
our parents thinking nothing of her and wanting to show off to an adult about how good at pool I was
of course. I said sure and we shot a few rounds. She seemed pretty nice and really comfortable chatting
with me as we played and I remember having a good time. I also remember my parents telling us we were
leaving earlier than usual that night and a thick tension as we got into the car. My parents were
silent as we started to drive away until my mom abruptly scream whispered to my dad. We are never
going back there. My dad tried to calm her down but let me tell you it wasn't working. Do you know
who that was? That was Amy fucking Fisher. Steven was playing with the Long Island Lolita.
Yep. I had spent the better part of the night running the pool table with Amy Fisher about a
year after she'd been released from jail. In hindsight she'd probably felt uncomfortable with
the adults who knew all about her and instead came to hang out with us kids who were none the wiser.
Anyway I'd completely forgotten about all this until I heard her name on the podcast so thanks
for the memes. Stay sexy and play pool with whoever you damn well please Steven. That kind of hits me
because it reminds you that she was a kid when she was victimized by a grown man and shot his wife.
She was 16 and so when she goes even a year after prison is like I want to hang out with the kids.
I'm not a grown up because she fucking wasn't. No and like if her story is to be believed she
was also a traumatized teen who had had really horrible things happen to her before that terrible
relationship so she probably did have a rest of development and was like yeah I just want to be a
12 year old playing at the pool table and having a good time. And all these adults are being really
fucking weird to me because well because she attempted to murder someone. Right. This is the
price we pay. You keep that in mind when you feel like a powerful revenge motivation it's
going to fuck up your good times and your dinner parties in the future. Right there's no wine
coolers around the table adult table for you. No not for you.
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the Amazon Music app. Download the app today. This is called Tamales and Mexican Black Magic.
Oh hello all. When I heard the request for legendary stories of someone raised by a Filipino
mom I was like well I'm not Filipino but I'm a Mexican so this will just have to do. I was born
love it. I did what I want to do here's a kind of an in and like let's do it. It's all about
writing your own rules. That's right that's what this podcast is about. I was born in a small
town in Mexico and lived there until I was six years old and I have so many stories about
mythical creatures, black magic, Mexican gang violence, etc. However today's story is about
my ex-mother-in-law's ability to cure el mal de ajo the evil eye. Quickly I need to say that I
do apologize in advance for any grammar errors. I'm bilingual and super insecure about my grammar
skills and then goes on to write the perfect email so you're good. Meanwhile we're like Tamales.
The whitest pronunciation of all terms. Exactly we apologize in return. We know we apologize. No
no no we do. So let's get to the story. It was they wrote that not me. It was a bright and sunny
weekday in the Mexican hood of Phoenix and my mom thought this weather was the perfect excuse to
make tamales in the middle of an Arizona summer. Latino moms are notorious for making traditional
winter meals in the summer. SMH shake in my head. Anyways tamales usually take about an hour or so
to fully cook but after an hour of cook time the tamales we were making were still very raw. So we
let it cook for another hour and to everyone's surprise still raw. At this point we're really
starting to think that we may have to order a pizza or eat raw tamales. My sister-in-law came
to visit so my mom and I told her it was happening. My sister-in-law did not say one single word and
quickly got her phone out and called her mom to tell her what was going on. Before you know it
my sister-in-law takes the pot with the tamales off the stove and takes the tamales out. At this
point I figured she was just going to rearrange things and try to cook them but no instead she
runs to the fridge grabs two jalapenos and starts to glide them up and down on the pot all well on
the phone with her mom. My mom and I had no idea what was going on and just stared at her completely
confused and speechless. She then takes the jalapenos and makes a cross with them on the
bottom of the pot and places the tamales back in to cook. I kid you not about 10 minutes later you
can start to smell them cooking. The tamales finished cooking in no time and everyone was a happy
Mexican eating tamales in the middle of the 115 degree Phoenix weather. My sister-in-law explained
to my mom and I that someone had made a ho to the tamales the evil eye and that's why they wouldn't
cook. Why? I don't know and my ex and ex-mother-in-law was apparently very experienced with curing
people and things from El Maldiojo. She later ended up curing my newborn of El Maldiojo too.
Now I'm not a very superstitious person. Tamales and kids what does one mean?
No, I'm not a very superstitious person, but I do always wear my Maldiojo. God,
I can't get this right. Sorry, bracelet because uno nuca sabe. English translation? Yeah, never
know. Stay sexy and always keep jalapenos around to cure the evil eye, Yolanda.
It's bad enough these people are giving the evil eye to tamales. Spent to a baby? What's
happening? I don't know. I don't know. Maybe just got here. How could he have offended you?
The baby's just got here. Do shit. Both the tamales and the babies are newborn.
We're just got here. They just got here. Wow, that's awesome.
Signed us those stories of like in Jewish culture we go, we do the like a peace sign and go poop,
poop, poop between like you're spitting to get the bad luck away. The evil eye. Yeah,
you spit in the evil eye between your two. Poop, poop, poop. Like we would say poop, poop, poop.
That's bad. Oh, I don't know. Okay. Good, good. This all goes in the book. Okay.
My second email, the subject line is date medical students with an exclamation point. All right.
Hello, guys, gals, pals and pets. Love the podcast and all the usual platitudes.
For some background, I'm a trauma surgeon. I was listening to the most recent mini-soad
and heard the story of how someone's organs were allegedly stolen by a hot suspicious medical
student on the beach. It would be nearly impossible to take someone's. They're about to school us,
aren't they? Yeah. That we read a spooky pasta or whatever. Yeah. It would be nearly impossible
to take someone's bowels out bloodlessly with a broken bottle. Like people have to tell us that.
I know. I know. Also, small bowel transplants are notoriously difficult and only a few hospitals
in the entire US even perform them. The bowel is very fragile. By the time you removed it with
your broken liquor bottle and tested the person's blood to make sure it was a match for the recipient,
it would no longer be viable. When did we ask for fucking logic on this podcast? When did we ever
ask for facts and logic? I actually think because it says definitely an urban legend next. I think
we actually said, let us know if this is an urban legend. Let us know if we have urban legends.
We're being let know. Okay. So as a follow up to the allegation against dating medical students,
let me tell you a bad date story from when I was a medical student. Right. Yes,
the medical students will have their revenge. I've been messaging a guy on an online dating
site and decided to meet up for an afternoon beer. Afternoon beers. No. When he arrived,
he was pretty cute. Score. Our first topic of conversation was on the kid he had,
but had not told me about. It's fine to date when you have kids, but tell the other person.
Next, we talked about the business he was starting, but not really because he hadn't
filled out any of the paperwork because, quote, it didn't matter. Oh, red flag number two. What's
that? As he was telling me about it, I asked a few questions and ended up troubleshooting his
terrible business plan for the next 20 minutes. So far, not great, but not the worst. Then he
starts telling me how he wants to one day get a suit of armor. Oh my God. Leave the bar. Suit of
armor is sword iguana that you carry around on your shoulders in public. Goodbye. Okay. Modern
vampire. He explained that chain mail is more susceptible to getting stabbed rather than slashed.
I'm all four hobbies, but it's creepy to hear how it's easier to murder someone wearing armor
via stabbing than slashing, right? Then he tells me about this warehouse he found outside the city.
It contains old plaster molds. The molds were of busts, random objects, bowls, and animals.
As he's telling me, he's showing me pictures taken with a flash in a completely dark and
unlit warehouse. Imagine Costco in the dark, but full of plaster molds. No, no, no. He proceeds to
invite me to go to the warehouse with him that very afternoon. Okay. To look around, exclamation
point. In pitch blackness, exclamation point. What? Three question marks. So many red flags,
and I wasn't even a murderer at this point. I had enough and I claimed that I needed to go
grocery shopping right away. The perfect out. No one can argue with that. Mind you, glorious
Wegmans is open 24 hours a day and I definitely didn't need to get groceries. Possibly the worst
excuse I could have thought of. I paid for my own drink and left. Then he messaged me multiple
times over the next couple of weeks, saying I rejected him for his looks, and then I was a
dumb, shallow bitch, dodged a sword on that one, I'd say. Amazing. Way to just like confirm
anybody's even slightest doubts that they should have absolutely gotten away from you.
Yeah. SSDGM and consider not inviting your first date to an unlit warehouse, Lauren.
Lauren, thank God you fucking paid attention to your gut.
Also, thank God you wrote in and saved the the nobility of medical students everywhere,
because we really did go on the attack. Yeah. And that was a perfect defense of like,
hey, guess what? Not only are we not the creeps, but we have to interact with creeps.
I bet that story was written in by by big liquor companies saying like, look what else liquor
bottles can do for you. It's like not just the alcohol, but it's the bottle. Look how great
we are. But that was surgery on the beach. That's right. Bonus. You can have it all. Yes, we have.
This is called bone marrow donation story. All right. Good morning, all you beautiful people
on the inside and out. I just listened to you tell about Nicholas Green and asked for stories
about organ donations and just had to tell you about my badass husband, Stephen. Stephen.
All caps. Back in 1990, when we were young, fresh based college students, Jesus, there was a bone
marrow drive to find a donor for a fellow student. Nobody knew her, but we stood in line with all
our friends and had our mouth swabbed. No matches were found at that drive and we forgot all about
it over the years. Fast forward 16 years to 2006. Steve and I are now married with two daughters,
cat age nine, lens age six. We had moved from Massachusetts to New Hampshire to Rhode Island
and we're living our best life. Steve gets a random letter in the mail asking him to call
be the match bone marrow donation services as soon as possible as it was an urgent situation.
He calls and was told that there was a possibility that he had randomly matched up with a young
lady in need of a bone marrow donation and they would like to do further tests. He agrees to do
more testing. They take a lot of blood, et cetera, and discover he was a perfect bone marrow match
to this young woman and asked if he would donate. The only thing we knew about her,
she was 22 years old and has leukemia. We sat our daughters down and explained to them that there
was a young woman who was very sick and needed bone marrow and the doctors found he was a perfect
match to her. So he was going to the hospital to give her some of his. So my lens is notorious for
being very literal and very gullible. She apparently was watching too much TV at the time and saw too
many commercials. She started bawling her eyes out. We tried to explain that it was a good
thing he was doing, et cetera. When she stopped crying enough to talk and yelled out, but I don't
want you to go divorced. In 2006, the commercial that was on TV all the time was for a perfect
match dating service. She thought that he would have to divorce me to marry her. Once we assured
her our marriage was solid, we are celebrating our 26th anniversary this spring. We'll see if
it's solid or not. Steve went on with the procedure and they were able to get a whole leader of bone
marrow for her. To make it easier on the girls, we named this young woman and gave her a backstory.
In our story, her name was Nicole and she was in college in Providence, Rhode Island to become a
kindergarten teacher. Steve recovered easily and we continued living our best lives. A little over
a year later, we received a call from the hospital asking if we would like to meet the young woman.
We talked to the girls and decided not to. We had an image in our heads and they had continued
the story about her. I think at that point she was engaged to a doctor. She was like a Barbie
that she met while she was in a coma in the hospital. I've imagined that one myself many times.
We did ask how she was doing and I told us very well. My beautiful gullible lens is now a beautiful
badass in college studying to be a marine engineer and merchant marine, girl power. She is kicking
butts and taking names although she is still pretty gullible. My beautiful cat at the time began
researching cancer and treatments because of her dad's donation. She then in middle school read
the book My Sister's Keeper, If You Haven't Read It, Do Now and decided she wanted to become a
pediatric oncology nurse. She was a kid when she decided that. Today is her 23rd birthday.
She is graduating from nursing school this May and has a student nurse job on the pediatric
oncology floor of one of the world's top cancer hospitals in Boston. I think her father donating
so selflessly helped influence her life choices. Bone marrow donation is an easy one-day process
which can give somebody like a 22-year-old education student named Nicole the gift of life.
Stay sexy and be the change you want to see in the world, Stacey.
Oh, that was awesome. Yeah, be the match. Go to it. That's really awesome. Also, I believe
isn't bone marrow like it's a little painful. I think they're trying to cover over how easy it
was for the dad, but I think that's a hard thing to do. Yeah, I think there are different... I was
on it before. My friend in fourth grade, David, died of leukemia like really quickly and that was in
the 80s, so it was so different then. But I think there are different levels of it. You know how
like you can give blood or you can give plasma? I think it depends on what's needed, but I could
be bullshit. Someone messaged us who has had it done, maybe. Well, I just think all I'm saying
is people should still do it, but I really think that was a generous, very generous gift there.
Yeah, she's playing it down. And actually, it was a really intense... It is an intense thing,
right? I think so, but we'll find out when people write in and let us know. Okay, this last one is
real short, but I really loved it. It says, hello all. I'm a short-time listener, but a big-time fan.
Oh, fun. New but passionate. The story I present to you is about how I developed my morbid curiosity
and many nightmares. It was one day when I was 11 at summer camp. During our craft hour, we were
supposed to make paper mache masterpiece, aka, place some wood-ass newspaper over an inflated
balloon and let it dry. I was not the least bit interested in this bullshit. I figured a better
use of my time would be to read the newspaper, mistake, or maybe not. The article I so happened
to choose was about a series of women that were found dismembered and stuffed into suitcases.
Their bodies were found along various highways. I was scarred, but enthralled. To my horror,
I read the whole thing and left the craft room with no masterpiece, but many ensuing nightmares.
And here I am today, a full-blown murderer. Sorry for the grammar, Karen. Stay sexy,
no need to apologize. You killed it. Stay sexy and filter the newspaper. You hand to children.
No name. That is a very good point. There's always going to be one little curious shit who's just
like, you know what? I don't want to make paper mache. You're trying to just glue strips of
newspaper onto a balloon and this kid's holding up the strips like, what? I mean, oh my god.
Campage. Campage. That's a horrifying article to read. Especially at camp, which is truly the
most terrifying place in the world. Oh, yes. Once it gets dark at night at camp, it's scary.
Goodbye. And you have a fucking teenager who's there to, like, protect you. Please.
We're the ones, guys. Thank you. Please keep writing them in, whatever you feel like, really,
to my favorite murderer at Gmail. And stay sexy. 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 Hailey Gray. Email your hometowns and fucking
hurrays to myfavoritmurder at gmail.com. Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook
at myfavoritmurder and Twitter at myfavemurder. Listen, follow, and leave us a review on Amazon
Music, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget, you can listen to
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in the Wondry app. Goodbye.