My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 281

Episode Date: May 30, 2022

This week's hometowns include Sunday school with Jim Jones and a message to librarians.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 minisode. Hi, it's fast. It's emails. It's everything you like. You want to go first? You want me to go first? I can go first. Okay, the subject line of this email is, former demon child. Dear Karen in Georgia, after listening to today's minisode, wherein a small child made a deal with a demon and scared the ever-living fuck out of her mom's coworker by predicting her mysterious illness, it's my great pleasure

to inform you of my status as a former demon child or at least a child who might have made a deal with a demon. When I was nearly three, my family moved into a new house. It was a small bungalow on a tree-lined street in a suburb of Detroit, some real Norman Rockwell shit. Everything was lovely for the first few months until the weird noises started. That night, my parents would hear my brother and I running around in the second floor bedroom we shared. They would come upstairs to put us back to bed only to discover that we were sound asleep. On other nights, they would hear the toilet lid slam shut and hear the flush, but again, when they came to check on us, we had definitely not been out of bed.

They wrote it all off as parental exhaustion until the day I declared that there was a quote-unquote mean angel in my room. A mean angel is a definition of a demon, right? Yeah. It's almost like a small child's euphemism for a demon. Oh, wow. Okay. A mean angel. My mom called me downstairs for lunch and I replied, I can't, she won't let me. Properly freaked, my mom ran up the stairs to see who she was, but there was no one there except me, her toddler daughter who was pointing toward the staircase saying, she doesn't want me to leave. She's so mean. Over the next year, I kept seeing this mean angel who I said was a young girl named Angie. She wore a white dress and bullied me ruthlessly. And I was the only one who

could see her, worried that her kid was having some sort of psychiatric break. My parents consulted the next door neighbor for advice. Perfect. Yep. Take those serious problems right where they belong next door. My dad began to tell her that he thought I had an imaginary friend, but before he could begin describing Angie to her, she stopped him. Is she seeing a little girl who's not much older than her? No. She asked. My parents were baffled. The neighbor asked why I called her an angel and my dad told her it was probably because of the white dress she was wearing. All the neighbor said was, oh no, that's so sad. As it turns out, the family who lived in the house before us had a daughter who had run out into the

street in her nightgown and been hit by a car. She didn't survive. My parents bought a different house in the same neighborhood soon after that. And I haven't seen a ghost since. I remember all of this vividly even 30 years later. I live in Boston now, but our old house is currently for rent. And I'm tempted to fly back to Michigan for a showing just to see if that upstairs bedroom is still haunted. I hope it isn't that little girl deserves peace. Stay sexy and make nice with the ghost children. Megan, she, her. Wow. How about it? Also a recent ghost, like that's very, very tragic and intense. Yeah. Old timey ghosts. Fine. Recent. So sad. Also recent child, like everything about that. Megan,

that's very intense. Well, I have a similarly sad one with an uplifting. Okay, here we go. Right. It just starts murder and co. I've been waiting for the right time to send in the story. And since you asked for glitches in the matrix, I figured now it'd be good. So fucking hooray. When I was 12, my mom married into a family with a tight knit network of cousins. My mom's husband was particularly close to his aunt Dana and uncle Barry and their three children, including the only girl in the entire mix, Tina. And by the way, they said that the names are changed for privacy. Oh, good. Dana, Barry and their kids lived in a bucolic hamlet nestled amongst a dense thicket of trees in Northern Texas. This person

writes poetry clearly. And the only sign of contemporary life amongst the forest was miles and miles of cargo train rails that had been without a crossbook for decades. Oh, that's especially haunting. Right. That's like base. What's a crossbook? Is that a band and train tracks? I have no idea what a crossbook is, but the idea of abandoned train tracks, I think, is through a forest. Oh, yeah. I mean, please. Well, so on one week before her high school graduation, Tina got into her car and started her route to school, which included crossing the train tracks. But the lack of crossbook and the dense forest made her unaware of the incoming train. They weren't abandoned. No, a crossbook must be

like a train is coming or like stop the stuff. Yeah, the arm that comes down in the lights and everything. Yeah. Her car was struck at full velocity, killing her almost instantly. At her funeral, Dana and Barry gave 30 of her closest friends a rose symbolically adopting them as their daughters, using the gesture as a floral tonic to manage their immeasurable grief. Over the years, they kept in touch with all of them, except for one. Tina died a few years before my mom married into the family. I was an athlete and played piano and Tina was an athlete and played piano. And as such, Dana and Barry took a liking to me so we would visit them often. One morning while we were visiting, Dana was telling me

the story of the quote adopted daughters and the one they couldn't track down. She showed me the memory book they had made with all the girls' names and the quote daughter with whom they'd lost touch had been circled. I read the name out loud. Jesse pulled me. I looked at Dana and said, that's my athletic trainer. No. Dana was mixing pancake batter and dropped the bowl. What does she look like? I described her Dana's eyes welled up with tears and she said, that's her. We've been trying to track her down for years. Dana and Barry lived five hours away from us and I grew up in a city with hundreds of high schools. The odds of Jesse and me intersecting were impossibly slim. Dana wrote Jesse a

note which I delivered when I returned to school. Her stunned look when I handed over the envelope is branded into my brain. She called them soon after. Finally after years of wondering where she had gone, all of their quote adopted daughters were accounted for thanks to this deeply improbable glitch and to forever grieving parents were able to feel if even for a minute, the closeness of the daughter they tragically lost. There are tons of other stories like this concerning Tina and I will leave you with my favorite. As I mentioned Tina played piano which sat mostly unplayed after she died. One summer when Dana and Barry returned home from vacation, their lawn keeper told them he thought someone had

broken into their house but there was no indication that was the case. When they pressed him, he said, you're going to think I'm crazy but someone was playing piano. They asked him which song and he said he knew the melody but didn't know the name. They brought him inside and put on Claire DeLune. His eyes widened and he said this is it. Dana said don't worry, that was just Tina. It was her favorite. In theory, I don't believe in supernatural occurrences or intervention but the happening surrounding Tina disrupts the intellectual metric repeatedly and remind me that following the emotional evidence connects the disconnected. Thank you for being a light in dark places. Stay sexy and always stop at train crossings

are intense. Layer upon layer. That's crazy. That is an unbelievable, like it's not a coincidence. That's kismet in a way. Totally. It's unbelievable. I'm obsessed with these kismet stories. Yeah, I mean it's really cool. Yeah. Because also it does make you feel like there's more going on than just what our kind of cynical, injured by life outlooks tell us or make us want to believe where it's like, all right, you can tell yourself that. There's an interconnectedness to it all and that is better than nothing. Yeah. 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

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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 Candice 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. Well, then let's just transition right out of a deep and meaningful email to how my mom ran me over with a pickup truck. And then here's truly my favorite opening maybe of

an email so far. Listen up, 10s of 5 is speaking. Oh, wow. That is one to beat. That is the one to beat. They just took the classic. They reversed it. It's a compliment. It's a comedy. It's everything you want. Oh, that's going to stay with me. Okay. Recently, we've heard a few stories about kids jumping out of cars because of neglectful parents. Finally, my time to shine. I grew up in a small city on the east coast of Canada with a single mom doing her best. However, my mom having a pretty bad case of

undiagnosed anxiety was never able to successfully get her driver's license. She would get her learner's permit over and over but could never get the courage to make it to the actual driving test. One day when I was six, we went out for a drive to a very rural small town in my stepdad out of the month's pickup. Who are you? You're so clever. I can't even handle it. And also just an idea. It's like that's part of the mom's anxiety. She's like, yeah, okay, you. No, no, no, no. Hold on a second. I'll marry you. The whole thing just paints this perfect picture.

Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. He had to visit a friend for a few minutes, so he left us in the truck to wait. And then a parentheses. It says, me in the middle seat with my legs around the gear shifter thingy and my mom in the passenger seat. However, my stepdad had left the truck parked on a slight hill with a very busy two lane highway passing directly behind us. He had also not put on the emergency brake. Suddenly the truck began to reverse in the direction of said highway. My mom panicking and not knowing what to do, thinking we were about to be shot into oncoming traffic, suddenly yanked the door open, jumped out of the truck, looked at me and yelled jump. Thanks mom.

Yeah. Me being six tried to try to do, she says. However, I have to cross over two seats to jump out. My feet get caught in the gear shift and I stumble through the door, landing all caps underneath the front tire of the truck, which proceeds to run me over. Oh, yeah. Fortunately, I'm not too hurt as the truck had only gone over my legs and we both turned just in time to see the truck gently turn into the ditch, not going anywhere near the highway. No matter fucking truck. That fucking truck. Cue the tears and screams. We then drove to the nearest ER, which was 45 minutes away and waited hours before being seen as staff had me brush out rocks from my legs with a

metal comb. The doctor said I was very lucky the truck had not gone over my abdomen and internal organs. Seeing the opportunity, I took this exact moment to blurt out through tears, I want a puppy. Clever. Always clever, this person. So smart. So smart. That's right. This was also the day I got my first puppy, a miniature schnauzer named Pepper. Oh, my God. My mom finally got her license at 52 years old and I was so proud of her. That's amazing.

After years of people teasing her and feeling self-conscious, she finally got over that shit, passed her test and bought herself a Mini Cooper convertible like a badass boomer. Say sexy and use your e-brake, Steph Myers, she, her, you can say my full name. And then it says, Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. All right. Wow. Steph. Epic. So good.

So good. Effortlessly wonderful. Do you want me to tell you a story about what I witnessed my cousin, Dina, get run over by a truck? Of course. Very similar. Very similar to this. We were all standing in front of, we were at the Demos house who are family friends, but we called everybody aunt, uncle and cousins. And it was like four different families. It was some holiday, say it was like Mother's Day or something

like that. It had recently rained and their driveway was a circular driveway of dirt with gravel. One of our family friends, Woody Painter, had a really old like, like a Peterson truck or something like that. That was like a real old flatbed. And it was slightly uphill from like the front door of the house where we were all standing on the front porch. Something happened. The truck kicked into gear, rolled forward. Dina was standing in the driveway. It hit her. She fell down. It rolled over her. Everyone stood like, everyone like did exactly what you just did and did the gasp. It rolled over her like abdomen, both front

and back tires and rolled away like into a tree. And then she popped up out of the mud, like covered in mud and all it did was push her down into the mud. And she popped up and she goes, I'm okay. I'm like, if it hadn't been muddy, she would have probably been really hurt. Yes. And instead it was just like, everybody was traumatized by watching it. And then it was like the funniest, craziest thing where she was like, nobody worry, nobody worry about me. I'm fine. Holy shit. Okay. I'm not going to read this subject. Georgia, Karen and all other humans

and animals. I discovered her. Every single one? I guess so. Okay. Am I supposed to say hi now that you have the mic? I discovered your podcast during the COVID shutdown. My sister had previously recommended it, but since I typically ignore her recommendations, it took me three years to start listening. Apparently this is the one time when she was right and I was wrong. But I binge, I'm working

to get all caught up and I joined the fan cult last summer, something she hasn't done. Because you requested bad ass grandma stories, I wanted to share some about my grandmother Thelma, my mom's mother. We all called her Grammy. My grandmother's name was Thelma and I called her Grammy. Isn't that crazy? Oh, wow. Yeah. Whoa. Thelma.

Now it's happening outside of the emails. Oh, yeah. Now it's happening about the emails. Oh, wait. What's happening? Or did I write this? I don't know. Oh, wait. Oh, you forgot that you wrote yourself. My story.

Born in 1900 in Lynn, Indiana, Grammy was married in 1923, but lived on her own after my grandpa died in 1969, eventually going into an assisted living facility when she was 90. Grandma was always prim and proper. One time when my dad said, shit, in front of her, her response was to say, I wouldn't hold in my hand what you just had in your mouth. Oh, shit. And then it says, prim and proper. Yeah.

But it wasn't until I had moved out of state and started visiting her during trips back home that Grammy started telling me stories about her life, which I had never heard. The most jaw dropping story was when she casually mentioned to me that she had taught Sunday school to Jim Jones when he was a kid. Oh, whoa. Jim Jones is in Guyana, cult, Kool-Aid, mass suicide. What the actual fuck? I was flabbergasted. All I could think to ask was, so what kind of student was he? And do you think you played a part in his religious ideas? That's what I was going to say. It's like, you have something to do with the Jim Jones

origin story. Yeah. That's pretty intense. What's up, formative years? She said he was a nice boy, a good student, and always listened well. And no, she didn't think she had turned him to the dark side. No, that was meth or speed. Right. That's actually how it happened.

That was megalomania and meth. Terrible combo. Years later, I started to doubt myself. Like, did I really hear that? So I researched his background and also pumped my mom for information. Turns out, it's true. My grandma died in 1999 at the age of 99, and I miss her still. She was an amazing woman, more amazing than I ever knew growing up. I truly, truly wish I had asked her more when I had the chance. Anyway, this email is getting long, so I'll just close with this, stay sexy, and of course, don't drink the Kool-Aid. Mary. Wait, Georgia, didn't your grandma die? Like, at a very full day?

Yeah. Didn't she make it? 104, yeah. Thelma. Oh my God. So both Thelmas. Name your kid Thelma. If you want them to have a long life. Yeah. That's an amazing, amazing story. Don't drink the Kool-Aid. Okay, the subject line of this is walking into a random place. You didn't ask for it, so here it is. I'm a librarian, and then a parenthesis, it says, I can write stories of interesting patrons and library ghosts later.

Yes, do it. Please, librarians. Please, librarians. We beg of you. We know you're there. We know you're listening. Tell us everything. Please, librarians. Okay. End of closing, please. Please, librarians. I'm a librarian, and me and a bunch of other librarians were in Vicksburg, MS, Mississippi, for a conference. There was a big scholarship fundraiser bash happening in the Southern Cultural Heritage Foundation buildings where the soggy bottom boys performed

in Oh Brother, Where Are Them. Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. Right? The most classic, like, gathering hall. Town hall type of place. Town hall. Amazing. That movie is so good. Okay. So we thought this was cool, and we had a little get-together pregame drink, and then

a parenthesis, multiple drinks, in the courtyard before the bash. Well, me and another librarian, let's call her Barb, get adventurous when we're drinking. So we decided to explore the surrounding buildings before the bash. So we're climbing stairs and going into rooms, and then we hear the music. Oh no, the bash. We're 100% drunk and 100% lost in this compound of buildings. So we do what any person would do, follow the music, and it brings us down a fire escape through a loading dock into the kitchen, past the caterers, out a door, and this is all caps, onto the stage where the DJ is playing. Oh no.

So two drunk-ass librarians stumble out onto the stage, pause for a moment, hum a few bars from the soggy bottom boys. I am a man of constant sorrow, and then continue off the stage. That's it. Stay sexy and follow the music. Jess, she, her. Oh no. Follow the music slowly, I think, is the don't burst through doors, maybe. The thing, that truly, I think it happened to me, but I just kind of can't put my finger on when or where, but the idea of thinking you're going into the back of a room and coming into the front of a room is my life-long fear. And it's too late to turn back. Like, when you're trying to be subtle and instead you

are the most obvious person in the room kind of a thing. And drunk. Well, it would probably happen if you weren't drunk, is the key to that story. That's true. They're very connected, those two elements of the story. Great one, Jess. Yeah, so good. Okay. Happy ending. My baby survived because of a noise in an episode. Okay, this one's crazy and kind of long. Okay.

Hello, Karen and Georgia. I've been meaning to write this email for a couple years now, but always end up giving up as I can't find the right words to describe my feelings. I guess there just are no words. I've been listening to my favorite murder forever. I listened to it through my pregnancies, hours of breastfeeding, and throughout my early mommy days when nights were long and lonely. It was one of these nights that you changed my life forever or to be more accurate kept it from changing. I don't remember what the episode was and I regret not having written it down later, but as I was listening to you gals talk, I heard a noise coming from my kid's bedroom. I paused the podcast and went to check on them, sure

that my two-year-old had woken up. He was fast asleep, so I checked on my 10-month-old baby and found him wrapped in a blanket. As I unwrapped his little face, my heart sank with horror that my worst nightmare was happening. I can't honestly say I remember what happened, but I remember running with him to the hospital a couple blocks away. I remember vaguely knowing he was still breathing. He was in the ICU for three days and had a heart arrest, but he is one hell of a fighter and he pulled through completely unscathed. He made an amazing recovery and looking at him today, you would never know anything ever happened. He is a bright, energetic, amazing kiddo. The only side effect of what happened is in me and

my husband, how we still sometimes suddenly feel that dread all over again, and I think we'll never get over how fragile existence is and that we were so close to losing him that night. After that, I stopped listening to podcasts for a few months, but eventually I resumed. I'm one of those assholes that listen to every episode, so I also was making my way in reverse. Hey, easy, easy, easy. You're fine. I can be not to help podcasts, A, work. You're helping us out. We appreciate you. We actually like it when you listen to every episode. So I was listening to one of the ones I had missed. One day, I hit play and the episode

started from the middle, picking up right back from the second I had paused it before. I was confused, so I re-winded 15 seconds a few times to understand the context, and I heard you both chat happily about something, then a noise. You both stopped talking and listened in silence and then made some joke about Karen having a ghost in her house. Oh, that was the jar that fell on the ground. Yes, the clanking and it sounded like a bell. I broke down crying. The noise was a ghost in Karen's house. The noise I thought I heard in my kid's bedroom was inside the podcast. The noise that prompted me to go check on my kids and find my baby barely breathing just

in time to free him and save his little life. No. Remember, we were like, why did that? What was that? Why did that happen? A bullet just jumped off of your counter and clung to the... Yes. Holy shit. Are you serious? That noise never happened in my kid's bedroom. Had I not been listening to that episode at

that time, late at night, when everything was quiet, I would have never heard any noise coming from their rooms since suffocating babies can't cry. Fuck. Uh-huh. I think a lot about if this was all a coincidence or something more, and I try not to get into an internal loop of what ifs. I have a really hard time accepting it could have just been different, both that I could have been more strict about sleep safety and none of this would have ever happened, as well as the other scenario. So I want to say thank you to you and the ghost that even if inadvertently saved our

lives. And if you happen to read this on air, to use this moment to reinforce how important it is that babies sleep in a completely empty crib. And that's true too about the bunting. What's it called? The little barriers? I was just reading about it. I don't have kids. Just read about it. Even when you think they are big and strong enough to have a blanket, it's better to wait a few more months. Thank you both forever. And then no name. Holy fucking shit. You have got to be kidding. I know.

Can I just tell you that I thought the way that story reads, I thought she kind of missed the moment of telling why we had anything to do with it. I thought she was just like, and then I thought I heard something. So I got up and whatever, where I was like, what's happening? That's not a very good story. Because there was no reason. That thing that fell down, I wish I could remember it because it was made of glass. It was a bowl. It was a pyrex bowl that ordinarily, and I've had lots of them because I tried to reduce my plastic footprint. Those things dropped from the counter height and they crashed into a million pieces. This hit the ground and then

gave a ringing noise. It was so strange. It sounded like an old bell. We both stopped and said, did that come from your head? What was that? You got up and walked out there and Steven and I were holding our breaths while we waited to see if you were dead. I was like, bye. Then it was like, for no reason, this thing that was not on the edge of the counter, it was in the middle of the counter fell off. This is nuts. This is the craziest story. I am so excited to be a part of it. I am so thrilled that that baby is 100%.

Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. Then months later, she pressed play and realized it wasn't even, oh my God, yeah. Nuts. Epic. Also, seriously, I props to people who choose to be parents because that kind of shit, I would have one of those and be like, anyway, you need to take this back. I don't know. I can't do it. That's horrifying. I know. I know. That was the last one. I'm so glad we ended on that.

Yeah, that was amazing. You guys, write us your stories, whatever the fuck you want them to be, whether we asked them or not, especially coincidences that are huge and crazy. I fucking, we love them. Coincidences that prove there's no such thing as coincidence. Yeah. And also 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 Steven Ray Morris. Our researchers are Gemma Harris and Haley 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 new episodes one week early on Amazon Music or early and ad free by subscribing to Wondry Plus in the Wondry app. Goodbye. Bye.