My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 282

Episode Date: June 6, 2022

This week’s hometowns include crushed Doritos on pizza and expired pepper spray.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. See, it's truly criminal. Hello. And welcome to my favorite murder, The Mini-Sode.

Hi. Here it is. Hey, what's up? Hi, what's up? Hi. Should I go first this time? Yeah, you do. OK.

OK, this one's called Pepper Spray Hometown. In the hometown today, you posited. Posited, yeah. Posited. What even happens with expired pepper spray? I had interned for a congresswoman in 2010, and she was a former police sheath. She made sure her female interns carried pepper spray and bought me several pepper spray key chains that I religiously carried, but never had to use.

Fast forward to 2015, and my husband was teasing me about how he was sure I was carrying around expired pepper spray. I told him I wasn't sure if pepper spray expired, and it probably only got more potent with time, based on no science, just vibes. I love that. He proceeded to try to prove the inefficacy to me by all caps, spraying the pepper spray indoors. In his defense, question mark, he sprayed it into a trash can.

In not his defense, this trash can had no lid. We had to keep the windows open for a few days and find some place to sleep until it cleared out. So in short, pepper spray may expire, but it's still strong enough to clear an apartment five years later. No name. Shit. He fucking sprayed it into the air, essentially. Yeah, like, you just sprayed it down.

Yeah. It's not like it's going to stay in the garbage can. I told you about that when I tested my pepper spray, I was like walking somewhere at night, and I had it in my hand to make sure, and I was like, I'm never going to try this. I should make sure it works. And then walked through the spray, sprayed it in front of me, kept walking through it. Almost like perfume, where you're trying to get a light coat of perfume. And then, you know, it wasn't that bad, but I just was, by the time I got to where I was

meeting my friend, I was cracking up because I just, like pepper sprayed myself. Did you, were your eyes burning? Was it a little bad? A little bit. I think I must have just only, I must have like not done it directly, but I still felt it. So it worked. I bet. Well, it's a good sign.

Yeah, really? It worked. Here's my first one. Hi, friends. I've been meaning to write you this story since I listened to your live show from Des Moines several years ago. I believe Karen made a comment about seeing a lot of tents selling fireworks on your way into town as it was close to the fourth when you were in the area.

I had to giggle to myself knowing that us Iowans were very eager to have the ability to buy fireworks in our own state versus crossing the border to South Dakota. You see, up until 2017, it was illegal to sell or purchase fireworks in the state because of a little incident that occurred in my hometown back in the 30s. Yes. Tell us these stories. Right? Amazing.

And then it, and then look at this. They, they actually sourced it. My source is an article from the Des Moines Register by Mike Kellan. Amazing. And then a smiley, winky face. Semi-colon parentheses. I love it. Love it.

Sight your sources. Sight them sources, baby. Okay. I'm from a small town in Northwest Iowa called Spencer, population of about 11,000. The story goes that it was a hot, windy day on June 27th, 1931. A young boy accidentally dropped a sparkler on a stack of fireworks that were for sale in front of a drugstore in the downtown area. This ended up causing a massive fire that was so hot, the streets caught fire.

Oh. The windy conditions of that day sent flames across the street, spreading to most of the downtown buildings. Many local fire departments came together to pull water from the nearby Little Sioux River in an attempt to stop the flames from spreading further. An airplane from the Des Moines Register was even brought in not only to capture aerial photos of the fire, but to destroy a burning building by all caps, dropping dynamite on it.

What? To avoid further spread. Oh, okay. I guess that's a tactic I didn't know about. I don't think it's commonly used. And then in parentheses it says bad, period, ass. It's like a fucking Tom Cruise movie over here. It's truly, you know, in like in firefighting, they do a thing called back burning.

They get ahead of a wildfire and then burn out whatever. But this is like so next level. Yeah. This is some guy, Eric, who was like, you know what I've always wanted to do. Yeah. And it seems like now's the time to do it. Yeah. Because everyone's kind of panicked.

Yeah. Trying to take care of the actual emergency. So I'm going to start a new emergency and pitch it as a solution. Let's see. And five, six, seven, eight. There are even reports that farmers nearly 10 miles out of town could see big black smoke clouds in the sky. In total, the fire destroyed 80 businesses and caused more than $2 million in damages.

And then in parentheses it says that's $37.3 million in today's money. Holy shit. Incredibly, there were zero deaths from the incident. However, the fiasco caught national attention and led to Iowa being the very first state in the nation to ban the sale of fireworks in 1938 with many other states following suit. To this day, the identity of the young boy has never been officially confirmed. I think that's a good idea. Was it a small town looking after its own or an inside coverup?

Well, perhaps we'll never know. They're like, that boy doesn't exist any. They took care of it on their own. It was this sheriff lighting a cigar and throwing it into a pile of fire. There was no kid. There's someone to get that boy back here, that little boy that threw it. What I do know is that immediately after the fire, local businessmen got to work on the rebuilding process.

Even though it was the Depression at the time, 20 art deco-style buildings were erected fairly quickly. These buildings are now on the National Register of Historic Places. And then in parentheses it says, I feel like you too would appreciate some nice art deco buildings. Absolutely. You're very right about that. And then it says, my favorite part of the story, the way our town decided to memorialize the

event. And then in parentheses it says, before establishing Clay County Heritage Center a few years ago, was by hanging the aerial photos of the fire taken by the newspaper in the upstairs party room of the local pizza restaurant, Godfather's Pizza. Oh, I love it. This is a very parenthetical story because then in parentheses again it says, yes, the spokesman is a parody of Don Vito Corleone from The Godfather and their best pie is the taco pizza with crushed nacho cheese Doritos sprinkled on top.

What is happening? This is a fever dream. This person cut up a bunch of nouns and threw them into a hat and then put a story together for us. Took some acid and then. And then, hey, I recall many childhood events being hosted at the restaurant, yet no one stopped to think about whether the visuals of massive flaming buildings, terrified old timey locals, and the Great Depression were the vibes that they should be going for at

Lindsay's 8th birthday party. And then it says, wow, sorry, this is so long. Thanks for all you do. I was turned on to your podcast when I started my new job in the fall of 2019, which put me on the road a lot during lockdown, except not really a lockdown in Iowa because our governor's insane. Whoops. I made it a goal to catch up on all the MFM episodes in order and I'm happy to say as

of today, mission accomplished. Well, SSTGM, Tori, she, her. Damn, Tori, that was epic. You nailed the storytelling. You painted a picture. I want to go to Godfather's pizza and have a birthday party there. Absolutely. I want pressuritos on my motherfucker pizza.

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Goodbye. Okay, this one's called Parents Push Penpal. Oh, it just starts. Let's do this. I grew up in a Texas Southern Baptist brand of religion. Think, close your eyes and raise your hands during the music. I'm going to dunk baptisms. I didn't know that was thing.

Mega church congregations, church two to three times a week, et cetera. I've got a lot of weird stories, but this one takes the cake and throws my parents under the bus. It was the late 90s. I was eight years old and it comes out that our youth pastor had been accused of molesting a teen at our church. But this was the 90s. So the entire church, including my parents, believed this guy was innocent. And the entire congregation stood behind him while he was arrested, charged and eventually convicted of sexually assaulting a teen. Guys, you read that right.

He went to jail and everyone thought he was still innocent. It's Christmas time and my parents have the great idea that I should write to him to cheer him up. So there I am, eight years old, sitting down to write a convicted pedophile. And I am obsessed with the book series called Amelia's Notebook, kind of like Diary of a Wimpy Kid where it's made to seem like a young girl's journal. So I handwrite and decorate my letters with illustrations of events, Lisa Frank stickers and quirky notes all over the page. No. I hope someone at the jail was reading his letters he sent to me because my parents did not. I remember his letters were typed and had a lot of stories about Jesus, so I eventually got bored, but not until after exchanging months of letters.

When the next children's pastor at our church got arrested for soliciting a minor and then that says, yep. Surprisingly, my parents did not encourage me to write to him, but maybe I was just too old at the time, lol. Stay sexy and don't encourage your child to write to pedophiles in prison, mom, and then there's no name. Mom. Mom. Shit. Yeah, dude. That is not good.

No, dude. What are you doing, church? Yeah, church, parents, everyone. Steeple, people. All those people. Shit. All right. All right.

I'm just going to read this one, not read you the social line. Okay. Hey, y'all. While listening to Minnesota episode 268, y'all asked for stories of bad things you did in a museum and boy did my ears perk up. After graduating with a BS, Bachelors of Science in Archeology and then in parentheses, yes, I love the irony. I don't know what that means. That's a lot of science. What's the irony?

I don't know. Go ahead. I'm working at the Penn Museum of Archeology and Anthropology and their visitor services. Being in my early 20s, I would often show up to work hungover and have to excuse myself to barf in the gorgeous historic bathrooms or fall asleep sitting up at the visitor's desk on a slow day. God bless. I am much less of a shithead now. The real bad thing I did in a museum, though, had nothing to do with my own. Instead, it was at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

And then in parentheses, it says, think the rocky stairs. My boyfriend and I are incredibly silly people and had a bit where he would tap my nose and I would quote unquote turn off. Aw. And then in parentheses, I would theater camp throw myself on the ground like I had had my life force ripped off. That's adorable. That's really funny. Well, one time at the Art Museum in an empty corridor, my boyfriend tapped my nose and I turned off falling to the floor. My boyfriend quickly walked away from me as he wanted to see a painting.

That's when I heard a rush of footsteps coming toward me. I opened my eyes to see an elderly security guard running to my aid. The poor guy thought that my boyfriend had seriously hurt me and that I was in danger. I quickly got back up and profusely apologized to the kind and relieved guard. Needless to say, my boyfriend doesn't turn me off anymore. And then there's a winky smiley face. Turn me off. Thank you all for the podcast.

You have been my invisible earbud friends throughout the tedium and stress of my masters. And now my PhD in archaeology and then parentheses. No, I've never seen Indiana Jones. What? It's called Raiders of the Lost Ark, first of all. Stay sexy and don't throw yourself on dirty public floors for attention. It's not cute. Steph, she her.

Aww. She could just do it less dramatically. Like turning off like a robot instead of throwing her entire human self to the floor. But I really do love that kind of stuff in couples where you start to do a bit. It's very funny to you and then you, you've lost all sense of what it looks like to the outside world. Okay, this is a crazy coincidence story. I'm so not going to read you. Insert sassy greeting here.

When you mentioned glitches in the matrix and insane coincidences, I knew it was time to share the story of how I met my husband. Sorry if this is long, but it needs some context. The year was 2008 and Facebook was fairly new to us, 80s babies. At the time, my now husband, Sean, was just a single guy who didn't understand technology. He deduced that the purpose of the app was to find the people you knew in middle school. And the only name he could remember was that of the first girl he kissed. For the purposes of anonymity, let's say this girl's name was Sarah Jessica Parker.

So he typed Sarah Jessica Parker into his search bar. So far, nothing too weird, right? Wrong. While Sean was looking for his first love, I was ignorantly using the Facebook platform myself. I was very naive and unaware of the potential dangers of social media. That's why when I got a friend request from a stranger named Sean, I didn't think too hard about accepting it. Why had Sean found me? Was I his middle school girlfriend? No, but my full name is Sarah Jessica Parker. I know it's not the strangest coincidence, but sit tight. It turns out the Facebook gods hadn't just connected us because I had the same name.

Sean and I had a lot more in common than we knew. As we were talking, we began to realize that we both lived in Los Angeles. Then as we chatted more, we found out we were both attending the same 300-person church. Insert scared emoji face here. At this point, I called my mom who told me I'd been found by some creepy stalker and I need to stop attending my church immediately. That is until she asked me if he was hot. When I mentioned he was, my mother, who has always been desperate to marry me off like a child bride,

suggested that maybe I give him a chance to meet up in real life. I was on the fence but attended my regular church service that Sunday. In non-denominational-style churches, they often ask you to stand up and greet the people around you. As I turned around to shake hands with the row behind me, I found myself face-to-face with Facebook boy. He was right behind me. My heart raced. Did he know I was sitting there or was it just a coincidence? Nonetheless, my Midwest roots told me to never fuck politeness. So I introduced myself to my potential stalker.

As we shared awkward get-to-know-you conversation, I asked him what he did for a living. And that is when I knew I definitely had a stalker. Sean tells me that he worked for a specific catering company, the same catering company that my office used every day. He had literally served me lunch just two days ago. So in case you weren't keeping tabs, here's a full list of glitches in the Matrix. I had the same first, middle, and last name as his first girlfriend. We both lived in the same city.

We were both attending the same small, not well-known church in LA where no one goes to church. He had been serving me lunch every day for weeks. I'd love to tell you that I used my instincts and got the hell out of dodge, but I guess choosing to not fuck politeness can be a good thing. Because it turned out that on top of all these coincidences, we had one more thing in common. We were the love of each other's lives. That's right. We took all these coincidences as a sign that maybe we should get to know each other, and now we know each other in the biblical sense.

If you catch my drip, wink emoji here. Yeah, we get it. We've been married almost 13 years and have two children. So I guess if he was my stalker, he's the most successful stalker ever. I like to joke that Sarah Jessica Parker was the first and last girl Sean ever kissed. Quick note to say that despite serendipity bringing us together, our marriage has only lasted due to therapy and our faith. We are huge advocates of both, and therapy has helped us fight for our marriage through challenges

as we have two special needs children and have encountered many obstacles, like our house burning down and losing everything this past February. Thank you again for promoting mental health and being so damn entertaining along the way. Stay sexy and fuck your stalker, not politeness. SJP, but my real name is Heather, she, her. Terrible advice. This email goes against everything we see together, but I still like it. I know, I know it.

Also, Heather, that's the word I've been looking for for the glitch in the matrix. It's serendipity. Yeah. Because kiss met is more like almost always romantic. Yeah. Serendipity is that thing where it's like unexplainable coincidences and things. Yes. Yeah, that's the word.

Did you see the movie? This is a weird coincidence that has Sarah Jessica Parker in it called, Then There Was You. Oh, no, sorry. Okay. I can't fucking find it like that it ever existed. So maybe I made it up, but it was a really good movie. And there it's, and then there was yours, like all these like kind of sliding doors type of things.

And it's really cute. It doesn't matter, but Sarah Jessica Parker's in it. So that's weird. Oh, that's funny. I find listening to you type very soothing. Oh, thank you. I'm very good at it. Tell There Was You.

Tell There Was You. It's not called, And Then There Was You. And the starring Jean Triple Horn and then the love interest is Dylan McDermott. Oh, Sarah Jessica Parker's just kind of like one of the people in it. Yeah. Yeah. It's cute. Got it.

It's really cute. Oh, okay. Yeah. That was a long description of a movie. Okay. You got it. I liked it. You got a bragging that you're good at typing.

That's what happens when you're a fucking receptionist for 10 years of your fucking boring ass life. Yeah. You're like, I have to be good at it. Yeah. My only skill, literally. Okay. This last one, it says, hi all. I'll keep this short, but just know I love and appreciate y'all.

My hometown story is about my aunt who fearlessly stopped an intruder. One summer afternoon, my dear aunt was on the second floor of her home in front of her big bathroom window, shaving your leg. This is porn. This is how porn starts. I read a very specific porn. Yeah. It's like a movie.

Yeah. It's the Cinemax leg shaving series. When she hears a crash on the first floor, she knew she was the only one home and ran downstairs with half-shaded legs and a towel, only to find a man standing in her kitchen with a knife. Oh my God. In the midst of her shock, all she could think to say is, why don't you just get a job? Somehow insulting a burglar is the way to get them to run off down the street.

She decided to call the cops, but sadly, he was never caught. Thank you for all that you do and say. My mom passed away about a year and a half ago, and you guys have helped me through more than I can say. SSTGM, XOXO, Tara, not Tara. Holy shit, a knife, though. That's more than like a burglary. That's scariest.

Yeah. That's scary. Good for her for quick thinking. It's scary, but it's not as scary as, what's the word I'm looking for? Serendipity. Right? Yeah. That's it.

Do you have a serendipitous leg-shaving story? Please send it to myfavoritmurder at gmail.com. That's right. And if you want one extra story each, extra hometown, join the fan cult. And they're all there if you want to listen. Oh, there's so much exclusive content in the fan cult. There is. And backlog.

And leg-shaving movies. Right. Oh, 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 researcher is Gemma Harris. Tell your hometowns and fucking hurrays to myfavoritmurder at gmail.com. Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at myfavoritmurder and Twitter at myfavoritmurder. Goodbye. Goodbye. Listen, follow, leave us a review on Amazon Music, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get

your podcasts. Hey, Prime members, did you know that you can listen to my favorite murder early and ad free on Amazon Music? Download the Amazon Music app today. You can support my favorite murder by filling out a survey at wanderie.com slash survey.