My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 283

Episode Date: June 13, 2022

This week’s hometowns include unattended kids at an amusement park and mudlarking.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 mini-soad. Hi, that we're videoing for the fan cult. The fan cult gets to see the amazing gestures we're using right now to introduce this mini-soad. There you go. Hands, so many hands. This is not what we normally look like when we're recording. No, we hired eight extra hands. And here we are. You want to go first? You want me to go first? I'll kick this one off.

I'm not going to read you the subject line. It says, it just starts right in, all business. Okay. My husband and I got married in New Orleans in 2019. It was just the two of us on the moonwalk beside the Mississippi and it was magical. Nola will forever have a place in my heart. On the final day we were there, we had booked into a Creole cooking class and we were killing time before it started by having a drink at a bar in the French Quarter. We were chatting to the barman when he suddenly went quiet and flicked on the TV to a weather report. At the same time, both our phones pinged with an alert saying, tornado warning, find shelter. This is not a drill. Oh, shit. Being from Liverpool in the UK, tornadoes are not something either of us was

prepared to handle on a light buzz from some midday drinking. No one else in the bar seemed fazed by the approaching tornado, which the weather report said had touched down about a mile outside the city. Okay. So scary. As we looked at each other in mild panic, a kindly woman sitting at the end of the bar leaned over to us and said, honey, I'm from Kansas. You don't need to worry until the sky turns green. And then she went back to her drink. Oh, that sounds more ominous than it's supposed to be, I think. What does that mean, green? I mean, because of the tornado, that's what happens. Apparently. All right. That's how you know it's panic time. Oh my God. The barman returned from calling a few of his friends to make sure they were safe and then

poured everyone another round of drinks. We went to our cooking class, learned how to make gumbo, jambalaya, and pralines, and promptly texted everyone at home that we'd just survived a tornado. Apparently it takes more than a tornado to kill the vibe in New Orleans. Did I see New Orleans at the beginning and know I'm saying New Orleans? I don't remember. I don't remember that. Nor does it matter. No. I love you guys and everything you do. Your podcast has got me through the final stages of my PhD. Whoa. Yeah, that's big. And your voices have been with me through ups, downs, and everything in between since then. And for that, I'm so very grateful. Stay sexy and don't panic until the sky turns green. See.

I love it. I thought that was going to be like a whole, like we hang out in the bar for the, you know, that's what a tornado warning sounds like to me. Yeah. Like lock down, get into the cellar, bring bottles of rum down with you. Totally. Nope. Still go to your cooking class, everything's fine. Please learn some recipes. Okay. This one's called, how many 911 calls is normal? Which is a great question. Hello to everyone, but especially the new pets and also the old ones. A recent mini sow got me thinking about how often the average person makes 911 calls in their life. I mean, how often have either of you personally called 911 during an emergency? Once, I think like three for me. Not very often. Because at 24, I've made four 911

calls on behalf of others around me. I don't know if that's because I generally fuck politeness and don't just mind my own business or because I'm a nosy bitch, but I'll let you decide. The first call happened in my hometown. At two in the morning, a car full of us 16-year-old girls decided the only interesting to do was to go get McDonald's and go for a late-night drive. As we sat at a red light in the deserted downtown square, a girl stumbled in front of our car. She was in a sleeveless romper, spaghetti straps in short shorts, and holding her high heels. She looked to be about college age, and as we were only three or four blocks from campus, it wasn't too surprising, except for the fact that she was stumbling in the opposite direction from

the university towards the edge of town and the train tracks, and it was about 35 degrees and dropping. Oh, in a romper? A spaghetti strap romper in 35-degree weather. As we all sat watching her for a while, trying to decide what to do until I firmly decided our best option was to call 911. I informed the dispatcher where she was, and we followed her as she zigzagged up onto people's lawns and into the street. We waited until one cop car showed up, and then I insisted we wait until another showed up, because the idea of a lone cop with a blackout-drunk college student in the middle of the night made me uncomfortable. From that point on, I've never hesitated to get involved in other people's emergencies.

Bystander Psychology tells us that, in a high-intensity situation, most people will assume that somebody else is handling it. Someone else will call 911, someone else has more medical training, someone else knows more than me. Because of the spy standard effect, many people remain in danger long past necessary. Be the busybody that gets involved and ask someone if they need help. You might be the only one. Lastly, remember that less than 20% of 911 calls actually involve an ongoing crime or anything that requires police involvement. 80% of that funding should be going towards the emergency medical personnel, social workers, and community advocates that are actually required for most calls. Encourage your local state and government to funnel money where the

statistics show it's actually needed. Thank you both for the work you're doing and the advice you're giving, especially to young women. You're the vulgar brash ants I never had and always needed. Stay sexy and don't hesitate to call 911 Mads. Mads, first of all, how are we vulgar? Fuck you. Yeah, go fuck yourself. That's really true. Isn't it true that after the summer of 2020 and a lot of the Black Lives Matter marches and movements changed the procedure? I believe it was in Colorado and they started sending out social workers instead of police. It was just almost like as a study and it worked way better. Less jail time, like a lot of times people, it's a mental health issue or it's a

medical issue. Deescalate the situation for sure. And this is why it's so important to vote in every election, whether or not you think it's important, it is important to other people. I think we're starting to learn that now. Looking for a better cooking routine? With meal planning, shopping and prepping handled, HelloFresh has you covered. HelloFresh makes home cooking easy and affordable so you can stay on track and on budget in the new year. HelloFresh meals are convenient, seasonal and delicious. Stay cozy all winter long with classic comfort foods available weekly. While I stop with just dinner, now you can enjoy HelloFresh's expanded menu of quick lunch solutions, weekend brunch, simple side dishes and amazing desserts.

Karen, January is going to be my month for HelloFresh. I am so sick of takeout. I miss cooking so much I haven't lifted a knife or a pan since early fall. So I can't wait to get back in the kitchen and HelloFresh makes it so easy and also makes it so that my food tastes good, which is hard to do on my own. It gives you everything, everything you need. So get up to 20 free meals with purchase plus free shipping on your first box at hellofresh.ca slash murder20 with code murder20. That's up to 20 free meals plus free shipping on your first box when you go to hellofresh.ca slash murder20 and use code murder20. Goodbye. Hey, I'm Aresha and I'm Brooke and we're the hosts of Wanderer's podcast, Even the Rich, where we bring you absolutely true

and absolutely shocking stories about the most famous families and biggest celebrities the world has ever seen. Our newest series is all about the incomparable diva, Whitney Houston. Whitney's voice defined a generation and even after her death, her talent remains unmatched, but her incredible success hit a deeply private pain. In our series, Whitney Houston, Destiny of a Diva, we'll tell you how she hid her true self to make everyone around her happy and how the pressure to be all things to all people led her down a dark path. Follow Even the Rich wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. Okay, it says a funny cult story or don't be nosy. Hi, beautiful souls.

Fuck you. Started listening from the beginning and got about two years in over the last six months. And then in parentheses, it says, also I have diagnosed OCD. And then there's, there's the laughing, crying emoji. Thanks for getting me through tough times. Like today, for example, I went to a funeral for the associate dean of my old music school today, and all the old college memories crawled back into my brain. Like the one when I was getting high with his daughter in the backseat of our friend's car on our way to rehearsal for the music band. She slammed the door on my head because she forgot I was getting out. I didn't feel a thing, haha. But I almost peed my pants laughing. All the memories. The memory I thought

you'd appreciate was the time after a daytime concert when we went to none other than the mall food court for lunch. In case you've never been to a Western chorale concert, I'm assuming this, it's pronounced corral, C-H-O-R-A-L. The dudes all wear matching tuxedos and the chicks all wear the most old lady looking dresses. Ours were long sleeve, nearly floor length, black dresses with a tie at the waist so that nobody looks attractive, topped off with matching fake pearl necklaces and earrings. Short story long, my friend comes back from the bathroom and explains that a woman confronted her about our table which happened to have one long-haired rocker still in a tux and three long-haired blondes still in granny dresses. This woman asked my friend if

we were part of a cult. She happened to ask a theater major. With zero hesitation, my friend said yes and said something along the lines of praise be to the master. Oh my god. The concerned woman asked if she needed help and my friend straight faced had an entire conversation about how much she enjoyed the cult with this woman. Oh my god. When my friend came back to the table, she didn't sit down, she quickly explained what happened and we knew what to do. The guy stood up, we helped him put his coat on, then we cleaned the table off and followed him out single file to the car looking down at the ground the entire time. And then it just says nerds. Such nerds. What it makes me miss those kinds of like that girl is like someone you want to know for the rest of your life.

Entirely all of them. It says we giggled all the way back to the college. It gave me a much needed belly laugh again today as I debated about telling you. I hope this at least gave one of your awesome team members a good snicker, Alejandra, that reads them. Clearly. And don't worry, I called my dad even though the cult wasn't real. SSGM and maybe don't assume ugly corral outfits mean cults. And then there's no name. That is true. That was like, hey, you look silly. Are you in a cult? Yeah. Kind of judgmental of that woman. That poor woman though. She was trying to help a young girl. That poor woman is kind of fucking politeness in the way that we base our advice on, you know, to be like a concerned aunt that's at the bathroom at the mall going, excuse me,

do you want to be wearing a pearl necklace and pearl earrings? Yeah, you look a lot ridiculous. Are you okay? Gd help. Are you in a bad clothes cult? That is something you and I would probably do. Your brash aunts. Yeah. And vulgar. Very vulgar. Very vulgar. Let's see. This is called my tribal lore helped me predict a car crash. Extreme coincidence. Hello, hello, hello. I've written it a few times, but once you asked for extreme coincidences, I knew I needed to write in again. For context, I'm a Native American and in my tribe, I'm Muskogee Creek. Owls are bad news. Death omen, bad news. Two weeks ago, I had an awful dream where I was sitting in the passenger seat

of my best friend's car and a large snow owl was trying to get in the car through my window. I woke up in a cold sweat, truly freaking out because when owls are involved, I don't mess around. I used to try and be rebellious and keep a large owl candle on my windowsill until one night my cat knocked it directly onto my head and gave me a concussion. It was that fucking candle. Sounds large. Let me get back to the car. A week after this dream while I was driving to school with my best friend, a woman driving a jeep sped through a red light and plowed directly into the passenger side of the car. My best friend and I were totally fine, just shaken up but the first words out of my mouth after the collision were, I called it.

My best friend did not like this. When I called my very Indigenous mother to tell her what happened, she immediately went on a long-winded tirade about how my ancestors had warned me and while at the time it was hilarious, I now believe her. I started listening to MFM in the eighth grade and I'm now graduating high school this year. Oh, I know, sorry. Thank you so much for narrating my teen years and keeping me thoroughly terrified at the outside world. And if you see an owl run screaming in the other direction, much love, Estella. I feel bad though because they're like, hey, you're going to get in a car accident, but no, like, here's how to avoid it. You still have to get in that car.

That's the thing about omens is you still have to live your life and stuff, but don't invite it, you know, try to listen to your ancestors. If they're actually speaking to you, why would you not be listening? Okay, here's my last one. The subject line is you aren't supposed to be their hometown story, roller coaster edition, and it starts yo. I was just listening to the mini-soad where Karen set off the museum alarm. You called for really obvious after the fact you weren't supposed to be there slash do that stories. That's a great one. Yeah, here's a gem from my childhood. I grew up outside of Fort Worth, Texas. My dad was a teacher, so it was just him, my brother, and me during the summer while my mom worked. We lived half an hour from Six Flags over Texas Amusement

Park. We had season passes and went every single Wednesday for a few hours before it got too hot and crowded. This was the summer of 98, so between Six Flags and repeatedly watching Titanic at the Dollar Theater, our summer was legit. That's adorable. Right? At Six Flags, there's a very old roller coaster called the Runaway Mine Train. I don't know why that gets me. They ain't been a one-way mine here in 25 years. This is what kids love. Miners. Kids love mine. Mining and miners. It's an underwhelming but fun ride. On this ride, the train slowly passes through a saloon with dummies playing poker and a piano before dropping over a hill and taking off again. My brother was a tragically skinny eight-year-old and figured out he could push his knees out to leave the safety

bar loose and have a wild ride. You see where this is going. Oh, dear children. Children, we decided it would be hilarious if he crawled out while the train was in the saloon and play cards with the dummies. That's true. That would be fucking hilarious. I'm laughing my ass off right now. However, okay. Haum ever. Haum ever. I was a chubby 10-year-old, me too, so my job was to help boost him out and play Hype Sister. Much to our delight, the plan worked. Oh my god. Right. The line was short and I rode the ride again to see my brother acting like an old-timey cowboy. Oh, epic. Epic. If only you had a phone with a camera on it. Every time we'd go to the pirate to the Caribbean when we were kids, I just wanted to get out and fucking go live in that

jail town, you know. For real. Get chased around a table. That's right. To see my brother acting like an old-timey cowboy shuffling cards and pretending to drink a mug of beer. So he's actually like picking up the props and everything. I loved him. However, like all best-laid child plans, we were immediately caught. Yeah, you were. The ride had to be shut down and my brother was removed from the saloon through an emergency exit by an unamused teenager. We were hauled to an office and forced to wait. As this was the time before cell phones, our dad couldn't find us at our rendezvous spot and alerted security. Eventually, he found us sheepishly sitting in the security office. We were all kicked out of the park. We knew we were done for. No more Titanic Mondays

or Six Flags Wednesdays. We would be relegated to do chores and watching Maury the rest of the summer. But much to our surprise, dad didn't want to tell our mom that he let us roam around Six Flags unattended while he chilled in the air-conditioned food court. Yeah. I was like, what was dad doing that whole time? Yeah, he was like, you go have fun, leave me alone. Totally. I'm going to eat this $17 hamburger. So we just all agreed that we learned our lesson and that mom didn't need to know about this. Nice. We decided to stay away from Six Flags for a week or two. I think dad secretly found it hilarious, but would never say that. We resumed our regular Six Flags trips, but always wore sunglasses and a hat at the gate to thwart security. Oh my God.

The whole family. Hey, kid, get out. Yeah, that's a big of a shit. That's so cute. Then they ate your brother wore a long beard, like a miner. We just knew they had facial recognition technology, kid logic. I had several Six Flags stories from being a frequent visitor over the years. If you ever want more, you know we want more. Yes, we need amusement park stories. Yes, please. I got barfed on at Disneyland on the train roller coaster. The Thunder Mountain. Thunder Mountain. I was going to say Thunder and Lightning. You got barfed on from someone else on the train? Yeah, the person ahead of us, this little kid barfed on the rest of the train. We all had to be and sit on the train in silence

for the rest of the roller coaster. Everyone was just completely barfed on. The smell of whatever that kid had been eating all day, like cotton candy and fucking hot dogs, chili, tuna noodle casserole, whatever it was. Fresh lobster. It was a date. I was on a date with a new dude too. Oh no. We had to go get, did we make up? You had to go break up. You had to go make out in the parking lot. Made out. It was the best make out of my life. Okay, go ahead. Send us your stories. No. Wait, I think I've told you this one, but this is Christine Tomassini who was a friend of my sister's from high school. Her and her family were at Disneyland and she was staring at a girl who had really, she had really big hair. It was like she had kind of really, I don't know if it was

a natural like a fro kind of or it's like really curly, but like big and circular all around her head. And as she was staring at the hair, like, oh, that's really good hair. The hair just went flat and she was like, my eyes. And then she realized it was because somebody barfed on off of the tram onto this girl's head. Oh, that poor girl. And she witnessed the entire thing. I was just like, that is fucking theme parks, man. Nightmare. I won't go anymore. I don't, I'm good. You know what, if we, if we get enough stories, you won't have to go anymore. That's right. We'll just have people telling us stories. That's right. Wait, I'm just, I'm two lines away from the end of this. I do. Oh, so they're telling us that they have more six flag stories. Yes, please send

more and please put in the subject line. These are my more six flag stories. Right. Thank you for your podcast and thank you for being a friend. Stay sexy and keep your arms and legs in the side of the train at all times. Taylor. Taylor, great job. Taylor, you nailed it. You gave us so many things. All right, here's my last one. That's actually about a date also. It says, be careful what you put in your pocket on dates. Hello there and hello from London. I'm a huge fan of yours and I know you are huge fans of things found in the walls and also treasure. So I'm hoping you also might be fans of something that has just happened to me. I shall call it things found on dates, like being barfed on last night. I went on a date last night. And it was decided we should

try a little spontaneous mud larking. Welcome to dating in your 40s. Hey. Mud larking. It says, in case you aren't aware, mud larking is a British activity of the Victorian times when you basically scavenge around for treasure in the mud and stones and God knows what of a river. I follow a lot of mud larking Instagrams. They're fucking fascinating. We had so many plans to go mud larking when we were in London. It just never happened. It never happened because you have to wake up at like seven in the morning. Oh, that's right. That was the deal breaker. That's a deal breaker for me. In this case, it was the River Thames and this was my first mud lark outing. To set the scene, we were in proper city of London territory under the shadows of St. Paul's Cathedral

with tape modern opposite us across the river. It was around 8 p.m. at night and I was in a carefully selected white jumpsuit with white converse. He was in jeans with equally white trainers. After weaving past a group of drunk men, climbing down old steps and stepping over scattered rubbish, we came to a rocky part of the riverbed to start digging about. It was so peaceful down there and surprisingly sexy watching my date dig about the mud with his hands. Sorry, really quick. This person wore a white jumpsuit to mud lark? Yeah. I think she's showing how spontaneous and fun she can be. Gotcha. We found old clay piping, old age cigarettes, bits of pottery and even an animal hip bone. And then I hit gold. I found a fully intact

prehistoric fossilized shark tooth. Ooh. As a slight segue, a year before I'd been hanging out with friends on a river beach in Kent, UK, when one of them found a prehistoric shark tooth. So last night in my desire to impress, I may have slightly over-egged my expertise of fossilized shark teeth. Super chuffed with my treasure, I popped the shark tooth into my jumpsuit pocket and we carried on squelching about for a bit before deciding to go for a drink. Fast forward an hour later when we're settled in at a bar and I decide to excitedly study my shark tooth. It was amazing. It had its one pointed shark bit and then a thicker base of the tooth. And that was when my date took it in his hand and slowly flipped it upside down. It turns out the one

pointed shark bit wasn't a tooth point, but more of a tooth rot. And in the light of the bar, we could see that the thicker base was actually very clearly a textured, almost crater-like surface. The reality hit then from his face to mine. I had not found a shark's tooth. I had found a human tooth. Oh. No. With a bit of manic internet searching, we found out that before dentists, and dentists aren't quote, people with bad teeth just had them wrenched out and chucked into the sewers where they traveled in all kinds of shit to the river waiting to be found 200 plus years later by two 40-year-olds on a date. There were even mid-19th century tooth pullers who wore leather hats with lots of teeth decorating the hat. This says Google it. I still can't unsee the hat with

89 teeth. Oh, I'm gonna. And so here I am this morning writing to you with the date and random human tooth still in my house. Hey. Hey, girl. Yes. I can't stop wondering about the life of the human who once owned this tooth and then the luck I've had in finding a brilliant man in my 40s post a horrible divorce and world pandemic who was not only kind, hilarious, and looks sexy, digging in river mud, but he is still here after I forced him to carry the tooth for the rest of the night. No way was I throwing it away and no way that Nasher was going back in my pocket. Stay sexy and be careful what you put in your pocket on dates. See. I like that one. I just kind of like hopeful and shit. Yeah. And kind of fun. Fun, hopeful. I thought

that being the description, I was like, is this going to be like an old piece of dog shit? I was just doing worst case scenario. Yeah. But actually, I think a human tooth is a little bit grosser to me. It's pretty gross. You want to hope that it's super old because it's almost more disgusting if it's from like a month ago than if it was like a 200 year old tooth. What if it was a tooth? What if they did DNA testing on it? It turns out that it's the tooth is related to someone in her like lineage or whatever. That would be cool. Or it's her neighbor. Or it's her neighbor's tooth. Or her date likes her so much, she pulled his own molar out so she could find something nice. I love that the tooth and the

date is still in my house. See, I hope you write back to us and let us know how that relationship goes. We'd love to hear about it on your one year anniversary. That is it. But wait, I looked up tooth pullers job and then I'm looking at images. Let me see. It's just a bunch of different pictures of pliers. Wait, what else should I add in that search line? Victorian tooth pullers. It's like a show of people. They literally would have their, the pliers in the person's mouth, the person's tied to a chair and then look at this. Could this be real? Horror of Victorian dentistry. Oh, it is. Yeah. This is really good. Oh yeah. There you go. Hold still. Hold still. Oh my God. It's like your brother is down there holding. Can you see that the little kid holding?

Yes. Oh my God. Steven, can we post that on the Instagram? Oh, you're fucked. Just pull them all. The Backstreet Horror of Victorian Dentistry exposed in grim photos. Oh, we've done it. We've done it. Thank you guys for listening. Thank you, fan cult for looking at us while listening. Also, if you guys want one more story each, there's a mini-mini-sode in the fan cult as well. There's a lot of cool shit in the fan cult, so please feel free to head over there. Over there. My favorite, murder.com. Company. Yeah. Connection. That's right. T-shirts. The 3Cs. Stay sexy. That's okay, murdered. Goodbye. 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. Email your hometowns and fucking hurrays to myfavoritmurder at gmail.com. Follow the show and Instagram and Facebook at myfavoritmurder and Twitter at myfavoritmurder. Goodbye. Listen, follow, leave us a review on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, 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 Wondery.com.