My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 287

Episode Date: July 11, 2022

This week’s hometowns include a tabby cat named Biscuit and a royal birthday card. 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 so we read you your stories and it honestly could be anything at this point. God, it's amazing how we've gotten you to do the work for us. You know, can I start this one off? Of course, because this email I'm about to read you, you know, as you just said, we've asked people for every kind of story under the sun. Yeah, we've gotten so far away from hometowns. Now it's just story time. Totally. Well, this long

time listener first time writer is changing the game entirely. This is just an email about gossip. This is just straight up what your dad used to call show off time. This is show off time, but it's in the way and I know we've talked about this before where in quarantine, we've missed a lot of things. You've had a lot of mental health impact, none so great as being completely cut off from gossip and any kind of news about anyone else's life that would be even slightly compelling because no one did anything for the most part. I love that's so true and gossips one of my favorite forms of communication and connection, right? It's kind of like, I'm not saying like vicious, you know, so big slut, which I support entirely. I just mean like, did you know so and so like

so and so or swept with or any are going out like any news, any news. Yeah, I want to hear all about them. I just, it's like a way of keeping up with people that you're maybe not friends with or don't like actually like, but you, but you do, you know, you like to track other people's story arcs. Totally. Exactly. That's exactly it. This is me absolutely rationalizing being an asshole. This is called baby sitting story. Hey there, I'm writing this to you as I wait for my mochi ice cream to thaw to a desirable nine consistency over an episode of The Alienest. Time and place. Perfect. They put you right there. Not that important writing you. I'm just, it's the thing that has to be done right now. You know, I'm going to you with my email. I'd

like you to come to me with what my reality is right now. And meanwhile, that makes me want to rewatch The Alienest. I love that show. So good. Okay. And we're back. When I was 16, I babysat for my neighbors three doors down. My proximity and the mutual acquaintance of my then boyfriend is what got me the gig. The parents had two boys under the age of four and both worked and volunteered. He volunteered for the National Guard. She at the firehouse, respectively. So the boys needed carrot odd times of the day. The mom, let's call her Lila, was the only parent who would arrange the times for me to come by. I rarely saw her husband, who by the way, wore Velcro shoes. Velcro. In all caps. Velcro. Time and place. Setting the scene.

Right. Describe the person without being direct. Everything about me coming over to watch her boys is perfectly normal. These are the shows they like. This is what they can and can't do, etc. Until one time I came over and she punctuated her usual spiel with, oh, and don't tell Trent, don't tell her husband that I had you come by. He just doesn't like me spending the money. My naive child of divorce twice self didn't think anything of what she said is odd at the time. I thought dysfunction within a marriage was perfectly normal. Also, why would I want to talk to Velcro guy? I accepted the secret cash she gave me and happily watched baby Einstein with her kids. Our business quote unquote relationship went on for about a year. Fast forward to the

annual firefighters ball. I attended with my then boyfriend and Lila was there with her husband. I was sitting at my table people watching and I noticed how Trent, the husband, was not much of a dancer or social butterfly while Lila was fluttering to everybody. She was extremely social, but I also saw how she couldn't keep her eyes focused. She had that uneasy is someone looking at me energy about her. Again, I accepted dysfunction as the norm as do we all as you should. Despite everyone's idiosyncrasies, we were all having a great time. We were dressed for prom. There was music, great food, and those who were 21 plus were getting tipsy. The later it got, the more sloshy the adults became. And that's when I saw it. One of the firemen who I didn't know came up

behind Lila arms around her waist and nose in her neck. It was very affectionate and no, it wasn't nothing because the moment that it happened, Lila pushes this randos embrace away and says, not now my hubby's here and then hurries away. Oh girl. My teenage eyes got wide as I tried to process what I just witnessed. Was it drunk innocence or had they done that before? And if so, how many times does Trent know or care? Let's review. One, needs babysitting at odd times the day. Two, asks to keep the arrangement secret from her husband under the guise of I'm going to the firehouse and he's too cheap. Three, a drunken show of affection that has shut down where there are too many witnesses. Four, her husband wears Velcro. I would give up my box of mochi ice cream as a

wager that I was in fact an accessory to adultery. After the ball, I become less and less available to her, not because I was judging her for cheating on her husband. I just didn't want to. She was kind of crazy. And fun fact, I was today years old, 32 now, when I put the pieces together. Wow. And then in his asterisks, it says, text therapist. Say sexy and don't accidentally help your neighbor cheat on their husband's KB. That is sad. Wow. Yeah. Well, and pulling like kids in. Yeah, exactly. Pulling other people, any other person. Yeah, but especially kids that's going to kind of take you at face value and then put potentially be in trouble or it's such a creepy right or feel guilty about it. Like they wouldn't have done it if they had known.

It's kind of that like witnessing it, I bet was that thing too, where like when you're a kid, there's like one day where something happens and you realize adults are just people. They're not the magic keepers of all morality. And they're not all good. And they're not all like, I was actually just thinking about this this morning. My mom was late to pick me up from her house and my friend's mom started like going like, so is your mom going to, I thought I, is your mom going to go on a diet? And she was doing this. I was like seven years old. And it was super creepy. Like, what's going on with your mom? Like, and I was just like, it's just staring at her like, what the fuck are you talking about? Like, I don't, and I don't

know how to, this is a minefield. I don't know how to traverse this. I'm a child. I'm a child and the vibes are off. Like, what is wrong with you? What are you doing? That's evil. So crazy. Adults, we're not the best. Turns out work on it, please do better, please. Do better and try to stay a child if you have any saying the matter. Yeah, if you can, please. Or a cat. Here's a story about a cat. Hey, MFM crew, especially Steven. Steven. This is very long already. So let's just get on with it. Look, we're not in a fight. Right. Oh, I forgot to say that we're filming this whole thing, for the fan cult. So if you want to watch our faces do weird things, then go ahead. My god.

My incredible 80s shirt. Do you love those, Bloss? Georgia has an 80s, beautiful 80s sweater on, a kind of poly knit, graphic blouse purple base with some triangles and some great pastels and a couple 80s stains. It's probably some stacum on the front of that. Okay. Four years ago, I was house sitting for a friend and taking care of her three year old chubby tabby biscuit. It was a fairly rural district in the middle of nowhere Mara Harastra, which I looked it up just now and it's in India. It's a country in India. Okay. Is that right? No. Oh, I don't know. It's a state. You're, aren't you looking at like Google right now? Yes, it's a state in India. And I know that's the end of it. Okay. And that is the end of the discussion. Period.

So they're in a very rural district in the middle of nowhere in this state with rarely any passerbys. My, and my antisocial ass was in heaven. I brought a couple of bottles of booze, ordered a shit ton of Chinese food and nearly watched TV until I fell asleep on the couch. It had been a couple hours when I woke to biscuit the cat meowing loudly. Assuming she was hungry, I went to the kitchen to get her some kibble. But when I went to go pour it in her bowl, her bowl was completely full. I pointed this out to her. The cats cannot understand human language and she continued screaming. I fully pissed off, went back to sleep, but she suddenly lunged forward and sunk her teeth into my forearm, completely taken aback by the 10 kilogram Garfield looking

motherfucker. They wrote MF, but I'm going to give them just go for it. I'm going to give them the whole thing hanging onto my arm. I screeched and began tugging her off. She finally let go and dashed outside. I gave chase. We were a few meters out into the street when I heard a popping noise followed by a roar. Whipping around, I turned to find the roof in a section of the house, which included the living room and the kitchen had fucking collapsed. No. The house was old, but not old enough to warrant such a collapsing, but there was a termite infestation no one knew about. They had tore through the cement and had weakened the structure substantially, but what really brought it down was the heavy monsoon rain that collected on the flat terrace

above. Due to less rain, most Indian roofs have a flat terrace above, but global warming fucked us all. I don't know how Biscuit must have sensed danger and if it hadn't been for her, I would have been fast asleep right where it collapsed. Thanks to her, my only injury was two teeth marks that I showed off proudly right until they faded away. Biscuit sadly passed away last week, which sparked me to write this letter in honor of her. Stay sexy and always trust the fat cat, S. Biscuit is a goddamn hero. Hero. Total hero. You hear that, Dottie? Dottie's sitting right here. I mean, truly, Biscuit figured out how to get her owner up and out of the chair. Wasn't even her owner some fucking chick she just met. Just some person she just met, just

house sitting. It's just a cat that came with the house. Yeah. I don't even like you that much, but I'm just not going to let someone die on my watch. Okay. Look, I'm Biscuit. Hey, I made an oath. Most other cats wouldn't give a shit. It's like their owner or nothing. I'm different. I went to medical school. 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. Why 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 like 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.

Hi. What makes a person a murderer? Are they born to kill or are they made to kill? I'm Candace 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. Okay, this just starts. Hi friends. I'm a public librarian in Northern California. I work the closing shift so I'm usually at the library until about nine o'clock. One of the closing tasks is to go downstairs into the basement archives and walk through just in case a patron wandered down. It's usually not a big deal unless it recently rained and water's pouring down the wall onto priceless historical records, but that's a story for another time. The basement is structured so that one stairwell is in the public area and one stairwell is in the back in the staff area. On this

particular night, I went unsuspectingly down the stairs on the public side only to be surprised by the figure of an elderly man in front of me. I opened my mouth to say, sir, this is the staff only area. When in a split second, I realized the man had vanished. I was shook. I realized that when I saw the man, he was slightly transparent and I could see the shelves behind him. But I could also identify the clothing he was wearing and his expression, a plaid button down shirt, a light colored cardigan and glasses. And he had a serene warm smile on his face. Seeing him wasn't frightening at all until I realized that he actually wasn't there. I continued up through the basement to the staff stairwell and finished closing up. I wasn't ready to talk about it with my co-workers. A couple

days later, I was talking with one of our reference librarians who had been with the system for decades. I told her, hey, I think I saw a ghost in the basement the other night. Before I could describe what I saw, she said, oh, I bet it was Frank. Frank Jones was a librarian here for a long time, but he retired before you moved here. I stopped her from describing him and wanted to see for myself. Like any self-respecting librarian, I googled his obituary. And sure enough, the picture looking back at me was exactly the man I'd seen in the basement. I haven't seen him since, but I still say hi, Frank, as I walk through the basement. Stay sexy and be good to your librarians. We see a lot of shit. Marlea, she, her. And then it says names have been changed as his family still lives in

the area. Wow. But I mean props. It almost feels like there should be a real name because it's like Frank was such a great librarian and loved that library so much. He's still there. Yeah. This one's called pepper spray party pooper. She starts, hi. I was listening to a mini-soad with a write-in about expired pepper spray. And I have a fun little pepper spray story for you. In 2011, I was living in a shitty college house with a bunch of roommates throwing your standard college house party, beer pong, beer bongs, natural light. Yeah. Burnett's flavored vodka. The works. One of my roommates and good friend of this day was, let's call her Kelly. Kelly had a longtime boyfriend. Let's call him Paul. Kelly was and

still very much is a five foot 10 absolute dictator. It's her way or the highway. She ain't backing down and she will measure her shampoo to make sure you're not using it, et cetera, et cetera. Uh-oh. Nightmare roommates. What's up? Needless to say, she's not afraid of a fight and she had the weaponry. The weaponry being pepper spray. Girl would walk around town with her figure on that trigger day or night. I didn't and don't judge because all murderinos know it's good to always be prepared. But Kelly clung to the pepper spray trigger like her life depended on it and she could not wait for her time to shine. Honestly, I feel the same way. Someday. So back to the party. It's a packed house and us roommates begin to realize there's some

uninvited party crashers that no one seems to recognize. Pretty soon, these party crashers become aggressive and Paul Kelly's boyfriend politely asked them to leave. Cute and all out brawl exploding out the front door and onto the front porch of our house. You know, some real toxic masculinity bullshit. One of the party crashers is really wailing on Paul and Kelly comes running to the rescue with her trusty pepper spray. I like to think she had it clipped to her belt loop like a gun in a holster. She squares up sticks her hand out and lets it fly. This is where the idea of Georgia quote practicing using her pepper spray actually makes a lot of sense because the thing is Kelly missed her assailant and instead hit her boyfriend

Paul square in the eyes. Oh shit. Shocked at her mistakes. She begins to scream whisper. Don't tell him it was me and runs into the house to hide. The next few minutes were chaos between people coughing inside and running out into the street to avoid the pepper spray cloud sticking Paul in the shower and pouring a gallon of milk over his head and me having to shove my underage visiting sister into the closet to hide because I was sure the cops would be on their way. Fuckin' college man chaos. I feel like the the subtext of this story is we were also shit-faced. We could not see. Cut back to natural light. Yes. The natty light. We all had a baker's dozen of natty lights. Right. Made some decisions. In the end all's well that ends well because Kelly

and Paul are now happily married with a bunch of kids. Stay sexy and maybe you should practice your pepper spray aim after all. Abby. You always spray the ones you love. I mean Jesus right in the eyes. And I have to say you know I understand what that person means but fistfights at a house party to me feel like Carol's at Christmas. It's like what is supposed to happen. I thought you were going to say the complete opposite and I love that. I love that. It's my favorite because honestly it's like everybody gets drunk and then people get a little like mmm and you know it's like an event. Is that an Irish thing. The thought of my Jewish family kiss on the cheek hello everyone's wearing their nice button down J crew falling into the fucking

front parking lot and fistfighting is the last thing I could ever imagine in my fucking life. Oh yeah I mean I've seen it plenty of times at my cousins I think it was my cousin they had their wedding in Sacramento and there was a and it was at a facility where there was other weddings. Oh problem. And some people were out front drunk and started getting into it and there was a fist there was a fistfight the cops got called and one of my uncles and one of my cousins was arrested at this wedding oh my god and everyone's just like yeah here's what we need yeah we need wedding nightmare stories please oh that's right yeah right wedding ending in someone getting arrested uh what's the worst thing that you saw at a wedding that happened there's always

the fainting on the well at least in Catholic ceremonies because they're so long and hot in churches oh yeah a lot of fainting up on the altar because they all partied the night before oh god that's happened a bunch of times yeah no the subject line is my grandmother was alive at her funeral hi murder fans I am from the UK in a recent convert to the podcast I hate doing housework and found that the only thing that gets me through it is listening to your podcast the downside being that as I'm mopping the floor taking out the trash I hear detailed descriptions on cleaning up after dead bodies which makes the experience a little too immersive at times but it's fine I wanted to

tell you about the time my Irish grandmother was alive at her own funeral she had a wicked sense of humor but towards the end never ceased to remind us every Sunday lunch that this would probably be the last time that we see her and then a parentheses it says this went on for at least 10 years as she was incredibly fit and healthy oh wow when she did start get a little more frail in her 90s we did however take her warnings more seriously and since she had relatives in Ireland who would likely only all get together and travel to England after her death she decided instead that she would like to be alive at her funeral so she can greet people I love that the whole family weren't immediately on board with this idea but she was very persistent what's the

point of everyone coming all this way and getting together when I'm dead that's terrible that's good she said so according to her wishes we got everyone together it turned out to be a big joyful event and all our Irish relatives some of whom I've never met came and told jokes and old stories into the night it was a great party she lived to be over a hundred in the UK that means you get a birthday card from the queen my side note my grandmother Agnes passed away peacefully in her sleep not long after her 100th birthday wow stay sexy Thomas I love that idea and I love that they knew that my grandmother was alive at her funeral would and subject line would catch the eye of those who read these just brilliant you know I think a lot of people talk about doing

that but Agnes actually went ahead and made everyone do it for her and it's such a good idea I love it it's the best this one's called organ donation short and sweet hey there MFM pals I'm a new listener shout out to my big sister B for getting me hooked and you guys have been laying in bed with me while I go through the hell that is pregnancy nausea and fatigue when I was pregnant with my first baby we listened to Harry Potter books this baby gets murder anyway I was so excited to hear your spotlight on organ donation stories it really hit home for me because of everything my mom has been through she has a genetic kidney disease and basically got sicker throughout her life until her kidneys failed when she was in her 40s I was a kid at the

time she went through hundreds of surgeries years of dialysis and a kidney transplant that her body rejected finally one of her friends matched with another woman and that woman's partner was a match with my mom they did a kidney swap and donated to each other's loved ones and it worked whoa I know my mom always said that her goal was to see me finish high school because of the kidney swap she's been there for me through college grad school and finding my wonderful partner and now my babies get to know their nana she's an incredibly kind super fierce badass who loves life and we'd be the first to pour you a whiskey and listen to your problems and she's an OG murderino we always been watched unsolved mysteries to catch a predator and snapped when she was sick in bed

organ donation not only helps the patients but also the kids who still need their mom and the countless others who are touched by their lives thank you so much for raising awareness about so many important subjects and doing it all with some fun and a splash of sass stay sexy and donate life l oh I love that I know uh that's like first hand organ donation stories yeah I like the the swapping thing so if your loved one doesn't match someone else's loved one will and you just like you're still doing it you know what I mean yeah you're still in the mix they did it they did well and so did you guys for sending in those wonderful stories that we got to pick and read yeah thanks guys keep writing on your stories and we'll keep reading them we really

appreciate you doing all this work for us and thanks for watching fan cult thanks for watching us we did our hair for you yeah we did we always will 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 email your hometowns and fucking her a's to my favorite murder at gmail.com follow the show on instagram and facebook at my favorite murder and twitter at my fave murder 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 add free on amazon music download the amazon music app today you can support my favorite murder by filling out a survey at wonderie.com slash survey