My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 292
Episode Date: August 15, 2022This week's hometowns include pot brownies and a family mausoleum. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-...my-info.
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Hello and welcome to my favorite murder, the mini-soad. We read you your stories. Do you love
it or what? Tell us in the comments. I don't know. Are there comments? Sound off in the comments
below. No, the comments are turned off. Always. Want me to go first this time? Yeah. Okay. This is
called bathroom ghost lady. Hello, my fellow weirdos. I am a teacher in the upper peninsula
of Michigan, which means that summer breaks are filled with pushing my toddler stroller through a
beautiful wooded trail and listening to your relaxing murder podcast. Then it says, don't
worry, I play it quietly out loud so that I can't be caught off guard by a forest murderer.
Good, thank you. So your toddler is going to be great. Also a bear. Don't forget. All right, that's
happened too. Aka forest murderers. I don't have any murder stories, but I do have a ghost story.
Growing up, I lived in the middle of nowhere about 30 minutes from quote town, which I love that
like even town was town. When I was about five, I started experiencing really intense night terrors.
However, my parents were convinced that these were self-induced in order to steal some attention
away from my baby sister. Cool. My room was at the front of the house. My parents was at the back
and between them was a dark hall to the bathroom. Many times I would run from my room to my parents
and look down this hallway. Standing in the door frame, I would see a pale woman with a face that
looked like she was in pain. Wait, in the doorway of the bathroom, she means. I would usually let
out a scream and run right into my parents bed. This probably happened a dozen times until we
moved out of that house. No big deal. Kids quote, see ghosts all of the time. But when I was 12,
my dad was fixing our bathroom. When I overheard, well, at least nobody died in this tub. Cue me
yelling, excuse me. My dad proceeded to tell me that the owner of our previous house slipped in
the tub, hit her head and died there. Oh, nobody found her for weeks because middle of nowhere.
Remember? I yelled at my dad for just dismissing my sightings of quote, bathroom ghost lady.
And he just shrugged his shoulders and went back to fixing the tub. Time for your shit.
No worries. I'm decently well adjusted now. This year has been mentally, physically, and
emotionally exhausting, especially as a teacher. Thank you, ladies, for giving me some of the
deepest belly laughs during this time. And for making it seem like maybe we're not all alone
in this what the fuck world right now. I'm now raising my own daughter to fuck politeness and take
care of her mental health. Stay sexy and maybe believe your kid when they tell you about the
bathroom ghost lady, Audra. What a, well, I was going to say nightmare, but what a like horrible
situation where there's the perfect reason not to believe her is because she's get it. It's,
it is what's happening. She's the older child that wants attention. But then there's also
another thing happening. Why weren't her parents freaking out silently? Like they knew that someone
had died in the bathroom. Their daughter kept seeing a ghost of a lady who died in the bathroom.
And they were like, go back to bed. You're being dramatic. It's like, I would have been like,
yeah, she sees the, you know, they knew she saw the ghost of the lady who died in the tub.
I wonder if though, if she wasn't specifying what she was seeing, like she couldn't verbalize
what what her eyes were happening. So she was just crying and they were like enough with the
crying. There's a ghost. There's a ghost. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah. They're like,
Oh, no, no, no, it's a hallway ghost. Right. Don't know what to do with the bathroom.
Nobody died in the hallway. Yeah. Audra, God, get over it. We're in the clear.
I'm not going to read you the subject line and gives it away. Okay. It starts. Hey, hi. Hello.
I've been listening since like November 2021. I got a late start. Okay. I'm sorry, but I'm
finally pretty close to caught up. You guys are literally my best friends now. I stopped hanging
out with my real friends so I can just stay home and listen to you talking right here. Thank you.
Good. Oh my God. Welcome. Good. Your friends were toxic. Yeah. Yeah. They were totally
gaslighting you and shadow banning you. Okay. Now you're here with our cult. Anyway,
listening to Minnesota 227 about the coke treasure in the vintage policemen's coat pocket. Maybe
think about a time long, long ago in which I did drugs supposedly found on the street. Here we go,
friends and listeners. A sketchy dude I was seeing and his buddy invited me over to hang out with them
one random Tuesday night because they had some nose candy. I was in my party stage of life and
all about it. So the night begins and then goes on and on and on and then there's three dots and
then it goes and on and on some more into the wee morning. Oh my God. I've had those nights. Scrabble.
Scrabble's always fun. I want a barf. Yeah. Telling and retelling the same story over is pretty fun
too while you smoke. I go to hit a line at some point late and it burns a lot more than usual.
I said, shit, that burns a lot. They replied to my horror with, oh yeah, that's meth.
This story that anyone's listening who's under 18, hang up right now. Hang up your phone.
Oh yeah. Should we put a drug advisory warning at the top of this? Maybe. For all people,
there's going to be very casual mentions of drugs. Yeah. And we are anti-drugs. We are grown up
now and but. I mean, anti-drugs feel strong, but we are definitely anti-meth. This show has
been anti-meth since day one. I think so. Meth, nose, candy of any kind is just not, just don't do
that. Just you're asking for problems. You really are. You're going to go broke. You're going to
say things you regret. You're going to spend time with people you don't actually enjoy spending time
with. Huge mistakes, huge decisions you normally say hell no to. You're going to fucking enthusiastically
jump into. And then just be careful that you don't then decide that's who you are because you're
not. Right. Because then you do so much stuff that you can't turn back. There's a movie with Mila
Kunis called Four Good Days and Glenn Close about Mila Kunis playing this like kind of, you know,
lifelong drug addict. And she plays it so well that I had to turn it off because it was like,
it's just so troubling. Oh. And it's just like, this is how you get into the spiral and become
this person you don't like. So you do drugs because you can't deal with yourself anymore.
Yep. Yeah. It's yeah. It all feeds itself. It's a snake eating its own tail. Mila Kunis
highly under sung underrated or whatever you're supposed to say actress. She did a comedy with
Kate McKinnon that where they basically fall into a spy thing. I'm sure I recommended on the show.
It's one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. Okay, I'm watching it. They're both so funny.
But Mila Kunis is like super model gorgeous and then truly a talented, compelling actress.
Yeah, she's good. She's great. Don't stop talking about how she said she doesn't take showers or
baths. Don't worry about that so much. Who cares? Why did that become a thing in the middle of COVID
where it's like, they don't bathe or it's like, I don't give a single shit. The world is literally
falling apart. Can we stop doing this, please? No one cares. So sorry. Anyhow, what I'm trying to
tell you is, okay, okay, okay. They saw someone. Okay, so this is, oh yeah, it's meth apparently.
Apparently, they saw someone toss it out the window of a car earlier in the day during a police
chase and picked it up and took it home. That's kind of smart. Yep. Like at least it's not just
like finding it on the street, finding on the street. It's like, it was good, so good that they
had to throw it out or they'd get arrested for it. And it's like, that's how you know. But you can
trust that. You can trust that Yelp review right there. Oh my God. Okay, go on. So when we ran
out of the usual stuff, they cut that into lines instead. So they were kind of blending it in when
they were running out of their normal cook. Sure. And then it just says, I am so lucky I didn't die.
Yep. That's, you're completely, completely right. Not just on this occasion, but many other times.
And laughing, we continue to party throughout the night. Needless to say, I regretted it for days
afterwards and never spoke to that guy again. Once I came down from my high, I'll end this
as succinctly as possible by saying, I got my shit together shortly after that. And I am now an
upstanding murderino citizen, but I do love to tell the story of that one time I accidentally
did meth. Love you guys to exclamation points. No name. Wow. That's fucked up. Let's, let's rethink
drugs, everyone. Well, let's just, or let's discuss the downside. Cause I think it's like,
if you're writing, if you're telling a story and it's like, that's delightful, except for at one
point you were just like, I'm so glad I didn't die. Let's have the fewest amount of stories in your
life where they get summed up by you saying, I'm so glad I didn't die. Let's just not do it to ourselves.
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This one's called Blockbuster Blockhead. Okay, and then it starts. I don't think you're going
to like this. Hi, fellow Paul Holes Crusherinos. No, you're, you're so right. However, the story
is good. So here we go. In 1990, I was a 20 year old college student working at a well-known video
store, probably Blockbuster. The hectic evening was slowing down with a few customers browsing
the stacks. I was one of the only workers working the registers when I heard the familiar door chime
of someone coming into the store. I said hello to the blonde haired man in a dirty blue jean jacket
as he came in and smiled at me and said hello. He came to the counter and I asked if I could help
him find something. He abruptly pulled a gun in my face telling me he was robbing me and wanted
me to put all the money on the counter. He was shaking at this moment and I did not want to
spook this guy in any way. I stood stunned for a moment and gathered my thoughts and then opened
the register while a few customers around us stood in silence with wide eyes watching what was
happening. I opened the register and clicked open all the bill holders and started to put the money
on the counter. Suddenly a woman came up to the counter and bellowed hey miss do you have a fish
called Wanda? I looked over at her immediately irritated and said I will help you when I am done
with this kind man good lord. She huffed off with her husband saying how rude I was to her.
I was so shocked at this woman's lack of observation that I momentarily forgot what was
happening to me and I just reacted in my normal way. I turned back to the robber and said some
fucking people am I right? Then she said but I guess her movie choice was fitting with a fish
called Wanda being about a robbery. She said that to the robber. She did she said it to him.
I shook my head tut tut it and then asked okay there are the bills would you also like the
rolled coins? At this point he put the gun back in his jacket, laughed and shook his head at my
comment about the woman and said he did not want the rolled coins and for me to have a nice night.
He left and the shocked customers and I huddled together making sure we were all okay. I remember
them telling the woman and the man what was going on when she came to the counter as I called the
police. Moments later I was telling the story to the police officers. Two years later I had to go
on the stand and give testimony at the robbers trial. Apparently he was addicted to heroin and
needed the money. I felt bad for this man and his addictions but to this day the fact that this
woman was so wrapped up in her own life that she was oblivious to what was going on around her
remains the most amazing part of the story to me. That's right. All caps. Ugh people.
These days I tell this story when people complain about their kids on their phones and not noticing
things around them. I like to tell this story as a way to point out that people have always been
oblivious. LOL. Any hootily doodly. Why did you make me say that? Stay sexy and notice when people
are getting robbed. Lori. No it's any hootily doodle. Oh Lori why did you make me do that?
Lori. You were Lori's puppet just saying the words she put on the paper.
Lori I'm blushing. Oh man. God that's an amazing story. Also it isn't that always the way some
obnoxious person with an agenda and absolutely no spatial awareness is just like hey like skipping
to the top. I want a thing and I need it now. Hey this is my blockbuster. Okay let's see.
This is real sorry you know what we have to put a drug warning at the top of the show because
the subject line of this email is pop brownie incident of 2017. It just gets worse. Okay.
Hi MFM friends. You recently asked oh we did this. You recently asked for some drug related stories.
You know what we were probably on drugs when he asked for them. Guys we're so sorry about all of
these people writing in with their drug stories. We don't know what they're doing. Gross like we
are good girls. We don't do drugs anymore. Not at all. You recently asked for some drug related
stories. Boy do I have friends for you. I was a sophomore in high school and of course my friends
and I thought we were hot shit so we bought some pop brownies for a chain smoker's concert
and then in parentheses it just says I know. From our friend's 26 year old older brother who
happened to grow pot in his backyard. Oh older brothers. Which should have been our first red flag
boat we were 16. Three of my friends and I entered into our high school cardboard boat race
where we had a month to build a boat out of giant sheets of cardboard and then sail them in our
snake infested duck pond. Oh god. Uh-huh. Which looked more like a drainage swamp. Think about it.
This story has everything. This story needs drugs.
Yeah. Thinking it would be fun to paint our cardboard boat a little high. We each ate half
a brownie. Oh no. What's the next part of the story. And got too high and went insane. What
but you're skipping one crucial element which is an hour later none of us felt anything so we ate
a little more. Every time. Every time. Nothing's happening. Nothing's happening. This isn't strong
enough. You've heard this story a million times. Every time. And then people go on to tell you the
most heart wrenching like I was so scared I was trapped in my own bathroom. I was trapped. I was
trapped in fucking California's adventure Disney and I was trapped in the motherfucking Muppets
3D movie theater. The Muppets were screaming at me. Don't eat pot. Don't eat pot. It's terrifying.
Okay. One time I had a spoon vince. I came home from work and vince was like in bed being like
I'm freaking out. And had to like spoon him and tell him everything was going to be okay because
he just ate too much fucking pot. Yes. It is such a fine line that ruins. You go from this could
have been like a fun lazy hang in the park. We watched Spinal Tap. It was great. Full breakdown.
Like you're melting down. Your world is ending. It's ridiculous. Yeah. And then when you.
If you'd like like ideas like we're going to eat a little pot brownie and go to a theme park. Oh yeah.
Then everything turns into nightmare town. An hour later none of us felt anything. So we ate a
little more mistake within minutes. We were all so stoned that we couldn't speak to each other.
Let alone act normal enough to be on our high school campus painting this stupid cardboard boat.
One of us went and fell asleep on the floor of the bathroom which led our guidance counselor
finding her and asking if she had an eating disorder to which she answered no I'm just stoned.
See I didn't know they were at school. I thought they were like in a garage doing this.
That well that's what you would assume. That would make the most sense. Yeah. Yeah.
No they took that shit to school and ate it at school. Oh no. Which she answered no I'm just
stoned while the others three of us sat in various patches of grass and tried to look like we weren't
floating in space. My homeroom teacher who was like my second mom found me sitting alone contemplating
my life and asked if I wanted a panini. Always. What what's stone person doesn't want a panini.
Every stone person wants a panini. What a beautiful gesture of understanding and comfort. Oh did she
know she was high though. I thought she was just coming up to her like hey do you want a panini.
Right. So I'm kind of like almost like a grateful dead concert magic of like hey I know what you
want and I've got it right here on a platter. Right. This is what she says next. I think she knew
what was going on. And now that I look back on it I hope she got a good laugh out of my stone
misery. But I don't think she was laughing at you. I think she's probably a died in the wool
stoner herself. Yeah. And she was like she's high and she's going to need some carbs. Right.
To round this out so it's not so painful. She's in carbs. That's what we need.
Figure it down. I ended up going to the University of Colorado Boulder. We're eating pot brownies
and contemplating life has become quite the norm. So I would say this experience shaped me in some
way good or bad. Anyway stay sexy and never buy pot brownies from your friend's deadbeat older
brother. Oh deadbeat older brothers are never any good. No they don't have your best outcome in
mind. We've all dated deadbeat older brothers and you don't realize that's what they are until after
they're never good. Then you're like oh I recognize you from the Taco Bell parking lot.
You're a deadbeat. Okay my last one is called hey you want a mausoleum. It's not about drugs.
Okay. Hello Karen Georgia and MFM associates. Yes this includes pets. On a recent episode Georgia
was talking about safety deposit boxes and what happens to them when nobody pays for them. Well
something similar happened in my family last fall but it wasn't a safety deposit box. Last fall my
mom and her siblings received a letter from a cemetery in New York telling them that the roof
of their mausoleum was in need of repair. Super right. Everyone wants a leaky tomb. There was
just one issue. My mom and her siblings had no idea that they owned a mausoleum. How did this
happen. Well buried in the mausoleum are my great great great grandmother her brother and their
father. Plus room for more. Throughout the years life passed normally at the mausoleum. Since it
was already paid for there was no need for paying attention to what ancestors owned it. Isn't that
fucking crazy. That was until repairs were needed. The cemetery somehow tracked my great great great
grandmother's family tree and discovered my mom and her siblings all the way in Washington. Shit.
My three times great uncle died without children. Hence the mausoleum ownership passing to his sister's
family. He was injured in the leg at the Battle of Gettysburg. Whoa. But me thinks that injury was
a bit higher up. Hence the no children. Oh I know. That's well that's dark. Anyway once my family
confirmed that this was not a scam they began to wonder just how the hell they were going to pay
for repairs. The mausoleum has a Tiffany stained glass window so the repairs needed to be done well
as to not ruin it. Luckily when researching the mausoleum my family found out that not only do we
have a mausoleum we have a whole giant ass plot of land where other ancestors are buried. Plus some
open plots in case anybody feels like joining them. Hey. Also isn't it crazy that it's up to the family
to fix the mausoleum and not the property owners. Right. I guess they are the property owners. Yeah.
It's like they're renters on the. Yeah. That is. Yeah. Since my entire family lives across the country
from New York none of us really feel the need to be buried in the family plot. So the extra spaces
were sold and the mausoleum was repaired. Huzzah. Many many years ago I did a school report on my
three times great uncle but learning about the mausoleum led me into deeper research. I even
found out that my great great great grandmother was part of a family genealogical society that
held annual meetings while reading their 1904 meeting notes I came across this description
of one of my ancestors quote perseverance that marks their character in every department in life
and generally crowns their efforts with success though often attained after repeated failure.
I am a teacher and this past year has been the most difficult of my entire career reading
that quote really resonated with me and reminded me that I can push through the hard times.
Thanks for always keeping me entertained on my drives to and from work and I promise to
keep listening even while on summer break. SSTGM stay smart and do good math. Tori Tori.
Wait will you read the perseverance quote one more time. Yeah. Perseverance marks their character
in every department in life and generally crowns their efforts with success though often attained
after repeated failure. I'm just writing it down. Oh the whole thing. I'll send it to you.
I love that. I know. Because that really is how life works and that's like somebody handing
down the secret to life where it's just like hey everybody likes to think it's like there's
some people who just like get stuff and it's natural and that exists in some ways. Yeah.
But for the most part any overnight success is someone that's been working for 15 years.
For sure. Like it's all about getting in and digging in and staying in.
And then also that Tori got this realization that like it's in her blood. You know what I mean
to like. Yes. That's like that quote my grandma I said bigger dummies than you. It's like
yeah way fucking way. Stupider people have been successful in life and have had good
relationships and have fucking persevered and despite having depression and anxiety other
people who have had that have had incredible lives. So there's no reason that you can't too.
Not at all. Yeah. There's people who have had way worse and gotten way better and that truly
that idea of it's almost like just getting a warning where it's like don't hope for no
bad times. Yeah. Because no bad times teach you nothing. Yeah.
Leaves you with nothing. Like you got to build those muscles. Right. And you got to
you got to know they're coming. And then you know that's what anxiety is. It's the overdeveloped
sense of I got I got to get ready for the next thing that's coming from around the corner.
It's still deeply wise to be that way. There's a true wisdom in it where you're like you're not
kidding yourself. You're not going I'm going to live on the third floor but no one will come up
there. I think that's last episode actually. I'll never let it go. I'll never let it go.
For example how would you and I know that drugs are really bad and we can tell everyone about
it. Had we not done a bunch of them and tried them and had terrible times terrible barfed green
and had massive regrets and crayons like the subject line is Mason strippers. So are you in
or are you out always in ladies Stevens and everyone in between. There's that range.
All of us Stevens. I know y'all are down with pepper spray stories and I have a feeling this
that stripper stories are cool too. Absolutely. Always. You know us. It's it feels great to be
known and seen. Yeah. I work at a small cabaret in the heart of downtown Denver. We specialize in
burlesque which is basically just stripping for theater kids. Oh what a great series of emails.
This has been. Yeah. Genuine belly laughs. Okay. During one particular show the cast was hanging
out backstage waiting for the big final group number to happen. It was too spooky Mormon held
dream from Book of Mormon to help paint the picture. I don't. Did you see Book of Mormon
musical. I really want to see it and I've never gotten to. I know me too. I really want to. Okay.
While we were waiting one of the cast members was fiddling with this weird object that had
been laying around the dressing room for a few months. Nobody really knew what it was
but for some reason nobody threw it away. We all just fiddled with it when we were bored.
So needless to say there was literally nothing out of the ordinary about six strippers dressed
as devils and Mormons sitting around one playing with what we assumed was cool garbage.
That is until we heard a click and then a short puff ending with the girl playing
with the garbage yelling it's fucking me. Oh my god. Yes this weird piece of trash
that we had been fiddling with for months was mace and the cast member had accidentally sprayed
herself directly in the face. Okay this is the kind of story we're asking for. The next line
all by itself is all spooky Mormon hell broke loose. Now for those who don't know mace like
really sucks especially when sprayed inside a small windowless basement venue. So that little
spritz of mace quickly started to take over the dressing room. Within minutes the entire cast was
crying coughing and snodding all over the place. Mascara was running. Wigs were falling to the ground
and to make matters worse we still had three acts left in the show. Oh god.
And the show must go on. Must go on. Oh my god. It wasn't long before the mace reached the audience
probably because we were opening and closing the backstage door trying to fan the mace out
of the dressing room. Slowly over the next few acts people started coughing and getting up to go
to the bathroom. Everybody thought that they were having spontaneous allergies in January in a basement.
I was standing in the back of the room by the bathrooms because that's where I started for
the big finale act. As I stood there leaking all over the place I thought it's best that we just
kept this allergies in January narrative going. When somebody would pass I'd say damn allergies
already or it looks like spring is coming or extra early this year. It was January in Colorado.
That was all caps. Even with climate change that is not when spring comes.
The night ended with a lot of tears more snot that anybody cared to deal with and about a hundred
innocent audience members probably googling the air pollen count as they drove home. As for us
strippers from that night on we vowed that no matter how interesting any pieces of trash are
that we find just throw it away no need for fiddling. And then it's signed glitter and mace
bender. Oh bender. That was a good one. That was epic. That was the tale of a lifetime. If you
were writing us your story about how you got maced in a basement and lied to about it go ahead and
send it. Please. And send us any fucking story at my favorite murder at Gmail. You guys know their drill.
You're so good at it. Everybody is so on point. Thank you for sending those in and stay sexy.
And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis do you want a cookie.
This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Hannah Kyle Creighton.
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 myfavoritmurder
at gmail.com. Follow the show and Instagram and Facebook at my favorite murder and Twitter at my
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