My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 293

Episode Date: August 22, 2022

This week’s hometowns include abandoned safe deposit boxes and neck tattoos.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. Exhibit C, it's truly criminal. Hello and welcome to my favorite murder. The mini-soad.

This is the mini-soad, we read you your stories about everything and everything. And it's short. Yep. And that's why we're going to start now. You want to go first? Sure. This, it just says creepy neighbor update as the subject line. Great.

Hi from Switzerland. Oh, hi. And then it says, yes, you've crossed the pond and the Alps. Oh. I mean, that's sexy as hell. I'm so excited. That is a huge brag and I love it. I genuinely feel a thrill with the fact that people outside of our home country give a shit

about this. No, it's crazy. It's so weird. It feels like a true accomplishment. Yeah. It feels like a finished college. The same Z's because, you know, like half the people who finished college, nobody knows who they are in another fucking country.

Right? Like fucking Switzerland, everything is elite and chocolate and clean and fresh and snow covered, beautiful. Yeah. All right. We see you, Switzerland. We see you and we're glad you see us. And we're moving there.

We'll be there soon. It says, I sent you my creepy neighbor story a while ago and there has been a development. Okay. This is, that's the attitude we like. If we haven't read your story, just keep a updating us about it. Like pretend we're in this conversation and we'll jump in pretty soon. Okay. So it says short question mark recap.

I moved into a ground floor apartment three years ago and instantly got creepy vibes by my old upstairs neighbor who would do weird stuff like leave fresh produce at my porch door, put his belongings in the hallway for everyone to fall over or spend his days rummaging through every trash can he could get his hands on. Being too naive to fuck politeness and I guess too scared to tell an old man to leave me alone, I never told him off and I just let him live his life until the day I caught him staring into my bedroom window at night where he thought I couldn't see. Just you're there in bed in the dark face and you look over there and it's just a little

old man. Face. It's that face of an old man. Old man face. Oh God. Okay. After alerting the landlord, I got to talking to other tenants just to learn more weird things about him, but what took the cake was that he sexually harassed my other young

female neighbor and was caught several times mending her panties in our shared laundry drawing room. Oh my God. No. Please need to be fucking sewed. Oh my God. Just a nightmare. Also it's making me laugh especially hard because they wrote mending and then in parentheses

it says repairing. Thank you Switzerland. Switzerland, you're not smarter than us. Also props to people with holes in their underwear because hi, I see you. Hey. Listen. Hey, welcome to the club. That's right.

The thing is that underwear, at least for somebody like me, are so private that you're like, this is fine. Yeah. No one's ever going to. And then suddenly there's an old man like, I'll take care of that for you. So please don't. Please don't. Okay.

Back to the email. Well, since he never answered his mail or paid any of his bills, the police eventually showed up and had to drill, saw and hammer their way into his hoarder apartment where they arrested him kicking and screaming and eventually transferred him to an assisted living facility. What followed in the days after his violent departure was better than any mystery show. Every day, helpers would carry a shitload of stuff out of his 645 square foot apartment. They actually wrote 60 M2, which probably 60 meters or square, 60 square meters.

Yes. I thought it was go 60 miles an hour on the M2 in your own apartment. Deal with it. Hey. Okay. So they carry shitload of stuff out of his tiny apartment into what would not be one or two, but all in all, six huge moving trucks, six, huge moving trucks, including four antique rifles, two boxes full of guns, old hand grenades, three swords, nine desktop

computers. That's not scary. No. I'm scared of swords, but not desktop computers, but still, it's a lot of desktop computers. Although, if you're thinking on every one of those desktop computers, he's hoarding porn. Oh. No. That ruins it.

He's, no, sorry. He's just looking up YouTube videos of how to mend panties, but on nine. Better. Nine computers. Probably every glass bottle anyone from the house had ever thrown away. We're still in the middle of this list. Bikes, multiple printers, and sadly, a lot of women's underwear from us female tenants. A lot.

So my gut feeling from the start had tried to tell me something, and I should have just fucked politeness and told him to get lost from the get-go. All in all, I guess I'm glad he got the help he needed, but I'm even more glad he's out of here. Stay sexy and don't accept stolen produce from your creepy upstairs neighbor, Nina. Nina, we're glad you're well, and everything is mended in your apartment building. Correct. Well, that's fucked up.

Yeah. Well, not to be outdone, I have one with a list too. Great. Come, please, let's make this a competing list, a competing list podcast. Oh, that would be fun. My list is longer. What's your list about this week? Let's see.

Okay. This is called abandoned safe deposit box hometown, and then they very politely wrote three minute read. They timed it out. Thank you. All right. It says, all right, y'all, buckle up. In episode 331, you asked for safe deposit box stories after covering the Buenos Aires

Bank heist of 2006, and lo, it is my time to butt in and shine. Hi. Hi. I have been in banking since 2010, and I have worked for large regional banks down to the small community bank I'm currently with. Well, I can't get too specific because I need to protect past and current client confidentiality. I can give you the 4,000 foot overview. Yeah.

Every office I've ever worked in has had safe deposit boxes. While I hate them for many reasons, they have provided their fair share of crazy bank stories and equally crazy clients. She specifically asked what happens to the contents of a box when the client stops paying. The box will typically languish for a fairly long period of time while we try to contact the client. This is especially fun when I worked in an office built in the 1960s. The records were filled out by hand, hardly updated, and everyone's name was Mrs. Husband's

name. And then an emoji looking up in the air, an O-A-B-E emoji. Once the operations gods decided that it was time to give the old contents the boot, we called the locksmith to come and drill the boxes. Each box is then open in the presence of two bank employees and inventoryed. Yep, we go through your shit and write it down in great detail. And now down to the goods, a small sampling of things I have found in safe deposit boxes. Truly have chills.

Be ready for number one, baby teeth. Oh. Dog teeth, gold teeth. Unidentifiable teeth, question mark. That's a question mark. Vampire teeth. A finger in formaldehyde, maybe, maybe, question mark. Human hair, nice jewelry, costume jewelry, tangled knotted messes of jewelry, watches,

eyeglasses, a monocle. Oh, by itself. Oh, alone. And then every once a year, Mr. Peanut comes in and checks that box. Oh, papers, papers everywhere, trash, bars of gold, bars of silver, a bar of soap, lots of coins, valuable and not a gun, bullet, knives, a box of nails. And they don't specify if it's like hammer nails or like fingernails and I'm gonna hope it's fingernails.

Pictures, naked pictures, really gross pictures and many, many money dollars. People like to come to the bank and make a withdrawal and then immediately put it into their deposit box. Don't. It's not insured. It's not fireproof. And it's not waterproof. Oh.

Contrary to popular opinion, there's never a dull moment in banking. It's also provided me with a lot of giggles and gasps over the years. Like the time a client took out his glass eye and put it on my desk or another asked for small bills so she could roll around in the money. Bankers often get a bad rep, but there's some great ones out there who are truly invested in changing their clients' lives for better. My advice, get thee to a local community bank. Yes.

Yes. High yield savings also. Stay sexy and sanitize, sanitize, sanitize after you've rifled through a client's safe deposit box. You don't know where any of their crap has been. Exo-anonymous. Oh, anonymous. What a gift that was.

Good one. Because it's like some of the things on that list, you know we're going to be on the list so you kind of felt comforted in the reality of the list. But I want to talk about pictures people put in safe deposit boxes. Oh, I did. You know, my sister used to work in a one hour, like in high school, worked at a one hour photo shop. Oh, yes.

And she would bring photos home for sure. Just like fucked up shit. Yeah. I don't remember what it was. I don't remember if she'd ever had to call the police or anything like that, but write us in if you've had those experiences, please. I mean, yeah, and also that was back when people were so innocent that they didn't understand that like truly your whatever thing you're doing that no one would care if it was legal

and normal. Right. When they're doing something weird, their eyes on and like people have to do something right. And then they're scarred for life too. But then maybe they took down the local pedophile. You don't know. Oh, I mean, that would be cool and kind of a victory.

I'm trying to find, I took a picture of a tweet someone sent about this very topic and I was trying to do it here. Can I read this? Yeah. So I took a picture of this tweet. It's from a while ago and I was thinking we'll fold it back in if this ever gets mentioned again. Here we are.

Oh my God. It's from someone, their screen name is Running Din at Din Running. And they're telling us, listening to episode 331, FYI, when safe deposit boxes don't get paid for or abandoned, they are giving to the government. The bank doesn't keep it and we hate doing the audits, at least my branch. So it's like it's back up on that same thing of how grossed out everyone is when they have to. Well, it sounds fun, but all right, I guess.

What do I know? Well, it's not everyone's like us, but everyone listening to this is like us. It's fucking treasure, man. It is true treasure that you can't keep, I guess. I just want to say congratulations or thank you and whatever to Alejandra, a producer on this show. And she pulls these stories for us and I literally went in order and picked every single one that she picks for all the ones we needed.

She gives us 10 for each episode, so we have to pick three for each episode, which is hard enough picking three good ones, but she definitely picks good ones every episode, for sure. She's very good at it. Thank you, Alejandra. Yeah. Okay. Looking for a better cooking routine? With meal planning, shopping, and prepping handled, Hello Fresh has you covered.

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Goodbye. Hey, I'm Mike Corey, the host of Wondery's podcast Against the Odds. In our next season, three masked men hijack a school bus full of children in the sleepy farm town of Chowchilla, California. They bury the children and their bus driver deep underground, planning to hold them for ransom. Local police and the FBI marshal a search effort, but the trail quickly runs dry as the air supply for the trapped children dwindles, a pair of unlikely heroes emerges.

Follow against the odds wherever you get your podcasts, you can listen ad free on the Amazon music or Wondery app. So this subject line of this is hero mom and roof rescue. Not sure it just goes right into it. Not sure if we're still doing hero mom slash nurse stories, but I have one too good not to share. It was the early 2000s in suburban Cleveland and my brother was running errands with my mom since he was out sick from school.

Stop 1000 of the day was to the dry clean moms. I do miss the era of just getting driven around your mom does for business. And you have to go. There's no, I don't want to go to Nordstrom. Shut up. No, you got. You have nothing else to do. You don't get a vote.

You don't. Sorry. And you just get in the car and you suck up that secondhand smoke and enjoy yourself. My brother sat in the car while my mom ran in. All of a sudden a man runs into the store and a minute later, my mom runs out with him. My brother hilariously assumed my feisty Italian mom was about to fight this guy. Oh my God. Instead, she heads up to the roof where one of the electricians who was working lay unconscious

and not breathing. He had slipped and grabbed onto a live wire electrocuting himself. The workers knocked the wire from his hand with a two by four, laid him on a plank of wood and my mom, who had been retired from nursing for at least a decade, immediately got to work providing CPR. The paramedics finally arrived and he was rushed to the hospital, barely hanging on to life. In the end, the man survived because of my mom's quick thinking and immediate willingness

to help a person in need. For years, his wife would send cards to update us on how he was doing, that they had a child, etc. The mom, it's Rachel. Rachel's mom is the reason that child exists. Totally. And the other workers there too. Yes.

Yes. Yes. The other workers. The fast thinking of strangers saved this person's life. I was going to say whoever left the ladder on the side of the building, but I bet that was there when the workers. Shout out to all everyday heroes. I promise they're still out there.

SSDGM. Rachel. Oh, Rachel. Good job. Your mom. Right? What's that, mom? Yeah.

All right. This one is called Chicago Baby Kidnapped from Hospital and Later Found. Oh. Mm-hmm. Howdy cowgirls and boys and loyal companions. What's the first? I love you and everything you do to keep my commute to the Chicago airport from Wisconsin to be fun and interesting.

I came across this story from the Chicago area and I thought you might find it as shocking and strange and earth-shattering as I did. I'll try to keep it as short as possible. Thank you. Dora and Chester Franzak welcomed a baby named Paul in a Chicago hospital in the spring of 1964. While Dora was nursing her new baby, a nurse came in and informed new mom, Dora, that the nurse needed to take the baby to the nursery for some wellness checks.

She took Dora's newborn and vanished forever. Oh. After another nurse came in sometime later looking for Dora's new baby, it became clear that the nurse who had been in earlier was a fraud. A few years later, a toddler is found abandoned outside of a shopping center and since at the time there was no way to verify anyone's identity through DNA, they relied on physical similarities between the toddler and the single photo ever taken of baby Paul. Paul's mother is quoted as saying, that's my baby.

And the toddler found was home safe at last. Well, all caps, it turns out nearly 50 years later, the toddler baby who grew up believing he was of Franzak heritage was actually not baby Paul. His name was actually Jack Rosenthal and it's believed his parents abandoned him outside that shopping center. But then he got like found and probably raised so beautifully because they were so grateful to have their baby back, even though it wasn't his baby. It's almost like the best possible outcome in this horrible story.

The real baby Paul was located through DNA submitted by his daughter into a genealogy site. His name was Kevin and found living in a small Michigan town. It's believed he was reunited with Dora, but unfortunately could not speak to Chester, the father as he had already passed. More sadly, Kevin, the baby, passed away in 2020 from cancer. His obituary lists a fake birthday and not his real one, which I find to be chilling conclusion to a heartbreaking story.

Not much is known about the true story of what happened that day, except that rumor has it the woman who raised Kevin was dating a doctor in Chicago and had moved briefly to Louisiana and came back with a baby. For the sake of time, I'll leave it at that, but wow, what a nightmare for all involved and sends me reeling at the thought of how fucked up some people truly are. Anyways, that's my story from the always pleasant and never scary city of Chicago. I think if you both like my big sisters and I'm comforted listening to your podcast, even though you're always telling stories that chill me to the bone, the strangest paradox.

Stay sexy and question anyone that tries to take your baby, even in a hospital, Alex. It's just like in the airports in the 60s where you can just walk in, little cash, throw it down, didn't need, I don't think you needed ID in the beginning. They were trying to make it as convenient as possible, and it's that thing where people assume no one would ever do that because they wouldn't do it, so there's nothing set up for it. Yeah, there's not as much critical thinking because those things actually didn't happen, so it wasn't like it was on everyone's radar the way it is now, where we're so aware of

all these bad things happening. And that idea of that there is this, it's almost like the more people talk about mental illness and the different kinds of ways it strikes different kinds of people, knowing that there are women who become obsessed with being mothers and can't be or whatever, that is a thing that is common, actually. That's clearly that woman who did that was mentally ill. Well, she had a nurse's outfit on. She wasn't not responsible for herself, but she had an obsession and a lack of morals.

That's crazy. Let's really, let's get back to what's important. Yeah, remember we said this is short? Yeah, this, right? It's supposed to be shorter than the other podcast. This, this. The subject line of this is tattoo shop story without a lesson at the end. It says, hey all, sorry to skip the pleasantries, but I'm jumping right in.

I'm listening to the most recent hometown episode with a tattoo shop story and my brain was flooded with hundreds of good ones from my time in the industry. I worked for years as a shop manager and girl, the things we see. Some of my favorites include an older man getting a realistic portrait of his wife's vagina on his neck. What? A neck vagina? Did you say neck?

Oh my God. Realistic. Which means he brought a photo, like an up-close photo of it, which means someone had a one hour photo. Oh my God. Still life with your wife's pussy? Ma'am, could you back up just a little bit? I'm trying.

I'm an artist. I'm trying to work. I see the tattoo artist like bifocals on, looking over them. Oh my God, he has a monocle. Oh, he has that monocle and then they went and put it right back in the bank depository. That's right. Uh-uh. What if the pussy had a monocle on it?

It's, it was very classy. Very classy. Yeah. The second thing in this list is a woman getting a butterfly tattooed on her vagina and then attempting to jump the bill and then in parentheses it says, sorry, these are all vagina themes so far. That was definitely not on purpose. And here's the last thing in this list and the one to follow.

In the recent story you read, the writer mentions what I imagine was a very similar situation. A couple comes in hanging all over each other, looking for a walk in appointment. The man wants to get the woman's name in script across his entire throat. Jesus, these throat tattoos. Not quick, not cheap, not fun to sit through. We help him pick out a style, set him up with an artist who is free and make him sign a waiver for a hand foot or neck tattoos. There's no guarantees if you're doing the extremities or your throat apparently.

The woman says she's paying for it as a gift for him and it's traditional to take the payment after the service on something like that since time is a factor. So they head back. It's so funny. I would think tattoos, you want to get paid up front. I don't know why it's like getting your nails done. It's like, before, before you're shaking and bleeding and in pain, you should pay. Although I think what they're saying is they can't tell how long it will take an artist.

Oh, and that's how you charge them. Involved thing. Got it. Like, say you're doing a realistic wife's vagina. That's gonna take longer. Hours, hours. The clock is ticking. Okay.

So the whole time they're talking about how in love they are and carrying on, I mean, while the guy isn't whimpering and looking really unhappy, so he's in full pain getting a throat tattoo. Yeah. Finally, now at the end of the day, they're wrapping up and wiping down. The artist has him stand up to check it out in the mirror, and she follows him back. He looks at it and she drops the apparent act and says in front of everyone, I may add, Oh no.

Motherfucker, I've known you've been cheating for ages. Have fun paying for this, your goddamn self, finding a ride home and living with my name on your stupid throat. Holy shit. She fucking did it. She did it. And she walks out, everyone stared. One artist laughed out loud.

I need their name. I need to meet that artist, because that's absolutely what I would have done. It was rough. The guy ended up having to get cash out of the ATM to pay for this very not cheap new tattoo that he was already feeling pretty regretful about and calling a friend to pick him up. Oh my God. It could have cost 500 bucks, I mean, depending on how long someone's name across your throat

is. Yeah. The money part, I feel like, I wish it wasn't, I wish it wasn't part of it. I wish she was just like, now you got my name on my throat, bitch, and fucking laughed. You know what I mean? Like the money, whatever. But I will say at least, at least he didn't get a realistic portrait of her vagina on his neck.

Her name's a little better. Her angry, angry vagina. Cheated on vagina. This episode. Calling a friend, yeah, for real. Calling a friend to pick him up. It was just poetry. I don't think I'll ever not laugh when I think of it.

That lady deserves an acting award. Absolutely. I don't think there's a real lesson to be learned here, except don't get a name tattooed or maybe don't be a cheating asshole. But I thought you might get a laugh out of it either way. Thank you for doing what you do, sending my love, stay sexy, and tip your tattooer, Kelsey. Perfect. Perfect.

It's just amazing. Just what we wanted. Thank you. Thank you, Kelsey. Kelsey. Good job. You delivered A-plus content. You did.

And I thank you for it. Truly. My last one's called, okay, fine, I'll write in. That's when we've been bugging her for years. Yeah. Okay. He starts, dear, literally everyone. You wanted a story about grandma, so here you go.

I don't know why I'm reading this so aggressively so far, but it just feels away. My grandmother, who is a born and raised Southern Baptist, always made her weird request when she was alive. She must be buried with shoes on. She wanted to meet Jesus wearing shoes, and then it says in parentheses, I think maybe out of politeness or something, but she was very adamant about it. She must be wearing shoes. Well, my grandma died a few years ago in a diabetic coma, but because of that, her feet

were extremely swollen. So as my mom and aunt and I were getting her things together for the funeral home, we were very concerned about the shoes. The only thing that we could find that would actually fit her feet were her pink slippers. Not bunny. Just regular. Good enough. Fast forward to her funeral.

My mom, my aunt and I were all looking at her in her casket, and my mom said, at least she's wearing shoes. We then all collectively remembered we did forget something, all caps, her underwear. So my grandmother, a Southern Baptist who wanted to be buried in shoes to meet Jesus, was not and is still not wearing any underwear. We asked the funeral director if they had somehow corrected our mistake, which they didn't as she had come from the hospital wearing a hospital gown. I like to think my grandmother was laughing at us, but she probably isn't.

Stay sexy and don't go to your funeral commando, Sav, she, her. Oh, well, here's the thing. Jesus loves her just the same, the person that she's anticipating meeting. Maybe a little more. He also isn't. Yeah, right? A little more, maybe, in his perfect love. And he's not wearing shoes or underwear.

Oh, that's true. So, no judgments. He's not judgmental. Yeah. At least the one I know. I'd hope not. That's it, right? Oh, yeah.

Sorry. I already started. I am so paranoid about arranging my next one because I have the ends of part two mixed in with the part one. There's a lot. That's it. Yeah. If you want another extra bonus one, go to the fan cult at my favorite murder, Joc Conn.

Jesus. That's correct. Yes. Join the fan cult. There's a story a week, and I think they're all still up there, so you'll get actually a shit ton more stories. And thank you, you know, we were on vacation, but clearly you guys did not take a vacation because these stories are excellent and beautiful, and we love them all.

So thank you. Thank you. 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 researchers are Marin McLashen and 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 myfavemurder. 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 Wondery.com slash survey.