My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 294

Episode Date: August 29, 2022

This week’s hometowns include working at UPS and a love story.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. Here we go. We tell you your stories. Yeah. So many stories, all kinds of stories. You write them into us. We read them back to you. And we appreciate it. Want me to go first this time? Please do. Okay. This is called, I'm not going to read this to you. Okay. Kia ora. Story? It sounds like you meant to like forget it. I'm not going to read this to myself. Okay. Now you go. Give me a minute. Kia ora from little old New Zealand. Nope. New Zealand.

I am drinking green tea. I swear to God, I'm not drunk right now. Hold it up. You have to show it. I just want to say thank you for this amazing podcast. I cannot tell you how many hundreds of hours I have listened to it in small dark rooms on the microscope when I was finishing my PhD in genetics. Holy shit, congratulations. I had a brief hiatus when I dove too deep and all the talk of murder led me to waking up my partner to walk me to the bathroom when I needed to pee in the night because murderers are put off by sleepy nerds in glasses. And I was temporarily banned for the sake of his sleep quality. And honestly, it was fair. Despite this, you got me through some very tough times and even convinced me that taking drugs to be less sad and anxious

is nothing to be ashamed of. I have since had podcast privileges reinstated, which is handy since I just listened to your hometown about children not knowing how to deal with SWAT teams. Boy, do I have a story about this. How many people have childhood SWAT team stories? Send them in. I mean, ask a new show. When I was about seven years old in the mid to late 90s in New Zealand, we lived in a fancy but sleepy new suburb that had recently been converted to a subdivision from farmland. Think lots of new houses full of mint green carpet, weird textured puffy wallpaper, and curtains that were an affront to any semblance of good taste. Our backyard was huge and had a child-sized playhouse, swing set and sloping lawn, interspersed with large, sorry, interspersed with

random large boulders. Is that a word that my mother was not, I didn't make that up. She fucking wrote interspersed. She means interspersed. Interspersed. Interspersed is hilarious. It's pretty great. It's more accurate. It does. Like I see them sprouting, right? Yeah. That my mom was convinced, random large boulders that my mom was convinced, fix the fang shui of the property. According to mom's ladies' magazines, it would fix all our problems. Ah, the 90s. Along one side of the property was a small orchid, orchard, orchard, with the whole thing ending in a paddock of cows. It's New Zealand. There is always a paddock. Anyway, I have a vivid memory of being woken for school by my dad, who then went down the hall to wake my sister. I opened my curtains,

only to come face to face with a man in all caps, full combat gear. I'm talking dressed in all black, bullet-proof vest, helmet, face mask, assault rifle. There works. Side note, New Zealand does not have guns. Only certain police carry them, and farmers have to keep them locked in gun safes that are inspected by the government. So child me has never seen one in real life. Imagine that. Imagine. What a world we could someday live in. What a lovely world. So there I was, still sitting in my bed in my pink princess nightdress, clutching a teddy with this reflective helmet containing a strange man all of six inches away from my face. And naturally, I screamed my head off. This poor man jumps a good foot in the air, raises his rifle on instinct, and then lowers it after

seeing it's just me and not some criminal mastermind. To try and remedy the situation, he waves half-heartedly, with the hands still holding the gun. Hi. Hi. Everything's fine, little girl. I hear a shout from outside, and he quickly presses himself up against the house and shuffles away, obviously trying to be sneaky, as three more gun-wielding assault team members slide past two. Where is my father while I am at gunpoint as a seven-year-old girl, you ask, in the kitchen drinking coffee and yelling to keep it down as the sports report was on the radio? Then it says nothing is more important than rugby. I run crying to find him, only to see about 10 more black clad and armed people in our yard. Dad was surprised when he has to explain

that it's just because the local SWAT team is practicing. So obvious, didn't you know? Because our section and a few around us are a nice mixture of various terrains, suburban orchards, and farm. They don't have to drive around too much to train. How practical. They had cleared it with him, and he didn't think such a totally normal occurrence would require any explanation for his two small children. His no-nonsense attitude had me sitting eating my cocoa puffs and chewy kids vitamins while I watched grown-ass men tiptoe across my lawn with guns, doing all the classic hand-gesturey signals they do in movies. Some were doing forward rolls and hiding behind boulders. One was settled in my playhouse. Another few were up in our fruit trees,

and one even went down my slide a few times. I'm not sure if that was necessarily a tactical maneuver. They eventually jumped the back fence and continued on their way, army crawling through the paddock as curious cows followed and sniffed them. It's super bizarre even now, but what can I say? New Zealand in the 90s was a wild place. Love you guys and all the pets. Stay sexy and tell your children about the local SWAT team that will be using their playhouse, Mackenzie. I mean, the craziest part of that is what Mackenzie explained, which is that there's no guns in New Zealand. Truly. So it might as well have been an alien invasion. Yeah. Yeah. I can imagine how terrifying that was, but as a kid. Just insanely scary. And the dad's cash. And then the dad blowing

her off. Of course. Of course, dad. Of course. Okay. Well, now this is a bit of a theme. Okay. The subject line of this email is Trash Dad Central. Hey, cool. Hey, folks. In Minnesota 288, you read a story about a trash dad and requested people send in their own. And there was no doubt in my mind that I had the worst trash dad in the world. And then a parentheses that says, I say this with love mostly. Oh, you don't have to. No judgment. Yeah. You don't have to, but you can. When I was 17 years old and in my peak emo angst days, and then a parentheses that says, I had the teased side bang thing going on, but thankfully my dad was my hairdresser too. So I get to blame him up and down this email. Yes. My dad picked me up for the weekend in his white

Mustang, which he had to enter Dukes of hazard style because the driver's side door didn't open and start with a screwdriver because he lost his keys. So he busted out the ignition. Wow. And we were on our way. Beautiful story, Tali. Truly a beautiful trash dad description. After a few blocks, we saw some kids selling Kool-Aid and he pulled over to buy a couple. The kids handed his cups through the window to him. He passed them to me and then said, watch this and sped away from the drink stand without pain. No. Oh, no. Wait. I was absolutely mortified and immediately began cursing him out and saying things like, turn this car around right now, you fucking asshole. Yes. But he was laughing too hard to care. Eventually he had to pull over because he was crying from

how funny he thought this all was and probably couldn't see enough to drive. Oh my God. Once he pulled it together enough to communicate with me, he told me that he had passed them on the way to pick me up and stopped to ask them if they would help him play a prank on me. They agreed enthusiastically and he paid them 20 bucks to let him drive off on his way back with me in the car without paying so that he could pull off this little fucked up prank and make me think he ripped off kids. Dad, you're amazing. I didn't think it was funny for a long while, but I was 17 and maybe not the best audience. My dad was the kind of person who would do anything to make himself and me laugh. I lost him suddenly when I was 19 and I'm thankful every day that I have so many stories like this one

that I get to look back on at 27 and say, what a jolly asshole. SSTGM and always prank teenagers because they love it. Yeah. And that was from Elliot they them. Oh, legend. Legendary. One of my favorite stories we've ever heard and it's the funniest fucking thing because here's the thing. I don't like pranks either, but I will say this. It means people are thinking about you. They're planning things for you. It's them trying to engage and connect with you and it's actually a compliment. I love a planned out harmless prank that makes the person like that is perfect. Please send your prank stories in of like pranks people have pulled or that you've pulled. I'm thinking of Neil Mahoney, RIP. His friends Dave Clark, our friend, threw him a surprise party

and Dave was the only one that knew that Neil was in on it and was throwing a secret surprise birthday party. So as they all waited at the door to surprise him, he came down the back staircase and there's video of this flipping all of them off and reverse surprised them and said, fuck you for trying to throw me a surprise party. Why would you do that for me? Surprise. Genius. Genius. Genius. Yes. That is first of all, yes, Neil Mahoney, RIP. Secondly, brilliant. Third, the key. We do not want to hear pranks. Were you abused anybody? No. Were you victimized anybody? No. Were you made someone feel bad? We don't care. That's not good comedy. No animals involved. No victimization of others autonomy. Yeah. Please, if you have a good prank story like

this trashed up prank story, okay, because he not only made his child feel thought about and teased and care and therefore kind of cared for in a way and like they had an event. Yeah. Those kids at the Kool-Aid stand, that was their favorite memory. That legendary memory that they share to the state and maybe one of them is a grownup now and has played that on their kids as well. I don't know the timeline fits, but let's just pretend. The idea of peeling out away from a Kool-Aid stand to rip kids off. Also watch this. Nothing ever comes good after someone says watch this, right? There's never in the history of watch this been a good fucking outcome. Watch this and then they do like a front flip and break their neck or something. It's always a nightmare.

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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. This is a love story. This is called My Parents Summer Love. Hi, this is the story of how my parents met. My mom was born and raised in the US from immigrant parents. Okay, and then listen to this. Her mom was from Latvia and her dad was from Poland. That is exactly where my family's from. My mom's side is from Latvia. My

dad's side is from Warsaw, Poland. How crazy is that? Wow. That's super crazy. Yeah. And then it turns out you signed this email and it's from you. When my mom was a teenager, she went to Poland to spend the summer at her grandparents' house. This was 1970s communist Poland. So what is a teenager supposed to do other than party? My mom's cousin invited her to a party that was happening in the neighborhood for someone's name day. Back then, name days were more important and celebrated than birthdays were. My mom went and got drunk, of course. She made out with two guys and was just living it up. Yes. The second guy told my dad, there's a drunk American girl making out with everybody. So my dad went to see what was up, and maybe they'd make out. Well, they did,

and that's how they met. When we tease my mom about that, she says, but that was the last boy I kissed that night. I just knew he was the one. The fact that he was the last one makes it okay. If she had married the first one, it would have been a really big problem. But that was the 12th boy I kissed that night, and that's how I knew. That's how I knew. I was going to go for the Baker's Desmond. My dad didn't speak any English, and my mom's Polish was limited. Love is the, what is it? Love is the language that everyone... International. It's Morse code. Still, they were crazy about each other. My dad built a little seat on the back of his bike and would ride her around town. But eventually, the summer ended, as did their little summer of love.

Eight years later, now in their 20s, my mom goes back to Poland to attend her grandfather's funeral. She decides to stop by my dad's house, so they hadn't been in communication or anything. Oh, it was just a true fling. Yeah. And when she goes, he's outside, up on a ladder, picking apples. She's so nervous because it's been so long since they'd seen each other. She wonders if he would still feel the same way that she does. After greeting him and talking for a little while, my dad steps off the ladder and kisses her. They end up getting married in their wedding last three days. Hey. Hey. When my mom found out she was pregnant with my sister, my dad wasn't even in America yet. It took a while for everything to go through as they had to

investigate whether the marriage was legit before he was allowed into the country. My mom's friends asked her if she thinks he wants to marry her just to come to America. And my mom says, if that's the case, I love him so much that I would do it for him. But hearing that question now is hilarious to me because if you knew my dad, he couldn't care less about living here or the quote, American dream. He just happened to fall in love with an American girl. My dad passed away in 2017, and even now I'll use any excuse to talk about him to keep his memory alive. He treated me, my mom, and my two sisters with so much respect that we returned it back to him tenfold and looked up to him so much. When my parents got married, they barely knew each other. And then there's a language barrier

on top of it. And still they were each other's best friends. And my mom says that their love was written in the stars. Oh my God. I know. Stay sexy and make out with random guys at a party. The third one just might be your soulmate. Jill, she, her. Amazing advice, Jill. Classic. I love it. Okay. Well, then let's let's go on this international journey because the subject line of this is, oh, well, it actually gives it away. Okay. So I won't read it. Okay. Hi, friends. I've been listening to the podcast at my summer job as a receptionist. And in one of your older episodes, you asked for stories from postal workers. Yes, this episode is like two years old, but too bad. You're getting the story now. We love you. Like, that's totally fun.

That's right. Assert yourself. I worked at the UPS store in high school from the ages of 16 to 18. As the newest employee, I was stuck working the late night shifts alone on weekends that no one else wanted to work. The store closed at 9 p.m. So around 8 30, I would try to start some closing tasks so that I could leave ASAP. One night about 10 minutes before close, I watched as a man got out of a taxi carrying a small package. He walked up to my register and seemed shifty as I took down his information. He was shipping the package to Israel and repeatedly asked me if customs would open the package once it arrived. I told him that they probably wouldn't and asked him what was inside. He told me that it was tea and some other things. His total rang up around $200, which he paid in

cash. Literally every part of this transaction was a red flag. And we had been trained to finish the transaction quickly and get shady customers out of the store before investigating anything. However, I was super impatient and ready to leave after an eight hour shift. So I left the package on my manager's desk with a short note telling them about the interaction. The next morning, I woke up to a phone call from my manager informing me that the package contained a kilo of meth. Party, party. I had to go into the store later that day to speak with the police and the DEA agents who told me that other UPS locations had also received similar packages, but that they hadn't been able to catch the people trying to send various drugs overseas. What kind of don't

do that? It's some of the worst planning execution of all time. Truly. I mean, truly we've talked about this a million times. Meth is the worst most evil drug. It is so, you immediately are addicted to it. It's made of like drain cleaner and shit that should not be in your body. It's so bad for you. So fuck that. You'll lose you to meth. It's a guarantee. Yeah. It's a nightmare. So we're back into the email now. This was honestly the most chaotic job I ever had. And between this story and the time I was stalked in the parking lot and the time I mistook a sex doll for a bomb threat, I have no idea why I stayed there as long as I did. Sounds fun, honestly. It sounds like a lot going on. Stay sexy and try not to accidentally join

a drug trafficking ring. XOXO, Chloe. Chloe, I love it. Amazing. Good one. That'd be a fun job, I think. Yeah, I think so, too. Well, it has shades of the bank safety deposit box with the mystery in the what are people doing with their private lives. Yeah, 100%. And like the whole thing of like weird people, like everyone has to go into a post office kind of place. So you're going to get all kinds of people, right? Yes, that's right. All right. This one's called, You think being barfed on at Disneyland is bad? Okay. Hey, all longtime listener, first time writer, I just listened to the mini episode where you talked about being barfed on while on Thunder Mountain and I can top that. That was me. I got barfed on someone at the front of the train barfed

and everyone, all of us, me on a date behind them got barfed all over each other. Did I, when you told that story, then tell the story about the kids from my high school that we're driving home after a party and a girl barfed in the car and everyone's windows were down and it created a barf tornado. Vortex of barf? Inside the car. No, that was just whipping around. No. Oh my God, that sounds like a horror movie. Oh my God. What if there were like ghosts in the, in electricity? That's a bad shit account. Okay. I worked at Disneyland for many years in my early twenties. I worked in a couple of different departments over the years and have lots of stories. I'm sure you've heard that people like to dump their deceased family's ashes

on the rides like Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean. This happened a few times while I was working at Haunted Mansion. When it happens, this is so terrible. You go there, you're like, I'm going to secretly put my loved ones ashes. They loved Haunted Mansion, right? Which is insane. When it happens, we shut down the whole ride while a hazmat team comes and cleans up and promptly disposes of the ashes in the trash. Yeah. Yep. Grandma ends up in the trash. However, that's not the story you came for. I was working at the little booth where guests can buy the photos from the ride at Space Mountain and we got a call that Space Mountain was going to be closed for an extended period of time because someone decided to dump their loved ones ashes

while riding Space Mountain. Oh my God. They were sitting in the front row of the car and on one of the drops threw the ashes up in the air and all caps all over the people behind them in the car who probably had their mouths open from screaming. Yes. I don't know about you, Georgia, but I'd take Barf over ashes any day. Love you guys and love what you do, Holly. You're right, Holly. I agree with you. I mean, although, you know, that could be debated, but it's the idea that, yeah, it's a person's body. Either way, it's all involuntary ingestion of another person's business. It is. I think I'd take ashes, even though that's horrible and disgusting also. Because it's also just kind of reduced down to nothing. Right. It's just like ash.

I don't know. You know what? I don't want either. And I also don't want to go to Disneyland because it's so crowded and horrible. How about that? Yeah. How about you've just guaranteed the fact that you'll never have ashes in your mouth in space? No. Okay. Last one. Hello, people in pets. Oh, it just says sibling story as the subject line. Hello, people in pets. I was born in Toronto in the 60s when the Maple Leafs were winning Stanley Cups and you could buy candy for a penny. You asked for sibling stories and here is mine. What a beautiful opening to rival once upon a time. Okay. My sister, Danielle and I are 14 years apart in age. After being an only child for so long, Danielle was delighted to have a baby sister. Her best friend, Margie, lived in the neighborhood

with a U and wanted her mother to meet the new baby. So one day, Margie and Danielle set off in the stroller with little me only a month or so old. Oh, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny. And like, basically just on the, like just past preteen. Right. Teens. Why a mother would allow two kids to take a newborn on a social call alone. It was the sexies. Danielle and Margie strolled along the main street, window shopping along the way when they came upon a shoe store, leaving me on the sidewalk as people did back then. Oh, like why? That's what it says in parentheses. They went into browse. When they were done, they continued on to Margie's house, where upon arriving, Margie's mother exclaimed, I thought you were going to bring the baby. Oh my God. Yes. That's

right. They had forgotten me on the sidewalk outside the shoe store. These days, if you were like walking around, there's a baby in a stroller outside of the store. Just chilling. Just chilling. Oh, yes. That's right. They'd forgot me on the sidewalk outside the shoe store. Danielle and Margie hurried back to get me, but I was gone. After a moment of panic, they went into the shoe store to see if anyone knew where I was. Turns out the salesperson had noticed that they had left without me and brought me into the store. No matter how much they pleaded, the woman refused to give me back to them because they were so irresponsible. Amazing. You are a, that is a good citizen of the world. That's right. She wanted them to bring my mother to the store to

collect me. Finally, somehow through tears and begging and lots of admonishments from the sales person, my sister was allowed to take me. Take two and Margie's mom got to see the baby. A few years ago, my sister and I were with my mother and I brought up this story. My sister turned pale and looked at me with dagger shooting out of her eyes. I thought for sure this was common knowledge, but after 45 years, I think Danielle, Margie and I were the only people who knew. They probably had not even let Margie's mom know what happened. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. We'll go get her. Yeah. Oh my God. Danielle used to joke with me that she would leave me in a shoe store sometimes. So I just figured everyone knew me and our mom laughed for a long time, but it took my

sister quite a while to forgive me for spilling the tea. Is it any wonder that I'm a shoe fanatic now or that I kept a very close eye on my kids when they were little? Yeah. Stay sexy and don't leave babies on the sidewalk. D. Oh, that's sweet. I love that one. That's very sweet. It's got the sibling trying to kill your sibling. It's got family secrets that are actually really funny and should not be held in. You should write them to us immediately and out your family. Yeah. Also, because Danielle needs to relax because it's so long with what's the mom going to do. Yeah. You can get in trouble. You can get grounded now. Yeah. Fuck you, mom. Yeah. Try to ground me. I'm 36. I have my own kids. I have to go. Speaking of having to go, thanks for listening,

you guys. That's right. If you want an extra one, we have an extra story in the fan cult and all kinds of other fun stuff in there. But in the meantime, we appreciate you listening. We really do. 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 McClashen and Gemma Harris. Email your hometowns and fucking hurrays to myfavoritmurder at gmail.com. Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at myfavoritmurder and Twitter at myfavemurder. Goodbye.

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