My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 296

Episode Date: September 12, 2022

This week’s hometowns include a superglue mishap and an earthquake in Guatemala.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. That's Georgia Hart. Oh, the mini-so. It's mini-so. Don't worry about it. It's relaxed and chill. No intros, no names, calling. Yeah, just video if you want to watch in the, you know, it's called fan cult. Go to myfavoritemurder.com and join the fan cult. It's a fun place to be. Fan cult, I didn't entirely blow dry my hair for you and that is disrespectful. I'm sorry.

I'll start. It's called the mysterious red substance, a grandma story. It says names included. Please, if you're going to send us stories about your mom, your dad, anyone in your family, especially if it's old timey stuff, we want their names. First name, but we got to be able to know. If you tell us some story that's unbelievable about your grandma and then you're like, she died 11 years ago today and we can't then go, grandma, Marie, you did a great job. Please. It makes us sad. So include your grandma's name or you're the cause of our problems. Exactly. Or you've ruined our fucking lives. Greetings, MFM family. I originally submitted this story as a wee new listener back in 2018, but hundreds of episodes later,

I'd like to think my story drafting skills have improved and maybe I'll be one of the lucky ones. Hey, looks like you are. Guess what? M. Anyway, I just listened to the story about the museum thief who dripped blood all over a gilded mansion while rummaging around for treasure. Many so 288. And also thank you for including that. It's always good. Yeah. And it reminded me of the story my grandmother told me many years ago. The scene. The early morning hours in a badass mid-century modern house, Dallas, Texas, 1957, Adish, a young couple, my grandparents, Annie, Louise and Dick are just waking up. The story. It was a regular morning in Dallas. Annie Louise, with her picture perfect beehive hairdo, heard her

young sons waking up down the hall, laying in bed for a few more precious minutes. The housewife and mom of three mentally prepared for the day ahead. When she sat up in bed, Annie Louise was surprised to find some kind of red substance at the end of their bed. On closer inspection, she realized it was red candle wax that had dripped in a puddle on the blanket. I don't like where this is going. It's a witchcraft. She soon realized there were also drips of wax in various places on the carpet of their bedroom. Annie Louise woke up Dick, who easily slept through the sound of his young children. And he helped his wife figure out what the fuck was going on. It didn't take long to realize they had been robbed as Annie Louise's jewelry box was not on the dresser where

it normally was, but rather dumped in the living room with most of her valuable pieces missing. Which, like, take the whole fucking box. You know what I mean? Like, why dump it out? Like, it's a fucking, like, a puzzle. Right. Unless you don't have, unless you're experienced and you know that, like, if, if a standard jewelry box is going to have a lot of costume jewelry in it, you only want the good stuff. Or maybe it was one of the old-timey ones that were huge and, like, carrying it out of a house would look obvious. I don't know. Maybe it was one of the ones that you opened and there was a ballerina and a song started. They were like, this is too loud, there's too much risk. I love ballet too much. Truly.

Various other items were also taken, but Annie Louise really focused on her jewelry when she relayed this story to me. Annie Louise and Dick continued finding red candle wax dripped all around their house, including in their young son's bedrooms and inside my own mother's baby crib. So this fucking person's walking around with a candle. The police later found a red taper candle in the backyard of the house that had been burned down to only three, four, three to four inches in length. It appeared that the burglars had used red taper candles to illuminate the dark house while they rummaged through various shit. The puddle at the end of their bed. Cop said someone was likely standing over them while they slept, making sure Annie Louise and Dick didn't wake up.

Horrifying. An arrest was never made in the case. And when they asked how they'd broken into the house, Annie Louise said they always left the back door unlocked, so they just came in. Interestingly, they were robbed at least two more times during which Annie Louise once again had the majority of her jewelry stolen. Maybe home burglars were more common back then, question mark. Maybe people knew Annie Louise didn't properly lock up her jewels, question mark. Dunno. Luckily Dick always managed to replace what was stolen, so Annie Louise was never without her iconic jewelry for long. Just before my feisty grandma passed away in 2016, Annie Louise told everyone that instead of acquitting any jewelry in her will, we'd all just have to fight over it.

She seemed to take great joy in this, and I miss her terribly when I wear her huge ivory and gold elephant at the end of a chunky gold chain, her statement necklace. And then it says, purchase before the ban on ivory sales. Sorry, elephants. Then it says, stay sexy and save the elephants, M, she, her. Nice pivot, right at the last second. We saved that. We really did. Oh, wow. I mean, the candle, it's so creepy. Deeply creepy. And also, like, did they bring it themselves? Did they just find a taper candle in the house? It sounds like they brought it, so why not bring a fucking flashlight? Yes. And also a red candle. It did seem like witchcraft. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay. It's a giveaway subject line, so I'll just start with,

good evening, murder friends. I'm a day one listener, heard Karen on the Sclares podcast and was sold. And I've sent in a couple emails in the past, I'm sure you'll get to. I love you. So incredibly positive. So polite and positive. But I just saw this one on my hometown's History Geeks Facebook page, and it just screams Karen in Georgia. It's one of those incidents where one event caused another caused another caused a poisoning. In 1989, there was a nightclub in my hometown called the Peppermint Twist, which is very cute, but this story is not. Evidently in September that year, they had run out of dish soap at their front bar for washing glasses by hand, and someone had filled a five gallon jug with a dishwasher detergent

that was most certainly not meant for hand washing dishes. That same evening, the club was selling $1 watermelon shots, which sound delicious. The waitress serving that night went back to the bar to refill her tray and took a five gallon container from the fridge, believing it to be watermelon shot mixture due to its red color. So obviously it wasn't watermelon shots. It was eco-cline dish watcher detergent, which is 30% lye. Lye causes chemical burns on contact. The waitress filled her tray with poison and sold it to guests of the nightclub, 12 of whom were taken to the hospital that night. Two of its victims, Cindy and her dad, John, sued the nightclub in a huge suit and won with

fine colors. Cindy had not only suffered severe burns to her esophagus, preventing her from ever eating solid food again. But it also burned her hand when she was throwing up the poison. She likely would have died after running to the bathroom to throw up, but her husband had gotten concerned and went after her and found her unresponsive on the bathroom floor. He performed the heimlich on her and made her throw up the poison and saved her life. John also suffered esophageal burns. But for some reason, the court awarded Cindy 2.5 million and John 750,000. I'm unsure why the other 10 victims didn't sue. It's a miracle no one died that night. And honestly, it's so wild. I've never heard of this incident until recently. Thanks for all your hard work

and just for being all around stand up gals. Stay sexy and don't drink poison, Amanda. That is a perfect hometown of what we originally wanted was the crazy fun. I mean, we love all of them. Obviously, the grandma ones, the fucking treasure ones. But the crazy thing that happened in your town that you had never heard of and you couldn't believe it or you grew up knowing and it was legendary, like that is wild. That's it. It's great job, Amanda. And also a day one listener, a rare bird, a day one listener that can put a solid email together of a classic hometown and also just a story like that where it's the late 80s, right? And so there's all kinds of things that aren't checked, all kinds of things that aren't regulated. It's just like the worst.

That's so sad. I honestly feel bad for the waitress too. It's like horrifying. She's probably has PTSD from having done that. Well, life changing, horrifying. Totally. For every single person. I mean, all of it. It's so sad. 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,

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Hey, I'm Aresha and I'm Brooke and we're the hosts of Wondery's podcast, Even the Rich, where we bring you absolutely true and absolutely shocking stories about the most famous families and biggest celebrities the world has ever seen. Our newest series is all about the incomparable diva, Whitney Houston. Whitney's voice defined a generation and even after her death, her talent remains unmatched, but her incredible success hit a deeply private pain. In our series, Whitney Houston, Destiny of a Diva, we'll tell you how she hid her true self to make everyone around her happy and how the pressure to be all things to all people led her down a dark path. Follow Even the Rich wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad free on the Amazon Music or

Wondery app. Here's one called Wedding and Super Glue. What's up, MFM fam? Two minutes ago to my timeline, you mentioned wedding horror stories. I immediately cracked up, so here's mine. Just two days ago, my sister was getting married up in the mountains at a ski resort. It was a nice start to the day with a lovely brunch. Since we were in the mountains, I had horribly dry eyes from pretty much everything. So while we waited to set up, me and my boyfriend grabbed our room key and headed up to the room. I packed in a hurry and all my beauty products went into a plastic bag. I had my glasses off, which was already a bad idea considering I have negative 10 eyesight. I reached in the bag for a small bottle assuming it was my eye drops. I couldn't have been more wrong or

more panicked as I realized my eye wouldn't open. I looked down with my last good eye and read Super Glue. Oh, no. This is almost like continuing from the last email, like equal kind of night marriage. Night marriage. Really? Yes. I run to the bathroom while yelling at my boyfriend, I super glued my eye shut. Please call my mom. A half hour before meeting up with the ladies in my family to get ready, my boyfriend and I debated if we should go to the ER, but also considered this would ruin the whole wedding and I would miss her wedding so we stayed. That's a good sister. Well, yeah, but Jesus Christ, that's taking a hit to a degree that I don't know if it's needed. It wouldn't ruin the wedding if you just had to go to the hospital real quick and then came back

with an eye patch. I mean, it depends on the sister relationship here though. You know what I mean? It could be like, you ruined my wedding or like, oh my God, are you okay? But can I just say that if your sister would accuse you of ruining her wedding because you accidentally put Super Glue in your own fucking eye, then she's looking for a reason and she's a true bridezilla and fuck your sister. Right. But that didn't happen. So. Okay, sorry. So we don't have to be mad at the sister. We're not mad at her. So I would miss her wedding so we stayed. I was also wondering if my eye was now blind since it would not open. And well, I couldn't see if I was blind. I scrub and scrub my eye with steaming hot hand towels until I finally was able to open my eye.

The only thing lost were some eyelashes, but not my vision. Yay. My eye is fine and it looked great in the pictures, which is a major relief for my mom. Please shout out my sister, Ashley, for her big day. She's also a major MFM fan and my favorite person in the world. Ashley. Ashley, smiley face. Sorry, we talked about you as hypothetically being a bridezilla. Ashley, you're so not. We love you. You're the best sister. Was that the whole thing? Yeah, no, no names. Wow. Ashley's sister. Ashley's sister. That's right. The subject line of this one is I survived an earthquake in Guatemala. Hi, MFM team. I was listening to this week's mini-sode where the English girl told her story of surviving a tornado in Nola. And I thought I would share with you

my story of surviving an earthquake in Guatemala. The year was 2015. I was on my first trip to Guatemala on a service and learning trip. On our last day in the country, our group hiked to a volcano where we picked up lava rocks and roasted marshmallows. Jesus Christ. Oh, that's fun. I mean, it almost seems like the perfect afternoon. Yeah. But wait. But wait, this is my favorite murder. But wait, don't kid yourself. Okay. And then in parentheses, it says, I use I once roasted marshmallows on a volcano in Guatemala as one of my two truths and a lie. Oh, perfect. That's good. It's so detailed, I would say truth. But I also already read the email. Okay. So after we finished our hike, we headed to the city of Antigua for shopping and

dinner. We ate at this fantastic local eatery. Shout out to Cafe Sky that has a second floor terrace with a beautiful view of the surrounding volcanoes. While the servers were taking our order, suddenly everything began to shake. Minor earthquakes are fairly common in Guatemala. So one of my fellow travelers looked to the wait staff to gauge how worried we should be. And sure enough, the looks on their faces said this is not normal. The shaking lasted probably no more than 10 seconds. While some of the other gringos at my table were a little freaked out, I was ecstatic to have a kick ass story to tell. I immediately got on Facebook to alert all my friends and family back home that we just lived through an earthquake while out to dinner in

Antigua. I have been back to Guatemala on two other occasions, but I've yet to experience another natural disaster. I'm hoping to visit again in December with my 11 year old son. So here's hoping that the ground stays put while we're there. Stay sexy and definitely visit Guatemala because it's a beautiful country with a beautiful culture and amazing people. Ashley, she, her. Ashley, I want to go to Guatemala. Let's do it. Oh yeah. I bet it's amazing. It's gorgeous. That sounds terrifying and horrible. That reminds me of when there's turbulence on a plane, the secret is to look at the flight attendants. Do they look like they're freaking out? Are they in their seats buckled up tightly holding out of shit? That's how you know you're in trouble.

I really thought at the beginning of that email that the earthquake was going to happen on the volcano and so then it would just become the rock movie, but it wasn't that. It wasn't. Well, here's the story of my last one called Grandma and the Buck. Hello all. I am on my second listen through of the podcast and have just re-heard your call for grandparents stories. I thought I would take a moment to share mine about my Nana. Now, to preface, there are a few things you need to know about my maternal grandmother before we get into it. Joyce was a really tough, smart lady. Yes. Joyce. Joyce. She was born to Jamaican immigrants in the 20s. Went to college as a black woman at 15. Wow. She went back again at 80 for fun, it says.

Hell yes. Works for early activists like W.E.B. Dubois, Nat Desmond Tutu had three children at 40 and helped my mom raise myself and my siblings. She was fearless and like many women in my life, pretty no nonsense. If I had to pick a story that encapsulates her through it, this would be the one. At the time, my family lived in Connecticut in a house in the woods behind a golf course. It had a big yard that would become the backdrop of many of my favorite childhood stories, like when my brother was chased by a turkey to which my Nana looked out the back door on him and plainly stated, if he's dumb enough to pet a wild animal, he's dumb enough to get bit. Because of the few crap apple trees and growing in our front yard, we would often see families of

deer. They would come take the apples and be on their way. Well, one winter after my brothers and I came in from playing in the snow, one buck became very curious about our house. The stairs to our rooms was right by the front door. We all came in and ran upstairs, carelessly leaving the front door wide open. In the short time I attract dirt and snow into our house, shed all of my layers off and went back to the top of the stairs. My Nana was already standing at the front door, face to face with it, a buck standing in our foyer, staring into her eyes. The whole front of its body was already through the door. And that buck is like, what, six fucking four feet tall? I don't know, with their horns and shit? I mean, a buck is a young male deer, so there's lots of

sizes it can be. But yeah, I mean, it would be because they definitely have antlers usually. Right. That alone. Even if it was a three foot deer, the antlers would just be like, what in the fuck is going on? That would be so upsetting. And it's like halfway through the door being like, what's up? Can I get some apples? And I would bet because it's halfway through the door, I bet it was six feet tall. I bet it was a big one because it's like, I'm not afraid of anything. What's going on in here? Sure. Hey, what's up? You have a central heating. Can I get in on this? Do you like my antlers? In the eyes of a nine year old, it was truly

something to behold. A giant animal and my 79 year old Nana just standing there. But like it was nothing. She first quietly told him to shoe. And when he didn't, she did the only thing that made sense, grabbed it by the antlers and pushed it out the door. Yes. Oh my. And she goes, that was it. She slammed the door, mumbled something about children and snow under her breath and went on her way. It's almost been a decade now since she passed and there is not a day that I don't think of her. Even when she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and dementia, she never stopped being her tenacious and tough. She always shined to me inside and out.

Thank you again for the podcast. It's the podcast and the community around it has brought me so much comfort during a time full of uncertainty as a black queer woman. I feel like I have found another home in my ever growing family. I've written in before about my favorite hometown crime, bank robbers on bicycles, and maybe I'll send it in and maybe I'll send it in again one day. Please do. Stay sexy and when faced with a challenge, know that if Nana can push it out of the way, so can you. S.J. They. She. S.J. I mean, what a slice of life. Joyce. Look at it. I have tears in my eyes. When does that ever happen? Well, it's so good. Also because we got the confirmation the buck was gigantic. Yeah. And she just like steered it out of the

room. Steered it out. And she's like, I'm not doing this with you today. I have other stuff going on. Joyce. I would love it if it was like she waltzed it out by the. She walked it backwards. That's badass. Also, yeah, that buck was like got the vibe from Joyce that this was not happy birthday as my dad likes to say. It's called Catholic wedding story. So now I'm looping back to the other wedding story. Here we go. A theme. This. It's crazy. Okay. This starts. Hey, hottie. Oh, thank you. I needed that. I'm currently listening to Minnesota 287 where Georgia called for wedding stories. Oh, this must have just happened. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Karen brought up fainting at Catholic weddings. And

do I have a story for you? My 26 year old parents were getting married after four years of dating at St. Clement Church in Chicago. The wedding was around four p.m. and went swimmingly. My dad and mom stood in front of a priest who preached for a while, did some Catholic stuff, blessed the communion, and then had my parents declare their love. All were moved after the ceremony. My parents exited the church into a tunnel of their closest friends and family. Think Varsity basketball team entering for the big game. High five. High five. High five. This has to get explained. It's much like a basketball game. And also this description goes longer. Think Varsity basketball team entering for the big game through a cheerleader

tunnel in the crappiest teen movie you can think of. As my mother gazed over the faces of her loved ones, she saw shoes, pointy black closed-toed shoes aimed straight towards the sky. Attached to those shoes was her unconscious 80 year old grandmother known to all as Gigi. My grandma was Gigi too. Was she? Yeah, she became great grandma, Gigi, they called her. Oh, Gigi. According to Catholic tradition, you're not supposed to consume anything before taking communion. I think that's, come on, have some peanuts. I also think that might be pre, what the fuck's it called? There was a, they basically kind of updated all of the rules in Catholicism in the mid-60s. And so maybe this was right before that, because I don't think that's a rule anymore.

Or maybe it wasn't a rule anymore, but she was old school and stuck with it. She's old school. Oh, right. It was called Vatican II, and it was basically like the Vatican got it together. You're not kidding. Vatican II? Yeah, I'm not. It was called Vatican II. No, I just realized that. No, but they got together and they were like, no, you don't have to do a mass in Latin. Grandma's keep fucking tealing over all the time. We got to, yeah, we got to, we got to do something that's better for the people. And then they, you know, religion, whether or not that they did is up to debate. Gigi's priest growing up, it even kicked an eight-year-old boy out of his first communion for admitting he accidentally swallowed a drop of water brushing

his teeth that morning. See, Vatican II was needed because that kind of stuff is insane. It's crazy. And then in parentheses, it says, I heard this story frequently from my grandmother, as I guiltily ate Cheerios before 10 a.m. mass. Yeah, because you're trying not to faint. Yes, because you need to eat in the morning. A typically early sleeper, I'm talking 5 p.m., elderly Gigi had starved herself for upwards of 24 hours in order to consume communion in a righteous state at her granddaughter's wedding. My mom, obviously concerned with Gigi's condition, was quickly rushed by her mother into the waiting limo to be escorted to the reception venue. When she asked if Gigi was alive, she received the answer probably, and then an immediate slam door.

Gigi was fine after a little juice. Unfortunately, I had yet to bless them with my presence, so this story comes secondhand, but it is therefore ingrained with my Nana's incredible storytelling, something I've come to value dearly four years after her passing. And then in parentheses, it says, her name was Judy with an IE. Judy! Say sexy and pleasey, Kaitlyn. Please eat. Oh man, I've got sedication and so sweet. Yeah, she thought it was like a gift. Wow, it's not. It's sustenance. We need it to survive and live. And I'm sorry, but I'm going to go ahead and go on a limb and guess that Jesus doesn't give a shit if you have a bowl of cheerios before whatever communion is and you're taking it. We'd like to think so here at Vatican II,

the panel at Vatican II. We'd like to go ahead and say. Now, they should actually have a Vatican III for these changing times. I mean, there should be a Vatican 306 for all the things that should fucking change about it, but. You know how I'm obsessed with TikTok now? I saw this amazing thing where this person was like, you don't want to change the Constitution, sounds good, you want to keep it exactly as it was. That means you can only carry muskets. So have all the muskets you want, but if we're going to keep it on pot, there's so many smart people on there. It's crazy. It's amazing. Did you see the one that's like, well, okay, if getting pregnant is God's will, then you, then men having a rectal dysfunction is God's will too. And so we're

trying to ban Viagra. That's right. Fucking love that. That's right. Yeah, people aren't having it. That's pretty exciting. Also, you know who's smart? The people who are right in to make minisode emails for us because they're just amazing batches of wonderful personal stories and then some classics, some real true crime stories and all the connection you could ever want. Yeah. And I think it makes people listening happy. It's all about the listeners on this one. So thanks for sending those in. Things keep sending. I disagree. Send any story you want in. If you want to hear more, go to the, join the fan cult on my favorite murder.com, send your stories into my favorite murder at Gmail. Is that right? Yeah, that's right. That's the name of it. Yes.

And, uh, and then also 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 my favorite murder and Twitter at myfavoritmurder. 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.

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