My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 297

Episode Date: September 19, 2022

This week’s hometowns include realistic bird calls and a cat named Muffins.  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We at Wondery live, breathe and downright obsess over true crime and now we're launching the ultimate true crime fan experience, Exhibit C. Join now by following Wondery, Exhibit C on Facebook and listen to true crime on Wondery and Amazon Music, Exhibit C. It's truly criminal. Hello and welcome to my favorite murder, the Minnesota. Hey, this is where we read you your stuff. This is your show that we're narrating. That's right. It's all about you. This is your life. Listener. Listen up. This is your grandma. Listen up. You want to go first? Sure. The subject line of this email is, are we still doing murder hometowns? Hello. If you're reading this just now, I'm currently in my shower or maybe my car freaking out and immediately calling my mom

to tell her. I have submitted this story once before. So, and this isn't all caps, please pick me. And then three exclamation points. Hey, look at work. This is about an actual murder in my family. So I'm not sure it meets the criteria anymore, but here goes nothing. There is no criteria, everybody. The criteria has, I think it's great. We've disrupted the minisode system. That's right. We've gone way out. It's been six years. Here goes nothing. I live in Oregon and every summer make the drive to my grandma's hometown, Lander, Wyoming. I've gotten my grandma into the podcast. It truly scares me when people say stuff like that. Would you rather a grandma or a teenager listen? That's the question. Well, grandma for sure, because it's like that kind

of thing. Like when I saw my Aunt Mary, the nun in the bathroom at the punchline before I did a set, and I was like, you're going to hear those things. I can't even imagine what you're about to hear. And she's like, oh, please, honey. You young people always think we've never heard swear words or whatever. I've seen it all. But I do love getting in early on those teenagers, gotta say. Those teens are the ones that we really want to get and crawl into their little, unformed brains and squiggle them around and make them all mean and happy and shit. And scared. That's why we're on TikTok now, because we want to be where the kids are. That's right. And start influencing them. Okay. So they just told us the grandma's listening on drives. A few summers ago, we were listening

to a mini and I asked my grandma if there were any stories she had to share. She's usually very hush about family drama. So when she said yes and was willingly going to share the story, I was shocked. She told me that she had an uncle who was a deer hunter and then a parentheses, it says, not surprised, legit every man in my family hunts. He went hunting one season by himself. And when he got back into town, he stopped at a local diner where some of his friends were also stopping. He was greeted by his friends who were sharing their hunting stories and showing off what they had him killed. So this is her grandmother's uncle. So this is ostensibly long ago. Long long time ago. Got it. Yeah. Okay. Her uncle went into the diner and his friends went to the bed

of his truck to see what he got. And when they lifted the bed cover, they, in all caps, found his wife who had been stabbed to death. They obviously called it in and he was arrested. My grandma told me he was deemed insane and ended up having some array of mental health issues. She also told me that growing up, her mom and dad would take her and her sister to visit him at the mental hospital he was at. And she grew up never knowing why he was in there until her dad spilled the beans after she was an adult. Wow. And then it just goes, anyway, we love you guys so much. My grandma's name is Awida and she loves to listen to you ladies. She really is my favorite human. And I'm so happy you've given us yet another reason to get together. Oh, oh, and then listen

to this last line. Grandma Awida says stay sexy and still marry deer hunters because you'll always have good food. This is from Sheyenne. She, her. Wow. Can you imagine lifting up? Oh, hey, here's what I got a buck or I don't even know, whatever a buck. Hey, let's see what Bill got. Fucking body. Murder scene. Terrifying. And so for those men who, I'm sure this is like, this is their day off, right? They're like, they do something else and then they're like hunting is my hobby and this is what we're going to go do. Right. And then it just turns into this nightmare. Just a nightmare. Nightmare. Thank you, Grandma Awida for breaking your long silence, sharing it with us that we now can share with many, many people. Yeah. And we're honored that you listened to us. We appreciate

it. What was the girl's name again? Sheyenne. Sheyenne, hope you didn't get any shampoo in your eyes when we read this. Thanks for writing in. Yes, thank you. Well, I have one called Dark Family Secret. So Alejandro is on a roll today. She knows. Yeah. This just starts, my mom is one of eight brothers and sisters. They were brought up Mormon. Some still are and some aren't. So even when three of them hang out, there's always a shitload of people who love to talk and stay forever. Recently, a couple of my aunts started talking about a family secret that is definitely not a secret anymore. But I learned a new detail I didn't know. Here we go. My great grandma had several brothers and sisters, Kauff, Mormon, and her mom left them to go into town. Oh,

I forgot. This one's really sad. She was going to be gone most of the day and she instructed them to absolutely not roll down the hill in tires. I guess this was a thing they did for entertainment. So you know, the second she left, they grabbed the tires and got to rolling. I'm sure they were having the time of their lives until my great uncle fell out of the tire and hit his head really hard. He was unconscious. So the kids freaked out and just put him in bed. When their mother came home, no one said a word about what happened. They were terrified. They were going to get in trouble. Their mom just thought he felt ill. A doctor came and couldn't really do anything for him, you know, because he just randomly went into a coma. He never woke up and eventually died from

his injuries. The kids never told their mom what happened. The new detail I learned was that he was actually my great grandmother's twin brother. My great grandma would talk openly to her children about it and expressed her regret of having never told her mom what happened. I'm sure the burden she carried was heavy, but literally what the fuck. Stay sexy and tell your mom what happened, because a couple generations down, your dark family secret might just be casually thrown around at a barbecue. Casey, she, her. Well, also, first of all, I feel like with all the jokes I like to make about, like, helicopter parenting and the way kids these days, I feel like the one great advantage to it is there is so much more and better communication. Like, things like that,

not that they wouldn't happen and the kids make mistakes and they make incorrect assumptions and all that kind of stuff, but there's so much more communication now. Yeah. Like, you're not going to get whipped for making a bad choice or a stupid decision. Yeah. For an accident. And so you don't say something important exactly. It's so sad and scary and like, I mean. And such a burden for those kids to have been carrying. Totally. So traumatic for those poor kids. And they never told their mom. That's just like wild. Well, because it just escalated into the worst, worst case scenario, right? How do you tell? I mean, God, they must have carried it for the rest of their lives for sure. Sorry, bummer. Such a burden. I should have warned. I should have had a bummer

warning before that one. Well, I mean, it's, I feel like it's a standing bummer warning on this podcast. Because it's called My Favorite Murder. So it's just like the name, the trigger warning is in the name. But you're right in the way that that's a very specific bummer. It's a specific bummer we really haven't heard before where it's kind of like when you're in that situation, usually at some point, an adult comes in and figures stuff out. The burden is released. They just kept carrying it because they, it went too far like. And you know what? I bet the kid would have sadly died anyways from a head injury that, you know, you can't, there's not a lot you can probably have done about it back then. However, I mean, maybe it would have been worse the mom

knowing that her children, who knows? Who knows? Having kids is, seems like having your heart walking around outside of your body. Exactly. Exactly. And that, you know, at least that's what my sister tells me. Oh my God. I don't want that. I don't want that. That sounds terrifying. I can't imagine it. I think people are very, are very resilient and very strong for having made the choice and just getting in there and doing it no matter what. But I think any parent would also say it could have happened because they rolled those tires down the hill. Tires down the hill. It also could have happened because the lighting fixture fell down and hit him and that's the kind of thing. It's like, we're all at risk. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like,

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it so easy and also makes it so that my food tastes good, which is hard to do on my own. It gives you everything, everything you need. So get up to 20 free meals with purchase plus free shipping on your first box at hellofresh.ca slash murder20 with code murder20. That's up to 20 free meals plus free shipping on your first box when you go to hellofresh.ca slash murder20 and use code murder20. Goodbye. Hey, I'm Arisha 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 will 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. I'm not going to read you the subject line. This is a very interesting one. Dearest Karen and Georgia, your recent episode discussing the disappearance of Loreen Ron and your conversation about high school girls being preyed on by older men reminded me of my own experience attempting to date a 22 year old. And I was 16 and he was in

a cult. Okay, piling it on. Just setting it all up. Okay. So in high school, my friends started dating a fully adult man. And then in parentheses, it says 22 or 23 years old. So gross. Yeah, who lived with other adult men in a house by our school. We of course thought it was extremely cool to be able to hang out and drink at a house with no parents around and did so often. At this house, one night, I met one of their friends. We'll call him Danny. I love the way everybody we don't have to tell people ever just use fake names. It makes me happy. Yeah. Okay. Danny was very cool. Not only could he make very realistic bird calls. I didn't know it's standard. We were talking about coolness, but now I know and I am impressed. I forgot about that part. I mean, you know,

if you're trying to make the ladies line up for you bros, nothing, nothing like a fucking realistic bird call to get those girls to line up those 16 year old girls. Not only can we make very realistic bird calls. Oh my God, is that a what? Oh, it's Danny. Oh, it's Danny. It's not the Southeast and Warbler in our program. Let's make out Danny. Danny. But he was an acrobat in a small circus. This guy. Wow. Danny. 10 out of 10. Danny getting all the ladies. Sorry, the children. Danny getting all the children. Getting all those high school children. And the next line is, I couldn't believe my luck, LOL. Love it. We started talking. That's in quotes. And through texts and gossip, I started getting more of an idea who Danny was. So I feel like

they're about to tell us the thing that I think is the system I used when like I had a crush on someone where you decide you like them first and then try to fill in the rest. Right. After the fact. Yeah. When you get the more information of like, I'm a circus acrobat. Bird call. I'm in a cult. You're like too late. I already love you. I love you. It doesn't matter. All I've talked about is you for the past three days. I'm obsessed with you and in love with you. And all I need in life is you to love me back. So I don't care. All these other details quote slash red flags can't come into play. They can't because I already love you because I heard you do one woodpecker noise. Okay. He told me he had 10 brothers and sisters and worked with his brothers in construction.

He was having a hard time meeting up with me because his family only had one car that they all shared. And yes, he still lived with his parents. I was trying to figure out why he had two jobs and still lived at home and no college. So he didn't have debt. So when I was expressing this confusion to another mutual friend, she said, wait, don't you know Danny's in a cult? Danny was born into a cult in our hometown called Christ's household of faith or Z H O F. It's a Christian cult in which members give up their possessions and money and are given resources by the cult. Birth control is discouraged in the many children who are born, go to a school run by the cult. C H O F owns a lot of property in the twin cities and got most of

its income from renting out or developing those properties. So while Danny was working for a construction company, it was owned by the cult and he was not paid. Well, given this information, you would think I would cut and run. No, I wouldn't. No, we would not. We know you. No judgment here. We know how love actually works. Yeah, this is true love. And then there's a dash, but I didn't. And luckily, the decision was made shortly thereafter when I arrived at a party and watched him come downstairs with another girl he had just quote, spent some time with upstairs. I was obviously sad at the time, but I'm glad the universe gave me another opportunity to get out of the situation. And then there's some of those squiggly things on either side

of the word updates. Oh, they're doing their own email three quarters of the way through. I love it updates. Danny is married to an adult woman now and is out of the cult. I believe their wedding was Lord of the Rings themed. So wait, they are in a cult then it sounds like it's a different cult. Yeah, a little more just a little more ring based C H O F file for bankruptcy in 2016 and reading about it. Now it looks like there were even some sketchier things going on, i.e. corporal punishment in the school, the founder, Donald Asbury facing sexual assault charges, etc. Always kind of the way every goddamn cult goes. Yeah, it's never like and everything was fine. No, no exploitation of power here. One of the good cults. Not sure if it's still going

on today, but I hope it's not. While I did take some more time to realize that I could do better than a 22 year old who hangs out with high school girls who was also in a cult. I am now happily married to a wonderful man and we're both the same age. Love to you both. And then they asked for their name not to be used and says, please don't use my name. I'm still afraid my mom and dad will be mad at me. And then the ease just go off beautifully. That was great. That was a good one. Yeah. Oh, the dating, the dating men I did in high school is so disgusting. Teen dating decision making. Or as I like to do it, just like have a crush on someone that doesn't go to your school. Yeah. As a way of getting out of town. Yeah. Like that was always just kind of like

somewhere, somewhere, somewhere else. Please Huntington Beach, get me out of Irvine. I get it. Okay, this is called epic cat story of home destruction. Just starts animal rescue stories are great and all, but how about animal destruction stories? So this person just made up a new genre for us. Yeah, they did. Completely contrary to biscuit the hero cat from this week's hometown. I think that was from a while back. Sorry, really quick. Was biscuit the one that rescued the family from the house fire? I think so. Yeah. Okay. Also interesting to note that I'm clearly in support of animals being named after food. I have a story to tell you about my cat muffins. Last weekend, my fiance and I went camping in the woods near 11 Mile Lake State Park near the Pike

National Forest in central Colorado. After I broke a third acrylic nail setting up our tent, I giggled to myself, picturing Georgia saying, you know that hotels exist and you don't have to sleep on the ground, right? But that's not the story. We spent an amazing two nights under the stars, our days consisting of hiking and kayaking in the sunshine with our two dogs, Bruce and Cosmo. Those are good names. Sunday morning, we packed up camp and headed home to an absolute disaster. Our house was all caps flooded. Oh, we left our cat muffins at home with a big bowl of food and water because he loves the quiet when the dogs are gone and hates to be boarded. Muffins has a cat friend in the neighborhood that terrorizes him from our kitchen window. Once before,

a muffins has knocked over a plant off our window sill trying to claw at the cat outside the window. This time, the plants that muffin knocked over must have flipped the kitchen sink spout on. The soil from the sink clogged the drain and the water overflowed. For two whole days, water was flowing under our kitchen floor into the living room. It leaked through the ceiling into the basement, flooding the carpet in the entire basement. The drywall was leaking bubble pockets of water. Even our HVAC system was leaking rusty water from the ceiling. Wow. Meanwhile, muffins were stoically perched on our kitchen table, purring and rolling over for belly rubs. Anywho, all of the floors in our house have to be ripped up by a mitigation team and

need to be replaced, as well as some of the drywalling and ceiling. Production is backed up five to six weeks, so we will be without floors or walls until then, and at the mercy of the insurance company, all because of our blissfully ignorant, but cute and loving cat. He was just trying to help. He hated that carpet downstairs. Stay sexy and make sure to hire the neighborhood kid to check on your cat when you're gone for more than a day. Alex, she, her. Yeah, man. I want pet disaster stories now, right? That's a great idea. Send them in. This is a heart warmer. Glitch in the matrix through the mail. Yay. Dear Karen and Georgia, I've always remembered what you said years ago about your

mom being so good at sending people cards, and I thought I would tell you about a time when a card sent in the mail made all the difference for one of my children. 14 years ago, when my daughter, Catherine, was three and a half. She was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. And then in parentheses, it says, not to worry, she's 17 now, happy and healthy. So thank fucking God. Yeah, cleared that right off the docket. Love it. We had a few months of doctor appointments and intense worry that culminated in a surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. We did the best we could, not to have Catherine's health problems overshadow the whole family. But inevitably, more attention was at times given to her and less to her little sister Vivian, who was just 15

months younger than her. Yeah, that's so hard for everybody involved. The day we returned from the hospital in Boston after surgery, I picked up the mail and began sorting through it. There were a number of get well cards and packages for our older daughter, and the younger one watched as envelope after envelope was handed to her older sister. Sadly, yet hopefully, she asked if there was anything for her. Did I get anything? Did I get some mail? Hi, I'm Viv. I used to try to send mail to Nora when she was little, because I remember how exciting it was to get mail. I did that too. In the beginning of the pandemic, I sent the nephew so many packages and like games and toys. Yes, right. They just

really appreciate it. My heart was breaking a little as I prepared to explain yet again why so much attention was being given to her sister when the very next envelope I looked at was addressed to my little one. I was so thankful that my mother's cousin had thought to send something to little Vivian, and we made a big fuss over opening it. We were surprised to find a lovely birthday card inside with a sweet message to Vivian, and we were even more surprised as her birthday had been seven months prior. And my mom's cousin had never sent birthday cards to my children before. Wow. Then I looked more closely at the envelope. It had been postmarked just before her birthday, seven months before. It arrived at literally the exact moment Vivian

needed to feel loved and remembered. Vivian. I called my mother's cousin to tell her the amazing news of how her card had gotten way late in the mail and showed up just when we needed it most. I was surprised when she told me that she had absolutely no recollection of sending her the card at all, though it definitely was from her. I know her handwriting well, and it was signed by her with her return address and postmarked from her town halfway across the country. Oh my God. Someone had a little Apple brandy one night and decided to send some mail. It's like, you know what? Yeah. We agreed that God or the universe knew my Vivian needed that card at that moment and made it happen. I still have the card in the envelope, and I wrote a note explaining the

circumstances of receiving it and have saved it in Vivian's memory box. Stay sexy and send people cards. You never know when they really might need it. Abby in Maine. That's so sweet. Love it. Love it. Let's all, everyone listening, including you and me, let's send two cards in the next week. We have to. Great. Just for the hell of it. I'm going to send Nora a congratulations card because she made varsity volleyball team and she's only a sophomore. Yes. That's amazing. God, that girl's such a badass. This is called badass Nana who got kicked out of an army base. Oh. Hi friends. As most people who write in, you guys have kept me sane during some crazy shit, blah, blah, blah. However, after my Nana very suddenly died in April on her 74th birthday, also 420,

I thought I should write in as many of your grandma's stories have really cheered me up and teared me up. It reminds me of one of my favorite memories of her. When I was nine, my Nana and Papa took me and my two cousins, both in car seats, on a road trip from Omaha, Nebraska to Portland, Oregon. After dropping my cousins off in Colorado with their mom, we continued our journey, one of the main stops being the army base in Idaho to stock up on supplies as both of my grandparents have served and like to shop at the base. Having just gotten my Nana to buy me Taylor Swift's first CD, I was elated and didn't really pay attention the rest of the shopping trip until we were exiting and two armed guards came up to my Nana and asked her to put her hands

up and took her into custody. Oh shit. My forgetful, otherwise known as cheap, Nana had quote misplaced the lipstick she wanted to purchase and had put it into her purse instead. Maybe government run Costco is not the place to shoplift from. No dude. Her grandma is a fucking club though. They had her on tape and we spent three hours in a tiny interrogation room in which I repeatedly asked to call my parents and she denied me every time. The grandma? Yeah. Actually, she monitored all my phone calls the rest of the three weeks I spent with her to make sure I didn't tell my parents, at least until I got home. She denied actually stealing the lipstick up to the day she died, but this is the same woman who swapped price stickers at the grocery store.

She's a fucking klepto grandma. Klepto grandma. Oh my gosh. I love her. She's my Nana, but she wanted a deal and always made sure she got one. So stay sexy and don't shoplift in government run stores. XOXO, Katie and YapYap. What my Nana always called my Chihuahua, which is nothing close to his name, Jonas. Think Weezer, not Jonas Brothers. That was a long explanation. It's a really long explanation, but Katie gave that whole email over to her grandma. So she gets a little, she gets a little YapYap at the end. She and YapYap get a little bongal for busting her grandma. Oh my God. Yes. If you can tell us stories about your parents and grandparents behaving badly, please send them in to my favorite murder at Gmail. And thank you guys so much for

listening. You are, we're all YapYap really when it comes down to it. I mean, this is YapYap built us. That's right. Yeah. 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 myfavemurder. Goodbye. Listen, follow, leave us a review on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

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