My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 301

Episode Date: October 17, 2022

This week’s hometowns include getting to know your bartender and haunted porcelain dolls. 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. Hey, it's Minnie and we read you your stories. You guys send them to us and we appreciate it so much. Thanks so much. Do you want to start today? Hey, sure. Why not? Hey, man. This one's called Coincidence Story. Lighthearted question mark. Okay. Hi. Okay. So nine years ago, I moved away from my hometown to go to college and never returned for the normal small town boring reasons. So I now live nowhere near family acquaintances. You get the picture. I have become a semi-regular

at a small local bar, spending time there after work as a casual place to watch sports games and well, have afternoon beers. Amen. I mean, one of the great joys of life is an afternoon beer, especially when you're on break from work and then you figure out a way to not go back to work. That's right. It's always, it always comes to you when you're having that, that second beer you weren't going to have is, how do I get out of the rest of my day? And here's the, here's your answer that I'll give you as a little gift from me to you. Okay. You call and you say, I broke my shoes. Oh. I had to get it. You glue that tongue to the roof of your mouth and you start explaining,

they won't want to listen to it because it's, and also they kind of won't believe you because everyone knows when you're lying and in reality. I don't know if I left broken tooth better or drunk Karen better. There's so many options. She's pretty great. She contains multitudes. What about drunk broken tooth Karen? Oh, very real. Okay. Someday. I had made friends with my usual bartender. We'll call him Joe. One day I overheard Joe talking to another customer saying where he went to high school. I heard him say he went to the high school in my hometown and I nearly spit out my drink. I've been here nine years in the city and I've never heard anyone say they were from my hometown. Of course I had to ask him about this

when he came back over to my end of the bar. I told him where I was from and we had the, oh shit, no way moment. So the bartender is from her small town. Yep. He goes, wait, what's your last name again? It doesn't sound familiar. I said he wouldn't know my last name as it's different from the one I grew up with. So I said, but the name you might know is insert childhood last name. His face went pale and he said, do you know Josh? Yes, I know Josh. He's my older brother. Now for some backstory, my oldest brother Josh died at 23 years old in a car accident back in 2005, nearly 17 years ago now. Joe said, my brother's Chris. Do you know him? Chris was Josh's best friend growing up and he came on our family vacations. Of course I knew Chris. I hadn't

seen him since before Josh passed away, but I certainly remember him from my childhood. So the bartender looks at me and says, Chris is my brother. What? Joe and I had been sharing this little bar, minding our business for months and little did we know the connection we shared, but here's the best part. He pulled up a picture of Chris and shows me that he has my brother's face tattooed on his arm. His brother does or he does? He does. I welled up with tears. I hadn't seen him in so long. This encounter was so special to me because it showed me that I wasn't the only one who still remembers him. It's been so long since he passed. The chances of me meeting someone who knew him are so slim, especially being so far away from home. We exchanged stories all

evening. He told me ones I had never heard, showed me pictures of him I had never seen. I feel like I have a piece of him still there now through his friends and their family who have done so much to keep his memory alive over the years. This is the craziest coincidence I've ever experienced and probably ever will. Anyways, thanks for listening and thanks for doing everything that you do. You all absolutely rock. Stay sexy and check your bartenders for tattoos of your relatives die. So it was the bartender who had the tattoo of her brother. Not the brother who was the best friend, but the bartender who saw. How crazy is that? That is it's so touching. Imagine it's like someone that's as close as your older brother that dies. And that is really true that like when that amount

of time passes, it's like you don't see them. You don't. It's not the same grieving situation. And so it's almost like, oh, if he's out of my mind, is he out of everyone's mind? Right. Like I'm never going to hear new stories again. Maybe I'll see a photo somewhere in the future, but I'll never really like have new new memories of my loved one again. And then suddenly, boom, you get to share them with someone else. It's so special. And the other person loved your brother as much as you did. So it's not like, oh, I knew him. He was in a class. He was really nice. It's like, here's stories of shit we all did together. Oh, that gets me. Yeah. He meant so much to me. I got a tattoo of his face. It is really beautiful. That's amazing. Also, I really,

I wanted them to fall in love. Maybe they are. We don't know. We don't know if it, you know, those afternoon beers, dye goes back time and again. Yeah. The sharing escalates. There's a heart match. It's a heart match. That's what's so beautiful about life is there's like future, there's time in the future to fall in love. So great about being alive. So yeah. Yeah. Starting out sappy. Sorry. Yeah, you did. I like it. It's a nice kickoff. Meet mine too. Listen to this shit. Hello, MFM crew. I was listening to MiniSo 294 where you asked for great pranks and I have one for you as fellow younger sisters. You too can understand the need to prank your older sister. So here we go. When I was maybe 11 or so, my sister was 13

and got permission from my dad, single parent of two girls. How lucky to have a big sleepover where she got to invite five other girls to spend the night. Being the younger sister, I of course wanted to hang out with them and bask in their older coolness. But when they started playing party games on the witchy side, like light as a feather, et cetera, they rudely kicked me out. Aw. You're too little. Get out. You're gonna have nightmares. Yep. We have to talk about important stuff. That's when my older cousins who were way older than me, they were like teenagers when I was six years old and our other non-related cousin, Laura, would come down from Windsor and they would kick me and my sister out and they would say, oh, we have to have a witchy's meeting.

No way. It's a theme. It's an older sister, older cousin theme. Not cool. It's basically like you can't handle magic or like witchcraft. So get out until you learn witchcraft is essentially. Yeah, which will be never. So go fuck yourself. And witchcraft kind of stood for smoking pot, I think. Anyway, they so rudely kicked me out. How dare they? I went to my room to sulk for a bit, but realized I could just listen at the door and see what was going on. Yeah. This is, this is the making of a little sister right here. Eventually they got to ghost stories and my sister had a favorite one that she would always tell me involving a porcelain doll and spiders that lived in said doll. Wanting props for the story, she pulled out a bag of porcelain dolls to show off

how we had creepy dolls. And then in parentheses, they weren't creepy, just broken in my room. Anyways, that's when I knew I could prank them. When they all got up to retrieve drinks, food, and more cake from the kitchen, I snuck into a room and sat every porcelain doll that was laying on the floor up and looking directly at the door. And then I ran out before they, before, before anyone noticed. Oh, that's clever. Mass panic was the only thing that happened next when six girls screamed about the haunted dolls, four out of five of her friends calling their parents to come get them. My sister remained scared of those dolls for as long as I could remember. And eventually, I forgot about it until last year, when I mentioned the prank at my birthday dinner,

I am now 25. Oh my God. And the look of shock came over her face as she realized it was me. I know you asked for victimless pranks, but does convincing six girls that haunted dolls existed and probably traumatized them count? Stay sexy and remember that younger sisters want to play spooky games too. Karen from Texas. See, when we said victimless, that's what we meant, because like it's victimless. It's just scared that ever-loving shit out of some little girls. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. There's, yeah, it's, it's victimless in terms of like we're haunted doll trauma is pretty standard. Right. No one, no one actually fell down and broke their jaw bone or something. Right. We want emotional trauma, not physical trauma. That's all. Yes. Especially

when it comes to sisters. We want sister, sister trauma stories always and forever. We have so many. 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, weekend brunch, simple side dishes and amazing desserts. Karen January is going to be my month for HelloFresh. I am so sick of takeout. I miss cooking so much. I haven't lifted a knife or a

pan since like early fall. So I can't wait to get back in the kitchen and HelloFresh makes 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. What makes a person a murderer? Are they born to kill or are they made to kill? I'm Candice DeLong and on my new podcast Killer Psyche Daily, I share a quick 10 minute rundown every weekday on the motivations and behaviors of the criminal masterminds,

psychopaths, and cold-blooded killers you hear about in the news. I have decades of experience as a psychiatric nurse, FBI agent, and criminal profiler. On Killer Psyche Daily, I'll give you insight into cases like Ryan Grantham and the newly arrested Stockton serial killer. I'll also bring on expert guests to dive deeper into the details, share what it's like to work with a behavioral assessment unit at Quantico, answer some killer trivia, and even host virtual Q&As where I'll answer your burning questions. Hey, Prime members, listen to the Amazon Music exclusive podcast, Killer Psyche Daily in the Amazon Music app. Download the app today. I'm not going to read you the title of this one. It just starts, hey, which is funny. My first one

started high, and this one starts, hey. On Minnesota 295, you asked for deathbed confessions, which gives me a reason to write to you about my badass great Aunt Molly. In the 1930s, Molly went to university to study languages, pretty rad at the time if you ask me. And then, during World War II, worked as a translator at Bletchley Park as part of the English intelligence work in which Alan Turing eventually broke the enigma code. Anyways, on to her confession. In her youth, she, quote, courted a man for a while, and they eventually became just friends and didn't marry. After that, she had no further relationships that we knew about. On her deathbed, she confessed to my aunt that both he and she were gay and had had a relationship to cover this up.

She didn't talk about any other relationships, but I really hope she had some amazing lesbian love affairs. It makes me sad that she wasn't able to tell us earlier in her life, but I hope she found support in her friend. Thanks for everything you do, Anne. I'm sorry, was she saying she dated Alan Turing? No, no, no, no. Oh, no. No, just that she had a friend and they were both gay, that she, quote, dated, it seems like they were a cover up for each other. And on her deathbed, she finally confessed that she was a lesbian. Okay, got it. Because Alan Turing was with me. Yeah, yeah. And that was a whole fucking issue. He basically invented the internet. Yeah. No, not him. So sad that that has to happen, but it is like a deathbed confession.

I mean, yeah, so sad. But and also just such a great reminder of like, they, we cannot allow any government body to turn back those rights that were so hard fought, so hard, or so hard won. It just cannot happen. It's not that it's, there were people that used to be arrested for getting caught like same sex, people getting caught kissing or something would be in jail. Totally. It's so insane. So it shouldn't be a deathbed confession. It's so fucking sad. Yes, for sure. The title gives us away. So I'll just start it. Hello, ladies, gents, and assorted pets. Let's get to it. You asked for librarian stories, which I am not. But for about a year, I worked as a bookseller for a certain well-known bookstore chain,

which seems relatively close to a librarian. So one day, I love it. It's like, please make it your own. One day I arrived to my closing shift and was informed by my manager that closing the store would be a little different than normal. Rather than going through our normal nightly routine of restocking books, cleaning and processing orders for the next day, we were all immediately to search all the nooks and crannies of the building and ensure everything was in place as it should be and that there was no one trying to hang out in the building after close. I thought this was odd, but we had some odd regulars, like the guy who wore an all-black trench coat and carried a seven-foot-tall staff with a skull carved into the top who would come in

once a week to buy new DVDs and books. That's not odd. That's a wizard. At closing, we locked doors per usual and searched the store as directed. Nothing was out of place and we didn't find any people trying to stay in the store after close, so we wrapped up our nightly duties and we went home. The next day, I mentioned to one of my co-workers who hadn't worked the night before about the weird clothes the night prior and they informed me nonchalant, as can be, that it was probably because of the armed robbery at our sister's store earlier in the week. A few days before my weird closing shift, our sister's store just a few miles away had been robbed after close. The armed robber had hidden somewhere in the store, waited till close, and for all the employees to

leave except for the closing manager, and then made the manager empty the safe of its contents before walking right out the doors no problem. The manager was thankfully unharmed. There were concerns that the culprit would come to nearby stores and attempt the same thing. I was concerned that the best solution management had was to send the staff searching for a hidden armed robber at the end of the shift, especially without warning about what we were really looking for. Thankfully, no other stores were robbed. I have no clue if they ever caught the robber, but our sister's store was shut down shortly after due to the pandemic. Working as a bookseller, excluding this experience, was really fun and a great college job overall. It's also where I was

introduced to the podcast at the very first shift I ever worked. They were having an MFM night to celebrate your book launch. I'm so thankful for your podcast and the community it created. Stay sexy and support your local bookstore, Roxy. Love that. I mean, yeah. Hey guys, go out into the bookstore and try to play fucking peekaboo with an armed robber. Would you? You're in college. You can handle this. I hide and seek with someone who is armed, please. Go ahead. You're not old enough to drink in a bar, but you should definitely be the security staff. Right. Absolutely. Okay. This is called a superhero funeral, light-hearted. Hello, all. Several years ago, when I was in high school, I would always volunteer to run the music program at my

church's vacation Bible school. Throughout the week, I would teach the students songs that went along with our theme, which happened to be superheroes. On the last day of our week-long program, my students would put on a concert for their parents. About 30 minutes before parents were supposed to arrive, a hearse pulls up and a coffin was brought in. The pastor double-booked the sanctuary for our music performance and a viewing for an old church member who died of natural causes. Oh no. We were like, um, what? And said we would try to be fast and get all the kids on their way as to not interfere with the service. How about the fucking funeral doesn't interfere with the children too? We would just have to take down our very elaborate superhero

decorations. The family of the deceased who helped move in the coffin then pleaded with me to leave the decor up. They said they couldn't think of a more fitting setup for this funeral and that he would be happy to know his church was full and happy. I agreed and then cried in the bathroom because it was all so moving. Love you all, Morgan. That is really beautiful. Yeah. I love that. And basically it speaks volumes of that person who died. Totally. It's like, no, no, they like life. They like how life just serves some shit up to you and you roll with it. Like... Yeah, also like having superhero decorations at your funeral, like a really great signifier of what kind of person you are. It's like grandpa was Superman. Grandpa was whoever. The flash.

I don't know. It was Stan Lee's funeral. Okay. Here's my last one. I won't read you the subject line. It just says, good day. I am a 50 something Southern grandmother. Just think steel magnolias. And I know not your usual demographic for a murder Reno. That's not true. We got them. We got all kinds of OG, OG true crime fans long before a podcast exists. Okay. A little backstory. My husband and I worked for the same mom and pop company. He was a VP and I was in public relations. When my husband got upset and quit, I was informed that I was no longer needed at the company. Add to that, my middle daughter graduated from college and we were three grown-ass adults all living at home looking for jobs recipe for a disaster. Now my husband who spent the bulk of

our marriage working 18 hour days and leaving me to care for the house and kids decided to start quote unquote giving me pointers on how to do stuff better around the house. Fast forward to my first job interview in over 20 years. I'm sitting in a room with two men around their mid 30s. When I get the dreaded question, why should we hire you for the job? My reply was to smile and say, you should hire me. So one day you don't see a news alert that reads woman hits husband over the head with a frying pan after he tells her she's loading the dishwasher wrong and kills him. Y'all, I don't know why that came out of my mouth or how I recovered from that little nugget, but I didn't get two miles down the road before the HR woman called

me laughing asking when I could start. Yes. Yes. So I will leave you with stay sexy and maybe not a good idea to threaten murder in a job interview. Amy. Sounds like it's a great idea. It sounds like it's exactly the refreshing upstart disruptor attitude that they needed. Yeah, man, you gotta hire the 50-somethings because they're the reliable ones that have been coming to going to work day after day, their whole fucking lives, and you can count on them. Yeah. And they'll warn you before they kill someone. Like a 50-year-old woman will be like, hey, look, I'm going to tell you this one time. Yeah. Enough with the dishwasher tips. Oh, I felt that one a little bit, a little bit deep in my soul. I will not say why, but I did. Thanks for writing in and please write in.

If you've never written in, write in. If you have written in, do it again. I'd love to hear from the people who think that they're not the average listener. We'd love to hear from you if you think you're out of the demographic. Oh, yeah. We need to hear your input, please. Definitely. Also, stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Hannah Kyle Creighton. Our producer is Alejandra Keck. This episode was engineered and mixed by Stephen Ray Morris. Our researchers are Marin McLashen 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. 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 wanderi.com slash survey.