My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 303

Episode Date: October 31, 2022

This week’s hometowns include hiking on Halloween and cheating death.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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And welcome. To my favorite murder. Doesn't feel right. The mini-soad. That's right. We're trying to make the hello shorter, but it's not working, so that's what happened just now. I mean, they're now just by repetition.

It feels like it has to have eight O's a little bit. It's not a hello. It's a hello. Hello. It is borderline, Mrs. Doubtfire. It is. It is. Let's face it.

Yeah. All right. Should I go first? Yes. Okay. This is called, My Mom is a Hero, Bummer Warning. Oh. Hello to everyone with or without fur.

I'm currently laid up in bed with nerve pain, and I've wanted to write in this story since back when it was just, quote, hometown murders. Remember? I actually didn't know this full story until I asked my mom at Thanksgiving a few years ago. Thankfully, my word family was glad to talk about it. I grew up in a relatively safe West Coast city in the 90s. One of my favorite memories is playing with the kids across the street, two boys and one

baby girl. My mom was best friends with their mom, we'll call her Jennifer, and even breastfed the middle boy when he was born around the same time as me because Jennifer was having trouble producing milk due to stress. That's close. Well, that's, and that used to be the way they did it. Like if you were rich enough, you never breastfed. You just hired some Irish lady who already had eight kids and had her do it.

That's really, it's kind of creepy though. It's creepy to think about, but it is like, if that's, if you're comfortable with that, that's like so generous of you, you know? It takes a village. It really does. It does. I remember going to their house a few times. It was dark and we were all sort of scared of their dad.

We'll call him Peter. He didn't speak much and the boys would get quiet when he came in the room. Usually the kids came to our house and we played here. One day my mom and Jennifer had plans to go to an AA meeting and my dad was going to watch us kids while they were out. My mom noticed Jennifer was late, which was not like her. She tried calling a few times and was about to walk across the street to get her when she heard a knock at the door.

She opened it to find Peter. He gave my mom the baby while the other two kids ran excitedly into the house to find me. When he said, I killed Jennifer, I already called the cops, they're on their way. Oh my God. Then casually walked back across the street. Oh my God. I'm sure as you guessed, Peter had been abusing his wife. With my mom's help, she was making plans to leave him.

He selfishly cut her life short as the kids watched TV downstairs. Thankfully they heard and saw nothing. During the trial, they slandered her name because she was in AA and found other reasons to blame her. He claimed PTSD from being in the military. My mom was of course called to testify. She came into the courtroom and placed a big blown up photo of Jennifer in front of the jury staring down Peter the entire time she testified about his abuse and her character.

Peter only got 10 years and my mom believes he would have gotten off if it was not for her testimony. When he got out of prison years later, I asked my mom if she was scared and she said, quote, he was a coward then and I'm sure he's a coward now. That's right. This all happened when I was about five. I remember Jennifer, a great mom, an easygoing and soft spoken woman on this on a high note that when I was 10 for my birthday, my parents took me out of school.

And as a surprise, we went and spent the day with the three kids. They were living with their grandparents at the base of a lovely local mountain. They were in homeschool and were able to have plenty of rabbits, cats and a dog that they gladly showed off to me. A big regret is not keeping up with them, but we moved a bit after this. Sorry for such a long email. I just couldn't leave out any details. If you're in an abusive relationship, reach out to friends and family.

Remember, you don't owe your abuse or any explanation and you don't have to tell them you're leaving. Always bring someone with you to get your things. Domestic violence hotline [phone]. I'll repeat it. 800-799-7233. Stay sexy and hug your mom today. She's probably seen some shit anonymous.

People anonymous not only was that a perfect and exact hometown from the OG style, but you are so lucky to have been raised by a woman of that caliber. Absolutely. That is a person who lived and is probably still living her life exactly how you're supposed to. Integrity. Lots of integrity. Integrity and kind of like standing up to these pseudo bullies who are truly cowards.

She's right. Those men are cowards and they are, that's just unbelievable. Yeah, crazy. And so sad. I'm glad those kids had a place to go. They're really, that's nice to hear. Yeah. Well, I'm going to switch it up and tell a sinkhole story.

And this one starts, hello to literally everyone. Perfect. A while back, y'all asked for sinkhole stories and I finally have one. I'm currently a college student at a very well-known party school, ASU. That being said, we literally go out most nights. Literally. That's the second literally I'll keep count. On our Tuesday night, yes Tuesday, like the middle of the week, my friends and I decided

to say fuck our 8 a.m. class the next day and we went to a frat. We pre-gamed a little too hard and my friend, I love this person, and my friend, Will Caller Jane got blackout drunk. All was going swimmingly when at 12 30, apparently the frat's neighbors got annoyed and called the cops. And then in parentheses, it says, like, I'm sorry, it sucks that y'all want to study and we want to party. Well, here's where the sinkhole comes in.

We're cheap and we didn't want to pay for an Uber, so we decided to trek back a mile to our dorms. Some older girls didn't want us walking alone. Goddamn. Here we go. Yeah. Yeah. Just fucking smart ladies repping all throughout this episode.

Some older girls didn't want us walking alone, so they assigned us some quote unquote security in the form of two drunk 5'8 frat guys. Hey, it doesn't, you don't have to be tall to kick ass. Absolutely not. 15 minutes into our walk, Jane needed to pee. So she went behind a bush with our other friend we will call Alex and all was well until the ground crumbled from underneath her and she ended up in a 10 foot sinkhole. What?

Oh, that poor thing. Accepting her fate, she threw her arms up like it was a roller coaster and you said we on the way down. Drunk girls. Oh. Drunk girls. All night long. Now what if five underage college kids do when one ends up in a sinkhole?

Well, of course we don't call for help. We decide to pull her out ourselves. Yeah. Of course. 30 minutes of struggling later, we finally get Jane out of the hole. All is good. We go and get pizza and all is well. After some delicious drunk pizza, we all head back to our dorms and forget all about it.

Until of course a video of her in the sinkhole ends up all over social media. No. Who did that? I am living vicariously through this email. I miss being 19 so hard. Jane who was blackout had no idea it was her in the video and sent to all of us laughing at the drunk girl who fell into the sinkhole. No, she didn't.

Sorry, I didn't read this far down, I was just like, I got basically to them falling into sinkholes like we're golden. Yeah. Oh my God, she sent the video herself like check out this girl. Look how it's drunk. And it's her. Oh my God. After we all hysterically explained to her that the drunk girl in the video was in fact

her, Jane exclaims in all caps, is this why I have cuts all over my legs? Indeed it is. Well, I guess that's the end of my college sinkhole story. Stay sexy and maybe don't get blackout on a Tuesday or you'll end up in a sinkhole R. I want to know if she was still paying when it happened. That would be the worst. Right.

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Hey, I'm Mike Corey, the host of Wondery's podcast against the odds. In our next season, three masked men hijack a school bus full of children in the sleepy farm town of Chowchilla, California. They bury the children and their bus driver deep underground, planning to hold them for ransom. No police and the FBI marshal a search effort, but the trail quickly runs dry. As the air supply for the trapped children dwindles, a pair of unlikely heroes emerges. Follow against the odds wherever you get your podcasts.

You can listen ad free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. All right, this one's called What's a Samurai Sword Doing in Wisconsin. It's a good title. Hello, Karen, Georgia, family, pet members, and listeners. This is an OG style type of hometown. I live in Los Angeles now, but originally I'm from a very small town in Wisconsin called New London, population 7,121. Everyone knows everything about everyone.

Side note, we also have one of the largest St. Patrick's Day parades in the country and even renamed the town New Dublin for like a week. Growing up, I've always hated living in a small town because literally nothing exciting or new ever happened. So imagine my surprise when one day my dad and I were waiting for my mom in the car in the grocery store parking lot when he turned to me and pointed at the house behind us and said, see that house? I used to babysit in that house and as a kid, and oh, and someone was murdered there.

Remember Shorty? He killed a guy there. Oh, I realize that both my first stories are about murder. Now let me go back a bit. Shorty was a friend of my dad's I had met several times as a kid. And he would hang out with my dad and their group of friends. He was nicknamed that because obviously he was a short guy. He was always relatively nice to me and didn't seem super creepy or weird in any way.

But then again, I probably only saw him between the ages of four and six. So what did I know about judging someone's character back then? True. There. I also remember him missing a ring finger, but I'm not sure if that was just my child imagination or if he actually was missing a finger. Anyways, I don't know all the details because I heard this story years ago, but supposedly the way my dad told it, one of the residents that moved into the house was an acquaintance

of Shorty's. There had been an altercation over a girl Shorty had been seeing in this guy and money might have been involved too. But long story short, no pun intended, Shorty had brought a samurai sword to the house with him, I guess because he already planned on confronting this guy and stabbed him multiple times with a sword and fled the house. Oh no, police traced the crime back to him because duh, that's a very specific and uncommon murder weapon and he was sent to prison.

I can only assume he got the samurai sword from one of the weapon shops in the mall in Appleton, Wisconsin. Anyone remember those? Just a shot for legit movie style replica swords and knives in malls. I feel like I've seen those. Why was that a thing? From then on, I referred to that house as the murder house and would continue to tell my friends the story that my dad knew someone who murdered a guy in that house.

Weird flex, younger me, but okay. Stay sexy and maybe don't fight over a girl samurai style. Kennedy, gay, non-binary, and murdery now. Kennedy, that's quite a story because right, it's a traditional hometown yet again. But that is, you don't bring a samurai sword to something where you're like, I just need to talk this through. No. Like clearly that guy was going to do something bad.

Yeah, premeditation, they could call it. Yeah. They're hard to carry around and stuff. Yeah. I mean, what's anyone doing? Yeah. Anymore. Truly.

Okay. The subject line of this email is Haunted Hills of Mission Peak. Happy Fall, my dudes. On Halloween 2015, me and the broskies were looking for something to do. We were too old to trick or treat, but too young to stay in, turn lights off, and ignore the kids knocking on the door while pretending to not be there. Finally, one of us came up with this great idea to go for a hike up Mission Peak at midnight, the high point of the Mission Hills in Fremont, California.

And then in parentheses it says Karen probably knows. I know where Fremont is, but I don't know about this hike. The hike up, although incredibly tough, was relatively uneventful. As we neared the top of the hill, about 2,500 foot in elevation, we realized that we were walking straight into the clouds. They were so thick that we couldn't see more than two feet in front of us, and could only see the person standing directly next to each other. We got to the top, chilled for a minute, and then decided to head back down.

As we're heading back down, a couple of my friends start freaking out because now we know there are mountain lions and rattlesnakes on Mission Peak. I felt I had no choice but to grab a couple rocks off the ground when they weren't looking, and once in a while throw them 15 to 20 feet away, just close enough to where they could hear it and think it was a mountain lion and not be able to see because of the clouds. Instantly my 110-pound friend pulled out his tiny pocket knife and assured us that he would handle any threat around the corner, which is, hey, that's cool. No matter how much they weigh.

I thought it was all fun and games. Until about halfway down the mountain, we walked directly into a large bowl. And then in parentheses it says, not sure what kind, ask Karen who once claimed to be a cow expert. Hey, shut the fuck up. On the trail. So they run into a large bowl on the trail and it began to start kicking. Oh, no, that can't be good.

No, we took off running. Minutes later we heard a meowing roar that we could only imagine was a mountain lion. Looking back, it may have been a bobcat. Nothing happened, but the creepiest part of the whole night was when we got about one mile from the end of the trail where the clouds had not fallen yet. There was a man sitting on top of a picnic table, his dog standing next to him, as he played the banjo in a creepy uptempo tune and stared directly at us without missing a beat at 3 a.m. on Halloween night.

No, no, no, no, no. And then it just says, what the fuck? You've never seen six teenage boys disappear as fast as we did. We got to the bottom and took a pack to never go up Mission Peak at midnight ever again. Anyway, enjoy the chill vibes that fall brings. Karen's got a crush. I love this person so much. Enjoy the chill vibes that fall brings and make sure to keep warm like Steven's upper

lip. Stay sexy and run from banjo playing maniacs. Ricky P. Ricky. We always talked about how there's no cool Ricky's anymore. Ricky used to be the cool name. I think Ricky P. is bringing it back. Ricky P.

Yes. So all the other things that are like nature fears and nature scares, which are like normal where you, yeah, you don't want to be anywhere near a bowl. They're just crazed. But a dude staring at you while he plays the banjo is like an uptempo. Not even like, no, no, no, no, no, like not slow uptempo banjo. Nothing scarier. So scary.

Okay. This one's called how I cheated death featuring a Ouija board and sleep paralysis demon. It's quite hard. It's somehow. Hi gang. Here's a random story that you would never ask for, but it gets me where it looks at parties. So I figured it belongs here.

When I was in college, my friends and I thought Ouija boards were a fun way to spend a Friday night. Please know we've changed. We usually only asked vague questions and kept it light and not demon-y, but one night we somehow ended up learning that I was supposed to die on February 7th, 2019, which was about three years away at the time. I'm thrilled to report I did not die on this day, but for a while I actually believed I would.

I would never want that information, you know, and everyone's always like, if you could find out when you were going to die, fuck no, no, no. And I don't want to fake Ouija board one either because even though I'm not superstitious and don't believe it, I would be freaking out. That whole time you would be waiting to see if it was real. So if it's three years or eight years, you're just sitting there going, like not, I mean, the only benefit would be if you suddenly were like, well, then I am going to audition for that Broadway play, but I don't think it works that way.

Well, I played it cool at first and, you know, spent less Friday nights with Ouija boards. Then about a month before the supposed dreaded date, I experienced the most terrifying sleep paralysis of my life. I woke up in the middle of the night to see the little girl from the ring standing in the corner of my room, long black hair covering her face. She creeps over to me while I'm literally frozen in fear. She gets on top of me and I feel like I'm being crushed. Like I actually feel it.

People who have experienced sleep paralysis before get it. And then, all caps, she sticks her finger into my belly button. I agree. What the fuck? But it's honestly the scariest thing that's ever happened to me in the moment. And I woke up convinced it was an omen for my upcoming death day. So I took off work. I prayed out loud to God to forgive me for bailing on Christianity.

I told my friends the news. Some of them sent me eulogies. I avoided eye contact with my Catholic grandmother. And when the day eventually arrived, me and my roommates stayed inside and watched Comfort TV all day and snacked on only the safest snacks. And when midnight rolled around, we counted down the seconds like it was New Year's Eve. And I cheated death. And it's now a holiday.

I celebrate annually by playing it safe and avoiding any final destination movies. So far, so good. Today sexy and cheat death, Devin, she, her. Yeah. Hell yeah, Devin. You did it. You did it. I love that thing, an anniversary.

That's so fun. That's right. She survived. I think I've told you this, but I had a dream one time when I was in high school that I was standing under the Golden Gate Bridge. I've had a lot of Golden Gate Bridge based dreams. And it was, I was standing on the Marin side and looking into the water and then a seal came up and in a British accent, she goes, you're going to die when you're 32.

What an asshole. And then so from then on, I just believe that was true. Like I was just like, oh, clearly if it's a British seal, it's going to happen. Sure. You're going to die when you're 32. Oh my God. You're going to die. Really?

Almost like it was good news. Like don't worry. It's not going to be hard for very much longer. And just like. Maybe the way you were going, you were going to die when you were 32 and you like, you changed, tweaked a couple of things. You know what's funny is like, yeah, I almost died when I was 27. So scary.

Don't play with Ouija boards. No. Okay. Here's my last one. It's fasty. Okay. So the subject line of this email is fear of dolls, the origin story. Hello, Karen, Georgia and Steven, three exclamation points.

I recently listened to Minnesota 140 and you guys asked for Halloween stories slash something about trick or treating and I finally have something to write about. I'm either two years late or a month early. I'm going to go with early. When I was four or five years old, my childhood best friend and I were trick or treating around my neighborhood while our parents drunkenly followed behind. Walking up to one of the houses, we were suddenly being yelled at by a man on the roof dressed as Chucky, the doll, who then all caps jumped off the roof and started chasing us.

No, a grown man. You're not supposed to do that. To a five year old? No. Nightmare. No. My best friend, baby spider-man and my princess self ran screaming and crying down the street while our parents were dying of laughter.

And then a parenthesis, yay, the nineties. I'm not sure that would fly these days. No, you know it fucking, what you'd all be arrested. It took me years to walk past that house again. And 20 something years later, I still won't watch those movies. Stay sexy and maybe don't traumatize children that are just trying to get some free candy. Then it's signed Bryce, she, her. Oh my God.

Just a classic Halloween story of trauma, yeah? Classic Halloween chasing children story. Yeah. Hey, right as you're at spooky Halloween stories, no matter what time of year you're listening to this. We always love a good spooky story. Definitely. Yeah.

And after you do that, please do us a favor and I'll do it in the voice of the British seal. Okay. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Goodbye. That wasn't British.

It didn't sound British. Elvis, do you want a cookie? Ah. This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton. Our producer is Alejandra Keck. This episode was engineered and mixed by Stephen Ray Morris. Our researchers are Marin McLashen and Gemma Harris.

Email your hometowns and fucking hurrays to myfavoritmurder at gmail.com. Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at myfavoritmurder and Twitter at myfavemurder. Goodbye. Goodbye. Listen, follow, leave us a review on Amazon Music, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Prime members, did you know that you can listen to my favorite murder early and ad free on Amazon Music?

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