My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 304

Episode Date: November 7, 2022

This week’s hometowns include magical pine cones and walking the plank. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is exactly right. 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 mini-soad. We read you your stories and special bonus for the fan cult.

This is being videoed. So if you are in the fan cult or want to join the fan cult, you can watch us read you your letters. Even sometimes when you're listening to these, you're like, what hand gesture is Georgia using right now? I would love to know. Now you can. Great question.

As I gesture wildly, you should see her at one hands up above her head, one's way down by her ankles. Okay. Is this now what? Yeah. There's an aerobic element. Yeah. There's so many visuals to podcasts and now you can know what they are.

It's like a secret language. Yeah. Go to myfavorimurder.com. Do you want to go first? That was a hard sell. I know. It was. I'm going to kick this one off in a very satisfying way because it's a celebrity story, which

I think we asked for at some point. Definitely. It just gets right into it. Quite a while back, you asked for celebrity encounters and here's my best one. My best friend in college was a beautiful odd ball from Connecticut whose family was from Long Island pronounced Long Island by her fabulous mother with 80s hair and hands heavy with diamonds and her intimidating New York Italian father whose impressive income came from various quote unquote investments that no one asked about.

So what you're talking about is the Sopranos. You are in the Sopranos. In the spring of my sophomore year, my friend invited me to a small birthday party in her hometown for her godfather. I didn't ask too many details, just eager to get off campus of our conservative college in nowhere, New Hampshire. I started to get an inkling though as we pulled up to the outrageously long driveway of what looked like an Italian villa plopped in suburbia that this wasn't a run of the mill celebrate

your uncle Mickey's birthday at the local Polish Hall that this middle class Irish Catholic girl was used to. Oh, I love it. It's so true. We were greeted at the door by a beautiful blonde woman placing yellow lays over our heads and a gestured invitation to make ourselves at home. The selection at the bar was so expensive though, I assumed it was for display purposes and didn't take anything until I saw others help themselves.

As I questioned my clothing choices and attempted to look like I belonged, I saw a creature stumble past the door to the backyard. He was very small, wearing a raggedy bandana and powder blue of boots and clicking a lighter over and over attempting to light a joint. My brain glitched for a moment until the words came out. Was that Keith Richards? Oh my God, I would never have guessed. Oh yeah, my godfather is his bodyguard.

This is his house. My friend replied, casual, that's an all caps. My brain played ketchup for a moment and I realized that the beautiful blonde woman at the door was Patty Hansen. Holy shit. Of course, I immediately texted my mother, mom, I'm at Keith Richards house for a birthday barbecue. She writes back, is that someone you go to school with?

No mom from the Rolling Stones. And then my mother at dinner in my small hometown in this next state over stood up in the restaurant and began excitedly telling everyone that would listen. My daughter is at Keith Richards house right now and pointing to her phone. Oh my God. See, she text me. See everybody at Applebee's? I tried the rest of the night to appear unfazed as if I always drank Johnny Walker Blue from

Fancy Doubler's Johnny Walker Blue. The fanciest. And not shots directly from handles of Seagram 7. However, after dinner I found a spot around the campfire to roast a marshmallow and a minute later realized Keith Richards had plopped down right next to me. He began tossing pine cones into the fire that burst into colorful flames upon contact. After watching him for a few minutes, the extremely clever and cool thing my brain mustered up was, are those normal pine cones?

You did it. Are those normal pine cones? And he then turned his head slowly, considered me with a rather withering look and replied, yes, darling, but I'm not doing a British accent correctly at all. Yes, darling. When they touch my hands, they become magical. Anyone wiggled his fingers, a la Jack Sparrow. To that I laughed nervously and elected not to speak again that night or ever in my life.

So anyway, that's how I ended up sitting around a campfire getting chastised by Keith Richards for my limited pyrotechnic knowledge. No pictures, but I still have the yellow lei hanging on my dresser mirror. Stay sexy and make friends with beautiful oddballs, aka from Emma. Love it. Love that story. You went to Keith Richards' house, like what, who does that? And also you hung, like asking the question, are those regular pine cones, although funny

in retrospect, is also just you being in the moment with the most famous rock star, second only to make Jagger and Paul McCartney. And you're also in college, like you're not great at conversation skills yet, especially with adults. So it's okay. Sorry, we've all been to campfires. Have you ever thrown in a pine cone and have it had magical, like colorful sprinklings come out?

I don't know if what they do, when they explode, I would have asked the question too. I would like to know, can you buy magical exploding colorful pine cones? What did they all do that? Also then, if I were aka from Emma, after he said when, after they hit my hands, they're magical, I would have screamed at the top because of the Johnny Walker blue. I would have screamed at the top of my lungs, do it again, do it again. You're a liar, you're a witch, you're a witch. Okay.

This is called the time I was in a boat crash in Alaska. Oh. Hey besties, this very weird story has come up in my life multiple times recently and while listening to some old episodes of boat related incidents, I decided I should send it in. When I was four, the hospital my dad works at asked if he would like to move himself and his family to Fairbanks, Alaska for the summer to cover another employee's maternity leave and he and my mom said, why not? It was an incredible experience and for being quite small, I remember a lot about our time

out there. One memory that stuck in my brain forever is the time our day crews hit in iceberg, Titanic style and we had to be rescued from the open ocean by a fellow cruise ship. My four year old memories are in this order. We feel a bump, my parents make weird faces, captain tells us to put on life jackets. I magically have a life jacket on. My older sibling, born female but identifies as non-binary, starts telling me about the Titanic.

Ah, older siblings. My older sibling, Rachel, is incredibly smart and highly autistic. At the time, they were seven and of course they knew all about the Titanic. They told me all about how it hit an iceberg and proceeded to sink, which led me to believe we were going to die. I was quite shy and reserved and as any good younger sibling does, I simply kept these thoughts and emotions to myself as my sibling continued Titanic-ing. Obviously, we didn't die and I don't remember a lot of what happened in between learning

about the Titanic, my impending death and us being rescued, but another cruise ship sailed on over to come get us. Since cruise ships are big, they can't get them super close together, right? Well, you know, what makes a really good bridge? A plank of wood. They got the ships as close as they could and placed a nice homemade bridge for us to walk across the open ocean onto a boat that hadn't hit an iceberg. The memory of being literally four and looking down into absolutely black, freezing cold

ocean water is pretty terrifying. I wonder if that's why I'm scared of the ocean shrug emoji? The nice boat attendance helped me across because we could only go one person at a time. It's like walking the fucking plank, but you're four. How do you let a four-year-old walk that plank as a parent? Like, how is that like, well, we have to go ahead, honey. How about piggybacks? Yeah.

I honestly just remember the really scary water and lots of hands reaching for me. Needless to say, I don't feel the need to go on another cruise of any kind. Thank you for your podcast. You've been my ears constantly as I go through my weird post-college being 23, life transition. Thanks for helping me through some other big life things such as hip surgery, sinus surgery, and being alive in general. Stay sexy and don't go on cruises, Emma. God.

Yeah. What are the odds of basically reenacting the Titanic in freezing cold Alaskan waters? No. Don't want to know. Don't want to try to find out. Also, why wouldn't they have something better than a plank? Yeah, like a little tugboat. There should be like a little lifeboat.

Yeah. Or like something with sides. Like if you're trying to get people off the sinking thing and keep them out of the water, it almost is like a final challenge as opposed to help of any kind. Yeah. Hopefully the last 20 years they've figured something better out, or they just don't crash anymore. I don't know.

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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. The subject line of this hometown is lies I've told my nieces and it just starts. When I was in my early 20s, my sister was in the process of going through the police academy. She was a single mom to twin girls.

Goddamn. Wow. I mean, Jesus. And asked if I wouldn't mind moving in to help out. As I was looking for any excuse to avoid figuring out what to do with my life, I said yes. I worked at Starbucks during the day, but was the primary caregiver for the girls at all other times. My sister's training was very intensive and went long hours.

So cut to me, the youngest sister whose main kid experience was being a YMCA camp counselor who now has to make sure that two four year olds eat their goddamn peas and don't murder each other. Wow. Mm-hmm. Grocery shopping and bedtime were always daunting tasks that frequently ended with one or three of us curled up on the floor sobbing that we just want to go home. And finally, one overcaffeinated afternoon came the solution, fucking love this.

I told my nieces about the lady in the shadows. She lives in the back part of the grocery store that you see employees come in and out of. She has spiders coming out of her hair and she has snakes for fingers. She was once a little girl named Susie who was banished to the stock rooms because she told her parents no three times when they asked her to complete a chore. There she lurked waiting for kids to run off from their parents so she could snatch them away and torment them.

And then this is all separate period after the word it fucking worked. There was nary a rogue twin in the H.E.B. Anyway the next thing is parentheses. It says the best grocery chain ever from then on out. The library had a similar monster once named Timmy who refused to do his sight words. They also believed that Kesha sneezed glitter until they were 12 years old. That's a great one. They are turning 16 this year and are firmly in the teenage phase but they still bring

up the stories I told when we were in the grocery store. It's such an amazing coping mechanism where you're just like whatever works. They taught me so much about what it means to love, be selfless and just pull shit out of my ass to fix a problem. My sister has since left the police department. She had many years of upstanding service. After one too many times of being demeaned, condescended and harassed, she said fuck it, this is bullshit.

She's the most badass woman I know and could still beat me up even though I'm four inches taller. Thank y'all for everything you do. And there's no name. Awww. Anties. Yay for aunties. Telling lies.

I truly love it so much. This is called are we still talking about Filipino moms? Yes. Friends. Buckle up because I have a lot to share. As soon as I was able to cut my own nails, my mom Angelina warned me excessively not to cut them after dark. I would ask my mom why and she never gave me an answer only saying it's not good, don't

do it. Okay, well being the good little girl I was, always listening to my mother, I did what I was told. Legit, I never cut my nails at night. But one day I googled that shit, why can't I cut my nails at night? And Google told me, quote, Filipino superstition, parents will die or become sick. Oh, no wonder she didn't want me cutting my nails after dark, looking out for her damn self.

But there are definitely times when she's looking out for me. For example, every birthday I must eat noodles. She prefers it if I eat pansit, which is a traditional Filipino noodle dish. The reason I must eat noodles on the exact day I was born, nudes symbolize long life, the longer the noodles, the bigger the wish for long life. So at least she wants me to have a nice long life. Another superstition, one is not allowed to gift shoes to another. So whenever I asked for moon boots or Doc Martens for my birthday slash Christmas, she'd

get them for me, but I had to pay her a penny or something for each shoe. Apparently Filipinos believe the gift of shoes represents the person who receives it will either walk away from you or walk over you and to counteract that the receiver has to pay for the shoes so they weren't a quote gift. She got my partner Crocs for Christmas and I totally forgot about this one so I didn't warn him. He was scrambling to find some coins to give her. It was kind of comical.

Speaking of money, my mom always throws coins out the car window when we pass a funeral procession and now out of habit, I do it too. She told me that it's a Filipino superstition to provide the dead with toll money for the afterlife because of course there's a toll to pay. You might be dead, but capitalism never dies. My mom is super Catholic, yet so superstitious, but if you think about it, it makes sense. One must suspend disbelief to have faith in Catholicism, God, Jesus Christ, the whole kitten kaboodle, and the same is true to believe these superstitions.

I just always found it funny that my strict Catholic mom told me she used to read tarot cards when she was younger, but scolded me for having a Ouija board. In retrospect, she was right to hide my Ouija board from me. Stay sexy and listen to your Filipino mother, Jen. I thought it would be cool if we had other people send in their family superstitions. Sure. Then is your culture family superstitions? We want to hear them.

All right, let's see. This last one, the headline is just gossip, gossip, gossip. And then it starts, bitch, which makes me think my friend Dave wrote this because that's literally when I answered the phone. Bitch. And then it goes, so I just listened to the mini-sode where the babysitter realized she was being contracted to watch the kids while the wife cheats. And I have to say, be careful what you do say around kids.

They are smarter than you think. And boy, do I have tea for you. So one afternoon, I'm picking up my kindergarten from school. And as soon as we get in the car, I start the typical how is your day questions. My five-year-old then proceeded to tell me he played with his friend Tommy and that Tommy told him that Jimmy's mom is his dad's girlfriend. That's when I snapped out of my autopilot mode responses of, oh yeah, that's great. And processed what my child just said.

This might not seem like juicy gossip to you, but the thing is that I know these two individuals are married and not to each other. Oh no. I looked at him through the rear view mirror and asked him to repeat himself. He did then stated that Tommy saw his dad kiss Jimmy's mom and asked him about it. Timmy's dad said she was his friend, but it was a secret. Then Timmy told my son about the secret. I've always told my kids that we do not keep secrets and that would someone tells them

to keep it secret. They must tell dad and me immediately because secrets are bad and we only keep happy surprises. And then in parentheses, it says child abuse prevention. So naturally that's what he did. So now I'm stuck with this piece of information that I do not want and refuse to suffer alone. So I'm sharing it with you all. So I guess the moral of the story is kids are smarter than you think, but stupid enough not to keep your dirty lying, cheating secret disclaimer.

All names were changed in this story. XOXO gossip girl and then it says in parentheses, Kristen Bell's voice. Wow. That's straight up. They are telling us that so they don't repeat it to people who would actually know and care. Yeah. Which I think is really funny. I feel like you got to tell the dad, hey, guess what was said?

Be more fucking careful, dude. No, don't help him cheat. What do you mean? Not help him, but just be like, stop cheating. Your kid is fucking aware of it and you're lucky I'm not a piece of shit and trying to ruin your marriage. I don't know. It's just so gross to tell the kid like keep the secret.

Totally. And now that's an overstep. Yeah. Get out for sure. No mercy. This one is called my father's famous cocoa. Hello. I was listening to a mini about drunk kids and it reminded me of a family favorite.

So here goes. In the late seventies, my household was that of two working parents. We lived in a quiet suburb of Denver and ate home cooked meals together every evening. Some nights my mom would cook and serve and then leave for her night shift as a phlebotomist at a military base laboratory and my dad would clean up and put us to bed. Nights with my mom were calm and snuggly, but those nights with my dad were rowdy wrestling and four building and Lincoln logs. Oh my.

Needless to say, my mother would always say, Neil, you'll never get them to bed if you get them so riled up. And much to her surprise, he always seemed to easily accomplish this task. She would ask him his secret and he would simply say, I wear them out and they fall asleep. Years later at a family dinner, we were reminiscing about mom's famous and favorite dishes from childhood. When I piped up with, remember dad's special cocoa?

My sister and I oozed an odd over the memory of that savory and oh so pepperminty beverage when my dad calmly and without facial expression said, Oh yeah, I spiked it with peppermint schnapps to get you two to calm the fuck down and go to bed. Then turned to my mother and grinned the most shit eating green I've ever seen on that man. Well, my sister and I exploded and laughter at my mom burst forth with some feisty words not fit for this email and shook her tiny fist of fury at him. After we all settled down, my mom socked him on the arm and said, I knew I was a better

parent than you. Ah, memories. Love your stories. Love your banter. Love your unwillingness to accept injustice. Stay sexy and hide the peppermint schnapps from sneaky fathers. A. I mean, it's just cheating, it's just cheating.

Yeah. Wait, did they say what year they grew up? It was the 70s, so I think the dad's off the hook a little because it was the 70s. If it was recently, then we'd be calling Child Protective Services. Yeah, no, for real. That is to me, that is like as 70s as green shag carpeting is that kind of, you know, whether you're sipping your parents highball because the party has gone into a different room or one of my earliest memories of jumping on the bed and drinking grape cough syrup.

It was an unchecked era of insanity. Oh my God. Send us your stories at my favorite murder at Gmail and think you got, that's it, right? Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. Thanks for writing in and listening and all of that. Thanks for writing us such good stories that we, that it seems like two when it's actually

three. Yeah. Quality content. Yeah. 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 Crichton. Our producer is Alejandra Keck. This episode was engineered and mixed by Stephen Ray Morris. Our researchers are Marin McClashen and Gemma Harris. Mail your hometowns and fucking hurrays to myfavoritmurderatgmail.com. Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at my favorite murder and Twitter at myfavoritmurder.

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