My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 308

Episode Date: December 5, 2022

This week’s hometowns include a diabolical big sister and shopping while on sleeping pills.  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. Hello. And welcome. It's my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hartstark. Oh, that's Karen Kilgariff. This is a mini sow. No, we don't do that on this one. No, this is a mini sow. Why? Because we're a profession. We've only been doing it for six years. Like line, line. Okay. It's simple. The mini sowed, the mini sowed edition. Where are we reading your shit? You go first this time. Okay. This one's called Almost Murdered, probably by our Airbnb host.

And it just starts, my mom, sister and I are all big fans. My sister lives in Denver and my mom and I planned our visit around your live show so we could all see you guys together. This was back in 2019. At the time, my sister had three roommates, so my mom and I got an Airbnb a couple streets away. It should be noticed that we rented the whole house, not a private room or anything. This is also my mom's first experience with Airbnb, am I urging? And it's safe to say that she hasn't used it since. The homeowner, Gary, told us to call him when we were close to give us a tour. We text him 10 minutes out, but no response from Gary. We arrive at the house and contact him again. Still no response from Gary. We were waiting around there for about five to 10 minutes before my mom

decides to go around back to see if she can find him. She comes back and says the backyard is filled with crap lying around the yard, including an axe. And there's a little guest house, presumably the one Gary would be staying in. Gary finally comes out front to give us a tour. He says that this is the last time we're going to see or hear from him, so ask any questions during the tour. He takes us inside. It's a nice house overall. It's very old with heavy duty doorknobs that you can hear click when you turn and antiquated decorations. There's, you're shaking your head. This is a bad setup. Yeah. There's one bedroom and right off the kitchen are locked double doors that Gary says are closed to guests. He says a couple more times that we won't see or hear from him again

and ask if we need anything. We say we don't and he leaves. Later that night, my sister had left and my mom and I are alone in the house. My mom decides to snoop and she opens those locked doors in the kitchen. Why would you do that? Don't touch it. She's snooping. She wants to know. I don't ever want to know. I know. Would you? It depends. It depends on what brought my suspicion or what. Is it just purely because they're locked doors now? Because we stayed in Airbnb in Nashville, right? It's that kind of thing where I assume there's an owner's closet. Oftentimes if you rent a place for like vacation where you're not allowed to do that because it's like the owner's booze or they're good stuff that they don't want people touching. Yeah. I

would just assume it's that. But if she was getting like a different vibe, moms are nosy. Yeah. On the other side is a huge room filled with junk and on the far side of the room is another set of double doors that lead outside. Around 11 p.m. we go to bed. There's only one bedroom and we're sharing a queen-size bed. My mom is basically asleep and I'm watching, this is a weird detail, and I'm watching Nate Bergazzi's Netflix special while I doze. He's a great comic. He's very funny. If you're bored and you're looking for a stand-up comedy special, Nate Bergazzi is one of the best modern comedians that should have tons of heat and doesn't have it. Yes. Very funny. He's hilarious. All of a sudden I hear the loud click of an old doorknob turning. I whisper, mom, did you hear

that? She sleepily grumbles that she didn't hear anything and then goes immediately back to sleep as only moms can. I keep listening for a while and then hear nothing else. So I turn Nate back on. About 10 minutes later, I again hear the slow turning of a doorknob. I say, mom, and she, wide awake, whispers, I heard at that time. I've told this story many, many times and her response gives me chills every time. We get out of bed and sneaked into the living room to listen. As we're sitting there, we can hear someone wrestling around in the room behind the double doors. My mom calls Gary and we hear his phone ring on loud right behind the doors. Oh, fuck. They caught Gary. They caught Gary red-handed.

He ignores the call and we hear him move away from the doors. A couple seconds later, he calls my mom back. We can still hear his voice, but he has clearly moved outside the room. He asks, what's wrong? And my mom says, someone is in the room. And he says, yeah, that's me. Honestly, not really sure what the rest of the conversation was, but I know nothing was resolved. Regardless, we are creep the fuck out and we call my sister to come pick us up. While we're waiting, we sleepily and silently repack our bags so we can sneak out as soon as she gets there. It was around midnight when she showed up and we snuck out in the night. We stayed at a hotel for the rest of the trip. I'm not sure whether Gary had malicious intentions

or not, but it was scary as fuck and I'm glad we got out of there. My mom really fucked beliteness the next day when she complained more like screams to both Gary and Airbnb until we got a full refund. Good. Anyway, sorry, this is so long. I swear I tell it better in person, but this will have to do. By the way, my mom's name is Barbara Sue. Stay sexy, Gail. Oh, Gail and Barbara Sue having an adventure. Okay. Yeah. Can I just say this though? Gail, I don't want to yell at you. But the idea that you would say you don't know if Gary had malicious intentions, I do. Yeah. Why would he need to be in that room while women are sleeping on the other side of the door? Two women alone in the house. He rented to them where the agreement is he's not in the fucking

house or that would be you would know that. Yeah. He snuck into that house and was sneaking around. That's malicious in and of itself. That is scary. It's aggressive. It's creepy. There's no other reason because if he had to go fucking find something in the junk room, he should have called and said, Hey, I don't want to freak you guys out. I need to go find something. That's what normal people do. Or wait until morning. Something like that. Yes. Like, what are you talking about? You were free to communicate when you're giving him a fucking tour and suddenly you're getting all sneaky. And I think this is what happens to people though when stuff like this happens. It's so creepy that you're just like, I don't know. It could have been and it's like, no, no, no, no.

Yeah. Yeah. No, normal people don't do shit like that. That's a very good point. Also, I stumbled upon, as you know, I'm obsessed with TikTok now and I stumbled upon a thing of people looking for cameras and finding them in Airbnb's because you can buy things that like tell you when a camera is inside. Like there was one, this guy showed it. It looked like he had a pen. And when he held it up to this, what looked just like a normal plug plugged into the wall, connected to something, there was a fucking video camera inside the plug. Oh my God. I'm so creeped out by that. I want one. That's Airbnb to me. Yeah. And hotels though. You never know when a hotel has one in there too.

People can just sneak in there and put fucking video cameras in hotels. That's true. Although they would have to be nearby. I think it's way less, way less likely for a hotel than your Gary based Airbnb. Is there some that are wonderful, but you're rolling the dice? Yeah. Oh, cool. Just stay home. That's my solution. Stay home. Okay. Here's mine. It just says the veil is thin. That's the subject line. And it just starts so. On a recent mini-sode, you guys talked about kids who hint at their reincarnation, and I thought this is it. I finally have something interesting to send to Georgia and Karen. The year was 2008. We were on a road trip through Zion National Park with our then

three year old. For anyone who hasn't been to Zion, when you enter the park through the Mount Carmel Tunnel, you emerge from a dark tube with the whole majesty of Zion's valley beneath you. It period is period breathtaking. We were so excited to have this experience with our little toddler because let's be honest, everything is cooler when you see it through the eyes of a kid. What we didn't expect when we came out of the tunnel was for him to say, totally deadpan. That was just like being born. So we're not the kind of parents to like keep bodily things a secret. We call vaginas, vaginas, and penises, penises. But the concept of birth has never come up before. So we were a bit side-eye. I decided to press him a bit more

about his statement, which is when he unleashed all the details of his past life. Oh, okay. Stop right now. Let me just get my chills out of the way. Okay. He told us that he remembered being born and it wasn't his first time. He remembered his previous mommy and he missed her sometimes. But he quickly added that he was so happy that I was chosen to be his mommy quote unquote this time. Oh my God. Y'all, I think reincarnation is fascinating, but it's not like a common conversation around our house. And unless we miss the reincarnation episode of Peppa Pig, we have no idea where he could have come up with this. That mystical little three-year-old is now a beefy gym rat of a 16-year-old and he doesn't remember anything about this

conversation, let alone his past lives. I just hope he thinks as fondly of me on his next round as he did his mom before me. Oh my God. Stay sexy and believe your kids when they tell you outlandish shit cameo. And then in parentheses, it says like the jewelry. Oh my God. I love stories like that. That is amazing. I gotta ask my nephew if he remembers being born. So good. Yeah. I love that idea that like there's things we know that then we lose just from like because we're around older other people. Totally. Oh, that's creepy. I love it. Yeah. Looking for a better cooking routine? With meal planning, shopping and prepping handled, Hello Fresh has you covered. Hello Fresh makes home cooking easy and affordable so you can

stay on track and on budget in the new year. Hello Fresh 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 Hello Fresh's expanded menu of quick lunch solutions, weekend brunch, simple side dishes and amazing desserts. Karen, January is going to be my month for Hello Fresh. 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 Hello Fresh 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 Candace 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. Okay, this one's called, Finally, My Time to Shine, Big Sister Prank. And it just starts, third time's the charm. I am the baby of my family, even now at 30 years old. Why does it never go away? Which of course means that as a child on vacations with limited bunking, I was relegated to sleeping on random cushions on the floor. I remember that. Remember you take this part of

the couch off and you'd have to sleep on it? Motherfucker. And then you'd get too big so that two together, you needed them, but they would, it didn't work because they wouldn't stay together. Yep. And that's why we have bad backs. Mom. I was reaching, mom, I was reaching my breaking point at around age six on a week long trip to Ocean City with all our aunts and uncles and cousins. I was losing at cards every single night because I was six. I never got dibs on the remote and I was sleeping on the floor. I decided to turn in early from the beach one afternoon and decompress, but as I retired to my corner, I noticed something sitting directly on my pillow. It was a turd. Naturally, I had a meltdown. The indignity of the situation was too much. My cousins came running

to see what was wrong to find me shrieking and pointing at the perfectly poised piece of shit on my pillow. I'm sorry, this is not normal at all for us, but I just had to read it. My sister, nine years older than me, coolly brushed past me, leaned down to inspect it, and then popped it in her mouth and ate it. I honestly don't remember anything after that, so I think it's safe to say I effectively blacked out the moment. My sister, a diabolical genius since the ripe old age of probably three, had spent the morning making chocolate cookie dough, carefully crafting it to take on the shape of a tiny turd and left it on my pillow. Her patience is the most impressive part. She never made any attempt to get me to go into the room.

She never let on anything was amiss. She just continued living her life until she heard my scream in the distance. My sister and her relentless jokes on me, almost all of which were long plays, like when she convinced me in the fifth grade that the worst curse word, the E word, was epidermis, and then I spread that around my class very hush-hush, and then we all were quietly using epidermis, the way other kids quietly start first using fuck. Have made me the person I am today, hard to offend, quick to catch on, and thankfully now generally in on the joke. Love you, Case. Also, love you, Karen and Georgia, always giving me big sister vibes, even though I know technically you're not. Stay sexy and sleep with when I open, Erin.

Oh, Erin. I had to read a gross story. I'm sorry. No, no, I think it's funny. That's basically a celebration of her sister because it really is true, the idea that she was a kid pulling a prank, but she didn't mess around prank up by being excited and trying to like rush her in. Erin, go in the room. Erin, why don't you go see what's on your pillow? Nope. Patience. Diabolical is the word. And also, it is good practice. Get that out of your system while you're a kid and it's your sister doing it to you so that it's not such a, that's why I feel bad for like kids who are the oldest that start going to school and they don't get what's happening because they haven't been pre-bullied by their own family. Right. They're not suspicious about

everyone's intentions because they weren't pre-bullied. They weren't pre-bullied, and they're like, I like horses and they think people are going to give a shit. And you're just like, no, no, this is school friends. That's now your Achilles heel. It'll be used against you forever. Okay. Let's see. Okay. This is really good. I really like this one, but I won't read you the subject line because it gives it away and it just starts. My mom has been on Ambien ever since I can remember. Cool. Just no, that's like if you were to party and someone just walked up and started saying that. Hey. It was a bad habit of hers to take her Ambien way too early in the evening and then continue to hang out with the family until she fell asleep in the middle of whatever task she

was doing. Like I've been there. This was fun for us kids because we never knew when she took it, so we never knew when loopy Angie would show up. One night when I was really young, everyone was in bed for the night and my mom was passed out in her sweet, sweet Ambien level deep sleep. Oh God, I miss those days so much. Nothing seemed to rise until the next morning when my dad walked out into the kitchen and saw a stack of about eight brand new rated R movies on the counter. I grew up Mormon, so having rated R movies in the house was a worse sin than drinking coffee. My dad was so confused and he didn't know what to do. He certainly didn't want to touch them and get the devil all over his hands. My mom walks out to find my dad staring at the DVDs

and immediately freaks out asking why the hell he bought all of these horrible movies and demanding to know what he was planning on doing with them. After a few more minutes of yelling, my mom decides to go for a drive only to find a receipt from our local drug store with the current date time stamped around two AM. Oh no. The card number matched my mom's credit card, but she had no recollection of going to the store and purchasing movies that she would certainly never watch. After a very intense conversation with my dad, they decided her keys needed to be hidden or locked up at night. Yes, my mom's sleep drove to the store, bought a bunch of R ratings. Oh my God. And drove home somehow making it back unscathed. Looking back, she's really

lucky she didn't get a DUI or end up hurting anyone. Yeah, it's so true. I wish I could see how she interacted with the person working at the overnight shift and I wonder what they were thinking about this middle-aged woman buying some raunchy DVDs in the middle of the night on a weeknight. Oh, I want to know what movie is so bad. Oh my God. Like rated are probably 90s, wouldn't you think? Yeah, yeah. It's like basic instinct. Yes, yes, exactly, exactly. National Lampoon or whatever. A Mormon woman that's like, hey, it's, I got American Pie. Two in the morning. That's that. Yep. I got the girl next door. It turns out she's a porn star. Thanks for the podcast and all of the incredible book recommendations you've given me over the

years. I love you too. And Steven and Vince, thank you for all you do. I can't wait to see you on tour soon. Please come to Utah. We have lots of weird shit that happens here and all of the ex-Mormon millennials like me would love to come and hang out with you for a night. Love, call. Aw, yeah, we had a great time in Utah when we were there. It was awesome. This is called Service Dog and Training Save My Life. Heartwarming is my last one. Hi, Karen, Georgia, Pets and Steven. In episode 300, you read a story about Captain, the hero puppy. So we're submitting stories about the goodest girls and boys now, right? Right. Right. I volunteer as a puppy raiser for an organization that trains and provides veterans and first

responders with service dogs. Oh my God, can you come over and train cookie, please? Working with inmates at local prisons, we co-train and raise lab puppies from nine weeks to 15 months old so they can help people who've experienced trauma or need physical assistance based on their time in the military or as an EMT to carry out their everyday lives. It's super rewarding and it makes a huge difference in the lives of everyone involved, including the inmates. This past March, it was 4 a.m. and I was asleep with my two dogs, plus my Service Dog and Training. Her name is Amalfi in my third floor bedroom. All of the sudden, Amalfi starts nudging me aggressively to wake me up, groggily stumbling downstairs to the

kitchen to let Amalfi out to do her business. I hear my carbon monoxide detector going off. The other two detectors in my house had failed and Amalfi had heard the alarm in the kitchen that I couldn't and awoke in me. I called 911 and they told me to evacuate the house immediately until the fire department arrived to check. It turns out that if Amalfi hadn't woken me up, the amount of carbon monoxide filling up in the house from a failed fan on my furnace would have killed me and the dogs in about half an hour once it reached the third floor. The fire department lectured me on the battery-operated carbon monoxide detectors and then it says as a granddaughter of a deputy fire chief, the shame, and told Amalfi what a good girl she was before leaving.

Amalfi has moved on to become a hearing assistance dog and just completed her full training to help someone in need. But in my opinion, she's been doing the job since she saved my life and the life of my two dogs that night. I wouldn't be here writing this email if it weren't for her and it's renewed my dedication to help raise these wonderful dogs to help others. Stay sexy and please check your carbon monoxide and smoke detector batteries every six months. Meg, she, her. I mean that was like a beautiful story. It was a plug for assist for what are they called? Assistance dogs. Is that what they're called? Service dogs. We knew that. And we did. I don't know.

My brain. Check your carbon monoxide detector, Karen. I took a ton of Ambien before this record. Okay, here's my last one. I just really like this and it just starts high. My husband, Mike's life is a stream of awkward misunderstandings, which has led to my favorite saying, classic Mike, which he also hates, but it's apt. I present you with one. When we first met about 15 years ago, he was working for a tobacco shop that through fancy events at the Union League club in downtown Chicago, a members only fancy club for rich people. During these events, the guys who worked at the tobacco shop would walk around and talk to cigar aficionados about cigars and generally help out where needed.

My husband was standing near the bar and an older woman walked up and ordered a martini from the bartender. When it was handed to her, she looked at my husband and said, wow, that martini is huge. Can you help me with it? Seeing that the glass was filled to the actual brim without skipping a beat, my husband picks up the glass and takes a huge gulp to which she immediately replies, I meant help me carry it to my seat. Yes, classic Mike. Our life is filled with these later hilarious and in the moment, typically infuriating gaffes, including when he once tried to flush a multi-layered cake down the toilet with a plunger. The way that she signs it is, I think of Karen's ghost story often, Jill M. from Chicago. Well, that was the most random

email we've ever gotten. Congratulations. Classic Mike. The idea that he's like working this thing with these fancy ass people and she's like, can you help me with my drink and he thinks she needs to like. I get it. I'm into it. Hell yeah. I'm into that. That sounds like, yeah, that's something that you would say at a club, not in a fucking exclusive event. Yeah. Say hi to Mike for us, Jill, please. Yeah, Jill M. Please, please. And send us your classic stories, please, at my favorite murder at Gmail. And stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Yeah. 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. Bye. Listen, follow, leave us a review on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, 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 wanderie.com slash survey.