My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 313

Episode Date: January 9, 2023

This week’s hometowns include an embarrassing nickname and kicking down a door in an emergency.  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 Mini Soads. We read you your stories, that's about it, that's how it goes. We also video them and show the fan called only. That's right, so if you want to see what our hair looks like right now, yours looks great by the way. Oh, thank you. Then check that out. I was trying to do some air dry scrunching work because I need a haircut so bad that if it was any other way, it would show. Can I show you one of the

many fallouts of dyeing my hair pink, bleaching it and then dyeing it pink, is this part right here broke off. And so now I have these little, because it's so dead that my like, what do you call that part? My baby hair is broke off. And so now I have these alfalfa like sprouts coming out of my fucking head. Guys, be careful when you dye your hair. We must be careful. We must take the wages of sin of dyeing your hair when it's like, well, remember the time that I think we were about to walk on stage for a live show and you go, what is this? And it was on the road, I'd gotten gray hair. So I just took my like eyebrow shaver and just went jid, jid and just shaved off on my part, remember? Yeah. But then they started growing back. So the same exact thing

where they, but I did it to myself. They're, they're growing straight. Oh, I did it. I did this to myself too. Yeah, taking a shaver to your head is probably not the solution. But you know what? Short-term solutions. We can argue short-term versus long-term solutions on the other podcast. We can and we must. All right. You want to go first? Do you want me to go first? Sure. I can kick it off. This one's, this one is, well, I'll tell you. I'm not going to read the subject line because it kind of like just gives it all away, but I will, the first line, it just starts like this. Yes, this is a hometown jackpot. Hey fam, you're the first podcast I ever listened to and one of the two podcasts I continued to enjoy. Wow. Thanks for being awesome.

Let's get into this shit. We have a family cabin in Lincoln, Montana that my grandpa, a true visionary in providing opportunities for his family to hang out in nature and setting up a multi-generational appreciation for environmental conservatism bought back in the day. He had nine kids and spent nearly every weekend up there year round hiking, horse riding, dirt biking, fishing, hunting, you name it. My 40 plus cousins and I get to enjoy it to this day when we can find the time and it's the best way to remember my grandpa. And then in parentheses it says, fuck COVID and everyone that downplayed it. Hey. Enough backstory. Guess who also had a cabin up there? Yes, as we all know, the unit bomber. Right. Everyone knew him as some kooky old dude that

didn't like people or motors or noise or society in general, but there weren't any glaring indicators of homicidal bomber tendencies. He was the type of person that you smiled and waved out from a distance to stay cordial, but got the fuck out of there as quickly as possible right after. It gives you a sense of where you are in socializing with the unit bomber. Sure. Before the FBI figured him out, that dude was struggling to keep it cool in his little Montana hideaway. One winter weekend, my grandpa came to the cabin to find the front door chopped open and windows broken. Inside there were ax marks all over the walls, beds trashed, things strewn about. All the snowmobiles were sugared, meaning someone literally dumped a bunch of sugar in

the gas tanks, which ruins the motors. Wow. As the cherry on top, this dude walked past a perfectly functioning toilet to take a dump in the tub. Oh, wow. Uh-huh. And then it says, if you didn't think he was crazy before, there's your proof. After he got busted and his memoir came out, we learned that my grandpa and uncles had unknowingly narrowly escaped death by unit bomber on a few occasions. He wrote about stringing metal wire across popular motorcycle trails to clothesline riders, aka decapitate at motorcycle speed, and having young guys on bikes in the crosshairs of his rifle. Shit. I was a baby at the time, but spent plenty of time on dirt bikes with my dad too. His janky booby trapped cabin was within sight of ours. So this all lines up.

Holy shit. Right? I mean, that idea, he's just stringing wire from tree to tree just to, like, be a complete monster. It's so evil. It's horrifying. People move to backwoods-ass towns for many reasons, but oftentimes it's to get off the map. I took all of this as a lesson to not be an asshole to people, but also in your words, fuck the lightness, lock your fucking door, and if you see something, fucking say something. I don't think that one's ours. I think that's the public transportation. That's the airport. Thanks for putting out awesome content, giving me a reason to type an email I actually care about, and the opportunity to talk about my grandpa. Hang loose, Ben. Wow, Ben. Ben nailed it. Yep. That is a close contact with a serial killer. Like, crazy.

He's got his rifle on people just around his neighborhood. I mean, good lord. Wow. All right, good one. Yeah, right? This one's called That Time I Defended and was followed by the legit Irish mob. A little long, but worth it. Hello, Georgia. Karen, Pets, fellow murderinos, and Steven. Steven. I wanted to tell you about one of my favorite experiences, aiding in the defense of an alleged hitman for the Irish mob. When I was in law school, I studied abroad in Dublin, Ireland. Part of the program included an internship with an Irish barrister. I was going to say barista, and I absolutely didn't. I'm proud of myself. You did right after that. I did. The first day I met my barrister, he was nice, but I could

tell he was sizing me up. I was a young, green, very innocent looking, and then it says actually far from it, girl from middle America. He explained to me that he would not have a lot of time to mentor me because he was in the middle of a murder trial involving the Irish mob. Our client, we'll call him John, was accused along with fellow co-defendants of orchestrating a hit on someone that had wronged the mob with John being the actual freaking trigger man. As a lifelong murderino, I dived in. I poured over videos, police reports, anything I can get my hands on and sat through every day of trial as every day of trial I was there one month. About halfway into my internship, my barrister approached me when I got out of the courthouse one regular

seeming day. John wants to meet you, he said. Excuse me, I asked more than a little shocked. My barrister shrugged. He said he wants to meet the American. We began to walk towards the holding area and approached the guarded locked door of the room where John sat. I was screaming internally from both excitement and fear and just reminded myself, the mob won't hurt me if I'm helping them. Whatever works, right? Anyway, I sit down with John who was the nicest guy. He thanked me for my work on the case, asked me about law school, my life in the States, and how I was enjoying Dublin. You know, normal hitman conversations. As our conversation wrapped up, I stood up to leave and he stopped me. John looked me dead in the eye and said, the pub you were at last night,

he referenced the actual pub by name, isn't really safe that late at night. You may want to get back to your dorm room a little earlier, but don't worry too much. You have our protection while you're here. If you need anything at all, let me know. Did he know where she was and she hadn't told him? Uh-huh. I stared. Thank you, I stammered. He smiled. Keep in mind, this guy had been in jail for at least a year. My barrister asked me if I was okay since I was just told I was being followed by the Irish mob. I whipped around to him. Are you kidding me? That was fucking awesome. Ironically, I felt incredibly safe the rest of my trip. I had to leave before the trial was over, but my barrister informed me it ended in a hung jury and John was not retried. John died a few

years later when his car mysteriously blew up outside of his home. I will never forget the experiences I had in Dublin, this one in particular. Anywho, the story has been long enough. Thank you for all that y'all do. It's been a godsend the last year, especially in a good way to decompress after a long day. I live in Oklahoma where I've been advocating abortion access in my spare time, and it's been extremely disheartening a lot of days, but I know it's important for my daughter's futures and to save the lives of everyone with a uterus. Fuck Oklahoma legislators. Stay sexy, and remember, the mob won't hurt if you help them. Kay, she, her. I mean, I mean, first of all, thank you for your service and the fight for abortion rights, which we should not be fighting.

We shouldn't have to be fighting. We should fight. I'm sorry. Yep. Yep. That's what I meant. Thank you. Barista, barrister, fight. I'm against having the same rights as men. It's weird, I know. You wouldn't expect it. Karen, coming in hot. No, no, sorry. But because I was thinking, I think in that moment, aside from that like, oh, creepy, I'm being followed, it took me a long time to go, oh, they have to watch her because she's now in the mix with them and their enemies. Yeah. So he doesn't want his own lawyer knocked off or anybody helping his lawyer. Right. Right. All of the things. For some reason, it was like thinking she might be in danger from them, but it's actually, they actually know they have to protect her. Yeah. Or at least keep an

eye. Totally. Keep an eye. Keep an eye. Intense. Yeah. See, that, that's a thing. I don't know. The mafia, it's just like a one way street. It's just the one thing. Killing and revenge, killing and revenge, killing and revenge until you die. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, it's rough. Please, everybody watch the Sopranos. Truly. Don't make me explain the mafia to you. Watch the documentary, the Sopranos, please. 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. Hey, I'm Mike Corey, the host of Wunderies 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. Local 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 podcast.

You can listen ad free on the Amazon Music or Wundery app. This subject line of this says it says sinkhole final destination and then in parentheses it says or final sinkhole destination and then another parentheses it says or final destination sinkhole. Let's go with that one. Yeah, I like that. And then it says hi all. I grew up in Central Florida where the only thing that wants to kill you more than murderers, pedophiles and high school teachers is mother nature. Just an award-winning first sentence. Truly. Truly beautiful. Beautifully set up. Okay, lightning, tornadoes, microbursts, hurricanes, sinkholes and dangerous heat. Truly the place that everyone should retire to for a quiet life.

A bit of necessary background. The county I grew up in contains the winter strawberry capital of the US, Plant City. You visited an antique shop with Confederate memorabilia there on your way to the Orlando lives. Yes, I remember that. Remember that? Oh, they're from Plant City. Okay. In the winter of 2013, the strawberry farmers used a lot more water than usual for unimportant reasons. The excessive water usage led to approximately 300 known sinkholes in the several months following the strawberry season. Unfortunately, one of those sinkholes formed in the densely populated town of Sefner. This sinkhole happened to collapse at night directly below the bedroom of a house, swallowing the homeowner and everything in the bedroom.

His brother heard the collapse and ran to aid his brother. The brother contacted emergency services, then jumped into the sinkhole in an attempt to reach the homeowner. After rescuing the brother, emergency services tried to use listening devices to locate the homeowner, but to no avail. The sinkhole started to expand over the following days, which effectively ended body recovery efforts. I remember this story. 2013, it was a long time ago, but it was one of those first big, really awful, like basically the earth opens up in the middle of the night, like how scary and horrible. The house was condemned, the sinkhole was filled, and the site is considered to unstable for future development. Then it just says no shit. The sinkhole reopened

two years later and the site is now fenced off. Apologies for the length, and I hope this satisfies your sinkhole curiosity, Nathan. And PS, the high school teacher comment is based on a teacher from my high school who tried to hire a hit man to kill a quote unquote rival teacher. The dude was a massive prick. Wow. Nathan's just going to end it on a cliffhanger, a second story cliffhanger and leave. Wow. That was a good email. Really good. Really good. Oh my God. Yeah. The boys are bringing it this week. Yeah, you got the boys going. Hey. Swimming with condoms. It just starts as my mom would say, hey, deode. I've been meaning to write this in for three years, but I am lazy. Anyway, here it goes. One of my favorite pastimes is listening to my mom,

Kathleen, and her five siblings laugh until they cry, telling stories about their childhood. My mom grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, in a small, humble home. Her mom, Ricky, was a nurse, and her dad, Bill, was a post office worker. Every summer, they would take a big family vacation to the farm in Rockwell City, Iowa, where my grandma, Ricky, was raised. Ricky would conveniently time up the big family vacation with her siblings' families so they could all be at the farm together. My mom used to think the farm visits were for the kids to see their cousins, but it was definitely for Ricky and her sisters to dump the kids at the farm and forget about them for a week. Now Rockwell City, Iowa is a small rural town with a current population of about 2000. Basically all farmland,

a public swimming pool, and one women's penitentiary. One day as my mom and her siblings were reminiscing on the time at the farm, she says, remember when we would go to the Rockwell City pool and the convicts would be there? She recalled that the cousins would run through the county fairgrounds to get to the pool, and on Tuesdays, ladies' day, a big penitentiary school bus would be in the parking lot. There would be guards surrounding the pool and all the inmates would be swimming. At the time, 1970s, my mom and her cousins, their parents and grandparents, and the penitentiary thought nothing of convicts swimming with children. I like to joke that they had orange striped swimsuits would play Marco Polo together, and the kids would be jealous of

no breaks for the inmates. But in reality, this was a common occurrence and it never crossed their minds that it was odd and quite frankly dangerous. Anyway, stay sexy and don't let your children swim with convicts. Side note, because you all love names, my grandma Ricky was actually born as an Eileen, but in high school, she liked a boy named Ricky, and so her friends started calling her that as a joke, and it's stuck to the point where it's on her gravestone. That woman was the coolest, Helen. Ricky. I love that. God, that's embarrassing. Isn't that funny? That's so embarrassing. It's her name. It's on her gravestone. Like, that is your name now. It must have really suited her. You know what I was also thinking,

though, and it feels like an orange is the new black episode, but to be in prison and then to get to go swim, whatever it was, once a week or once a month, God. Yeah, you must look forward to that all month or whatever it was. For real, just a little bit of relief, God damn. Yeah, and I don't have a pride, go swimming. I mean, do I have a problem with this? Female convicts? Yeah, female convicts I'm not worried about. I'm not either. For them to allow that, it must have been low security or something like that. Yes, they want, yes. Yeah, exactly. That's what I like to think. Right. Okay, I'm not going to read you the subject line of this one. Okay. Hello, everyone,

longtime listener, multi-time writer, constantly hoping my storytelling ability evolves to meet on-air standards. Congratulations. Hey, guess what? It's your birthday. Anyway, let's get to it. I'm a children's librarian in our small town and then a parentheses that says, all librarians are murderinos can confirm. And my husband is a deputy. We're both in our early 30s just trying to paint a picture for you. There are around 1500 people in our town per the last census. So it's safe to say that everyone knows everything about everybody. One day recently, my husband and his work partners became our hometown heroes. It was around four in the morning when he received a call from someone stating their neighbor's house was burning down

and they thought the elderly neighbors were home. Immediately in all hands on deck situation, my husband and his partner took off and their fellow deputy, who was also volunteer fire, was right behind them. Once they found the house, my husband began beating on the door, trying to see if anyone was home slash awake slash conscious. After several attempts to get an answer, he decided to kick the door in because there were two cars in the driveway and he just knew that someone had to be in the house. When he kicked in the door, he was met by an elderly gentleman in nothing but his underpants standing on the steps. The man said, what are you doing? Oh no. That's so my dad. What are you doing? To which my husband replied, sir, your house is

burning down. What are you doing? The man said he had to go upstairs and get his wife and get dressed. My husband and his partner followed desperately trying to get these modest elderly citizens out of their home before it crashed in around them. Oh my God. The wife wouldn't get up for her husband. So my husband went in and told her it was definitely time to go and she said, well, let me get my dress and gown and wig. This is where my husband lost his mind. They were all on the second floor of a house that was on fire and the fire was now one room over. Papa was still putting on his pants and mama was looking for a wig. My husband and his partner are both married and both have families and three kids. Today was not the day to take things slow.

He told them if they didn't get moving that he would move them and he meant it. He would have picked them up and carried them out if it had come down to it. Thankfully they came out. According to dispatch, the entire call was less than five minutes. My husband said it felt like hours. All parties involved are safe, but the house was declared a total loss. The town had a ceremony to honor my husband and his partner and the people they saved were there. The little old lady gave my husband a hug and told him that she loved him and he won't admit it, but he got teary-eyed. Stay sexy and marry a man that can mule kick a door in, Kay. Yeah. I will. I plan to. I'm gonna test Vince on that thing. Kay ended that story with the most important part of the story.

Right. Right. Wow. He saved their lives. That's wild. He saved their lives while they fought him on saving their lives, basically. Totally. Oh, my God. That's so scary. That's insane. This one's just silly. It's called Short, Sweet, and Shrek. You guys asked for drunk parents' stories, but I'm hoping this will work just as well. One of the fondest memories I have of my dad and I is when I was four years old and he took me to see Shrek in theaters. I remember it being a super beautiful day out with the sun shining as my dad, his friends, and I rode in the back of an open pickup truck along the rural roads of the small island we live on. Last summer, as the two of us were sitting on his porch, I decided to share how much that moment still

meant to me all these years later, to which my dad promptly replied, oh, man, I'm really glad you had a great time. I was on a lot of shrooms that day. Honestly, I'm so jealous he got to experience fresh Shrek for the first time ever, tripping balls, SSDGM, Naomi, she, her. Look, that movie on Mushrooms Jesus Christ. Oh, no. Can you imagine? Oh, I love that gingerbread man so much. Oh, my God. That had to be terrifying. It must have been insane. It's like, yeah, the post and boots part must have been amazing. Well, I think that's it for us, right? Is that it? Yeah, I think so. That was three each. Yeah, good job. Well, good job. Everybody sending these in, these emails are becoming excellent. Everyone is so good at it. Yes, you really are. Please send

them in. My favorite murder at Gmail. We really appreciate you contributing. You guys are so smart. You're so smart and pretty. You're pretty, especially Nathan and the other boy. And also, you're sharing your personal stories with us. We really love it and we really appreciate it. You meal kick our hearts every week. The doors of our hearts get meal kicked by you. That's right. Okay, 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 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 myfavoritmurder. Goodbye. Hi. 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 add free on Amazon Music? Download the Amazon Music app today. You can support my favorite murder by filling out a survey at Wondery.com.