My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 320

Episode Date: February 27, 2023

This week’s hometowns include awkward conversation at a party and sleep talking in a foreign language.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is actually happening is a podcast that features extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who live them. In a special five-part series called Point Blank, this is actually happening sheds a light on the forgotten spree killings of Rancho Tejama. So this is actually happening wherever you get your podcasts. Hello. And welcome to my favorite murder. This is the mini-soad.

That's right. Here it is. It's email time. Why don't you go first? Some people call it mail bag. Some people call it viewer mail, listener mail, not us. I feel like calling it hometowns at this point is not true. We've gone so far off the hometown track.

For example, here, this email, and it just starts like this. I'm not going to read this subject line. It just starts, I realized my last submission of this story had an error in it around 4 a.m., which is when I typically relive all the mistakes I've made in my life. This version that you're about to read is accurate and updated. So like my therapist suggests, I've corrected myself and I'm moving on. This is me moving on. And then it's a paragraph break and then it says, so how are all the pets?

When I was a teenager, my entire family met in Vegas to celebrate my grandparents' anniversary, aunts, uncles, cousins, et cetera. Why would a family of 13 to 70-year-olds meet in Sin City, gambling and free booze for everyone except two of us, me and my cousin? We were both 13 and it was 1990. Cell phones didn't exist and clearly neither did parental supervision. Our first night there, we went to a fancy Vegas dinner to celebrate my grandparents. The adults couldn't wait to get to the casino floor and us kids couldn't wait to get away

from the adults. The great thing about all the booze and the gambling was that my parents really didn't pay us much attention. They just kept handing us $20 bills without taking their eyes off the slot machines, cigarettes dangling from their lips. At first, we didn't leave the hotel. It was the mirage and it was brand new. We just messed around in the gift shops, going up and down the elevators, eating candy, et

cetera. It's a dream. Love it. Then we decided we needed to find a place that was more our speed. So we hailed a cab and headed to circus circuit. What? I wouldn't even have known how to do that. For real.

I would have been like, they won't let me hail a cab. I'm too young. Holy shit. Not these two. The cabbie didn't hesitate to take a fistful of sweaty twenties from two 13-year-olds and then raced through the back streets of Vegas to get us to our destination. Once at Circus Circus, we ate junk flute. This is so fucking crazy.

Also I don't know Vegas well enough, but Circus Circus is far away from the main hotels on this trip, right? It's on the edge in so many ways, not just its location. It's on the edge emotionally, physically. Once at Circus Circus, we ate junk food and played games until it was dark and we ran out of money. We walked back to our hotel. I looked it up.

The hotels are 1.7 Vegas miles away from each other. In Vegas, that's a lot. That's eight miles. Yeah. My cousin couldn't find his parents, so he crashed in my room. It was a room with an adjoining door to my parents' room. They, of course, were still boozing and gambling so they hadn't gotten back yet. I didn't hear anything from either of them until my mom flung the adjoining door open

the next morning and exclaimed, there you are. All my life, I've had the confidence that I could do anything. Maybe like so many of the greats, the roots of my tenacity began in Vegas. Or maybe my parents should have given a shit. Either way, I'm pretty much fine. Thank you all for being such badasses. Over the years, you have been a threat of comfort, tethering me to humor, kindness, and hope through times of anxiety and self-doubt.

Wow. That's a lovely compliment. SSTGM, Layla. And then in parentheses, it says, like the song, she, her. Fucking Layla. That was an epic, beautiful email. Layla, great job. Oh my God.

I mean, I was doing some crazy shit at 13 too, but now, in my 40s, I'm like, that's a baby. You're a baby. You're a baby. Yeah. I mean, that's eighth grade, maybe seventh grade. Seventh grade. Holy shit.

Oh, good one. I don't think I even saw a cab until I was in my 20s. Me neither. It's so intense. Yep. Okay. This one's called, Well, That Was Awkward. Hey all, thanks for everything you do and continuing to make episodes that are a joy

to listen to. So this isn't the typical true crime story, more of a story about why I shouldn't go in public. I was at my godson's first birthday party, and I was the only non-family member there. I was also the only non-parent there. There was a lot of mom-centric talking happening, so I tuned it out, but I kept hearing them talking about nexium, which is that crazy cult from the vow. This piqued my interest, so I started to eavesdrop.

I must have had a confused look on my face because my friend asked me what was wrong. I said, nexium the cult? And I said, no, nexium the heartburn med, two totally different conversations and a stark difference between a true crime person and a non-true crime person. Stay sexy and don't bring up a sex cult at a one-year-old's birthday party, Sarah. Sarah's like, could we please talk about Bikini line branding and not your acid reflux? That's so funny. I forgot when that story broke and they first started reading about nexium.

That's the first thing I thought I wore. I'm like, this has to be a misprint because nexium already exists and it's a medicine. But nope. In the aftermath of a shocking crime, people always ask why? Why would someone do something like that? What could possibly push them to commit such a horrible act? Was it money, revenge? What makes people like that tick?

I'm Candace DeLong, host of the podcast Killer Psyche, where I explain the thoughts, motivation and behaviors of the most violent figures in history. You may think you know these cases, but trust me, you do not. Using my decades of experience as an FBI agent and criminal profiler, I dig deeper into the twisted psychology of why? Many of the cases covered on Killer Psyche I actually worked on, like the serial killer Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, and Dennis Rader, also known as BTK. Follow Killer Psyche wherever you get your podcasts.

You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. Okay. I'm not going to redo this subject line of this. It says, hey all, let me preface this email by explaining that I am an English-speaking American who half-assed her way through five years of public school German. Wow. What happened? I have not taken a German class since 2015, but apparently my unconscious brain is fluent.

I've always been a sleep talker. I have a lot of strange sleeping habits that my parents talk about all the time, and then in parentheses it says unrelated, but one time I slept, walked to my neighbor's house and broke in, but that's a story for another time. Anyway, I've had three roommates and one boyfriend report back to me that I started speaking German in my sleep. I won't get into all of them, although they're all just as creepy and unusual, but this story takes place during my sophomore year in college.

While I was fast asleep in our shared bedroom, my college roommate was finishing up her homework. I started stirring and whispering something that made her turn around. My eyes were wide open, and I suddenly set up and started to aggressively whisper in German. Oh my God, that's the creepiest. It is not okay at all, even if it was fucking Italian or a romance language, doesn't matter. She asked me what I was saying, and if I was awake while I continued to ramble on in my foreign language.

Suddenly the German stopped, and to her horror, I said, don't worry, the dream man won't get you if we stick together. Oh my God. Then I tucked myself back under my blanket and was silent for the rest of her sleepless night. She and I are not friends anymore, and then in front of me it says, it's for the best. But sometimes I worry about the dream man and whether or not he got her. Unfortunately, I don't know who possesses me in the night and why they are so menacing,

but I have kind of come to love this useless skill of mine. Well that's it. If anybody wants to have a sleepover and talk to my German demon, let me know. Stay sexy, Carly. That's wild, but your brain would still retain all of that. I mean, I guess that makes sense, your unconscious brain. I wonder if there's some sort of past life or ancestral Germanic, like that's the reason she took it in the first place maybe, there's something in there that wanted to speak German.

This is called my dog fucked him up. Hey, everyone, but mostly your furry comrades, because this is a my pet saved me story. I have to say the usual thank you for being so open about your therapy and mental health. You inspired me to get back into therapy even if only to have someone to talk to about shit. Now we'll sally forth into the story. When I was a teenager, we rescued a 16-year-old mut named Sandy who was riddled with cancer. She mostly slept with the occasional when she got out of bed to head to a new spot to sleep.

Well, one night my parents were out partying and says, I want to make an excuse for them, but my therapist told me to stop doing that, so fuck them. And the oldie phone in the house was a landline in the mudroom, which conveniently happened to be what was broken into that night. Sandy and I were asleep in my room right next to the mudroom. Some guy kicked the door open and Sandy was gone. She booked her old ass straight at him and launched full force at him, clamping onto his arm.

I was able to get to the phone and by the time the cops got there, she had mangled his wrist to the point where he would probably not have full use of his hand. And it says, I totally eavesdropped on the paramedics. At bar close, my parents came home to the crime scene, several disapproving police officers, and me crying while I laid on a bloody, uninterested dog. Their supification was the second best part of the night. Stay sexy and don't underestimate the quiet ones, Cece, she, her. Wow.

I always wonder what Cookie would be like with an actual intruder. Cookie would be really cute, she would be cute and easy to calm down. Hopefully she would just like warm the heart of the intruder and they'd be like, you know what? I see the air of my right ways. I have to, I have to go. Did someone leave a little doll on the floor? Oh, I'm up it.

Frank is like a street dog. He's very light. He would go crazy, I think. He's ready for a fight. I love that. And Blossom is like, I've got to get out of here. She's nervous. She's not interested in conversation in any way she would run, for sure.

The subject line of this email is hidden treasure let down and it just starts yo, I sent a super depressing hometown about four years ago, but now that the floodgates for hometowns have been opened, I have something a little more lighthearted. About 15 years ago, my parents bought a home in small town Nebraska that was built by a family that owned banks and toll bridges in our county. And then it says didn't know that people were allowed to own bridges, but I digress. Anyways, after they bought the house complete with velvet wallpaper, shag carpeting, mirrors everywhere, et cetera, they went into full demo mode.

They were demoing an area in the basement, which at one point was my bedroom, and they found a hidden compartment. My immediate thought was, oh shit, these bankers have a safe full of money. Nope. It's just a lockbox with the blueprints from when they built the house. But here's where things get interesting. The blueprints revealed a hidden room behind what my mom calls her hoarder room, recycled bows and ribbons from Christmas, random empty boxes that she thinks she needs, et cetera.

Even though she's thrown out every single middle school arts and crafts project I've ever made. But this secret room, this is where the money is, right? Nope. All that was there was literally the world's oldest set of golf clubs and a doll. My mom gave the doll to my niece. So I'm keeping an eye out for her because that doll has some secrets to share. Stay sexy and don't create secret rooms if you're not going to hide money.

Best wishes and warmest regards. And then in brackets it says keeping my name private in case I find that family's fucking money. It's in there. It's in there somewhere. I mean that idea that you on blueprints, it's like, oh my God, a hidden room. And then it's like, that's where I stash my golf clubs. And the one haunted doll.

Demon doll. Okay, here's my last one. It says, Drunk Kid Story is still a thing? Question mark? Sure. Sure. I've been trying to submit this forever since I first heard a drunk kid's story and I knew it was my time.

Figured y'all would appreciate it more than my ex's super conservative Christian family, but he's an ex for a reason. So anyway, the year was 1995 and I was a two-year-old who apparently already talked too much for her age. It was a Friday late in the afternoon and my dad had just gotten home from work. And as all the normal dads did back in the 90s, he had already started drinking on the way home from work. Sure.

He said he got home and my mom was rushing him to get in the shower and get ready to go have dinner. So he put his beer down and got in the shower. About 15 minutes goes by and my dad hears my mom yell, something is wrong with the baby from the bedroom. My dad rushes to see me stumbling and smiling all over the place. My mom is frantic and screaming and then in parentheses it says, she's still like this because who would my mom be if she wasn't screaming?

My dad is trying to figure out what's wrong with me. He calmly walks over to the living room and sees the now empty beer bottle on the coffee table that was full before he got in the shower. The bottle now empty explains everything. I was drunk AF. Apparently while my dad was showering and my mom was clearly not supervising me, I was in the living room partying it up, drinking my dad's beer. You'd think this would make my parents stay home and take care of me.

Well, no. They were only 22 years old when they had me, so they weren't letting a drunk two-year-old ruin their evening. My parents still went to dinner with me and the stroller, apparently I passed out in my stroller as they enjoyed their evening. Hell yeah. My mom says the next morning I woke up crying, saying I had a headache. I was clearly hungover at two years old.

Little did I know, that would be one of many hangovers later in my 20s. I hope you all enjoyed this and thank you for advocating for women's abortion rights. I live in Texas where sadly, that right has been taken from us like many other states. It's infuriating and sad that women before us fought long and hard for that right for it just to be taken away in the blink of an eye. SSDGM. Yes. You're so right, S. It's so infuriating and so ridiculous and it needs to change.

And in the meantime, let's feed beer to children. We advocate on behalf of drunk children everywhere. That's our platform. Until women have their bodily autonomy back. No two year old is going to be safe from a Sam Adams long neck. Just kidding. Y'all, we're kidding. We're kidding.

Shut up. We're kidding. Send us your stories. Okay. My favorite murder at Gmail. Yeah. Anything you want to tell us about pretty much anything at all. Grandparents usually get moved to the front of the line.

We love them. Right. Or a real true crime story. That'd be great too. Hometown. Yeah. But until that time, stay sexy. And don't get murdered.

Bye. 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 Maren McClashen and Sarah Blair Jenkins. Email your hometowns and fucking hurrays to myfavoritmurderatgmail.com.

Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at myfavoritmurder and Twitter at myfavoritmurder. Goodbye. Goodbye. You've been listening AdFree on Wondery Plus.