My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 328

Episode Date: April 24, 2023

This week’s hometowns include a brave dog named Skip and working at a movie theater.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is Justin from The Generation Y, and we're doing a four-part series unraveling the story of Khalif Browder, a young boy falsely accused of stealing a backpack and held at Rikers Island for three years without trial. This story is about a young life caught in the middle of the justice system. Listen to Generation Y on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello. And welcome to my favorite murder. The mini-soad. That's right. It's mini. It's yours. It's all yours. It's your writing. We're just reading it. That's right. You want to go first this time? Yeah. Here's my number one favorite subject line. It says, my mom is magic and my sister is

a bitch. And then in parentheses, it says light-hearted. And says, hello, my beautiful imaginary friends. Let's do this. I'm the youngest of five kids who somehow survived a 70s free-range Catholic upbringing with parents who had a strong resemblance to Sonny and Cher. Wow. Powerful opening line. Yes. My mom, Loretta May, the Cher, was an eccentric, fun-loving woman with movie star looks who was an amateur actress in her day. Her theater days may have been put aside to meet my dad and have us kids, but luckily for us, many of her costumes and stage makeup remained. Because my sister is obviously a sadist, she would often apply my mom's thick white face paint with spooky black eyes. Nothing would delight her more than to come to my bedroom window

and scratch down the glass. Fucking sisters. A little girl with a Pazuzu face, making eight-year-old me wake from my sleep, crying in fear, or come up behind me in the bathroom. So when I looked up, I would scream when I saw her ghostly face in the mirror. I guess I have heard a thank for creating this murdering. Anyway, back to my mom who lost her battle with cancer too quickly and too young. When my sister and I were at her bedside, all knowing the end was near and asking our mom to send us a sign when she crossed over to tell us everything was okay. I interjected and requested a gentle sign please, not like an exploding light bulb or anything dramatic. So in the evening after her funeral, we went back through the front door

of our family home into the hallway where I embraced my sister under a light bulb that proceeded to explode into a million pieces all over us. Oh my god. And then it says, oh Loretta May, always the actress. Thank you for getting me through some 12-hour working day shit. Your voices, advice, life stories, and vulnerability always helped to calm my noisy mind. Cheers, Emily Perth, Western Australia. Oh Emily, that's beautiful. It's such a good one to punch. Yeah, horrible, good, hilarious, crazy. Oh, so good. I'm not going to read you this subject. Hey there. Before I get into this, I just want to say I'm new to the pod but already cannot get enough of it. I binge this show all day long and I'm pretty sure my husband thinks I'm crazy.

I've always loved true crime even if it scares the bejews aside of me. What can I say? I'm a journalist who is always hungry for the next best story. So here we go. I moved to Seattle just over three years ago with my dog and cat. My husband then boyfriend hadn't moved out with me yet because he had to finish the last few weeks of his job in Florida. Now this country raised, turned Florida suburban girl had no idea what to expect in the big bad city but being the independent and slightly naive badass lady that I am, I was confident I could handle anything that came my way. Some quick backstory on my dog Skip. He was severely abused before I adopted him. I mean, someone stabbed him three times. No, no, no, no, no. Who does that? After meeting him

at the local county kill shelter and learning he was about to be euthanized, I decided he needed another chance at life. He had some aggression issues and we went through intense training together. But when I moved him to the city, he started to regress. Whenever I took him on walks, I would muzzle him just to be safe. Worth noting he doesn't need to muzzle anymore. We worked through his problems and he's just a big old love bug. Yay, Skip. Yay, Skip. Anyway, that night I got off work at 1145 and had gotten home around midnight. For whatever reason, I decided not to muzzle him that night. I kept thinking no one's going to be out. Everything will be just fine. This is when being naive worked in my favor for once. So we're walking down the sidewalk,

it's quiet and no one is around besides a man walking on the same sidewalk. He seemed pretty non-threatening as he was looking at his phone and walking at a normal pace. I kept Skip close to my side and we walked by each other. I carried on, patting Skip and telling him he's a good boy for not growling or reacting and giving him a big kiss on his head. When suddenly I heard someone running. I always wonder what kind of person I'd be in a horror movie. Would I be the tough, badass who fights the villain? Or would I be the scared chick who cries and begs for mercy? Neither. I was the person who just stood there watching as this six foot, probably 250 pound man came running at me full speed. Fuck an A.

I don't even remember taking a breath. That's when my dog Skip jumped in front of me with hair raised, barking, growling and showing teeth. What I didn't mention before, Skip is a medium-sized dog, but he's a pit bull boxer, Rhodesian Ridgeback mix. And y'all, he can be really fucking scary looking. This large man stopped dead in his tracks and watched us Skip yanked at the leash, ready to fuck him up. The guy starts apologizing to me at this point. And all I could say was, walk away or I drop the leash. Yes. Yes. That's right. Uh-huh. At this point, Skip is barking so loud people are starting to peek out of their windows nearby. saliva is coming out of my dog's mouth. And honestly, I was even a little scared of him. Yeah. The guy takes off running and Skip

turns whimpering as I hug him and cry. Oh, he was scared too. Traumatist too. Yes. I don't know if the guy would have actually murdered me. So maybe the subject line is a little dramatic. The subject line is I think my dog saved me from getting murdered. But I don't really want to know what he was going to do. It was one of the most terrifying nights of my life and I'm forever grateful for my 50 pound squishy potato of a dog for protecting me. We don't deserve dogs. Thank you for all you do. Your podcast is thebomb.com. Stay sexy and don't get murdered. Jordan. And then enjoy this picture of Skip because he's cute as fuck. And she included a picture of Skip, which we'll include on the Instagram. You just pull up the movie poster for my dog Skip. Or Kujo. Can I see?

Oh, my God. I know a happy boy. Okay, hold on a second. Who could harm that dog? I know. I could have any dog. It's just unbelievable. Yeah, for real. But this is especially like crooked ears. Oh, what a beauty. And then he's like, oh, fuck, here's. Okay, here's the other thing too. Any normal empathetic man who had to say for instance, that man was like, oh, my God, I left my ATM card me ATM. And he was turning around to run back. Yeah. Right. You would do something to be like, Hey, sorry. Yeah, do something. Yes. You wouldn't just silently run at full speed at someone, which is a thing that witnesses say Israel keys used to do. Oh, my God. In the podcast true crime bullshit, there is a woman who was out in the middle of nowhere

at a cemetery in like Texas. And she's by herself visiting her grandfather's grave. And all of a sudden she sees a man just come running from like a creek bed straight at her. And she just was like, I knew immediately I had to get out of there and she just goes and jumps into her truck drives away. And then like a month later, he was arrested. Oh my God. And she saw his picture on TV and was like, that was the man that ran directly at me. One of the scariest of all times. Oh my fucking God. Please be careful and please. Yes. Just keep your walking to a brisk, you know, a brisk clip. No running. All right. Hey, there. It's Karen in Georgia. Picture this. It's a cold night in 2010. A boy is stopped by

the police while walking home from a party in the Bronx. He's only 16. He's been stopped by the police before, but this time is different. In a special four part series, the Generation Y podcast unravels the story of Khalif Browder, a young boy who was falsely accused of stealing a backpack and held without bail at Rikers Island for three years. He endured regular abuse by prison staff and inmates and was held in solitary confinement for more than 700 consecutive days. And he was only 16 years old. We say innocent until proven guilty, but where do we draw the line between due process and cruelty? To hear this four part series on Khalif's story, check out Generation Y wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. Goodbye.

I'm not going to read you the subject line. This just says, hi Karen, Georgia, Cookie, Moe, Mimi and all the rest. You asked for stories of a hot dog justice, but justice has nothing to do with this. When I was a young child in the early eighties, my school lunch was usually an apple, a thermos of juice and some grilled tofu squares with soy sauce that we called leopard squares. One day at lunch, I took my thermos and it took a big swig of juice. It tasted awful, not to mention it was warm. My child brain could not comprehend this. I stuck my thermos back in my lunchbox and when I got home, I told my mom that juice tasted really weird. She just about collapsed laughing. It turned out that as a treat, she had put a couple hot dogs in there today,

along with the water to keep them hot. Oh my God. But she had not told me about the change in this routine. I'd taken a big old drink, a warm hot dog water. From then on, I always use the thermos cup. There was no murder here, but I still say it was a crime. Stay sexy and check your thermos, Max. He and him. It's the worst feeling when you take a sip of something and you're expecting something else, but hot dog water, it has to be one of the top, top, top ones that are bad. Tippity top. For sure. Oh, just. Horrifying. Warm. Okay. Warm and weird. Oh, warm and weird. Yeah. Okay. Hello, all. I'm not going to read you the subject line. I got my first job when I was 16 working at a

movie theater. I spent many happy years there watching movies, staying up late and playing hide and seek in the theaters during holiday parties. Occasionally, we would volunteer to work detail crew where we'd stayed in the theater long after patrons had left and we detailed clean the theaters. I was probably around 20 at the time, the story, and was cleaning baseboards with my friend Will. We were at the end of a long, dark hallway near the family restroom when I smelled something really bad. I asked Will if he smelled, if it smelled weird to him, and he said, it always smells bad down here. And since I was 20 and it was 2 a.m., that was the end of the conversation. The next day, a coworker texted me and said that someone died at the theater.

Oh, no. I thought she meant someone had died that day at the theater, but she said no, that a body was found in the theater, specifically in the family restroom. Oh, no. That's right. The really bad smell had been a dead body. A man had come to watch a movie by himself one day, and then he had gone to the family restroom. He had a hard attack while in the restroom and had died. His body then stayed in that room for five days before anyone found him. That's horrible. That's horrible. This is so sad. The man's family had even located his car in the parking lot and asked management if they knew anything about it. You think that might have prompted them to do a more thorough search of the theater before they locked up for the night? How did the theater

management not notice the door had remained locked for five days? How had the cleaning crew not said anything about the locked bathroom for five days? Those are good questions, which the management and cleaning crews could not answer. The cleaning crew lost the contract with the theater, but somehow no one from management was fired. I often think how I could have been the one to find him and save the family 12 hours of worry if I had just said something about the weird smell. I also think selfishly that I'm glad I'm not the one who had to find the man's body. I guess maybe say something. If you smell something, be composing where it ought not to be. Stay sexy and don't get murdered. Sarah, she, her. That's heavy. Yeah. It's a heavy one. That's rough. I mean, yeah.

I think that people maybe sometimes subconsciously when bad things happen don't want to face it. Yeah. Yeah. There's some of us who's like, you smell a really bad smell and you're like, I think somebody needs to look into this. Yeah. And then sometimes you're like, whatever, it's not my problem. Yeah. But then like, you know, and in no way blaming that person, but it's like, but then now they have regrets too, because they just didn't do one thing, which is like, Hey, maybe we just do something about this. It's everybody loses in that scenario. Totally. You know what I mean? That's just a horrible scenario for every person. Totally. Mostly his family. Let me turn it around with a little story.

Please do hear it for you. This email is entitled the family sinkhole. Full disclosure, I'm sending this from the bath, which is my favorite setting to listen to MFM. The combo is elite. Anyway, sinkholes, my family is from West Virginia. So I'm very used to stories from my upbringing, spawning 95 follow up questions per anecdote, especially here in Los Angeles where I've lived for the past eight years. But the latest thing I got attention for was in regards to the permanent sinkhole fixture on my grandparents farm. All my life, I've been aware of the sinkhole, but less about what it was or why it was, but more along the lines of knowing that it's just where we tossed all our old stuff. We didn't want to be more. Yes.

Well, the stuff my Nana couldn't sell at a flea market. I never questioned it too much or cared about it even until I got to be in high school. And my mom mentioned in passing, throwing our old enormous computer tower into the sinkhole so nobody would get our data out of a landfill. You know, you know where hackers lurk. However, I do feel like the only data on said hard drive was some fan fictions I wrote at 13, in which case I would rather those be at the bottom of a sinkhole than in the hands of landfill hackers. I wish I had a full inventory of what has been dropped into the sinkhole throughout the years, but my favorite is a whole ass piano and a bench that my mom has yet to forgive my Nana for. And then there's just in quotes,

it says, how could she do that to a Steinway piano? Oh my God. Arguably, the funniest part is if you go to the sinkhole today, you can still see the pianos legs poking up from the bottom. And no, I don't have answers for physically how the piano was tossed, pushed, dropped into the farm sinkhole. But I've been forced to accept that's just how things are. For years, I also found myself asking where the sinkhole even leads to. Ah, yes. Why, of course, it leads into the massive cave system lurking beneath the farm. What? Eventually one day, when the piano disappears, it will be in a cave. Wow. Another creepy side note about the caves is that when I was growing up, the farm had two ponds. However, those have both since drained

into the caves and have left just a slight depression in the cow fields. Shudder. This is long email for a whole lot of nothing. So I'll wrap it up. But what could be better? But what could be a better hillbilly flex than having your own designated sinkhole? Stay sexy and maybe don't dispose of your trash in a sinkhole. It can't be good for the environment. Jewels, she, her. That's a sinkhole and a landfill kind of story. That's like two things we love. Yeah, it's like make the best use of this problem on your property by throwing garbage into it and letting it eat the garbage. I kind of love that. I do too. It's a real slice of Jewels life and I appreciate it. Okay, my last one is maybe the shortest one either of us have ever read on this

podcast. Amazing. It's just called best street names ever. It starts sup. I have been an avid listener for the past three years or so and I just think you guys rock socks. So imagine my surprise while studying for my nursing entrance exam when one of the practice questions contained a map which included the street names Kilgariff drive and hard stark avenue. No. Yeah, I think someone, a murderino must have made the fucking test. What? Yeah, I was so excited, almost fell out of my chair. I screenshotted it immediately and came right over here and wrote you this. I think this means you have made it ladies. Keep up the good work and remember stay sexy and study up and there's no name. I think, I think someone who made a practice test is a fan and just put our names in the

fucking map. I, sorry, for some reason, I thought that it might. Wait, is it real? No, I, what I was going to say is because I do have some light ADHD, I was like, wait, they pulled up to a stop sign and we, it was like, in my mind, it was the crossroads of hard stark avenue of Kilgariff because I was kind of still thinking about the sinkhole. Yeah, no, I think that, I think that on a map, unless it's real, I don't know. Did someone name that like a new build town with our last names? Couldn't be. I think we're mostly still just pets at the SPCA, which I'm absolutely fine with. You know, we're new chicks that are born every once in a while, Stephen in there too. Love it. Love it. I just have to give props to Alejandra, who is our producer. She

produces the main show, the full episode that we do, Alejandra Kick, but on my packet today, she pulls all of the emails for us to read these to you and mine went like one through eight straight in a row. Perfect. Amazing. Every single one I read was a hit. So great job to everybody writing in, but Alejandra, thank you for your constant great work. Expert picker, that's what she is. And thanks for, to you guys for listening. We appreciate you. We appreciate you. Stay sexy and don't get murdered. Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an exactly right production. Our producer is Alejandra Keck and this episode was engineered and mixed by Stephen Ray Morris. Stephen, email your hometowns and fucking arrays to myfavoritmurder at gmail.com.

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