My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 338

Episode Date: July 3, 2023

This week’s hometowns include a competitive dad playing in a non-competitive soccer league and a town full of sinkholes.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. Hello, this is Chris Fairmanx. And this is Karen Kilgarif. After three years of making friends on Zoom, our mobile comedy podcast is getting back in the car. Buckle up for Do You Need a Ride? Season four, Wheel Drive. Listen to Do You Need a Ride on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

It's hard to imagine losing a loved one, a wife, a husband, a child. For many, it's their biggest fear. Amarissa Jones, host of The Vanished. A podcast that tells the stories of often overlooked and unsolved missing persons' cases, in an effort to uncover the truth. Listen to The Vanished on Amazon music or wherever you get your podcasts. ["Minecraft's Theme Song"]

Hello, and welcome to my favorite murder, the minisode. That's right. We read your stories. Same every week. Same every time. Come on, stuff. Asking stupid questions. Even if you didn't know what we were about to do, we would start and you would know.

It's that easy. You want to go first? Sure. Okay, an unexpected mountain rescue. And then this A type personality person wrote in the title, 3.5 minute read. I don't think that was Alejandra, but I think that was this person writing in the name of like, listen, it's quick. Just like, let's get to it.

Yeah, this person is strategizing, how do I get this email read? And it's like, yes, tell us what's coming. Everyone loves that. I love it. Perfect. Hi, ladies. This is a story about how I was involved with the miraculous rescue of a lost hiker.

A few years ago, months after the pandemic had started, I was on a seven day backpacking trip in a very remote mountain range in British Columbia with three other ladies. Jesus. I'm just going to say, have you heard of hotels? They're so much better. Have you heard of laying by a pool and napping? Have you heard of literally not leaving the house? Okay.

Chef's kiss. That's my favorite trip. On the first day of our trip, we were already departing the network of trails to follow our own very thoroughly planned route deep into the mountain range. This person's such a planner. I'm sure. When in the distance through binoculars, we spotted something orange and clearly a man made on the other side of the valley a few miles away. It was in the direction we were heading in and we tried to guess what it could be for the next two hours. A food cache, an old parachute.

We finally made to a small lake we planned to camp out for the night, dropped our packs and proceeded up the slope toward the orange object in question. What we stumbled upon was an eerie sight to my true crime attic brain. The orange item was a tent fly blown onto some bushes. There was an unassembled tent lying on the ground, an open backpack, one flip flop, and two charging cables strewn about. It appeared as though someone had stepped away for a minute while setting up camp and never returned. We went through the backpack and found a phone with plenty of battery life and a full bottle of prescription medication. From the inconvenient, sloped location of the camp, as well as the cheap and inadequate

gear, it was evident we were dealing with someone and experienced. The remoteness of this provincial park and the fact that for the entire day, we only encountered two people hiking out, nor would we meet anyone else for the next seven days, may the discovery of the camp really strange and creepy. There was no sign of anyone nearby. We called out and searched the area, but it was totally silent. And I was getting myself overhyped with adrenaline, coming up with all sorts of insane explanations, including murder. How could you not?

Yeah, of course. The sun was nearly setting, and we had to go set up our own camp and far away from this one. We used our in-reach satellite communicator to text the info we found on the prescription bottle to our contact who then got in touch with the police. We were asked to check back on the camp in the morning before search and rescue would be initiated. I barely slept that night and my fortress

of thin nylon tent walls. Imagine how scary, like going to bed that night. Yep, because the first thing I thought of was a bear came in immediately ate that person totally. So then you're just kind of like, oh, we're here too now. Yeah. Ooh. In the morning, we returned and confirmed that everything remained untouched and then proceeded with our hiking plans knowing that more confident people

were on their way and deal with the situation. For the next three days, we watched as helicopters flew all over the mountain range and valleys searching from day until evening. Finally, on the third night, we got a message that the lost hiker had been found alive. Whoa! Yeah. Apart from some minor wounds and dehydration, he was thankfully okay. By the time we found his camp, he was already lost and has spent two nights out in the cold, barefoot and in just a t-shirt and shorts. Oh, no.

Yeah. And then another two nights while searching rescue looked for him. He was discovered only a mile away from his campsite when she had wandered away from in search of water. This young guy in his early 20s was dealing with mental health issues, which is probably why he had made so many poor decisions. Since he was only expected to return in five days and got lost on his first day, nobody would have started looking for him until it may have been too late. Our satellite device allowed us to share the exact coordinates of his camp, no doubt

speeding up the search a little bit. On our last day of the trip, the weather changed from mild late summer temperatures to the first snow storm of the season, which would have definitely thwarted any efforts at rescue. We ended the trip completely soaked to the bone, but totally elated at the incredible and successful rescue. Of course, we were only the messengers, the real heroes, or the search and rescue folks, most of whom are volunteers. Stay sexy and don't go out into the wilderness alone, Anna. I mean, now I feel bad about the hotel comment, because if Anna and her friends weren't out there, yes, that would have been a totally different situation.

And that's so unfair, a person who might be experiencing some sort of lack of equilibrium. Yeah. Suddenly now this is just a life and death situation. Terrifying. Horrible. Also, I went to get my mail the other day with no shoes on and I almost died.

So the idea that this guy was like in the mountains, with no shoes on. And just a mile away from camp, like didn't mean to like take off. No, just had like was just basically running some ideas that need there needed to be another person to say, hey, should we do it this way? Yeah. And someone could go not at all. Yeah. That's a bad idea. Totally. Camping, there's an argument to be made against it. Okay. This says, a jury duty reunion story. Hi, MFM Empire.

I've been jumping up and down every time you mentioned jury duty stories because I already sent you one. I'm not mad at it though. I know you're busy ladies. So I'm just rescinding and crossing my fingers again. About a decade ago, when I was in my early 30s and still had some residual hope and idealism about the world, I got summoned for jury duty. Stay in there, stay strong.

I live in San Diego, and if you register to vote, you get summoned pretty much every year, so this was not a new thing. But at the time, I was working a very stressful office manager job, and the idea of taking a few days off to sit in a jury box on some easy drug charge case seemed like a mini vacay. During jury selection, we were warned that this case would take about two weeks, and I was excited to be the last juror selected. Sorry, boss, gotta go do my civic duty.

The man on trial was arrested in a series of raids on local marijuana dispensaries. This was before weed was legal recreationally in California, and at the time it was only allowed to be distributed with a med card and as a part of a growing co-op, which meant that you weren't supposed to profit off of it. Each person in the co-op was responsible for contributing in some way to the growth and cultivation of the product, and they alone could partake. This case actually generated some media interest because the decision would affect how prosecutors

would proceed with other similar cases resulting from the raids. So we were treated to the whole sketch artists slash cameras outside the courtroom hoopla. Wow. I've never been into weed in the parentheses that says, though now a bit older, I enjoy an occasional half gummy because that's all I can do. Amen. And it is the perfect amount. It is. But I was never opposed to others who enjoyed it responsibly and thought they should make it legal already.

However, the law is the law and I was determined to make my decision based on what was legal. I sat through two weeks of evidence showing very clearly that this man accepted cash for marijuana and even though he technically had customers fill out membership cards, there was no co-op going on. He obviously was guilty. Funny thing though, when we went into jury deliberations, we do to flee reviewed all the evidence and though most of us agreed that he was pretty guilty, we wanted to review the law carefully to make sure he was legally guilty.

And as it turns out, at the time, medical marijuana and co-op laws were so new that they hadn't been fully hashed out yet, the law was literally one sentence long and said something to the effect of, co-op members must contribute to the cultivation of the crop. One juror pointed out that it didn't clarify what constituted a contribution. to the effect of co-op members must contribute to the cultivation of the crop. One juror pointed out that it didn't clarify what constituted a contribution and couldn't

cash be considered contributing. We tried to get clarification from the judge who just said, quote, that is the law as it is written, I cannot clarify further. So after just a few short hours, we all agreed that money could technically be considered a contribution and we found the man not guilty. Yeah, we made the local news and one of our jurors did a TV interview basically saying what a stupidly written law that was. Flash forward a few months later, my boyfriend and I attended a major league baseball game and after the game, we were on the way out of the stadium and I heard

someone behind us yelling, hey, I didn't even turn around at first because I didn't think it was for me. But then I felt a tap on my shoulder, so I turned around. I didn't recognize the man in front of me at first, but then he said, hey, I just wanted to say thank you. You were on my jury. My jaw dropped to the ground as recognition finally set in. I was so freaked out that all he could say was,

oh my god, you're welcome. Then I laughed awkwardly and we walked away. Many things went through my head after that. First, what if we found him guilty? Second, could he have found me if he was looking? No, if you found him guilty, he'd be in jail. Third, that man stared at 12 people who would decide the next few years of his life for two weeks.

Of course, he recognized me. I wasn't afraid of this man necessarily. He seemed like a family man who was just trying to get by in life. During the trial, he seemed respectful and engaged and the emotion and relief in his face was satisfying when the not guilty verdict was read. But it never occurred to me before

that when you are a jury of peers, it's entirely possible you will meet again. Wow. Yeah. I just wanted to say thank you for all the years of entertainment. Your fun banter has been almost as good as anxiety meds for me for the past few years. Oh, and I try to save episodes to get me through tougher days, but I'm caught up so I just might have to start over.

Karen, I could listen to you read a phone book if they were still a thing. Oh, thank. Sorry, that's one-sided compliment that it sounds like I picked to say. Stasexie and try to get out of jury duty. That's the lesson. That's the lesson at the end of the email. Robyn, she heard Stasexie and try to get out of jury duty. Oh my God. I love that they were so responsible that they were like, let's read the law. They didn't just like rely on the lawyer's arguments.

That's so cool. Yes, and I think I also, that's one reason I like this email. And the second part is to put together when you are deciding the fate of someone, that's a human being that you might see at the think of it as a family man who is there at the same baseball game that you like. Yeah.

What would you want to do then send them to a living hell in the prison system? For arbitrary laws about a drug that is better for you than alcohol. Some would argue like what the fuck? Yeah, whatever. I just like that. I thought there was a good one. Whatever. Say yes to drugs.

Say look. Say, say maybe. Hey thought there was a good one. Whatever. Say yes to drugs. Say, look. Say, maybe. Hey, consider the option of drugs. Half a gummy to go to sleep. Say, perhaps. The unsolvable key mystery. Hiya friends.

I've been listening since you guys used to name every episode with a number pun. Remember? Remember? Your voices have helped me through like six or seven surgical recoveries and I'm so grateful. I don't know if you'd ever asked for stories like this, but this is something that has been nying at my insides for nearly two decades. And even if no one reads this email, I think just writing it all down will make me feel a little better. When I was 11, my dad sat on the edge of his old black

that the recliner and called me over. He handed me a key that was small with a rounded top and said, Steph, if anything ever happens to me, remember I'm hiding this key in our grandfather clock. I watched as he placed the key in a hidden drawer inside the clock that I hadn't even known was there. Wait a second. I'm sorry.

Can we pause to say I've never heard of hidden drawers inside of grandfather clocks. Have you? No, but of course it makes sense. They're so creepy. If anybody has a what they found inside a grandfather clock in the hidden drawer, you will get moved to the front of the line because that is the ultimate. Or go if you have a grandfather clock, go look look go fucking see if it has a hidden drawer. Yeah, or when you go to that estate sale this weekend.

Open up the grandfather clock. Totally. My 11 year old mine didn't really understand what had just happened. Besides my dad had a really dry sense of humor so maybe it was just a joke that I didn't get. And it wasn't like he could have been serious right? What could possibly happen to your dad when you're a little kid?

Everyone you know at that age is invincible. But of course, only four months later, my dad was hospitalized. When I was 12, my dad died from complications from a very large brain tumor after suffering for eight months in the hospital. The night he died, I remember running to the clock and handing the hidden key to my mom,

thinking that she would know the other half of the mystery. Maybe I knew where the key was hidden and she would know what the key opened, like the treasure in a movie about pirates. Life is so rarely that neat, though, of course, I didn't understand that at age 12. My mom had never heard of the hidden key before. We made a list of things the key could possibly go to, a bank lock box, a portable lock box that

he maybe had hidden somewhere, maybe a padlock or even a door key to a place we had never seen. My dad was a wonderful person, but unsolved mysteries like that really made your mind spin out and wonder how well you really knew someone. None of those possibilities ever went anywhere despite searching. Over the years, as we went through his old things, we found four more keys hidden in the house. But the time frame to ask more people about it had passed as the same genetic disease that killed my dad has since killed his whole family. And nearly me, two several times. So scary. During his life, my dad spoke of owning stock and Pepsi, and also putting away money each month

for me to go to college, but we never found any paperwork about those things. Were those documents in the lockbox we never found? It has now been 22 years, and although I still have all the hidden keys from my childhood, I really do wonder if the key solves some great mystery leading to a treasure, or if simply creating the mystery surrounding the key

was his last dry joke. Stay sexy and don't leave an unsolvable mystery behind when you die, Stephanie. Is it unsolvable, Stephanie? I better dad was just trying to put some wonder in her life, don't you think? Yes, could be. But promising future money, it makes me just go, can't you go to a key expert? Can't you go to an antique store? Yes, I was thinking that, or I wish we had photos of the key we could put on the Instagram because I know someone would be like, yeah, that's a lockbox

key for this bank or whatever somehow. Yeah, to crowdsource that short and solve it. Oh, Stephanie. How wild is that? That is amazing. And it immediately makes me think of those stories when people donate couches to the Goodwill and then they're stuffed with cash. Right.

I mean, yeah, people, oh, OK. Subject line of this one is ghost grandma. Hi guys, you asked for ghost stories, so here we go. Towards the latter end of her life, my grandmother became a big believer in spirit visitors. One day, after sharing her latest ghostly experience, she tells me that if strange things seem to happen after she's passed on, please not to be afraid that it's only her saying hello. Fast forward now, about five years, grandma has passed on and I have brought my first baby home from the hospital. That night all hell breaks loose in the house.

Lights in multiple rooms turn themselves on at different times through the night. The fan turns itself on at full speed. The dog's collar randomly goes missing off of his neck. What? A small knick-knack starts rocking on its own. I wonder aloud if this could be grandma saying, hi, turn off the last of the lights and nothing else happens after that. Once our daughter developed the ability

to control her facial expressions, she started to look like she was having, quote unquote, conversations with the air. Steering intently at a specific place in front of her while laughing, pausing, waiting, it to look like she was having quote unquote conversations with the air, staring intently at a specific place in front of her while laughing, pausing, waiting, surprised to look more laughing. This continued on and off until she was about a year and a half old. By now, she has added her baby talk nonsense to her side of the quote unquote

conversation. By this time after a brief exchange, she then runs to the window and stands there waving and calling by. In parentheses, again, no one is visible. After she waived goodbye, all these conversations stopped. I filed this under probably creepy stuff kids do, but maybe grandma, and let it go. Fast forward again, and now our daughter is three,

and we've just moved into a new house. I decided to dedicate a wall to family pictures that we didn't previously have room for so she's never seen these pictures before. As I hung the picture of my grandparents on the wall, my daughter suddenly stops in her tracks, points, and asks, who's that? This is my grandma and grandpa, her response. Oh, from when I was a baby? Mm, she's three. And she walks away, leaving me to pick up my jaw off the floor. Stay sexy and love you to Grandma Mijin, Lindsay.

Oh, from when I was a baby? Like, what? I love when babies call themselves babies. I know. That's the cutest. Oh, my God. I love that idea. I love that know. That's the cutest. Oh my God. I love that idea. I love that thought. That's a good one, right? Yeah.

All right, my last one's just called trash dad. That's really funny. Hello to all humans and animals alike. The setting for the story, a 24 hour all ages soccer tournament where all the proceeds were donated to the pediatric cancer society. Another thing to note, my dad is playing in the 30 and over all caps non-competitive keyword league. Most of the adults that play in this part of the tournament are just there to have

fun, get some exercise, and raise money for kids with cancer. Not my dad though, he plays to win. Picture a severely humid August day in Pennsylvania. My dad is playing his third or fourth game when his body naturally starts to feel the effects of all the strenuous exercise he's been doing. Leading into his competitiveness, my dad decides to physically tackle anyone with the ball. If you're not familiar with the sport of soccer, there's no tackling involved, especially at a tournament for pediatric cancer. Non-competent. This ruthless tactics started to really anger

the other teams family and friends that gathered to watch. So in a totally reasonable response, they started to boo him. Instead of gracefully taking himself out of the game, my dad responds by turning towards the crowd and flipping everyone off. He still had to be asked to vacate the field.

Well my dad was literally being chased out by an angry mob. My younger sister, who was 10 years old at the time, decided to make a little bracelet stand at this tournament. Not only did she volunteer her time, she stayed at her stand for 14 hours straight and donated all of her proceeds to pediatric cancer. She even received an award by the tournament's organizers for her selflessness. My dad's biggest mantra that my sister and I growing up was always be better than me. And I think the story perfectly encompasses that.

Just play it, my dad is not always this angry and is an amazing girl dad. SSUGM and keep your dad away from all competitive activities. Kylie. Also, sorry, I could not play half of a soccer game. Like the level of cardio. And this guy played three or four in the human Pennsylvania summer. He probably didn't have one electrolyte or whatever's important.

Maybe those are fake, but he needed Gatorade really bad. He needed orange slices. Yeah. So badly again, you lost his shit. Have people heard of hotels and sitting by a pool for pediatric cancer to just do about two soccer games max. And that's everyone's limit even even international superstar soccer players. Definitely because holy shit.

What are you doing? Okay, okay. Here's my last one. And it just says a town full of sinkholes. Hi, I won't even try to come up with a clever greeting because I will overthink it and never write the rest of this email. I know Karen loves a good sinkhole story,

so I thought you guys may enjoy the story of Schumacher, Ontario, a historical mining town around eight hours north of Toronto. What the fuck, eight hours north of Toronto must be just like... Fields, prairies. The Arctic, right? Is it Antarctica or the Arctic? That's up there. You're asking the wrong gal. Okay, sorry. I thought you had a deep, ungeographical understanding of Northern Canada. She know. So disappointing. Go mining in this area began in 1910

and since the local mines have produced around 80 million ounces of gold. Today's value is approximately $140 billion. Holy shit. Damn, through the extraction of hundreds of millions of tons of rock. One of the main historical mines, the Macintyre, is 4,250 feet deep, and

it extends below the town of Schumacher. There are also many parts of the mine that are much shallower, lying just below the ground all around town. So shallow in some places, they can be accessed from people's basements. There are historic records of mine workings collapsing and swallowing streets, vehicles, and buildings dating back to 1912. Oh, shit. So there's just a thin layer of earth and then just a hole underneath shoe macaerontaria. No, thank you. Okay, there is one property which is fallen victim to two sinkholes, the first in 1963, where three buses parked on the property fell in and were buried under cement when the hole was filled in. Oh, so they just fell in

and they're like, forget it. I hate. Get whatever you need out of these buses because we're filling them in with them. The property collapsed again in 2004. There was a mechanic shop on the property and one of the mechanics noticed the floor starting to heave and evacuated the area before the collapse. Thank God. It was heaving. It was heaving like an animal. No.

Water had seeped into the old hole and eroded the cement capping the mine workings below. 12 cars and a tractor trailer fell into the hole. The property was subsequently condemned like many others in the area. The problem is so prevalent that when you buy a home in the area, there are clauses added to home insurance policies which state that if your house falls into mind-workings, it is not covered by your insurance. I fucking bet. Holy shit. You know what you're doing if you're moving to Schumacher. Yeah, totally. Mining companies are currently working to map out as much of the old mines as possible to identify buildings at risk of getting sink hold.

That's no a verb. I love it. Hopefully the story can bring you a few minutes of entertainment in exchange for the hours you have provided me. Your podcasts are integral to my biweekly five hour commute to the mine where I work. So thank you an actual real minor. Oh my god. I feel sourced up. A mine doctor. It's so hard to be a mom. It's the hardest job their fucking is. Absolutely. Sides motherhood.

fucking is. Absolutely. Sides motherhood. And podcasting. Minor comes in third. Stay sexy and read the fine print on your insurance. Jacob, Jacob, Jacob, Jacob. Hi. Hi, Canadian minor. Wow.

That's really cool. Send us your Canadian mine stories, guys. Yes, if you have them, just he listened to our podcast underground. Well, he's really cool. Send us your Canadian mind stories, guys. Yes, if you have them, does he listen to our podcast under ground while he's mining? Wow, what's the deepest someone's ever listened to our podcast, do you think? The Mariana Trench. Let's hear it if you've been down,

if you've been down to the bottom of the ocean. Yeah, try to beat Jacob. Try it. We dare you. He's like, I don't listen to you while I'm mining that with drive me insane. Thanks for listening. Send us your stories. If you want more of this, we have many, many episodes in the fan cult. Oh, yeah. You have, you can have ones no one else has heard. That's right. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Good. 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. See you then! Email your hometowns and fucking arrays to my favorite murder at gmail.com. Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at my favorite murder and Twitter at my favorite murder. Goodbye! Listen, follow, leave a say review on Amazon Music, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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