My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 341

Episode Date: July 24, 2023

This week’s hometowns include a maple bar king and a hippo on the loose.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I'm Candace DeLong and on my new podcast, Killer Psychy Daily, I share a quick 10-minute rundown every weekday on the motivations and behaviors of the cold-butter killers you read about in the news. Listen to the Amazon Music Exclusive Podcast Killer Psychy Daily in the Amazon Music app. Download the app today! I'm not saying hello. Hello! Hello! And welcome to my favorite murder.

The mini-sode. The mini-sode that's being videoed for the fan cult. Enjoy. That's it. Enjoy the visuals. That's right. There's a cat happening. That's all I can give you.

Do you want to go first? Sure. All right. This first email, the subject line is warning a cautionary tale about criminal lineups. It says, Hi, Karen Georgia, furry critters at all, long-time listener, and distant Lizzie Borden cousin here. On today's mini-sode, you read the story about the guy who willingly volunteered for a

lineup and talked about how nutty it was for him to do so. Then I realized I had a story to share. I grew up in Idaho, and this was circa 1991 when I was still in high school. My brother Matt had already graduated so I think this must have been during the summer when he was home from college. Our Lutheran Church had some great youth group leaders and then a parentheses that says not a cult I promise. And even the oldsters would come back and hang sometimes on Sunday mornings. In my brother's case, this may have been for the maple bars.

For a long time, he held the youth group record of eating six maple bars in one sitting, but that's another story. One of the kids, my age, was a guy named Kevin, who worked at his uncle's mom and pop grocery store. One Sunday, he told us he had been working his shift at the store when a customer came, wrote a check for his groceries, then left. Later, when they attempted to cash the check,

the store owner realized that it was invalid. Forgery, stolen, overdrawn, I can't remember. Since Kevin had dealt directly with the customer, he was asked to participate in a photo lineup to see if he could identify the culprit. So Kevin headed down to the police station and was seated at a table with six photos of young men laid out in front of him. Kevin looked at the photos carefully and then his eyes grew wide. He pointed at one of the photos, hey, I know this guy, but he's not the criminal.

Yep, the photo was of my brother, the maple bar king. I can't remember now if one of the other photos was actually of the criminal or not, but we learned from this incident that at least in 1991 Idaho, your driver's license photo could be used in a photo lineup without your knowledge. Thankfully, Kevin was a good guy, and he didn't harbor any hard feelings or donut cravings that might have led him to point mad out as the check bandit. Stay sexy and don't eat all the maple bars, Megan.

I mean, I guess it makes sense if they pull people who are like, look alike and the same height and everything based on your driver's license, right? As long as they're like, then not later, if they get picked, like, well, that must be the guy. You know? Yeah, I mean, there is a logic to it of like, just matching all the things and making sure

that you're not just picking a random person. Right. Okay, mine's called Al Capone, NUNS, and my great grandpa. Just starts sub-nerds. I've been sitting on this one for a while, but hearing the call for mafia stories, I knew I had to finally sit my lazy ass down to write in. My great grandpa's name was John Leo.

He only went by John, but John Leo sounds more hip. Though he passed before I was born, he remains a subject of many stories at family gatherings. John Leo owned a pet shop on the south side of Chicago during prohibition and the Great Depression. I don't know the ends and ounce of how, but he ended up working for Al Capone during the height of Capone's

prestigious reign. You know the classic story of full-time pet store owner, part-time mafia bootleger, that was him. John Leo was such a successful mafia employee that he was able to buy a brand new Cadillac

in the middle of the Great Depression. This sick whip was custom made with five separate, five gallon jugs hidden under the back seats. One day, he set up on his Capone assigned delivery route with 25 gallons of moonshine in the back seat when he realized he was being followed by the police. He had to think fast.

Luckily, he spotted two nuns walking together down the street. He immediately pulled over and offered them a ride in his fancy-asked Cadillac. Because being a nun must be hella boring, they accepted and climbed into the back seat. Once the nuns were settled into the car, he took off to lose the cops. He ended up taking a turn so fast, one of the nuns said sweetly, I think I hear splashing. Apparently, one of the containers must not have been quite full enough. When he had lost the police, he kindly dropped the nuns off and proceeded with bootlegging business as usual. To my knowledge, he was never caught for his escapades, and if it hadn't been for those

unsuspecting nuns being a perfect distraction, who knows if I'd be here today. Stay sexy and use nuns for your own selfish needs, Jordan Sheeher. Yeah. Yeah. If you can spot two nuns for your own selfish needs, Jordan she, her. Yeah. Yeah. If you can spot two nuns together these days, yeah, absolutely pull them into your hijacks and your in your crimes. For sure. Here's what I love that we're doing this on video, because I still have these weird little gnats flying around in the room. So I'm doing like the crazy grabbing into the air thing still.

Because they're still in here. I think mine is gone, but we'll see. It's just kind of an additional visual that we can give people. What makes a person a murderer? Are they born to kill? Or are they made to kill? I'm Candace DeLong, and on my podcast, Killer Psychie Daily, I share a quick 10-minute rundown every weekday on the motivations and behaviors of criminal masterminds. Cycle paths 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 Psychie Daily, I'll give you insight into things like the Ryzen Teen Fentanyl deaths. Hate crimes performed by an in-sell, and what exactly is going on in the mind of Sam Bankman-Freed? And I'll bring on expert guests

to dive deeper into the details, share information on cold cases, and answer some killer trivia. Hey, prime members, listen to the Amazon Music exclusive podcast, Killer Psychie Daily, in the Amazon Music app. Download the app today. This subject line says, oops, got lost again. Hey, besties, I love your podcast and have been scratching my brain for a story to tell

until I remembered this one. My parents are from South Africa, so we would visit our extended family there every second Christmas pre-COVID. While there, I have your reputation for getting lost. In my defense, I never feel lost. They just don't know where I am. This includes the time when they left the petting zoo without me and the time that I was so jet lagged, I fell asleep in a bed shop in the middle of a crowded mall. That sounds like something I would do. That is so awesome. And also, it's like that bed shop should pay you,

because you just did the best commercial for them ever. Definitely. Street team. The most memorable, however, was at a beach outside of Port Elizabeth. We arrived with my cousins, aunties, uncles, and have a great swim. The beach is long,

and there are a ton of beautiful looking dunes behind the main stretch. When we've exhausted ourselves, everyone lies down to sunbathe and read. I notice that everyone's fallen asleep and I'm still feeling energetic. So I stroll a few hundred meters down the beach and I start running up and down the sand dunes.

I dip into the sea in between and it's an absolute blast for my 13 year old self. After 30 minutes or so, I see my cousin running up to me. Out of breath, he shouts, Mia, everyone's been looking for you. There's a literal search party. Come back. And I'm like, holy shit, what? It turns out what felt like a few hundred meters was more like a kilometer, which I think is three miles. You sound sure of that, and so I'm going to accept it. I always do. And I'm always sure until I'm wrong. But, you know, let us know South Africa how long

your kilometer is. And while I was in the dunes, I was practically invisible. My family had called the police, all of the beach goers were searching for me, and they'd even started a prayer circle. I walked back and told them all to chill. I grabbed the New Zealand, so I'd forgotten that South Africa is a bit more scary and dangerous and that you shouldn't probably be alone as a young girl.

Mom later told me that she was praying that she would find my body. He-he, oops. What? I think she's saying that someone else wouldn't do it. Or maybe that it wouldn't, she wouldn't have gone missing forever. Right? There's a lot of ways to interpret that sentence, I think. Anyways, thanks for keeping me permanently entertained and I hope all of you are happy and well, you deserve the best. Hey, stay sexy and maybe just tell everyone where you're going next time. Mia sheer. Yeah, I love it. I love it. 13-year-olds. They think they're fucking invincible and then off

they go. I'm on Mia's side, though, because a half an hour is not, no, it's not long enough to call the cops and start a prayer circle, in my opinion. Maybe a little search party, cops in prayer circle are a little, that's like a three hour mark, please. At the very least. Okay. This was one of those ones that we've asked for,

of like what was the thing in your town that like everyone, like they made shirts out of and it's like the okay event. So they wrote this thing fever hip-apautimus edition. Oh I've been with MFM since I was pregnant with my soon to be seven-year-old. Let's get into it. She's been with us longer than we've existed. No, I mean, if it's nine months and soon to be seven, that's like the very beginning, right? This podcast is soon to be an eight-year-old. I live in a small Texas town called Hado. It's H-U-T-T-O, and they wrote it phonetically for me, which I appreciate. As citizens of this adorable place, we are all called hippos. The hippo is the school mascot for all local campuses and everything in town is hippo-centric. The legend of the Hado Hippo traces its roots back to 1915 when a circus train stopped in Hado to gather supplies and care for the animals. According to

folklore, the hippo escaped from its keeper running toward Cottonwood Creek. The train depot agent reportedly sent the following message to nearby communities. Stop trains, hippo loose in Hado. We have hippo everything. Most of the homes in town have a large customized cement hippo in their front yard. I have seen Starry Night hippo, Disney character hippo, and every business has a branded Hippo at its front door. Wow, they've committed to this. They've committed. The local dive bar has what looks like a 200 year old taxidermy Hippo head hanging on the wall.

Oh wow. Shout out to Snuffies. The local butcher shop sells Hippo eggs at Hallipinho Popper, surrounded in sausage and wrapped in bacon. Whoa, that sounds fucking good. That sounds good. Every year, the elementary schools have hippo rama where the children

re-enact the legend of the Hado Hippo. One child dressed as the Hippo runs loose through the crowd while the other kids dressed as early 1900s dance people and circus animals give chase and sing songs. Precious. Love it. It's so good.

Anywho, thanks for reading, stay sexy and eat hippo eggs, Katie H. We will eat hippo eggs, Katie. Katie thought. Here's what I think is like the, I think we've talked about this before. The thing about hippopotamus is that we've all seen them represented cartoon style.

Mm-hmm. But in fact, they're one of the deadliest animals in their native Africa, I believe. Right, and they're fast, too, right? They're fast and they want to eat you alive. I love that all the schools in town have the same mascot, because it's supposed to be like this fighting hippo against the like, you know, Tyrannosaurus Rexes or something like that. You would think, although if it's small enough, it might just have like grammar school, yes, junior high, high school. That's true. That's

true. And so they're just being kind of thematic. Yeah. Okay. The subject line of this email is Portabell arenos do exist. Y'all kept me company on a many a commute from work to law school. So thanks for that. Let me know if y'all want to want public defender stories. You know we do. I mean, I don't know if you're legally allowed to tell us details, but please do. Yeah, obscure the details. Anyway, in Miniso 329, Karen jokingly asked if they were Portabella Reno's, and here I am. Well, maybe a more general Mushroomino. Mushrino?

I don't know. I'll workshop the name. I love mushrooms more than is reasonable. Several people actually make fun of me for it, and my favorite waitress of the Japanese restaurant picks out extra mushrooms for my soup. In fact, my very first parents tried to kill me in the 90s story is mushroom based. I think it may have been the first time my mom left me at home with my dad.

As she pulled up our long winding driveway, my poor sweet angel baby of a mother saw my dad running through the yard to meet her cordless phone in one hand and me and the other, who was on the phone, you ask? Poison control. Why? Because my dad came to check on toddler me and found me in the yard, stuffing my little baby face with wild mushrooms.

Ah! This is a day one obsession. Terrifying. They took me to the hospital and everything was ultimately fine. My favorite part of the story is when my mom asked my dad why the fuck I was unattended long enough to eat God knows how many yard mushrooms. His response was, she was being quiet

so I figured she was good. Quiet doesn't eat good. Everyone knows that. The next line is clearly that's not how toddlers work, especially not this particular toddler who was pretty much only quiet when sleeping or eating and sometimes not even then. You'd think this would have traumatized me into hating mushrooms, but apparently not. And that being said, I wouldn't eat fresh mushrooms until high school.

My mom was very embarrassed when I made her confirm with the pizza place that they use canned mushrooms every single time, because one time we tried a new restaurant and they put fresh mushrooms on my pizza. Any who I've been talking about mushrooms for entirely too long, love you all, especially Frank Cookie and Blossom, stay sexy and don't put fresh mushrooms on pizza, Brittany with an eye. That's cute.

I like mushrooms too. Okay, oh, weird. My next one's called Dad Cooking Breakfast while I'm on shrooms. Oh my god. What are the mother-fucking chances? Very low. Very low. Hi everyone, long-time listeners, lash fan. The Pine Soul Drunk Dad Breakfast Story, another listener shared, inspired this right in. My mom was the worst cook, and dad was amazing,

but rarely cooked. So whenever he was cooking, that was a meal you never turned down or missed. His specialty was breakfast. Well, my newly turned 16 year old macheteous self had snuck out one night to meet friends and my very kind teenage friends decided to gift me magic mushrooms for a late birthday gift.

I had never tried mushrooms, but I couldn't turn down a birthday present, right? So I partook. Keep in mind I had snuck out pretty late and had a small window to hang out before sneaking back in before 5 a.m. when my dad thought the world should be awake. I successfully snuck my very high

and still tripping self back into the house right before I heard my dad thought the world should be awake. I successfully stuck my very high and still tripping self back into the house right before I heard my dad head downstairs. Yes, I thought I made it. Now I just have to hide in my room until I stop seeing sounds and hearing colors. Well, dad had a different idea. It was just him and I at home. So he decided to make a huge breakfast

and wake me up at 6 a.m. on Sunday for this grand meal. He knew. He knew. I'm going to punish her totally. This is when the challenge of my life began. I was wide awake, tripping my ass off, and dad knocks on my door, announcing that he's made all of my favorites and to come on down.

When I remember how to say the word, okay, out loud, I manage it. I look in the mirror and realize my pupils are still as big as plates and what I'm seeing and what is real are still not diving because, well, mushrooms. But there's no time to wait to come down because dad wants to at the table, 0.025 seconds after the meal is ready. I accept my fate, the dad is 100% going to know I'm high as I head into the kitchen for breakfast. Dad looks like a giant. The kitchen is full of beautiful colors and the food looks like it's moving on my plate.

Oh shit. I sit down and eat the most amazing breakfast as my senses are on overdrive and dad is smiling ear to ear. I think as I'm trippling eating his delicious spread. I make it through the breakfast with dad after what feels like the happiest and most delicious hour of my life and head upstairs to finally start coming down and sleep with a full belly and dad and on the wiser. My dad, who is my hero, has passed to this day that is one of the funniest memories and most delicious meals of my life. Keep your head up, your heart strong, and go ahead and do those mushrooms. You won't regret it. Nicky Z. That is not the message of this podcast.

That's Nicky Z. Nicky Z is alone in her messaging to this. And you know what? It's really nice that Nicky Z has the kind of family where that wouldn't have turned into an absolute horror movie nightmare because the potential was strong. And clearly she has a great dad, and a great home life where she suddenly wasn't seeing little skulls everywhere.

I made sloppy jows on LSD at home with my family once. So. How'd that go? I did my best. I did my best. No one was on to you? No, I don't think so. Well then you did the job.

I guess so. I'll be young drug addict. All right, well that's so, shit, that's a mini-sode. I know, that's that was that went by like a flash. That's the job and we've done it for you. That's right. You asked for it maybe and we answered kind of a little bit. Yeah.

If you have any stories, hometown stories, grandma stories, crime in the family stories, anything at this point truly anything. Yeah. That's a good story. Write it into us. That's right. That's my favorite murder at Gmail. And stay sexy.

And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Yeah. Elvis, do you want a cookie? Ah! 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 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 us a review on Amazon Music, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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