My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 357

Episode Date: November 13, 2023

This week’s hometowns include driving a Zamboni at a spooky ice rink and a fortune-telling grandma. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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That's k-o-o-h-o.ca for more details. You'll also get $20 when you make your first purchase using the code Murder20. That's $20 when you use our code Murder20. Bye-bye. What a life these celebrities lead. Imagine walking the red carpet, the cameras in your face, the design clothes, the worst dress list, big house,

the world constantly peering in, the bursting bank account, the people trying to get the grubby mitts on it. What's he all about? I'm just saying, being really, really famous. It's not always easy. I'm Emily Lloyd-Saini, and I'm Anna Liang-Grofi, And we're the hosts of Terribly Famous from Wondery, the podcast which tells the stories of our favorite celebrities from their perspective. Each season we show you what it's really like being famous by taking you inside the life of a British icon. We walk you through their glittering highs

and eyebrow raising lows and ask, is fame and fortune really worth it? Follow Terribly Famous Now now wherever you get your podcasts or listen early and add free on Wondery Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. Hello! Hello! Hello! And welcome to my favorite murder. The Mini-sode.

That's right. We read you your stories. Are you ready to hear them? Ask yourself. Ask yourself. Check in with yourself. Get in there. I'm going to go first.

All right. I won't read you the subject line of this one. It just says, hello, my baronesses of murder. My name is Chase. I've been listening to your lovely voices since 2020 and haven't stopped since. Thanks, Chase. I managed to binge years of the pod into a matter of months as I work 12 hour shifts and

I'm able to listen to MFM the entire time. It felt like the lowest form of time travel. Big slow to sense. Anyways, what prompted me to finally write in was I was listening to one of the recent mini-sodes, you know the short episodes where you read SREMALS. Yeah, that one. So Jacob from Shu Malker, and then in parentheses it says, I'm not sure I spelled that right, mentioned he was an underground minor and Karen gushed over it like he was a rock star.

And you ladies said that no one listens to the pod while working underground. Well, I'm here to tell you I do. Oh, in fact, just that one kilometer down to be exact. What? If only we knew the metrics. I know, if only I really knew how far down that one. far down that one. Oh, Americans. Oh, America. Frank is going for it. Sorry about that. Another coincidence to the pod. I'm a potash minor. There's a call back in an old episode where the factory owner dissolved a body using the ore that I work with underground. Ain't that some shit? Oh, and then it says also note Karen. It's pronounced potash, not potash. The way I just pronounced it. And then it says the main component is potassium. Anyways, enough about me. I have a badass grandma story. All that to say of a badass grandma story. I know y'all love these. My great-grandmother, L.C. was such a lovely, old English woman, married to an Irishman, so you can imagine the demeanor,

if you know you know. I remember most of all, she gave the warmest, most loving hugs. Oh, grandma hugs. Kills me. Probably because we were the same height when I was a boy. She was no more than five feet tall and adorable. She passed away when I was about 12 and I missed her dearly. She was an angel on earth. But do not fuck with this woman. Long before I was born, my great anti-john had a boyfriend that was a little, let's say, unhinged.

There was some trouble. An anti-john decided to leave him. He did not take this well. He decided to get a rifle and come to their house and point the gun at the house demanding Joan come out. Elsie was not having that shit. My five-foot tall granny came marching out of the house on fire. This guy points the rifle at her, and she, without missing a beat, grabs the barrel, pulls

it out of his hands, turns it around and boom. Just kidding, she didn't shoot her. But she did tell him to get the fuck out of here. She's one of my heroes and I hope to see her again in the spirit world. I do too. Jesus. Hell yes. I hope to hear one of you ladies read this back to me while I'm down here feeding the corporate machine. Stay sexy and don't fuck with Elsie. Chase, 30, Saskatchewan and PS, Karen, I've always had a huge crush on you. Okay, goodbye. Oh, cute. What better way to romance a person than to tell a really awesome story about your badass grandma? That's right. Now you know he has good genes. Yeah. He's a hard worker. He's brave. He's genetically brave. Yeah.

Oh, Jacob, he works one kilometer below the ground hot hot hot. Well, I for one approved this union. This one's about cat sitting. Okay. And they very kindly wrote three-minute read in the subject. I appreciate it. Yes. The type A's. Okay, just starts. Long time listener here, I have heard every episode. The combination of light-hearted banter and fascinating morbidity, you feed me nourishes my silly dark soul. Hmm.

I have always been a little too interested in things of the macabre nature, and I think it all began when I was about 12, allow me to explain. I'm a cat person and always have been, even from an extremely young age. When I was old enough to start earning my own money, I started cat sitting for people in my neighborhood in the small North Alberta town where I'm from. Canada again.

Canada. It says, no dogs, no reptiles, no fish, no rodents, not even plants, just cats. That was my specialty, and people paid for my expertise. I love this. What if that's what their card said? Or is just a card with all the nose? Yeah, no, no, no, no.

And then ahead of a cat, right in the center. I have 12, here's my card. I have a lot of frustration. One of my best clients was our family doctor, Dr. Cooper. He lived with us straight from me and had two beautiful kiddies whose names I don't recall now. The job was great. Whenever he and his wife would go away on vacation

or a business, he would leave me a house key. And I would drop in twice a day to scoop the litter, feed them their pate, entertain them with strings, and help myself to open bags of snacks in the pantry. Oh, yeah. This is not explicitly part of the arrangement, but I never ate enough that they would notice, I think. It's part of the fucking job, everyone knows that.

It's part of the job and it was the part of the job that I could never do, because I'm like, oh, I'm just eating some cookies and I'm positive that I got fired from my first baby sitting job for eating all of their cookies. It's just like, do you get rid of the evidence though? Like, did you throw the trash away in there? Oh no, yeah. Just blatant, like, these are my mint malanas

or whatever they were. Didn't care. We came home when evening to a message on our answer machine. It was 1999 from Dr. Cooper. He said he had to leave town suddenly for a conference and his wife was out of town or something, and he'd needed me to feed his cats. The key was left under the mat at his front door.

He had never left me instructions in a message before. He usually spoke with my parents to quote, book me that I didn't think much of it. It was late, so I headed over the next morning to do my duties. I don't recall how soon after it could have been a day or days later, I'm not sure. But the police arrived at our door door asking to speak with me.

My parents sat me down at the kitchen table with the police officers and they asked me questions like, did Dr. Cooper tell you where he was going? And did he mention when he would be back? And how did he sound to you? My dad interjected and said that he had left us a message on our answering machines and no one had actually spoke with him directly. The police then told us that they needed to confiscate both the tape from our answering machine

and the key to Dr. Cooper's house. I don't know if my dad had seen one too many crime shows or if he was being deliberately difficult, but he told them that they would need a warrant for those items and to come back when they had one. Oh, bad. Yeah. So they did.

They took the tape and the key and that was that. I really don't know how much of this was by the book, but I wouldn't doubt that both my dad and the small town cops were a little oblivious to proper murder investigation protocol. I just remember asking my parents who was going to feed the cats. My only concern was for my business, of course. And they told me not to worry. Later we would find out what happened.

Ready? And this isn't what I thought it would be, but it's still so. Dr. Cooper was at odds with another doctor in our small town. Dr. Snyder. Dr. Cooper invited Dr. Snyder to his office one night for a meeting. Dr. Cooper then killed Dr. Snyder, put his body in the trunk of his car and disposed of it. Oh, he then drove to a neighboring city and boarded a plane to a, quote, conference

to establish his alibi, and left me the message asking me to cat sit. Like that was part of his, like, to do list after killing someone. Pulled a 12-year-old into the plan. Uh-huh. Jesus Christ. Dr. Cooper was eventually arrested, tried, and found guilty of manslaughter.

He was sentenced to about 7.5 years in jail. Though Dr. Snyder's body was never found, there was plenty of blood evidence left behind in Dr. Cooper's office, on his clothes, and the trunk of his car. Dr. Cooper maintained his innocence the whole time claiming Dr. Snyder faked his own death to frame him. His defense was quite painful for our small community, as Dr. Snyder faked his own death to frame him. His defense was quite painful for our small community as Dr. Snyder was quite beloved from what I recall. Dr. Cooper was eventually released after something about two-thirds of his sentence. That's it. Two-thirds of like seven and a half years for murdering someone in cold blood. How many years is two-thirds seven? Two thirds is two and a half ish.

Two and a half ish. I'm gonna go two and a half. I can't be the one that answers. Oh, this is on video, by the way, for the fan call, if you wanna see me counting on my actual fingers, like an actual child, or a very smart chimpanzee.

Thank you. And for my understanding, went on to lead a non-violent life post-conviction. One last twist. Years later, my big brother would move to Edmonton, Alberta, and take a woodworking hobby class. Guess who was also in that class, Dr. Cooper. Whoa.

So that's how my obsession with cats led me to an obsession with murder. Stay sexy and don't hand over evidence without a warrant, Erin H. I mean, Erin said that her dad and the small town please might not know about murder process, but it sounds like her dad knew exactly what he was talking about. That's right.

And was protecting people's rights just because that's the way it should be. Totally. That's kind of cool. I mean, I would love to know what the details of what that argument problem was. Yeah. Clearly, it was big enough and important enough that it came to murdering someone. I mean, what the hell? Why not? People murder for the dumbest fucking reasons. Yeah. Who knows? Ghost Sound Real. At least as a journalist, that's what I've always believed. Sure, odd things happened in my childhood bedroom.

But ultimately, I shrugged them off. That is until a couple of years ago, when I discovered that every subsequent occupant of that house is convinced they've experienced something inexplicable, including being visited by the ghost of a faceless woman. And it gets even stranger. It just so happens that my wife's great grandmother was murdered in the house next door by two gunshots to the face. Is the ghost somehow connected to her murder? I decided to go where no son

in law should ever go, digging up a cold case and asking questions no one wants answered. And the guy who did the killing? It might have been my wife's great grandfather. This is a podcast about family secrets, overwhelming coincidence, and the things that come back to haunt us. Follow Go Story on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes at free right now by joining Wondry Plus. Alright, this subject line of this one is hometown folk lores. You actually did ask for this one.

That sounds right. Look, trying to reassure us. Dear ladies and all four and three legged friends, we don't discriminate here. Oh, long time listener and fourth time writer, but I'm not mad about it. And then in parentheses, it says sad face. So that's passive aggressive. In mini-sode 348 I think you asked for hometown folklore and I have some wild tales from a place people seem to know nothing about as I always have to explain where I am from geographically. I grew up on the Isle of Man, I know where that is, which is the

tiny spit of land between England and Ireland, and we have some mad skit, pronounced skit. It means stories slash gossip. Cool. When it comes to our weird folklore, I'm going to share with you two of my faves, although there is an extensive list. If I'm not mistaken, do you hear the band Band of Bees from the like Outs? Yeah, that's where they're from. I think it is. It's literally like this tiny island. I've definitely read books where it's set there, for sure. On the Isle of Man.

On the Isle of Man. Like, I think during World War II, it was like the only territory that something, something, that's why I remember. I don't remember the useful, but I just know the name. Oh, I'm sorry, Band of Bees is from Isle of White. Oh! That dammit! You were close. One word away. Out of three, not that. That can't count as the folklore from Isle of Man. It's a different place. Okay. So here we're getting into it. My personal favorite is the Modi Doh. Oh, sorry pronounced Mordidu. I think this is appreciated and also needed, but it also means black dog in

Manks, which is Manks, Gaelic. So in Manks, which is Manks, Galic. So the Morty Doe is a mythical dog who's rumored to have scared someone to death in one of the castles on the island. Woohoo. As legend has it, this is a black dog who stands at the height of a man and has eyes glowing like red pieces of coal. The first written sighting of him

was when Charles II was king and there was a dog sighted around peel, pronounced peel, don't worry, peel castle, and no one knew anything about who's it was or where it came from. Most people weren't scared of the sighting and ignored the morty-do, but one night one of the guards wanted to challenge the dog, whilst drunk, because men, and then there's ten question marks after the word men. So he challenged the dog and said, I'll see if he's dog or devil, and went into the room where it had been cited to collect his keys. No one thought anything of it

until they heard the screams of the guard. They went into the room to see how the man was and apparently his face was so white and pale and twisted, no one could get him to speak and three days later he died. And the Morty Doe was never seen again. He died afraid. Crave. My other favorite is the Bougain, B-U-G-G-A-N-E. And then it says pronounced like it's spelled, I think, which is some kind of bad fairy, because you know how much Celtic people love

fairies. The Bougain used to live in a field where it was decided a church would be built. He is described to be huge, ebony black, with long fingers and a contorted face. The regain was not a good Christian nor did he want people coming to bother God in his field. When the church was built,

they went to put the roof on and being the committed atheist he was, he ripped off the roof in the night. Not once, not twice, but three times. There is some story about a tailor who promised to stay there overnight and sew some trousers so he could fight the regain with the power of God. Apparently, his commitment to sewing the trousers in the face of this non-Christian entity made the regain rip his own head off and he was never seen again.

Shit. And then it says, I find this hard to believe personally, but not because of the power of God, but because St. Trayon's Church on the Isle of Man still does not have a roof. So as far as I'm concerned, the church lost this one. There are many more tales of evil, river fairies and other God gods, such as Mananan Maccalaer, who is the God of Man, hence the Is tales of evil, river fairies, and other God gods, such as Mananan McLear, who is the God of man, hence the Isle of man, and hides the island from invaders, although it was invaded by many, many people, so maybe not the best God, I think. Anyway, weird. I hope you enjoyed the stories of the weird and wonderful place I call home. Thank you for all you do. Stay sexy and sow trousers to show God you're a good

Christian, sending you all my love from myself and my two Simeez boys, Gus and Claude Lucy. Wow. The first story reminds me of the Stranger than Usual podcast. I feel like she's done that story before because I remember trying to fall asleep one night to her podcast and being like, well, I can't fucking sleep to this. It's terrifying. Because it's like, Judd's scary. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's just such a cool feeling. Like when you go to Ireland or get to see any of those places,

they're so much closer to those old ancient times than look, of course, like this country or whatever. So you're like, oh, I could really see this whole world before Christianity came where it was like... Mythical and... The Celts and Mythical and fairies and all these, like so much magic, it's just such a fun idea. It is. Okay.

I second one. It's about a bad dad and a good dog. Hmm. Hi, MFM crew. I'm a long-time listener. Third-time writer. Fingers crossed, this one makes it. I sing your praises at the end of this email, soFM crew. I'm a long time listener. Third time writer fingers crossed this one makes it. I sing your praises at the end of this email, so please stay tuned.

Let's check. Don't fail out halfway through Georgia. Keep going. Wow. Okay, it goes, look, we all have a trash dad named Jim, but only some of us are lucky to have a hero dog to balance out the equation. Our dog's name was Samson, a German shepherd. One day my dad was taking over parent duties

from my mom who worked nights. They were really young parents working multiple jobs each to make ends meet and they were exhausted. So trash dad Jim lays down on the couch to take a rest after a long day as a carpenter. And my sister, three years old, was next to him watching a movie. Jim falls asleep and wakes up to an empty living room, colored by the sunset outside. No kid, no dog.

Jim Panics intersters the house and backyard, still no kid. His mind is already going to dark places, so he picks up the phone to call our older, next door neighbors to help him look for my sister. Three years old. That's a toddler. Pretty soon, a whole group of neighbors are searching the area looking for my sister. My dad is really starting to lose his shit when one of my neighbors says they found my sister. The little terror lurr, and that says toddler plus terror, was across the street at the

park, but no one could approach her or Sam, the mighty dog, would snap at them. So he was protecting her. Yeah. But friends, let me tell you, this wasn't just a little tautil across the street. My sister crossed a giant six-lane intersection, presumably with a dog three times her size, a fucking German shepherd. We come to find out that Sam was circling my sister as she crossed through multiple light cycles, hurting her across the street

and fending off other pedestrians and even snapping at and chasing off a car that a friend of a friend was in. My dad was so relieved as he ran over and collected the two escapies, but this entire time, he was in only his tidy whiteies because the air conditioner was out and it was too hot in the house.

Oh my God. That's right. My trash dad was running around our neighborhood, basically naked, looking for his three-year-old and her dog sidekick. So that's the story of the time my bad, scantily clad dad had his ass saved by his best friend and dog Sam. The dog and my dad were both so stressed out after that that both Jim and the dog had multiple cores lights.

And then there's three of this girl at this emoji. Oh, I can't thank you enough for becoming the two favorite voices in my head. Seriously, the way you two support each other and being your true, weird selves is so healing for me. Like the big sisters I always wanted besides my actual toddler sister mentioned above, love her too. Stay sexy and trust your dog, but not your dad.

Solana, she, her. Solana, there's dogs that would know they were supposed to do that, but not do that. For sure. For sure. Like the two that are in my living room right now, ruining this podcast. But like, that dog is a true hero. I bet like making eye contact with everyone and being like, say the fuck back.

Everybody stay away. Or I'll bite you. I'll bite you. Even the people that know this baby and are trying to save the baby. Can you imagine seeing that? You're at baby and are trying to save the baby. You imagine seeing that you're at a stoplight. Pull out the video camera. That would make great content.

All right. It just says Zamboni stories. Cool. It says, hello, murder gals, longtime listener, first time writer. I was born and raised in Minneapolis, so I grew up playing hockey. And I along with everyone else here always had a fascination with the Zampo. I mean, how can you not? Yeah, it's pretty rad. A nice brushing machine. Okay, I'm 19 now. And about a year ago, I got a job working at my local ice rink driving the Zampo. Oh, my God. Congratulations. Yeah, Jordan's got the

true. It was my white whale. My journey was finally complete. I have finished life. I have a great time at work driving is as fun as it looks. And I always have a good time waving to little kids who watch. But the story I want to tell you involves the part of the job that most people don't often talk about. I usually work closing shifts, which means I'm done around midnight after everyone has left. It's just me, the Zamboni, and an empty ice rink. I go through my routine, cleaning the bathrooms, and the locker rooms, locking everything

up, and then driving home. But one night, I was locking up and trying to leave, but the main rink door wouldn't shut. This is a big problem because if the door is left open, then anyone can walk in and also tons of heat gets funneled out and the energy bill goes through the roof. So I'm trying and trying to close it and I just can't. I call my manager but it's midnight so she understandably doesn't answer the phone. So then I call the number for the local police. An officer comes and he tries to close it but but still nothing. When you're just going to go home, it's midnight, you know, for real.

Finally, he tells me to go home and he says a patrol car will check on the ring through the night. So I went home a bit worried, but still feeling okay. The next morning, I get a text from my manager saying that all the locker room keys are gone. The police figured in between patrols, someone must have come in and stolen them, but my manager and I poked holes in that very quickly. There is no way to get to the locker room keys without opening the office which was locked. Also, the locker room keys are a stupid thing to steal because there's nothing in the locker rooms.

And they smell. We go and check the locker rooms. And they smell. We go and check the security cameras. You can see me walk by and check that all the keys are there when I leave, and then nothing. We went through the seven more hours of footage and somewhere around 2am, the keys just disappeared. What? I don't believe in ghosts or spirits.

I'm a big believer in science, but I've no way to explain this. For three more days, the keys were still gone, but then on the night of the fourth day, the keys were returned. Just as magical as when they left, all 12 locker room keys came back on the rack. There is no footage to show where they came from.

Oh my God! And then it says, I have a few other creepy Zamboni stories, but this was by far the creepiest. Thank you for everything you do. Stay sexy and maybe just leave the locker rooms on lock. So ghost don't come. Rohan, he, him. That's so scary.

Here's the one thing I think Rohan hasn't considered. Yeah. It was the cop. Right. How would the cop get into the locked office? It cops have a master key to every door. Cop keys. Cop keys.

Holy shit, but they would have seen it on the, I believe it. It would have been on the video. Yeah. Unless the cop knew how to erase that part. I mean, I really want to do a call out for more Zamboni stories. Cause that one was like a ghost ice rink story.

So Rohan, if you have more Zamboni stories of any kind, I wanna hear them, because it must be fun to drive that thing. I also like the idea of a big place like that at night when you're the last person there, like in a mall or a rink, a skating rink or whatever, like that sounds super creepy to me. Yes.

So like, what's that like? Because people would be hiding anywhere. And in the daytime, it's all filled with people. So it was like a friendly residue. But then that would turn to sinister like as you're turning the lights off. Totally. You hear a weird noise. It's like a theater. Old theater. You hear a weird noise. What's going on? Okay. Here's my last one. This is called a fateful Halloween. Hello, voices in my head. And the hardworking folks who preview reading these stories. Let's go. Alejandra Keck, that's her name. What's up?

She's a producer of my favorite murder The Main Show. She's the producer of my favorite murder The Mini. So her birthday was yesterday. She's number one. Ladies and gentlemen, let's give a shout out to Alejandra Keck. In fifth grade, I went to my front of me's Halloween party. That was still maybe the most fun party I've ever been to. The party had bobbing for apples, a haunted hay ride, and best of all, a fortune telling grandmother. One at a time, this enlightened Nana called us into the dining room and revealed our futures.

Great idea for a party. Just like grandma, make shit out about these kids. By the way, we don't like this one. So tell her this. So fuck with her mind. I'm a really good aunt. Okay. When it was my turn, she told me three things.

I would never be wedded. I would travel a lot and I would have many all caps, children. At 10 years old, I didn't know what to do with this information. But felt devastated that I would never be married because that's all we were brainwashed to care about. After leaving the room, all the girls shared their fortune and they were all told the same thing. They would marry the fifth grade heartthrob Austin. All of them? All of them. I did not have interest in Austin, but still felt left out and concerned about my fate

for years. Yeah. Grandma. Now, at 28 years old, I realized that Nana's predictions were right. I never had a wedding because my partner and I eloped. Oh. We travel every chance we get, and I have 16 kids.

I'm a pediatric nurse for children and child services that have failed out of foster homes because of behavioral issues, mostly rooted in trauma, who can blame them. I'm honored to be there for my kids on their worst and best days and work with an amazing team of people that give these kids a safe environment to heal and understand they deserve love. I'd like to thank y'all for sharing your struggles and successes while encouraging others to find healing. Everyone needs somewhere to talk about their feelings without being judged. Y'all rock, Nurse Merrimack. Yes, like the Nurse Reurime. Miss Mary Mack. Uh-huh, I think so. Wow. Nurse't that sweet? Nurse Mary Mack, that's so cool

that you are taking care of those kids. They deserve it the most. Grandma was right. You are a parent to many. I love that. That's very cool. Very good. Wow, another champion batch of stories.

That's right. Send any story you want to my favorite murder at Gmail. Thank you for listening. And if you're in the fan cult, you can go and watch what we just read to you audio-wise because there's a video of it. I have a lot of makeup on in this video. And so does Alejandra. She puts it on with us. In empathy, she also wears it. That's right. If you're not in the fan cult and you want to see these, as well as listen to them, come and join us. Yeah, my favorite murder.com.

Who knew? And stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Get me! Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck. Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.

This episode was mixed by Leonis Kulachi. Email your hometowns to my favorite murder at gmail.com. And follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at my favorite murder and on Twitter at my fave murder. Goodbye! the Wondry app today.