My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 358

Episode Date: November 20, 2023

This week’s hometowns include signing up for a pen-pal program and a trash mom from the '90s. 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 Wondry Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondry app. Hello! Hello! The holidays are approaching and the MFM and exactly right merch stores are stocked with brand new designs from all your favorite podcasts.

Everything from sweatshirts from murderinos, to hats for bananemals, to wrapping paper from I said no gifts, and so much more. Visit exactlyrightstore.com to get shopping. Hello! Hello! And welcome to my favorite murder! The man is a big bookie. It's little. Dimey!

You wanna go first on this one? Sure. Okay, this, I'm not gonna reach you, the subject. Hi, Karen, Georgia, and team. Love what you do. Let's get right into it. I was listening to your recent episode about the Silent Twins,

and it reminded me of a hometown tale my mom recently shared with me. She was a student in the early 70s in Reading UK, pronounced Reading rather than reading as in books. Good. Good to know. Mom Jane was shy and sheltered, having moved over to England from a strict upbringing in rural Northern Ireland. Yikes. Her best friend Juliet was lively and super outgoing and was always dragging her along on crazy adventures. We all need a Juliet in our lives, don't we?

Yeah, for sure. Or were the Juliet's. Or be the Juliet or find a Juliet. That's right. And switch off. Right. One time Juliet told Mom about a charity penthouse scheme she was involved in, writing to and visiting hospital patients who had no remaining family or friends.

They needed more volunteers, so my mom, more than happy to reach out to a lonely person and need signed up. A few exchanges later, mama and Juliet set off on the train for a day trip to visit their new pen pals at the hospital. Broadmore hospital. That is. I know that one. Yes, that's right.

It turned out that my lovely innocent 19 year old, um, new penpal was in fact a patient at Broadmore, which we all know is like one of the worst psychiatric hospitals in the UK. We've told many stories about people. And if I'm not mistaken, of course, I very well could be, but I'm pretty sure it's been there for a very long time. Yeah, yeah. I think it's a psychiatric prison and a hospital as well. Yeah.

If you know anything about Broadmore Hospital and you want to write in and tell us about it, we'd love to read it on the mini-sode. Do it, love that, please. We'd love information. When she asked him what had happened to land him there, her pen pal explained it was a quote, complete misunderstanding.

It's a misunderstanding for sure. And that heated argument with his girlfriend had ended in him quote, accidentally hitting her and killing her. Oh, no. The weapon he used to quote, accidentally hit the girlfriend on the head, an axe. No. Needless to say, when she went back home and told her parents about her charitable new venture, they were absolutely horrified.

Stay sexy and don't become pen pals with an axe murderer, Alice Kiskis. I don't think you can get much out of that pen pal relationship. No. I don't know though, but I don't think so. No. Like, you want to be charitable and everything, but there's gotta be someone a little more like on the level that you can help. One would hope.

Yeah. Someone you could have changed recipes with. I don't know. You don't want people to suffer. You also don't want people to get pulled into penpal relationships. That's parallel to my story. It's my penpal Donna from Iowa.

That animated about that. I think it might be my favorite at my family animated. Okay, here's my first one. I'm not going to read you this subject line. So it starts, hi, I'm MurderFam, a obligatory gush, y'all are a comfort and kept me company through my divorce. And this never ending pandemic. Okay, so when I was in my early 20s, I moved with three friends to Chile, the super skinny little country on the west coast of South America.

Yep, I had Chilean roommate after college and her visa was expiring and it was the height of the recession. So I thought, sure, what can I lose? Your 20s, am I right? I hardly heard of Chile, and before I knew it, I was moving there. So a month into living in Santiago, my roommate and I wanted to get a better sense for the culture and explore the area. We stood out like sore thumbs as we were about a foot taller than most Chileans, and these two dudes gravitated toward us, introduced themselves and sat down for drinks. They were young, cute, and we had no friends and nowhere to be.

One of the guys said he knew a place where we could get more drinks. You guys, it was his parents' medical office. They were doctors, and he had a kid to their office. That's a bad ass. Yeah, it would be on board with that. Hell yeah. We stumbled toward this office. He lets us in adventurous. Yeah, it would be on board with that. Hell yeah. We stumble toward this office. He lets us in and we drink and dance around exam tables and filing cabinets. Absolutely. This is your 20s. Spoiled down. My roommate and I say we have to go and stumble home drunk off Pisco Sowers around 2 a.m 3am, I wake up to swaying and I thought the world was spinning and it was. We lived on the 10th floor of an apartment building and there was an 8.8 earthquake.

That's huge, everyone. It's huge. It's huge. Holy shit. 8.8. That's like, top, let the pops. What was the 94 LA earthquake? Six points. Something like that. It was the 94 LA earthquake? Six points.

Something like that. It was between six and seven. Yeah. This was an 8.8. Okay. Oh my God. The whole building shook. As a native Californian, I got my bearings and recognized that it was an earthquake.

I looked around to see if anything would fall on me and then promptly fell back asleep. What? No. She's like, anything hanging over this bed? Any chandeliers? Okay. 99. When I woke up at the leisurely hour of 9.30 a.m., I noticed our refrigerator was halfway

across the kitchen and my lights didn't work. I checked my micro cell phone and noticed about a dozen miss calls. My Chilean friend had called to check on us and the US Embassy called about six times. Yeah, I bet. Back at home, everyone's like freaking the fuck out, right? Freaking the fuck out, and I love that. They instead of them being like stuck

somewhere trying to call the embassy, the embassy's calling them. They're just like, we were kind of drunk. So apparently my mom heard the news and was blowing them up. They told me to please call my mother so she would stop calling them. Oh my God. We later discovered the deadbolt to our front door

had jammed and we were stuck in our apartment. But all in all, we were fine. Oh, and those guys, we never chilled with them at the doctor's office again. Stay sexy and call your mom back, Lauren she heard. Wow, yeah. Oh my God, that sounds terrifying. They're so lucky that nothing happened.

I know, the 10th floor, like you don't wanna, but I think that's also the true magic of your 20s where like if you get drunk enough and 8.8 earthquake won't impact you that badly. No, you still need your beauty sleep. Yeah, and you're just gonna be like, sorry I'm just filled with pisco or whatever. Ha ha ha ha.

Gonna sleep it off. That's a good one. Hi, it's me, the Grand Poova of Bahamba. The OG Green Grump, the Grinch. From Wondery! Tis the Grinch. From Wandery! Tis the Grinch Holiday talk show is a pathetic attempt by the people of O'Vill to use my situation as a teachable moment.

So join me, the Grinch, along with Cindy Luhu. Hello, everyone. And of course, my dog Max. Every week for this complete waste of time. Listen as I launch a campaign against Christmas cheer, grilling celebrity guests, like chestnuts on an open fire. They'll try to get my heart to grow a few sizes, but it's not gonna work, honey.

Your family will love the show. As you know, I'm famously great with kids. Follow Tiz the Grinch Holiday Talk Show on the Wondery app, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Tiz the Grinch Holiday Talk Show early and add free right now by joining Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Tins the Grinch Holiday talk show early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. [♪ Music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, I never thought about because I live in California, but here it is. Okay. Right into it. I live in Minnesota and grew up in a neighborhood on Lake Minachanka. Everyone during the lake freezes over with enough ice, locals plow roads on the lake so people can more easily drive across it.

People drive on the ice for all sorts of reasons like setting up their ice-fishing houses, getting from one end of the lake to the other, or for fun. I remember driving on the lake all the time for my childhood well into my teens. We had two rules for driving on the lake. Always unbuckle your seatbelt and roll down the windows in case you need to get out. So like, in case the fucking ice breaks underneath you, like, take the long way, take the long way. And yet yet it must make it really fun when you do it. Because you're like truly playing with fire, the opposite of fire, frozen water. Back in January of 2003, two high school students from the area, Jacqueline and Evan were driving on the lake and their car went through the thin ice not too far from the shore. Evan drowned in the car, but Jacqueline was able to get out of the water onto the ice. It was reported that she walked about 100 yards from the spot their car went through and

crawled another 50 yards across the ice. She ended up dying a pipe of thermia on the ice, Mirin up to be spotted the next morning by residents. Are you fucking horrible? I was in second grade when this happened, and my mom talking about it because she worked as a lunch lady at the high school at the time. However, this apparently didn't convince my parents

to change their ways because they taught me how to drive a car on the frozen lake when I was 15. Thanks for reading, S. That's it. There was like those urban legends that you hear about of like the older high school kids who were out driving. You know what I mean? I'm like, but then you wouldn't drive on the ice. What people still do, it's crazy. Or I wonder if it's like seasonal where in the middle of the winter, you absolutely can drive on the ice because it's

so thick and that it's just impossible happening. But like as it thaws, the risk gets higher and higher. I never know year to year when that will be. It's still, it's just so sad and sudden. And it is that thing where like when kids die of like terrible accidents in high school, it just everybody is affected by that. Like everybody, that's everyone's first big serving of like, oh, this could happen to you. Tragedy, totally, horrible.

So sad. Okay. I'm not going to reach this subduck line. It just starts friends. I have been waiting to write in for years about a few great stories I learned from family members that I harassed at holidays and then parentheses that says, per year asking, but I'm a writer who happens to be a perfectionist and I procrastinate, so you'll have to wait even longer for those, sorry. I've never related to an opening paragraph more in my life.

But for now, I do have a story for you. I was headed to work yesterday, late, of course, and taking the exact route I always take. I approached an intersection where a bunch of road closed signs were posted, and a worker was moving traffic around. At first I was furious because although in Michigan we fix our roads every fucking day, this was not a planned construction site. I rolled my window down to ask this worker what was going on,

and he simply replied about an hour ago a woman was driving through the intersection and a huge sinkhole caved in right behind her. Holy shit. She called and reported it to the police, and we're here to fix it. My response seriously blew his mind, and I don't know why, because it seemed to be a normal response to me.

Are you kidding me? That could have been me! Damn it! He looked at me and said, are you mad? And I simply responded, I'm a murderino. You wouldn't understand. I drove away thinking about how badly I wanted to be the one to witness that, survive it, and get to call the cops reporting a sinkhole. And then immediately my head went to tell Karen and Georgia. Thanks for all your smiles, laughs, tears, and reminders that I'm not totally fucking weird

for have loving all these types of things you share since I was a child. You truly make me feel so much less weird, knowing I'm not alone. SSDGM bitches, Sarah Bob, she heard. Ha, ha, ha. You did it, You did it though. Like you didn't even have to be there and you just wrote a great email and so you nailed it. And it was like it was an email kind of about a missed opportunity but more importantly about your feelings

which we support and encourage. That's how easy it is everyone. Write your stories in because they really truly don't have to be about anything. Yeah, it's for real. My last one's called Not Fair, which is trademark. Youngest sibling stories. Okay, you're ready for this. I think you're going to like it. Okay. Y'all, but especially blossom. I just finished listening to many so 347 about the youngest child sliding out of a rollercoaster seat

when I knew I had to sit down, put off all my tasks, and spin you a yarn. I was the youngest of four girls. All of my sisters were tomboyes, and while they were all two years apart from each other, perfect sibling age, I was four years apart from my next older sister. We've talked about this many times. It sucks. This combined with all the usual sibling dynamics meant I had to stay at home and play Barbies by myself while my sisters went out to play on the canal and catch tadpoles and garter snakes with the neighborhood boys. Did I want to reach my hands in the money waters trying to catch slimy, squirming amphibians? No. I was the family's chokin girly girl

and wanted to play princesses in my fairy costume. But as any youngest sibling knows, if you want to be included and you so desperately want to be included, you do whatever boring, big-kid activities your siblings are doing, even if that means participating in things you as a tiny six-year-old are neither interested in nor equipped for.

Can I just say, when my cousin Stevie, who was, I think, five or six years older than me, started doing wrestling, I think he was in junior high, so I was six or seven, that meant I started doing wrestling. Karen, you've got a bit of a professional fucking wrestler. Killer Karen! Like, I just remember having to, to like be in my hands and knees while he was like doing the thing where he has one arm next to mine and he's like, already I'm gonna count you in and then whatever. And then get ready.

We're gonna. Oh, you're talking about like wrestling wrestling. Wrestling like grappling wrestling. Fuck, so it's little sexuals like. And then he would just take us up and slam us onto the ground. Anyway, I just relate. That's cute. I like that. That's cute. I like that.

I didn't. This meal you of injustice came to a head one summer day when my sisters announced they were going to the canal to catch tadpoles, and I wasn't invited. I wind and begged and even petitioned my mom to make them take me with them, but to no avail. So they left with her nets and tupperware, and my mom did what moms in the 90s did best,

and took a nap. Alone on my six-year-old rage and no supervision, I thought, wait a minute, they're just walking down the street, which means I could walk down the street, and if I'm big enough to get there by myself, surely I'm big enough to catch tadpoles with the big kids. A foolproof plan to be sure. So I walked down the road to the canal

where we usually played, but my sisters were nowhere to be found. However, there was another group of kids playing in the water, so I didn't mind. Where were the parents, you ask? Oh, there were parents present, but none of them seemed to notice or mind a rogue solo-sick girl

who showed up out of nowhere playing with their kids, all the 90s. Back at the house, my mom had woken up from her nap when my sisters had come home who showed up out of nowhere playing with their kids, all the 90s. Back at the house, my mom had woken up from her nap when my sisters had come home with their hall of slimy things, only to realize I was nowhere to be found. Turns out my sister's honestly had my best interest in mind and didn't want me going with them because the canal they actually went to was bigger, faster, deeper, and further away.

Now any mom would flip if they woke up from a nap and their six-year-old was gone, but my mom was extra. My mom was the person who got me into true crime on accident by telling me stories all my life of children being kidnapped and murdered. Something she was extra sensitive about because when she was little, her cousin, Debbie Kent, was taken from her high school by a handsome stranger in a yellow bug and never seen again. She was a little girl right before the Fort Lauderdale sorority house.

Oh my God, that's her cousin. And so one of her four or five little girls goes missing, she loses her fucking mind. Of course. As well, she should. Wild. So needless to well, she should. Wild. So needless to say, when her baby seemed to vanish into thin air,

she freaked the fuck out. I don't know how they found me. Maybe they remembered how badly I'd wanted to go with the big kids and check the canal. Maybe one of the other parents did notice the random six year old and started asking around. Either way, no one told me. All I knew is one minute I was having a blast, finally playing with kids my own age. The next minute I looked up to see my mom shaking,

fist balled up, red face saying, you get out of there and come with me in this instant. In that low scary mom voice they use when they're too angry to yell. It's next level, it's so scary. Why won't we do it with her taste crunch so she would talk through her crunch? Oh my God, it was there. This was over 20 years ago, so I don't remember what my punishment was, but I do remember I learned not to go wandering down the road alone.

And if your mom says you can't go play with the other kids, maybe there's a reason. Thanks for all you do. And the community you've created, stay sexy and maybe ask questions before going rogue, especially if you still need a car seat, Ren she her. There's like a really hilarious account on TikTok.

Someone named Ellie Collins does this bit. She does duets with babies getting in trouble and she shows up as the baby lawyer. She's like, don't say anything. And then it's like the mom saying to the baby, like, did you play with the makeup and the baby has makeup all over their face? And then of course the baby's going like, no, I didn't.

And then the mom asks again and the lady lawyers, like asked and answered, don't answer that. Whatever, for attending, she's coaching the baby. Oh my God, that's brilliant. It's so brilliant. I really do. I like that. Okay, here's my last one. It says trash mom story. A trash mom story for once. Ooh, I love it. A bit long, but so very worth it. It says, hello, darlings. Long time listener,

first time writer. Recently, I've been loving all the trash dad stories that people have shared, and I felt compelled to tell you one of the tales of my trash mom from the 90s. Between the Statutal limitations probably running out, and the fact that she died two years ago, it makes it finally okay to share these with the world. Any who back in the late 90s, my mom stayed home all day to care for my little brother before he was old enough to start school. During the day while my older brother and I were at school, we assumed that she was spending most of her time on AOL or playing solitaire on the computer that we had in our dining room. That sounds great. That's just what kids assume moms do all day.

Yeah. If you're not here, I turn off like a robot and just wait for you to return. Okay One day we came home from school and mom had informed us that she had won a brand new patio set from an online contest from better homes and gardens How fucking great, right? Well, this continued to happen over and over for probably about a year We had a high-top four-seater table with chairs and umbrella, a six-top outdoor dining table with chairs and an umbrella The matching love seat swing set and a full-on swing set with a tree house and a slide play set thing for my little brother At this point my stepdad began questioning how many damn contests one person could win

It was happening so often that he was getting irritated at being given very few details and only ever being told that she would just spend her days filling out surveys and winning contests from Better Homes and Gardens website. Eventually she won a writing lawnmower and we really didn't have any more space in our yard for more patio sets, so no more prizes showed up after that. My older brother and I found it to be pretty suspicious as well, but who were we to ask questions? Maybe she was just buying them on a credit card that my stepdad didn't know about and it would all blow up in her face later. Years went on and I continued to ask her about all the patio furniture because it was all pretty good stuff and it remained with us through several moves. By the time I was about 21 years old, I was telling all of this to a friend of mine and

he demanded that I ask her again how the fuck she got all this shit for free. I said that she probably wouldn't tell me but that I'd try. Later that night after work, I called her up and begged for her to spill the beans on what she was doing to quote unquote, win all these contests. Like there's no fucking way anyone is that lucky. And I was right. It turns out my mom would pack up my little brother and then go down the road and pick up her friends' kids, also a toddler and two young to be in school aged, and they'd make a trip

to the local megastore to do the weekly grocery shopping. My mom would fill up the cart and get everything we'd need and then check out through the garden section as this area usually had shorter lines. And then as she was exiting the garden center, she'd poke and prod all the boys and get them all riled up. So now this woman, all of five foot two, maybe 130 pounds, is trying to push a heavy, ass shopping cart filled to the top with food and managed three Ram Bunches little assholes who are running around and yelling and being generally chaotic.

She goes over to the employee at the gate and says that she purchased, fill in the name of the patio set here, and that she was told to just come up to the front and someone would help her get it loaded into the truck. They'd asked to see the receipt, and she'd be shuffling around for it, but then the kids got worse, and she'd have to stop what she was doing to go manage them some more. Meanwhile, the person had already called over the employees in the back to get this shit loaded into the truck. So she's still scrambling, and then by that time they're done loading

everything in and the employee who asked her for the receipt gets the OIRD showed it to the other guy. I hope that's okay line and then everyone seems satisfied. Oh my God! She gets the kids loaded into the truck and quickly leaves. This bitch was straight up stealing whole-ass patiosets, swing sets, writing mother-fucking-law mowers. The absolute madness of it all. We're all really shocked at how many times this actually worked for her. She said she did need to cycle through multiple different locations and times of day so that she didn't get caught and she never did.

What the fuck? I think eventually she told my step-dead what she was doing and that's why it stopped. Or, you know, that you only need so much fucking out or furniture because it becomes ridiculous. Yeah. I hope you enjoyed this story. My mom and I rarely got along,

but when I need a good memory of her, this is usually my go-to tale. Stay sexy and always remember to borrow someone else's kids when you're going to commit grand larceny. Chelsea. Your mom was a klepto, but I've like classy stuff, but still. I wonder if the first time it happened, the real thing happened. Right. And she realized that they loaded it in without her being charged for it. And then she was like, oh my god, I could have anything in this area that I want. Oh my God.

I thought mom, was it home on AOL playing solitary? No. She's committing grand theft largely. That's amazing. She stole a writing lawn mower. It's got to be like a couple grand, right? I don't know how much lawn mower is. Those things are like nine grand.

Oh my fucking God. Well, thank you for don't know much about that. Oh yeah, those things are like nine grand. Oh my fucking god. Well, thank you for sending in your trash bomb story. Please send us your trash parent story. It's kind of funny. The trash bomb stories have a different feel. Yeah, it's just kind of like, oh shit, she's going for it. It's like diabolical in a little bit.

It is. I like it. All right, Mimi, you done? Stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elviste, do you want a cookie? Ah!

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!

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