My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 370

Episode Date: February 12, 2024

This week’s hometowns include joining a zoo cult and a beloved dog named Mojo. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Exactly Right, with new episodes every Monday. Follow Tenfold More Wicked wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, we've got a treat for all of you who love historic true crime. Kate Winkler-Dawson is back with the 10th season of Tenfold More Wicked. In case you don't know, Kate is a true crime journalist and author, and she hosts Buried Bones with Paul Holes. Season 10 of Tenfold More Wicked investigates the deaths of three men in Colonial Williamsburg. Over six episodes, Kate digs into the mystery as she interviews local experts and historians.

Stay tuned at the end of this episode for the season 10 trailer of Tenfold More Wicked. And we would love it if you would follow, rate, and review Tenfold More Wicked wherever you get your podcasts. Goodbye! Hello, and welcome to my favorite murder. The mini-soad. That's right. We read you your stories. Thank you for sending them.

Yes, we really appreciate it. You do? Want me to go first? Yeah. Okay. The subject line of this email is, the time my sister almost accidentally joined a zoo cult. It says, hi all. A few years ago, about a month after my younger sister graduated from high school,

my mom's sister and I went out to dinner to celebrate my sister's graduation. I asked my sister what she planned on doing now that she's out of school, and she told me that she was moving across the state and going to work at a zoo as a zookeeper, and that she was actually leaving the next day. When she was in high school, she volunteered to zoo around our area, so she was really excited to get a job at one. I asked her what her job would be like. Let me know if these raise any red flags. She told me that they provide housing on the premises for all their staff, so she wouldn't need to worry about finding an apartment. They also take care of all the employees finances,

so they never have to go to a bank. All meals are provided for the employees, so they don't have to worry about buying groceries. Employees are not allowed to leave the premises. Employees are not allowed to have visitors. Employees have to gather every morning and say a mandatory prayer before work and before they go to bed every night

and they only employ women. My sister was so excited about working at a zoo she apparently overlooked the fact that she was about to join a cult. I asked her if she thought any of these things were weird and she said, well, now that I'm saying it out loud, I guess it is a little weird. Since she was all set to leave for the zoo cult the next day, I made her pull out her phone and email the zoo and tell them that unfortunately, the job is not gonna work out. I think that was the first and only time

my sister ever listened to me. Thanks for reading my story. Stay sexy and don't let your sister join a cult, Taylor from Wisconsin. Oh my God. Yeah, you get so excited about an opportunity when you're 18 and it's like a big deal that you don't really like stop. Yes.

And you're also like, because we're so indoctrinated to like listen to authority and do what the teacher says and blow all our lives. When that gets ratcheted up a little bit, you're like, well, I guess this is what real life is like. This is what adults do. It's a job. It's more strict than high school. It's like, no, no, no, it shouldn't be.

I wonder, has anyone heard of this cult? Join this cult? Know about it, please let us know. A zoo cult. A zoo cult. Be careful. There are worse cults to be in, but. What if it was Carol Baskin's thing from Tiger King?

I'm thinking that. Yeah. Could have been. Could have been. Could have been. I mean, anything's possible. It's true. OK.

You asked for Dad Lore. Includes badass outlaws in the 1800s. What's up, MFM crew and pets? I'm way too excited to get into this. So sorry for the short intro. But as always, you are amazing and so fun to listen to. By far, my fav podcast of all time. Hey, thank you. I just listened to Minnesota 360 and there were two emails about Dad Lore. I about died. Man, do I have Dad Lore for you. My dad grew up in a very

small town in Utah. He graduated from a class of seven people. And most of them were his cousins. It says Slim Pickens for dating. He has amazing stories of growing up in a small town in the 70s and 80s. And honestly, we're just lucky he made it through those times alive. My dad, Lore, story is about Butch Cassidy. If you don't know who Butch Cassidy is,

I'll give you a brief backstory. He was born in Utah in the late 1800s and was a famous American outlaw who ran with the Sundance Kid. It says when he was a grown man, obviously not when he was a sweet baby. He robbed several trains and banks before taking a short break in Argentina to run a rant with his girlfriend. It says aw sweet. However, he returned to outlawry shortly after. Here's where the dad were steps in. One time while out riding. Here's where the dad blur steps in. One time while out riding ATVs with my dad and uncle

in his tiny hometown, he took me up to this very worn and weathered shed. The lore goes that this shed was a hideout that Butch Cassidy used while trying to escape the police on one of his grand schemes. My dad said that one of our ancestors helped him build it and would bring him food and water while he was hiding out, which I thought was badass. As I always knew, I came from chaos defenders. Like that.

Chaos defenders. My dad showed me numerous gunshots in the wood and said that the story goes he was ambushed while hiding out in the shed. He was later captured for a short time and served some time in a Wyoming prison. This lore is a lore. I have tried looking into the shed

and the story of Butch Cassidy numerous times, but I can't find anything about the shed. However, locals believe this lore like it's scripture. So of course I do too. My dad always has the most amazing stories of his hometown, adventures, and getting into so much trouble. He's always meant so much to me,

and so has this little town. I'm now 18 weeks pregnant with a baby boy of my own and I will be naming him after my dad and my grandpa. I hope he gets to hear all of these stories and will know the amazing legacy he is named after. Chaos Defenders for Life. Sorry for the long story. I tend to be long-winded, which I get from a storytelling father. Stay sexy and maybe help a local outlaw if you get the chance or don't, you choose. And it says Kenzie and Baby Boy. Kenzie and her Baby Boy.

I mean, I love the idea of a dad that's like, see that shed over there. And it's like, so whether it's true or false, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It's like, here's who you are. This is what we're like. This is how we do it. Here's like, here's who you are. This is what we're like. This is how we do it.

Mm-hmm. Here's just some imagination in your life. Yeah, I do love that. Yeah. Cool, Kenzie. Wanting to keep the people and things we love safe is only natural, but so is wondering if you're doing enough. Leave your worries behind with Simply Safe Home Security.

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There's no safe like Simply Safe. Goodbye. Georgia, you know as well as I do that Los Angeles is currently experiencing an atmospheric river and that means we're not leaving the house. Absolutely. And when you spend all that time cooped up, you start to get the redecorating itch, and there's no better place to scratch that itch than article. So true. Article believes in delightful design for every home,

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that I swear to God I just saw in like very fancy magazine. I think that's the amazing part where the affordability at article when you are finding things that look exactly like the latest thing that just got released, is so exciting, it makes the shopping so much more fun. Also, I don't know what that bench is that you mentioned, but it sounds fancy. It's very fancy.

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Good boy. He's my mom's favorite child. And then it says she has three human daughters. Wow. Her lock screen, her home screen, and Facebook profile photo. I love it. And she gets furious when we point out

that Mojo's getting fat as older dogs do because she's adamant that he's somehow becoming big-boned. When I was 16, my best friend and I took the train from New Jersey to Philly for a music festival. Being 16, we were drunk off one beer between the two of us and having the time of our lives. When we got home, maybe 1 a.m., of course we decided to make an entire family-sized box of frozen jalapeno poppers. So we preheated the oven, set out maybe 40 frozen solid poppers,

and then in parentheses it says this is important. And it says, on a tray on the kitchen counter ready to bake and went upstairs to change and probably not take off our makeup. Sorry, Karen's glass skin routine. Don't worry about it. I'm new to it. When we came back downstairs, there was not a single trace of those jalapeno poppers. The tray was left on the counter so clean and untouched that we went through the trash for the wrapper to make sure we didn't hallucinate actually putting them out. Turning around, we see Mojo on the couch laying belly up, fat and happy.

Yep, our trash dog not only jumped onto the counter and ate a few dozen frozen solid jalapeno poppers in about five minutes in the middle of the night, but he also did so in a way that didn't leave a single crumb or move anything else in the kitchen. We stood there for in shock for minutes and then accepted our properless future. Mojo was fine and I'm sure very proud of himself.

And then it just says, love you too, SSDGM and happy Hanukkah from the Netherlands, Maddie. Wow, it's those kinds of dogs that can eat anything. And then the ones like cookie who eats one Weird thing and like just goes into a spiral. You know, yo, yeah trash dogs total trash dogs My sister's old dog grace. She was a great pier knees those huge white dogs. Yeah fluffy Yes fluffy and great and I came into the kitchen one time and Grace was standing up so it looked like a person who was about 511 was standing into the kitchen one time and Grace was standing up. So it looked like a person who was about 5'11", was standing in the kitchen.

Uh-huh. And she was just eating a rotisserie chicken like she had gotten the container open and she was just standing there eating it. Because she knew she had like we were all in the back of the house. Yeah, yeah. Also washing off our makeup. And she knew she had like two minutes to get it done. It was so hilarious.

Just picking it clean. Good girl. Confessions of a sleepwalker, apologies to Italy. Long time listener, avid non-participator here. Too much anxiety for introduction, scrutiny, so here we go. That's right. Skip it.

Skip it. My husband is the most unnerving sleepwalker and talker I've ever heard of. What began as regular, innocent summonings of his childhood dog and panicked requests for me to kill non-existent spiders quickly turned more sinister as I now wake up to him several times a week, spring out of bed with wide eyes and a shaking, pointing finger informing me that he's hiding right there and he has a gun. No, no.

Oh. Divorce. No, just separate rooms. OK, the first few times this happened, I would fly from bed and search the house with him. Flashlight and nascent hand adequately freaked out. 10 years later, I tell him to stop, groan when he insists on using his flashlight,

and will be an utter loss cause the day I ever do have a home intruder. Yeah. Yeah. Back in our 20s, however, he took this act internationally. We were splurging on an Italian vacation, so we didn't put in the required thought when we booked one night in a hostel, a room shared with 12 other foreign strangers.

No, you can't do that when you have my terrors. A first and last time in a hostel for my nocturnal psychopath husband and me. I was a novice trip planner, and after I jammed a day in Venice, I allotted about five hours of sleep at the hostel before a train to Florence. Lack of sleep equals prime condition for sleep outbursts.

We had been asleep in our hostel bunk nearly two hours, three to go, when a fellow foreign roommate entered the shared room, and the door shuts just loud enough to stir the sleeping chaos below me. At once, wood and iron bed posts shriek and banging knocks erupt through the room, my bed shaking from the bunk beneath me.

All caps. Open up, it me. All caps open up. It's the police open up to my hardly cognizant horror. It's the voice of my husband. Young travelers hop out of bed, shouts in confusion, explode through the room in several different languages. It says likely embellished here and someone runs out of the room as my husband continues rapping on the bedpost. I mean, out of 12 people in a hostel,

one person has to at least be carrying something. Hell yes they are. Right. My sleeping self has very slow reactive skills and has been trained to sleep through these exact scenarios for the past few years. So the best I had to offer the traumatized travelers, it was a wave of my hand over the bunk rail,

and a stop, lay down. After several more police threats, it says this guy has never been on the police force. And more knocking, our friends in the neighboring bunk finally shushed him more forcibly and calmed the roommates with information that he was sleep talking. The room settled into an awkward sleep,

and I couldn't tell you if the runner ever came back or found another place to sleep that night. We slept under there three hours later, and we're relieved we never had to look those roommates in the eye. We will, however, do the hostile staying community the service of never sharing a room with them again and spare them from future midnight traumas. Thank you for being you and doing what

you do. Stay sexy and get sleep studied. SSGSS. Emma. SSGSS. I mean I stayed at a hospital once when we were in Ireland, my friend and I, and it was the same exact thing where we're just like, well we're just there there for the Galway Arts Festival. So it's like, it was two last minute, we couldn't get a regular hotel. We didn't have our own towels. You need to bring towels? You're supposed to bring your own towels. Like, you have to kind of bring everything. I just had no idea what we were in for. It was so unpleasant, like drying yourself with your own shirt where you're just like, how are we fucking doing this?

And then same thing, two in the morning, we're fully sleeping, cause we're in our 30s, like mid 30s, these two, from what I remember, they were like cockney British girls, come in fighting and just they don't give, they're so drunk and they're fighting with each other. And this, they wake up everyone in the room where it's like Yeah, why are 12 adults sleeping in one room? This is insanity. It was it was the craziest experience

Never done a hostel slept in a car before a few times, but oh never a hostel on like a road trip Yeah, road trip or like ill-planned Coachella hang Yeah, you know like we'll find a place and then no you don't. No, no you're not going to. Oh man. Amazing. In honor of President's Day, here's a fun fact about our nation's first president, George Washington.

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And then the mattress itself, like you got one too, right? Oh my god, I sleep like a baby. I have a bad back. I wake up. No pain. It's wild. Enjoy a luxurious night's sleep. Fit for a president.

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I've always been in bad at intros, and I will continue to be bad at intros. I love you guys, let's just start. I was born and raised in a small town in Northern Kentucky, basically Cincinnati, but it's a thing another time. I went to a Catholic elementary school. At this elementary school,

as noted in multiple other minisodes, we sold magazine subscriptions to raise money for who knows what. I have a brother who's three years older than me, and he's incredibly competitive, like to a fault still to this day. He would be the top seller in magazine subscriptions from second to sixth grade at this school

and the winner always got to go to the money booth. That's right. My brother went to the money booth five years in a row. Not fair, not fair. You gotta be disqualified after two years. Nope, absolutely fair. He sold those goddamn subscriptions. Imagine what a slick little salesman

in your second grade and you beat sixth graders because you're so good at sales. Yeah, no, that's true. So with a grand total of maybe $23 in winnings over those five years of from the money His seventh grade year he decided that he would let me be the winner So he filled out all his sales in my name and I won top seller Could you imagine having a sibling that actually likes you enough to do something like that?

Never in a million years would my siblings do that for me to even today My sister would deny she knew me. Okay, but she would beat up people who are trying to be mean to me then. Oh, that's nice. Her nature. Okay, so I realized in this moment how cool this was of him and I take back the overly competitive comment. It's more of a fact than an opinion. Okay, I got to go in the money booth. He gave me lots of tips, shove as much as you can in your shirt, try to grab with your whole arms, not your hands,

and stay focused. Stay focused. Can you imagine like a 12 year old talking to? Yeah. Okay, it says I was probably eight, it was the early 2000s, it was my time to shine. I got 30 seconds to grab as much cash as I could. The principal made a big deal about dropping a $20

billion to the booth before I stepped in. I stepped in smiling and ready to grab. They turned on the booth and I absolutely panicked. It turns out I'm claustrophobic. And them locking me in a telephone booth size box with loud wind freaked me out enough that I immediately started screaming and crying and asked to be let out. They turned it off and let me out, but I did have a dollar bill stuck in my uniform jumper, so I guess not all a loss.

My brother hasn't let me live this down to this day. No, he's right. He's 100% right. So we also did a competition in school for accelerated reader points. Basically accelerated reader points were earned by reading books, then taking quizzes on the books you read. Being the budding book nerd that I was, I had the most points in the whole school as a fifth grader. My prize, me and the second place reader got picked up in a limo from school, taken to Pizza Hut for lunch, and then we got to, in all caps, work as a bank teller at our local bank.

What? That's right. For two hours on Tuesday, a 10 year old got to press the button that shoots the little tube back to you in the drive-through line. What? We got to see the safe and talk to customers.

Why was the surprise? Who knows? But I got out of school for the day and this was probably the pinnacle of my educational career. I did not become a bank teller, although as a nurse during the pandemic, I certainly considered the career change.

Thank you for all you do. Stay sexy and win elementary school competitions because there's no fun prizes in adulthood. Ally, she heard. There is it. I want a personal pan pizza and a limo. And then get your greasy fingers all over the change you're making for.

I just think that's so funny. It's almost like there's some adult at that school that's like, children love money. And it's like, no, no, you love money. You're just putting it on there. Yeah, like what else is there besides, well, my dad works at the bank. I can ask him if they could,

no they're good with pizza and a limo I feel like. I wonder if they got the idea filling the money booth with cash at the bank and then they're just like, let's get all this taken care of at one spot. It goes all the way to the top. It does. Okay, last one.

Different kind of first responder story. Happy ending. Hello Karen, Georgia. Wonderful pets and other exactly right humans. My husband's aunt picture a beautiful Hawaiian-born Filipino-American woman and his Arkansas-born career army uncle picture Andy Griffith and you can hear that accent. We're visiting the Grand Canyon in the 1960s. With them, they had their Weimaraner dog named Ipoo. Ipoo is a diminutive for the Hawaiian word Qipoo, which means my sweetheart. Great name for a dog, right? Yes. While walking along the southern rim of the canyon, Ipoo spotted

a bird flying nearby. As any good hunting dog will do, Ipoo pursued that bird, leaping into the air to snatch it. Unfortunately, Ipoo was that bird, leaping into the air to snatch it. Unfortunately, Ipoo was unaware that she was at the rim of the Grand Canyon and she tumbled over the ledge. Upon frantic investigation by Auntie Edna and Uncle Ben, Ipoo was seen about 20 feet below standing on an outcropping. She was an obedient dog and she sat when they frantically commanded her to do so. Sit, Ipu! Sit down and live!

A park ranger was summoned, and he came with a rope. He was going to rappel down to the outcropping, grab Ipu in his arms, and get hoisted back to safety. Ipu had other ideas. When the ranger approached, Ipu growled. He was, after all, a stranger, and Yipu had to have been confused and frightened. Unsurprisingly, the ranger was reluctant to grab

a growling wymeranner in his arms while dangling over the Grand Canyon. So the ranger was hoisted back up to the rim of the canyon, and Uncle Ben was tied to the rope. He rappeled down to the outcropping, grabbed Yipu in his arms, and he and Yipu were pulled back to safety. I've always been impressed with the fact that a Grand Canyon Park ranger was willing

to rappel into the canyon to save a dog. What a first responder. And I'd always loved my husband's uncle, and I loved him even more after hearing this family story. I enjoy your podcast so much. If you ever start touring again, please come to Madison, Wisconsin. We've been there, it was great. My daughter-in-law and I would love to see you.

Stay sexy and please keep your dog on a leash, Lori. Especially at the Grand Canyon. Also, so this bad thing happens to you and suddenly it's like, well, if you wanna solve it, you have to repel into the Grand Canyon. Totally, what are you like, no, I'm good, let's just leave it on. You have one choice. What are you like, no, I'm good. Let's just leave it on. You have one choice.

I mean, like, cause everyone's, well I'll see video of like people doing a rock climbing wall that's like 10 feet. I'm like, ooh. No way. No way. Wow. Another great batch of emails. Thank you so much.

Thanks for sending them in. You guys are the best. We love you. We mean it. You know this already. If you join the fan cult, We love you, we mean it. Love you. Mm-hmm. You know this already. If you join the fan cult, you can watch this incredibly compelling episode on video. Mm-hmm.

You can watch me try to fix my hair the entire time. It's a totally different experience on video. It is. Go to myfavoritmurder.com to join the fan cult. Yes. And also stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie?

Welcome to the 10th season of 10fold more wicked on Exactly Right. This time I head to Williamsburg, Virginia to explore a case from my favorite era in history, the mid-18th century, ten years before the American Revolution. I'm your host Kate Winkler Dawson, a true crime historian and author. During my travels I meet experts and local historians to learn about the deaths of three men in Colonial Williamsburg. It's the most interesting true crime case that you've never heard of that is extraordinarily well documented for what it is. Two of the men are members of the wealthy gentry class and one is a common merchant. Just as people today feel

pressure, they actually take some desperate measures to protect their family, protect their reputation. Each death in some way changes history. Their stories illustrate how desperate times lead to desperate actions. We're not talking about a switchblade. We're talking about something that might be a foot two

feet long, right? It's meant to do damage. This season of 10-Fold More Wicked is about protecting the wealthy and the powerful. All of these people know each other and are intermarried. And what do we love more than rich people behaving badly? And a group of frustrated colonists rising up against power and privilege. This is season 10 of 10-Fold More Wicked. Season 10 premieres February 12th on Exactly Right, new episodes every Monday. Follow 10-Fold More Wicked wherever you get your podcasts. casts. Squalachi. Email your hometowns to myfavoritmurder at gmail.com. And follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at my favorite murder and on Twitter at myfavemurder. Goodbye!