My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 371

Episode Date: February 19, 2024

This week’s hometowns include a neighborhood bar story and a connection to Ann Rule. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Exactly Right, with new episodes every Monday. Follow Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. And welcome. Yep, to my favorite murder. The mini-soad. They still got it, baby.

Boom, easy. Learned. Lines learned. In and out. No biggie. Want to go first? Sure. I have a neighborhood bar story. You know, we were talking about house bars in neighborhoods.

Oh, yes. House bars. House bars. We already got one. Amazing. Hi to whoever is reading this. It's me. You asked for neighborhood bar stories, so here we go.

Let's set the stage. It's February 1950 in West Newton, Pennsylvania. My great grandparents, Mary and Pietro, had been married for 30 years and were operating a bar called the Ideal Hotel. Ooh. It's like a series on TV, doesn't it? Yes, it does.

Picture a two-story house close to the main road of a small town. Mary was sterilizing beer glasses when in walked a man wearing a blue jacket and a dark cap pulled over for his forehead. He yelled at Mary to hand over all the money from the cash register. Not one to take nonsense from literally anyone. My sassy 45-year-old ancestor threw a glass full of hot water into the man's face. Hell yes, nice one. Sterilization hot water is hot.

It's hot. Through into the man's face, drop below the bar, grab the 38 caliber revolver that was conveniently kept there and started shooting through the bar at her attacker. Shit, yes. Shooting you to pop up like fucking duck hunt or whatever, she's just like through the bar. Did she go to the FBI training academy?

Because that's some serious, that is some Clarice Darling shit. Not surprisingly, he peaced out without the money he demanded. According to the newspaper articles written about the incident, Mary had to take a sedative to calm down afterwards. I bet. It says, wouldn't we all?

Mary and Pietro had quite the life together. They had an arranged marriage when she was 15 and he was 20. Wow. Pietro spent some time in prison for violating the liquor law and gambling during prohibition, while also doing small jobs for the mafia.

Don't worry, he got out when people started to disappear. That Pennsylvania mafia life. Serious, yeah. Later in life, Mary worked as a travel agent and took her grandsons with her to places like the Vatican and Moulin Rouge. You know, taking care of both ends of the spectrum. That's right, you go to the first one to cover the second one. I'm fortunate enough to wear her wedding ring every day and it helps remind me to be a little sassy when the situation calls for it. Then it says time for the accolades.

Thank you both for being a constant comfort and champion of mental health. During maternity leave with my twins, I listen to you almost every day and it helped me feel less alone during bouts of crippling postpartum anxiety. Oh God, oh those hormones. Stay sexy and don't rub a bar

owned by a sassy Italian, question mark. Emily She-Her. Well, I mean, how proud you must be of your family, Emily, because that is just the definition of being a badass right there. So good. Neighborhood bars, man. For real. This is also a family story. It's in a slightly different direction. It says, my cousins were in a cult. The FBI called their dad, three minute read. All right. So dear friends, hi, I just love you guys so much. Thank you for literally everything. Here we go. You saw weird reading the accolade part, but you don't want to, I don't want to like sound like

we're braggie, but I don't want to it out, cause it's like whoever like is going through fucking postpartum anxiety right now is reading, is like gonna feel connected to Emily. It's so hard to balance that. It's our job to read these emails. Everybody knows we're not writing these emails, or I would hope. I hope everyone knows we're not writing these in any way. Okay, let's take it on back to the mid-80s. Picture the Robbins egg blue thunderbird in the driveway,

dad flipping burgers, my cousin and I tumbling around on the front porch in our diapers. My aunt is staying at our house for a couple days. My uncle, and then in parentheses it says, my mom's brother is in the Air Force and out of the country at the time. My aunt tells my mom that the distance between her and my uncle and raising three children

by herself is weighing on her. She feels like she needs a new start, more support, etc. After my aunt's stay is over, my mother realizes that she's left a cassette tape in my mom's car. It's some young man with a southern twang preaching his views about religion and the government. My mom's not very big on the evangelical type, so she toss the tape in the trash and goes about her business.

Fast forward to my being seven, very unexpectedly my cousins and uncle are staying with us for about two weeks. I haven't seen these cousins since the porch diaper days, so I'm thrilled to show them my Nintendo games and where my mom thinks she hides her stash of chocolate kisses. So that is like a perfect summation of childhood to me. Yep.

Now at seven, I was pretty with it kid, so I could tell that my cousins weren't like my typical friends. They didn't yell like lunatics at the top of their lungs when the TV read game over. They didn't partake in my pre-dinner candy heist. I remember being especially jarred when my uncle had to tell them it was okay

to start eating before they picked up their forks at dinner. And then it just says, dot, dot, dot, we weren't a grace saying family, we were animals. Hi. Fast forward again to the second time my uncle and cousins visit. I'm now about 12 and drooling over the Hanson brothers and painting my velvet

peace frog posters. Oh my God. This is quite the email. My mother sat me down before the visit to very gently explain that my cousin, who is a year older than me, is still very much into Barbies and how she really needs me to not be my bratty self and just play dolls with her. That she didn't get to play with toys when she was younger and I just needed to do whatever my cousin wanted to do and be understanding.

My mom always had this way of avoiding details when it came to quote unquote adult topics, but the pleading on her face stifled any preteen tantrum she would have seen on a different occasion. It wasn't until I was an adult that the whole truth was told to me. Soon after my aunt's visit with my mother, she and my uncle divorced. Now my ex-aunt got remarried and moved to Waco, Texas to be a part of this new church that they had discovered. That's right, my aunt, her new husband and my cousins were now living on Mount Carmel

with David Koresh as their lord and savior. My uncle, who had given full custody of the kids to my aunt as he was still traveling the world at the time, watched helplessly as the news stations broadcast the siege for the world to see. Relief came when the FBI called my uncle and told him that my cousins were released from the compound with the other children who were not

of David Koresh's bloodline. I'm still friends with my closest in-age cousin today. She and her siblings are thriving with beautiful families of their own, although they still complain when Time Magazine reaches out to them every anniversary. Holy shit. Right? The siege was horrendous by all accounts, wildly mishandled by the ATF, incorrectly reported to Janet Reno, et cetera. So remember, if you're in a cult, call your goddamn dad, or in my cousin's case, have the FBI do it.

And if your sister-in-law leaves a cassette tape of David Koresh in your car, toss that shit out. It was David Koresh all along. It was a David Koresh cassette tape. Holy shit. And then it says, although I will always wonder if that would be worth money today had she kept it. And then it just says Becky, she heard.

Oh my God, Becky. Becky. That's an epic one. I can't get through the Waco documentary. It's so hard. All of those things, it's just very difficult because it's kind of like the frog in the water that slowly gets turned up, right?

So the people that were in that room, the people that went there first, people like Becky's aunt, who were just listening to cassette tapes and a guy that seemed to have hot takes on how it really should be in terms of the government and Christianity Just not a good combination like that's how it starts and then the next thing we know the world is on fire

But they also had no idea that they would fire bomb essentially a fucking place with children inside of it like right Tanks rolling up. I mean, we all watched that. It was wild. If you're too young to remember it, watch the documentary, but get a glass of wine. Do we, like what we were being told is the reason they were doing that, what was the real reason? Yeah. Does the documentary say?

Cause like, let's watch it. Let's watch it now. Okay. Yep. Okay, bye. Hey, Georgia. Huh? Would a George Washington Satva and all of us have in common?

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Goodbye. Icelandic honeymoon with a spooky twist. It says Alejandra note, I added in pronunciations for the Icelandic names. Mm. Wait, Alejandro, does that mean you did it? Or that person? Yeah, I put them in.

I spent a lot of time working up these Icelandic pronunciations. Alejandra, what if I hadn't even picked this one? How mad would you have been? I wouldn't have been mad at all. I'm just, you know what? Then it's you have been? I wouldn't be mad at all. You guys, you know what? Then it's a little safer, but I did a lot of research. Wow, you're so sweet.

I thought the author of this email was like, Alejandra, just so you know, don't worry about it. That's what I thought too. I don't know, it's just straight up Alejandra. Thank you. I got your back. Thank you, I appreciate you. Hello to Georgia Caron and the rest of the MFM crew

who brought me all of my favorite podcasts. And then at TYSM. Thank you so much. Deducing. YW. For our honeymoon, my husband and I embarked on a 15-day road trip around Iceland. Our car actually served as our honeymoon suite too.

We rented a small Jeep-like thing that came with a collapsible tent attached to its roof. It says, I know, romantic, huh? It was around 11 p.m. on our fifth day when we realized we should have stopped at the campground we had passed an hour earlier. Too tired to keep driving, and in the middle of absolutely nowhere, we pulled over into what we thought was a truck stop to catch some z's. That's when the wind picked up. Big time. I was startled out of my sleep by the sound of a violently flapping tent and howling gusts and fucking Iceland. Don't they have like gremlins and shit? Snow gremlins? I don't know. Yeah, snow gremlins. There's a documentary about that too.

I can't get through it. My heart was racing and I was shook. I looked over at my husband, but he was out cold. He was doing all the driving, so I mustered up some self-control in order to let him sleep. It was just a little wind after all, right? I managed to calm myself down and get back to bed. When we woke up, my husband told me

he was totally spooked the entire time we were parked there. I was like, oh, cute, join the club. As we zipped the heck out of there, we noticed there was a plaque by the other end of the lot. And then it says, L-O-L. Here's what it said. The last execution in Iceland took place here when Fredrik Sigorsson and Magnus D'Artyre, thank you, Alejandra, Star-tier, thank you, Alejandra, were put to death on January 12th, 1830. They had murdered Natan Kettelsen and Peter Jonson at Natan's farm in 1828.

Their bodies were interred without ceremony at the site of the execution, where they had spent the fucking night, and their heads displayed on pikes. It says this on the plaque. They were later reburied in a cemetery. And then it says grand old place for snooze, huh? I mean, it's like going to a haunted house

and spend the night there. An outside haunted house. Yeah, stay sexy and don't take naps at execution sites, be from Toronto. Good advice. It also says, PS, if this gets picked, I sincerely apologize for making you attempt the pronunciation of those Icelandic names, XOXO.

There is a lot of, now I'm thinking of, and I won't be able to remember the name, but I recommended a Icelandic series on the main show one time that was kind of about like the creatures in Iceland coming out of the mountain and basically it's so good. It's on Netflix. I love Iceland so much.

Oh my God, it's gorgeous. It's so great, but I mean it is very, there's lots of old legends and lots of creatures and like that's the whole vibe that island. Yeah. Also, they're going through it with their, the volcanic eruption. Jesus, we should go there. Oh my God, I wanna go there so bad. Have you seen the blue lagoon?

Yeah. It's like a hot, it's a hot spring. No, not the blue. Oh. No. That doesn't make sense. No, no they have. Yes, I know.

Everyone always posts when they ever go to Iceland, it's like, okay, we'll post your fucking photo of you at that beautiful lagoon. Put your mud on your face and put your hair in a bun and get in there. But there's a hotel that's right on that lagoon. So you can actually like walk out of your room and be in that hot spring.

Oh my God, I wanna go. That's my dream, yeah. And of course all the tinned fish. Okay, this is a Hidden Treasure story. It says, greetings MFM fam, both human and otherwise. I've written in a couple of times with my own stories, but maybe my husbands will make the cut. It did.

Ha ha. High five to the husband. OK, I say this in good nature because I love you all so much. I know you can only take so much gushing, so I'll get down to it. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it.

I hate it. I was sharing a different mini episode hidden treasure story with my husband. He tends to enjoy them as they remind him of his late father. A little about my father-in-law. He was born in 1945 to working-class parents who were greatly impacted by the Great Depression. Think canning food, stealing extra napkins from restaurants, and not trusting major banks, i.e. hiding physical money. Yeah, my husband's dad maintained the depression mindset well into adulthood and fatherhood. He was a caring and practical man who also served in the Navy during the Vietnam War.

In the early 90s, my husband was an adorable eight-year-old needing a costume for a church play. His incredibly resourceful mother remembered an old Navy dress cap taking up space in the basement. She gave him the cap for his costume, and when the day of the play arrived, both his parents were there for the performance. Upon seeing the cap being worn on stage by my little baby husband, my father-in-law completely lost it. He was known for his calm demeanor, and the outburst was completely out of character. My husband said it was one of the few times in his life he remembered his parents having a loud argument. Whoa. So why the freak out?

So what's that like? Yeah. Literally it always sounds like people are having a loud argument at our house and that just like basic like, hey, what's up, what do you want for breakfast? So why the freak out? My father-in-law had stashed roughly $2,700

in the inside brim of that cash. And then in parentheses, it says $6,153 in today's money. Holy shit. He told my mother-in-law everything except where he tended to stash actual cash. My husband is not sure how the fight was resolved, but the cash hiding remained an ongoing habit. After my father-in-law was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, my in-laws moved to Colorado. While cleaning out the basement of my husband's childhood home, they would end up finding

nearly $15,000 in hidden cash. And you know what? That's all they found, the fucking amount. This is where we get our goodwill. I found cash in an old fucking desk story from. Exactly, like it's some weird spot that somebody was like, no, let's be extra secretive with this one.

Stop it. Woo, amazing. Along with enough napkins and sugar packets to ensure survival if society collapsed. I love it. I only got to know my father-in-law for a few years before his passing. Each memory I have of him is special and unique. Alzheimer's is a novel disease. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

However, I am grateful for memories like these that keep him alive and with us. Thank you all for the wonderful show. I've been listening since episode five. Whoa. Holy shit, I haven't been listening since episode five. You make me laugh, you help me learn, and I appreciate all the good you do in the world. Aw.

Stay sexy and always check inside the cap. Elaine, she, her. Elaine, that's my auntie's name. That's a good old fashioned name. Yeah, that's a auntie's name. That's a good old fashioned name. Yeah, that's a great name. And that was a great email. It was. I love hidden money.

Wow. Treasure. I'm not going to read the title of this one. Okay. But it says short and sweet story. Hi, Karen and Georgia. I've been listening since the early days, but for some reason have never actually sat down

to write this in. Now, every week when I listen to the Minnesota, I think to myself, gosh darn it, write that hometown in. So here I am. Hi. In 2015, I moved back home to Renton, Washington to live with my parents after college. This coincided with my new obsession with MFM,

all things true crime and reading murder mysteries. My mom, a child welfare lawyer, had enough horror in her day-to-day work and could not understand my new interest. Fucking fair enough. Yes. But being the supportive mom she was, she tried to connect with me.

One day in the kitchen while we were eating breakfast, seemingly out of the blue, she goes, you know, Anne Rule was my brownie troop leader. connect with me. One day in the kitchen while we were eating breakfast, seemingly out of the blue, she goes, you know, and rule was my brownie troop leader. Oh! Oh! When you said rent in Washington, I was like, I feel like that's an important city for this genre

for some reason. Oh my God. It is. I remember just staring at her. She calmly got her things ready to go to work as if she hadn't just dropped an amazing true crime bomb on me. I was too dumbfounded to ask any follow up questions

at the time. I know this is not much of a story, but rather a neat bit of information about Ann Rule and my mom. Who would have guessed that the same woman who wrote about serial killers was also the leader of eight year old Girl Scouts. She contained multitudes.

She did it all. She did it all. She also made friends with Ted Bundy. She could do anything. My mom passed away from ovarian cancer in 2021. And while we never shared a love of true crime, every time Anne Rola's mentioned on your podcast, I think of her.

She always tried to connect with mine and my sister's interests no matter how niche or out of her comfort zone they were. She was a fiercely loyal friend, proud feminist, and my biggest supporter. Well, she probably wouldn't be thrilled that murderer makes me think of her. I am forever grateful that I get to carry this fun fact with me wherever I go.

Stay sexy and don't get murdered, Kayla. Kayla, your mom was the greatest. Yeah. I mean, God, children's welfare lawyer. The jest, the day-to-day. The strength it would take to do that. Okay, well, then you know what? I was gonna do, I was gonna read a different one,

but now I'm gonna read this one for my last email. Okay. And the subject line is, and rule connection. What? Yeah. And it just says, hiya, buds. I've been listening since the beginning. Bless you for all you've accompanied me through.

The 2016 election alone, my god. When I was a teen in Sarasota, Florida, and then it says in parentheses, beautiful to visit, absolutely bonkers Republican retirees should escape to grow up in. Oh. Hi, welcome to Orange County, California. Hi.

My mom was secretly developing a pain pill addiction and writing emails back and forth with Ann Rule. What? My mom is an OG murderino. I remember growing up, she'd clip articles out of the newspaper about local murders. And then it says, the 90s version of podcasting or something I should be way more worried about than I am, IDK.

Then it says, in 1997, a really terrible murder happened in the neighborhood we had recently moved out of. 35-year-old Sheila Bellush had been tormented by her rich ex-husband for years, had remarried and moved from Texas to Florida to escape him. Her ex, Alan, hired the cousin of his golfing bag boy. I don't know why this part seems extra dumb to me, but it just does. To kill her in the house, she shared with her new husband and six kids.

With a promised extra bonus, if this murder led to his regaining custody of the two kids that they'd had together during their marriage. And then it just says awful. What's maybe the worst about this is that Sheila was by all accounts a very careful caring mother who often put her quadruplets in life vests in the off chance that one of them got outside while she was dealing with any of the other five children so they wouldn't drown in the pool. This detail may seem strange to some, but trust me, as someone who grew up in Florida and now has one child just under two, it's smart.

The quadruplets were found in their life vests walking in their mother's blood, which is a haunting detail almost always mentioned whenever anybody speaks of this murder. Sheila's body was also eventually found by one of her older children. This entire story is so trauma-filled, I almost didn't want to send it in, but I also think the difficulty of holding these kinds of stories

is why murderinos talk through them together and why MFM exists. Oh. Right? Yeah. The difficulty of holding these stories in particular is probably also why my mom emailed Ann Rule in the first place.

She says she emailed her to tell her that she had to write a book about this story. Oh my God. I love that. She's like, Anne, interestingly, this murder is also referred to on the book jacket of the book Anne did write as the quote, first true crime book written

at the victim's request, because Sheila herself had said that quote, if anything ever happens to me, find Anne rule and ask her to write my story. Which is just like, that's a woman living in constant terror and peril. Totally. And basically knowing this is the future.

It's horrifying. Oh my God. Then it says, I'm not sure if Ann researched and wrote this book after hearing about it from my mom or if she was already working on it when my mom reached out to her. And I will likely never know

because my mom was on drugs at the time, so her memory is wavy. The two of them did email back and forth for quite some time though. And my mom used to love to say she, quote, "'Just got another email from my friend Ann.'" When I asked her about this recently, she was weirdly

tight-lipped, except to say, once she called the house looking for me, but I was at the office, so she hung up and called me there. She had a really high-pitched voice." The office, by the way, is my dad's pediatrics office where my mom was briefly the office manager. It's crazy to imagine Ann Rule calling up a pediatrician's office a thousand miles away to ask the office manager about local murder details, but I guess that's just what happened. Also, I'm just realizing this now. If my mom was at the office when Ann called the house, that means my sister or I answered the phone and told a complete stranger our mom wasn't home.

Nice. I had to really prod my mom for these Anne Rule details and she was so weird about it that I started to think maybe her interactions with Anne had been some kind of drug-fueled hallucination. But when I ordered a copy of Every Breath You Take and checked the acknowledgment section, there was my mom's name. No way. I think honestly she's just embarrassed She doesn't remember more about a friendship that was probably a highlight

during a really dark time for her. My mom has since recovered from her addiction. It was a hard road for all of us. And for anyone out there who's dealing with addiction in their family, I feel you. But I'm proud of her for getting past it. And even though she might not remember much, it is pretty cool that she was friends

with Ann Rule for a while. For sure. Anyway, sorry for the length of this letter. Thanks for everything you guys do. Stay sexy and rest in peace, Ann Rule. Smire, she they. Wow. Isn't that fucking epic? So epic. Holy shit. She was a legend, Ann Rule.

Yeah, a double Ann Rule hometown. Yeah. Amazing. Write us your stories about anything that you thought of during... While you were hearing these and you go, oh, I should write in about that. Write it in to my favorite Murder at Gmail. And thanks for listening to this podcast. Hey.

Hey, and stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah.

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Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah editor is Aristotle Acevedo. This episode was mixed by Liana Scolacci. Email your hometowns to myfavoritmurder at gmail.com. And follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at myfavoritmurder and on Twitter at myfavemurder. Goodbye.