My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 384

Episode Date: May 20, 2024

This week’s hometowns include a murder of crows and reckless golf cart driving. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is exactly right. That's the sound of unaged whiskey, transforming into Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey in Lynchburg, Tennessee. Around 1860, nearest green taught Jack Daniel how to filter whiskey through charcoal for a smoother taste, one drop at a time. This is one of many sounds in Tennessee with a story to tell. To hear them in person, plan your trip at tnvacation.com. Tennessee sounds perfect. Hey, it's Karen and Georgia here

with an important announcement for fans of historic true crime. After 11 incredible seasons, Kate Winkler-Dawson has decided that this will be her final season of her critically acclaimed podcast, Tenfold More Wicked. If you don't know, Kate's a true crime journalist, author, and she's the co-host of Buried Bones with Paul Holes. So this will be the 12th and final season of Tenfold More Wicked, and it investigates

a series of horrific crimes that took place in Fall River, Massachusetts over the course of centuries. Kate heads to the area to talk to local experts about these mysteries that started long before Lizzie Borden's infamous murders. Stay tuned to the end of this episode of My Favorite Murder to hear the trailer for season 12 of Tenfold More Wicked. And we'd love it if you follow, rate, and review Tenfold More Wicked wherever you get your podcasts. Goodbye. ["My Favorite Murder"] Hello. And welcome. To my favorite murder. The mini-soad. Yeah. You know.

You know. Stuff. We read you your stuff. It's email time. It's email time. Should I go first? Yeah. My cat and a wooden canoe saved my life.

Hey, K&G, let's get started. When I was 20, I lived alone in a small one-bedroom apartment. It was a tiny apartment. Basically, I lived alone in a small one bedroom apartment. It was a tiny apartment. Basically you could be in the bedroom and see the entire apartment. I had one of those ones. I loved it so much.

I had one, it was called a studio apartment. The bedroom was the apartment. I had that too, but the apartment was so old that the closet had been built like in the 20s and it was like a walk-in closet and you could fit a mattress in there. Oh yeah, mm-hmm. I did that in San Francisco.

My bedroom was actually the broom closet under the stairs. Right, I love it. I had just moved in so no one had the keys except me. At the time I thought it would be a cool idea to keep a six foot wooden canoe hung on the wall. I did not canoe and had absolutely no use for it. And it took up about half my apartment. But hey, what a conversation starter, right? Oh, yeah.

I also had just adopted my cat, Cinco. Every night he would run up and down this canoe, making an incredible amount of noise. I know the problem would have been solved by taking down the canoe, but I just had to be the cool girl at the time with a canoe on her wall and couldn't take it down. So naturally I learned to just sleep with a cat, essentially running up and down the wall each night. I get it. It was like climbing up the canoe.

Okay. You basically put in like a cat jungle gym. Yeah, like a ladder for a cat to play on. How does a cat not absolutely climb that as much as possible? Yeah. One night I had my bedroom door open and around 2am I woke to the sound of Cinco doing his regular workout of racing up the canoe. As this was the usual, I went back to sleep. A little while later I heard it again. As my eyes opened I saw my living room light turn on. Now remember, absolutely no one had keys to my apartment but me.

I laid in bed frozen, realizing a person had turned on the light. Rather than call the cops or lock myself in my room, I slowly stood up and walked from my bedroom to the living room. I said the bedroom was basically in the living room. And saw my TV gone and my front door just absolutely smashed in. I ran out of my apartment to my car and called the cops. After the cops checked my house, we found out from my neighbors that they had heard someone knocking on my door.

Since I was asleep and didn't hear the knocking, the robbers assumed the apartment was empty and broke in. What I thought was Cinco running up the canoe was actually robbers breaking down my door That's like wow. I didn't know they broke down doors. We're doing that now Well, maybe they did then because they could like they knew they could kick the door in yeah Yeah, but also it's funny because it's like they must be a heavy sleeper and they were just like so far away that they're just like Oh, I know what that is just kept sleeping the. The apartment in Hollywood where we started the podcast, the front door was a closet door.

Really? Yeah, it was like... Oh, like, hollow? Hollow, thin, easily could have been kicked in. Yeah. You made it. I made it. The cops think that after they stole my TV, they went into my room, saw me sleeping,

freaked out, and left. Oh. Thank God. I still don't know why they turned on my light, but I always wonder what would have happened if I didn't assume the sound of them breaking down the door was just my cat. If I had surprised them in the middle of the robbery,

what would they have done? I'll thankfully never know, thanks to my loud as hell cat. Thanks, Cinco. Cinco still is around and still knows how to make a shit ton of noise in the middle of the night. Stay sexy and don't put a giant canoe on your wall, Kelly. Sounds good, Kelly. I do love that idea though of like, I'm imagining a young person in an apartment where it's like, how am I going to be the standout?

Yeah, I still got to be cool. And then it's like, it's actually going to cause you some problems. Yeah, I found a canoe in the trash. I'm putting it in my house now. I'm hanging it on the wall. Got to. I just got to. OK. I'm not going to read you the subject line

of this first one. Truly delightful. Dear MFM, humans and animals, slightly long-winded, but you need the full picture, I think, and then in parentheses, says everyone who sends in a long email. Let me set the scene. It's August of 2023. My older daughter's at school and my younger daughter is at daycare. I've just arrived at the movie theater to take myself to a solo matinee viewing of Barbie.

Barbie. Barbie. What a time. My phone rings. It's daycare. I pick up the phone with trepidation. 30% because I'm worried something is wrong and 70% because I'm worried they will tell me that I need to pick her up. It was the assistant director, which was unusual, who said the following, Hi, nothing urgent, but some of the kids found a dead bat outside and were playing with it.

And your child was one of them. We've called animal control and they will take the bat for testing. It's up to you if you wanna take her to the ER for rabies shots or to wait until we get the test results back. What did I do? I took myself to Barbie. In 15 years, my daughter can write to you guys

about her trash mom. I love it. When the movie got out, I went to daycare, grabbed my kiddo and headed to the ER. When we arrived, we were already famous. Oh, you're part of that group, said the triage nurse, chuckling. We were brought back immediately, vitals taken,

and then brought to an exam room. After a short period, a pediatric nurse comes in, all dulcet tones and warm demeanor, and asks my child, So did you touch a bat today? My kid with her eyes wide, Nope. Undeterred and clearly trained for the misguided self preservation instincts of children without skipping a beat. What part of the bat did you touch? My kid, the wing. Don't put this child on the stand is the real lesson here. Nonetheless, even though the nurse said it was perfectly fine for us to wait for the

test results, since we were there, if we would like to start the series, five shots over four visits spanning a two week period, we could. We got the shots. The kicker, the bat tested positive for rabies. Shut up. Given that rabies has a 100% fatality rate, I am so glad we did. The second time we went for the shot,

they had a bat beanie baby waiting for her. That literally makes me wanna cry so hard. And then in parentheses it says, pediatric healthcare workers really are just the loveliest. Stay sexy and support legislation that will federally subsidize childcare workers because our world would collapse without them. L. Oh my God. There's a PS. It says, PS, I feel it important to add that it might be easy to somehow lay the blame for what happened on my child's teachers. I absolutely do not. The outdoor area of the daycare is large. And when

they realized what happened, they handled the situation to the letter. To say they are miracle workers and that we adore them is an understatement, hence my sign off. I love it. No, I would never blame them. My God, your child's to blame.

Your dumb child and your child-rearing. Like what if they didn't like eat something and hadn't washed their hands or like rubbed their eye or oh children are gross people. I mean, they're all over the goddamn map. They make terrible goddamn decisions, but it's so true. It's like we live in a world where things like this happen. You cannot prevent everything.

You can't watch them enough. You can't think it through enough. Oh my God, I'm just remembering that when we were little, my cat brought home a bird that she had killed and we were like, let's dissect it. And so we did. There was no, that's the end of that story. Yeah. You're still here to tell it. I am. Thank God.

The thing is you've been covered with bird mites your entire life. Did you know that? That's explained so much. Why cats love me so much. The cats are like, yeah, you have what I have. She's part bird. Hey, Karen, have you ever been inspired by interior design inspo on social media, but you have no idea where to find all the pieces?

Yes. And then when I think about how much work it'll take to recreate that one piece in one design inspo on social media, but you have no idea where to find all the pieces. Yes, and then when I think about how much work it'll take to recreate that one piece in one store at a time, I just give up on the idea altogether. Absolutely. Well, when you shop at Articul, they'll design and shop everything for you. Articul has curated over 60 different design bundles that provide inspiration, along with their selection of furniture pairings that fit each aesthetic. Start by selecting the room that you're shopping for. Article has bundles for living rooms, bedrooms,

dining rooms, offices, and outdoor spaces. If you're feeling bold, you can check out the High Drama Bundle designed around Article's green velvet Sven sofa. We actually have the Sven sofa in leather at our office. And the best part about these bundles is when you purchase these products together, you get a special discount.

I feel this in my bones because I'll be looking at like style Instagrams and be like, I don't know how to even buy one of those little things. I love that you can go to article and be like, style my entire room for me please, because I can't do this on my own. And they do it and it's not boring. It's like beautiful and interesting

and looks like hashtag inspo. And now Articles offering our listeners $50 off their first purchase of $100 or more. To claim visit article.com slash murder and the discount will be automatically applied at checkout. That's a R T I C L E dot com slash murder to get $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. Goodbye.

So as you know, George and I love hearing about hashtag what are you even doing while you listen to this show? It made me realize I do different tasks depending on the audio I'm listening to. Podcasts for dog walks and audio books when it's a longer job, like cleaning the house. So even if it feels like your to-do list is never ending,

Audible has an impressive list of podcasts and audio books to get you through. With 10,000 new titles released each year, Audible is the premier destination for audio entertainment. In addition to chart-topping podcasts and best-selling audiobooks, they also create original content that features big names like Kenan Thompson, Seth Meyers, and Olivia Wilde. And their incredible selection of audiobooks includes authors you love and ones you haven't discovered yet. You might find a new title from an old favorite like David Grant, who wrote Killers of the Flower Moon,

and his new book, The Wager, a Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder. Or listen to a classic novel for the first time like George Orwell's 1984, narrated by Andrew Garfield, Cynthia Erivo and Tom Hardy. I'm listening to an audio book right now. It's a classic whodunit. You know I love those when it takes place

in the present day and they keep flashing back to the memories of the past. It's about three girls who grew up in a foster care home and what happened in it. It's called Darling Girls. It's by Sally Hepworth and it made me clean my whole house. I don't wanna stop listening to it. Yeah.

Now new members can try Audible free for 30 days. Visit audible.com slash murder or text murder to 500 500. That's audible.com slash murder or text murder to 500 500. Try audible free for 30 days. audible.com slash murder. Okay, number two. Oh my god, I almost said that's why the crows love me. And number two. Oh my God, I almost said, that's why the crows love me. And number two is everyone should be friends with at least one crow. I mean, it's all happening. It says, hi. I often wonder how many Brits slash Canadians send hometown emails to my favorite murder

with a U in favorite. That's a great question. Alejandro, you might have a huge batch at My Favorite Murder at Gmail with a U. There's just a whole other account. There's just a person sitting there reading them and then throwing them away. Delete, delete. If you live in England or Canada, I didn't realize Canada spelled it with a U too. Yeah, it doesn't either. If you live in England, change it to the dumb American way. Yeah, there's no U in favorite. And there's no I in my favorite murder. That said someone should get that email address

if they haven't already. Okay. It's too late. And it says, Georgia, I heard you want to be friends with crows. I love it. Some of my best friends are crows. I'm a murder murderino.

Uh-huh. I rescued a crow a few years ago when he had a bunch of shit tangled on his leg. I named him Russell Crowe because I heard a rustling noise and then saw this crow. Got it? Russell, not Russell, Russell.

He knew I was helping him and he just waited until my niece came out with a knife for me to cut him free. We became BFF after that and he would bring me presents. Then the next summer, he brought me a friend who was sick. The friend crow didn't make it, but because Russell brought him to me, I was able to keep him comfortable until he passed.

I reached out to local wildlife groups, but I couldn't get ahold of anyone before my new buddy passed. I named him Brandon Lee because obviously. Rest in peace, sweet bird friend. My last note on crows is a story my dad told me that happened last summer. A friend of his was on his porch

and he saw a mess of crows flying above a marshy area, making an absolute racket. He decided to go look, assuming there might be a dead animal or something. It turns out another man was walking through the trails in the woods. It says, I'm from Newfoundland. No one stays out of the woods

because that's basically all we have. It was a boggy area and the man managed to fall into the bog and got stuck. The more he struggled, the worse he got stuck. This guy always brought peanuts for the crows on his walks. So when the crows saw he was in trouble, they surrounded him and made a big fuss causing my dad's buddy to go check out the scene. Holy shit. He was able to free the man and he was no worse for wear. In conclusion, sometimes we all need a little murder

to get us through life. Love you both so much. Your niece, Karen Silver. I love her. Your niece. Oh, that was amazing. I thought it was just gonna be a, you know, I set out corn nuts. They bring me shiny pieces of aluminum. That was like crows save a man's life.

Totally. Love it. So good. Love it. What's that line? Everybody needs a little murder. In conclusion, sometimes we all just need a little murder to get us through life. Oh, beautiful. I love it. So good. Love it. What's that line? Everybody needs a little murder? In conclusion, sometimes we all just need a little murder

to get us through life. Beautiful. I love it. Beautifully done. Okay. Similar. This is a similar email. Okay.

I'm not gonna reach at the subject line. Hello to all the MFM crew. Love everything and everyone. Anyway, I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and my dad's entire family insisted that they had an encounter with Bigfoot when they were in their late teens, early twenties. My poor grandmother had five boys, so you can imagine she got them out of the house as often as possible. They were all very outdoorsy, hunters, fishermen, hikers, campers, etc.

I won't go into the full story of their encounter, but essentially they got stuck on a hiking trail near Mount St. Helens in Washington state late in the evening and decided to pitch their tents overnight. They swear they heard and smelled a group of big foots and then a parentheses it says big feet at some point in the night in the morning. There were footprints, but otherwise no signs of what had spooked them. Moving on to when I was a teenager in the late 90s and my uncle, who previously worked in the Air Force and helped design stealth bomber type planes, announces to the family at a gathering that he has, all caps, quit his job to hunt Bigfoot full time. What?

Y'all, I cannot express the shock and confusion we all felt he's the oldest and his siblings were fully supportive But I swear I could see the fire in his wife's and my grandmother's eyes What is that's not a career change That's like that's your restarting. You're restarting a new career after retiring from the Air Force. Exactly. That's retirement. But still it's, can it be considered a career if you, no one is paying you? No, that's what I'm saying. It's not a career change.

Oh, that was your point. Well, I thought I'd restated. Thank you. It's basically saying I would rather be always out in the forest all the time. Essentially. Yeah. Okay. Fast forward Okay, fast forward. Again, maybe a year or two.

And this dude shows up with what he claims is a full body cast of a Bigfoot. He brought it to a family get together. I think Father's Day, but who knows. All I know is the entire family was there. All five brothers, both parents, all the wives and children running around. He put the cast in the backyard of my grandmother's house,

so proud of his accomplishment and telling everyone he had a museum who was gonna be buying it from him. I took a look and to me, it was a big indiscernible piece of plaster. He swore that you could see the leg joints and the abdomen with the upper body reaching out to grab a piece of fruit from a nearby tree. Please tell me what fruit this would have been

in the Pacific Northwest. I literally, when I read this, I was thinking about it. Or I'm like apple tree? But he would, that's in the forest. No, I don't know. I truly wish I had a picture of that, but I don't. I do, however, have a picture of a footprint he cast that is now in the crypto zoology museum in Portland, Maine. He's apparently one of the top 20 Bigfoot hunters worldwide. Oh wow. Is this good, you ask? I have no idea. How many Bigfoot hunters could there possibly be?

Obviously to this day, I still use this weird piece of family history when I don't know what else to talk about to strangers who seem uninterested in crime and murder. Stay sexy and don't quit your government job to hunt Bigfoot, eh? That's like fun though, that's like adventurous. That's what my old boss used to call

bringing color to the party. Yeah. Where it's like, you don't want everybody at the party to be smart. You don't want everybody at the party to be a partier. You gotta have a Bigfoot hunter. You gotta have a big foot hunter. You gotta have weirdos that add. Throw something in there, yeah.

Something that somebody else that you know well would be like, have you ever talked to that guy? He's a big foot hunter. Yeah. Like truly. And then like nobody knows who it's gonna be at the party and like you have to talk to people to find out which guy is the like outlier. The old retired Air Force guy has a secret.

You've got to find out what it is. Grilling. I love it. This podcast is brought to you in part by Honey Love. Hey, Georgia, can you guess when the underwire bra was invented? Oh my God, in hell in 1950. It was actually introduced in 1893, and it is now 130 years old. Wow, over a century of torture. Well, now Honeylove is here to save us. They have changed the bra game by removing the underwire

without sacrificing lift. Their best-selling crossover bra is made with super stretchy, bonded fabric that replaces the knee for an underwire. And for a more relaxed fit, try Honeylove's V-neck bra. Thanks to the molded cups, it's a comfy lounge bra that won't give you the dreaded uniboob. Both styles have stitch-free seams that lay flat against your skin for a smooth look under clothes.

And since Honey Love has cracked the code on comfy bras, you know their shapewear, tanks, and leggings will be just as good, so check those out too. I just got my Honey Love underwire free bra and as a person who has been wearing underwire bras since junior high, I cannot believe how great these bras are. They're really comfortable but they actually do give you a lot of support so you don't have to stay at home when you're wearing your comfortable bra. I guess is the way I'll phrase it. It's like you can actually go out and live your life

without the support of an underwire. So treat yourself to the best bras on the market and save 20% when you go to honeylove.com slash MFM. To find your perfect fit, use our exclusive link to get 20% off at honeylove.com slash MFM. And when they ask you where you heard about Honey Love, support our show and tell them we sent you please. Lose the pain and discomfort and keep the support with Honey Love.

Goodbye. Okay, my last one's called Bartender Lore. Hello, ladies. You asked for bartender stories and I am here to deliver. For time's sake, I'll skip the pleasantries, but please know I would literally die for you. One of the greatest pleasantries I've ever heard. Truly.

So for a few years, I lived slash bartended in a small town in North Dakota called Grand Forks. Not only is it a college town, but it's also the third drunkest state in the country. Shit. Nine months out of the year are spent freezing our asses off with not much else to do. So you can imagine the lore this bar has gifted me. A bar in North Dakota. Like just in a college town in North Dakota. Yeah, amazing. That's a good one. My favorite story takes place about a week before graduation. I mention this because around graduation, college kids and their parents get particularly belligerent

and also because it's during construction season. On this particular night, after finally clearing out the previously shoulder-to-shoulder bar, everyone was waiting for their Ubers beside the torn-up road outside the bar, which was littered with forklifts and shit that says, IDK, I'm gay. I don't know what. Forklifts and shit. Suddenly we noticed the abrupt change in the temperature in the crowd of kids outside. Due to the shouting and cheering, we assumed there was a fight,

which would unfortunately still be our problem as they were still on the bar's property. We all rushed to the window to see what was going on. To my astonishment, a drunk frat boy, we'll call him Chad, had let himself inside an excavator just outside our building. Remember this is a small town. So of course the keys were still in the ignition. Before anyone could react,

Chad was having the time of his life spinning in circles, trying to scoop piles of dirt and overall just being an asshole, all while being dangerously close to our building and to the cluster of inebriated children outside. Chaos ensues, we scrambled to dethrone the drunk idiot. Luckily his reign of terror didn't last long as there was a cop nearby who intervened before he could do any damage.

No one got hurt, Chad got to visit the local drunk tank and we all went home with a good story. I've since moved on to become a flight attendant where the people are just as crazy, but I miss bartending. There was truly never a dull moment. And to speak to your question about regulars, I miss them too. Oh.

Thanks for all you do, stay sexy, and maybe check for cops before committing grand larceny. Gabby. For real, Gabby. That's such a college thing where it's like, look, I've had 14 Coors lights, I'm going to drive this excavator and I don't give a fuck who has anything to say about it. And in like the next five to 10 years, I'm going to be someone's dad too. Like I'm going to be responsible for someone's life. And maybe work at City Hall. I don't

know. We'll see how it goes. The subject line of this email is near-death experience with hot dog story. Great. Hi besties. This story is sort of long, so let's get into it. This scene, Easter weekend 2008. I'm a senior in high school and my dad's family is getting together at a Christian retreat center. We spent the weekend playing board games,

hanging out around a campfire, and of course, hunting for Easter eggs. After Easter Sunday Mass, my slightly older cousin, let's call her Lisa, asked if I wanted to drive around in a golf cart to explore spaces we hadn't yet checked out. I said sure, and grabbed a hot dog to snack on during the ride. We get into the golf cart and drive down a long paved path that meets the parking lot at the end. As we get closer to the parking lot, Lisa spots a truck entering the parking lot from the right

and decides she wants to race the truck. I get no say in this. I'm just the passenger. She guns it. I grip my seatbeltless seat with one hand while holding on to my half-eaten hot dog in the other and hope for the best. We get to the parking lot and without acknowledging that brakes exist or ever should be used, Lisa cranks the steering wheel to the left and I go flying. I land on some concrete and roll over into a big patch of grass. Where my hot dog went I will never know. With my eyes glued shut trying to figure out if I've died or not, I start to hear voices crowd around me

asking if I'm okay. I mutter something like, I'm okay, and slowly open my eyes to find out that I was surrounded by nuns in full habit. You're dead. In parentheses, it says Karen knows what I'm talking about. It's so rare when they wear the habit. I don't think I've ever seen one in real life before, honestly. No, just Sister Act, right? Yeah, for sure.

My Catholic school days did not prepare me to think angels look like nuns, but in that moment I fully did. Luckily my parents and a bunch of other family members rushed over and I realized that I actually was still alive. Somehow all I ended up with was a dirty and torn T-shirt. I guess I'm sturdy like that. Thank you for a great podcast

and the great advice to go to therapy. It really does help. Stay sexy and hold onto your hot dogs, Rebecca. Hold onto your hot dogs. It's a pretty good story, but the sign off really put it over the line for me. Can you imagine, of course, a teenager is like unscathed, flying out of a golf cart.

Yep. You know, and I can sneeze too hard and fuck my back up at 40. Dude, I just slipped on the stairs and I thought I was going to, I was like, I might die. But then I just kind of froze and waited to see if like, I'd pulled anything and seems like I'm fine. You're good, oh thank God.

Oh my God. Skinnery. Send us your near misses or something like that. Yeah, anything really. Truly if you have a good funny hot dog story, that will usually go right to the top of the pile. That's true. Myfavoritemurderatgmail.com.

Thank you guys so much for listening. We care about you deeply. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered! Goodbye! Elvis, do you want a cookie? Ah! Welcome to the 12th season of Tenfold More Wicked.

This time, we investigate a series of compelling mysteries from the city of Fall River, Massachusetts, where the problem started generations before Lizzie Borden's murders made her a household name. I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. Join us as we investigate the misfortunes that have befallen this infamous town for more than 150 years. We talk about the citizens.

They were married. They had two children, one of whom died early. Both grandparents died. Her son died, six aunts and uncles died, her mother died, and her father died. This is in a 10-year period. This is all in Fall River. The Great Fire of 1843. Once that small pile of wood shavings is ignited, within five minutes it reaches nearby buildings, and it is towering 50 feet up into the sky. And the tragic life and death of Eliza Borden, Lizzie's great aunt.

And she heard the groans of a rapidly dying Mrs. Borden, Eliza, and didn't want to go in and fetch the authorities. We take a look at the influential bloodline that occupied this region for centuries. It's a very interesting family. The founder of Cornell University is in that line too. All these families are all interconnected. And I question whether Fall River's complicated past

has made it truly cursed, or if it's all just a terrible coincidence. Titled A Blessing and a Curse, season 12 of Tenfold Were Wicked premieres May 13th on Exactly Right. New episodes out every Monday. Listen and follow Tenfold Were Wicked on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck. Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.

This episode was mixed by Liana Squillace. Email your hometowns to My Favorite Murder atMurder at gmail.com. And follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at MyFavoriteMurder and on Twitter at MyFaveMurder. Goodbye!