My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - Wondery Presents - This Is Actually Happening: Point Blank

Episode Date: April 4, 2023

In light of recent news, we encourage you to learn about the Covenant School shooting in Nashville, please help the victims if that’s available to you, and we urge you to take extra sensitivity and care while listening.This Is Actually Happening, is a podcast that brings you extraordinary true stories of life changing events, told by the people who lived them. Now, This Is Actually Happening presents: Point Blank, a five-part series shedding a light on the forgotten spree killings of Rancho Tehama. In November of 2017, a lone gunman devastated a small town in northern California, attacking 8 different locations in the span of only 25 minutes. Overshadowed by the Las Vegas shooting that dominated the headlines just weeks earlier, this small community quickly faded from view, and was left alone to pick up the pieces.The series follows five stories of people connected to the incident, from a father that drew the gunman away from the local school, to the sister of the shooter. These are riveting stories that will stick with you long after you listen, exploring the question, what happens when everything changes?Listen to Point Blank by following This Is Actually Happening wherever you get your podcasts: Wondery.fm/MFM_TIAHHey Prime Members, you can listen to This Is Actually Happening ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This Is Actually Happening is a podcast that features extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who live them. In a special five-part series called Point Blank, This Is Actually Happening sheds a light on the forgotten spree killings of Rancho Tejama. Follow This Is Actually Happening wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Whit Missildine, the creator of This Is Actually Happening. You are about to listen to a clip of a miniseries I created about the Rancho Tejama shootings in 2017 called Point Blank. But I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge the recent shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville. To encourage you all to learn about the Nashville shooting, help the victims if that's available to you, and for our series to urge you to take extra sensitivity and care while listening.

It's the fall of 2017 in Rancho Tejama, California. A man and his wife are driving to a doctor's appointment when another car crashes into them, sending them flying off the road. Disoriented, they stumble out of the car, only to hear dozens of gunshots whizzing past them. This is just a chapter of a much larger nightmare unraveling in their small town. From Wondery, This Is Actually Happening is a podcast that features extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who actually live them. In a special five-part series called Point Blank, This Is Actually Happening sheds a light on the forgotten spree killings of Rancho Tejama, where a lone gunman devastated a small town in Northern California, attacking eight different locations in the span of only 25 minutes. Overshadowed by the Las Vegas shooting that dominated the headlines just weeks earlier, this small community quickly faded from view and was left alone to pick up the pieces.

Point Blank gives you five intimate first-person accounts of what happened that day, from a father that drew the gunman away from the local school to the sister of the shooter. These are riveting stories that will stick with you long after you listen, exploring the question, what happens when everything changes? We're about to play a clip of Point Blank from This Is Actually Happening. While you're listening, follow This Is Actually Happening wherever you get your podcasts. And hey, Prime members, you can listen ad-free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today. We'd lived together by that time for three years already, and then we bought a place out here and moved out of here. She loved it. She loved being out in the country. She liked the serenity, the privacy. We were kind of out on the edge. I was never home. I was under roadworking construction. I was only home on weekends or in between jobs.

But it was more about her that made her happy to be out here, where we can have space and have our animals and have a garden, you know. Right now we're looking at snow-capped mountains all the way around, beautiful Mount Shasta and Mount Lassen and everything in between. It's lovely. We can see the stars, you know. We used to get up on a roof and set up the telescopes, you know, with a lot of ambient light to interfere. No, we enjoyed the whole experience of being out in the country. It was awesome. But you do kind of have to be tough to live here. You know, it's tough. But life is tough. Life is a challenge, right? I'd had a shoulder injury. I'd had surgery, so I was off work. And it was just about to the point where I was a couple more weeks and I was going to hit the road again, go to work. So about that tail event, I was going to a doctor's appointment in Reading. She was going along with me. We were on our way to her doctor's appointment.

We're driving down the road and we see this guy in our lane. I was driving and I said something to Michelle. She says, somebody's drunk off early, you know. So I swear I've been to the other lane, you know. We're closing. He swears into that lane as well and he's holding his track, you know. And I thought, what the hell, you know. We're closing the whole time and I, at the last second, I turned to get out of his way and he teabones right behind my door. And our car went flying. Our car spun and hell, we ended up on the side street there from the main road. You know, I checked on her. Honey, are you all right? And she kind of gave me the, oh, she was hurt. I was still in one piece, you know. But I said, well, let's get out of here. I couldn't open my door. So we had to crawl out her side. She crawls out and falls down immediately. She was hurt.

I crawled down and just as I put one foot out the door, the gunfire began. Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. And Michelle's on the ground and she looks up to me as someone's shooting. I don't know because we're disoriented. We just were in a bad car accident. I get out and I look over the roof of the car in the direction where I knew the creep and the pickup was. And he's firing again. He had laser sights. He's firing and I told Michelle, run. She got up and she went a little whiz and fell down and then got back up and ran. I'm thinking she's out of the way. I went around back to the main road. Sure enough, he follows me. I'm a big target. So I'm running away. I'm widening this gap.

Michelle's running up this other street. I'm running down this way. He's following me. Good. That's what I want. I'm firing the whole time. Round after round, not machine gun. It was. They're bouncing off the ground. I'm running uphill. I need to get cover somewhere, but there was nowhere to get cover. About that time, some people pulled up and I go up to the car and let me in. I tried to open the car door on this SUV and the people locked it. They weren't let me in and then they back up. My hands still in the handle of their car and they pulled me to the ground. Bullets are flying. They're scared too. So I'm left there. I picked myself up. The bullets are still flying. I clamor up and I don't know. I get another 10 feet and that's when the first bullet hit me and I hit the ground.