My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 1 - My Firstest Murder

Episode Date: January 14, 2016

My Firstest Murder - in the very first episode, Karen & Georgia discuss car accidents, Jon Benet Ramsey, and the Sacramento's East Area rapist. Plus a local crime story from Feral Audio founder, Dustin Martian.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is exactly right. We at Wondery live, breathe, and downright obsess over true crime. And now we're launching the ultimate true crime fan experience, Exhibit C. Join now by following Wondery, Exhibit C, on Facebook and listen to true crime on Wondery and Amazon Music. Exhibit C, it's truly criminal. My favorite. Good morning.

Karen. It's really happening. It's really happening. Hey, hard start. Just go to sleep. Let's just relax into what we're about to do, which is our new podcast, My Favorite Murder. Let's get cozy and comfy and cuddle up and talk about murder. Talk about the thing that makes you feel most romantic.

Murder. We got a fire lit. We're having some hot cocoa. I'm swirling a brandy around over my head. No, I love this topic. I do too. And that's why we're friends. Yeah.

We've talked about this for a long time about true crime and what our favorite ones are, because that sounds creepy, but. That's who we are. That's fine. I feel like we were at a party and something along this topic came up and that's how you and I were both like, like shoulder grab moment. I remember which one it was. What was it?

It was the staircase. Yes. Everyone's favorite, wasn't it? Oh yeah. And because we were at a party and a girl we were there with, Erin Dewey Lennox, she has a photo from prom of herself on that staircase. No. You're shaking your head now.

No, I'm just freaking out. I didn't see that. Did I? I thought you did. Are you talking about Matt's Halloween party last year? Yeah. I didn't see that. Oh my God.

So she was friends with that family in high school. Holy. Like before it happened, there was prom. She went to prom with the daughter, her friend, photo of them in their prom dresses on the staircase of the staircase of the staircase story. Unbelievable. I know. What does she think?

What's her opinion? I think she thinks a bird did it, which I think is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. The owl theory? Yeah. No. Right? That is made up as hell. Everyone watched the staircase and then laughed along with us at the owl story.

You know what's funny is I just recommended my sister's best friend, Adrienne, who's basically like my other sister I grew up with. I told her we were going to do this and the second I said it, and I did not know this about her. I've known her since I was 12. Oh my God. I love it. She goes, oh, well, it has to be Night Sucker first and I was like, wait, I didn't realize

you had an opinion about this. She's like, oh my God. I love serial killers. I was like, what? I was like, she was always the prissy girl and like the, or I mean, not prissy, but just I, you know, I just thought it was so weird and perverted all my life for loving this topic so much. You can't tell anyone because they're going to think you're psychotic or like, like into

murder, which are not, you're just like fascinated by the idea, the whole concept. So that was awesome. And then I said, you have to watch this series. You'll freak out. Yeah. And she's been texting me updates as she's watching it, like, can't believe it. Just all emojis. So basically, yeah, go watch it, but this, this chick's husband fucking killed her because

she found out that he was having like a child molester or something, right? No, no, no. He was having a fair, he was like paying for male prostitutes. And she found out like right before he murdered her. I mean, that the owl playing into that makes it seem more unlikely when you know about the male prostitutes. It does, it throws a, what do you call wrench in the works a little bit, throws an owl, it throws a male prostitute into the thing.

It throws a live owl into the works. It's so crazy. But, but I understand there, you know, there's people making argument that like he got railroaded because of the male prostitute thing and painted a picture of him that wasn't real or whatever. But I, that's still bullshit because you can still kill your wife and be railroaded and bat. Yeah, Southern people be biased against you because you're secretly Southern people aren't the tolerant, the Southern and I'll be intolerant by saying all Southern people are intolerant.

But it's absolutely true across the board. There you go. That's what we're about big, big facts and truths. So stop listening now if you can't handle the truth and facts or spoilers like the guy killed his wife on the stairs like it's not a mystery. I don't think I don't think a spoiler is ever the guy killed his wife because that's like, yeah, the guy killed his wife. Yeah.

Spoiler is that an owl did it. That's exactly right. Good point. So we're going to, so this is, are we, we're calling this my favorite murder? Are we recording? So do you want to start with this? Is this what we're, should we start my favorite murder and it's going to be real fucked up and Dustin brought up a great point that we might be inviting a murderer into our lives

by doing this. I mean, but here's the thing and this is why I'm so fascinated by this topic in general. We might already know a murderer. Oh my God, like probably. Probably and in that way where they're just in a very cat-like removed Dexter way, just observing all this for the kind of, oh, they think they're, they think they're cute. Isn't that cute? Yeah.

Isn't that cute than quaint? Yeah. So I guess the disclaimers really don't kill us because we can't do this podcast anymore if you can. I mean, and another part of that disclaimer could be partly like we kind of are fans, a lot of murdering people, like we're your friends, we're, we, what it is, is I, I think what you're doing is wrong. I wish you'd stop it.

Yeah. But you probably knew too. You do too. We know we've seen the specials where you talk about wanting to stop and not being able to stop. Definitely. But at the same time, like the level of planning, I mean, I got here 15 minutes late and this is something I want to do.

Like their, their, their shit is together, those serial killers. So the thought of like for me, it's like you got away with it for like the thought of getting away with something like that is insane. And the fact that like the rest of your life are you, you're either worrying constantly that you're going to get caught or you're a sociopath and you just don't worry about that shit. Yeah. Which would not be great.

Oh my God. It would be so great. I mean, right now I have, I'm pretty sure I have two unpaid parking tickets. So I live in constant. Will I get the third and a boot in front of people I know it's constant. And it's tearing me apart. Yeah. And it'd be great.

The only thing you have to worry about is getting caught for murder, for murdering many people that part their hair down the middle or whatever your preference is. Ted Bundy. Am I right girl? Did I just spoil your favorite murder? Don't tell me. No, no, no. So like, you know, what you did was pick up on the reference I was dropping like an expert.

Oh, I fucking got this. This is why I reference this because we love murder. And the one time I was stoned at a party and decided to tell people one of the worst things I've ever seen. I made people blanch and walk away from our, from our circle and Georgia moved closer with the white eye. She has right now going, oh my God, this is amazing. It's when I, I don't know why I did it.

I do. This is part of my problem. Oh my God. Tell me I love it. It was when, I think it was at that same party. Yeah. Somebody asked me what had been going on lately and it was right after I got back from South by Southwest or not right after for some reason the South by Southwest, the car accident

came up and my big brag, which never pans out as a brag. I always think it is like how fascinating about me and no one ever agrees is that I was there when it happened and I didn't see it. My back was to it. I heard it. Tell everyone what it was. Oh, sorry. Um, in at South by Southwest two years ago, a guy was in a police chase and he turned up

a street that was cordoned off, um, for people to mill about cause it was a festival. And so all the people standing in the street in front of the theater where X was playing got plowed down. Old punk rockers. Yeah. And I had been standing last in line to get in. So I would have been the first person hit, but I decided to walk away. Good for you.

I mean, like, fuck this shit. I'm over it. Yeah. Cause you know me in lines and waiting and how I don't go anywhere or do anything. So I walked away to see my friend at the front, like, Hey, let's just stand out here and listen to the music. The car comes, people fly like cardboard boxes. I tell this story in groups of people and people are literally like bumming out hard.

And I had just read about it that afternoon and I was like, Oh, tell me everything. Cause that's my like car accidents are another thing. I've had two ex-boyfriends and my, and one best friend dying car accidents. What? Yeah. What? Yeah. I've had two ex-boyfriends at the time, but they were important ones, you know, from like

high school, died in car accidents. One my best friend from high school died in car accident. Don't trick and drive you guys. That's horrible. I know. So like, I'm just fucking want to hear all about it. And I'm also, I'm also big in like anything could happen at any moment. You'll never know about it.

Like I don't sit near a window at a restaurant because I am like a car is going to come creaning through the fucking window and kill me. Sure. So that's just to me is like, tell me everything so I can avoid it. Yes. That's what, that's what all this is really. I just want to collect information and hear theories and stories so that I can be braced so that when I see the weird, you know, that the one thing's out of the knife, I'm ready.

Totally. Like why is there an open soda can? Yes. I didn't open that. I didn't. Well, I don't drink Pepsi light. No. And also I feel like a lot of physics is that like the more you know about something, the

less likely it's going to happen to you. Yes. You know what I mean? Sure. Absolutely. It's not science. It's not scientific. It's spiritual.

Okay. It's more of, um, it's the secret river in reverse. Get it away from me. My secret hope is to not get murdered. Yeah. Yeah. My secret hope is to murder the woman who wrote the secret. That's a great, that's a great, that's beautiful.

I'm doing it for everybody. So should we, we want to start with a news story? Yeah. That's a true crime news story. Yeah. What's yours? I'm obsessed and I actually realized I need to stop talking about it because people who don't wouldn't like it are going to hate it the most.

Oh my God. I'm so excited. But, and you probably know about it. It's the first thing I wanted to say to you, and I walked in here, um, on Halloween morning. No. Was it Halloween morning or the day before? I can't remember. Is it the car accident guy?

Yes. Guys. Most fucked up thing. So it's 7 a.m., it's traffic, it's the five, do you know if they were going north or south? I think they were going, um, north. I was picturing north in my mind. Yeah. Because they're going towards the 134 and about to hit Colorado.

Oh yes. Okay. So that's more. So this is like 10 minutes from my house, our house right now. Moments away from my house. Yeah. Yeah. That's the free way I'm on all the time.

Right. So. It's not Friday morning. Guys. On his way. Rush hour. Well, nobody really knows because he was 20. The adults can't have jobs, but many don't.

Yeah. No. Um, he was driving really fast and weaving in and out of traffic, driving on the shoulder. He was a dick. He was a dick. Driving crazy. Yeah. And then he hit something, flipped his car, was shot out through the windshield.

And here's the craziest part. It wasn't wearing a seatbelt. Well, it was a fucking idiot. Yeah. Of course. So he was severed. Inhale. He was severed and I didn't know that part.

Oh shit. Uh, yeah. He was severed in half and the top half of his body landed on the Colorado exit sign off of the freeway. 20 feet up. Oh, I think higher than that is that how he flew and then, and then landed on a fucking sign, like the platform. Yes.

Like on the tiny walkway on the sign. So imagine then you're driving to work at the fucking Disney building off the 134. It's Friday, I'm going to be like a slutty lover. Should I take Kala around it? Yeah. And then there's a, the top half of a guy's body hanging off the exit. Ways is like, uh, top half of body noted in the freeway ahead of. Thanks.

Oh boy. Boop off. Like let's change routes. I can't. I'm so obsessed with it. I had to call my sister and she already know it, of course. She does. She's like me.

Um, but she didn't know the severed thing either. And then we thought about whether or not it was the top or bottom half based on the accident. Was his body still bottom half still in the car? That's what I imagine. Are just screaming over the top of their lungs right now to like avoid listening to this. Yeah. They're not going to stop listening. Cause come on.

I mean, why would, if you're not into this, then this is a good litmus test for what's happening. Um, I always like, have you ever seen a dead body? No. I mean, funeral. Yeah. Okay. Not naturally the way I've always dreamed of as a child, like finding one like in a ravine.

Oh yeah. Yeah. That girl who like, uh, found a body. Yep. Then I'm the one getting hugged by cops, even though I didn't have nothing to do with it. But suddenly I'm the hero. You get a free, uh, marathon, uh, like what are those tin foil blankets that they put over you?

You got a free one. I wasn't even cold. This is the best. Oh, every word. Terrible people. This is like, we're just showing our humanity right now. You know, here's the thing. It's probably anxiety.

Oh, it's definitely anxiety. It's, uh, I don't know, but also it's because I was raised, it's very strictly Catholic where you weren't supposed to talk about stuff like this. So like, I still remember the first time I opened a true crime book and saw they had a diagram of how drama, Gacy buried bodies in the house. And it was one of those moments where I was like, wow, wow, wow, like everything changed in my brain. It's all real.

Yeah. I was, I just remember, I feel like being raised in the 80s, like kids were fucking disappearing and being found dead, like on the regular. Every song I listened to in the 80s reminds me of like whatever dead kid was like missing that time. Totally. And actually my, my story is, um, my truth, my current story is because of a kid in 1989, Jacob Wetterling, there's, it was a cold case.

He just disappeared. This dude, like in a mask, it's his little brother and him and a friend riding bikes to get a video on a fucking afternoon in 1989. What movie were they getting? Don't tell mom, the babysitter said like probably right. And I probably saw the same one. The sky makes them get, has a gun and a mask on, makes them lay down in a ravine, asks them their ages, which is fucked up and then has the other two run off into the woods.

How bad does this kid feel that he left his brother behind? Oh, please. I never found, but this guy that, um, that's, that's terrible, you know, and they found all the child porn in this guy's house and they think one of the kids is the kid who disappeared. So they think he fucking, this did it. And my computer is not working. Okay.

Um, yeah, they uncovered dozens of VHS tapes of this, of fucking child porn and of this guy, like hiding in bushes and like following them on their paper routes and shit like that. No. Yeah. Sorry, but was the kid that had disappeared in the child? They think so. Yeah.

I don't know. I know. It's as horrible as, you know, the guy that kind of kicked it all off, um, the, well, for me, cause I think it was in this, the San Francisco area, that guy, John, what's his name, whose son was taken, um, this is lame. No, we can know all the names, but it's, uh, he's, he has, oh, John Walsh. Yes. Oh my God.

So treasure. He was like kind of the first big one, the New York one was Ethan, that little boy that tried to walk to school one day. But do you know that John Walsh had to listen to tapes? They would find, like find evidence and then they would give it to him. And if he wanted to, he could listen to it, like of kids being murdered so that he would know whether or not it was his son throw up, right? Are you fucking kidding me?

Yeah. He had to, he listened to a whole tape that wasn't his son of another kid getting tortured. Oh my God, it's the, I mean, I feel like it really is the worst child killers and rapists are, that's the devil on walking earth. Yeah. I mean, that's real. It's so insane. I can't even imagine.

I can't imagine. And I do it constantly and I know that when I have kids, I'm going to be the fucking worst parent. Oh yeah. And I'm going to have kids too. They've made us have, have to have multiple kids because one of them could get murdered and then you don't have any children. When I read, when I hear like a crime thing and I'm like, Oh, it's our only child.

That sucks. You should have had a backup. Have at least four because you just don't know. You need two normals, two alternates. Oh, love one the best and like protect them the most because like, although, but don't show it. Do not show it. Right.

Cause there's people everywhere. Maybe one of those kids will become a killer. Oh yeah. If you're too crazy about it, you actually cause it. Sure. That's so terrible. And that poor, yeah, you're right. I also love to think about aftermath, like, like those two little boys lives are ruined.

I mean, they're just, that's it. Yeah. That's, that's you're done for. Totally. It reminds me of, remember the kid that got kidnapped and then he came back. I know my name is Kevin. Oh, the one that wasn't really him. No, no, it was him.

He came back because the guy that had kidnapped him and kept him as like a sex slave for years got another little boy. Right. Remember that? And then he finally, cause he had of course been brainwashed that like, I killed your parents. But he lived and he would go online and to his like, his website of like find Kevin or whatever and be like, you guys don't really want to find him probably like put message

on the message board, like testing them almost. And I think that the guy even like, let him out and like hang out with the neighborhood kids. Like, yes, that's right. He was so brainwashed. He was so brainwashed and he thought, I mean, like he thought his family either was dead or didn't care. Yeah.

Like for example, Stainer is the last name because then his brother, his brother became a serial killer. No, we didn't. Yes. What? Corey Stainer is the guy that killed. I mean, I guess that's not serial. They say serial killer is two or more people.

Right. But like a viral video. Like, how do you know it's viral? There's no like number. It's the same with serial killer. It's just like how many cats are there and how much do people like it? He killed a woman and her daughter and her daughter's friend in Yosemite. That was him.

Yes. I remember that story. Those girls, those poor beheaded them and like, and then he made a statement like, I just need people to know I did not rape them before I killed them. Oh, great. Thank you. I wait until after. I mean, you know, thank you.

But yeah. You know what? It almost scares me. This is so silly, but it almost scares me more when they don't rape them because like if you're just like sexually fucked up and you want to get boned and then you kill someone to do that, but just to kill them to kill them is also, oh my God, I'm not saying one is better than the other. No, no, no.

We can't choose. Clearly. We feel a fight for this podcast. You know that? This is the end of our careers as we know it really might be. Like if we think this is so casual and people like they were making fun of, they called a guy a fucking idiot who didn't put a seatbelt on in a car. I didn't mean to call him a fucking idiot.

Look, where your seatbelt? That's what everyone's been saying. Every time I've told us that story multiple times and that's what everyone said. But like if he had a seatbelt on and he wasn't driving insane, then it would just be tragic and sad. Exactly. But because. Also.

Yeah. We'll just LA car culture. It's hard to forgive. Yeah. You know, you drive with those people that weave in and out and drive on the shoulder and. I've been, I've been driven off the road and a guy came to my window screaming at me. I have it on video and the only reason I don't think he broke my window open and murdered

me is because I was videotaping him. Yeah. No, it's tough here. It's tough here. So keep us in context. We're just, we're living the life. We're trying. Listen, we both have really bad anxiety.

I just want everyone should know that we're like, I hope that's clear. I hope it's clear that we're clinically anxious people. I. All the meds, it doesn't work. This is me at like a baseline, like medicated. I'm doing okay. Anxiety. I just don't leave my house almost ever.

Right. You're two ferocious dogs. Dogs that guard the door and we just stay indoors all the time. It's a secret. Everything's locked. Windows are locked and closed. I don't know how you live. I shouldn't say this actually.

How I live in that house on the first floor. Well, that's my huge, a huge, it's scary, but those dogs, that's why I got those dogs. That's true. That's true. I live for a couple months without those dogs and every night I would just lay in my bed. Like I would hear things. It was crazy. Yeah.

Cause also the quieter it is, the worse it is. Cause then you're just like, then your brain is, is telling you your hearing things. It was nuts. And I was finally like, just get a look at it. Yeah. Yeah. Good for you. Thank you.

Yeah. I'm a hero. I always have a boyfriend. No, that's not why. Also cause I don't, I have a seizure when I was a kid once and I don't want to sleep alone anymore. Oh, tell me about it. Also I love Vince, but also it's nice to not get murdered.

Also I love Vince comes third. The murder is important though because you have to live to be able to love him. But here's the thing. He murders me. I mean, You gotta think about your husband. Here's what I'm telling you. The book I write will do you proud.

Thank you so much. I will be the an rule. I'll be like, guys, I was there the whole time. I knew. You would never have known he wanted to murder her. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

This is the best. Still waters. You're like, that guy's the best. Which one's still waters? Just I'm saying people that are like, you would have never known that they had murder in them. Oh, that's the name of the book. Still waters around deep.

Yeah. Yeah. No story. Okay. Should we tell? Okay. So then we'll tell each other our favorite murders. And then, okay, we, here's what we want.

If you guys stop listening during the murder part because you hate us before you do that, listen to this. Um, I, we're obsessed with people's like hometown murder, kidnapping, fucked up, crazy stories. Yeah. I have always asked people at bars and they stopped talking to me because I want to know they're like, what was the crazy thing that happened in your town? Um, and I think they can't handle that level of conversations. Better.

You're not talking to them. I completely agree. Get out. Uh, and I don't have one really. One of those stories. Cause you're from LA. I'm from Orange County. Nothing bad happens there.

No, there's some shit. So we want you to email us. You can email me at Georgia hard stark at Gmail. All right. Your town story, but, but don't say like, here's the town story. Put a link in it. I want, we want in your own voice. Like, so this fucking thing happened and I was this year's old and my mom wouldn't let

me and then we used to go to the house and throw rocks at it. Here's what happened. Does that happen? Totally. Did you do that? Yep. You have a goal. We'll see.

We can go then talk about poly class. Yeah. I mean that one. Yeah. That one's rough because it's so famous and the town was so small. That's crazy. I'm from Petaluma where the little girl poly class got taken out of her bedroom by a man while she was having a slumber party.

Multiple people were there. Yeah. Multiple little girls. Why did he do it then? Does, do we know? There was, there were lots of theories that the dad had like bad debts or was involved in drugs. No.

But that's kind of, of course, small town gossip. That's extreme too. It's crazy and also this guy was a total like Charles Manson in and out of jail all his life. Keep them in jail. Come on. That's another problem we have. It's simple.

It's so simple. Like, rapists get three to five years. Stop doing that. That's so insane. It's insane. You know, we're going to do a lot of good on this vlog. I feel like we're going to change laws. We're going to be advocates, victims, advocates.

Mariska Hargitay is going to guest spot on it one time. She's going to, she's going to deliver our speech. No, I don't know what I'm saying. She's going to give us our medal. At the podcast awards. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh, listen, there are lots of rape kits that are backlogged thousands and thousands.

Let's get those rape kits tested. Hey guys. Hey guys. Let's get those rape kits. There's like a, there's like a loosely closed door and on the other side of, and it called a rape kit. And on the other side of that door is the person who did it. And probably other bad things that you might want to know about.

Probably. I mean, I don't want to sound this condescending tops, but in the privacy of Georgia's home, I'm not afraid to get, oh, we're just going to be, we're going to be murdered by, and everyone's going to be like, those fucking idiots didn't wear a seatbelt on their podcast and deserve that. They're so stupid. You know what? What a way to go though.

Taffa torso up on the Colorado exit sign. Bring it on. It's pretty badass. What if you were driving and saw that? What if you saw that on your way to work? You would go home. Yeah. You would get to go home.

You got to go home that day. Because I saw the picture and this second I saw the picture for this news story, I was like, this is a prank. There's no way. But they had, but they had put a, a, someone had climbed up there and put a towel over it. Yeah. And how did that, so hopefully there's no pictures before that, are there? I think there, well there, the one I saw was from the, across the freeway.

It's really far away. So you just see like the basic shape and colors. You don't see anything specific at all. Oh, what a bummer. I hope he was dead before he, well, he got, I didn't realize the part of getting torn in half. Yeah. But like sometimes they say, if you get beheaded, you're, you're still conscious for like seven

seconds. Fun. I don't know. I mean. That sounds cool. Look, I'm scared of dying. So I love, all of this makes me feel better. Me too.

Listen, this is the root of it all is that we're terrified of dying. Yeah. Yeah. What a bummer. And dying in a weird way. Yeah. Like in a, or a sneaky way. Like the other night there was, I, I, God, it was, I wasn't talking to you on the phone

was I, there was one night where I was talking to somebody and I was like, it's raining. And they were like, what are you talking about? It's not, it's not going to rain for years and years. And I was like, no, there's, and then there's a sound on the roof of my house. And it was like tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. It's raining murderers. Yes. We get, well, I'll bring that up later.

But anyway. Oh my God. It's a constant awareness. Oh, I always know how I'm going to die in any room I'm in, in any situation, in any room I'm in, I'm aware of how everyone in that room, how we're all going to die. And so I am the one who's all, who's on edge and aware of it at all times. Yeah. Well, that's good.

That's not healthy. Yeah. Or does it keep you alive? That's true. You know how many weapons I have on my fucking keychain too? I have two keychains, two weapons. What are they? One is pepper spray.

Good. And the other was one of that, that cool little cat, pointy ear cat thing that you, you hook your fingers through and you can poke and you stab people in the eye with the cat ears. Oh, nice. It's fun and cool. It's like the cat ear defense keychain. Look it up. It's, get it.

Okay. I will. Yeah. I like that. I want my roommate used to have pepper. She had pepper corns, pepper spray on her. She had pepper corns on her keychain and I drove her car to the Burbank airport one time to pick her up and this was pre 9 11.

So I was walking to the gate to meet her. Remember those days? And I went through security through the, the keychain in the bowl. Like the security guy looks at it. He's like, ma'am, can you step over here? And I'm like, what? And then he calls over like the official cop Burbank police and he's like, man, there's a weapon.

You have this Burbank, this pepper spray, you know, this is illegal or whatever. And I got so angry cause my roommate drove me crazy anyway. And she was totally the kind of person that would be like, I have an illegal weapon on my keychain and not tell you. And so I just started yelling at this cop. I was like, it's my roommate's car. I was so mad and he freaked him out. Like he kind of started laughing and then he's like, all right, he's like, we're going

to keep it. I'm like, good, keep it. You know what? I always forget that I carry around in my purse when I get on the airport is like fucking switchblade comb. Oh, shit. And they're like, uh, you can't throw it away. I've like thrown away so many of those.

That's so rock of the way of you to think switchblade combs are funny. I think they're funny. And I also love the fact that like, I think the bottom of your purse is so disgusting and like crumbs of shit that like I don't want an open comb laying out there. So switchblade. Oh, like that's smart. I don't like murderers and I don't like gross stuff. I don't like crumbs.

I don't like cookie crumbs in my hair. It's the whole range. Just everything. Yay. Uh, should we go? Should we do my favorite murder? Yes. You want to go first?

Sure. I think this is an obvious one. So like, yeah, hey, I'm Mike Corey, the host of wonder is podcast against the odds in our next season, three mask men hijack a school bus full of children in the sleepy farm town of Chowchilla, California. They bury the children and their bus driver deep underground planning to hold them for ransom. Local police and the FBI marshal a search effort, but the trail quickly runs dry as the

air supply for the trapped children dwindles, a pair of unlikely heroes emerges. Follow against the odds wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. What do we eat? Okay. My favorite. Your official voice. I'm really excited.

You know what? Let's get real. I mean, we're like, we're just going to do every week our favorite murder, like a murder story we love. Yeah. And I had, so I had to start like a good one because it's, and it's new. I'm newly interested in this. My what?

I was just going to say one thing. We know other people love this as much as we do. So if we mess up information, don't be afraid to tell us because I understand, like when I hear people talking about something, it drives me crazy if I know the real thing because it is my passion, but I also am very an inaccurate and messy person. So if I get it wrong and you want to tell us, please do and we'll talk about it. I appreciate that. Cause I'm so nervous about getting any of this wrong that I'm going to give less information

than I like would think I have. And also get, tell us more information that you know, or like cool things that you know about it. Totally. And then at the end of the episodes, we should just like read listener mail of like, I think that's a great idea. How about we have a whole segment that's like corrections, how about we have like a supplement to our podcast of just corrections every week because I, I, my passion is for the act and

for specific stories within it, but like, I'll always get the numbers wrong or the years wrong. My, my passion is for the insanity of it and the fact that this thing stuff happens. Yeah. So tell us when we're wrong. Just jump into this. Obviously though. Yeah.

You don't have to get on your high horse about it. Just calm down. Yeah. Okay. Now that we've got that out of the way, um, my favorite murder is that of Jean Benet Ramsey. Oh, classic. Which I used to think was stupid and boring until I listened to last podcast on the left's

two part in depth discussion of it. Yes. And I was like, Oh, this is way more fascinating than I remember. Yes. I love that podcast. You turned me on to it. And you turned me on to it because of those episodes, which I immediately listened to. And those guys are so on it with all of their research.

Yeah. Very thorough. We are not. We're not going to do that. So, no. Um, everyone knows it. Basically a six year old girl was murdered in her home in Boulder, Colorado in 1996. She was a, um, beauty queen, which I think kind of, I think just kind of sullies the

whole thing because it's really just a little girl and the beauty pageant stuff has nothing to do with it. Right, except for you could stop right there and still have a real good horror story because she's a six year old girl. They're babies. Children. I was telling you that that I was looking at a picture of her and then remembered that she's six, like one year older than five.

And she looks like she's 10. She does. It's, it's dirty. The whole thing is the creepiest. And she has, she looks smarter than she looks a little knowing, which is fucked up. And I feel like the, I feel like the beauty pageant thing was a big deal because it kind of, because it was never solved this crime, which I don't think it's true. I think her father killed her, which we'll get into.

But the fact that it's like, well, maybe a child molester did it because I feel like that kind of made it seem that way, but because she's dressed up woman basically as a child and maybe she was, she was murdered by a child molester or fan or something. Right. And I think she was, it just happened to be her father who was that person. Right. Like that became the red herring that really is such a heart. You can't ignore a red herring like that because it's the thing itself is so creepy.

Yeah. It's like being in a cult, being in child pageants. Right. Definitely. It's like the Satan scare of the 80s when they thought everyone was, all these kids were Satanists. Yeah. But really God and Satan don't exist.

So that's impossible. Wait, wait. What? Oh, I'm sorry. Well, you should have told me that before. That's what I get killed for is for saying that it's not for. So many reasons to be killed. This is what this podcast is going to be about.

What are they going to get killed about? Killed list. So then, yeah. So I think that the dad did it. He, there's like a lot of weird things about it. The ransom letter is three pages, which is the longest ransom letter in murder history. That's the thing that I'm going to get corrected about probably, but it's two pages. And it was written on there on the notepad in the Ramsey house with their pens.

So the killer did this and then wrote a three page ransom note, just chilled the fuck out and wrote a note. Yeah. Like who would do that? Right. And she was already dead in the basement from blunt force trauma. She had blunt force trauma to her head, which would have killed her, but she was then strangled, which is what ended up killing her for real.

It's just so fucked up. Who have you? And the ransom note is incredible. Also the fact that there are children playing out in your alley right now, so we can hear her screaming. I don't know if you can hear that in the background for that moment. It's the perfect background. No, it's perfect.

It's good. Okay. It just was, I was like, why am I so uncomfortable right now? And I'm like, cause there's a child screaming is somewhere. Oh, it's all so wrong. It's so upset. Go listen to the, I know you hate this, but listen to the 911 call. I can't do it.

Is it Patsy? It's Patsy freaking the fuck out, but, but the wording in her call and if you like, listen to it and listen to the interpretation, like she's saying everything wrong. She's not like, she's not saying. My daughter is missing. She's saying we have a kidnapping. Like she's not taking personal responsibility for what's like, for what is happening to her or her daughter.

She's kind of making it more generalized. She's setting up a story. It sounds like. Yeah. And there's all these interpretations people say about like, you know, um, not asking for help. They're saying for the, her daughter, she's like begging for someone to, to deal with it instead of asking for help for her daughter.

Yeah. And then there's like, people say that, um, one of the ways you know they're lying is because that they said that their son, who was like 10 was asleep upstairs until like after the police had got there. But in the background with analysis, with the 911 call, you can hear his voice. Oh yeah. And there's just all these little things. Oh, so it could be like some family event took place and this was like the cleanup version.

Well another weird thing is that they're, so they found pineapple during the autopsy in her stomach that she had eaten before she died because it hadn't been digested. And there, and there was a bowl of pineapple with a spoon in it on the table and the son's fingerprints were on the bowl. But the parents said that they put her right to bed when they got home from a Christmas party that night. That's the thing that happened on Christmas Eve or Christmas. Yeah.

Christmas Eve. Yeah. Yeah. Cause that's why there was no good cops. Right. All the good cops were at home. All the good cops weren't living in Boulder, Colorado. Right.

And that's the reason I'm going to get killed right there. Yeah. And then, okay, the other weird thing in the ransom note, the killer, okay, so they're, these people are billionaires. Yeah. And the killer asked for, for the ransom, they made it look like a kidnapping, which is why they were the ransom note. They asked for $118,000 as the ransom, which like poor people, like that's a lot of money.

It's not a lot of money, but also that's a very specific amount. And it's also the amount that John Ramsey had been given as a Christmas bonus that year. Do you think they were trying to set it up to make it look like someone knew that and there? That's why it was such a specific number? Yes. Like they were trying to lead people away from themselves. Yes, definitely.

Wow. Well, the whole note does that too. And then, but the other weird thing I think we talked about this is that when they were doing sample handwritings of the mom and dad. So Patsy Ramsey was the mother was, was how to rewrite the note. And instead of writing $118,000 numerically, she wrote out $118,000, like who the fuck does that? Like that's so stupid.

Obviously, you're trying to mask something unless she loves calligraphy. And that's her thing. Well, they, they basically a bunch of handwriting analysis said that it's her handwriting really without it out. Really? Yeah. But then I've read other stuff that it's his as well. It's, even then though, if it's like some kind of in family murder, whoever wrote the

note doesn't mean that's the killer. Exactly. It's just that they're, it's collusion. Exactly. Is that the right way to use that word? Collusion? Yeah. Well, well, let us know.

Tell us. Correct us. I'm going to throw out stuff like that because it feels good in my brain. It felt good. When you said it, I was like, yeah, she's right. That's collusion, God damn it. And they're like, that's actually a rare alcohol from Fiji. I'll have the collusion on the rocks.

I just love the story because I'm so, I'm equally convinced that it's one of the parents that it's both of the parents that it's the son, but I don't think it's anyone outside the family. Now, what's the deal with the son? So the son was like, I think he was 10. He had hit her with a golf club in the past in the face, but it was an accident supposedly. People all over the, you know, I don't know if you know this, but people on the internet have theories and talk about them.

So people's theories are that it was him, he hit her over the head with like a golf club or something, which is because she has blunt force trauma from being hit with something. So then maybe she was dying and one of the parents killed her to make and then set it up to make it look like a kidnapping and a murder so that the son wouldn't get in trouble for it. But I mean, talk about picking a favorite child. Yeah. That's a little, he never got, he didn't get spoken to by the police for a month and when

he did, it was like quick, nothing. Right. But he's so young. I don't know. I remember reading that they, after the first night where the cops had never been cops before showed up to not secure the scene, then whatever they talked to them about that night, they, the Patsy and John, right, John, they also weren't interviewed for a month. They had so much time to rehearse what their story would be and lock it all down.

I mean, just the fact that like they had searched the house multiple times over and finally were like sent John, the father to go search the house just to give him something to do. And he goes into the secret wine room off the weird basement and happens to find her after eight hours of the cops having had been there, grabs her body, takes the tape off of her mouth and brings her upstairs, thus ruining any DNA evidence that you could have used. Yeah. And then, and then Patsy throws herself on the body.

She did. Yeah. So the DNA shit is just fucked. I mean, that's all guilty hindsight kind of wonder though, like, I don't know. Would you well, hard to say, I don't think I would throw myself onto the body of a dead child. No, no. I mean, I don't try it hard to say.

Let's reenact this. Let's have a child and let's have it murder six years from now. I just can't the idea of like a real quick problem solve. Okay. Junior messed up again. This guy always will be boys. I'm going to strangle her to death. Yeah.

Yeah. It's so much. It's such a, it's such an over solve. It's a big from A to B. Plus wouldn't you want your, your fucking psycho path kid who ruined your like prized, killed your prized daughter to get in trouble for that? Right. People don't. I don't know.

I mean. I mean, that's where that theory falls apart for me. Yeah. She is clearly the prize pony. Right. Which is why maybe he wanted to kill her. Of course. But then, so I see them covering, I see them covering like note wise and bad, bad 911 call

wise and all that. Just not killing her. But not the killing. Maybe she, they didn't know she wasn't dead yet. So they put that over her. No, she was breathing. I don't know. I mean, we're not going to solve it tonight.

Are we? Oh, I thought that's what this podcast was. I mean, let's not even talk about the underwear she had on, the weird underwear she had on. That they found DNA on it that didn't match the family. It was not the brother's DNA. No. That she was sexually assaulted, but they also said that it looked like it was, it had been, you know, over a period of time.

It wasn't even like that night she was sexually assaulted. It was like, this is something that's been happening for a long time. I mean. Yeah. See, I feel like that's not the, that is going to be a pretty common denominator when you're talking about these child beauty claims that some gross dude wants to fuck them. Yes. They have full makeup on and high heels shoes.

Have you watched? I watched like one episode. I was probably high, which was a problem. Yeah. That's a real bad idea. That's such a bad idea. And these girls, I was, yeah, I was, I scream at the TV when I'm high. Of course.

And I was just yelling about that they look like, they look like playboy playmates. They are supposed to. And also the thing you said earlier, which is the, you know, I think the reason she was such a champion, that knowing look, like she had that weird, beyond her years wisdom. That's super creepy in children. I don't even have that. I mean, look, I have it, but I earned it. I mean, and I don't wear a weird tiara and hot pink lips.

We have it, but we're broken people. We're, yes. We, it suits our faces. We earned it. Oh, the things I've seen for years. Look away. Of anxiety and not trusting people. Here's my terrible tattoo.

This is my evidence. Yeah. Yeah. That's, John Donate is, you're right. I had that same thing where when it first happened, I was like, this is boring. Who cares? Like we're only seeing this because she's this beautiful little girl and it's that weird.

Especially if you go online and look at a photo of her, just like there's like a photo of her opening a Christmas present that year. There's a little girl and you just forget that. And I think the what's most fascinating to me about it is that it's never going to get solved. Right. The mom. Patsy's dead.

Oh, do you know who the dad remarried? Do you know who John Ramsey remarried? Yes, I do. What's her name? Um, the mom girl who disappeared in, oh, this is not good. This is, this is grandma time. Someone help us in Cava. What was her name?

Jessica. Uh, what's her name? Vander Sleut is the guy that killed her. Yeah. John Ramsey. This is real time. You guys. Guys, this is how computing works.

Has anyone seen Steve Jobs? What a film. I'm just killing time while you do that. Anyways, the guy, Jordan Vander Sleut killed the sweet, innocent blonde. I always want to say Casey. Casey Anthony killed Casey Anthony. Are we wrong? Correct.

Are we, where's the wrong part? I don't know. Anyways, they're married now. That's that. I mean, so it's just two tragedy parents. Yeah. Talk about over dinner. Oh God.

You know what? There's a lot of wine. I'll tell you that. There's wine and pills for everybody. I mean, why wouldn't you? But here's the one thing that I thought was fascinating. So John Mark Carr is that guy that fake admitted to killing John Bonnet and got expedited back to America because he was in the Philippines and immediately my phone rang because my sister

and Adrienne are the know everything and they think he got extradited because he was going to get brought up on child molestation charges in the Philippines, which is apparently like way, way worse in the jail. There's horrifying. You know, my dad went to high school with a guy who was put in prison in Thailand because he was, he says he was making a documentary about drug trade and had some drugs on him and they found it, which is like, come on dude. That guy has, was there for like 20 something years, an absolutely insane person now.

Yes. He lost his mind. Yeah. It's a, you don't want to go to prison in Thailand. You don't want to go to prison there. So they think that's why he did the fake confession so he can come back here. But then, did we talk about this? I don't know about this part.

He is in transition to become a woman now and he has started a child sex cult called the immaculates where he uses other like younger, but not children, but like safe in the teens to, to find him child, children to be in this sex cult and everyone chill the like, why are you following this guy? Make your own sex. I don't know. I just don't get it. And also like, isn't one of the rules of sex culting like it should be a secret.

Yeah. The fact that this is known is like hilarious. Yeah. He's not good at it. Clearly. And I think he's wanted by the FBI and there he's hard to catch because he looks a lot like a woman. Like, I think he's transitioning very well.

Maybe through this podcast, we'll find him. Yeah. Cause I didn't know that. Keep your eyes peeled. Let's do that. I bet he's, I bet she's wearing a beret. Then we'll be lauded instead of murder, lauded murder. Whatever happens, it's going to be our destiny.

We have to accept it. Yeah. I'm ready for it. It's just that kind of thing is so infuriating because remember when that spiked up and it was like, they found the murderer. What a dick. Yeah. Cause now he's just through another wrench in there.

Another reason it'll never be solved. It'll never be solved and we won't know. I want to read Burke is the son's name. I want to read his tell all when the dad dies. That one's the dad dies. He'd be like, yeah, clearly my dad did it. And actually John Bonet and I mean, John Ramsey and Patsy were, they were, they were set to be indicted.

For what? For like, for the child abuse that led to her murder. So I'm not saying specifically like, so something like the reason she got hurt is because it was child abuse. Maybe they didn't mean to kill her. I don't know. And the judge or whoever in it, you know, all the corrupt motherfuckers like said no. And so they got bought off.

Yeah. Cause he was insanely wealthy. It's not just like rich people, but like a house you can get lost in rich, a house you could murder a child and nobody knows about it. I'm rich. That's the American dream. I mean, isn't that what we all want at the end of the day? Oh my God, we're terrible people.

Secret wine room, secret wine room. Okay. So that's my favorite number one first episode. Guys, if you have any updates, seriously, the second you hear if this thing gets solved, I want to know so bad. John Ramsey contact us at a, not at our homes. Um, not at, oh, but he's, no, he's just living a normal life. I think so.

With Vander Sleut's. Yeah. Victor's mother, how much better of a person is John Walsh than John Ramsey? Oh my, well, they might be opposites. Well, one might be guilty and the other might be, might have suffered the most anyone could suffer in this life. Every time I see John Walsh on TV, I want to hug him. I, I feel the same way and I try to watch him, but it's difficult to watch.

I find his like, he's so gunning for justice, but it's like, this is honey, honey. You can't gun for enough justice. How many ambience does he take every night? Do you think? I mean, all of them. Every ambient. He does so much sleep driving. Oh, poor guy.

Hey, Karen. Yeah. What's your favorite murder? My favorite murder. Can you write a ballad for this? Can you write like a totally, I'll do like, um, kind of a hang them high, like murder ballad about. Yes.

That actually makes me, I really don't like those songs as like old appellation country song. I just had to kill her. It's always just like, well, she done me wrong. I just had to hang her high or it's like, you think about her parents and how bum they are. Think about someone rising up and shooting you in the back of the shotgun as you go to do it.

Right. Cause you're a jerk. Anyhow, it's not mine. Isn't about that. Mine is about a serial killer that some call the original night stalker and others called the East area rapist. So this is a guy that, uh, was a rapist, uh, in Sacramento in the mid to late seventies. And I went to college in Sacramento and, uh, it's a, it's the strangest place.

It's a floodplain and it's the capital of the state. And it's very hot most of the time. It's kind of like Wild West almost. Yeah. It feels, there's a real like, uh, it doesn't feel like California at all. Yeah. And there's almost no culture whatsoever. It's like, it's a lot of Taco Bells next to shell stations over and over underneath

power lines. And maybe that was just the experience I was having there because I went to college there and I flunked out of college a year and a half in failed terribly. Um, but anytime I would drive around, I'd be like, this is the worst. Like everything just seemed scary and awful to me. Sounds like a nightmare. And then the surrounding suburbs, uh, like citrus heights and these kind of like outline went and this area where this East area rapist was going nuts for years has this very like

sinister. It's like nice on the outside, but something weird's going on. Everything is beige. Yes. Everything beige. That's where I grew up in Orange County and Irvine, beige. And actually I think he came to Irvine. He did.

That was second half. That's right. He was the East area rapist and he wasn't killing people yet. He was just raping women. He was breaking into houses. So he did the thing. He did the recon the day before. He would go, oftentimes people would say we heard something on the roof and we didn't

even look. Oh my God. That's why I brought that thing up earlier. He would also break into the houses and look around, do stuff in the houses while they weren't there. Sometimes he would hide rope under the couch cushions and have stuff ready. So they're ready. So he was all ready.

Oh my God. He didn't even want to throw up just now. He was sinister. And then so basically then he would break into their house the night of, turn the light on. The couple would be sleeping. That's what this one troubles me the most about this is that he would do it to couples. So he would flash a flashlight in their eyes, tell them to wake up.

He'd have a gun on them. He'd have his ski mask. And then he would tell the woman to tie up the man. Then he would go to the kitchen and get a stack of dishes and bring it back and stick it on the man's back. And then he would say to the man, if I hear these dishes move, I will kill both of you. Then he'd take the woman usually, I think it was like half and half, but I think most of the time you would take the woman out into the front room and he would tie her up there

and rape her while the husband could hear in the bedroom. Sometimes he would do it there. And then so in the beginning he was just raping the woman and leaving both of them. And he also, while he was doing it, he would talk in a high-pitched voice to himself. To himself? Which is just think of it, just think of, so you're already in this like craze panic. Yeah. Right.

I mean, this is what I do with all these stories is I just even for a second try to put yourself there picture. I'm there. I'm there right now. So you're jolted out of sleep to this weird like, what the fuck? And then it's like, someone is talking like this, you know what I mean? Like, there was one thing I just read where he said he was, he was repeating to himself, I'm going to kill him.

I'm going to kill him. Like chanting it to himself as he was tying them up. Fuck no. So he seems, there's also a phone call with him. He left a victim a message a week later and I have not listened to it. Is it there? Can you listen? You can listen to it.

I think, I think, because whose wife just wrote a really amazing article about that. Michelle McNamara. It's Patton Oswald's wife. She is such a fucking badass, she wrote the best article about it and I'd never heard of it before. Yeah. She has an amazing blog. We will look it up and tell you, it has the word murder in it.

But if you put Michelle McNamara in the Google search and murder blog, it'll come up. Also don't kill me for calling, I don't mean to call her someone's wife. That's not who she is. She's more than that. She's clearly so much more. Right. That's right. Yeah.

But I know about this serial killer because there's, you know, it's funny when you're, like when you follow this and then it's like, you see one story that's on forensic files or something and then you see it and you piece it together where it's like these, the later murders were reported first on shows like that, like 2020. So it was like the murders in Goleta and Ventura and Dana Point. And then separately, they would report on the East area rapist that was this ridiculous. He had 50 over 50 rape victims and 10 murder victims and they never caught him. That's what's okay.

So here's the thing. They never fuck. And you know, I was, they said that maybe he was a construction worker, right? Yeah. They, because he had really intimate knowledge of how these houses and their backyards were set up. Right. So they found a map once that, that was hand drawn, but when he would get caught or people,

what anytime there was a close call, cause he liked to mess around and like almost get caught or like do really dangerous things. So there would be a neighbor that would like flip on a light and be like, Hey, and then they would watch him run and vault like backyard fences and stuff like he was in crazy good shape. Yeah. And he was like, he, I think fancied himself a cat burglar, but then off also clearly just was, you know, yeah.

But the, the, the, so the creepiest thing, uh, my favorite creepy thing is they, there were so many rapes that were happening in Sacramento that they had a town meeting, uh, like a community meeting, you know, he was there, right? Well, yeah, that's, so, uh, and this, somebody, somebody took a picture of it for the paper. No. So they have a group shot. Oh, of this town meeting. And it's the cops saying this is what's happening.

This is the M.O. Look out for this. If you hear something, report it, report it, look, you know, all that kind of stuff. If you see weird people walking, oh, cause also there was never a car found anywhere near the scene. He either walked, jogged, rode a bike or did something parked far away because, and that the couple of times there was a guy walking a dog, but every time they described the guys looking white and like fit and normal, like it's that kind of thing, um, where they, it's

the person who can fit in and is totally fitting in and being like a weird murder, cuttlefish fitting in and then disappearing. So, but my favorite thing is so they had this town meeting and at one point the cops are just saying, this is happening and people are really angry because it's so many. It's like in the thirties at this point and this man stands up and says, I don't think you're telling us everything we need to know. I don't think this is even possible. How can a man break into another man's home and, and that man has his wife raped right

in front of him and he does nothing. That's impossible. Two weeks later, that man and his wife, yes, that his wife was raped by the East area rapist two weeks later. So they know for a fact he was there because there's a photo and is like everyone identified in it, except for one, no, because it's like such a large group photo. It's like the photographer was standing on the stage in like a high school auditorium look.

So there's just, it's, it's really awesome because a lot of times on specials, they'll just take that time to scan that photo and every face in the photo looks guilty. Every face is the scariest thing you've ever seen. It's crazy. Yeah. There's like a, there's like a sketch of him and I'm like, who's dad is that? Cause that guy was young in the seventies, right? Yeah.

He's like someone's fucking dad now. Yeah. Or even grandpa. Grandpa. So mom's boyfriend. Horrifying. Horrifying. And the thing that he, like his serious problem with couples and like needing to degrade the

man and rape the woman, there's like, there's so much there. Cause that makes it so much harder. The crime's so much harder. So he's clearly specifically doing it for a reason. Yeah. And he's doing it so much, like he just did it and kept on doing it. It was just a thing that was happening in Sacramento for years. And then he, so it was like 76 is when he started the summer of 76.

And then I think that it went on for two years in Sacramento, then he went to the East Bay and then somewhere, but I think he went down further, Visalia, cause they think that's where he started. They call them the Visalia ransacker, which is like, um, central night stalker though. I know they, because it was pre, I think it's cause yeah, it was, but, um, it was like, that's really what he was doing. Yeah. Cause he would go and scope it out beforehand, but he just wasn't famous and he basically

kind of disappeared. Then when those other, the, those same MMO murders, rapes and murders were happening down here, that's when they finally put it together. And there was finally like, they say that that case in the seventies is why they started developing the DNA database in California because they were going so crazy about not being able to find him. So they could all link them together. Yeah.

I think it happened. It happened in Irvine in like the early eighties. I think when I lived there, when I was a baby, and he's still around to, he could potentially still murder. Is he still killing or not that anybody knows, not in that way. Not like he, you know, he would tie people up with very special knots. But Michelle, um, McNamara wrote these amazing articles. If you want to know more about it, like she's gone into it in such a detail.

It was, it was an LA magazine, she had an article in LA magazine and she has a ton of stuff on her website. Um, I just want to know, I just want to know the answer. I think that the cut, like for all these things, and it's funny that we're both talking about murders that are unsolved because I, we, I just want to know, I want the problem solved like I want the, what's the, what's the answer to the riddle? And you want it like you want there to be a better policing system where this doesn't happen so often.

Yeah. It's so easy to point to like, well, what did they do wrong? And it's so easy to point to it. And you hope that that doesn't happen anymore. But right. Cause this was back in the seventies where they intentionally withheld information if there were like crossing counties and it was all that weird police politics that I think they, you know, they know better now and they don't do anymore, but God is like the dark

ages. It's just such a bummer too. When like the answer is a, doesn't make any sense. Like the green river killer, the answer is kind of boring. Yes. It's the guy who was, it's like, God, that guy, like he wanted to be someone like Ted Bundy was satisfying because it's like, he's this diabolical, handsome, intelligent man. It's like, okay, that's a worthy adversary.

Yeah. And it's like some fucking like church guy who works in the church office and like is married and it's just like really doesn't like prostitutes. Like what a bummer. But well, I think what's fascinating about the green river killer is his mom was really inappropriate with him. Sometimes I like it when you can trace a little bit like they, of course, we're all just trying to cobble together the why.

Yeah. But like his is kind of fascinating. Am I thinking of the BTK killer that was the church parking lot guy, the church, he worked in a church. BTK. Yeah. Yeah. But he did a lot of stuff.

Yeah. And the only reason he got caught is because he basically was like, come and get me. Totally. But I mean, yeah, who know? I mean, the thing with being a policeman is it's not your only case. It's not the only thing happening. So if it be like, if it was happening in a vacuum and you could just only focus on that one thing, but other terrible things happen all day every day.

When you're in a town that's like, you know, when you're in Chicago or when you're in fucking Detroit, like it's common to have 20 minutes to put it to it. If you could quit your life right now and become a true crime detective with all the funding you wanted and all the research stuff, would you do it? Yes. Me too. Absolutely. I think that.

Yeah. I think the. Yeah. I want to be detected. Here's my problem. I don't. I feel as strongly as I love these kinds of fascinating holy shit, what the what are these monsters think murders like gang murder or mafia shit or a husband killed his wife

because she was cheating on him. Yeah. I want nothing to do with it. It's so boring. It's so boring, but it's it's so like the heady the failure of humanity, the weakness of humanity. And there's no why. It's obvious.

Yeah. Yeah. There's no like there's no blip. It's that you were raised in a shitty neighborhood and here's what everyone does then or like this is what desperation desperation or like you're a man with normal man things and this is how you have an anger problem. Yeah. It's not like not a blip.

It's not basically seven, which is like if I could watch that movie for the first time to write such a good movie. It's a beautiful movie. It really is. That's fun. Are we the worst people question and answer this in an email like you have two hundred and fifty words, double space, are we monsters, double space, you know, if you have to say more, you can tighten up those spaces if you need, if you need sure, sure, sure.

And if you just want a hundred and forty characters, you can do that. Whatever you need. Just tweet at us. It's about you. So this is the part of our podcast where we want to hear your stories. You tell us what you what horrible things you love and why we want to hear about your like crazy fucked up crime story from your town or that you encountered or that happened to you and you want to hear in your own words, be honest, be honest, email them to Georgia

Hardstark. If you spell that wrong, it's your own damn fault at Gmail. And then we'll also record other people that we're friends with telling their stories too. Because everybody has a story about some fucked up thing that happened in their town that they're kind of obsessed with. And if it's not, it doesn't have to be murder, murder, no, no, no, no, no, no, just be a creepy. What's creepy? Yeah.

Fucked up story. You can't tell certain people at parties. Yeah. Because certain people will walk away with like a weird white face and rolling their eyes at you. This is a safe space for you. Yeah. Dustin, we're going to have our inaugural story be our awesome podcast producer, the

creator and runner of Feral Audio, who's just such a fucking gem. Dustin Martian. Dustin. Okay. My murder story is when I was 16, like I was really, you've not the link, I was like in a charter school and stuff and I was selling LSD and just getting into trouble like constantly. And I was also this, I was downloading like tons of, this is like in the height of Napster and all that stuff.

So I was just downloading tons of stuff and they were randomly like arresting people for like downloading stuff. So I came home from school one day and I was walking up to my house and my dad's house is on the corner, like the absolute corner of the intersection. And I walk up and there's like a dozen SWAT guys, full riot gear, guns, and they're like up against the garage, like heading around the corner and I'm like, I'm fucked, I'm fucked. I have acid in my pocket, I have a bunch of acid in my room, I'm like fucked, I'm fucked.

And so I just walk up and it was like the color drained from my face and I go inside and they're like, my dad's making them coffee and they're like cops, they're like looking at me and I'm like, huh, like this goth kid and they're gonna mute. So I went downstairs and like hid my acid like crazy and then it turns out two doors down their neighbor was holding his wife and his kids hostage with a shotgun and for whatever reason and then ended up after like hours and hours and hours of it, like shooting the wife and himself in front of the kids and that was like two doors down like our neighbor that you'd see fucking in his yard.

I didn't know that personally, but you'd see them like their kids and them in the yard. What city was this? It's a suburb of Madison called Stoughton, Wisconsin. Wow. Great. And you were like, fuck it, I acid's nothing now. Acid and Napster. That's when he threw away all of his drugs and they turned to the Lord.

A new. Fuck, that's heavy. That's two doors down. I think I once let a child molester into my house when I was a kid. Let's talk about that another time. That's such a good cliffhanger. Oh, just so everyone knows, Michelle McNamara's website is called truecrimediary.com. It's awesome.

She's been following this stuff for years. She's a passionate devotee who's also a great writer. Maybe we can have a story from her one day. You know that. Well, because that's how she started. There was a girl got murdered in her town that was like at her school and she, yeah, that she's, I read all about how she got into it and it's, it's that same thing. That is so fucking cool.

Yeah. Thanks for listening, everyone. Guys, this was the first one. You guys are very first favorite murder, but not the last. No, we're Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Heartstark. You can probably find us on the internet. Yeah. And keep listening and go to ferruleaudio.com and listen to all their other cool podcasts

and yay. And yay for us. Yay. Thanks. Bye.