My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 218 - Good Shabbos
Episode Date: April 16, 2020Karen and Georgia cover the murders of Yara Gambirasio, and the crimes of Herb Coddington.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/pr...ivacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Hello and welcome to my favorite murder. The Zoom edition.
The Zoom or a lockdown and I haven't bathed in two to three days edition. What would you say
your essence is right now, Georgia? It's like a pizza? Yeah. It's a pizza armpit.
Sure. But the gnarly pizza that you get when you are in student body, you're in student body
and everyone pitches into order pizza, so of course it's like trashy kind. How's your stench
level? You look clean right now. Thank you. I did bathe today. Thanks. When I let it go too long,
I don't bathe myself and I don't do the dishes and then I have a realization of this is me
putting depression on myself, the last thing. Yeah. So I woke up this morning, took a shower,
cleaned the house also because the dogs came in at some point last week when I had stripped the bed
of everything, even the mattress pad and I was just washing everything like the weekly wash.
Georgia went in there having been in the backyard with mud on her feet and walked across the mattress.
Georgia. Yeah. I mean, and now with the cone, she can't win right now and I'm like, oh,
I want to be mad at you, but you're already very sad individual. But there's just dog prints in like
it's clay mud. It's not just plain mud. It's like the real dense stuff. Oh, do you live in an adobe
household adobe adobe? Yeah. So I can't get the I've spent several days doing different cleaning
treatments of getting dog prints off the mattress. And so because of that, I've been sleeping on the
couch. Then it's like that my room is off limits to me. Yeah. So that's off. Yeah. And then I'm
just kind of sleeping on the couch and there's like, like when I wake up, I look down and there's
like popcorn on the ground or something. You know what I mean? Where it starts to get too much
quickly because having also having animals, it's like it gets out of hand really quickly.
That's one thing I never did even in my like deepest darkest depression is like go to sleep on
the couch because I know it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy, but it'll just be like it gets darker
and darker inside of my mind when I wake up on the couch. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I've been I've been
surfing my own couch for like three years, but I mean off and on. You deserve a mattress. I deserve a
bed and I have been putting myself two bed, two bed in my new house until this debacle
happened. Really, what I'm saying is my answer to your question is onions. It's just a strong
onion smell. Funion? Because that would be cool. It's not fun. It's not fun at all. It's just kind
of gross, but I like it in the way that makes me feel like, ooh, the toxins are being released.
Maybe that's because it really smells toxic. Because you keep fainting when you get a whiff
of yourself. For real, it's like they're, oh wait, did I tell you about the day the UPS man came
and I was like, hey, hold on. And then I ran inside and grabbed a bottle of Belvedere that I had
sitting from leftover from that Christmas party. So I have like handles of liquor left over from
this Christmas party. No brags. Sorry, everybody. Not drinking it and not interested. I actually
tried to get myself like, hey, you could just drink a bottle of champagne right now one night.
And I was like, for what? Like what? So you fall down and like split your head open. So
the UPS man was walking away and I was like, hold on one second. And I went and grabbed this
bottle of Belvedere and gave it to him. So today he dropped something else off. And when I opened
the door to get it, he was like almost to his truck. And then he turned around and goes, hey,
thanks. And he was wearing a bandana like a bandit, like a green bandana just across his nose
going down in a truck. He was like, I'm not, I'm not messing with any of those YouTube videos that
show you how to make like a perfectly adorable bandana. I just am putting it on my video. Now,
just here, here, I'm a band, I'm an old fashioned old West train robber. That's, that's his look,
which was really cool actually. But he walked back and goes, hey, hey, thanks again for that
bottle, man. Oh, it was good all weekend long with the little orange juice. Like he told me about
how he's been enjoying it. And I was just like, that's all I want to hear. Please do that. You
got to put those bottles of liquor to use. Right. And then I don't drink it. Yeah. Getting your
delivery man shit faced. Yes. Take a break. You're worried all the time. You shouldn't have to be
worried all the time. This is all the PPE I can give you. Nice vodka that someone else gave me.
Can I say, can I recommend real quick a couple of like an Instagrams that are making me happy
corner? 100%. I was going to say, let's also talk about what we've been watching for TV
on TV or movies because I am quickly running out of options and completely depending on
other people on social media talking. I got a couple of those two. So let's do that.
So the Instagrams that are making me happy is that Charo has an Instagram.
And fuck. What a delight. That woman's been entertaining me since I was born. Wow. She's
been on the TV. I mean, she's like early days, 70s variety show. She was always there. Coochie,
coochie, coochie. Coochie, coochie. She is so hilarious. She does this like,
like how to hand washing video. That's just pure Charo. And she just like shows you what social
distancing means. If you don't know who Charo is, just go find her Instagram. It's amazing.
And then I sent you Leslie Jordan's Instagram. Oh, I love him so much. What has he been on?
He's like a character actor, right? I believe and don't quote me on this, but I'm almost positive
he got popular because he was on Will and Grace. Oh, right. That's right. He was Megan Mulally's
friend on it. I'm not sure for sure, but somebody retweeted him telling a story.
It's just him talking to the camera. He's the most hilarious, charming Southern man.
He reminds me he's like a David Sedaris type, but all to himself and like a Southern grandma.
It's the most hilarious thing I've ever seen. And I think he's a very popular character.
Yes. Like I think aside from Will and Grace or whatever show he got, like he really broke
through on, he's just been on a ton of stuff because he's so good. Yeah. So what's the video
you saw? He was telling a story. I can't remember. I think he was cooking something,
but he was also telling a story and it turned into like, I sniffed this one thing and then I was
dancing all night. He's totally candid, just tells you everything. Yeah. It's hilarious. And then
also Steve Zahn, another great actor. What's Steve Zahn up to? Steve Zahn for realsies is his
Instagram that his like teenage daughter made from him and he is like psycho and hilarious and so
charming in it. And he doesn't know what he's doing. It's so entertaining. Oh my God. I love.
He's truly, he's one of the great character actors, but just regular actors of all time.
He's in the great film out of sight. One of the best movies ever made. I feel like he's in every,
he's has, it's like a law that he has to be like the neighbor friend in every movie that you've
ever seen pretty much. Yeah. But, but, and he has huge range. But like, I wish he was in,
you know who he's in? I've seen him in a bunch because Nora loves the diary.
Of a Wimpy Kid? Yes. Diary of a Wimpy Kid movies, which are great movies. Okay. We're going to go
into recommendations. I've watched every one of those movies with Nora and I love them.
Okay. All the children are great, very talented actors. And Steve Zahn is the dad and normally
he plays like, I'm a crazy stoner or I'm a like hardcore cop or whatever. In this, he's just a
dad. He's like, it's like he's perfectly playing a regular dad and it's so good. He's so yeah,
he's very charming and on Instagram, I recommend it. That's it for Instagram. I'm so proud of him
that he's, I don't know, joining the social media craze. Steve Zahn for realsies.
Yeah. Bless him. That's funny. But TV wise, sorry, I had this document up. Okay. I watched,
this is old, it's from 2000 and it's on Amazon Prime. It's called This Is Personal,
The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper. And it's the entire story of how long it took to catch the
Yorkshire Ripper and how intense it was. And the guy, the British actor playing Detective George
Oldfield, who was the guy that like headed up the case and they ran into every, it's such a well done
docu-drama because it perfectly highlights all of the really intense anti-sex worker tone,
the super intense sexism, just like a bunch of dudes that were kind of like mishandling. Women
would go in to say, my daughter was attacked on a country lane and it was the, and with a hammer,
it was this same guy, she recognizes him and they'd be like, lady, he wasn't even near, like they'd
be super dismissive of people coming in going, I recognize that the, it was, it's an amazingly
documented and actually very, for the year 2000, very modern feeling for how, yeah, 20 years ago.
Oh god, I wrote it down. I'm definitely going to watch that. It's called This Is Personal, The Hunt
for the Yorkshire Ripper. On what? On Netflix? It's on Amazon Prime. Or probably an acorn type
of thing. And just to say, the actor that plays the detective is named Alan Armstrong and he,
you've seen him in a million things. He's in every British period piece. He's so good as this
detective who like basically, don't tell us, don't spoil it. Oh, shit. That was a huge spoiler,
Steven. Buzz out that entire. Can you buzz it out of my head? I'll bleep it all. Bleep it for me.
It's ruined for me now. Oh, ruined. Well, you kind of get the idea he's not so healthy. Gotta
got it. I've been watching, speaking of travesties of justice and murder, I've been, there's a new
Atlanta Child Murders documentary on HBO that's so good in that it's infuriating, but it's,
so far it's the best one I've seen for sure. Like I've been watching that a lot and it's,
it's to talk about the like systematic racism and like, you know, dismissal of an entire race
of people in Atlanta because of, you know, the times and all of that. It's just, it's insane.
It's horrible, but it's a really good documentary. If you don't know anything about the Atlanta
Child Murders or even if you do, I highly recommend it. It talks about the kids. I can't
wait to watch it. Yeah. It's, I saw the preview for it. And then there was one night where I was
like, Oh, I should go watch that. And it was probably in week one quarantine. And then I went,
I can't, no, I can't handle it because I could barely handle at the end of, um, Mindhunter.
When that whole thing turned into those mothers and the Atlanta Child Murders and those women,
and the, that parade, that silent parade that they did, like I was, it was so affecting and it's,
it's so upsetting. Um, and it's just so, you know, I feel like such a deep wrong.
And it needs to be known more because it's, it's just so fucked up and dark. Speaking of,
Oh, can I also recommend a podcast that I've been listening to on Spotify that if you want a deep
dive into what we always talk about, which is, um, which is the satanic panic. And this one goes
into a deep dive of the satanic panic at this podcast is called conviction. And it's, um,
season two of podcast conviction. And I had to stop it a few times. They like play some of the
interview with the interviews with the children and the parents who were charged with and,
you know, convicted of, um, satanic ritual abuse. And it tells you the whole history of how it came
about in the United States. And it's really fascinating and horrible. So if you want to,
yeah, if you want to get deep, dark and depressing during your quarantine.
And we know you do because you're here with us now. Clearly. This is our jam. Swimming our ocean.
This is not deep. Well, this is different, um,
um, then what the this, then that, but did you watch the series Orthodox? Sorry, Steven,
did you watch the series unorthodox on Netflix? But I heard it's great. You have to watch it.
Okay. I'll just say this and I promise I won't spoil. I had what, so I think I watched it a week
ago and I had been just binging kind of anything like whatever came up on that reel. I'd be like,
oh, I can't, whatever. It is the most compelling show. It, I couldn't stop watching it. I had to
keep on. What was I supposed to do that day? Oh, that was the day I was supposed to bring
Katrina the toilet paper. Remember, I was like, I'll bring it to you. And I was like, I'll bring
it too. I'll bring it at four. I'm going to bring it later on because I couldn't stop watching this
show. It's so well done. It's so believable. And it's about the ultra Orthodox Jewish community
in Williamsburg and a young woman who's in that community and gets out of it,
tries to go and live an independent life. And it's so good. And the other morning,
I call my dad and we're talking, he goes, Hey, have you seen unorthodox? And I was like,
are you serious? And we have a full conversation about it. We talk all about it. And then at the
end of the call, he said, Good Shabbos at the end of when we went to say goodbye. It was, it was you
and it made me laugh so hard. Anyway, that's amazing. So that's actually an amazingly well
done, so realistic kind of, it feels like a documentary a lot of the time. Yeah. So good.
Okay. Well, the other thing, I've been listening to a book. Did I tell, I don't think I did this
one because I was going to do it as a fucking hooray, but then we've been kind of reading other
people's fucking hurrays and lately. So I don't think I did this, please tell me if I have. Okay.
It's listening to this book on tape called How to Be an Adult in Love by David Rico. Dude,
this book is so good. And it's not like, it's not like, it's not a relationship book. And it's not
like a dating book or whatever. It's like, basically how to like get right within yourself so that you
can, like so that you can be with people correctly. I love it. It is unbelievably helpful and kind of
like very, it's not like woo woo and it's not like dry. It's so good. And it's a little bit
Buddhist. He, he is a Buddhist teacher, I think, but he's also like an expert. I mean, you can,
you can tell that he's like a true expert. It's amazing. Well, if I'm going to listen to any adult
in love, if I'm going to listen to any religion, it's going to be Buddhism. And that's about it.
Sorry. Right. Sorry, fellow Jews, but you've seen an orthodox. Make the exception for unorthodox.
Yeah. Okay. If anyone's looking for something like that, it's called How to Be an Adult in Love
by David Rico R-I-C-H-O is how I'm assuming it's pronounced. And he also has a couple other
books that are like similar titles, but it's the, it's that one that I really stand behind.
Okay. The last one I'll do is, and I told you to watch this, Blow the Man Down, the movie.
Oh yeah. Yes. I watched that. Did you? Did you like it? Yeah. Yeah. It was good. It's a murder
mystery set in a small seaside town and it's sister-centric. I loved it. I love it. I have to say
I get super stressed when part of the storyline is the crime happened and then people dealing with
the fallout. Yeah. I just can't stop thinking it's me. I can't stop going like feeling like
you're in trouble. Yeah. Like go to the gas station. Like it makes me feel like I have to help the TV
show get this problem solved. It's insane. It sounds like a bad dream when you're like,
I did this thing in my dream and I, um, it's on Amazon Prime and it's called Blow the Man Down.
I really, I loved it. It's definitely suspenseful. It was very entertaining and I believe Margot
Martindale is the lady. Yes. And there's some amazing actresses in that show. Totally. Completely.
Like every time they show up, you're like, yes, her. Yeah. Because of all these things I had written
down. I don't wait. Now I can't remember if I told this story. Now tell me if I told the story.
Did I tell you guys the story of this was like the last thing I did before quarantine started
when they called and said my sunglasses were ready at the, at the, I didn't tell you. Okay. So
this was like, they had basically said we're going to start a quarantine like tomorrow or
whatever. And then I got the call that my sunglasses had come in, my prescription sunglasses had come
in at the optometrist. So I was like, I'm doing it. I don't care. It was like that Friday. Remember
it was like, I think they, it got serious on the Friday. Yes. So I drove over there real fast and I
went in. I looked like a lunatic, of course. Um, I can't learn the lesson of just put on
a one layer of makeup when you go out. No, why? Because. Why would you do that? So I go in and
I'm like, I don't, I, because sometimes you meet people and I know you're right. So,
so, but this was great because so I go to pick them up and they always do, you know,
it's a wonderful place, full service, whatever. So they always make you sit down and try them on
and they refit you with them on your face. They touched you a lot. They did. And I just wanted
to like take them like with a pair of tweezers and run out. But I knew they'd make me do the
thing. So as I'm standing there, I give my name and they're like, Oh yeah, just take a seat and
you'll get, get them fitted. And then immediately I have energy feelings from the person that's
sitting on the bench behind me. But I think it's because I came in a little too hot. Like I was
you know, because I was like, I got to get out of here. And so I just figured it was judgment
feelings. And I went to walk over to where they were telling me to sit and he leaned forward and
goes, I'm sorry, can I just say, and then I was like, Oh, hold on a second. It's not judgment at
all. And he introduced himself. His name was Drew. And he just wanted to say he was a listener
and you know, a fan and whatever. Super nice. I was like, thanks so much. You know, we had a
nice chat. I went and sat down, the lady put the sunglasses on me. She gets them fitted. I'm like,
it's fine. That's fine, whatever. But then she has to get up and go get something. So I have to
wait even longer. So I turn and look at Drew and I'm like, these are good, right? And he's like,
he stands up and then gives me a full once or he's like, Oh my God, yes. Amazing. Amazing.
So I got full, full sunglasses approval from Drew. Thank you for being there for me. I needed you
in those stressful times. It's like just a nice pre quarantine memory that I had one of the last
interactions I had face to face with a human being. I love it. I'm so like grateful that my
one of my last interactions that Thursday was a fucking haircut. Otherwise, I would be the shaggy
DA. It would just be like a mess over here. I had the I realized that I was getting super stressed
out about what if the time comes where I cannot cover these gray roots and the gray roots thing
starts to become real and undeniable, which it is. I mean, it always is a little bit, but
I just realized that I can support the Nigel's beauty supply place, which is right there in
North Hollywood in the best. I mean, like staff is the best. They have everything. And I was like,
Oh, I'll just order a bunch of stuff from them and support them because you know, they ship.
And then I just got like four bottles of my hair dye so that I will have it, you know,
at least for a little while. And then like, it's the same idea of the restaurant thing where
supporting small businesses. Yeah. Yeah, I think those are all my, I mean, I've also like I tried
to watch Tom Cruise's The Mummy one night. And it wasn't bad. I mean, I got through part of it,
but then there's those like it bums me out because movies these days, especially action
movies, after a while, it's just a bunch of fighting in blue light. Like it's just like
sound effects and fist fighting or swords or whatever mummy like weapon they use. But the
lighting is all blue or gray. And they're like in club scenes and stuff. And yeah. So you're just
like, when's this going to be over? How what are we doing now? It's funny. It's like, I think I'm
like pickier and then not that picky at all. Do you know what events that I just,
but then I found out I had never seen this movie. And so he lost it. And he's like, we're watching
we're watching this, uh, Roadhouse. I had never seen it. Did you see his tweet? I saw his tweet.
I saw his tweet and I wanted to write back, please live tweet this entire experience.
That's fun. What'd you think? It was, there's a lot of fighting, which I'm not a bit like, I don't
like fighting in movies, but you know, it's fake, but it's Patrick fucking Swayze. What could be
bad? The fighting is the end is the basically the theme of the film. Yeah. I mean, you can't,
you can't have Roadhouse without the fighting. Sorry. I wanted that edited out. It's a three
minute movie just of sex and tits of him doing funk, uh, him doing on his lawn. You know,
he's a fighter, but he's also much like David Rico, a Buddhist. Well,
men said it's like, people have said it's the, it's dirty dancing for men, essentially,
which it completely is. Yeah. And that woman, Kelly, Kelly, the woman that he's the doctor
that he's in love with, who it's like she's a doctor and she's, she is built like a super model.
Like she's clearly six feet tall and weighs 89 pounds. Yeah. And every time I watch that movie,
I'm just like, this is why the eighties were so hard, right? Because you were supposed to be
a basically a Danish high fashion model, right? And a doctor and a doctor plus a doctor.
Right. Yeah. And then you're not supposed to kiss on the first date and you're supposed to be,
you know, you're supposed to steal Patrick Swayze's heart and shit. Yeah. A lot of rules.
A lot of regulation. What's a girl to do? It was not easy. She had that woman had,
there was no beat on her bones at all. But other than that, there is, it's a wonderful film.
It's a wonderful, yeah, it's a classic. Beautiful. It's a classic and there's some amazing,
like the idea that that guy, the kingpin that runs the town, Jackie tree horn is that Jackie tree,
that's right. And he's, he's basically going to, he's going to, he needs doorman. Yeah. To run
his empire. In the town, in the tiny town outside of Nashville, something like that.
Was it? Nashville. I always pictured it in kind of up by Sacramento. Well, probably it was filmed
there to me. It felt very homish to me. That's a classic. Now I want to know what other movies
you haven't seen from the eighties. I'll tell you right now. Ready? No. Yeah. List them off.
Have you seen weird science? Of course. Yes. Oh, okay. It's been a long time.
UHF class. That's a good one. Have you seen better, better off dead?
Yes. John Cusack skiing film. I like to call it John Cusack skiing film. More. Ask me more.
I feel like there was just these like dude films back then that like if we went to the video store,
my brother would want to watch them and then my sister and I would outvote him. So I like,
I never watched Roadhouse or Top Gun I've seen, but like it's been a long time and I think it's
boring, you know, stuff like that. Brother movies. Because you guys were going more for
dirty dancing. Oh, that's right. The dirty dancing era. Dirty dancing. The girl films.
The Adventures of Natty Gann. Many times. We watched. Yep. You know. Oh, uh,
my stepmother is an alien. Remember that one? No. Who's in it? Kim Basinger is an alien and
becomes the stepmom of the redheaded chick who's an American pie and everything else.
Alison, somebody. Yes. Alison, somebody. Yes. Alison Hannigan. Thank you, Steven. I'm losing my
edge. All right. Thank you, Steven. It's terrible. Should we do, um, should we do exactly network
news? Network news. Yes. So Murder Squad, of course, Billy and Paul, they're, uh, they're
diving deep into the case of the dating game killer Rodney Alcala, who you've covered before.
But this one is, I mean, they're doing a deep dive. It's really good. Right. And they're,
and then to this lot, their episode dropped yesterday and they're interviewing the detective
from the NYPD that, um, basically started putting the, putting it together that,
yeah, of the women in the pictures, um, being able to trace them. Yeah. And yeah,
they, it's a really good, a really good deep dive. So that came out this week, Monday.
Um, did you know yesterday, but it's, oh no, sorry, I keep saying that. Yeah. That was Monday.
Did you know that I made a guest appearance on the new episode of this podcast will kill you?
I did. I did. I saw that on social media today. How'd that go? Great. I think, great.
They're covering, uh, botulism, basically. What is it? Colostridium?
Colostridium botulinum. So botulism, which is basically what Botox is, and they wanted someone's
firsthand experience of what Botox is like to get. So I told them, but then they also,
you know, go into the details of what exactly it is. It's really interesting. And then they are
still doing their big COVID-19 multi-episode, um, dive. So those are up. They just wanted to
take a little break and do something a little more fun. I bet. Yeah. Cause they've been, yeah,
they've been, they've been working on coronavirus since it broke. Um, so yeah, but you can go back
and listen to all those episodes and then have some botulism fun with Georgia this week. Also,
it's the 50th anniversary of the Aristocats. So Steven, Steven, on the podcast, that's what
their episode is about this week. Yeah. We did like an actual movie commentary. We sat and watched
the film and we brought up, you know, facts and looked like looked up stuff about the movie. And
it's actually based on a true story, apparently, about some rich cats from the turn of the century.
Sure. It's based on a true story. Okay, Steven. I mean, I don't know. Supposedly,
supposedly. I don't know. It's based on a true story of cats that could play the piano
for themselves. It's funny seeing the, because, you know, somebody did the Lizzo,
did, uh, did, like, so all I could hear was, was, uh, Truth Hurts, uh, instead of the original
song. Oh my God, I love it. And Jaja Gabor is the main cat, right? Uh, the main, like, the lady
that did this? Ava Gabor. Ava Gabor, sorry. One of the other sister. That's right. They're many
talented Gabor sisters. Sure. Um, okay. The, the following started a new two-part series of an
unsolved murder and they, uh, introduced the case and explained the Atlanta lore that overshadowed
the death. So that's a really interesting one to follow along with. Yeah. The following people
who live in the Atlanta area or like, I would say probably Georgia, it's so cool that they just
focus on these like cold cases and unsolved cases from the area. Yeah. It's really, it's really
important. Definitely. I always say that about them, but it really is how I feel. And then
an amazing comedian who has an amazing podcast itself, Lewis Fertell, um, his podcast is called
Keep It. And, uh, so he's on this week's episode of I Said No Gifts with, uh, Bridger Weininger.
Um, that comes out today. Same, same as this. So listen to that either before this or after,
I can't control what you did before this, but if you didn't already do it after, because Lewis
Fertell is hilarious. And if you don't follow him on Twitter and you're on Twitter, you absolutely
should. He's, he writes some of my very favorite jokes ever. He's so good. I love it. So funny.
Yeah. And then we are fricking days away from the premiere of our newest exactly right podcast,
Bananas. Um, the weird news, news podcast that I think everybody needs right now is that your
alternative to CNN and all the rest of it. Um, you, everybody, all those weird news stories that
are so great about a horse that makes friends with a town sheriff and they solve a crime or
whatever. Like you don't get to hear about any of that anymore because it's a global meltdown. So
Bananas, uh, with, uh, Kurt Ronald or in Scotty Landis, they're going to change all that.
That's right. It's going to be on every Tuesday. Please subscribe to it wherever you listen to
podcasts because it really helps, um, get exposure for them. And we want to, we want to expose
ourselves to you. It's, it's time to expose them and us. That's right. So Tuesday, April 21st is
when that premieres and yeah, we can't wait. We can't wait. We've waited so long. We have. Yeah.
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You're first this week, right, Stephen? No, you're first because you are. Last week was
Lake Lanier and Angette Lyles from Atlanta, 2018. That's right. How'd that hold up, Stephen?
Two years ago. Oh, so fun. Spooky and crazy. I mean, I definitely remember being there and I
remember the feeling of being on stage at that show. All right. Well, I'm first then. Okay,
this is a case from Italy, from Northern Italy. And it's one of their big cases that was like,
you know, really well known. And it became what they coined a genetic soap opera. So like, I think
DNA heads are really into this case because it's, it's got some fascinating DNA elements. So stick
with me. This is the murder of Yara Gamboracio. So I got a couple great articles from The Guardian
by Tobias Jones and another one by Rosie Scammel. And there's also a case file episode about this
and Reddit and Wikipedia as well. I'm going to tell you about Brumbat di Sopra. It's a small
picturesque town in Northern Italy. It's about an hour away from Milan. Have you been to Italy?
No, I always want to. Yeah, always. I mean, always wanted to something's wrong. Something's
wrong with me. It's that the sun is glaring right in your face, I feel like. I know, hold on. So
it's close to the Swiss and Austrian borders. So it's, of course, beautiful. It makes it a really
popular town for tourists. It's, but the people who live there, it's a quiet, close knit community.
It's a little rural, a lot of rural. A lot of the homes still use wood burning stoves and they
raise chickens. They grow their own vegetables. And there's a lot of history with it's got like
ancient villas, you know, the old beautiful steeples on the churches. There's only around 8,000
residents and it's got like some deep, rooted old school family values, you know, one of those old
school Italian places. Like a village. Yeah, like a village. And it's considered safe. And so families
go to raise children there. And, you know, it's a nice little place. So it was on a chilly winter
afternoon on November 26, 2010, when 13 year old Yara Gamberasio, she left her family's home,
walks over to the sports center where she practices gymnastics in order to drop off a stereo her
instructor needed for an upcoming performance. She stops by, she hangs out, she drops off the stereo
and then takes takes off to go home. It's a quick walk. Yara is 13 years old. She still has this
like baby face, but she's starting to look like a teenager, you know, that like a little preteen
look. And she has a mouth full of braces, really big smile. She's got the dark curly hair. And her
father Fluvio is an architect, her mother, Mara is a teacher and Yara is the second oldest of four
children. When she left the house, she was wearing leggings, a Hello Kitty t-shirt and a block, a
black bomber style jacket. She makes the quick trek to the sports center. It's less than half a
mile from her house. And she then leaves, sends a quick text to her friend about meeting up that
weekend. And then that's the last contact anyone has with Yara. So her mother didn't expect her to
be gone. So by 7pm, she's already worried. And she calls Yara's cell, but it goes straight to voicemail.
20 minutes later, like this is how how off it was that she was gone for even a short while longer
than should have, she should have been 20 minutes later later, Yara's father calls the police.
It's like my daughter's missing. Yeah. The call is taken by the magistrate, which is like a district
attorney. And it's she's a 45 year old woman named LaTizia Ruggery. I'm probably saying that wrong.
Please excuse me. I bet you're going to have that feeling about every single thing. This is an
Italian crime. So like there's it's a losing proposition. Letter fly. We'll hear about it.
I'm going to guess it's Rogeri. How about you say it with your fingers up in the air. Rogeri.
Yeah, there you go. Okay. So LaTizia Rogeri is a 45 year old former police woman and
she's known to be smart and tough. She got a great reputation when she was fighting the
Costa Nosta in Sicily as a police woman. Yeah. No joke. She's fighting the original mafia.
Yeah. She's like, what's up? What's up? She's an unconventional woman for that for the area she
lives in now. She's a single mother, which is rare in that culture. She has five earrings in one
ear and plays the guitar and rides a beat up old Vespa, which sounds amazing. And she also has
a black belt in karate. So this, this is a Netflix series. It's like it already is. Like I feel
like I've already watched it. Okay. Yeah. She's been a magistrate for almost 15 years. So she
knows what's going on when she gets this call. She doesn't fuck around and she, she within minute,
she dispatches both the state police officers and the, the carabiner, which is the military police.
So immediately they send them out and they go to the small town. They start to search the fire
department, start scanning the riverbeds. Police are looking at nearby fields. They check the entire
sports center where she was at, but they don't find anything. And unfortunately, the surveillance
cameras at the sports center that day were all out of order, which is just like a really awful
coincidence. And, uh, Rigeri calls in tracker dogs and they follow Yara sent to a small hamlet
nearby called Mapello. And soon they discovered that the last sync signals from Yara's cell phone
pinged in Mapello at 649 PM that night. So the dogs, they thought the dogs would follow her
track back to her house. And so they like went the other way to this random town next door.
And where her phone had a ping that night. So it pinged just minutes after she texted her friend
after leaving the sports center. So they figured that she had to be in a car to have been moving
that quickly and gone from town to town. So someone probably picked her up in a car.
Um, and over the next few days, Rigeri and her team question every member of Yara's family. Of
course, they look for problem signs and, you know, hidden secrets in the family. They don't find
anything. So then the investigators focus their, um, they focus their time tracing the owners of
all the cell phones, which had passed through Mapello on the day of Yara's disappearance,
which I guess is a technology they have. Um, and it's approximately 15,000 cell phones that
had gone through that town that day. So they also put wiretaps on hundreds of phones and it's a
record for any investigation in Italy's history. Tens of million calls are intercepted by law
enforcement and police also bug the family's home to track conversations, but they don't find anything.
And meanwhile Yara's family locks themselves into their home. They're really secretive.
And Italian TV is dominated by, uh, it's called Crenace Nere, which is crime news. Like they're
more obsessed with it than we are in a lot of instances. And so now the national news cameras
descend on this small town and on this little street where Yara's family lived. So, uh, they
plead for privacy, but the case blows up around the country. And there's rumors that Yara's
disappearance is a retaliation abduction because the media reports that Yara's father had testified
against a mafia member in Naples, but eventually those rumors are shot down. So none of it's true.
So on the afternoon of February 26th, 2011, three months after Yara's disappearance,
a middle-aged man is flying his new remote air, like little airplane, um, in the town of
Signolo di Isola, just six miles south of Yara's home. Uh, he's in an open field. It's all industrial
and empty lots. So he's like, this is a great place to fly my little remote plane. The plane
malfunctions. He lands it in some tall weeds, you know, where this is going. Um, he goes to pick up
the plane and see something that looks like a pile of rags. And then he spots a pair of shoes
and the clothing are all still on Yara's body. I know her body. Also, if that, if that were in
a TV show, I'd be like, that's so cheesy. Yeah, it seems one in a million chances, maybe less than
that, but yeah. So unlikely. And yet that's how it is. I mean, get ready for the rest of this
fucking story because it's the most unlike, it's, it's like a fucking movie. It's crazy. Her body's
frozen, but it, you know, she does show signs of decomposition. So she's been there for a while.
But they say the field had already been searched days after her disappearance. So
police speculate that the killer dumped her body there, you know, later, but it doesn't
really seem that way. They just might have missed it, you know, even by a couple feet,
they could have just not seen it. So it's that's possible as well. Crime scene investigators
find Yara's iPod and house keys with her as well as the SIM card and battery for her phone,
but the phone itself is missing. So the killer knew to, you know, to stop the tracing of it
and left those things behind, which is, you know, so, so cunning, it seems. The autopsy is conducted
by Italy's most famous forensic pathologist, Professor Christina Catano. And she discovers
traces of lime in Yara's respiratory passages and the presence of what's called jute, which is a
vegetable fiber that's used to make rope. And they find that on her clothing. Yara hadn't been raped,
but there's signs that there was an attempted sexual assault and maybe she had fought back.
And there's blows on her body, a head injury, neck injury, and at least six stab wounds are found,
but it's determined she didn't die from that, any of that awfulness. She died from exposure to the
cold weather after she lost consciousness from her injuries. I know it's heartbreaking.
You just think of this 13 year old girl. When you described what she was wearing,
a Hello Kitty T-shirt and a leather jacket, that's like, that's pre-teens in a nutshell,
where you're, you know, they're in between two worlds. So it's like, yeah, you're,
you're old enough to walk there by yourself, but you're still young enough that you are wearing
a Hello Kitty shirt and that you, you know, could, someone could convince you to do something you
absolutely shouldn't do. Maybe. You see someone maybe kind of familiar. And so you, that's,
they're not a stranger. And she had her iPod with her, you know, it's just like such a,
yeah, she was a young, a young teen. It was like one of the first probably like, this is,
she gets to do stuff like this. Yeah. You know, she's 13. I get to walk there by myself. She
probably fought hard to be able to have a little independence like that. Right. And it's just down
the road. Her parents probably weren't that worried about it. It's, it's so sad. Right.
The presence of the lime and the rope fiber suggests to the investigators that the killer
might be in the building and construction trade. And the forensic team retrieves two DNA samples
from Yara's phone battery and from her black gloves, but neither match any samples the authorities
have on record. So they can't find who this DNA is from. Two months later in April, the commander
of the scientific investigations department in Parma calls Rigeri and tells her they found male
DNA on Yara's underwear. And so they, the team then calls the murder suspect, they have like a
really good DNA sample and they start to call the suspect Ignato one, which means unknown one.
Just so creepy. A month later, Yara's body is returned to her family. Her funeral takes place
on a May morning in the sport center where she was training to be a gymnast. There's thousands of
onlookers there. It's a white coffin with a huge bouquet of flowers and the Italian president is
there, gives a few words of condolence and there's so many people they can't often inside the sport
center and they watch it out the funeral outside on a jumbo screen in the parking lot. So people
were just heartbroken over this. You know, I don't, I think it's one of those stuff like that doesn't
happen here. So after the funeral, the police announced that they have a solid DNA evidence
and they'll spare no expense looking for the killer. And so the investigation is like in high
gear. They continue to wiretap calls. They asked people to voluntarily submit DNA samples
and friends and classmates and, you know, strangers come forward to give their DNA and it's
believed that 22,000 people from the area volunteered their DNA. And also each phone user
that's found important that day, you know how they had traced all the phones that were in that area,
they test their DNA samples as well, but they don't get any hits. The cost to test all this
DNA is huge. And the investigation becomes one of the most expensive manhunts in Italian history.
According to some sources, the equivalent of what in today's money would be almost five million
dollars was spent for the entire investigation. So then Regerio has this idea to turn her sites
onto like places in the area where Yara's body was found thinking that the killer would have
been familiar with it. And so right down the street from there is a nightclub and it's the
translation of what it's called is quicksand. And so in 2001 in the spring, Regerio signs
investigators outside quicksand on busy Friday and Saturday nights to take DNA samples from people
going into the club. Wow. Yeah. So this fucking thing works. And they get a break in the case
from quicksand. One of the samples from quicksand is very similar to what's being called the unknown
one, though it's not exact. So this man isn't the killer, but he's a relative of the killer.
The man who gave the samples, 20 year old Damiano Gerinoni, but he's excluded as a suspect. It's not
his DNA. He's got a legit alibi, but geneticists are convinced he's a close relative of the murderer.
So in a crazy coincidence, Damiano's mother worked for 10 years as a domestic help at Yara's home,
but that's ruled out as a lead. That's just a fucking coincidence.
Instead, they dig deeper into Damiano's father's side of the family and they find out that his
father is one of 11 siblings. So Regerio's team spends months recreating the Gerinoni family tree.
They go as far back as 1716. So this is like, I know, this is that familiar DNA thing that we're
now so familiar with. They're able to clear 10 aunts and uncles of Damiano's 11 aunts and uncles,
but one uncle, they're not able to clear. And that is Uncle Giuseppe. So they're like, oh,
this might be our guy. Turns out he died in 1999. So it couldn't have been him.
Okay. Because this is 2010. But they get in touch with Uncle Giuseppe's widow and she's like,
here's a box of Giuseppe's old documents. I had kept them. You can fucking do what you will with
them. And in there, they find a postcard with a stamp that Giuseppe had licked. So they test
that DNA. And the results on that come back and geneticists are convinced that Giuseppe is the
biological father of the murderer. Giuseppe was a bus driver in the 60s and 70s. He had married
a woman named Laura. They had a normal marriage. They had three children, a girl and two boys.
And they exume Giuseppe's body. They test his DNA. They confirm that he is definitely the
father of the murderer. So they're like, great, it's got to be one of his two sons.
One of his sons happens to be a known drug user. They're like, here we go. But when they test
Giuseppe's children's DNA, none of them are the killer. They don't match any of his children.
That's when they realize that if the murderer is really the son of the late Giuseppe,
then the only explanation is somewhere out there is his illegitimate child.
Oh, right. Yeah. The plot thickens. So now, Regeri is on the hunt for what would have
now been a middle to old aged woman who 30 or 40 years ago would have had an affair
with a married Giuseppe and given birth to a boy who then went on to murder Yara.
So they're looking legitimately for a fucking unknown person. It's so creepy.
So the team and then on like a secret person, I mean, like, and he's dead. So he can't tell you
who it is. They can't like, yeah, you can't admit to it. And clearly the wife doesn't know, right?
That's yeah. Okay. The wife doesn't know her their children don't know. It's just great. And it's
and it's sorry to interrupt, but and it's also like a plot point from a movie of I'm the I'm
the illegitimate child. My father never was a correct father to me. And now I've become a serial
killer. Like, doesn't it? Yeah, it sounds so far fetched. But yeah, it's fucking true. The team
investigated his former bus routes after some colleagues remember him as a womanizer. And
Giuseppe had even confessed to a co-worker of having gotten a woman quote in trouble,
which we know what that means. And as the investigation drags on throughout 2013,
the public then becomes aware that an elderly woman is being looked for for the murder of a
teenager. And when they find out why, I mean, they lose their shit, and the whole town is just
taken over by the media. It's like a real life soap opera, people say. Yeah. Yeah. And so because
of this investigation, everyone suddenly looking at each other and other infidelities come out and
in two small villages, five illegitimate children are discovered. Oh my god. Like separately from
any of this. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, it is like a movie where it's just like, don't, don't get
into it. Let sleeping dogs lie. It's like, no, we have to find out. And then it's like, yeah, when
you start getting into stuff like this, there's like, people can't keep secrets. There's many
more secrets than people know. I mean, everyone learned that 23andMe lesson. Yeah.
When everyone's like, it'll be fun. And then it's like, oh my god, it's my father's not my real
father. Oh my god. We have all heard those stories. Yeah, definitely. So the investigators
scour local records. There's had been some homes for unwed mothers at the time. They can't find
anyone who would have been his just just up his lover. So they figured that the woman they're
looking for actually probably had been married as well, which is how she hid her pregnancy. Because
in the sixties and seventies, that was not okay to be pregnant unless you were married. So she
probably was married, they figured. And divorce was only legalized in Italy in 1970. And until
that time, many couples stayed together, even if there was infidelities going on. So DNA swaps
from about 500 women that would have been the right age were and could have been the birth
mother were tested, including former classmates and colleagues and shopkeepers in the neighborhood.
And just that would have known Giuseppe, the deceased bus driver in the late sixties. And they
also that doesn't lead anywhere. They also interviewed people who knew him. But because
it's this old school area in Italy, people won't fucking talk. No one's a rat, you know?
I would say all of Italy might be an old school area. I mean, when you kind of look at it,
it's it's the old country, really, where it's just like, yeah, we have a way of doing things.
Yeah, just how it's done. Yeah, for sure. From what from the movies I've seen. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But essentially, you know, one person talks reluctantly. And she names the woman that
he had had an affair with in June of 2014. Her name is Esther Arzoufi. So Esther was a neighbor
of Giuseppes and Ponte Selva in the late sixties. In 1966 at 19, she had married her husband
from a nearby village. But it's so sad. The husband is this quiet reserve man.
He had been orphaned at a young age. He had psoriasis and he was a depressed person. So he kind of
was that personality type. But Esther is outgoing and lively and she wears short skirts, which,
you know, is so taboo that she dyes her hair. And she gets a job at the textile factory a few
miles away and takes the bus to work every day. Esther denies the affair and had left Ponte Selva
in 1970. And in the autumn of 1970, she gave birth to twin boys, a boy and a girl supposedly
fathered by her depressed husband. But Rogeri's team immediately check the DNA samples they have
on file and find Esther's DNA had been tested. They had compared Esther's DNA to Yara's DNA and
not to the murderers DNA. So they go back and test her DNA and are able to confirm that she is the
mother of the unknown one, the murderer. Oh my God. Esther's son is Massimo Bossetti. His middle name
is Giuseppe, like his secret father. Oh, yeah. He's now 42 years old. He's a builder. And remember
the evidence on Yara's body was speculated to come from a builder or someone in the construction
field. He's married with three children. He lives in Mapello, which is a hamlet near Yara's
hometown where the last signal from Yara's cell phone had been recorded the day of her disappearance.
Remember, the dogs had followed that scent to that town. He lives there. Yep. Yeah. So there's
really, you know, striking, you know, now that we know who he is, scary photo of him. He's the slim,
short man. He's got these piercing, like blue eyes, like yours. And he's got this peroxide,
goatee, like pencil goatee. And like yours. He loves to party. He's nicknamed the animal by
his friends if he were to be played by someone. And like, this is just the first thing that came
to my mind. But like an older Aaron Carter is what I got. Oh, okay. You know, he's kind of like
chiseled face like he's classically good looking. Aaron Carter. Oh, Aaron Carter from the band?
No, Aaron Carter. Yes, from Backstreet Boys' Little Brother. Little Brother. Oh, sorry,
I thought you meant Aaron. I was like, do you think he's handsome? Aaron Eckhart. Thank you,
Aaron Eckhart. No. You remember Aaron Carter from like the early 2000s and he was like dating
Ashley Simpson or whatever? I was drunk face down in a ditch somewhere. I was there for none of
that. I'm so sorry. I'll tell you this. There's traces of meth in that face. Okay. Aaron Eckhart,
an Italian Aaron Eckhart, who couldn't look more Danish or something like, you know, Nordic.
I don't know. I want you to look at the photo now because you probably have someone better,
but that's just the first thing I saw because he's so thin. So, Rigeri is like, fuck, yeah, we got
this murderer on June 15, 2014. The way that they get him is they set up a fake roadblock
with breathalyzing tests in the town and the police stop Mossimo and they pretend that the machine,
the breathalyzer test doesn't work the first time, so they get, they test them twice,
so they get two good samples. They send it for overnight testing and the results show that he's
an exact match for unknown one. He is the killer of Yara. Wow. Mossimo Bassetti. So, the afternoon
of the confirmed match, military police go to the construction site where Mossimo is working.
They arrest him and the Italian minister of internal affairs announces the arrest on Twitter.
But I think it's just this huge news. Mossimo has no prior criminal record. He claims he's innocent.
He says that the DNA is fabricated and his wife makes a statement that her husband was home with
her and her kids the night of the murder having dinner. But phone records show that Mossimo's
phone was present in Yara's town on the night of her disappearance and had been switched off at 545,
which is a short time before she disappeared. And it wasn't turned on again until 743 the next
morning. Oh, wow. So, for Rigeri, the arrest is this huge success for her. It had been four years
of investigative work and she had endured a ton of criticism, including sexism for alleged incompetence
and now she's celebrated for her brilliance. Mossimo's trial starts in the summer of 2015,
a year after his arrest. And according to prosecutors, they had found internet searches
on Mossimo's computer for child pornography. But the Reddit community and bloggers say that's not
true. And after a year long trial, Mossimo's found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. And
the fallout for this case is crazy. Esther's husband, Gianni, Esther's the mother of this
illegitimate child. The husband gets diagnosed with cancer and finds out that none of his three
children are biologically his. Oh, no. And then Giuseppe's widow, Laura, is also shocked to find
out that her late husband, father, children while having an affair. So this like destroys families.
Mossimo's twin sister takes the brunt of public hate. She's literally beat up twice.
Oh my God. Because her brother is a killer, which is horrendous. And Esther, Mossimo's mother,
still denies that she's ever been unfaithful to her husband. She just won't. She's like, nope.
Yaris. I mean, look, once you're at that point, she's probably in that position where she's like
all she can do is do denial because admitting it opens the floodgates to worst case scenario.
And Mossimo's wife is still by his side. She totally denies that he had anything to do with
it as well. And Yaris family, meanwhile, has remained totally private. Yaris mother created
a gymnastics trophy that's named after Yara to give out to what would have been fellow gymnasts.
Yara is buried between her two grandparents in a cemetery just across the road from her gym.
And her headstone has this photograph of her. She's wearing a white bandana and she looks,
you know, like a young gymnast. She's adorable. And all around the grave are mementos that are
left by her friends, including gym shoes, rag dolls and little friendship bracelets that they
all left for her. And that is the murder of 13 year old Yara Gamberasio. Unbelievable.
Twist and turns. Wow. Twist and turns. But also how they, they didn't, those,
that detective, that prosecutor did an amazing job. Yeah. So yeah, LaTizia Ruggieri, she was
forward thinking, she was super smart. And yeah, it's pretty incredible that she was able to find
the killer with not a lot to go on. Yeah. Amazing job. Well, that was great. Yeah, right. Thank you.
Thanks. So I'm going to start mine with a hometown email. So I'm looking on my phone one night on
the couch and I stumble onto basically like the crime blotter of a California newspaper. I can't
remember which one now, but it basically was just kind of like, this, here's this case, this case,
this case. And we just basically have a paragraph. And I just started taking pictures of the paragraphs
with the information in them. Cause I was like, I could get, I could do murders out of these. Yeah.
Just these like paragraphs. One of them was about a woman in the mid 80s. I think it was 1988.
And her body was found in the West Petaluma in a, in a, in a trough, in a field. And they
ended up finding two men murdered her and they found both of them. Wow. Yeah. I know. It took
till the mid 2000s to find the killers. But when DNA came around, they found them and they went to
jail. So there was a bunch of these little like snippet stories of these cases that I had never
heard of where I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, these are good. So this is from that internet search I
did, but then Jay found this email from a murderer named Christina R. And she wrote in, this is a
very long email. So Christina, I'm sorry, I did definitely edit you down because this thing goes
on. She's a great writer can tell a story, but basically we're going to get into it this way.
Being born and raised in Las Vegas, there aren't a ton of hometown murders that haven't already
received a ton of media attention. But my mom told me a story when I was little that has stuck
with me for nearly 20 years. And it wasn't until I discovered your fucking awesome podcast that I
decided to reach out to her and verify that it was real and not just some boogeyman story she made
up to keep me from running around alone after dark as a kid. It turns out every bit of it was true,
and she was more than happy to give me all the grizzly grizzly details now that I'm older.
In 1981, about a year before my parents were married, my dad and his best friend got new
hunting rifles. They needed to get the rifles cited before they could take them out hunting. So
they decided to go to an area in the desert on the outskirts of town near Lake Mead, where people
are allowed, where people are allowed to go shooting a safe distance away from the city.
My mom and her friend, my dad's buddy's wife, decided to bring along their pistols and do target
practice while the guys did their manly rifle bullshit. I know, right? Just go shoot in the
desert. Hell yeah. They all drove out together in the same car and the guys went off on their own
with their rifles. My mom and her friend were then alone near a ditch and decided to set up a row of
cans along the edge to shoot at. My mom's friend was setting up, but she immediately stopped and
walked back over to my mom with what was described as, quote, the weirdest look on her face.
All the friend said was, there's somebody down there. When my mom started to casually suggest
that it might be someone else out there hiking or something, her friend grabbed her arm and said,
no, you have to come and see this. When my mom went over to the ditch and looked down, she saw
the body of a girl lying on her back, her legs crossed and her arms resting above her head.
The creepiest part was that her dress had been pulled up over her head, covering her face
and exposing her from the waist down. From where they stood, they could tell that she was a child.
Naturally, my mom and her friend proceeded to freak out because this was the age before cell
phones. They had to wait for their dudes to come back to show them what they found. And again,
because of no cell phones, they knew that someone would have to actually drive back into town to
get the police. Somehow it was decided that the friends would take the car and return with the
police while my mom and dad had to stay next to the ditch to make sure that no one came along and
disturbed the body in the meantime. It began to get dark while they waited. And my mom said that
because both of them were so scared, they kept laughing uncontrollably out of sheer nervousness.
Hello Romantic, right? Is it because they were on a date? They were, yeah, it was like a hang.
Eventually, the cops show up and do their CSI song and dance. They told my mom's friend she
may eventually be needed in court if and when the killer is caught. Flash forward six goddamn years
to 1987. The case of the girl my mom and her friend found was still unsolved, but the girl had been
identified as 12 year old Sheila Joe Keister. It was still unsolved, though they did know that she
had been raped and strangled to death. Oh my God. Okay. So I'm going to stop there in the email.
Okay. That isn't the end of the email. Wow. But I'm going to stop there and I'm going to start.
Hold. Sorry, Steven. Good. Good start. Intrigued. Horrified. So now we're in, it's 1987. And I'll
just say the sources for this. Murderpedia, the LA Times, sfgate.com, which I love, by the way.
Oh, it's so good. SF Gate is such a good website and they have so much true crime stuff. AP News
and all the way from Placerville, California, the Mountain Democrat. Hey. What's up? Placerville.
Okay. Mountain Democrat. Okay. So it's Thursday, May 14, 1987. And 69 year old Maybell Mabs Martin
is the owner of the showcase finishing and modeling school in Reno, Nevada. Oh, what a time and a
place to be alive. The idea in the late eighties, remember when like the Barbizon School of Modeling
like all, you know, all that stuff kicked up in the late eighties. Being a model became a thing
that was like right within your reach. If you could just train to be a model or look like one,
or just look like one. That was our tagline. It became a thing. Yeah. And so Mabs Martin
opened up the showcase finishing and modeling show in Reno. But she wasn't, she was, she was a
visionary. She wasn't just jumping on the trend. She had been running this agency for years. Her
client list included 1960s Miss America, Linda Lee Mead, and the actress Donna Douglas, who
went on to play L.A. May Clampett in the Beverly Helpillies. Oh, shit. So yeah, Mabs was a star
maker. Yeah. Styling and pro-filing. Yeah. And basically she is on Thursday, May 14. She's holding
an audition for an anti-drug commercial. So the man that's in charge of this shoot,
he's introduced himself to her as a producer. He's from Georgia. His name is Mark. And he
arrived to the audition dressed in a really nice suit. He's got business cards for his
production company. He's total professional. Yeah. So Mabs loves this idea that she could
be getting some of her girls into an anti-drug commercial. She's a member of Mothers Against
Drunk Driving. And she's very against drugs. This was like late eighties. This was prime
dare time. This was like when dare was invented. Yeah. Nancy Reagan. This was fucking pumping
that dare. Getting all up into everyone's business. That's right. But also, the first time I was offered
pot when I was a freshman in high school, I burst into tears because of my indoctrination
to the dare to keep children on drugs in San Diego. I remember my friend's older sister being like,
but Karen, but you're fine drinking. Drinking's fine with you. But this is... And I was like, is drugs?
It's almost like they brainwashed us into thinking drugs were bad as a way to separate us from poor
people in mass incarceration of Black people. That's right. So Mabs thinks this is a good cause,
but she also thinks it's an amazing opportunity because that could be a nationwide commercial.
She could really get one of her girls and have them break big like she had with LMA Clampett.
So she brings in a selection of her best young models to audition and Mark chooses the two he
wants to cast, 14-year-old Alicia Toma from Reno and 12-year-old Monica Burge from Sparks, Nevada.
So the shoot is set for two days later, that Saturday morning, and Mark and Mabs make a plan
to meet in the parking lot of the Nugget, which is a casino in South Lake Tahoe.
Hell yeah. Right? It's the big one you see off Highway 50 when you're coming into South Lake Tahoe.
So once these plans are set, Mark leaves and Mabs calls the two young ladies to let them know that
they got this video. Huge. I guess she would call it. She makes arrangements to drive the two girls
to the shoot. And she also asks her friend, 67-year-old Dorothy Dottie Walsh to come along for the ride.
So it's an hour away from they live in Reno, South Lake Tahoe is an hour drive. So she's basically
like come with us and yeah, make a day of it. So in the morning of Saturday, May 16th, Alicia and
Monica arrive at Mabs home at 7.45 in the morning. They get into her Chrysler Fifth Avenue. They all
go swimming, right? You can just see all of this. And also Mabs is exactly what you think she looks
like. She's, she almost looks like a character on Falcon Crest. Like really put together older lady
with like a outfit that'd be like a skirt with a matching jacket and then a little hat. But big
old shoulder pads, a nice coral lipstick that's like overlined, overlined mouth, coral lipstick.
Yeah. Pearls. She's still working it. She works it on the daily. Yeah. And she has daytime pearls
and nighttime pearls and she's wearing her daytime pearls. She's about women being beautiful. Yeah.
Why not just be beautiful? It says. Embrace. I'm putting words in her mouth. Embrace here.
Let go of the rest of it and just be beautiful. Okay. So, so they get into the Fifth Avenue,
they swing by, they grab Dottie Walsh and they start their hour long drive to South Lake Tahoe.
Mabs has told Alicia and Monica's parents that she expected they'd be home around 1230 the same day.
So this was just go shoot this thing, come back and almost it all takes place in the morning,
not even into the afternoon. But when the afternoon rolls around and no one is back yet
and they haven't heard from anybody, the girl's family is called the police. And unlike almost
every other story we ever tell on the show, the Reno police immediately begin the search
for the missing girls and women immediately. Good. This is the turnaround of this crime
is so fast, it's mind boggling. So for the next three days, the Reno and South Lake Tahoe
authorities, they work with seven other California and Nevada law enforcement agencies to scour
the South Lake Tahoe area for the four missing people. Wow. Which is like, when does that ever
happen? They get, they basically call get everyone involved, including the FBI, like FBI is in on
day one, everybody gets called immediately. Is that because the South Lake Tahoe is on the
California side and the Reno's on the Las Vegas side? I mean, the, I mean, sorry, Reno's on the
Nevada side. So FBI. On the Nevada side. Yeah. I mean, they must, yes, because they're so close
that they're probably used to working across the lines. It's not as big of a deal as in some places.
But I would say that the story we usually hear is where the city where the people are missing from,
they don't let people come into their jurisdiction and it gets very territorial.
And it seems like the way this story goes, South Lake Tahoe, PD and FBI just were like,
everybody come and help us now. Wow. And that's the reason this, this is a three day story.
Holy shit. As opposed to huge. Yeah. So Bravo, South Lake Tahoe, PD. Okay. And FBI, but
and Reno. The feds, they, they get everything. Reno, Reno's there too. Okay. They start contacting
other modeling agencies in the area to see if anyone has heard of this man or know anything
about the man allegedly producing this quote unquote anti-drug video. And they, they get a lot
of hits. A lot of these young women, they get brought in and interviewed. And they remember
a weird guy trying to recruit models for some say an anti-drug video, some say a drug rehabilitation
video. So it sounds, don't know if the story always was consistent. A makeup artist named
Gaynel Wadsworth, who worked at Reno's aviance profile modeling agency. I checked that twice
because I'm like aviance sounds like it's a bird modeling agency. It's, it's just like, let's make
sure we have the most beautiful cockatoos and look at this gorgeous parakeet. It doesn't do drugs
either. So this makeup artist who worked at one of the modeling agencies told police that they
had turned the man down because quote, he was not the kind of person we want to do business with.
He was very shady, shaky and sweaty. He smelled bad. Yeah. He smelled bad. He never looked me in
the face. She also reports that he seemed to get nervous when they mentioned that their models
who are minors or underage are always required to have their parents on shoots with them. And so
that like this, her, his reaction to that news made her realize that this was not somebody they
needed to work with. But authorities big break comes when one of the young models who auditioned
at Mab's studio says she remembers the man and he stood out to her because she found him especially
weird. So she made it a point to memorize his license plate. Oh my. One of the children? Yes.
One of the young girl models who was also clearly a high power murderer in 1987. Where is she today?
Please call us. Standing ovation, standing ovation. Oh my God. She didn't write it down. She memorized
it. So she told them it was a vanity plate. This is how it was easy to memorize. It was a vanity
plate that read something like TV teen. So when the officers take that and look it up,
there they don't find a match. There's no plate like that in California or Nevada records.
But then one of the investigators realizes that there is a car dealership in South Lake Tahoe
called Tibetan. It's spelled TV E T E N. So it's essentially jump a word jumble of the same phrase.
Her brain like took a picture of it. And then a couple of the letters got mixed up,
but she was right and right. I am. But she was right. That is amazing. She was right. And also
it was that thing where that guy's weird. I'm just going to, I'm going to clock his license plate.
And then she gets it. I mean, like it's amazing. I'm the detect blown away. So good. The detective who
also made the connection where it's like, okay, it might not be that exact thing,
but it could be this. So they go down to that car dealership and they speak to the owner who tells
them he had actually loaned a dealership license plate to his friend, 28 year old Herbert Coddington.
Herbert. So you pervert, right? They also show him a sketch of Mark, the producer based on the
descriptions given by the models that they interviewed. And this guy looks at it and says,
yeah, that's my friend Herb. Oh no. So Mark, the producer is not a real person. It's Herb Coddington.
Okay. So all of that is enough to get the police and arrest warrant. And they take it and track
down Herb Coddington's most recent address. So on May 18th, 1987, the police and the FBI arrive
at Herb Coddington's double wide trailer. They knock on the front door. And instead of answering,
all the lights go out. This is the evening time. So the police pull back, they like reassess of
like, that's not good. I think somebody ended up calling inside to try to talk to him. And then
they eventually just decide they break the door down inside Herb Coddington is immediately and
very easily taken down, even though there's tons of weapons inside this double wide. They, they
break down the bedroom door and they find Alicia and Monica locked inside alive, scared to death,
definitely traumatized, but alive. Oh my God. Then they, the police and the FBI go into the
other bedroom on the other side and find the bodies of Mabs and Dottie wrapped in garbage bags
laying on the floor. They both been murdered. So the two older ladies are murdered and the two
children are alive in a closet. Holy shit. Yes. It's not a closet. It's a bedroom that he's covered
in carpeting. So essentially he's soundproofed one of the bedrooms in his double wide. Yeah.
So Herbert Coddington's immediately taken into custody and charged with kidnapping and murder.
Alicia and Monica are reunited with their parents, but police bring them in to ask them what happened
and, you know, basically tell their stories. So this is what the girls tell them that basically
on their drive to South Lake Tahoe, it usually takes an hour, but getting into Tahoe is like
uphill, really windy. Monica got car sick. Mabs had to pull over for her. So they, they're a little
bit late. They finally get to the nugget. Dottie waits with the girls inside the casino restaurant
while Mabs looks for Mark. They, they meet up in the parking lot and Mark basically says,
we're going to go shoot in a park nearby. So let's, I have the wardrobe. We can get the girls
to come. I have a place where they can change their clothes and we can stop there and then
we'll just go to this park. And Mabs notices that as opposed to how nice and professional he
looked at the audition, he now is wearing sweats and a t-shirt and he's exceptionally sweaty and
he smells. Yeah. Yeah. So they get into Mabs car, all five of them, the old, the women are in the
front and Herb gets into the backseat with Alicia and Monica. Alicia makes note he smells and is
sweaty and is like, it's a bummer. He directs Mabs to the Tahoe Verde trailer park and to one of the
double wides he has her park in the carport. He walks them into the trailer. He points to the
room where he says the girls can change into their shoot wardrobe. Once they're in that room, they
see that the dressing room is actually a bedroom that's been soundproofed with plywood and carpeting.
So how incredibly creepy that feeling would be. That moment where your stomach drops and you're
like, this was a mistake. Right. And this is a time like it's so easy for us to look back from
2020 and all the stories we know and all the stories we've all told each other and heard
where it's so typical. But back then, this was still in that time where a lot of people didn't
know about stuff like this. So like the idea that somebody would be able to pose as a professional
producer very believably could play that part. And you'd be like all along where it's like,
why would you ever bring those girls anywhere but to a shoot? Like the place, I mean.
Yeah. There's so many wise. It's easy to say now. Exactly. There's so many wise, but I
totally understand why these women went along with that. Why the parents went like it's just,
it was how it was back then. It was normal. It was totally how it was. They had trust and no
clue. And yeah, it's just, you know, and it could happen today and you just make the wrong decision
and you regret it. It doesn't mean. Yeah. And also Mab's clearly had been doing it for a while.
She knew her stuff. So, but the thing I think of is this in this moment, because what happens is
when they're standing there looking before anyone can do anything or ask a question or say anything,
her just punches Alisa. He cold cocks her in the face and basically drops her and immediately
it's on. Like immediately he turns and starts beating these old women. They're on the ground
almost immediately. He then zip ties. He ties up Alisha and Monica, covers their heads with their
jackets. So he basically, so they can't see what he's about to do. But Alisha, she's only partially
covered. So she sees everything. And essentially Mark ties up Mab's arms and legs. And then he
cinches an electrical cord zip tie around her neck. And she's pleading for him saying, it's too
tight. I can't breathe. And he's basically strangling her. So she very soon slumps over.
And then he moves on to Dottie, who's now begging for her life. And these girls witness all of this.
God. He then proceeds to strangle Dottie with the zip tie as well. Then he wraps both of
those women's bodies and garbage bags and puts them in the master bedroom. Then he goes back
to Alisha and Monica in the guest room and asks if they're okay. Alisha tells police he kept asking
us if our feet and hands were okay. Because he said he didn't want us going home without any fingers
or toes. Yeah. So he locks them in this room. And he goes out into the living room and they can
hear he's watching MTV. And they're just sitting there waiting. He comes back a little while later
with a 45 caliber handgun with a silencer on it and tells the girls that if he wanted to kill them,
he could have done it already. And then says, because I have this silencer, then he gives them
the weirdest dinner of all time, which is grapefruit raisins and a jug of water. And then basically
like leaves them for the night. What the fuck? Yeah. So the girls wake up the next morning
and they can hear him grunting in the living room. And it turns out that he's working out.
Oh, thank God. I mean, not thank God, but Jesus. It just, just horrifying. Yeah. And also here's,
this will just up it one more. My least favorite detail in this story. No, not least. There's
so many to dislike, but he's cut out two eye holes in the door so that he doesn't have to open the
door all the way. He can just look in at them. Oh my God. It's horrifying. So he basically lets
them out into the living room. And now he's got a beanie on and a turtleneck pulled up to hide
his face. And he has a little bit of his hair sticking out and it's been dyed orange. So it
clearly they think he's trying to change his appearance. Right. And he plays a Jane Fonda
workout video and then they all work out to it. So then he, yeah, he then puts the girls back into
the carpeted room and puts pillowcases over their heads. And this is a trigger warning for anyone.
This is a very disturbing part of this story. The girls ask him if he's going to rape them. And he
says no. They're just going to do a video shoot with a boy their age. Then he goes out to the
living room and begins talking in two different voices. A deep voice like he's the director and
then a high voice like he's the boy. And the girls can't see because there's a pillowcase on their
heads. And then he comes back into the room pretending to be the boy. Karen, this is the most
terrifying story I've ever heard of my life. Isn't it horrible? It's like, I was thinking in the
beginning it was like silence of the land when she goes in and holds. Yes. But it's worse. It's
fucking worse. Yeah. It's horrible. Okay. Sorry. Keep going. Well, essentially he goes back in,
pretends to be the boy and rapes both girls. So, okay. So that's, that's these two girls who are so
unbelievably brave and like lived through this horrible thing basically went in and just gave
the police the beat by beat of how insane and crazy this whole attack and these murders were.
So, when the police interrogate Herb Coddington, he almost immediately admits to killing Dottie
and Mabs. And they say that he was, when they burst in the door of his double wide, he immediately
started screaming, don't take me to jail. I'm sick. But when he, when they drove him to the police
station, he, he was completely normal. And if, if anything, he, they said he seemed excited to be
getting the attention and to be, he talked a ton and was telling them a bunch of stuff.
And was completely lucid and normal. So he's arraigned on May 20th, 1987. So I just think
that timeline is insane because they broke into the double wide on May 18th. It was like the day
after, it was two days after the day they were kidnapped. So they found them in 48 hours.
I mean, that's something because who knows what I mean, not who knows what would have happened
if they hadn't found them. This guy's a murderer. He's a killer and he's a child rapist.
Yes. The fact that they found them so quickly probably saved their lives.
Yes. Absolutely. There's no, there's no doubt about that for sure. And so he's arraigned on May
20th, 1987 on two counts of murder and four counts of kidnapping, rape and sexual abuse.
He pleads not guilty. Okay. So, but now he's in custody. So police run a background check on him.
And they find out that in 1984, he'd been arrested in Las Vegas where he was a dealer.
He was, he got caught for a cheating scam. He'd been released on $500 bail and that case was
still pending. But then the police notice that's like, oh, he used to live down in Las Vegas.
So they call up the Las Vegas police and say, you might, I don't know if you know this guy,
but we just caught him on like murder and child rape. And I don't know if there's anything you
need to compare that to. And the Las Vegas police were like, can you take a cast of his teeth?
And because he had not only snaggle teeth in the front, but a gap. And that was a bite mark
that had been left on the body of a cold case victim, 12 year old Sheila Joe Keister,
which is the body from the email that someone sent in.
And we know that dental impressions aren't 100%. They're not DNA evidence. They're not whatever.
But apparently his teeth were so distinctive that they matched it to a bite on this little girl's
body from this cold case. It feels like such good circumstantial evidence on top of a bunch of other
circumstantial evidence that I don't see. It just adds to it. It adds to it.
So that dental match, along with a 1981 police sketch that an ex-girlfriend confirmed to police
matched Herb Coddington's appearance at the time that he lived in Las Vegas, gets him
an additional charge for the murder of Sheila Joe Keister added to the docket for him.
So, his trial, they end up moving it from South Lake Tahoe to Placerville, California,
because details of his crimes are so widely known in Tahoe, in the Tahoe area,
and they wanted to put together a jury that was untainted by the media and untainted by
local rumors. What's funny to me is Placerville is not that far away from this area. So,
although it was kind of like the idea of it is fair, I don't think they were trying too hard
to make things. They did like a side step, but not like too hard. Right, exactly. I can't imagine
that people in Placerville didn't know about this, but who knows. The defense for Herb Coddington
goes with the insanity plea, and Herb actually tells the jury he's been having, he explains
he's crazy because he'd been having fantasies about young, about basically being with young girls
and that he thought God was giving him signs through traffic lights. So, like if he had
had one of those thoughts while he was driving and he got to a red light, that was God telling him
not to act on the thought. But then if he had the thought and came to a green light, that was
God telling him to go for it. Wow. And he alleges that when he thought about kidnapping the two
girls, he was driving any and countered a series of green lights. No, just doesn't sound like it.
Anyway, the prosecution gets up and explains to the jury that Herb was lucid and stable when the
police arrested and interrogated him and basically walked the jury through all of his very careful
and extensively planned crimes, as well as his attempts to conceal his identity. And the jury
has been watching him this whole time and notes that he shows no signs of remorse or anything.
Like a person who snapped and lost it and went insane and killed two ladies would at least,
if that were the case, it would be like they'd be horrified or something. There's no remorse
and he is just basking in the attention he's getting in the courtroom. So,
they, you know, he's he kind of it's the thing with like he's the worst part of his own defense
is him. The planning that it took like making business cards and calling up multiple like
modeling agencies to try. Oh, yeah. Like that's so premeditated. And there's there's so many chances
to back out of that plan that, you know, that's not a good defense. No, no, it's it takes very
clear thinking to make a plan and to trick all these people and to do, you know, to, I mean,
clearly. Yeah. So on January 20th, 1989, Herb Coddington has found guilty on all charges.
Now, the entire time both of his parents have been at the court in the courtroom every single day
of his trial. And during the sentencing, they know that he's going to get the death penalty
probably. And so they do their best. They write letters trying to keep him from being sentenced
to death. So this is a quote from the Placerville Mountain Democrat, which is there at the Placerville
newspaper about Herb's mother writing a letter pleading for to give him a life sentence.
Genevieve Coddington wrote quote, if Herb is allowed to live, he could perhaps help other
inmates to learn to read or write. I do not feel Herb has finished doing what God has intended
him to do. So Judge Finney, who was the presiding judge over the case in open court noted that
the letter and others from parents caused him, quote, great emotional turmoil. And he said he
found them to be, quote, wonderful, fine, decent people who truly believed their son was mentally
ill. But Finney saw things differently, calling Herb Coddington, quote, tremendously egocentric
and totally self-centered, and noted that he had rejected his parents' religion. And when the
suspected killer originally talked with law enforcement regarding the case, Finney added
from the bench during sentencing, there was no mention of God or any mental aberration.
That wasn't until later as an attempt to avoid the death sentence. He then told the court that
what Herb Coddington had done in the case before the bench was, quote, probably the most evil that
I've ever been involved in. Herb Coddington was sentenced to death and put on death row in San
Quentin, and he remains there to this day. And that is the story of the murder of Sheila Joe
Keister, Mabbs Martin, and Dottie Walsh. Wow. That was amazing. Karen, great job.
Crazy. Yeah. Crazy, right? Yes. How? I've never heard. Never. Never heard of anything close to it.
Never. But that reminds me so much of like, I feel like those were our fears in the 80s,
of there were like people like that that existed. And we were just kind of finding that out, you
know? Well, and I think it's like, that was the thing you heard about happening in LA or a big
city. Yeah. But like, so I'm sure that was the other part of it being in Reno, the biggest little
city in the world. It's not a huge, it's not a metropolitan, I mean, it's the biggest city in
that area. But I don't think anyone would have had been able to anticipate any of any of that.
Absolutely not. Oh, horrible. Especially once again, under the guise, this is the old trick,
I'm here to do right. Yeah. I'm here flying the flag of no drugs allowed. Right. Everyone get on
board. So, you know. And Mabbs was also like, Mabbs was like, but I'm also going to bring my friend
for safety. Like, you know what I mean? Like that was her, that was her safety. And the parents
probably heard that, that they're going with this responsible business owning woman who,
you know, would hope, they would hope have checked this person's background and everything and
they're bringing a friend. It's all safe. Everything's fine. It's going to be a couple hours.
You know. Yeah. How would you know? It's only good news when you're on that. That's people using
like kind of moralistic stances or show business. It's so easy to trick people with show business
promises because everyone deep down is like, what have I got discovered? Like, I think that
it, people take, it's so easy to exploit that, that excitement. And that mindset. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. God damn it. Should we do fucking her eyes? Okay. You want me to go first? You want to go
first? Sure. Yeah. Go for it. Okay. This one's from the fan cult forum. And I swear to God,
this could be written by me in two weeks. This one is from hiking historian. It says,
the title is fuck you self doubt. For years, I've struggled with self doubt and self criticism.
Hi. I have never been very kind to myself. However, this COVID quarantine mixed with a
mega dose of therapy has helped me to, to start to break the cycle. I took a risk about a nice
bike and I've begun distance cycling and I love it. My furthest ride so far is 18 miles. I'm also
working on construction projects around my house while I'm forced to stay here. I always believed
I wasn't capable of doing handy things, but I've replaced a sink and I've painted multiple rooms.
I've had to face myself doubt by trying new things and being willing to look like an idiot or a fail,
but I'm so damn proud of myself and what I've accomplished. Fucking hooray. Nice. That's great.
I want that to be me in two weeks. That's amazing. Well, then that reminds me of this one. This is
really good. It's from Chase and it's C-H-A-Y-S-E. And Chase says, I've been off work for two weeks
now and I hate lying around. So after a day or two, I decided to take up a new hobby I've been
wanting to learn how to do for almost five years. I learned how to sew. I bought a sewing machine
and fabric and started to sew masks and headbands to donate to local hospitals and nursing homes.
It's been nice to have something to do while sitting at home and be able to do my part
in continuing this craze in containing this crazy virus. Everyone stay home and stay safe.
That is amazing. Actually, on our Instagram account, I posted a couple photos of some people,
some murdering makers who are, sorry, I posted some photos and links of some murdering makers
who've tagged us who are making masks. And then I had everyone in the comments post what they're
doing mask wise or otherwise and where people can help them out with fabric or with money or
with, you know, they can team up. I don't know. So that's on our Instagram too, which is just so
awesome that so many people are doing that. So many makers. So many. So this one is by totes
booked on the fan cult forum. My fucking hooray is that I'm alive. I was listening to episode 216
of MFM while taking a shower a few days ago when I lost consciousness and hit my head pretty badly
on my old school cask iron tub. I never thought a podcast would help save my life, but listening
to you guys talk helped me focus when I regained consciousness and gave me a pretty good timestamp
of how long I was out for. The last thing I remember before I felt was you guys talking about
Netflix and Tiger King and woke up and woke up to talk about dead flowers in a bathroom.
They don't know why I fainted, but I'm still alive and it's kind of a miracle.
I managed to only get a six inch gash and 12 stitches to the back of my skull,
but it could have been so much worse. Stay sexy and don't let your bathtub murder you, Kristen.
God, Kristen. We're glad you're okay. And also she had to go get stitches at a time like this.
Totally. Even worse. Yeah. Terrible. Terrible. Good. I'm glad that turned out good. Okay. So this is from
... I don't... It's all one thing because it's from the faculty. Dana Nakasi. They say,
wanted to share my fucking hooray. I subscribed to a YouTube channel,
Bumgardner Restoration, which is usually some chill guy restoring beautiful pieces of art
while narrating in a very calm voice. And in parentheses, really useful these days.
So useful, Dana, that I'm writing that down because that sounds like a dream.
Okay. So back to this. Last week, he found out a company in China that he usually
purchases supplies from had turned all of its manufacturing towards making N95 masks. He decided
to purchase a bunch of masks to donate to local healthcare workers and share to go fund me with
his subscribers in case anyone wanted to help him buy more. His initial goal was $6,000. I donated
when it would have just surpassed $8,000. And the day ended at $28,000. Oh my God.
Yeah. In three days, people had donated over $62,000. Ooh, that just gave me chills.
All the masks will be donated to hashtag get PPE CHI, a grassroots organization of medical
workers in Chicago working to distribute donated protective equipment to the healthcare workers
on the front lines that need them. I know this is just a drop in the face of the sea of issues
these days, but it was really lovely seeing such an overwhelming outpouring of support.
Hope everyone is safe and sane. I love that. That's beautiful. I love everything about that message.
I love it. This one's from Instagram. It's by Grace Bouchard. My fucking hooray is the group
of badass teachers I work with. I am a special ed teacher at an elementary school and I am proud
to say that I work with caring teachers who are less concerned about students completing math
problems and more worried about our kids' emotional well-being, quality of their home lives,
and those whose only meal is the hot lunch they get for free at school. Within a few days, systems
were set up to reach out to our students and their families virtually, deliver food via
school bus drivers, and even set up free hotspots and homes so students could have internet access.
Our jobs now are so much more than distance learning and posting assignments online. Yes,
we come to school to teach, but we also come for our students who need that morning hug,
or even just eye contact, and we have started to find a way to connect while still social
distancing. That's lovely. Thank you, teachers, for everything you're doing.
Thank you, teachers. I feel like if there was ever a thing that was going to help people understand
how cutting education funding in this country has devastated all of us, this is the kind of thing
where it's just like what people are doing every day in their homes with their kids now,
they're realizing that they've made it so teachers can barely make a living and they do that every
day with their kids. And there's nothing better. It's just the best first-hand thing of like,
don't you think these people deserve to make more money than so little money that they have to get
second jobs, which is what my sister has had to do for the majority of her career?
Yes. Well, this one's just simple, but I like it. It's from Jill H. My fucking hooray today was
my husband and I randomly pulling into our neighbor's yard, blasting holla notes, and having a random
physical distancing dance party for two minutes, and then we left. The smiles were well worth it.
Keep dancing. I love it. I love it. I love it. There's a video I retweeted on my Twitter of a lady
who is from her front porch with a megaphone yelling to her friend standing in the street going,
when this is all over, I want to have a drink with everybody and hug people and touch people
and have the best life ever. And it's the sweetest and it's like, it's so true. I feel like
as awful as all this is, it's giving people a true sense of like, what's important?
What has been ripped out of your hands in quote unquote, normal life that you don't that you
want back so bad and it's not meetings and it's not, you know, the rat race. It's like
looking at people in the face and being able to talk to them.
Definitely. I miss hugging my friends so much and hugging random murderinos we meet. The last time I
met someone who listens to the podcast and told me was at a makeup store that she was working at
and I couldn't hug her because it was the beginning of the pandemic and it felt so wrong. It was just
like, I'm not supposed to just say hi to you and walk away. I want to hug you and like have a
connection and you couldn't do it. I miss those connections. Is that it? Send us your
fucking hurrays on Instagram or Twitter or email or fancult or whatever the fuck you feel like.
Also, it's really nice that people that are sending in the, you know, detail ones about
getting through because we just want to repeat it so that other people can hear your stories
of how you're making it work. Totally. Because it's legitimately helping people. It helps me
when I see people on social media talking about what they're doing, what they're watching,
how they're talking to people. Yeah. I think I already talked, well, I maybe talked to the
mini-sood, but my friends and I that normally have like an in-person, obviously game night,
we all got on that app house party and had a game night on house party and it was so hilarious.
And when I hung up, like I felt high from it. It was like, oh, and it's like, oh yeah,
because I haven't talked to anyone for days. I mean, it really matters and it really helps you.
So definitely any little thing. Yeah. How you're getting through and what your
extenuating circumstances are and we want to hear it. Yep. And but mostly stay sexy.
And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie?