My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 240 - Flapper Bob

Episode Date: September 17, 2020

In this quilt episode, Karen and Georgia cover Coney Island deaths and serial killer Andrew Cunanan.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://ar...t19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 We at Wondery live, breathe and downright obsess over true crime and now we're launching the ultimate true crime fan experience, Exhibit C. Join now by following Wondery, Exhibit C on Facebook and listen to true crime on Wondery and Amazon Music, Exhibit C. It's truly criminal. Welcome to my favorite murder. The podcast that's the you like, the one you told your mom about, right? Even though you didn't think she'd be open to it. And then surprise, she liked it first. She doesn't like the cursing so much. No, no moms do, but then, but then they listen to it a little while and they go, this reminds me of my younger days. And then they light up, but they light up Salem. They oil up a Salem cigarette. They start telling you about that. Honey, go get me the
Starting point is 00:01:06 gin. I'm going to tell you about my younger days. And then they start cursing it. So have you ever heard the word fuck come from your mom's mouth? It's so creepy. Oh, nothing makes would make my dad angrier than my mom would say the F word. He would get so mad at her. He was like, as if like all of the world was melting down. I'm like, Hey, come on. Oh my God. That's my favorite words. And now it's my favorite word to say in front of your dad, too. Oh my God. We're a new, we're a brand new territory. Georgia cracked open that just thrown out the F's and S's all over the place. And Jim was down. We told the story already, right? Did we or just to each other? I can't remember. I don't know it all. Like literally, if, if it, if it was life or death, I wouldn't be able to tell
Starting point is 00:01:52 you. You neither. But that is Karen Kilgariff. Oh, that's Georgia Hart Stark. That's right. And welcome. Yes. How are you doing? How's your, this is our podcast. This is our podcast. This is our podcast we've been working on. Um, just a little short time of four and a half to four and a half years. Five years. It is weird though. We're getting rid of our office. The exactly right offices are, are going into storage because there's no one there to use them. We're not paying for that shit if no one's in there. So sad. All that beautiful article furniture that we picked out. That's not a plug. Oh, or is it? I'm glad that we inside the offices and there's a scant few who know this, that, that we had all the shows had posters, framed posters that we
Starting point is 00:02:38 were going to hang on the walls. We just kind of hadn't gotten around to it. And now we never will. For all our shows on exactly right. And we never did it. I feel like we're never going to have it. We wanted a party there. We can't have a going away. Goodbye to this office. Thank you for being our first office for our first business. No, we just have to walk. Oh, and then I guess now we can say, because we didn't want to say before, but the people who, who had the office above us were roller coaster designers. It was the coolest. It was the most interesting. And, and I have to say I really loved that office. It was very fun to be there for the short amount of time we were. But that element made me believe something exciting was going to happen because of that. I was like,
Starting point is 00:03:23 this is some sitcom shit. I'm absolutely going to meet like a German with red curly hair. You know what I mean? Yeah. Or like something's going to happen. That's definitely like they, they are the sitcom office. We're like their weird neighbors. We weren't the stars of this office program. No, they were the sitcom office. We were. Yeah, we were a strange YouTube channel. Yeah. And they had a baby corgi. We didn't have a baby corgi. What's that? What are you watching? What are you doing? What are you reading? What are you thinking about? Oh, I was going to tell you, somebody recommended this podcast to me on the heels of this is actually happening. And the first person storytelling, you know, extreme. Somebody said on Twitter. Oh,
Starting point is 00:04:11 I was admitting that I was going back to Twitter tiny bit just to mostly I had to post that Nick Terry that he just made about the tampons. It's oh my God. He's just so good. We love you so much, Nick. Thank you so much for playing participating in this. I put it up on our Instagram to check it out or just wherever. And I retweeted it. Yeah, it's so good. So I so of course I went on there to just retweet that and support Nick. But then somebody recommended a podcast that I started listening to and it's called Spooked. And it's on it's with snap judgment presents and WNYC studios. And the host is named Glenn Washington. And it is first people telling their first person ghost stories or their first person like weird experience stories. And it kicks off.
Starting point is 00:05:04 So I went down to season one first episode. Oh, you're one of those. It's called The Watcher. Yeah, I want because then it plays through. Yeah. Oh, okay. And the first story is so goddamn good and real. And you it's this woman and you're like, holy shit, this happened. And it I want to tell you the whole thing. That's I shouldn't do that anymore. It's go listen to Spooked. The podcast hosted by Glenn Washington. It's a real joy to listen to the music is amazing. They're sound editing. They're like sound design is great. He's a really delightful host. There's a couple where most of them it's just the people talking through a couple have hosts that interview people and kind of pull the story out of them. And he is the host one time when this guy is telling a story
Starting point is 00:05:50 and the guy goes and I turned around and and then he paused and then Glenn goes and what was it? What was it? What was it exactly how you would do it if it was your friend? There's something like that that made me laugh so hard. Anyway, it's just a delightful listen. And it's these stories where as you listen to the people tell them, you're like, this isn't made up because they're giving all this detail. It's very specific. And you want to go on a podcast and like lie about your experience. That would just be like asking for it. Well, yeah, because you could try to. But when you unfold a story like that, it shows like you kind of can't get away with it. So every it's they have like five seasons, I think maybe, yeah, five seasons, it's really good. And it's
Starting point is 00:06:35 really well made because it's like getting into Spooky Halloween. Yeah, it's very good. There's a couple times I had to turn it off because I was like, it's getting too late at night because it's that like creepy. Yeah. Are we going to be able to trick or treat this year? It got banned, but then they like, then they were like Gavin Newsom was like, well, can't ban it. I want to sit in my driveway and throw candy at kids. Maybe that's the new Halloween. I mean, here's the thing, you can still eat mini Snickers. You can also eat full size Snickers. I've already done that. All day long. So what more do you need? I want to give it to cute kids dressed up in cute costumes. You can. I mean, yeah, I guess it's outside. So yeah, I don't know. I keep driving by restaurants
Starting point is 00:07:19 that are just packed packed on the sidewalk with no masks. No, no, no, no, no, no. It doesn't make sense to me friends and family, please. Anyway, this is the world we live in. Nice. Well, I've been trying to I started, I may destroy you. Oh, great. So intense. So good. Michaela Cole. Cole. Michaela Cole. Sorry, you were right. So yeah, Michaela Cole. She's incredible. I'm only on the first or second episode, but it's obviously incredible. And it's it's it's it goes so far and wide in places that I did not expect. She's really amazing. And I just kept thinking this is like, it's amazing that she is like the showrunner, creator, writer and star. Yeah. And she her face is unbelievably gorgeous. Just gorgeous. It's on HBO if you haven't checked
Starting point is 00:08:10 it out yet. But I am trying now to I'm finally after having so many fucking people who are good at things, tell me that I need to meditate. I'm finally trying to do it. And journaling, which I have not done in my adult life. Well, that hasn't been public. Right. You know, you know what the thing about journaling that I always get and that I feel like you're like me in this way. I start writing and then I start watching myself write and criticizing what I'm doing. So it's kind of like, I really think that this and that and it's all cursive and sideways and stuff. And then I start reading what I'm writing. And I'm like, what if someone finds this? My problem is I just have no and I only live with Vince. So that just means
Starting point is 00:08:55 I don't trust Vince. Like it's just, I have no someone's going to read this. I'm going to die and someone's going to be like, but I wish we had found her journal earlier because clearly, I don't know, like something, you know what I mean? I know for a fact with I need you to tell me today and look in my eyes and we can put this on paperwork. Okay. That you will come to my house and burn any journal that you can find. You can go through any drawer, but you have to get rid of it because there's shit I don't want to go down for of like old crushes that I'm like writing about that I don't want to go on on on record. So no, no, then there's no book. I won't put a book out of Karen's and read journals of Karen writing Panda Express, uh, Golden Chicken, releasing what
Starting point is 00:09:42 you ate that day. Oh, I just straight up write, I fucking hate everything. I hate myself. Why do I fucking hate myself so much? Well, it's so annoying. My mom did this to me. Like it's just so it's just like greatest hit same same thing every time. Yeah. So double these to you, you and me will burn each other's books burn. Listen, I'm going to read yours and you're going to read mine. Fine. Yeah. Then they're going to be burnt. Then they must be burned. And I, and I mean also legal pads. Okay. Anything with more than five pieces of paper. Yes. Please with the jokes. Okay. Things I think might be jokes. I was wrong. Please burn them. Like there's shit. I've written stuff down where like the other day I'm not kidding. I flipped through because I keep buying packets of notebooks.
Starting point is 00:10:25 So then I, I will open it and write something. And I have a picture of this. It says when you have a crush on somebody you love their car. It just, that's all they wrote on one page of paper. Okay. This, do you feel how uncomfortable you feel right now? Imagine if I was dead and that's you had to read that. What was it all for? What was she doing? What, why was she, why did she never get past 13 years of age? It's pathetic. None of us did. We're all still there. It's true, right? When you like, when you know what kind of car your crush drives, when, then when that car, which is mass produced and there's hundreds of them goes by you, it's the most exciting thing. Is it him? Is that him in the black Prius? The black, right. Prius, is that him?
Starting point is 00:11:14 Oh my God. No, that's every other fucking car on the road. You live in Los Angeles. Every car's a Prius. When you first have a crush on someone, it's so fun to be like, what are they thinking about right now? What do they do? I wonder where they are. Are they thinking about me right now? I wonder. So that's not that stupid. And my mom did cause myself hatred. So I'm not fucking wrong either. No, it's not about right or wrong. It's about stupid or not stupid. And I think I just want to be cooler than I actually am. Please let me post Mortem be, be like that. And you know what else? Stephen, when one of us, the moment you hear that maybe one of us is in a coma or dead fucking delete every podcast that we've ever recorded, all of us take them for real.
Starting point is 00:11:56 I don't want, I don't want the other making any money again. It all goes. Everybody, this wagon, the gravy train stops here. Sorry, Nora, your niece that all your money is probably going to go to when you die. You don't get a fucking single cent more. Cut to Nora mid, mid TikTok dance, record scratch. What the fuck? That's right. No more money. That's right. There was a self destruct timer on all this. Oh shit. Blow all of these. That's perfect. Stephen, can you make a self destruct timer for our laptops? Yeah. We die. Our heart stops beating. These fucking things blow up. It's over. And I want it to be one of those ones where you have to, you and I both have our fingers on at the whole time. And then someone's finger comes off of it. It blows.
Starting point is 00:12:41 So wait, are we killing each other at this point? I don't know. What are we talking about now? I don't know. We're killing Stephen. Because I just remembered I definitely have open word documents on this computer and started poems. I'm not kidding. And I have documents on here because you know, every laptop, it switches you like it goes in the cloud and then you have more. I have like shit from old jobs. I have like old stuff in here that I'm like, why isn't this gone? Why haven't I deleted it? So you really, Stephen, this thing goes into the sea. Like, I don't give a shit what you do with my ashes to throw this laptop into the ocean ASAP. Go to Point Magoo, friends. Go way out onto the jetty.
Starting point is 00:13:27 Put it in a t-shirt cannon. Yeah. Please. Yes. Done. Stephen, and we'll get, Stephen, let's get, we'll get crab lugs at Neptune's net after. Wait a second. No way. You're not having fun after. I will haunt you at Neptune's net. I will fucking stand right next to your table. You're going to get all cold on your neck. I will not let you rest and I'll be reading from the other side, reading my poems. My poems, I said. Poems. Everyone knows you can't write a poem in a fucking computer. You have to write it on an old timey type haunted typewriter. I have no business writing poems.
Starting point is 00:14:05 Poems. Poems. I used to, in my stand up comedy act, used to read my poems from college on stage and they are fucking hilarious. They really are. I meant it and it was all kind of broken. Like, I was trying to be like EE Cummings, but it was always about just some guy that I like that didn't like me back and that it's, it's like, it's really clunky and really like, it's like, if this is really how you're going to express yourself, you don't deserve love. Well, see, here's why someone comes in. Someone's like an auditor if you're like, well, here's your life. Here's why no one's ever going to love you because these poems suck shit. You don't know how to put it. You don't understand love at all. Look what you wrote about it.
Starting point is 00:14:50 Why do you keep using shoes as a symbol, a symbolism? That's so weird. Love has nothing to do with shoes. You don't get to have love until you know what it means. And it doesn't mean that he ordered the same thing as you at Burger King. No, it doesn't. It's not about doing shots together. Karen, what happened to you? I don't know. Nothing happened to me. That's why. These are so important. I was raised by stand up comedy. That's why all our hearts were broken. And a man who hates the F word. Raised by stand up comedy and a guy who hates the F word. It's a lot of conflict. Anyway, did you have a thing you were trying to talk about? Absolutely. That I interrupted you with that story? Oh, no, it was journaling. We
Starting point is 00:15:32 covered it. Oh, good. Good. Okay. I'm okay. I'm meditating a little. Oh, nice. Yeah. How many minutes have you gotten? Well, my friend had a had a past like a month pass for the Waking Up app with Sam Harris, who's like great doctor type. So he's smart, you know, which I respect. Sure. You always have love doctors. Oh, he's a doctor. So I run five days into an introductory course that's like 30 days or whatever. Nice. And I get it. It's making sense. I get it. It's good. You know what it is? I used it the other day when I was in a nerve wracking situation. All it is is the thing of all the shit my brain starts saying. Yeah. Like you shouldn't be here. You look you look terrible. Right. That you just go no neutral. Yep. Neutral. So it's not even like I acknowledge you.
Starting point is 00:16:25 Get out of here. Yes. Thanks for your help. I know you're trying to help me. Please go away. And neutral. That reminds me for the first time in my fucking life, I'm going to have therapy more than once a week. She's like, Hey, since we're dealing with this old shit that's like starting to come up. How about twice a week? Yep. Whoa. Okay. It helps. I swear to God. It helps. Can't get into any. It's 50 minutes in appointment. You can't get into anything. Right. Yeah. 50, which if it's me that you can clip off like at least eight at the top of every I cannot be on time even on my therapist and I she's done talking about it with me. I broke her when it came to the lateness thing. I'm a monster. Oh my God. I'm a monster. Now, if you'd refer to this poem
Starting point is 00:17:11 about how I'm a monster. Every third session is me because I ran here from the parking lot. I didn't have money to pay for the parking. The 10 o'clock o'clock exclamation point lower case letters. Why does style insist upon my tardiness and above it. But Benton my will father time mother earth that can we talk about the Instagram song I sent you last night by fucking Steve Zahn. Oh my God. Damn it. He wrote he put this song up. That's the funniest thing I've ever fucking heard in my life. Steve and on Instagram and I wrote great actor touching. I feel touched and he wrote goal achieved. He commented back to me. I know Steve Zahn achieved his weight and who is the person he's singing to? I don't know. He's singing. He's making up a
Starting point is 00:18:11 belated birthday song. Play it. Play it. Play it. And let's get into a legal relationship with Steve Zahn. Oh, I missed your birthday one day late. Never stop because I'm great. Well, let's put it up on our Instagram. I can repost it. It's just yeah. That's a good idea. Also, while he's singing this song, wearing readers in I think his his garage. There's like a barn for sure. Yeah. He's reading a book about a survival survivalist shit. And he's eating what looks like chocolate cake. There's something in his mouth or he's it's chewing tobacco but he's there's something. And there's also a lone boss circling his fucking messy hair. He looks okay. He looks like a survivalist. Yes. He is a fascinating individual and I'd love to
Starting point is 00:19:04 know about his nine to five for sure. I think he's like how do you get how do you get out there? Yeah. I think it's a family man. Is he he's got like, okay, we don't have to talk. This isn't that my favorite Steve's on podcast. Unfortunately, unfortunately, we just focus. Yeah. Can we just all please support Steve's on more support Steve's on more. Speaking of supporting things, we are excited to announce our next fundraiser for our MFM logo pin that we sell on our site, my favorite murder.com. There's a store in that store is a little black and white enamel pin of our logo that's so fucking cool to put on your jacket or wherever. And we always pick a fundraiser to put the give the money to 100% of the 100% of the proceeds. So now we just did beam and now
Starting point is 00:19:53 we're going to go to the LGBTQ freedom fund. Yes. So they provide bail nationally for LGBTQ plus people who can't afford that can afford it themselves. They educate the masses about the over incarceration of the LGBTQ community, which I didn't realize until I went to their site that LGBTQ people are three times more likely to be jailed. And you think that they're at risk of abuse because of that. So they also can't get out because they don't have the they can't afford the bail. So for those people, this fund is available. So we're really excited. It's a great charity. It's very, it's very cool. It's exciting to start learning about stuff like this and try to divert attention and support their way because it's so important. That's right. We also less important,
Starting point is 00:20:41 but still compelling. We now have the this might be luminol travel mug available also in the store my favorite murder.com what forward slash t shirts and things. Is that the website? I think that's a dead. I think that's a dead link. That's a dead link. Yeah, I don't think that'll work. No, it's in the store. It's an old bestseller. They've been restocked. They glow in the dark. Fucking right. It's a tumbler that says this might be luminol and then it glows in the dark. Trick all your friends and coworkers that you're social distancing around that you might be drinking luminol. Yeah, it's it'll fascinate the zoom call next time. Get in there and buy all of your products on the my favorite murder store. We see you proudly posting shirts from all the fuck
Starting point is 00:21:27 over the place. Yeah. And what we'd like to direct you toward is the actual official website where you should get your real shit. Okay, let's do exactly right. Network highlights. Yeah. Oh, I'll say the fall line of the podcast. The fall line is this week has just dropped their first episode of their Sam little series, which focus on the victim stories of fucking terrible serial killer Sam little. So make sure to tune into that. Yes. And oh, I'm very excited because on Steven's podcast, the per cast, he and Sarah are talking to our friend, a friend of the fam of this. I was going to say website of this podcast, anti Donahue Canada's sweetheart, anti Donahue. Her book is called Nobody Cares. Get that if you haven't already. And she's on Steven's podcast talking
Starting point is 00:22:19 about her cat, Barry Gibbs. Steven, did you love and Donahue as much as we do? And is the best. And I actually got to meet her before our show in Toronto. That's right. We tried to go to spaghetti factory, but it was just too crowded. Love it. So check out all the exactly right network podcasts. There's a website. It has all of this information and more and there's exactly right merch. There's merch for this podcast that we love to talk about. But there's also a bevy of merch from all the other shows. So if you're looking, if you're like, I love bananas, there's a great shirt that you can get that just says hot banana up in the corner pocket. That's right. If you like, do you need a ride? We're making puzzles. I mean, like stuff's going
Starting point is 00:23:02 on over there. Support your local podcasts. Okay. All right. So we're going to do, yeah, is that everything? Wait, I think that's it. Okay, cool. I feel like, you know, good. If there's, look, okay, let's give each other, you have one minute, say one last thing, just for a minute. A minute? That's a long time. Oh, I cut off all my own hair. It's too short. Oops. I cut one side. It was perfect. I cut the other side. It was too short. So I had to cut the other side too short too. Wait, will you take off your headphones so I can see the full cut? Look, I can't hear you. So don't say anything. I'm shaking my head. I won't. Oh, that's cute. It looks great. George's got a straight up Louise Brooks. Hold on. What? George's got,
Starting point is 00:23:44 I was saying this, George's got a straight up Louise Brooks Bob now. It is a very flapper, short flapper Bob. It's great. It looks really good on you. What do you have? I thought your hair was in a ponytail. That's your announcement. Yeah. Um, I guess just my hair, I've gone lighter and shorter as well. You have brown hair now. It's such a trip. I took all the black out of my hair. And then you know that you've had a bad hairstyle for a while when you do something like that and then people freak out and they're like, oh, it looks so good. And you're like, shit, it really looked bad before. That's all I can think of. It looks great. I love that we had hair corner. That was perfect. Guys, you have to know what our hair, what's going on with our hair
Starting point is 00:24:26 and COVID. Yeah, how's your hair and COVID quarantine hair? Like, are you letting it get real big and natural and just being it's like, let it be itself for once? What color does it want to be? Let it tell you for once. Yeah. You've always forced it. I was forcing dark brown onto my hair and it was like, I need to go with an auburnish. Yeah. Kind of almost red. It was like, Karen, let me live my life. Sounds good. Sounds good. I'll stop wearing black t-shirts and I'll start wearing army green t-shirts. Love it. Looks good. Boom. Looking for a better cooking routine? With meal planning, shopping and prepping handled, HelloFresh has you covered. HelloFresh makes home cooking easy and affordable so you can stay on track and on budget in the
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Starting point is 00:25:55 with code murder20. That's up to 20 free meals plus free shipping on your first box when you go to hellofresh.ca slash murder20 and use code murder20. Goodbye. Hey, I'm Arisha. And I'm Brooke. And we're the hosts of Wanderer's podcast, Even the Rich, where we bring you absolutely true and absolutely shocking stories about the most famous families and biggest celebrities the world has ever seen. Our newest series is all about the incomparable diva, Whitney Houston. Whitney's voice defined a generation and even after her death, her talent remains unmatched. But her incredible success hit a deeply private pain. In our series, Whitney Houston, Destiny of a Diva, we'll tell you how she hid her true self to
Starting point is 00:26:39 make everyone around her happy and how the pressure to be all things to all people led her down a dark path. Follow Even the Rich wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad free on the Amazon Music or Wanderer app. Okay, so we're going to do a quilt. And my story is from when we were in Brooklyn. When was that? October 5, 2018. So almost two years ago. Can you imagine? I can't even imagine. I can literally still see the house at that show. Both nights, right? Because we were in Brooklyn at least two nights. And then we went to Boston for three nights, or at a Medford. That King, that King's Theater, it's huge and it's gorgeous. And the audience, it's like set up to make you feel like share. It's unbelievable. And I bet
Starting point is 00:27:26 you can hear them still too, because they were serving canned wine at the show. They absolutely sold out of. So congratulations. The audience was fucked up and it was the best. Right. And I was like, save me a can of wine. And they like ran out of. They were like fucking impossible lady. Too bad. Too bad. No. So my story that I did that night is one of my favorites to do when we're on the road, which is to find a local amusement park or something and do, you know, there's their deaths. So I was able to do Coney Island deaths for this episode. Enjoy everyone. All right. So, you know, I'm taking a chance on this because this is a topic that, much like true crime, I've always been fascinated by and not told a lot of people about because it's weird.
Starting point is 00:28:16 But when I had a desk job, I would just look over this, look this up like I would true crime stories. I did this at one other live show and it went over well. And I thought that this is a perfect place to do a story like this too because you guys have a similar thing going on. These are deaths at Coney Island. Oh, no. Oh, shit. Okay, good. Because I did in Anaheim, I did Disneyland. And that went over gangbusters. That's good, right? Yeah, gangbusters. All right. So this is, I'm, okay, here we go. It's deaths and like maimings and shit and the fun stuff. The fun stuff, the good stuff. You know. It's a little bit of history thrown in for fun. And there's some good photos too. So, hey, Karen. Yes. According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission,
Starting point is 00:29:16 an average of 4.5 Americans died every year on amusement park rides from 1987 to 2000. 4.5. Uh-huh. Between 94 and 2004, 22 Americans lost their lives on roller coasters as a result of mechanical failure or operator errors. So this means you're more likely to die in a roller coaster, Karen, than you are to be eaten alive by a shark. Say that again? You're more likely to die in a roller coaster than you are to be killed by a shark. And those are my only two choices? Stay out of the water. Stay out of fucking roller coasters. All right. Coney Island, you all know it. During the 1870s and 1880s, a bunch of luxury hotels were built there and a railroad went in for rich people to go hang out there and shit. Coney Island was
Starting point is 00:30:10 described, has been described as both heaven at the end of a subway ride and the poor man's paradise. Those are your only two choices. I have a couple friends that told me stories about passing out on the subway and ending up at Coney Island. Really? Yeah. At the end of a fun night. Cool. And they get, yeah, a long-held tradition. And you just get a job at the roller coaster. Sorry. You're sad. There are worse places to end up at the end of a night of drinking than Coney Island. Fucking outside McNair's. Yes. Okay. Coney Island became famous for having several of the best known amusement parks in the world. So I didn't know this and you might not either. It was a couple different amusement parks competing against each other and then the board walked with a bunch
Starting point is 00:31:01 of other fucking things to get on and get hurt on. But it had the world's first roller coaster, the Switchback Railway. So let's start with the Steeple Chase Park in 19... The Equestrian's in the back. Is that a thing? What's a Steeple Chase? I'm about to find out, right? No, you're not. I'm just fucking said the name. Well, from what I understand, the Steeple Chase is like an insane horse race. Oh, okay, because I have a photo of it. Okay. Didn't know that. Didn't look it up. Didn't bother to care. Which is basically the motto of this podcast. That's right. I figured it was like Mr. Edward Steeple Chase, you know, but I don't know horses. In 1897, Steeple Chase Park opened as the first of the three original iconic parks built on Coney Island. And so right off the fucking
Starting point is 00:31:59 bat, several people are seriously hurt when they stood up on the whip, which was one of the rides. It's the one where... Okay, I have a photo of it. So the whip, they stand up on the ride. Guys, fucking, rule number one, don't stand up when you're not supposed to. Okay, this is the whip. Whoa. It's that kind that it goes around in a circle and then you vomit. This is good. Doesn't look fun, does it? That fucking shit in the middle is wood. That's wood. It's all wood. Oh, no. It's made out of the same thing that like dentures were made out of back then. Absolutely not. Underneath that circle, there's just two old mules that are so mad. We're so tired. We're two eight-year-old children. Just fucking...
Starting point is 00:32:47 Mom said I had to get a job this summer. That's right. Okay, others are injured during the fall, falls in the parks, rotating barrels, which is just when... I just don't know why they trust people not to be stupid. It's the one where like, it's just a huge barrel and it rotates and you run through it and fucking slam your stupid face into the... You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, classic. They're injured there and then a few patrons fall off the steeple chase courses because they fucking stand up on them and that's those. What the fuck is this? And then look at the woman. That's the steeple. No, no, no. Look at there's a woman right there. That's them building the Brooklyn Bridge. What are you talking about? That doesn't even make sense. People would pay to
Starting point is 00:33:34 get on this thing. Look at that woman sitting in front of a dude. They went on together with all her dresses and shit. What? What year is this? Okay, well, it was built in 1897, so I don't know. Around there. Okay, and on... This looks like manual labor. How is this a fucking... On August 6, 1935, 10-year-olds... Oh, they're saddles. So it's like you're pretending to ride a metal horse directly up? Up the thing. Uh-huh. And the tracks are right there. Get everything caught in them. Okay. I mean, okay. In 1935, a 10-year-old named John Bark fell off his horse and plunged 10 feet to the wooden platform below, suffering brain injuries and died. This is a bummer podcast, I've got to tell you. It's not all fun. And then nine years later in 1944, a girl fell out of a car
Starting point is 00:34:42 on the fast-moving Silver Streak and she was hospitalized. She was okay. Oh, good. Well, it was 1944, so she's probably dead, but I don't know how. You can't be responsible for saying how every single person that went to Coney Island died. I just can't. That's too much. Okay, so then this other park opened called Luna Park in 1903. And the Thunderbolt is built in 1925. They've been on it. It's literally a Thunderbolt with a saddle on it. They harness the power and then you stand up while you're on it. It was one of the first wooden roller coasters. One of the tracks scales the top of a building and it featured in Annie Hall. You've seen it as the boy had home of Alvie Singer. Oh, yes. Here's a picture of it. That's right. Oh, wait, that's not it. Oh, wait.
Starting point is 00:35:41 That's actually Luna Park when it burned the fuck down. Oh, that's a dangerous ride. That's right. Um, yeah, I'll tell you all about that in a minute. Okay. What about the other one? So, okay, there's no picture. I took the word picture. Wait, I left the word picture in or Stephen sucked up. He's at home giggling and twisting his mustache. I hate them both. And Mimi's like, me too. So the Thunderbolt had two serious accidents. It was this roller coaster. In 1925, a woman was killed when she was fucking listening to this. She was thrown forward and hit her head on the metal handlebar in front of her. 25, you say? 1925. Okay. Bummer. Yes. And then in 1926, a three car train stalled partway up the hill. It rolled back down and was struck by the fucking
Starting point is 00:36:49 train coming back up. That's right. That's right. It was 12 people were injured and one was seriously hurt. Then the Mile Sky Chaser slash octopus, which is just an octopus with like all these, you know, and it spins around. In 1937, a 37-year-old Jersey resident fell after a sudden lurch from the Mile Sky Chaser. As the car he was in reached one of the high points, this is a different thing, a roller coaster. He died immediately. A sudden lurch. Two hours later, two girls were on another ride, the octopus. When the apparatus went out of order and the car fell about eight feet, they were treated for their injuries at Coney Island Hospital. They were in hospital. I bet they did very well for themselves at Coney Island Hospital. You just
Starting point is 00:37:51 signed a waiver when you go in and be like, it's not your fault. They were like, somebody really smart. I showed up at Coney Island the first day. It was like, you know what I'm going to build right over there? They're going to need it. A hospital. But the girls survived. So the destruction of the first Luna Park. So Luna Park was heavily damaged by a pair of fires in 1994, leading to its closure. That's the picture of it. Got it. And let's see. It goes back when every single goddamn thing was made of wood. There's no rubble in there at all. So that got bulldozed and then it's rezoned for residential development during the 1950s. So then in 1904, one of the other places Dreamland opened. It doesn't exist. It takes its inspiration from the white city of
Starting point is 00:38:49 the Chicago World's Fair. You know that one. Wonderful place. And there's all these rides, like shoot the shoots, which is the one where you go down in the slide, I think. There's bathhouses, there's a ballroom. Sexy. There's a much-loved animal show featuring a pipe-smoking elephant. Yes. Just a really stuck-up elephant that was always talking to you about British literature. Shut up. It's trained by a guy named Captain Jack Bonavida. He loses an arm during an ill-fated performance with his rare black lions because the black lions were like, fuck this guy. Yeah. And everyone in the audience is like, this is good. This is better than that fire. Well, guess what? Dreamland is destroyed in September of 1911 by an electrical fire
Starting point is 00:39:48 during repairs. It originated from a ride called Hellgate, which took tourists on a boat through the dark caverns and past raging whirlpools. It was like, this is what hell is like. Yes. It's 1911, so it's charming. That's right. This might be a picture of something else. Let's see. Nope. Yep. See, that's Thunderbolt. Remember us talking about that? Yes, I do. I remember the revolt. And then that's Hellgate. Shit. And right outside you can just have a nice lunch on a table. A luncheon. But then it's straight to hell, everybody. Is that the devil up there? Yeah. Son of a bitch. And they're cute. Okay. As the park went up in flames, live animals tried to escape. And did they escape? No. They didn't. They didn't care about animals back then. They
Starting point is 00:40:52 gave them pipes to smoke. Okay. Then there's Bowery Street, a bunch of private owners lease space on Bowery Streets to just throw up any old fucking ride that they felt like throwing up there. So the Tornado is a roller coaster with a wooden track. Tornado? If I tell you it's spelled wrong, will you believe me? Listen, these people are cresting on wine in a can right now. They're like, it's the three, we've hit the three can peak because that was an insane reaction to a mispronunciation. That was so much. An insane mispronunciation. It was the Tornado. Tornado. You're from Spain, right? She's Spanish. Someone give me a fucking can of wine. Okay.
Starting point is 00:41:57 Okay. So in May of 1937, a 17-year-old boy is on the Tornado. Loses his balance, falls onto the track, crushed to death. Yeah. Okay. Then there is this deadly roller coaster called Drop the Dip. But they changed the name. I know it's great. They changed the name to the Rough Riders because everyone loves... Not better. No. From Drop that Dick to the Rough Riders? The 20s were crazy, you guys. So in June of 1910, three people die after falling out of their seats on the Rough Riders. When will they invent seat belts for fuck's sake? It's a third rail electric roller coaster. Okay. Here's how this roller coaster works. The rides operate. So they go up the ascent. Then the rides operator is supposed to turn all the power off
Starting point is 00:43:19 of the fucking ride. So then it goes down. That's how it's supposed to work. But either it broke or the operator was like probably drunk as shit. And it didn't happen. And so the car would go too fast and overturned. So three people died when that happened. Then in 1915, one of the coaster's cars just fucking flew off, flipped, and then sent three people plummeting to their death. And then afterwards they were like, let's shut this ride down from here on out. No, let's give it four more chances. Let's name it three more horrible things and then see what happens. I'm not convinced. And then comes Astraland and the ride Hellhole. Not Hell's Gate? Not Hell's Gate. Okay. A totally different hell. A different hell. Yeah. In 1995, a 24-year-old woman's legs were
Starting point is 00:44:19 mangled and 13 other people were injured on the Hellhole ride. It's basically, oh, okay. It's one of those ones that are, remember the cylinder that you run through? Turn that on its head and it spins around and you get pinned to the wall. Oh, yes. That's a classic. Fuck no. So you do that and then the bottom drops out. Yes. And you stick to the wall. And you stick to the wall. So the accident happened when one of the, a steel band that encircled the ride snapped, ripping open the barrel. What? I thought it was going to be a different, like they just lost the gravity issue and everyone just... The thing just snapped and the woman's legs were mangled, 13 people were injured. It's, yes. And then, oh, what happened was that that, the thing snapped and then the ride operator
Starting point is 00:45:09 hit the emergency stop. So then everything fell apart. Lose, lose. Right. Then the next ride we're going to talk about is a Super Himalaya. Did I say that right? Himalaya. Is that the one that goes around on its own little, it goes like this, but it's like on a up and down track? Yes. Yes. How'd you know that? Because I'm not getting used to live at the fair every summer. That's in 4-8. You have to go show your sheep and you live at the fair. Thank you so much. I'm from a farm. Okay. So in 1989, the Super Himalaya injured seven riders when a metal bar, okay, so basically the fucking roof collapsed. A metal bar holding the canopy over the ride came loose and hit the ride as it spun around. And it was closed briefly, but nobody died. Oh, that's good. In that one.
Starting point is 00:46:01 Because that would turn into like a grinder situation. Yeah. Yeah. Let's see. I think let's Oh, let's see a picture. Okay. Here's the tornado. Tornado. Tornado. Here's a psych one. Not yet. We'll get there. Let him look. Oh, we haven't gotten there yet. Got it. Got it. Okay. And then this one's sad. In 1999, a 17-year-old named Nadine Caban was killed when eight others were injured. When the Super Himalaya, like the coupling between the two cars broke and the car flipped to one side, throwing poor, sweet baby Angel Nadine out. They freed her and she died an hour later from internal injuries and severe head injuries. It's so fucking sad. And then on the boardwalk in 1946, a woman was killed, another rider was seriously injured, riding a carousel.
Starting point is 00:46:59 What? All it said is the ride started up abruptly as they tried to get off in 1946. So they probably had like heels on and like something must have, they couldn't, and they got something happened. And they died of like pinched fingers. It's just horses going like that. Some of them don't move at all. Do you ever get a bad horse and you're just like, great. But maybe they were like stepping off of it. And then I don't know. And then. And you do a fun kick. Okay. So then the cyclone is built in 1927. You guys. Everybody loves the cyclone. And it's been linked to several rider deaths. Okay. There you go. On May 26, 1985, a 19, nope, a 29-year-old man was killed while
Starting point is 00:47:58 riding the cyclone because he stood up and struck his head on a crossbeam. And then in August of 1988, a 26-year-old maintenance worker. Okay. So this 26-year-old maintenance worker is on his fucking lunch break. He gets into the back seat of the cyclone. I don't know if he was like eating his sandwich or he just wanted to hang out or what. But witnesses reporting that upon its first descent, witnesses see him stand up. The guy that worked there? Yeah. He falls 30 feet and lands on a crossbeam of a lower section of the track. And he's killed instantly. I don't know. And the ride was briefly closed but quickly deemed safe to reopen. In 19, 2007, a 53-year-old tourist in New York to celebrate his birthday.
Starting point is 00:48:50 So he went on the cyclone. They say he suffered several crushed vertebrae and his neck well on it. But then he didn't die until four days later after complications from the surgery. But no one was ever alerted about it. And a report of the accident was never filed with the police or the city. So they were like, not our fault. He died later. It's not our fault. That kind of thing. So just from riding this roller coaster, his vertebrae were crushed. Just from being on it. Uh-huh. Okay. No one here. Everyone on it again. Six other incidents of injury from the cyclone were reported in 2007. And they were all quickly settled by the park's owners. And in 2015, the ride's former operator was forced to pay a woman $600,000 for a serious, severe, and permanent
Starting point is 00:49:39 injuries to her head and neck. Just from riding it. Whoa. The operator himself had to pay it? I guess the person who owns it, yeah. I think it's like the operator. The fucking poor guy. I just have the shirt on. I don't control the way it kills people. And it's a 120-year history. There have been about 17 deaths and over 30 accidents and injuries in the various parks and attractions of Coney Island's boardwalk and amusement parks. And that is deaths at Coney Island. Whoa. Wow. Oh, Coney Island deaths, everyone. Really good job, Georgia. Thank you. Thank you. Really good job. Thank you. What do you got for us, Karen? In this Quilt episode, we're going to be
Starting point is 00:50:35 lacing in and sewing whip stitching and tightly affixing my story from October 18, 2017. We're going back, baby. So this was the first time we ever played Minneapolis, I believe, right? Sounds like it. Because 2017, yeah. That would have been our first visit, I think, to Minneapolis. So, so exciting. And if it was October, it was probably a bit chilly. And anyway, that night, I did the story of serial killer and the murderer of Gianni Versace, Andrew Cananan. And that was great. You did great, as you guys will hear in a second. Well, we'll see. You, you judge. Hey, audience, I know this is weird for you, but you judge and see if you like what is about to happen. See, just, just see. Well, my murder spree doesn't
Starting point is 00:51:30 start here, but the story starts somewhere else. The murder spree starts here. It is the murderous rampage of Andrew Cananan. I thought I knew this story, but there's a lot, there's a lot going on. So Andrew Cananan was born on August 31, 1969. He was the youngest of four children and they were, he was born in National City, California. And which is kind of a not very nice place, not very nice city. His father was retired from the Navy and was working to become a stockbroker. His mother was a housemaker, a homemaker, and she was very religious. She went to church every single day. And his friends described, that's a lot. Sunday's fine. That's what God asked for. You are overdoing it if you do it every day. That's on you now. I try to take
Starting point is 00:52:26 a nap every other day, which is, can be a religious experience. So he, it was a very stifling home life. And apparently someone said it was very quiet, which I was like four kids and it's a quiet household. That's not good. When he was nine, his family moved to a nicer city, Bonita. It was upper middle class. And that's when his father became a stockbroker and started making a lot of money. And his father was all about material things. And this was a time in the early 80s where for those of us who remember, everything started to become about material things. It was that weird, greed is good, eyes, odd shirts, boat shoes, everyone pretended like they yotted, which is the weirdest. Sailed and yotted. Yeah, we're all into sailing. No, you're not. And then
Starting point is 00:53:18 as a teenager, they moved to Rancho Bernardo, which is outside of La Jolla, which is like super ritzy area down near San Diego. And he went to a very exclusive private school called the Bishop School. One of the friends who was in this interview, oh, sorry, I got most of this information from one of those sweet biography channel specials that just gives you every bit of information. You possibly can want. Well, anyway, I got most of it from that. And then another one from a Vanity Fair article called The Killer's Trail, which I have the author's name further in. So basically, the dad's all about like, we're rich now, and they go to rich schools. And Andrew is really, really intelligent. They said that he had genius level IQ. By the time he graduated from high
Starting point is 00:54:03 school, he spoke multiple languages. He was an avid reader. He had a photographic memory. So he's very high functioning, intelligent person. But as a friend was saying, one of the most status conscious people I ever met, he always wanted you to think he had more than he did. And he was also openly gay, which at this time in the like mid to late 80s was not common. So he was voted in his high when he graduated from high school, he was voted most likely to be remembered. Oh, that's a thing. Uh huh. They're like, they like stopped doing it after that. They sure the fuck did. Let's specifically say what he should be remembered. Let's get specific now. That's like, of just being remembered. Most likely to be remembered is like what you vote for the people
Starting point is 00:54:49 who aren't going to win anything else. And you have that look in their eye. They're like, yeah, he'll do, he'll definitely do something. He's like a runner up. It's like a runner up award. You're a runner up with like a knife hidden up his sleeve. But this I love. And I think this kind of sums him up his senior quote, which they showed it in the yearbook. So in this yearbook that they had like the seniors picture would be here. And then there was like an empty space that was the size of the picture where they put all of their, uh, the clubs that they belong to and the sports that they played and all the different things just like listed. And his all it had next to his picture was this quote from the court of Louis the 15th. Oh my God.
Starting point is 00:55:27 Appremas, the deluge, which translates to after me, the storm. That's what I had too. Oh, was that yours too? My God. You're so much like Andrew Cunon. Thanks. Um, okay. So he graduates in 1987. He enrolls in UC San Diego. He's a history major. Um, while he's there the next year, he's there, there's a warrant out for his father's arrest. Turns out his dad was embezzling a shit ton of money, uh, from his job over a hundred thousand dollars. And the dad bails and goes back to the Philippines, uh, where he's from and abandons the family. So, uh, then there, they have nothing and he drops out of, uh, UC San Diego, San Diego. And his mother eventually has to start using food stamps. They're so poor. So they go from, you know, boat shoes to just like nothing. And for someone
Starting point is 00:56:28 like Andrew, who's his, that was his whole status was his whole ego. Um, it was an incredibly, you know, a defining moment in his life. He went, he actually went back to the Philippines to visit his father and they said, um, while he was there, he saw the apartment in the area that his father lived in. He was so disgusted by how like poor it was that he came, he left and came back early. And he was like, I'm like, that's that part of my life is over. And he was going to recreate himself. Um, so he starts, um, he starts partying a lot in Hillcrest, which is the gay neighborhood in San Diego. And, um, everybody loved him. They said he was the cruise director of, of the neighborhood. He always had drugs. He always, I was like, Oh, that sounds so fun. Oh, you're
Starting point is 00:57:18 just drugs, drugs, drugs. That's what the cruise directors have too. If you take a carnival cruise. Hey, you're, you just go up and say, Hey, are we going to the iceberg? Let's get past the bag. I heard they had skiing on this boat. Can you imagine doing like coke on a cruise or just like just stuck running at a circle or like the same 40 yards over and over, you just take the fucking back to the casino. Smoking, chain smoking in your cabin. Okay. But he had tons of friends and he was very popular, but all of his friends knew that he was just a liar. So when he was in this part of his life, he started telling people his name was
Starting point is 00:58:07 Andrew De Silva. And that's how almost everyone knew him. And, um, he would tell people that he would complain that his mother was not a good mother because she was so obsessed with high society that she shunned him. Like these weird lies of like, we were so rich, my parents wouldn't pay attention to me. And everyone's like, okay. That's not a thing that anyone's ever complained about. That's a weird made up lie. Um, uh, and eventually he's, he became a gigolo, but like, uh, uh, various, his friends describe it as he started studying all of the millionaires who were gay and didn't have families. And he would learn everything about them. And then when he would get, he got into those like kind of high society's gay circles and he would go to these parties.
Starting point is 00:58:54 And so if he knew one millionaire, like grew orchids, he would go read all the books he could find on orchids. And then he would happen to run into that person at a party here in eight orchids. I just brought my orchid friends with me to the party. But yeah, that's what he basically, everything was this study and he would manipulate people into falling in love with him as basically mirroring them and being like, I am just like you. I am also an old rich millionaire closeted millionaire. Doesn't that we all do to make someone fall in love with us for just like, I'm this way. I'm this certain way. And then you're like, no, I'm not. Then except for me, except for me, baby. I love you. Too late. Too late to get that ring.
Starting point is 00:59:43 My 350 person wedding already happened. They can't take it away from you. Okay. Oh, here. The writer for Vanity Fair's name was Maureen Orth. And she in that article wrote this, which I thought was an amazing paragraph, quote, he was a voracious reader with a reported genius level IQ. He coveted the lifestyles of the rich and famous. He tracked possible sugar daddies with care and then would say with a pout that he didn't know whether to fly to New York or Paris for dinner. Me too. Right. That's the problem most of us have. He could describe the texture and delicacy of the blowfish he claimed to have eaten at an $850 Japanese lunch, or he would say of a work of art, what year it had been
Starting point is 01:00:25 painted, who had owned it through the centuries, what churches it had hung in. What a boring conversation. Stop talking about the mouth feel of blowfish, dude. Oh, you don't like that? Well, then let me start to lecture you on paintings. My God, tell me your hometown murder and shut the fuck up and get away from me. I think that's this weird sad thing about people who do that kind of big presentation of here's what I'm like when they, when you know that a person is presenting you a thing because they think it's what you want. It not only isn't enjoyable, but then it's also sad because then you have to stand there being like, Oh no, I'm supposed to like this as opposed to like if he walked up and was like, Oh my God, we had it all. Then my dad ran away to the Philippines
Starting point is 01:01:13 and now I've nothing. You'd be like, Oh my God, tell me everything. We have to go over this word for word. Yeah, it's so much better when you're a mess. People like you more. It's so much better. See? Because we're all a mess. We're all a mess. We just show it. We wear it in our ripped dresses. How many people are sitting in ripped dresses tonight who are crying with joy because they have, they're like, I rip mine too. I got, we got one. You and me girl. Yeah. Besties. She's ripping her dress. Me too. Oh, the end of that quote is his wit was biting his memory photographic Kunanan story is a singular study in promise crushed. So obviously this guy was genius and he could have kind of done anything he wanted, but he just decided he was going to have to
Starting point is 01:02:07 like steal and manipulate to get what he wanted to get back to La Jolla and be a hustler. Also, I just growing up in Sonoma County, which is like Marin County is the county above San Francisco, where all of the rich people live. And then you cross into the next county, which is Sonoma County and all of a sudden it smells like cow shit. We also know there's one rich girl sitting up here because when she said Marin, she goes, whoo. And then Karen goes, all the rich people. So everyone she's rich. I'm sorry. She might just like money. I just made her a target. She's like, you're right. She's going to be beaten mercilessly after this show. But it's just, it's anyway, the pressure when you live near those people or among those people
Starting point is 01:02:50 to kind of like be of those people. Like in high school, our volleyball team once played a private school in Marin called Catherine Branson, which we had never heard of. And we lived 15 minutes away. That's how like exclusive and private the school was. Oh, you hadn't even heard of the school. Had never heard of the school. Okay. I'd lived there all my life. And I was like, what school? Not for you. Yeah. No, in the least, we drove in and it was like, it looked like a mansion where we're like, people go to school at this house. Like a long driveway with these gorgeous like rolling hills. It was insane. And we all are looking at each other and I'm like, you have, you have hay in your hair.
Starting point is 01:03:30 Shit on your face. Get it. Take your shoes. Like everyone just got so self-conscious of like, we're from a farm. We don't belong here. He had one very close friend named Jeffrey Trail, who he referred to as his brother. And Jeffrey had graduated from the Naval Academy at Annapolis. And he was training to be a highway patrol officer. Thank you for your service. Yeah. Yeah. We have to assume. Well, some guy would. And so I assume that. Right. Yeah. With you. Totally with you. Let me explain what just happened. I don't know. I don't know. We're done. It didn't. See, I cut that out. Steven. Cut that out. Cut out my ramblings. Okay. So one weekend, he goes up to San Francisco for a fun, crazy weekend. He meets a guy named David Mattson, who is from
Starting point is 01:04:18 Minneapolis. David Mattson was a successful architect by all reports. He was incredibly well liked and very well respected in town. And he had a really successful life. And he was, he kind of had the life that Andrew wanted. And Andrew, all Andrew's friends in this special say that David was the love of his life. This is another interesting factoid that's in this Vanity Fair article. Because you know, when this story happened, well, we'll come back to this part. This part, it's just one of those things where like we, you hear these stories over and over again. And then when someone, a really talented journalist as a deep dive, and then they're like, maybe this might have something to do with it. And you're like, why didn't they talk about that?
Starting point is 01:05:02 So there's lots of those in here. Okay. But now by the fall of 1996, Andrew's relationships are beginning to dissolve because he's totally on drugs and kind of a very bad liar. So he's got a lot of issues. Also, his boyfriend, David Mattson, who it was a long distance relationship from what I understand. He would ask him like, how do you have all this money all the time? Or how do you, how are you doing all this stuff all the time? He just wouldn't answer. He also wouldn't give him his address or his phone number. So there were problems in the relationship. Yeah. You're not dating if you don't have their phone number. I mean, is it like, you're just like, wait at the diner for me. I'll arrive at an undisclosed time.
Starting point is 01:05:49 David was starting to get the feeling that Andrew had a very dark side that obviously he wasn't telling him about and couldn't share with him. And so he broke up with him. And this is a very sad note. Andrew kept a picture of David on his refrigerator until the end. So obviously that he meant a lot to him, but kind of couldn't do it. And he was going into this bad place. So then his old friend, Jeff Trail, the guy that he referred to as a brother, got a job and also moved to Minneapolis. And so when Andrew finds out that that's happening, he gives him David Mattson's information and says, you can call this guy. You'll be best friends. That's, I'm belishing. That's what I would say. Perhaps he didn't say that. You'll be best friends. You guys
Starting point is 01:06:36 are going to be total besties. It's going to be hilarious. That's verbatim. Yep. That's from Maureen Orth, Vanity Fair. Andrew, the one person he hadn't lost in the 1996 peel off of all friends and good people in his life was his current sugar daddy, a man named Norman Blatchford, who put him up in a million dollar home and paid him $2,500 a month. Just to be friends. That's what we have with Steven. That if you feel bad at him when we yell at him, that's our deal with Steven. It's over the house and the money. Right. So Andrew actually got Blatchford to sell his house in Scottsdale, moved into the La Jolla house
Starting point is 01:07:26 that was once owned by a man named Lincoln Aston, who was a wealthy older friend of Cunandans, who in 1995 had been bludgeoned to death with a stone obelisk. So he gets his, Andrew gets his sugar daddy to move into the house of his dead ex-sugar daddy. A, quote, mentally troubled loner whom Aston had picked up was convicted of the crime. I would just, I would file that away. Okay. Well, that's not the end. It's not the end. But it turns out that Norma Blatchford was a member of a group called Gamma Moo, which was an extremely private fraternity of about 700 very rich, mostly Republican often closeted gay men who twice a year sponsor posh fly ins to cities around the world. I didn't understand a word of that. Why not? It's the most amazing statement of
Starting point is 01:08:17 all time. Maureen Orth of Vanity Fair bus open this like, it's like a gay closeted fraternity. And I'm like, what? How did this not make it to the papers? They named themselves like a fraternity. What was it called? Moo. Gamma Moo. Huh. So they basically, they're so rich that they just meet at different cities around the world. So then Andrew actually becomes a member of Gamma Moo for a little while. And he makes all these contacts within that group. So he's basically working within these incredibly power, powerful and rich kind of secretly gay men somewhere, somewhere, which is another very interesting fact of how connected this guy was. Yeah. He wasn't just some guy that snapped. This paper is so thick. I thought I was holding two pieces of paper.
Starting point is 01:09:11 I'm telling you. 30 seconds. This is why I interrupted myself. It's, we could make so many crafts out of this. Snowflakes. It's just a, just a big long paper chain with murders on the inside. Okay. Let's really focus, Karen. It's not what this podcast is called. Okay. So in the drugs and in also Andrew was really obsessed with very violent gay porn and he started getting into SNM. So the, and a lot of his friends think it was this, the drug element of his life was taking over and he was having to do things more and more and got more and more desperate because of the things that he had to do. And he also was into, there was like, he would brag about owning a warehouse that was full of things that fell off a truck and he would invite
Starting point is 01:10:02 his friends. You should come. There's VCRs and there's TVs and there's stuff and everyone's like, no, thank you. Just like trying to walk away. Wait, no, the walk away song is the song. This is no, you walk away in slow motion. Ordinary love. I don't want to, I don't want your stolen good. So he's also complaining that his sugar daddy is being cheap with him flying him first class to these secret affairs and putting him up any million dollar home and paying him thousands of dollars a month for, you know, light sex, we would imagine. So basically the sugar daddy is like, see you later. I can do this anywhere with anyone, which he couldn't believe. He was totally shocked that someone would break up with him. He then, his demeanor starts to change and there's
Starting point is 01:11:01 a kind of a sad story of this girl who in the throughout the whole biography thing is kind of defending him saying he was so sweet and jovial in the life of the party. She tells the story of seeing him in this phase and it was the last time she saw him alive and she saw him and was like, Andrew and he just was basically like, oh, hey, and hugged her and walked away. So he was like, they think he might have been into heroin. He was doing all the drugs he was dealing. They thought he was gaining weight. He just he was changing. So in April of 1997, Jeffrey trail, who's here in Minneapolis tells a friend he had this huge falling out with Andrew and quote, I've got to get out of here. They're going to kill me. He was apparently apparently Andrew asked him to work
Starting point is 01:11:43 security in his import, export business, and which basically was be a drug runner for me. And Jeffrey was like, I told him to fuck off. He's the quote. That wasn't that's not me. Amazingly, that's not me really saying the effort. Yeah, he told him to fuck off. But then he got scared because he was like, Andrew, you know, the ideas that he started threatening him police theorized that Jeffrey trail may have worn David Matson stay away from Andrew, something bad has happened. Right. So Andrew tells his friends he's going to move to San Francisco. They have a big dinner at the night that he's supposed to leave. And all of his friends at the dinner start saying, Oh, who knows Andrew better? I know I've known him this long. I've known him this long. I've known
Starting point is 01:12:25 him this long. It's just kind of a fun party table talk. And then it goes quiet and Andrew says, none of you know me and none of you know the truth. Anyway, see you later. I'll call you but you can't call me because I didn't give you my phone number. So the next day he leaves for Minneapolis. Now David Matson, his plan was to stay with David Matson. David Matson's friends were all like, why are you letting that guy stay with you? So the night he got there, they he and David Matson was the kind of person he was like always trying to help people. He was like a supporter of the underdog. He was a good guy. And so they he David took Andrew to dinner or all his work friends were the night he got here. And this woman tells a story where she was like, he was just
Starting point is 01:13:13 really aggressive and really weird. And at one he was giving David a bunch of shit about his shirt and like insulting that it wasn't like designer one of those things. And then she said something and he goes, Well, you're quite the bitch, aren't you? That's a woman he'd never met. So two nights later, Andrew invites Jeffrey trail over to David Matson's apartment. And that night Matson's neighbors told police that they heard yelling and thumping. And at one point they heard someone yell get the fuck out. So Andrew and David Matson were seen walking David's dog the next day. But then when David Matson didn't show up for work for two days after that, his friends began to worry. So they went over to his apartment, knocked on the door, and they could hear whispering inside.
Starting point is 01:14:03 But nobody came to the door. And they were really worried. So they ended up calling police. And police get there and they break in the door and they find the dead body of Jeffrey trail rolled up in a carpet. He was struck multiple times in the head with a claw hammer, which was lying nearby. Four days later, two fishermen find David Matson's body in Rush Lake. Holy shit. He'd been shot in the head and in the back with a 40 caliber pistol. So when the news reached San Diego, because they all knew that he did it, right? The news reaches San Diego, where he's known as Andrew De Silva. Silva and his picture comes up on the news as Andrew can on it and all his friends are like, wait, what? Like that's his real name. And now they see their good friends that they used to
Starting point is 01:14:49 party with is wanted for a double murder. And they're like, Oh, get that, you know, like, you're in that position. All of a sudden you're like, Oh, that weird thing he did at a party. Like, all of a sudden you're like, remembering every conversation where his one eye did like, Oh, you know, I think we were talking to somebody and they seem interested. And all of a sudden they glaze and then go somewhere else. And you're like, Okay, all right. So then basically Andrew can on and is now on the run. So he steals David Matson's Jeep and he drives to Chicago. And he gets to the Gold Coast townhouse of 75 year old real estate tycoon, Lee Miglin. Miglin was esteemed in the political and social circles of Chicago. On May 4, they find Miglin's body in his garage.
Starting point is 01:15:33 He's been stabbed repeatedly in the chest with garden shears. His throat was cut with a saw blade. His head was wrapped in masking tape. And $2,000 was missing from his apartment along with several expensive suits, gold coins and his Lexus. Police find that Miglin was a happily married man of 38 years and that he and Andrew can on and more strangers, which is a fact that Miglin's family vehemently confirms. So that night they find the Jeep around the corner from the townhouse. And it's the one that David Matson owns. So now they know Andrew can on and is on the run in a Lexus. So he's now the prime suspect in three murders. So he gets he drives to New York. And when he gets to New York, he goes shopping on 57th Street. You know, when you just killed a bunch of
Starting point is 01:16:21 people, how you do, where you go to the fancy part of town and get some jeans or whatever. Ze Cavalry Chee probably. That's right. He also went clubbing, which is what he did. On May 8, he gets back into the Lexus and he's on the run again. And just outside Philadelphia, he decides to use the car's cell phone. Now this is, you know, this is long ago when cell phones weren't that big of a deal. And so immediately the police had already been monitoring it. So immediately the police are like, he's right outside Philadelphia. So then he hears it on the radio. He's listening to the radio. And then he hears the report that he's right outside of Philadelphia. Oh, so he drives to Jersey and he pulls up to a cemetery. He finds the caretaker shoots and
Starting point is 01:17:10 kills him on site and steals his 1995 red Chevy pickup truck. Now he is the, so this four murders, he is now on the FBI's top 10 most wanted list. And he goes on to America's most wanted that week. Oh my God. And I think that's when everybody, probably all of America really came like this whole story really came to light and everyone kind of knew because there was a point in time where like this was all that was happening. It was really weird. And just the idea that there was a serial killer on the run that was trackable is so crazy or spree killer. Okay. So May 12, he arrives in South Beach in Miami. He checks into the Normandy Plaza hotel. And the owner says that they would see him. Sometimes he had black hair and sometimes he had white hair and sometimes he had curly hair
Starting point is 01:17:59 and sometimes he had straight hair. And then she goes, I think he was wearing wigs. Yeah. But they said other than that, he was really quiet and he never brought anybody in. He was really nice and that you'd never even pay attention to him. But he ends up being able to stay there from May until the beginning of July. Wow. Yeah. So he's just super low key. But they say that in retrospect, they found out he would go to a diner where cops hung out. Like he is a classic psychopath in that way. He thought he was smarter than everybody. And he was liking, he was liking the fame because this was what he always wanted. He wanted to be well known and respected and regarded and famous. And it was happening in the worst way possible.
Starting point is 01:18:36 So remembered. Yeah, exactly. Most likely to be remembered. Right. Yeah. After me, the storm. So on July 7, he's running out of money. So he takes some of the gold coins that he stole from Lee Miglin's townhouse and he sells them at a pawn shop where he signs his real name and gives a thumbprint at the pawn shop. This is required for pawn shops. Apparently, they take that documentation. They turn it into the police. Shut up. The police never see it. Because the paperwork and problems. Sure. So that just sits there like the answer to all their questions is kind of like on the top of the pile of papers. It doesn't matter. I mean, it's not probably their biggest issue at the moment. Right. Coins.
Starting point is 01:19:19 You know what I mean? There's a guy that has an office that just says gold coins on the door. And he's like, guys, I swear to God, I've got a theory. And they're like, that's fucking idiot. Don't worry about Dave. He's always got a theory about coins. So July 11th, he spotted it by a sandwich shop. Sorry. She just stuck her fingers in my tissue. I'm sorry. It's okay. It's like we do this. Sometimes like I'm trying to make a point to you. I saw you do that. I was like, oh, that's like the palm all of hand dip that I just write into your book and Kleenex. It's like I try to hide this as well. It's like I'm affected
Starting point is 01:20:06 that my nose is running constantly. You need to get an old sweater like my grandma so you can shove them up the sleeves. That's what she always did. Remember at the airport when I had a scarf on and I was just talking, we were talking and I contact blew my nose in the scarf. She blew her nose into her own scarf while staring at me like, what the fuck are you going to do about it? And I was like, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to celebrate you because that's what we do. This is my burden. Allergies are her burden. Okay. July 11th, he spotted in a sandwich shop and the cashier who is also in this special, whatever special it was, he's like, I watched. He goes, I watch America's most monitored and I really pay attention. So when he
Starting point is 01:21:00 walked up, it clicked and I was like, fuck, yes, murdering now. Those of us, we don't just put it on in the background while we're doing the dishes. We study those faces and when we go out into the world, we look for those people. Oh hell yeah. We look at license plates constantly. Yes, we're checking. Amber alert. Tell me about it. I want to help. Okay. He called police. Andrew's gone before they arrive. He spotted 10 more times in the neighborhood. Same exact thing happens. On the morning of July 15th, designer Johnny Versace who lived in the area in a gorgeous mansion because he was the biggest deal. I mean, he was the, he was the hilt of everything. And oh, now I'm going to go back a couple pages. I told you to remember this is, so I always was fascinating
Starting point is 01:21:50 with that connection. Why would he just go? How did he get there? How did he know he lived there? Whatever. Andrew, this is from that Vanity Fair article they say. Witnesses saw Andrew and Johnny Versace speak in a San Francisco nightclub, the nightclub colossus in 1990. I always wonder. Versace was in town because he designed costumes for the San Francisco opera. And that night, an eyewitness recalls, Kunanan was smugly pleased that Versace seemed to recognize him. I know you Versace said wagging a finger in the then 21 year olds direction. Lago de Como, no. And Kunanan replied, thank you for remembering senior Versace, the most pompous conversation that's ever happened in America. That morning, every morning,
Starting point is 01:22:38 Johnny Versace would get up and he would walk down to the newsstand. He would buy the newspapers and magazines and he'd buy coffee and he would walk back home. So as he's coming home, he had the key in the gate walking into his house and Andrew Kunanan walked up behind him and shot him twice in the head. He died instantly on his front steps. And this was the murder that, I mean, this was on the news. They kept showing the steps with the blood on them. And it's this gorgeous house that looks like it should be in Italy. It's like, it's so crazy. And then he walked away. So Versace's longtime companion, Anthony D'Amico, was inside the house, heard the gunshots, came out, saw him walking away and started to chase him as did neighbors and people that were
Starting point is 01:23:24 standing around because it wasn't like an empty street. It was just this cold-blooded killing in public. A bunch of people started chasing him and then he turned around and acted like he was going to shoot them. They stopped and then he ran. So then, then police find William Reese, the cemetery caretaker that got murdered. They find his stolen truck with evidence linking Kunanan to his entire murder spree in a parking garage. There were bloody clothes. There was evidence from every part of the murder spree. So the Miami police hold a press conference announcing that Andrew Kunanan was wanted for the murder of Gianni Versace. They asked the public for help and they're inundated with thousands of calls, of course, because everyone has a
Starting point is 01:24:16 sighting. And there were a thousand from across the country, 400 from within South Beach alone. Many of them were from an area off of Collins Avenue, which is down by where all the yachts are, the yachts in the house books, because you always got to come back to yachting. So they go, they trace him back to that hotel room at the Normandy Hotel. They find fashion magazines, they find hair clippers, but they don't know where he's going to turn up next. So there's these amazing kind of famous announcements that the cops would make where they're like, people, you have to help us. Like cops are on the news going, we need the public's help, but we have to find this guy because he is truly just on a legit murder spree. On July 23rd,
Starting point is 01:24:59 caretaker Fernando Carrera stopped by a large blue houseboat whose owner was away on business and we got to the front door. He noticed one of the locks was missing and then inside he heard a gunshot. So he calls police and there's a tense four hour standoff. Police cut off electricity. Eventually they shoot tear gas into the houseboat. Do they know it's him or they're just like, they don't know. They're just like, it's highly likely. So upstairs, it's a two-story houseboat. That part blew my mind. I was like, did I misread upstairs in the houseboat? Isn't it just a... Anyway, upstairs, they find the body of Andrew Canaan and lying dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head that this houseboat was three miles away from Versace's
Starting point is 01:25:47 mansion. So he barely ran at all. And while, and just the subsequent piece of information, the FBI revealed that within four to eight hours of the murder, Versace's murder, Andrew Canaan had contacted an associate on the West Coast, trying to get help for a passport to leave the country. But it just sounds like he didn't, he got discovered before he made it. And that's that. That's Andrew Canaan's murder spree. It's a lot. It was a lot. Great job, Karen. Oh, thank you. Wow. Thank you. Wow. That's such a sad story. I mean, horrible. Horrible. Just, yeah. Really one of the worst and one of the worst and then pointless. So pointless and just tragic. Just terrible. Yeah. But now, here's what's interesting, because this is a true quilt episode. Yes.
Starting point is 01:26:36 Guess what we're doing? We're going back to George's show. Right. So now we're leaving October 18th, 2017. Right. And we're going forward. And we're going back to the King's Theater. In a year, almost a year, back to the King's Theater, where we just were to listen to the hometown that was told that night. All right. Well, it's time for a hometown murder. Yeah. Oh, look, it's Fitz with the microphone. Okay. Cool. Do you have any words of wisdom for us, Vince? Try to get you guys hot pretzels, but they ran the fuck out. See you sons of bitches. Thanks for trying. Thank you for trying. Do you want to give them
Starting point is 01:27:19 the rules, the rundown? I feel like you know the rules. Yeah. Brooklyn knows. If you've had more than four cans of wine, sit down. Sit down and think about what you're doing. It needs to be local. You need to be able to tell it concisely. There needs to be a beginning, a middle, and an end. Don't leave us hanging. It's great to know what happened if you're going to tell us if somebody did something bad to somebody else. It's good to know what that person did at the end. And then, I guess, just in general, remember that everyone in the audience hates you for getting picked, so just do it quickly. And bring me a can of wine. Do you want to do it or do you want me to do it? You can do it. Okay. You're being so polite. Yeah. I hate doing this. Oh, come up this way.
Starting point is 01:28:10 Okay. It's so hard to see these faces. Yes. This is Daniela, everybody. Say hi. Hi. Over there. Hi. Isn't it terrifying? Come over here. Where are you from? So I'm actually from Orlando. Okay. But I lived here for three years. My hometown is local. I promise. Okay. Great. All right. So just go. Go ahead. So this is the murder of Danielle Thomas. She lived in Astoria, New Queens. So in 2010, I moved to New York. Danielle was a really great friend of my mom. I met her a few times. Right after I moved to New York, she moved to New York and she moved here to be with her fiance. So in 2012, sadly, there was a lot of problems with the relationship. She went to the police, got a restraining order, crazy stuff. One
Starting point is 01:29:20 day I'm literally on break from my lunch at work and my mom calls. She's like, Daniela, I don't know what to do. Danielle's dead. I couldn't believe it. So come to find out. Jason had actually strangled her to death. Horrible. Left her in the bathtub on ice. Called the police. He called the police himself. He called the police himself. Let them know to come and get her. He ran. Like two weeks later, he turned himself in and he's in jail for life. Good. Oh my God. Thank God. Again, Danielle was a really special person to my mom. My mom passed away three years ago. It's okay. And it's just a really emotional story. My sister's here, Julia. So she wanted me to say her name. But we both just really have a strong connection to that murder. And I really
Starting point is 01:30:24 thank my mom for the, my true crime obsession. Yeah. But that's the hometown right now. Sorry for your loss. That was good. That was good. Again, Danielle, she has a memorial scholarship fund that her mom and her grandmother do every year. She's from Kentucky. And look it up. Danielle Thomas memorial scholarship for Kentucky school. Thank you. Great job. No, I know. That's what it's like. Great job. Okay. Hey. She wasn't from New York, but who is? But it turned out okay. She got, she got by Elvis. Elvis came just for the end of the show. Perfect. Well, then let's wrap it up. All right. Well, thanks you guys. We will talk to you next week. Yes. Thanks so much for listening. We hope you guys are mentally doing okay. Hope you're still baking
Starting point is 01:31:32 and baking and welding and doing all the things that you've chosen to begin doing in COVID-19 quarantine. Don't cut your own hair. I mean, unless you want a shorty. That's right. And also stay sexy and don't get murdered. Elvis, you want a cookie? He's right there. Good boy.

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