My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 257 - Monster Machine

Episode Date: January 14, 2021

In this week’s episode, Karen and Georgia cover the revenge of Miriam Rodríguez and the Happy Face Killer.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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. Hello and welcome to my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hardstar. That's Karen Kilgariff. Let's do voices like this the whole time. Okay, let us tell you about true crime. That's my robot voice. Movie phone. Don't you hate when those recordings say I talk as if they're a person? I didn't understand that when you're calling your doctor. You are not human. Can you say that again? I didn't understand it.

Of course you didn't. You're a monster machine. I like when there's one in my car, no brag, where you can press a button and then you can say, call Laura Kilgariff or whatever. I try to talk like the machine so it understands me because every time I'll go call Laura Kilgariff and it goes, do you want to call Laura Kilgariff? It doesn't care how I'm pronouncing it. It's not taking in that it only does it its way. I'm scared. I won't use Siri. Is that what it's called? I won't use any of those. Alexa. Alexi and the dots and Alexa is the Russian version. That's when you go straight into the office with it. I was looking for new microwaves. This is thrilling content. They make them now where you can do it with your phone so it can be like

but that doesn't make any sense because if you put a mac and cheese in the microwave and three hours later, you're like now heat that up because you're at the microwave when you put the thing in there. It doesn't make any sense to be like, I'm on my way home and this morning when I left for work, I put the meatloaf in the microwave. In the microwave. Right. It can zap it for three minutes. Oh, what a world. Also, that is that thing where I got a new TV and they make you download an app to set the TV up. No, it's impossible to fucking use a TV these days. And also, I don't want to get involved. This is just this part of my life, of technology in my life. I don't want, there's no app. I don't need that on my phone to help me with the TV,

which is the thing I'm trying to watch to not look at my phone. Right. Did you make Jay? I'm trying to get away from the phone. Did you make Jay our millennial person help you with it or would you figure it out? Download the app. No, I could do it myself. I can download the app all by myself. The great Tyler Perry play that I love so much. Funny stuff at the top and then let's get into the natural conversation in natural speaking voices. You know what I really like are those podcasts that are that are read by actors. Have you ever did true crime ones do it every once in a while where it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's strange to read their diary entries and stuff. No, no, no, there's some that are hosted by people who are clearly actors playing

the part of like, of the host of like, don't you think that's interesting, Janet? It's one of the weirdest choices in podcasting. Podcasting is still figuring out its legs. I feel like I feel like everyone was like, oh, shit, we can make money off of that. So they just like threw everything at it. And then they went, let's get, you know, because this is just basically an audio experience. So let's get the most distancing, cold voice of an actor that we can get. Right. Let's get one. I think you said this once where it was like, that actor is known for being gorgeous. Why are you casting them for their voice? Yeah, we don't, you know, we want to see your beautiful face become lively and emotive. Yeah, go bring your beautiful face to the screen place where it belongs and

leave us a cave dwelling podcasters alone. Exactly. We have faces for podcasting. We are here for the not beauty contest. We're here for the for the voice beauty contest and not face beauty. You're not going to go and cast us podcasters in a movie because of our podcasting experience. It's not going to go the other way around. So stay out of our because guess what? You can't do this. Yeah, it's all just talking, just just talking and reading other people's work. You can't do this. Oh, no, that's actually literally exactly what they can do acting. Now, this is speaking of which, because oftentimes here in quarantine, I forget to put on the internet at all. Mm hmm. Now, does this happen to you? This is very private, but I'll say it to you and to the

other people. I'm literally sweat. Like my pits are I'm sweaty right now. So I do you ever find that your pits smell like the thing that you ate the most the day before? So like yesterday, I made tacos. And then today I was just like, who's is someone is the neighbor making tacos? And it's like, no, it's me. Oh, no, I have a similar that doesn't happen to me. But my pits always do smell like pizza. Like, oh, when I have the oh, it's to me, it's like, but it's like the pizza you'd get in high school at the like student body meeting. So like square square, oily, greasy pizza. Cool. Like you can have cheese or pepperoni. That's all they have. Right. And oil. Do you know that this is a fetish subset that we are playing into right now?

Food, food, food, food body smells. Oh, pit talk. All right. Pretty cute armpits, I will say. Oh, yeah. Is that a thing? Do people have unattractive armpits? I've never thought about just grasping at something to feel good about myself. If you had to name three beautiful parts of your body, it would be armpits. God damn it. What are you doing? Oh, I have. Who are you impeaching these days? Fuckin man. Oh, man. Just one person. Let's not get into the thing that is sitting on all of our backs like a little terror demon. I was, I was, I hate, and you know this to use the term doom scrolling because it popped up and now literally every person is saying it constantly, but it's

very accurate to the, and I did it so much last night. I scared myself and became convinced someone was in the house. Oh my God. And then I looked over and George could not have been more stretched out and like just chilled out. And then I was just like, if she barks because someone closes a car door down the street, then you don't have to worry about somebody being in the house right now. Nothing says more that it's in your head than your dog being stretched out and like realizing that the real world in your house at least is safe right now. Except I got up and just did a check because I was so freaked out and the front door was unlocked. So I was like maybe that was, it might have been my subconscious going, hey, hey, hey, get up off this couch for one second,

but good. But also it is because Frank snores in this very bizarre way that sometimes sounds like someone is trying to scare you behind you. Like he's totally silent and then he's like, oh, and he makes this like demon noise. And I was like, I get all tense and I'm like, oh, it's fucking Frank. Anyway, I scared myself last night. I keep thinking I hear Elvis about to throw up because he would do that. He threw up a lot because he would eat too fast and he ate everyone's food inside of me as I like prone to that. So you could tell when he was about to throw up because he would just make these monstrous gagging noises. And then it kind of sounds like a toilet backing up or something or like, so I

keep hearing them, hearing them, not a lot and going, oh, no. And then be like, oh, she's throw up. That's how he's like making his presence known. Sometimes it's like, people are in the afterlife and they'll send a beautiful butterfly or whatever. But Elvis is like, someone was like, whenever my mom said, whenever I see a dragon fly, that'll be like someone posted that on my comments, which I thought was really sweet. So whenever you see a dragon fly, but mine is whenever you're wretching, whenever you have the sound of wretching. When you instinctively are trying to grab like a newspaper or something to throw down underneath and like put them not on the bed. And then just, I think maybe as a tribute Mimi in the middle of

the night, the other night threw up right between Vince and I on our bed. She is, you know what? That's so beautiful of her. It's like she wrote you a poem. That's a cat version of like, here's his eulogy. Speaking of doom, one of like a historical part of this podcast is closing. I'm sure you've heard Cafe 101 where we created this podcast and where we became friends and sat for hours drinking coffee and talking about true crime. And then that's right. Let's start a podcast. What would it be? It fucking all happened at Cafe 101 in Hollywood. And they're closing. They're closing, but I can't imagine someone else. It's such a perfectly renovated space. It's such a great, like it really was day and night kind of a hot spot and such a cool hang place. I can't

imagine the movie swingers. It's where they go when they're drunk and there's that beautiful scene. I just one of my favorite scenes of what's his name? Vince Vaughn going, you grows up and you can pass those to the neighbors. He's played a food. I couldn't touch it. It's like one of my favorite scenes. That's the 101. Yes. Pre-renovations too. It was this red little place I'm so bummed for. They had the best fucking tuna melt ever. We made people meet us there. We had meetings there in the beginning. Took many meetings there. That was a great place to spot famous people who were just trying to be chill. Right. Loved that. Yeah. So that's closed. Oil Can Harry's is closing too. I know. No more line dancing in Studio City for gay men over 70s. Sorry. Best bar. Such a bummer.

That was one of those places that had been there so long and it was such a, like it was such a, you know, like an old tortoise of a place in Studio City that it was a gay bar that had line dancing, but then basically hung around long enough to become hip. Yeah. And then the young people wanted to go there. And it was like diving enough that it wasn't, you didn't, it wasn't pretentious. Right. I love that place. It's too bad. And they had karaoke upstairs. It's very sad and shocking and they're, you know, that part of things where it's like whenever we all talk about when everything gets normal again or when everyone has the vaccine or whatever, it's going to be a whole another landscape. I mean, who knows what it'll look like.

We all have a lot on our shoulders right now. We have, we have COVID fear. We have governmental takeover fear. We have violence fear. We have extreme violence here. Extreme. So extremist fear. Extremist fear and people rationalizing and justifying extremism fear, which is very upsetting to watch people make excuses or say it's fine or, I mean, there's, or call it a revolution when that's not what that is. No, it's lies. It's lies. It's lies. It's anarchy. Here's the good news on PBS. They have rebooted all, all creatures great and small the series. Okay. And it is, if you need to run and you do away from modern reality, this series is, takes place in the Scottish countryside. So it is, the background is bright green rolling hills.

And it is a young man who is becoming a country veterinarian. Okay. And I don't know what more your mother fuck and want from me than a recommendation like that because my sister's the one who actually was like, you need to watch this. It's going to make you feel better. Yeah. And it really, really did. It's like calming. It's soothing. It's visually audio, all of it. It's so good. That sounds perfect for our times. Yes. You know what I'm watching? That's kind of the exact opposite, but still soothing in its messiness that I hadn't, I just, Vincent and I have been watching it. I'd never watched it before. It's the original British version of shameless. Oh, did you watch that? I never have. No. First of all,

you have to put subtitles on. It's Manchester. It's the best accent, but I can't understand half of it. And like the accent, I can't understand. And then also half the words aren't things that we say, but right. So it's fucking brilliant. It is so good and charming and lovely. And all of the siblings, I want to hold them, but I'd never seen that. I've never seen the American version of shameless. It's great. Is it okay? Yeah. Yeah. We're the image Macy and me, Ross. I'm there. It's good. I mean, this is better. I haven't seen. I can't even say that for sure, but I promise you it's Karen. It's you would love it. Where what are you streaming it on? I think it's Hulu. Let me look. Hold on. Hulu. Hulu comes out with the hits. You got to

say. They do have a lot of good stuff. They bring it here. They bring it. Where do I find out? Netflix. That's not right. Is it the old one? British? I don't know. Netflix. Shameless. No, that's that's not it. It's Hulu. It's on Hulu. Shameless British version. You're going to love it. It's it's nuanced and funny and beautiful and sweet and sad because they're like, they don't have any money. Yeah. I mean, it's really a beautiful show. And it's like, it's like all the horrible things that are happening in the world. It's like, it's like concentrated the horrible things that are happening to them and they're this but they're this like family unit that sticks together. Yeah. Except for the dad who's a piece of shit, but he's so funny. Right.

Which is how it is sometimes. And we I was just going to say we love Manchester so very much that we have done so many or several amazing shows. Those audiences were the greatest that town is the coolest town. Coolest people. Beautiful, cool town. Our like cab driver from the airport to our hotel was like one of the hip like we didn't even belong in his presence. He was so cool. Like he knew all the musicians used to play with this band. He used to go to the what's the club called Hacienda. Hacienda. And we were like, oh, sorry, we're just these American assholes. Well, it's so funny because you asked that question. We're just like, oh, we're excited to be in Manchester. We, you know, we kind of wanted to let him know that we got the coolness

and we knew the history. But then it was just like, he was like, oh, yeah, I used to hang out down there. Like he was like, yeah, I was here for all that. I lived the movie 24 hour party people. If you need a little intro fucking great movie and it takes place in with all that noise. Yep. And Steve Coogan, who's the funniest best. Okay, let's get out of the UK. Good recommendations. And then let's go. What else are you watching? I'm switching around. Here's the problem. I keep starting shows with subtitles. So I started Ragnarok. I think that's how you pronounce it, which is on Netflix. And it's like, it's almost like a teen. It's really cool and really good. But I kept, I keep watching it going like, oh, this is almost like a Riverdale.

It's like the Norwegian Riverdale where it's like youngsters that are realizing their, their Norse gods and Norse heroes. It's great. But my problem is, especially with the fucking troubles of today, I'm watching it. And then if you look down, check Twitter to make sure that, you know, like that the nothing's been breached, then you look up and you don't know what's going on because you've missed, you know, they talk so fast and you, you have to just read constantly for, you know, 30 minutes to an hour. But that show is great. If you're looking for anything, Ragnarok, I believe Ragnarok. R-A-G-A-N-A-R-O-K. Okay. I mean, it's the only thing that's going to be even shaped like that on Netflix. So you'll find it. And it's also really popular.

Okay, cool. So it'll be on like popular. Did you watch the Ripper documentary on Netflix? I did. Fuck. Oh my God, that thing is un... God, they do it perfectly. They did. They did because the first, that's four episodes and I loved it. The first three didn't even introduce the actual killer. It was like about what happened and the victims and the time and place, which I didn't understand was so, so vital to the story. And then the last episode is just like a little bit about who he was, which I thought was great and about how, how poorly the investigation was done. They laid it out beautifully and in this way where you meet, the very first person you meet is the child of the first woman who was murdered. And then you start,

so he's first and he's just like, she never came home type thing. Him and his sister went out to look for their mother because she didn't come home and he, it looked like he was maybe five or six. It's so heartbreaking and so beautiful. But then you get into, it's from the police perspective and how they put together, well, if she was standing here and it's this time of night and she was in this bar, that means she's a prostitute. And they keep saying the word over and over and they keep, or they call them good time girls in the newspaper. And then they point out the fact that all the jobs, the industry jobs have disappeared from that town. So it sees women who are trying to feed their children. They're not, and which is like the problem you get when

you talk about women who are quote prostitutes is that you don't take into consideration the circumstances they're in. And that label, oh, and then the first victim saying, like the first thing they said about her in the press was she was a divorcee, as if they had not fucking anything to do with what happened to her. That struck me immediately. She was a 23 year old divorcee with five kids. And it's like, what does calling her divorce was obviously a way for them to say something about her morality? You know what I mean? Yes, correct. As opposed to when you hear about it a little bit more, the reason she had to leave her husband is because he was a terrible drunk. Because he also, it was that thing of he didn't,

he was out of work or whatever. So he's drinking, he's beating her up, and then he hits the kids. So they get divorced. It's like this thing where suddenly she's taking the hit for these circumstances that are totally beyond her control. And then she's just doing what it takes to survive. And that's that thing that I think slowly but surely everyone's eyes are opening to, because someone tweeted and was like, I watched this and I kept going sex work or sex work. And it's like, no, no, no. When you watch this, you have to not to correct that. Because that's they're exactly right to say that from 2021. That's what we're doing now. But what you have to do is go into 1970 or whatever it was. This was that time. Go into that world.

Understand where everybody who is now in their 60s or whatever mind you've been is coming from where these men in the police department, whether they cared or not, dictated whether your case got solved. The power that these older white men had who would never, it's just like they're... And the point was the reason we're calling, we're saying sex workers now is because when they said prostitute back then, they meant something completely different than what we mean today. They meant don't care about that. Yes. And so when you hear the word prostitute and you get super upset and offended, that's why we're not using it anymore. But you have to use that back then as what they said in the media and what they called them to show you how little they

cared about these women. Or even the... Some of them didn't care. Some had a real thing of how this kind of like, I want to judge these women. I want to push these women aside. And some of them didn't understand their own implicit bias just from being in the position that they were in. Some of them didn't get. And then some did. There was a couple of those cops who were kind of... Yes, definitely. And very affected by it and very much working against this entire system. Totally. It's just such a great... Those documentary filmmakers are brilliant. The way they laid that out and by the time... Oh, man. Even having done the story. I know. And knowing the story, first of all, there's definitely these pieces that I missed

where I'm like, oh, I wish I'd known that. I wish I'd read that. But here's what I remember is the part where those women in that area who are like, fuck you. Stop telling us. Because they did that just like they did in Canada during the Scarborough rapist when they tried to say, women should now have a curfew. They gave women a curfew and women got fucking... They were like, fuck you, fucking... You do a curfew. You're the ones that need a curfew. Stop making women... It's just so good and there's so much to learn and there's so much good stuff in that. Definitely. And that's our episode for this week. We covered the river. The end.

Also, huge spoiler alert, everybody. But that's actually been out for a while. So I feel like all the people that would listen to this show have watched that. And you know one other thing that I'd liked about it, because Vince was a little worried about watching it because he's not as into true crime as I am, but they didn't have to show a single gory image. There was not one single upsetting, of course, but nothing gory happened. You didn't see any crime scene photos that were upsetting. You didn't see anything like that. It was done so subtly that it was... And the ones that they did show were incredibly upsetting without being graphic. Yeah, you didn't see exactly.

Like there was one where she's just... Her body was just like laying down the street and they could just take pictures. That was a time where people could just walk up to the crime scene. True. It is like, is it that long ago? It doesn't seem... It's just crazy. Yeah, watch the Ripper for sure. And, but I was gonna say, guess what's starting today on Netflix? The Night Stalker. Oh, yeah. Excited for that. I'm so excited. Yes. There's so much gory shit that to me I'm a little afraid of.

Gory? It's the fucking... The devil came to earth and began to slay men, women, and children, old, young. I mean, that man, not to feed into that thing that he clearly loved to try to act like, but his crimes are some of the worst. When I did that, because I did him. Yeah, you did. And there's some that are... You can't even talk about it. It is so disturbing. It is so awful. But the interesting or exciting thing to me is that I remember it. I was there for it, you know? So like that, I'm excited to see, first of all, there's... It's SoCal, but then it's the Bay Area. Yeah.

And all those, you know, there's all those real home, close to home type of feelings about it. I can't wait. He definitely hit Irvine, I think, or like close to Irvine where I'm from, but I think I was down there too young to like really know too much about what was going on. Yeah, thankfully. 85. You were a baby. I was five. Yeah, that's too young. Um, I'm reading a book called How to Do Nothing. That's really good.

Who wrote that? It's this book by this woman named Jenny O'Dell, and it's kind of philosophical in a really cool way. It's a book that's kind of like a self-help manual. It's called How to Do Nothing, Resisting the Attention Economy. Oh. So it's kind of this... It's really philosophical, more than like a self-help book. So it's pretty lovely, and it kind of puts you in this mindset of like what it means to actually take care of yourself. It doesn't mean making a to-do list and getting everything. I have a

self-help to-do list of like, or a self-care to-do list to get shit done. And it's like, yeah, I don't... That's just as stressful as a fucking regular to-do list, you know? Yeah, that's right. That's really true. So I'm enjoying it. I've just started it, but it's a nice one so far. Oh, that sounds good. But I'm actually listening to an audio book that a Banana Boy, Scotty Landis recommended to me, and I'm so excited that he did, because it's so good. It's Petty, the Tom Petty biography, written by Warren Zanes, who was in the Del Fuegos, I believe. And so he's... It's a musician,

but he is an unbelievably good writer. So he's talking about Tom Petty's life and career, obviously, but the way he writes is so... I was listening to it this morning while I was dying my roots, and there was lines that he would read, and a descriptor or a kind of like, bringing together what it was like for him to grow up with the family he had in the 50s in Gainesville, Florida. And it's just these amazing descriptions where I'd be like, yeah, I was cheering the writing. Wow. So, yeah, if you're looking for a good book, and if you care about Tom Petty, which I believe any red-blooded American would, Warren Zanes biography of him is a beautifully, beautifully

written book. Oh, Vince is going to love that. Vince just loved Matthew McConaughey's autobiographies. Seriously, like the Beastie Boy's biography is great. Vince loves shit like that, so that's perfect for him. And he loves Tom Petty, of course, too. Yeah, he's good, Tom Petty. He'd never stopped writing hit songs. He never... Never. He started when he was like 20 and never stopped ever. Over and over and over again. It's like the best songs you've ever heard.

Yeah. And in hanging out at Largo in the 2000s or whatever, Ben Montench, who was the keyboardist for the Heartbreakers, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, hung out there and played there a lot. So, I got to like meet him and talk to him and hang out with him. Wow. He is one of the coolest, chillest dudes, but also like when he gets up and plays the piano, it is such a vibe. It is such a like... Yeah. It's such something is happening in the room.

Recognizable and like... Yes. And amazing. But he always has like this little smile on his face. He's just like, is the cool... The first time I sat in the same booth with him, I was just like, what is this life? I can't believe it. He's one of the Heartbreakers. That's so cool. Yeah. Yeah.

What else? One of our friends is back in the news, Dr. Love. Remember the story of the young man? Well, he got out of jail for... Tell us, tell us which one this was. Tell everyone. Okay. Dr. Love is a story that I covered. I mean, how long ago was it? A year. Two years ago. I think a full year.

Yeah. Year and a half. Yeah. This is a pre-COVID event in all of our lives. And he's a young man who was pretending to be a doctor to the point where he had opened doctors' offices in... Florida? Florida.

Yeah. And he got caught on the news and he then had his own press conference. It was a real journey into the mind of someone who just really wanted to be seen and known as a doctor and was not qualified to be one in any way. He went to jail for doing that, I think a couple times or at least once or whatever. He got out of jail and then this just happened. He was arrested again on New Year's Day. Oh my God. Because he worked for a shipping company and he started calling the clients of this company and just having them go ahead and wire the money directly into his bank account.

Sure. It's that easy. Yep. He got caught doing that. And then he went ahead and texted his boss saying, I'm doing everything I can to fix this situation and I'm really sorry. And it's just like, no, you can't do it. You can't do it in the pretend like it was a minor, like a mix up. Yeah. And then admit to that basically by in text.

You have to at least call so there's no paper trail. Good idea. Good point. Yes. For future, for all our future felonies. And it's, I mean, yeah, it's the idea and I know that, you know, oftentimes when we talk about the criminals that we talk about on the show, we're talking about intensely bad individuals, psychopaths, people that intend to hurt. This is not the area that Dr. Love is in, in my opinion. Dr. Love is more of a person who is trying to force the fantasy in his head out into the world

to make the world match what he wants it to be. And there's nothing I relate to more than that. Like I, look, I've already pre-written what I want to be happening. So could you all just please be doing the part I wrote you? You're saying the wrong line. Oh my God, I literally have seen this in action when we're doing an interview and you don't like the question that's been asked to us and then you just answer whatever question you think they should have asked us.

Yeah. Well, that's an old trick. That's not my idea. I learned that long ago by the professionals. Hell yeah, you don't answer the question they ask you. Jesus, what would it turn out to be if you did that? You have to tell them what you want them to know the end. So I think he's in trouble again and I think he's going back. No, three.

I think he has to go back. Yeah. Three hots in a cot, right? We're sorry, you know, I think, I think it's, it's a unfair that I have this kind of bias toward him. Whereas he's a criminal, just like other criminals. Yeah. I don't know.

I feel like I get it. I know. I understand. I get it. I want it. Sometimes, you know, you want to be a doctor so bad you just wear the jacket, you rent the office and you're like, come on, I got the posters, got the posters on the wall from the different medicines.

There's a lot of like there by the, in this podcast, there's a lot of like there by the grace of God, go I, but then there's for Karen, some there by the grace of God, I wish went I. Those are, those are the other options I could have had if I didn't get myself together enough to be a podcaster. Yeah. I absolutely would have rented some office space. There's time. There's time.

Oh, could that be my safety net is fraud? I want you to dream big, Karen. Don't ever, don't ever put yourself in a box. There's so many of us that have them that are so afraid of having imposter syndrome when in fact Dr. Love, he has whatever the exact reverse, the 180 of imposter syndrome is, which is like no bitch. I am a doctor. Yeah.

Do you think he's like sitting in the cell right now going like, I guess I shouldn't have done that or I'll never do that again. Fuck no. No, he's, he's sitting in cell going, I didn't actually do it. You're wrong. Right. Or I did that wrong. I need to try harder next time.

Yeah. Next time I'm going to have them wire their money into a third account. That's right. That doesn't have my name on it. Offshore baby. Now, should we do some, some exactly right now? Okay, I don't know if you guys know this, but we have a podcast network and it's growing and we love it and it's just a family.

It's so fun. All these shows are doing so good and their people are really responding to them. Thank you guys so much for supporting all of them because they're all, they're all little stars in their own departments. Yeah. Speaking of little stars in our department. Oh, me and Karen and Karen Kilgariff and Chris Fairbanks have a podcast called Do You Need A Ride? Correct.

And they were, and it's so much fun and they had a crossover episode with bananas, the other podcast of, that we have with, with weird funny news hosted by Scotty Landis and Kurt Bronner and so Scotty was on Do You Need A Ride this week? That's right. And it's really, really funny and Scotty's just a joy to be around. He is, I sent it to him on the show. It was just like, you're, you're, or maybe I didn't say to him on the show, but I did tell him, I was like, you're just made to be a podcaster because you're great at bullshitting

and chit chatting, but also his speaking voice is just, it's like ASMR. And did we ever talk about the fact that he looks like Paul Holes? We've talked about that, right? No. He fucking looks exactly like, like a younger Paul Holes. He's Paul Holes nephew. His Paul Holes like skateboarding nephew. Yes.

And then on, on the bananas Instagram, which is so funny because they're so good at social media, they posted the photos of when Kurt took a, he wanted to give the flight, a flightless bird the gift of flight. So they took, they took a chicken on an air balloon, hot air balloon ride. And there's the last photos of that on the bananas Instagram. Yep. It's all, it's all been recorded. Oh, also this podcast will kill you.

See, this podcast will kill you has been around since day one. And so sometimes they don't get the love that they deserve because they're a huge podcast that does great. They're just a huge hit too. Yeah. They're a, they're a true hit, but like, you know, they're a stalwart. So they don't get the, the proper affection. So this week they talk about the virus rubella, which is used to be one of my favorite comedy

references. Cause it's like a very weird, obscure children's disease that I used to love to throw around every once in a while. A little while. It's a, yeah. So that came out Tuesday. So, so listen to that. It's waiting for you.

Speaking of smart, funny, brilliant women, the podcast, I saw what you did that came out recently with Millie and Danielle this week, they do, they cover the two movies and talk about the movie Bronson from 2008. And then the movie Wolf of Wall Street from 2013, which I can't wait to hear them talk about what a fucking movie. And the, the theme for these movies is not known for subtlety. But I tried to watch Bronson once and I think I'm going to listen to this podcast and then reapproach Bronson.

I'm not smart. Um, because it was, it was hard for me to get through, uh, so I think I'm going to listen to what they have to say about it and then reapproach with fresh eyes. That's perfect. I said no gifts is, uh, the, the guests this week is none other than Amy Mann, the incredible musician who wrote the theme song for, I said no gifts. So there's this whole like, you know, insular thing. But I also wanted to mention, just in case you like wanted to know more about Bridger.

She's written other songs. Obviously. I know that. I didn't mean just kidding. It's the way that, the way that came out. It was like the amazing musician who wrote the theme song or like, you know, And also the entire soundtrack for Magnolia. And she's just incredible.

Obviously. I mean, yeah. Yeah. I recently, I don't know how I didn't know this, but his Instagram, which is Bridger underscore W, did you know it's only photos of trash that he takes in the wild? Like by the entire Instagram feed is photos he finds trash. He's come upon in the world. It is photo after photo of fucking weird trash.

Bridger is truly, he's truly one of the funniest people on the planet. He is one of, he is a renowned like TV writer. Everybody that knows him loves him and knows he's the funniest. We have a game night that we do with a group of our friends and we play quip lash. Yeah. And we had, it's the shit he does, but he, so we, he and I both had the same question, which was a bad name for a US Navy ship would be the USS blank. And I wrote the USS bomb me and this was the USS Shannon.

And then of course he won that round. We were all crying laughing. It was just like, that's him in a nutshell. That's like, Bridger is truly unique. You've met him. He's so proper and he's like, you know, well dressed and very kind of subdued. And then it's just photo after photo of trash. Yes.

It's, I mean, I love that brain. That's such a great brain to do that. He doesn't have to like do a big dance. No. I mean, he's just being funny and whether you join in or not is not his problem. He doesn't really care. It's the greatest. That's right.

So this is all leading up to our new announcement, which we're very, very excited about. We tweeted about it yesterday, but it's so cool. The podcast, Lady to Lady is now going to be on. They've been around for a long time and now they're going to be on the exactly right network and we are so thrilled to have them. Barbara Gray, Brandy Posey, Tess Barker. They're the three hosts.

They are all brilliant standup comics. Tess is an amazing journalist. They're, Brandy is an amazing comedy show producer. Like they're all great and very powerful women in their own ways. And now their amazing podcast that already has its own huge following is going to be on our network. Hundreds of episodes, right? Yeah.

And so every Wednesday, they're going to have a comedic guest hang out in their adult treehouse. They're going to play games. They're going to have advice and they're going to tell embarrassing stories and have all these tangents. It's a really fun show. Some of their past guests include the great standup, Beth Stirling, my favorite murder friend of the show, Guy Branham, scam goddess, Lacey Mosley, some of the great comedy minds of the 21st century.

They've had tons of people on that show. So yeah, be sure to subscribe to Lady to Lady to hear all their new episodes on Wednesday. And it's available on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And definitely stick around to listen to their trailer at the end of this show. And then if you want to follow them on Twitter, they're at Lady to Lady Comedy or Instagram at Lady to Lady Comedy. Welcome, Lady to Lady, that they exactly right family. Once we're finally able to have a party in the future, they're going to be a great

addition to those parties. This party is going to be, I say 20, fall of 2022. Epic. This party is going to have everything. And then we have a new stay sexy beanie and this really cute, like winter woven sweater in the exactly, nope, in the state, in the, where am I? In the, my favorite murder store at myfavoritmurder.com. So check out all the cute, new and fun, not just cute.

Interesting new merch we have there all the time. That's right. It's the merch just keeps coming. That's right. So always check in on that store. Definitely. Do it. Looking for a better cooking routine?

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So the story I'm going to do this week is The Revenge of Miriam Rodriguez. Okay. So basically what I'm about to tell you is a very boiled down version of this article that was published in December in the New York Times and it was entitled She Stalked Her Daughters Killers Across Mexico One by One. I saw that. I saw that headline but I didn't read it. I like text it to myself and then forgot.

Okay. Yeah. So I did. It was written by an investigative journalist named Azam Ahmed. You should absolutely read that original article. It's an unbelievable story and he is an incredibly talented investigative reporter. His writing has twice been submitted for the Pulitzer Prize. It is an amazing read and obviously there's tons more details in this article.

I'm giving you the Cliff's Notes version. Great. I'd like to thank listener Elle. Their Twitter handle is at ESLINZZ. So they sent me the article the day it was published with the simple message, have you seen this? Great. So I was just like, ooh, yeah.

So it was the simplicity of the question made me dive right in. I also got information from The Guardian and The Wall Street Journal, Mexico News Daily, and SocialistWorker.org. Okay. So this starts in 2014. 54-year-old Miriam Rodriguez. That's the thing I wanted to say is, of course, pre-apologies for me taking French in high school and not Spanish.

So there's definitely going to be mispronunciations or just very white pronunciations. My apologies. I'm going to do my best. I looked up a lot of these pronunciations, but every time you go, like, I know how the lady said it on the YouTube pronunciation video, but I don't have the guts to do what she did. Thitto.

Yeah, I understand. Just feel stupid. Okay. 54-year-old Miriam Rodriguez lives with her family in a small orange house in San Fernando, which is, that's the city, in Temo Lépis, which is the state in Mexico. It's her and her husband, and she has three children, Luis, Azalea, and Karen. So Miriam works really hard to support her family. She runs a cowboy apparel shop called Rodeo Boots in town.

And when she's not at that shop, she works as a nanny for a family just over the border in Texas. Many, just to give you the sense of what's going on in this area of Mexico, lots of bars and restaurants have closed because of the constant shootouts and gang violence in that area. So the fact that they have this Rodeo Boots is really something, and it must have been a pretty successful store because it was very difficult for businesses to stay in business with the kind of violence that's happening there. So this is a very oversimplified explanation of the situation in this area of northern Mexico,

very obviously very oversimplified. Definitely read Azama Med's article about this because he is actually an embedded reporter, so he really knows it and explains it correctly. I'm just trying to give you the general sense because we all hear about Mexican drug cartels and gang violence in that way, but it's obviously, it's incredibly, it's layered, it's old, it's highly political, and I have no true sense of it just in the simplified sense of what's in this article. Okay, so the city of San Fernando sits in the northern part of the Mexican state of Tamolipus.

That state shares its border with the southernmost point of Texas, and there's two main highways that lead to the Mexico-Texas border that run through San Fernando. So San Fernando is basically two hours away from the Mexico-Texas border. Okay. And because drug cartels smuggle drugs into the U.S. using this highway, the location of the city of San Fernando has made it the subject of cartel violence for decades. So this is actually a lot like Murder in the Bayou, that series that I told you about, where basically it was a tiny city, but because it was on this highway in between New Orleans and Texas or whatever, that was just like, yeah, for drugs. And so same thing

happening in San Fernando. In the 1990s, some local politicians decided to enlist the cartel's help in securing and maintaining their power, but that cartel slowly made their way into the political arena by demanding quotas in exchange for their help. So they got public works contracts, they got, they operated waterworks, they had transit and municipal police contracts. Wow, like embedded. Yeah. So then in 2010, tensions between different factions within the Gulf cartel over drug territories began to heat up. And so this, there was a split and the Zetas who were a group within that group basically split off and turned on their bosses. And so then the Mexican government tries to declare its own war on drugs and organized

crime. But by this time, the connections between government and the cartels is too strong and they can't just snuff out the cartels because they're already empowered. And so according to the Wall Street Journal, from 2010 to about 2018, roughly 250,000 people have been murdered and about 37,000 are reported as disappeared that are victims of this war on crime that the government tried to wage on the cartels. So former presidential candidate, Josefina Vasquez Mota is quoted in The Guardian as saying, there are two governments here in Temulipus. There's a government from 9am to 6pm. And then there's another one from 6pm to 9am. Wow. The first was elected and the second imposes itself through kidnappings, extortion, disappearances, bullets, and death.

So that's just the general sense in the most oversimplified way of who, of what's at play. So Miriam's son, Luis has moved to the capital city, which is Ciudad Victoria, to open up his own store. And her older daughter, Azalea, still lives in San Fernando, but she lives at her own house. And then her younger daughter, 20 year old Karen, lives at home with Miriam and her husband. So when Karen isn't going to school, she helps her mom by working at their family store. Okay. So on January 23, 2014, Karen's driving the family truck on her way home from working at the boot shop. And she pulls up to an intersection waiting to merge into traffic. But before she can, two trucks pull up on either side of her and a group of armed men get out of the trucks.

They force their way into Karen's truck. One man gets behind the wheel and they drive off with Karen as their hostage. Oh my God. So they take Karen back to the family house, but no one else is home there. Miriam is up in Texas, nannying. And so they, they tie Karen up, they gagger and they throw her on the living room floor. And then to everyone's surprise, there's a knock on the door. It's Karen's uncle's mechanic who came by to fix the family truck. Fuck. Okay. So the, the armed gang is caught off guard. So they now kidnap the mechanic as well. But then eventually they end up letting him go. Do you know, sorry, I mean, you might talk about this. Are they targeted because they're like a family that owns a business or is it just a

random kidnapping? It doesn't say in this article or in, in the other news stories that I read, but it would make sense that because they own this business, that clearly they have money to be tapped. Okay. I would, I would assume that sounds like editorial. Yeah. So when Miriam comes home, she finds Karen isn't there. Then the mechanic comes, tells her what happened. Miriam gets all the details from the mechanic and soon after the ransom calls begin. So an anonymous voice on the other end of the phone threatens to harm Karen and come after the rest of the family if the Rodriguez's don't pay a ransom. So the family assumes that this is most likely the work of the Zetas and they take it very, very seriously. And in fact, Miriam and her husband go to take out

a loan at the local bank to pay the ransom. These kidnappings are so common. There's a bank dedicated to offering lines of credit for paying ransom. Holy shit. And then you wonder if they're in on it too, because they're getting interest on ransom. I mean, it's, it's not, it's not good when you have a bank that's dedicated to ransom. That's how common kidnapping and this kind of stuff is horrifying. Yeah. So following the captor's instructions, Karen's father drops the money at a spot near a health clinic. Then he's told to go to a local cemetery where he waits for Karen to be released. She never comes. So this is just the first of several ransom payments. The Rodriguez family is forced to make and each time they come up with the money,

they leave it at the drop off location and yet Karen never appears. So after months of this back and forth with false promises and mounting ransom fees, Miriam, that's fucking crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Miriam starts to get angry. She finally finds a way to contact the Zetas directly and asks for a meeting. This is a middle-aged woman who's like, I'm going to call the cartel myself. Yeah. Yeah. Surprisingly, they agree. So she goes to a restaurant in town called El Jr. Is the, is my way to pronounce it. Okay. Where she meets a member of the Zetas. He doesn't give his name. He's described as a slender young man with a clean shaven face wearing a walkie-talkie on his hip. Miriam begs him to let Karen come home, but he informs her the Zetas have nothing to do

with this kidnapping. Instead, he offers to help Miriam find Karen himself for a fee of $2,000. So Miriam's skeptical, but she has no other choice. So she agrees to pay him this fee. And as the meeting ends, she hears a voice on the walkie-talkie calling the man by his first name, which is Sama. So in the days after their meeting, Miriam calls Sama to check in and see how his hunt is going. But after a week, he stops answering her calls entirely. Meanwhile, she's still receiving calls from the people claiming to be the abductors asking for more ransom money, usually to the tune of about $500. And the family pays every fee goes to every drop site. Karen is never returned. Their hope is starting to wane. And one morning, a few weeks after their last ransom payment

is made with no results, Miriam comes downstairs and announces to Azalea that she believes Karen is never coming back. She can feel it in her heart. She knows her daughter is dead. So she now vows to hunt down every last person who's involved with her daughter, Karen's disappearance. Okay. So now Miriam armed with just this man's first name and the memory of his face scours her daughter's social media, trying to track down Sama. I also don't know if that's the correct way to pronounce Sama, but I'm just saying it that way. She comes up empty handed. So she goes to the mechanic that got kidnapped along with Karen that day. She described Sama's appearance to him and he confirms, yes, he was there that day that

Karen was kidnapped. He was one of those men. So Miriam now knows that at least one of the people that she's looking for. So she continues searching Facebook. And then one morning when she's lying on the couch, she happens to run across a photo of Sama. And in the picture, he's standing beside a young woman who's wearing a uniform for an ice cream shop. So she digs around and till she can find the name of this ice cream shop, she finds out that it's located in Ciudad Victoria. And that's where her son lives, which is two hours south of San Fernando. She spends weeks staking out this ice cream shop. Holy shit. She learns the young woman's working hours and she basically hopes that one of these days, Sama's going to show up to see her. And he finally does. She

notices Sama arrived to pick up the woman after her shift and she discreetly follows both of them home and writes down their address. Oh my God. Miriam doesn't want to go to the police yet until she's collected enough information so that they can arrest him. So she knows this is all just kind of, you know, so basically she realizes she's going to have to collect enough information to get the police to listen to her and do something. So what she does is cuts her hair, dies it bright red. She grabs an old uniform for when she used to work at her job at the health ministry. She puts it on, she makes a fake government ID for herself, and she starts going door to door in Sama's neighborhood pretending that she's conducting a poll. So she fucking ends

up getting his last name and all the information she can about him and what he does and everything from his neighbors. So she... What? That's brilliant. It's so fucking genius and it's so like, you know, this is, you've woken up the fucking like the Tigris in her. You have taken her child and she's fucking coming for you. So she basically goes to the authorities. No one will help her. She asks local police, they say no. She goes to the state police, they say no. Finally, she goes to the federal police until one officer there who asked to remain anonymous in this story for fear of retaliation. Yeah. And that's really, this is really a thing like I'm nervous to say the names of these sub gangs in these cartels because this is serious shit. Yeah. And these people are not,

this is not, this is no joke. Totally. Obviously. Right. There are people in Mexico that live underneath this fucking threat of violence and this threat of just assassination all day, every day and kidnapping and violence. So finally, finally, if one federal officer agrees to help her, she gives him the file of information that she's gathered on Samma. The officer says he quote, he's never seen anything like it. The details and the information gathered by this woman working all alone were incredible. So with this officer's help, they're able to issue an arrest warrant. But Samma must have gotten word that someone was asking about him because then that's when they realize he's skipped town. But Miriam's not discouraged. She decides that she can use the

information that she has on Samma to try to track down the remaining members of his crew. Using those same techniques, she built a, she builds a portfolio of names and photographs from social media and creates her quote hit list. So weeks later, it's September 15th, 2014. And that's Mexico's Independence Day. And Miriam's son Luis is getting ready to close up his shop in Ciudad, Victoria. There's just one last customer in the shop. And when Luis takes a closer look at him, he realizes it's Samma. So he calls his mom letting her know that he has spotted him and that he then he stealthily trails Samma as he leaves the store. So Miriam alerts the police and they corner Samma in the central plaza. When they go to arrest him, he tries to fake a heart

condition. But they make the arrest anyway. And once he's questioned, he starts giving up names. And one of the names he gives up is that of someone named Christian Gonzalez, who's just 18 years old, which is the other part of this. It's such a bad situation that there's a lot of people who don't have a choice. It's that kind of thing where it's so extreme. Getting into the cartel sometimes isn't a choice. And sometimes it's there's kind of nothing else. Not to say it's justified or anything, but or you grew up in it too. Like this might be his entire family. Completely. And yeah, who knows. But people are trying to survive. They're trying to get by in this extremely, extremely violent and bad situation. So he so basically they arrest Christian Gonzalez.

He's taken to the station to be interrogated. Miriam's gone down to the station. So she can be there. She took her friend Idalia with her. They're sitting outside the interrogation room. She hears the boy ask for his mother and for some food. So she struck Miriam struck by the realization that this is just a kid. So she slips into the interrogation room. Oh dear. She is this woman is unbelievable. She slips into the interrogation room, gives Christian basically her lunch, which was some fried chicken and she buys him a Coke. And she tells her friend Idalia that quote, he's still a child no matter what he did. And I am still a mother. Oh my god. So Miriam wins Christian over and he ends up spilling all the information that he has to the

police. He agrees to take them to the ranch where the victims were killed and where the bodies are still buried. So this ranch sits at the end of a dirt road. It's not far from a bar barbecue spot where Miriam and her daughter, Idalia, ate two days after Karen's kidnapping. The ranch has since been abandoned as Mexican Marines discovered this cartel hiding spot and killed six of the gang members there in a shootout. But there's still an old tractor that marks the spot where multiple victims bodies have been buried. Oh my god. So the investigators begin to dig there and Miriam goes of course, because she's basically part of the police department now. So as the investigators are digging, Miriam looks around the property for signs of Karen. She finds

bone shards. She finds a noose hanging from a tree. And finally she finds a stack of victims' personal belongings. And among those items, she spots a seat cushion from the family truck and then Karen's scarf. Her worst fears are now confirmed. So when the forensics team tries to tell Miriam that there's no sign of Karen's remains buried with the victims by the tractor, Miriam refuses to accept that answer. She presses them to re-examine their findings for a full year until they finally identify a piece of Karen's femur among those remains. And Karen is now officially confirmed as one of the dead. Jesus. So on her way home from being at that ranch, that abandoned ranch, Miriam spots someone she knows eating alone at the barbecue restaurant,

a woman named Elvia Bettencourt. Miriam knew Elvia from when she was a little kid and she knew that she had a very rough childhood. She went through some terrible stuff and because of that, Miriam used to give her Karen's old clothes. So Miriam stops and asks Elvia if she's heard anything about Karen. Elvia says she hasn't. So San Fernando is not a big town. Almost everyone's heard about Karen's kidnapping and disappearance. It suddenly dawns on Miriam. Elvia might be keeping watch over the ranch for the cartel. So back at home, Miriam goes back to the social media research and she finds Elvia is currently dating one of the gang members who's on Miriam's list as one of Karen's captors. He's in jail. This man is in jail for a different crime. So Miriam

starts tailing Elvia on her jail visits. And at the same time, the police look into Elvia's phone records and find that some of the ransom calls to the Rodriguez's home had come from Elvia's house. They secure an arrest warrant and they arrest her on the way home from visiting her boyfriend in jail. So basically for the next three years, from 2014 to 2017, Miriam continues her hunt for the names on her list. Some of them are already dead or in jail for other crimes, but anyone still free is considered fair game. And even the ones who've moved on from their life of crime. So there was one man who had been a florist before joining the cartel. And since he'd left the gang, he'd gone back to selling flowers by the border in by the border of Texas. Miriam

manages to befriend some of this man's relatives, and they basically tip her off to where and when he sells his flowers on this bridge leading into Texas. So when she gets there, she spots him, but now he's selling sunglasses. When she gets close, he recognizes her, he takes off running, and this middle-aged woman chases this man down and tackles him to the ground. She pulls a pistol out of her purse and says, if you move, I'll shoot you. And she holds him there for almost an hour until the police finally come and arrest him. This is a movie. I mean, it completely is a movie. Another one of these people that she tracks down is a man named Enrique Flores, who is now a born again Christian, who Miriam tracks down to a small, the small town of Aldama. There she befriends

his grandmother, who points her in the direction of Enrique's church. Miriam finds him there one Sunday morning and corners him. When the members of the congregation beg Miriam to show him some compassion, she fires back, where was his compassion when they killed my daughter? So now Miriam's starting to gain a huge reputation in the area, of course, because as much as they all want cartel violence to end, no one citizen has ever been brave enough to stand up to them or especially take them on, not until Miriam Rodriguez. So soon other families whose loved ones have been kidnapped and haven't received any help from the authorities start to band together behind her. A group of 600 families calling themselves the San Fernando Collective for the Disappeared

begin working together to search for missing loved ones. While most respect Miriam's tenacity, many also fear for her life, saying that she's playing with fire going up against the cartels. But to that, Miriam says, I don't care if they kill me, I died the day they killed my daughter. I want to end this and I'm going to take out the people who hurt my daughter and they can do whatever they want to me. So she is not fucking around. Okay, so around midnight on March 22, 2017, 29 inmates tunnel out and escape from the prison in Ciudad Victoria. Miriam finds out that one of the killers that she put behind bars for murdering Karen has escaped. So, reacting quickly, the authorities managed to recapture 10 of these inmates by

9 a.m. the next morning. But according to the state, the killer Miriam fears the most has been recaptured. Still concerned for her and her family's safety, Miriam asked the police for special protection. They promised to send extra patrol cars to the Rodriguez's home and business. Luis and Azalea, Miriam's husband and daughter, are still worried. But despite the rising dangers around her, Miriam presses on with her search for her daughter's killers. So by April of 2017, this has been three years, Miriam tracks down yet another gang member involved in Karen's kidnapping. This time it's a woman who has since left San Fernando for Ciudad Victoria, where she's taking a nannying job for a family. Miriam stakes out the woman's home from her car

for days. She's waiting for the woman to show so she can make her move. At one point Miriam wears down her car battery listening to the radio and she has to call her son Luis to kind of like quietly and secretly come and give her car a jump while she's sitting out there. When the woman finally does emerge, Miriam alerts the police, they descend on the house and they arrest the woman and Miriam is running up toward them as they're arresting her and she trips and fractures her foot. Oh no. She's just fucking going for it. So it's a month later, it's May 10th, 2017, and that's Mexico's Mother's Day. So Miriam is coming home at about 10.21 pm. Her foot's still in the cast, so she's using crutches. So she parks on the street and she's

hobbling out of her car and slowly making her way up to her house. But before she can get to her door, a white Nissan truck pulls up behind her and they fire 13 rounds at Miriam. Her husband inside the house hears this and runs out only to find Miriam laying face down in the street. Her hand tucked inside her purse reaching for her gun. An ambulance arrives quickly, but Miriam dies on the way to the hospital. Oh, this is not how I expected this to fucking happen. Holy shit. Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, this is a woman who took on the drug cartel. That's serious. Yeah. So having made such a name for herself, Miriam's death really makes an impact. Over the course of the next few months, police track down and arrest two of the hit men responsible

for murdering her. The third killer puts up a fight. He is ultimately gunned down by the police. Though the hit men are all brought to justice, the question of who exactly put out the hit on Miriam remains a mystery. And it's one that plagues her son, Louise, for months. But he knows that if he pushes too hard to find them, death will also come for him. So he takes a slightly more patient and low key approach to seeking justice. And justice does come one last time for Miriam and Karen. One month after Miriam's murdered in June of 2017, the police in the state of Veracruz arrest another suspect in Karen's murder. This time it's a young woman who'd run off to Veracruz with her young son to work as a taxi driver. Police were able to find her by using

the information Miriam had gathered before her own murder, technically making this arrest her final capture. So Miriam's son, Louise, vows to pick up where his mom left off, helping other families to find their missing loved ones. He's careful not to make the same mistake that led to Miriam's death. Rather than trying to punish cartel members, he and the families he works with focus on getting their missing loved ones returned alive. And over time, the strength of that collective fades, crime conditions in San Fernando remain largely the same. And the members of the collective splinter off into their own separate smaller parties. But the people of San Fernando are deeply affected by Miriam's bravery and dedication. So much so that they honor her with a bronze plaque

in the city's central plaza. When all of a sudden done, Miriam Rodriguez is responsible for the arrests of 10 people who were involved in the kidnap and murder of her daughter, Karen. And that is the unbelievable story of Miriam Rodriguez, the grieving mother who single-handedly took on the cartel to avenge her daughter's death. Wow. Can you believe that? Shit. Good job. Yeah. I'm going to do the happy face killer. Oh, wow. Yeah. Which I think I didn't totally understand for a long time because there's also the smiley face killer. Yeah. Which I was like, it doesn't seem like it's maybe real. I don't really understand it. But then I kind of realized that there's these two stories. I'm going to do the happy face killer, which is an absolute

fucking serial killer. True story. I got info from an old LA Times article by Barry Siegel, a daily news article by Mara Bobson, BBC, ABC News, Mental Floss article by Best Lovejoy, a Rolling Stone article by Laura Barcella, and then a podcast called Happy Face, which I will talk more about later. January 1990 in Oregon, a woman in her late 50s name Laverne Palvinac was ready to end the abusive relationship she was in with, had been in for 10 years with her live-in boyfriend named John Sosnovsky. So Laverne, she had already had a history of reporting her boyfriend to the police on phony charges every time they fought. And actually eight months earlier in the spring of 1989, she had called the FBI and falsely accused him of

robbing banks. So it's like kind of to get him in trouble and get him out of the house. Maybe that's what she would do. In January 1990, she's ready to get rid of him again. So this time around Laverne, who in the 1999 made for TV movie, The Happy Face Murders was played by a very disheveled Anne Margaret, if you can believe it. Oh, wow. I know. She's an avid reader of mysteries and true crime books. So she loves all that stuff. And she had read some details in the newspaper about the recent discovery of the body of a local woman who had been discovered on January 22, 1990. She had been discovered by a student from Mount Hood Community College, who had been bicycling along the old Columbia River Highway, it's east of Portland. And she had found this,

the body of a woman lying on the side of an embankment. And the woman had been beaten, sexually assaulted and strangled. So the victims identified through sketches shown on the media as 23 year old Tanya Bennett from Portland, Oregon. And Tanya was described as friendly and outgoing and someone who'd never met a stranger. And she had last been seen alive by her parents on January 21. And the day before she was found and then she had been at a bar that night. So reading about this Laverne devises a plan to pin the murder on her boyfriend, thus sending him out of her life and into prison. So on February, I know, she ain't got it right. No, that's not a good plan. No. So on February 5, 1990, she anonymously calls the police department claiming

she had overheard a man in a bar bragging about committing the murder. And so she told them the name of her boyfriend, and who was a 39 year old John Sovnovsky, but they had misspelled his name and the report that was taken down. So the sheriff's office isn't able to follow up on the tip. And so Laverne waits a week and she's like, what the fuck calls them back. And this time they get the name correct. And so law enforcement begins investigating John as a potential suspect in the murder. And they were able to find employees at a cafe who did recall a frequent customer identified as John boasting that he had murdered a woman he met in a bar. So he was, it seems like he might have been actually taking, taking, what's the word, responsibility for this and bragging

about it. And a waitress told police that quote, he was laughing, he thought it was all a big joke. So John though denies having anything to do with the murder and Laverne kept changing her story. And this is like a grandma type, by the way, it's, it's like the law enforcement, they go over there and she like makes them coffee and she seems really helpful and, you know, this like little old lady type of person. So they're like, it's not like she's some, you know, criminal that they shouldn't be trusting. Sorry, she's old. She's like, she's 50, 50 years old. She's in her late 50s. Sorry. Grandma type though, I said. She's just wearing, she's wearing a sweater over her shoulders. Exactly. Shampoo set. She's got a shampoo set. Got it. Got it. She's not wearing tons of eyeliner with

black hair. Got it. She's in her late 50s. I think she's like 59 as well. So, you know, she's like a grandma type. And it's also in the Pacific Northwest. I feel like 50 late 50s is a different person. You're treading very, very thin ice, very thin ice with me and everyone in the PN dubs. All right. Well, listen, if you're still listening, let me keep telling you. If you're not curious. Right. That's why I explain that she's a grandma type is because I don't. Okay, here we go. Digging. So, and Laverne keeps changing her story as well. So they should see that something is fishy, but they don't. And she then goes on to make up the story that John forced her to take part in the rape and murder as well. Like all these different stories, but long story short,

despite no forensics or physical evidence, no details that hadn't been published being brought to light by Laverne and several conflicting eyewitness accounts and continuing to alter her story. And then finally recanting her confession and admitting that she was trying to frame her boyfriend, both Laverne and John are tried for the murder of Tonya Bennett, both of them. Yeah. So, and so I think Laverne was like, oh, shit, this is not what I expected to happen. Yeah. And Laverne is ultimately convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison for her alleged role in the crime. And John, seeing that they that they were able to sentence this little old lady, he's like, well, I'm I'm fucked. Sorry. So he he cuts a deal and pleads no contest to felony

murder and kidnapping, which lands him a life sentence. So during the trial, a piece of evidence comes to light. So while they're both locked up, so they couldn't have done this themselves, someone had been confessing to Tonya Bennett's murder. The first confession showed up inside a rest stop bathroom in Livingston, Montana, where someone had scrawled the message, quote, I killed Tonya Bennett, January 21, 1990 in Portland, Oregon, Oregon. I beat her to death, raped her, and I loved it. Yes, I'm sick, but I enjoy myself too. Two people took the blame, and I'm free. Whoa. That is really fucking specific. It is. Like if you walked into the bathroom, you'd just be like, okay, get me some police tape. Like this is just I think it's not

like I killed someone. So it's like, here's fucking details. So I think that's why people have it in. Soon another message was discovered in a rest stop closer to the actual where the crime had happened in Umatilla, Oregon, that said, quote, I killed Tonya Bennett in Portland, two people got the blame so I can kill again. So both messages were signed with a really distinctive happy face sketch, and the author is untraceable. So it's basically like the happy face where you put a circle around it, you know, detectives, which is like the creepiest thing to sign with a sign of fucking confession to murder. That's just all murderers are creepy. They mean there's creeps. Yeah. Detectives in the process. So you'd be like, you think you'd

see this and be like, oh, the people we have locked up are innocent, right? But detectives and prosecutors in Portland make a really good point that's maybe one of like an unknown friend of John and Laverne had wrote the graffiti in an effort to cast their doubt in their guilt. You know what I mean? Like there's no way. Yeah. Which I think reasonable. Yeah. At first I was like, oh, but the killer confessed. And it's like, not really. Yeah. So the judge bars the message from the trial. It's saying it's hearsay. There's no evidentiary value and therefore cannot be introduced in John and Laverne's trial, which at first I was like, what? And then it's total hearsay. It's literal writing on the bathroom wall. It's literally about as hearsay-ish as I

think you can be. Exactly. So if Laverne had never falsely confessed, though, or perhaps if law enforcement had questioned her confession a little more and looked a little deeper into it, perhaps the serial killer who was to become known as the happy face killer would have been caught before at least seven more women became victims. Because unfortunately, the real killer was still out there. So let's talk about the happy face killer. His name was Keith Hunter Jesperson, and he was born on April 6, 1955 in Chilliwack, British Columbia. I mean, it's all the same stuff we've always heard. It's absolutely horrifying. Of course, his father was an abusive piece of shit, domineering violent alcoholic, and specifically singled out Keith for abusive

treatment over his siblings. So it was all directed at Keith. The family moved to Sella, Washington when they were young while Jesperson had trouble fitting in and making friends because he ended up being as an adult six foot six inches tall. So even as a little kid, he was huge. In fact, his brother's nicknamed him Igor, which is like so shitty. So we had a hard time making friends and fitting in and that nickname stuck with him. He was shy, had no friends, played by himself. He would often get into trouble for behaving badly, sometimes violently, and we'd be severely punished by his father, including beatings with a belt, sometimes in front of other people to humiliate him. And in one case, it says he received an electric shock from his

father as a kid. Oh, Jesus. I know. And beginning as young as five years old, he would capture and torture animals, which seemed like kind of a normal thing in the family, like they would hunt animals and skin them. So it wasn't like, like he was kind of hunting and capturing maybe, but torture is just that's where it goes off the rails. So I think he got comfortable with it. And so torture was his next step. Just to just as a side note, though, as as empathetic as we want to feel about this, the beginning of the Tom Petty biography is all about how his dad used to beat the living shit out of him when he was five years old. So again, and most of the people listening to this know this, but it has nothing to do with who you become. That's right. It's not

an excuse. I'm giving up. I feel like we have to give a little background, but I don't want to dwell on it and say they made him a serial killer because that's not that's not what happens to most people who have these horrific childhoods completely. So there's no excuse for it at all. Yeah. He would set fires to houses and in wooded areas. He said later he said he often thought about what it would be like to do the same kinds of things to humans. And he even tried to it as a child attempted to kill two other children who had crossed him as a little kid, like held one under the water and like, yeah. So we've got some flags going here. We have some bright red flags. So despite all of these issues, he graduates high school. He gets a job as a truck driver. He gets

married, has three kids and seemingly lives a normal life. But in 1990. Although a truck driver seems to be in a lot of these stories. No offense to truck drivers. Don't offend a truck driver. We don't need 50-year-old women and truck drivers mad at us at this fucking point. Because what else is there really in this world? But I swear there's just... Well, it's easy access to women and you have no ties to the places you are, which I think in part in his mind made it... He realized that, you know? Yeah. It's an easy way. I feel like probably serial killers become truck drivers more than truck drivers become serial killers. Yes, I would 100% agree with that. But I think it's a one-way street coming from just from the serial killer part. Hey, my seat's uncomfortable. I'm

going to start serial killing. You're not like breaker breaker. I just got this idea. Right. I'm a family man who drives a truck, breaker breaker. It's like I'm a serial killer. This reminds me of the young woman that I met when I was in Hawaii, who is a truck driver, who listens to us, who was about the least serial killer-ist person I've ever met. Was she in her 50s? Do we have a double down? She was. That would be cool. She was not, but she was on her honeymoon. So maybe that was... She was hiding behind that. The glow of love. Can we get truck drivers who listen to this podcast to tell us the creepiest stories from the road? Because I bet it gets so creepy, Leo, at night, you're driving between cows. Please. Just tell us if you've ever driven in a night by a child in a

wet nightgown on the side of the road with their arms sticking straight out or something. And if you picked up someone creepy hitchhiking that you shouldn't have, we need those stories. Yes. So it was what they called that as a reverse large march. If you ever... Someone got into your truck, you're the innocent bystander. Because you're allowed to be. You're allowed to pick up hitchhikers if you're a truck driver. I feel like that's the only time it's appropriate. Correct. So we need to hear those stories, please. All right. But also, stop hitchhiking. What's... What? Don't hitchhike, please. Okay. So seemingly, he lives a normal life in 1990 after 15 years of marriage, just percent of his wife get a divorce,

and that same year, he begins to kill. So he was 35 years old, he's super imposing, six, six, weighs almost 300 pounds, or like, no, 240. That's not almost 300 pounds, numerically. Two and a round up. 240 is the little old lady of ladies in their 50s. Come on. That's right. It'd be so harsh. Okay. So he began working as an interstate truck driver at this point after relocating to Cheney, Washington. And he soon realizes that his job affords him the opportunity to kill without being suspected. So his first known victim is the woman from the beginning of the story, Tanya Bennett. According to his later account, he first met her at a bar near Portland, Oregon. He invited her over

to his house where he lived with his girlfriend, who was also a truck driver. And so she was out of town. And allegedly, according to him, they had consensual sex, but it's like, do we believe anything you say? No. No. And then he says that an argument started that ends with him beating and then strangling her to death. In order to establish an alibi, he then goes back out for drinks to make sure everyone fucking sees him, you know. And then he goes back to dispose of Tanya Bennett's body and her belongings and clean up the scene. And he's back on the road the next day. And Tanya's body was found a few days later. At the time, there's no suspects and no leads at all until Levern's confession. So when Jasperson reads in the paper about Levern's confession

and the attention it's getting them, this fucking megalomaniac gets jealous and he doesn't feel guilty that two people are going to prison for his actions. He wants the credit for it. And that's why he scrolls those messages in the bathroom at a rest stop. Yeah, guilt. Guilt isn't going to be coming into play in this story at all for a serial killer. That's right. And when that doesn't give him any attention, he does it in the second one closer to home. So he like doubles down on confessing because he wants attention. Yeah. So in the years following the couple's conviction, more women disappear in the area and Jasperson begins writing letters to media and police departments confessing to his murders. He's one of those zodiac killer guys. And he signs each

letter with us that same smiley face. And so the journalist working on the story for the Oregonian, Phil Stanford, dubs Jasperson, the happy face killer. So a six page letter was sent to the Oregonian that describes the murders of five women and the locations of their bodies. Part of the letter read, quote, in a lot of opinions, I should be killed and I feel I deserve it. My responsibility is mine and God will be my judge when I die. I'm telling you this because I will be responsible for these crimes and no one else. It all started out when I wondered what it would be like to kill someone. And I found out what a nightmare it's been. So eager to confirm the murders that the killer had anonymously confessed to in those letters, Phil Stanford, the journalist

begins getting ahold of law enforcement in the jurisdictions that the killer had claimed to have murdered and to check if they had any that fit those descriptions. And he finds that there indeed had been murders that fit the anonymous writer's descriptions with details only the killer would know. So they weren't in the, you know, in the papers, thus confirming that the anonymous happy face killer was actually indeed a serial killer. So we've got this fucking journalist on his tail. Can you imagine too, if you're putting it together as that Phil Stanford, the great journalist for the Oregonian going like, yeah, here's my theory. Oh my God, my theory is real. Like, right. Or like, he's like, I can't print this. Let me just check a couple

things. And then, oh, fuck, you know, yeah, yeah. Wait, just really quick. Remember the Murder in Oregon podcast. Don't talk about it yet, because I'm gonna talk about it. Is it the same? Is it that same journalist? And there's more than one reporter at the record for you. Oh, you're fucking right. Oh, shit. And we're going to get to that to more of that. So he was did Murder in Oregon, which we're all guys, he's legendary, legendary. So good. And when we talk later about the podcast happy face, which is the first season is all about this case, which I'll tell you more about, it's really good. And we'll talk about Murder in Oregon as well. But it's really good. And I definitely suggest listening to it. I will say there's a lot of horrible, violent details that

I'm not including in this story, because it's just, it's unnecessary in my story, but it is necessary in theirs. So yeah, if you want more details, let's know that deep dive. If you want the violent deep dive, right, right. So yeah, Phil Stanford confirms these other murders, and he knows he's dealing with a serial killer. So just person had committed his second murder a year and a half after killing Bennett. On August 30th, 1992, the body of a woman he had raped and strangled was found near Blythe, California. Is that Central California? I think that's the desert. I think that's out in the desert. Okay. Kind of on the way to Vegas. No man's land. I feel like right. And she was then and still remains

a Jane Doe. Though I know the just person later says he remembers her name as being Claudia. A month later, the body of 32 year old Cynthia Lynn Rose was discovered near Turlock, California, along Highway 99. And his fourth victim was 26 year old Lori Ann Pentland of Salem, Oregon. Her body was found in November 1992, having been strangled. Then more than six months later, in July 1993, his fifth victim was found in Santa Nella, California. She too remains a Jane Doe. And because of her quote, street person status, the coroner originally considered her death and a drug overdose. And her death wasn't considered a murder until Jasperson later took responsibility for her murder as well. I know it's just sad, sad stories. More than a year later,

in September 1994, another Jane Doe was found in Crestview, Florida. The remains consisted of mostly bones of a woman that investigators believed had been approximately 40 years old at the time of her death. And over 25 years later, both Jane Does still haven't been identified. Jasperson claims this one was named Suzanne. So let's get Murder Squad on those cases, right? For real. Also, well, I wonder too, if this was part of the truck driver thing of like he was picking up people or he was intentionally choosing people that wouldn't immediately be sought after or missed. That's exactly what happened. In January 1995, Jasperson had given a ride from Spokane, Washington to a 21 year old named Angela

Serb rise of Oklahoma City and approximately a week into the trip, Jasperson raped and strangled her. And her body was not found for several months because she hadn't been reported missing because she was kind of a drifter. And she is thought to be his seventh victim. So yeah. So the only reason he was finally caught was because his final victim was someone who could be tied to him. And he even admitted that that was a mistake he made. He knew that because he had no connection to these other women that he could kill as much as he wanted, but he like lost his temper. So he says and so he killed this next victim. On March 11, 1995, the body of 41 year old Julie Ann Winningham was found along a Washington State road, having been strangled. And when investigators

looked into her life of several people were able to give the name of Julie's longtime boyfriend, Keith Hunter Jasperson, now 40 and still a long haul trucker. And he was then looked into by law enforcement. Washington Sheriff's Department detective Rick Buckner questioned the trucking company that Jasperson worked for for a long time. And they provided him with Jasperson's travel itinerary, which connected the time and location to where Julie's body had been found. Well, then I looked in our Gmail account. And there was a email from a murdering known name Shayna. And she wrote the trucking company that sent this piece of shit out on his jobs was the same company my dad worked for as a dispatcher, as in the person who sends the truckers out on

their merry little murdery ways. So not only did my dad unwittingly send this man to the places where he committed these crimes, he took my mom to the fucking company barbecue where she sat across a picnic table from this creepy motherfucker. Seriously, what the hell dad, JK love my father to pieces. He's a great man. Needless to say, my mom definitely got a weird vibe from the dude and kept the convo short. So her dad might have been one of the people that gave this information to law enforcement that put him in prison. Yeah, yeah. So Jasperson was questioned but not arrested due to lack of evidence immediately. And he wouldn't talk. And so it wasn't until a week and two failed suicide attempts later on March 30 1995 that he finally turned himself in. And the reason

he did that was because he hoped it would get him leniency. So like everything for himself, you know, not for closure for the family. Of course. No, they don't think that way. No. And while in custody, Jasperson starts spilling the beans. He reveals details of his murders. He makes claims of many others, most of which he recanted. But he also a few days before his arrest, law enforcement had gotten a hold of a letter he had written to his brother in which he had confessed to having killed eight people total over the course of five years. And they think that this is the real number of people he killed. And so law enforcement is able to connect him to those cases around the country. And it turns out back in 1990, he had been exonerated of charges stemming

from a rape he had committed in Mount Shasta, California. So it seems like there was also probably a lot of attacks as well. A woman had come forward to report that a man had raped her and attempted to break her neck. And then when he hadn't been able to and because she had her baby with her, and he allegedly didn't want to kill the baby as well, he let them both go. And since he had given this woman so much information about himself, he was easily identified as Jasperson and had been arrested and interrogated. And a charge was filed against him for sexual assault. But then he was released. And they were like, well, just make sure you appear in court about this charge. And of course, he doesn't appear who takes off. And so a felony warrant is issued.

And he is eventually caught in Iowa, but quote, the cost of extradition wasn't worth it. Yeah. So he's not exonerated and all charges are dropped because of this. So if anyone questions why women don't fucking report their rapes and pursue charges, here's a perfect example of why it's too expensive to exonerate him back to California. So the charges are dropped. That's something insane. It's insane. And it also is again, a reflection of acting as if that like a sexual assault charge is not that big of a deal. Like it's not on par with murder in some people's minds. It doesn't make sense when clearly a person who is just amoral enough to be sexually assaulting women or like absolutely has the capacity to do much worse and much more. Right. Or it's like a

one off thing. Or I feel like men, these fucking macho men sometimes are it's like, oh, this is a situation she shouldn't have gotten herself into. And it's a one off thing. When really it's like, if someone is able to do those things, they will, they will never stop. And if you teach them a lesson that they can get away with it, why would they write in it? Yeah, it's insane. The whole thing has to be approached so differently because it's clearly that's not the first time he's done that. That's not the for any person that would do something like that and be successful in doing it clearly has been practicing for a while. It's the same should be taken off the street. Absolutely. It's the same as the Ripper documentary where it's like women did come forward and say this happened

and they were sent away and it could have been stopped and they were shamed. They were publicly humiliated and they were like all those things. And then he went on to murder. They were laughed at. There was the girl that got attacked that lived through it and knew what he looked like. And they basically told her, you don't know what you're talking about. I mean, that kind of shit is like, yeah, yeah, sick. So in November 1995, Jasperson pleads no contest to Bennett's murder and had provided but had provided enough convincing evidence of his guilt during his confession. And like, for example, he had led law enforcement straight to the long lost purse that had belonged to her. He had checked into the wilderness and so they were able to find it exactly where he

told them it would be. And so Laverne and John Sovnowski were released finally, which is released from prison for Bennett's murder. And it does seem like the prosecuting attorney and law enforcement did work hard to get them out of prison because it wasn't a given. It wasn't like they were like, well, maybe they were part of the murders. Maybe they had something to do with it as well. They actually had to work really hard to get them exonerated. Right. Because once you're convicted, it's called the law. That's how it is. They're not going to go back on that. No, you can't overturn a jury conviction very easily, even if someone else goes to prison for the murder, you know. So that happens, thankfully. And they had been in prison for four years at that point.

Well, Laverne dies of heart failure in March of 2003, at age 70. So Jasperson is serving three consecutive life sentences at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem. In September 2009, he's indicted for murder in Riverside County, California, and is extradited to California to face the charges of the murder of the Jane Doe that he committed in Blythe. So goodbye, fuck off. Let's really quickly talk about Jasperson's daughter. So his daughter, Melissa Moore, was 15 in 1995 when her dad got arrested and all came flooding out who he was. She and I were the exact same age too. So like, can you imagine being 15, which is fucking hard enough without having to find out your dad is a serial killer? Horrible. Like God, so horrible. She wrote a

member on 2008 called Shattered Silence and says she originally felt like a ton of guilt and responsibility about what her father had done. And of course, when people at her high school found out, you know, she was ostracized, says she had to change high schools a couple times. And she learned not to tell anyone about who her father was because she was scared that they would think that she was like her dad. So she like wouldn't even tell boyfriends about it as she got older. And she says she was just as perplexed as everyone else that he turned out to be this monster. It sounds so similar to the BTK, the BTK's daughter. Right. Well, no, they were living double life. Yeah. And he was, had been a good father aside from a couple incidents of extreme animal cruelty,

which I will not get into, but they get into in the podcast. It's fucking horrific. And also, he would inappropriately and explicitly talk about his sex life with his children a lot. So she's on the Oprah Winfrey Show in 2009 to promote her book. And she says that after that, she started receiving correspondence from a ton of people who had family members who were also killers and kind of felt ashamed and couldn't talk to anyone about it because they felt judged. And so they were thanking her for telling her story and wanted advice, you know, from her, how to feel less ashamed, how to talk to their kids about what, you know, these people had done, who were in their lives. And she was the only person that they could talk to. So she says she

starts to travel to meet these people and speaking to them on the phone. And that gave her meaning and direction. And because of this, she's created this like network of like 300 people who have these experiences, who have no one else to talk to, and she'll like connect them with other people with other people who have similar experiences. And they have this like community now, which is really lovely entirely. It's they're they're the victims too, but there's that kind of societal, you know, there's like the snap judgment part that they often I'm sure fall victim to or at least the things that I've read. So yeah, they think that's really beautiful. It's also that kind of thing of there's only the people that have gone through it that can help you with the

shame of it and help you bring it out into the light. So the fact that she kind of spearheaded that is is really a testament of her kind of strength. And that's really a lovely gesture. Right. And she also went and met some of the family members of her father's first victim, Tonya Bennett, because she said she just wanted to know more about her life and who she was, which is really amazing. And then when she was on an episode of 2020, she said, quote, being the daughter of a serial killer puts everything into question. Am I worthy? Do I have a right to exist? When he took so much away from other people? If I'm happy, is that a slap in the face to the victims' families? I don't want it to be. So then she does a 12 part podcast

called Happy Face. It's done along with Lauren Bright Pacheco from Murder in Oregon, who's just an incredible investigative journalist. And they speak to Melissa's mother and like, just get the story of how it happened and what happened. I'm still in the middle of it right now. And they tell the story of her father and the family's trauma. And like from the podcast, you get the sense that she's just this real, she's really authentic. She's really open and forthcoming with her story. You know, you don't hear the shame. You hear this person who wants to share what happened to them to try to help other people who have lived through trauma. It's really inspiring. You know, it's, it's for people who have experienced any kind of trauma who are survivors

in their own way. Her openness and her like path to coming to terms with what happened is really inspiring. And she's now an expert on the topics of recovery from trauma, domestic violence, and serial violent crimes. And she's an Emmy nominated crime correspondent for the Dr. Oz Show. And in 2016, Melissa Moore released her second book, it's called Whole, A Guide to Self Repair. And in it, she describes and provides tools to reframe your trauma and to regain confidence. And she lives now in California with her husband and two children, and she doesn't have any contact with her father. And that is the story of the happy face killer. Wow. God, I know. The heavy stuff. Yeah. Well, great job. That was, I mean,

it's so weird that we haven't done that one before because I hear about it all the time. I also feel like I saw her, I think she hosted a show on like ID or one of those channels that was about the family members of serial killers. It's called Murder in My Family. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Should we wrap it up with some fucking hurrays? Yes, Stephen. Do you want to tell us our fucking, our big fucking hurray? Oh yeah. Well, so I looked up, I found the tweet. And today, we are recording on January 13th. And that is the fifth anniversary of this podcast when it was released. That is amazing. Five years. Five years. Five years. Five years. The tweet was by at Connor underscore Nitsiak. I believe is how you pronounce that.

Connor, thank you. Thank you for tracking our news that way. Is that a paper anniversary or do we buy each other diamonds? I'm not sure. What we need to do is put it in the calendar. So this doesn't surprise us anymore. Yeah. Next six year anniversary, we'll get each other presents. But Stephen, will you remind us to put it in the actual calendar so that we remember? It's kind of a good accomplishment. Five years. Five years of consistently doing a podcast where we volunteer to do homework for every episode is for me personally, a gigantic accomplishment. That's amazing. Look, we did homework. I never did homework. I've never fucking done homework. And I remember very distinctly deeply resenting the homework I had to do on this podcast. But

we've made it work. So many words. So many words written down. I mean, I honestly, we started this podcast and I honestly thought I was going to be able to remember off the top of my head stories and then just talk through them the way I felt like I wanted to. Yeah, because we knew everything about everything. Sure, we knew everything. So we were just going to do that. Yeah, just like talk it through. That's why the first time the first time I did Paul Bernardo and Carla Homolka, the Ken and Barbie murders, it was a devastating failure. You had to redo it. There's a huge developmental arc in this podcast. I feel like we've basically written multiple thesis papers. So we're basically college graduates

at this point. Yeah, junior college graduates for sure. At least. I mean, at least we have a certificate. Can we get a certificate of accomplishment? Steve, can you print us up a certificate of some kind? That'd be great. You can just put one of those ones on the Kinka's website. That'll be good. Just something. Something with our names in it. I actually found, I put it right up there. Hold on a second. I'm so excited for whatever this is going to be. I know what going to be. This is the only certificate that I have of any kind from my from my education. And it literally, it says academic achievement up top. Can you see that? It's old school. Yeah. This is to certify. What does it say? This is to certify that the student

whose name appears above. And that's my name. Okay. Has maintained an exceptional standard of scholarship and has only and has duly earned this honor. And then you type in what the honor is. And it says drama. Oh my God. That's like, that's called foreshadowing. I feel like for real. It was awarded this day 4th of June, 1988. Oh my God. Drama. I got the drama certificate, everybody. You sure did. Edward J. Kavanaugh, the president of, I mean, the principal of our high school and Adrian's dad. Oh, can I say that I found recently like my, my Montessori like report card, you know, from when I was like five. And in the notes, it says like, what's something special about Georgia? And it says Georgia likes to tidy while the other kids have nap time. So I feel like

as children, we were both like already known how we were going to be when we grew up. I cleaned, I cleaned the area while other kids slept. Georgia had a CD from a very young age and you go ahead and sleep. I'm going to go ahead and wipe down some surfaces and help the teachers. Yeah, exactly. You're just supposed to be chilling out and having a snack. Oh, it explains so much. Okay. Do you have fucking arrays you want to read? You want to go first? You want me to go first? You can go first. Okay. This is from Hello, it's Clarice from the fan cult. Hello, Clarice. Hello, Clarice from the fan cult. She says 2020 was a long one for us all. After nine months of being unemployed, I finally got a job again and an animal shelter and then a bunch of emojis.

I will be an adoptions counselor, aka a matchmaker for pets and their new owners, another cute emoji. My lifelong dream that has been delayed once again by COVID is to care for endangered species such as lions and chimps. This is the best next step for me and it means so much that I can help animals in need. The first paycheck that I am able to donate will be in Elvis's name. Isn't that sweet? Thanks for getting through life with me and all your amazing advice. Love you guys so much. And then it says in parentheses, Karen quote, you've got to let your juices marinate. It may take a long time. Something you've said that inspired her. That's sweet. Thanks. Hello, Clarice. It's Clarice. Congratulations on your job. Let me have a kitten. I just like that she's

getting paid for a job like that. It doesn't sound like something cool to do that you would just like. Well, you're really this way. So I think this dog would be really this this for you. That's how I got Dottie at Santa D'Ore. He like went in and one of the volunteers and I was like, I want this. And he was like, you got to meet Lucy Liu. And it was Dottie. And it was Dottie. This starts my fucking hooray. It says 2020 tried like hell to break me. In April, my husband was laid off. Then on August 2nd, he had a series of heart attacks at age 35, leading to open heart quadruple bypass. On August 14th, the day he was supposed to be released to go home, he suffered a massive stroke killing two thirds of his brain. They said that he was paralyzed on

his right side and blind in his right eye. He'd never be able to walk again or talk again. Well, here we are at the beginning of 2021. Tomorrow he graduates from cardiac rehab. His only deficit is his speech. He is slowly relearning language and starting to be able to put together sentences. So my fucking hooray is his ability to say fuck you 2020, Casey. Oh, my God, Casey, sending you healing vibes. Wow. Yeah. Casey, you're about us. The fact that you were able to even type that and send it in means you're stronger than all of us put together. Keep it up. I'm so glad to hear that your husband's only deficit is speech, where people have the capacity to heal and to do so many things. I love those stories where doctors are saying this is the only thing possible and then

those people just break those expectations. Totally. So congratulations and stay strong. Yeah. Incredible. This is from, this is from Instagram, from Brimo Morales. My fucking hooray was being able to be part of giving Christmas gifts to formerly homeless LGBTQ young adults. My wife and her co-workers raised over $1,300 to buy Christmas gifts for youth in an organization called Thrive, which helps get LGBTQ young adults into housing and teaches them life skills along with helping them with their mental and physical health. I'm so grateful I was able to be part of making these young people's Christmases amazing. And I'm so proud of my wife for organizing all of this. That's incredible. That's great. Yeah. That's a beautiful story. I mean, that's, I love that.

That's, that's very cool. And that's so generous. Like, yeah, it's to make some, make sure someone else's Christmas is good. Like using your energy to do something like that. Totally. That's beautiful. This one is from Michelle Soops. And it says, I got myself this 2021 true crime page a day calendar and immediately thought of MFM when I saw that Mary Vincent was the first story for January 1st. One of the most jaw dropping and amazing survivor stories I've ever heard. I'm trying not to look ahead, but I'm curious to see what other stories they have. Hopefully a lot more badass survivor ones. Thanks, Michelle Soops. It's so incredible how inspiring Mary Vincent's story has been, like, throughout the life of this podcast. It's the one that always comes up as the, like,

memorable, incredible story, which is like, yeah, that's what we want it to be about. Not about fucking asshole serial killers and like the creepiest ones. Well, that's, you know, if we're talking about like the things, the things we've learned over five years, it's that thing that we've been fed true crime over the years being interested in it. We've been fed it one way, the way that it kind of started to be scared. I think it's we've been fed it to be scared of it. But then in the nineties, there almost became this strange fetish of like the killers themselves when it was like people were buying John Wayne Gacy paintings, that kind of bullshit that kind of was like, Oh, that means somehow you're rock and roll or something. And

so it has been, you know, for me, it's a real honor to be able to dig into these stories and go, no, no, I'm not, that's not why I'm here. Right. That the story that the part of my interest and this fascination has to do with the fact that these were real people, that this is real loss, that these are, this is human life. And this is what some people go through. It gives you unbelievable perspective on your own life and how you should actually be taking things and interpreting things comparatively. But also, there are these unbelievable survivor stories of people who have over, because I was just rewatching, I survived. And she is in season one, and Mary herself tells that story herself. And it's, it's incredible. It's unbelievable. And

it's, it's really, yeah, she's, she's really a beacon. Definitely. Anyways, I feel lucky that we get to share these stories and that people give us the benefit of the doubt. And our listeners know that what we're trying to convey is empathy and gratitude and hope. And, you know, and that's what we're here for. Yeah, yeah, totally. It's been an honor. It's been a real fucking journey. I mean, it has been quite some, quite something. Yeah. Who knew that just our podcast, our hangout podcast of chitchat would, would become the thing that it was. And thank you all for listening, each of you individually for caring, listening, playing ball, getting in here and being here with us. There's some people out there that have been here with us since the first fucking episode,

which is hilarious to think about. There are people that we've met in the meet and greet lines at live shows who are just like since day one. Like there's, I can definitely remember that happening a couple of times of like, are you kidding me? You know, like we stop and scream at people's faces because they somehow happened upon it. Somehow we're searching through a true crime and we're there from. And we're still blown away every fucking day that this has gotten to where it's gotten, that we have, that our lives have been completely changed, completely changed in the past five years in the most amazing way. And we are so grateful for that every fucking day. I can't, I can't believe that this is my life now. It's, it's beautiful. It's pretty nice.

And Stephen, thank you for being there for the, I think you came in an episode, what, four and three quarter years? I believe it was episode 19. Oh, really? We had to go along that far without you. That sucks. That sucks. Yeah. Thank you so much, Stephen. You have been such a a quiet and necessary part of the show. And so we appreciate that so much. Not that quiet, quiet. That wasn't, I meant like, yeah, you fill in some little blanks that we made. I'm just having it to myself, but I cut all that out. Thank you. There is a third track that that will eventually be, that would be fucking hilarious if this entire time there's a commentary track. Oh my God. Stephen's releasing a commentary track. Mr. Science Theater. I want a commentary

track work on a podcast. You're just hearing, it would be chaos. Yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't work. I think people have tried it actually, and I don't think it works. Oh, that would be good. Yeah. Thank you, Stephen, for, there's really, it was really nice knowing that in the very beginning, I think it was George's Zoom, and I think we would just like hit record and see what happened. And so now there's, when Stephen showed up and was giggling along and paying attention and taking notes and into it, it just really, that's really helped everything so much. Thank you. All right. Well, that's our anniversary. So we're going to go party. That's right. But until we see you again, please stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye.

Elvis, do you want a cookie? I'm Babs Gray. I'm Brandy Posey. And I'm Tess Barker. Tune into our podcast, Lady to Lady, premiering on the Exactly Right Network Wednesday, January 27th. We're three standup comics and real life friends. And every Wednesday, we host the coolest hang on the internet. It's like a party for your ear holes. Each week, we invite some of the funniest comics and writers to join us in our adult treehouse for games, advice, and the occasional deeply embarrassing personal revelation that we can't take back because now it's online forever. Past guests include people like Allison Rosen. I'm 95 years old. We didn't have apps in my day. But upon hearing about Raya, I think because it's selective, there's a tiny part of my brain just

in the background being like, is what would I make it on there? I mean, I almost think that we should do one of those things where we can mine the three of our faces and put them to one person. See how she does? See how she does. Let's get her on there. Let's get her on there. See what's up. Mary Lynn Reisnup. The attendant comes up to me and kneels down and goes, just pretend that Jack Bauer is at the bottom of the ocean and he needs you to unlock the computer. No. A reference to the largest TV credit that I have. Lacey Mosley. There's a lot of cool stuff you could do. What's what is the vampire facial? Vampire facial is where you get blood. Your own blood? Yes. Oh, well, at least it's your own blood. Yes, your own blood. Yeah. The only problem with

getting it is then you have to do it to somebody else to stay. Vampires were the original pyramid scheme. It's literally, it's like if you just take one bite, then you bite three of your friends. And over 300 plus female identifying artists. Don't worry, we let the occasional guidance sometimes. Like Henry Zabrowski. You're supposed to discipline a Chihuahua. I have a Chihuahua too, and my husband has this kind of naval academy attitude. He's like, we got to show him some discipline and some structure. I'm like, I didn't get a Chihuahua to not be codependent with it. Check out the network premiere of Lady to Lady on Wednesday, January 27th, on Exactly Right. Subscribe now on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen.

If you like what you hear, write us a review. And if you don't like what you hear. We're not supposed to say that. Oh, can I say Lady to Lady? Subscribe now.