My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 123

Episode Date: May 20, 2019

This week’s hometowns include a badass mom and Ed Kemper’s house.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 the Minnesota of my favorite murder. This is the thing where we read your things. You love it. We love it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Do you have a good ending one?

I do. Okay, let me go first then. Oh, okay. This one actually I found because I was looking up my story when we were in Nashville and I this was a really great story but I didn't want to do it but I found this hometown about it so I thought it'd be cool. That's the perfect substitute. Yeah, I just want to like bring attention to it but okay.

It says it's called he touched me inappropriately and I think he murdered a girl. Oh. Tales from a Nashville taxi. Hey there, Karen, Georgia, Steven, and Forerunos. My name is Jennifer and I'm writing to you from Nashville, Tennessee, longtime listener, first time caller. Like most Nashvilleians, this is not my hometown but it is my home state and I have a particular connection to this hometown murder so I'd like to share it with you.

Sorry for the intro. I feel like you hate that. Hey, we hate intros. No, we need you to plunge us directly into the middle of whatever's happening. Look, as book writers, we just want you to know we're only into middle and ending. That's right. Fuck your beginnings.

I'm going to start with the murder because storytelling. Good. Already killing it. Sweet. So it's February of 2013 on the east side of Nashville. It's very up and coming area with a serious hipster vibe. Think Silverlaker or Brooklyn. Livia Smith, a beautiful vibrant 32-year-old makeup artist, was out hitting her usual haunts.

She started at the Village Pub, awesome mule specials by the way, hit up the Holland House, bougie, craft bar, too many flavors of bitters like Y, and ended up at Three Crow, which is a dive where it's still leeled to smoke. Sweet. A little after 1 a.m. she realized she was a bit too tipsy and decided to call it a night. A few of her friends offered to drive her. She lived only seven minutes away but she waved them off and said she already called a cab. Witnesses say the driver was male and not Caucasian,

perhaps Middle Eastern or Hispanic, according to detectives. Witnesses also say the cab was a yellow van. The yellow cab has no record of the pickup and nobody seems to have paid much attention to either the vehicle or the driver because it's not unusual to see people getting into a taxi around five points. No big deal, but Livia never made it home. About three and a half hours after she was seen getting to the cab, a neighbor heading to work saw an unfamiliar object by the side of the road.

It was Livia Smith's lifeless body less than a block away from her house. Investigators know the cause of death, blunt force trauma to the head, and they have all but ruled out the widely speculated method hit and run. But was her death an accident, a homicide? Was the taxi driver involved? Okay, now onto my connection. It's January 1st, 2015, at 12.30 a.m. I had just watched the ball drop at a friend's house.

No, at a friend's bar. I'd been drinking so I took a taxi home. I called yellow cab and when I left the bar, I left in a yellow van. Mmm, the driver, a Middle Eastern man in his fifties, suggested I sit in the front seat. Once we got into the freeway, he began forcefully grabbing me, fondling me, and attempting to slide his hands up my dress despite my numerous pleas to stop. I was absolutely horrified and nothing I did or said seemed to sway him to want to leave me the fuck alone.

I was hyper aware of the fact that we were going 75 miles an hour on the interstate, and if I was too aggressive, i.e. slapped him or screamed at him, that I was in danger. I think in retrospect, that was his intention. When I got home, I called the taxi company and filed a complaint. They refused to give me any details about my driver. Suddenly, it seemed there was no record of me even taking a taxi. The managers wouldn't take me seriously or even hint that this was a bad thing. One manager even said, he probably thought you were cute.

These guys, with this chuckle in his voice, like I'd be flattered. Oh my god, for reals, he thinks I'm cute. Question mark, question mark, I obviously called the cops after that. Then, about seven weeks later, a young student from Belmont University was raped by the same driver. No way. They had my report, which included the phone number I'd saved from when he called to say he was outside the bar.

Oh, nice. Amazing. And now they had a second victim. They arrested him within a few days. I also sued the taxi company. Nice, good. Yep. When I finally found a lawyer, a fantastic lawyer I might add, I was informed that my

attacker was a suspect in, well, obviously, Livia Smith's murder. Oh my god. I just think that there are too many similarities. The yellow van, the driver, the unwillingness of the taxi company to cooperate, not to mention the very plausible scenario in which he assaulted her in the same way and she fought him. Yeah. All of this is speculation, of course, because now, thanks to a shoddy plea deal with the DA,

he's serving 18 months from my sexual battery case and the other victims full-on rape. There is no justice. Right, Georgia? Right? And I'm starting to think that speculation is all there will ever be. Thank you for everything you do. Love listening to the podcast. It's my Thursday highlight.

Keep doing you. You're the bee's knees. S-S-D-G-M. Jen. Fuck. I know. So how does a person that could have been a suspect in a murder just get 18 months? That's a great question.

That's plea deals. Yeah, but yeah, it just, that's really intense and really fucked up. It's so scary and sad that she must be thinking like, I know, I know what happened because it happened to me almost and there's nothing you can do about it. I mean, I just wonder if there's some kind of lack of evidence to connect them in a real way. Right. You know. Well, that taxi company really should be ashamed of themselves.

It's, I, I really like that idea that she just went. So it's like they are responsible for those people. Yeah. That's the whole reason there is licensing and taxi. I mean, it's just insanity. It's insane. Let's move on to something more a lighthearted. Can we please?

My mom. Can we please? My mom, Diane Downs VIP wedding guest. Yeah. Dear Georgie and Karen, the sassiest ladies I feel like I know, lovely Steven and all the animals. If you came to my house and took a look at our bookshelves, they'd probably seem pretty ordinary.

On closer inspection, however, you'd notice that dotted about are a number of Ann Rollbooks, part of my mom's extensive collection. When I was a kid, I thought it kind of, I thought it kind of strange that we owned all these books about murder. Little did I know that in a few short years, I would catch the bug and become a diehard fan of a podcast named My Favorite Murder Such as Life. In the mid 80s, my mom was living in Oregon and working as a judge's law clerk. Therefore, she was involved in one of the most notorious trials in the state's history,

that of Diane Downs. It was an extremely stressful situation for everyone involved. Hearing the prosecution describe how Diane shot her children in cold blood was a harrowing experience. Listening to Christie, Diane's surviving daughter testified against her mother after a year spent recovering physically from being shot and suffering a stroke as a result, and healing emotionally from the trauma was an experience my mom will never forget. In fact, she describes the trial to this day as an event that really shook her foundations and shaped her as a person.

My mom also went to interview Diane a couple times in prison to gather more information about her relationship with her children, but Diane didn't want to talk about them. Oh no, she was much more focused on her upcoming fantasy wedding with her pen pal Randall Woodfield, aka the i5 killer. No! Remember the football player guy? I covered him a while ago. You've done both these stories.

That's crazy. A match made in heaven, no? In Diane's eyes, my mom had become such a good friend during those few visits that she just had to come to the wedding, which in case you didn't know, didn't happen much to my disappointment. Can you imagine the stories? Oh my god. I just want to say a little thanks to my mom who listens to the podcast for carefully nurturing my love for many things, but most importantly, true crime.

Without that encouragement and possibly even a genetic predisposition for an interest in murder, I wouldn't have come across your podcast, and then I don't know where I'd be. Stay sexy and never turn down an invite to a prison wedding. Natalie from Scotland. Amazing, Natalie. That's a good story. I mean, that is such a post. I usually don't like serial killer personal life stuff.

It's just all so creepy. Fuck them. But Diane Downs, it's almost like just continuing proof that she was a flaming psychopath. And no remorse at all. Not even able to cover a woman's there to gather information about her children, and she can't fake it because she's like, oh my god, I got a letter from a guy. I'm in love.

Okay, this one. I mean, this is like a heavy hitters episode, I feel like. This is called creepy van, nail file, and my badass mom. Hey, y'all. What? Amazing. Hey, y'all. Y'all is my favorite word.

Okay. My fiance and I were on a road trip when he introduced me to your podcast. It obviously went good because we listened to it there and back, seven hour trip. And here I am writing to you. Hi. When my mom was 16, which would have been back in the 70s, she was walking downtown in a very small town when a van pulled up next to her, and two men in the front seat asked her for directions.

And then it says, how fucking common, right? She stepped closer to the van to point on the map when a man jumped out of the back and pulled her into the van. She was in the van with two men in the front and two men on both sides of her in the back. The driver told her how they were going to kill her. My mom somehow managed to hold onto her purse when the man pulled her into the van. She reached into her purse when the driver asked what she was doing. She replied, getting a cigarette out.

Is that a fucking issue? But instead, she pulled out a nail file, the ones with the pointy stab end, and stabbed the driver in the back of the neck. Fuck yeah, girl. Fought the guys next to her and managed to open the van door and jump out of the moving vehicle. Yes. Amazing. Stab everybody and get out.

Stab them and fucking run. Filed their fucking jugular vein down to a nub and get out. I'll give you a neck a manicure, bitch. Bitch. Luckily, they were still in town and she jumped out in front of a bar, where a few men were able to get her inside and calm her down. They called the police and she was able to describe the man and the van, but the men were never caught.

She has always taught me to have something in my purse at all times, to be able to save my life. And I hope I can pass that advice along as well, because without that nail file, I'm not sure if my mom would be here today. Or shit, me either. Stay sexy and nail file, save lives, Samantha in North Carolina. Yes. Samantha, say hi to your mom for us, please.

Yes, man, and then high five her for being a badass. That's right. Because also, yeah, she had to think of it, do it, and then act, do a little Meryl Streep acting of like, I'm trying to smoke you fucking asshole. Is that okay with you? Yeah. Which I actually recommend, it went in doubt.

If you take the bitch route, it at least kind of dazzles people a little bit. Like, it's that time I got pulled over and my friends, I was stone cold sober, but all my friends were like, blind drunk in the back, because we'd just been to their wedding. And the cop tried to pull me over right as we were turning into the hotel. And I refused to pull over because I was like, no, we're almost there.

And so then he was like, pull to the right, and went insane. And I just, there's a part in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, where they're like, if a cop pulls you over, you have to get aggressive. And you, and it's like, you shock and awe them, and then they might let you go. And I just was like, yeah, can you see that there's a drunk bride in the backseat? And I just started yelling at this cop. Meanwhile, I didn't have shoes on. And my eyes were bright red because I had to have contacts in all day long.

Oh my God. But if I honestly, I was stone cold sober. You only do that if you're confident enough that you haven't done anything wrong. Yes. I was actually doing the rightest thing that anyone in that city was doing that night, because everyone was shit-faced. I'm just like, no. Not me.

And then he basically made like three people get out and walk and let us go. Oh. Wow. So it worked. Okay. I'm just saying it works when you, like instead of, it just surprises people and they don't know what to do. Yeah. Like a cocky confidence.

Yeah, like, yeah, you fucking asshole. Let me smoke in your car. Yeah. And like a like a snap decision to like not even like taking a beat. It's like, no, I'm fucking here. Yeah. And also you can put your cigarette out on people's too that that fucks with them. Yeah.

Fireworks on hair and skin. Yeah. I love all of it. Also, it's a good way to like re-channel your fear. Yeah. Because you can channel fear right into aggressive, like bitchy aggressiveness. Yeah. That's a good acting style.

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You can listen ad free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. The subject line is VIP line Dallas. The subject line gives it away. My aunt is an arsonist. Dear MFM family, seeing you guys live at the Dallas show was so incredible and made for one of the happiest nights for me. Oh, nice. Please thank Vince for being such a great photographer since he started snapping pictures

as soon as I handed him my phone. He captured every moment of us meeting and us meeting you and sharing a laugh at our homemade shirts. Couldn't have asked for better. Yeah, that's the whole plan. Yeah, he's good. He's really good at that. He's good at Candids.

Now to get to it. Every family has its fair share of crazies. I happen to have a crazy aunt Janet on both sides, one of which is the attention seeking compulsive liar type that you can talk about and laugh at the ridiculous things she believes she can get away with while the other Janet is the reason I'm writing you. My dad is the youngest of nine siblings, all of which my badass grandma raised on her own as a widow in Northern Indiana. We grew up several states away from all my extended family.

So I always assumed not meeting the other aunt Janet had something to do with distance or just bad timing of our visits. Nope, typical story of kids not being included in all the details of what's really happening. Growing up, I would get bits and pieces of Janet stealing people's identities, credit cards and all that. They believed this included her victimizing family members too, including my dad. But thankfully it seemed to just end up in changing cards, moving on and trying to guess at whatever name Janet would be going by now.

Then several years down the road, my grandma gets a call all caps from the FBI. They asked if Janet had contacted her recently and informed her that she was dangerous and my grandma was to make them aware if Janet tried to reach out or contact her in any way. Turns out aunt Janet wasn't satisfied with your typical stealing. She decided to go in a more Dorothea puente direction. She apparently had conned several elderly people into letting her be a caregiver all the while she would collect their social security checks. Except when she was on the verge of getting caught, she didn't bury them in the yard.

She would freaking set the house on fire to start on to the next victim. This happened dozens of times across several states. Since then, no one in the family has heard from her, but she is still wanted by the FBI and is still at large. Because of this, I had to get my dad's permission on writing this in, in which he requested that I change her actual name because of how dangerous and clever she is. He said not to underestimate what she's capable of, which isn't at all ominous to hear from your dad. I'm thankful my dad made sure that my sister and I always had more than a healthy fear of creeps

to the point where we weren't allowed to spend the night at any of our friend's houses, which was aggravating until I understood more when I got older. He also made sure I read The Gift of Fear, which is a book I recommend everyone read at some point. I'm so thankful also to have you two to keep me knowledgeable in all sorts of ways to say sexy and not get murdered. And while in line for the meet and greet, my closest friend Chloe and I recovered memory of why I started listening to the podcast. It's literally because Chloe had accidentally ingested her dad's ashes

and made me listen to the hometown in Minnesota 80 where the woman kept her mom's ashes in her car for over a year and then accidentally inhaled some of her mom in her attempt at releasing the ashes. And I've been a fan ever since. Oh my god. We get, but that story gets mentioned all the time. I know. It's such a good one.

It's so legendary. You ladies have helped me have more confidence in my life. And not only that, you've helped me have more confidence about having to use store bought serotonin. But far more importantly, you've helped Chloe through one of the toughest years of her life in ways that I couldn't and I cannot express how grateful I am for that. Stay sexy and make sure your family is the ha ha kind of crazy and not the wanted by the FBI kind, Audrey.

Chloe and Audrey, thank you. That's so sweet. I'm crying. So those were all fake names. Just so everyone's aware. I love that she made up the name Janet. It's a crazy person. No offense.

She's not wrong. Okay. This is called Permanent Pixie Cut, lighthearted. And it just starts. Hi. Growing up in Youngstown, Ohio, formerly known as Murder Capital USA. Oh, I didn't know that. I've been a murderer, you know, as far back as I can remember.

I have about 20 stories I could share with you guys from the not one, not two, but three dead bodies my dad came across as a kid with his friends. Stand by me style because my grandma's house was on a road used by the mob for body dumping. Oh, shit. Or my great uncle who worked as an intelligence agent was mysteriously found burned to death in the local elementary school playground. Oh, my God. And then it says for another time.

That's great. This is a story from my middle school years that still makes me cringe to this day. As my friends and I were all shuffling into our first of many shitty summer jobs, my hilarious best friend at the time started working at our local movie theater. One of the perks of her job was unlimited free movies that she could bring a friend to. And I just happened to be her friend of choice for the bring it on movie showing one hot afternoon. Sure. We sat in the back of a very dead theater, a giggling and sipping sodas with only a mom

and her daughter a few rows in front of us. About 10 minutes into this terrible film, I felt something yank on my ponytail and immediately turned to my bestie who was known as a jokester totally capable of such fuckery. She just laughed as I smacked her and we turned back to watch Kirsten Dunstoo cheer literary stuff that we really couldn't give two shits about because we were punk rock wannabes. But hey, what can I say? Free movie. The show was about halfway over when something drew my attention to the mom and daughter duo

sitting ahead of us. I watched in horror as a gnarled man's hand reached up from the floor behind them and gently started petting the daughter's long hair hanging over her movie seat. Again, I smacked my friend, but this time it was to get her attention as I was too horrified to form words. As she finally figured out what I was staring at, she shot up out of her seat and said, oh shit, it's him again and bolted out of the theater. What?

She failed to mention that there had been a guy who would sneak into theaters, lay on the floor and touch women's hair during movies. Apparently they had never been able to catch the dude because he would somehow leave undetected every time until that day. It's just so sticky. It's like they can't catch the stickiest man in the world. Do you see shit like lollipop sticking to him? Like he's got popcorn embedded on his back?

Popcorn, that might be him. So gross. Um, still sitting confused and completely creeped out. I watched as the lights went up, the movie cut off and two security guards marched in to pull this guy off the floor. Yeah. He's like, thanks. He was gone with the beatiest little black eyes I'd ever seen.

I wish I could forget his face. My friend was in the back standing by her manager and the mom and daughter were near hysterical when they were told it had just happened. Shaken but stoked to see all this excitement. My true crime, love and brain slowly began to realize that it probably wasn't my best friend who had pulled my hair at the beginning of the movie. No. No, it wasn't.

Needless to say, I marched right over to the great clips across the plaza and said, one pixie cut please. And I'm sure as hell kept that short hair for the last 20 years. Shit. Side note, I've never seen the rest of Bring It On because I'm pretty sure I got to watch the best ending possible for that movie. Stay sexy and keep it short, Nicole. God damn.

I know. She's lucky enough to have that choice. Not all of us can go get a pixie cut. That's right. They'd be like, no, I think, how about you keep it a bun? I'll just do a bun. I'll keep it in a bun. But the idea that once again there is a story about a creep who lays on the floor at the

movie theater. It's like a, it's a thing. Just picture the floor of the movie theater right now. Maybe that's part of it for them. That too. I think it is. It's like those guys that get into, um, into like the, the kid. I was gonna say at campgrounds they have the like the permanent but open toilets.

There have been, there have been people caught in those in scuba outfits. No, no, no. I'm not kidding. Look it up, look it up, look it up, look it up, look it up, look it up. Baby, don't believe me. I refuse. Send us an email if you know that one. It's so awful.

It's so awful. But yeah, I find the movie theater laying on the floor is only two steps away from that. It's just disgusting. The subject line of this last one is my friend lived in Ed Kemper's murder house. Why? Uh-huh. Right?

Hi, Karen and Georgia. First off, thanks so much for your podcast. I listen to you every week. After listening to episode 39, I thought you might be interested in hearing about my hometown connection. One day in early August, I was going to the 13th birthday party of my friend Kiki. Kiki. I had a friend who used to call me Kiki because it was so not me.

Can I call you that now? You can, totally. I'm doing it. My parents, it's such a good nickname it is. My parents were unable to drive me for some reason, so that day my grandpa drove me to Kiki's house. I gave him the invitation so that he could read the address and he did a double take. Are you sure this is the address he asked me?

I told him yes. I had been there a million times before. He started the car and explained that he knew Kiki's address because she lived in the house of Ed Kemper, aka the famous co-ed killer. Holy shit. He then proceeded to tell me how back in the 70s Santa Cruz was the murder capital of the world. Oh my god.

And he relayed right against, up against Youngstown, Ohio. I guess like fight, fight, fight. Turn it over. And he relayed the entire horrific story of the Ed Kemper's murder spree, of Ed Kemper's murder spree. Don't need that though. This included the details that women had been dismembered in Kiki's bathtub and their head had been buried, their heads had been buried in Kiki's backyard.

Oh. This was all told to me during the drive to the party while I was clutching Kiki's birthday present. He then dropped me off in her driveway and waved goodbye. Grandpas. Grandpas are the best. How fun do you think it is to be a grandparent? Anyway, toodaloo. I don't want to be a mom, but I want to be a grandparent real bad.

Yep. That's all only the good stuff. I was totally shocked and traumatized. And when I entered Kiki's home, I was freaking the fuck out. Yeah. In my state of horror, and because I wasn't that popular and didn't know how to socialize, I told everyone at the party that we were in a murder house. Oh, welcome home.

Oh my god. Suddenly a bunch of kids were in a frenzy and Kiki realized that I was the one blabbing this story to all of her guests. She had no idea she lived in his house until that moment. As her mom had reasonably kept that information on the down low, I completely ruined her 13th birthday party. Oh my god. In my idiocy, Kiki, I am so sorry.

That's in parentheses. And I'm sure I must have pissed off her mom too. Miraculously, Kiki didn't hate me after this, and almost eight years later, we're still good friends. So cute. She sometimes reminds me of my big mouth and how I tanked her birthday celebration, which is completely deserved. Funnily enough, she is now super into true crime,

and she's a huge fan of my favorite murder. She's the one who recommended it to me, and that's why I started listening. Kiki! Kiki! Say sexy and don't fucking tell your entire eighth grade class that you're all hanging out at a crime scene, Kelsey. Oh. Like, this is, like, you could not be more one of us

if you fucking tried, Kelsey. That's like, that's, you could take all those nouns, substitute them for other things, and that's how I lived my entire life. That's how you and I became friends, essentially. Exactly. It's just like, ooh, I feel social anxiety. I'm going to fix that by talking about the thing I'm interested in.

Yeah, or not even social anxiety. It's like, oh, I'm so interested in this. Everyone, I need to tell everyone. Of course you want to know that there are severed heads buried in the backyard. Oh, yeah. You want to know that down the street from Marat right now, someone got you killed once?

Yeah. Everyone would have wanted to know that. No? No? What? Why? Where are you going? What eighth grade girls don't want to know about

people being dismembered in the bathtub? Amazing. Oh, just... I bet they got that house for a song. But also to live there, I mean, that's too much. God, it's so much, because even if it was, you know, it was the house where they did something creepy, you're always on the verge of, aside from the fact

that these are some of the worst murders that have ever taken place, how do you keep a secret like that when there's like kids in town talk involved? Yeah. It's not like you're going to be able like, okay, can we just not tell Kiki, please? Yeah, the grandpa knew the address. Yeah.

What? In heat, yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. Happy birthday, Kiki. Happy birthday, Kiki. Send us all your fucked up emails like that. That was great.

My favorite murder at GML, we want to hear them, or just go on the website. You could submit a hometown there. Yeah. My favorite murder.com. And stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye.

Goodbye. Elvis, want a cookie?