My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 126

Episode Date: June 10, 2019

This week’s hometowns include dad stories and a Detroit murder spree.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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And welcome. To my favorite murder. It's the mini-soed. Where we read you your stuff. Don't you love it? We do. It's so easy. It's so easy.

Should I kick this one off? Sure. Hello, everyone. This first email I'm going to read to you, the subject line is, my dad's seven degrees of murder separation. Yeah. Right? Hi, I'm FM Fam.

That's what the kids say these days. Fam. Fam. Yeah. It means family. Oh, great. Let's just dive in. That's what it says in this email.

Let's. That's not me. I want to talk about other bullshit forever. Yeah, me too. But this person wants to dive in. My dad was helping me move out of my yet another terrible mid-20s apartment a few weeks ago. God. Can we just take a moment?

Oh, been there then again and then when they're again and again. How about the first studio apartment you live in after you stop living with people? Oh. And you finally live in. That's when I got started getting cats. The best time of my life was in that little studio in Hollywood and fucking Santa Monica in Western, the worst neighborhood. Oh, shit girl.

Yeah. But it was the cutest apartment. Was it really? Yes. It was a hidden gem. It was one of those old brick ones that are super tall. Oh, yeah. It was like an old time you want.

Oh. Did you have a brick on the inside of your apartment? Oh, that's rad. It's so cute. Mine was on Grace in off Koanga and I really loved the apartment I had friends that lived on the fourth floor and I lived on the second floor and I really love my apartment manager, Polly. What's up, Polly?

Hi. He was the best and I would always be late with my rent and he was like, Karen, come on. Come on. I'd be like, okay. And then one time after I stopped drinking, I lost a ton of weight because I wasn't drinking 12 beers every night and he stopped me to say I was too thin and he was worried. Aw. And I was like, that's the most beautiful thing you could ever say to any woman.

That's not true. Body positivity. Yes, yes, yes. The ride was an hour each way and we ran out of things to talk about on the way back. Naturally, I brought up MFM and started sharing with him New Jersey stories from the podcast since that's where we are from. Turns out this man is the seven degrees of separation from many high and low profile New Jersey, New York stories.

He told me how him and his friends broke into, quote, that asshole John List and, quote, house and played floor hockey in the ballroom where List put his family's bodies. Oh my God. The mansion is only 15 minutes from where I grew up. He went on to say how my great-great-some relative knew Charles Lindbergh and thought he killed his baby and tried to cover it up when one of his practical jokes went wrong. What? Apparently Lindbergh had a fucked sense of humor.

Shut the fuck up. Yes. He was very rigid. I want to hear more. I know, right? My job dropped even further when he finally told me that he'd once bought cocaine off a notorious club promoter and murderer, Michael Alegg, when my dad used to DJ at the limelight in NYC.

Shit. You're fucking... Who is this man? Who is this man? Oh my God. How old is this man? How available is this man? My dad has worn nothing but freshly ironed dockers and a polo shirt all my life and here he is

telling me how he used to buy drugs from a murderer in Sain. Oh my God. He even told me how he witnessed a low profile murder in my hometown and was called as a witness. The stories kept spilling out. Over Memorial Day weekend, I went to my family's house and my dad handed me a stack of super rad vintage true crime novels. Dude.

In the collection of books was his annotated copies about the hillside strangler, Bundy, Mindhunter and a bunch of others. I finally learned where my true crime obsession comes from. Side note, when I first went to college in NYC, my dad taught me to stand on the subway platform with my back up to the wall so no one could come up behind me, pro tip. Which kinds of groups of people are threatening slash to be aware of when walking around late? That seems problematic. And how to pull a knife on someone quickly.

Man, dads are great. Stay sexy and talk to your parents about murder. They might surprise you. Much love, B. Oh my God. Amazing. I think it's so true. Parents are untapped sources.

They don't talk to their kids about stuff like that because it's, you know, weird. Yeah. It's like, it's scary. But when you're, if you're an adult, if you have your own apartment, your parents will tell you about fucked up shit they know. Talk to your parents like adults and they'll talk to you like an adult too. Yeah. Ask them questions about their lives because you just don't do that as a kid as someone's

child. You don't ask them questions about their lives and then you find out all these interesting things. That's right. And you can actually say, I'm right now, I'm preparing your biography. You will die soon. Yeah. Please tell me everything.

You'll have the chance. Exactly. How's your arthritis? Do you need some boniva? What did you do in high school? That was creepy. Okay. Back in the pioneer days.

I have a dad. One too. Hmm. My dad worked for a kidnap. I have a dad. That's what I thought you were saying too. My dad worked for a kidnapping rapist. Oh.

Hey, what's up? I used to be so jealous of all the murderinos whose relatives told them of their personal hometown murders until it finally happened to me. Hey. My dad and I were going out of town on a three hour drive to visit my sick grandma when the unthinkable happened. My dad asked me to put on my quote, murder cast I'm always listening to and tell and telling him about.

Nervously, I searched for the perfect debut episode to ease him in and I finally decided to play my favorite episode, Weapon Bush, episode 81. What the fuck? Why did we? I don't even know. Weapon Bush. We'll have to ask Stephen about it after. He doesn't know.

He must know. He walks all of this out as he should. Weapon Bush. Episode 81, when Georgia tells a satisfying story of how Dr. Jeffrey McDonald was caught from murdering his wife and two sweet baby angels, I cringed and tried to talk over the more gruesome details of Karen's Peter Curtin story so my dad wouldn't freak out and change his mind in wanting to listen and bond with me over this quote taboo subject. We got through the episode and I decided to play a minisode to get some laughs in.

In the middle of the minisode, my dad says to me, hey, something like that happened to me. I'm sorry, I'm doing Marty's voice. I don't know. I love it. It's perfect. I couldn't believe it. It was finally happening to me.

I paused the podcast and tried not to seem too eager. My dad tells me about this one horrible supervisor he had in the 80s when he landed a job as an assembly line worker, question mark, who cares? She says, he said he hated a supervisor because he never did any work unless the big bosses came around and was rude to everyone he came into contact with. My dad left the factory, question mark, to serve in the Air Force and when he came back, his mom and my grandma asked him, did you ever work with George? My dad rolled his eyes and said yes.

Then my grandma proceeds to tell my dad that he was arrested for kidnapping and rape. Oh. She writes, so this fucking guy kidnapped a young girl from his neighborhood, tied her up in his home and would rape her repeatedly every day, sorry. When the parents held a search party to look for her, all caps, this fucking guy would be looking for her alongside the rest of his neighbors. After a few weeks of being held captive, the girl managed to get away and tell authorities everything.

Yes. Bad ass. Yes, she wrote. After the first two episodes ended, my dad turned to me and said, wow, so do they have an episode about Jean Benet? Yes. Yes, we do, sir. We absolutely do.

I'm sorry. This is such a long email. I just had to share this exciting bonding moment between me and my dad. Thank you and SSDGM, Brittany. I love it, Brittany. I love it. Congratulations on finally cracking that case. That's right.

That dad case. That's right. It's an exciting feeling. It is. It can happen to you too. I hate that band though. You too. That's stupid.

It can happen to Bono and the Edge. I'm not going to read the subject line of this. Okay. First off, thanks for making our parentheses or tag teaming authoring this, Workday is so much more enjoyable. We're glad our coworkers don't know we actually listen to a murder podcast all day instead of music, but you definitely make the day more enjoyable. Second off, confession.

We are not the protagonists of the story, but it was way too good not to share with you. We live in Chicago, and this last winter was a very cold one. Near the end of January, the temperatures reached minus 27 degrees. With a wind chill, it felt like minus 50 degrees, but global warming is a hoax. Literally colder than Antarctica, Alaska, and the North Pole. Because of this, the entire city shut down, and most companies let their employees work from home, which pretty much meant drinking spiked hot chocolate and watching movies.

Hell yeah. God bless. Well, some of our friends also worked from home, and during the day began hearing weird noises from their attic. This better not be a creepypasta. But they said friends. Yeah. We'll leave them so far.

We'll see. They believed it was just some animal trying to escape the cold temperatures. So to get proof for their landlord, they stuck a selfie stick into the attic opening to try to get a photo of the animal. When they brought the selfie stick back down and went to look at the photo, it turned out not to be an animal, but instead the photo revealed a man crouching down in the corner trying to avoid being captured on the phone. In all caps, UG my worst nightmare.

Turns out this man had moved into our friend's apartment before they moved in when the unit was empty. Our friends moved in in September, so they had been unknown cohabitating with this man for five months. No, no, no, no. Five months. Turns out when they would go to work during the day, he would come down from the attic and live in their apartment.

He used the shower, ate their food, and watched their TV. Who knows what else? Holy shit. The worst part was that the opening to the attic was in one of their rooms. Think the Lord who wasn't a creepy sexual predator, and I'm so glad he never physically hurt them, but he definitely emotionally scared the bejesus out of them. Can you imagine looking at that photo? That photo.

Silently, and then everyone turns and runs out the door? Here's the thing. We're doubting that this could be a creepypasta, this could be based on other stories. Who cares? Picks or it didn't happen, it seems like they have pics. These are gettable pics if posse. Yes. Thanks for listening to this, Mary and Katie.

Do you think they kicked him out or just started charging him rent? You're like, if you shower a couple more times a week, this is a fine situation. We're not going to make you pay half of it because you're only staying in the crawl space. Yeah, you just have to crouch up there. Give him a quarter of the rent. Yeah. Right?

Sure. Why not? If it's been that long and he hasn't done anything creepy to them, he's a pretty fucking good roommate. How about you build some fucking stairs? Yeah. Mary and Katie's friends? We've all had bad roommates.

That sounds like a great roommate. Yeah, exactly. They're gone, let's you have your life. Does he do the dishes he must have or they would have noticed? That's a good point. That's an amazing point because I was in a standoff one time when I lived in Sacramento in the haunted house. We would not do the dishes and we all blamed each other like you're the one that never

does it and the kitchen sink was just filled with dishes all the time. Did I ever tell you about the time? I had a similar roommate situation and we were out of paper towels and I was like, hey, we've all bought paper towels. It's your turn to buy paper towels and she goes, I don't really use paper towels. And then she leaves me a note about borrowing something of mine in my bathroom on a paper towel. She was too stupid for it to be on purpose because it would have been fucking pretty

great. How great is that? This is from my friend Brooke Van Poppelen. So she says, hey gang, I sent this to Georgia over two years ago when you still read about hometown murders and I'm so thrilled that after many excellent stories about things found in walls, first responder stories, and I think even sinkholes, you've returned a good old fashioned murder stories from where you grew up. And this is that.

This is my hometown murder story from the Detroit suburbs where my dad was a cop and I was more than likely blasting Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation cassette from my boom box and roller skating in my basement. There are some conflicting details and stories, but this is the most reported version I found. It was November 1989 when two teenagers, Joseph Pisano 17 and Bruce Michaels 16, went on an armed robbery spree that claimed the lives of Rochester, Michigan residents Glenn and Wanda Tarr. The teens chose their victims at random, which is an extra layer of scary bullshit.

After finishing dinner, 58 year old Wanda Tarr, a life insurance agent, went to meet with a client and before doing so, stopped to withdraw money from an ATM where Bruce and Joseph had been lurking around waiting for a victim. They followed her into a quiet neighborhood she was heading into and cut her off and held her at gunpoint. She was only three miles from her home. They forcibly robbed her for a sum total of $15 and then kidnapped her. The monsters drove her into a park in Pontiac, which is a neighboring city of Rochester Hills,

and fatally shot her in the head and just dumped her body there. They neatly stacked her insurance forms next to her body. What sucks about Pontiac in that era is the sound of gunshots was nothing to rouse attention or suspicion. Then using Wanda's ID, this is the fucking worst, Joseph and Bruce figured out how to navigate back to the Tarr's residence where they broke into the house and told 53 year old Glenn Tarr that they had abducted his wife. Glenn, a GM Chevrolet executive, was tied up while they ransacked the house for jewelry

and electronics. Then kidnapping Glenn, they shoved him into the trunk of a car and stole the other two cars, a Chevy Cavalier and a Geoprism. Oh, what a great car, the Geoprism. Why don't those exist anymore? Because they're being used as gift boxes for a lot of things. Good. The two then drove Glenn to two other ATM machines in the area, but apparently failed

to get money out of them, says one source, but another source says they got $500 total, plus the $15 they took from Wanda. So a 515 total. Maybe just 15. Oh, source-wise, yeah, got it. The assailants drove Glenn, this is so awful, back to the exact place in the park where they had shot and killed Wanda, who was lying there murdered in front of Glenn when they shot him six times and dumped him next to his wife's body.

So they made him look at his dead wife before they killed him. That's fucking the definition of evil. Remember how he asked for hometowns? We've changed our mind. Right? Several hours later, at 5 a.m., a neighbor called the police noting that the Tars house looked suspicious. The garage was open and empty, but the lights on, which is not typical.

Later that morning, a woman walking her dog in Pontiac Park found the Tars lifeless bodies. A search for the killers and stolen cars ensued, and while my dad was on patrol, he actually found one of the cars belonging to the Tars abandoned on the outskirts of Rochester in a really rural part of town on a dirt road, normally reserved for teenage, underage, beard drinking, and shenanigans. And then she writes, guilty. I asked my dad if he remembered, if he found the prison or the Cavalier, and he said he honestly couldn't remember.

Being from Motor City, this is inexcusable to me, but whatever. True. As for the killers, they were clearly young and dumb, and after robbing and killing the Tars, these two psychopaths went to a dance club and bragged about what they had done. They were sloppy in every respect and picked up by police quickly. The violence and senselessness of their acts really rocked the community, and the two received maximum sentences of life without parole. Even Spookier turns out our good family friend was at a McDonald's near the Tars house on

the night they were murdered. She was with her young boys eating inside when two creepy teens came into the Golden Arches, and they eyeballed her and her kids in a way that made her feel incredibly threatened. It was Joseph and Bruce as she found out a few days later when their mug shots appeared in the news after being arrested. She went cold when she recognized them instantly. The way the murder timeline works out is that the murderers stop into Mickey D's after killing Wanda, but before killing Glenn.

Whether it was before they abducted Glenn and put him in, basically it could have been while he was in the trunk outside or not. They're not sure of the timeline, and she fucking saw them in the McDonald's and was creeped out by them. They're eating food. Yeah, they're getting a snack between murders. The Tars have five children, one of which has spoke out that his faith has given him the ability to finally forgive the teenage killers after all these years.

Scary fucking stuff. Thank you for the many hours of twisted companionship mixed with advocacy for victims, mental health awareness, and tough talk about how we women are a force when we come together for good. We love you both, and stay sexy, and try not to be the victim of absolute bullshit. You have no control over it from Burkman Poplin, and she has a podcast that's a bunch of friends of mine called Side Work. About waitressing? About waitressing and waiting tables and the inter-restaurant stuff.

That's great. God, that's so... Here's the thing, it's like, how did they find each other, those two teens, and how did they both realize... I want to know the dynamic between the two of them. It's like the DC Sniper, where you're like, this isn't common, how are the two of you together on this? You're both perfectly okay doing this, like the Columbine Shooters, it's just like you're both yep and moving forward without the fucking second thought. It's insane.

There's so many chances to stop, to go, oh my God, that just happened, and that's the worst thing of all time I'm running, or something, and it doesn't. It's just a creepy... It just escalates. Looking for a better cooking routine? With meal planning, shopping, and prepping handled, Hello Fresh has you covered. Hello Fresh makes home cooking easy and affordable, so you can stay on track and on budget in the new year. Hello Fresh meals are convenient, seasonal, and delicious.

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that my food tastes good, which is hard to do on my own. It gives you everything, everything you need, so get up to 20 free meals with purchase plus free shipping on your first box at hellofresh.ca slash murder20 with code murder20. Get up to 20 free meals plus free shipping on your first box when you go to hellofresh.ca slash murder20 and use code murder20. Goodbye. Hey, I'm Mike Corey, the host of Wondery's podcast against the odds. In our next season, three masked men hijack a school bus full of children in the sleepy

farm town of Chautchilla, California. They bury the children and their bus driver deep underground, planning to hold them for ransom. No police and the FBI marshal a search effort, but the trail quickly runs dry as the air supply for the trapped children dwindles, a pair of unlikely heroes emerges. Follow against the odds wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. Here's my last one and we'll fold McDonald's back into it because we did ask for drive-thru

stories. Remember? Yeah, this is weird. This is a good one, good ones, but this, this one I love. Hi Karen, Georgian, sweet, furry angels. No. Have I got a creepy fast food story for you? Okay.

So when I was 16, I'd just gotten hired at McDonald's in the car on the way to my first shift. My mom, my mom, Canadian, my mom says to me, did I ever tell you about the CIA agent in the drive-thru? I said no. And she proceeded to tell me the story of when my uncle worked at a Burger King drive-thru in the town of Surrey, British Columbia, FYI. I asked my uncle to fill in some of the blanks in the story when I knew I was going to write

you. Great. Back-checking. Right? Good job. This is basic true crime reporting and you've done it great. Who, what, when, where, how? That's it.

It was sometime in the late 80s and my uncle was working at the front counter when a woman pulled up to the drive-thru and handed the girl at the window a note that said, call this number and tell them I'm being followed. The lady sped off and the girl opened the note which said something like, I work for the CIA and I'm being followed, call this number. Since this is Canada, the manager called the good old RCMP to have them investigate. Soon the small town Burger King, small town Burger King, was swarmed with cop cars and RCMP officers who were all deciding whether or not to call the number themselves or forget

about it since the lady was probably just a crazy person. Well, they end up calling the number and it turns out to be a all caps direct line to this CIA or the secret service and then in parentheses, my mom and uncle can't decide which one. But I think, isn't secret service just for protection of like the president and stuff? I think- No matter what my answer is, it's, I don't know. We'll be wrong.

Yeah, you're right. I'm guessing CIA. Okay. The officers gave the Americans on the other end all the information that they asked for and interviewed everyone working that day including my uncle who says it was one of the most thrilling days of his career. Looking back on it now, he says that the lady who came through the drive-thru was probably just some disturbed woman who happened to have the direct line to an American intelligence

agency, but I guess we'll never know. No way. I'm sorry. Hey, guess what, uncle? It was your experience and it's your life, but you're fucking wrong. That's crazy. You guys, you guys, yeah. You don't understand how hard it is to get the phone number to the CIA because you're

Canadian. That's right. That's like being able to call Dudley Deer, right? Yeah. No, it was totally a CIA. That's a cartoon Canadian bounty. I'm being insulting to everybody. Thank you for making my commutes to school so much more interesting and also your book

is the best birthday present I've ever received. Stay sexy and don't give crazy people a direct number to the CIA. She wasn't crazy, goddammit. It's the perfect cover. She couldn't have been crazy, but she was also a CIA agent. She wasn't. She was absolutely a CIA agent. And maybe crazy, but that's okay.

You go deep cover because you don't look like a CIA agent. You don't have slick back hair. It's not some men in black thing. It's a smart thing to do to hand it to the fucking, like your handy money and your hand. That's so CIA. Yes. It's straight out of the CIA 101. And she called the number with the CIA.

Yeah. What more do you mean? It was in a piece of place next door. And I love that she fucking bombed her by calling, like getting the RCMP to fucking show up instead. Yes. So whoever's following her was like, oh, that was absolutely her and them and anyway, stay sexy and don't give create.

Oh, I already said that. Sorry. The only thing I didn't say is the signature, which is just the letter A. Oh, she's in the CIA probably. That's some CIA shit right there. Some identity hiding mother fuck and bullshit. Okay. Mine is, this one's way less murdery than my other two of them.

This is called the Marshmallow Incident. Lighthearted. Hello. Long time listener. First time emailer. I'm the youngest of four children. We're all very close in age and a pretty physical bunch. So there are plenty of stories from my childhood that ended in the emergency room that I could

tell you about. But one of the more infamous stories took place when I was only about a year old. I know the details because it has been told to me about a thousand times. My whole family was roasting marshmallows and palling around in the front yard one summer evening. At the time, my brother Micah was three and my sister Naomi was four. Micah wanted to play with one of those plastic yellow with full ball bats. You know the kind everyone had growing up.

Yep. Yep. His little toddler arms couldn't handle holding the metal skewer with his marshmallow and the bat at the same time. So he put the pointy end of the skewer in his mouth to free up his arms. Oh. Wait. Sorry.

How old three? Three. Oh no. You know where this is going. And started reaching for the bat. Baby kabob. My sister was riding around on her tricycle and like any bratty older sister decided that she wanted the yellow bat when she noticed Micah going for it.

So she rode over and tried to yank it away before he could grab it. In the process, the bat bumped into the skewer in his mouth and pushed it all the way back into his throat. So far that it actually poked through the fleshy skin under his ear. Oh no. Stephen. No. No.

Stephen's perfect. That's not okay. It happened. That's. This isn't creepypasta. I forget that your ears are basically connected to your mouth. Tender bits. Ear nose.

Throat. Doctor. Please no. Tender bits. Tender three year old bits. Oh. Just like chicken cutlets. Cut up and skewered for a delicious summertime treat.

That's right. My parents who were presumably busy pouring themselves another glass of wine while all this went down. Yeah. Immediately jumped into action, threw Micah into the pickup truck and my dad started speeding him to the closest ER. My dad was too afraid to remove the skewer himself. Good.

Good. Never removed skewers. But little Micah was like, I don't like this and I want it gone. And he yanked the skewer out while my dad was driving. At the ER, the doctors explained that the skewer had missed his carotid artery, the one that supplies all the blood to your brain by less than a centimeter. Oh, shit. If it had been punctured, he probably would have died.

If my brother hadn't just pulled the skewer out himself, it would have been an extremely risky surgery to have removed it. What? Yeah. But the lady luck was on our side and Micah was sent home half an hour later with a bandaid and a sticker. To this day, metal skewers are strictly forbidden from our house. We can only roast marshmallows with very thin and flimsy sticks we find in the yard.

And Naomi still gets teased for almost killing our brother over a baseball bat. Thank you for keeping me entertained during long commutes and boring days at grad school, SSDGM, Hannah. Holy shit, Hannah. That's like, that's why people believe in the Lord or a God of some kind. Right. Right. Because that's crazy.

A miracle. It's a miracle it didn't kill him on the way in. And then a three-year-old performed his own throat surgery. That's right. I would like to congratulate Hannah for eliciting the weirdest noises I've ever heard Steven make in my fucking life. Yes. Steven, what was that?

So sorry. It gets worse every time. Yeah. It was the flag. Yes. And then there was, I think, like falling off the balcony or something. Yeah. It's just more of a fun thing.

But, Naomi, are you gagging? I think I just uttered, yeah, I think it just dissampled. You feel it. Yeah, you almost like. Like, yeah, I was like feeling it in my head. It's happening to you. Yeah. That's how amazing Hannah's storytelling.

Hannah. Great job. Yeah. Unbelievable. Yeah. Send us your fucked up, not fucked up, fucked around, fucked with stories. All of it. All of them.

Don't send us fucking stories. No fucking stories. That's not this podcast. That's not what we're about. That's not what we do. You know that about us. Stop it. And stay sexy.

And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Bye-bye. Elvis, you want cookie? Bye-bye. Elvis, you want cookie?