My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 131 - The Worst

Episode Date: July 15, 2019

This week’s minisode is a compilation of hometowns that feature infamous serial killers.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is exactly right. 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. This is my favorite murder, mini-soad, hometown mini-soad. It's a mini-soad, guys, so don't get involved.

Keep it light. Yeah. And get ready to move on quickly. If you're on, like, a quick treadmill run or you have, like, a quick commute or someone's telling you a boring story, you can just throw in an airbud and just real quick listen to some murder stories. Okay. These are ones that you guys have sent in to my favorite murder at Gmail that I'm going

to read to Karen. Awesome. Yeah. I haven't read these. Okay. So these will be a fun surprise. Yeah. Let's see here.

This one is called... I can't read you the name of the thing, but... All right. Karen, Georgia, Steven and various animals. I just finished listening to mini-soad 83 where you ask for secret life reveals and my friends have been begging me to send this story in. So here we go. Back in the 70s, my parents were in a bowling league.

Over the years, you get to know other people in the league and you all become friends, acquaintances, whatever. One of their friends always invited my dad to come over for taco parties, but he never went. I don't know why, but all the, I was like, mm-mm, it's just taste. Taco parties. Taco parties, no. Fast forward a bit.

And one night, my dad and his friend Sam are at the alley when their friend walks in acting very animated. He shakes my dad's hand and puts an arm around Sam and says to them something along the lines of, hey, guys, I don't think I can stay very long because the FBI is following me. They pretty much blew him off thinking he was crazy. The next day comes and both of my parents were at the local grocery store they worked at. They were 18 and 19 years old.

And who walks in that morning, but Sam holding a newspaper. My mom said that he looked like he saw a ghost. What's the front page story that day? Their bowling league friend from the night before had been arrested for multiple murders. Oh, and who was that guy from the bowling league? None other than the killer clown himself fucking John Wayne Gacy. All caps fucking John Wayne Gacy. Oh, shit.

Sam went on to be his defense attorney. Oh, whoa. And Sam and my dad are still friends to this day. He wrote a book about it a few years ago and signed a copy for my dad. I remember hearing the story from a young age, but I never really thought much of it until I was a teenager and realized who John Wayne Gacy was. Doesn't everyone's parents bowl with notorious serial killers? No, just mine.

Okay. Anyways, that's all I got for now. Stay sexy and don't join bowling leagues with killer clowns, Alyssa. P.S. My dad would like to note that it was the Plains PD following Gacy and not the FBI. Whoa. Crazy clown. Wow.

Oh. That just makes me think of it in the, I think it was the made for TV movie or could have been the real movie. Brian Dennehy is playing John Wayne Gacy and when it gets to that part where he's just like, he's like drunk during the day and driving around and just like trying to avoid the police. Oh my God. Like it just made me pick in my mind, in the movie, in my mind, it was Brian Dennehy

walking into that bowling alley. Yeah. Hey guys. Don't boss at the bowling alley. What if they blend up his taco party and like been in the house? And then he's like, who likes magic tricks down to the basement, everybody? Oh Jesus, John. So insane.

Okay. This says, the subject line is Elmer Wayne Henley confessed on my granddad's car phone. Wait. Shut up. Holy shit. We just did, we just did fucking Dean Corral. Yep. Corral, Dean Corral.

Right. And oh my God. Yeah. Mama. I killed Dean. Ready? Oh my God. Yes.

Okay. Hey Karen of Georgia. My family is from a neighborhood just outside of the Heights in Houston, Garden Oaks. So I was especially disturbed by this week's story, which is your story he's talking about. At the time, at the time when the abductions were happening, my dad would have been the same age as a lot of the young boys who were killed. My granddad, Jack Cato, was also a crime reporter for Channel 2. In case you didn't know what we're talking about, this is the serial killer, Dean Corral,

AKA the Candy Man. We did it a couple episodes back. And he is horrifying. A monster. He killed 30 something boys. 29. Some boys, like teenage and younger boys. Horrifying.

Yeah. Okay. So the granddad, Jack Cato is a crime reporter for Channel 2, the local station in the 70s. So he says, so I couldn't help but wonder if he had covered those murders and how awful that must have been. Then y'all got to the confession part and I jumped off the couch, freaking the crap out of my dog. I have heard this story a million times.

That's because when Elmer Wayne Henley confessed to his mom, mama, I killed Dean. He was using my granddad's car phone. It's in a video you can watch. Oh, really? Yeah. On YouTube, there's a video of him doing that. Oh, it's so good. Okay.

My granddad died in 2006 when I was a senior in high school. This was such a big moment in his reporting career. They included it in his obituaries over 30 years later. Hell yeah, they did. He was on the scene. According to this one, my granddad handed Henley the car phone, knowing that he would be able to hear the whole conversation. Yeah.

Then he grabbed the camera, started filming and caught the infamous confession on tape. If it's not too weird to say, it warmed my heart to be reminded of another part of my granddad's amazing life on one of my favorite podcasts, even if it was about a truly gruesome murder story from my hometown. From one anxious depressed person who loves her therapist to another. All around. Hello. Stay sexy and don't get murdered.

XOXO, Genevieve. Oh, my God. That's awesome. For some reason at the beginning, I assumed this was from a guy and said he at the beginning, but that is so epic. Kill D. Mama. And they have her side of the conversation on it, and that must be why he got it.

He had it all hooked up. Yeah. That is so legendary. I love it. She's crying. He's crying. Oh, Jesus Christ. Wow.

Thank you, Genevieve. Yeah. Well, I have a Dean Coral story, too. Do you really? This has, this has been, could have met the Candyman. Hello, Karen, Georgia, Stephen and esteemed associates. Elvis, that's you. That's my favorite one so far.

Elvis, let's go get your briefcase. Esteemed associates. Love the show. I can't wait to see you in Dallas in November. In 1973, when I was 12 years old, my mother and I lived in an apartment complex in the North Houston neighborhood of Spring Branch. My best friend, Craig, also 12, and his older brother, Robert, 14, lived in the next complex over.

We were all latchkin kids, so we usually spent the two and a half hours between school and dinner doing pretty much anything but homework. The complex had a large courtyard that faced the street, and we hung out there a lot, farting around the way boys do at that age. Yep. Teenagers. Salami and cheese. Salami and cheese sandwiches on wipe right with mustard, right?

That's boys in the 70s. That's it. One afternoon, not long before the last day of school, we were throwing a football around when a guy pulled up in a van. He got out and walked over to where we were playing, looking up at the second floor apartments like he was trying to find his way around. He was older than us, probably 17 or so, and we didn't pay any attention to him until he walked up and started talking to us.

He was really nice, tallish and thin with long brown, wait, with long blonde hair and wire-in glasses. Jess said hi and started shooting the shit, talking about football. Robert, my friend's brother, spoke with him the most probably because he was older. The blonde guy invited Robert to a party, telling him there would be lots of girls there and that there'd be plenty of beer and food, even some weed if he wanted. Robert basically said, no thanks. Both he and Craig were from a pretty religious family, and then the guy turned to me.

What about you? He said, come on, it'll be fun. I remember feeling that weird tingle in my stomach, I'll never forget it. I have felt it a few times since, but this was the first time. Something was off. I was always a shy kid, so I looked at the ground and said something about how my mom wouldn't let me, and I'd get in trouble if I did, which was absolutely true, besides. I was 12 years old, I didn't even really like girls that much, and yet I damn sure wasn't

interested in beer and pot. He didn't seem mad or irritated, he just said something along the lines of, that's too bad man, catch you next time, and he got in his van and drove off, and that was it until a few months later when I saw his picture on TV. I recognized him right away. His name was David Brooks, he and Elmer Wayne Henley assisted serial killer Dean Coral for years by procuring boys for Coral to rape, torture, and murder than bury in a boat shed in benches.

I remember during my teen years really resenting my mom's strictness, but then I would remember that it was likely the very strictness that kept me off the torture board attended to by the candy man, and I'll cut her some slack. Thanks for listening, stay sexy, and never ever ever get in the van, yours, Glenn. Oh my god. Dude. It's so creepy. Yeah.

Like, but you could just do that back then. Yes. It's like wandering hippies starting up conversations was totally deli-gur, no one even thought about it. Like, that they would want to talk to young kids would make sense. Yeah. I know. Thank god those boys were like, that's together and smart.

Then religious, like that alone, I feel like saved them from doing anything. Because they knew Satan was in their presence. They could feel him. Yeah. They could feel Satan. Amen. Mama. Mama.

Mama killed Dean. All right. This one's called vicarious encounters with infamous men. Mm-hmm. Okay. Hey, MFM crew. All right. What up?

I've been a fan from the very beginning. Earlier this week, I was having a couple beers with my dad. We have a strange relationship. You ready for this? Yeah. We have a strange relationship since he spent 17 years in prison in New York state for killing my mom when I was three and a half. Wow.

And I read that I was like, great job, Stephen. Wow. Great job picking this one. I know. Okay. She says, I know, I know. How can I still see or talk to him, right? I'll just say it's complicated.

Not right. Shit. We don't, I mean, yeah. It's your father. Yeah. I get it. There's lots of, there's lots of things. And understandable that alcohol's involved when you guys hang out.

My mom didn't even kill anyone and I have to fucking drink around her when I'm with her. Look, I mean, you only have two parents. I mean. The enormity of that. Yes. It's just like. No one will ever understand that unless they've gone through it. Yeah.

Who knows what the dad said? I mean, who knows? Anyway. Who knows? Who knows? Yeah. Anyway, for the, she says, anyway, I'm not saying it to you anyway, Karen. Anyway.

Anyway, for the first time this week, I really got some details about what prison was like. He apparently only ever spent a month in quote, the box or solitary confinement because he refused to snitch on a guy who started a fight with him. He said, having a reputation as a snitch stays with you the whole time you're inside. The only thing worse is being a convicted child master. He was in Attica for a while and he said that he used to play Peanuckle with David Berkowitz. What the fuck? The guy who was son of Sam.

I mean, I hope this isn't a lie, but if it is, it's great writing. It doesn't seem like. Peanuckle is the funniest card game that you could name. And you're playing it with son of Sam. With son of Sam. Fuck. Great. Just great contrast.

I love it. While he was there, he and a guard would make each other laugh by walking by Mark David Chapman cell and singing John Lennon songs. No. What the fuck? Holy shit. Fuck. All in all, a pretty fucked up situation, but it has occasionally yielded some interesting

stories. I love you both and I hope that next time you're in Philadelphia, we can hang out and be BFF. I'll make you cookies in the meantime. Stay sexy and don't get murdered. I'll do the same. Smooches to you and Steven and the animal crew XOXO stuff. Stuff.

Stuff. That's, I mean, that's fascinating. Fuck. What an interesting person. Her. I mean, her. All of it. Yeah.

Also, just that the experience of a person, you know how like the inside prison experiment, all those shows, it's also, because I'm sure it's hellish and terrible, like the night of or whatever, it's all just like this huge panic, but like kind of anecdotal stories about being inside prison is a very fascinating way to get that information. Cause they imagine, you imagine the like day to day stuff is like, it's pretty boring. Right. It becomes like, you know, you're 12 years into a life sentence and you're like, this is what I do now.

And I, yeah, there's been a couple of fights, but I've had to go and there's this and that, but it's fine. Not much going on until someone jumps you in the laundry room. Yeah. With a shank. Is that what they use? Maybe they shank you. Maybe they garot you.

Maybe you learn to make prison wine. Maybe you, you are able to order through the guy that gets stuff like a catalog, get yourself some mushrooms. Top ramen. Oh. Some mushrooms for your top ramen. Can you imagine doing drugs and the mushrooms in a fucking prison? I think you'd go out of your goddamn mind.

But I think it's just, just to pass the time. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Mushrooms would be bad though. Cause you'd be like, I keep seeing skulls everywhere. Yeah.

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slash murder 20 with code murder 20. It's up to 20 free meals plus free shipping on your first box when you go to hellofresh.ca slash murder 20 and use code murder 20. 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. School 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. So this is Deb L. And she says my hometown murder is me or rather would have been me if not for, well, let me explain. Oh, my profile picture is me and kindergarten in 1967 in Norwalk, California.

I was a child on the spectrum before there was a spectrum to be on. Back then I was just weird Debbie and mostly I was a loner in a crowd of people and this is still true FYI. One day I headed to a good friend's house across the alley. We lived in an area. There was a lot of apartment buildings and a few single family homes to get to my friend's apartment. We had to go through the carport as I approached the, I don't know, right as I approached the

area, I saw a man with long surfer hair sitting in his car. I had a pass by this car, but something about him made me wary as I got closer, he opened up his passenger passenger door from the inside and gestured for me to get in as I looked into the car. I could see he wasn't wearing pants and his stick shift was present and alert. She doesn't mean the car. She does not. Jesus.

I went back to my house while he was screaming for me to come back and then I told my mom what I saw. Let's just say my mom was not a kind woman and I was slapped for describing a man's penis and was told to never talk about that again and she blamed me. Hey, 1967. Yeah. This was back before people understood how humanity worked. We talk about it a lot.

Yeah. Let's see. And then moving ahead three more days, I was again walking to meet a friend on the other side of the same apartment building, I mean, her mom was just like, get out of here. Her mom's like, hmm, my young child just described a naked man in a car, go back outside. That was her. That's her answer. I avoided the carport and as I made it around the corner, I passed a car parked on the road.

I didn't see the driver as I got near the door of the car. He suddenly sat up, opened the door and grabbed my arm and started pulling me into the car. Fuck. I screen, kick, bit, hit, scratched and clawed my way away from him. Yes. A woman walking on the street, heard the commotion and came running. That's right. And he drove off.

What if it was like, and then she slapped me across the street. Another mean mom came from across the street to hit me in the face. Anyways, I'm in a psycho ward now because people are the worst. I didn't tell my mom about the second one because, well, you know, and being four, I couldn't be sexy except to a fucking pervert. Wait, wait. Four years old. Yeah.

I said six. Originally. Wait. Um, nope. She was four. Fuck. What? Can you imagine a four-year-old walking around the street?

No. Like even a four-year-old out of a car seat these days makes people nervous. Much less just fucking, oh, bye, mom. I'm going to go take the alley to my friend's house. I'll be back later when I feel like it. Yeah. I'm Michael Bowling. I'm four.

I've lived my life, um, two years later, he would grab an eight-year-old off the street and take her to his Hollywood apartment and here's where it gets familiar where he raped and beat her badly. And then he'd, we'd, and then would begin his rapey murdery spree until he was finally caught. The man Rodney Alcala, Alcala, yes, I know it's difficult to believe being that I was four at the time that I'd remember this. However, it wasn't until the late 90s when I saw a headline with his picture and I screamed

because staring out at me from the computer screen was that face from 34 years ago that I finally had a name to put with the face. I hadn't even read the article to know what he'd done, but I knew he was the guy who tried to grab me twice. Also ever since this moment, I'm hype, my hypervigilance is always on high alert. People think it's funny to come up behind me and startle me. It wasn't. Who?

So that's how you earn the right to grow up and stay sexy, not getting murdered. Way to go, Deb. Hell yeah. Rodney Alcala, if I'm pronouncing it correctly, Alcala, Alcala, he's the one that was on the dating game. That's one of my favorite when that one comes on of all those crime shows. I always have to watch that one because first of all, he's such a creep overtly and he was also the photographer, right?

So he'd go to these like open call photo shoots at the beach with like women and bikinis who were like, I want to be a model and the photographer, like I'm a photographer because I have a camera. Yeah. Come back to my place and I'll take some photos of you. Sounds great. Let me grab my four year old child. God, I wonder how many like, how many murders are can be attributed to him that were never

happened. Right. I mean, if he's doing shit like that and I know he went from like California to Florida and I mean, oh, he's, he needs to get, we need to go in depth on that guy. Let's do it. Right now. Give me yours. Okay.

I'm not going to say the, okay, subject line guys. You wouldn't believe what stories you get from your family members after years of thinking they don't have any cool murder-esque stories. So I'm currently in training to be a truck driver. You guys keep me saying when I'm driving, my trainer is a nightmare. And on my off weekends, I've been going to my godfather's house and hanging out with him. I've been talking about how there's been so many things about Bundy on TV and somehow

I managed to bring up John Wayne Gacy. Well, my godfather very nonchalantly goes, oh yeah, a couple of my buddies stole his toilet before they demolished the house. What? Toilet? Of course. I made him tell me everything and apparently they were in the area of his house and they thought it'd be fun to go up there, to go up there before it was completely dismantled.

So fun. Cause you know, they raised that thing to the ground. Yeah. And when they got there, they see that Gacy's toilet was sitting out on the front lawn. So like any 20-something year old guys, sure enough, they loaded up and they take it home. Ew, no. And years later, guess what? The guy still has John Wayne Gacy's toilet just sitting in his garage and tells everyone.

Holy shit. Stay sexy and steal toilets. May soon. Amazing. I already had to sell that fucker. Well, I bet there are collectors that would pay five grand, ten grand for that thing. Let's go steal it. Let's steal the stolen toilet.

This is just like Nicholas Cage. This is the next plot of the Nicholas Cage movie. Toilet. Toilet Steelers. National Toilet Steelers of America. Amen. Amen. This is called a serial killer I witness was my elementary art teacher.

What? Okay. Hello Karen, Georgia, see you in Animal Friends. That's right. I don't mind that. I love your podcast and I have to thank my twin sister, Lisa, for getting me hooked. Lisa? Lisa, we're from a small town in Northwest Indiana with a population of just over 2,000.

It was a pretty quiet place to grow up. My grandma was the one who got us interested in true crime from a young age. I can remember my grandma listening to her police scanner and watching court TV like it was her job. Love you, grandma. Grandma also liked to take us to cemeteries for fun. Fuck. I love her.

We attended the local elementary school where one of my favorite classes was art with our teacher, Nita Paradis. She was an excellent teacher who made her students feel special and talented. Ms. Paradis was our art teacher from kindergarten through fifth grade. When we came back for sixth grade in 1990, Ms. Paradis had left her position and moved away leaving a very inadequate replacement. We had an older sister, Laura, who was freshman at the time, so of course we got all of our completely age and appropriate information from her.

Yes. Older sister, Laura. Yeah. Oh, yeah. The next school year, we found out that Laura, from Laura, that Ms. Paradis was actually Nita Neary. What? An eyewitness in the Ted Bundy trial.

Oh, fuck. That's her. She escaped. That's right. Colorado? No, Chai Omega. Oh, in Florida? Yeah.

Well, I bet she'll tell us. Okay. I like that you called it Chai Omega. What is it? Chai. Chai. But it's chai tea. I didn't go to college.

Can I tell you the truth right now? I didn't know what a fucking RA was until you told me, until you started reading that thing. I was like, oh, she worked as an RA in the hospital? Cool. Oh, like a highway patrolman? Got it. Got it.

I didn't. Resident assistant? Listen, Santa Monica. Yeah, I know I get it now. Let's look and listen about Santa Monica City College. What's up? Boop, boop, boop. Okay.

Oh, this is really exciting because I'm reading A Stranger Beside Me or The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule right now. And so this is a fucking, okay. I know. Let's do it. Let's do it. Neeta was an art major and a member of the Chai Omega sorority at Florida State University. She returned to the sorority house after a date entering the house through the back door.

Later, her footsteps coming down the stairs, she remained silent and hidden in the shadows and became an eyewitness to Ted Bundy leaving the house. She helped a police sketch artist come up with a rendering of Bundy and later identified him in a photo lineup and in court. Of course, we later heard rumors that she was in our small town as part of the witness protection program. Oh. We still aren't sure if that was any truth to that, but either way, our small town was

probably a nice place to lie low for a while. Anyway, just wanted to share our little town's connection to a notorious serial killer. Thank you for creating a place for true crime lovers to gather without judgment. Please keep doing what you're doing. Stay sexy and don't get murdered. Carla. Carla. What a bummer to find out after she's gone.

But it totally was witness protection, don't you think? Like head out and because. But if she's already a teacher, then that means she got her degree. Oh, so she this was the past was behind her. She was kind of within the year, I think of that. So this was the past was behind her. He was already in jail in jail. So maybe she was just like, get me the fuck out of my existence right now.

But also like she really was the final blow to stopping this monster who killed so many women. Yeah. Including two of her fucking sorority sisters. Yes. They were upstairs that night where he walked in and walked out like within like 15 minutes. Yes. It was frenzied.

Don't read the stranger beside me. I am having nightmares. I had a fucking, I had a job interview with Ted Bundy the other night. Oh, no. I had a job interview to be his assistant. No. At his fucking mansion in Beverly Hills, I put my feet in his jacuzzi because I was early.

I was early jacuzzi, which is so something I would truly do. And then at a job interview, Ted Bundy, it's so symbolic of how show business kills people. What jacuzzi? It keeps you up. Oh, Karen. Yes. I'll go deep. Or I'm just reading a strange, the stranger beside me, the most disturbing book about

a person who is the most disturbing person. But, but Ann Rule had rules. She, she rules, but she also had every tool in the book to look at him and go, something's not right. And she didn't sense it. I know. Even when it's so scary. Elvis.

He hit his head. What if his eyes weren't crossed anymore? And he spoke French. I don't want to be a smoked cat, but in French. Oh. Meow, meow, meow, meow. Meow, meow, meow. You cookie?

You cookie? You cookie boy? Uh, he doesn't, he doesn't understand what I'm saying. No, he doesn't. We can cut any of that and all of that. Well, fuck. Yeah. That was amazing.

That was great. Carla, also one of the last carolas, I'm sure. There are very few carolas on the planet anymore. That's true. They're going extinct. Great name. Please send us all your fucking, just send us your weird shit. You know what I mean?

Like send us your weird stories that no one, you don't think anyone wants to hear. Yeah. We want to hear it. We do. That's it. Yes. And Steven. And Steven.

Send them to my favorite murder at Gmail. Tell Steven. Tell Steven what he needs to know in the subject line. Get your shit read. Don't use the word for babies. I mean, or do it for attention, but just know that that's really old and no one even enjoys the irony of that anymore. Do it aggressively if you're going to do it at all.

Yeah. Start a hashtag against us. Why are you mad at us? Using it. All you're doing. It's just that thing. You don't want negative attention. Do you want positive attention?

What if the positive attention doesn't work, then you might as well go negative. Sure. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Goodbye Elvis. You want cookie? Oh yeah.

Right as rain.