My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 142

Episode Date: September 30, 2019

This week’s hometowns include a small island murder and a creepy break-in story.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. My favorite murder. The mini-sode. That's Karen. That's Georgia. Hi. We're here to read you your emails that you sent us. Yeah.

About all kinds of things. Yeah. But lately we get some like spooky ones and... Because it's Squad Gord season. Squad Gord season. Spooky Halloween, everybody. Spooky Halloween. Did you see that Omage, the t-shirt company, has a Circleville pumpkin festival t-shirt?

No. Yeah. I got one. Wait. You mean like they just make their own for the Circleville pumpkin festival? Yeah. There must be a murdering out at that company. I love it.

Did you buy yourself one? Uh-huh. I want one. I don't like t-shirts that have shit on it. No, I don't. That's why I didn't get it for you. Do they have one that's blank? I'll wear that.

Okay, perfect. If it's a black t-shirt that's for the Circleville pumpkin festival, but doesn't say anything. Okay. Where do you just wear the other one inside out? Okay. Perfect solutions. Uh, this is where we read you your shit. Are you ready to hear your emails?

Do you have one you want to check out before? No. Okay. Let's see. We'll start with. Okay. My dad's trip with a murderer. No.

My dad has been sober for over 30 years and just told me the story of his last hurrah with drugs and alcohol. Oh, my God. Love it. When my dad was in his early 30s living in Butte, Montana, also my hometown, a childhood friend called him up and said, hey, I came into some money, want to take a trip? And how could my dad pass up a free trip? They flew all over drinking, doing drugs, and other things I care not to think about.

Cut to a week or so after this trip, my dad checked himself into rehab for the last time. Yay. Well, in rehab, he reads an article about his childhood friend being arrested for murder. Apparently, the money he had fallen into was because he murdered a man in Arizona and stole his gold and vehicle. The money was not from investments like my dad assumed. You know, the drug dealers are really good investors. Yeah, right?

My dad is a dealer. I don't know. I don't know. He was a drug doer. Yeah. My dad's old friend was caught because he thought he had, quote, unquote, cleaned the stolen vehicle enough to sell it without anyone being suspicious. Oh, the 70s.

He had it on the side of the road, and someone in law enforcement was checking it out and thought, hmm, something seems fishy. And they were right. After he got caught, he called my dad in rehab and told him, you can tell the police anything you want. And my dad was like, no shit. But no one got in contact with my dad. So long story short, my dad's last bender was spent with a murderer and stolen gold.

They say sexy and don't accept offers of free trips from childhood friends. Kylie. Oh my God. Isn't that good? Yeah, that's a good one. But also, it's like horrible, but it's like ignorance is bliss. He had no idea. He's just like, oh, we're partying.

This is great. I trust this guy. That reminds me, I need to do a corrections corner from last week's mini. I called Prescott, Arizona, but it was Prescott, Arkansas. Oh, it was? Yeah. Oh, okay. I don't know if it was written wrong, I'm going to go with the latter.

You're going to go. It wasn't me. It wasn't me. It wasn't me. Okay. This one's just called a hometown story. Hi, everyone. I'm a terrible introduction, so I'll just jump in.

Even though I live really close to Supermurdery Baltimore, I've never really had a story to share until your latest mini-sode that asked for creepy Halloween stories. One year, a long, long time ago, I was about seven or so, I was out trick-or-treating with my friends around my neighborhood, and we were in just up the street from my house. It was unseasonally warm for October that year, and I was dressed as the pink Power Ranger in a super itchy and hot felt costume. Felt? Remember those?

Mom, no. My aunt made me. Oh. Helmet it all, and yeah, that was felt too. Mistakes were made. So, there's the aunt of Joanne's. Is there any pink felt? I need about a hundred yards of it.

We had this, we had a Cookie Monster costume that got passed down from my brother to my sister to me. It smelled great by the time it got to me, but it was just like carpet. It was like Cookie Monster, like a carpet costume, blue carpet, essentially. Was there like a whole mask, like head thing that had like the little bit of mesh so you could barely breathe just enough to live? It's, yeah. People were really dedicated to the costume part and not the comfort part.

Yeah, the 80s. Backman. And it was in Orange County, so it was always hot in October. Yeah. And I think I showed the picture at our last live Halloween show when I was the mouse, and it was my cousin's costume when she was in the Nutcracker. Oh, yeah. But it was like eight years later, and it was just a tan-colored netting.

So it was like I was stuck in the middle of a big ball of net. Is she net? And then wearing a leotard and tights under it, and I was the kid that had to pee every 15 minutes. It was really cute though. Just a nightmare, but it was very cute. I like to try to keep it. Okay.

Mistakes were made. On the street, I always did big decorations, music, the whole nine yards. It was always the creepiest house, but they had the best candy. This particular year, one of the guys that lived in the house decided it was a super good idea to have a real chainsaws part of their haunted house set up. Nope. Really cool, right? Nope.

Nope. So, so not cool. Maybe it would have been fun if it didn't have a real chain on it, and the lunatic dressed as a bloody scarecrow wasn't chasing children around with it. Guys. Which is for a few steps, I meet across the small field at the beginning of that part of the neighborhood and all the way across the road to the street I live on. No.

That means he wanted to do it. Yeah. That means he was enjoying himself. He liked it. Immensely. I remember running in a felt power ranger costume, the sweatiest thing of all time, and screaming my seven-year-old head off all the way home and thinking, absolutely fuck Halloween this year.

I didn't even get the good candy from the crazy house. Rude. I was just to say, they didn't pull the chainsaw stunt ever again after a bunch of neighborhood parents complained about the crazy person terrorizing their children with a very real chainsaw. Stay sexy and don't chase kids with chainsaws, Brittany. Yeah, Brittany. Agreed.

Oh my God, that's hilarious. I would actually like to give some credit right now. In our neighborhood, when we were little growing up, I just want to give credit to the Lewitter family because the Lewitters, they were an older couple. I think their kids were grown and out of the house, and me and my sister were basically the only little kids in the neighborhood. Maybe there was four other ones. We would go up on Halloween.

It's one of my earliest memories. Mr. Lewitter would be standing there with full-size Snickers, and we were just like, it's heaven. Heaven. It was the greatest. I still never in my life, not as an adult with my nephews or anything, been to a house that had a full-size candy bar. Really?

Yeah. Maybe I'll be that. I have a house, so I'm really excited. This is my first year with trick-or-treaters, I think, are going to come with just kids next door. Yep. Oh, my God. Girl, you be the Lewitters for this next generation.

Be the big candy bar person you want to see in other people. For real, because it really is that you're excited enough to get fun-sized things. It's all a party anyway. But then it's almost like, I always felt like the Lewitters were saying, we love you. We reward you as children. This is only because you're the best kid we've ever met. You rank number one and number two in this neighborhood. There's only three kids in the neighborhood.

Congratulations. Okay. This subject line is summer home, town murder, cinnamon rolls. I'm not going to read the rest. Okay. Hi, y'all. That makes total, but I'll make no sense. I know.

Hi, y'all. Growing up, my brothers and I went to camp for a month on Lopez Island in Washington. The kind of thing your rich grandmother pays for, there are five of us. Really? One of us is a small island of farms, fishermen, and hippies and an idyllic place to spend summers. Some years, my parents would come up for visitor's day at camp and stay nearby for a few days. One year, they stayed at a bed and breakfast and my mom brought us cinnamon rolls along

with a great story about the old lady who made them. We were pretty excited about the baked goods, but even better was my mom telling us that the backyard of the B&B was cordon off and had to be excavated by the police who were looking for the old lady's missing husband. The rumor around the island was that she had put her husband through a meat grinder and buried him in the garden. My mom said most shop owners around town were happy to tell her all about it when they found out my mom was staying there.

We were totally intrigued and freaked out. Later that year, we learned that Ruth Nesland went to trial just a few months later and was convicted of shooting her husband during a drunken argument, chopping him up with an axe, burning the bits up in a barrel and hiding his remains in the compost pile. This unfortunate man was Ruth Nesland, infamous in his own right for being a drunk Norwegian sea captain and running his ship into the West Seattle Bridge. This became my family's favorite murder. Don't drive your ship into a bridge, murder your drunk husband, marry a Norwegian sea captain,

or stay in a murderer's bed in breakfast, no matter how good the cinnamon rolls are. Thanks for the show. Then there's no name, but they just gave the Wikipedia's link for the West Seattle Bridge collision. Wow! What a story! Twistern! It has it all.

It has it all. I got up to a sea captain and I'm like, oh no, that's my favorite part, a drunk Norwegian sea captain. Is there anything sexier? And then boom, his wife is like, enough with you already. Yeah, and I'm gonna like, chop you up. But on a tiny island where everybody knows everybody's business. Yeah.

Wow. Amazing. No, I'm not telling you what it is. Stop it. Stop it. Don't. Hi all. Just listened to your bonus episode with stories about weird family stuff and it reminded

me of a family that was friends with mine growing up. Thankfully, they didn't murder anyone though. Let's call them the Butler family. We were pretty close with the butlers and our families did a lot together. They had a bunch of kids and the mom stayed home. They always had really nice stuff. The rec room was always full of the newest and fanciest technologies. Remember that family?

Oh yeah. That had like a projector. Yes. I remember that. Those like, looked like a little movie theater. My friend Janet Nielsen's dad ran his own freight lines, so they had a VCR in 1976. Holy shit. It was for like $9,000.

It was like the one that you pressed it and it raised up. When we got to re-watch the TV shows we liked, it was, I was like, I am in heaven. Remember that they'd have the little car rewinder, the VCR car rewinder and everything? Yes. Got that work done separately so you could keep on watching your movies. This was the 80s, so we're talking multiple TVs, VCRs, boomboxes, camcorders and the like. Yes.

Crazy. All on a phone now. They also gave us the best gifts, like full sets of really nice dishes, expensive clothes, etc. I guess we just assumed they were really well off. Nope. They were a family of thieves. Oh.

They would send their kids into department stores to steal for them, so if they got caught they wouldn't get in as much trouble since they were minors. They unknowingly wore stolen clothes and watched stolen VHS tapes for years. Oh, and the mom who was stay-at-home mom? That wasn't by choice. She was on house arrest. No. Oh my God.

The shit you find out. I love it. This is a real turn. I mean, it's terrible. Anyways, love you guys so much. Please come back to Atlanta soon or even consider swinging by Athens, Georgia as you have quite the following here. Hey.

Stay sexy and don't accept gifts from a family of thieves or do and just plead ignorance in. That's amazing. Yeah. That's a good one. Yeah. No one knows what's really going on with any family. Don't assume because they have like a soda fountain in their rumpus room that everything's

going great. Stay-at-home mom on house arrest. That's crazy. It has to be on house arrest, stay-at-home mom. It's like Marion Cunningham is actually just a thief. Wow. Looking for a better cooking routine? With meal planning, shopping, and prepping handled, Hello Fresh has you covered.

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I am so sick of takeout. I miss cooking so much I haven't lifted a knife or a pan since early fall. So I can't wait to get back in the kitchen and Hello Fresh makes it so easy and also makes it so that my food tastes good, which is hard to do on my own. It gives you everything, everything you need. Also get up to 20 free meals with purchase plus free shipping on your first box at hellofresh.ca slash murder20 with code murder20. That's up to 20 free meals plus free shipping on your first box when you go to hellofresh.ca

slash murder20 and use code murder20. Goodbye. Hey, I'm 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 Chowchilla, California. They bury the children and their bus driver deep underground, planning to hold them for ransom. Local 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. Okay, this one is quite something. Oh my God. Yeah, that was a meaningful pause. I won't read you the subject line. And it starts right at the intro.

Hello Elvis and the humans he secretly controls. What do you mean? I don't know what you're talking about. I love Elvis. He is beautiful. I had a summer job at an opera house in my hometown of Santa Fe, New Mexico for a number of years. Through this job, I spent a lot of time with a retired police officer who was our security

guard. Yes, we meet those all the time at our live shows. It's the best. And it's an opera crowds are no joke. Yeah, they need that serious security. He would tell me some of his more wild encounters, including what I've been calling the slug man of Santa Fe. Oh dear.

During one summer, maybe 20, 25 years ago, the police department became inundated with calls from single women living downtown, all of whom reported the same strange occurrence. They would wake up to find a large trail of slime running from their kitchen to under their beds. Most of the older houses downtown have tile floors rather than carpeting because it's Santa Fe, New Mexico. The police were at an utter loss as to what was happening. And as the summer progressed, they received more and more calls from women who woke up

to a floor full of slimes. That's disgusting. Finally, toward the end of the summer, a woman woke up in the middle of the night to find a fresh trail leading under her bed. She played it cool, walked out of the house and called the police. When they arrived, they found the answer to their summer long mystery. Oh my God. Oh my God.

A man had been breaking into the houses of women who lived alone, which means he'd clearly been staking out the houses before the break-ins. Once in the kitchen, he would completely strip, cover himself head to toe in Vaseline, and crawl like a slug into their bedrooms and under the bed where he would punish the one-eyed wanderer. Jesus Christ. That's worse than saying masturbate. It is.

Just say masturbate. When he was done, he would slink his way back into the kitchen, get dressed, and disappear like a soft, creepy maniac into the night. Not sure what the lesson is here. Maybe it's to always put carpet in your bedroom. In any event, stay sexy and don't let strange slug men jack off under you while you sleep. No name. What the fuck?

I mean, listen, fetishes are fetishes, but just don't force them on other people. Do it in your own goddamn apartment. Pretend there's someone in the bed. Slug man. That's disgusting. He goes up into the ranks of all the great pervs that we've talked about. It's with cheese, pervert, scooch over, slime over, slime on over, friend, and do not pass the salt.

Oh, my God. The slug man's in town. Okay, this one's light-hearted. That was my last one. I mean, that one was too. Hi, all. A few months ago, I was finishing up my master's degree and was meeting with a group and our professor after a night class.

I kept getting multiple calls from an unknown number, which I assume was just a very aggressive spam caller. However, the caller was also leaving voicemails. So when they called again, I walked out of the meeting to answer it. This is what they said. Are you Wanda's owner? Wanda is my cat. Of course, I freaked the fuck out when I heard this because I live alone and Wanda is an indoor

cat. The woman on the phone quickly explained that she was a police officer and the fire department had forced entry into my apartment. I pretty much blacked out at this point and kept saying, what? So I didn't hear much else. Finally, I told her to wait for me to get there, ran back into the meeting, probably looking like a crazy person, grabbed my stuff, and ran out without saying a word. My friend, who was also in the meeting later, told me that everyone really freaked out about

it, was really freaked out by this, as I am normally a very quiet and calm person, but all I could think about was that my cat needed me and fuck group projects anyways. Amen. When I got home, I learned the fire department had received a medical emergency alarm from inside my apartment, which I don't have, and had to bust down the door to get inside where they did not find a person in need of help. Then they left while a very nice police officer tried to find out who lived there. The cops couldn't find my name or phone number anywhere in the apartment, but saw my cat had

a collar and tag. While Wanda is a sweetheart and makes friends with anyone, she hates being picked up, so the lady police officer had to try to catch and hold her still to get my phone number off the tag. She told me she finally placated Wanda by giving her this catnip-filled banana toy that she loves to lick for hours. My cat, not the police officer. And amen.

Catnip banana, that thing. Stephen's nodding. It's like legit. Okay. Catnip banana. Anyways, turns out the medical alarm was just an old man in the church next door accidentally pushing his panic button during Ash Wednesday service. I feel the same way about church, so I get it.

I was really freaked out by this incident for a while because lots of other weird shit always happened at my front door, but the police recommended one of those door bars that you have mentioned on your podcast a few times. And now I have one at every entry point because I am paranoid as fuck. I also keep my name and phone number on the fridge, so police officers don't have to wrestle my cat to contact me. Stay sexy and always tag your pets, L. I just like the idea that the old man in church is doing the father, son, pee, holy

ghost. I bet that's what it was. Every time he crosses himself. He got the wrong house. 911. What's your emergency? That's kind of making it not feel great that they're like, they got the wrong house of worship.

Well, it's the accuracy of that. Right. You know, whatever it was. I'm not going to, I was going to say life alert, but we don't know that that's the brand. Promo code murder. For all of our octogenarians that listen to the podcast. My grandma had one of those. It was constantly accidentally hitting it.

Really? Yeah. Guys, write us your stories, you're spooky or otherwise, Halloween or otherwise at my favorite murder at Gmail, or you can do it through our website, my favorite murder. And, oh, yeah.net and stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Bye. Elvis, do you want a cookie?

Bye. Thank you.