My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 143

Episode Date: October 7, 2019

This week’s hometowns include a local haunting and murderous ancestor.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. It's my favorite murder. The mini-soat. That's Karen Kilgera. That's Georgia Marie Hartstark. Full names only. Thanks for joining us. It's getting into spooky Halloween.

That's right. And we've made a call to have you guys send us your spooky Halloween and fucked up Ouija board stories. Any kind of a creepy, perhaps paranormal or maybe just your sister fucking with you. Great coincidence. That's like crazy. Yeah. No dreams.

Like what scared you the most when you were 10? Yeah. That's not TV or something like that. Like a real life experience. Don't send us your creepy dreams. We don't care. Our dreams don't count. Yeah.

That's your personal business. Go to myfavoritmurder.com or my favorite murder Gmail. I think we're going to do like a special Halloween episode about them. Yeah. That's right. And basically you guys, it's a Halloween takeover. Are we on the radio? This is MTV.

Yo. Yo. It's a Halloween. Okay. Go ahead. Yo, it's a Halloween takeover. These are your stories. Subject line of this is hometown story, dear MFM people and pets.

When I was a sophomore in high school, 97 through 98, I received a typed letter in the mail asking if I wanted a blow job. Just a strong start. We are off to the races. Strong. Strong. The letter ended with instructions that if I were interested, I should leave an orange sticker included in the envelope on a specific stop sign by my house.

Wow. Complicated for a blow job. Yeah. I had several steps, kind of the Rube Goldberg of a free blow job. I must have put the sticker on a day, on a day late because I never received a second letter. What can I say? I was a 16 year old Catholic Virgin.

I thought this was how sex happened. My friend a few blocks away, however, received multiple letters. Each was designed to build trust between the writer and the recipient. One letter he received said that to show that the letter writer was serious, they put an envelope with $5 in it under a very specific rock in my friend's Zara-escaped yard. I wonder if that's when you have the bushes are cut into the shape of animals. That's my guess. I'm going to guess that it's like a good water resistant garden, but we'll never know

because we'll forget about it immediately. Well, what if Steven remembers and looks it up for us? Zara-escaped X-E-R-I. Okay. Okay, and then the end we'll have the big reveal, luckily no blowjobs happened. Luckily. Luckily get those blowjobs. Time passed until one day I saw in the news a local priest, shocked does not fall over

the crowd, was arrested for soliciting oral sex through the male two boys who went to St. Pius High School, my alma mater, Ghost Barton's. It was a priest. I recognized him sophomore year at St. Pius. We were required to take a comparative religions class where we learned about Judaism, Buddhism, and for one day out of the semester, a priest would come and talk to us about Satanism. This letter writing suspect, oh, this was the letter writing suspect, he had been coming to this theology class for years and must have snagged a student directory during a

visit. Holy shit. I believe it was defrocked and may actually see jail time due to the fact that some of his alleged abuse occurred while he was a chaplain on a local Air Force base, meaning no statute of limitations. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

They got the US military's got the right idea. That's right. Stay sexy and don't have sex by snail mail. One of your many fans in Albuquerque, Scott. Oh, wow. My God. Wow. Twists and turns.

Now, I was telling Georgia this earlier and I'm sorry that I'm like this because I know it drives a lot of people crazy, but I read Twitter like in the middle of the night. I often wake up at four in the morning and just pick up my phone and start scrolling and then go to sleep. I'm next door at Instagram hanging out with you at 4am. So I saw this and I don't know if someone sent it to me, which I think is like 90% likely, but I saw this story. I believe in the middle of the night last night and he's, I believe if it's the same

story, this priest signed these letters Joyce, the most hilarious unless it's a different letter writing priest, but I can't imagine that it is coincidence. There's a coincidence that we talked about that we want to hear from you. We love coincidences. Are they just coincidences? Oh, Steven's got the answer. Okay. We already forgot about it.

Is this Xeriscape? Yeah, Xeriscape. It's basically like if you want to not use tons of water, it's like rocks and... Well, congratulations. That's what I said. Did I say it wrong? I don't remember what you said. I said a water-resistant.

Oh, good. But you meant drought-resistant. Thank you. What you meant was drought-resistant. Thank you. Good job. I really wanted it to be weird green giraffes. I wanted it.

Yeah, I wanted you to be right. Thanks. I did not want you to be right. Well, thank you. Okay. This one's called More Reasons to Lock Your Fucking Door. Great. Okay.

Hi, everyone. Hi. Hi. Oh, sorry. Hi. Hi. My husband and I got our first apartment together in 2011 in Kansas City. It was a very small one-bedroom ground floor unit with a walkout patio.

It was in a much more urban area than my husband. A man from rural Arkansas was used to. He had... I had to constantly remind him to lock the door, something he thought was overkill. Oh. Locking the door. They overkill. Hey, let's not show off and be all crazy with the door lock.

What do you think we're rich? Look, you only get so many locks a year. Right. One afternoon, my husband returned home from work. He was startled by a frantic knock on the front door. He jumped up and looked through the peephole to see art across the hall neighbor, looking very anxious. My husband, being a kind southern man, opened the door.

Something a cold northern woman, such as myself, would never have done. A neighbor burst into the apartment and my husband immediately realized something was really wrong. The neighbor was frantically looking out the sliding glass door. He asked to borrow a phone saying that he needed to call 911. The neighbor began to explain to the dispatcher that upon coming home from work that day, he heard noises in the storage closet. Each apartment had a small closet attached to the patio or deck that had what was only

accessible from the outside. Okay. Thanks, do you get it? You're there and you're mine? Yes, I think so. Kind of like your old patio. Yes, so if there was like a, yeah. The neighbor walked to his sliding glass door and began to pull the blinds seeing what looked

like a person running away from his patio. He went outside and opened the storage closet to discover that someone had clearly broken the lock and had been living there. What? Empty vodka bottles, cigarette butts, fast food containers, and his patio furniture cushions made into a bed. Someone had been partying there. Yeah.

Living and partying are very different. Moments later, the police arrived with sirens on. They quickly began taping off the area as several more cars arrived. The police spoke to my husband and the neighbor asking them to recall anyone and everything they'd seen. After a good 30 minutes, my husband was asked if he'd be willing to let them look in our storage closet. He led the officers over and opened the door, which my husband had left unlocked, all caps.

Inside was the same scene as our neighbors. He sent me a text message that started, okay. So you were right about locking the doors. We were asked to please be alert and told there would be police in our parking lot until this person was caught. It seemed like a lot for a pretty basic break-in. The next day, we were told by the management company that a serial arsonist was suspected to have been hiding in our complex and the police were working to capture this individual.

With a little research, we found out that this person was suspected of setting fires in at least two other complexes in our area, causing millions of dollars in damage and injury to multiple people. Shit. Needless to say, we moved. Okay, are you ready for this line? But not before subletting to a friend of mine that we never told. Oh my God.

Evil? Maybe. Post-effective? Absolutely. Stay sexy and lock your fucking storage closet, S. Friend? No. Yeah.

Good friend. Shit. Yeah. It was like, seemed like overkill for someone, just like camping out, right? But fucking arsonist. Arson. And also just like your, if your house is the house where the arsonist fire starts. Right.

Oh. Right. What a nightmare. Wow. Okay. I'm not going to be the subject line of this one. Hi friends. And then in parenthesis, simple, inclusive to the point, when I was 10 years old, my parents

took my 13 year old sister and I to Charlotte, North Carolina for a week over summer vacation. We were staying at a palatial estate right on the Lake Norman that was owned by one of my dad's business partners. One morning in the middle of our stay, I woke up to find a note from my parents saying that they had gone out for a morning walk. My sister was asleep in one of the bedrooms on the third floor, palatial, remember? Wow. Oh.

Oh. Hoity toilet. Right. Ritchie ranch. I decided to help myself to a snack and investigate the television situation. No sooner had I walked into the Den slash living room situation than I heard the front door being unlocked. I was about to call out for my parents when I heard distinctly southern voices talking

about disarming the alarm system and how, quote, the owners are out of town all month. It quickly clicked in my 10 year old brain that this house had been cased and some burglars were looking to rob it while the owners were out of town. There's some homo alone shit right here. This is homo alone. Yeah. This instinct was to go get my sister, this staircase was past the front door and I risk being seen.

I immediately thought of calling the cops, but I didn't even know the address or the location of the house, let alone have a cell phone. This was 2002. Also I'm 10 thinking I could find one return address. I think they meant thinking I could find a return address on one. I located a stack of bills rifling through them frantically as the voices started getting closer. Eventually I decided to drop down and hide scooting behind an oversized arm chair by

the window. As I crouched down, I saw movement outside the window and noticed a team of landscapers with large shovels renovating the garden of the property next door. I tried waving and getting their attention and when that ceased to do anything, I painstakingly inched up the window inch by agonizing inch so as not to alert the burglars. She's so brave. I know. I would have been just screaming.

As a 10 year old, you're just like blanked out entirely. Lots of planning, lots of like a strategic thinking. I like it. I whisper yelled as desperately as I could, help someone to the house. Whisper yelling is the saddest, help someone to the house. And must have been convincing because they dropped their shovels and took off as did I. I sprinted to the front door where I was met with my confused parents, a team of sweaty

landscapers and two sweet southern housekeepers who were there to do their weekly cleaning. Two. Yes, this is a palatial state. The owners of the house had neglected to tell us to expect their cleaning team to be there. No. The six adults smiled and chuckled at the dramatic 10 year old in the oversized YMCA t-shirt. But later that day, my parents were quick to applaud my quick thinking in the face of potential danger.

Yeah. I'm still dramatic as fuck, but I'm also a great problem solver in high stress situations. Yes. So fucked politeness, but also fucked pride because I'd rather look dramatic than be dead. SSDGM Blair. Yes. That's Blair. So good Blair.

You were right. Immediately thinking to find the address so you could, when you call 911, you'd have the address. Yeah. It's brilliant. And then finding a hiding place too. Like that's so hard when you're scared, right? Yes.

Like even when you're not scared or you're playing hide and seek, it's fucking impossible. And then whisper screaming. Yeah. One of the hardest things you can do as a person. But then it turned out not to be and everything was fine. Yeah. That's good. Looking for a better cooking routine?

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Karen January is going to be my month for hello fresh. I am so sick of takeout. I miss cooking so much. I haven't lifted a knife or a pan since like 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. So get up to 20 free meals with purchase plus free shipping on your first box at hello

fresh.ca slash murder 20 with code murder 20. That's up to 20 free meals plus free shipping on your first box when you go to hello fresh .ca slash murder 20 and use code murder 20. Goodbye. Hey, I'm Aresha and I'm Brooke and we're the hosts of wonderies podcast, even the rich where we bring you absolutely true and absolutely shocking stories about the most famous families and biggest celebrities the world has ever seen. Our newest series is all about the incomparable diva Whitney Houston Whitney's voice defined

a generation and even after her death, her talent remains unmatched, but her incredible success hit a deeply private pain. In our series, Whitney Houston Destiny of a diva will tell you how she hid her true self to make everyone around her happy and how the pressure to be all things to all people led her down a dark path. Follow even the rich wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. Okay, I'm not going to read you the title of this, okay, oh, boy, picture it Detroit

in the early 1920s prohibition is in full effect, but in Detroit, the Canadian border provides a unique opportunity to smuggle hooch into Michigan via the water. Yes. My great grandfather Frank decided to make some extra money running booze across the border in his car and selling it to locals. He made a name for himself and unfortunately caught the attention of the notorious purple gang who ran the city. Eventually, a gang member murdered Frank, leaving my preteen grandfather as the new

head of the household. How fucking crazy is that? Super crazy. The story has been passed down through the family and I've heard it a hundred times. So my now husband mentioned the purple gang on a date. I know great pillow talk. I couldn't wait to tell him my connection before I got the chance, though, he mentioned that his great uncle Gus was a member of the gang after talking with his parents.

We learn that Gus was a lower member of the gang. I have no idea how gang hierarchy names work. Who was in charge of the messy jobs, including ridding the city of the competition. There is literally no way to know for sure because the mom doesn't keep a diary. But it's not unlikely that Gus would have been responsible for offing Frank. Yes. I love being a part of this wonderful community. One of the first things I searched for when we got the internet as a kid was serial killers.

And now I'm not alone. A-sexy and don't smuggle booze in the Michigan E. Oh, E. That is like the Romeo and Juliet of Michigan. Yeah. Oh my God. Your great grandfathers, uncles killed each other. Yeah. How crazy is that?

Intense. I like it. I do too. Well, let's go back even further. Hey. And the subject line of this email is my ancestor was the shittiest dude on the Mayflower. Oh my God. Hey, y'all, my aunt is a genealogy hobbyist and discovered at some point that we're related

to a few people on the Mayflower, including one John Billington, America's first messy bitch who loved drama. Amazing. John and his family were opportunistic devout members of the Church of England and were quite disgruntled to discover that their fellow passengers on the Mayflower were religious separatists. He was like, great, I'm stuck on a boat with all these heathens. So naturally, he decided to stir the pot.

Before they'd even dropped anchor in Plymouth, John almost sank the damn boat by firing a gun near a barrel of gunpowder. He also set fire to a cabin one time, two question marks. Once on land, John started to utter, quote, discontented and mutinous speeches about how they're independent pilgrims who can do what they want. He and some other non-separatists protested for a while until they acquiesced and signed a pact saying they would abide by colonial law. But did he?

Of course not. John was a hot-ass mahesan refused to be tamed by laws. He insulted the military commander, and he was sentenced to, quote, public humiliation by tying his neck and feet together, which honestly, now I know how I inherited my kink. He's a blue blood with a kink. Oh my goodness. He had a few other feuds for no other reason besides being a real housewife before his time that had all culminated with his neighbor, John Newcomen.

When Billington came upon Newcomen in a field one day, presumably coining the phrase, this town ain't big enough for the two of us, Billington shot Newcomen dead. He was tried and hanged for the crime, and thus became the first person in the Plymouth colony to be executed for murder. Family pride. Here's the article where I found most of this info, and there's link, XOXO Maggie. Wow. How amazing.

Maggie, great writing. Good job, Maggie. Yeah. It must be similar to the time my mom told me that my great-grandfather was a crooked cop in San Francisco and was super rich because he just- He was on the take. He was on the take, and he in the turn of the century. So there was plenty of money to be made in San Francisco at that time.

And then he died first, and his wife, who hated him, took all the money and donated it to the SPCA. I mean, good for her. So we could have all been crooked, rich bitches up in the Bay Area, but instead those goddamn dogs got to live. Email my favorite murderer at gmail.com, that was Karen Kilgarrel. Your upset dog emails. Okay, this is called a hometown haunting.

Good old haunting. Okay. So murder girls, and then in parentheses, it says, that's what I call you when I recap your shows to my husband every week. Oh. I live in a suburb- suburb? Probably. I live in a suburb north of Boston.

Is it in Arizona? Cute New England town, but not exciting, until about six months ago, a resident posted a question on a Facebook community page, has anyone else seen the ghost in market basket? Apparently, this person noticed an elderly woman strangely at a place and dressed in Victorian-era clothing, wandering around the frozen food section of our local supermarket. The strange woman apparently vanished into thin air, leaving ghostly vibes and goosebumps in her wake. And for some reason, the Facebook post about the haunting went viral.

Yeah, for some reason, it's the best. Like local and national news story, front page of the Boston Globe kind of viral. News vans and photographers showed up in the parking lot, and I was getting extra texts from my friends asking if I needed a protein pack, nope, a proton pack to go grocery shopping. Do you need a protein bar to go grocery shopping? I obviously need a protein right now. Some reporters connected her ghost to a Wilmington woman with a strange fixation on death. Her name was Franz Hiller.

Her nickname was the Lady of the Caskets. Incredibly wealthy, thanks to her husband's medical career, Franz hired a contractor to build nesting coffins and sarcophagi for the two of them so that when they died, they could be laid to rest above ground. She had a fear of being buried underground. Franz used to dress up in her funeral clothes. Yes, she picked out her own funeral clothes and go lie inside her coffin, gazing at herself in a mirror she had installed in the ceiling above.

When her husband died, Franz remarried a much younger man and made him legally change his name to that of her late husband and says, ah, sweet romance. She became the first woman to hold town office when she served a term on I can't make this up. The Cemetery Committee. What? When Franz Hiller died in 1900, she joined her husband on their funeral mound above ground until their tombs began to leak and they had to be buried underground in the 1930s.

Oh, she doesn't want that. No. No, she's that's going to upset her ghost. That's classic haunting reasoning. This is the beginning of every haunted movie. That's right. Is Franz Miller the market basket ghost? If anyone's haunting my hometown, it's got to be her a murdering before her time.

She's probably pissed she ended up buried and she's taking it out on the frozen peas. Stay sexy and don't bother a ghost who's just trying to get the shopping done. Kate. Wow. Creepy, right? Yeah, but also, I get, you know, she's obsessed with death and this and that, then she marries a 24 year old. I feel like lady, your problems are solved.

How about living in the here and now? Yeah. You got a good. You got a good young man. That's right. Did you hear that thing where they were trying to make up a story about how Elizabeth Warren was having an affair with a 24 year old trainer? No.

It's the funniest, dumbest fucking fake story. And it's just made everybody love Elizabeth Warren even more. Because you're like, get it girl. They're like, somebody tweeted like, how does she, she does four hours of selfies and then goes and has an affair with a 24 year old that she should be leading this country. Smokes her vape. Yeah. To relax at night.

Good. Get it. Um, everybody get it and send it to my favorite murder at Gmail and stay sexy and don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, you want a cookie? No, no, no, no, no, no, no.