My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 144

Episode Date: October 14, 2019

This week’s hometowns include a mystery found in a wall and a crime involving a crow.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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Welcome. To my favorite, murder. The mini-soad. That's Karen. That's Georgia. And this is a mini-soad. You know how mini-soads go. Stop playing dumb.

We tell you your shit. You write it in. We read it. Yeah. Do you want me to just jump in? Get it, girl. Okay. I'm not going to read you the subject line.

Okay. Hi, Karen and Georgia. I was riding my longboard around my hometown by myself. I parked my car at a skate park, which is also the beginning of a bike-path-walk-path at Borders or River. I went down the path and into town. Sounds lovely. Yeah.

This person was having a day. Yeah. Really getting out there, being in the nature, which is very good for you, right? Skate park. Yeah. What are you? The richest person in America? Okay.

As I was making my way back to the trail, a man ran up behind me, forcing me to ride into the grass and stop. He asked me if there were any running trails around, so I told him that there was a trail up near the river. He then asked me if the trail gets more secluded. Obviously, I was very uncomfortable with his question and realized I did not want to talk to this guy anymore. He proceeded to walk next to me and asked me questions.

He asked where I was going and I said I was going to meet my boyfriend at the skate park not far from where we were. Parentheses. I was not meeting my boyfriend. He lived two hours away at the time. Smart though. Right? He gave off a major Ted Bundy vibe because he was good-looking and charismatic.

You could tell I was very uncomfortable, not making eye contact with him and keeping my longboard in between us as a buffer. He would periodically touch my arm when I was clearly not intrigued with conversation. I managed to text my boyfriend telling him to call me. He replied with a, I'm eating dinner, I'll call you later. Oh no. Now he's your ex-boyfriend. Parentheses.

We now have a code for when it's an emergency. Good idea. That's better. That's better. That's better. That wasn't my idea. You fix it. Fix it.

Right, right, right. The man then asked if he could try out my longboard. I said no and then I had to go right away. He said, if you let me try your longboard, I will leave you alone. No, it's not a fucking deal. This should have stopped three ago, but we're going to go through the whole thing and then talk about it after. Since I really wanted to be left alone, I let him try it out.

This man fake fell off the longboard saying he hurt his knee. I quickly picked up the board and was about to ride away when he grabs my arm and attempts to pull me down on the ground with him. At this point, he's gripping me so hard trying to pull me on the ground. Luckily, my many years of squats came in handy. I eventually slipped out of his grip and rode off the quickest I ever have before. I consistently checked behind me to make sure he wasn't following me, but he just got up and walked in the direction he came from.

This was by far the scariest thing ever to happen to me, especially since the river was right next to this secluded trail. Stay sexy and do your squats so you are strong enough to escape a man's grip or just stay sweaty so you can slip out of his grip. Thank you so much for listening. Finally put their full name, Madison from Binghamton, New York. Shout out. Really?

Yeah. Shout out in all caps. Madison. Yes. These kind of stories make me crazy because the second you get the uncomfortable feeling, you say no and the person continues, you can say fuck you and walk away. You break that social bond of politeness, of doing what somebody else wants you to do, and you follow your own gut and get out.

Or not being weird and just screaming leave me alone and they're like, you can be the weirdest fucking person. Go crazy. Yeah. And if they want to fucking use your longboard, like run and leave it behind, you know, if they grab you, leave it behind, run. You're not overreacting if you're afraid. No.

Your body knows something. Our bodies and our reef's flexes know things before our minds do. And if you're to the point where someone is bargaining with you, you say, I want you to leave me alone. Fine, let me ride your longboard and then I'll leave you alone. They're not going to honor that agreement. No. It's not a bargain.

The next person who walks by, grab them and say, this person is harassing, like you need to make it fucking apparent and weird and just do whatever you need to do. Right. And it doesn't matter if it doesn't apply to the situation. We're not yelling at you, Madison. We're glad it all worked out. Yes. And you're fucking brave and a badass.

You're very brave. And the kind of what you were doing was, oh, well, I guess this guy's weird, assume the worst about a weird person. There's no harm in that, especially because you were right. You proved yourself right. And feel free if someone grabs your arm to kick them in the face. Kick them in the face, kick them in the nuts. Do what it takes.

Do whatever you need to do. We love you. That's our prayer to you. We're praying both hands, prayer hands up to God for you. Nuts in face. Shout out, Madison. Let's bring him to New York. Okay.

My dad killed his great-grandmother on Halloween when he was four. Okay. Oh, no. Hey, no further greeting for fear of public shaming. Oh, buck up. It worked. Both my parents have passed away and the task of sorting and distributing photos to family members has fallen to me.

Five years have gone by since my mother died and they haven't made much headway, but finally the summer, I began the process only to find a treasure in the first box. I found a newspaper article from 1929 about a wrongful death lawsuit against my grandparents filed by her grandmother's estate. The headline was court clears bean shooter. The story begins on Halloween 1929 when my dad was four years old and his great-grandmother was visiting the family from out of town. My dad was playing with a pea shooter referred to as a bean shooter in the article.

I think everyone knows what a pea shooter is, but if not, little peas or beans are shot at objects or people, much more fun through a straw, much more fun at the people through a straw. Got it. So my dad is getting crazy shooting peas, all excited on Halloween, great-grandmother comes along, slips on a pea, falls down, hits her head and dies. Oh, that he didn't kill her. That's an accident.

Yeah. Well, apparently the executives of her estate felt they could sue my dad's parents for causing great-grandmother's death. The amount they sued for was basically in today's money was $16,000. Doesn't seem like much for great-grandi's death, but maybe they didn't want to ask for too much since it was a relative. At this point reading the article, I started to remember my parents telling me this story, but they never wanted to talk about it much.

The article says one of the children was shooting peas, but my dad's siblings were older and I guess out trick-or-treating because my parents said it was my dad's fault. I don't doubt this because my dad was always getting in trouble. Once when he was in junior high, he keyed one of his teacher's cars, thinking he was so clever. He scratched his initials into the car paint, dumb move, but especially by him as his initials were H-A-M and no one else in school had those initials. You might think my juvenile delinquent father ended up in jail someday, but he was actually

a successful salesman married for 56 years to my mom and lived a happy life. Yeah, you get to screw up. You get to screw up. The good news is my dad's parents won the lawsuit, however my brothers and I were never allowed to play with pea shooters and now I know why. The only thing I've ever stolen was a pea shooter kit when I was eight years old. It's in my blood, I guess. Thanks for your great show and all you do to boost up so many people.

I anxiously await Mondays and Thursdays when your new episodes are released. Stay sexy and don't give your kids deadly pea shooters unless you're trying to take out great granny Susan. Oh my god. That's so sad. A pea shooter is such a like 1938 toy. Totally. Well, this is 1929.

Yeah, yeah. It's exactly that. It's just such a weird old fashioned pick up one thing that's laying in the kitchen, pick up something that's laying on the ground. Here, that's a toy. That's a toy now. Make the most of it friend. Yeah.

Oh my god. And you have to eat those peas later too because that's all we have. Right. Yeah, that's dinner. Yeah. But also how many kids suck backwards on pea shooters and choked on peas? All of them. Remember those little straws that you would put the like bubble stuff around and you could

blow like plastic bubbles and there was like fumes and you'd just get lightheaded from all the blowing. Yes. And the fumes. You were like making your own balloons. Yeah. But you were definitely inhaling toxic plastics. That's right.

For sure. 1980s toys. I found a Pinterest page that's because I'm doing my friend Paige Weldon's podcast Mall Talk and I am so excited because we were all about the mall. And so I looked up like malls in 1983 which of course has brought me to these crazy Pinterest pages where people just put up pictures of remember this, remember this, remember this. And there was stuff like that that was just like weird toys that were plastic that people probably shouldn't even be touching much less children should be playing with them.

Dude, I love it. The most whistles you could suck right into your esophagus like it's hilarious. Okay. I love it. Well, the subject of this one is Little Red Riding Ghost. Hi Karen, Georgia, Steven and pals. Let's jump right in. I am an intern in an interior design firm in NYC and a few weeks ago we had a studio

retreat that went to my boss's house in upstate New York. The house was beautiful and it was such a nice getaway from the bustling city. When it started to get dark, we sat around his fire pit and someone suggested that a ghost story should be told. Everyone turned to look at my boss and as the new intern, I had not heard this ghost story and was very intrigued for him to share. So here it goes. Hey intern, I don't know if you should be telling your boss's story, writing them into

podcasts. I agree. Is that weird? But guess what? You did it. I mean, you're not being paid. Can they fire you if you're an intern? Let's call my boss George.

It's too late now friend. We all know his name is Frank. We all know his name is Giorgio Armani. Let's call my boss George. Georgianus has been just moved into this new gorgeous estate in upstate New York and they were decorating the inside with a more colonial theme. His husband was at a yard sale and saw these two little wooden children's chairs that go perfectly in one of the guest rooms to hang on the wall.

Yes, on the wall. I know it sounds weird, but I promise it looked good. George agreed for his husband to buy them and they hung them up on the wall with these two inch metal hooks holding onto the back slats of the chair. One night, not long after they hung up the chairs, they heard a loud crash come from the guest room. Scared that someone broke in, they grabbed the metal door stopper to defend themselves and went to check what happened.

To their surprise, both chairs were off the wall laying on the floor. But here's the weird part. The hooks were still on the wall. That means the chairs would have had to have been lifted up over the hooks to fall down on the floor. No, I can't do this. Shrugging. You're doing it.

Shrugging it off. They put the chairs back and went to sleep. Now here's where it gets creepy. Now here's where it gets creepy. Okay. George. George. Shortly after that, Georgianus' husband had a friend stay the night in the guest room.

The next morning when they were all eating breakfast, Georgianus' husband asked how their guests slept and he gave a weird look. He said, this may have been nothing. Oh, no. But I woke up in the middle of the night to a little girl in a red dress with her hand on my chest. This may have been nothing. This may have been nothing.

I'm having a nervous breakdown. I thought that I was dreaming, but I could actually feel the pressure of her hand. She wasn't harming me in any way, though, so I went back to sleep. In parentheses. I'm sorry, but if a little girl ghost was in my room, I would have gathered my things and got the hell out of there. Georgianus' husband had not mentioned the chair incident, so this definitely raised some red flags in their mind.

Not too long after that, another guest stayed in that room. Same thing happened. The next morning at breakfast, the guest mentioned that he thought he was dreaming, but he woke up in the middle of the night to a little girl in a red dress standing in the corner of his room. Can you fucking imagine? The screaming. There's nowhere worse that a ghost can stand than in a corner.

In a corner. That's like, there's something about a corner ghost. You know, the entire reason the Blair Witch Project was as scary as it was is because of that ending where they find the... Don't tell. Well, I mean... Guys. It's been 25 years.

Watch it. It's the scariest. It's the scariest. It's the scariest. But also, it's just like a little child in a corner looking at you. I am in the morning. Corners are dark. I got kids on my corners.

Ghosts like corners. After that day, Georgianus' husband had heard soft steps on the stairs and even footsteps in that room, but still have not gotten rid of the chairs because they think she is harmless and maybe protecting their house. Let's just wait and see. You're wrong, Georg. But can you imagine the people who are sitting around the fire who has to go sleep in that room that night?

Yeah, exactly. It's like, how about you put those creepy chairs in your fucking room, Georgianus and your husband? I shared the bright idea that they maybe should name her Scarlet. Stay sexy and don't buy haunted chairs from a yard sale, Morgan. Advice, Morgan. Yeah. If that's really your name.

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Follow Even the Rich wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. Okay, this is just called hometown story. Karen, Georgia, Stephen and animal friends, have you ever googled when is it appropriate to call the police? We have. My husband Brian and I thought something was wrong with the drain in our upstairs shower. Brian tried Drano and when that didn't work, I ordered a pack of flexible snake things

to unclog it, but it also didn't work. We're becoming really frustrated and finally Brian went into the hall and opened the linen closet that shares the wall with our shower pipes. He removed a square piece of wood at the back of the closet that serves as a barrier between our lemons and the pipes in the hall. And what did we find in the wall? All caps. What?

An entire ziplock bag of hair. What? What? Our jaws dropped as my husband set it on the floor and we stared at it for a while before bursting into laughter. As true murderinos do, we immediately assume that there was a body hidden in the walls of our 55-year-old house or perhaps buried somewhere in our backyard. I don't...

This isn't good. This is not good. Anyway, we spent the night googling things like, what do I do if I find a bag of hair in my wall and should I call the police over a bag of hair I found? Sidebar nation, we did find an article about a homeowner that found a bag of hair in the wall, turned it into the police, and it helped solve the murder of a man who used to own the house. Yeah.

Surprise, it was his wife. Obviously, we were teetering on the verge of fucking glory by being the key to solving a decades-old missing person's case. Yes. Before bed, Brian and I discovered that our shower plug was half down, which is why the water was in draining quickly, so yes, we're fucking dumbasses. The next morning, Brian left for work and I headed down to my home office, still totally consumed with the impending glory that surely awaited us when we solved the case.

I got Bray's life as fuck and opened the bag of hair. No. It was a bag filled with my own goddamn hair extensions I had in my hair at our wedding years prior, fucking hair extensions, my own hair extensions. I don't recall putting those into a Ziploc bag and we have no fucking idea how it possibly got behind this piece of wood, but I chalk it up to ghosts. That's the story of how my husband and I not only took three days worth of showers and standing water for no good reason, but also nearly called the police over a bag of my

own hair extensions. Your podcast is awesome. I feel like I'm hanging out with friends while I binge listen without the pesky leaving the house bullshit. Stay sexy and don't call the police over a bag of your own hair, Jenica. I'm sorry, that's kind of the best one. That's up there. That's a top five.

Jesus Christ. How did it get, how did her own hair get in the wall? That's the weirdest part. I wonder. Is it the weirdest part? No. No, it isn't. It's one of the weird part.

The weirdest part is that the thing, the drain was half down, the stopper was half down. They couldn't figure that out. Yeah. Oh, my fucking God. Because I honestly was like, wait, is this a witchcraft thing? Yeah, I thought so too. Like putting hair in walls. And then then having the balls to open the fucking bag of hair.

Which I would be like, there's no way that's not filled with terrible things. I don't even believe in this shit and it's fucking witchy as shit. It's witchy as fuck, Stephen. Will you just really quick look up hair in walls? For me, for immediately I was like, that's voodoo. It's voodoo. But it's not if it's your own hair extension. I'm just trying to picture like, I would love to see a map to see if house things slip.

Because you know, every once in a while, like in my old bathroom, something would go behind the drawer. And then it would be like, it would be like, I would have when you open the door and then you would have the bag. Got it. And then you pull up and be like, oh my God, I got this lip liner so long ago. Maybe there were drawers below it and it went up that way. Yeah, because she said it was a 55 year old house, so there's probably maybe a hole or

like not, it's not entirely sealed. That's why we solved it. I need it sold. We did it. That's so funny. They're on the border. What were they doing? Hanging on the precipice of glory.

Yeah. Oh my God. That's what it's all about right there. Send those in. The excitement of weird lost your own hair. Send them in. Please. Over at occult-world.com, there is some things that have to do with hair like, you know,

cutting off hair is humiliating, hair should never be thrown out, French peasants used to bury hair, but Turks and Chilean stuff hair clippings into walls. So it doesn't say it's not saying what the purpose is, but it just depends on the culture. But there is a ritual aspect related to putting the hair in the wall. We'll do it. Yeah. Maybe they're in some kind of a cult or a different culture they don't even realize. Yeah.

They're done. Get the DNA test. And find out you're a hundred percent that bitch that puts her own hair extensions into walls. Yeah. Okay. I won't read you the subject line of this. Hi friends.

Hi. I live in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. I put Canada in. And a couple years ago, some shit went down at a local McDonald's parking lot. Police were called to the scene where a man armed with a knife seemed to have set his car on fire. Cops were fired when the dude wouldn't calm down and he was taken to the hospital. Parentheses.

I think he lived. Oh my God. Thanks so much. While the cops were attempting to gather evidence, a crow was sitting on the roof of the burning car and soon thereafter said crow swooped down and grabbed the knife, which was now on the ground. What? That this suspect had been armed with a chase ensued.

And ultimately the crow dropped it and flew off. Crow. The cops soon realized this particular crow was a local celebrity. He had a band around his leg for identification purposes. His name was Canuck and he loves fucking around with people's things. He has been seen. I love crows so much. They're amazing.

He has been seen writing the transit system, entering businesses, taking people's keys and cigarettes. Yes. As of a few weeks ago, Canuck has been reported missing and there's a $10,000 reward being offered for his safe return. Yes. Seriously. Only in Canada?

Anyway. Love you all. Stay sexy and don't let birds brandish weapons. Alana. I'm moving Canada. And she included a picture of Canuck with the knife. Oh. Isn't that amazing?

You know Elvis reminds me of a crow sometimes because he's just like always up to shenanigans and shit. Oh my God. There's a photo of a crow with a fucking knife. That crow is threatening us. Look at Canuck. Yeah. You want a piece of this shit, McDonalds?

I love him. He's the best. He's like, I'll trade you for a fucking quarter pounder. He's like, look, it's shiny. If you don't want your shiny shit stolen, don't put it around. I like the idea though that he was waiting on the roof of a burning car. Oh, that's the most beautiful image I've ever heard of my life. Hill Crow.

I love him. Okay. This one's called, this one's lighthearted. What were her parents thinking? Hello, all. This story has nothing to do with murder, but everything to do with Halloween. I think about this more often than the same person should, and I wish I could go back in time and figure out who the fuck okayed this costume.

From 1996 to 1999, my dad was stationed at the Pentagon, so my family lived on a military base on the Atomic River. For Halloween of 1998, my friend Katie and I decided to go trick-or-treating together. We were in second grades at the time, so between seven and eight years old. I went as a genie, and Katie was, you guessed it, Monica Lewinsky, seven or eight years old. Oh, no. Yep, that's correct.

Right in the middle of Clinton's impeachment, my friend dressed as the lady at the center of it all. I remember her costume vividly. No. Katie had a notepad, a beret, and a blue dress complete with the stain. No. Yes, the infamous stain. Oh my god.

Being a child, I had absolutely no clue as to who Monica Lewinsky exactly was. I just recognized the name since it was on the news a lot. I don't know if Katie knew the details. I hope she didn't, but I assume she recognized the name like me and her parents thought it would be a hilarious costume. Living on a military base, most families tended to be a bit conservative, so I'm sure her parents were not Clinton fans and chose their innocent daughter as a means to make fun of the scandal.

Cool. Recently, I brought this costume up to my mom just to make sure I hadn't made it up in some sort of fever dream, but nope, she confirmed it and told me that she was horrified. Yeah. Me too, mom. Me too. I lost touch with Katie after my dad retired and we moved to Seattle, but I wish I still could find her and ask her about this costume.

It haunts me every Halloween. Sorry about the lack of murder. Sadly, my life is free of any violent crimes or attempts at my life. And then it said, please read sarcasm in this. Yes. But my parents are on the Joshua Tree search and rescue team, so let me know if you want any crazy stories from that. Whoa.

Stay sexy, but wear age-appropriate costumes, Tori. I feel like every costume idea that took place between the beginning of Halloween and probably 2011 should be erased from history. Like because I was seen as somebody was going to tell a fucking blackface story or some kind of horrible. I have a friend who I love and is a beautiful person who went as Oprah one year and he was a white boy. You can't do that.

No. No. That's crazy. It's just an intense, insensitive, shitty fucking... Yeah. So is this one. Yes, but this one is... There's a creepy element to it that's like...

The stain. The innocence of your daughter who has... It's not her costume. I know. It's your puppet of your parents. It's like when people dress their babies up as like random shit. Yeah. It's like in LA when people put cool concert t-shirts on their toddlers or it's like, leave

it alone. Let them find their own music. What if it just likes the wiggles? Sorry, your babies... It doesn't want to look like the Ramones. It doesn't want to be cool. Plus there's a baby cover band at the Ramones. Yeah.

Then we don't want to hear it. And even then, no. Send us your stories, you guys. It's almost Halloween. It's getting intense. Yeah, really. These were all amazing. Everyone is doing a great job.

Thank you. Congratulations, you guys. Congratulations on spooky Halloween, everybody. Yeah. Spooky Halloween. Spooky Halloween. So stay sexy. Don't get mad.

I forgot my lines. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? Good boy.