My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 150

Episode Date: November 25, 2019

This week’s hometowns include a Scottish serial killer connection and moor-based mystery.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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Hello. Hello. And welcome. To my favorite murder. The mini-soad. Hey, that's Karen Calguera. That's Georgia Hardstar. This is episode 150.

Is that true? Yeah. What a great round number. I know. We've really done it. We've really. Remember episode 11? No.

Me either. Good. Mine are all horrible. So this is where we read you guys your own stories about things. And we're doing, these ones are all from London. Right. Yeah. Because we'll be in the UK and Ireland for our tour coming up.

Yeah. So we're getting, we're preparing emotionally, mentally. And then crime wise. That's right. Do you have a good one to end on? Do you have a light hearted? Yes. Okay.

Then can I go first and you end with that one? Sure. Sure. This is real bad. But I don't, but I want to do them. Sure. Okay. Shaking things up a little.

Yeah, I love it. Okay. Um, hometown, the one with all the murder. Dear murder honeys. I like it. I like it too. Yeah. I'm writing to you from London, England.

Thank you for all the work you put into this podcast and always putting a smile on my face before work. I'd like to thank this person for putting England in because we do need those. We do need those specificities. London, Tennessee. London, England. Anyways, my story. So my auntie was looking to buy a new flat in an area of London called Muswell Hill after

I told her how lovely it was. It's where I've lived for a few years now. She went to view a flat and at the same road as me and it was perfect, beautiful space right at the top of a house, nice and open, but it was weirdly affordable. Mmm. Thinking there must be some kind of catch. She asked the estate agent why it was so low priced. She looked a bit shifty for a moment and said, yep, you guessed it.

Well, I do need to tell you that this was the home of a serial killer and went on to tell her all about it. The killer was nicknamed the Muswell Hill Murderer, aka Dennis Nelson, aka the notorious British serial killer from the 80s. Definitely come across this guy a lot in my research. Did I not do this one? Did she do this one? Well, continue on.

I'll let you know. Well, here we go. His victims were normally male, gay and vulnerable or homeless. He would lure them back to his house with the promise of shelter and company and kill them afterwards, often taking parts in weird rituals. Oh, no, I didn't do this one. Nelson would then dissect the bodies and keep the parts for long periods of time. For the smaller bones and flesh, he would just flush them down the toilet.

Oh, right. That's actually how he got caught. The drain got completely blocked, obviously, and a plumber had to come out and take a look. The plumber took one look at the tiny bits of bone in the drain and immediately called his boss. Good. Well, they were looking into the drain. Some of the tenants came to see what the problem was.

Nelson being among them. Oh, sure. Who noted the little bones, quote, looked like KFC. Uh-huh. Oh, my God. Always, always. Hey, it's just KFC. It's just KFC.

Sir, why do you keep making suggestions of what these little bones could be? And who flushes KFC down the toilet? This is an art project. Sir, please keep your voice down. I'm trying to look at this drain. You can't throw your voice, sir. There's four people here. There's four people here.

There's you and a puppet and two other people, so we know it's you. The police recalled, and when they discovered that the drain pipe led directly to Nelson's flat, they went to investigate. As soon as they entered the flat, they were overwhelmed by the smell of rotting flesh. Apparently, when the police asked Nelson about the bones, he first feigned complete shock. What is this? What's going on? Sure.

But then shrugged and calmly stated that the rest of the bodies were in the wardrobe. After Nelson was taken into custody, they found parts of the bodies all over his flat, including the kitchen drawers and under the floorboards. He served around 20 years in prison and died there last year. Needless to say, my auntie did not buy the flat. I think it's actually still in the market. Stay sexy and before buying a house, maybe do some Googling? Florence.

Florence. Shit. Okay, so that guy's the British Jeffrey Dahmer, essentially. I've heard that case before, but we haven't covered it. They need to just burn that house from the top up. You wouldn't buy it? No. Would it be crazy if I still bought it?

Yes. I love a bargain. It's too many. It's too much. You're selling your soul for a bargain. The vibes would be minus one billion bad. Sage, man. No, there's not enough sage in all of the painted desert to solve this fucking problem.

No way. Okay. I think it's one thing when people... I mean, this is never a choice I will be making, but it's one thing when it's the location of a murder, like a singular thing. But that would be the home of the person that continually preyed upon people who... Everything about it is so negative of needy people. He exploited needy people. He exploited people who didn't have anybody to fight for them.

And then he desecrated their bodies. So everything about that you want to see, you don't want to be... Well, no, when you put it like that... Don't be near that block. When you say it like that, Karen. Stop moving in there every week. I was closing out on escrow. No.

I'll call your fucking real estate agent and say, don't let her buy this flat on this road. It's my stepfather, my real estate agent. John. John. I need to speak with you. It's a business matter. Okay.

Go. Here's my first one. I'm not going to read this subject line. They give it away. So it's just, we'll say, EMT story. Hi, Steven, Georgia, Karen, and assorted for animals. My friend introduced me to your podcast, and I've obsessively been binging it from episode one, to the point where my mother tried to stage an intervention, not joking.

Jokes on her. What kind of tear-filled letters was that mom reading when it's like, you just keep your iPods are in your ears. She's so religious. You know it. Oh. She thinks we're Satanists. It's an intervention against podcasts, which is like, I could see it.

I could see where you would feel that is necessary, where someone is completely checked out. But you get so much done when you're listening to podcasts. It's not like video games where you're just sitting and playing a video game. You get put a podcast in. That's right. You get fucking life taken care of. You learn things.

You get freaked out. That's right. You have experiences. Right. Then you meet other people who are having those experiences. What's to intervene about? Then later on, you can win at trivia night because you learn stuff from us. That's right.

We're going to talk to that. We're going to intervene and have an intervention with that mom. We're going to see her when we go to the UK. Yeah. We're going to swing by. What if we gave her, never mind. Never mind. Never mind.

Never mind. Never mind. Never mind. That's ridiculous. Intervention mom. And then we'll be like, look what we've done here. Okay. I've lived in North London all my 18 years of life.

18. Oh. I've lived in North London all my 18 years of life and have yet experienced an acute lack of murders. And yet have experienced an acute lack of murders. Yeah, I added like three extra words and that are not there. That's how well I know you. I figured it out.

Thank you. Yet have experienced an acute lack of murders. Can you see through this piece of paper? Okay. That being said, after listening to your mini-soad from around a year ago on EMT stories, I asked my dad if he had any fun stories he could tell me from his early trainee doctor days. My parents are both doctors and fell in love during long nights working in A&E, which I made Steven look up in its accident and emergency, which is the British version of an emergency

room. And everyone knows the most romantic place in a hospital you could possibly be in. Where anything can happen at any time. And you're a doctor, so you don't sleep and you basically don't do anything but be a doctor and be in doctor school. And then, oh, now there's this other hot doctor that's kind of on the same level as you going through all the same shit. Yeah.

Oh my God, this is the love to last a lifetime. During this email, I got excited like I had a crush on them as well. Okay, so they were bonding over their warped sense of humor. Plus, plus, plus, plus, yes. We want these people at our live show. He said that there had been many gunshot wounds. A boy in here in America were like, uh-huh, but over there, they're like, holy fuck. Not great.

Yeah, no, not great. A boy with his legs split open from scaling a fence, a man who came in with a blocked nose that he had had for 24 years, oh my God, what was in it? My mom started laughing and asked what it was about that day that made him come in. So nothing was blocking it specifically. He had just waited that long. I know. Did you want it to be a big, long scarf?

Something. With his name knitted into the middle of it? Yeah, he was like, there it is. Clark, see? You know that's what happened to my dad's friend Woody, right? No. He went one day in the 80s to, uh, wrote it till the field on his tractor, and he, it was a really loud engine, so he stuffed, he just ripped up these rags and stuffed them

into his ears so that while he was doing it, he wouldn't, and forgot they were in there and like a week later was like, I think I've gone deaf and went to the emergency room and they took tweezers and just pulled these big, long, oily rags out of his ears. Ew! Oh my God. He's looking to get a brain infection. For real. Oh my, I, I love stories of weird places and not gross orifices.

Yes. You know what I mean? Not private. Not private. Private. Private. Red shoe diary style orifices. Right.

But more of just casual. Yeah, casual. I left something up there. Oh, I forgot I put this in here. Or like, oh, a swarm of bees took nests inside my nasal cavity, you know, like stuff like that. While I was asleep. Yeah.

Look at that happen. Okay. Uh, okay. So that was to name a few. Yes. The man who passed, however, was a man who came in with a machete embedded in his head. The man in, that was what was in the subject line. I didn't read you.

Okay. The man in question had apparently tried to rob a Chinese shop, which the owner had not, I don't know what that is, who the owner had not taken kindly to and had retaliated by plunging a knife into his head. What is most amazing about the story is that the man survived. The machete had been so sharp and had been plunged with such precision that it went directly through the man's head, straight between the lobes of his brain, causing him no long-term brain damage.

And he was actually conscious when he came in, according to, yeah, according to my mom, she said that she had seen the man turn to my dad and said, so he's here for a tetanus shot. That it's just when you're in love, you get so funny, you want that person to love you so much. Everything is heightened. So that even a man walking with a knife in his head is like, here's my chance. Here we go.

Here's my chance. Watch this. God, I love these people. Okay. To which they both started laughing. In front of the patient, who was a very disgruntled and large gang member, they started dating soon after. For the most part, however, it sounds like working in A&E was pretty soul draining.

My parents took to walking into the waiting room and calling out the most inappropriate names they could without laughing just to pass the time. That's adorable. Isn't it the best? Yeah. Even if this story doesn't make it past Steven's screening, I hope someone finds it amusing. We did. Someone, somewhere.

Thank you so much for your podcast. They've really helped me through an incredibly tough time. I have another sort of hometown murder slash disappearance. I'll be sending in soon that I have the loosest links to. But if I forget or remember that I have A-levels, I should be doing, maybe you might want to look up the abduction of Madeline McCann. Oh. Oh, honey.

We know that one. Yeah. It's sort of the John Benet Ramsey of England and has become a kind of cult icon here. Yeah, we know. We know. Yeah. It's everywhere. Bayi.

Hana. Oh, Hana. Isn't that the best? Yeah. That's a good 18-year-old email. That's good feelings, 18-year-old. Yeah. We have to figure out if we can get ahold of Hana.

And get this. Hannah or Hana? Well, it's A-J-N-N-E. Oh. Honey. Han. Han. Solo.

Rotus and email. Okay. We need to get this doctor-based family into the, um, and get, and then intervene. Yeah. Right. Hometown Story. Hi, MFM crew. I have been a fan of the podcast for the past few months, and it has made me relieved to

know that I'm not alone in wanting to hear about grizzly murders and staying up at night thinking about them. Mm-hmm. My hometown story is from about a decade ago, and I remember hearing about it when I was around nine or 10 years old. I live in a town called Horley in Surrey, in England, and back in 2008. In England is on every wide out. They're just like, we just want to give you the island.

We just want to give you all the information you need. Yeah, because we know you need it. My small town was shocked when we discovered that one of the chefs working at the most popular pub in town was a murderer and rapist. The chef was called Mark Dixie, and back in 2005, he attacked an 18-year-old woman called Sally Ann Bowman. In her own driveway in a completely random attack just minutes after her boyfriend had dropped her at home.

He was on a night out and saw her alone and took the opportunity to stab her seven times and rape her in the driveway. Jesus. But that wasn't off the top of his head. That's somebody that's done something like that before. The scumbag left her for dead, and the case was unsolved for several months. It was about nine months later when he was arrested for having a fight in the pub he worked at.

The pub is about a five-minute drive from where I live. And the police matched his DNA that the DNA found on Sally Ann's body. The thing that I find most chilling is the main piece of evidence which helped to convict him was that there was a film record—oh my god, this is crazy—there was a film recording of him at work masturbating over a newspaper picture of Sally Ann. Oh my god. Is that the most chilling fucking horrible thing you've ever heard? So he's working in the back of a pub in the kitchen.

Oh my god. They got CCTV everywhere there. The poor CCTV—whoever—whatever person—operator—had to look through that and then discover that and be like, sorry, what's this here? That's horrifying. Oh, okay. The judge called it one of the worst murders he had ever seen. The guy was sentenced to 34 years in prison, but I hope they never let him out.

This story is quite notorious in my town because of the violent way in which this poor girl was killed. Honestly, it gives me chills every time I think about it. It's such a terrible story and I always remember it every time I get dropped off at home. I always ask for the person, a friend, a taxi driver to wait outside until I go in just because you never know who might use it as an opportunity to attack. Yes, always. It's great advice.

Walk, watch people—you don't have to walk, but watch people all the way in the door. That's right. Watch them take out their keys and enter their door and then wave and drive away. Shut it. Then get them to text you once they're inside, say the inside's clear. Just keep checking. Keep checking. That's my mom who loves the podcast and is also a huge fan.

We love how you guys are highlighting the very real dangers that exist in the world whilst also bringing fun and laughter as well. Stay sexy and don't get murdered. Georgia. Oh, British Georgia. I didn't even notice that. British Georgia. British Georgia.

What's British Georgia like, Georgia? I wonder. American Georgia. Very proper, unlike American Georgia. No burping? No. It's my hometown mystery of the dead man on the moor. Moors.

Moors are so creepy. Dear OG Murderinos. Perfect. Really sweet. Nice one. Okay. I've been wanting to write for some time, but as you have already covered my hometown murders, the infamous Moors murders, I had to think further.

Imagine being seven years old and being told about the five children around your age that were brutally murdered up the road on top of the surrounding hills that you love so much. Like a murderer was born. Love it. Anyhow, I thought you'd be interested in a mystery which gripped the UK in 2015 and took place in my hometown, Saddleworth, New England. New England. No, Old England.

The oldest England. She wrote, or they wrote Northern England. Saddleworth, which is pronounced Siddleworth, or something we'll find out later. In the morning of the 12th of December, 2015, an older looking man was found dead on a path above Dove Stone Reservoir, lying perfectly straight in the path with his arms crossed across, with his arms across his chest. It was freezing and the rain was torrential, but he wore light clothes for the weather. He had no identification on him at all or any personal artifacts that would tell people

who he was or why he was here. He did have 130 pounds, all in 10 pound notes, three train tickets from London to Manchester the day before, and a small blue cardboard medicine box. The label was printed in both English and Urdu, so all pretty weird clues and no one knew who he was. No one was able to identify him. Even with a sketch of his face on the news, he was a mystery. The people at the morgue called him Neil, because apparently he looked like a Neil,

that was in quotes, and Dove Stone after the name of the reservoir where he was found. Police got to work investigating Neil, checking CCTV at the train stations and asking around the village. He had walked into the Clarence Pub, where I had my first ever job as the worst fucking ever waitress known to person kind. Love it. Really want to hear those stories. Yeah.

Anyway, he asked how to get to the top of the mountain, meaning the hillside of the moorland. The staff warned the man that he wouldn't get there and back before dark, but he asked them to repeat the directions and left anyway. Weird. Sounds like suicide, right? Well, even weirder. He died from Strick-9 poisoning, an archaic poison written about in Agatha Christie novels and currently banned in the European Union.

Doesn't it sound like he's trying to establish an alibi by going in there and saying, tell me how to get to this weird place? To this once visited place. Now tell me again, like that sounds like you're going to remember me. Yeah. Maybe. Maybe someone's following him. Oh, maybe.

Okay. Why not just then say, while you tell me these directions, I have also another piece of information. Maybe. Yeah. I can keep going. No, there's a lot of. Okay. Why would someone kill themselves like that?

And how did he even get that poison when it's banned over the whole continent? And by now, his face was all over the news in the UK. Why had no one come forward to identify him? In an autopsy, a titanium plate was found attached to his left femur. Strangely, it didn't have a serial number, but was branded by a company found in Pakistan. Through this, police managed to identify him as David Leighton. So not a Neil and saw that that was on the page and saw that he had flown 4,000 miles from Lahore, Pakistan two days before he was found dead on a path on Saddleworth Moor.

Police found out more about his identity, but until this day, no one knows the truth about his death. Did he return to the UK specifically to die by suicide? Then why did he come to Saddleworth Moor? Why use Strychnine? Who knows? Not me in all caps. Thank you so much for all that you do.

Me and my partner love listening to your podcast and love being in the internet sub-communities that are only possible because of you both. Shout out to Macabreinos and Smokerinos. Smokerinos. Stay sexy and stay the fuck off the Moors, Abby. So I like this one because it's recent and it's unsolved and it's like, this is the mystery, this is the culture we're going into. This is on murdering those minds of what the hell was that and also to be found on the

path like arms crossed, like placed. Because if it was Strychnine, they're saying, you know, he has convulsions and stuff. That's what I thought about and been in a lot of pain, you're right. So if you died, you would die, right? Like kind of fucked up looking like mid-seizure style. Did someone come along and do that? There's no way. And also the rain, I bet prevented any kind of like if there were fingerprints anywhere.

Yeah, totally. Yeah. So that one's chilling. Thanks, Abby. Looking for a better cooking routine? With meal planning, shopping and prepping handled, Hello Fresh has you covered. Hello Fresh makes home cooking easy and affordable so you can stay on track and on budget in the new year.

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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 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. What makes a person a murderer? Are they born to kill or are they made to kill? I'm Candice DeLong and on my new podcast Killer Psyche Daily, I share a quick 10-minute rundown every weekday on the motivations and behaviors of the criminal masterminds, psychopaths and cold-blooded killers you hear about in the news. I have decades of experience as a psychiatric nurse, FBI agent and criminal profiler. On Killer Psyche Daily, I'll give you insight into cases like Ryan Grantham and the newly

arrested Stockton serial killer. I'll also bring on expert guests to dive deeper into the details, share what it's like to work with a behavioral assessment unit at Quantico, answer some killer trivia and even host virtual Q&As where I'll answer your burning questions. Hey Prime members, listen to the Amazon Music Exclusive Podcast Killer Psyche Daily in the Amazon Music app. Download the app today. Okay, I'm not going to tell you the name of this one.

Okay. MFM Team and Co. Sorry. I have to get my things together before I screw it all up. Okay. MFM Team and Company. Nice. That's good.

I'm going to get straight to the good stuff. Good. In the 1970s, my dad and his family lived in Cambridge and even though he was 20 or 21, he was still living at home and then it says the dream while he was dating my mom who he met at a sixth form social and then thankfully for us, they wrote prom for the American audience. Yes. Thank you. Thank you.

Because that does not sound like prom. No. The previous year. Anyway, during 1974 and 75, the city was on high alert because some chap decided to break into people's homes and rape them. She called him a chap. She did call him a chap. It's a different culture.

Yes. He would then don a long blonde, he would then don a long blonde wig and do a runner. That means he took off. He put a wig on and ran. He put a wig on and ran. But I love and do a runner. Do a runner. Okay.

Managing to allude the police for two years before his capture. So picture yourself back in the summer of 1974. No idea if it was summer, but that's how I imagine it when my mom told me the story and my dad's younger sister, also still living at home, is hanging out in the garden of their home, which was on the outskirts of Cambridge and talking to the very affable son of their neighbors about, quote, these awful attacks happening to women in Cambridge and how bad it was, et cetera, et cetera. The neighbor son agreed with her and discussed it for a while before finishing the conversation

and going about their days. And a long blonde hair is on his sweater or something like that. No. And a few months later, when she found out you cut to a few months later, when she found out she was shooting the shit with none other than the Cambridge rapist himself about his attacks. Holy fuck. I mean, seriously.

Anyway, that's my parents' hometown murder, loving the podcast. It's literally my dream listening and so nice to feel like part of the MFM community. Oh. Stay sexy and don't trust your neighborhood kids, Sophia. Good advice, Sophia. Oh my God. I love that idea that they're just in their British back gardens hanging over the fence and being British drinking tea over the fence and having crumpets over the fence and fucking

boom. It's that person. Of course. I'm so scared. Can you believe this? That is happening. I'm scared too. I'm not even a thing.

That's how creepy these psychopaths are. You can't tell. You can't. The hair on the back of your arms probably won't go up because it's not long blonde hair because the long blonde hair on the back of your arm goes up. Yeah. Oh, it's wow. Fuck.

The 70s man. Okay. Okay. Okay. Last one. The last one. It's a half and half of a story and then some information, which I enjoy or like, it just is hometown story.

Hey, Huns. I'm on a holiday with my parents and recently listened to your crowd crush episode. That was the one from the who concert? Oh, yeah. Remember, I think Cincinnati. That was fucked up. Yeah. So fucked up.

I was telling my parents about it and my mom told us about an experience she had when she was a young thing in the mid 70s. She went to a T-Rex concert in London. It was a tiny venue and there was a large crowd. People at the front would get crushed against the stage and pass out. So the security staff would just pluck them up and take them outside the venue. My granddad arrived to pick my mom up and was surprised to find rows of unconscious young women laid out on the pavement outside.

Oh my God. He saw them coming around, looking confused, getting up and stumbling right back on inside. What the fuck? Apparently this is a good, this was good crowd control solution in the 70s and no one thought that anything bad would happen to an unconscious woman just left out on the street. Oh my God. Yeah. My mom said she and her friend had seen how mad it was at the front, so hung back a bit,

which was probably a good idea. Yeah. A very good idea. But also they saw T-Rex live. Dude. Real time. Amazing. Unbelievable.

Okay. At a small venue. Yeah. Okay. As a sidebar, I just want to thank you guys for how open you are with talking about mental health and therapy. Last year my younger sister was hospitalized as she was suicidal and my repressed English parents had to go from zero to trying to understand this real quick.

You helped me see that therapy is normal and important and I've spoken to my parents a lot about it. I've seen them grow from depression does not exist to making sure I choose a health care policy with extensive mental health coverage. We now have open and honest conversations for the first time in my life and they've pushed me to seek help myself telling me, well your American murder ladies say it's good so you should listen to them. Oh no.

Oh my God. I've been seeing my psychologist for a few weeks now and she's helped me so much already. We went through a lot of shit last year as a family but we are starting to see life become more hopeful again. My sister is out of the hospital and in rehab and where she's thriving. I guess I just want to say thank you for making me laugh during the worst months of my life and for helping me find the words to explain to my parents why it's good to talk to a professional.

Also Karen as a fellow big boobs lady, my girlfriends and my girlfriends constantly harass my boobs. I feel yet. I've come to accept it as part of my life. Stay sexy and be kind to yourself. Filly. Filly. Isn't that the best? Yeah.

Because that's kind of I think what's happening to a lot of people. The main reason I wanted to read that is because people have thoughts of violence. People have go through things that become overwhelming and they can't deal with by themselves. All of these things happen all the time to lots of people and this family who had never had to deal with it before adapted to the current reality perfectly. Accepting it, not fighting it, not make blaming anybody or freaking out about who's- We're telling you it doesn't exist. Yeah.

Insisting that they can't face it. They basically did the hardest thing I think for anybody which is face the shit that's actually happening to you and they did it and they're continuing it to do it. The idea that we get any credit at all is lovely and we like to be part of your story. We'll take it. We'll take anything but you guys are the ones doing the hard work and it's very cool because that's the way. That's the way through it and please say hi to your sister for us.

We're proud of you guys. Yeah. You're all doing really good. That's awesome. I guess any story you feel like writing, we'll read it. If your story is a beginning, a middle, and an end, maybe some kind of interesting shit in the middle too. Try to connect it to something but still, we'd like to read it.

Yeah. Send it to my favorite murderer, Gmail. Thanks for listening, guys. We can't wait to see you Ireland and UK. It's so exciting. Yes. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered.

Goodbye. Bye.