My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 162

Episode Date: February 17, 2020

This week’s hometowns include a prison rescue and a murder trial witness.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is exactly right. We at Wondery live, breathe, and downright obsess over true crime. And now we're launching the ultimate true crime fan experience, Exhibit C. Join now by following Wondery, Exhibit C, on Facebook and listen to true crime on Wondery and Amazon Music. Exhibit C, it's truly criminal. Hello. Hi.

And welcome. To my favorite murder. The mini-soad. This is the one. The little little one. The baby one. You know what it's like. You've heard it.

Do you want to go first this time? Yeah. Seriously? Why not? Change it up 2020. Wow. Okay. This is a prison guard story.

Hello, beautiful people. Oh, hello. Let's get into it. Okay. My dad, he's really my stepdad, but he raised me and my biological dad doesn't deserve the title. Suck it, Dennis. Suck it, Dennis.

You get to write in and you get to say what you want. That's right. So my dad was a guard at a maximum security prison in Arkansas for several years during his 20s. He has many stories about the job, but my favorite has to be the time he was almost murdered by an inmate while working in general population. Fuck. He became good friends with a lot of the inmates in Gen Pop and really enjoyed his job.

However, there are always some bad apples in prison. Oh. No shit. Who wrote this? Who wrote this? Ned Plander? What's happening? That want to stir up trouble.

Uh-huh. And one of these inmates really had it out for my dad for some reason. One day, he was the corrections officer, that's why. One day, said inmate walked up behind my dad with a shank in his hand made from a toothbrush. Just as he was about to attack my dad, another inmate saw what was happening, pulled out his own shank, fucking shanks for everyone. But no one's brushing their teeth. Came up behind the bad inmate and stabbed him in the throat.

Oh my God. Killing him. Oh my fucking God. My dad remembers hearing a scuffle behind him. When he turned around, he saw the bad inmate's body on the ground. The good inmate looked at my dad and said, who's about to kill you? Jesus Christ. I'm a journalist, so naturally I peppered my dad with questions including how the hell

do you make a shank out of a toothbrush. But he didn't know much more due to the fact that his back was churned and they never found out what the inmate's motive was. He was a murderer? Yeah. Yeah. What's about it? It's jails.

Jails in the place where you start critical thinking and really planning out good stuff that you're going to do. My dad stayed employed at the prison for a while after that. The good inmate ended up getting released on good behavior not too long after he saved my dad's life. Holy. Well, you know, I wonder if that was part of the decision making process. Right.

He saved a fucking corrections officer. And probably, chances are, took care of some of his own business. AMN. I mean, you wouldn't do that entirely just for a corrections officer, would you? Maybe not. Yeah. You know, like, for the people who are going to murder corrections officers? Yeah.

You know what this all makes me think of is everyone should listen to Ear Hustle because it's a podcast that is made by people who are in prison and they tell stories all about this stuff and they can speak to it. They're probably like, yeah, there's lots of critical thinking in prison because you have to fucking stay alive every single day. Yeah. Ear Hustle 100%. The good inmate.

Okay. Needless to say, we're all very grateful. My dad had friends on the inside, stay sexy and always make friends in jail, a question mark. Love, Kate. Be the kind of corrections officer that people would want to save. That's true. That's a good kind of life philosophy.

Sure. Okay. How about if a corrections officer can make friends with prison inmates, then you can make friends with anyone. Yeah. Anyone in your dorm. Right. Stay positive.

Yeah. I'm not going to read the subject line of this because it gives it away. Okay. Hey, MFM crew. Great pod. Don't ever change. Here's my story. On January 29th, 1988, Eric Robert Rudolph bombed an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama.

Roughly six months later, my brother and I, ages seven and nine respectively, were on a mission to make a hot summer day at least slightly different than all the other ones that came before it. Our childhood home in a Birmingham suburb backed up two miles of woods where we spent most of our free ranch childhood. Amazing. Amazing. On this particular day, we decided to take a left where we normally went right and we

came upon a makeshift campground. Oh, my God. A single folding chair, dozens of empty spandins, and even more Michelob Ultra bottles were scattered around the burned out fire pit. Naturally, our first instinct was to touch everything. We stomped on the spandins through the bottles against trees and used a folding chair to reenact some of our favorite WWE moves. Yes.

Right? In Birmingham, we could and destroyed any chance of evidence collection. Oh, God. We ran home to tell our mom about our day. I'll never forget the face she made or the tone of her voice as she relayed our discovery to a 911 operator. As it turns out, police suspected Rudolph hid out in the woods around Birmingham for a while after the bombing.

After the police inspected the place, they told my parents it was probably just a local teenager's hangout spot. But to this day, my mother swears, quote, only a psychopath would eat that much spandins. Thank you. Well, Eric Robert Rudolph was finally arrested in 2003 in North Carolina, where he'd been hiding out in the woods for years. During his reign of terror, he bombed Centennial Park during the 1996 Olympics, another abortion clinic and a lesbian bar all in Atlanta.

After his arrest, he explained he was fighting against abortion and quote, the homosexual agenda. Fuck you. For real, he's currently serving life without possibility of parole in a super max prison. Great. Stay sexy and if you can't stay out of the forest, at least don't disturb a serial bomber's hangout. Jim, BS, my dad made us clean up the scene after the cops left.

That is such a dad move. That is such a dad move. Clean it up. Clean it up. Sweep up that glass. Oh my God. Jim, amazing. That was real.

That's so scary. That's exactly what the 80s were like. You destroyed a fucking camp that you found. It could have belonged to a serial killer. Your dad made you clean it up. You're the one somehow in your brown-quartered pants that's getting in trouble. That's right. This is witness in a murder trial.

Hello, Georgia and Karen. As a longtime true crime fan and more recent listener of your podcast, I have to share with you that last week I had one of the most thrilling experiences of my life when I was called as a witness in a murder trial. Oh my God. I worked for the US Forest Service in a dark, mossy, Sasquatch-infested national forest. In eight years I've worked for the Forest Service. I've learned that people go to their public lands to do weird things.

Yeah, they do. I've encountered a cache of stolen guns, a wild west shootout between a real cowboy and some tweakers, a hostage situation, mysteriously exploding four-wheelers, and countless people that I'm pretty sure did something illegal I just didn't know quite what. I was called as a witness in a trial involving two young men who were very much under the influence of drugs that decided for whatever reason to steal a minivan belonging to one of their step-parents and take a trip into the national forest in the dead of winter 2019 during a week of heavy rain.

Well, I'm not sure exactly the motive. When the two men stopped at a campsite in the forest, one of the men overcame and murdered the other one, then set the minivan ablaze. Oh my God. My role as a witness was fairly minor. I was asked to testify when the campsite was or was not occupied that week in order to establish a timeline. However, it was absolutely thrilling to stand before a judge, swear in, and help put the

murderer behind bars. He was found guilty after a mere four hours of deliberation. Wow. I had to share this with you because it was just so exciting. I do, however, feel very bad for the family of the victim who most certainly did not deserve to die that night in the forest. Sincerely, C.S. Drugs.

Drugs. Drugs are a bummer. Drugs are a bummer. The forest is a bummer. Just like the idea of being in a minivan high out of your mind. You're just like, I have an idea. Let's go to a remote part of the forest and then I'll snap and lose my mind on you. Oh my God.

Horrible. Awful. Just not cool. This is a good one. It just says hometown story. Hello. A few years ago, I was staying in a hotel in the Czech Republic Mountains with my friend Kara.

We were sharing the very last hotel room on the left at the end of the hall and also shared a small entranceway with the room to our left so we could tell that there was no one checked into that room. One of the first nights in our hotel room, Kara and I were laying in our separate beds talking with the lights off. After a while, we both mumbled goodnight and the conversation stopped. I, of course, took out my phone and took advantage of the free Wi-Fi to connect with people back home in the States.

While I was scrolling through my phone, my friend started sobbing quietly and somewhat pathetically in her bed. I paused, listening to hear her crying and felt mostly uncomfortable since she wasn't typically a crier and I wasn't typically a comforter. Then I locked my phone and listened, letting another minute pass, hoping she would just stop. That's so true. Oh my God.

Just stop. I can't help you with this. Please stop. That's terrible. And trying to figure out just how to respond to this awkward situation since she wasn't. It's called, are you okay? Can I do anything? Yeah, I guess that's all you really need to do.

Really? You don't have to solve it in the moment. Yeah, you don't have to talk. You just let them talk. It's just the depth and breadth of night time in the room sobbing. But here's the secret. If someone's sobbing and they know you can hear them, it's because they want you to help them.

Right, which then that triggers the part of me that goes, now I will never help you. See how I can be? Wait, this isn't a story about me. I was just about to say something from across the room when Kara says, are you okay? I remember freezing for a second and taking the time to think, are you fucking kidding me? I put my phone down, acknowledged with annoyance that I was about to tell Kara there was a little ghost girl sobbing in our room after another beat said, I thought that was you.

Kara of course screamed, shot out of bed, flew straight to the light switch and flicked it on. There was no one there and the crying had stopped. Kara exclaimed that she felt someone standing next to her bed in the dark and thought it was me. Oh my God. We both slept with the lights on that night in my bed, obviously, and made the mistake of looking up why little girls would be haunting the Czech Republic Mountains.

All we could find was that those mountains used to be a hiding place for Nazi soldiers who'd fled Hitler's army during World War II, so make of that what you will. Stay sexy and don't get a hotel room at the end of the hall, Amber. That is terrifying. Isn't that crazy? Yes. Holy shit. Looking for a better cooking routine?

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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. 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. 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 Chauchilla, 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's called, uh, I'm not telling you. Okay. Hello, sweet friends. I'm still fairly new to the MFM family. I'm a big scaredy cat and tried to listen for the first time while driving down a dark

rural road. I know, but I've since become obsessed and I'm binging episodes like crazy. In episode one 65, during the conversation about the Richmond Hill explosion, which I did live, Georgia referenced the time gas lines exploded outside of Boston. It actually happened in my sister's town. I was out for dinner when a friend of mine texted me the news article saying, doesn't McKayla live in North Andover? Always wanted to jump right to the worst case scenario.

Hello, anxiety. I immediately called and texted my sister a million times with no response. Finally, she called me sobbing saying that she had been evacuated and had to come over. What she later told me after chugging the wine I'd opened right as she arrived is that her apartment complex was right on the gas line and had been evacuated as it could explode at any moment. Oh my God. How terrifying.

So scary. When she couldn't get it to her house because all the police barricades, my badass sister parked her car and ran. Ooh. A policeman shouted at her to stop, but she shrieked back, I have to get my cat. Oh. My sister ran back into the apartment complex, shoved her kitten into a duffel bag. It was the first thing she could find and then noped right out of there.

Oh crap. Luckily, she was unharmed. Her apartment did not blow up and her cat was left with only a little PTSD from being transported in a shoulder bag and brought to her weirdo aunt's big city apartment. My sister is the biggest murderer I've ever met and she's my best friend. I'm so glad she turned me on to this amazing community. Stay sexy and maybe keep your pet carrier closer to the door, Alex. I'm just glad she didn't get arrested after coming back out like there wasn't some kind

of. Did she? Yeah. I mean. I would do it. Yeah. I thought about that if there's like an earthquake or something. There's three fucking cats I have to wrangle that are all freaking out.

Yeah, that's going to be tough. You better get a can of herring and just have it nearby. Or spam. Or spam. Psychopaths. Okay. Ready for the last one? Yeah.

It's the kind that make me very happy. The subject line is a distant cousin of the grading card master Bader, question mark, question mark, question mark. Yada, yada, yada, nice stuff. Love you guys. Okay. So I worked for a few years at a retail store in a shitty mall in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada, while I was in my undergrad and boy, did that place have stories.

I'll spare you from all the details, but some highlights include man masturbating into the changing room curtain, chainsaw wielding psycho running through the mall and being tackled by security, parentheses. It made the news. One caught on security cameras, throwing a five foot potted palm over her head at her boyfriend, man huffing paint in the medical clinic downstairs, and climbing up through the ceiling tiles in the bathroom and running around above the clinic to horrified people in the waiting room.

Oh my God. You know, typical stuff, but there has always been one story that really stuck with me since. It was around the time I started near the end of the day when the store got a call and I picked up. The man on the other end asked if we had any fur coats. This was in June. So I said, no, he asked if I could check in the back. So I did.

And lo and behold, we had one. He asked me to describe said coat and told me it was for his mother. Halfway through my description, he cut me off with a loud, oh yeah, keep going. And before he could say anymore, I hung up horrified. He proceeded to call several more times over the next two years. But thanks to my naive ass taking one for the team and caller ID, no one else had to endure another call. Now cut to a month after the store closed, RIP Long Tall Sally.

Oh, my God. That's why I started laughing so hard when we were reading the name Long Tall Sally is a clothing store. Sally, how did that not survive? Is it a clothing store for women over 5'10 or something? It's got to be. Long Tall Sally? Stephen's looking it up.

Please do. Canadian Long Tall Sally. Oh my God. Oh, Jesus Christ. Long Tall Sally. I love Canada so much. I know. It is the most, I love that culture.

It's hilarious. Oh, Stephen found it. I guess the online shop is still around. Do they have fur coats? Describe it to us. Global destination for tall women's style, exclusively designed, exclusively tall. Yes. Wow.

Yes. Long Tall Sally. You're welcome over 5'9". Okay. Okay. So, this was also a tall fur coat, not just a regular fur coat. Okay. Yeah.

RIP Long Tall Sally. When I was scrolling through BUNS, a community chat room slash trading platform, B-U-N-Z. Okay. Canada. When I came across the thread called the Fur Coat Master Baker, intrigued I started reading and it was the guy. According to various retail workers, he had been calling different retail stores all over Ontario for the past 15 years.

Holy shit. He always asks about fur coats and always as a gift for his mother. I can only imagine what kind of fucked up shit happened for this guy to enjoy torturing young female retail workers just trying to do their damn jobs. And including your mom in it. And including your mom in the story, which is part of the part of it. Ooh, fur coats, what happened to that person, what strange childhood fur coat trauma did he go through that that's what he spends the rest of his life doing.

Anyway, love the podcast and all you do, Heather R. Heather, good one. So, we have a new one, the Fur Coat Master Baker. I mean, if only everyone would write in, we could just get all of them. We could get a nice catalog, like a coffee table book. Right. We need your local weirdo collar slash, I mean, please. It's maybe we should do an episode, Steven, where you just edit together all the perverts

we've had on. Just the pervert. The pervert episode. Pervert special. Yeah. Steven, why is your face so red? Steven is so red. I have nothing to do with any of this.

15 years. I'm not interested in fur coats. I'm not interested. I was 15 years old. I don't even like Swiss cheese. You know that one person made a Swiss, a Steven, the like, we know we have the cocaine beard, like that person made one of me as the Swiss cheese pervert. Oh, that's actionable.

I do think it is. You can't call Steven the pervert. I didn't. No, no, no, no. You said it to me. I didn't do it. Steven did give us these little Valentine's Day cards. Is he the greeting card?

Don't make me say it. Don't make me accuse him on national podcasting. National, it's actionable. Was that it? I think that was it. That was a quick one it felt like. It really did. Well, those were so good.

Yeah. It's like a tale in itself. Italian. Italian finger kiss to the sky. God bless you all. Send your weird stories to my favorite murder at Gmail or you can go to myfavoritermurder.com and there's a what is it called? Link.

No, it's a you can submit. There's an icon. There's a clickable icon. Submission form. There. A dot biz. That'll always be funny to me. I love it.

I love it. Uh, stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, you want a cookie? Hi. Hi. You