My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 172

Episode Date: April 27, 2020

This week’s hometowns include a Kent State connection and a porch mystery.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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 and welcome to my favorite murder, the mini-soad. The mini-soad from the quarantine. We're still doing it, are you? Let's do it. You really should. You write us emails, we read them aloud and the symbiosis goes on and on. It's a beautiful thing. You want to go first? Sure. This subject line gives it away so I'll just read it. Okay. Greetings from the Midwest. Let's get right into it. It was the mid-80s and my mom had a wild perm and my brother and I were

not yet around to drive her and my dad bananas. Bananas premiered last week on the exactly right network. Promo code murder. My parents had just bought their first home in a suburb just southwest of Chicago. I just did that with a Chicago accent. Chicago. One day the real estate agent that sold them their house showed up at their door with a dog and asked them if they wanted to keep it. My mom being the animal lover she is, happily took him in without question. How come that doesn't happen to me? I want that to happen to me. Ding Dong, yes? Do you want the best dog ever? Yes. He was a beautiful amber and red golden retriever that my parents named Duke. Rolled up beautiful bean footage, that Duke? The famous one? The talking bean dog? Apparently the real estate agent,

let's call her Peggy, was in the process of showing a nearby home that had belonged to a Chicago mobster who was recently murdered. The man had left behind his widow as well as his dog. You may see where this is going. Peggy noticed that the mobster's widow would leave the dog tied up in the backyard all day long and did not seem to care for him at all. So one day she took matters into her own hands, snuck into the lady's backyard, kidnapped the dog and brought him to my parents. As far as my parents know, the woman never went looking for him, which was for the best, since I would imagine it'd be bad to piss off a mobster's widow. When I asked my mom to tell me more about the story, she also mentioned that Duke was supposedly a gift from one mobster to

another. He was purchased and likely a pretty expensive present. My mom adopts all her pets from a shelter, so Duke was the only purebred dog she's ever had. My parents say that Duke was one of the sweetest dogs, and I can only wonder what kinds of things he saw before he ended up with them. I hope you enjoyed this story. It's one of my family's favorites. Thank you all for what you do and for keeping me company as I run up and down my stairs in an attempt to exercise from home. Seeing you in Milwaukee last May was a dream come true, and I hope to see another live show when this is all over if we do too. Stay well and SSDGM, A. That's a great story. That's a great story. Aw, I want a mob dog. Seemed a little lightly dangerous. That real estate agent was a very brave

woman. Yeah, good for her. Bold. Okay, this one just goes, Hi, I just finished the latest episode about the Kent State Massacre. My husband is from Kent, and his whole family has a connection to the university in one way or another. The first time I went back home with him, his mom was driving us around, showing us things in town. When we got to campus, she drove us to the now parking lot where the massacre happened and began to tell us her story of that day. But first, a meet cute. My mother-in-law was in the first nursing class at Kent State, and my father-in-law drove for the campus bus service. Several times a week, he drove the nursing students to Cleveland to complete training at a hospital there. After a few trips, he and my husband's mom hit it off and began

dating. I'm not sure the amount of time they were dating before the massacre, but it was enough time that he knew her family well and had been to her parents' house many times. On the day the massacre tensions on campus were high, and my mother-in-law was in her dorm just behind the hill where the shooting took place. She watched from her window as students came pouring over the hill following the gunshots. She then got the order that everyone had to be off campus immediately and got a ride back to Cleveland to her parents' house with some people from her dorm. This whole time, she knew that my father-in-law was somewhere on campus but had not been able to get a hold of him all day. She worried as she sat at her parents' house not knowing if he was okay or not. As they were

getting ready to eat dinner, a bus pulled onto the suburban neighborhood street where her parents lived. She was relieved as my father-in-law got out of the bus and exhaustively sat down to dinner with them. Turns out as soon as he heard about the evacuation order, he began filling up the campus bus with students and drove back and forth to Cleveland all day. It's about a 45-minute drive to get students to the airport and other safe places they needed to go. The whole family was so relieved to see that bus when it pulled up on that little neighborhood street. The story struck me in this time that we are seeing how people who do jobs we normally wouldn't stop to think about can be realized as essential in the wake of a tragedy. My father-in-law knew it was essential

for the students to get out and realized he had the ability to do that. He kept working for the campus bus service and eventually went on to run it for a few years. He and my mother-in-law have spent the rest of their lives in Kent and raised four kids who all went to Kent State. Not a May 4th goes by that my husband doesn't take a moment to recognize what an important part of history that day is even though it happened before he was born. Stay sexy and flirt with your bus driver, Rachel. Oh, I love that. That's so good. I know. So good. Look for the helpers, everyone, as Mr. Rogers said. Also, it's just one thing of like, they don't know where he is and then the fact that he's safe A and then B just spent his day being a hero. And then the huge

bus on a tiny street just fucking rolls up. Out of service. Out of service. Okay. This one just says hometown story. Hello, all. I grew up in a small suburb in North Carolina and when I was a sophomore in high school, a man named Pazuzu Algarad was arrested after the bodies of two men were found buried in his backyard. Pazuzu, formerly John Alexander Lawson. Sorry. Pazuzu is the devil from the exorcist. You know what it is? The face that shows up, I believe. I could be wrong or could sound a lot like it. Steve, if you want to back me up. You know that part where it's like all those things are flashing and then there's that insanely scary face. It's the demon Pazuzu. I believe. But then the idea that he had the plainest name, like clearly names are important to

him. I wasn't going to make fun of the name, but then when I realized he made it up, then I was like, it's he's trying to be scary. It's supposed to be a scary demon name, I think, if I'm right. Steven. It's correct. Yeah. Is the main antagonist in the exorcist horror novel and film series. Pazuzu. Pazuzu. Pazuzu, formerly John Alexander Lawson, was born in San Francisco, but he and his mom moved to Clemens when he was two. He supposedly had a pretty normal childhood, but started drinking regularly at 13. He went to my high school, but repeated ninth grade once and then dropped out. At some point he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and agoraphobia, but his mom gave up on trying to get him to go to therapy. When he was in his early 20s,

he legally changed his name to Karen. It's also the stupidest name. Like Pazuzu sounds like a 20s tap dancer. Yeah. It's not scary. It doesn't scare me. Okay. What if behind you we see this head, his face pop up and it's like, Karen, don't turn. Stop saying that Karen. Just drop straight into hell. Okay. When he, when he was in his 20s, he legally changed his name to Pazuzu Algarad and after a demon. Oh, sorry. I read this already. I said that like I thought of it myself. It's right here. Steven, sorry. No, leave it. Oh, I love it. Please. Okay. He changed his name to Pazuzu Algarad after a demon in the exorcist. I didn't realize the one in the exorcist had a last name. Yeah. A Christian name. He filed his teeth into points and got tattoos on his face

and apparently openly told people that he made animal sacrifices and that he could control the weather. I also read that he didn't bathe or brush his teeth. It's hard to when they're just those little points. So I'm sure he was a joy to be around. He eventually gained somewhat of a following and even had two fiance's. How did they do it? He lived less than a half a mile from my high school and some of the reported activities at his house included self-harm, drug abuse, orgies, and drinking animal blood slash performing animal sacrifices. There were satanic messages and blood all over the walls, animal carcasses lying around and apparently even human feces on the floor. Oh, dear. Wow. And he was eventually ill. You know, it's not like he was just a

fucking brick or whatever. It wasn't just messy. There was more to it than that and it wasn't just demons. In 2014, he and one of his fiance's Amber Birch, Pazuzu Algarad, were both arrested after the skeletal remains of two men were found in his backyard. Both men had disappeared in 2009 and the autopsy said that they were both shot in the head. The house was condemned and demolished a year later. I don't have any direct connections to the story, but I knew a few people that lived on the street. One girl said he spray painted satanic symbols on her garage door. That would be horrifying. And another girl said her cat went missing and they'd always thought that Pazuzu had sacrificed or eaten him. Clemens is a very boring, very Christian suburb and this was definitely

the strangest and most exciting thing that ever happened in the 19 years that I lived there. A little over a year after his arrest, Pazuzu was found dead in his cell at Central Prison in Raleigh. The autopsy said that he died from quote, severe blood loss caused by a deep wound to a major blood vessel in his left arm at the pit of his elbow. End quote. His death was ruled a suicide, but the instrument used was never determined or found. I tried to make this as short as possible, but there's just so much crazy stuff about this dude. There's also a docu-series called The Devil You Know About Him If You're Interested. Stay sexy and don't get murdered by crazy dudes who don't shower, Emma. Man, that person in our neighborhood growing up,

everyone knew or everyone thought or the house was haunted or this woman was a witch. I just love those stories. That was an intense one. Yeah, that's the most intense local color story I've heard in a while. Yeah, this is hometown story. Hello, beautiful furry babies and badass podcasting women. I have a fun story about the time I found out a murderer used to live in my house. Got another one of these. Yeah. I moved into a two bedroom house with my roommate in May of 2019 and have lived there until this month. Recently, I was packing to move back home due to COVID-19 and was subsequently cleaning out my closet. In the closet, I found a birth certificate for a man named Watson Presley and that's a fake name. You know I'm nosy, so I immediately looked

him up to see if I could find anything about him. He was born in Florida and would be 35 years old according to the birth date. When I did the Google search, the first thing that came up was a mug shot and after further research, I discovered that he had been arrested for all caps second degree murder as well as armed criminal action. This is what I get for renting in a cheap college town, I guess. I dug deeper and here's what I found out. The murder happened in 2015. Fortunately, not in the house I live in, but on another street in my town. It was a dispute between Watson and his uncle, which resulted in Watson shooting the uncle several times in the chest from far away and then a few more times at close range. The murder occurred back in 2015, so I was curious

how his birth certificate had gotten into my house and if he'd been in my room. After reaching out to my landlord, after reaching out to my landlord, I discovered that he had lived in my house in 2016 and 17 when the court proceedings were going on to decide his sentencing. So he's out on bail. Homeboy definitely slept in my bedroom. As it turns out, he was left out on probation and still lives in my city somewhere as of 2020, hence the fake name that she gave us. The judge let him off with a few years of probation and now he's just hanging out somewhere in town. No idea that a 19 year old museum study student has his birth certificate now. This let me know that my landlord clearly doesn't do background checks and that you should always investigate the top shelf of your

closet to see what fun stuff you find. Stay sexy and don't rent your house to murderers, Cameron. Whoa, I like that she said, and if he'd ever been in my room. Well, that's a good way to break into people's rooms. You sneak in with your birth certificate and you slide it under the boop, the bed. 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. Hello Fresh meals are convenient, seasonal, and delicious. Stay cozy all winter long with classic comfort foods available weekly. Why stop with just dinner? Now you can enjoy Hello Fresh's expanded

menu of quick lunch solutions, weekend brunch, simple side dishes, and amazing desserts. 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 early fall. 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. 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 Candace 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. Hi, everyone. On last week's episode, you asked for stories about Mormon families, and this is my time to shine in all caps. I come from a super religious family in Utah. This story is also about my sweet grandma, Jazz, JAZ. So it's a twofer with Mormons and grandmas. My grandma loved and lived for expensive jewelry, real jewels, real gold, you name it, she loved it. She also loved to store money and other expensive things in weird places, like when my grandparents moved out of the house, they lived in for 45 years. The new owners found $750 cash in the furnace room. Anyway, one day, I'd like to imagine that it's a lovely day in 1997, the Salvation Army knocked on my grandparents

door to ask for canned food donations, all caps. Well, us Mormons love our canned food. So they had a lot of it. My clueless grandpa in one fell swoop put all the cans from the storage room into a bag and sent the nice Salvation Army man on his way. Well, I know where this is going, and it's hard to hear. These are my favorite as well. I think we've talked about these types of stories. Well, cut to the local nightly news that night. There was news story that someone had accidentally donated an empty can of Campbell's chunky soup full of thousands of dollars worth of jewels. And if you know who this person is, please let them know that they have lost their jewels. Wow. That's so generous of them to announce it. Yeah. I figured it was like just going to be gone

forever. My grandma was able to get all of her lovely jewelry back. Everyone had a good laugh and wasn't at all surprised to find out it was my grandma with the missing jewels. Weirder things have happened. We just celebrated the three year anniversary of my grandma's death. I thought that telling the story would be a great way to remember her, although she probably wouldn't listen to your podcast because of all the F words. Fair enough. Absolutely. I know she would love that I'm telling this story. She was one special lady. So I guess stay sexy and check your soup cans for expensive jewels before donating them. Candice. I love it. I feel like everyone now that we're all home or some of us are home have time to write in their grandma and grandpa stories because I got a lot

of those and it's the best. Yeah. And maybe time to call them if they are lucky enough to call them on the phone and ask them questions. That's right. Okay. This one I want to tell you the name of it because it's just so funny and Guten tag. I live on a pretty crowded street in Philadelphia where the porch to my home is pretty accessible. We have steps leading up to it, but no gate for about seven or more months. The most bizarre thing had been occurring on this porch. My roommates and I would come home from work and discover a single piece of lasagna noodle perfectly placed on either our porch couch or table, not multiple pieces, not a random pile of trash, a single noodle. My roommates thought it was like a funny neighborhood kid at first and I was not amused.

I was very creeped out that someone had walked onto our porch and done something so harmless yet powerful. We would throw away the noodle and hours later, another piece would show up. This nonsense would stop for weeks and then randomly start again. I started going into a full panic cold sweat after like the fifth time because I consume loads of true crime and I am aware of the sick nature of humanity. This is so me like a lasagna noodle. Vince, what does it mean? Someone's going to kill us. I literally burst into tears at the sight of the noodles once because I formed the image in my head of a sick man watching me and my young female roommates from afar and waiting until you're in the house to trespass and commit this disturbing yet harmless offense. What was

the end goal? My one roommate is very nonchalant and chill and after I had drafted a handwritten note and was about to leave it on the porch that right if you leave anything on this porch again or approach this home, I will call the police. My roommate was amused at how scared I was and insisted it was simply the squirrels probably just dropping food. The squirrels from where? The Italian squirrels with their own restaurant in the tree. What are you talking about? You know how squirrels love pasta. You know. I shrunk my face in disbelief. I don't know what that means that she believes squirrels were capable of such disturbing yet harmless terror. The other day I walked onto my porch and froze. I couldn't believe my eyes. There were multiple

squirrels digging through my neighbor's trash can and pulling out noodle and pulling out noodles. No. My neighbor must get a hankering for lasagna and never use all the noodles in the bag. I caught one on camera and we'll link it in the email. The bastard dropped the noodle on my porch just like it apparently had been for months. Anyway, the idea that some pervert is actually still watching and waiting to drop raw pasta on my porch still lingers in my mind. Attached our random picks throughout the months of the place noodles and then the bastard squirrels ssdgm and that was called lasagna squirrel. What if the pervert is actually watching the squirrels and he's even more perverted than you think he is because he's not even into you. Yeah. He's into like squirrel

feeding, like squirrel sneak, squirrel sneaking, squirrels and carbs, squirrel pranks portion of the internet. Squirrel pranks. Those were amazing this week. Good job everybody. Yeah, send us your weird fucking stories and the time you freaked out and it wasn't what you thought it was going to be, like squirrels. I don't know. Do that for sure and whatever else you want but also stay sexy and don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie?