My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 173

Episode Date: May 4, 2020

This week’s hometowns include a lightbulb burglar and the first cyberstalking murder.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. Hi. And welcome to my favorite murder. The mini-soad. Where we read you your stuff back to you in an attempt to pass the time. And that's it. Do you want me to go first? Sure. Let's see. The subject line of this is love at 19. A good old fashioned hello. Okay. So, you know, we love you and you keep us sane during these crazy times. Thank you. Getting to it. When I was 19 years old, I had a, I had a, in quotes,

boyfriend who thought he was so cool for being a freshman mechanical engineer student in my small New Mexico hometown of 8,000 nerds and like zero women in parentheses. Seriously, the motto at our school for the girls was the odds are good, but the goods are odd. Yeah. I love that. I love that saying. That's so good. But I was 19 stupid and enamored with a narcissist. So things were right on track. Been there. Right. We've all lived it. One autumn evening, we were at a house party across the river. My boyfriend was acting like a jerk and flirting with another girl. So I left. My poor little teenage heart was ravaged already. And when I didn't hear from him for the rest of the night and into the next day, my life was pretty much over. Yeah. That sucks. Being a teenager

is the fucking worst. God, what a nightmare. Oh, but the worst was only yet to come. When I got to work at the brewery the next day, some coworkers who were also at the house party were talking loudly about the last night's events. And I was slyly listening in while wrapping silverware into napkins. I've frozen horror after my coworkers spilled about how she had to drive two guys to the ER after a drunk guy with a knife went on a rampage for being locked in the laundry room. It turns out it was the dude I was so stupidly in love with who had stabbed one guy in the leg and another in the jugular during a drunken brawl. My coworker literally saved the jugular guy's life by rushing him to the hospital right after it happened. I wish I could say I was wise enough

to walk away at that point with my head held high, but I was a pretty broken 19 year old. And after my very sweet English teacher who happened to be at the brewery that day drove me home when I nearly melodramatically fainted. I ended up by I ended up continuing to date this guy for way too long. You can probably guess the outcome. He was a total piece of shit. Although he turned himself in after that night, the victims decided they didn't want to press charges and he didn't even spend a day in jail. Fast forward 13 years. Now I'm a private criminal defense lawyer. And I like to think that those 13 years made me strong enough to decline that case were to walk through my doors right now. So much love for both of you and the community at large. I followed you to Phoenix,

San Diego and now I'm hoping when this is over, you'll come to Albuquerque where we have the best murders. Stay sexy and don't stay with an attempted murderer at 19, Brittany. Wow. Cautionary tales. Great. You know what? And from the other side is a successful business woman. Hell yes, Brittany. Thank you for that honesty and also holy shit. Holy shit. In the jugular. He stabbed someone in the neck. That's pretty serious. Even if you stabbed someone in the right place in the leg, they could die pretty quick from bleeding out. It's insane. This is the thing about bodies. There's all these veins that connect and bring blood through from the heart out to the extremities. It is dangerous. When did you go to science school? Oh, I didn't tell you since the quarantine.

I've been getting my master's degree online. I'm going to be a surgeon. Perfect. Thanks. Okay. All right. Hometown story. Screw the formalities. We're all in a quarantine. Hell yeah, it starts. In 2014, my grandpa moved from the snowy, miserable upper peninsula of Michigan to the beautiful scenic Placerville, California. What? Did that make sense? It did, but I, she's acting like Placer, or they're acting like Placerville is some, I know Placerville. Don't tell me what Placerville is. I've been stuck in Placerville time with you. Where he planned to live out the rest of his days living with one of his daughters slash my aunt. A few months or years later, my aunt's grandchildren were set to be adopted by her for reasons I'll leave out. And the state was required to do

background checks on all the persons living in the home. My grandpa has always been a character. And up until this story, my favorite he always told was about the time he spent hours in a teepee on New Year's Eve, talking to another guest at the party. But it turns out he had eaten some acid and was talking to himself for hours. Been there. So relatable. It's also relatable. Any who years and years ago, probably sometime in the early seventies, my grandpa was asked by his quote friend to go down the road to a local farm and pick up a cow for him. Turns out this man wasn't really my grandpa's friend and the cow was not his to take. My grandpa was charged with livestock theft. He completed probation, but he never had the charge expunged. Flash forward to

2016 when the state is doing background checks, his record comes back stating he was quote someone who had committed a crime with a gun. Over the years, the penal codes had changed in my grandpa's unintentional livestock theft turned into a felony with a firearm. My aunt, my aunt and grandpa had to trace back the penal code changes and produce several letters of character to show the state of California. He was in fact fit to live in the same house as children. They did. They did. And her grandchildren now have a stable home. Stay sexy and don't steal cows or stay sexy and get your petty crimes expunged. No name. Both work. Both work perfectly. Either in this scenario. I mean, you learn so much coming out of Placerville. The lessons are there. They're all there.

Yeah. You just need to be open to the universe. How about this subject line? We're going to travel down. Is it the 50 or the 80? We're going to come down a little bit, I guess, southwest right now to Sacramento's light bulb burglar. Hello, friends. I live in Sacramento, parentheses. Don't worry, Karen. This isn't a plea for you to fall back in love with us. We get it. Sacramento's a strange place that those of us who have spent childhood through adulthood here have a love, hate, admiration, weird pride thing for our small city of trees. That was quite a sentence. And parentheses. And had a funny thing happen to someone in my neighborhood. While this isn't murder related, I thought that with the current climate, it would hopefully add some laughs.

I live in a somewhat suburban area of Midtown and about a year ago was scrolling through the very weird, very sad place that is the next door app. That's right. I blame my weird obsession of the neighborhood gossip on the fact that I grew up in Folsom, just suburb outside of Sacramento. Not far away. From Folsom Prison. I thought we were, I got nervous. Well, we almost got it. And clap on four. Four. Okay. So, and the craziest thing that happened there was one time a mountain line came into our wetlands and the neighborhood gathered to watch the wildlife game protection people come and tranquilize it and take it somewhere else. Anyways, anyways, that's besides the point back to the real story. About a year ago, someone on next door had posted a video of a man in the

middle of the night walking up to their ring doorbell, staring directly at it, maintaining eye contact, reaching his hand above his head, unscrewing their light bulb for their porch light, still maintaining eye contact with the ring doorbell while unscrewing it, taking the light bulb, and walking away. The title of the post was light bulb burglar. Why? My husband and I laughed about it. Obviously told our friends and every time we passed the house, we would chuckle with each other. Well, last night we woke up in the middle of the night to some weird sounds. We investigated but couldn't figure out the source and went back to sleep. I hopped back on next door because I was curious if anyone else had heard anything. My husband joked that someone was in our attic,

but I said all caps don't even that happens. Well, guess what? He's back. A year later, the light bulb burglar has returned. Someone in the neighborhood caught him again on their ring doorbell. I found it truly hilarious that there is a man living in midtown Sacramento, stealing people's porch lights. What even? And what has he been up to all this time? What made him return? Were we almost the victims of the light bulb burglar? We'll never know. Anyways, thanks for all that you ladies do. I appreciate my Thursday mornings with Karen and Georgia, a.k.a. when I make breakfast and it feels like I've got friends in the kitchen making small talk with me. Is that weird? Maybe it is. I don't know. I guess being sheltered in place will do

that to you. Thanks for sharing. Have you been staying somewhat sane in the middle of all this? Stay sexy and don't steal light bulbs, Leela. Leela, we had a backyard pooper recently. Someone was squatting and pooping in our neighbor's backyard and they put a video up of it. It was at night and they're like, does anyone know who this is? And of course, everyone on next door after like just tore him up. I'm like, who cares? Didn't go, didn't go great. Does anyone know who this is? You get on that. You get on next door. I'm sorry. That's my husband, Vince. We'll stop doing it. Like what did they expect was going to happen? I don't know. And then they're going to go arrest this guy? I don't know. Yeah. You saw what you did. First known murder from cyber stalking,

this is called. Hey to the whole MFM crew. I have written this a hundred times, been embarrassed by my grammar. I'm an assistant principal. I should be better at this and then decided not to send in. Well, now that we're quarantined, fuck grammar. This is an intense story and we should and it should be shared. Hell yes. In 1999, Amy Boyer was a 20 year old dental assistant in my hometown of Nasha, New Hampshire. I think I said that probably wrong. She didn't give you the phonetic then. That's not them. It looks like Nasha. Nasha. We'll hear about it. Yep. She had graduated from our local high school, had a boyfriend and was working her way through dental school. As she was leaving work one day, Liam Uynes pulled his car up next to her, shot her 11 times,

and then turn the gun on herself. Fuck. And then turn the gun on himself. This could have been the start of just a regular horrific murder suicide, except for what the police found out when they did even the slightest bit of digging. Uynes had created a website dedicated solely to, you guessed it, Amy. The website went into detail documenting his plans to kill her and then eventually himself. He documented step by step the weeks leading up to the murder, how he drove by her house daily, as well as how he planned to pull off the day successfully. What makes this so interesting is that Amy was the first known victim of an internet stalker. The internet was relatively new for at-home use at the time and Uynes was able to browse websites and pay private information

brokers to get Amy's date of birth, social security number, home and job addresses, as well as work schedule. He became Boyer's shadow while she was absolutely oblivious to this obsessive man. The website had traffic from across the country and not a single person thought the fucking guns or detailed plans to kill someone were worthy information to inform police about. Strange. After the police originally took down the website, Amy's family worked to have the website recreated to raise awareness of the crime and how the internet added to it. You can find the fucked up website still. Amy's parents fought to create Amy Boyer's law to protect privacy on the web. This law amends the Social Security Act to bar the public display of any

individual's social security number or any identifiable piece of such number without the express consent electronically or in writing. Super fucked up, super sad, but it really was the first case that encouraged efforts to introduce new legislation to help fight and protect victims against cyber stalking. It is nice to think that her parents were able to take what happened to her and make a real legislative change from it. Stay sexy and never put your personal information online, Sarah. Wow. Yeah. I've never heard of that. I've never heard of it either. I can't believe the website's still up. That's all. It was such a weird time when the internet first started and things like that. It sounds like a law and order episode. You know what I mean? 1999. We had no

what did you even do with it? And to log your stalking, just bewilderingly creepy, gross, weird, untreated mental health issues. 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. 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 Aresha. And I'm Brooke. And we're the hosts of Wanderer's podcast, Even the Rich, where we bring you absolutely true and absolutely shocking stories about the most famous families and biggest celebrities the world has ever seen. Our newest series is all about the

incomparable diva, Whitney Houston. Whitney's voice defined a generation and even after her death, her talent remains unmatched. But her incredible success hit a deeply private pain. In our series, Whitney Houston, Destiny of a Diva, we'll tell you how she hid her true self to make everyone around her happy and how the pressure to be all things to all people led her down a dark path. Follow Even the Rich wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad free on the Amazon music or Wondery app. All right. This one just says hometown story. Hi, when I was a teenager, my family was visiting my grandparents in Denver. Every visit we would take time to drive up to Estes Park, a cute little mountain town that's in the base of Rocky Mountain National Park.

It's also the home to the Stanley Hotel, which served as inspiration for the Stephen King novel, The Shining. During this trip, my mom and I made a somewhat last minute decision to partake in the ghost tour offered by the hotel just for shits and grins, as my grandpa would say. As we hurried to try to make it on time, my mom all caps demanded that we stop and get a disposable camera because, quote, people say you can capture ghosts on film, end quote. But not on those fancy pants, new digital cameras with the memory cards that were all the rage in the early 2000s. We made a tour tour and we're shepherded along as is customary on group tours. Every time we got to a new space, everyone would create that odd horseshoe shape as we listened to the

guide explain the different guests who the hotel still believes to be hanging around. We got to one particular room and the way everyone filed in, I was standing in more of the doorway part of the horseshoe. While we're listening to the guide explain about the inhabitant of this particular room, my mom started playing with the ends of my hair in that sweet way your mom might do while watching a movie on the couch. I shrugged a little to get her to stop, but she kept twisting and tossing. After a few minutes, I shrugged bigger and turned to say, seriously, mom, don't be a weirdo. I'm playing with your hair. But when I turned to look at her, Al caps, there was no one behind me. I screeched like the 16 year old that I was and ran to the middle of the room shouting

someone was playing with my hair. So dramatic. I love it. The second the word hairs out of her mouth, she or they I should say humiliated. Yeah, yeah. Like what did I just do? That's when I saw my mom and looked for to her for help. What did she do? She raised her disposable camera and took a picture aiming just slightly behind me. Oh, instead of comforting her child who had just had a supernatural encounter, she took a picture. The guy chuckled and said, yes, that makes sense. As I was saying, the gentleman from this room was known for hitting on the young new maids who came to work at the hotel. My mom stands by her decision to take a picture despite not catching my spirit assailant on camera. Thank you for taking the time to read this and for helping to normalize therapy.

For the record, this incident is not why I go, but I should mention it. My therapist would probably get a kick out of it. Stay sexy and don't count on your mom to stop a ghost from groping you, Jordan. Oh my God, hilarious. I love that story. That's so good. So embarrassing and God classic mom classic mom story, classic mom classic ghost story, classic hotel story. It's like they were in cahoots. You know what, someday we should do a live show from the Stanley Hotel. What are you singing? Okay, why are mine so long today? Here's another long one. Ready? Hey, MFM crew, a recent hometown about granny's condoms made me think of this story about my badass grandma, two epidemics and a burglar. A little background. My badass grandma, bae, be

baby, my badass grandma, baby. A baby grandma? Grandma, baby. This little tiny one? I have a badass. What's up? I sing salt and pepper everywhere I go. She's a baby with a sweater with Kleenex shove down the sleeve. Yeah, but she's a badass. Yeah. Okay, my badass grandma, bae, be, a, like, be, be, bae is bae, which is the Beyoncé version. My badass grandma, be contracted polio during the 1950s epidemic and spent two years in an iron lung. Oh, my God. She eventually recovered and with hard physical therapy was able to walk again with braces on both legs and crutches. Guys, stop complaining about being indoors for two months. Yes, stop it. Can we please? Well, raising my mom and uncle, she managed to go to college

and grad school for her MSW in social work. Wow. She was, uh, she was Michigan handicap professional woman of the year once. Who knew that was a thing? Wow. That's awesome. Yes, total badass baby grandma. Fast forward to the 1980s and grandma be is living in San Francisco, kicking ass on the front lines of the AIDS crisis. I love this woman so much. As a grief counselor, polio survivor and civil disobedience, she felt an instant connection to the people suffering stigma and marginalization due to their HIV status. Wow. I know. When driving around in her ancient modified white van, B would pull up whenever she saw quote, working girls and give them lots of condoms and safer sex literature. Yes, she always called them working girls.

She would have embraced the term sex worker, but I don't think it existed yet. She often joked that if she, uh, she died in her sleep one night, whoever found her would be so confused to find this little old lady in bed with a huge pile of condoms on her nightstand. You could get it. Hey girl. Uh, this is where the burglar comes in because of her mobility issues. Grandma B had a specific routine for going to bed. She sat on the bed, emptied her pockets on her nightstand and then it says condoms, changed in her nightgown and took off her leg braces and propped them by the bed with her crutches. This is where she was as she told me one night over several glasses of white wine when a burglar broke in through her living room window. She

heard him rummaging around and unless he was interested in a giant stuffed rabbit or the county's library of HIV, AIDS, educational videos, he was pretty much out of luck. She told me she casually laid her arms across her face in case he decided to hit her in the head and pretended to be asleep. She kept this up even as she heard him come into her room and move her leg braces out of her reach, trapping her in bed. Eventually he got tired of not finding anything of value, came back into her room and told her he knew she was awake. Can you imagine hearing that when you're pretending to be asleep? I know you're awake. Then he made a mistake. He told her she better keep quiet or he would kill her. Grandma B who was once kicked out of the entire city of

Okeechobee, Florida for protests over handicapped, for protests over handicapped accessibility did not ever keep quiet. Nope. She immediately been yelling her head off. He grabbed her and they struggled. She had incredibly strong arms from years on crutches and put up a much better fight than he was expecting. Yes. I know. Quickly, all of her neighbors came beating down the door. Everyone in the building knew and loved her. Of course, the burglar gave up and ran. He was never caught. As I sat with my jaw on the floor listening to this story, grandma B laughed about the nightstand of condoms and what her wonderful neighbors must have thought. Then she looked soberly at me and said, don't tell your mother the story.

She continued to be the most awesome person on the planet until her death in 2002. I wish she was here for these trying times. She would know just what to do. Thank you for your amazing podcast inspiring us to grandma B levels of badassery every day. Stay sexy and don't tell my mother, AJ. How great is that? AJ, you need to, in this quarantine time, you need to write your grandmother's life story. That is an incredible woman. That is the most inspirational story of like when she gets you down and what the power it gives you. The idea of the iron lung part alone, I want to hear about. Two years. Two years as a child. Everything about this is done for you. Write it up. Get the details. I bet she wrote a lot of beautifully written letters. You can

publish those as well because grandma's always write all those letters and they save them. A nice card. You know, I have a scrapbook. A 1950s scrapbook that I took when my grandma died of every card she ever received from 1930 to 1970. It's all these old slightly sexist cards for Valentine's Day and shit. Get my kitchen and make me a casserole for Valentine's Day, honey. To my wife. To my daughter. Please send us your stories. My favorite murder Gmail. We have a fan club place to put them as well on our website everywhere. We want to hear it from you during these trying times. Yes, and thank you for sharing all of your family stories and secrets with us. We love it so much. Stay sexy and don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, you want

a cookie?