My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 175

Episode Date: May 18, 2020

This week’s hometowns include a restaurant-themed murder and a stalker story.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. We're gonna read the fast one. The quickie, you know. It's a quick one. Yeah. It's Friday for us. It's Monday for you. Welcome to Monday. It's a lot like Friday. Except it's the future. Very similar these days. I'm gonna go first. Yeah, do it. You? Me. Me? Oh, I thought you said I'm gonna go first. Oh, I said you want to go first, but I can go either one. You do it. Okay,

fuck it. Let's do it. This is called the cracker barrel murders. Loving it. Hi, everybody. Ever since I started binging your podcast not too long ago, I've been tempted to send in this hometown murder. I put off writing the email because, you know, laziness. But then I heard a recent episode where Georgia expressed such glee over visiting a state where she could finally eat at a cracker barrel. And I knew I had to share what is known here in Naples, Florida as the cracker barrel murders. Shit. These murders took place back in 1995 when Naples was a seriously small town and violent crime was nearly unheard of in the area. Around 5 a.m. on November 15th that year, Donna Howell arrived at the cracker barrel restaurant to begin her shift. She pressed

the restaurant's buzzer to be let inside. But after 15 minutes of ringing and pounding on the door with no sign from within, Howell sent something was wrong and called the police. When authorities arrived and entered the restaurant, they found three employees dead inside. Vicki Smith, Jason Wiggins and Dorothy Seidel were all found in the freezer floor with their hands duct taped behind their backs and their throat slit. Oh God. Bloody shoe prints led from the freezer through the kitchen and ended up in the office where the safe was found open. Behind the restaurant, there were scattered bills, a knife, a pair of bloodstained gloves, an air pistol, and shoe prints leading away from the restaurant. In the days following the murders, police interviewed other cracker

barrel employees, and it didn't take long for the investigation to point to a couple of suspects. Brandy Bain Jennings and Charles Jason Graves both former employees of the restaurant. Fuck. Jennings and Graves were arrested in Las Vegas about a month after the initial crimes were committed. They were driving a truck that had been reported stolen by another cracker barrel employee. Turns out the two had planned the crime for more than a month. Apparently disgruntled over losing their jobs, Jennings and Graves were hoping to steal around $15,000. Whether or not they had planned on killing their former co-workers is unclear. But for whatever reason, Jennings slashed the throats of the three victims while Graves stood at the freezer door with a

pellet gun to prevent their escape. Oh my God. They probably thought it was a real gun so they didn't like it. Of course. So sad. Tried separately in the fall of 1996, Jennings was convicted of three counts of first degree murder and one count of robbery with a deadly weapon and sentenced to three death sentences for the killing plus 15 years for the robbery charge. Graves was sentenced to three life sentences for the killings plus 15 years for the robbery. They both remain in prison today. Meanwhile, Georgia, that cracker barrel is still there and operating. No. So if you ever make it down to the west coast of Florida, you can eat there if you want to. No. No, good. They make a mean Reuben sandwich. SSDGM. Andrea. Oh my God. That's, I mean, what a pointless,

vicious sociopathic crime. Totally horrifying. It just seems like every robbery that there is, especially of a fucking restaurant where people are just trying to earn their wage, is always going to go bad. It's always going to get caught. There's no fucking point in it. There's no point in it. You're mad at the corporation and you're killing your coworkers. It's so short sighted and insane and awful. It's just, yeah. Wow. Yeah. Horrible. And also it's so sinister because the cracker barrel is such that like corny family style, you know, the waitresses are so nice and warm and they treat you like they know you and it's like everything about the actual place is great. Yeah. Aside from, of course, the severe cholesterol

issues, but, you know, very bad. Okay. Okay. Here's my first one. That time a psychic saved my best friend's life is the subject line. Here's maybe one of my favorite greetings so far. Okay. Hello, spooky queens. I love it. My best friend of 15 years and I spent several years working in food service during our younger days. We've both had our share of sketchy customers, but one of her stories absolutely takes the cake and still sends chills down my spine. My friend who we'll call Rosie had a regular customer at her chain restaurant, waitstaff job, who seemed generally harmless, though definitely on the weird side. He would follow her around while she tried to close up her section for the night, telling her in detail about the fan fiction he was writing

and other shit nobody wants to hear about. Oh my God. Can you imagine trying to close your section and this person is following you around? I don't care what they're fucking talking about. And he's like, so on my blog, Monk has this other life where he doesn't have to wash his hands all the time. Fan fiction. So Rosie found him annoying as shit, but she's a nice person who wanted to keep her job. So she never told him to fuck off one night while Rosie was at work. I was at home with both of our husbands. Both acts as now and then instantly both total shit. That's all parenthetical. When her then husband got a phone call, he went white and it was obvious that something was very, very wrong. Rosie had called to let him know that she was coming home from work early

because she had just gotten an incredibly fucked up phone call and needed to leave the restaurant immediately. Here's what happened. Rosie was in the middle of her usual dinner shift when she got called into the manager's office because someone was on the phone for her. A lady on the other end who explained that she was a psychic and that one of her regular clients was none other than the weirdo restaurant customer. He had spent all caps thousands of dollars on her services over the last several months to talk almost exclusively about his obsession with, you guessed it, Rosie. So much so that the psychic knew where to call and who to ask for. Holy shit. After the guy had told her about his plan to gather some buddies, abduct Rosie in the parking

lot after her shift and then gang rape and probably murder her. What the fuck? She called Rosie to warn her because according to the guy, the plan was going to be executed eminently. After hanging up, Rosie somehow managed to keep calm and immediately called the police who showed up at the scary guy's fast food job and put the fear of God into him. Their parentheses, there wasn't enough for an arrest, unfortunately. She never saw or heard from him again. She left her job soon after that incident and she's now kicking ass and taking names in nursing school. She's on track to fulfill her lifelong dream of providing healthcare for women in need and delivering their babies as a nurse practitioner. She's an awesome mom, a badass role model,

and I'm so fucking proud of her. Stay sexy and don't let the bastards grind you down with me. Oh my God. He was going to a psychic. She's incredible and called this woman, which is yes, to step in and be like, this isn't just pretend. Yeah. And he told her all that. Like that alone is like, oh, this guy, he's not okay. Wow. That's not good. That's one of the crazier stories. Isn't that insane? Yes. Okay. This is just hometown story. It just starts. I was listening to the episode of Bananas where Georgia says that she refuses to stand on balconies at parties. Do you have that fear? I won't. I won't. I get it. And since I share the same peculiar phobia, yeah, I thought I should write in about the most awful thing that happened.

A few years ago, 2015, I was taking a summer course in statistics at Berkeley City College. I was taking it for fun. I was the only 30-year-old in the sea of high school students in the class. I was riding my bike to class early one morning and passed a bunch of fire engines and police cars parked across the street from my classroom. Being a lifelong murderer now, I tried to be a subtle looky loo and find out what was going on, but I couldn't see what all the emergency vehicles were gathered around. I looked up the local Berkeley news and saw that tragically in the wee hours of that morning, that day, a bunch of young people were having a party and the balcony collapsed, sending a bunch of people falling five stories to the ground below. This is my worst nightmare.

I think, did she say what year this happened? I mean, 2015. Oh, because there was one in the 90s while I lived up there. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. It was really bad. Well, six people died. And five of them were Irish students spending the summer working and living in California. Oh, no. It's just one of the most awful things I can imagine and one of my biggest fears. I'm heartbroken for those young folks and everyone affected by the tragedy. On a lighter note, last year, I was working as a marijuana delivery driver. And one night, all of my deliveries were concentrated around the UC Berkeley campus for guys with super Irish sounding names. I asked the first guy on my route if he was here for the summer work program and he said that he was

and that earlier that day, everyone in the program had learned about marijuana delivery. It was great. It was a great night and I gave a bunch of Irish kids weed and had a lovely time chatting with them. They helped me create new positive memories that come up whenever I hear about the summertime Irish population in Berkeley. Stay sexy and blaze it, Lily. Love it. Just makes me think of everyone's while Chris Fairbanks on Dune Ride will go into a kind of a Rosta character and blaze it sounds like something that character would say. Oh, I want to hear that. I love it's very funny. I love that. I love that she was looking to do some like memory replacement hanging on to the same idea. But fuck, I mean, what a terrible group tragedy.

Yeah, horrible. Okay, stay in the apartment, everyone. Yeah, blaze it, blaze it indoors, not on blaze it out a window, front porch, sidewalk. It's legal now legalize it. Sorry, I'm stealing Chris's bit. Because I remember the one in the 90s that happened. And I can still see the clip that was on the news because and this is maybe something you remember from San Francisco, those back porches or like kind of like they were like fire escapes basically, right? Yes. And they were wooden and they were basically after the fact attached on to the apartment building that and the staircases would go up and there just be a landing. Yeah, right. It was like they had to put it in for fire. I think there was one in Boston,

not that long ago too. That was like, yes, horrifying. That maybe that's the one I'm thinking but in either way, there's been tons and it's like when those things don't get built to code and then you got 40 people standing on that balcony. I mean, horrifying. Everybody be careful. Yeah. Check your don't go to parties anymore. If you're going to go to a party that has a balcony, get it checked by the city zoning commission call. Don't be afraid to call the city. No. Oh, it's not going to happen anytime soon. No, don't go to parties. Period. One more reason to stay home. Yeah. This just starts. Hello. I have a badass Nana story for you today. Right. Bit of a background. My Nana is 90 lives alone and is very proper parentheses always looks immaculate

in matching outfits and some sort of pearl. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. She's incredibly independent, perfectly healthy and no new friends is her motto. Wait, does that mean that she's like everyone's an old friend to me or is it like she doesn't want me new friends? She's done with making friends. How come I felt that at like 38? Thank you, Nana for validating. Yeah. You don't need that many. No. And you certainly don't need new ones, especially if you've been around for 90 years. Okay. God damn it. That makes me laugh. A couple years back, her bridge club of 50 years dissolved and she told me there was no point in finding a new one because they'd all die soon. Oh, God damn it. I miss my grandma. I told my grandma was like 102. I drove her twice a week to her.

It wasn't mahjong, but it was some card gin rummy or some gin game. Yeah. Wist. I mean, an old lady card game. Yeah. Like the Jewish community center. I drive her in midtown. How old did she live till? 104. God, that's amazing. I know. Those last couple years, I don't think she was counting the cards right, but that's okay. I mean, hey, look, listen, she got to go. Get out of the house. Stay home. Stay in the house. But stay home. And don't go to parties. Okay. Sorry. Go. After my grandfather died, she was living alone in the country and unfortunately got robbed twice. They took all her jewelry and obviously she was feeling fairly vulnerable. So she made the decision to move into the city a block away from my parents.

After finally settling in a year later, her house burned down. I'll never forget that day because I was visiting home and was supposed to have tea with her. I was walking over to her house when I saw two fire engines down the street and black billowing smoke. I started to run realizing that it was her house frantically trying to pick her out of the crowd that had gathered. I found her standing with her arms crossed. Oh no. I love this woman so much. I found her standing with her arms crossed calmly staring down the fire. She looked at me and said, dear, I'm so sorry to say we'll have to postpone tea. Oh my God. My mom immediately grabbed me, shoved some money in my hand and said, go get your grandmother some gin. We spent that night drinking gin and looking

through the only thing she had grabbed, an old tin box with some photos and old papers. Cut to a couple years later, my Nana had her house rebuilt and she was sitting on her back porch. A strange man hopped over the fence and started peeing in her garden. She took one look at him and said, you shouldn't be here. Startled. He ran away. Later, the police came by asking if she'd seen a man of a similar description. Turns out he just attempted to rob a couple of houses and had probably attempted to rob hers as well. Her back window had been smashed the night before, something she apparently wasn't too alarmed by. Where do you live? For real. I absolutely adore my Nana and I'm always inspired by her strength. She has such an awesome no BS attitude and I hope

I'm lucky enough to be a badass Nana like her one day. Although the stiff upper lip mentality isn't always the healthiest attitude when it comes to mental health. I think it's gotten her through some pretty tough times. Wishing you all health and happiness. Stay sexy and when in doubt, have some tea or gin with your Nana. Hey, if you're going to write into us about your Nana, please tell us her or your grandpa, please tell us their first name. We need to know who these people are at least a little bit. First names, a picture would be awesome. I mean any of it. I have the picture of her standing in front of her burning house with her arms crossed. Angry at the fire. You gotta be kidding me. Wow. She took it in stride. Good for her. Handling shit.

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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 will 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. Okay, this is my last one. This is called another perplexing public pooper. Oh dear goddesses animals at all. In your last mini so do you mentioned a backyard pooper on next door and while you didn't specifically ask for more public pooper stories, this one is too good to keep to myself. I don't think I think it's a given that we want more

public pooper stories. No, I wouldn't agree but I don't want to fight with you not during a quarantine. In the late 1990s I worked in a commercial law firm. First off every TV representation of law firms is true. They are particularly lousy with sociopaths. So I'm a baby lawyer in this firm that only had five women in it. One day my coworker and I went to the restroom to cry common occurrence and discovered that someone had full on pooped on the floor right in the stall in front of the commode. Not an oops I missed poop but an actual intentional neat pile right there on the floor. Wait, was it bring your dog to work day? Was it bring your dog to the bathroom at work day? And then don't clean it up day? Yeah, needless to say my female coworker and I

called the cleaners and then used our lawyer interrogation skills to question the other women to find the culprit. Two had alibis and the other vehemently denied it and we believed her. We chalked it up to weirdness and went back to our soul destroying jobs looking at document discovery. Flash forward to two days later a coworker calls me into the bathroom to see another pile this time right in front of the stall door. Another round of interrogations no leads. This went on for weeks and the pooper got bolder and bolder until one day my coworker opened the door of the bathroom to find the boldest pile yet. This time right at the threshold she spotted it one second too late after she had already slipped in it. No, picture a cartoonish flailing woman in

a suit arms a Kimbo trying to avoid the inevitable only to lay on ass down right on the pile. No, I'm glad I'm not ending with this and you you have any story. Yeah, no more these stories. Okay, sorry. We kept complaining but with no luck and eventually became a joke among the partners and we nicknamed the elusive offender the fecal bandit. So one day one of the senior attorneys gets fired and escorted out of the building for an unrelated gross violation of conduct offensive enough that security was called. Lo and behold, we never encountered the clandestine work of the fecal bandit ever again. Turns out it was the seemingly normal attractive clean cut lawyer who unbeknownst to all of us was a secret shitter among other things I can't mention for legal

reasons. And a small handful of women at the law firm full of sociopaths could go pee without fear once again. He eventually got what? I'm sorry just realized it was a man going into the women's bathroom. Yes, that's fair. That is a bit very bad. So yes, he eventually got hired by another law firm because of course he did. And I presume he's still up to his putrid pastime. It goes to show you you never know if that cute rich guy has a pension for public pooping you didn't know about. Thanks for reading my story stay sexy and beware of the fecal bandit Aaron and we never read a pooping story again. I'm sorry just was so well written and and so visual and a lawyer and I was just well it's that idea that that sometimes we have especially when we're younger that if you

have money that if you're good-looking that if you have a good job somehow that that takes you out of the realm of something's mentally wrong with right I'm so glad I went first because I want you to end it okay okay because this is I think a pretty good ending okay the subject line is kid doesn't listen mom saves and the first line is I love you bitches so this isn't a murder but it is about me as a kid thinking I knew better than my mom I was probably about seven years old when we visited my stepdad's sister who was super rich she had a bunch of livestock and at the time I felt I had a special connection with animal with all the animals ever children we all think that it's so sad it was true with me though cats fucking love me sure so I'm seven we I'm seven

we toured the cow pasture and rode ponies I was in heaven later that day while my mom was helping my aunt prepare dinner I asked her if we could go back out to see the cows she said not now because she's busy but that we we could go out in the morning before we left I knew that was a lie and that we wouldn't squeeze in the diamond so this was my chance wow that's like that's the log line of my childhood you're lying to me I'll just do it by myself anyway I asked if I could go alone and she said no to which I continued begging still a hard no obviously I knew I'd be fine without her anyway I snuck out of the house and ventured over to the pasture climbed over the wooden fence and walked over to the grazing cows one by one their heads raised up to see me and as I got closer

a nervous pit in my stomach grew I stopped about 10 feet from the herd feeling the unease that set in because they were all now staring at me and not and not eating I slowly turned right back around and walked away then I heard the low murmur behind me grow louder and louder I looked back and the entire herd was charging at me oh my god I started running as fast as I could climb the gate and for some reason turned around to see how far the stampede was when the fucking leader of the pack rammed me against the fence bucking his head against my chest over and over again my feet dangling and the cow holding me up against the fence holy shit oh yeah I started screaming for help when I realized my mom was already sprinting down the driveway to rescue me my mom lifted me out of

danger and then immediately yelled at me for not listening meanwhile my older sister was this is my favorite part meanwhile my older sister was about 30 feet away watching all of it and uncontrollably laughing I knew it I was bawling and mostly felt betrayed by the animals who I thought were one with me but also fuck you Lisa for not helping me and fuck me for being dumb well that's that stay sexy and don't pretend you're fucking Jane Goodall with cows when you have zero experience with animals Katie oh my god she could have been killed this reminds me of the dangling the feet and the hippo enclosure yes right but this is a little more of that this used to happen to me on my aunt and my aunt Jean's farm yeah where you got this idea in your head of like I'm out here with

you every day totally we're friends whatever they're animals they don't they're just like get that thing out of here I hope she's vegan now that was so I was so nervous I was peeling my nail polish off as you told that story I'm just like that sounds I that sounds like a nightmare I bet you'd actually is supposed to be vegan she's like a double meat eater she's like only meat lovers pizzas all day every day I'll have a double cheeseburger mother fuckers yeah mother fucker mother fuckers uh that was fun that was that was a good match you guys you guys have time now so send your stories into us no more excuses my favorite murder gmail or on our website or I don't know other places probably and thank you for always participating with us we love it so much and stay sexy and

don't get murdered goodbye Elvis you want a cookie