My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 177

Episode Date: June 1, 2020

This week’s hometowns include a sinkhole murder and a local pervert.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. This is the short one. Yeah, we read your letters. Yeah. And then you read them back to us. Is that how it works? And we all stay alive in the new America. Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit. We are doing this. It's happening. On a Sunday afternoon, knowing full well that the world might be over by Monday. So please,

anything could happen. But I would like to say amazing action has taken place in the past 48 hours. Incredible, brave, amazing shit and people are rising up. It's very inspirational. If you have any extra money, go find either on social media. There's plenty of lists of bail funds for protesters who are out there letting it's speaking truth to power and cannot be in jail during a COVID fucking pandemic. That's right. And more than likely don't deserve to be in jail. Right. Have been rounded up fairly. I mean, there's some shit going down, but the good news is it's going down on everybody's little camera phone. Right. And you guys know we are here for you. We support Black Lives Matter. If you don't

know that about us, you haven't been listening. Okay, you go first. Or do you want to go? You don't have to. All right. Do you want to do that? Okay, then I'll go first. Go forth. I'll go forth and go first. Could you wait? I'll go three times and you'll go forth. Perfect. This is called Leo Frank and ADL Connections, which of course is the anti-defamation league. Hey team, our grandfather was a civil rights activist and the director of the ADL in New Orleans from 1964 to 1992. At times he worked with the most prolific civil rights leaders of the 1960s and 70s. He prevented several bombings and attacks on churches and individuals. And

because of this, he and his contemporaries were targeted by the KKK because of their work, but they wouldn't back down. On June 12th, 1964, white supremacist named Byron Dela Beckwith, AKA the asshole of the story, assassinated civil rights activist Medgar Evers outside his home in front of his wife and three children. Beckwith wasn't arrested until June 21st of 1963, but the jury deadlocked. He wasn't prosecuted and convicted until 1994. Beckwith hated our grandfather because he thwarted effects to bomb a black church. The FBI called to let our grandfather know that Beckwith was coming to assassinate him just in time for our grandfather to begrudgingly leave his home with his wife, father, and daughter in tow. Quote, I won't let a bigot remove me from

my home, he said, but they did end up leaving for safety reasons. And because of a strong Jewish wife, our amazing grandmother who is still alive at age 93. Shortly after, a dear friend of our grandfather's, a policeman who was formerly Irish Catholic, who converted to Judaism. And then it said, yes, really? It's like half me and half you. Byron Dela Beckwith on the Lake Pontchart Pontchartrain causeway. Thank you. On the Lake Pontchartrain causeway bridge with a ticking time bomb, guns and a map with our grandfather's house circled on it. He said, quote, I don't know whose guns and timed bomb and maps these are, he reportedly said when he was caught. Sure, Jan, he was sentenced to three years in Angola prison for conspiracy to commit murder. After his 1994 conviction,

he spent the remainder of his life up until his death in jail for the assassination of Medgar Evers. Even David Duke had some choice words for our Papa B, quote, that man will never die in natural death. Jokes on him, he died of a heart attack. Jokes aside, though, our Papa B was a damn badass who created a legacy of fighting racism and anti-Semitism in the South. We're proud to carry on his legacy as best we can. Someday we hope to write a screenplay about the story. Please use your, and then there's like cute little lines, Hollywood connections trademark to get Meryl Streep to play our grandma. Stay sexy and carefully piss off the KKK, Marlana and Abby. Wow. That's like, that's around her kitchen table. Like that's historical

family shit. Yeah. It's interesting that you should read that because this one goes right along with it. It says, murderers are bad, but racist murders are worse. Hello, everyone. I live in Montgomery, Alabama. There are lots of things that Alabama is known for, country music, sweet tea, horrible education, et cetera. I didn't know that. What we're most famous for perhaps is slavery, racism, and this civil rights movement. Wow. Being a minority in this environment has never been ideal, but thankfully I was able to go out of state for college. On September 19th, 1963, a bomb exploded in the basement of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. The church had a predominantly black congregation and was a meeting place for civil rights leaders.

The bomb exploded before the Sunday morning service and killed four girls, 14-year-old Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, and Carol Robertson, and 11-year-old Denise McNair. 10-year-old Sarah Collins, who was in the restroom at the time of the explosion, lost her right eye and more than 20 other people were injured in the blast. Birmingham at the time fostered one of the most violent chapters of the KKK and their police commissioner, Bull Connor, was known for his approval of violent attacks against the black community. Bombings of African-American homes, community leaders, community centers, and schools were so common, the city got the name Bombingham. After this church bombing, thousands of protesters

flooded the streets and police forcefully broke up the crowd, killing two young men in the process. Everyone in Alabama knew that Klan members were responsible for the bombing and the four girls' deaths, but the state of Alabama never conducted a proper investigation nor put anyone on trial. 14 years later, Klan leader Robert E. Chambliss was convicted for the murder and eventually died in jail. The case was again reopened to try three more suspects, also Klan members, Thomas Blanton, Bobby Frank Cherry, and Herman Frank Cash. In 2002, 39 years after the bombing, Blanton and Cherry were convicted and imprisoned, but Cash died before he could be tried. My friend's father was one of the prosecution attorneys who convicted Blanton and Cherry in

2002, and his eyes got a bit puffy when he would retell the story. I'm not sure if it was out of sadness for the deaths of four innocent children or out of anger that white supremacist trash murderers were able to live 39 years with no repercussions, probably both. I guess the jokes on them, though, because their actions caused national outrage and led directly to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Hate never wins. Wow. Thank you for writing that in. Thank you for letting us say that, read that. Yeah. Awesome. That's amazing.

Thank you, Audrey. Thanks for writing that in. This is, it's so important to talk about the things people do to show support, you know, and the lives that get lost because of these fucking monsters. Well, also the lives that are touched because it's, there's lots of people connected to these movements whose stories don't get told because you'll only hear the biggest or the most. But, you know, things like that where it's like my friend's grandfather was the prosecutor. It's like there's, there's lots of people who have those connections and it's cool to hear like first and second person versions of the stories.

Totally. It's very cool. Okay. So let's change topics a little bit. I'm not going to read you the story. I almost said one of the words, the word casserole. I'm not going to change the casserole of this. Wait, sorry. I'm not going to, here we go. Hi, Georgia, Karen, Stephen and Pets. My twin sister turned me onto the show around a year ago and I've been hooked ever since. I'm not sure if she sent these stories in yet, but I'm not telling her I'm sending this because she would definitely try to send something first.

Sisters, any who, let's get into it. When we were in middle school, my sister and I went to a magnet school in the downtown area of a large city in Florida. It was right across from a general hospital and had giant blue gates to keep out the crazies, but some still got in. Like that one time a guy jumped the fence while running from the police with his mother's head in a grocery bag and ran across the football field full of six graders in PE uniforms. Or the time the school had to go on lockdown for hours while a SWAT team apprehended a convicted murderer at the McDonald's across the street. But the craziest story of all involved our sweet little librarian whose daughter was in our grade who would always let us hang out in her office

after school or give us food if we forgot our lunches. She was short and assuming with a very motherly presence. After we left that school for our high school down the street, we saw on the news that her husband, a high ranking naval officer, had died. We all felt terrible for her and her daughter and my mom even brought her some casseroles so she wouldn't have to worry about cooking dinner. I love that. There was a funeral, everyone cried and comforted this poor widow and a college fund was even created for their daughter. I have a feeling. I have a feeling about where we're going. That's right. The casserole was poisoned. The casserole was a red flag just right at the top. A few months after we had moved away from Florida, my social media was

suddenly filled with people from our old school expressing their shock regarding a recent news article. Turns out our sweet librarian, Al Cap, murdered her husband with her secret boyfriend so she could avoid getting a divorce and collect his life insurance money to run away with her new man. Complete shock, I showed the article to my mom and all she could say was, but I baked her a casserole. I never found out what happened to her poor daughter, but needless to say, I'll now think twice before trusting sweet librarians. Stay sexy and for the love of God, get a divorce and maybe just don't live in Florida, Jamie. It never ceases to amaze me. I mean, it's all you have to do is go on to like some website like We The People and just

drop those papers. It's not that big of a deal. What's that legal one? LegalSume.com or legal zoom.net.edu. Pick one and get a divorce..uk, of course. You know I love my perfs, so that's why I picked this one. I know you do. I love a perf story. What's in your pants? Okay, I'm not going to be just subject line. Hi, y'all. Just want to say thank you for all you do as a Floridian. Oh, it's a theme now where no one takes the pandemic seriously. It's nice to feel community elsewhere. Let's get right to it. My mom has told this story about my aunt my entire life and it's honestly my favorite non-ghost scary story. Oh, what a great beginning because why not in your life make a list of non-ghost scary stories and you just share and keep them separate.

Like when someone needs a story, they specifically ask for a ghost story. If not, you've got this other, you know, thing because there's some people aren't believers. So a ghost story doesn't hit them the same way. That's just a regular life scary story of like, oh, do you want me to tell you about the time I found that her milk was being poisoned by the neighbor with sleeping pills because eventually his plan was to break into their house while they were drugged. Did you just make that up? Are you just telling the story? No, it's your true story. It's one of my scary stories on my scary story list. Oh my god, that's good. And they, the only reason they realized it is because the milk had a needle puncture wound in it. Who fucking sees that?

It was like a, just like a, by chance, one of them noticed it and they also just noticed that weird stuff was happening. Like stuff was moved and the other person didn't do it and it was one of those kind of things. Have you never told me this or am I just always drunk? I get, no, no, no, no, I don't think I've ever told it to you. It's, it's, it's the one I keep under my armpit for four and a half years. It's true. And it, when she told me, it was like at a family wedding when I was like 19 and it was just that thing of like, Oh, there's all these things to think about when you're a gal living by yourself. That's pretty important. And that, you know, trust no one and you'll never understand the depths of depravity some people can fucking think of. Check that milk

carton. Oh my God. Okay. Okay. So do deep scary story. My mom and her family grew up in a tiny town in Pennsylvania where no one locked their doors. One night my aunt got home late, everyone was asleep and she was just chilling in the kitchen when she heard weird noises from the basement getting creeped out. She went upstairs into her room and changed into her pajamas. I'm so scared. I have to have my night wear on for this. Let me get my jammies on. In bed, she heard wrestling from down in the kitchen. So instead of waking her parents up, three question marks and parentheses, she decided to pretend to be asleep. She's panicking. She then heard the creak of her stairs and decided to look into her mirror, which reflected into the hallway

when she saw a man crawling. No crawling. Yes. Crawling up the stairs. No crawling. Yes. Crawling up the stairs. Was he backwards and upside down? Cause then that means that you're actually telling us about the movie Hellraiser. Okay. Why she still refused to scream. I do not know, but she proceeded to pretend to be asleep and heard the man enter her room and felt the bed go down. This is like my guess. Yeah, it is. And then she woke up in the hospital. Oh, what? My aunt had a really bad case of pneumonia and in the middle of the night became fevered and delirious to which my Nana took her to the hospital. My aunt insisted that there had been a man in her room, but my Nana wrote it off saying it was the fever talking. Flash forward a couple of months later. Dude.

The town's doctor. Yes. There was literally one. It was that small. Had a son who was caught sneaking into girls houses and watching them sleep. Okay. I need a breath. Hold on. This is okay. You know what? Let's all inhale for three and exhale three. Was that one more time? Inhale for three. And exhale for three. Go on. Look at this creepy man. Needless to say, my aunt had been proven right, but it wasn't a great win. Anyways, I know this was long, but I thought you might enjoy it. By the way, the boy had snuck into my mom's childhood home before, but he had been peeping on my mom who walked into the house after a day of shopping and heard footsteps upstairs. She proceeded to talk to my Nana as if it were her

and changed into the new clothes she bought. She saw someone rush behind her and saw that it was a boy, but he fled out the back door. I tried looking him up, but my mom forgot his name and Google searching peeping time 1960 something was kind of a grab bag of weird. It's safe to say that the boy would have eventually hurt someone since he was testing the waters already. Thank you for everything you do and stay sexy and make sure to have a better plan than pretend to be asleep. Mackenzie, I've woken up in the hospital. You have to I'm sure. Uh, no, no, I will. I woke up in my apartment and then had to get taken to the hospital. I had a seizure as a kid and what age? I was like 10 or 11 and I had a seizure and like missed the

whole fuck. My sister ran into my mom's bedroom. We had a bunk chair to bunk bench. She goes, Mom, George is having a cow. That's not really the Simpsons. Yeah. And that's all I remember. And then I woke up in the hospital. So scary. But you didn't have to go on medicine or anything? No, it's just like a one time hormonal thing. Like my brother had one too. Just oh yeah, I think we've talked about this right? Just random. That happened. That's how happens most of the time. Yeah, but not you. You're special. Nami. 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

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That's up to 20 free meals plus free shipping on your first box when you go to hello fresh.ca slash murder 20 and use code murder 20. 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 master minds, 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. This is called fucking hooray goddamn flood during a fucking pandemic. What? It starts sup nerds. Last week was one fuck of a week because I'm working remotely and my partner isn't I'm sheltering in place with him in Midland, Michigan. If you've been keeping up with the news I am not so totally get if you aren't either. Yes that Midland, Michigan that have had three dams upriver fail and cause a huge ass flood. We had their surreal experience of seeing the

pandemic coverage get interrupted to broadcast an emergency evacuation order. God can you imagine on top of everything else fucking town flooding? And it wasn't one dam collapsing it was fucking three like it was like yeah it was crazy and there had been warnings for years that they were going to collapse and then she writes Jesus goddamn Christ. We are fine and didn't end up being affected by either the floodwaters or the blackouts although many unfortunate people were and just evacuated for a night and spent a lovely evening with his parents. As you might imagine all this bullshit combined with living in Michigan where many idiots have decided quarantining slash wearing masks is restricting their personal freedoms to be idiots has made for a pretty stressful time and

we needed an outlet. So while my partner was napping yesterday I decided to sneak into the creepy unfinished basement and surprise him by making a miniature golf course down there. Oh wow I made two holes with leftover carpet coffee mugs for holes and items from around the house each with a theme. I had to go where my found objects took me so I used all the weird shit I found down there from previous renters and his old memorabilia etc to make a haunted basement slash his childhood themed hole complete with an abandoned old-timey high chair as a windmill a box of medical syringes and board games for the boarders and his old baseball trophies as obstructions. He's a pretty big animal guy so all his novelty animal paintings became boarders and a preserved shark in a jar

honey bear plush possum an alligator skull served as obstructions before the hole between the front legs of a large stuffed llama at the house safari themed hole. It took a couple hours but it was so worth it to see the look on his face and to play together while blasting. We like to party by the venga boys on repeat to really dial up the putt-putt vibes. It's horrifying and weird and wonderful and the best thing we have going on in our lives right now besides each other. Not going to send pictures because I truly cannot emphasize how weird and horrifying it is but we like it. XOXO Lydia. Wow. This person sounds fun. Lydia I would love to get a drink with you after this nightmare is over. Lydia you're on one. This um this has all the things I like in it.

Okay. That's this one. Okay. It'll it this title gives it away. Hi friends earlier this year I was riding in the car with my boss and the mayor of the tiny town in Tennessee where I work. Oh that's fun. Wait the boss and or is the boss your mayor. He's your mayor. My boss and the mayor of the tiny it sounds like there's three people in the car. I would assume yeah there were three. They were driving me around showing me all the sights and sharing some old southern gossip. I was pretending to be interested then somehow sinkholes were brought up and the mayor began to tell me this story. I had to force myself to listen and actually get the details because all my brain was yelling was oh my god Karen would love this story. So here goes a few miles outside of the town where I work

is a historic farm called Rock Rest Farms. In 1902 a man by the name of Elijah Creek bought the 630 acre property and built a stagecoach inn that served travelers along the Nashville to Louisville Pony Express line. There were many rumors about Elijah's origins. He claimed to be from an island in the Mediterranean off the coast of Spain but this story was widely disbelieved. Regardless the other local people found Elijah to be super creepy. Francois Michaud the French naturalist wrote in his diary in 1802 about his stay at Cheeks Inn quote fearing that I should witness some murdering scene I quickly took my leave and put up in an inn about three miles further on end quote. That was trust as intuition. Yeah that's right. That's how the French are. They know how to make good wine

and they listen to their gut and because of that they're very thin. Francois's gut wasn't wrong. Rumor had it that Elijah would rob and kill the guests in the caves behind the inn where they would store cold foods in the underground stream. These rumors were never confirmed and Elijah died of natural causes in 1818. It's not known exactly when but at some point after Elijah's death the caves were searched for signs of the murders. Some jewelry and some small bones were found but no bodies. So jump ahead to me in the car with the mayor and he tells me the mayor. It's like this person's bragging like I hung out with the mayor for the day like that's a really impressive awesome thing. I mean when have I hung out with the mayor? Never. Did you fucking never? Don't even act don't

even front like you've hung out with a mayor like this person because you haven't. Okay so jump ahead to me in the car with the mayor and he tells me that about 20 years ago there's a massive flood and during that flood there's all kinds of themes in this year. Yeah for sure. A massive flood and during that flood a sinkhole located on the property filled completely with water bringing to the surface a bunch of floating human bones. Oh my god. Uh-huh. The bones were taken away and tested and found to be dated back to the 1800s. These are believed to finally be the discovered bones of several of Elijah Creeks victims. He would murder and rob his victims in the caves and dispose the bodies by throwing them down the sinkhole where they stayed hidden for nearly 200 years. Wow.

A fun little fact the stagecoach in burned down in 1847 the inn was rebuilt and was again destroyed by Union soldiers. In 1952 another barn on the property was burned down. Maybe the ghosts of Elijah Creeks pissed off victims stuck around. Anyways you guys feel like some of my best friends that I get to hang out with every day on my way to work and when I heard this story I knew I had to write in. You were so right. Stay sexy and always check the sinkhole for bodies Keelan. That had everything you love in it. The mayor hanging out with the mayor. Driving around with the mayor. Tiny bones. Tiny bones. Well tiny bit of treasure in a cave and and then 200 year old bones that actually prove an old theory that people were like you must be insane and suddenly it's like in your

face. The sinkhole the sinkhole holds secrets and one day the sinkhole flourishes those secrets. What you're saying is fill every sinkhole with water and let's see how many bodies. So send us your emails everyone thank you for sending everything in we know it's an insane time right now. It's probably even crazier than we know it is but we're with you we're together we're here to make you laugh in times scary times and times of high stress. We know everyone is going through their own little hell right now and we're we understand and we're here to support you anyway we can if that's laughing if that's hearing horror stories that are way horrible or somehow uplifting and making you feel stronger you know please send those in if you have them please. Yes for sure

and stay strong and remember if you are scared help somebody else it will help you because there's people that are in much worse positions than you are probably yeah reach out yeah yeah and stay sexy and don't get murdered go bye Elvis you want a cookie?