My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 185

Episode Date: July 27, 2020

This week’s hometowns include a body in a motel and a family folklore correction corner.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 episode. How you doing mini-soad episode? How you girl? Oh, it's great on you, whatever it is. Oh my god, I'm so glad you changed into that. What a fun color. Athleture wear. Wow. Our favorite. What a great terry cloth sweatsuit that is. I didn't know they made that color jade. Now why did they just write butt on the butt? Is that the new thing? Yeah, we know it's the butt. It's not like this is our

first experience with butts just because you're wearing those sweat pants. I do like that style of color graphy though. Kind of like a old gothic font that says butt. But yeah, but with three T's that's my new athlete's you're wearing. Make it happen. But this is a mini-soad. We read you your stories. Karen, you want to go first? I do. I want to go first of all the time in every situation. Good because I don't. I always want to go second. Here, let me step forward and talk in a loud voice. This is an entitled hometown story. Greetings. I remember hearing this story from my hometown between Buffalo and Rochester, New York. From the time I was in elementary school, my parents best friend was a sheriff who apparently didn't filter his stories around children.

I was finally inspired to look it up after listening to dozens of hometowns in your podcast. That has been getting me through this pandemic. Anyway, here's the story. In 1987, the police were called to a domestic where a man named Joe Schlum was threatening to kill his girlfriend and her two kids. He had a pillow over the face of a newborn and the knife to the baby's chest and wasn't following orders from the responding officer to drop both items. The officer said after the fact he was right about to shoot him because the baby was dying when Joe finally did drop both and was arrested. When they began questioning him, he admitted that he'd murdered a woman. They initially didn't believe him. There weren't any missing persons cases open at the time,

but when they searched the name of the woman, Pam Smith, they found that she'd missed a court date a few years before and began to believe him. He explained that he'd hit her in the head with a rock and strangled her with a cord and then buried her under the floorboards of the friendly motel. When they went to the motel, he showed them the room. He stepped on the floorboards to prove they made a squeaking sound and sure enough, she was under the motel floorboards. Fuck, this sounds like a book. That's crazy. He was sentenced to 17 years to life at Auburn State Prison and has since died in prison, I believe. Her family never reported her missing because they thought she'd gone to Texas. I'm sure you're wondering, how did no one notice the smell?

Well, the motel owner explained that he'd assumed the resident boa constrictor had gotten loose and somehow produced the exact smell of a body decaying. Totally normal. I'd always heard that this story had happened on prom night, but since he was 25 and he killed her when she was 19, then I think that was an embellishment. It's crazy to think that if the officer had shot Joe, they may never have found Pam. Anyway, thanks for all you do. It's nice to hear other voices besides your husbands during quarantine every now and again, even if you love him very much. Stay sexy and stay away from those empty side of the road motels because there is a body under the floorboards, Rebecca. That has everything. That has everything.

That's crazy. Can we get behind stopping the process of not believing someone when they said that they killed someone and being like, well, we don't have anyone missing around in this fucking neck of the woods? There's no hungry boa constrictors anywhere near here. So what? There has been a missing woman around here. That rationale is like, you're definitely. That's like, I don't want to do any more paperwork. The old boa constrictor excuse. Yeah. So this one's just called Small Town. Hello, ladies. I've been meaning to get this story down for a while and you've given me the perfect reason to get it done. I work at a nursery and spend many hours of my day alone, so I usually bring you with me. And thank you, by the way. You're fucking

hilarious. So here's my story. When I was five, I was in daycare with my siblings at my quote Aunt Judy's house. She was no real relation, just a close friend. Everyone's an aunt. Anyway, she watched quite a few kids and one of them was her husband's nephew. He always brought a yellow duffel bag full of toy guns. One day we were playing by the pool while Judy was in the house on one of her incredibly long phone calls. The nephew told me to kiss him and I refused. He kept bugging me and I eventually gave him the five year old version of go fuck yourself, pal. At which point he got upset and pulled his dad's pearl handled 22 caliber pistol out of the yellow duffel bag and put it up to my forehead. These kids are five, by the way. My older sister saw this all go down and ran into

the house screaming for help and my quote aunt proceeded to chew her ass out for interrupting her. This sounds like something that could have happened in either of our childhoods, right? It absolutely did happen in mine. This is standard fare, mom's on phone behavior. Mom's on phone, you might not survive this. Meanwhile, outside, I am still refusing to kiss the little creep and my sister comes back out just in time to watch him pull the trigger. The gun was loaded and it did fire. The only reason I'm alive is because the bullet jammed in the chamber. Needless to say, the sound of the gun got that bitch off her phone. Aunt Judy, my mother somehow managed not to beat her up and the kid moved to California that week with his family. Oh, Jesus. Yeah, they're out of

there. I believe I heard a rumor a couple years later that he ended up killing his younger brother. No, I won't include the details. Fortunately for me, I blocked the entire incident out and have no recollection of it at all. However, my poor sister was never the same afterwards. Of course, stay sexy and keep your guns locked the fuck up crystal. I mean, that is cautionary tale after cautionary fucking tale. I really wanted that to be that that was just like a little kid messing around and he didn't know the difference and the idea that he went on to hurt another kid is so horrible. Well, he might not have. And it's clear that if he if that's what was going on with him, there was something going on at home, you know what I mean? In my mind, in my estimation,

if you are a little kid carrying a bag of guns around with you and and putting it to someone's head and pulling the trigger is like retaliation for not kissing the you on the lips is like, ooh. Yeah, he's mimicking that from mimicking something that's been taught. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's heavy. It's horrible. That's what this podcast is. Heavy, horrible. Let's get heavier and horrible. And the subject line of this email is since you mentioned John List. Hello, all. I was listening to your most recent episode, Small Big Foot, and my ears perked up when you mentioned John List for two particular reasons. Reason number one, since I have no self control and listen to podcasts in completely random order, I was so pleased and excited to hear that you

actually did cover John List. Turns out, I've just been too lazy to scroll all the way down to anything under episode 50. Reason number two, a lovely receptionist at my job has a crazy connection to that hometown murder. Listen to the Conan O'Brien episode, too. There's a little some John List tidbits in that that we did. I work in an orthodontic office and on Thursdays, we don't have patients. We just clean and catch up on all administrative things. So typically, I put my headphones in and listen to my true crime podcast all day. One day I look over at our receptionist, we'll call her Marie, and asked if she had any interesting true crime stories, and man did she ever. She grew up in New Jersey right across the river from the John List home.

I believe she told me that she was eight years old when the talk of the neighborhood was the slaughter of the List family. She proceeded to give great detail about the murder and how he got away with his senseless crime. She even told me that at the time it scared her so much, she would even ask her dad from time to time to please not kill her family. Sorry, am I not supposed to laugh at that? I mean, it's like... It's terrible, but it sounds like something I would have done. Okay.

Entirely, or like if this would sway you at all, I just want you to know I don't want you to do this. Right, right. I could hear myself as a kid saying that to my sweet dad. Please don't murder us. Sure. I used to ask my parents like once a week, are they getting divorced? And that weird wildfire of early 80s divorces or just like all of a sudden 75% of your friends' parents were getting divorced? And I just would go every night at dinner just be like, seriously, are you guys getting divorced? I don't want to be surprised by this. That's the worst thing is when they sit you down as a

bride. I've definitely said to Vince, please don't kill me. Just break up with me. I swear it's fine if you are over it. Break up with me, but just don't kill me. And I'm sure he's horrified by me. He's just like, okay. He's just covering all my bases. It's a deal, Georgia. He shakes your hand very formally. Sounds good. A promise is a promise. Then she put in parentheses, poor thing, which is true. Of course he didn't and she grew up to be very kind and spunky, so luckily it didn't traumatize her. Here's the wild part. Marie

went on with life. Marie went on with her life. She moved to Virginia and started a family with her husband. One day nearly 18 years later, she sat down to watch the news. Lo and behold, John List, who slaughtered his whole family just down the street from Marie 18 years ago, had been apprehended just two miles down the street from her new home in Virginia. What are the odds? Marie, of course, was shocked. She had never thought that he'd be caught after such a long time, let alone right down the street from her new home a few states over. I could not believe my ears at this wild story and had to research it myself. Everything was exactly how she described

it to me. The simple fact that he was caught based off a composite sculpture aged 18 years blows my mind. The fact that Marie experienced both a hometown murder and a hometown apprehension of the same annihilator in completely different places surprises me even more. Anyway, thank you all for everything you do. Stay sexy and try not to move the same town as your hometown murderer, Hannah. What are the fucking chances? That's crazy. Crazy, right? Just nuts. Yeah. Well, I love that. That's why you got to ask every single person in your life if they have a hometown. Most are going to think- That's a Gold Star hometown, I would say. That is, for sure. That's really upper echelon. I think that's up there with chain sawing down telephone

poles. I mean, nothing could be better than that, but it's close. Look, here's another one just called Hometown Story. Dear Georgia, Karen and Stephen. In the spirit of badass grandmother stories, I want to do a corrections corner for a 102-year-old bit of family folklore. It's a tragic story about my grandmother, Mary McGarvey, the oldest of 12 children, born in 1916 in Stark County, Illinois. She raised five kids on a dairy farm. A detail I remember about her was very rough hands that would snag on the polyester dresses she wore in the 70s. Oh, yeah. Yeah. She worked. Yes. Also, her wedding ring was worn down to a mere thread from years of manual labor. She wasn't retired long when early onset Alzheimer's set

in, and we lost her about 10 years before she actually died. There's always been an air of sadness about her and much speculation as to the cause. Some said it was that she'd been engaged to a man who died before she married my grandpa. My mom thought it was sleep deprivation from milking cows at 4 a.m. for 50 years. My dad, though, told a story that I thought was very likely at the heart of it. When she was little, she was babysitting her one-year-old brother, Joseph. He got into some iron tablets and died. The way the story was told implied that she had been responsible and that he had died on her watch, and it made sense that the guilt of that could be just the thing that might haunt her for the rest of her life. Recently, I was putting together a scrapbook about her

family tree, and in visiting a graveyard where my McGarvey family is buried, I came upon the gravestone of Little Joseph. His birth and death dates were 1917 through 1918. I was shocked. My grandmother was born in 1916, which meant she was only two years old when he died. Later, I came across the account of his death in the newspaper. It said that Mary had been playing doctor with the iron tablets that belonged to her grandmother, who was a guest in the home. The fact that this account was written in the small town newspaper forever connecting my grandmother to this tragedy is so wrong. For my dad to believe that she was, quote, babysitting suggests that in 1918, somebody was looking for somewhere to place the blame. The version in the newspaper stuck,

and my poor grandmother had to carry that. The stories of women are missing from history thanks for creating a platform that helps to remedy that molly. That's so sad, so they didn't want to blame the grandmother for having iron tablets out, and so they blamed a two-year-old who probably was supposed to be babysitting a fucking one-year-old. Yeah, no. I think rule of thumb is if you need a babysitter, the babysitter should have already been through at least first grade. Just for the basics, you know, standing up and sitting down and going to the bathroom where you're supposed to. It should be a person that's twice as tall as the baby. Right, and don't print that it was their fault for the baby dying in a fucking local newspaper. No, you fucking assholes. It's a baby.

It's a baby. It's two-year-olds as a baby. It's two babies. Why do I have to say two-year-olds are babies? Why are you making me call two-year-olds names? Why am I the fucking expert now? Well, everyone knows you're the expert at children. Okay, so here's the thing. When they're laying down, that's like a super baby, and then that is, I'd say zero, super baby. Then zero to two is baby. Okay. Okay, and then two to four, that's like a big baby. Big baby, yeah. And then once you get in those little white shoes with the laces, then we can start talking about practicing babysitting. Okay. Okay. But not until like five or six. The thought of like my sister letting my four and a half-year-old nephew babysit my one-year-old nephew. Babies. Can you imagine? There would be

Cheerios everywhere. Just mayhem. Cheerios. I mean, that is the weird thing, too, is also why back then when there was cocaine in Coca-Cola, are they, it's like, maybe that means there shouldn't be iron pills available to people that freely if a baby could get into them and then... I think that the two words that are the thank God part of this are all are child-proof. Is that one word or two words? I'd say it's one, if I had to guess. Or a hyphen it. Then I'm going to put an amen at the end of it, so it's two words. Child-proof. Amen. Amen, baby. Literally. Super baby. Amen, super baby. You did it, super baby. Okay. How uncomfortable, like those two babies on a couch staring at each other like, sorry, who's the babysitter? Is it you? Are you in charge? Do I

have to ask you for my bottle or am I supposed to get yours? I can't remember. Do you want juice, too? I have this craving for juice. Pirates booty? Oh no, that's right. You can't, you have no teeth in your mouth. You can't have any of these things. You're a super baby. You're a super baby. 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. 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 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. Okay, ready for the last one? Yeah. This is a perf story, light hearted. Yay. Hi, I'm one of the 14... Hi, I'm one of the 14-year-olds you sometimes shout out. What's up, 14-year-old super-duper baby? What's up? Super baby. Yep. That's the... We call 14-year-olds giant babies. Hi. Okay, this is a really good story. Okay. So, I live in a very small town in North Dakota. Yes, North Dakota, where the most notable thing about my town is we have more funeral homes than grocery stores. You would not believe how many middle-age people come here to die. Sweetheart, stop calling 30-year-olds middle-age people. I am an advanced age, fun... Oh, wait. In parentheses, it says, not fun middle-age people like you, conservatives.

Okay, anywho, you're not here for the live story of a young marradorino. You came for a pervert story. Yeah. I'm a cashier at one of the two grocery stores in my wonderful town, 14-year-old 14-year-old grocery store cashier. Yes, girl. Get out there in the workforce. That's right. We used to have a man who came in about three times a week ready to give weird compliments to all of our under-aged workers. Now, I work in customer service, where stuff like this is commonplace. The reason these compliments were notable is that every single one was mouth-oriented. Mouth-oriented is maybe the two creepiest words I've ever heard together. Yeah, we're not going in a good direction with this. Yep, you read that correctly. This man,

we'll call him Dave, would come in and compliment our teeth, lips, and fucking tongue. I can't make this shit up. Of course, this guy was reported to our boss, but here's the thing about small town North Dakota. No one thinks anything is weird unless something physical happens. And, unluckily for me, the 14-year-old being weirded out by compliments didn't make the cut, which is incorrect. After months of reporting this guy, he was finally kicked out of the store, not because of all the complaints, but because this happened. It was a normal workday. I was restocking graham crackers in one of the aisles when old Dave comes up behind me, breathing like he was about to jizz his pants. 14 years old. But listen, this is her story and

she gets to tell it. She does. And she's doing it. And she's doing an amazing job. Now, I forgot to mention, but I'm five-one and 97 pounds. So this guy could easily overpower me. So I'm shitting myself. And this guy goes, your teeth are so white. What products do you use? I gave a short laugh in my customer service voice and said something about Crest toothpaste. He's shooting back a nice, wow, and he, all caps, sticks his fucking hand in my mouth. This grubby old man stuck his hand in my mouth and felt my teeth. What the fuck? I cannot describe the wave of terror and shock that went through my body. Keep in mind, this was during the first stages of Corona when we were all scared,

but it wasn't in America yet. So naturally, my sixth grade self-defense class kicked in and I shoved my knuckle into that motherfucker's eye and ran. Anyway, this is why I don't fuck the straight dudes, Aiden. Aiden. Shit. I'm so sorry. If it's she, her, they, that, do we know? She, her and parentheses underneath. Oh, thank you. Yeah. Do not stick your hand in someone's mouth hole. Like, how is that not just a known fucking rule of life? Well, here's all I have to say. Yeah. Going through that, you know, Aiden has upped her mouthwash game probably three times a day and because of that, she'll have perfect teeth and gums for the rest of her life. That's right. The funny thing too to me is asking a 14 year old how their teeth are so white and it's

like, because they're 14 and they haven't gotten into a coffee addiction and a wine addiction yet. Yes. It's because they're exactly a child. They haven't chipped both their front teeth on beer bottles at Lake Tahoe like old Karen did. No, they're just living their clean cut lives and their clean teeth lifestyle. South Dakota. It's South Dakota, right? Oh, Aiden, that story is disturbing, but I love that you told us. That means that you're not that still that upset about it. I mean, you can be as upset and you're smart and you know, you know, you can handle yourself. Karen, I've, I've always noticed about you. You have a beautiful tongue. What if someone said that to you? Hey, you never noticed about you. If anyone's talking to you about your tongue and you haven't

been dating for three months, men's, you got to walk and then ask if you are dating and they're talking about your tongue. It's still kind of fishy. Then you alert a phone tree of your friends to say this was actually a point of discussion. Keep your eye on me. You know, I got my tongue pierced when I was 13 in 1995. I got my tongue pierced. Did it hurt so bad? No, it doesn't hurt at all. Oh, okay. Nipples hurt. Okay. But what happened? Did you unplug? Did you take it out? Oh, God, yeah. I mean, those the nineties time. Remember tongue piercings were cool? Yes, I do. And eyebrow piercings. Eyebrow. Yeah. All the rage. Just have a guy with a ring sitting on his eyebrow. Awesome. So hot. And a bowling shirt. Sweet. And like hate, hates you. Creepers.

And he's wearing creepers. Remember creepers? Yeah. And he's mad about pavement. He's mad about you not knowing enough about pavement. Yeah. Yeah. Asshole. Rodney. That guy Rodney. No. Okay. This one's called a little spooky, very lighthearted. Hi, I'll love your work. I'm just an average 21 year old forensic science student from Sydney, Australia, coming at you with a fun little spooky. And that's the bunch of O's and some are uppercase and some are lowercase, you know? So it says spooky. Amazing. Coming at you with a fun story that I borrowed from my brother. For a little context, my older brother is 22 and his friends have a somewhat odd obsession with torches, better known as flashlights for you Americans. And many of them own their own crazy

powerful torch. Amongst some other features, many of their torches have a strobe function, think rave. I always do. One night after getting together amongst friends, my brother and his friends piled into a car to drive home around 2am. Well, on their way home, my brother noticed what appeared to be a ghost in a white nightgown. They continued on driving for a short while. However, my brother insisted that they had just witnessed a paranormal paranormal being. And so they decided it would be funny to turn around to find this ghost and strobe it with their torches. Fortunately, by the time they reached this poor old lady in her nightgown, who was attempting to wave down the few cars that had passed her by, they had already had changed her heart and decided against strobing

her. Good idea. It turned out that this lovely lady, Barbara, has dementia and accidentally wandered out of her house in the middle of the night, unbeknownst to her sleeping husband. Oh, nightmare. The boys who now dub themselves, Barbara's boys, found her place of residence from her identification. Thank God she had brought her handbag with her and delivered her safely home. Her husband, who she unfortunately did not recognize when she was returned home, had not yet realized that she was gone. It is comforting to know that there are still lovely young men out there looking out for our society's most vulnerable. I've used her name with the assumption that she does not listen to this podcast. However, if she does, hi, Barbara,

we can only hope that the good days outweigh the bad and that she and her family are doing as well as possible during this time. Stay sexy and don't stroke poor old women with flashlights, M. Yeah. That was as lighthearted as I expected it to be when I put it last. Well, I do like the, you know, the sentiment of it, which is there's good people out there. I mean, that's, it's such a common thing too and so horrible. But that thing of people with dementia wandering, they get very restless and they want to go walk. So sad. And it's very common. And yeah, it's, it's scarier than if it were something paranormal because it's horrible. It's real. Yeah. Send us your paranormal or non-paranormal or flashlight related or whatever, 14 year old tongue stories.

Yes. Or tell us how you got your teeth so white. They look great. And also I love this idea of people like discovering something their coworker did or they're making their coworker tell them stuff. Yeah. You know, we're all on the zoom calls these days and they can be very dull. Don't be afraid to just throw anything out there asking people about themselves. We all love to talk about ourselves. We do. And we love to, we love to hear about yourselves. You can send them to my favorite murder at Gmail or on our website or wherever and stay sexy and don't get murdered. Goodbye Elvis. You want a cookie?