My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 189

Episode Date: August 24, 2020

This week’s hometowns include a John Dillinger story and a mother murder.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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And welcome. To my favorite murder. The Minya Soad. We read you your stuff back. That's Karen Kilgaroth. That's Georgia. Mark, we're your hosts and the hired readers for this production. They hired us to read to you.

We auditioned. Uh-huh. And we beat out all the other girls. Yeah. Yeah. We got a callback. We got a callback. Then we had a network test.

Poof. Intense. Can you believe it? It's hard. My mouth went totally dry. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. So nervous. Still we got it.

Still we rise. And at your worst, you got it. You got it. You got it. What? Should we drop the concept that only we know right now, which is that we're about to come out with t-shirts that say this is terrible, keep going? Yeah.

Because I'm so excited about those shirts. They're so good. Don't tell them what it's like. Don't tell them what it looks like. It's just, you're going to like it. And also, how timely. Yeah. I'm not a big merch plugger, but I'm excited about this shirt.

I am too. I am too. So that's an upcoming surprise for all you minisode listeners. Some call it an Easter egg. Us admitting that we were cast for this podcast is an Easter egg, even though it's not true at all. That's a, it's not true. So it's, we call it a lying behind the scenes, whereas us fibbing, which is what we like

to do. But also it takes you back behind the scenes a little bit of what real life is like here. Are they lying or are they not lying? I feel, I feel like. Also behind the scenes, you just, you see where we decide, right? What reality is. Anyway, here's your first email and we just started lying. Are you ready for this one?

Yes. I think I'm going to read you the title because it's simply John Dillinger saved my grandma. Beautiful. Oh, hi there. Not too long back, well before the pandemic. So it feels like more like years ago. My incredible grandma, Elma, and then in parentheses, jackpot, grandma name, right? Was the oldest of six on a remote farm, not too far from Hicksville, Ohio.

One day in 1933, a nice looking car pulls down the long dirt road leading to the house. My great grandpa is already outside doing farmer stuff. So he approaches the car as four very well dressed men step out. The main guy introduced himself as John and politely asked my grand, my great grandpa if they could pay him to fill up their car with gas. Apparently, this kind of thing wasn't too uncommon since this was around the time that gas powered tractors and farm equipment had become normal. So almost all farms would retain their own large supply of gas.

The men stood to the side as my great grandpa agreed and began filling up the tank. As he was filling the car, he glanced into the backseat and saw four submachine guns. What? Can you have a submachine gun back then? In 1930. You've never seen anything like that. It would look like a laser from Star Trek. Totally.

Horrifying. And just an old farmer who knew he was wearing overalls for submachine guns propped in the backseat. The man he was filling up the car for was none other than John Dillinger. I guessed it. Yeah. You know. Right from the title.

Right from. Looking up the timeline and location of John Dillinger's whereabouts, this was most likely one of their first stops right after Dillinger's first escape from jail in Lima, less than an hour and a half away. My great grandpa. Is it Lima or Lima? I wonder. My great grandpa stayed calm and continued to be polite and unassuming to the men as

they did the same. When he was all finished, John walked over to my grandpa, thanked him and handed him a $50 bill and simply left. My great grandpa or any of the family had never seen a bill that large. This was in the middle of the Great Depression and times were getting tougher and tougher to feed a family of six and keep the farm maintained enough so that they could keep it. My great grandpa knew if he called the police, the only proof he'd have this event was the single $50 bill, which is about $770 in today's money.

Holy shit. Yeah. Hi. And they would have had to take it as evidence. So he made the call to keep quiet and use the money towards saving the family and the farm. Because of this, my grandma had far more opportunities to go to bed with a full stomach at night. My grandma, Elma, passed away two years ago.

I lived 12 hours away from her. So when we heard she was in bad health, we planned a trip as fast as we could see her. We let her know when we'd be in town and we're able to make it in time to have a great visit with her as if nothing was wrong. She passed away two days later and I truly believe that she held out until she was able to see us one last time. Thank you girls for all of your fun energy. Stay sexy and tip your farmers well, Audrey.

Oh, Elma. Yeah. That's amazing. Shout out to Elma. Wow. Shout out. Yeah. This one just starts.

Hello, MFMBFFs. That's clever. Yeah. It was September of 1994 and I had just started my senior year at high school in, and acquaintance of mine, Dominic, who was a junior, got pulled out of class the morning of September 22nd to be given the news that his mother, Mary, had been found dead near their home. Dominic and his mother lived alone together, his father being estranged. Apparently, Mary had been found on a forested path that connected two cul-de-sacs in an

upper-class neighborhood she had been stabbed multiple times. Another also interesting connection to the story, my third grade teacher and longtime family friend was the one who found her. Oh, no. So small town. This was devastating and scary news to Dominic and her school. During that time, sleepy, safe town with little crime that I remember as a teen. A few days went on and Mary's funeral ensued, which I attended with some friends.

Dominic was there receiving condolences from family and friends. I gave Dominic a hug and apologized for the loss of his mom. All caps. But then. Yes. There's always a but then. You're just waiting for that but then. On October 5th, 1994, Dominic was arrested for Mary's murder.

The real story is that Dominic planned to murder his mother the night of September 21st and suggested they go for a walk that evening. He concealed a large butcher knife with him and stabbed his mother 29 times, even after she was dead. He then drove out to the country and disposed of the weapon. He placed his bloody clothes in his backpack and took them to school the next day to throw away in the dumpster. A search warrant of the home revealed Mary's blood throughout the house and on Dominic's

shoes, which were soaking in bleach. So he was arrested and logged in a juvenile detention facility. Here's the kicker though. Since he killed his mother before measure 11, he was not tried as an adult. He was sent to McLauren School for Boys where he was released in 1999 at the age of 21. In fact, he doesn't even have to report to a parole officer or get mental health treatment. He can get a concealed weapons permit and can answer that he has never been convicted of a crime on job applications.

Why? Because he was a juvenile. Oh, okay. He has since changed his name and I think he's been arrested for fraud in the last few years or something like that. He never said why he did it, although he did admit to causing Mary's death. I did find him on Facebook if you're interested and then gave us a link to his Facebook. Good God.

Stay away. What are you doing? Don't do that. And I took all the last names in this and I took them out. Stay sexy and don't hug a mother murderer. P.S., tonight I finished HBO's I'll Be Gone in the Dark and I've been crying for hours. So good, so dark, so sad. And yes, Georgia, I agree that Karen looks great in purple.

Love you both so much. Robin. Yeah. Robin. Robin tried to even that out at the end with a nice compliment, but that was a horrible story. It was horrible. But it is so crazy that you can just get out and live your normal life, which is what

makes sense. That's what the point of juvenile arrests are for. You would hope, though, that level of overkill would be treated differently than the other kids that are in juvie for stealing cars and, you know, or doing drugs or something like that. Premeditated murder. I think maybe that's what my thrill weapon is. I didn't look it up.

But premeditated murder is a bit of a... Yeah. I mean. Crazy. But what do we know? Right. Here, we'll take a nice left turn into a lighthearted area. The time my mom almost accidentally killed my dad.

Hey, MFM fam. Last Sunday, I was playing cards with my parents and my newlywed husband, and my mom said that she had a story for me. So my dad wears a CPAP machine at night, and there's a filter system for it where you put distilled water. And my dad ran out of water, so he asked to borrow some from the gallon my mom used for ironing. Oh, no.

Wow. Because he didn't want to go upstairs and get her downstairs and get... No, he'd have to leave the house, so she had her own distilled water stash for special ironing. Got it. He didn't want to have to go down to the CVS. So from the gallon my mom used for ironing until he could go out and get his own. So the first few nights, he started sneezing and coughing really badly, but only at night.

My parents couldn't figure out what was going on with him, worried it might be COVID related. The next time my dad went to fill his water in his CPAP machine, he noticed the water looked weird, like milky and not clear. He took a closer look at the gallon. It was the bleach water that he had mixed for cleaning. My mom had accidentally given him a gallon bleach water mixture instead of her distilled water. Luckily, my dad caught it and cleaned it out, and he thinks he didn't use any.

We really gave my mom a hard time since she's always watching shows like Snapped and Cold Case Files. We joked. We joked that this was her clever way to poison him to death. All is well, my dad is alive and is not quote unquote sick anymore. We told him to be extra nice to my mom just in case. Thank you for bringing humor and joy in these tough times we're in. My fucking hurray is that COVID-19 did not stop me from getting married.

We had a very small, beautiful outdoor ceremony, and I got to marry the love of my life. That's lovely. Stay sexy and label your bleach water correctly, Molly. Oh my, she could. I wonder if that would have killed him if he had like. It absolutely would have, just inhaling bleach night after night, he wouldn't be able to do that for that long. Dr. Rainos, let us know how long can you inhale bleach?

Are you daring me? Because I have a CPAP machine, and I could totally do it. Okay, tell us what it's like and what your dreams are like. Wow, okay. Looking for a better cooking routine? With meal planning, shopping, and prepping handled, HelloFresh has you covered. HelloFresh makes home cooking easy and affordable so you can stay on track and on budget in the new year.

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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. From 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 one just starts, just called a hometown story and starts, well my murder story is not from my hometown, it does involve my family member. My great-great-grandmother.

Her name was Selma and she was murdered in Brooklyn, New York in July 1927. Selma had owned a boarding house on Prospect Place that she lived in with her family. When she and her family moved out, she entrusted the boarding house to her friend Sarah, 76-year-old and I looked it up, so this sounded so far-fetched to me that I looked it up and it's all fucking true. So I looked it up. This woman was 76-years-old, Sarah Brownwell, so she entrusted the boarding house to her friend Sarah.

A handyman was hired to work in the boarding house, Ludwig Halvorsen Lee. He was a Norwegian immigrant who received free room and board at the boarding house in exchange for keeping up with the maintenance for no salary. One day a neighbor noticed something strange. Sarah was leaking from the cellar of the boarding house and flooding her yard. Come to think of it, she had also heard some strange noises from that same cellar the night before. When she knocked on the boarding house door to talk to Sarah, the owner, she was greeted

by Ludwig. He explained that Sarah was, quote, out of town and he would take care of the leak in the cellar. Several days passed and the water problem was not fixed. The neighbor called my great-great-grandmother Selma since she was the former owner and explained the issue. The neighbor watched as my great-great-grandmother entered the boarding house and never came out.

Soon, mysterious packages started appearing around Brooklyn at Prospect Park, a train station, a church, etc. Each unfortunate person who opened these sacks was greeted by a different severed body part. I fucking swear, I looked it up, it's all true. Even the crazy name of the dude. While the police noticed that some body parts were missing from the collection, they could tell that it was the body parts of two different women. As they started to put two and two together, the disappearances of Sarah and Selma, the

water problem in the cellar, the packages of body parts, they realized they needed to investigate the boarding house. As the police entered the cellar, they were greeted instantly with the smell of death. They found the remaining body parts of Selma and Sarah stuffed in the cellar pipes causing the water leak. They also discovered several bottles of lye that had been emptied over the body parts in order to dissolve them faster. The receipt for the bottles was found, and when police checked the store clerk, he recalled

Ludwig buying the bottles. The police eventually found my great-great-grandmother's ring in a box in Ludwig's room. My great-great-grandfather had the unfortunate job of identifying the remains of his wife. The story came together at the trial. Ludwig had wanted to return to Norway but had no money since he worked at the boarding house for free. He knew that rent day was coming up and he accosted Sarah. He killed her with an axe in order to procure the money.

When my great-great-grandmother Selma came to investigate the water leak, she either happened upon Ludwig chopping up Sarah's body or the already chopped up body of Sarah. She ended up becoming an unintended victim to Ludwig's axe. The defense tried to cross-examine my great-grandfather, Selma's son, and accused him of murdering the ladies since he still lived at the boarding house. However, my great-grandfather denied this and the evidence against Ludwig was strong. Ludwig was charged with the murder and died by the electric chair in 1928. And then there's no signature, that's it.

There's no opening and there's no signature. Someone's just like, hey, you go. The craziest hometown, essentially. That's it, goodbye. They pieced out at the end of that letter. Wow. Can you imagine, like, in your family lineage, that that happening? It's so horrible.

Also, so do I get this right, that somebody watched their great-great-grandmother walk into that boarding house and she just never returned? Yeah. So I think the next piece of information I would want to hear in that story is how quickly did that witness go to the cops? I don't think they must not have been like, they must just have seen them go in and went about their business, you know? They were like, oh, she's taking care of it.

Yeah. There's nothing to check back in with in any way. I'm not, yeah, I'm not going to knock on that door, guess Sarah just went home. No thanks for any kind of results on what happened there with the flood, with the flood in my neighborhood. No further questions. I'm out. All good.

Actually, let's talk about something else right now. Have you been watching the new season, the 1933 version of the Great Depression? Have you watched the new season? Oh my God, it's so depressing. Okay, you ready for this? My finals. Hello, all. I'm finally doing it.

After years of listening to other people's stories, I'm finally sharing my own. I really put a lot of drama into that. My grandparents, Helena, who went by Tooty and Dwayne, who went by Dick. What? Amazing. This is why we ask you to always give your fucking grandparents names. Please. Legendary.

Dick and Tooty. Did anyone's grandparents use their real names? They were married for 60 plus years, had five kids and a slew of grandkids. They were everything grandparents should be, sweet, loving and cute as buttons. They were always together. My grandma never got a driver's license, so always together. My grandpa loved to do puzzles in his retirement. Big puzzles.

I'm talking 1,000 plus piece, holy shit. He'd work on them for days on end with no help from grandma until it was time for the very last piece. He always gave her the last piece of every puzzle so she could finish it because, well, he adored her. Oh my God. Yeah. Let's just take a quick break for crying times.

This is how love is supposed to work. I love you Vince. Vince, I love you so much. You know what I did last night? Speaking of relationships and trying to make them last 60 years, I was changing my pillow case and so I got another one for him and then just threw it on his pillow for him to do later. And then I was like, you know what?

If this were Vince, he would put the pillowcase on my pillow for me, so maybe take that extra fucking step and put the pillowcase on Vince's pillow instead of just tossing it on his fucking side of the bed. Hell yeah. I did it. I did it. There it is. Feels good, right?

It did. It felt good to do it. It was your idea and you did it. And of course I told him so I could get credit for it. Well, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hell yeah.

Go ahead. I love it. I don't know. That's great. That's so sweet. Yeah. Talk about, let's do some readjusted goals. How about not just finding someone that texts you back?

How about someone that gives you the last piece of their puzzle that they worked on? Or puts your pillow case on, right? Or like Georgia does. Or more so puts the your pillow case on. Okay. Cut to my grandpa passed away leaving my grandma and all of us devastated. This person had been her true partner in every sense for practically her entire life. Grandma gave away all the puzzles grandpa had in the house as she didn't like doing

them. And then one day months after grandpa's passing, my grandma was at her dresser, looked down and saw one puzzle piece. She swore every puzzle in the house had been given away and the room had been cleaned and vacuumed many times during the passing months. But there it was. She knew it was my grandpa reminding her of how much he loved her. Uh-huh.

Yeah. In the years since grandma actually had this occur one more time. So when she passed away and we were burying her ashes under a tree next to my grandpa, the two puzzle pieces went in with her and she was back with a missing piece to her puzzle. Thanks so much for taking the time to read my story. As many have said before, thank you for bringing true crime obsession, anxiety disorders and self-acceptance to your millions of faithful listeners. A special shout out to Karen for sharing British Nordic Canadian crime procedural suggestions.

Seriously, I barely watch anything made in this country anymore. Stay sexy and find a cute way to haunt your loved ones when you go. Dara. That was gorgeous. My, how am I supposed to follow that one? That was gorgeous. I guess, I guess all I have to say is in your face with someone else's puzzle story. This is a competition after all.

Oh, we didn't, this is a, this is a true crime comedy competition show. Comedy competition show. It's a lot like America's Got Talent. Mm-hmm. But without the talent. No talent, not a lot of America represented in the way that I think they would like to be. That was beautiful.

That was lovely. Yay. Tootie and Dick forever. Tootie and Dick. Tootie and Dick. Let's go over to Tootie and Dick's for drinks before we go over to the 4th of July parade. Let's have cocktails at Tootie and Dick's before, before the cinema. Tootie and, Tootie and Dick are making popcorn and then we're going to go over to the, I

can hide candy in my purse in my enormous grandma purse. Oh, I'll have candy for the movie. Go tell Dick to get grandma's purse. Okay. Oh. Oh, that was beautiful. Okay. This wasn't, isn't as beautiful, but I really like it.

I'm not going to read you the title. Hello, good friends of the podcast. A few years ago, my wife and I bought our very first home in Los Angeles. The house is old, originally built in the 1920s as a hunting cabin, which is crazy that fucking Los Angeles was that rural, but hunting with several renovations and additions in its near hundred year history. Fucking awesome. Out of curiosity, because the house was so old and because we needed to do some renovations

ourselves, we searched for old building and renovation permits on the LAD department of building and safety website. We discovered that in the 1930s, a woman named Winifred, and then it says great name. Winifred filed several building permits for the property, including one for a, quote, new private goat house. We both thought what an independent lady to own a home and maybe a goat farm too in 1930s. She must have been really cool and ahead of her time. Oh, how wrong we were.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, we were FaceTiming with a friend who works for the L.A. Public Library and she mentioned how she's been searching old digitized L.A. articles about badass women through the library database. We asked her to search Winifred's name, thinking if we were, uh, thinking if we were lucky enough, there may be an article mentioning her prized goat rearing or something to that nature. Nope. Instead, we found six articles detailing how Winifred strangled her elderly mother in

our house, most likely our bedroom, because she saw, quote, an evil spirit gleaming in her mother's eyes. Uh-oh, Winifred. Uh-huh. Fortunately, it doesn't seem our house is haunted, but still pretty shocking to discover a grisly murder took place here over 70 years ago. Also, if an evil gleam in her mother's eye was enough to drive Winifred to murder, I'm glad she didn't live long enough to see a lesbian couple buy her house from a drug dealer.

That's why I say this one for the last. I'm glad she didn't live long enough to see a lesbian couple buy her house from a drug dealer. Um, anyways, did you hear that part, the drug dealer real estate agent? I love it. There's people, people hustle in, in LA, man. It's probably one of those for sale by owner and the guy's just like, can I, I just need to get rid of this place.

You can buy this house. It's haunted. I also got those really good cat mushrooms and people like, um, we're doing a little bit of ecstasy. It's a throwback. Uh, anyway, stay sexy and maybe check if your house is the site of a murder before you buy M and L. M and L.

Congratulations on your haunted house. Sounds fucking rad. Can you invite us over for pre-show cocktails when this COVID is over? I mean, I feel like you maybe make friends with a Catholic priest if only for the blessing, ceremony, ritual, you know, it's up to you. Um, but I think that's a, if they already haven't gotten bad vibes, I think that they're in the clear. I mean, a hundred year old house.

You don't know what else has been going on. I mean, what did the drug dealer do there? You know, is he haunted? He or she. I don't want to be sexist. Haunting it. We don't know. Yes.

The drug dealer for getting it to, for making his investments and interests, uh, what's that called? You divesting it. Yeah. You know, it's, he's not completely just depending like a crutch on cocaine. Right. He's also selling home. Diversifying.

Is that what you said? Diversifying. Yeah. Diversifying his portfolio. That's right. Yeah. Um, send us your stories of haunted houses and fucking drug dealers and fucking. Tell us a story about a drug dealer getting out of the business.

Yeah. That's fun for COVID. Yeah. Something uplifting. Were you a drug dealer? How did you get out of it? And like, tell us how great your life is now that, and you can, you can, um, you can inspire other drug dealers to.

That's right. Or you can be like, I made a parallel move into Amway and it's pretty much the same thing. Or did drug dealing save your life? We don't know. Please take, keep it together, especially not during COVID. You don't want after everything else that's going on, you don't want to be addicted to some terrible drug.

No. Not at all. It's hard enough. It is. Don't go looking for problems. You already have plenty. As my sister likes to say to me, time in again. I love it.

Stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Goodbye. Elvis, you want a cookie?