My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 210

Episode Date: January 18, 2021

This week’s hometowns include a family suspect and a dangerous neighbor.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is exactly right. 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. Let's see, it's truly criminal. Hello. Hello.

And welcome. To my favorite murder. The mini soap. That baby soap. That's Karen Kilgara. That's Georgia Heartstark. It's Friday night. We're about to party with emails, email party, going, going, going, and it's gone.

What? Do you want to go first? Sure. Do you want to go first? Do you want me to go first again? Actually, do you have like a sweet, a sweet little ending one or? I like my ending one. Okay.

If you want me to, yeah. That's true. If you want to go first, then I'll go first. Okay. Look at us. Okay. 2021. Okay.

This is called the one with the grandpa murder. Hi. I love the pod, et cetera, et cetera. I'm here to tell you a good old fashioned hometown murder. In fact, it's such a classic. It's on the original unsolved mysteries. Nice. So I was like, you're famous.

It says season six episode 10. It's the story of the time my grandpa got murdered. Oh no. I know. On the night of May 15th, 1981, my grandfather was attending a political fundraiser when he was shot in the head, point blank and killed. Despite the roughly 400 people in attendance that night, no one saw a thing. And most of the people interviewed refused to disclose any information because they feared

for their own lives. Now here's where it gets fishy. So I'm going to, there's a, there's a name in it, but I'm just going to use the initial of the last name because it's alleged. But if you watch the episode, I'm sure they say it. Now here's where it gets fishy. Though he was off duty when the police arrived, deputy chief John C was already on the scene. And throughout the investigation, he gave several reasons for his attendance at the fundraiser

that evening. The bullet used in the killing was recovered and sent for testing. But even though it was being kept in a locked drawer in C's desk, that the lab was having trouble processing it because they said the bullet had a hole punched into it in an effort to prevent tracing. The bullet had a hole punched into it in an effort to prevent tracing what kind of weapon was used. Despite this, they managed to identify the gun used and guess who's the only fucking

officer on the force who used that kind of gun? John C. Yep. John C. I really wanted to guess. You were right. Yeah. He also failed a polygraph test.

So yeah, though his death is labeled a cold case, a cursory study of the evidence makes it pretty fucking obvious who did it. The last bit is just some spooky stuff that happened after the murder. Nights after his father was murdered, my dad awoke to a bullet being shot through their living room window. Whoa. They also got calls in the middle of the night with a mysterious voice saying, I know who killed Jay, the name of the grandpa.

My uncle also claims he once paid for something at a coroner's store and one of the bills he got as change had, quote, I know who killed Jay scrawled on it. You know, one of my family talks about the murder, so hopefully none of them are listening. When I asked my dad about it, he doesn't say much, but I thank him for instilling a fear of police in me at a young age and always reminding me that, quote, the cops can lie to you. Stay sexy and please get my dad into therapy. Hannah.

Isn't that heavy? Yeah. It's awful. It's so awful. I hope. I hope that. But also it sounds like it sounds like a mafia stuff or like how was, how were 400 people in the room when something happens and no one's saying, I mean.

Exactly. It feels, I know she doesn't say where it's from, but it feels small town-y, but it could be like Boston, you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. But small town would make sense because it's like everyone knows not to say anything or one of those kind of things. Scary.

Okay. My first email, it's the subject line is Panamanian mom out crazy to mug her. Yes. Hello all in all caps. When I heard the Scottish dad headbutting story, I knew I had to write in. My mom is from Panama, basically the opposite of Scotland and thusly had an opposite approach to self-defense. She and her mom, my grandma, were walking in Panama in the seventies through a bad part

of town in broad daylight, albeit alone with me, a baby, my sister, a toddler, and my brother, who was probably like 10 when they noticed a man had been following them. They tried to speed up and make odd turns to get away or find safety, but with three kids and an old lady, they hadn't had any success. My badass mom had the sense that he wanted her and told my grandma to take us kids and walk the other direction past the guy. She did. And the guy kept following my mom now alone like she had predicted knowing this guy was

probably going to rob her or worse. She started acting all caps crazy. She immediately started kicking over nearby trash cans, punching the air, jumping on the buildings and screaming at the top of her lungs, both plain old screams and curse words. She started pulling at her hair and hitting herself in the face and freaking out, all while walking forward. She turned around and made direct eye contact with the man. He looked freaked out, turned down the other street and jogged the fuck away.

My mom met back up with us and they proceeded home to safety. My mom is still a total badass and kind of an insane one at that, but you know, fun insane. And we love her so much for it. Thank you for everything you do. Because of the way you two have destigmatized therapy, I finally found the courage to go for the first time about two years ago, and I'm now increasing to two sessions a week. And then it says, woohoo, I agree, I agree with that sentiment me too. And then it's just signed fuck politeness and SSDGM.

Wow. What an incredible tactic. Like, what a fucking brilliant. Perfect. Perfect. Yeah. Perfect. Look like someone they don't want to mess with because you just don't know how they'll

react. Yeah. Right? It's really smart and good. Totally. And it's like this person's not going to go easy. You know? Yes, exactly.

It's basically like saying, come at me, motherfucker, but in the, without, you know, indirectly basically putting a little play, a little play of how I'm going to make your life hell. I'm more unpredictable than you are. Love it. Yeah. Love it. Okay. This is called a hometown story.

Oh. And then it just starts like this. I know that I'm too socially awkward to even try and write a greeting that won't end up with me getting yelled at. Hey, hey. Easy. Easy. So just pretend I'm charming and eloquent.

It'll work for all of us. You did it. You fucking did it. I mean. Congratulations. It's really easy to pretend because you make it easy. Okay. So back in 1993, I was a six-year-old girl in Australia focusing on whatever six-year-olds

focus on. Unbeknownst to me, there was a serial killer in my local area abducting, slashing and stabbing teen girls and women and killing them. And they're cats. What? Where? My dad became a suspect in the investigations. My old dad had the same make and model of car seen at the abduction sites, frequented

the area where the bodies were discovered and has a criminal record. And then it says, not for murder. And had no alibis for the times of the different murders and abductions. With the suspicions and the investigation and the rumor mill, it was useless trying to keep us five kids out of the loop. And my dad, spoiler alert, not the serial killer, managed to get a murder groupie. One of my sister's friends, 16 years old and an adult to me as a six-year-old, kept coming into our house and following my dad around and asking questions to us about him.

The final straw from my mom was at the murder groupie started to come into the house to watch my dad's sleep. My mom found her standing over my dad fast asleep and staring. And my mom promptly grabbed the nearest broom and aggressively swept chaste at her feet, yelling at her to never set foot near any of us ever again. For good. Mom was hospitalized abruptly during this time, which did not help my dad look innocent. But I and my siblings were separated, taken out of school and plonked in many different

family friends' homes until whatever process needed to be done was done. So he must have been a major suspect if they were taken out of the home. It's not good that he had the same make and model car. Even though, like, obviously the story is about that, the fact that that turned out to be a coincidence, it's not good. It doesn't bode well. None of those things do. No, it adds up real good.

It does. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for helping me more than you'll ever know. Stay sexy and don't break into your friend's home to gawk at a sleeping murder suspect, F. I mean, this was a weird enough story as it was. And F, I would just like to say, and I don't mean to attack you knowing how sensitive you

are and how eloquent you are. It would have been nice to hear how the dad got off. How the dad got off? What? Did the person get caught? Yeah, like what? Is it because they got caught? Can we have a little closure for the beginning part of the story?

Then you introduce this total, like, random element where it's like... What happened to her? Where is she now? I want to know where she is now. I bet she's a fucking investigative law enforcement or something like that, I hope. The groupie? Yeah. Or you, the person writing the email.

The groupie. It's almost like... The groupie is... The groupie is on drugs. The groupie is on drugs. Then she got cleaned. Yes. But then she cleaned herself up, got her life together, went to school.

And now she's worshiping Christ somewhere. I mean, that's, look, she is borderline. She's basically a murderino that's writing that line into full depravity. It's almost like the ones who are, you're a murderino like us, and then they're like, I wrote letters to serial killers in prison, and you're like, oh, let's take a real quick step back. That's not what we're doing. That's not it.

That's not how we do it. Although, but it could have been like the fascination of like, does she think she's a detective? That's what I was thinking. Does she think she's going to figure something out? I bet she's got some Nancy Drew fantasies. It's just the, then I want to go with that. So badly.

Me too. Watching him sleep now takes us way the fuck over the line. And now we're in our own horrible Australian. And I feel like she's a little too old for this, but what if she thought he was going to like make some sleeping admission? I killed her. You know what I mean? I mean, that would be a good alibi for her to have said, oh, this is all justified.

But I love the mom is like, no, bullshit, get the fuck, 16 year old girl, I'm not going to get you help. I'm going to get you to get the fuck out of my house. I just think this is a podcast series waiting to happen. So what's, sorry, how did they sign from somewhere in Australia? Please let us know. F, please, please fill in these gaps for us because it's all, it could go so many different ways now.

Truly. Is this the best story ever? Or is the most disturbing story ever? Okay. This is just says hometown story. Okay. Hi friends. A few years ago, I was on my way home from work when I saw a dog running loose near a

busy street. Being an ant, being the animal lover that I am, I stopped to pick her up. I knelt down and called to her and she ran full speed and jumped into my arms. Her name was chili pepper. I called it. It's my dream right now. By the way, I want to pet like an animal so bad that I'm just like, I'm like, please just come jump in my arms.

Just some stray someone. You know, you have to. Strays. That's true. You say, I want an animal so bad, like you don't have to in your house probably on your lap right now. Don't cuddle with me. No, they're not on my lap because they don't understand how lucky they are and they don't

appreciate what they have. Well, Mimi is her own person. I'm sorry. I called my cats motherfuckers too. I must defend Mimi. Dottie is, Dottie is who Dottie is, right? But Mimi, I think it's, it's like Mimi has like an impacted tooth where she's just always in a bad mood.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. Chili pepper. Sorry. Her name was chili pepper. I called the number on the tag and got no answer. So I left a voicemail letting them know that I had their dog.

The tag didn't have an address. So I took her home with me until I heard back from the owner. At the time I was living in my first apartment with my ex. He was at work and I was out on the shared balcony potting some plants with chili pepper. Our neighbor's adult son came over and asked if he could have some laundry detergent. I left the door open and had him wait there. While I was inside getting the detergent, he asked me if I was home alone. I instantly got creeped out.

I lied and told him my boyfriend was sleeping. As I actually was home alone at the time, I scooped up chili pepper and went to my family's house to wait until my ex came home. Chili pepper's owner finally gave me a call back and I was able to reunite her with her family. Later that night, I told my ex what happened and he insisted that I was overreacting. Motherfucker. We went to the Megan's Law website and guess who we saw?

Dude. Our neighbor's son. He was listed as a violent rapist. Oh my God. Good thing I knew to trust my murdering senses and get out of there. I can't help but wonder if chili pepper being there had saved me that day. No, I believe it. Because it's you.

No, I was you for sure. But like that. It was you. Yes. Yes. It's chili pepper. I was picturing the way this story is told and maybe she just didn't give chili pepper credit.

It's like chili pepper's over in the corner like chilling so stoked to be out of traffic. I was either chili pepper's going to attack the guy or chili pepper's going to run out the door and so she won't be in her house apartment alone to be attacked, you know what I mean? But no. True. Oh, sorry. Here's a sentence.

We're going to pull it together for both of us. Maybe the guy was afraid that she would attack him or bark and draw attention. Jesus. Yeah. So that, yeah. I'm seeing it. You're right. Chili pepper full credit.

I'm solving all of these hometowns today. We moved out shortly after. The building management gave us a hard time about breaking out of the lease early, but at least I knew that it would be safer than living next to a violent rapist. Say sexy and pick up that runaway dog. They just might save you too, Nicole. Oh my God, Nicole. I think Nicole's giving the credit away though.

We love chili pepper and God bless her. You're brilliant. But that was all you, Nicole. It's all you, Nicole. I'm glad that you preemptively told us that he's your ex because someone who doesn't believe in gas lights, your realistic fear, isn't someone you should be with. Or if they're a minimizer and you go over to Megan's Law website and then you're right, you have the ultimate card to play every single time they doubt you about anything, anywhere,

anytime. Do you want to get mozzarella sticks? I don't know if they're going to be good. Oh really? Because remember the time that you didn't believe me that the violent rapist. Also, whether mozzarella sticks not good, motherfucker. Are you crazy, sir? You know what?

Like, you rustic, they just basically take string cheese and then cut it in half and fucking deep fry. Like, it's terrible. It's the best mozzarella sticks I've ever had. It solves all problems, mozzarella sticks. We hate this guy so much because of the thing I made up that he didn't agree to. He's such a dick. And why can't he be a foodie like everyone else?

A foodie at Applebee's. A foodie? A foodie? A foodie who doubts here? 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. HelloFresh 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 HelloFresh's expanded menu of quick lunch solutions, weekend brunch, simple side dishes and amazing desserts. Karen, January is going to be my month for HelloFresh. 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 HelloFresh 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. Also get up to 20 free meals with purchase plus free shipping on your first box at hellofresh.ca slash murder20 with code murder20. That's up to 20 free meals plus free shipping on your first box when you go to hellofresh.ca slash murder20 and use code murder20.

Goodbye. Hey, I'm Aresha. And I'm Brooke. And we're the hosts of Wondery's podcast, Even the Rich, where we bring you absolutely true and absolutely shocking stories about the most famous families and biggest celebrities the world has ever seen. Our newest series is all about the incomparable diva, Whitney Houston. Whitney's voice defined a generation, and even after her death, her talent remains unmatched.

But her incredible success hit a deeply private pain. In our series, Whitney Houston, Destiny of a Diva, we'll tell you how she hid her true self to make everyone around her happy and how the pressure to be all things to all people led her down a dark path. Follow Even the Rich wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. Here we go. It's Friday.

Hometown story. Dear humans and pets, Happy New Year. A long, long time ago, you asked for secret relative discoveries. And I have been sitting on this story for a while, but think you'll really get a kick out of it. Right this year, my father called me with some crazy news. He told me he received a call from a man who threw DNA matching. I had recently done the Ancestry.com DNA lineage thing.

Had discovered my father was his father, meaning I had an unknown half-brother. I, being a mystery-loving murderer and an only child, was floored and so excited. After quizzing my dad for details, the stories seemed to check out. My dad offered to give me contact details for this mysterious brother, but I was on my way to work, so I had to call him later. Anyways, fast forward to a few hours later when I decided I could not wait any longer. It called my dad while still at work to get the contact info. That's when things got weird.

My dad told me the guy on the phone didn't have his own email address, but instead used his mother's. Weird, right? Yes. I started getting concerned that my dad was getting scammed. I asked if the man on the phone asked for money or if my dad really believed his story. He didn't have a great answer. So I decided to get the email from my dad and investigate myself.

I wrote it down and took a look. The email read, April Fool's Day at gmail.com. Did I forget to mention this all happened on April 1st? Then it says, Big Psy, my dad is quite the jokester. So I should have seen this coming, but he really had me. My mom apologized for marrying a psychopath, and the rest of my family called and berated him. Meaning he told everyone, called and berated him for days after on my behalf.

Can you imagine being an only child, which is hard enough, and then you're like, I have a father. This is the funniest April Fool's prank, and I am completely on the dad side of the family. You'd never expect a parent to play on April Fool's Day. If any friend called me on April Fool's Day, I'd answer the phone and be like, fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.

Fuck you. It's a parent who figured out how to sign up for Gmail, which is like a miracle. And it's hilarious to be like, I was basically like a male slut, and now you have a half brother guess, your whole mind is blown. And then he's like, haha. It's a little sad. It's a little like, if you didn't like your dad, it'd be one step too far, because the promise of a disagree, the promise of a sibling, a sibling after being an only child.

Siblings? What? Some weirdo that you don't even know that kind of has your nose like, no, don't worry about it. As in got your nose or as in like, you have to remove yourself. That reality was never there. Your dad just put up a hilarious, like, like a road runner fucking fake cave and you slammed right into it because you don't have a sibling, but you have the funniest father on the fucking

face of the earth, which is like three siblings basically. Yes. Your father's doing sibling shit with you. That's love. Exactly what siblings do. Yes. That's your dad saying, I love you this much that I'd sign up for Gmail. Then she says, thanks for secondhandedly experiencing this trauma with me.

It's not trauma. Stay sexy and don't believe everything your parents tell you, Megan, Megan, don't believe everything your parents tell you on April Fool's Day, you got got, baby. Sorry. It's your daddy. She also, she also didn't have siblings to make you a little, not, you know, like I don't trust anyone because my siblings fucked with me so much as a kid, so she didn't have that experience too.

You know what I mean? No, you're right. That's, it's a difficult thing when either when you're the oldest or when you have no siblings, you go into the world like such a dipshit, but here's the thing. I don't think Megan is young. I think Megan's been around the block of time or two. And at the very least on March 31st, put an alert into your phone that says, prepare to be fucked with in some way tomorrow.

It's not doubt everything you read, doubt everything you're told. Get ready because this is the day people are allowed to do it and your dad is a prankster. This couldn't be his first time. Absolutely not. Absolutely. You're right. Because that was high level. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's sad and hilarious and wonderful of the siblings. It's not sad. It's not sad. Actually, I just realized all my stories were father's stories. What? Oh, happy Father's Day, Georgia.

Thank you. I'm like, what day is it? Wait, what? What day? It's fucking hot like June, even though it's January, so maybe that's what it is. 88 degrees in Los Angeles, it's the middle of January. This is just hometown story and it says, hi all. In 1987, I was five years old celebrating some Girl Scout event at Chuck E. Cheese.

I'm not sure how I came to learn this, but I used to slip into the ball pit and slowly ... Oh my God. Now what? Slowly what? ... and slowly move my feet over the bottom, waiting to feel lumps of tickets and prizes that had fallen out of other children's pockets. You are a brilliant human being.

How did I not know to do that as a kid? You're a hero. You also have so many germs and bacteria on your face right now, but whatever. But they don't care because their eyes are literally on the prize, or their feet are on the prize of getting that weird stuffed animal that's super cheap. Can I say, I always thought it'd be really fun to clean up after a festival or a big show. I know there was a party at UCB Franklin, the comedy place, New Year's Eve, and I know

that people cleaning up the fucking sad interns found a big old bag of coke on the floor. I'm cleaning up after New Year's Eve. Yeah. So it's like, this is like the kid version that would be like an unopened bag of Skittles on the bottom of the ball pit. Or just a Skittle. You know a fucking kid would pop that thing in their goddamn mouth. One delicious orange Skittle.

Here's the thing I'd like to say, and this is something I'm just discovering as we're talking and as this is the topic. I grew up, as we know, I'm old. I grew up in the 70s and a little bit in the 80s. Ball pits didn't come out until like I was a teenager. Is that true? I've never been in a ball pit. And like that one that's at Ikea where you can look through a hole and like watch kids,

it looks like the funnest thing in the world to me. And I've never, I just think it's too late and I'm too old and whatever, I don't know what it feels like. I don't know anything about ball pits. It's like being in a pool, but you're not wet, which is like, it's actually, as I was saying, like this, I'm saying this as if it's better than it actually is. But I will say, I have so many thoughts. I didn't, it's one of those things that you don't realize are invented.

So like the fact that it had to be invented and wasn't when you were a kid is like fascinating. My next thing is the fucking, man, we're just keeping, we're keep adding to the exactly right party when this is over, but they're fucking ball pit. And one more thing, what can they, can you have like a traveling ball? Well, I was going to say Rachel Bloom of crazy ex-girlfriend fame, I follow her and you got it. You had to get her in there. Had to get her in there.

She just seems fun because for her husband's birthday, she taped up their office, filled it with balls because his ball pit balls, because his favorite thing was a ball pit and then turned an entire room in their house into a ball pit for the party. How do you get into that ball pit though, without opening the door and having all the balls? They put like a trash bag up to like block it. So they dropped in from the ceiling somehow. No, like it came up to like your waist.

You just climbed over the, listen, logistics don't matter. We'll figure this out for you. Okay. So A, she's lying. B, I want to. I saw pictures. I swear. Yeah.

I don't even, like I've been in a bouncy house because it's like, oh, I'll go in with the kids. Sure. Acting like I'm mad. And then I get to do that. But you can't really get into a ball pit as an adult unattended, like you can't even, if you have a kid, you're not supposed to get into a ball pit. You can when it's your fucking party.

And then. I'm gonna get easy. Eric Andre has like the craziest parties too, where he has like the slides and shit. I bet he's had a, a fucking ball or a ball pit at his. I need an adult ball pit. Yeah, we're going to do an adult, we're going to do it for you. Here we go. 2022.

Stop name dropping people. Okay. Oh, no, I was. I'm not friends with Rachel Bloom. She doesn't know who I am. Eric Andre, I think it was parties. He doesn't know who I am. Oh, he will.

Okay. Here we go. So we're back with this child in the ball pit, where let me tell you some more people I know who don't know me. What other parties have you gone to? Listen, um, look, listen, I never told anyone I was doing this. I would just make my way around the pit with my little eyes shifting back and forth, slyly filling my own pockets with what I want to know.

It's so good. So on this day, I was on my secret ball pit treasure hunt when my toes felt something cold. No, no. My toes tickled along the object and I realized it was also really long. I reached down into the pit and pulled up in all caps, full size pair of Taylor scissors. These scissors have six inch long blades. Oh my God.

When I recount the memory, I like to think that as I pulled the scissors dramatically up from the pit, they made that shink noise that happens in movies when someone un-she is the soul. Let's do it. Shink. Oh my God. Shink out of the ball pit. Little kid.

Clanky clanky clanky clank. She's got her pigtails and her six-year-olds have braces and she shink. Shink. I realized what I was holding, I just yelled, Mom, she sauntered over asking what through the little net that surrounded the pit. When she saw the enormous blades, she yanked me out and we went over to inform the manager. I don't remember much of their conversation. What I do remember is that we went directly to eat pizza.

The ball pit remained open and I went in again after watching the animatronic show. Yes. Click. It's your birthday happy birthday to little girl little boy. Don't get clank clank. Machine noises. Not one person was alarmed by this. I recently brought this up at a family party and my mom was just like, oh yeah, you were

fine. Stay sexy and beware of ball pits. Nah. Huge missed opportunity on her mother's part to get a fucking shit ton of tickets. Law suit. No. You're like a kid lawyer. A kid lawyer comes in and then it's just like, I declare you're guilty.

Excuse me. The top level prize will do. We'll take that radio that doesn't actually work. We'll take the digital radio, clock radio. What's that? G.I. Joe. We'll take that guy. One of those phones that are see through and you can see all the colored wires that

everyone loves. Yep. We'll take two of those. And I rest. What? I rest my case. Your honor. Thank you.

Nah. Thank you. That was the visuals. Truly. The visuals. Guys, you have those stories and you're like, oh, I can send that in? I can send them? That's the stupid story I have from childhood?

Yes. Honestly, if you want to send ball pit stories of any form, please, I would listen with bated breath to every ball pit story. Please tell me. Tell me what I've missed out on. I've honestly like longingly looked at the McDonald's Playland sometimes or just like, you luckies. I feel like deprived is the word and you need to bring this up in therapy.

I think this is really what's at the center of a lot of my bullshit. Your bullshit. I know. It's been a while since we got a good one in. Happy 2021. Year of the pun. Done it. We did it.

All right. We did it. We've done it. Thank you all so much for your wonderful slices of life. That was actually also, there was a lot of really personal family stories in this. And again, we thank you for sharing of yourselves. Truly and be yourself always unless you're not that cool. Okay.

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