My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 211

Episode Date: January 25, 2021

This week’s hometowns include a Lizzie Borden connection and a trucker story.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. Exhibit C, it's truly criminal. Hello and welcome to my favorite murder, the many so the twenty twenty one. That's right.

It is and I can deal with it. How are you? I'm good. I'm good. I'm rested or out of the darkness and into mass confusion and just kind of general pandemic disorganization. Yeah. But things feel definitely lighter and better.

They do. They really do. They do. They do. Feels less dire, like less dire straights, you know. Oh, we should tell everybody. Yes. It's a little bit of exciting information because we know that you've all been tuning

in and listening to the great true crime author Kate Winkler Dawson, who has her podcast Tenfold More Wicked on the Exactly Right Network. Well, guess what? Season two is about to drop. That's fucking. It's dropping as we speak. As we speak right now. And it's a new season, season two.

It's called The Body Snatcher. It's a really awesome season about it's a historical true crime story about the world's most famous grave robbers who've never actually robbed a grave. They just murdered people to get the cadavers and they're called Burke and Hare. It's an incredible story. And of course, Kate Winkler Dawson tells it so well because she is such a good storyteller and such an incredible historic mind. So it's really fucking cool.

So stick around to the end of this episode and you will hear the trailer for the brand new season of Tenfold More Wicked, The Body Snatchers. And now we're going to do the mini. So do you want to go first? Hey, sure. Let me go first. So this story is called My Trucker Dad Thwarted My Kidnapping. Oh, and it starts well.

You asked for creepy trucker stories and have I got one for you? And that's how you fucking start a letter. My dad was a cross country truck driver for most of my life, traveling all over the country as a guy who delighted in swapping various diesel engine information with good old boys over cheap, greasy food. He loved his job, but missed being at home as well. My sisters and I saw him on an average of once a month for our whole lives, but he always made sure that we knew we were his whole world.

He loves telling stories about his time on the road and I have countless to choose from, but I'll pick just one. So if this is too long and then there's a bunch of emojis that I don't understand that I'm guessing mean, sorry, I don't know, square box, square box, female sign, square box. This story happens when I was about four or five years old. During the summers, my sisters and I would take turns going with our dad in the truck for a week or two, and as a way to spend more quality time together, it was my favorite part of the year.

Honestly, I got to travel all over the country, eat at every truck stop you could imagine, and most of all, have fun with my dad. When I was about four years old, I was with my dad one summer and he had some minor engine repairs to do on the truck. He pulled over a small mom and pop type gas station, set me under a nearby tree with my doll and crawled out of the truck to get to work. As you can imagine, laying on the hot asphalt underneath a boiling hot engine, my dad suffered a heat stroke and passed out.

Who knows how long he was out, but he came to suddenly with a blinding headache and looked over to where I sat under the tree, only to see a man creeping up behind me, arms out stretched, getting ready to snatch me up. It sounds like the Swamp Man kind of, right? The creature from the block. That's what I meant. Thank you very much, Karen, who was into TMC classic movies on Friday nights and I appreciate that.

And your brain, apparently. My dad quickly scrambled out from under the truck, red faced and sweaty, brandishing whatever tool was nearest and started screaming like a madman. The guy ran off and my dad collapsed onto the ground. The little old lady working at the gas station heard the commotion and ran out to help. She took us inside and watched over me while my dad got some much needed medical attention. I can't imagine what would have happened if he hadn't woken up when he did and I'm always grateful that he was able to muster up the last bit of energy he had to save my life.

For real. I have countless other creepy trucking stories that my dad has told me over the years, like the time he witnessed a murder in the middle of the night to one of his buddies while they were driving down the road. But that's another email for another day. Wow. Love you guys. Thanks for helping keep my spirits up during this batshit crazy year.

Stay sexy and stay hydrated. Heat strokes are no joke, Kathleen. Very true, Kathleen. Kathleen, great job. Kathleen's dad. Great job. That's right. The idea that he passed out from a heat stroke but had like parent ESP to come to knowing

his child was in danger, that's like proof there's ESP. That and like only seeing your kids once a month, which is I think a necessity in a lot of careers, but making sure that your kids have special memories of you and like special moments in their childhood, despite really not living with you that much, I think is a lovely thing. Don't you think? Oh, you're saying because the dad as a long haul trucker wasn't around that much. She said he came around once a month, but always made sure that he knew he was you

know, I didn't really focus on that point when I was like, what is this specific thing she's probably because Marty every other weekend was not enough for me. No, it's like maybe it's even a stronger bond because they look forward to being around you and they have all their maybe the mom is pissed the fuck off that she has to discipline them every fucking day and the dad gets to come around once a month and have that's definitely true. That's that's more Marty and Janet than than this is. That's I think all divorced parents where the mom had, I mean, the moms do all the work

they're the bad guy and dad comes and buys you, you know, your favorite toy. Absolutely. Yeah. Yep. I mean, nothing of it, my parents were happily married for about 50 years, sorry, but in your face. Don't make me spit this fucking wine out. This is good wine right on the microphone in my face about my childhood.

I just in your face about perhaps one of the more painful things in your life. Why would I do that? Fucked up. I'm sorry. I apologize to you. This is why we're friends. Are you crying? No, I'm laughing like fuck that.

That's fucked up. Okay. No, sorry. No, I love it. Sorry. Keeping us on our toes. Okay. Here's my first email.

Uh, Georgia and Karen, you asked for stories about picking up hitchhikers and instantly regretting it. Do you're doing that? No, but that sounds like a theme. But I mean, sure. Do it always. I have never told this story to anyone when I was very young. When I was a very young, very naive teenager in the suburbs of Massachusetts, I was driving

home in the middle of the day when a young kid came flying out of the wealthiest neighborhood and flagged me down. He was about my age and looked genuinely distressed. So I assumed he was from my high school. He got in and he asked for a ride to the nearby train station. Since it was only about a 10 minute drive, I said, sure. As we exchanged small talk, it dawned on me that I had never seen this person in my life. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

I was suddenly so aware that I was alone in an enclosed space with a total stranger. He sensed my nervousness and laughed, don't worry. If I was going to rape you, I would have done it already. That did it. I stopped the car and said, get out of here. He started to protest. I don't remember what came out of my mouth next, but I've never spoken that way to anyone ever.

Luckily, I hadn't had two cents. The only thing I do remember is my hand reaching for the CD holder above my head, prepared to shatter one to use as a weapon if necessary. Yes, do it. Luckily, my cursing and yelling scared him off and he finally got out of my car. I drove away shakily and never told a soul because that one was on me. Thanks for reading and just so you know, and just know that as an adult who spent almost a decade in New York City and listened to five years of this podcast, I know better

now. Dude, we all do. Name. We all do. We all did it. Don't be embarrassed. Tell your friends. You know, laugh about it and they'll have similar stories.

And also, here's what I love. She said, get out now. And that wasn't a question, it wasn't just see what his response was. She said it and she backed it up and yeah, he knew. He knew there was no arguing. He knew there was no chill and you know, you know, you're being crazy. Give me this right. And you know what else?

That day, that's not a joke. I love it. He learned in a way that is very important. That's not a joke. That was, I love that story. That's the coming of age understanding story that we made a big mistake at one point. We all fucking did. I wrote about it in the book when I took my top off for a quote unquote professional photographer

in fucking seclusion and was like, wow, let's not get ourselves in this situation ever again. Right. The first time I've ever fucking talked about it was in the book. Yeah. This one's called the day the FBI raided my job for a crime I predicted. Oh, it just starts. I have a reputation for having the best luck with getting magical, interesting jobs.

When I was in high school, I worked as an assistant in research and development for Maytag and literally got paid to write down numbers my uncle said out loud after we flooded, blew up or dropped washing machines from the third story of the building. Yes. So you already win. To this day, I don't think the numbers meant a damn thing. When I randomly moved to Nashville and quickly got a job as the receptionist at a vinyl pressing production plant and on my second day, shadowed someone giving a tour of the plant to Radiohead.

Oh shit. Yeah. But one of my favorite jobs ever was working as a movie theater projectionist. This was right after college and right after the switch to digital. So I just whizzed around in a rolling chair program, programming a supercomputer in the evenings before nestling down in a theater with the last of the day's popcorn and screened the films with my best friend slash roommate, Rana Reina. That is a dream job though.

There's nothing. Oh, I also worked in a movie theater when I was 19. You have to. It was my favorite. Asher the Esher. My brother. Asher the Esher. Who also worked there as a projectionist.

So we mostly worked on an island from the rest of the operations because projectionists to me were like the big guns. You didn't fuck with them. No, no. They were like scientists. Totally. We were just down there selling dots and like I was just down there secretly eating a box of dots all day long, but like the projectionist came in, you're just like, is he a vampire?

Is he the smartest man in the world? Is he make the movie? I don't know. I'm an Irvine. Is that David Lynch? I love him. I'm in love with him. Okay.

At the theater, there were plenty of high school kids who started there when they were 14 and had worked their way up to the shiny and distinguished position of shift supervisor. And then there's a diamond emojis happening. I just think that's important to note. One such supervisor is fancy. It's fancy. Yeah. It's like, oh my God.

You know, when you were like 14, they're that manager and you're like, oh, I better be cool to them. And they're like a 16-year-old. That's right. Yeah. They set the hours. That's right. So once.

They can find my box of dots. Okay. Sorry. Let's just keep going. Let's talk about dots. One such person was Michael who relished his power over his friends slash roommates and was mostly known among staff as a supervisor who would sneak expired concession stand food out of the back of the building and trash bags with the leftover popcorn.

Told you. Is that you? No, no, no. I just ate the one box of dots. Okay. Got it. Got it. So these guys were, they were like a heist compared to you.

Yeah. Well, it was expired food. It was a heist where there's no treasure. The next line says expired hot dogs, jalapeno poppers and mozzarella sticks were crowding the freezers of everyone who worked there, including ours, remember, remember when you had a shop at John's and buy the lowest level value meat. They were so excited to be eating expired mozzarella instead of top ramen for one week. It was just like, thank God this finally happened.

After I had been there for a year or so, Michael announced that he had gotten a new job as a bank teller and dramatically gave his two weeks notice. I turned to Rana, Rana, Rana and said, for sure that bank is getting robbed. Oh, fast forward to six months later when I walked into work and found three FBI agents standing in the lobby. Yes. They were there to talk to Michael's roommates and girlfriend. Michael had been found that morning tied to a chair at the bank with only a bloody nose

after having been, quote, kidnapped and forced to empty an ATM. Turns out the man who had appeared on the bank's security cameras in a mask leading Michael around and it says with no weapon was his roommate, Brendan, and the $17,000 they stole was found in a few trash bags, wait, hold it, along with day old popcorn and the trunk of Brendan's car in the theater parking lot. Okay. You know what this says to me, P-O-T spell stoners. Oh, pot, pot, pot, smell stoners.

Got it. Yes. All told there were four guys who masterminded the, quote, heist and all, and they all spent some time in jail and were fined $250,000 each. Oh, shit. Stay sexy and don't eat expired hot dogs. Megan. Yes.

Epic. Classic, epic hometown. If I had walked into the movie theater and I saw three FBI agents, I'd be like, they fucking found out about the dots. They know what I'm doing. Karen and the dots. That's your fucking band name, right there. Oh my God, that's good.

I love that it like, it also happened almost immediately after he left. And she was like, that bank's getting rough. Like why would, who would hire her? Who hired him? You know, as, as old Jim Kilgariff likes to say, there's certain people who can't keep their hands out of the till. And it sounds like that guy was one of them. Jim Kilgariff, that's a great, I want to know who he thinks that is.

I bet he thinks it's me. He's, no, no, he's just saying in general, you know, here, but there's certain people that can't handle it. Like there's, there's, I just saw a thing the other day on Twitter, it was about a woman who embezzled like, you know, some huge amount of money from a children's charity. And it just happens all the time where it's like, they put themselves in the position to be in charge of money and can't steal money. The audacity of thinking that you're smarter than the fucking company you work for and

no one's going to find out. Right. Like we're the kind of people who walk into a store where we're going to buy something and are terrified someone's going to think we're shoplifting always, even though we have no intention of shoplifting a little bit. And well, you know, the idea runs through our heads. If you get a shot, you know, you never know, you're not hurting anyone. All right, go.

Okay. The subject line of this letter is Lizzie Borden, treasure. Hey, y'all, I just finished your live episode where Karen covers the story of Lizzie Borden and I knew I had to write in. I grew up in Arizona, but all my extended family lives on the East Coast. That means I have a ton of aunts, uncles and cousins I only hear about occasionally on holidays. Your insert unrecognizable name of family member just had her gallbladder removed, etc.

So imagine my surprise when last Christmas I saw a gift onto the tree from my aunt Louise in Rhode Island. Louise. My aunt Louise married my mom's brother, so we aren't related by blood, but I'd heard some casual conversations about her and my uncle while I was growing up. I looked at my mom questioningly and she responded that Christmas morning, mom smirked that only meant you were about to open something good. I don't think I've ever been more in shock when opening a present before.

My aunt Louise had sent me, wait for it, authentic 1890s lace cuffs straight from Lizzie Borden's house lace cuffs. I had known for a few years that my aunt Louise is related by blood to Lizzie Borden. Louise's mom was a Borden. My mom had always said that my uncle joked about not letting her near sharp utensils just in case. Apparently, my mom had called her to ask if she could sign a book about Lizzie Borden to give me for Christmas and my aunt had responded, just a book, do you think she'd like something

even better? She went up the shit out of you. My aunt Louise told how to give a gift. What bitch? Aunt Louise dash Borden is not going to take direction. She sent the handmade cuffs across the country for me to have. I called my aunt pretty immediately after opening them to gush and say thank you approximately 1000 times.

My aunt said that her side of the family has possession over all types of clothing, furniture, and even documents from the Borden house before it was turned into a bed and breakfast slash museum. It's actually for sale. It's recently for sale. Exactly right offices for the when the pandemic's over. Yes or no. Stephen's clapping.

Also the La Bianca house here in fucking Los Felices for sale. I feel like we have dueling coasts. Terrifying. How terrifying. Dueling coasts. I mean, I just feel like we should keep it local. It's easier for everybody to not move to Rhode Island in the middle of pandemic. But we can discuss it at the next.

Yes, you're right. This isn't inappropriate. I'm sorry. Yes, this is inappropriate and possibly actionable conversation. Okay. Yeah. After we talked about all the history and details, I finally asked her, do you think she did it?

And she answered pretty casually, honey, we all do. Aunt Louise. I live in Austin, Texas now and thankfully my roommate is also a listener and a murderer Reno and agreed to hang the cuffs at the entryway of our apartment as the ultimate conversation. Hey, do you want to hook up? But quickly just know I'm descended from, I don't know if you care about murder or not, but this happened. Yeah.

Get into my room. Right. I'll keep you guys updated if we get a ghost. Please. Fingers crossed. Please stay sexy and keep in touch with that distant aunt. You never know if she's related to an axe murderer. Mallory.

Mal. Oh, that's a good name. Yeah. Do you have those married into cousins and aunts or uncles that you've known your whole life that they didn't marry and knew they're not your blood relative, but you fuck, but you fucking like, like you gravitate towards them at parties. Yes. Remember, I actually ran into one on the street in Santa Barbara.

It was so out of context because I only ever see her at Thanksgiving or Christmas at my aunt Jo's house. Yeah. I ran into each other. She was like, Karen. I'm your fucking Karen. I remember that. And I was in that weird mode of like, hi, nice to meet you.

Like phony mode. We had just done a three hour meet and greet, so you were right. And I saw your face and I was like, oh, I've never seen Karen like this before. So embarrassing. It was so like, it was like I was pretending. Yeah. Like pretending. Yeah.

Hi. And she's like, oh my God. And you couldn't fix it after that either. You couldn't be like. No. And then Donna, who was like married to like are the fucking like crowning king of cousins Jeff and Donna was like the queen and they divorced. But she was she Donna Schwartz was is a queen.

And every time you go to a party, like a Hanukkah party, no matter how old you were, you're like, Donna, can I just be in a fucking room with you and hang out with you Southern and not Jewish. So she was just like loud and drunk and she was like the most fun. Yes. I love that. I love that. And Yolanda, my fucking sister-in-law, it's like, oh, yeah, she's great.

That cousin or that person that you're like, you're not one of us. Can I fucking please talk to you? Yeah. There's a warning because I have 28 cousins. We actually have lots of these, like the first, you know, the first person it's like Deirdre. And I mean, there's, you know, I've known you since I was a child. You're my cousin as much as Southern person.

I don't give a shit if we have blood involved. Sure. It's a negative to you. It's a negative. In my family. It's not a plus. Okay. That was a great, that was a great story.

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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 Mike Corey, the host of Wondery's podcast against the odds. In our next season, three masked men hijack a school bus full of children in the sleepy farm town of Chowchilla, California.

They bury the children and their bus driver deep underground, planning to hold them for ransom. Local police and the FBI marshal a search effort, but the trail quickly runs dry. As the air supply for the trapped children dwindles, a pair of unlikely heroes emerges. Follow against the odds wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. Okay, I have one more email to read. And this actually, so this is from a Reddit thread.

I found out about this because a Reddit thread got posted on Twitter. And so a bunch of murdering knows, let us know that this person was writing in and they were trying to get heard. But of course, our Gmail is chock full and no one had read this email. So we got the heads up and we went in and found it. And actually, I began to email with this person and had a good conversation with them. And so they sent this email. And before I get started, I just want to give a trigger warning.

This is a very intense letter. So people, if you're sensitive to sexual assault stories, you're not going to want to listen to this. A few months ago, a coworker turned me towards the MFM podcast because a story was told about me. Spoiler alert, I wasn't murdered. For reference, it was episode 92 in October of 2017. I actually wrote to you once before and indicated that I didn't want anything more published

that I just wanted to set the record straight. But I've had a few months to sit on this and some time to bounce it off my therapist. And I've decided that I do want to tell my story. It was so crazy to hear my worst nightmare told on a podcast. It felt like a violation. So much of this has felt like something that happened to me and I want to control this part of the narrative. I want my real story told by me with my consent.

On January 8th, 2017, I was working as a medical legal death investigator and forensic autopsy tech. I was working as Swingshift alone. The building we were in at the time was old and decrepit. The building was not connected to any hospital, though it did house the county morgue. The upstairs part of the building was primarily offices and the basement was the autopsy suite and body cooler. That night, the region was experiencing widespread flooding due to rain melting the snowpack.

Law enforcement resources were stretched thin and the old building was leaking and threatening to flood. The county had made press releases that county facilities would be closed the next day. In addition to scene investigations, part of my duties were to process cases for autopsy the next morning. Traditionally, I would do all of my writing and follow up from my cubicle upstairs and save the hands-on processing until the very end of my shift. I would rather process three bodies in a row all at once versus go downstairs three times

during my shift. Even after years of working with the deceased, the downstairs creeped me out. While I was upstairs writing a report, my computer keyboard malfunctioned. I spent some time fiddling with it, but ultimately decided to go downstairs to an abandoned office, turned storage room to get a replacement. Normally, I wouldn't have gone downstairs for another 45 minutes or so, but I couldn't finish my report without a keyboard. I was in the office storage room with my back to the door.

When I turned around, there was a man leaning on the door frame. He was wearing a scary clown mask. He was calm and cocky, and he told me, you're early. He knew my routine. I was kind of frozen for a second. He rushed toward me, and I swung the keyboard at him like a baseball bat. To this day, I can see some of the keys flying off in slow motion. He pushed me against a bookcase, hard.

My vision went white. I think my bell got rung pretty good because there's a couple seconds I can't account for. He had my right hand pinned up near my head. He grabbed at my skirt and ripped it. I thought he was trying to pull off my lanyard that had a key card and physical keys to the building. I tried to hit him, but I couldn't get any leverage.

He was so close to me. Nothing I did got any response until I tried to pull the mask off. That's when he pulled the knife. He rubbed the knife over my face. He cut my cheek and showed me my blood on the blade. He called me a whore. He told me to undress, and when I refused, he put the knife under my collarbone right at the subclavian artery and told me he would paint the walls red.

He raped me. When I yelled and begged him to stop, he laughed and asked who was supposed to hear me scream. He stopped and told me to get on my knees. For the first time, he didn't have the knife to my chest or throat. I didn't think about it. I grabbed the knife by the blade and ran. Running up the stairs, I kept feeling something weird on the handrail. It turns out it wasn't the handrail that was weird, it was my hand.

I started to run outside, but realized I didn't know where he was. Our old building was like a maze. I started to go to my desk, but stopped and hid under another investigator's desk. I couldn't find my cell phone, and I called 911 from the desk phone. It took a couple of tries, having to remember to dial 9-9 before dialing out. I vividly remember hiding under the desk, trying to whisper to the dispatcher and watching the blood run down my fingers and pool on the ground. Our building was supposed to be secure, and the responding police officers had no way

to gain entry. I had to leave the desk and walk through two doors and a hallway to let them in. The whole time, I was expecting him to pop out, but he didn't. It took law enforcement a while to clear the building. They didn't have keys, were unfamiliar with the maze-like layout, and had to search every body bag. The man in the clown mask wasn't found. I was released from the ER several hours later, my supervisor drove me home, but we

first had to go back to the building to collect my wallet and keys. It was dreamlike. Seeing the red and blue lights illuminate the area. Officers and deputies patrolling in pairs in the pouring rain reminded me of a scene from a movie. After the scene was processed, my coworkers cleaned my blood from the office, stairs, desk, doors, and wall. An email went out to the majority of the staff, telling them not to report until 0800 hours.

One of my coworkers, who are also my partners and best friends, went downstairs to prepare everything for autopsy, they found evidence that he had been waiting for me in the autopsy suite. Arranged on the back of an evidence cart, next to an exam table, were long strips of red duct tape. Two long pieces, two shorter pieces. The red duct tape was dog-eared, which is never done with evidence. As it was described to me, they were ready for someone at the floor level to be able

to easily grab, ready to go. If I had been going down to processed bodies in my usual routine, I would have walked backwards, pulling a gurney to that exact spot. No arrest has ever been made. The only DNA that was recovered from my clothing wound up belonging to my infant son from where I had held him before going to work. The investigation of my case was transferred from one jurisdiction to another as the attack happened in a county building.

This resulted in twice as many law enforcement officers being involved in various ways. The detectives investigating my case forgot to flag it as confidential, resulting in an unknown number of deputies reading details of my case. One deputy shared details of my case on a hookup app. One high-ranking officer shared the details with their family, and that is how it came to you in the first place. That night turned my world upside down. I moved, changed cars, my kids changed schools, and I ultimately resigned.

The new facility that we moved into a month later is state-of-the-art with cameras, alarms, and ballistics glass, but I was never again comfortable being alone in the morgue at night. I will always have to live with the knowledge that someone very smart, collected, and comfortable in a morgue is still out there. We know that he had been in the building at least twice before and likely once after. I don't know what exactly he had planned, but I'm thankful for a random faulty keyboard spacebar. I'm okay.

It took a while of not being okay to be where I am now. I wanted to write to you because I think sometimes the person part of your stories gets overlooked. I found and reached out to the person who initially shared my story, but I think I freaked them out. Perhaps they were concerned that I was the perpetrator. Oops. If you have any questions about details or you need clarification, I'm happy to unscramble this.

Thank you for your time. We told a story that was third hand and not the person's story to tell. I don't think that the person who wrote in had malicious intent, but I think this is a very good lesson for all of us when we think about what we're doing and how we're talking and who we're talking about. Our apologies to you who had to hear her story on a podcast. That's the last thing that we want to happen. That's not what we're trying to do and it's not what it's about and we should have thought

it through. We're going to try our best to keep aware of this and to keep you in mind so that we avoid mistakes like this in the future. And so George and I have decided that we're going to donate $10,000 to the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network to RAIN and we thank you for your understanding and for writing in and communicating with me and letting us retell your story the way you wanted it told. And yeah, I think that's it. Yeah.

Thank you guys so much. Thanks for listening. And stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? Yeah. Susan, how do you want to be introduced?

You can just use my first name if you don't mind. And tell me, you know, what your trepidation just is in general? Well, I would hate for any member of our family to have something bad happen just because we were unfortunately related to a serial killer. Susan's worried about this podcast, even though her great, great, great uncle died almost 200 years ago. This is season two of Tenfold More Wicked on Exactly Right. I call this story the Body Snatcher.

Nineteenth Century Scotland, 16 helpless victims killed using a brilliant method, two ruthless murderers, but only one had a conscience, and one ambitious doctor, Dr. Robert Knox, who pioneered modern medicine in the laboratory. Students fought to get into his classroom because he had fresh bodies for them to dissect. You don't have to make it more gory. It's already two people that are killing people for money. It's gory enough. This season is about discrediting myths.

You've got no idea who's telling the truth. If he was a doctor, he must know that many people just don't die. It's about betrayal. There's only one particular person who has a vendetta against Knox at that point. He seems to have been the only corpse who had known that he was about to be murdered. It's about why William Burke and William Hare still matter. They would have just gone into a grave and rotted away. Because they were taken to Knox, they trained thousands of surgeons on them.

And how this story ends shocked everyone in 19th century Europe. It even shocks me now. These bodies have been had to here probably a little over a year, and so they're almost all skeletonized. It's quite shocking when you find out that there's a mass murderer in your family tree, and we literally have a skeleton in the closet. Ultimately, it's about a family that just wants answers about the killer in their past. So he had to have known that that's who was in the tea chest.

Right. They lied. Wow. Wow. I never heard anything about this. I'm Kate Winkler-Dawson, and this is season two of Tenfold More Wicked, a podcast about the world's most famous grave robbers, who never actually robbed a grave. Season two of Tenfold More Wicked is now available on Exactly Right.

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