My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 220

Episode Date: March 29, 2021

This week’s hometowns include a nudist colony and a bathroom mirror design update.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. Today is the season three premiere of Tenfold More Wicked, and we're sharing the new season trailer at the end of this episode.

The podcast was recently included in Newsweek's top true crime podcasts and most gripping true crime podcast of 2021. Written, researched, and hosted by Kate Winkler Dawson, season three of Tenfold More Wicked is called Murder in the Court. It's a historical true crime story about a fractured family in 1930s Texas. On one night in April of 1935, revered associate Supreme Court Justice William Pearson and his wife Lena were murdered. And the suspect shocked everyone with a controversial defense that still angers people today.

Check out the season three premiere of Tenfold More Wicked available now. And tune in every Monday to see how it all unfolds. Plus, if you haven't listened to Tenfold More Wicked already, check out season one called All That Is Wicked and season two called The Body Snatcher. Learn to Tenfold More Wicked on Stitcher, Apple Podcast Spotify, or wherever you listen. And if you're already a fan, please write a review of the show. Follow on Instagram at Tenfold More Wicked, Facebook at Tenfold More Wicked, and Twitter at Tenfold More.

Goodbye. Hello. And welcome to my favorite murder, the mini-soad. That's Karen Kilgarith. That's Georgia Hartstark. And away. Oh, wait. There you go.

Goodbye. Thank you. Absolutely. Great. If you're new to mini-soad, this is where we read your emails back to you based on all kinds of subjects we've asked for over the past five full years. And hey, if you're starved for more mini-soads, as of right now, we're going to start doing a separate fourth each mini-soad.

It's called what? Mini mini-soad. The mini mini-soad. So that's just for the fan cult. Yep. So if you want to be a part of that and you're not in the fan cult, then you need to join my favorite murder.com. And there's merch discounts.

There's merch upon signing up. There's forum. There's cool shit going on. And when we finally tour again, there's advance tickets. And until then, there's exclusive content like the mini mini-soad. Hey-oh. Brand name. Copyright trademark.

All right, here's the first email and the subject line is home fire. Hello, all y'all. Are you still interested in home fire stories? If so, then I have one for you. I'm from a northern Canadian town and I lived with my husband and three young kids on a hobby farm in the country. On days with a lot of snow, the kids would stay home as it was too dangerous for the bus to transport them to town from school.

One such snow day, I was headed out to the barn to do chores and thought I would quickly grab the cold coals from our fireplace and take them outside to dispose of them. In parentheses, you see where this is headed. I grabbed a stray cardboard box, parentheses. Yes, I said cardboard. Now you really know where this is headed. I shoveled out the fireplace into the box and tossed it out back to grab on my way to the barn, feeling confident that all the coals were cold and there was so much snow

to dampen the potential fire that I went in, got on all my warm gear and told the kids where I was headed. I believe they were in middle school at the time, so well equipped to look after themselves. I went out to the barn and did my chores and turned to come back and noticed a big black cloud of smoke coming from the house, specifically the deck by the back door of my house. I ran to find my deck on fire. To the point of coals rolling from the hole, it had created towards the wooden wall of my house.

Oh my God. I ripped the door open and screamed at my kids to quote, all caps, bring me water. The deck is on fire. I began shoveling snow on it and it hissed, but it hissed at me if it kept smoldering. The boys came out with two glasses of water and my middle guy said, I came out with water to put it up before, but Sheldon, and then in parentheses, my oldest child said, you must be doing something. So we went out to play our game.

Oh my God. Sorry. So we went back in to play our game. Oh my God. Teenage boys. Oh, Sheldon and his little brother. Oh, I love that show. I don't know if I should be proud that they think I'm quirky enough to be creating some

kind of fiery project on the deck and that they would leave me at my quote unquote art or alarmed that they think I'm capable of lighting the house on fire while they are in it and just walk away. Regardless, they've made it to adulthood and the big black hole on our deck was a good story for many years. Stay sexy and don't put coals even if you think they're cold in cardboard boxes. Oh, no name. Oh, that is a good cautionary tale because I feel like people underestimate the power,

the burning power of coal. Of coal. This episode is brought to you by the coal industry. By the burning power of coal. Wow. What is a hobby farm, A? That's just when you raise animals, but till they die or just for fun. That's nice.

You're not competing at the fair, you're not selling off your stuff. No one gets eaten at Thanksgiving. All right. Unless they're very bad. Okay. Gunshot wound, but injury national park. Yes. Thank you.

What is my ideal birthday party? Hey, hi. Hello. I'm a park ranger from one of the country's most visited national parks. I know I should stay out of the forest, but too late. Yellowstone. As part of the park search and rescue team, I go out on calls to help people who have been injured.

Typically, these are broken or twisted ankles, altitude sickness, and other somewhat boring ailments. Last summer, we got a call that was definitely more exciting. Two gunshots were reported near the park's most popular destination, an alpine lake about two miles up trail. As I'm gearing up and our team is gathering to head out to the call, the story develops. Every detail is more strange than the last. Here's the scoop.

These are the emails we live for. National park scoops. That's right. On the next. A man in his late sixties decided to carry a firearm for the first time in his life while in the park with his daughter and young grandchildren for, quote, wildlife safety purposes. I understand the concern about wildlife encounters, especially for folks who are not used to this environment.

He had nothing to worry about, though, as he was in the most populated part of the entire park and would be more likely to come upon teenage skinny dippers or a group of Christian campers playing their music way too loud than bears or cougars. Blow them out of the water. Either way. Blow them away. Make it Christians. Get those Christian guitar playing hippies and blow them out of the water.

Grandpa. The lake has his old timey revolver got caught on something inside his fanny pack fired and shot him in the back side of his upper thigh. Sorry, you said old time revolver. Old timey revolver. That's the gun he decided to fucking bring with him. Like an old colt 45 down at the shoot so he shot himself in the butt that she says let's just call it what it is a gunshot wound in the butt.

An FBI agent just so happened to be off duty at the lake with his own family. And when he tried to confiscate and unload the gun, he shot another round off into the lake. Oh my God. Grandpa. How old was this gun Civil War? I don't know, but this is why once law enforcement Rangers entered the scene and determined it was not in fact an active crime scene, we were able to rescue the entered man.

We bandaged him up, put him on our mountain adapted stretcher and rolled him on down the hill. So humiliating. I know. I know. Nauseous. Stomach down. Yeah.

Down the hill. Nausea. I'd love to see them just like push him. Whoo. Like a sled. We'll meet you down there. Yep. Nauseous and drugged up.

He asked our lead why he was hearing quote so many female voices. Well, you have a lot of female Rangers helping take care of you today. To which he responded, I know a lot of guys who shoot themselves in the ass on purpose just to be carried down a mountain by some beautiful women. Yes. It's fun to know that even with a bullet inside their bodies and the knowledge that they could have accidentally shot their seven year old grandchild, old white men still have the capacity to make a pass at you while you're sweaty, frustrated and carrying their

body down a mountain. I found out a week later that this man's butt shot was somewhat of a blessing in disguise. Through his hospital visit and testing, he discovered he has cancer and is now able to seek treatment. Oh my God. Turns out shooting himself in the ass might have saved his life. Yes. Stay sexy and don't carry your gun in a fanny pack.

Say it with us, everyone. A, she, her. Oh my God. Twist and turns. How old was that gun? I need to know. You know, he bought it at like some kind of a weird exhibition where it has a pearl handle and they told him that like they told him that general Custer, Billy, the kid's brother

lent it to him. I just see him with two hands, got any chance shooting in the fucking, what was his name in the cartoon? Yosemite Sam. Yosemite fucking Sam in it up. Oh, I wonder if it was Yosemite. I mean, it would have been the perfect thing. Oh, grandpa.

I guess I'll just bring my gun camping with my family. That's right. I might need to find off a bear. You know, in case a bear comes, right? This guy needs to stay out of the forest if anyone. This guy needs to stay away from everybody. Okay. Let's see.

The subject line of this is sleepy English village murders, hauntings, and a highway woman. Yes. It's a little hello to Frank. My dog is also called Frank, but he is an asshole. Mine is too. He was just laying here licking the carpet. Frank.

Look him. Oh, Frankie. Come on. What are you doing? Happy, happy. What are you doing? He's like, I can smell something. It's a latte, Frank.

Okay. I grew up in a traditional little English village called Wheat Hampstead. I bet you that's not how it's pronounced. Wheat Hampstead. Wheat Hampstead. Wheat Hampstead. Wheat Hampstead. Wheat Hampstead.

Wheat Hampstead. In Herpfercher, Wheat Hampstead. Oh, sorry. No. In Herpfercher. Wheat Hampstead. Wheat Hampstead. Wheat Hampstead.

Wheat Hampstead is the epitome of a typical idyllic village. So obviously we have a long history of murders. In the 17th century, there was a spate of highway robberies on Ferrer's Lane, a street named after the rich aristocratic family that owned most of the parish. At this point in time, highwaymen were not uncommon. However, during one raid, the highwayman was mortally wounded and upon checking the body, they found it was not a highwayman, but in fact, a highwaywoman. The woman was later identified as Lady Catherine Ferrer's, the only child in sole heir to

the Ferrer's fortune. Catherine was raised as a lady, but by age 14, she had been orphaned and married off to a man who took control of her entire estate. Her husband wasted no time in selling off her family's assets. To build back her dwindling wealth, she took to the night and became the infamous highwayman. Wow. Slash woman, where she ultimately met her demise. She was later nicknamed the Wicked Lady and is said to haunt the area surrounding Ferrer's

Lane, called the Devil's Dyke. Now, this is where it gets creepy. In 1957, a local girl was abducted and murdered, 1957. A local girl was abducted and murdered on her way home from a dance hall and her frozen body was found a months later in the Devil's Dyke. Police concluded that she must have been kept in a chest freezer and the case was coined the Deep Freeze Murder, only a handful of people at the time actually own chest freezers. So, it should have been easy enough to identify the killer.

However, the murder remains a cold case to this day. In 1977, the body of Janie Shepard, an Australian heiress, was also found in the Devil's Dyke. The case was later linked to the beast of Shepard's Bush. In 2009, a suitcase containing a human arm was found by a dog walker on the common. It was discovered that a man named the Jigsaw Killer murdered his landlord, 49-year-old Jeffrey Howe, and scattered his body parts around her furture and Lestershire. The killer is now serving 36 years. And sadly, these are not the only cases of bodies being found on Ferrer's Lane.

But that doesn't stop it from still being used as a popular location for dog walking, cycle rides, and cricket matches. Oh my God. Hope you like this, I know, right? I do. I hope you like this little collection of sleepy English Village murders. Thanks for all you do, E. Love the idyllic setting.

I mean, this is like your favorite TV show, essentially. And you know what would be amazing? It was a British, it's the amalgamation of all my favorite TV shows because it starts in the long ago village era, the 1700s village era, and it moves all the way through and it's like layers of crime. Is it the same guy? It was like a vampire? Yes.

It could be like a fantasy thing. It could be bad forest spirits, eternal evil that lives in a certain area of the forest that's been unlocked, that plays upon the idyllicness of the shire. What about a generation of like the grandpa was the great grandpa, the grandpa, and then current day and needs to stop with this line? They're so greedy that they no longer want for money because they have all the money. Now they want human, whatever. What if like they test the DNA from the 1700s ones and realize that the killer's DNA matches

the killer's from because they're, I want to stick with the grandpa thing. You seem to really like the Dracula style. It feels like a vampire or like an eternal being kind of vibe. I do. Yeah, I do too. I do too. I don't mind it at all. The occult is always very interesting because then it's that thing of like, well, this could

never happen in our town. It must be a gateway to hell. Right. Right. That's underneath the richest town. Instead of the realistic thing, like we want to pretend it's more sinister than just plain old terrible. Right.

Hello, people and pets. If there's anything to be thankful for in the shithole of COVID, it's that my dad finally got enough whiskey in him to give me the details on his connection to our hometown murder. Well, our hometown apprehension. I grew up in a small farm town outside Sacramento, and yes, I can confirm that sack is just as shitty as Karen describes. Thank you. A town that's home to an elementary school, two churches, and for no logical reason, a

nudist colony. What? It must be near the river. Yeah, right. The town that's home to an elementary school, I already fucking said that, the colony over enthusiastically named Laguna del Sol sits at the end of a country road just about a mile or so away from where I grew up. Back in 1991, I was at the ripe old age of six and my dad was working as a realtor.

His office's secretary, a lovely woman in her late sixties, was a permanent resident of the nudist colony, a life decision she decided to share with everyone she worked with, a perfect visual. One day, her and a couple of her friends were lounging by the pool when her friends realized the guy at the other end of the pool looked a little familiar. Where have they seen that face? And hopefully it was only the face they recognized before. It was the guy from a recent Bolo, a.k.a. beyond the lookout, that had been blasted

out across California, the one and only Carrie Stainer. Oh, no. The piece of shit Yosemite Hiker, we've done, we've covered that before if you want to look for it. It's fucked up. That's early days. Yeah. As the story goes, they realized who he was, likely shit their non-existent pants and

then called the cops. Good plan words there. As they waited for the cops to come, they got a little worried, Stainer might realize what was happening and try to leave. I can't imagine three nudists sprinting away from the pool was very discreet. So they figured out what car was Stainers and then parked their car directly behind it to block him in. At the end of the day, Stainer didn't try to leave and was arrested inside the nudist

colony in an oddly calm manner. So that's the story of how Carrie Stainer was arrested down the street from a childhood home. And it only took 21 years for my dad to clue me in on the details. Here's the obligatory and well deserved shout out thank you to you ladies. I've been working full time and going to law school at night for the past three years and you have no idea the sense of sanity that you've provided. One more year of school and then I hope to be advocating for victims rights inspired

every day by ladies like you. Stay sexy and don't get naked with serial killers, Jenna. Wow. Twisty turny. That was a good one and it involved the National Park again. That's right. That's the thing. I seem to remember because I'm pretty sure I'm the one that did the Carrie Stainer story

and I remember that being the ending and that he stood out at that if I'm remembering correctly, he stood out at that nudist colony because it was mostly retirees and older people. Right. It was not the thing where the older nudists were kind of freaked out by him. I somehow didn't remember that there was a nudist colony involved but you would have covered it. I think I did but now it truly was a full five years ago. I love naked 60 year old woman nudist colony saves the fucking day heroic badassery.

With no tan lines. That's the key. She is everyone's hero. I feel like if I didn't have to look at other naked people, I would be a nudist. So maybe I'd just like to be naked alone with Vince. Yeah. I mean, yeah. I think that's what your house is for.

Right. You can be a nudist. My house is a nudist colony. Yeah. I think a lot of people's houses are. They just don't discuss it that much. Is that a dig? No, no, no.

Not at all. No, I meant like it's when you feel the need to play volleyball all the time. Exactly. What is the fucking thing? I think that's an old bit. I think you're more of an exhibitionist than a nudist at that point. Yeah. Or maybe you have like a really intense case of body horror where you're like, you know

what I need to do? Jump up and down. That's what's going to really do it for me in terms of freedom. 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.

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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. The subject line of my next one is the lie and the witch in the medicine cabinet to hell is no longer a thing. Oh. Hi, MFM.

After Karen's story this week, which was the Ruth E. May McCoy story of somebody coming through her bathroom mirror, I thought you might be concerned that architects are still designing bathrooms with medicine cabinet murder portals in them. So I wanted to allay some of your concerns. This situation is no longer permitted by code for a few reasons. There is no code section on Candyman. So they're all boring reasons that sound like sound transmission and stuff. Now that you're a fire safety podcast, you may be happy to know.

Why did that make me want to fucking lose it? That is some sweet, sweet sarcasm right there. Mmm. Yes, sir. Now that you're a fire safety podcast, you may be happy to know that one of the reasons have to do with preventing the spread of fires. Walls between apartment units are required by code to have a fire resistance rating of at least one hour.

There are ways to maintain that fire rating around a recessed medicine cabinet, but all of those ways would result in a tight seal that would not allow your neighbor to simply take out the cabinet and hop through. The code also requires that certain acoustic standards are met by the walls separating apartment units and specifically requires that the openings for recessed cabinets are sealed, lined, and or insulated to maintain the sound transmission class of the wall. There is a Fair Housing Act, which requires that all apartments and buildings that have four or more units meet certain baseline accessibility requirements.

Medicine cabinets over sinks are not prohibited by the terms of the Fair Housing Act, but are not typically considered all that accessible to people who use wheelchairs or people of short stature because most of the shelves within them would be out of reach and placing the cabinet low enough to be useful as a mirror could create a clash between the cabinet door and the sink faucet. All this complication and inconvenience of putting a medicine cabinet over a sink in a wall between two apartment units means that you almost never see it done in new apartment buildings anymore.

If there is a medicine cabinet at all, it's often to the side of the sink in the wall that does not separate apartments. If despite all this, there is a medicine cabinet in the wall between one unit and another, it would have to be fully sealed to prevent the passage of fire, smoke, and sound. Obviously, as TikTok has reminded us, there are plenty of buildings that were built long before summer. All of these things became requirements, but at least newer buildings do not have this issue.

This concludes my lecture on medicine cabinets. Please feel free to properly forget everything I just said. Stay sexy and don't drink the liquid and bottles you find on construction sites because it's never not Maria. I'm learning so much from Maria. Maria had a lot of really good structural engineering information to share with us and fire safety. Maria, start your own.

Maria teaches YouTube and teaches everything you know. That was great. I think it actually does quell that fear that that could happen again. It's like all the things that came together to make that possible are gone. For me, as someone who enjoys a good close-up glance in the mirror while I wash my hands, I now appreciate why sometimes the medicine cabinet isn't over the sink and I feel okay about it now. I can come to terms with it.

It seems only fair because it has to be reachable and you've got to be able to swing around and get that one whisker on your chin that you can feel but not see. What better time than doing a thorough hand-washing, which we're all doing these days, I hope? Not anymore. Not anymore. It's over. Thanks everybody that wrote in this week all these. There was so much information.

There was so much forestry. There was laughter. There was poignance. There were naked people playing volleyball. As usual. So I think we've done it. We've done it all. So now all there is left is for you to stay sexy.

Don't get murdered. Goodbye. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? The story had everything except sex. You had family problems. You had mental illness. You have violence.

You have all of the politics. I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, the host of Tenfold More Wicked on Exactly Right, and our third season is set in my home state of Texas. It's a wild story about a prominent family ripped apart and a killer that might have gotten away with murder. It was a memorable story. You don't have an associate justice being murdered very often. This season is about a titan in Texas politics in the 1930s who was murdered one night along

with his wife. He comes across as a pretty caring, nice man, which I'd like to believe that he was. Very respected, politically influential. It's about a killer with a grudge and some serious problems that were never treated. He had these resentments, which were understandable, but I also think he had voices telling him that he should do something about them. That just doesn't sound like something that would happen as an accident. What it sounds like is a failed suicide attempt.

It's about how we treat people with mental illness in the justice system in America. Most people would agree that, yes, mental illness is, in fact, an illness and people shouldn't be held accountable for something that they didn't have control over, unless you're the victim of that crime, then obviously you feel very differently. I didn't really know that I had been stabbed. I just realized I couldn't move my hand. I saw blood. You just want them to feel the pain that you felt.

It's about family secrets. My grandfather was the town angel and the home devil. And most importantly, this season is about why these murders happened. The question is, at what point is delusion profound enough for you to be forgiven from murder? I'm Kate Winkler-Dawson, and this is season three of Tenfold More Wicked, a podcast about a fractured family in 1930s Texas. Season three of Tenfold More Wicked is now available on Exactly Right.

Subscribe now on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen.