My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 233 - The Great Outdoors

Episode Date: June 28, 2021

This week's minisode is a compilation of hometown stories that take place in the forest, woods, and at summer camp.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We at Wondery live, breathe and downright obsess over true crime and now we're launching the ultimate true crime fan experience, Exhibit C. Join now by following Wondery, Exhibit C on Facebook and listen to true crime on Wondery and Amazon Music, Exhibit C. It's truly criminal. Hi. Hello and welcome to my favorite murder hometown, many so addition 2018. Right. Where we read you back your stories from your hometowns or whatever, something like that. At this point, it's just all over the place. It's branched off into so many, like the, like the branches of a mighty oak, it's gone in every direction. You can send us, you could send us a hometown about how you stick your razor blades into an old fashioned mirror thing in your bathroom and they go into

a wall. And we might read it. Because we're interested in that. Yeah. As well as hidden rooms. And as well as your cousin's best friend who was murdered. We want to know about the fucked up shit in your life. Right. To a degree. Are you ready for this one? I'm ready. Because the subject line is you're right. If you walk your dog in the woods, you'll come across a dead body. No. Hello ladies, parentheses and Steven. First of all, I have to say that I'm a huge fan of both of you. I knew it would happen to me. The instant I moved to a small town and got a big dog, she gets right into it or he hell, it's the beginning of every law and order episode ever. That's right. My husband and I started taking my 120 pound dog. That's more than I weigh. Just

kidding. That's not true. Why, that's more than I weigh. The dog's name is Groucho Barks, by the way. Amazing. Come on. Love it. That's made for Georgia. Yes. On lovely walks in the woods. The day it happened. It was a beautiful snowy New Year's Day. We decided to take the pup on a walk, up a back wooded trail. You lost Karen? What? You lost Karen already. That is, unless it's a Newfoundland. I wonder if it is. That leads to a local park. I'm just saying it's not a puppy. It's clearly a humongous. Right. Kind of dog is it? I need to know. Okay. This wooded trail runs parallel to the Missouri River and is beautiful and scenic and right next to a scary ass shack that we dubbed the Murder Shack. How come everyone else gets shacks and we don't get them

here in California? I think that the second there's a shack, someone throws in some linoleum and they're like, hey, rents $1,815. Get three roommates, move into the shack. Okay. We start off the walk as always. And after a fashion, we let the dog off a leash to stretch his dog legs. Wouldn't you know, old boy instantly leaves the path and runs on over to the Murder Shack. Being a couple of fools, we decide to follow him and embark on our own little Scooby-Doo adventure style adventure. I round the corner to find my dog rooting around the remnants of a campfire. Instantly, the idea hits me that we might actually come upon a hungover homeless person who would be pretty pissed of us for tramping through his stuff. I grab the dog leash, get him back up in the hell out

of there when I see it. No. About six feet from me was a body of a man, face down in the freshly fallen snow, arms by his side, feet twisted around some roots. I calmly asked my husband who was looking into the window of the shack behind me if he has his phone on him. And could he please call the cops because that's a fucking body. Oh, it should be noted that at some point in my panic, I actually called out to the body in a shaky voice. Hello, sir. Hello. I'm not exactly sure what I meant to accomplish. I guess in my mind, I really wanted to make sure he was dead and not just sleeping in the snow. I don't know. I'd never come across a dead body before and wasn't exactly sure what to do. I figured I'd try the polite route. He didn't answer. We make our way

back down the trail. I called the non-emergency police line. A sweet lady answered the phone and made me repeat myself a few times. A body? Yes, ma'am. A body. Did you say a body? Before she asked me my information, we only had to wait a few minutes before he slightly out of shape cops showed up and was visibly annoyed at having to walk through the woods in the snow. He sighed loudly as he asked, Well, how far is it? After the affair, he took down our information and on I shit knew you, not the back of a media calm envelope. Ah, small towns. That must be like direct TV. Yeah. We never actually heard what happened to him because it was never in the local paper. About a month later, a dude in a bar with a police scanner had heard

the whole ordeal. I love it. Grass roots. Apparently the poor man was a known drug user, was in and out of rehab, in and out of jail. And oh, that's it. They have since plowed down the murder shack. Stay sexy. Don't get murdered. Keep your dog on a leash. And if you walk the dog in the woods, you will find a body. Thanks for the fantastic podcast, Jamie. Oh my God, that's so scary. That's, I mean, even even if he tripped and fell and died in the snow, it's horrifying. Yeah. It's horrifying. Like the thing of like, for people like us and we're like, I'm going to go in the woods. I bet I'll find a body and then it actually happens. Totally different story. Has to be so jarring and like surreal and. And frightening. Yeah. I feel like very quickly after I realized

that's what was happening, I would be convinced that the killer was behind me. That's why I was like non-emergency line. I'd be like, fuck and like running. Massive emergency line. Still there. Yeah. I know. Holy shit. I know. Okay. Well, are you ready for? Our dad found the body and almost peed on it. Oh, okay. Something a little light. Just something fun. Something to end lightly. Okay. Hi. My sister and I are loyal followers longing for each new podcast. Thank you. That's nice. Here's our hometown murder. Our dad is a veteran policeman and now retired in Pueblo, Colorado. In December 1999, our elderly great aunt called dad worried about her friend Lucille Pearson missing after not returning home

from a local shopping trip. We knew something was up because dad was avoiding her questions. He usually spoke pretty freely. Wait, dad was avoiding probably our questions. He usually spoke pretty freely. Lucille had been caring for a teenage grandson who had some issues and no one felt it was a good situation. The grandson's friend agreed to help in the investigation and this led police to some private property southwest of town. Dad volunteered to go up the hills to help with the search because he had four wheel drive. They spent a couple days, drained a little pond and searched a campsite. They found a fire ring, some small pieces of scorched skull, but nothing they could test DNA for. As the sun was setting the last day, dad broke off from

the group to relieve himself before the long drive home. Just then he looked down and saw a displaced rock or he was about to pee. It was Lucille's pelvis and her heart was lodged inside. What wait, what exclamation mark? Oh, did someone put it there? I don't know. He almost peed on what was left of her body. Oh, horrifying. Now they had the physical evidence to prosecute the grandson and his friend for murdering, dismembering and burning the body of my aunt's friend. Recently we learned dad was the one to find her and it was actually kind of funny how he shared in glorious detail how close he was to urinating on this poor woman. Sometimes you just got to laugh. I didn't say that. She wrote that. SSDGM, Phoebe and Laurel, your favorite

murderinos. Well, we never talk about that, but that is the like it is pretty horrifying that cops their jobs. Yeah. Whereas like our job is to like read these things and be funny and say funny things to each other, whatever. Their jobs are to go and experience the worst that humanity has to offer repeatedly. They need to find evidence that people are the worst fucking things in the goddamn fucking world. You've got to go out of your mind without humor. Yeah. And you have to like and also just looking like they're looking for, they know they're looking for a dead body. They're walking around looking for the scariest thing you could find. And if they don't find it, two monsters probably will just live the rest of their lives free. So like that's terrifying.

They'll get shot on. You know what I mean? It's like there's, so you got to have, you got, you got to like be able to tell some stuff at the dinner table or you probably like drink yourself to death. Totally. Oh man. So go ahead law enforcement. Yes. You finally have our permission. The thing you've been waiting for all this time. Be lighthearted and free to family. Now the subject line of this one is my grandpa almost killed someone. The fishing pond pervert. Good evening. This is my hometown, but this is not my story. This is the story of the time my mom saw her dad almost kill a pervert. My parents grew up on the south side of Chicago where nature is hard to come by besides a few of the nastiest and most likely radioactive fishing ponds you've ever seen or

smelled wanting to teach his young children some outdoor skills. My grandpa would take my mom and her brothers and sister to go fishing in the ponds when they were maybe five through eight years old. They went almost every weekend, but soon those innocent fishing trips turned dark when a mysterious old creep would reportedly find my eight-year-old mom and try to lure her into his car with promises of ice cream. Oh God. Yeah. After a horrific incident where he revealed himself to my baby angel mother, she used her murdering instinct and told my grandpa about the pervert. My grandpa, angry and horrified, found the man by his car, grabbed him by the neck, held him there for about two minutes and shouted, if you ever come around here again, I will fucking kill you. Now,

it may not seem that crazy of a punishment to whoever would do a gross thing to a child, but for my extremely old-fashioned, devout Irish Catholic family, you know the shit was real when grown-ups dropped the notorious F word. Am I right, Karen? Yes, you're right. Anyway, the fishing pond pervert was sufficiently scared to death and was never seen there again. My grandpa is a common mild-mannered man, but if you fuck with his kids, he will fucking kill you. Aw. Thank you for helping me through the absolute darkest and most lonely time of my life. I was suffering severe workplace sexual harassment. When I found the podcast two years ago, your badass riot girl attitudes and humor have inspired me to fuck politeness and get justice for my harassment,

go to therapy, and to kick off my comedy career. I hope we can cross paths someday, A. Oh my god, A, that's incredible. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Well done. Well done. Badassness runs in your family, it sounds like. Yeah. Okay. What do you have? It's kind of long. Okay. So get in here, but it's funny. Dig in. Dig in here. Get comfy. So this is from Brendan, Brendan B, whose photo is very sassy in his email. It says, hi, Georgia, because he sent it just to my email address. My friends and I are big fans of your podcast, listen at work, blah, blah, blah. My best friend told me I had to email you. At first, I thought like I have nothing to say. Then I remembered back in 2006, I had one of the most weird weeks of my life. It's a story I've

told over drinks a lot, but I love to stretch it out. Let's see here. I'm like that, Brendan. I'm the same way. If I have a story that would take a normal person three minutes to tell, it'll take me 15. And people will love it. And you just dress it up and you flourish and you add. Yeah. And you pause. This is why we're podcasters. You pause. You just, you maintain attention for as long as humanly possible. You're a fucking storyteller, man. Yeah. That's right. It's good. All right. It was probably around summertime and I was still a smoker. So this was a long time ago, as I can't remember the last time I bought cigarettes. This guy who I had a huge crush on, who now in retrospect probably only wanted to be just good friends was kind of a sporty guy.

He liked to hike and rock climb and other such stuff like you do when you're obsessed with someone. You pretend like you like those things too. Yep. That's right. Oh, that sounds like a, I would never, this has been a nightmare dating a sporty person. I had lived through it for five years. Shut up. I married it. I pretended I liked camping for five. Oh, Karen. It was hard. You sacrificed yourself. The first time I told my sister and Adrienne, I was going camping. Adrienne just fucking turned on me like a viper and goes camping. Are you kidding me? Camping? Yeah. They knew. They knew you were trying to be someone you're not. It happens. It happens. This is from my podcast, Divorce Corner. Guys, find someone with similar things to you. Don't ever pretend,

especially camping, because then you're out in the dirt. But she knows I'm knowing about like hiking and biking and camping and all that shit. It's like you feel like you're supposed to be doing that. That's right. That feels like they're vegan. You're like, yeah, I should be vegan to have always wanted it. Like, knew I should go vegan. I know I should hike more and exercise more. But like, if you're not that fucking person, you're not that person. Also, I'm sorry, but I will watch 25 movies in a row. It's what I love. I want to talk about it. I want to make them. I want to watch them. Some dick who walks uphill and boots isn't fucking better than you because of that. You know, who do you think you are? Campy fucking dick. Sleep on the fucking ground.

You know that there's room service in hotels and no snakes and no, no snakes. Not one snake in a pool. Just like last time I went camping, I like slept on a yoga mat in a fucking sleeping bag. It's rough. It's rough. Why would you don't do that? Who are you trying to prove? Your boyfriend, the guy you don't really are that into. All right. Da, da, da, da, da. New Jersey. Let's see here. You got lost. Sorry, Brendan. I'll let you tell the story yourself. He asked me to go hiking with him one morning and I remember I had to borrow my friend's Timberland boots so that it looked like I knew the proper footwear to wear. Oh, bad start. One guy tried to take me at hiking once on a date and I was like, and I got there and my whole like get up and then we

walked and we passed a bar and I was like, let's go drink. And I made him go drink with me. Did it work? Uh-huh. Oh, thank God. It's great. We had a pretzel and we drank. Fun. Because I can't. No way. Let's see here. We were hiking for what seemed like hours and truth be told, I think I was this just there so occasionally we could mess around and make out. At one point we were scaling over a very large boulder in the middle of the woods and when we came down there underneath was a radius bone. I don't say this like I'm a smarty pants who memorizes bones in the human body, but I do remember in high school just like everyone else since in science class we had a lifestyle skeleton that we would use to learn the different bones of the body. I remember that the

radius bone is the bone that connects the wrist to the elbow. It's not exactly something you expect to see in the middle of the woods, but it's also unmistakable. And first we went through the motions of this is not real, this can't be happening, but it dawned on us more and more that this is exactly what was happening. We were several miles in the woods, technically the middle of nowhere, and after a little digging, noticed that indeed we were standing on the remains of a decomposed body. It was so decomposed there was there wasn't really even a smell and I may just know and may I just note that it was not easy getting here to this place we were. I had to physically push myself to get there, but mostly I did it because I was trying to impress him as we scaled rocks

and jumped around the forest like guys do. Guys who like to mess around with guys who are kind of sporty. Brennan, we get it. Brennan, we love you. This guy's probably fun to hang out with. He is the best. The rest of the story is flourishing. That's why we know he's one of us. I bet he's not dating a fucking sporty guy anymore. The rest of the story is kind of a blur even though it took the rest of the night. Neither of us had a cell phone and we knew that it would probably be difficult to find a way back here. At first we considered leaving and just pretending like we had not discovered this body. Always an option. But the idea honestly is something I knew I would haunt me for the rest of my life. Yeah. Sometimes I can't help myself. I have to do the right thing. Eventually

what we did was he left me there with the skeleton and he found his way back to his car and he called the police. Fuck. That had to be a rock, paper, scissors moment, right? Yeah, who gets to go back to the car? And who gets to stay with the skeleton? You're holding the skeleton's hand. Oh, that's so sad. Sorry. An hour or two later, he came back with the police and we were questions and fingerprinted. They said that somebody would be coming out to talk to us again about the situation. But for now, please try not to tell many people. It was honestly one of the most bizarre nights I've ever experienced. We don't find out who the person was or that like... No, he ends it at the end, but no, I'm sorry. Okay, okay. Yeah. Looking for a better cooking routine? With meal planning,

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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. Okay, the subject line of this one is my summer haunted, my super haunted summer camp. Okay. Because you're the last time you were saying you wanted a haunted one. That's right. Go stories, please. And this is left over from the Medford hometown. So we asked for. Cool. Hi, Karen, Georgia, Steven, Elvis, Mimi, Dotty, Frank and George. Wow. First off, I love your podcast. Can't wait to see you in Medford in October. How was it? My summer camp is a sleepaway camp in

western Massachusetts in the absolute middle of nowhere. We're on a mountain in the woods with the nearest town having 140 people in it. There is no cell service. And so it adds an extra creepy factor when I listen to your podcast in the dark in the woods. There are a bunch of ghosts on camp. But usually they show up in the off season when the kids aren't on camp. They keep saying on camp. Oh, that's like when people from the East Coast say on get online. Yeah, when they're saying get in line. Yeah, that's right. Um, dummies. No. What about the word at? Okay, there is the kitchen ghost in the director's house in the winter. The people who have lived there going back 10 years have said opens the door walks in and puts its groceries away at the same

time every day. But when you walk in, there's no one there. There's also the ghost in the middle girls unit that shakes the bunk beds every few years and will bang on the wall scaring the total shit out of the campers. Yeah. Um, we also have the ghost called horrible Hannah and she burns down a building on camp every seven years. Yeah. But the ghost that prompted me to write you was one from this summer in the middle boys unit in the middle of the night when it was pouring two counselors, Sam and Jack fake names were woken up by what they thought was one of their very homes at campers crying. They decided to let them cry it out a bit and see if he would fall back to sleep until they heard him say help they locked me out. I can't get back in. So obviously

they both hopped out of bed and one of them went to open the door. Sam let him in and felt him brush by him and get into bed and both Jack and Sam heard him say thank you. Sam turned on the cabin light to help the camper get back into bed and there was no camper there. No, no, no, no, no, no. There were also no wet footsteps on the ground despite the fact that have been pouring for hours and all the other campers including the homes to camper were fast asleep in their beds. Jack told everyone on camp the next day and totally said he wouldn't have believed it if it wasn't for him and Sam both having experienced it. It didn't happen again but everyone on camp can't stop talking about it. Thank you so much for reading this sorry it's so long and thank you

so much for being so open about mental health. I've been getting more open over the years about my mental health struggles but listening to you two talk about yours has helped me continue to talk about it and helps to end the stigma. Jillian in parentheses it's just said like Jillian but spelled with a G. Oh my god. That's scary. When children when it's ghost children who are crying. Oh yeah. Goodbye. Goodbye. What happened? Why is that energy trapped in that cabin? Oh, why is it crying? Why is it crying? And you just let it in. Yeah. Now it's gonna stick with you forever. That's right until you meet a priest. Okay. Last one. Hey MFM crew. Hey. Then it starts. We're in it. We're in it. Last episode Georgia read the hometown about the girl getting stabbed

in the face by her sister and Karen talked about how kids do things just to see what happens. Well as a lifeguard for five years I can definitely attest to that. I worked at a private summer camp in Connecticut where the schedule would allow each camp group to come into the pool for an hour a day. The kids would come over and shifts and were grouped by age blah blah blah. Well in in the four-year-old group there was often quite a few kids who weren't strong swimmers. They would stand the shallow end of the pool and usually just sit on the stairs with their legs in the water. This included one boy, one four-year-old boy by the name of Logan. Now Logan was an interesting kid who despite being four had the personality of an 80-year-old man. Cute. Aw. He asked a million

questions about what it was like to be a lifeguard and often took it upon himself to inconspicuously push the other non-swimmers from the stairs into the pool just to see what would happen. And that's in quotes. Just to see what would happen. Yeah. Oh Logan. Since he himself couldn't swim he was curious as to what would actually happen if you ended up in over your head and on many occasions we had to ban him from the swimming pool for attempted drownings. Oh no. Logan. As fate would have it Karma came for him when one day as he was walking around the edge of the pool he fell in himself sinking like a rock to the bottom. I quickly jumped in and pulled him out and he was so shocked that all he kept repeating was I drowned and you came in after me and pulled

me up. I drowned. I drowned. Oh no. Now Logan was only under the water for approximately three seconds so he had to assure his mother at the end of the day that he did not in fact drown. Needless to say he never pushed another kid in the pool after that. Yeah he learned. That's right. Stay sexy and teach your kids to swim before sending them to camp with a pool Jill. Logan. Well Logan. I mean I know that people would interpret that as that he was a homicidal child. Right. But I absolutely get that. He was just curious. He wanted to see what it would look like if he fell in. Right. How scary that would be what would happen to his body. I'm gonna try this on other people before I attempt it. They're fine. Yeah. I don't want it to happen to me though.

Real people don't have feelings. At this point I would just like to make this note. Yeah. My sister says this all the time because she is a grammar school teacher and she she one time at a at end of school school year party at the public pool standing around and looked down and there was just a kid at the bottom of the pool and fully dressed. My sister dove in and pulled this kid out. Which is you know my sister. My sister brought hot rollers to Ireland. She is all about outfits getting ready being ready. She doesn't want to dive into the pool for any reason. No. So when she told me that story I was blown out but just remember when children drown it makes no noise. Yeah. There's no splashing. There's no it just is silent and quick. So I just think that's

a very interesting detail. That's a great that's a great warning as summer is right around the corner. Please be all eyes and aware. So if there's a Logan in the mix then you really got to keep your eyes open. Keep your kid away from Logan's. That's our that's our advice to you. Send us your stories. My favorite murder at gmail.com.com is the real one. That's right. Yes. Thanks for listening. Yes and thank you for sharing all your stories. We love them. We love it. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye Elvis. Do you want a cookie?