My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 236 - Badass Parents

Episode Date: July 19, 2021

This week's minisode is a compilation of hometown stories about badass parents.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. See, it's truly criminal. Hello. You've reached my favorite murder podcast.

You've reached three, two, three. It'll be fun. Let's just see what happens. If you have memorized my phone number, I'd be greatly impressed with you. Wouldn't that be cool? Dude. I don't know my own phone number. I don't. I think I know your area code. Every time I have to put my phone number into like any kind of a form that I'm filling out,

I have to say it out loud and like picture it in my mind. I did. Vince and I memorized each other's phone numbers way back when just in case of emergency. For safety. Let's do each other's too. Okay. So in case my emergency events. So my date, money. We'll remember it better if it's on the show and if it helps us.

So we can just listen to it over and over again. This is my favorite murder when we talk about phone numbers. Guys. But seriously, Stephen, give it your phone number on there right now. Stephen, you do it. You do it for everyone. 5, 5, 5, 5. Perfect.

Dinosaur. It's a dinosaur hotline. What if it's just podcasts? P-O-D. of people just reciting their phone numbers? Yes. Linda Berry, who's a great comic book artist and writer, I took a writing class of hers and she does this exercise

giving example of how if you draw a memory, if you write about memories from your childhood, they're much richer than adult, and then she goes, here's an example, what's your first phone number? Know it immediately. Right, everyone starts smiling and giggling and everybody can recite their first phone number,

and then she's like, okay, how about two phone numbers ago? You have no fucking clue, because who cares by that point in life, you're just dead inside that you just don't care. The phone isn't exciting anymore. No. Seven, six, two, three, two, two, one. Five, five, nine?

Five, five, eight, nine. Okay. So this one is called, Richard Ramirez are almost turned my mom into a murderer. Okay. You in? Loving it. Okay.

Dear Karen, Georgia, Stashmaster Steven, and Fluffmuffins. No and no. That's what I thought. That was last year, unacceptable. Okay. First, thank you for organizing the podcast. It has made the gym infinitely more tolerable

and has given my murdering mind an insane amount of joy to be grateful for. That's nice. You all rock. Second, I have to note that the only reason I heard this story is that I finally cornered my mother into listening to your podcast while on a road trip. We finished the first episode and I looked at my mom,

nervously calculating how long it was going to take for her to announce me a sick bastard. And she pensively said, that reminds me of the time I thought Richard Ramirez was going to kill me. Oh, full of fucking stop. Sidebar, I probably should have heard this story when I told her I worked at a show about the Night Stalker,

but whatever. So my parents lived in Anaheim in the early 80s. They were pastel walls. My mom had a terrifying perm. I was just... It was a scary time. It was a very scary time. I had one too.

I was a few months old and my older brother was three. My godmother was a nurse also living and working in the area who happened to live across the street from one of her coworkers who incidentally was attacked by Ramirez. She survived and ended up identifying later in court. Wow.

Anyway, mom's friend's coworker had been attacked in the house we were living in, was in a block of houses that for the most part had that, and this is an all cap super safe sliding glass door in the back. Important note, these sliding glass doors were a fave of Ramirez to get into houses. Yeah, cause it's just that little clicky lock.

We had one of those too and we did him the favor of never locking it. Oh, that's nice. To boot. I feel like those sliding glass doors are like a part of 70 serial killers. Totally. It's like part of the horror.

Yeah. I don't think... Yeah. The sound of a sliding glass door being quietly opened at night. No, totally. I don't think in my entire childhood was there ever everything on the ground floor,

including the doors and the windows and everything locked ever. One time when it was all closed up. Just a different time and a different reality. Stupid time and a stupid reality. True. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm.

Anyway, in the middle of the night, while my dad was away on a business trip, my mom woke up to the doorbell ringing. Oh. And horrible. Like any responsible woman alone with two children in the middle of the night during an active serial killers rampage,

she opened the door. It was the next door neighbor's girlfriend. She said that her boyfriend wasn't home, but she was too scared to go into her house because she swore she heard someone in there. In true horror film fashion, my mom thought, cool, I'll take you into your boyfriend's house

and show you there's nothing to be afraid of. No. What? No. So the two unarmed young women go into a house all alone and choose to tour the house, turning the lights on when they go into a room,

and then off. Save that electricity money, honey. What? Anyway, they get to the last room in the house, which is kind of a lofty area on the second floor. There's a door and four walls, so it sounds like a regular room to me, but that's how my mom described it anyway.

Then I hear the sliding glass, sorry, then they hear the sliding glass door open. I just have to point out that, yes, I have a hard time speaking, but Stephen printed this in like 11 point font. Yeah. Do you see this? It's definitely passive aggressive

the way he printed up these stories. It's like he wants me to fail. Yeah, he's against us. That's clear. Right. And we're just going to keep on seeing these things. Yeah. Yeah.

Then as luck would have it, they happen to be in a room where the neighbor kept his pistol. The girlfriend, who PS is 20 years old, takes out the gun. My mom takes out the gun from... Mom takes the gun from her and calls out. No one responds,

but they hear footsteps coming up the stairs. Here's where I have to point out. My mom is a badass. She grew up on a farm and knows how to use firearms and always has a manicure. Yeah. Yeah, girl, permed that manicure. She checked the safety and aimed directly

to the left of the door at the frame. The door opens, my mom adjusts her aim and notices that the person coming through the door is bald. Richard Ramirez, if you remember, had straight up but doll sassoon curls. Oh, I remember. They weren't curls, really.

More waves, but anyway. It was my dad. My mom almost shot my dad. He'd come back early from a business trip and when he found mom was gone from the house, he went to check the next door. The porch light was on, but the front door was locked. So he went around the back

and found the back sliding glass door open. Not just unlocked, fully open. Oh, shit. He immediately then grew concern and thought something bad might have happened. So instead of calling 911, he just went up the stairs without announcing himself. Wow.

Super gallant, almost got shot. So as far as my hometown murder, this specific facet is missing the murder part, but very narrowly and I had to send it to you because it's a funny story. Please keep up the amazing show, stay sexy, don't get murdered. PS, you inspired me to teach my cat Atlas the word cookie

and he meows like Elvis and it makes me feel warm and fuzzy. Love, JD. Fun. Fun, fun, fun. That reminds me of the people that we met at the meet and greet in Anaheim and it was a mother daughter. And the mother was there the day that Richard Mears

was running through that neighborhood in, was it Boyle Heights? Yeah. Or no, down there, right? It's Boyle Heights. No, no, no. It was Boyle Heights. She was there.

He got caught in front of her house. Oh, right. The cops got him down on the ground. No, I think that they, I don't know, something, it was in front of her house where he got because it was like a block long street where they got caught. And the mom kept saying that everyone, all her neighbors were just going outside and like,

and like watching him being apart and she was telling people to go back inside. Right, right. She was like, they were so crazy. Everyone was just out. Yeah. Like, you know, there was a serial killer loose. That's so funny.

I was so, I told them I was very starstruck to meet her. She got to be right there. The scene of the crime. Okay. The subject mind of this is my mom would probably get arrested if she did this today. I love it. Hey, MFM fam.

When I was a teenager, I was obsessed with scary movies and my mom loved Halloween. My birthday is in October. So on my 13th or 14th birthday, I decided to have a sleepover. Oh no. Where we planned to watch a scary movie and just hang out. When my friends and I had settled in to watch Psycho in the living room,

my mom left us there to go pick up pizza. I know what she's going to do. I'll set the scene. My parents' living room was a big open space that had a huge glass door out to the deck in one direction connected to the kitchen in another direction and the foyer in the front door the other way. A while after my mom left, as we watched the movie in the dark, a large man began pounding on the back door.

He was standing on the deck looking in. We, of course, jumped up and began running in all directions and began screaming. You're probably thinking, oh no, then they called 911. No, we didn't. Why? I don't know. Other than to say that teenagers are really fucking stupid sometimes.

Just as we began to calm down and try to figure out what to do, a pounding came from the front door. As I moved toward the door, again, why you stupid, stupid girl, the same large man stuck his hand in the door and began waving it around, yelling something I don't remember now. I slammed the door closed and locked it. Just moments later, and mind you, we were still running around screaming and not calling 911.

We heard the garage door open and my mom walked in. As we hysterically tried to tell her what happened, she seemed not to believe us, holding it together only for a few moments and then dissolved into laughter. That's right. My own mother recruited our neighbor down the street to stage a motherfucking break-in just to scare us. Can you imagine if she pulled that shit today,

she'd get arrested or at the very least child services would be called. Oh my God. Surprisingly, I have no lasting damage from this incident and it did go down as a great sleepover, according to my friends. Yeah. Thanks so much for everything you do in this crazy awesome community that you've created because of MFM. I've met a group of women who are helping me achieve

my wildest craziest dream of writing a book. Yay. SSTGMK. That's awesome. That's so rad. I keep thinking about, like, what if I had grabbed a knife? I would have stabbed at that hand. I mean, that is the worst.

It's the worst idea. It's the worst idea and at the same time. That's like, and I can't remember if I told the story or not, my crazy friend Brian, who I used to work at the Gaplet, who one time told me a story that he thought was really funny where he broke into his friend's house wearing a pantyhose on his face. Oh no. With a knife in his hand.

No. He crawled into her kitchen window. A female? Yes. What a dick. And she kicked him in the balls and beat the shit out of him and then he got really mad at her. And then she, and then she was like, I'm not talking anymore.

And he's like, what? I thought it was funny. Oh my God. What an asshole. But you have to know this. I love her. Yeah. Really hilarious.

He just thought, I was like, when he told me the story, I was laughing, but I was also like, Brian. What is wrong with you? You're, you're such like a guy. Yeah. You don't understand why that is the scariest possible thing. Right. And why this person would never want to speak to you again.

Rightly so. Oh, Brian. Brian, also imagine having a 13 year old. You have to hate them so much at that point that you just want to fuck with them. It's good for the mom. Yeah. It's like her only sanity left. Let me give you a little perspective of all the things you're,

you're like crying and pouting about around the house. Yeah. Let's give you a little dose of hideous reality. Let mommy give you a dose of reality. A little pick up a pizza. I'll get your fucking pizza. You know, your mom is bullshitting you if she goes to pick up a pizza in this. Right.

From 1979 on, whenever they invented dominoes. There's no picking up pizza. You don't, no mother goes to pick up pizza. There's no such thing. Why take out pizza? Let's take out. Yeah. Take out pizza.

Take out any food. Okay. Okay. We're done. We're done. Well, this one is called fun. So this is good. This one subject is fun.

Just plain fun. No. Fun. All caps. Stepdad was the vet to the son of Sam dog. What? All right. Here we go.

Hi, Karen. Georgia, Steven, an assorted menagerie. Yes. I'll make this short because, oh wait. I'll make this short because being featured on in MFM would be amazing. Oh, it's a good way to do it. Those two things don't necessarily directly relate, but okay. They don't.

Although short and like good or long and good. Just good is the common denominator. Yeah. Hence. Good. Hence I'm going to read this. Hence. Okay.

Hence at the end of the sentence. Hence. Yeah. Like ties it all together. Yeah. During and after the son of Sam murder spree, my stepdad was a young veterinary school graduate in New York. He worked in a vet clinic trying to pay off his student loans and avoid getting elbow

deep in a sick cow upstate. Oh. The clinic he worked at was also the clinic for the dog in your recent son of Sam episode. The dog that was supposedly a demon was this sweet chunky Labrador name Harvey. Oh. And then she says, I'm not that shaming. I'm pretty food motivated to anyway, the way my step motivated is that is yes, that's just a dog is food motivated.

And it's me. It's just when you have your motivations in certain places. I love the idea though of a sweet chunky Labrador name Harvey being the sping Satan. Yeah. Come on. He's looking up at that window being like, dude, you've got to be kidding me. He's like bacon. You know this isn't me.

He's looking after just going bacon. Do you have bacon? Do you have bacon? Well, then don't involve me in your bullshit. Right. That's all I want to know. Yeah. Okay.

Anyway, the way my stepdad tells of the story is that late at night when he had to stick around for charting and cleaning, he was one, he was once alone with this dog at an empty clinic. Once he made sure he was alone. He asked the dog straight out whether he was the devil. The dog said, no, but the cat is a real asshole. He likes to get a big laugh out of it. As you know, Berkowitz admitted that he was making up all that for the insanity plea.

But that is one of my quote hometown murders. Anyway, thank you for all your hard work and for the laughs. You always remind me to ssdgm. Love Caitlin. Oh my God. That's so funny. That's such a stepdad joke. No, but the cat is a real asshole.

It's such a dad joke. It's such a dad shit. It's so hilarious. But also like just that you would have, you would have to wait till everyone left. You would have to wait till you're alone in the whole clinic so that no one thought you were the insane one. I wonder if everyone was kind of sketched out by that dog at that point. The poor dog was just like, they used to be so nice to me here.

Yeah. No, I just get tied to a tree. And no bacon. Yeah. Because I'm the devil. I'm the devil. I'm the devil. Harvey is the devil.

It's real funny. Harvey. Oh, what happened to Harvey? He lived a good long life. He did. He got so much bacon. Oh, good boy. I actually bet his owners were way nicer to him after because they were like, oh my

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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. This is pretty good.

The subject line is my mom survived Cleveland in 1978. Greetings and salutations to all humans and animals associated with the MFM brand. Well done. My sister introduced me to your podcast six months ago over since I've been nothing but binge listening, laughing out loud at work and checking every closet in my apartment when I get home at night. I grew up outside Cleveland as did both my parents and my mother worked at a convenience store in Willowick, Ohio called Lawson's when she was in her early 20s.

That could be willowick. It could be willowick. It could be offer all of them willowick willowick one night in 1978. She was closing up the store with her co-worker Bonnie because it was 1978. Bonnie. Everyone's name was Bonnie. Why aren't there Bonnies anymore? There is a Bonnie Conover who I went to grammar school with and she still lives in Petaluma

and we talked to each other on Twitter. But she's had that name forever. I want a new Bonnie. She's the original. Oh, you want a new baby Bonnie? I want like a Bonnie that was born in the 2000s. If you have a Bonnie born in the 2000s, we'd love to see a picture of her. Yeah.

And if it's a dog, a bunny, a bunny named Bonnie. Oh, also we love pictures of bunnies. A bunny named Bonnie. If you have a picture of a bunny named Bonnie, that's one of those really big ones. That's like the size of a six-stringer. It's like a hair or not a rabbit. So actually we just want the one picture. Bonnie the bunny, that's huge.

Please. That's got to be a hashtag. Okay, so Bonnie and the mom are at the Willowic Lawsons. They're closing up when two men come in wearing black trash bags from head to toe. My mom says that she initially thought it was two neighborhood teens that would come in from time to time trying to play a prank on them because it was 1978. One of the men was holding a revolver and ordered my mom and Bonnie to open the register and safe and then lay it down face down on the floor with their hands at their sides.

They emptied the cash register and then stepped over the women to get to the safe. The whole time my mom was silent while Bonnie was hysterically praying out loud. Oh, Bonnie, keep it down. Bonnie, be cool. At some point said quietly to my mom that she was, quote, glad she had already mopped the floor. Just handle it like a Bonnie. Oh, Bonnie.

They're handling it like a Bonnie is the new one. They stayed like that until they heard another customer come in asking if anyone was in the store. Apparently the two men had left out the back exit while the ladies were up front laying on the recently mopped floor. The police were called. But as far as my mom can remember, no one was ever arrested for the robbery. She and Bonnie got a whopping $25 each from Lawsons.

Because they SSDed during the incident $97 today in today's money. Lauren. Lawsons give them the full 100 in today's. They really took one for you. They took one for the team. $25. I think nowadays there's like, well, you're just in Los Angeles, but I think there's like a victim of a violent crime fund that you like, because I knew a girl who got held up

at gunpoint at like a salon she worked at. Like she was a receptionist and she was closing up and got held up at gunpoint and like got all this money and she was just like, I'm traumatized so I don't know what to do with this. It feels wrong. Oh, you know. Well, yeah, everything about that would be so hard because you lived and it's okay. But then it's not okay.

But I think she used it to go to beauty school and then became a talented hair stylist herself. Fuck yeah. Yeah. So good for her. I mean, bad things are seeds that bear fruit into good things. What? Good fruit. You know.

That good good fruit. Yeah. Grapefruit. The best fruit. Grapefruit. Grapefruit. The greatest. Eat it with Bonnie.

That is a very 70s fruit. Grapefruit. Grapefruit with a maraschino cherry in the center. Come on. Dieters. Okay. This is called when I found out my dad kidnapped people. Hey, Karen.

George was Stephen and pet menagerie. Nice. I'll try and keep it short. When I was 11, my dad took me on a trip to Los Angeles. He was really excited because I was really excited because I got to see my family and never got to go with him before. He said it was a work trip, but he'd make time for me. Oh, thanks, dad.

I mean, for your fucking family. What an honor. I know. To be paid attention to as a child. My most important thing in my life is work, but I will make time for this less important thing of you. My child. Listen, block out seven to seven thirty for old daddio.

We're going to watch three's company together. That's right. You get a fucking TV dinner. Okay. One evening at dinner. TV dinner problem. TV dinner. And what I knew about Colts at 11, my answer was nothing.

My dad proceeded to explain what they were to me and told me the real reason for the trip. He had been hired by parents to kidnap someone and do depot a deprogramming job. Her dad was a deprogrammer for Colts. I had a brief moment of wondering if he had once kidnapped me. They're a fucking assasin. Oh my God. But suddenly all those warnings about vans and the game where we tailed people at the

mall quote to show how easy it was to follow someone and quote made a whole lot more sense. Oh my God. That's why the following game. Come on. Daddy wants to play the game where he puts a silencer on a gun. He liked us to always be prepared and would hide in bushes and jump out and wanted us always to be ready. This is called child abuse.

Oh my God. He wonders why I need anti-anxiety medication. Wait. How he wonders I need anti-anxiety medication is beyond me. Yes. He would play a game where he would jump out from the bushes so they'd be prepared. Dad. Knock it off.

I bet he was fucking pissed the one time she kicked him in the dick. That was her preparation. No. He was because he was wearing a cup and he was like perfect reaction. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. You're my sensei.

Whatever the fuck. So this Thanksgiving I found out that my mother was a getaway driver for one of these jobs. The other getaway driver had to drop out. The cops were onto him since he had quote, killed some people since he didn't take shit from anyone. And then she says, um, what dad? Apparently my mom poses a nurse and helped kidnap actual double mint twins with my father. There's a lot left out there.

We've gone off the rails entirely. Yeah. This chick is like, I'll try to keep it short. And we're like, can you please write us four more pages of what the fuck is going on. I mean, yeah, you need to write a true, a true novel about what's happening to us. Turns out they weren't in a cult, but needed to call their dad because he was controlling and was calling deep programmers because they weren't talking to him anymore. What?

So the twins father, the twins had stopped talking to their father. He probably sucked. So he had started calling deep programmers to be like, my kids are in a cult. Can you please go kidnap them? And the kids are like, no, we just hate our fucking controlling shitty dad. He wants our double mint money. Yeah. He wants that double mint money, um, because they weren't talking to him anymore.

Luckily they were so mad at their father that they didn't call the police on my parents. Wow. This is the only couple of, this is only a couple of wild stories I've learned from my family. Yes. So it is true that the dad was a cult deep programmer. Yes. It was just in that one instance.

It wasn't a cult that they were in. Right. They just want to get the fuck away from it. Yes. Yes. Okay. That was your submission for us to give you a book deal and yes, our new book imprint is coming out soon.

Yes. We have decided to start a book company and you're our first book. And we begin with a subject line. My mom survived a clown. Hi, Karen, Georgia and Steven, you're all bad bitches. Yes, Steven. You too. Thank you.

I was, thank you on behalf of Steven. I was about, when I was about nine. I was at school and my mom was about to fight a fucking clown. So it's a pretty regular morning for my mom. She's drinking coffee and getting ready and as she goes to put more cream in her coffee, she sees something out of the corner of her eye and she turns and sees a clown. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Really it was just a guy with a Halloween clown mask on as she drops the creamer and

coffee and runs. On her way out of the kitchen, he knocks her down and she hits her head on the hardwood floor. And she regains her bearings in time to see him raising knife and she deflects it with her arm and gets cut on her neck a moment later. Oh my God. We're in this thing. At this time, she goes, oh fuck, I need to fight and hits the guy straight in the nose

with her palm, which is fucking classic self-defense class. That's right. Fucking palm in the nose, break it up into our brain. And she throws him off her. Awesome. She goes into the bedroom and grabs a gun, turns around and cocks it right as he's in the doorway. Holy shit.

Yes. Apparently he cut his way through the screen in the open kitchen window from the backyard and climbed in. This is why I'm never going to live on a fucking ground floor. I mean, for real. The guy didn't get caught until years later when he did the same thing, but the cops got there in time to catch him. Meanwhile, my school went on lockdown and all I thought of it was, why is this girl across

the room crying? We're going to be okay. She only told me after I saw the 2018 winter tour and goes, oh, I guess she means her mom. Her mom only told her after she saw the 2018 winter tour and she goes, want to hear how I almost got murdered? What the fuck? Thank you all so much, Mac. Holy shit.

I mean, that is. I was waiting for it to be like, and it turned out to be her neighbors pretending to scare her. No, no. It was fucking real. And her mom saved it until very recently. Good for her mom. Her mom didn't even tell her when she was in school lockdown that that was like, oh no,

that was me getting attacked. Because of me. Hey, remember, we got, you got home and I had to change the screens. Fucking badass. Also just bone chilling. It sounds like hacky when you hear it, but you're in your, in your kitchen, like stirring up your coffee, just trying to wrap it up to go to work and you turn and there's a clown in your kitchen.

Dude in a clown mask. No, dude. Absolutely not. Get out. And I reject Satan, who you represent. That's right. That was such a good batch. Yeah.

And thank you guys for listening and writing and we love it. And stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Goodbye. Should we see if Mimi will meow again? Yeah. Mimi.

Want a cookie? Did it work? Yeah. Elvis, you want a cookie too? Want a cookie? Yeah.