My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 25

Episode Date: April 24, 2017

This week on a new My Favorite Murder minisode, Karen and Georgia read your hometown stories from Austin including an Arby's axe murder, a haunted apartment, and more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Yeah. Fun! Uh, oh. I spent like a good 30 minutes trying to figure out what I had to do at 11am this morning. I sat in a chair, I looked through old texts, I was like, I know for a fact there's an 11am appointment on Friday. I didn't fucking write it down, I don't know who it's with, I was like, it's not an official meeting or I would have gotten an email.

So it's something else and maybe it's coffee with a friend or maybe who the fuck is it? Someone's gonna text you and be like, where are you? And you're like, this, that's why you texted me, oh, you said, oh, we have ads this morning. And I was like, yeah. Yes, yes, Karen. We talked about it several times last week. I mean, what are you gonna do? Uh, yes, you know, we've had a busy week.

We really have had a busy week. We really have. Like, don't, don't come at us. With your fingers shaking in our face again. Yeah, and I'm pretty sure I'm gonna forget something this afternoon, so I'm in the same place, even though I'm pretty certain I didn't. If I didn't write it down in mechanical pencil in my paper book, it's probably not happening. Can we go to the bookstore after this and I can get a day planner that I write things

down with a pencil because I swear to God, that's the key. There's something about putting it in my phone. I fuck it up every time. I know. I've tried it multiple times because everyone's like, what's wrong with you? Are you from the 80s? It just makes a huge difference. Also I am from the 80s.

So yes, I need to go back to my roots and I need to do the thing that actually works as opposed to what I'm supposed to do. My mom had a legit fucking day planner that she wrote in in pencil and she was always late. My best friend, Christine Gooden, in high school had a day planner. She was so type eight, it was hilarious. It was like she wanted to be a young business woman and now she's a very successful business woman.

They would just say, go to school. Go to school. Go to school. It's 7.30 a.m. school. School. 7.30 to 3.30. Get ready for school. Leave school.

3.30 to 5.30, gossip. How was snack? Just totally planned out exactly what's coming and going. I got to get back to those times. Should we start? That's the start, isn't it? I know. Well, I was thinking also, my point was we're so busy that I finally went, why don't you

start at Georgia and backtrack because it's probably something that you're doing with her. Lately it's been all, so how did you remember? I think I just really sat with it and I didn't get scared. I just sat in the not knowing and I accepted it. You held it. Yes. And then I think we were texting about something else and then I was like, I got it.

It's probably, I mean, we have a lot. Tonight we're meeting with Kat, Solin. Oh, that. Do you need a reschedule? Yeah. No. I just need to know that my Friday is blank. Yes.

Okay, great. I remember telling you, you said. You saw me do it. I did see you. There's nothing there. Are you serious? I saw it. I'm serious.

Thank you. What was I going to say? Oh, yeah. We're, whatever. You're not there. True. You're, we're catching it right in time. It's just, it's just horrible.

It's all fine. All you're doing is giving yourself unnecessary anxiety. That's exactly right. So this will take it out of that. Hold my hand. I'm going to hold your hand. I'm going to walk you there. I'm going to tell you which ones I like and which ones I don't like.

Okay. Good. We're going to go get you a mechanical pencil. Yeah. I'll just give you one of mine. They're like, great. I do have those because I love them. I do.

When I was obsessed with crossword puzzles, I had, I always had like six mechanical pencils in my purse. That's smart. Thanks. Oh, hi. This is my favorite murder. It's the hometown edition. We're working through some stuff.

You guys, you guys send us your, oh my God, is that disgusting? I'm only doing that because we're in the studio and I can hear myself. I love it. Yeah. We are in the studio right now and we are so, I'm in love with the sound of my own voice. Oh. It's just so there.

I sound amazing. These mics are so good, Steven. You guys should see it. Maybe we should take a photo of each other at the same time and we'll post, I'll post them side by side on Instagram. We'll do it. You know what? Let's do it.

When we're done. Good idea. What was I going to say? Oh yeah. You guys send us your hometown murders because we're obsessed with them and we love them and we got so many that we had to dedicate a whole mini episode, which sometimes isn't many to reading them to you, reading them back to you. That's right.

Okay. Send them to myfavoritmurder.com. Nope. Gmail.com. Gmail. My favorite murder.gmail.com. At gmail.com. At gmail.

We don't know. No, honey. When there's a dot. Listen, is it a backslash or a forward slash? If I delete this email, is it gone forever or does it go to the government? Hey, you start. Okay. Tell me a story.

I'm not comfortable with this level of technology. We look like news people. We really do. It's kind of a morning, it has a morning TV show feel to it. I'm drinking coffee. I'm not minding this at all. No. Take a big sip.

A loud one. To fuck with people's ear. Three people just turned the fucking podcast off. I would have turned it off. Okay, so these are hometowns from Austin, Texas, where we are going to be. Is that, are we doing that anymore? No. I don't think so.

We were just there literally yesterday. We did two shows and they were fucking amazing. And Austin. So fun. You were so nice to us. Austin was the best. Those shows were so hilarious. Yeah.

Like, they felt so great. It honestly felt like we were just doing whatever the fuck we wanted. We really, this was the most loosey-goosey one that we've done. I had cowboy boots on. I was just going to say Georgia had the best cowboy boots on. We, oh, don't worry, Texas, we're going to you. You can stop all over. You can stop.

Yeah. It's not just going to be Austin. No. We love you and we will come back soon. You guys have a great murder. Sorry. Go on. No.

It's a, we had to, it had to be said. Props to Austin full on. And the Moon Tower Comedy Festival, who were the ones that had us and the Paramount Theater, which was this gorgeous old theater. The whole thing was just the best experience. It was a treat. Thanks everybody. This first hometown murder, the subject line is hometown murder dash Brenham, Texas.

Hi ladies. I am from Brenham, Texas, a little town between Houston and Austin. In August 1984, I was 11 years old and one of my friends and his mother were murdered. It's horrifying. The previous school year, Casey and his family moved to Brenham. He hung out with my group of friends at recess. He was a nice kid, but he could be a shit too. Everybody.

Yeah. Anywho, one Sunday in August, before we started back to school, Casey and his mom went to church. They were kidnapped from the church parking lot. And apparently there were witnesses that hurt his mom screaming. Later that day, their car was found with Casey and his mom in the trunk. Oh no. She fought like hell.

He was trying to rape her and she was even able to stab him. But the killer, Kevin, not Kevin, linsecum, strangled her and threw her body on top of Casey in the trunk. Why? August in Texas, poor Casey suffocated with his mom on top of him. Oh my God. This is the worst. Oh my God.

The killer was caught because he had given some of the jewelry he stole to his girlfriend. What the fuck. He also stole Casey's brand new Nike. Casey and his mom had been school shopping the day before. I'm going to kill myself. My dad swears that he saw the killer about an hour or so earlier. Whoa. He was buying a Sunday newspaper for my grandpa at a convenience store just a couple blocks

away and thought this guy was acting odd. The DA for this case was Charles Sebesta, who was disbarred not too long ago. Linsecum was executed in December of 1992. Casey would have been a freshman in college. Stay sexy. Don't get murdered by Hannah. How does that... I mean broad daylight by a stranger.

Like, I was thinking, oh, it's the ex-husband. Yeah. Because nobody, no stranger would go to that level of fucking boldness. And then the kid too. I feel like killers like that would wait until a woman's alone. What a horrifying last moments of your life. Both of them. Yeah.

It's almost like the lowest ring of serial killer hell or murder hell is like that you're just torturing a child with his mother. There was one in Austin that we talked about at the live show that where he just, she was washing her car out of one of those like self-car wash things at night, but it was really well lit and he just grabbed her in public. I mean, I'm just, that terrifies me. Yeah. Well, that's started out rough.

Yeah. Let's see if I can get a better one. Okay. That's not better. Yeah, good luck on the better murder story. Let me see if I can get better than you. Get a better one. Let me see if I can get one.

That doesn't make me want to kill myself is what I know by that. All right. Hometown Murder from Texas, y'all. It says, hey guys. So first I have to say that I'm a bit, I'm in a bit of a grieving period because my two-year-old son has become a repetitive sponge and I can no longer listen to my favorite murder during my commute or else he'll go to daycare saying fuck and murder. Yeah.

I think that's for the best. Yeah. He sounds fun. So instead I sit in the parking lot at work every morning for 30 minutes to get my murder story fixed and show up late to work and then all cap says, worth it? Get it girl. We support that. So I'll keep it, so I'll keep this short and sweet, but my husband and I just purchased

our first home in a small town outside of Austin, Texas in May of this year. We were so excited to move into the family-oriented neighborhood that typically feels pretty damn safe and normal. And my God. Excuse me. Excuse me. In July we were left, in July we left for the weekend and on our way home I was browsing my Facebook news feed for murder news articles when I saw my hometown, my town and neighborhood

came name along with murder suicide. I hopped on my neighborhood app where everyone posts about shit happening in the area. That's so sweet. Yeah. And people were posting about a loud boom they'd heard the night before. Come to find out, a block from my house, there was a domestic dispute between a husband and wife. He got pretty violent and the wife yelled at her eight-year-old son to call the cops.

As he went for the phone, the dad yelled for him to go to bed. When the eight-year-old boy woke up the next morning, he had, the dad had shot his mother and then himself and they were both dead. The fucking child had to find his parents knowing that he could have called the cops. You're gonna be- So yeah, this is not- Right. This one isn't gonna be the email that saved you.

No, it's not. The creepy part is watching interviews of my neighbors talk about the kids hanging out with the boy and being casual acquaintances with the dad. It seemed like the wife had him on a tight leash. Oh man, that's gonna snap. The whole thing still fucks me up because I drive by that house every damn day on my way to and from work. On a better note, thank you for making me appreciate Austin traffic because I mean more murder

stories. Bye, Andrea, and then she writes, like, Andrea, got it, from Austin. Andrea. Andrea. That was heavy. This is another heavy. I mean, shit. Heavy headers.

That's what it's about, right? Uh-huh. All right, here's- this might help us. It says Arby's and Axe Murder. Okay, that sounds fine. Okay, here we go. Here we go. Now, this is gonna be-

I'm a long-time listener, but first time sending this email, I swear I've rewritten this like three or four times but finally decided to send it. My name is Pekas. I currently live in Austin, Texas, but I grew up in a small border city about 300 miles south called Laredo. I learned about this crime when I was in community college. On January 1991, the body of a 33-year-old James Smiley was found hacked to pieces inside his bedroom.

Oh, my God. Smiley was the manager of the local Arby's and a deacon at a church. He was found by one of his employees who went to check on him after having missed a day of work. The police found two more bodies in the residence. Ruben Martinez, 22, was found lying in the living room couch with multiple stab wounds, and Daniel Duanez, 14, in a separate bedroom, found stabbed in bed. The police initially thought that this could be a robbery because Smiley's car was gone.

However, along with a television set and a telephone, however, someone had taken the time to turn every crucifix inside James Smiley's bedroom upside down. Oh, no. Oh, no. I think this was the next day or something when the police got a tip from a local high school student about the murders. I guess this person was skipping class and hanging out with a group of high school friends. When one guy in the group confessed to the murders in a stoned and drunken stupor, two

men were arrested and tried for the murders. Apparently, one of the two killers said he was tricked into going to the house by the other guy, thinking they were just going to vandalize a house, so that's fine. The mastermind behind the attack was an Arby's former employee who had been fired not too long before, and police know that at some point he ran away from home and Smiley provided shelter in his home. In court, he said he was possessed by the devil and wanted to sacrifice people or something like that.

Both guys are still in jail, I think. One of them had gotten the death sentence, the youngest person in Texas, to be on death row. Wow. This crime was very controversial in my hometown because there was a third person involved related to a judge who never faced any charges. Anyway, after the killings, the Arby's closed, and Laredo did not have an Arby's for like 11 years.

Thank you for your time. I love the show in Elvis, Pekas. P.S. Get Quiznos Don't Get Murdered. Dude. Real quick, Quiznos and Arby's are not, dude, not the same thing. No. They're not even in the same fast food realm.

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I mean, it's, it's super rough. This is brought to you by extensive therapy your entire life. Work it out. Work it the fuck out. Okay. Should I read murdered by ghosts probably? Why am I even asking or Dublin doctor pepper decapitation? Are you fucking kidding me?

Ghost. They're both good. Ghost. Ghost. Ghost. Ghost. Ghost. Ghost.

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Ghost. Ghost. Ghost. Ghost. Ghost. Ghost. Ghost. Ghost.

Ghost. Ghost. Ghost. Ghost. Ghost. Ghost. Ghost. Ghost.

Ghost. Ghost. Ghost. Ghost. Ghost. Ghost. Ghost. Ghost.

Ghost. Ghost. Ghost. drinking boxed wine. Hell yeah. Close to 1.30 or 2 a.m. I heard a jarring outbreak of dogs howling like wild banshees. They were not normal dog noises. It almost sounded like they were screaming. It was so strange and upsetting I actually left my apartment to investigate, a.k.a. I leaned over my balcony, probably in my underwear, and looked. Couldn't find anything. It went to bed. A couple hours later, roughly 3 a.m., I woke up to the sounds

of sirens from multiple cop cars, ambulances, and fire trucks. That's just what you want to wake up to at 3 a.m. I spent the next several hours glued to the slats of my bedroom blinds but had to wait for the Sunday night news to find out what happened. 46-year-old John Thomas Haney was found dead in his apartment two buildings away from mine. You can actually see my bedroom window on possibly part of my face in footage from the news report. That's so creepy. So funny. Look in the background. From multiple gunshot wounds inflicted by his 36-year-old girlfriend, Elizabeth Garcia, who called 911 herself to report the shooting. Garcia confessed to the murder saying she and her living boyfriend, Haney, had been arguing

over the fact that she was unemployed and was not contributing financially to their relationship. Haney accused her of being pregnant, which she was not. Accused her of being pregnant. You're pregnant. That's so mean. I bet you're pregnant. You're so fucking pregnant right now. You look pregnant. She's like, I had a big burrito for lunch. Look. Look. Look. I've been going through some stuff. And threatened to beat the baby out of her. That was so funny. The argument turned physical at which point Gonzalez retrieved, you called her Garcia before, so it's not Gonzalez. Maybe Garcia or Gonzalez. Hey, we can't act like we don't do it. Fair enough. Retrieved the revolver from under the couch where everyone keeps

their guns, obviously, and shot Haney once he was reaching for her and several more times as he lay on the floor. Uh-oh. A sad story, also a crazy scene to wake up to. But as we all know, not the first time someone's had enough of being in a couple and murder their significant other. I reported the suspicious dog activity to the police, bragged about my crucial world and the investigation to coworkers, and gradually moved on. My apartment complex did too. This is kind of long. And after the blood was presumably mopped up and the police tape cut down, the unit was rented out to the next customers. Cut to a chilly Sunday morning, February 2014, a first floor resident of the same building. The first murders

occurred in. Oh, that means there's more. Oh, shit. I'm sorry, but although long, this is one of the most beautifully written emails we've ever gotten. It's very, it's very, it goes on in different directions, but it's fun. I mean, I'm really seeing this like it's an FX series. Okay, go ahead. Same building after the first murders occurred in placed a call to 911 after finding a dark, sticky, red substance. And then it says, it was blood dripping into a pool on his patio from the balconies above. Oh my God, can you imagine what you're out there in your under words, smoke, sneak in a smoke, and there's something drips on your cheek. You're like, oh, water. Oh, yeah. And it's like, it's red. So there's

a chance it's frosting, but I'm going to guess it's not or like red food color, rusty water. Please let it be rusty water. Someone is making a cake and needed to mix red frosting in and the fucking and they tripped and fell onto the porch and all their batter. It's blood. There's something that was blood dripping to the pool on his patio from the balconies. For the second time in four months, I awoke to a battery of emergency vehicles and news These crews collected around a crime scene, this time involving two fatalities in the all caps, the same apartment as the murder in October. No, no.

Oh, no. No. Oh, no. Okay, here's the thing. This person already said that's what was going to happen, and it still surprised me when you just said that. Totally. That's good writing.

Totally. Um, 33-year-old Charles Sanders and his living girlfriend, 21-year-old Remidos, Remidios de Machibia. Oh, man. I'm going to get in trouble for this. Remidios de Machibia. Machibia. There you go.

Yeah. That's definitely it. Just put it at the end. This guy just ruined my life. Oh, Alexis just ruined my life. We're found dead from gunshot wounds and the two inflicted on each other. She fired first, hitting Sanders while he was standing on the balcony, despite being crucially injured by the shot, he was able to wrestle the gun away from her and fatally

shoot her. Sanders died from his injuries while in the process of calling 911 for help, so they fucking shot each other. Um, well, I'm not... Like the same gun. You're the same gun while being shot. Like he shot her while he was dying from his gunshot wound. That's fucking dedication.

I, laughing is what I'm doing, but it's not how I'm actually feeling. I just want to say that. We laugh at horror, you and I, because... That's beyond. Well, that in and of itself as a crime is plenty. Yeah. It's happening in an apartment where it just fucking happened, the exact same crime. In that you live in.

Listen, we laugh because otherwise we'd be fucking hermits in our apartment's houses, in your case, living in a ball. Screaming at the top of our lungs. Screaming. This is how we cope. We're not like, ha ha, murder. We're like, ha ha ha. And how Alexis copes, because she's way closer than we are.

Yeah. Good for her. Um, while I'm not sure they know the exact nature of the argument between Sanders and Dima Kiaba and her, since both died and there were no other witnesses, the similarities between the February and October incidents are striking. Both couples were living together, experiencing stresses in the relationships, eventually turning into deadly violence, and both had significant, about 10-year age gap between the girlfriend and boyfriend, all caps.

As it turns out, Elizabeth Garcia, the original building 26 killer, told detectives during her initial police interview that she thought the apartment was haunted and that the haunting contributed to the couple's obvious, couple's problems and influence of violence that led to the unfortunate end of the relationship, which, which is obviously true, and anyone from the second murder survived, I'm sure they would have corroborated her story. Without a doubt, the suspicious dog active E, and he says S, she says SDA, fits in here somehow too. Yes.

I have to say I'm here. That was when the devil came up from the ground and all the dogs went crazy. And then it went up into apartment 26A. Yes, definitely. I said it was. Definitely. I have to say I'm very disappointed this angle wasn't more thoroughly explored in mainstream media's coverage of these events.

I'm convinced it's a cover-up. You guys are the best. Stay sexy and don't get ghost murders, Alexis. Fuck. That was intense. No, that's a hometown for you. Yeah. That's like four hometowns combined in one.

Yeah, no children were involved, no lifelong therapy except for Alexis. I made a joke to you at the Austin shows where I was like, I'm going to try to slowly force this podcast into a supernatural realm. Yeah, it just gets really suddenly into. Every single thing is like, and that they think a ghost did it. Just constantly. What? No, it's clearly the serial killer who got murdered.

You guys, if I could put you to death. The fingerprints. No, no, no, no, no. There was a supernatural element to it, but there's something about that. It's like, what if? What if? I know. It's so fun.

I want to, so bad, so I'm like almost more obsessed with it than people who believe in it. Do you know what I mean? Yes. Because you want to prove yourself right or wrong. Yeah. And it's like, when you ask people who are like, this person was not full of shit, like you asked someone that you like, like a guy Brennan was like, I have a ghost story.

I'd be like, well, I believe it. Well, I have a good story. Well, yeah. No, I mean yours too. I forgot. Do you believe mine? Yes. Do you, Georgia?

Yes. Oh my God. Tell it real quick. I have an hour ghost story, but it's the reason I, it's not like I think a ghost came and killed them or anything even in a horror movie. It's just, there's other shit going on. We have no idea what it is. We just simply don't know.

I definitely believe in other planes of existence, and so maybe there's crossover sometime. But the idea, it's just such a, it's such a fascinating thing why it's like one bad apartment. First of all, their apartments. So it's like, why would an apartment be evil? And then it's so specific to like 10 year age gap relationships where it's just like two people turn on each other. I mean, for two, the, the, what is it called?

It's not, two people killing each other in relationships is not a coincidence, doesn't feel like a coincidence in the same apartment, especially if, I don't know, maybe the second ones didn't know about the first one. I feel like it's not something you disclose when you're like signing a rental agreement. Or you think they were copycats. Yeah. Or they're like, they're like, we're going to do that too. This happens in these apartments.

That's the goal. I want to say, actually, don't believe in other planes of existence, but I really want to. Yeah. So. You're entertaining it as a, as a skeptic. I think it would be so cool if that, if that were the truth, I think it would make life more interesting.

But unfortunately, I think life is actually just, you know, fake. I don't know. Listen, this is not the podcast, we have not gone into surreal and supernatural shit yet. That's right. And this is why, because it does, it just stalls out. It's just like anything is possible. No, it's not. Life is horrible.

It's just you and I fighting about whether or not anything is possible. Yeah. All right. Well, that's our hometown episode. Thank you guys so much for writing those in. Yeah. Wow. They're going to, those were for mine stickers.

Yeah. Do you have a better one? Prove it. Yeah. Write it to us. Send it in. You want to beat Alexis's new high watermark of good writing? Do it.

Listen, and if you have a horrible child one, clearly we're fine with those two. I mean, look, it all has to be read. Yeah. They deserve it. Thanks for listening, you guys. That's your story. Yeah. Stay sexy.

And don't get murdered. See you later.