My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 289

Episode Date: July 25, 2022

This week’s hometowns include an F4 tornado and heroic acrobats. 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. Hello and welcome to my favorite murder, the mini-soad. This is where we read you your stories back to you. Will it be you this week? Let's find out. Good question. Do you want to go first? Sure. The subject line of this first email is, my grandfather survived an F4 tornado. Oh dear. Yes, yes, yes. Tornado stories. Hello to all the beautiful people and pets of MFM. In episode 331, Karen told the story of the tri-state tornado of 1925 and I immediately

knew I had to write in with this story about another tornado outbreak. On May 31st, 1985, there was a huge tornado outbreak across Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York and Ontario. A total of 44 tornadoes touched down in a single day and 89 people were killed. 65 of those were in Pennsylvania. One of those tornadoes was an F4, spinning it over 200 miles per hour and estimated to be traveling at more than 100 miles per hour. Within a matter of seconds, it ripped through the very small town of Atlantic, Pennsylvania, where my grandparents live. My grandmother was working at the post office in the next town. My mom and her two older sisters no longer lived at home. My mom's younger sister was in her room, getting ready for a date,

and her date arrived to pick her up early. Unknowingly, this lucky timing saved her life and she ended up marrying him about two years later. If she'd been home when the storm arrived, she would have almost certainly died as her room was completely gone. Only the inner wall and the floor remained. Holy shit, punctuality for the win. Right? Being early. So regal. But the most impressive survivor story of the day was my grandfather. He'd gotten in the car to head to the store and drove to the end of the driveway. He said he looked both ways before pulling into the road. To the left, he saw nothing. And to the right, he saw a tornado coming over the hill, headed directly toward him. The house was set back from the road and the storm was moving quickly,

so he knew he couldn't make it back to the house to take cover. Instead, he got out of the car and rolled underneath it. When the storm reached him, he was picked up and thrown about 300 feet. Miraculously, he was mostly unharmed, aside from a giant cut down the length of his forearm. He still has a nasty scar. It seems crazy to have gotten out of the car, but it's a good thing he did. Because once they found the car, stuck in a tree down the road, there was a giant piece of broken wood lodged in the headrest. It would have killed him. I was born less than two years later, but I grew up hearing stories and seeing photos of the aftermath. As a result, I was terrified of tornadoes. I could never sleep during thunderstorms. I was convinced that a tornado would come in the

middle of the night and destroy our house. I memorized all the warning signs, the same ones Karen mentioned in the episode. This guy turns green. The winds blow the leaves upside down. I don't think I mentioned that. That's a warning sign. The winds blow the leaves upside down. Birds stop singing, and then you'll hear the sound of a freight train approaching. Luckily, we've never had a storm like that since, but to this day, everyone in the area is hyper-vigilant about storms and always prepared for the worst. So stay sexy, stay inside, and stay safe from tornadoes. Courtney, she, her. No, I don't ever want to be in a tornado. Please. Yeah. Okay. This one's just called hometown, and it starts spirit guides of the Donner Party-like adventure that

is 2020. So although we live in Virginia now, this one takes place just outside Seattle along the picturesque Maple Valley Highway. The Cedar River runs along it where the salmon run. It's truly fucking gorgeous, although suburban as fuck in Microsoft and Amazon's backyard. So it's definitely heavily wooded and very shrubby and bushy. So this was maybe 10 years ago, and this local woman goes missing on her way home from a night shift at a Fred Meyer store, I believe. She left work, then poof, she disappeared. So the husband tried to file a missing persons report, but almost immediately, once they began taking it seriously, they zeroed in on the husband and decided he knew more. At first, they thought she was a runaway. She's like a 30-something-year-old woman. Oh.

So like day eight here, and they literally have the husband hooked up to the polygraph machine when they ping her cell phone after eight freaking days. I think there was some, quote, privacy issues. I'm not sure what the holdup was, but they finally do it. Lo and behold, they get a hit from it and find her alive, you guys. And I believe upside down, trapped in her vehicle down a 20-foot embankment. Oh my god. She'd gone off the road somehow in the early morning hours, and the blackberry bushes and heavy shrubs had basically closed back up behind her. So it wasn't super obvious from the road that anything had happened at all. I remember I drove that same road back and forth to work, and I can see how easily this could have happened along there.

I thought of her daily driving this road after this, and can't imagine the outcome if they hadn't found her when they did. Her name is Tanya Ryder. If you want to Google the actual facts, she wrote about it herself. And she fucking survived eight days being trapped upside down in the wreckage of her car, surely thinking after a while that no one was going to come save her while her husband was being suspected of her disappearance right down the road. Anywho, I've been riding out 2020 in an apartment with a four and five-year-old and our beloved 14-year-old dog named Pig. I'm diabetic, so we're taking this shit rather seriously, and you should have saved me from the brink of sanity so many times, not being able to

work, go in stores, or even hug my mom since March. God, I remember those days. Yes. God. I loved you with my whole huge black heart even before all this. I first found you all healing from an abusive shitty relationship, and you guys gave me my fight back after I forgot who the fuck I was for a minute or seven years. But you truly have been a lifeline and made me feel less alone every Monday and Thursday, religiously. SSDGM and stay out of the forest, not even in your car. Don't let a ghost crash happen to you most sincerely. Star. Oh, star. Yeah. I mean, so much there. So much going on. We're all hanging upside down in our vehicles with the shrubs closed behind us, aren't we? We really are waiting for someone to ping us

and find us. No one can see that the tire marks are very subtle, and the bushes are slightly askew. That's a great analogy. God, that's scary. I feel like I saw on some, I just remember watching a reenactment and the way they, I don't know if, I think actually the person that happened to was a man, but a very, very similar story. And the way they found him was a psychic kept dreaming of that stretch of road and couldn't like was having, let's be haunted by it. Oh my God. But see, this is my habit of just retelling old TV memories. But this chick was upside down, broken fucking ribs. Her arm, her arm was out of, like she almost had to get her leg amputated. It's so crazy, but she survived. Also surviving eight days with probably very little water,

although she was on the season, but oh my God. 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. Stay cozy all winter long with classic comfort foods available weekly. Why stop with just dinner? Now you can enjoy HelloFresh's expanded menu of quick lunch solutions, weekend brunch, simple side dishes, and amazing desserts. Karen January is going to be my month for HelloFresh. I am so sick of takeout. I miss cooking so much. I haven't lifted a knife or a

pan since like early fall. So I can't wait to get back in the kitchen and HelloFresh makes it so easy and also makes it so that my food tastes good, which is hard to do on my own. It gives you everything, everything you need. So get up to 20 free meals with purchase plus free shipping on your first box at hellofresh.ca slash murder 20 with code murder 20. That's up to 20 free meals plus free shipping on your first box when you go to hellofresh.ca slash murder 20 and use code murder 20. Goodbye. What makes a person a murderer? Are they born to kill or are they made to kill? I'm Candice DeLong and on my new podcast Killer Psyche Daily, I share a quick 10 minute rundown every weekday on the motivations and behaviors

of the criminal masterminds, psychopaths and cold-blooded killers you hear about in the news. I have decades of experience as a psychiatric nurse, FBI agent and criminal profiler. On Killer Psyche Daily, I'll give you insight into cases like Ryan Grantham and the newly arrested Stockton serial killer. I'll also bring on expert guests to dive deeper into the details, share what it's like to work with a behavioral assessment unit at Quantico, answer some killer trivia and even host virtual Q&As where I'll answer your burning questions. Hey Prime members, listen to the Amazon Music exclusive podcast Killer Psyche Daily in the Amazon Music app. Download the app today. Let's see, number two, subject line, a drunk 12 year old.

Hey to my only favorite Californian ladies. Oh, ouch. What's happening? What happened to you? I'm a huge fan that has listened since episode one. Oh, what? And I'm fairly disappointed that I had to check out other podcasts while I wait for your news stories to come out. Don't be disappointed. There's so many good ones. I found a few I enjoy but still wish it was your voice as I was listening to. Anyway, I have a drunk kid's story for y'all if you're interested. I was 12 years old in Sydney, Ohio, spending the weekend at my uncle Paul's with my mom's Cinda, the only Cinda I've met to this day. The next day I was about to meet up with a friend to go snowboarding. My mom and uncle went out for only 45 minutes and I saw this as the

perfect opportunity to kick pack and drink my uncle's famous Budweiser bottles as you never saw him without one. You could be at home with my dad. Although he's cans not bottles. I was on my third bottle. What? I can't even hold a skit again. 12. I can't even drink three fucking bottles of beer without blacking out. Right. Well, she first of all had a task. She was trying to, she had a time limit. Sure. There's, this is all kinds of like at home alone hijinks and I'm getting that feeling in my stomach of like now I want to do this too. It was only, I was on my third bottle when they returned and only then did I realize I was in deep shit. I hid the evidence in the bathtub and then in parentheses it says so smart I know and tried to act natural on the couch.

They suggested lunch at Perkins and all I remember at this point is slugging my way to the car, falling all over the place while my uncle helped me into the restaurant to our table. Oh my God. They thought I was playing drunk and acting stupid and then it's dot, dot, dot, which I have never done before. After I puked all the beer all over the entire table, it was then that my mom realized that I was wasted. She took me to the restroom and let me hug that nasty toilet till I stopped puking. God. The next morning I was feeling great and begged my mom to let me go snowboarding. To my extreme surprise, she said yes. I now know that the bright snow and freezing cold weather is the opposite of what a hangover needs and she

knew that. I learned my lesson and honestly hate the taste of beer now. When at 12, I thought it tasted so good. I love you ladies and thank you for all the work you both have put in, especially for the various donations you've made to causes that mean something and that the money goes where it's needed most. I cannot wait to be able to do the same. You're both truly inspirational. Stay sexy and keep doing what you're doing. Love, Laura. That's a nice little drunk 12-year-old congratulating us on what we do. I know. These are so nice. So nice. Love a good drunk kid story. Hell yeah. Okay, this one's called a story from a Swedish Six Flags. Hi, everyone. Thank you for a great podcast. Just listen to the latest hometown episode where you ask for more amusement park

stories. Here comes one from Stockholm, Sweden, and our local roller coaster slash amusement park called Gronaland. Wow. And they didn't tell me how to say it, so it looks like Gronaland. Okay. Something land. I went there on a school trip in maybe fifth grade, 18 years ago. All the kids were super excited. Everyone was finally tall enough for all the rides and old enough for the haunted house. We had a great time. Someone puked from eating too much cotton candy. Another lost their shoes in a roller coaster. And another got shit on by a bird. So far, so good. But something super crazy also happened that day. As me and my few friends were standing in line for one of the roller coasters, we suddenly noticed there was some sort of commotion going on over

at the Ferris wheel. That's basically next to where we were standing. Turns out someone had panicked and gotten halfway out of their seat basket on the way to the top. Oh, the wheel had stopped but couldn't go back down for some reason, most likely because the person was getting injured by moving parts. Eventually, the person was hanging out with their legs and entire upper body, only having their arms and head still in the basket. The others in the basket at the same person were not strong enough to pull them back in. It looked like the day would end in tragedy. Can you imagine? I am imagining and I'm trying not to laugh. If it was you, it would be the most horrifying thing. And then if you saw it from the ground, how could you not laugh at that?

I would be terrified. It's like they hang in there, baby cat, just kind of fucking. I pictured it like they're somehow caught at the chin. Oh, no, no, I think they're holding on. Oh, well, that's really horrible. Suddenly people started pointing and gasping. I looked over to the left and saw that three monster acrobats from the haunted house were making their way over to the Ferris wheel. It was one tall skinny man dressed in a black and red bodysuit with a space painted in red like a hot couture devil. A young girl or very tiny woman dressed as what I remember as a ghost lizard. That can't be right. And the third person dressed as a wolf man or similar. They climbed up on the roof of a nearby shed, think parkour slash circus acrobat style

movements and made their way onto the Ferris wheel. They were incredibly limber and climbed through the construction like it was something they did every day. They reached the person hanging out of the basket and managed to get him back into the basket, saving the day and most likely the person's life. Oh my God. They made it into the newspapers the next day, but sadly I couldn't find any pictures of the saviors online. Thanks again for a great podcast. You make me laugh out loud when I bike around in Stockholm getting bikers around me looking nervously over their shoulders. What if I'm laughing at them? Stay sexy and trust the devil, Hannah. I absolutely adore that story, Hannah. That's such a good one. That's I mean that was their moment

to shine finally. For real and also it just made me think of if you've ever had a panic attack or you know that feeling where I'm sure that person got scared and got that rush of adrenaline and couldn't help but do what they did, which would be the unsafest thing, but like when you're freaking out, you're like, I got to get out of here. They thought they were lower maybe than they were and they were just going to jump out and then realize, oh my God. But then a big weird art student came and rescued them. A cavalry of art students who got paid minimum wage came and fucking risked their lives and saved the day. Wait, that reminds me of, do you remember, I feel like it happened in quarantine. There was a guy who crawled up the front of an apartment building because there was a

baby hanging from the, remember that? Yes, there's video of it. Yes. And it was like parkour, like rock climbing guy. It was unbelievable. He rescued that baby. It was like on his way to work and then fucking up the bananas. The baby got over and then was hanging. Yeah. Oh, that was crazy. Hooray for that guy. Yeah. I think we said hooray for that guy on this podcast. Sounds like us. I think it's good to remind people every five years when people climb things to rescue people. It's important. It is. Okay. Here's my last one. The subject line is, a ghost asked me very politely to move out of its way. Hello, everyone. When I was 20, I was working at a corner shop in Carolion, a village. There's

no way that's, no, there's just no way. There's so many E's in there. A village in the Welsh city of Newport. I was in a bit of a rough area. So we had a lot of alcoholics and drug addicts in. I've got a few good stories about my time there. One of our regulars was Dave, not his real name. He lived a few doors up from the shop. So he was in and out most days, sometimes multiple times a day for cigarettes and booze, and occasionally some bread and milk. He was always completely out of it. He drank a lot and he did heroin, but he was always nice and polite. He would have a bit of a chat if he wasn't too far gone and he was never aggressive or anything. I hadn't seen him for about a week and mentioned it to one of my colleagues who told me that he

died. I was a bit gutted because, like I said, he was a nice guy, but ultimately not that surprised. I didn't really think any more of it until about a year later. I was cleaning out one of the drinks fridges. So I was sat on the floor with my head in the fridge and the glass door propped open with my foot. And I heard someone say, excuse me, please love. And when I looked up, I had the fright of my life. The slightly fuzzy ghost of Dave was stood in front of me with a bag of Doritos and four cans of car laying in his hand. We both stared at each other for a few seconds before I realized he wasn't a ghost, but a real-life human man. And he only looked fuzzy because I was looking at him through the thick 90s glass of a fridge door. I stood up and let

him pass and tried to get my heart rate back down from 500 BPM. It turns out my colleague was mistaken. It was someone else who had died and Dave had just been in jail. Stay sexy and always fact-check your colleagues' claims that customers have died, George, and in parentheses, a girl. Oh, what's up, Georgia girl? That's so funny that the first assumption is ghost. I love that. Yes. Well, he was supposed to be dead. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. And then it's like, oh, wait, it's not a ghost. It's a dirty, dirty glass. Dave? Dave doesn't understand how much he's loved for just all that whole experience that George went through right there. Here's my last one. It is one of my favorites, a glitch in the Matrix stories. We both have sleeping dogs on her.

On her parts. My owner just minds on my feet. I thought I'd try to fold her in a little bit to give the fancult who gets to watch this on video a little supplement. Oh, that's right. Everyone could see Blossom right now if they want. Oh, Cleveland. Cleveland. Oh, okay. This is called hometowns. Well, gals, you're probably wondering why I called you all here, so let's get to it. Let's do it. I love that. A number of years ago, my parents were traveling around the country during the summer. It was common for my mom to call when they got to a stop and let me know where they were. Tell me about their last argument on the road. You're going too fast, too slow. We are lost. Why don't you use the map? There's a glimpse into my childhood vacations for

you, but I digress. One late afternoon, the phone rang and I figured it was mom checking in. I was surprised to hear my dad's voice and shook when he said, we've been in a pretty bad car accident. Mom and dad had been hit by a fully loaded logging truck. Dad was, quote, okay, aren't dads always, but mom was being airlifted to a large hospital with multiple serious injuries. After getting all the details, I booked my flight and got to Seattle as quick as I could. After 10 days, mom was released from the ICU, but still had a long road ahead before she would be stable enough to return to San Diego. Being a mom of four kids, I needed to get home after about two weeks. I felt so torn knowing my mom was in great medical hands and leaving my dad,

who was injured himself. I was a mess when I got to the airport wishing I could be in two places at once. I held it together until I sat down at my gate to wait for my flight. After a few minutes, a gentleman sat down next to me and said, going somewhere special? Well, that was all I needed to burst into tears as I told him why I had made the trip. He got a stunned look on his face and asked, may I ask where this accident happened? I told him the name of the small town in northwest Washington and the highway. With a look of complete shock, he looked at me and said, honey, I was there. I was on my way to work and since it's a two-lane highway, I was backed up in traffic. He went on to say that he was a local minister and once he heard that the backup was due to a

very bad accident involving a passenger truck and trailer and a logging truck, he abandoned his car and ran up to the accident scene to see if he could be any help. He then said, is your name Kathleen? I told him yes and he said, I held your mom's hand while the helicopter was landing and she said, if I don't make it, please make sure someone tells Kathleen I love her. Oh my god. He began to hold me as we both cried. He had heard that my mom had not survived and was so happy to hear she was getting stronger. This man and his small community of friends ended up being a huge sorts of kindness and help providing very sweet care for my parents in my absence. To this day, I find so much comfort knowing things happen on our behalf that we may never know about.

My parents and I had a difficult relationship over the years and this story helps remind me that they did love me in their own way. Stay sexy and maybe tell your senior parent to travel by plane. Love you to the moon and back ladies. Kathleen, she, her. Oh man. How wild is that? Well, I always like to compare them, but that seems to be one of the weirdest, most like I was just there. What complete strangers. There's no reason for this to happen at all. The details add up. Yeah. Wild. Is that it? Everyone send us your stories, whether they have anything to do with what we just read or not. Yeah. I mean, at this point, we've demonstrated through other people's writing what a good story looks like. That's right. Be a part of it. Maybe it's helped you and now you

can write your own. Please do it at my favorite murder at Gmail. Stop being selfish and stay sexy until good murder. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton, our producer is Alejandra Keck. This episode was engineered and mixed by Stephen Ray Morris, our researcher is Gemma Harris. Email your hometowns and fucking her a's to myfavoritmurder at gmail.com. Follow the show and Instagram and Facebook at my favorite murder and Twitter at myfavemurder. Goodbye. Listen, follow, leave us a review on Amazon Music, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.

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