My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 30

Episode Date: June 12, 2017

On this week's My Favorite Murder minisode, Karen and Georgia read your hometown tales including the terrifying discovery in a crawlspace, the tragic murder of Micaela Costanzo, and the Smiley Face Bomber.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is exactly right. We at Wondery live, breathe, and downright obsess over true crime. And now we're launching the ultimate true crime fan experience, Exhibit C. Join now by following Wondery, Exhibit C, on Facebook and listen to true crime on Wondery and Amazon Music. Exhibit C, it's truly criminal. Welcome. Hi, Karen.

Welcome to my favorite murder. Hi. You're doing mini-soad. Hi. Hi. Let's tell people stories that they sent us to tell them. Let's read it back right to them. Yeah.

This is my favorite murder. The mini-episode where we read you back the hometown murders that you e-mail us. It's the murders that happen in your hometown, clearly, or your college town, or your cousin's hometown that you grew up near. What else? You're just one more example. Your new hometown. Yes.

You've moved from your old hometown to a new one. Your mom's hometown. Of course. Aha. Totally applies. Yeah. Let's send them to my favorite murder e-mail. Stephen reads them, picks them, and gives them to us, and then we send them into microphones.

For example, this is our first one. Stephen Ray Morris has picked it out for me to read to you. And the subject line is, let's roll out the barrel. This should be fun. Past work-town murder, that's just the first sentence, then there's an ellipsis. There's no hi, there's no hello, not a fan. This is just a past work-town murder. So this is actually, it's a category we haven't named.

I didn't name it. Work-town. But that makes sense. You live in one town, you work in a different one. And in this town that you work in. That's where the murder happened. Yeah. Which would be, maybe preferable.

I mean, yeah. Right? Right. Past work-town murder. It's 1999, a guy buys a house in upscale Jericho, New York, is cleaning out basement of crawl space of heavy drum. Ooh, that sounds fun. Drags to curb for trash pickup.

Okay, so keep, in his basement crawl space, he finds a heavy drum, and then he drags it out to the curb. Clearly he's never watched forensic files, because come on. Yeah. He's just like, oh, this drum is fine. Yeah. Everyone else would be like, oh, great, a dead body. And he's like, nah, I don't know.

This is none of my business. I'm gonna drag this to the curb. So sanitation workers won't take it because they don't know what's in it. Yes they do. They're very smart. So they open it, they find a mummified, pregnant woman's body, and it's covered in plastic bits. The police traced the drum manufacturer to 1963, traced the contents, not the woman, but

the plastic bits to a plastic flower company. They traced that to the now retired owner of the plastic flower company, Howard Elkins. Turns out he used to own the house and now lives in Florida. Nassau County cops pay him a visit. He admits to having an affair with a woman matching that description, but can't remember her name. He refuses to give DNA to match the fetus and cops leave and get a court order. He hits the local Walmart, buys a gun and ammo, and kills himself in a friend's garage.

And then in parentheses, wow, maybe the worst friend ever. Now what? This is the most interestingly, interestingly written hometown we've ever had. Yeah. The most positive this was translated from Japanese. Yeah. It's written by the guy who owned the home who just thought that the barrel should be dragged out to the curb.

That's right. A real basics, no greetings, cut and dried, keep it simple, stupid situation. Okay. So now what? Great thing to write into any email. We're just shaming so many, like we're talking so many people out of ever writing to us, which you know who you are. You know who you are.

The best stuff Stephen has to do. Okay. Now what? They find an old address book with the body. They start calling the numbers that are 30 years old. Wow. They find someone who is still at her number and knows who the victim is. It's Reina Angelica Maracan, Maracan, I'll just go that, who disappeared in 1969 at the

age of 27. Baby. She had come to the US from El Salvador in 1966 and got a job in the plastic flower factory. Her boss and lover Elkins promised her marriage, but he was already married. Reina apparently had called his wife, told her she was pregnant and Elkins flipped out and killed her. Police think that he brought the drum containing her body home from work and was going to take it on his boat and dump it at sea, but it weighed almost 350 pounds.

So he pushed it into the space under, under, uh, oh, the crawl space where it remained for 30 years. Sound familiar? This was a 2000 forensic file. Yeah. I was just going to say, I've seen this forensic file. For real? Yes.

Oh, shit. I have totally seen this one. I remember it's so sad. And then it just says Renee, Karen, that was from back to basics Renee, who doesn't want to fuck around. She wants to tell the story. It's the ITB Renee is her new name and BFF Renee. That's so sad.

Also, you, how do you live in a house for 30 years with a dead body in the base? How did, how did it not smell ever? Well it was sealed up in that drum? I mean, but still right? I, well if it's airtight, if it's vacuum sealed shit, man, he did something at that fucking warehouse. Why was it too heavy? Yeah.

He got it into the house. I think if I remember correctly, like his son or someone helped him bring it in. Oh, he told him it was something else? Maybe. Oh, God. Or did they build, they built the house around it?

Yes. Yes. Something happened. I'm gonna say something happened. Okay, that seems reasonable. Yeah. Was, okay, the person. Ask me more questions.

Okay. Let me ask you this. Yes. The guy that dragged the drum to the corner, did he find that in the crawl space in the basement? Because a young girl in wet pajamas and long black hair kept appearing in the upstairs hallway.

Yes. Second question. Right? Yes. Okay. Did he also do that because while he was eating dinner, he would look up and there would be a Civil War general sitting on across the table from him

with a skeleton face. Who was saying, go check the fucking crawl space. Check the crawl space. Check the crawl space. The super scary voice. Or sped up. My sister and I one time decided, did you ever see the Mothman prophecies?

Oh, I don't think so. Richard Gere. No. There's a part we were watching it and then we decided the scariest thing you can do in a movie, in a horror movie. Not stabbing someone right in the face with a knife that you show.

None of that shit. Not those like the loud jump scares. Not smashing a car into another car in a realistic manner which infuriates me. Because I don't want to be in a car accident. I don't want to be in a car accident. I know what you mean. So don't put that in there.

There's a commercial lately that's got that in it and I'm like angry at them. It's so, it's like traumatizing to me. I've been into so many car accidents. But here's the scariest thing you can do. Fat sped up talking. Oh my God, I'm like what, shall we? There's a part where Richard Gere is like

in his hotel room and the phone rings and he picked up the phone. I did this to my sister on the phone when she got really mad at me. Picked up the phone and it's like, I already got it, I already got it, I already got it. Like that. Like super sped up, crazy fast talking.

It's so, why is it so scary? So unnerving. And the same thing. I hate movies, I hate zombie movies when zombies can move at normal pace. Yes. So zombies are running after you. Like 28 days later.

Yeah. It's like no, they're supposed to drag a leg so you can get the fuck out of there. Right. No one, they're just like booking it after you. Yes. That's not there. The one, that's why that movie was so good

28 days later. It's so good. The idea of a rage zombie, which just by the way, everybody, just FYI, that's what the world is turning into. Rage zombies. Rage zombies. Whether it's because of chemicals,

whether it's because of just, we're done as the human race, whatever it is. All our pharmaceuticals, we've been fucking giving ourselves since we were in the womb. And we're feeding it to ourselves. Then we're peeing it out into the sewer systems. And then it's being processed

into the water processing systems. And then we're re-drinking it. They don't, they don't, you don't know if they can filter out those drugs. The secret is to just drink your own pee. See, I cut out the middle man. I told you this, I told you this time and again. But.

That was conspiracy theories. And answers that Karen and Georgia. It's called living solutions. It's called death hacks. My Karen and Georgia. Apocalypse hacks. When the rage zombies are coming at you. But I really feel like,

and this is not a political thing, I feel like people on every side of every possible poll are doing it. Quite especially. But the rage, the heights of rage people are at now. And I mean, I feel, you should have heard me when there's somebody on Franklin stopped to let a pedestrian walk.

And they blocked the lane in traffic. And the volume to which I can scream at people. Did you not see the pedestrian? Nope. I just wanted him to go. I do that and I feel so, I'm like, go ahead, sorry. You know, but also I'm like,

fuck, calm down, Georgia. You can either say sorry, you can also double down and pretend that you're still right. Like that's what I think our culture's turning into. It's just like, everybody thinks that their rage is justified. Anyway.

But we're not wrong. Never. You and I. Ever, ever. Steven, you'll get a pass on this one. Steven. All right. So this is a long one that I'm gonna,

I'm gonna say in fast horror movie speak. I will leave my sister. When I did that to her, started screaming at, she's like, never fucking did that again. She was so shabby. I love it. Okay. So this was sent to me and the thing I found so interesting about it

that I didn't, I just read through it. And then I was like, what the fuck? And so I looked at the, to like Google the person who emailed it to me and they just made up a name to send this to me. Uh-huh. So it's anonymous. I like it.

Or hate it? No, it's good. Okay. Okay. It says, hi, let's just say my name is Andrea or Andrea and I'm 50 years old. The story I have to tell is somewhat a confession because I've never spoken of this to anyone

since the murder took place in 1981. Fuck. In the fall of 81, I lived in Massachusetts. I hung out and went to school with a couple of girls in the Mitchell family, Bonnie and Shirley. We were from the same neighborhood in all in our early teens, 13 through 15. Bonnie being the 15 and the oldest of us.

I would on occasion sneak around with Bonnie's boyfriend, Chris, who was 17 at the time. He was a dropout and would skip school to hang out at his house sometimes and we would sometimes fool around. We even had our last sexual encounter late one night in St. Joseph's Cemetery two weeks before the murder. Ooh.

Okay. So Bonnie was infatuated with Chris and had very deep feelings for him. So of course I never told her ever special dates. But Bonnie did, however, find out about another girl who was catching Chris's attention. I believe her name was Christine. And this Christine made Bonnie extremely jealous

and Bonnie would try to meet up with this girl alone to beat her up and tell her to leave Chris. I kind of remember there being a pregnancy involved, not one of mine, but one of the two girls. I don't recall if this was correct. Anyhow, I never developed feelings for Chris and our escapades were just that. Really it was just acts of foolishness.

Then boredom on days I skipped school. Been there. Okay. And it was maybe no more than five times plus that one night in the cemetery. Yes, we did have sexual intercourse at night in a cemetery. And actually it was the last time we hooked up because Bonnie was getting suspicious.

So we agreed to chill for a while. Okay, so Chris dumps Bonnie. She's inconsolable. And one day Chris asked Bonnie to skip school. And she did under the premise to work things out with her, led her into the Pine Grove Cemetery on the other side of town. So they could be alone.

We walked into some sort of small building there where he pulled out a rope from a clothesline. He had hidden his pocket and strangled her until she died. What? Later that day, Chris bragged about killing Bonnie to Christine, the new girl, and to some other people and even brought them out to see the body, which in turn, which later that night

without him knowing, Kristina went and told the police. He was arrested and convicted and sentenced to 17 to 20 years. I moved far away and I lost touch with everyone. When he asked why he did it, he stated he was tired of Bonnie being jealous all the time and constantly hanging around. Chris thought he was a player,

but in the end he was just a murderer, one that I had sex with. Whoa. Yeah. And Bonnie was laid to rest in St. Joseph's Cemetery. He asked the same cemetery Chris and I had our last sexual encounter in. Okay, that's the third time she's mentioned

having sex in the cemetery. Well, she's into it. Holy shit. So I did look it up and he's still in jail. Wow. That's so frightening. At first I thought it was the murder. It sounded like a murder of that.

Remember the movie River's Edge, of course. So we all love because I'm in love with Crispin Glover. It sounded like that was based on an actual murder. So I thought it was that, but it's not. Yeah. It made me think of Double Jeopardy, starring Ashley Judd. Oh, so good, and Morgan Freeman.

No, Tommy Lee Jones. Oh, why do I remember Morgan Freeman in that? Because she was in several movies with Morgan Freeman. This is the one that her husband sets her up and makes it look like she murdered him. And then at one point he locks her into a mausoleum in a cemetery in New Orleans. Remember that scene?

No. He like shuts her into one of those things and then she's just like, it's crazy. And then that's how the movie ends? Yep, with Ashley Judd being interred live. That's horrifying. It's just shit like that that it's like, yeah, we did some really fucked up things,

like when I was 13 and 14 and on drugs. And I remember like, oh, you know, this girl beat up that girl because she was hanging out with her boyfriend and this and that. And it's like, god, what if someone had killed one of them? Right. It's crazy. It was more likely when you're on drugs.

Yeah. Like when everyone's kind of ratcheted up in a way. Hormones and jealousy and you don't understand what murder and death means. So crazy. OK, you go. OK. This next one is from Kristen.

It says, hi, you guys. I'm a new listener. I've been binge listening for the past week. You rock and I cry laughing. Then I gasp. Then I cry. Then I laugh. I'm addicted.

OK. That's what Renée should have started with. That's how you start a fucking hometown. Just kidding. Or you make up a Gmail address just to tell us a fucking secret that you've kept for fucking 30 years. Full disclosure from fake Andrea.

Yeah. Come on. Come on now. But actually, Renée, yours was awesome. Because I would never stop thinking about that drum being rolled out by a man who's like, better get rid of this thing in my basement without looking into it.

Well, maybe. What if it hadn't been money and not a dead body? Right. But he's like, either way. I mean, it's none of my business. This is heavy. Weird. This can't be important.

Just wearing a tie on the weekend. Always wears a tie. Why are you wearing that? So listen. Her name is Kristen. She grew up in Elko, a small town in northern Nevada, about two hours east of Elko. It's a tiny town right on the border of Nevada and Utah

called Wendover. Think casinos, desert, and trailer parks with nothing, but hours and hours of desert in every direction. Oh, and the population of just over 4,000. And now for the murder. Here's the headline from the Salt Lake Tribune. A Mormon teenager has been sentenced to life behind bars for helping her boyfriend beat his ex-girlfriend

to death with a shovel in a crime the judge branded as violent as I've ever seen. 16-year-old Mikhail Costanzo or Mickey, as she was known to her friends, was a gorgeous girl, well-liked by everyone, a cheerleader, editor of the school newspaper, the list goes on. Her ex-boyfriend named Cody Patton. Cody.

Cody. Cute little Mickey and Cody. Cody started dating a girl named Tony Frato. These names are like straight out of the desert registry. It's hilarious. I'm sorry, I made up my name Cody. Actually, no really nice girl named Cody. Cody.

OK. I'll accept it. Thank you. OK. So Cody starts dating a girl named Tony, who's insanely jealous. Here's our theme of Mikayla and Mikayla's relationship with Cody.

It's mentioned numerous times in articles that Tony was a Mormon, which typically leads you to believe that she'd be a religious good girl, which would make it hard to believe that a Mormon girl could have anything to do with a murder, especially in a small town like Wendover. The story goes that Tony could just not deal with the thought of her boyfriend, Cody,

seeing or talking to Mikayla any longer. They decided to offer to give Mikayla a ride home from school so Tony could confront her and tell her to stay away from her boyfriend. They drove Mikayla a little way into the desert where things escalated. Tony said that when Mikayla got out of the car, she fell and hit her head on the bumper, a parentheses,

sure she did. And so they panicked, and everything else after that is a blur. Those are, that's in quotes. Tony and Cody ended up beating Mikayla in the head with a shovel. According to Tony, it took a really long time for her to die. She admitted to sitting on Mikayla's legs

while Cody slid her throat. They buried her in a shallow grave in the desert. There was no physical evidence linking Tony to the murder, but apparently her good girl conscience got the best of her. And a few days later, she ended up asking her dad to drive her to the police station where she confessed every detail of the murder. Wow.

That's crazy. That's so weird. Were they on drugs? I don't think so. That's crazy. The court proceedings for Tony and Cody were in my hometown. Tony was sentenced to life with possibility of parole

after 18 years, which is unfathomable. And Cody was sentenced to life without parole. Things this horrific and violent just don't happen in our area. It's so heart-wrenching. Thanks for reading my hometown. Stay sexy. Woof.

Really? Giggle. Giggle. Kristen, that's the worst. Thank you. I'm glad she started it out, Cherry, because. Yeah. Got real dark.

Yeah. All right. Ready for one more? Yeah. OK. This one's called the smiley face bomber, parentheses, no one dies. Yep, that's how you end it.

Yep. Hi, Karen, Georgia, Steven, Elvis, and Mimi. My name is Will, and I come from Wisconsin. And this is my favorite hometown case. While googling potential in-state colleges to go to, I came across the University of Wisconsin stout. Wikipedia page, where under the notable alumni section, was the name Luke Helder, a.k.a.

the Midwest pipe bomber. Fuck. In 2002, while in college, Helder began to garner an interest in astral projection, believing that death. Why is Steven laughing so hard at this? What did I say? No, just the idea that somebody is into astral projection.

Like in college. Yeah, I'm going to get into it. Hey, do you know what you're into? I'm into the dead. I'm into the Grateful Dead. I'm into Huck-a-Sack. I like roasted root. Projection, believing that death of flesh and body,

was not the end of existence. This mixed in with his anti-government stance, led him to plant bombs in multiple mailboxes across the US. Of course, he doesn't try to kill himself and see if he lives. He tries to kill other fucking people. But also, it's, um, he's, sorry, the problem was with the government. So he's putting pipe bombs in mailboxes.

I guess. OK. In the shapes of federal crime. Yeah. Stands, here, plant bombs in multiple mailboxes across the US in the shape of a smiley face to gain media attention to spread his ideas. That's how you do it.

You have to start a podcast, obviously, if you want your ideas to be spread. Anywho, eight bombs were found in Nebraska, five in Iowa, three in Illinois, and one each in Colorado and Texas. Of this, only the five in Iowa exploded, causing six injuries to residents and postal workers, including a postal worker who had recently gotten back from cancer treatment and a retired couple mailing a letter.

And then it says, sweet baby angels. While this was going on, the postal service canceled their services in some regions, or it'd only deliver mail if the door to the mailbox were open or taken off. The local police would attach fishing lines to some of the mailboxes to open at a safe distance. At the same time, the FBI analyzed anti-government notes

that accompanied the bombs, and one that Helder sent to the bagger, Harold, that was entitled, explosion, a bit of evidence for you, to craft a criminal profile. Helder's father received a letter from Helder which would end up providing authorities with enough information to find and arrest Helder. He was arrested before he could complete the full smile.

In 2004, Helder was diagnosed with schizoactive disorder. Wait a second. I don't get it. The shape of the smile was on the map of the United States, so he wanted bombs to go off. And a smiley face. Basically, if you were looking from a satellite down. In the shape of, I get it.

That's very high concept. It really is. Before they could put the, OK, so in 2004, Helder was diagnosed with schizoeffective disorder and was sounding competent to stand trial. Helder is currently incarcerated in the federal medical center in Minnesota and has had multiple hearings in the past years to see if he is still incompetent to stand trial.

On a side note, Helder was part of a local grunge band named Apathy before his bombing spree and released one CD that is now sought after by some music critics. I wonder if Vince has it. I recently graduated from UW Stout and would bring up the story to some of my friends who couldn't believe that he went to the same school as us.

I also had classes with some of the professors who had, who gave interviews about Helder. I never brought it up to them, though. This case always struck me with, this case always stuck with me for my time attending Stout. And I always found it odd how it was under the notable alumni section in the Wikipedia. But I guess anybody could put their name there.

Anyway, thank you for your time. And I hope you enjoyed the hometown case. Shout out, shout out for my friend Lizzie for recommending your podcast. I am officially caught up. Stay sexy and don't get murdered, Will. Nice one, Will. Nice, Will.

I've never heard of that. No. It's his oily face. Why do we know about the unit bomber more? Yeah. Did I guess? I think he killed people. He actually killed people.

Whereas this guy just injured people. Yeah. You disagree, Elvis? OK. He's like, end the fucking podcast already. Well, shit, man. Bye. Oh, bye.

Oh, no. Wait, we have to tell people to do things. Say sexy. And don't get murdered. Bye. Bye. Elvis, you want a cookie? All right.

Goodbye. From a laying position. Hey, I'm Aresha. And I'm Brooke. And we're the hosts of Wanderer's podcast Even the Rich, where we bring you absolutely true and absolutely shocking stories about the most famous families and biggest celebrities the world has ever seen.

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