My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 394

Episode Date: July 29, 2024

This week’s hometowns include an escape from Broadmoor Hospital and a secret door in an attic. Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/3UFCn1g Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is exactly right. Make your nights unforgettable with American Express. Unmissable show coming up? Good news. We've got access to pre-sale tickets so you don't miss it. Meeting with friends before the show? We can book your reservation. And when you get to the main event, skip to the good bit using the card member entrance. Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash ymx. Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply.

I'm journalist Becky Milligan, host of The Butterfly King, a World War II murder mystery podcast on exactly right. It's a cruel tale of a doomed royal dynasty. When King Boris of Bulgaria dies suddenly in 1943, every nation is a suspect. Join me as I unravel 80 years of lies and cover-ups to get to the truth. Who killed the Butterfly King? Binge all eight episodes of The Butterfly King, available now wherever you get your podcasts.

My favorite murder Hello and welcome to my favorite murder, the mini-sode. That's right. We're reading your stories. Are you ready to hear stories? Are you ready to watch stories because we're reading them on camera for the fan cult. So join in if you wanna see. Everybody pinch your cheeks for a little natural blush and get ready for some video.

Oh no, that's, uh-oh. You wanna go first this time? Sure. Okay, I'm not gonna tell you the story. I'm not gonna tell you the line, subject line. The line that starts. I'm not gonna tell you. You're not gonna hear it.

I did it. Okay. Dearest MFM, I can't remember what you asked for that made me go, oh God, I have a story like that. I think I blocked it out, much like I have tried and failed to block out this story. Oh. I live in a house in a quiet neighborhood in Austin, Texas

with my husband and two kids. At the time of the story, they were five and two. It was November and we were having an early, unusual cold snap. I love that fucking phrase. I don't know why. A cold snap? The nights were crisp and quiet, except for my two-year-old who was awake in the middle of the night every single night for the entire month for reasons no one will ever know. The private. Can the two-year-old have a life, for Christ's sake? On the night of the story, he started crying, and I woke up and went to get him. I settled down into the rocking chair in his room and made a conscious decision to put my phone face down on the table next to the chair so that I wouldn't wind up sitting there wide awake and buying things I didn't need from Instagram ads.

Amen. Yeah. At some point, while I was sitting there holding my drowsy, warm toddler, I fell asleep. And then I was waking up in a state of deep disorientation. I blinked awake to the sight of a light floating above me from just a couple feet away. It took me a long moment to realize it was the flashlight from my husband's phone. And my husband was standing there in the dark, looking down at me and our sleeping child. The police are here, he said. I stared at him baffled. What? I asked. The police are here, he said again. Turns out while I was sleeping in the

rocking chair, my husband woke up to a weird floating light of his own. The police were in our backyard shining flashlights into our bedroom window. He could hear their voices as they moved on to another part of the house, announcing themselves and asking if anyone was home. At this point, he turned over to wake me up, but my side of the bed was empty. Then, beginning to panic, he checked both our kids' baby monitors.

Our older son was sleeping, but our younger son's bed was empty, and the police were here. Oh. Assuming something so horrible had happened to me or a baby that I couldn't even get down the stairs and had needed to call the police were here. Oh. Assuming something so horrible had happened to me or a baby that I couldn't even get down the stairs and had needed to call the police,

he ran upstairs and flung open the door to our younger son's room, turning his flashlight on his phone. And there we were, asleep in the chair, which was just out of sight of the monitor. By the time he explained this all to me and I was awake enough to understand the police had left, I put my son back into bed,

and he and I went into the hallway to wonder aloud why the police were here if not because my husband's wife and son were injured or hiding from an intruder or some other horrible thing. At this point I looked at my phone and in the recent call section I saw a long call to 911. Oh no. From me made in my sleep. Oh no. From me made in my sleep. Oh, no. Every once in a while, I sleepwalk, happens every five years or so. And now, I guess, I sleep call the cops. Stay sexy and always be visible on the baby monitor, Sarah.

And this is a PS. I called 911 back and explain what had happened and apologized. And they said it was fine. My phone call was completely silent and that the police had already come out and couldn't find anything. So they left, which I'm glad the police didn't break into my house, but also they got a long silent phone call from my address and just left when they couldn't find anything. WTF. Yeah. Yeah. Knock on the front door. Knock on that front door.

Right? Something. Something. Yeah. It's kind of like, well, we saw the front of the house. Everything's fine. Right. Guess we better go. Well, no one's screaming out the window. So I guess everything's fine. I mean, that's best case scenario. Did I ever tell you the story of my friends, Peter and Nancy had when their son was like 18 months old, they had a video baby monitor and Peter was up one

night, the monitor was on in the background. And as Peter was watching it, he sees two hands go in and go to lift the baby up. And it turned out it was the neighbor's baby monitor that was sending that signal. But when he told me that story, I like viscerally felt that how fucking scary that would be. That is awful. And also he burst into the room and woke his son up. Yeah, scaring the shit out of his kid. Oh my God. Here's my first one. It says, my dad's ultimate museum violation. Hello. I heard you guys wanted to hear stories about violating

museum rules and boy do I have a story for you. Before COVID, my family used to travel and one of the last places we went was Prague. My mom planned for us to go on a historical tour of old town Prague that featured all the famous buildings, including the Prague Astronomical Clock. The tour was amazing and the last stop was the interior of the Astronomical Clock. I don't know anything about this. Now I want to go. Me too. Now, this clock is old.

It was built in the medieval era in the early 1400s. That's late medieval. And now every hour, there are little figures that peek out of the clock. On the interior of the clock, you can climb up a stone staircase and peer into the clock to see these figures. At the top of the staircase, there's also a velvet rope held up by a 600-year-old iron medieval stanchion to keep people from getting too close. My dad, to get a better picture, climbed over the velvet rope and knocked the stanchion

down the entire stone staircase. Oh my God. You could hear the stanchion clang against every period. Single period stair period. Oh my God. I swear the place was rattling. Security and staff ran into the room in a panic only to find my dad at the top of the stairs and the 50 pound and centuries old stanchion at the bottom. Everyone stared at him and it was the most mortifying moment in my entire life. He tipped the tour guide 20 US dollars, the wrong currency, and

quickly left to find my family who had pretended not to know him and left him alone. That's the only solution. That's the only answer. It's the only way. Don't crowd up around people who just made a large public mistake. Walk away. Nothing more. It's not your problem anymore. No one wants to be near. They don't want you near them. You don't want to be near them. Every man for himself for only as strong as our weakest link.

Back to the email. You guys got me into true crime. I truly never go weak without listening to MFM. Oh, thank you. Stay sexy and don't tamper with historical artifacts. Maddie. She her. Oh my god. Yeah. Maddie Scheer. Oh my god. Yeah. Like, I've done it before. So I can't be like, I can't berate people who like think that, you know, velvet ropes and like, don't cross this lines, don't apply to them, because something just sometimes gets in your fucking head. Right. You know, but I've done it. So I'm not like, yeah. No judgments. But also, one of the biggest humiliations in this human life experience is when you judge a velvet rope to be at a low height that you can easily jump over and you're wrong.

They're always higher than you think they are. It's an optical illusion every fucking time and you eat it every time. You gotta keep that back foot high when you're coming over. You gotta keep your ankle up by your butt or you're going over, you got to keep your ankle up by your butt or you're going down, friend. You're going down in Prague, the worst place to go to, to fall down.

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Goodbye. Okay, my second one's called an escape from Broadmoor. Amusing, short read. Oh, great. Greetings from a snowy Canada. Yes it's still snowing here in the middle of May. I suck at gushing sentiments so please pretend they've been inserted here. Not good enough. I had originally drafted an email with my dad lore stories about him hitchhiking around Chicago in the mid-70s or the

fact that he'd lived two doors down from the Yorkshire Ripper while at university. It says apparently he was quiet but seemed like a nice guy. Isn't that how it always goes? Apex Predator. Yeah, that's right. However, listening to Minnesota 368, I got a better idea. And after confirming things with my mom, I decided to write this. I also grew up down the road from Broadmoor Hospital, which we've talked about many times. It's the what do we call it? At the time from Broadmoor Hospital. Wow. Which we've talked about many times. It's the, what do we call it? At the time it was called an asylum.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. With my secondary school being positioned across the road from one of their warning systems, the two tone alarm was a soundtrack to my childhood and a very normal part of life in that area. You heard the sound, knew it was 10 a.m. on Monday morning and went on with

your life. I was in school one day in the early 2000s when the siren sounded. There was a slight acknowledgement to the sound, but most of us ignored it and carried on learning. It was just confirmation that it was the start of the week and the alarms were working. Nothing unusual there. It wasn't until our head teacher came rushing through the door in a panic that we realized something was wrong. Turns out, it wasn't a our head teacher came rushing through the door in a panic that we realized something was wrong. Turns out it wasn't a Monday morning, but was in fact a Wednesday afternoon. Oh. Our poor head was apparently the only one who had realized the day and gravity of the alarm ringing

and had to run around the school to herd 1,400 people to the safety of the gym. Once there, the emergency alarm procedure kicked into place. You imagine there's just like, yeah, this is what happens in your town. You gotta. Yeah, you just kind of always deal with it. Therefore alarms don't mean as much. Right, exactly.

That's scary. That's scary. Exactly. With many having to wait for their parents to return from works to collect them from school. Not me though, my mom had chosen the good to walk home option, which I did alone through a graveyard, making sure to pick up my younger sisters from other schools

en route. Ah, the joys of being the oldest child in the 2000s. Oh, and the reason for the panic turns out a low security patient decided he'd had enough of the catering at the hospital. so took it upon himself to wander down the high street to a local cafe where he was found enjoying a nice cup of tea. Apparently he was allowed to finish his cuppa before being taken back to Broadmoor. Oh, the British and their cups of tea. Stay sexy and finish that cup of tea, Becky, she, her." That is immensely decent that they let him finish a cup of tea. Absolutely.

Absolutely. I mean, you made it to the cafe. Yeah, you're in low security already. Yeah. Just let me go and be in a nice restaurant. Give me like one minute, please. I'm saying it like people are keeping me out of restaurants in any way, shape or form. All right. The subject line of this email is secret door in an attic.

What five words do you want to hear more? Hey there, Teresa from Minnesota here. Longtime listener, first time caller. I heard a top notch wall treasure story on the mini so today and it unearthed a gem. When I was about 10, my parents bought a creamery from the turn of the century. Wow. Unbelievable. In an even tinier town about 45 minutes outside our small town. They had

big plans, but everyone around them knew that they had lost the plot. The place was trashed. They brought us girls up to help every, and the help is in quotes, to help every weekend. And we spent most of the time taking a bowling ball we found in one of the many creepy, surely haunted back rooms and dropping it through the rotten floorboards. The most fun any kid has ever fucking had.

So loud and destructive. Here's the thing. It was stuffed to the brim with treasure. We found the insides of a piano, old art, toys, all of it covered in years of bat and mouse shit, but still treasure to me, a grime loving 10 year old. Anyway, we were exploring the horrendously nasty attic one day.

I would have loved to rummage through everything in there. It was full of old signs and bric-a-brac. I still daydream about what could have been hiding in there. But here's where my mom drew the line. Remember the bowling ball? She didn't want her daughters dropping through the even more fragile attic floor. As my parents reminded us occasionally,

my mom and dad had life insurance, so they were allowed to take risks. I was ordered to stay near the door to the attic, but I couldn't help rifling through the disgusting artifacts. There was a stack of giant metal signs nearby, and I started moving them around, bracing myself for a bad attack. In the shuffle, I exposed the wall and found a tiny child-sized door. When we got it open, it led to a room the size of a gymnasium. The floor dropped down about 10 feet. The floor had different levels

like giant theater seating. Each level was covered in sawdust. The only access to the room was a rickety old ladder, so we were not allowed to go down and explore. Probably for the best, who knows what we would have found in that ancient sawdust? A body? Old cheese? Either way, good call. My parents had no idea it was there. They found out later that it was where they kept the dairy cold pre-refrigerators. Soon after that, they found out how much money it is to evict an entire bat community that's approximately the same population as New York City, and they sold it to the lowest bidder. We never went down into the secret room. I'd like to

shout out my oldest sister, Alice, who as a teenager with a job was never forced to visit the creamery, but she introduced me to this podcast. So, you know, kind of got to as in chatter out. OK, thank you for all you do all these years of listening. And you still get me laughing out loud. Moral of the story, stay sexy and leave those bats alone, Teresa. That's like the reality of those dreams you have of like buying an abandoned, you know, elementary school. And it's like, it's not what you fucking think it is.

No, there's a lot of people that are trying to buy the $1 houses in Italy. And it's like, okay, but then you have to redo it and you have to redo it in Italy. Yeah. Up to code in Italian. Do you speak fluent Italian? Then enjoy. Oh, no. Thank you. Yeah. Hey, Karen, I have a question. When you're feeling down, how do you make yourself feel better?

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My last one's called serendipitous, but dark, meet cute. Oh. Hi there, longtime listener, first-time storyteller. Growing up, my parents would tell me any age appropriate story I wanted while they drove me to my grandma's house to spend the night. I would go to her house almost every Saturday so they could spend their evening bar hopping and singing karaoke, which fun fact I grew up to love doing as well. Anyway, during these car rides, I would usually request the deets on our family history. I have a ton of great stories about my own family's childhoods and younger years,

but on this particular trip to my grandma's, I wanted to know how my parents' relationship came to be. The story they told surprised me and, to be honest, was a bit heavier than my little heart had bargained for. But they apparently decided I was old enough to know, so here goes. Mm-hmm. My dad, Billy, and then it says short for Billy Ray, not William, was engaged to his high school sweetheart, Mickey. I don't know a lot of details about Mickey because she has always been difficult for my dad to talk about. One evening, Mickey was driving herself home

on a hilly highway after getting a fresh perm done. It was the 80s. As she reached the top of the hill, so did another vehicle going the wrong direction. Oh no. She was hit head on and died at the scene. The investigation concluded that the collision was intentional.

The other driver had decided to take their own life and in the process took a complete stranger with them. Horrible. Years after Mickey's tragic death, I would discover a detail even more heartbreaking while going through old family mementos. A copy of Mickey's death certificate was packed away neatly next to one of her and my dad's wedding invitations.

The date of her death was only three days before their wedding date. She had been on her way home from getting her hair done for that special day that would never come. Oh no. Switching gears, my mom Pam also experienced tragedy that same year when her husband Mark took his own life. My big sister was just a baby,

so overnight my mom became a struggling young single mother. She decided to sell her late husband's vehicle to a local salvage yard for extra cash. The employee who helped her happened to be none other than my dad. While telling me the story, he said he couldn't believe how beautiful she was and he had to take the chance. He turned on the charm but failed to impress my recently widowed mom.

In fact, she reported him. She told the owner of the salvage yard that she didn't appreciate his employees' inappropriate and unwanted flirtatious behavior. Good for her. Yeah, that's right. She was there for a business transaction and that was it. The owner apologized profusely and told her that the employee was his son and that he was having a hard time with the somewhat recent death of his fiance.

My mom was deeply moved by their similar experiences they shared and left the salvage yard with my dad's number scrolled on a piece of paper in my grandpa's handwriting. They went on one date and the rest is history. They moved in together after that first date and found support in each other that couldn't really be found anywhere else. Yep. They were married five years later and my big sister was the flower girl. She's never known our father as anything but dad because he raised her as his own from the very beginning without question long before I came around. I used to feel so bad that two people who

my parents loved very much had to die before the conditions were just right for me to be born. As I was a kid, I was a big believer in fate and truly believed my parents were meant to be. As an adult, I leaned more toward the idea that life is just fragile and that my parents' love story was simply one chapter in a bigger, ever-changing narrative. My mom died in 2015 after a long battle with a brain tumor and my dad is now remarried and doing pretty well. And I even have some awesome step-siblings, which was a curveball I never expected in my adult life. I'll leave you with this. Even though I struggled to believe life isn't made up of unseen variables that collide at random to tell our unique stories,

the idea of fate isn't so easily dismissed. My dad's late fiance, Mickey, had a brother, and my mom's late husband, Mark, had a sister who have now been married for 20 plus years. Oh my God. They met through my parents. Whether by fate or sheer coincidence, both families will always be connected by these tragic circumstances. Thank you both for all you do and for taking the time to listen to and retell so many fascinating

stories that might never get to be told otherwise. Y'all make me smile. SSDGM, Caleb. Caleb, what a like, that wasn't just like, oh, meet cute. It's kind of like, here's my parents meet cute. That's incredibly moving. Like a true human story, because this life is grief and this life is difficulty and this life is heartbreak. And then those moments in between where human beings find each other and help each other, that's specifically both of their grief matching that way. So what a lovely happenstance.

If you believe it's happenstance, you believe it was written in the wind, whatever happened. My heart is in my throat right now reading that. All right, well, let me take it back out with this very entertaining last email. It just starts. Hello, ladies. I'm happy to say that I'm a new listener and a day one listener. Thanks to your rewind episode. Hey, if you don't know what this person's talking about, we have a third episode we called the rewind episode where George and I basically re-listen to and then play parts of the first ever episode we ever did. It's kind of like a best of, but more of a reflection back of eight years ago.

With commentary. Go listen to that if you want. You might like it. It worked on this person. And then in parentheses, they say, I feel like I cheated the system somehow. That was the idea. That's right. We're trying to sneak you into the front of the line. Okay. It says, well, you are off enjoying your vacations. I've just returned from mine where my daughter introduced me to your podcasts. It's nice to meet you. Such good manners. We were on a cross-country road trip,

moving her from Arizona to the Big Apple to begin a new exciting chapter in her life. Crossing through 10 states to get to New York gave us lots of bonding and podcast time. Thanks for accompanying us. It was a blast. Road trips have always been a part of our DNA, and one of our most memorable ones

was taken at the start of the electronics explosion. It was the early 2000s and we were headed to San Diego, California from Phoenix, Arizona. Wanting to keep our two toddler girls entertained, as well as wanting to be the coolest dad ever, my husband rigged a TV with a built-in VHS player between the front seats for the girls to watch an endless loop of the Lion King with popcorn, of course. Wow. Can you imagine a parent giving that much of a shit about whether or not you're entertained? Entertain and fed.

Like those are two things that like we didn't really experience parents caring about as children. It was more of like, get, you know, that's your job really. And then if we're on vacation, the vacation starts when we arrive. So the way there isn't supposed to be fun. My dad's, when we would go on a road trip,

that he would buy a bag of peanuts and a bag of raisins. And you were to put them in your hand together. You don't need to spend money on trail mix. You can make it yourself in your hand. That's right. You know? Okay. I mean, everyone was doing their best.

Yeah. Portable DVD players were new to the scene and well over $500 each. So this was my husband's budget solution. Note that flat screen TVs were not a thing yet, so imagine a giant square TV on a milk crate stand wedged and strapped between two front seats. But wait, the imagery gets even better. He hadn't anticipated the road noise being so loud that no matter how high the volume

was turned up, the girls still couldn't hear the movie. This being an opportunity to begin his career as a superhero dad, he stopped at a radio shack, bought a Mr. Microphone and a boombox, the store's supply of D batteries, two headphones, and a splitter, and armed with a roll of duct tape, he strapped the Mr. Microphone to the speaker on the TV, connected it to the boombox, which he had duct taped to the back of his head rest so we could easily access the controls, plug the splitter and two sets of headphones into that boom box and voila, the day was saved.

God, this dad is a handyman. He is doing it. In the end, I'm sure it would have been cheaper to just buy a portable DVD player. But anybody can do that. It takes a genius to spend as much money to create a workaround. Yep, that's right. To this day, he continues to be our superhero and the best dad ever. There is no problem too big or complicated for him to solve.

And if he thinks he can do it cheaper, he will. Ask me about the $10 store display stand that he bought so he could build a cheap tiki bar. Only $10. And $300 later, he had a bar. Anyhow, I hope you're creating memories on your vacation. Stay sexy and remember, money can buy anything, but only duct tape and a genius mind can earn you superhero status.

Best regards, Karen. Oh, I love that. Best regards, Karen. Oh, I love that. I love that dad. Yeah, handy dads. Cause then again, like my dad, if the first plan didn't work, he'd be like, ah, just look out the window.

He would be frustrated and disappointed. And then that would just be, his need would then be to tell us you don't have any needs as opposed to if Karen's dad didn't make that fix. It's like the ultimate tease of like you get to watch the lion king in the car. No you don't anymore. And now I'm mad. Now your parents mad at you.

Yes. You're somehow in the wrong. You didn't think of it, but okay. Oh, the children of today. They're so spoiled. You guys don in the wrong. You didn't think of it, but okay. Oh, the children of today, they're so spoiled. You guys don't even know. Send us your emails at myfavoritemurderatemail, your hometowns. We love to hear them. And thank you for being here with us this day, whether you are just listening

with your ears or if you're in the fan cult and you've been looking with your eyes. Thank you. Thanks. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? Mwah! This has been an Exactly Right production.

Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck. Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo. This episode was mixed by Liana Squalace. Email your hometowns to MyFavoriteMurder at gmail.com. And follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at My Favorite Murder and on Twitter at MyFaveMurder. Goodbye!