My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 397

Episode Date: August 19, 2024

This week’s hometowns include a shark attack at sunset and an eerie, old train car.  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

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Listen up, I'm Lisa Trager. And I'm Cara Klank, and we're the hosts of the True Crime Comedy Podcast, That's Messed Up, an SVU podcast. Every Tuesday, we break down an episode of Law and Order SVU, the true crime comedy podcast, That's Messed Up, an SVU podcast. Every Tuesday, we break down an episode of Law and Order SVU, the true crime it's based on, and we chat with an actor from the episode. Over the past few years, we've chatted with series icons like BD Wong, Kelly Giddish, Danny Pino,

and guest stars like Padgett Brewster and Matthew Lillard. And just like an SVU marathon, you can jump in anywhere. Don't miss new episodes every Tuesday. Follow That's Messed Up, an SVU podcast, wherever you can jump in anywhere. Don't miss new episodes every Tuesday. Follow That's Messed Up, an SVU podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Dun-dun! Hello. And welcome to my favorite murderer.

The mini-sodes. The mini-sodes. Singular or plural? All of them. Okay. Should we do them all at once right now? Singular. Yes, let's read three each together at the same time.

This is when we read your stories and we're doing it on video for the fan cult. We both have really big hair today. We want to deliver to the fan cult what we think they want, which is show ready hair and makeup. Yeah, right. Georgia has pink tips. Did you just get that done?

No, I've had it forever. Oh, they really stand out. And a guar shirt. And guar shirt. Because guar sent us stuff, right? Guar is our house band, I think. That would be for our Christmas party. Yes. Holy shit. Guar, if you're listening, you are completely invited to the Christmas party. But only in full dress. Sorry. Yeah, they're like, don't worry about it. That's the only way we'd show up. You want to go first? Sure. Okay, this one's called Grandma Murder. It says, okay, six times the charm, ladies. Oh, you gotta do it. Wow. I get it. It sounds like a creepypasta,

but it's not because it's okay. Here we go. Georgia and Karen I completely adore you let's get into it. Okay thank you. This story is about the grandma of a sibling's ex-boyfriend. Perfect. Right. Just far away enough. Yeah. He told us this story as we had been discussing our Korean grannies. Let's call her Granny J. Granny J never really met her five grandkids because they were raised in America while she lived in Japan and Korea. Eventually around the time ex-boyfriend was in middle school, he was told Granny J had gotten sick and quickly passed away. Accepting this as the truth, and with no reason to doubt his mother's word, he continued on with his life. Love it.

It was only in his late twenties when he mentioned Granny J to his mom that she accidentally let it slip that Granny J had been killed. What? It says. Turns out this mysterious and distant grandmother had been a successful and ruthless loan shark for decades. Yes, yes, yes. She continued her business well into her 70s with no plans of stopping. That is until one night a disgruntled loner broke into her home and stabbed her to death. Wanting to keep the salaciousness of this under wraps, her entire family told anyone who asked that she got sick and died.

Kareen Grannies are tough cookies, but she may have won. Stay sexy and maybe don't single-handedly run the loan shark business as a septogenarian? No name. And also they wrote out how to say septogenarian, which I really appreciate. I know how to say it That's nice. You never know. Well in the cold read mode. It's great to have a phonetic pronunciation every once in a while The idea that a granny was run. I I would just love to watch a documentary about her life Yeah, like what was her life like cuz it's like she's so brave. She must have been incredibly brave and smart like running numbers Are you kidding me? I can't even count it back in a hundred.

Just try it now. That's our new, our new podcast to 100. Okay, go. It's not the worst idea for like a sleeping podcast. It's just counting back from like famous people with beautiful voices counting and it's over and over. So it's 30 minutes of right. However long that would take. Paul Giamatti, you're up. Paul Giamatti, ring ring. You know Paul Giamatti has a podcast. No, really? Yeah. It's called Chin Wag. Oh, Chin Wag. Oh, cute. God bless him. Love him. Okay, here's mine. The title of this one is Doctors That Tan? Classic hometown. Hi, Georgia and Karen. Love y'all. Hugs, kisses. Let's get

into it." And then in parentheses, it says, names were changed, by the way, which is very good. I think in general, I think people have learned that over the years. Yeah. Unless it's a grandparent, you can change the name. Yeah. Unless it's positive and a fun thing, go ahead and change them. You asked for hometown murders way back in 2016, and I figured it was finally time to stop procrastinating and write in. So it's been eight and a half years.

When I was in college, I worked at a tanning salon, and then in parentheses it says bad skin cancer, I know. And then it says we had many regulars that we got to know over time. One of my favorite customers was a man named Kevin. When he would come to tan, we would have casual small talk and I learned he was a primary care doctor,

always smiling and very kind. On occasion, he would bring his wife, Stacey, who was standoffish and always seemed irritated to be in the salon. The staff never caught a good vibe from her and we were always so surprised that the two of them were married. A few years go by and I get a text from my old manager that said, oh my God, do you remember

Kevin and Stacey? Kevin was murdered. Imagine the horror on my face as I read the brutal details of how Stacey held a gun six inches above Kevin's head and shot him in the face three times while he was asleep. Oh my God. After the shooting, a drunk Stacey calls her dad and her dad ultimately calls 911. Stacey was sentenced to 18 years to life in prison and she was covered in gunshot residue from her hands all the way to her elbows. And that is a, that is truly a classic hometown. Stay sexy.

And it's initials AM, which, and then it says she, her. That's so classic of the, there was this person, everyone liked him. There was this other person, everyone got a bad vibe from them. And then, oh my God. And then the worst, kind of the worst thing that could possibly happen happens. Wow. It's just like, straight up. Hey, straight up. their full-time researcher, each episode is dripping with little-known trivia and never before heard behind-the-scenes stories. Each episode ends with a deep dive into something from the

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Goodbye. This one's called In Which I Accidentally Become a Criminal. Hey y'all, just starts. One summer about 15 years ago, I was a starving artist in Brooklyn living on the top floor of a three-story apartment building. The guy I was dating, whom my roommates called my not-boyfriend, basically my boyfriend, but issued the title I Was Very Tol tolerant and quote, cool back then. Yeah, that's right. That's the coolest is to not care about people.

I don't even care. Came over to hang out with me. One of my roommates had told me that the apartment across the hall was now vacant and unlocked. And if we went through their window, we could get onto the roof for the first time by climbing up their fire escape.

So my not boyfriend and I decided to spend the beautiful summer day sunbathing on the roof. Very quickly we started sweating and so we stripped down. I went nude and he went mostly nude. And as they say, one thing led to another and we began to have sex. Remember your 20s? I mean, so this can't have been in like New York City

or a place where there was surrounding buildings I would have met. Well, you're about to tell me. Yeah, they're only got three stories, but yeah, they're like New York City or a place where there was surrounding buildings I would have met. Well, yeah, they're all like three stories, but yeah, they're in New York. Oh, Jesus. Brooklyn's maybe a little different, I guess. I guess. Yeah, I wouldn't know, but still. You're in the city, basically. six burly police officers bursting out on the previously locked roof garden, guns drawn, racing to circle us. We scrambled onto our hands and knees, not boyfriend threw me his t-shirt, and the cops soon became a mixture of confused, annoyed, amused, and sheepish.

Ivan had to explain to a very fatherly looking cop with a mustache that I lived here, etc. And then he, with some effort to remain stoic, explained to me that there had been robberies in the area where the perpetrator had climbed into people's windows using the fire escape. And a neighbor had seen two shadowy figures climb over their window, been terrified and called 911. Oh my god. When I went downstairs with one of the cops to show my ID, I stopped briefly in the bathroom. Now I am a brown skinned person, but on that day, my face was the color of a fire truck.

When I came out, the cop, clearly a rookie, was looking around the apartment. I watched him lean over to my not boyfriend and say, there's no one here. Right, said not boyfriend. So said the confused rookie, why didn't you do it down here? It wasn't planned, said not boyfriend. In the end I showed the cops

my ID got lectured and the farce ended there. I will say that as a black woman I'm lucky I didn't get shot. I'm a petite generally non-threatening woman and have my privileges but in the country founded on and still grappling with white supremacy it probably helped that my not boyfriend was white and upper middle class. To date we're close friends who still laugh about what happened and share photos of our kids. Lastly, your voices are a bomb and so many of the stories you tell with such grace and candor need to be told. Sometimes all we can do in the face of trauma and or injustice is to remember and stand as a witness, say their names and tell their stories, which is no small act. XOXO, Coco.

Coco just made me start crying. Coco, you make Karen cry. I just put on all this fucking makeup. God damn it, Coco. Beautifully stated. Thank you so much. And also, now my face is red. That idea that you're fully naked, aside from the risk you were in, just the risk of that level of like, oh my

God, I'm completely naked and now there's six cops here. It's exactly the worst thing that could happen when you're fucking in public. What are some of the worst things that happen to you while you're fucking in public? Please write in. You're asking me and I'm like, whoa, I don't know. I know I overshare, but. You have to tell us five things right now. Coco, thank you for that.

That was a great email. Okay, this subject line of this email is Sunset Ocean Shark Attack Surprise. Hi there, Georgia and Karen. I think I have a story you'll like. My great aunt and her husband, let's call him Mike, married when they were in their 60s and moved from the Northeast to Fort Lauderdale,

Florida to enjoy their retirement. Us cousins regularly visit them down there as they're gracious hosts and happy to see us. On one trip while laying on the sand, my great aunt was poking fun at Mike because he refuses to go in the ocean. Mike is a pretty chill, quiet guy and didn't want to say why, but my aunt spilled the beans as they typically do. Here's the story. Aunt spilling the beans. There's our new podcast. Oh, wait, this is that podcast.

When Mike was married to his first wife, sometime in his 30s, the couple went to Florida for vacation. Mike met a woman on the trip and they planned to rendezvous on the beach that night at sunset. So he's married and he's cheating on his wife. Oh dear. Okay. While waiting at their meetup spot, Mike saw the tide bring in the lower half of a woman's body. He fled the scene and called the police on the news. Next day, he saw that the torso was recovered and it was indeed the woman he was planning to meet that night. Shut the fuck up.

They assumed she hopped in the ocean for a sunset swim while waiting for Mike and was attacked by a shark. Remember, Mike is married at this time, so he didn't tell a soul about this experience until much later, after that wife passed away. Imagine having to keep that to yourself. And then in parentheses, it says, let's get this guy into some therapy. My family was all caps gagged hearing this story from the kind white haired man we all have deemed the saint for helping so much with our great aunt. And she was dishing the story

out on the beach like it was no big deal. LOL, Becca. I don't know, dude. Do sharks bite clean and half or whatever? I mean, I guess it depends. I love pretending that I know shit like this to you, and I absolutely don't know. All I know is that that is also kind of the beginning of the movie Jaws. So I'm like, yes, it absolutely happens all the time based on me watching a movie. From the 70s or the 80s. Oh my God. Jesus.

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To claim, visit article.com slash murderer, and the discount will automatically be applied at checkout. That's A-R-T-I-C-L-E dot com slash murder to get $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. Goodbye. Okay, my last one, I'm not gonna read you the title. It just says Whoa, you guys, my husband and I are converting a retired World War Two troops Alaska Railroad car into living space on our property in Alaska. That's cool. One of our favorite things I want to preserve

is the wood paneling scrawled with signatures from the past occupants that have made their presence known. So everyone who stays there carves her name in. Awesome. And she wants to keep it. I love that. Yeah, that's very cool. I thought I had seen most of the names

until this week when I saw a very plain Kaczynski in all caps written in a section I hadn't really explored. I froze and called my husband over. He brushed me off as a freak. And then it says normal reaction to most of my musings. But I was unconvinced and think this might be the real deal. I could totally see this being like, you know, the non-murderino husband being like, there's

a lot of people with that last name, right? Yep. I feel like that experience, her husband brushing her off as a freak is the reason this podcast is popular. That's so true. That's exactly right. Yeah. Yeah. We don't think you're a freak. We both had the same chill run down our spine. That's right. And then she goes on to do the same fucking thing that we would do. We match her freak. I looked up samples of Ted Kaczynski's handwriting. Yes. And he wrote his name in all caps on envelopes from prison. Then I found an article stating that he had spent two years looking for land in Alaska and Canada before purchasing his lair in Montana. Whoa. She

fucking did the detective work. Yeah, she did. This would have been the late sixties and early seventies, which aligns with explicit dates on our train walls. I'm sending you the photos so you can take a look and let me know what you think. She sent envelopes with Ted Kuznicki's signature on it and the car and the carving and I buy it. I totally buy it. We'll put it up on Instagram. Let me know what you think. At least I know you won't call me a freak. That's right. Thanks for keeping me entertained with my musings all these years. Stay sexy and live in a train. XO Amanda.. Good advice, Amanda. Amanda, we are here to support you. When in doubt, live in a train.

Yes. Let's put that on a t-shirt. That's amazing. Wait, you have the picture? Can we look at it? Oh, that's an exact match in my opinion. In my professional detective opinion. Yeah.

Why wouldn't that be it? No. Shit. It's exact. That's really eerie. Crazy. Why wouldn't that be it? No. Shit. It's exact. That's, that's really eerie. Crazy. I love it. That's the kind of story that a murderina would start to tell at a party and then people would walk away and you'd be like, what are you, this is the most interesting story you've ever heard. And then we would push forward. Tell us everything. Tell us about your old train. Is it haunted? Here's my last

one. No subject line. It says, hello and welcome, period, to my email. I've tried to write in before about the time when my dad stopped a kidnapper, but I have a feeling this email is it. And it is. When I was a kid, my mom worked in restaurants. That meant evenings, weekends, and holidays. Now, my dad was not a trash dad, but sort of a trash dad. He was going it alone for most dinners, sporting events, proms, etc. I was about six years old and I had a soccer game. My dad hauled all of us to the park and was working the Prime Parent Project of entertaining two kids while supporting me on the field. He was cheering me on while keeping an eye on my older sister, nine years old, and my

brother, four years old, on the playground. He was focused on the soccer game. I was most likely doing cartwheels at this point and lost track of my sister. He scans the park to see her walking away with an older man across the field. To my kiddy delight, I saw him running across the soccer field towards my sister. He yanks her away from this mystery man, and I remember seeing him yelling something like, luck you, brother lucker. Don't you understand that you can say fuck you, motherfucker, on this podcast? Later that night, my dad

called our local police to inform them that a man at our local park was recruiting girls to play basketball by bringing them to his truck to sign up. No. Uh-huh. Sign up in quotes. The police looked into the case and ended up raiding the guy's house. It turned out the man literally had a young girl locked up in his basement. They found the girl who survived and they girl locked up in his basement. They found the girl who survived and they arrested the guy. Holy shit. It's incredible. My dad now 60 shrugs it off like it was no big deal, but I know he stopped a bad man before he escalated. Yeah. Anyways,

thank you for your amazing show. Stay sexy and keep an eye on your kids. Solana. Oh my God. That like could have been a classic hometown, but it's not because your dad was paying attention. Because your dad can multitask, the rare man who can multitask. And God damn, that must have been bewildering. It's like they went right up to the edge of the cliff. Yeah. And then he was completely correct. And the police followed through, and it all went the right way. Yeah. All right, well, send us your near misses and your what? Your crazy aunt stories and all that stuff.

And of course, your full nude stories. We love it. That's right. And also stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? Ah.

This has been an Exactly Right production. Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck. Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo. This episode was mixed by Liana Squillace. Email your hometowns to MyFavoriteMurder at gmail.com. And follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at MyFavoriteMurder at gmail.com. And follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at MyFavoriteMurder and on Twitter at MyFaveMurder. Goodbye.