My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 418

Episode Date: January 13, 2025

This week’s hometowns include hidden money and going to happy hour as a kid.  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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Visit flyporter.com and actually enjoy economy. My favorite murder Hello! And welcome. To my favorite murder. The mini-minisode. Where we read you your stories that you've so kindly written to us over the years. Do you want to hear one now? Let's do it. Why don't you go first?

Okay. The subject line of this, which thrilled me when I read it, is money in unexpected places. We love those stories. Can't wait. And it starts, howdy, hi, hello. I'm listening to Minnesota 408 story

about finding $50 in a vintage skirt. And assume, remember that one? That's still with me. It's still right in my heart. And I assumed you either asked for money in unexpected places or the writer had a good idea that I am now stealing so I can tell my money in unexpected places tale. We definitely want money in unexpected places stories. Always. Any amount of money. And the more unexpected, the better. I had a habit, and I explained this to Adrienne when we were on vacation in October, because we'd be in these weird places far away, like in an island north of Sicily or whatever. We were walking by like a cliff, the side of a cliff, and then there'd be like a little

hole. And then I go, that'd be a good place to hide money. And she kept going, sorry, why do you keep saying? I'm like, that's just what I think all the time. I was like, or if you had a key, you had a key you didn't want anyone to find, put it right there. Oh, hiding places. Oh, what are just hiding places?

Yeah. Yeah, send those in. Send hiding places in. It's just a list. People are like, a box. Okay, my husband and I used to be very into rock climbing and he being more a more experienced climber took me on many new adventures and taught me new types of climbing. One type he taught me is called crack climbing, where you smoke a bunch of crack and go to

Yosemite. No, that's not what it says. And then it says dot dot dot. Have you ever seen a big old rock face with a thin seam running down it? We use those cracks in the rock to go up. No, no, no, thank you. Have you seen that? Yeah. They chalk their fingertips and they just hold on. It's so good. Any of that. So that's going to be a no thank you from me. My thing is, uh, with my commitment issues, I would get like 80 feet up and like, what the fuck? I'm actually interested in doing like one of the indoor wall climbing things.

Oh, yeah. That'd be kind of cool. Sure. But I don't think I could do it like when there's actual danger involved. Freestyle on, on, yeah. On half dome or whatever. It's a steady age, he broke his back. Recently? No, like a million years ago.

Shit, I know it's, I mean, there is a lot of risk. Yeah. But so much reward, like, like this story. How much? I'll tell you right now. Okay, go. I was nervous to crack climb, but he convinced me to try it out because one particular climbing route was just too fun, too incredible to pass up.

He kept saying that the last pitch, and then in parentheses it says a portion of the climb, was the money pitch because it was so great. He wouldn't stop saying the money pitch, so I wouldn't stop making fun of him while we climbed because who describes things as money anymore? Well, lo and behold, to both of our shock, when we got to the top of the climb, over 100 feet off the ground, we discovered, tucked right into the crack on this rock, a $20 bill. The money! I guess it was the money pitch. Oh my God.

And then it just says, stay sexy and pay it forward. So maybe one day the $20 you hide somewhere will end up as a story on MFM. Grace. I love that. I'm going to do that. I'm going to hide $20 somewhere. Yeah, in a weird spot. Yeah.

Yeah. If you could hide $20 on a playground. Oh my god. Pandemonium. Right? Wait, there's a PS on this. It says, hello, Catherine Elizabeth, my best friend slash sister I never had who introduced me to MFM during the pits of 2020.

Aw. Hello. All right. Money found story. Love it. Okay. This is called your classic Florida dad near kidnapping story. Hey, MFM. I've been meaning to write this in for so long and finally I decided it was time. I grew up in a small town in Florida with my two amazing parents in the late 90s, early 2000s. My parents raised my sister and I

like a classic 70s, 80s family, think latchkey parenting with giant house parties on school nights. This included my dad taking me to his favorite local bar for happy hour when my mom took my sister to her ballet classes on Friday night. On this particular Friday night, my dad was drinking at the bar while I sat by myself in the, quote, kids' corner. In the bar?

Yeah. But it's Florida, you know what I mean? Yep. And sorry, the 80s in Florida? This is the late 90s, early 2000s, but everything was aged. Yeah, I bet. But that idea, it's like, well, at least maybe the trauma of that would be lessened by just having other kids with you. Right. Well, she's alone. And then she says, where they had an old basically empty toy claw machine and a race car game so the parents could ignore the kids all they wanted.

It's just through some shit in the corner. Yeah, like that's a kid's corner here. I'm minding my business driving race cars when a tall thin man came up to me from the back door beside the claw machine. He proceeded to tell me that my dad was outside waiting for me and had asked him to kindly come collect me to go home. I was probably about six years old and somehow my six year old brain told me that this guy was full of shit. I looked over at the bar and saw my dad still standing with his friends, completely unaware of what was happening. I told the man I needed to get my stuffed animal at the bar and politely excuse

myself to go ask my then quite drunk dad what was going on. Oh shit. When I told him he grabbed the manager and drunkenly told her to maybe check out this guy outside. Turns out he had corralled another child with him and she caught him outside just in time. As far as I know, nothing ever came of this. And though I have tried to research this many times, there is no record of a near kidnapping at the local bar. My dad to this day can only vaguely remember almost losing his daughter that night and had never followed up about the man who tried to take her. Classic dad.

My dad is an incredible guy and continues to live life with a live fast die young attitude at the ripe young age of 70. As you can imagine, I have plenty more near death secret past life stories that I will have to write about another day involving this legendary man. And with that, stay sexy and don't let your husband take your six year old to happy hour. Or if you do maybe sit her on the bar, like a normal parent, Emma, she her. Holy fucking shit, Emma. Holy shit. You got to look up local kidnappings from that,

like from that area and that time because. That guy was such a psycho that he, he already had a kid and he was getting another kid. Like what in the living fuck are we talking about? Yeah. Why did nobody follow up? Why? Why? Cause they're all drunk and it's that kind of thing. It's like, that's the, I feel like maybe to me, part of why I am as obsessed with true crime,

there is a little bit of that the seventies parenting where it's like, why is no one paying attention? Am I the only one paying attention? Then it's like, I better fucking pay attention. And I bet I better pay attention to all this shit. So that like, because if it's, you know, if it's me by myself, paying attention, then yeah, you're on your fucking own. And six year old Emma, the badass, who's just like, she, first of all, how brilliant she's like not my dad whatever she goes excuse me I would like to go with you that's a great idea let me get my stuffed animal like a child would. Yeah. Uno memento let me just go grab that and then be like dad what is up

with this guy he says that he knows you. Should I go with this kidnapper or what do you would you like to weigh in or you having too much fun motherfucker okay drink your fucking seven and seven and like let's get the fuck out of here come on I mean happy hour yeah no rules happy hour Jesus Christ there's an active kidnapper in the building do you give a shit is really is the answer really no god damn it oh I think you're going to like this one. Okay. It says, the power of the magic eight ball family drama request. It says, Hello, ladies, I could write a book about my family.

But here's the story of why my cousin and I no longer speak. Oh, yay. I love it already. Right? Tell us why family members don't speak, please. The most basic story is still going to be great. It could be like, we fought one time. It's like, God damn, yeah, yeah, I can relate. I don't have anyone like I'll never speak to again. So it's really nice to hear that. I only have like eight or nine people like that.

My cousin and I were raised essentially as siblings. And so when he got engaged, I offered to help with the wedding planning as siblings. And so when he got engaged, I offered to help with the wedding planning as I not only work at a wedding venue, but I've been a bridesmaid about 10 times and have friends in the industry. The first time I read this, I didn't read clearly that they're saying

they work at a wedding venue. So when they say I've been a bridesmaid 10 times and have friends in the industry, it made me laugh so hard because I thought they were just like bragging that they'd been to that many weddings that they're like friends with the caterer. I know everything. Yeah. Their wedding budget was approximately $5. So the extended family was really trying to chip in to help.

I was paying for the cake. My parents paid for the ceremony venue. And another family member was paying for the reception hall. I knew that the couple was stressed due to money so I really tried to make the wedding planning meetings fun and then in parentheses it says champagne, music, dance breaks, bride and groom sashes, etc. We got an argument over family drama and then in parentheses it says his mom doesn't like the bride. I got a question this whole fucking wedding. Yeah. Well, this whole marriage. Yeah. Okay.

So they got an argument about that and my involvement in the wedding stopped. I had tried to meet with my cousin on several occasions and I even wrote him a letter with no luck. The wedding was supposed to be in June of 2023. So in April, my cousin called a 15 person family meeting. If you couldn't attend the meeting, then you were disinvited to the wedding. I love like wedding monsters. These are great. People go crazy. You go crazy. People go fucking crazy. Okay. And it's not just like bridezilla. It's like what happens is everyone goes crazy and the bride has to be the middle man for all of it. And then they go crazy. I love when you see those people that pop up online where it's like,

this is the list that the bride sent that you have, like the non-negotiables, if you want to be invited. Like I love those and they're like fucking nightmares. It's my favorite. Also it's like the non-negotiables, all right, well then I guess I'm out. Like you're- And then I don't want to come to your fucking wedding. I can't imagine a world where actually just on principle,

I wouldn't like, well then yeah, stand your ground. I'll talk to you later. Yeah, have a great life. You dumb ass. Okay, so if you didn't come to this meeting, you were just invited from the wedding. The meeting lasted two hours and no one was allowed to speak

unless you were given the magic eight ball. However, no matter how many times someone asked for the eight ball, my cousin wouldn't give it to anyone. There ended up being physical fights, plural, at this meeting and so much screaming, I'm surprised the cops weren't called. Oh my god. The wedding ended up getting canceled just to find out that my cousin legally got married a whole year in advance and didn't tell anyone. Fuck. So most of this drama was for nothing. and didn't tell anyone. So most of this drama was for nothing.

Send us your stories about people being petty as fuck. That's hilarious. And also send us your stories about people who try to get their entire family to pay for shit they're doing when they already did it privately. Right. Stay sexy and next time bring your own magic gate ball, Michelle. Oh, Michelle, I think you just, you just kicked off a family drama series that I hope everybody can come to because truly it doesn't take much for a family drama email to be great. Tell us about your family drama, the pettier, the better and you're just sitting pretty within your fucking in your non-bull bullshit world. Yeah.

Also, I think you could do a subset of like family wedding drama because that alone, that alone. For sure. Or just wedding drama. Yep. My next one's called, I ran away on the Appalachian Trail at 12. Okay, guys, I love your stories and I'm not a day winner, but I heard you're getting lost in the wood stories and have to tell you mine. I grew up in West Virginia and have always been the one gal every parent hates. So let's rewind to 1996, I think. Here goes.

My mother got married to the most annoying stepdad any 13 year old could imagine. He was a know-it-all and was a man of the woods. He was a biologist and always trying to impress his new wife with some woodsy excursion. Irritating. Well, one particular day he wanted to go on a hike to Rocky Run Shelter and thought it would benefit me as a tween to go on the hike. So clearly I asked my best friend to go and something snapped in my tiny brain and I decided it would be fun for us to run away. We hid in the woods until they couldn't see us and then walked until we reached rocky run shelter guys and our dumb little brains. We thought we would meet hot hikers.

Instead we found an A-frame shelter in Coldwoods as it was the middle of December and we were freezing. Any old who, after our fire burned out and we had one sip of water and 15 skittles, we decided to go to sleep. We heard what we thought were farm dogs barking, but no, those were the hound dogs. The whole park service people unleashed the hounds and used helicopters to find us with infrared. Yeah, your two 12 year olds out in the fucking woods. They would have to.

In December. These kind men rescued us with foil blankets and walked us out to the parking lot. I'm not sure if you've ever been in as much trouble as I was in that moment. Despite a parking lot full of fire trucks and ambulances and reporters, my parents knew I did that on purpose and their searing eyes and silence said everything. You little shit. The next day at school I learned I was on the front page of all our local papers and the lunch ladies laughed at me. I can send you the newspaper article to prove it.

Love you and don't be a dumb tween and run away on the Appalachian Trail. The guys aren't that hot. Em. Em, you're a legend. Hot hikers. I think that's so funny and cool. And don't do it. Never do it.

Don't do it. But what a fucking hilarious story. To do something so bratty that you end up on the front page of the paper is pretty legendary. And your parents aren't even worried about you because they're like this little fucking brat. Yeah. I know she's faking. They know. Okay, here's my last one.

The subject line says, I know you love cute old people stories slash missed millionaires. And it says, Hey, I'm FM fan, new slightly obsessed listener here. And then there's a little winky sideways emoji thing, punctuation emoji, my favorite type of emoji. Quick appreciation for you both as a fellow mental health advocate and fellow feeler of all the feels. Thank you for your authenticity and for simply talking about things that are so stigmatized in our society today.

One of my favorite things is hearing how teared up you two, and then in parentheses is us mostly, Karen, get over sweet old people. And after a recent binge of MFM on my commute, I heard a request for more stories. Short and sweet story for my very short and very sweet 91 and 90 year old grandparents, AKA Nana and Grandpa. Wow, you're so lucky.

I know. They made it. Back in the day, Grandpa was an architect. In fact, you can still find his buildings, homes, and apartments in some suburbs of Chicago, as well as the Sarasota area. And then parentheses it says, sweet random fact, my girl cousin, Sari, and I, Cassandra, have a street named after us

in one of those Chicago suburb developments. Oh. The street is a combo of her and my names, Sarandara. Oh my God, do you live on that street? Tell us, write us in. I bet someone listening right now lives on that fucking street. Sarandara Avenue?

Yeah. In Oak Park or some shit? Okay. A few years ago when my family made it to Tampa for a visit, Nana spilled the beans on a little gem of grandpa's architectural career. It turns out that back in the day, think 50s, 60s, when they were living in Illinois and raising their family, grandpa was approached with the opportunity, and this says it in all caps, to design the McDonald's arches. What?

The company was looking for something to set them apart in the burger world and they were searching for someone to make their arch dreams a reality. They asked grandpa, grandpa turned them down. No. He thought the idea was stupid and not profitable. Oh my God. You could tell in Nana's voice and grandpa's eye roll when she was telling the story that the two of them have had more than a couple conversations about the outcome of this career

decision. This has come up every time they fight. And every time they pass a McDonald's, even worse for him. He refuses to eat a McDonald's and she fucking loves it. I've my friend Peter folks has a I can't remember it's he knows a guy who was a relative of his who and I'm probably I probably have told you the story in these past nine years in the seventies. It was a contest for the new slogan for New York City. And, you know, it's now I love New York, like the I Hired New York thing. His submission was,

I like New York. The shrug is the best part. He's so close. Like, he was like, Oh, I have a good slogan. I like New York. And they're like, we'll go with I love New York, because it actually seems sincere. I mean, I like New York fits the the New York vibe kind of better though. It does. And it is like, yeah, a little doubt, a little shrug. Yeah. I love you. Not too. Don't make a fuss.

No big deal. OK, here's the end of this email. All the love and smooches to two of my favorite people and to Grandpa for sticking it to the man before it was even a thing and before he even knew what he was doing. Stay sexy and maybe take a beat before rejecting an opportunity. Cass, she, her. Wow. That's an epic fail. So hilarious. Love it. Okay. My last one's about a grandma, actually. It's called Klepto Grandma. Yes. Hey besties, my grandma, Chris, has never been the typical loving, good cook, spoiling the grandchildren type.

Most holidays consisted of $5 gift cards and scratch off lottery tickets as presents. Yeah. Sounds great. Yeah, love that. As an only child and middle grandchild, too young for the older cousins and too old for the younger, I typically spent my time snooping around my grandparents' house without notice. Hell, yes. Uh-huh.

My favorite thing to look at was the display of glass collectible cups. The cups have survived decades of air hockey pucks, pillows, and various toys flying around the room from my cousins. I asked my grandpa, Roger, if he remembers getting all of the indestructible glasses and if there were any stories behind them. His response, oh, all of those are from your grandma taking them from everywhere we went over the years. So it says, what?

Apparently, any slight mention of liking anything from truly anywhere would magically end up in her purse. After the realization that my grandma is a kleptosunkan, I then started to remember all the things that grandma always brought home with her. Cups, utensils, bowls, umbrellas, jello shots. Like on her way out of her fucking Denny's and she grabs the umbrella out of the umbrella stand and she likes it. But it's like some other... It's someone's umbrella. Someone's just trying to eat moons over Miami. Miami, exactly.

My grandpa also told me that she took one of the glasses from the restaurant during their first date. I asked what he thought when she whipped out the stolen cup and he just shrugged and said, should have been a sign, but oh well. It should have been a sign. Yep. That's good grandpa comedy right there. It's called a red flag.

48 years later and they're still happily married and my grandma mainly goes to the casino to rack up those big ticket items. And it says, how many blenders does one person need? Stay sexy and hide your valuables when my grandma is around, Kayla. to rack up those big ticket items. And it says, how many blenders does one person need? Stay sexy and hide your valuables when my grandma is around. Kayla.

PS, my grandpa also told me that my grandma took the tip money as well during their first date. WTF, Christine. Christine, don't do that. How did she get a second date with this dude? First of all, did he take her on a date to like a Jersey Mike's like, is it a tip at the front or was it like the tip on someone else's table? I think it was like the tip on the table. Like he put the tip down on the table. She fucking

took it. She took his tip money. Yeah, I think so. She is spicy. She's a true, a true klepto. I have to admit, I'm not judging you and Christine because, or Kayla, who's, you know, who cares, who actually cares about Christine. But when I would get drunk, I loved it. Like I would, I would be like that with my, but it was always my friend's stuff. And it was stuff that I would the next day be like, oh, sorry, I stole this, like a Frank Sinatra cassette tape. And I'd be like the next day, like, sorry, this this is yours Oh my god, just things ending up in your purse It was like that feeling of like I want something. Why can't I have something? You know what I mean? Just constant dissatisfaction

Oh my god, this should be mine. Yeah, this should be mine. Yeah. Well, tell us your klepto stories Tell us your everything stories literally, please We love them. And thank you for submitting everybody on today's show and everybody ever forever. Yeah. In history. Anyone who's ever written an email, thank you for your service. Appreciate you.

Say sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? Ah. ["Faith Murdered"] This has been an Exactly Right production. Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck.

Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo. This episode was mixed by Liana Scolacci. 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!