My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 48

Episode Date: December 4, 2017

Karen and Georgia read your hometown stories from St. Louis and Kansas City including a killer uncle, a lucky ELO belt buckle, a ghost that likes horses, and more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We at Wondery live, breathe and downright obsess over true crime and now we're launching the ultimate true crime fan experience, Exhibit C. Join now by following Wondery, Exhibit C on Facebook and listen to true crime on Wondery and Amazon Music, Exhibit C. It's truly criminal. Welcome to the My Favorite Murder Mini-Sode. I'm going to let you talk this time. The whole time? Uh-huh. Georgia is under the weather. As some people refer to it, not feeling her level best. Listen. What? Look. I'm hungover as fuck today. Jeez. Holding her hand to her head as if it's a nice pack. I'm holding because it was on the can at the dry that you got me and I also can't hold my head up on my own completely.

Oh, happy birthday to my one of my closest friends, Kate. Happy birthday, Kate. Why did you order the fourth martini yesterday? How many drinks total did you have? I don't want to sound irresponsible. Okay, all right. Good call. I just, I'm so living vicariously through you that I am literally jealous of being hungover. That's the level of alcoholism I operate at. Oh, God. There was a funny thing that today, so like the only time I left the house was for

Vincent and I to go get brunch. We went to this restaurant that we like called E-nail. The best. The best. It's where every comedic person, every comedian as they're known, has their birthday party in the back. You know, on the patio. It's like someone once called it the hipster-checky cheese. And it used to be a firehouse, so the bar is a high ceiling yet rounded because they used to park a fire truck in there.

Yeah. It's just super cool. Well, so we went there for brunch where I'm sitting at the bar holding my head up with Vincent's shoulder. The check comes and she says the first, okay, listen, I had a glass of champagne at the brunch. Okay. Hair of the dog. That's what you have to. And she said, here, the waitress and the hostess wanted me to say that the first, your drinks are on the house and give you this. And it was a bar napkin that said,

stay sexy and don't get murdered. Yes. Nice. And then when I went up to thank them and talk to them, they were like, because there were these, there was like a fucking gaggle of women having some kind of obnoxious party. Good brunch. And they were so. Aka brunch. They were so loud and drunk and it was obnoxious. And then they were like, yeah, moms have been throwing up since noon.

Moms have been throwing up at the bathroom since noon. Like the way they put it was so fucking hilarious. That's hilarious. Well, so, uh, was it a cut, like a bottomless mimosas situation? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. That would be, I would immediately have seven light up a cigarette. If someone told me to put it out, I'd be like, stand up and scream, go fuck yourself. Like that. It would be so on if I was at that bottomless mimosas. Oh, Jesus Christ. Pushing back my chair real loud.

Oh, that scratch. That's great. Then they were taking shots of like, um, some kind of like coffee liqueur. No. Kahlua. Probably. No. I know. Drambooey. Oh fuck. I'm going to throw up right now.

Sorry, sorry. Yeah. That's the worst thing. How about we talk about a warm biscuit, dry. Okay. Nothing on it. Kind of absorbing an absorption biscuit. Let's talk about a nap. Let's talk about nothing in this world that would make you feel better because when you're hungover, everything makes you want to vomit.

Yeah. Except for hometown murders. Murders. That's the solution to everything. Hey. Hey girl. This is the, uh, so this is the mini sale where we read you your hometown murders that you email us to my favorite murder at gmail.com. And are you ready? Can I start?

I can't read. Do you want me to read yours in your voice? What if I just made you do all four of them today? I'm over here with like two coconuts doing horse sounds. Like, I got this thing. Okay. So this is, there's nothing more exciting than the subject line. My uncle was on America's most wanted. Fuck yeah.

Here we go. Let's do it. Hello all manner of human and fur creatures alike and to the mustache of troops. Wow. That one, the best one ever. Damn. I love how people are getting very creative about these intro lines, knowing that we're very, I'll say I'm very critical about them. I feel like,

And then, but then we're also, as a positive spin, delighted when they're good. Well, I think we're really setting a bar. Right. And I think people are not only seeing and rising to the bar. I rose to the bar last night. Yeah. Hard. Then fell right down on it face first.

Were your eyes to X's when you got home? That's my favorite kind. Oh no, but yeah, no. Listen. Look. Okay. Due to the recent episode of my favorite murder, I decided to inquire if my family had any skeletons in the closet during the Thanksgiving holiday.

Oh, good job. That's nice. It's fun to do a, you know, to call out a directive and have listeners be like, I did the thing you said. Yeah. And it worked. And to my twisted excitement, we had a graveyard's worth. Nice.

This man is Thomas Lud Finley Jr., but goes by T.L. Finley. He was my great grandpa who was a preacher's brother. In 1989 and 1990, he wanted a more serious relationship with a woman named Mary Frances Gentile and he asked, and had asked her to marry him on multiple occasions, but she refused. So he hit her on the head with a frying pan. He's not good at dating. No. Choked her until her neck broke and then proceeded to stab her 20 times.

Oh, and it's his great uncle? Yes. Is the bad guy. Oh my God. He was on the run for around a year until on November 16th, 1990, America's most wanted really story and the tips came flowing in. Over 90 tips were informing authorities. He was in Florida.

He had been working at Disney World. No. That's what, hey, where do you want to go after you just killed someone? Oh, I mean, this is what I'm talking about. Yeah. The sociopaths are good at hiding. Stop being surprised when they look like clean cut individuals. And work at Disneyland. Why am I talking to our listeners about this when they're the ones that know better than us?

But I love that. He worked at Disney World and used his own name and social security number to get the job. What stupid idiot. He didn't want to lie to Mickey Mouse or Lord and Savior. Police arrested him at Disney World. Wow, that's intense. I bet they arrested him off property. No, I bet they waited so they could get into Disney World for free.

They were like, hold on one second. Matterhorn, matterhorn, matterhorn. And he admitted everything. He waived extradition at an initial court appearance. I was never aware of all the things that could have happened in my family. All I had to do was ask. Right. I can't wait to see you guys in St. Louis in December.

You get me through my workday and my twisted interests not seem so dark. And it's nice to know there are others in the world who have that interest. It's nice to know there are others in the world. Well, sometimes it's lonely. Stay sexy. Don't get murdered much love. Kristen. Nice one, Kristen.

Kristen. Really fucking horrifying. And then like, imagine you worked with that guy at Disney World. And they're like, oh, he got arrested. And you're like, oh, why did he not pay his parking tickets? Did he not go to jury duty? No, he's like a vicious murderer. He overkilled the shit out of this woman.

Yeah. But he played Tigger. What's happening? Okay. You got this. I've got this. And it is called. It's called.

There's two titles. You can either you can choose one, Karen. Okay. This is a choose your own title. Sweet. Acts to the head. Okay. Or Uncle Steven's wife murdered by their television.

I don't know what that means. Okay. I say number two. Okay. Acts to the head tells me everything I need to know. But the second one, I'm like, tell me more. Well, this one loses immediately because she says, Hi, Steven, you have the same name as my weird ass uncle, RIP.

Oh, okay. Goodbye. I wonder why Steven picked that one. Slowly, but surely they're all Steven. I don't know. And they're all about murders and victims names. It's just everyone in the store is named Steven. Or some kind of mustache based crime.

We're left out entirely our own fucking podcast. Cats. Okay. I've been listening to your podcast for a little over a year. How I failed to think of this until now blows my mind. But now that I've remembered, I have to share. This is going to seem completely unbelievable, but it's true.

Here it goes. Love it. My family is from a city in Illinois right outside of St. Louis. Long story short, my uncle was in prison for the majority of my youth. He had been to jail a few times once for a drunk driving accident, in which I'm pretty sure he killed someone another time because he went along with some people to break into someone's house. If your group of friends are like, we're out, we're at Applebee's,

breadsticks, good times. Hold on. I think we should go break into this house. Remember, you can always peel off. Yeah. Always peel off. Great. Let me go to the bathroom real quick and then we can go do it.

Exactly. And then leave through the back door. Hold on. I think I left my keys in the car door. I'll be right back. Yeah. It's a, I'll be right back clause. Everyone falls for it.

Because they're like, yeah. I'll be right back. It also works if you're at a party that you don't like or you feel uncomfortable. You're like, oh, sorry. Hold on one second. I'll be right back and then just get the hell out of there. Just leave. Lift.

And if someone doesn't understand it, they're not, they don't understand anxiety. They're just being selfish. Yeah. Settled. Listen. Listen. Look. Look at my headache.

Okay. The story I was told is that he was the lookout and fell asleep on the porch drinking drugs. You know the deal. Sure. He was the only one to get caught and went to jail. Fast forward to him getting out. Good old Uncle Steve went to a party and because he was a fucking weirdo, he was washing dishes. He heard glass break behind him and went to turn around and got a noggin full of axe.

Holy shit. What? That's right. He was chopped in the fucking head with an axe. At a party. Yeah. Doing dishes. People later speculated that the dude he robbed the house with were afraid he was going to

nark and decided to off him with an axe, but no dice. He survived. Okay. We forgive you for your opening. Oh my. Yeah. Really? Oh my god. I know.

Since he was locked up for most of my childhood, we weren't close and he always seemed a bit creepy to mean. I remember going to visit him in the hospital post chopping, but the story gets way weirder from there. What? I can't handle it. It says ready. Here we go.

After he recovered from the chop, chop, he was still ultra weird, but seemed to turn a new leaf. He wanted to get his life together and his head together. All right. Nice one. And went on a singles cruise. No, no, no. What the fuck has happened? This is amazing.

He ended up meeting a woman and getting married. He was normal for a while after that, but fell back into alcohol and drug abuse. And his wife ended up becoming addicted to pain pills with him. Oh. They both had a hard time holding down a job and struggled to pay their bills. One night they realized their cable had been shut off after their phone had also been shut off and my uncle's wife got very angry and started yelling at him to fix it. This isn't going to end well.

No. He walked down the street across a busy as an intersection to a gas station to use the pay phone to call the cable company. He was unable to get the cable company to cooperate with him and he walked back home on his way home. He saw ambulances and police cars blocking the busy street a little ways down from the intersection, which he had crossed to use the phone. He got home and saw the house coat his wife had been wearing laying on the bed, but no

wife and he immediately ran to where he had seen the flashing lights of the emergency vehicles. Turns out his wife had gotten had seemingly gotten suspicious of his whereabouts and ran to the gas station without looking to see if any cars were coming. Oh God. She got hit by a truck and dragged down the road about 50 feet. Oh, fuck. I believe she was alive when she was rushed to the hospital. But by the time my dad and I got there, she was dead.

It's obviously a very sad story, but the strangest part is that my uncle Steve kept yelling and crying in the hospital insisting that the television had killed her. He sold the murderous TV that week. Shortly after his wife's death, he became a houseboy for a recently widowed woman who had so much money. She owned Clydesdale horses. Ooh, who owns Clydesdale's anyway. They ended up falling and loving and living together until he was found dead in their

garage at a parent heart attack in 2014. But I don't believe there was an autopsy. My family describes him as a guy who would fall in shit and come out smelling like roses. There are other unbelievable stories I could tell you about Uncle Steve, but I'm sure you've heard other story. You have other stories to read. Stay sexy and don't get murdered by your TV. Give Elvis a cookie for me.

Exo Jenny. Oh my God. That was nine stories combined. It was. Each one was intense. Each one was. Someone hit him with a fucking axe and he survived. So from behind then, if he's doing dishes, they hit him from behind.

Yeah. He survived. They thought he was fine, but clearly if you really honestly believe the TV. But then it's like he thought the TV killed her and there's no way to prove it didn't when. Like how do you have luck like that? Or how do you have a life like that? I don't know. How do you?

I guess it's when you do drugs and do hang around with drug people, there's much more axe play than there would be in just like regular life. A little bit more. A little. Also same with if you're a logger or hang out with loggers. Right. Right. Or what are other reasons?

Chop chop chop. If you have a fucking wood burning fireplace. That's right. Then suddenly axes are around a lot more than they need to be. They just happen to be a lot like they are. Oh God. Don't have a lot of access. Don't have an axe.

Now do you think that the rich woman who Clydesdales was the heiress to the Budweiser fortune? Definitely. Okay me too. Who I think also he got killed in some crazy way too. Who the Budweiser guy? Don't never mind I might use it. Did he fall into a vat? Budweiser?

And drink himself out? Jenny well done. This subject line is an ELO belt buckle saved my friend's life. Of course it did. Come on. ELO is the best. Hi Georgia. Karen, Steven, feline and canine pals.

Perfect. Love it. I'm a huge, I hate that fucker. Immediately talking shit off Trump. Literally three words in. Art, clinic, gal. Three words in and you get hella political. Fan of both.

So I'm a huge fan of both comedy and true crime. So this is the perfect podcast. So well done you guys. Thanks. Um anyway this is kind of a long, this is kind of long but bear with me. All right I had a job cocktail waitressing when I was in college in Kansas City around 2005. A male and female co-worker and I got off work around midnight early and decided to go to a bar,

have a few drinks and then go to a house party. Don't do it. Go home. This party was not in a fantastic area of town but as a young naive girl in my 20s I thought hey we're with a dude and there's a bunch of people there so it's all good, wrong. We ended up having to park far away and walk to the house. Out of nowhere I hear give me your purse bitch. To which I stupidly replied fuck you.

Wait Karen did you write this? Just Karen? And put your cigarette out. Fuck you. Fuck you. And then she writes what a dumbass. Two young dudes appeared out of nowhere and my male friend said leave her alone and one of them shot my friend but he just looked at this kid and said dude did you just shoot me?

And as we started and as we stared at them bewildered my friend yelled run and we ran and these guys chased us and we're fucking shooting at us. It's still blurry but I remember ducking behind cars and running and somehow we made it to this house and my female friend and I look over and my male friend has been shot in the upper thigh and is weirdly calm so I get to the front gate and the guy who lives there says what's the password and I tell him fuck you call 911. Oh my god he's like nope not the password. That's rude.

I just got oh fuck you call 911 I just s just got shot. So the ambulance comes and we all go to the hospital. Sorry this is so long but here's the kicker. Don't worry about it because it's been a great story so far. Here's the kicker. The first shot that hit him got him in his giant vintage enamel electric light orchestra belt buckle and probably saved his life. He was also lucky that the second shot missed his femoral artery.

We were all involved with the case against these two 18 year olds and we all chose their pictures out of a lineup the KC police department even sent us all a letter when they were released from jail 10 years later. I really hope they ended up turning their lives around. Thanks for staying thanks for reading stay sexy where your belt buckles don't get murdered love from Phoenix and hope to meet you in January. Andrea that is that's crazy to be shot at. Give me your purse bitch.

Fuck you got so many neighborhoods that I go to in my 20s that there's I had 100 percent no business being in. Dude I used to walk home drunk and alone in the mission in the 90s in San Francisco when the mission was rough one time I walked home to the upper hate from the mission so I just walked over that hill that brings you up by I think it's DeBose Park the one on the top of the hill. Right but yeah yeah so I basically was just like what's the shortest way to get home because I have no money to like take a cab or anything so I just kept following the streets and just

going up and up and up shit face drunk like alone because we thought we were like bad asses. Yeah and also just like if you don't know then you think nothing like if you can't imagine it it can't happen. Right that's true it's simply not true. That's true that we think that that's exactly 100% true that it's not true. Yes oh god okay. Dude well done um sorry Andrea loved that story. Looking for a better cooking routine?

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What makes a person a murderer? Are they born to kill or are they made to kill? I'm Candice DeLong and on my new podcast Killer Psyche Daily I share a quick 10 minute rundown every weekday on the motivations and behaviors of the criminal masterminds, psychopaths and cold-blooded killers you hear about in the news. I have decades of experience as a psychiatric nurse, FBI agent and criminal profiler. On Killer Psyche Daily I'll give you insight into cases like Ryan Grantham and the newly arrested Stockton serial killer.

I'll also bring on expert guests to dive deeper into the details, share what it's like to work with a behavioral assessment unit at Quantico, answer some killer trivia and even host virtual Q&As where I'll answer your burning questions. Hey Prime members, listen to the Amazon Music exclusive podcast Killer Psyche Daily in the Amazon Music app. Download the app today. Okay, here we go. This is called the hometown creeper.

Okay, hey MFM peeps. Fine. This is the third time I've emailed a hometown story and each story I've sent has been different. I never realized how many weird things I have stories for. Amazing. I've got to say first, I love the podcast so much I can't wait to see you in December in Kansas City. I listen on my way to work when my kids aren't in the car and when I go for runs and thank God because I drink copious amounts of wine to relieve my stress.

So the exercise is much needed. She's just walking us through her like balanced life. This is what I do. I do this so I have to do that. It's all about balance. It's really about balance. Listening is my escape and I look forward to every episode. Thank you so much.

Oh, you're welcome. My hometown creeper is about either Eddie, either Eddie, the nickname for a guy who used to break into people's houses and use ether to put young women to sleep. You know, ether Eddie. Ether fucking Eddie. He watched them and then burglared their house. This happened to be in the mid 1980s when I was just a 10-year-old pre-teen murderer. And apparently the guy's name was actually Gary Ray Curtis,

but he is remembered by townies as ether Eddie, a serial home invader who also broke into about 15 homes in a neighborhood of Springfield called Southern Hills. As far as I know, he never hurt the girls slash women. He just wanted to watch them sleep. No. And then she wrote, still, that's creepy as fuck. No, it's. Yeah.

It's what? I know. By reading some archive news articles in our local paper, I discovered that he got shot by a woman who discovered him peeping through her curtains. She shot him with a 12-gauge shotgun and his mama had to take him to the hospital where he got arrested. Fuck. I can't find any information about his conviction, but I sure hope he's still not out there

being a weird ass peeping tom. Stay sexy and away from ether Jody. Dang, we'll see. Ether Eddie. How can they prove that he didn't hurt them while they were sleeping? Because if they were sleeping and there was no one else there. Totally. But I guess.

That's what he said. That's what she said. She said. What? All right. Here's my next one. It's called Mabel. Okay.

Subject line Mabel. And it just starts, we get right into it. Let's do it. They don't fuck around. My favorite ghost story for you. Yay. That's how it starts. Go.

I love it. I love it. I grew up from sixth grade on going to and then in college working at a Christian summer camp in Kansas City, Missouri. The camp was on the outskirts of town and had existed for about 50 years. Long before it was a camp, it was a township and there still is a cemetery on camp property left from that time. Okay.

This is just the opening, the opening scene of a fucking horror movie. Uh-huh. You're, oh, I'm sorry. So you're saying that your camp has its own cemetery. Okay. Seems chill. Seems like a fun summer time. Canoing, cemeterying.

Many of the gravestones are from the turn of the century. Jesus. And weathered to the point that they are hardly decipherable. And covered in moss and with angels looking down, but with the one black eye. No, I'm adding that. Sorry. One grave in particular is special. Uh-oh.

Right next to a tree is a gravestone with the name Mabel, a girl who was only about 12 years old when she died. Legend has it that Mabel loved horses. Are you crying? Clydesdales? Everything about that. You just have a bad feeling. I know.

I do. Everything's still. Everything's not going to be okay. No. So much in fact that she would sneak out late at night for horse rides. One night. Oh, that's creepy. It's so creepy.

As Mabel was riding, her horse spooked and bucked and Mabel was thrown. She was knocked unconscious into a coma, believing Mabel to be dead. No, no, no, no. Her family buried her. No. But her mother had no peace. For days and weeks after Mabel's funeral, she continued to have dreams that her daughter was still alive.

No. Finally convinced that Mabel was alive and trapped in her coffin. Mabel's mother forced the gravediggers to dig up the grave and when they did, they opened the coffin and Mabel was indeed dead. But her fingernails were scraped to the bone and deep bloody scratches were inside the lid of the coffin. This is a straight up fucking, what's it called? Creepypasta?

Not even Creepypasta, but like. Urban legend? Yeah, but I still hate it. I mean, but here's the thing. This used to happen. I know. It did happen. To the point where they used to have an alarm.

Yes. Okay. Maybe let's tell everyone that in case they don't know. So in the term, because this, this could completely be real. Yeah. I mean, I'm sorry to doubt you because we believe you, but in the turn of the century, people were buried alive so often and it became such a fear that they set up an alarm system. Was it a bell?

Here's what they did. They, well, here's the problem. Okay. Here's what happened. They put a bell, yeah, a bell in there and they tied us the string of the, they put a bell at the top of the. Yeah. Like by the gravestone. Yeah.

And then there was a string that went to the finger, wrapped around the finger of the dead person. Yes. And so if they woke up, their bell would ring, but the body would start to decompose. And so their body would move around and the bells would just start fucking ringing and which ones were real. And then they started, then they started putting poison in the fucking graves with them. So like if you do wake up and you're fucking buried alive and dead, you're like, goodbye and you just drink some poison. Okay. Yeah.

Just nightmare, every direction is a nightmare. Nightmare town. Nightmare town. That makes me, ooh. There's a story, there's in the new lore TV show, the one of the first or one of the stories that they do that I watched was about one of these situations. In the old time, because I, one of my episodes of a crime to remember is about an heiress that gets kidnapped for ransom and they bury her alive. And they find her and they rescue her. Oh, good.

She gets out. Okay. So. This is intense. This is fucking nuts. A Mabel wasn't able to rest in peace, but her youthful spirit and love of horses have not left her as a vengeful spirit. Instead, she wanders the camp and leaves gifts like beads on the doorsteps of cabins for campers to discover in the morning. Angela.

Angela? Angela, Angela. That was amazing. Super fucked up. And I like the fact that this was a ghost story, but she basically, it was just like the ghosty part wasn't even her concern. Yeah. She's nice. But that is.

Insanely fucked up. I'm scared. It's insanely fucked up. I love it. I do too. Those are good. You guys send, send your fucking, send your ether creeper stories, send your fucking ghost stories, send your fucking weird shit, your murder, your uncle, your weird fucking uncle murders. Also, if you are some kind of a historian or expert about. Anything. The alarm system, because there was one I saw that looked like an advertisement and it looked like a tube.

Like they'd put a pipe that went down into the coffin so that if you were down there and you woke up, you could be like, help. Excuse me. Oh my God. Because there was some plague or thing that people got. There was like a, you know, say it was. Yeah. When people died of something, if they were paralyzed and people, the doctors thought they were dead. Oh. Oh my God.

It sucks. Makes me want to read a book or something. Yeah. Oh wait. What? Maybe we should have an expert on because we're having our fucking hundredth episode in like three episodes. You know what? I know someone, I know someone.

Really? Yeah, that we can talk to. We're going to get, we're going to bust out and have, it's our once yearly special guest last time. Someone who listens, who's like, here's everything you got wrong about dead bodies, you idiots. Yes. Or, you know, it'd be cool. We had a fucking cop on here, like a homicide detective. Could you imagine? Then the cops get to say something back for once.

Yeah, you fuck you. They're just like, hey, do you know how hard it is to fucking investigate and close a murder? Yeah, bitches. Oh my God. Those were great, you guys. Good job. Thank you. Yeah, and then if you hear a noise tonight, it, and it just sounds like light scratching. Karen? Why did you do that to all of us?

I don't know. I'm evil. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Bye.