My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 55

Episode Date: January 29, 2018

Karen and Georgia cover your hometown stories from Cleveland and Columbus including two gas station close calls, making a mugger cry, a killer in the family, and more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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And welcome. To my favorite murder, the mini-soad episode. The mini-soad of episodes. It's the tiniest of all episodes in mini-soad. So cute one. Little ones where we read you your tiniest emails that you've sent to us. These are emails that you send to us with your hometown murder, your, you know, first responder stories, your ghost stories at this point.

It's expanded and it's become this, you know, monstrosity. It's, we love a hidden room. Hidden rooms. I'd like to add sinkholes on here. Sinkholes? What else? I mean, that's not always the most fascinating. It's usually just a pit of mud, but you could describe it if you want.

That sounds great. But did you get trapped in a sinkhole once? Have you seen one from a distance? Great. Any of it? Perfect. The first thing I would like to table on this mini-soad, if I may. Please.

Did you hear that Meryl Streep is going to be on the next season of Big Little Lies? Did you watch that show? Yes. I watched it on the way back from Australia. It got me through the trip back from Australia. I love it. So I binged it, so I had that weird binge passion about it. And that just got announced, I just saw it on Twitter.

You couldn't, the cast was so incredible and those women were so, all were so on fucking point. Yeah. That they couldn't, it's like, they picked the perfect person to add into that. I think the only way it could be more exciting is if she shows up as the sheriff of the town. And she wears live ammunition on her belt. Okay. Right now, for Karen, is she going to be the sheriff?

She's the sheriff. Let's find out. Let's all remember Suzanne Summer's great 80s, short-lived sitcom, She's the Sheriff. I think they're rebooting She's the Sheriff as Big Little Lies 2. That's my bet. It's a $500 wager, friendly wager. Big Little Lies 2, She's the Sheriff. She's the sheriff.

Yeah. Cole and She's the Sheriff. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I can't wait. Great. Perfect.

I'm on board. Who do you think she's going to be? I'm like, well, let me tell you what I really think, because who cares? I care. Maybe she'll be the school principal, which sounds really boring. No, they already had one. Well. I want her to be the sheriff.

I want her to be the sheriff or the grandmother of Shailene Woodley. Oh, Shailene Woodley. What if she's the mother of Peter Sarsgard, the father of Shailene Woodley's child? Yes. What if she's the mother? She comes back to destroy, because she's like, and I know that that kid's my grand kid too. Yes.

And she's rich as shit. She's going to, she's there to take, oh wait, no, oh, shit, we just totally fucking it. But wait, isn't Peter Sarsgard the one that's married to Jake Gyllenhaal, to Maggie Gyllenhaal? I don't know. Am I right? Anything. It's a Sarsgard and we saw his dick.

And he was so good at being awful. He was so good at showing his dick on camera. You know, we can, we can mute what we just said, and we're back in to say, what an exciting day in show business. Also, the first episode of Baskets premiered last night. Oh my God, it did. It did. And I was super like stomachache nervous to watch it.

Oh, it didn't, no, I hadn't, oh my God. It made me laugh so hard. And there were parts in it that when we were talking about it in the room, Chrysler was a little like, I like this, but I don't know how I'm going to shoot it. And it was the, it's just parts with horses, which of course, any animal stuff is really hard and it looked so good. It's got to be so weird to see something you talked about as a concept than actually be put into reality.

It's super weird and it re, it put me back in touch with, we are all so cavalier about being critical about every single thing we see in all entertainment where it's like, that's a piece of shit. I do it all the time. Yeah. Where it's like, that's stupid. That's dumb. They should have never made it or whatever.

And the actual process of making a thing is so hard that the fact that anything is good is a miracle. Yeah. It's like, even the most talented people can get shortstopped by weather, by bad, you know, overlords, all different things, money, a bad day and fucking just any weird thing. So like, yeah, I don't know why I felt so nervous, but it was, it was so delightful. It's a piece of you. I'm so glad I can't wait to watch it.

Thanks. I just gave my own show a good review. No, it's like one of the fucking best shows. It's so good. Baskets on FX, 10 p.m. on. Watch it. What was it? Yesterday was Tuesday.

10 p.m. on Tuesday. There you go. Yay. Yay. Do you want to read them hometown? Do you want me to start? Oh, sure. This is pretty good.

The subject line is, my mom survived Cleveland in 1978. Greetings and salutations to all humans and animals associated with the MFM brand. Well done. Perfect. My sister introduced me to your podcast six months ago over since I've been nothing but binge listening, laughing out loud at work and checking every closet in my apartment when I get home at night. I grew up outside Cleveland as did both my parents and my mother worked at a convenience

store in Willowick, Ohio called Lawson's when she was in her early 20s. That could be Willowick. It could be Willowick. Offer all of them. Willowick. Willowick. One night in 1978, she was closing up the store with her co-worker Bonnie because it was 1978. Bonnie.

Everyone's name was Bonnie. Why aren't there Bonnies anymore? There is a Bonnie Conover who I went to grammar school with and she still lives in Petaluma and we talked to each other on Twitter. But she's had the name forever. I want a new Bonnie. She's the original. Oh, you want a new baby Bonnie?

I want like a Bonnie that was born in the 2000s. If you have a Bonnie born in the 2000s, we'd love to see a picture of her. Yeah. Even if it's a dog. A Bonnie? A Bonnie named Bonnie? Oh, also we love pictures of Bonnie. It's a Bonnie named Bonnie.

If you have a picture of a Bonnie named Bonnie, that's one of those really big ones. That's like the size of a six-stringer. It's like a hair or not a rabbit. So actually we just want the one picture. Bonnie the Bonnie, that's huge. Please. That's got to be a hashtag. Okay.

Okay. So, Bonnie and the mom or the Willowick Lawsons, they're closing up. When two men come in wearing black trash bags from head to toe. My mom says that she initially thought it was two neighborhood teens that would come in from time to time trying to play a prank on them because it was 1978. One of the men was holding a revolver and ordered my mom and Bonnie to open the register and safe and then lay it down face down on the floor with their hands at their sides. They emptied the cash register and then stepped over the women to get to the safe.

The whole point, the whole time my mom was silent while Bonnie was hysterically praying out loud. Oh, Bonnie. Keep it down. Bonnie, be cool. At some point said quietly to my mom that she was, quote, glad she had already mopped the floor. Just handle it like a Bonnie.

Oh, Bonnie. They're handling it like a Bonnie is the new one. They stayed like that until they heard another customer come in asking if anyone was in the store. Apparently the two men had left out the back exit while the ladies were up front laying on the recently mopped floor. The police were called. But as far as my mom can remember, no one was ever arrested for the robbery.

She and Bonnie got a whopping $25 each from Lawson's because they SSDed during the incident, $97 today in today's money. Lauren. Wow. Lawson's given them the full $100 in today's. They really took one for you. They took one for the team. I think nowadays there's like, we're just in Los Angeles, but I think there's like a

victim of a violent crime fund that you like, because I knew a girl who got held up at gunpoint at like a salon she worked at, like she was a receptionist and she was closing up and got held up at gunpoint and like got all this money and she was just like, I'm traumatized so I don't know what to do with this. It feels wrong. Oh, well, yeah, everything about that would be so hard because you lived and it's okay. But then it's not okay. But I think she used it to go to beauty school and then became a talented hair stylist herself.

Fuck yeah. Yeah. So good for her. I mean, bad things are seeds that bear fruit into good things. What? Good fruit. You know. That good, good fruit.

Yeah. Grapefruit. The best fruit. Grapefruit. The greatest. Eat it with Bonnie. That is a very 70s fruit. Grapefruit.

Grapefruit with a maraschino cherry in the center. Come on, dieters. Well, here's another gas station one. I survived because I had to pee. Dear Karen, Georgia, Steven and Cache of Critters. Nice. I'm not sure if you're all doing I survive stories, but who could resist one where a pea sized bladder saves the day?

Back in my mid-20s, I had construction job where I ran a crew of 15 guys where we traveled all over and were in a different city or state every couple of weeks. As the leader of this monthly crew, I was responsible to arrive at our hotels ahead of time to make sure that the hotel had enough rooms, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I spent many hours in my car alone crisscrossing the states, usually on the same highways. As a precaution to stay sexy and not get murdered, I tried to make stops at the same places as often as I could. So I know my surroundings.

On this particular day, I pulled into one of my usual gas stations and made my typical run to the restroom. I had a sense of something not being right. Lots of cars with no people inside, but my urgency was so great, I ignored it. I plowed through the front doors and as I turned towards the corridor that led to the restrooms, I heard a man yell, stop right there. I didn't even acknowledge him and kept going. Yes.

Yes. Let me break in just to say, just because someone's yelling doesn't mean you have to respond or be a part of it in any way, yelling can also mean get the fuck out of there. He yelled stop again and replied, and I replied with a fuck you as I entered the locked door and entered and locked the door as I dropped my pants with much relief and when I suddenly heard pounding on the restroom door and heard that same voice yelling at me to come out. Once again, I responded with a fuck you. I hurried up and when I finished the door, opened the door only to find myself face to

face with an angry man who pointed a gun straight in my face. He grabbed my arm, forcing me in front of him and told me to walk to the front of the store. Well, that sense of something not being right was actually me walking smack dab into the middle of an armed robbery at the gas station and all the customers and employees except the one, except one were being held in the back room with one employee opening the cash registers as I burst into the door. Oh shit.

Fear not, as this has a happy ending, obviously, since I'm the one sending this tale to you as the robber was distracted, trying to round me up, the clerk behind the counter had time to hit the silent alarm and as luck would have it, there were police nearby. As the robber forced me to the front of the store, we were met with four policemen pointing guns and dude gave up without a fight. His accomplice decided to rob the gas station with him. He has accomplished decided to rob the gas station with empty guns. So okay, after giving my statement to the police and receiving some free snacks and

drinks, I was on my way and on to more adventures. Oh, and by the way, while I was at this job, I survived five hotel fires staying at a haunted hotel reminiscent of the shining, almost sliding off the side of a mountain during an ice storm, almost being dumped and crushed in a garbage truck while dumpster diving and trudging through 12 inches of snow on crutches. What? Proud to be a murderer. No.

Nicole. Fuck, Nicole. That was so enjoyable. I'm so into. We've talked about that before when people yell across a room at you and you're just like not doing that. I don't need to, I don't need to respond to your urgency. Yeah.

I used to do that in when you hang out with comics as you know, too. When you hang out with comics, they like to do across the room bits a lot of the time. It's like, if there's more than eight comics at a bar, people start yelling within 20 minutes. And anytime anyone's done that to me, I yell back, I don't do room bits like don't yell across this fucking bar. You want people to know what you're saying? Yes, exactly. Listen, and your emergency is not my emergency.

So if it's your emergency, you can come over and tell me. Well, and also she had to pee, which is priority number one. We've all been there. You have to do it. And if you, yeah, you can't just control people with your voice. Also what a great, like just a drop of chaos in the middle of what they thought like this will be our perfectly planned robbery. Yeah, but this girl just fucking runs in.

She's watching you. She's like, this doesn't feel right. It's a pee. I fucking been there, ma'am. I got it. You never ask a gas station if you can pee. You just go straight for it. Oh, no, I've required memory of when you disappeared in that store.

God, that scared me. That's what I was thinking about the whole time. Okay, go. Okay. This is good. Making my mugger cry. So Karen, Georgia, Animal Associates and Steven. Perfect.

That's awesome. Two years ago, I was coming out, coming home just past midnight. I only have street parking, but I lucked out and got the parking space right in front of my house, so I felt perfectly safe. I unlocked my door, went inside, dropped my keys, complete with pepper spray on the table, and turned to shut the door behind me. Suddenly, there was a very large man standing there. I threw my body against the door trying to slam a shut, but I needed to stop and just

say, you shut that door. What? You don't walk in and put things down and then shut the door. The same thing with getting in the car, as I'm closing the door for my car, my finger is on the lock button. Don't sit down, put your seatbelts on, start the car, lock the door. As you sit in your car seat, shut the lock, are you a baby? Lock the fucking door.

Get belt yourself in, put in a pacifier, get your sippy cup, get your sippy cup and your Cheerios. You're Cheerios. Yeah, gotta have it. And then lock the door first. Lock that door, baby. Okay. So I threw my body against the door, tried to slam a shut, but he forced his way in, breaking

the door in the process. He said, hey bitch, threw me to the ground. Sorry. Why is it so funny? It's so casual. Hey bitch. What did he say? Hey bitch.

Hey bitch. Get on the ground, threw me to the ground and ripped the purse off my shoulder. My boyfriend was asleep upstairs, so I started screaming his name. The man quickly fled, jumped into an SUV on the street and drove off. My boyfriend called 911 and told them what happened. He hung up and said, you forgot to give them our address. Oh, and I said, you forgot to give them our address before the sentence was out of my mouth.

The cops were banging on our door. Yay cops. I pointed in the direction the car was, had driven one cop car raced off in that direction, while two more officers stayed with me. When I told them what happened, the police officers looked at each other and said that's him. Apparently several, several women in my neighborhood had been followed, called bitches and robbed. What?

Hey bitch. My mom quick thinking boyfriend got out his laptop and pulled up, find my iPhone. Oh shit. Four of us huddled around watching the little dot move around the map while the police officers radio directions to the other patrol car. Oh my God. Good move, boyfriend. Yeah.

At one point I said, I can't believe he hasn't turned the phone off yet. An officer said, oh, he's an idiot, ma'am. They're all idiots. Oh my God. Amazing. The robber led the police to his house where he was arrested. I was then driven in the back of a police car to his house to identify him. I can't imagine that it's normal police procedure to take victims to their attackers home.

But hey, it works for me. While I waited in the back seat, the four other police cars on the scene, all shown the spotlights into his eyes so that he could not see me and I identified him. Wow. That's great. During the arrest, he'd somehow lost his shirt and I said, yes, that's him, but he had a shirt on before. I believe a recording of this was playing during court proceedings.

I didn't know I was being recorded at the time. The police told me that they couldn't find my cell phone and they were going to have to get a search warrant to go into his house. I told them repeatedly, my purse has two pockets. It's in the front pocket. They finally gave me back my purse. Immediately I pulled out the phone from the front pocket. The detectives around me reacted like I just performed some magic trick and were completely

shocked that the phone was in my purse. Oh my God. They called out to the other officer. She found it, who then ran over, all excited to see where it was hidden, who then ran over to all excited to see where it had been hidden in the very office front pocket where I said it was. The police asked me to check my purse to see if anything is missing. I had cash in my wallet, but that was gone.

I wasn't sure how much it had been. An officer went over to the other car where the attacker was being held, came back and said, well, we found $40 in his pocket. Why don't you keep it? Oh my God. I can't say for sure, but I might have been made a made a profit out of the situation. In the end, I learned three important things. Keep your pepper spray in your hand until the door is locked.

Good. Shout a man's name instead of help. And if you ever need to hide something from the police, put it in the most obvious section of your purse. In the end, my attacker was sentenced to four years for the assault of me and other women. The prosecutor texted me during his sentencing to tell me he was crying. Oh man. Oh my God.

Don't do the crime if you can't not cry. Not cry. In court. Oh God. SSDGM Laura. Wow, Laura. That was awesome, Laura. Yeah.

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Hey, I'm Arisha. And I'm Brooke. And we're the hosts of Wondery's podcast, Even the Rich, where we bring you absolutely true and absolutely shocking stories about the most famous families and biggest celebrities the world has ever seen. Our newest series is all about the incomparable diva, Whitney Houston. Whitney's voice defined a generation and even after her death, her talent remains unmatched. But her incredible success hit a deeply private pain.

In our series, Whitney Houston, Destiny of a Diva, we'll tell you how she hid her true self to make everyone around her happy and how the pressure to be all things to all people led her down a dark path. Follow Even the Rich wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. Okay, this is called My Father, a killer serving three life sentences. Oh, shit. Hey Karen, Georgia Stephen and all the adorable furry friends.

I love your podcasts. I'm going to be at the show in Cleveland. I've been debating about writing in for a while. I am both a first responder murderer, I've been a paramedic for about six years, and I also have a few hometown murders. The most important hometown murder I can share, though, is my father. My father was an abusive alcoholic, most of my childhood. And I guess you could say we have been estranged since I was a teenager.

A few years ago, my mom got a call from one of the local sheriff's deputies asking if she knew anything about one of his old acquaintances who had gone missing more than 10 years ago, which led to this crazy ass story. Oh, shit. In June 2012, my father, Michael, along with his wife, Amanda, shot and killed three people at their home in West Virginia. He attempted to hide the bodies unsuccessfully. Apparently, he and his wife got into a fight about this.

Can't imagine why. So he decided to make a run for it and she called the police. He went to prison and is serving three life sentences plus 40 years. She's also serving time for her involvement. I think maybe 50 years, but I don't remember exactly. Here's where it gets crazier. While in prison, he decided to confess to some other murders here in Ohio. Whoa.

He confessed to the murder of an acquaintance, hence why the sheriff called my mother. They brought him back here, dug up the guy's body, tried my dad, and he got another life sentence and shipped back to West Virginia to serve his four life sentences. I've enclosed the links to the stories if you're interested. Also we have some good recent murders here in Cleveland, including a survivor story, Ariel Castro and the kidnapped girls and Anthony Sowell, the Cleveland Strangler. Can't wait to see you guys, Jessica. Wow, Jessica.

Can you imagine your dad serving four life terms for the murder? That's so much. I know. That's it. Wow. I'm so fat. Did you read the interview with the BTK's daughter? I think I may have seen it.

Was it like in People? Yeah. Or one of those magazines? Yeah. I'm kind of just starting to talk a little bit about how insane it is. I'm so fascinated by that and anyone who's like, yeah, the realization that one of your parents could do something like that is. But I think it's also a good, maybe, you know, you aren't your parents and you don't, you're

not responsible. They're different people. Totally. I mean, I feel like I just switched into what would my therapist say mode of like you. It's not you. It's not you and as awful as it is, it's not a reflection. It's not fair to you to put yourself through anything if you, if that's a thing you're carrying around because life is short enough and that's his burden, like he's carrying

all of that. It's not a reflection on you and it's also not any indication that you're any kind of person, good or bad or like anything like that. But I wonder, I wonder if it's like, yeah, I hated my dad all my life. We, you know, he's a fucking asshole and alcoholic and it's like, oh, that was justified because he's a fucking murderer. I was not incorrect. Yes, exactly.

It's not like the people who get older and you're like, oh, you hate your parents. It's like, no, no, my dad's a murderer. It makes sense. And it sounds like a, maybe a sociopath and like really not, not healthy brain. Right. Not a good dad. God. Well, Jessica, you know, there's Jessica.

Thank you for that. Yeah. That was a, that was a big share. I, it made me think of, you know, the smiley face killer's daughter had a series on like one of the ID-ish kind of channels because she would go and meet family members of serial killers and talk to them about how it impacted their life. I have to watch that. It's good.

It's, you know, it's heavy though. It's like, it doesn't have any of the kind of distraction of true crime stories. It's all, it's as if it's all the family interview part of the true crime story, which to me is usually the heaviest, saddest part. Definitely. There's no fun murder, she wrote mystery part of it. But it's, or like at the end, no, like they started a fund for the victim under her name, you know, for the, under the victim's name and that they're working to help people.

It's like, you're the serial killer's family. Right. It's not the same. Although it may have, I mean, I can't think of anything offhand, but like that they could have had the same reaction as the victim's family had of like, you know, I'll go help people. Oh, definitely. Potentially.

Yeah. Isn't it always what big things do to you and just like, better go do something about it. And it was try to do something positive. Yeah. Thank you for listening, everyone. Yeah. Send yours to, yes, we're taking survivor stories, especially if they're funny and about you

peeing and telling a robber to fuck off, especially. Hey, you come over here. Can you imagine? I just love that it's a girl too. When I first started reading over that, I was like, well, of course this guy like ran away from it. Yeah. And then also cause she ran a construction crew of 15 dudes.

Yes. Totally. But what was going through that robber's mind as this little girl runs from him? Fuck you. Like what? He probably thought she was going back to like save everyone or something. Yeah. Oh my God.

It's so good. It's my favorite story. It's very fun. Yeah. So yeah, send them to my favorite murder at Gmail. And say sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye.

Goodbye. Elvis. Where is he? Elvis. Hi. It's your time to shine. Yeah. That was a good one.

Yeah. You nailed it. You nailed it.