My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 61

Episode Date: March 12, 2018

This week's hometowns include the funny man haunting and a ‘lighthearted’ near kidnapping.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. Hi, hello and welcome to my favorite murder, the mini CODE. The mini times when we tell you your many, many stories. So you've written so many stories into us and now we're going to present them to you. Back at you. Hometowns, things that have happened to you that got you into true crime in the first place. That was the original. Yeah, we've gone off into ghost stories. We've gone off into sinkholes. We've gone off into, oh, we should probably tell people no one else needs

to tell us about the lady that fell into her own wall and then was discovered there years later. Or that someone's parents found a basement in their kitchen. Yes. Yes. It was a wine cellar. It was a wine cellar. We got that one. It's fine. We've we're updated now. I kind of love it because it was it's like our own Google alert. Yeah. Anytime like anytime there's a sinkhole that happens around the globe. I'm the first one who knows about it. It's pretty great. It's there's no complaints over here. Yeah. But this is specifically this is where we gather all those stories and then retell them to you. It's almost like the just the weird stories that you can't tell anyone else. Yeah. We just want your weird stories. Bring your weird stories here and then

we'll tell everybody else about them. And yeah. For example. Yeah. Are you ready? I'm ready. The subject line of this is John Belushi haunted my baby brother. Dear Karen, Georgia, Steven and pets. I've been wanting to write to you for some for a long time. And finally, during a recent and still active binge of the podcast, got the inspiration. I grew up in the suburbs of Los Angeles with my parents, younger sister and younger brother. My brother at the time of the story takes place was two to three years old. Okay. Our one day, our house's septic tank backed up and flooded our entire house. My mother being who she is, decided that the only place that could comfortably house a family of five was the Chateau

Marmont. Oh, girl. Oh, damn. Oh, by the way, these are all Los Angeles based because we're having our Los Angeles show this week. Oh, that's right. In celebration of the Orpheum show that we get to do for you guys this week. Steven pulled all LA County. I want some Burbank and some Glendale. Yeah. Yeah. You're going all over. Yeah. Sprinkle the best of the best. So that's what these are. So once we're talking about the Chateau Marmont, you know, we're in Hollywood, baby. Shit, girl. So this mother of threes, like, let's get this whole act down to the Chateau Marmont. You know what? This is disgusting. Let's do it. Was your mother candy spelling? Okay. So we moved into one of the bungalows, a two bedroom standalone house perched above the

pool, which just so happened to be the same bungalow in which John Blue, she died from an overdose in 1982. Shut up. My parents took the master bedroom. My sister and I shared the second bedroom and my brother, who was still in a crib, got a large walking closet. Enjoy. Throw your kid in the closet. Strange little things would happen in the house, like smoke alarms going off for no reason. They do that all the time. Door slamming shut. That's the wind. Lights turning on and off. Electricity. Yeah. That's how lights work. And overall feeling that there was just some sort of energy around you and it wasn't a negative energy, just a presence that you could feel like a soft breeze blowing by you. Well, well,

that's the breeze. That's called a breeze. My toddler brother began waking up during the night calling for my mom. She would repeatedly go check on him come and comfort him and tell him to go back to sleep. One night she asked what was bothering him and he replied, the funny man woke me up. He wants to play cars. She would frequently hear my brother talking to himself while playing and strange things continued to happen throughout the bungalow. One day my brother was playing in his room. My mom walked by and saw him sitting on the floor. She walked into the kitchen for a couple of minutes and then when she walked back in to look in on him, he was no longer on the floor, but standing up in his crib. Since she knew he couldn't climb up in there himself,

she asked him how he got there. The funny man helped me. The funny man. He said, this is absolutely the beginning of one of the insidious movies. Yeah. I'm positive. This is a cheap and ultimately boring horror movie that you're setting up. No offense, not boring to you. I see a lot of those movies. Really boring. We eventually changed bungalows. Good plan. And didn't hear any more about the funny man. The funny man, stay there because at the other bungalow it might be the scary man. Exactly right. The mean man. The funny man is your best possible fucking possibility. Think about all the other crazed asshole drug addicts from Los Angeles that have stayed at the Chateau Marmont. Go with the comedian. Yeah. Okay. So a

few months later, my mom was in bed with my brother reading a book on the history of the hotel. She turned to the chapter with John Belushi with a black and white portrait of him filling a page. My brother saw the photo and clearly recognizing it started giggling. What is it? She asked. He wouldn't answer her. He just continued to smile. She asked again, what are you laughing at? Do you know who that is? And he giggled and nodded up and down. Who is that? She asked, that's my friend. That's the funny man. It turned out my little brother had been spending his nights playing games with a very lonely John Belushi. He was so young at the time. There was no way, there was no way he knew who John Belushi was prior to all of this happening.

What if he was super into SNL as a toddler? Naturally, no one ever talked about his death in that bungalow to a toddler. Yeah. I hope you enjoyed this ghost story. It made me feel sorry for John Belushi, but I'm glad he found some solace hanging out with my brother and hopefully got a few laughs from him. Stay sexy. Don't get murdered, Gina. Oh my God. That's amazing. That is such a good family story. Yeah. That's what we want. We want family stories. Yeah, we could back that up. We could call the Chateau Marmont. We could call your mother. We could call your toddler brother. We want the story. I want the stories that like your family always knows and talks about and like that's the thing that happened to aunt, whatever the fuck. Yep.

They were all there. Remember when we were kids and that's the thing that happened. Yes. Totally. It might be about a fucking sinkhole. It might be about a thing that was found on the wall. It might be about your grandpa was a murderer. We'll just call them aunt stories from now on. Yes. It's the story your aunt told you. Yeah. All right. Here is one called Murder in a Composting Toilet. Okay. Hey friends. You don't like it. Composting toilets. So you it's where you pee and throw a spinach. I don't know. Okay. Let's find out. All right. My name is Ava and I often listen to your podcast while driving my younger siblings age 15, 11 and 7 home from school. Appropriate? Probably not. No. Are they now huge fans of yours? Oh yeah.

Yeah. We got the seven year old? Yes. Hell yes. Fuck you Disney channel. When I went to a hippie school in Los Angeles until eighth grade and one of the things that the school is well known for is it's biannual camping trips. Oh hippie schools. Man. Shit. Always giving you those sesame stick candies. Yeah. And like gold stars instead of grades and like find your own curriculum or whatever the fuck. I want to take a nap. Work at your pace. Yeah. We support your nap. No she is wash your feet. Wash the feet. The wash your feet class. Okay. In 2014 my eighth grade class. Oh fuck she's young. In 2014 my eighth grade class went camping at a strange intentional community in central Oregon intentional. It

was no accident that that community was there. I think it's like living your life intentional with intention with good with intention of like fucking hippies. How about some rando shit. Yeah. Let's make it weird and crazy. Come on. That's the thing I'm eating. I don't know. I have no intention of finding out. It doesn't matter. Pull fire alarm. Let's fucking get out of here. Don't do that seven year old. Do it. Essentially living not like us. Yes. With unintention. Right. Okay. Okay. Intentional community in central Oregon. Think grown men striding around naked. People living in yurts and pot everywhere. Okay. It was certainly an interesting decision on the part of the school to take 25 eighth graders there for two weeks.

Jesus. What apart from a few leering old men. We had a pretty great time. We're the naked. Probably. I mean what was leering at them. You know. Yeah. A few months after we left the community I heard through the school's camping director and former resident of the community herself that there had been a murder at the community. Apparently some guy went crazy because his wife was sleeping with another man. So he killed his wife's lover, chopped his body up and put the pieces into the composting toilet they had on site. A toilet that I had fucking used just months before. Oh my god. So like a composting then is like you use it to then feed the plants and stuff. Right. Yeah. So I think it's just basically instead of plumbing. Right. Or having to like

actually put lay pipes if you will. Yeah. Oh I will. You shit into. A bucket. A bucket that then there's things in there that break it all down. Okay. To return it to the earth. Gross. Right. Okay. I'm not going to explain how a composting toilet works. Well and I just tried to but I could absolutely be wrong. Well she says because I'm not exactly sure and I don't feel like it. Okay. But I will say that that the toilet was a great place to put a body because it already smelled like decomposing matter from all the compost. The body wasn't found for weeks after the killing and when it was I don't think anybody in the community really said anything to authorities or outsiders. What? The only reason I heard about it is because this employee at my school

is friends with the people in the community and knows I love hearing about scandal. And it's not scandal and told me all about it. All I know is that the killer was exiled from the community and presumably unleashed upon the rest of the world shortly after the discovery of the victim's remains. God. Anyway that's my hometown-ish murder. Hope you enjoyed it. Stay sexy and don't use a composting toilet. Ava. No problem Ava. Ava I was about to use one and now I'm going to go use indoor plumbing. So essentially it's like a nudist colony. Yeah. For hippies and people who like want to pretend that eating like a nut loaf makes them a better person than me. Okay. But then also people who have no respect for the law. Right. Well yeah like fucking street

justice don't use fuck my wife. You know. Yeah but no. No 100% no. Listen. Work. And put some clothes on. Please. Just at least some bottoms. I don't want to see junk everywhere. Even just a simple loincloth. Wrap some shit around you. Like duct tape a leaf to your fucking dick is all I'm saying. With scotch tape. With scotch tape. There's a seven year old listening. Oh fuck. Ava. Ava please. This subject line is near kidnapping. Near kidnapping miss. Light hearted. Okay. Hi MFM fam. So my mom and her all and all her nine brothers and sisters grew up in Pacoima, California which as Georgia says even though she grew up around Los Angeles she still has no idea where it is. How do you stand by that? You probably know it from La Bamba as Richie Valens grew up there too.

Yes. Yes. Best movie. Anyway they lived about a block away from the elementary school they all and most of their children later on attended. One day my aunt was walking home alone from first grade. Uh huh. Go home. Yep. Good luck. You're six. When a strange, let's ask the seven year old listening right now. Yeah. How much would that freak you out if you had to walk alone for four blocks to your house? Imagine. They don't do it anymore. No. It's not done. And most of us had more than four blocks to walk. Yeah. I think we had a solid two miles. Yeah. Up hill. Yeah. Okay. Both ways. Both ways. Okay. So she's walking home alone from first grade when a strange man in a car calls her over and tries to lure her in with the phrase. Oh no. Come. Eat chicken.

No. That's not going to work on a six year old. Sorry. She was of course freaked the F out and ran home crying where she promptly told her eight other brothers and sisters what happened. And I guess since older siblings can be assholes and she did make it home, they teased her about it for years, chasing her around and calling. Come eat chicken. Oh my God. At her. This near kidnapping was used as a cautionary tale for all the kids in our family to show that you don't have to be far from home to be taken. Uh huh. But also everyone will make fun of you about it. That's right. That's that usually it's in your worst time. Yeah. Your siblings will find a thing to hang over your head for the rest of your life.

When my own son at eight years old tried to convince me that he was old enough to walk the block home from his own elementary school, I told him this story as one of the reasons why close to home doesn't always mean safe. When I was done, he looked up at me with wide brown eyes, burst out laughing and said only why chicken? I guess kids don't scare as easily as they used to. Anyway, my five sisters and I love the show. Wow. Five sisters. That's six. The six sisters all together. What's wrong with your brothers? What's that? What's wrong with your brothers? Why do they hate us? Oh, because they don't like fucking local. Really? Fuck you. Whoops. SSD GM Veronica. That was a great story, Veronica. Oh, come eat chicken. Come eat chicken.

And I picture it's the most interesting man in the world from the Doseki's course, sitting in a shitty car. And actually, he really just wanted to feed her like his new recipe of like the best chicken in the fucking world. That's right. He's like, you must try this, my spices. So spicy. It's been brining and beer. All right. Okay. And just a drop of mayonnaise. Ew. What? I'm a chef. Oh, right. Drop of mayonnaise. Why is it so loose that it's dropping? Ew. Ew, it's, you know why? Because I left it out in the sun. Picture the smell of mayonnaise right now. Go ahead. I'm going to let you do it. No. It's so sour. Yuck. Do it. Okay. Because you're making me do that now. You know my mayonnaise memory is when my mom would deep

condition her hair on the weekends by putting mayonnaise in her hair like me and wrapping it with saran wrap and she had long nails and she would get mayonnaise under her nails. Oh, yeah. And it was why I did that. A nightmare. Now I remember that of this just disgusting smell. Yeah. But the softest hair. I mean, really nice hair. The softest smelly hair. It smelled like for two shampoos after. All right. Listen, look, you can afford Alberto Vio 5 now. I can afford a $1.99 pack of fucking single use Alberto Vio 5. That's right. Heat it up in a glass of hot water. Here. That's right. Looking for a better cooking routine? With meal planning, shopping, and prepping handled, Hello Fresh has you covered. Hello Fresh makes home cooking easy and affordable

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20 free meals with purchase plus free shipping on your first box at hellofresh.ca slash murder20 with code murder20. That's up to 20 free meals plus free shipping on your first box when you go to hellofresh.ca slash murder20 and use code murder20. Goodbye. Hi. What makes a person a murderer? Are they born to kill or are they made to kill? I'm Candace 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, this is called When I Found Out My Dad Kidnapped People. Hey, Karen, Georgia, Stephen, and Pet Menagerie.

Nice. I'll try and keep it short. When I was 11, my dad took me on a trip to Los Angeles. He was really excited because I was really excited because I got to see my family and never got to go with him before. He said it was a work trip that he'd make time for me. Oh, thanks, dad. I mean, for your fucking family. What an honor to be paid attention to as a child. My most important thing in my life is work, but I will make time for this less important thing of

you, my child. Listen, block out 7-730 for old daddy-o. We're going to watch threes camping together. That's right. You get a fucking TV dinner. Okay. One evening at dinner, TV dinner problem, he asked me what I knew about cults. At 11, my answer was nothing. My dad proceeded to explain what they were to me and told me the real reason for the trip.

He had been hired by parents to kidnap someone and do a deprogramming job. Her dad was a deprogrammer for cults. I had a brief moment of wondering if he had once kidnapped me. Fair fucking assasin. Oh my god. But suddenly all those warnings about vans and the game where we tailed people at the mall quote to show how easy it was to follow someone unquote made a whole lot more sense. Oh my god.

Hey, that's why the following game. Come on, daddy wants to play the game where he puts a silencer on a gun. He liked us to always be prepared and would hide in bushes and jump out and wanted us always to be ready. This is called child abuse. Oh my god. He wonders why I need anti-anxiety medication. Wait, how he wonders I need anti-anxiety medication is beyond me. Yes. He would play a game where he would jump out from the bushes so they'd be prepared.

Dad, knock it off. I bet he was fucking pissed the one time she kicked him in the dick. Yeah. That was her preparation. No, he was because he was wearing a cup and he was like perfect reaction. Yeah, exactly. You're my sensei, whatever the fuck. Yeah. Okay. Then all caps.

So this Thanksgiving I found out that my mother was a getaway driver for one of these jobs. The other getaway driver had to drop out. The cops were on to him since he had quote killed some people since he didn't take shit from anyone. And then she says, um, what dad? Apparently my mom poses a nurse and helped kidnap actual double mint twins with my father. There's a lot left out there. We've gone off the rails entirely. Yeah. This chick is like, I'll try to keep it short.

And we're like, can you please write us four more pages of what the fuck is going on? We need, yeah, you need to write a true novel about what's happening to us. Turns out they weren't in a cult but needed to call their dad because he was controlling and was calling D programmers because they weren't talking to him anymore. What? So the twins father, the twins had stopped talking to their father. He probably sucked. So he had started calling D programmers to be like, my kids are in a cult.

Can you please go kidnap them? And the kids are like, no, we just hate our fucking controlling shitty dad. He wants our double mint money. Yeah. He wants that double mint money. I wonder if anyone doesn't know what we're talking about. Double the pleasure. Double the fun. It's a great man all the statement.

That's a double mint gun. Okay. And then we'll all be twins in the commercial. That's right. Okay. Because they weren't talking to him anymore. Luckily they were so mad at their father that they didn't call the police on my parents. Wow. This is the only couple of, this is only a couple of wild stories I've learned from my family, S.

So it is true that the dad was a cult D programmer. Yes. It was just in that one instance. It wasn't a cult that they were in. Right. They just want to get the fuck away from there. Right. S, yes.

Okay. That was your submission for us to give you a book deal and yes. Our new book imprint is coming out. Yes. We have decided to start a book company and you're our first book. There is a made for TV movie that Paul Tompkins and I watched one time. That is one of my favorite things I've ever seen. And it is a, the story and it seems to be like a true story based on true story of a guy that ends up joining the Mooneys, the cult in San Francisco and the Mooneys were a cult that really like got popular in the 70s.

And what they would do is they would go into San Francisco and they would hold free spaghetti dinners and if you were like poor or starving or whatever you like spaghetti or just fucking loved a nice marinara sauce, you could go to these dinners and then they basically from there, they would do like cult fishing where they would send out like a hot guy or a hot girl depending on your situation and kind of get somebody to flirt you into like, do you want to come back to the thing with us? It's so, it's just we love and we farm and we fucking. Yeah. So then you're suddenly weirdly looped into like, oh, this is,

I've got some carbohydrates in my belly and then someone's flirting with me and I'll everything sounds so much better than I like it here. Yeah. Yeah. And then they have them selling flowers on the street and they're slowly indoctrinating in them into the cult. So this story is about a guy who gets fully into the Mooneys and he's like completely brainwashed. He's doing all this weird stuff and his friend who is a standup comedian in the story. It's like, you know, obviously not an exact person. I don't think. But at one point is the hilarious, the friend who gets him out of the cult like basically goes into the cult and finds him and gets they kidnap him and deprogram him is what made me

think of it. But the friend that's a standup comedian, when they go to show him at his job, the at a club, he's dressed like a tomato. And it's like that alone. I was like, this is price of admission. But then the whole actual story of how they have to hire a person that like they it's it is kidnapping against their will, take them and they have to like convince them that they have been maybe they're not. Maybe they want to live there. Maybe they want to fucking live on a farm with hot people instead of having to dress like a fucking tomato to make rent money and then barely, which is true, except if that the farm life would have been great. But they're not that's not where they live. They get like basically it turns into slave labor. Okay.

And it turns into these people that are like weirdly dedicated. They don't sleep and they don't eat that much. And they're just out like running around trying to sell flowers in the streets of San Francisco lying in clothes and not a tomato costume. That's exactly true. They're not dressed like vegetables. But all of their hard work goes to the Reverend Moon, who is like a billionaire. That's why some Moonies from the Reverend Moon. Yeah, he was in charge. And that's a real thing. It's a real thing. Okay. And he was like an arms dealer. He got so rich off of the cult that he was like a real it's not it's Wayne seriously. But it's I should find the name of it. I'm going to watch it. I'm going to try to do less describing

made for TV movies. Why would you do that? We have a whole spin off podcast that we're starting with our book with our book in print and book in print. Yeah. It's and they're going to go together. They're going to be like companions. That's a companion piece where someone will tell you straight from their life. And then I'll just say, oh, that reminds me of a random thing. Exactly. And thank you, Steven. This was a 1981 Canadian drama film called Ticket to Heaven. I really recommend that you watch it. It's it's amazing. 1981 style entertainment, Canadian 1981 style entertainment even and but then you really get to watch somebody get extracted from a cult and they had a thing. I don't know if it was all

cults like that or if it was just in the Moonies, but they showed you how to kill yourself. If you want to no, no, no, no, no, no. Really? Like cutting your wrist. Well, just that there's a way to do it. Yeah, I know. And but then there's a way to cut your wrist where you won't die, but you get out of once you get yourself to a hospital, you're you can't get re kidnapped out of the hospital and the Moonies will come and get you to get yourself out of like your parents house essentially or the family or wherever you've been kidnapped to. Like they know that people are going to do that and they basically tell you attempt suicide so you can get out of there and we come take you back. Don't do if someone's telling you attempt suicide as the solution,

even if they know you're not getting killed, you're in a cult. You pause and get your hands on some protein. Yeah, because it's a big thing where they keep you awake and they feed you with sugar constantly. You must demand soy. Just eat a fucking a chicken. Try this chicken. What was it? Oh my god. Come have chicken. Chicken and that is a full fucking sir. He was trying to get her out of a cult. Yes. He's the chicken programmer. Dude, this fucking goes all the way to the top. This goes straight to the bungalow. This is a fucking composting toilet of truth. Los Angeles, you guys kicked us with your hometown. Yeah, thanks guys. Those were all fascinating. There's celebrity references. Yeah, that's all we care about. That's all we care about.

Send yours, your weird family stories to my favorite murder at Gmail and thanks for listening. Yeah, and stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye, Elvis. One cookie. Wow. Bye.