My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 64

Episode Date: April 2, 2018

This week’s hometowns include a pair of mysterious shoes in a basement and a fruitcake in the mail.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. Okay. And begin. And we're here. And get used to it. Hey, this is my favorite murder the mini episode. This is the one where we read your stories of hometown murders, things you found in walls, piles of money you found on the ground, etc. We read them back to you in as pleasant voices as we can muster for you. Yes, or in Kermit the Frog voices, whatever we feel like. Whatever we want to do. You know, it's our special day. It's our time to shine. Yeah. You want to go first? Yes.

Okay. The subject line of this email is I went on a date to an arraignment. Hello all. In 1998, my boyfriend at the time was a reporter for one of the local area newspapers, the Troy record. We were going out to dinner. But before we left, he got a call that he was to attend an arraignment to report on for the next day's police blotter. We show up at this little tiny town hall, think my cousin Vinnie and sit down in the back in in shuffles, balding guy and handcuffs and leg irons. He talks to the judge and we're out of there at about 10 minutes. I was so bored of cell phones had been around. I would have been on mine for sure. But once we get in the car, my boyfriend tells me about the guy. Gary Evans had been in and out of jail for burglary and theft

over the last 15 years. He'd been at Sing Sing for a stint and even was friends with David Burkowitz while he was there. A few months later, Evans confesses to the murder of three people he had been robbing over the years. Oh, had been robbing with over the years and leads police to the bodies. After he was indicted, he confessed to two more murders. After sentencing, he was being transported by the US Marshals from the courthouse to the county jail. As the van was crossing the Hudson River, Evans managed to kick out the window in the van hobbling shackles to the edge of the bridge and jump 65 feet to his death. He landed in the edge of the river where the water was only one foot deep. After the autopsy, they found a handcuff key in one nostril and a razor blade in the other.

No. Ow. Fuck. I remember, how do you not have a nosebleed? I remember hearing about it on the news and realizing it was the same guy. My mind was blown. The next year I started classes for criminal justice and cemented my status as a murderer. You know, thank you for all that you do. I tried so many true crime podcasts before finding you and it's made my 40-minute commute something I look forward to. Thanks a million, Adrienne. Oh, Adrienne. Adrienne, that's the best. That's crazy. I mean, now I'm going to look that guy up. I know how we never heard of him. That's crazy. I'm not going to read you the subject line of this one. Okay. Hi. It's a saver. Yeah. Hi, gal. Here it is. Hi, gals, guys and critters alike. Okay. All right. Good. My fiance's family

have a rich history and are incredibly quirky with some great stories. And when you asked for things found in basements, I knew I had to tell you this one. A few years back, my fiance was looking for something in his grandparents and they had told him to see if he could find whatever it was in the basement. After nosing around, he found a pile of boxes and started to open them. And in one of the boxes, he found a rank old pair of boots that fucking stink. So naturally he was like, fuck this and put them back. Eventually he left the basement unsuccessful and searching for whatever and told his grandparents, there's an old pair of, there's a pair of smelly old boots in the basement. You might want to throw those away. To which they replied, Oh, those are your great,

great granddad's feet. So apparently the subject line is granddad's feet and bad renovators. So apparently the story goes that years ago, my fan, my fiance's great-great-grandfather, my fiance's great-great-grandfather, let's call him Jim worked on some kind of cargo ship. And on one of his travels, there was an issue with the boat and they had to dock at the nearest island, which happened to be a very hot sandy island. And while the boat was being fixed, Jim decided to explore the island because it was so hot, the sand was super hot too. And it melted the rubber boots into his feet. And lo and behold, he had to get them amputated. What? Sorry. The sand was so hot that it melted his rubber boots.

On to his feet. And into his feet. On to his feet. Is that a thing? Okay. Can I just say with what? No offense to everybody. You calling bullshit on this one? No, no, no. But I'm saying Jim must have been fucking drunk. Because how do you walk on sand so hot for long enough for the boots to fuse? That doesn't happen in an instance. That's a great question. I'm just saying Rome is involved in this story. But we don't have to accuse. We do, though. I, as an alcoholic, love to accuse other alcoholics. It's fun. Amputated. And they were just passed from family member to family member until my fiance found them. They were subsequently thrown out by renovators when my fiance's grandparents

were getting their house read on a few years later. Anyway, thanks for reading. Superb on your tour in the US. Stay sexy and don't keep rotten feet in the basement. But in just in a box. In a box. Amputated feet. And they still smell. I mean, yeah, because it's still rotten. Yeah. It's rotten flesh. That's disgusting. You can't just keep that shit around. No, I don't know what's wrong with people. The cat goes down there. And then it's like, well, they're saving them because it's part of one of their family members. But like, who cares? No, no, no. You don't want your family members' feet.

No. You don't want them when they're living. You don't want your family members to keep your feet either, I would say. Not these feet. Jim was like, no, get rid of those. Please. You know what I would like people to do? Take a mold of some lady with tiny feet. As I have, my mother used to go, God, your feet are big. What the fuck? She wasn't the best with things like this. She didn't think things through a lot of the time. But my feet are crazy wide. Let me see them. Have we ever done this?

Let's do them feet to feet. Feet to feet. Big and wide. No. Yeah. Really wide. I mean, I can't wear, like, I've suffered in shoes over my lifetime. That's why I'm a clogs gal now, because I'm like, fuck it. The 80s were living hell. God. But what are we talking about? I don't know. Oh, take a thing of plaster of tiny feet, you said. And then tell people those were my feet. Okay. That's if you cared if your family member that loved me. Yeah. That's what I would prefer.

But I didn't smell bad. I'm in a bag of trash. Just make them smell bad? Yeah. Because if they think, never mind. You mean to keep it real? Oh, I see what you're saying. To keep it realistic? Yeah. Oh, I'm saying just you can do a plaster cast. No one needs real flesh. You know, my mom gave me in one of these fucking boxes over here, my fucking baby, like, bronzed shoes. Oh. Why the fuck did they do that back then?

And now she's like, here have them. Like, you made them. They were important to you. I was a baby. A bronzed baby shoe is a perfect example of weird design shit that was happening in, like, 1974. Lots of people were on acid, but they weren't admitting it. And they were just like, I have an idea for a craft. Your baby's first pair of shoes. Yeah. Get them that she wore two times probably. Yeah. And we'll make it look like a copper T kettle.

Yeah. We'll make it look like a fucking trophy somehow. We'll make it look like a weird robot from a movie that's going to come out in four years. But in yet, I can't throw them away. No, because they're your baby shoes. Who cares, though? My dad has, we made, and I remember doing it in kindergarten, in our kindergarten at Wilson School where my sister went to school. They did a thing where you put your hand in plaster and then you just,

your name is written on one side and say the year that you were in kindergarten. And my dad still has them hanging on the kitchen wall in the kitchen. That's the cutest thing. It's pretty cute. Mine's, I think mine's green and my sister's is yellow. My mom was like, here, you made this. I don't want it, mom, but it's now 37 years old. You have to keep it.

I know. It's vintage. My mom did that when my sister and I moved out, but I would leave boxes of stuff that was like, you know, old yearbooks and like stuff that was from my desk or whatever. She was like, get the stuff out of here or I'm throwing it away. She would say that all the time where I'm like, could you stop trying to erase every trace of the children that lived in your house? Like, what are you putting your, oh, this like some high tech office you're putting together?

Okay, read another one to me. Son's a bitch. Oh, I thought I would just complain about my mother for a while longer. God rest her soul. She really was great. How about this? Dental assistant meeting serial killers. Okay.

Karen, Georgia, Stephen et al. I like that one the best. It's all business. Despite the recent flood of negativity regarding dentists on the show recently. Dr. Rambo. Dr. Rambo. Oh, oh, I see. Because I could be more positive about my dentist.

He's made me believe in dentistry again. What if you were like a non-believer in dentistry? Like, like a flattery. A flattery, but about or like cavities aren't real. Karen doesn't believe in dentistry. And I just like my fucking teeth are falling out of my mouth. I thought I'd share some encounters I learned because of, I learned of because I'm a dentist. Okay.

I'm an active duty Navy dentist recently stationed in San Joaquin Valley. That's up north by where I'm from. Lovely. No water. I know. But that's where the Navy pilots practice flying. Thank you for your service. And one of my assistants used to work as a dental assistant for the state prison system

for about six years. That's fun. While in that job, she helped deliver dental care to Charles Manson, Sir Han, Sir Han. Shit. And Gregory Powell, the onion field killer. All the top names. Shit. Just the stars.

This sounds like they, she worked at San Quentin. She's fucking name dropping. She's just like, oh, so Richard Ramirez once said hi. Hi. With his pentagram. With his fucking nasty teeth. She's like, no. Oh my God.

You had like a fucking trash mouth. I'm just, now I'm scanning ahead to be like, oh my God, Ramirez. It's, I don't think he's in here. Okay. Right, Stephen? Is he, is he? No. Okay.

She told me that Charlie often looked vacant and glassy eyed, but would sometimes become very animated and go on long, unintelligible rants. Great. You can see all those on YouTube. She also commented that he would pull hair out from his beard and weave it together to form long strands and that a huge spider web looking thing constructed in a similar fashion was confiscated from his cell at one point. Oh, that sounds chill.

Gross. That's so disgusting. That is. You know, someone would have spent like $10,000 to buy that. Yes, a thousand, like Johnny Depp. In addition, he would only refer to her as sunshine. That's rude. And he would call out to her whenever he saw her walking through the yard to the dental clinic.

Okay, sunshine. Fuckin' Charlie Manson. Oh my God. Charlie's got his eye on you. Charlie has a nickname for you. Um, SSDGM Megan. Oh. Uh, that's hilarious.

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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 hit 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. All right. Again, not going to redo the subject. Okay. This might be one of my favorites. Really?

And involves food. That's why I'm probably. Okay. Hi, Karen, Georgia, Steven and Petz. Boom. Done. My name is Beth and I'm a freshman in college. And I've been listening to the podcast for a while now.

And I thought y'all might like this story. It doesn't exactly fit any of the categories y'all cover, but I don't care. I know y'all don't care. So let's do this. Hell yeah, Beth. Where is Beth? Y'all, there's just y'alls. Beth knows.

Beth knows. My family told me this story when I was younger and it's fucking whack. So my great, great grandmother's uncle's cousin's mom or something like that, had been living really far away for whatever reason while the rest of my family was living in Georgia. Every Christmas, the relatives would mail a fruitcake and a letter to the relatives in Georgia. They didn't have phones. This was still when everyone was communicating by letters and telegraphs, question mark, or something like that.

One particular Christmas. Get specific, Beth. One particular Christmas, the fruitcake showed up per usual, but this time there was also a plastic bag containing a fine, ashy, smelly substance that they assumed to be, quote, seasoning. The letter that usually came with the box had not been delivered, so I guess it got lost in the mail or something, but they thought nothing of it and put the mystery seasoning all over the fruitcake and ate that shit up. About a month later, the letter finally made it to the family.

And what does it say? Ready for all caps? It fucking says that grandpa died and a small portion of his ashes had been included with the fruitcake for his requests in his will. That whole part of my family ate the cremated remains of their relative on a goddamn fruitcake. Cremains. Cremains. The grandpa had wanted everyone in the family to get some of his ashes.

When told of the story as a child, I vividly remember thinking that that's what y'all get for eating fruitcake. Fruitcake is trash. Okay, that's all, I really love y'all's podcast. A plan I go to law school after I graduate, SSDGM and IDK, I guess just don't eat fruitcake? Beth. Beth. Beth, you are a bad girl.

Beth, that might be up in the top, let's give it at the top 22. Okay. That is my favorite fucking, most fucked up thing. Grandpa died and a small portion of his ashes had been included with the fruitcake. Bar's request in his will, my whole family. The only good part about it is if you did that by yourself, you would go nuts. Yeah. And you can't tell anyone either, so you'd just have to hold it in.

Yes. And all those weird feelings. But if everybody did it, there's that kind of thing of like, look, it happened and the end. I want to see everyone, the letter comes, oh, hey, everyone, we got a letter from the family. I'm going to stand up and recite it to everyone. Y'all.

Y'all gather around. And as she's reading it, they all start losing their shit. Then it becomes like a vomit fest. Yeah. Yeah. There's just just cascades of birth going off like a pretty soon. Cuckoo clock. Everyone was vomiting.

Then the house was filled with vomit, then we shipped the vomit to the other relatives. Oh my God, that's hilarious. I think that's good. And at the same time, and also think of what cremains look like. Have you seen them before? Yes, I have. There's nothing about that that says sprinkle this on food. No.

That's like taking the shit at the bottom of a barbecue and being like, oh, and this would be good on that. Yeah. You have to be the one that goes, I disagree. Are we calling bullshit on Beth? No. Okay. No, because no, not at all.

Okay. I mean, it could be like a, it could be a tall tale. Yeah. In the family. No entertaining. That was so good. And very realistic. It was called, oops, we ate grandpa's ashes.

It was a subject lie. Also, you wouldn't, I feel like the live version of that would be different. Oh yeah, over the top. That was perfectly low key. Yeah. Oh my God. That's so good. Do you have another one or should we so enjoyable?

Close it. I can do a wrapper-upper. Do it. Are you ready for this? I'm ready, always. I am. I never done, half a million dollars buried in the backyard. Let me guess what it's about.

Okay. Ready? No, it's not that. It's about a dead body. Hi all. In the early 2000s, when the market crashed, one of my dad's best friends decided it was a good idea to invest a, to invest a chunk of money, a chunk of his money in a South African gold coin currency called Cougarans.

Don't be stupid. I think they're a great idea. I'm sorry. I might transfer all of my funds there. Okay. We'll talk about that. Leave me out. Leave me out of it.

You don't want to know about it? I want to know everything. But I don't want anything to do with it. Oh, okay. You don't want to have to bury, but you do want to know the location? Yeah. Great. Go on.

That's a deal. Steven, you're on bearing committee. Steven, get your shovel. Steven, do it. Okay. So he, a currency called Cougarans, he took them, he took out about 500,000. Jesus. And bought a huge chunk of these untraceable coins and promptly all caps buried them in

his backyard. That's stupid. Right? It is. Because listen to this. Oh, no. All without telling his wife. No.

Apparently they were loaded enough for her to not notice half a mill going missing from their bank account. Fast forward a few years later and my dad's friend had all but forgotten about his gold coin collection. Why can't you forget half of them? Oh, I wish I were that wealthy. You know what? I think I remember this story.

I think this happened in Belvedere, which is, you know, like Sausalito. I like Mr. Belvedere. I love that place. I love Mr. Belvedere Island. No, it's a fancy rich, rich, rich place in basically right on the other side of Golden Gate Bridge. Oh, that's where Belvedere. Right?

Oh, that's where Elvis is from. Seriously. Really? Across? Yeah. Go ahead. Okay. So fast forward a few years later, my dad's friend had all but forgotten about his gold

coin collection and they decided to have a sprinkler system installed in their yard. The night after the installation, apparently he woke himself up in the middle of the night in a panic, realizing that based on where the sprinkler system had been installed, the crew most likely found his stash of coins. So in the middle of the fucking night, he goes out into his backyard with his shovel and dug a shit ton of holes, trying to remember where he buried the coins. What an idiot. This is just like the movie, Holes, starring Shia LeBioff and his teenage hair.

After he was convinced that the sprinkler crew had taken the coins, he told his wife about what he had done. She made him go to the police and file a report, I guess the cops had a good laugh about it and basically told him not to hold his breath because he would most likely never see those coins again. Because it's untraced money. It's the whole point of them and 500,000 dollars, fuck. But apparently this guy's the luckiest son of a bitch out there because a local pawn

shop, oh, and a local pawn shop called the police after the guy tried to, after a guy tried to pawn a large amount of weird gold coins. The police were able to track him down and retrieved all of his money. You idiot. Stay sexy and don't forget about the half million dollars buried in your backyard, Madeline. I want to kick that guy in the fucking chin. The other dude deserved that money. The dude who found it deserved it.

Do you think he deserves? Not at all. He's a fucking though. He's a thief. I hate him. He's the worst person. However, for this argument, yes, I'm going to go with yes. Finders keepers is your argument.

Losers weepers. Right. And you stupid idiot. And he didn't tell us. You know who deserves the money? His wife in the divorce. There you go. Let's break some people up.

If you make a mistake, you should get a divorce at the end of discussion. Give me, I love the idea of gold, a can of gold coins. Yeah. Folgers, coffee can. A Folgers coffee can with the orange lid. Or what about a mason jar full of it? Mason jars, okay, but they're so trendy right now. They are.

I like Folgers. Okay. It's a reference to my childhood. Okay. I recognize it. You drank it when you were a kid? I drank it all the time. I never knew that they replaced it.

You just took spoonfuls of it. I like to eat Folgers crystals before practice. You take a bite and then you put some warm water in your mouth. Yeah. And they call those Folgers, Folgers shots. That's what they call them. All right. Well, I just, what I'm saying is I love gold coins and everyone should get a divorce.

You know why I love gold coins? Because it's treasure. It's treasure. It's treasure. All right. Thanks for listening. Send your shit to my favorite murder at Gmail. Anything you want really at this point.

Yeah. We just love a good goddamn story. We do. And stay sexy. We love it. We love it. The way it's murdered. Yeah.

Bye, bye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? Cookie? There it is. Boy. Oops, that was better. Okay. I'll try it.