My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 65

Episode Date: April 9, 2018

This week’s hometowns include a Hillside Stranglers connection and a jury coincidence. 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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Ready, go. Go. Go. Welcome to my favorite murder. The mini episode. We're now calling it the mini episode. The miniature episode. We're afraid you won't understand what this is, so we're calling it the miniature episode.

It's not a mini app. We're not fucking millennials. No, we're not millennials. We have plenty of time to say both words entirely. Yeah. It's great, actually. We feel very blessed that we have this amount of time. We're hashtag blessed that this is a miniature episode.

Fucking emoji hands smashed together in prayer formation. Yes. Yes. Baby, little baby angel. A tiny baby angel, and then of course that crazy clown face. Yeah. There you go. Do you know there's a zombie now too?

Oh yeah. Yeah. I updated my thing. The zombie, I like, well, you know my standard emoji is this, the Easter Island head smoking a cigarette. That's my favorite. One to send people. I think it's, I think it's very me.

I have a big, huge Easter Island head. You are, you, your persona is a smoking Easter Ireland head. It's a Kathy Ireland head smoking. Yeah. Okay, go. This is where we read your shit to you. We love it. We do it.

Let's do this. Let's do our miniature episode. Okay. The subject line of this first email is, how my sister stayed sexy and didn't get murdered by the hillside stranglers. Hi, Karen, Georgia, Steven and pets. I look forward to each new episode, but the story of the hillside stranglers hit especially close to home, literally in 1977, our family lived one block away from the 10th victim Lauren

Wagner on Lamona Avenue in the San Fernando Valley. Not only was this where she lived, but also where she was abducted a few doors down from her house. As you mentioned, a neighbor witnessed it and sadly did nothing to intervene or alert authorities. Even though I was only a baby at the time, my sister was 16 and went to Monroe High School with Lauren. Both were babes with red hair and lived down the street from one another. A few days prior to Lauren's abduction, my hot 70s sister in her VW bug was headed to

the stop and go mini mart a few blocks from our house when two guys in what tried to pass for an undercover police car with a makeshift siren on the top started tailing her and even watched her in the parking lot as she went into the store. What they didn't see was her boyfriend in the passenger seat reclined and reclined back. Once she pulled out of the lot, the siren went off and they aggressively tried to pull her over. Her boyfriend Dan took one look at the car and said, do not pull over. Those are fake cops.

Holy shit. Once they realized a guy was in the car, they took off and it makes me sick to think they could have what could have happened if he had not been there. Sadly days later, Lauren was not so lucky after reading that one of them had a redhead fetish. I wonder if they thought they had spotted my sister again, but only this time alone. We will never know. And although Lauren's family understandably moved out of the neighborhood shortly after the murder, I could never shake the sadness I felt for them every time I walked by their

former house and the eerie feeling of the horror that took place only a block away while my family was probably eating dinner or safely watching some show like soap or Mod or Carol Burnett. I'm so grateful. My sister fucked politeness, put her foot on the gas pedal and is here today to tell the story. Thank you, ladies, for keeping the memories of these victims alive and being the best car companions I could ever ask for because of you and no longer mind traffic and I make

sure to keep a full gas tank with doors locked so I can stay sexy and not get murdered. Lastly, Karen, my husband, Rob, worked with you on Late World with Zach and says, hello. Oh, I know Rob. I know Rob. I just saw him recently at the Astro. And also thanks you for making his long commute an enjoyable experience. Thanks, Shayna. Thanks, Shayna.

I don't want to read any now. That one's it. Let's just do one from now on. I mean, that's intense too because that puts her, like, that's, jeez, at the center of that entire story we just told and her family is and like, that is really sad, like a neighborhood tragedy like that. And it could have been her sister. I mean, yeah.

That's, I mean, and that's also how Stephen, you know, you told us this like there's a bunch of emails of people saying, here's this connection that we have to the Hillside Stranglers because they were out doing it for like a year straight. It's so bananas. It's so crazy. I said that they had a redhead fetish. One of them did. What a weird little detail that you just don't think about.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. What assholes. I keep meaning to look at the crime scene photos, but I keep forgetting. Oh, maybe just forget. Maybe I will. Maybe. Maybe should I'll do it late tonight been set a town.

Oh, good idea. I'm really late tonight when I'm in bed. Open up some windows. Open up some wide windows and just really get really roll those dice crime scene photos. Study them. Um, okay. This one's called serial rapist caught by housewife. And I want you to tell me if you think that this is, uh, not real.

Okay. Cause I, we're getting some that we're like wondering. Okay. Here we go. I can't believe I didn't think to send the story to you before, but it's fucking amazing. That already sounds fake. Right. Dear diary.

I never thought I'd be writing this. The dear. Dear penthouse. Exactly. I never thought I'd be writing this letter. Um, I, we spend every Christmas with my grandparents and my favorite part of the holiday is sitting around listening to my granny's crazy stories. My grandfather used to be a professional hockey player and for this reason, my family moved

all around the United States and Canada during my dad's childhood. So there's no shortage of crazy shit. Anyways, every year it's a new story about the time she or someone she knew nearly escaped death. So here's one of my favorites. My family was living in New York at the time and all of the hockey players and their families were living on the same street. One of the wives was pregnant and had thrown a baby shower, which my granny and many other

women attended. After everyone had left, the woman hosting the shower heard a knock at the door. She went to answer it assuming that it was one of the ladies who had maybe forgotten something at the house. Instead, she opened the door and came face to face with a man who immediately lunged at her and pulled and put a knife to her throat. He shut the door behind them and started walking and started backing her down the hallway to the bedroom.

He told her he's going to rape her and she began, she begged him to stop as they were walking down the hallway. They passed the living room on the mantle was a giant glossy headshot of her husband, something that had been given to all of the wives as a gift. The man immediately stopped in his tracks and asked her why she had that photo on her mantle. She told the man that it was a picture of her husband. To her surprise, the man immediately dropped the knife to his side and started apologizing profusely.

He told her he was just the biggest fan of her husband. He asked if she would please not tell him what had just happened. She stood there completely shocked as he fled the scene. She called 911 and police came to the home and notified her that there had been a string of rapes in the area. The man seemed to fit the same description. A few days later, the woman opened her mailbox and found a letter from the rapist again apologizing for trying to rape her.

She gave it to the police and helped them come up with a plan. The woman's husband had a birthday coming up and so the police asked the team to throw a quote fan party in his honor. Knowing that this man was most likely local and a fan of the hockey player, they printed off a large photo and encouraged fans to sign up sign it with well wishes for the player. The police had his wife come to the party to identify the rapist. She pointed him out as soon as she walked in, but the police waited for him to sign the poster so they could match the handwriting to the letter he had left in the mailbox.

Turns out it was a perfect match and they arrested him on the spot. This is such bullshit, right? No, because this is provable. If that was a public event, you could look it up. Okay, this is just one of the many stories my granny's told me. In addition to the time the man called her and told her he was going to murder her and the time my grandpa and a bunch of his teammates caught and had dinner with a peeping tom as they were waiting for the police to arrive.

But that's a story for another time. SSDGM, love you all, Emma. Emma, I'm sorry I'm telling you, your grandma made this up. No, I think, well, because it's so extreme. You know what it, it's exactly like in the Hellside Stranglers when they pull over Peter Laurie's daughter and let her go. That's true. It's exactly the same thing.

That's true. So that part, that's why I think it's real. And then also, if we went and looked it up, we'd be able to find it, because that's like the actual public police action. You're right. And I'm just, I'm so skeptical. No, no, I get it. I mean, look.

Listen. Now, you tell me if this is real. Okay. I mean, the truth is, is anything real? This is a real question. It's the kind, it's the world we live in right now. Yeah. This is, this is kind of good for that.

This subject is insane jury duty coincidence. Ooh, I love coincidences. Okay. Send us your insane coincidences, that's our next call to action. Some would say there's no such thing as a coincidence. That wouldn't be me. Spiritual. Hi, Karen.

George is Steven and assorted creatures. I don't mind it. This story doesn't have much to, much to it, but it was so crazy when it happened that I wanted to share. So here we go. Last summer I was summoned for jury duty. I, uh, I had already postponed once when I would have to go to the police station. I was in college.

So of course I got a low number and was called in. When I went in, everyone was divided into groups and sent to different courtrooms. In my courtroom, the prosecutors were going to select the remainder of the jury for a murder case. We were all seated. And as the judge explained the details of the case, including the victim's name, the woman seated next to me became visibly upset. When the judge asked if anyone would be unable to serve for medical reasons or whatever,

the woman next to me raised her hand. When the bailiff gave her the mic, she stood up and said, I'm an emotion, I am emotionally unable to serve in this case. The victim was my nephew. There was an audible gasp in the room and even the judge and lawyers were clearly shocked. The judge obviously let her leave for the day for the day. No one could believe this coincidence, both for her to come on this day and be randomly sent into this courtroom.

Thanks for listening to my short, but crazy story. Hope you stop by Buffalo, New York soon, SSDGM Katie. Wouldn't she know that he was going to trial though? I'm going to fucking call out every man on this episode. Yeah, you're looking at her. She's looking for the truth. This is my episode of me just fucking saying. No, no, because that's all random.

They just, they, they put you, it's all random numbers and names and stuff like that. Okay. And also it's jury selection. It wasn't the court case. That's true. Okay. Here we go. That's awful, by the way.

It is awful. That's awful. Here's called, this one's called vampire murder and bad first dates. Hi everyone. So I grew up in New Orleans and as you know, it's a city with a lot of weird murders. When I was in high school, there was a well-publicized murder of a tourist at a local hotel. Story was that he was out at a goth bar in the French Quarter when he was picked up by a few locals, two men and two women, who self-identified as vampires.

They all, I don't think you can do that. They all went back to his hotel room where they drank champagne and his jacuzzi bathtub. That sounds, that's so weird. Weird. It smells like bleach already. Mm-hmm. Until this poor tourist got bludgeoned to death. I wonder if we stayed in this fucking hotel and I've taken a bath in there.

Sorry. Excuse me. Until this poor tourist got bludgeoned to death. They may or may not have then drunk some of his blood. The culprits were, culprits were easily caught after being captured on the hotel lobby's video surveillance. That's forward to a decade later. When I start trying out online dating, my very first in-person meeting is with a young

man who seems really good on paper. At one point in our date, he starts talking about his most recent ex-girlfriend who ends up being one of the women involved in the murder. Whoa. He was totally aware that she was involved and convicted in this weird ass murder when the two of them met and then proceeded to have a years-long relationship. He even name-dropped that she was one of the people from the, quote, Hotel Vampire murder when he was describing her, and he talked about the difficulty of dating someone

on parole. Oh. Bringing up his murderer ex-girlfriend on the first date was only one of the many enormous red flags present that evening. Luckily, I kept up online dating anyway and met my husband on the same site about a year later. Oh. SSDGM, Jessica.

Wow. That's insane. I mean, would your blood just totally run cold if someone was just like, yeah. Literally, if someone was like, I drink blood, and you're like, oh, mine tastes terrible. I've been told I have terrible tasting blood. Mine's contaminated with all kinds of parasites. That's true. I have pinworms, so you're probably not going to want to drink my blood.

Can you imagine dating a fucking vampire? Any of it. No, it's too extreme. Someone from New Orleans? I mean, goths themselves, that's a lot to take, you know what I mean? It's just like, can we please go to the park? Can we please go outside? Could you please lighten up, Ziggy?

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Do one more for me. To bleach or not to bleach, the bonkers story of high school theater kids trying to murder each other. Oh no. Hello. I love it already. But when I was in eighth grade, my entire mid-sized Texas town lost their minds. When an 18-year-old girl got caught trying to poison a 15-year-old girl at what would

be my high school in two years. Both girls were in the theater program at school, and not trying to brag, but our high school's theater program was the kind of the shit. They always won tons of awards, which I guess isn't that impressive because this is suburbia in central Texas and culture is scant at best, wow, searing. And I may or may not have cried at their production of One Flew Over the Cookers Nest when I was a junior. Anyway, the senior girl apparently did not appreciate that a sophomore beat her out for

the lead in a one-act play the program was competing with because she spiked a Mountain Dew with fucking bleach and then gave it to the sweet baby 15-year-old angel to drink. Luckily, the girl smelled something bleachy in her dew, said fuck politeness, and went to the principal who called the cops. After that, I guess the poisoner took off because there was a warrant out for her arrest for a week until she eventually turned herself in. Good riddance. On a lighter note, four students in typical teenage boy fashion made up a rap about it

later and posted it to YouTube, which of course everyone in high school went nuts over. And actually ended up banning it from the school because people wouldn't stop singing it. Holy shit. Oh my God, high school is so dramatic. It's so... That is the perfect high school cycle of drama right there. That's exactly what happens.

Someone tries to poison someone. A girl tries to poison a girl. Because she's mad at her for doing something better than her. Yeah. And then boys come in and rap. And make a rap. But luckily, we grew up in a time where you couldn't put it on the internet because there was none.

Oh my God. That shit that... Oh, thank God. Dude, I had to hear that first Beastie Boys album like every day of my life. I am one of the rare few. I am not a Beastie Boys fan. I appreciate that what they did and their talent, this and that. But A, I had to, et cetera, et cetera, I had to listen to them every time, like on the

baseball bus, like every event, those motherfuckers were playing that fucking Beastie Boys album. And then B, I'm still mad that they won Best Rap Group over the Foojies. It was a ludicrous year. That's a rough time for Karen Kilgorek. Fuck, man. There was like, I guess that was late 80s MTV Music Awards. I don't know. Early 90s?

I think so. Yeah. Foojies is early 90s, right? Yeah. Yeah. Stephen. Important stuff. DJ Stephen.

He's just writing it down. Wait, there's more to this. I really, I really came out strong against the Beastie Boys there. I don't know. This might be the end of this podcast. I mean, I'm so sorry. I guess a student trying to murder another student with a bleach cocktail on school grounds under your watch is not a good look.

I can't find it on YouTube anymore, but suffice it to say it's exactly as obnoxious as you think a rap featuring four white middle class teenage dudes would be. Oh my God. Love the show. I've seen you since episode three and love you ladies. Wow. Episode three. Wow.

What's wrong with one and two? Say sexy and always sniff your Mountain Dew, Tara, or Tara, but I think it's Tara. That's just like so, that's such a fucking high school person to do to put the smelliest fucking chemical of all like, I'm not trying to give anyone ideas, but like use some Windex or something. Well, then that's going to turn it blue. Yeah. Blue and yellow.

And that's true. That's true. If it's a, if it's a bottle. Listen, if anyone walks up to you and is like, here you go Karen, here's a can of soda I got you. That's open already. Yes. You fucking smash the can on their head.

You slap it out of their hand. You point your finger in their face and you say, don't approach me again. Georgia. Georgia, you step off. That's just me getting you a Diet Coke. Karen's lost her mind. What if I'm like, I Karen, that was literally a Diet Coke, but I understand where I'm coming from.

You asked me for this Diet Coke. What are you doing? You saw me open it across the room, slap it out of your hand, but I, but I understand your vulnerabilities. I have to say this in my drinking days. One of my favorite jokes quote unquote, no, you did not parties. Yes. Is, you know, in the back then it was me in comedy days.

Of course we've talked about it. If I was sassin up somebody and we were sassing back and forth to each other and they seem to be winning in some way. I would just slap whatever's in their hand out of their hand, whether it be a plate of food or a full drink or whatever it was. I would let them, I would let them have like what they thought was going to be the last word. This is why princess Diana, drink, slap up, ruin your shirt, wipe all the makeup off your

face with your fucking sling of war slings, so the fucking summering sandwich upside down on the fucking floor, bag of chips all the way down on the ground scattered in a million pieces. I mean, there's just not a better comeback than slapping something out of someone's hand. It's the best. I mean, you have to be ready for them, the fight that's going to happen afterwards. Either they're your friend and they love it or you've now made an enemy for life. Sure.

It depends on a lot of factors, how drunk they are. If they think you're clever and funny. If they agree with you. If they're a shame based person, they might. It's embarrassing to them. If you shame them, it could, you could turn it into something bad. So you pick and choose. And whose carpet is it?

I always did it on a patio. Okay, great. Yeah. You have to do it outside. You can't wreck a third party and innocent hosts. You can't wreck anybody's carpeting. Don't be a jerk. No, don't be a dick.

Be an asshole. Yeah. And make it, make sure it's cheap beer, probably not a wine glass, I would assume. Yeah, exactly. You want, this is a joke for plastic cups, bags of chips, a funny old paper plate with a dumb hot dog on it, just stuff like that where, and also a really quick reminder, do not break eye contact as you slap it out of their hand. You smile, you look at them and smile like you won and then slap it so they don't really

see it coming. Can I ask you a favor? Sure. Can I do this to you one time? But like I swear it's gonna be perfect. A thousand percent. Only if it's like the perfect moment. But just don't shame me.

It can't be at my big, my big party. I won't. I won't do it. It can't be as I'm coming down the stairs for my big party. I won't. I promise. Yeah. You can do, I love shit like that.

I love it. When something is like a contained, fun person-to-person prank, you just, you have to know the person and you have to know. I think I would laugh my fucking ass off. It's hilarious. Cause all you lost was a hot dog. Yeah. And an argument.

And you're fucking a little bit of your dignity in the best way. It's the same. It was also when I was on speed, my favorite thing to do would be if I was talking on the phone, I talked on the phone constantly, pre-internet. And oftentimes I would call everybody and be like, tonight we're all gonna meet for dinner at toy and then we're gonna go to the show at bloody blood, whatever. I was always that phone tree person. Love it.

And if someone started talking to me and I got bored, I would just hang up on it. Just fucking, no, you, I can't entertain this, I have other calls to make. I'm done. Yeah. And so you are too. Yeah. If somebody was like, hey, so did you have fun at that part? It'd just be like click, make the next call.

Let's just hang up this podcast on people right now. Oh, right now? Yeah. Stay sexy. Don't get murdered. Bye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm trying.