My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 71

Episode Date: May 21, 2018

This week’s hometowns include a tiger sanctuary cult and some rabies tales.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. Hello and welcome to my favorite murder, your favorite cat podcast since 2016. Aside from the podcast. Oh, whoops. Whoa, dude. I've never seen Stephen so angry. Stephen just quit. Stephen just ripped his mustache off and threw it on the ground. Sorry, Stephen, please come back. Please come back. Please come back. Please come back and put that back on. It's really creepy to see you without it. We don't just, we can't have floating mustaches around here. It's bad for

the cats. So anyway, this is the mini-soad where we are in Europe, so we're pre-recording this. It's all the time. It's hour four of recording. Yeah, we've done a lot of making sure everybody's asses are covered while we are in Paris, France. We are not going to Paris for the first time. You're going Europe in the European capital of Paris, France. I'm just gonna laugh this or this thing. You do, you do the work. Sounds great. Great. This is the mini-soad. Read me a story. Okay, good, because we're gonna start with an update. Fuck yes. Okay, and the update, it says update on the Serial Master Bader or and then S in parentheses after the Master Bader in Riverside, MFM family. Let me just note almost every single female graduate

student in my department went insane when you read the last email about the Serial Master Bader on campus. Almost all of us are diehard MFM fans and wait to listen to MFM when we work in our respective labs so that we don't go crazy. Well, hi, everybody. Hi, stay in school. Hi, so like we are going to stop doing so many drugs in stay in school. Also double freak out because now you're one of the rare people that gets two emails, but it is an update. So don't other other hometown people don't be so bitter. We need to know this information. Ready, go. I just wanted to give a quick update on the insanity of public masturbation that is happening at UC Riverside. We just received a note that a second, yes,

a second person has been arrested for public masturbation on campus. What? One man, a 21-year-old from Coachella, uh-huh, who's from Coachella, was arrested last month and a second man, a 27-year-old from Riverside was arrested last week. Holy shit, cops way to go in Riverside. They're on it. They're on it like crazy. I'm not sure what the hell is happening, but the string of lewd activity has, I don't know why that's such a funny phrase, lewd activity, has seemed to pull weirdos from out of our poorly lit dorm rooms and are striking with a vengeance on campus. I've been on this campus for many years, so I've dealt with the insane range of notices from UCPD, like the dangers of playing Pokemon Go, where the email reads that

Charizard, Charizard? Charizard? Say it, Steven. Charizard. Say it, millennial. Explain it, Harry Potter. That Charizard is certainly rare and is an amazing find, but you will mean nothing if you were hit by a vehicle because you stepped on the roadway in your attempt to catch it. Wow. Don't understand anything. We are much, much older than college students. And when a psychology student was kidnapped during finals week a few years ago, and she convinced the perpetrator to bring her back safely to campus, side note, imagine that conversation with your professor about postponing your exam. I want her to write it now, please. College campuses are definitely shit shows for safety, but I'm glad we get the information we need to stay sexy and not

get murdered. Thanks so much for the countless hours you've helped me and so many others and a special thanks from the women in environmental toxicology and environmental sciences. Cool. Claudia. Wow. UC Riverside, you guys. I love when we find out that smart people listen to the podcast. It's amazing. It's an honor to be listened to by smart people. It's a mystery as to what you people think you're doing. Focus on your science. They need to give their brains a break. And so they listen to this podcast. What is it about Riverside? Do you think that's so goddamn attractive that guys are just jerking at left, right and center in public? Well, maybe we need to go to Riverside and find out ourselves. Is it the weather, Steven?

I think you're from the Inland Empire. What's going on in Riverside? I think it's a lot of math. Yeah. Oh. Yeah, that's a bummer. Yeah. So when you do math, you need to master it publicly all the time. Well, your inhibitions are down. True. Your math is up. Your math intake is up. You get those math levels nice and high. You're real excited and you're like, I want to share this with everyone. Yeah. I'm so happy. Okay. Well, yeah, I, okay. All right. Settled. Here's, this is how Cousin Doris ruined her life by finding treasure. Treasure? Yeah. Hi, Karen, Georgia, Steven and Petz. I'll be honest, after listening to you guys for close to two years, I'm both thrilled. I'm both thrilled to finally have a story for a mini-sode category and pretty terrified of screwing this up.

Uh-oh. All right, Kathleen, don't screw this up. You better fucking nail this, Kathleen. Cousin Doris was actually my dad's cousin. So she's probably my second cousin or something like that. Yes. In the 1950s, she lived on a farm with her husband out in the sticks of Pennsylvania. Late one night, a friend of their stops in and asked him to hang on to a box for him. Yes, no problem. Won't look inside at all. That's a fucking lily. We'd love to have that box. Give it here. Give it over. He'll be back to get it in a little while. Doris and her husband put the box on a top shelf in the closet and forget about it without even looking at it. Yep. Better person than I am.

I bet it's his hat or his hat box. It's a whole checkstab. About two years later, Doris is resting around in that closet and knocks the box over. It falls to the ground and bursts open to reveal cash. Cash. More cash than Doris has ever seen in her life. She and her husband go on a shopping spree. She buys furs and he buys a beautiful Packard convertible. Wait. How many years later? Sorry. Two years later. So it's like 1950, whatever. They're just spending the guy's money? Oh, sorry. There's only one problem. I think that they were just like, fuck it. Yeah, cash. It's been two years. Nobody can prove that we did or didn't have this cash. That's the problem with cash.

There's only one problem. They live in a tiny rural town. Everyone knows their business and everyone's super duper knows that they have no legitimate reason to have that much money. The authorities get involved and actually and eventually piece together that the friend who disappeared had robbed a bank, hidden the money at Doris's house, then accidentally fucked off and died. So it's horrible. Let's go ahead. Well, I was just going to say, so if they had played it right. Yeah. You never buy a fur or a convertible. You don't need a fucking fur unless you live in the mountains. Yeah. Yeah. Just move out of Pennsylvania. Just you could go, you could move somewhere or you could just buy small nice things. Right. Every time you go to the drug store,

a new pair of hoes. Right. Something like that. Yeah. Go to Sephora and do like a $250 sweep. No one knows the wiser. The point is to be responsible with the money you're stolen. Yes. Please be a practical thief and criminal. Yeah. Like, of course not. Okay. Just use your head. Doris and her husband are convicted of aiding and abetting, receiving stolen goods, etc. She does 18 months either in prison or jail. I'm not sure which except here's the sad twist. Doris was in her mid 20s of the time that this happened. While she was locked up, she started hearing voices and being bothered by people no one else could see. Nowadays, we understand that the onset of schizophrenia is pretty commonly common in

a woman's 20s. But as far as my family was concerned, prison drove her nuts. Well, yeah. We called her crazy cousin Doris until we understood that that was not a cute nickname. Nope. Which probably took way longer than it should have. She got divorced pretty soon after getting out of prison and moved to California and spent the rest of her life reading magazines about aliens. Hell yes. At least she was happy about the little gray men not creeped out by them. Stay sexy, don't get murdered, and be careful of free cash, Kathleen. Am I crazy cousin Doris? Because that sounds like a dream life. Reading magazines. In fur coats. And but also sitting in a convertible. Right. You know how much you love your fur coats.

You know that I have a fox fur coat. Do you really? My aunt and little fox. I had to I know there's actually a stole that goes with it that has the fox head. No, no, no, no. It's like a little piece of I was going to say topiary taxidermy. Oh, God, that's horrifying. It's because my two great aunts also great aunts. They were two old maids. Were they sisters? Wait, is this the show Abfab? It's reverse Abfab. They were like very repressed Irish Catholic. Like never, neither of them ever got married. My aunt and never went on a date. Virgins. And they like had that they used to work for the phone company. The phone company. Right. That's how they that they had that accent.

We worked on the phone company. And they'd go see a picture on Saturday. Exactly right. Oh, that was a good picture. And I guess they saved up their money and my aunt and bought herself a full on fox fur. Where it's nice things are bought and only nice things are bought herself. Yeah. And so now it's in my closet. I've put it on once. It doesn't suit me. And it suits a fox. It's strips of fox. It's awful. It doesn't even it's not even like kind of cool looking. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't it's it's upsetting and odd. And also it's that thing of like, there's people that get into stuff like that, that status shift. Yeah.

Where it's just like, well, cut to 50 years later when it's like a little bit moth eaten and out of style. Yeah. And you'll feel very stupid for having spent like five grand on a coat. Totally. It makes no sense. It doesn't. Is it my turn? It's your turn. Okay. This subject line of this hometown is my uncle was in a tiger sanctuary cult. What? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Timmy. Hi, Karen, Georgia, Steven and various pets. I was hanging out with a bunch of friends recently and we wanted to watch one of those Scientology Recruitment videos for laughs. Well done. But one of my friends freaked out and refused to let us watch it. Yeah. That's the coolest friend you've ever had. Oh, I bet that friend's a fucking. I don't watch every one of my house.

Jim, can you calm down? Jim's like, do it. No, it's not cool. It's not funny, man. The lukewarm response I got to come on. It's not that big of a deal. Everyone's got an uncle who used to be in a cult made me start to think that this is not a universal experience and that you guys might enjoy my family story. My mom's brother was working construction when he was brought in to work on some of the enclosures in the Oregon Tiger Sanctuary. The sanctuary is operated by the foundation. This is all like title caps. The foundation for meditative studies, which is a group devoted to the teachings of Mafu, an ancient spiritual master channeled by the groups leader channeled by the groups. Oh, he channels this ancient person. Right. Oh, sorry. The groups leader

Penny Torres. So I guess it's a woman who goes by the name Swami Parmananda Saraswati. Well, I'm going to join. That sounds legit. That sounds great to me. We're only halfway through. Okay. According to Mafu, they're all about love and awakening and joy and whatever. Sure. But according to literally says and whatever, but according to my mom and a couple of forum posts from 2006, they ain't all that great. Apparently after my uncle was done working on the tiger enclosures, he was told that he connected with those tigers so well that he should stay on and help them and stay on with them to help out. I've seen a bunch of accusations online about the classic nasty cult stuff that they have had going on, that it's one big orgy, the leader is a super violent is

super violent to members and that they take all your money and stuff. But what I do know for sure is that they convinced my uncle that he was being manipulated by his whole family and that he was finally free of their control once he joined up with Mafu. He apparently left some really awful voicemails while he was there accusing everyone of manipulating him financially and emotionally and just accusing everyone of some really awful stuff. I don't know how he got out, but he did and now he's in a band with his wife. What the fuck? He's in a band with his wife and he grows pot in Montana. So it sounds like he's doing great. So correct. Thanks for reading SSDGM Aaron. Wow. That one needs an uncle like that. An amazing journey. It was tiger cults.

I love the idea of it's kind of, it's like you finally find this belief, right? Something clicks in your life. Yeah. And you're like, that's it, tigers. Yeah. I belong with tigers. That's right. They're right. They're right. Tiger orgies. This is me. This is who I finally can be. Right. I've been waiting for a thing my whole life. Yes. And I'm super pissed. Yeah. Now I'm going to start leaving angry voicemails so that people know that this is like, I'm going to burn every bridge in town. Yeah. I love that day. Like just like let's the short film that we're going to make is like that is tight. He joins the tiger cult. He puts his membership card next to the phone, picks that thing up and just starts dialing, just starts just starts accusing everyone in his

family of molesting him. He pulls out the family phone tree. You molested me and you were rude to me at Christmas. Right. Right. All right. This is called, all right. Here's another family story. Wonderful. This is called family mystery light with a rabies twist. Yes. Okay. Hello to everyone. Wonderful. Great. Hello everyone. I finally have a story to write in and now that you've opened up, you've opened it up to rabies related stories. Amen. Yes. I grew up in Toronto as the youngest of four siblings. When I was about eight, we moved into a new house with an antenna pole in the backyard. I don't know what that means. Any child could easily climb to get to our roof. Okay. I think it was those, they used to have those things that you could hang your laundry on

to dry and it was like, it looked like it should be a toy, but it was just kind of a thin aluminum and it had like things coming, sticks coming out of them that you could use like ladder prongs. Exactly. And you hung a ton of clothes on them. Okay. As opposed to like a cord that went across the yard. I like it. Okay. My mom forbade us off from going up there, but naturally my two older brothers were always playing around on the roof, throwing loose shingles at each other. Yes. You find weird ways to entertain yourself when your single mom can't afford to send you to camp. That's right. Amen. Okay. One evening when my mom was at work, my brothers wanted me and my sister to play outside with them and sent me in to recruit my sister. I returned to tell my brother

she wasn't going to play, but when I walked outside, the younger of my brothers who was 10, who was 10 years old is standing in the dark beside the house. Then all I see is him recoiling and shouting in pain. My old, my other brother 14 is nowhere to be seen. The injured brother and I go inside and I see he has a gash on his forehead from being hit with something. When I go back outside, I see my 14-year-old brother come out of the backyard and he sternly tells me not to tell mom about any of this. Fucking older brothers. It was a roof shingle? Well, when my mom comes home from work and sees the gash, she flips out and makes my injured brother tell her what happened and he says the older brother threw a shingle off the roof and hit him in the head with it.

My mom goes to get mad at the older brother who immediately denies it and says that he saw a bat, the animal, not the sporting good. My mom assures, assumes he's lying and makes her tell and makes me tell her what I saw. I said what I knew that he was hit with something. The boys had been on the roof earlier. I didn't know where the older brother was during the incident. My mom wants my brother to confess, so she threatens to take the younger brother to get rabies shots if it really was a bat that hit him. My older brother refused to admit it and we couldn't find the shingle on the ground as evidence. So my mom had a follow through with getting the younger one vaccinated. Luckily, just a few months earlier, the rabies vaccine changed from a giant needle

in your abdomen to a standard shot. To this day, my older brother still denies throwing a shingle and I think it will always remain my own little mundane family mystery with a rabies twist, SSCGM cadence. That's hilarious. Fucking siblings. The brother would have broken by now. Wouldn't he? No, I don't think so. You think he would have stuck to it? Yeah. But there's no stakes anymore, right? If he's like an adult, hopefully. Yeah, but some people are weird. Oh, you're right. He probably enjoys that it's this thing. He made his brother get this series of rabies shots because he couldn't admit to being a bad person. So shitty. What if the brother had died from the rabies shots and then he had to live

his whole life? Then he'd really have to double down and be like, yep, nope, never threw that tile. Careful in this area. Bats are really, really fucked up in this area. You know, we had a bad issue in our family. We don't like to talk about it, but it was pretty serious anyway. He killed my brother anyway. Anyway, this Super Bowl is nuts. 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 so you can stay on track and on budget in the new year. Hello Fresh meals are convenient, seasonal, and delicious. Stay cozy all winter long with classic comfort foods available weekly.

Why stop with just dinner? Now you can enjoy Hello Fresh's expanded menu of quick lunch solutions, weekend brunch, simple side dishes, and amazing desserts. Karen January is going to be my month for Hello Fresh. I am so sick of takeout. I miss cooking so much. I haven't lifted a knife or a pan since like early fall. So I can't wait to get back in the kitchen and Hello Fresh makes it so easy and also makes it so that my food tastes good, which is hard to do on my own. It gives you everything, everything you need. So get up to 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. 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 will 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. Did I go first? Yeah, we both done too. Well, can we do three because yeah, yeah, yeah. The subject line for this next email is all caps. I got rabies at the Taj Mahal. What? Oh, I guess it's not that big of a deal because Stephen picked all of these. Okay. Like what a coincidence. No, oh, you thought it was consent. No, it's not. He's always planning and scheming with that mustache over in the corner. Rip it off your face. No. Okay. Dear beautiful creatures, human and animal. Well, hello. Hello. When I was 11 years old, I was what is this from Paul holes? No. Oh my god. These like girls. Listen, I just really quickly want to tell you about this record. Yeah, stop saying my name. Girls,

please get rid of that hashtag. I'm a happily married man of a family. And I like to put my hands on my hips all the time. When I was 11 years old, I went to India with my mom. And on our last day, thank fuck, we went to the beautiful Taj Mahal. We were touring baby Taj, tomb of little mod, a dole. I did my best. We saw a swarm of adorable chipmunk like animals. Oh, no. I will I will touch anything with fur parentheses even now. I have yet to learn my lesson. So our guide said that they were very friendly and to try to pet them. Oh, no. Trying to live out my snow white fantasies. I approached the odd ball of the group. Oh, no. I don't want to hear any more of this. The real twitchy one over on the side that moves slow. Who just like can't keep up with the rest

of the pack. And so it's making noises that that animal doesn't make. It's chewing its own fucking arm off. It's smoking. I approached the odd ball of the group, which turned out to be a huge mistake as it promptly jumped up, bit me under the nail of my middle finger and refused to let go. Oh, no. No. Despite my plan. No, it's my sister used to have hermit crabs when we were like she was eight and I was six. Yeah. And one time I picked one up and it just really slow because they're just little tiny crabs went like this and like grabbed my thumbnail and I went through this poor hermit crab across the room, cracked its shell. I'm very sad, but it scared the shit out of me. So the idea that like a squirrel thing, yeah, having its teeth and not letting go. Okay.

The guy had eventually got him off my hand and went back to our hotel and we went back to our hotel to see a doctor. The doctor who saw me told me very bluntly that I was going to die. They didn't have a vaccine and only one person has ever survived after not being injected within 24 hours post infection. And she ended up in a coma. So like, great, the flight home was 17 hours. My mom refused to take the next flight out because we already had dinner plans. Oh, my mom. Talk about mommy issues. Am I right? We had to preorder the vaccine back home as I live in New York City and no one gets rabies from pigeons and the doctors were freaking out about my timeframe. Of course, all caps. When we landed, my mom insisted on first showering unpacking and blowing out

her hair before taking me to the specialist. Mom kind of sucks. Mom is doing her thing. Mom DHT. She's got a DHT mom therapy behind this. Dang, um, gotta look cute. So when I finally saw the now exasperated doctor, we had to give me he he had to give me shots in my arm and the bite site. So again, under my nail, I had to get shots in my butt every day for a month. And the doctors told me that I definitely had rabies based on my reaction to the meds. So please don't sass me about how small rodents rarely have rabies. It can happen. Oh my God. Well, thanks for making me feel relevant. Your podcast is getting me through life in law school. Stay sexy, stay sexy, don't let pet the weird chipmunk just because you think it could benefit from some

attention. All my love, Kaylee, I know my parents threw in all the letters. Oh my God, that was hilarious. I love that. I'm glad that we get you through your life that you can live despite your mother's best efforts to fucking kill you. Rabies, Kaylee. Your mother was from, I bet you my mother's same generation where it was, everything, no matter what was happening, she'd be like, put a little lipstick on. Yeah, or calm down. It's all they cared about. Yeah, you're going to a doctor's office. Please pull a brush through your hair, Karen. You're going to the dentist. You're going to a doctor's office. You're taking a plane flight. Yeah. That's you're going on Southwest in sweatpants? Yes. Yes. And I don't give a fuck. And now I wear sweatpants all day every day. Are

you checking? Happy? I'm wearing a fucking Moo Moo. What am I talking about right now? Like a literal Moo Moo. If you have any jeggings or Moo Moo stories, we want to hear them. Please send them to me. I want any your fucking mom just almost killing you stories. Here's the thing. This is a rich area. Yeah. Because especially if you had a parent who was, if you had a mom who was a nurse, like my mother shook off, my sister broke her wrist and my mom's like, it's fine. Just take your Coke can and put it up against it. Girls, please don't make a big deal. I'm fine. It's my day off. And it turned out she had a broken wrist. No apologies though. No, like, oh, I screwed up. No, no, no. Because she was always like, you know, she knew. Yeah. She knew everything

because she was a nurse. Yeah. So anyway, I'm sure there's lots of other types of moms that did the exact same thing. I want how your mom traumatized you. Yes. As a kid. Like anything from you sat out in the car while she drank in a bar to simply refused medical treatment. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, definitely want those. Bring it here. The thing like I got a perm. She made me do fucking, you know, beauty things. She made me wear matching clothes with her. Oh, tell us. Thanks for listening. If you have any ideas for areas you want to know, tell us about, please send them to my favorite murder gmail.com. That's right. Thank you for listening, you guys. And stay sexy. And don't get murdered.

Oh, goodbye. Elvis. Elvis, you want cookie? Good boy.