My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - Rewind with Karen & Georgia - Episode 7: Seven Murders in Heaven

Episode Date: August 21, 2024

It's time to Rewind with Karen & Georgia! This week, Karen and Georgia recap MFM episode 7 from March 11, 2016. This one is all about unsolved cases. They discuss their original coverage of Black Dahlia and the mysterious death of Elisa Lam. Whether you've listened a thousand times or you're new to the show, join the conversation as we look back on our old episodes and discuss the life lessons we’ve learned along the way. Head to social media to share your favorite moments from this episode!   Instagram: instagram.com/myfavoritemurder   Facebook: facebook.com/myfavoritemurder TikTok: tiktok.com/@my_favorite_murder Now with updated sources and photos: https://www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes/rewind-with-karen-georgia-episode-7-seven-murders-in-heaven My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories, and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. The Exactly Right podcast network provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics, including true crime, comedy, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is exactly right. Hey, this is exciting. An all new season of Only Murders in the Building is coming to Hulu on August 27th. Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez are back as your favorite podcaster detectives. But there's a mystery hanging over everyone. Who killed Saz? And were they really after Charles? Why would someone want to kill Charles?

This season, murder hits close to home. With a threat against one of their own, the stakes are higher than ever. Plus, the gang is going to Hollywood to turn their podcast into a major movie. Amid the glitz and glamour of Los Angeles, more mysteries and twists arise. Who knows what will happen once the cameras start to roll? Get ready for the starriest season yet with Meryl Streep, Zach Galifianakis, Eugene Levy, Eva Longoria, Melissa McCarthy, Davine Joy Randolph, Molly Shannon and more. Only Murders in the Building premieres August 27th streaming only on Hulu. Goodbye. Only Murders in the Building is back for a new season on Disney+. Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez return alongside a star-studded guest cast as the trio takes on Hollywood, where a studio is making a film about their podcast.

Amidst all the glitz and glamour, there's a new mystery. Who tried to kill Charles? Only Murders in the Building Season 4, streaming August 27th exclusively on Disney+. Sign up now at DisneyPlus.com. ["My Favorite Lullaby"] Hello. Welcome back to Rewind with Karen and Georgia. This is our series where we re-listen to the best moments from old episodes and share our feelings about them and discuss everything that's so different now.

And also we have case updates on the cases that need to be updated. We talk about what was going on behind the scenes. It's just a real pullback, the old curtain. And see what's going on back there.. It's just a real pull back the old curtain and see what's going on back there. We don't fucking remember. I mean, it has been a real jolt to the memory. Some of the stuff that's coming up on these pages. Yeah, we're like, we're getting into it now.

And this project itself is nerve wracking to get off the ground, but you guys have been so positive about your feedback and your reviews wherever you get your podcast So we're gonna just keep doing them until we can't handle it anymore. Yes. We're so excited that you like it We appreciate you being here for truly. What is some of the most intense navel gazing of all time? It's like let's talk about us talking and then comment on that talking and hopefully in five years We can do a spin-off of this podcast. Talking about our talking. Talking about it.

So today we're rewinding to episode 7 which first aired on Friday March 11th 2016. So it's time for everybody to be a day one listener right now. Grab your sister-in-law, grab your mail carrier, and of course, all those single cat ladies. We love you. Get up here, please. You've given us a career. Ha ha ha. All right, so, should we get into it?

Let's do it. So let's get into episode seven of My Favorite Murder. It came out again on March 11, 2016. Hmm, where were you? Where were we? Here we we? Here we are. Here we are. Hi! You guys, hi, we're back.

Hey, we're back from a week-long hiatus. And now we're here to deliver your favorite... To give you nightmares and anxiety. Your favorite, my favorite. Murder. My favorite. I'm going to give you a little bit of a It was a slight hiatus. Yeah. We had life things happen to us. Very large life things. Not murder. No, but nice things. Georgia got married in a beautiful ceremony on the coast. Thank you.

Karen's mom died. She died after a long illness. Yeah, I'm sorry. It's okay. It was actually really lovely. Yeah. a long illness. It's okay. It was actually really lovely. For me, it was a big, about two week period though. Stress.

Yeah. Or just like big feelings. Of waiting between her passing and having to do the end of memorial. Which is rare, right? Yeah. I think my dad was waiting. He put a little time in there so that people could come and plan it out and make sure they were there. And then it turned out to be a brilliant idea because there was tons of people. It was really lovely. That's great. I'm so glad. Yeah, it was nice. When I drove back home, the front end of my car fell off. What?

Didn't I tell you that? No. I drove six hours back from San Francisco, took the Riverside exit, came to a stop and my front bumper, like everything under the lights and down just went into the street. And I had this my favorite part. I had to pick it up and stick it into my car, which is very small. And there was a guy in the car next to me. He's like, you need my help? And I was like, yes. And so he helped me put it in the car. And as he came around the side to help me, he looked at all the other cars around us and goes, you can help people, you know, and started yelling at everybody else for not helping

me. Oh, I love him. Which was beautiful. And how I think many of us feel. Yeah. That's so nice. Yeah. There's this like, do I help? Or is that weird if I help? Right. And can I be of help? Like if it was me, I'd be like, can I even lift that thing or whatever? Do you need anything? Yeah.

Yeah. Do you want me to park in front of your car with my lights on so if they hit me, they won't hit you because out of her car. Should I use myself as a human shield? Exactly. To make sure no more damage comes to your car. Exactly. Or do you want me to play some really good music so you can do this with- Get it done with that. Yeah.

And how do you feel after your big weekend? I feel great. The wedding, the whole fucking weekend was like, I'm going to cry if I start talking about it. It was perfect and wonderful and this outpouring of love. And Vince said this really sweet thing of like, you know, when you go to weddings and you're really, you can tell a wedding, people believe that you're a good couple when they have a really good time at your wedding. Yes. You know what I mean? Like you don't want to fucking dance to like Boo-Yan Down when

you're like, well, I'm pretty sure he's going to die of a heroin overdose or cheat on her. She's like, I know she's fucked or you know. No, everybody had like hearts in their own eyes about your guys marriage. It was nice. Everybody cried at the ceremony because you, you started having a little bit of a cry voice, but like you were trying to cover it. I was. So your voice just kept getting higher and higher and higher. It was my favorite. You're like, hi, Georgia. It was so cute. There was this moment that when I first got up there, I just immediately started crying,

but I didn't want tears because I didn't want my makeup to get ruined. So it just came out of my nose instead. And I gestured towards Vince's pocket square. And he fixed it because he thought I was in the middle of our ceremony going, like, fix your pocket square. And I was, I was fortified. I was like, no, can I have that? And he gave it to me and I just snotted all over his pocket square. But what kind of a human being would I be if I was like, fix your pocket square? I think he was just like, whatever you need. This is what I'm doing. What you need. That was a really hilarious moment though, because I didn't see the fix it or any of that. I literally saw you point toward it and then him flick out like a magician, a big huge red handkerchief.

It was very, very cute. Okay, good. And that's what I'm all about these days. Real feelings, real time, real feelings. Here they are. They're just out there and you can grab them and. Well, and it's like, of course you're crying. Of course. It's like, these are, you know, these are the peak experiences of all of our lives. Are the days to hold on to these because they will not last forever. No.

Right. They want to. Something because they want to. I'm doing Billy Joel. Which one are you doing? I think I'm doing Billy Joel. Which one are you doing? I think I'm doing that too. These are the days, the whole night too. That one. These are the days.

This has been my favorite murder. Goodbye. Goodbye. That's all I'm talking about. People are like, I got nothing that I came here for. No, we mean we're murdering it at life. Yeah. We're murdering emotions.

Before we talk about our favorite murders, I want to ask you, and I haven't watched this week, but did you watch this People vs. O.J. Simpson last week? Oh yeah. How did you feel about Dominic Dunn's character? Okay, wait. Are you talking about last week or I just watched one last night? No, I didn't watch that one yet. The one where he first makes an I didn't watch that one yet. Okay.

The one where he first makes an appearance and everyone knows who he is. He's like a famous crime journalist. I felt good about his character. I felt like it was accurate to who Dominic Dunne was. Yes. And it was amazing. But he was like, he reminded me, his character is so outlandish and insane as a human being he is.

Yeah. as a human being he is. It reminded me of like in cold blood, what's his name? Truman Capote. Truman Capote's character, it's just so outlandish and it's really not necessary in the show. Right. But I loved it. Well, but he is, I mean, I bet you part of the reason he's there is because he wrote so much on that trial in the real time and kind of contributed to probably what they're researching. They might be reading some of his stuff.

Yeah. No, you're totally right. Is he still alive, Dominic Dunn? I don't think so. I'm not sure. Possible. And of course we all know his daughter, Dominique Dunn, got shot by a rabid fan of her stalker. Yeah, a stalker. Pretty amazing.

I mean, he's kind of one of the original, and he had a great power, privilege, and justice. Oh, that was a... Was such a good show. Really good show, but you can find it online. Yeah. But he's not a good narrator because he talks too slow. Right. And he has a lot of gravitas that he adds on that he doesn't need. Yeah. Where it's like, you already have tiny glasses.

We know that you know what you're talking about. What's so great about the People vs. OJ Simpson is there's so many moments in it, including his gravitas and his cadence that you have to... We've stopped so many times during the show to be like, did that really happen? And look it up and it fucking really happened. Do you mean like the Faye Resnick thing? Yes. That was amazing. A fucking Brentwood Hello. A Brentwood Hello? Is that even, there's no way that was a thing they did. I bet it was.

Are you serious? Yes. I bet it was in the book. Right. I bet someone researched the book. No, no, for sure. But I mean, do you think her book was totally true? Oh, I see what you're saying. She seemed like a boozy fool. No, then no, I don. But I mean, do you think her book was totally true? Because she seemed like a boozy fool.

No, then no, I don't think it's true. I mean, like it just seemed like she was talking. Yeah. She's like, we did coke all the time. We were crazy. Which is like, sure, probably. But to act like you did that every morning in random homes. Right. And that was like the lifestyle and not like they had children that they had to raise and take to school and stuff. Yeah. But I mean, that part, I actually did look up what Faye Resnick's role was because

I didn't remember her from when it happened in real life. And all that stuff was true. Oh my God. Someone posted on our Facebook group, their photo, their copy of that book that they've had, like it's like an original copy or something. It's like, this is a good group of people. Man, if I get murdered terribly. I will. You can spill it. You know what? You know, you have my official digital permission to just say whatever you think would work best and make you the most money. What do you think a burping goodbye is?

Something really gross. work best and make you the most money. What do you think the Burbank goodbye is? Really gross. That'd be like slightly dinging the side of your minivan out of a Trader Joe's parking lot. Bye. All right. So today where our theme is unsolved murders. Yes. It's an easy one because. Because we've been busy and I think didn't I make it up while we were standing in the parking lot at the end of your wedding?

Yes. You know what? Let's just... Here's a nice open one that we'll have lots of choices for. Yeah. But I feel like throughout, as we go on, they'll be easier and then they're going to get harder and harder. Do you think they're going to get easier, then get harder, and then get easier again?

Yeah. I think there'll be a point where we're just getting too specific. We need to get, you know what I mean? We're like, it's like trying to make it easier on ourselves over like sandwiches. We're going to work all the way down to two shots to the back of the head at midnight. And then we'll be like... Murders that happened in 1936 in January of 1936. The pantaloon murders.

Yeah. Do you want to go first? Do you? Whatever you think. I have a theory. We were just talking about this. George and I both think that there's a chance we may have picked the same unsolved murder. Yeah.

Let me tell you what my original one was going to be. But I ended up changing because I was like, because first of all, it's like near your hometown. Oh, okay. So there's no way you didn't know it. And then I looked it up and it was like, I had liked it because there was like, it was just so random, but that meant there really wasn't that much interesting stuff about it. And then also, it also meant

that I also looked up and it was like, this is who probably did it. And so it was like not. It seemed kind of like an obvious answer. Exactly. So it was the 2000, mine was going to be the General California double murder in 2004 where those kids were camping out on a beach and just got shot with a fucking rare, weird gun. Yeah. You know what I'm talking about? Yes. Because it didn't just happen there. It also happened in San Francisco.

Yes. Yes. So I hadn't realized that had happened. I hadn't realized that they had a couple of obvious suspects. And so I was going to do that. I like that one though, because, and also, weren't they like, when I like the story when you're reading it, and it's like, these were two children from a Christian camp. Oh, they, yeah. They were like a squeaky clean as you could possibly be. And out in the middle, Jenner is like a big grassy open field of nothing. The idea that you would get murdered in Jenner is like someone was going way out of their way.

Or knew the area so well. And the first thing that came to my mind was that they pissed someone off earlier that day. Yeah. They maybe road rage and they saw their fucking car parked out there in the middle of the night. You know, something's really simple. Yeah. There's also that Rando serial killer that just traveled all across the whole United

States. I think his first name was Israel. Holy shit. You know that guy? No. And he looks like a guy that would work at REI. across the whole United States. I think his first name was Israel. You know that guy? And he looks like a guy that would work at REI. When I saw this picture, I got super freaked out. I don't know. I don't think I've ever been in an REI.

REI is like Patagonia. It's a North Face. I know where it is. Who works? I don't know who looks like that. Just like a dude who would have medium length, sandy blonde, curly hair. Necklace. Yes, a rope necklace. That's what this guy looked like. And he was randomly killing people all across the country, everywhere he went. And then when they caught him, he committed suicide.

So he never, no one knows if like, what he did exactly. It's just so interesting that the gun was, it was from like 1896. Oh, is that right? It was like a from like 1896. Oh, is that right? It was like a shotgun from 1896. That's probably wrong. But. Like a really old vintage. Yeah.

You shouldn't kill someone with a gun so rare. Everyone take note. If you're going to kill someone, make it a really obvious gun. Or not obvious gun. Yeah. Because the, no, the antique gun's obvious, right? Right. Yeah.

What was he like loading a musket on the beach? Yeah. They were saying it was one of those fucking guns. No. Yeah. That's terrible. That would mean that there's a delay between killing one and killing the other. Yeah.

And he must have been a good shot if it was night. Oh, yeah. And he grabbed the shell casings too. So there's no shell casings left, which means he must have known where they went because if he was in the sand, maybe he grabbed them out of the air or had like a... Or he had a metal detector. Do we both have colds? Does my voice sound so much more froggy than now?

Did you used to be a frog and you've grown out of it? Through money and success, you've been able to get it removed. Oh my God. I don't look. It's just different. It's different. We're not supposed to be listening. It's really gross.

It's this like, there's a, this is really gross of me, but there's an element to this of like squatting over a mirror where it's just like, what are you do? Don't look in there. It goes against nature for us to listen to a podcast that we did from 2016. It goes against nature and God. Also, we were just like, I think there's an anxiety piece around it because we had no fucking idea what was coming. And we were just like, haha, isn't this funny, you and me talking?

It wasn't there yet. I don't remember exactly when, but I think it was like the summer that things started to kind of go crazy. Yeah. Right? So we're now in spring, a nice early spring. Yeah, and we don't think anything of it. Also, we don't think anything of recording with light colds and how many times did I hit the microphone in one short clip? How much was Canada had before you came over is a good question Look, you got a pregame when I'm coming over. That's the vibe

Okay, so in this seventh episode called seven murders in heaven. Mmm. Love that one Yeah, we're back from a week long hiatus for two reasons. I Get married which is fucking wild. You remember, remember? I remember my wedding. Remember the Madonna Inn. The Madonna Inn. It was a great wedding. I am so happy, you know, such good memories there.

And you're now eight and a half years into that marriage. Yeah. How's it going? So far so good. I don't, I haven't decided yet. What sweatpants are you wearing right now? Fuck you, I'm married. Oh yeah.

Fuck you, I'm divorced. Fuck you, I'm divorced. No, no, I'm hardcore married. It's fun, it turns out. Are you a tradwife? Is that weird? Is this how we learn it? Can you imagine? Is that what hardcore married, hardcore married? Hardcore married, hardcore tradwife married.

I washed my bangs in the sink before I came to the office. So no, I am definitely not a tradwife. Okay, good to know. Vince makes dinner most of the time. Like, no. That's very much against the rules. It is. Yeah, it's crazy. And then also, and this is another thing

that was going on at the time. And I feel like when I think about it, you and I didn't know each other that well or for that long, really. No, at all. So the other thing that happened was your mom passed away, and I don't think I like, I just, I didn't like talk about it with you, and I didn't like ask, I didn't know how much you wanted to share on the podcast, you know, I didn't know what I should say exactly, so

it was just kind of breezed over, and I've always regretted that. Oh. Yeah. Well, that's very nice of you to say. And overlapping with my wedding. That's like kind of not fair. Seriously, no, it's, first of all, it's the kind of thing that like,

I think something like that where someone's been ill for a long time and it's very kind of like oppressive and life-changing, you don't know what to say. That is one of the hardest kind of things to navigate. Meanwhile, we're like riffing. So when were you supposed to kick off the podcast with the condolences? Were you supposed to break in? I get that completely. Also, I think people who have loved ones who get Alzheimer's and suffer through it, it is such a long, terrible, arduous nightmare. There's a part

of it that you have a lot of guilt at the end because you're so relieved. Which seems so unfair. It's just, well, the whole fucking thing's unfair. And it's like, it just keeps coming. So like, at that point, I guess I'm just trying to say this to you, to comfort you in this way. At that point, anybody that's gone through it for any meaningful length of time, no one gives a shit about, no one's counting up, did you say sorry to me?

It just is so far past the point of manners, really. Yeah, and like, it's like not how the rules go for grief, either, so it's just confusing for you, of course, and confusing for everyone wanting to support you and like what's the best way to do that? You know what I mean? Yeah. I think that we have to actually talk about this

because I had the same thing happen in the beginning of this podcast when I made this weird senior decision, I won't say victims' names, that will be like the most respectful. And it is absolutely kind of a self-serving logic. Or it's like this logic of like, I'll just not do anything and that's the solution, which is very common and very understandable. And I think it's like, in general, if somebody dies, just say anything. It's just like, I know you are going through something

and I know anything I say isn't gonna bug and solve it. Like, I think I definitely do that where I'm like, I need to say the perfect thing. And you don't. How am I the perfect friend here? No way. It's just messier than that. Imagine if you could friend me out of mom, dead mom grief.

That would have been miraculous. Who do I think I am if I were trying to do that? Listen, you make a tuna noodle casserole, you thought I could bring that shit over. Slap someone on the back two times and give them a shot of vodka and you're done. Done. They've grieved. Solved. Solved. Well, but I do love that Pat has become a person in the podcast in our lives here. She's talked about her incredible nursing career is

talked about because there's so much to mine from that. And just her personality and stuff. So that's really nice. And we've talked about like both the advantage we both have of having therapy normalized so early that shame isn't even, it's like we understand that people really felt a lot of shame about therapy, especially 10, you know, eight and a half years ago. But the gift of never having to feel that way tricked us into talking about a thing that people were like, why aren't you embarrassed? And it's like, because we just aren't. It's like, oh, you're being so vulnerable. It's like, no, I just fucking talk about this at like, this is chit chat for me.

I will talk about this at a bus stop. It's connected to the other trauma from the other parts of my childhood. Right, oversharing. It all goes together. But that's a really lovely thought. Thank you for saying that. Because I still have, someone made me make Pat proud

in this beautiful calligraphy that I have on my kitchen counter. Beautiful. Yeah. I think that our listeners, many of them have been through it. Many of them have talked to me about it. Like it is such a kind of a bonding experience. It's just kind of a lovely thing to have that you wouldn't think would be lovely.

Right. No, I've seen it when we do live shows and we do the meet and greet after and there's at least one or two amazing women who are saying, my mom went through this too, and there's just like immediate understanding between the two of you that I don't think anyone else would ever get. Yeah. Yeah. Unless, unless they qualify for the worst fucking situation.

Right. It's like, get in here. It's like a, it's a club no one wants to be part of. Completely. All right, so today we were doing themes still. So this episode is unsolved murders. It's so funny, we were really afraid in this episode that we picked the same murder.

Yes. And that was a fear of mine. It's been a fear of mine for so long and it's just never happened. And I don't think it's ever going to happen. And I don't know how that's possible. Because people kill people all the time. Because there's so many of them.

It's crazy. Yeah. And horrible. That's like people in the earlier days being like, well, how long can you do that? I'm like, I've got some terrible news for you, sir, usually. Right, right. Oh, God. We want to run out of stories, please.

Yeah. We'd love that. Well, also, you know, since 2016, we definitely had to shift away from the constant where it's like true crime is a trend was peaking at that time because we were coming out of some really golden years where a lot of people had the privilege of being able to entertain that kind of thing. And as our realities have changed so severely and things have gotten so intense, it's not the same valve for some people anymore. Okay. So I'm going to be doing the unsolved murder at the Black Dahlia for my case. Amazing. On this one, I'm doing Elisa Lam, I believe.

I know, I know. So this might be your origin episode. Yeah. Where you're like, I'm just trying to get back to that. Yeah, unsolved cases. I want to know so bad. Let's start with the one that everyone wants to know. God.

The Black Dahlia. The Black Dahlia. The Black Dahlia. Okay, so let's get into it. I mentioned it in the episode, but my source for this was a blog called derangedlacrimes.com. It's written by Joan Renner, a writer, lecturer, and social historian with an expertise in historic Los Angeles crime. Nice source. I know, right?

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Thank you Miracle Made for sponsoring this episode. Goodbye. Goodbye. All right. Well, what's your real one if that was your fake one? Okay. So then I changed it to a kind of one that everyone knows and loves, but this is going to be my favorite and like,

I think the most realistic answer to. Okay. Your favorite unsolved murder. My favorite unsolved murder is the Black Dahlia. Yes. Oh my God. She was in my top three. Was she? Yeah. Was the other one that you didn't do? Well, John Benet, but I knew we'd already discussed her at length. John Benet is the

one that I want to know the answer the most. And then the Black Dahlia is second. Okay. So, all right. So everyone knows the story of Elizabeth Short. Where am I? Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia. She was found in a vacant lot in Los Angeles, 39th and Norton, if anyone is in LA and wants to go find it, if there's a house or a school there now. She was naked, cut in half. She was severely mutilated, posed in the grass. She had no blood left on her. And of course, the detective said it looked like a medical man. They said that. Or a man with vast medical knowledge had mutilated her. And so, okay. Recently I watched the

James Elroy documentary about, it's called Feast of Death. It's basically a bunch of men sitting around a table eating dinner, talking about murder and death, all men, because why would a woman know anything? Well, if there's no women, they can really be themselves. Right. Okay. So I found that psychologist Alicia LaVere was a Herald Express writer and she did a series of columns profiling the whole case. And she identified the person as a possible older woman who had either committed the crime or inspired the person who killed her. And all these reasons, it was like a psychological

profile of why it could be a woman. Is that person you're talking about that wrote those columns from back then or now? It was from back then. And then John E. Douglas, he retired, there's a thing called the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit, which like I'll intern, like you don't have to pay me. Yes. You know? Where they're sitting there going, it's a single man between 30 and 35.

Pates his mom. Yeah. That kind of thing. Love it. Love it. He probably works at this job or that job. Yeah. Awesome. So he created a profile that kind of backed up her theory that it could have been an older woman who would have done this

or inspired it. Okay. And then finally, researcher Harry, I'm sorry, Larry Harnish had a theory that and he had written an article in the LA Times on the 50th anniversary and he uncovered a connection between the dump site on 39th and Norton Street and one of the suspects who's now a suspect. And I think this is what James Elroy's thing was about, that there was a 67-year-old doctor. Have you heard this theory before? I think, well, tell me about it. 67-year-old doctor named Walter Alonzo Bailey, he used to live in his estranged wife currently

lived one block away from the dump site. Whoa. Okay. That's like interesting. What's more interesting is that Bailey's daughter, adopted daughter was friends with Elizabeth's shorts. Why do I keep wanting to say Elizabeth Smart? Because Elizabeth Smart's that girl that got kidnapped. Yeah. Yeah.

Elizabeth Short's sister. So Bailey's, some of the other doctors, daughter. They were so close that the daughter was a witness in Elizabeth Short's wedding. So that's pretty good. But there's no evidence that they ever met but you're kind of like, they had to know each other. Yeah. Okay. So he was a stranger to his wife who lived a block away. He left his wife for a mistress named Alexandria Partaca, who was also a doctor. And after Bailey's death in 1948, again, the murder took place in 1947, it came out that he left this mistress all his money and the strange wife said it was because he had quote, terrible secrets that could have ruined him.

And people are guessing that maybe he gave secret abortions, which were illegal at the time. And there was another theory a long time ago that a doctor who gave abortions had accidentally killed Elizabeth Short, perhaps. And that's why he had to get rid of her body and not report it is that he was giving abortions, which were illegal. But there's no evidence to support that she was ever pregnant. So we don't know that for sure. But we do know that Elizabeth Short used to tell men maybe for sympathy that she had a son who had died. And it turns out that Bailey did have a son who had died and he died years earlier, but it was January 13th and her body was found on the 15th. So, I mean, pure speculation clearly, but she's pleading with him to help her with whatever

it is. This person that her sister knows, her sister doesn't live in town, she doesn't have anyone else who lives in town, goes to the doctor of her sister's friend or father of a sister's friend. And then if it was a woman, then maybe she got jealous and killed this girl, killed Elizabeth Short. Maybe, I don't know. You know what I mean? Yeah. Okay. Let's see. And so, he was 67. When he died, they found a degenerative brain disease he had. And it was known to produce violent behavior in otherwise passive individuals. And then one of the things was like, well, how would he have moved her body? Well, the body was fucking sliced in half. Maybe the body was sliced in half for an older

man or a woman to be able to move. To carry one piece at a time. Yeah. Why was she drained of blood? Who knows? So, I mean, there's little pieces of it that I really, really love. Feast of Death is on, I think it's on Amazon. It's definitely on YouTube. It's a little, you know, fucking James Elroy is like- He's a bit of a drama queen. Yeah. He's too, he's too dramatic for his own good. Well, he has his thing with his own mother, which is amazing. It's amazing he can talk

about it, but then it does add this, he's very intense. It's very intense. So you kind of like, it's already an intense subject. So his mom got kidnapped and did they find her body or they never find her? I think they did find it. Oh, she was on the side of the road, just straight murdered. Yeah. And they think, who knows what the murderer was never found. Yeah. So he's clearly, and he was a little kid when this happened, he psychologically fucked up from it. I've read a lot of his books up into a point where they got too silly. Right. Where

the vernacular was just too beat poet-y. Yes. But before that, I fucking loved his books and I read all of them. They're great. But this, I mean, it's still a good, this is a good program to watch by yourself at night. I remember watching something and this is bad to bring up, especially for our research heads, but there was something I was reading and it was the theory, and maybe this was a dramatized version, but it was like the theory that they took her to a place to murder her and torture her because clearly she was tortured.

What I read when I was looking to see if I was going to do the black Dahlia, one of the things I read really quickly was that she died from an injury to the head, but also those cuts on her face because she had a smile cut into her face. And the bleeding out, blood loss from those cuts. Capillio? Yeah. So she, like, just because it was so much bleeding. So she was somewhere for an extended period of time just bleeding and being tortured. Yeah, because head injuries bleed a lot. Yeah, I think so. But then, but also like, you know, cutting into your cheeks. I mean,

that thing, and also just to find that. Yeah. When I remember first, very first reading that story, and it's that picture of her upper body in the, you know, in the grass. The angles of those are so disturbing. It's so disturbing. And to think, because wasn't it a mother and a child? Yeah, it was a mom, I think with a stroller. Walking up on that thing. Yep. And they thought it was a mannequin.

And there's a photo of it, of the scene with her body covered with, just her body covered with a blanket. And it's so obvious that the bottom part of her body is too long to be part, you know what I mean? It's like they're not, something isn't right with the length of her body. And it's because her fucking torso, her lower body is like, and did you see that? I had never seen really the cut really well until today. Yeah. It's pretty exact.

Yes. Yeah. And I think, I wonder if like cops today would immediately assume it was like a doctor or medical man that did it because I guess these days people can do much more and not have any training. Well, you have to think of like, a butcher could do that. Like a barber could probably cut like that with a straight razor pretty well. I think there's a lot of professions that could do that, not necessarily, but could they lead someone that well? Right. Well, a butcher could. A butcher could. Can I tell you, one of my grandfathers was a butcher in LA and one of my grandfathers

was a barber in LA. So it's probably one of them during that time. And there's a guy that thinks his father did it. Yeah, that guy. And so that's the thing is that James Elroy backed his story too and now isn't, which, you know, that house is just down the street from here. Really? So this guy found photographs in his like evil fucked up father's possessions after he died. And one of them was a photo of what he thought was the black doll. If you look at it, it's clearly not.

It's not her. I mean, but it's their similarities. And then, so this house that he had lived in then, which is in Los Feliz, there's a gorgeous Art Deco house, it's incredible, had a secret room where this father guy would actually give abortions. And they had put, he had hired someone to bring cadaver dogs in when he was investigating it and they honed it on that area. But this guy's a little full of shit. I think he thinks his dad is also the zodiac killer. He's since gone on to be so incredible. But however, the father did rape his daughter as did a cut. He let other people do it. She took him to court and he got exonerated. So he's a piece of shit either way. This guy isn't wrong about

his dad being terrible. Well, and it's probably very easy for him to see and connect us to things when it's like, and it would probably be very vindicating to be like, he didn't just screw up our family. He's what everyone fears. He's a monster. Yeah, he's a monster. But also, I think that whole story is fascinating because everybody talks about like, oh, come to Hollywood, take the bus from Iowa and find your dreams.

And it's that, see the underside, this very real, like, and here's the other thing that happens, women are exploited constantly and you get into a system of being beautiful and hoping that men, you're appealing to men and then men will give you money and all these things that the culture kind of encourages or supports. But then if you get into that, you're the one that gets punished for it. And maybe you deserve to die. And she wasn't a prostitute, which is what they said in the beginning. She absolutely wasn't. But she did go out with a lot of men because she didn't,

she would go out with them to eat because she didn't have enough money for dinner. That's what it's like when you come to LA to be an actress, really. So that's not prostitution, but it's almost like, it's the thing of like, do you live the kind of lifestyle that would put you at risk? And that's one of them. And if you do, then it's your own fault for eventually happening upon someone. I also didn't know that her luggage, her luggage had been checked at the Biltmore Hotel. Oh, really?

And she's missing for five days. There's no... The last trace of her that anyone can confirm is on January 9th and her body isn't discovered until the 15th. So her getting kidnapped would make sense. That's so creepy. Yeah. That's so creepy. Yeah. That's my favorite. A classic. Unsolved Murder.

Unsolved Murder. And isn't there a movie with Josh Hartnett and Scar Joe? It's based on James Elroy's book, The Black Dahlia, which is a really good book. The movie was stupid, but I liked the book a lot. Yeah. So go read that. And we're back. Do we have good news? Are there any case updates about the most frustrating cold case? What if I was like, yes, and like, didn't you hear, Karen?

And like, yes. Oh, no. I don't pay attention to that stuff. It was Paul Newman. You didn't get the Google alert that the black Dahlia was solved? He has been distracting everybody with salad dressing. Oh, and charity. And his own death for so long.

So yeah, no major, obviously, case updates. This case is now 77 years old. It remains open. And the FBI says given how much time has passed, Elizabeth Short's murder will probably never be solved. And also the Los Feliz mansion that I mentioned in the episode, also known as the John Sodden House, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright's son, Lloyd Wright,

and where some people suspect Elizabeth Short might have been killed, was last sold in 2022 for around $6 million, which was down the street from where we were recording at the time. That's right. It was like around the street from where we were recording at the time. That's right. It was like around the corner. It was on Franklin right there. And also that's the same house that we went to when we did a live episode that was for

the TV show about this kind of about this case and the doctor who lived there. The people that they suspected kind of. Chris Pine was in it. It was really exciting to do. It was like one of our first big integrations. Yeah. And it was so cool. And can we go to that house? That's like a once in a lifetime thing.

We were at that party. You and me and Lizzie went to that party, right? Uh-huh. I think it was just the three of us. And we were just kind of skulking around. We were so uncomfortable. Because there was a full cast of this TV series was there, and a bunch of other people.

And then there was a woman who was from TNT, and she was very high up. And she was talking to us and being like, we really liked working with you. We'd love to do more stuff. She was telling me about stuff. And the whole time she was talking to me, there was like a juggler guy who was no joke directly

next to my face trying to get me to like interact with him. Oh my god. And I just pretend like it wasn't there because I'm like, this lady, it sounds like she wants to do more of this with us. Like this would be the coolest thing ever. But he wouldn't stop. He is trying to harsher a mellow so fucking hard. It was one of the weirdest things where he was, it was like a mime thing, but I just

wouldn't acknowledge that he was there. No soul the juggler mime. And I think I freaked the lady out who was talking to me because she's like, oh, she just will not acknowledge this person. Oh my God. Oh, I'm so, that's just what happens at parties. Like why does it happen? And again, making this decision of like, I'm just going to act like he's not there, that'll work. Right, you could have pushed him in the pool or like taking

some other step. I could have said, sir, this is an important business conversation. Well, you think he would have gotten that, but no. After fucking five seconds. But he just dug in. It was wild. Who is he? Is he listening? What if he's listening? If you're listening... Juggler Mime. I love you. Mary Karen. You really, you really made a moment in my life where I was just like, what a strange position to be in right now. And we never heard from her again. We truly did not. They were like, thanks for nothing.

Oops. Bye. All right. So now it's your turn to do your unsolved case. This is the death of a Lisa Lam in 2013. Summer expenses can really add up from vacations to concert tickets. And your tube top budget goes up at least 400%, am I right? You are so right it's tough. But when you bank with Chime, you can manage your budget and still enjoy all the fun.

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limits. Terms and conditions apply. For more details, visit chime.com slash disclosures. Goodbye. Goodbye. Hey, this is exciting. An all-new season of Only Murders in the Building is coming to Hulu on August 27th. Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez are back as your favorite podcaster detectives. But there's a mystery hanging over everyone. Who killed Saz? And were they really after Charles? Why would someone want to kill Charles? This season murder hits close to home. With a threat against one of their own, the stakes are higher than ever. Plus the gang is going to Hollywood to turn their

podcast into a major movie. Amid the glitz and glamour of Los Angeles, more mysteries and twists arise. Who knows what will happen once the cameras start to roll. Get ready for the starriest season yet with Meryl Streep, Zach Galifianakis, Eugene Levy, Eva Longoria, Melissa McCarthy, Davine Joy Randolph, Molly Shannon and more. Only Martyrs in the Building premieres August 27th streaming only on Hulu. Goodbye. So, Karen, I have a question. Well, mine is also takes place in Los Angeles. I'm going to settle in, get a cozy first story.

I went on a real roller coaster ride with this one because there's, of course, when you look at anything, I knew what I had known about it, but I swear to God, this second, you go onto Reddit. Oh, Reddit. There's just a world of people who have already done so much research. I love you guys. Who are obsessed. Yeah. I forgot to credit where I just a world of people who have already done so much research. I love you guys. Who are obsessed. Yeah. I forgot to credit where I got a lot of the central. Can I do it real quick? DerangedLACrimes.com,

which is like, that's the best fucking... DerangedLACrimes.com. You made me think of that because of Reddit, which is like deranged and I love it. Yes. Okay. Sorry. No, wait, that's a good website to go to for stuff like that. It seems like it's a fun blog. Yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah, no, this's a good website to go to for stuff like that. It seems like it's a fun blog. Yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah, no, this is, I just, I had my assumptions and I was kind of writing

what I thought was going on and then a link led me to Reddit and then it's just all these people are like, I already looked at that and da da da and it's just theory theory theory. And here's why it couldn't be this and here's, yeah. It's fascinating. That's, yeah. It's fascinating. So this is the story of Elisa Lam. She is the one who, she is the 21 year old Canadian student who took a trip to, she called it her West Coast tour. She had been in San Diego.

She was stopping over in LA before she was going up north. And she checked in at the Cecil Hotel, which is a hotel downtown near Skid Row that used to be fancy. So she checks into the Cecil Hotel. And so she's traveling by herself. And so she checked in with her family every day. And so the last day that, the day she disappeared, basically, she had gone to the last bookstore and had a conversation with somebody there talking about books she was bringing home, hoping they could fit in her suitcase. So basically when the cops talked to that person, it was like no one thought that she wanted to commit suicide or it wasn't anything like that. And she was supposed to check out on February 1st and she never did. And so her family calls LAPD on February 1st and says, we haven't heard from her in

days. There's something very wrong. You have to check this out. So they start looking into it and on February 6th, they have a press conference where they say, if you've seen this person and they release, or no, they basically show pictures and they say, if you've seen this person, let us know she's missing. And then on February 14th, they end up releasing this now very famous footage of her in the elevator at the Cecil Hotel. Now, this is what I remember, because I saw this real time and this footage was on the news. I wasn't even, I think the sound was down and there's nothing creepier. There's no sound. Oh, because you were just watching it. I was watching news, but there is no sound anyway because it's like closed circuit. I see. So you look up and this thing is happening.

And this is on and it's like, have you seen this girl? And this is the last known footage of her. Oh my god. And she is in this elevator and she looks like she's, it's halfway somewhere between her playing hide and seek with somebody and her running from somebody because she gets in the elevator, she presses all the buttons, she puts her back up against the wall, then she peeks out, then she jumps out, then she does a little thing, then she comes back in. It's playful and it's not... Yeah, go on.

Yeah. It's just hard to... When it's presented on the news, it's freaky because it looks like someone's chasing her and she's trying to get the elevator to go. It's chilling. And then it already looks like a Japanese horror movie without the rest of the story. Exactly. We've seen this movie before.

Yes, Dark Waters. So then, yes, exactly. So then five days later after they released that footage, they had been the people working in the Cecil Hotel had been getting complaints from everybody that was staying there. This is the most effective. That the water smelled weird and had a weird color and that the water pressure was really low. So a maintenance worker goes up onto the roof and checks the water cisterns that are on the roof and Eliza Lamb's dead

body is floating in one of the cisterns. Elisa. What? Sorry? Elisa. Elisa? Yeah. Is it Elisa or Elisa? Elisa. Okay. Did I say Eliza? I did. It? Elisa. Elisa? Yeah. Is it Elisa or Lisa?

Elisa. Okay. Did I say Eliza? I did. I said Elizabeth Smart. So clearly we're going to yell that by fucking so many people. We mean well. It's Elisa Lam.

So it turns out, so as the cops are trying to put this story together, one of the first things that they learned was she was bipolar and she was on like four different medications for her bipolar. So the tape from the elevator immediately puts into everybody's mind, she's being chased, she's being pursued, she's scared, she's freaking out because it's so weird. Well, then you find out that she's bipolar and she's on this medicine. And the day that she disappeared, she had been staying in a youth hostel style shared room and she got moved out of that room and into her own room because the other women staying in that room with her were complaining of her odd behavior.

I didn't know that part. Yeah. So she got moved into a private room because of odd behavior. So there was a theory that she stopped taking some of her medication, but she kept taking others and she was taking Sudafed and that combination, like there's some antidepressants or mood stabilizers. If you mess around with the levels and add in like Sudafed, you can have a psychotic break. So there's people who think that that is what happened. She basically was having a psychotic break with seeing, you know, because you can have auditory hallucinations, visual hallucinations. And she basically got

herself up onto the roof, having all that happen in a manic episode, you have all the synergy, you don't stop moving and it would make sense if she was messing around the elevator. So that's one very strong theory. On Reddit, there's a person who absolutely is like, this case is closed. Because the coroner said that the death was drowning with this special circumstance of bipolar being the reason. But the thing is, the way she's acting in that elevator, you can only see one angle, which is inside the elevator and a little bit of the hallway. But when she turns, one time she jumps out, and this is like two minutes or more, it looks like she's talking to somebody up the hallway. And she's not in the lobby. Sorry, I'm dying of consumption. She's actually on the

14th floor of this hotel. Now, as we all know, the 14th floor is the 13th floor. They just change it. And the Cecil Hotel also is a hotel that over the years has had so many jumper suicides that they stopped counting. Over a hundred people have jumped off of the Cecil Hotel. The 14th floor is also the top floor. So it's basically a 13th floor hotel. And it's the hotel where Richard Ramirez, the night stalker stayed in the middle of his killing spree in between San Francisco and LA. It's the hotel where Richard Ramirez, the night stalker stayed in the middle of his

in killing spree in between San Francisco and LA. He stayed there for a little while. So it's a nice little cozy little family hotel. And there was another serial killer who was Austrian who stayed there for a little while in the nineties. So yeah, there's bad, bad vibes and bad juju. And also, so they were saying there were theories that she had to be with somebody because there was a lock, there was no access to the roof and it was alarmed. So people would have known if she had gone up there. But then there's

a footage and this is why I love Reddit, because it's so thoroughly researched. There's a Chinese tourist who posted footage where he walks from the 14th floor up to the roof, up to the cisterns, and there's no alarm, there's no lock, there's no anything. I feel like that had to be for the hotel to not be liable. They said that. Exactly right. Yeah. Because the parents were suing the hotel. Totally. But just the weird thing is, I mean, so there's lots of people on Reddit who are saying that

they had had manic episodes. And when you're there, you get these ideas in your head and you have a lot of energy and strength and you don't think, obviously, it's mania. So it made a lot of sense to them that she would suddenly see those sisters and be like, I'm going to get in there and swim around or whatever idea that she may have had. Plus, I think just because there's something as alarmed doesn't mean that whoever turns off the alarm or notices it is going to then go check and make sure everything's okay. Like those are in a fucking shitty hotel where it's probably understaffed, the alarm goes off, person in the lobby does the thing to turn it off and that's it.

Right. But more likely that's where, because they were saying that's where a lot of people went, like employees went up to smoke, that there was no alarm in the first place. I bet even if there was, there was a prop opening the door, holding the door open for people who smoked. Sure. The other thing is, when you see these cisterns, it's not like how I first imagined it, which is like one of those big wooden ones you see in New York on roofs. It's four metal, like 10 foot tall containers that are

like, they almost look like, they look like something from the war or whatever, where they almost look like big bullets. So the idea that you would look at that and be like, I'm going to get into that. There's water in there. Like that's weird to me. You wouldn't look at it and be like, I'm going to go swimming. It just looks like a big, it's a bunch of tanks. You wouldn't know what was in there unless you had knowledge of that somehow. One thing I thought was interesting that I found on Reddit was that in the video, she's wearing someone's shorts. Did you see that? Yeah.

Someone was like, it looks like she's wearing a skirt, but they're clearly like board shorts or like cargo shorts. And they clearly weren't hers or what kind of clothes she wore because she was like a fashion blogger and really into fashion. And did they find her clothes outside of the tank? No, but she was naked in the tank, but everything that was in there was with her in the tank. So I guess, I mean, who knows? That could have been explained. Maybe she stole them from the hostel she was at, but the shorts that she has on in the video are guys shorts. So yeah, maybe she met someone staying at the hotel also and fuck. I know.

And there's definitely no drugs in her system. No drugs in her system. And yeah. And all the things that would explain that like alcohol drugs. She went to a bar that night, but all the things that people, all the theories of people saying maybe someone drugged her, that's why she was acting so weird. It doesn't, they're not in her system. Yeah. They would have clearly done tests for that. And here's the really irritating part. They took a rape kit, but they never processed it because they just figured what's the point since we know it's she did it basically. So kind of never know. It's a little bit the perfect murder in that way if that's what

happened because she's in the water, There will be no evidence on her body. And did it, can they tell exactly how long she was in there? Was she in there from the night of the video? Yeah. She was in there for like three weeks. So you probably can't find a ton of evidence after your body's been in the water that long. No. There was some tuberculosis drug. Did you see that? What is it that is the same as her initials? It's called the Lam-Eliza test. Right. At least.

Lisa. E-L-I-S-A. It's an S not a Z. That there was an outbreak of tuberculosis on Skid Row. That's just a weird coincidence. That is just like the weirdest coincidence I've ever heard of in my life that there was a test or something called the Lamb Elisa. Yeah, it's just her name. It's her fucking name. Yeah. What in the fuck is this world?

There's a couple of other alleyways that I'm not going to go down now because I don't know them well enough. But you can, all you have to do is go on to Reddit or go on to YouTube. And people have like talked through all of them that are like, there's about like invisible cloaking and like all this different stuff, just theories. I watched the video with my face so close to the screen to like try to see any abnormalities or anything weird. Well, but here's what is interesting that the numbers on the tape, whatever that's called, the timecode on the tape is distorted. And they don't know if the cops distorted it or the hotel distorted it. But there is a full minute missing in the tape. What the fuck?

People have studied the like messed up time code enough to see when it clicks over to another minute, but like, whatever. So the tape itself is really, really weird. You know what, another thing about the tape being weird that I thought was really interesting was that she's pressing all the buttons and the elevator never leaves or closes the door. Because she's pressing the elevator hold button, which people have gone there and tested it will hold it open for two minutes. So she presses, she's on 14.

So she presses 14, 10, 7, 4 or whatever. She goes right down the center and elevator hold. So you can't figure out if she's playing a game, if she's trying to get out of there as quickly as possible. There are some people say that's what you're supposed to do if you're afraid somebody's following you. Cause then they won't know what floor you get on. They don't know where floor you're on and every, it'll open every time. So you'll have every chance of seeing somebody else.

I've never heard that. Yeah. That is fucked up. And the other thing is they sped, they, they slowed the tape down when they released it to the public. It's actually 125% slower than it should have been. So when you speed it up, I don't know. It looks creepier when she does like the hand movements and stuff. Totally. And they don't know if it's just to get people's attention or to

make it look weirder than it is or what. Or maybe like if there's some splicing in it, you wouldn't notice it as much if it were slower. Exactly. If there's a minute missing, then you wouldn't notice it. Right. Okay. Do you think that she looks scared or that she's playing a game in your heart of hearts? Well, I think, I also read, my initial reaction was fear only because she does that thing where she puts her back up against the wall. But then there's a website that's based on

body language. Breaks down where she's very calm. Her body is relaxed and everything she's doing is playful and relaxed. And it looks like there's a lot of flirting body language within the movement. Or that she's playing with a kid. Like almost like, to me it was like she's playing with a little kid and trying to amuse a child. It's very childlike. Although there is one part where they specifically say, this is like flirting. This is definitely a flirting movement of like, she puts her hands up and but then she like reveals her armpits. And it's like a whole thing that's very, it's

like sexual preening, is what they call it. And it's the, and she's looking up the hallway. So it's exactly where you can't see the person. Is she looking where the door to the water tower is or is she looking the other way? I wonder. I don't know. That would be good to like go and stand there and look at. But I think in the Chinese guys, I mean, it literally is all in Chinese. I have no idea what he's actually saying, but when he does it, he just walks you out the elevator and up. So it looks like there's another, you have to walk up more stairs to get up to that exit.

There's like a floor that the elevator doesn't go up to. Interesting. Right. Yeah. It's not like right there. I mean, those places are never locked and they never have fucking alarms. To me, I think ultimately there is a good theory with the messed up videotape is so overt and it's so weird. And like, why is it edited? Why is it slowed down? What's happening? Why can't we see what's in that other minute? They tacked on just the elevator opening and closing at the end to nothing. So they left on footage that no one needs at all. But then they took out a minute in the middle. That doesn't make

sense. Do you think that's one of those things that but then they took out a minute in the middle. That doesn't make sense. Do you think that's one of those things that they do where it's like they take something out that only the person involved would know in case there's ever any person comes forward with information and they can be like, well, I mean, maybe she threw something or maybe she like, maybe, you know, she did an extra thing that only the person she was doing it to or with would know. Maybe. But then why not just use 15 seconds? It's being sold or presented as if it's continuous and that's what's weird. Oh, right. Like something else, the thing is going to happen.

Yes. And to me, it just adds up to, or to me, it points a finger. I believe it could have been a manic episode where she just found herself up there and that's definitely possible, but it doesn't seem that probable. To me, it seems probable that there's another person involved and that that person works at the hotel. Totally. So he doesn't have to be around her at any point during the day, but he sees her at that one point in the night and does something and then puts her body where no one would find it. Okay.

So yeah. Possibly. I get it. Or lures her in there. Was she able to get out on her own when she got in there? Maybe lured her in there and then she couldn't get out. So she did drown technically, but it's foul play. Well, but it's like, he would already be in it, you mean?

No, or have been like, let's go swimming in here. Oh, like it was his idea. Yeah. Yes, possibly. But then why would she throw all her stuff in there? Oh God. Like, why wouldn't, if it's like a skinny dipping thing, just leave it. So all of her shit was just in there. In there with her.

Yeah, I don't know. Maybe he threw it in after her, if I can close the door and later. Could have been that. And also could have been if it was her idea by herself to go in because she wanted to be in water. Once she's in there, it's hard to tread water with clothes on. Take your clothes off. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Ehhhhhhhhh. Okay, so to be extra clear, because I did not state this explicitly in the episode, the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office ruled Alisa Lam's death an accidental drowning, with bipolar disorder being a significant contributing factor. And then in 2021, Netflix had that four-part series, Crime Scene, The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel, and that brought more attention to that case. So very important kind of clarity where it's like in retrospect, being salacious about essentially a mental health issue where no one helped and no one could help in that moment and that's an important factor is

That ultimately at the end of the day. This is a story about a young woman who is having a mental health crisis and So in retrospect in any way being salacious about that feels really bad And that is the kind of you know, 2020 vision that we get to look back on in retrospect, in any way being salacious about that feels really bad. And that is the kind of, you know, 2020 vision that we get to look back on. Although I do think in talking about this case, it kind of opened the door for us to start talking about the importance of taking care of your mental health and the importance of not feeling shame about being on medication. Yeah, definitely.

It's funny, the thing you were talking about earlier about how open we are about therapy and how not a big deal it is, I feel the same way about medication. So it's like, it's so funny that it became a big part of this podcast is how open you are about mental health. And it's like, no, we're from LA. Yeah.

I've been going to therapy since I was 10. I'm Jewish, which is like, you have to be in therapy and on medication. There's no vulnerability for me with any of this. No, what you're saying is you're a visionary is really what it is. I'm pro big pharma. Well, also, it is a strange thing the way that therapy has come into just into the culture in a way that's obviously just acceptable. Yeah.

Thank God. Oh my God. I mean, what are we doing? Why are we pretending that we don't need it? Why is anyone pretending that this isn't the hardest life you've ever lived? Seriously. Come on. For you, for all of us in context, it's pretty hard.

It doesn't matter if you didn't have, you know, a fucked up childhood or you didn't, you know, things didn't happen to you. Everyone is traumatized by this world. That's right. You know, post-industrial revolution, it's been a mess. I will say this. Since I was, and I believe I was eight years old, but I could have been nine or ten, and I was standing on the street corner in Petaluma wearing a t-shirt that said Super

Kid on the front of it in the Superman logo because the movie had come out. And two, in my mind, teenage girls who were like smoking and drinking, but I'm sure that they were 12 or 13, looked at me and went, the one girl goes, Super Kid, and then they cross the street. Devastating. That alone, that alone has haunted me. There are difficulties that I've had to face. It's in context. It doesn't compare. You take anyone else's life and you go, Karen, shut the fuck up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you should. But in the context of my life. Devastating. I shudder when I'm on that street corner and I am in my mid-50s. Oh, man. And that's life. I shudder when I'm on that street corner and I am in my mid-50s. Oh man. And that's life. That's how life punches your brain. Yeah, your brain accepts and rejects and sometimes it's not the right thing and it's got a little bit of a hiccup in there and you gotta fix it. You gotta try to not hold

on. Don't hook in. Don't believe the story. Yeah. Yeah. But I am a super kid. You are a super kid, Karen. I believe in you. I believe in you. Okay. So, Elisa Lam, and we say this a lot, but this is one of those stories. It is not a mystery, ultimately. Yeah. But I think about it all the time. Because what I think about is people being alone in this world with having to deal with stuff like that Being alone downtown. Yeah having to deal with anything at all. There's there's elements of this story That that just stay with me and hurt my feelings and make me Yeah, that just it's heartbreaking it's so heartbreaking and it also is you know a lot of people that like to comment on

true crime commentary When they talk about stuff like this, it's like there's nothing that happened She was just you know what they try to like oversimplify whatever where it's like, right There's nobody really knows what happened to a person in this horrible hotel Nobody really knows what happened to a person in this horrible hotel that like so many horrible things have happened inside of and she is vulnerable. And you don't need a ghost or ghost hunters or a person standing there with a knife because mental illness is its own haunting, is its own threat. And so a person that vulnerable watching the elevator

video or whatever, all the theories aside, the pure story of it is awful. Just as awful. And scary. So we have a hometown story in this episode. It's from a listener named Lauren, and she wrote in about the boy in the box story, which is famous. And I covered it in episode 362. And if you listen, there are updates on the case. So here's the hometown.

You want to go? You want me to go? You go. Okay. So this girl's name is Lauren. We also told you guys we would stop saying your full names. Sorry. Sorry. I didn't. I didn't think about that. Sorry.

Sorry. I didn't. I did not think about that at all. I'm like, doesn't everyone want to be fucking loud and famous and shit? For real. Yeah. Just because we're fame whores doesn't mean everyone else is. People are like, could I have a little bit of privacy? Yeah. We talked about your stalker and then we, okay. I like though that a lot of people have adjusted in like in it, they're signing it like just with their last initial words like, Oh, thank you.

You're helping me. Sorry guys, we won't do that again. Yeah, we won't. So Lauren S, she says, the one that gets me is the boy in the box. Oh yeah. In 1957, a boy believed to be about five years old was found on the side of the road wrapped in a blanket inside of a bassinet box having been killed by blunt force trauma. Worst way to go. He was freshly bathed, fingernails clipped and his hair was crudely cut. He had old medical related scars in addition to fresh bruising

and signs of past trauma. He appeared to be malnourished. No one had ever come forward to claim him or with any possible explanation of who he may have been. He is also known as America's unknown child. F**ked up, sad s**t. No, didn't you tell me? I thought we talked about it on here, that they found DNA evidence to figure out who he was. Did I do that when we were in the beginning? It was at the beginning of the show update. Right. So I just saw this one because I was looking up Unsolved Murders and he came

up, there was illustrations of what he looked like when he was found in that box. I mean, clearly he was either in a foster situation. It was in Chicago, right? It was in, I thought it was Baltimore or Philadelphia. Somewhere where you can get lost in the system. But also two different people found him and didn't report it before the final person did. The fuck you guys. I think that like a hunter found it and then didn't say anything. And then the second person waited a full day.

Oh my God. The thing about him being found on a bassinet box is that that makes me think either at a home for children or a foster, like crowded foster house. Crowded. Or like, yeah. Yes. Television. Hey, Karen in Georgia. First of all, I love your show. I love True Crime. And I wish I had friends like you to talk about it with. Well, now you do. This is from Alex H. So, okay,

so this is a secondhand story my mom told me recently. She grew up in the Rochester, Spencerport, New York area. And she lived there when the three alphabet murders happened. Just a little background info in case you weren't familiar. Three young girls were raped and strangled in Rochester, New York. And they all had double initials and their bodies were all left in towns that started with the same letter as their first and last names. What? The three girls are Carmen Colon, 10, disappeared November 16th, 1971. She was found two days later in Riga, New York near Churchville, 12 miles from where she was last seen. Michelle

Mayenza, 11, disappeared November 26th, 1973. She was found two days later in Macedon, New York, 15 miles from Rochester. And Wanda Walkowitz, 11, disappeared April 2nd, 1973. She was found the next day at a rest area off of State Route 104 in Webster, New York, seven miles from Rochester. These cases were also connected to another set of double initial murders in California. One of the victims there was also named Carmen Colon. I don't know much about these in California. One of the victims there was also named Carmen Colon. I don't know much about these in parentheses. Same name. Yeah. There were a few suspects over the years, including Kenneth Bianchi, who was ice cream

vendor in Rochester and who later became one of the two Hillside Strangers. Another suspect was Carmen Colon's uncle. My mom was in third grade at Holy Redeemer Catholic School when the first murder in New York happened in 1971 and she was in the same class as the New York Carmen Colon's younger sister Angela. And she had been at Carmen and Angela's house just a couple of weeks before the murder for a birthday party. Even if you don't read this on the show, you should totally talk about it on your show because it is some really freaky shit. You're exactly right, Alex. That is nuts. I would Karen, go change your fucking name.

Karen Kilgaraff would have been later days. How many people changed their name in Rochester around that time? Do you think they've had second double? Little girls with a double letter. Because that meant research. That guy was, that was like, what, do you work at a school? Did he work at a school? Yeah, maybe he was like a work at a school mate. And you know, the weird thing is the towns that he left them in.

Yeah. That's some fucking OCD shit. It's weird. And it's, you know what? That is, that is the kind I'm the most interested in, is that tricky, hooked in, like that's that seven kind of stuff where there's theories and there's whole storylines going on that no one even understands or knows about. Well, that's what you want the murders to have because then it is so much more interesting

than there's just some fucking creepy gross dude doing this. And so it's like, okay, here's, we just need to solve this. And it's a really smart person doing all these things. I mean, it sounds like an obsessive thing that maybe the person doing it doesn't even want to be doing it, but feels like a compulsion to do it. Yeah. You know, like it's like, we know how OCD people are. It's like you're setting things right by doing these things over and over again. Or you know how sometimes it turns out where it's like their sibling who died had the

double letters. You know what I mean? They're acting out something else that had already happened. Their mom was abusive and had double letters. Double letters. Don't do it. It's was abusive and had double letters or. Double letters. Jesus. Don't do it. It's so random. It's so random.

And yet very specific. I mean, what if it is, it sounds, I mean, if there was a serial killer, a now known serial killer living in that time, in that area at that time, I mean, it's probably him. Bianchi. Is it Bianchi? I mean, that's a very strange thing that that would happen there. Although they did like teenage girls and older. Yeah, but maybe-

These are little kids. Separately, they did that. Maybe it was the other one's inclination. Oh, right. It was Anthony Buono's preference to do the older ladies. Yeah. So he went along with it, but like, oh, guys. Guys, this has been heavy. We really want, you know what I want more than anything is not to have any more topics to cover on this podcast. Like I just want this to turn into like a, we start talking about like tea.

Let's never do that. Because we run out of murder to talk about. You know what I mean? Like they just stop murdering. Like have you ever had Moroccan mint? Yeah. Oh, it's delicious. It's great to sip while crime rates go down.

So this one does have a case update. On November 30th, 2022, the Philadelphia Police Department announced that they determined the boy's identity using DNA evidence and the boy in the box's name is Joseph Augustus Zarelli. And I do that whole story on episode 362, which is called A Generous Number of Apples for some reason. Yeah, that's when we really got into the naming. The naming really found its stride.

It did. And that's why we like to, on this Rewind episode, kind of review all the things that we said in this episode and then try to find the new modern day version of the title. Right, not trying to use numbers, which just quickly, quickly went downhill. I mean, ultimately I'm right about puns. Ultimately we all regret them. Fair, but I do think it's just so funny that's like now part of the My Favorite Murder Universe is just people come and say, I've been listening since the pun days. I've been listening since the number pun days.

And they're like, I know what you're talking about. I've been listening since you set yourself up at the very beginning for a devastating fall. Okay, so if we were to name it after something that was said during this episode, which is what we do nowadays, here are some options. I literally remember this. So Alejandra picked these out for us. You can help people, you know, which is what the guy said when I came

off the freeway driving home from Petaluma, the entire front end of the car fell off at the light. I can remember what's so funny about that story is that it literally is a little mini movie in my mind. It's beautiful. It was such a distinctive experience of like, I was getting help, but I also was a little bit in trouble. You know what I'd love is for this guy to teach some life lessons to the juggler mime. About how to treat people when they're going through something.

How about a little consideration where you and your miming isn't the only thing that's taking place at this party. And like you've got to ask yourself, am I helping people right now? Yes. And I bet this guy would say, no, you're not. You're not helping. And you know, you can help people. You can help people.

I do remember, because we're watching the People vs. OJ Simpson. But we did call it The Simpsons But we did call it The Simpsons. We did call it The Simpsons, yeah. The Burbank goodbye. Because remember, we talked about in this episode the Brentwood hello, which is what Faye Resnick talked about. So what would the Burbank goodbye be if you mentioned that? So Burbank goodbye is pretty good.

That is a great one. Oh, real time, real feelings. Definitely. That's you and your feelings about your wedding. Yeah, and fix your pocket square, which is, you know, it's not. That's you setting out the rules of your relationship with your husband very early.

This is about presentation, it's about photos, it's about squaring it all off. That's right. Well, thanks for listening to this episode of Rewind. We hope you like them. If you do, please, you know, rate, review, subscribe, whatever the fuck. That's right. Well, thanks for listening to this episode of Rewind. We hope you like them. If you do, please, you know, rate, review, subscribe, whatever the fuck. That's right. And we appreciate you walking down memory lane with us and letting us process eight and a half years worth of feelings.

Yeah, we'll keep doing it if you keep listening to it. Yeah, you have to show up for it though. We're juggling your face with it. We are not going to just stand here silently while you juggle. God damn. Are we the Jugglers or are they the Jugglers? What if that was supposed to be my second husband? And I just wouldn't turn my head.

Oh well. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye! Elvis, do you want a cookie?