My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia HardstarkThis week’s hometowns include a new unit of measurement and a rabid beaver.
Hello, Hello, Hello, and welcome to my favorite murder, the Mini sod video for the fan could video version. We blue dried our hair.
You should see the shine on George's bangs. She looks like a dull from the fifties.
Thank you. Your eyebrows look great, Oh, thank you. They were rushed. Little eyeliner.
Love it.
Do a little wing, just a quick wing. Gotta do it.
You know, it does feel weird to put on this much makeup in the early day.
Yes, I love it because now I have the like, now I'll do something on a Sunday. Yes, right, you know, like now I'm like Vince, I have makeup on. That means we have to go out, you know what I mean. You have to take me some more nights if I have makeup. No, I don't care where we go. I just have to leave the fucking house and put some pants on.
If I have makeup on for work, yeah, yeah, I mean because it is I have primer on.
Oh I should somewhere. Yeah, you can't stay home with primer on. No, look at you, you got your cheekbones are kicking. I mean, we're just doing it.
We're doing it for the love of the email that's right, so many good ones this week.
You want to go first? Sure?
Okay, it starts. Hi, friends, my mother is a nosy fucking nelly. She's a pediatric ophthalmologist and then, in parentheses, a kid's eye surgeon. Oh think, thank you so much to my brother sister and my horror. Shopping trips were often plagued with her confronting strangers about their wandering eyes and how it's just a quick fifteen minute surgery. Oh no, mom, please, Yeah, yeah, she's life changing and helps kids and all that. So one saturday, my mom was on her daily run with my two younger siblings in the stroller and me on my roller blades, being pulled along by the stroller.
We lived in a.
Suburban neighborhood in Spokane, Washington, so generally pretty safe. We passed one house and my mom suddenly turned us around because she had seen a lone toddler in the front yard. She asked me and then, in parentheses in all caps, a five year old, what she should do. Should she wait here with eyes on the kid for their adult to return, or just carry on with her run, or should she take the kid and find it's home.
No? No, don't kidnap the kid. That's a lot. Don't do that one, right, you would think. I told her the kid was fine. Yeah, she left us.
Alone in the front yard to play many a time, and we didn't want to disrupt the kid's good time. Well, she didn't listen to me a five year old, and picked up the kid from his front yard and we carried on our way, stopping and knocked on each neighbor's door. She stopped at every house on both sides of the street, asking if the neighbor knew who the kid belonged to. Again and again she was told no that the neighbors did not recognize the kid. Eventually we stopped at the last house, the one my mother picked the kid up from. Oh no, no no. As we walked up their driveway, we noticed a group of adult men standing in the garage who all turned to stare as my mom approached with the toddler. She asked the group, does this kid belong to any of you? And one brave man stepped forward to claim the kid. I could tell he was super confused about what was happening. He took the kid from my mom as she scolded him, saying, you really need to keep a better eye on your kids. I could have been anyone who took your child.
Go mom, I caught it a bad.
Kidnapper and not a good kidnapper. The men hesitantly thanked her and we carried on our way. I struggled with my mom now, but she's definitely a badass, and I do have some of that in me too. I love the show got me through dark times and long drives.
Abby, Abby, your mom is a nosy nelly. I understand the struggle. Turns out the kid belong was where it belonged, and you're a kidnapper.
Now you're, by way of example, you have committed a felony. Way to go super ophthalmologist, Mom, thanks doing it all.
I think the lesson here is you got to listen to the five year old. Please please listen to your five year old, who's smarter than a five year old. You've already made it five years. You're no longer a baby, right, you're accessing a brand new part of your brain. But you don't have any adult bullshit or even older kid bullshit right like prime to be smart? Definitely, but out the five year old.
Recommends O my God for a second, I thought you had long, dangly earrings.
On Do you love? You love my long claires? All right? This it was called Shabbat shooter. Oh hello, murderinos, mammals and mustache. Here's an old family story. My mother hails from a long line of East Coast Jews who have consistently celebrated Shabbat every Friday night. Her grandmother, my great grandmother, was apparently quite the beauty and was all set to marry this guy from town Hoboken, New Jersey, to be exact, until she met my great grandfather. The other guy did not receive confirmation of her transferred affections until one Shabbat dinner when he asked my great grandmother, are you going to marry me or not? She told him no, at which point he promptly pulled out a gun and shot her. What Luckily, it hit her shoulder and went right through. Though she was bedridden for a year. Holy shit. My great grandfather waited for her and helped her learn how to walk again, and they eventually married and had a family. I don't know what happened to the shooter, as my great grandmother was apparently deeply ashamed and refused to talk about it. Her daughter didn't even know until one of her friend's gossipy mothers told her about it. WHOA, My god, great grandma might have felt extremely slutshamed, but I think it attests to the resilience of the women in my family. My grandmother and mother have plenty of their own stories, but those are not meant for this email. Advocating to end violence against women has become one of my passions, and I'm grateful for all the work you do to promote mental health and safe resources for women and non women victims of said violence stay sexy and maybe only bring wine to Shabbat.
Rebecca, God, that's I bet that grandma was. It's like also trauma, Like it's GTSD that she can't talk about it. That's someone she's the victim of a violent assault.
Yeah, it's crazy you think stuff like that only happens in like modern times. But that's a great great grandma story. Yes, Yes, I'm glad this. Rebecca's working towards she's you know what, She's using her legacy, yeah, and doing good because of it. Yeah, using her family trauma for good. Here's Rebecca Shabatchall Okay.
The subject line of this email is did somebody ask about a sinkhole?
Oh?
Hi, Paul holes friends, you want a sinkhole story, here goes. I live near the Lancaster, PA area, and besides quaint covered bridges and roads filled with horse drawn buggies and then, in parentheses, cute the first time you see one, but very annoying to get stuck behind in traffic. We've also got a ton of shopping outlets.
That's weird. That's what they're known for, I guess, so I don't know why I think that's so funny.
One of them had a massive sinkhole open up in the middle of their parking lot that initially swallowed six cars and continued to grow over the ensuing days and weeks, eventually consuming one hundred and fifty parking spaces.
Oh my god, that's a big one, Karen. That is a biggie.
And that's a really perfect way to describe the size of a sinkhole by parking spaces, because that's then you can immediately picture it in your head.
I don't know what a football field size is. I've never been on a football field.
I've been drunk every time I've been near a football field, so you're going to have to give me more accurate and relatable sizes, right, and a parking space is perfect one hundred and fifty.
It just keeps going. Yeah, imagine that's huge. Okay.
Then the sinkhole. Oh shit, where we're fucking around in this first paragraph. We need to get to the second.
Oh my god, what is it? Then the sinkhole caught on fire.
Yes, someone's lying to make air unhappy. Seriously on fire. It caused two million in damages and plumes of black smoke were visible for miles around. The cause of the blaze is still officially undetermined, but it is thought to be related to the construcduction to repair the sink hole. So SSDGM and now you know that sinkholes are flammable. And then they included the three.
Links so that we could watch the burning sinkhole in Lancaster, PA. And there's no name dropped in, dropped out with fucking gold. Awesome, that really badass move, just like, don't worry about who I am, worry about.
The size of the sinkhole. And that's on firefire the depths of hell, that's why it's on fire.
Went all the way you access to portal to hell obviously at the outlet mall.
Where else would you? And they mean parking lots are hell anyways, especially at malls. So this is like obviously it's intertwined.
It's like either it was going to be in the parking lot or it was going to be in that Nautica store that.
Was in the mall.
Either way, you're going to fucking hell. Friends, that's right, stay away from malls. Okay, that's the moral of the story. That's right, Okay, hometown raby story. I was attacked by a rabid beaver. Hello, everybody, you're all doing a great job. A while ago there was a request for raby stories. So here you go.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. You don't remember this. I don't remember this, but I'm sure we did it. There was a request for rabies. There wasn't a request for ravye stories. You and I made the request. Like it's so there was not some listener.
We're getting into bed and pulling up the blankets, like, what kind of story do you want?
Babies? Babies. In twenty eighteen, I went tubing down a creek in Ithaca, New York with a bunch of friends and my brother Jake, who was visiting. The water was low, so it was pretty slow going and we were all spread out along the creek after a few hours. Man, I've never gone tubing, and I feel like I'm missing out in life just drinking tubing. You're not. You're not, You're not.
I'm not missing out well as someone who so, I grew up near the Russian River and that was like the thing to do, and it's fun for a little while, but if you get sunburned at all, it's a nightmare. For That's a great example of when the water's slow, you're literally just kind of sitting around with your butt hanging. It feels super weird, like your butt is just hanging down.
You have to walk back to where you started. Two. That sounds like a nightmare.
Or you yeah, it depends, or you just take your thing and then swim back.
Now I'll be beachside, guys, I'll watch the coolers.
There's just I don't know, it's like that's for eighteen year olds, Like it's like college. That's what tubing means to me. Okay, well then I won't fucking do it.
I'll try it. I don't want to try it and I'll see I'm good. Are we fighting? I'm forcing you to go tube. That's the end of it, Okay, spread out. We're getting close to the end, and suddenly an animal the size of a dog starts attacking my tube. I jump out of the water, trying to figure out what's going on, and a beaver swims away with my instantly deflated tube towards some of our unspecting party downstream. A minute later, I hear screaming from the direction of the beaver. When I round the bend, I see my brother in the water in his tub, trying to get free from the beaver, who was chomping on his leg with his giant beaver teeth. Ew He gets free and up onto the shore, but the beaver is still in the water, swimming circles with a taste for blood, and we have more friends coming down the creek. Start screaming. Everyone. The beaver charges again for all of us on the beach, and we have to defend ourselves with the only available weapon, rocks to some things up. We made it out of the woods, got my brother to the hospital, and got him some much needed stitches. The beaver did test positive for rabies and my bro and I had to go through a very uncomfortable series of raby shots. I guess she got bit too. Yeah, great podcast and great podcast network. That's it. Shout out to my brother Jake. And then when I see art teacher at Clara Barton, who was much tougher than I was about the shots, even though they had to go directly into the bight area, which for him meant between the stitches. And I heard raby shots are like fucking horrible, right, the.
Horrible, And I think you have to get several rounds of them. I think like it goes on for a while.
Yeah, stay sexy and stay out of six mile Creek.
Leah, Okay, I wanted I wish I could see a picture of how big that beaver is, because even if it was little, that's really scary.
Well, she said the sig of a dog, so that could mean I don't think she means a chihuahua, or she would have said chihuahua, like that must be like a fucking frank size dog.
If you are going to compare something to a dog, you have to give the breed. Oh, that's true, and we need it to be registered with the American Kennel Association.
No MUTSI no, we need parking lots spaces.
My parking spaces is the dog one quarter of a parking spot? Well, then now we know how big this beaver was.
That's our uncasurement from now on.
Everyone, I'm not going to read you the subject line because it's a spoiler. Hi, friends, have I got a story for you? It has everything, so many of these animals start. It has everything. It's my favorite preteen awkwardness, punching hush puppies, and then in parentheses, the shoe not the deep fried tree, and a brush with death. All right, The year's nineteen ninety one, and I'm a very shy seventh grader with huge glasses and a terrible haircut. In my least favorite class, history, I snapped to attention when my teacher begins the day's lesson about famous American serial killers.
What today's lesson? Children?
A seventh grade history class about serial killers? I would have teacher was bored for It was probably right before Christmas or right in May, like right before summer breath.
Fuck the American Revolution.
Let's talk about so we've had it with all those old dudes, let's get relevant inappropriate subject matter for twelve year old maybe, but I am wrapped and at dinner that night, tell my parents and siblings everything I've learned. My dad casually says, oh, I've never told you about my run in with a serial killer, have I?
Here's the story.
In nineteen seventy three, my baby faced, nineteen year old dad was in the Navy and heading home to Syracuse, New York, from San Diego on leave. He was dressed in his dress blues and sitting alone reading a book on his ten hour layover. In O'Hare airport, a man in civilian clothing comes up, clocks his uniform and asks if he's seen a lance corporal in the Marine Corps go by, and my dad apologizes and said he hasn't been paying attention. The guy then asks if he has anything against brass and shows my dad a military ID that says he's a lieutenant commander in the Navy. Then then asks if he wants to go get some drinks. Dad says okay, because in those days, a fellow sailor was a kin to a brother. When he follows the guy passed the airport bar and down the stairs, he starts getting a little confused, but thinks maybe there's another bar he didn't see. When the guy walks outside, my dad asks where they're going, and he said, let's go to my place. It's super close, and I have lots of booths. No, no, nope, you're inside the airport already there's bars.
It's the seventies.
But still it wasn't an in out all the time situation. You still have to go through security and stuff. I don't think so, did you didn't you? Oh maybe you didn't. You can just stroll right up to your gate. Yeah, probably, Yeah, I guess that's true. Dad was not quite convinced. He then happens to look down and the man's shoes catch his eye. He was wearing gray hush puppies with little gold chains across them, which my dad, for some reason, found to be a red flag. Anyway, he's right anyway. The guy convinces him to get in the car and offers to call some Playboy bunnies he knows to meet them at the house. Oh come on, well, it says in parentheses the original Playboy mansion was in Chicago. Then asks if my dad is a swinger. My poor sweet baby angel. Father has no idea what that means. Please, honey, honey, and girl what that means, so he hesitantly says yeah, sure.
Oh no.
The guy responds with some real dirty talk, the details of which I'll spare you, then proceeds to try to grope him, while my dad keeps swiping his hand away and says politely, no thanks, I'm not into that one. Don't you take me back to the airport. The guy is insistent, No, you'll be fine, We'll have a great time. I'm gonna call the girls. I swear if you don't have a good time, I'll give you fifty bucks. As they turn onto a busy downtown street with lots of traffic lights, my dad plants his escape. He quietly looks to see if the passenger door is unlocked, notices that it is, and when they finally get to a red light, he swings the door open, jumps out, leans back in, and punches the stun guy in the side of the head. Runs across a few lanes of traffic, almost getting hit by a taxi When the driver stops to yell at him. My dad jumps in and asks for a ride back to the airport. He eventually makes it home, tells his then girlfriend, my mother, and some friends this crazy story, and eventually forgets about it. Cut to five years later, my parents are at my aunt and uncle's house on a Friday night, eating pizza and watching the news on a New York City station, as they do every Friday night.
They had cable.
It was a big deal at that time, and all the exciting news came from the city. A news segment begins with a shot of a handcuffed man, and my dad yells at them to turn it up. That's the crazy guy from Chicago. I told you about friends. That crazy guy was none other than John Wayne Gacy, whoa yeah, the one that murdered at least thirty three boys and young men and buried most of them in the cross space under his house, which was about three miles from O'Hare Airport. Oh my god, right, you better believe that I raised my hand in history class for the first time ever and told that whole tale to my class the next day. My sister also recalls telling it to her second grade teacher, who I'm sure was a horrifuned that dad just told that story at the dinner table he didn't hold back. My dad is a former firefighter, just like Home Jim, and has been teaching us lessons about safety for my entire life. He's the reason I'm a murder you know, who is always calm in an emergency and knows better than to try to put out a grease fire with flower.
Thank you.
Let's underline that a new chance we get and let's be honest, probably also part of the reason I have anxiety entirely.
Friend.
Yeah, absolutely, stay sexy and don't be afraid to be a judgie about a guy's shoes.
Kristin. Kristin painted a picture there for us. It's insane. He was going to be murdered by John Wayne Gacy and.
If he had just a little bit more like, if he had more time, yeah, like on his layover, if he was a little more like, yeah, let's party. Who cares in the societies any number of you know, I don't know. And the shoe thing is so good, it's like there, it's true.
There's indicators. Oh yeah. And it's also like him promising like playboy bunnies. No, no, no, you've got to get like the whole thing he did where he manipulated people, and they'd be like, let's play this game with these these fucking handcuffss you can get out of them, Like he's that is a fucking close call. Crazy. Yeah, yeah, this is called Thank God my mom still loves me. Hello all. In the words of Sophia Petrollo. Picture it j C. Penny the women's casual wear department, nineteen ninety three. Yes, wasn't it just called Pennies? Then they did?
They made, they went through some brand changes before they closed entirely.
Oh, you're right, you're right now, aren't they gone? No, there's one in the Glendale Galleria. Shit, it's my full apologies to the J. C. Penny Company and catalogs. Right you better okay? Ninety ninety three daycy Now. Picture hearing a child scream for most of the story to hear they're going to kill us. That child pause for dramatic effect was me night. Let's break it down. It was a Saturday, and I had two options. Stay at home with my dad and older sister while they fixed things around the house, or go to J. C. Penny with my mom. I chose the latter, choosing to go women's clothing shopping. One of the first signs I was transgender, Get my hands dirty. As if the trip to Jay C. Penny would have been no big deal if not for the movie selection. The night before Friday nights were family movie night, and my sister and I picked the nineteen eighty seven gem Mannekin Katy Petrell. Fucking great movie. We loved the lavable, loved it. It was a big topic of the day. Anakins are a big part of our lives last time. That's right. At first, I was super excited at the idea of mannequin's come into life to be my friend. But then I connected it to living doll horror movies of the time, like Chucky from Child's Play. Scared the ever loving shit out of me at the time.
Chuckie's one of the scariest things that humanity's ever created.
That's right, and I soon found only terror in the idea of Mannikin's coming to life. Fast forward twenty four hours later and I'm standing with my mom as she looks through a rack of I Have Children Now early nineties sweaters. There was a group of three mannekins standing in a semicircle looking down at their bracelets. However, in my sixty exactly. However, in my six year old mind, they were looking straight at me. I began to silent whimper cry. My mom noticed and got down to my level to ask me what was the matter. When I was a little kid, my freakout choice was the sudden freakout. Imagine a hundred year old, dormant volcano that erupts one day with no warning. So as soon as my mom asked me what was the matter, I immediately scream cried at the top of my lungs, they're gonna in what seemed like a blur. My mom scooped me up and was power walking in her four inch wedges out of the store while I continued to scream they're gonna kill us. Once we got out to the car. I don't remember much as I was in full hysterics. Now at age thirty four, when my mom and I go to a store together, she always says, now, don't make me power walk you out of here, says DGM, and always remember mannequins are people too, Serena.
Oh, I love those moments where it's like just classic kid thinking that adults like that's actually a great mom because she was like I have to get in front of this now and like, you know, make it as low impact as possible, right, because that is that kind of thing where it's like it just takes one suggestion of a like, yeah, maybe maybe these are incredibly dangerous.
Maybe you should leave that toddler alone and front yard.
You know what I was thinking is leave it alone to figure out what's dangerous in this world. The JC Penny in Pedloma, there was a diner, a JC Penny like cafe Wow, that was basically like a small Denny's. And there was also a hair salon where my great aunt Anne used to get her hair done.
Amazing.
So you'd go shopping, she'd be getting her hair done. Everybody would meet and eat girl cheese sandwiches at the J. C.
Penny Cafe. It's a whole day. You have a whole day there.
You just give your whole life over to the J. C. Penny Corporation.
Why not? Was that it? Yeah? Oh my gosh, that's it, guys. Great job. We did it everyone. You did it. We did it. We all did it.
We found a new unit of measurement, We learned about rabid beavers.
We sure did we sur did girl If you wanted to watch this on video and see what we look like when we said these words, go join the fan called. It's a fun place to be and and it's the size of one hundred million parking spaces.
It's so many parking spaces. And I have highlighter on.
Oh yeah, you do, look at those cheek I'm pressed.
Sorry to brag, but I'm just trying to put it out there. Like you know, this is how you sell. This is how you get people signed up for stuff that they can't see. That's right, do the t's you do it, George's wallpaper.
It has to be seen to be believed. Sign up for the fan call. And I have little sharks in my shirt. Yeah, oh yeah, tiny sharks. That's really cute. And where's that modlock? Course?
Of course, did you see that news story that sharks are amassing on the East coast?
No good for them.
They're coming ashore. Everybody get ready? All right, we're done. We're done.
We're done.
Thanks everybody, Thanks, and stay sexy.
I don't get murdered. Goodbye. Hey, Elvis, do you want to cookie? This has been an exactly right production.
Our producer is Hannah Kyle, Crichton, Associate producer Alejandra Heck, engineer and mixer Steven Ray, more.
Researchers j Elias and Hailey Gray.
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