My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia HardstarkThis week’s hometowns include being interviewed by the FBI and a secret password.
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Hello, and welcome to my favorite murder the MEMI soad me mesad, because Mimi's on my lap right now drooling.
Maybe did a real good poke up from the bottom of the zoom screen like here.
Let me get her on camera for you so you can have something nice to look at rather than my something wonderful fucking face. Okay, Mimi the supermodel with her tiny, tiny mouth.
Oh pretty, Hi lady, you want to go first? Sure? Okay.
The title is I'm not going to read the subject line, which I can't believe more people haven't done.
That is fucking hilarious. Full credit to this person.
Yes, And then it says in parentheses but if I did, it would be and then it tells the whole story and it's great, hilarious, perso good, and then it just starts.
I'll be honest.
The main reason it has taken me so long to write this in is because I absolutely panic at the thought of not having a good opening line. So I'll let you use your imagination and pretend that this one was particularly fantastic.
SI, here we go.
I'll apologize in advance for being incredibly verbose, yet another reason I have procrastinated sending this someone's been using this for thorus.
I if someone got there friends aller word out.
In nineteen eighty four, my parents moved to a huge house about two blocks from the largest local high school Central. My mom was nine months pregnant with my sister, but being the badass woman she was, she still helped to move all the boxes in furniture despite it being her due date. She went into labor four days later. This isn't actually relevant to the story referenced in the subject line, but my mom is going to sound pretty neglectful in a minute, so I wanted to make sure and paint her as the strong, amazing woman she is before throwing her entirely under the bus.
Get her under there.
That says right about now, there was such a be a writer. Okay. Sometime in the upper eighties, I believe nineteen eighty seven or eighty eight, my brother asked my mom if he could walk down the street to play at his best friend's house. It was the eighties, so she said sure and waved her six or seven year old child out the door to walk down the street just so normal. Sure, and didn't expect him home until the streetlights came on. She never could have imagined that the next time the door opened it would be two police officers on the other side telling her that her son had been abducted. What okay, yeah, this gets crazy. Apparently, my big brother was walking down the street as advertised, when a woman saw him by himself and decided she had a grand opportunity to make some money. She had a knife and threaten my brother with it to get him to comply and come with her. She then needed to find a payphone so she could call my parents demand a ransom for the return of my brother, who by this time was crying. Nevertheless, she dragged my bawling brother to the closest place she could find.
The high school.
There was indeed a paythone there, but to get to it she would have to cross the practice field and get to the tennis courts on the other side of the main field. And it says for scale, this is like three city blocks. It is a huge high school, all with a screaming, crying child who was pleading with her to take him home. So fucking dramatizing, so creepy, and yeah, he even offered her his own money. Turns out, his not fully formed brain was concocting a plan to give her monopoly money in exchange for his life, which is equal parts funny and absolutely heartbreaking. Yes, as she undoubtedly shouted at him to shut up and continued dragging him to the paythone, the football team on the practice field began to notice something was wrong. I have searched high and low for an article about this, which I know exists because I've seen it, but because I can't find it, and because I hate asking my parents and brother to relive this part of their lives, I am recounting this from memory as best as I can. The football players saw my brother crying and this disheveled woman holding a knife, and correctly assumed he was in danger. They surrounded the woman and one of the players tackled her, as football players are wont to do.
I guess.
I'm not sure what part of scary lady with the small child and knife made the idea of tackling steam appealing, but that is indeed what happened.
The police recalled, probably.
Using the very payphone, she planned to ransom my brother through because eighties, and my hysterical brother relayed that he lived two blocks over and wanted to go home. Yeahuh so that is how my mother came to find out that my brother actually never made it to the neighbor's house at all. And it says because calling to make sure he arrived safely just wasn't a thing.
It wasn't so it really wasn't.
No one ever called anyone unless you had to totally.
And instead was dragged by a stranger in search of a payphone, but was luckily intercepted pun intended You're welcome Georgia by the football team, and return to my mother. My brother doesn't like to talk about this incident much, but he did surprise me once when he brought it up and credited this experience for his obsession with personal safety, slash weapons and trying to keep our families safe from harm. He has a wonderful man who would move mountains for those he loves, and he has always been there to bail me out of a few unfortunate situations. I am beyond lucky that our story didn't end in tragedy like so many others, and I am so grateful that I can find a modicum of humor in such a terrible memory. I think that is why I relate to your podcast so much. My family has always imbued humor into sadder, scary situations for better or worse. Stay sexy and make sure your kid arrives safely at their friend's house. Offer your kidnapper monopoly money. Don't offer your kidnapper monopoly money. Oh wait, I've got it. Stay sexy and let the football team rescue you.
Virginia, nice one, Virginia, Like that turned quick. That just like yeah, because in my mind, like talking about walking across that school, it was just like empty school wind is blowing, you know what I mean that the loneliest thing in the world is like an empty school totally.
And then like this one probably had mental health problems, which is so sad, but like a knife to a six or seven year old child is.
Just just no wrestle her immediately to the ges teenagers, Yeah, these brave teenagers are like.
Nope, they're not standing by. No, it's the best. Yeah, that's really wild, very lovely.
But also it's the kind of thing where it's like stuff like that happens to people. And then she's like that she's attributing his need for like to keep people safe and that and that is how bad things bring about good things like it's like now he is maybe over vigilant, but then that care and concern benefits all these people in his life.
Absolutely.
Okay, I'm not going to read you this subject line, so it just starts, Hey, Karen, Georgia and assorted animals. I'll jump right into it. My dad's family moved around a lot when he was younger due to my grandpa's job with the military. One of the places they lived when he was a little older was the Caribbean, where my dad got a job on a sailboat and became friends with the owner. Fast forward about fifteen years and my parents wanted to take their three young kids on vacation. Since they're cheapskates, they decided to take us down to belize those fucking cheap skates don't so cheap.
I don't know believes that well, but no.
We literally went to the same lake every year, don't be crazy.
And it was a drive.
It was a three hour drive, and we drove it there and back every time. A country in Central America where my dad's friend was now living, to stay with him in his wife for a couple of weeks. On one of our last days in the country. My parents took my older brother and I on a tour of Monkey River, where we were supposed to be able to see crocodiles and manatees for reference. The tour consisted of only my family and a tour guide in a little boat floating down a river and up the shore of the jungle. I guess manatees were a really big selling feature on these tours, because as our time slot was running out, our tour guide really seemed intent on finding us a manatee to take pictures of. Finally, he spotted one in the distance. However, as our little boat got closer and closer to the manatee, it became clear that it was in fact, not a manatee in the water, but a man floating face down next to a boogiey board. He was wearing a green and blue wetsuit, and he was still strapped.
To his board at his wrist.
Given that he had drowned in a kind of remote area in the jungle, we were the first ones to find him.
Oh my god.
Yeah, yeah, it says.
This was a while ago, and I don't fully remember what the tour guide said to my parents, since I was paying attention to the corpse right beside our boat. But I'm pretty sure that the tour guide knew who the man was and said that he'd been diving for oysters. At the time, the police and Belieze were pretty corrupt and had a reputation for arresting tourists for crimes they didn't commit in order to elicit bribes. So the guide told my parents not to mention the body to anyone and that he would take care of it.
Wow.
Q my parents having to explain two very important concepts to their six and eight year old children, death and that snitches get stitches. To this day, I get super stressed when going through customs since my parents absolutely forbade us from talking to any customs agent.
A six year old and an eight.
Year old, that's like a great way to just like implant trauma on top of trauma.
Yeah right, Yes, the stakes go wildly high, so our parents absolutely forbade us from talking to any customs agent when trying to leave Belize.
I also refused to swim in the ocean for.
The next couple of years because although my mom had said the man had probably passed away from a heart attack, six year old me knew deep down that.
It was sharks that had gotten him.
Sure, sharks or a giant clam that opened and enclosed, you know.
That first snap.
That was my big concern really when I was young. A giant clam.
I saw it in some weird seventies children's thing where it's like a real life swimmer and a real sized up clam.
I could picture it.
Yeah.
Well, my mom has taken my brother's and I own lots of sketchy vacations since then, most involved her flying us across the Atlantic Ocean by herself to stay for months at a time with strangers she met on the internet. And then in parentheses it says my mom is not a murder, you know, and it says that was probably one of the most memorable oh basically, so aside from that, that was probably one of the most memorable memorable trips we've been on. Thanks for making this great podcast and giving me something to do instead of studying for my college finals.
Oh no.
And then it says you've definitely knocked my GPA down a pointer or two, to which I will say, you've definitely knocked your GPA down a pointer two.
Hit stop. It's not that good. SSDGM and don't go looking for manatees. Margo, Oh my god.
Have you seen the video. I think it's in Thailand. I'm probably completely wrong about the animal in the place, but in Thailand they're these like crocodile or alligators who have these little webby fingers. And they've learned that in this river, if they land their backs and hide their body and put their hand up like they're drowning, it looks like a human is drowning, and the people jump in to save the human because they have these little fingers, and from far away it looks.
Like a hand.
They like, help me, help me. They learned that people will jump in.
And then did they attack the people and try to bite them and eat them?
Yes? Oh my god, this.
Little armhand thing. I mean, it's the creepiest, tricky, little bastard. It's nature.
This is why.
This is why, Yes, everybody's the Bible evolving the Bible.
This is fine. This is why. Okay, I guess, I guess.
We asked for people to tell to tell us they're weird childhood hobbies.
Oh good, which was fun. Yeah. Oh and you know what I feel like?
The file folder just opened and it was that one where the girl got the kit of like Sparkle of Glitter?
Number it was Balloon Animals.
Fucking balloon Animals. Wasn't there a Sparkle one too where it was just like Sparkles? I don't remember, okay anyway, Yes, but Balloon Animals was recent.
Yeah, okay, So this one's called Peanut People. Hello, all sort of day one listener. I started from the beginning in twenty eighteen, so whatever that is. Yeah, you asked for weird childhood hobbies, and I remembered mine that I think helped me figure out my career path. When I was around eight, we had this big plastic jar of shell on peanuts. It was old and stale and needed to get thrown out, kind of like those big tins of popcorn that everyone got for Christmas that eventually got emptied out and turned into trash cans.
Yeah.
Well, I'm not sure exactly how it happened, but I was feeling crafty one day and I took the peanuts and started drawing faces on them. It started off as a bit of a joke. I would carry them around in my bejeweled purse and tell my friends made up stories about the peanut people. Some laughed with me, a lot probably laughed at me. Either way, it was a hit. So I expanded on this idea.
Either way it was his. It does not track from what you just said. People are laughing. I think that's a pure hearted, lovely thing.
Is just like, sure, you know what.
The noise was there, and that's all that mattered.
Exactly. So I expanded on the idea. I created a house for the peanut people. I made walls and floors at a cardboard, painted it, and even created furniture. Oh, it was clearly more.
Than a joke to me.
I got really into building homes for the peanut people. I did the same thing, but with troll dolls. My friend and I were Yes, we built like elaborate houses for them.
That's fun.
It became a peanut village. It probably lasted a year, but the passion for designing buildings never really went away.
Oh.
So here I am twenty one years later, designing buildings at an architecture firm. Wow.
What amazing.
When people ask me what got me interested in architecture, I do not tell them, but I told you, smiley face kay as I found out in twenty eighteen at one of my first internships. The job is like any and can get pretty boring, so I have always appreciated having you guys in my ear stay sexy and throw out your stale peanuts.
Kelsey she her, Wow, I really like that.
It's not lovely.
Also, it's just like so funny for kids these days, where like literally you cannot be near peanuts, and like this the peanut allergy thing that came up, which is important and good. I'm not trying to be one of those people. Is like nobody was allergic to peanuts before. I love when comics make those generalizations. And like, she's my next door neighbor who I was just talking about. Yeah, he had such a bad peanut allergy, like he had to have an EpiPen at all times or he would his throat would close and he would die.
It's not like nobody had it. It's like nobody gave a shit. It's you sound stupid when you say that nobody had autism back then. It's like nobody cared.
It's yeah, they weren't. They weren't paying attention.
They were just like, oh you have to We're just gonna real quick, make this easy for ourselves and put you in a room somewhere and not looking to this and like, literally it was like an eleven year old that on his own, without his mom or anybody doing the work. He had to make sure he never ate a peanut. So he literally like, what's in this? I'm not like it was sad anyway, he made it. I'm a peanut peanut allergy truther and I'm here Tuesday.
Okay, I'm not going to read you the subject line.
It just starts, hello, all, I appreciate all the work you and the entire company does. Nice. Well, that's all the emotion I can handle. Based on my German family upbringing, I appreciate that nice one. So it says, let's get into the story. This last holiday trip home, I heard a casual story from my dad while watching a crime show with him. He mentioned that the FBI interviewed him once, leading me to immediately ask for the details. Back in the eighties, my dad was a nurse anesthetist, which is a specialized nurse who sedates or induces general anesthesia from medical procedures. To make extra money, he would pick up ship at a Chicago abortion clinic on the weekends. Well, this clinic happened to be run by the Chicago Mob, specifically Anthony Tony Centraccio.
Whoa right, what a name? That was kind of fun to say.
It sounded great that anesthetistic you fucking knocked it out of the work. Thank you.
It's a hard one. That's a hard one, okay.
Mostly my dad would keep to himself and do his work, so there was this wasn't a problem. Occasionally, he would be offered jewelry to buy while working there, which he politely declined, I mean he just bracelet or you want a bracelet?
Wow.
During this time, the FBI came to our house and asked him about his work the clinic, who owned it and were particularly interested in Tony sentrat you sure. My dad states that he was relatively vague about his responses, like likely a smart decision. The FBI also asked about the jewelry being offered, which my dad replied he never bought because quote, it wasn't his style. Then, instead of keeping this interview to himself, he told the mob members at the clinic that he had been interviewed, so smart, tell you immediately or it's going to seem like you fucking snitched.
Yes, you know what I mean? Yes, yes, self report.
Yeah, when working alongside or with the mob, please self report because.
You know one of those FBI agents are on the take too, and told them would have told them that they talked to him, and then they'd been like, why didn't you tell us that they talked to YadA?
That's right.
And then there's also the embedded FBI agent who isn't on the take, who's who is in the mafia overgrown as mutton chops and he's Tony Sentraccio's best friend.
Oh my god.
It think it through when you're working with the mob. Thankfully he didn't know anything of value for the mob to care about it. My dad is in his early seventies now and he still volunteers his time and service at abortion clinics. He considers it one of the ways he can give back in this questionable time, and it's a reminder that abortion rights are human rights. He is the reason both my sister and I are in the medical field and is always proud to label himself.
A girl dad.
I hope this makes at least one person smile while reading, even if it does not make it on the podcast, Stay sexy and don't buy jewelry with mop tize Rachel.
That's so beautiful, like a beautiful way to raise your daughters to be like this is what I do, and like it's totally normal and it's just my job and.
It's important.
Yeah, it's important work that has been politicized and weirdly religiousized in a way that is actually neither smart or accurate or good for our culture.
And this is science which has nothing to do with my morality or whatever the fuck you know, or my religion.
Or anybody else's belief what part of the Bible they read.
I mean, it kind of makes you love the mafia a little more, if anything.
I know you love them so much.
I really do love them, and I love Italians of course.
Okay, this one is really long. It's my last one. Oh, probably make you cry. I'm going to guess. I'm going to guess seventy five percent on Karen crying on this one.
Okay, let's see.
I'm not going to read you the title. Hey all, this is longish, but worth it. It also may make you a mote be warned.
Okay.
When my twin sister, Ashley and I were thirteen years old. She woke me up at three am on Christmas morning, sobbing in my bed, begging me not to die. I vividly remember responding immediately with ash, I'm not going to die before you. You're going to die before me. I'm the one who was to figure out how to live without my twin. This was not that abnormal for her to worry about. I come from a very large, close family and we had a few grandparents die around that time. This was also the first year we didn't share a bedroom, and she was deathly afraid of the dark. In November twenty twenty, after almost twelve years of fighting for her life st pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer, actually spent a month in a coma in a hospital in Vermont. Because it was the height of COVID, we were not allowed to see her in the hospital. Even though she was comatose, I still felt connected to her as I always have. She called it twin tuition. Every night for almost a month I went outside to angrily smoke and yell at her wherever the fuck she was. I was so angry at not being able to be with her because of COVID, and I was terrified that I would never see her again. I wouldn't get a say goodbye, which didn't seem right considering we came into this world together. I'm already fucking getting choked up. I didn't want her to leave the world alone. The entire time she was in a coma, I would yell at her, I would cry at her. I would apologize to her for yelling at her. I kept telling her, give me one more year. I know it's selfish to me, but I can't do this without you yet. I need one more year. Come on, Ash, I know you can hear me. What's the fucking word? What's the fucking password? When we were kids, we used to always joke about what we would do if one of us was cloned. We were weirdly obsessed with it. I guess being a twin is like a clone. That's gotta be a little jarring.
Yeah right, it's a discussion that you would probably want to be having.
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. How would we know who the real one was versus who the clone was? Her answer was always the same, just ask me for the password to our bedroom, because of course we had a secret password to our bedroom that only we knew. We had way too many siblings we couldn't trust with our Nintendo des At eleven oh nine am on a Wednesday in December twenty twenty, my phone rang. It was a phone number that I didn't recognize. I answered it, said hello a couple times, but heard no response until finally a scratchy, rough voice said, it's Mariah Carey. Now stop fucking yelling at me. You heard me, Britt, It's Mariah Carey, Now stop yelling.
She wo go up.
I immediately broke down and said, ash, is that you silence? About two minutes later, a nurse picked up the phone and identified herself as Mary. Mary explained that my sister had woken up from a thirty five day coma that they didn't expect her to come back from. In fact, at one point she had died and they had brought her back. She wanted to tell me that as soon as my sister woke up, they excubated her, and she kept motioning for the phone in her hospital room. When she was finally able to speak, she said, call brit. I was her healthcare agent or next to kin, and was always her main contact during any hospital stay. You hadn't guessed it yet Mariah Carey was the password to our childhood bedroom. My sister and I definitely had like if you come back as a ghost, like, do this one thing and that's how I'll know it's you.
Yeah.
I don't remember what it was, but make a plan. Yeah you better call her and reset that plan.
Shit, you're right.
Yeah, she heard me, and she came back for me. She gave me one more year, and I'm so grateful that she did. She journaled, wrote personal letters to her family, land, friends, and most importantly, to her son Jordan. We lost Ashley April eighth, twenty twenty two. I'm glad she's not in pain, and I'm glad she didn't resent me for begging her to give me that year. I love her and miss her so fucking much every second of every day. The connection that twins share is very special, and I feel very lucky to experience it, as I feel closer to her now than when she was on this planet. I love you, ash and I'll see you soon. Stay sexy, and don't forget the password.
Oh, Brittany, Yeah, we got me. I think me too.
Let me sit in my emotions. Where do you feel? It's just really fielding your body, like, oh my god.
It's a tightness in the throat and the chest. It is and I kind of.
We all come in and go out alone and it is hard.
But there's more maybe, but there's.
There's I think there.
I think they just proved it these two these Why am I so far back away from the micro.
You're hard leaning, Like there's a that was a little bit of a there's proof of that humans can do more.
If twins can do it, that means eventually regular people will be.
Able to do it, right, Like there is a high note and we're just like ours is here, but it's still there.
But it's also that thing of like what a lucky thing that it actually worked and that there was a little more time, especially knowing that she had kids.
Yeah, she saw I'm Mariah Carey, stop yelling at me, like, oh what the fuck?
So so she that's a good tip of like maybe you can bug people out of comas just irritating.
Yeah, and like if she could talk to her in a coma and annoy her, she can talk to her from the great beyond. I believe that, you know, though I don't believe in jack shit. I'm a fucking nihilist. I think she can go out there, have an angry smoke and just be like girl.
Yeah, and there's a connection there, I think, so I do. I think people can do it now, Like, did you listen to the telepathy tapes that podcast?
Oh? Yeah?
No?
Oh It's like, hold on, I'm not write this down.
I keep seeing clips on TikTok so and it's basically like the clips are amazing, but it almost feels like it's about a documentary. So I'm like, oh, I need to actually just sit down and listen to this podcast. So I'm recommending it Blined based on TikTok But it's like basically studies where the theory is kids with different kinds of autism have the ability to have telepathic connection with their caretaker woo, so if they're nonverbal, they can still communicate.
Absolutely.
I totally believe that.
That's incredible.
Yeah, I down, I'm going to listen.
That's it.
Yeah, yeah, listen, I will too. Okay, you have one more, right, I do?
Okay.
The subject line of this email is parents' house. Home phone number was one digit off from the funeral home.
Hello, Oh.
We had a dentist, so we had the dentist one.
Oh yeah, that's right, that's right.
Hello all, longtime listener, first time writing in. I've been waiting for years to have a good hometown story to share, and after hearing MINNESOD four sixteen about the girl whose home phone was mistaken for a doctor's office, I knew it was finally my time. I grew up in a small town in Ohio in the early two thousands. During this time, a new funeral home opened in town, and their phone number was just one digit off from my parents' home phone. For years, we got calls from people trying to reach the funeral home. It happened so often that my parents changed their answering machine message to clarify, if you're trying to call the funeral home, you've dialed the wrong number.
Because they're crying, probably too so that they can't even see the phone number correctly or dial it correctly.
Oh oh my god, it's like the worst moment to be in charge of, like that kind.
Of excular function. Shit, yeah, exactly, fur.
My mom did her best to explain the mistake to the callers, but it wasn't easy. Many people insisted they had the right number. She ended up as an unofficial, unpaid secretary for the funeral home, taking messages and calling them herself to pass them along.
That's so nice.
The funeral home thought it was funny and even told her if anyone ever calls for a body pickup, let us know right away. We got all kinds of calls. An elderly woman crying about her husband's headstone, questions about visiting hours, and more. My mom had the hardest time convincing people they'd call a private residence. One time, the owner of the funeral home himself popped up on our caller ID. My mom answered hello and was immediately met with him yelling that's not how you answer the phone or a professional business. You use the business maid without there he must have been joking, that's psychotic. And then she said, without missing a beat, if you're so professional, shouldn't you know your own phone number? You called a private residence. He quickly apologized and hung up, clearly mortified.
So he did me though, as in like ex receptionist secretary, I was like, yeah, he meant that.
I've been yelled at that before.
For sure. I literally would have typed up an invoice for my time. Yeah, and then been like, oh, if you're going to yell at me like I'm in your employee, you can pay me like an employee.
There's been there were so many times I'd pick up the phone and forget, like what work, I like where I was? Because I was a temp all the time. I'd be like, fuck, I can't remember.
Ummm okay.
Over the years, the calls happened less and less, and thankfully my parents haven't received one in a long time. Say sexy and double chats the number before you hit call, Jess.
S Oh that's good. Do you think things like that happen less and less?
Because I I just gonna say that, Yeah, the blue is like the number is blue and google whatever, Like.
When I was the last time, You're like, now you're the wrong number. I haven't said that in fucking years.
Yeah, yeah, that's right. That's I love I love that.
That's like such a great party story.
You know, yes it is.
It's like, hey, remember only forty years ago, but that also is so long ago, it's one hundred and ninety years ago.
Send us your store, your hometown stories of your party stories. When things get slow and you got to share an anecdote that's like, yeah, at a little raunchy, but not too because you don't know if like there's religious people there or what you know.
Yeah, something that's like family friendly, either raunchy or just interesting, like do you have a memory about your family's landline, like the phone that hung in the kitchen before everybody had their own individual phone. Totally, there was so much fighting at my house about get off the phone. I'm not paying for that phone call. And then when Pacific Bell did their like nineteen eighty six update and there was call waiting and there was call forwarding, and it was like.
Remember what year that? Like, it was so exciting, it was it was epic.
Then you could no one could tell you get off the phone because there's call waiting.
Call waiting was fucking incredible or whatever. Story at my Favorite Murder at Gmail, we'll take anything. There's also a mini minisode on the fan cult if you want one more story from each of us, and they're all still there, so it's not just one, it's like years of mini minisode.
Fucking literal, almost a decade of these.
Yeah, So go to my Favorite Murder dot com and join the fan phone.
Yes, do all that on then stay sexy and don't get murdered. Good Goodbye, Elvis.
Do you want a cookie?
This has been an exactly right production.
Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck.
Our editor is Aristotle Asceveda.
This episode was mixed by Leona Squalacci.
Emailing your hometowns to My Favorite Murder at gmail dot com.
And follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at my Favorite Murder. Goodbye
