00:00:00
This is exactly right. Isn't some far off concept? It's already here. Next starts now.
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Hyundai, an official partner of FIFA. Goodbye. Hello and welcome to My Favorite Murder.
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That's Georgia Hardstart. That's Karen Kilgariff. And this is... 2026. I mean...
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I was going to say, like, this is our ceramics display. Oh, we're just going right...
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Yeah. It just feels weird to be back. But let's... And so let's do something weird.
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We have to point out the elephant in the room. Because that's all anyone's looking at anyway.
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If they're looking, though. Some people might just be listening. Listen, listeners.
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You need to start looking. We told you that years ago. Look and listen. That's what we've been saying.
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We built it into the beginning of the podcast before we even knew we were doing video.
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Basically, next week, I was going to say tomorrow, but it's next week. What is time?
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Is our 10-year anniversary episode. 10 years. Which is fucking crazy. Wild as hell.
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So crazy that we haven't even finished talking about the gifts we got from the nine-year anniversary, which was a year ago.
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A year ago, and we got so many beautiful, lovely, handmade ceramic gifts. Right.
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We thought it would be like a couple people who could throw some clay would be like, sure.
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We were inundated with beautiful art. And it's funny because so nine-year anniversary is ceramics, obviously.
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Ten years, like tinfoil. What is it? It's tin. It's so boring. That's like we have to like finish this up and not ask for tinfoil.
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Please send us as much Reynolds Wrap as you can. On Reynolds Wrap, if you're out there, if you're looking and listening, please.
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Oh, we're using the name brand. Yeah. Okay. That's right. Okay. That's good. Because Reynolds Wrap, the time of our lives.
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Let's get these out of the way really quickly. And then nine years is over. And then let's stop talking about it and just wrap it up.
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This is a ceramic. In Reynolds Wrap. This is a ceramic Siamese, like vintage cat with an incredible necklace on it that I'm obviously obsessed with.
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When I first saw that, I was like, they made the whole thing. And it's like, no, Karen, they just made the necklace.
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Like, it's a ceramics thing. No. Obviously. Here's what they did. Oh, you got the full story?
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It's Jordan from J. Max Ceramics, J-M-A-C Ceramics, who found a mold from the 1970s of this cat from someone's garage.
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They found it. They found hundreds of molds because they do ceramics. Oh, right.
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So it's new vintage. So the mold is vintage. The clay is new. The cat is new. And I didn't know you could do that.
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You could make your own. That's when you really care about ceramics. Right. And Jordan also looked at the markings to make sure that they were correct to Elvis.
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So this is like the only one that I have that's cross-eyed. Do you want to process these feelings?
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Because that's like a tribute almost. That's beautiful. I don't know if I can process that.
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Yeah, you shouldn't do it on the show. Feelings are hard for me. It'll take a while.
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But feelings are great content. Yeah, this is, hey, listeners, this is why you got to look, because you should see this.
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This cat is so beautifully made. Oh, my God. It's so cool looking. It's perfect.
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Can we put it right? Let's put it on that. What a lovely gift. What if I break it?
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What if I break it? And then Jordan also made you dog bowls. Oh, my God. Those dog bowls are gorgeous.
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So that's really, really cool. So Jordan from J Max Ceramic has been probably waiting a year and been like, look, I fucking
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did what you guys asked. Not only did I do what you asked, but I broke into people's garages and got these molds that they don't use anymore.
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That really is art. That's incredible. Okay. What do you have to share with the class?
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Well, these are incredible. So this was sent in by Keiko Inoue from Keiko Pots on Instagram.
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How do you spell that? K-E-I-K-O-P-O-T-S. Got it. And these are stacking Mothman mugs with this beautiful artwork.
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I guess we should really very heavily describe this to the listeners. Right. So these are beautiful beige ceramic stacking hippie coffee mugs with no handles.
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So it's like you're just supposed to take your dandelion tea and stand at the window.
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Yeah. Put your both hands around the mug like you just went through something. Yeah.
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But the funny thing is they stack and make a whole Mothman. But the top part is the face.
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So who do you give the crotch of the Mothman to? To someone you hate or someone you love?
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I think it depends on what you're into. Okay. Because take it apart. It's a crotch.
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That one has a crotch on it. And then the top just looks like a sneaky little Mothman peeking over like a fence.
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Sneaky cute Mothman with two middle fingers up and then crotchman. Well, and more so, this mug on the back very lightly has etched into it by B-Y-E.
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On the bottom, it says bitches. Oh, perfect. So, you know, there is a real high, low, above, below situation happening with the stacking.
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That's what art's all about. Who are you? Are you up here? Are you down here? Drink out of that mug that day.
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This is amazing. I really love this one. I was excited when I saw that I think that go up for sure But I really was confused when I saw this next one which I thought someone just sent us in a butterfly where it like you got the assignment wrong
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It looks like a pinned moth, a beautiful pinned, like real dead moth or butterfly in the middle of a frame.
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Yes. But it's fucking made of ceramics. Ceramics. So it's like I honestly thought it was like you guys didn't get it.
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Here's the I'll just read this email fast. This is from Noelle and Lisa. And it says,
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You've inspired both of us in countless ways. Here's to transformation, community, and art.
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I love that. SSDGM, Noelle and Lisa. And then just the most intricate, beautiful, small, symbolic butterfly.
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I thought it would be a moth because you like moths. Like, that's all it meant. But that's actually, like, really beautiful.
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It's really poetic. And thank you, Noelle and Lisa. That's so thoughtful. We're looking forward to what you make out of tinfoil.
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Yeah. Good luck beating the moth. Okay, so this last one, you don't have the paper on because I wanted to surprise you.
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Okay. Okay, this one is, so you can see it's like an SSDGM stained glass hot dog mustard thing.
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A hot dog stained glass window piece. Yes, and this is from Allora at Down the Line Design.
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And it says, hello, everyone. I am a stained glass artist out of Colorado. I've been wanting to do these pieces for a long time now and finally made time for it.
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I hope they arrive safely and fill your heart with joy. So it's not ceramics, but I'm going to let it happen anyways.
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Hell yeah. Because I want to show you what else. They made this cool SSD GM one, but Elora also made.
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Close your eyes. Okay. Okay. Look. Oh, my God. Dead pets. Dead pets. Stained glass.
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Stained glass dead pets. Wait a second. And that looks, they have the look of our pets.
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Exactly. It's so wild. Look at this. I know. That's the cream. When you turn it around, they just have dead eyes.
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That's how it is. Oh, my God. Yeah. So Elvis and Georgia's stained glass pieces and they're fucking beautiful.
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So beautiful. So I guess that's what Allura does. Allura says, I had a corndog piece go viral, selling many of them.
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I don't have any interesting hometowns, but I live in Denver. So insert any story from there.
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There's a lot. And oh, I see the eyes are hand painted. That's why they're all white and then painted the eye color.
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So gorgeous. I mean, people, we have so many of these items. We should just go through them, you know, just keep on going through them.
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There's so many amazing things. Totally. So thank you guys for the last year, for our nine-year anniversary.
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We have a year to say thank you, right? Yes, I think so. So thank you for those.
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We treasure all of them, the ones we haven't talked about, we've seen, and we fucking love them all.
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Incredible. I mean, this is just a drop in the ocean of the great stuff we've got.
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All right. What a way to come back from a nice long break. It's been a long break. It's so weird to be back. How was your break?
00:09:19
It was lovely. As I usually do on break, when I go home, stay with my dad. He watches football with the football pipe directly into his hearing aids.
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And I sit next to him looking at TikTok. And then when there's a good play, he stops, rewinds it and says, look at this run.
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And then I have to talk to him about football. Like, I understand what we're talking about.
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And, like, I'm super into it. And every time by the end of the trip, I am into it.
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Do you go stop? You need to see this TikTok ever? I do. I actually, I just text him the TikTok.
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Oh, so he can watch it now. Yeah. So if I start laughing really hard, he, sometimes it'll pull him out.
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So he'll be like, what's going on? And then I'll be like, I'm so young. So it's a very weird, we've gotten our modern language down.
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Love it. A little bit. That's how it is now. It's really relaxing, too. Boomers and Gen X, like this is how we connect with our parents.
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TikTok can build a bridge. TikTok can football. Yeah, we can do this. It's a language all to itself.
00:10:17
How was your trip? I mean, how was your break? It was good. We planned on going so many places and then just ended up staying home and it was fucking amazing.
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I have a New Year's resolution, which I don't normally have. Let's hear it. Okay.
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This is my plan. And I started last month and I'm fucking, this is it. I'm making decisions now and doing the hard things now.
00:10:37
my point is to help future Georgia. Great. So I'm saying no to things now, even though it's hard in
00:10:42
the moment, because me in two years isn't going to go, why didn't I fucking do it then? If I had
00:10:48
said no then, instead, I'm going to go back and say thank you to myself now for fucking dealing
00:10:54
with it in the moment, even though it was uncomfortable and hard. Amazing. So future
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fucking me, life's going to be easier for her and a little harder for me, but it's worth it.
00:11:03
A little harder in the beginning, but then easier the second you start. Totally. Right. Yeah. I did the same, not the same resolution, but started my resolution because I was like, I just have to do more stuff so that my life isn't just work. And there's just like the expansion of just kind of lots of experiences. So I made my sister because everybody went out of town. So our usual hang people were all gone. And it was just me and Laura and Nora. And so on New Year's, of course, Nora had a party. And so I was like, you and I are going to do something.
00:11:35
And she's like, I don't want to do anything. I'm like, I know, but we're going to do it anyway.
00:11:40
So there was basically a Tom Petty cover band playing at the local theater. And so we're like, let's go see it.
00:11:47
Yeah. So we buy tickets and we go to the pub next door and eat dinner and we're hanging out.
00:11:53
Amazing. The show starts at 9 It 9 The band starts And I go oh my God there an opening band And my sister goes no that them And I go this is a New Year Eve show And I go there no way that the actual band
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And she goes, it is. And she's like, I've gone to shows there before. It's the real band.
00:12:11
I'm like, but they have to fill time until midnight. And she's like, it's the band.
00:12:15
But we were like fighting about it because I was like, there's just no way that's how it would go.
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And we basically sat there like talking and laughing or whatever. and it was over at 10 and we never went.
00:12:25
Yeah, that's what adults want to do, right? I was like, wait, do we have to get up and run in there now?
00:12:31
Because they started literally on time. Yeah. Like, who does that? People who want to be home by midnight and in bed by midnight.
00:12:38
Yeah, I really had my weird L.A. goggles on where I was like, dude, this thing starts at 11.15.
00:12:44
And she's like, I'm telling you they don't. Nobody wants to be listening to music all the way through midnight.
00:12:49
Ew. Everyone wants to go home. Yeah. You have a podcast? you want to talk about?
00:12:53
Okay, so I had to do the drive again. Yeah. Because the dogs came. Okay. And I listened to Beth's Dead.
00:13:00
What a cool thing to listen to those guys talk through the other side of an experience like that.
00:13:06
It's like everybody's heard about, like, that kind of stuff and then the after effect.
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But it's like you always get it from the one perspective. And it's like the people who went through it
00:13:18
and are like, this is what we went through and we're going to tell you all about it.
00:13:22
Yeah. It was just so cool and so personal. Yeah. Isn't Elizabeth Lane wonderful?
00:13:26
It's just like she and Monica are just like such lovely people. Also, they were so smart.
00:13:31
It's like they weren't out to get anybody. They wanted answers. So it wasn't about it wasn't witch hunty and they handled everything really well.
00:13:39
This is an interesting parallel because this is a podcast called Undercover of Night.
00:13:45
And I literally just found it on like the iTunes homepage. And I was like, oh, I forgot to pick something.
00:13:52
I'll just pick this. And it's about a woman who is found dead in a small town in Texas.
00:14:00
And there's all these strange circumstances around her life and around her home. She lives in a tiny
00:14:06
Texas town, but she has a British accent. People know her, but not well. They find stuff in her
00:14:11
house that people suddenly start drawing conclusions. And essentially, I think one of the
00:14:17
like log lines that they say is if people found you dead and they just saw what was around you,
00:14:23
what would they think about you? Or what could they like come up with about you? And so it's
00:14:29
these podcasters who are like journalists and researchers who are just trying to get answers
00:14:35
and like compare. Because they're just like a mystery of who this person is and they die?
00:14:39
And it's like locals who had to deal with it who then told stories based on things that were found
00:14:45
in the house. Do they figure it out? Yes. Okay. And it's so compelling. It's so well done. And
00:14:52
it's the same thing where it's like that idea of like having an idea and running with it. Yeah.
00:14:57
And then here comes the researcher fact journalist person or whatever to be like,
00:15:02
well, that actually doesn't track with what we knew from before. Oh, I love it. Okay. What's it
00:15:06
called again? Undercover of Night. Undercover of Night. And it's just basically how mysterious
00:15:10
a woman alone who dies is. Yeah. And she gets murdered? Well, they're not sure. They're not sure.
00:15:17
It's suspicious circumstances to the people who find her. Okay. And so that's the whole thing.
00:15:22
Okay. And it's really good. Okay. And really well done. I'm in. I love it. Yeah.
00:15:27
All right. Should we do the first 2026 highlights of the Exactly Right Network? I think we should.
00:15:34
Okay. We have a podcast network. It's called Exactly Right Media. Here are some highlights.
00:15:38
Well, we have a brand new podcast, a legal podcast called Brief Recess, and host Michael and Melissa, this week, they break down the Getty Art Museum curators' alleged conspiracy to receive stolen goods, ongoing threats to trans rights through the Chiles v. Salazar case that's going on right now, and an unfortunate update involving J.K. Rowling that's probably connected to that.
00:16:02
Yeah. And then on Do You Need a Ride? Hey. Chris and Karen, welcome back comedian and musician Henry Phillips.
00:16:08
one of the funniest people. Just one of the greatest. They cover awkward celebrity encounters,
00:16:13
alien invasions, and more. His awkward celebrity encounter is so hilarious. I'm sure because he's
00:16:18
so awkward to begin with. And so funny. Also, if you don't know Henry Phillips, he had a viral
00:16:24
video called You and Your Fucking Mug of Coffee. That was one of my favorite things because it was
00:16:29
like he would walk around with a giant mug of coffee and like the first one is he's at a voting
00:16:34
booth and he's just spilling coffee everywhere. And I was absolutely that person with the mug of
00:16:39
coffee I couldn't control. Oh, my God. He's the greatest. He's so good. Also on the podcast,
00:16:44
My Favorite Murder, if you're craving more of our content in the new year, then you need to go over
00:16:49
to the Fan Cult because they've got you covered. You get all the episodes of this show ad-free,
00:16:54
merch store discounts, exclusive video content, and much, much more. So go to fancult.supercast.com to join the Fan Cult.
00:17:01
That's right. And please do not forget to follow My Favorite Murder on Instagram and TikTok so you never miss all the clips, polls, and important announcements we share.
00:17:10
Like breaking pet news, Frank has arthritis. I mean, does everybody know that? I think they need to.
00:17:16
It's 2026. It's time to know important details. So you can find all of our socials on linktr.ee slash myfavoritemurder.
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Quince.com slash MFM. Goodbye. All right. You go first. All right. Well, I'm going to start 2026 by irritating the shit out of you with a cold case.
00:18:54
Perfect. You know I love a cold case. I feel like this one can be solved. Paul Holes has opinions about it, too, so you know it's important.
00:19:02
Did you call him on the phone? No, he has done—he's talked about it in the past.
00:19:07
I don't know if I agree with him. I'll just say that right now. I don't want to start a fight with Paul Holes.
00:19:10
Yes, beef with Paul Holes in 2026. Why not? I just don't think—I don't think he's right.
00:19:15
Well, I mean, what does he know? He's just a 35-year investigator. Right? Look at me. I'm a 10-year fucking podcaster, bitch.
00:19:26
I don't mean bitch as in he's, I mean, like. You're playing a character. Yeah, like as a figure of speech.
00:19:32
Okay. So this is a cold case double homicide that rocked two Missouri families in 1980.
00:19:37
It's one of those cases that are always on the lists of like unsolved cases that can be solved or that have weird clues in them.
00:19:45
So this is a story of the cold case murders of Rose Burkert and Roger Atkinson. And the main sources used for the story is a book by Atkinson's widow, whose name is Marcella Lynn Hatcher Atkinson, called Axed.
00:19:57
And the rest of the sources can be found in the show notes. So it's Saturday, September 13th, 1980.
00:20:04
And we're in Williamsburg, Iowa, right outside a place called the Amana Colonies.
00:20:11
Ever heard of it? Me neither. The Amana Colonies are seven villages that were originally founded by German immigrants in the 1950s.
00:20:18
specifically as a religious group that had broken with the Lutheran church. 1950s?
00:20:24
Yeah, what did I say? No, 1850s. It was like, were they all like astronauts and stuff?
00:20:31
So recently. That's a reason for a colony. Yeah, I know it is. That's neither here nor there because we are outside room 260 at the Amana Holiday Inn,
00:20:42
and the housekeeper isn't getting a response as she knocks at the room's door. The couple in the room should have been checked out at this point, but no one has seen them.
00:20:51
The housekeeper can hear the TV on in the room, but after a minute goes by with no one answering, she goes inside.
00:20:57
When she enters the room, first she's in this little hallway where you can see into like the end of the room, not the bed.
00:21:05
And you can also see the entrance to the bathroom on one side. And so she sees several belongings strewn all over the floor in front of the bed.
00:21:12
And once she rounds that little corner, and it's like this total 80s, 70s, 80s hotel room, and can see the bed, she sees two lifeless bodies, a man and a woman, and lots of blood.
00:21:25
She calls her boss and the police. So the couple had registered at the front desk as Mr. and Mrs. Roger Burkert.
00:21:31
But this is kind of just half true. When the police arrive, it's determined that the people are Rose Burkert, who is 22, and Roger Atkinson, who is 32.
00:21:42
They're not a married couple, but Roger is actually married to someone else, a woman named Marcella Atkinson, who goes by Marcy.
00:21:52
That actual couple, Marcy and Roger, live in St. Joseph, Missouri. So that's 200 to 220 miles away, like a four-hour drive, let's say.
00:22:03
And the two of them have been together since Marcy was 15 years old and since Roger was 18.
00:22:07
So high school sweethearts, they've been married a very long time. They don't have any kids, which Marcy will later talk about being due to her having endometriosis.
00:22:16
And it had been a very painful, you know, subject in their marriage. Roger works as a telephone installer, but he's also a beloved Sunday school teacher in the church.
00:22:26
And then Rose, the 22-year-old who's found in the bed, is also from St. Joseph. But she and Roger's wife, Marcy, have never met.
00:22:35
So Marcy has no idea who this woman is. Rose has a two-year-old daughter named Rachel whose dad isn't in the picture.
00:22:42
And she works as a nursing aide at a nursing home, but she's also about to go back to school full time to become a nurse.
00:22:49
So it looks, of course, as if Roger and Rose had been having an affair. At the time the murders first happened, Marcy is deeply in grief and asks that people not pass judgment on her husband and Rose,
00:23:00
saying they could have been in a motel together for any number of reasons. But as time passes, it does seem to be clear even to her that they were having an affair.
00:23:10
So much later, when Marcy writes a book about the case, she talks about how she and Roger had been struggling in their marriage and how he had had several affairs.
00:23:19
But as of the moment that their bodies are found and the case is developing, the families of both victims remain more focused on their own grief and wanting the case solved than they do on this affair.
00:23:30
I mean, what an awful feeling to be like your husband's dead and with another woman in a hotel room 200 miles away.
00:23:36
It's just it's your whole life falls apart in probably every way it could. Everything you believe in is not true.
00:23:43
And gone. Yeah. Totally. So from what people can piece together, on Wednesday, two days before she was killed, Rose had left her daughter in the care of a friend and had traveled from St.
00:23:54
Joseph to Cahoka, Missouri, where she had met Roger. They checked into a motel. As a married couple, Roger had told his wife, Marcy, that he'd be on a two-week work assignment in Cahoka without any time off.
00:24:08
And that's just, he was going to be gone. It seems that Rose hadn't planned on being with him that entire two weeks.
00:24:14
She'd only arranged for her daughter to be cared for through the weekend. So two days later on Friday, the couple then drives about an hour and a half north to Williamsburg, Iowa, and they check into this Holiday Inn.
00:24:26
The hotel had actually been booked solid because of Mortician's convention in town, which is so creepy.
00:24:32
Yeah. Well, they have to meet, too. They do. Somewhere. But there had been one cancellation in the hotel, and Rose and Roger are assigned to that.
00:24:43
They get the room. It's room 260. So it's just weird because it doesn't seem like anyone knew they were going to be there because they didn't even plan the trip, really.
00:24:52
Like, it's hours away from where they had first met. Hours away from their hometown.
00:24:58
They hadn't made a reservation. They weren't even supposed to be able to get a room.
00:25:02
Someone canceled to get the room. Does that mean someone was following them? Someone was following them or was just like a chance encounter?
00:25:09
Yeah. Just someone just found victims there. Yeah. You know what I mean? And if they hadn't gone there, like would the person in room 260 have been killed anyways or would they have been killed?
00:25:20
You know, it's just kind of that thing. It seems like they'd been followed, right?
00:25:23
I mean, that was the first thing that popped into my head. Also, do you think that room 260 was on the second floor?
00:25:28
Yes. And it was also inside the hotel. Like you couldn't get it wasn't like it faced the street and the doors face the street.
00:25:34
It was like you had to go into the hotel. Yeah. To get to the door. Ooh. Right. Yeah.
00:25:39
So the hotel staff say that the couple ordered room service. They moved their car at one point and some calls were placed from to and from the room.
00:25:49
That's the information they have. There was a call from Rose to the babysitter when she first arrived at 740.
00:25:55
And then this babysitter called back. And then a third call was placed to the room.
00:26:00
But we don't really know any details about where this call came from. So we're back to the morning of the 13th after the police are summoned to the hotel.
00:26:07
And this is what they find. There had been no forced entry into the hotel room. But, you know, someone could have had a key.
00:26:14
Right. And the room could only be accessed from inside the hotel, as I said. The key thing is weird, too, because it was an actual key.
00:26:23
So anyone who had stayed there before could just make a copy of it, right? It wasn't like it is now where you swipe something to get in and they change it every time.
00:26:30
But then that would be premeditated in a way where it'd be like, so they just wanted to do that in that room?
00:26:36
Yeah. We don't know. Or they knew who this person was and they let them in or they knocked and they let them in.
00:26:42
Who knows? Rose and Roger are found on the bed with the covers pulled up all the way on Rose's side and halfway up on Roger's side.
00:26:50
So the top half of his body is uncovered. The covers are saturated with blood. Rose is wearing all her clothes.
00:26:57
And Roger is only in his boxer shorts and both are laying face down. It sounds similar to like a Golden State killer when he would attack couples.
00:27:06
It just sounds like that to me. Both have been hit multiple times in the back of the head by something like an axe or a hatchet.
00:27:14
Investigators believe the weapon has a three-inch blade. They don't find the weapon.
00:27:19
Roger's missing several fingers, likely defensive wounds. I know. Though most of the wounds are at the back of the head, both Rose and Roger have multiple other wounds on the top halves of their bodies.
00:27:32
There's blood sprayed on the headboard and on the floor next to the bed. It's just a really awful scene.
00:27:38
Rose and Roger's belongings are scattered all over the floor. It's a big mess. Roger's wallet has been gone through and some money, maybe around $200, is missing.
00:27:49
A partial fingerprint is recovered from the couple's belongings. And so here's the weird couple weird pieces of evidence.
00:27:56
So a chair had been pulled up to the bed as if someone were sitting there talking to them while they were in bed or just watching them after they killed them.
00:28:05
They pulled up a chair and sat down either before or after. And underneath this chair, aside from the person having gone through Roger's wallet and there's cards everywhere, the person took a bar of soap and had been like cutting at it.
00:28:20
What's it called when you? Whittling it? Carving. Yeah, carving and whittling a bar of soap.
00:28:25
So just sitting there doing that, which is so menacing. And this was 1980? Yeah.
00:28:30
Sorry, but there was a commercial for Irish Spring back then. where they cut soap in the commercial.
00:28:37
Do you remember that? I do, even though I shouldn't because I was a baby. Well, I probably ran for a long time.
00:28:42
But it was the thing. That's really, really weird and horrifying. What a weird, like, what kind of person has that as a, like, hobby whittling thing?
00:28:53
Like, whittling soap? Well, what? I don't think whittling soap is a hobby. You don't think so?
00:28:58
Like, do they make, I think they made something out of it. Or is it just like you do it to do it?
00:29:03
To me, it seems like knife play where it's like it's threatening. Intimidating. It's like and you like having a knife.
00:29:10
So there are different things you can do with it. Probably don't have like a block of wood there.
00:29:14
Right. So it seems like it's something you would do while they were alive to intimidate them.
00:29:19
I mean, maybe or like who knows. OK. So then the person, most likely the perpetrator, uses this piece of soap that he whittled to write a message on the back of the bathroom door.
00:29:29
so it's only visible when light hits the door unfortunately the person wiped almost the whole
00:29:36
message off but you can see one word left behind it just says this i mean that's like a horror
00:29:44
movie like that kind of thing of like there's a message that reminds me of it's in seven right
00:29:49
where it's like you flip the picture over and there's a thing written there yes that you can
00:29:52
only see in black light that wow yeah so that fucking menacing and creepy there a lot more evidence in the bathroom as well The sink and one of the white bathroom towels are both visibly stained with blood And a tube of toothpaste has been squirted into the bathtub and into the sink So someone the person then picked up the toothpaste squirted it made a mess all over the bathroom And this is part of what Paul Hull theory is which I get to shortly Toothpaste What does that mean to you that they did that They just wanted to make a mess
00:30:23
I mean, if they were kind of out of their minds and doing stuff and in there, right?
00:30:27
If they're like looking for stuff or grabbing shit on the wall, making a mess. It's just hard to say.
00:30:34
It's like mayhem kind of. Mayhem, but then also or if they're a full psychopath that just everything's very calm and they're, you know.
00:30:41
Yeah. Or purposely misleading the police to be like, this means nothing, but they're going to think it's a clue.
00:30:48
Yeah. But that feels less likely the further back we go in time because I feel like people do stuff like that because they've been informed over the years by TV shows and entertainment.
00:30:59
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So here are some theories. Let's get to those. It sounds like the affair between Roger and Rose was possibly developing into more than just a fling.
00:31:09
People around their hometown of St. Joseph knew about the affair. Marcy, the wife, would later learn from her pastor, no less, that Roger had become really
00:31:18
attached to Rose's two-year-old daughter. So people, of course, looked at Marcy pretty quickly, at the wife, as you do.
00:31:27
Why did the pastor know? Did he, like, go talk to his pastor about it? Yeah, probably.
00:31:32
Sounds like it, right? So Marcy files a wrongful death suit against the Holiday Inn, saying that the hotel didn't
00:31:40
provide adequate security and that this contributed to Rogers' death. That lawsuit is ultimately
00:31:46
settled out of court, and both parties agree to keep some of that settlement private. I wonder if
00:31:51
there's also details about the evidence in the case that they didn't want getting out there.
00:31:55
So she gets the settlement from that, and then she also is able to secure a double indemnity
00:32:00
life insurance payout from various insurance companies that they had life insurance with,
00:32:05
totaling $140,000 in 1980, which in today's money... $350,000? $550,000. Wow. Yeah.
00:32:14
Half a million dollars is a lot of money. Yeah. However, like that could just be what couples do sometimes.
00:32:20
I don't know. Yeah. It doesn't necessarily mean anything. Yeah. Like people die and that happens all the time.
00:32:25
So it doesn't really mean anything. And she does have an alibi. She'd been babysitting for a couple that was out of town when this happened.
00:32:31
And again, this is hours away from their hometown. So she couldn't have gone up and back, but maybe she hired someone to maybe she was pissed off, you know.
00:32:41
And then I think they kind of stopped paying attention to her as a suspect because she has an alibi.
00:32:46
It doesn't seem like they could have any evidence. But also there are other theories that are compelling as well.
00:32:50
So another possibility is that the killer could have been an ex-boyfriend of Rose's who had apparently been stalking her in the weeks leading up to the murder.
00:32:58
On September 9th, right before she left to go on this trip with Roger, Rose had told a friend two things.
00:33:05
That if anything ever happened to her, she wanted one of her brothers to raise her daughter.
00:33:09
And then if anything happened to her, it would have been her ex who did it. So that's not something you say lightly and then days later you're murdered.
00:33:16
Right. And possibly followed to that location. Yes. And that seems like the most plausible explanation, right?
00:33:23
But then investigators see some chilling similarities between this case and a murder that happened just three months earlier.
00:33:31
And it seems like maybe they stopped pursuing that lead because of this really weird, confusing similarity of this murder.
00:33:40
So on June 25th, 1980, in Galesburg, Illinois, which is about 130 miles away from where we were, like a two hour drive, a man named William Kyle Jr. had been killed in a hotel room and his wounds had been similar.
00:33:57
Police believe that an axe or hatchet had been the murder weapon in that case as well.
00:34:01
And in addition to this, a tube of toothpaste had been squeezed out at the foot of the bed.
00:34:07
That's weird. That's fucking weird. That's really specific. Yeah, we're not talking about years and across the country difference.
00:34:14
Right. Like proximity and time, close. Yeah. So the question is, is squirting a tube of toothpaste meaningful in some way that we don't understand?
00:34:23
And that's where Paul Holes comes in. Oh. Because ultimately the murder of William Kyle Jr. is circumstantially linked to a man named Raimundo Esparza, who can be placed in the area at the time near the hotel.
00:34:38
Esparza was a vagrant and was addicted to heroin. And that's a known fact, although, you know, that's just a circumstantial tie into this murder.
00:34:46
The detail is important of the heroin addiction because of the stolen money, but also because of the toothpaste, which was present at both crimes.
00:34:55
So in 2019, on the oxygen show The DNA of Murder, Paul Holes says that he learned that heroin addicts experiencing erectile dysfunction will sometimes squeeze out a tube of toothpaste to simulate ejaculation and experience sexual gratification, which they can't get because of the issues with erectile dysfunction around heroin addiction.
00:35:18
I have never heard that. I looked it up online. I tried to find that as like any kind of information that like pointed in that direction.
00:35:26
Yeah, but I feel like that's more the psychological approach as opposed to it wouldn't necessarily be online because that would be more of like this is, you know, you're equating one to the other.
00:35:38
So it's like you're trying to do the thing that's similar to the feeling. Right. So they're not saying heroin addicts do that all the time.
00:35:43
They're saying that could be one reason why that was done. Could be. Yeah. Yeah. Just looking for some sort of the why of it.
00:35:51
Maybe you don't have me disagree with Paul so much. Well but what interesting about it is to me this is and we talked about this a lot of the what is interesting about true crime is the psychology of people where it like the different circumstances in your life that bring you to take these actions and what they mean and you know your shadow self and the things that you haven processed and the problems you having
00:36:17
Yeah. And how all of those actions really represent something that's going on inside you.
00:36:23
Totally. And somehow this like that toothpaste thing equates to me with a hitman even more because it's this person who is so comfortable with murder, has done this so many times.
00:36:34
It's so destructive and so not a big deal that he then makes a mess in the room and doesn't give a fuck.
00:36:40
It's not like I snuck out and hid all the evidence. Well, now I have a beef with you because I would say hitmen just leave.
00:36:47
Totally. Right. They wouldn't be messing around or trying to really do anything.
00:36:50
Stealing money even. I don't even think hitmen steal money. I don't think they touch stuff.
00:36:53
I think it's like they get the job done and they go. Yeah. Or use a hatchet to begin with.
00:36:58
Although, I'll argue myself now, beef with myself, where it's like, but if someone, whoever it might have been, you're not always hiring a CIA-grade hitman.
00:37:10
You're hiring the fucking— Sometimes it's like, will you go take care of a thing I can't deal with?
00:37:15
Yeah. Who knows? Yeah. And they're not like a professional at all. I hate those unprofessional hitmen.
00:37:22
Get it together. Okay. So Paul Holes does believe that Rose and Roger were killed by a serial killer, the same person who killed William Kyle Jr.
00:37:32
And possibly another victim back in 1970. That man was named Jack McDonald and he was 23 years old.
00:37:39
He had been bludgeoned to death in a motel room in Meridian, Mississippi, which is 10 hours or almost 11 hours away.
00:37:46
So who knows? But they're all on the same kind of close to that connecting interstate.
00:37:52
So that would make sense. It's hearkening back to the old man on a train. You love that one.
00:37:55
My favorite. Well, it's just the scariest idea is this untraceable stranger. Where it's like there's no one to connect to it and he is already on the train out of town.
00:38:05
Well, there is now with DNA. Yeah. Right? So Esparza is never charged in any of these cases.
00:38:11
And it's so circumstantial. He's just seen near the scene of the crime in one of the cases.
00:38:15
And he's a heroin addict. And he dies in 1983. but his name keeps coming up whenever people talk about this case now.
00:38:22
In 2015, one of the bathroom towels that had been preserved in evidence is retested
00:38:28
and DNA is recovered from it. There are three samples, one from Rose, one from Roger, and one from an unknown person.
00:38:35
But it's a hotel room bath towel. Like, who knows how clean that is? Right. Especially 1980, they didn't have bleach.
00:38:44
Actually, no, they had like tox, the worst kind of, Maybe it's like even more believable than.
00:38:48
There's like a vat of lie down in the basement or something. But yeah, worst case scenario for trying to get it all down to just one person.
00:38:57
Totally. It's not like someone's house where it shouldn't be there at all. It's like, yeah.
00:39:00
So as far as we know at this point, there's never been a hit on that third sample.
00:39:03
Maybe they're testing it. Maybe they're doing the genealogical DNA. We got to hope.
00:39:08
Yeah. And on the DNA of murder, Paul Hulls recommended that Esparza's body be exhumed and tested against that DNA sample.
00:39:15
Wow. But as far as we know, that hasn't happened yet. And that show is from 2019.
00:39:21
So he probably couldn't talk yet about the fact that you could do genealogical DNA.
00:39:25
So you don't even need to exhume him if there's other family members he can make a choice to.
00:39:29
Yeah, yeah. So hopefully this doesn't stay a cold case for much longer. That is the story of the unsolved murders of Rose Burkert and Roger Atkinson.
00:39:39
And you are so angry right now. I'm really, really furious. Well, just it's so compelling.
00:39:44
Yeah. And also we didn't even talk about, like, who was the staff at that motel or hotel?
00:39:50
Yeah. Did they run background checks on anybody back then? Totally. Did someone, like, never come back to work then, you know, after that happened?
00:39:57
And get a job at the next hotel. Totally. It's just, it's so sketchy and weird and creepy and 1980s and makes you think of just these, like, deprived serial killers.
00:40:08
Like, is that the right word? Depraved. Depraved. They're not deprived. No. It's also like the thing of it's plenty and bad enough, an axe murder or that kind of violence where it's like, but then all of these additional things that add to it, but also add to the confusion.
00:40:28
Because we have heard of lots of stories where it's like the Golden State Killer himself where there's so many red herrings.
00:40:35
Yeah, that's what I think about the toothpaste thing. It just seems like such a like, what's it called when you throw a wrench in the thing, in the place?
00:40:44
Red herring. Yep. You throw a wrench into the red herring. When you throw a red herring into the toolbox.
00:40:49
Yeah. You don't want that in there. No. Because then it just leads you in a completely different direction rather than like the obvious basic facts of like, you know, the money being stolen and the fingerprint and the way they are murdered.
00:41:00
No break in. No signs of break in. And like instead of that, the obvious like basic ones, you have like the soap being whittled and the fucking toothpaste and the writing in the back of the, like just doesn't, it makes it so much more difficult, it seems like, to like get a clear answer.
00:41:14
Right. And to theorize and to kind of feel like, well, this is why this happened.
00:41:19
Yeah. Or obviously, blah, blah, blah. Obviously it was, you know, it was revenge.
00:41:22
Obviously it was blank. And it's just like, and no, and also that's a wife who then has lost her husband in multiple ways in one story.
00:41:31
Totally. Or a heroin addict that's being accused of murder and is completely innocent and he's just actually a victim of his own drug addiction.
00:41:39
Absolutely. Like, all of it is just, I hope you see, I hope you see my point now and never do a cold case again.
00:41:48
Okay, but like in year 11 when I'm like, I have an answer to our cold case. You have the last laugh for sure That right But I won laugh No one will be laughing at all No And it is not a victory No Why do we do this I don know Why have we been doing this for 10 years
00:42:05
Some people would argue against it. Many have. For 10 years of it all. Many have, including ourselves.
00:42:12
That's right. Wow, that was great. Well, thank you. I think the reason that I get upset is because I'm going to be thinking about this a lot now.
00:42:19
And that's the thing. That's why I tell you is I want you to take some of mine from me, please.
00:42:23
Take it. Take this off of me. It's very heavy. Now you do it. Yeah. Well, I'm going to put something on you that's heavy now.
00:42:34
Oh, great. And insane. Okay. So it's a turn. It's not left, though. Okay. I like these.
00:42:42
It's one of the crazier stories, and I was going to do it on tour, but we had so many good choices on tour.
00:42:48
Yeah. It takes place in 1930s New York City in the Bronx, where a guy in his late 20s named Tony Marino owns a speakeasy because it's the Depression era, a terrible time for almost every American, but it's also the Prohibition era, so alcohol is illegal.
00:43:04
But you can find it if you know where to get it. That means speakeasies. So if you don't know, a speakeasy is a secret bar that got its name.
00:43:13
I just learned this. Speakeasies got their name from illegal British and Irish bars of the 19th century.
00:43:20
They called them Speak Softly Shops. Oh, to like not let anyone hear you fucking drunk as shit because you're not supposed to be?
00:43:27
Or zip it about this place. We're going to go get drunk so we can keep doing it.
00:43:31
Got it. But doesn't that sound like I'm joking that they used to call them Speak Softly Shops in England as opposed to a speakeasy?
00:43:37
It sounds like you're making fun of British people. Yeah. And I think we're going to get emails about it.
00:43:42
We do. Okay. So as you know, it's a speakeasy. Special knock on a hidden door. Maybe a little window slides open.
00:43:50
You say the password. We've seen Who's Framed Roger Rabbit. We've seen Boardwalk Empire.
00:43:55
Yeah, that one too. We've seen movies and TV shows. But speakeasies ran the gamut from being swanky, having beautiful decor and very fine liquor,
00:44:04
to several notches below total dives. The worst of the worst serving liquor that could make you go blind.
00:44:13
Homemade ethanol. Gin. Yep. Oh, God. Do you read about the ones with people, tourists drinking?
00:44:19
Oh, God, I read those stories all the time. I don't know why I'm fascinated and horrified by them.
00:44:23
Yeah. Just like basically being served it and poisoned. Ethanol in like a fucking hostel and dying.
00:44:29
It's just so terrible. It's horrible. So Tony Marino's speakeasy is one of the worst of the worst.
00:44:36
It's a room behind an abandoned storefront. They've got a handful of tables, a ratty sofa, and a toilet behind a beaded curtain.
00:44:44
No, don't do that. Yes, they will. In your face. They're like, you can't tell anybody about this.
00:44:50
We're not putting a door on the toilet. But in 1930s, like, is that actually like luxury toilet?
00:44:56
Because it's not out back. At least it's there. If it's here, we're going to watch you do it.
00:45:01
Well, let's talk about the positives. Tony Speakeasy has a snack bar that's free for his patrons that offers assorted lunch meats, bread, and sardines.
00:45:10
I love a dive bar buffet. Drawing room would have a fucking vat of hot dogs with hot dog water that had been sitting there for 10 hours.
00:45:19
There was a place in San Francisco called Specs. It wasn't a dive bar. It was just kind of hidden.
00:45:24
But they used to have little, little, those plastic baskets that would have cheese and crackers that somebody cut up the cheese and then it would go cheese, cracker, cheese, cracker.
00:45:34
And you would just get drunk and sit there and be like, cheese and crackers, my favorite.
00:45:37
Dive bar snacks. I mean, come on. Oh, it's in Little Italy. Yes, it's the Alley Bar.
00:45:42
It's one of the oldest bars. Yeah. Oh, that's a fucking great bar. And the sign is a pair of glasses.
00:45:47
Right. And you have to know it's a bar. It's a great place. Cheese and crackers.
00:45:51
And also you're allowed to eat on the toilet. it so just kidding so sandwiches of course can't make up for the absolutely atrocious liquor that
00:46:00
tony serves his low-down dirty patrons they're usually unruly drunks they all get into bar fights
00:46:06
like it is pretty bad there and it's the kind of place where very very bad ideas are born um like
00:46:12
this one okay in the winter of 1932 which is like right before the great depression was repealed
00:46:20
repealed. Oh. Yes. So they're all kind of doing this in this terrible place. It's like, and ta-da, it's over.
00:46:26
Oops, sorry. So a group of patrons at Tony Marino's Speakeasy come up with a plan to make some quick cash
00:46:32
because, of course, everyone's broke. No one can pay their bills. Completely desperate.
00:46:37
The richest of the rich are throwing themselves out of windows. You know, middle class people are now super poor.
00:46:42
Everyone's in a bread line, like really rough. Yeah. Everyone needs to make quick cash.
00:46:47
And they decide they can do this with a plan about and at the expense of one of the speakeasies regulars.
00:46:55
This Mark is a man named Michael Malloy, who's been since described as, quote, a biological wonder.
00:47:02
This is a story of the unkillable Mike Malloy. Oh, my God. So the sources Maren used for this story are the book On the House by Simon Reed, a 2020 episode of Criminal.
00:47:16
and a 2012 Smithsonian Magazine article by Abbott Kaler. The rest of the sources are in our show notes.
00:47:24
Okay, let's start with the roughly estimated 60-year-old Michael Malloy. Of course, he has a very murky personal history.
00:47:33
It's believed that he's an immigrant from Ireland, immigrated to New York City. He doesn't seem to have family.
00:47:39
He doesn't seem to have friends. In this book, On the House, author Simon Reed quotes a district attorney
00:47:45
from back then who says, quote, I cannot prove much to you about Michael Malloy,
00:47:50
who he was or where he came from. Malloy is to me an unknown. He was a derelict hanging out in speakeasies,
00:47:57
doing odd jobs for a bit of food or shopping. shelter, probably never on salary, and always working for drinks when he could get them.
00:48:05
Yikes. So the one thing we do know about Michael is he is a raging alcoholic, and he's a staple
00:48:11
at Tony's Speakeasy. He's always there, typically getting so drunk on cheap whiskey and gin, he usually ends
00:48:18
up at the end of the night slumped on the bar, like passed out. There are other regulars at Tony Marino's Speakeasy who see Michael do this night after
00:48:26
night like 24-year-old undertaker Francis Pasqua and 29-year-old grocer Daniel Kreisberg.
00:48:33
So on one night, late 1932, these two men, along with Tony Marino, the owner, they get talking about their money troubles. And one of them pitches a diabolical idea.
00:48:46
We should kill Michael Malloy and split the payout on his life insurance. While he's there sleeping?
00:48:51
Yeah. Full voice. Yeah. As they're leaning on his back because he's passed out. No. And the person who pitched this idea was Tony, and that's because he'd done it before.
00:49:02
Oh, dear. So we're talking about the 30s in like New York City. Yeah. Tough stuff.
00:49:08
Yeah. People going through it. People like surviving by any means necessary. The year before, Tony started an affair with a woman named Mabel Carlson, who herself was down on her luck.
00:49:19
We don't know how old she was. He convinced her to take out a life insurance policy and named him as the beneficiary.
00:49:26
No. And as author Abbott Kaler reports, he, quote, force fed her alcohol, stripped off her clothing, doused the sheets and mattress with ice water and pushed the bed beneath an open window.
00:49:39
What? So Mabel died ostensibly of exposure and alcohol overdose. But her official cause of death was listed as pneumonia, suggesting she died a natural death.
00:49:49
And Tony collected that payout. No questions asked. Holy shit. Right? She just – this is just a lady can't take care of herself.
00:49:58
She left the window open because she's a drunk. That's awful. Yeah. And it's also awful because Tony's running the speakeasy with this shitty liquor and basically going, well, who of these people that I am serving this liquor to can we take advantage of because they're addicted to it?
00:50:12
Yeah. So this is the idea. Tony pitches to these two guys and they decide to make a plan.
00:50:19
The plan is let's do the exact same thing to Michael Malloy. Anyone can see Michael's not a healthy man.
00:50:25
He is always drunk. He's lived a very hard, clearly, and very lonely life. Doesn't have a job or a permanent home.
00:50:32
And he basically lives on the sardine sandwiches he makes at the Speakeasies bar cart, which actually is a real argument for tinned fish.
00:50:40
Yeah. Because you've got those oils. You've got those vitamins. But he also drinks an ungodly amount of very cheap alcohol.
00:50:49
And so they probably just rationalize killing him like, oh, it's almost better for him.
00:50:55
Look at his terrible life. So basically, Francis, Daniel and Tony, they just ask Michael Malloy if they can take out a life insurance policy on him.
00:51:05
It's unclear if Michael is suspicious in any way or if he's just blackout drunk.
00:51:09
But he basically says, sure, go ahead. OK. So Francis Pasqua, the undertaker, sets up meetings with different insurance agents and he brings Michael with him.
00:51:20
So it's like I need to set up a thing for this guy. The insurers all smell a rat and they all refuse to issue any policies.
00:51:29
Well, it's also like why would we give a policy to someone who isn't – a life insurance policy is to give someone money when they're like – when a person who's making money buys.
00:51:39
Yes. For the family and to cover the bills. Yeah, as much as someone died, I get money.
00:51:44
Hey, can I get this guy? And they're just like, no, no thanks. So Francis, Daniel, and Tony have to rework the plan.
00:51:52
They decide they're going to set up more meetings with new insurance agents. This time, they're going to leave Michael Malloy at the bar, and they're going to get a friend, a friend of Francis's, who they falsely claim is a florist named Nicholas Mallory, to go.
00:52:07
So it takes about five months, but Francis finally finds a few insurance agents who are willing to work with him.
00:52:14
He gets three policies taken out on this Nicholas Mallory, who, again, is not real.
00:52:19
Two of them are with Prudential life insurance. One's with Metropolitan life insurance.
00:52:25
And if all goes according to plan, the three men will have around $3,500 to split between them.
00:52:32
In 1930. How much? $3,300, what'd you say? $3,500. I'm going to go $11,000. $83,000.
00:52:41
Holy shit. Yes. So maybe it's because for them it's so much money. They then pull in another co-conspirator.
00:52:51
It's Tony's 28-year-old bartender, Joseph Murphy, who is willing to falsely state that he himself is Nicholas Mallory's next of kin when they have to identify the body.
00:53:02
So they just start pulling people in on the plan. Yeah. All these men get together and they start having to discuss how are we going to kill Michael Malloy.
00:53:10
They decide the cleanest option is to give him an open bar tab and let him drink himself to death.
00:53:16
And then once he's dead, they slip the fake ID into his pocket that says he's Nicholas Mallory.
00:53:21
And then Joseph Murphy goes, identifies him as next of kin, and they get their life insurance money.
00:53:27
When Tony Marino offers Malloy unlimited drinks at the speakeasy, he is over the moon, of course.
00:53:34
again not at all suspicious the first day of his open tab he drinks an insane amount of liquor
00:53:40
enough that should incapacitate him if not outright kill him he just goes for it and he
00:53:47
doesn't die he doesn't even pass out he downs his drinks one after the other like it's nothing
00:53:53
and he just eventually says good night and walks out of the bar oh my god the four men it now four men they are stunned Michael comes back the next day He like it open bar open tab for me
00:54:06
He does it again. Can you imagine the hangover of shitty liquor? Like a lot of it.
00:54:11
Can you imagine being in a place where the hangover doesn't matter anymore? Like it's just like.
00:54:16
Drink through it. Yeah. Probably never stop being drunk. Yeah. Just keep going. Yeah, I've done that.
00:54:23
The next day he does it again. He binges this insane amount of liquor, says, thanks, everybody.
00:54:29
Good night. Leaves. No, nothing happens. Then when he returns the next day, he only puts his glass down to walk over to the snack cart and make himself a sardine sandwich.
00:54:42
Then the day after that, he walks into Tony's speakeasy and announces, quote, boy, ain't I got a thirst.
00:54:48
So he's just stoked. Yeah. It's all positive. And this really speaks to the power of positive thinking.
00:54:55
If you're enjoying yourself, you know, anything is possible. Obviously, Francis, Daniel, Tony, and Joseph need a new plan.
00:55:03
And they decide they're just going to swap out Michael's drinks with methanol, wood alcohol, which you were talking about before.
00:55:11
It's the kind that's used as paint thinner. I mean, yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. So, of course, it's not fit for human consumption.
00:55:19
And in large quantities, it could blind you. or kill you. And that's what they used to make bathtub gin with. They would mix real gin with
00:55:27
that to kind of be the like, cut it with it. Yeah, like the baby aspirin and the cocaine
00:55:31
kind of a thing. So the bartender Joseph goes out and he buys a few cans of wood alcohol at the
00:55:37
paint shop for 10 cents a pop. Michael comes back into the bar. Joseph starts by serving him real
00:55:44
shots of liquor, but by shots two, three, four, and so on, it's just straight wood grain alcohol.
00:55:52
Michael doesn't even seem to notice. He downs several drinks without so much as a shudder.
00:55:58
And then he keeps ordering more and more and more. They do take a toll, though. He eventually passes out.
00:56:04
He falls to the ground. Francis is sitting at a table watching all of this. He walks over when Michael's body hits the ground.
00:56:12
He checks his pulse. He checks his breathing. They're both slow and labored. So the guys just wait and they stand there staring at him thinking he's dying.
00:56:21
But then Michael starts snoring. So he wakes up a few hours later and asks for another drink.
00:56:27
Oh, God. Poor guy. So the men realize we need a new plan. Francis, who's the undertaker, thinks back to a body that he handled once of a man who had died after eating bad oysters while drinking wood alcohol.
00:56:41
And so the guys try to replicate this death by serving Michael a plate of oysters that have been marinating in straight methanol.
00:56:50
Ew. Gross. Yeah. Michael gobbles them up and asks for more. Fuck. He thinks they're great.
00:56:56
At this point, Francis, Daniel, Tony, and Joseph are getting mad. They're like, this man is—they basically become kind of sadistic.
00:57:04
One afternoon, they serve a very drunk Michael a sardine sandwich packed with carpet tacks and broken glass.
00:57:10
What? Thinking if he's not noticing the woodgrain alcohol, then maybe he'll just eat this.
00:57:15
Oh, my God. That's like desperation at this point. Yeah, they are desperate. What the fuck?
00:57:21
And they're like, OK, he'll eat this. It'll tear up his organs. Michael eats it without complaint.
00:57:26
Joseph will later say that Michael, quote, ate it and liked it. By this point, the men are at a loss.
00:57:33
And it seems like they're pretty vocal about this frustration because they start pulling more and more co-conspirators into the plan.
00:57:41
Most of these guys are shady neighborhood types. They're not particularly bright.
00:57:45
They have petty criminal backgrounds. And it includes a guy named Johnny McNally.
00:57:50
Another's named Joseph Maglioni, who goes by the nickname Tin Ear, because he has an artificial ear.
00:57:55
Is that what we're going to get for our 10-year anniversary? Oh. A tin ear. I would love a tin ear.
00:58:01
Thank you. Georgia, don't ruin our surprise. Oh. You fit it right onto your old ear, because he has an artificial ear.
00:58:09
Another named Tough Tony Bastoni, because he's super nice to everybody. That's a joke.
00:58:15
He's probably pretty tough. OK. And altogether, these guys, they'll eventually be dubbed the murder trust in the press, which for simplicity, we can call them now.
00:58:25
So I don't have to name every single guy every time. So one night in December of 1932, the murder trust gets together to figure out how to kill Michael Malloy once and for all.
00:58:35
They can't keep doing what they're doing. The drinking for free is costing Tony and his speakeasy a lot of money that he doesn't have to spare.
00:58:43
on top of all the other costs like the wood alcohol, the oysters. And also a month has passed since they took out the life insurance policies.
00:58:52
So now the first premium payment are due. Yeah, they're spending money on this. They're spending a lot of money that nobody has.
00:58:59
It's like the problem starts that we don't have any money. Right. So now it's like chasing good money after bad.
00:59:06
Figuring out how to move forward isn't easy, though, because now there's eight men pitching ideas.
00:59:12
and it's chaos and it's chaos filled with very, very dumb ideas. Oh, my God. Like tax in a fucking sardine sandwich?
00:59:20
Tax in a sardine sandwich was like one of the good ones. That made it all the way to production.
00:59:26
So at one point, one of the men suggests they shoot Michael, but then he's reminded that it needs to look like a natural death
00:59:34
so they get the payout. Right. So once again— And natural shooting? Just a very natural one.
00:59:39
Look, it's natural here in New York City. Once again, it's Francis Pasqua who decides what route they'll take.
00:59:46
The men basically look back to how Tony killed Mabel Carlson. They get him drunk, he blacks out, throw him into the car.
00:59:54
They get him out they throw him into the park strip him down put him on a park bench dump water all over him and leave The next morning none other than Michael Malloy shows up at Tony Marino speakeasy
01:00:08
Oh, my God. He's a little worse for wear. He is very cold and he can't remember how he wound up outside the night before, but he's basically fine.
01:00:17
The murder trust regroups again and they decide they're going to run Michael over with a car this time.
01:00:25
They're going to try to make it look like a hit and run. So they pull in yet another co-conspirator, a 24-year-old cab driver named Harry Green, who agrees to do the job for $150, which is worth how much in today's money?
01:00:40
$1,000? $3,700. You say that as if I'm anywhere close. Appreciate you. I'm just trying to support you.
01:00:48
I appreciate it. Because I love this game. I hate it. I'm never even close. So at the speakeasy, Joseph gets Michael blackout drunk again.
01:00:58
Then some of the murder trust guys take Michael's body to a nearby road where there's not a lot of traffic.
01:01:04
They put a Nicholas Mallory fake ID card in his pocket, lay him down on the road.
01:01:09
And Harry Green hits Michael with the taxi before reversing backwards over the body.
01:01:15
Harry and the murder trust men flee the scene. The next morning, they pour over that day's newspaper.
01:01:21
They're looking for the reports of a fatal hit and run. Nothing's there. Joseph Murphy, who is supposed to be the one that poses as Nicholas Mallory's next of kin, starts calling around to local hospitals and morgues asking if anyone has seen his missing brother Nicholas.
01:01:38
No one matches the name or description. So now the murder trust guys are losing it because they think they've finally done it.
01:01:45
They have no proof of Nicholas Mallory's death to show their insurers, which means they can't claim the payout.
01:01:51
So they're like stuck in this weird middle realm. Limbo? A limbo, some might say.
01:01:58
And as they're freaking out about what they're going to do, they start talking about should they just get rid of this whole idea about Michael Malloy and just kill a random drunk who happens to walk into the speakeasy and just use that body as Nicholas Mallory.
01:02:13
But five days after running Michael over and before they can make good on the new plan, Michael waltzes into Tony's speakeasy, limping and bandaged, but ready for a drink.
01:02:23
It's like, I know not everyone should procreate, you know, like me, but this guy like should pass those jeans on.
01:02:32
Superhuman. You're superhuman. And also, what a great attitude. Truly. What a kind of like.
01:02:38
Try, try again. I'm going to go see my friends. Yeah. So sad. Incredibly not long after being run over, Michael was discovered by a cop.
01:02:47
He was still clinging to life, lying in a nearby ditch. He was taken to a hospital where he was diagnosed with a concussion, a fractured skull and a fractured shoulder.
01:02:57
After he's stabilized and discharged, he came straight back to Tony's, still completely unaware that these were the people that did it.
01:03:05
Poor guy. Like, go to a new bar. Or stop drinking. Why? There's sandwiches. That's true.
01:03:10
sandwiches and free drinks and he has absolutely no memory of being hit by a car sure the i'm sorry
01:03:18
to say upside of being a drunk yeah it's those details don't you know what it is though they
01:03:22
come later in the night they come back yeah all of a sudden you're like laying there like wait what
01:03:29
you've never had that where they come as like weird little my blackouts are blacked out for life
01:03:35
That's nice. Yeah, it is. Blacked out for life. I had one where like the next day I was like, that was so fun at the bar last night.
01:03:41
And then it was like, it looked like a Polaroid picture of this guy that I liked going like this.
01:03:48
And I was like, oh, no, I tried to kiss him. I tried to kiss him and he was like, no, no, no.
01:03:54
Oh, God. Like slowly, like a Polaroid slowly developing in front of your face. Wait a second.
01:04:00
Whose face is that? Why is that look on his face? Like, no, mine are gone. Thank fucking God.
01:04:06
Until Vince tells them to me and I'm like, don't talk to me about this. No, it's his fault.
01:04:10
It's his fault. Don't talk to me. I did not. No, I didn't. No, I didn't. That's not true.
01:04:15
OK, so now the murder trust guys are in deep. They have insurance premiums due. And now they have a personal extra grind with Michael Malloy because they're that kind of guy.
01:04:26
So they pivot again. They decide to rent out an apartment in Nicholas Mallory's name where basically it's a few blocks from the speakeasy.
01:04:35
Of course, it has gas nozzles, gas hookups for the lighting fixtures. On February 23rd, 1933, which is three months into this whole ordeal, they give Michael Malloy wood alcohol at the speakeasy until he blacks out.
01:04:51
They carry him to this apartment, lock him inside, open up those gas nozzles, and this is what finally kills Michael Malloy.
01:05:00
When they go back to make sure he's dead, Francis Pasqua asks a specific Bronx doctor who he knows through his business as an undertaker to show up at the apartment and claim Michael, who is now Nicholas Mallory, has died of pneumonia.
01:05:16
And in exchange for that, Francis promises this doctor $100 of the increasingly spoken for insurance payout.
01:05:24
$3,000. $2,400. Damn it. That was pretty close. But just one day after murdering Michael Malloy, the murder trust guys bury his body in a cheap box in a pauper's grave.
01:05:35
A day after that, Francis shows up to the respective insurance office asking for the payout.
01:05:41
Metropolitan Life gives him $800, which is? Which is $4,000, $5,000, $20,000. Yes, $20,000.
01:05:49
Shut the fuck up. in today money But the prudential agents are extremely suspicious Like they care more than the cops do about this You know they have literally more to lose Yeah It all about money baby
01:06:06
And they want to see the body. So Francis tells them that won't be possible. Nicholas Mallory has already been buried.
01:06:13
So now the insurers are launching an investigation. So this is very bad news for the murder trust, of course.
01:06:19
But they internally are having problems. They only have $800 from Metropolitan that they're divvying up among 10 people at this point.
01:06:30
And that isn't going well. They're fighting. Some people are demanding more money than others.
01:06:36
The whole thing is descending into serious chaos. And, of course, it bubbles over into physical violence.
01:06:44
Joseph Maglioni whips out a gun and shoots tough Tony Bastoni in the speakeasy. In his speakeasy?
01:06:50
In the speakeasy, yeah. Okay. It's not his speakeasy. No, I know, I know. I meant like he shoots him in the speakeasy.
01:06:56
Where's that on your body? You know, like the bread basket? It's the soft room or whatever the British call it.
01:07:03
When the cops arrive, they arrest Maglioni, but they also take Joseph Murphy into custody as a material witness to Tough Tony's murder.
01:07:12
Oh, Tony dies. Tough Tony dies. Okay. So at the time, these cops are oblivious that these guys are wrapped up in the murder of Michael Malloy.
01:07:20
They don't even know who Michael Malloy is yet. But they start chatting with regulars at the speakeasy while investigating the tough Tony shooting.
01:07:29
And those interviewees start to tell them everything. Because this is just a room full of drunks eating sandwiches and going to the bathroom.
01:07:39
Don't trust going to the bathroom behind a curtain, a bead curtain. Definitely not washing their hands afterwards either.
01:07:44
No, no, no. Where? The toilet. Oh, no. Yeah, it's a room full of drunks. Yeah. Yeah, it's rough.
01:07:53
So it turns out these witnesses know so much because they've either overheard these guys talking at the bar.
01:07:59
Because when you're drunk, you're too loud. Or they were approached about joining the conspiracy by the murder trust.
01:08:08
But they weren't interested or maybe they were just a drunk that had some ethics.
01:08:12
And we're like, no, I don't. I don't want to. I don't want to kill anybody. I just want to drink at a bar.
01:08:16
No, thank you. I just want a fucking sardine sandwich. Yeah. Do you mind? God. But then they kept going to that bar.
01:08:21
Like, that's weird. There weren't that many. Oh, right. It was like you had to find one to go to.
01:08:28
You had to know the password. Yeah, you're right. Okay, I hear you. You had to be into going to the bathroom in public.
01:08:34
My grandma had a beaded curtain in between her kitchen and, like, the living room.
01:08:39
Wow. And there was, it was like the beginning of my days of loving. I would go through and be like.
01:08:44
it just felt so like a fucking like you were on stage yes like glamorous action so this so just
01:08:52
me picturing that when it was like wait what just hi everybody i went to the bathroom also
01:08:57
could you imagine what it smelled like in this fucking place about the hand washing thing
01:09:02
hand washing part of that no door sardines the smell of old drunk person's piss was and like the
01:09:10
The aim had to be so bad. Oh, no. The aim. I mean. Okay. Let me read this paper.
01:09:18
But you please talk about smells. One witness knows the ins and outs of all these plans so well.
01:09:24
Simply from hanging out there, he can point officers to the exact spot where Michael Malloy was buried.
01:09:30
Wow. Just from overhearing it. So in May, literally, seriously, if you do anything in this life, please keep your voice down.
01:09:37
Shut the fuck up. Just truly. Yeah. If you got to talk, whisper. Yeah. There's nothing wrong with it.
01:09:41
Someone's always listening. That's what you need to assume at all times. Why not?
01:09:45
Like here. Like here right now. It's as if microphones are on you at all times. Okay.
01:09:50
In May 1933, which is a month or so after Michael was killed, his body is exhumed and a pathologist
01:09:56
determines that he has died of carbon monoxide poisoning, not pneumonia. At this point, investigators have also heard about Tony's scheme involving Mabel Carlson.
01:10:06
Her body is exhumed, and while it's unclear if her cause of death is ever formally reclassified, investigators do establish clear similarities between her and Michael's cases.
01:10:17
It doesn't seem like anyone's ever charged in Mabel's death. Poor woman. It's hard to suss out, though.
01:10:23
Yeah. Yeah. So by now, the police have enough information to arrest the murder trust gang.
01:10:29
Tony Marino, Francis Pasqua, Daniel Kreisberg, bartender Joseph Murphy, cab driver Harry Green, all charged with first-degree murder.
01:10:38
Their trials begin in October of 1933. It's all wrapped up in two weeks. Most of the men are sentenced to death, with Harry Green avoiding the death penalty and instead going to Sing Sing for several years on a felonious assault conviction.
01:10:53
That's the cab driver. Yes. He came in, like, very late in the game. So this is a horrible story that is just odd beating, but ultimately incredibly tragic and horrible.
01:11:05
But if there is a silver lining, it's the enduring legacy of Michael Malloy himself.
01:11:09
Because despite the actions of the men who conspired to murder him and saw no value in his life, the country at large comes to feel very differently about him.
01:11:20
Because, of course, this story is so crazy. It gets national coverage across the United States.
01:11:25
readers learn of the so-called durable barfly who just wouldn't die, and they find it weirdly
01:11:31
inspiring. It's the Great Depression. And it's like everything's coming at you. They come at you
01:11:38
with everything, and you get back up. Wow. And that idea of people— It's like an inspirational
01:11:42
fucking story. Yeah, yeah. Oh, my God. So over time, Michael Molloy's name has stuck around in
01:11:49
the zeitgeist, earning one colorful nickname after the other, Iron Mike, the Rasputin of the Bronx,
01:11:55
and even the man who wouldn't die. These names might come... As a surprise to the people who bumped into Michael Molloy during his life, but as writer Simon Reed has put it, quote, he arrived to the United States in obscurity and lived in anonymity, but through death he would achieve cult immortality.
01:12:15
That's the story of the ill-fated battle to murder Michael Molloy. Wow. Isn't that fucking nuts?
01:12:22
Yeah. Carpet, tacks, and broken glass. And sardines. And sardines. Aren't great either.
01:12:27
And sardines. And still, the answer is no, I will not die. Amazing. And kept a positive attitude about it, too.
01:12:35
Like, it seems like. Kept a drunken attitude about it. Walked right back into that bar.
01:12:39
Open tab. I'm coming back tomorrow. Yeah. I still know the password. I still want a sandwich.
01:12:44
That's amazing. I know. Great job. Wild. Wow. Kind of a nice inspirational way for us to start off 2026.
01:12:51
That's right. This is going to be a little later in the year for other people. Right.
01:12:54
Yeah. Well, you know, you can start it whenever you want. Like dry January, you can start whenever you want.
01:12:59
That's very true. And also Chinese New Year is coming up. That's right. So do it then.
01:13:03
Should we think of a new way to end the episode 10 or 2026 Or like what do you think Yes All right Well come back next week you guys because the 10 anniversary is going to be full of surprises I going to wear tinfoil Yes
01:13:17
Tinfoil dresses, briefcases. Do you have one? I mean, I don't know if it qualifies because I can't remember.
01:13:25
Did we say we had to get them at thrift stores? No, but they're vintage. I think we did, but who fucking cares at this point?
01:13:32
I got mine at Marshall's. That's all I'm saying. Oh. Okay. So how are we doing this?
01:13:36
We're just presenting each other with, hey, look, here's my. Yeah, I guess we have to figure out the whole idea.
01:13:42
We talked about it so long ago to me. It feels like we literally talked about this in the summertime.
01:13:47
No, we did. Before that, probably. Before that. I had a uterus last time we talked about this.
01:13:51
That's how fucking long it's been. What do you, how should we end this? Like on a positive note somehow.
01:13:59
Like tell us, hey, everyone, tell us what you were doing. Oh, we were doing that.
01:14:03
Tell us what you're doing 10 years ago and what you're doing now. Oh, yeah, that's right.
01:14:06
We are asking people. We know we have changed and what we have gone through and grown.
01:14:11
There's a lot of people that when they write in, they kind of tell us at the end if they have like mini-sode stories.
01:14:16
Yeah. Where it like when I first started listening I was in college I did this Now I you know a doctor Yeah We heard or anything in between We should read some of those next week for our 10 anniversary Yeah And we going to have a special guest too that we won let
01:14:29
I'll surprise you. Oh, yes. A very exciting special guest. So if you want to tell us your 10-year arc of being a murderino, we would love to hear it.
01:14:37
Go myfavoritemurder at gmail.com or just comment on our Instagram or just DM us on Instagram or email us.
01:14:44
Yeah. There's lots of different ways to do it. Yeah. You can figure it out. Oh, how about you dress your pet up in tinfoil?
01:14:50
Does end us photos of your aunt? No, I stand against that. I will quit. You know, Elvis was so afraid of tinfoil that we would put it around the Christmas tree so he wouldn't go.
01:15:01
Climb it? Yes. Tinfoil and bananas. He hated both. So we would circle the Christmas tree with tinfoil and bananas.
01:15:08
That's hilarious. Yeah, that was very cute. Well, that's full circle. Yeah. I think we just should end it, stay sexy.
01:15:14
And don't get murdered. That's all we can do. Really. goodbye Elvis do you want a cookie
01:15:20
this has been an exactly right production our senior producer is Molly Smith and our associate producer is Tessa Hughes our editor is Aristotle Acevedo this episode was mixed by Liana Squalachi Our researchers are Mary McGlashan and Allie Elkin Email your hometowns to myfavoritemurder at gmail
01:15:43
And follow the show on Instagram at myfavoritemurder. Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app,
01:15:49
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Or you can watch us on YouTube.
01:15:52
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