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Terms and conditions apply. See Pandora.net for more details. Goodbye. Goodbye. Hello and welcome to My Favorite Murder.
00:02:05
That's Georgia Hardstark. That's Karen Kimmel. It's the Minisodes. Yep. We knew that.
00:02:10
It's the Minisodes. Yeah. If you're listening to Minisodes, you don't need to know who we are.
00:02:13
What's important is the emails. For some reason, we're not going to tell you who this is.
00:02:17
It's a secret. When it's a Minisode. Okay. You go first. Hitchhiking story. To the women that have gotten me through it all, I want to start off with a confession.
00:02:28
I'm not even that into true crime. I am still, however, a day one listener, not because of my obsession with true crime, but
00:02:35
because of my obsession with each of you and the inspiring friendship you share.
00:02:40
I am being so serious when I say that this is the only podcast I listen to. Lou wrote this by my mom, and I've listened to every episode at least three times.
00:02:49
Wow. But in the interest of everyone's time, let's get into it. Every episode three times doesn't like true crime.
00:02:55
We need to send this person a gift basket. Truly. Jesus Christ. Like a spa day or something.
00:03:00
Yeah, so sorry. The year is 2011. I'm in sixth grade and it's my first time taking the school bus alone.
00:03:07
My divorced and working mother had just started the 4 a.m. shift at her job at our local grocery store.
00:03:12
So it was now my responsibility to make sure I woke up, fed myself and made it to the bus stop before the 645 pickup.
00:03:20
Why do we make children wake up so fucking early? Get them ready for factory work.
00:03:25
That's what it's all about. It's sickening to me. Bells, early morning. Stop it, everyone.
00:03:31
It's based on like farmhand work. It's like you got to be up before the sun is up.
00:03:35
I mean, honestly, like half of my issues with school, I think, were because I'm so fucking tired because we had to get up at six in the fucking morning.
00:03:41
The most trouble I ever got into was I think I was a junior and I got up, took a shower.
00:03:46
And I remember because my mom had new bath sheets. So they were really big. So I had one in my hair and one around my body.
00:03:52
And I sat back down on my bed, fell over and went back to sleep. And she came by because she was always trying to get to work.
00:03:58
Yeah. And was like, God damn it. But I was like, obviously, there was something going on with my system.
00:04:05
That child is tired. That's not something you should get in trouble for. Why am I so tired?
00:04:10
Could you figure it out? You work at a goddamn hospital. I would fall asleep in class every fucking day in like fourth grade and no one said shit
00:04:17
about it. That's not okay. Maybe I'm anemic. Maybe I'm anemic. Maybe I have sleep apnea.
00:04:21
Hey, I do have sleep apnea. And I found out when I was fucking 30. Like, what the?
00:04:25
Maybe I have ADHD. Oh, yeah, I do too. Yeah. What the fuck, everyone? Sugar sensitivity and I'm filled with corn pop before I come to school.
00:04:33
Right. I'm allowed to drink soda. Okay. Let's digress, shall we? But that's our platform.
00:04:39
That's our problem. Look at us now. I don't wake up till 11 o'clock every day. I arrived at the bus stop on time,
00:04:47
proud of my newfound agency, and I began to wait and wait and wait. After about 15 minutes,
00:04:52
I began to panic. I fucked up my first day of taking care of myself, and now I had no way to
00:04:57
get to school. Had the bus come earlier than usual? Is the pickup spot different from last year?
00:05:02
My young mind raced as I thought of the consequences of missing school because I
00:05:06
couldn't get to the bus stop on time. As I sat sobbing on the sidewalk outside of our apartment
00:05:11
complex, a man pulled his car over and asked if I was okay. Yes, I responded cautiously since it is
00:05:18
2011 after all and stranger danger had been instilled in me since I could remember. What's
00:05:23
wrong? He asked since I was clearly in distress. I missed the school bus. I responded sheepishly,
00:05:29
foolishly aware of the danger I was in. Maybe it was the fact that he claimed to work at our
00:05:34
apartment complex and then it says textbook serial killer lie. Or maybe it was because he scolded me
00:05:39
the moment I accepted to never do this again. But for some unknown reason, I trusted this random man
00:05:45
to drive me to school. Shockingly, I arrived at school unscathed. He says, do you want a ride?
00:05:52
She says okay he gets in the car and goes never do this again You so lucky I fucking normal That what happened long ago when my ex and I picked up these two like 13 at a gas station at 1 a We were driving up to Petaluma
00:06:06
And they were standing around trying to make phone calls. And there was all these men that I could, they were just watching them at this.
00:06:12
And I was like, girls, what are you doing? Why are you here this late? And they're like, our ride left us.
00:06:17
I'm like, get into the car. Never get into anyone's car, but get into my car. And I was like, do you know Ms. Kilgariff over at Lou Sutton?
00:06:23
And they were like, oh, yeah. Oh, my God. Thank God. It was Novato. Yeah. Like the middle of nowhere.
00:06:29
I was so mad at these girls. I was just like, what are you doing? What are you doing?
00:06:32
What are you doing? Luckily, they got you. Ashamed I had done something so risky, but relieved I wouldn't have to deal with the ridicule of missing the bus on my first attempt, I shoved my anxiety aside and reached for the entrance to my school.
00:06:46
But it was locked. As it turns out, I actually hadn't missed the bus due to my own 12-year-old negligence.
00:06:52
That particular Monday happened to be a two-hour late start, meaning the bus I sobbed over would be arriving an hour and a half from the moment of my realization.
00:07:01
Not only had I risked my life because of a clerical error, but I was now stranded at school.
00:07:06
I ultimately walked to my friend's house that lived near the school and the rest of the day went accordingly.
00:07:11
But holy fuck, I risked being abducted for what? Middle school? Insane. SSTGM and don't risk your life for middle school, Vanessa.
00:07:22
Vanessa, the pressure of doing the bus correctly. It's not on you. It's so awful.
00:07:27
And especially then when you're like, because the first thing they said was ridicule.
00:07:33
I'm going to get in trouble. You're going to get in trouble for not getting there on time.
00:07:36
But you're also going to be in trouble if you accept a ride from someone. It's so much pressure for a young mind who can't handle that.
00:07:43
That's how you know they're too young. Isn't logical. Doesn't know like A to B to C.
00:07:48
Can't go. If the bus isn't here, it's not my fault. Totally. And I don't have to solve the fact that the bus isn't here. I just go back home and go,
00:07:55
the bus never came. Right. But they don't know that. That's what a 14 year old would do.
00:08:00
Right. A 12 year old. Nope. Oh my God. This is why I could never have children. I could just
00:08:05
couldn't let them go out into the world. I'd be like, I haven't taught you everything. You're at
00:08:10
work typing. I'm getting a weird feeling. I wonder if she's out in the world. I hope she's not crying
00:08:14
in a man's car somewhere. Okay. I'm not going to read you the subject line of this. It says,
00:08:20
Dear Karen in Georgia, I grew up in a small coal town in northeastern Pennsylvania, right outside of Scranton.
00:08:26
Yes, like the office. My dad grew up in that same small town in the 70s and 80s.
00:08:31
He was friends with a kid named Joe Alisio, who just didn't seem quite right. My dad will be the first to tell you that he got into a lot of trouble as a teen, but will also tell you that this kid was on a different level.
00:08:42
Animal abuse, setting fires, etc., etc. Long story short, in 1981, when he was 15 years old, Joe killed two children, Cheryl and Christopher Ziemba.
00:08:54
They were eight and four years old. And then he rolled their bodies into a carpet and dumped them down a mine shaft up in the mountains behind my dad's childhood home.
00:09:04
Oh, my God. The entire town went looking for these children. My grandma tells me that she can still hear the townspeople yelling their names and not hearing anything back.
00:09:14
And guess who was part of the search party? That's right. Joe. The part that gets me is when they found the bodies, Christopher was wearing his favorite Superman t-shirt.
00:09:25
And Joe had recently tried to claim that Cheryl's death was an accident and that he killed Christopher out of panic.
00:09:31
He tried to appeal his life sentence, but got turned down. He will not be eligible for parole until 2041.
00:09:38
Thanks for everything you do. I saw you in Denver recently and it made my year. SSDGM.
00:09:44
Bex. Man, those are the stories that like your town just never gets over. No. It stays with everyone. The entire town's looking for a brother and a sister.
00:09:52
Yeah. I mean, awful. Oh, my God. That's like when I picture the 70s and 80s. I'm like,
00:09:58
well, everyone was just looking for missing children. Yes. All the time. And always baffled
00:10:02
and kind of like what's going on. Who wouldn't? Why would this happen? Yeah. Let's blame Satanists.
00:10:08
Well, let's blame Satanist because the idea of that the guy that did it is in the search party is beyond comprehension until what, the last 15 years?
00:10:18
Because you don't understand what evil looks like. It looks like everyone else. It looks like you and me.
00:10:26
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my time. In 2020, I met my husband, David, during the pandemic. We both got COVID right after meeting
00:13:55
and quarantined together for two weeks. Being sick like that after just a few weeks of knowing each
00:14:00
other was so crazy, but we made it out alive. After a few weeks of getting better, we decided
00:14:05
to go for a three-day weekend trip to an Airbnb in a little town in West Virginia. On our second
00:14:10
day there, I was lying down near a window and saw a dog. It was really cold, so I went outside to see
00:14:16
if the dog had a collar. He did have a collar, but he was filthy and didn't seem like he had a tag.
00:14:22
My husband and I stayed with this dog outside for most of the day and thought about bringing
00:14:26
him inside. There was a walkable grocery store nearby, so I headed there to get the dog some
00:14:31
food. The cashier saw me looking at dog food and said, is Axel over there? He likes to play with
00:14:37
all the tourists that come by. I'm starving. Oh, I'm just a Laza dog. I am Axel. She then showed
00:14:45
me pictures of Axel and other dogs that like to come around frequently. Oh my God, the suckers at
00:14:50
the Airbnb, the fucking Coastal Elite. Where they're just kind of like, if you make your eyes
00:14:54
wide enough, you'll get a full dinner in the middle of the day. Tail between legs, you're golden. Oh
00:14:59
my God. She called him a street dog gang leader. She also told me that Axel was almost taken by a
00:15:05
previous couple who were staying at that Airbnb, but they ended up leaving him behind. She told me
00:15:09
he had an owner, a Penny Somethings. I can't remember the exact name. I bought dog food and
00:15:15
dog shampoo wash because he was dirty. My husband and I took the dog inside, gave him a warm bath
00:15:20
and gave him dinner. That's like my ideal vacation. Find a stray dog. Find a couple that will bathe
00:15:25
you and dine you. That's actually the other way around. Yeah, I love it. We gave him dinner. We
00:15:33
hung out with this one blue eyed dog for the rest of the evening. We found a kitten outside an Airbnb
00:15:38
and Lake Arrow had one. We let him stay inside even though it was against the Airbnb rules.
00:15:44
Now it was the final day of our trip and we had to decide what to do about Axel.
00:15:48
He was still there and not looking to be leaving or walking back to his home. My husband and I talked about taking him, but we're worried he wouldn't get along with our other dog, Murphy.
00:15:57
We looked at each other and decided not to take Axel. We packed our things in the car and drove off.
00:16:03
We'd been driving for not 30 seconds and we realized Axel was running behind the car.
00:16:09
Does he do that for everybody? I don't know. We looked at each other and said, come on, babe.
00:16:14
My husband began driving faster to see if that would stop him from running, but it made Axel run even faster.
00:16:20
Pull over. That's when we decided we had to take Axel with us. Yay. He clearly wanted to come.
00:16:25
I love that they're letting the dog decide. So we pull over and my husband goes to the trunk to get a blanket to lie down in the back seat.
00:16:31
He opens the back door and Axel jumps right in. When suddenly a rusty red pickup truck sees us and thinks our car is broken down and asks in a southern Appalachian accent,
00:16:43
Are y'all okay? Do you need help? And we began to explain that we were trying to get the dog into the car.
00:16:48
And he says in a Southern Appalachian accent, Is that my dog? Axel, get in here.
00:16:55
Axel jumps out of our backseat into the red pickup truck and they set off into the sunset.
00:17:00
Oh, Axel. My husband and I are literally speechless trying to explain how that just happened.
00:17:05
Truly one of the funniest stories I have to tell. It makes me laugh and cry at how many things had to line up for that to even happen.
00:17:12
Thank you all for everything and thanks for always speaking up about mental health and how immigrants make this country great.
00:17:18
SSDGM, Catherine N., do I have a picture of Axel? Yes or no? Oh my God. Like, that's a fucking hound dog.
00:17:29
That's the most stealable dog of all time. Immediately. Are you out of your mind?
00:17:34
Look at the face. I guess I'm really hungry. I haven't eaten in a while. I don't know.
00:17:38
I see him abandoned, even though this is a brand new red collar. oh my god that is amazing i love it okay okay your turn subject line of this email is the time i lived
00:17:53
in a haunted cabin okay dear karen in georgia during my senior year in college i did a study away program near Ashland Oregon We lived on a small campus surrounded by wilderness where we lived in cabins instead of dorms
00:18:05
It was awesome. That kind of sounds amazing. Cabins, yeah. Yeah. The area that is now our campus was once a small town built around a 1920s lumber mill.
00:18:15
The best way I can describe it is that it feels like living on Walton's Mountain.
00:18:18
The cabins were... What does that mean? Oh, the Waltons? Yeah. Oh, got it, got it.
00:18:22
So it's like everything's a better part. The TV show's The Waltons? The Waltons.
00:18:27
It's so old. I think I'm like that much too young for it. I was too young. Like, I remember my parents watching it just at the end.
00:18:35
They all go, good night, John Boy. Good night, Grandpa. And it was just the outside shot of the house.
00:18:41
It was real homey. It was almost like grown up Little House on the Prairie. That's what I was thinking.
00:18:46
Is that word Little House on the Prairie? It was years later in a higher mountain.
00:18:51
Okay. Okay. Time and place. Here we are. Little House Library was like Minnesota, I believe.
00:18:55
Okay. And then I believed Walton's is Appalachia. Did you grow up like that? Tell us how it was.
00:19:00
Yes. Did you make the walls of your own home out of mud and clay? Please write in.
00:19:05
Okay. The cabins were where the mill workers lived and our library was their general store.
00:19:10
Pretty rad. That's incredible, actually. I lived in a cabin with three other girls. Everything was fine for a while.
00:19:15
But then we started noticing strange things were happening. Silverware would go missing, doors opened and then closed on their own.
00:19:21
my roommate kept a flashlight in her desk drawer and opened the drawer more than once to find the
00:19:26
flashlight turned on. We would wake up in the morning to find our alarm clock unplugged when
00:19:32
we knew it had been plugged in when we went to bed. Our porch light flickered for the entire
00:19:36
semester. Two of our professors tried to fix it with no luck. Ghosts? That's not, no. I spoke to
00:19:43
two girls who did the program the year after me and Anna told me that she was coming out of the
00:19:49
bathroom one day and heard footsteps. She thought it was one of her roommates and she said she felt
00:19:53
like someone was standing outside the door. So she yelled out, wow, very funny guys are just trying
00:19:58
to hear me pee. She stepped out of the bathroom and she said she got pushed backwards. The force
00:20:04
was so strong that she hit her back on the bathroom sink. Oh my God. Anna lived in the same bedroom
00:20:09
in the cabin that I lived in the previous year. I asked if she'd ever felt anything and she said
00:20:14
she was doing her hair in the mirror and saw a person standing behind her near the bunk bed.
00:20:19
When she screamed and turned around, there was nothing there. Oh, mirror, ghost, nightmare.
00:20:24
It's like straight out of a Blumhouse horror movie. Another girl told me that she often saw a ghost when she was walking home from the library at night.
00:20:32
She described the ghost as a lumberjack man who carried a chainsaw. He never did anything to me, but I always saw him.
00:20:39
Cool. What does he have to do past carrying a fucking chainsaw at you? I'm a college dropout now. Goodbye.
00:20:46
Goodbye. That's when I started jogging away from college. It makes sense for an area that was a lumber mill town.
00:20:53
Our professor told us that the ghost who haunts cabin eight is a lumberjack, too.
00:20:57
Maybe it's the same one. Thank you for everything you do and for always bringing humor to shitty situations.
00:21:04
Love y'all. And also, Anna sadly passed away in 2022. R.I.P. Anna. S.S.D. GM. Becca.
00:21:12
I'm so sorry. I know. sad. Wow. Ghost stories. I want the push stories more than the light flickering stories. You know
00:21:20
what I mean? Yeah, because if it's like a cabin in the 20s, then you're like, that's an electrical
00:21:24
issue. In the fucking middle of nowhere. Just get someone out there. It's those old electrical cords
00:21:29
wrapped in cloth. Exactly. Get rid of them. Because they're going to start a fire, a haunted
00:21:33
fire. A haunted fire. But somebody pushing you into the sink. That's fucked up. Summer is all about saying yes, going out and bringing the mess home in your car.
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00:24:22
Goodbye. Okay, here's my last one. It's short. Okay. Okay, it's lighthearted. To my favorite murder gals, I am currently in the trenches of parenting two girls, both under the age of two, which means most of my days are spent breaking up would-be baby cat fights, cleaning up crushed Cheerios and listening to Wheels on the Bus way too many times.
00:24:44
The other day, my youngest daughter was extremely upset over something, teething, am I right?
00:24:49
And launched into a full-blown meltdown at the breakfast table, like first thing in the morning.
00:24:54
And my older daughter immediately rushed to her side, tried comforting her and looked up at me with two wide eyes.
00:25:01
She uttered, maybe a hot dog would help. I was immediately confused. These girls have never seen or even had a hot dog ever before in their short lives.
00:25:12
But then I realized they have heard about hot dogs when we are driving in the car, listening to your podcast.
00:25:20
Stay sexy and know that, yes, a hot dog always helps. Mary and two pint-sized fans.
00:25:28
Maybe a hot dog would help? Maybe I should have a hot dog and figure out what they are.
00:25:32
Hot dogs all around? That's so cute. I love it. I love that. That's our legacy. I know.
00:25:39
Yes. Teach the children well. They're like, there's too many nitrates in this for you to actually eat.
00:25:45
You shouldn't be eating them. We've gotten so many cute hot dog keychains. Cat toys.
00:25:51
You know, hand-stitched. Crochet. Many things. Earrings. Oh, so cute. And people walking up with like hot dog print dresses on.
00:25:59
That's so good. Okay. My last one is pretty great. It starts Heidi Ho Murderinos I am not a fitter inner I only been concerned about standing out for two of my 52 years And of course those years were in junior high God it bad
00:26:15
It's just so bad. No one's ready. Tucked my shirts into my shorts. Well, they were so big and long.
00:26:22
You had to put them somewhere. Ah, the 80s, the golden age of bullying. Truly. It's so true.
00:26:29
That's why we're here today. Truly, it's like you either bullied or you got bullied.
00:26:33
and that those are the only two modes of existence in the 80s. When there are only four approved brand names of clothing at school
00:26:40
and at least three of them involved convincing your parents to drive you three hours over a mountain pass to a real mall.
00:26:46
Oh, and then beg you to buy them the Guess or a Spree shirt of your choice if you could fit into it.
00:26:52
Yes, yes, and yes. I really tried to blend and go unnoticed by the cool kids, but the clothing rules kept changing, and then the Rajneeshis moved to town.
00:27:00
the baghwan tree rajneesh and his pals started their own settlement in central oregon in the
00:27:07
early 80s though the commune would later be known for more nefarious deeds when i was in sixth and
00:27:12
seventh grade the school bullies would focus on the color palette the cult members chose to wear
00:27:16
the baghwan's followers called rajneeshies only wore the colors of the sunset capital c capital s
00:27:23
and suddenly wearing any shade of red could get you on the wrong side of a dodgeball
00:27:27
not to mention the vicious chants of Rajneeshi, Rajneeshi echoing for weeks. Oh, God.
00:27:33
So you're just like a 12-year-old girl going to school, like, I just got this cute redis breech shirt.
00:27:39
Here I go. The cult was unwelcome in their tiny town of Antelope, just over an hour from where I grew up in Bend,
00:27:45
but the mistrust and suspicion spread all over the area with Rajneeshi hunter bumper stickers
00:27:50
and parody songs on the radio about the Bhagwan's right-hand woman, Sheila. There didn't seem to be a sympathetic or even neutral stance on them anywhere in the state.
00:28:00
Of course not. Tough titties. Yeah, because you've got it. There's a race issue.
00:28:05
There's just a general new people in a country territory issue. Doing something not Christian.
00:28:11
Not Christian in the kind of opposite and in a communi way It all the it a real perfect storm in maroon Oh except for my Girl Scout leader Yep she put together a field trip for our troop to go visit the commune one Saturday in 1984
00:28:27
That's progressive. Right? Finally, my curiosity would be satiated. If only I could get my mom to sign the permission slip.
00:28:34
But you know what? That woman didn't even seem to consider it before telling me no.
00:28:39
But all my friends were going. I would be the only person who didn't go. who we would be chaperoned. Why you're being so close-minded, Mom? Why won't you let me go visit
00:28:47
a cult? Her answer, though seemingly random at the time, would bubble up in my memory about 13
00:28:52
years later when I was planning another uncomfortable conversation with her. Why wouldn't she let me go visit the Rajneesh Purim? And then the mother's answer in quotes,
00:29:02
because there were lesbians there. Oh, no. Although my FOMO felt fatal, I guess I wasn't
00:29:11
that concerned about it because I was almost 30 when I found out zero Girl Scouts went on that trip.
00:29:17
Nobody's parents signed those permissions. Now, when I came out to my mom in 1997, she was very
00:29:24
loving and accepting, and I will never stop missing her since she passed 10 years later.
00:29:29
But Jesus Christ, Mom, you don't need a permission slip to be a lesbian. Stay sexy and wear what
00:29:35
feels good, Beth. That's such a great like full circle story. Why didn't you want me to go?
00:29:42
Because you will become the thing you are. Oh, guess what? Yeah, I'm the thing that you didn't
00:29:47
want me to see. You fear it for a reason. But also, did you know they also have machine guns
00:29:52
there? Yeah, right. And all kinds of shit you would be very worried about. The lesbians with
00:29:57
machine guns are like the least of your fucking worries, I promise you. Hey, lesbians with machine
00:30:03
Guns, thank you for listening. We'd love to hear from you. We truly would. What's going on in Bend?
00:30:09
Let us know. And also stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie?
00:30:23
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 Squalacci Email your hometowns to MyFavoriteMurder at gmail
00:30:35
Follow the show on Instagram at MyFavoriteMurder. Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:30:42
Or watch us on YouTube, search for My Favorite Murder, and then like and subscribe.
00:30:46
Goodbye! Hey everyone, it's Cal Penn. I'm inviting you to join the best sounding book club you've ever heard with my podcast,
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