323 - Pills & Thrills | My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

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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. When a charming neurosurgeon rode into Frontier Town

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selling a persona of confidence and care, patients trusted him. He wore cowboy boots in the operating room

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and became sought after by patients. He promised to heal them. Instead, he left a trail of broken bodies.

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Hello and welcome to My Favorite Murder. That's Georgia Hartstark. That's Karen Kilgareth.

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The end. you always got to take a sip of whatever your drink is right at that moment

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yeah that's when i do it is that late night talk show uh yeah ways this is me killing time during

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the dramatic pause after we introduce the show and then the impact of our listeners hearing yeah

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it really is the show that i press play on wow like right you just gotta give them four and a

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half seconds. A powerful pause while I, well, you make drinking noises on a, on a podcast.

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That's how it goes. Things people hate the most on podcasts, drinking. I don't know. Would you say

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you hate drinking noises more than eating noises? No, I think I hate drinking noises more. Really?

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Honestly, neither of them bother me that much. Eating noises bother me more though.

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Eating. There's something about, you know what I think it is? The swallowing sound.

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Oh, nobody fucking wants to hear another person's, you know, what's the word that I fucking love and

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hate so much when you chew something? Mastication. Yeah. No one wants to hear that word alone gives

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you creepy feelings. Mastication. Mastication or a glottal, any kind of epiglottis action.

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I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear the enzymes in your mouth breaking down,

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breaking things down so that your gut and the microbes in your gut can then churn them out even more, et cetera, et cetera.

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Not in my backyard. Not with my kids. Not in my backyard. Not in my America. No way.

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Not this America. What's going on? I'm going to get comfortable, let my hair down.

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Well, can I tell you about that? I did. I finally did the homework that I wish I had done years ago, but it didn't exist years ago when I made the mistake. But I felt as if when I saw this on Netflix, it was my duty as a person who had fucked up the identity and switched names that I had to watch a documentary on Netflix about Jimmy Savile.

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Oh, my God. The British entertainer slash serial serial pedophile. Also, but actually sex pest to the max.

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Right. Because one of the very final lines, no spoilers. Yeah. One of the very final lines of this documentary is like just a black card comes up and it says that he sexually molested and assaulted people from ages.

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And it was something like seven to seventy five. or something horrifying. I mean, it is really bad. And now I just want our listeners to know

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the mistake I'm talking about. I simply will never make that mistake again. Yeah.

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Because I know who Jimmy Savile is now. My God, that documentary is done really well. So much so that I tried to get Vince to watch it

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with me and the trailer made him so creeped out and uncomfortable that he wouldn't watch it.

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I've watched like one episode and it's incredible. And just the whole time you're like, what the fuck?

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How? How? And obviously the how is fucking this institutionalized, you know, allowance of people with fame and money and charisma to get away with whatever they want.

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And who align themselves with do-gooders and doing good. So they align themselves with charity or they align themselves with volunteerism.

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With Princess Diana. Oh, yeah. He had the royal family And I mean but also didn you find it interesting Or maybe I don know if you got this in one episode But first of all as you well know I never want to hear these people talking I don care I don want to get to know them So then the reveal you don need to like right you already know who these people are But it was so disturbing because he has a full life of video recording So they just kept cutting back to him talking making excuses making jokes Yeah But like jokes that fit perfectly with how creepy he was And of course the like hindsight

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him saying that, that he likes him young or whatever is the fucking, I mean, it's creepy

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to say that anyways, but the way he says it, it's like funny back then. He was our like,

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what Dick Clark or something or their Dick, you know, the UK's Dick Clark would say.

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Yes. Not saying Dick Clark is a pedophile. Well, that's the other piece I was going to say is to be outside because you're like, it's this institution.

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But we aren't in that institution. So we did not know this man from childhood. He was not any kind of like stalwart entertainer in any way.

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So you're watching this going. Yeah. Yeah. That guy is the worst. Anyone should have asked us over here in the second.

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The hair alone. In our America. This great America. But also there was that amazing interview with a woman who was like the morning the morning show host that he just kept. Yes. Disgustingly and aggressively making passes at and doing weird shit with that she had to agree with. He knew she had to agree. She had to yes and him. And it's just man. Yeah. It's quite something of like people like to talk about the reactivity of PC culture, blah, blah, blah.

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It's like, let's look back on this was nearly the 80s. It wasn't it wasn't 1920.

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It was fucking relatively recently. And it was this bad. I mean, y'all who are like, we have some sins to atone for.

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So if we take a severe right turn and overcorrect, then it's well deserved. And shut the fuck up and let it happen.

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because we need to prove to children that we won't just let anyone come on up and babysit them.

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Oh, hi, Blossom. Yeah. Speaking of somebody coming on up. Excuse me. We're talking about pedophilia in England.

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Stop it. Blossom, do better. Blossom. Hey, bestie. Oof. That's what I have to say to Blossom.

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Okay. Yeah. So the Jimmy Savile documentary on Netflix. Yeah, it's incredible. Watch it, but it's really awful.

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Don't watch it if you're feeling anything other than ready to fight, because it's just also it's not satisfying.

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It's in that way where he dies before anything really happens. And it just all kind of points toward. Yeah, because he was too powerful.

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No one could even imagine. And also I've watched other. It wasn't a full documentary, I don't think, but I've seen other shows on him.

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And it was that went further into how he had like places set up for him to just go and molest.

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Like he had systems worked out all over that country where he was. That's all he did. That's what he did.

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It's really, really upsetting. They didn't really go that far into that, how extensive it was, except for those cards.

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Speaking of true crime documentaries, have you seen The Invisible Pilot? It's on Apple Plus.

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No. It's only like one or two episodes right now, but it's so good. It takes place like in the 70s.

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It's rough and tumble pilot, like teach them yourself, you know, down homey pilot drives

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one of those cars that are a car, but it's got the truck back on it. Is that a Camaro?

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What is that? A Subaru Brat? No, but you know, the ones that are like, yes, but the ones that are like big and long

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and famous. El Camino. And El Camino, like he's that guy. So he he's this like outlaw.

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It's basically, and here's my theory, is that he is that he is D.B. Cooper. Like, oh, it's this great story of this outlaw pilot guy who I swear to God, like it could be D.B. Cooper's like origin story if they want it to be.

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But it's not. It's really good. The invisible pilot. Yeah. How is it a true crime thing?

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Because I can't give too much away, but he basically becomes like the biggest drug smuggling pilot.

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Oh, it's also cocaine bears origin story. It could be like it could be like all of those things.

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Oh, yes. OK, OK, got it. Yeah, it's great. I mean, it is kind of in that far pre 9-11 world.

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There were so little regulations. Right. That I mean, that's a big part of Catch Me If You Can, where he just would dress up like a pilot and then anything goes.

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Or he was a pilot. I can't remember. But it was just like, yeah, he could take suitcases of drugs or money or whatever onto planes and fly them around.

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It's also back at a time where like you could just take like a piece, like, you know, open up a Coke can and put some needle and thread in it.

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And there's your ID and it's totally legal. And like it could just disappear. And how do you mean?

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I don't know. You could just make up a new ID out of anything. And people would be like, yep, that's your legal ID.

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It says this is who I am now. If anyone believes it. I'm like, did this happen? I go can with the yellow thread.

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I'm just trying to think of it. Like, oh, like arts and crafts, you're saying? Yeah, you can do arts and crafts to make up like a legit identification of who you are

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and what you're doing and why. Yeah. You just say, oh, this is my license. I'm from Hawaii or some state that that person's not in.

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It's like, oh, yeah, it's a little different than yours. Yeah, they print IDs on pineapple in Hawaii.

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Sure. Here you go. It's my coconut ID. Okay, that's a good one. Oh, also, well, I let this roll right in.

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because I was having a lazy day in here in LA, gentle listener. It was hot, like boiling hot

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over the weekend. And then all of a sudden now it's cold, but it happened so fast that I was like

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sitting at the table, like working on my story. And I had a short sleeve shirt on and I was like,

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got into a bad mood. And then I was like, Oh, I'm just cold. It's like freezing. I'm sitting

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in my house freezing with the sliding glass door open Yeah But I let the Jimmy Savile documentary roll over into another series that actually has been recommended to me by a bunch of people called Worst Roommate Ever

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And the first episode's about Dorothea Puente. Yeah, I haven't seen it yet. It's really well made.

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It's really well done. I mean, it's tough these days because now there's one million.

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I mean, obviously, the production of true crime documentaries is like going like gangbusters.

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Yeah. But this one's made really well. It's shot really well. It's edited really interestingly, but heartbreakingly, it made me realize because now they have like satellite shots of the neighborhood that I used to live in, that she used to live in, where the house was.

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And she wasn't two doors down. But you always thought she was like two doors down from you.

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That's what we were told when we lived there and we could see into the backyard and it was this whole thing.

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Well, when I looked at this satellite image, she lived in a house like basically is one street down.

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We were basically kind of parallel to her, but not on the same street. I've bragged so much about it.

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You've now lost all credibility in the true crime community. I'd like to apologize for our listeners.

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I'd like to apologize. Hate mail to my favorite murder at Gmail. You know what's so funny about like that documentary sounds great.

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But I was talking to our friend Bananas, Scotty Landis at a party recently about how all true crime documentaries are about people swindling people.

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It's about murder sometimes, but mostly it's about like the Tinder swindler and this pilot, you know, who did all this crazy swindling lately.

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A lot of that. Yeah. And even like even Jimmy Saville, it's like or Saville, it's like swindling people.

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It's like really the name of the game these days. Right, because I think, which is the same as this show or any true crime, is like, we want to talk about who does stuff like this and talk about what they're like so that you could recognize that type of person if they come into your life.

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Right. Vince just walked in the room the moment you said that. Hi. Can you close the door just a little bit? Thank you.

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So you can recognize them as they come into your life and then Vince walks in. It's like the biggest, like, she should have known. Karen told her right when he walked in the door.

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The fateful. Yeah, totally. That's all we want is to be able to have like goggles, like Swindler goggles on.

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I mean, to me, it's just don't be so impressed by rich people or private planes.

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It's not that big of a deal. It's not that big of a deal. What we've been trying, if we have not been trying to teach you anything the past six years, it's that.

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Literally, it's like in the tender Swindler. And you didn't really watch it, right?

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No, I watched it. Yeah. Oh, well, what I loved was that those women, they like swiped whatever the right to correct direction is on Tinder for him. And then immediately it was just like, look at his Hermes belt, his Gucci blouse, right? He must be successful.

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Right. And then he's like, I want to take you to a different country on a private plane.

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And they're like, I think he's the one. And it's like, well, how about you unpack your reasons for why that would matter so much to you?

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I think unpacking the reason you're 27 is the biggest deal. Because I feel like a lot of us 40, 50 something year olds would be like, I don't like him.

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Right. And any Hermes fucking belt can be faked with a tin can and some fucking.

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Thread. Everyone knows that when you're over 40. It can be your ID and your bell buckle.

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I just think that guy was so unappealing. Truly. So unappealing. And also a guy you're trying to

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date who calls you honey. It's like that's four red flags by itself. Yeah. I mean, I don't want

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to victim shame because we've all been, you know, we've all been on some level pulled into like,

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you know, some charming person. Oh, please. Some of us have married them. I'm not, wait, that's right back in. Then Vince storms into the door and starts screaming.

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Uh, I'm blushing. Okay, go on. I'm not judging the victims. Also, you get to like what you like.

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So, you know, like you can't help it if you're attracted to somebody because you didn't have

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money growing up and suddenly they're like, I can pay for anything. That's a huge relief. And

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it's an attraction, whatever. Also, you know, like if you had a grammar school teacher who had

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a big curly hair and a big thick mustache, you might like those people. Like you, we can't really

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control those. What are you saying? Well, Mr. Cephalo is kind of hot. No. He sounds like a Bob,

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Bob, uh, what's the, from Bob's burgers, Bob Belcher? No. What's the Bob, the painter guy?

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pretty little Bob Ross. He's actually the perfect combination of those two men. But I'm just saying you can't help who you're initially attracted to, but you can have better

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standards than just money and like assholes that spend money like to be showy because it's never a

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good sign. Yeah. A hundred percent. In my opinion, you got to get those people that are like hiding

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their money in the couch cushion. And they're just like, I don't know, want to go to the drive-in?

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And you're just like this guy. And then you find out he's a billionaire. Oh, my God.

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Happily ever after. Let's see. I have to reiterate, speaking of TV shows, I talked about this a couple of weeks ago,

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but I just finished the season this past week. The last episode aired. The fucking show Severance on HBO is one of the best like seasons of a show I've seen.

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And I found out that hold on one second. Ben Stiller, John Turturro, Adam Scott.

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Well, Ben Stiller is a producer. He's not even in it. I thought he was the director. That's what I meant. It's a different thing.

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Britt Lower who so good who was in Man Seeking Woman who was she was a sister But it was created by Dan Erickson And when I talked about it last time on the podcast Hannah Creighton our producer texted me and was like we went to college together

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It's his first show. And I am so good. The last episode was like one of the best season ending episodes I've seen.

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Like, I can't fucking recommend it enough. It's sci fi. It's creepy. It's weird.

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Season finale. You're looking for the word season finale. What did I say? That's what I meant. What did I say? Series ending? Series ending. Sure. And I've heard tons of people talking about it. I am in the second episode now. Okay. And I'm getting it. And I'm also trying to stay away from people talking in detail about it. Yeah. Don't. Right. So yeah, it's great. That's good. It gets. Oh my God. Watch. Yeah. It's like a perfect little package of a season. I got so bummed when it, when it ended, but it has, it got renewed. So great. Yay. Oh, good, good, good, good.

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It made me that first episode with the low ceilings and fluorescent lights. Yeah.

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Made me at first begin to walk down the when I worked in offices and seemed like I was never going to not have to work in offices, jobs, depression.

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And then I snapped myself out by going, you don't do that anymore. You're very lucky and you get to not do that anymore.

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So it really renewed my super gratitude for podcasting. You never get past it, though.

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Like you never get past and I still don't either. Like every time I lay down for a nap during the day now, even though it's been 11 years

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since I had to have a desk job that I used to take naps under my desk when it was quiet

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because I was so tired. And I said to myself, if I ever don't have to work at, you know, nine to five, every

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nap I take, I will appreciate. And still to this fucking day, every time I lay down for a nap, I just go, yay.

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Yeah. Yes. And it can be done. You don't need a college degree. No. You don't need a ton of things, apparently, according to me and Georgia.

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There's many things you can lack and still get there. Right. Just a little chutzpah and a friend.

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Good idea. Uh-huh. And some other people who also like the thing you like. Right.

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That's it. Yeah, it's that easy. Oh, speaking of Game of Thrones. What? A thing that other people like.

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Your new podcast. Your new Game of Thrones podcast. Mm-hmm. I have a Game of Thrones update.

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It's been a while. I am no longer interested in Game of Thrones. Oh. I got to season six.

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Okay. Almost. You'll be back. I just can't. No, I won't. No, I won't. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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I can't care anymore. It just got so boring. What do you remember? One of the last things that happened.

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Arya Stark isn't Arya Stark anymore. She's in the place where she has to not have a face or a name or whatever.

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yeah fucking Jon Snow set off into the you know deep wide wondrous world and then you know what's

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your face got her hair cut off all short I don't know it just stopped matter I stopped caring about

00:21:04

it didn't you like the shame walk shame shame no I got so gross it was great it was an amazing

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scene but it was gross let me ask you one question okay and I need this to be it's a

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fine if it's a spoiler I just want to know and if the answer is yes I will continue okay does

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the hound come back? Shit. No. Then I'm not interested. She left him when he was dying,

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not dead. So I was like, okay, maybe he'll come back. Cause he was like my favorite.

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The duo there was great. I don't know why I'm talking about this. Like I fucking, first of all,

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the reason I think I know is because Rory McCann is the actor who plays the hound.

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Right. You know him. And he was in the British show. So I will always brag. I will always take

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five seconds to say I know Rory McCann, which I love, which is why I'm asking him. Like,

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you're his friend. Did he ever call you and say, hey, guess what? I'm going to be back soon.

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I don't know. Well, we weren't calling friends. Exactly. I know. I literally would have to go,

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Karen, I was in a show with you. No, he's in Glasgow. But I watched, like, I would say

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in the beginning, 70% because Rory McCann was in it. I was, this is the greatest and he deserves it.

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But I honestly think he didn't come back. But I can't remember because a lot of stuff happens at the end.

00:22:22

And I'm not sure where you are. Yeah. Brienne of Tarth started to get on my nerves a little bit.

00:22:28

All right. Oh, too tall? Okay. I loved it. She was in love with... I know. I love that they kind of were in love with each other.

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I know. Not meant to be. That was a really great storyline. But then it fell apart and he became an asshole again.

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Like he thought he was going to be start to be like good and soft. And then he's like, nope, still going to fuck my sister.

00:22:48

Like, yeah, I didn't. It stopped giving me gifts. And, you know, everyone says when something stops giving you gifts, it's time to walk away.

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So now I'm reading the self-help book, Giving Me Gifts. Oh, my God. Speaking of, did you watch Lizzo's Watch Out for the Big Girls?

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I have not yet. It'll make me cry too much. Oh, I watched it in a weekend. I cried the whole time.

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I feel so much better about myself and the world. It was incredible. It's incredible.

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She's the greatest. She's the greatest. Every woman on that show who was auditioning to be, you know, her big girl dancers, like

00:23:23

the best fucking people. I followed them all on Instagram now. Maybe I want to be a dancer.

00:23:27

I don't know. Sure. Which is impossible. It's not too late. It's not too late. Yeah.

00:23:32

Also, as two people who went and watched Lizzo live at the Palladium way back when, that

00:23:39

show was constant dancing. I was just like, how is she doing all this dancing and singing

00:23:44

without even like gasping once? No, I mean, I would be on the floor crying. God, that was such a good show. Yeah. And her backup dancers, every single one of them was

00:23:54

like this dynamic, could stand on their own and just still steal the fucking show. Like,

00:24:00

all of them. And so these, these women on the show are auditioning, but it's not like a reality show

00:24:05

where like every episode, someone gets kicked off and cries and stuff. It's not like that. Like the

00:24:09

point isn't to get kicked off. Oh, that's good. It's like really feel good. One girl gets sent

00:24:15

home because she's not getting along with the other girls and she's kind of like not cool.

00:24:19

Like that's the kind of show it is. It's really positive, uplifting. Yeah. I'm going to have to put some time aside. That's almost like special viewing where I'm like,

00:24:29

Can I cry? Do you have somewhere to go? Can my eyes be this swollen? Yeah. Because I know I love it and I do love dance.

00:24:36

Oh, you are a creature of the dance. You know me and my dance. You know what's actually funny is Jacob Tierney of Letterkenny was in town and we started watching.

00:24:47

Of course, I try to put in e-dating and that's like... I was going to do it. I did a pilot documentary when I tried to find the one about the pilot.

00:24:57

that's right. Nope. Nothing came up. You need so many more search terms these days. Oh, okay. So

00:25:04

we started watching this show called dating no filter. And I just have to say we were binging it.

00:25:10

It's so funny. So two comics sitting or talent from E or whatever are sitting on a couch,

00:25:16

watching people go on blind dates. But so it has a little bit of that. What was that show?

00:25:22

Oh, Mr. Seinfeld. A blind date. Oh, blind date. Got it. Remember the 90s show Blind Date?

00:25:26

Yes, I loved it. My ex-boyfriend was on that. So it has that vibe, but these are much more produced dates.

00:25:32

They're kind of crazy. It's like crazy shit. But these people they have on there are so funny.

00:25:37

All of them are genuinely conversationally funny. Nice. They're not reading off of prompters.

00:25:43

Yeah. They're genuinely riffing. Nice. And I was like having written on a bunch of e-pilots and a bunch of stuff for that channel.

00:25:51

Oh, that was not good. I was like, oh, my God, they've cracked it like dating. No filter.

00:25:57

So if you're sitting around and you just need to binge. Yeah. Funny reality dating silliness.

00:26:03

Dating no filter on E is a genuinely hilarious show with like it made me feel good about the comedians of tomorrow.

00:26:10

There's so many good comics on it. I love it. Yeah. Great. Right. OK, that's enough recommendations.

00:26:18

OK, here's exactly right corner. our podcast network. And this is the corner dedicated to the podcast network that we have

00:26:23

called Exactly Right Media. And there's so much going on in Exactly Right Media and on that network.

00:26:29

The lead story lately is that our banana boys, Scotty Landis and Kurt Braunler, have booked a

00:26:38

guest for the Bananas Weird News podcast that might just blow your mind. Charlize Thrawn is

00:26:45

going to be on their podcast. You know, the up and coming actress, Charlize Theron. You know,

00:26:51

the young hopeful Charlize Theron. She's on their podcast. I was like, oh my God, I can't believe

00:27:00

it. What a get. I mean, what a get. On Parent Footprint with Dr. Dan, the incredible parenting

00:27:07

podcast that also you don't need to be a parent for. It also is like helpful for me and my inner

00:27:12

child. Dr. Dan had Myisha T on and the episode's called Check Your Privilege. And she's the founder

00:27:18

of Check Your Privilege. And they talk about awareness of unconscious bias and educate parents

00:27:24

on families and parenting. It's really important. That's great. Well, also, if you just want

00:27:30

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00:27:36

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00:27:41

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00:27:47

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website or domain. Goodbye. Georgia, this week, I'm going to go classic serial killer story.

00:31:14

And he's one not a lot of people have heard about. I don't think. Yeah. Although, well,

00:31:20

I'll just start to tell you about it. But it's a fascinating area. And the reason that I first

00:31:24

picked him is because he is called the National Forest Serial Killer. His name is Gary Hilton.

00:31:31

Do you know that our stories have a connection this week for like the first time ever?

00:31:36

For the first time, Hannah called me and she was just like, this happened and it happened accidentally. I swear to God, I did not do this on purpose.

00:31:43

She was like, it'll be okay if we do it this way and this way and this way. And it'll happen and

00:31:47

it'll be great. I'm like, I could do a different story. She's like, no, this will be great.

00:31:51

Yeah. Well, there's just this weird overlap that like, especially for a serial killer that isn't

00:31:58

famous and isn't well-known except for once I was reading through this, I was like, oh, actually

00:32:04

there's some pretty well-known things that have come out of this. It's strange. Okay. So let me

00:32:10

just tell you about it. It starts New Year's Day 2008 and we're in Georgia and a 24 year old woman

00:32:17

named Meredith Emerson decides to go hiking with her dog Ella on the Freeman Trail in Vogel State

00:32:23

Park, which is in Georgia's Chattahoochee National Forest. But neither Meredith, who is very athletic,

00:32:30

she's an avid hiker, she was also trained in martial arts, or her dog Ella come back home

00:32:36

like within her normal time. This is something she did all the time. She hiked a lot. She was

00:32:43

very outdoorsy. So the next day when she didn't make it back, all her friends know something is

00:32:48

very wrong. They go to the park to go look for her, but they have no luck. And once they report

00:32:54

this to the authorities, everyone's really concerned because it's New Year's Day or now

00:33:00

it's the January 2nd. And at that time of year, the nighttime temperatures go below zero. Anyone

00:33:06

who may have gotten lost or injured on the trail that she took could possibly get hypothermia,

00:33:12

but her friends and family are actually more worried because they know she wouldn't get lost

00:33:17

and she probably wouldn't get injured that something must have happened to her. Right. So when the police get the statements from the witnesses who were at the park that day that

00:33:26

Meredith was there, many of them say they saw a silver-haired older man who also had a dog

00:33:32

following Meredith and her dog on the Freeman Trail. When they finally start the search of the park to try to find Meredith,

00:33:40

over 100 volunteers come. They say in the local paper that it was like they'd never seen a turnout like that before.

00:33:48

But the police hold those volunteers back because they want to search the park with a thermal detector so that they can actually see,

00:33:58

and they don't want people walking everywhere. They want to see if they can see if someone's out and lost.

00:34:02

Right. So when volunteers finally are able to walk the trail and it's a six mile trail, they end up finding Meredith's water bottle, her sunglasses, Ella's leash and an extendable police baton.

00:34:16

Oh, no. Yeah. Authorities are then alerted that Meredith's ATM card is being used at banks miles away from where she was last seen.

00:34:25

So based on other unsolved murders in Georgia and Florida, a lot of people believe that there could be a serial killer operating in the national parks of both states.

00:34:35

And authorities in North Carolina actually start watching the news about Meredith's disappearance.

00:34:41

So they go wide with this description of the silver-haired man, and it's all on the news.

00:34:46

And the authorities in North Carolina are like, oh, this is interesting because they've recently had a case where an elderly couple who loved hiking also disappeared from a national park.

00:34:59

And this couple was last seen talking to a man with silver hair who was wearing a yellow jacket.

00:35:05

So police end up running the tags on a car that was in the parking lot that had been seen that day.

00:35:12

And they discover that it's registered to 61-year-old Gary Hilton. Gary Hilton is a bearded, silver-haired man known for his violent temper,

00:35:21

and he's also known to often take his dog Dandy on walks through the forest. Oh, God.

00:35:27

So only one day after investigators identify Gary Hilton as a person of interest in Meredith's disappearance,

00:35:33

her dog Ella is found alive. She just walked into a grocery store, and that grocery store was 60 miles away from where Meredith was last seen.

00:35:43

Holy shit. But yeah, so now Ella is safely returned to the Emerson family. But there's, of course, still no sign of Meredith.

00:35:51

And police start looking into the background of Gary Hilton. So Gary was born on November 22nd 1946 in Atlanta Georgia His parents William Hilton and Cleo Reynolds actually did not have a happy marriage

00:36:06

Gary never meets his biological father, partly because his father's away serving in the military

00:36:12

when he's actually born. And then soon after that, Cleo, his mother, discovers that her husband has three other

00:36:20

wives. Oh, shit. Yeah. So Cleo leaves her husband. She takes baby Gary, baby Gary, and she goes to work selling window coverings, which there's

00:36:32

involves a lot of traveling. She has to leave Gary with friends. And then she finally just starts taking him with her.

00:36:39

And they just they don't have like a permanent home. He doesn't go to one school.

00:36:44

They just travel all over while she works. But he when he's a kid, apparently Gary is very good.

00:36:51

He's a good kid. He's very, very intelligent. But when he's around eight years old, classic.

00:36:57

Like this is actually following the classic. Because also remember the Golden State Killer's father had multiple families?

00:37:04

Yeah. Who was also in the military? Totally. There's some weird parallels. When Gary's eight years old, he gets hit on the head so hard.

00:37:13

And now if you're squeamish, you're not going to like this next part. Okay. He's partially scalped.

00:37:19

Holy shit. He ends up having to get 200 stitches on his head. Oh my God. An eight-year-old.

00:37:26

An eight-year-old. So then following this, Cleo notices that he's becoming more hyperactive and more impulsive

00:37:32

and he has difficulty focusing. So it is... Classic hit in the head. Classic. The old triangle.

00:37:40

Someone's triangle of something. The dark triad. It's the dark triad of head injury.

00:37:45

Wetting the bed. Yeah. Selling things on fire. Killing animals. You know, a triangle.

00:37:51

You know, a triangle of what sounds like five things. Okay. So in 1953, Gary's mother marries an Argentinian horse trainer named Nilo de Bag, and they

00:38:03

settle in Tampa, Florida. But as great as it sounds to have an Argentinian horse trainer as your dad, this guy has a

00:38:12

temper. He's overly strict with Gary in a way that Cleo isn't. I mean, this new man resents their close mother son relationship.

00:38:21

The marriage is fraught with conflict. And in 1958, the family moves to Hialeah, Florida.

00:38:28

The tension builds over the next six years. And then in 1959, 13 year old Gary shoots his stepfather.

00:38:36

Oh, yeah. Nilo is only wounded and he actually declines to press charges against his stepson.

00:38:42

And Gary is sent for several months of inpatient psychiatric care, followed by a period in foster care before returning home to attend Miami Springs Junior High School.

00:38:54

So he's still a child, basically. Then when Gary's in his mid-teens, his mom sends him to live with family friends for a couple of years.

00:39:04

And then when he gets back, he reports his mother being cold and distant. Now Gary's failing miserably at school.

00:39:11

he has a short fuse. Clearly, he's having problems. So in 1964, 17 year old Gary drops

00:39:19

out of high school. He enlists in the US Army, completes airborne training and gets his GED.

00:39:25

He's stationed in Germany and he's in I read an article about this weird. He was in this like

00:39:31

group that was doing stuff with nuclear bombs and very high pressure, very kind of scary,

00:39:40

a scary reality to be in. And it's around this time that Gary starts hearing voices

00:39:45

and he basically ends up having a full schizophrenic breakdown, essentially. They honorably discharge him in 1967. And when he returned to the United States,

00:39:57

he comes back with his new German wife. Her name's Ursula. But their marriage falls apart

00:40:02

in a couple of years. In 1969, 22-year-old Gary marries a woman named Sue, but they divorce in

00:40:08

1971. He gets his chauffeur license in 1970. He's going to be a chauffeur. Everything's great. He's

00:40:14

resetting. He's realigning. He's manifesting his destiny. But then in January of 1973,

00:40:22

he gets a DUI. He loses his license for a year and he never reapplies. So he's off. In 1977,

00:40:29

Gary marries what would be his third wife, Dina Baugh, who divorces him a year later.

00:40:36

In March of 79, he tries for number four, marrying a woman named Betty Sue Galloway.

00:40:42

She divorces him seven months later. So they're lasting shorter and shorter periods.

00:40:47

He's actually an on paper technically good looking man. Oh, okay. But his temper just probably immediately fucking shows up.

00:40:56

Yeah. And drinking and sounds like there's lots of other kind of coping mechanisms.

00:41:02

So then in the 80s, Gary begins his life of crime, consistent crime. He's arrested in 1982 and charged with arson.

00:41:12

There's your dark triad. Hey, what's up? What's up? But he manages to avoid a conviction, which is interesting.

00:41:19

Then he gets convicted of drug possession, carrying a firearm without a license.

00:41:23

In 1987, he's arrested and pleads guilty for theft and possessing marijuana. In 1994, he's charged with and pleads guilty to 21 counts of phone solicitation.

00:41:37

What does that mean? Hey. Ring, ring. Hello. Hey. Hey, want to hang out? Hey, want to hang out and stuff?

00:41:44

No, I'm a cop. You're under arrest. You're under arrest. Citizens arrest. Yeah, I don't know what he was doing.

00:41:52

This crime spree continues through the 90s He arrested and pleads guilty to theft and gets 10 years probation in late 1995 No one looking at the record I don know I don know how they making these decisions

00:42:07

He also gets involved around this time in 1995. He becomes the, quote, creative consultant, which is a very interesting angle on a locally produced low budget movie called Deadly Run.

00:42:21

Now, listen to this movie plot. It's about a man who abducts women and flies them out to a cabin in a remote area where he releases his victims in the forest so he can hunt them down.

00:42:32

You did that story. Yes, it's the butcher baker. Holy shit. In Alaska. So this serial killer worked on a movie that stole the plot line, which I didn't look it up, but I don't know if 95, it had already all been processed.

00:42:48

But who's that director that was like, hey, you know who I need to creatively consult on this?

00:42:55

Yeah. You know who knows a lot about murder and torture? Yeah. Being a creep in the forest.

00:43:01

Right. So after this era, Gary starts drifting from place to place and job to job until around 97, where he finally finds steady work with an insulation and siding business in Atlanta.

00:43:12

And he stays there for the next 10 years, mostly because his boss, a man named John Tabor, also gives him a place to live.

00:43:20

So I think he is finally able to settle down a little bit. But he has a problem with anger and it comes up all the time.

00:43:29

In 2004, the police are called after a man sees him savagely beating a dog in a public park.

00:43:36

and it turns out it is his dog, Dandy, the one who he is known for enjoying taking on walks in the forest.

00:43:44

Dandy. Mm-hmm. In 2005, he abandons a van on federal land in White County, Georgia,

00:43:51

and doesn't answer a citation for the offense, so a warrant is issued for his arrest in the federal database.

00:43:59

And then in 2007, things sour between Gary and his boss, John Tabor, when Gary threatens to kill John if he doesn't pay him $10,000.

00:44:08

So Gary then finds himself not only unemployed but homeless, and he now begins to live out of his van.

00:44:15

And this brings us to 2007. So now we're going to go to three months before Meredith disappears.

00:44:24

She disappears on New Year's Day of 2008. Three months before that, on October 21st, 2007,

00:44:32

a retired couple named John and Irene Bryant, who were both in their 80s, they decide to go for a hike in the Pisgah National Forest.

00:44:42

The Bryants have been married for over 50 years. They live in Horseshoe, North Carolina, and they love to go hiking together.

00:44:50

On October 21st, they park their maroon Ford Escape SUV at Yellow Gap Road near Route 276,

00:44:58

and they never make it back to their vehicle. So when two weeks pass without any word from the couple, their family reports them missing.

00:45:06

Henderson County Sheriff's Office immediately launches a search that includes a helicopter and cadaver dogs.

00:45:12

And as law enforcement combs the Bryant's phone records, a devastating detail emerges.

00:45:16

On the last day, the couple is known to be alive, seen alive. Irene attempts to call 911 around 4 p.m. from her cell phone, but due to the weak signal in the forest, the call drops and no further calls are made.

00:45:32

Oh, my God. That's terrifying. Horrifying. So almost a week after the Bryants are reported missing, searchers on the Barnett Branch Trail of the forest find the partially clad body of a woman covered in leaves.

00:45:44

Due to the state of decomposition, they can't tell immediately if it's Irene. Three days later, an autopsy is conducted and Irene's identity is confirmed, as is her cause of death.

00:45:56

She has sustained a fractured skull from blunt force trauma. She's been bludgeoned to death.

00:46:02

Her body's only 30 yards away from the couple's vehicle. John is still missing, her husband John, and the police fear for his welfare, of course.

00:46:11

Since national forests are classified as federal land, the FBI is immediately called in to this investigation.

00:46:19

They announce a $10,000 reward for any information leading to Irene's killer. And meanwhile, investigators monitoring the Bryant's bank accounts find that the day after the couple disappeared, their ATM card was used to withdraw $300 from an ATM in Ducktown, Tennessee.

00:46:36

So when law enforcement checks the ATM, like the footage around the ATM, they can see this person making the withdrawal is an older Caucasian man, but his face is obstructed by the hood of his rain jacket.

00:46:49

They can't identify him and the case goes cold. So a little over a month after John and Irene Bryant go missing on December 1st, 2007.

00:46:59

So the month before Meredith, a 46 year old Crawfordville, Florida nurse named Cheryl Dunlap.

00:47:07

Her friends called her Sherry fails to show up to a dinner date with a friend. And the next day she misses church when Cheryl doesn't call or reach out in any way to explain why she wasn't in either of these places.

00:47:20

her friends get really worried that this is nothing like that is absolutely not her character

00:47:25

at all. And they report her missing. Her white Toyota Camry is found abandoned with a flat tire

00:47:31

near the entrance to the Apalachicola National Forest. Upon further inspection, the authorities

00:47:38

see that tire had been slashed. So witnesses report seeing Cheryl reading a book on the boardwalk

00:47:45

in the Leon Sinks area of the Apalachicola Forest, and a search party is organized,

00:47:51

but no one can find even a sign of Cheryl. Meanwhile, police detect that her ATM card

00:47:57

is being used to make withdrawals in Tallahassee, Florida. The person making the withdrawals is wearing a rubber mask to obscure his face.

00:48:07

Horrifying. Then two weeks after that, on December 15th, a hunter named Ronnie Rents

00:48:11

is out in the same national forest where Cheryl was, and he finds what he thinks could be

00:48:18

a partially eaten animal carcass. But sadly, upon closer inspection, he sees that it's the

00:48:25

decomposing body of a woman and she's been decapitated and she's missing her hands.

00:48:30

Fuck. Yes. So Ronnie immediately reports this to state law enforcement. Just like with Irene Bryant,

00:48:37

authorities have to conduct an autopsy to confirm the victim's identity. And when DNA results come

00:48:45

back, the body is identified as Cheryl Dunlap. The decapitation and removal of her hands were

00:48:51

determined to have occurred post-mortem, mercifully. Yeah. Yeah. Finally, there's a lead.

00:48:58

Investigators announced that they're looking for a white van seen in the area around the time Cheryl

00:49:03

disappeared, and the driver could be the same person who used Cheryl's ATM card numerous times

00:49:08

in Tallahassee, withdrawing $700 from her bank account. So tips start to come in over the next

00:49:15

few days with members of the public reporting a man with a dog who seems to be homeless,

00:49:19

driving a 2001 Chevy Astro van. Despite this information, no solid suspect is ever identified,

00:49:27

and the authorities assume that this is just a one-off homicide. So then we're basically back up to the date of Meredith Emerson going missing on New Year's Day

00:49:38

2008. Her car is found on January 5th, and two days later, the silver-haired man's description

00:49:44

is released to the public. So Gary's former boss, John Tabor, tips off the police that Gary Hilton

00:49:51

could be the man that they're looking for because Gary had just called John and asked him for money,

00:49:58

which basically confirmed his suspicions that he was like on the run and desperate.

00:50:04

Can I say like, I wonder, I wonder if a Meredith ran into him beating up his dog,

00:50:11

like he had done in that park that one time and tried to stop him. Or if he used his dog as a way to be like, look, I'm friendly.

00:50:20

We both have dogs. Yep. It's just like if she hikes all the time, she's probably aware of her surroundings.

00:50:27

So be like, you know, tricked into being calm with someone. I mean, it's just so sinister.

00:50:35

I think that's a really good point that you would assume a person with a dog is a better person

00:50:40

And then your average wandering single man. Yeah. I think that's true. When I walk Cookie, I don't talk to anyone unless they have a dog and Cookie's like,

00:50:50

I want to meet that dog. And then we chat, you know, it's. Yeah. But I wouldn't do that with just dude fucking walking by.

00:50:56

No way. No way. Like, hey, you want to chat? No. Yeah. Okay. So right after John Tabor calls and is like, I think this is the name of your guy.

00:51:05

You should look it up. Yeah. Then they get a call saying that Gary has been that basically the man that whose description just went out has been seen at a gas station in Cumming, Georgia, cleaning his van and throwing items out of the van into a dumpster.

00:51:21

So someone basically called and said, hey, that guy you're looking for is basically throwing away all the evidence.

00:51:27

Oh, my God. So they did lights and sirens. They raced down. Hilton couldn't get away and they arrest him for kidnapping at this gas station.

00:51:36

So inside the dumpster, they find Meredith's wallet, her driver's license, a student ID card, a bloodstained seatbelt, Meredith's bloodied clothes, a knife and a sheath, hiking boots, chains, a padlock, gloves, a jacket.

00:51:52

It is like a kill kit and a shit ton of evidence. Absolutely. And it's all just right there in this dumpster.

00:51:59

Like he collected it for them and then was like, yeah, here you go. I'm going to stick it all in this one spot.

00:52:05

Yeah. There was also a folding police baton and a blue backpack. In a forensic search of Gary's van, crime scene technicians noticed the vehicle is missing a rear seat belt,

00:52:16

while the other belts in the car are an exact match to the bloody one that was found in the dumpster.

00:52:21

So he was trying to get her DNA out of the van. Right. They're also able to match blood from his astro to Meredith's DNA.

00:52:29

items seized from Gary's van also have traces of Cheryl Dunlap's DNA, including two sleeping bags, Gary's duffel bag, and his hiking boot shoelaces.

00:52:40

So four days later, on January 9th, investigators find what they believe to be the charred remains

00:52:45

of Cheryl Dunlap's head and hands in a fire pit at a campsite seven miles from where her body had

00:52:52

been found. Oh my god. Yes. There are cigarette butts at that site that will later be identified

00:52:59

to have Gary's DNA on them. So basically, very quickly, they're able to link him to these murders.

00:53:08

Right. These horrifying, like horrifying murders. Were they sexually motivated? Were they just for robbery?

00:53:17

I mean, it's just mind boggling. He raped Meredith. Nothing was said about that, about Cheryl Dunlap.

00:53:24

But he, well, I'll tell you all about it. So the search parties are still calming the National Forest for Meredith.

00:53:33

They don't know. So now that they have it all just basically happened at once. Yeah.

00:53:38

So now the police know it's time they have to get a confession from Gary. And they basically just go in and say, we have all this evidence like it's over.

00:53:47

And so Gary Hilton agrees to plead guilty to the murder of Meredith Emerson and to reveal the location of her body on the condition that the DA takes the death penalty off the table Investigators make that deal and Gary leads authorities to the Dawson Forest where they find Meredith decapitated remains covered by leaves and branches more than 50 miles away from where she went missing

00:54:11

Oy vey. Gary tells investigators that he ambushed Meredith on the hiking trail with a knife, and he kidnapped her to steal her credit cards.

00:54:19

He kept her alive in his van for four days, during which time he raped her repeatedly.

00:54:25

Every time he asked, she gave him the wrong PIN number to her bank account. And eventually, he bludgeons her in the head with an iron bar.

00:54:37

He strips her body and douses it with bleach. The autopsy concludes that Meredith was decapitated post-mortem, like Cheryl,

00:54:45

with a serrated knife in an attempt to prevent her from being identified. Gary then put her head in a bag and hid it nearby.

00:54:54

He tells police that he couldn't bring himself to kill Meredith's dog. Oh, my God.

00:55:00

Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Right. He also testified that she fought fiercely for her life.

00:55:09

And he also testified he was a piece of shit. We testify that. Yeah. Yeah. It's just like, it's that kind of thing where it's just so extreme.

00:55:19

Totally. This is the difference between someone with a mental illness who snaps, quote unquote.

00:55:25

Yeah. And a serial killer who has an MO and a plan and a way they do things and all kinds of it's the reason is not credit cards.

00:55:35

Right. The reason is not credit cards. Right. Or even rape, really. It almost just seems like this need to dominate and murder.

00:55:42

murder and then it's this this weird like you can go like well they're a psychopath and it's like

00:55:48

well what but he won't kill the dog it's like there's just a way that's a thing that we'll

00:55:52

never be able to understand right and grasp i thank fucking god yeah so on february 1st 2008

00:56:01

gary pleads guilty to meredith's murder and is sentenced to life in prison with the possibility

00:56:06

of parole after 30 years. No, don't do that. Meredith's parents give emotional statements to

00:56:12

the court saying, quote, no punishment for Mr. Hilton is too great. He should stay alive and

00:56:18

slowly rot. There is no such thing as justice in this case. Nothing will bring our daughter back.

00:56:24

Yeah. Two days later, on February 3rd, a hunter named Mark Waldrop is out in the Natahala National

00:56:30

Forest in North Carolina. Mark is hunting just off the Forest Service Road when he comes

00:56:36

across a human skull. He immediately calls the local deputy who arrives on scene and the two men

00:56:42

search the immediate area. About 20 yards from where Mark finds the skull lies a human pelvis

00:56:48

and spine. The remains are sent for testing and two days later, they're confirmed as belonging to

00:56:54

John Bryant, who had been missing for almost four months. He died from a gunshot wound to the head.

00:57:00

John's remains are found more than two hours away from his wife Irene's body. Oh, God.

00:57:06

In March 2008, Gary pleads not guilty to the December 2007 murder of Cheryl Dunlop and is remanded in Florida awaiting trial.

00:57:16

So basically, this all kind of rolls out one on top of the other. It's very convoluted and all of the getting moved to different states to face different charges, it basically makes everything take forever.

00:57:29

So if normally, you know, he would be charged with this and then the trial would happen in three months, it doesn't work that way because there's so much red tape.

00:57:40

And also he's doing these plea deals to not get the death penalty. But then there's some states where you just get the death penalty.

00:57:47

There's no plea deal to be had. Those plea deals probably take back and forth for months and months themselves and everything.

00:57:53

I think, I mean, I'm a lawyer. I don't know why we would ever just kind of like hold forth on legal on the legal timeline of our podcast and we sound right.

00:58:08

Oh, that's true. OK, so now that they have Gary Hilton in custody, they're starting to realize that he could be responsible for many other unsolved murders that have similar M.O.s.

00:58:21

There are profilers that come from all across the country to go and sit in all of these trials and these court proceedings so that they can see if they can talk to Gary and see if they can get him to talk about anything.

00:58:36

Because the odds that Gary began kidnapping, raping and killing people that he just found in the forest when he was 61 years old are incredibly small.

00:58:46

In fact, it's much more likely that since his petty crime spree in the 80s that built into the 90s, he had just been escalating for years and years and years.

00:58:58

And of course, there are plenty of cold cases and or just a never reported cases out there.

00:59:07

Authorities find that there are at least four other missing or murder cases that very closely match Gary Hilton's M.O.

00:59:15

In September of 2009, a hiker in the Chattahoochee National Forest finds camping equipment believed to be Gary's.

00:59:22

They turn it over to the authorities in Florida who are still prepping their case against him for Cheryl Dunlap's murder.

00:59:30

And in February of 2010, I've heard this story before, but I didn't realize it was attached to this case.

00:59:36

A reporter and a crime writer named Fred Rosen, he wrote the book Lobster Boy about Grady Stiles, who we covered on this show.

00:59:44

So he submits a formal request to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to access Meredith Emerson crime scene and autopsy photos which obviously have not been released to the public So basically Fred Rosen had been following Gary Hilton and had been researching him And he was going to write a book about him But he had a

01:00:09

deal to basically have like chapters of the book printed in Hustler magazine before the book came

01:00:16

out. So it was essentially for Hustler magazine, they were going to put crime scene and autopsy

01:00:24

photos in this story. Oh no. Along with the rest of the story. Don't do that. I mean, it's okay.

01:00:32

And this is 2010. Yeah. Like the eighties, the early nineties. This is the difference. This is

01:00:38

the time. This is the cultural difference of back then. This was the kind of thing, of course,

01:00:46

when Meredith's family found out they were horrified and they were, they were like,

01:00:50

you have to do something like this cannot happen. Well, it's the thing that you and I talk about all the time or get asked about all the time

01:00:56

in interviews is like, why do women like true crime? And it's like, because it was packaged in this way for men in a fucking hustler magazine

01:01:04

of a crime scene and autopsy photos of a female victim who has family and friends whose life

01:01:13

was brutally taken away. It's like, that's how it was packaged before. Now we get to control the narrative. And that is the most horrendous, upsetting thing I've ever fucking heard happen recently.

01:01:25

There was a whole fight about it. Of course, it was declined. And in March 2010, the court issues an order prohibiting the release of any photos of Meredith depicted in the state of undress or dismemberment.

01:01:37

And then very soon after, the Georgia House Governmental Affairs Committee unanimously passes the Meredith Emerson Memorial Privacy Act, which prevents graphic crime scene photos from being publicly released or distributed.

01:01:52

Good. Which is, thank fucking God. Like, thank God. But also, when those decisions came down, and this is a straight lift from Wikipedia, please go give them $5 right now.

01:02:03

They need your help. The article says, quote, Right. To do this. Yeah. We disagree with this unanimous verdict about how fucked up it is.

01:02:42

And it was 10 years ago. So Gary's trial for Cheryl Dunlap's murder began in February 2011 after significant delays caused by arguments over which evidence would be admissible.

01:02:53

because ultimately the prosecution, they were prevented from presenting any evidence relating to Meredith Emerson's murder

01:03:02

or mentioning Gary being the alleged killer of John and Irene Bryant. So they had to like block all that off. And I'm sure they were arguing that all of that was prejudicial.

01:03:15

What the court does here is how Gary Hilton abducted Cheryl Dunlop from the Leon Sinks geological area,

01:03:21

held her for two days, after which he killed and decapitated and partially dismembered her.

01:03:28

He also attempted to burn her body parts, then basically dump the rest of the remains in the

01:03:36

forest. He is ultimately found guilty of three of the four charges, and the jury unanimously

01:03:41

recommends the death penalty. So on April 21st, 2011, Gary Hilton is sentenced to death in the

01:03:47

state of Florida. And then in March of 2012, Gary again faces trial, this time in federal court in

01:03:53

North Carolina, for the kidnapping, robbery, and murders of John and Irene Bryant. He initially

01:03:59

tries to plead not guilty, but as with Meredith Emerson's case, he strikes a plea deal. He admits

01:04:07

to killing the Bryants, pleading guilty to robbery and firearm offenses in return for being sentenced

01:04:11

to a second additional life term without the chance of parole. Gary explains that he killed Irene immediately before abducting John

01:04:20

in order to obtain their banking details. Gary then shoots John in the head before dumping his body in the forest.

01:04:29

So this is where the court learns that after Gary murdered the Bryants, he drives them from North Carolina to Georgia.

01:04:36

And then once there, he gets caught camping on private property. And so the police are called and they go there to talk to him.

01:04:48

But authorities are only required to run his license against the state database, not a federal one.

01:04:54

Oh, no. So that outstanding federal arrest warrant from 2005 doesn't show up. And Gary is let go with a warning and he continues on to Florida where he kills Cheryl Dunlop.

01:05:09

So sadly, that could have been prevented. But there was no there's no systems in place to check federal warrants.

01:05:16

Right. That's just sad. It's just like a sad. Yeah. Yeah. In January 2016, the statute covering Florida's death penalty is struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.

01:05:27

All Florida executions are put on hold. Ten months later, the Florida Supreme Court reverses that decision.

01:05:33

So Gary stays on death row. He remains there to this day at Union Correctional Institution.

01:05:40

Fred Rosen did publish a book in 2011 called Trails of Death, the True Story of National Forest Serial Killer Gary Hilton.

01:05:48

And there's also a Dateline episode called Mystery on Blood Mountain. And that is the shocking and horrifying story of Gary Hilton the National Forest Serial Killer Wow Wow I mean there has to be more victims

01:06:05

So I was going to say how shocking it is. There's such a small amount of victims, but it's like,

01:06:09

because that's just all that's happened. Like that, that's all that's come to light so far.

01:06:15

Correct. I mean, that's it. You got to figure it's tip of the iceberg. With the level of the level of kind of mutilating of the victims' bodies, like he was clearly used to that.

01:06:30

Yeah. Yeah. My sources for this story today are an article by John Ostendorf from the Asheville Citizen Times, an article by Nick Corbett in the Tallahassee Democrat, an article from the Atlanta Constitution by Tim Eberle and George Chidi, an article from the Asheville Citizen Times by Mike McWilliams, WCTV article by Julie Montanaro.

01:06:57

and, of course, both the Wikipedia Gary Hilton page and the Murderpedia Gary Hilton page.

01:07:05

Wow. Fucked up story. Great job telling it. Really awful. I feel like I haven't done one of those super rough serial killer stories in a while.

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Quince.com slash MFM. Goodbye. All right. Great job. Thank you. My story today is one that I always see, you know, late night on Reddit.

01:09:48

The unsolved stories with these creepy, you know, possible red herrings or what could have happened or what detail in here is most important.

01:09:58

And there's just so much going on that you can't really figure out, like, what means something and what doesn't.

01:10:03

And it's always fascinated me. So today I'm going to talk about the bizarre 1997 disappearance and death of Judy Smith.

01:10:11

Mm hmm. Yeah. Connection to your story. Mm hmm. The sources used in today's episode are a Medium article written by Kat Lee, a news.com.au article by Marnie O'Neill, an episode of Unsolved Mysteries to My City Paper articles by Frank Lewis and then another one by Frank Lewis and Howard Altman, a Philadelphia City Paper article by Howard Altman, as well as Reddit and Wikipedia.

01:10:38

In 1986, 40-year-old Judith Lois Bradford, known as Judy, was working as a home health care nurse just outside of Boston.

01:10:48

So she'd go to, you know, take care of patients in their home. She had had two unhappy failed marriages behind her, which left her as a single mother of two.

01:10:58

And so having to fend for herself, she put herself through nursing school while working at the same time to support her kids.

01:11:04

She was kind and caring. And at this time, she was currently taking care of an elderly man who was recovering from surgery.

01:11:12

And it's there that she meets the man's son, Jeffrey Smith. So Jeff is an attorney from Boston.

01:11:19

He also happens to be a single father. And he and Judy hit it off, which is like such a nice meet cute, right?

01:11:27

Yeah, it is. You know, he's touched by how well she cares for his father. She's an incredible nurse, everyone says.

01:11:34

And so Jeff asks Judy out. They fall in love and they're together for 10 years before marrying in 1996.

01:11:41

So here we are, April 9th, 1997. They're married and they're planning a trip to Philadelphia so that Jeff, who has experience

01:11:50

in health law, can attend the Northeast Pharmaceutical Conference, which, Karen, you and I know

01:11:57

is the sexiest, most debaucherous conference. Oh, my God. In the pharmaceutical world.

01:12:02

How many of those little black roller suitcases get thrown onto beds and opened up with like, what pills do you want?

01:12:09

Yeah. Pills and thrills. It's all there at the Northeast Pharmaceutical Conference.

01:12:14

Hell yeah. Great talks, even better pills. So the couple plan on going after the conference to see friends in New Jersey and make a little vacay out of it.

01:12:28

so that morning when they're supposed to leave jeff and judy arrive at boston's logan international

01:12:33

airport for their 1 30 flight but once they get there and this has fucking happened to all of us

01:12:38

judy realizes she left her driver's license at home so she's like shit okay well jeff has a

01:12:45

meeting that afternoon in philadelphia so she's like you go on on our scheduled flight i'm gonna

01:12:49

run home and get my license i'll meet you that afternoon or that evening after your conference

01:12:55

so she does she catches the 7 30 p.m flight then uh taxis into the double tree hotel she grabs

01:13:03

flowers on the way to give to him to apologize for fucking up the flight or whatever which is like

01:13:08

like they're cute they're like a cute couple everyone loves them all is well between the

01:13:12

couple they go to their room that evening and discuss what's going to happen the next day

01:13:17

so judy has nothing to do with this crazy sexy conference so she's like uh well i've never been

01:13:24

to Philadelphia. I'm going to go see some sites. She wants to see the Liberty Bell and Independence

01:13:29

Hall. You know, she's into touristy stuff. Jeff thinks Judy's plan is great. According to Medium

01:13:35

quote, he's not worried about his wife wandering around the unfamiliar place by herself.

01:13:40

As she's an experienced traveler, she had once taken her children to Europe for several weeks

01:13:45

and had traveled to Thailand by herself to visit the family of a former patient. So she's

01:13:50

fucking got her shit together when it comes to traveling. Yeah, she knows how to travel.

01:13:55

That's right. Before going to bed, Jeff and Judy, they make plans for the next day after Judy's done traveling

01:14:01

and Jeff is done conferencing to meet back at the hotel at 530 so they can get ready

01:14:06

and go to the cocktail party at six o'clock that night. So the next morning, April 10th, Judy sleeps in.

01:14:14

Jeff gets ready to go to the conference. They have a cute exchange all as well. and Jeff heads out. So then he gets back at around 5 p.m. after moderating the final session for that

01:14:26

day. He shows up to the hotel. She isn't there. 530 comes and goes and she still hasn't arrived.

01:14:33

And he's like, well, maybe she's down at the cocktail party and just didn't understand our

01:14:37

plans. Goes down there. She's not there. And then for the next like 45 minutes, kind of goes back

01:14:42

and forth trying to figure out if he's missing her. Where is she? Around that time, Jeff asked

01:14:49

the concierge to call the local hospitals, but there's no sign of her. Next, still not being able

01:14:55

to find her, Jeff hires a taxi to drive him around the city to follow the path of the tour bus that

01:15:02

she was supposed to take that day. Still doesn't find anything. And he's like, maddening. I know.

01:15:08

And he was like, the taxi driver was so mad at me. I was making him go super slow so I could see

01:15:13

exactly what's happening. People were honking behind us. I didn't care. You know, he's like,

01:15:16

what is happening. Yeah. What do you do? You're like, he's, that's the part before you're calling

01:15:23

the cops. Cause you're like, I don't want it to be a thing where the cops have to be involved yet.

01:15:26

I'm going to keep trying. Or like, maybe I misunderstood this. Maybe she misunderstood

01:15:30

what time we're supposed to meet, where we're supposed to meet. Maybe I did like, it's all

01:15:34

going to be come clear and funny in a minute, but it's not. Yeah. Yeah. He calls Judy's children to

01:15:40

let them know what's going on. He even was like, go check our, you know, message machine back at

01:15:45

home to see if she left a message because there's no cell phones, of course. There's nothing there.

01:15:49

And so finally, he goes to the police to report her missing. And they are, of course, like,

01:15:53

you have to wait 24 hours. But luckily, he knows some high profile people in the city.

01:15:59

This conference thing and law thing helps them out. And so they're like, OK, come back in the

01:16:03

morning and we'll file a report. And he tells them there's no way Judy was kidnapped off the street

01:16:08

without someone noticing because she would have caused a scene. Judy's son, Craig, later tells

01:16:14

police quote, she's the most difficult person to try to embarrass in public. If she doesn't like

01:16:19

something, she is yelling. But also Jeff doesn't think that Judy disappeared on her own terms.

01:16:27

Last he knew, she was carrying no more than $200 cash. She had left $500 in the hotel room.

01:16:33

She hadn't used her credit card, her bank account, or a phone charge card. And in the beginning,

01:16:39

police in Philadelphia don't take Jeff seriously. They suggest she disappeared on her own. Maybe

01:16:45

she's having a midlife crisis. They say at the time, Jeff feels like the police have the mindset

01:16:51

that, quote, women sometimes do these crazy things. Like basically, she's like, woo, I'm out of here.

01:16:57

You know, I need some time alone. Sure. You'd travel to a completely different city to then

01:17:02

just go off on your own. Right. And your happy marriage with your kids who love you and don't

01:17:07

tell anyone and just wander the fuck away. Yeah. Within a few days of her disappearance,

01:17:12

one detective even tells the Boston Globe that while Judy, quote, does not seem the type of

01:17:18

person to just disappear, it's, quote, not uncommon for a person of this age to have a

01:17:23

midlife crisis and disappear for a few days just to see if anyone misses them. You know, women in

01:17:30

menopause. Sorry, what year is this? This is 1997. Jesus fucking Christ. You know, women when they're

01:17:38

getting their period is essentially what he's saying. Women get all period-y and naggy and like,

01:17:44

does anyone love me? You know how we do that. It's, it's just, you can't, especially in, you know,

01:17:52

these stories that we read or whatever it like the sooner you hire women to even out that overriding male thinking Right It that thing where women at least go yeah I don know what that guy is thinking

01:18:06

I don't understand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm confused and I wouldn't. Men are just like going to hold forth and tell you exactly what's happening and why.

01:18:15

And don't worry. Nothing's going on because I know what this middle-aged woman is doing and thinking.

01:18:21

I learned a 1960s cigarettes ad that when women get PMS, they get real mad. And I still believe it here in 1997.

01:18:28

Like, it's just some. Yeah, it's old and weird and it has nothing to do with like sports.

01:18:34

So they just don't care. It's fucking insane. Anyway. Yeah. It's just irritating to hear it over and over again.

01:18:42

It's irritating. Right. Especially knowing that that wasn't the case. Yeah. Because you're opening the door to be wrong in this way that you're being condescending,

01:18:51

you're being illogical, and you're wrong. And now you're a bad cop or detective.

01:18:57

All right. But with no sign of Judy, the midlife crisis theory goes away. And detectives, of course, start to investigate Jeff, the husband, even though he was at the

01:19:08

conference when she disappeared. He's their number one suspect, which is understandable.

01:19:12

Looking at the husband, everyone does it fine. Yeah. Yeah. He's lucky he was at that conference with like a hundred witnesses that were just like, yep, all day long.

01:19:22

We saw him all day long. Debauchery all day long. Detectives search Jeff and Judy's hotel room.

01:19:27

Detectives start to think that Judy was never even in the hotel room because the clothes left behind didn't look worn at all.

01:19:34

Meaning she must have left the hotel room in the same outfit she'd worn the day before.

01:19:39

Hi, Karen. Do you know how many days in a row I wear the same fucking outfit? and I'm not at a hotel in my home. But it's like, if you're where, if you've got some loose,

01:19:50

loose travel pants that you didn't get anything on, on the flight up or down or wherever you went.

01:19:56

Yeah. Or they just don't notice. Maybe she folded her shirt that was from the day before back up and

01:20:02

put it in the suitcase. Do you know how many adorable, like weather and area appropriate

01:20:07

vintage dresses I bring? You do know because you've traveled with me a lot. I do actually.

01:20:12

that do not even come out of my fucking suitcase the entire there. And I wear, what are they called?

01:20:18

Tight jeans and a t-shirt the entire time. Why would I get in a dress? I like that you're saying weather appropriate

01:20:25

when I saw you in Washington, D.C. in the thinnest trench coat, a raincoat. And it was sub-zero.

01:20:33

And I was like, you're going to die here. How cute did I look? It was vintage. I looked like Carmen Sandiego.

01:20:41

you look like Carmen San Diego went to Antarctica thank you also there's no cosmetics in the room

01:20:52

so they're like there wasn't a woman in here Jesus Christ like come on man they're in her purse what

01:20:57

the fuck are you talking about them she's 50 something she's a casual lady her purse is her

01:21:04

signature red backpack that's what she wears around town she has a nickname for her backpack

01:21:09

She wears it so often. Maybe she doesn't care about makeup. It's all in there. But also, how long are they staying?

01:21:15

It's the weekend, right? So you're not bringing your you know, you're going to wash your hair with the hotel shampoo.

01:21:21

Like it's shit like this. They don't know. It's like, oh, yeah, the less I carry, the better.

01:21:26

Yeah, that's that's how that's good traveling. And if she's good at traveling or not, every woman wants fucking wingtips on their eyes and fucking red lipstick, you know?

01:21:35

All right. So they start to believe that Judy never even made it to Philadelphia.

01:21:39

Like the whole story of her losing her ID on the way, forgetting it is like a made up thing, too.

01:21:46

But Judy's two adult children tell detectives that what they found in the hotel room is totally typical of their mom.

01:21:52

And they also don't think Jeff is responsible because Judy, quote, loves Jeff and the pair get along very well.

01:21:58

Still thinking that Jeff is involved, though, they ask him to take a lie detector test.

01:22:01

Police say he refuses. And then Jeff's like, actually, I said I want the FBI to administer the test.

01:22:09

Otherwise, I wouldn't take it. And they said no. So he declined. So you got to check details, people.

01:22:15

Yeah. Trying to narrow down the last time anyone saw Judy, detectives talked to possible witnesses.

01:22:21

So based on these conversations, here's what we know about what Judy was up to after Jeff left that morning for the conference.

01:22:28

A couple people in the lobby had seen her, and they also confirmed with the driver of the sightseeing bus that Judy had been on it that day.

01:22:37

She had hit different tourist attractions and then got off the bus near the Doubletree Hotel later.

01:22:44

At around 3 p.m. on the day of her disappearance, a witness near the hotel said they saw Judy acting, quote, disoriented.

01:22:51

During all of these sightings, Judy was wearing a dark coat, jeans, white sneakers, and that signature red backpack that she always wore.

01:23:01

Police received many other tips, including the day after her disappearance. Judy was seen in the Depth Ford Mall Macy's in New Jersey.

01:23:11

A salesperson and a customer both described Judy to a tee, including her red backpack.

01:23:17

They told investigators that Judy said she was shopping for dresses for her daughter,

01:23:21

who never liked any of the clothes she picked out, she said specifically. According to Medium, the customer and salespeople said Judy was acting strangely and seemed unstable.

01:23:32

As she left, quote, she tried to get a younger woman to leave with her. She seemed to think that the woman next to her was her daughter.

01:23:40

So there's some disorientation going on. Judy's family believes that the Macy's sighting is credible.

01:23:47

Especially since Judy was known to buy clothes for her daughter. And there's also an hourly bus that runs from Philadelphia to that mall.

01:23:55

It not that weird that she would have been there However Jeff can figure out why she would go there The only thing he can think of is that she was suffering from a dissociative disorder like amnesia And that why the witnesses maybe thought she was disoriented and unstable

01:24:09

Numerous people reported seeing Judy at Penn's Landing in Philadelphia. They realized that the sightings might have been of an unhoused woman in that area who looks like Judy.

01:24:21

So when officers show pictures of Judy to people around that area, an unhoused man named David says that he for sure saw Judy.

01:24:29

He knows the woman that they're referring to. And it was not it was not the same person.

01:24:34

The person he saw was Judy. And he says Judy slept on a bench near him one night.

01:24:40

And in the morning, he tried to buy her coffee. David's sighting is the last even remotely reliable tip for months.

01:24:47

So Jeff stays in Philadelphia for as long as he can, searching for his wife. He puts up flyers, speaks to the media, but there's just absolutely no sign of her.

01:24:57

So he goes back to Boston and, of course, doesn't give up. For months, he faxes and emails thousands of flyers all over the country.

01:25:06

He talks to reporters as much as he can. He tries his hardest to get the FBI involved, and then that doesn't work.

01:25:13

So he hires three different private investigators and then none of them find anything of importance.

01:25:19

It's going to be so scary to know that your loved one didn't go away voluntarily.

01:25:27

There's no at all credible backup information to suggest that, which means if those sightings are real, they did so either by force or in a state that they're not aware of.

01:25:40

it's got to be so much scarier than any little evidence that they left you. It's almost like you want some evidence that they didn't want to be there

01:25:47

anymore and voluntarily left, you know? Because yeah, then they are in charge and they're empowered.

01:25:53

But this idea that something happened to her state of mind and that she was doing all of these things,

01:25:59

because how easy would it be to kind of weirdly get herded onto a bus? Right. And now I can't remember.

01:26:06

This could have happened to someone in our family. It also could have happened in a story someone in my family told me about like a way out person.

01:26:16

But someone was in like Europe where the cars go the other way and they got hit in the head by a truck mirror because they were looking the wrong way up the street.

01:26:28

And then they were gone and in the hospital and had amnesia and didn't know who they were and had cleared off the street.

01:26:34

Like if she just had, you know, if she had a stroke. And suddenly she was, yeah, she wasn't in charge of herself in the normal way.

01:26:43

It's so scary. It's awful. Or that happened. And then, you know, these touristy areas like fucking Hollywood Boulevard, where it's like,

01:26:50

hey, let me show you, let me, I'll give you a private tour of the area or, you know, anything

01:26:54

like that. It's like something could have happened and, or she could have trusted the wrong person

01:27:00

and something nefarious could have happened. But either way, I mean, it's just gotta be terrifying to have to go back home and.

01:27:07

Knowing she slept on a bench one night, like knowing that she's kind of out there.

01:27:13

It's not the same person. Yeah, something's going on. So then on September 7th, 1997, a tragic break in the case finally comes.

01:27:23

Father and son are out deer hunting on the Mount Pisgah in North Carolina. They're out deer hunting.

01:27:29

They find a few scattered bones. They think they look human. And so when they take a closer look, they find a partially buried skeleton in a shallow grave near the Stony Point picnic area.

01:27:43

Body is wrapped in a blue blanket and the remains are still dressed in thermal underwear, a bra, jeans and hiking boots.

01:27:50

And the father and son call the police. During their search of the scene, the police find multiple items in a few holes near the remains.

01:27:59

See, this is what's so weird about this part, too. Another like, what does it mean in the story is they're buried, which means someone else buried.

01:28:06

Someone buried them. It's not like someone collapsed and all their stuff is there.

01:28:11

Even the partial skeleton has been buried. Yep. They find a blue vinyl backpack with winter clothing and $80 inside, a shirt with $87 in the pocket and a pair of sunglasses.

01:28:24

So obviously that's not the red backpack and that's not found at all. police can't find a wallet or id but the victim still has their wedding ring on their finger

01:28:34

the skeletal remains are examined by a coroner who determines they belong to a white woman in

01:28:39

her late 40s to mid 50s and that the victim suffered from chronic arthritis in the left knee

01:28:45

and underwent extensive dental work a cause of death can't be certain but due to puncture wounds

01:28:51

and cuts on her bra, it appears that the woman had been stabbed. Basically, the Asheville Citizen

01:28:59

Times run a story about the skeletal remains found. An emergency room doctor in Franklin,

01:29:04

North Carolina sees it, and they had seen one of the posters that Jeff had sent out all over.

01:29:10

So luckily, they were able to realize that this person was Judy Smith, based on her extensive

01:29:16

dental records. When Judy's family has shown photos of the clothes that were found on Judy's

01:29:21

remains, none of her family members recognize them. They don't recognize the items in the holes near

01:29:27

her body. You know, the only thing that they recognize is that the wedding ring is hers.

01:29:32

Oh, I know. There's some people that are like, maybe it's just misidentified. It was 1997.

01:29:37

I don't think there was a DNA test done, but there was a really extensive dental work done

01:29:42

on Judy and on the skeletal remains. So they were able to match those and also the arthritis and also the wedding ring.

01:29:50

But it's still like, wouldn't it be great to have a DNA match as well? We don have it But her family though yeah her family thinks it her The dental match is the old DNA And that you know pretty specific Totally So investigators asked Judy family if they can

01:30:07

think of a reason she'd be in North Carolina, which is 600 miles from Philadelphia, where she

01:30:13

had last been positively identified. According to my city paper, quote, to Jeff's knowledge,

01:30:19

She had no friends or relatives in that region. Her only connections, he says, were a week-long trip to Raleigh-Durham to visit Jeffrey at a weight loss facility several years earlier and a drive to Tennessee or Virginia, they couldn't remember which, with a patient of Judy's who wanted to visit relatives there.

01:30:38

So she has no ties to the area and no reason to be there. authorities start investigating judy's murder they have multiple questions to answer like how

01:30:48

did she even end up in north carolina why was she wearing hiking clothes and of course who killed her

01:30:53

they know for sure at this point that jeff didn't kill her it was known where he was this entire

01:30:59

time they just they know it's not jeff at this point yeah detectives go to the nearby town of

01:31:04

ashville north carolina hoping to speak with people who may have seen her around the mountain

01:31:09

a clerk named joanne tells police that in mid-april she was in asheville and they had a

01:31:14

friendly conversation or judy said she decided to visit asheville while her lawyer husband

01:31:20

attended a conference in philadelphia so she's not totally if she did have amnesia it wasn't

01:31:27

she had some details or like a stroke it still makes sense that little blips are firing if she

01:31:33

had a stroke, right? Yes, for sure. A stroke is, is a, seems to me from the, from the little I know,

01:31:40

and a couple of people I know who have had strokes, it's a physical problem that then,

01:31:46

you know, you kind of come back from, but like I, but her like freely walking around,

01:31:52

they would have said, you know, half of her face had lost, you know what I mean? Like there's that,

01:31:57

there's different signs that people have had strokes that like EMTs especially can recognize

01:32:02

where like slurred speech, you know, part of your face going slack. There's different things where she wouldn't have just been walking around

01:32:10

seeming like a lady that's erratic at Macy's. They would have been like, oh, I recognize this is what's going on.

01:32:17

Because there are more physical manifestations, I guess is what I'm saying, as opposed to I'm just trying to think of and make up reasons where it's that partial,

01:32:28

like she kind of knows what she's doing, but she kind of doesn't, Which is like, what would that be? A blood clot, a small aneurysm or like how or she got hit in the head and kind of came to or like came back and was like, I'm fine.

01:32:43

But what really wasn't fine? Yeah. You know what it kind of reminds, it reminds me of in a way, although clearly two totally different stories is what happened to Aunt Diane, that documentary, where she just completely changed personalities 100% and did something totally seemingly out of character. But maybe it wasn't, we just didn't know about her real character, you know, all these little things.

01:33:07

right it's it's like it reminds me of that or it's like what happened in this person's head

01:33:12

and why in the circumstances that led up to these tragic events and how little we know other people

01:33:20

even people like our parents or our siblings people we think we know so well where where if

01:33:27

something like this went on and then people were just informing you about what they were doing and

01:33:32

you just be like i don't understand any of this it's so bewildering it's then it makes you also

01:33:37

wonder like did the driver's license for getting the driver's license if it was it did that have

01:33:43

something to do with it and we just don't understand like did she actually have plans

01:33:46

and she needed to go back home by herself to fix some issues oh i see you know like like that was

01:33:55

just an excuse so she wouldn't have to fly at the exact same time because something else was going on

01:33:59

or she could go home and pack something different that he would have noticed or change something at

01:34:04

home or if she normally would have never done something like forget because forgetting your

01:34:09

driver's license is weird it means it's outside your wallet well they talk about they talk about

01:34:14

that too i i agree well here's the thing though is it it was it was just the beginning of when you

01:34:19

had to have an id to get on a plane so her forgetting it wasn't that weird however i carry

01:34:26

my id with me everywhere i fucking go right however moms love gigantic three-fold wallets

01:34:33

with checkbooks and pens and all kinds of like, that's to me, and maybe that's just like how I was

01:34:40

raised, but my mom always had like a billfold style, like all kinds of things. But like you

01:34:47

wouldn't, your ID goes right in the, in the part with the little window, it's always there. So to

01:34:54

me, like a free floating single, just an ID that on the counter is very like, I'm in college and

01:35:01

I'm making dumb decisions and grabbing my ID and putting it in my back pocket. I'm bringing a clutch out tonight with me because it's cute and goes with my outfit.

01:35:09

And I forgot to take my ID out of my clutch and put it in my billfold the next day.

01:35:15

Yeah. Moms are billfold based. Moms don't do cute clutches and fucking Carmen San Diego trenches.

01:35:24

The average mom, maybe we should say. Oh, sure, sure, sure. The average, typical mom.

01:35:27

I think we're thinking of our moms in the 80s. My mom would never let anyone touch or look at her driver's license, much less have it

01:35:36

inside of her wallet. Remember when you're trying to go through your mom's purse to get a thing and she was

01:35:41

like, her hair would stand up on end and she, my mom would say, stop Roy Skamadering my

01:35:46

purse. She gets so mad that she'd use a Yiddish word, which she'd never, stop Roy Skamadering my

01:35:53

purse. That means like fucking with, you know, mom uses Yiddish words to yell at you.

01:35:58

You're in big trouble. See? I was much more devious because I knew like you had to get money for the candy that we were going to go get at the store every single day.

01:36:08

You had to like pickpocket at least 75 cents out of your mom's wallet in some way.

01:36:15

So you had to be careful, real quiet. You had to plan it ahead. There's a lot of devious behavior.

01:36:22

The sister would have to distract her with a dumb question that mom knew was bullshit.

01:36:26

Oh, my God. Bring her up the hallway so that I can get my Snickers money. Hey, Mom.

01:36:32

Hey, Mom, can I ask you a question? Going back to this chick said she didn't, Judy didn't seem disoriented or unstable.

01:36:41

She seemed perfectly normal when she saw her in Asheville. So there are numerous other people who saw Judy in Asheville, including a hotel clerk who says Judy stayed at the hotel from April 10th to the 2nd.

01:36:55

and other seemingly credible sightings. And we know that eyewitness statements and sightings

01:37:01

are always under scrutiny because it's so hard to tell, but I think there's little details in each

01:37:08

of them. And there's enough in this one small area that are credible that it does seem like it was

01:37:12

her. I mean, I'll say this, it makes me feel relieved if she in the beginning was sleeping

01:37:20

on benches, but she got it together enough to get some cash and get a hotel. At least she was

01:37:25

indoors. Yeah. Yeah. So where'd she get that cash? And there was another sighting of her with a car.

01:37:32

And there was cash on her. Yeah. And there's cash on her. Yeah. Yeah. In the end, investigators

01:37:37

aren't able to answer any of their questions. They have no idea why Judy was in North Carolina

01:37:42

or how she got there. And they don't know why she was wearing hiking clothes. It does seem like

01:37:49

she hiked up there by herself on her own accord because it was a kind of you know up a hill remote

01:37:55

area if someone had killed her they wouldn't have brought her to that area you know how they say like

01:38:01

murderers don't carry their victims uphill after they're dead it's just not a thing right yeah so

01:38:06

they have no idea who killed her they have a ton of theories like we discussed and sheriff bobby

01:38:13

metford's theory is that judy wanted some time away from jeff or she wanted to completely start

01:38:18

her life over by disappearing, which who the fuck, it could be true. Who knows? It doesn't seem possible. Could be. I don't think a mother would just abandon her kids without a

01:38:29

word like that. You know? Also, she's being an in-home care nurse. Those are some of the most

01:38:36

like caring considerate people there are So I would think she would be like if that were the case she would sit everybody down and be like guys I got it I got to go for a while The idea that you would do it and just leave everybody in the lurch and scared to death doesn track with at least what I know from you telling me

01:38:56

And, you know, at some point while doing either one of these things, disappearing on purpose or something going wrong, she was murdered.

01:39:05

We don't know by who. one of the theories is that Judy was murdered by none other than serial killer Gary Michael Hilton,

01:39:15

the, say it again, the National Forest serial killer. Tie-ins. We love them. Yeah.

01:39:20

One of his victims was found around 10 miles from where Judy's body was buried. Oh.

01:39:27

But this is 1997. So it totally fits with your theory. 10 years later, she was an early victim. Yes.

01:39:34

Judy was early on the timeline. Wow. Authorities investigated this possible connection, but were unable to find anything linking Hilton to Judy's murder.

01:39:44

But fucking stranger things, man. Sadly, Jeff Smith passed away in 2005, never knowing what happened to his beloved wife.

01:39:53

And as of today, no one knows how Judy ended up in North Carolina or who killed her.

01:39:59

and that is the mysterious disappearance and murder of Judy Smith. What a horrible, horrible way to lose your mom.

01:40:09

I was thinking the same thing. I didn't put their names in the story, obviously,

01:40:12

and I couldn't find anything about them, but heartbreaking. Heart fucking breaking.

01:40:19

Yeah. And also just right when she finds new love and everything's kind of going great,

01:40:24

it just doesn't, that's the other part that doesn't track. It's not like her and Jeff were married for 40 years and she was like, enough of this already.

01:40:31

Totally. It seemed like. Like that part doesn't. Yeah. They were going on this trip.

01:40:37

If you're in an unhappy marriage, you don't go to his boring ass conference. You're like, I'm great.

01:40:41

I'm going to stay home. Yes, that's correct. Like she's like, I'll come with you.

01:40:46

We can hang out at night. And then after we can go visit our friends in New Jersey.

01:40:50

Like that's a fucking happy couple. You know, in my mind. That's a happy couple for sure.

01:40:54

You know what I mean? Yes. if I go with Vince to fucking Wrestlemania just so like I can hang out all day

01:40:59

and I'll meet up with him later I didn't do that last weekend but we're still in love and that is a very loving

01:41:06

but there's so many Wrestlemania's in the future and there have been so many in the past

01:41:11

my point is like that's devotion you know what I mean it's true yes well and it's also being up for

01:41:18

yeah you're there for the hang because that's the person you want to hang out with the most

01:41:22

so it's not that idea that a really good point of like if that whole thing of this is I need to get away she had the opportunity to get away when he was going away that weekend That exactly right She should have been like

01:41:37

bye, have fun, close the door, pack your shit, get the fuck out of there. Yes, you're totally

01:41:41

right. Yes. There's lots of steps in between where and this is why I hate cold cases. I know

01:41:47

because it's all theory. And then hopefully in some amount of years, there will be something that

01:41:54

That comes up. But that idea that you just have to kind of live in this, the weirdest story ever that ended in murder. It ended in murder.

01:42:03

It did. And there's so many. And this is what these stories that keep me up all night on Reddit is the like, what do you think are a lot of these threads or what do you think is a red herring in a cold case that everyone focuses on that has nothing to do with it?

01:42:16

And it's like, is it the red backpack? Is it that she forgot her ID and had to go home?

01:42:21

Is it that there were these sightings that, you know, that they thought they were her and they weren't?

01:42:26

It has nothing to do with her case. Like, what are those stories? And like, same with, you know, Jean Benet, where it's like, which one of these points are a red herring?

01:42:33

Is it the DNA? Is it this? It's just like, that's, that's why I'm obsessed with these cases.

01:42:39

And I know you hate the exact reason you hate them is I just like, can't look away.

01:42:44

I have to obsess about them. Yeah, I get that. I guess I just, it feels like especially that story, it's just so

01:42:54

heartbreaking that it feels like, but if this were a just world we'd live in, this would get solved or this would get, someone would figure something out.

01:43:06

It's tragic. It's really fascinating though, that it's connected to the early days of Gary Michael

01:43:11

hilton where he was and he's still alive so he could actually come forward and be like i've got

01:43:18

information why not come on he's got like 16 life sentences he's not going anywhere let some people

01:43:25

off the hook but this is what you and i've talked about of like if you take anything any secrets to

01:43:30

the grave with you you're a fucking asshole like just let everyone know your secrets before you die

01:43:34

just like get it out there or you're an asshole i mean he's clearly an asshole but good well

01:43:41

good story. Thank you. Yeah. All right. Well, thanks everybody for listening and being here

01:43:48

with us. Hopefully everything's going good with you. We're thinking about you and wishing you well.

01:43:55

Okay. Okay. Aunt Georgia. Thinking of you, honey. Thinking of you, sweetie. Now take your ID and

01:44:03

zip it in your pocket, please. Careful. Nobody hold loose IDs. That's just silly. Back pocket

01:44:10

Lock it is not a good place for an ID Inside your phone case if for some reason it loose put it into the phone case and lock it back down All these Gen Z are like grandma we fucking know where to put our ID They like yeah that okay We don like help We Gen Z

01:44:27

Fine, then just stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Bye. Elvis, do you want a cookie?

01:44:41

This has been an Exactly Right production. Our senior producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton.

01:44:45

Our producer is Alejandra Keck. This episode was engineered and mixed by Stephen Ray Morris.

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My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgi

323 - Pills & Thrills

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