237 - Anti-Hype Man | My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

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Own the dream. Hello. Hello. And welcome to my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hardstar. That's Karen Kilgara. This is a podcast. Welcome.

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You know that because you press that little purple icon on your phone and you're listening to podcasts.

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That's right. This is not a TV show. Don't wait for the visual part. This isn't an audio book. We're not going to read you a story.

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No, this is a this is not this is nonfiction, right? Nonfiction is true. Yes. It's also confusing.

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I remember being taught that in like fifth grade and being like who's in charge this is the stupidest

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thing I've ever heard of excuse me how hard are you trying to make the English language

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as this is that thing where like guys that play the guitar won't just show you how to make a chord

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with your hand they need to talk about like all the different whatever words like you could just

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call non-fiction's not true that was the this is under the same category of when am I ever going

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to need math in my adult life. It all goes in. It all goes in there. The education. Let us

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reconfigure the education system. We are just here for this. Distinctly remember being around

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10 and being like, I will now say how we're going to refer to books that are true or are not true.

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Yes. Not true is nonfiction. True is fiction. This is how I need it to go. Man, I fucking missed

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the day where they taught yours, your, your, you are that one. Yeah, or let's one of those and just

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wasn't in elementary school and just never figured it out until high school because I just missed that

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fucking day of class. Yeah, that's that same thing happened to me with long division, which kicked

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off my math anxiety that became such a bad thing for me. I flunked algebra third quarter of high

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school and then had to go to a hypnotist to try to relieve my math anxiety. Wow.

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That's a cool. Who ordered that? Pat Kilgariff. She's all about it. She's so smart.

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She got in there. But then I was like, you know, Pat and I know that this is not, I can have math anxiety

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for the rest of my life and it's never truly going to impact me. Well, at least the nuns didn't just smack it out of you.

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Like at least Pat was like, let me do something that might actually work. Let me step in and make up some dumb bullshit.

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You know what I think works? Acupuncture, which it actually does. That does work.

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Yeah. That's ancient. It's ancient. I love those ancient ones where it's like, who here, our country's been around for, what is it, 150 years?

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Who here is arguing ancient 5,000-year-old medical knowledge? Yeah. How dare? You're smarter than 5,000 years old?

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Don't think so. No! Do you know what I'm going to do when this pandemic is over?

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first thing ayahuasca shit i would have let you what would you guess what would you go to

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go to the edendale bar and grill actually okay that's the first one that's number one

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that's what you said first thing um are you really gonna do ayahuasca do an internal reset

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i think i'm gonna do ayahuasca and okay this is a great segue into the podcast that you have

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fucking set me down a rabbit hole on oh my god steven write down the date and time and date

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Because Georgia has taken one of my recommendations right to heart. Immediately.

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This podcast called This Is Actually Happening. You text me yesterday about it. And I've listened to three episodes already.

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And last night I was listening to an episode. It's basically people's true stories of just bananas, things that's happened to them in their lives.

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And usually extremely negative. Right. Because that's the most satisfying story to hear.

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Somebody is like, I won the lottery. And then life change. And how their lives change.

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I mean, it's beautiful. And it's just incredible. There's no narrator. It's just the person telling their story in the most beautiful way.

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And so the one I listened to is called What If You Entered the Void? And it's this incredible.

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I mean, I've never heard depression explained so beautifully and succinctly. And he goes and does ayahuasca after a lifetime of depression And I haven gotten to the end yet So I don know if it works or not But I feel like it must So I just going to do it Yeah I totally want to do ayahuasca That amazing Well wait that so that split up That two conversations So let

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pause on the pause on ayahuasca because I definitely want to come back to that. But

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my the first one. So I'm I asked Jay actually to help me find this because I'm off Twitter.

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But then also I'm the third conversation. Put a pin in that one. Okay. That's right. This is

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going to go back. Stephen, start making a homeland red thread map for this conversation.

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But, oh, so I tried to ask because somebody actually, this was off of the radio rental recommendation

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of the last podcast I recommended. I believe it was the most recent. Somebody wrote in and said

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if you like that, you're going to love this is actually happening. And I really want to

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give you credit if you would write back in. If you'd email in, that would actually help.

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And don't lie. We can backtrack. We can just look Don't steal valor. Yeah, exactly.

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Oh, so the first one I listened to, because I really think the idea that people and I wouldn't say that every person telling their story in this is a quote unquote victim in some way.

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But there are people who have these experiences that when you hear about them, it's so extreme.

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It's so bizarre. There's there's a guy who talks about how he was homeless. Him and his father were homeless and he was also trans.

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and um then he gets put into a shelter because he was still under age when this was happening

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and then someone at the shelter whose name i want puts him in touch with people who live up in the

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bay area who um are also trans people and it's like you you're welcome to come and live with us

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super cheap oh and then those people turn out to be live it's um what if you get pulled into an

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alternate reality or it's called something like that. And it's the one of the most upsetting,

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but the narrator is so incredibly strong and of his own mind, the entire story where he's basically

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going, I just was agreeing to get so I could get out of the house. I just kept going with it. And

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they were literally like, everything is the government is watching you and you're being

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manipulated and you have to do what we say. And all this stuff that like, I feel like a less strong

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person would have been so vulnerable to this concept of two people doing it to him, pointing

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out all this stuff. And like, that's how you know, you're not safe and all this stuff. And he just

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like, got super cheap rent in the city while he tried to get his degree. It's an incredible story

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that he got himself out of. I don't remember where I saw this, but someone we posted Oh,

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we in the I shouldn't be reading comments. This is part of the social media thing. But someone

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commented in one of the episodes that we posted recently that was live, she said, I didn't realize

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that the cheap rent I got from this, when I was in, wait, I didn't realize that the cheap rent I

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got when I lived in this random place was because I moved into a cult until Karen covered the cult

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at a live show and I was sitting in the audience. She also needs to write to us. She's like,

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I was sitting in the audience and realized that I used to live in like a cult compound because the

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rent was cheap. And I didn't know it's a character. Oh my God. Wait, is that the one that's like,

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yes, I was going to say, it's like the yellow, yellow deli or something like that.

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I think it's that. Yeah. It's a study in empathy, this, this show. There's one that I just listened

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to. That's a kind of a newer one that I text you, holy shit, but is what if someone you love

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committed a monstrous crime? Did you listen to that one? No. Oh my God. Oh my God. I will.

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for sure. It's unbelievable. I just can't wait to fucking listen to all of them.

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There's so many good ones, but the first one I sent you is called What If It Happened in Broad Daylight

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about a woman who was attacked at the bank. And it's the craziest, creepiest story, but the way she talks about

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how she doesn't like being treated as the quote-unquote victim of this crime was really eye-opening

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and really important to hear. That's why I always love firsthand accounts of the person that actually went through it because they get to dictate how, you know what I mean?

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Like she was talking about when it first happened, you know, she's they bring her into the back.

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Yeah. Her neck gets sliced with a knife. Yeah. And and everyone around her is freaking out.

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And she's like, it must have been like the adrenaline or being in shock. But she didn't think anything bad happened.

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Right. Right. She just knew it was kind of weird. And she got moved away. And it wasn't until she saw the videotape played back for her by the cops that she goes, I felt so bad for that girl on the tape.

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It was completely like it wasn't it didn't happen to her. It's a lesson of like how PTSD and how adrenaline works and how, you know, what your brain does in a panic situation.

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And how people react to trauma or tragedy or violent situations that are not the ones that happened to, but the ones that were there.

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It's almost like the witnesses, her version of the story, I shouldn't, none of this is like, you know, I'm not saying it as a fact.

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But it was fascinating to hear someone's take on what that was like to be the subject of it when that is not how she felt.

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And it would really bug her the way she was treated as this person that it happened to.

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And that because the person who perpetrated the crime, they believed the person had schizophrenia.

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So she couldn't get answers. She was like, I just wanted to know what I did. And there is no answer.

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There no good explanation as to why that happened it right I mean yeah it an incredible it an incredible show you guys should listen to it and it a great thing to be able to hear people discuss their um

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like you say it's like it people getting to discuss the like say most painful or most difficult or

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worst thing that's happened to them being able to tell you they're a complete person they're whole

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they didn't get they didn't get smashed apart by it they're completely they're saying and this is

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what I learned. There's one woman who talks about some, oh, it was her mom joined a cult.

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And she kept saying, I want to, I don't want to judge it. I want to understand it. I want to know

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because I know I didn't have the life she had, or the experience she had, which like made me go like,

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whoa, like I take so much comfort in judging other people's actions. It makes me feel more

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grounded to judge right when actually you never know the full story and it's it's like a weird

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thing or what you would do in their situation you can you know we can fucking talk about what we

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would do in someone else's you know shoes tell the fucking cows come home but until you're really

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there you you have no idea because there's so many other things at play including your fucking

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you know uh fight flight or fight uh mode which actually pertains to this because and

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almost brings it. Would you find a segue in a weird favorite thing? Yes. In a weird fucking

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circular thing. So we you and I together at the same time took social media off of our phones

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because we thought you're gonna say we took some drug together. I was like, what? Oh, I didn't tell

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you I put ketamine in your coffee. We took social media off our phones together because we both

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realized it was affecting us in a very negative way. Yes. And so I was talking to my therapist

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unrelated about fight, flight, or freeze. Freeze. Yeah. And so I was looking up the, you know,

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who am I? What do I do? And actually, in it said in the context of the freeze part, which I think I

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do, is mindless scrolling to get yourself, you just can't move forward. And so you find something

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that's comforting, like taking a nap or scrolling. And so I think maybe we're so panicked and have so

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much anxiety about the world and what's going on today. Our fucking business life right now is,

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you know, for the past four years has been bananas. And so this mindless scrolling,

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this commenting, this getting reading comments, and all of that is a really great way to avoid

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that, you know, avoid that the stress that's actually happening that we just can't deal with

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right now. Well, it's almost like you get to pick your own stress. So it's a control issue,

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Because it's like saying, oh, this is what I'm upset about. I can handle this stress.

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Yeah. Yep. I can be mad at this person and blame. Here's the problem. Yeah. Yeah.

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Totally. Also, that reminds me because there's a similar thing. I was saying it was someone we know made a joke about me being a perfectionist.

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And so I actually looked up what because I was like, I am not nowhere near being perfect.

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And then I looked it up and I have it so fucking bad. Like what? Because I always picture like a perfectionist is like Reese Witherspoon.

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Yeah, they actually are perfect. Right. Right. And that's not it at all. It's just it is a trying that makes it happen.

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It's the it's it's unrealistic expectations and goals. And then the procrastination part is the sidelining yourself when you lose all faith.

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And then it's like it's really fascinating. It's so good. I'm going to send you it was I found an article in Psychology Today about it that had this really good illustration where it was like a person here.

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The goal set is a road that goes straight up. And then it's like finish line straight up.

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And there's someone on the side of the road looking at their phone on one side and on the other side of the road cutting the grass with scissors.

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It's like perfectly trim. Yeah, like I'm a perfectionist, but that's not their goal at all.

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Oh, that makes total sense. There's all these things about it that I just was like, oh, my God, that's what that's what it is.

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And then you just are always ruining your own good time with those kind of like, it'll never work.

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I'll never make it. I'll never be so and so. So it's like comparing yourself to people, all the shit everyone does.

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Well, you know what the fourth F is that my therapist just told me about? I had never heard of.

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So you have fight, flight, freeze or fawn, like fawning. like telling someone how beautiful they look and being like oh my god you're you know like

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to make them like you that's the way like you the tiger's about to attack you and you're like

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you look amazing today you're such you're the fucking queen of the jungle and wow you look

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great and like that's the person's way to like make everyone like them so that they uh don't

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get attacked wow i know which i feel like i do well and also in my in the culture i grew up in

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that's how you know who to attack because that's clearly fake yeah and it doesn't it's clearly

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and it doesn't yeah it's disingenuous it's like it's like somebody going uh just putting in the

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vote of i'm scared of you which is like great i'll take care of that remember when one of our first

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which is perfectionistic of me to be i can't accept compliments because i know you're i know

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you're lying and in hollywood at my old apartment during one of our first fucking couple months and

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you sat down to like talk to me about a serious issue and I was like okay yeah totally by the way

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your hair looks amazing and you were like don't talk about my hair this is serious like you

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specifically called me out on it and I was like whoa I fucking totally do that where it's like

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great let me let me diffuse the situation real quick now you should like me go ahead

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yeah which is so manipulative it so manipulative but this was before and look this was before I understood your background where direct like we going to sit down and face to face discuss a thing is your worst nightmare And that is like that all

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I know. Yeah. Of like, no, no, no, we have to solve this right now. We're going to talk it out.

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We're going to put it on the table. And like, I was setting you up to be panicked. Like that

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approach was your worst. And then it didn't work. It didn't. My diffusion didn't work. Oh, my God.

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we should write a book. No, because I was like please don't diffuse while I have to tell you

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it's hard enough to be saying like whatever fucking stuff. A thing that I bet you if Stephen was able to go like

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you know what it was about? We'd both start laughing because it's nothing. He has

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every argument on fucking on his computer. So many. Oh Stephen how many times he had to step out of the apartment?

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Not for the early days that's what his book's going to be about. The first time I was asked to step out of the apartment and walk around Georgia's neighborhood was...

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But I didn't stop with recording, so don't worry. What else? Ayahuasca! Wait a second!

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Ayahuasca! In the ayahuasca category, are you fine throwing up in front of others?

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Because that's the thing that blows my mind. I'm a lifelong recovering bulimic. I can fucking do this.

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You can do it anywhere. I have a yes, I could do it anywhere. I have no fucking issue with it.

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Okay. Some of my best friends have seen me vomit. It's like just not a thing for like, by the way, get help for your eating disorders.

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I'm making a joke of it, but it's serious. Yes, for sure. No, it's not good. And also it actually can do serious damage, especially to your heart.

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To your esophagus and everything. It's not good. But I am an amiable gag reflex.

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I'm like good at this thing. It sucks to be really good at something that you just can't actually use, you know.

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But there's upsides. Like ayahuasca. I was being dirty. Oh, sorry. Mark it. Stephen, Mark it.

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No, leave it. I love it. Stephen's shaking his head. He's like, I'm not fucking taking that out.

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Stephen's like, what's happened to this show? What's happened to you with COVID-19?

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Ayahuasca. But I think I saw a good special about using ayahuasca to help treat PTSD for soldiers coming back from war and really having a hard time.

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And really, they see a lot of a lot of real change with that. So I think that could be amazing.

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I think so, too. And of course, do my research and take it very seriously. but I'm right.

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And there's 1000 standup comedians of who have slowly been transitioning into like ayahuasca shamans because they're so into it.

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Yeah. So I'm going to me and Mark Maron, maybe we'll just take a fucking trip to the.

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Oh, that'd be nice. I know he does. He doesn't know me. So that'd be weird. Well,

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that's how you get to know people. I can write nothing like vomiting in front of someone to really get to know

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them. And then you're like, I'm sorry. It's great talking to you, but I can see the devil right now.

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So I have to go deal with that. And I'm going to have to go without Vince because he's not he's not I'm I have I'm more experimental than he is.

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And I heard that you see a snake like in a lot of people see a snake and he's terrified of snakes, like to a point that's incredible.

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Like a snake comes on TV for a second and he loses it. Oh, they're pretty bad. Yeah, I'm kind of on his side with snakes.

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I don't disagree. Let's see. Slimey. Oh, I wanted to talk about, let's see, I had a thing.

00:21:41

Hold on a second. I mean, how are you doing, though, being off social media in general?

00:21:46

Do you feel an improvement? I feel more focused. Yeah. The first couple of days, I realized that every single thing that happens in my life and around the house and with the cats is my brain goes to, I should post that.

00:22:00

This will be a good post. What do I post about this? That's all I think about. Yes.

00:22:05

and the mindless scrolling, of course, you know, I'm still kind of doing it on other sites, like,

00:22:10

you know, news sites, but it's, it's, it's so sad. Every time I like, enter cnn.com into my phone,

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I'm just like, I just want to know what's going on. But it's like this real kind of rickety

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grandpa version of getting the news. Yeah, it's so hilarious. It's like it feels like social media

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And it feels like an intricate knot that I'm tied up in that doesn't feel good. I can't, you know, move well and I can't, I can't thrive when I'm tied up that way.

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But at the same time, it's, it's comforting and I've known it for so long and it's, and

00:22:49

it's been there for me in so many ways and is part of my like a self-esteem boost for

00:22:54

me that I need. But at this, but I'm also looking for the negative stuff and it affects me in a way that

00:23:00

is really negative. And it's mind blowing how, how the positive stuff you use so easily take it for

00:23:08

granted when people are telling you beautiful, wonderful things. And then the negative stuff can

00:23:14

be just passing. You can tell it's just someone trying to get attention and it'll like stick in

00:23:20

your brain. Right. And that's the part that and it's not like I honestly don't experience that

00:23:26

much of that. Yeah. Because I just immediately mute everyone. Yeah, I literally will if somebody

00:23:32

goes better at that, then that's the thing. I just am like, you just disqualified yourself,

00:23:38

you disqualified yourself. So you don't get to talk to me if you're going to use that tone or

00:23:41

like, honey, like anything that starts like that. I'm like, sorry, I'm so much older than you.

00:23:46

Right. Goodbye. Well, there's just no way that I can do the work that I'm doing with my therapist,

00:23:50

which is trying to get past old, like bullying and, you know, self-esteem issues.

00:23:57

If I keep reading comments, if I, There's no way I can't both work on those issues that I have and let people get to me that way,

00:24:06

which, you know, at the same time, it just doesn't work. So I'm picking my own fucking psyche and

00:24:13

working on that instead of social media. Good. Great. That's the that's so much better. And

00:24:18

then I have a can of wine at 230 in the afternoon right now. But it's pandemic. What are you supposed

00:24:24

to do. It's a pandemic. So I mean, we're doing this. You have to have some vices. We're doing

00:24:29

this experiment of just being a little bit more off the grid in the middle of the most isolated

00:24:37

time in our lives, which is very difficult. I mean, my thing is, I realized just Twitter is a

00:24:43

social thing for me that isn't real. Right. So I keep going to it like, oh, I just want to

00:24:48

contact some people. And it's like, then text your friends. Right. Don't like I want to stay

00:24:52

in the loop. It is a totally different thing for comedians, though. And like, you know,

00:24:56

I do think so. But it is the you're so true. You're so right about the dopamine hit of interaction,

00:25:03

which is good and fine if you can keep the brackets around it. But if it then begins to

00:25:09

spill in because someone decided to be kind of like, you know, bitchy or critical to you. Yeah.

00:25:15

It's like you don't know who that is. The idea that you just immediately take their opinion

00:25:19

straight to heart and be like, this matters. And now I'm going to feel bad about it is like,

00:25:24

it's a very sped up reaction. And we don't know that that's what we're doing. But that's what

00:25:28

we're doing. We're going, whoever you are, random person, you get a say, and you get a say in my

00:25:33

life and how I feel about myself. And it's like, sorry, let's not do that to ourselves. Let's keep

00:25:37

that circle real small of people who get a say. That's a great idea. As my therapist told me it,

00:25:44

like in year one, where she goes, how many like close friends would you say you have? And I'm like,

00:25:48

I don't know, 30. That's not a thing. That's not true. And I was just like, oh, you're right.

00:25:56

Four. Keep it tight. Well, your sister has agreed. Your sister, Laura, has agreed to, and Stephen does this too, when there's a cute thing on

00:26:10

Instagram that pertains to us, she's agreed to send it to me. I feel like we should give her

00:26:16

my favorite murder Instagram password and just be like, post whatever you want anytime you want

00:26:22

Well, they're coming to visit so maybe we'll make an arrangement Oh my god, what if Nora was our social media

00:26:28

manager? Your 13 year old niece? She's so TikTok based though That's the only thing

00:26:35

We need a fucking TikTok presence We need the youth injection We're old people talking to young

00:26:42

people. We need to be managed by even younger people. I think there is like a, I don't know TikTok at all,

00:26:48

but we've been tagged in a few things where like the gal will say, stay sexy and don't get murdered.

00:26:55

I don't know. They play us saying stay sexy, don't get murdered and then mimic it.

00:27:00

I don't know. In a TikTok? Yeah, that's a TikTok thing. I can see Steven in Zoom

00:27:05

and he's laughing at us. They lip sync. Steven, do you have something to say about TikTok?

00:27:08

I'm too old for TikTok. That's how... What? Melania Ray Lawrence is too old? The only thing I follow on TikTok is a woman who does couponing.

00:27:17

What? That sounds fun. She's a murderino in Nashville. And she does cat rescue stuff.

00:27:23

But she also does shows like all the extreme coupons like CBS, like you saved $400 today

00:27:28

or like your thing is free. What's her name? I want to. Her name is Laura. Yes, Laura.

00:27:33

But like, it's just about all the ways that you can like, and she donates a lot of the

00:27:38

stuff that she gets on coupons to shelters, like women's shelters and things like that

00:27:42

She's doing great work. It's really fun. Okay. It's very satisfying. Okay. Love couponing, man.

00:27:48

I love couponing. Love that. LauraBelleX, at LauraBelleX on TikTok. And that's Belle, B-E-L-L-E-X, LauraBelleX.

00:27:58

Beautiful. Love it. There we are. Here we are. We got our TikTok in. Yeah, we'll have Nora walk us through it.

00:28:03

You and Vince should come over. And we can sit outside. Have dinner on the patio.

00:28:08

And then we'll set Nora up. Is your dad coming? Can he make one of his well done burgers for us?

00:28:14

Yes. Don't tell him I fucking said that. Well, the problem is they're either completely done or you are eating red meat off of the styrofoam white thing.

00:28:27

I mean, he's there in the past. He served burgers that were just like we everyone was pretending to eat them and then had to put them down afterwards.

00:28:35

It's like they were so raw. It's like an episode of Top Chef. It's insanity. we're going to make something that's not that's like tacos where you just know exactly exactly

00:28:44

what the uh cooking is but yeah we'll get that all figured out look i'm not definitely not going

00:28:49

to be off social media forever but i think it's so good at a time like this to to watch yourself

00:28:55

and actually just be in the world like i had to as you know i dropped my i dropped my phone in the

00:29:02

oh my god listen to this you guys this is the most la thing you've ever fucking heard this is

00:29:08

an asshole story and i do apologize jay text me the other morning our our assistant so la was like

00:29:13

hey i'm sure she told you but karen dropped her phone in the pool so we have to cancel this meeting

00:29:18

or whatever and i was like she fucking didn't tell me actually i was the second it happened

00:29:23

i was like yay i don't have to do any calls for like days i was i in my mind i was like you just

00:29:31

bought yourself a week of freedom and then i'm like what am i talking about it like i can do

00:29:36

everything on my laptop. I know. What am I talking about? So I left my house and went to

00:29:42

the phone place that's not the iPhone store or the Apple store because they're all closed

00:29:48

to my local phone place. And a woman who worked there, the I guess what would it be Sherman Oaks AT store Cindy what up you killed it you were the greatest okay this woman i loved her so much went in of course there like dots

00:30:08

everywhere of where you should stand and everything now all those tables in those like phone stores

00:30:13

have the plastic divider on them i mean all this stuff it's so trippy dystopian as fuck yeah it's

00:30:19

crazy. And we're both wearing masks. And so she's I'm like, I just need to replace this phone.

00:30:25

What's the latest one? I'll have the one you're having. I thank God I have insurance.

00:30:30

Pools count, you know, whatever. So she's just doing it real fast, not asking me all those extra

00:30:35

questions. She just knew we needed to both get out of there quickly. And so then I go over,

00:30:42

she goes back to get it. I go over to like, look for what my new phone case will be,

00:30:45

Because, of course, it's a different size and everything. And a woman comes in who's wearing a mask, but walks straight in and starts telling everybody what to do.

00:30:55

And Cindy's like, ma'am, could you please stand over there? You have we have we already have three customers in the store.

00:31:00

What's it like? Just like I need to pay my bill, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. But but Cindy's like, oh, you need to stand over here because we already have the maximum people in the store.

00:31:11

And this woman, it was like she was waiting for her cue. Oh, I'm sorry. Did someone in this store die? Is that why you're being this dramatic? And she started going off. And I looked at her. I almost started yelling. I was like, you've got to be kidding me. This is total crap. And Cindy handled it beautifully. She was just like, ma'am, I'm sorry. I understand your frustration. This is for the safety of others.

00:31:36

she handled it like the woman immediately realized there was going to be no attention

00:31:41

gotten there's going to be no no one was going to join her in her fight and she just went and stood

00:31:45

she handled it so perfectly so you know how they usually say can i just say what a pity it is that

00:31:50

she because you're wearing a mask didn't get the full effect of karen's fuck you face

00:31:55

but at the same time you were able to fucking give it with just your eye showing and eyebrow

00:32:02

those eyebrows are pretty the eye the eyebrows do it yeah they're plucked specifically for

00:32:07

making people freeze in their tracks but i i had actually started yelling when she started yelling

00:32:12

i immediately started yelling because that's oh double that's what we do double yellow do yeah

00:32:16

oh are you yelling i'm more mad immediately um you're like her hype man who's like yeah

00:32:21

but i'm against her i'm the anti anti hype man but i realized i was like do not escalate this

00:32:29

Cindy's got it. You don't know, blah, blah, blah, whatever. When they said they sent me the thing

00:32:34

of will you fill out a survey? Yeah. And normally, I completely ignore those, even if I've gotten

00:32:39

great service. I filled out that survey and wrote texted a paragraph this long about how well Cindy

00:32:47

handled herself and this situation and completely diffused it. And if AT&T is going to have people

00:32:52

in stores, they need to pay them more because they're doing more than the average job. Because

00:32:58

now they have to manage and mitigate people who are anti-maskers coming in and screaming at

00:33:03

everybody and that's on them and and because i had a long conversation with cindy about it where i

00:33:08

was like she goes we would have like a weird thing happen in the store maybe once a week before she

00:33:13

goes now it's five times a day and because but antagonizers but the reason she understood it she

00:33:22

goes, it's easy for me to calm them down and to stay neutral because I know your phone is your

00:33:28

lifeline. And if you're in a place where the government hasn't sent you a check and you don't

00:33:32

have anything and all of a sudden you can't make your payment and you're getting your phone cut off,

00:33:37

then you're cut off. And so this is all of a sudden the people in these stores, they're on the front line of people who are being affected by the mismanagement of this

00:33:47

entire situation. Oh my god, Cindy. So I wrote to I wrote to my in my report in my review,

00:33:54

I was like, please pay these people more because they're protecting your brand. So you need to

00:33:58

protect them. I mean, I can't imagine what it's like right now. It's horrible. Georgia 10 years

00:34:04

ago, I would have been fucked. There's no moving home because there's no fucking home. There's no

00:34:10

not paying rent, you'll get kicked out and you're fucking your roommates over. You know, it's like,

00:34:16

I don't know what I would I don't know what I would do if I were Karen Karen five years ago

00:34:21

would have been literally pack up the dogs and move back to my dad's house because and and look

00:34:27

people are doing that and there is no shame in collecting yourself in a situation like this this

00:34:32

is like unprecedented insanity if you have to if you're lucky enough to have a family to go home to

00:34:39

just say thank you and do those dishes and to feel not one ounce of shame because this is crazy

00:34:45

This is unprecedented and it's also it's also unmanaged. This is this is beyond.

00:34:52

But that Cindy's of the world. Please think when you're out and about and you're going to places that have reopened, please be ultra careful, concerned, polite and defensive of the people who are now also essential workers.

00:35:08

But they're working at, you know, at a phone store. Like, please, please be protective and careful and know that those people are being deeply affected by the stresses of others and the people who can't manage themselves.

00:35:21

And all of a sudden you're like, I'm just here working trying to sell iPhones. And suddenly I have to I'm a crisis manager.

00:35:27

Dude, Cindy, we love you. Cindy props. Props to Cindy. Fuck. All right. It's been 36 minutes.

00:35:37

Should we start talking about the puck? god damn we haven't even gotten to exactly right news yet oh my god literally when i sat down i

00:35:46

was like i have nothing me too i actually wrote two things down that i could talk about and we

00:35:51

haven talked about them that like what you got what you got well i have uh the beautiful and amazing actor dan levy um he posted this Instagram recently that I saw before I took Instagram off

00:36:05

Wait, can I say? Yeah. Is it about taking that class? Yes. Oh, I love him so much.

00:36:10

He is. There's a there's a free course being offered through the University of Alberta called Indigenous Canada.

00:36:17

It's a 12 lesson course that explores Indigenous histories and contemporary issues from an Indigenous perspective.

00:36:23

And he is not it starts this week. It's like 12 courses. He'll be doing hosting a weekly discussion with the professors for 12 weeks and they're all going to learn together.

00:36:34

I have it pulled up right here. It's it looks awesome. It's I mean, it's so brilliant.

00:36:39

Yeah. I love that Dan Levy is getting involved. He's incredible. Well, because also it's like, what are you doing with your time?

00:36:46

Like, you know, how many times can I rewatch the same show that I already like? And when I saw that, that was before I left Twitter.

00:36:52

I saw that. I was like, that genius bastard. He's done it again. Because it's like, learn about something you should know, right? That very few of our educations provided for us in a meaningful way.

00:37:05

And the other thing was that the Anchorage Daily News, I saw this on Reddit, they on the cover of their newspaper, it's a it's a huge blank newspaper page with a tiny little paragraph at the bottom that says over the past month, we've presented the stories of women and men choosing to speak out about their experiences with sexual violence in Alaska.

00:37:30

talking about rape and sexual assault is difficult. Many survivors may not be in a position to do so right now.

00:37:37

This space, which is the blank space is dedicated to those not ready to share. We're leaving this open for you.

00:37:44

Oh my God. So you can write and you know how important it is to even write a letter that

00:37:49

you don't send. They left the entire front page open for, for survivors of sexual assault to write their experience and just keep it

00:37:58

beautiful. I know. brilliant yeah who is that editor-in-chief i mean high five anchorage the anchorage what

00:38:06

is the newspaper daily news wow congratulations it's what a beautiful gesture i know

00:38:13

all right that was what i had oh and then we have we have we're gonna make some face masks

00:38:19

you guys we made face masks you guys guys we made face masks they say stay sexy and don't get

00:38:24

no they just say stay sexy they say stay sexy and then they have the my favorite murder logo on them

00:38:29

So you can everyone you walk by, you're going to be giving them a message. If you buy one, all proceeds are going to go to feedingamerica.org.

00:38:38

That's right. And so Feeding America, their mission statement is our mission is to feed America's hungry through a nationwide network of member food banks and engage our country in the fight to end hunger.

00:38:49

So it's it's pretty cool. It's been around since 1979. We're really into it. So any any face mask you buy from us at my favorite murder dot com in the store, all the proceeds are going to go to them to feeding America.

00:39:02

That's right. Which is super important right now, as we were just talking about.

00:39:05

This is very intense, very difficult time for so many people. And this is just one way we all have like, you know, I have about four different masks.

00:39:15

One was one my sister bought for me. One. I got a package of like the disposable ones.

00:39:20

But so, you know, you can have one for your car. Oh, yeah. And have one for your house.

00:39:23

answering the front door or whatever our house is littered with masks it's really ridiculous

00:39:29

vince keeps buying like different you know he wants to support the businesses he likes so he

00:39:35

keeps buying masks from different places and then we have the big thing of the disposable ones and

00:39:40

it's just you know love it love it the coolest yeah yeah so get in there and so you can uh protect

00:39:46

yourself and support a very good cause uh and help help out uh hungry people in america yeah

00:39:53

And then real quick, do you want to do exactly right corner? Yes. Good shit this week.

00:39:58

So good. So Monday, Murder Squad covered the case of the Taco Bell Strangler, who's named Henry Lewis Wallace.

00:40:06

He targeted black women in Charlotte, North Carolina in the 90s. But he's only confessed to the murders that he everyone knew he was tied to.

00:40:17

So Billy and Paul explore how many other potential victims he could possibly have.

00:40:21

I've never even that's I've never I've never heard of I've never heard of that person.

00:40:27

And on bananas. Okay, when we were told that this was going to be a guest on bananas,

00:40:32

and you know how good Scotty and Kurt are with guests. This one fucking tops them all.

00:40:37

Erin Brockovich. Hi. Oh, my God. Legend. Let's all watch that tonight. What the movie movie Erin Brockovich. Absolutely.

00:40:46

Such a good movie. But she's an incredible advocate. So she is on Bananas this week. Please tune in.

00:40:53

Yeah. And then The Fall Line is releasing this week. They released part one of their new two-part series called Identity After Death, which sounds so cool.

00:41:02

They have a UNH lecturer and forensic anthropologist named Dr. Amy Michael, who's talking about common misconceptions, the state of forensic science, how cold cases might be solved.

00:41:13

Like this is a person who's in it and studying it and on the cutting edge. So I can't wait to listen to that.

00:41:20

Sounds so good. So rad. Yeah. Cool. Great stuff happening. It's all crap happening.

00:41:25

Did, is that everything? 45 minutes in? No, sorry. There is one more thing. So last week,

00:41:32

because the, the TV show, God damn it. The TV show. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

00:41:40

Okay. So we talked a little bit about the new HBO series Lovecraft Country premiered.

00:41:47

And we talked about how much we loved it. Oh, God, it's so good. So and that a Jordan Peele is one of the producers on it Why am I not surprised That amazing Yeah So so we got this email and it says Hey crew I was so excited and moved to tears to hear you both bring up Lovecraft

00:42:08

country this week. I'm one of the set decoration buyers on the show and the entire crew put so

00:42:13

much love, sweat and tears into it. And it's just nice to see our hard work being recognized.

00:42:18

I think my parents sometimes imagine I'm still painting flats for a high school play.

00:42:25

As I was spending hours in my van traveling around Georgia to find period correct pieces.

00:42:29

This is my favorite thing in the world. Okay, say it. She goes, and I mean it. There's not even a single book on any set that was published after 1954.

00:42:39

Fuck that damn. It's so rad. Can that be? That's my like, that's my if you weren't doing what you're doing now, what would you want to do?

00:42:47

That's my dream job. Right? It's the coolest. And y'all were keeping me company.

00:42:53

so as she was doing this doing these buying she was listening to us which is such a great compliment

00:42:59

every Monday and Thursday several of us would get distracted talking about this week's episode in my office you could

00:43:05

find various SSD GM you're in a cult call your dad and other MFM merch I even have a few people on our crew who remembered

00:43:13

the casket with the quote suspicious substance formaldehyde that was in a mini so that came out while we

00:43:19

were filming that was that one was not on our show i promised to never buy a used casket for work no matter what the discount

00:43:27

is anyway i just wanted to say on behalf of the lovecraft crew or at the very least the set

00:43:32

decorating department that we are happy to be friends of the fam stay sexy and stay away from

00:43:39

racist and shoggoths natasha amazing uh yeah i love it i love it i was so so excited we were so

00:43:47

excited so thank you natasha i'm assuming she pronounces it natasha but it's n-o-t-o-s-h-a

00:43:53

yeah natasha natasha yeah it's a different spelling sure um please say hi to everybody

00:43:58

yeah and and way to go yeah super congratulations what a beautifully beautifully made show

00:44:05

love it but also so fucking creepy like the first one uh it's all spoilers it's so i haven't seen

00:44:13

episode yes i don't don't don't spoil okay yeah we'll watch it and watch the other one and then

00:44:18

we'll talk about it next week and really quick i just for the comedy side if you're looking for

00:44:22

something to watch i finally i had been saving it um because when it first came out i didn't watch

00:44:28

it even though i love rob delaney and i love him i love he's just truly the funniest he's the king

00:44:34

of twitter but he's also an amazing actor an amazing comedian so kind too he fucking remember

00:44:40

I knew him for a little while when he lived here. He remembers my name when he didn't have to.

00:44:45

You know what I mean? I was not important to your life in any way. But he'd have him be like, hi, Georgia and Vince.

00:44:50

He was just so nice. Yes, he knows his stuff. He's good. So he made a show with Sharon Horgan, an amazing Irish actress and comedian called Catastrophe.

00:45:03

So good. There's, I believe, three seasons of it. And it is so fucking funny and so brilliant to people that get together and start a family.

00:45:14

And that's all you need to know. The jokes are superb. The people are so real. I love it so much.

00:45:20

And I always feel bad when I don't watch things the second they come out. But oftentimes I resist because there's always this first wave of opinion.

00:45:31

And I want to get away from that and then have my own opinion and be separate. So you just watched it and you love it?

00:45:38

I just watched it literally for like 72 hours. I did not stop watching it because I loved it so much.

00:45:44

You know what that reminds me of? Did you watch the NXIVM cult documentary? Yes, episode one.

00:45:50

What's it called? The Vow? The Vow. On HBO. So good. It made me think of this because I thought to myself, it's on HBO, so it's episodic every

00:45:58

week. And I am just like, I was mad that I couldn't binge watch it. Yes, me too.

00:46:05

Can we not do that anymore? All I want to do is fucking sit there for a weekend and binge the show.

00:46:11

Yes. And while you're at it, if I'm binging a show, you don't need to put up a thing that asks me if I'm still watching it.

00:46:19

Stop judging me for laying on the couch for nine hours. Are you still? That still is in italics.

00:46:25

Yes. Are you still Karen? And then a little pig face. Yeah. The vow is really good.

00:46:31

I am fucking excited about it. The way it is setting it up for a second, I was kind of like, this feels a little bit pro NXIVM to me.

00:46:40

What's going on? Yeah. But it's like they're establishing it's good documentary filmmaking.

00:46:44

They're establishing what what was good about it. Because there's always people got pulled in.

00:46:49

And you can totally understand. Yes. The positivity and the it's so I love that it's it's like a learning process where I was like sitting there going, I don't like this.

00:47:00

They're basically and then I went, oh, yeah, yeah, that's the whole idea of a cult is you don't see a cult and go.

00:47:06

This is a bunch of bullshit. You like the girl who was talking about realizing she's in a cult at the show.

00:47:12

Yeah, of course, it's welcoming. It makes you feel good. It's hitting all of those.

00:47:17

You feel like you have a bigger purpose, which, yeah, sorry, isn't a real like doesn't happen in real life unless you have kids.

00:47:23

Maybe I think if you have kids and that's that's the cult. Not according to catastrophe.

00:47:30

No, but I mean, it's such a good, this is the way we learn about cults so that we can learn to stay away from them or to recognize when something switches from being super helpful and beneficial to literally controlling your life.

00:47:47

Yeah. Yeah. Thank God there's a lot of good TV out right now. Jesus. These times.

00:47:52

All right. Are you ready to make some media that will also entertain people? Well, we're 49 and 56.

00:48:00

I think seconds in, so I feel like now's the time. It's time. Just tell me like a four-minute story.

00:48:08

Why is it always chaos when we link up? Because nobody plans anything, bro. Good thing the Rogue's ready like that.

00:48:14

For real. Rain, dirt, whatever. Available all-wheel drive. Five modes. We still outside.

00:48:20

And they got some kick, too. That turbo? Torque is crazy. The most in its class.

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Load up, we out. 2026 Nissan Rogue, built for all of it. Auto Pacific Segmentation, 2026 Rogue versus latest in-market competitors in the ex-SUV

00:48:42

mainstream mid-sides class, excluding electrical vehicles based on manufacturer websites.

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00:49:44

Code FLOW15. Hey everyone, it's Cal Penn. I'm the host of Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club.

00:49:53

This week on the podcast, I'm sitting down with Ray Porter. The narrator of Andy Weir's audiobook Project Hail Mary.

00:50:02

Massive sci-fi adventure about survival and science. And what happens when you wake up alone very far from Earth.

00:50:10

I really had to make a decision because I caught myself getting that frog in my throat and starting to get teary as I'm narrating some of these sections.

00:50:17

And it's like, okay, yo, yo, yo, is this indulgent? And I really thought about it.

00:50:21

I was like, no, at this point, it would kind of be betraying the trust the author and the listener have in telling this story if I don't go through it.

00:50:30

But there's places in this book that deeply emotionally affected me. And I left it on the mic.

00:50:36

That's great. Because it served the story. People will say like, oh, my God, I cried at the end.

00:50:41

It's like, yeah, dude, me too. Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:50:50

Stephen, who's first? Karen, you're first. Is it me? Oh, because of last week. The quilt episode.

00:50:57

Oh, right. Georgia did the dungeon in Charleston. And Karen, you did the Stull Cemetery.

00:51:05

Okay. Right. Okay. Okay. Okay. So, Georgia, the story I'm going to do for you this week, read to you, is the story of Delaware's Patty Cannon, the wickedest woman in America.

00:51:18

Ooh. don't know it. Okay, this was suggested by Anna H. She sent this suggestion into the MFM

00:51:25

Gmail inbox. Thank you, Anna H. I'd never heard of her, of course. What she was,

00:51:32

she basically ran the reverse underground railroad. She was an escaped slave catcher

00:51:39

in the 1800s. There's so much of this stuff as I was looking it up and reading it,

00:51:45

that of course i've never heard of any of it historic as fuck they don't yes they don't teach

00:51:51

it in the fucking they don't teach it and they don't teach uh uh slave patrols uh slave traders

00:52:00

all of it it's it's such an ugly time and it has to be discussed this should not be the only thing

00:52:07

you know about it so please this is this is basically an overview there's plenty to read

00:52:13

about this and to look into yourself. Okay. So I got this information. There's a Ranker article that was written by a writer named Amanda Sedlak Hevener, and

00:52:23

all this interesting article that was written by Emily Stringer, and articles from, of course,

00:52:28

Wikipedia, newspapers.com, and the Dover Post. Just as a quick overview, as most of us know, and the only thing I've ever heard of is that

00:52:37

the Underground Railroad itself, the original, which was the secret network of safe houses,

00:52:43

hiding places and travel routes that led escaped slaves out of slave owning states and to free

00:52:50

states and up to Canada. So, of course, it is an incredibly secretive system. So there's not much

00:52:58

about like when it was established or who did it first or anything like that, because that was all

00:53:02

very secret. But what we do know is that it was set up by freemen who had been escaped slaves

00:53:08

themselves, black and white abolitionists at the time, many of whom were Quakers. So,

00:53:13

the Quaker religion is very active. They're very active in helping slaves escape. Also,

00:53:22

members of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, which was established in 1816,

00:53:28

that they did tons of work on the Underground Railroad. And it basically just provided, it was very loose.

00:53:35

Some of the spots in the network knew about each other, but it was very loosely organized.

00:53:45

It wasn't like, oh, if you make it to this place, you know exactly you'll go to that place.

00:53:49

It wasn't set up like that. It the same thing with fucking Jewish people in Germany during World War II The more everyone knows about it the more you can tell the authorities when you get caught So it better to not know Right The more danger Exactly

00:54:05

Exactly. You had to keep it small. You had to keep it very, very secretive. And especially

00:54:09

at this period of time, which would be like mid-17, late 1700s into the 1800s, because America was founded and established with slavery simultaneously. So the slave codes that

00:54:23

came to America, they came with the slave owners in America. They were just, it was just kind of,

00:54:30

they weren't the laws that were enacted. It was kind of like what had been established in either

00:54:34

France or Spain or England. And there weren't any laws set up in any meaningful way. Essentially,

00:54:44

across the board, a slave owner was legally allowed to beat, to rape, or in some cases,

00:54:51

to kill his property, quote unquote, these human beings at will. And so, essentially,

00:54:58

they're human beings that were bought into servitude and then treated so poorly, obviously,

00:55:06

backbreaking work, inhumane living conditions. I mean, so escaping to the northern free states was

00:55:14

obviously huge and they had the slave owners made it a very very scary thing to try to do right and

00:55:22

so an example of whoever tried it and got caught exactly and get these slave patrols people that

00:55:27

would just go out at night hired for money to try to catch um people who are trying to escape slavery

00:55:33

so there's i read this article uh a while a couple months ago and it had this quote in it that i

00:55:41

remembered. And it was from, there's a black composer named George Walker, who was the first

00:55:47

black composer to win a Pulitzer for music he wanted in 1996. And yeah, and he died in 2018.

00:55:57

But he was the grandson of a slave. And when he his grandmother, of course, never talked about it.

00:56:03

And when he finally had the courage to ask her, what was it like? The only thing she said to him

00:56:09

was they did everything except eat us. So, okay. So I'm just giving you the overview of the setup.

00:56:19

Definitely look into all of that. Slave patrols, all of that. It's so creepy, horrifying.

00:56:27

And it basically was the birth of what is happening in this country right now. In about 1820, there's a woman by the name of Patty Cannon,

00:56:35

and she tends bar at her tavern in Johnson's Crossroad. which is in a town in Delaware that's situated right on the Delaware-Maryland border.

00:56:47

And so it sits right on the Mason-Dixon line. So slave traders would often stop at Patty's Tavern as they were traveling to and from the slave states and the freed states.

00:56:58

Yeah. So tonight, Patty waits on a slave trader who makes the terrible mistake of flashing a huge wad of cash that he has.

00:57:06

And so she invites him to have dinner in her nearby home. And he says, yes, they have dinner with her son-in-law, Joe Johnson, and Joe's brother, Ebenezer.

00:57:18

Dude. If you just want a creepy white guy name. Eb. What's up, Eb? Ebenezer. So the slave trader is seated at the dining room table.

00:57:31

And Patty excuses herself to go outside to hoe her flowers, she says. That's the excuse she uses.

00:57:38

And from the garden, which sits right below the dining room window, Patty has a clear sight of this slave trader's back, pulls out a gun, shoots him from behind and kills him.

00:57:51

Takes his money, obviously. Then Patty, Joe and Ebenezer hack his body into pieces, wrap him in the bloody tablecloth, stuff him into a blue chest three feet wide and bury him out behind her house.

00:58:06

And this is standard fare for Patty Cannon. This is life at her tavern. So she was born Martha Patricia Hanley.

00:58:16

Some people say her first name was Lucretia, but they think that that's just a rumor that stemmed from Lucretia Borgia, who was the Italian noblewoman who was famous for poisoning people.

00:58:27

Oh, yeah. So they think that just kind of got tacked on to her. But records of her early life aren't exact.

00:58:33

she was believed to be born in 1760 in Montreal. Her father was a British nobleman turned bad boy

00:58:41

who defied his parents and married a barmaid. So her father's parents disowned him and they

00:58:49

fled to Montreal. They have Patty and three other daughters. And so Patty's father supports the

00:58:55

family by smuggling and other crimes. So she's basically born into a life of crime. It's very

00:59:01

common for her basically her father gets into a fight with someone who threatens to turn him into

00:59:05

the local police so he kills the snitch with an axe um he's caught in the act he's arrested and

00:59:12

he's hanged for murder um so patty's mom is left to support the family on her own so she forces

00:59:20

patty and her sister into sex work as well um and then she tries to marry her daughters off so she

00:59:26

doesn't have to take care of them anymore. So around 1776, when she's 16 years old,

00:59:31

Patty marries a man named Jesse Cannon, visiting Montreal from Delaware, where he is a farmer.

00:59:37

So she ends up, she marries him and moves back to Delaware with him. And they moved to a town

00:59:42

called Johnson's Crossroads, which is now Resilience Delaware, which is right on the

00:59:47

Delaware-Maryland border. So Johnson's Crossroads sits in the Delmarva Peninsula.

00:59:53

so that right along the border there are three separate counties Caroline Dorchester and Sussex and they all meet together right in this one spot So Patty and Jesse have two kids Jesse Jr and a girl

01:00:07

named Mary. So she works as a barmaid while Jesse farms and eventually she wants more money. So she

01:00:15

tries to add sex work back into her rotation. But she even like her idea is she'll start be a sex

01:00:22

worker again and then eventually become a madam and run her own brothel okay but she's such an

01:00:27

unpleasant person she has such a shit personality that that um most of her potential johns find her

01:00:37

attitude off-putting oh god later days they're like could you lower your voice oh my god so the

01:00:45

brothel idea never pans out because she just isn't very nice this was the description of patty

01:00:52

canon from the dover post quote descriptions of canon all written many years after her death

01:00:57

painter is a rather fearsome person she was quote massive of bosom massive elsewhere according to

01:01:05

1907 newspaper article an amazonian paul bunyan who personally hogtied some of her kidnapped victims

01:01:12

she was and then it says she was more or less robust had a wealth of black hair and her face

01:01:18

while showing the effects of her evil passions and dissipations was more or less good to look upon.

01:01:25

She was a hottie, but her attitude was poor. So sorry, no sex work for you. Instead, she leans on her bartending skills and opens a tavern around 1784 when she's 24 years old.

01:01:39

Her own tavern. So that she basically, instead of the brothel, she just has her own bar.

01:01:44

Which is like middle age back then, essentially. Really? She was scheduled to die within 10 years.

01:01:50

Okay, so soon after she opens this tavern, her husband, Jesse Cannon Sr., dies under mysterious circumstances.

01:01:59

So Patty's left to fend for herself and her kids. So sometime in the early 1800s, her daughter, Mary Cannon, marries a man named Henry Brereton.

01:02:10

Henry is a blacksmith, but he's gotten into the illegal slave trading game. So what happened was basically in they passed a law in 1807, which came into effect in January 1st of 1808.

01:02:23

That was the act prohibiting importation of slaves. So essentially, they made it illegal to import any more slaves into America.

01:02:33

And it's supposed to limit the slave population and end international slave trading.

01:02:38

But what happens is because slavery is still legally in the United States, it then leads to arise in the underground illegal slave trading market.

01:02:50

And they call that the reversed underground railroad. So basically now plantation owners are willing to pay more for slaves.

01:02:59

So basically, if slaves ran away, you couldn't just go buy more. Right, right. So they would pay people to go find them, bring them back.

01:03:12

Or just by an illegally. Yeah. It's such a sensitive thing to talk about. We're talking about people.

01:03:19

It's so crazy. So what ends up happening is with the illegal slave trade, these illegal slave traders go to free states and kidnap free black people off of the street.

01:03:31

Fuck, man. Whether they were ex-slaves, whether they were born free in those free states, whatever, they're kidnapping and getting them to boats and shipping them back down to the slave states.

01:03:41

Jesus. Super dark, really creepy. So, essentially, in 1811, Henry teens up with the cannons to kidnap free black people and sell them back into the slave trade.

01:03:52

So, Henry, Patty, and other accomplices, they would get other people to help them out.

01:03:58

They joined Joseph Griffith and develop a system. So the guys find accomplices. They troll the waterfronts in a ferry looking for free black men, women, and especially children.

01:04:11

Oh, dude. And then they kidnap them through force or through trickery. Oftentimes they would promise them work, basically kidnap them and hide them.

01:04:20

Patty had built in the attic of her tavern. She built this horrible jail so she could keep people there.

01:04:29

She abused them. She tortured them. They were horrible conditions. And essentially, they would stay up there while she was making arrangements with these slave traders.

01:04:41

So she was making money. They would make the exchange and then send the victims back down south.

01:04:47

So one way they would do this when they would end up tricking black people is Patty owned a slave herself.

01:04:55

It was just a boy named Cyrus James. She bought him when he was seven years old.

01:05:02

So she would make and her gang would force Cyrus to trick people into boarding their ferry by saying, oh, are you looking for work here?

01:05:11

Come with me. I'm going to take you to a place. So, of course, they would trust a child, a black child when they weren't kidnapping free black people.

01:05:20

Patty and her gang are also making counterfeit money. And they're also robbing the tavern patrons, the rich tavern patrons.

01:05:27

So they were just they were just basically or an organized crime syndicate. all at this tavern. So in 1811, Henry gets caught during an attempted capture in Georgetown,

01:05:38

Delaware. He's given a prison sentence for his crimes, but within a year he escapes.

01:05:43

He gets back to Patty's tavern and there he, Patty and Joseph Griffith pick up right back

01:05:50

where they left off And then one day in the spring of 1813 they devise a plan to rob a slave trader who frequents the tavern named Ridgel They get him drunk And then as he leaving for the night they ambush his carriage and they rob him

01:06:06

But he fights back. And in the midst of that fight, Ridgel gets shot and killed.

01:06:12

So Henry and Joseph are captured and found guilty of Ridgel's murder and their sentence to death.

01:06:18

And at noon on April 13th, 1813, they're both hang. So now Patty's in charge, and it does not slow her down one bit, because right after the new widow, Mary, her daughter, Mary, immediately marries another legal slave trader named Joe Johnson.

01:06:36

Joe partners up with Patty to continue this same slave trading enterprise that she'd built with Henry and Joe's an even better partner.

01:06:45

They recruit as many as 50 to 60 other people to help them. And they become known in the area as the Cannon Johnson gang.

01:06:53

And we will never know the exact numbers because there was a book written after her death that they think she had a hand in writing.

01:07:01

Yeah. So they're not sure if the numbers are correct, but they think she killed around 30 people and sold thousands of black people back into slavery or into slavery for the first time, men, women and children.

01:07:16

It's really sad. They're these stories because this became so common. there were posters on the streets of Boston warning black people to be careful not to talk

01:07:26

to police, not to not to interact with police and not to not to believe anyone offering them a job

01:07:33

off the street, which you'll get in trouble for immediately if you don't talk to police and don't

01:07:38

interact with police. If they interact with you, you're right. But it's almost just like it's that

01:07:42

steer clear thing. It reminds me of that, that it that scene in Lovecraft Country where they're

01:07:47

just trying to stop for lunch right and they suddenly realize the cafe they're in isn't the

01:07:53

safe place that they got in the green book it's that place has been burned down and they are in

01:07:58

a sundown town yes it's so scary oh sorry spoiler alert but it's the same thing where there's just

01:08:04

traps everywhere it's again that thing we talk about about black people culturally have not been

01:08:10

safe ever right they just don't they can't they can't feel safe yeah it's it's not right so law

01:08:17

enforcement, of course, looks the other way. They know what they're doing. But a lot of white people

01:08:22

make money off of doing this. So this illegal, the illegal aspect of this slave trading,

01:08:28

no one's coming out and going, this is wrong, you can't do it at all. But the crimes,

01:08:34

the Cannon Johnson gang, they start committing all these crimes against white people. And of

01:08:39

course, that's what gets the authorities attention. So they start hanging out at the

01:08:44

tavern paying more attention to what patty um and her people are doing but she lives so close to the

01:08:50

state line that any time she catches wind that the cops are going to come and like take a look around

01:08:55

she just hops the border and so she's she's out of the area and they can't do anything about it

01:09:01

in 1822 a few members of the canon johnson gang are finally caught one being joe johnson um and

01:09:07

he's the only one that's brought to trial for kidnapping because he's he was basically the

01:09:12

leader, found guilty, and his punishment is to be placed in the stocks and given 39 lashes.

01:09:18

So he takes his punishment, and then him and his brother, Ebenezer, take off for the South.

01:09:26

Patty, once again, she's dodged a bullet, but that changes in 1829, when a tenant farmer

01:09:33

working her land stumbles upon something interesting beneath the dirt, a three-foot-wide

01:09:39

blue chest. The farmer opens it and inside are the remains of the slave trader that Patty killed

01:09:45

with Joe and Ebenezer back in 1820. So the farmer reports this finding to the local law enforcement.

01:09:52

They go to find Patty, but before they can find her, they wind up catching Cyrus James in Delaware,

01:09:58

who is Patty's young boy slave. So he's also wanted for his part in this illegal slave trading

01:10:07

operation, which is, of course, bullshit because he's a slave. He's being forced to work with them.

01:10:14

But the good thing is when the police question him, he just spills the beans and tells them

01:10:19

everything. He confesses to seeing Patty, Joe and Ebenezer kill the slave trader and bury him in the

01:10:25

blue chest. He tells them about all the horrors he's seen in the tavern, about the attic jail, about

01:10:31

how Johnson would whip the black captives who would say they're free. They're not escaped slaves.

01:10:39

They were born free. He even says there are at least three other bodies of victims Patty killed and buried on her land.

01:10:47

He leads authorities to the locations. And sure enough, when they dig there, they find three more bodies.

01:10:53

A young boy who had been killed on June 1st, 1824, when Patty hit him in the head with a wooden board.

01:11:00

And two other children who were both killed on April 26th, 1822. Oh, my God. So with the help of Cyrus James testimony, law enforcement has all they need to arrest Patty.

01:11:12

And in April of 1829, she's caught and charged with four counts of murder. She's found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging.

01:11:22

But on May 11th, 1829, Patty's guilty conscience gets the best of her. She calls for a minister and she confesses that she's personally killed 11 people, including her husband, Jesse Cannon.

01:11:36

who she poisoned as well as one of her own babies who she strangled when they were three days old.

01:11:43

No! So, yeah. She was a fucking monster. Dude! Yeah, and I think that's probably

01:11:50

where the Lucretia Borgia thing came in because she poisoned her first husband. The same afternoon,

01:11:55

Patty's found dead in her cell at age 70. She had secretly smuggled arsenic into her cell and used it to poison herself three weeks before her scheduled hanging.

01:12:06

So Patty's body is buried outside the Sussex County Courthouse in Delaware, but her remains are moved in 1907 when the area is exhumed for the development of a parking lot.

01:12:18

So they end up burying her in a potter's field near a local jail, except for the skull.

01:12:24

Somebody saw one of the courthouse employees who was there during the exhumation,

01:12:29

saw Patty's skull that was separated from the rest of her remains and took it and kept it.

01:12:35

No, no, no. They kept that in their family until 1961, when someone finally donated it to the Dover Library.

01:12:44

So that skull has since been donated to the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. on long-term loan.

01:12:51

And in 2010, Dr. Douglas Owsley, the chief of the Division of Physical Anthropology at the

01:12:56

Smithsonian announced his plans to conduct a forensic examination of the skull and saying he

01:13:04

wished to preserve it as a part of a larger study of life in the Chesapeake from colonial times to

01:13:10

the 19th century. And that is the story of Patty Cannon and the reverse underground railroad.

01:13:18

Fuck, dude, that was a whirlwind. I mean, it's not enough. There's so much. know it's uh you know we'll talk more about all this stuff yeah but the idea that you know this

01:13:30

talk about a serial killer talk about talk about an evil evil person that we should know about yeah

01:13:39

i think yeah this that whole idea of people who made money it's fucking escaped slaves it's dr

01:13:46

Mengele. It's fucking, it's just people who are, who are using the excuse of the times to do their

01:13:54

fucking evil bidding and getting away with it. Wow, that's fucking evil. That's evil and horrible.

01:14:01

It's fascinating because this stuff went on for so long. She's not the only, it's not like this is a rare, you know, moment in history. This is.

01:14:10

She's yeah, she's the anti Harriet Tubman. But what's cool is in in reading up on all this stuff there. The coolest thing about Harriet Tubman that I don't think I understood, because basically the Underground Railroad went until obviously the Civil War, you know, through that.

01:14:28

And then Harriet Tubman, the Union Army hired her to be a spy because she knew all these routes down, secret routes and places down to the south.

01:14:41

And so they basically would use her to go in and she would dress up as an old woman and no one paid attention to her.

01:14:49

And then she would go get intel and information to bring back to the generals. That's my favorite.

01:14:54

I mean, everything else is incredible and amazing. and her bravery and the fact that she went into slave states upwards of 30 times to to a free

01:15:05

escaping slaves yeah then she she worked for the for the for the army too to during the civil war

01:15:12

that's bananas why is it always chaos when we link up because nobody plans anything bro

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01:17:00

This week on the podcast, I'm sitting down with Ray Porter, the narrator of Andy Weir's

01:17:05

audiobook Project Hail Mary, massive sci-fi adventure about survival and science and what

01:17:13

happens when you wake up alone very far from earth. I really had to make a decision because

01:17:18

I caught myself getting that frog in my throat and starting to get teary as I'm narrating some

01:17:23

of these sections. And it's like, okay, yo, yo, yo, is this indulgent? And I really thought about

01:17:27

it. I was like, no, at this point, it would kind of be betraying the trust the author and the

01:17:32

listener have in telling this story if I don't go through it. But there's places in this book

01:17:37

that deeply emotionally affected me, and I left it on the mic. That's great. Because it served the story.

01:17:45

People will say like, oh my God, I cried at the end. It's like, yeah, dude, me too.

01:17:48

Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts That was incredible Great fucking job And weirdly mine is like my story this week is like and later 50 years later

01:18:07

Yeah, okay. I love it. And here's a unsolved murder I hadn't heard about ever that we should know more about and we should know more about the woman.

01:18:18

This is the murder of civil rights activist Alberta Jones. Nice. So I got information from this from there's a great New York Times article by Trip Gabriel, blackpass.org article, face to face Africa article, blackthen.com article by Jay Jones, WHAS 11 article by Derek Rose and Lena Duncan, Washington Post article by Deneen L. Brown.

01:18:44

And just, yeah, it's just coming to light about this incredible woman. So, Alberta Odell Jones is born on November 12th, 1930 to Sarah Frances Crawford and Odell Jones, which let's bring back the name Odell.

01:19:02

Odell's pretty good. Yeah. Incredible fucking name. In Louisville, Kentucky. So Alberta attends Louisville Central High School and then Louisville Municipal College,

01:19:12

which was a school for black students only, but it merges at that time with the University

01:19:17

of Louisville during desegregation. So she graduates, and this is a black woman in the 1950s.

01:19:24

She graduates third in her class and gets her bachelor's degree from the University

01:19:30

of Louisville, also at the top of her class. Basically, she's really smart, really driven.

01:19:35

And in 1956, she's the first black person to attend the University of Louisville Law School.

01:19:41

She transfers during her second year to Howard University School of Law in Washington, D.C., which is the oldest historically black university law school in the United States.

01:19:51

And she graduates fourth in her class. Nice. She's killing it. She's killing it.

01:19:57

In 1959, she becomes one of the first black women to pass the Kentucky bar. and uh so she's taking the bar exam and uh a newspaper photographer shows up to take photos

01:20:09

of her because it's historic and uh she says to the journalist at the time quote if i had known

01:20:16

how much was depending on me because she didn't even know about that she was one of the first

01:20:20

black women to even take the kentucky bar she said i would have studied harder and she said and

01:20:27

I would have worn something different. For real. And made sure like no pressure,

01:20:34

but you better pass this. Yeah. She was also like she was a great speaker. She was really funny and,

01:20:40

you know, charming and caring. After passing the bar, she returns to Kentucky and opens a law office

01:20:44

with partners in downtown Louisville. And over the next couple years, Alberta Jones is profiled

01:20:50

in the Courier Journal several times for her work and accomplishments and is described as cheerful

01:20:56

and outgoing with a great sense of humor. And there's this photo that kind of goes along with all of her articles.

01:21:03

And she's just this like darling, bright, lovely person with a big smile. You know, it's...

01:21:10

And a bigger brain. And a ginormous brain. I think about Guy Branum, who I know who has passed the bar.

01:21:18

Yeah. And how smart he is. And how much it takes to pass the bar. because all of law study is memorization of specific, detailed.

01:21:28

I don't know how people do it. It's such an accomplishment. With the adversity of being a woman, which what did not happen back then to begin with,

01:21:38

and then be a black woman, which was also so challenging. Yes. And she did it at the top of her class.

01:21:46

Top of her class, you know, straight A. But yeah, there's, yeah, incredible. Right.

01:21:51

So she's a member of several distinguished groups, the Fall City Bar Association, the Louisville Bar Association, the American Bar Association.

01:21:58

And she's a member of the Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, which is the third largest predominantly African-American sorority.

01:22:06

And their focus is on addressing social causes. So social causes are really big for Alberta Jones.

01:22:12

This is the focus of her career. She loves speaking to groups of younger women to try to get them to also go into law.

01:22:20

You know, she's just she's a powerful person who could have who achieved so much in her short life and could have achieved so much more.

01:22:29

Well, that alone, I mean, being able to stand there and go, I did it. So can you?

01:22:33

That's that's all most of us need. We need representation. You just please show me one person that looks like like me, has a background like me, you know, and has gone somewhere and turned around and goes, come on, you can do it, too.

01:22:45

Totally. It's invaluable. So early in her career in 1960. So she's got this neighbor, you know, longtime family friend. His name is Cassius Clay. And he's an up and coming boxer. And yeah, he is someone to negotiate his first professional fight contract for him. And so he hires his friend, Alberta Jones, to, you know, of course, he later becomes known as Muhammad Ali.

01:23:12

and she against or like with or against 11 wealthy white businessmen working on this contract,

01:23:21

make sure that he gets a fair deal and even make sure that some of the money is put in a trust

01:23:26

that he can't touch till after he's 35 because she's like, I fucking know you're just going to,

01:23:31

you know, you're excited. You're going to spend it all. So she, this fucking lawyer,

01:23:34

she negotiates this contract for him. Hell yes. Amazing. Brilliant. So she's also, of course,

01:23:41

a massive civil rights activist, a member of the NAACP. She marches in Louisville protests,

01:23:47

attends the March on Washington in 1963 in August, and she forms the Independent Voters

01:23:53

Association of Louisville And so she with that association she and they are able to register 6000 black voters in Louisville which is a huge amount of people

01:24:06

If 6000 extra people voted in this upcoming election, it would sway things. So, you know, 100 percent.

01:24:13

It's important. So I just have to stop you really quick to say that it is bumming me out where we're going with this because I've never heard of this person.

01:24:23

No, I know. And it's, it's that it's that we had never heard of her and all her work. And then we had never heard of other stuff. And it's, it's, we can, it's time and, you know, Washington Post and New York Times and all these outlets are finally giving her and what happened to her the attention it deserves.

01:24:42

so amazing um i'm bummed i know okay me too when she's doing this voter association you know uh

01:24:51

thing work work she also rents voting machines so that she can teach you know teach the people

01:24:59

how to vote when they get in there so they're not nervous or freaked out they know what you

01:25:03

know needs to be done i'm sure it's a really scary thing i would have loved that right to vote for

01:25:06

the first time yeah yes it's nerve-wracking and it's fucking you know these groups of black people

01:25:11

who have never voted before, and she wants them to be confident when they walk in.

01:25:16

And because of this, this movement ends up causing a major political shakeup in 1961,

01:25:22

when black voters help oust the old school mayor and many of the city's aldermen.

01:25:29

They fucking vote those fucking old school racist dickheads out. Yeah, because of their activism.

01:25:37

So and because of this less conservative administration is is in place and Louisville finally starts enacting anti-discrimination policies.

01:25:47

And Alberta Jones is also single handedly able to integrate Louisville City Hall by forcing officials to hire black employees.

01:25:55

So she's this fucking little cute, fucking sprightly, smart, excited, powerful woman who's able to make these changes in her early 30s.

01:26:07

Like, yeah, incredible. One better. One better. I mean, you actually have the job.

01:26:13

That's right. OK. In 1964, Alberta is appointed as city attorney in Louisville, the first woman to ever hold

01:26:23

that position in 1964. That's so incredible. It's so good. In February of the following year, she's also appointed prosecutor for the domestic relations

01:26:32

court, which is another first for a woman and a person of color. And she's responsible for prosecuting mostly white men for spousal abuse.

01:26:41

Wow. Okay. So let's get to the bummer part. Because this is a strong, brave young woman, and she's this force.

01:26:51

She's up and coming in her career and life. It's a shock to everyone who knows her when on August 5th, 1965, Alberta at 34 years old is found dead in the Ohio River.

01:27:06

It's near Louisville's Sherman Minton Bridge. Initially, police think her death is due to drowning.

01:27:12

You know, I don't know. Maybe they thought she had just jumped. But her car is discovered several blocks from the bridge, and there is a massive amount of blood inside.

01:27:21

And then they do the autopsy, and they determine that she had received several severe blows to the head, they think with a brick, before entering the water unconscious and dies from drowning.

01:27:33

And it's it just doesn't there's no rhyme or reason. The night she died, Alberta's sister, Flora Shanklin, says that her sister had gotten a call from a friend and that friend had been facing a lawsuit and like asked her to come out and discuss the lawsuit with her.

01:27:49

It was like late at night. Alberta was like, I don't want to. But the friend kind of, you know, it was like a girlfriend convinced her to go out.

01:27:57

It doesn't seem like there's anything involved with this, but I don't know. And so Flora says the last time she talked to her sister, Alberta was on the couch reading a magazine about how about the Kennedy assassination, which had happened like two years before.

01:28:14

And the last thing Alberta said to her was casually, I hope I don't get assassinated.

01:28:20

And Flora responded, you don't have to worry about it. You're not the president of the United States.

01:28:25

And that just stuck with her. Oh, yeah. So police investigate the murder. They find witnesses who report having seen a woman being attacked and dragged near the bridge by three unidentified men the night Alberta died, which I feel like in 1965, you didn't interrupt stuff like that?

01:28:47

I don't know. They just saw it and moved on. Like they witnessed it and, I don't know, ran.

01:28:53

They didn't call anybody. This is domestic. I don't want anything to do with this.

01:28:57

three against one is not domestic no who fucking knows yeah no no and then strangely they find her

01:29:06

purse three years after the murder hanging from that bridge the sherman minton bridge

01:29:13

almost like someone came back to get rid of the purse or it tried to give a clue i three years

01:29:22

later, it shows up. And it has its credit cards inside, all the contents are still on there,

01:29:28

the checks. And but the purse just shows up. But the case does go cold and the family is left

01:29:35

without answers. Okay, so let's fast forward to 2013. A first year student at the Brandeis School

01:29:46

of law. Her name is Lee Remington. In some articles, it's Lee Remington Williams. But the

01:29:53

name Lee Remington is just a fucking you a you a cow person You a you a cowgirl and you fucking fighting the good fight Right Let hope so She is She is So she like passing through her hallway

01:30:07

She's at her law school. She sees portraits of civil right leaders. And she notices this photo

01:30:13

of Alberta Jones. And she is a big civil rights student. She that's like, you know, one of her

01:30:20

passions. And she's like, how do I not know who this woman, this black and white photo of this

01:30:25

woman with all these other civil rights leaders? How do I not know who this is? And then she looks

01:30:29

more into Alberta Jones, and she's shocked to learn about her trailblazing accomplishments

01:30:36

and her unsolved murder. So she's shocked about it. None of her classmates had ever heard of

01:30:42

Alberta either. So she decides to start writing a biography of Alberta Jones's life to get her

01:30:47

more recognition. And she even gets in touch with Jones's sister, Flora, who's now in her 80s.

01:30:53

Oh, wow. And so Flora tells her all about her sister's death, and how she thinks investigators

01:30:57

ignored and buried evidence. And she believes that someone she Flora's Flora thinks that someone

01:31:04

paid the killers to kill her sister. And that law enforcement didn't care about her sister's

01:31:11

murder, because they were indifferent about the murder of a civil rights activist at the time,

01:31:15

which is fair. For years, police told the family there's not enough evidence to arrest anyone and

01:31:22

that none of the original investigators were even still alive. So it wasn't even worth reopening the

01:31:28

case. And so when Lee Remington starts her research in 2013, police tell her that the witnesses in the

01:31:34

case are all also dead and there's like, there's nothing to be done. But Lee Remington gets access

01:31:39

to the case file through an open records request and starts reviewing everything. And she discovers

01:31:44

that one of the detectives who worked on the case at the time was super young when he was a detective

01:31:51

and he's still alive. They're not all dead. And so she goes and interviews him. And he tells her

01:31:57

he was in charge of collecting most of the evidence and writing the case report back during the 1965

01:32:02

investigation and tells her some details and that there is evidence that was collected and,

01:32:07

you know, like vacuuming the car for any trace evidence and fingerprints and shit. So she's like,

01:32:13

this could still be an active case. Then Lee Remington finds that there had actually been

01:32:18

a new investigation into Alberta Jones's case back in 2008, because the FBI had matched a

01:32:27

fingerprint found inside Alberta Jones's car to a man who was 17 years old at the time of the murder,

01:32:34

who lived in the area. He's referred to as CJ because he's not an official suspect,

01:32:39

We don't know his name. So Detective Terry Jones of the Cold Case Squad had in 2008 had interviewed

01:32:45

this man. And this dude, CJ, can't explain why his fingerprint is in this car and denies

01:32:52

killing Alberta Jones. Although the spot where her car had been found, which was kind of far

01:32:58

from the bridge, was just a couple blocks from where he and his friends hung out. And he claims

01:33:04

this guy, CJ, claims he was a bookworm. He had just graduated from high school. He was going to

01:33:09

college. And he also said, so Alberta's car at the time was in the shop. So the car that she was

01:33:14

driving where they found the blood in was a rental car. And so this guy, CJ was like, well,

01:33:18

I hitchhiked a lot. So maybe that's why my fingerprint was in the car. I don't think so.

01:33:26

I mean, stranger things have happened. However, let's dig into this a little more.

01:33:30

Yeah. So CJ offers to take a polygraph. It's found that he's being deceptive, But he's never charged with anything. And CJ's brother tells reporters that he and CJ had known Alberta Jones and had met her because she was friends with one of their doctors, but they didn't do it. And his brother said he was home with him the night that Alberta was killed. You know, it's fishy.

01:33:56

But two years after the fingerprint discovery, so it's like, you know, 2010, prosecutors write a letter to the police chief and let them know that they're not pursuing the case further because there aren't any blood samples from the scene available for DNA testing.

01:34:10

Like there's not more evidence to test. Right. Why is there not more evidence to test?

01:34:16

They threw it away. It's just missing. The entire evidence box is missing. so although a shit ton of evidence was collected by fbi at the time fingerprints vacuum samples from

01:34:30

every inch of the car blood samples the purse and its contents her dentures cigarette butts from the

01:34:36

car her shoes her clothes it's all missing whoa that's not that's a very bad sign uh-huh and i

01:34:43

bet it's somewhere like even if it's legitimately like they can't find it there's always those

01:34:47

fucking storerooms and warehouses but then you always hear about the floods and the fires that

01:34:51

like destroy evidence and it's just so we can't do yeah if there if if there was something much

01:34:57

more sinister and calculated about it then like saying that those three people were hired to kill

01:35:04

her right then they you know then then somebody could also have the juice to then make that case

01:35:11

case file go missing right evidence and and there are people you know that that she had issues with

01:35:17

Although everyone loved her, of course, she was a prosecutor and she was prosecuting men for spousal abuse, which is going to piss some people off.

01:35:26

And the people she had to work with in the courthouse also didn't fucking love the idea that they are working with or fighting against a black woman.

01:35:36

So they're pissed about it. you know, it's like, then there's also the her influence on on politics and the vote, the voter,

01:35:44

right? Like, basically, like, that's the power alone. Yeah, act. Yeah, is huge. Yeah, the people

01:35:51

that are out there can have issues with her and yeah, hire someone. And it's, it's a more complicated

01:35:57

case to study. But you that's your job if you're an investigator. So, um, it's your job. Right. And they also, they, uh,

01:36:06

the cold case unit says that there's no one involved with the case that's still alive. Again,

01:36:11

that's back then in 2008, that's their narrative. But so Lee Remington now finds that this letter,

01:36:16

finds this letter, um, and starts to refute each point. Um, she now has over almost 1600 pages of

01:36:24

research that she's uncovered through public records. She's fucking like down this rabbit

01:36:29

hole, which is amazing. The most glaring one being that one of the detectives involved is still alive.

01:36:35

So she's like, your argument doesn't make any sense. I found him. You can talk to him.

01:36:40

But also, is that the rule in cold cases? If the detectives who originally investigated are alive,

01:36:47

then too bad? That doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense. You don't have primary sources. But you can also have their notes and interviews at the time

01:36:57

should stand for that. That's the whole idea of keeping files and having an evidence room. And

01:37:03

obviously, exactly. Yeah. So Lee Remington also says that police back in 2008 failed to interview

01:37:10

several friends that CJ had mentioned hanging out with some of who lived, quote, a stone's throw

01:37:15

from where the witnesses reported seeing Jones abducted. And she says that CJ should be re

01:37:21

interviewed. People describe CJ as meek and harmless. And actually, Lee Remington says she

01:37:27

doesn't think that he's the killer, but she thinks he definitely knows more than he's letting on to.

01:37:31

Yeah, I think they described Ted Bundy as being meek and harmless as well and attractive.

01:37:36

And there's also, you know, there's speculation of, you know, what we already talked about,

01:37:41

as well as maybe her murder has to do with the contract she was drawing up for Muhammad Ali's

01:37:47

fights, you know, which there's, I mean, there's no, I haven't seen any, there's no basis for that,

01:37:53

but that's just speculation around town. So in 2017, it was like pulling the other famous name into the story.

01:38:01

Right. Right. And so that's still, it's a lot of money. It's a lot of money writing on this thing.

01:38:05

Maybe she's fucking with it and they don't like it, you know, maybe, yeah. Maybe she's cutting in,

01:38:10

in a way that's like an established precedent that, you know, it's like everywhere she went,

01:38:15

she was actually really powerful and young and powerful. And stirring shit up. Yeah.

01:38:23

Which is great. Okay. So in 2017, Lee Remington Williams, she's now a professor with a PhD. She sends a letter to the chief of the Louisville Metro Police Department requesting that the department reopen the investigation.

01:38:35

And so the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice also decides to get involved.

01:38:41

And the investigation is funded because there's this new law that had come in, the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, which provides 13.5 million annual funds to the Department of Justice, the FBI and the state and local law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute pre 1970s killings.

01:39:02

And, of course, Emmett Till is a 14-year-old African-American child who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955 after being wrongfully accused of offending a white woman in her family's grocery store.

01:39:15

And his white killers were acquitted. It's just this whole – what's the word? Travesty of justice?

01:39:23

It's this whole travesty of justice. It's sick. And so now all this money is being put in to investigate crimes like this that should have gone a different way.

01:39:32

Yeah, that should have been investigated and properly prosecuted in a meaningful way.

01:39:37

Exactly. So finally, 52 years after her murder, Alberta Jones's case is officially reopened.

01:39:44

And this means I know. And this means her case also finally gets recognized by nationwide media outlets like The New York Times, who did this great article about it and The Washington Post.

01:39:54

Wow. But so it's reopened. she's finally getting the attention she deserves. And her legacy as a civil rights pioneer and

01:40:03

advocate is also finally being recognized as well. So because of the new attention around her case,

01:40:09

which is this tragic thing, but also her work is being celebrated. And so in the fall of 2017,

01:40:17

Alberta Jones is honored in a hometown heroes ceremony, including a large banner of her photo

01:40:24

being hung in downtown Louisville at 6th and Muhammad Ali And it this huge beautiful you know photo a local councilwoman sponsors a resolution to rename a street near Alberta old downtown office

01:40:38

honorary Alberta Jones Esquire Boulevard. And there's portraits and plaques of her placed in

01:40:46

the county's attorney's office, the University of Louisville Law School and the library at Bellarmine

01:40:52

University where she attended law school and a law scholarship at Bellarmine is now named in

01:40:58

Jones's honor. And at her high school, Central High School, there's a new law and government

01:41:05

magnet program and the classroom stands as a courtroom and it's named in her honor.

01:41:11

It's so good. And there haven't been any new leads, unfortunately, yet in recent years,

01:41:17

Although the attention that's like being put on this case, maybe we'll make some people want to, you know, confess what they know or finally, you know, talk.

01:41:28

Yeah, exactly. But a sergeant on the Louisville Homicide Department says that the case is still open.

01:41:34

And as for Alberta Jones, she has this quote. So people were constantly doubting her saying, you know, she had gotten home from law school and they're like, you have two strikes against you already.

01:41:46

You're a woman and you're black. Like, what do you think you're doing? And she would respond, quote, yeah, but I've got one strike left and I've seen people get home runs when all they've got left is one strike.

01:42:00

Hell yeah. And that is the story of civil rights activist Alberta Jones and her tragic murder.

01:42:08

Alberta Jones. Alberta Jones. That's a name more people should know. Look her up.

01:42:12

I mean, she's fucking, I mean, she's light and power and love. There's so many stories, though, that are like this, where it's the murder of black people who are making and affecting change in places that need it so badly.

01:42:31

It's so, part of the tragedy is how common this kind of a story is and how much we don't hear about it.

01:42:38

And how, you know. Swept under the rug it is, yeah. Yeah. And it feels like in his last, you know, in his last five months or so, it's people are especially it's white people starting to wake up to the fact that they have this incredibly incomplete education and picture of how this country has been working and how it needs to change.

01:43:00

And also just speaking about this, because Alberta Jones is from Louisville. They still need to arrest the cops that murdered Breonna Taylor.

01:43:08

Fucking straight up murdered. It has to happen. Everybody knows this case. Her face has been on the cover of Oprah magazine. I mean, it's like this. Talk about something. I bet you Alberta Jones would get behind in a very meaningful way if she wasn't murdered in the prime of her life.

01:43:29

Right. Fighting for the murder of a young woman who had every one of her rights. Absolutely.

01:43:37

Yeah, there is no world that where you can argue that that was not murder from the from the cop who lied to get that warrant to the cop who fucking signed it knowing that it was incorrect and that the person who they were signing the warrant for had already been arrested that day.

01:43:58

To the number of bullets that were shot into everything going against procedure. I mean, it's so egregious. It's so beyond got to change.

01:44:07

great job beautifully done I'm so excited that I know who Alberta Jones is now thank you for that

01:44:14

let's end this by reading some fucking arrays this is from Kelsey at this Mrs. Robinson

01:44:22

I have a fucking hooray going back to teaching has been one of the most stressful and trying seasons

01:44:28

of my life not knowing what will happen she said seasons she called it one of the seasons of her life

01:44:34

and I bet you she's not over 30 years old. She's definitely still in the spring winter area.

01:44:41

Okay. Not knowing what will happen between health, safety, mental health, and the status of my job.

01:44:47

People insulting and manipulating the situation makes you question if it's all worth it.

01:44:51

But this week I was reminded why I chose this job, the kids. I teach three year olds to 11 year olds and they are messaging me how they miss me and love me I reminded that this is a season that will pass and reminded of the kindness in people

01:45:06

Shout out to MFM for highlighting the good, and we can all persevere through these times together.

01:45:12

Did you guys hear about the shout out in the Leather Kitty episode? Oh yeah, I know about that.

01:45:18

Squirrely Dan is a fan too. Yay! Hey, good job, Kelsey. Sorry you're in that situation and

01:45:26

it's very smart of you to keep it positive like that. Yeah. And thanks letter Kenny for the shout out.

01:45:31

We talked about that a long time ago, right? Yeah. But yeah. Hell yeah. Canada. What's up Canada.

01:45:38

Lovely. This is from con man bell 14 on Instagram. Hi, Karen and Georgia. My fucking hooray.

01:45:45

I wanted to share with you guys is as a 24 year old gay Christian. I recently came out to my parents and hope to soon introduce them to my

01:45:54

my amazing boyfriend of three years. My message to others is that no matter where you are in your coming out

01:46:01

journey is that is that you matter and you are loved both inside and outside of the closet.

01:46:07

Thank you ladies for doing what you do and for being allies to the LGBTQ plus community.

01:46:13

SSCGM Connor. Yay. That's like double hard gay, gay Christian, but you fucking did it.

01:46:20

Like he did it. What an incredible feat. Yeah. We're proud of you. Awesome. Yeah, congrats.

01:46:26

Yeah. Okay, this one's from Victoria. My fucking hooray is that my family and I have been playing an Uno championship since the beginning of lockdown.

01:46:34

Yes. We didn't have any idea how long it would last, but we knew we would keep playing until one of us went back to, quote, normal life.

01:46:43

My dad went into his office last week, so we finished our five-month-long championship, and I won.

01:46:49

Yeah. with a score of 7,342. The losing score was 8,338. Ha ha. It's been such a lovely way to spend our evenings together,

01:47:03

especially as I'm going back to university soon. And we will be living 3.5 hours away.

01:47:08

Thank you, Murdered Gals. Love this podcast so much. You're all awesome. Keep doing what you're doing.

01:47:13

You are valid. You are supported. Oh, Victoria. Hi, Victoria. I needed that. Oh, to all the kids going back to school.

01:47:27

Fuck. Good luck. I've been really enjoying the university. You know, they all have to go two weeks before to like quarantine and the meals that they've been giving them that are disgusting meals in their dorms.

01:47:41

I've been really enjoying those photos. Okay. I'm enjoying how people are going back.

01:47:45

immediately 58 people get sick and then they cancel in-person classes which they should be

01:47:51

doing they should be doing yeah it's crazy uh this one's from benji souther here's a fucking hooray

01:47:59

right as covid started i found out my best friend had to move from dc to california for work

01:48:04

that night i broke down and told him i had feelings for him turns out he felt the same way too but

01:48:10

we'd both been too nervous to say anything because he's a cis straight guy and I'm a trans gay guy

01:48:16

and he wanted to make sure my gender felt respected and I wanted to be sure his sexual

01:48:21

identity felt respected. Three days. This is a modern love story. I love it. Three days later,

01:48:29

I got COVID symptoms and moved in with him because I had been with my parents and they have heart,

01:48:34

they have heart disease. Long story short, I'm typing this from a hotel room in Western Nebraska

01:48:40

on the third morning of our cross country road trip. And because quarantine time is weird,

01:48:46

we're talking about marriage. Wow, I can't remember the last time I felt this happy.

01:48:51

And I've saved a backlog of MFM for the trip. So you've been there with me for the ride,

01:48:56

SSDGM Ben and I look, of course, had to fucking sneak and look at the Instagram that they and

01:49:03

it's the cutest. I cried. I cried. It's like, it's the best things about social media. It's

01:49:09

beautiful. That's so lovely. Congratulations. It's the younger generation. They're gonna

01:49:16

like the, the beautiful part of it is that like, that's such a brave thing to do. That's such a

01:49:24

strong brave kind of like important thing to declare feelings in such a risky situation such a question mark It so totally I mean it like it only one life and you get to decide what chances you want to take and

01:49:39

are willing to take, whether they're going to work out or not. You, you get to decide and like,

01:49:43

are you going to regret, you know, when you're fucking 40 that you like me, you didn't,

01:49:49

you didn't take those chances, you know? Yeah. That you didn't like what the, you calculated that risk.

01:49:57

You did it right. And it worked out for you and we're fucking stoked for you. Stoked and super jealous,

01:50:03

which I think is even better. A better compliment is I kind of hate you a little bit for being so young

01:50:09

and strong and modern that you're like, you know what? I'm so I'm valid. Of course.

01:50:13

Like me back. Did you get that? Is that self-esteem in, in a nutshell? That's how you build.

01:50:20

That's how you build it. That's what generation Gen X parents give you. That's right.

01:50:25

You know, we didn't get any. You and I had fucking boomers as parents. And they were like, you're going to eat that?

01:50:32

A man will never love you if you're a 50 pounds of weight. Marry well. Marry a rich man.

01:50:36

Georgia. Marry, go to college so you can meet a rich man. Get yourself a doctor.

01:50:41

What? Don't you want me to be a doctor? That's not true. My dad would say, get yourself a doctor.

01:50:45

My mom would say, no, become a doctor. Yeah. You know that Cher quote where she goes,

01:50:49

my mom always told me to marry a rich man and I said mom I am a rich man my fucking

01:50:57

favorite listen to Cher whatever you do for real that's a way to live a life right there that's right

01:51:03

amazing that was a nice batch good job everybody everyone's you know in the midst of a real

01:51:09

shit time there are people who are making it work anyway congratulations just try a little bit

01:51:15

that's all you got to do we believe in you. Thank you guys for listening, Stephen. Thank you for

01:51:20

helping us in a RV right now in the middle of a desert in Arizona. I love it if everyone thinks I'm

01:51:29

in a desert. Yeah, that's right. Stephen's in the middle of the desert in an RV. He's doing Burning Man

01:51:35

by himself this year. Yeah. How is he engineering on that many drawers? On the playa?

01:51:42

I'm already on ayahuasca. Yeah, bring me back some. That's why you were barfing on mute

01:51:47

while we were doing our stories. I love it. Send us your fucking rays wherever. And thank you guys.

01:51:55

Thank you guys for being there for us. We get lots of stories about like you, we're here for you

01:52:01

because you're listening to our voices or it's making you feel better. You guys have changed our lives

01:52:06

so much for the better. I'm going to cry. And we can't, we can't, literally cannot thank you

01:52:13

correctly or properly, especially in quarantine. but we love you please know it deep in your heart and we mean you specifically you specifically you

01:52:22

yes the one who thinks it's not you no no you're important to us here's another thing i want you

01:52:27

to hear stay sexy and don't get murdered goodbye elvis do you want a cookie why is it always chaos when we link up because nobody plans anything bro good thing the rug's

01:52:39

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makes it simple. Pasture-raised eggs traceable to the farm. Their hens have outdoor access year-round

01:53:42

with fresh air and sunshine and forage on rotated pastures with local grasses. Every carton can be

01:53:47

traced back to the farm it came from so you can see the pasture where the hens live by visiting

01:53:51

vitalfarms.com slash farm. Look for the black carton in the egg aisle and visit vitalfarms.com

01:53:57

to learn more. Vital Farms, good eggs, no shortcuts. Goodbye.

My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgi

237 - Anti-Hype Man

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