218 - Good Shabbos | My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

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Terms and conditions apply. See Pandora.net for more details. Goodbye. My favorite murder

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Hello! And welcome! To My Favorite Murder. The Zoom edition. The Zoom or in lockdown

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and I haven't bathed in two to three days edition. What would you say your essence is right now, Georgia?

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It's like a pizza. yeah it's a pizza armpit sure like but the gnarly pizza that you get it like when you are in student

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body uh you're in student body and everyone pitches in to order pizza so of course it's like

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trashy kind how's your stench level are you you look you look clean right now thank you i did

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bathe today thanks i did um when i let it go too long i i don't bathe myself and i don't do like

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the dishes. And then I have a realization of like, this is me putting depression on myself,

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the last thing I need to do. So I woke up this morning, took a shower, cleaned the house. Also

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because the dogs came in at some point last week when I had stripped the bed of everything,

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even the mattress pad, and I was just washing everything like the weekly wash. George went in there having been in the backyard with mud on her feet and walked across the mattress.

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Georgie. Yeah, I mean, and now with the cone, she can't win right now. And I'm like, oh, I want to be mad at you.

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But you're already a very sad individual. But there's just dog prints in like it's clay mud.

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It's not just plain mud. It's like the real dense stuff. Oh, do you live in an adobe household?

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Adobe Adobe. Yeah, so I can't get the I've spent several days doing different cleaning treatments

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of getting dog prints off the mattress. And so because of that, I've been sleeping on the couch,

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then it's like that my room is off limits to me. Yeah, so that's off. Yeah. And then I'm just kind

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of sleeping on the couch. And there's like, when I wake up, I look down and there's like

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popcorn on the ground, something you know what I mean, where it starts to get too much quickly.

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Yeah. Also having animals, it's like it gets out of hand really quickly. That's one thing I never did

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even in my deepest, darkest depression is go to sleep on the couch because I know it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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But it'll just be like, it gets darker and darker inside of my mind when I wake up on the couch.

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Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I've been surfing my own couch for like three years. You deserve a bed.

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You deserve a mattress. I deserve a bed. And I have been putting myself to bed in my new house until this debacle happened.

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Really, what I'm saying is my answer to your question is onions. It's just a strong onion smell.

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Funyun? Because that would be cool. Straight up on. Not even fun. It's not funyun at all.

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It's just kind of gross. But I like it in the way that makes me feel like, ooh, the toxins are being released.

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Yeah. Because it really smells toxic. quite because you keep fainting when you get a whiff of yourself i for real it's like they're

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oh wait did i tell you about the day the ups man came and i was like hey hold on and then i ran

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inside and grabbed a bottle of belvedere that i had sitting from left over from that christmas

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party so i have like handles of liquor left over from this christmas party no brag sorry everybody

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um not drinking it and not interested i actually tried to get myself like hey you could just drink

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a bottle of champagne right now one night. And I was like, for what? What? So you fall down and

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like split your head open. Yeah. So the UPS man was walking away. And I was like, hold on one

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second. And I went and grabbed this bottle of Belvedere and gave it to him. So today he dropped

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something else off. And when I opened the door to get it, he was like almost to his truck. And

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then he turned around and goes, Hey, thanks. And he was wearing a bandana like a bandit,

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like a green bandana just across his nose going down in a truck. He was like, I'm not I'm not

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messing with any of those YouTube videos that show you how to make like a perfectly adorable

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bandana. I just am putting it on my face. Now just here. Here. I'm an old fashioned Old West train robber. That's his look, which

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is really cool, actually. But he walked back and goes, Hey, hey, thanks again for that

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bottle man It was good all weekend long with a little orange juice Like he told me about how he been enjoying it And I was just like that all I want to hear Please do that

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You got to put those bottles of liquor to use. Right. And then I don't drink it.

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Yeah. Getting your delivery man shit faced. Yes. Take a break. You're worried all the time.

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You shouldn't have to be worried all the time. This is all the PPAE I can give you.

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Nice vodka that someone else gave me. Can I say can I recommend real quick a couple of Instagrams that are making me happy corner?

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A hundred percent. I was going to say, let's also talk about what we've been watching for TV on TV or movies, because I am quickly running out of options and completely depending on other people on social media talking.

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I got a couple of those, too. So let's do that. Let's do it. So the Instagrams that are making me happy is that Charo has an Instagram.

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And what a delight. That woman's been entertaining me since I was born. She's been on the TV.

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I mean, she's like early days, 70s variety show. She was always there. Coochie. Coochie, coochie.

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Coochie, coochie. She is so hilarious. She does this like how-to hand-washing video that's just pure Charo.

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And she just like shows you what social distancing means. If you don't know who Charo is, just go find her Instagram.

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It's amazing. And then I sent you Leslie Jordan's Instagram. I love him so much.

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What has he been on? He's like a character actor, right? I believe and don't quote me on this, but I'm almost positive he got popular because he was on Will and Grace.

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Oh, right. That's right. He was Megan Mullally's friend on it. I'm not sure for sure, but somebody retweeted him telling a story.

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It's just him talking to the camera. He's the most hilarious, charming Southern man.

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And he reminds me he's like a David Sedaris type, but all to himself and like a southern grandma.

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It's the most hilarious thing I've ever seen. And I think he's a very popular character.

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Like, I think aside from Will and Grace or whatever show he got, like he really broke through on.

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He's just been on a ton of stuff because he's so good. Yeah. So what's the video you saw?

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He was telling a story. I can't remember. I think he was cooking something, but he was also telling a story and it turned into like, I sniffed this one thing and then I was dancing.

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all night i mean it was just yeah yes he's he's totally uh candid just tells you everything

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yeah it's hilarious and then also um steve zahn another great actor has what yeah what's steve

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zahn up to steve zahn for realsies is his instagram that his like teenage daughter made from him and

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he is like psycho and hilarious and so charming in it it's and he doesn't know what he's doing

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It's so entertaining. Oh, my God. I love he's truly he's one of the great character actors, but just regular actors of all time.

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He's in the great film out of sight. One of the best movies ever made. I feel like he's in every he's has.

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It's like a law that he has to be like the neighbor friend in every movie that you've ever seen.

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Pretty much. Yeah. But but and he has huge range. But like, I wish he was in, you know, he's in.

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I've seen him in a bunch because Nora loves the Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Yes. Diary of a Wimpy Kid movies, which are great movies.

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We're going to go into recommendations. I've watched every one of those movies with Nora and I love them.

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Okay. All the children are great, very talented actors. And Steve Zahn is the dad.

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And normally he plays like, oh, I'm a crazy stoner. I'm a like hardcore cop or whatever.

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In this, he's just a dad. It's like he's perfectly playing a regular dad. And it's so good.

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Yeah, he's very charming. And on Instagram, I recommend it. That's it for Instagram.

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I'm so proud of him that he's, I don't know, joining the social media craze. Steve Zahn for realsies.

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Yeah. God bless him. That's funny. But TV-wise, sorry, I had this document up. Okay, I watched.

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This is old. It's from 2000 and it's on Amazon Prime. It's called This is Personal, The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper.

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And it's the entire story of how long it took to catch the Yorkshire Ripper and how intense it was.

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And the guy, the British actor playing detective George Oldfield, who was the guy that like headed up the case and and they ran into every it's such a well done docudrama because it it perfectly highlights all of the really intense anti sex worker tone.

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the super intense sexism, just like a bunch of dudes that were kind of like mishandling.

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Women would go in to say, my daughter was attacked on a country lane. And it was the end with a hammer.

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It was this same guy. She recognizes him. And they'd be like, lady, he wasn't even near like they'd be super dismissive of people

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coming in going, I recognize that the it was it's a it's an amazingly documented and actually

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very for the year 2000. Very modern feeling. So long ago. how yeah 20 years ago oh god i wrote it down say i'm definitely gonna watch that um it's called

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this is personal okay for the yorkshire river on what on netflix it's on amazon prime okay or

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probably an acorn type of thing and just to say the the actor that plays the detective is named

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alan armstrong and he you've seen him in a million things he's in every um british period piece he's

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So good is this detective who like basically. Within. Don't tell us. Don't spoil it.

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Oh, Oh shit. That was a huge spoiler. Steven buzz out that entire. Can you buzz it out of my head I bleep it all Bleep it for me It ruined for me now Oh ruined Well you kind of get the idea he not so healthy Gotta get it

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I've been watching, speaking of travesties of justice and murder, there's a new Atlanta Child Murders documentary on HBO

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that's so good in that it's infuriating. But so far, it's the best one I've seen, for sure.

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I've been watching that a lot. And it's to talk about the like systematic racism and like, you know, dismissal of an entire race of people in Atlanta because of, you know, the times and all of that.

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It's just it's insane. It's horrible. But it's a really good documentary. If you don't know anything about the Atlanta child murders, or even if you do, I highly recommend it.

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It talks about the kids. I can't wait to watch it. Yeah, it's I saw the preview for it.

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And then there was one night where I was like, oh, I should go watch that. And it was probably in week one quarantine.

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And then I went, I can't know. I can't handle it because I could barely handle at the end of Mindhunter when that whole thing turned into those mothers and the Atlanta child murders and those women.

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And that parade, that silent parade that they did. Like I was it was so affecting and it's so upsetting.

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And it's just so, you know, I feel like such a deep wrong. And it needs to be known more because it's it's just so fucked up and dark.

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Speaking of, oh, can I also recommend a podcast that I've been listening to on Spotify that if you want a deep dive into what we always talk about, which is which is the satanic panic.

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And this one goes into a deep dive of the satanic panic. This podcast is called conviction.

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And it's season two of podcast conviction. And I had to stop it a few times. They like play some of the interview with the interviews with the children and the parents who were charged with and, you know, convicted of satanic ritual abuse.

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And it tells you the whole history of how it came about in the United States. And it's really fascinating.

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and horrible. So if you want to get deep, dark, and depressing during your quarantine.

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And we know you do because you're here with us now. Exactly. Clearly. This is our jam.

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Swim in our ocean. Well, this is different than that. But did you watch the series Orthodox?

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Sorry, Stephen. Did you watch the series Unorthodox? No. On Netflix? But I heard it's great.

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You have to watch it. Okay. I'll just say this and I promise I won't spoil. I had one.

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So I think I watched it a week ago. And I had been just binging kind of anything.

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Like whatever came up on that reel. I'd be like, oh, I can't. Whatever. It is the most compelling show.

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I couldn't stop watching it. I had to keep on. What was I supposed to do that day?

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Oh, that was the day I was supposed to bring Katrina the toilet paper. Remember?

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I was like, I'll bring it to you. And I was like, I'll bring it at two. I'll bring it at four.

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I'm going to bring it later on because I couldn't stop watching this show. It's so well done.

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It's so believable. And it's about the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Williamsburg and a young woman who's in

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that community and gets out of it, tries to go and live an independent life. And it's so good.

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And the other morning, I call my dad and we're talking. He goes, hey, have you seen Unorthodox?

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And I was like, are you serious? and we have a full conversation about it. We talk all about it.

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And then at the end of the call, he said, good Shabbos at the end when we went to say goodbye.

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Oh my God. And it made me laugh so hard. Jim. It was you and it made me laugh so hard.

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Anyway. That's amazing. So that's actually an amazingly well done, so realistic kind of,

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it feels like a documentary a lot of the time. Yeah. So good. Okay. Well, the other thing, I've been listening to a book.

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Did I tell? I don't think I did this one because I was going to do it as a fucking hooray.

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But then we've been kind of reading other people's fucking hoorays lately. So I don't think I did this.

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Please tell me if I have. Okay. I've been listening to this book on tape called How to Be an Adult in Love by David Rico.

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I don't think so. Dude, this book is so good. And it's not like, it's not like, it's not a relationship book.

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And it's not like a dating book or whatever. It's like basically how to like get right within yourself so that you can like so that you can be with people correctly.

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I love it. It is unbelievably helpful and kind of like very it's not like woo woo and it's not like dry.

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It's so good. And it's a little bit Buddhist. He he's a Buddhist teacher, I think.

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But he's also like an expert. I mean, you can tell that he's like a true expert.

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It's amazing. Well, if I'm going to listen to any... It's called How to Be an Adult in Love.

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If I'm going to listen to any religion, it's going to be Buddhism. And that's about it.

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Sorry. Right. Sorry, fellow Jews, but... You've seen unorthodox. Make the exception for unorthodox.

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Yeah. Okay. If anyone's looking for something like that. Say the title again. It's called How to Be an Adult in Love by David Rico, R-I-C-H-O, is how I'm assuming it's pronounced.

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And he also has a couple other books that are like similar titles, but it's the it's that one that I really stand behind.

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OK, the last one I'll do is and I told you to watch this blow the man down the movie.

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Oh, yeah. Yes. I watched it. Did you like it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was good.

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It a murder mystery set in a small seaside town and it sister central I loved it I love it I have to say I get super stressed when part of the storyline is the crime happened and then people dealing with the fallout Yeah I just can

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stop thinking it's me. I can't stop going, like, feeling like you're in trouble. Yeah, like, go to

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the gas station. Like, it makes me feel like I have to help the TV show get this problem solved.

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it's insane it sounds like a bad dream when you're like i did this thing in my dream

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and i um it's on amazon prime and it's called blow the man down i really i loved it it's

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definitely suspenseful it was very entertaining and i believe margo martindale is the the lady

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yes there's some amazing actresses in that show that are completely like you every time they show

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up you're like yes because of all these things i had written down i don't wait now i can't remember

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if I told this story. Now tell me if I told the story. Did I tell you guys the story of this was

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like the last thing I did before the quarantine started when they called and said my sunglasses

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were ready at the at the I didn't tell you. Okay. So this was like they had basically said,

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we're going to start a quarantine like tomorrow or whatever. And then I got the call that my

00:19:09

sunglasses had come in my prescription sunglasses had come in at the optometrist. So I was like,

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I'm doing it. I don't care. It was like that Friday. Remember, it was like, I think they

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It got serious on the Friday. Yes. So I drove over there real fast and I went in.

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I looked like a lunatic, of course. I can't learn the lesson of just put on a one layer of makeup when you go out.

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No, why? Because. Why would you do that? So I go in and I'm like, I don't. Because sometimes you meet people and I know you're right.

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So but this was great because so I go to pick them up and they always do. You know, it's a wonderful place, full service, whatever.

00:19:47

So they always make you sit down and try them on and they refit you with them on your face.

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They touch you a lot. I just want to they did. And I just wanted to take them like with a pair of tweezers and run out.

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But I knew they'd make me do the thing. So as I'm standing there, I give my name and they're like, oh, yeah, just take a seat and you'll get get them fitted.

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And then immediately I have energy feelings from the person that's sitting on the bench behind me.

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But I think it's because I came in a little too hot. Like, you know, because I was like, I got to get out of here.

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And so I just figured it was judgment feelings. And I went to walk over to where they were telling me to sit.

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And he leaned forward and goes, I'm sorry. Can I just say? And then I was like, oh, hold on a second.

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It's not judgment at all. And he introduced himself. His name is Drew. And he just wanted to say he was a listener and, you know, a fan and whatever.

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Super nice. I was like, thanks so much. You know, we had a nice chat. I went and sat down.

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the lady put the sunglasses on me. She's gets them fitted. I'm like, it's fine. That's fine,

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whatever. But then she has to get up and go get something. So I have to wait even longer. Yeah.

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So I turn and look at Drew. And I'm like, these are good, right? And he's like, he stands up and then gives me a full once or he's like, Oh, my God, yes. Amazing. Amazing.

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So I got full, full sunglasses approval from Drew. Thank you for being there for me. I needed you

00:21:09

in those stressful times. It's like just a nice pre quarantine memory that I had.

00:21:13

One of the last interactions I had face to face with a human being. I love it. I'm so grateful that one of my last interactions that Thursday was a fucking haircut.

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Otherwise, I would be the shaggy DA. It would just be like a mess over here. I realized that I was getting super stressed out about what if the time comes where I cannot cover these gray roots.

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and the gray roots thing starts to become real and undeniable, which it isn't. I mean, it always is a little bit, but I just realized that I can support

00:21:52

the Nigel's Beauty Supply Place, which is right there in North Hollywood in the best.

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I mean, like their staff is the best. They have everything. And I was like, oh, I'll just order a bunch of stuff from them

00:22:04

and support them because you know they ship. And then I just got like four bottles of my hair dye so that I will have it, you know, at least for a little while.

00:22:14

And then like it's the same idea of the restaurant thing. We're supporting small businesses.

00:22:19

Yeah. Yeah, I think those are all my I mean, I'm I've also like I tried to watch Tom Cruise's The Mummy one night and it wasn't bad.

00:22:29

I mean, I got through part of it. But then there's those like it bums me out because movies these days, especially action movies, after a while, it's just a bunch of fighting in blue light.

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Like it's just like sound effects and fist fighting or swords or whatever mummy like weapon they use.

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But the lighting is all blue or gray. And they're like in club scenes and stuff.

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Yeah. So you're just like, when's this going to be over? Yeah. What are we doing now?

00:23:01

it's funny it's like i think i'm like pickier and then not that picky at all do you know what

00:23:06

vince found out i had never seen this movie and so he lost it and he's like we're watching this

00:23:12

uh roadhouse i had never seen it did you see his tweet i saw his tweet and i wanted to write back

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please live tweet this entire experience what'd you think that was there was a lot of fighting

00:23:25

which i'm not a bit like i don't like fighting in movies but you know it's fake but it's patrick

00:23:30

fucking Swayze. What could be bad? The fighting is basically the theme of the film.

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I mean, you can't have Roadhouse without the fighting. Sorry. I want that edited out.

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It's a three minute movie just of sex and tits. Of him doing him doing Tai Chi on his lawn.

00:23:49

You know, he's a fighter, but he's also much like David Rico, a Buddhist. Well, men said it's like

00:23:56

people have said it's the it's dirty dancing for men, essentially. yes it completely is yeah and that woman kelly kelly the woman that he's the doctor that he's in

00:24:07

love with who is like she's a doctor and she's she is built like a super model yeah like she's

00:24:16

clearly six feet tall and weighs 89 pounds yeah and every time i watch that movie i'm just like

00:24:20

this is why the 80s were so hard right because you were supposed to be a basically a danish

00:24:27

high fashion model. And a doctor. Plus a doctor. And you're not supposed to kiss on the first date

00:24:36

and you're supposed to be you're supposed to steal Patrick Swayze's heart and shit.

00:24:41

A lot of rules. A lot of regulation. What's a girl to do? It was not easy. That woman had no

00:24:48

meat on her bones at all. Other than that, it's a wonderful film. It's a wonderful

00:24:55

yeah it's a classic it's a classic and there's some amazing like the idea that that guy the kingpin that runs the

00:25:04

town Jackie Treehorn is that Jackie Treehorn that's right and he's basically going

00:25:10

to he's going to he needs doormen to run his empire in this town outside of Nashville

00:25:21

something like that was it Nashville I always pictured it in kind of up by Sacramento.

00:25:28

Well, it probably was filmed there. It felt very home-ish to me. That's a classic. Now I want to know what other

00:25:35

movies you haven't seen from the 80s. I'll tell you right now. Ready? Yeah, list them off.

00:25:41

Have you seen Weird Science? Of course, yes. Oh, okay. It's been a long time. UHF, that's a good one.

00:25:48

Have you seen Better Off Dead? Yes. John Cusack's skiing film? I like to call it John Cusack's skiing film.

00:25:54

More. Ask me more. I feel like there was just these like dude films back then that like if we went to the video store

00:26:00

my brother would want to watch them and then my sister and I would outvote him so I like I never

00:26:06

watched Roadhouse or Top Gun I've seen but like it's been a long time and I think it's boring

00:26:11

you know yeah stuff like that brother you guys movies because you guys were going more for

00:26:18

Dirty Dancing let's see Dirty Dan oh that's right Dirty Dancing era Dirty Dancing girl film

00:26:24

The Adventures of Natty Gann, many times we watched. Sure. Yeah. You know. Oh, my stepmother is an alien.

00:26:35

Remember that one? No. Who's in it? Kim Basinger is an alien and becomes the stepmom of the redheaded chick who's in American Pie and everything else.

00:26:49

Allison somebody. Yes. Allison somebody? Yes. Allison Hannigan. Thank you, Stephen.

00:26:56

I'm losing my edge. All right. Thank you, Stephen. It's terrible. Should we do? Should we do exactly right?

00:27:03

Network news? Network news. Yes. So Murder Squad, of course, Billy and Paul, they're diving deep into the case of the dating

00:27:11

game killer, Rodney Alcala, who you've covered before. But this one is, I mean, they're doing a deep dive.

00:27:18

It's really good. Right. And their episode dropped yesterday and they're interviewing the detective from the NYPD that basically started putting it together of the women in the pictures being able to trace them.

00:27:36

And yeah, it's a really good deep dive. So that came out this week, Monday. Did you know yesterday?

00:27:44

Oh, no, sorry. I keep saying that. Yeah, that was Monday. Did you know that I made a guest appearance on the new episode of this podcast will kill you?

00:27:52

I did. I did. I saw that on social media today. How'd that go? Great. I think great.

00:27:59

They're covering botulism, basically. What is it? Clostridium botulinum. So botulism, which is basically what Botox is. And they wanted someone's firsthand experience of what Botox is like to get. So I told them.

00:28:16

But then they also, you know, go into the details of what exactly it is. It's really interesting.

00:28:21

And then they are still doing their big COVID-19 multi-episode dive. So those are up.

00:28:29

They just wanted to take a little break and do something a little more fun. I bet.

00:28:33

More COVID-19. Yeah, they've been working on coronavirus since it broke. So, yeah, you can go back and listen to all those episodes and then have some botulism fun with Georgia.

00:28:45

Yay. This week. Also, it's the 50th anniversary of the Aristocats. So, Stephen, on the Perkast, that's what their episode is about this week.

00:28:56

Yeah, we did like an actual movie commentary. We sat and watched the film and we brought up, you know, facts and looked up stuff about the movie.

00:29:04

And it's actually based on a true story, apparently, about some rich cats from the turn of the century.

00:29:10

Sure. It's based on a true story. okay steven i mean i don't know supposedly supposedly i don't know it's based on a true

00:29:20

story of cats that can play the piano for themselves it's funny seeing the because you

00:29:25

know somebody did the lizzo did uh did like so all i could hear was was uh truth hurts uh

00:29:32

instead of the original song oh my god i love it and jaja gabor is the main cat right uh the main

00:29:39

like the lady that dicks like this? Ava Gabor. Ava Gabor, sorry. One of the other sister.

00:29:44

That's right. There are many talented Gabor sisters. Sure. Okay. The Fall Line started a new two-part series of an unsolved murder,

00:29:53

and they introduced the case and explained the Atlanta lore that overshadowed the death So that a really interesting one to follow along with Yeah the Fall Line people who live in the Atlanta area or like I would say probably Georgia

00:30:07

It's so cool that they just focus on these like cold cases and unsolved cases from the area.

00:30:12

Yeah, it's really it's really important. Definitely. I always say that about them, but it really is how I feel.

00:30:18

And then an amazing comedian who has an amazing podcast itself, Louis Fertel. his podcast is called Keep It

00:30:26

and so he's on this week's episode of I Said No Gifts with Bridger Weininger that comes out today

00:30:34

same as this so listen to that either before this or after I can't control what you did before this

00:30:40

but if you didn't already do it after because Louis Vertel is hilarious and if you don't follow him on Twitter

00:30:46

and you're on Twitter you absolutely should he writes some of my very favorite jokes

00:30:51

ever he's so good I love it. Yeah. And then we are freaking days away from the premiere of our newest Exactly Right podcast, Bananas.

00:31:01

The weird news news podcast that I think everybody needs right now. Your alternative to CNN and all the rest of it.

00:31:10

Everybody, all those weird news stories that are so great about a horse that makes friends with a town sheriff and they solve a crime or whatever.

00:31:18

We're like, you don't get to hear about any of that anymore because it's a global meltdown.

00:31:22

So Bananas with Kurt Braunler and Scotty Landis, they're going to change all that.

00:31:29

That's right. It's going to be on every Tuesday. Please subscribe to it wherever you listen to podcasts because it really helps get exposure for them.

00:31:36

And we want to expose ourselves to you. It's time to expose them and us to you. Tuesday, April 21st is when that premieres.

00:31:46

Yay, we can't wait. We can't wait. Bananas. We waited so long. We have. Yeah. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace.

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00:35:07

You're first this week, right, Stephen? No, you're first. No, you are. Last week was Lake Lanier and Anjette Lyles from Atlanta, 2018.

00:35:19

That's right. How'd that hold up, Stephen? Two years ago. Oh, so fun. Spooky and crazy.

00:35:26

I mean, I definitely remember being there, and I remember the feeling of being on stage at that show.

00:35:33

All right. Well, I'm first then. Okay, this is a case from Italy, from northern Italy.

00:35:39

and it's one of their big cases that was like you know really well known and it became what they

00:35:46

coined a genetic soap opera so like i think dna heads are really into this case because it's

00:35:53

it got some fascinating dna elements so stick with me this is the murder of yara Gambarasio So I got a couple great articles from The Guardian by Tobias Jones and another one by Rosie Scammell And there

00:36:10

also a case file episode about this and Reddit and Wikipedia as well. I'm going to tell you

00:36:15

about Brumbat di Sopra. It's a small, picturesque town in northern Italy. It's about an hour

00:36:20

away from Milan. Have you been to Italy? No, always want to. Yeah, always. I mean,

00:36:26

always wanted to something's wrong. Something's wrong with me. It's that the sun is blaring right

00:36:30

in your face. I feel like I know. Hold on. So it's a it's close to the Swiss and Austrian borders. So

00:36:35

it's, of course, beautiful. It makes it a really popular town for tourists. It's but the people

00:36:41

who live there, it's a quiet, close knit community. It's a little rule, a lot of rural,

00:36:45

A lot of the homes still use wood-burning stoves and they raise chickens. They grow their own vegetables.

00:36:52

And there's a lot of history with it's got like ancient villas, you know, the old beautiful

00:36:57

steeples on the churches. There's only around 8,000 residents and it's got like some deep-rooted old-school family

00:37:05

values. You know, one of those old-school Italian places. Like a village. Yeah, like a village.

00:37:11

And it's considered safe. And so families go to raise children there. And, you know, it's a nice little place. So it was on a chilly winter afternoon on November 26, 2010, when 13 year old Yara Gambarasio, she left her family's home, walks over to the sports center where she practices gymnastics in order to drop off the stereo her instructor needed for an upcoming performance.

00:37:36

She stops by, she hangs out, she drops off the stereo and then takes off to go home.

00:37:43

It's a quick walk. Yara is 13 years old. She still has this like baby face, but she's starting to look like a teenager, you know, that like little preteen look.

00:37:52

And she has a mouth full of braces, really big smile. She's got the dark curly hair.

00:37:58

And her father, Fluvio, is an architect. Her mother, Mara, is a teacher. And Yara is the second oldest of four children.

00:38:05

When she left the house, she was wearing leggings, a Hello Kitty t-shirt and a black bomber style jacket.

00:38:11

She makes the quick trek to the sports center. It's less than half a mile from her house.

00:38:15

And she then leaves, sends a quick text to her friend about meeting up that weekend.

00:38:21

And then that's the last contact anyone has with Yara. So her mother didn't expect her to be gone.

00:38:27

So by 7 p.m., she's already worried. And she calls Yara's cell, but it goes straight to voicemail.

00:38:33

20 minutes later like this is how how off it was that she was gone for even a short while longer

00:38:39

than should have she should have been 20 minutes later later yara's father calls the police

00:38:43

it's like my daughter's missing yeah the call is taken by the magistrate which is like a district

00:38:49

attorney and it's she's a 45 year old woman named uh letizia ruggery i'm probably saying that wrong

00:38:57

please excuse me i bet you're gonna have that feeling about every right this is an italian

00:39:02

crime. So like, there's it's a losing proposition. Let her fly. We'll hear about it. I'm gonna guess

00:39:09

it's Ruggieri. How about you say it with your fingers up in the air? Ruggieri. Yeah, there you

00:39:14

go. Okay, so Letizia Ruggieri is a 45 year old former policewoman, and she's known to be smart

00:39:21

and tough. She got a great reputation when she was fighting the Costa Nosta in Sicily as a police

00:39:27

woman yeah no joke she's fighting the original mafia yeah she's like what's up what's up she's

00:39:35

an unconventional woman for that for the area she lives in now she's a single mother which is rare

00:39:40

in that culture she has five earrings in one ear and plays the guitar and rides a beat up old vespa

00:39:45

which sounds amazing and she also has a black belt in karate so this this is a netflix series

00:39:53

It's like it already is. I feel like I've already watched it. Yeah. She's been a magistrate for almost 15 years.

00:39:59

So she knows what's going on when she gets this call. She doesn't fuck around. And she she within minutes, she dispatches both the state police officers and the the carabinier, which is the military police.

00:40:10

So immediately they send them out and they go to the small town. They start the search. The fire department starts scanning the riverbeds.

00:40:17

Police are looking at nearby fields. They check the entire sports center where she was at.

00:40:23

But they don't find anything. And unfortunately, the surveillance cameras at the sports center that day were all out of order, which is just like a really awful coincidence.

00:40:34

And Ruggieri calls in tracker dogs and they follow Yara's scent to a small hamlet nearby called Mapello.

00:40:41

And soon they discovered that the last signals from Yara's cell phone pinged in Mapello at 649 p.m. that night.

00:40:48

So the dogs, they thought the dogs would follow her track back to her house. And so they like went the other way to this random town next door and where her phone had ping that night.

00:41:00

So it pinged just minutes after she texted her friend after leaving the sports center.

00:41:04

So they figured that she had to be in a car to have been moving that quickly and gone from town to town.

00:41:09

So someone probably picked her up in a car. And over the next few days, Rogeri and her team question every member of Yara's family.

00:41:16

Of course, they look for problem signs and, you know, hidden secrets in the family.

00:41:20

They don't find anything. So then the investigators focus their they focus their time tracing the owners of all the cell phones which had passed through Mapello on the day of Yara's disappearance, which I guess is a technology they have.

00:41:34

And it's approximately 15,000 cell phones that had gone through the town that day.

00:41:39

So they also put wiretaps on hundreds of phones. And it's a record for any investigation in Italy's history.

00:41:45

Tens of million calls are intercepted by law enforcement and police also bug the family home to track conversations but they don find anything And meanwhile Yara family locks themselves into their home They really secretive And Italian TV is dominated by it called Cronas Nere which is crime news Like they more obsessed with it than we are

00:42:07

in a lot of instances. And so now the national news cameras descend on this small town and on

00:42:14

this little street where Yara's family lived. So they plea for privacy, but the case blows up around

00:42:20

the country. And there's rumors that Yara's disappearance is a retaliation abduction because

00:42:25

the media reports that Yara's father had testified against a mafia member in Naples,

00:42:31

but eventually those rumors are shot down. So none of it's true. So on the afternoon of February 26th, 2011, three months after Yara's disappearance,

00:42:41

a middle-aged man is flying his new remote air, like little airplane in the town of

00:42:48

Shignalo di Isola, just six miles south of Yara's home. He's in an open field. It's all industrial

00:42:55

and empty lots. So he's like, this is a great place to fly my little remote plane. The plane

00:43:01

malfunctions. He lands it in some tall weeds. You know where this is going. He goes to pick up the

00:43:07

plane and see something that looks like a pile of rags. And then he spots a pair of shoes and

00:43:13

the clothing are all still on Yara's body. I know. Also, if that were in a TV show, I'd be like, that's so cheesy.

00:43:23

Yeah, it's one in a million chances, maybe less than that. So unlikely and yet that's how it is.

00:43:31

I mean, get ready for the rest of this fucking story because it's the most unlikely.

00:43:34

It's like a fucking movie. It's crazy. Her body's frozen, but she does show signs of decomposition.

00:43:41

So she's been there for a while. but they say the field had already been searched days after her disappearance so police speculate

00:43:48

that the killer dumped her body there you know later but it doesn't really seem that way they

00:43:53

just might have missed it you know even by a couple feet they could have just not seen it so

00:43:58

that's possible as well crime scene investigators find yara's ipod and house keys with her as well

00:44:04

as the sim card and battery for her phone but the phone itself is missing so the killer knew to you

00:44:10

know, to stop the tracing of it and left those things behind, which is, you know, so, so cunning,

00:44:16

it seems. The autopsy is conducted by Italy's most famous forensic pathologist, Professor

00:44:21

Christina Catano. And she discovers traces of Lyme in Yara's respiratory passages and the presence of

00:44:29

what's called jute, which is a vegetable fiber that's used to make rope. And they find that on

00:44:33

her clothing. Yara hadn't been raped, but there's signs that there was an attempted sexual assault,

00:44:40

and maybe she had fought back. And there's blows on her body, a head injury, neck injury,

00:44:48

and at least six stab wounds are found. But it's determined she didn't die from any of that awfulness.

00:44:56

She died from exposure to the cold weather after she lost consciousness from her injuries.

00:45:02

I know, it's heartbreaking. You just think of this 13-year-old girl. When you described what she was wearing,

00:45:07

a Hello Kitty t-shirt and a leather jacket. That's like, that's preteens in a nutshell,

00:45:13

where you know, they're in between two worlds. So it's like, yeah, you're, you're old enough to

00:45:18

walk there by yourself, but you're still young enough that you are wearing a Hello Kitty shirt

00:45:23

and that you, you know, could, someone could convince you to do something you absolutely

00:45:28

shouldn't do. You see someone maybe kind of familiar. And so you that's they're not a stranger.

00:45:34

and she had her iPod with her. You know, it's just like such a, yeah, she was a young, a young teen.

00:45:40

It was like one of the first probably like this is she gets to do stuff like this.

00:45:44

Yeah. You know, she's 13. I get to walk there by myself. She probably fought hard to be able to have a little independence like that.

00:45:51

Right. And it's just down the road. Her parents probably weren't that worried about it.

00:45:55

It's so sad. Right. The presence of the lime and the rope fiber suggests to the investigators that the killer

00:46:00

might be in the building and construction trade. And the forensic team retrieves two DNA samples

00:46:06

from Yara's phone battery and from her black gloves, but neither match any samples the

00:46:12

authorities have on record. So they can't find who this DNA is from. Two months later in April,

00:46:18

the commander of the scientific investigations department in Parma calls Ruggieri and tells

00:46:23

where they found male DNA on Yara's underwear. And so they the team then calls the murder suspect,

00:46:30

they have like a really good DNA sample. And they start to call the suspect ignato one,

00:46:35

which means unknown one. Just so creepy. A month later, Yara's body is returned to her family.

00:46:42

Her funeral takes place on a May morning in the sports center where she was training to be a

00:46:47

gymnast. There's thousands of onlookers there. It's a white coffin with a huge bouquet of flowers.

00:46:54

And the Italian president is there gives a few words of condolence. And there's so many people

00:46:59

they can't all fit inside the sports center and they watch it out the funeral outside on a jumbo

00:47:03

screen in the parking lot. So people were just heartbroken over this. You know, I don't I think

00:47:08

it's one of those stuff like that doesn't happen here. So after the funeral, the police announced

00:47:13

that they have a solid DNA evidence, and they'll spare no expense looking for the killer. And so

00:47:18

the investigation is like in high gear, they continue to wiretap calls, they asked people to

00:47:24

voluntarily submit DNA samples, and friends and classmates and, you know, strangers come forward

00:47:30

to give their DNA. And it's believed that 22,000 people from the area volunteered their DNA.

00:47:36

Wow. And also each phone user that's found important that day, you know how they had

00:47:41

traced all the phones that were in that area. They test their DNA samples as well, but they

00:47:46

don't get any hits. The cost to test all this DNA is huge, and the investigation becomes one of the

00:47:53

most expensive manhunts in Italian history. According to some sources, the equivalent of what

00:48:00

in today's money would be almost $5 million was spent for the entire investigation.

00:48:06

So then Ruggiero has this idea to turn her sights on to places in the area where Yara's

00:48:16

body was found, thinking that the killer would have been familiar with it. And so right down

00:48:21

the street from there is a nightclub. And it's the translation of what it's called is quicksand.

00:48:27

And so in 2001, in the spring, Rogeria signs investigators outside quicksand on busy Friday and Saturday nights to take DNA samples from people going into the club.

00:48:39

Wow. Yeah. So this fucking thing works and they get a break in the case from quicksand.

00:48:48

One of the samples from quicksand is very similar to what's being called the unknown one, though it's not exact.

00:48:55

So this man isn't the killer, but he's a relative of the killer. He the man who gave the samples 20 year old Damiano Gerononi, but he's excluded as a suspect.

00:49:06

It's not his DNA. He's got a legit alibi. But geneticists are convinced he's a close relative of the murderer.

00:49:11

So in a crazy coincidence, Damiano's mother worked for 10 years as a domestic help at Yara's home.

00:49:17

But that's ruled out as a lead. That's just a fucking coincidence. instead they dig deeper into damiano's father's side of the family and they find out that his

00:49:26

father is one of 11 siblings so rogerio's team spends months recreating the geranoni family tree

00:49:34

they go as far back as 1716 so this is like i know this is that familia dna thing that we're now so

00:49:41

familiar with they're able to clear 10 aunts and uncles of damiano's 11 aunts and uncles but one

00:49:49

uncle they're not able to clear and that is uncle Giuseppe um so they're like oh this might be our

00:49:55

guy turns out he died in 1999 so it couldn't have been him okay because this is 2010 but um they get

00:50:04

in touch with uncle Giuseppe's widow and she's like here's a box of Giuseppe's old documents I

00:50:10

kept them you can fucking do what you will with them and in there they find a postcard with a

00:50:16

stamp that Giuseppe had licked. So they test that DNA. And the results on that come back. And

00:50:22

geneticists are convinced that Giuseppe is the biological father of the murderer. Giuseppe was

00:50:28

a bus driver in the 60s and 70s. He had married a woman named Laura, they had a normal marriage,

00:50:33

they had three children, a girl and two boys. And they exume Giuseppe's body, they test his DNA,

00:50:40

they confirm that he is definitely the father of the murderer. So they're like, great, it's got to

00:50:44

be one of his two sons. One of his sons happens to be a known drug user. They're like, here we go.

00:50:50

But when they test Giuseppe's children's DNA, none of them are the killer. They don't match

00:50:54

any of his children. That's when they realized that if the murderer is really the son of the

00:51:00

late Giuseppe, then the only explanation is somewhere out there is his illegitimate child.

00:51:06

Oh, right. Yeah. The plot thickens. So now Ruggieri is on the hunt for what would have

00:51:13

have now been a middle to old aged woman who 30 or 40 years ago would have had an affair

00:51:19

with a married Giuseppe and given birth to a boy who then went on to murder Yara.

00:51:25

So they're looking legitimately for a fucking unknown person. It's so creepy. So the team and like a secret person, I mean, like, and he's dead. So he can't tell you who

00:51:35

it is. They can't like, yeah, you can't admit to it. And clearly the wife doesn't know, right?

00:51:39

that's yeah okay the wife doesn't know her their children don't know it's just great and it's

00:51:45

and it's sorry to interrupt but and it's also like a plot point from a movie of i'm the i'm

00:51:52

the illegitimate child my father never was a correct father to me now i've become a serial

00:51:57

killer like doesn't it again yeah it sounds so far-fetched but yeah it's fucking true the team

00:52:03

investigated his former bus routes after some colleagues remember him as a womanizer. And

00:52:09

Giuseppe had even confessed to a co worker of having gotten a woman quote in trouble,

00:52:14

which we know what that means. And as the investigation drags on throughout 2013,

00:52:18

the public then becomes aware that an elderly woman is being looked for for the murder of a

00:52:23

teenager. And when they find out why I mean, they lose their shit and the whole town is just taken

00:52:30

over by the media. It's like a real life soap opera, people say. Yeah. Yeah. And so because of this investigation, everyone's suddenly looking at each other and other infidelities

00:52:41

come out. And in two small villages, five illegitimate children are discovered. Oh, my God.

00:52:47

Like separately from any of this. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. It's like it is like a movie where it's just like, don't don't get into it.

00:52:58

Let sleeping dogs lie. It's like, no, we have to find out. And then it's like, yeah, when you start getting into stuff like this, it's like people can't keep secrets. There's many more secrets than people know. I mean, everyone learned that 23andMe lesson. Yeah. When everyone's like, it'll be fun. And then it's like, oh, my God, my father is not my real father. Like, oh, my God, I've all heard those stories.

00:53:20

Yeah, definitely. So the investigators scour local records. There had been some homes for unwed mothers at the time. They can't find anyone who would have been Giuseppe's lover. So they figure that the woman they're looking for actually probably had been married as well, which is how she hid her pregnancy, because in the 60s and 70s, that was not okay to be pregnant unless you were married. So she probably was married, they figured.

00:53:46

And divorce was only legalized in Italy in 1970. And until that time many couples stayed together even if there was infidelities going on So DNA swabs from about 500 women that would have been the right age were and could have been the birth mother were tested including former classmates and colleagues and shopkeepers

00:54:07

in the neighborhood. And just that would have known Giuseppe, the deceased bus driver in the

00:54:13

late 60s. And they also that doesn't lead anywhere. They also interview people who knew him. But

00:54:17

because it's this old school area in Italy, people won't fucking talk. No one's a rat, you know,

00:54:23

I would say all of Italy might be an old school area. I mean, when you kind of look at it, it's it's the old country, really, where it's just like, yeah, we have a way of doing things.

00:54:35

Yeah, I think. Yeah, for sure. From what from the movies I've seen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But essentially, you know, one person talks reluctantly and she names the woman that he had had an affair with in June of 2014.

00:54:50

Her name is Esther Arzufi. So Esther was a neighbor of Giuseppe's and Ponte Selva in the

00:54:58

late 60s. In 1966 at 19, she had married her husband from a nearby village. But it's so sad.

00:55:05

The husband is this quiet reserve man. He had been orphaned at a young age. He had psoriasis

00:55:11

and he was a depressed person. So he kind of was that personality type. But Esther is outgoing and

00:55:16

lively and she wears short skirts, which, you know, is so taboo then she dyes her hair.

00:55:22

And she gets a job at the textile factory a few miles away and takes the bus to work every day.

00:55:29

Esther denies the affair and had left Ponte Selva in 1970. And in the autumn of 1970,

00:55:35

she gave birth to twin boys, a boy and a girl supposedly fathered by her depressed husband.

00:55:41

But Ruggieri's team immediately check the DNA samples they have on file and find Esther's DNA had been tested.

00:55:48

They had compared Esther's DNA to Yara's DNA and not to the murderer's DNA. So they go back and test her DNA and are able to confirm that she is the mother of the unknown one, the murderer.

00:56:00

Oh, my God. Esther's son is Massimo Bossetti. His middle name is Giuseppe, like his secret father.

00:56:09

Oh, yeah. Uh-huh. He's now 42 years old. He's a builder. And remember, the evidence on Yara's body was

00:56:16

speculated to come from a builder or someone in the construction field. He's married with three

00:56:21

children. He lives in Mapello, which is a hamlet near Yara's hometown where the last signal from

00:56:27

Yara's cell phone had been recorded the day of her disappearance. Remember, the dogs had followed

00:56:31

that scent to that town. He lives there. Yeah. Yeah. So there's this really, you know, striking,

00:56:37

you know now that we know who he is scary photo of him he's the slim short man he's got these

00:56:43

piercing like blue eyes like yours and he's got this peroxided goatee like pencil goatee

00:56:51

and like yours he loves to party he's nicknamed the animal by his friends if he were to be played

00:56:59

by someone and like this is just the first thing that came to my mind but like an older Aaron Carter

00:57:04

is what I got. Oh, okay. So he's kind of like chiseled face like he's classically good looking.

00:57:11

Aaron Carter. Oh, Aaron Carter from the band? No, Aaron Carter. Yes. From Backstreet Boys' little brother.

00:57:19

Little brother. Sorry, I thought you meant Aaron. Do you think he's handsome? Aaron Eckhart. Thank you, Aaron Eckhart.

00:57:28

No. You remember Aaron Carter from like the early 2000s and he was like dating Ashley Simpson

00:57:34

or whatever. I was drunk face down in a ditch somewhere. I was there for none of that.

00:57:40

I'm so sorry. I'll tell you this. There's traces of meth in that face. Okay. Aaron Eckert.

00:57:48

An Italian Aaron Eckert who couldn't look more Danish or something like, you know, Nordic.

00:57:54

I want you to look at the phone enough because you probably have someone better, but that's just the first thing

00:57:58

I saw because he's so thin. So Rogeri is like, fuck yeah we got this murderer on june 15 2014 the way that they get him is they set up a fake

00:58:08

roadblock with breathalyzing tests in the town and her police and the police stop mossimo and

00:58:14

they pretend that the machine the breathalyzer test doesn't work the first time so they get

00:58:19

they test him twice so they get two good samples they send it for overnight testing and the results

00:58:24

show that he's an exact match for unknown one he is the killer of yara wow mossimo bassetti

00:58:31

So the afternoon of the confirmed match, military police go to the construction site where Massimo is working.

00:58:38

They arrest him and the Italian Minister of Internal Affairs announces the arrest on Twitter.

00:58:43

But I think it's just this huge news. Massimo has no prior criminal record. He claims he's innocent.

00:58:51

He says that the DNA is fabricated and his wife makes a statement that her husband was home with her and her kids the night of the murder having dinner.

00:58:58

But phone records show that Massimo's phone was present in Yara's town on the night of her disappearance and had been switched off at 545, which is a short time before she disappeared.

00:59:09

And it wasn't turned on again until 743 the next morning. Oh, wow. So for Ruggieri, the arrest is this, you know, huge success for her.

00:59:19

It had been four years of investigative work and she had endured a shit ton of criticism, including sexism for alleged incompetence.

00:59:27

And now she's celebrated for her brilliance. Mossimo's trial starts in the summer of 2015, a year after his arrest.

00:59:33

And according to prosecutors, they had found Internet searches on Mossimo's computer for child pornography.

00:59:39

But the Reddit community and bloggers say that's not true. And after a year long trial, Mossimo's found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.

00:59:48

And the fallout for this case is crazy. Esther husband Gianni Esther the mother of this illegitimate child The husband gets diagnosed with cancer and finds out that none of his three children are biologically his Oh no

01:00:06

And then Giuseppe's widow, Laura, is also shocked to find out that her late husband fathered children while having an affair.

01:00:13

So this like destroys families. Mossimo's twin sister takes the brunt of public hate.

01:00:19

She's literally beat up twice. Oh, my God. Because her brother is a killer, which is horrendous.

01:00:27

And Esther, Massimo's mother, still denies that she's ever been unfaithful to her husband.

01:00:33

She just won't. She's like, nope. I mean, look, once you're at that point, she's probably in that position where she's like, all she can do is do denial.

01:00:42

Because admitting it opens the floodgates, too. Right. Worst case scenario. And Massimo's wife is still by his side.

01:00:49

She totally denies that he had anything to do with it as well. And Yara's family, meanwhile, has remained totally private.

01:00:58

Yara's mother created a gymnastics trophy that's named after Yara to give out to what would have been fellow gymnasts.

01:01:06

Yara is buried between her two grandparents in a cemetery just across the road from her gym.

01:01:12

And her headstone has this photograph of her. She's wearing a white bandana and she looks, you know, like a young gymnast.

01:01:18

She's adorable. and all around the grave are mementos that are left by her friends including gym shoes

01:01:24

rag dolls and little friendship bracelets that they all left for her and that is the murder of

01:01:30

13 year old yara gambaracio unbelievable twists and turns wow twists and turns but also how they

01:01:39

they didn't the those that detective and those um that that prosecutor did an amazing job yeah

01:01:47

So yeah, Letizia Ruggieri, she was forward thinking. She was super smart. And yeah, it's pretty incredible that she was able to find the killer with not a lot to go on.

01:01:59

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For whatever happens next, grab Kleenex Snap and Go. Goodbye. So I'm going to start mine with a hometown email.

01:04:51

So I'm looking on my phone one night on the couch, and I stumble onto basically like the crime blotter of a California newspaper.

01:04:59

I can't remember which one now. But it basically was just kind of like this. Here's this case, this case, this case.

01:05:05

And I would just basically have a paragraph. And I just started taking pictures of the paragraphs with the information in them because I was like, I could get I could do murders out of these.

01:05:15

Yeah. Just these like paragraphs. One of them was about a woman in the mid 80s. I think it was 1988.

01:05:21

And her body was found in West Petaluma in a in the in a trough in a field. And they ended up finding two men murdered her and they found both of them.

01:05:30

Wow. Yeah, I know. It took till the mid 2000s to find the killers. But when DNA came around,

01:05:37

they found them and they went to jail. So there was a bunch of these little like snippet stories

01:05:41

of these cases that I had never heard of where I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, these are good. So

01:05:46

this is from that internet search I did. But then Jay found this email from a murderino named

01:05:54

Christina R And she wrote in this is a very long email So Christina I sorry I did definitely edit you down This thing goes on She a great writer can tell a story But basically we going to get

01:06:07

into it this way. Being born and raised in Las Vegas. There aren't a ton of hometown murders

01:06:12

that haven't already received a fuck ton of media attention. But my mom told me a story when I was

01:06:18

little that has stuck with me for nearly 20 years. And it wasn't until I discovered your fucking

01:06:22

Awesome podcast that I decided to reach out to her and verify that it was real and not just some

01:06:28

boogeyman story she made up to keep me from running around alone after dark as a kid.

01:06:33

It turns out every bit of it was true, and she was more than happy to give me all the

01:06:37

grisly details now that I'm older. In 1981, about a year before my parents were married,

01:06:43

my dad and his best friend got new hunting rifles. They needed to get the rifles sighted

01:06:48

before they could take them out hunting, so they decided to go to an area in the desert

01:06:52

on the outskirts of town near Lake Mead where people are allowed to go shooting a safe

01:06:58

distance away from the city. My mom and her friend, my dad's buddy's wife, decided to bring along their

01:07:04

pistols and do target practice while the guys did their manly rifle bullshit. Sounds awesome.

01:07:10

I hope they brought beer. I know, right? Just go shoot in the desert. Hell yeah.

01:07:16

They all drove out together in the same car and the guys went off on their own with their rifles.

01:07:21

My mom and her friend were then alone near a ditch and decided to set up a row of cans along the edge to shoot at.

01:07:28

My mom's friend was setting up, but she immediately stopped and walked back over to my mom with what was described as, quote, the weirdest look on her face.

01:07:36

All the friend said was, there's somebody down there. When my mom started to casually suggest that it might be someone else out there hiking or something, her friend grabbed her arm and said, no, you have to come and see this.

01:07:47

When my mom went over to the ditch and looked down, she saw the body of a girl lying on her back, her legs crossed, and her arms resting above her head.

01:07:56

The creepiest part was that her dress had been pulled up over her head, covering her face and exposing her from the waist down.

01:08:02

From where they stood, they could tell that she was a child. naturally my mom and her friend proceeded to freak out because this was the age before cell phones

01:08:11

they had to wait for their dudes to come back to show them what they found and again because of no

01:08:16

cell phones they knew that someone would have to actually drive back into town to get the police

01:08:21

somehow it was decided that the friends would take the car and return to the with the police

01:08:26

while my mom and dad had to stay next to the ditch to make sure that no one came along and

01:08:31

disturb the body in the meantime. It began to get dark while they waited. And my mom said that

01:08:36

because both of them were so scared, they kept laughing uncontrollably out of sheer nervousness.

01:08:42

Hella romantic, right? Because they were on a date. Oh my God. Yeah, it was like a hang. Eventually the cops show up and do their CSI song and dance. They

01:08:54

told my mom's friend she may eventually be needed in court if and when the killer is caught.

01:08:59

flash forward six goddamn years to 1987 the case of the girl my mom and her friend found was still

01:09:08

unsolved but the girl had been identified as 12 year old sheila joe keister it was still unsolved

01:09:15

though they did know that she had been raped and strangled to death oh my god okay so i'm

01:09:21

stop there in the email that isn't the end of the email wow but i'm gonna stop there and i'm

01:09:26

to start hold sorry steven good good start intrigued horrified so now we're in it's 1987

01:09:33

and uh i'll just say the sources for this murderpedia the la times sfgate.com um which i

01:09:42

love by the way sfgate is such a good website and they have so much true crime stuff um ap news um

01:09:49

and all the way from placerville california the mountain democrat hey what's up placerville

01:09:55

Okay, Mountain Democrat. Okay, so it's Thursday, May 14th, 1987. And 69-year-old Maybel Mabs Martin is the owner of the Showcase Finishing and Modeling School in Reno, Nevada.

01:10:11

Oh, what a time and a place to be alive. The idea in the late 80s. Remember when like the Barbizon School of Modeling, like, you know, all that stuff kicked up in the late 80s.

01:10:24

being a model became a thing that was like right within your reach if you could just train to be a

01:10:28

model or look like one that was or just look like that was their tagline it's oh my god it became a

01:10:33

thing yeah and so Mabs Martin opened up the showcase finishing and modeling show you know

01:10:40

um but she wasn't she was she was a visionary she wasn't just jumping on the trend

01:10:46

she had been running this agency for years her client list included 1960s Miss America

01:10:51

Linda Lee Mead and the actress Donna Douglas who went on to play Ellie Mae Clampett in the Beverly

01:10:58

Hillbillies. Well shit. So yeah Mavs was a star maker. Yeah styling and profiling. Yeah actually

01:11:05

and basically she is on Thursday May 14th she's holding an audition to me for an anti-drug

01:11:13

commercial. So the man that's in charge of this shoot he's introduced himself to her as a producer

01:11:19

and he's from Georgia. His name is Mark and he arrives to the audition dressed in a really nice suit.

01:11:25

He's got business cards for his production company. He's total professional. So Mabbs loves this idea

01:11:32

that she could be getting some of her girls into an anti-drug commercial. She's a member of Mothers Against Drunk Driving

01:11:38

and she's very against drugs. This was like late 80s. This was prime dare time. This was like when dare was invented.

01:11:47

Nancy Reagan. This was Nancy Reagan. Getting that dare. Getting all up into everyone's business.

01:11:53

That's right. But also, the first time I was offered pot when I was a freshman in high school, I burst into tears because...

01:12:00

Because of my indoctrination to the dare to keep children off drugs and Sandy work.

01:12:04

I remember my friend's older sister being like, but Karen, but you're fine drinking.

01:12:10

Drinking's fine with you. But this is and I was like, it's drugs. It's almost like it's almost like they brainwashed us into thinking drugs were bad as a way to

01:12:21

separate us from poor people and mass incarceration of black people. That's right.

01:12:29

So Mavs thinks this is a good cause, but she also thinks it's an amazing opportunity because that could be a nationwide commercial.

01:12:37

She could really get one of her girls and have them break big like she had with Ellie Mae Clampett.

01:12:44

So she brings in a selection of her best young models to audition. And Mark chooses the two he wants to cast, 14-year-old Alicia Toma from Reno and 12-year-old Monica Burge from Sparks, Nevada.

01:12:57

So the shoot is set for two days later, that Saturday morning. And Mark and Mabbs make a plan to meet in the parking lot of The Nugget, which is the casino in South Lake Tahoe.

01:13:07

Hell yeah. Right? It's the big one you see off Highway 50 when you're coming into South Lake Tahoe.

01:13:12

So once these plans are set, Mark leaves and Mabbs calls the two young ladies to let them know that they got this video.

01:13:19

Huge. I guess she would call it. Yeah. She makes arrangements to drive the two girls to the shoot.

01:13:25

And she also asks her friend, 67-year-old Dorothy Dottie Walsh, to come along for the ride.

01:13:32

So it's an hour away from, they live in Reno. South Lake Tahoe is an hour drive.

01:13:37

So she's basically like, come with us and make a day of it. So in the morning of Saturday, May 16th, Alicia and Monica arrive at Mab's home at 745 in the morning.

01:13:48

They get into her Chrysler Fifth Avenue. They all go, right? You can just see all of this.

01:13:54

And also Mab's is exactly what you think she looks like. She almost looks like a character on Falcon Crest.

01:14:03

Yeah. Like really put together older lady with like an outfit that'd be like a skirt with a matching jacket and then a little hat.

01:14:11

But big old shoulder pads, a nice coral lipstick that's like over lined mouth, coral lipstick.

01:14:19

Yeah. Pearls. She's still working it. She works it on the daily. Yeah, and she has daytime pearls and nighttime pearls, and she's wearing her daytime pearls.

01:14:27

She's about women being beautiful. Yeah. Why not just be beautiful? It says. Embrace.

01:14:33

Putting words in her mouth. Embrace here. Let go of the rest of it and just be beautiful.

01:14:39

Okay, so they get into the Fifth Avenue. They swing by. They grab Dottie Walsh, and they start their hour-long drive to South Lake Tahoe.

01:14:46

So Mazda's told Alicia and Monica's parents that she expected they'd be home around 1230 the same day.

01:14:53

So this was just go shoot this thing, come back. And almost it all takes place in the morning, not even into the afternoon.

01:15:00

But when the afternoon rolls around and no one is back yet and they haven't heard from anybody, the girls' families call the police.

01:15:08

And unlike almost every other story we ever tell on the show, the Reno police immediately begin the search for the missing girls and women immediately.

01:15:19

This is the turnaround of this crime is so fast. It's mind boggling. So for the next three days, the Reno and South Lake Tahoe authorities, they work with seven other California and Nevada law enforcement agencies to scour the South Lake Tahoe area for the four missing people.

01:15:40

Wow. Which is like, when does that ever happen? They basically call, get everyone involved, including the FBI.

01:15:47

Like FBI is in on day one. Everybody gets called immediately. Is that because the South Lake Tahoe is on the California side and the Reno is on the Las Vegas side?

01:15:56

I mean, sorry, Reno is on the Nevada side. On the Nevada side. Yeah. I mean, they must, yes, because they're so close that they're probably used to working across state lines.

01:16:06

It's not as big of a deal as in some places. But I would say that the story we usually hear is where the city where the people are missing from, they don't let people come into their jurisdiction.

01:16:19

And it gets very like territorial. And it seems like the way this story goes, South Lake Tahoe, PD and FBI just were like, everybody come and help us now.

01:16:29

Wow. And that's the reason this this is a three day story. Holy shit. As opposed to the usual.

01:16:35

Yeah. So Bravo, South Lake Tahoe, PD. OK. And FBI. And Reno. They get everything.

01:16:44

Reno. Reno's there, too. OK. They start contacting other modeling agencies in the area to see if anyone has heard of this man or know anything about the man allegedly producing this quote unquote anti-drug video.

01:16:58

And they they get a lot of hits. A lot of these young women, they get brought in and interviewed and they remember a weird guy trying to recruit models for some say an anti-drug video.

01:17:10

Some say a drug rehabilitation video. So it sounds don't know if the story always was consistent.

01:17:16

A makeup artist named Gainal Wadsworth, who worked at Reno's Aviance Profile Modeling Agency.

01:17:24

I checked that twice because I'm like, Aviance sounds like it's a bird modeling agency.

01:17:29

It's I was just like, let's make sure we have the most beautiful cockatoos. And look at this gorgeous parakeet.

01:17:38

It doesn't do drugs either. So this makeup artist who worked at one of the modeling agencies told police that they

01:17:46

had turned the man down because, quote, he was not the kind of person we want to do business

01:17:51

with. He was very shady, shaky and sweaty. Oh God Smelled bad Yeah He smelled bad He never looked me in the face She also reports that he seemed to get nervous when they mentioned that their models who are minors or underage are always required to have their parents on shoots with them

01:18:10

And so that like this hurt his reaction to that news made her realize that this was not somebody they needed to work with.

01:18:16

But authorities big break comes when one of the young models who auditioned at Mab's studio says she remembers the man and he stood out to her because she found him especially weird.

01:18:29

So she made it a point to memorize his license plate. Oh, my. One of the children.

01:18:35

Yes. One of the young girl models who is also clearly a high power murder. You know, where is she today?

01:18:43

Please. Standing ovation. Standing ovation. Oh, my God. She didn't write it down.

01:18:50

She memorized it. So she told them it was a vanity plate. This is how it was easy to memorize.

01:18:55

It was a vanity plate that read something like TV teen. So when the officers take that and look it up there, they don't find a match.

01:19:05

There's no plate like that in in California or Nevada records. But then one of the investigators realizes that there is a car dealership in South Lake Tahoe called Tvetan.

01:19:20

It's spelled T-V-E-T-E-N. So it's essentially a word jumble of the same phrase. Her brain took a picture of it and then a couple of the letters got mixed up.

01:19:33

But she was fucking right. I am amazed. That is amazing. She was right. And also it was that thing where that guy's weird.

01:19:40

I'm just going to I'm going to clock his license plate. And then she gets it. I mean, like, it's amazing.

01:19:46

I'm blown away. So good. The detective who also made the connection where it's like, OK, it might not be that exact thing, but it could be this.

01:19:54

So they go down to that car dealership and they speak to the owner who tells them he had actually loaned a dealership license plate to his friend, 28 year old Herbert Coddington.

01:20:06

Herbert. So you pervert. Right. They also show him a sketch of Mark, the producer, based on the descriptions given by the models that they interviewed.

01:20:16

And this guy looks at it and says, yeah, that's my friend Herb. Oh, no. So Mark, the producer, is not a real person.

01:20:22

It's Herb Coddington. OK, so all of that is enough to get the police an arrest warrant.

01:20:29

And they take it and track down Herb Coddington's most recent address. So on May 18th, 1987, the police and the FBI arrive at Herb Coddington's double wide trailer.

01:20:42

They knock on the front door and instead of answering, all the lights go out. This is the evening time.

01:20:51

So the police pull back. They like reassess of like, that's not good. I think somebody ended up calling inside to try to talk to him.

01:21:01

And then they eventually just decide they break the door down. Inside Herb Coddington is immediately and very easily taken down, even though there's tons of weapons inside this double wide.

01:21:13

They they break down the bedroom door and they find Alicia and Monica locked inside alive, scared to death, definitely traumatized, but alive.

01:21:26

Oh, my God. Then they the police and the FBI go into the other bedroom on the other side and find the bodies of Mabs and Dottie wrapped in garbage bags laying on the floor.

01:21:39

They've both been murdered. So the two older ladies are murdered and the two children are alive in a closet.

01:21:44

Holy shit. Yes. It's not a closet. It's a bedroom that he's covered in carpeting.

01:21:51

So essentially he's soundproofed one of the bedrooms in his double wide. Yeah. So Herbert Coddington's immediately taken into custody and charged with kidnapping and murder.

01:22:03

Alicia and Monica are reunited with their parents, but police bring them in to ask them what happened and, you know, basically tell their stories.

01:22:11

So this is what the girls tell them, that basically on their drive to South Lake Tahoe, it usually takes an hour.

01:22:17

But getting into Tahoe is like uphill, really windy. Monica got car sick. Mabs had to pull over for her.

01:22:25

So they're a little bit late. They finally get to the nugget. Dottie waits with the girls inside the casino restaurant while Mabs looks for Mark.

01:22:33

They they meet up in the parking lot and Mark basically says, we're going to go shoot in a park nearby.

01:22:41

So let's I have the wardrobe. We can get the girls to come. I have a place where they can change their clothes and we can stop there and then we'll just go to this park.

01:22:51

and Mab's notices that as opposed to how nice and professional he looked at the audition

01:22:57

he now is wearing sweats and a t-shirt and he's exceptionally sweaty and he smells yeah

01:23:05

yeah so they get into Mab's car all five of them the old the women are in the front and Herb gets

01:23:13

into the back seat with Alicia and Monica Alicia makes note he smells and is sweaty and is like

01:23:19

it's a bummer. He directs Mab's to the Tahoe Verde trailer park and to one of the double wides.

01:23:27

He has her park in the carport. He walks them into the trailer. He points to the room where he says

01:23:31

the girls can change into their shoot wardrobe. Once they're in that room, they see that the

01:23:38

dressing room is actually a bedroom that's been soundproofed with plywood and carpeting. So how

01:23:43

incredibly creepy that feeling would be. That moment where your stomach drops and you're like,

01:23:49

this was a mistake. Right. And this is a time, like, it so easy for us to look back from 2020 and all the stories we know and all the stories we all told each other and heard where it like it so typical But you know back then this was still in that

01:24:08

time where the a lot of people didn't know about stuff like this. So like, the idea that somebody

01:24:14

would be able to pose as a professional producer, right, very believably could play that part. And

01:24:21

you'd be like all along where it's like, why would you ever bring those girls anywhere? But to a

01:24:27

shoot like the place? I mean, yeah, there's so many wise. Exactly. There's so many wise. But I,

01:24:33

I don't I totally understand why these women went along with that why the parents went like,

01:24:37

it's just it was how it was back then. It was normal. It was totally how it was. They had trust

01:24:42

and no clue. And yeah, it's just, you know, and it could happen today. And you just make absolutely

01:24:48

You make the wrong decision and you regret it. It doesn't mean. Yeah. And also Mabs clearly had been doing it for a while.

01:24:55

She knew her stuff. So but but the thing I think of is this in this moment, because what happens is when they're standing there looking before anyone can do anything or ask a question or say anything.

01:25:07

Herb just punches Elisa. He cold cocks her in the face and basically drops her. And immediately it's on like immediately he turns and starts beating these old women.

01:25:17

they're on the ground almost immediately he then zip ties um he he ties up alicia and monica

01:25:26

covers their heads with their jackets so he's basically so they can't see what he's about to do

01:25:31

but alicia can she's only partially covered so she sees everything oh no and essentially mark ties up

01:25:39

um mab's arms and legs and then he cinches an electrical cord zip tie around her neck

01:25:45

and she's pleading for him saying it's too tight i can't breathe and he's basically strangling her

01:25:50

um so she soon very soon slumps over and then he moves on to dotty who's now begging for her life

01:25:58

and these girls witness all of this um he then proceeds to strangle dotty with the zip tie as

01:26:05

well then he wraps both of those women's bodies in garbage bags and puts them in the master bedroom

01:26:10

Then he goes back to Alicia Monica in the guest room and asks if they're okay. Alicia tells police he kept asking us if our feet and hands were okay because he said he didn't want us going home without any fingers or toes.

01:26:27

Yeah. So he locks them in this room and he goes out into the living room and they can hear he's watching MTV.

01:26:34

And they're just sitting there waiting. he comes back a little while later with a 45 caliber handgun with a silencer on it

01:26:42

and tells the girls that if he wanted to kill them he could have done it already

01:26:45

and then says because i have this silencer then he gives them the weirdest dinner of all time

01:26:51

which is grapefruit raisins and a jug of water and then basically like leaves them for the night

01:26:56

what the fuck yeah so the girls wake up the next morning and they can hear him grunting in in the

01:27:04

living room and it turns out that he's working out. Oh, thank God. I mean, not thank God, but Jesus.

01:27:11

It's just horrifying. Yeah. And also, this will just up it one more. My least favorite detail in this story, no, not least.

01:27:20

There's so many to dislike, but he's cut out two eye holes in the door so that he doesn't

01:27:26

have to open the door all the way. He can just look in at them. Oh, my God. It's horrifying.

01:27:32

So he basically lets them out into the living room. And now he's got a beanie on and a turtleneck pulled up to hide his face.

01:27:40

And he has a little bit of his hair sticking out and it's been dyed orange. So clearly they think he's trying to change his appearance.

01:27:49

Right. And he plays a Jane Fonda workout video and then they all work out to it.

01:27:55

What? So then he yeah, he then puts the girls back into the carpeted room and puts pillowcases over their heads.

01:28:03

And this is a trigger warning for anyone. This is a very disturbing part of this story.

01:28:08

The girls ask him if he's going to rape them. And he says, no, he's actually they're just going to do a video shoot with a boy their age.

01:28:17

Then he goes out to the living room and begins talking in two different voices, a voice like he's the director.

01:28:25

and then a high voice like he's the boy. And the girls can't see because there's a pillowcase on their heads.

01:28:30

And then he comes back into the room pretending to be the boy. Karen, this is the most terrifying story I've ever heard in my life.

01:28:39

Isn't it horrible? It's like I was thinking in the beginning it was like Silence of the Lambs

01:28:43

when she goes in and holds. Yes. But it's worse. It's fucking worse. Yeah. It's horrible.

01:28:50

Okay, sorry. Keep going. Well, essentially, he goes back in, pretends to be the boy and rapes both girls.

01:28:55

So, OK, so that's that's these two girls who are so unbelievably brave and like lived through this horrible thing, basically went in and just gave the police the beat by beat of how insane and crazy this whole attack and these murders were.

01:29:12

so when the police interrogate Herb Coddington he almost immediately admits to killing Dottie

01:29:18

and Mabs and he they say that he was when they burst in the door of his double wide he immediately

01:29:24

started screaming um don't take me to jail I'm sick but when he when they drove him to the police

01:29:31

station he he was completely normal and if if anything he they said he seemed excited to be

01:29:40

getting the attention and to be he talked a ton and was telling them a bunch of stuff

01:29:44

and was completely lucid and normal so he's arraigned on may 20th 1987 so if i just think

01:29:53

that timeline is insane because they broke into the double wide on May 18th It was like the day after it was two days after the day they were kidnapped

01:30:06

So they found them in 48 hours. I mean, that's because who knows what I mean, not who knows what would have happened if they hadn't found them.

01:30:12

This guy's a murderer. He's a killer. And he's a child rapist. Yes. The fact that they found them so quickly probably saved their lives.

01:30:22

Yes. Girls. Absolutely. There's no doubt about that. For sure. And so he's arraigned on May 20th, 1987 on two counts of murder and four counts of kidnapping, rape and sexual abuse.

01:30:36

He pleads not guilty. Okay. But now he's in custody. So police run a background check on him and they find out that in 1984, he'd been arrested in Las Vegas where he was a dealer.

01:30:49

He got caught for a cheating scam. he'd been released on $500 bail and that case was still pending.

01:30:56

But then the police notice that's like, oh, he used to live down in Las Vegas. So they call up the Las Vegas police and say, you might, I don't know if you know this guy,

01:31:08

but we just caught him on murder and child rape. And I don't know if there's anything you need to compare that to.

01:31:16

And the Las Vegas police were like, can you take a cast of his teeth? and because he had not only snaggle teeth in the front, but a gap.

01:31:25

And that was a bite mark that had been left on the body of a cold case victim, 12-year-old Sheila Jo Keister, which is the body from the email that someone sent in.

01:31:41

Holy fuck. and they and we know that that dental dental impressions impressions aren't a hundred percent

01:31:51

they're not DNA evidence they're not whatever but apparently his teeth were so significant so

01:31:56

right distinctive that that it what they could they matched it to a bite on this little girl's

01:32:03

body from this cold case it feels like such good circumstantial evidence on top of a bunch of other

01:32:09

circumstantial evidence that i don't see right i don't know it just adds to it right right it adds

01:32:15

to it um so that dental match along with a 1981 police sketch that an ex-girlfriend confirmed to

01:32:22

police matched herb coddington's appearance at the time that he lived in las vegas gets him an

01:32:29

additional charge for the murder of sheila joe keister um added to added to the docket for him

01:32:35

And so his trial, they end up moving it from South Lake Tahoe to Placerville, California, because details of his crimes are so widely known in Tahoe, in the Tahoe area.

01:32:49

And they wanted to put together a jury that was untainted by the media and untainted by local rumors.

01:32:55

What's funny to me is Placerville is not that far away from this area. Yeah. So although it was kind of like the idea of it is fair, I don't think they were trying too hard to make things.

01:33:07

They did like a sidestep, but not like. Yeah, right. Exactly. I can't I can't imagine the people in Placerville didn't know about this, but who knows?

01:33:16

The defense for Herb Coddington goes with the insanity plea. And Herb actually tells the jury he's been having, he explains he's crazy because he'd been having fantasies about young, about basically being with young girls and that he thought God was giving him signs through traffic lights.

01:33:35

So like if he had had one of those thoughts while he was driving and he got to a red light, that was God telling him not to act on the thought.

01:33:42

But then if he had the thought and came to a green light, that was God telling him to go for it.

01:33:49

And he alleges that when he thought about kidnapping the two girls, he was driving and he encountered a series of green lights.

01:33:58

No, just doesn't sound like it. Anyway, the prosecution gets up and explains to the jury that Herb was lucid and stable when the police arrested and interrogated him and basically walked the jury through all of his very careful and extensively planned crimes, as well as his attempts to conceal his identity.

01:34:18

and the jury has been watching him this whole time and notes that he shows no signs of remorse

01:34:26

or anything like like a person who snapped and lost it and went insane and killed two ladies

01:34:32

would at least if if that were the case it would be like they'd be horrified or something there's

01:34:37

no remorse and he is just just basking in the attention he's getting in the courtroom wow so

01:34:44

So they, you know, he's he kind of it's the thing with like he's the worst part of his own defense is him.

01:34:52

The planning that it took, like making business cards and calling up multiple like modeling agencies to try.

01:34:59

Oh, yeah. Like that's so premeditated. And there's there's so many chances to back out of that plan that, you know, that's not a good defense.

01:35:08

No, no. It takes very clear thinking to make a plan and to trick all these people and to do, you know, I mean, clearly.

01:35:16

So on January 20th, 1989, Herb Coddington is found guilty on all charges. Now, the entire time, both of his parents have been in the courtroom every single day of his trial.

01:35:28

And during the sentencing, they know that he's going to get the death penalty probably.

01:35:33

And so they do their best. They write letters trying to keep him from being sentenced to death.

01:35:38

So this is a quote from the Placerville Mountain Democrat, which is there, the Placerville

01:35:42

newspaper, about Herb's mother writing a letter pleading to give him a life sentence. Genevieve

01:35:48

Coddington wrote, quote, if Herb is allowed to live, he could perhaps help other inmates to learn

01:35:54

to read or write. I do not feel Herb has finished doing what God has intended him to do. So

01:36:00

Finney, who was the presiding judge over the case in open court, noted that the letter and others from parents caused him, quote, great emotional turmoil.

01:36:09

And he said he found them to be, quote, wonderful, fine, decent people who truly believed their son was mentally ill.

01:36:17

But Finney saw things differently, calling Herb Coddington, quote, tremendously egocentric and totally self-centered and noted that he had rejected his parents' religion.

01:36:28

And when the suspected killer originally talked with law enforcement regarding the case, Finney added from the bench during sentencing, there was no mention of God or any mental aberration.

01:36:38

That wasn't until later as an attempt to avoid the death sentence. He then told the court that what Herb Coddington had done in the case before the bench was, quote, probably the most evil that I've ever been involved in.

01:36:52

Wow. End quote. Herb Coddington was sentenced to death and put on death row in San Quentin.

01:36:58

And he remains there to this day. And that is the story of the murder of Sheila Jo Keister, Mabs Martin and Dottie Walsh.

01:37:08

Wow. That was amazing, Karen. Great job. Crazy. Crazy, right? Yes. How? I've never heard.

01:37:15

Never. I've never heard of anything close to it. Never. Sure. But that reminds me so much of like, I feel like those were our fears in the 80s.

01:37:25

There were like people like that that existed. And we were just kind of finding that out, you know?

01:37:30

Well, and I think it's like that was the thing you heard about happening in LA or a big city.

01:37:36

Yeah. But like, so I'm sure that was the other part of it being in Reno, the biggest little city in the world.

01:37:41

It's not a huge, it's not a metropolitan. I mean, it's the biggest city in that area.

01:37:46

but I don't think anyone would have had been able to anticipate any of any of that absolutely not

01:37:54

especially once again under the guys this is the old trick I'm here to do right yeah I'm here

01:38:01

flying the flag of no drugs allowed right everyone get on board so you know and mams was also like

01:38:07

mams was like but I'm also going to bring my friend for safety like you know what I mean like

01:38:12

that was her that was her safety and the parents probably heard that that they were going with this

01:38:16

responsible business owning woman who, you know, would hope they would hope have checked this

01:38:22

person's background and everything. And they're bringing a friend. It's all safe. Everything's

01:38:25

fine. It's going to be a couple hours. You know, yeah, how it's only good news when you're on that.

01:38:32

That's people using like kind of moralistic stances or show business. It's so easy to

01:38:41

trick people with show business promises because everyone deep down is like, what if I got

01:38:46

discovered like i think that get it people take it's so easy to exploit that um that excitement

01:38:53

and that mindset yeah yeah yeah god damn it should we do fucking hoorays okay you want to go you want

01:38:59

me to go first you want to go first sure yeah go for it okay this one's from the fan cult forum

01:39:04

and i swear to god this could be written by me in two weeks this one is from hiking historian

01:39:12

It says the title is fuck you self for years I have struggled with self and self Hi I have never been very kind to myself However this COVID quarantine mixed with a mega dose of therapy has helped me to start to break the cycle

01:39:27

I took a risk and bought a nice bike and have begun distance cycling, and I love it.

01:39:31

My furthest ride so far is 18 miles. I'm also working on construction projects around my house while I'm forced to stay here.

01:39:39

I always believed I wasn't capable of doing handy things, but I've replaced a sink and have painted multiple rooms.

01:39:44

I've had to face my self-doubt by trying new things and being willing to look like an idiot or a fail

01:39:49

but I'm so damn proud of myself and what I've accomplished fucking hooray nice that's great

01:39:55

I want that to be me in two weeks that's amazing well then that reminds me of this one

01:39:59

this is really good it's from Chase and it's C-H-A-Y-S-E and Chase says I've been off work for two weeks now

01:40:08

and I hate lying around so after a day or two I decided to take up a new hobby I've been wanting to learn how to do

01:40:14

for almost five years. I learned how to sew. I bought a sewing machine and fabric

01:40:20

and started to sew masks and headbands to donate to local hospitals and nursing homes.

01:40:25

It's been nice to have something to do while sitting at home and be able to do my part

01:40:28

in containing this crazy virus. Everyone stay home and stay safe. That is amazing.

01:40:35

Love that. Actually, on our Instagram account, I posted a couple photos of some people,

01:40:42

some Murderino makers who are posted who are sorry, I posted some photos of and links of

01:40:47

some Murderino makers who've tagged us who are making masks. And then I had everyone in the

01:40:51

comments post what they're doing mask wise or otherwise, and where people can help them out

01:40:58

with with fabric or with money or with you know, they can team up. I don't know. So that's on our

01:41:04

Instagram too, which is just so awesome. That's so many people are doing that. So many makers.

01:41:10

So many. So this one is by Totes Booked on the Fan Cult Forum. My fucking hooray is that I'm alive.

01:41:19

I was listening to episode 216 of MFM while taking a shower a few days ago when I lost consciousness and hit my head pretty badly on my old school cask iron tub.

01:41:31

I never thought a podcast would help save my life. But listening to you guys talk helped me focus when I regained consciousness and gave me a pretty good time stamp of how long I was out for.

01:41:41

The last thing I remember before I fell was you guys talking about Netflix and Tiger King and woke up and woke up to talk about dead flowers in the bathroom.

01:41:52

They don't know why I fainted, but I'm still alive and it's kind of a miracle. I managed to only get a six inch gash and 12 stitches to the back of my skull, but it could have been so much worse.

01:42:02

stay sexy and don't let your bathtub murder you Kristen God Kristen we're glad you're okay

01:42:08

and also she had to go get stitches in a time like this totally even worse terrible

01:42:14

terrible good I'm glad that turned out good okay so this is from I don't it's all one

01:42:22

thing because it's from the fan call Dana Nacasi they say wanted to share my fucking hooray I

01:42:28

subscribe to a YouTube channel Bumgarner Restoration, which is usually some chill guy restoring beautiful pieces of art

01:42:34

while narrating in a very calm voice. And in parentheses really useful these days So useful Dana that I writing that down because that sounds like a dream OK so back to this

01:42:47

Last week, he found out a company in China that he usually purchases supplies from had turned all of its manufacturing towards making N95 masks.

01:42:56

He decided to purchase a bunch of masks to donate to local health care workers and share to GoFundMe with his subscribers in case anyone wanted to help him buy more.

01:43:05

His initial goal was $6,000. I donated when it had just surpassed $8,000, and the day ended at $28,000.

01:43:16

Oh, my God. Yeah. In three days, people had donated over $62,000. Ooh, that just gave me chills.

01:43:24

All the masks will be donated to hashtag GetPPEChai, a grassroots organization of medical workers in Chicago

01:43:32

working to distribute donated protective equipment to the health care workers on the front lines that need them.

01:43:38

I know this is just a drop in the face of the sea of issues these days, but it was really lovely seeing such an overwhelming outpouring of support.

01:43:46

Hope everyone is safe and sane. I love that. That's beautiful. I love everything about that message.

01:43:51

I love it. This one's from Instagram. It's by Grace Bouchard. My fucking hooray is the group of badass teachers I work with.

01:44:00

I am a special ed teacher at an elementary school, and I am proud to say that I work with caring teachers who are less concerned about students completing math problems and more worried about our kids' emotional well-being, quality of their home lives, and those whose only meal is the hot lunch they get for free at school.

01:44:18

Within a few days, systems were set up to reach out to our students and their families virtually, deliver food via school bus drivers, and even set up free hotspots and homes so students could have internet access.

01:44:29

Our jobs now are so much more than distance learning and posting assignments online.

01:44:34

Yes, we come to school to teach, but we also come for our students who need that morning

01:44:38

hug or even just eye contact. And we have started to find a way to connect while still social distancing.

01:44:44

Yeah, that's lovely. Thank you, teachers, for everything you're doing. Thank you, teachers.

01:44:48

I feel like if there was ever a thing that was going to help people understand how cutting

01:44:54

education funding in this country has devastated all of us. this is the kind of thing where it's just like what people are doing every day in their homes

01:45:03

with their kids now they're realizing that they've made it so teachers can barely make a living and

01:45:08

they do that every day with their kids and there's nothing better it's just the best

01:45:12

firsthand thing of like don't you think these people deserve to make more money than than so

01:45:19

little money that they have to get second jobs which is what my sisters had to do for the majority

01:45:24

of her career. Yes. Well, this this one's just simple, but I like it. It's from Jill H. My

01:45:29

fucking hooray today was my husband and I randomly pulling into our neighbor's yard,

01:45:33

blasting Hall and Oates and having a random physical distancing dance party for two minutes.

01:45:38

And then we left. The smiles were well worth it. Keep dancing. I love it. I love it. I love it.

01:45:46

There's a video I retweeted on my Twitter of a lady who is from her front porch with a megaphone

01:45:51

yelling to her friend standing in the street going, when this is all over, I want to have a drink with everybody and hug people and touch people and have the best life ever It the sweetest And it like it so true I feel like as awful as all this is it giving people a true sense of like what

01:46:13

important? What has been ripped out of your hands in quote unquote normal life that you don't, that

01:46:19

you want back so bad? And it's not meetings and it's not, you know, the rat race.

01:46:24

It's like looking at people in the face and being able to talk to them. Definitely.

01:46:28

I miss hugging my friends so much and hugging random murderinos we meet. The last time I met someone who listens to the podcast and told me was at a makeup store

01:46:38

she was working at and I couldn't hug her because it was the beginning of the pandemic

01:46:43

and it felt so wrong. It was just like, I'm not supposed to just say hi to you and walk away.

01:46:48

I want to hug you and like have a connection and you couldn't do it. I miss those connections.

01:46:54

Yeah. Is that it? send us your send us your fucking hoorays on instagram or twitter or email or fan calls or

01:47:03

whatever the fuck you feel like also it's really nice that people that are sending in the d you

01:47:07

know detail ones about about getting through because we just want to repeat it so that other

01:47:13

people can hear your stories of how you're making it work totally because it's legitimately helping

01:47:19

it helps me when i see people on social media talking about what they're doing what they're

01:47:23

watching how they're talking to people yeah um i think i already talked well i maybe talked to the

01:47:29

minisode but my friends and i uh that normally have like an in-person obviously game night

01:47:34

got we all got on that app house party and had a game night on house party and it was so hilarious

01:47:40

and when i hung up like i felt high from it it was like it's like oh and it's like oh yeah because

01:47:45

i haven't talked to anyone for days i mean it really matters and it really helps you so definitely

01:47:51

Any little thing. Yeah. How you're getting through and what your extenuating circumstances are.

01:47:57

And we want to hear it. Yep. And but mostly stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye.

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Goodbye.

My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgi

218 - Good Shabbos

TLDR

Episode

Episode

Badges

Episode Highlights

Episode Quotes

Key Moments

Tension Over Time

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown