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MFM Minisode 494

June 29, 2026 /

This episode of My Favorite Murder features discussions on Matthew Shepard, Romaine Patterson's activism, and personal stories from listeners about unique experiences.

Hosts Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark highlight the story of Matthew Shepard and his friend Romaine Patterson, who famously protested against the Westboro Baptist Church by blocking their hateful signs with angel costumes. This creative act of resistance is discussed in detail, along with Patterson's memoir and her impact on the LGBTQ+ community.

The episode includes listener emails sharing personal anecdotes, such as a humorous story about faking illness and a touching account of a community coming together to support a neighbor's lost fishing pole. These stories reflect themes of friendship, resilience, and the importance of standing up against hate.

Listeners are encouraged to share their own stories, fostering a sense of community and connection among fans of the podcast.

The episode concludes with light-hearted banter and a reminder to stay engaged and supportive of one another.

TLDR

This episode discusses Matthew Shepard, Romaine Patterson's activism, and listener stories about unique personal experiences.

Episode

25:35
00:00:00
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00:02:02
Hello and welcome to My Favorite Murder. The mini-sode. That's right. You got it.
00:02:16
It's the mini-sode the day before our vacation starts. So we are fucking feral as shit.
00:02:21
We're about to say the hottest takes in content land. Can I go first? I love this one.
00:02:28
Please do. Okay. I'll try not to disappoint you or scare you or be so loud that I upset people.
00:02:37
Oh. This one's called Matthew Shepard, Romaine Patterson, a fucking badass bitch.
00:02:42
Okay. Hi, Karen, Georgia, and the entire adjacent animal kingdom. First of all, I was at the Portland Live Show recently.
00:02:50
You guys killed it. It's been so fun listening to recent episodes and catching the little Easter eggs from that night.
00:02:55
Don't remember a single thing we said. What are the Easter eggs like? Are they filled with candy egg yolk?
00:03:03
We hid $50,000 in cash. In that theater. In the theater. I'm writing because of your recent episode on Matthew Shepard.
00:03:11
You did such a beautiful, respectful job with it, but there is a total badass in the story that I need to make sure is on your radar.
00:03:18
Matthew's close friend, Romaine Patterson. When the absolute garbage fire that is the Westboro Baptist Church showed up to picket Matthew's funeral with horrific signs, Romaine said, absolutely not.
00:03:30
She mobilized a squad of people dressed in massive 10-foot tall white angel costumes with giant wings.
00:03:38
Uh-oh, she's crying already. I mean, no, it's the most brilliant. Yeah. It's the most brilliant way to fight.
00:03:44
Just block it. Yeah. Yeah. Block it with angels. Totally. They stood in a line right in front of the protesters, silently blocking the hate with their wings.
00:03:55
Oh, it must have enraged them so much because it's also like angels. Yeah. That's exactly what would happen.
00:04:02
That's right. It was a brilliant, peaceful, visually stunning middle finger called angel action.
00:04:07
And there's photos of it. Look at that. They made these. So they're these angel wings that have these like tentpole things sticking out of the shoulder so that the wings are really high and large and blocking.
00:04:18
Yeah, it's like five foot expanse on either side. So you just cannot see their terrible signs and their horrible faces.
00:04:25
It's such a brilliant, quiet, peaceful way to protest monsters. Romaine wrote an incredible memoir about it called The Whole World Was Watching.
00:04:38
And her activism and those giant angels became a huge part of the play The Laramie Project by Moises Kaufman.
00:04:45
She now hosts a podcast with her close friend, and it's hilarious. It's called Derek and Romaine.
00:04:50
Amazing. This is where it gets personal for me. I actually got a B Romaine in the Laramie Project when I was in high school.
00:04:56
Being a part of that play, feeling the weight of the story, and seeing Romaine's fierce love for her friend was the exact catalyst that gave me the courage to come out as a pan woman.
00:05:06
My high school theater teacher even had her sign a copy of her novel for me when I graduated high school.
00:05:11
It is my most fond memory of high school. Now, I am a teacher in a tiny rural town in Southern Oregon, so stories about young people standing up to hate and changing the world through creative resistance mean everything to me.
00:05:24
Romaine is an absolute legend, and her legacy literally changed the trajectory of my life.
00:05:29
Happy Pride Month, stay sexy, and keep fighting the bigots. Carolyn MacArthur, she, her.
00:05:35
Wow. I'm so glad she wrote that because I definitely saw that when I was doing my research, and I, for time, had to just enter the cadence.
00:05:43
I can't talk about it all. That's its own story in itself. And it's beautiful because it's like people know the importance of Remain in that story.
00:05:50
Totally. And so it's like, yeah, you can't tell it all. Right. But it an integral part of the story Yeah And I so glad that email got sent Also I love the desperation level to have to figure out a creative solution to that horrible protesting and that horrible church Yeah
00:06:07
And then what has evolved since that time? Yeah. Where have you seen the ones where it's just like
00:06:12
there'll be that those types of horrible protesters and then someone will just hold a
00:06:17
sign next to them that says gay. These guys are idiots or something like that. Or like someone
00:06:22
just like there's it's so funny they're all they all say all different things or sometimes they
00:06:27
just put them up in front and it just says something random yeah and it's so funny and
00:06:31
it makes me think like with stuff like this and I know this seems like off topic but it that's why
00:06:38
it's really important for people to go into the arts to know how to write to know how to act to
00:06:42
know how to sing or dance or play an instrument to see the beauty in life and that the Laramie
00:06:47
project can get made by the people who want to make it because they're like, this can't be
00:06:52
happening anymore. And we're going to do, we're going to not just let it sit as a news story,
00:06:57
but then tell that story again and again in other ways. So incredible. And it's like, if anybody's
00:07:02
like, oh, AI is going to take over that. It's no, no, no. It can't speak for people. The humanity
00:07:07
in it is something that cannot be turned into AI. That's right. And on that same note, let me read
00:07:15
you my first email. Okay. The subject line of this is big news from Petaluma. Oh. And it says,
00:07:21
hey there, Karen in Georgia. Day one listener writing in with hometown news to share with Karen
00:07:26
and Georgia. For the past few months, there's been a great horned owl that has taken residence
00:07:31
on the face of the circa 1885 building in downtown Petaluma. Oh my God. Heard nothing of this. My
00:07:38
sister's in the like the last week of kindergarten before they go on summer break. So she's not
00:07:43
paying attention? I have no one on the ground. Okay, tell me everything. I love this.
00:07:47
She is attracting visitors from near and far who are all concerned for her fledgling
00:07:52
chicks. Last week, one of the chicks attempted flight and since she's literally in the middle of downtown and
00:07:57
there are no large tree branches near the nest, she glided to the sidewalk below. See photo
00:08:03
attached. Oh my god. God, wait. If you give me one second, I can figure out where the
00:08:12
Yeah, right, from the tiles in the book? That's how well I know. You know what it is?
00:08:17
It used to be a weird shoe store. But I'm pretty sure that's just at the corner of Western and Petaluma Boulevard.
00:08:23
It looks like a La Boo Boo. I love it. I mean, she looks like over it. Yeah. She was taken to the local wildlife rescue for rehabilitation and flight training,
00:08:34
and the folks of downtown have been banding together to create a safe environment for the other baby
00:08:39
to make her first trip out of the nest. And then it says so petaluma, which it is.
00:08:45
We're a town built on chickens, so we respect birds of all types. My sister and I own a small salon in the building that the owls have nested on, and it has been such a pleasure to have such majestic roommates, even if I am terrified of birds.
00:08:59
We've really enjoyed meeting folks from our town and remembering that community and joy is the most important thing in this fucked up world.
00:09:05
Next time you're downtown, give us a wave. We're the ones with the groovy wallpaper.
00:09:09
Stay sexy and talk to your neighbors. Maria. And she works at Honey Bee Color Collective in Petaluma.
00:09:16
I want to live in a small town. I mean, I guess my neighborhood's kind of small town-ish, but like surrounded by Los Angeles.
00:09:22
Right. I want to live in a town like that, small. I had no idea how the level of privilege of just like, you know, the person that works in that store.
00:09:32
Right. You're going. I told you the story of one time Nora was getting math tutoring.
00:09:36
and she, her math tutor, who's like, it's him and his wife that run the place. And he, she was done
00:09:45
with all her tests and she did really good. So he was like, oh, if you want to walk down, I'll go get
00:09:49
you an ice cream. So the two of them are walking down Petlumbo Boulevard. She's probably 11 or 12.
00:09:55
My sister said she got no less than 10 phone calls from all the different people. Your child
00:09:59
is with a random, not random, but a man. To them, it was random. Yeah. They're like, I just, Laura,
00:10:05
I just saw it was the funniest or just like, yeah, that's really nice. Oh, wait, there's a PS too.
00:10:10
Okay. It says PS. I was a model for the Bio Bottoms catalog in the early 90s. That's where I worked.
00:10:18
It was the baby clothing catalog. Yeah. And that Polly Class's mom was my manager.
00:10:24
Oh, my God. Yes. That was like I flunked out of Sac State. I moved home, got the job at Bio Bottoms, had to be there at 530 every morning.
00:10:33
And then I was off at one. Oh, my God. And that was this weird life I lived before I moved into the city.
00:10:38
Yeah. This person was a Bio Bottoms baby model. Oh, my God. That's who we got the email from.
00:10:45
That's Maria. Look at little Maria in the seaside shorts, sop cotton jersey. Oh, my God.
00:10:52
Hold on. Maria says, I wonder if that was the time you worked for them as well. Early 90s it was.
00:10:58
And then it says, many of, not all of us were the children of the people who worked there.
00:11:01
and my dad was a contractor for the offices at the time. Oh, how cute. I mean, Maria, that was like, she just gave me a little, are you homesick?
00:11:10
Totally. Here's what's going on. Oh, that's so cute. I love that. Maria, if you want to give me like weekly Petaluma updates, do not be afraid to write it.
00:11:18
I thought we were going to say haircuts, but that's good too. Petaluma haircuts.
00:11:22
What's a Petaluma haircut look like? It's real high in the back and then long in the front.
00:11:26
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00:14:52
Dearest ladies, I was recently listening to Minisode 423, where someone shared their story
00:14:56
of how they faked blindness and had to go to the hospital when they were 13, and it brought back
00:15:01
a memory of my own similar story where I took a fake illness way too far. I used to fake sick
00:15:07
all the time to get out of school when I was a kid. I did it when I forgot to do my homework,
00:15:11
had to give a presentation at school, had detention, or generally didn't feel like going.
00:15:16
Same. Looking back, this was probably a symptom of the anxiety that now runs my life as an adult.
00:15:22
And then shrug emoji. There was one day when I was a young middle schooler that I knew I needed
00:15:28
to really sell it. I had already faked being sick a couple times that week, and I knew my mom wasn't
00:15:32
going to fall for it this time. So I had the idea to crush up some Cheerios and drop some food
00:15:39
coloring into the toilet to make it look like I had thrown up. Genius. Thinking it looked perfect,
00:15:48
I went out, told my mom I had thrown up and showed her the evidence, thinking there was no way she
00:15:52
could deny me my day off. My mom took one look at it and immediately put me in the car to go to the
00:15:57
hospital because the food coloring made it look like I had thrown up blood. The instinct to grab
00:16:05
the little red dropper. Right. Little red, little yellow. You can't be that good at getting out of
00:16:11
school. And it says, well, shit. Also, I wonder if her mom was like, I know this is food coloring.
00:16:16
Let's see how far she'll take this. Like, at what point is she going to... Let's scare the shit out
00:16:20
of her. Yeah. There's nothing worse than that. Not good. Okay. Well, shit. At the hospital,
00:16:24
the doctors decided to x-ray my esophagus with one of those tube things that they put down your
00:16:29
throat by way of your mouth. The anxious kid I was, and then it says am, I said not a word to
00:16:36
anyone that I was totally faking the entire time and went through with it. They had to put me under
00:16:44
for this procedure and I still said nothing. So my luck, they found something. It turned out that
00:16:53
I did have a tear in my esophagus. I remember it was nothing major. I just had to take a very nasty tasting medicine, the texture of thick milk, vomit emoji.
00:17:03
But if that was my punishment for getting away with lying, so be it. But she wasn't lying or they weren't lying because there was something wrong.
00:17:13
That's why she didn't want to go to school. Maybe, maybe she knew something there and just the messaging wasn't accurate.
00:17:18
You're very generous. Just saying. sometimes we have anxiety for a fucking reason no you're right your body is just like oh like
00:17:26
it's crazy i have this reaction it's like your body knows stuff you have anxiety and like tearing
00:17:31
your esophagus your your brain is trying to go something's wrong downstairs and then you're just
00:17:36
like i'm so crazy it's like no the adults are supposed to catch it but they really don't give
00:17:40
a shit most of the time how does one tear one's esophagus i think coughing really hard maybe
00:17:45
Really? Everyone let us know. How do you... Esophagus doctors, how do you tear an esophagus?
00:17:51
Anyway Singing ACDC songs Over two decades later I have never told this story to anyone but now that I know I not alone in this kind of stupidity it feels like a good time to get it off my chest You didn tell your mom I think that the fact that we the first people that they told we should send them like a sweatshirt or something
00:18:10
Yeah. Because that's huge to admit something that you were like, you fucked up. You had surgery.
00:18:15
Her name is B, just the letter B. B. I love you, ladies, dearly. Stay sexy and stick to your story.
00:18:21
You might just get away with it. B. How did you get away with it? You went under.
00:18:26
You had surgery. Just she kept yes anding her own fucking mistake. She's like, no matter what, as long as I'm not in school, it's fine.
00:18:37
I could be having major surgery. I'd rather do that than be in school. Send us your years later confessions.
00:18:43
I fucking love those. Yeah, it's genius. At my favorite murder at Gmail. Years later confessions.
00:18:49
Yeah. Also because B's mom can't be mad because there was something there. There was something wrong.
00:18:55
And you're right. Maybe it was like a six. No. Instincts. There was no ghost in her esophagus.
00:19:01
It was. She had a haunted throat. Okay. This one, the subject line is can't find a goth.
00:19:09
Find a Costco employee. Okay. Hey, hey, hey. I'm starting to write this as my sixth grade students are doing a short written response
00:19:17
after watching a video about Hazel Ying Lee, first heard on MFM episode 531. I live in Hood River
00:19:23
about 45 minutes outside of Portland. Wow. Awesome. Local hero. When I was about 16 years old,
00:19:30
I was in Costco with my mom and friend. While working our way around the store, I felt that
00:19:35
two men were very consistently behind us. I didn't give it much of a second thought because
00:19:40
there's a certain flow to Costco and maybe we started our journey at the same time and place.
00:19:45
100%. Right? 100%. You're like, no, no one needs a TV. Everyone goes, yeah, it's like a really slow, like, oh, it's like a, what are those lap?
00:19:54
Lazy river? It's a lazy river. It's the shopping lazy river. Oh, it feels so good.
00:20:00
Do you need a sweatshirt? We can amble over this way. Go this way. It's so mindless and nice.
00:20:04
Okay. It's really nice. There's one very close to here. Is there? Mm-hmm. Okay. Okay.
00:20:10
However, my mom was an OG murderino. I grew up watching, and in parentheses, I grew up watching,
00:20:15
48 hours, dateline, snapped, etc. She and Brian Williams taught me how to determine if you're being followed.
00:20:22
After circling back, weaving through the baby clothes, granola bars, and flowers, they were
00:20:26
still behind me. I caught back up with my friend who immediately grabbed my arm and said, those guys were looking
00:20:31
for you, saying, she's wearing a blue polka dot dress. I indeed was wearing a blue polka dot dress.
00:20:37
After a short meeting of the minds, now including my mom, Gina. Gina. Yes, Gina.
00:20:44
Is Gina allowed to have her own cigarette in Costco just because she's that special?
00:20:47
She's the only, she's a show righty. She's just like, it's me, Gina. It's Gina. I gotta shop.
00:20:53
I gotta get some stuff done. I gotta smoke. I'm not putting this thing out. We decided we needed to keep them in our eyesight to ensure we weren't in theirs.
00:21:01
Once we saw them go to the checkout, we were in the clear. Or so we thought. We got into the line, and as it is our turn, we see them waiting on the other side near the tire center.
00:21:12
staring. I was creeped the fuck out. Not wanting to be forced towards them, I informed the Costco
00:21:18
employee scanning my items. He, understanding the assignment, casually looked over and said,
00:21:23
whoa, that is so creepy. He did this a few more times, mentioning, wow, they're just staring you
00:21:30
down. He ultimately said he would walk us to our car. Then he said, I have a better idea.
00:21:36
And then he came back with the single largest man I have ever seen in my life. A giant.
00:21:42
A giant. You love giants. A giant at Costco? Oh. Have I died and gone to heaven?
00:21:47
I mean, he could have been the mountain in the Game of Thrones. He was now our designated escort to the car.
00:21:53
The original cashier went over to the men to distract them, talk with them, and he ended up walking them to their car while our gentle giant walked us to ours.
00:22:02
He hid our license plate from view, packed all of our things into our cars, all while keeping one eye on those men.
00:22:09
Again, repeatedly calling them creeps and instructing us to take back roads home.
00:22:14
And if it looks like we're being followed, call 911 immediately and do not go home.
00:22:18
Just keep driving. Oh, my God. And then a separate line. Just another reason to add Costco as a safe space.
00:22:25
And then it says, my true crime loving mom sadly passed away. Oh, Gina's gone. Gina.
00:22:31
She sadly passed away in 2018 from a rare autoimmune disease called scleroderma.
00:22:37
She was a trusted adult for all of our friends, the sweetest lady who everyone loved, and she had the best timed.
00:22:44
That's what she said. Oh, a mom. That's what she said. Are you kidding me? That's the only person who can do it and not with her cigarette.
00:22:52
Set me up. Hey, calm down. You're going too deep. That's what she said. Gina! Sorry, I wasn't ready to do it again.
00:23:04
Go, you just do it. That's what she said. Gina. Because I think she'd be a little smug.
00:23:10
Yeah. That's what she said. That's what she said. Okay. She was my best friend. I miss her constantly.
00:23:17
Stay sexy and find a Costco worker if you can't find a goth. Sammy. Amazing. So good, Sammy.
00:23:23
Amazing job. Yeah. While the world watches the stars at the FIFA World Cup this summer, Hyundai has its eyes on the next generation of talent.
00:23:31
The future soccer stars who are already turning heads at age 14. Making plays that end up on everyone's feed, scoring from angles that don't make sense,
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rewriting record books that barely had time to gather dust. Because Next doesn't wait for an invitation, and Hyundai doesn't either.
00:23:45
Hyundai has always moved the future within reach. Hyundai did it by making advanced safety standard on every vehicle.
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Hyundai did it by engineering EVs with ultra-fast charging capability. And Hyundai continues doing it every day.
00:23:57
From robotics that change how people live to Hopefully it's changing the game. The future isn't some far off concept.
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It's already here. Next starts now. Hyundai, an official partner of FIFA. Goodbye.
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Terms and conditions apply. See Pandora.net for more details. Goodbye. Okay, here's my last one.
00:25:10
Okay. July 4th Fishing Pole, it's called. Is it about to be the fourth? When this comes out, it's about to be the fourth.
00:25:16
Fucking Christ. I know. Hi, MFM team. My parents, Mark and Joy. Christians. live out in the country on a big plot of land with a beautiful pond. The pond is often a hive
00:25:30
of activity with family, friends, and neighbors frequently dropping by to swim and fish.
00:25:35
One evening, their neighbor Brian was fishing at the pond with his grandson. Brian was using his late grandfather's pole, which obviously had a great deal of sentimental value.
00:25:45
Brian briefly set down his own pole to help his grandson, and it was at that moment that a huge
00:25:49
catfish grabbed Brian's hook, dragging the pole off the dock and into the water where it quickly
00:25:55
disappeared into the murky depths. The pole was gone. Several people took turns diving to the
00:26:01
bottom of the pond to try to locate it, but to no avail. Brian was devastated. Two years passed,
00:26:07
but the pole was never found despite regular attempts. It's crazy. To have a pole mean something
00:26:13
to you. I get it. Also, it's painting such a vivid picture of people down at the pond fishing and
00:26:20
stuff. It's an email from Mayberry. I love it. I want to hear all about it. Did this catfish drag
00:26:28
a pole around for 25 years? Oh, 25 years. For 25 years, I've been dragging this pole around.
00:26:33
It gets better The catfish is smoking Last year my parents hosted a huge independence day party more than 200 people gathered at their home for a weekend of camping grilling games and fireworks that sounds amazing
00:26:49
it's because they have pond money they're christians brian took this opportunity to
00:26:53
offer a hundred dollar reward to anyone who could find his pole oh this resulted in dozens of people
00:27:00
spending hours searching over the course of the weekend. Can I say, I bet it was dozens of high
00:27:05
school boys. Yeah. Who's going to fucking get into a pond and be like diving down? Well, my dad,
00:27:11
my dad even fashioned a dredging tool out of a metal rake. He tied the rake to a rope so you
00:27:16
could throw the rake out into the pond and pull it back in by the rope, dragging the prongs along
00:27:22
the bottom in hopes they would snag the pole. Smart. Yeah. Still no luck. The pole was well
00:27:27
and truly gone. The weekend after the party, my husband Jared and I were visiting my parents.
00:27:31
We'd missed the party because we had COVID. We were standing on the pool's dock while my dad
00:27:35
explained this whole saga and showed off his rake slash rope combo. Jared took the rake and
00:27:42
half-heartedly tossed it into the pond. My dad turned and started walking back to the house
00:27:46
when he heard Jared say, uh, is this it? That's right. With just one attempt, my husband had found
00:27:52
the long lost pole. Damn. Incredibly, one of the prongs of the rake had snagged in one of the tiny islets that
00:27:59
run along the pole to hold the line in place. Jared returned the pole to Brian, who was speechless, emotional, and happily handed over
00:28:07
the $100 reward. Stay sexy and try just one more time. Try, oh try. Just one more time.
00:28:15
That's Jenny. Jenny. Jenny and Jared. Jenny and Jared solving problems at the pond.
00:28:21
Christ as their Lord. It's, you know what? It's the old grandfather, grandfather, whoever passed that fisherman's pole down.
00:28:28
Or the catfish's grandfather. Or the catfish's grandfather's in there. I've seen worse poles than that.
00:28:34
Send it back. Well, here's my last one. I won't read you the subject line. Don't.
00:28:40
Please don't. Stop it. It says, hey, all. On your most recent episode, you asked for stories about winning contests.
00:28:47
Well, this isn't my winning story, but I feel like it's wild enough that it needs to be shared.
00:28:52
Back in the 80s and 90s, one of the local radio stations in my hometown had a radio contest giving away a free cemetery plot.
00:29:01
Well, my father, who never wins anything, won. Oh, that's like bad luck. No. I repeat, my father won a burial plot from a radio station contest.
00:29:13
He waited until my grandmother passed away a few years ago when I was in my mid to tell me about this contest and showed me the deed for his plot Oh my God I reached out to the cemetery and verified its validity
00:29:25
And sure enough, it's legit. Holy shit. Through a radio station. That's expensive, too, right?
00:29:30
What is that, like 10 grand? Minimum. Oh, my God. All that shit is so fucking expensive.
00:29:36
The way they make money off of people's worst experiences. Yes, exactly. to be like, no, grandmother must go in her blue suit
00:29:43
into this silk-lined casket. Right, and what do you mean you're not going to have flowers?
00:29:47
There has to be. Crazy. I'll never forget my mom's like, oh, no, I need to go. What's the other one?
00:29:52
Cremated? Yeah. She's like, cremate me immediately. Don't. I was like, oh, okay.
00:29:59
So my father will be buried in a plot that he won off the radio. Love it. I hope this shocks you just like it did me.
00:30:05
And as a reminder to all, make your final wishes known. Yes, it's weird and hard, but it's harder on your loved ones when they don't know if they're doing what you'd really want.
00:30:14
And that is an email from Crystal. Crystal! Crystal fucking wrote in. We've been waiting for Crystal to write in.
00:30:22
We have? Fucking, who's the last person? Oh. One of my best friends is named Crystal.
00:30:26
I was about to say, the last time you met at Crystal, and fucking George's closest friend is named Crystal.
00:30:33
Crystal thinks that her mom wanted them to be strippers or something because her sister's name is also really unique.
00:30:41
What is it? Phaedra. Oh, that's a very cool name. Phaedra. It's so like the dawning of the age of Aquarius.
00:30:50
Yes, it is. What's funny to me is crystals in my town were a certain way and your crystal is not that way.
00:30:56
So it's funny because she's very herself. So it makes sense. She makes it her name.
00:31:03
Yeah. But it's not like. It's not like the crystal. It's not this crystal. Right.
00:31:08
No. What if after all of that, it's your crystal at home? Like, it's fucking me.
00:31:15
I told you this story before. Oh, what if she did? That'd be cute. All right. Send them your stories, please, about anything you want at any time of your life.
00:31:25
Share in a human way connections you have made in the past. Yeah. Whether it's at a pond with someone named Crystal.
00:31:34
Or a catfish. A smoking catfish. Or a smoking catfish. And until you do, stay sexy.
00:31:40
And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an Exactly Right production Our senior producer is Molly Smith and our associate producer is Tessa Hughes Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo This episode was mixed by Liana Squalachi Email your hometowns to myfavoritemurder at gmail
00:32:05
Follow the show on Instagram at myfavoritemurder. Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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And now you can watch My Favorite Murder on Netflix. And when you're there, hit the double thumbs up and the remind me buttons.
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Badges

This episode stands out for the following:

  • 70
    Most inspiring
  • 65
    Most heartwarming
  • 60
    Most emotional
  • 60
    Best overall

Episode Highlights

  • Dr. Death the Cowboy
    A charming neurosurgeon deceives patients, leaving a trail of devastation behind.
    “He promised to heal them. Instead, he left a trail of broken bodies.”
    @ 00m 48s
    June 29, 2026
  • Romaine Patterson's Angel Action
    Romaine mobilized a squad of angels to block hate at Matthew Shepard's funeral.
    “It was a brilliant, peaceful, visually stunning middle finger called angel action.”
    @ 04m 02s
    June 29, 2026
  • A Personal Connection
    A listener shares how Romaine's activism inspired her to come out as pan.
    “Romaine is an absolute legend, and her legacy literally changed the trajectory of my life.”
    @ 05m 29s
    June 29, 2026
  • Gina's Legacy
    A heartfelt tribute to Gina, who passed away from scleroderma.
    “She was my best friend.”
    @ 23m 13s
    June 29, 2026
  • The Catfish Pole Mystery
    A story about a lost fishing pole and an unexpected reunion.
    “With just one attempt, my husband had found the long lost pole.”
    @ 27m 52s
    June 29, 2026
  • Winning a Burial Plot
    A wild story about winning a cemetery plot from a radio contest.
    “I repeat, my father won a burial plot from a radio station contest.”
    @ 29m 08s
    June 29, 2026

Episode Quotes

  • Romaine said, absolutely not.
    MFM Minisode 494
  • Romaine is an absolute legend, and her legacy literally changed the trajectory of my life.
    MFM Minisode 494
  • I miss her constantly.
    MFM Minisode 494
  • Stay sexy and find a Costco worker if you can't find a goth.
    MFM Minisode 494
  • I repeat, my father won a burial plot from a radio station contest.
    MFM Minisode 494
  • Make your final wishes known.
    MFM Minisode 494

Key Moments

  • Greed and Betrayal00:51
  • Matthew Shepard02:38
  • Angel Action04:02
  • Community Joy08:59
  • Creepy Staring21:12
  • Giant Escort21:40
  • Gina's Passing22:25
  • Unexpected Reunion27:52

Tension Over Time

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown