My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 377
Episode Date: April 1, 2024This week’s hometowns include bank robberies in Portugal and a search party for a missing child. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Transcript
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Do you love historic true crime? Well, we've got good news for you. Season 11 of Kate Winkler-Dawson's
hit podcast, Tenfold More Wicked, premieres today, April 1st, right here on Exactly Right.
If you don't know Kate, she's a true crime journalist and author who also hosts Buried
Bones with Paul Holes. This season of Tenfold More Wicked, titled Fire and Brimstone, is about the death
of a Puritan separatist in colonial New England
20 years before the Salem witch trials.
Kate joins a listener whose distant relative was killed
in Portsmouth, Rhode Island.
And together, they investigate the life of Rebecca Briggs
and uncover the supernatural lore surrounding her death.
Stay tuned at the end of this episode
and listen to the trailer for the newest
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Goodbye. In the room
Hello.
And welcome.
To my favorite murder.
The Minisodes.
Wee.
You've sent these stories into us,
so we've chosen to read them.
Yeah, we wanna share your stories with the world.
No secrets, no gatekeeping.
Want me to go first?
Sure.
Okay. This one is quite something. I'm not going to read you the subject line.
So it starts, hello girlies and pets. I've been listening to years of MFM in the last
few months since I found you, and I'm finally mostly caught up. I've been hesitant, but
this story is too good not to share, so here it is. A few years ago, while I was going through
architecture school in the US,
I visited home and then in parentheses,
it says small town on the coast of Italy.
Oh, what a drag.
Wow.
Architecture school was so stressful
that I was losing the will to live, lost a lot of weight,
even my hair gasp.
So my sweet mom decided to take me
to our family's dermatologist who had known me since I was a child. During that visit, the doctor and my mom caught each other
up on their lives like old friends do, and he told us he was going through a divorce.
I remember feeling sad for his family. We knew his wife, and they had three small children
as well. He then went on with the visit and proceeded to pull on my hair to do a test
to see if I was just being dramatic, and then decided that I was just very stressed and needed to chill out for my hair to stop falling
out. And then it just says, eye roll. Fast forward to a few months later, I'm back in the US at school.
My mom calls me one day and shakily tells me to look up our dermatologist online. Remember that
during the visit, he told us about his divorce. Well, this piece of shit had lured his wife into their family's villa
under false pretenses of having to discuss the sale of some art in their collection.
And then a parenthesis says, yes, wealthy people's problems.
And then it says, but what he actually was there to do was beat her to death.
They found her body mostly naked and the police implied that he had sexually assaulted her
as well.
I also found out later that not long before murdering her, he had physically attacked
his then ex-wife in public while she was at a very popular beach club with her new partner
and their kids.
I heard this from family and friends who were present in the scene, although this incident
was not talked about on the news. They caught him at his parents' house in Tuscany while he was
trying to run. He had his passport and a bunch of money. He never confessed to the murder but was
convicted and is now in jail for the rest of his life. The thing that bothers me most about this
story, other than the fact that he touched me with the same hands that he had killed a woman with,
than the fact that he touched me with the same hands that he had killed a woman with
is that this doctor had publicly campaigned for many years against jealousy killings of women by their male partners and even organized a series of fundraising events to raise awareness on the issue.
What?
I hope this makes it through to you. I love you guys. You're the best at what you do.
And you've opened my eyes about the dangers around us,
especially women.
Bye, CS, she, her.
Wow.
Talk about a wolf in sheep's clothing, right?
So a doctor, like just a community pillar.
Yeah.
Just horrifying.
Yep.
It could be anyone.
It could be anyone with uncontrollable rage issues
that they don't think that they have to ever
work on or get under control.
Right. Narcissism. Okay. This one's called Murderer in the Family. Hello, ladies and assorted
pets. I'm a newer listener to the podcast. Shout out to my therapist for recommending
it.
Inside job, an inside job.
And started listening from the beginning.
I'm currently on episode 114.
I was going to write to you about my hometown murder, 13 year old Eric Smith, who murdered
four year old Derek Robbie.
But I'm pretty sure you already covered it in one of your earlier episodes.
I don't think we ever covered that one.
Did you know it?
I might have. Did you know it? Maybe I did. Because I think wasn't he like one of the youngest murderers ever to be sentenced or
something?
That was the kid with the red hair, right?
Yeah.
Then I did cover it.
So instead, I figured I'd tell you about my grandfather's brother who murdered two people
back in the 60s.
And then it says, I'm pretty sure that's when it happened.
I learned all of this from my dad because my grandpa doesn't talk much about his family.
I wonder why.
But apparently my great uncle went through
a very bad drug addiction
and ended up killing two separate people
and stealing their cars to sell for drug money.
The saddest part about the whole story
is that one of the men my uncle killed
was on his way to the hospital to meet his sixth child
who was born that morning.
I was able to find more information on his crimes
in a memoir of one of his arresting officer's life
and it's as crazy to think that my family member's crime
stuck with this officer enough for him
to put it in the book.
My uncle was eventually caught and sentenced to prison.
He did his time and then lived out the rest of his life
as a law abiding citizen.
I met him once before he died.
And I remember being shocked that he was the murderer
in the family.
I definitely would have put my money
on a few other family members.
Thank you so much for your podcast.
It makes me feel more normal for being obsessed
with true crime.
SSDGM Kirsten.
Yeah, that feels extra tragic that they could have just
stolen the cars and gotten the same thing.
Right.
Why did you have to kill people? Just take the thing that you need to...
Totally.
...translate into drug money or whatever. Like, just senseless killing on the way is horrifying.
And then someone you know and are related to that just feels so unsettling.
Yeah.
Hey, Karen, when was the last time you were stuck
having an uncomfortable conversation?
Not this one, just a different one.
Oh, a different one than this?
I honestly can't remember the last time
a conversation wasn't uncomfortable.
Well, while you can't avoid uncomfortable moments
entirely, Karen, you should always feel comfortable
having an honest conversation with your doctor. And that means you have to find a doctor
that you trust and ZocDoc can help. ZocDoc is a free app and website for
searching and comparing highly rated in-network doctors. You can filter by
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When I am looking for a doctor,
I have no idea how to make that
choice. It's confusing. And oftentimes, if I'm going to the doctor, it's something I'm
actually worried about. ZocDoc solves that problem for you going in, and then you can
pick somebody that you know is going to be right for you.
So go to ZocDoc.com slash murder and download the ZocDoc app for free.
Then find and book a top rated doctor today.
That's Z-O-C-D-O-C.com slash murder.
Zoc.doc.com slash murder.
Goodbye.
All right, well, the subject line of this email is
shit my murderino grandma says,
and then in parentheses it says quick and easy.
Which really swayed me.
And then it just starts, I don't have a cute greeting,
so I'll just use my go-to from when I encounter someone
I haven't seen in years in the grocery store
and say, hey, how's it going?
And keep moving.
My family loves to keep secrets,
so unfortunately this email contains none.
Please give me your tips for cracking withholding
family members, exclamation point.
Get them drunk.
Exactly. Alcohol.
And then it says I grew up as a third generation Sacramento.
And then in parentheses, it just has a question mark and had literally never
even heard about the East area rapist until the first episode of your podcast.
Wow.
But it explains a lot.
My grandma, Jean, who we call Grammy was in her 40s with a teenage daughter at home when
the East Area rapist was committing his awful crimes.
To this day, Grammy is incredibly vigilant about personal safety, locks her car doors
immediately after getting in, checks the stopper and the sliding door every night, sets her
house alarm every single time she leaves or goes to bed.
That's pretty standard. If you're not doing that,
like get on Grammy's level right now. You should be doing all those things.
When my papa passed away,
she strongly suggested that their longtime neighbor would need to house it
during the funeral because someone may see in the paper when the funeral service
was and knowing that no one would be home would use that opportunity to rob the house. She's on it. That's right. That's a thing. She's on it. Growing up 10 minutes from
Grammy, her cautious habits and urgings no doubt played into my murderino origin story.
But she is also borderline batshit in plenty of other ways. Once I was spending the night on her
couch and we were gathering bedding for me to use, needing a blanket, I pointed to a plush blue one in the closet, still in its packaging
and suggested, what about this one?
She tells me no, because she hasn't decided if she wants to be buried with that one.
Okay.
Yes, that's right.
Grammy bought a blanket from Costco with the intention of taking it to the grave. What? Wow.
Let her if she wants to.
Sure.
This had to have been five years ago now. And contrary to what she's always telling me,
she's still with us at 92 years old.
I'll have to check back in to see if she's made a decision on that blanket or if it's
up for grabs now.
Stay sexy and make sure your grandma doesn't want to be buried with that blanket before
you borrow it.
Jay, she, her.
Oh my God.
They say the court is all an adrenaline from constant fear of true crime will take you
early, but clearly it's keeping her alive.
Not the case for Grammy, not at all.
Grammy.
Well, and also I think that's a really interesting point because, you know, there's people who,
like us, who elect to involve ourselves in true crime.
But then Grammy was forced into it because there was an active, like, uncaught serial
rapist in her neighborhood.
And she had to get real super quick.
And I think that's like over the years,
it's almost like more and more the murderinos show up
because of the experiences they've had
and the things that they have gone through
and seen for themselves where it's like,
there's no benefit to leaving your sliding glass door
unlocked at night.
And we've been hearing for years, we never thought it would happen in our neighborhood.
No one locked the doors. It's like, let's stop with that. You know, we've learned from that.
Right. Let us lecture you if only just for the one person that locks the door when they should.
Yeah. Okay. It's called a search party for me you shouldn't have.
Hi, MFMers. And which looks like motherfuckers, like a shortened motherfuckers, which is kind of cool.
I like that.
Yeah. I don't have a murder story, but I do have an, I was a dumb kid story? Question mark.
So when I was around five years old, I went missing. Kind of. My parents and siblings couldn't find me.
They yelled in the house and I didn't respond.
I looked all over the house and yard and still no Lindsay.
So they started looking around the neighborhood.
They were going door to door
and had all the neighbors out looking as well.
Eventually the police were called
and they were added to the search.
No one could find me anywhere and my parents were panicking.
Oh, that feeling.
Oh, that's every parent's nightmare.
Nightmare.
After a couple of hours of looking,
my mom went to my bedroom and laid on the floor and cried.
She opened her eyes and there I was,
under the bunk bed that I shared with my younger sister,
looking at her with my big eyes.
When my parents and the police asked why I was under there,
I told them I was playing a game.
Oh. And when they asked why I was under there, I told them I was playing a game. Oh.
And when they asked why I didn't respond to the yelling,
I only told them I didn't know.
I don't remember the incident much,
but I will always vividly remember the view of my mom
sobbing on the bedroom floor
while thinking she lost a child.
Oh.
I wasn't in trouble after,
but I was forced to sit with my mom for a while
on her rocking chair instead of being able to go play.
Stay sexy and don't scare the shit out of your parents for no reason.
Lindsay.
And actually, I remember one time I stayed out all night when I was 13 or 14 on drugs.
And they knew I was on drugs.
And so they called my parents, they called the police.
The police were looking for me.
And my brother later told me that he heard my dad sobbing
in the bathroom, which is like,
making your parents sob is the worst feeling.
And I definitely changed my act after that.
That kind of pierced through the haze of like,
I'm trying to be cool.
Right, rebellion and shit.
It was like, oh, that's not fun for anyone.
Yes, but on behalf of little Georgia, I would just like to say then don't make me
walk home from kindergarten by myself.
Residual trauma.
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This is another fun family one.
I want me to read you the subject line.
It just says, Dear all, I hope this story is in line with the mini-sodes theme.
I'm at the point where you're accepting rabies related stories.
I love those.
I love when they tell us what we're now accepting in a way that's like, you won't believe this.
But it also sounds like something I would say if I was sick of it,
where it's like, look, I'm at the point where we're accepting rabies related stories.
Like, this is insanity.
That's how it reads to me in my head.
But they're just actually saying, yeah, I'm just at the rabies section.
Back half that is so I can only imagine what kind of stories you're getting nowadays.
Anyway, I love my family and we are all
happy and successful in our own ways, but we've never done anything remarkable enough to be
newsworthy. We don't have any champion athletes or award-winning scientists or anything like that,
which is why I was so excited to find out after 26 years of living with my family that we do have
a record setter in the family. That's right. My mom's cousin set the national record for bank robberies with a whopping 27
banks robbed throughout Portugal. Holy shit. That's a,
wow. It's a lot. Yeah.
I was obviously super excited about this and mad that I wasn't the only one who
had no idea that this cousin even existed. So I dug a bit deeper.
It turns out his name is Manuel
Samoes, but he was known by the media as the Portuguese loaner. He robbed between 27 and
29 banks. Some articles differ, so I'm not sure which one's true. Between 1998 and 2000,
accumulating about 500,000 euros. However, all articles also mentioned that he was terrified while doing these
robberies, often shaking while pointing a gun at people.
No.
And even cried once in front of an employee.
Oh my God, how confusing.
I don't know how to feel right now.
I know.
Apparently he had a successful business in France, but according to my mom, got involved with a shady Italian, if only, and became seriously in debt.
He was only arrested because he tried to rob the same bank a second time and was recognized.
So he was like just under pressure.
Yeah.
He was actually nervous because he didn't want to be doing this thing, but he had to.
But he had to 27 times.
That's a lot of debt.
So much debt.
Okay, but wait, he managed to break another record after that as the first person to escape
from the prison he was sent to.
Oh, okay.
Only to be caught again five months later.
I never knew this cousin,
but my mom and uncle say he was a really nice guy
and just a normal dude.
Although my uncle once illegally crossed two borders,
and then it says Spain and France in parentheses,
because he didn't have his passport
when they were about to leave.
And this cousin said, no worries,
just hide under these blankets in the back of the car.
It's like a drive-in theater.
It's not that you can't.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was so blown away by this information
that I had to tell everyone I knew right away.
Interestingly, and I swear this is true, a few days later,
I was telling this story to a friend.
And after I finished, she said, I'm
pretty sure I have an aunt who got
robbed by a man around that time while she was working in a bank here in Lisbon.
We immediately checked with her mom and the story tracks.
Shut up!
My cousin robbed her aunt and now we're close friends. Reverse karma, I guess?
Sorry for the long story. I had to share this with you.
I love the podcast and I can't wait to be up to date on the episodes.
SSDGM and cheers from Portugal
Miguel Miguel
Thank you Miguel. That was a great email
That was everything we want and with kismet at the end you kismet
It would have been great if it was a meet cute just saying I mean it had all the elements
It had everything we needed. Okay. my last one's called Hidden Treasure.
You love it.
Hi, MFM crew.
I'll try to keep this short and sweet
in hopes it gets picked.
I've written in a few times with a longer story,
so hopefully you too can squeeze in
this feel good treasure story.
Good selling.
When I was in my early 20s, my then boyfriend and I
were headed north from Seattle, Washington,
where we lived, to Bellingham, Washington, to spend a long weekend with friends.
He was driving my little tin can of a used car while I played DJ in the passenger seat.
We were almost to our destination when suddenly we heard that stomach-dropping whoop of a
police car behind us.
And then in parentheses, it says, going 85 in a 60 is frowned upon, I guess.
We pulled off to the side of the road and await what's next.
We got the usual, do you know why I stopped you young man talk?
And then he proceeded to ask for license, registration and insurance.
My boyfriend hands over his ID and me being the unorganized carefree girl that I
was at the time thinks shit.
I'm rifling through my glove box, center console, under seats, nothing.
It says irresponsible, I know. With a pile of old mail, loose papers, and god knows what else,
plopped in my lap, I have to lean forward and tell the officer I don't have the documentation he's
requesting. He hands us a hefty ticket, and as we pull away, I burst into tears. I had no idea on earth how this broke ass 22 year old
living in an overpriced Seattle apartment
was going to pay the man.
I collect myself and begin going through the pile
of randomness on my lap.
I come across a plain unsealed white envelope.
I open her up and right there before my eyes
is nine perfectly crisp $100 bills.
What?
It says WTF.
Is this yours?
I asked my boyfriend.
Neither one of us had any clue how or why this amount of money was hidden away amongst
the rest of the papers.
I had purchased the car many months prior and all I could think was that possibly the
previous owner left it behind
accidentally and I found it when I needed it the most? Or I am a sleepwalking cash stashing freak?
We'll never know. Let's just say that ticket got paid with plenty to spare. Stay sexy and always
know where your car registration is or don't because you just might find some hidden treasure.
Melanie. And then it says, PS, you ladies are my fave.
Thank you for all you do and for keeping me sane
and entertained through this crazy thing
we call life.
Heart emoji.
Well, you're welcome, Melanie.
It's our pleasure.
But never in a million years would I have used
that $900 cash to pay that ticket.
No.
No way.
Well, you get out of it somehow, right?
But if you need the money,
if you're going to get the ticket, you're going to get the
ticket.
True.
I'm just saying very viscerally felt Melanie's description of the inside of her car.
And I'm like, I've kind of been that girl for a very long time.
And you basically, you get these huge life lessons of like, see, now you have this ticket,
now stop being irresponsible, now get your shit together.
And then you find an envelope of cash and you're like not today motherfucker
I'll learn that lesson another time. Someone's telling you otherwise. That's it
I sounds like we need to go to TGI Friday
All right
Well, thanks for writing in to those people who wrote in, and thanks for listening to you
who listened.
Yes, we appreciate you.
And if you have a story about rabies or anything else, please write to myfavoritemurdergmail.com
and stay sexy.
And don't get murdered.
Goodbye.
Elvis, do you want a cookie? Ah!
On the next season of Tenfold More Wicked, a longtime listener reaches out with a tragic family story that's been passed down through the centuries.
My first name is Carrie.
My last name is Nolte, N-O-L-T-E, and I am a descendant of Rebecca Briggs, murder victim.
About an English Puritan separatist
fleeing religious persecution
who arrives in colonial New England
to face an even greater danger.
You do get these kind of instances
where families kind of turn on themselves
and any member can kill anyone else,
where it does spill over into violence.
Rebecca Briggs Cornell survives the harsh landscape
of the early colonies, the sudden loss of her husband,
and a horrifying massacre,
only to be found burned to death in her own home.
But was it an accident, or was it murder?
I think that she was stabbed.
I think he set her on fire to cover up the wound.
A harrowing historical true crime on fire to cover up the wound.
A harrowing historical true crime that takes a turn toward the supernatural.
He opens his eyes and he sees his sister kind of bathed in an ethereal light and she says,
look how I am burned with fire.
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson and this is season 11 of Tenfold More Wicked.
Join us as we uncover the details of a murder investigation from a time when belief in the
spirit world was commonplace.
They were burning witches 90 miles away, and the entire population believed in the supernatural.
And when folklore was trusted as fact, there is something called
cruentation. And what that is, is the belief that the body will tell when the
murderer is near. In a time when a ghostly vision could be used as testimony
to break a murder case wide open, pinpointing the alleged killer for who he truly is,
a member of the family.
Season 11 of 10 Fold More Wicked
premieres April 1st on Exactly Right.
New episodes out every Monday.
Listen and follow 10 Fold More Wicked
on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
or wherever you get your podcasts. This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck. Our
editor is Aristotle Acevedo. This episode was mixed by Liana Scolacci.
Email your hometowns to MyFavoriteMurder at gmail.com
And follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at MyFavoriteMurder and on Twitter at MyFaveMurder.
Goodbye!