My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - MFM Minisode 378
Episode Date: April 8, 2024This week’s hometowns include a murder in Mississippi and a make-believe softball team. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
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Hello and welcome to my favorite murder.
The mini-sode.
Where we read you the stories you write to us.
That's right. Do you want to go first?
Sure. Okay. This one's you wanna go first? Sure.
Okay, this one's called the original Mrs. Robinson.
Hello to all on and off the mic of my favorite murder.
I truly love you and your team so much
that I could write a whole email just thanking you
for the years of stories and laughs,
but this hometown is a doozy, so let's get into it.
I'm originally from Mississippi, and it says,
don't worry, the only thing stereotypically
southern about me is my accent.
And I recently went home for the weekend
where my Friday night consisted of late night wine chats
with my parents.
They know my obsession with true crime
and my mom is even a murderino herself.
Around 1 a.m., the conversation shifted to my dad,
casually mentioning his connection to a murder
right here in Jackson, Mississippi and
The screenplay turned TV movie written by two pals of his
He is convinced he's told me the story before but I know in all my 26 years
This has never once been mentioned that night
We went down a rabbit hole and I learned that everyone truly does have a hometown murder the crime in
everyone truly does have a hometown murder. The crime.
In 1974, 20-year-old John Peyton Alexander
was a swimming coach at a Jackson Country Club
where he met and started an affair
with married 37-year-old Harriet Robinson.
There aren't many details known about the level
of seriousness regarding the relationship,
but in the fall of 1974,
Mr. Robinson became aware of the affair
and called Alexander telling him to leave Harriet alone.
Mrs. Robinson then cuts ties
with the young pool boy herself as well.
John Payton didn't take this breakup well,
sunk into a deep depression, dropped out of college,
and moved back in with his mother.
During his transition back to Jackson,
he decided to get his old job at the country club back.
Unfortunately for him, the Robinson's decided to take it upon themselves to block this idea
by writing a letter to the club stating that Alexander was incompetent.
He then went on to apply at a different country club in the area where the connected couple
did the same thing.
Obviously angry and frustrated, the boy decided to Xerox some of the love letters written
to him by Harriet and mailed the copies to several members of the country club to prove their opinion
on his work ethic was biased.
Ooh, I know.
So love letters, that's a pretty deep, that's a deep affair.
Yeah it is.
This backfired for Alexander because Mr. Robinson then brought a suit against him demanding
damages. On October 4th, 1975, John Payton Alexander
went to play tennis with a buddy of his
at Battlefield Park around 11 a.m.
After this match, instead of calling it a day,
he went to the Parham Bridges Tennis Club
where Mrs. Robinson was finishing up
a tennis match of her own.
Alexander walked right up to Harriet,
drew a pistol from his pocket,
and shot her
in the head from around three feet away. He then stepped closer to the woman now lying
on the court in blood and fired seven more shots into her head and neck. He didn't stay
at the scene though. He went home and told his mother exactly what he did and they called
the police together. His trial ended in a guilty verdict and even though he was released seven years into his sentence, he broke his parole by stopping
his medication and assaulting his own sister. In 1986, he was then put back in prison where
he is still serving out his life sentence as of 2019.
The story blew my mind and I summed it up as best as I could for y'all. The reason
my dad brought this up in the first place was because my family were members of
that same country club and John Payton's mother was my dad's chemistry teacher in high school.
My grandmother, we call her Lili, remembers the incident well and frequently played tennis
at that court.
Years after this 1975 murder, two local boys wrote a screenplay about the crime and it
sold and turned into a TV movie
starring Susan Lucci.
Oh, wow. That's big.
It's called Between Love and Hate.
And the two writers were friends of my dad's as well.
Every time I go home to Mississippi,
I am reminded just how small of a place it is
with gossip to last a lifetime.
Stay sexy, Shelby, she, her.
Shelby?
Shelby. Don't you ever apologize for being sexy, Shelby, she, her. Shelby? Shelby.
Don't you ever apologize for being southern, Shelby.
We've met wonderful, wonderful murderinos
who are southern.
Truly.
But it's like one thing if the people at your golf club
or whatever, your tennis club are having an affair
and then that's like, that's the gossip.
Yeah.
And then to have it escalate so horribly and so publicly.
Yeah.
Violently.
Yeah.
What a nightmare.
Yeah.
Okay.
I'm not going to read you the subject line of this.
It says, Hi, Karen and Georgia.
The other week my grandparents were visiting me in San Diego and my grandpa started to
tell this crazy story about my great-great-grandma
I immediately opened up the notes app on my phone
Because I knew I finally had a story worth writing in about
Back in the 1920s my family owned a tavern in Chicago
Unfortunately, they were forced to shut down during the Prohibition
era. However, I bet you could guess that my great-great-grandma's business didn't stop
there. Shortly following the start of Prohibition, my little Polish great-great-grandma got a
knock on her door and was surprisingly met with a couple of Al Capone's gang members
standing there with a five-gallon milk jug filled with bootleg whiskey. They told her
that she better get to selling because they'd be back the following week to collect her
proceeds. Just as expected the following week, Al Capone's members showed up on my great
great grandma's tavern steps again, but this time with two five gallon milk jugs. And this
is how her bootleg whiskey business took off. Oh, shit. Before she knew it, guys were lining the side street
outside the tavern holding out their cups
as she poured bootleg whiskey out of her cute little teapot.
And the subject line of this email is Al Capone's
teapot whiskey, but I thought I gave it all away.
Thank you.
I can only imagine what a sight that was.
Truly an iconic woman.
Stay sexy and don't sell bootleg,
stay sexy and don't sell bootleg teapot whiskey.
And then it says, or do.
Yeah.
Krista.
It's so crazy to think that like,
we romanticize all that, you know,
but like she was forced to do that.
She had no choice.
And it was probably a pretty scary thing at the time.
I'm sure it was really scary.
She was at total risk by doing that.
But then she was kind of like actually making it work,
which is what everyone else had to do back then.
Totally.
Especially those guys lining up for a cup of whiskey.
Oh my God.
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Goodbye.
This one's called Welcome to the Light, a super quickie.
And listen, I didn't pick it because of the first,
who it's addressed to, but it did help.
It says, Dear Dottie et al.
Blah, blah, blah, written before,
feel unloved and ignored, trying again, LOL.
You have had stories before about people
who seem to be talking to loved ones who had passed
just before their own deaths.
Just today, while on my exam, I had my head in a machine and was told, quote, no matter
what, just keep looking at the light.
I said to the tech, I imagine that's what I'll hear in my final hours.
Then I said how I don't really believe in that, but it would be comforting if there
were a light and how I listen to a podcast where they've shared tons of stories like this and
it's really heartwarming.
And it says, in case that wasn't obvious, I'm talking about MFM.
So the tech says, my mom died about five months ago.
She had had some infection that wouldn't go away, but she was still up and about this.
One day she was standing at the window and she kept yelling, what, what?
The tech thought her mother had really lost it
at that point.
She asked what was going on and who she was talking to.
Her mother suddenly turned around and said,
I have to go, my mother's coming to get me.
And that night she passed away.
Oh.
I really don't believe in an afterlife
but I am keen to be wrong and see my family members
gone before me, ready to welcome me to wherever.
It's extremely comforting.
Cheers to both of you.
Carrie, she, her.
I love that story.
I know, right?
It's so comforting.
The idea that your mom will come and get you.
Yeah, I love that.
I love those stories.
Oh, well, similarly, this says deathbed confession, and then there's like 10 question marks after
it.
And then it says, Hi, love you all.
I've held on to the story for decades trying to find the right place to submit it.
And after hearing you guys ask for deathbed confessions, I realized it was my time to
freaking shine.
Let's get into it.
When I was a young girl of about 12 years old, there was an upheaval in my family life.
My parents were headed toward divorce and my dad's dad had just suffered a massive stroke
and his recovery was looking bleak. Soon I started hearing hushed voices from the kitchen.
My nosy 12 year old ass quickly turned the music down on my headphones and got ready to eavesdrop,
but I was told what was up by my parents soon after.
Pretty reckless if you ask me, but my parents have always been super transparent and honest
with us, which I commend them for.
And so they sat me and my big brother down.
A little background, my dad has three siblings, two brothers and a sister.
His sister is an RN, we'll call her Lori, and she was responsible for all medical stuff
concerning my grandparents.
So she went in to visit my grandfather one day to get an update on his vitals and what
the next steps were.
Being the only daughter, you can imagine Laurie's surprise when the attending nurse at the hospital
told her that she had already given the rundown to my grandfather's other daughter, who is
also a nurse.
Laurie quickly replied, no, I'm his only daughter and the only nurse in the family. But the attending nurse insisted she definitely had a meeting with a woman
who was definitely his other daughter. She wouldn't have let her in if she wasn't because
only family was allowed to visit at that time. Now, my aunt Laurie is flabbergasted, filled
with befuddlement at a loss for words. How could this be? Was someone acting as an imposter to infiltrate
her father's medical records? So she decided to ask her mom some questions and boy did
she get some answers. You guessed it. My grandfather had an affair with a younger woman about 30
years prior and had a child with her. Her name was Susie and she was also a nurse. It
turns out he was very involved in Susie's life, dancing with her at her wedding, sending
her Christmas gifts every year.
She lived in the same town, but he sent her to private school and paid for her children's
education too.
She was only a few years younger than my dad, who was the youngest.
My dad and his siblings had no idea.
Suzy's mother was a member of the church they frequented.
And this is where the plot thickens.
My grandfather ended up making a miraculous
semi-full recovery after his stroke
and lived for eight more years.
Oh my God, awkward.
This left him to face each one of his four children
who now knew the fact that they have another sister.
It turns out there were no business trips
that he went on when they were young.
There was no barbershop quartet competitions
he was going out of town for.
That's all he could think of?
Literally, it's like this email,
that line solidified this email for me
where I was like, oh shit, that's genius.
They were all very surprised,
but still accepted him as their father and carried on.
My dad got to meet his long lost little sister
and I gained a whole lot of respect for my grandmother
for all the shit she's put up with.
So that is my story.
Hope you enjoyed, AC.
Ooh, that's a juicy one.
I wonder if Suzy knew about them
or if she knew she was the secret family.
I actually knew a person who was in this position. It's a stand-up comedian who talks about it
in her act. So, but I won't, I won't say her name, but her and her mom, it was like they
would just watch the dad with the, you know, public family because they also lived in the
same town.
Oh my God.
I mean, yeah, I guess it just depends on the man if he's going to keep
it secret from everybody. Yeah. Or what? Barbershop quartet. You fucker. He's like, my wild eye.
And it's like, you're not even that good at it. How come we can't come to any of the competitions,
grandpa? We want to wear straw hats and support you.
Well, I have another grandpa one. It's called Hot Dog Grandpa Story.
It's a little different.
It says, hello all, copy and paste
whatever funny salutations the person before me said.
No.
It's been a while since we've had a hot dog story
read on the mini-sodes.
And so I figured I'd send mine in. Yay. Wait, before we've had a hot dog story read on the mini-sodes and so I figured I'd send mine in.
Yay.
Wait, before we get into the hot dog story, did Erin show you the hot dog art?
No. What hot dog art?
Somebody submitted an idea for a hot dog t-shirt.
And it is. We're gonna have a hot dog merch pretty soon.
Okay. Oh my god. She hasn't shown me yet.
Okay. So my grandfather was quite an eccentric man,
but we loved him for all his quirks.
One of these was that he was constantly eating.
Whenever he and my grandma came to town,
my mom would have to hide all of the Cheez-Its,
goldfish and other cracker-like things
because he would eat them all
and we would be left with zero snacks for my brother and I.
Often he would just put whatever snack he was eating
in the pocket of his jacket or pants, who needs a bowl,
and eat handfuls of them, spewing crumbs as he did.
Let's just say the dogs were a big fan
when Grandpa T came to visit.
On one of these instances,
we caught him eating cold, raw hot dogs from his pocket.
They probably had gathered lint and crumbs
from his other snacks, but who cares?
He died a few years ago after a decade-long fight
with cancer, and this is one of the many stories
about him that my family fondly retells
over the dinner table.
Stay sexy and don't forget to eat hot dogs
out of your pocket, Michaela.
I mean, as a person who loves eating constantly,
I support Michaela's grandfather
in life and in death because that's kind of how it is sometimes.
Also, have you ever had like a handful of goldfish?
You need like 14 more handfuls of goldfish after you eat one.
It's hard not to keep going.
They're real tangy.
I'm just picturing overalls with that big front pocket with just
like cold hot dogs sticking out of it. And I kind of love it. Cold hot dogs and goldfish
just like anywhere you turn. What a joy. Okay, here's the last one for me. This is pretty
legendary. Hello, Georgia and Karen. When I was in high school, I concocted what I thought
was the biggest and best lie that
not only impressed my friends, but also gets brought up to this day in family conversations.
The lie?
Instead of going home after school, and so I could stay out later on the weekends, I
decided to tell my mom that I had joined my high school girls softball team.
Taking advantage of my only child status, I kept it rolling to see
how far it could go. After months of me arriving home every weeknight around 9pm, my mom was
surprisingly satisfied with the answers I gave to her questions. Mom, where's your equipment?
Me, I just leave it in the locker room. Mom, how come you never bring your uniform home?
Me, they wash them at school. Mom, how come you never bring your uniform home? Me, they watched them at school. Mom,
how come you never have any games? Me, they're all away games right now. Mom, what's your
coach's name? Me, we just call her coach. One day mom was in the school office dropping
off some paperwork and guess who walks in? The girls softball coach. My mom casually asked the coach about my progress
with the team to which the coach replied,
I'm sorry ma'am, but I have no idea who your daughter is.
The jig was up.
To this day, my mom thinks it's funny that I got caught,
but everyone in the family thinks it's funny
that my mom was fooled for three months.
Yeah.
Guess that's why I was grounded from April
through August of 1995.
SSDGM and stay out of the attendance office, mom.
Jenny.
Man, I don't think that would work on me.
I feel like there's certain people who just suspect everything
and know kids are constantly lying,
but I feel like the oldest child is the one who's going to get away with it, if anyone.
I was going to say, oh, cause Jenny said they were an only child,
cause I was gonna say that's a classic youngest child.
That's true.
By that point where your parents are like,
I don't care. Whatever.
Is this the thing your sister did two years ago?
Fine.
Good ones guys.
Yeah. Thanks for writing in.
If you want one more hometown from each of us,
they're in the fan cult and there's like years of them
to listen to.
Years, years of dedicated and yet restricted content.
That's right.
Get in there.
Like secrets, fucking go to myfavoritemurder.com
and join the fan cult if you want.
And also if you want, stay sexy.
And don't get murdered.
Goodbye.
Elvis, do you want a cookie?
Goodbye. Goodbye.
Elvis, do you want a cookie?
This has been an Exactly Right production.
Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck.
Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.
This episode was mixed by Liana Squillace.
Email your hometowns to MyFavoriteMurder at gmail.com.
And follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at My Favorite Murder and on Twitter at MyFaveMurder.
Goodbye!