MFM Minisode 462

This week’s hometowns feature creepy neighbors. Stories include the Golden State Killer and an accidental curse. For our sources, please visit https://www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes. Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/3UFCn1g. Head to social media to share your favorite moments from this episode. Instagram: instagram.com/myfavoritemurder http://instagram.com/myfavoritemurder Facebook: facebook.com/myfavoritemurder http://facebook.com/myfavoritemurder TikTok: tiktok.com/@my_favorite_murder http://tiktok.com/@my_favorite_murder Watch full episodes of My Favorite Murder on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@my_favorite_murder Send your hometown stories to [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. Join the Fan Cult to access ad-free episodes of My Favorite Murder. Members also receive merch store discounts, exclusive audio and video content and more! Visit www.fancult.supercast.com http://www.fancult.supercast.com/ to join. Shop for My Favorite Murder and other Exactly Right merchandise here: www.exactlyrightstore.com https://www.exactlyrightstore.com. Rate, review and follow My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you like to listen. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Karen Kilgariff?

  This is exactly right.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 0:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Hello.

• 0:51Karen Kilgariff?

  And welcome.

• 0:52Georgia Hardstark?

  To my favorite murder.

• 0:53Karen Kilgariff?

  The minisode.

• 0:54Georgia Hardstark?

  We're doing a themed episode this week. Creepy neighbors. Some of you guys need to fucking move. My god.

• 1:00Karen Kilgariff?

  These are not funny stories. There's a lot of people up on other people's porches for no reason.

• 1:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Yep, a lot of people leaving things for you that you did not ask for and do not want.

• 1:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, let's get into it.

• 1:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Let's.

• 1:12Karen Kilgariff?

  You want to start?

• 1:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Sure. Okay.

• 1:14Karen Kilgariff?

  That was almost like we rehearsed it.

• 1:16Georgia Hardstark?

  I know, that was too smooth. We're just, we're on the road and we're just killing it now.

• 1:19Karen Kilgariff?

  We're just locked in.

• 1:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, this one's called "A Virgin and a Pear Tree." Hello, MFM ladies. I have been wanting to write this in for quite some time, but it's a long one with a lot of twists and turns, so it's taken me a moment to get my thoughts down in what I hope is a cohesive manner. When I was a sophomore in college in Alabama, I lived alone in a two-bedroom house, thanks to my roommate transferring the week before school started. Hell, yeah.

• 1:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 1:43Georgia Hardstark?

  It wasn't in a bad neighborhood, per se, but there were some creepy apartments next door that resembled an hourly motel. It's like everywhere in Los Angeles.

• 1:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:51Georgia Hardstark?

  In my backyard, my landlord had so lovingly planted a pear tree that would cover my car in such thick sap that I would have to hand wash my car in order to see out the windshield. Oh, Jesus. One afternoon while washing my car, a neighbor from the creepy apartments came outside to drink a beer. He started talking to me innocently enough in the beginning, but then shit got weird. He began to tell me he was a Vietnam War veteran and devoted himself to the service and therefore had never had a wife. His problem? He was saving himself for marriage, sir. That's your private business. Yeah. Take it to your pastor. Yes, this lord knows how old man started talking to me about how he was a virgin and then starts commenting on my looks. I quickly created an excuse to get the fuck away from this conversation and locked myself

• 2:35Georgia Hardstark?

  in my house because fuck politeness. I wish I could say that's where it ends, but it gets weirder from then on. A flower pot full of cigarette butts would magically appear every time I walked out my front door, as if someone were watching me go in and out of my house. Just fucking chain smoking and watching her. Like he was standing out there watching? I think so. Yeah, okay. Weird notes would be left in my mailbox, and when I passed the virgin neighbor outside, he would ask if I had checked my mail lately and laugh uncontrollably. The worst was when my friend and I were sitting on my front porch eating boozed up Italian ice and a detective approached. At first, I thought I was about to get in trouble for my delicious treat. How did he know? But I quickly lost my buzz when he told me some girls down the street called 911 when

• 3:20Georgia Hardstark?

  they saw a weird man trying to break into my home earlier that day. Oh. Good for those. Yeah, for real. At the end of spring semester, on the day of my last final, I was sitting at my kitchen table eating breakfast. The window faced the creep apartments and to my shock, they were quickly surrounded by SWAT teams and DEA officers. This perked me up quicker than any cup of coffee could, and my mouth hung open as they dragged my creepy neighbor out of his apartment in handcuffs. Ladies and gentlemen, this man was running a full-blown meth lab in there. Oh, my god. I'm not sure whatever happened to him because needless to say, my mom was ready for me to get the fuck out of there. I ended up transferring that summer, and it was the best decision I ever made.

• 4:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Stay sexy and don't plant that pear tree, Erin. So was he even a virgin?

• 4:09Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, was he lying the whole time?

• 4:12Georgia Hardstark?

  I...

• 4:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Dang.

• 4:14Georgia Hardstark?

  We trusted him.

• 4:15Karen Kilgariff?

  We trusted that virgin.

• 4:16Georgia Hardstark?

  A meth lab. Like, that's so dangerous.

• 4:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, my God. In an apartment?

• 4:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 4:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, that's insane. Ooh. And also, just that idea that then she's like, yay, I get this house to myself. Now I'm trapped in this house.

• 4:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Every time you walk out the door, there might be somebody. That's, I've, we've all done that. It's just, it's like you're being held hostage.

• 4:36Karen Kilgariff?

  And just united girls of the world calling the cops and, oh, yah, yah, yah.

• 4:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Love it.

• 4:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay. No? We're, we're in it now.

• 4:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes, we are.

• 4:45Karen Kilgariff?

  We're in it. I'm not gonna read the subject line of this. It says, "Hi, MFM crew. You asked for crazy neighbor stories, so I decided it was finally time to write in. My sister and I used to talk on the phone every week or so. She would mostly chat about her pets or her spouse," and then in parentheses, it says, "in that order. But a couple of times, she mentioned a particular neighbor who gave her hell along with a strong dose of both the heebies and the jeebies. Apparently, it was not unusual for him to curse loudly or yell at passersby. So naturally, he was pretty much outside in his garage or in the yard all the time." And then in parentheses, it says, "Why can't cranky people stay indoors and yell at the TV like normal folks?"

• 5:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Truly.

• 5:24Karen Kilgariff?

  What's so funny is it reminds me of, we used to, you know, live out in the country. So it was like country roads and people would literally go 85 miles an hour as my sister and I are out there on our bikes. My father yelled at every car that sped.

• 5:37Georgia Hardstark?

  I was picturing your dad. Like, there was something in your voice that was like, "I'm familiar with this."

• 5:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, this is, and it...

• 5:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, he wasn't wrong.

• 5:43Karen Kilgariff?

  He wasn't wrong, but I don't know how effective it was.

• 5:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Sure.

• 5:46Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm sure it was very soothing for him, though. So, "On several occasions, my sister and her dogs were the target of this yelling. This prickly grump would yell at her for her dogs doing a normal dog thing like walking in the grass or breathing too loudly. A few times, she even saw him on the ground trimming the lawn with scissors and muttering to himself. Weird, but I guess if he's muttering to himself and not yelling at her, it's okay. I said something to the effect of, well, he sounds like a real delight, then suggested it might be a good idea to consider a different route for her dog walks, lest she get stabbed in the foot with his lawn scissors. We laughed, and she agreed it would be best to avoid further confrontation and just let the crusty old timer live out his life with his perfectly edged grass." My sister eventually moved to a different city with much nicer neighbors.

• 6:31Karen Kilgariff?

  None of whom used kitchen utensils on their lawns. And I never thought about the crotchety clipper again. I have a feeling I know what it is. I think you do. Oh, my God, tell me. That is, until 2018, when a massive story broke and I heard the name of a familiar street on the news. Oh, wow, someone has been arrested in my sister's old neighborhood. Wait, did they just say that the neighbors called him cantankerous? And he was known for swearing at people and crawling on the lawn to hand cut the edges? Holy shit, that grumpy bastard was Joseph D'Angelo. I fucking, oh, my God. I remember the scissor lawns, scissor cutting. That's so wild. I scoured the articles until I found one with a photo showing the house number. And then in parentheses, it says, "Don't dox folks, even serial killers."

• 7:16Karen Kilgariff?

  And then it says, "And pulled up a map to compare my sister's old address with this one. It was less than 10 houses away." Holy shit. So she lived on the same block as this guy, it sounds like. The freaking Golden State Killer yelled at my sister. Oh, oh, how fucking terrifying. Yeah. My sister was not a murderino and would probably have lost her mind if she knew she lived so close to an actual monster. But perhaps fortunately, she died before genealogy caught up with her asshole of a neighbor. At least the world knows how intensely vile this man is. And I can only hope he gets everything he deserves. Stay sexy and avoid the creepy neighbor. M. Oh, my God.

• 7:56Speaker 03

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of 5-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 8:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, this is just called creepy neighbor. Hi murder friends, I will be keeping my name out of this, but shout out to my sister, who also loves this podcast, and then says her sister's name, and then like goes on to do a lot of like details that I think, I'm not gonna say the sister's name, essentially. Okay, okay. If you want to be anonymous, we'll keep it that way. This is not the way to do it. Your sister has a very unique name. Okay. "When I was in college working on my master's degree in architecture, I was employed at a restaurant that was walking distance from my apartment. I lived on a main road in a town on the water where there was commercial space below and apartments above. One day when I was on my way to my car to go to school, I saw a note had been left behind on my windshield. It said, quote, 'Ever look into someone in the eyes and instantly feel there is much depth?

• 9:11Georgia Hardstark?

  The kind of depth that can stop you in your tracks? Most days I see short-sighted emptiness in people's eyes, but not you. Eyes are the windows to the soul, and yours runs deep? Question mark? I find it very rare these days, and I thought it was worth sharing.' End quote. You're reading this note next to your car, and then you're just looking around. Seriously. I immediately took a picture of it and sent it to my boyfriend, and was like, 'Look at this note with no name left on my car.' My partner said, 'Oh yeah, I found one on your car last week and threw it away so you wouldn't be scared.'" Sir, sir, get it together. Like, what the fuck? I, of course, was confused, and the detective in me started to think about who it could possibly be. I had no idea. A few weeks later, I was walking down the stairs of my apartment, and a man popped

• 9:55Georgia Hardstark?

  out of nowhere, blocking my exit, and standing in the landing inside where only the tenants should be. It was the renter of one of the commercial spaces below my apartment, who would come to the restaurant with his daughters. His business was not open to the public yet, and I didn't know him besides that. He did look to be almost 40, and I was 22 at the time. He asked me on the spot if, quote, "I ever wanted to hang out sometime? I have plenty of wine in my unit, and you could just knock on the door? I sleep there most nights." I said, "No, thank you," with an awkward smile, and left with that further incident. I was working that month and got assigned to his table and told the bartender to please take his table. I told them what happened and showed her the note and how I thought he sent it and felt very uncomfortable. She said he was a townie going through a divorce

• 10:39Georgia Hardstark?

  and she had known him her whole life and agreed it was creepy. Thank God. She went over to talk to him and I'm not sure what she said, but he pretended I didn't exist after that and I was fine with that. Fucking tell the bartender when you're uncomfortable.

• 10:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, that's very smart advice. Yeah.

• 10:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Nonetheless, it is very scary to have a creeper who knows where you work, live, and what your car looks like. Thank you to all those strong badass bartenders and others who can stand up for those who are not good with confrontation. Even in dangerous situations, I usually told myself, well, that was weird, but they didn't physically hurt me. Like that time when a kid held a knife up to my wrist and I did not tell my mom, but my friend who was nearby me at the time told her mom later crying and the police were involved.

• 11:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Who?

• 11:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Story for another time. My mom sent me to therapy to help me understand why I should have told somebody. I was in it for the candy, I guess, at therapy. And barely talked during my session, but now as an adult, I know that I was desensitized from the abuse I suffered from my father that blurred my lines. Sorry, this is a bit long. Love you guys and please ask for help, even if it makes you uncomfortable. I believe now, at the age of 27, I have the strength to fuck politeness.

• 11:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 11:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Thank you for all that you guys do. SSDGM Anonymous.

• 11:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Anonymous, I just want to say that for myself, saying stuff like fuck politeness is the kind of thing you develop when you're in your 40s and 50s.

• 12:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 12:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Like you get, you live through life and you live through those experiences. If you're in your 20s and that's not something that's familiar or comfortable for you, that makes a lot of sense. And that's great advice coming from you, saying like, get someone else to help you.

• 12:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally. It's a hard thing to do. Ask for help.

• 12:17Karen Kilgariff?

  But also, the more you practice it, the more you realize, a lot of times, a creep like that, or somebody that's like, they just have the wrong idea.

• 12:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 12:25Karen Kilgariff?

  And it's just like, it's whether you set a boundary, which is, everybody has hard times doing-

• 12:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 12:31Karen Kilgariff?

  A hard time doing that sometimes. Or you find a bartender-

• 12:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Fuck, yeah.

• 12:35Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. Smart. Okay, we'll change the temperature a little bit right now.

• 12:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Great. There's gotta be some good neighbors, right?

• 12:42Karen Kilgariff?

  No, actually, that's not what's gonna happen here, but.

• 12:45Georgia Hardstark?

  We asked for creepy.

• 12:47Karen Kilgariff?

  The subject line says Karen asked for a hero senior dog. I give her a hero senior dog. Karen, exclamation part Georgia, exclamation point, the whole gang, exclamation point. Longtime listener, first time caller. Let's get into it. I've always lamented how I never really had a good hometown, but it turns out after listening to Mini Said 318, I do. You asked for a hero senior dog story and boy, do I have one. I was the youngest of my family and my mom was a stay at home legend. So me, her and my sweet big Newfoundland dog Boo would spend a lot of time home alone together. I'm gonna show you this dog now.

• 13:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my God, please.

• 13:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Boo.

• 13:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Holy my God, that is just like a ball of giant fur.

• 13:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Are you familiar with Newfoundland dogs?

• 13:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Not really. Drool, a lot of drool?

• 13:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Lot of drool. They're gigantic.

• 13:34Georgia Hardstark?

  And they're big babies.

• 13:35Karen Kilgariff?

  My parents took us to the San Francisco Dog Show when I was like eight years old.

• 13:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Amazing.

• 13:40Karen Kilgariff?

  And you get to walk through as they're like grooming the dogs and see every kind. And my sister and I got to the Newfoundland table and we were like, we begged our parents. We're like, it's good for the country and it could run around in fields.

• 13:51Georgia Hardstark?

  It's like a sheepdog.

• 13:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, but like a small horse.

• 13:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 13:55Karen Kilgariff?

  And they're from Newfoundland, Canada, and they swim in the ocean is what I heard. So they're.

• 14:00Georgia Hardstark?

  That's a kind face, too.

• 14:02Karen Kilgariff?

  I know. They're so sweet.

• 14:03Georgia Hardstark?

  They swim in the ocean and they're like, you and your sister did all this research to like present to your parents?

• 14:08Karen Kilgariff?

  We're like, we could bring her to the ocean and we could. So my sweet baby angel, 10 year old dog would never hurt a fly and was well known in our neighborhood as a gentle giant. We also had this old creepy neighbor who we used to joke about being involved in anything weirdly dark we could think of. One particularly dark winter night, creep neighbor had decided to, for reasons unknown, come over to our house while only me, I was 15 at the time, my mom and Boo were home. He also, for some reason, decided to walk around the back of the house to our sliding glass door, even though our front door was much closer. When my dog noticed someone at the back door, she perked up. And when she noticed it was him, she lost her goddamn mind.

• 14:51Karen Kilgariff?

  When I say I've never seen my dog flip her shit like this, I mean it. She hopped up from her deep slumber, teeth showing, hackles raised, near foaming at the mouth. She was barking so intensely, and her face was pressed up on the glass. Me and my mom were so shocked, since we'd never even seen her chase a squirrel. So we just stood beside her and stared at him, not doing anything to make her stop. Needless to say, creep neighbor turned and left in a fucking hurry. My dad went over that night after work and berated him for coming to our back door in the pitch black and for alarming me and my mom, as well as our sweet old dog. After that episode, my dog would bark incessantly at his car every time it drove by, or at him if he got too close to the property line.

• 15:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Wait, is this the Golden State Killer again? Every story goes...

• 15:37Karen Kilgariff?

  This dog caught Joseph DeAngelo.

• 15:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh my god.

• 15:41Karen Kilgariff?

  She said, "Not today or any day, creep." Years later, my parents moved into the city, but did hear some interesting news. It turns out that creep was involved in some gross creepy church activities, including some abuse claims, as well as general thievery. It just goes to show, always trust your gut, and more importantly, trust your sweet old dog's intuition. SSDGM, Belle. And then it says, "P.S. I've attached a photo of my sweet guardian angel dog. She passed away almost nine years ago, and I think of her every time I choose to say fuck that to something that gives me that hell fucking no gut feeling. She was just really cute, and I wanted to share that with you and the MFM team." Isn't that cute?

• 16:22Georgia Hardstark?

  That's so sweet. Honestly, like, nothing has ever made me feel more safe than having a dog with me at home. Like, Cookie's not gonna fucking attack anyone, but she's gonna bark her fucking head off.

• 16:33Karen Kilgariff?

  She knows what's going on.

• 16:34Georgia Hardstark?

  She lets me know. It's priceless.

• 16:36Karen Kilgariff?

  They're the best.

• 16:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay. We accidentally cursed the neighbor. This one's long, but it's funny. Worth it. Yeah. Hello, MFM crew. I thought you might like this story from my college days way back during the first Bush administration. When? What? Yeah. My friend and I lived together in an off-campus apartment in a complex that was almost entirely college students. We all kind of hung out together, and my roommate had a fling with one of the neighbors, we'll call him Josh. Things ended really, all caps, badly. I don't remember exactly what happened now, but she was very mad and upset, as 20-year-olds are, and we never hung out with him again. A day or two after they split up, I was at Barnes & Noble, and in the tchotchke section,

• 17:22Georgia Hardstark?

  where they had all the mini kits, mini Zen Rock Garden, mini fashion emergency kit, etc. Remember those things? I found the mini love voodoo doll kit. Remember those? Oh, yeah. Mini love voodoo doll kit. I thought it would be hilarious to give it to my roommate, and indeed, she thought it was hilarious. Let's pour some 7 and 7 and use it, because what harm can a mini love voodoo doll really do? We were to find out. Ooh. I think we had a note he had written, that she folded up, and stabbed the doll with some pins, and put it in a mold of her teeth she had from some dental work, so teeth were biting the doll's neck. We had a good laugh and promptly forgot about it. Uh-oh. Josh avoided us until he moved out a few weeks later. I heard through mutual friends that his Army Reserve Unit was called up to active duty

• 18:07Georgia Hardstark?

  not long after that, but never really heard much else about him. One day, almost a year later, I was homesick, and he signed on to AOL Instant Messenger, which he hadn't been on in a long time. Remember, first Bush administration? Spinning. This seemed weird, because last I had heard, he was deployed in Iraq. This was not long after the Iraq War started. And in 2003/4, having access to AIM while deployed seemed insane.

• 18:31Georgia Hardstark?

  I messaged him because, well, why not? It had been almost a year and I was curious how he was doing. Josh responded and told me quite the tale. Apparently, right after he ended things with my roommate, he met a girl and they started dating and then got engaged. But she cheated on him and dumped him and he was completely heartbroken. He had been the victim of some sort of outrageous identity theft, where he lost $6,000. Want to guess, they put how much in today's money, which I love.

• 18:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, yes.

• 18:57Georgia Hardstark?

  $6,000 in...

• 18:58Karen Kilgariff?

  In the early 2000s? $6,000, would it be like, close to $9,000?

• 19:03Georgia Hardstark?

  10, 10 and a half.

• 19:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, wow.

• 19:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. And had to sue his bank. Then, he got deployed to Iraq, where he contracted meningitis and had to spend his 21st birthday in a field hospital. He was actually still in the hospital recovering, which is how he had internet access, and was talking to me.

• 19:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, wow.

• 19:21Georgia Hardstark?

  My roommate came home while I was talking to him and I called her into my room to hear the tale of what happened to Josh. She arrived right when he wrote, quote, "It all started when I ended things with roommate and I feel like maybe it was punishment for being such a jerk to her."

• 19:35Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, he knew.

• 19:37Georgia Hardstark?

  God, that feels so good, right? Like, I was an asshole.

• 19:40Karen Kilgariff?

  It so rarely happens.

• 19:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. We looked at each other in horror as we both remembered the voodoo doll. It was still where we had left it all those months before, in the teeth. We ran out of the room to grab it, remove the pins, and get rid of it. How did the voodoo doll have such power? We had just thought of it as a funny thing that was a little cathartic for my scorned roommate, but not that it could actually curse anyone. But do you think we could curse Josh, even accidentally, without having it come back to us? No, we could not. As it happened, this was shortly before Valentine's Day and both my roommate and I got dumped by the guys we were dating out of nowhere just a few days later. Since then, we have both avoided any curses, voodoo dolls, or sending bad vibes to anyone. It's not worth the karmic backlash. I heard Josh got married a few years later,

• 20:26Georgia Hardstark?

  but we have lost touch with him and most of the friends we had back then. I talked to my friend slash ex-roommate before sending this email and we both hope he is doing well and send him good vibes now. Stay sexy and don't curse anyone, even accidentally, Jay.

• 20:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow. It's like, if you had taken out the voodoo doll part, would those things have happened anyway?

• 20:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 20:47Karen Kilgariff?

  And then it's just kind of the focus of life, or just like, but it does make sense where it's like, putting bad vibes in the world isn't a good idea.

• 20:55Georgia Hardstark?

  No, just try to avoid it. But when you're 20, that's all you do is like, send bad vibes to people.

• 21:00Karen Kilgariff?

  You just, you have experiences, then you feel so wronged, and then you want to change it.

• 21:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 21:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Whatever. All right. Here's my last one. The subject line is, "Child of the 80s, 9/11, trash parents, creepy neighbor. This story has everything." And it says, "Hello all, you're the best. Let's do this. I grew up in a St. Louis suburb that was generally safe and quiet, but we had a neighbor across the street that creeped out all the kids. His house was run down, his yard was overgrown, and he had a giant bush with bats living in it."

• 21:32Georgia Hardstark?

  What?

• 21:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay, Dracula. "There were rumors among the kids on the street that he had a giant dog living in his basement that was trained to attack anyone that walked into his yard. As a child of the 80s, I babysat my younger siblings often, usually just while my mom ran to the store. My parents decided that at 11 years old, I was seasoned enough to babysit my two younger brothers, aged four and seven, for the evening as they went out. Around 9:00 PM, I made sure all the doors to the house were locked, an 11-year-old."

• 22:02Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't know, though. I feel okay about it.

• 22:04Karen Kilgariff?

  You do?

• 22:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Maybe not. Yeah.

• 22:06Karen Kilgariff?

  No. Sixth grade?

• 22:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Let's see, my nephew's 10, and my other one's like, 5. No. Girls, though?

• 22:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Girls, maybe, but then I think about like Nora back then, or just like, I would just, and I'm sure my sister was like this, where it's like, you could go out to dinner all you want, but you're just like, ugh, what's gonna happen?

• 22:23Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't know. I've got that weird like, between is it okay and is it not okay vibe? Like, I don't know.

• 22:29Karen Kilgariff?

  I think you need to be at least a freshman in high school.

• 22:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay. 13, let's go 13.

• 22:33Karen Kilgariff?

  13, 14, yeah, because I think you have to make, well, you'll see.

• 22:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay. Sorry, yes.

• 22:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Around 9:00 PM, I made sure all the doors to the house were locked. And just that alone is so scary. And we piled into my parents' bed. My little brothers quickly fell asleep, but I lay awake with the TV on, nervous to be the official adult of the house.

• 22:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, you're right. It's too fucking young, because something could happen. That's the thing I'm not thinking of.

• 22:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Right? It's just like, for the hang, it's great.

• 22:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 22:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Absolutely. But then if like, oh, a small fire starts over there, now what are we doing?

• 23:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 23:03Karen Kilgariff?

  So around 10 o'clock, I heard banging on the front door.

• 23:06Georgia Hardstark?

  No.

• 23:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Right? This was not normal knocking. It was pounding and banging. The banging started at the front of the house, and then it was moving closer to the back of the house where we were. As it was getting louder and louder, in my heart, I just knew it was my creepy neighbor trying to get in to murder us all. The phone in my parents' room was a rotary phone. Remember rotary phones? Where you had to spin for each number?

• 23:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes.

• 23:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Let's hold on to that magic for a moment. I mistailed my neighbor's number at least three times, then I just went for 911.

• 23:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 23:38Karen Kilgariff?

  The 911 operator could hear the banging over the phone. That's how loud it was. She stayed on the line with me as I waited for the police to come to save us from my creepy murderous neighbor.

• 23:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my God.

• 23:48Karen Kilgariff?

  By this point, my brothers had woken up, and they were also terrified. After what felt like an eternity, but was probably five minutes, the dispatcher told me that the police have arrived in front of my house, that they were shining a spotlight, and it was my parents.

• 24:04Karen Kilgariff?

  I had locked the screen.

• 24:06Georgia Hardstark?

  No.

• 24:06Karen Kilgariff?

  I had locked the front screen door, which had no key, and chain locked the back door so my parents couldn't get in. The police found my very pregnant mother sitting on our front porch, reading a newspaper, while my dad was banging on the door and all of our bedroom windows, thinking we were asleep and that he just needed to wake us up, because waking up your young children by pounding on all their windows is a super great idea, Dad.

• 24:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, their names. It's Dad.

• 24:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. Hey, hey, hey.

• 24:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Hey, guys.

• 24:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Hey.

• 24:33Georgia Hardstark?

  It's your friendly neighborhood Dad. Oh, my God.

• 24:37Karen Kilgariff?

  I was so embarrassed that I made my seven-year-old brother go unlock the door to let my parents in. They thought this was hilarious and told me that I did the right thing by calling 911.

• 24:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, good, because if she got in trouble, I was gonna be fucking furious.

• 24:49Karen Kilgariff?

  I know. It's like, you did this. This event did not stop my parents from using me as their free babysitter for many years to come. Stay sexy and don't call 911 on your parents when you're the one who locked them out, Natalie.

• 25:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my god. I want people to email us about how old is okay to babysit.

• 25:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 25:10Georgia Hardstark?

  And I want parents of young kids now to tell me why they would never leave their fucking child alone to babysit.

• 25:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. Talk to us about how you're breaking the generational curse

• 25:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 25:19Karen Kilgariff?

  of you babysitting your three-year-old

• 25:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 25:22Karen Kilgariff?

  brother when you were nine by now not letting your 17-year-old

• 25:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 25:27Karen Kilgariff?

  leave the house without location services on.

• 25:28Georgia Hardstark?

  I babysat an infant with my friend, a neighbor, when I was like 11.

• 25:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 25:33Georgia Hardstark?

  An infant.

• 25:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes. I babysat an infant and fell asleep on the couch because I had to get up at like 7:00 in the morning to go. It was like a summer job. And it was like a two-year-old that was just sitting there playing with stuff and I was watching it. And then I just went like that and then like woke up.

• 25:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 25:48Karen Kilgariff?

  So like, high pressure, but at the same time, you just don't get what the

• 25:52Georgia Hardstark?

  No.

• 25:53Karen Kilgariff?

  the consequences could be.

• 25:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally. I want to hear about floods. I want to hear about fires. Why did you never get to babysit again?

• 25:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Ooh, yes.

• 25:59Georgia Hardstark?

  We'll still cover these. It's not too late.

• 26:01Karen Kilgariff?

  No, we have to. Creepy neighbors can go on forever.

• 26:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, for sure.

• 26:04Karen Kilgariff?

  And stay sexy.

• 26:04Georgia Hardstark?

  And don't get murdered.

• 26:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye.

• 26:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Elvis, do you want a cookie?

• 26:16Karen Kilgariff?

  This has been an Exactly Right production.

• 26:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Our senior producer is Molly Smith and our associate producer is Tessa Hughes.

• 26:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Our editor is Aristotle Lasevedo.

• 26:23Georgia Hardstark?

  This episode was mixed by Leona Scolacci.

• 26:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Email your hometowns to [email protected].

• 26:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Follow the show on Instagram at MyFavoriteMurder.

• 26:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 26:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Or watch us on YouTube. Search for My Favorite Murder and then like and subscribe.

• 26:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye.

• 26:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Calling all amateur detectives and podcast obsessives.

• 26:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Virgin Voyages' second True Crime Voyage sets sail March 20, 2027, for a five-night escape to Grand Turk and the Beach Club at Bimini.

• 26:59Karen Kilgariff?

  As part of the On Air at Sea collection, this immersive sailing brings together fan favorite podcasts, including Disgrace Land, Buried Bones, and Wisecrack, for live recordings, behind-the-scenes access, exclusive meet-and-greets, and crime-themed programming that you won't find anywhere else.

• 27:15Georgia Hardstark?

  All aboard our award-winning, kid-free ships.

• 27:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Head over to virginvoyages.com/truecrime to secure your spot.

• 27:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Goodbye.