514 - Beef With Myself

This week, Georgia covers the murders of Rose Burkert and Roger Atkison and Karen tells the story of the unkillable Michael Malloy. 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 http://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.

• 0:06Speaker 00

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• 0:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Hello and welcome.

• 0:55Georgia Hardstark?

  To my favorite murder.

• 0:56Karen Kilgariff?

  That's Georgia Hardstark.

• 0:57Georgia Hardstark?

  That's Karen Kilgariff.

• 0:58Karen Kilgariff?

  And this is...

• 1:01Georgia Hardstark?

  2026.

• 1:02Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, I was gonna say, like, this is our ceramics display.

• 1:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, we're just going right, yeah. It just feels weird to be back. But let's, and so let's do something weird.

• 1:12Karen Kilgariff?

  We have to point out the elephant in the room, because that's all anyone's looking at, anyway.

• 1:17Georgia Hardstark?

  If they're looking, though. Some people might just be listening.

• 1:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Listen, listeners, you need to start looking. We told you that years ago.

• 1:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Look and listen, that's what we've been saying.

• 1:27Karen Kilgariff?

  It's, we built it into the beginning of the podcast before we even knew we were doing video.

• 1:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Basically, next week, I was gonna say tomorrow, but it's next week. What is time? Is our 10-year anniversary episode.

• 1:40Karen Kilgariff?

  10 years.

• 1:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Which is fucking crazy.

• 1:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Wild as hell.

• 1:44Georgia Hardstark?

  So crazy that we haven't even finished talking about the gifts we got from the nine-year anniversary, which was a year ago.

• 1:51Karen Kilgariff?

  A year ago, and we got so many beautiful, lovely, handmade ceramic gifts.

• 1:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 1:59Karen Kilgariff?

  We thought it would be like, a couple people who could throw some clay would be like, sure. We were inundated with beautiful art.

• 2:06Georgia Hardstark?

  And it's funny, because so nine-year anniversary is ceramics, obviously. 10 years, like, tinfoil. I don't, what is it?

• 2:12Karen Kilgariff?

  It's tin.

• 2:13Georgia Hardstark?

  It's so boring. That's like, we have to, like, finish this up and not ask for tinfoil.

• 2:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Please send us as much Reynolds Wrap as you can. Reynolds Wrap, if you're out there. If you're looking and listening, please.

• 2:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, we're using the name brand?

• 2:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 2:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 2:26Karen Kilgariff?

  That's right.

• 2:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 2:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Because Reynolds Wrap, the time of our lives.

• 2:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Let's get these out of the way really quickly. And then nine years is over.

• 2:35Karen Kilgariff?

  And then let's stop talking about it and just wrap it up.

• 2:38Georgia Hardstark?

  This is a ceramic.

• 2:39Karen Kilgariff?

  In Reynolds Wrap.

• 2:41Georgia Hardstark?

  This is a ceramic Siamese, like vintage cat with an incredible necklace on it that I'm obviously obsessed with.

• 2:49Karen Kilgariff?

  When I first saw that, I was like, they made the whole thing? And it's like, no, Karen, they just made the necklace. Like, it's a ceramics thing.

• 2:56Georgia Hardstark?

  No.

• 2:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Obviously.

• 2:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Here's what they did.

• 2:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, you got the full story?

• 2:59Georgia Hardstark?

  It's Jordan from J Mac Ceramics, J M A C Ceramics, who found a mold from the 1970s of this cat.

• 3:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 3:09Georgia Hardstark?

  From someone's garage, they found it. They found hundreds of molds because they do ceramics.

• 3:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, right.

• 3:15Georgia Hardstark?

  So it's, it's new vintage. So the mold is vintage, the clay is new.

• 3:21Karen Kilgariff?

  The cat is new.

• 3:22Georgia Hardstark?

  And I didn't know you could do that. You could make your own?

• 3:26Karen Kilgariff?

  That's when you really care about ceramics.

• 3:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Right. And Jordan also looked at the markings to make sure that they were like correct to Elvis. So this is like the only one that I have that's cross-eyed.

• 3:35Karen Kilgariff?

  Do you want to process these feelings? Because that's, that's like a tribute almost. That's beautiful.

• 3:40Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't know if I can process that.

• 3:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, you shouldn't do it on the show.

• 3:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Feelings are hard for me. It'll take a while.

• 3:46Karen Kilgariff?

  But feelings are great content.

• 3:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, this is, this is, hey, listeners, this is why you gotta look because you should see this, this cat is so beautifully made.

• 3:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my God.

• 3:57Karen Kilgariff?

  It's so cool looking.

• 3:58Georgia Hardstark?

  It's perfect. Can we put it right? Let's put it on that.

• 4:01Karen Kilgariff?

  What a lovely gift.

• 4:02Georgia Hardstark?

  And then.

• 4:02Karen Kilgariff?

  What if I break it? What if I break it?

• 4:04Georgia Hardstark?

  And then Jordan also made you dog bowls.

• 4:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, my God, those dog bowls are gorgeous.

• 4:09Georgia Hardstark?

  So that's really, really cool. So Jordan from J Mac Ceramic has been probably waiting a year and been like, look, I fucking did what you guys asked.

• 4:16Karen Kilgariff?

  I, not only did I do what you asked, but I.

• 4:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Above and beyond.

• 4:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Looked into people's garages and got these molds that they don't use anymore.

• 4:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 4:24Karen Kilgariff?

  That really is art. That's incredible.

• 4:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, what do you, what do you have to share with the class?

• 4:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, these are incredible. So this was sent in by Keiko Inoue from Keiko Pots on Instagram.

• 4:37Georgia Hardstark?

  How do you spell that?

• 4:37Karen Kilgariff?

  K E I K O P O T S.

• 4:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Got it.

• 4:41Karen Kilgariff?

  And these are stacking Mothman mugs.

• 4:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 4:45Karen Kilgariff?

  With this beautiful artwork, I guess we should really very heavily describe this to the listeners.

• 4:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 4:51Karen Kilgariff?

  So these are beautiful beige ceramics stacking hippie coffee mugs with no handles. So it's like you're just supposed to take your dandelion tea and stand at the window.

• 5:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, put your both hands around the mug like you like you just went through something.

• 5:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 5:06Georgia Hardstark?

  But the funny thing is they stack and make a whole Mothman, but the top part is the face. So who do you give the crotch of the Mothman to? To someone you hate or someone you love?

• 5:15Karen Kilgariff?

  I think it depends on what you're into.

• 5:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, because take it apart. It's a crotch. That one has a crotch on it.

• 5:21Karen Kilgariff?

  And then the top just looks like a sneaky little Mothman peeking over like a fence.

• 5:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Sneaky cute Mothman with two middle fingers up and then crotch man.

• 5:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, and more so, this mug on the back, very lightly, has etched into it by, B Y E. On the bottom, it says, bitches.

• 5:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, perfect.

• 5:39Karen Kilgariff?

  So, you know, there is a real high-low, above-below situation happening with this stacking. That's what art's all about.

• 5:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Truly.

• 5:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Who are you? Are you up here? You down here? Drink out of that mug that day. This is amazing.

• 5:53Georgia Hardstark?

  It's so good.

• 5:53Karen Kilgariff?

  I really love this one. I was excited when I saw that.

• 5:55Georgia Hardstark?

  I think that'll go up for sure.

• 5:57Karen Kilgariff?

  But I really was confused when I saw this next one, which I thought someone just sent us in a butterfly, where it's like you got the assignment wrong.

• 6:05Georgia Hardstark?

  It looks like a pinned moth, a beautiful pinned, like real dead moth or butterfly in the middle of a frame.

• 6:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 6:13Georgia Hardstark?

  But it's fucking made of ceramics.

• 6:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Ceramics. So it's like, I honestly thought it was like, you guys didn't get it. Here's the, I'll just read this email fast. This is from Noelle and Lisa, and it says, here's to nine incredible years from two of your longtime listeners in Boise, Idaho. Like these ceramic butterflies made by Lisa, who owns the Potter Center, you've embraced metamorphosis in all its beautiful, awful, messy glory.

• 6:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 6:38Karen Kilgariff?

  In the public eye, no less. And then in parentheses, all caps, it says, Queens. And then it says, thank you for giving us community in the chaos, permission to laugh despite the darkness, a nudge to prioritize mental health. And for telling such important stories with empathy and nuance, you've inspired both of us in countless ways. Here's to transformation, community, and art.

• 6:57Georgia Hardstark?

  I love that.

• 6:58Karen Kilgariff?

  SSDGM Noel and Lisa. And then just the most intricate, beautiful, small, symbolic butterfly.

• 7:06Georgia Hardstark?

  I thought it would be a moth because you like moths. Like, that's all it meant. But that's actually, like, really beautiful.

• 7:11Karen Kilgariff?

  It's really poetic. And thank you, Noel and Lisa, that's so thoughtful.

• 7:15Georgia Hardstark?

  We're looking forward to what you make out of tinfoil.

• 7:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Good luck beating the moth.

• 7:20Georgia Hardstark?

  OK, so this last one, you don't have the paper on because I wanted to surprise you.

• 7:23Karen Kilgariff?

  OK.

• 7:24Georgia Hardstark?

  OK, this one is, so you can see it's like an SSDGM stained glass hot dog mustard thing.

• 7:32Karen Kilgariff?

  A hot dog stained glass window piece.

• 7:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes. And this is from Alora at Down the Line Design. And it says, "Hello, everyone. I am a stained glass artist out of Colorado. I've been wanting to do these pieces for a long time now and finally made time for it. I hope they arrive safely and fill your heart with joy." So it's not ceramics, but I'm going to let it happen anyways.

• 7:49Karen Kilgariff?

  Hell, yeah.

• 7:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Because I want to show you what else. They made this cool SSDGM one, but Alora also made, close your eyes.

• 7:56Karen Kilgariff?

  OK.

• 7:57Georgia Hardstark?

  OK, look.

• 7:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, my god, dead pets. Dead pets stained glass.

• 8:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Stained glass dead pets.

• 8:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Wait a second.

• 8:04Georgia Hardstark?

  And that looks, they have the look of our pets.

• 8:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Exactly.

• 8:08Georgia Hardstark?

  It's so wild.

• 8:09Karen Kilgariff?

  But then, look at this.

• 8:10Georgia Hardstark?

  I know, that's the crazy. When you turn it around, they just have dead eyes.

• 8:14Karen Kilgariff?

  That's how it is. Oh, my god.

• 8:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, so Elvis and Georgia's stained glass pieces, and they're fucking beautiful.

• 8:20Karen Kilgariff?

  So beautiful.

• 8:21Georgia Hardstark?

  So I guess that's what Alora does. Alora says, "I had a corn dog piece go viral, selling many of them. I don't have any interesting hometowns, but I live in Denver, so insert any story from there." So.

• 8:33Karen Kilgariff?

  There's a lot. And, oh, I see, the eyes are hand painted. That's why they're, they're all white and then painted the eye color.

• 8:41Georgia Hardstark?

  So gorgeous.

• 8:42Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, people, we have so many of these items. We should just go through them, you know, just keep on going through them. There's so many amazing things.

• 8:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally. So thank you, guys, for the last year. For our nine anniversary, nine year anniversary. We have a year to say thank you, right?

• 8:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, I think so.

• 8:59Georgia Hardstark?

  So thank you for those. We treasure all of them, the ones we haven't talked about. We've seen it. We fucking love them all.

• 9:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Incredible. I mean, these are just, this is just a drop in the ocean of the great stuff we've got.

• 9:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Cool. All right.

• 9:12Karen Kilgariff?

  What a way to come back from a nice, long break.

• 9:15Georgia Hardstark?

  It's been a long break. It's so weird to be back. How was your break? How was your?

• 9:19Karen Kilgariff?

  It was lovely. I, as I usually do on break, when I go home, stay with my dad. He watches football with the football pipe directly into his hearing aids. And I sit next to him looking at TikTok. And then when there's a good play, he stops, rewinds it and says, look at this run. And then I have to talk to him about football, like I understand what we're talking about. And like, I'm super into it. And every time by the end of the trip, I am into it.

• 9:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. Do you go stop, you need to see this TikTok ever?

• 9:48Karen Kilgariff?

  I do. I actually, I just text him the TikTok.

• 9:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, so he can watch it now.

• 9:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. So if I start laughing really hard, he, sometimes it'll pull him out. So he'll be like, what's going on? And then I'll be like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. So it's a very weird, we've gotten our modern language down.

• 10:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Love it.

• 10:05Karen Kilgariff?

  A little bit.

• 10:05Georgia Hardstark?

  That's how, that's how it is now.

• 10:06Karen Kilgariff?

  It's really relaxing, too.

• 10:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Boomers and Gen X, like this is how we connect with our parents.

• 10:11Karen Kilgariff?

  TikTok can build a bridge.

• 10:13Georgia Hardstark?

  TikTok and football.

• 10:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, we can do this.

• 10:15Georgia Hardstark?

  It's a language all to itself.

• 10:16Karen Kilgariff?

  How was your trip? I mean, how was your break?

• 10:19Georgia Hardstark?

  It was good. We planned on going so many places and then just ended up staying home. And it was fucking amazing. Wait, I have, I have a New Year's resolution, which I don't normally have.

• 10:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Let's hear it.

• 10:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay. This is my plan. And I started last month and I'm fucking, this is it. I'm making decisions now and doing the hard things now. My point is to help future Georgia.

• 10:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Great.

• 10:40Georgia Hardstark?

  So I'm saying no to things now, even though it's hard in the moment. Because me in two years isn't going to go, why didn't I fucking do it then? If I had said no then, instead I'm going to go back and say thank you to myself now for fucking dealing with it in the moment, even though it was uncomfortable and hard.

• 10:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Amazing.

• 10:57Georgia Hardstark?

  So future fucking me, life's going to be easier for her.

• 11:01Karen Kilgariff?

  And?

• 11:01Georgia Hardstark?

  And a little harder for me, but it's worth it.

• 11:02Karen Kilgariff?

  A little harder in the beginning.

• 11:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 11:04Karen Kilgariff?

  But then easier the second you start.

• 11:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 11:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Right?

• 11:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 11:07Karen Kilgariff?

  I did the same, not the same resolution, but Started my resolution because I was like, I just have to do more stuff so that my life isn't just work. And there's just like the expansion of just kind of lots of experiences. So I made my sister, because everybody went out of town. So our usual hang people were all gone. And it was just me and Laura and Nora. And so on New Year's, of course Nora had a party. And so I was like, you and I are gonna do something. And she's like, I don't want to do anything. I'm like, I know, but we're gonna do it anyway.

• 11:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Good.

• 11:39Karen Kilgariff?

  So there was a, basically a The Tom Petty cover band playing at the local theater. And so we're like, let's go see it.

• 11:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 11:47Karen Kilgariff?

  So we buy tickets and we go to the pub next door and eat dinner and we're hanging out.

• 11:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Amazing.

• 11:53Karen Kilgariff?

  The show starts at nine. It's 9:08, the band starts. And I go, oh my God, there's an opening band? And my sister goes, no, that's them. And I go, this is a New Year's Eve show. And I go, there's no way that's the actual band. And she goes, it is. And she's like, I've gone to shows there before. It's the real band. I'm like, but they have to fill time until midnight. And she's like, it's the band. But we were like fighting about it because I was like, there's just no way that's how it would go. And we basically sat there like talking and laughing or whatever. And it was over at 10 and we never went.

• 12:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, that's what adults want to do, right?

• 12:27Karen Kilgariff?

  I was like, wait, do we have to get up and run in there now? Because they started literally on time?

• 12:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 12:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Like, who does that?

• 12:35Georgia Hardstark?

  People who want to be home by midnight and in bed by midnight.

• 12:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, I was, I really had my weird LA goggles on. Where I was like, dude, this thing starts at 11:15. And she's like, I'm telling you, they don't.

• 12:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Nobody wants to be listening to music all the way through midnight.

• 12:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Everyone wants to go home.

• 12:51Georgia Hardstark?

  You have a podcast you want to talk about?

• 12:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay, so I had to do the drive again.

• 12:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 12:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Because the dogs came.

• 12:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, good.

• 12:58Karen Kilgariff?

  And I listened to Beth's Dead. What a cool thing to listen to those guys talk through the other side of an experience like that. It's like, everybody's heard. About like that kind of stuff and then the after effect. But it's like you always get it from the one perspective. And it's like the people who went through it and are like, this is what we went through and we're gonna tell you all about it. Yeah. It was just so cool and so personal. Yeah, isn't Elizabeth Lane wonderful? Just like. It was. She and Monica are just like such lovely people. Also, they were so smart. It's like they weren't out to get anybody. They wanted answers. So it wasn't about, it wasn't witch hunting. And they handled everything really well. Totally.

• 13:39Karen Kilgariff?

  This is an interesting parallel because this is a podcast called Undercover of Night. And I literally just found it on like the iTunes homepage. And I was like, oh, I forgot to pick something. I'll just pick this. And it's about a woman who is found dead in a small town in Texas. And there's all these strange circumstances around her life and around her home. She lives in a tiny Texas town, but she has a British accent. People know her, but not well. They find stuff in her house that people suddenly start drawing conclusions. And essentially, I think one of the like log lines that they say is, if people found you dead and they just saw what was around you,

• 14:23Karen Kilgariff?

  what would they think about you? Or what could they like come up with about you? Jesus. And so it's these podcasters who are like journalists and researchers, who are just trying to get answers and like compare. Cause they're just like a mystery of who this person is and they die. Locals who had to deal with it, who then told stories based on things that were found in the house. And do they figure it out? Uh, yes. Okay. And it's so compelling. It's so well done. And it's the same thing where it's like that idea of like having an idea and running with it. Yeah. And then here comes the researcher, fact journalist person or whatever to be like, well, that actually doesn't track with what we knew from before. I love it, Miss. Okay, what's it called again? Undercover of Night. Undercover of Night.

• 15:08Karen Kilgariff?

  And it's just basically how mysterious a woman alone who dies is. And she gets murdered? Well, they're not sure. They're not sure it's suspicious circumstances to the people who find her.

• 15:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 15:21Karen Kilgariff?

  And so that's the whole thing.

• 15:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 15:23Karen Kilgariff?

  And it's really good.

• 15:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 15:24Karen Kilgariff?

  And really well done.

• 15:25Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm in. I love it.

• 15:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 15:27Georgia Hardstark?

  All right. Should we do the first 2026 highlights of the Exactly Right Network?

• 15:32Karen Kilgariff?

  I think we should.

• 15:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, we have a podcast network. It's called Exactly Right Media. Here are some highlights.

• 15:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, we have a brand new podcast, a legal podcast called Brief Recession. And hosts Michael and Melissa, this week, they break down the Getty Art Museum curator's alleged conspiracy to receive stolen goods, ongoing threats to trans rights through the Charles v. Salazar case that's going on right now, and an unfortunate update involving J.K. Rowling that's probably connected to that.

• 16:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. And then on, do you need a ride?

• 16:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Hey.

• 16:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Chris and Karen, welcome back. Comedian and musician Henry Phillips, one of the funniest people.

• 16:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Just one of the greatest.

• 16:10Georgia Hardstark?

  They cover awkward celebrity encounters, alien invasions, and more.

• 16:14Karen Kilgariff?

  His awkward celebrity encounter is so hilarious.

• 16:17Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm sure because he's so awkward to begin with.

• 16:19Karen Kilgariff?

  And so funny. Also, if you don't know Henry Phillips, he had a viral video called "You and Your Fucking Mug of Coffee" that was one of my favorite things because it was like he would walk around with a giant mug of coffee. And like the first one, he's at a voting booth and he's just spilling coffee everywhere. And I was absolutely that person with the mug of coffee I couldn't control.

• 16:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my God. I love it.

• 16:41Karen Kilgariff?

  He's the greatest.

• 16:42Georgia Hardstark?

  He's so good.

• 16:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Also, on the podcast My Favorite Murder, if you're craving more of our content in the new year, then you need to go over to the Fan Cult because they've got you covered. You get all the episodes of this show ad-free, merch store discounts, exclusive video content, and much, much more.

• 16:58Georgia Hardstark?

  So go to fancult.supercast.com to join the Fan Cult.

• 17:01Karen Kilgariff?

  That's right.

• 17:01Georgia Hardstark?

  And please do not forget to follow My Favorite Murder on Instagram and TikTok so you never miss all the clips, polls, and important announcements we share, like breaking pet news. Frank has arthritis.

• 17:13Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, does everybody know that? I think they need to.

• 17:15Georgia Hardstark?

  It's 2026. It's time to know important details. So you can find all of our socia on link tr.ee slash My Favorite Murder.

• 17:26Georgia Hardstark?

  The holidays are right around the corner, which means people are about to do a lot of shopping.

• 17:31Karen Kilgariff?

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• 17:33Georgia Hardstark?

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• 17:35Karen Kilgariff?

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• 17:41Georgia Hardstark?

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• 17:45Karen Kilgariff?

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• 17:52Georgia Hardstark?

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• 17:59Karen Kilgariff?

  If you're ready to launch your business before Black Friday, go to Shopify.com/murder to start your free trial.

• 18:04Georgia Hardstark?

  That's Shopify.com/murder.

• 18:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Go to Shopify.com/murder today to hear your first goodbye.

• 18:15Karen Kilgariff?

  All right, it's you go first.

• 18:16Georgia Hardstark?

  All right. Well, I'm gonna start 2026 by irritating the shit out of you with a cold case.

• 18:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Perfect.

• 18:26Georgia Hardstark?

  You know I love a cold case. I feel like this one can be solved. Paul Holes has opinions about it, too, so you know it's important.

• 18:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Did you call him on the phone?

• 18:34Georgia Hardstark?

  No, he has done, he's talked about it in the past. I don't know if I agree with him. I'll just say that right now. I don't want to start a fight with Paul Holes.

• 18:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, beef with Paul Holes in 2026. Why not?

• 18:43Georgia Hardstark?

  I just don't think, I don't think he's right, but...

• 18:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, I mean, what does he know? He's just a 35-year investigator.

• 18:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Right? Look at me, I'm a 10-year fucking podcaster. Bitch. No, I didn't mean, I don't mean bitch as in he's, I mean, like...

• 18:59Karen Kilgariff?

  You're playing a character.

• 19:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, like as a figure of speech. Okay, so this is a cold case double homicide that rocked two Missouri families in 1980. It's one of those cases that are always on the lists of unsolved cases that can be solved or that have weird clues in them. So this is a story of the cold case murders of Rose Burkert and Roger Atkinson. And the main source is used for the story is a book by Atkinson's widow, whose name is Marcella Lynn Hatcher Atkinson, called Axt. And the rest of the sources can be found in the show notes. So it's Saturday, September 13, 1980, and we're in Williamsburg, Iowa, right outside a place called the Amana Colonies. Ever heard of it? Me neither. The Amana Colonies are seven villages

• 19:45Georgia Hardstark?

  that were originally founded by German immigrants in the 1950s. Specifically as a religious group that had broken with the Lutheran church.

• 19:53Karen Kilgariff?

  But 1950s?

• 19:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, what did I say? No, 1850s.

• 19:58Karen Kilgariff?

  It was like, were they all like astronauts and stuff?

• 20:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Recently.

• 20:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Why would, that's a reason for a colony.

• 20:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, I know it is. That's neither here nor there because we are outside room 260 at the Amana Holiday Inn and the housekeeper isn't getting a response as she knocks at the room's door. The couple in the room should have been checked out at this point, but no one has seen them. The housekeeper can hear the TV on in the room, but after a minute goes by with no one answering, she goes inside. When she enters the room, first she's in this little hallway where you can see into like the end of the room, not, not the bed. And you can also see the entrance to the bathroom on one side. And so she sees several belongings strewn all over the floor in front of the bed. And once she rounds that little corner, and it's like this total 80s, 70s, 80s hotel room,

• 20:48Georgia Hardstark?

  and can see the bed, she sees two lifeless bodies, a man and a woman, and lots of blood. She calls her boss and the police. So the couple had registered at the front desk as Mr. And Mrs. Roger Burkert, but this is kind of just half true. When the police arrive, it's determined that the people are Rose Burkert, who is 22, and Roger Atkinson, who is 32. They're not a married couple, but Roger is actually married to someone else, a woman named Marcella Atkinson, who goes by Marcy. That actual couple, Marcy and Roger, live in St. Joseph, Missouri. So that's 200 to 220 miles away, like a

• 21:31Georgia Hardstark?

  four hour drive, let's say. And the two of them have been together since Marcy was 15 years old and since Roger was 18. So high school sweethearts, they've been married a very long time. They don't have any kids, which Marcy will later talk about being due to her having endometriosis. And it had been a very painful, you know, subject in their marriage. Roger works as a telephone installer, but he's also a beloved Sunday school teacher in the church. And then Rose, the 22 year old who's found in the bed, is also from St. Joseph, but she and Roger's wife, Marcy, have never met. So Marcy has no idea who this woman is. Rose has a two year old daughter named Rachel, whose dad isn't in the picture. And she works as a nursing aide at a nursing home,

• 22:15Georgia Hardstark?

  but she's also about to go back to school full-time to become a nurse. So it looks, of course, as if Roger and Rose had been having an affair. At the time the murders first happened, Marcy is deeply in grief and asks that people not pass judgment on her husband and Rose, saying they could have been in a motel together for any number of reasons, but as time passes, it does seem to be clear even to her that they were having an affair. So much later, when Marcy writes a book about the case, she talks about how she and Roger had been struggling in their marriage and how he had had several affairs. But as of the moment that their bodies are found and the case is developing, the families of both victims remain more focused on their own grief and wanting the case solved than

• 22:59Georgia Hardstark?

  they do on this affair. I mean, what an awful feeling to be like, your husband's dead and with another woman in a hotel room 200 miles away. It's just, it's, your whole life falls apart in probably every way it could. Everything you believed in is not true. And gone. Yeah, and gone, totally. So from what people can piece together, on Wednesday, two days before she was killed, Rose had left her daughter in the care of a friend and had traveled from St. Joseph to Cahoka, Missouri, where she had met Roger. They checked into a motel as a married couple. Roger had told his wife, Marcy, that he'd be on a two-week work assignment in Cahoka without any time off, and that's just, he was going to be gone. It seems that Rose hadn't planned on being with him that entire two weeks.

• 23:44Georgia Hardstark?

  She'd only arranged for her daughter to be cared for through the weekend. So two days later, on Friday, the couple then drives about an hour and a half north to Williamsburg, Iowa, and they check into this Holiday Inn. The hotel had actually been booked solid because of morticians convention in town, which is so creepy. Yeah. Well, they, they have to meet, too. They do, somewhere. But there had been one cancellation in the hotel, and Rose and Roger are assigned to that they get the room. It's room 260. So it's just weird because it doesn't seem like anyone knew they were going to be there because they didn't even plan the trip, really. Right. Like, it's hours away from where they had first met, hours away from their hometown.

• 24:28Georgia Hardstark?

  They hadn't made a reservation. They weren't even supposed to be able to get a room. Someone canceled to get the room.

• 24:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Does that mean someone was following them?

• 24:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Did someone was following them? Or was just like a chance encounter?

• 24:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 24:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Just someone just found victims there.

• 24:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 24:43Georgia Hardstark?

  You know what I mean?

• 24:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 24:44Georgia Hardstark?

  And if they hadn't gone there, like would the person in room 260 have been killed anyways? Or would they have been killed? You know, it's just kind of that thing. It seems like they'd been followed, right?

• 24:53Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, that was the first thing that popped into my head. Also, do you think that room 260 was on the second floor?

• 24:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes, and it was also inside the hotel. Like you couldn't get, it wasn't like it faced the street and the doors faced the street. It was like you had to go into the hotel.

• 25:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 25:07Georgia Hardstark?

  To get to the door.

• 25:08Karen Kilgariff?

  Ooh.

• 25:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Right?

• 25:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 25:09Georgia Hardstark?

  So the hotel staff say that the couple ordered room service. They moved their car at one point and some calls were placed from, to and from the room. That's the information they have. There was a call from Rose to the babysitter when she first arrived at 7:40. And then this babysitter called back and then a third call was placed to the room. But we don't really know any details about where this call came from. So we're back to the morning of the 13th, after the police are summoned to the hotel. And this is what they find. There had been no forced entry into the hotel room, but you know, someone could have had a key.

• 25:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 25:45Georgia Hardstark?

  And the room could only be accessed from inside the hotel, as I said. The key thing is weird too, because it was an actual key. So anyone who had stayed there before could just make a copy of it, right? It wasn't like it is now where you swipe something to get in and they change it every time.

• 26:00Karen Kilgariff?

  But then that would be premeditated in a way where it'd be like, so they just wanted to do that in that room?

• 26:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, I don't know. Or they knew who this person was and they let them in, or they knocked and they let them in, who knows? Rose and Roger are found on the bed with the covers pulled up all the way on Rose's side and halfway up on Roger's side. So the top half of his body is uncovered. The covers are saturated with blood. Rose is wearing all her clothes and Roger is only in his boxer shorts. And both are laying face down. It sounds similar to like a Golden State Killer attack, when he would attack couples.

• 26:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 26:37Georgia Hardstark?

  It just sounds like that to me. Both have been hit multiple times in the back of the head by something like an axe or a hatchet.

• 26:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Oof.

• 26:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Investigators believe the weapon has a three inch blade. They don't find the weapon. Roger's missing several fingers, likely defensive wounds.

• 26:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 26:53Georgia Hardstark?

  I know. Though most of the wounds are to the back of the head, both Rose and Roger have multiple other wounds on the top halves of their bodies. There's blood sprayed on the headboard and on the floor next to the bed. It's just a really awful scene. Rose and Roger's belongings are scattered all over the floor. It's a big mess. Roger's wallet has been gone through and some money, maybe around $200, is missing. A partial fingerprint is recovered from the couple's belongings. And so here's the weird, couple weird pieces of evidence. So a chair had been pulled up to the bed as if someone were sitting there, talking to them while they were in bed or just watching them after they killed them.

• 27:36Georgia Hardstark?

  They pulled up a chair and sat down either before or after. And underneath this chair, aside from the person having gone through Roger's wallet and there's cards everywhere, the person took a bar of soap and had been like cutting at it. What's it called when you?

• 27:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Whittling it?

• 27:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Carving, yeah, carving and whittling a bar of soap. So just sitting there doing that, which is so menacing.

• 27:59Karen Kilgariff?

  And this was 1980?

• 28:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 28:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Sorry, but there was a commercial for Irish Spring back then where they cut soap in the commercial. Do you remember that?

• 28:09Georgia Hardstark?

  I do, even though I shouldn't because I was a baby.

• 28:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, it probably ran for a long time, but it was that, the thing, that's really, really weird and horrifying.

• 28:18Georgia Hardstark?

  What a weird, like, what kind of person has that as a hobby, whittling thing? Like whittling soap?

• 28:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Well.

• 28:26Georgia Hardstark?

  What?

• 28:27Karen Kilgariff?

  I don't think whittling soap is a hobby.

• 28:29Georgia Hardstark?

  You don't think so? Do they make, I think they made something out of it? Or is it just like you do it to do it?

• 28:33Karen Kilgariff?

  To me, it seems like knife play where it's like, it's threatening.

• 28:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Intimidating.

• 28:38Karen Kilgariff?

  It's like, and you like having a knife. So there are different things you can do with it. You probably don't have like a block of wood there.

• 28:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Right. So it seems like it's something you would do while they were alive to intimidate them.

• 28:49Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, maybe or like, who knows?

• 28:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay. So then the person, most likely the perpetrator, uses this piece of soap that he whittled to write a message on the back of the bathroom door. So it's only visible when light hits the door. Unfortunately, the person wiped almost the whole message off, but you can see one word left behind. It just says this.

• 29:12Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, that's like a horror movie, like that kind of thing of like, there's a message. That reminds me of it's in Seven, right? Where it's like you flip the picture over and there's a thing written there.

• 29:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes.

• 29:23Karen Kilgariff?

  That you can only see in black light.

• 29:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes.

• 29:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 29:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, so that's fucking menacing and creepy. There's a lot more evidence in the bathroom as well. The sink and one of the white bathroom towels are both visibly stained with blood. And a tube of toothpaste has been squirted into the bathtub and into the sink. So someone, the person then picked up the toothpaste, squirted it, made a mess all over the bathroom. And this is part of what Paul Holt's theory is, which I'll get to shortly. Toothpaste, what does that mean to you? That they did that? They just wanted to make a mess?

• 29:54Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, if they were kind of out of their minds and doing stuff and in there, right? If they're like looking for stuff or grabbing stuff.

• 30:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Writing shit on the wall, like making a mess. It's just, it's like mayhem, kind of.

• 30:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Mayhem, but then also, or if they're a full psychopath, that just everything's very calm and they're, who, you know?

• 30:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. Or purposely misleading the police to be like, this means nothing, but they're gonna think it's a clue.

• 30:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. But that feels less likely the further back we go in time. Because I feel like people do stuff like that because they've been informed over the years.

• 30:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 30:26Karen Kilgariff?

  By TV shows.

• 30:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 30:28Karen Kilgariff?

  And entertainment.

• 30:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. Yes. Okay. Okay, so here are some theories. Let's get to those. It sounds like the affair between Roger and Rose was possibly developing into more than just a fling. People around their hometown of St. Joseph knew about the affair. Marcy, the wife, would later learn from her pastor, no less, that Roger had become really attached to Rose's two-year-old daughter. So people, of course, looked at Marcy pretty quickly, at the wife, as you do.

• 30:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Why did the pastor know? Did he let go?

• 31:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Probably.

• 31:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Talk to his pastor about it?

• 31:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, probably. It sounds like it, right? So Marcy files a wrongful death suit against the Holiday Inn, saying that the hotel didn't provide adequate security and that this contributed to Roger's death. That lawsuit is ultimately settled out of court, and both parties agree to keep some of that settlement private. I wonder if there's also details about the evidence in the case that they didn't want getting out there. So she gets the settlement from that. And then she also is able to secure a double indemnity life insurance payout from various insurance companies that they had life insurance with, totaling $140,000 in 1980, which in today's money. 350? 550. Wow. Yeah. Half a million dollars is a lot of money. Yeah.

• 31:47Georgia Hardstark?

  However, like, that could just be what couples do sometimes. I don't know. Yeah, it doesn't necessarily mean anything. Yeah, like, people die and that happens all the time. So it doesn't really mean anything. And she does have an alibi. She'd been babysitting for a couple that was out of town when this happened. And again, this is hours away from their hometown. So she couldn't have gone up and back, but maybe she hired someone to. Maybe she was pissed off, you know? And then I think they kind of stopped paying attention to her as a suspect because she has an alibi. It doesn't seem like they could, they have any evidence. But also, there are other theories that are compelling as well. So another possibility is that the killer could have been an ex-boyfriend of Rose's, who had apparently been stalking her in the weeks leading up to the murder.

• 32:29Georgia Hardstark?

  On September 9th, right before she left to go on this trip with Roger, Rose had told a friend two things. That if anything ever happened to her, she wanted one of her brothers to raise her daughter. And then if anything happened to her, it would have been her ex who did it. So that's not something you say lightly and then days later, you're murdered. Right. And possibly followed to that location. Yes. And that seems like the most plausible explanation, right? But then investigators see some chilling similarities between this case and a murder that happened just three months earlier. And it seems like maybe they stopped pursuing that lead because of this really weird, confusing similarity of this murder. So on June 25th, 1980, in Galesburg, Illinois,

• 33:14Georgia Hardstark?

  which is about 130 miles away from where we were, like a two-hour drive, a man named William Kyle Jr. had been killed in a hotel room and his wounds had been similar. Police believe that an axe or hatchet had been the murder weapon in that case as well. And in addition to this, a tube of toothpaste had been squeezed out at the foot of the bed.

• 33:37Karen Kilgariff?

  That's weird.

• 33:38Georgia Hardstark?

  That's fucking weird.

• 33:39Karen Kilgariff?

  That's really specific.

• 33:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, we're not talking about years and across the country difference.

• 33:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 33:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Like proximity and time close.

• 33:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 33:48Georgia Hardstark?

  So the question is, is squirting a tube of toothpaste meaningful in some way that we don't understand? And that's where Paul Holes comes in.

• 33:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 33:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Because ultimately, the murder of William Kyle Jr. is circumstantially linked to a man named Raymundo Espaza, who can be placed in the area at the time, near the hotel. Espaza was a vagrant and was addicted to heroin. And that's a known fact, although, you know, that's just a circumstantial tie into this murder. The detail is important of the heroin addiction because of the stolen money, but also because of the toothpaste, which was present at both crimes. So in 2019, on the Oxygen Show, the DNA of Murder, Paul Holes says that he learned that heroin addicts experiencing erectile dysfunction will sometimes squeeze out a tube of toothpaste to simulate ejaculation and experience sexual

• 34:41Georgia Hardstark?

  gratification, which they can't get because of the issues with erectile dysfunction around heroin addiction.

• 34:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 34:49Georgia Hardstark?

  I've never heard that. I looked it up online. I tried to find that as like any kind of information that like pointed in that direction.

• 34:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, but I feel like that's more the psychological

• 35:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes.

• 35:01Karen Kilgariff?

  approach as opposed to it wouldn't necessarily be online.

• 35:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 35:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Because that would be more of like, this is, you know, you're equating one to the other. So it's like, you're trying to do the thing that's similar to the feeling.

• 35:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Right. So they're not saying heroin addicts do that all the time. They're saying that could be one reason why that was done.

• 35:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Could be.

• 35:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 35:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 35:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Like

• 35:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Just trying, looking for some sort of

• 35:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 35:21Karen Kilgariff?

  The why of it.

• 35:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Maybe you don't have me disagree with Paul Holes so much.

• 35:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, but what's interesting about it is, to me, this is, and we've talked about this a lot of the, what is interesting about true crime is the psychology

• 35:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 35:36Karen Kilgariff?

  of people.

• 35:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 35:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Where it's like the different circumstances in your life that bring you to take these actions and what they mean and, you know, your shadow self and the things that you haven't processed.

• 35:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 35:47Karen Kilgariff?

  And the problems you're having.

• 35:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 35:48Karen Kilgariff?

  And how all of those actions really represent something that's going on inside you.

• 35:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally. And somehow this like, that toothpaste thing equates to me with a hitman even more. Because it's this person who is so comfortable with murder, has done this so many times, it's so destructive and so not a big deal, that he then makes a mess in the room and doesn't give a fuck. It's not like I snuck out and hid all the evidence.

• 36:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, now I have a beef with you because I would say, hitmen just leave.

• 36:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 36:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Right? They wouldn't be messing around or trying to really do anything.

• 36:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Stealing money.

• 36:21Karen Kilgariff?

  I don't even think hitmen steal money. I don't think they touch stuff. I think it's like they get the job done and they go.

• 36:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. And/or use a hatchet, to begin with.

• 36:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Although, I'll argue myself now, beef with myself.

• 36:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Please.

• 36:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Where it's like, but if someone, whoever it might have been, you're not always hiring

• 36:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 36:38Karen Kilgariff?

  a CIA-grade

• 36:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 36:40Karen Kilgariff?

  hitman.

• 36:41Georgia Hardstark?

  You're hiring the fucking

• 36:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Sometimes it's like, will you go take care of a thing I can't deal with?

• 36:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 36:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Who knows?

• 36:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. And they're not like a professional, at all.

• 36:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Hate those unprofessional hitmen.

• 36:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Get it together, hitmen. Okay. So, Paul Holes does believe that Rose and Roger were killed by a serial killer, the same person who killed William Kyle Jr. and possibly another victim back in 1970. That man was named Jack McDonald and he was 23 years old. He had been bludgeoned to death in a motel room in Meridian, Mississippi, which is 10 hours or almost 11 hours away, so, who knows? But they're all on the same kind of, close to that. Connecting interstate, so that would make sense.

• 37:23Karen Kilgariff?

  It's harkening back to the old man on a train.

• 37:25Georgia Hardstark?

  We love that one.

• 37:26Karen Kilgariff?

  My favorite. Well, it's just the scariest idea is this untraceable stranger.

• 37:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 37:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Where it's like, there's no one to connect to it, and he is already on the train out of town.

• 37:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, there is now with DNA.

• 37:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 37:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Right? So Asparza's never charged in any of these cases, and it's so circumstantial. He's just seen near the scene of the crime in one of the cases, and he's a heroin addict. And he dies in 1983, but his name keeps coming up whenever people talk about this case now. In 2015, one of the bathroom towels that had been preserved in evidence is retested, and DNA is recovered from it. There are three samples, one from Rose, one from Roger, and one from an unknown person. But it's a hotel room bath towel. Like, who knows?

• 38:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 38:10Georgia Hardstark?

  How clean that is.

• 38:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 38:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Especially 1980, they didn't have...

• 38:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Bleach?

• 38:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Actually, no, they had like tox, the worst kind of, maybe it's like even more believable than...

• 38:19Karen Kilgariff?

  There's like a vat of li- of lye down in the basement or something.

• 38:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 38:22Karen Kilgariff?

  But yeah, worst case scenario for trying to get it all down to just one person.

• 38:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally. It's not like someone's house where it shouldn't be there at all. It's like, yeah. So as far as we know at this point, there's never been a hit on that third sample. Maybe they're testing it. Maybe they're doing the genealogical DNA. We gotta hope.

• 38:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 38:39Georgia Hardstark?

  And on the DNA of murder, Paul Holes recommended that Asparza's body be exhumed and tested against that DNA sample.

• 38:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 38:47Georgia Hardstark?

  But as far as we know, that hasn't happened yet, and that show is from 2019. So he probably couldn't talk yet about the fact that you could do genealogical DNA. So you don't even need to exhume him if there's other family members he can be traced to, right?

• 39:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:01Georgia Hardstark?

  So hopefully, this doesn't stay a cold case for much longer. That is the story of the unsolved murders of Rose Burkert and Roger Atkinson, and you are so angry right now.

• 39:11Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm really, really furious. Well, just, it's so compelling.

• 39:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 39:15Karen Kilgariff?

  But, and also, we didn't even talk about like, who was the staff at that motel or hotel?

• 39:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 39:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Did they run background checks on anybody back then?

• 39:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Did someone like never come back to work then, you know, after that happened?

• 39:28Karen Kilgariff?

  And get a job at the next hotel?

• 39:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally. It's just, it's so sketchy and weird and creepy and 1980s, and makes you think of just these like deprived serial killers. Like, is that the right word?

• 39:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Depraved.

• 39:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Depraved. They're not deprived.

• 39:43Karen Kilgariff?

  No. It's also like the thing of it's plenty and bad enough and ax murder, or that kind of violence, where it's like, but then all of these additional things that add to it, but also add to the confusion.

• 39:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes.

• 39:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Because we have heard of lots of stories where it's like the Golden State Killer himself, where there's so many red herrings.

• 40:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, that's what I think about the toothpaste thing. It just seems like such a like, what's it called, when you throw a wrench in the thing, in the place?

• 40:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Red herring?

• 40:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Yep. You throw a wrench into the red herring. When you throw a red herring into the toolbox.

• 40:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, you don't want that in there.

• 40:21Georgia Hardstark?

  No, because then it just leads you in a completely different direction, rather than like the obvious, basic facts of like, you know, the money being stolen and the fingerprint and the way they are murdered, no break-in, no signs of break-in. Like, instead of that, the obvious, like, basic ones, you have like the soap being whittled and the fucking toothpaste and the writing in the back of the, like, it just doesn't, it makes it so much more difficult, it seems like, to like, get a clear answer.

• 40:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Right. And to theorize and to kind of feel like, well, this is why this happened.

• 40:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, or obviously, blah, blah, blah.

• 40:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Obviously, it was, you know, it was revenge, obviously, it was blank.

• 40:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 40:54Karen Kilgariff?

  And it's just like, and no, and also, that's a wife who then has lost her husband in multiple ways in one story.

• 41:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 41:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Or a heroin addict that's being accused of murder and is completely innocent and he's just actually a victim of his own drug addiction.

• 41:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Absolutely.

• 41:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Like, all of it is just, I hope you see, I hope you see my point now, and never do a cold case again.

• 41:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, but like, in year 11, when I'm like, I have an answer to our cold case.

• 41:24Karen Kilgariff?

  You'll have the last laugh, for sure.

• 41:25Georgia Hardstark?

  That's right, but I won't laugh.

• 41:27Karen Kilgariff?

  No one will be laughing at all.

• 41:28Georgia Hardstark?

  No.

• 41:29Karen Kilgariff?

  And it is not a victory.

• 41:30Georgia Hardstark?

  No.

• 41:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Why do we do this? Why have we been doing this for 10 years?

• 41:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Some people would argue against it.

• 41:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Many have.

• 41:38Georgia Hardstark?

  For 10 years, if at all.

• 41:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Many have, including ourselves.

• 41:43Georgia Hardstark?

  That's right.

• 41:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow, that was great.

• 41:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, thank you.

• 41:46Karen Kilgariff?

  I think the reason that I get upset is because I'm going to be thinking about this a lot now, and that's the thing.

• 41:51Georgia Hardstark?

  That's why I tell you, is I want you to take some of mine from me, please.

• 41:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Take it, take this off of me.

• 41:55Georgia Hardstark?

  It's very heavy.

• 41:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Now you do it.

• 41:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 42:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, I'm going to put something on you that's heavy now. Oh, great. And insane. Okay. So it's a turn. It's not left, though. Okay, I like, I like these. It's one of the crazier stories, and I was gonna do it on tour. But we had so many good choices on tour. Yeah. It takes place in 1930s New York City, in the Bronx. Okay. Where a guy in his late twenties named Tony Moreno owns a speakeasy. Because it's the Depression era, a terrible time for almost every American. But it's also the prohibition era, so alcohol is illegal. But you can find it if you know where to get it. That means speakeasies. So if you don't know, a speakeasy is a secret bar that got its name, I just learned this.

• 42:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Speakeasies got their name from illegal British and Irish bars of the 19th century. They called them Speaks softly shops. Oh, to like not let anyone hear you fucking drunk as shit because you're not supposed to be? Or zip it about this place we're gonna go get drunk so we can keep doing it. Got it. But doesn't that sound like I'm joking that they used to call them Speaks softly shops in England as opposed to a speakeasy? It sounds like you're making fun of British people. Yeah. And I think that we're gonna get emails about it. We do. Okay, so, as you know, it's a speakeasy. Special knock on a hidden door, maybe a little window slides open, you say the password. We've seen Who Framed Roger Rabbit. We've seen Boardwalk Empire. Yeah, that one too. We've seen movies and TV shows.

• 43:28Karen Kilgariff?

  But speakeasies ran the gamut from being swanky, having beautiful decor and very fine liquor, to several notches below total dives. The worst of the worst, serving liquor that could make you go blind. Yeah, ethanol? Gin, yep. Oh, God. Do you read about the ones with people, tourists, drinking? Oh, God, I read those stories all the time. I don't know why I'm fascinated and horrified by them. Yeah, just like... Basically being served it and poisoned.

• 43:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Ethanol in like a fucking hostel and dying. It's just so terrible.

• 44:01Karen Kilgariff?

  It's horrible. So Tony Marino's Speakeasy is one of the worst of the worst. It's a room behind an abandoned storefront. They've got a handful of tables, a ratty sofa, and a toilet behind a beaded curtain.

• 44:15Georgia Hardstark?

  No, don't do that.

• 44:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, they will, in your face. They're like, you can't tell anybody about this. We're not putting a door on the toilet.

• 44:22Georgia Hardstark?

  But in 1930s, like, is that actually like luxury toilet? Because it's not out back.

• 44:27Karen Kilgariff?

  At least it's there. If it's here, we're gonna watch you do it. Well, let's talk about the positives. Tony's Speakeasy has a snack bar that's free for his patrons that offers assorted lunch meats, bread, and sardines.

• 44:40Georgia Hardstark?

  I love a dive bar, like buffet. Like, drawing room would have a fucking vat of hot dogs with hot dog water that had been sitting there for 10 hours.

• 44:50Karen Kilgariff?

  There was a place in San Francisco called Specs. It wasn't a dive bar, it was just kind of hidden. But they used to have little, little, those plastic baskets that would have cheese and crackers. That somebody cut up the cheese and then it would go cheese cracker, cheese cracker. And you would just get drunk and sit there and be like, cheese and crackers, my favorite.

• 45:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Dive bar snacks.

• 45:09Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, come on.

• 45:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, it's in Little Italy?

• 45:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, it's the alley bar.

• 45:13Georgia Hardstark?

  It's one of the oldest bars.

• 45:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 45:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, that's a fucking great bar.

• 45:16Karen Kilgariff?

  And the sign is, "A Pair of Glasses."

• 45:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 45:18Karen Kilgariff?

  And you have to know it's a bar. It's a great place. Cheese and crackers. And also, you're allowed to eat on the toilet. So, just kidding. So sandwiches, of course, can't make up for the absolutely atrocious liquor that Tony serves. His low-down, dirty patrons, they're usually unruly drunks. They all get into bar fights. Like, it is pretty bad there. And it's the kind of place where very, very bad ideas are born, like this one, in the winter of 1932, which was like, right before the prohibition was repealed. Yes. So they're all kind of doing this in this terrible place. And it's like, and ta-da, it's over.

• 45:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Oops, sorry.

• 45:57Karen Kilgariff?

  So a group of patrons at Tony Marino's Speakeasy come up with a plan to make some quick cash. Because of course, everyone's broke, no one can pay their bills. Completely desperate, the richest of the rich are throwing themselves out of windows. You know, middle-class people are now super poor. Everyone's in a breadline, like, really rough. Yeah. Everyone needs to make quick cash. And they decide they can do this with a plan about and at the expense of one of the speakeasies regulars. This mark is a man named Michael Malloy, who's been since described as, quote, "a biological wonder." This is the story of the unkillable Mike Malloy. Oh, my god.

• 46:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Uh huh. So, the sources Marin used for this story are the book On the House by Simon Reed, a 2020 episode of Criminal, and a 2012 Smithsonian Magazine article by Abbott Kayler. The rest of the sources are in our show notes. Okay, let's start with the roughly estimated 60-year-old Michael Malloy. Of course, he has a very murky personal history. It's believed that he's an immigrant from Ireland, immigrated to New York City. He doesn't seem to have family. He doesn't seem to have friends. In this book On the House, author Simon Reed quotes a district attorney from back then who says, quote,

• 47:18Karen Kilgariff?

  "I cannot prove much to you about Michael Malloy, who he was or where he came from. Malloy is to me an unknown. He was a derelict, hanging out in speakeasies, doing odd jobs for a bit of food or shelter, probably never on salary, and always working for drinks when he could get them." Yes. So, the one thing we do know about Michael is he is a raging alcoholic. And he's a staple at Tony's speakeasy. He's always there, typically getting so drunk on cheap whiskey and gin, he usually ends up, at the end of the night, slumped on the bar, like, passed out. Yeah. There are other regulars at Tony Marino's speakeasy who see Michael do this night after night, like 24-year-old undertaker Frances Pasqua and 29-year-old grocer Daniel Kreisberg.

• 48:03Karen Kilgariff?

  So on one night, late 1932, these two men, along with Tony Moreno, the owner, they get talking about their money troubles. And one of them pitches a diabolical idea. We should kill Michael Malloy and split the payout on his life insurance. While he's there sleeping? Yeah. Full voice. Yeah. As they're leaning on his back because he's passed out. No. Okay. And the person who pitched this idea was Tony, and that's because he'd done it before. Oh, dear. So we're talking about the 30s in, like, New York City. Yeah. Tough stuff. Yeah. People going through it, people, like, surviving by any means necessary.

• 48:43Karen Kilgariff?

  The year before, Tony started an affair with a woman named Mabel Carlson, who herself was down on her luck. We don't know how old she was. He convinced her to take out a life insurance policy and name him as the beneficiary. No. And as author Abbott Kayler reports, he, quote, "force-fed her alcohol, stripped off her clothing, doused the sheets and mattress with ice water, and pushed the bed beneath an open window." What? So Mabel died ostensibly of exposure and alcohol overdose, but her official cause of death was listed as pneumonia, suggesting she died a natural death. And Tony collected that payout. No questions asked. We should. Right? She just, this is, um, this is just a lady can't take care of herself.

• 49:28Karen Kilgariff?

  She left the window open because she's a drunk. That's awful. Yeah. And it's also awful because Tony's running this speakeasy with this shitty liquor. And basically going, well, who of these people that I am serving this liquor to can we take advantage of because they're addicted to it? Yeah. So this is the idea Tony pitches to these two guys, and they decide to make a plan. The plan is, let's do the exact same thing to Michael Malloy. Anyone can see Michael's not a healthy man. He is always drunk. He's lived a very hard, clearly, and very lonely life. Doesn't have a job or a permanent home. And he basically lives on the sardine sandwiches he makes at the speakeasy's bar cart, which actually is a real argument for tinned fish. Yeah.

• 50:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Because you've got those oils. Good. You've got those vitamins. But he also drinks an ungodly amount of very cheap alcohol. And so... They probably just rationalize killing him like, oh, it's almost better for him. Look at his terrible life. So basically Francis, Daniel and Tony, they just ask Michael Malloy if they can take out a life insurance policy on him. It's unclear if Michael is suspicious in any way, or if he's just blackout drunk. But he basically says, sure, go ahead.

• 50:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 50:43Karen Kilgariff?

  So Francis Pasqua, the undertaker, sets up meetings with different insurance agents, and he brings Michael with him. So it's like, I need to set up a thing for this guy. The insurers all smell a rat, and they all refuse to issue any policies.

• 51:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, it's also like, why would we give a policy to someone who isn't? A life insurance policy is to get someone money when they're like, when a person who's making money dies.

• 51:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, for the family and to cover the bills.

• 51:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, so if someone died, I get money.

• 51:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Hey, can I get this guy a? And they're just like, no, no thanks. So Francis, Daniel and Tony have to rework the plan. They decide they're going to set up more meetings with new insurance agents. This time, they're going to leave Michael Malloy at the bar, and they're going to get a friend, a friend of Francis's, who they falsely claim is a florist named Nicholas Mellory, to go. So it takes about five months, but Francis finally finds a few insurance agents who are willing to work with him. He gets three policies taken out on this Nicholas Mellory, who again is not real. Two of them are with Prudential Life Insurance, one's with Metropolitan Life Insurance.

• 51:55Karen Kilgariff?

  And if all goes according to plan, the three men will have around $3,500 to split between them.

• 52:02Georgia Hardstark?

  In 1930.

• 52:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Thirty-two.

• 52:04Georgia Hardstark?

  How much? Thirty-three, what'd you say?

• 52:06Karen Kilgariff?

  $3,500.

• 52:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Uh, I'm gonna go $11,000.

• 52:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Eighty-three thousand.

• 52:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Holy shit!

• 52:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes. So maybe it's because for them, it's so much money. They then pull in another co-conspirator. It's Tony's 28-year-old bartender, Joseph Murphy, who is willing to falsely state that he himself is Nicholas Mallory's next of kin when they have to identify the body. So they just start pulling people in on the plan. Yeah. All these men get together and they start having to discuss, how are we gonna kill Michael Malloy? They decide the cleanest option is to give him an open bar tab and let him drink himself to death. And then, once he's dead, they slip the fake ID into his pocket that says he's Nicholas Mallory. And then Joseph Murphy goes, identifies him as next of kin, and they get their life insurance money.

• 52:58Karen Kilgariff?

  When Tony Marino offers Malloy unlimited drinks at the speakeasy, he is over the moon, of course. Again, not at all suspicious. The first day of his open tab, he drinks an insane amount of liquor, enough that should incapacitate him, if not outright kill him. He just goes for it. Jesus. And he doesn't die. He doesn't even pass out. He douses drinks one after the other like it's nothing. And he just eventually says, "Goodnight," and walks out of the bar. Oh, my god. The four men, it's now four men, they are stunned. Michael comes back the next day. He's like, "It's open bar, open tab for me." He does it again. Can you imagine the hangover of shitty liquor? Like, a lot of it?

• 53:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Can you imagine being in a place where the hangover doesn't matter anymore? Like, it's just like... Drink through it? Yeah. Probably never stop being drunk. Yeah. Just keep going. Yeah. Yeah, I've done that. The next day, he does it again. He binges this insane amount of liquor, says, "Thanks, everybody. Goodnight," leaves. No, nothing happens. Then, when he returns the next day, he only puts his glass down to walk over to the snack cart and make himself a sardine sandwich. Then, the day after that, he walks into Tony's speakeasy and announces, quote, "Boy, ain't I got a thirst." Oh, yeah. So, he's just stoked. Yeah. Is all positive. And this really is, speaks to the power of positive thinking.

• 54:26Karen Kilgariff?

  If you're enjoying yourself, you know, anything is possible. Yeah. Obviously Francis, Daniel, Tony and Joseph need a new plan. And they decide they're just going to swap out Michael's drinks with methanol, wood alcohol, which you were talking about before. It's the kind that's used as paint thinner. I mean, yeah, right. Right. Yeah. So of course it's not fit for human consumption and in large quantities, it could blind you or kill you. And that's what they used to make bathtub gin with. They would mix real gin with that to kind of be the like, cut it with it. Yeah, like the baby aspirin and the cocaine kind of a thing. Uh huh. So the bartender Joseph goes out and he buys a few cans of wood alcohol at the paint shop for 10 cents a pop.

• 55:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Michael comes back into the bar. Joseph starts by serving him real shots of liquor. But by shots two, three, four, and so on, it's just straight wood grain alcohol. Michael doesn't even seem to notice. He downs several drinks without so much as a shudder. And then he keeps ordering more and more and more. They do take a toll though. He eventually passes out. He falls to the ground. Francis is sitting at a table watching all of this. He walks over when Michael's body hits the ground. He checks his pulse. He checks his breathing. They're both slow and labored, so the guys just wait and they stand there staring at him, thinking he's dying. But then Michael starts snoring.

• 55:54Karen Kilgariff?

  So he wakes up a few hours later and asks for another drink. Oh, God. Mm hmm. Poor guy. So the men realize, we need a new plan. Francis, who's the undertaker, thinks back to a body that he handled once, of a man who had died after eating bad oysters while drinking wood alcohol. And so the guys try to replicate this death by serving Michael a plate of oysters that had been marinating in straight methanol. Ew. Gross. Yeah. Michael gobbles them up and asks for more. Fuck. He thinks they're great. At this point Francis, Daniel, Tony and Joseph are getting mad. They're like. This man is, they basically become kind of sadistic. One afternoon, they serve a very drunk Michael a sardine sandwich packed with carpet

• 56:39Karen Kilgariff?

  tacks and broken glass. What? Thinking if he's not noticing the wood grain alcohol, then maybe he'll just eat this. Oh, my God. That's like desperation at this point. Yeah, they're, they are desperate. What the fuck? And they're like, OK, he'll eat this, it'll tear up his organs. Michael eats it without complaint. Joseph will later say that Michael, quote, "ate it and liked it." By this point, the men are at a loss, and it seems like they're pretty vocal about this frustration because they start pulling more and more co-conspirators into the plan. Most of these guys are shady neighborhood types. They're not particularly bright. They have petty criminal backgrounds. And it includes a guy named Johnny McNally.

• 57:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Another's named Joseph Maglioni, who goes by the nickname Tin Ear because he has an artificial ear. Is that what we're gonna get for our 10 year anniversary? Oh. A tin ear. I would love a tin ear. Cute. Georgia, don't ruin our surprise. Oh. You fit it right on to your old ear because he has an artificial ear. Another named Tough Tony Bastoni because he's super nice to everybody. Ah. Uh, that's a joke. He's probably pretty tough. OK. And altogether, these guys, they'll eventually be dubbed the Murder Trust in the press, which, for simplicity, we can call them now, so I don't have to name every single guy every time. So, one night in December of 1932, the Murder Trust gets together to figure out how to

• 58:03Karen Kilgariff?

  kill Michael Malloy, once and for all. They can't keep doing what they're doing. The drinking for free is costing Tony and his speakeasy a lot of money that he doesn't have to spare, on top of all the other costs, like the wood alcohol, the oysters, and also a month has passed since they took out the life insurance policies. Right. So now the first premium payment are due. Yeah, they're spending money on this. They're spending a lot of money that nobody has. Right. It's like, the problem starts that we don't have any money. Right. So now it's like chasing good money after bad. Figuring out how to move forward isn't easy, though, because now there's eight men pitching ideas. And it's chaos. And it's chaos filled with very, very dumb ideas.

• 58:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, my God. Like tax in a fucking sardine sandwich? Tax in a sardine sandwich was like one of the good ones. Again, that made it all the way to, like, production. So at one point, one of the men suggests they shoot Michael. But then he's reminded that it needs to look like a natural death so they get the payout. Right. So once again. And natural shooting? Just a very natural one. Look, it's natural here in New York City. Once again, it's Francis Pasqua who decides what route they'll take. The men basically look back to how Tony killed Mabel Carlson. They get him drunk, he blacks out, throw him into the car. They get him out, they throw him into the park, strip him down, put him on a park bench, dump water all over him, and leave.

• 59:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Jesus. The next morning, none other than Michael Malloy shows up at Tony Marino's speakeasy. Oh, my God. He's a little worse for wear. He is very cold and he can't remember how he wound up outside the night before, but he's basically fine. The murder trust regroups again. And they decide they're going to run Michael over with a car this time. They're going to try to make it look like a hidden run. So they pull in yet another co-conspirator, a 24-year-old cab driver named Harry Green, who agrees to do the job for $150, which is worth how much in today's money? $1,000? $3,700. You say that as if I'm anywhere close. Appreciate you.

• 1:00:17Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm just trying to support you. I appreciate it. Because I love this game. I hate it. I'm never even close. So at this speakeasy, Joseph gets Michael blackout drunk again. Then some of the murder trust guys take Michael's body to a nearby road where there's not a lot of traffic. They put a Nicholas Mallory fake ID card in his pocket, lay him down on the road, and Harry Green hits Michael with the taxi before reversing backwards over the body. Oy. Harry and the murder trust men flee the scene. The next morning, No. they pore over that day's newspaper. They're looking for the reports of a fatal hit and run. Nothing's there. Joseph Murphy, who is supposed to be the one that poses as Nicholas Mallory's next

• 1:01:01Karen Kilgariff?

  of kin, starts calling around to local hospitals and more, asking if anyone has seen his missing brother Nicholas. No one matches the name or description. So now the murder trust guys are losing it because they think they've finally done it. They have no proof of Nicholas Mallory's death to show their insurers, which means they can't claim the payout. So they're like stuck in this weird middle realm. Limbo? A limbo, some might say. And as they're freaking out about what they're gonna do, they start talking about, should they just get rid of this whole idea about Michael Malloy and just kill a random drunk who happens to walk into the speakeasy and just use that body as Nicholas Mallory? Right.

• 1:01:44Karen Kilgariff?

  But five days after running Michael over and before they can make good on the new plan, Michael waltzes into Tony's speakeasy, limping and bandaged, but ready for a drink. It's like, I know not everyone should procreate, you know, like me, but this guy, Should. has those genes on. Superhuman. You're superhuman. And also, what a great attitude. Truly. What a kind of like- Try, try again. I'm gonna go see my friends. Yeah. So sad. Incredibly not long after being run over, Michael was discovered by a cop. Oh. He was still clinging to life, lying in a nearby ditch. He was taken to a hospital where he was diagnosed with a concussion, a fractured skull, and a fractured shoulder.

• 1:02:27Karen Kilgariff?

  After he's stabilized and discharged, he came straight back to Tony's, still completely unaware that these were the people that did it. Poor guy, like, go to a new bar. Oh, he's like- Or stop drinking. Why, there's sandwiches. That's true. Sandwiches and free drinks? Yeah. And he has absolutely no memory of being hit by a car. Sure. The, I'm sorry to say, upside of being a drunk.

• 1:02:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:50Karen Kilgariff?

  It's those details, don't, you know what it is, though? They come later in the night.

• 1:02:54Georgia Hardstark?

  They come back?

• 1:02:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. All of a sudden, you're like, laying there like, wait, what? You've never had that? Where they come as like weird little flashes?

• 1:03:03Georgia Hardstark?

  My blackouts are blacked out for life.

• 1:03:05Karen Kilgariff?

  That's nice.

• 1:03:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, it is.

• 1:03:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Blacked out for life. I had one where like, the next day, I was like, that was so fun at the bar last night. And then it was like, it looked like a Polaroid picture of this guy that I liked going like this.

• 1:03:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 1:03:19Karen Kilgariff?

  And I was like, oh no, I tried to kiss him. I tried to kiss him and he was like, no, no, no.

• 1:03:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, God. Like slowly, like a Polaroid slowly developing in front of your face.

• 1:03:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Wait a second.

• 1:03:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Whose face is that?

• 1:03:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Why is, why is that look on his face? Ooh.

• 1:03:34Georgia Hardstark?

  No, mine are gone, thank fucking God. Until Vince tells them to me and I'm like, don't talk to me about this.

• 1:03:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Now it's his fault. It's his fault.

• 1:03:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Don't talk to me. I did not. No, I didn't.

• 1:03:44Karen Kilgariff?

  No, I didn't, that's not true. Okay. So now the murder trust guys are in deep. They have insurance premiums due. And now they have a personal extra grind with Michael Malloy. Cause they're that kind of guy. So they pivot again. They decide to rent out an apartment in Nicholas Mallory's name where basically it's a few blocks from the speakeasy. Of course, it has gas nozzles, gas hookups for the lighting fixtures. On February 23rd, 1933, which is three months into this whole ordeal, they give Michael Malloy wood alcohol at the speakeasy until he blacks out. They carry him to this apartment, lock him inside, open up those gas nozzles.

• 1:04:27Karen Kilgariff?

  And this is what finally kills Michael Malloy.

• 1:04:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Aye, aye.

• 1:04:32Karen Kilgariff?

  When they go back to make sure he's dead, Francis Pasqua asks a specific Bronx doctor, who he knows through his business as an undertaker, to show up at the apartment and claim Michael, who is now Nicholas Mallory, has died of pneumonia. And in exchange for that, Francis promises this doctor a hundred dollars of the increasingly spoken for insurance payout.

• 1:04:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Three thousand.

• 1:04:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Twenty-four hundred.

• 1:04:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Damn it.

• 1:04:56Karen Kilgariff?

  That was pretty close. But just one day after murdering Michael Malloy, the murder trust guys bury his body in a cheap box in a pauper's grave. A day after that, Francis shows up to the respective insurance office asking for the payout. Metropolitan Life gives him $800, which is...

• 1:05:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Which is four, five, seven, 20,000.

• 1:05:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, 20,000.

• 1:05:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Shut the fuck up!

• 1:05:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Four, five, 20,000 in today's money. But the prudential agents are extremely suspicious.

• 1:05:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Like, they care more than the cops do about this. You know, they have literally more to lose.

• 1:05:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, it's all about money, baby. And they want to see the body. So Francis tells them that won't be possible. Nicholas Mallory has already been buried. So now the insurers are launching an investigation. So this is very bad news for the murder trust, of course. But they internally are having problems. They only have $800 from Metropolitan that they're divvying up among 10 people at this point. And that isn't going well. They're fighting. Some people are demanding more money than others. The whole thing is descending into serious chaos. And of course, it bubbles over into physical violence.

• 1:06:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Joseph Maglione whips out a gun and shoots Tough Tony Bastoni in the speakeasy.

• 1:06:20Georgia Hardstark?

  In his speakeasy?

• 1:06:21Karen Kilgariff?

  In the speakeasy, yeah. No, it's not his speakeasy.

• 1:06:24Georgia Hardstark?

  No, I know, I know. I meant like, he shoots him in the speakeasy. And like, where's that on your body? You know, like the breadbasket?

• 1:06:30Karen Kilgariff?

  It's the soft room, or whatever the British call it. When the cops arrive, they arrest Maglione. But they also take Joseph Murphy into custody as a material witness to Tough Tony's murder.

• 1:06:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, Tony dies.

• 1:06:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Tough Tony dies. So at the time, these cops are oblivious that these guys are wrapped up in the murder of Michael Malloy. They don't even know who Michael Malloy is yet. But they start chatting with regulars at the speakeasy while investigating the Tough Tony shooting. And those interviewees start to tell them everything. Because this is just a room full of drunks, eating sandwiches, and going to the bathroom.

• 1:07:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Don't go to the bathroom behind a curtain, a bead curtain. Definitely not washing their hands afterwards.

• 1:07:15Karen Kilgariff?

  No, no, no. Where?

• 1:07:17Georgia Hardstark?

  The toilet.

• 1:07:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, no. Yeah, it's a room full of drunks.

• 1:07:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, it's rough. So it turns out, these witnesses know so much because they've either overheard these guys talking at the bar, because when you're drunk, you're too loud.

• 1:07:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Uh huh.

• 1:07:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Shh, shh, shh, shh. Or they were approached about joining

• 1:07:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:37Karen Kilgariff?

  the conspiracy by the murder trust, but they weren't interested, or maybe they were just a drunk that had some ethics and were like, no, I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to kill anybody. I just want to drink at a bar.

• 1:07:47Georgia Hardstark?

  No, thank you. I just want a fucking sardine sandwich.

• 1:07:49Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, do you mind?

• 1:07:50Georgia Hardstark?

  God, but then they kept going to that bar. Like, that's weird.

• 1:07:53Karen Kilgariff?

  There weren't that many.

• 1:07:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, right.

• 1:07:55Karen Kilgariff?

  It was like they had, you had to find one to go to.

• 1:07:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Right, right, I would let you in.

• 1:07:59Karen Kilgariff?

  You had to know the password.

• 1:08:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, you're right. Okay, I hear you.

• 1:08:01Karen Kilgariff?

  You had to be into going to the bathroom in public. My grandma had a beaded curtain in between her kitchen and like the living room.

• 1:08:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 1:08:10Karen Kilgariff?

  And there was, it was like the beginning of my days of loving, I was, go through it and be like, ring. It just felt so.

• 1:08:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Like a fucking, like you were on stage.

• 1:08:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, like glamorous.

• 1:08:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Action.

• 1:08:21Karen Kilgariff?

  So there's, so just me picturing that when it was like, wait, what?

• 1:08:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Just.

• 1:08:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Hi, everybody. I went to the bathroom. Also, could you imagine what it smelled like in this fucking place?

• 1:08:32Georgia Hardstark?

  The hand washing thing.

• 1:08:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Hand washing.

• 1:08:34Georgia Hardstark?

  That was part of that.

• 1:08:35Karen Kilgariff?

  No door, sardines.

• 1:08:36Georgia Hardstark?

  The smell of old drunk person's piss. Was, and like the aim had to be so bad.

• 1:08:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, no.

• 1:08:44Georgia Hardstark?

  The aim.

• 1:08:44Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean.

• 1:08:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay. Let me read this paper.

• 1:08:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Would you please talk about smells?

• 1:08:50Karen Kilgariff?

  One witness knows the ins and outs of all these plans so well, simply from hanging out there, he can point officers to the exact spot where Michael Malloy was buried.

• 1:09:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 1:09:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Just from overhearing it. So in May, literally, seriously, if you do anything in this life, please keep your voice down.

• 1:09:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Shut the fuck up.

• 1:09:08Karen Kilgariff?

  Just truly.

• 1:09:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:09Karen Kilgariff?

  If you gotta talk, whisper.

• 1:09:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:11Karen Kilgariff?

  There's nothing wrong with it.

• 1:09:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Someone's always listening. That's what you need to assume at all times.

• 1:09:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Why not?

• 1:09:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Like here.

• 1:09:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Like here, right now. It's as if microphones are on you at all times.

• 1:09:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Um, okay.

• 1:09:21Karen Kilgariff?

  In May 1933, which is a month or so after Michael was killed, his body is exhumed, and a pathologist determines that he has died of carbon monoxide poisoning, not pneumonia. At this point, investigators have also heard about Tony's scheme involving Mabel Carlson. Her body is exhumed, and while it's unclear if her cause of death is ever formally reclassified, investigators do establish clear similarities between her and Michael's cases.

• 1:09:48Karen Kilgariff?

  It doesn't seem like anyone's ever charged in Mabel's death. Poor woman. It's hard to suss out, though. Yeah. Yeah. So by now, the police have enough information to arrest the murder trust gang. Tony Marino, Francis Pasqua, Daniel Kreisberg, bartender Joseph Murphy, cab driver Harry Green, all charged with first degree murder. Their trials begin in October of 1933. It's all wrapped up in two weeks. Most of the men are sentenced to death, with Harry Green avoiding the death penalty and instead going to Sing Sing for several years on a felonious assault conviction. That's the cab driver. Yes. He came in like, very late in the game.

• 1:10:28Karen Kilgariff?

  So, this is a horrible story that is just odd beating, but ultimately incredibly tragic and horrible. But if there is a silver lining, it's the enduring legacy of Michael Malloy himself. Because despite the actions of the men who conspired to murder him and saw no value in his life, the country at large comes to feel very differently about him. Because of course, this story is so crazy. It gets national coverage across the United States. Readers learn of the so-called durable barfly who just wouldn't die, and they find it weirdly inspiring. It's the Great Depression. Yeah. And it's like, everything's coming at you. They come at you with everything, and you get back up. Wow. And that idea of people-

• 1:11:12Karen Kilgariff?

  It's like an inspirational fucking story. Yeah, yeah. Oh my god. So, over time, Michael Malloy's name has stuck around in the zeitgeist, earning one colorful nickname after the other. Iron Mike, the Rasputin of the Bronx, and even the man who wouldn't die. These names might come as a surprise to the people who bumped into Michael Malloy during his life, but as writer Simon Reed has put it, quote, "He arrived to the United States in obscurity and lived in anonymity, but through death, he would achieve cult immortality." That's the story of the ill-fated battle to murder Michael Malloy. Wow. Isn't that fucking nuts? Yeah. Carpet tacks and broken glass.

• 1:11:56Georgia Hardstark?

  And sardines aren't great either.

• 1:11:58Karen Kilgariff?

  And sardines, and still, the answer is no, I will not die.

• 1:12:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Amazing. And kept a positive attitude about it, too, like it seems like.

• 1:12:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Kept a drunken attitude about it.

• 1:12:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Walked right back into that bar.

• 1:12:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Open tab, I'm coming back tomorrow.

• 1:12:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:12Karen Kilgariff?

  I still know the password.

• 1:12:13Georgia Hardstark?

  I still want a sandwich. That's amazing.

• 1:12:16Karen Kilgariff?

  I know.

• 1:12:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Great job.

• 1:12:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Wild.

• 1:12:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 1:12:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Kind of a nice inspirational way for us to start off 2026.

• 1:12:22Georgia Hardstark?

  That's right.

• 1:12:22Karen Kilgariff?

  It's gonna be a little later in the year for other people, but.

• 1:12:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Right. Yeah, well, you know, you can start it whenever you want, like Dry January, you can start whenever you want.

• 1:12:29Karen Kilgariff?

  That's very true. And also, Chinese New Year is coming up, so.

• 1:12:33Georgia Hardstark?

  That's right.

• 1:12:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Do it then.

• 1:12:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Should we think of a new way to end the episode's 10 year or 2026? Or like, what do you think?

• 1:12:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 1:12:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Um, all right. Well, come back next week, you guys, because the 10 year anniversary is gonna be full of surprises. I'm gonna wear tinfoil.

• 1:12:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes. Tinfoil dresses, briefcases.

• 1:12:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Do you have one?

• 1:12:53Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, I don't know if it qualifies, because I can't remember, did we say we had to get them at thrift stores?

• 1:12:58Georgia Hardstark?

  No, but they're vintage. I think we did, but who fucking cares at this point?

• 1:13:02Karen Kilgariff?

  I got mine at Marshalls, that's all I'm saying.

• 1:13:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh. Okay, so how are we doing this? We're just presenting each other with, hey, look, here's my.

• 1:13:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, I guess we have to figure out the whole idea. We talked about it so long ago, to me. It feels like we literally talked about this in the summertime.

• 1:13:17Georgia Hardstark?

  No, we did. Before that, probably. Before that. I had a uterus last time we talked about this. That's how fucking long it's been. Uh, what do you, how should we end this? Like, on a positive note somehow? Like, tell us, hey, everyone, tell us what you were doing. Oh, we were doing that. Tell us what you're doing 10 years ago and what you're doing now.

• 1:13:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, yeah, that's right. We were asking people, we've, no, we have changed and what we have gone through and grown. There's a lot of people that, when they write in, they kind of tell us at the end if they have like mini-soad stories.

• 1:13:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Where it's like, when I first started listening, I was in college, I did this, now I'm, you know, a doctor.

• 1:13:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:53Karen Kilgariff?

  We've heard, and/or anything in between.

• 1:13:55Georgia Hardstark?

  We should read some of those next week for our 10 year anniversary.

• 1:13:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:58Georgia Hardstark?

  And we're gonna have a special guest, too, that we won't, but I'll surprise you.

• 1:14:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, yes. A very exciting special guest. So if you want to tell us your 10 year arc of being a murderino, we would love to hear it.

• 1:14:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Go [email protected] or just comment on our. Instagram or just DM us on Instagram or emails.

• 1:14:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, there's lots of different ways to do it.

• 1:14:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:17Karen Kilgariff?

  You, you can figure it out.

• 1:14:18Georgia Hardstark?

  And oh, let's, how about you dress your pet up in tinfoil to send us photos of your

• 1:14:22Karen Kilgariff?

  No, I stand against that. I will quit.

• 1:14:25Georgia Hardstark?

  You know, Elvis was so afraid of tinfoil that we would put it around the Christmas tree so he wouldn't go.

• 1:14:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Climb it?

• 1:14:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes. Tinfoil and bananas. He hated both. So we would circle the Christmas tree with tinfoil and bananas.

• 1:14:39Karen Kilgariff?

  That's hilarious.

• 1:14:40Georgia Hardstark?

  That was very cute.

• 1:14:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, that's full circle.

• 1:14:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:43Karen Kilgariff?

  I think we just should end it, stay sexy.

• 1:14:45Georgia Hardstark?

  And don't get murdered.

• 1:14:46Karen Kilgariff?

  That's all we can do.

• 1:14:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Really?

• 1:14:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye.

• 1:14:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Elvis, do you want a cookie?

• 1:14:58Georgia Hardstark?

  This has been an Exactly Right Production. Our senior producer is Molly Smith and our associate producer is Tessa Hughes. Our editor is Aristotle Lasevedo. This episode was mixed by Liana Scolacci. Our researchers are Mary McGlashan and Ali Elkin. Email your hometowns to [email protected]. And follow the show on Instagram at MyFavoriteMurder. Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Or you can watch us on YouTube. Search for My Favorite Murder, then like and subscribe.

• 1:15:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye.

• 1:15:34Speaker 03

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