Rewind with Karen & Georgia - 109: Project Artichoke

It's time to Rewind with Karen & Georgia! This week, K & G recap Episode 109: Project Artichoke. Georgia discussed the mysterious death of nurse Cindy James and Karen covered the McStay family murders. Tune in for all-new commentary, case updates and more! Whether you've listened a thousand times or you're new to the show, join the conversation as we look back on our old episodes and discuss the life lessons we’ve learned along the way. 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 Now with updated sources and photos: https://www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. The Exactly Right podcast network provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics, including true crime, comedy, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more. 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.

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• 1:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Hello.

• 1:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Hello.

• 1:50Karen Kilgariff?

  And welcome.

• 1:50Georgia Hardstark?

  To Rewind with Karen and Georgia.

• 1:52Karen Kilgariff?

  This is that show where we recap our early episodes with new case info and old feelings.

• 1:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Today, we're rewinding to episode 109, which we named Project Artichoke.

• 2:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Hell, yes. This episode came out on February 22, 2018.

• 2:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Let's listen to the intro of episode 109.

• 2:28Georgia Hardstark?

  What'd you say?

• 2:29Karen Kilgariff?

  My favorite murder.

• 2:30Georgia Hardstark?

  This is mine.

• 2:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Love podcast.

• 2:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Thanks, everybody.

• 2:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Hey, we decided to start with song every episode.

• 2:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Do you like light jazz? So do we.

• 2:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 2:45Karen Kilgariff?

  It's getting more uncomfortable at the top of the show.

• 2:48Georgia Hardstark?

  The more, the longer we do it. Every time I hear our intros as we're doing them, I think of the person in a car with her friend who's like, "You have to listen to this podcast. Just please listen to it, Mom. You're gonna love it."

• 3:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 3:04Georgia Hardstark?

  And then the opening comes in and it's like, it gets better. It gets better.

• 3:08Karen Kilgariff?

  They do this all the time.

• 3:09Georgia Hardstark?

  They are always, it's like funny because it's always so uncomfortable.

• 3:12Karen Kilgariff?

  It's funny because it's so bad you don't want to listen to it. And that's what they call irony, Mom.

• 3:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Mom, stop judging me.

• 3:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Mom, stop gripping the steering wheel like that.

• 3:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Can I tell you a mom story?

• 3:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Please.

• 3:25Georgia Hardstark?

  I, in the ongoing saga of my relationship with, my lifetime relationship with my mother.

• 3:30Karen Kilgariff?

  It's always for life with those women.

• 3:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Forever.

• 3:35Karen Kilgariff?

  They're just there all, every holiday.

• 3:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my God.

• 3:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Until they're not.

• 3:41Georgia Hardstark?

  That's so depressing. My mom's mom lived to be 104, so I've got a fucking while to go. Yeah.

• 3:48Karen Kilgariff?

  That's really heartening.

• 3:50Georgia Hardstark?

  So I told her, I sent out an email to my family. I'm like, "Hey, we're playing the Orpheum, you know, in March in LA. And you guys, I want you to come." It's like a big fucking deal, you know?

• 3:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 4:00Georgia Hardstark?

  It's like LA hometown show.

• 4:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Thank you.

• 4:02Georgia Hardstark?

  The Orpheum's a gorgeous theater. I'm like excited.

• 4:05Karen Kilgariff?

  It's so good.

• 4:05Georgia Hardstark?

  And my dad wrote back, "Oh, I'll be there, you know, with plus five." You know, this person, "Of course, we're gonna go." And then my mom wrote back, literally, this is all she wrote. "What time?"

• 4:17Georgia Hardstark?

  No, I'm saying, "What time?" Because it was a question mark. "What time?"

• 4:22Karen Kilgariff?

  What time period?

• 4:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. "What time?" I'm saying it as it was written.

• 4:28Karen Kilgariff?

  That, and you know that was her inflection. You know that was her.

• 4:31Georgia Hardstark?

  And I know that's how 71-year-olds write emails.

• 4:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 4:34Georgia Hardstark?

  You know what I mean? Like, they don't.

• 4:36Karen Kilgariff?

  It's just get any letter out that you can and hit send.

• 4:39Georgia Hardstark?

  This was coming from a woman too, who went to fucking DC for like a trip and called and left a voicemail and said, "I won't have long distance, so call John if you need anything."

• 4:52Karen Kilgariff?

  How was she getting a hold of you?

• 4:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Long distance isn't a thing anymore.

• 4:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Did she mean cellular service?

• 4:58Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't think, no, I don't think she knows that everyone has long distance. Like, that's a thing. It's, this isn't a fucking 10-10-3-2-1 anymore.

• 5:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Mom, I'm calling you on a calling card, so I have to make this quick. I only have seven minutes left. Oh, Jan.

• 5:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Janet.

• 5:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Janet, come on.

• 5:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Standing ovation at the Orpheum. If she goes, if it's not past her fucking bedtime.

• 5:21Karen Kilgariff?

  What time?

• 5:22Georgia Hardstark?

  What time?

• 5:23Karen Kilgariff?

  What she, I think really what she was saying is, "Please, Georgia, when you communicate with the family, get really specific."

• 5:29Georgia Hardstark?

  I think so too.

• 5:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Just let's get organized in these emails.

• 5:31Georgia Hardstark?

  So it's my fault?

• 5:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. That you're playing the Orpheum. "Hey, guys, we're playing the Orpheum on March 16. Hopefully, you can come. It's not sold out, is it?"

• 5:40Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't know. They released some tickets, so it might not be completely, I don't know.

• 5:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Hey, look, I mean, if you're interested, look into it. I don't know.

• 5:48Georgia Hardstark?

  You don't have, I mean, do your thing.

• 5:49Karen Kilgariff?

  We feel like you've given us enough already.

• 5:53Georgia Hardstark?

  We don't want to make you do anything. My family on the other hand needs to fucking be there.

• 5:56Karen Kilgariff?

  They need to step up.

• 5:57Georgia Hardstark?

  What have they done for me?

• 5:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Now, you know that my father, actually, my sister called me on this, along the same line, and my father called her and said, when he heard we were playing the Orpheum, said, "Let's go down and be there for that show." So my sister's like, "Oh, my God, Dad wants to come down." It's a big deal because his hip's all screwed up, so he walks like an orangutan.

• 6:17Georgia Hardstark?

  I get it.

• 6:18Karen Kilgariff?

  You've seen it. So then, my sister's like, "So I think we're gonna come down." And she, my sister's getting all excited or whatever. And then I said, "That all sounds great. You know, we'll, we'll make it all work for Dad." And I said, "But you do know that we're coming up, back up to San Francisco in the fall." And the second I sent the message of, "There's a possibility, this is, this won't be the last show that you possibly could come to."

• 6:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 6:40Karen Kilgariff?

  My dad goes, "Oh, forget it." Just immediately, immediately bails on the plan.

• 6:45Georgia Hardstark?

  I want him to come because it'll be like, our families are there.

• 6:48Karen Kilgariff?

  I know.

• 6:48Georgia Hardstark?

  And then Marty and your dad could hang out.

• 6:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, my God, my dad will just shout over Marty's head.

• 6:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Can we talk about our double date with your dad?

• 6:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Please. One of the most romantic evenings that I've experienced in a while.

• 7:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Fucking, he was down here and Karen, sheepishly one of those, "You don't have to do it. It's totally fine if you don't want to." And like, I know it's weird and it's a big, "Do you guys want to go to dinner?" And Vince and I, of course, like, "Yes."

• 7:13Karen Kilgariff?

  It felt like we had just gotten off, like a nine-day tour together. Where I was like, "Hey, how about you make more plans with me?"

• 7:19Georgia Hardstark?

  "No, you guys don't want to see me in also another Kilgariff, but please come."

• 7:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Please come.

• 7:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my God, it was the best. We went to fucking Fancy Pants.

• 7:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Mousson Franks.

• 7:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Which was like, the fanciest thing.

• 7:30Karen Kilgariff?

  My dad is a-

• 7:31Georgia Hardstark?

  It's like always a special occasion.

• 7:32Karen Kilgariff?

  He's obsessed with Mousson Franks.

• 7:33Georgia Hardstark?

  I love it.

• 7:34Karen Kilgariff?

  He, we went there, he also has great memories because we went there, I think it might have been 15 years ago. And I was with some of my friends, one of whom was my friend Kevin Sessha, who decided he was gonna drink whiskey neat as his drink. So everyone else was ordering beer and wine or whatever, and he orders, he basically orders a double shot of whiskey. And my dad goes, "Jesus, do you have a gunfight in the morning?" And then that was like legend for a while.

• 8:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my God.

• 8:03Karen Kilgariff?

  And when my dad said, "Make the reservation, I want to go to," he kept joking about it where I'm like, "Dad, if you actually want to go to Mousson Franks, we can." He's like, "Well, I would like to go there." And then he goes, "Remember, we went there and your friend was drinking all that whiskey?" I was like, "Yeah." For someone who drinks that as much as my dad does, it really stood out to him that my friends were doing whiskey shots.

• 8:24Georgia Hardstark?

  You love it.

• 8:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Little did he know that that's all I drank constantly.

• 8:27Georgia Hardstark?

  It was the best. It was so good. And I'm like, meeting someone's dad and like, "This is why you're this way." Like, not even like, he didn't do anything or say, he said some funny shit, but like, just to be like, "Oh, this is what we're raised by. Okay, this is good to know."

• 8:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 8:44Georgia Hardstark?

  And then I could see you getting embarrassed when he said certain things, he did certain things that I didn't give a shit about.

• 8:49Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, there was points where he was talking directly over Georgia. Like, Georgia would go, "Duh, duh, duh." And he would just, well, and then I finally real, and I was mortified and I realized, oh, he can't hear her. Because-

• 9:01Georgia Hardstark?

  It was really loud in the restaurant.

• 9:03Karen Kilgariff?

  My dad has such bad fireman hearing that if you have to have a-

• 9:07Georgia Hardstark?

  No, it's over 70-year-old hearing.

• 9:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, it's over, but, but also all the bells. That's why he started telling you guys that story of all the bells going in all the houses every time there was a fire. That's how the, that's how the bell system was set up in the firehouses in San Francisco. So he, the bells just were going off all day long in their ears.

• 9:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, I see what you're saying.

• 9:26Karen Kilgariff?

  So they basically, like, all of hearing damage from like 60s to the 80s or whenever they put in their new system.

• 9:31Georgia Hardstark?

  But like, I get it. You said it's, you were like so embarrassed about it, and I don't care and totally understood what was going on.

• 9:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, it just, I didn't want you to think he was a blowhard because he's really not. But he just kept starting conversations because he didn't look at Georgia. Like, he would start it and look up and Georgia would be like, "Oh," like you were trying to ask him a question.

• 9:52Georgia Hardstark?

  I loved it. I just can't sit in silence.

• 9:55Karen Kilgariff?

  There wasn't much.

• 9:56Georgia Hardstark?

  There wasn't. It was actually, it was really, really fun.

• 9:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 9:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Vince and I adored him.

• 10:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay, good.

• 10:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Adored him.

• 10:02Karen Kilgariff?

  He's really is like an American classic and just a good time.

• 10:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 10:07Karen Kilgariff?

  There are a few people that don't have fun with Jim Kilgariff.

• 10:09Georgia Hardstark?

  No, Jim is our favorite.

• 10:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Unless you wear a Keep America, uh, Make America Great Again hat, and then he'll tell you to take it fucking off.

• 10:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, then, your dad and my dad are not going to get along.

• 10:20Karen Kilgariff?

  We'll just make a no hats rule.

• 10:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 10:22Karen Kilgariff?

  And everybody will be fine.

• 10:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, great.

• 10:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Do you have any?

• 10:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, yeah. It's the Corrections Corner that has needed to happen since the moment the last episode dropped.

• 10:33Georgia Hardstark?

  You've practiced it twice so far because-

• 10:36Karen Kilgariff?

  It's so unfair.

• 10:37Georgia Hardstark?

  You practiced it twice at the Salt Lake City shows over the weekend, which were fucking awesome and fun. And thank you, Salt Lake City.

• 10:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Thank you, Salt Lake City.

• 10:44Georgia Hardstark?

  So much fun.

• 10:45Karen Kilgariff?

  What an amazing weekend. We had already just had so much fun in Cleveland and Columbus. Like, we were just- every show is so fun.

• 10:53Georgia Hardstark?

  And it was like our last shows on tour-

• 10:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 10:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Until Europe. And it was just, it was great.

• 10:58Karen Kilgariff?

  It was so fun. It was so gorgeous in that city.

• 11:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 11:02Karen Kilgariff?

  So, but the interesting thing was, the, we actually did a show Thursday night, which we almost never do. So, the episode had dropped that day. So, we were real time with the podcast.

• 11:13Georgia Hardstark?

  So weird.

• 11:14Karen Kilgariff?

  So, I got to do basically a real time, hours later Corrections Corner, explaining that, yes, in fact, the reason that Georgia had, didn't hear about the tree tremor murder, the Matthew Hoffman guy that had all the leaves in his living room and that creepy story.

• 11:29Georgia Hardstark?

  That had happened in November. And I was like, how did I not hear about this?

• 11:32Karen Kilgariff?

  And I was like, you know why you haven't heard about it? Because it's so fresh off the presses. Well, actually, and in truth, it had happened in 2010, in November of 2010. So, I was eight years off, and that's why you hadn't heard of it. And I, I actually went and looked at the, thank God I still had the article on my, like, reading tab. And I opened it up, like, I bet you this is one of those articles that has a current date, but then they're re-quoting. There's some lie I made up to myself.

• 12:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 12:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Nope, right there. It was, it was, the article was from 2011, reporting back a couple of months before.

• 12:10Georgia Hardstark?

  You think one time you put in 2017 on accident and it came?

• 12:14Karen Kilgariff?

  No, it's purely, I wanted it to be, I wanted it to have just happened.

• 12:18Georgia Hardstark?

  We were so excited, like, this fresh murder, like, we always do old shit. It's gonna be, like, exciting.

• 12:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes. And I feel like with the way the Murderino community is, with the way people tell us stuff, the way Twitter is, if there was, like, it just felt like, to me, like, I had stumbled upon a thing that I found first, which is insanity, when you think about, like, how quickly those stories go up on the Facebook page, or how quickly people share things.

• 12:44Georgia Hardstark?

  One person will, like, will, like, tweet us about it, and then you just won't hear about it again. So, I could see that.

• 12:49Karen Kilgariff?

  I just think I got so obsessed with those leaves that everything else kind of went faded out around it.

• 12:54Georgia Hardstark?

  It was pretty fucking great. I mean, that was, it was great. Either way, it was great.

• 12:58Karen Kilgariff?

  It was a fun experience. Um-

• 13:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Sorry, you have to, you had to-

• 13:02Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm done apologizing for it. This is the third time, third and final. I fucking did it live to everybody.

• 13:08Georgia Hardstark?

  And we never talk about it again. We're taking that episode down.

• 13:10Karen Kilgariff?

  We're gonna take it down.

• 13:11Georgia Hardstark?

  It's the last episode. Steven, Steven accidentally deleted it. Oh, no.

• 13:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. So, I hope everyone's happy. But now, you know, I'll be better at checking dates. And everybody, it was really funny, the people who did post on Twitter were trying to be so tactful and light about it.

• 13:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 13:28Karen Kilgariff?

  It was like, um, so, I don't want to be this person, but you're a fucking decade off friend. It was just like, ugh, man.

• 13:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, it happens.

• 13:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Can't get it right.

• 13:39Georgia Hardstark?

  I wanted to shout, to shout out, oh, God, what am I, a fucking DJ?

• 13:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, you are.

• 13:45Georgia Hardstark?

  I am.

• 13:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Didn't you know?

• 13:46Georgia Hardstark?

  I didn't know.

• 13:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Mm-hmm. You're JJ Jackson.

• 13:49Georgia Hardstark?

  One of the gifts we got, of course, we had a ton of stuff in Utah, because everyone's Mormon, and they just, like, craft, like-

• 13:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Not everyone is Mormon.

• 13:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Wizards. They're all Mormon. They're wizards. And so, one of the things we got was, like, a beautiful, there was two earrings and two necklaces. I found out it's called quilled, where you take a piece of paper and you turn it into, like, a flower or whatever the fuck.

• 14:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Yep.

• 14:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Quilled. So, this girl named Mandy Lee took pages from My Sweet Adrina and made us gorgeous jewelry out of it.

• 14:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Gorgeous.

• 14:25Georgia Hardstark?

  And so, she, you can buy it at Artsy Heartsy Boutique on Etsy and see it. And so, I was looking her up. She also did that adorable line drawing, or, like, stick figur-y drawing of small foreign faction of us in a band, and you and I are playing over with Elvis on the drums. She made that, too. So, she sells mugs and t-shirts and shit of that art print, as well as My Sweet Adrina quilled jewelry. And, like, she does, the quilled jewelry is, like, her thing, and she does a ton of Harry Potter book pages with it.

• 15:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, nice. Oh, I know, I know a bunch of people who are gonna like that.

• 15:04Georgia Hardstark?

  It's, like, really pretty fucking jewelry. And then it also is from My Sweet Adrina, which is-

• 15:09Karen Kilgariff?

  There were little strips of paper on the back, like, it would be the thing that the earrings were, like, pressed into or whatever. And then there would just be a strip of, like, my sister Vera said. It was, like, these lines from that book.

• 15:20Georgia Hardstark?

  So, you knew what it was from. I love it. And, I mean, we get so many, we're sitting amongst a pile, like, post Steven stopping by the P.O. box, picking up boxes, like, fucking coolest shit gifts.

• 15:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 15:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Someone, someone drunkenly, accidentally went on eBay and drunkenly bought six packs of true crime trading cards.

• 15:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 15:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Only to find that in their state bought six boxes of packs of trading cards. So, sent us each a box of them.

• 15:52Karen Kilgariff?

  We got a whole box.

• 15:53Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't know how many are in here, but it's amazing.

• 15:55Karen Kilgariff?

  A ton, right?

• 15:56Georgia Hardstark?

  A ton.

• 15:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 15:57Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm just, it's just, we're so lucky.

• 15:58Karen Kilgariff?

  It's like, this is the box they would sell at the store.

• 16:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 16:01Karen Kilgariff?

  It's so cool. Also, some, this is another additional Corrections Corner, that somebody pointed out that we weren't just talking about the Terminator and Robocop, but, but you had also folded in a little bit of Total Recall into that story as well.

• 16:16Georgia Hardstark?

  I wasn't even gonna correct that, because I feel like that's not, none of that's a mistake. It's just fucking fate, and it's how this, what did you say to the podcast? You said, someone tweeted you and was like, I hate to tell you guys, but you're, you were talking about two different movies, and you said, like, you tweeted back, are you new?

• 16:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, no, no, no. It was like, it was basically a guy who, and I'm sure he was a fan or whatever.

• 16:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Very lightheartedly.

• 16:39Karen Kilgariff?

  But he was, yeah, he was just going, they were talking about this, but then they actually turned it into this, and then this. And they never stopped. It was like this, basically a statement-

• 16:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Neither of us ever were like-

• 16:50Karen Kilgariff?

  That we never acknowledged it, or even knew it was happening. And I just wrote back, you must be new here. Because, like, when doesn't that fucking happen?

• 16:57Georgia Hardstark?

  That's why it wasn't Corrections Corner, that thing. It's because, like, we just fucking kept going. And I believed you, and you believed in me.

• 17:05Karen Kilgariff?

  I could see it all in my head.

• 17:06Georgia Hardstark?

  There might have been a little bit of Men in Black in there, too, for all we know.

• 17:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Here's the thing, we can't wait to hear your podcast, and how great that's gonna fucking go.

• 17:14Georgia Hardstark?

  And how zero mistakes are ever fucking made when it's on the cuff.

• 17:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Let us talk. Let us fucking talk.

• 17:19Georgia Hardstark?

  And one of you has whiskey.

• 17:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, I just also wanted to say, I just want to give a public, formal apology to my dog, George, who-

• 17:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my God. George went viral.

• 17:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Did you see this, Steven?

• 17:33Georgia Hardstark?

  George fiercely private.

• 17:36Karen Kilgariff?

  My fiercely private dog, George, who doesn't want to be a part of this podcast in any way. Um, I did a little video of her, because she always drinks my fucking water.

• 17:46Georgia Hardstark?

  She didn't just drink, you made a video where she basically, if, if dogs could double flip you off.

• 17:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 17:52Georgia Hardstark?

  She fucking did a walk by drink out of your mug. And then Karen dryly going, that's mine.

• 17:58Karen Kilgariff?

  That's mine.

• 17:59Georgia Hardstark?

  It's the best.

• 18:00Karen Kilgariff?

  She, and it's only a four second video. I highly recommend, if you want to express yourself in any way, do it under five seconds. People really appreciate it.

• 18:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 18:08Karen Kilgariff?

  But she looks right at me, and then when I say that's mine, she wags her tail and walks away. Because, like, she knows she's not supposed to be doing it. It's very cute. But then all these people-

• 18:17Georgia Hardstark?

  She's also gorgeous. So, it's like-

• 18:18Karen Kilgariff?

  She's a lovely lady. I like that dog, because she looks different. Like, when she's drinking the water, her ears are all long and flat, and she looks like a hound. But if she hears, like, a squirrel in the backyard, then her ears flap up, and she looks like a lab. Like, she just changes constantly.

• 18:33Georgia Hardstark?

  I love it. She's like Ted Bundy.

• 18:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Sometimes she wears a really big turtleneck, and then sometimes she wears a mock turtleneck.

• 18:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Teeth are real fucked up. That's what got her.

• 18:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Uh, but she ended up becoming a Twitter moment. And then, so, all these people that all these-

• 18:50Georgia Hardstark?

  A Twitter moment. That's like half my day.

• 18:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Listeners are like, ha, ha, ha, Georgia's famous.

• 18:54Georgia Hardstark?

  You got so mad. I saw your response to, what? This is fucked up?

• 18:57Karen Kilgariff?

  I know. It was, well, the first, whoever sent it to me first, I thought they were making a joke.

• 19:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 19:03Karen Kilgariff?

  And so, then when I looked at it, I was like, what the hell? Like, what is happening? Because I don't understand how-

• 19:07Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't either.

• 19:08Karen Kilgariff?

  The whole moment's page, I don't understand.

• 19:09Georgia Hardstark?

  It's like, is it just for you? Well, meanwhile, I'm sitting here with Elvis, petting him, and all he's been doing his whole life is trying to get fucking famous on the internet. And he's like, this fucking bitch, George?

• 19:19Karen Kilgariff?

  This fucking bitch comes in off the side. She's very mad, and she's not talking to me.

• 19:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. Elvis will ride her down the set of stairs. You know, he did that once with a dog.

• 19:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Really?

• 19:29Georgia Hardstark?

  I found a stray. I brought it into my backyard. I lived, like, up a staircase. And I went in to get some food for the stray. It was like, like George, like a dog that size. And then I came out to, like, squeeze through the door to bring this dog the food. And Elvis broke through the door, and the dog was at the top of the stairs, waiting for the food. Elvis jumped on the dog's back, rode it down the stairs, and chased it. Rode a dog, and just chased it out of the yard.

• 19:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 19:57Georgia Hardstark?

  And the dog didn't come back.

• 19:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Aww. And he's like, I'll take that food, please. That's mine now.

• 20:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, what a good boy. Okay.

• 20:08Georgia Hardstark?

  And we're back.

• 20:09Karen Kilgariff?

  We're back.

• 20:10Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm trying to remember, remember your dad coming to the live show? I remember my, my parents coming to live shows. My sister's still never been to a live show, which is-

• 20:20Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, should I call her on the phone? Should I call her and just be like, listen, let's talk this through?

• 20:25Georgia Hardstark?

  It's so my sister and I that she doesn't want to participate and I won't ask her to.

• 20:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 20:31Georgia Hardstark?

  And I won't expect her to like go above and beyond for me because I would never expect someone to go above and beyond for me, even my own fucking sister, you know?

• 20:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Yep. Of course, you're not supposed to have needs. You're the little sister. You're lucky to be in the room.

• 20:45Georgia Hardstark?

  And I bet she'd be so happy if I said, I would, I really want you to be there. It's so important for you to be like, why haven't I been vulnerable enough to tell her how, like how, I bet that would make her feel really good if I'm like, I don't care if you're there. You don't have to come.

• 20:58Karen Kilgariff?

  You're so right.

• 20:59Georgia Hardstark?

  It's nice, but I'm doing it for her. She's doing it for me and we're both not doing the things for each other.

• 21:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, just, I think that she would get a real fucking kick out of what she sees when she's there.

• 21:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Absolutely.

• 21:12Karen Kilgariff?

  And I'm sure she's like, my life is what it is, therefore I'm not going to be like trying to push in where-

• 21:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 21:21Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, I could, I can completely see what you're saying where she's just kind of like, if you're not going to ask me, I'm not going to go and vice versa.

• 21:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. You don't want your sister there. Yeah.

• 21:29Karen Kilgariff?

  It's very sisterly though, because that's, that's just history. That's just like you anticipating her, telling her what she thinks and feels and then acting from there, which was what we were raised to do.

• 21:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. And she says the same. Next time we have a live show, we're going to make her come no matter where it is, fucking Iceland, whatever.

• 21:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, could we please?

• 21:46Georgia Hardstark?

  We're going to bring her on stage.

• 21:48Karen Kilgariff?

  And then what? Could we please have a live show in Reykjavik, Iceland?

• 21:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Fuck yeah. In that fucking hot, in sauna thing.

• 21:55Karen Kilgariff?

  The Blue Lagoon. We're fucking from the Blue Lagoon.

• 21:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Live from the Blue Lagoon with fucking our hair covered in mud.

• 22:03Karen Kilgariff?

  We fucking come up out of the water, covered in mud, just our eyes. This is going to be incredible. And Lee, you get to, you get to come, you will be a guest on that show.

• 22:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Guest of honor.

• 22:16Karen Kilgariff?

  And then Janet is a second guest.

• 22:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, Jesus.

• 22:19Karen Kilgariff?

  And of course, Home Jim is going to close it out.

• 22:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, I'm sweating now.

• 22:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Um, we did go to-

• 22:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Musso and Frank?

• 22:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Yep.

• 22:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Vince doesn't remember.

• 22:27Karen Kilgariff?

  He doesn't?

• 22:28Georgia Hardstark?

  No, I totally remember.

• 22:30Karen Kilgariff?

  I feel like the background setting at Musso and Frank's always looks exactly the same. So when I think of dinners there, I'm like, ooh, that could have been this one, this one, or this one.

• 22:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally. Cause I think we did sit in the same booth that we later sat with my mom and my stepdad in. So it's like, fill in the blank, you've had a couple of whiskeys, you have a fucking gunfight in the morning. So you're not going to remember one or the other, you know?

• 22:53Karen Kilgariff?

  What, do you get a gunfight in the morning?

• 22:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 22:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. Home Jim really, he flourishes at Musso and Frank's. For some reason, that really is the setting for him.

• 23:02Georgia Hardstark?

  And then him not being able to hear me is so fucking cute. I love it.

• 23:08Karen Kilgariff?

  He's very good at faking it when he can't hear. I absolutely have stolen that from him and just pretended like I can't hear people many times. It's my favorite.

• 23:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Love that guy. Love that gal. Kill, kill Garifs all around.

• 23:21Karen Kilgariff?

  What a team. What a group. What a group. And we can say the same about the Hard Starks if Lee would just show up.

• 23:28Georgia Hardstark?

  We wouldn't know. We just don't know. All there is is lore. It's just lore.

• 23:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Just lore.

• 23:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Lee lore. I do still have the Quill jewelry.

• 23:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 23:38Georgia Hardstark?

  I still have it. I still think it's gorgeous. I still think it's such a good gift to get someone their favorite book turned into beautiful jewelry. Artsy heartsy boutique is still in action on Etsy from Mandy Lee. So definitely go check that out. I think, yeah, like what book would you want jewelry from? Like this is just so meaningful. I love that.

• 23:58Karen Kilgariff?

  I guess, um, The Art of War. And it would be like a crown, it would be the center jewel on a crown.

• 24:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay. Or Motorcycle Maintenance and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

• 24:08Karen Kilgariff?

  And it's spray painted on the back of a jacket.

• 24:12Georgia Hardstark?

  That's yours.

• 24:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Those are our two items that we're going to get.

• 24:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Great, great.

• 24:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Leather jackets are jewelry, right?

• 24:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Definitely.

• 24:19Karen Kilgariff?

  I did like the question, which is, what's your favorite thing anyone's ever given us that, that people have made, made for us at a live show?

• 24:26Georgia Hardstark?

  What's yours?

• 24:28Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, I will say this, when things really started getting really Tory for us, when we would get into a dressing room and there would already be a gorgeously decorated dozen cupcakes or cakes or like, we have come into dressing rooms where the murdery knows in that city.

• 24:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 24:47Karen Kilgariff?

  But like made it this beautiful setting for us. I mean, things like that where people are like, clearly have taken a lot of time and care.

• 24:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. Or the baseball bats from, what's it called? Slugger baseball bats?

• 24:58Karen Kilgariff?

  That my dad has hanging in the foyer of his home.

• 25:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 25:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Up on the wall.

• 25:03Georgia Hardstark?

  That's like not hidden in the guest bathroom.

• 25:05Karen Kilgariff?

  No, my mother would fucking kill him. She would never, my, my sister walked in and goes, did you see what mom isn't here to tear back down?

• 25:14Georgia Hardstark?

  My God, I, that's so sweet.

• 25:17Karen Kilgariff?

  I know. It's very sweet.

• 25:18Georgia Hardstark?

  I love that. Wow.

• 25:20Karen Kilgariff?

  So crazy. Thanks Louisville.

• 25:22Georgia Hardstark?

  That like he did that is so sweet that he did it and your mom would hate it is like doubling down, you know?

• 25:29Karen Kilgariff?

  He's kind of like, I got to hang up what I like. And it's like, okay, it was, it's Nora's soft, traveling softball team photo. And then that baseball bat above it.

• 25:39Georgia Hardstark?

  There's a theme at least. He's got a theme going.

• 25:42Karen Kilgariff?

  It's totally bathroom art.

• 25:44Georgia Hardstark?

  You're so right that like, live show gifts are in a different level because we are surprised in the moment in front of that person or backstage or whatever, in a way that like someone else getting them from the P O. Box, showing us.

• 25:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 25:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Us being able to look in the eye or like call out in the audience of what someone made is so, and then, or them handing it to us is so fucking special. And-

• 26:06Karen Kilgariff?

  What about the time they brought you this stuffed animal of Elvis, but they weren't giving it to you? It's just there.

• 26:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 26:13Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, also it's funny too, the snapshots of like when we talk about live shows and we like, there's, there will be one thing and you just be like, oh, it's like, it just happened. It's very strange because for me anyway, that being at, at theaters that big, doing so well, I mean, just killing, kind of killing by definition of showing up on the stage and then afterwards getting to like enjoy it and sit in it was just for me, such a like standup comedy dream come true. So then just any of the gifts on, it was all like cherries on top.

• 26:48Georgia Hardstark?

  I feel like it was such a gift in a weird way, early on that I was drinking a lot before the live shows because I was really nervous. I'd never done anything like that before. You said, I need you there with me, which like really hit me hard. And so like aside from maybe like a shot once in a while before the show, like right before we go on, I haven't drank or, you know, I haven't been drunk at all. I've been mostly totally sober on stage, which I never would have done on my own. And so I can remember every part of it, which is so like, what a gift that we gave me together.

• 27:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Because, well, we did give it to you though, because what I will give you full credit for is you asked the question before that show.

• 27:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 27:37Karen Kilgariff?

  I think it was like one of the second or third ones we did.

• 27:39Georgia Hardstark?

  I think it was in the Bay area.

• 27:40Karen Kilgariff?

  It was. And you said, is there anything you want to tell me? And I feel like maybe you were thinking about it yourself and wanted me to confirm or something.

• 27:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Sure, sure.

• 27:50Karen Kilgariff?

  But the fact that you fucking did it, like I basically was going to be like, hey, a word to the wise, you gotta get through this the way you can, because this isn't easy and this isn't like standard and-

• 28:02Georgia Hardstark?

  And you don't want to do it alone. That's such, it's such a like, yeah, I'm there with you, but everyone knows when you're drunk, you're not, you and you're not there.

• 28:08Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. You're like standing five feet behind yourself, thinking you're right there.

• 28:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 28:12Karen Kilgariff?

  And that, especially for when the audience, when we are engaged, they're right there with us.

• 28:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 28:19Karen Kilgariff?

  If we're not connected, they have nothing to latch on to. And that's when it's all like, whoa, whoa, whoa, from the back.

• 28:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. No one wants to see a drunk girl doing her own thing, you know?

• 28:30Karen Kilgariff?

  We've seen it.

• 28:30Georgia Hardstark?

  We have. I don't, I don't want to see that.

• 28:33Karen Kilgariff?

  We've lived it.

• 28:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 28:36Karen Kilgariff?

  No, it's great. And I, and fully commend you to do such a hard thing sober when that's, I believe me, I'm fully on board with not doing things sober and like getting through things that are especially hard things. But that one, it was like, please trust me and come in mainline live performance with me.

• 28:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. Yeah. Great. Good.

• 28:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Great. Great. Fine. You win that one.

• 28:59Georgia Hardstark?

  I did it. We did it. I did it. We did it. We asked, we received.

• 29:03Karen Kilgariff?

  We, we did. We opened up.

• 29:05Georgia Hardstark?

  God is good.

• 29:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Vulnerability's hard.

• 29:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 29:06Karen Kilgariff?

  And podcasting's hard.

• 29:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Podcasting's hard and live shows are hard, but it's harder to not remember it or to feel like you don't know what happened and to have shame over that. I'd rather have shame over my sober performance than shame over not remembering my performance.

• 29:22Karen Kilgariff?

  And when have you ever felt shame about your sober performance because you kill, you kill it. You know how to do it. You've done it.

• 29:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. And even if I don't, it's, it came from me. It's okay.

• 29:33Karen Kilgariff?

  That's right.

• 29:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 29:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Amen.

• 29:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Amen. All right. Should we get into our stories?

• 29:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes. Right now, we're going to get into Georgia's story about the death of Nurse Cindy James.

• 29:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Who's first?

• 29:51Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, it's you.

• 29:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes. Drinking. I love going first. Drink if you're first.

• 29:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Drink if you're first. Drink if you're wearing a house dress.

• 30:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Absa fucking loot. You know what? I left my favorite house dress in Cleveland.

• 30:07Karen Kilgariff?

  You did? How?

• 30:08Georgia Hardstark?

  I just left it on, there was a bath and I left it near the bath.

• 30:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, that sucks.

• 30:14Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm so sad. So this is my replacement. Um, okay. So this is, this is something I found or rediscovered, I should say, from one of the articles of like, I just found like the 10 weirdest unsolved mysteries segments.

• 30:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay. Are you going into, are you doing the thing where now you're Googling like bizarre murder? Yes. Okay.

• 30:35Georgia Hardstark?

  There's a lot of good, there's not a lot of good YouTube videos, but there's a lot of YouTube videos of those like the top five, whatever. And for some reason people use voiceover like, um-

• 30:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Computer voice?

• 30:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Computer voices.

• 30:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 30:46Georgia Hardstark?

  But you can find a lot of interesting stuff there. Um, and so this is one of them that I had forgotten about, but I know I saw when I was a kid.

• 30:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Mm hmm.

• 30:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Uh, it's creepy as fuck. Here we go.

• 30:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 30:57Georgia Hardstark?

  On June 8th, 1989, sidebar, my ninth birthday.

• 31:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 31:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Whatever. In the Vancouver, British Columbia suburb of Richmond, the body of 44 year old Nurse- Cindy James was found in the yard of a banned abandoned house. Oh, I forgot to say that this is about the death of Cindy James.

• 31:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 31:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay. Cindy had been drugged and strangled and her hands and feet have been tied behind her back. Feet had been tied behind her back.

• 31:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, if she's hogtied.

• 31:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, she wasn't.

• 31:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 31:29Georgia Hardstark?

  But the police weren't sure if Cindy's death was an accident or a murder or if she had committed suicide.

• 31:37Karen Kilgariff?

  What? By tying her hands. Okay, okay.

• 31:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes, exactly.

• 31:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 31:41Georgia Hardstark?

  All right, so let's get into it.

• 31:42Karen Kilgariff?

  All right.

• 31:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, Cindy, who if she were to be played in a, you know, recreation of fucking unsolved mysteries.

• 31:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Of this story, yeah.

• 31:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Or would be played by Vanna White.

• 31:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 31:54Georgia Hardstark?

  1980s Vanna White.

• 31:55Karen Kilgariff?

  So just like ideal, everybody's 80s ideal blonde?

• 31:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Beautiful blonde, vivacious, bright woman. She's 19 year old nursing student. When she meets at her, the hospital at Vancouver General Hospital, she meets Dr. Roy Makepeace. Sounds fake, right? He's a psychiatrist and he's 18 years older than her and married with two kids, but they fall in love.

• 32:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 32:22Georgia Hardstark?

  So 19 year old Cindy falls in love with him.

• 32:26Karen Kilgariff?

  And sorry, he's 28?

• 32:28Georgia Hardstark?

  He's 18 years older than her.

• 32:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, 18 years.

• 32:30Georgia Hardstark?

  So it's 18 plus 19.

• 32:32Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean.

• 32:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Forty one.

• 32:33Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm truly the last person you should have asked that question.

• 32:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Is that right, Stephen?

• 32:36Karen Kilgariff?

  No.

• 32:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Edit that out.

• 32:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Forty one?

• 32:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Nobody here knows numbers.

• 32:41Karen Kilgariff?

  It's 37. It's 37.

• 32:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Thirty seven. Okay.

• 32:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Go to college, kids.

• 32:49Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, sorry. Can I quickly sidebar?

• 32:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Always.

• 32:51Karen Kilgariff?

  There's somebody that tweeted and was like, Karen, anytime Karen wants to name something boring, she calls them an accountant. And it's like, it's like the third accountant we've heard from that's like, we're really not as boring as you say we are. And I feel really bad. I apologize to that person who tweeted and I just want to say.

• 33:07Georgia Hardstark?

  What's gonna be the next one then? It has to be something else.

• 33:09Karen Kilgariff?

  I'll think about it and it'll be something maybe jokey or more lighthearted and the one that'll hurt people's feelings less, but I did.

• 33:15Georgia Hardstark?

  They'll still be mad at you, whoever those people are. Communications majors.

• 33:19Karen Kilgariff?

  How about Amish, the Amish?

• 33:20Georgia Hardstark?

  That's boring. Okay.

• 33:22Karen Kilgariff?

  But they can't get, contact me.

• 33:23Georgia Hardstark?

  What about candle makers?

• 33:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Good. Yes.

• 33:26Georgia Hardstark?

  That's a hobby. Okay.

• 33:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Fucking tidal wave of candle maker emails. I make a good living.

• 33:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Fuck you.

• 33:36Karen Kilgariff?

  I have insurance.

• 33:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh my god. I have insurance. Okay, okay, here we are.

• 33:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 33:41Georgia Hardstark?

  She fought, they fall in love with each other. Within four days of Roy's divorce, he and Cindy are married.

• 33:49Karen Kilgariff?

  Four days?

• 33:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Uh huh. So 19 year old Cindy and 20, 37 year old Roy are married. Which is like, okay, so I'm 37. If I were boning a fucking 19 year old, you'd be like, what are you doing? Right?

• 34:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, that is too young.

• 34:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Too young.

• 34:03Karen Kilgariff?

  And also.

• 34:04Georgia Hardstark?

  But it's also the 80s, you know.

• 34:05Karen Kilgariff?

  He's having a midlife crisis, obviously.

• 34:07Georgia Hardstark?

  His wife and two kids are like, I'm sorry, what?

• 34:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 34:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 34:11Karen Kilgariff?

  He's a doctor, you say?

• 34:12Georgia Hardstark?

  He's a psychiatrist.

• 34:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 34:14Georgia Hardstark?

  So, okay, so they get married. Cindy graduates from nursing school. Later she becomes an administrator at a program for children with behavioral and emotional issues. She's like the best. So after 16 years of marriage, they didn't have kids. Cindy ends things with Dr. Makepeace. This seems to be amicable. That's in 1982. They split up and that's when her life hits the fan. So four months into their trial separation, Cindy starts to receive anonymous phone calls from a man who knows her name, knows where she lives, is like threatening her sometimes or just breathing into the phone sometimes. And it was really scaring the shit out of her.

• 34:58Karen Kilgariff?

  It's very scary.

• 34:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. After, a week after the calls start, someone smashes her window and breaks in, well, or breaks and smashes her window while she's out. And later that same week, an intruder somehow has a key to her house, gets into the house and stabs her pillow over a dozen times.

• 35:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Fuck.

• 35:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Which is like, shit, man.

• 35:22Karen Kilgariff?

  I just realized, I think I saw the headline for this story and the like Getty image for the story, because there was a knife on a pillow and it said, this was like recently and it was like, this is the most fucked up ex story you'll ever hear.

• 35:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Ex story?

• 35:38Karen Kilgariff?

  EX.

• 35:39Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't know. What's ex mean?

• 35:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Like her ex husband?

• 35:44Georgia Hardstark?

  I was like, is that MKUltra? I don't know.

• 35:48Karen Kilgariff?

  I was, X stands for a word I don't want to say.

• 35:50Georgia Hardstark?

  I get it.

• 35:53Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm wrong, I'm wrong, I'm wrong.

• 35:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes. No, you're, you might be right.

• 35:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 35:56Georgia Hardstark?

  But you're not.

• 35:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 35:57Georgia Hardstark?

  But it could be.

• 35:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Got it.

• 35:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Is it? We don't know.

• 35:59Karen Kilgariff?

  We certainly don't know and we're not going to say right now.

• 36:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Is it? It's, it might be an unsolved mystery.

• 36:04Karen Kilgariff?

  A go, oh.

• 36:05Georgia Hardstark?

  We don't know.

• 36:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Shit, context clues. You said it four times.

• 36:09Georgia Hardstark?

  But that show was on, has been on, like this came, this was from like the fucking 80s. So like, you know, or 90s, from the 90s. Okay. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Six years of marriage. They break up. Should hit the fan. Threatening, stabs her pillow. Okay. Bizarre notes written in kidnapping font, AKA my favorite murder logo font.

• 36:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 36:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Begin to appear on her doorstep and on her windshield of her car. One card has a picture of a woman who looks like Cindy, AKA Vanna White. The woman's eyes have been scratched out and another time the woman's throat, like there's red ink around her throat. The police investigate but couldn't track anyone and the phone calls she were getting were too short to be traced. So they can't figure out who's doing this.

• 36:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Maybe somebody who knows how tracing calls works, though. Ding dong.

• 36:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Great idea.

• 36:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Thank you.

• 36:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Other things happen, like her porch lights are smashed, her phone lines get cut. All these things keep fucking happening. She freaks out. She decides to move and on January 27th, 1982, the first physical attack occurs.

• 37:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Fuck.

• 37:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Cindy's good friend and neighbor, Agnes Woodcock.

• 37:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Leave it alone.

• 37:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Pause for dramatic effect.

• 37:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Pause for conversation throughout the office.

• 37:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Had agreed to spend the night so Cindy would feel safer. So Agnes gets to see.

• 37:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Sorry, how old is Agnes?

• 37:26Georgia Hardstark?

  I mean.

• 37:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Seventy two?

• 37:27Georgia Hardstark?

  You'd hope.

• 37:28Karen Kilgariff?

  That's a non solution.

• 37:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Is this gonna become another Bonnie? Where we at? It's a non solution, inviting an Agnes over?

• 37:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, come on. Yet you, it was, is, is Agnes a fucking Navy SEAL? Think, get her out of there. You don't need company.

• 37:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 37:44Karen Kilgariff?

  If you're, if you feel threatened, get someone that's threatening.

• 37:48Georgia Hardstark?

  I mean, maybe Agnes is a fucking bodybuilder.

• 37:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Perhaps.

• 37:52Karen Kilgariff?

  I'll let you tell me.

• 37:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Let's not cast aspersions.

• 37:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 37:54Georgia Hardstark?

  This ends with Agnes being a bodybuilder.

• 37:56Karen Kilgariff?

  No.

• 37:57Georgia Hardstark?

  No, it doesn't.

• 37:58Karen Kilgariff?

  That's the big reveal.

• 37:59Georgia Hardstark?

  That big reveal. Okay. Agnes gets there around 9:30 at night. Cindy's not answering the door, so she goes around to go to the back.

• 38:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh no.

• 38:06Georgia Hardstark?

  And she hears moaning and Agnes finds Cindy on the ground with a black nylon stocking tied around her neck. And so some scratches on her body and there's, they also find later a needle mark on her arm. So Cindy tells authorities that she had been taking a load of boxes out to the garage, you know, because she's moving and shit.

• 38:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Yep.

• 38:26Georgia Hardstark?

  And finds that the light was out, but in the dark, someone grabs her from behind. She felt a pin prick on her arm. And she thinks she must have been drugged because that's all she remembers from the incident. And the, the police are like, this is crazy. We're gonna look into it. They look into her ex husband, ex.

• 38:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 38:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Like stands for your ex, remember?

• 38:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 38:48Georgia Hardstark?

  He's got an alibi for the time of the attack and investigators aren't able to find any signs of any attacker at all. And there are never any calls when the police are doing 24 hour surveillance. There's never any attacks when that's happening. They always happen when the police aren't around. And again, the calls are untraceable. So the police are starting to doubt Cindy's stories. Her parents thought the attacker clearly is smart enough to fucking not come the fuck around when there is surveillance.

• 39:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Yep.

• 39:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Her friends and family try to convince her to move into actually like an apartment building where there's more people around. Maybe to get a vicious dog or something, but she's like, I'm not fucking letting this take over my life. No. And they also worried because she would take, she had a small dog that she loved and she would take the dog out for walks at like 3:00 AM. I wouldn't stop doing that. And they were like, were freaking out about it, but they thought it was weird that she wouldn't stop doing that.

• 39:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, you have to adjust a little bit if you are being threatened in some way.

• 39:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 39:49Karen Kilgariff?

  That whole thing of, I'm gonna live my life exactly the way, that's not, yeah.

• 39:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Unfortunately. But she does move into a new house. She paints her car and she changes her last name and that's how she becomes Cindy James. So she also hires a private investigator named Ozzy Caban, Caban, Ozzy Caban. Which is like the best private investigator name ever.

• 40:09Karen Kilgariff?

  It's pretty, O Z Z Y, like.

• 40:11Georgia Hardstark?

  I E.

• 40:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Osborne?

• 40:12Georgia Hardstark?

  I E.

• 40:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Like Davis. Okay.

• 40:14Georgia Hardstark?

  He, he says that she would be evasive at times and was withholding information from him and police. But he did believe everything she was saying. He did think that she had a stalker and an attacker.

• 40:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Her mother thought that because she, she was being evasive because she was threatened and feared for her family's life. And that's why that was happening. Her private investigator installed the security lights around her house and gave her a two way radio and a panic button, just in case.

• 40:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, that's good.

• 40:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. So one night, Ozzy hears strange sounds coming from the radio and rushes to Cindy's house. He finds Cindy lying unconscious in the hallway. He's like, break down the door. She has a paring knife through her hand and also like a note in it. So like they paring knifed through her note in a hand. You know what I'm saying?

• 41:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, like stuck through to the ground?

• 41:13Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't know how deep. I don't know what.

• 41:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Or like wherever she was though.

• 41:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, she was lying unconscious and then they put a note and.

• 41:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Fuck.

• 41:19Georgia Hardstark?

  A paring knife in her hand. The note said, you are dead bitch.

• 41:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Fuck.

• 41:25Georgia Hardstark?

  All she remembered from that attack was that a needle was put into her arm. And also she seemed to remember that it was more than one person, like there might've been two or three assailants.

• 41:35Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 41:36Georgia Hardstark?

  At the time, like a couple of the attacks. No fingerprints are found. There's no clues. There's no leads. Aside from Cindy's injuries, there's no evidence anyone else had been in the house. So investigators are frustrated with Cindy and they are like, this chick is fucking doing this on her own. They think she is staging all of this. So hoping to convince investigators to take her more seriously, Cindy's like, give me a fucking polygraph. She fails the polygraph twice.

• 42:08Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, no.

• 42:09Georgia Hardstark?

  The operator suggests the stress she was under might have affected the results. And she's too embarrassed. She's embarrassed. So she wants the investigation to be shut down. She refuses to sign her statement. And she says it's because she's afraid of her family. Then, December 11, 1985, a cyclist finds Cindy lying in a ditch six miles from her home. She's dazed and semi-conscious. She's suffering from hypothermia, has cuts and bruises all over her body, and she again had a black nylon stocking around her neck.

• 42:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Fuck.

• 42:42Georgia Hardstark?

  All she's wearing is a man's work boot and glove. She doesn't remember anything that could help with the investigation.

• 42:49Karen Kilgariff?

  Man.

• 42:50Georgia Hardstark?

  And then one night, she has her friends, Agnes, our friend Agnes and her husband, spend the night to keep her safe. Her husband's there.

• 42:58Karen Kilgariff?

  All right. But he's tiny.

• 43:00Georgia Hardstark?

  But he's a little.

• 43:01Karen Kilgariff?

  He's pocket sized.

• 43:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Little baby. They are all woken up in the middle of the night because the basement of the house is on fucking fire.

• 43:11Karen Kilgariff?

  No.

• 43:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. The phone line had been cut. So Agnes' husband fucking, Mr. Agnes fucking runs out and sees a man standing at the curb and yells to him to call the fire department. But the man just runs off, which is like, but everyone says like, the man just ran off and everything you listen to. And then it's like, maybe he ran to fucking call 911.

• 43:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, that's true.

• 43:34Georgia Hardstark?

  You know what I mean?

• 43:35Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, he doesn't, it's not cell phone time. Yeah. I'm doing what you told me to do.

• 43:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, I'm gonna run off. Maybe he ran off and called 911.

• 43:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Maybe.

• 43:42Georgia Hardstark?

  We don't know. Maybe he didn't. Maybe he started the fire. Maybe he didn't.

• 43:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Maybe he was scared of yelling and he just ran.

• 43:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Maybe he was walking his dog in the middle of the night. We don't know. Police determine that the fire was started from inside the house because they saw no fingerprints on the window. They think the perp would have used that window to get in. There's no fingerprints. It's fucking Jean Benet all over again. They determine that Cindy must have staged the incident. And there was also another fire that happened another time that they think she staged. Letters and phone calls continue. Cindy's like, fucking, no one will believe me that I'm being stalked and threatened and attacked. She's freaking out about it. In June, 1985, she tells, she's like going crazy. She tells her physician that she wants to die. So she's diagnosed with severe depression and committed to the

• 44:34Georgia Hardstark?

  psych ward at a hospital in North Vancouver.

• 44:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 44:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. So while she's there, she's examined by a psychiatrist who says that Cindy's, he determines Cindy's troubles are, quote, self-initiated. He said she'd fallen into a, quote, psychogenic fugue, an altered consciousness stemming from a deep-seated trauma, and that she wasn't even aware that she was behind everything.

• 44:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Mm hmm.

• 45:00Georgia Hardstark?

  So she's there for 10 weeks and then is released.

• 45:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 45:05Georgia Hardstark?

  What do you think so far?

• 45:06Karen Kilgariff?

  I don't like that.

• 45:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 45:08Karen Kilgariff?

  It frustrates me. Here's the thing, and this is, this is clearly just off the top of my head, but you don't cut your own phone line. You don't stab your own hand.

• 45:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 45:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Like, people, there are people who do things like this all the time. And they do it in a way, like, the idea that you would be going past the point of normal, like, I'm trying to swindle people. But like, I think personally, psychopaths or people that try to manipulate a bunch of people at once by like, oh, my life is in terror, will not harm themselves to do that. Or like, not, you know what I mean?

• 45:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, but they harm their children. Munchausen.

• 45:49Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, but that's not them.

• 45:50Georgia Hardstark?

  That's an extension of them. I mean, there is munchausen.

• 45:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Their hand does not get stabbed. Well, and also munchausen's would be, that would be an additional kind of issue. But this is that thing of like, if they're trying to say, like, because what would the point of that be? Getting the attention of the police? Like, she wants police attention?

• 46:08Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't know.

• 46:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Or emergency attention or something? What would the point of strangling yourself with a nylon be and wake up in the ditch with hypothermia? Like, what is she getting? What would the benefit be?

• 46:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 46:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Is my.

• 46:22Georgia Hardstark?

  That's a good question.

• 46:23Karen Kilgariff?

  I couldn't be furring my brow further in total confusion and what the fuck?

• 46:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, let's keep going because it gets fucking weirder.

• 46:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 46:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Um, boop, boop, ba, da, da, da, da. Okay. Hold on. Okay. She gets out after 10 weeks. Then on October 26, 1988, she's attacked for the fifth time.

• 46:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Fuck.

• 46:44Georgia Hardstark?

  An RCMP officer, Mounted Police.

• 46:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Royal Canadian.

• 46:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Mounted Police officer discovered her unconscious in her car, nude from the waist down. Her hands are tied behind her back and she's squeezing the panic button of her silent alarm. There's duct tape over her mouth. There's bruising and swelling over one of her eyes and she has a black nylon stocking tied around her neck again. She's rushed to the hospital and, but no one else's fingerprints are at the scene. There's, they bring in a fucking police dog. There's no scent to pick up at all. There's no indication that anyone else was present.

• 47:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 47:25Georgia Hardstark?

  She finally tells police that her tormentor is her ex-husband, Roy Makepeace. They encourage her, they want her to phone him and confront him and tape the conversation. He, Roy denies any involvement during the conversation. And in fact, he had, he gave the police a recording from his own answering machine that contained a death threat. You want to hear it?

• 47:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. Wait. Okay. Yes.

• 47:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Do you want to?

• 47:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 47:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 47:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Hmm.

• 47:58Georgia Hardstark?

  What?

• 47:58Karen Kilgariff?

  No, I do.

• 47:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 48:08Karen Kilgariff?

  No.

• 48:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Hello, everyone.

• 48:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Whose podcast is that?

• 48:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, shout out to the trail went cold with Ron and Worder. Sorry, I stole that.

• 48:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Uh, what the fuck?

• 48:25Georgia Hardstark?

  And so everyone, I mean Reddit loves this fucking story. Like, it sounds like a woman.

• 48:29Karen Kilgariff?

  I've definitely read about it before.

• 48:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 48:31Karen Kilgariff?

  It does sound like a woman.

• 48:32Georgia Hardstark?

  It does. So Roy thinks that Cindy has multiple personalities and isn't even aware that she's doing these things to himself. But he's like, I, but I'm not behind this.

• 48:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 48:41Georgia Hardstark?

  And they tend to believe him.

• 48:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Mm hmm. The psychiatrist.

• 48:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. Hold on.

• 48:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Incoming.

• 48:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Here's Roy.

• 48:50Karen Kilgariff?

  And then a train comes by.

• 48:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay. So she had been given those two lie detector tests and had been showing deceit in them. But she's given a third one. And when she's asked if she staged one of the attacks, she says no, and she's judged to be truthful. So there's like a little bit of both going on. So after almost seven years after the harassment started, Cindy is now 44, goes missing on May 25.

• 49:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Shit.

• 49:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Her car is discovered in the parking lot of a small shopping mall where she had gone that day to deposit her check and to do some grocery shopping. In fact, her groceries are found in the car. There's blood on the driver's side door of the car and items from her wallet are found under the car. So this is after nearly 100 well documented cases of harassment, including threatening phone calls and notes, vandalism and arson. Three dead cats were found in her yard.

• 49:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 49:47Georgia Hardstark?

  I know. Sorry, Stephen. And me. And five violent physical attacks between 1982 and 1989. Cindy's body is found dead.

• 49:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 49:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Two weeks after her car had been found, Cindy was found, her body is found by a construction worker in the yard of an abandoned house a mile and a half from where her car had been parked. There's a fucking photo of it online. It's not gruesome, but she said.

• 50:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Just horrible.

• 50:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 50:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 50:14Georgia Hardstark?

  A black nylon stocking was tied tightly around her neck and the autopsy showed that Cindy died from an overdose of morphine and other drugs. There was a needle mark in her arm, but they had been taken orally.

• 50:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 50:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. So the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, they believe that her death was an accident or suicide. They think she was responsible for her own death.

• 50:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 50:43Georgia Hardstark?

  So there's a fucking crazy coroner's inquest because they're like, did she, was she killed by her stalker finally after six and a half years? Or did she do this for herself? It becomes the lengthiest and most expensive public inquest in British Columbia's history.

• 50:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 50:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Eighty-four witnesses are called to testify. There's a not specialist who comes and is like, so her arms were tied behind her back. And the not specialist shows how she could have tied up her legs, then tied up her arms in front of her and stepped through to tie them up behind her back.

• 51:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, yeah.

• 51:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Within three minutes, he could have, she could have done that. Also, that, da, da, da, da. So she had an overdose of morphine, but, so people are like, how could she have done those things after taking morphine? But she had taken them orally, which meant she would have had like 15 to 60 minutes before that kicked in to tie herself up and to walk to that spot a mile and a half from her car. So it was still possible she could have done it and maybe put the needle mark in her arm as a, like.

• 51:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Red herring?

• 51:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes, that's the word. Thank you. But also, they didn't find a needle or a vial or anything near her body or near her car.

• 51:57Karen Kilgariff?

  And sorry, the idea is she ties herself up and then takes a mile and a half walk?

• 52:02Georgia Hardstark?

  She takes a mile and a half walk or whatever, gets to this place somehow.

• 52:06Karen Kilgariff?

  And then does the tying.

• 52:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Then does the tying, maybe takes the morphine then, and then dies.

• 52:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 52:13Georgia Hardstark?

  So, da, da, da, da. But also, the weird, the weird thing too, is that her body, the place where her body is found in the abandoned yard is really close to the street. You can see in an old video, like an old interview with her, with Ozzy, her fucking police dude.

• 52:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Mm hmm.

• 52:32Georgia Hardstark?

  It's close to the street, almost like someone should have smelled it or saw her and nobody did. So that was weird. And Ozzy, who still believed her, was like, that must mean that she had been dumped later, close to the time when she was found.

• 52:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, because somebody would have watched her walk in or like seen her around?

• 52:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Or smelled a body or seen her body lying.

• 52:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, because it was there. Got it. Got it.

• 52:54Georgia Hardstark?

  So maybe. So, okay, after three months of this coroner's inquest, the jury couldn't decide and called her death due to a, quote, "unknown event."

• 53:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Whoa.

• 53:08Georgia Hardstark?

  And the death is classified classified as undetermined and still is. So, of course, there's a shit ton of theories on the case and on Reddit especially, no one agrees. I'm like, did she, okay, did she have a mental illness, dissociative identity disorder is one of the things, Munchausen, schizophrenia. Some people are like, maybe it started with an actual stalker and no one believed her. And so she kind of escalated it to make people believe her and accidentally did these things to herself. And then they look into like, every single time she was found bound, it was near a place where she would have been found quickly, or she had the panic button in her hand.

• 53:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 53:51Georgia Hardstark?

  So she would have never been left, like, long enough. She knew that Agnes was coming at 9:30 at night. She knew that she had the walkie talkie with Ozzy and so he heard weird sounds and came over. She put her own body, you know, she expected to be found that last time when she died because she was near a walkway.

• 54:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, it's just that no one actually found her.

• 54:12Georgia Hardstark?

  No one actually found, you know what I mean? It's like, this is one of those cases where there's so many reasons behind both of the answers. Either she did it herself, or she, there was an actual murderer and stalker. And there's, and, and you know, even when I was writing this, and everyone has their own fucking opinion, even when I was writing this, I found myself leaving shit out because I thought she did it to herself.

• 54:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Mm-hmm.

• 54:34Georgia Hardstark?

  So I found myself leaving stuff out that didn't support it.

• 54:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 54:38Georgia Hardstark?

  And I made myself put it back in because it's not fair.

• 54:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 54:41Georgia Hardstark?

  So it's really easy to do.

• 54:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Sure. Well, and also you just want to make sense of it.

• 54:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. Also, to me, I'm like, obviously this, but it's not obvious.

• 54:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Also, I feel like she would have had, and maybe no one's talking about this part because it would be so disrespectful of the dead, did she have any signs of any mental illness before this stalking?

• 55:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 55:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Thing started? Because if not, if she was just regular pants and going about her day and handling things, then that idea, it is so easy to call somebody crazy and be like, oh, this is a thing, oh, I can write this off because it's something, she's just doing it to herself.

• 55:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 55:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Which is like, but what, like, what for?

• 55:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, it's a real, that's a great question. And what's frustrating too about this case, which probably makes it so interesting too, is that you really only have these facts of her, of what happened to her after her divorce. So we don't know, I couldn't find anything about her before she met her husband.

• 55:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 55:40Georgia Hardstark?

  So it's hard to tell. The psychiatrist that she went to when she got committed said that there was, it's from past trauma.

• 55:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 55:48Georgia Hardstark?

  So who the fuck knows what that means? And she had this, you know, like, everyone's saying that she had this traumatic life event with her divorce, but they, by all accounts, were, had an amicable separation, so it doesn't seem like it was.

• 56:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Totally traumatic.

• 56:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 56:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, and also, one of the things that, that psychiatrist said, it sounded like, was something along the lines of multiple, possible multiple personality, which they've proven isn't a real thing.

• 56:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Right, right.

• 56:15Karen Kilgariff?

  So there's those things where like.

• 56:16Georgia Hardstark?

  19, there's a lot of like 1980s.

• 56:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Old school shit.

• 56:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Terms of.

• 56:21Karen Kilgariff?

  I just think cutting your phone line is such a dramatic thing to do.

• 56:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Why cut your phone line?

• 56:24Karen Kilgariff?

  To, like, to, you, it fucks things up. It's, you don't just get your phone turned back on.

• 56:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 56:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Like, that's kind, you won't have a landline in the 80s for like, two weeks until they come and fix it.

• 56:36Georgia Hardstark?

  And maybe she fucking likes that because then she can't get these calls anymore.

• 56:38Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean.

• 56:39Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm not, like, I don't know, I, but that's, yeah, that's dramatic and people have to come to your aid and it is a big deal. And so, but it also isn't harming you. So it's this like, someone cut my phone lines, seems like a big deal. It's the same thing of like, I guess nowadays it'd be someone stole my phone, right?

• 56:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 56:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Or whatever.

• 57:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 57:01Georgia Hardstark?

  So it, all these things are, these things that are, I'm, I don't know which one it is and I, I can't say so. I can see the point of why it's, why she would do these things to herself for attention. It makes sense to me.

• 57:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, I just, it doesn't, the attention part doesn't make sense, although I'm not denying that's a thing people get.

• 57:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 57:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Where it's almost like, then the ambulance came and it was so exciting or whatever. But, yeah, it just seems like.

• 57:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, to me.

• 57:28Karen Kilgariff?

  It's so much more likely a woman, especially a woman, if she looked like something like Vanna White in the 80s or 90s, had a stalker and a person who was trying to make her go crazy and torture her.

• 57:38Georgia Hardstark?

  But how, how did they find no trace of him for six and a half years?

• 57:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, to me, it sounds like, I mean, clearly, uh.

• 57:46Georgia Hardstark?

  That the cops discounted her really early and so didn't bother looking for shit?

• 57:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Also, could, could have been that, could have been that the, the stalker was a cop and knew all the inside shit.

• 57:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, we got some shit then to talk about.

• 57:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, shit, chow.

• 57:59Georgia Hardstark?

  All right.

• 58:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Because also that thing where you, when you said the thing about the dogs not getting a scent, but they have to know what they're smelling for to do it in the first place.

• 58:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 58:07Karen Kilgariff?

  So, yeah, if it's only her smell, they need a sock from the person they suspect. Like, you, I don't, they don't just find a scent and run to a person.

• 58:13Georgia Hardstark?

  No, that makes, that's very true.

• 58:15Karen Kilgariff?

  I only know that from our friend and someone knows something. I know all about those.

• 58:19Georgia Hardstark?

  You should be a royal Canadian mountain.

• 58:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, I will.

• 58:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, so, let's talk about a couple of suspects.

• 58:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Mm-hmm.

• 58:27Georgia Hardstark?

  All right. Constable Pat McBride was the first investigator to look into Cindy's claims way back in 1982. He ended up getting involved with her romantically, pretty quickly, and, and moved in with her for a brief period. Their relationship ended when he asked her to marry him and she said no.

• 58:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 58:47Georgia Hardstark?

  So he was a fucking cop.

• 58:48Karen Kilgariff?

  And spurned.

• 58:49Georgia Hardstark?

  But he was the only, only police who believed and supported her that she had a stalker.

• 58:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 58:56Georgia Hardstark?

  But it's like, of course you're like, no, yeah, I totally believe it, you know?

• 58:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, that's the perfect hiding.

• 59:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Right. So maybe to his friends, he was like, she's fucking crazy.

• 59:04Karen Kilgariff?

  She's a nut.

• 59:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. And he, so he was looked into as a suspect and cleared. Four years after Cindy's death, Pat pleaded guilty to two incidents of sexually assaulting women.

• 59:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Uh-oh.

• 59:17Georgia Hardstark?

  And he had been under psychiatric care since 1984 because of a personality disorder.

• 59:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 59:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Which is like, I mean, who isn't?

• 59:24Karen Kilgariff?

  We would hope not all police.

• 59:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 59:29Karen Kilgariff?

  People and people that are supposed to uphold the law.

• 59:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 59:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Jesus H.

• 59:33Georgia Hardstark?

  So he was looked into and cleared, but that's some, that's some shit to consider.

• 59:36Karen Kilgariff?

  That's a real swamp, yes.

• 59:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Uh-huh. Also, okay, here's, okay, here's the fun part. This isn't fun. Here's the part. When Cindy was under hypnosis at one point, to try to remember who had attacked her in more details, she had a memory of being on a trip with her ex-husband, Dr. Makepeace, shortly before their divorce. They were with a doctor named James Tyhurst, and she said she witnessed them doing something sinister, including cutting up bodies, like had killed people and were cutting up bodies. She remembered that during hypnosis.

• 1:00:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Hmm.

• 1:00:11Georgia Hardstark?

  So it turns out, this fucking dude, Dr. James Tyhurst, look him up, T-Y-H-U-R-S-T, he was, had been sexually abusing his, some of his female patients, and he was arrested just four months after Cindy's death. And in 1991, he was convicted on five counts of sexual and indecent assault and ended up paying one of his victims half a million dollars in damages.

• 1:00:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Holy shit.

• 1:00:33Georgia Hardstark?

  He was one of those psychiatrists that would do that thing where that he would make them sign a fucking master and slave thing to be like, you have daddy issues, here to, here's how to get past them, like, you need to let me take over your life. And then some occasions he would like, have them take their shirt off and whip them.

• 1:00:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Holy fuck.

• 1:00:49Georgia Hardstark?

  He was like a fucking psychopath.

• 1:00:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Whoa.

• 1:00:51Georgia Hardstark?

  And he was a psychiatrist.

• 1:00:52Karen Kilgariff?

  And, and basically leading these women to believe he was healing them.

• 1:00:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Part of their process.

• 1:00:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Ah, dark.

• 1:01:00Georgia Hardstark?

  So, here we go, conspiracy theory time, because I just finished fucking Wormwood on Netflix, which I highly recommend everyone watches all the way through. It's so good, it's so good. Okay, so I totally believe this part. Dr. Tyhurst worked with the CIA in the 1950s.

• 1:01:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Uh-oh.

• 1:01:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Uh-huh. In experiments involving brainwashing, including, he worked on a project called Project Artichoke, which turned into.

• 1:01:30Karen Kilgariff?

  MKUltra.

• 1:01:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, Jesus.

• 1:01:34Karen Kilgariff?

  MKUltra started as Project Artichoke.

• 1:01:36Georgia Hardstark?

  So for everyone who doesn't know, the project studied hypnosis, forced morphine addiction.

• 1:01:44Karen Kilgariff?

  What?

• 1:01:45Georgia Hardstark?

  She died from a fucking morphine overdose.

• 1:01:46Karen Kilgariff?

  That's right, she did.

• 1:01:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Did I say morphine?

• 1:01:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, you did.

• 1:01:49Georgia Hardstark?

  And, and they also studied the subsequent forced withdrawal of morphine and the use of chemicals, including LSD, to, to produce amnesia and other vulnerable states in subjects.

• 1:02:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Fucking A.

• 1:02:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Go watch Wormwood if you think that that's bullshit. Right fucking now.

• 1:02:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Georgia will fight you.

• 1:02:06Georgia Hardstark?

  I will fight you.

• 1:02:07Karen Kilgariff?

  I just want to be in the meeting where people are like, look, we're doing some pretty great sinister shit, and we're dosing everyone with acid, we're making people pretend to commit suicide, we cannot call ourselves Project Artichoke anymore. It doesn't suit us, it doesn't suit the project.

• 1:02:22Georgia Hardstark?

  And then one guy goes, what about the layers? You peel one artichoke, like, leaf off?

• 1:02:27Karen Kilgariff?

  And they're like, Stanley, you've had your time at the table. Now we're talking about the future. MKUltra a bust.

• 1:02:33Georgia Hardstark?

  And they're like, that sounds creepy. All I want is for future fucking true crime podcasts to have a cool name and not laugh at Project Artichoke.

• 1:02:41Karen Kilgariff?

  That's right.

• 1:02:42Georgia Hardstark?

  MKUltra it is.

• 1:02:43Karen Kilgariff?

  But now, so.

• 1:02:44Georgia Hardstark?

  I want a Project Artichoke.

• 1:02:46Karen Kilgariff?

  My own.

• 1:02:47Georgia Hardstark?

  That's our new fucking business venture. Project also happens to be Elvis's favorite food, artichokes. It's a fucking full circle. So did she witness her husband and they broke up pretty quickly after, and fuck, Dr. Tyburn fucking doing some sinister shit? And Dr. Tyburn is like, well, I'm gonna fucking mind control the shit out of her for six and a half years so she doesn't, no one believes what she's saying.

• 1:03:13Karen Kilgariff?

  And we make her seem like a totally crazy woman that would do this thing voluntarily to get attention, therefore she has no credibility with her family, with her friends.

• 1:03:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Do we call it fucking Constable Pat McBride and give him $10,000 to be in on it?

• 1:03:27Karen Kilgariff?

  This goes all the way to the middle of the artichoke.

• 1:03:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, no. Dip this shit in garlic butter and put it to fucking bed. So either way, if she, if she was doing it herself, which I believe 60%, she didn't know she was doing it. It's horrible and sad.

• 1:03:50Karen Kilgariff?

  So you think it was a puppet master situation where she, it wasn't, she wasn't doing it because of a psychotic break or some kind of thing. It was because of that?

• 1:04:00Georgia Hardstark?

  No, I think she, I think she had some severe mental illness that dissociative identity, I don't know what, I don't know what. And listen, everyone knows, I'm not fucking saying that people who are, who have mental illness are fucking crazy. Cause I have, hi, I have mom.

• 1:04:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Hi, welcome.

• 1:04:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Welcome to my life. But I, it does seem like there's a lot of, a lot of, everything that happened can be reasoned that she was doing these things to herself and didn't know about it. And if that's true, how sad is it that she had to live through that of her own mental illness?

• 1:04:42Karen Kilgariff?

  It's horrifying.

• 1:04:43Georgia Hardstark?

  If it's fucking not true, and there was someone doing these things to her, and no one believed him, thought she was crazy, how fucking sad is that?

• 1:04:49Karen Kilgariff?

  Every direction.

• 1:04:50Georgia Hardstark?

  It's, it's an insane case, and I don't think we'll ever know because, you know, there's just not, there's not enough.

• 1:04:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Especially if you start to link it to the CIA or MKUltra, something that you can, these days, it feels more and more like, oh yeah, that's possible. Oh yeah, some deep, some terribly dark.

• 1:05:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, they did this shit, man. They really did.

• 1:05:10Karen Kilgariff?

  They really did it.

• 1:05:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Have I mentioned Wormwood?

• 1:05:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Do I have to say it again?

• 1:05:15Georgia Hardstark?

  How many times?

• 1:05:16Karen Kilgariff?

  But it's funny, cause I've heard this story about her, and you really, not you personally, the story gets told really with this thing of like, here's this horrible thing, but also isn't even, isn't even crazier if she was doing it to herself. So you almost get served this worst case scenario, you know what I mean? Like, it's a more interesting story if she was doing it to herself, or it's a more, it's twist.

• 1:05:40Georgia Hardstark?

  It's, I think what's so interesting about it is that nobody knows. And it feels awful either way, either place you land on it, it feels awful. Because she's still, you know, she still was tormented.

• 1:05:55Karen Kilgariff?

  And, and no matter what.

• 1:05:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 1:05:57Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm just saying, you don't cut your own phone line. Okay. I'm just saying, no one cuts a landline. First of all, how do you even fucking do it?

• 1:06:03Georgia Hardstark?

  I love that the thing that you have fucking a problem with.

• 1:06:06Karen Kilgariff?

  It's the only thing that I have in this life.

• 1:06:08Georgia Hardstark?

  It's, but it's so like, for people who have never had landlines, or didn't rely on them, you don't know how serious you are about this.

• 1:06:16Karen Kilgariff?

  It's kind of like how, I don't know if it's still this way, but like, I mean, I don't know if it's like a known thing or whatever, but it's like, you just couldn't get anybody to get anything taken care of in a short amount of time.

• 1:06:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:28Karen Kilgariff?

  So that whole thing of like, the window is between Tuesday and Friday, and they'll come whenever they feel like it. I don't know, for something like a phone, I just don't see it happening. Also, the other day, I was sitting at home, and all of a sudden my power went out. And of course, the first thing I think is I didn't pay my bill.

• 1:06:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Everyone thinks that.

• 1:06:45Karen Kilgariff?

  And, but then it came back on, and then it went off again. And it was like 3 o'clock in the afternoon, I was just laying there watching TV. I was like scared, like white hot scared, because I'm like, someone's outside turning my power off.

• 1:06:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh my God. Or the bomb dropped finally.

• 1:07:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes. I took it more of a, a one-on-one, I was gonna have to like get into a knife fight with somebody, but.

• 1:07:06Georgia Hardstark?

  This just shows what the things we're scared about.

• 1:07:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes. And they're always with us.

• 1:07:09Georgia Hardstark?

  And they're always there. And Xanax doesn't help.

• 1:07:12Karen Kilgariff?

  It does. Well, you, it'll still happen, and you just don't register or anything.

• 1:07:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, there's so many nuances to this case, too. And I urge people to go to fucking Reddit and the unexplained message boards, and just look, look up everyone's theories, because it's so interesting. Everyone has these theories, and then they, and every comment is fucking, yeah, but, you know, and it's, and they're all right. It's just.

• 1:07:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, it seems like it could truly be, it could go any direction.

• 1:07:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Like, people answered the phone when they were at her house, with her standing there, and no one was on the line.

• 1:07:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:44Georgia Hardstark?

  But no one ever answered the phone, and there was someone talking on the line. You know what I mean? It's like, that kind of thing.

• 1:07:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Also, I really fucking hated that phone call. Like, somebody's standing there.

• 1:07:53Georgia Hardstark?

  I thought you would. That's why I played it.

• 1:07:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Somebody's standing there, trying to be threatening. It's like, it's not the voice, or it's the idea that a person is on the other line, thinking to do that to someone.

• 1:08:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Who's trying to scare the shit out of you.

• 1:08:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. It's just so fucking weird. Soon phones won't exist. That's the dream.

• 1:08:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Talking to anyone won't exist.

• 1:08:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Just let's.

• 1:08:14Georgia Hardstark?

  It'll all be podcasts.

• 1:08:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Text, text me like two emojis, get it, get the idea across.

• 1:08:20Georgia Hardstark?

  If you want to tell me anything, make a podcast. Podcast about it. Send me the podcast. If it doesn't get, if it gets under top 10 in iTunes, I'll listen to what you have to say to me. Mom.

• 1:08:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, that's good.

• 1:08:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Mom, what time? You want to know what time?

• 1:08:35Karen Kilgariff?

  What time?

• 1:08:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Make a podcast about it.

• 1:08:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Tell me in a podcast.

• 1:08:38Georgia Hardstark?

  So that's the story of Cindy James and her death.

• 1:08:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow, that's fascinating. I definitely have heard of it before, but I didn't know her by name.

• 1:08:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay, we're back. Are there updates for this?

• 1:08:51Georgia Hardstark?

  No updates. And I did some digging, and it's just, everyone is still debating that, the quote, evidence. But in September 2021, the podcast called Death by an Unknown Event was released covering this case. And it was narrated by actress Pamela Adlon, of course, who's so great. She's, you know, in the show Better Things and Grease 2. And there's also a book about it that I haven't read. It's called Who Killed Cindy James by Ian Mulgrew. And I'm, I don't know what side it takes, but I'm very interested in reading a whole book about it, because this case is just such a head scratcher. And so fucking tragic.

• 1:09:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Let's get into Karen's story about the tragedy of the McStay family murders. 911, what's your emergency?

• 1:09:41Speaker 01

  We need help. They're everywhere. We think they're murder wantons. 911 Nashville returns.

• 1:09:50Speaker 02

  What's a homicide detective doing here?

• 1:09:51Speaker 03

  Three bodies on the ground.

• 1:09:53Speaker 01

  With emergencies of biblical proportions.

• 1:09:55Speaker 03

  I will send swarms upon you and upon your people.

• 1:09:58Speaker 02

  That's one of the plagues of the Bible.

• 1:10:00Speaker 03

  And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville.

• 1:10:03Speaker 01

  Ryan Phillippe joins 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

• 1:10:09Speaker 00

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• 1:11:02Karen Kilgariff?

  But it's funny, because the way you said that, and Unsolved Mysteries style, right? It was on Unsolved Mysteries. My murder today is also one that I was like, hey, whatever happened to that story?

• 1:11:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Love it.

• 1:11:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Did one of those.

• 1:11:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:17Karen Kilgariff?

  And also I did, and this I understand, I'm, I've been leaning on a lot lately, but who fucking cares?

• 1:11:23Georgia Hardstark?

  It's our fucking podcast.

• 1:11:25Karen Kilgariff?

  My, the way I'm trying to find stories is to go on iTunes, and then just look under true crime, and see what they have, like what, because the ID channel, at this point now, they have every water feature style murder. It's like swamp murders, and pool murders, and fucking shallow puddle.

• 1:11:44Georgia Hardstark?

  And somehow they're able to turn it into a half an hour show, when it's really like, the husband killed her.

• 1:11:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Right. But it's, but because in essence, it's so fascinating that you don't, you don't need much. So I can't keep up with a lot of those ones.

• 1:11:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:59Karen Kilgariff?

  But there's a really good one.

• 1:12:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Water feature. Can we take a minute for the water feature murder?

• 1:12:06Karen Kilgariff?

  It comes up in the story. That's why it was on the, on top of my head. But James Patterson has a new, like, reenactment crime series that I found, like, I think I stumbled upon. I highly recommend it.

• 1:12:20Georgia Hardstark?

  What is it?

• 1:12:21Karen Kilgariff?

  He's at the top. He does this goofy introduction. You know, James Patterson is the novelist, and he like, he has his own commercials, where he'll be like, my new book will drive you crazy. He looks like someone's grandpa. So I started watching this, because I'm like, I bet this is gonna be real cheesy. It is so wonderfully produced, and acted, and really well-written, and they're true, they're true crimes. They're like, it's not fictionalized.

• 1:12:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Is it called Waterfall Murders? What water feature?

• 1:12:46Karen Kilgariff?

  It's called Who Didn't Turn Off the Hose?

• 1:12:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Drinking a.

• 1:12:50Karen Kilgariff?

  My dad murdered everybody in the house because you left the hose on overnight.

• 1:12:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Drinking poison out of a hose.

• 1:12:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Hot water out of a green garden hose.

• 1:12:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Wait, what's the, what's the show called?

• 1:13:01Karen Kilgariff?

  James Patterson, colon, Stephen's going to tell us in a minute.

• 1:13:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see him pick up his phone.

• 1:13:09Georgia Hardstark?

  I love that you did. I love that you tried to avoid it. Cause I was like, wait, Karen, tell us. I didn't help you.

• 1:13:15Karen Kilgariff?

  I just put it into my TiVo though. So I thought if I started to say James Patterson, the rest would come out.

• 1:13:20Georgia Hardstark?

  It doesn't do that in real life. We don't have TiVos in our brains yet.

• 1:13:23Karen Kilgariff?

  It doesn't. I'll read it.

• 1:13:25Speaker 02

  It's called Murder Is Forever.

• 1:13:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. And that's really true.

• 1:13:29Georgia Hardstark?

  I mean, how many times have we told you guys?

• 1:13:32Karen Kilgariff?

  But now that James Patterson's saying it.

• 1:13:34Georgia Hardstark?

  He's right.

• 1:13:35Karen Kilgariff?

  So he's good, but there was another one I found, and this is what got me to this story. So also we know People Magazine, right there and always has been with the true crime.

• 1:13:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Forefront, at the forefront.

• 1:13:49Karen Kilgariff?

  It has been all over JonBenet's death since it happened. That's what they do.

• 1:13:53Georgia Hardstark?

  They did it.

• 1:13:54Karen Kilgariff?

  That's what they do. And now they're devoted and they have a dedicated team. So this is, uh, the McStay family murder.

• 1:14:04Georgia Hardstark?

  You're doing it.

• 1:14:05Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm doing it.

• 1:14:06Georgia Hardstark?

  I love it. Oh, McStay's.

• 1:14:08Karen Kilgariff?

  It makes me so crazy because when I saw this was one of the choices, when I was looking at all the choices for the People Magazine investigates, it was that thing where I went, oh, I remember that. I remember that happening. I remember it being breaking news here in LA. I remember them talking about, oh, if this family of four went missing. And then the follow-up reports in like the following same month or so, they all led and told this weird story where I started to go, oh, they probably brought it on themselves. Oh, they probably, oh, they're escaping something.

• 1:14:39Georgia Hardstark?

  They did this. They did this.

• 1:14:40Karen Kilgariff?

  They did it to themselves or they're running away because they're the criminals.

• 1:14:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 1:14:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Really that narrative got into like the media pretty strongly.

• 1:14:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:51Karen Kilgariff?

  And then it made me go, oh, well, then they probably just ran away and they're tax evaders or some weird thing. And then I just never heard anything else about it. So when I saw it come up as that choice, I was like, I bet you that ended way different than I remember. And I need to know what the whole story is.

• 1:15:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, that's one. Hertz.

• 1:15:06Karen Kilgariff?

  It's bad. And it's Southern California, of course. So it's Fallbrook, California, which is a hundred miles north of San Diego. So it's that weird space between.

• 1:15:16Georgia Hardstark?

  A hundred miles north.

• 1:15:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. So you know, like as you go down, uh, towards San Diego and there's like Temecula and whatever. It's right. I think it's right south of Temecula from what I remember. I looked at the map a couple of times. But it's basically kind of just, I know I can read maps. Google Maps. Okay. So Joey and Summer McStay are happily married couple. He, uh, he designs custom-made water features.

• 1:15:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:15:46Karen Kilgariff?

  That's why that was in my head.

• 1:15:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Fucking circle.

• 1:15:49Karen Kilgariff?

  Full circle. Um, so basically it's like these really high-end, it's, it's kind of an amazing business. And you know, people like that, that are like, they're artists, but then they've applied their art to actually make something functional that people need. So it's like water fountains and water features that were all, um.

• 1:16:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Like waterfalls in the pool that go into the pool. Cause you're rich as fuck and you just need more shit in your house.

• 1:16:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Very high-end business.

• 1:16:13Georgia Hardstark?

  It reminds me of something that would be like now an HGTV show.

• 1:16:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Totally.

• 1:16:17Georgia Hardstark?

  The McStay family water features.

• 1:16:21Karen Kilgariff?

  They bring in, they're the specialists that the like, uh, those weird Las Vegas rent brothers bring in.

• 1:16:27Georgia Hardstark?

  The property brothers?

• 1:16:28Karen Kilgariff?

  The rent brother.

• 1:16:30Georgia Hardstark?

  The rental brother.

• 1:16:32Karen Kilgariff?

  They're a little bit, uh, more, uh, low down than the property brothers. Property brothers are about buying.

• 1:16:38Georgia Hardstark?

  The property brothers who are like, we're not going to fucking Las Vegas, dude.

• 1:16:42Karen Kilgariff?

  That's right. The rent brothers are like, yeah, if you have a part-time job and you love beer, we're your guys.

• 1:16:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. Las Vegas is where to go.

• 1:16:50Karen Kilgariff?

  So, okay. So, uh, so that's what Joey does for a living. A really fancy, great business that he started himself and that just is doing better and better. And so they just bought this really nice house in, uh, Fallbrook.

• 1:17:06Karen Kilgariff?

  And, uh, Summer is a full-time, uh, real estate agent. So they're doing very well. And they have two young sons, um, a five-year-old, um, and a three-year-old. So they, uh, on February, um, I believe it's around like February 8th or 10th.

• 1:17:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Joey is what everyone calls him. Joey McStay's father, Patrick, notices that he's not answering his calls. Every time he calls Joey, he get, it goes straight to the mailbox is full. He cannot get ahold of him. And he finally calls his other son, Michael, and says, will you go check on Joey in the house? Cause he's not answering, um, like what's going on? And then they start getting calls, complaints of people that are looking for, um, their water features or their orders, or say want a question or whatever, and no one's answering. So, and Joey was a really astute businessman. So they knew, once they started hearing complaints through emails that they're like, calls weren't being returned. That's when they really started getting worried that something was going on, cause it's just not like him.

• 1:18:12Karen Kilgariff?

  And actually the webmaster for Joey's company was the one that called and said, I got all these emails. It's like he's, I can't get ahold of him. So then the whole family kind of gets together. And Michael, Joey's brother, and then Joey's business partner, who is the guy that took the designs and actually made the water features. His name is, um, Chase Merritt.

• 1:18:34Georgia Hardstark?

  He's like the construction dad.

• 1:18:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. He's like, you, you design it on the paper and I take all the tubes, twist it around, make a water feature.

• 1:18:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Cut it.

• 1:18:43Karen Kilgariff?

  We ship it out. Boom. We all make $10,000. They go over to the McStay's new house and they're looking around. They see that the family, that Joey's truck is in the, in the driveway, but that the family car is gone. And they, the family car is in a Zuzu trooper and it's not there. They look, they look over the back fence. The dogs are out in the backyard. They haven't been fed. They're, um, they're like going crazy that people are actually there. And then Michael finds an open window and he goes into the McStay's house. And they look around and there's no blood anywhere. There's nothing amiss. There doesn't look like there's been a struggle,

• 1:19:23Karen Kilgariff?

  but it looks like people were just there five minutes ago. So there's two little bowls of popcorn on the couch that are just sitting on the couch. There's glasses on the counter, um, you know, uh, reading glasses sitting on the counter. There's open cans of paint from a room that they were, you know, re, like repainting.

• 1:19:41Georgia Hardstark?

  They were open. No one leaves a can of paint open.

• 1:19:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Not even if they were gonna run to the corner. It's like, what if the dogs get in, da, da, da.

• 1:19:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Or the kids. I'm so anal retentive about that shit. There's no fucking way you're just leaving those. And I don't have dogs or kids.

• 1:19:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Right. And they said, um, later on, they say that they're the kind of people that they brought their dogs everywhere. So they wouldn't, like the idea that the dogs were out in the yard, not fed is like, was really upsetting to them. They knew something was terribly wrong. On February 15th, the family reports the entire family missing to the San Diego Sheriff's, um, Department.

• 1:20:18Karen Kilgariff?

  They've, cause they tried to contact him in every way. They look, they look everywhere and they're like, no, this is like, we need the police to start investigating this. So the police narrow it down to the last, I mean, anybody heard from them. And the last, um, like traceable, um, like phone activity was on February 4th, uh, of 2010.

• 1:20:38Georgia Hardstark?

  And February 15th is when they got ahold of cops.

• 1:20:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 1:20:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 1:20:42Karen Kilgariff?

  So they, uh, yeah, they, it basically was like, oh, they're so busy. They're just not getting back to us. And then it got to the point where it's like, somebody's got to look into this. So I think, and also February 15th was like, may have been the official day that it started. So they could have been talking to the cops the second after they went into the house and it looked like everyone had just walked out of the room, which is such a creepy feeling. But anyway, um, so they see that, uh, they, that on, uh, February 4th at 8:28 PM, um, a cell phone tower pinged Joseph's phone. He had, uh, made a call to employee, an employee in Rancho Cucamonga to talk about work.

• 1:21:23Karen Kilgariff?

  And then they find out that a neighbor, their neighbor had a surveillance camera that caught the edge of the McStay's driveway. And so they have video footage of the McStay's Zuzu trooper backing out of the driveway at 7:47 PM on the night of February 4th.

• 1:21:42Georgia Hardstark?

  I forgot about that part.

• 1:21:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. But you can't see, so all you can see are the wheels going down a driveway. You don't even see where the windows are on the car. It doesn't go up high enough. So you can't see who's in the car.

• 1:21:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:53Karen Kilgariff?

  But you just see that the trooper is leaving the house.

• 1:21:57Karen Kilgariff?

  And then, uh, on February 8th, they find the family's 1996 Zuzu trooper.

• 1:22:05Karen Kilgariff?

  It had been towed from a parking lot near San Ysidro. And the security guards later tell investigators, it may have been parked there, uh, sometime between 5:30 and, uh, 5:30 PM and 7:00 PM. And, um, so then they start looking, it's basically a parking lot that's right next to the border. So then they start watching video footage because they're like, well, what if the family just went into Mexico and something happened? Cause that's basically what they're, the car being driven there tells them that.

• 1:22:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:34Karen Kilgariff?

  So then they find.

• 1:22:35Georgia Hardstark?

  What year is this again? I'm sorry.

• 1:22:36Karen Kilgariff?

  This was 2010.

• 1:22:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 1:22:39Karen Kilgariff?

  So, um, so, and I know that for a fact.

• 1:22:45Georgia Hardstark?

  I should have questioned you.

• 1:22:46Karen Kilgariff?

  I guarantee it. I wrote the year down on every single one of these lines. No, so um, so they start looking at video footage and they think they have found around eight o'clock on that night, they think they found it's like surveillance footage of people walking into Mexico from the California side into Mexico. And it's a family of four and it's a guy and a girl and then a two little children.

• 1:23:13Georgia Hardstark?

  I have watched, I back then watched that video over and over and paused it and started it and paused it. And it's just shadows.

• 1:23:22Karen Kilgariff?

  It's shadows.

• 1:23:23Georgia Hardstark?

  You can't tell who it is.

• 1:23:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Really far away.

• 1:23:24Georgia Hardstark?

  And it's walking away. So you don't see their faces, but it looks like a husband and a wife and two little boys. And it actually is probably.

• 1:23:34Karen Kilgariff?

  It could be. I mean, like, they were saying something where it's like, both of the little boys had these hats on.

• 1:23:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 1:23:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Like beanies, and which is what those little boys did wear all the time.

• 1:23:42Georgia Hardstark?

  What do they call them? And not uh, tuques?

• 1:23:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Tuques in Canada?

• 1:23:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Or like not in California.

• 1:23:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Beanies here, but.

• 1:23:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, or you know, some just kind of a little hat.

• 1:23:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:54Karen Kilgariff?

  But the thing is, lots of little kids wear those. So it's, it's that thing where it's like.

• 1:23:58Georgia Hardstark?

  What are the chances of that same night at that same time?

• 1:24:01Karen Kilgariff?

  And.

• 1:24:02Georgia Hardstark?

  This happened?

• 1:24:02Karen Kilgariff?

  They look, you know, it's far away, but it's like, she's skinny.

• 1:24:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Age appropriate, yeah.

• 1:24:07Karen Kilgariff?

  They, they fit the body types, all of it.

• 1:24:09Georgia Hardstark?

  They do.

• 1:24:10Karen Kilgariff?

  So then the police find on um, Summer's computer in looking into like from Jan, the beginning of January, searches on, do you need passports to take children across the border into Mexico? And different questions like that about taking kids there. So then they were like, okay, maybe this, they've been planning some kind of escape. And that's where this part of the narrative comes in.

• 1:24:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:34Karen Kilgariff?

  And then the father says in the People Magazine Investigates, the father talks about how Joey, because he was doing so well in business and stuff, he ended up buying land in Belize, because he had this retirement plan. He loved surfing and he loved the water. And so he had this land, he was gonna build like a house on in Belize for when they were done and they just wanted to go down and, you know, live the easy life.

• 1:24:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, he, yeah, and he looked like the Margaritaville dude.

• 1:25:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, he's very Sammy Hagar guy.

• 1:25:03Georgia Hardstark?

  He's like, he's like a young Sammy Hagar. She's this like beautiful, like, looks like she hang out the beach all the time.

• 1:25:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Totally. She has like share hair.

• 1:25:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, they're both like surfees, chill out looking. The kids are like sweet, young things.

• 1:25:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Those little boys look like the cutest kids. And yeah, it's just like a very beautiful.

• 1:25:21Georgia Hardstark?

  It's a very Southern California family.

• 1:25:22Karen Kilgariff?

  So Southern California. Just kind of like we've, and successful.

• 1:25:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, doing well because they've worked hard.

• 1:25:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:31Karen Kilgariff?

  So then this idea that then seeding this concept in that they somehow were on the run, or they were trying to get away from something or whatever. Then they start theorizing, okay, was the cartel involved in this water feature company where if they were exporting, that somehow they got, they ran into like the wrong element exporting these water features into Mexico or internationally or something where they're just trying to theorize of like, why would you run with your whole family? Or why would you cross over into Tijuana and just disappear? Like, what could be happening?

• 1:26:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. Um, it's like, I get it. It makes sense that that's one of the things you think about.

• 1:26:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Sure. Well, and I also think that sometimes those people come up with those theories because they're trying to think, how can this family still be alive?

• 1:26:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 1:26:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Because the reality, the underlying creepiness is you don't, you want to go, there's got to be some other thing that's happening here.

• 1:26:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:26:28Karen Kilgariff?

  On May 13th of 2010, so this is like, uh, you know,

• 1:26:34Georgia Hardstark?

  February, March.

• 1:26:34Karen Kilgariff?

  April, three months later. Um, there, they send investigators down to El Rosario, Mexico, because, so a waiter sees, sees little kid, sees the birthmark and reports it, that he think this is, this is the kid. Because now their pictures are everywhere. And it's, and it's missing family.

• 1:26:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:52Karen Kilgariff?

  There's no homicide element in, obviously in the beginning of this.

• 1:26:56Georgia Hardstark?

  It's like, have you seen this family?

• 1:26:58Karen Kilgariff?

  So it's, and also, it seems like when those pictures of like, have you seen this family? There, it immediately puts them in that they could be criminals.

• 1:27:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Or there's something questionable about like, you know, they're all.

• 1:27:10Georgia Hardstark?

  How does a whole family disappear unless they're doing it on their own?

• 1:27:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Unless they're.

• 1:27:13Georgia Hardstark?

  It's not like a husband and wife, or one or the other.

• 1:27:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Changing their identity or whatever. It's like, yeah, they obviously.

• 1:27:19Georgia Hardstark?

  You don't usually run away with a three year old and a five year old.

• 1:27:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Right. So a bunch of, they sent seven investigators down to look into this. Um, but nothing, uh, nothing came of that. And then the brother, Michael starts, um, the Mc, find the McStay family website. And, um, it gets a bunch of attention and they actually did, uh, they featured the story on America's Most Wanted. Um, just saying this family has disappeared and nobody knows what's happening. Um, the problem is that the, that the family finds that in their personal bank accounts, they have a hundred thousand dollars. So they're like, why would you escape and leave behind a bunch of money?

• 1:28:01Georgia Hardstark?

  And it's not touched this whole time.

• 1:28:03Karen Kilgariff?

  It's just sitting in their bank account.

• 1:28:04Georgia Hardstark?

  I remember that amount being like, like, if they left $10,000 and didn't touch it, it'd be like, they're, you know, okay, like, you, you're trying to make it seem like you didn't run away, but you left that. A hundred thousand fucking dollars?

• 1:28:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Why wouldn't you bring that if you're on the run?

• 1:28:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 1:28:22Karen Kilgariff?

  And you're never coming back. It doesn't make sense.

• 1:28:23Georgia Hardstark?

  It's so much money.

• 1:28:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Um, then, uh, they also find that Summer had, um, in her email, the family starts going through the email, uh, their personal email and finds, um, that her abusive ex was a guy named Vic Johansson. She hadn't spoken to him in five years. And actually, she was like the bad, that was the bad relationship she was coming out of when she met Joey. And they were like, and he like, turned her life around. And it was suddenly like, I believe in love again type of thing. So they find an email from that guy. They hadn't spoken in five years. And the email was, they didn't like, like the tone of it or the sound of it. So suddenly they're like, where's this guy?

• 1:29:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:04Karen Kilgariff?

  So they start looking into Vic Johansson. And it turned out, in the time that they had, uh, broken up, he'd been arrested twice. Once was for threatening to kill his neighbors and claiming that he was a, um, a Marine who was trained in like, killing people. And so like, I'm coming for you. He was arrested for that. Then the other time and more recently, he was arrested because he was refused to leave a bar that Joey's store was, it was next to Joe's, Joey's store.

• 1:29:36Georgia Hardstark?

  What?

• 1:29:37Karen Kilgariff?

  And so they were like, and then they find out that, that Vic Johansson lives in an apartment two miles away from Joey and Summer's old apartment.

• 1:29:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh shit.

• 1:29:47Karen Kilgariff?

  So they're like, oh, this guy's in the mix and nobody knew it.

• 1:29:51Georgia Hardstark?

  For sure.

• 1:29:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Understood it. Um, uh, but then Vic knows that he's going to be suspect. And so he calls the police preemptively and says, I understand they're missing. I just want to let you know, this is where I was.

• 1:30:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Here's all the people that can prove it. And it all proves out. So he has an alibi. That seems to be solid. Um, by August of 2010, the beginning of August of 2010, the family just starts taking, um, all the McStay's stuff out of their house. Um, and then, uh, they see that, um, so Joey's company was called Earth Inspired Products. That, that was the custom made water features. Um, they see that the company is for sale for a million dollars and the CEO listed is Dan Kavanaugh, the webmaster.

• 1:30:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Shut the fuck up.

• 1:30:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Who had set up the email when the company first started. I'm not sorry, the website, not the email. I'm so old. Um, so basically, the, in, you know, in this, in People Magazine Investigates, they say that Dan Kavanaugh believed that he was one of the main reasons that this, uh, water feature company got so successful because he made sure that anytime you searched custom water features or any, he was like one of those early Google manipulators. So that, um, Earth, uh, Inspired Products, Inc. would come up first when you were searching for that. And because of that, they got all this business and he felt like he never got

• 1:31:26Karen Kilgariff?

  his fair share. And they found old IMs of Joey and Dan, like fighting and Dan saying, you owe me money. And so Joey ended up buying him a BMW. Like, as a, thank you for all your service and I'm doing well and, you know, you helped me. Um, so.

• 1:31:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Steven, don't get any ideas.

• 1:31:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Steven, the BMWs are too fast for you.

• 1:31:49Georgia Hardstark?

  You're a go-kart.

• 1:31:50Karen Kilgariff?

  And yes.

• 1:31:53Karen Kilgariff?

  And also they tracked that he had kept coming to Joe, this webmaster kept coming to Joey and being like, lend me 50 bucks, lend me a hundred bucks, lend me 200 bucks. So that, you know, they were like, really starting to look at that guy. And then he was like, I was on a surfing trip, what, when that family just came and you can look it up.

• 1:32:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Story.

• 1:32:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, they, you know, it was the truth. But I think it's insane that he tried to fucking sell that company with himself as the CEO. Like.

• 1:32:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Sure.

• 1:32:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Dude.

• 1:32:24Georgia Hardstark?

  What an idiot.

• 1:32:24Karen Kilgariff?

  What are you doing?

• 1:32:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Red flag.

• 1:32:26Karen Kilgariff?

  And also the case is still open. Like, why would you put yourself out there? So,

• 1:32:32Karen Kilgariff?

  anyway, that basically, all of those leads go cold. The whole case goes cold for three years. Then on April 9th, 2013.

• 1:32:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh my god.

• 1:32:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Basically because of that surveillance video.

• 1:32:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. Which one?

• 1:32:46Karen Kilgariff?

  At, I'm sorry, at the border with the family grainy from the back saying it's them. The San Diego Sheriff's Department investigators announced that the McStay family left for Mexico voluntarily.

• 1:32:59Georgia Hardstark?

  They're like done though.

• 1:33:01Karen Kilgariff?

  So they come out and they're just basically like, look, they're gone and we don't know what happened.

• 1:33:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Say goodbye.

• 1:33:06Karen Kilgariff?

  They just went to Mexico.

• 1:33:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh shit.

• 1:33:08Karen Kilgariff?

  So.

• 1:33:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, how frustrating for the family.

• 1:33:11Karen Kilgariff?

  It's terrible. And also, so this is April of 2013. In November of 2013.

• 1:33:17Georgia Hardstark?

  April to November. Got it.

• 1:33:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 1:33:19Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm there.

• 1:33:20Karen Kilgariff?

  A solid six months.

• 1:33:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 1:33:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Or so.

• 1:33:23Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't know math.

• 1:33:24Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, we could just pause it and add it up, but.

• 1:33:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Why would we?

• 1:33:29Karen Kilgariff?

  So.

• 1:33:29Georgia Hardstark?

  It's not this part. This isn't a maths podcast.

• 1:33:32Karen Kilgariff?

  British math.

• 1:33:33Georgia Hardstark?

  This isn't an accounting podcast.

• 1:33:35Karen Kilgariff?

  For fuck's sake. This is not a calendar podcast, clearly. On November 11th, 2013.

• 1:33:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 1:33:42Karen Kilgariff?

  There's a guy riding in the desert, the Mojave Desert. He's riding a motocross area.

• 1:33:49Georgia Hardstark?

  It's your new boyfriend?

• 1:33:50Karen Kilgariff?

  It's Jimmy Buttons. He's just, he wants to get back on the bike and just kind of experience the whole time.

• 1:33:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Sure.

• 1:33:56Karen Kilgariff?

  He's out there and he hits, his tire hits something weird. He goes back.

• 1:34:00Georgia Hardstark?

  No.

• 1:34:01Karen Kilgariff?

  It's a human skull.

• 1:34:02Georgia Hardstark?

  No.

• 1:34:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes. He calls 911. I'm pretty sure it's the real call that was on People Magazine.

• 1:34:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Shut up. What does he say? What does he say?

• 1:34:10Karen Kilgariff?

  He just goes, yeah, um, I'm riding my motorcycle out here back behind the dump and uh, I think I just found a human skull.

• 1:34:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Holy shit.

• 1:34:18Karen Kilgariff?

  He just sounds like the most bummed out motocross guy of all time.

• 1:34:22Georgia Hardstark?

  I just wanted to fucking top some wheelies.

• 1:34:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, I'm just trying to have fun like a kid because you know how hard left can be sometimes and um, I found a skull.

• 1:34:30Georgia Hardstark?

  I saved some money and I bought this thing for myself because it brings me joy and it's the only thing I have that brings me joy left.

• 1:34:36Karen Kilgariff?

  And of course, death is around every corner.

• 1:34:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Sure. And we all know that.

• 1:34:39Karen Kilgariff?

  So can I get some help out here?

• 1:34:40Georgia Hardstark?

  So I found a skull. Oh, the poor Jimmy.

• 1:34:43Karen Kilgariff?

  But now here's the thing.

• 1:34:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 1:34:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Jimmy Buttons, XOXO. Um, the San Bernardino Sheriff's Office takes over because it's up. It's the, the, where that skull is found is up in the desert and it's not in, like it's not San Diego Sheriff's Office anymore.

• 1:35:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Different place.

• 1:35:03Karen Kilgariff?

  And so San, it's two separate counties.

• 1:35:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Different places.

• 1:35:07Karen Kilgariff?

  So San Bernardino is like, yeah, we got this. Everybody else come back in.

• 1:35:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. You remember San Diego? How you were like, no, they walked away.

• 1:35:14Karen Kilgariff?

  They walked into.

• 1:35:15Georgia Hardstark?

  San Diego, San Bernardino is like, uh.

• 1:35:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. They're like, so we're on this and they send forensic investigators to the, to the site, including an anthropologist.

• 1:35:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Nice.

• 1:35:26Karen Kilgariff?

  And they work all night and into the morning. And then the next day, November 15th, San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon identifies the bodies found as Joseph, Summer, Joseph, and Gianni McStay. The whole fucking family's been murdered.

• 1:35:42Georgia Hardstark?

  How did they know it was them when they were digging?

• 1:35:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Because they, lots of bones were broken, but they had the dental records and the dental records identified everybody.

• 1:35:51Georgia Hardstark?

  But they wouldn't know to check the dental records until they knew what to check them against.

• 1:35:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, because there's two adult bodies.

• 1:35:58Georgia Hardstark?

  And two children.

• 1:35:59Karen Kilgariff?

  And two child bodies.

• 1:36:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh God.

• 1:36:00Karen Kilgariff?

  And two separate graves.

• 1:36:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, so tell me what happened.

• 1:36:03Karen Kilgariff?

  So awful. Okay. So the family's house has been sold. There's a new family living in the house. So they, San Bernardino County sheriffs want to go back in, but then they're like, but anything that could have been in here, that could have possibly been a clue is gone. But the Azuzu trooper is still in, I guess somehow in police custody. So they go back and they fucking pull every ounce of forensic evidence that they can out of it. And what they find is there is trace evidence of Joey's business partner, Chase Merritt, in the fucking Azuzu trooper. So they start to look into Chase Merritt's, uh, Chase.

• 1:36:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Chase Merritt's merits?

• 1:36:44Karen Kilgariff?

  And his demerits. Um, turns out he's an ex-con with a mile long rap sheet.

• 1:36:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, Chase. You've been chased down.

• 1:36:53Karen Kilgariff?

  That's right. So many words that are other words.

• 1:36:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Chase has come to an, I don't know. There's something there.

• 1:37:00Karen Kilgariff?

  So he had served time for burglary, grand theft, receiving stolen property, and he also had a gambling problem. So uh, as Joey's company was getting more and more successful, he was borrowing larger and larger sums of money from Joey. And by 2010, Chase Merritt owed Joey over $30,000.

• 1:37:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Holy shit.

• 1:37:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes. And when Summer found out that amount that he owed, she was like, what the fuck are you doing? Like that you, that's too much money to lend somebody and that's crazy.

• 1:37:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:32Karen Kilgariff?

  And I think he, I think Joey was in that position where he had all this success and all this like money and everything was going great. So all the people that had, that came and were like, yeah, well you owe me because da, da, da. He'd be like, sure, here. How much do you need? And was really generous and just wanted everyone to be like happy like he was.

• 1:37:52Georgia Hardstark?

  And it was like, he's grateful for everything he has. And so he's making sure he's paying it for, paying it to people who helped him.

• 1:37:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Right, exactly. And Chase Merritt's there going, well, I'm your, I'm your business partner and I'm your guy. And I just have this little, please hold me over for a little while. I just need $10,000. So basically as they continued to look in, they know Summer was really upset about that amount. She wanted to talk about it, like it was like a real issue. Then they look at Chase Merritt's phone records and on the night the McStay family went missing, his cell phone was shown being used right near where the bodies were found. And they found out that Merritt's sister lived close to that location as well. They had grown up, it was I think near Victorville. It was like

• 1:38:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Mojave Desert somewhere. Um, basically that's where he knew the area very well. So.

• 1:38:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Why didn't they know that before?

• 1:38:47Karen Kilgariff?

  I know. They didn't look into it, I guess. Uh, because they were like, oh, they, they're there in Mexico. Everything, that's fine. So then, uh, I like to think forensic accountants found this out, but I don't know who did.

• 1:39:03Georgia Hardstark?

  I bet they did.

• 1:39:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Some super exciting, wonderfully dressed, chic, hot, exciting.

• 1:39:09Georgia Hardstark?

  So cool.

• 1:39:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Forensic accountant.

• 1:39:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Uh, find that Chase Merritt had written a company check for the amount of $21,000 after the McStays went missing.

• 1:39:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh shit.

• 1:39:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Which is just fucking stupid.

• 1:39:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:23Karen Kilgariff?

  So I would think that would be the last straw, but the chronology could be wrong. So any number of those things could have been the last straw. Finding out that his sister lived nearby, all those things. But basically they're like, oh yeah, okay. So on November 7th, 2014, San Bernardino County Sheriff's investigators uh, announce that they have arrested Charles Chase Merritt and he's charged with four counts of murder in the McStay slayings. Okay. So prosecutors allege Chase Merritt has a gambling problem. He killed the family for financial gain. And basically he wrote checks totally more than $21,000 on Joseph McStay's business account in the days after the family was killed. Then he went on a gambling spree at nearby casinos.

• 1:40:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Which one? Morongo? I bet it was Morongo.

• 1:40:08Karen Kilgariff?

  Go, go Morongo.

• 1:40:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Don't do it.

• 1:40:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Where of course he lost thousands of dollars.

• 1:40:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Dude, on what? What are they gambling on?

• 1:40:17Karen Kilgariff?

  You know, fucking like.

• 1:40:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Buffalo, am I Buffalo machine?

• 1:40:19Karen Kilgariff?

  High stakes Buffalo machine.

• 1:40:20Georgia Hardstark?

  High stakes Buffalo and fucking Wheel of Fortune.

• 1:40:23Karen Kilgariff?

  It's just like that thing of like anything else where you're like, so you, you couldn't stop playing fucking 21, so you killed four people.

• 1:40:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Including two little babies.

• 1:40:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Like the cutest, yeah. So.

• 1:40:35Georgia Hardstark?

  What a monster.

• 1:40:37Karen Kilgariff?

  On January 30th, 2015, Chase Merritt requests to represent himself. Always a good sign.

• 1:40:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Great idea. You're fucking sane as shit.

• 1:40:46Karen Kilgariff?

  He said he only had six to eight months to live, that he couldn't afford an attorney and he had to represent himself. So this turns out is very sad for him.

• 1:40:54Georgia Hardstark?

  I hate him so much.

• 1:40:55Karen Kilgariff?

  So the trial is delayed, um, because he keeps on firing these attorneys and he tries to represent, represent himself. I'm sure he couldn't do it. Uh, February 2016, he had already gone through five attorneys.

• 1:41:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Shit.

• 1:41:10Karen Kilgariff?

  July 2017, his trial is tentatively set for September 25th, 2017. A month later, a San Bernardino County Superior Court judge sets a November 13th, 2017 trial date. November 13th, 2017, the trial is waived.

• 1:41:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Wait, that's like a couple of months ago.

• 1:41:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Until February 23rd, the trial starts tomorrow.

• 1:41:35Karen Kilgariff?

  The trial of Chase Merritt.

• 1:41:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Shut your face.

• 1:41:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Killed the McStay family starts tomorrow, if they don't waive it again.

• 1:41:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Holy shit.

• 1:41:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Let's go to it.

• 1:41:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Dude, the, the cool thing about the way People Magazine Investigates set up that thing was, I was like, oh, it's totally that ex-boyfriend, clearly.

• 1:41:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:41:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Then you go, it's totally the web.

• 1:41:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, I'm like that too, with anything I want. It's them. It's that, like, it's the next person.

• 1:42:02Karen Kilgariff?

  But that, within that world, the police had so much work to do and so many people to like peel away.

• 1:42:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:10Karen Kilgariff?

  The really awful thing though is this family, their, Joey McStay had electrical cord around his neck, but the whole family was bludgeoned to death.

• 1:42:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh my God.

• 1:42:21Karen Kilgariff?

  And they found the, um, it's, you know, the sledgehammer where the bodies were buried.

• 1:42:27Georgia Hardstark?

  How did he do it?

• 1:42:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Right? And like they, he, he, whoever did this, and if it was him or somebody else, sledgehammer to death of family. Like it's, it's a monster among us. It's so horrifying.

• 1:42:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh my God.

• 1:42:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:43Georgia Hardstark?

  It's just like, I think what always bothered me, and I followed this case, obviously not until recently, because I didn't know that was going on. But I think once I found out that their bodies were found, I was like, I can't this anymore, because you'd been hearing so much about it.

• 1:42:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 1:42:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Like, I knew it happened. Okay, I'm done. But I've always pictured, you know, their house and the two bowls of popcorn, like little kid popcorn on the couch. They had just sat their kids down so they could watch something on TV with some popcorn.

• 1:43:17Karen Kilgariff?

  And the theory is-

• 1:43:18Georgia Hardstark?

  So that the parents could have a conversation with Chase.

• 1:43:21Karen Kilgariff?

  With the business partner to say, hey.

• 1:43:23Georgia Hardstark?

  You can't, this can't happen anymore.

• 1:43:24Karen Kilgariff?

  We're not doing this anymore.

• 1:43:26Georgia Hardstark?

  And he fucking lost it.

• 1:43:27Karen Kilgariff?

  And he, or he was like, oh, we should all go to a, let's all go out to dinner. Or let's all, like, something to get everybody together in the car. Because he, yeah.

• 1:43:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, so it happened, it didn't happen in the house, because there's no blood. There's nothing.

• 1:43:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. They don't, and the defense attorneys in the beginning were trying to say, that the prosecution is trying to say that the, that that's the houses where the, like, the initial attack took place. And because there's not a drop of blood there, that can't, it must be wrong, or whatever. When obviously, there's, because there was no broken glass, there was no, doors were broken, there was no forced entry, there was no sign of a struggle. They left of their own accord with the business partner slash friend that they thought everything was fine with.

• 1:44:12Georgia Hardstark?

  That they trusted.

• 1:44:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 1:44:13Georgia Hardstark?

  So what do you, where, they don't know where the, where the murder took place.

• 1:44:19Karen Kilgariff?

  But I think if he, I think it took place out in the desert. I think he got them into the car and then drove them against their will.

• 1:44:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Because, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. That like, but then, yeah, but then you wonder, like, if the dad had then the rope around his neck, because like, he probably would have fought if this dude, like, brought out a gun and was like, you're coming with me. So he subdued him somehow.

• 1:44:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. I mean, because I think it's that thing, and all the people that are suspect, it's all these people that are your good friend, your business partner, the person you talk to every single day. So clearly, it's someone, couldn't be more on the inside that turned. And the idea that this guy has, like, a rap sheet a mile long, where clearly he doesn't have a huge problem with breaking him along, doing what he needs to do to get his.

• 1:45:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 1:45:09Karen Kilgariff?

  I don't know. It's, I mean, it's fascinating. And also, just at the beginning, and that was, you know, years, years ago, he was like, oh, I only have six months to live. Or it's like, sorry, what? Like, year-

• 1:45:19Georgia Hardstark?

  He said he had, like, what, cancer or some shit?

• 1:45:22Karen Kilgariff?

  He, like, at first, his lawyers were like, yeah, he's very unwell. And then he fires the lawyers and is like, I'm sick, I'm just gonna represent myself. Like, it's just that whole psychopath thing of like, this is about me and how hard the struggles of my life.

• 1:45:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:36Karen Kilgariff?

  And nobody else matters or counts. So crazy. So we'll have to keep our eyes peeled and-

• 1:45:42Georgia Hardstark?

  For sure.

• 1:45:43Karen Kilgariff?

  See what happens in that case.

• 1:45:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Fuck, man.

• 1:45:45Karen Kilgariff?

  I know.

• 1:45:46Georgia Hardstark?

  That was good, Karen.

• 1:45:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Thank you. Well, I'm just-

• 1:45:49Georgia Hardstark?

  A messenger? You're just a messenger?

• 1:45:51Karen Kilgariff?

  I don't want to take credit for the worst fucking story of all time.

• 1:45:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Credit for People Magazine investigates, but-

• 1:45:58Karen Kilgariff?

  But I will, because, man, that's a good show.

• 1:46:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Shit. Well?

• 1:46:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Ooh, that's creepy. I also printed up a picture of the leaves. That was what I was trying to print last week, or the week we did that.

• 1:46:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, no. It's just reminding you about 2010.

• 1:46:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Never forget about 2010.

• 1:46:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Um, well, shit. Thank you for sharing that.

• 1:46:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Of course.

• 1:46:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, we're back. Karen, are there any updates?

• 1:46:26Karen Kilgariff?

  There are updates for this one. On April 7th of 2018, Chase's attorney filed a motion in San Bernardino Supreme Court claiming that Joey's business records were hearsay evidence, making them inadmissible. That trial began on January 7th, 2019. And then, in June of that year, he was found guilty and he was sentenced to death on January 21st, 2020. But there's a moratorium on the death penalty in California. So Chase is currently incarcerated at a correctional facility in San Diego, and he has no eligibility for parole. He maintains his innocence. He says he's preparing a habeas petition to prove his innocence. He claims he was the victim of prosecutorial misconduct, abusive

• 1:47:09Karen Kilgariff?

  discretion, judicial error, ineffective assistance to counsel. He's got a whole list of complaints. In 2025, the book Down to the Bone came out that details the murders and this trial. So that's everything about the actual case. Also, we mentioned Jimmy Buttons during my story. And he, of course, got made into an MFM animated entitled Jimmy Buttons. And so you can go watch that on our YouTube channel right now, on youtube.com/exactlyrightmedia.

• 1:47:39Georgia Hardstark?

  All right. Good job. Okay, let's head back in for Good Things of the Week.

• 1:47:50Georgia Hardstark?

  911, what's your emergency?

• 1:47:53Speaker 01

  Please help us. They're everywhere. We think they're murder hornets. 911 Nashville returns.

• 1:48:00Speaker 02

  What's a homicide detective doing here?

• 1:48:02Speaker 03

  Three bodies on the ground.

• 1:48:03Speaker 01

  With emergencies of biblical proportions.

• 1:48:06Speaker 03

  I will send swarms upon you and upon your people.

• 1:48:09Speaker 02

  That's one of the plagues of the Bible.

• 1:48:10Speaker 03

  And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville.

• 1:48:13Speaker 01

  Brian Phillippe, 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

• 1:48:20Speaker 00

  Whether you're buying, renting, or selling, Zillow can help make your someday today. To help find a home that fits where you are in life, or that apartment that's a little closer to where you want to be. Zillow has the right information, tools, and support to help turn your future home into a reality. Because someday starts today. Visit zillow.com/today to get started.

• 1:48:45Karen Kilgariff?

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• 1:49:17Karen Kilgariff?

  To, to wrap up the show, do you have some kind of a hooray?

• 1:49:20Georgia Hardstark?

  I do have one.

• 1:49:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 1:49:20Georgia Hardstark?

  You go first. Mine's stupid. I'll go first.

• 1:49:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 1:49:23Georgia Hardstark?

  The other night, I couldn't sleep. I was laying in bed, thinking about the hometown murders and how crazy they've become. And I thought of another one that I want people to send in. So this is just a random, I would, I want to hear this now.

• 1:49:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 1:49:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, this is my hooray.

• 1:49:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Great.

• 1:49:34Georgia Hardstark?

  I want people to send me, not me, I want people to send us at myfavoritemurder@gmail, stories of how they found out after, like, grandpa died, we went through the fucking basement.

• 1:49:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 1:49:47Georgia Hardstark?

  And that's how we learned. So there's this article in Vice that I recently reread called My Grandmother, the Poisoner, by John Reed, that I say, everyone needs to read, but like, one of those, yeah, we realized my grandma might be poisoning all of us. But we just acted like it was normal. And like, don't eat grandma's food. But it's a really great article.

• 1:50:05Karen Kilgariff?

  What the fuck?

• 1:50:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. So it's one of those what the fucks, how did we not know? We found out this after. I want those, those are our new hometowns that I want.

• 1:50:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Please.

• 1:50:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Right?

• 1:50:16Karen Kilgariff?

  And if anything involves an attic.

• 1:50:17Georgia Hardstark?

  An attic, we were going through a thing and we found out.

• 1:50:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 1:50:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Dot, dot, dot.

• 1:50:22Karen Kilgariff?

  And a trunk, microfiche, whatever it is.

• 1:50:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Anything.

• 1:50:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Bottom drawers.

• 1:50:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, even if it's, and it doesn't have to be like murder. I'm just talking about, like, weird shit, like, we didn't realize this about my mom until, or whatever the fuck.

• 1:50:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes. That's great. I love that. That's a great idea. I was gonna say, this, my hooray for this week is these fucking kids from that high school in Florida, who are standing up and fucking taking the mic away from these inept fucking leaders of this country, and the rotten, shitty, toxic adults that are so fucking greedy that they don't care about human life anymore, and they are taking it back. I am so proud that the way they're handling themselves. And I just want to say to all these kids that are watching other kids be this empowered, and just know-

• 1:51:17Karen Kilgariff?

  This is, the world needs you so bad right now because these adults have gone insane and you are the voice of reason. And anyone trying to tell you, you can't talk, or you're being over emotional, you don't have to listen to any of those old fucks at all. And you can do, you're not over emotional. Your opinion matters more than other people's because once you stand on the other side of a fucking AR-15 and almost die in your high school, you get to say what you think about gun control. And your opinion matters. And you have to, you don't be stopped by fucking closed doors of senators and governors. Don't be stopped

• 1:51:59Karen Kilgariff?

  by internet trolls. Don't fucking fall for any of that shit and do what you know is right. Because those old fucks are, they're locked up in greed, and they're locked up in fucking shitty, like, they don't even know, they've gone insane, truly. And we need you so badly right now. So, congratulations, and I'm so sorry, but also fuck, yeah, like, rise up, children.

• 1:52:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes. And I, and even, even the people who, the teenagers who you haven't had a shooting at your school, yet. To me, the thought, you know, I graduated the year before Columbine, and now the thought of going to high school, knowing every fucking day that that could happen, is terrifying to me, and I'm not in high school. So, everyone who's in high school, and in college, and in these, in these situations, like, why, why, why is the world, the words, "school shooting," so normal? It shouldn't be. It's all these kids who need to fucking do something. And you're totally right. And it's not just the fucking people, it's the adults. As someone who's 37, we stop giving a shit, and we go fucking dead in the brain, and we don't know what we're, what to do. So, you, we need

• 1:53:07Georgia Hardstark?

  you so badly. It's your fucking future. We support you. I saw something today that was like, schools are fucking threatening to, to suspend students. I got suspended in high school. Guess what? It doesn't fucking matter.

• 1:53:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Not only does it not matter, but guess what? If you get shot by a fucking AR-15 because some fucking alt-right racist piece of shit runs through your school trying to shoot people, it won't matter, suspended or not. This is, we are at a really crucial time, where these, what these kids are doing, are standing up and going, "No fucking more, because we almost died." They're not spoiled little activist children. They're not like, these pieces of shit that are trying to talk shit about them. They are people who, A, survived, and B, now have a clarity that you can only get when you fucking almost get killed. Where you step forward and go, "I know it matters. I know it doesn't matter,

• 1:54:03Karen Kilgariff?

  and I'm about to tell you something." And these old men that run this country, that are so obsessed with being in a fucking yacht club, that they don't give a shit about human life, that generation is dying off.

• 1:54:14Georgia Hardstark?

  I mean, I can't imagine how fucking scared the NRA is, that they're coming after them. I am so fuck, we are fucking rooting for you. We're behind you.

• 1:54:23Karen Kilgariff?

  And also, you're 17, a lot of you are 17, or up in that area. In one year, you can start fucking changing everything. And you will-

• 1:54:32Georgia Hardstark?

  And in the meantime, your shit's gonna be expunged. So, just fucking get out there.

• 1:54:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes. And, keep going on social media. Keep doing the things that you know how to do, that they don't know how to do, which is communicate on social media. There was that brilliant thing where people started to try to accuse one of those survivors of being a crisis actor. And he fucking came back on Wolf Blitzer, and was like, "If any of you saw me in our high school productions of Fiddler on the Roof, you would know I am not a crisis actor." It was like, how genius are these, they're all trained by TV. They're all trained by social media. They know how to do this thing. They don't need fucking old people telling them what to do anymore. And they don't need pieces of shit, like, school people going, "Oh, you'll get suspended." Hey, guess what? We're tired, they're saying, "We're tired of dying." My sister has lived on the front lines of school

• 1:55:21Karen Kilgariff?

  shooting culture since it started. And she, as a teacher, when people were saying, "Teachers should walk out. Teachers should be armed." Teachers, my sister goes, "How come we have to fucking do everything? This is both, like, teachers aren't gonna be armed. This is a school. That, what we need is less guns, not more." That, the fantasy of arming everybody to the teeth, did you see that thing online where they showed a picture of moments before Ronald Reagan got shot? And there's just all these arrows to all the, um, CIA going, "Good guy with a gun, good guy with a gun, good guy with a gun." And he still got fucking shot. He was surrounded on every side. So, drop the fantasy that, that arming everybody

• 1:56:03Karen Kilgariff?

  is the answer, and start looking at the fact that this country has too many fucking guns. Why am I saying anything? Let the children, listen to them.

• 1:56:13Georgia Hardstark?

  We're not, and the thing too, and I've gotten in a loud fight with my mom in a fucking fancy pizza restaurant about this, is we're not trying to take away fucking this guy Eric's fucking gun, his, his fucking 22. Have it, fine. Basic fucking regulations, especially on automatic fucking rifles, and automatic weapons, and fucking, you know, army-grade fucking assault rifles. It's just basic fucking regulations, in the same way, driver's license do, in the same way, you and I would have to fucking have it if we wanted to get an abortion, or we wanted to get birth control. Like, we, you know, like, what the fuck is the difference?

• 1:56:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. The difference is, it's a big, big money.

• 1:56:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Lots of money. You've been fucking brainwashed. And if you're not on the side of fucking, of protecting children, then you're on the wrong side, and you need to fucking know that.

• 1:57:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes. And that idea, the threat of they're coming for our guns, is like, an NRA-based fantasy of this government takeover. Like, your boy's in office, like, that you can let go of, they were saying, "If we just got rid of 100,000 guns, there would still be 300,000 in the mix." Like, this is a, it's-

• 1:57:29Georgia Hardstark?

  It's a crisis. It's a fucking crisis. I'm so, I've been worrying about it, and worrying about it. And to see fucking teenagers actually doing something about it, is, it's, it's overwhelming to me to see it happening, and someone doing something about it. And I, and, all, all we can do is say that we support it, 100%.

• 1:57:49Karen Kilgariff?

  And, please keep, please keep going, and please know that you, the fight, and they know. None of this needs to be said to them. That's the best part.

• 1:57:57Georgia Hardstark?

  But we're talking also about, you know, not teenagers who support it as well. And what we can do is, is get behind it.

• 1:58:05Karen Kilgariff?

  As we said, as James Patterson said, "Murder is forever." You fucking lose your 14-year-old in a school shooting, the fucking end. Look around your house, look around your family, and say, "Who am I willing to lose, so that somebody else can have a gun?" Because I bet you that answer is fucking nobody. But, but it's totally fine for these other families to lose babies, to lose children in the hallway of their high school. That is bullshit. We need to start golden ruling some shit in this country. We need to take back this, like, "I got mine, too bad for your family." Like, and guess what? These kids are the ones that are gonna do it. And it's fucking electrifying.

• 1:58:42Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm in awe. I'm in fucking awe of these kids.

• 1:58:45Karen Kilgariff?

  God bless.

• 1:58:46Georgia Hardstark?

  God bless them.

• 1:58:51Georgia Hardstark?

  And we're back.

• 1:58:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay, so this episode originally was entitled Project Artichoke, one of the greats.

• 1:58:57Georgia Hardstark?

  What if we were naming it today, based on something we said in the episode? Maybe we would call it Third and Final, Karen's Last Apology Ever.

• 1:59:06Karen Kilgariff?

  I really miss yelling at the audience and being rude to people on Twitter. Those days are so far behind me now. Oh, also, RIP George. We could name it Fiercely Private Dog, which people really took to when I declared that she was fiercely private, even though I'm the one that posted the video of her.

• 1:59:24Georgia Hardstark?

  That became a shirt. That was so important. I feel like we have to, in George's name, call it Fiercely Private Dog. We could do Jimmy Buttons, of course.

• 1:59:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes. Classic.

• 1:59:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:35Karen Kilgariff?

  Or Never Forget About 2010, when you basically remind, remind me how I fucked up. Yep. Never forget.

• 1:59:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Never. All right. Well, thank you guys for listening here in, what is it, 2026? Let's go back to 2018 to say goodbye.

• 1:59:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Stay sexy.

• 1:59:54Georgia Hardstark?

  And don't get murdered.

• 1:59:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye.

• 1:59:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Goodbye.

• 1:59:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Elvis, you want cookie?

• 2:00:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Good boy. Good boy.

• 2:00:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Calling all amateur detectives and podcast obsessives.

• 2:00:07Georgia Hardstark?

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

• 2:00:16Karen Kilgariff?

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

• 2:00:32Georgia Hardstark?

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

• 2:00:35Karen Kilgariff?

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

• 2:00:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Goodbye.

• 2:00:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay. Laundry stinks. Literally. I mean, you could just keep buying new underwear. Not that I've ever done that. Or maybe sort your clothes into piles, based on how re-wearable or filthy they are. Or just use Arm & Hammer Deep Clean. It's made for real life stinks and stains. So even if you don't do laundry the quote "right way," Deep Clean will knock it out. I mean, it is from the number one liquid detergent brand that tackles more loads than any other. Come clean with Arm & Hammer Deep Clean. Number one claim based on total wash loads sold. What does Drew Barrymore reach for at home? A Minky Couture blanket. The ultra-soft throw that stops you mid-sentence. Featured on her show and loved in real life, Minky

• 2:01:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Couture wraps you in premium plush fabric, signature stretch, and award-winning craftsmanship. The blanket that turns every couch into your favorite seat in the house. Drew Barrymore's blanket, only at Minky Couture. Shop now at minkycouture.com. That's Minky, M-I-N-K-Y, couture, C-O-U-T-U-R-E, dot com.