Rewind with Karen & Georgia - 120:  Live at the Orpheum in Los Angeles

It's time to Rewind with Karen & Georgia! This week, K & G recap Episode 120: Live at the Orpheum in Los Angeles. Karen told the story of legendary LA journalist Agness Underwood and Georgia discussed the Los Feliz Murder Mansion. 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 an 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.

• 0:06Georgia Hardstark?

  There are plenty of things that keep you up at night. Your sleep tracker shouldn't be one of them.

• 0:10Karen Kilgariff?

  You know that feeling, laying in bed, staring at the ceiling, counting all the times you said something weird.

• 0:15Georgia Hardstark?

  And then you wake up and check your sleep score. Now you have to start your day knowing that you failed at sleeping.

• 0:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Hatch Sleep Clock does it differently.

• 0:23Georgia Hardstark?

  It tracks your sleep from your nightstand. No ring, wristband, or judgmental score waiting for you in the morning.

• 0:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Instead, you'll get personalized insights to understand your sleep and recommendations to build a routine you'll love night after night.

• 0:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Fall asleep to the next chapter of an audiobook, like The Odyssey, a nervous system reset meditation, or a calming sound bath.

• 0:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Then you can find out which gives you 20 more minutes of deep sleep each night.

• 0:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Hatch Sleep Clock.

• 0:46Karen Kilgariff?

  The sleep tracker designed to get you to sleep. Available now on hatch.co.

• 0:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Goodbye. Between work, school, family obligations, and the endless Halloween hustle, it often feels like there's never a good time to slow down.

• 0:59Karen Kilgariff?

  No matter how busy life gets, even a small break can help us recharge, reset, and enjoy the moment.

• 1:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Breaks don't have to be the 15 minutes in your car while you wait for your kid to get out of school, or the two minutes while your little pumpkin is tying his shoes.

• 1:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Kit Kat gives people permission to take the break they've earned and make it a better break.

• 1:15Georgia Hardstark?

  While the world tells us to keep going, Kit Kat reminds us that the best time for a break is now.

• 1:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Break now. Have a Kit Kat.

• 1:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Goodbye. The Hulu original series Phony is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+. Sonny's life is pretty great until he wakes up from a car accident to a world that looks exactly like his, with one exception, his mom.

• 1:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Starring five-time Emmy nominee Connie Britton and Sam Nivola, this small town is hiding the mother of all mysteries just beneath the surface.

• 1:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Watch the Hulu original series, Phony.

• 1:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.

• 1:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Goodbye.

• 2:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Hello.

• 2:09Karen Kilgariff?

  And welcome.

• 2:10Georgia Hardstark?

  To Rewind with Karen in Georgia.

• 2:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Every Wednesday, we recap our old shows with all-new commentary and case updates and general small talk.

• 2:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Today, we're rewinding to episode 120, which we named "Live at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles."

• 2:25Karen Kilgariff?

  This episode came out May 10, 2018.

• 2:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Let's listen to the intro of episode 120.

• 2:58Karen Kilgariff?

  They recognized it.

• 3:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Whoa.

• 3:01Karen Kilgariff?

  What's up, Los Angeles?

• 3:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Now, nothing else can go wrong.

• 3:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Thank you.

• 3:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Because of that.

• 3:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Hi. My god, the rug's disappearing.

• 3:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 3:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 3:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Hi.

• 3:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Hi.

• 3:27Karen Kilgariff?

  It's totally fine.

• 3:30Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't know why this show, I'm nervous about this one.

• 3:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, we're really mad because we're nervous.

• 3:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, we're mad at ourselves, we're mad at, you know.

• 3:40Karen Kilgariff?

  We've been out all across America doing this show for the past year, year and a half, quite some time.

• 3:49Karen Kilgariff?

  Thank you, but.

• 3:50Georgia Hardstark?

  We've gone everywhere but Idaho for some reason, right? Is that it?

• 3:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Just about, just about. Alaska, we're coming for you, Alaska. But then LA, it's a different thing. It's a different beast to come back to our hometown and perform for you here tonight. It's very...

• 4:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Scary.

• 4:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, we don't want you guys to... If anyone else hates us in fucking Arizona, it gives a shit.

• 4:17Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, come on, who are they gonna tell?

• 4:21Karen Kilgariff?

  But here, ugh.

• 4:22Georgia Hardstark?

  I know. I could be disowned by my parents that are floating around the audience somewhere. Don't make eye contact.

• 4:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Shit, you have a ton of parents. Fucking 17 parents over there.

• 4:38Georgia Hardstark?

  I was a handful as a kid. I was hard to parent, so they just passed me around.

• 4:41Karen Kilgariff?

  So they had to call in a bunch of backups and reserves. My dad was gonna come, but then he was not sure he could get an aisle seat, so then he was just like, forget it.

• 4:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Are you serious?

• 4:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, because he has a bad hip. And then he's like, eh, I'm gonna have to walk. And I was just like, well, cool then, stay home for sure.

• 4:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Do you know that my dad texted Vince and was like, "Hey, can I get an aisle?" Is that a dad thing?

• 5:06Karen Kilgariff?

  It might be.

• 5:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my god, aisle's totally a dad thing.

• 5:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Because, you know, you never know if somebody out in the lobby is gonna have to write a check for an electric bill and that the dad needs to run out there and oversee that shit.

• 5:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, you gotta, he's gotta make sure that he put it in your... What is it called that I don't use? You know, when you write down?

• 5:23Karen Kilgariff?

  The, I don't either. It's called the logbook.

• 5:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 5:27Karen Kilgariff?

  It's, um, it's called a checking logbook.

• 5:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Thank you.

• 5:29Karen Kilgariff?

  That's right.

• 5:30Georgia Hardstark?

  It's so 80s.

• 5:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Right? No one fucking uses those things anymore. Come on, that's the thing you use to test if the pen is working.

• 5:39Georgia Hardstark?

  That's the thing you use when you're financially responsible.

• 5:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Who's that?

• 5:44Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't know. And like, wanna keep track of your purchases instead of like wanting to not remember all the horrible purchases you've made.

• 5:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Right? I, I've always done the thing where you just do, you get whatever the ATM will give you and you go. Like, you take it and you fucking go. "Oh, you won't give me 40? How about 20? I'll go, I'll go lower if you will, ATM."

• 6:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Have you in your life gone, "Why won't they just give you fives? I don't understand why you can't get smaller."

• 6:12Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, what about, did you ever do the thing where you had like $1,898 in the bank? So then you write yourself a check for $3 that you know is gonna bounce so you can have a $20 bill?

• 6:23Georgia Hardstark?

  You said no.

• 6:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, I'm the bad one now? Now you turn on me.

• 6:28Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm saying no in a way that that's fucking genius. I wish I had known that when I was crying over not having $20.

• 6:34Karen Kilgariff?

  I can write a check, it's fine.

• 6:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Boom.

• 6:36Karen Kilgariff?

  It's just you. What are you gonna, you don't have any service fees? You're fine.

• 6:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Do you wanna show everybody your cute, cute dress?

• 6:46Georgia Hardstark?

  I do.

• 6:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Look at, did you see it?

• 6:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Thank you, I'm so, look at, SSGGM.

• 6:53Karen Kilgariff?

  It has our thing on it.

• 6:54Georgia Hardstark?

  So the, this is a dress made by a local designer who's super lovely and keeps, for some reason, giving me dresses. I don't, she thinks I'm like...

• 7:05Karen Kilgariff?

  It's good for business.

• 7:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, so she was like, this time, she's like, in LA, and she's like, "I'm gonna make you a special dress." I'm like, "Absolutely, but I'm gonna pay you this time." Because, um, and she did, and she's here, April. It's, it's called, uh, May 68 is the company.

• 7:19Karen Kilgariff?

  What's it called?

• 7:19Georgia Hardstark?

  May 68.

• 7:20Karen Kilgariff?

  May 68, everybody.

• 7:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Look at.

• 7:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, walk him around. Walk him around, walk him around. Yes. Look at. She can run in that dress. She can hide things in her pockets in that dress.

• 7:37Georgia Hardstark?

  I legit just kinda twisted my ankle running around a rug.

• 7:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Did you for real? You gotta be careful.

• 7:43Georgia Hardstark?

  And when I was trying to show you that I could put both my hands in my pockets, I almost went, "I'll hold this in my mouth."

• 7:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Filthy.

• 7:52Georgia Hardstark?

  What am I doing on a stage?

• 7:54Karen Kilgariff?

  The live shows are highly sexual and very dangerous.

• 8:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Also, what I love about it is this is a straight-up The Shining Twins outfit, which is...

• 8:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Come play with me. Just me, come play with me.

• 8:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Come play with you by yourself. I would've done it, I didn't, but I had to wear my...

• 8:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, tell us about this amazing thing.

• 8:18Karen Kilgariff?

  This, guys, please don't. I'll get mad. I'll get mad.

• 8:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Look, I love the Pat Benatar video, Love is a Battlefield. I feel like piling up your dress, you can put, anyone can put on a dress. But putting on a dress and then piling more dress on that dress and kind of going outward with it is brave. It's high fashion.

• 8:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Radical self...

• 8:45Karen Kilgariff?

  It's radical self-acceptance through the hugest pockets you can find at Macy's, that's right. These are pockets. I can put anything in here.

• 8:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Pour a bottle of water in there.

• 8:59Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm gonna fill my pockets with water and drink out of my pockets for the duration of the show.

• 9:05Georgia Hardstark?

  I love it.

• 9:05Karen Kilgariff?

  So easy.

• 9:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Stay hydrated.

• 9:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, my god, Coachella was amazing this year.

• 9:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, my god. Mushrooms?

• 9:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Water, it's the same water.

• 9:19Georgia Hardstark?

  She texted me yesterday while you were at the store looking for dresses and was and did the fucking classic question that we all know the fucking answer to, which is not, there is no such thing, which is how much cleavage is too much cleavage?

• 9:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 9:32Georgia Hardstark?

  There's no such thing!

• 9:34Karen Kilgariff?

  I had to add a panel to this dress because I'm not, I'm not all that interested in wearing a dress anyway, but I certainly wasn't gonna go full like Star Trek Voyager with this fucking thing. And this is the best part, so I'm trying, I just grabbed as many black dresses with pockets as I could find in Macy's. And then I went into an abandoned fitting room, this is Macy's, and, but I went into the first one that, where you walk in and trying, I'm in the, in between trying on one dress and the other, so I'm like taking something off and the door opens.

• 10:17Georgia Hardstark?

  No, no, no, no.

• 10:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Very far open.

• 10:22Karen Kilgariff?

  And this lady just kinda goes...

• 10:25Georgia Hardstark?

  What?

• 10:26Karen Kilgariff?

  And I'm kinda like, and I was like, you know, shut it?

• 10:32Karen Kilgariff?

  And she goes, she was like kinda bitching, she like shut her, she goes, "Sorry, why don't you lock it?"

• 10:38Georgia Hardstark?

  It's your fucking fault!

• 10:39Karen Kilgariff?

  So then I'm standing there, all shamed, fitting room nude, the worst way you can be.

• 10:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Because you're trying not to look at the mirror that's right here and behind you.

• 10:50Karen Kilgariff?

  You're fucking, it's fluorescent lighting, it's against you in every direction.

• 10:56Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't know why, yeah.

• 10:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, I was just like, she was wearing a baseball hat, and I'm like, wait a second, is this some fucking new shame porn where they get you like, they trick people?

• 11:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, no.

• 11:08Karen Kilgariff?

  And if it's not, that's my idea, don't fucking steal it. I'm, that's my money.

• 11:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Steven, write that down.

• 11:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Steven! Oh, also.

• 11:20Georgia Hardstark?

  He's not here. Just kidding!

• 11:23Karen Kilgariff?

  What if we didn't allow him to come to the LA show? Steven, where are you?

• 11:26Georgia Hardstark?

  He's actually down, he's in the car, he's waiting in the car.

• 11:31Karen Kilgariff?

  If we yell your name four times, that's your cue.

• 11:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Get her!

• 11:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Damn!

• 11:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, no, it's fine, you're fine.

• 11:49Georgia Hardstark?

  It was open!

• 11:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Everything's fine, it's fine.

• 11:52Speaker 02

  It's not like at home, it's not like at...

• 11:53Karen Kilgariff?

  No, no.

• 11:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Um, look at his shirt, everyone!

• 12:01Karen Kilgariff?

  He loves cats and Selena and dinosaurs.

• 12:06Speaker 02

  Oh my gosh, hi.

• 12:09Georgia Hardstark?

  It's scary, huh?

• 12:10Speaker 02

  Oh, this is great.

• 12:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Um, Steven, we told Steven that we wanted him to think of one of his favorite anecdotes from his, uh, from his career of working for us on My Favorite Murder. What have you come up with?

• 12:23Speaker 02

  Um, we both like coffee.

• 12:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Great one. See you later, Steven.

• 12:29Speaker 02

  No, I, when I was thinking about this, like, the earliest like memory that really stuck in my head was when the fireworks went off next to your apartment. And I just feel like in that moment, we were all together, like, what the fuck is happening? Hats are going everywhere, and we were just like, alright, let's just get back to business, let's, you know.

• 12:46Georgia Hardstark?

  We didn't even edit it out, it was just like, well, let's keep going.

• 12:49Karen Kilgariff?

  We were like, let's set the tone with this level of professionalism, so that all the expectations are as low as possible.

• 12:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Someone said they swerved in their car when they heard it, when they were listening in the car.

• 13:00Karen Kilgariff?

  It happens.

• 13:01Speaker 02

  That was fun.

• 13:02Georgia Hardstark?

  That was great.

• 13:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 13:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Steven, you've done a great job.

• 13:05Georgia Hardstark?

  You've done it.

• 13:05Karen Kilgariff?

  We love you.

• 13:06Georgia Hardstark?

  We love you, Steven.

• 13:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Of course, the sound guy talks about some crazy sound thing that happened one time.

• 13:14Georgia Hardstark?

  How unprofessional we are. The train, there's the ghost train, there's the fucking helicopters.

• 13:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh my god, there have been so many sounds over the years.

• 13:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Let's talk about sounds.

• 13:25Karen Kilgariff?

  It's nuts.

• 13:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Uh, oh, but, oh, we got our makeup done!

• 13:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Show them your face! Like professionals!

• 13:39Karen Kilgariff?

  I was like, please give me a strong eye, bro. And she was like, I got you, girl.

• 13:44Georgia Hardstark?

  And she's fucking here too, Alicia, our friend!

• 13:49Karen Kilgariff?

  Are we those people now? And I'd like to thank, my podiatrist is here tonight, what an amazing man!

• 13:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, we actually did invite all of our therapists to this show. Guess how many of our therapists came? None, nah!

• 14:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Mine told me she is not a fan of my work. Yeah, that's right. That's how you keep that money coming in.

• 14:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, yeah!

• 14:14Karen Kilgariff?

  We'll talk about it next week. I don't like what you do, I don't approve of it.

• 14:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Do you think they've all maybe just like listened to one episode just to see what they're really dealing with?

• 14:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, in that little kitchen area? Oh, I forget, yours isn't where mine is.

• 14:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Ours is where yours is.

• 14:30Karen Kilgariff?

  That's right.

• 14:30Georgia Hardstark?

  And I know for a fucking fact, we invited him and he was like, "I just wanna, I think we should keep this, like, a personal level, I don't, I've avoided listening to the podcast." And I was like, bullshit, you fucking hated it.

• 14:42Karen Kilgariff?

  I, uh, the way he said it made me well up, where I was like, rejection in a therapist's office is next level. It's next level pain, where you're just like, I don't care about you! I don't care if you're kind of a fucking joke!

• 14:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Who cares? Uh, it's so LA to get rejected by your fucking therapist.

• 15:01Karen Kilgariff?

  They're at the fucking Live Chapo Trap House right now, you're just like, what?

• 15:06Georgia Hardstark?

  All of them are together right now?

• 15:08Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. At a different live podcast was the joke.

• 15:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, I, I...

• 15:13Karen Kilgariff?

  I may have pronounced the name wrong or something, I'm not sure.

• 15:16Georgia Hardstark?

  I just didn't get the reference, probably.

• 15:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, maybe.

• 15:18Georgia Hardstark?

  It happens a lot.

• 15:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Could've been that.

• 15:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Happens a lot to me.

• 15:21Karen Kilgariff?

  You know what, here, let me try it again.

• 15:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 15:24Karen Kilgariff?

  They're all together at, um, undisclosed.

• 15:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, the live pod, okay, it's a pod.

• 15:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, no!

• 15:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Elvis?

• 15:35Georgia Hardstark?

  There's a fucking baby here!

• 15:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Give that baby to me right now!

• 15:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Hi!

• 15:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Hi!

• 15:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Are you fucking kidding me? Hi, baby!

• 15:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Hi! Hi! Hi! That's actually my therapist.

• 15:54Karen Kilgariff?

  You're doing such a good job.

• 15:56Georgia Hardstark?

  You are.

• 15:58Karen Kilgariff?

  God, I thought it was a fucking goat, I swear to god. I was like, we can't have that at this show.

• 16:05Georgia Hardstark?

  What if someone who knew I wasn't at home right now went and stole Elvis and brought him here?

• 16:09Karen Kilgariff?

  And then squeezed him really hard in downtime. I'm just saying to get the sound. It didn't, it didn't happen, it didn't actually happen.

• 16:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Is the baby gonna make a noise the whole time? Because it was cute the first time, but we've got some podcasting to do.

• 16:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, this rug is not gonna pay for it.

• 16:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Do what my grandma used to do, just put a little whiskey on his tongue. Or hers.

• 16:36Georgia Hardstark?

  I'd bet to myself before the show.

• 16:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, this is my favorite murder of the podcast.

• 16:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, yes!

• 16:50Georgia Hardstark?

  This is Karen Kilgariff.

• 16:51Karen Kilgariff?

  This is Georgia Hardstark. Thank you.

• 16:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Thank you.

• 16:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Thank you, LA.

• 16:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Thank you.

• 16:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Thank you so much.

• 16:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Thank you. We're honored to be here, we like to thank, you know, people...

• 17:05Karen Kilgariff?

  That fucking baby.

• 17:06Georgia Hardstark?

  That baby.

• 17:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Number one, first and foremost.

• 17:08Georgia Hardstark?

  First and foremost, baby, you're gonna go through some therapy someday.

• 17:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Swear to god.

• 17:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Hi! Baby's at the show!

• 17:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Everybody lift your baby up right now, just so we know how many babies we're dealing with. Four, seven, 18 babies?

• 17:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Uh, should we sit down?

• 17:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Is it sit-down time?

• 17:29Georgia Hardstark?

  I think it's sit-down time.

• 17:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, I don't think we have anything else. Because we're on a clock. We're on a serious clock.

• 17:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, you, you forgot to introduce the, our thing.

• 17:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, yeah. There's a man standing under this table. He's, um, he's, he's just really into...

• 17:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 17:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Mime and...

• 17:49Georgia Hardstark?

  He's on his feet.

• 17:50Karen Kilgariff?

  He's a performance artist, site-specific performance artist. So he's just gonna be bent at the waist for this whole show.

• 17:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, do you know, do you know what? Our friend Lizzie texted me today that she was doing a comedy show at a erotic bookstore, and she was like, "Don't worry, it's really classy." And she's like, "I went to pee and there's a watercolor painting of you and Karen on the wall in the bathroom."

• 18:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Shit!

• 18:17Georgia Hardstark?

  And I was like, "I'm sorry you had to see that while you were peeing."

• 18:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Watercolors, huh? I would've gone acrylics, certainly. That's a, that's kind of advanced art.

• 18:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 18:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Well...

• 18:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Who knows?

• 18:32Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean...

• 18:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Steven spilled my water. And I don't know what to do about it. No, it's okay. It's okay.

• 18:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Steven, yelling sorry doesn't help.

• 18:43Karen Kilgariff?

  He just goes, "Sorry."

• 18:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Millennial.

• 18:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Thank god for Steven.

• 18:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Let us pray. Dear Jesus...

• 19:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, I'm Jewish!

• 19:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, that's right. Dear that God, you're the first and you're the best.

• 19:13Karen Kilgariff?

  You're the number one Old Testament God and we're scared of you!

• 19:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Thanks. Thank you, that's my new hit, number one god.

• 19:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Going out to all the Jews in the audience tonight.

• 19:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Represent.

• 19:31Georgia Hardstark?

  It's just my family. There's like, four of you.

• 19:36Karen Kilgariff?

  And their rabbi.

• 19:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay, we're back. What a show.

• 19:45Speaker 03

  That was a fun opening. I wish they could all be like that. Like, that was smooth and funny and good and there was a baby.

• 19:54Karen Kilgariff?

  There was a baby. And also, that room was gold. It looked like we were in a movie about people in a show.

• 20:00Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 20:01Karen Kilgariff?

  This show was so fun, though, because it really did feel like, even though it was nerve-wracking, of course, always, and just any kind of industry audience, but it didn't feel like that was happening in any way.

• 20:12Speaker 03

  No.

• 20:13Karen Kilgariff?

  It felt very like everyone was right there with us. It was great.

• 20:16Speaker 03

  Totally, including and especially Stephen.

• 20:18Karen Kilgariff?

  And of course, Stephen, who was holding his own in the lobby.

• 20:21Speaker 03

  Oh, and this fucking episode, I do the Los Feliz Murder Mansion. I like, that is, that is like such a classic LA story. I'm so glad I got that one.

• 20:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 20:32Speaker 03

  And I gotta do it live, too. I mean, oh my god.

• 20:35Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 20:36Speaker 03

  I can feel my excitement that I get to tell you that story tonight, that night. You know what I mean?

• 20:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, my god, completely.

• 20:42Speaker 03

  This is one of your classics, too. Like, this is...

• 20:45Karen Kilgariff?

  I feel the exact same way about this story. And I don't think that usually happens with us. I think we both, we each have like a more muscular moment in those shows.

• 20:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:57Karen Kilgariff?

  And this one was like, it was just like we were going great guns the whole time.

• 21:01Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 21:02Karen Kilgariff?

  So good.

• 21:03Speaker 03

  Let's start then. Let's get into Karen's story about Agnes Underwood.

• 21:12Speaker 03

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

• 21:16Karen Kilgariff?

  And if you have a small business, they could be shopping with you.

• 21:19Speaker 03

  Get your business ready with Shopify.

• 21:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Shopify is the platform for a record-breaking, reliable holiday selling season at every stage.

• 21:26Speaker 03

  They power millions of businesses worldwide, from household names to those that are just getting started.

• 21:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Shopify's pre-built website themes make it easy to launch a beautiful, professional-looking store without ever touching a line of code.

• 21:37Speaker 03

  And Shopify's mobile app lets you run your store from anywhere, from tracking inventory to customer support to handling payments and more.

• 21:44Karen Kilgariff?

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

• 21:50Speaker 03

  That's Shopify.com/murder.

• 21:52Karen Kilgariff?

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

• 21:57Speaker 03

  Goodbye.

• 22:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay, I'm gonna go first tonight.

• 22:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Yep.

• 22:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Thank you.

• 22:10Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm very excited. So, um, this is kind of a jerk around to say, but...

• 22:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Uh-oh.

• 22:16Karen Kilgariff?

  I was going to do, um, I was going to do The Hillside Stranglers.

• 22:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 22:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, you're really bummed out?

• 22:28Karen Kilgariff?

  It is such a fucking horrible story and it just keeps going horribleness. The only, like, potentially fun part is when Kenneth Bianchi at the end tries to pretend he has multiple personalities. Like, that gets a little light, but for the most part, it would have been a real slog. So... As I was looking up stuff about that, I stumbled upon a blog called Deranged LA Crimes.

• 22:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Ooh.

• 23:00Karen Kilgariff?

  And it's written by a woman named Joan Renner. I assumed Jeremy's sister. And, and it's an amazing true crime blog about, obviously, deranged LA crimes. And on that blog, she had this whole post about a person I had never heard of and that is such an incredible fucking individual that I was like, this is the story I have to do. So I'm gonna tell you guys tonight all about LA's foremost newspaper crime reporter, Agnes Aggie Underwood.

• 23:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Ooh.

• 23:34Karen Kilgariff?

  That's right. Clap politely because you wish it was The Fucking Hillside Stranglers. You creeps.

• 23:45Karen Kilgariff?

  All right, I'm gonna start by, can we bring up her first picture, Stephen? It's real good. She's at a bar.

• 23:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, look at her.

• 23:51Karen Kilgariff?

  And the cool thing about this, too, is it all takes place downtown. Like, all of these, all of these newspapers were down here. It's like everyone, she starts at one newspaper, she goes around the corner. It's all like, it's spring in 8th and fucking 9th and 4th or whatever. So you're going to love how local it is.

• 24:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Picture a beer right there.

• 24:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Girl, she drank day and night. And also finger waves, which we love.

• 24:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Absolutely.

• 24:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Love and respect.

• 24:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Perm. That's a, like, a straight-up perm.

• 24:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Do you think it's a perm?

• 24:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Tight perm.

• 24:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, my. Okay. Okay, I'm gonna start by reading you, this is the, she wrote an autobiography in 1947 called Newspaper Woman. That's all one word.

• 24:34Karen Kilgariff?

  So, here's the dust jacket for Newspaper Woman. "Agnes Underwood has written a crackling, breezy, no-words-minted account of her behind-the-news experiences as a top-notch reporter and as city editor of the Los Angeles Evening Herald and Express. In celebrity and sensation-rich Los Angeles, one of the fastest, most competitive news centers of the world, she is on top of every story that breaks seven editions a day. As a rough-and-tumble, hard-working city-side reporter, she's covered every important West Coast murder and criminal trial in the past 21 years. Every major disaster from floods to fires to earthquakes and explosions."

• 25:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Shit.

• 25:11Karen Kilgariff?

  "Cause, remember back when there was just fucking explosions on the street constantly? Just like..."

• 25:16Georgia Hardstark?

  You know, all those explosions that kept happening.

• 25:19Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm at, I'm just standing there at spring in 8th. Explosion. Reporters, 10 reporters arrive. "Her stories have included strikes, traffic deaths, plane crashes, rapes, amnesia cases, suicides, divorce trials, shootings, robberies, Hollywood premieres."

• 25:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Very similar.

• 25:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, no.

• 25:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Race track openings. Oh, that's the end of that list. "In the course of working her stories, she has gone unwashed, thirsty, hungry, sleepless. We're still in the dust jacket, I swear to god."

• 25:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Are you reading us the book?

• 25:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes. Just, and page 29.

• 25:57Karen Kilgariff?

  She is, she has dodged flying embers, been half-drowned, trapped in the hills by brush fires, threatened by goons.

• 26:05Georgia Hardstark?

  She's not a very good reporter, I don't think. Those things are fucking happening.

• 26:09Karen Kilgariff?

  She's kind of like, um, she has a Columbo thing where she just keeps getting trapped in a brush fire. And she's just like, "Uh, excuse me, ma'am, can I ask one more question about this brush fire?" "Choked by tear gas. Now, this seasoned reporter has checked back over her stories to tell how she lined up exclusives and persuaded tough ones to talk, how she got pictures when the subjects were belligerent, how she talked her way into hostile homes." What?

• 26:35Karen Kilgariff?

  "How she copes with Hollywood press agents and how the Los Angeles reporters cut the stars down to size." Yeah. Fuck them, the reason we all live here.

• 26:49Karen Kilgariff?

  "Hard, garish, rough through her, though her work has been." Whoops. "She has loved it. Her memoirs reveal how she convinced skeptics that a woman can run a city desk and raise a family by telephone." Whoops.

• 27:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Wait, what? Don't do that.

• 27:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay, put your brother on.

• 27:08Karen Kilgariff?

  "How much is it bleeding?" "In courts." "Without blowing up under pressure." That was the last line.

• 27:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Exploding, those explosions, without exploding.

• 27:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Those are all, the explosions were reporters all around Los Angeles. "It's too much." Okay, so we'll start with her early life. Aggie Underwood was born Agnes Mae Wilson on December 17, 1902, in San Francisco.

• 27:33Georgia Hardstark?

  What?

• 27:35Karen Kilgariff?

  Isn't it the best? And it's so green up there and the people are so nice. And it's so cheap. It's cheap to live there. It's a bargain. Her father was a glass blower, huh?

• 27:48Georgia Hardstark?

  You can make money off that?

• 27:49Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, uh, her mother, uh, so her mother dies when she's six in childbirth. Her father had to travel for work, so he sends her and her younger sister off to family in Illinois and Indiana. And, long story short, yes, let's hear for those two great states out in the middle.

• 28:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Wait, he's, I feel like he was lying when he was like, "I gotta travel for glass blowing. I'm gonna get rid of these kids because I don't want to parent them by myself."

• 28:18Karen Kilgariff?

  I think, yes, and I think if she, if it's 1902 and it's an Irish family in San Francisco, we've got some alcoholism issues that maybe some people don't want to talk about on the dust jacket cover of their book. So they, they go to live with family and she basically says the families were dicks. And then they get moved into foster care. At one abusive home, Aggie pours ketchup on the head of her foster mother to protect her little sister from a beating.

• 28:46Georgia Hardstark?

  And then her hair was real shiny afterwards.

• 28:49Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, no, you're thinking of mayonnaise.

• 28:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, right.

• 28:52Karen Kilgariff?

  That's a mayonnaise treatment.

• 28:53Georgia Hardstark?

  What does ketchup do?

• 28:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Skunks.

• 28:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Right, she didn't smell like a skunk anymore.

• 28:58Karen Kilgariff?

  My mom once told me that in nursing school, she was so broke that she and her friend used to go to diners, and they would order a bowl of hot water and put ketchup in it, and then eat the free crackers and drink homemade tomato soup.

• 29:09Georgia Hardstark?

  No.

• 29:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Isn't that simply the grossest thing you've ever heard in your life?

• 29:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, no.

• 29:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. Okay, so Aggie's super smart. She actually, in school, she skipped a grade three different times. But she ends up, when she's a sophomore in high school, she's like, "This isn't for me."

• 29:28Georgia Hardstark?

  She's like, "I'm 12. This isn't working for me."

• 29:30Karen Kilgariff?

  "I'm 12. Everyone's older. I don't get their references."

• 29:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 29:36Karen Kilgariff?

  So she drops out. And in November 1918, when she's 16 years old, she goes to live with a relative in San Francisco. The relative has an apartment on Geary Street. This is like a deeply sad story. She knew that she would have to work for a living, so she went out to get a job. And, I mean, it's 1918 in San Francisco, so she's like, "I'll sell matchsticks," or whatever. But she wants to contribute to the household, so she goes to try to get a job. And after a few days of job hunting that's unsuccessful, she comes back to the apartment, only to discover that her relative has moved out, leaving Underwood broke alone and homeless.

• 30:15Georgia Hardstark?

  What a dick.

• 30:16Karen Kilgariff?

  So then, this is so Dickensian, next level, she's got another female relative that lives in LA. And the female relative is like, "You can come and live with me." And then when she gets there, she realizes that her relative was only inviting her to live there because she wanted to make her into a child star. And so then when Aggie was like, "Yeah, that's not my bag at all," she was like, "Oh, then you can't live here anymore."

• 30:40Georgia Hardstark?

  That's so weird.

• 30:41Karen Kilgariff?

  So then she once again is homeless. I think by that time, she was 17. So she gets a job at the Broadway Department Store down here in downtown Los Angeles, and she moves into a Salvation Army home. And then in 1920, she's 18. She's now got a job at the Pig and Whistle downtown.

• 31:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, nice.

• 31:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Right? You've heard of it. You've been super shitfaced there. You've tried to play darts when you were super shitfaced. You hit your friend in the leg. You know this story.

• 31:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, no.

• 31:11Karen Kilgariff?

  So when she's working there as a waitress, she meets one of her coworkers, was a soda jerk named Harry Underwood. And one day, she comes to work and she's all upset because that relative that had tried to make her into a child star shows up again and says, "If you don't come back, move in with me. Give me all your paychecks. I will turn you into the authorities for living by yourself underage."

• 31:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Man.

• 31:34Karen Kilgariff?

  And she's freaking out about it. So Harry Underwood says, "Well, your relative wouldn't have a case if we were married." So they get married. It's the most romantic story you've ever heard.

• 31:45Georgia Hardstark?

  If they stay together, that's the sweetest thing I've ever heard. If he's a dick, then I'm gonna be bummed.

• 31:51Karen Kilgariff?

  It seems like Harry Underwood was fine. They eventually get divorced.

• 31:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Eventually.

• 31:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Because she's such a working woman. But, you know, sometimes you people grow apart.

• 32:02Georgia Hardstark?

  It's true. Especially when you're trying to raise a family by the phone. Right?

• 32:08Karen Kilgariff?

  It's so hard. Your ear hurts and you get like a shoulder cramp.

• 32:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Plus, back then, it was the finger dial thing. It took fucking forever to call.

• 32:14Karen Kilgariff?

  She started raising the family like this, and she finally got to move to this.

• 32:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Broadway 129.

• 32:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Broadway 3247.

• 32:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Come in, Broadway 3247.

• 32:27Karen Kilgariff?

  So they get married, and they very quickly, this is how I read it in one of the articles, they quickly had two children, which is exactly how the Irish do it. As quickly as possible, just back 'em right up against each other. And then they can take care of each other. Perfect. Okay. So her illustrious career starts in 1926. She's a mother of two. The family is, you know, kind of broke. Her sister is living with them too. Her sister's working. Obviously, Harry Underwood is a high-level soda jerk. So she's frustrated because she wants silk stockings, which is what everyone wears, but they can't afford them.

• 33:09Karen Kilgariff?

  She has to wear her little sister's hand-me-down silk stockings. So she goes to Harry one day, and she's like, "You need to buy me a new pair of silk stockings." And he's like, "No way." And she's like, "Fine, I'll buy 'em myself." And then she's like, "Oh, shit, I don't have any money or a job." And she didn't really have any intention of getting a job. And then the next day, her very close friend Evelyn Connors calls her and goes, "Hey, do you have any interest in working the switchboard at the Los Angeles Daily Record?" And so she's like, "Hell, yes," because she wants them stockings, girl.

• 33:39Georgia Hardstark?

  This is a I Love Lucy plotline, isn't it?

• 33:42Karen Kilgariff?

  It probably is.

• 33:43Georgia Hardstark?

  I remember this episode.

• 33:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. Oh, no, I'm sorry. I'm reading a bunch of I Love Lucy episodes.

• 33:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, this is the other podcast that you do. I Love Lucy.

• 33:53Karen Kilgariff?

  And then they ate chocolate after chocolate.

• 33:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay. So, yeah, that all comes together. She was also the author of The Secret. Just kidding, that's not true. It's not true. So in October of 1926, Agnes reports to 612 Wall Street, which is literally within walking distance of where we are right now.

• 34:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Let's all go there right now.

• 34:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Let's walk there.

• 34:21Karen Kilgariff?

  She begins her job as a switchboard operator. And because of her work ethic and her personality, she earns the attention of the women's section editor.

• 34:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 34:32Karen Kilgariff?

  A woman whose working name was Cynthia Gray, but whose real name was Gertrude Pierce.

• 34:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes, it was.

• 34:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Right? Because it's 1927, and Aggie and Gertrude are gonna be best fucking friends.

• 34:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Aggie and Gertie.

• 34:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Gertie.

• 34:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Ag and Gert.

• 34:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Ag and Gert.

• 34:47Georgia Hardstark?

  A and G. Let's just keep fucking shortening them.

• 34:49Karen Kilgariff?

  Right, because they don't have time. It's a newspaper.

• 34:51Georgia Hardstark?

  No.

• 34:51Karen Kilgariff?

  There's no time.

• 34:52Georgia Hardstark?

  None.

• 34:54Karen Kilgariff?

  They even shortened A and G down to a series of specific nods.

• 35:00Karen Kilgariff?

  That was worth trying to spit out. Okay.

• 35:05Karen Kilgariff?

  So Gertrude Gertie G. Price takes her under her wing because she can tell she's super smart. She's a fast learner. And she basically makes her her catch-all assistant. And then, in December of 1927, this story breaks in the newsroom while Aggie's there. And it's, there was a notorious child murderer named William Edward Hickman. He kidnapped and murdered a 12-year-old girl. And he was on the run.

• 35:30Georgia Hardstark?

  I know this one.

• 35:31Karen Kilgariff?

  You know that story?

• 35:32Georgia Hardstark?

  It's so sad.

• 35:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Why?

• 35:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, you don't know it?

• 35:35Karen Kilgariff?

  No.

• 35:35Georgia Hardstark?

  You're probably gonna tell it.

• 35:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Just tell me really quick. Well, they're not paying attention.

• 35:39Georgia Hardstark?

  I'll tell you later.

• 35:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay. I know he chopped her up.

• 35:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. But it gets worse.

• 35:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Worse than chopping up?

• 35:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 35:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Blended?

• 35:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Blended up?

• 35:54Georgia Hardstark?

  No, I'll do it one day, but it's like not the kind of one you want to tell in front of an audience because there's a fucking baby.

• 36:02Karen Kilgariff?

  That baby's over there smiling. Pacifier.

• 36:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, by the way, if you're here because your friend brought you and you've never heard this podcast, super sorry.

• 36:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Sorry.

• 36:16Karen Kilgariff?

  They'll explain later.

• 36:20Karen Kilgariff?

  So she's standing in the newsroom when this story breaks. This guy was arrested. Now he's on the run. And around her, the newsroom explodes. And she says--

• 36:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Explosion.

• 36:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, fuck.

• 36:32Karen Kilgariff?

  What if I-- That's just me trying to lace a theme through my own story. "And it was an explosion of a murder." Thank you all for being here tonight.

• 36:44Karen Kilgariff?

  So this is her quote from her book. She says, "As the Boltons pumped in and Cityside worked furiously at localizing-- I had no idea what that means." "I couldn't keep myself in my niche. I committed the unpartable sin of looking over shoulders of reporters as they wrote." Which is, I mean, what's worse than that?

• 37:01Georgia Hardstark?

  It's the eighth deadly sin.

• 37:06Karen Kilgariff?

  So the newsroom's exploded around her. So basically, she's underfoot. Oh, in what I thought was exasperation, Rod Brink, the city editor, said, "All right, if you're so interested, take this dictation." So she typed, I typed the dictation. Part of the main running story, "I was sunk. I wanted to be a reporter." So she basically got herself into that newsroom, weaseled around, pissed somebody off, and then got a job as a reporter, which is so reporter-y. It's amazing.

• 37:34Georgia Hardstark?

  It's kind of how we got this podcast a little bit.

• 37:37Karen Kilgariff?

  We got underfoot. Under Stephen's foot.

• 37:40Georgia Hardstark?

  And then a man let us have it.

• 37:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Thank you, sir.

• 37:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay, so her bosses-- she clearly wants the job. She's super smart. And she's got like that little, she's got that Irish psychic thing where she kind of like pays a lot of attention. She knows, she can see what people are doing. She's canny, canny, as they say. So, and she also becomes very well-known for being fearless and tireless. She has an insane work ethic, and she's unconventional. So in 1933, there was a huge earthquake in Long Beach. She got sent to report on it, and she brought her son and husband.

• 38:21Karen Kilgariff?

  She'd do stuff like that. Also...

• 38:25Georgia Hardstark?

  And I bet...

• 38:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Just read, just read. We're on a clock. She also became known for her, as they call them, hard-boiled quips.

• 38:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Ooh.

• 38:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Which is also what I'm known for. Hard-boiled quips. They smell, but if you put a little salt on them, they're so good.

• 38:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Truffle salt, they're even better, if you have it.

• 38:47Karen Kilgariff?

  So she went to the autopsy of the actress Thelma Todd.

• 38:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 38:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 38:54Karen Kilgariff?

  And they're all standing around in the morgue, the body is under the sheet. And there's like a legendary story about her. She turned to the guy standing next to her and said, "Can you imagine what any of these guys would have given to be under a sheet with Thelma Todd?"

• 39:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh my god, that's very disrespectful.

• 39:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Why do you...

• 39:11Georgia Hardstark?

  What?

• 39:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Letting reporters... Why do you care all of a sudden?

• 39:16Georgia Hardstark?

  They're mad.

• 39:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Come on, she was in there fucking slugging it out with the boys.

• 39:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Why are there reporters in an autopsy to begin with, is our question?

• 39:24Karen Kilgariff?

  This is...

• 39:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Is that anyone's question?

• 39:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Before 1975, reporters were invited to everything. Just anything that happened, they'd be like, "Let's get four reporters down here." Well, and at the time, in 1926, there were six newspapers in Los Angeles that were competing against each other. Six major newspapers. So it's kind of, it's obviously how everybody got their news. Why did I say that? It's how everybody got their news. Newspapers. Look it up in the newspaper. She ends up working at the Daily Record for nine years. And she gets this reputation as being a crack reporter and a badass. And so the people at the Hearst Corporation hear about her, and they offer her a job at the Herald Examiner,

• 40:09Karen Kilgariff?

  a competing newspaper that was way bigger than the Daily Record. But she says, "No, thanks." They offer it a second time. Again, she says, "No."

• 40:17Georgia Hardstark?

  They just offer it again, or they give her more money?

• 40:18Karen Kilgariff?

  No, right after. They were like, "Do you want it?"

• 40:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Are you sure?

• 40:21Karen Kilgariff?

  "Do you want it?"

• 40:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Took four minutes.

• 40:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Get one of those rubber thumb things to turn pages faster.

• 40:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Steven, write that down.

• 40:32Karen Kilgariff?

  A money thing? Get a money thumb.

• 40:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Hit the staples button.

• 40:38Karen Kilgariff?

  The staples near my house closed, and I've never been more scared in my life.

• 40:44Karen Kilgariff?

  It's pretty much the end, right?

• 40:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 40:46Karen Kilgariff?

  It's over.

• 40:46Georgia Hardstark?

  It's over.

• 40:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Hey, let's have a great time tonight, everybody.

• 40:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, okay, great. Just them.

• 40:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Balconies into it. I don't know what orchestra's up.

• 40:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Can I get an amen from the thing over there?

• 41:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, thanks.

• 41:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, yeah. Super, super Christians.

• 41:11Karen Kilgariff?

  But in 1935, the Daily Record gets sold to the Illustrated Daily News. What are these papers? So she decides she's, quote, "Ready to go work for Hearst." So she takes the job covering what was called the milk route. So she had to be at work at 3:30 in the morning every day.

• 41:30Georgia Hardstark?

  No, no, no, no, no. Don't do that.

• 41:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. Driving around the city, trying to find crimes and accidents and suicides and murders.

• 41:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Fun!

• 41:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, in the dark in Los Angeles. And that's around the time that she meets a photographer named Perry Fowler, and they start working together all the time. They unofficially become a team. So the first big story that Aggie lands with the Herald Examiner is in January of 1935. And it's an interview with Amelia Earhart.

• 41:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Holy shit!

• 42:01Karen Kilgariff?

  She had just made, Amelia Earhart had just made her historic flight from Honolulu to Oakland. Yeah.

• 42:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 42:07Karen Kilgariff?

  And...

• 42:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Glamorous.

• 42:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Right? And so she, Aggie, goes to Amelia Earhart's house in North Hollywood and waits outside for hours and hours until she gets there, and then she gets the interview. And she's the first reporter at the newspaper to get the interview. So she's, that's badass. I was very rocked by that chunk of information when I was doing this, because Amelia Earhart lived in North Hollywood. And that, if you're not from around here, is fucking bizarre.

• 42:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, but back then, it was fucking sprawling ranches and shit. And like, things here and over there. It's not like the fucking clown liquor store like it is now.

• 42:49Karen Kilgariff?

  It's exactly the clown liquor store. When the fuck do you think that thing went up? It's the clown liquor store and only. It was like a tree and then that clown. And then Amelia Earhart's gorgeous ranch-style house.

• 43:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Not everyone knows that clown was always there. No one knows how it got there.

• 43:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Also, no one knows that you're not supposed to look that clown straight in the eyes.

• 43:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Or you'll get drunk.

• 43:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Time to go stare at a clown. Bye!

• 43:21Karen Kilgariff?

  So she works punishing hours in every type of weather. She never bothers to buy a raincoat or a hat.

• 43:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, come on, honey.

• 43:27Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, seriously.

• 43:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Radical self-care.

• 43:31Karen Kilgariff?

  And acceptance after the care. One year, she's assigned to cover the Rose Bowl Parade. And she's, it rains the entire time, and she's super pissed. But not because she's being rained on, but because the rains were causing floods, and that's where she wanted to be reporting. She was super pissed that she got assigned to the Rose Bowl.

• 43:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Fuck yeah, man.

• 43:51Karen Kilgariff?

  That's our girl.

• 43:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Floods are crazy.

• 43:55Karen Kilgariff?

  What do you think about floods?

• 43:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Crazy.

• 43:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Once, when covering a fire in Malibu, started by an explosion, a policeman tries to block her from going into the danger zone, and this, like, senior sheriff's deputy walks up and goes, "It's all right, lad." So he was Irish. Everybody in this story is Irish. "She's been to a hell of a lot more things than you have, go on through."

• 44:20Georgia Hardstark?

  And then fucking, the tiger starts playing, and she starts walking into the fire. Why is she going in the fire?

• 44:27Karen Kilgariff?

  She was fireproof. And that's what I'm gonna get to on page 93. Hang in. You're going to freak out. She was described as tough as nails. Oh, do we have that next picture, Steven, of her? Disheveled?

• 44:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, shit.

• 44:47Karen Kilgariff?

  That's her at her desk. She's, they describe her as disheveled, which as a fellow female writer, I say, "You know what? That's how it is." That's just fucking how it is. It's not a beauty contest. I'll tell you that right now.

• 44:59Georgia Hardstark?

  She's 23 right there.

• 45:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Which phone does she use to call her son that she never sees?

• 45:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Right there in the front. That's the emergency child phone.

• 45:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Look at the size of those scissors right there. Next to the bat.

• 45:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Georgia loves an old scissor.

• 45:14Georgia Hardstark?

  I really love old scissors.

• 45:16Karen Kilgariff?

  She does. Well, and also, she kept, see the baseball bat right there? This is when she was city editor. This is what their picture's from. And then she used to just keep a bat on her desk in case people started fighting. And then she just starts swinging the bat at people. That was her management style. Some people do it differently.

• 45:33Georgia Hardstark?

  I love her.

• 45:34Karen Kilgariff?

  But she was more of a Dodgers-based.

• 45:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Baseball!

• 45:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Baseball.

• 45:42Karen Kilgariff?

  They also say that her voice... It's very rude. "A voice that would seduce only a foghorn."

• 45:50Georgia Hardstark?

  What? Why do they need to say that?

• 45:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Why are you, first of all...

• 45:57Georgia Hardstark?

  It's a newspaper. It's not...

• 45:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Secondly, you can't fuck a foghorn, so like, why are you even bringing that up? In 1937, reporter Jack Campbell writes of her, "She should have been born a man."

• 46:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, okay.

• 46:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Listen, listen. Okay, I get it.

• 46:16Karen Kilgariff?

  It's the 30s. This was back before women were paid the same as men, for the same job. This is back before we had agency over our own bodies, and we could do with it what we wanted without the government getting, you know what I mean? The fucking Dark Ages.

• 46:35Karen Kilgariff?

  Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, Vice President Mike Pence. Here he is. Get up here, big guy. Get up here!

• 46:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Getting political.

• 46:52Karen Kilgariff?

  We'll get political.

• 46:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay. She also prided herself on making up catchy murder case names. So, um, one time, there was a, there was, uh, she had to go report on, um, the stabbing of a waitress. And she was standing there, and she had a moment of inspiration, and she picked up a white carnation and dropped it on the body, had her photographer take the picture-

• 47:20Georgia Hardstark?

  No.

• 47:20Karen Kilgariff?

  And then refer to it as the White Carnation Murders.

• 47:23Georgia Hardstark?

  That sounds illegal.

• 47:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 47:26Georgia Hardstark?

  That sounds like fucking with the crime scene, as they call it.

• 47:29Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, they do, these, these days, the forensic specialists-

• 47:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 47:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Call it fucking with the crime scene.

• 47:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Mmm.

• 47:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Apparently, um, at the scene, when she did that, a cop objected and she hit him with her purse.

• 47:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Nope.

• 47:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 47:43Georgia Hardstark?

  That sounds illegal, too.

• 47:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Look, it was a different time.

• 47:48Karen Kilgariff?

  She becomes a master at reading people. So, one time, there's a car accident by the Mount Wilson Observatory. This man, Laurel Crawford's entire family dies in a one-car car accident. And, um, when the cop on the scene asks Aggie what she thinks of the accident, she says, "I think it smells, he's guilty as hell." And she was right.

• 48:10Georgia Hardstark?

  No.

• 48:11Karen Kilgariff?

  He set up the whole thing and killed his family for money.

• 48:13Georgia Hardstark?

  What a dick.

• 48:14Karen Kilgariff?

  I know. So, those, was there cheerleading happening?

• 48:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Uh, those senses also got her the story before other reporters. There was a case where there was a, a woman named Louise Pete who killed her employer. And, um, when she was being held, the reporters were all standing around, they're all yelling, "Louise!", and asking her questions, "Louise, Louise!". And Aggie notices this, and she's like, "Miss Pete, may I ask you a question?". The woman's like, "Yes, what is it?". Because even though she was a murderer, she was also a lady.

• 48:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 48:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Uh...

• 48:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Be back in one second.

• 48:54Georgia Hardstark?

  You were talking about Amanda Pete?

• 48:56Karen Kilgariff?

  The-

• 48:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Right? I was listening.

• 49:00Karen Kilgariff?

  You, thank you. So, the Herald Express's motto was "The first with the latest". Aggie delivers on that promise. She has a bunch of city and court officials in her pocket, so, um-

• 49:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Big pockets, too, probably.

• 49:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, my god.

• 49:15Georgia Hardstark?

  I bet they were big pockets.

• 49:16Karen Kilgariff?

  She's got like a, like a trial guy in here, and like a lawyer guy over here.

• 49:22Karen Kilgariff?

  So, basically, she does this, this is actually cool. So, she, she's paid a bunch of people off, basically just so she can get the story first, which is the job. So, uh, one of the famous ones she did was, she called a trial clerk right before he read the verdict of a case that everyone was waiting on pins and needles to see what the verdict was. She calls the trial clerk's desk, and the trial clerk just picks the phone up and puts it back down, and then reads the verdict.

• 49:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 49:47Karen Kilgariff?

  And as she's typing, so she fucking gets it real time-

• 49:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Girl.

• 49:50Karen Kilgariff?

  And gets the story out right, minutes before the deadline.

• 49:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Shit.

• 49:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Right?

• 49:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Kinda shady, but it's okay.

• 49:57Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean-

• 49:57Georgia Hardstark?

  It's a woman, so we're on her side.

• 49:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 50:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Right?

• 50:02Karen Kilgariff?

  She can do whatever she wants.

• 50:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, also because that was the thing, it was everyone is fighting to get the best story first, and this was back when, like, especially LA peepers were, papers were so- peepers, did I say? Mr. Peepers? Um, LA papers were super tabloidy, so everything was, you know, they, they took pictures of the body, they took pictures of people as they sat in jail cells, like, the photographers could just go take pictures of people as, you know, the shit was happening. They were welcome to step on evidence, that was part of the ritual.

• 50:36Georgia Hardstark?

  And just throw flowers on fucking wherever.

• 50:39Karen Kilgariff?

  If you want to throw a flower, you can, it was a city ordinance. Okay. So, the most famous thing, the, uh, case that she's known for is, uh, it came on January 7th, 1947, when the nude, bisected body of Elizabeth Short was discovered in an empty lot in Limer Park.

• 50:59Georgia Hardstark?

  You guys heard of this one?

• 51:02Karen Kilgariff?

  She was getting, uh, smiling over there, fucking joking. She, Aggie Underwood was the first crime reporter on the scene. Yes, she was.

• 51:11Georgia Hardstark?

  What if she did it?

• 51:13Karen Kilgariff?

  She was there for-

• 51:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Think about it.

• 51:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Uh, and she claims that the name "The Black Dahlia" was her idea.

• 51:27Georgia Hardstark?

  She did it.

• 51:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Right?

• 51:29Georgia Hardstark?

  She fucking did it.

• 51:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Based on that White Carnation shit I told you earlier, it's easier to believe.

• 51:33Georgia Hardstark?

  I get it.

• 51:34Karen Kilgariff?

  But she says that because she got information from a homicide detective in the LAPD. So, anyway.

• 51:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 51:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Twice during the investigation, during the Black Dahlia murder investigation, she gets pulled off the story. Two ti- two different times. Both times with no warning and no explanation whatsoever. And the theory is, uh, but she did, she was, by that point, she was known as the best crime reporter at the Herald Express. And she ended up getting a byline about the story, you know, she's like, had her column right on the front page.

• 52:06Karen Kilgariff?

  But there are theories that she kept getting pulled off because she was getting close to figuring out who did it. And the second time she got pulled off, she was promoted to editor of the city desk.

• 52:18Georgia Hardstark?

  They're like, "Let's get her the fuck out of here."

• 52:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. It's like, "Come on, we're having a party for you, don't put that file away."

• 52:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Which is kind of amazing.

• 52:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 52:29Karen Kilgariff?

  And, we'll bring it up later.

• 52:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 52:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Whatever the reason, Aggie Underwood was the first woman to ever become city editor for a major metropolitan newspaper, ever. She was the first. And she also lasted longer in that position than any man who had ever held the job before. The longest-

• 52:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Seven, eight. The longest that anyone had held a job before, that was four years. She worked there for 20 years.

• 53:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Sorry.

• 53:04Karen Kilgariff?

  And, so, on the 10th anniversary of her job there, I think this is the next picture, right, Stephen? Yes. They gave her-

• 53:14Georgia Hardstark?

  No way.

• 53:14Karen Kilgariff?

  They gave her a life-size baseball bat.

• 53:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, look at those alcoholics.

• 53:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Look at, she looks, she looks like someone, she looks like the mother of a dead girl from LA Confidential, doesn't she? She's like, "Um, we're sorry, Mrs. Underwood, we have bad news. Your baseball bat has been killed."

• 53:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Look at those snacks, I wonder what those snacks are.

• 53:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, wait, wait, actually, Stephen found this when we found this picture, there's a real good close-up. Look what's right behind her. Oh.

• 53:49Georgia Hardstark?

  No! That's the Black Dahlia Killer!

• 53:52Karen Kilgariff?

  That's, you know who that is?

• 53:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Who?

• 53:54Karen Kilgariff?

  That's Black Phillip from The Witch. Wasn't his name Black Phillip? The goat?

• 54:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Do you want to live deliciously?

• 54:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Just keep that up, Stephen, I think it's fun. I think it's fun to have as wallpaper.

• 54:14Karen Kilgariff?

  She was featured on the TV show This Is Your Life in 1956. In 1959, she was named the, in the first edition of Who's Who in American Women. In 1962, the Herald Express merged with the Herald Examiner. They actually moved to the Examiner Building, which was on 11th and Broadway, three fucking blocks away from here.

• 54:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my-

• 54:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Just so crazy.

• 54:36Georgia Hardstark?

  God.

• 54:37Karen Kilgariff?

  In September of 1964, she's promoted to managing editor, she's second-in-command at the newspaper that put out seven editions and had a readership of 725,000 people.

• 54:49Karen Kilgariff?

  And, by getting that promotion, she only had to be at work at 6:30 a.m. now, so she just got to, borderline banker's hour, she really got to relax, sleep in a little. So-

• 55:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Dad?

• 55:08Karen Kilgariff?

  So, of course, the promotion's a big deal, and it's, you know, it's merited, uh, I mean, it's to her credit, but she hates that she's not a reporter anymore. And, um, she actually described the new job as, quote, "Wandering around for four, and four years as a half-assed executive",

• 55:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Ooh.

• 55:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Which is not her style, so after 33 years of service and increasing circulation for Hearst Papers, she decides to retire. And, um, about working for the Hearst Corporation, she said, "I can't recall one Hearst executive ever saying 'nice work' over a story I'd covered, or even buying me an ice cream cone on my birthday, so help me."

• 55:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Whoa. Ice cream cone is all she wanted.

• 55:52Karen Kilgariff?

  I just love that she's like, "Yeah, fuck those guys." Like, "Can we get an official quote on how you felt about working for this company? They were assholes."

• 56:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Uh, at her retirement party, they had it at the Hollywood Palladium, Bob Hope was the emcee.

• 56:08Georgia Hardstark?

  What?

• 56:09Karen Kilgariff?

  It was fucking sold out.

• 56:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Shit.

• 56:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Um, she got telegrams from governors, uh, senators, from President Lyndon B. Johnson. Oh, I think there's a, Stephen, that, there's the cover-

• 56:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 56:24Karen Kilgariff?

  She was like, friends with Bob Hope. She's reading his book, and he's reading her book.

• 56:28Georgia Hardstark?

  How cute is that?

• 56:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Even though there's no, he really read her book.

• 56:34Karen Kilgariff?

  She, uh, over a decades-long career, she received over 50 awards for her groundbreaking accomplishments in journalism, and on July 18th, 1962, the famed Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yordi, you know, remember? He declared July 18th to be Aggie Underwood Day.

• 56:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, that's why we have that day off.

• 56:54Karen Kilgariff?

  That's why.

• 56:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 56:56Karen Kilgariff?

  That's why all the banks are closed. She died of a heart attack at age 81-

• 57:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my lord.

• 57:01Karen Kilgariff?

  And she's buried, of course, in Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale. And every newspaper in Los Angeles ran her obituary.

• 57:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 57:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Which is very touching. Um, yeah. A one-time employee of hers, columnist Jack Smith, said about her, "Aggie always reminded me of an old rhyme that used to be painted on the wall of a donut shop at 8th and Olympic. As Ora the life, as Ora life's road you roll, keep your eye upon the donut and not upon the hole."

• 57:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Ooh.

• 57:29Karen Kilgariff?

  I know, it's fun.

• 57:31Georgia Hardstark?

  I love that.

• 57:32Karen Kilgariff?

  But, here's the big finish. On her deathbed, her grandsons found out that she worked on the Black Dahlia murder case, and they went to her, and they were like, "Did you really solve it?". And she said, "I know who it is, but he's dead and it doesn't matter anyway."

• 57:47Georgia Hardstark?

  No!

• 57:49Karen Kilgariff?

  And thus, proving my theory that Walt Disney was the Black Dahlia fucking murderer, am I right?

• 57:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 57:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Right? Why wouldn't she say the name? Right? If it's like, some dude, or some like, doctor, or whatever, like, all those books are about, then she'd just go, "It was Doctor Who, huh?", but like, who cares? But she's covering for somebody, don't you think?

• 58:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Mm-hmm. Lyndon B. Johnson.

• 58:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Lyndon B. Johnson killed Elizabeth Short.

• 58:19Georgia Hardstark?

  That was fucking awesome.

• 58:20Karen Kilgariff?

  That was it.

• 58:29Georgia Hardstark?

  That was fun. That was a wild ride. Disney, a Disney ride.

• 58:36Karen Kilgariff?

  It was, you know, I accused some people of murders. That's how it is.

• 58:41Georgia Hardstark?

  I mean, me too.

• 58:42Karen Kilgariff?

  That's how we do it.

• 58:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, we're back. Any updates, Karen?

• 58:49Karen Kilgariff?

  There actually are, which is exciting. In 2019, the Los Angeles Public Library published an extensive photo-driven retrospective titled, "The First with the Latest: Aggie Underwood, the Los Angeles Herald, and the Sordid Crimes of a City." I can't believe I missed that. I'm furious. The online collection uses nearly 100 archival photographs, revisiting the crimes she covered and her rise through the newspaper business. Go to lapl.org to go see them. That's, I'm going to do that for sure. Also, at Cal State Northridge, that's where Aggie's papers are housed, and they continue to maintain the Agnes M. Underwood collection. And that collection includes her correspondence,

• 59:32Karen Kilgariff?

  photographs, speeches, and newspaper clippings. So if you like that story and you want to know more, deep dive, those are two great sources for you to do it.

• 59:41Georgia Hardstark?

  What an unsung, like feminist hero.

• 59:43Karen Kilgariff?

  I know.

• 59:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Who needs more attention?

• 59:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Women who voluntarily go into all-men spaces in like the 40s.

• 59:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 59:51Karen Kilgariff?

  That's, that's fucking astronaut shit. Like, that's the hardest of anything you can do.

• 59:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 59:58Karen Kilgariff?

  She just had a baseball bat.

• 1:00:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my god.

• 1:00:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay, now it's time, we're building to the great one. This is George's story about the Los Feliz murder mansion.

• 1:00:13Speaker 03

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• 1:00:16Karen Kilgariff?

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• 1:01:16Karen Kilgariff?

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• 1:02:30Karen Kilgariff?

  And with Article's 30-day satisfaction guarantee, you can shop with confidence, knowing that if you're not completely in love with your new furniture, you can easily return it. Man, there was nothing I loved more than when I was broke and I could still buy furniture that I needed at Article. It wasn't cheap-looking. It's like, I was investing in these pieces that were comparatively inexpensive, and I was like finishing rooms. I was like getting the kitchen table that was like bringing the whole thing together. And it was such an incredible thing, because I never got to do that before. I love that about Article.

• 1:03:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Article is offering our listeners $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more.

• 1:03:07Karen Kilgariff?

  To claim, visit article.com/murder, and the discount will be automatically applied at checkout.

• 1:03:12Georgia Hardstark?

  That's article.com/murder for $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more.

• 1:03:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye.

• 1:03:20Karen Kilgariff?

  What you got over there, like a bug or something?

• 1:03:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, there was a fucking gnat. It's the ghost of Walt Disney.

• 1:03:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Thought you were waving to the baby really weird.

• 1:03:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Baby, I love when you just physically gesture at them. Okay, I'm really excited about this one. This is one of those stories that you're like, "Why haven't I done that?" And you're like, "I didn't think there was that much to do about it." And then you look into it, and you're like, oh, this is...

• 1:03:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, shit.

• 1:03:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, oh, shit.

• 1:03:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 1:03:43Georgia Hardstark?

  So, are you ready for the Los Feliz murder mansion?

• 1:03:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, fuck.

• 1:03:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Nope.

• 1:03:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, that was her book. Please buy it today at your local Barnes and Noble booksellers. Look at it.

• 1:04:01Georgia Hardstark?

  What a woman, what a book.

• 1:04:02Karen Kilgariff?

  What a woman, what a book.

• 1:04:04Georgia Hardstark?

  What a woman.

• 1:04:06Karen Kilgariff?

  That was Gene Fowler's hit, "What a Woman, What a Book."

• 1:04:11Georgia Hardstark?

  All right, Los Feliz murder mansion. All right.

• 1:04:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Fuck, dude. Now, we've talked about this on the podcast, though.

• 1:04:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Like, we've talked to each other about it.

• 1:04:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Absolutely. Maybe. Absa-maybe. Probably. Probably, yes, yes, we have. Because we got emails about it.

• 1:04:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay, great.

• 1:04:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, so, the LFMM, or the Los Feliz murder mansion. So it's one of those Los Angeles urban legends that people who are, live in Los Angeles, love to tell people who don't know it, because we like to brag, and we're like, "Oh, my god, you don't know about the Los Feliz management, or..."

• 1:04:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:47Georgia Hardstark?

  And then we can tell them about it, and then they freak out, and then they tell people who don't know, and everyone's smarter than everyone else.

• 1:04:53Karen Kilgariff?

  It's with everything this podcast is based on.

• 1:04:57Georgia Hardstark?

  So, the first time I heard about it was on LiveJournal, way back when.

• 1:05:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Back when you were blogging?

• 1:05:04Georgia Hardstark?

  When I was blogging, and like, yeah, and I was like, this is the best thing I've ever heard. The common urban legend is that a father killed his whole family and himself on Christmas Eve in the 1950s, that the house had sat abandoned, and nothing in the house had been touched or changed since that night. And if you crept up in like trespass and looked through the window, you could still see the Christmas tree and the presents underneath from the night he killed his family. Like, that's the urban legend that everyone, you know, tells.

• 1:05:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Does anyone talk about the level of dust that would be on those things?

• 1:05:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes, it's like part of it. So people who are really into abandoned shit are like, "This is the best thing I've ever heard."

• 1:05:40Karen Kilgariff?

  That's like preserved, almost.

• 1:05:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, so it's like, oh, it's like abandoned porn, abandonment porn.

• 1:05:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes. Lots of people here are into abandonment porn.

• 1:05:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Second only to changing room shame porn.

• 1:05:55Georgia Hardstark?

  And porn, porn.

• 1:05:56Karen Kilgariff?

  And then just regular porn.

• 1:05:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Porn.

• 1:06:01Karen Kilgariff?

  We rarely talk about porn this much.

• 1:06:02Georgia Hardstark?

  I know, especially not in front of my parents.

• 1:06:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Hi, Janet.

• 1:06:09Georgia Hardstark?

  So it turns out that that isn't exactly true. I'm gonna fucking tell you the real story.

• 1:06:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay, finally, the truth.

• 1:06:15Georgia Hardstark?

  The truth comes out tonight. So, 2475 Glendower Place is a four-bedroom, three-bath, Spanish Revival mansion on over half an acre, a lot, that sits atop a hill in Los Feliz. It was built in 1925.

• 1:06:29Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm gonna stop you.

• 1:06:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay. Los Feliz.

• 1:06:32Karen Kilgariff?

  You're from here.

• 1:06:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Los Feliz. I just was reading it in the voice.

• 1:06:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, that was that lady's accent?

• 1:06:38Georgia Hardstark?

  That was that lady.

• 1:06:39Karen Kilgariff?

  My bad, sorry.

• 1:06:40Georgia Hardstark?

  I am now the, like, a 1950s real estate agent.

• 1:06:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Who doesn't know Los Feliz is?

• 1:06:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Got it.

• 1:06:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, it was built in 1925 by architect Harry E. Weiner? Weiner. And it was once owned by German film director, silent film director Frederick Zelig. The house is...

• 1:07:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Zelig?

• 1:07:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Zelig.

• 1:07:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Got it.

• 1:07:03Georgia Hardstark?

  With a K.

• 1:07:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 1:07:04Georgia Hardstark?

  The house was described as, "A delightful 12-room home with terrace lawns, artistic gardens, and a magnificent view." It has a ball, it had a ballroom with a bar.

• 1:07:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Keep doing the voice.

• 1:07:15Georgia Hardstark?

  That was the end of the quote. "Maids' quarters, a glass conservatory, and a podcast loft." No, it didn't.

• 1:07:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Sorry, a glass conservatory?

• 1:07:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:25Karen Kilgariff?

  For like concerts and stuff?

• 1:07:27Georgia Hardstark?

  No, I think like an atrium, right? I don't know.

• 1:07:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Not conservatory people.

• 1:07:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Let's see the photos, Stephen. Oh, isn't it gorgeous? Yes, it is.

• 1:07:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Where's the Christmas tree, that left side?

• 1:07:43Georgia Hardstark?

  No, no, no, no, we're gonna get there. Take it down. Okay, so...

• 1:07:47Karen Kilgariff?

  They put the Christmas tree up in that window, like hung it from the ceiling? Christmas.

• 1:07:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Upside down.

• 1:07:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Art Christmas.

• 1:07:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, so this neighborhood is for fucking rich people. Like, Richie Rich.

• 1:07:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Still is.

• 1:08:00Georgia Hardstark?

  It's still, it is, and it was. And it's surrounded by like all these insanely gorgeous, fancy houses, million-dollar houses, including the Ennis House. You can see that, you can, this, this house is right in front of the Ennis House. And I actually saw that, I saw it once from, what?

• 1:08:15Karen Kilgariff?

  What's the Ennis House?

• 1:08:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, the Ennis House was Frank Lloyd Wright's house, built for the Ennis family.

• 1:08:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Got it. That looks like a weird Aztec or Mayan temple or something.

• 1:08:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, it's the one that was in "House on Haunted Hill." It's, it's the house on Haunted Hill. It's like, and it was in Blade Runner and all this shit. It's like famous as fuck.

• 1:08:33Karen Kilgariff?

  It's a great house.

• 1:08:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:35Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 1:08:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Boop, okay. Bup, bup, bup, bup, okay. By 1959, the, so 1959, here we are. The Los Feliz murder mansion was owned by the Perelson family. The patriarch of the family is Harold Perelson. He's 50. He's known as a quiet and kind man.

• 1:08:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Bad news.

• 1:08:56Georgia Hardstark?

  He's a prominent surgeon specializing in cardiothoracics and allergies.

• 1:09:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Cardiothoracic?

• 1:09:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Thank you. Yes, and I need him as my doctor, but not him, because you'll see.

• 1:09:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Why? He has a profitable patent for a new type of syringe. He's written one of the most respected clinical reports of the time that I'm not going to try to read to you.

• 1:09:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Read it.

• 1:09:24Georgia Hardstark?

  The electrocardiogram in familiar periodic paralysis.

• 1:09:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Good stuff.

• 1:09:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, thank you.

• 1:09:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Doctors.

• 1:09:33Karen Kilgariff?

  So many doctors.

• 1:09:35Georgia Hardstark?

  And a well-respected keynote speaker in medical conferences around the country, so...

• 1:09:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Hot.

• 1:09:41Georgia Hardstark?

  His wife is 42-year-old Lillian, and she's a homemaker and mother to the couple's three children, 18-year-old Judy, daughter Judy, 11-year-old Debbie, and 13-year-old Joseph. We have, like, this is the only photo I can find of any of them.

• 1:09:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 1:09:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Creepy as that. It's a nightmare.

• 1:10:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, that's not.

• 1:10:04Karen Kilgariff?

  That's not fun in any way.

• 1:10:05Georgia Hardstark?

  No.

• 1:10:05Karen Kilgariff?

  That looks like something from Insidious 2.

• 1:10:10Georgia Hardstark?

  It just starts zapping in and out.

• 1:10:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, because his eyes, like, the newspaper print is making the boy's eyes look like they're bleeding up.

• 1:10:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Everything's fine.

• 1:10:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, take it down.

• 1:10:24Georgia Hardstark?

  All the neighbors, all the rich neighbors, of course, say that they're a loving family, shows no outward signs of strife, and by all accounts, they have wealth, respect, and success. This is where if we had them, we would raise our red flags high in the air.

• 1:10:39Karen Kilgariff?

  You don't want wealth, respect, and success.

• 1:10:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Nope.

• 1:10:41Karen Kilgariff?

  That's a fucking, that's a quick train to Deathville, everybody.

• 1:10:47Georgia Hardstark?

  You want all your outward signs to be crazy and dysfunctional, because then what's really happening, I don't know why.

• 1:10:53Karen Kilgariff?

  You're just kind of working through shit real time.

• 1:10:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:55Karen Kilgariff?

  You're not saving it all up for a murder house situation.

• 1:11:00Georgia Hardstark?

  All was not well, it turns out. Okay, the story goes that, here's the story. There's so much fucking speculation and, like, different stories and embellishments online in every, like, every article you read, every blog post about it. Can you believe bloggers are embellishing? I can't believe it.

• 1:11:19Georgia Hardstark?

  It's just, there's so much craziness. I tried to get the closest to what exactly happened.

• 1:11:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Sure.

• 1:11:24Georgia Hardstark?

  So...

• 1:11:25Karen Kilgariff?

  But then embellish a little too, because, I mean, why not?

• 1:11:28Georgia Hardstark?

  A podcaster is talking shit on bloggers embellishing.

• 1:11:32Karen Kilgariff?

  This is when the podcaster blogger war started.

• 1:11:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, the story goes that the night of December 6, 1959, Harold came home from work like usual, fixed himself a drink. Lillian was wrapping Christmas presents and preparing dinner at the same time, because women had to do everything back then.

• 1:11:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Cooking and wrapping at the same time.

• 1:11:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, nothing's more fun.

• 1:11:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:11:55Georgia Hardstark?

  After dinner, the family watches TV, and then the two youngest children get tucked into bed by their parents. Judy, 18-year-old, who's older, goes to her room to do some homework, and everyone kind of just is reading and eventually goes to sleep. Harold, before he fell asleep, was reading Dante's Divine Comedy, a little light, light reading.

• 1:12:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Just some fun stuff?

• 1:12:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Uh-huh.

• 1:12:19Karen Kilgariff?

  The Stephen King of their day.

• 1:12:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Eventually, he falls asleep, but not before marking a specific passage in the book. We'll get there.

• 1:12:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay. I can't wait for the Dante's Divine Comedy part.

• 1:12:34Georgia Hardstark?

  I have, like, a four-page quote from it. It's gonna be thrilling.

• 1:12:38Karen Kilgariff?

  It's gonna rhyme.

• 1:12:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Sometime around 5:00 AM, Harold wakes up, goes to his toolbox, grabs a ball peen hammer.

• 1:12:53Karen Kilgariff?

  What are fucking ball peen hammers for but to murder your family?

• 1:12:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes!

• 1:12:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Every story we read.

• 1:13:01Georgia Hardstark?

  If you have one of those in your house, throw it away. Flush it down the toilet.

• 1:13:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Burn the handle and then flush the big part down the toilet.

• 1:13:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:09Karen Kilgariff?

  It's the only solution.

• 1:13:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, goes to his wife's room and hits her while she's sleeping.

• 1:13:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:20Georgia Hardstark?

  As she lay dying, he goes to his eldest daughter Judy's room. But she had woken up when she heard what was going on in the other room, so she was kind of prepared for him. So when he went to hit her, she was able to lighten the blow by blocking with her arm, so it didn't come down and hit her as hard. And she was able to get up her arm in defense, and, but she was disoriented, so...

• 1:13:48Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, your dad is trying to murder you.

• 1:13:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He, she's fighting with him, and he says, "Lay still and keep quiet." But she is like, "Fuck you," and lets out a blood-curdling scream. Right? She tries to get up and run, and her scream wakes up her sleeping siblings, the younger ones in the other room. So Debbie, the young, the daughter, comes out to be like, "What's happening? Why is my sister screaming?" And Harold, thinking that Judy is dazed and incapacitated, goes to take Debbie back to her bedroom. He says to her, allegedly, "Go back to bed, this is just a nightmare."

• 1:14:25Georgia Hardstark?

  He goes back to Judy's room to, like, finish it off, one would think, but she's fucking booked it while he's tending to the other daughter.

• 1:14:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Both the quotes, "Lay still," and whatever that second one you just said.

• 1:14:41Georgia Hardstark?

  "Go back to bed, this is just a nightmare."

• 1:14:45Karen Kilgariff?

  This man is, I don't know anything about him, and he's the creepiest thoracic surgeon I've ever heard of in my life.

• 1:14:50Georgia Hardstark?

  That's right.

• 1:14:53Georgia Hardstark?

  So she, despite a fucking skull fracture, she takes off down that crazy hill at the, you know, with the house is on.

• 1:15:01Karen Kilgariff?

  What?

• 1:15:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. And runs, goes to the neighbors. They had already woken up because they heard her scream, so when she pounds on the door and they open it, and she's got blood coming down her head, they let her in and they call the police.

• 1:15:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Meanwhile, Debbie, the little sister, who was like, "Go back to bed, this is a nightmare," she was like, "I don't believe that." And so when he, she grabs her brother, and they booked it the fuck out of the house, too.

• 1:15:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, thank God.

• 1:15:26Georgia Hardstark?

  I know.

• 1:15:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Baby, the kids survive.

• 1:15:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Everything's fine.

• 1:15:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Everything's good. Your people are fine.

• 1:15:37Georgia Hardstark?

  She was about to walk out.

• 1:15:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Diapers.

• 1:15:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Someone just told her this was a comedy show. She didn't know.

• 1:15:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Diapers. Okay, so Harold, at this point, he's like, "Oh, I did this wrong. The cops are probably coming."

• 1:15:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:56Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm, uh, I'm, yes, I'm, what is it called when you put words?

• 1:15:59Karen Kilgariff?

  You're riffing.

• 1:15:59Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm riffing.

• 1:16:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Sure.

• 1:16:01Georgia Hardstark?

  He goes back to his bedroom, where his wife is now dead, takes a concoction of acid and tranquilizer pills. And of course, it's like, on every different place, it's a different kind of, whatever he takes, you know, Numbutal, or tranquilizers, or codeine, and the acid is supposedly cyanide. He takes a bunch of shit, so that, basically, when the police arrive, he's on the ground in his bedroom, where his wife is dead in the bed. He's near death, and he's got the fucking ball peen hammer in his hand.

• 1:16:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Won't let go. And then it becomes fused to his hand.

• 1:16:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 1:16:37Karen Kilgariff?

  He comes back as the ball peen hammer ghost.

• 1:16:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, no!

• 1:16:40Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm just trying to get one film out of this experience. One script.

• 1:16:46Georgia Hardstark?

  He is dead before the ambulance can get there.

• 1:16:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Shit.

• 1:16:49Georgia Hardstark?

  So, on the nightstand, next to Harold's bed, they find the copy of Dante's Inferno, The Divine Comedy. And the passage that was marked reads, "Midway upon the journey of our life, I found myself within a dark for," nope, "within a forest dark, for the straightforward path had been lost." It's creepy, but we don't really know what it means. He was probably just crazy, whatever, okay.

• 1:17:14Karen Kilgariff?

  He's a surgeon. What more does he want?

• 1:17:18Georgia Hardstark?

  So, in the ensuing investigation to figure out why Harold had gone bonkers, a letter was found that Judy had written to her aunt that said, "We are on the merry-go-round again, same problems, same worries, only tenfold. My parents are in a bind financially."

• 1:17:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 1:17:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Basically, she was like, "We're fucking broke."

• 1:17:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 1:17:38Georgia Hardstark?

  You know what I mean?

• 1:17:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Despite outward appearances, the Pearlsons were actually going through financial hardships. So, the rights to Harold's patent, his medical device patent, they were stolen by his partner after Harold and Lillian spent thousands of dollars developing it. And then he went on to spend thousands more on a legal battle that went on for years, and the settlement barely covered the legal costs in the end. And a few months after that, his children had been in a car accident that wasn't their fault, he had filed another suit against the driver, but the settlement barely covered the children's medical costs. So, like, he needs a better lawyer, I'm thinking, you know?

• 1:18:19Karen Kilgariff?

  That's one thing he needs.

• 1:18:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Another theory as to what happened was that, though friends were told that Harold had a recent spate of unexpected heart attacks, which had put him in the hospital, you know?

• 1:18:32Karen Kilgariff?

  A spate of heart attacks?

• 1:18:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:34Karen Kilgariff?

  That's too many.

• 1:18:35Georgia Hardstark?

  I know.

• 1:18:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Once plenty.

• 1:18:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, but they had to give an excuse as to why he kept having to go back to the hospital.

• 1:18:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 1:18:43Georgia Hardstark?

  But what really happened, they found that he had, it had actually been suicide attempts.

• 1:18:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Fuck.

• 1:18:50Georgia Hardstark?

  And they were saying that he was just in the hospital for all these heart attacks he keeps having.

• 1:18:54Karen Kilgariff?

  It's so crazy, dad fell down and had another heart attack, so we're trying to...

• 1:19:00Georgia Hardstark?

  And it was also possible that the wife, that Lillian or the doctors were gonna have him committed, or that she had to do it at the end of a certain time, a period of time, so maybe he was just like, "I'm not going back." We don't really know. All three children left to live with relatives, and their whereabouts are now unknown. They changed their names so they wouldn't be associated with the murders. There's, like, one rumor of who someone is, but I don't even know if it's true, so I'm not gonna say.

• 1:19:27Karen Kilgariff?

  And also, they don't want to be known.

• 1:19:28Georgia Hardstark?

  No, totally.

• 1:19:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:30Georgia Hardstark?

  And here's her photo. No, that would never do that. It's my mom. Oh my god, how cool would that be?

• 1:19:37Karen Kilgariff?

  And in researching this story, I discovered...

• 1:19:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Shannon? Okay. Okay. In 1960. So, in 1960, a year after the murder-suicide, the mansion is sold at auction. And for the next over 50 years, the Los Feliz murder mansion would remain completely untouched and uninhabited by anyone. Okay, that part's only kind of true. Here's the truth.

• 1:20:06Karen Kilgariff?

  How many times have you done that during this story? Just this once?

• 1:20:10Georgia Hardstark?

  You know what, like reading it to my cats?

• 1:20:12Karen Kilgariff?

  No, no, no, reading something going, "That's actually only partly true."

• 1:20:17Georgia Hardstark?

  That's my whole life.

• 1:20:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, either way, I know people want this to be the creepiest, craziest story. It is super fucking creepy either way. Here's what really happened. The couple that bought the home were Julian and Emily Enriquez of Lincoln Heights. They never lived there. They bought this fucking mansion and used it as a storage unit, basically.

• 1:20:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Was this before storage units were available to America? Before Storage Wars?

• 1:20:46Georgia Hardstark?

  It must be. So, they basically just kept bringing boxes and weird stuff over there and filling the house, which so people thought that all the stuff had been, like when people, the looky-loos would come and like, try to look through the windows, they thought that that was all of the stuff being left behind. But it's still creepy.

• 1:21:04Karen Kilgariff?

  What? There's a box that says "utensils" on it. It's so scary.

• 1:21:11Georgia Hardstark?

  When Emily, when the mother died in 1994, their son Rudy, who, they all paid the property tax, so they couldn't take the house from them, even though no one lived there. They, he only used it as storage as well. He'd never spent a night there. He made no changes from the home aside from installing an alarm system because the neighbors were complaining about squatters and ghost hunters constantly trying to break into the house.

• 1:21:38Karen Kilgariff?

  What were these Enriquezes', what was the plan?

• 1:21:42Georgia Hardstark?

  You, you wonder. I don't know.

• 1:21:45Karen Kilgariff?

  They just filled the entire thing with boxes, slowly but surely like Tetris?

• 1:21:51Karen Kilgariff?

  25 more?

• 1:21:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Then it like explodes into the ether and it doesn't exist anymore? Okay, so, the house slowly fell into disrepair and nothing was done to maintain the property except for the neighbors like tended to the yard and like cleaned the gutters in front because they're like, "This is hideous and we hate looking at this."

• 1:22:09Karen Kilgariff?

  They did it themselves?

• 1:22:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, that's like when my neighbors put my garbage can back up my driveway when I... "Garbage day is Monday and I'll leave it out there till Thursday."

• 1:22:20Georgia Hardstark?

  That's exactly what they did.

• 1:22:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, it's so embarrassing.

• 1:22:24Georgia Hardstark?

  We have a photo of the abandoned-looking house. Yes.

• 1:22:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh shit.

• 1:22:29Georgia Hardstark?

  How fucking creepy is this?

• 1:22:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Those fences make things look way creepier though, too.

• 1:22:34Georgia Hardstark?

  No, but that's pretty creepy.

• 1:22:35Karen Kilgariff?

  It's, you know, it's creepy by itself.

• 1:22:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Think about what happened in there.

• 1:22:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Just saying, the fence adds.

• 1:22:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes, it does.

• 1:22:40Karen Kilgariff?

  It really adds.

• 1:22:41Georgia Hardstark?

  It adds 10 pounds of terrifying.

• 1:22:45Georgia Hardstark?

  I wanted to go in there so bad. I mean, to a point where it broke my heart that I could never do it. Like, this is my fucking dream.

• 1:22:54Karen Kilgariff?

  We could get into that glass terrarium or whatever it's called, I bet you. If we put on like balaclavas and we'll wear the black shirt I always wear and we'll just climb a fence.

• 1:23:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Honestly, like I could travel the world only breaking into houses like this. I would do it. Just to go through things. I don't want to like fuck anything up. I just want to look around like an asshole, you know?

• 1:23:14Karen Kilgariff?

  People do that.

• 1:23:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Like, that's why I go to estate sales, is I just want to go through people's stuff.

• 1:23:18Karen Kilgariff?

  It's so fun.

• 1:23:19Georgia Hardstark?

  And like maybe buy their old like cookbooks, I don't know.

• 1:23:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes. Get in their lives.

• 1:23:25Georgia Hardstark?

  All right, so now, onto the rumors that everything from the night of the murder was left behind and still there. It's not true what people who peeked through the windows were really seeing was the fucking crazy shit the Enriquez family, who sound like hoarders, left behind.

• 1:23:38Karen Kilgariff?

  The richest hoarders of all time.

• 1:23:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes. And, well, at the same time though, I wonder, the house was sold in 1960, so it happened in 1959. No one probably wanted to buy that house, you know?

• 1:23:49Karen Kilgariff?

  It's true.

• 1:23:50Georgia Hardstark?

  So maybe they got it for a steal. A song, that's what I meant to say.

• 1:23:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Sure. But I mean, still, if you buy a house, you'd want to go ahead and live there.

• 1:23:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Sure. Or at least fix it up and sell it.

• 1:24:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, throw a coat of paint on there, just smudge stick or whatever. Clap the corners, I don't know.

• 1:24:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, so they left behind all this stuff, including like vintage magazines and vintage cleaning products, which made people think that that was, belonged to...

• 1:24:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Were they fucking with people?

• 1:24:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Pearls. They might have been fucking with people. We have a photo. Okay, so this is from a website, a blog called mylabucketlist.com. She like, this chick basically is me, but braver. She snuck up there and like took all these photos in the, through the window. So here's one of them.

• 1:24:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, we get to see? Ooh.

• 1:24:40Georgia Hardstark?

  So, see the magazine? That's a Life magazine, that's a Post magazine. So when she put those up online, people were like, "Um, that came out in 1965." And so it's clearly not the Pearls and families. Doesn't belong to them, you know? And there was a box of SpaghettiOs in the kitchen? And they were like, "It's the murderer's SpaghettiOs!" And shit, like they were really excited that like somehow a box of SpaghettiOs belonged to a murderer is like interesting.

• 1:25:07Karen Kilgariff?

  It is interesting.

• 1:25:08Georgia Hardstark?

  But it turns out that SpaghettiOs weren't manufactured until 1965. Which is like internet sleuths are the best, how they're just like, "Nope, sorry dicks."

• 1:25:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Hate to rain on your parade with SpaghettiOs, but...

• 1:25:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Chef Boyardee wasn't even invented until 1963. Anyway, nice try.

• 1:25:28Georgia Hardstark?

  And then there's another urban legend that the house was rented to a family a few years after the murder, who were living there until one night, right around Christmas, or right around the anniversary of the murder-suicide, the family fled the house in terror. Ghosty, ghost shit.

• 1:25:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Ghosty-go shit.

• 1:25:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Ghost shit.

• 1:25:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:48Georgia Hardstark?

  And left behind everything, including a Christmas tree and unwrapped presents. Like, the Christmas tree part is a big part of this urban legend that people will tell you about because it sounds so creepy. But here's the thing. There's no photo anywhere of a Christmas tree. So that doesn't seem like it existed.

• 1:26:07Karen Kilgariff?

  That's just hot gossip.

• 1:26:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Sorry, guys.

• 1:26:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:09Georgia Hardstark?

  But there is a photo through the window of a creepy old, I think it's the living room, and Christmas wrapping paper on the couch. Here's another one from mylabucketlist.com. How terrifying. You see that?

• 1:26:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:22Georgia Hardstark?

  And then look at all the dust and shit and that old-timey fucking thing.

• 1:26:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. Oh, also, that makes me uncomfortable. There's an office-style file cabinet there. You don't have that in a living room or a TV room. That's not, that's for dad's office only.

• 1:26:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Unless you're keeping files on something sinister.

• 1:26:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Chef Boyardee.

• 1:26:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Right. So, um, doo-doo-doo. Okay, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. And the other thing is, the reason we know it's not the Pearls and's is that they were Jewish, so...

• 1:26:56Georgia Hardstark?

  It's probably not their Christmas crap.

• 1:26:59Karen Kilgariff?

  There's so many internet sleuths that we're immediately like, "Yeah, does anyone get this? Okay, we'll wait till you people catch up."

• 1:27:06Georgia Hardstark?

  And just for fun, because I love this shit, here's one more creepy photo from my L.A. Bucket List through the window. Nightmare. God, don't you just want to like tiptoe through that house? Like, alone, no one's there with you.

• 1:27:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Those yellow chairs are so clearly from Overstock.com. There's like no fucking question in my mind.

• 1:27:25Georgia Hardstark?

  No, you're ruining it.

• 1:27:26Karen Kilgariff?

  I would immediately, I would see that picture and I'd just be like, "49.99?"

• 1:27:31Georgia Hardstark?

  No, they're creepy from the death house. So they're creepy.

• 1:27:34Karen Kilgariff?

  No, they're so creepy.

• 1:27:35Georgia Hardstark?

  But they're also a bargain. But they're also, you can't afford not to buy them.

• 1:27:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Like, but look at that giant old-school sofa, you know?

• 1:27:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:45Georgia Hardstark?

  I just love it.

• 1:27:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. Okay, in 2016, all fucking, all of us weirdos lost our minds when the house went up for sale. And this was when we were finally able to see inside the house because there weren't a lot of photos. There's some woman online who broke into the house.

• 1:28:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Did she?

• 1:28:04Georgia Hardstark?

  They broke into the house. It looks like a lot of squatters used to live there because there's now junk everywhere. It looks like they went through all the closets and all the Enriquez stuff, thinking it was not, thinking it belonged to a murderer, which is horrible. And they went in there. So there's some weird photos from inside of there, but we finally got to see inside the house.

• 1:28:20Karen Kilgariff?

  I feel like this is, that, whenever that, it went on sale is when we talked about it. It was like the very beginning of the show.

• 1:28:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes, and they were like, "Let's buy it."

• 1:28:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. We still have a Patreon up if anybody wants to donate to... It might be too late.

• 1:28:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Actually, last night, when Vince and I, Vince and I were lying in bed and I was writing this and I was like, "Can you believe it sold for this or was up for this much?" And he was like, "Who would want to live in a death house?" And I was like, "Oh shit, he doesn't know about me."

• 1:28:48Georgia Hardstark?

  And I had to explain why I would really, really, really want it.

• 1:28:52Karen Kilgariff?

  You would live in a house where somebody murdered his wife?

• 1:28:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:57Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm asking her. Some lady goes, "Absolutely."

• 1:29:02Georgia Hardstark?

  It's the ghost of... I wouldn't live there because someone was murdered there, but I wouldn't not, and it would kind of be, if I were deciding between two places and one, it'd kind of be a bonus? In like a really cool spooky way and like connected to our history?

• 1:29:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Have you ever seen one scary movie? One?

• 1:29:24Georgia Hardstark?

  No.

• 1:29:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Any, no?

• 1:29:25Georgia Hardstark?

  No.

• 1:29:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, we got to get you.

• 1:29:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 1:29:27Karen Kilgariff?

  First, Insidious 2 is where you have to start because it's so crazy, but it's also a sequel.

• 1:29:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 1:29:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, so we all lost our minds. Before all the junk was hauled off so the house could be listed, supposedly this woman who was a friend of the late owner, her name is Alexis Vaughn, she's a photographer. She was invited, she's like the only person ever who was invited into the house to take photos before they got rid of everything. And she posted those photos on her website, Life in My Lens. Here's one of the photos. Or two photos, side by side.

• 1:30:01Karen Kilgariff?

  An oven.

• 1:30:02Georgia Hardstark?

  It's so creepy. Do you not find any of these creepy? Am I crazy? Those are two separate questions.

• 1:30:09Karen Kilgariff?

  I just like comedy.

• 1:30:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:30:12Karen Kilgariff?

  No, no, I mean, they're creepy in a way, but then kind of knowing the, knowing that it's the Enriquezes' stuff, like I would be freaking out if we knew it was their stuff.

• 1:30:22Georgia Hardstark?

  I should, I should have written this differently.

• 1:30:23Karen Kilgariff?

  No, no, no, but that's, it's the truth because I've actually known the wrong story this whole time.

• 1:30:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:29Karen Kilgariff?

  So I want to know it.

• 1:30:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, I wanted to ruin everyone's day.

• 1:30:33Karen Kilgariff?

  It's fun, right?

• 1:30:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. Once the house was cleared of all the junk and slightly cleaned up, the real estate listing photos of the now empty house went up with the listing. Here's some pictures. That's the ballroom with the fucking bar. I mean, they did hang out there, though. The family.

• 1:30:50Karen Kilgariff?

  They did?

• 1:30:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, they lived there.

• 1:30:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, oh.

• 1:30:52Georgia Hardstark?

  You know what I mean. That's the creepy-ass fucking ballroom.

• 1:30:55Karen Kilgariff?

  They just stood in that room going like that?

• 1:30:57Georgia Hardstark?

  You know. How you swim.

• 1:30:58Karen Kilgariff?

  It's kind of like swimming, but just in the ballroom.

• 1:31:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Every night from 7 to 8.

• 1:31:03Georgia Hardstark?

  I think there's another one, Stephen. Yeah.

• 1:31:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Ooh, it's so crazy. Gorgeous floors.

• 1:31:09Georgia Hardstark?

  The house was ultimately bought for $2.289 million, even though the family... I mean, it's really sad and a lot of people are super bummed that there was this gorgeous, like, historical house that then this family bought and wouldn't sell it to anyone. They refused it, lots of offers, and just let it fall into disrepair. And it might just be a tear down because there's so much damage. So it's kind of shitty. No one knows why they did that. They wouldn't explain it to anyone. And it's just this sad, weird, creepy thing on top of the fact that this awful, horrible thing happened in the house before. It's almost like the house itself is this entity where only weird shit can happen in it.

• 1:31:51Karen Kilgariff?

  It's an entity that makes you store things. It's just... Box it up. There's a voice that whispers, "Box it up," all night as you sleep. I don't know. I just feel like I... I feel like we can't use the closets in our own home anymore.

• 1:32:07Georgia Hardstark?

  It's just... They're creepy, too. I want to know what the fuck was going on with them.

• 1:32:10Karen Kilgariff?

  It's super creepy. That should be the thing for the next... The web sleuths. They need to get all up in the Enriquezes' business.

• 1:32:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Go to their house. Squad in there.

• 1:32:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Well...

• 1:32:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Do it.

• 1:32:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, they died. So...

• 1:32:26Georgia Hardstark?

  I forgot to say, the reason it went up for sale is because Rudy died in his 80s. And so the house went up on auction, you know?

• 1:32:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:35Georgia Hardstark?

  It sold for $2.2... blah, blah, blah. And it was bought by TV legal analyst Lisa Bloom, who happens to be Gloria Allred's daughter.

• 1:32:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, shit!

• 1:32:45Georgia Hardstark?

  I know. You're like, oh, she's probably creepy. I like that she's... She knows some shit. I don't know why I feel that way about her. Maybe because she bought this house?

• 1:32:52Karen Kilgariff?

  No, because everybody knows it's the... They call... It's the Los Feliz murder house.

• 1:32:56Georgia Hardstark?

  And they were the only people who put a bid on it, too.

• 1:32:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 1:32:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:59Karen Kilgariff?

  And Katy Perry, probably. She would have gotten in there. If she had known... She was probably on tour.

• 1:33:06Georgia Hardstark?

  So why Harold Perelson committed this crime? It's still a fucking mystery. And unless one of the kids comes forward and writes their tell-all or says what happened about the family, we'll never know what happened that night for sure. And that is the Los Feliz murder mansion.

• 1:33:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow. That's a good one.

• 1:33:26Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm gonna check this.

• 1:33:27Georgia Hardstark?

  You guys better drive by before they make it all Hollywood and shit.

• 1:33:35Karen Kilgariff?

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

• 1:33:37Georgia Hardstark?

  There actually are. In late 2020, Lisa Bloom sold the house for $2.35 million to an LLC represented by a contractor named Effie Zlatniski. Bloom reportedly sold the property because of renovation and permitting issues. I feel like that house, it was in such disrepair that...

• 1:33:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Remodeling it would be millions and millions.

• 1:34:00Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, I wonder, maybe you looked it up, but like, what happens to a house that just sits there closed up for 40 years?

• 1:34:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, there was one in my neighborhood, actually.

• 1:34:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 1:34:11Georgia Hardstark?

  That was one of the original houses in the neighborhood. So, you know, like, the 20s or 30s. And it cost so much money that they had to list it for like $7 million, which no one in my neighborhood is going to buy a fucking $7 million house.

• 1:34:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:25Georgia Hardstark?

  So it just doesn't make sense. But in Los Feliz, they would. Like...

• 1:34:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 1:34:28Georgia Hardstark?

  You see that. So I'm sure they bought it and who knows? Anyways. In 2024, the New York Post reported that Zlatniski had defaulted on over $3 million in accrued interest and was at risk of foreclosure.

• 1:34:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Been there.

• 1:34:42Georgia Hardstark?

  The house has since been put back on the market. The exact date is unclear, but it seems like in late 2024, now listed for just under $3 million. This is an uninhabitable house in Los Angeles, everyone.

• 1:34:53Karen Kilgariff?

  It's so Los Angeles.

• 1:34:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Just so you know. Like, that's what it's like.

• 1:34:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:57Georgia Hardstark?

  One of the listing agents is Jason Oppenheim of Selling Sunset fame.

• 1:35:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 1:35:03Georgia Hardstark?

  I remember when it went on the market and you could see all the photos and there's like a ballroom. I mean, it's a really fucking cool house. I remember Vince saying, "Absolutely not."

• 1:35:14Karen Kilgariff?

  You're not... He's not going in.

• 1:35:15Georgia Hardstark?

  "Would you ever let me buy that?" "Yeah, but I'm not fucking living in it."

• 1:35:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. There... That's when you go solo.

• 1:35:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly.

• 1:35:24Karen Kilgariff?

  And just go live in a haunted house alone. That is the craziest.

• 1:35:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. I think new Exactly Right Media offices, maybe?

• 1:35:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Or we raise the building entirely and just build a nice peace garden.

• 1:35:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, I like that.

• 1:35:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Come on, everybody. Okay, it's time to go back into the episode to listen to the hometown that we get from the audience member.

• 1:35:47Speaker 03

  October is the month when being scared is supposed to be fun.

• 1:35:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Terrified in a haunted house? Sure. Your actual house? Absolutely not.

• 1:35:55Speaker 03

  Feel safe in your home with SimpliSafe.

• 1:35:57Karen Kilgariff?

  SimpliSafe is designed to help stop intruders before they get inside.

• 1:36:01Speaker 03

  I recently got an alert from my camera outside that there is like someone prowling around late at night. And of course, I got freaked out. I opened my camera and it was a big spider dangling in front of the camera,

• 1:36:15Speaker 03

  which was terrifying in itself, but such a relief. And I love that I know that it works. You know what I mean? Like, it's so much better a spider than an actual person, but I'll be prepared.

• 1:36:24Karen Kilgariff?

  All the answers are on your phone. You don't have to worry and sit there and wring your hands.

• 1:36:28Speaker 03

  Join the more than 6 million people who entrust SimpliSafe with their home security.

• 1:36:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Right now, save 60% off with professional monitoring when you visit simplisafe.com/fave.

• 1:36:37Speaker 03

  That's simplisafe.com/fav.

• 1:36:40Karen Kilgariff?

  And when you order, please write in "my favorite murder" in the checkout survey. It lets them know that we sent you and it really helps support the show.

• 1:36:46Speaker 03

  SimpliSafe, ahead of crime in real time.

• 1:36:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye.

• 1:36:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Do we have time for a hometown?

• 1:36:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, hell, yeah! Yes!

• 1:37:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Marie Enriquez walks up here. I'll tell you what I did with that...

• 1:37:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, no.

• 1:37:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Those SpaghettiOs, motherfuckers.

• 1:37:09Georgia Hardstark?

  I ate the whole box.

• 1:37:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Tell them the rules.

• 1:37:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, all right. Well, having been on this, you know, tour for a year and a half, we've seen some hometowns, good and bad, amazing and fine. And based on those experiences, we've made a couple rules. So obviously, we want you to do a hometown that's from Los Angeles. It's relevant to the people in this room.

• 1:37:33Georgia Hardstark?

  It doesn't have to be Los... Like, California.

• 1:37:35Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. The Southland.

• 1:37:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Nobody gives a shit about, like, Modesto.

• 1:37:40Georgia Hardstark?

  No, no, no, no.

• 1:37:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Look, let's be honest. Listen, Modesto.

• 1:37:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Listen.

• 1:37:47Karen Kilgariff?

  You can be drunk, but you can't be so drunk you can't tell your own story. You have to be able to track your own talking as you do it.

• 1:37:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Remember the girl who was like, "I'm on Xanax." "Okay." And then just fucking went for it?

• 1:37:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:58Georgia Hardstark?

  She did great.

• 1:37:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, she was good. She plowed... She used the alcohol to her advantage. There's some people that they start off like, they start strong and then like seven sentences in, they realize where they are and what they're doing. They're like, "I didn't buy tickets to this. What the fuck is going on?" Everything gets real slow.

• 1:38:18Karen Kilgariff?

  You know, just kind of make it snappy. Remember that if you get picked, everyone else hates you so they don't really want to watch you tell a story. So you have to really bring it on a high level if you don't think you can do that.

• 1:38:31Karen Kilgariff?

  No improvisers. Just kidding.

• 1:38:35Karen Kilgariff?

  I think that's it, right?

• 1:38:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, yeah. And I've been picking and I've been pretty... I go, "I'm gonna run, so don't fucking ruin this for me."

• 1:38:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. We were going back and forth and it would be like, whoever... If you picked a person and they didn't do a good job, then the other... It was now the next person's turn to do it.

• 1:38:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, and I'm on a roll.

• 1:38:49Karen Kilgariff?

  Georgia's been doing it for like the last 11, so...

• 1:38:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, let's get...

• 1:38:54Karen Kilgariff?

  So she's on it.

• 1:38:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay. Right, yeah. Right here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love when you and I point at someone who's like wildly waving their hand and then their face just falls in like an, "Oh, shit, I didn't mean that" kind of way.

• 1:39:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Hi! Hi, how are you?

• 1:39:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Hi.

• 1:39:13Georgia Hardstark?

  What's your name? Mona.

• 1:39:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Here, stand here. Center up.

• 1:39:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Here we go. This is Mona.

• 1:39:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Sink of the stage picture.

• 1:39:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, thank God, it's dark. I know, right? Where are you from, Mona? I'm from up the coast a little ways. Ventura.

• 1:39:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, Ventura. Ventura.

• 1:39:27Georgia Hardstark?

  I love Ventura.

• 1:39:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Are you a surfer?

• 1:39:29Georgia Hardstark?

  God, no.

• 1:39:32Speaker 04

  No balance.

• 1:39:33Karen Kilgariff?

  What do you do for a living?

• 1:39:34Speaker 04

  Uh, I sell insurance.

• 1:39:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Cool. Alright. We all need it.

• 1:39:38Speaker 04

  It's true, it's true.

• 1:39:40Karen Kilgariff?

  So what's your hometown?

• 1:39:41Speaker 04

  So, okay, a long time ago, when I was in like the seventh or eighth grade, I had this, um, there was a teaching team at my high, in middle school, Mr. and Mrs. Shirley. And my brother was on the track team with, I think it was Jake Bush. So what happens is, Ms. Shirley is super nice. She's like my English teacher. Mr. Shirley's like my history teacher. And one day, Ms. Shirley comes home with Jake Bush. Mr. Shirley's, I think, still grading papers or whatever. They come home, the house is robbed. And it's like fucked up beyond all belief. Shits everywhere. So in shock, they just go in and the mom's like, oh shit. She starts going to get the, the phone to call the cops.

• 1:40:25Speaker 04

  Jake, being a fucking 16, 17-year-old, runs into his bedroom to see if any of his shit's fucked up. So what happens is, the dude's still freaking there.

• 1:40:36Karen Kilgariff?

  No, no, no, no.

• 1:40:39Speaker 04

  He's behind the door.

• 1:40:42Karen Kilgariff?

  That's where you don't want him.

• 1:40:44Speaker 04

  No. Oh, yeah. So the fucked up thing is, he was just there. He didn't like flee or anything. He stabs poor Jake.

• 1:40:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 1:40:57Speaker 04

  Jake is screaming. His mom runs into the room. The guy runs out. She literally is holding him, trying to stop the bleeding. And he dies in her arms.

• 1:41:08Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, no.

• 1:41:09Speaker 04

  And the cops.

• 1:41:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Jake.

• 1:41:11Speaker 04

  It gets worse.

• 1:41:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh. It always does.

• 1:41:15Speaker 04

  So it like rocked the community. I remember being in the class on the last day of school, because they finished the fucking school year. And Ms. Shirley cried at everything.

• 1:41:25Karen Kilgariff?

  She still came to class?

• 1:41:27Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:41:27Karen Kilgariff?

  She taught school? Cut, cut the school year short. Isn't it hard enough for teachers?

• 1:41:32Speaker 04

  Right? And I remember him like, Mr. Shirley giving this moving speech about how we really helped them through it and all this. I remember sewing the fucking memorial black patch on my brother's track uniform.

• 1:41:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 1:41:45Speaker 04

  So it was awful. It was never really solved. It just sat there for years and years and years. Last year.

• 1:41:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Ooh.

• 1:41:53Speaker 04

  Last year, they brought a guy to trial. And they convicted him. And it was because whoever pulled the palm print off the window, pulled it in a way that there was DNA.

• 1:42:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Ooh.

• 1:42:07Speaker 04

  And he shit in the closet?

• 1:42:18Karen Kilgariff?

  They fucking ran his shit DNA? And they got a match and coded?

• 1:42:23Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:42:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Holy shit.

• 1:42:26Speaker 04

  Right? Well, and how don't you have to be, not only you in this house, you robbed it, you're there long enough that you have to take a dump? You don't use a fucking toilet? You shit in the closet?

• 1:42:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, it might have been after they got home. So he was just, he was really trapped.

• 1:42:40Speaker 04

  It's true, true.

• 1:42:41Karen Kilgariff?

  It was a bad situation.

• 1:42:42Speaker 04

  So, long story short, his own shit did him in. And he's behind dark bars where he should be.

• 1:42:49Karen Kilgariff?

  Yay. Wow. Wow. That's how you do it. That's how you tell a hometown murder.

• 1:42:55Speaker 04

  Oh, we have a present for you.

• 1:42:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, look at this, cool. You have a prize.

• 1:42:59Speaker 04

  Thank you. Orpheum gave us these incredible hats. And on the back, it says, Live Nation presents my fir-, my favorite murder. Sold out, March 16th, 2018.

• 1:43:09Karen Kilgariff?

  It's a one of a kind.

• 1:43:13Karen Kilgariff?

  So good. That was amazing. I'll take that one. Yeah, you can't have that.

• 1:43:18Speaker 04

  Thank you. Oh, my God. That is how you do a hometown.

• 1:43:21Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, twists and turns.

• 1:43:22Speaker 04

  I was way down here and sad. And I'm like, how are we gonna get out of this? And then it like got here.

• 1:43:26Karen Kilgariff?

  I did not see the shit coming at all. None of us did. You never see the shit coming. Fuck.

• 1:43:37Speaker 04

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

• 1:43:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Marco Antonio Casillas' conviction was upheld on a direct appeal in 2019. And then in 2023, a California appeals court rejected his request for resentencing, a ruling that the evidence established he was the person who stabbed Jake Bush. Casillas continued challenging his conviction in federal court, arguing in part that the jury should have heard more evidence about another possible suspect. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that challenge in March of 2025. And the US Supreme Court declined to hear his case on October 6, 2025, leaving his sentence of life without parole intact.

• 1:44:18Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 1:44:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. So, I mean, that's pretty final. It feels like they ran it through every court possible.

• 1:44:25Speaker 04

  Totally.

• 1:44:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, that's this episode, a pretty big one in my mind. It's a pretty, it's up there for me. It was originally titled, Live at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles.

• 1:44:35Speaker 04

  But if we were naming it today, based on some fucking thing that came out of one of our mouths onstage, maybe it would be, what about emergency child phone?

• 1:44:44Karen Kilgariff?

  We could do that. We could do old scissor.

• 1:44:47Speaker 04

  A quick train to death bill. That's good.

• 1:44:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Fitting room nude.

• 1:44:52Speaker 04

  All right, well, thanks for listening. Let's say goodbye from the stage, the theater.

• 1:44:56Karen Kilgariff?

  The theater.

• 1:44:57Speaker 04

  The Orpheum Theater in 2018.

• 1:45:02Speaker 04

  This is the last night of our big tour, like, winter tour.

• 1:45:08Karen Kilgariff?

  We're home, we're home.

• 1:45:14Karen Kilgariff?

  To be here in our own hometown, in Hollywood, in a place where people are professionally disinterested in everything, everything, everyone else is doing. It's pretty fucking amazing to do something, have a show that sells out, have this many people give a shit about what you're doing. Thank you so much for. Everything, guys.

• 1:45:37Speaker 04

  We are so incredibly lucky that we get to do this as a job. And thank you, guys, for making this incredible community around this horrible thing we talk about, and making it positive. We're, we're so lucky to be a part of it. And we appreciate so much what you guys have done for us.

• 1:45:53Karen Kilgariff?

  So thanks for being here.

• 1:45:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, thank you.

• 1:45:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Thanks for, uh, thanks for doing this whole thing with us. We, we really and very literally couldn't do it without you.

• 1:46:04Speaker 04

  Thanks to Vince for being our tour manager.

• 1:46:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Vince has been our tour manager. Just do a quick.

• 1:46:09Speaker 04

  Come on, Vince, he doesn't want to.

• 1:46:10Karen Kilgariff?

  This is the man that makes it happen on the road.

• 1:46:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:46:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Thank you. He literally sometimes will be like, you just need to eat a little salad. It's the nicest thing in the world.

• 1:46:24Speaker 04

  Uh, yeah. This is, we're lucky, this is amazing.

• 1:46:27Karen Kilgariff?

  We're very happy. And mostly, we just want you to stay sexy.

• 1:46:30Speaker 04

  And.

• 1:46:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Bye, you guys. Elvis, do you want a cookie? Vacation planning should feel like a breeze, not a deep dive into countless travel sites searching for the best deal.

• 1:46:43Speaker 04

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• 1:46:48Karen Kilgariff?

  You'll save time and money with the Budget Beach Finder.

• 1:46:51Speaker 04

  Say goodbye to endless scrolling and tab hopping and hello to budget beach bliss at your fingertips.

• 1:46:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Go to CheapCaribbean.com to try out the Budget Beach Finder and see just how stress-free vacation planning should be. Goodbye. New beginnings are exciting, especially when they come with four wheels.

• 1:47:07Speaker 04

  If you're shopping for your next car, start your search with Cars.com.

• 1:47:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Cars.com has the tools and expert advice to help you find exactly what you're looking for.

• 1:47:16Speaker 04

  With more than 2 million new and used vehicles nationwide, it's easy to search, compare, and find the right fit for you.

• 1:47:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Cars.com is there when you're dreaming, planning, or ready to embrace the new.

• 1:47:26Speaker 04

  Start your search with Cars.com.

• 1:47:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Where to next? Goodbye.

• 1:47:30Speaker 05

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• 1:47:58Speaker 06

  4imprint, for certain.