MFM Minisode 468

This week’s hometowns include a 12-year-old driving drunk parents on New Year’s and family superstitions. For our sources, please visit https://www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes. Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/3UFCn1g. Head to social media to share your favorite moments from this episode. Instagram: instagram.com/myfavoritemurder http://instagram.com/myfavoritemurder Facebook: facebook.com/myfavoritemurder http://facebook.com/myfavoritemurder TikTok: tiktok.com/@my_favorite_murder http://tiktok.com/@my_favorite_murder Watch full episodes of My Favorite Murder on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@my_favorite_murder Send your hometown stories to [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. Join the Fan Cult to access ad-free episodes of My Favorite Murder. Members also receive merch store discounts, exclusive audio and video content and more! Visit www.fancult.supercast.com http://www.fancult.supercast.com/ to join. Shop for My Favorite Murder and other Exactly Right merchandise here: www.exactlyrightstore.com https://www.exactlyrightstore.com. Rate, review and follow My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you like to listen. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

• 0:01Karen Kilgariff?

  This is exactly right.

• 0:06Speaker 01

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• 0:36Speaker 02

  In New Orleans, truckers kept getting sideswiped the exact same way. When a man is found murdered under questionable circumstances related to these accidents, the rubber hits the road. And what the feds uncover is a complex scheme of staged wrecks, financial fraud, and a pair of conspiring lovers behind it. This is a story about fake accidents that led to real consequences. Listen to Over My Dead Body: Operation Sideswipe wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

• 1:12Georgia Hardstark?

  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.

• 1:25Karen 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.

• 1:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Watch the Hulu original series, Phony.

• 1:34Karen Kilgariff?

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

• 1:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Goodbye.

• 1:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Hello and welcome to my favorite murder. The minisode. We read you your stories. It's incredible how you send them to us. You just keep doing it. You want to go first? Sure. Okay, oh yeah, we're gonna do a special New Year's one. Guys, 2025 wrapping up. How do you feel? You got your presents, you've eaten a bunch of food. Hopefully, you're grateful for some things. Hopefully, you have hope. Hopefully, there's stuff to work toward. Right, we're all trying here. Yeah. That's all I can do. That's right.

• 2:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Let's start with a fucking horrible one, shall we? A snow-covered churchyard and a hometown that changed the law. All right, ladies, I'm from a sleepy little town on the outskirts of Birmingham, England. It's as crime-free as anywhere can be and generally considered very safe. And then it says in parentheses, I mean, apart from the garden down the road that was recently dug up to discover a body and potentially solve a 32-year-old cold case and a fantastic I Survived story about a woman eight months pregnant who was stabbed 24 times in our town center by her ex-partner and survived to testify and jail that motherfucker. But all those are stories for another day.

• 3:01Karen Kilgariff?

  What?

• 3:01Georgia Hardstark?

  So crime-free, except for...

• 3:03Karen Kilgariff?

  That's so British of that person to just dangle all of those unbelievable... They better write in that survival story.

• 3:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes, well, this is a good one, too. I was 13 when, on New Year's Day, the local news exploded with the discovery of the body of a 17-year-old girl from my school, Nicola Dixon. Nicola had been due to go away with family for years but stayed home as she had a driving test scheduled. She went to the local social club on New Year's Eve and left at about 10:00 PM to meet friends in the town center, a 10-minute walk tops. She never made it to her friends. Instead, on New Year's Day, 1997, her body was found in the snow-covered grounds of the local church. From the analysis of the scene, police concluded that Nicola had almost escaped over a fence, but had been dragged back by her attacker. She'd been alive when he fled the scene, and bruises on her knuckles indicated that Nicola

• 3:52Georgia Hardstark?

  put up one hell of a fight but eventually died from the devastating head injuries inflicted on her. The police conducted what was called by Nicola's father a "snowflake-to-snowflake" search of the scene and launched what became a nationwide manhunt. They interviewed over 11,000 people during the investigation and took 6,000 statements and featured the case on a British TV show I'd imagine you guys would have loved had you grown up in the UK, Crime Watch.

• 4:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, we've heard of Crime Watch.

• 4:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, yeah. Despite their best efforts, they were unsuccessful in their attempts to find her killer until, six years later, when a local man, Colin Wait, was arrested after a road rage incident in Birmingham and routinely DNA-tested. He was a perfect match for the hair and bodily fluids left at the scene of Nicola's murder. He protested his innocence, but it took the jury 30 minutes to sentence Colin to life imprisonment.

• 4:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Turns out Colin had been in prison since Nicola's murder for assaulting his partner, but due to a clerical error, his DNA was not able to be processed and it was just incredibly lucky that he'd gotten all ragey that night that led to his arrest and the police were able to test him again.

• 4:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 5:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Just a fucking fluke.

• 5:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, but also a person that can't control themselves. So it's like, it's going to happen again.

• 5:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Clearly. He and Nicola were complete strangers. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nicola's lasting legacy is that due to her case, her parents fought for a change in the law. That means DNA is taken from prisoners as standard practice and will hopefully prevent other families from going through the same agonizing weight they had to. It's been over 20 years, but it's still all I can think about when passing that church. I'd like to get sentimental, but let's face it, it just makes us all uncomfortable. So I'll simply say, thank you, Karen in Georgia. You've helped me in so many ways and never failed to make me laugh, even during the horror show that is this pandemic.

• 5:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, man.

• 5:39Georgia Hardstark?

  That's an old one.

• 5:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Holy shit.

• 5:41Georgia Hardstark?

  SSDGM Ellie.

• 5:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 5:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 5:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Ellie.

• 5:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Real true crime one there.

• 5:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. You know what's weird? I started mine with a real true crime one, too.

• 5:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, shit.

• 5:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Love that people still send these in and that that connection is the connection that people have with true crime stories.

• 5:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 5:58Karen Kilgariff?

  I pass this yard and I think about this girl who's all by herself going through this horrible thing. And that's how people do it.

• 6:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, could be any of us.

• 6:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Or sometimes their mom's involved.

• 6:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, shit.

• 6:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay, so this says hometown story, Dateline hometown.

• 6:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Yep.

• 6:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Hey, kids, this is a longish one, but hang in there with me. Most of this story occurs in Muskegum County, Ohio. On New Year's Day 2012, my mom was taking the deposit to the bank for the clothing store she worked at. She pulled her car up to the curb and was waiting for her coworker to come out and get in the car when she saw a guy in a ski mask start jogging up to the car. He struck her coworker with his gun and pointed it at her. She hit the gas and pulled away. The man took the deposit bag and jumped a fence and was gone. Hell of a way to start the new year. Don't worry, the year got better when I birthed twin granddaughters for her.

• 6:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Holy shit. Let me, let me help you out here. Oh my god.

• 6:52Karen Kilgariff?

  I'll bring two human beings from the world and maybe that'll make things better. Fast forward to 2014. A 25-year-old mom, Brandy Daniels, is murdered in her parents' rural driveway on her way home from work late at night. She was in the midst of divorcing her abusive husband, who was in Alaska at the time. That husband, Josh Daniels, was my mom's coworker that was hit with the gun when she got robbed.

• 7:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Holy shit.

• 7:16Karen Kilgariff?

  A lot of police work, phone records, and a couple battered ex-girlfriends willing to talk to police, and the connections between a string of robberies and four suspects became clearer. Sirius Underwood, one of the men who helped with the robberies, offered to murder Brandy. Brandy and Josh were having a contentious divorce, and custody of their five-year-old daughter was part of it. Daniels gave Underwood Brandy's movements after communicating with her under the guise of when she would be home to have a phone call with their daughter. Underwood shot Brandy three times in her parents' driveway.

• 7:49Georgia Hardstark?

  God.

• 7:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Brandy Daniels murder was covered on season two, episode 24 of Dateline. The episode's entitled "Out There in the Dark." My mom had several polygraphs and quite a stressful go of the robbery. When she was asked to be a grand jury witness, she went. She is a badass. Also, we saw your show with the lyric in Baltimore and really wished we could have told her hometown, but we didn't want to break the rules. Say sexy and don't let the bastards get you down, Julia.

• 8:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh my god. So the coworker was the ex-husband, meaning he staged the whole thing?

• 8:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. That robbery and him getting hit and everything, it was like he knew the guy that robbed them. He was in on that.

• 8:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 8:32Karen Kilgariff?

  He was a criminal and he was also an abusive husband that had his wife, like, murder-for-hire murdered.

• 8:38Georgia Hardstark?

  That's so awful. Jesus.

• 8:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, this is the way to celebrate New Year's.

• 8:42Georgia Hardstark?

  We've gone and done it.

• 8:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Listen, it's how we do it.

• 8:47Speaker 04

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• 9:15Georgia Hardstark?

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

• 9:19Karen Kilgariff?

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

• 9:24Georgia Hardstark?

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

• 9:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Hatch Sleep Clock does it differently.

• 9:32Georgia Hardstark?

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

• 9:37Karen Kilgariff?

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

• 9:44Georgia Hardstark?

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

• 9:50Karen Kilgariff?

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

• 9:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Hatch Sleep Clock.

• 9:55Karen Kilgariff?

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

• 10:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Goodbye.

• 10:02Karen Kilgariff?

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• 10:47Karen Kilgariff?

  purchase of a website or domain. Goodbye.

• 10:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Buying furniture is a lot of pressure. It has to look good, feel good, and hold up to everyday life.

• 10:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Take it from me, a bad couch can ruin your life.

• 10:57Georgia Hardstark?

  That's why Article focuses on stylish, high-quality pieces designed to last.

• 11:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Article makes it effortless to create a stylish, long-lasting home at an unbeatable price.

• 11:06Georgia Hardstark?

  They take great care in curating their collection, focusing on pieces that stand the test of time. There's no filler. Every item is chosen for its craftsmanship, design, and lasting value.

• 11:16Karen 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.

• 11:49Georgia Hardstark?

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

• 11:53Karen Kilgariff?

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

• 11:58Georgia Hardstark?

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

• 12:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye.

• 12:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Here is kind of another true crime-ish one. I'm not going to redo the subject. It just starts, "Alrighty. I wanted to write in for a while, but my severe dyslexia and crippling anxiety have kept me from doing so. Here I go. I live in a quiet, upper-middle-class neighborhood in the heart of Toronto, the type of place where yoga moms walk their labradoodles with wine at night. That changed in January 2010, just before New Year's. I was outside hanging decorations on my front porch when one flew away. I went to chase it across the road, and just so happened that a car was coming straight for me, but I was too focused on catching the dollar store decorations than a 4,000-pound car coming my way." And later they'll say that they were eight years old in this.

• 12:48Georgia Hardstark?

  "Before I knew it, my neighbor scooped me up in the middle of the road. If he didn't, I would have been flattened like a pancake. I thought nothing of it, said thank you, and went on with my decorating."

• 13:00Georgia Hardstark?

  I know.

• 13:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 13:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Fast forward to New Year's Day and over 12 police cars were outside that same neighbor's house. He had reported his girlfriend missing two days prior. The police searched his house and found the girlfriend, Lisa Lebitka, wrapped in a rug underneath her own child's bed. In this trial, it came out that he had smothered her with a pillow. This took place on the very same day that my decoration flew across the road.

• 13:27Karen Kilgariff?

  What?

• 13:28Georgia Hardstark?

  That's right. My neighbor, Paul Hindle, saved my life the exact same day he took another.

• 13:34Karen Kilgariff?

  That doesn't make any sense.

• 13:36Georgia Hardstark?

  I know. Being an oblivious eight-year-old at the time, I watched him get handcuffed and loaded into a police car from my front window. I remember asking my mom why he was handcuffed, and she replied, "Oh, honey, everyone has to get handcuffed to go in the back of a police car." Just trying to like make it seem like-

• 13:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, nice cover.

• 13:51Georgia Hardstark?

  And then she's, and it says, "I guess she's not lying." Before the end of my Christmas break, my older brother explained to me that my neighbor was in fact charged with murder and not just going for a ride along with the police while being handcuffed. Still not grasping the concept, I remember going back to grade four after winter break and going around in a circle as a class, saying the most exciting thing you did over the break. I said, "My neighbor got murdered."

• 14:16Georgia Hardstark?

  I believe this is what got me into true crime at such a young age. It will always give me chills thinking about my neighbor picking me up, saving me from oncoming traffic with the same hands that he took life with soon after. Every kid on my street got therapy after this, except me, probably because my parents thought I was too young to care about what happened. Oh, if only they knew of the little murderino I was. Good thing I just started seeing a therapist last week.

• 14:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Just in time.

• 14:41Georgia Hardstark?

  It's never too late. Stay sexy and always look both ways before crossing the road. Love, e, she, her.

• 14:47Karen Kilgariff?

  God. It's like-

• 14:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Unfathomable.

• 14:51Karen Kilgariff?

  You want to believe that you know the full constitution of a person-

• 14:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 14:55Karen Kilgariff?

  -who's going to murder their girlfriend.

• 14:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 14:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Like, that's a sociopath, that's a psychopath. Totally. That's a person that doesn't have feelings. But they... Yes, they do. Right. It just doesn't make any sense to us because we could never fathom that. Wow, okay. This is still crime-based. Okay. But we're gonna take a little turn into the normal mini-soed comedy. Please, let's. That I enjoy so much. This is an incredible email. I'm not gonna read you the subject line. It says, "Hi, yous. I was raised in a very magical way." And then in parentheses, it says, "Not for commercials." I don't know what that means. What? "However, there is one experience that I have engraved in my mind that I think it ticks a lot of your requests: drunk parents, crime, and holidays." Right. Here we go. "When I was 12 years old, my big Latino family had our usual New Year's party at my grandma's,

• 15:44Karen Kilgariff?

  which normally starts in New Year's Eve and ends around 7:00 or 8:00 a.m. New Year's Day." Jesus. They party all night long. Yeah. "These parties are incredibly lively, with a lot of dancing, eating, and drinking. And usually, we have a designated driver in our family that would drive everyone home, all 67 of us." Holy shit. And then in parentheses, it says, "No one likes that job." No. That's so crazy. "This particular year, after waiting for the designated driver for an hour or so, I felt old enough to suggest myself to drive us back home, and my parents were drunk enough to agree with me." 12 years old. Oh, no, 12. 12 years old. "After my dad stole the last two bottles of whiskey, one cheap and one, all caps, fancy,

• 16:28Karen Kilgariff?

  we left my grandma's place to our home. We live on the outskirts of our city on a farm." Okay. So, I think it needs to be said here. As a farm child, not really, not the child of farmers, but a... Right. ...grew up in a rural area. Yeah. Kids start driving when they're like 8 years old. Really? Yeah, you have to. Like, regular cars? Regular cars. And like, around the land, kind of thing? Exactly. So, you jump in a truck to go feed the cows. Okay. Cause like, from suburbia, like, I never...

• 16:54Georgia Hardstark?

  No.

• 16:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. I think that's that the whole thing of like, this is the way things have to work on this farm. Where it's like, the kids are farm workers like everybody else. So like, we collected the eggs, we fed the chicken and the chickens and the geese.

• 17:07Georgia Hardstark?

  And driving from your house to the thing on the same land isn't a big deal.

• 17:11Karen Kilgariff?

  No. And usually, I mean, like, we didn't do it as much. It's more like cattle ranchers kids. Where if they had to get up at five in the morning to go feed a hundred cows, they're gonna take a truck to do it. And they'll be fine doing that. And if they're there with their brother who's 12 and they're eight, they, all of that kind of stress, first of all, there's nothing to hit you or whatever. You can't hit cows. They're easy to miss. And then you just kind of start getting used to it. Anyway, I just want to put that out there.

• 17:37Georgia Hardstark?

  No, it's really fascinating to me because I had never, I have never experienced that coming from the suburbs.

• 17:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 17:43Georgia Hardstark?

  You know?

• 17:43Karen Kilgariff?

  So after leaving the city and entering the county highway, I see a few transit police checkpoints. To be super clear, I don't have a driver's license, my family is cheap, and they don't pay car insurance, and our registration is expired.

• 17:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Shit.

• 17:58Karen Kilgariff?

  So I'm panicking within reason. I asked my mom what to do, and she was in her drunk sleepy place where no one can reach her.

• 18:07Georgia Hardstark?

  I have one of those.

• 18:10Karen Kilgariff?

  I turned to my dad, and he was in an incoherently loud state, hugging his whiskey bottles. It was too late to go back, so now I was driving through the checkpoint, praying not to be randomly picked to be asked for my papers.

• 18:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh my god.

• 18:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, I was definitely picked.

• 18:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Of course.

• 18:26Karen Kilgariff?

  When the officer came to the car, I was actually very relaxed. And then in parentheses, it says, "My upbringing prepared me for this." I had my window already down, and I start to notice that the officers, in parentheses, "all of them", were very drunk themselves.

• 18:40Georgia Hardstark?

  What?

• 18:41Karen Kilgariff?

  I asked what I could help them with.

• 18:43Georgia Hardstark?

  What can I help you at 12? I'm sitting on a fucking phone book. How can I help you?

• 18:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Like, you have your wrist on the steering wheel? What can I help you with?

• 18:55Georgia Hardstark?

  What's the problem, officer?

• 18:57Karen Kilgariff?

  So I asked what I could help them with, and he asked for my age. And I said, "I'm 12, but sober, and I've been driving for four years." Fucking legend. He asked for the car's papers. I pass them to him, hoping he doesn't pay attention to the expiration dates. He doesn't, gives me the papers back, and finally asks who I was driving. I say, "My parents, they're in no condition to drive, so we all thought we'd be safer with me driving." He looks at me and says, "We might not take your car, but we could call child services. You're too young to be responsible for your parents." Which is true.

• 19:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes.

• 19:30Karen Kilgariff?

  In general.

• 19:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes.

• 19:32Karen Kilgariff?

  If you had to do that all the time.

• 19:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 19:34Karen Kilgariff?

  That's when that's true.

• 19:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Sure.

• 19:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Christmas, come on.

• 19:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, New Year's.

• 19:39Karen Kilgariff?

  New Year's, come on.

• 19:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Christmas or New Year's, which one?

• 19:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Take two. It's New Year's, sorry. Okay. So it says, "I'm freaking out. This possibility never crossed my mind. However, I did say I was prepared for this. I said, 'I can help you continue your party with your fellow officer friends with this whiskey bottle.'"

• 19:59Georgia Hardstark?

  How are you so brilliant at 12?

• 20:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Just fucking, and handling shit. I think oldest daughter, I would guess. And I pull up the cheap whiskey bottle. The officer laughs and says, "I'd be more inclined to let you leave if you give me that Johnny Walker Blue Label your dad is hugging."

• 20:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Ooh.

• 20:15Karen Kilgariff?

  I turned around, looked at my dad in the backseat, hugging his bottle like he was holding his life, and grabbed it.

• 20:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, okay.

• 20:23Karen Kilgariff?

  He holds on tight and shouts, "Mine!"

• 20:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh my god.

• 20:29Karen Kilgariff?

  So I smoothly switch it with the cheap one, quickly give it to the officer, and say, "Thank you and Happy New Year," and drive away as fast as possible. We arrive safely home. I open the windows of the car to let my parents sleep in it until they are well enough to come inside.

• 20:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Holy shit. Like, this is, we're laughing so hard, but this feels like childhood trauma, a little bit.

• 20:49Karen Kilgariff?

  It's trauma, except for what a success.

• 20:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, it's funny, it's either trauma, or it's the funny story that you tell at the holidays.

• 20:56Karen Kilgariff?

  The fine line.

• 20:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes.

• 20:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Of...

• 20:59Georgia Hardstark?

  It's only happened once, it's a funny story.

• 21:01Karen Kilgariff?

  But it's like, she didn't get home and then start getting yelled at by those same parents? Or like, beaten, but, I mean, what do I know? But, here's the assumption. The reason she was able to handle it the way she was is because her parents are smart and cool, and treat her like a real person, and empowered her to do it?

• 21:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 21:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Let's, let's find out. Let's believe what we want to believe.

• 21:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes.

• 21:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 21:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Until they're well enough to come inside on their own. I'm not going to carry them. Sorry for the length of the story. I do hope you enjoy it. Also, thank you for walking with me to and from university. I'm in my last year of my PhD in chemical engineering.

• 21:38Georgia Hardstark?

  And they did a great job.

• 21:39Karen Kilgariff?

  They did a great job.

• 21:40Georgia Hardstark?

  That's amazing.

• 21:41Karen Kilgariff?

  And for making me laugh every single time. Ta ta for now and stay sexy and always have a good bottle of liquor to bribe the officers. Kami.

• 21:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Kami, yeah.

• 21:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Kami's a legend.

• 21:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Legendary, yeah.

• 21:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Twelve year old that's like, how can I help you tonight, officer?

• 21:57Georgia Hardstark?

  How about this? How about I bargain with this? No, I'm like, she starts low and goes high, like so smart.

• 22:03Karen Kilgariff?

  But also there's a tacit threat in her bargain, which is.

• 22:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Right, you're fucking drinking on the job.

• 22:08Karen Kilgariff?

  I know you're drunk. I'm the only one in this whole group that isn't fucking drunk. How about you don't fuck with me?

• 22:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Right, it's brilliant.

• 22:15Karen Kilgariff?

  It's so good.

• 22:16Georgia Hardstark?

  It's brilliant.

• 22:18Speaker 04

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

• 22:45Georgia Hardstark?

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

• 22:50Karen Kilgariff?

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

• 22:55Georgia Hardstark?

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

• 23:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Hatch Sleep Clock does it differently.

• 23:02Georgia Hardstark?

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

• 23:08Karen Kilgariff?

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

• 23:14Georgia Hardstark?

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

• 23:21Karen Kilgariff?

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

• 23:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Hatch Sleep Clock.

• 23:26Karen Kilgariff?

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

• 23:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Goodbye. The Hulu original series Phony is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+

• 23:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Sunny'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.

• 23:44Georgia Hardstark?

  To everyone else, she's the same Ellen they've known their whole lives, but for Sunny, he knows something is off.

• 23:50Karen Kilgariff?

  As his relationship with his mother begins to crack in unsettling ways, he's forced to question what happens when the perfect mom becomes a perfect stranger.

• 23:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Is this all in his head, or is there really an imposter in his house?

• 24:01Karen 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.

• 24:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Watch the Hulu original series Phony.

• 24:11Karen Kilgariff?

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

• 24:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Goodbye.

• 24:16Speaker 05

  Do you ever feel like your computer is tracking you? Well, it's not. It's your browser following you. But not if you come back to Firefox. Firefox blocks the trackers automatically, doesn't follow you from site to site, and supports the ad blockers other browsers dropped. Plus, you can switch AI on or off when its intelligence is acting too artificial. And switching? Totally painless. Your bookmarks, passwords, and browsing history come right with you. Come back to Firefox. Visit Firefox.com.

• 24:49Georgia Hardstark?

  My last one is family superstitions. Hello, MFM gang. My name is Hannah. She/her pronouns, yes, you can use my name. Okay, Hannah.

• 24:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Great, perfect.

• 24:58Georgia Hardstark?

  I just listened to Vinny So304 asking for superstitions. I have two family superstitions/traditions. One, my grandmother and mother have always told me never to wash clothes on New Year's Eve or day.

• 25:11Karen Kilgariff?

  I've heard that one.

• 25:12Georgia Hardstark?

  You have? Says washing your clothes is equivalent to washing away a loved one. I've never heard that before.

• 25:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 25:19Georgia Hardstark?

  And then number two, the New Year's Day meal tradition. Your meals should include collard greens for money, black-eyed peas for luck, and pork for prosperity.

• 25:27Karen Kilgariff?

  That sounds like a southern tradition.

• 25:29Georgia Hardstark?

  These are two southern superstitions. It might be more common than I thought. I'm from Georgia. I've binged the podcast from the beginning and have finally caught up. Thanks for making me laugh when I really need it. Stay sexy and please don't wash your clothes on New Year's. Hannah.

• 25:43Karen Kilgariff?

  That's a good one, Hannah.

• 25:44Georgia Hardstark?

  I didn't know that washing clothes thing at all.

• 25:47Karen Kilgariff?

  I heard about that. Well, it's a TikTok thing. When you're addicted to TikTok, you learn about all the traditions.

• 25:52Georgia Hardstark?

  I mean, it's not like I would have a pro, like I would be threatening to wash my clothes on New Year's because I'm hungover and I wouldn't have done it anyways, but.

• 26:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, that could be a thing where like a mom was like, no, no, we can't.

• 26:02Georgia Hardstark?

  No, we can't do.

• 26:03Karen Kilgariff?

  We can't do laundry today.

• 26:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Or it's a, yeah.

• 26:05Karen Kilgariff?

  And no yelling.

• 26:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, that's a TikTok thing.

• 26:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay. The subject line of this email is that time it actually was a mannequin, which kind of gives it away.

• 26:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 26:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Hi Karen in Georgia. Longtime listener here. Love you both. Love the show, et cetera, et cetera. This is the story of the time it actually was a mannequin. Back in 2018, or maybe 2019, my friends and I traveled to New Orleans for New Year's. I was the only one who'd ever lived there, so I was being kind of obnoxious about knowing my way around.

• 26:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Of course, you gotta.

• 26:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, here's where the bagel shop used to be.

• 26:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Actually, this one is better than that one.

• 26:37Karen Kilgariff?

  This is a bar I don't recognize, but I'm picking this one instead. One night, we were walking through the French Quarter when I saw out of the corner of my eye, a naked woman's body half-hidden in a shop window. She was totally naked, covered in bruises, fully visible from the street. The shop door was propped open and the lights were on.

• 26:53Georgia Hardstark?

  I know what's gonna happen.

• 26:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Right? Fueled by a lot of liquid confidence, I broke away from my friends to investigate. Did I think to call the cops? Of course not. I was clearly the hero of this story. I stepped inside and inched toward the body. She was sprawled on checkered vinyl tiles, limbs all wrong, hair falling across her face in a way that was too perfect, too shiny, too something. It very slowly dawned on me it was a mannequin. I looked up and saw two very confused employees staring at me. What the fuck, y'all? I demanded. Why would you have this in your window? It's terrifying. They looked bewildered. One of them sighed and said, ma'am, this is a fucking Halloween store.

• 27:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Sure enough, rows of costumes bagged in cellophane, fake cobwebs, plastered, plastic severed limbs. I drunkenly stumbled into a year-round Halloween store, convinced I was about to solve a murder. Anyway, that's the time it actually was a mannequin. Love you all. Emma from Maine.

• 27:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Emma from Maine. Oh, being a know-it-all when it fucking hits you right in the...

• 27:58Karen Kilgariff?

  You're being a know-it-all to people who are from there.

• 28:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 28:01Karen Kilgariff?

  And who aren't drunk.

• 28:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Right. All the drunk people. Send us your drunk stories at myfavoritemurder@gmail. We love them, we hate them. Send us your parents' ones, the ones that are funny, the ones that traumatized you.

• 28:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 28:13Georgia Hardstark?

  And that hilariously traumatized you.

• 28:15Karen Kilgariff?

  And hey, congratulations, because this year is almost over.

• 28:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Thank fucking God.

• 28:18Karen Kilgariff?

  And the freshness of, it won't be your laundry that's fresh, but the year will be fresh and things will start again. And here's to 2026.

• 28:27Georgia Hardstark?

  That's right.

• 28:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Stay sexy.

• 28:28Georgia Hardstark?

  And don't get murdered.

• 28:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye.

• 28:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Elvis, do you want a cookie?

• 28:40Karen Kilgariff?

  This has been an Exactly Right Production.

• 28:42Georgia Hardstark?

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

• 28:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Our editor is Aristotle Lasevedo.

• 28:48Georgia Hardstark?

  This episode was mixed by Liana Scolacci.

• 28:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Email your hometowns to [email protected].

• 28:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Follow the show on Instagram at MyFavoriteMurder.

• 28:55Karen Kilgariff?

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

• 29:00Georgia Hardstark?

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

• 29:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye.

• 29:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Vacation planning should feel like a breeze, not a deep dive into countless travel sites searching for the best deal.

• 29:17Georgia Hardstark?

  With CheapCaribbean's Budget Beach Finder, you can search every destination and every date all in one search.

• 29:23Karen Kilgariff?

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

• 29:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Say goodbye to endless scrolling and tab hopping and hello to Budget Beach Bliss at your fingertips.

• 29:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Go to cheapcaribbean.com to try out the Budget Beach Finder and see just how stress-free vacation planning should be. Goodbye.

• 29:38Georgia Hardstark?

  You know a favorite M-word? Magnesium.

• 29:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Like the kind that's in Dr. Teal's magnesium spray?

• 29:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Made from a proprietary blend of topical minerals, it's designed to relax and prepare you for a night of rest.

• 29:49Karen Kilgariff?

  If you need a reset after your day, make Dr. Teal's magnesium spray part of your nighttime routine.

• 29:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Generously spritz each foot before bed and you'll be all set. I've actually started doing this and I'm obsessed with magnesium. It does everything.

• 30:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Something like this is just like, it's simple, it's easy, and it actually works.

• 30:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally. For wellness you can feel, find Dr. Teal's magnesium spray online or in your local bath aisle.

• 30:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye.

• 30:11Georgia Hardstark?

  By now you've heard about Reef's shoes and sandals, but we want to introduce you to their line of women's clogs for fall.

• 30:16Karen Kilgariff?

  These are the kind of shoes you'll keep reaching for because they're genuinely comfortable, but still feel cute and current.

• 30:22Georgia Hardstark?

  A cute, like flowy dress and a pair of clogs is so timeless.

• 30:26Karen Kilgariff?

  And we got to get some of these clogs. I couldn't believe how cute and comfortable these Reef clogs were. They have the arch support, they have the height, they give you a little bit of height, but they're kind of simple. Check out the clogs on reef.com and redeem 15% off your first purchase.

• 30:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Goodbye.

• 30:42Speaker 05

  Do you ever feel like your computer is tracking you? Well, it's not. It's your browser following you. But not if you come back to Firefox. Firefox blocks the trackers automatically, doesn't follow you from site to site, and supports the ad blockers other browsers dropped. Plus, you can switch AI on or off when its intelligence is acting too artificial. And switching? Totally painless. Your bookmarks, passwords, and browsing history come right with you. Come back to Firefox. Visit firefox.com.