474 - It Cleans Ducks

This week, Georgia covers the murder of Cara Knott and Karen tells the story of the mysterious disappearance of Amelia Earhart. For our sources and show notes, visit www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes http://www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes. Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/3UFCn1g. 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?

  In New Orleans, truckers kept getting sideswiped the exact same way.

• 0:09Karen Kilgariff?

  When a man is found murdered under questionable circumstances related to these accidents, that's when the rubber hits the road.

• 0:16Georgia Hardstark?

  And what the feds uncover is a complex scheme of staged wrecks, financial fraud, and a pair of conspiring lovers behind it.

• 0:23Karen Kilgariff?

  This is a story about fake accidents that led to real consequences.

• 0:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Listen to Over My Dead Body: Operation Sideswipe wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Audible subscribers can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now.

• 0:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Goodbye.

• 0:41Speaker 02

  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.

• 1:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Hello.

• 1:29Karen Kilgariff?

  And welcome.

• 1:29Georgia Hardstark?

  To my favorite murder.

• 1:31Karen Kilgariff?

  That's Georgia Hardstark.

• 1:32Georgia Hardstark?

  That's Karen Kilgariff.

• 1:33Karen Kilgariff?

  We're just here to talk about a couple personal things, then we're gonna get right into crime.

• 1:38Georgia Hardstark?

  We are. You guys love true crime.

• 1:40Karen Kilgariff?

  You love hearing about it vis-à-vis our POVs.

• 1:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Hey. OMG, that was LOL.

• 1:48Karen Kilgariff?

  It's TBD.

• 1:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, you were just telling me something, and I told you to hold it for the podcast, because I can't believe it.

• 1:55Karen Kilgariff?

  So we have a senior accountant, HR person, kind of like office guru, Giovanna. And she came to me the other day because we get to go to Chicago with our friends at iHeartRadio for the Podcast Movement, and it's like kind of a podcast weekend that we get to go to. And Giovanna came in and said, um... I don't like that you and Georgia fly on the same plane.

• 2:21Georgia Hardstark?

  That is so bananas.

• 2:24Karen Kilgariff?

  And I go, no, no, that's how we do it. It's like, and then she goes, no, no, no. You should not be on the same plane.

• 2:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Co-owners of a business, probably, right? And co-owners, co-hosts of a podcast? That's like next level, though.

• 2:37Karen Kilgariff?

  We've.

• 2:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Level up.

• 2:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Made it.

• 2:39Georgia Hardstark?

  We've made it.

• 2:40Karen Kilgariff?

  We've made it, my friend.

• 2:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Beat. Who's it gonna be?

• 2:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Whose plane's going down?

• 2:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my God.

• 2:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Isn't that crazy? I was like.

• 2:49Georgia Hardstark?

  That's so wild.

• 2:50Karen Kilgariff?

  First, I was like, that's so dark. And then I was like, oh, that's for the C-suite.

• 2:54Georgia Hardstark?

  That's for the execs.

• 2:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Hey.

• 2:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Hey. That's so, I just can't, that boggles my mind. So who's changing flight?

• 3:00Karen Kilgariff?

  So, see you later. Well, what I said is, Georgia and Vince love to go on like the first flight out often.

• 3:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 3:06Karen Kilgariff?

  So that's no problem for me.

• 3:07Georgia Hardstark?

  There's a later flight you could totally take.

• 3:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. And I sometimes have had to because I missed the flight you guys were on. That's happened before. Also, the last time when we flew to Austin, I walked on and you literally had to reach out to touch me to say hi.

• 3:21Georgia Hardstark?

  You were walking past me and you like wouldn't even.

• 3:23Karen Kilgariff?

  I'd have to go into my airport tube.

• 3:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 3:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Or I like really lose it.

• 3:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 3:28Karen Kilgariff?

  It's like, I was in the tube from wherever I was sitting near the Guy Fieri Cafe or whatever. Like, I get myself mentally to walk up, give my ticket, walk on, find my seat. And I'm like, I'm not here to make friends.

• 3:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Right. Otherwise, you'll end up like on the wrong plane, sitting next to fucking Guy Fieri himself.

• 3:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Or like making eye contact with a guy that looks like Guy Fieri. And then I'm in a silent fight and I don't know why.

• 3:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my gosh. Do you know what I did? That reminds me.

• 3:55Karen Kilgariff?

  So then you're like, hey, you know me.

• 3:59Georgia Hardstark?

  You know what I did? So over the weekend, Vince and I went to Vegas really quickly, just for a thing. And then we were going back.

• 4:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Say what you were doing.

• 4:07Georgia Hardstark?

  We went with his niece, who's in the FBI, to a hockey game, like Detroit Red Wings hockey game.

• 4:13Karen Kilgariff?

  To arrest the star forward.

• 4:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes. And we were, okay, we took Jet Suite X, which is like a quick trip from Burbank. So it's like really easy. And, and like fucking, yeah, she, she, pinkies out, brag. But.

• 4:24Karen Kilgariff?

  But not crazy.

• 4:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Not crazy. It's really not.

• 4:26Karen Kilgariff?

  It's not.

• 4:27Georgia Hardstark?

  No. And it's, yeah. Fucking Lisa Vanderpump was on my flight.

• 4:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 4:33Georgia Hardstark?

  In the fucking waiting area and I was like freaking out because I love that show. And so I did this thing that later my friends told me every fucking celebrity knows about, which is I pretended to take a selfie and just took a photo of her instead.

• 4:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 4:47Georgia Hardstark?

  They were like, she knew what you were doing.

• 4:49Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 4:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Like, no, no, I was so subtle. And like, I was smiling and doing a peace sign like I was taking a selfie. And they were like, no, yeah, she hates you.

• 4:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Yep. She hates you forever.

• 4:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. She had a dog with her. It was just the whole experience was amazing. I think she like owns shares in JSX.

• 5:04Karen Kilgariff?

  So probably. She, she has to show up once a month to like get the selfies out there. There's no way she doesn't like having her picture taken that way.

• 5:12Georgia Hardstark?

  I mean, she looked incredible at like 11 a.m. on a Sunday.

• 5:15Karen Kilgariff?

  What is she originally like from? Why would she get a reality show?

• 5:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Real Housewives. She's a OG Real Housewives of LA, I think, which I never watched. But then I started watching Vanderpump Rules and I'm just obsessed.

• 5:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 5:27Georgia Hardstark?

  So, yeah.

• 5:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Some crazy stuff happens in the later seasons.

• 5:31Georgia Hardstark?

  She's actually like not a piece of shit, which is like, you know, you'd see in Real Housewives.

• 5:35Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 5:35Georgia Hardstark?

  It's kind of nice.

• 5:35Karen Kilgariff?

  No, I've seen a couple of clips of her. She seems really smart and really, well, she's a British lady. Making, making it in America. Can I just really quickly explain because we are on video? Listeners, you don't have to worry about this. Viewers, my apologies. I dyed my roots this morning. And then only when I'd mixed up the color, was about to apply it, did I realize I don't have any plastic gloves.

• 5:56Georgia Hardstark?

  That's the worst.

• 5:57Karen Kilgariff?

  It looks a little wild.

• 5:58Georgia Hardstark?

  It looks like you've been gardening, which is nice.

• 6:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, except for that I haven't.

• 6:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Just say even gardening.

• 6:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 6:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Because that sounds like classy.

• 6:06Karen Kilgariff?

  It doesn't look classy.

• 6:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Have you ever tried taking plastics of like zip bags, like sandwich bags and put, I've done that. It works a little bit. You just put your hands in plastic baggies.

• 6:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, at least it's something.

• 6:17Georgia Hardstark?

  It's something.

• 6:18Karen Kilgariff?

  I just didn't even think about it at all because I was like, I just need to get this shit on my roots and get out of here.

• 6:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Hairspray sometimes helps a little. Cover your hands in hairspray. Because I've done that many times, including with pink. So I had bright pink fucking hands and I was supposed to be on video that day.

• 6:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, shit.

• 6:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 6:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 6:33Georgia Hardstark?

  So you spray the shit out of your hands with hairspray and then wipe it off.

• 6:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay, I'll try that.

• 6:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 6:39Karen Kilgariff?

  I was also thinking, because I have Dawn dish detergent, which seems to be a part of every recipe of getting stains out.

• 6:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. It cleans oil off ducks. It's got to clean fucking dye off your hands.

• 6:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Ducks that can clean these shit hands.

• 6:51Georgia Hardstark?

  I have a book.

• 6:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, yeah.

• 6:53Georgia Hardstark?

  That I'm so excited about. So my friend Jane Borden wrote a book about cults.

• 6:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, yes. Yeah.

• 7:00Georgia Hardstark?

  You know her? I'm so impressed in a way that was like, oh, no, I can't hang out with her again.

• 7:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, no, she's great.

• 7:04Georgia Hardstark?

  She's so too smart for me.

• 7:07Karen Kilgariff?

  You gotta, you gotta aim high.

• 7:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 7:09Karen Kilgariff?

  You gotta get those people around you that get you going that way.

• 7:11Georgia Hardstark?

  I think about all the things I've said in front of her and I'm like, oh, no. It's called Cults Like Us: Why Doomsday Thinking Drives America. I fucking love it.

• 7:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 7:20Georgia Hardstark?

  It is basically about cult thinking and how it drives America, starting with the original American or US cult, the Puritans.

• 7:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 7:31Georgia Hardstark?

  So impressed. I think it's gonna be really good for people who grew up very religious and are questioning it or have, you know, transitioned out of it and kind of want some.

• 7:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Somewhere to go.

• 7:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. And like something to show them that they were right.

• 7:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 7:44Georgia Hardstark?

  About it. Like, so if you have a friend or a sister like that, I highly recommend Cults Like Us by Jane Borden. It's gonna make you smarter.

• 7:52Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm definitely gonna read that.

• 7:54Georgia Hardstark?

  It's a fucking hot take.

• 7:55Karen Kilgariff?

  And just a little insider information, I basically inserted myself into when Kurt Braunler and Scotty Landis were writing the pilot for one of Kurt's old pilots and Jane was one of the writers.

• 8:08Georgia Hardstark?

  That's right.

• 8:08Karen Kilgariff?

  I didn't have a job at the time, so I was like, well, I'll swing by and just like, kind of like, went and wrote along with them. It's really hilarious. But she was actually the other official writer.

• 8:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, she's awesome.

• 8:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 8:18Georgia Hardstark?

  What, you got anything?

• 8:19Karen Kilgariff?

  No, I think let's just get into business.

• 8:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Let's do it. We have a podcast network that's just growing every day in every possible way.

• 8:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Every way. We launched the knife last week.

• 8:30Georgia Hardstark?

  It's so exciting.

• 8:31Karen Kilgariff?

  It's so great. It's doing so great.

• 8:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 8:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Those guys really rule. Please listen to it.

• 8:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Please do. So here's some highlights from our network. Over on Dear Movies, I love you. Millie and Casey are diving into the brilliant brain of Bong Joon Ho from his past work, like Parasite and The Host. Like, come on.

• 8:47Karen Kilgariff?

  If you haven't seen the movie The Host, it's so great. It's like an adventure monster movie from Korea.

• 8:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 8:53Karen Kilgariff?

  So good. To his brand new film, Mickey 17, and they're joined by comedian and film obsessive, this guy is. The best.

• 9:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Unsung, he's one of the funniest fucking comedians I've ever seen and a friend.

• 9:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 9:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Josh Fadham.

• 9:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Josh Fadham should be more famous than all the comics.

• 9:09Georgia Hardstark?

  He was in Better Call Saul as like the weird videographer guy. And he was also the lawyer in 30 Rock. And it's like fucking star term. He's just so good.

• 9:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 9:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Uh, so check out Dear Movies, I Love You.

• 9:20Karen Kilgariff?

  And also Josh Fadham's on TikTok now. He has like a, he put together like this talk show that he's doing. Yeah, he's out there.

• 9:27Georgia Hardstark?

  I love him.

• 9:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Then over on Ghosted by Roz Hernandez, Roz stumbles through a secret trapdoor and lands directly in the presence of Bridger Weininger. The writer, actor and host of I Said No Gifts. They talk about the legendary 90s pseudo-doc alien autopsy. Remember that when they were like, we've got a body and we're gonna do an autopsy on it. It was all fake. And a bunch of other spooky stuff. They're just a couple pals getting spooky.

• 9:49Georgia Hardstark?

  I love it. I love the ERM crossover.

• 9:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 9:51Georgia Hardstark?

  This week on The Knife's companion show, Off Record, it's like their mini. They take you behind the scenes of making a true crime podcast and Peja shares the details. This is fucking such a great episode of a missing person's case in Tennessee. If you are like me and you like cold cases getting solved and you have a theory about it, I'm not gonna give it away. Oh, my God, this episode's so fucking good.

• 10:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. And it's something Peja researched and like discovered on her own.

• 10:18Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm so glad they got to put it out, like.

• 10:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 10:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my God, it's amazing.

• 10:20Karen Kilgariff?

  And it's really great because The Knife is, the main episode are those, you know, deep dive interview shows. It takes a long time to assemble. It's like, it's a lot of work. So Off Record is basically their rest in between shows where they're like, you can write in, ask questions.

• 10:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 10:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Make comments, say, hey, that was my aunt's neighbor type of stuff.

• 10:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 10:41Karen Kilgariff?

  It's like a talkback show, but then they get to talk about the stories that are too short to be a full episode.

• 10:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Right, which they are still obsessed with. I mean, I'm so fucking happy they're on our network.

• 10:51Karen Kilgariff?

  I know, I'm very proud.

• 10:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Please follow.

• 10:53Karen Kilgariff?

  We're proud of all of our podcasts. And especially this podcast, Will Kill You. They have had this amazing four-part pregnancy series and they're wrapping it up this week with a big picture look at how childbirth has changed over the past century.

• 11:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Fascinating.

• 11:06Karen Kilgariff?

  And what those changes mean for new parents. They explore the fourth trimester. Which is one of the most common, least discussed postpartum conditions, which is postpartum depression.

• 11:15Georgia Hardstark?

  So true.

• 11:16Karen Kilgariff?

  You can listen wherever you get your podcast, or you can watch that entire series on our YouTube channel over at youtube.com/ExactlyRightMedia.

• 11:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Please follow that as well. And while you're on YouTube, don't forget to check out I Said No Gifts Bridgers' five-year anniversary special. It's now up. It's featuring the delightfully chaotic Chris Fleming. He's so funny. It's two hours of betrayal, celebration, and special surprises. Watch it at your desk while you're being paid to work.

• 11:40Karen Kilgariff?

  That's right.

• 11:41Georgia Hardstark?

  I dare you. Available now at that'srightyoutube.com/ExactlyRightMedia.

• 11:46Karen Kilgariff?

  It's such a delightful episode. I watched a couple of minutes and Bridgers wearing the most insane outfit and his white gift gloves.

• 11:53Georgia Hardstark?

  I love it.

• 11:53Karen Kilgariff?

  And Chris Fleming is just sitting over there being the ultimate talk show guest. It's really a delight. And finally, doot doot doo, we have a merch update, our iconic go fuck yourself mug, which listeners, just so you know, in real life, we're holding up right now for the viewer.

• 12:09Georgia Hardstark?

  So if you go to YouTube, you can see us holding our adorable go fuck yourself mug.

• 12:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Go fuck yourself and old fashioned Las Vegas style.

• 12:14Georgia Hardstark?

  So old fashioned Las Vegas. I love it.

• 12:16Karen Kilgariff?

  So we re-released it for episode 11 of Rewind, and we're going to do it again because you loved it so much that I think they sold out.

• 12:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 12:24Karen Kilgariff?

  So we're re-releasing it. This was designed by the amazing Ginny and Tonic, J I N I and Tonic, and they're available now at theexactlyrightstore.com.

• 12:35Georgia Hardstark?

  The holidays are coming, which means we'll all be spending more time away from home.

• 12:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Whether you're visiting family or doing something actually fun, you want to know your home is protected while you're away.

• 12:44Georgia Hardstark?

  That's why now is a good time to think about home security with SimpliSafe.

• 12:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Unlike traditional security systems that alert you after a break in starts, SimpliSafe is designed to help stop intruders before they get inside. These days, you're worried about your house, you're out of town, and then something comes up and you get to look on your phone, and SimpliSafe is going to show you not only the video of like, it's a raccoon at your front door, but also that they have staff that's sitting there, they already know. And if it was something different or worse, they would have already been on it.

• 13:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, I really think that's invaluable peace of mind, that just like relying on your neighbors, paying attention is not going To give you. We've partnered with SimpliSafe to offer our listeners their biggest savings of the year. 70% off your new system with professional monitoring when you visit simplisafe.com/mfm.

• 13:31Karen Kilgariff?

  That's simplisafe.com/mfm. And when you order, write in MFM at checkout and it tells them we sent you and it really helps the show.

• 13:39Georgia Hardstark?

  SimpliSafe, ahead of crime in real time.

• 13:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Turning something you love into a career is exciting. Then come the invoices. Lucky for you, Squarespace can handle the business stuff so you can focus on your business. From consultations to events and experiences, you can showcase your skills with a customizable website designed to attract clients and grow your business. With Squarespace's collection of cutting-edge design tools, anyone can build a beautiful, professional, online presence that perfectly fits their brand or business. Get paid on time with professional invoices and online payments. Plus, streamline your workflow with built-in appointment scheduling and email marketing tools. Head to Squarespace.com/murder

• 14:23Karen Kilgariff?

  for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code MURDER to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Goodbye.

• 14:31Speaker 02

  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.

• 15:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, this is one of those stories that I just kept adding stuff to and wanting to research more until, like, I literally had to stop to go and get in the shower to get ready for this recording.

• 15:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Today.

• 15:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. Because I am so, like, this case is, ah, it gives me chills. It has been burning in my head since I saw it 27 fucking years ago on Forensic Files.

• 15:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 15:24Georgia Hardstark?

  And you'll probably remember it, too. Today's story is a SoCal hometown that I remember from my childhood. As well as at Forensic Files. It's a chilling case from the 1980s, one that could have easily slipped through the cracks, turning into a cold case. But instead, something incredible happened. Dozens of women, trusting their instincts, came forward and they brought the truth to light and helped bring down a monster and take a potential serial killer off the streets. This is the story of the murder of Cara Knott, K-N-O-T-T. The main sources for the story are a 2004 episode of Forensic Files and reporting from the Escondido Daily Times Advocate by David Ogle. And the rest can be found in the show notes.

• 16:07Georgia Hardstark?

  So it's December 1986. We're in the San Diego area. Cara Knott is 20 years old and she's a junior at San Diego State University. She's super smart. She graduated with honors from high school. She runs track. She's studying to be a teacher, just a fucking good person.

• 16:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 16:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Cara has been with her boyfriend Wayne since they were in high school. They're very much in love. Wayne also goes to San Diego State and everyone who knows them say they're a beautiful couple. Over the school's winter break, Cara and Wayne each go home to their families in Southern California, in the San Diego area. But Wayne comes down with the flu. And so on December 26th, Cara goes to visit him in Escondido, driving from her family's home in El Cajon. It's about a 40-minute drive and while she's at Wayne's, Cara repeatedly calls her mother for advice about how to take care of a sick person.

• 16:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 16:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Which is so like, I'm 20 and I'm still learning about life kind of a thing.

• 17:02Karen Kilgariff?

  It just immediately made me think of this. My parents were on vacation. I had to call my Aunt Jean and ask her how long you thaw a turkey.

• 17:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 17:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Because we were trying to do a like Friends giving.

• 17:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 17:13Karen Kilgariff?

  And my friend had like a 25-pound turkey and she was like, oh, you should probably take that out about 12 hours before. And we were like, oh, we're supposed to serve it in four hours.

• 17:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. You just don't know life yet.

• 17:26Karen Kilgariff?

  You just don't know what you're doing.

• 17:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Like the first time I went to like pump my own gas, I was like, fuck, I don't know how to fucking do this. Like I just realized I don't know how to do this.

• 17:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Where's the button?

• 17:35Georgia Hardstark?

  So it's just like this little detail that like kind of breaks your heart.

• 17:39Karen Kilgariff?

  And also puts you in this time, you know, 1986, I was 16 years old and so Kara was at college, not new to college, like, but, right? So she's a little bit more adult than the average.

• 17:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, she's been in a long-term relationship. She's not like a, probably partying or anything like that.

• 17:58Karen Kilgariff?

  But also like so many people from Northern California, you go to San Diego State and that's like, you're really busting out and you're on your own. Everything about it is very California in the 80s.

• 18:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly. She stays over that night and hangs out with Wayne all day the next day. And it's his family home as well. So she takes care of him and by the evening of the 27th, Wayne is starting to feel better and Kara decides to head home to her family house. She calls her parents at about 8:00 PM and tells them she's about to hit the road. That time of night with light traffic, she should be home before 9:00 PM, not more than an hour. But by 10:00 PM, the normally punctual Kara still isn't home and her father, Sam, Sam Naught, has a horrible feeling that something is very wrong. Kara's parents call Wayne. He says he hasn't heard from her since she left at 8:00. And so the dad gets in the car to drive the whole freeway between his home and Wayne's house

• 18:52Georgia Hardstark?

  and Escondido to look for Kara. You know, maybe she just ran out of gas or something happened to her car. There's no cell phones, so it's possible.

• 19:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 19:00Georgia Hardstark?

  At the same time, Kara's mother starts calling every hospital and police station along the route to see if there'd been an accident, which has to be every parent's fucking nightmare.

• 19:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Absolutely is.

• 19:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Friends and family join in the search with Sam, the father, and as the police say, they can't do anything at the moment, which is one of those, you have to wait 24 hours. And I feel like nowadays, a missing 20-year-old college student driving, hopefully that doesn't happen anymore, but. We don't know. I don't think it's, I don't think so.

• 19:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Hopefully it's gone the way of they're just a runaway.

• 19:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 19:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Waited out.

• 19:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Right. Or she'll come home when she's ready.

• 19:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 19:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, that kind of thing. The family and friends search team check every exit for over eight hours. Right around dawn, they find Cara's car. It's a white VW Bug and the picture of it sitting in this desolate area was seared into my mind in the forensic files. The car is at a bottom of an off-ramp off the I-15, which is pretty desolate. It's just about the midway point between Escondido and El Cajon, about 20 miles from each. The freeway at that point runs over an overpass and the off-ramp leads down to a like sparsely wooded area. There's nothing around. It's not like there's gas stations and stuff. It's, it's kind of very remote.

• 20:18Georgia Hardstark?

  It's a desolate spot and her white Beetle looks completely out of place in the photo.

• 20:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 20:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Back then, I'm sure it's all built up in the area now, but there were some desolate spots along the road.

• 20:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, right.

• 20:30Georgia Hardstark?

  California, in Southern California. Cara's car is found with the driver's seat window rolled halfway down. Her purse is on the front seat. Her keys are in the ignition, which is super suspicious. There's also a receipt from a gas station about 15 miles further north on the freeway. So not far from where she had left in Escondido. At this point, with her car being found, San Diego Police and California Highway Patrol officers arrive at the scene. And they begin searching the area. About two hours later, they make a devastating discovery. In a dry dusty creek bed at the bottom of a 70-foot bridge, not far from where her car had been left, Cara's body has been found seemingly tossed over the bridge.

• 21:14Georgia Hardstark?

  The photo of the bridge has stuck in my mind. It's one of those beautiful arching bridges, like super desolate. Doesn't it look like the place where in the eighties you would have gone in high school with your friends to go drink?

• 21:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 21:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Like it's one of those places.

• 21:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 21:29Georgia Hardstark?

  And then above on the road of the bridge, investigators see fresh tire marks and take impressions and photographs of those. So Kara's father, Sam, is on the scene when authorities discover his daughter's body, but he doesn't see her for himself.

• 21:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Good.

• 21:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. He can tell, though, that something has happened, and he approaches the sheriff and asks if they found Kara. When the sheriff tells him they have and that she's dead, Sam says, quote, "I wish you could have known her. She was an angel," end quote. I know. I almost cried writing this.

• 22:00Karen Kilgariff?

  What a horrible thing to be there, obviously, like, I gotta go out there and find my daughter. And then it's like...

• 22:07Georgia Hardstark?

  The worst possible.

• 22:08Karen Kilgariff?

  The worst possible.

• 22:10Georgia Hardstark?

  So for the first couple of days after Kara's death, police say they have some leads, but no suspects. Of course Kara's boyfriend, Wayne, is looked into, but he's quickly ruled out because he hadn't left his family's home. Later, Wayne will tell a reporter, quote, "We've planned on being 90 years old together, 100 years old together, sitting in our little rocking chairs, two crotchety old fogies holding hands."

• 22:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Ah.

• 22:33Georgia Hardstark?

  I know.

• 22:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Every one of these stories is as heartbreaking as the last. It's just, I don't know, it's just so sad.

• 22:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, totally. When Kara's body is examined, there are no signs of sexual assault. There are ligature marks around her neck, and there are two bruises on her face, one on her eyebrow and one on her cheek. The medical examiner rules her cause of death to have been strangulation. There's a little bit of other physical evidence recovered from Kara's body. A single drop of blood is found on her shoe that doesn't belong to her. It's 1986, so DNA isn't, you know, a thing that's available to everyone. But the blood type is tested, and it's AB positive, which is not her blood type, and it's one of the rarest blood types as well. Additionally, a single gold fiber is pulled off of Kara's sweatshirt, and it's unique

• 23:24Georgia Hardstark?

  in that it's been colored gold with a pigment rather than a dye, which is so forensic files back then of like, I can hear it narrated in my head.

• 23:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Also, that kind of thing where, when, another fascinating piece of like, that kind of forensic investigation is that you think things are like, oh, if you're on the beach, it's just sand, it's just rocks. And then it's like, no, no, no, because the only, you know, silica is here and not there, all that stuff. Like, you learn about how investigable some areas can be.

• 23:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, or like decomposition and bug life, and I mean, it's fascinating.

• 23:57Karen Kilgariff?

  It's amazing, yeah.

• 23:59Georgia Hardstark?

  And coloring fiber with this pigment is an antiquated technique that's very rarely used in 1986, so they know it's significant. And then investigative visit the gas station Kara had gone to, the attendants remember seeing her pumping gas not long after 8:00 PM. They say she was alone, they didn't see her speak to anyone, and she drove off.

• 24:16Karen Kilgariff?

  And she had a full tank of gas?

• 24:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 24:19Karen Kilgariff?

  So it wasn't that, you know?

• 24:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly. That was a little bit after Christmas, like December 27th, and then through the end of the year and into January of 1987, the police say publicly that they're at a loss and they asked the public for help in figuring out what happened to Kara. And a $10,000 reward is issued by the family for information leading to an arrest, which in today's money...

• 24:40Karen Kilgariff?

  50,000?

• 24:41Georgia Hardstark?

  30.

• 24:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Close.

• 24:43Georgia Hardstark?

  San Diego police also asked the public to call either their office or the Crime Stoppers tip line with any information that might help. The community around San Diego is understandably on edge after the seemingly unexplained murder of a college student who was just driving home. And we got a lot of emails from murderinos in our email box of like my mom, my grandma, that everyone was just like, like San Diego was very quiet then and suburban, it still is, I think. So there was just like terrified.

• 25:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 25:13Georgia Hardstark?

  This is just unheard of. And then, right after Kara's body is discovered, the local news runs a segment about what drivers can do to stay safe on the freeways at night. The reporter actually rides along with a California Highway Patrol officer who warns that drivers who have car trouble, especially at night, should stay in their car with the doors locked. He says like, you know, women could get raved, men could get mugged, it's, or, you know, everyone could get murdered, it's like very scary, you should stay in your car, even if you spend the night, don't like, don't get out of your car.

• 25:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Hmm.

• 25:45Georgia Hardstark?

  And then if someone approaches to help, the driver should ask that person to go get help, rather than letting them help. And this is still, to this day, something you should absolutely do, right?

• 25:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, okay, that's good advice.

• 25:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. He warns never to get in the car with someone else, or to let another person in the car.

• 25:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Sorry, someone has a story of, oh, it was our family friend Priscilla who, her car broke down, I think it was in the rain, and she was like nine months pregnant, or like eight months pregnant, and so this guy pulls up...

• 26:11Georgia Hardstark?

  No, no, no.

• 26:13Karen Kilgariff?

  The Zodiac Killer pulls up?

• 26:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Jesus Christ.

• 26:15Karen Kilgariff?

  No, it's the, it's the opposite.

• 26:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 26:18Karen Kilgariff?

  This guy's car is broken down in the rain.

• 26:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 26:20Karen Kilgariff?

  She pulls up and gets out to help him and he goes, "What are you doing? Get back in that car." "What? Why would you do this?"

• 26:25Georgia Hardstark?

  I love him.

• 26:26Karen Kilgariff?

  And like screams at her of like, "Get out of here."

• 26:28Georgia Hardstark?

  He's someone's dad.

• 26:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, exactly.

• 26:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh my god.

• 26:31Karen Kilgariff?

  He was like, "Why would you ever risk your life? Like, don't help men like this."

• 26:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Don't do it.

• 26:35Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 26:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Stay in your car, yeah. And so this would all be very standard and unremarkable, this segment that this journalist made. But after this segment airs, something strange starts to happen over at the tip line that the police had opened up. People, especially women, start calling in and saying that that same highway patrolman who had been in the news segment had pulled them over at the exact same exit where Kara's car had been found. And they say that this highway patrolman had pulled them over for like mostly trivial things that didn't really warrant being pulled over off the freeway. For example, a murderino named Hannah had emailed in that her grandma had gotten a fix-it ticket from this highway patrolman for a missing license plate.

• 27:20Georgia Hardstark?

  And he tried to meet up with her after to like, get signed off so that she wouldn't get, have to pay the ticket. And she was like, "No, thank you." And got it signed by someone else, but like,

• 27:29Karen Kilgariff?

  He was like,

• 27:29Georgia Hardstark?

  It was him.

• 27:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, okay.

• 27:31Georgia Hardstark?

  He was like sketch.

• 27:32Karen Kilgariff?

  This was like his strip of the highway, it seems.

• 27:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 27:35Karen Kilgariff?

  No men coming forward to say they also were pulled over?

• 27:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 27:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Just a bunch of women?

• 27:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly. And this officer would direct them to exit freeway at this place. It was called Mercy Road. In one instance, even having the driver reverse on the freeway against traffic to get back to that exit and then told them to drive to the bottom of the secluded unlit off-ramp where Kara's white Beetle was found.

• 27:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Please tell me that in this modern day, everybody hearing Georgia say that recognizes the insanity and would not do it.

• 28:05Georgia Hardstark?

  And then he actually had been questioned about this behavior. Like, people in the department were aware of it, but he had been commended on it because he said he did it to avoid a potentially dangerous stop on the freeway.

• 28:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Hmm.

• 28:19Georgia Hardstark?

  So, one woman actually came forward and told the Times Advocate newspaper, pretty much right after Kara's murder was reported, that based solely on the location where her body was found, she thought that the person responsible was a California Highway Patrolman who had pulled her over nine months earlier.

• 28:35Karen Kilgariff?

  Ooh.

• 28:36Georgia Hardstark?

  She's like, fuck, you know? She didn't know his name at the time she told the story. She says that he flashed his lights and used his loudspeaker to direct her down that same remote off-ramp. And then, once she was in that remote area, he started accusing her of driving a stolen vehicle. But she says his demeanor was strange, like he was flirting with her, maybe, trying to ask her out. And she says that then he abruptly let her go after a San Diego police car passed that spot. So suddenly, he fucking skedaddled.

• 29:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Man.

• 29:08Georgia Hardstark?

  I know. And this fucking badass chick was like, hello?

• 29:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Excuse me? I have a story to tell.

• 29:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, that happened to me. So she tells this story to the paper, and then she sees the ride-along footage on TV of this highway patrolman, and she's like, that is the fucking guy I told you about.

• 29:27Karen Kilgariff?

  That's that psychopathic tendency where they're smarter than everybody. And they can't let it go. They have to be the face of the thing. They have to be out in front, playing this part. And they basically get themselves caught.

• 29:39Georgia Hardstark?

  He calmly was in this segment, and you can watch it online.

• 29:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Playing the part of the kindly peace officer that's there to help.

• 29:47Georgia Hardstark?

  That's concerned about what's happening in his community.

• 29:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:51Georgia Hardstark?

  So creepy. And so, yeah, so she's sure it's the same guy, double checks, she's like, this is him. So the man is 36-year-old Craig Pyer, a 13-year veteran of the California Highway Patrol. And all told, about 30 women come forward saying that Pyer had pulled them over in that same spot.

• 30:11Karen Kilgariff?

  30.

• 30:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 30:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Count to 30 right now, feel how many women that is, that...

• 30:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 30:16Karen Kilgariff?

  It's wild.

• 30:17Georgia Hardstark?

  It's wild.

• 30:18Karen Kilgariff?

  So bold.

• 30:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Many of the women said that he proceeded to get in the passenger seat and try to question them when he pulled them over, but that the questions he asked were inappropriate, and he was actually just sexually harassing them.

• 30:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Good God.

• 30:31Georgia Hardstark?

  And then, this is the creepiest, like, is this a movie, what are you talking about thing?

• 30:38Georgia Hardstark?

  A bunch of people point out that after a closer examination of the local news segment featuring Pyer, it appears that there are some scratches on his face.

• 30:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 30:48Georgia Hardstark?

  And this is days after Kara's murder. The segment had been shot very shortly after Kara's murder, and people suspect that those scratches were from Kara trying to defend herself. In the video, you can see scratches on his face.

• 31:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Imagine the 1986 murderinos.

• 31:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 31:06Karen Kilgariff?

  That know all these things, but that are still to that point, like by themselves.

• 31:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 31:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Alone, being like, I like a weird thing that I shouldn't.

• 31:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 31:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Paying attention to.

• 31:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 31:16Karen Kilgariff?

  What we all used to believe. And they're recognizing all of these things that like you would have to be reading a Gavin DeBecker book, or some Anne Ruhl stuff.

• 31:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 31:25Karen Kilgariff?

  To really be aware of.

• 31:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 31:27Karen Kilgariff?

  And they're just like, cold chills, being like, oh my god.

• 31:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. I'm sure so many people called in and was like, why does he have scratches on his fucking face?

• 31:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Also, can we see the rest of the footage? What else can we see in the rest of the footage?

• 31:40Georgia Hardstark?

  It's so chilling. And then also Kara's mother, Joyce, comes forward to tell police that she and Kara had taken a self-defense class recently, and one of the things they were taught was to scratch at an attacker's eyes. And the scratches are like right by his nose.

• 31:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 31:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. I actually like text myself, sign up for a self-defense class.

• 32:01Karen Kilgariff?

  I want to do one here.

• 32:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, that's a great idea.

• 32:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Wouldn't it be cool?

• 32:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 32:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Just like 7 o'clock one night, everyone's done with work.

• 32:07Georgia Hardstark?

  If you want to stay for a self-defense course.

• 32:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Yep.

• 32:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Hell yeah.

• 32:10Karen Kilgariff?

  It's just kind of weekly, so it's kind of like working out a little bit. But then it's also like punching and kicking.

• 32:15Georgia Hardstark?

  I want to do it. I'll be here.

• 32:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 32:17Georgia Hardstark?

  If you can believe it. Um, I'm never here. I don't even have an office. Okay. So then on Friday, January 15th, Craig Pyer is arrested for Kara's murder, which actually there's a murderino who's like, Pyer's wife was my mom's best friend, and she was at the fucking house when the police arrested the husband. And then they asked her to be a character witness for him at his trial, and she was like, hell fucking no.

• 32:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Really?

• 32:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 32:45Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, what a nightmare. Like, you're living this life, and you think you know exactly where everything's lined up and what's going on with everything, and just one day there's a knock on the door and everything gets ripped apart.

• 32:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Your husband, because he had children from multiple marriages, and they have a young baby. Your husband is a monster.

• 33:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Nightmare.

• 33:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Nightmare. His neighbors are all utterly shocked when this story comes out. People who know him say he was extremely proud to be a highway patrolman, which we know is like wanting to involve yourself in law enforcement.

• 33:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, but actually passing the tests, which usually these stories are about people that want to do that can't pass the tests.

• 33:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Right, right.

• 33:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 33:26Georgia Hardstark?

  I mean, those are the ones we know about, though.

• 33:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, I know.

• 33:28Georgia Hardstark?

  How many we don't know about.

• 33:30Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean.

• 33:31Georgia Hardstark?

  And they said it was a huge part of his personality and of course, the women who Pyer pulled over on the highway are not surprised or shocked at all to hear about him.

• 33:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 33:43Georgia Hardstark?

  You know, the neighbors are, these women are like, he gave me the ick.

• 33:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, and also, why do I have to say out loud that it gave me the ick to get pulled over off the highway down into a fucking ravine?

• 33:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 33:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Like, it's like the first time that got reported, it should, he should have been removed from the entire area.

• 33:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Absolutely.

• 33:59Karen Kilgariff?

  What could you have been doing?

• 34:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 34:01Karen Kilgariff?

  And then you did it thirty, minimum thirty times.

• 34:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Right, right.

• 34:05Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm yelling at you.

• 34:08Georgia Hardstark?

  So irritating. No, no, it's fine. You're exactly right. So Craig Pyer's log from the night of Kara's disappearance shows him making a traffic stop in a totally different area at the exact time Kara is killed, of course, but surprise, surprise, it's written in pencil and the entry has clearly been erased and rewritten.

• 34:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Hmm.

• 34:25Georgia Hardstark?

  So, and the people who, he did actually pull over at that time were like, that wasn't what time it was and he was fucking disheveled and something was wrong.

• 34:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, no.

• 34:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So on examination of Pyer's patrol car, the distance, you know, the tires match up essentially, blah, blah, blah. Forensic investigators matched the gold fiber on Kara's sweatshirt to the embroidery thread that was used to make the gold border on the California Highway Patrol shoulder patch on Pyer's uniform.

• 34:51Karen Kilgariff?

  I remember that part of the Forensic Files episode.

• 34:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, yeah. Craig Pyer's blood type is AB positive, same as the drop that was on Kara's shoe. You know, it goes on and on. It's just clear. So, police believe essentially that Pyer had seen Cara filling up her car with gas at the station near Escondido. And I bet that was his stalking point.

• 35:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, yeah.

• 35:13Georgia Hardstark?

  You know, like you're a fucking lion and you're looking for your prey. Like, I bet he stayed there until at night, women alone in a car, and then followed them.

• 35:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 35:20Georgia Hardstark?

  To the spot.

• 35:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, because you get out, you have to pump the gas, you have to walk around. So, it's just like they're on parade for him to be picking from.

• 35:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally. It's just so chilling. And then that he followed her until they neared his preferred remote off-ramp. And then he likely did what he had done to all the other women. Flashed his lights, used his loudspeaker to direct her off the ramp. And then they believe that Pyer tried to get in the car with Cara or harass her. Remember, her window was halfway down.

• 35:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:47Georgia Hardstark?

  She's like, "Yes, officer." And she possibly refused to let him in or threatened to report him or some combination of that. And they believe that Pyer ordered Cara out of the car. And Cara fought back after possibly he touched or threatened Cara in some way. And she fought.

• 36:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 36:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Which is just incredible. And at that point, she scratched his face. And the thought is that he hit her twice in the face with his flashlight. And then killed her by strangling her with some rope he had in his trunk. And then he did so to deny or cover up anything she could have said, which is fuck you.

• 36:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 36:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Fuck you.

• 36:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Yep.

• 36:29Georgia Hardstark?

  So, Pyer's tried in 1988. His first trial results in a hung jury. Don't fucking ask. He's retried, found guilty of first-degree murder, and sentenced to life in prison. He has always maintained his innocence. He's still alive. But he's had opportunities to have his DNA tested against the DNA in the blood drop from Cara's shoe, like by Innocence Project people.

• 36:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Yep.

• 36:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Which matched his blood type, and he refuses to give a sample.

• 36:54Karen Kilgariff?

  It's not good for me that day. I can't make it.

• 36:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, this shit, my cheek hurts. You can't swab it.

• 36:58Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm so sorry. It's inside where that one vein is.

• 37:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 37:01Karen Kilgariff?

  My vein hurts.

• 37:02Georgia Hardstark?

  You can't pluck my hair. Let's just keep going with DNA possibilities.

• 37:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, but also, it, that to me, and I could be wrong about this, but by memory, psychopaths also never admit. That's the whole thing, is that that, that idea is, "Oh, I'm not going to admit it. I'm going to continue to quote-unquote trick you."

• 37:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, he's probably also like, "No, you can't take my DNA because you'll plant it." You know what I mean? Like, he just will. Denied, denied, denied.

• 37:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 37:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Right?

• 37:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Yep.

• 37:25Georgia Hardstark?

  He's had the opportunity to apply for parole, but each time has refused to answer why he won't give his DNA. And so far, he's been denied each time. And he'll be eligible again in 2027 when he is 77 years old. So let's stop talking about him.

• 37:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 37:42Georgia Hardstark?

  So Kara's father, Sam, lobbied to get the desolate area where his beloved daughter's body had been so callously discarded. He lobbied to have that area dedicated as the Kara Not Memorial Oak Garden, which it was. And then he changed it to the San Diego Crime Victims Memorial Garden. It's, this is fucking rough. His aim, according to FindAGrave.com, was to, quote, "turn the bleak wasteland where Kara died into a flourishing nature preserve dedicated to Kara and fellow crime victims." He did succeed, as the small garden has flourished into, according to HiddenSanDiego.com, quote, "an oasis where the lives of dozens of victims of crime

• 38:26Georgia Hardstark?

  and violent death are commemorated," end quote. But tragically, in 2000, at the age of 63, Sam, Kara's father, suffers a fatal heart attack while he is at the memorial site, attending a memorial for Kara. And it's not far from where she was killed 14 years earlier.

• 38:45Karen Kilgariff?

  So he dies there, too?

• 38:47Georgia Hardstark?

  A heart attack, which is just a broken heart.

• 38:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 38:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Right?

• 38:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 38:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Kara's family, including her mother Joyce and three siblings, continue to fight for victims' rights, including working with law enforcement to create better ways of keeping track of their officers while on duty.

• 39:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Very good idea.

• 39:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Huge. And also to keep her killer behind bars. They also donate the acorns from the native oaks that Sam had planted and dedicated to Kara at the flourishing memorial site to nonprofit groups to plant and grow their own memorial trees. So her trees are growing all over the country.

• 39:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 39:24Georgia Hardstark?

  I know.

• 39:24Karen Kilgariff?

  That's beautiful.

• 39:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. And it's like this, like, beautiful, serene place where you can go as a memorial garden.

• 39:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 39:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Let's turn it into that. Sam is buried next to Cara at the Singing Hills Memorial Park in El Cajon, California. Her headstone reads, quote, "You are our morning and evening star. Now you are stardust and will live forever," end quote. And that is the story of the murder of Cara Knott.

• 39:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow. Great job.

• 39:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Thank you.

• 39:55Karen Kilgariff?

  That is a tough one.

• 39:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Like, I hadn't covered this, even though it's been in my head for so long, because it just seemed so small and simple and sad and awful. But I feel like this stuff at the end with her family and father just felt right to share.

• 40:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 40:09Georgia Hardstark?

  You know?

• 40:10Karen Kilgariff?

  No, I think you're so right. And I do think that it's sad. There's 40 years of forensic files. We get to be talking about a million cases. That is, I think, why people talk through true crime.

• 40:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 40:22Karen Kilgariff?

  It's like, there's the things that are the exact same. Then there's the things of like, listening and watching for how they catch people. Listening and watching for what you should keep your eye out for.

• 40:31Georgia Hardstark?

  How many women have not pulled over on the side of the freeway or in a desolate spot, or have known to get off the freeway, to go in a public place when getting pulled over, or stayed in their car with their doors locked when they needed help because they watched this episode and because of Cara's story?

• 40:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 40:47Georgia Hardstark?

  I bet there are people who are alive today because they knew and know Cara's story and will forever.

• 40:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Yep.

• 40:53Georgia Hardstark?

  You know?

• 40:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 40:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. The holidays are coming, which means we'll all be spending more time away from home.

• 41:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Whether you're visiting family or doing something actually fun, you want to know your home is protected while you're away.

• 41:06Georgia Hardstark?

  That's why now is a good time to think about home security with SimpliSafe.

• 41:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Unlike traditional security systems that alert you after a break-in starts, SimpliSafe is designed to help stop intruders before they get inside. These days, you're worried about your house, you're out of town, and then something comes up and you get to look on your phone, and SimpliSafe is going to show you not only the video of like, it's a raccoon at your front door, but also that they have staff that's sitting there, they already know. And if it was something different or worse, they would have already been on it.

• 41:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, I really think that's invaluable peace of mind, that just like relying on your neighbors, paying attention is not going to give you. We've partnered with SimpliSafe to offer our listeners their biggest savings of the year. Seventy percent off your new system with professional monitoring when you visit simplisafe.com/mfm.

• 41:53Karen Kilgariff?

  That's simplisafe.com/mfm. And when you order, write in MFM at checkout and it tells them we sent you and it really helps the show.

• 42:00Georgia Hardstark?

  SimpliSafe, ahead of crime in real time.

• 42:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye.

• 42:04Speaker 02

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• 42:35Karen Kilgariff?

  Sometimes being a little salty is completely justified.

• 42:38Georgia Hardstark?

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• 42:43Karen Kilgariff?

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• 42:50Georgia Hardstark?

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• 42:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Their new Salty Caramel flavor combines sweet caramel with a little salt, so you get that salty-sweet balance along with the nutrition Kachava is known for.

• 43:04Georgia Hardstark?

  When the day demands your salty side, fuel it with plant-based protein that actually tastes delicious.

• 43:09Karen Kilgariff?

  I really do love Kachava and I really do think it does taste delicious for getting you through the morning, filling in the gap if you just need some protein and you need some vitamins. It's such a nice little treat.

• 43:20Georgia Hardstark?

  It's such an easy way to get everything you need and it tastes good, too, which is just huge bonus.

• 43:25Karen Kilgariff?

  So embrace your salty side.

• 43:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Go to kachava.com and use code MFM for 15% off your first order.

• 43:30Karen Kilgariff?

  That's Kachava, K-A-C-H-A-V-A dot com, code MFM.

• 43:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Goodbye.

• 43:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, great job. That was really good.

• 43:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Thank you.

• 43:40Karen Kilgariff?

  And really sad and then also really like, I do think it is interesting, like you naming old forensic files and it's like, yep, I know that one. I have these stories in my head.

• 43:51Georgia Hardstark?

  They don't go anywhere, which is why we talk about them.

• 43:53Karen Kilgariff?

  I know. It's interesting. It's sad. I'm gonna turn it around.

• 43:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Great.

• 43:57Karen Kilgariff?

  I've got a 180.

• 43:59Georgia Hardstark?

  I would love a 180.

• 44:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay, good. Because Women's History Month just ended this week.

• 44:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 44:04Karen Kilgariff?

  And yet it feels to me like we should continue remembering women.

• 44:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Shouldn't we?

• 44:08Karen Kilgariff?

  In case we're wiped off the face of the planet here in America. You know?

• 44:13Georgia Hardstark?

  In case we're Handmaid's Tale'd.

• 44:15Karen Kilgariff?

  There's so much going on in the world and I think talking about the women whose shoulders we all stand on is a good idea.

• 44:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, love it.

• 44:25Karen Kilgariff?

  No matter what the story is.

• 44:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Definitely.

• 44:27Karen Kilgariff?

  And I like the idea that, you know, sometimes there's people who listen to our podcast and they do have, you know, their young daughters in the backseat. Here's a story you can let them listen to.

• 44:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, try not to say the F-word very much.

• 44:39Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm gonna try. Let's see if I can get through an entire story without cursing. Or without saying fuck.

• 44:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 44:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Um, alright.

• 44:46Georgia Hardstark?

  You just said it.

• 44:46Karen Kilgariff?

  So, I'm gonna tell you the story today of an American icon who, by boldly chasing her dreams, made an indelible imprint on our culture. But despite her extraordinary life, she's most famous for the mysterious circumstances surrounding her death.

• 45:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 45:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Arguably, one of recent history's greatest unsolved mysteries. For nearly a century, searchers have tried to force a satisfying conclusion to her story and they've always come up short. But because all the focus has been on how she died, the way she lived, including her many accomplishments and her advocacy, is often forgotten. So today, I'm gonna tell you the story of pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart.

• 45:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes!

• 45:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Right?

• 45:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh my God, I've been like, following the stories. I just always click on the stories of, "They think they found this. They think they found that."

• 45:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 45:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Here's the next, like, I cannot not click on those.

• 45:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, cuz it's fascinating. It's like, they have to find something some, someday that's conclusive.

• 45:44Georgia Hardstark?

  It's a legit mystery. Okay, tell me everything.

• 45:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay. For this story today are writer Doris L. Rich's book, A Biography, Amelia Earhart, which is a primary. There's also a PBS documentary series that's American Experience that's all about her.

• 45:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Fucking love American Experience. It's one of the best shows.

• 46:00Karen Kilgariff?

  If you're just looking for something of like, if you've an empty day and you're trying to feel enriched while still being completely entertained, American Experience will do the job for you.

• 46:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, I don't care if you don't give a shit about the fucking Dust Bowl, you'll be fascinated by the Dust Bowl while you do your nails.

• 46:16Karen Kilgariff?

  And I have to say, home gym, I was raised by my father forcing me to watch PBS

• 46:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 46:23Karen Kilgariff?

  material and so furious where he would be like, right after Happy Days would end, he'd be like, turn it over, let's see what's on PBS. And then we'd have to watch an opera, we'd have to watch Carl Sagan.

• 46:34Georgia Hardstark?

  And is it a coincidence that you're here owning your own fucking business today? Probably not.

• 46:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Probably not. I think PBS enriched my life. Did my father ever give them a dime in donations? Not only not once, and I'm sure I've told you this.

• 46:47Georgia Hardstark?

  He sued them for money? Oh, no. He would have sued PBS. For damages.

• 46:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, my God.

• 46:54Georgia Hardstark?

  What?

• 46:55Karen Kilgariff?

  My mom would always like walk through and he'd be watching something and really enjoying it, you know, like a documentary on the automat or whatever. Had to watch that the last time I went home.

• 47:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Amazing.

• 47:05Karen Kilgariff?

  But my mom would always go, Jim, you have to give them money. And he would go, bullshit, they're not getting a dime out of me. And that was like his proud stance and he refused to give them money.

• 47:15Georgia Hardstark?

  PBS.

• 47:17Karen Kilgariff?

  It's the ultimate, like, um, he's gonna finally rip somebody else off.

• 47:21Georgia Hardstark?

  You're fighting the wrong fight, bro.

• 47:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Meanwhile, he has absolutely given them money and it was just a bit, basically. He's doing to piss my mom off.

• 47:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Phew.

• 47:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Right?

• 47:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 47:30Karen Kilgariff?

  He's not really a douchebag.

• 47:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 47:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Cause truly with the Kilgariff family has gotten their absolute fill from P- from free PBS.

• 47:37Georgia Hardstark?

  How many tote bags do you guys have from them? That's how you know.

• 47:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, that's right. Oh, so anyway, there's also a two-part National Geographic podcast called Overheard. Did you know there was a National Geographic podcast?

• 47:50Georgia Hardstark?

  No, I love it.

• 47:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, I also, sorry, this should go up into the top, but since we didn't do it, I'll just say it now. On TikTok this morning, I learned that the Southern Poverty Law Center has just launched their own podcast.

• 48:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Ooh.

• 48:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Just at the beginning of this month, and it just covers all the stories, all of the things that they're, like basically them fighting for Americans in every way, the fact that they've been doing it for a hundred years, all these things.

• 48:15Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm not giving them a fucking dime. No kidding. Should we give them $10,000?

• 48:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Let's do it.

• 48:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Let's do it.

• 48:20Karen Kilgariff?

  That's a great idea.

• 48:20Georgia Hardstark?

  I love it.

• 48:21Karen Kilgariff?

  We'll give them money on our side, listener. You go listen to the Southern Poverty Law Center's podcast, get them some numbers.

• 48:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Share it with friends.

• 48:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Get that thing going, because it sounded great, the little, like, clip and what I heard. I was, like, so excited that they're starting that.

• 48:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Amazing. Great. That feels good. Now let's start your story.

• 48:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Good vibes. Now, to the story.

• 48:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 48:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Here's my writing, when I go in and edit Maren's writing. The story of Amelia Earhart's story begins in late July of 1897.

• 48:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 48:48Karen Kilgariff?

  She was born in the northeast corner of Kansas, in a town called Atchison.

• 48:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 48:53Karen Kilgariff?

  It looks like it's, I would guess, two hours north of Kansas City.

• 48:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 48:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Way up there in the corner, there's the ameliaearhart.org website, and they have a museum there that I think is built in her house.

• 49:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, wow.

• 49:08Karen Kilgariff?

  But they have the best tote bags that I'm absolutely gonna get.

• 49:11Georgia Hardstark?

  That's weird that just...

• 49:12Karen Kilgariff?

  I've brought up tote bags. Yeah, that's right, because I was just looking on the website, and it's just a painting of the house, and that's the tote bag.

• 49:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay. We all need those. Murderinos?

• 49:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Let's, yeah, let's buy all the merch at the Amelia Earhart Museum.

• 49:24Georgia Hardstark?

  That's how you can spot a murderino in the wild, like the farmer's market, is if she's a fucking... Oh, I said the F-word. She's a random Amelia Earhart.

• 49:32Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm still on page one.

• 49:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Guys, stop it. Stop it. I've had too much fucking rosé. Let's go.

• 49:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay. Let's really focus on what we're supposed to be doing.

• 49:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 49:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay, so, she's born in Atchison in July of 1897. Her father Edwin is a lawyer from humble beginnings. Her mom Amy comes from a very prominent local family, and a fun fact, actually, like a badass fact, Amy Earhart was the first woman to hike to the top of Pike's Peak.

• 49:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 49:57Karen Kilgariff?

  In Colorado.

• 49:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Cool.

• 49:59Karen Kilgariff?

  So, she's from adventuring DNA.

• 50:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Makes sense.

• 50:02Karen Kilgariff?

  So... Things aren't always smooth sailing for the Earhart family. Edwin has good and bad years financially. He takes job opportunities wherever they come. We later learned that it's because he's an alcoholic. And that's the way my mom grew up where it's like, he does good for a little while. He's a lawyer. And then he blows it and then has to, and then goes off the wagon and then.

• 50:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Has to dry out again.

• 50:27Karen Kilgariff?

  I can't say that that's exactly what happened in this family, but I'm recognizing it from what my mom told me about. When you have like the long-term alcoholic that then gets better for a long time and then goes back. It's awful. So they move around a ton. And then when Amelia isn't moving around with her parents and they're just trying to go get him another job. She stays for long stretches at her grandparents' home. So Amelia does have a younger sister named Muriel. They're just about two years apart, so they're very, very close. And they're not your typical turn of the century girls. Because like, of course, at the time, girls had to wear long skirts. But Amelia and Muriel spend their weekends in bloomers because it's easier to play in them.

• 51:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Love it.

• 51:11Karen Kilgariff?

  And these girls love playing. Amelia is the daring ringleader and she can often be found with her little sister climbing over fences, shooting rifles, collecting bugs. Doris Elrich, Amelia Earhart's biographer, writes about an incident when Amelia's seven years old and Muriel is four and they are going sledding. So Amelia is about to head down a big snowy hill. So she does something most little girls would be conditioned not to do. Instead of sitting up on the sled and, and holding like the string like that, she lays down on her stomach. She pushes off.

• 51:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Face first, you gotta go face first.

• 51:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Face first, just do it. So she pushes off, she starts racing down the hill, flying down, and then she sees, here comes a horse-drawn carriage that's coming directly down her path, across her path, I should say. She starts yelling out to the driver because she can't stop. So she's yelling, but he can't hear her, he can't see her. So up on the top of the hill, Muriel is watching her sister. She is about to crash in. So Amelia, at the same time, is like, I'm about to die. So instead of panicking, what she does is she puts her head down as low as she can. And somehow the timing works out perfectly and she just goes right under the wagon.

• 52:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Like Christmas Vacation, when they go under the fucking semi truck.

• 52:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 52:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly like that, right?

• 52:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Or like when I was about six years old and I was riding my bike in front of my parents and their friends. And I went up in the O'Hara's big old gravel driveway that was like a quarter of a mile long. And I was coming back down, racing back down, and my parents can hear a car that's going eighty miles an hour. And they watch as I just go directly in front of the car. Like, the car's going so fast, it didn't have time to put on the brakes. So I just went shh, shh, like that. And as I came into our driveway, my dad just picked me up off my bike and slapped me on the ass and I ran into the house. They never spanked us and he, like, basically, they all thought they were gonna watch me die.

• 53:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 53:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Amelia Earhart style.

• 53:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Pet cemetery shit.

• 53:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 53:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh my god.

• 53:15Karen Kilgariff?

  For real. Okay, so, basically, she goes under, she comes out unscathed, and when she finally comes to a stop, Amelia jumps up and smiles and waves at her sister. And years later, she looks back on this moment and she'll say, quote, "That condemned tomboy method saved my life. Had I been sitting up, either my head or the horse's ribs would have suffered in contact." Probably the horse's ribs. So by Amelia's teenage years, she's attended so many different schools that she basically doesn't have any friends at all. In one of her yearbooks, this makes me so sad. There's a photo of her and the caption reads, quote, "Ae, the girl in brown who walks alone." Just like, cuz you have this fuck-up dad.

• 54:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 54:00Karen Kilgariff?

  You're gonna have to leave anyway, so you might as well not get to know people. At home, Amelia's father's developed a serious drinking problem. I spoiled that one, but he struggles to hold down any job. PBS reports, quote, "Amelia adored her father, but he let her down so often she learned early on to be self-reliant."

• 54:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Yikes.

• 54:21Karen Kilgariff?

  So she starts keeping a scrapbook with cutouts of newspaper and magazine articles about women with successful careers that are in traditionally male-only fields. It's like she's proving to herself that she can find success without relying on a man and manifesting that future for herself, essentially. When she graduates high school, it's the thick of World War I, so she drops out of finishing school. They sent her to finishing school.

• 54:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, finish what, dude?

• 54:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, finish walking around with a book on your head.

• 54:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Finish this.

• 54:53Karen Kilgariff?

  So she leaves to go tend to wounded soldiers in Canada, which is so badass. And she's like, "Thanks for the manners lessons. I've got to actually go do something."

• 55:03Georgia Hardstark?

  How about go fuck yourself?

• 55:05Karen Kilgariff?

  How about go fuck yourself, I'm going to work with the Red Cross. During this time, she briefly considers a career in medicine. And then one day, she goes to a flying exhibition in Toronto, and she watches a stunt pilot do their tricks in a colorful plane, and she's captivated. She'll later say, quote, "I did not understand at the time, but I believe that little red airplane said something to me as it swished by."

• 55:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 55:28Karen Kilgariff?

  It's just such a cool, I never thought about this, and I'm sure that my sister has like books that she's read aloud to her class. It's like Amelia Earhart, I'm sure she knows all the details, but I've never like really thought about that fact of like when women are born early and they go through lives with like, say, an adventurer's spirit in a time where they're like, "You better put that skirt on and go to finishing school."

• 55:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 55:53Karen Kilgariff?

  It's almost luckier that she had to move around a bunch and had like a regular family.

• 55:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Like her dad wasn't paying attention and enforcing rules, so she could kind of get away with a lot more.

• 56:03Karen Kilgariff?

  And it was kind of like, "Yeah, fuck it, because what am I going to do? Go to finishing school, find a man, and then have this happen to me?

• 56:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 56:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Like, I'm going to go do my thing."

• 56:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Also, like, can we just props to the baby sister, the younger sister, who's always like, she doesn't get enough credit. Like, the older sister always gets credited, like, she showed her how to do it, but like, if you didn't have someone to show how to do it?

• 56:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 56:22Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm clearly giving us props.

• 56:24Karen Kilgariff?

  It's about us.

• 56:25Georgia Hardstark?

  It's about us. But like, if you didn't have someone to show off to?

• 56:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 56:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Then what would you have done?

• 56:29Karen Kilgariff?

  You would have never had that adventurer's spirit.

• 56:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Nothing.

• 56:31Karen Kilgariff?

  If you didn't have a baby crying and saying, "I need to go to the bathroom all the time," there would be no, nothing to fight against.

• 56:37Georgia Hardstark?

  So you're welcome.

• 56:38Karen Kilgariff?

  You're welcome.

• 56:39Georgia Hardstark?

  To Laura and Lee.

• 56:40Karen Kilgariff?

  And Lee. So by nineteen twenty, Amelia is twenty-three years old. She's living back with her parents again. They're now in Southern California. So they really have moved all over the place. One day, her dad takes her to an event at a Long Beach airfield. Once again, Amelia's transfixed by the stunt pilot. So this was like a big thing that was happening at the time. She sees they're offering plane rides for the low price of five dollars each.

• 57:05Georgia Hardstark?

  That's a lot of money.

• 57:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Worth about today.

• 57:08Georgia Hardstark?

  What year?

• 57:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Twenty twenty.

• 57:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Twenty twenty?

• 57:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Sorry, twenty. Plain old twenty.

• 57:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Nineteen twenty?

• 57:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Nineteen twenty is what I should have said. Yep.

• 57:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Uh, and it's five dollars and nineteen. Oh, that's a lot of money. I'm gonna go sixty.

• 57:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Eighty, very close.

• 57:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 57:22Karen Kilgariff?

  But eighty bucks.

• 57:23Georgia Hardstark?

  That's a fuck-ton of money.

• 57:24Karen Kilgariff?

  She somehow gets.

• 57:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, God, I did it again. I'm so bad at this.

• 57:28Karen Kilgariff?

  It's just, it's a fudge, it's a fudge worth of money.

• 57:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 57:31Karen Kilgariff?

  So she somehow collects up and gets that money. A couple of days later, she goes back to the airfield and she takes a ride for the first time in a plane. And she will later say, quote, "As soon as we left the ground, I knew I had to fly." A little quote within the quote says, "I think I'd like to fly," I told my family casually that evening, knowing full well I'd die if I didn't.

• 57:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 57:54Karen Kilgariff?

  She's like, her dream.

• 57:55Georgia Hardstark?

  That's her passion.

• 57:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 57:58Georgia Hardstark?

  It's beautiful.

• 57:59Karen Kilgariff?

  So a year later, Amelia meets with a young female pilot named Nettie Snook, the best name of all time.

• 58:05Georgia Hardstark?

  So good.

• 58:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Nettie is an aviation pioneer in her own right, and she agrees to teach Amelia how to fly. She's charging a dollar a minute, which would be basically sixteen dollars a minute in today's money. So it would be like paying nine hundred and sixty dollars for an hour's flying lesson.

• 58:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Fuck.

• 58:24Karen Kilgariff?

  So it's very expensive.

• 58:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, Snooki is after it.

• 58:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Snooki is like, hey, then go find another woman to teach you how to fly a plane.

• 58:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Absolutely.

• 58:32Karen Kilgariff?

  So to pay for her lessons, Amelia takes on a bunch of odd jobs, including hauling gravel for a local trucking company and working as a stenographer.

• 58:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 58:42Karen Kilgariff?

  She's like, anything I can do.

• 58:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 58:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Within six months, she manages to buy her own small, bright, yellow biplane that she names Canary.

• 58:49Georgia Hardstark?

  That is so wild.

• 58:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Mm-hmm. She's in it.

• 58:52Georgia Hardstark?

  I mean, I bought a Vespa when I was young, because I was like, I gotta stop riding on the back of douchebags' Vespas.

• 58:59Karen Kilgariff?

  And get your own.

• 59:00Georgia Hardstark?

  I need my own, or I'm gonna keep dating assholes. So I got my own. Yeah.

• 59:04Karen Kilgariff?

  And then, did you go see Quadrophenia at the midnight show?

• 59:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, yeah. I mean, I was obsessed. Yeah.

• 59:09Karen Kilgariff?

  When the Vespa kids would come in for Quadrophenia.

• 59:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 59:11Karen Kilgariff?

  That was my very favorite. I'm like, I can't get these outfits together, but I pick you of all the.

• 59:16Georgia Hardstark?

  It's so hot.

• 59:17Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm not picking Rocky Horror and I'm not picking Heavy Metal. I'm picking Quadrophenia.

• 59:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Hell, yeah, you are. Those acid washed jeans.

• 59:25Karen Kilgariff?

  So she gets her pilot's license in late 1921 and she begins flying in derbies and setting all kinds of records.

• 59:32Georgia Hardstark?

  How old is she?

• 59:33Karen Kilgariff?

  So she's 23 and 20. So she's 24.

• 59:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 59:36Karen Kilgariff?

  24. I like the idea that they just start air derbies where it's like, can you fly a plane then come and do a race?

• 59:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 59:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Hilarious.

• 59:43Georgia Hardstark?

  It's so good.

• 59:44Karen Kilgariff?

  So she sets all kinds of records, like becoming the first woman to fly at an altitude of 14,000 feet.

• 59:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 59:51Karen Kilgariff?

  But actually she wasn't trying to break that record. She just wanted to see how high the canary could go.

• 59:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 59:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Later she'll write quite modestly, quote, although my figure of 14,000 feet was not extraordinary, the performance of my engine was interesting. I had gone up much farther than some of the higher powered planes, which should have been more efficient. So her and the Canary are like getting in there and.

• 1:00:13Georgia Hardstark?

  They've got a vibe.

• 1:00:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. In 1924, Amelia's life changes again. As her father continues to struggle with alcoholism, her parents get divorced. Now she's 28. She and her mom moved from California to Massachusetts to move in with Muriel, who's studying to be a teacher there in Boston. So Amelia gets a job there as a social worker. She gets paid $60 a month, which is roughly how much in today's money.

• 1:00:40Georgia Hardstark?

  690.

• 1:00:41Karen Kilgariff?

  A thousand dollars a month.

• 1:00:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow. Okay.

• 1:00:44Karen Kilgariff?

  So she's now supporting herself and her mother on this modest income. So basically her expensive hobby of flying planes has to be paused.

• 1:00:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:53Karen Kilgariff?

  But she does find a local flying community and she's a vocal part of it. And local newspapers start writing about her fierce advocacy for women in aviation.

• 1:01:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Amazing.

• 1:01:03Karen Kilgariff?

  So even though she can't do it, she's still like, yeah, but we should get to do it.

• 1:01:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:07Karen Kilgariff?

  The good news is she loves her job as a social worker. She works with immigrant families and children, mostly from China and Syria, and she really feels like she's found her calling. Author Susan Butler tells National Geographic, quote, "If anything, she was obsessed with being a social worker. She took it as her role in life to act as an agent for social change for women."

• 1:01:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 1:01:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:30Georgia Hardstark?

  That's amazing.

• 1:01:31Karen Kilgariff?

  So I kind of like that, you know.

• 1:01:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:33Karen Kilgariff?

  She was pivoting, doing what she could, when she could, and then also making a life doing other stuff that was also very important.

• 1:01:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Her moral compass was there no matter what she was doing.

• 1:01:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, she was like, "I'm gonna do good and make change and fight for women."

• 1:01:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Very cool. So then in 1928, a man named George P. Putnam reaches out, and that changes everything in her life once again. Putnam is a wildly successful publisher, who is behind one of America's more notable fascists, Charles Lindbergh's smash hit autobiography, "We." Of course, Lindbergh was a huge aviating star, very prominent. You covered his baby's kidnapping.

• 1:02:14Georgia Hardstark?

  I was gonna say, "You covered that," but okay.

• 1:02:16Karen Kilgariff?

  It was you in episode 119, "Fingers Everywhere." Of course, you remember that episode. So Putnam is now on the hunt for his next aviation superstar. He's been given a short list of female pilots, hoping one of them will have that elusive and lucrative it factor. So he sets up a meeting with now 31-year-old Amelia, and when he does, she walks in and he can't believe it. She looks a lot like Charles Lindbergh. So he's immediately convinced that she's the one.

• 1:02:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Uh huh.

• 1:02:46Karen Kilgariff?

  So George pitches Amelia the opportunity of a lifetime. He wants her to take a transatlantic flight, not as the pilot, but as a passenger, and like, it's all for publicity.

• 1:02:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:56Karen Kilgariff?

  But still, the trip would make her the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean.

• 1:03:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Can you imagine?

• 1:03:02Karen Kilgariff?

  I get so nervous when we fly to like, on tour to Europe and stuff, because you're just like, or to Hawaii, when you're just like, "So we're just gonna be like, on open ocean for like, four or five hours."

• 1:03:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, but imagine being the first woman who gets to do that, and you're gonna know that, and it's never going to be changed.

• 1:03:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 1:03:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Because you're the first woman to do it.

• 1:03:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:22Georgia Hardstark?

  You know?

• 1:03:22Karen Kilgariff?

  And she was kind of like, "Look, I survived that sled. I'll be fine."

• 1:03:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:27Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm sure that kind of is a part of it, right?

• 1:03:29Georgia Hardstark?

  I love it.

• 1:03:30Karen Kilgariff?

  She's like, "Get me out there. It'll be good if I do it." Okay, so she's all in, of course. She thinks that, Maren wrote, "It sounds like a blast."

• 1:03:40Karen Kilgariff?

  But of course, she also knows there's risks. Writer Anthony Brandt notes, quote, "It was still a very dangerous thing to fly the Atlantic Ocean. In the year after Charles Lindbergh flew the Atlantic, which was 1927, 18 planes made the attempt, only three succeeded."

• 1:03:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Holy shit.

• 1:03:58Karen Kilgariff?

  "Airplanes were a mere quarter of a century old. The North Atlantic is famously stormy, fog banks are common, weather reports at the time were primitive, and navigation was often haphazard. The plane she flew in was made mostly of sheet metal. It rattled and roared like an old steam engine."

• 1:04:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, I bet it was so loud.

• 1:04:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. "The cabin door had to be tied shut with a small rope."

• 1:04:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my god, and the fucking...

• 1:04:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Farting.

• 1:04:24Georgia Hardstark?

  I was gonna say meal service, but yeah.

• 1:04:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Because it's a tri-motor seaplane. It's a little guy with three people in it. Okay, so, all that in mind, on June 17, 1928, Amelia takes off in the seaplane, piloted by a man named Wilmer Stoltz, and co-piloted by a man named Louis Gordon. But after 20 hours and 40 minutes of flight time, when they finally land in Wales, it's Amelia who steps off the plane and into instant celebrity.

• 1:04:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Hey, girl.

• 1:04:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Thousands of people are there, waiting to catch a glimpse of the daring Aviatrix, is what they call her. Amelia Earhart.

• 1:05:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Do you think she slept a moment of that 20 hours and 40 minutes?

• 1:05:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Probably, well, no, probably not, because she was probably thrilled out of her mind, scared shitless. And it was super loud and cold and windy.

• 1:05:15Georgia Hardstark?

  And there was no bar cart.

• 1:05:17Karen Kilgariff?

  She just has a little flask that she's sipping out of, from a straw. So newspapers run countless glowing features and newsreels declaring her the, quote, "Lady Lindbergh." It's the exact type of publicity George has worked so hard for, because now he wants Amelia to write a memoir that he can then turn into the bestseller. So it's, this is my experience doing it. George urges her to quit her job back in Boston, move into his New York home and crank out this book. That's exactly how Lindbergh did it. So he wants her to do it the same way. Amelia knows that if she does that, she can parlay all the attention into some real money, which then she can use to support her family and pay for her expensive flying lessons.

• 1:05:57Georgia Hardstark?

  She's the original aviator influencer.

• 1:06:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 1:06:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Hashtag.

• 1:06:01Karen Kilgariff?

  For sure. And also you see these, let me show you some of these early pictures. She's a gorgeous young woman. She has freckles in her bob hair or whatever. But she's like.

• 1:06:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, she's the cutest.

• 1:06:13Karen Kilgariff?

  She truly has that face card.

• 1:06:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:16Karen Kilgariff?

  That they're all looking for. And on top of all that, it's going to give her a platform to share the message she's carried within her since childhood, which is that women can do anything men can do.

• 1:06:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Awesome.

• 1:06:25Karen Kilgariff?

  In the 20s, when no one was trying to say shit, they were like, I'm going to smoke a cigarette.

• 1:06:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Jazz cigarette.

• 1:06:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Jazz. So Amelia upends her entire life in Boston and starts writing a book that will eventually be titled, quote, 20 hours, 40 minutes. In it, there's a section titled, Women in Aviation. And in that Amelia writes, quote, "While this chapter is called Women in Aviation, just as appropriate, a title might have been, Women Outside of Aviation. There should be no line between men and women so far as piloting is concerned."

• 1:06:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Got it, like a female pilot. Nope, just a pilot.

• 1:07:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Just a pilot.

• 1:07:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Yep. Amelia's sister Muriel will later say that Amelia was embarrassed that her claim to fame was being a passenger on that transatlantic flight, which seems backed up by Amelia's own words. She was quoted as saying, "The boys did all the flying."

• 1:07:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:18Karen Kilgariff?

  That is embarrassing.

• 1:07:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:19Karen Kilgariff?

  For her, who is a pilot.

• 1:07:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, get your own Vespa.

• 1:07:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Get your. She also describes herself on that flight as, quote, "Just baggage, like a sack of potatoes."

• 1:07:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, God, that had a sting.

• 1:07:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, I think it's, she's the kind of person that's like, if you're going to applaud for me this much, just wait until you see me fly.

• 1:07:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Right, this is nothing.

• 1:07:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. She also teases her dream of the future by saying, quote, "Maybe someday I'll try it alone." So now it's 1932, Amelia's in her mid 30s and America's in the throes of the Great Depression. But Amelia's done extremely well for herself over the past few years. She's gotten paid endorsements from brands like Lucky Strike. And she's become the aviation editor of Cosmopolitan magazine.

• 1:08:01Georgia Hardstark?

  That's made up.

• 1:08:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, it is.

• 1:08:02Georgia Hardstark?

  But I love it.

• 1:08:03Karen Kilgariff?

  But that's how much of a trend flying was at the time, which is great.

• 1:08:07Georgia Hardstark?

  You gotta get those sponsorships, man.

• 1:08:09Karen Kilgariff?

  That's right.

• 1:08:10Georgia Hardstark?

  We in podcasting, understand.

• 1:08:11Karen Kilgariff?

  You're truly right about her being the original plane influencer. So at that point, she'd made enough money to buy herself a brand new plane, which is the now iconic fire engine red Lockheed Vega. Amelia is also still devoted to empowering women. She is the founding member and the first president of a group called the 99s, which is the first ever organization for women in aviation. The 99 refers to the number of the group's charter members.

• 1:08:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Amazing.

• 1:08:41Karen Kilgariff?

  So good.

• 1:08:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. What if it was like 23, the 23s, it doesn't sound the same. The 99s is fucking.

• 1:08:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Almost 100. On a more personal level, Amelia's father Edwin has passed away of cancer. And George Putnam, her publisher, has divorced his wife. He professes his love for her and proposes.

• 1:09:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, I wish I could have seen that.

• 1:09:04Karen Kilgariff?

  She says no. He asks again and he ends up proposing to her six different times.

• 1:09:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 1:09:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Love him, love her.

• 1:09:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Love it.

• 1:09:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Amelia has been skeptical of marriage all her life for a very good reason. But she genuinely cares for George. So she eventually accepts, but she has her conditions. She tells him she's gonna keep her own name, which at that time was unheard of.

• 1:09:28Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm just, that's incredible. As someone who kept her own name, I want to thank her for fucking blazing the way.

• 1:09:34Karen Kilgariff?

  She blazed it. And then on her wedding day, she won't wear a traditional bridal gown. She wears a brown suit.

• 1:09:42Georgia Hardstark?

  What?

• 1:09:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Just like Fisk.

• 1:09:45Georgia Hardstark?

  She's like, let me just go to work today.

• 1:09:47Karen Kilgariff?

  She's like, here's the thing.

• 1:09:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:49Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm not wearing your stupid fucking dress. And she also, the morning of their wedding, writes him a letter, which I really love, that says, quote, "I may have to keep some place where I can go to be by myself now and then. I cannot guarantee to endure at all times the confinement of even an attractive cage."

• 1:10:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my God. Like, he loved that about her, you know?

• 1:10:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 1:10:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Like, why he loved her is like, that's so incredible.

• 1:10:15Karen Kilgariff?

  I think so.

• 1:10:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:16Karen Kilgariff?

  This is my opinion, when you are raised feral, it's hard to even want to have anything traditional, even when the pressure to do it is so oppressive, because it's like, it was literally, she had the kind of household where it's like, go outside and play

• 1:10:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 1:10:31Karen Kilgariff?

  for 18 hours, because everything is so fucked in here.

• 1:10:34Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:35Karen Kilgariff?

  And so then it's like, yeah, I don't want to go back.

• 1:10:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Why would I tie myself back to this?

• 1:10:39Karen Kilgariff?

  That structure that I can't trust. If I couldn't trust my own father, how can I trust you?

• 1:10:43Georgia Hardstark?

  I completely identify with that.

• 1:10:46Karen Kilgariff?

  And George Putnam's like, I get it, I'll just keep asking you.

• 1:10:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:51Karen Kilgariff?

  But also, a brown suit on your wedding day is just like badass to a degree where she's like, that isn't just like, I'm not gonna be traditional, she's like, fuck you, finishing school professor.

• 1:11:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. Apologies to anyone who thought they were actually gonna play this for their children in the backseat of the car. Like, it was never going to happen.

• 1:11:09Karen Kilgariff?

  We were lying to you, but more importantly, we were lying directly to your children.

• 1:11:13Georgia Hardstark?

  And you were lying to yourself, if you fucking thought.

• 1:11:15Karen Kilgariff?

  We screamed fuck you.

• 1:11:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:18Karen Kilgariff?

  So, around the same year she gets married, which is 1932, she publishes her second book. That one's called The Fun of It.

• 1:11:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Cute.

• 1:11:26Karen Kilgariff?

  I love that one.

• 1:11:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Kiki.

• 1:11:27Karen Kilgariff?

  She also announces with that, that she's gonna fly across the Atlantic again, but this time as a pilot, and this time by herself.

• 1:11:34Georgia Hardstark?

  No.

• 1:11:35Karen Kilgariff?

  At the time, no one, no man or woman, aside from Charles Lindbergh back in 1927, had ever completed a solo, non-stop, transatlantic flight, although 10 pilots had died trying.

• 1:11:46Georgia Hardstark?

  No.

• 1:11:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Don't like those odds.

• 1:11:49Karen Kilgariff?

  So she's like, uh, uh, uh.

• 1:11:51Georgia Hardstark?

  10 male pilots.

• 1:11:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Step away. Yes, exactly. So immediately, Amelia's inner circle, including her husband, George Putnam, start wondering if she's experienced enough to pull off this stunt. Her own mechanic gives her, quote, "a one in 100 chance of surviving."

• 1:12:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Cool dude, way to fucking be supportive.

• 1:12:11Karen Kilgariff?

  It reminds me of when the fucking Eagles were like, "We don't want to tour with Linda Ronstadt. We're gonna start our own band." Like, fuck you.

• 1:12:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Go ahead, see how it fucking goes.

• 1:12:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Good luck, she's selling out fucking stadiums, anyway. God, that documentary, I loved it so much, but it, it, it filled me with a fury that will never go away.

• 1:12:28Georgia Hardstark?

  That was the point.

• 1:12:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, she wasn't good enough.

• 1:12:30Georgia Hardstark?

  You need it, you need that fury.

• 1:12:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. So the idea of making a transatlantic flight alone makes Amelia Earhart feel alive.

• 1:12:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, I was gonna be like, "Take a beta blocker." You're nervous.

• 1:12:42Karen Kilgariff?

  She's like, "I can't, this day-to-day bullshit isn't good enough, I need to get up and over there."

• 1:12:47Georgia Hardstark?

  What did she do to hype herself up before? Because before I came in here to record, I put on Yes, Anne by Arlen Grande. Like, just to record a podcast that I've done for fucking nine years and I still knew that. Like, what did she do? Secrets being revealed.

• 1:13:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. Well, here's, I can tell you, she writes a poem that says, quote, "Courage is the price that life extracts for granting peace."

• 1:13:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Hmm.

• 1:13:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Think about it.

• 1:13:13Georgia Hardstark?

  I can't.

• 1:13:14Karen Kilgariff?

  You gotta pay, you must. So on a warm May morning, I added in "warm," I don't know why, on a May morning in 1932, Amelia takes off from Canada's east coast in her Lockheed Vega. From the start, it's an exhausting, difficult journey. Author Doris L. Rich writes, quote, "She was four hours out when she ran into a storm. She would go high and the plane would ice. Then she'd go down until she could see the waves to get the ice off."

• 1:13:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Whoa.

• 1:13:42Karen Kilgariff?

  How fucking scary would it be? She had no radio contact with anyone. The manifold on her engine broke and the flames from the backfire from it were coming out. There was a gas cage over her head that began to leak and the gasoline was dripping down over her forehead and into one eye." End quote.

• 1:13:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Just crashed the whole thing into the sea.

• 1:14:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:00Georgia Hardstark?

  That's what I would do.

• 1:14:01Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, well... After 15 grueling hours of flight time, Amelia Earhart lands her plane safely in Northern Ireland.

• 1:14:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Amazing.

• 1:14:09Karen Kilgariff?

  And this solo flight launches her to all new levels of worldwide stardom.

• 1:14:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 1:14:14Karen Kilgariff?

  She's mobbed by fans in London and Paris. And when she comes back to the United States, her success is felt as a much-needed moment of national joy, because it's still the Great Depression.

• 1:14:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:26Karen Kilgariff?

  She even gets her own ticker-tape parade in New York City.

• 1:14:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Influencer.

• 1:14:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Have you ever seen ticker-tape parade footage?

• 1:14:31Georgia Hardstark?

  It looks so messy.

• 1:14:33Karen Kilgariff?

  It looks so awesome, though. Like, if you're down there and everyone's just throwing shit out the window and like, it's just such a true moment of glory.

• 1:14:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Everybody got to focus on that.

• 1:14:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Then the guy has to clean it up.

• 1:14:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, true.

• 1:14:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Why do I think that way? Go on.

• 1:14:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Some people like cleaning.

• 1:14:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay, so, a few months later, she then becomes the first woman to fly across North America and back. Amelia is now a global icon through and through. I also wonder how much of that is like, "I'm proving I'm not a passenger," over and over again.

• 1:15:04Georgia Hardstark?

  For sure. That's like the best way to like, get yourself to do something. For me, it's like, "Oh, you don't think I can't do that? You think I'm a passenger?"

• 1:15:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Or to myself of like, "Oh, you're really ashamed because you had that one comedy set that was terrible that you're remembering from seven years ago? Well, then I'm gonna go out there and be the best." I think shame works.

• 1:15:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Shame is a great motivator.

• 1:15:23Karen Kilgariff?

  But being a career aviator, even when you're a famous one, takes a ton of money. So Amelia hits the lecture circuit. She goes on tour making exhausting back-to-back town-by-town appearances. Tell me about it.

• 1:15:37Georgia Hardstark?

  TED Talks. OG TED Talks.

• 1:15:41Karen Kilgariff?

  She's got like the head mic, but it's not connected to anything.

• 1:15:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Because there's no such thing.

• 1:15:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Like, what's that thing by her mouth? Sometimes she earned $2,400 in a single week.

• 1:15:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 1:15:53Karen Kilgariff?

  In two days' money. 1932, how much would $2,400 a week be?

• 1:16:00Georgia Hardstark?

  $76,000.

• 1:16:01Karen Kilgariff?

  $55,000.

• 1:16:03Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm in the area.

• 1:16:04Karen Kilgariff?

  $55,000 a week.

• 1:16:06Georgia Hardstark?

  That's insane. That's insane. She started the first podcast.

• 1:16:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. She's also using her platform to campaign for women's empowerment, not only in aviation, but she's trying to get the Equal Rights Amendment passed.

• 1:16:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Girl, like, don't rest. I love it.

• 1:16:22Karen Kilgariff?

  She's invited to the White House in 1933. She becomes tight with the Roosevelts. Brag, brag, brag.

• 1:16:28Georgia Hardstark?

  So fucking cool.

• 1:16:29Karen Kilgariff?

  A not-so-fun fact about the Equal Rights Amendment, though: Advocates have been fighting to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment since the 20s.

• 1:16:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Even though it's already met the required number of state ratifications, for some reason, it still has not been added to the US Constitution.

• 1:16:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Imagine being invited to the White House and wanting to go and being like, proud to go.

• 1:16:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Can you, like, the Roosevelts? Fuck yeah, I'd go. Imagine.

• 1:16:56Karen Kilgariff?

  It's just such the end of an era.

• 1:16:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:58Karen Kilgariff?

  But the, it's an end of an era, and what I'm talking about is democracy. Fucking, Jesus.

• 1:17:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my god, okay.

• 1:17:07Karen Kilgariff?

  1933 is a big year for Amelia, also because she breaks her own speed record on a second flight across North America. She's just getting it done.

• 1:17:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Nice.

• 1:17:16Karen Kilgariff?

  By 1935, 38-year-old Amelia has set records for solo flights from, like, Honolulu to Oakland, California, or LA to Mexico City. That's just a couple of them.

• 1:17:27Georgia Hardstark?

  I've done those.

• 1:17:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Right? And solo, you mean, you just weren't talking events? She's also campaigning for FDR, and she launches her own fashion line called Amelia Fashion.

• 1:17:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Called Brown Suits.

• 1:17:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Called Brown Suits Only. She explains-

• 1:17:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Ooh, if you could find one of those in the vintage shop, if you're like, doing vintage shopping, and then suddenly you see fucking Amelia Earhart fashion.

• 1:17:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Buy Amelia.

• 1:17:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Dude.

• 1:17:50Karen Kilgariff?

  So, the theory was that all flight clothing, of course, had been made for men up to that point.

• 1:17:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 1:17:55Karen Kilgariff?

  So when you had your nice jodhpurs, or your weird white shirt, or whatever, leather jacket.

• 1:17:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, like horse ridings.

• 1:18:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, so, so the idea was, they were supposed to be, and of course, she always preferred pants, anyway. So, I looked up on AmeliaEarhart.org, and they had pictures from the newspaper of the ad of it, and it said, "Sports clothes designed by Amelia Earhart." But then, every single picture in that- Ad was models wearing dresses. There was not one pair of pants.

• 1:18:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Which I was like.

• 1:18:25Georgia Hardstark?

  She never got a say in that.

• 1:18:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Nah.

• 1:18:27Georgia Hardstark?

  She sold her name.

• 1:18:28Karen Kilgariff?

  That's true. As busy as she is, Amelia still gets the itch to make another big flight. So she writes to her friends saying, quote, "I have the feeling there's just one more good flight left in my system, and I hope this is it. It is my swan song as far as record flying is concerned, my frosting on the cake."

• 1:18:45Georgia Hardstark?

  God, rest on your beautiful laurels sometimes, guys.

• 1:18:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Sorry, I can't join adult children of alcoholics, so I'm gonna go ahead and keep on flying across this.

• 1:18:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Take a nice little nap on them laurels.

• 1:18:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Can't do it. So the next year, 1936, Amelia announces her plan to fly around the world. If successful, she'll be the first woman to ever do it, obviously. She and George fundraise for a brand new plane that's built specifically for this journey. They pay for it too, but they're, it's so expensive. It's eighty thousand dollars.

• 1:19:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 1:19:17Karen Kilgariff?

  So they need to fundraise. Eighty thousand dollars back then is about how much in today's money?

• 1:19:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Three hundred fifty thousand.

• 1:19:24Karen Kilgariff?

  One point eight million.

• 1:19:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Dude, I've learned nothing.

• 1:19:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Your, your scale just went like that a little bit.

• 1:19:30Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't know what's happening.

• 1:19:31Karen Kilgariff?

  So she calls this plane her flying laboratory because it's outfitted with all the latest technology, but she never learns to use much of it. Doris L. Rich writes, quote, "Amelia did not like radio communication. There's absolutely no doubt about it. That's like me and emails. It's such, it's so bad for business." She not only didn't bother to learn it, she didn't really find it necessary. There's a hint here of the ego that all great explorers and adventurers have. They have a certain faith that they're going to make it.

• 1:20:04Georgia Hardstark?

  And when you spend one point and something on a fucking plane, you'd hope it like flies itself just a little bit.

• 1:20:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, you would hope there's an automated aspect to it.

• 1:20:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Something.

• 1:20:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Amelia wants to do the trip by herself, but it's eventually decided she will need a team, being that she doesn't like radio communication and all, so she hires three men. A technical advisor named Paul Mance, a marine navigator with radio operation experience named Harry Manning, and a former Pan Am navigator named Fred Noonan. So on March 17th, 1937, they take off from Oakland, California. They land in Honolulu. Then on March 20th, they take off for the second leg of this trip, but something goes wrong. The plane skids off course at the end of the runway and it crashes. It's a big enough accident that the plane has to be sent in for extensive repairs. So, this is a deeply stressful moment for Amelia.

• 1:20:57Karen Kilgariff?

  She's basically gambled everything on this extraordinarily expensive flight during a national financial crisis.

• 1:21:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:21:05Karen Kilgariff?

  So Doris L. Rich writes, quote, "After she cracked up the plane in Honolulu, she felt fear for the first time. The immensity of this project suddenly hit her. She knew that if she lost that plane or failed in this, she and George were dead broke, both of them." End quote. You can tell Doris L. Rich is writing from like, it's probably 1945 or something.

• 1:21:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:26Karen Kilgariff?

  That's the vibe I get.

• 1:21:27Georgia Hardstark?

  This is gonna happen.

• 1:21:28Karen Kilgariff?

  They're dead broke, both of them. So, the crash in Honolulu also rattles Amelia's loved ones. According to BBS, friends urge her to abandon this mission. They also express concern over her exhausted and anxious mental state.

• 1:21:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:44Karen Kilgariff?

  So it seems like she's kind of pushing it anyway, even though she's scared or she's worried.

• 1:21:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 1:21:50Karen Kilgariff?

  This includes her husband, George, who writes her a letter promising that they'll figure things out should she abandon the flight.

• 1:21:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, there's time.

• 1:21:57Karen Kilgariff?

  It's okay. But Amelia won't give in.

• 1:21:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Give in and regroup a little bit and then come back stronger than ever.

• 1:22:03Karen Kilgariff?

  I feel like, this is that kind of thing, you know, there are people who are like, if you're a serious workaholic, you just can't consider taking a nap during the day.

• 1:22:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Right. That thing of like, rest is for the weak and it's like, actually? It's a beautiful thing to give to yourself and it's okay.

• 1:22:16Karen Kilgariff?

  It is okay, but sometimes you just can't, because if you rest, that means like, your momentum will slow, even if it's just your mental momentum. And clearly, she's still on that sled, still going under that horse-drawn carriage.

• 1:22:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, but then it won't go away. You can still come back after it and like, you're gonna be more clear-headed and you're gonna be older and smarter and like, give yourself a fucking break sometimes.

• 1:22:39Karen Kilgariff?

  No.

• 1:22:41Georgia Hardstark?

  And that shows why Karen CEO and I don't have a fucking office at Exactly Right Media.

• 1:22:47Karen Kilgariff?

  It's not good.

• 1:22:48Georgia Hardstark?

  It's not.

• 1:22:48Karen Kilgariff?

  It is not good.

• 1:22:49Georgia Hardstark?

  It's not. And she has two podcasts.

• 1:22:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Good. And I'm gonna start a third. And it's called It's Fine to Do This to Yourself.

• 1:22:59Georgia Hardstark?

  It's fine.

• 1:23:00Karen Kilgariff?

  It's fine. That actually would be funny.

• 1:23:02Georgia Hardstark?

  It's fine.

• 1:23:03Karen Kilgariff?

  A podcast called It's Fine and you just have people come on and talk about shit that is so not okay.

• 1:23:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Right, that they put themselves through.

• 1:23:09Karen Kilgariff?

  It's fine.

• 1:23:10Georgia Hardstark?

  It was fine. I was fine.

• 1:23:11Karen Kilgariff?

  No, I liked it. It was fine. By the time the plane is repaired, Amelia's team has shrunk. The technical advisor Paul and Harry the marine navigator, the only guy with radio experience, both back out.

• 1:23:24Georgia Hardstark?

  They were like later days.

• 1:23:25Karen Kilgariff?

  They're like, read the fates.

• 1:23:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, I'm gonna go take a nap.

• 1:23:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, it's nap time.

• 1:23:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Mercury is in retrograde.

• 1:23:32Karen Kilgariff?

  So now it's Amelia and Fred Noonan. Thanks to changing weather patterns, they're forced to come up with a whole new flight plan. So instead of leaving from Hawaii, they're now taking off from Miami, Florida. And on June 1st, 1937, they do just that, this time without a hitch. And then they start on this 40-day, 20,000-mile trip, making several stops to refuel along the way. They soar over Africa, through the Middle East, over Southeast Asia, on to New Guinea. They have another stop before a very long stretch over the Pacific Ocean.

• 1:24:07Georgia Hardstark?

  They're the first people who have ever seen this from the fucking air. Like, how unbelievable.

• 1:24:14Karen Kilgariff?

  On July 2nd, 1937, Amelia and Fred take off from New Guinea. At this point, they've completed nearly three quarters of this journey, and the goal is to now get to a tiny sliver of land called Howland Island, roughly halfway between Australia and Hawaii. Truly out in the middle of the Pacific.

• 1:24:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:33Karen Kilgariff?

  And it's only about a mile and a half long island and a half a mile wide.

• 1:24:38Georgia Hardstark?

  That's a hard target.

• 1:24:39Karen Kilgariff?

  That's a little tiny one. Tragically, Amelia and Fred struggle to find Howland Island. We know they arrive in the general area because Amelia starts radioing the Coast Guard, who have a ship called Itasca nearby, and they're receiving her messages. Some of these transmissions are so crystal clear that the men on the Itasca rush to the decks, thinking that the plane will be overhead.

• 1:25:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 1:25:02Karen Kilgariff?

  In one of her transmissions, Amelia says that she thinks she's close by, but she's lost, and she only has about half an hour of fuel left. But because she doesn't know much about radio transmission, she's sending these messages while on an improper frequency on the radio, so the Coast Guard is only able to respond to her with Morse code, which neither she nor Fred understand.

• 1:25:25Georgia Hardstark?

  That's an important one.

• 1:25:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Lot of crucial.

• 1:25:28Georgia Hardstark?

  You gotta.

• 1:25:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Elements. Let's not criticize Amelia.

• 1:25:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Why not?

• 1:25:34Karen Kilgariff?

  You know where the story goes from here. The messages stop coming in. Thirty-nine-year-old Amelia Earhart and forty-four-year-old Fred Noonan and the plane that they're flying in together disappear. Almost immediately, FDR dispatches a huge crew to go look for them. It's made up of ten ships and sixty-five planes.

• 1:25:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 1:25:55Karen Kilgariff?

  And that causes a lot of controversy. Because it costs millions of dollars.

• 1:25:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 1:25:59Karen Kilgariff?

  It's still the depression. So after two weeks of combing a vast swath of the Pacific Ocean near Howland Island with no results, this search is called off. But George Putnam has his own search going.

• 1:26:12Georgia Hardstark?

  I forgot that. Yeah, okay.

• 1:26:14Karen Kilgariff?

  He funds an independent search himself, and it goes until October of 1937.

• 1:26:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:26:21Karen Kilgariff?

  So he just kind of never stops searching for her.

• 1:26:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:24Karen Kilgariff?

  That also turns up nothing. In January of 1939, two years after vanishing, Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan are legally declared dead.

• 1:26:33Georgia Hardstark?

  They turned up nothing, not a scrap. So they were like, looking in the wrong area.

• 1:26:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Well.

• 1:26:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 1:26:39Karen Kilgariff?

  We'll talk about that in one second.

• 1:26:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 1:26:40Karen Kilgariff?

  There are countless theories of what happened during those final moments of Amelia's last flight. All have devoted supporters.

• 1:26:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:26:47Karen Kilgariff?

  As they usually do. Because the disappearance happened in the lead up to World War II, some people think that Amelia and Fred were captured by the Japanese military after crash landing on a Japanese controlled island. And they were either executed for being American spies, or they were turned into spies for Japan and sent back to the US with new identities.

• 1:27:09Georgia Hardstark?

  No.

• 1:27:09Karen Kilgariff?

  That one's a little wild.

• 1:27:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:11Karen Kilgariff?

  But what if?

• 1:27:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Now we write that movie.

• 1:27:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 1:27:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Another theory is that Amelia wound up on an island called Nikamororo. Sorry for that pronunciation. A 400 miles south of Howland Island.

• 1:27:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Is this where they found her compact?

• 1:27:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Hold on. Wait, wait. They think they might have lived as castaways there before dying of thirst or starvation. Some people believe this theory, then take it one step further, suggesting that massive coconut crabs could have consumed their remains and scattered their bones, making their bodies harder to find.

• 1:27:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay. Those fuckers are big.

• 1:27:47Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, it's such a creepy idea. The island had been inhabited in the past, but it was uninhabited at the time of this flight. Despite this, intermittent radio signals were reported from that general area around the time they disappeared.

• 1:28:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Interesting.

• 1:28:02Karen Kilgariff?

  As if the plane's radio had remained intact and accessible, and they were calling for help.

• 1:28:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Fuck.

• 1:28:07Karen Kilgariff?

  On top of that, in 1940, bones are found on Nikamororo. They have since been lost, so the DNA has never been tested.

• 1:28:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Come on.

• 1:28:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. But again, that island had been inhabited, so there weren't necessarily. There's, searchers have found on that island.

• 1:28:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes.

• 1:28:26Karen Kilgariff?

  A single shoe.

• 1:28:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 1:28:27Karen Kilgariff?

  A piece of aluminum.

• 1:28:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 1:28:29Karen Kilgariff?

  And a jar of freckle cream.

• 1:28:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Freckle cream.

• 1:28:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Which certainly points to a person, and maybe a woman, having been there. And for what it's worth, Amelia Earhart had freckles that she was reportedly very self-conscious about.

• 1:28:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, first of all, it breaks my heart that she is so self-conscious that she brings freckle cream on this like adventure. But then I'm like, I wonder if that was like their SPF at the time? Where it's like you had to cover your freckles with this cream and maybe it wouldn't get worse.

• 1:28:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, it was maybe like, um, two for one, where she's like, I need moisture because this wind's gonna whip around my face.

• 1:29:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Sunscreen. It's an early sunscreen. Okay.

• 1:29:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:06Georgia Hardstark?

  I mean, yeah, it's her, it's theirs. This is it.

• 1:29:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Can you imagine you're just on this island, it's mostly coconut crabs? And then you're just like, pawns, pawns, cold cream.

• 1:29:16Georgia Hardstark?

  What if the cold cream was like a sponsor of the flight? Like, she had to bring it.

• 1:29:20Karen Kilgariff?

  What if it was the sponsor of this podcast?

• 1:29:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh my god, freckle cream.

• 1:29:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Freckle cream.

• 1:29:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Freckle clem.

• 1:29:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Amelia Earhart uses it and you can too. No, because now they love freckles so much that they have little freckle stamps.

• 1:29:33Georgia Hardstark?

  And they have tattoos of freckles on your fucking face.

• 1:29:35Karen Kilgariff?

  The kids these days with their big butts and their freckles and their attitudes. Okay. Those items are never confirmed as belonging to either Fred or Amelia. And modern day efforts to search the surrounding ocean near that island have turned up nothing. Of course, many people think Amelia's plane simply ran out of fuel and crashed into the open ocean because of the sheer size and depth of the Pacific. It hasn't been found. Amelia's sister Muriel thinks this is what happened. Quote, "I'm not happy with some of the dramas about Amelia where they went into fiction." So essentially, of course, that's how it always is.

• 1:30:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes, actually, simple.

• 1:30:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Theorizing, yeah. The hard truth, which presumably was much harder for Muriel, Amelia's mother Amy and her husband George, is that we simply do not know what happened to her. George Putnam died in 1950 at age 62 of kidney problems. Amy, Amelia's mother, died in 1962 at age 95. And her sister Muriel passed away in 1998 at the age of 98.

• 1:30:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 1:30:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. Searchers continued to hunt for any signs of Amelia Earhart or her plane. As recently as 2023, a deep sea exploration group released an underwater sonar image of what they thought was the plane. But in 2024, they discovered it was just a bunch of rocks.

• 1:30:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, no.

• 1:30:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Uh huh, plane shaped rocks. All that in mind, instead of focusing on the mysterious ending of Amelia's story, we can always relish in what we do know about her life and her bold approach to living it. As writer Anthony Brandt has said, quote, "It wasn't that Amelia was willful, rather that she was free. She was calm, fearless, cheerful in the face of life, and she attracted everybody. She believed that women should live lives rich in experience and have careers if they possibly could." Can you imagine? And she lived her belief. She was a remarkable human being, a historic figure, one of those people who, skirting the farthermost edges of experience, open up possibilities

• 1:31:39Karen Kilgariff?

  for us all. And that is the story of pioneering aviatrics Amelia Earhart. Boom. High five for Amelia Earhart. Good job. Thank you. Wow. Had to be done. If you're in the fifth grade and you heard anything I said that was wrong, please write in at [email protected]. Because we know you all have done reports on her. Yeah, we're open to corrections, always. Women should live free. It's insane. Can you imagine? But it really is the truth. It is. That was its own fucking hooray, I feel like. I do, too. Yeah. That was pretty great. Yeah. Pretty great ending. Still send us your fucking hurraies and comment them, but Please. That was it. Yes. This week. We've done all the work we need to do.

• 1:32:24Karen Kilgariff?

  I agree. Great, then stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye.

• 1:32:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Elvis, do you want a cookie? Ahhh.

• 1:32:30Karen Kilgariff?

  This has been an Exactly Right production.

• 1:32:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Our senior producers are Alejandra Keck and Molly Smith.

• 1:32:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.

• 1:32:42Georgia Hardstark?

  This episode was mixed by Liana Scolacci.

• 1:32:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Our researchers are Maren McGlashan and Ali Elkin.

• 1:32:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Email your hometowns to [email protected].

• 1:32:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Follow the show on Instagram at @myfavoritemurder.

• 1:32:52Georgia Hardstark?

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

• 1:32:57Karen Kilgariff?

  And now you can watch us on Exactly Right's YouTube page. While you're there, please like and subscribe. Goodbye.

• 1:33:10Karen Kilgariff?

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

• 1:33:16Georgia Hardstark?

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

• 1:33:22Karen Kilgariff?

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• 1:33:24Georgia Hardstark?

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

• 1:33:29Karen Kilgariff?

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

• 1:33:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Goodbye. You know a favorite M-word? Magnesium.

• 1:33:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Like the kind that's in Dr. Teal's Magnesium Spray.

• 1:33:42Georgia Hardstark?

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

• 1:33:48Karen Kilgariff?

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

• 1:33:53Georgia 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.

• 1:34:00Karen Kilgariff?

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

• 1:34:03Georgia Hardstark?

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

• 1:34:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye. Shopping for your next car can feel overwhelming. There's so many options and you want to make sure you're making the right choice.

• 1:34:16Georgia Hardstark?

  That's where Cars.com comes in.

• 1:34:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Research your options with unbiased expert reviews, guides and comparisons, then shop based on the features that matter most to you.

• 1:34:25Georgia Hardstark?

  You can even see real financing rates and monthly payments to help understand what you can afford.

• 1:34:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Turn endless possibilities into the right car for you.

• 1:34:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Start your search at Cars.com.

• 1:34:35Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye.