488 - It's Finally Happening

On today’s episode, Karen covers the murder spree of Charles Starkweather and Caril Fugate and Georgia tells the story of Iwao Hakamata, Japan’s longest-serving death row prisoner. 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.

• 0:06Speaker 00

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• 0:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, grow up, because it's almost impossible.

• 0:12Speaker 00

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• 0:15Karen Kilgariff?

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• 0:24Speaker 00

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• 0:29Karen Kilgariff?

  New members can start listening with a 30-day free trial at audible.com/mfm.

• 0:34Speaker 00

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• 0:50Karen Kilgariff?

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• 0:57Speaker 00

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• 1:00Karen Kilgariff?

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

• 1:04Speaker 00

  Goodbye.

• 1:22Speaker 00

  Hello.

• 1:24Karen Kilgariff?

  And welcome.

• 1:25Speaker 00

  To my favorite murder.

• 1:26Karen Kilgariff?

  That's Georgia Hart star.

• 1:28Speaker 00

  That's Karen Kilgariff.

• 1:29Karen Kilgariff?

  And we have a secret to share.

• 1:32Speaker 00

  We've had a secret for like, six years to share.

• 1:36Karen Kilgariff?

  But now, we're gonna say it.

• 1:37Speaker 00

  And say it out loud, at the same time. Ready, one, two, three.

• 1:42Karen Kilgariff?

  We're going on tour.

• 1:43Speaker 00

  We said the same thing, yay.

• 1:44Karen Kilgariff?

  We're going on tour. We didn't even have to look at our lines. You've been asking for years and years. It's finally happening. It's a very small tour.

• 1:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, we're going on, oh my God, you guys don't even understand that we've been planning this since before the pandemic and then the pandemic happened, so we couldn't do it.

• 2:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Since 2018 or 19 is the last time we were on the road.

• 2:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, we've changed a lot.

• 2:06Karen Kilgariff?

  And so has the biz.

• 2:08Georgia Hardstark?

  The biz has changed, we've changed.

• 2:10Karen Kilgariff?

  So we're doing like, you could call this a mini tour.

• 2:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes.

• 2:13Karen Kilgariff?

  We're sticking our toe back into the touring pond.

• 2:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Right, and we hope you will come.

• 2:17Karen Kilgariff?

  You know what this makes me think of is like when we first, and we've talked about this a lot, but when we were first on the road, like I wouldn't have my story.

• 2:26Georgia Hardstark?

  I know.

• 2:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Ready. I would be truly writing my story in my hotel room.

• 2:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Yep.

• 2:31Karen Kilgariff?

  No researchers, no support whatsoever, just in my hotel room, being like, putting something together and hoping it all worked out.

• 2:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Yep, that and then to the last minute, when if you don't start putting makeup on right now, you won't have any makeup on.

• 2:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 2:45Georgia Hardstark?

  And then eat something too.

• 2:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:47Georgia Hardstark?

  If you don't do that by then, because your story's not finished, it doesn't matter. You're gonna come out with fucking wet hair.

• 2:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 2:53Georgia Hardstark?

  And no makeup.

• 2:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Which has happened.

• 2:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, so this time it does feel like we're gonna have our stories done ahead of time. We're gonna have help from our lovely researchers.

• 3:01Karen Kilgariff?

  We have the experience of what we don't want anymore, so we can actually communicate what we do want.

• 3:07Georgia Hardstark?

  And we're not going to 800 cities, so we can kind of explore the city we're in too. So all of you that are mad that we're not going to Wichita, just please understand that it's for our mental health sake and our brains sake, and you can come to Chicago. We can't wait to see you in Chicago.

• 3:22Karen Kilgariff?

  And also, we can't start all the way back like we used to, because that's the olden days.

• 3:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 3:30Karen Kilgariff?

  So we have to do mini versions and then see what happens. So it's all about like, is the business there to be done?

• 3:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 3:36Karen Kilgariff?

  And we go from there.

• 3:37Georgia Hardstark?

  I mean, I'm a little nervous. Like, we used to sell out within fucking moments.

• 3:43Speaker 00

  You know what I would like to say too? If I had a dream of one audience member that we could see again, that would come back. And I've talked about him a lot over the years. It's my full-length coat, St. Louis. I believe in my, yes, I think he did have a fan. He had a fan in the front row. And this was like 2018, 2017. I remember him. Early days. Yeah. Fan, full beard, from what I remember. Yes. Full-length coat. Yeah. And truly was acting like he was in church, praise church. Yes. Basically. Or he went to the wrong place. He thought this was church. He had like, I think he had a boa constrictor? Nope. He did not have a boa constrictor on. He had a cockatiel on his shoulder. I think he had a boa on. Yes.

• 4:28Speaker 00

  And lots of glitter. Yes. And it was just very like wonderful front row. Front row there to like support us. Not to be like, what are you gonna give me? He was like, I'm here to absolutely give you everything. Yeah, we're excited for this fan cult. Like, we just made sure that we took care of you as best as we could. We know you guys want tickets to live shows and that's why some people joined. And the drama of people not getting tickets in the past were like, how do we do this so that nobody's upset? Yeah. So hopefully that works. Yeah, this is all like an experiment, so. Yeah. If you're the person with the fan, we're not coming to St. Louis. How are we gonna see you? Let's figure this out. Yeah, we'll get you there. Okay, so here's the tour. These are the cities. Here's where we're coming. Just a couple, just a handful. Get ready.

• 5:11Speaker 00

  So on this mini tour, we're starting off on September 3rd and 4th in beautiful Denver, Colorado, at the Paramount Theater. Nice. And then on September 10th and 11th, we will be in Austin, Texas, at the Bass Concert Hall. And then on September 20th, we'll be in Boston, Mass. at Bach Center Wang Theater. And that'll be two shows, same day, early show, late show, September 20th. Great. And then Salt Lake City, Utah, September 26th and 27th at the Eccles Theater. And then we'll be in Oakland, California, at the Paramount Theater on October 2nd and 3rd. And then on October 7th and 8th, we're at the San Diego Civic Theater. And October 12th, we'll do two shows, an early, late show, at Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in beautiful Portland, Oregon. The Schnitz.

• 5:52Speaker 00

  And then we're gonna go to Seattle, Washington, to play their Paramount Theater on October 21st and 22nd. And then we're back home in LA on October 28th to do an early show and a late show at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium. That's gonna be amazing. I know. I'm very excited. Okay, then, after that, we're going back out on November 5th.

• 6:11Karen Kilgariff?

  To go back to the city where it all began, the first live show ever, Chicago, Illinois. But this time, we're playing the Chicago Theater.

• 6:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Huge. And then we'll wrap it up with two shows on November 15th. We're back in Brooklyn at the Kings Theater, and that's the tour.

• 6:25Karen Kilgariff?

  So here's what you need to know. The Fan Cult will have first access to these tickets. We have gone in and asked them to free up as many pre-sale tickets for the Fan Cult as humanly possible, so that basically the real ones who have been waiting for six years can get a chance to get a ticket.

• 6:43Georgia Hardstark?

  That's right. And so that Fan Cult pre-sale will begin Friday, July 11th. So if you're listening to this episode right now on Thursday, tomorrow at 10 a.m. in the city where the show is, where your local time, if you're in that city.

• 6:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 6:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Friday, July 11th is when Fan Cult pre-sale goes up.

• 6:58Karen Kilgariff?

  That's right. And then basically, the artist pre-sale starts Monday, July 14th at 10 a.m. in the city where the show takes place.

• 7:06Georgia Hardstark?

  So you'll have all weekend Fan Cult to get your ticket until it sells out in the Fan Cult. And then you'll have another chance on Monday. And then everything else that's available is going to go up on Tuesday, July 15th. Again, 10 a.m. where the show takes place. Anything left over that the Fan Cult in the pre-sale didn't sell.

• 7:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Now, just so you know, you can still join the Fan Cult if you're hearing all of this and this sounds exciting and you want to be a part of it. You can still join the Fan Cult to get in on that pre-sale access. You just have to do it kind of quickly so we can send you that unique code to get you into the Fan Cult pre-sale.

• 7:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Lots of odds and ends go to myfavoritemurder.com/live. We finally have something to put on that site for all the information you need and for ticket links. And other Exactly Right media news.

• 7:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Is there other news?

• 7:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Always.

• 7:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Could there be? Yes, we have a network, and so we're telling you about what's going on on Exactly Right this week. Like, for example, over on The Knife, Hannah and Peisha tell the story of Tennyson and Kyle Jacobson, whose lives were shaken by not one, but two targeted home invasions. So Tennyson shares her story and the long road to healing that followed. And actually, this was a listener hometown that was one of the first minisodes we ever did, Minisode 19, we talk about this hometown.

• 8:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Incredible. Over on Ghosted, Roz is celebrating her 100th episode on Exactly Right with the incredible Dwayne Perkins. They dive into spooky Midwest lore, including the white lady of Bachelor's Grove Cemetery and the Tuttle Bottoms monster.

• 8:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Is that real?

• 8:35Georgia Hardstark?

  That's cute.

• 8:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Could it be real? And on I Said No Gifts. Bridger isn't totally horrified when Beck Bennett of SNL fame shows up and gives him a gift. Those two talk about Costco IDs and John Cougar Mellencamp, all the important things of podcasting.

• 8:52Speaker 00

  Love it. And then finally, National Hot Dog Day is coming up. We told you guys to tag us in hot dogs, hot dog stuff for this true crime comedy podcast.

• 9:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, we thought we would really make a meal of focusing on something other than the decline of all of democracy. And we thought maybe just going micro on hot dogs would help.

• 9:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, so hashtag my favorite hot dog was born. And you guys, you really delivered.

• 9:16Karen Kilgariff?

  This is gonna continue on.

• 9:17Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 9:18Karen Kilgariff?

  But let's first just take a look at how people first responded when we were like, my favorite hot dog. Let's see some pictures.

• 9:24Speaker 00

  Okay. Oh, my God. Hot dog and nail art. That's I, that's brilliant.

• 9:28Karen Kilgariff?

  And then you'll like it even more because her finger tattoos say Cat Lady.

• 9:33Speaker 00

  Oh, my God.

• 9:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Like, she's holding up the.

• 9:35Speaker 00

  Cat Lady is so good.

• 9:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Cat Lady with hot dog. I mean, it's like, is that you? Is that you getting a manicure?

• 9:42Speaker 00

  And that's Laura underscore Obsidian Nails.

• 9:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, she's plugging her own nail place.

• 9:47Speaker 00

  Good for her.

• 9:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Very smart.

• 9:48Speaker 00

  Get in there.

• 9:49Karen Kilgariff?

  You can get hot dog nails. Okay, this next one I love. It's from at Megan Lyon on Instagram.

• 9:55Speaker 00

  Oh, my God.

• 9:56Karen Kilgariff?

  And those are hot dog deviled eggs.

• 9:57Speaker 00

  Yes, they are. And that's brilliant. Like, two of my favorite party snacks.

• 10:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Very fun.

• 10:02Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 10:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay, this is hilarious. The caption says, please take a look at the hot dog eating contest slash beauty pageant that some friends of mine put on in Philly a few weeks ago. I'm chuffed to admit I was crowned Miss Glizzy 2025.

• 10:17Speaker 00

  That crown has a hot dog on it, and I am in need of that.

• 10:22Karen Kilgariff?

  These people that submitted this are at Young Money and at Sloppy Seconds underscore Philly. So.

• 10:29Speaker 00

  Matches.

• 10:30Karen Kilgariff?

  These are our friends in Philadelphia.

• 10:31Speaker 00

  Hell, yeah, you guys.

• 10:32Karen Kilgariff?

  It's a beauty contest.

• 10:34Speaker 00

  I love it.

• 10:34Karen Kilgariff?

  Hot dog eating contest.

• 10:35Speaker 00

  That's great.

• 10:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 10:36Speaker 00

  Get those nails in there.

• 10:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 10:37Speaker 00

  And then, oh.

• 10:39Georgia Hardstark?

  This place is called Weinerlicious. I was just in Mackinac City, Michigan.

• 10:43Karen Kilgariff?

  No.

• 10:44Georgia Hardstark?

  And I didn't see this somehow.

• 10:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Are you being serious?

• 10:46Georgia Hardstark?

  I swear, Vincent and I went to Mackinac Island and hung out in Mackinac City.

• 10:49Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, that's cool.

• 10:50Georgia Hardstark?

  And I missed the giant hot dog on top of a hot dog place.

• 10:54Karen Kilgariff?

  You missed a 50-foot hot dog on a roof.

• 10:57Georgia Hardstark?

  So, Michigan?

• 10:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Michigan gets it.

• 10:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, way to show up and show out.

• 11:00Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm not surprised at all.

• 11:02Georgia Hardstark?

  And this photo came from Dawn Chaser underscore on Instagram.

• 11:05Karen Kilgariff?

  This one is a great story. After a rowdy night of chugging Bud Light Premium and UV Blue, I don't know what that is, and making bad decisions, I decided to make the right decision and pass out with my trusty rusty hot dog and bottled water. This photo has become legend and is still brought up way too often 13 years later.

• 11:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 11:25Karen Kilgariff?

  This is from Emmert Famgram.

• 11:28Georgia Hardstark?

  That's a great thing to just keep sending your friend, like, on her wedding day when she's like, becomes a parent or whatever, send her this photo of her sleeping on the floor with a hot dog in her hand.

• 11:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Also, the other friend that's pretending to come and eat like yin and yang of hot dog eating is hilarious. Oh, this is the last one.

• 11:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 11:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Read that one, because you're gonna love this.

• 11:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay. This one's a bunch of people in uniforms eating corn dogs, and the subject line is "Corn Dog Royalty." Hello, ladies, this is my time to shine. My grandfather used to run one of the largest corn dog factories in the Midwest.

• 11:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 12:00Georgia Hardstark?

  They made lots of frozen foods, but the corn dogs were king. Featured in this photo is my mom, dad, and grandpa at the factory doing a taste test. Yes. I guess you could say I'm literally corn dog royalty.

• 12:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Corn dog royalty.

• 12:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Much love, Taylor. Incredible.

• 12:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Taylor, amazing job. I mean, there's so many ways to participate in this.

• 12:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. And you have till the 16th, which is National Hot Dog Day, so just tag us, hashtag my favorite hot dog.

• 12:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, we just keep talking about it. I feel like you have until December 25th and further. It's never not relevant, right?

• 12:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, what's gonna usurp Hot Dog Day?

• 12:33Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, once we get past summertime Hot Dog Day, it's like, well, how do we attack Hot Dog Day for fall?

• 12:39Speaker 00

  It's cold. Where's my?

• 12:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Hmm.

• 12:41Speaker 00

  It's autumn. It's autumnal. Where's my autumnal hot dog?

• 12:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Where is my jacket that looks like a bun when I wear all rust-colored red?

• 12:48Speaker 00

  And you zip it all the way up?

• 12:49Karen Kilgariff?

  With a yellow zipper.

• 12:50Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 12:52Karen Kilgariff?

  We'll keep doing it. We'll keep going.

• 12:53Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 12:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, well, then, I think we can actually, literally button this topic by telling everybody, that's right, you can get a My Favorite Murder hot dog pin.

• 13:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Pretty legendary.

• 13:04Speaker 00

  We have hot dog merch, because of course we do.

• 13:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. If you like the T-shirt we made, you can now get a pin.

• 13:09Speaker 00

  You can get that at ExactlyRightStore.com, and it's designed by Sammy Rich, our friend.

• 13:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Put that on your hot dog apron. I mean, between hot dogs and touring, I don't know.

• 13:18Speaker 00

  I don't have anything else.

• 13:19Karen Kilgariff?

  What more can we give the people?

• 13:21Speaker 00

  Truly.

• 13:21Karen Kilgariff?

  True crime?

• 13:22Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 13:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay. In the spirit of true, true crime, this is one of the most, I would say, classic, kind of, known American true crime cases that we have, that we've never covered, which is super weird.

• 13:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:35Karen Kilgariff?

  This story takes place between January 21st and January 29th of 1958, and in those eight days, 10 people were brutally murdered. By the time the police took these killers into custody, the rapt and terrified public had been hanging on to every word in the increasingly frenzied press coverage. This case struck such an immediate nerve, not just because of the sheer violence of these murders, but because of who the killers were. Sadly, these days, we're used to hearing about teenagers committing acts of violence, but in the 1950s, it was almost unthinkable.

• 14:11Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:12Karen Kilgariff?

  And since then, this case has inspired countless documentaries, movies, music, including Terrence Malick's classic movie Badlands, Quentin Tarantino's script for Natural Born Killers, which was directed by Oliver Stone, and of course, the titular song from Bruce Springsteen's album, Nebraska. Today, I'm gonna tell you about the notorious mid-century crime spree of Midwestern teens, Charles Starkweather and Carol Ann Fugate.

• 14:38Speaker 00

  Right.

• 14:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Infamous.

• 14:40Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 14:41Karen Kilgariff?

  So the main sources that Maren used are the book Starkweather: The Untold Story of the Killing Spree That Changed America by Harry N. McLean, and the book Starkweather: A Story of Mass Murder on the Great Plains by Jeff O'Donnell. And the rest of the sources are in our show notes. So Charles Starkweather is born in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1938. He's the third of seven children. His family struggles financially, but unlike many of the murders we've covered on this show, Charlie actually has a good relationship with his parents and his siblings. And over the years, as people try to figure out the why of this basically murder spree, many people say it's because Charlie was bullied as a child.

• 15:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Of course, doesn't justify anything, but it is true that he was bullied. He is a redhead. He's much shorter than the boys his age. He's bow legged. He has a lisp. He's nearsighted, so he has very thick glasses. Didn't stand a chance back in the 50s. I mean, there's no kindness campaigns that your junior high is like putting into the hallway. Right. In the least. He is teased and bullied relentlessly. But like many people that kind of go through something like this, by the time he's in junior high, he starts standing up to his bullies. His dad tells him basically not to take other people's shit. The problem is that Charlie seems to take this way too far.

• 16:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Cause once he starts fighting back, he seems to enjoy beating up other kids. And he always plays dirty. He's the type who keeps on kicking someone even when they're already down. He also develops an obsession with the movie star James Dean. So if you've never seen the movie Rebel Without a Cause, have you seen that movie? Yeah. James Dean looks like an alien from the future in that movie. Whereas everybody else is very like 50s and kind of, you know, that kind of acting. Button up and. Yeah. And very kind of like, what do you mean, father or whatever? James Dean comes in and it's like, he's from now. Yeah. Going back in time. Yeah. It's incredible. It's incredible. My Aunt Kathleen, God rest her soul, she was one of the coolest dance of all time, but

• 16:50Karen Kilgariff?

  she made sure to show us things that she loved like that. Oh, I love that. So she sat us all down when we were like in junior high and was like, you have to watch this movie. Amazing. So then we had posters of James Dean in our room and. Yeah. We're all about it. Cute. So it makes sense that kind of why he would go, that's who I'm gonna be and that's what I'm gonna act like then. So of course, Charlie Starkweather starts smoking because James Dean smokes. He walks and talks like James Dean. He wants people to see him as this kind of like rebellious bad boy. And of course, usually that means girls. Right. So in 1956, when Charlie's 17 years old, he gets to go on a double date with his friend

• 17:33Karen Kilgariff?

  and his friend's girlfriend and his friend's girlfriend's younger sister. That younger sister's name is Carol Ann Fugate, and she is, brace yourself, 12 years old. Insane. So Carol's family also lives in Lincoln, but her early life is very difficult and unstable. It's kind of awful. She grows up very poor. Her family moves around a lot. And then when she's slightly older, her father gets sent to prison after being convicted on multiple pedophilia charges. Oh dear. So she has a very difficult early childhood. She does not do well in school. She struggles to develop close friendships, and she develops a tough outer shell because of that.

• 18:14Karen Kilgariff?

  When she's around 10 years old, her mom, Velda, remarries a man named Marion Bartlett. And by all accounts, this man is a decent guy, a World War II vet who doesn't drink. He becomes a stable father figure for Carol and for her siblings. And soon after they get married, her mom and her new stepdad have a baby together named Betty Ann, and Carol loves this baby. So Carol keeps her biological father's last name Fugate, but for the rest of the story, I will call them the Bartlett family. So basically Carol's childhood is finally stabilizing. She starts making friends at school. Her grades go up, and then she goes on the double date with her older sister

• 18:58Karen Kilgariff?

  and is introduced to Charles Starkweather. Of course, Carol's drawn in by this bad boy reputation that he has, and as all bad boys do, he makes her feel like the most important girl in the world. He probably doesn't have to do much. She's 12 years old. Right. As impressionable as you possibly can be. And she probably loves James Dean too, so she's like, great. Yes, he's here. I remember one of the graduation parties we went to in this graduation party summer. I watched across the yard as basically a 12-year-old girl was in a group with this boy who's 17, who's like the family. The families who's having the party.

• 19:39Karen Kilgariff?

  And this little girl did everything she could to get his attention, including like hitting him and blah, blah, blah and this and whatever. And I was just sitting at this table being like, there's nothing you can do about being that age. And there's nothing you can do about that phase of that age.

• 19:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Where you're suddenly, you're just are like, I love him.

• 19:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:58Karen Kilgariff?

  I need him to look at me again.

• 19:59Speaker 00

  Yes, I hate it.

• 20:00Karen Kilgariff?

  It's so humiliating.

• 20:01Speaker 00

  I hate it.

• 20:02Karen Kilgariff?

  And we all do it.

• 20:03Speaker 00

  We all did it.

• 20:04Karen Kilgariff?

  We all do it.

• 20:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:05Karen Kilgariff?

  So it's especially painful to think about her being in this situation. And then what, what's the truth of this situation? Cause we actually don't know really to this day, what the real truth of the situation was.

• 20:19Speaker 00

  I have my opinions about it for sure.

• 20:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Ooh.

• 20:21Speaker 00

  But.

• 20:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, let's hash it out. So everything changes after this double date. Obviously she's on top of the world, but Charlie's bad boy reputation is because he's a bad boy. So right after this double date, he finds out Carol has a crush on another boy. So Charlie goes and threatens to kill that boy unless he stops talking to Carol.

• 20:41Speaker 00

  Jesus.

• 20:42Karen Kilgariff?

  This boy's a seventh grader who's like, I'll never talk to her. What are you talking about?

• 20:46Speaker 00

  Oh, my God.

• 20:46Karen Kilgariff?

  And I'm, I'm not invested in this.

• 20:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:48Karen Kilgariff?

  So of course Carol's parents hate Charlie Starkweather. Her stepfather Marion in particular, he is not polite or shy about that fact. They don't want to push Carol away. They know she's going to do whatever she wants to do. So Velma and Marion have to put up with this annoying rude James Dean fanatic, just kind of hanging around their 12 year old daughter all the time.

• 21:11Speaker 00

  Oh, Jesus, I couldn't.

• 21:12Karen Kilgariff?

  And also these days, I think we know that that behavior, like everything is seen it through such a different lens.

• 21:18Speaker 00

  It's predatory now, we know that.

• 21:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 21:20Speaker 00

  Not now, but it's, we now know that it's predatory.

• 21:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Right. And we now know that girls shouldn't maybe get married when they're 15 years old, just because that's kind of what everyone is doing.

• 21:29Speaker 00

  Right.

• 21:30Karen Kilgariff?

  So it's December, it's 1957. Charlie and Carol have been dating for about a year and a half. So Carol's now 14 and Charlie's 19. He's still obsessive about her. So it's the holidays and one afternoon Charlie goes out shopping for presents and he stops at a gas station in Lincoln and it's one he hangs out at from time to time. He sees a stuffed dog for sale at this gas station and he wants to buy it for Carol. He doesn't have the money, so he asks the gas station attendant if he can put it on credit. The attendant that day is a 21-year-old man named Robert Colvert and he says, no, he can only take cash. So Charlie's forced to leave empty-handed and of course, he's furious.

• 22:13Karen Kilgariff?

  He's so furious that for the rest of the night, he keeps coming back to the gas station over and over. The first time, he buys something small, he leaves again, he comes back, he buys something else. The whole time, he's just, the anger is building. And in the last round of this, Charlie comes back to the gas station with a gun and he turns it on the cashier. He demands money from the till and then he kidnaps Robert, the cashier. He drives him out to the middle of nowhere and he shoots him in the head multiple times and then dumps the body. Jesus. So the body's discovered just a few hours later, but for some reason, the police immediately assume a transient is responsible for this murder. Right. So it's the kind of thing of like, it can't happen in our town. Right.

• 22:57Karen Kilgariff?

  So for the next several days, a normally broke Charlie suddenly is flush with cash. He's spending most of it on Carol and at the same time, he is taking steps to cover up his crime. So he reads a lot of true crime and detective magazines. He knows that he should paint his truck a different color in case any eyewitnesses saw it at the gas station that night. He changes his tires so in case they take tire tracks from, you know, he does everything he can to cover it up. But basically, he has now crossed a line that he can never come back from. This is robbery, kidnapping, murder. Yeah. All in one move. That's big.

• 23:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. So by late January of 1958, which is weeks after the murder of Robert Colvert, Charlie begins to unravel. He gets fired from his job as a garbage man because of his laziness. He can't make rent, so he gets kicked out of his apartment. Now he's sleeping in his car. Meanwhile, Carol's parents, Velda and Marion Bartlett, have had enough of Charles Starkweather. There's a rumor circulating around town that Charlie got Carol pregnant. It's not true, but of course, it insinuates that Carol is having sex with Charlie, and she's 14 years old. What is true, though, is Charlie has begun basically stalking Carol.

• 24:19Karen Kilgariff?

  The Bartletts have been told Charlie waits around for Carol after school, and that he's been seen forcefully pulling her off the school bus in front of other students. This freaks Carol out so much. It kind of tells us she doesn't want to go with him.

• 24:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:35Karen Kilgariff?

  If this was like the boyfriend, you know, like I'm jumping in the back of his car and pulling out, that's great.

• 24:40Speaker 00

  He doesn't have to pull you out of the bus if you go willingly.

• 24:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 24:44Speaker 00

  So you're probably not

• 24:45Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 24:46Speaker 00

  a willing participant in this.

• 24:47Karen Kilgariff?

  You're sneaking onto the bus so that your boyfriend doesn't see you.

• 24:50Speaker 00

  Right.

• 24:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Or so that guy doesn't see you.

• 24:52Speaker 00

  Right.

• 24:53Karen Kilgariff?

  So she's so freaked out by this that she starts hiding in the girls' bathroom after the end of day's bell rings, just so she doesn't have to go outside. So when her parents hear about all of that, they tell Charlie to stay away from their daughter. And then on Tuesday, January 21st, Charlie goes over to the Bartlett home to talk to them presumably about this relationship with Carol. There's a lot of unknowns here, mostly because everything is what either Charlie said or what Carol said after the fact.

• 25:24Speaker 00

  Right.

• 25:24Karen Kilgariff?

  And it's hard to know who to trust. It's he said, she said. But essentially, what we do know is that Charlie shows up at the Bartlett's home around 1 o'clock, and he's got a gun. And soon after he arrives, he gets into an argument with the Bartletts, who tell him he can't date Carol anymore. They kick him out of the house. He comes back at 3:00 PM, and he shoots 36-year-old Velda Bartlett and her husband, 57-year-old Marion Bartlett, before committing one of the most disturbing murders in this story. He murders Carol's two-year-old sister, Betty Ann. It's very upsetting. He then hides the three bodies in a chicken coop and also in

• 26:04Karen Kilgariff?

  an old outhouse on the property. So, we don't know where Carol is when these murders occur. But her story is that when she gets home from school around 3:30, that's 30 minutes after the murders, she's shocked to find Charlie there.

• 26:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 26:20Karen Kilgariff?

  And she says that Charlie tells her he's holding her family hostage somewhere, and he promises he won't hurt them as long as she goes with him and does what he says. So, Charlie's version of that same story is Carol was there the whole time and she was directly involved in her family murders, which would be in 1958 insanely hard to believe.

• 26:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 26:42Karen Kilgariff?

  For police, for the press, for anyone. Like, this very young girl is just gonna stand by.

• 26:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally. And this timeline too doesn't really make sense. They invited him over while she was still at school. He came, like, right before she got home from school normally. It's almost like...

• 26:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 26:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Doesn't add up.

• 26:58Karen Kilgariff?

  It's tough to imagine, but it is like, having heard some of the stories that we've heard at this point, we know coercion is often involved when one person is very young.

• 27:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 27:08Karen Kilgariff?

  So, even if she was there, it is very difficult to imagine that Carol participated in her family's murders, especially her baby sister's murder.

• 27:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, who she adored.

• 27:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. Or at least that there was no threat or coercion involved.

• 27:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 27:23Karen Kilgariff?

  That she was a willing participant.

• 27:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 27:25Karen Kilgariff?

  So, that part of the story's been examined and analyzed and debated for more than half a century, and to this day, we just don't know the truth of what happened. What we do know is that Charlie and Carol remain in the house after those murders for six days.

• 27:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 27:39Karen Kilgariff?

  And the Bartletts' friends and family realize something is up pretty quickly, because of course, nobody sees or hears from the parents or the baby. When anyone stops by to check in on their whereabouts, Carol, seemingly distressed, always just comes out of the house and just begs them to go away. Eventually, a note goes up on their front door, saying everyone inside has the flu and just please leave us alone. And then on January 27th, which is six days after the murders, Carol's grandmother stops by. She's incredibly worried about her daughter and her grandchildren, and she begs to be let inside. Carol asks her to leave, and the grandmother is so unnerved by that, that she loudly announces from the front steps she is going to call the police.

• 28:24Karen Kilgariff?

  And when she then finally does leave, Charlie and Carol get into Charlie's truck. They flee. Their only plan being get away from the possible police that might be coming.

• 28:34Georgia Hardstark?

  And if we believe her, we think that she is cooperating and not running away or calling for help because she thinks that her family is being held hostage still.

• 28:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes. So Carol's grandmother wasn't bluffing. She does call the Lincoln police. When they show up to the Bartlett home for a wellness check, the officers go inside. They find the house empty and they basically convince themselves that the whole family just left.

• 28:57Georgia Hardstark?

  That tells me too, that like there wasn't a bloody scene.

• 29:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 29:01Georgia Hardstark?

  You know?

• 29:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 29:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Because you're like, well, she have seen the gunshot.

• 29:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 29:05Georgia Hardstark?

  You know, carnage. If they didn't see it, she probably hadn't seen it either.

• 29:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, if she was in that house, she just, she's worried that they're being held and she wants to keep them alive.

• 29:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, because I was like, didn't she see the like blood spatter or anything? No, maybe there wasn't any.

• 29:18Karen Kilgariff?

  He did it outside somehow. Well, what happens is later that same day, Charlie's brother showed up because he's also worried. And he does what the cops fail to do, which is he searches the entire property. And when he does, just beyond the house, he finds the bodies of Marion Velda and Betty Ann Bartlett. So now the police spring into action and they start the search for Charlie and Carol, who are of course, long gone. As Charlie and Carol drove out of Lincoln, Charlie gets his truck serviced at a local body shop. And at one point, he leaves Carol in the truck as he goes to the restroom. She writes a note that says, quote, "Help police do not ignore."

• 30:02Karen Kilgariff?

  But she doesn't get the chance to give it to anybody. So she puts it back in her pocket. When Charlie gets back into the truck, he drives them about 20 miles outside of Lincoln to the small town of Bennett, where he pulls up onto a muddy drive that leads to a farmhouse. The farmer who lives there is an old family friend of the Starkweathers named August Meyer, and he's 70 years old. And on the way up this kind of muddy driveway, Charlie's truck gets stuck in the mud, and he and Carol have to get out and walk. So when they get to the farmhouse, they knock on the door. August opens the door and he's happy to see Charlie. He has no idea what happened back in Lincoln. All he knows is that this family friend is there just asking for help to get his truck out of the mud.

• 30:46Karen Kilgariff?

  So, according to Carol, Charlie then pulls out a gun and shoots August in the head, completely unprovoked. Charlie will later claim that he killed August in self-defense.

• 30:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 30:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. So now August is dead. The couple enters the farmhouse. Carol stays in the kitchen while Charlie ransacks every room. They then head back down the road. They get the truck out of the mud with the help of an oblivious driver who just happens to be passing by. And they let him go. Like, that's just like, help me get this out. Yeah. One of the luckiest people.

• 31:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Seriously.

• 31:21Karen Kilgariff?

  In the area. Charlie then drives back up to August's farmhouse, and he and Carol plan on staying the night, but they're both so on edge with everything that's happened. That they convince themselves that somehow, somebody got into the house while they were down trying to get the truck unstuck from the mud. And it's not true, but they're so paranoid that they decide to leave and just keep driving instead of staying in the house that night. Then they get the truck stuck in the mud for a second time.

• 31:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Dude.

• 31:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Now it's 6:30 at night. It's getting dark. It's freezing outside. They wind up ditching that truck out of pure desperation and just walking along the road, hoping someone will pass by. And sadly, around 7:30 PM, two local teenagers drive by and offer Charlie and Carol a ride. They are 17-year-old Robert Jensen and 16-year-old Carol King, and they're on a date. I'll call her Carol K. from the rest of this, because we already have a Carol in the story. So, right after Charlie and Carol get into the car, Charlie pulls out his gun and tells Robert to drive back toward August Meyer's farm.

• 32:33Karen Kilgariff?

  He then tells him to pull over and Charlie takes Robert and Carol Kay, like walks them toward an abandoned storm cellar that they had passed earlier that day. Carol will maintain that she stayed behind in Robert Jensen's car, unaware of where Charlie was taking this couple or what he planned to do with them. From here, it's believed Charlie shoots and kills Robert near the storm cellar before attempting to rape Carol Kay, but she fights him off, he murders her. Charlie will try to claim that Carol, his Carol, was directly involved in these murders. And in fact, Carol is the person who murdered Carol Kay.

• 33:13Karen Kilgariff?

  What we know for certain is that Charlie and Carol eventually flee in Robert's car and they head out of the area. And as they do, Carol tosses some of Robert's school books out the window. This is kind of an infamous shot from the movie Badlands. Because it's this carefree, like fuck it all, we're just doing this thing. And it's presented in that movie as this kind of like, now they're a duo. Yeah. But she will later say she threw those books out of the car to give the police a lead. Yeah, that makes sense. It makes a lot of sense to me. So they wind up heading back toward Lincoln. And at one point, they even pass by Carol's family home.

• 33:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Charlie is convinced that no one is going to spot them in Robert's car. And when they get tired, they pull off the road and they sleep in that same car. So the next morning, January 28th, it's around 8:00 a.m. So it's the morning after those three murders in Bennett. They're back in Lincoln and Charlie's driving around, looking for a place where he and Carol can hide. Eventually, he decides on a mansion he'd seen working as a garbage man, which belongs to the Ward family. They're a family that's very high up in Lincoln society, Lincoln, Nebraska society. So. Charlie pulls into the driveway and gets out with his gun. He enters the house. He basically home invades these people.

• 34:39Karen Kilgariff?

  And he instructs 46 year old Clara Ward and her maid, 51 year old Lillian Fensel, to do as he says. At the time Clara's husband, 47 year old C. Lauer Ward, is actually at a meeting with the Nebraska governor, who's a good friend of his. And ironically, at that meeting, the men discuss the Bartlet family murders because it's the talk of Lincoln. Right. As it would be. Yeah. So around this time, over in Bennett, police find Charlie's truck stuck in the mud near the Meyer farm. And officers surround that farmhouse, thinking the couple is hiding out inside. They then find August's dead body on the property, but they do not find, of course, Charlie or Carol.

• 35:20Karen Kilgariff?

  And basically, at the same time, Robert Jensen and Carol King's bodies are found by a local farmer who had heard gunshots the night before and decided the next morning to go search and see what was going on. So police don't realize that Charlie and Carol are back in Lincoln, or of course, that they're hiding out in the Ward's mansion. Yeah. But they are, and they are now holding Clara and Lillian hostage. The women end up passing the morning by cleaning and basically serving Charlie breakfast, which is kind of a pleasant way to spend the morning. And you would never know that that afternoon Clara and Lillian will be stabbed to death. Again, Charlie and Carol's stories differ. Carol claims Charlie killed both women on his own.

• 36:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Charlie says that Carol helped him kill Clara. Around 6:00 PM, when C. Lauer Ward, the husband, comes home, Charlie ambushes him, pushes him down the stairs, grabs his gun, and shoots him. So then Charlie gets some black shoe polish and dyes his hair. Carol reportedly helps him do this. Around 7 o'clock, the couple hit the road again, this time in the Ward's Packard. But before they leave, Charlie and Carol read that day's newspaper, and there is an article about Carol's family being murdered. They leave this newspaper behind, but it has big holes cut out of it where photos of Charlie, Carol, and Carol's family had been printed.

• 36:48Karen Kilgariff?

  And these clippings will later be found on the couple. So the next day, Wednesday, January 29th, is when the Ward household are discovered dead, when a friend stops by to check in on the family. So the police quickly link all of those murders to Charlie Starkweather, and at this point, they're not sure Carol is even still alive. And when they do link all of that, reporters are right there with them. They've been diligently covering the investigation on the radio and the evening news. They are running updates every day in the papers. So the public that's been watching this coverage breathlessly now erupts into a full-blown panic. Yeah. Every hardware store in the Lincoln area sells out of guns, ammunition, and knives.

• 37:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Locals are forming posses, and they're sitting up on their own roofs, hoping that they see Charlie Starkweather and are able to shoot and kill him before he gets to their house. Terrifying. Insane. According to the Nebraska State Historical Society, quote, "Thousands of Lincoln residents open their garage doors and leave the keys to their cars readily accessible so that if Charlie Starkweather comes by, he can just take the car and go." Yeah. By 1 o'clock that Wednesday, Charlie and Carol make it 500 miles away to Douglas, Wyoming. So by now, the news of their crime spree has spread across the Midwest. They use the car's radio to follow along, and this is how they learn that a reporter

• 38:16Karen Kilgariff?

  has now identified the Ward's Packard as their getaway vehicle. So Charlie knows he has to switch cars again. He pulls onto a back road, and eventually, he comes across a Buick parked on the roadside. He and Carol figure that they're going to ditch the Ward's car and drive off in the Buick, but its owner, 37-year-old traveling shoe salesman named Merle Collessen, is sleeping inside that Buick. Charlie shoots him through the car window nine times. Aye, aye. Charlie will later claim Carol is the one who murdered Merle after Charlie's gun jammed. Okay. Which Carol, of course, denies. Shortly after Merle is murdered, a driver named Joe Sprinkle passes and stops when he sees two cars on the roadside.

• 39:00Karen Kilgariff?

  He thinks maybe there's car trouble going on that he could help with, which of course is true, because it turns out that Merle's car has its parking brake activated and Charlie's never dealt with a parking brake before, so he thinks he can't make the car go.

• 39:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, dear.

• 39:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes. So Charlie tells Joe that he needs help turning the brake off and then brandishes his gun. Joe suddenly now has a weapon pointed at him, notices Carol is sobbing in the backseat of Merle's car. Then he sees Merle's dead body in the car's front seat, so he instinctively grabs Charlie's gun. The two fight over it for several minutes.

• 39:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Jesus.

• 39:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Right there in the highway, before a local deputy sheriff named William Romer drives basically into their brawl. When Carol sees Romer coming, she jumps out of the backseat of the Buick into his cop car, sobbing and screaming, "It's stark weather, he's going to kill me."

• 39:57Georgia Hardstark?

  See, this is the moment that I can't get past if you're gonna try to blame her in any way, right? People do, okay.

• 40:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, completely, because this is like, if she is screaming and sobbing.

• 40:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 40:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Then it's been against her well this entire time.

• 40:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 40:15Karen Kilgariff?

  And that witness saying she's crying in the backseat.

• 40:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Right. If she didn't start crying until the cop came.

• 40:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 40:21Georgia Hardstark?

  And that's like a show.

• 40:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 40:22Georgia Hardstark?

  But if she was doing it and the witness says so beforehand, it's like.

• 40:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 40:25Georgia Hardstark?

  It says a lot.

• 40:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Right. She couldn't have been planning of like, well, if this guy lives, I have to make sure, like, because that's not what's been happening.

• 40:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 40:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. Also, I always think, like, people, when they lie, do a lot of macho things where it's just kind of like the Sherry Popini thing, where it's like, an old lady with long hair and a young lady with short hair.

• 40:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 40:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Like, people do a thing where their imagination, if limited.

• 40:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 40:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Really gives them away.

• 40:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 40:49Karen Kilgariff?

  In lying. So yeah, I think you'd have to be masterful to kind of do that and be convincing.

• 40:55Georgia Hardstark?

  And she's a young girl from a small town. I highly doubt that she has those capabilities.

• 41:00Karen Kilgariff?

  So the second Charlie sees the sheriff, he throws himself into the ward's Packard. And Joe Sprinkle takes cover in a ditch, thinking there's going to be a gunfight. And that's when Charlie hits the gas and then he's chased by Deputy Sheriff Romer and two other patrol cars in a high-speed chase through the Badlands, where they top speeds of 120 miles an hour.

• 41:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my God.

• 41:25Karen Kilgariff?

  In old cars.

• 41:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 41:26Karen Kilgariff?

  This chase goes on for about 20 minutes. And then one of the officers fires a shot that shatters Charlie's windshield and sends glass shards into his face, and they cut his ear. It is not a serious wound, but the officers will later say Charlie, quote, "thought he was bleeding to death. That's why he stopped." So when he's arrested, Charlie does not hold back. He confesses to every murder. He goes all the way back to the gas station attendant, Robert Culvert. Carol's also taken into custody, and she's interrogated for hours. She ultimately gives a statement that's 166 pages long.

• 42:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my God.

• 42:03Karen Kilgariff?

  It's filled with incriminating information about her involvement in the crimes. But she is 14 years old. She has no lawyer. She has no parents.

• 42:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Does she know her parent, her family's dead yet? Because they tell her when she gets to the police station, right?

• 42:18Karen Kilgariff?

  I believe so. I'm not sure specifically when she's told. But she does start screaming for her dead mother that night and refuses to let anyone near her and ultimately has to be sedated.

• 42:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 42:31Karen Kilgariff?

  So she is informed, but I think it takes place at the police station.

• 42:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 42:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. During her trial, Carol insists that Charlie was the only person who committed any of these murders. And she maintains she believed Charlie was holding her hostage under the threat of killing her family.

• 42:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 42:47Karen Kilgariff?

  If she didn't obey him. That suggests she believed her family was alive the entire time.

• 42:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 42:53Karen Kilgariff?

  The prosecution points out that the newspaper clippings she and Charlie took from the ward's house explicitly reported that her mom, dad, and sister were dead. And they did cut the pictures out. So that means that either he did it and didn't show her.

• 43:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 43:08Karen Kilgariff?

  Which is possible, because that's why you would cut those pictures out.

• 43:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, that one's harder.

• 43:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Hard to say. In May 1958, Charlie Starkweather is sentenced to death after being convicted for the murder of Robert Jensen, which is the only case he's tried for. He dies in the electric chair a year later when he's 20 years old. He couldn't even drink.

• 43:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my God.

• 43:29Karen Kilgariff?

  He declines to give any last words. Carol Fugate, meanwhile, is handed a life sentence for her role in Robert Jensen's murder. She is the youngest person to receive a first-degree murder conviction at the time. To this day, her role in the case is seen as very complicated and thorny, with many people believing that she is as guilty as Charles Starkweather. Although, over the years, other people have come to see Carol as a true victim who was forced to participate in this crime spree by a man who was her stalker, was her abuser, and basically stunned her into compliance after murdering her whole family.

• 44:06Georgia Hardstark?

  That just seems more reasonable. Like, the idea that these two people found each other and were both just on this killing spree together, and she's 14, and it's just, what makes more sense?

• 44:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 44:19Georgia Hardstark?

  You know what I mean? I know that that exists. That's happened before in life, you know? But I just can't, I can't see that happening in this story. I don't see it here.

• 44:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, I agree completely, especially with like, all the things that we have talked about, where it's like, it's not like they fell in love and dated, and then like, three years later, he snapped or something.

• 44:36Georgia Hardstark?

  And like, the parents were gonna keep them apart. Like, she didn't want to be with him to begin with.

• 44:42Karen Kilgariff?

  No. She was hiding from him in the bathroom. Her agency and autonomy is completely gone from the beginning of this relationship.

• 44:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 44:49Karen Kilgariff?

  So, as author Harry McLean has said, quote, "The idea that someone could be so traumatized that they would be incapable of exercising free will in subsequent traumatic situations, that didn't exist back then."

• 45:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 45:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. Whereas now, we've seen it, we've been able to talk about it, there's plenty of examples.

• 45:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 45:09Karen Kilgariff?

  So Carol begins her sentence at 15 years old, and she spends the next 17 years behind bars, serving as a model prisoner. Because of her sterling prison record, she's paroled in 1976 at the age of 32.

• 45:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 45:23Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, if she was a part of that, there would have been problems.

• 45:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, yeah. And nowadays, when you're convicted as a minor, you don't spend...

• 45:32Georgia Hardstark?

  The rest of your life. I hear you like.

• 45:34Karen Kilgariff?

  I just think it would have been like, then she was in some fights and she had to be put over here. It wouldn't have been like, somebody who's just.

• 45:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, but we've talked about real monsters being model prisoners before.

• 45:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, that's true, because Judy Buonano, the black widow killer, who killed every man in her life, was everyone's grandma in prison.

• 45:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Right, right. I think prison works for some people.

• 45:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 45:58Georgia Hardstark?

  So, but yeah, but I agree, but I'm just playing devil's advocate.

• 46:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, very true. Well, because if the possibility that she was as manipulative as the kind of girl who could run out of that car crying going, please save me, then yeah, she would be playing, again, she would just be playing it to her benefit.

• 46:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 46:14Karen Kilgariff?

  So, when she gets out of prison, she moves to Michigan, where she lives a mostly quiet life, under a new name, working in healthcare, and has a nanny to two children who adore her. Truly starts over.

• 46:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 46:26Karen Kilgariff?

  In the middle of her life. Over the years, Carol has continued to insist that she was an unwitting participant in the murder spree. She's now around 80 years old, and she hopes to someday have her name cleared with a full pardon.

• 46:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 46:40Karen Kilgariff?

  If she truly is a victim of this abusive relationship.

• 46:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 46:44Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean.

• 46:45Georgia Hardstark?

  What a tragedy.

• 46:45Karen Kilgariff?

  What a tragedy if that never happens for her.

• 46:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. But how can you prove it, aside from, we just have to believe her or not believe her?

• 46:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 46:54Georgia Hardstark?

  I think that the evidence overwhelmingly points to her not being a willing participant.

• 47:00Karen Kilgariff?

  No.

• 47:00Georgia Hardstark?

  But that's just our big fat opinion.

• 47:03Karen Kilgariff?

  That's just what we believe.

• 47:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 47:05Karen Kilgariff?

  We believe her.

• 47:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 47:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 47:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 47:07Karen Kilgariff?

  That's the story of the 1958 crime spree of Charlie Starkweather and Carol Fugate that terrorized the Midwest.

• 47:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow. Great job. I can't believe we haven't covered that.

• 47:16Karen Kilgariff?

  There's so many of these stories that, like, especially in the early days, we used to talk and talk at the beginning.

• 47:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes.

• 47:21Karen Kilgariff?

  About other true crime things and then get into it.

• 47:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 47:24Karen Kilgariff?

  So, we've definitely talked about it.

• 47:26Georgia Hardstark?

  That's crazy.

• 47:27Karen Kilgariff?

  And the movie Badlands is so gorgeous, if just to watch a movie.

• 47:31Georgia Hardstark?

  I can't believe when I was like, 13, the movie Natural and Killers was just an okay movie for us to watch.

• 47:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 47:37Georgia Hardstark?

  It's so disturbing.

• 47:38Karen Kilgariff?

  It's so disturbing.

• 47:39Georgia Hardstark?

  You would never show a teenager that now.

• 47:41Karen Kilgariff?

  No.

• 47:42Georgia Hardstark?

  It's so fucked up.

• 47:43Karen Kilgariff?

  It was a very toxic time back then.

• 47:45Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, and it was our favorite movie. It wasn't just like, oh, that's disturbing. We loved it. We thought it was so romantic, and beautiful, and poetic, and real. It's like, this is fucking.

• 48:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Garbage.

• 48:01Karen Kilgariff?

  I wonder if Tarantino pitched Natural Born Killers as like, let's do the, whenever it was 90s or

• 48:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 48:09Karen Kilgariff?

  early 2000s, let's revamp Badlands and make it now and modern and sexy and neon or whatever.

• 48:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, I think it was early 90s.

• 48:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 48:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Ah, so disturbing.

• 48:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 48:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, there you have it.

• 48:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, there it is.

• 48:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Good job.

• 48:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Thank you.

• 48:24Karen Kilgariff?

  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 for a free trial.

• 49:05Karen Kilgariff?

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

• 49:12Speaker 00

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

• 49:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Sonny's life is pretty great until he wakes up from a car accident to a world that looks exactly like his with one exception, his mom.

• 49:24Speaker 00

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

• 49:30Karen Kilgariff?

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

• 49:37Speaker 00

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

• 49:41Karen Kilgariff?

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

• 49:48Speaker 00

  Watch the Hulu original series Phony.

• 49:50Karen Kilgariff?

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

• 49:56Speaker 03

  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.

• 50:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Great job. Oh, thanks. My turn. This is another story that's like a little frustrating. So perfect. Sorry about that. The perfect pair. Right. We're going to Japan today. Beautiful Japan. And in Japan, although they've become much more rare, it is one of only two G7 countries that has the death penalty. Guess what the other one is? Merca. That's right. It's one of Japan's longest legal battles. It's very famous there. And whether our people sentenced to death, there are usually also people who have been wrongfully convicted. Always. As we know. This is the story of Japan's longest serving death row inmate

• 51:13Georgia Hardstark?

  and the decades-long fight for his freedom. This is the story of Iwao Hakamata. The main sources for the story are reporting by the Japanese newspaper, the Asahi Shimbun, which translates to The Daily Sun, and the rest can be found in our show notes. So I'm going to do my best with these pronunciations. Oh, yeah. So apologies in advance. Okay, so it's 1966 and we're in Shizuoka, Japan. Yeah, that was amazing. Thank you. A coastal city about two hours southeast of Tokyo. You've never been to Japan, right? No, never been. God, someday. So this guy, Iwao Hakamata, is a 30-year-old retired boxer, and he works in a miso factory. The factory is owned by a man named Fujia Hashimoto,

• 51:58Georgia Hardstark?

  who is 41, and Iwao also does work in the Hashimoto family home, and he lives in the home with them. Fujia's wife is named Chieko, and the couple have two teenage children, a daughter named Fujiko and a son named Masai Shiru. So at about 2:00 a.m. in the morning on June 30, 1966, neighbors notice a fire in one of the upstairs rooms in the Hashimoto house. When firefighters report to the scene, they find Iwao working to put out the fire. As they're doing this, Iwao and the firefighters discover the bodies of the entire Hashimoto family, the husband, wife, and two teenagers, and discover that they had each been killed before the fire was started.

• 52:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Each member of the family had been stabbed multiple times. It's awful. The house is badly burned. It smells heavily of gasoline. And investigators recover a pair of pajamas from Iwau's room. It sounds like he was not wearing them when the firefighters found him, though this detail later becomes a little muddy. Investigators say the pajamas have a very small, like, blood stain on them. And it's later discovered that about 80,000 yen has been taken from the house, which in today's money, I'm not going to make you guess, would be about 200 US dollars, some say 550, but just not a lot of money to brutally murder an entire family.

• 53:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Right. Yeah.

• 53:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Initially, investigators say they don't know if this crime was committed by one person or more than one person, but because four different people were each stabbed multiple times and neighbors didn't hear anything, even though they were pretty close, some people think it had to be done by multiple attackers, which, I mean, and that's not totally true. Look at the BTK killer. It's just a matter of power overpowering.

• 53:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, planning and power and...

• 53:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Planning, fear, overpower, yeah.

• 53:46Karen Kilgariff?

  And also, if it was everybody stabbed multiple times, that's feels to me like an emotional

• 53:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 53:52Karen Kilgariff?

  attack, right?

• 53:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, it's like not like a hit where it would be clean and the children probably wouldn't be involved, right?

• 54:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 54:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, so none of the neighbors report hearing the attack, although one neighbor does report hearing a scream. It's unclear exactly how, but suspicion winds up falling on Iwau. It's possible that this is because there's already some prejudice against him because of his history as a boxer, which is frowned upon in Japan by some people, which is interesting.

• 54:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 54:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Additionally, Iwau is one of the few employees of the factory that's not originally from that small area. So he's from a different city called Hamamatsu, and so maybe because of that, he's not trusted.

• 54:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 54:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Either way, Iwau is arrested and is then subject to 20 days of interrogation without a lawyer present. The interrogations are about 12 hours each day. He's not given access to a bathroom. He's beaten on multiple occasions. And it's only at the end of these 20 days of the interrogation that Iwau finally confesses to the murder, which we all know, a 20 day, 12 hour a day beating. That's coercion in any country. You can't believe that confession anymore, right? Yeah. Initially, this confession is the only evidence against him. But a year and a half after Iwau's arrest, shortly before his trial is scheduled to begin,

• 55:17Georgia Hardstark?

  investigators change their story about these pajamas and say they have recovered a set of clothing, which they claim to be Iwau's, that he had worn during the murders. They find it at the miso factory in a miso tank. Hmm. So the clothes have red blood stains on them, despite supposedly having sat in a tank of fermenting miso for over a year. That's kind of hard to believe that they would have these red stains on them to begin with, right? Especially when you're like, he was wearing these pajamas, we found blood on the pajamas, never mind, it's just absurd. Yeah. Iwau's case goes to trial in 1967. During the trial, Iwau says the recovered clothes look like his, but they're the wrong

• 56:02Georgia Hardstark?

  size. Also, he has written his name and all his clothes to identify them for the laundry service he uses. He puts the clothes on during the trial and it's clear that they are too small for him, they don't fit. Yeah. Throughout the process, Iwau, though, shows unshakable faith in the judicial system. He's like, there's no way they can convict me, this is clearly bad evidence, there's no evidence that I did this. He just believes in this legal system. And in that Japanese legal system at the time, there's no jury. That's since changed, but then three judges would vote to decide on a verdict. The proceedings are secret at the time, but we now know that two of the judges voted to convict and one voted to acquit.

• 56:43Georgia Hardstark?

  And so in 1968, at the age of 32, with just that flimsy evidence, Iwau is pronounced guilty and he's sentenced to death. And six months after the conviction, one of the judges, and we now know that it's the one who wanted to acquit, he retires from the bar. I think he's a little bit like like this.

• 57:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, that's the last I want my hands in something like this.

• 57:04Georgia Hardstark?

  So both of Iwau's parents pass away in the immediate months following his conviction. So this is rough. Death row inmates in Japan at the time are always kept in solitary confinement.

• 57:15Karen Kilgariff?

  My god.

• 57:16Georgia Hardstark?

  And a hallmark of the Japanese penal system is that death row inmates have no idea when they are scheduled to be executed. So they wake up in the morning and between 8:00 a.m. and 8:30, they'll be told whether or not they're being put to death. So he's got solitary confinement and every morning wakes up thinking this could be it. So that's going to drive you a little mad.

• 57:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 57:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Right?

• 57:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 57:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Another hallmark of the Japanese legal system is that very few convictions are ever reviewed. There's no appeals going on.

• 57:49Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 57:50Georgia Hardstark?

  And those reviews can take decades. And this is what happens to Iwau. Over the coming decades, he makes multiple appeals. Each one moves at a grindingly slow pace before it's ultimately denied. In 1973, Iwau writes, quote, "I'm a prisoner on death row who has been wrongfully convicted. I am forced to live by enduring grief permeating all of my body. My heart sometimes grows cold beyond description out of unending fear of the unknown execution. My whole body trembles as if being hit by cold winter blasts," end quote. So not cool.

• 58:26Karen Kilgariff?

  Horrifying, but also a very accurate description of like constant stress.

• 58:31Georgia Hardstark?

  And fear, yeah.

• 58:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Where you're just like, it's like these waves of physical pain and then just like, I'm going to shut down now.

• 58:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 58:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 58:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Over the years, he spends in solitary confinement. He writes frequent letters to his older sister, a woman named Hidako Hakamata. She is like his biggest champion and she notices a distinct change in him as the years go by, of course. She says that his letters eventually descend into gibberish the longer he spends in prison.

• 59:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Fast forward to the 2000s, Amnesty International takes on Iwau's case, and it becomes much more famous, both in Japan and abroad. And in fact, Ruben Carter, aka The Hurricane, from the Bob Dylan song, this is the story of the hurricane. Also, that movie, man, that is a good movie. Right, with Denzel, right? Yeah, so he was also a wrongfully convicted boxer. And so he takes on the, he starts speaking out on the case as well. Oh, wow. Which is pretty incredible. Yes, that's right. He had been wrongfully convicted and in prison for murder. He had spent 18 years and four months in prison. So he starts speaking out about the case as well. Wow. So it gets that attention it needs. Then the Japanese Professional Boxing Association organizes a special charity

• 59:44Georgia Hardstark?

  fight to raise money for Iwau's defense. The actor Jeremy Irons, who's a supporter of Amnesty International, also speaks out on behalf of Iwau. All the while, Hideko is the go-between, advocating for her brother, fighting for his release, and acting as his voice in the outside world. At this point, Iwau and Hideko are in their 70s. So this has been... His whole life. His whole life. Wow. Okay, so 2007, the judge who retired after convicting Iwau, a man named Norimichi Kumamoto, tells the press that he had not believed that Iwau was guilty. I mean, this has to be unprecedented, him coming forward with this. And he had been the one to vote against the other two judges.

• 1:00:28Georgia Hardstark?

  And speaking out comes at a very high personal cost for Norimichi. It's considered very taboo for a judge to reveal what happened in their closed-door voting process, but he stands firm and says, quote, "I'm glad I spoke up. I wish I had said it earlier, and maybe something might have changed," end quote. So Norimichi joins the growing movement to secure a new trial for Iwau. This movement also sheds light on problems in the Japanese criminal justice system, the secretiveness of both investigations and the judicial process, the impunity with which the police are able to operate, and the relative frequency of death sentences at the time. At the time Iwau was arrested, and for decades after, Japanese convictions were heavily reliant on confessions,

• 1:01:12Georgia Hardstark?

  no matter what interrogation methods are used. And prosecutors had a conviction rate of close to 100%. Wow. Which is not, that just looks bad. That's just not real. No. Yeah, it's not realistic. Yeah. Death sentences have become much rarer in Japan in the past 20 years. But as I said, Japan and the United States are the only two of the G7 countries that still have the death penalty. So in 2008, Japan begins introducing a jury system into its criminal trials. Now decisions are made by that same panel of three judges, but also with six people who are called lay judges and they serve a similar function to an American jury.

• 1:01:53Georgia Hardstark?

  In 2014, when Iwao is 78 years old, his lawyers finally managed to get the blood on the clothes DNA tested. The blood was already known not to match any of the victims and the DNA also does not match Iwao's. He's finally granted a retrial and he's released from prison. He had been on death row for 46 years. Fuck, and in solitary for that long? Yeah, so he's the longest-serving death row inmate ever. Wow. You know, he's technically still considered to be on death row, but he's serving his sentence at home due to his declining health. And at this point, Iwao is possibly showing signs of dementia and he doesn't believe reporters when they tell him he's being granted a new trial. I mean, it's his entire life.

• 1:02:38Georgia Hardstark?

  He's just completely given up. Right, why would it change? Iwao goes to live with his sister Hidako, who has been fighting tirelessly for his release for decades. At this point, Hidako is about 80 years old herself. As both siblings get older, a group of volunteers from the neighborhood help both of them with their tasks of daily living. And she says that her brother is always anxious around strangers. So after years of back and forth in the legal system, Iwao is finally retried in 2024 at the age of 88. Oh my god. This makes his retrial only the fifth in Japan's post-war history. Whoa. Yeah, five since 45. His lawyers present the evidence of his course confession, the DNA evidence, and

• 1:03:23Georgia Hardstark?

  also some additional evidence. They recreate the storage of bloodstained clothes in a MISO tank for a year and a half. After a short time in the Miso, the bloodstains turned black because of the chemical reactions. It's just basically showing that there's no way that this was real.

• 1:03:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:43Georgia Hardstark?

  At the end of his trial, Iwao's conviction is overturned. He had been wrongfully convicted for 56 years. Hideko says, quote, "When the judge said that the defendant is not guilty in court, the judge's voice sounded divine. I was so moved and happy that I burst into tears," end quote. Iwao was awarded the equivalent of $1.4 million by the Japanese government, which is basically $85 for each day he spent wrongfully in prison.

• 1:04:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:04:10Georgia Hardstark?

  God.

• 1:04:10Speaker 00

  It's rough.

• 1:04:11Georgia Hardstark?

  And the current head of the Shizuoka Police also visits Iwao to formally apologize to him. Iwao is now 89 years old and Hideko is 92. They still live together. Hideko says that her brother's very quiet and mostly lives in his own world, but she's overjoyed that his nightmare is finally over and she continues to speak out against the death penalty. She says, quote, "I used to accept the death penalty without giving it much thought, but after what happened with Iwao, I became against the death penalty. It is a crime for a human being to kill another human being, no matter what the government says," end quote. The murder of the Hashimoto family, meanwhile, has sadly never been solved and there's really no meaningful work that's been done on it. So it's just, seems like a cold case at this

• 1:04:55Georgia Hardstark?

  point. I couldn't find anything.

• 1:04:57Speaker 00

  So like, basically, all the work went into trying to get this person convicted and just like making it all go away.

• 1:05:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Right. And that's the news. If you look up this case of this family being murdered, you find this story.

• 1:05:10Speaker 00

  God.

• 1:05:10Georgia Hardstark?

  You know?

• 1:05:11Speaker 00

  And there's someone out there that did it.

• 1:05:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:13Speaker 00

  And like, for a reason.

• 1:05:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:14Speaker 00

  That they just didn't find.

• 1:05:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:17Speaker 00

  So frustrating about these goddamn cases.

• 1:05:19Georgia Hardstark?

  I know. I know. And that is a story of the exoneration of Iwao Hakamata, Japan's longest-serving death row prisoner.

• 1:05:28Speaker 00

  That's unbelievable.

• 1:05:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:30Speaker 00

  And so moving.

• 1:05:32Georgia Hardstark?

  I know.

• 1:05:32Speaker 00

  That the hurricane got in there to fight.

• 1:05:34Georgia Hardstark?

  I know.

• 1:05:35Speaker 00

  God.

• 1:05:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. And there's, he's just an old man now.

• 1:05:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:05:38Georgia Hardstark?

  I wonder who did it. Like, that's the thing I want to know so bad, you know?

• 1:05:41Speaker 00

  Yeah. How do we fix that? How do we on this podcast? We who know nothing of the justice system.

• 1:05:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:49Speaker 00

  But like, how does that get fixed in the future?

• 1:05:52Karen Kilgariff?

  That has to get fixed in the future.

• 1:05:53Georgia Hardstark?

  I think that's why we talk about it.

• 1:05:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Because so many people, I mean, the whole thing of like, true crime being exploitative and being all these things. It's like, that's not the point. The point is like bringing attention to these miscarriages of justice.

• 1:06:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:10Georgia Hardstark?

  To victims that don't have their name for cold cases that are just completely being ignored.

• 1:06:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Yep.

• 1:06:16Georgia Hardstark?

  That's what we're here for.

• 1:06:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, I think it is. You're right. It's kind of the pointing back to like, well, there is a public responsibility if this is your community, if these are your people.

• 1:06:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 1:06:26Karen Kilgariff?

  And there are so many amazing stories like that where it's like the people who it happened near them or to someone they know or to their own family. So they just dedicate their lives to doing something about it.

• 1:06:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 1:06:38Karen Kilgariff?

  And then there are people who are dedicating their lives even though they don't know people. But I don't know. It's like all these realizations that everyone's having right now about like the industrial prison complex on this planet.

• 1:06:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:52Karen Kilgariff?

  The nightmare.

• 1:06:53Georgia Hardstark?

  You have to point at it if you want it to be seen. You can't look away.

• 1:06:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 1:06:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Unfortunately.

• 1:06:57Karen Kilgariff?

  And you can't look just where the man wants you to look.

• 1:07:01Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 1:07:02Karen Kilgariff?

  Other people have to point.

• 1:07:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Definitely. And we are not the man.

• 1:07:06Karen Kilgariff?

  We swear.

• 1:07:07Georgia Hardstark?

  We never have been and we never will be.

• 1:07:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Great job.

• 1:07:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Thank you.

• 1:07:11Karen Kilgariff?

  That's an interesting story. You took me all the way to Japan to frustrate me about this. You're like, hey, guess what? Injustice is everywhere.

• 1:07:20Georgia Hardstark?

  I know. And it's like, this is a cold case, but look over here.

• 1:07:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, I'm sorry.

• 1:07:25Karen Kilgariff?

  But I mean, amazing if in three years, you're like, wait, ah, guess what?

• 1:07:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Got solved.

• 1:07:31Karen Kilgariff?

  They found it. They found him.

• 1:07:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, that'd be amazing.

• 1:07:35Speaker 00

  The Hulu original series Phony is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus. Sonny's life is pretty great until he wakes up from a car accident to a world that looks exactly like his with one exception, his mom. To everyone else, she's the same Ellen they've known their whole lives, but for Sonny, he knows something is off. As his relationship with his mother begins to crack in unsettling ways, he's forced to question what happens when the perfect mom becomes a perfect stranger. Is this all in his head or is there really an imposter in his house? Starring five-time Emmy nominee Connie Britton and Sam Neveola, this small town is hiding the mother of all mysteries just beneath the surface. Watch the Hulu original series Phony. Now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply. Goodbye.

• 1:08:19Speaker 03

  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.

• 1:08:50Speaker 00

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• 1:09:35Speaker 00

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• 1:10:00Karen Kilgariff?

  It's yet another installment of Honking Hoorays, presented by Hyundai.

• 1:10:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Get it? We're in a car, honking.

• 1:10:05Karen Kilgariff?

  If you want to go first?

• 1:10:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Sure. Okay, this is from an email. It says, "Hey ladies, my hooray is after finalizing my divorce yesterday, I found my first-ever therapist today."

• 1:10:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Hey!

• 1:10:15Georgia Hardstark?

  That's all. That's the whole email. "Love you, Haley."

• 1:10:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Haley, within 24 hours, you nailed it.

• 1:10:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Epic, big steps.

• 1:10:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Incredible job. Okay, here's my first one, also from email. The subject line is, "This year has been a doozy."

• 1:10:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Agreed.

• 1:10:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay, so it starts, "I left an eight-plus-year relationship at the start of the year, became a first-time homeowner, and am preparing to live alone for the first time ever at the age of 36." All of this while working a full-time job, part-time job, and working toward my first degree.

• 1:10:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow, I feel lazy.

• 1:10:49Karen Kilgariff?

  This semester has been a real challenge, but I just submitted my final exam and managed to maintain a 4.0 and keep my status on the dean's list.

• 1:10:58Georgia Hardstark?

  What?

• 1:10:59Karen Kilgariff?

  And then in all caps, it says, "Hooray," and then it just says, "CJ." CJ, how are you that smart and together?

• 1:11:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:07Karen Kilgariff?

  And in a doozy year, that's what you can achieve.

• 1:11:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Good job.

• 1:11:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Incredible. Everybody aim for CJ level.

• 1:11:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay, it's from our email. It says, "Hey, hey, and hooray. My sweet baby Owen was born with multiple severe and life-threatening congenital heart defects. While this warrior just turned six months old, he's battled more in his short life than most of us will ever face, and he smiles through it, all while sucking his toes. Docs didn't think there was much they could do, but he has fought since the moment he was born. He'll undergo his second open-heart surgery this summer. You ladies have been with me since junior year of college in 2016. You've helped me through finals, big moves, pandemic Zoom meetings, wedding planning, pregnancy, and now learning to be a heart mom. I love you both and the whole Exactly Right team. Cassandra B."

• 1:11:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 1:11:57Georgia Hardstark?

  I know.

• 1:11:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Owen's a fighter.

• 1:11:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:59Karen Kilgariff?

  That's incredible.

• 1:12:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Thank you, Cassandra.

• 1:12:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, stay strong. Okay, this email says, "Hello. My hooray is, at the ripe old age of 54.8 years old, I will graduate with my Doctor of Nursing Practice degree from Vanderbilt University."

• 1:12:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Holy.

• 1:12:16Karen Kilgariff?

  So many people are so, like, smart and collegey that listen to this podcast. Guys, what are you doing?

• 1:12:24Georgia Hardstark?

  To kind of lazy people.

• 1:12:25Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, they're like, "I'm going to be better than that." Okay, as a DNP, we are considered the top 1% of nursing in the US. That's good to know. However, I must toot my own horn and take this one step further. Usually, nurse practitioners have one, maybe two specialties. I have four specialty certifications: acute care, emergency, family, and women's health.

• 1:12:46Karen Kilgariff?

  And just 10 days after graduation, I will start my journey towards my midwifery certification. With our country not recognizing women for our worth, we need all the strong women providers we can get. That's very true. Thank you for all of your support and helping us smile through these crazy times. Much love to y'all and remember, no one got here without the help of a woman. Tammy.

• 1:13:11Georgia Hardstark?

  These are amazing.

• 1:13:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Incredible Tammy.

• 1:13:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 1:13:14Karen Kilgariff?

  So many certifications.

• 1:13:16Georgia Hardstark?

  I know.

• 1:13:17Karen Kilgariff?

  So many degrees. It's wild.

• 1:13:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:20Karen Kilgariff?

  So, we're very proud of you.

• 1:13:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, thank you. This is from YouTube, my last one. Okay. "Hi ladies, my hooray is that I moved out of my parents' house again at 37, and I'm learning not to sweat all the small things. Your show continues to fill my ear balls as I put my new place together between packing and unpacking, building new furniture and decor, and cleaning up after myself. Thank you ladies and my favorite human Chelsea, who not only got me hooked on you lovely gals, but who is also on an amazing glow up journey of her own to be a badass independent woman. Hoorays to all of us for staying steady or stubbornly and doggedly determined to keep on keeping on. Stay sexy and salute to fellow male feminists, Alex, he/him/his."

• 1:14:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow, Alex.

• 1:14:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Thanks, Alex.

• 1:14:05Karen Kilgariff?

  A boy showing up in the chat.

• 1:14:07Georgia Hardstark?

  I love it. I love you using your hooray to shout out someone else.

• 1:14:10Karen Kilgariff?

  I know.

• 1:14:11Georgia Hardstark?

  That's pretty cool.

• 1:14:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow, Alex really has it all. Ready? Okay, this next one-

• 1:14:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Like the Hyundai.

• 1:14:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Like the, like the Ioniq 5. This is from our email. It says, "My hooray is that today for the first time, I met fellow murderinos quote unquote 'in the wild.' I started a new job as a heart transplant coordinator nurse three weeks ago."

• 1:14:32Georgia Hardstark?

  How is everyone so good and smart?

• 1:14:35Karen Kilgariff?

  So weird. While taking a short break today, I made a comment about an old crumple ass Post-it note that was taped onto a rolling cart full of file folders. I said, 'Q Karen's old timey voice, that Post-it note has been there for 25 years.' Seconds later, I received a message from a coworker a couple of cubicles down. The message read, 'Can I ask you something weird?'

• 1:14:59Georgia Hardstark?

  The best question ever.

• 1:15:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Long, long ellipsis and then it says, "Do you listen to My Favorite Murder?" Before she could finish her sentence, I excitedly wrote back, "OMG, yes. Are you a murderino too?" We simultaneously rolled our chairs backwards out of our cubicles, turning toward each other while squealing.

• 1:15:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Aww.

• 1:15:16Karen Kilgariff?

  I shouted, "I'm a Karen," while she proceeded to tell me that she had listened to the entire podcast from start to finish three times.

• 1:15:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh my god.

• 1:15:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Good god.

• 1:15:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh my god, see someone.

• 1:15:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Please.

• 1:15:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Get help.

• 1:15:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Moments later, a second and third coworker popped out of their respective cubicles to tell me they listened too.

• 1:15:33Georgia Hardstark?

  What?

• 1:15:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, hell yeah, we took over this office.

• 1:15:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:35Karen Kilgariff?

  I was over the moon excited to have that murderino connection with not one, two, but three amazing ladies I share an office with. When you start to tour again, we are already planning to see you in Chicago or Milwaukee or both. So stay sexy and use your old timey Karen voice whenever you can. You never know when it will lead you to new friends.

• 1:15:54Georgia Hardstark?

  Aww.

• 1:15:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Megan.

• 1:15:55Georgia Hardstark?

  I love that.

• 1:15:56Karen Kilgariff?

  That's so awesome.

• 1:15:57Georgia Hardstark?

  That's amazing.

• 1:15:58Karen Kilgariff?

  It's all the nurses.

• 1:15:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Yay.

• 1:15:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Everybody in an office.

• 1:16:01Georgia Hardstark?

  That is so hooray. You guys, thank you for writing in. Thank you for listening to the Honking Hoorays. Thank you Hyundai for helping us present these Honking Hoorays to you.

• 1:16:10Karen Kilgariff?

  And stay sexy.

• 1:16:10Georgia Hardstark?

  And don't get murdered.

• 1:16:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie?

• 1:16:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Ahhh.

• 1:16:21Speaker 00

  This has been an Exactly Right production. Our senior producers are Alejandra Keck and Molly Smith. Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo. This episode was mixed by Leona Scolacci. Our researchers are Maren McGlashan and Ali Elkin.

• 1:16:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Email your hometowns to [email protected].

• 1:16:36Speaker 00

  Follow the show on Instagram at MyFavoriteMurder.

• 1:16:39Georgia Hardstark?

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

• 1:16:44Speaker 00

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

• 1:16:57Karen Kilgariff?

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

• 1:17:02Georgia Hardstark?

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

• 1:17:08Karen Kilgariff?

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

• 1:17:11Georgia Hardstark?

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

• 1:17:16Karen Kilgariff?

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

• 1:17:24Speaker 04

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