Pod Insights My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark MFM Minisode 474 About this episode This week’s hometowns are Valentine’s Day-themed! Listen for a Murderino jackpot in a dresser and a feel-good best friend connection.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Speaker 00 This is exactly right.
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1:29 Georgia Hardstark? Hello and welcome
1:31 Karen Kilgariff? to My Favorite Murder.
1:32 Georgia Hardstark? The minisode.
1:33 Karen Kilgariff? We read you.
1:34 Georgia Hardstark? Your stories.
1:35 Karen Kilgariff? That come in email form.
1:36 Georgia Hardstark? Kind of Valentine's Day themed.
1:38 Karen Kilgariff? We have a big Gmail that you can send your stories to.
1:41 Georgia Hardstark? That's right, send them in. We love it. MyFavoriteMurdererGmail, just like that.
1:44 Karen Kilgariff? We love it. Should I go first?
1:45 Georgia Hardstark? Sure.
1:46 Karen Kilgariff? The subject line of this email is, "We Found the Murderino Jackpot in Our Dresser."
1:52 Karen Kilgariff? Hello Karen, Georgia, crew and pets. You are all wonderful. I'm a longtime listener from the pun titled days and got my much younger sister into your podcast as well. Sorry, Mom. That's what older sisters are for, right?
2:04 Georgia Hardstark? Yes, that's true.
2:06 Karen Kilgariff? So let's get to it. This week, my sister picked up a dresser from Facebook Marketplace. When she got it into her room and opened the drawer, two letters fell out. She scanned one and read a sentence about a gruesome crime scene. She checked the return addresses on the envelopes. One was from Oregon State Penitentiary and the other was from San Quentin.
2:25 Georgia Hardstark? Jesus.
2:26 Karen Kilgariff? Your faces like started bright and slowly like sinking like.
2:30 Georgia Hardstark? Oh, no.
2:31 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah. She immediately brought the letters to my parents and they FaceTimed me, the family Marterino.
2:36 Georgia Hardstark? Nice.
2:37 Karen Kilgariff? All caps, you guys, period. She was holding letters from Dennis Rader. Who is BTK.
2:44 Georgia Hardstark? From him. Okay.
2:45 Karen Kilgariff? They wrote, "Covered in episode 82."
2:47 Georgia Hardstark? Which is, oh, do their homework for us.
2:49 Karen Kilgariff? Yep. And Keith Jesperson, the Happy Face Killer, covered in episode 257.
2:54 Georgia Hardstark? Holy shit.
2:56 Karen Kilgariff? After some investigation on Facebook to figure out where this dresser had come from, we discovered the dresser belonged to the family of criminologist Laura Brand.
3:05 Georgia Hardstark? Wow.
3:06 Karen Kilgariff? She's written letters and interviewed over 50 serial killers to assess their personality traits. And she presented a research at Crime Con in 2021.
3:14 Georgia Hardstark? I've definitely seen her on documentaries. She's great.
3:16 Karen Kilgariff? For sure.
3:17 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
3:17 Karen Kilgariff? This made us breathe easier, knowing the dresser didn't belong to a killer. Laura's mother had apparently forgotten to check the drawers before selling the dresser to my sister.
3:27 Karen Kilgariff? That makes Laura sound like a high school investigator.
3:31 Georgia Hardstark? Nancy Drew over here.
3:32 Karen Kilgariff? I hope that Laura would be delighted to know these letters fell into the hands of Marterino sisters. Our mom reached out to her mom on Facebook to tell her, hey, we found these letters in your dresser and they seem important. To which she replied, oh, boy, I'm going to need those back for my daughter.
3:47 Georgia Hardstark? Don't fucking tell my daughter.
3:49 Karen Kilgariff? And then it says, of course, before returning the letters, we read them thoroughly.
3:53 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
3:53 Karen Kilgariff? Here are the highlights.
3:54 Georgia Hardstark? Oh, wow. Okay.
3:56 Karen Kilgariff? This is real inside inside tea.
3:59 Georgia Hardstark? This is too much. Okay. Cause I don't ever want to write to a fucking serial killer murderer. Ever, ever. But like to just feel like read some insider baseball stuff.
4:09 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah. What it might be like.
4:11 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
4:11 Karen Kilgariff? And I like the way they broke this down, too. So it's BTK had horrendous handwriting and we only had pages three and four of a four-page letter. He mostly rambles about money for stamps and complains about how long the mail takes. But the letter was sent on Valentine's Day of 2020.
4:28 Georgia Hardstark? Oh my god.
4:29 Karen Kilgariff? And he asks Laura if she's received a Valentine from Bittaker. I had to look up this name. That's one of the two Toolbox Killers.
4:38 Georgia Hardstark? Okay, just like a who's who of pieces of shit serial killers over here.
4:42 Karen Kilgariff? Yes. We've never covered the Toolbox Killer because it is so disgusting and so insane. It is truly one of the worst things I've ever read about.
4:51 Georgia Hardstark? It's hopeless. It feels hopeless.
4:54 Karen Kilgariff? Laura was doing research on them for her documentary, The Toolbox Killers, which was released on Peacock and Oxygen in 2021. So this is a real journalist, you know, like trying to get background information as opposed to like what everybody always loves to talk about, the like the women at the Nightstalker case who were like, we want to marry him.
5:14 Georgia Hardstark? Like fangirls. Yeah, this is a journalist.
5:16 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah. The documentary features personal accounts from survivors and family members, as well as Laura's relationship with Bittaker, as she interviews him over the years. In this letter, BTK said he was familiar with Bittaker and he used to have a newspaper clipping of one of his crimes in his quote unquote hidey hole. And then in parentheses, it says, "His hidey hole shivers." The letter from Keith was seven pages long, and I must say, he has decent handwriting, though the content was disturbing. For most of the letter, he rants about someone who has written a book about his crimes, but he's pissed that they left out three of his murders.
5:52 Georgia Hardstark? Oh my god.
5:53 Karen Kilgariff? In my opinion, the juicy part is when he responds to a few of Laura's research questions that assess personality traits. His favorite book, The Old Man and the Sea, what would you do with an invisible cloak, escape from prison, favorite animal, squirrel. I'm not sure what to do with this information, but I knew I needed to share it with my fellow murderinos. Stay sexy and always check the drawers before selling your children's furniture, L and V.
6:17 Georgia Hardstark? Holy shit. How? Chilling.
6:22 Karen Kilgariff? We've said this on this podcast before, but I just am so not interested in their favorite animal or like, I don't want to know about their thinking anymore than what we know about the crimes and then like that idea where your personality.
6:37 Georgia Hardstark? And maybe like how to get, prevent or find other, you know, killers, but I guarantee squirrel's not going to be one of the ways you're going to capture the next fucking serial killer, you know?
6:46 Karen Kilgariff? Well, unless there's some sort of signal or sign, I mean, like they have to be holistic about it. I just don't want to have to be.
6:53 Georgia Hardstark? Totally, totally.
6:54 Karen Kilgariff? Cause it's not, it's just gross. I think we want to read the books, obviously.
6:59 Georgia Hardstark? Right.
6:59 Karen Kilgariff? But the journalists have to process so much.
7:01 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
7:02 Karen Kilgariff? Horror and gross stuff to get their story.
7:06 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
7:06 Karen Kilgariff? It's horrible.
7:07 Georgia Hardstark? Okay. Here is my first one. This is a Galentine's Day feel-good best friend story.
7:14 Karen Kilgariff? Nice.
7:16 Georgia Hardstark? Hi all. Let's get to it. With Galentine's Day coming up, I'd like to share about the weird supernatural like connection I have with Chrissy, my best friend of 23 years. And yes, that best friendship is capitalized. We met when we were 10 years old and we were inseparable. We've always called our bond the best friend connection or just BFC for short. Anyway, the summer before my senior year in high school, I worked at our local subway and Chrissy would frequently drop in to visit me while I was working as best friends in high school or want to do. One day I was working and a state trooper came in. He just so happened to mention that he'd come from the scene of a car accident on Lemoore Road where a car had flipped over and my BFC senses immediately started to tingle.
8:00 Karen Kilgariff? Oh no.
8:01 Georgia Hardstark? For reasons that I cannot explain to this day, I asked in a panic, was it a white cavalier with black racing flags on the side? All the color drained out of his face and he said, I shouldn't really be telling you this, but yes, it was. How could you possibly know that? That's my best friend's car. I was starting to freak out. I need to know if she's okay. She went to the hospital, but I think she's going to be fine, the trooper replied. Still looking completely weirded out by my unexplained outburst. I ripped my apron off, threw it down, looked at my manager on duty and said, I'm leaving. I booked out that door, jumped into my broke ass 1986 Buick and floored it to my best friend's house. I pounded on the front door until it opened. Chrissy and her mom looked at me with utter
8:43 Georgia Hardstark? disbelief as I burst in and asked, are you okay? What happened? Chrissy explained that she'd been on her way to see me and her brakes had given out on a sharp curve on the back road she was driving on. She'd rolled her car a couple of times and completely totaled it. She was fine other than having a concussion and being pretty shaken up.
9:02 Karen Kilgariff? That's crazy.
9:03 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
9:03 Karen Kilgariff? I would think that car would blow up on the first turn.
9:06 Georgia Hardstark? Totally. And you're home the same day. That's insane. But how did you know I was in an accident? She asked, clearly looking puzzled as fuck. I explained that a straight trooper had come into Subway, described the accident. I had just known that it was her and that she'd been coming to see me. I have zero explanation as to how or why Chrissy and I have the BFC, but for the 23 years that we've been best friends, we've always known when one of us needs the other. This Valentine slash Galentine's Day, remember that your soulmate doesn't have to be your lover. Your soulmate can be your best friend. Thanks for all y'all do. I love the podcast and I so appreciate how y'all are working to de-sigmatize getting help for mental health. It's so important. SSDGM, Maggie.
9:46 Karen Kilgariff? Maggie, Maggie, you have the sixth sense.
9:49 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
9:50 Karen Kilgariff? That, what an honor too.
9:52 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
9:53 Karen Kilgariff? As the friend to be like, oh my God, you knew when I was in trouble.
9:56 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, you knew I needed you. Jesus.
9:58 Karen Kilgariff? Oh, that's really intense.
10:00 Georgia Hardstark? But if really though, every time a trooper had come in, she'd be like, was it a cavalier? Was it a white? And then she's like, one time out of 25, she, he was like, how did you know that?
10:09 Karen Kilgariff? Or it's the same trooper and she's like, was it a Chevy minivan? Yes. And he's just having a total nervous breakdown. Okay.
10:19 Georgia Hardstark? The holidays are right around the corner, which means people are about to do a lot of shopping.
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11:04 Georgia Hardstark? Goodbye.
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11:34 Georgia Hardstark? There are plenty of things that keep you up at night. Your sleep tracker shouldn't be one of them.
11:38 Karen Kilgariff? You know that feeling, laying in bed, staring at the ceiling, counting all the times you said something weird.
11:43 Georgia Hardstark? And then you wake up and check your sleep score. Now you have to start your day knowing that you failed at sleeping.
11:48 Karen Kilgariff? Hatch Sleep Clock does it differently.
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11:56 Karen Kilgariff? Instead, you'll get personalized insights to understand your sleep and recommendations to build a routine you'll love night after night.
12:02 Georgia Hardstark? Fall asleep to the next chapter of an audiobook, like The Odyssey, a nervous system reset meditation, or a calming sound bath.
12:09 Karen Kilgariff? Then you can find out which gives you 20 more minutes of deep sleep each night.
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12:19 Georgia Hardstark? Goodbye.
12:22 Karen Kilgariff? This email, the subject line is "Found in Walls and Strange Shit Grandparents Do." "Hi, gang. My great-grandmother was a child during the Great Depression, so you can imagine how she scrimped and saved her entire life. She married very young and had three children. Sadly, her husband died young, and she struggled to raise her kids with very little money. My grandfather had to leave school early to get a job to help contribute to the household. The home she lived in and raised her children in was the same home she and her husband rented right after they married, having rented the home from the original owner, then his son, then his granddaughter.
12:56 Georgia Hardstark? Wow.
12:56 Karen Kilgariff? She believed her rent was still $35 per month, with my grandfather making up the difference without her knowing. They probably bought and paid for that house four times over."
13:05 Georgia Hardstark? Hate it.
13:06 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah, that's how it works. Fast forward decades, we were moving from the tiny home to a nursing home and combing through her belongings. Horrible day. My brother, about eight at the time, ran into the kitchen with a silver dollar, asking if he could keep it. He had found it pasted to the bottom of the leg of a chair. Turns out, it was a real silver dollar, but how weird for it to be pasted to the bottom of the chair, right? Could there be more? My family began to really explore the nooks and crannies of this house to see if she had hoarded away other little treasures. We found coins of various denominations sewn into curtains. Sewn into curtain corners and under the legs of chairs, bills of various denominations,
13:47 Karen Kilgariff? pasted under wallpaper and stacked between the countless butter tubs and cottage cheese tubs saved for decades.
13:54 Georgia Hardstark? Oh, my god.
13:55 Karen Kilgariff? Full on treasure hunt.
13:56 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, it sounds amazing.
13:58 Karen Kilgariff? We also found her hoard of the gummy orange slices she always gave us that were hard as rock.
14:04 Karen Kilgariff? Still treasure. Judging by the open package in the pantry, we estimated she likely bought them in the seventies.
14:12 Karen Kilgariff? Here's your old circus peanut.
14:13 Georgia Hardstark? Oh, god.
14:14 Karen Kilgariff? Go run outside. In the cellar, my dad noticed the walls and floor seemed uneven. Knowing the home was going to be demolished, we got permission from the owner to chip away at the walls and floor. All caps, dozens of jars of coins and bills were tucked away.
14:30 Georgia Hardstark? Thank god they fucking found that.
14:32 Karen Kilgariff? I know, for real. My uncle brought over a metal detector and we searched the yard. There were hundreds of jars.
14:38 Georgia Hardstark? Jesus.
14:39 Karen Kilgariff? Various size, full of money.
14:41 Georgia Hardstark? How fun.
14:41 Karen Kilgariff? Right? We tore the place apart, searching for her treasure, finding over, do you want to guess how much?
14:48 Georgia Hardstark? Twenty-five thousand.
14:49 Karen Kilgariff? Eighty-three thousand.
14:50 Georgia Hardstark? Holy shit.
14:52 Karen Kilgariff? So good. This woman lived like a pauper her whole life, taking half her prescribed meds so she could stretch the prescription further. Paying thirty-five dollars a month in rent, even though her rent was far more. Refusing to pay for a home phone. Never buying a meal at a restaurant, no luxuries whatsoever unless you consider two-dollar boxed crayon red hair dye a luxury. My grandma had like fake red hair dye too.
15:19 Georgia Hardstark? Oh, my god, I love it.
15:20 Karen Kilgariff? All while squirreling away eighty-three K. Needless to say, we were all blown away.
15:25 Georgia Hardstark? I wish she had taken care of herself. A little bit more though.
15:28 Karen Kilgariff? I know, but I think you get into that gear and it's hard to get out.
15:31 Georgia Hardstark? I know. My grandma didn't.
15:33 Karen Kilgariff? It's so World War II, just so coins into the corners of things.
15:37 Georgia Hardstark? Totally, because that's like, yeah.
15:38 Karen Kilgariff? It just happened.
15:40 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
15:40 Karen Kilgariff? Like, it just, it's such near history.
15:43 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
15:43 Karen Kilgariff? Okay. Stay sexy. And if you're ever cleaning out your grandparents' home, always check for squirreled away treasure.
15:49 Georgia Hardstark? Oh, yeah.
15:50 Karen Kilgariff? Lori.
15:51 Georgia Hardstark? Okay, here's the new thing. If you don't have a deathbed confession, then you need to hide treasures for everyone to find.
15:58 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah.
15:58 Georgia Hardstark? Like, make it a deathbed scavenger hunt. It's way better than a deathbed confession.
16:04 Karen Kilgariff? And you don't have to have, yeah, like saying if you don't have the treasure, but when someone passes away, the orange slices they gave you from the 70s becomes the treasure.
16:13 Georgia Hardstark? It could be like notes that you tuck in places that they find, like treasure hunt kind of stuff. It doesn't have to be money.
16:19 Karen Kilgariff? No, it's like me getting the bell lady for Christmas and having a full nervous breakdown where it's like, the bell lady probably costs $7.
16:26 Georgia Hardstark? No, totally.
16:27 Karen Kilgariff? But it's, that's the idea.
16:28 Georgia Hardstark? Treasure hunt.
16:29 Karen Kilgariff? Treasure hunt.
16:30 Georgia Hardstark? Deathbed treasure hunt.
16:31 Karen Kilgariff? From grandma.
16:32 Georgia Hardstark? Do you have a deathbed treasure hunt story? Tell us at myfavoritemurder at gmail.
16:36 Karen Kilgariff? We're trying to create our own reality.
16:37 Georgia Hardstark? Okay, speaking of deathbed treasure hunt confession-y type of thing, here is a family secret with gal pals Betty and Dottie. I'm a huge fan of the podcast, Y U G E. I love that. Let's go. I wanted to write in about my paternal grandma who always loved spending time with the six of us grandkids. She showered us with kisses and love. She never missed a birthday. She sent Valentine's cards mailed separately to each of us. She gave us the best Christmas gifts, always had cookies and pop for us when we visited, and she never left the house without her lipstick. She sent us seized candy boxes on Easter and Christmas, and when I was a teenager, she would call and ask me, how's your love life?
17:20 Georgia Hardstark? Even in her 60s, Grandma Betty would ride all the scariest roller coasters and extreme water slides with us, laughing the entire time.
17:27 Karen Kilgariff? Even in her 60s?
17:28 Georgia Hardstark? I know.
17:30 Karen Kilgariff? When her whole body could have broken in half in her 60s?
17:35 Georgia Hardstark? Starting to feel it. Okay.
17:38 Georgia Hardstark? Her name was Elizabeth English. My mom and dad often asked her about her life as a child, but she was always quiet about it. She gave a name or two of her relatives, but would change the subject if we asked anything else. This was not acceptable for us, a large Mormon family who wanted to do our genealogy like good Mormons do. Really big on that.
17:57 Karen Kilgariff? They love it.
17:58 Georgia Hardstark? Somehow, the answer to these questions about her past eluded us until her passing in the early 1990s. That's when we got ahold of a box of old photos that we didn't recognize. And after some investigating, her brother, Dad's Uncle Bill, told us the truth. Grandma Betty's name was not Betty at all, nor was it English. It was Sarah Brownstein. Our family was shocked to find out that Grandma Betty, along with her best friend, Dottie, had run away from her home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to escape her strict Jewish parents.
18:28 Karen Kilgariff? Whoa.
18:29 Georgia Hardstark? They collaborated on an escape to get as far away from home as they could, winding up in Los Angeles in the 1940s.
18:36 Karen Kilgariff? Unbelievable.
18:37 Georgia Hardstark? What a time. Somewhere along the way, Dottie swore that her friend was Elizabeth English, and Grandma was able to get a new birth certificate and identity. What's it like to do is like bring a friend and be like, back then, this is...
18:48 Karen Kilgariff? No, I swear to God.
18:49 Georgia Hardstark? That's who this is.
18:49 Karen Kilgariff? It's Liz English.
18:53 Georgia Hardstark? They rented a room together, got jobs as waitresses, and dated a lot of soldiers when the war ended. I can't help but think of Black Dahlia, like in Los Angeles at that time.
19:02 Karen Kilgariff? Yep.
19:03 Georgia Hardstark? That's just crazy.
19:04 Karen Kilgariff? And just the newness of women being out on their own.
19:06 Georgia Hardstark? Totally.
19:07 Karen Kilgariff? For the turn of the century and after, just like very few women did it.
19:11 Georgia Hardstark? No. They each married and had families and always lived near each other. They had barbecues on Sundays. Their kids grew up like cousins. It's like you. And neither one ever told anyone, including their husbands and kids, about Grandma's former identity.
19:25 Karen Kilgariff? So, so that's a whole family that's finding out they are Jewish. Because it goes down, it's passed down through the mother.
19:32 Georgia Hardstark? And it's really surprising to me that she became Mormon and not like just not, you know, kind of non-denominational. It's like... Just, it's huge. And then not to tell.
19:41 Karen Kilgariff? I wonder if there was a danger element to her past where she's like, I'm gonna go deep undercover.
19:46 Georgia Hardstark? Totally. I'm sure, you know, any conservative religion is not one that you're stoked to be a woman in.
19:51 Karen Kilgariff? Right.
19:52 Georgia Hardstark? You know?
19:52 Karen Kilgariff? And easy to get away from.
19:53 Georgia Hardstark? Exactly.
19:53 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah.
19:54 Georgia Hardstark? Of course, my dad wanted to talk to Uncle Bill for some more details about his mother's previous life. So many questions about his own heritage and why didn't Bill or anyone else go looking for her? Did she ever write home? Who else in the family is still alive? My dad and mom flew out to see Uncle Bill with their box of photographs, anxious to piece the story together and find out as many secrets as possible. As Bill was mowing the lawn at his home on the day my folks were set to visit, he collapsed and died of a heart attack hours before they arrived.
20:23 Karen Kilgariff? Same day?
20:24 Georgia Hardstark? Yes.
20:25 Karen Kilgariff? That's horrible and so what?
20:27 Georgia Hardstark? I know. Now, here's an additional twist. My brother, who was 19 at the time Grandma Betty died, was preparing to go on a Mormon mission. You may know that missionaries do not get to choose where they serve. It's up to the higher ups to send them basically anywhere in the world. My brother was sent to Donetsk, Ukraine, the very place where my great-grandfather Bronstein was a rabbi.
20:50 Karen Kilgariff? What?
20:51 Georgia Hardstark? My family is no longer Mormon, but I have to think that there was something that guided us to connect with our distant family in that way. My parents were able to fly to Ukraine to not only pick up my brother after he served his two-year mission, but also tour the village where the Bronstein family lived before fleeing to the US, fiddler on the roof style.
21:09 Karen Kilgariff? Holy shit.
21:10 Georgia Hardstark? I know. This is an epic fucking story.
21:13 Karen Kilgariff? It's the power of Judaism, drawing those Mormons in, saying, no, no, no, you're with us.
21:20 Georgia Hardstark? And none of this could happen until like Grandma died, because Grandma was, you know what I mean? It's like, open this whole Pandora's box.
21:27 Karen Kilgariff? And she had the guts to start a new life, so it's like, everyone was like, let her do it.
21:31 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
21:31 Karen Kilgariff? Don't bust her. Don't do this.
21:34 Georgia Hardstark? She left them a treasure hunt.
21:36 Karen Kilgariff? Oh, she did.
21:37 Georgia Hardstark? Didn't she?
21:38 Karen Kilgariff? It's a theme.
21:39 Georgia Hardstark? Just leave enough info for that they can do some searching. And it was the 90s, so it wasn't like you can go online and just put your fucking DNA up in there and
21:46 Karen Kilgariff? Have your data farmed.
21:46 Georgia Hardstark? And let AI fucking own you.
21:49 Karen Kilgariff? Tell you how to live.
21:50 Georgia Hardstark? Our dear friend, Dottie, passed away in 2020, and we got a chance to talk with her about her friendship with my grandma Betty before she died. With a twinkle in her eyes, she said Betty was the best friend that any person could ever have. After Dottie passed, it became known that she, too, was of Jewish descent, but told no one. I have to wonder what her name could have been before running off across the country with her best friend. Stay sexy and always vouch for your best friend. Joanne, she/her.
22:19 Karen Kilgariff? It's so good.
22:20 Georgia Hardstark? Isn't it good?
22:21 Karen Kilgariff? Yes. Like, it's, they're like, fuck this shit, we're out of here. We're starting over.
22:25 Georgia Hardstark? I'm not fucking marrying whoever my parents want me to marry. I'm fucking out.
22:28 Karen Kilgariff? I'm out of here, and what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go marry a six-foot-tall, toe-headed blond man. The opposite of anything I've ever seen before in my life.
22:37 Georgia Hardstark? Totally.
22:38 Karen Kilgariff? And not drink coffee.
22:39 Georgia Hardstark? Right.
22:39 Karen Kilgariff? And not smoke cigarettes.
22:41 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, that's rough.
22:43 Karen Kilgariff? Wow.
22:43 Georgia Hardstark? I know.
22:44 Karen Kilgariff? It just makes me think of my grandmother, who came to this country when she was 17 with her older sister and her younger sister.
22:51 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, my grandma is similar. So it's just how terrifying.
22:54 Karen Kilgariff? So terrifying.
22:55 Georgia Hardstark? Not speaking any English. Well, you're, well, yours is like.
22:58 Karen Kilgariff? Mine's different.
22:59 Georgia Hardstark? But it's like, not English in the same way.
23:01 Karen Kilgariff? They were farm girls from, you know, the country in Ireland. It's like, they came to New York City.
23:06 Georgia Hardstark? Totally.
23:07 Karen Kilgariff? And then went, fuck this place, we're going to San Francisco. Which is so awesome.
23:11 Georgia Hardstark? I know, mine were like, LA, let's fucking do it.
23:13 Karen Kilgariff? Let's do it, let's go where the action is.
23:14 Georgia Hardstark? Hell, yeah.
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23:44 Karen Kilgariff? There are plenty of things that keep you. You up at night, your sleep tracker shouldn't be one of them.
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24:59 Karen Kilgariff? Well, we'll wrap it up. There's a little bit more grandparent theme here in our Valentine's Day show. The subject line of this is the greatest goddamn love story you've ever heard for Valentine's. It says, "Hi friends, my great-grandmother, AKA Grams, was born three months prematurely in Hollywood, Texas in the early 1900s. No one thought she would live, so she wasn't issued a birth certificate."
25:22 Georgia Hardstark? Three months back, I mean, three months now is...
25:25 Karen Kilgariff? A very big deal.
25:26 Georgia Hardstark? Three months then, Jesus.
25:28 Karen Kilgariff? And then in parentheses, it says, "This isn't super relevant, but I think it's funny, and it caused her problems later in life. My pops was born in Oklahoma around the same time. His mother died as a result of childbirth, and her family, the Studebakers," in parentheses, "yes, like the car company," still salty at all those rich folks three generations later, "disowned him." So they're from the Studebaker family, but they were like, "You're out."
25:51 Georgia Hardstark? Holy shit.
25:52 Karen Kilgariff? "His father left, and he was raised by his paternal grandmother. She recognized his artistic talent at a young age and snuck him into adult art classes as a child. Anyway, my pops joined the army during World War II and became a pilot. He was a nut, and during his training, he would fly the planes under bridges doing barrel rolls. Honestly, I'm lucky that my lifeline didn't end there." On the boat on his way to Europe, my wild child of a pops moved up to the captain's quarters and drew caricatures of the officers. When roll was called in the section he was supposed to be in, he did not answer and it was assumed he had died on the way over. Instead of clarifying the situation, my pops went AWOL and traveled around Europe going to different art museums.
26:33 Georgia Hardstark? Oh my god.
26:34 Karen Kilgariff? Okay Forrest Gump. We have a copy of a famous painting in my home, which he told my father, his first grandson, that he had illegally built a mold for when he visited the Louvre. Here comes the love story. When my pops came home, he went to someone and asked who the best dancer in town was.
26:51 Georgia Hardstark? Best dancer? That's cute.
26:54 Karen Kilgariff? He was told that the soda jerk down the road, Mary, was the best dancer around. My grams didn't want anything to do with him because he was a quote unquote cocky hotshot. So, long story short, that's how the greatest partnership was born. My grams and pops were a perfect pair. She was the perfect grounding force to his artistic mind and his lifelong muse. He was an art professor at many colleges and they brought his students into their home as though they were their own. They traveled the United States, they were staunch social advocates for the LGBTQ plus people, and introduced my father to his native culture. For every year on Valentine's Day, my pops built my grams a Valentine sculpture. And when he had a museum collection, all thirty something of them were on display.
27:38 Georgia Hardstark? Oh my god.
27:39 Karen Kilgariff? I was so lucky to know both of them and have such an amazing love story in my family tree. Thank you for this podcast. I'm writing this currently on the treadmill, trying to blow off steam from law school finals. This show has brought me joy in what seems to have been a very challenging journey with school. P.S. Law school sucks, but I'm excited to get into the world and do good work. Stay sexy and ask your family for family history. Siobhan, she/her.
28:04 Georgia Hardstark? Wow.
28:05 Karen Kilgariff? Sweet.
28:06 Georgia Hardstark? Who's the best dancer in town?
28:08 Karen Kilgariff? Who's the best dancer in town? I'm gonna date her.
28:09 Georgia Hardstark? I have one more. Short, cute love story.
28:12 Karen Kilgariff? Great.
28:12 Georgia Hardstark? A hot dog love story, actually.
28:14 Karen Kilgariff? Okay.
28:15 Georgia Hardstark? My first day as a college freshman, I met a cute guy at a social event with free hot dogs. We became friends, then more than friends, then dated, and eventually got engaged. One of our mutual best friends was a hot dogger, meaning drove the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile for a year right out of college. They're called hot doggers. And in addition to the amazing hot dog merch she shared with us, she really came through for us for our wedding rehearsal dinner a couple of years later. Our hot dog love story had always been a huge part of our friend group's lore. And although she had retired from the Wiener life by this time, she still had some clout with the current regional hot doggers. She arranged for the Wienermobile to pick me and my husband up from our wedding rehearsal
28:57 Georgia Hardstark? location and drive us to our rehearsal dinner in the fucking Wienermobile.
29:02 Karen Kilgariff? That's big.
29:03 Georgia Hardstark? It was so fucking funny and is still one of the best and most thoughtful surprises. Love you, Jenny. Just look at how happy our little goofy asses look in this pic. Our hot dog love story is going strong after eight years of marriage, five pets, and two precious little kids. Stay sexy and never say no to a free hot dog. Well, I don't know, use your best judgment, but you get the idea, Beth.
29:26 Karen Kilgariff? Oh, so cute.
29:27 Georgia Hardstark? How cute is that?
29:28 Karen Kilgariff? They also look like little babies, don't they?
29:30 Georgia Hardstark? Yes.
29:31 Karen Kilgariff? They're so.
29:32 Georgia Hardstark? Oh, they are so little.
29:33 Karen Kilgariff? They're so young and cute.
29:34 Georgia Hardstark? It's them posing outside the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile with little, like, cardboard cutouts of hot dogs over their, like, fancy clothes.
29:41 Karen Kilgariff? There's so many ways to express love, ladies and gentlemen.
29:44 Georgia Hardstark? Truly.
29:45 Karen Kilgariff? Hot dogs, old people, hidden money.
29:49 Georgia Hardstark? Treasures.
29:50 Karen Kilgariff? Treasure and staying sexy.
29:52 Georgia Hardstark? And don't get murdered.
29:53 Karen Kilgariff? Happy Valentine's Day.
29:57 Georgia Hardstark? Happy goodbye.
29:58 Karen Kilgariff? Elvis, do you want a cookie?
30:08 Karen Kilgariff? This has been an Exactly Right Production.
30:09 Georgia Hardstark? Our senior producer is Molly Smith, and our associate producer is Tessa Hughes.
30:13 Karen Kilgariff? Our editor is Aristotle Lasaveta.
30:15 Georgia Hardstark? This episode was mixed by Liana Scolacci.
30:17 Karen Kilgariff? Email your hometowns to [email protected] .
30:20 Georgia Hardstark? Follow the show on Instagram at MyFavoriteMurder.
30:22 Karen Kilgariff? Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Goodbye.
30:34 Karen Kilgariff? Vacation planning should feel like a breeze, not a deep dive into countless travel sites searching for the best deal.
30:39 Georgia Hardstark? With CheapCaribbean's Budget Beach Finder, you can search every destination and every date all in one search.
30:45 Karen Kilgariff? You'll save time and money with the Budget Beach Finder.
30:47 Georgia Hardstark? Say goodbye to endless scrolling and tab hopping and hello to Budget Beach Bliss at your fingertips.
30:53 Karen Kilgariff? Go to CheapCaribbean.com to try out the Budget Beach Finder and see just how stress-free vacation planning should be. Goodbye.
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