Pod Insights My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark 530 - The Great Guy Law-Time Spectacular Part II About this episode On today’s exciting episode, Guy Branum returns and tells Karen and Georgia the story of Baljinder Kaur’s defense in the murder of mother-in-law Baljit Kaur.
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Transcript 11,612 words · 7 speakers
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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0:35 Speaker 02 In New Orleans, truckers kept getting sideswiped the exact same way. When a man is found murdered under questionable circumstances related to these accidents, the rubber hits the road. And what the feds uncover is a complex scheme of staged wrecks, financial fraud, and a pair of conspiring lovers behind it. This is a story about fake accidents that led to real consequences. Listen to Over My Dead Body: Operation Sideswipe wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
1:28 Karen Kilgariff? Hello and welcome.
1:30 Georgia Hardstark? To My Favorite Murder.
1:31 Karen Kilgariff? That's Georgia Hardstark.
1:32 Georgia Hardstark? That's Karen Kilgariff. And we have a very exciting, extra-special guest for you today.
1:38 Karen Kilgariff? That is right. He's back from one of our listener favorite episodes, episode 49, The Great Guy Lot Time New Year's Spectacular.
1:47 Georgia Hardstark? Only nine years.
1:48 Karen Kilgariff? Welcome, Guy.
1:50 Speaker 05 It's good to be here. I mean, so much has happened from My Favorite Murder since, you know, recording in Karen's living room nine years ago.
2:00 Karen Kilgariff? Was it my living room?
2:01 Georgia Hardstark? It was Georgia's living room. Karen had a house at the time. I had a shitty-ass apartment.
2:07 Karen Kilgariff? But that's how long ago it was that we don't remember places.
2:10 Speaker 05 Yes.
2:11 Karen Kilgariff? It was a while. And so much has happened for you since that time.
2:14 Speaker 05 Yes, but also along the way, like so frequently at shows, I've had people show up and be like, I heard you on My Favorite Murder, and that's why they showed up. And so I want to thank you guys. I want to thank all the murderinos who came to my shows.
2:27 Georgia Hardstark? Oh, that's so nice.
2:28 Karen Kilgariff? They definitely love you. We've heard about it. It's such a funny, I mean, we just had a rewind episode where we like go back over an old episode and that episode came up. It came up because you and I were working on Talk Show the Game show, which must be syndicated somewhere. They must be playing it somewhere.
2:45 Speaker 05 It's on Apple TV. It was for a brief and glorious period of time on HBO Max.
2:50 Karen Kilgariff? Was it really?
2:51 Speaker 05 Yes, but then it went away.
2:52 Karen Kilgariff? Well, people should watch it because we did a great job.
2:55 Speaker 05 We did a great job.
2:56 Karen Kilgariff? We really gave it our all.
2:57 Georgia Hardstark? I think it says so much about murderinos that an episode where we talked about the law for like an hour and a half is one of the top episodes we've ever done. And it just like says how smart they are.
3:09 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah. And they're like, can we be on topic, please? And George and I are like, no, no.
3:14 Speaker 05 Well, it is like, it's interesting to like, as the show has evolved, just sort of like the deep dive energy of it and like what it is that is so satisfying about it and created, let's be honest, the true crime revolution of the last decade. It was on hacks. There was a joke that Madison Square Garden had only been sold out by a live Dungeons and Dragons and a true crime podcast. And I was like, will they think this is an attack? To be clear, it was not my pitch.
3:43 Karen Kilgariff? It's true.
3:44 Georgia Hardstark? That's not a negative. I don't mind hearing that.
3:46 Karen Kilgariff? We like it.
3:47 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah. Speaking of hacks, that's what you've been writing on this couple of years and a couple of seasons now, right?
3:53 Speaker 05 Yes, it's very fun. It's the last season of the show. And so it was good. It's very rare that you get to like land the plane on a scripted show. And like, that's really satisfying, but also a lot of, you know, responsibility. And also just like, when you have a show and it's great performers and like all of the craftspeople are amazing and everything like this year in the neck, in the episode that comes out tonight. We just told them, we described a dress to them and then they got to create a dress. Like Rory, one of our costume designers who worked for Bob goddamn Mackie.
4:26 Georgia Hardstark? Wow.
4:26 Speaker 05 Got to make a playing card dress and it's like, hello.
4:30 Georgia Hardstark? Now, can you tell us what Jean Smart is actually like?
4:33 Speaker 05 I mean, the sweetest and the nicest. Like, I had a very small part in the first season and it was the first episode that they shot because it was during the pandemic and they couldn't do a pilot. So I was just there in cast holding with Jean all day long and she was just like, you know, my mask had flowers on it and she was adoring it and she just, she's so kind and wonderful. And then Hannah Einminder is somebody who I knew from being a scrappy little comic. And then she has this job and responsibility and she's so beautifully like risen to the occasion and matched her. And, you know, I think we all love those shows where you have a female friendship and female contention that is all of the beauty and the complexity of so many of the relationships that we have.
5:13 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
5:14 Speaker 05 And to watch them fill that up has been really awesome.
5:18 Georgia Hardstark? It's such a special show. It is so realistic with that, that relationship that they have.
5:22 Speaker 05 Yeah.
5:22 Georgia Hardstark? You're like rooting for at the same time being like, why are they talking to each other?
5:26 Speaker 05 Yes.
5:26 Georgia Hardstark? But also I want them to be best friends.
5:28 Speaker 05 Yeah. Well, and it's like, you know, like you have to have these intergenerational relationships for people to be able to grow and change. And it really is a show about somebody who had the option of not growing and changing and then gets shoved out of her comfort zone. And those are the kinds of stories I like best.
5:43 Georgia Hardstark? Now, you've also, because you're a Renaissance man.
5:46 Speaker 05 Yes.
5:46 Georgia Hardstark? You've done other things like, oh, I don't know, gone on to Jeopardy and won? What? You won?
5:52 Speaker 05 I didn't win the first time, to be fair.
5:54 Georgia Hardstark? Well, but, hi.
5:55 Speaker 05 I went on and I lost to two people who were like multi-day champions. And then they were kind enough to have me back for the second chances tournament.
6:03 Georgia Hardstark? Okay.
6:03 Speaker 05 And then I got to win a game and it was thrilling and delightful. And like, the first time I was like emotionally wrecked. I was just like, I had spent the majority of my life waiting to get on Jeopardy and then I did and I failed. And then the second time, you know, as everyone does, I ended up losing, but it's like, I got to play so much Jeopardy. I was just happy that I got into play so much Jeopardy.
6:26 Karen Kilgariff? And you knew how to use that button. You know, when you watch people and they're like, and they're trying to complain or whatever, it's like you, I feel like you had it.
6:33 Speaker 05 But also, I am a middle aged man and it is, I like, I do not have the responses and have always been bad at arcade skills. So I was not as on top of it as I wanted to be, though there is like a beautiful world of like at home Zoom Fight Club Jeopardy. And I'm much better at that buzzer. Like, I'm very, I'm deadly on that buzzer.
6:52 Georgia Hardstark? What was your like category that you were like, I've got this?
6:55 Speaker 05 Okay, so for me, anytime I see a Jeopardy category, I'm like, what is going to be there? And it was fictitious resonances. And I was just like, Howard's End is gonna be in there. And then I fucking got the Daily Double and the Daily Double was goddamn Howard's End.
7:14 Georgia Hardstark? Holy shit.
7:15 Speaker 05 And it was just like, ah, yes.
7:16 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, that's a moment.
7:18 Speaker 05 And they were, okay, but also I had a real failure. The Daily Double that wrecked me was it's alphabetically first of the birthstones. And my mind was immediately in the 1980s World Book Encyclopedia that had listed like multiple alternates for every month. I immediately was like Amethyst, but is there anything that could go before Amethyst? And then I stayed in my brain too long and then it went, and then I said agate, like an idiot. Yeah, I mean, it was like, it was, I had the answer and I should have just run.
7:47 Georgia Hardstark? Was it Amethyst?
7:48 Speaker 05 It was Amethyst. I should have just run on adrenaline.
7:51 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
7:51 Speaker 05 And I didn't. And that thing between like, should you second guess or should you just adrenaline is always,
7:58 Speaker 05 you know, it's the roughest and like, stand up is supposed to teach us you go on the adrenaline.
8:02 Karen Kilgariff? I know, but it's a different, if only it was stand up. There are so many other, I, when I watch it and I watch people who are surprised that other people are as smart as them.
8:11 Speaker 05 Yes.
8:11 Karen Kilgariff? There is that vibe of like, how do you know Amethyst when I'm the one that knows Amethyst?
8:16 Speaker 05 And like, because I was from LA, they had me come in as an alternate and I had to watch a full day. And I watched several days where girl categories just went unspent. Like three boys were like fashion, I have nothing and I was just like. Give it to me. The day before I was there, the final Jeopardy was about Wicked and no one got it.
8:34 Georgia Hardstark? Oh, my God.
8:35 Speaker 05 And it was just like-
8:37 Karen Kilgariff? It's a waste.
8:37 Speaker 05 It was galling. The thing is, is I had assumed, I am a human being who is no longer scared of live television.
8:44 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
8:44 Speaker 05 You know? And I assumed that that would help me in some way.
8:47 Georgia Hardstark? Definitely.
8:47 Speaker 05 And the answer is no. Jeopardy is ancient magic. Like, that is not television. It is something else there on the Sony lot, you know?
8:54 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
8:55 Karen Kilgariff? Did Ken Jennings affect your performance at all? I feel like him being the end-all champion is like a big part of it.
9:01 Speaker 05 He's so good at the job. Like, he's so good at the job. He knows how to be funny and charming and present and effortless. And he did just in that, he is so clearly disappointed when people don't know things that they really should know. And there were a couple, like, there was one time, goddamn Jeopardy guy.
9:18 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah.
9:18 Speaker 05 All they were asking for is for you to say, "The Moors." And I said, "The Abyssids." I was trying to figure out, like, I was like, assuming that they wanted the, like, Muslim caliphates from the era that went into Spain.
9:31 Georgia Hardstark? You're going complicated.
9:33 Speaker 05 Yes. And I did the wrong one. It's the Ummah Yads.
9:36 Karen Kilgariff? Sure. So shaming.
9:37 Speaker 05 And just the look on Ken's face of like, "What the fuck, dude?"
9:43 Karen Kilgariff? Love that guy.
9:43 Georgia Hardstark? Disappointed Jeopardy host has to be like, something that you'll carry with you for the rest of your life. I've never seen it, thank God.
9:51 Karen Kilgariff? Jeopardy?
9:52 Georgia Hardstark? No.
9:52 Karen Kilgariff? Oh, my God.
9:53 Georgia Hardstark? No.
9:54 Karen Kilgariff? You have to watch it.
9:56 Georgia Hardstark? A Jeopardy host being disappointed in me.
9:57 Karen Kilgariff? Oh, oh, yeah.
9:58 Georgia Hardstark? And I never will.
9:59 Speaker 05 But I just want to say, we collectively, as a community, have been cold-shouldering Ken Jennings on the Best Game Show Host Emmy for like, four or five years now. And I think it's time for us to calm down.
10:11 Karen Kilgariff? Truly.
10:12 Speaker 05 And just show him proper respect.
10:13 Georgia Hardstark? I think so, too.
10:14 Karen Kilgariff? It was one of the biggest fights me and my sister got into because my family is a Jeopardy family, seven o'clock, like, for 30 years, whatever. And my sister got into the fight when they were running through the different hosts. And I'm like, it's Ken Jennings, hands goddamn down. He earned it on the back end, he's now earning it on the front end. What other past champions could come and do that job like that?
10:36 Speaker 05 Yeah.
10:36 Karen Kilgariff? Where he is doing it in the spirit- Of Alex Trebek, but not, it's a totally different thing. And I can't remember, she bought into some other guy where I'm like, now I'm mad at you. And we're like, every night it was a fight.
10:48 Speaker 05 Well, I feel like Hollywood would respect him more if he went off and did like a light travel show or something like that and showed us I'm a host. That's not who he is.
10:57 Georgia Hardstark? No, he's on Jeopardy.
10:58 Speaker 05 And then, and then he's back to Seattle raising those kids.
11:01 Karen Kilgariff? Yes, that's right. Being a normal guy.
11:03 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah. We are stands for him. We're Ken Jennings fans.
11:06 Karen Kilgariff? Hundred percent.
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11:38 Georgia Hardstark? As an adult, making dinner isn't the hard part.
11:40 Karen Kilgariff? The hard part is deciding what to make every single night for the rest of your life.
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12:06 Karen Kilgariff? Most of Hungry Root's recipes can be made in just 15 minutes or less. I mean, of course, it's always great to have delicious and very healthy groceries delivered to your house, which they can do. But I love the fact that Hungry Root will also just make you dinner so you can have it sitting there waiting. They make a classic chicken, corn, and Mexican rice bowl, and they have all kinds of variations on those themes. So that's one that I love to reach for. And all these options, so you're getting really healthy meals.
12:33 Georgia Hardstark? For a limited time, get 40% off your first order plus get a free item in every box for life.
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12:54 Karen Kilgariff? And if you have a small business, they could be shopping with you.
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13:35 Georgia Hardstark? Goodbye.
13:38 Karen Kilgariff? We have a podcast to do.
13:40 Georgia Hardstark? Oh, yeah. Okay. So, yeah, this was one of the all time favorite podcasts, episodes when you were on The Great Guy Law Time New Year Spectacular.
13:49 Karen Kilgariff? Yes.
13:49 Georgia Hardstark? Eared December 28th, 2016.
13:52 Speaker 05 Were we ever so young?
13:54 Karen Kilgariff? I mean, almost a decade ago.
13:56 Speaker 05 I mean, a pandemic, like the number of things that have happened, you know?
14:01 Karen Kilgariff? For real. So many.
14:02 Georgia Hardstark? It's hard to wrap your head around.
14:04 Karen Kilgariff? But what we thought it'd be fun to do, we have some emails from listeners from the year you were on that we just never answered.
14:14 Speaker 05 Lovely.
14:15 Karen Kilgariff? And also currently, because we just did the rewind episode and talked about you again, so we just wanted to, I don't know, give you some feedback.
14:22 Speaker 05 Okay.
14:23 Karen Kilgariff? On your performance. Yeah. Well, there's just a lot of he's a national treasure, bring him, demands to bring him back. And then Chronicles of Kathy writes in, and I think that's Instagram, writes in chiming in with everyone, saying, bring at Guy Branum back on. Like, it's a demand. And then they're talking about that was because of the rewind. So basically people heard it and were like, why haven't you done this already? Which is great if, you know, we love the outside producing. That's always fun.
14:52 Georgia Hardstark? Bureaucracy runs slow at Exactly Right Media, so it's taken 10 years.
14:55 Speaker 05 Also, to be fair, at that point in time, I was 15 years out of law school and it was a reasonable thing for me to talk about. Now it's an additional 10 years. It's really.
15:04 Karen Kilgariff? It's even fuzzier.
15:06 Georgia Hardstark? You can fake the whole thing. We don't know. We're not Ken Jennings. We don't know the correct answer.
15:10 Karen Kilgariff? Say anything to us.
15:12 Georgia Hardstark? We will shake our heads happily.
15:14 Karen Kilgariff? Well, this one is very, it was emailed in 2018. It says, hi, Georgia, Karen and Stephen wanted to reach out because you three plus Guy Branum helped me get into law school.
15:23 Speaker 05 Oh, that's so cool.
15:24 Karen Kilgariff? During the admissions process, each applicant is required to submit a personal statement, a double spaced, two-page essay about why you want to be an attorney. My first iteration got a unanimous thumbs down from my friends because the mention of your podcast made me sound creepy. Below is the excerpt. I continued my forays into true crime spurred on by the weekly release of the podcast I came to love called My Favorite Murder. Two women hilarious in their own right get together and talk about interesting murders with an audience that feels like it was filled with our closest friends. I felt pulled to join the police force or look into going to school for psychology until episode 49, when the ladies invited a guest on the show, Guy Branum, a law school graduate of the University of Minnesota. His responsibility was to correct any of the past liberties taken with the law
16:08 Karen Kilgariff? and how it operated in the stories discussed. He spoke candidly about the differences between first and second degree murder, the burden of proof falling to the prosecution, and what was necessary for a murder to occur in the first place. He challenged their assumptions as a pair and mediated a disagreement about why statutes of limitations exist and are fair. He just said, that was a big disagreement. He discussed the law in relation to gruesome crimes in a matter-of-fact manner, and it piqued my interest. Much like the ladies of the podcast, I had strong feelings about how the law should operate, but no base of knowledge of why or how.
16:42 Georgia Hardstark? Sounds right.
16:43 Karen Kilgariff? In my admissions essay's final iteration, the podcast has a much smaller presence. In the two short pages applicants are given to describe their life, their hardships and their motivations, I felt strongly that MFM could not be left out. Thank you all for inspiring your listeners every week. Your podcast has altered the course of my life. Much love from an Oklahoma girl chasing her dream in Boston. SSDGM Zoe Kent.
17:07 Speaker 05 That is so lovely.
17:08 Karen Kilgariff? Oh, my God.
17:09 Speaker 05 That is so touching. Also beautiful to know that Zoe, by this point in time, has a much more like jaded and cold understanding of facts than I could have ever hoped to have.
17:20 Karen Kilgariff? Email update from this week.
17:21 Georgia Hardstark? Oh.
17:22 Karen Kilgariff? Kate Schalenbach reached out.
17:24 Georgia Hardstark? No.
17:24 Karen Kilgariff? To say, hey, we remember when you sent this email. So she wrote an email back to Kate that said, I am currently a divorce lawyer in Edmond, Oklahoma. I found after two years of misery that practice in the courtroom is not what I'm cut out for. It turns out I'm quite non-confrontational for a law school graduate. So my boss, a 76-year-old man, war-tested in the courtroom, runs the front-facing side, and I'm his right-hand man doing prep work behind the scenes. All my best to you and the MFM team. Stay sexy, Zoe.
17:54 Speaker 05 That's so cool.
17:55 Karen Kilgariff? She did it.
17:56 Georgia Hardstark? You're a law influencer.
17:57 Karen Kilgariff? Yes.
18:00 Speaker 05 But also, just that thing of like, all the real decisions get made outside of the courtroom, you know? The real work is done, especially with something like family law, where you are having to solve real problems and there is no best, like, it's the best answer, not the right answer, you know?
18:18 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah.
18:19 Speaker 05 Like, that's so cool.
18:21 Karen Kilgariff? Isn't it good?
18:21 Speaker 05 Yes.
18:22 Georgia Hardstark? Yay.
18:22 Karen Kilgariff? There's a couple of those.
18:24 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, I have a couple of those, too. Georgia and Karen, no time for pleasantries. I'm too excited to tell you my celebrity story. It's deeply known among my family and friends that I cannot and will not remember celebrity names, faces, or roles. Same. My attempts are considered comedic entertainment when really, I tried my best. Tonight, as I start dinner in the kitchen, my husband put on a TV show for us that we recently started watching called Platonic. As the show plays, a realization dawns on me. I yell, I know who that is! And proceed to ask my husband to look up the entire episode cast. Mind you, I wasn't watching the show, only listening. Husband says, you wouldn't know the actor, and I proudly prove him wrong. That's right, it was Guy Branum and his unmistakable voice.
19:10 Georgia Hardstark? I finally guessed a celebrity, thanks to your amazing podcast. P.S. Episode 47, Live at the Bell House, is legendary, partly because Guy is laughing in the audience.
19:18 Karen Kilgariff? That's right.
19:19 Georgia Hardstark? And it's just the greatest.
19:20 Karen Kilgariff? Yes, that's right. I forgot about that.
19:22 Georgia Hardstark? Stay sexy and learn your celebrities through MFM collabs. Jenna, she/her.
19:27 Speaker 05 One of my favorite moments is somebody once said to me, wait, were you? Sandra Bernhardt's album taping? And I was like, no, I wasn't. And then I was.
19:35 Georgia Hardstark? You forgot.
19:36 Speaker 05 Yeah, I didn't realize that she was taping an album when I had been the opening act.
19:40 Georgia Hardstark? Oh, my.
19:41 Speaker 05 But it is very fun on Platonic. I get to play a lawyer. And the first season, everyone was constantly telling Rose Byrne, you know, Guy, Guy went to law school. But also, our second A D had gone to law school and also been a marine. And she was like, why is no one ever mentioning it?
19:56 Georgia Hardstark? Wow, yeah.
19:58 Speaker 05 Rose is very, very nice and very, very lovely. But
20:00 Georgia Hardstark? She's amazing.
20:01 Speaker 05 I got to do very important work on that show because lawyer shows are constantly saying that people were interns. And you're not an intern when you're a lawyer, you're a summer associate. And I was like, Nick, it's summer associate. And he was like, thank you.
20:16 Georgia Hardstark? I wouldn't know that. Yeah, right?
20:18 Speaker 05 Oh, and there was also in the second season, in the second season, one of the characters writes a dumb, like, legal thriller. And they afterwards, Nick was like, oh, if you can come up with something better than that, because I'm not a writer on that show. Like, this is just what we had as a placeholder. And it was, they had chosen the funniest thing for it to be about. It was about tortious interference with contract. And it was, no one else thought it was hilarious, but I thought it was the funniest thing on the planet.
20:44 Georgia Hardstark? So sexy.
20:45 Karen Kilgariff? Can't beat that.
20:46 Speaker 05 Can't beat that.
20:48 Karen Kilgariff? Well, here's what we can't beat is that we basically tricked you into doing the homework for the show today. Because we know that you love the show and we've already done the kind of going over legal stuff.
21:00 Speaker 05 Yes.
21:01 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
21:01 Karen Kilgariff? At this point, we don't want to hear it anymore.
21:04 Georgia Hardstark? Unless there's any updates you think we should know.
21:06 Karen Kilgariff? Oh, yeah.
21:06 Speaker 05 Oh, no. Also, I don't know. The world has changed. Look, our laws have changed in many horrible ways over the course of the last 10 years.
21:15 Georgia Hardstark? Truly, really have.
21:16 Speaker 05 They're primarily, to my knowledge, not about criminal things.
21:19 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, that's very true.
21:21 Speaker 05 But ever since the origin of this podcast, like, when you guys were doing hometown murders, I, of course, went with, there was a serial killer from my town and I did that as a hometown murder. But I did end up becoming aware of, like, other murders from my hometown. And it's like, the amount of murder that happens in this country is really kind of impressive.
21:40 Georgia Hardstark? People are always like, when are you gonna run out? And it's like, unfortunately, never.
21:45 Speaker 05 Yeah, cuz mine is like a little town, but should I go into it?
21:48 Georgia Hardstark? What's the town? Tell us.
21:49 Speaker 05 Okay, so I am from a little farm town in rural northern California called Yuba City. We grow almonds and peaches and prunes and walnuts.
21:58 Karen Kilgariff? And serial killers.
21:59 Speaker 05 And serial killers, you know, some meth labs.
22:04 Georgia Hardstark? Is that a sister city to Petaluma?
22:06 Karen Kilgariff? Yes, we are the, we share, their meth is the same as our eggs and we ship them to each other.
22:12 Speaker 05 I'm from about two hours northeast of where Karen is from.
22:15 Georgia Hardstark? Okay.
22:15 Speaker 05 There are mountains in between, you know, she is poultry and dairy. And I am nuts and fruits.
22:23 Karen Kilgariff? And with that, we have the full pyramid.
22:26 Georgia Hardstark? Okay, yay.
22:27 Speaker 05 And one of the other interesting things about Yuba City, my little town, is that there's a really old Indian community who emigrated like 100 years ago, like back when India and Pakistan were still a British colony, mostly from a rural farming area in the northern India and Pakistan called Punjab. And there like were a couple of Hindu and Muslim kids in class, but it was mostly Sikhs. It was mostly like people who practiced the religion of Sikhism, which is that religion where all the dudes have beards and turbans and all the ladies have braids. And it's a beautiful faith that really teaches that everyone is equal before God. And that's what, you know, regardless of race or gender or anything like that. And that's what it aspires to, but as with any religion, that doesn't always turn out. And that's sort of what the story is about.
23:12 Speaker 05 So over the 100 years that they've been in this country, they've built up really prosperous farms and they truck those fruits and nuts all over the West. And so now like 40% of the truckers in California are Punjabi, about 20% in the western United States.
23:27 Karen Kilgariff? Wow, I'll stop you really quick because is this why you know so much? Oftentimes when guys on stage doing comedy, you'll do crowd work where people will say, like if people say they're from India or that's their background, then you'll go into that thing where you know the like city states or the counties.
23:44 Speaker 05 Yes, you see, okay.
23:47 Speaker 05 Language they grew up speaking based on what state they're from.
23:50 Karen Kilgariff? Yes.
23:50 Speaker 05 Like, it's, it's, but yeah, I grew up in a town where it was like one-third white people who are from Arkansas, Oklahoma, one-third Mexicans and one-third Punjabis.
23:59 Karen Kilgariff? So interesting.
24:00 Speaker 05 And so it's just something I took for granted. And our story begins with a trucker named Jatinder Singh Graywall. He was a long-haul trucker in Yuba City. Now, before 1965, very racist immigration laws meant that it was very hard for women to immigrate. So pretty much everyone's grandma in that town, who is Indian, is a Mexican. Mostly, they ended up marrying Mexican ladies, but since 1965, it's been pretty standard to arrange marriages with ladies who were from India. So in the early 2000s, when Jatinder Singh Graywall was around 30, he went back to his family's village in Punjab because his parents had arranged a marriage for him with a registered nurse in Baljinder Kor, who was in her late 20s.
24:43 Speaker 05 They got married and they did not have a direct conversation with each other until the day after they got married.
24:48 Karen Kilgariff? Wow, really?
24:49 Speaker 05 Yeah.
24:49 Karen Kilgariff? Wait, do you know anything about why that wouldn't happen on the day of?
24:53 Speaker 05 Um, I think because you're doing so much stuff. There's like, you know.
24:57 Karen Kilgariff? Celebrations. Or just busy.
24:58 Speaker 05 Yeah, you're, you're busy.
24:59 Karen Kilgariff? You talk to everybody but the guy you just married?
25:01 Speaker 05 Yeah, like it's tradition. Have you seen Bend It Like Beckham?
25:04 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah.
25:05 Speaker 05 Yes, they get mad at her sister in Bend It Like Beckham because she's happy because she's getting married. And you're supposed to be like sad because you're leaving your family's home and you're supposed to be sweet and scared by this whole thing. And so all of that business was taking place. And then afterwards, they were like, hey, who are you as a person?
25:21 Karen Kilgariff? Wow, okay.
25:22 Speaker 05 All right. And then one more piece of background because this gets a little confusing. But Sikhs have this very complex naming rules. And so all men have the name Singh, which is frequently used as a middle name, sometimes as a last name. And that means lion. And every woman has the middle or last name Kor, which means princess. And so both of the major players in this story have B names and their last name is Kor. So.
25:48 Karen Kilgariff? Focus up.
25:48 Speaker 05 I'll try to keep it from being confusing. The important thing to know is that Baljinder Kor, the young nurse bride from India, moved to Yuba City into a house with her husband Jatinder, her mother-in-law Baljit Kor, who was then. Sixty three and her sister in law, Kiranjit Mann. And that's when the shit started going down. When Baljinder arrived in America, her mother in law, Baljit, immediately sent back her dowry. She was like, this is not enough. Baljinder is not enough of a catch to make that dowry worthwhile. She demanded more clothing and jewelry and stuff from Baljinder's parents, who complied. Baljit made her daughter in law do all the housework. She made Baljinder eat meals separately from the rest of the family, and she was not allowed in the living room.
26:28 Georgia Hardstark? Oh, wow.
26:29 Speaker 05 It was a very Cinderella situation. Baljinder wanted to study nursing so she could get licensed in the United States, but her mother in law said her job was to take care of the house and have babies. Then, in two thousand and seven, Baljinder got pregnant. She was excited. She was doing her job. She was providing her family with heirs. Then they found out she was having twins, even better. And then they found out that the twins were girls. And Baljit, the mother in law, was livid. So Jyotinder was an oldest son. He was supposed to have an oldest son. Baljinder's sister in law told her that Baljit, the mom, was probably going to strangle her for being pregnant with two girls.
27:06 Georgia Hardstark? I mean.
27:07 Speaker 05 Yeah.
27:08 Georgia Hardstark? Impossible.
27:09 Speaker 05 And then midway through the pregnancy, Baljinder lost one of the babies. And her mother in law rejoiced. She called the dead fetus a pest from hell.
27:19 Georgia Hardstark? Oh, my God.
27:20 Speaker 05 And said they were lucky the baby had gone back where it came from.
27:24 Georgia Hardstark? Oh, my God.
27:25 Speaker 05 Two weeks after having a C-section for the surviving baby, Baljinder was expected to resume doing chores for the family. Baljinder's daughter was considered an embarrassment, so she wasn't allowed to socialize with her cousins. And once Baljinder's daughter was in preschool, she asked if she could spend some time while her daughter was at preschool studying to get her nursing license. And Baljit said that Baljinder's job was to stay at home and cook and clean. In 2011, Baljinder got pregnant again. And her OB-GYN, Meninjerjit Atwal, said that she was always quiet and fearful during her obstetrics visits. And when she, Meninjerjit, the doctor, told Baljinder that she was pregnant with a girl
28:10 Speaker 05 again, all hell broke loose. Baljit ordered her daughter-in-law to get an abortion. They were not wasting any more time or money on girls. Baljinder needed to have a boy or nothing at all. According to Baljinder, Baljit would put flour or other slippery things on the floor in the kitchen in hopes that she would slip and miscarry.
28:32 Georgia Hardstark? Oh, my god.
28:33 Speaker 05 Baljit regularly mentioned that it was no big deal for men to get rid of their wives if they couldn't produce a male heir. And then, on October 24, 2012, when Baljit was 68 years old and Baljinder was 38 years old and seven months pregnant, the women were in the kitchen of their home, and Baljinder was feeding her daughter breakfast. And Baljit, this baby's grandma, got mad. She said it was a waste of groceries to be feeding a daughter and yelled "All you do is eat" at the little girl. Baljinder tried ignoring her. And after the daughter went off to school, Baljinder was studying for her nursing credentials. Baljit came into the room and accused Baljinder of having an affair.
29:16 Speaker 05 The second daughter could not possibly be Jyoti's son. Baljit started pulling Baljinder's hair. Baljinder testified that her mother-in-law said, "Today is the day we're going to end this. You die, or the baby dies." Baljinder snapped. She went into the garage and she found a small hatchet, and she walked back into the house with it. By that time, Baljit had calmed down. So Baljinder put the hatchet down. But when Baljinder tried to leave the house to go study, Baljit started yelling at her and jabbing Baljinder's stomach with her glasses. Baljinder said she was convinced that she had to do something to save her baby. She later testified, "I was blinded at the moment. I was out of my mind."
30:01 Speaker 05 Baljinder picked up the hatchet and hit Baljit in the head with the hatchet seven times.
30:06 Karen Kilgariff? Holy shit.
30:07 Speaker 05 Causing four skull fractures. Baljit fell to the ground and Baljinder took Baljit's scarf and strangled her with it. Um, once Baljinder like realized what she was doing, she said she tried to loosen the scarf. Um, there were no witnesses. Baljit's daughter later found the body around noon, but Baljinder just left. She went and she hid the hatchet in a dumpster at a park. And then she went to her study session with her study partner and basically tried to get her study partner to give her an alibi, to say that she had been there when it happened.
30:41 Karen Kilgariff? So this is a woman who's basically emigrated here, has no family here.
30:46 Speaker 05 Yes, so she specifically tried to get her family, uh, to like to start the immigration process for her family. And Jitinder was like, no, that's not okay. So this is somebody who doesn't have super confident English, who doesn't have an income of any sort, who's entirely alone in this house and is having to deal with this constantly every day.
31:07 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah.
31:07 Speaker 05 And then she just snapped.
31:08 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah. Wow.
31:10 Speaker 05 Yeah. So that night, Baljinder told her husband about the killing. She told him what had happened. Um, and Jitinder said that he was too tired to think about it and that they would deal with it in the morning.
31:24 Karen Kilgariff? So they had found her already and they didn't call the police?
31:26 Speaker 05 They called the police. They called the police, but they were like, we don't know what happened.
31:28 Karen Kilgariff? Okay.
31:29 Speaker 05 We don't know anything about this.
31:30 Karen Kilgariff? Then when she admits it to her husband, he's like, we'll deal with it later.
31:34 Speaker 05 Yeah.
31:34 Karen Kilgariff? So do you think that was just complete denial? Was he like just?
31:38 Speaker 05 I'm sure it was overwhelming. Like it is just sort of like my mom's dad and, and like, this is what happened. But also it is kind of bonkers to just like, it's hard after all of the dismissal that she deals with in this story. To not just see it as another dismissal, you know?
31:56 Karen Kilgariff? But I wonder if that husband, since he's so not present for the other abuse from the mother-in-law, or doesn't, isn't doing anything, or is basically cosigning it.
32:06 Speaker 05 Yeah.
32:07 Karen Kilgariff? It's almost like, does he know that that was wrong? And that essentially, that's a part of it.
32:11 Speaker 05 Right. So, two days later, Jitinder took Baljinder to the sheriff's department to explain what had happened. But he warned her to not drag his mother or his family through the mud. So, clearly, he was aware enough of what was going on that he understood that this could be embarrassing.
32:27 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah, but also, there's a motive.
32:29 Speaker 05 Yeah.
32:30 Karen Kilgariff? But it's like, don't tell them the motive.
32:32 Speaker 05 Baljinder confessed to a Punjabi-speaking sheriff's deputy, but at her husband's coaching, she made no mention of her mother-in-law's threats or attacks. Baljinder was charged with first-degree murder and an enhancement for using a deadly weapon. She was arrested, and let's remember, she was seven months pregnant.
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35:20 Speaker 05 After this point in time, Baljinder's husband, Jithinder, drops her. He does not attend any of the trial. He's given her nothing. He and his family are horrified by this murder, so Baljinder is alone in this country, has no close family, and court records indicate that she needed translators most of the time, so not a super-strong English speaker. She did not have an ally. She was initially appointed a non-Punjabi-speaking public defender, but her parents, from India, found a Punjabi-speaking defense attorney in Yuba City named Mani Sidhu, a Punjabi-American criminal defense attorney, but somebody who had grown up in the United States and lived in Yuba City his entire life, well, except for law school. There are no law schools in Yuba City.
36:03 Karen Kilgariff? That's shocking.
36:04 Speaker 05 Now, the question of how to defend this case is really, really interesting. In California, self-defense allows you to resist an unlawful act targeted you or someone else. And it says you're allowed to use the level of force required to prevent the offense. But for self-defense in California, as in most states, it is required that a person have an honest and reasonable belief that it is necessary to use deadly force to prevent peril to life or grievous bodily injury. So they themselves need to actually have the fear. A reasonable person in their place would need, needs to have the same fear, and it needs to be necessary. Boljender is in a bad situation on multiple counts.
36:46 Speaker 05 She believed that her unborn child was in danger, but it is unclear whether another reasonable person would have had the same fear. It's probably not true that use of deadly force was necessary to avoid it. You know, it's very easy to say, she could have just left, she could have just this, she could have just that. And the threat wasn't really imminent. You know, like, the question of imminence, what is, what was she gonna do, is uncertain.
37:10 Georgia Hardstark? Can I ask?
37:11 Speaker 05 Yes.
37:11 Georgia Hardstark? The fact that she went and got the hatchet and put it there and then walked away, is that, like, premeditation, kind of?
37:17 Speaker 05 Yes.
37:18 Georgia Hardstark? Because if she had gotten the hatchet and done it immediately, it wouldn't have been premeditation.
37:21 Speaker 05 Like, so, one of the things about this is, it's really interesting that it wasn't defended in that way, with an attempt to lower it, to voluntary, to some sort of voluntary manslaughter, or something like that. Just to say, because like, for a heightened state, when you have imperfect self-defense or like crime of passion, you need that person to be in that state. And you're very right that, like, it would have been very easy to point to that cooldown, but one could also argue that, like, the fight's still going on.
37:52 Georgia Hardstark? Totally.
37:53 Speaker 05 You know, but like, going and getting a hatchet is definitely premeditation.
37:56 Georgia Hardstark? And also, just the weapon of a hatchet, like, anytime that's the story, it's just so extreme.
38:03 Speaker 05 Well, and also, that it was fractious, and that there's no mention of blood, is very fascinating to me, because I'm like, was she hitting with the blunt end or the edgy end? But also, is it like, if she were a smaller woman, in my head, it makes me think about that hitting in a different way.
38:19 Georgia Hardstark? Like, grab something heavy to defend yourself and your baby.
38:22 Speaker 05 Yeah.
38:23 Georgia Hardstark? Maybe the mentality.
38:24 Speaker 05 Yeah.
38:24 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, interesting.
38:25 Speaker 05 The obvious way to defend this case would have been a thing called battered person syndrome. I think you guys talked about it when you talked about the Francine Hughes case in episode 465. And that's exactly what Georgia is talking about, saying that a person was so freaked out, they thought the only way out was an act of violence like this. A person is so psychologically distressed by a pattern of spousal abuse usually, that it makes the person believe deadly force is the only way to escape. It usually doesn't completely exonerate you, but you get downgraded to some level of manslaughter. But that's not what Monty Soodoo did. His defense was really innovative. And I actually called him and spoke to him to understand more about it.
39:03 Georgia Hardstark? Yes.
39:04 Speaker 05 Well, the thing is, is like Stanford professors were like, oh, this is really cool. This is really interesting. And I wanted to understand better how he formulated this idea. And it was really cool because as somebody who was a member of that community, when I talked to him, he was just like, oh, I didn't formulate it. It was just my immediate reaction.
39:26 Georgia Hardstark? I love Guy doing our job better than we do, A.
39:29 Karen Kilgariff? Just making rolling calls.
39:31 Georgia Hardstark? You're an investigative journalist now.
39:32 Speaker 05 But it's also like, this is a man from my hometown who is the same age as me. Like.
39:36 Georgia Hardstark? Not hard to find.
39:37 Speaker 05 I have 100% been to his cousin's birthday, you know?
39:42 Georgia Hardstark? That's amazing.
39:43 Speaker 05 He said that when Baljinder's family called him and explained the situation to him, he had two-year-old twin daughters and his wife was pregnant with another girl. And he could only see the situation through the phenomenon of gender side. That is, killing children and aborting fetuses to avoid having girl children. He knew that this was a cultural idea that existed in South Asia and that it was an idea that could have affected his own daughters. And it was something that he wanted to stop. So he took the case and he put together a defense like no one had ever seen before. So gender side is a very significant issue in India and China. In India, because male children stay in the home, they contribute to the income of the family. Girls go off to their husband's house, you have to pay for a dowry.
40:26 Speaker 05 Frequently, girl children can be seen as an economic burden. In 1984, a UN study showed that of 8,000 Abortions from six Mumbai hospitals, 7,999 of them were female fetuses. That's insane. In 1990, Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen estimated that there are 100 million women who are demographically not present in the world. That is, based on birth rates and life expectancy rates, things are off by 100 million people because of the huge number of girls who should have been born, or I also believe to some extent were the victims of violence. Mani told me that he believes gender side in India is huge and it has trickled out here. Wow.
41:11 Speaker 05 Mani wanted to stop it, and his first choice was getting a jury who would understand the problem. So he got a jury that was 10 women and two men, including one Punjabi woman. And Mani says that that woman cried repeatedly during the trial. Mani's defense centered on the idea that Baljinder defending a fetus inside of her was self-defense and that a reasonable person who understood the culture of gender side would understand that threat as imminent. The way he proved it was really kind of strange, though. He called two expert witnesses, Sally Sutherland Goldman and Robert Goldman, who are Sanskrit professors at Berkeley. That's like an ancient Indian language that is used in religious stuff, but nobody speaks.
41:55 Speaker 05 It's like calling a Latin professor to testify about Italian-American families in New Jersey. Yeah, right. That's very interesting. It's like you come from a town full of like Punjabi Americans, why did you think that they were the people who were best able to testify about this? But when I talked to Mani, he insisted that the Goldmans were the right experts because they live in India six months out of the year. In his words, because most of the Uba City Punjabis have lived in America for generations, the Goldmans are more Indian than we are. He, a South Asian man, not me, was saying that. The Goldmans testified that Baljinder's testimony about her treatment by a Baljit was entirely
42:36 Speaker 05 consistent with what we know of similar situations in India and the Indo-American community. The Goldmans quoted a 2007 UN study that estimated that 7,000 girl fetuses are aborted in India each day. A therapist who evaluated Baljinder said that she had severe depression and PTSD. And quote, "The abuse was escalating and she had no way out. She felt trapped and afraid for her life."
43:01 Karen Kilgariff? She's afraid for her life, she's afraid for her children's life, and she has literally no way to get out. Like, that thing of, when you were talking about the actual exchange, and then I was like, people will go like, "Well, why didn't you just get out?" And it's like, what, run into the street? Totally. And go where?
43:17 Speaker 05 Yeah.
43:17 Karen Kilgariff? And hope somebody will help you even though you can't speak English?
43:20 Speaker 05 Like, this place is alien, you don't have resources. Like, you assume that even the people who speak your language or are within your community might be inclined to agree with your mother-in-law instead of you.
43:32 Karen Kilgariff? Right.
43:32 Speaker 05 Like, it's a terrifying situation.
43:35 Karen Kilgariff? I mean, it is interesting why he had the Goldbergs come on, because it's almost like they're outsiders and can see
43:40 Speaker 05 Yeah.
43:40 Karen Kilgariff? the issue in a way that someone who's grown up in that culture, like, wouldn't necessarily see.
43:47 Speaker 05 The PR of this is a huge thing because the other thing to know about the Sikh community in America is that after 9/11, there was a huge increase in anti-Sikh violence. White Americans blamed Muslims for 9/11 and attacked Muslims and people they perceived to be Muslims. And since observant Sikhs wear visible turbans, the men, they'd been subject to a bunch of attacks and murders, including a murder in Arizona, I mean, like, not long after 9/11, and a shooting at a Sikh temple in 2012 that took six lives. Like, when I was growing up, it was a relatively insular community, you know, all of the communities in my area were. But after 9/11, the way that things changed, the way it became, "Come
44:28 Speaker 05 to Vaisaki, have some samosas," like, you know, "These fireworks are for you as much as us." And it was about an understanding that communicating what Sikhism was about and positivity was really important. And this case got them so worried about how they were being perceived. Also, to be clear, violence against anyone for their religion is horrible, but these Sikhs were killed by people who hated a different religion and couldn't tell the difference. So they got this huge PR push, and members of the community freaked ...out by what this defense might say about public perception of their community flooded Mani Sudhu's phone, saying that he was dragging the community through the mud by highlighting
45:11 Speaker 05 gender side and making it look like abuse by mother-in-laws was common. Members of the Sikh community stepped forwards with statements about how they had never witnessed such aggression towards anyone who had a daughter and saying their mother-in-laws dote on their daughters as much as their sons. A prominent Sikh leader from Sacramento, Darshan Singh Mundi, said, "I've never heard of a single confrontation over the gender of an unborn child."
45:33 Karen Kilgariff? But he's talking as a several generation in Sikh American, right?
45:38 Speaker 05 Right.
45:38 Karen Kilgariff? As opposed to culturally Sikh from India.
45:41 Speaker 05 Right. And also, somebody who is like invested in trying to show the best side of this community, you know?
45:50 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah.
45:51 Speaker 05 It's like, whether you have great sympathy with Baljinder or great sympathy with Baljit, like, there's the possibility of this looking very, very bad to outsiders.
45:59 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah.
46:00 Speaker 05 In Yiddish, we call it a shanda furtigoyah. "You're embarrassing us in front of the Gentiles." And this was like such a Punjabi shanda furtigoyah moment.
46:08 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah.
46:09 Speaker 05 And you had this, you know, Punjabi-American attorney who was leading it, who was doing the thing that was embarrassing, but he was doing it because he thought it was the most just and reasonable way of defending somebody who had been in a horrible situation.
46:23 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah. Also, can I ask, because I'm assuming, you know, I went to college in Sacramento, being from Northern California, but Yuba City also being like an agricultural area, that those kind of 9/11 vibes more intense? Or do you think because there was such a large Indian population, that there was more balance in Yuba City?
46:45 Speaker 05 I don't think there was more balance in Yuba City. I think that, you know, it is a rural... Community with a lot of conservatism and a lot of guns. And I think that there is the awareness in Uba City of just like you went to high school with these guys. You know what's going on.
46:59 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
46:59 Speaker 05 But not everybody is directly from our community. You have, you know, you go 10 miles in another direction and people don't understand. And so, you know, hostility and racism that has always been there was even more intense. And it was very sweet to watch these rural community temples like taking on this PR problem of like, how do we make people understand who we are?
47:21 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
47:22 Speaker 05 So the trial for Boljin there lasted eight days and the jury, the 10 women and two men, took a day and a half to come to a verdict of not guilty.
47:31 Georgia Hardstark? Wow.
47:32 Speaker 05 One of the jurors, Michelle Stru, said, "We believe she acted in self-defense of her child. We didn't feel her decision was perfect. We felt she was not guilty rather than innocent. We could not find guilt based on the law."
47:45 Georgia Hardstark? And that was for first degree, right? They never lowered it to manslaughter?
47:50 Speaker 05 No, and that's the thing is that it would have made the most sense. Like, the most straightforward way of doing this is trying to get her eight years for voluntary manslaughter because she had been in a very difficult state. His strategy was basically saying, "If you understood this culture, the way that this woman does, if you had the same outlook as her, you would have reasonably thought that this person was going to imminently kill you or the other potential life that was in your body." And that was a big swing, but it was a big swing that worked all the way.
48:22 Georgia Hardstark? Is that on the prosecutor for not lowering the charges?
48:25 Speaker 05 Um, that's interesting.
48:27 Georgia Hardstark? Or is it the prosecutor who would have lowered those charges?
48:30 Speaker 05 Well, I don't know whether you could concurrently charge with both of them. Potentially, you could have offered a plea bargain for that to just agree to it. But it may have been on, that's a really good point, that it may have been a situation where if... But also, that prosecutor did not understand what was going on.
48:46 Karen Kilgariff? Right.
48:46 Speaker 05 Like, when he was interviewed afterwards, he was like, there was a lot of uncertainty about these details, and I think they thought that she was battered. Something along the lines of saying, I think that the jury thought that she had been the victim of domestic violence. And I think that that prosecutor was seeing it with his law school brain.
49:02 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah.
49:03 Speaker 05 Through battered person syndrome and didn't quite understand or counter what Mani Sudhu was doing. And I think he probably would have needed to, like, bring in some cultural experts to say, this was not reasonable for her to be thinking this way. And he didn't even go at that. He was just saying, she hit her in the head with an axe. That's murder, ladies and gentlemen.
49:24 Karen Kilgariff? It's like they were trying two totally different trials.
49:27 Speaker 05 Yes, yes.
49:27 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah.
49:27 Speaker 05 And that was why I was so fascinated and dazzled by it, was he just sort of, like, outthought this guy.
49:34 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah.
49:35 Speaker 05 And in a way that connected with the jury. And like, that's both being a good legal mind and being a good lawyer.
49:42 Karen Kilgariff? And tough. Like, it's like, because you're saying only one Punjabi woman was on that.
49:46 Speaker 05 Yeah.
49:47 Karen Kilgariff? Can you swallow this whole narrative?
49:49 Speaker 05 Right.
49:49 Karen Kilgariff? Can you learn this whole new cultural norm, accept it, and then be thinking about this trial?
49:55 Speaker 05 Yeah, and there is, there is the worry from the Punjabi community that this is a bad cliche of what that community is like. And I understand that uncertainty and that fear. But I also, my sympathy is with Baljinder. You know, my sympathy is with this person who had somebody threatening the life of the fetus inside of them every day. And that's going to wear on you.
50:20 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah.
50:20 Speaker 05 You know? Stanford professor Robert Weisberg said, "This is a fascinating case. The defense accounting for cultural standards and gender signs is plausible and obviously worked. Even if the threats weren't direct, given what the daughter-in-law knew about the mother-in-law's attitude towards female children, it's reasonable to believe that if she was such a horrible, hellish person, posed an unusual threat to Baljinder and her unborn baby. In addition to local press, the story was heavily covered by the Indian press for obvious reasons. But it was also heavily covered by the American Catholic press."
50:52 Karen Kilgariff? What?
50:52 Speaker 05 Dear. Because they like the angle that Baljinder was acquitted for murder for defending the life of a fetus.
50:59 Georgia Hardstark? Right. How can we make this about pro-life?
51:03 Speaker 05 And if it says anything about the truth of Baljinder's accusations, this Baljit Kor is not the only Baljit Kor who was killed by her daughter-in-law after years of abuse. In 2011 in England, a woman named Rajinder Kor beat her mother-in-law, named Baljit Kor, to death with a rolling pin. I found a bunch of cases between parents-in-law and daughters-in-law going both ways. There was one case where they were like, sure, we'll give you the divorce if you go to these two weddings in India. She showed up to the two weddings in India and they took her out. Seeing that stuff, for me, substantiated Baljinder's fears, including a case in Bakersfield,
51:48 Speaker 05 California, where a pissed-off daughter-in-law threatened to pull out her father-in-law's beard and shove it up his ass. And he picked up a revolver and shot her three times and said it was reasonable because she had dishonored him. So that is the story of the murder of Baljit Kor.
52:06 Georgia Hardstark? Oh, my God.
52:08 Karen Kilgariff? We wouldn't have invited you on if we thought you'd do it better than us, goddamn you.
52:13 Speaker 05 It was so much fun. Like, it really was fun and it was something that I had found back in the day when I was just sort of like searching around for stuff about one Corona. And I was just like, this is so juicy. And when you first mentioned it, I was like, oh, yeah, I want to do that, that woman with the axe. Like, because in my head, all I remembered was just a lady on a staircase with an axe, which I made up entirely in my head other than the axe.
52:39 Georgia Hardstark? The staircase. I love that you're doing a case that you're passionate about because of the legal parts of it. So fascinating.
52:46 Speaker 05 Like, the legal parts are so fascinating and the social parts are something that, first of all, everything I'm saying is not what the opinions of Karen or Georgia are my favorite murder. And also, we understand very much that these are delicate and sensitive issues about perceptions of a community, and I have so much respect for that. But it's also... A world that influenced so many people that I loved and grew up with, who saw various other flavors and signs of this like perception of women that is at odds with the very fundamentals of Sikhism. You know, like Sikhism, there's a cool holiday about one time when all the ladies had to get together and fight a battle. Like, it is very much a religion about everybody is directly equal before God.
53:29 Speaker 05 But in practice, as we know from Judaism or Catholicism or any religion, like, sometimes that doesn't happen in the culture. And it was really rough. And it's horrible that she went through. And the other lovely thing is when I was talking to Mani, we just talked for like 10 minutes and he was like, you know, I gotta call Baljinder. He was just like, and to him, you know, this, this guy is a criminal defense attorney in Yuba City. He's doing stuff every day. And to him, this was just a thing from 10, 15 years ago that he hadn't really thought about. But I was really impressed by what a smart and capable and conscientious attorney he was.
54:03 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah.
54:04 Georgia Hardstark? I love that the implications were so obvious to you. And he probably, it didn't even occur to him at the time.
54:10 Speaker 05 He was doing the job, you know?
54:11 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah. I also love that you buried the lead, that there is the exact same murder, or like the same name. That's wild.
54:18 Speaker 05 Well, no, it was really funny because, look, there were a couple. Like, there were some Baljinders and it made Googling hard because these other things were, were popping up in their place. But it made clear that there was this real, you know, power problem in that relationship. That, you know, and I think that's the really cool and interesting thing about looking at the world through murder is like so much of the time it is about a power imbalance that like comes to a head.
54:49 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah. It also like that idea that it's generations of immigrants. And it's like the first generation is holding the old caste systems or the old ways or the old beliefs. And then every generation, it changes and it gets, you know, the kids have Adidas tennis shoes and they're using slang and whatever. And it's like that distance is part of what makes America great. And then
55:13 Speaker 05 It's so funny, I was working on a rom com with a guy who was one of my niece Olivia's community college professors, who is a Punjabi Sikh, and I was describing a situation that occurred with some of the women from like my age, and he was just like, it doesn't work like that anymore, you know, it's like, times have changed what people, and it was very much about like, gender balance and, you know, perception of women's value. And he was just like, that's not the world anymore, guy. And I had to feel old. And then, you know, we had to adjust the rom com.
55:45 Karen Kilgariff? Rewrite.
55:47 Georgia Hardstark? Wow.
55:47 Karen Kilgariff? I mean, amazing job.
55:49 Speaker 05 Thank you so much. It was really fun.
55:51 Georgia Hardstark? You've done it again.
55:52 Karen Kilgariff? I love it. It was so good. Well, you have to come back and do it again, please.
55:55 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
55:56 Speaker 05 Thank you.
55:56 Karen Kilgariff? Maybe in six years?
55:59 Speaker 05 Yes, yes.
56:00 Karen Kilgariff? Does that sound good?
56:00 Speaker 05 Not so long next time. But I just want to say to you guys and to everyone listening, how much I have appreciated in a tiny way, being a part of the My Favorite Murder family, and have always really felt it.
56:12 Georgia Hardstark? That means so much. Thank you.
56:14 Karen Kilgariff? We love you.
56:14 Georgia Hardstark? We love you.
56:15 Karen Kilgariff? And that was incredible, by the way.
56:17 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, that was so great. Let's plug your things.
56:20 Karen Kilgariff? Oh, yeah.
56:20 Georgia Hardstark? That sounds terrible.
56:21 Karen Kilgariff? You have some plugs.
56:22 Georgia Hardstark? So your new comedy, Stop That Train?
56:25 Speaker 05 Yes.
56:25 Georgia Hardstark? Tell us everything.
56:26 Speaker 05 I got a small part in the RuPaul's Drag Race movie. It's very exciting. I play train traffic conductor number one, train traffic conductor number two, of course played by Charo.
56:37 Karen Kilgariff? Are you serious?
56:38 Speaker 05 Yes.
56:38 Karen Kilgariff? Did you spend time with Charo?
56:39 Speaker 05 I spent two days with Charo. There's no off position on Charo. Like, she's just, she's never not doing it. Periodically, Adam Shankman would have to be like, hey, quiet down, because Charo was telling me her origin with the Roma people of Spain, learning to play the guitar. Like, she's just unstoppable and amazing.
57:00 Karen Kilgariff? And she looks the same.
57:01 Speaker 05 Yes.
57:02 Karen Kilgariff? We watched her on like, television in 1979, and she looks exactly the same.
57:07 Georgia Hardstark? And she dances the same. Like, she's incredible.
57:09 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah.
57:09 Speaker 05 She was unstoppable, and it was so much fun. But the movie comes out on June 12th, and it's very much like Airplane or Mel Brooks movie. It is very spoofy and fun.
57:19 Georgia Hardstark? Yes, I'm so excited for that.
57:21 Karen Kilgariff? That's awesome.
57:22 Georgia Hardstark? And then you're also gonna do the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
57:25 Speaker 05 Georgia, thank you for bringing that up. It turns out that tickets are now available for my show Be Fruitful at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. So if people go to my Instagram and click on the link there, if you're gonna be in Edinburgh or the UK, it's a very funny show about fruit and religion and evolution and all sorts of things before it becomes terribly, terribly personal. But I'm very proud of the show and if you're a murderino in Britain, please come see me.
57:55 Karen Kilgariff? I mean, congratulations. Getting into the Fringe Festival is a big deal.
57:58 Speaker 05 It's truly terrifying. It's like so enormous and I'm like, this will destroy me as a person. I'm no longer young.
58:05 Karen Kilgariff? What a way to go.
58:07 Georgia Hardstark? I was there last year and the energy in the city is unbelievable. It's gonna be such an incredible trip.
58:14 Speaker 05 What did you see that was good?
58:15 Georgia Hardstark? I saw a wrestling show that was about a medieval romance.
58:20 Speaker 05 Oh.
58:21 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, it was incredible. Yeah.
58:23 Speaker 05 I mean, the thing I'm most excited for is just to get to be there and like, deal with the personalities and see the stuff that isn't the same time as me and be in it all.
58:33 Georgia Hardstark? You have to go to the Frankenstein bar.
58:36 Karen Kilgariff? Oh.
58:36 Georgia Hardstark? Right?
58:37 Karen Kilgariff? Is that the one where like they do the whole?
58:38 Georgia Hardstark? Frankenstein.
58:39 Karen Kilgariff? It's alive, it's alive?
58:40 Georgia Hardstark? They have a bar that's like Frankenstein themed.
58:42 Speaker 05 I had no idea. That sounds very fun. Well, I am like, well, if I'm there for a month, I kind of have to be an irresponsible child who's pretty much just drinking and having a good time and making friends.
58:52 Georgia Hardstark? It's a camp. It's comedy camp. Also, we got platonic, we got hacks.
58:57 Speaker 05 Yes.
58:58 Georgia Hardstark? We've covered the fun things.
58:59 Karen Kilgariff? I mean, clearly, we have a professional writer coming in to play our game with us. Thank you so much for saying yes to this. We love you so much.
59:06 Speaker 05 Thank you. It was so much fun. And also, thank you for going on a ride to my hometown and the weird specificities of that, because that part was really, really fun.
59:14 Georgia Hardstark? I think we all learned something, everyone.
59:16 Karen Kilgariff? A lot.
59:17 Georgia Hardstark? Thank you.
59:18 Karen Kilgariff? Well, amazing.
59:19 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, thanks, Guy, and thanks, everyone, for listening and hanging out and...
59:22 Karen Kilgariff? And we're gonna wrap it up.
59:23 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
59:24 Karen Kilgariff? By saying, stay sexy.
59:25 Georgia Hardstark? And don't get murdered. Goodbye.
59:29 Karen Kilgariff? Elvis, do you want a cookie?
59:38 Karen Kilgariff? This has been an Exactly Right Production.
59:40 Georgia Hardstark? Our senior producer is Molly Smith and our associate producer is Tessa Hughes.
59:44 Karen Kilgariff? Our editor is Aristotle Lassaveto.
59:46 Georgia Hardstark? This episode was mixed by Liana Scolacci.
59:48 Karen Kilgariff? Our researchers are Maren McGlashan and Ally Elkin.
59:51 Georgia Hardstark? Email your hometowns to [email protected] .
59:54 Karen Kilgariff? And follow the show on Instagram at MyFavoriteMurder.
59:56 Georgia Hardstark? Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:00:01 Karen Kilgariff? And now you can watch My Favorite Murder on Netflix.
1:00:04 Georgia Hardstark? And when you're there, hit the double thumbs up and the remind me buttons. That's the best way you can support our show.
1:00:09 Karen Kilgariff? Goodbye.
1:00:13 Karen Kilgariff? Calling all amateur detectives and podcast obsessives.
1:00:17 Georgia Hardstark? Virgin Voyages' second true crime voyage sets sail March 20th, 2027, for a five-night escape to Grand Turk and the Beach Club at Bimini.
1:00:26 Karen Kilgariff? As part of the On Air at Sea collection, this immersive sailing brings together fan favorite podcasts, including Disgrace Land, Buried Bones, and Wise Crack, for live recordings, behind-the-scenes access, exclusive meet and greets, and crime-themed programming that you won't find anywhere else.
1:00:42 Georgia Hardstark? All aboard our award-winning, kid-free ships.
1:00:45 Karen Kilgariff? Head over to virginvoyages.com/troocrime to secure your spot.
1:00:49 Georgia Hardstark? Goodbye.
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Previous Rewind with Karen & Georgia - 94: Go Get Your Thing Next MFM Minisode 486 Page updated October 30, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated