MFM Minisode 341

[0] This is exactly right.

[1] Hello.

[2] And welcome to my favorite murder.

[3] The minisode.

[4] The minisode that's being videoed for the fan cult.

[5] Enjoy.

[6] That's it.

[7] Enjoy the visuals.

[8] That's right.

[9] There's a cat happening.

[10] That's all I can give you.

[11] Do you want to go first?

[12] Sure.

[13] All right.

[14] This first email, the subject line is warning a cautionary tale about criminal lineups.

[15] It says, Hi, Karen, Georgia, furry Critters at All, long -time listener, and distant Lizzie Borden cousin here.

[16] On today's minisode, you read the story about the guy who willingly volunteered for a lineup and talked about how nutty it was for him to do so.

[17] Then I realized I had a story to share.

[18] I grew up in Idaho, and this was circa 1991 when I was still in high school.

[19] My brother, Matt, had already graduated, so I think this must have been during the summer when he was home from college.

[20] Our Lutheran Church had some great youth group leaders, and then in parentheses, it says, Not a cult, I promise.

[21] And even the oldsters would come back and hang sometimes on Sunday mornings.

[22] In my brother's case, this may have been for the maple bars.

[23] For a long time, he held the youth group record of eating six maple bars in one sitting.

[24] But that's another story.

[25] One of the kids, my age, was a guy named Kevin, who worked at his uncle's mom -and -pop grocery store.

[26] One Sunday, he told us he had been working, working his shift at the store, when a customer came, wrote a check for his groceries, then left.

[27] Later, when they attempted to cash the check, the store owner realized that it was invalid.

[28] Forgery, stolen, overdrawn, I can't remember.

[29] Since Kevin had dealt directly with the customer, he was asked to participate in a photo lineup to see if he could identify the culprit.

[30] So Kevin headed down to the police station and was seated at a table with six photos of young men laid out in front of him.

[31] Kevin looked at the photos carefully, and then his eyes grew wide.

[32] He pointed at one of the photos.

[33] Hey, I know this guy, but he's not the criminal.

[34] Yep, the photo was of my brother, the Maple Bar King.

[35] I can't remember now if one of the other photos was actually of the criminal or not, but we learned from this incident that at least in 1991, Idaho, your driver's license photo could be used in a photo lineup without your knowledge.

[36] Thankfully, Kevin was a good guy and he didn't harbor any hard feelings or donut cravings that might have led him to point Matt out as the checker.

[37] bandit.

[38] Stay sexy and don't eat all the maple bars, Megan.

[39] I mean, I guess it makes sense if they pull people who are like lookalikes and the same height and everything based on your driver's license, right?

[40] As long as they're like, then not later, if they get picked, like, well, that must be the guy, you know?

[41] Yeah, I mean, there is a logic to it of like just matching all the things and making sure that you're not just picking a random person.

[42] Right.

[43] Okay, mine's called Al Capone, nuns, and my great -grandpa.

[44] Just starts, sub -nerds.

[45] I've been sitting on this one for a while, but hearing the call for mafia stories, I knew I had to finally sit my lazy ass down to write in.

[46] My great -grandpa's name was John Leo.

[47] He only went by John, but John Leo sounds more hip.

[48] Though he passed before I was born, he remains a subject of many stories at family gatherings.

[49] John Leo owned a pet shop on the south side of Chicago during Prohibition and the Great Depression.

[50] I don't know the ends and ounce of how, but he ended up working for Al Capone during the height of Capone's prestigious reign.

[51] You know the classic story, a full -time pet store owner, part -time mafia, bootlegger, that was him.

[52] John Leo was such a successful mafia employee that he was able to buy a brand new Cadillac in the middle of the Great Depression.

[53] This sick whip was custom made with five separate five -gallon jugs hidden under the back seats.

[54] One day, he set up on his Capone assigned delivery route with 25, gallons of moonshine in the back seat when he realized he was being followed by the police.

[55] He had to think fast.

[56] Luckily, he spotted two nuns walking together down the street.

[57] He immediately pulled over and offered them a ride in his fancy ass Cadillac.

[58] Because being a nun must be hella boring, they accepted and climbed into the back seat.

[59] Once the nuns were settled into the car, he took off to lose the cops.

[60] He ended up taking a turn so fast, one of the nuns said sweetly, I think I hear splashing.

[61] Apparently, one of the containers must not have been quite full enough.

[62] When he had lost the police, he kindly dropped the nuns off and proceeded with bootlegging business as usual.

[63] To my knowledge, she was never caught for his escapades, and if it hadn't been for those unsuspecting nuns being a perfect distraction, who knows if I'd be here today.

[64] Stay sexy and use nuns for your own selfish needs, Jordan, she, her.

[65] Yeah, yeah.

[66] If you can spot two nuns, together these days, absolutely pull them into your hijinks in your crimes, for sure.

[67] Here's what I love that we're doing this on video, because I still have these weird little gnats flying around in this room.

[68] So I'm doing like the crazy grabbing into the air thing still because they're still in here.

[69] I think mine is gone, but we'll see.

[70] It's just kind of an additional visual that we can give people.

[71] Karen, you know I'm all about vintage shopping.

[72] Absolutely.

[73] And when you say Vintage, you mean when you physically drive to a store and actually purchase something with cash.

[74] Exactly.

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[88] Important note, that promo code is all lowercase.

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[90] That's Shopify .com slash murder.

[91] Goodbye.

[92] This subject line says, Oops, got lost again.

[93] Hey, besties, I love your podcast and have been scratching my brain for a story to tell until I remembered this one.

[94] My parents are from South Africa, so we would visit our extended family there every second Christmas pre -COVID.

[95] While there, I have a reputation for getting lost.

[96] In my defense, I never feel lost.

[97] They just don't know where I am.

[98] This includes the time when they left the petting zoo without me. And the time that I was so jet -lagged, I fell asleep in a bed shop in the middle of a crowded mall.

[99] Sounds like something I would do.

[100] That is so awesome.

[101] And also it's like that bed shop should pay you because you just did the best commercial for them ever.

[102] Definitely.

[103] Street team.

[104] The most memorable, however, was at a beach outside of Port Elizabeth.

[105] We arrived with my cousins, aunties, uncles, and have a great swim.

[106] The beach is long and there are a ton of beautiful looking dunes behind the main stretch.

[107] When we've exhausted ourselves, everyone lies down to sunbathe and read.

[108] I notice that everyone's fallen asleep and I'm still feeling energetic.

[109] So I stroll a few hundred meters down the beach and I start running up and down the sand dunes.

[110] I dip into the sea in between and it's an absolute blast for my 13 year old self.

[111] After 30 minutes or so, I see my cousin running up to me. Out of breath, he shouts, Mia, everyone's been looking for you.

[112] There's a literal search party, come back.

[113] And I'm like, holy shit, what?

[114] It turns out what felt like a few hundred meters was more like a kilometer, which I think is three miles.

[115] You sound sure of that, and so I'm going to accept it.

[116] I always do, and I'm always sure until I'm wrong.

[117] But, you know, let us know, South Africa, how long your kilometer is.

[118] And while I was in the dunes, I was practically invisible.

[119] My family had called the police.

[120] All of the beachgoers were searching for me, and they'd even started a prayer circle.

[121] I walked back and told them all to chill.

[122] I grew up in New Zealand, so I'd forgotten that South Africa is a bit more scary and dangerous and that you shouldn't probably be alone as a young girl.

[123] Mom later told me that she was praying that she would find my body.

[124] He -he, oops.

[125] What?

[126] Yes.

[127] I think she's saying that someone else wouldn't do it.

[128] Or maybe that she wouldn't have gone missing forever.

[129] right?

[130] There's a lot of ways to interpret that sentence, I think.

[131] Anyways, thanks for keeping me permanently entertained, and I hope all of you are happy and well.

[132] You deserve the best.

[133] Hey, stay sexy and maybe just tell everyone where you're going next time.

[134] Mia Sheer.

[135] Yeah, I love it.

[136] I love it.

[137] 13 -year -olds, they think they're fucking invincible.

[138] And then off they go.

[139] I'm on Mia's side, though, because a half an hour is not long enough to call the cops and start a prayer circle, in my opinion.

[140] Maybe a little search party, cops in prayer circle are a little.

[141] That's like a three -hour mark, I feel.

[142] Please.

[143] At the very least.

[144] Okay.

[145] This was one of those ones that we've asked for of like, what was the thing in your town that like everyone, like that made, they made shirts out of and it's like the event.

[146] So they wrote, this thing fever, hippopotamus edition.

[147] Oh.

[148] I've been with MFM since I was pregnant with my soon.

[149] to be seven -year -old.

[150] Let's get into it.

[151] She's been with us longer than we've existed.

[152] No, I mean, if it's nine months and soon to be seven, that's like the very beginning, right?

[153] This podcast is soon to be an eight -year -old.

[154] I live in a small Texas town called Hutto.

[155] It's H -U -T -T -O, and they wrote phonetically for me, which I appreciate.

[156] As citizens of this adorable place, we are all called hippos.

[157] The hippo is the school mascot for all local campuses.

[158] and everything in town is hippocentric.

[159] The legend of the huddo hippo traces its roots back to 1915 when a circus train stopped in huddo to gather supplies and care for the animals.

[160] According to folklore, the hippo escaped from its keeper running toward Cottonwood Creek.

[161] The train depot agent reportedly sent the following message to nearby communities.

[162] Stop trains, hippo loose in huddo.

[163] We have hippo everything.

[164] Most of the homes in town have a large customized cement hippo in their front yard.

[165] I have seen Starry Night Hippo, Disney Character Hippo, and every business has a branded hippo at its front door.

[166] Wow.

[167] They've committed to this.

[168] They've committed.

[169] The local dive bar has what looks like a 200 -year -old taxidermy hippo head hanging on the wall.

[170] Oh, wow.

[171] Shout out to Snuffies.

[172] The local butcher shop sells hippo eggs, a jalapeno popper, surrounded a house.

[173] in sausage and wrapped in bacon.

[174] Whoa.

[175] That sounds fucking good.

[176] That sounds good.

[177] Every year, the elementary schools have Hipporama, where the children reenact the legend of the hutto hippo.

[178] One child dressed as the hippo runs loose through the crowd, while the other kids dressed as early 1900s townspeople and circus animals give chase and sing songs.

[179] Precious.

[180] Love it.

[181] It's so good.

[182] Anywho, thanks for reading.

[183] Stay sexy and eat hippo eggs, KD