MFM Minisode 199

[0] This is exactly right.

[1] To my favorite murder.

[2] The minisode.

[3] This is the episode of the podcast, the version of the podcast, where we redo your emails.

[4] Whatever you write to us, we'll just read it right out loud.

[5] That's right.

[6] You tell us stories and reread them right back to you.

[7] That's the name of the game.

[8] We've got so many themes out there.

[9] Still taking Halloween stories, who cares?

[10] Scary haunted stories.

[11] Did you ever see a celebrity in real life?

[12] Celebrity.

[13] Oprah stories are on the fucking rise these days, which I appreciate.

[14] People love a theme.

[15] Just murder stories too.

[16] And grandma, always grandparent stories.

[17] Always.

[18] Do you want to go first?

[19] Sure.

[20] This says, good old fashion Montana hometown story.

[21] Great.

[22] Oh, it says, hey there.

[23] I'm from Helena, Montana, and you would not believe how many hometown stories there are to choose from.

[24] I struggled to decide if I would write you about my partner's coworker who worked with the Zula Mahler during his killing rampage, the time I accidentally snowshoed through Ted Kaczynsi's backyard, or the many haunted buildings around town.

[25] Needless to say, there are a lot of crazies around here, which I'm sure Chris Fairbanks can attest to.

[26] Yes, he can.

[27] Without further ado, this is the story of the disappearance of Nilean Marshall.

[28] In June of 1983, Nileen attended a picnic with her family at a campground in the Helena National Forest.

[29] Around 4 p .m., Nileen and other children went on a walk near Maupan Creek to see some beaver dams.

[30] Nileen lagged behind and when the other children turned around, she was gone.

[31] There were reports that Nilean was seen talking to a man at a jogging suit, but it was never confirmed this man was involved.

[32] This area is home to grizzly and black bears, wolves, and mountain lions.

[33] So there were thoughts that she had been attacked, but there was no evidence of animal involvement found and her body was never recovered.

[34] Two years later, a man claiming to have abducted Nilean called the National Missing and Unidentified Person System from several phone booths in Wisconsin.

[35] Law enforcement also received letters from an anonymous man claiming he had Nilean and was traveling the country.

[36] The letters and call transcripts are creepy as fuck, and you can read them on Nilean's wiki page if you want to be scarred for life.

[37] In 2017, the Jefferson County Sheriff stated that they had no substantial leads.

[38] I know we're supposed to stay out of the forest, but I truly love being in such a naturally beautiful place, and it makes me so angry that fuckers like Nilean's abductor make it dangerous for us to enjoy without worry.

[39] I also really enjoy hiking solo and think of every trek as an opportunity to take back nature from shitty dudes.

[40] Stay sexy and always hike with bear amaze, a pocket taser, and your trusty emotional support dog, MADS.

[41] Wow.

[42] I wonder if they were able to, able to prove that that was actually the abductor, just some fucking sicko admitting to it.

[43] Yeah, it sounds like they haven't been able to prove anything.

[44] That's so horrible.

[45] And also, then it also leads into, I think we've talked about this before, but have you ever seen the maps?

[46] Tons of people sent me this on Twitter.

[47] It's the places where people have gone missing and then the cave systems in America.

[48] Oh, my God.

[49] They're basically kind of a mirror image or like you could lay one over the other and they're related.

[50] Meaning like people fell in, like fell in places or that.

[51] I mean, to me, the clickbait version is something came out of a cave and grabbed, grabbed people and pulled it back in.

[52] You know, it's very like the dissent.

[53] It's very like a horror movie, I think, suggestion, whether that actually means that those caves are in national parks where people go.

[54] missing because there's so many there's dangers and risks or they wandered other little kids and they wandered off which just sounds so likely but right fuck knows it's it's horrible what a horrible wow okay well i have a pretty classic small town hometown as well this is called vintage unsolved murder hi karen georgia creatures and mustaches i grew up in a super small town in the hudson valley area of new york state where literally nothing happens and we have no sidewalks or bars.

[55] Anyway, I have always been obsessed with a story about an entire family who was murdered in the 1930s on their farm a few minutes from my childhood home.

[56] The story is referred to as the Germand family murders, and I believe it remains unsolved to this day.

[57] On the day after Thanksgiving 1930, the Borden Company of Duchess County sent one of its workers out to check on a local dairy farmer who supplied them with milk after not receiving their typical shipment.

[58] The employee arrived at the dairy farm around nine in the morning to find all four members of the Germand family stabbed to death.

[59] Then it says, I hope that guy got therapy afterwards.

[60] Houston Germant and his young son Raymond were found first.

[61] They had been stabbed to death in the family's wagon shed.

[62] Mabel and Bernice Germant, Houston's wife and teenage daughter, were found in the family's kitchen both stabbed to death.

[63] Bernice's body was found under the kitchen table as if she had tried to crawl away.

[64] Although a butcher knife that did not belong to the family was found at the scene and was determined to be the murder weapon, police were unable to find any fingerprints on the knife.

[65] They eventually were able to track down who sold the knife, but the man was unable to recall who he had sold it to.

[66] Then it says, thanks for nothing.

[67] It was also discovered that Mr. Germand had cashed a $150 check that same day of the murder over $2 ,300 in today's money, which led investigators to believe that the family's murder was likely a robbery.

[68] Investigators followed up on several leads, including an elusive, mysterious stranger, who had been reportedly seen walking around the Germann's property prior to the murders.

[69] In 1933, a neighbor was arrested, who was supposedly owed money by Mr. Germain, but lack of evidence led to the charges being dropped.

[70] Other than this, no arrests have been made.

[71] I love this story for tons of reasons, but mostly because it has everything.

[72] Murder, money, a mysterious stranger, but also because it had occurred in almost 100 years ago and is still the craziest thing that has ever happened in my hometown.

[73] And in this insane world, that's probably a pretty good thing.

[74] SSDGM, Megan.

[75] Good point, Megan.

[76] That's a very silver lining way to look at it.

[77] To a horrible and mysterious, this makes me want to, point back to once again one of my favorite true crime books of all time the man from the train which is unbelievable and it has that thing where the idea that someone comes into a small town where people are just the assumption of safety because they're far away from people they're away from the big city or whatever and decimates a family and then just walks away and nothing ever happens from that is yeah it's just crazy I feel like back then it was just easily easy to like just blend in and be a nameless faceless person yeah through town yeah that's crazy and you could hop on trains yeah again read the man from a train if you're so good so good oh this is okay ready no creepy neighbor story oh no that's all that's the beginning of the of the podcast the new podcast we're definitely gonna do about creepy neighbors creepy neighbor story yeah um i'm a little late to the game, but as I was painting ornaments for my shop and catching up on MFM, parentheses, thanks for keeping me company, I heard your request for creepy neighbors and I had to write in with this guy.

[78] In college, I moved into a condo that I would end up living in for several years.

[79] I had an older upstairs neighbor who I kind of shared a front and back stoop with.

[80] He immediately established himself as a creep.

[81] Many times I would either be leaving my apartment or taking out the trash or whatever, only to hear a quiet voice behind me just saying hi or telling me I was doing my recycling wrong oh god can you imagine that they're whispering actually actually actually you don't know the difference between blasts styrofoam is actually not recyclable actually but he's right on you yeah he would be standing way too close and scare the shit out of me every time fucking creep that's when the next time you do it before you turn around or whatever you throw that elbow back yeah you just throw it back because why are they standing that close to you anyway?

[82] A hundred percent.

[83] And you just go, oh my God, I'm so sorry.

[84] I didn't know anyone was there.

[85] Yeah, because you shouldn't be.

[86] So sometimes I just move my elbows away from my body a tiny bit.

[87] And if someone's fucking standing there, I deserve that broken nose, motherfucker.

[88] I sometimes, look, I'll admit it.

[89] Sometimes I do that in Starbucks when people get right on, well, not anymore, but I used to.

[90] When people get right up on you in line, I would pretend to turn one direction and then just throw my purse over my shoulder and hit them away.

[91] Definitely done that.

[92] It's always a middle -aged woman, an older woman, a baby boomer woman who's on your ass.

[93] So she gets a little purse hit.

[94] Yep.

[95] Look, this isn't a bad honey.

[96] And you have the most gigantic purse ever, always the heaviest, most enormous purse.

[97] So it's actually, it's pretty dangerous.

[98] My purses usually can fit a laptop computer in them and then all kinds of other dumb bullshit that I have in there.

[99] So beware.

[100] beware in 2029 when we can go outside again and I throw my purse at you anyhow here we go okay pretty early on into living at this condo his toilet started leaking making a big water stain on my bathroom ceiling and resulting in a hole that looked directly into our bathroom I bet you he did that on purpose uh huh my roommate and I put a towel up in the hole which vanish oh and she said once when she was getting out of the shower, she looked up and made eye contact with someone.

[101] So we taped paper over the hole and because we were dumb and in college, we did not give it a second thought to being peeped on.

[102] It gets worse.

[103] Of course it does.

[104] A couple of times I was woken up in the night from a dead sleep by a loud moaning because I'm nosy and I didn't see anyone coming or going from his place because you could hear people walk up the stairs.

[105] I can only assume he was masturbating face down on the floor.

[106] It's sounded like he was in the room with me. Oh, my God.

[107] The last, yeah, horrifying.

[108] The last story I'll share is the night my boyfriend and I were awoken by a woman screaming.

[109] It sounded like someone was being murdered, hearts racing.

[110] We had whispered a conversation about what to do.

[111] And as we were deciding to call the police, we heard a familiar moaning.

[112] And then the screams turned into something more sexual.

[113] And then this is in all caps.

[114] These people were like 60 years old.

[115] The walls were not even that thin.

[116] why were they being so loud?

[117] Oh, my God.

[118] I later found out that the woman leaving the next morning was his ex -wife.

[119] Anyway, pretty soon after, the old Purve moved out, and I still Google search his name every once in a while to see if he's been arrested yet.

[120] And that's the creepiest neighbor I've ever had, which is saying something because someone in my childhood neighborhood had a secret meth lab in their basement and got raided by the DEA.

[121] And then the sign off is, I appreciate you, Allison.

[122] We appreciate you.

[123] Alison.

[124] We appreciate you right back.

[125] Wow.

[126] So many problems.

[127] I hope I'm done in my life with creepy neighbors.

[128] Not living in apartments anymore.

[129] I feel like I'm safeish.

[130] But the idea like the problem solving of tape a piece of paper over this when it's like you get your fucking landlord in there, you point out how there's an eye coming down.

[131] Like solve it.

[132] Get out of that apartment.

[133] You show them your renter's rights and that they better.

[134] fucking fix that whole move you they need to move you across the building away from the bad man that's right okay this one is a follow up on the 16th street bombing in birmingham so it goes hi ladies i listened to the podcast today and heard george's story about the 16th street baptist church bombing in birmingham alabama i currently live in birmingham and i work for the state crime lab as a forensic toxicologist a few years ago i helped plan a forensic science conference and our keynote speaker was the FBI agent, Bill Fleming, who helped bring people responsible to justice in the final investigation.

[135] I wanted to mention a few things that you didn't cover in the podcast.

[136] Agent Fleming showed us lots of crime scene pictures, which were just awful.

[137] He spoke about interviewing the suspects and how their views hadn't changed.

[138] They were still evil, racist, terrorists, even after all this time.

[139] I guess a tiger stripes never change.

[140] One story he told that really stuck with me was that the ambulances that initially showed up wouldn't take any of the injured people to the hospital because they were black, not even the little girls.

[141] It's difficult for me to fathom that kind of hate.

[142] I believe that bystanders ended up taking the injured in private cars.

[143] Can you fucking imagine?

[144] He told us about the corruption and racism in state and federal government that derailed the original investigation.

[145] The governor at the time, George Wallace, was the most racist white supremacist in history.

[146] Give that piece of shit a Google and see what I mean.

[147] Good Lord.

[148] Another photo Agent Fleming showed us that stayed with me was a photo of the bridge where the Cahaba boys, those were the hardcore, double hardcore KKK members, would meet to plan their attacks, including the attack on the 16th Street Church.

[149] This bridge is still in use to this day.

[150] I also wanted to say that the prosecutor who got the conviction in the early 2000s was Doug Jones.

[151] He is now a U .S. Senator, Democrat, who beat out the Republican incumbent and sexual predator Roy Moore two years ago.

[152] Oh, yeah, that's right.

[153] He's running again this election, so fingers crossed.

[154] Yes, vote for Doug Jones.

[155] Vote for Doug Jones.

[156] That's right.

[157] I'm including some photos of the cars outside that were damaged from the bombing and a picture of the bridge.

[158] So we should put those up on this minisodes post, right?

[159] Yeah.

[160] I'm so glad things are better -ish now, but what I've learned this year is that we have so much further to go.

[161] Black Lives Matter, SSDGM, Mary Ellen.

[162] I mean, it's upsetting, but then it's also good to just know more and more background.

[163] Yeah.

[164] You know what I mean?

[165] Especially this week.

[166] Keep it at the front of our minds, you know?

[167] Yeah, absolutely.

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

[169] Absolutely.

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[187] Goodbye.

[188] I'll finish on an, it's a neighbor story, but it says neighbor stories cult next door.

[189] Ladies, non -ladies.

[190] When I was a teenager, my family lived in the, the super conservative town of Holland, Michigan.

[191] We lived in an apartment building that was one of three in an apartment complex.

[192] The largest buildings had maybe 12 to 15 apartments and was entirely occupied by what could be described as the Amish.

[193] Keep in mind, this was not a rural area, and we were not close to Amish country, so it was weird that here in the middle of town were several large families of Amish folks, not hipsters, real live Amish.

[194] They wore old -fashioned clothing, road.

[195] only bikes and worked as the apartment's landscapers.

[196] One more note.

[197] Although none of them drove, they did use one parking spot for this black luxury car with dark tinted windows.

[198] Several of them would wash and shine this car once a week or so.

[199] We used to joke about how truly weird it was and how they must be some sort of cult until one day, and this is on all caps, the FBI came and arrested their leader.

[200] Yep, they really were a cult.

[201] I did some research and it turns out they had been a liberal sect of Mennonites that had left Pennsylvania following a man they called Leader.

[202] And then in parentheses it says no shit.

[203] The FBI had been watching them for years and Leader was arrested, charged and convicted of child rape.

[204] Oh my God.

[205] After he was arrested, some of the families moved away but some of the creepiest ones stuck around.

[206] The Leader's black car is still in the carport and the glassiest eyed among them still wash and shine the car that's my story about living next to a cult stay sexy and don't trust your neighbors Molly wow wow Molly you you were a peeping you were like a Gladys Cravitz peeking over the fence staring at your neighbors and judging totally and then it turned out you were right and no one believed you until it was too late because at first it's like hey leave if they want to be Amish and they made it to the big city and they're going to be landscapers stop being such a judgy neighbor.

[207] And then it's like, no, no, no. Yeah.

[208] The child rape part really took a turn.

[209] Because I was like, all right.

[210] And then it's like, oh, this is the worst.

[211] Yeah.

[212] Well, also because it's, this is the story of, it's separate from, you know, Amish, being Amish almost has nothing to do with this story.

[213] Right.

[214] This is this thing where it starts as a religion.

[215] Everybody is, it's all about being good.

[216] And then there's a splinter group.

[217] Yeah.

[218] And there's some, it's some kind of splinter.

[219] sect that goes off by themselves because the original is too, you know, restrictive or whatever it is.

[220] Totally.

[221] And then as soon as you like agree to go off on that splinter, you're already fucking indoctrinated and it just keeps heightening from there.

[222] Yeah, because you're now rebelling against the original group.

[223] So you have less people around you.

[224] You may have left like your family.

[225] You don't have anyone to go back to.

[226] This podcast.

[227] Okay.

[228] This last one I have It's called Spooky Grandma Halloween.

[229] Hi, MFM, Fam, Human, and Otherwise.

[230] So this is not a hometown murder story, but it is my favorite spooky Halloween story involving my late grandmother, and I know you love a good G -Maw story.

[231] My family is from Salt Lake City, Utah, and I come from a long line of Jehovah's Witnesses on my dad's side.

[232] As you're probably aware, J -dubs, as they call themselves, to not partake in any sort of pagan holidays or celebration.

[233] So when my dad was in second grade or so and came home with a letter from his teacher about a Halloween school parade and needing to come to school in costume, my grandma was a little torn about what to do.

[234] After all, she would be shunned if she turned out to be a, quote, celebrator.

[235] That Friday, a couple hours after sending my dad to school, my grandparents, Donabel and Francis, received a concerning call from my dad's school.

[236] on the other end of the line was the principal insisting they come and pick David up immediately.

[237] She asked what the problem was and he explained that David, my dad, had shown up to school, dressed as Hitler, and was waving his arm in the air the way Nazis did.

[238] What?

[239] My grandma replied, well, isn't Halloween about dressing up as something scary and is there anything more evil you could think of?

[240] I believe she did end up picking up my poor unknowing dad from school after the principal realized that she had been the one to get him ready and showed him how to wave his arm during the fray.

[241] Oh, no. They had never celebrated Halloween, and so she didn't understand what scary monsters meant.

[242] Right.

[243] Right.

[244] Although Donabel had a pretty rigid religious belief, I always remember her having a great sense of humor, albeit sometimes inappropriate, and can only imagine that this was the seed she planted that eventually made my dad, sister and myself, leave this crazy religion, or possibly why we all also suffer from debilitating anxiety.

[245] Anyway, even if this story doesn't end up on the pod, I hope you got a little laugh out of it.

[246] I know I do every time I picture my seven -year -old Jehovah Witness father dressed up as the person that put his own people in internment camps.

[247] Yeah.

[248] Because Jehovah's Witness.

[249] Stay sexy.

[250] And although dressing up as a Nazi isn't considered cultural appropriation, still don't do it, Bailey.

[251] I mean, it's, especially in this day and age that's like a heart attack story oh my god so it's just like and also a seven year old yeah so there's it's either yeah it's either a family that's never celebrated a holiday before or the most fucked up family of all time it's like it's like innocent horror innocent terribleness you know yeah it's like well and it's also kind of in a it's in a vacuum so it's clearly it's like okay here's real quick here's the holiday um everyone has to be the scariest worst thing that they can think of right so just you know and that's we can in good faith say give her the benefit of the doubt and say if that's all she understood then she was accurate but um however do not don't please don't it ain't funny um send us your stories any of any of the above that we've mentioned before and um yeah i love that some were uh creepy neighbor cult.

[252] There's like people are combining.

[253] There's grandma ghost.

[254] There's people are doing cross.

[255] Grandma crime.

[256] Grandma ghost.

[257] There's all kinds of things.

[258] So you can really make it your own.

[259] I love it.

[260] And make sure that this week you do something self -carey, self -careish for yourself.

[261] For yourself and for someone else maybe who might need it.

[262] Great idea.

[263] Yeah.

[264] Come on.

[265] And other than that, stay sexy.

[266] And don't get murdered.

[267] Goodbye.

[268] Elvis?

[269] Do you want a cookie?

[270] Ah!