MFM Minisode 358

[0] This is exactly right.

[1] Welcome to my favorite murder.

[2] The minis.

[3] You want to go first on this one?

[4] Sure.

[5] Okay.

[6] I'm not going to reach you the subject.

[7] Hi, Karen, Georgia and team.

[8] Love what you do.

[9] Let's get right into it.

[10] I was listening to your recent episode about the silent twins, and it reminded me of a hometown tale my mom recently shared with me. She was a student in the early 70s in Reading, UK, pronounced Reading, rather than reading as in books.

[11] Good.

[12] Thank you.

[13] Good to know.

[14] Mom, Jane, was shy and sheltered, having moved over to England from a strict upbringing in rural Northern Ireland.

[15] Yikes.

[16] Her best friend Juliet was lively and super outgoing and was always dragging her along on crazy adventures.

[17] We all need a Juliet in our lives, don't we?

[18] Yeah, for sure.

[19] Or were the Juliet's?

[20] Or be the Juliet or find a Juliet.

[21] That's right.

[22] And switch off.

[23] Right.

[24] One time Juliet told Mom about a charity pen health scheme.

[25] she was involved in, writing to and visiting hospital patients who had no remaining family or friends.

[26] They needed more volunteers, so my mom, more than happy to reach out to a lonely person in need, signed up.

[27] A few exchanges later, Mama and Juliet set off on the train for a day trip to visit their new pen pals at the hospital.

[28] Broadmoor Hospital, that is.

[29] I know that one.

[30] Yes, that's right.

[31] It turned out that my lovely, innocent 19 -year -old mom's new pen pal was in fact a patient at Broadmoor, which we all know is like one of the worst psychiatric hospitals in the UK.

[32] We've told many stories about people.

[33] And if I'm not mistaken, of course, I very well could be, but I'm pretty sure it's been there for a very long time.

[34] Yeah.

[35] Yeah.

[36] I think it's a psychiatric prison and a hospital as well.

[37] Yeah.

[38] If you know anything about Broadmoor Hospital and you want to write in and tell us about it, we'd love to read it on the minisode.

[39] It would love that, please.

[40] We'd love information.

[41] When she asked him what had happened to land him there, her pen pal explained it was a, quote, complete misunderstanding.

[42] It's a misunderstanding for sure.

[43] And that heated argument with his girlfriend had ended in him, quote, accidentally hitting her and killing her.

[44] Oh, no. The weapon he used to, quote, accidentally hit the girlfriend on the head, an axe.

[45] No. Needless to say, when she went back home and told her parents about her charitable new venture, They were absolutely horrified.

[46] Stay sexy and don't become pen pals with an axe murderer, Alice, kiss, kiss.

[47] I don't think you can get much out of that pen pal relationship.

[48] No. I don't know, though, but I don't think so.

[49] No. Like, you want to be charitable and everything, but there's got to be someone a little more, like, on the level that you can help.

[50] One would hope.

[51] Yeah.

[52] Someone you could have changed recipes with, I don't know.

[53] You don't want people to suffer.

[54] You also don't want people to get pulled into pen pal relationships.

[55] chips.

[56] That's parallel to my story of my pen pal Donna from Iowa.

[57] Remember that MFM animated about this?

[58] I think it might be my favorite MFM animated.

[59] Okay.

[60] Here's my first one.

[61] I'm not going to reach you this subject line.

[62] So it starts, hi, I'm murder fam.

[63] Obligatory gush, y 'all are a comfort and kept me company through my divorce and this never -ending pandemic.

[64] Okay.

[65] So when I was in my early 20s, I moved with three friends to Chile, the super skinny little country on the west coast of South America.

[66] Thank you.

[67] Yep.

[68] I had Chilean roommate after college and her visa was expiring and it was the height of the recession.

[69] So I thought, sure, what can I lose?

[70] Your 20s, am I right?

[71] I hardly heard of Chile.

[72] And before I knew it, I was moving there.

[73] So a month into living in Santiago, my roommate and I wanted to get a better sense for the culture and explore the area.

[74] We stood out like sore thumbs, as we were about a foot taller than most Chileans, and these two dudes gravitated toward us, introduced themselves and sat down for drinks.

[75] They were young, cute, and we had no friends and nowhere to be.

[76] One of the guys said he knew a place where we could get more drinks.

[77] You guys, it was his parents' medical office.

[78] They were doctors, and he had a key to their office.

[79] All right.

[80] That's adventurous.

[81] Juliet would be on board with that.

[82] Hell yeah.

[83] We stumbled toward this office.

[84] office.

[85] He lets us in and we drink and dance around exam tables and filing cabinets.

[86] Absolutely.

[87] This is your 20s.

[88] Spoiled down.

[89] My roommate and I say we have to go and stumble home drunk off Pisco Sowers around 2 a .m. Around 3 a .m. I wake up to swaying and I thought the world was spinning.

[90] And it was.

[91] We lived on the 10th floor of an apartment building and there was an 8 .8 earthquake.

[92] That's huge, everyone.

[93] It's huge.

[94] It's huge.

[95] Holy shit.

[96] 8 .8.

[97] That's like top, let the pops.

[98] What was the 94 L .A. earthquake?

[99] 6 .7.

[100] Something like that.

[101] It was between 6 and 7.

[102] Yeah.

[103] This was an 8 .8.

[104] Okay.

[105] Oh, my God.

[106] The whole building shook.

[107] As a native Californian, I got my bearings and recognized that it was an earthquake.

[108] I looked around to see if anything would fall on me and then promptly fell back asleep.

[109] What?

[110] No. She's like, anything hanging over this bed?

[111] Any chandeliers?

[112] Okay, nighty night.

[113] When I woke up at the leisurely hour of 9 .30 a .m., I noticed our refrigerator was halfway across the kitchen, and my lights didn't work.

[114] I checked my micro cell phone and noticed about a dozen missed calls.

[115] My Chilean friend had called to check on us, and the U .S. Embassy called about six times.

[116] Yeah, back at home, everyone's like, freaking the fuck out, right?

[117] Freaking the fuck out.

[118] And I love that.

[119] instead of them being like stuck somewhere trying to call the embassy the embassy's calling them and they're just like well we were kind of drunk so apparently my mom heard the news and was blowing them up they told me to please call my mother so she would stop calling them oh my gosh we later discovered the deadbolt to our front door had jammed and we were stuck in our apartment but all in all we were fine oh and those guys we never chilled with them at the doctor's office again Stay sexy and call your mom back, Lauren, she, her.

[120] Wow.

[121] Yeah.

[122] Oh, my God.

[123] That sounds terrifying.

[124] They're so lucky that nothing happened.

[125] I know.

[126] The 10th floor.

[127] Like, you don't want to.

[128] But I think that's also the true magic of your 20s where, like, if you get drunk enough, an 8 .8 earthquake won't impact you that badly.

[129] I know.

[130] You still need your beauty sleep.

[131] Yeah.

[132] And you're just going to be like, sorry, I'm just filled with Pisco or whatever.

[133] Got to sleep it off.

[134] That's a good one.

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

[136] Absolutely.

[137] And when you say vintage, you mean when you physically drive to a store and actually purchase something with cash?

[138] Exactly.

[139] And if you're a small business owner, you might know Shopify is great for online sales.

[140] But did you know that they also power in -person sales?

[141] That's right.

[142] Shopify is the sound of selling everywhere, online, in store, on social media, and beyond.

[143] Give your point of sales system a serious upgrade.

[144] Shopify.

[145] From accepting payments to managing inventory, they have everything you need to sell in person.

[146] So give your point of sale system a serious upgrade with Shopify.

[147] Their sleek, reliable POS hardware takes every major payment method and looks fabulous at the same time.

[148] With Shopify, we have a powerful partner for managing our sales, and if you're a business owner, you can too.

[149] Connect with customers in line and online.

[150] Do retail right with Shopify.

[151] Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify .com slash murder.

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

[153] Go to Shopify .com slash murder to take your retail business to the next level today.

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

[155] Goodbye.

[156] Okay.

[157] This is a sad one.

[158] Okay.

[159] It's called Driving on Frozen Lakes.

[160] Hi, all.

[161] Right into it.

[162] This is fascinating to me because it's something I never thought about because I live in California, but here it is.

[163] Okay.

[164] Right into it.

[165] I live in Minnesota and grew up in a neighborhood on Lake Minnetonka.

[166] Every winter when the lake freezes over with enough ice, locals plow roads on the lake so people can more easily drive across it.

[167] People drive on the ice for all sorts of reasons like setting up their ice fishing houses, getting from one end of the lake to the other, or for fun.

[168] I remember driving on the lake all the time from my childhood well into my teens.

[169] We had two rules for driving on the lake.

[170] Always unbuckle your seatbelt and roll down the windows in case you need to get out.

[171] So, like, in case the fucking ice breaks underneath you, like, take the long way.

[172] Take the long way.

[173] And yet, it must make it really fun when you do it because you're, like, truly playing with fire, the opposite of fire, frozen water.

[174] Back in January of 2003, two high school students from the area, Jacqueline and Evan, were driving on the lake and their car went through the thin ice not too far from the shore.

[175] Evan drowned in the car, but Jacqueline was able to get out of the water onto the ice.

[176] It was reported that she walked about a hundred yards from the spot their car went through and crawled another 50 yards across the ice.

[177] She ended up dying of hypothermia on the ice near enough to be spotted the next morning by residence.

[178] Oh, you fucking horrible.

[179] I was in second grade when this happened and remember my mom talking about it because she worked as a lunch lady at the high school at the time.

[180] However, this apparently didn't convince my parents to change their ways because they taught me how to drive a car on the frozen.

[181] in Lake when I was 15.

[182] Thanks for reading.

[183] S. That's it.

[184] There was like those urban legends that you hear about of like the older high school kids who are out driving.

[185] You know what I mean?

[186] I'm like, but then you wouldn't drive on the ice, but people still do.

[187] It's crazy.

[188] Or I wonder if it's like seasonal where in the middle of the winter you absolutely can drive on the ice because it's so thick and that it's just impossible happening.

[189] But like as it thaws, the risk gets higher and higher.

[190] And you never know year to year when that will be.

[191] It's still, it's just so sad and sudden.

[192] And it is that thing where like when kids die of like terrible accidents in high school, it just everybody is affected by that.

[193] Like everybody, that's everyone's first big serving of like, oh, this could happen to you.

[194] Tragedy.

[195] Totally.

[196] Totally.

[197] So sad.

[198] Okay.

[199] I'm not going to reach you the subject line.

[200] It just starts friends.

[201] I have been waiting to write in for years about a. few great stories I learned from family members that I harassed at holidays, and then in parentheses it says, per you're asking.

[202] But I'm a writer who happens to be a perfectionist, and I procrastinate, so you'll have to wait even longer for those.

[203] Sorry.

[204] I've never related to an opening paragraph more in my life.

[205] But for now, I do have a story for you.

[206] I was headed to work yesterday, late, of course, and taking the exact route I always take.

[207] I approached an intersection where a bunch of road closed signs were posted and a worker was moving traffic around.

[208] At first I was furious because although in Michigan we fix our roads every fucking day, this was not a planned construction site.

[209] I rolled my window down to ask this worker what was going on and he simply replied about an hour ago a woman was driving through the intersection and a huge sinkhole caved in right behind her.

[210] Holy shit.

[211] She called and reported it to the police and we're here to fix it.

[212] My response seriously blew.

[213] his mind, and I don't know why, because it seemed to be a normal response to me. Are you kidding me?

[214] That could have been me. Damn it.

[215] He looked at me and said, are you mad?

[216] And I simply responded, I'm a murderer.

[217] You wouldn't understand.

[218] I drove away thinking about how badly I wanted to be the one to witness that, survive it, and get to call the cops reporting a sinkhole.

[219] And then immediately my head went to tell Karen and Georgia.

[220] Thanks for all your smiles, laughs, tears and reminders that I'm not totally fucking weird for have loving all these types of things you share since I was a child.

[221] You truly make me feel so much less weird knowing I'm not alone.

[222] SSDGM bitches Sarah Bob, she, her.

[223] You did it.

[224] You did it though.

[225] Like you didn't even have to be there and you just wrote a great email and so you did it.

[226] You nailed it.

[227] And it was like, it was an email kind of about a missed opportunity, but more, importantly about your feelings, which we support and encourage.

[228] That's how easy it is, everyone.

[229] Write your stories in because they really truly don't have to be about anything.

[230] Yeah, for real.

[231] My last one's called Not Fair, which is trademarked.

[232] Youngest sibling stories.

[233] Okay, ready for this?

[234] I think you're going to like it.

[235] Okay.

[236] Y 'all, but especially Blossom.

[237] Aww!

[238] I just finished listening to Minnesota 347 about the youngest child sliding out of a roller coaster seat when I knew I had to sit down, put off all my tasks, and spin you yarn.

[239] I was the youngest of four girls.

[240] All of my sisters were tomboys and while they were all two years apart from each other, perfect sibling age, I was four years apart from my next older sister.

[241] We've talked about this many times.

[242] It sucks.

[243] This combined with all the usual sibling dynamics meant I had to stay at home and play Barbies by myself while my sisters went out to play on the canal and catch tadpoles and garter snakes with the neighborhood boys.

[244] Did I want to reach my hands into money waters?

[245] trying to catch slimy, squirming amphibians?

[246] No. I was the family's token girly girl and wanted to play princesses in my fairy costume.

[247] But as any youngest sibling knows, if you want to be included and you so desperately want to be included, you do whatever boring big kid activities your siblings are doing, even if that means participating in things you as a tiny six -year -old are neither interested in nor equipped for.

[248] Can I just say, when my cousin Stevie, who was, I think five or six years older than me, started doing wrestling.

[249] I think he was in junior high.

[250] So I was six or seven.

[251] That meant I started doing wrestling.

[252] Karen, you could have been a professional fucking wrestler.

[253] Killer Karen.

[254] Like I just remember having to like be in my hands and knees while he was like doing the thing where he has one arm next to mine.

[255] And he's like, already I'm going to count you in and then whatever.

[256] And then get ready.

[257] Oh, you're talking about like wrestling, wrestling.

[258] Wrestling like grappling wrestling.

[259] Oh, fuck.

[260] So a little six -year -olds like...

[261] And then he would just pick us up and slam us on to the ground.

[262] Anyway, I just relate.

[263] That's cute.

[264] I like that.

[265] I didn't.

[266] This milieu of injustice came to a head one summer day when my sister's announced they were going to the canal to catch tadpoles and I wasn't invited.

[267] I whined and begged and even petitioned my mom to make them take me with them but to no avail.

[268] So they left with their nets and Tupperware.

[269] And my mom did what moms in the 90s.

[270] did best and took a nap.

[271] Alone with my six -year -old rage and no supervision, I thought, wait a minute, they're just walking down the street, which means I could walk down the street.

[272] And if I'm big enough to get there by myself, surely I'm big enough to catch tadpoles with the big kids.

[273] A foolproof plan, to be sure.

[274] So I walked down the road to the canal where we usually played, but my sisters were nowhere to be found.

[275] However, there was another group of kids playing in the water, so I didn't mind.

[276] Where were the parents you ask?

[277] Oh, there were parents present, but none of them seemed to notice or mind a rogue solo six -year -old who showed up out of nowhere playing with their kids, all the 90s.

[278] Back at the house, my mom had woken up from her nap when my sisters had come home with their hall of slimy things, only to realize I was nowhere to be found.

[279] Turns out my sisters honestly had my best interest in mind and didn't want me going with them because the canal they actually went to was bigger, faster, deeper, and further away.

[280] Now, any mom would flip if they woke up from a nap and their six -year -old was gone, but my mom was extra.

[281] My mom was the person who got me into true crime on accident by telling me stories all my life of children being kidnapped and murdered, something she was extra sensitive about because when she was little, her cousin, Debbie Kent, was taken from her high school by a handsome stranger in a yellow bug and never seen again.

[282] She was a little girl Right before the Fort Lauderdale Sorority House Oh my God That's her cousin And so one of her four or five little girls Goes missing She loses her fucking mind Of course As well she should Wild So needless to say When her baby seemed to vanish into thin air She freaked the fuck out I don't know how they found me Maybe they remembered how badly I'd wanted to go with the big kids And check the canal Maybe one of the other parents Did notice the random six -year -old And started asking around either way no one told me all I knew is one minute I was having a blast finally playing with kids my own age the next minute I looked up to see my mom shaking fist balled up red face saying you get out of there and come with me this instant in that low scary mom voice they use when they're too angry to yell it's that's next level it's so scary my mom would do it with her teeth crunch so she would talk through her crunched oh my god it was terrible like This was over 20 years ago, so I don't remember what my punishment was, but I do remember I learned not to go wandering down the road alone.

[283] And if your mom says you can't go play with the other kids, maybe there's a reason.

[284] Thanks for all you do.

[285] And the community you've created, stay sexy and maybe ask questions before going rogue, especially if you still need a car seat, Wren, she, her.

[286] There's like a really hilarious account on TikTok.

[287] Someone named Ellie Collins does this bit.

[288] She does duets with babies getting in front.

[289] trouble.

[290] And she shows up as the baby lawyer.

[291] And she's like, don't say anything.

[292] And then it's like the mom saying to the baby like, did you play with the makeup?

[293] And the baby has makeup all over their face.

[294] And then of course, the baby's going like, no, I didn't.

[295] And then the mom asks again.

[296] And the lady lawyer's like, asked an answer.

[297] Don't answer that.

[298] Whatever, pretending she's coaching the baby.

[299] Oh my God.

[300] That's brilliant.

[301] That's a brilliant.

[302] That's a brilliant do it.

[303] I like that.

[304] Okay.

[305] Here's my last one.

[306] It says trash mom story.

[307] A trash mom story.

[308] A trash mom story for once.

[309] Ooh, I love it.

[310] A bit long, but so very worth it.

[311] It says, hello, darlings, long -time listener, first -time writer.

[312] Recently, I've been loving all the trash dad stories that people have shared, and I felt compelled to tell you one of the tales of my trash mom from the 90s.

[313] Between the statute of limitations probably running out and the fact that she died two years ago, it makes it finally okay to share these with the world.

[314] Anywho, back in the late 90s, my mom stayed home all day to care for my little.

[315] brother before he was old enough to start school.

[316] During the day while my older brother and I were at school, we assumed that she was spending most of her time on AOL or playing solitaire on the computer that we had in our dining room.

[317] That sounds great.

[318] That's just what kids assume moms do all day.

[319] Yeah.

[320] If you're not here, I turn off like a robot and just wait for you to return.

[321] Okay.

[322] One day we came home from school and mom had informed us that she had won a brand new patio set from an online contest from better homes and gardens.

[323] How fucking great, right?

[324] Well, this continued to happen over and over for probably about a year.

[325] We had a high top four -seater table with chairs and an umbrella, a six -top outdoor dining table with chairs and an umbrella, the matching love seat swing set, and a full -on swing set with a tree house and a slide play set thing for my little brother.

[326] At this point, my stepdad began questioning how many damn contests one person could win.

[327] It was happening so often that he was getting irritated at being given very few details and only ever being told that she would just spend her days filling out surveys and winning contests from Better Homes and Gardens website.

[328] Eventually she won a riding lawnmower and we really didn't have any more space in our yard for more patio sets.

[329] So no more prizes showed up after that.

[330] My older brother and I found it to be pretty suspicious as well, But who were we to ask questions?

[331] Maybe she was just buying them on a credit card that my stepdad didn't know about and it would all blow up in her face later.

[332] Years went on and I continued to ask her about all the patio furniture because it was all pretty good stuff and it remained with us through several moves.

[333] By the time I was about 21 years old, I was telling all of this to a friend of mine and he demanded that I asked her again how the fuck she got all this shit for free.

[334] I said that she probably wouldn't tell me, but that I'd try.

[335] Later that, night after work, I called her up and begged for her to spill the beans on what she was doing to, quote -unquote, win all these contests.

[336] Like, there's no fucking way anyone is that lucky, and I was right.

[337] It turns out my mom would pack up my little brother and then go down the road and pick up her friend's kids, also a toddler and too young to be in school aged, and they'd make a trip to the local megastore to do the weekly grocery shopping.

[338] My mom would fill up the cart and get everything we'd need and then check out through the garden section, as this area usually had shorter lines.

[339] And then as she was exiting the garden center, she'd poke and prod all the boys and get them all riled up.

[340] So now this woman, all of five foot two, maybe 130 pounds, is trying to push a heavy ass shopping cart filled to the top with food and manage three rambunctious little assholes who are running around and yelling and being generally chaotic.

[341] She goes over to the employee at the gate and says that she purchased fill in the name of the patio set here and that she was told to just come up to the front and someone would help her get it loaded into the truck.

[342] They'd ask to see the receipt and she'd be shuffling around for it but then the kids got worse and she'd have to stop what she was doing to go manage them some more.

[343] Meanwhile, the person had already called over the employees in the back to get this shit loaded into the truck.

[344] Oh my God.

[345] So she's still scrambling and then by that time they're done loading everything in and the employee who asked her for the receipt gets the oh i already showed it to the other guy i hope that's okay line and then everyone seems satisfied oh my god she gets the kids loaded into the truck and quickly leaves this bitch was straight up stealing whole ass patio sets swing sets riding motherfucking lawnmowers the absolute madness of it all we're all really shocked at how many times this actually worked for her she said she did need to cycle through multiple different locations in times of day so that she didn't get caught, and she never did.

[346] What the fuck?

[347] I think eventually she told my stepdad what she was doing, and that's why it stopped.

[348] Or, you know, that you only need so much fucking outdoor furniture because it becomes ridiculous.

[349] Yeah.

[350] I hope you enjoyed this story.

[351] My mom and I rarely got along, but when I need a good memory of her, this is usually my go -to tale.

[352] Stay sexy and always remember to borrow someone else's kids when you're going to commit grand larceny Chelsea your mom was a klepto but of like classy stuff but still I wonder if the first time it happened the real thing happened right and she realized that they loaded it in without her being charged for it and then she was like oh my god I could have anything in this area that I want oh my god I thought mom was at home on AOL playing solitary no she's committing grand theft larceny that's amazing she stole a writing lawn mower.

[353] It's got to be like a couple grand, right?

[354] I don't know how much lawn mowers are.

[355] Those things are like nine grand.

[356] Oh, my fucking God.

[357] Well, thank you for sending in your trash mom story.

[358] Please send us your trash parent story.

[359] It's kind of funny.

[360] The trash mom stories have a different feel.

[361] Yeah.

[362] It's just kind of like, oh, shit, she's going for it.

[363] It's like diabolical in a little bit.

[364] I like it.

[365] All right, Mimi.

[366] You done?

[367] Stay sexy.

[368] And don't get murdered.

[369] Goodbye.

[370] Goodbye.

[371] Elvis, do you want a cookie?

[372] This has been an exactly right production.

[373] Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck.

[374] Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.

[375] This episode was mixed by Lianasquilachi.

[376] Email your hometowns to My Favorite Murder at gmail .com.

[377] And follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at My Favorite Murder and on Twitter at MyFave Murder.

[378] Goodbye.

[379] Follow My Favorite Murder on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to.

[380] listen so you don't miss an episode.

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