MFM Minisode 233 - The Great Outdoors

[0] This is exactly right.

[1] And welcome to my favorite murder.

[2] Hometown minisode edition, 2018.

[3] Right, where we read you back your stories from your hometowns or whatever, something like that.

[4] At this point, it's just all over the place.

[5] It's branched off into so many, like the branches of a mighty oak.

[6] It's gone in every direction.

[7] You can send us, you could send us a hometown about, how you stick your razor blades into an old -fashioned mirror thing in your bathroom and they go into a wall.

[8] And we might read it.

[9] Because we're interested in that.

[10] Yeah.

[11] As well as hidden rooms.

[12] And as well as your cousin's best friend who was murdered.

[13] We want to know about the fucked up shit in your life.

[14] Right.

[15] To a degree.

[16] Are you ready for this one?

[17] I'm ready.

[18] Because the subject line is, you're right.

[19] if you walk your dog in the woods you'll come across a dead body no hello ladies parentheses and stephen first of all i have to say that i'm a huge fan of both of you i knew it would happen to me the instant i moved to a small town and got a big dog she gets a ride into it or he hell it's the beginning of every law and order episode ever that's right my husband and i started taking my 120 pound dog that's more than i weigh just kidding that's not true My way.

[20] The dog's name's Groucho Barks, by the way.

[21] Amazing.

[22] Come on.

[23] Love it.

[24] That's made for Georgia.

[25] Yes.

[26] On lovely walks in the woods.

[27] The day it happened, it was a beautiful snowy New Year's Day.

[28] We decided to take the pup on a walk, pup on a walk up a back wooded trail.

[29] You lost Karen.

[30] What?

[31] You lost Karen already.

[32] That is, unless it's in Newfoundland.

[33] I wonder if it is.

[34] that leads to a local park.

[35] I'm just saying it's not a puppy.

[36] It's clearly a humongous.

[37] Right.

[38] Kind of dog is it?

[39] I need to know.

[40] Okay.

[41] This wooded trail runs parallel to the Missouri River and is beautiful and scenic and right next to a scary ass shack that we dubbed the murder shack.

[42] How come everyone else gets shacks and we don't get them here in California?

[43] I think that the second there's a shack, someone throws in some linoleum and they're like, hey, rents $1 ,000, $1 ,800.

[44] $115.

[45] Get three roommates, move into the shack.

[46] Okay.

[47] We start off the walk, as always.

[48] And after a fashion, we let the dog off a leash to stretch his dog legs.

[49] Wouldn't you know, old boy instantly leaves the path and runs on over to the murder shack.

[50] Being a couple of fools, we decided to follow him and embark on our own little Scooby -Doo style adventure.

[51] I round the corner to find my dog rooting around the remnants of a campfire.

[52] Instantly, the idea hits.

[53] me that we might actually come upon a hungover, a homeless person who would be pretty pissed of us tramping through his stuff.

[54] I grabbed the dog leash, get him back up, and the hell out of there when I see it.

[55] No. About six feet from me was a body of a man face down in the freshly fallen snow, arms by his side, feet twisted around some roots.

[56] I calmly asked my husband, who was looking into the window of the shack behind me, if he has his phone on him, and could he please call the cops because that's a fucking body it should be noted that at some point in my panic I actually called out to the body in a shaky voice Hello, sir, hello I'm not exactly sure what I meant to accomplish I guess in my mind I really wanted to make sure he was dead and not just sleeping in the snow I don't know I'd never come across a dead body before and wasn't exactly sure what to do I figured I'd try the polite route he didn't answer we make our way back down the trail I called the non -emergency police line a sweet lady answered the phone and made me repeat myself a few times a body yes ma 'am a body did you say a body um before she asked me my information we only had to wait a few minutes before he slightly uh out of shape cop showed up and was visibly annoyed at having to walk through the woods in the snow he sighed loudly as he asked well how far is it.

[57] After the affair, he took down our information on I shit knew you not the back of a media column envelope.

[58] Ah, small towns.

[59] That must be like direct TV or something.

[60] We never actually heard what happened to him because it was never in the local paper.

[61] About a month later, a dude in a bar with a police scanner had heard the whole ordeal.

[62] I love it.

[63] Grassroots.

[64] Apparently the poor man was a known drug user, was in and out of rehab, in and out of jail and oh that's it they have since plowed down the murder shack stay sexy don't get murdered keep your dog on a leash and if you walk the dog in the woods you will find a body thanks for the fantastic podcast jamie oh my god that's so scary that's i mean even even if he tripped and fell and died in the snow it's horrifying yeah it's horrifying like the thing of like for people like us and we're like, I'm going to go in the woods.

[65] I bet I'll find a body.

[66] And then it actually happens.

[67] Totally different stories.

[68] Has to be so jarring and like surreal and and frightening.

[69] I feel like very quickly after I realized that's what was happening, I would be convinced that the killer was behind me. That's where I was like non -emergency line.

[70] I'd be like, fuck and like running.

[71] Massive emergency line.

[72] He's still there.

[73] Yeah.

[74] I know.

[75] Holy shit.

[76] I know.

[77] Okay, well, are you ready for our dad found the body and almost peed on it.

[78] Oh, okay.

[79] So a little light, something a little light.

[80] Just something fun.

[81] Something to end in lightly.

[82] Okay.

[83] Hi, my sister and I are loyal followers longing for each new podcast.

[84] Thank you.

[85] That's nice.

[86] Here's our hometown murder.

[87] Our dad is a veteran policeman now retired in Pueblo, Colorado.

[88] In December 1999, our elderly great aunt called dad worried about her friend, Lucille.

[89] person.

[90] Missing after not returning home from a local shopping trip.

[91] We knew something was up because dad was avoiding her questions.

[92] He usually spoke pretty freely.

[93] Wait, dad was avoiding probably our questions.

[94] He usually spoke pretty freely.

[95] Lucille had been caring for a teenage grandson, uh -uh, who had some issues and no one felt it was a good situation.

[96] The grandson's friend agreed to help in the investigation, and this led police to some private property southwest of town.

[97] Dad volunteered to go up the hills to help with a search because he had four -wheel drive.

[98] They spent a couple days, drained a little pond, and searched a campsite.

[99] They found a fire ring, some small pieces of scorched skull, but nothing they could test DNA for.

[100] As the sun was setting the last day, Dad broke off from the group to relieve himself before the long drive home.

[101] Just then he looked down and saw a displaced rock where he was about to pee.

[102] It was Lucille's pelvis and her heart was lodged inside.

[103] what wait what exclamation mark oh did someone put it there i don't know he almost peed on what was left of her body exclamation mark horrifying now they had the physical evidence to prosecute the grandson and his friend for murdering dismembering and burning the body of my aunt's friend recently we learned dad was the one to find her and it was actually kind of funny how he shared in glorious detail how close he was to urinating on this poor woman sometimes you just got a laugh I didn't say that's she wrote that SSDGM Phoebe and Laurel your favorite murderinos oh well we never talk about that but that is the like it is pretty horrifying that cops their jobs yeah whereas like our job is to like read these things and talk be funny and say funny things to each other whatever their jobs are to go and experience the worst that humanity has to offer repeatedly.

[104] They need to find evidence that people are the worst fucking things in the goddamn fucking world.

[105] You've got to go out of your mind without humor.

[106] Yeah.

[107] And you have to like, and also just looking like they're looking for, they know they're looking for a dead body.

[108] They're walking around looking for the scariest thing you could find.

[109] And if they don't find it, two monsters probably will just live the rest of their lives free.

[110] So like, that's terrifying.

[111] And also they'll get shat on.

[112] You know what I mean?

[113] It's like there's, so you got to have you got you got to like be able to tell some stuff at the dinner table right or you probably like drink yourself to death totally oh man go ahead law enforcement yes you'll finally have our permission the thing you've been waiting for all this time be lighthearted and three your family now the subject line of this one is my grandpa almost killed someone the fishing pond pervert good evening this is my hometown but this is not my story this is the story of the time, my mom saw her dad almost kill a pervert.

[114] My parents grew up on the south side of Chicago where nature is hard to come by besides a few of the nastiest and most likely radioactive fishing ponds you've ever seen or smelled.

[115] Wanting to teach his young children some outdoor skills, my grandpa would take my mom and her brothers and sister to go fishing in the ponds when they were maybe five through eight years old.

[116] They went almost every weekend, but soon those innocent fishing trips turned dark.

[117] when a mysterious old creep would reportedly find my eight -year -old mom and try to lure her into his car with promises of ice cream.

[118] Oh, God.

[119] Yeah.

[120] After a horrific incident where he revealed himself to my baby angel mother, she used her murdering out instinct and told my grandpa about the pervert.

[121] My grandpa, angry and horrified, found the man by his car, grabbed him by the neck, held him there for about two minutes and shouted, if you ever come around here again, I will fucking kill you.

[122] now it may not seem that crazy of a punishment to whoever would do a gross thing to a child but from my extremely old -fashioned devout irish catholic family you know the shit was real when grown -ups dropped the notorious f word am i right karen yes you're right anyway the fishing pond pervert was sufficiently scared to death and was never seen there again my grandpa is a calm and mild -mannered man but if you fuck with his kids he will fucking kill you thank you for helping me through the absolute darkest and most lonely time of my life.

[123] I was suffering severe workplace sexual harassment when I found the podcast two years ago.

[124] Your badass riot girl attitudes and humor have inspired me to fuck politeness and get justice for my harassment, go to therapy, and to kick off my comedy career.

[125] I hope we can cross pass someday, A. Oh my God, A, that's incredible.

[126] Yeah.

[127] Wow.

[128] Yeah.

[129] Well done.

[130] Well done.

[131] Badassness runs in your family, it sounds like.

[132] Yeah.

[133] Okay.

[134] What do you have?

[135] It's kind of long.

[136] So get in here, but it's funny.

[137] Dig in here.

[138] Get comfy.

[139] So this is from Brendan.

[140] Brendan B., whose photo is very sassy in his email.

[141] It says, hi, Georgia, because he sent it just to my email address.

[142] I don't know.

[143] My friends and I are big fans of your podcast, listen at work, blah, blah, blah.

[144] My best friend told me I had to email you.

[145] At first, I thought, like, I have nothing to say.

[146] Then I remembered back in 2006, I had one of the most weird weeks of my life.

[147] It's a story I've told over drinks a lot.

[148] But I love to stretch it out.

[149] Let's see here.

[150] I'm like that, Brendan.

[151] I'm the same way.

[152] If I have a story that would take a normal person three minutes to tell, it'll take me 15.

[153] And people will love it.

[154] And you just dress it up and you flourish and you add shit.

[155] This is why we're podcasters.

[156] You pause.

[157] You just, you maintain attention for as long as humanly possible.

[158] You're a fucking storyteller, man. That's right.

[159] That's good.

[160] All right.

[161] It was probably around summertime and I was still a smoker.

[162] so this was a long time ago, as I can't remember the last time I bought cigarettes.

[163] This guy who I had a huge crush on, who now in retrospect, probably only wanted to be just good friends, was kind of a sporty guy.

[164] He liked to hike and rock climb and other such stuff like you do when you're obsessed with someone.

[165] You pretend like you like those things too.

[166] Yep.

[167] That's right.

[168] Oh, that sounds like a, I would never, this sounds like a nightmare dating a sporty person.

[169] I had lived through it for five years.

[170] Shut up.

[171] I married it.

[172] I pretended I like camping for five years.

[173] Oh, Karen.

[174] It was hard.

[175] You sacrificed yourself.

[176] The first time I told my sister and Adrienne I was going camping, Adrian just fucking turned on me like a viper and goes, camping.

[177] Camping?

[178] Are you kidding me?

[179] Camping?

[180] Yeah.

[181] They knew.

[182] They knew you were trying to be someone you're not.

[183] It happens.

[184] It happens.

[185] This is from my podcast, Divorce Corner.

[186] Guys, find someone with similar things to you.

[187] Don't ever pretend, especially camping, because then you're out in the dirt.

[188] But you know something about, like, hiking.

[189] and like biking and camping and all this outdoor shit is like you feel like you're supposed to be doing that like that feels like they're vegan you're like yeah I should be vegan too I've always wanted it like knew I should go vegan I know I should hike more and exercise more but like if you're not that fucking person I'm sorry but I will watch I will watch 25 movies in a row it's what I love yeah I want to talk about it I want to make them I want to watch them some dick who walks up hill in boots isn't fucking better than you because of that you know who do you think you are campy fucking dick sleep on the fucking ground you know that there's room service in hotels and no snakes and no no snakes not one snake in hotel just like last time i went camping i like slept on a yoga mat and a fucking oh sleeping bag it's rough it's rough stuff don't do that who are you trying to prove your boyfriend friend the guy you don't really read that into all right that da da da da da da new jersey let's see here we got lost sorry Brendan I'll let you tell the story yourself he asked me to go hiking with him one morning and I remember I had to borrow my friend's Timberland boots so that it looked like I knew the proper footwear to wear oh bad start my guy tried to take me hiking once on a date and I was like and I got there in my whole like get up and I and then we walked and we passed a bar and I was like, let's go drink and I made him go drink with me. Did it work?

[190] Uh -huh.

[191] Oh, thank God.

[192] It's great.

[193] We had a pretzel and we drank fun because I can't.

[194] No way.

[195] Let's see here.

[196] We were hiking for what seemed like hours and truth be told, I think I was this just there so occasionally we could mess around and make out.

[197] At one point, we were scaling over a very large boulder in the middle of the woods and when we came down there underneath was a radius bone.

[198] I don't say this like I'm a smarty pants who memorizes bones in the human body, but I do remember in high school just like everyone else since.

[199] In science class, we had a life -size skeleton that we would use to learn the different bones of the body.

[200] I remember that the radius bone is the bone that connects the wrist to the elbow.

[201] It's not exactly something you expect to see in the middle of the woods, but it's also unmistakable.

[202] And first, we went through the motions of, this is not real, this can't be happening.

[203] But it dawned on us more and more that this is exactly what was happening.

[204] We were several miles in the woods, technically the middle of nowhere.

[205] And after a little digging, noticed that indeed we were standing on the remains of a decomposed body.

[206] Oh, shit.

[207] It was so decomposed.

[208] There wasn't really even a smell.

[209] And may I just note that it was not easy getting here to this place we were.

[210] I had to physically push myself to get there, but mostly I did it because I was trying to impress him as we scaled rocks and jumped around the forest like guys do, guys who like to mess around with guys who are kind of sporty.

[211] Brendan, we get it.

[212] Brendan, love you.

[213] This guy's probably fun to hang out with.

[214] He is the best.

[215] The rest of the story.

[216] He's flourishing.

[217] That's why we know.

[218] he's one of us.

[219] I bet he's not dating a fucking sporty guy anymore.

[220] The rest of the story is kind of a blur, even though it took the rest of the night.

[221] Neither of us had a cell phone, and we knew that it would probably be difficult to find our way back here.

[222] At first, we considered leaving and just pretending like we had not discovered this body.

[223] Always an option.

[224] Sure.

[225] But the idea, honestly, is something I knew I would haunt me for the rest of my life.

[226] Yeah.

[227] Sometimes I can't help myself.

[228] I have to do the right thing eventually what we did eventually what we did was he left me there with the skeleton and he found his way back to his car and he called the police that had to be a rock paper scissors moment right yeah who gets to go back to the car and who gets to stay with the skeleton oh you're holding the skeleton's hand oh that's so sad um an hour or two later he came back with the police and we were questions and fingerprinted they said that somebody would be coming out to talk to us again about the situation.

[229] But for now, please try not to tell many people.

[230] It was honestly one of the most bizarre nights I've ever experienced.

[231] We don't find out who the person was or that like if, no, he ends it at the end, but no, I'm sorry.

[232] Okay, okay.

[233] Yeah.

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

[235] Absolutely.

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[254] Goodbye.

[255] Okay.

[256] The subject line of this one is my summer haunted, my super haunted summer camp.

[257] Okay.

[258] Because you're the on the last time you were saying you wanted a haunted one that's right go stories please and this is left over from um the medford um hometown so we asked for cool hi karen georgia steven elvis memi dotty frank and george wow first off i love your podcast can't wait to see you in medford in october how was it my summer camp is a sleepaway camp in western massachusetts in the absolute middle of nowhere um we're on a mountain in the woods with the nearest town having 140 people in it There is no cell service, so it adds an extra creepy factor when I listen to your podcast in the dark in the woods.

[259] There are a bunch of ghosts on camp, but usually they show up in the off season when the kids aren't on camp.

[260] They keep saying on camp.

[261] Oh, that's like when people from the East Coast say, get online.

[262] Yeah, when they're saying get in line.

[263] Yeah, that's right.

[264] Dummies.

[265] No. What about the word at?

[266] Okay, there is the kitchen ghost in the director's house in the winter, the people who have lived there, going back 10 years, have said it opens, the door walks in and puts its groceries away at the same time every day, but when you walk in, there's no one there.

[267] There's also the ghost in the middle girl's unit that shakes the bunk beds every few years and will bang on the wall, scaring the total shit out of the campers.

[268] We also have the ghost called Horrible Hannah, and she burns down a building on camp every seven years.

[269] What?

[270] Yeah, but the ghost that prompted me to write you was one from this summer in the middle boys unit in the middle of the night when it was pouring two counselors sam and jack fake names um were woken up by what they thought was one of their very homesick campers crying they decided to let him cry it out a bit and see if he would fall back to sleep until they heard him say help they locked me out and i can't get back in so obviously they both hopped out of bed and one of them went to open the door Sam let him in and felt him brush by him and get into bed and both Jack and Sam heard him say thank you.

[271] Sam turned on the cabin light to help the camper get back into bed and there was no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. There were also no -wet footsteps on the ground, despite the fact that had been pouring for hours and all the other campers, including the homesick camper, were fast asleep in their beds.

[272] Jack told everyone on camp the next day and totally said he wouldn't have believed it if it wasn't for him and Sam both having experienced it it didn't happen again but everyone on camp can't stop talking about it thank you so much for reading this sorry it's so long and thank you so much for being so open about mental health i've been getting more open over the years about my mental health struggles but listening to you to talk about yours has helped me continue to talk about it and helps to end the stigma jillian it in parentheses it's um just said like Jillian, but spelled with a G. Oh, my God.

[273] Isn't that a good ghost story?

[274] That's scary.

[275] When children, when it's ghost children who are crying, oh, you.

[276] What happened?

[277] Why is that energy trapped in that cabin?

[278] Oh, why is it crying?

[279] Why is it crying?

[280] And you just let it in.

[281] Now it's going to stick with you forever.

[282] That's right until you meet a priest.

[283] Okay.

[284] Last one.

[285] Hey, MFM crew.

[286] Hey.

[287] Then it starts.

[288] We're in it.

[289] We're in it.

[290] Last episode, Georgia read the hometown about the girl getting stabbed in the face by her sister.

[291] And Karen talked about how kids do things just to see what happens.

[292] Well, as a lifeguard for five years, I can definitely attest to that.

[293] I worked at a private summer camp in Connecticut where the schedule would allow each camp group to come into the pool for an hour a day.

[294] The kids would come over and shifts and were grouped by age, blah, blah, blah.

[295] Well, in the four -year -old group, there was often quite a few kids who weren't strong swimmers.

[296] They would stay in the shallow end of the pool and usually just sit on the stairs with their legs in the water.

[297] This included one boy, one four -year -old boy by the name of Logan.

[298] Now, Logan was an interesting kid who, despite being four, had the personality of an 80 -year -old man. Cute.

[299] He asked a million questions about what it was like to be a lifeguard and often took it upon himself to inconspicuously push the other non -swimmers from the stairs.

[300] into the pool just to see what would happen and that's in quotes just to see what would happen yeah oh logan since he himself couldn't swim he was curious as to what would actually happen if you ended up in over your head and on many occasions we had to ban him from the swimming pool for attempted drownings oh no as fate would have it karma came for him when one day as he was walking around the edge of the pool he fell in himself sinking like a rock to the bottom i quickly jumped in and pulled him out and he was so shocked that all he kept repeating was, I drowned and you came in after me and pulled me up.

[301] I drowned.

[302] I drowned.

[303] Oh, no. Now Logan was only under the water for approximately three seconds.

[304] So we had to assure his mother at the end of the day that he did not, in fact, drown.

[305] Needless to say, he never pushed another kid in the pool after that.

[306] Yeah, he learned.

[307] That's right.

[308] Stay sexy and teach your kids to swim before sending them to camp with a pool, Jill.

[309] Oh, Logan.

[310] Well, Logan.

[311] I mean, I know that people would interpret that as that he was homicidal child, but I absolutely get that.

[312] He was just curious.

[313] He wanted to see what it would look like if he fell in, how scary that would be, what would happen to his body.

[314] I'm going to try this on other people before I attempt it.

[315] They're fine.

[316] I don't want to happen to me, though.

[317] Real people don't have feelings.

[318] At this point, I would just like to make this note.

[319] Yeah.

[320] Okay, my sister says this all the time because she is a grammar school teacher.

[321] She one time at a end of school year party at the public pool standing around and looked down and there was just a kid at the bottom of the pool and fully dressed.

[322] My sister dove in and pulled this kid out, which is, if you know, my sister, my sister brought hot rollers to Ireland.

[323] She is all about outfits, getting ready, being ready.

[324] she doesn't want to dive into the pool for any reason.

[325] So when she told me, that's where I was blown out.

[326] But just remember, when children drown, it makes no noise.

[327] There's no splashing.

[328] There's no, it just is silent and quick.

[329] So I just think that's a very interesting detail.

[330] That's a great, that's a great warning.

[331] As summers right around the corner, please be all eyes and aware.

[332] And also if there's a Logan in the mix, then you really got to keep your eyes open.

[333] Keep your kid away from Logan's.

[334] That's our that's our advice to you send us your stories my favorite murder at gmail dot com is the real one that's right thanks for listening yes and thank you for sharing all your stories we love them we love them stay sexy and don't get murdered goodbye elvis do you want a cookie