MFM Minisode 306

[0] This is exactly right.

[1] Oh, and welcome.

[2] To my favorite murder.

[3] The minisode.

[4] That's right.

[5] It's the mini -sowed.

[6] This is your sewed.

[7] You're a real big part of it.

[8] Do you want to go first on this one?

[9] Cookie's staring at me, really concerned looking, and I don't know what's wrong with her.

[10] Ask her what her concern is.

[11] She always looks concerned.

[12] She's got those eyebrows.

[13] Okay.

[14] How not to hire a hitman.

[15] It just starts, good morning, good morning, good morning.

[16] There's a fun, quirky little Pinterest saying that goes something like, insanity does not run in the family.

[17] Rather, it strolls through taking its time, getting to know everyone personally.

[18] When I tell you that this describes my family perfectly, I am not kidding.

[19] From the time my grandfather's mother -in -law and ex -wife were murdered three days after their divorce, then it says he didn't do it, to the time my grandma ghosted the air to the air to, to a mafia family after he proposed to her, probably for the best, I tend to have excellent stories to tell at parties.

[20] But my favorite story to share is about my great Aunt Janet.

[21] Everyone always says that Janet used to be popular, beautiful, and smart, but for reasons that no one ever seemed to want to tell me, but which will shortly become obvious, she had been cut off from most of the families since before I was born.

[22] As I got older and my family got a little looser, with our sordid family history, things started to make a bit more sense.

[23] To make a long and painful story short, Janet went fully off the deep end.

[24] To the point that, though, we can't prove it, my family is fully convinced that she killed her own mother, my grandma.

[25] Everyone in my family disowned her.

[26] Because she's the unpleasant kind of crazy, Janet's husband promptly divorced her ass after my great -grandmother's death.

[27] Janet was less than pleased with this.

[28] Obviously, there's only one thing left for her to do.

[29] So she packed up her things, moved to a new apartment building and hired her janitor to kill her ex -husband.

[30] Oh.

[31] Not an expert killer, literally just the guy from her building meant to fix the plumbing and occasionally repaint shit.

[32] I guess his maintenance job didn't pay very well because he agreed.

[33] Janet gave the guy explicit instructions to make sure it looked like an accident so that she could collect the $4 million life insurance policy that she had on her ex -husband.

[34] That doesn't seem right.

[35] That it's so much money.

[36] Yeah.

[37] Red flag.

[38] Yeah.

[39] I mean.

[40] The janitor kept the money that she gave him, but thankfully never actually hired anyone.

[41] Maybe the landlord gave him a raise, or maybe his conscious intervened, since he ended up going to the police and agreeing to appear as a witness on her trial.

[42] And that's where the story should end.

[43] However, while awaiting trial, Janet approached a fellow inmate, and because she is apparently a one -trick pony, tried to hire them to kill the janitor who was testifying.

[44] Oh, no, no. You know, because hiring a hitman worked out so well the first time.

[45] The fellow inmate was apparently due to be released before Janet's trial and she offered them an insane amount of money to kill the janitor as well as her ex -husband's new wife.

[46] The inmate reported all of this in order to get time off of their own sentence.

[47] Since that didn't work out for Janet, she decided to try something exciting and new and different.

[48] She approached another inmate and tried to hire them to do the same thing.

[49] This time targeting both of her attempted hires, her ex, and her ex's wife.

[50] That's right, folks.

[51] list just keeps going.

[52] Because apparently, even in contract killing, the third time's the charm.

[53] Thankfully, they reported her to the guards again, and Janet was successfully charged with two counts of first -degree felony criminal solicitation, and one of her attorneys was even allegedly disbarred.

[54] Over the course of the case, she attempted to hire three different hitmen to kill over four people before being sentenced to life.

[55] As far as I'm aware, she's finally left her hitman hiring ways behind her, but I'm going to keep an eye out anyways.

[56] Stay sexy and don't hire Hitman, Liza.

[57] Liza, that's heavy, it's heavy shit.

[58] But it also reminds me of, like, my tendency where I'm just like, I'm really stressed and tired, so I'm going to eat macaroni and cheese.

[59] I know it's not going to work, but I'm going to do it anyway.

[60] It works a little bit.

[61] It works for the first 15 minutes.

[62] But it's that same thing where you're just like, oh my God, I fucked everything up.

[63] Hit me. me hire it, man. That's not the solution to anything.

[64] No, and it's just so crazy to me that people would be like, my family's so crazy.

[65] And then you just pull out, that's your aunt and that's their story.

[66] Like, okay, you win.

[67] My family's not that crazy.

[68] That's right.

[69] My family just like really likes cats.

[70] It's not, we don't try to get people killed.

[71] I mean, it's context.

[72] It's context.

[73] Yeah.

[74] Okay.

[75] Couldn't pass by, this one is also a little bit long, but I couldn't pass by this headline from your Japanese murderino, which I love how that's, That's phrase.

[76] Like, there's just the one.

[77] Love it.

[78] Love her.

[79] I was recruited by the Om Shunricho cult.

[80] Right?

[81] And it starts Kanichi Wa, Georgia, and Karen.

[82] I really enjoy your podcast from Japan and have learned a lot about American true crime and culture.

[83] Oh, no. Wow.

[84] Teaching people.

[85] Through this show.

[86] Oops.

[87] We are very cultured.

[88] We are.

[89] Mm -hmm.

[90] I particularly liked the recent episode about Om Shon Ricchio.

[91] I was impressed that you covered a lot of details.

[92] that even Japanese people might not know.

[93] Oh, Karen.

[94] Well, that's Marin.

[95] Marin McClashon is the researcher.

[96] I can't take credit because she did an unbelievable job reporting that.

[97] I want to take credit.

[98] Do it.

[99] Do it.

[100] When the terrorist attack occurred in 1995, I was still a university student.

[101] Actually, I worked part -time a few days a week at one of the affected train stations.

[102] Wow.

[103] I could have been there, but I was just lucky to have the day off.

[104] I still remember that I felt scared to death to hear the news.

[105] Little did I know, I had met one of the cult members a couple years before.

[106] In 1993, I left my hometown in southern Japan and started living alone for the first time in my life.

[107] I was 18 years old.

[108] One day, I saw a poster about a curry party at the university hosted by a cooking club.

[109] I liked Indian food, so I went to that party with friends.

[110] It was fun, but we never went back because the boys really weren't that cold.

[111] That's good.

[112] At that party, I met a boy who seemed to be relatively okay.

[113] He asked me out, saying he wanted to take me to a special French restaurant.

[114] In my innocence, I was lured by the idea of having a fancy dinner.

[115] Of course you were.

[116] Sure.

[117] But when we arrived at the quote -unquote restaurant, I felt something was off.

[118] It was obviously an apartment where someone lived, not a restaurant.

[119] That's horrifying.

[120] Uh -huh.

[121] So scary.

[122] I also remember a purely white, weird door with a gold sun ornament, which stood out from the surroundings.

[123] Soon a man who was probably the restaurant owner slash cook started bringing French food.

[124] The boys seemed to know the guy, which made me feel more insecure, but I stayed anyway.

[125] And then in parentheses, it says, I honestly don't know what I was thinking.

[126] You were 18.

[127] That's what you were thinking.

[128] You were 18, someone was like, hey, I'd like to take you out on a proper date.

[129] And you were like, I will believe in love.

[130] Yeah.

[131] You're not going to get up and walk out like you would now.

[132] No. Okay.

[133] So I barely remember what we talked about during dinner.

[134] One thing I do remember is that when he found out my grandpa had cancer, he said something like, quote, he must have spent his money for the wrong purposes, and he must give up his greed to recover.

[135] I thought it was none of his business, and how you spend money had nothing to do with getting sick.

[136] This and that weird setting finally turned me off.

[137] I said I wanted to go home because I didn't feel well.

[138] They tried to hold me up saying, you can lie on the couch for a while.

[139] But I made it clear that I wanted to go home and then I headed to the front door.

[140] The boy insisted he drive me home.

[141] I said it wasn't necessary.

[142] But again, I somehow accepted his offer because I didn't know how to fuck politeness yet.

[143] Aw.

[144] Luckily, he safely drove me home.

[145] He said something about our destiny when I left the car.

[146] I said, yeah, I'll get in touch with you.

[147] But I never called him back.

[148] Yeah.

[149] Sometime after the subway attack, I was absentmindedly watching TV.

[150] The media was again covering Omshin Riccio and how the cult was eagerly recruiting university students.

[151] The anchor started listing clubs they were using as covers.

[152] When I heard one name, I couldn't believe my ears.

[153] It was the club that organized the curry party.

[154] When I turned to the TV, I saw the white door of that weird French restaurant.

[155] That's my story with Omshan Riccio.

[156] I guess I failed their test.

[157] And then there's a little smiley face with the colon in parentheses.

[158] But thinking how close I was to the cult still, creeps me out.

[159] Thank you for reading until the end.

[160] I also thank Emily, who was another murderer who introduced me to this fantastic podcast.

[161] She also helped me write this email.

[162] I'll always continue to listen to you guys from Japan.

[163] So please, stay sexy and don't get murdered.

[164] And there's no name.

[165] Oh, wait.

[166] Did they say their name at the beginning?

[167] No, there's no name.

[168] Oh, my God.

[169] We have a Japanese listener.

[170] Konichua.

[171] To the one murderino in Japan.

[172] Emily, thank you for.

[173] for helping our one murderino in Japan write this email.

[174] It's so legendary.

[175] We're thrilled to get it.

[176] That's wild.

[177] That was so wild.

[178] Crazy.

[179] Crazy.

[180] That is a near miss. Karen, you know I'm all about vintage shopping.

[181] Absolutely.

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

[183] Exactly.

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

[199] Goodbye.

[200] Okay.

[201] My next one is a spooky season hometown.

[202] Why are kids so creepy?

[203] Grab your cozy blankets, trusty flashlights, and gather around murderinos.

[204] It's creepy kid story time.

[205] My little sister recently bought a very lovely, very big, very old home with her husband on the north shore of Chicago.

[206] This home was originally built in 1900.

[207] For American standards, this is pretty old.

[208] We will refer to this sister as Auntie Jay.

[209] Being a very nice aunt and wanting to show off her beautiful new home, Auntie Jay hosted our other sister and three nephews overnight.

[210] As they tell it, the night went great.

[211] They played Flashlight Tag with the full run of this four -story home, watched a movie, and ate junk food.

[212] As the fun came to a close, Auntie Candy and the three boys settled into the two bedrooms in the older portion of the house.

[213] Everyone fell peacefully asleep after Auntie Candy yelled multiple times across the hall, boys go to bed, no more talking.

[214] Then 3 a .m. rolled around.

[215] Auntie Candy woke up to the sound of whimpering from across the hall in the boys' room.

[216] She quietly crept up.

[217] into the boy's room, and with the light from the hallway, she saw one of the boys, Griffin, five years old, sitting up in bed.

[218] Griffin was crying quietly and looking into the dark part of the room.

[219] Anticandy knelt next to Griffin and softly asked him if he had a nightmare and if he would like her to lay with him.

[220] Griffin pointed into the darkness and said, the little boy, he won't leave me alone.

[221] He keeps telling me to get out of his room.

[222] Anticandy's head whipped around to see nothing but a darkened room and a closed closet door.

[223] So like the great big sister slash mommy slash auntie, she is, Candy hugged Griffin and soothed him back to a calm state while internally screaming what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck.

[224] Auntie Candy laid with Griffin for the rest of the night with her eyes wide open, scanning the room, internally freaking out, and cursing Auntie Jay and her haunted house.

[225] The next morning, Auntie Candy gave Auntie Jay the haunted play -by -play through tired and scared whispers.

[226] Anti