MFM Minisode 173

[0] This is exactly right.

[1] Welcome to my favorite murder.

[2] The minisode.

[3] We redo your stuff back to you.

[4] Just to pass the time.

[5] And that's it.

[6] Do you want me to go first?

[7] Sure.

[8] Let's see.

[9] The subject line of this is Love at 19.

[10] A good old fashioned hello.

[11] Okay.

[12] So, you know, we love you and you keep us saying during these crazy times, thank you.

[13] Getting to it.

[14] When I was 19 years old, I had a, I had a, I had a. in quotes, boyfriend, who thought he was so cool for being a freshman mechanical engineer student in my small New Mexico hometown of 8 ,000 nerds and like zero women.

[15] In parentheses, seriously, the motto at our school for the girls was, the odds are good, but the goods are odd.

[16] Yeah, I love that.

[17] I love that saying.

[18] That's so good.

[19] But I was 19 stupid and enamored with a narcissist, so things were right on track.

[20] Been there.

[21] Right?

[22] We've all lived it One autumn evening We were at a house party Across the river My boyfriend was acting like a jerk And flirting with another girl So I left Woo My poor little teenage heart Was ravaged already And when I didn't hear from him For the rest of the night And into the next day My life was pretty much over Yeah That sucks Being a teenager is the fucking worst God what a nightmare Oh but the worst was only yet to come Oh When I got to work at the brewery the next day some co -workers who were also at the house party were talking loudly about the last night's events and I was slyly listening in while wrapping silverware into napkins I frozen horror after my co -worker spilled about how she had to drive two guys to the ER after a drunk guy with a knife went on a rampage for being locked in the laundry room it turns out it was the dude I was so stupidly in love with who had stabbed one guy in the leg and another in the jugular during a drunken brawl My co -worker literally saved the jugular guy's life by rushing him to the hospital right after it happened.

[23] I wish I could say I was wise enough to walk away at that point with my head held high, but I was a pretty broken 19 -year -old and after my very sweet English teacher, who happened to be at the brewery that day, drove me home when I nearly melodramatically fainted, I ended up continuing to date this guy for way too long.

[24] You can probably guess the outcome he was a total piece of shit.

[25] Although he turned himself in after that night, The victims decided they didn't want to press charges, and he didn't even spend a day in jail.

[26] Fast forward 13 years.

[27] Now I'm a private criminal defense lawyer, and I like to think that those 13 years made me strong enough to decline that case were to walk through my doors right now.

[28] So much love for both of you and the community at large.

[29] I've followed you to Phoenix, San Diego, and now I'm hoping when this is over, you'll come to Albuquerque, where we have the best murders.

[30] Stay sexy and don't stay with an attempted murderer at 19.

[31] Brittany.

[32] Wow.

[33] Cautionary tales.

[34] Great.

[35] You know what?

[36] And from the other side is a successful businesswoman.

[37] Hell yes, Brittany.

[38] Thank you for that honesty and also holy shit.

[39] Yeah.

[40] Holy shit.

[41] In the jugular.

[42] He stabbed someone in the neck.

[43] That's pretty serious.

[44] Even if he stabbed someone in the right place in the leg, they could die pretty quick from bleeding out.

[45] It's insane.

[46] This is the thing about bodies.

[47] There's all these veins that connect and bring blood through from the heart out to the extremities.

[48] Sorry.

[49] It is dangerous.

[50] When did you go to science school?

[51] Oh, I didn't tell you since the quarantine.

[52] I've been getting my master's degree online.

[53] I'm going to be a surgeon.

[54] Perfect.

[55] Thanks.

[56] Okay.

[57] Hometown story.

[58] Screw the formalities.

[59] We're all in a quarantine.

[60] Hell yeah.

[61] It starts.

[62] In 2014, my grandpa moved from the snowy, miserable, upper peninsula of Michigan to the beautiful scenic Placerville, California.

[63] What?

[64] Did that make sense?

[65] It did, but I, she's acting like Placerville, or they're acting like Placerville is some, I know Placerville.

[66] Don't tell me what Placerville is.

[67] I've been stuck in Placerville at the time, too, where he planned to live out the rest of his days living with one of his daughters slash my aunt.

[68] A few months or years later, my aunt's grandchildren were set to be adopted by her for reasons I'll leave out, and the state was required to do background checks on all the persons living in the home.

[69] My grandpa has always been a character, and up until this story, my favorite he always told was about the time he spent hours in a teepee on New Year's Eve talking to another guest at the party.

[70] But it turns out, he had eaten some acid and was talking to himself for hours.

[71] Been there.

[72] So relatable.

[73] It's also relatable.

[74] Anywho, years and years ago, probably sometime in the early 70s, my grandpa was asked by his, quote, friend to go down the road.

[75] to a local farm and pick up a cow for him.

[76] Turns out, this man wasn't really my grandpa's friend, and the cow was not his to take.

[77] My grandpa was charged with livestock theft.

[78] He completed probation, but he never had the charge expunged.

[79] Flash forward to 2016, when the state is doing background checks, his record comes back, stating he was, quote, someone who had committed a crime with a gun.

[80] Over the years, the penal codes had changed in my grandpa's unintentional livestock theft, turned into a felony with a firearm.

[81] My aunt and grandpa had to trace back the penal code changes and produce several letters of character to show the state of California.

[82] He was in fact fit to live in the same house as children.

[83] They did.

[84] They did.

[85] And her grandchildren now have a stable home.

[86] Stay sexy and don't steal cows or stay sexy and get your petty crimes expunged.

[87] No name.

[88] Both work.

[89] Both work perfectly.

[90] Both either in this scenario.

[91] I mean, you learn so much coming out of Placerville.

[92] The lessons are there.

[93] They're all there.

[94] Yeah, you just need to be open to the universe.

[95] How about this subject line?

[96] We're going to travel down, is it the 50 or the 80?

[97] We're going to come down, go a little bit, I guess, southwest right now to Sacramento's light bulb burglar.

[98] Hello, friends.

[99] I live in Sacramento, parentheses.

[100] Don't worry, Karen, this isn't a plea for you to fall back in love with us.

[101] We get it.

[102] Sacramento is a strange place that those of us who have spent childhood through adulthood here have a love, hate, admiration, weird pride thing for our small city of trees.

[103] That was quite a sentence.

[104] End parentheses.

[105] And had a funny thing happened to someone in my neighborhood.

[106] While this isn't murder related, I thought that with the current climate, it would hopefully add some laughs.

[107] I live in a somewhat suburban area of Midtown, and about a year ago, was scrolling through the very weird, very sad place that is the next door app.

[108] that's right i blame my weird obsession of the neighborhood gossip on the fact that i grew up in fulsome to suburb outsider sacramento not far away from fulsome prison i thought we were i got nervous well we almost got it and clap on four um four okay so and the craziest thing that happened there was one time a mountain line came into our wetlands and the neighborhood gathered to watch the wildlife game protection people come and tranquilize it and take it somewhere else.

[109] Anyways, that's besides the point.

[110] Back to the real story.

[111] About a year ago, someone on next door had posted a video of a man in the middle of the night, walking up to their ring doorbell, staring directly at it, maintaining eye contact, reaching his hand above his head, unscrewing their light bulb for their porch light, still maintaining eye contact with the ring doorbell while unscrewing it, taking the light bulb, and walking away.

[112] The title of the post was, lightbulb burglar.

[113] Why?

[114] My husband and I laughed about it, obviously told our friends.

[115] And every time we passed the house, we would chuckle with each other.

[116] Well, last night we woke up in the middle of the night to some weird sounds.

[117] We investigated but couldn't figure out the source and went back to sleep.

[118] I hopped back on next door because I was curious if anyone else had heard anything.

[119] My husband joked that someone was in our attic, but I said, all caps, don't even.

[120] That happens.

[121] well guess what he's back a year later the light bulb burglar has returned someone in the neighborhood caught him again on their ring doorbell i found it truly hilarious that there is a man living in midtown sacramento stealing people's porch lights what even and what has even up to all this time what made him return were we almost the victims of the light bulb burglar will never know anyways thanks for all that you ladies do i appreciate my thursday mornings with karen and georgia A .k .a. when I make breakfast and it feels like I've got friends in the kitchen making small talk with me. Is that weird?

[122] Maybe it is.

[123] I don't know.

[124] I guess being sheltered in place will do that to you.

[125] Thanks for sharing how you've, have you been staying somewhat sane in the middle of all this?

[126] Stay sexy.

[127] And don't steal light bulbs.

[128] Lila.

[129] Leela, we had a backyard pooper recently.

[130] Someone was squatting and pooping in our neighbor's backyard.

[131] And they put a video up of it.

[132] It was at night.

[133] And they're like, does anyone know who?

[134] who this is.

[135] And of course, everyone on next door up, like, just tore him up.

[136] I'm like, who cares?

[137] Didn't go.

[138] Didn't go great.

[139] Does anyone know who this is?

[140] You get on that, you get on next door.

[141] I'm sorry, that's my husband, Vince.

[142] We'll stop doing it.

[143] Like, what did they expect was going to happen?

[144] I don't know.

[145] And then they're going to go arrest this guy.

[146] I don't know.

[147] Yeah.

[148] We saw what you did.

[149] First known murder from cyber stocking.

[150] This is called.

[151] Hey, to the whole MFM crew.

[152] I have written this a hundred times, embarrassed by my grammar.

[153] I'm an assistant principal.

[154] I should be better at this.

[155] And then decided not to send in.

[156] Well, now that we're quarantined, fuck grammar.

[157] This is an intense story.

[158] And we should, and it should be shared.

[159] Hell yes.

[160] In 1999, Amy Boyer was a 20 -year -old dental assistant in my hometown of Nashaw, New Hampshire.

[161] I think I said that probably wrong.

[162] She had graduated.

[163] If they didn't give you the phonetic, then that's on them.

[164] It looks like Nashaw, Nashua, Nasha.

[165] We'll hear about it.

[166] Yep.

[167] She had graduated from our local high school, had a boyfriend and was working her way through dental school.

[168] As she was leaving work one day, Liam Ewan's pulled his car up next to her, shot her 11 times, and then turn the gun on herself.

[169] Fuck.

[170] And then turn the gun on himself.

[171] This could have been the start of just a regular horrific murder suicide, except for what the police found out when they did even the slightest bit of digging.

[172] Ewens had created a website dedicated solely to, you guessed it, Amy.

[173] The website went into detail documenting his plans to kill her and then eventually himself.

[174] He documented step by step the weeks leading up to the murder, how he drove by her house daily, as well as how he planned to pull off the day successfully.

[175] What makes this so interesting is that Amy was the first known victim of an internet stalker.

[176] The internet was relatively new for at -home use at the time, and Ewan's was able to browse websites and pay private information brokers to get Amy's date of birth, social security number, home and job addresses, as well as work schedule.

[177] He became Boyer's shadow while she was absolutely oblivious to this obsessive man. The website had traffic from across the country and not a single person thought the fucking guns or detailed plans to kill someone were worthy information to inform police about.

[178] Strange.

[179] After the police originally took down the website, Amy's family worked to have the website recreated to raise awareness of the crime and how the internet added to it.

[180] You can find the fucked up website still.

[181] Amy's parents fought to create Amy Boyer's law to protect privacy on the web.

[182] This law amends the Social Security Act to bar the public display of any individual's social security number or any identifiable piece of such number without the express consent electronically or in writing.

[183] Super fucked up, super sad, but it really was the first case that encouraged efforts to introduce new legislation to help fight and protect victims against cyberstocking.

[184] It is nice to think that her parents were able to take what happened to her and make a real legislative.

[185] change from it.

[186] Stay sexy and never put your personal information online, Sarah.

[187] Wow.

[188] Yeah.

[189] I've never heard of that.

[190] I've never heard of it either.

[191] I can't believe the website's still up.

[192] That's all like it was incredible.

[193] It's such a it was such a weird time when all when the internet first started and things like that.

[194] It sounds like a law and order episode.

[195] You know what I mean?

[196] 1999.

[197] Like we had no what did you even do with it?

[198] And to log your stalking.

[199] Yeah.

[200] Just bewilderingly creepy.

[201] Gross, weird, untreated mental health issues.

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

[203] Absolutely.

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

[205] Exactly.

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

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

[208] That's right.

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

[210] Give your point -of -sale system a serious upgrade with Shopify.

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

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

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

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

[215] Connect with customers in line and online.

[216] Do retail right with Shopify.

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

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

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

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

[221] Goodbye.

[222] All right.

[223] This one just says hometown story.

[224] Hi, when I was a teenager, my family was visiting my grandparents in Denver.

[225] Every visit, we would take time to drive up to Estes Park, a cute little mountain town that's at the base of Rocky Mountain.

[226] National Park.

[227] It's also the home to the Stanley Hotel, which served as inspiration for the Stephen King novel The Shining.

[228] During this trip, my mom and I made a somewhat last -minute decision to partake in the ghost tour offered by the hotel just for shits and grins, as my grandpa would say.

[229] As we hurried to try to make it on time, my mom, all caps, demanded that we stop and get a disposable camera because, quote, people say you can capture ghosts on film, end quote.

[230] But not on those fancy pants new digital cameras with the memory cards that were all the rage in the early 2000s.

[231] We made a tour tour and were shepherded along as is customary on group tours.

[232] Every time we got to a new space, everyone would create that odd horseshoe shape as we listened to the guide explain the different guests who the hotel still believes to be hanging around.

[233] We got to one particular room and the way everyone filed in, I was standing in more of the doorway part of the horseshoe.

[234] While we were listening to the guide explain about the inhabitant of this particular room, my mom started playing with the ends of my hair and that sweet way your mom might do while watching a movie on the couch I shrugged a little to get her to stop but she kept twisting and tossling after a few minutes I shrugged bigger and turned to say seriously mom don't be a weirdo that's such a mom weird and playing with your hair but when I turned to look at her al -caps there was no one behind me I screeched like the 16 year old that I was and ran to the middle of the room shouting someone was playing with my hair.

[235] So dramatic.

[236] I love it.

[237] The second, the word hair is out of her mouth, she, or they, I should say, humiliated.

[238] Yeah, yeah.

[239] Like, what did I just do?

[240] That's when I saw my mom and looked to her for help.

[241] What did she do?

[242] She raised her disposable camera and took a picture aiming just slightly behind me. Oh, my God.

[243] Instead of comforting her child who had just had a supernatural encounter, she took a picture.

[244] The guy chuckled and said, yes, that makes sense.

[245] As I was saying, the gentleman from this room was known for hitting on the young new maids who came to work at the hotel.

[246] My mom stands by her decision to take a picture despite not catching my spirit assailant on camera.

[247] Thank you for taking the time to read this and for helping to normalize therapy.

[248] For the record, this incident is not why I go, but I should mention it.

[249] My therapist would probably get a kick out of it.

[250] Stay sexing and don't count on your mom to stop a ghost from groping you.

[251] Jordan.

[252] Oh my God.

[253] I love that story.

[254] That's so good, so embarrassing.

[255] And God, classic mom, classic mom story.

[256] Classic mom, classic ghost story.

[257] Classic hotel story.

[258] It's like they were in cahoots.

[259] You know what?

[260] Someday we should do a live show from the Stanley Hotel.

[261] What are you singing?

[262] Ooh, baby, baby.

[263] Okay, why are mine so long today?

[264] Here's another long one.

[265] Ready?

[266] Hey, MFM crew.

[267] A recent hometown about Granny's condoms made me think of this story about my badass grandma, two epidemics, and a burglar.

[268] A little background.

[269] My badass grandma, baby.

[270] A baby grandma?

[271] Grandma baby.

[272] This little tiny one?

[273] I'm a badass.

[274] What's up?

[275] I sing salt and pepper everywhere I go.

[276] She's a baby with a sweater with Kleenex shove down the sleeve.

[277] Yeah, but she's a badass.

[278] Yeah.

[279] Oh, okay.

[280] My badass grandma, Bay, B -E -A, like B. B. Bay is B -A -E, which is the Beyonce version, yeah.

[281] B. My badass grandma B contracted polio during the 1950s epidemic and spent two years in an iron lung.

[282] Oh, my God.

[283] She eventually recovered and with hard physical therapy was able to walk again with braces on both legs and crutches.

[284] Guys, stop complaining about being indoors for two months.

[285] Yes, stop it.

[286] Can we please?

[287] While raising my mom and uncle, she managed to go to college and grad school for her MSW in social work.

[288] Wow.

[289] She was Michigan handicapped professional woman of the year once.

[290] Who knew that was a thing?

[291] Wow.

[292] That's awesome.

[293] Yes, total badass baby grandma.

[294] Fast forward to the 1980s and Grandma B is living in San Francisco kicking ass on the front lines of the AIDS crisis.

[295] Shit.

[296] I know.

[297] I love this woman so much.

[298] Uh -huh.

[299] As a grief counselor, polio survivor.

[300] and civil disobedient, she felt an instant connection to the people suffering stigma and marginalization due to their HIV status.

[301] Wow.

[302] I know.

[303] When driving around in her ancient, modified white van, B. would pull up whenever she saw, quote, working girls and give them lots of condoms and safer sex literature.

[304] Yes, she always called them working girls.

[305] She would have embraced to term sex worker, but I don't think it existed yet.

[306] She often joked that if she should die in her sleep one night, whoever found her would be so confused to find this little old lady in bed with a huge pile of condoms on her nightstand.

[307] You can get it.

[308] Hey girl.

[309] This is where the burglar comes in.

[310] Because of her mobility issues, Grandma B had a specific routine for going to bed.

[311] She sat on the bed, emptied her pockets on her nightstand, and then it says, condoms, changed in her nightgown, and took off her leg braces and propped them by the bed with her crutches.

[312] This is where she was, as she told me one night over several glasses of white wine, when a burglar broke in through her living room window.

[313] She heard him rummaging around, and unless he was interested in a giant stuffed rabbit or the county's library of HIV AIDS educational videos, he was pretty much out of luck.

[314] She told me she casually laid her arms across her face in case he decided to hit her in the head and pretended to be asleep.

[315] She kept this up even as she heard him come into her room and move her leg braces out of her reach, trapping her in bed.

[316] Eventually he got tired of not finding anything of value, came back into her room and told her he knew she was.

[317] was awake.

[318] Can you imagine hearing that when you're pretending to be asleep?

[319] I know you're awake.

[320] Then he made a mistake.

[321] He told her she better keep quiet or he would kill her.

[322] Grandma B, who was once kicked out of the entire city of Okachobie, Florida for protests over handicapped, accessibility did not ever keep quiet.

[323] No. No. She immediately being yelling her head off.

[324] He grabbed her and they struggled.

[325] She had incredibly strong arms from years on crutches and put up a much better fight than he was expecting.

[326] Yes.

[327] I know.

[328] Quickly, all of her neighbors came beating down the door.

[329] Everyone in the building knew and loved her, of course.

[330] The burglar gave up and ran.

[331] He was never caught.

[332] As I sat with my jaw on the floor listening to this story, Grandma B laughed about the nightstand of condoms and what her wonderful neighbors must have thought.

[333] Then she looked soberly at me and said, don't tell your mother this story.

[334] She continued to be the most awesome person on the planet until her death in 2002, I wish she was here for these trying times.

[335] She would know just what to do.

[336] Thank you for your amazing podcast, inspiring us to Grandma B levels of badassery every day.

[337] Stay sexy and don't tell my mother, AJ.

[338] How great is it?

[339] AJ, you need to, in this quarantine time, you need to write your grandmother's life story.

[340] That is an incredible woman.

[341] That is the most inspirational story of like, when shit gets you down and what that the power it gives you yeah the idea of the iron lung part alone i want to hear about because two years two years as a child like everything about this is you're it's done for you write it up get the details and you know i bet she wrote a lot of beautifully written letters you can publish those as well right because grandma's always write all those letters and they save them or a nice card you know i have a you know i have a scrapbook of like a 1950 scrapbook that I took when my grandma died of every card she ever received from like 1930 to 1970 and it's just every and it's all these old slightly sexist cards for like Valentine's Day and shit sure yeah get in the kitchen and make me a casserole for Valentine's Day honey to my wife uh please send us yours to my daughter please send us please send us your stories in my favorite murder at Gmail we have a fan cult um place to put them as well on our website everywhere we want to hear from you during these trying times yes and thank you for sharing your all of your family um stories and secrets with us we love it so much stay sexy and don't get murdered good bye elvis you want a cookie