MFM Minisode 431

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IBM. Kevin and Rachel and peanut M&Ms and an eight-hour road trip.
And Rachel's new favorite audiobook, The Cerulean Empress, Scoundrel's Inferno. And Florian, the reckless yet charming scoundrel from said audiobook.
And Kevin, feeling weird because of all the talk about packs.

And Rachel handing him peanut M&Ms to keep him quiet.

Uh, Kevin?

I can't hear.

Yellow, we're keeping it PG-13.

M&Ms, it's more fun together.

Hello.

And welcome.

To my favorite murder.

The Miniso.

That's right. We read you your stories about anything and everything.
And your grandma. And your grandma.
You want to go first? Sure. Mine is called My Own F.
Politeness Story. Greetings, Karen, Georgia, pets, and all fellow murderinos.
I'm writing as a longtime listener. I'm a bit behind on the rewinds, but catching up.
My wife fondly refers to you as my potty mouth podcast girlfriends. After hearing the Adelaide Oval abduction story, I was reminded of a situation for my own career that perfectly embodies your F politeness mantra.
I retired from a major LA metro law enforcement agency after 32 years, so I've got plenty of stories. The LAPD by chance? Oh my god, but this one felt particularly relevant.
One day, during my long commute home, LA traffic, you know the drill, I was taking the streets, trying to avoid the freeways. Something caught my eye, that gut feeling you get when something just isn't right.
I saw a young girl, maybe 12 or 13, walking alone, and a station wagon was slowly following her. The driver was leaning over, trying to talk to her through the passenger window.
Her body language screamed that she was uncomfortable. I immediately made a U-turn and pulled in behind the station wagon.
As I did, the station wagon pulled into a driveway ahead of us. I spoke to the girl, identified myself as a police officer, and asked if she knew the man.
She shook her head no. I told her to stay close.
Then, I then pulled into the driveway, blocking the station wagon in, and with my badge in one hand and my gun drawn, I ordered the driver to turn off the car and show his hands. The girl stayed behind me, shaken.
using my cell phone, a new thing back then, I called the local police, identifying myself as an off-duty officer and explicitly stating that I was the black guy holding a gun on the bad guy, just to avoid any misunderstandings in North Orange County. During the three or four minute wait for the local coppers, the guy tried to give me a story about how he was innocent, pleading for me to let him go, but I wasn't buying it.
When the local officers arrived and interviewed the girl, we learned that he had been a substitute mailman who had delivered to her mom's house and had been bothering her. She said he made her extremely uncomfortable, and this was the first time he had approached her on her way home from school.
He was easily in his late 30s, and she was clearly very young. Based on her statement and what I witnessed, he was arrested for annoying a minor.
He later pleaded guilty, likely getting probation on a plea deal. I was never called to testify, which is frustrating.
I just hope he hasn't preyed on any other children. SSDGM, and remember, screw politeness.
You don't mind your own business. M Los Angeles.
M Los Angeles, especially if you're an off-duty police officer. Totally.
Yeah. The ultimate in the duty to fuck politeness.
Right. Please God, as these people are out.
There's something about, and I just, in my mind, that was like a early 80s, shitty, broken down brown station. Yeah.
Yeah.

That's that.

Yeah.

Just beware.

Totally.

We'll change it up a little bit.

I won't read you the subject line.

It says, hi, Karen, Georgia, sweet animals and other wonderful humans.

If you're watching this on video, there's a whole control room filled with wonderful humans who make this show.

And they're right over there.

Maybe someday we'll show them as they make the show. If they if they let us we put a camera in there they're all like no my little sister went to college in rochester new york and worked nights at a bar near her campus she lived off campus with her friends in a super cute old house in a neighborhood of college kids me Megan had always been a badass, take no shit kind of girl, parentheses, probably because she's the baby and has two older sisters.
Yeah. One day she came home from work and noticed a chair under her bedroom window, which was on the first floor.
Now this was an older house, so the windows were about six feet off the ground, not easy to see into or get into.

She thought it might be something another drunk college kid did and forgot about it. A few days later, she noticed her window AC unit had been tampered with from the outside.
She called my dad, and he arrived the next day to put in window alarms, a security camera, and floodlights. Then she came home one day from class and happened to notice some movement in her backyard.

She stepped outside and saw, all caps, someone in her bushes.

Oh, my God.

Most people might scream, run back inside and lock the doors and call the police, etc.

Not Megan.

She yelled at him so loud he ran out of the bushes, through the yard and into the street.

She chased him.

I'll stop right here and say do not ever do this.

No, don't chase anyone. Don't ever do this.
But Megan, she's a wild one. Yeah.
And it's her story, so let's tell it. Okay.
She ran after him down the middle of the street, still yelling and throwing rocks, sticks, and even her shoes. Damn, Megan.
A few other college kids saw the commotion and tried to help her catch him. Yes.
It's a mini mini night stalker situation. He got in a car and drove off.
She later found a grocery store receipt in her backyard and knew immediately it had to be his. She turned it into the police so they could trace it back to him.
I, of course, lost my shit when I heard this. I mailed her pepper spray and a taser, but she wanted to buy a bear trap.
Megan, I mean, it'd work. Megan.
That'd be so funny. Megan, stop it.
I love Megan. Thankfully, I talked her out of that.
Drunk college kids and a bear trap is a disaster waiting to happen. Right.
Megan, I just want to invite you. A few months later, she went to a Buffalo Bills game and forgot she had the pepper spray on her keychain.
Security wouldn't let her carry it in the stadium, obviously, and so she wasn't allowed in. She was sent a letter in the mail telling her she was banned from the stadium for having a weapon.
I'm pretty sure she has that letter framed. Nice.
It's all a funny story now, but a few years ago, we had found out that the guy hiding in my little sister's bushes had been arrested and charged with serial rape. Holy shit.
Because it's always, that's the beginning. That's step one.
Yeah, he's not innocently casing the joint of a young female by herself. It's not an 80s movie where being a peeping Tom is charming.
Charming fucking asshole. Motherfuckers.
He had been stalking stalking assaulting and raping college women all over that neighborhood by following them home and sneaking into their

bedrooms super scary and i can't believe my little sister chased his ass down the street and threw

her shoes at him god i love her yeah i love her too yeah stay sexy and don't be afraid to be

scarier than the creepy guy stalking you stephanie p.s megan is now a traveling oncology nurse

Let's go. Her too.
Stay sexy and don't be afraid to be scarier than the creepy guy stalking you. Stephanie.
P.S. Megan is now a traveling oncology nurse.
Whoa. Working with cancer patients of all ages.
She is my hero and the most amazing human I know. Oh my God.
Fuck yeah, Megan. Megan.
Like, don't chase all that stuff. But she showed him she was a fighter.
Yeah. And he's like, I'm not coming back to this house which is pretty incredible and she's like

don't because I'll trap you

like a bear

and then I'll enter you

in a circus

and make you dance

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Goodbye.

Goodbye.

Okay, this next one's called near death experience and why I maybe should never have been born? I can't be true because we need emails and you're providing them. So this is your destiny.
Hey, MFM gang, day one listener here. I've lived in five states and had three baby girls since I first started listening, and you guys have been one of the constants in my life.
So thank you for that and a whole lot more.

Let's get into it. Back in the 80s, long before I was born and my parents were married,

they had begun dating in secret because my dad is 19 and a half years older than my mom. Oh.
And it says in parentheses, gross.

And my grandmother would not have approved. And then it says she came around eventually, RIP.
Oh. Was he 40, though? I hope so.
I don't know. Let's just hope for the best.
He and my mom would go on dates in a neighboring town about an hour away where they were less likely to be recognized by anyone.

This is the 80s.

It was on their way back from one of these dates on a relatively unfrequented road that my dad decided to teach my mom how to drive stick shift in his brand new car, a Porsche 911.

Of course.

Is that how you say it?

Yes, Porsche 911.

So we got an older dentist with a Porsche 911 dating a woman 20 years, his junior. Which, if you don't know, is a tiny and flashy two-door sports car.
Yeah, Porsche 911s were all the rage in like the 80s. For the older dentists.
For the older dentists, finance bros, guys that had coke. My mom started out all right, shifting into gear with relative ease.
But when it came time to get up over a hill that led to a small, narrow bridge, she panicked and stalled out. They were stuck on the uphill.
My mom not quite able to see what might be coming over the narrow bridge from the other side. As my dad tells it, he was able to see and spotted a large logging truck a la Final Destination headed their way and told my mom she needed to move the car now.

That's a lot of pressure. Yeah, chill.
It's a great way to get someone to... You're in sticks.
You're grinding the gears over and over again. Yeah.
She kept working at getting the car into gear and in near tears, looked up to ask my dad for help, only to realize he had opened the door, hopped out, and abandoned her and the car and was running down the hill away from the ongoing truck. Oh, no.
I mean, sorry. The world needs dentists.
They got married. The world needs dentists.
Save yourself, doctor. By some miracle, my mom got the car going and was able to crest the hill and move out of the way just in time for the large truck to cross.
The driver laying on his horn as he passed, all caps, with absolutely no help from my dad. My mom still brings up this story and is always quick to note how my dad thought to save himself first before thinking of anything and anyone else.
She still fucking married him. She still married him.
Is that a happy ending? Are we going to call it that? Well, it depends. We have to listen to the rest of the email.
Fortunately, my mom got that car moving and saved herself and the expensive car. And despite this huge red flag, she stayed with my dad.
They got married and had me a few years later. So it's an ending.
It's definitely an ending. I mean.
Stay sexy and don't count on your problematically older lover to save you. Alex, she, her.
I bet you Alex goes to therapy. I bet you anything.
Alex can laugh at it because she's been to so much therapy. Because she has no choice, which is how it is for most of us.
I mean, that is the fucking funniest thing of all time. It's just like, well, at least you know what you're dealing with now.
Yeah. Yeah.
Something went right because they got married. Yeah.
You married it. If you call, I mean, marriage isn't always a happy ending.
If I was that young woman, and I mean young woman, I would have been like, it's my car now. Yes.
That's the law. The email subject line is crawlspace treasure in old house three minute read.
Hello, aunties. My partner and I bought our first home last year in a small town in the middle of Connecticut.
We've always had dreams of buying a mid-century fixer-upper, and last year we finally found it. This home fell into disrepair after the previous owners had passed, and it ultimately went to a bank.
All we were told was the couple who lived there built the house and lived there until passing. Wow.
Yeah. Georgia would have loved our first tour of this time capsule as nothing had been updated in this house since the 50s.
Dude. Imagine that wallpaper.
Gorgeous. Through our final walkthrough, I found that we had some serious crawl spaces on the second floor that were big enough for a bunch of ghosts, stalkers, and deviants to have parties in.
Needless to say that when we moved in, I found a great place for a dresser or chair right in front of the crawl space doors. Fast forward to a few months after our purchase, and my partner and I were realizing that the funds we had put aside for restoring our home were quickly dwindling.
We had finished a few necessary projects, but we were quickly approaching winter with

a 1980s furnace and water heater that we're not going to hold out for the colder months.

Thank you, New England Winters.

Around the same time, we had some family come stay with us, two of them being my Martorino

cousins who were excited to get a top to bottom tour of the house.

And to my disappointment, they had me move my strategically placed furniture from the crawlspace doors so they could have a peek. I ushered them in and we traversed the dark space with our phone lights.
As much as I would have rathered we didn't. As much as I would have rathered we didn't.
What a wonderful clause. I'm glad we did because one of my cousins found what looked to be an old lockbox tucked away behind a support beam.

Oh, shit.

You got to go in those old crawl spaces.

We had them and we blocked most of them off.

You didn't check?

I mean, it was like there's no reason for anyone to have gone in there.

So, yeah, there's probably a lockbox in there.

Except to hide their treasure.

It's a perfect place, clearly, to hide stuff. Yeah.
Maybe, you know, I just thought of this and it's so wrong. I was like, you could hire a task rabbit and somebody could come do it for you.
And it's like, can you imagine the nightmare? They're like, hey, do you want me to move some furniture? No, get into that crawl space. Horrifying.
Okay. Lockbox behind the support beam.
The thing weighed a ton and we brought it

outside in the backyard. Crowbars

and hammers in hand. That'd be so fun.

Oh, how exciting. After a proper beating

on this thing, we finally pried it open

to find it full

of old coins. Yes!

And then it says

Q Goonies theme music.

Definitely. My inner child

dreams had come true. I didn't even care what the coins amounted to.
Finding literal treasure in an old house is priceless. But this is reality and we are adults.
So my partner and I took the old coins to be appraised. We like to think that the old people who owned our house saw how much we loved and appreciated their hard work and wanted to pay it forward to us.
So when we left the coin appraisers $5,000 richer, we knew exactly what we would do with it. Yes.
Our mid-century dream home has since been restored, and we had a very warm winter thanks to that treasure. Yes.
Stay sexy and don't be afraid of crawl spaces, Elle. Oh, my God.
That's so satisfying. That's also a great number.
It's like... $5,000, yeah.
That's like solid check solid check of like here go do some good. Totally.
Go take care of some stuff. Go take care of that stuff.
It's that annoying stuff when you put money into a house and it's nothing you can see. Right.
So it's just like fucking frustrating. Until it gets real cold and you're like.
Right. Right.
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My last one's called, I'm not telling you. Okay.
But it says short and sweet. Hello to all the wonderful people at mfm slash exactly right.
Since we're all just submitting stories for funsies now, I have a good one. Great.
My dad and my mom have many odd stories from the early days of their dating slash marriage life. My favorite is how my mom met her future Italian in-laws.
My parents, Steve and Debbie, thank you. Classic they met in 1987.
That's right. Had been dating for a little while before my dad asked my mom if she would like to meet his family.

He invited her over and said his entire family would be there.

My mom walked into this house filled with Italians to find a wake happening in the living room.

Literally a dead body in a casket in the living room.

Casual.

This was the early 80s.

Yes.

My dad had invited my mom to meet his entire family

at his dead uncle's wake

in some random family member's living room.

How romantic.

You'd think this would have been

a red flag for my mom,

but alas,

they've been married for almost 40 years

and still going strong.

Wow.

I'd say this is the weirdest story

of their relationship,

but they literally met at a toga party

where my mom was going to buy weed from my dad.

This is a good one. This is a sweet one after my weird one yeah so good stay sexy and don't meet your future mother-in-law in front of a corpse much love stephanie she her that's also i've never been to a wake at a home where the body is in the home but i know that is like traditional yes for sure have you church, but not.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Like in the living room is different. Yeah.
Okay, ready? Okay, I picked this simply by the subject line and did not read it. Oh, shit.
Because the subject line is hot dog justice. You got it.
It has to work. Let's see.
Let's make it work. Hi, all.
I love you, but there's no time to waste on flattery. My moment has come.
It's hot dog justice time. Oh, my God.
What? Amazing start. Yes.
I feel good about this. Years ago, my dad was involved in the management of the Western Pyrotechnic Association.
I think we're golden. Oh, my God.
I'm going to guess festival, hot dogs, fireworks. Let's hear it.
Okay. They'd have a big conference each year in Lake Havasu, where they'd build fireworks, shoot them, and party.

Not necessarily in that order.

This particular year, my dad was in charge of providing hot dog buns for the kickoff barbecue.

Keep in mind, this is a barbecue for over a thousand sweaty, meat-loving, self-proclaimed pyromaniacs.

So he had to purchase thousands of hot dog buns, enough to fill up his green Volvo station wagon to the brim. My dad decided that the best course of action was to purchase the hot dog buns from our local Costco.
How else could you do it? You're just like... Unless you're a business.
You're just going to every grocery store in town and just cleaning them out of hot dog buns. Okay, go to Costco and then pack them into our giant rental van, which he would be using to transport all of his firework gear into the desert.
Since I was around 12 at the time and the prime age for providing child labor, I helped my dad unload the hot dog buns, which we stacked on every available surface in our yard. We then rushed off to get the rental van.
Enter Bodhi, our sweet, highly food-motivated last... Oh, no.
Oh, my God. side of the South Bay Area.
What up, Karen? We saw utter carnage. All around us were whole hot dog

buns, parts of hot dog buns, and the tattered remains of the plastic bags that once held them.

It truly looked as if there had been a hot dog bun explosion.

Bodhi is like, this is the best moment of my entire life.

Bodhi is like, for all those times that you told me to get down, you told me, no, I couldn't have something. Broke a treat in half? Oh, yeah? Oh, yeah? Wow.
How about we double quadruple one thousandth that? We got out and my dad started swearing profusely, but he quickly stopped as he did some math. These are a lot of hot dog buns, but this wasn't all of them.
Where were the rest, and where was Bodhi? Our house had a large ravine on one side, and as we peeked over, we couldn't help but notice a long trail of hot dog buns and bags that led up further into the ravine, under the cover of dense oak trees. We called for Bodhi, but he didn't come back.
As we waited for our own hot dog dog to return, this is what we figured happened. As soon as we left, Bodie went wild with hot dog joy on the thousands of unprotected buns.
He jumped on the table, ripped open the bags, and shook the buns out everywhere. He took bites out of some, saw the hundreds around him, got excited, took bites out of those too.
Then he realized that he needed to relocate his stash, so he dragged bag after bag to his hideout up in the ravine. Oh my God.
And in true dog fashion, he did still try to get us to feed him dinner. Yes.
Thanks for reading and thank you for all that you do. You're truly a shining light in a world of darkness.
Stay sexy and guard your hot dog buns, Roya. Hey, Roya, thank you for writing a perfect email and letting me roll the dice.
That's how much I trust our murdering listeners. They know how to do this.

That was great.

That was perfect.

It was perfection.

Bodie.

Bodie.

Bad dog.

But good boy.

It's all up to Bodie.

That's right.

Thanks for writing in, you guys, and listening and all the things.

We love your stories.

And if you want to send one in or try again and again, we'll get there.

We'll get to your email.

Don't worry.

My favorite murder at Gmail.

And until then, stay sexy.

And don't get murdered. Goodbye.
Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an Exactly Right production. Our senior producers are Alejandra Keck and Molly Smith.
Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo. This episode was mixed by Liana Squalacci.

Email your hometowns to myfavoritemurder

at gmail.com. And follow the show

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Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app,

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And now you can watch us on Exactly Right's

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and subscribe. Goodbye.

Goodbye. hour.
And Lou getting home early from work, which he never does. And Drew and Sue using the rest of the tubes of M&M's minis as party poppers instead.
I think this is one of those moments where people say it's the thought that counts. M&M's.
It's more fun together. Where's the best place to binge your favorite true crime podcast? On the edge of your seat or under the Caribbean sun on an award-winning Virgin Voyages ship.

This October, set sail on the first ever True Crime Podcast voyage from Virgin Voyages.

Catch live recordings at sea, meet iHeart True Crime hosts, enjoy Halloween-themed parties, and more.

All aboard a kid-free, luxurious Virgin Voyages ship.

It's like a floating five-star hotel with plot twists.

Book now at virginvoyages.com

slash true crime. Hey, Oakland, California.
My Favorite Murder is back on tour. Join us at the

Paramount Theater on Thursday, October 2nd. Don't wait.
The Friday, October 3rd show is already sold

out. Head to myfavoritemurder.com to buy tickets and your VIP package while supplies last.
Goodbye.