Rewind with Karen & Georgia - Episode 37: Liminal Space

This is exactly right. 5% cash back on a monthly category of your choosing.
Restaurants, apparel, groceries, health and beauty, and gas on up to $1,000 of monthly purchases. So let's do this after the podcast.
Start earning 5% cash back with the PayPal debit card today. Don't just pay, PayPal.
Terms apply. See PayPal app.
This card is issued by the Bancorp Bank NA, pursuant to license by MasterCard International, Inc. The all-new 2025 Nissan Armada Pro 4X provides freedom.
Freedom to explore, to go wherever you want, with your whole crew and all your toys. With a twin-turbo V6 engine, 8,500 pounds of towing capacity, and seating for eight, this unshakable fortress of a vehicle is built to take you on your next adventure.
Drive the all-new 2025 Nissan Armada today. Learn more at NissanUSA.com.
Intelligent four-wheel drive cannot prevent collisions or provide enhanced traction in all conditions. Always monitor traffic and weather conditions.
Have you ever felt that uneasy anxiety when the 4 p.m. hour strikes? The creeping meal-related distress that happens when you don't quite feel prepared? You know, dinner dread.

Let's get rid of that unpleasant feeling forever with one word, Stouffer's. No matter what happens,

you'll have a dinner plan that everyone loves with Stouffer's. Some chicken enchiladas or a

cheesy chicken and broccoli pasta bake is always welcome. Whether it's plan A or plan delicious,

when the clock strikes dinner, thanks Stouffer's. Shop now for family favorites.
Hello and welcome to Rewind with Karen and Georgia.

It is Wednesday, and that means that we're recapping one of our old shows with all new commentary and updates and insights. Beautiful insights.
And today we're recapping episode 37, which we named Liminal Space. Remember? I love that.
So join us now as we take you back to October 6, 2016. This was a wonderful year for podcasting, as well as, ironically, for Drake.

He was dating Rihanna. He had no idea what the future held for him, that he would be viciously, viciously roasted at a Super Bowl.
Named and fucking roasted. Named and shamed.
And I'm there for it. so let's listen to the intro of episode 37 let's settle in how do we look from this angle it's very odd it's weird right we switch seats tonight i think it's good for the liminal space creative upset whoa you know about that no there's can't.
I talked about it. Oh, maybe it's on the other podcast, but I have seven.
I'm sorry. Oh, I didn't tell you.
We haven't discussed that. So let's cut, cut.
Can we cut? Um, there's a thing they call, it's the space that you get into when you're unsure, um you're upset or like right after something shocking happens or whatever it's they call it liminal space and when you're in that place your brain is working like at peak at top performance so that's why like when it they it's good if you're a creative person if you get too comfortable in anything or feel too secure it's bad because then you can't like the thoughts don't come the right way. But if you're a creative person, if you get too comfortable in anything or feel too secure, it's bad because then you can't, like the thoughts don't come the right way.
But if you, you know, like get into a thing, like that's why like sometimes in standup when you're on stage, like, you know, you're going to open with a couple of jokes, but then you go into something new and weird because you can come up with something you didn't even know you were thinking of. That's cool.
So as you're saying, stop going to the same cafe for me every day and ordering two scrambled eggs and a side of fruit and an Americano every single fucking day of my life. Well, I mean, are you writing somewhere near there or like, yes, yeah, I would.
Or you could order something different or go to a different cafe. Just do something that will make you uncomfortable so that your brain works differently.
I love it. I it getting out of a pattern okay and that's what this is right now georgia this of you and i looking at each other from a totally different perspective yeah we just different couches switch couches everyone yeah it's not that big a deal actually it is like from the very beginning that's how we've done it so.
I mean, episode 37, it's going to be all about like the brand new thing.

Also, now we're talking about the Bible.

So open your.

There's so much murder in the Bible.

There really is.

We should do a biblical episode.

That would be so boring.

That would just put me back to like fucking grammar and high school. It's these stories again scream my story at you too i'm gonna just the whole story is gonna be in caps like the angriest none yeah in all of saint francis grammar school totally okay um this is our first so i was thinking that this is our first episode back from the last episode was a live episode yes which is so awesome it went really well it was it went well which on to i can now tell you that i'm surprised yeah because i was like who the fuck knows what this is gonna be like you and i sitting here talking about stuff we know what that it with that amounts to but like having people react in real time and whether or not they were going to i mean obviously if they were there they were slightly on board yeah but those people i'm not worried about it's like does it translate to like i'm not gonna be totally honest i don't fucking listen to live episodes of podcasts no i don't either no way i'm like that that doesn't that doesn't translate i'm not gonna that.
I don't want to hear you like pointing at things and talking about them. Right.
Or yeah. Or just having a whole experience without me.
Because in these, it feels like when I listen to podcasts, I'm like, I'm there, too. Yeah.
That's the whole fun of it, I think. Yeah.
So, yes, I but I was I was just nervous. And I kind of was like, I don't know.
I was nervous about me because you've never seen me on stage before. No, I'm too much of a narcissist to be nervous about you.
I mean, let's, I was like, you're on your own. Okay.
Six sink or swim. I got to get mine.
You know what I think? What if we added Dave Anthony permanently to the podcast? Well, I, we probably shouldn't talk about this right this right now, but I did a show with Dave Anthony the other night and he was like, I think we should start doing like every three months. Oh my God.
We all do all our podcasts together. That was great.
And also that was my sister's suggestion. Shut up.
I swear to God, she's batting a thousand. She was like, Dave was so funny on your show.
I don't think I add a lot to the dollop. I just like laughing at whatever the fuck Garrett says.
You do though. You do, but here's the thing.
Yeah. It's learning to elbow your way into comedy conversations.
No way. Takes a while.
That's scary. It's scary.
And also it's that thing of like, well, am I going to to stop this is the thing i'm going to say going to be worth it to stop what's happening it's a really hard thing to do interrupting people especially people who are like like fucking legit comedians that have been doing this for years and years is not my thing it's well and also if you do it and it's like a like a half tepid response response, it makes you never want to say anything again. Like a stupid idiot.
Yeah. When people would laugh when I said something, I wanted to go hug and eat each and every one of them.
So much. You guys wouldn't understand how hard this is for me.
But you did great. It didn't seem like you were having a hard time at all.
No, I had a lot of fun. I did feel bad.
Fuck it. Once you're in the moment.
Exactly. Well, and it's for fun.
Those those guys love you Dave thinks you're fucking hilarious that's so nice yeah and never say that to my face but I appreciate no no he can't okay he's got emotional problems everyone go the dollop live their last one we're guests on it so if you really fucking love the live episode yeah we were that's how we warmed it up that's how we heated it up that's nice um. So the live episode, that was awesome.
It was super fun. And also we get to meet a bunch of people, which was very cool afterwards, which I have to say, I went backstage because I was like, I don't want to meet people.
I don't think I'll be good at it. I don't like the idea of it.
And then I was standing back there and you were already talking to somebody and And I'm like, what am I doing? Like, that's not allowed. And then the second I walked out, whoever the first person I was that talked to, I was just like, Hey, what's going on? And they were so regular and normal.
It wasn't like I had to do anything. It was just like having a nice conversation with a person that was happy.
I've had years and years of experience of like talking to strangers because Allie and I do the like cocktail, cocktail like food thing and you go to these like cocktail parties and food parties and you have to fucking just talk to people and it's scary and hard. But the more you do it, the more you're just used to it.
And it's not a big deal. Yeah.
Especially strangers. But what was I going to say? I don't know.
I guess this would be a good. Oh, and the episode before that was the JonBenet episode.
So it wasn it wasn't like a regular format that's right so this is like the first time we've done a regular format like we're back for a long time yeah from camp it's been that's right it's been my legs are really tan um my legs don't tan only my arms and I'm burnt on the back of my neck it's weird and I'm starting to wear this necklace all the time that I never wore before. You know.
Is it a friendship bracelet? It's camp stuff. It's camp stuff.
It's good luck when it falls off on its own. You know those fucking bracelets that people...
Oh, fuck you. That's Kabbalah.
Oh. Fuck you, Madonna.
No, I just mean like when you go to some party and it's like sponsored by a company and they're like, put this bracelet on and when it falls off, your wish will come true. And I just like, it's falling off when I rip it off of my fucking arm.
That stuff always makes me want to go, yeah, well, since no wishes that I can think of, stuff like this has ever come true, I don't need your bracelet. I'm sorry, wishes aren't a thing.
I'm sorry to tell you this. I'm sorry to tell everyone.
Karma and wishes are not true. Oh God, everyone just hung up on the podcast.
Like half the women just hung up on this podcast. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry. Mercury's in retrograde.
What can I say? Wishes aren't true. It's not actually.
Oh, let's see. There's a, at work, there's a website called is Mercury in retrograde and it either says yes or no.
And we look it up all the time because people are constantly making that joke. And then we're like, wait, let's just check and see if it really is.
So you actually know actually no yes i just almost spit this drink out of my nostrils when you said because it really is no because someone made that and i just love that that's such a great it's the best i love when people make simple hilarious stupid things um kat solen our friend who's a director is a true crime enthusiast fucking talented shit person i begged her to make us a new design for our shirts and she did it and they look freaking incredible they look like an old like 1960s pulp fiction book cover and i'm so happy with them and we're gonna cool we're gonna keep posting new sayings and people can vote for what the sayings they want it to be oh did you know did you see the what they voted for they voted for fuck politeness to be the next one nice yeah cool uh yeah anyways yeah i didn't know there was voting going on i just fucking decided one sweet you went totally rogue sorry hot i was gonna pass it by you of course i don't please okay i mean of all the things i try to care about vote away i feel like we talked about that a while ago yeah but i just didn't i feel like I'm missing out on life. If there was any tone in that, it was not toward you.
It was, um, I'm spending a lot of time and this is not a complaint because I love my job, but it's the kind of thing where every once in a while, like I'll pick up my phone and look at email and I'll watch you talking to all these people where I'm just like, thanks fucking God, because I'm a control freak and just deal with like, I mean, just I'm very grateful for you. Thank you.
You have a hard job. I can't wait to have you for myself again.
You can go get tuna fucking melts at Cafe 101. For real.
It's been so long. I can pick your fries out and eat all your fries.
You can have all the fries. I can't eat fries anymore.
Oh, yay. Good.
I can't wait until you're free again. I'm happy and eat all your fries you can have all the fries i can't eat fries anymore oh yay good i can't wait until you're free again i'm happy and i love your job and i'm so happy for you and it's great i'm lying i fucking want you for myself and i want my favorite to be the only thing that matters in your life i mean that would be nice um it will be but it but it's also cool because it's it's whatever it's nice to have a job that

actually takes up all my time and brain but then it's then there's things like that we're just like oh is that what's happening good i love that daddy has a job but we miss daddy at home daddy wants to come home that's what i'm saying um hey let's take a quick P-break and then get started.

Great.

The idea that I stated the words, fuck you, Madonna, is a shame to me. It brings shame to my family.
That is not the person I thought I was. That's not how I feel about Madonna.
No. But people change.
You change. You grow.
You stop hating Madonna for whatever reason. That's true.
I think I was going through a really dark time in my life and I wanted to kind of, you know, forget about who I was and who I grew up as, which was a Madonna wannabe from day one. Absolutely.
Just really changed my life in every way. Don't go for second best.
At least we didn't make fuck you Madonna merch. That's all I'll say.
I was smart enough to know. Can you imagine one time I made a a Boniva joke about Madonna on the Grammys.
This was like 2018 or even earlier than that because it was kind of like the glory days of Twitter. Man, those Madonna fans, and I guess I'll just say it, gay men, came after me.
Fuck you, bitch. And then I kind of looked at it.
I was like, yeah, you know what? You're right. That's fine.
I take it. I delete it.
You're right. That's peak fame or peak influence.
That people will come after you for talking shit about someone they don't even know. Yeah.
Which I feel like murderinos kind of do that. And I'm so grateful for that.
I think they are Madonna level supporters. I think so too.
And we're very lucky. We are so appreciative of everything you guys do for all that shit talking that goes on for on the Super Bowl, on Twitter, on Instagram.
To defend the indefensible, you go out there for your girls knowing, knowing. You're wrong.
Of course I didn't mean fuck you, Madonna. She's my hero.
Well, let's blame Mercury on retrograde, which, by the way, it is not right now.

But it will be once this comes out.

Let's blame Mercury on retrograde.

Is that what it is?

Is that what we're supposed to blame?

I'm really spiritual if you didn't know that about me.

Actually, Alison Agosti, who writes these, shows up for us, put it in the notes.

Yeah. Mercury is not in retrograde right now.
But she said that when this comes out, it will be. It's currently not.
While we're speaking. Exactly.
But when you're right. But in next Wednesday or maybe in three Wednesdays.
Whatever it is, whenever this is happening to your ears, it's in retrograde. So be careful.
It's on retrograde, in retrograde, around retrograde. Don't slip in the shower is all I'm saying.
And if this is 2035, none of this applies to you and obviously. And how is your fucking, how's your battery pack? How's your Judy Jetson skirt? How are you even listening to this? All right.
Battery pack. I don't know.
They definitely are wearing big batteries. Everyone is being charged by a battery pack.
Okay. So now it's time to get into the first story on this episode,

Liminal Space. It's Georgia going first this week and covering the Ruth Talia Sias murder.

So let's see who went first four episodes ago. Oh god i want to say i don't care you want to go first you want me to go first uh whatever you want it's your choice okay i'm gonna go okay is that rude no all right so this one actually speaking of kat solon who made her shirts sign.
she sent this to me and I'd never heard of it. And it's like pretty bananas.
Okay. All right.
So we start with 19 year old Ruth Talia Sayas. Let me start.
We start with 19 year old Ruth Talia Sayas. She was raised on the outskirts of the capital in a working-class area of Peru.
So outside of the working-class area of Peru. And she was studying at a local university and she lived with her family, like normal girl, cute girl, regular 19-year-old.
On Saturday, July 12th, 2012, she was the very first contestant on the new reality show that was like a quiz show called El Valor de la Verdad, which is translated to the value of the truth. You knew that? I just wanted to guess because I've never taken Spanish.
I know what Verdad means. So it's a new reality quiz show that's just come to Peru.
The show's premise is that a contestant is asked a series of personal questions, like during an interview, a private interview with a production company or the producers. Varying seriousness, the questions, and they're hooked up to a fucking polygraph.
Okay. Soant is later asked the same questions but in front of a crazy studio audience and it's like um what's that uh the money show do you want to be a millionaire who wants to be a millionaire yeah it's like that kind of seriousness level with like lights and shit um so they're given their questions again and their answers are voted like by the polygraph whether they're true or not okay so for each truthful response that they give they win money if they lie according to the polygraph test they lose all the money they made.
So they can keep going with questions.

And if they're correct and they are not lying about them, they win money.

And the questions get more and more personal as the show goes on.

And the contestant has the option of calling it off after each answer. So if they've only won a certain amount, they can be like, and they've answered like some really personal question.

They're like, I'm done.

So she's the very first contestant on this show,

this little 19-year-old university student.

And she went on because she wanted to open a salon,

and she had already saved a ton of money,

but she needed the money from the show to bring her closer to buying that salon.

And she was like, okay, making a spectacle of herself to get the money so every contestant gets to bring on or has to bring on three guests to the show who are like sitting there being interviewed and filmed the whole time she's answering these personal questions so she brings her parents uh it's lien liencio and vilma and they're like sweet baby angels i watched I watched it um and the dad said that he was

afraid of what I might learn about my daughter oh when he was introduced but they were all jovial they were all like you know this is going to be fun we're getting some money no one thought it'd be that insane because they thought their daughter was like a normal human being I mean you know So the third guest was her boyfriend, Brian Leva.

He was a 20-year-old cab driver.

He was raised down the road from Moitalia and he'd stuttered since an old boyfriend of his mother had pushed him down the stairs when he was only eight. Oh, so he's just like this normal dude.
But he had a stutter. The host says, you seem nervous.
What are you so nervous about? And and he said that she may have cheated on me and he was like very stone-faced and like clearly nervous through the whole show so here are the questions some of the questions she was asked have you ever skipped school without your mother's knowledge if you found 1 000 souls would you return them souls uh it's like oh my money yeah so she revealed that she had a thousand wandering souls yeah would you return them to their homes she revealed she had a nose job and that she didn't like her body and that she wished she was white and that she was only with her boyfriend brian until someone better came along the one that was there the cab driver Yeah. With the stutter.
Yeah. And that she was ashamed of her parents' manners and that she didn't actually work at a call center like they thought.
She danced at a nightclub. Oh shit.
Here we go. Here we go.
So the mom is begging her to stop. And at one point, Brian says, I don't want to hear anymore.
The boyfriend. So, okay, we're at question number 18.
And she had won at this point with this question, she would have won the equivalent of 15,000 US dollars, which is almost 10 months wages. Wait, no, no, no.
I'm sorry. She could have won up to $15,000 US dollars.
At that point, she had won $5,300, which was almost 10 months wages in Lima. With this question, she'll win this.
The question number 18 was, have you ever accepted money for sex? And she answers yes. And the polygraph confirmed that it was true.
And she says just twice, we needed money. We were in a bad situation.
It hasn't happened since and it won't happen again. And her parents are like crying and like clearly shaken badly.
It's fucked up, man. She said, so at that point, she was like, I'm done.
I'm not going to win up to 15,000 US dollars. I can't do this anymore.
I mean, I wonder what the other questions were. If that was like, that was the one that was only 15 or $5,000.
Yeah. What were the other questions? Who knows? She says at the end, my mother, my father, my brother and sister are the most beautiful things in the world to me.
I love them all with all my heart. Brian, forgive me for making you go through this.
And as the credits roll, she goes down on her knees before them and begs them

for forgiveness. Her parents.
What the fuck? Yeah. What kind of game show is this? Yeah.

So the show finally aired on Saturday, July 12th. Huge fucking hit, like becomes number one.

And she becomes like kind of a celebrity in that world, but not like in a good way. She's just like

Thank you very much. Well, huge fucking hit, like becomes number one.
And she becomes like kind of a celebrity in that world, but not like in a good way.

She's just like talked about all the time.

And Brian, her boyfriend, becomes a public fool.

And in Peru, like machoism is such a big thing.

And he was humiliating from all these people.

And people in the small town recognize him and kind of humiliate him.

And he's like fucking broken. Wait, sorry, but did she get any of that money yeah okay she got all the money she won what she like she at least got she stopped so she stopped after that true question okay so she was she wasn't lying about having had money had sex for money so she stopped at basically our equivalent of $5,300.
So he's being followed around by like, by the media and being asked all these questions. Someone asked him how he felt about making, being made a fool.
And he said, I'm ashamed. All the things I learned on that show, how would you feel? And the news person said, but they say that if you love someone, you can forgive them.
And he says, depends on what they did. The things she said that day, I can't forgive.
But then in other interviews, he says that it had all been a setup that he and Ruth Talia had broken up months before the taping. And she had asked him to pretend to be her boyfriend on TV and that she'd share the money with him.
And hadn't given her any of the money so it sounds like he's making this shit up to make himself sound a little bit better right yeah because he's so fucking humiliated yeah eight weeks after the premiere of the show on september 11 2012 ruth talia disappears so crazy media circus all the news programs covered it in Lima. But one of the hosts called her the prostitute of El Valor de la Verdad.
Like she was known as like a whore and nobody cared about it because of that. And her parents had to like beg to get media attention and get this covered and to try to find their daughter.
11 days after the disappearance, police find a body of a young woman buried in a well and covered by rocks and concrete on a piece of land on the outskirts of Lima. And that land belongs to Brian's uncle.
So later that day, my God, this is so fucked up and there's video of this.

So the media

and the mother,

I'm sorry,

the father and the sister

are at the site

where they're excavating

trying to figure out

if it's their sister and daughter

and the dad is on the phone,

on the cell phone,

like crying and it's awful

and it turns out that it is her

and he's just like

losing it. And if you're sensitive, you shouldn't watch him break the fuck down.

Then a reporter and her cameraman go to the home where Vilma, the mother is sitting vigil with some

of her friends and doesn't yet know that it was her daughter that was found. And the reporter

says she gave her her condolences and realized she didn't know about it. And then the reporter said, ma'am, they found your girl.
So this fucking reporter told her, which is so ugly. So Brian's brought in for questioning and he confesses.
He says that he called Ruth Talia as she was leaving school and they made plans to meet up. He says, I waited for her by the bridge.
She got into my motor taxi and I said, let's go have some wine. She says, okay.
And they went to his house, his apartment that he rented. And they had sex.
And then afterwards they started to fight. And she says, she tells me, I don't know what I'm going, what I'm doing with a poor motor

taxi driver. And he says, that's when I grabbed her by the throat and that he admitted that he choked her for 30 seconds or more.
And he says, I thought she had passed out. I listened to her heart.
I didn't hear anything. I grabbed her and shook her, but nothing.
I got scared. And during the trial, Brian's lawyer tried

to pin the blame on the

TV show, saying

uh... but nothing.
I got scared. And during the trial, Brian's lawyer tried to pin the blame on the TV show saying that they had humiliated him.
And so Beto Ortiz, who's one of the most famous television journalists there, they called him to testify. So it was later found that the majority of his confession was false.
And there was a witness who was a young boy from the neighborhood. And he said that the night she disappeared, Brian had paid him 50 souls to let him know when Ruth Talia got off the bus.
And he said he had seen Brian and another man force her into his motor taxi. And the court determined that Brian's accomplice was his uncle who owned the property where her body was found.

And the motive was robbery.

And they had tried to get

Ruth Talia's bank security code

so that they can get the winnings from the show

for themselves.

And they were both sentenced

to life in prison.

So then the second season of

El Valor de la Verdad

was, they only had

celebrity contestants because they said they could deal

I'm going to go. to life in prison.
So then the second season of El Valor de la Verdad was, they only had celebrity contestants because they said they can deal with the media, which is like, how could you even have a fucking second season? But at least that's that. And, oh, I wanted to say that a lot of this information, and it's really hard to find information.
I mean, there's no, this isn't like a story I've ever heard about before so the california sunday magazine by uh daniel alar con he wrote this really great story about it and that's where i got a lot of this information and then all over the internet as well that is fucking crazy dude the idea the idea that that show continued on after the first contestant was murdered i mean that's intense remember when jenny jones the jenny jones show that a lot of young people won't remember was like one of those like 90s talk shows like jerry springer had on like a it was like a confession episode of i'm in love with you and a guy brought on his friend and told this guy that he was gay and he was in love with him. Yeah.
And the guy he told shot and killed him. Yes.
I do know that story because my old boss was one of the EPs on that show and had to go to court. That was like a huge scandal at telepictures.
Heartbreaking. The no it was horrible and it's that kind of thing of like what's the line when you're producing tv everything is two numbers who butts in seats eyes on screens how do you do a show that's going to make people watch it and especially in those days of like the early days of springer and jenny jones we all that shit.
Let keep going with this but also why did they have a hit oh they had a hit because it's a girl who is exposed that it wasn't hit that's not the baby daddy and blah blah blah now they're in a fist fight and all that shit and like that was the norm so like you had to you had they were trying to think of shows and produce shows that were exploiting the most exploitive.

Well, the article, the article I got a lot of this like basic information from, uh, was really interesting. so the show that this that the article that this is from where they talk a lot about the actual show and how much it had to do with it and what like about uh reality shows in peru was called the

contestant from california sunday magazine and so they talk a lot about that and it's just like i mean who who would agree to say those things but if you're in a poor fucking city and you need money i mean you'll do anything exactly it's total people. And also, that is such an ugly version.
I think there was an American version of that show. And it wasn't on for very long.
Oh, I didn't know that. Because you can't...
The nature of a show like that is scandal. So, like, if people are admitting things that no one gives a shit about, and no one wants to talk about, and that isn't, like, like borderline then you don't have a good show and they're not going to find someone who's like no i've never had never got paid for sex nope i work in this place you know they find the most yes they are only going to have people on there that are going to tell them what they want to hear and and more so yeah the one of the weirdest things that i ever experienced in working in

television is there is this very strange subset of people and if you work in casting in like any kind of reality version of television you know there are people who try to get on every single show and they're not it's like if it's a show about couples i'll submit for that if it's a show about, you know, whatever the fuck it is, they want to, they want to be on TV. Matchmaking or whatever the fuck they'll do.
Yeah. And they'll try to, like, they know TV well enough to know that they have to be interesting and certain personality types.
And, and because it's, it is a good way to make money if you're the right person.

But then don't you just get one chance? Yeah, you would think. But I mean, these are people that are just like, well, we'll go over here.
Well, we'll try to be on The Amazing Race. Well, we'll try to be on The Marriage Ref.
We'll try to be on this. And that's when I worked on the second season of The Marriage Ref, there was this one tape where they were like, brought us down to casting.
Because they were like, you're never going to believe what you're about to see. and it's like this weird couple that like it's

there's sexual overtones

where you're like you're never going to believe what you're about to see and it's like this weird couple that like it's there's sexual overtones where like this is they don't know that this is inappropriate that like this isn't gonna get them it's just this weird shit and one of the people in that casting department was like oh yeah we that we had them they tried to be on whatever show she had worked on before and it's just like people that are kind of like, we know we're kind of interesting and kind of weirdos and that that works. Yeah, we're very different and we're wild and let's get on fucking television.
People just want to get on television. Do you see that the real world this season is like, everyone thinks they're just going on the real world.
But for each person on the real world, they find their like enemy and they have to live in the house too uh and it's like this show is interesting enough if you cast it well these people are just gonna make their own fucking but then you can come back and say because no one's watching tv anymore so they don't have good ratings so it's not interesting enough to make a ratings hit and that's all anybody cares about about. And because all of television is owned by like four companies, they have this insane grasp on the money, who gets the money.
The story is like nobody has any money, but that's actually not true. They're making millions of dollars because even in like a depression, people still watch TV, people still, you know, advertising still works.
But it's like, it's this, it's really sick and crazy. That kind of shit where you like that thing where you're watching TV and you're just like, oh, this doesn't, I don't feel like who I'm seeing is what I'm really seeing.
So the idea that your story is about a person who actually did the thing. A real person.
And. Yeah.
But she, I don't know if she felt, it didn't seem like she was. I mean, I guess she, she was kind of embarrassed and stayed at home a lot, but it's like, she didn't seem like she was, she seemed like confident about having done it for the right reason, for the reason, which was to make her life better, even though she like,

you know,

tore her family apart.

Yeah.

Well, you'd think that that,

that makes your life way worse.

Yeah.

Also being murdered.

Yeah.

I mean,

because that shame,

shame is the thing people can't deal with.

Oh,

Jesus.

No.

Shaming people,

especially like you were saying,

like,

like it,

that culture where men have to be men,

you can't come out and be like, yeah, sometimes I do this, saying, like, like it, that culture where men have to be men, you can't come out and be like,

yeah,

sometimes I do this,

which is like,

you know,

yeah,

not in a judgmental way of that person's lifestyle,

but this is like a cultural thing of where women are supposed to be like wives and mothers and especially here and in Peru.

I feel like it's,

you're not supposed to,

that's not, it's like so much less accepted and understood than it is here as it is here. Crazy.
Crazy, right? I mean, that's the thing too, when you were saying like, you should, you should watch it because he's all upset or whatever. I would never watch that.
No, it bothered me a lot. never watched that it's the fact that the cops didn't keep him away from the from the cameras is upsetting like his daughter his other daughter tries to shield his face a couple times but there's nowhere to turn like there's cameras on every on every single angle of this man telling someone on the other line that they found his daughter like there's nowhere for him to go to get out of the fucking out of the camera that's disgusting it's just really sick and sad and then the woman who uh told the mother inadvertently the reporter yeah the reporter she quit uh doing news after that wow yeah yeah there's a thing in this article someone's life yeah like to get that story or like go talk to her now go up to the room after she started crying and try to get a conversation with her and she and there's like some quotes in her from in this article it's like how awful she felt and that she quit yeah oh that's yeah no yeah you don't want to sell your soul for one paycheck.

Uh-uh.

One byline.

Okay.

Okay, and we are back, Georgia.

Any updates, anything about this case you can talk about?

No updates on this case.

It is just so sad because, like, I feel like as I was telling it, you just knew what was going to happen and what a mess was going to be. And it's so heartbreaking.
I will say, though, that we mentioned the Jenny Jones show where a romantic confession leads to murder. And I actually go on to cover that case in episode 40, which is called Squad Gourds.
Yeah. Which we're getting close to.
Also, Daniel Olercon, who wrote about this case in the California Sunday magazine, now teaches at Columbia Journalism School. And in 2021, he was awarded the MacArthur Genius Grant.
Wow. Do you know how hard that is to get? No, but it's very hard.
You get to be a genius. So I feel like I can be like, well, I knew him first.
And that kind of you're a genius. Yeah, that kind of like I'm the genius who like knew that he was a genius.
You're a genius spotter. And I think that's that you're like a really good casting person where like they do not get the credit for literally making the movie come together the way it's supposed to come together.
Do you know what I love doing though when I watch a movie is talking over the movie. One of the things I like to do is say, I wonder who auditioned for this part.
Yes. I'll like be like, can you imagine so-and-so in this part? It would have been totally different.
Yes. You know? Which also was kind of a point.
We shouldn't be talking about this, but here, this is my sidebar acting class tip. Okay.
That's what people should be thinking about. As a person who was very bad at acting and auditioning, it was because I could not keep my eyes on the prize, which is you are supposed to be bringing something to the role that makes the role come alive.
You're not supposed to be reciting the word so perfectly, whatever. Like I was always like, I'm sweating.
My upper lip is my upper lip sweating or whatever, where they're like, no, you're supposed to. I saw.
Who is she? Who is Pam from The Office? Why is she? So yeah, but like when you see people like Johnny, I saw an audition tape for Johnny Pemberton one time. Oh, he's so funny.
And it was like that guy that was the character walked in and sat down and was doing stuff. And he's like, this is mine.
This is me. It's just brilliant.
Yeah, I can't act for shit. So that's really impressive for me.
Yeah. Anyway, let's get into some dark, deep shit because this is a famous one.
And I feel like I've heard about this. Like, I'd never heard about it when you told it.
And since you told it, I hear about it all the time. Right.
Because it's just brought up a lot because it's so mind boggling. This is Karen telling the story, the famous story of Dorothea Puente.
You ready for your murder? It's the same one uh yeah turns out mine is the um shit i can't think of the what's the howie mandel show with all the suitcases what suitcase number seven what's that one i don't think so i don't think so either i was going to try to make a joke about that, but I can't remember what it's called. I can't remember what it's called and I don't care.
What's in the suitcase? You know that show, What's in the suitcase? All right. So I picked my story this week.
Actually, my sister suggested this, our number one fan, our newest and number one-est fan. And she suggested it because when i was in high school when i graduated from high school she had gone to the jc for two years so by the time i was ready to go to college she was too and so we both went to sac state which is sacramento state university it was precious um uh so we both lived moved to and lived in sacramento for like the same amount of time.
And I've of course talked massive shit about Sacramento on this podcast. Wonderful things happen there, but not to me.
Um, and so near the end of right before I moved back home with my parents, um, as a abject failure in my early 20s. I lived in this house on F Street.
And it was in this weird, like Sacramento's weird because as you go downtown closer to the Capitol, it's like all the old houses, they're old Victorians and stuff. And some of the streets are really gorgeous, but the neighborhood itself is really bad.
And it's a very strange combination because it doesn't look like it should be bad. But then there's like one night in this apartment across the street, there was an empty lot that people would just dump garbage in.
And two homeless people got into a fight and one of them was beating the other one with a vacuum cleaner that someone had dumped in this empty lot. Oh my God.
It was like that kind of area. And it was a horrible time in my life because I had flunked out of college.
I think I worked at like two different cafes. So I was making like $5 an hour.
I remember those days. And you like, you couldn't get any hours.
So you're just like always just scraping together money. I remember at one point we would, we would rent a VCR from the video store.
We did that when I was a kid too. Yeah.
Cause we didn't have one, but we'd be like, we, I want to watch a movie. Um, it was like just dark.
And then it was also summertime in Sacramento. So it's always 110 degrees.
So everything's just awful in a special way. Also, at the time, the person I was roommates with, she had this friend, I think she was from high school.

And together they were two of the most annoying people.

Like, I'm surprised I didn't try to punch one of them.

Because it was like this obnoxious, like, hard girl act.

But it was like the Sacramento version.

so there's a conversation

so there's a country element to it and it was really like just kind of ignorant and rude the kind of girls that are like i don't get along with other girls exactly yeah i only like guys where it's like well then go fucking hang out with some guys and get away from me um there was yeah it was a lot of kind of stuff. Or like they'd come home at four in the morning from a club and like knock on the door and be like, let me in.
It was just everything was, I was livid. I was either livid or scared to death all the time.
So it turns out, come to find out living in this apartment for a little while, that who came over, put it together and goes, don't you realize that that is two doors down is Dorothea Puente's house? Who's Dorothea Puente? Well, Dorothea Puente is the old lady in Sacramento that got caught. She ran a boarding house for old people and like handicapped people.
And it turned out that she had been murdering them, taking their social security check, taking it across the street to the dive bar that was so scary. We never even tried to go there.
So Dorothea Puente is basically, I'll tell you. So here's her story.
Let's hear it. She had a very sad childhood when she was eight her father died of tuberculosis and the next year her mother died in a car crash fuck those are like two of the worst ways to die so so she was in an orphanage for a little while and then eventually she had to go live with family members in fresno oh no it just gets sad that's one of the worst places to live.
I mean, so in 1945, when she was 16, she got married for the first time. So she had, between 1946 and 1948, she had two daughters.
One she went sent to live with relatives in Sacramento, and the other one she gave up for adoption. So she was not, um, able to deal with any kind of family situation at all.
And I think she definitely has some kind of mental disorder as you will see. So I'm sure she probably had it then being a 16 year old newlywed mother.
Yeah. Who had grown up in an orphanage.
Not good. Who had two huge traumatic experiences when she was young with her parents dying back to back back to back so you're fucked um that husband that married her when she was 16 left her and uh left her in 1948 like a couple years later so um she started telling people he died of cancer um so oh no sorry died of a heart attack uh a couple days after they got married so it was like even more tragic for her so she's also in throughout this it's like she's basically a compulsive liar yeah um and she started forging checks uh which she ends up doing throughout her life that's kind of her forte that.
That's her favorite, that's her favorite crime. It's such a weird crime.
It's super weird. And the funny thing is that you get caught and then you get sentenced for like a couple years and you get out because it's nonviolent and it's, I don't know, maybe it's kind of arty.
So they're like, no, all right. It's such a weird thing.
You paid your dues. Like you hear about so many people who are like, they never had a violent offense.
They just forged checks. And it's like, well, that's, I would never think to do that.
It's still a crime. I mean, you might have great penmanship and all, but you're still a criminal.
In 1960, she based, and then she remarried a Swede named Axel Johansson, which you know that that was a party. Oh yeah.
happen of course a violent alcoholic they were married for 14 years um and then they ended it and then eight years later sorry um during that marriage two years before she got divorced uh she was arrested in a brothel she told the cops that she was there visiting a friend um we don't know what is true about that one of the articles i read said that she ran the brothel oh fuck but um it seems more likely since uh she only she was arrested and served 90 days i think she was probably just there um either visiting her friend or visiting some friends, whatever you might do.

Yeah, running a brothel ain't an easy task.

That's a big job, and you don't just bail at the first arrest.

So what she ended up doing is going into, she became a nurse's aide, and she started caring for the disabled and the elderly in private homes.

Well, so she turned her life around. Well, you would like to think that.
End of story. Yeah, end of story.
So in 1982, she did that for a while. In 1982, her 61-year-old friend and business partner, Ruth Monroe, who was living in...
So Dorothea had this house on F Street. It's thisorian two doors down from karen two doors down from the future um miserable home of miserable karen kilgariff um so there was an upstairs apartment that she would rent out so she rented it out to ruth monroe and they were business partners which i guess means that they were working together taking care of old people and disabled people in private homes.

But Ruth died from an overdose of codeine and acetaminophen. And Dorothea told the police that Ruth was very depressed because her husband was terminally ill.
So they ruled Ruth's death a suicide suicide but then a few weeks later the police had to come back because a 74 year old pensioner named malcolm mckenzie had accused dorothea of drugging and stealing from him so he had gone to the police and said that he had met dorothea at a local bar called the zebra club and that they had several drinks together, which I bet means in the 15s. Then he invites her back to his apartment.
And soon after they arrive, he gets dizzy. And even though he's conscious, he can't move.
And he has to sit and watch as she searches his house for valuables, takes his rare penny collection and forces the diamond ring off his finger rare penny can we go back to rare penny collection i mean fucking cool that is yeah you know it was like in a cardboard book like this with all the years underneath the slots that makes me happy but well so she gets convicted of uh three charges of theft in on august 18th of 1982 and she gets sentenced to five years in jail for for that wow um what happened to the rare penny collection i we haven't been able to trace it so we're starting a foundation called find the rarepennies.gov.org. So she's in jail.

Okay. And she starts being pen pals with a retiree, a 77 year old retiree named Everson Gilmouth.
And they become friends through the mail. Um, and when she's released in 1985, after only serving three years, um, he was there waiting for her to pick her up from jail in his 1980 red Ford pickup.
And everything was okay. And everything turned great.
Um, so soon they were making wedding plans and, um, they opened a joint bank account and, uh, they were, they were back in her house in Sacramento. Now we're cutting to five years later.
Dorothea hires a handyman to come and put in some wood paneling in her apartment. And for that work, plus he paid her an additional $800, she gave him a red 1980 Ford pickup that was in good condition, almost totally not used, which she said had belonged to her ex-boyfriend who lived in Los Angeles.
Yeah, where'd she get that? So she asks this handyman that she hires to build her a six by three by two foot box for her to store, you know, books as you do in a fucking coffin yeah a box a box that you uh want to store stuff in um and then she asks them once she fills it with her books i'm doing air quotes you can't see um she says please take this to my storage depot and he agrees and she goes with him and then on the way she has him pull over and just has him dump it on a riverbank at a kind of unofficial dump site which it sounds unlikely but again we did have an unofficial dump site across from our apartment right where you put coffin shaped boxes yes you know or or beat another person with a vacuum cleaner. Whatever needs to happen.
So a lot of dumping going on up in Sacramento and Sutter County. Shit.
So they dumped that and... Oh, she just told him the stuff in the box was junk.
Well, on January 1st, 1986, a fisherman spots the box. And it's sitting three feet from the bank of the river.
So he calls the police. And they open the box and find a badly decomposed, unidentifiable body of an elderly man inside.
well it turns out that Dorothea was still collecting Everson Gilmouth's pension and she would write letters to his family explaining that he hadn't contacted them because he was ill. And so he was basically one of her first victims.
Now, this was now a, she was renting this apartment all the time. This was her business and she had 40 new tenants in the house, in the whole house.
Um, uh, she was actually approached by a social worker named Peggy Nickerson. Um, uh, she approached the social worker and just explained to her, just so you know,

if people on fixed incomes, people on social security, elderly people, they can come and

stay in my boarding house.

Everyone's welcome.

Yeah.

Because she had the best system to offer.

Her prices were really low and she took, quote unquote, took care of the people that worked,

that lived there.

Because people are nice. She made dinner every night.
she had everybody come down and sit at dinner together um you know she like made sure there were people that stayed there that were homeless or like had mental problems she made sure they showered and clipped their nails and she was real if it was real that'd be so beautiful i mean yeah right that's the that's the whole lure of it is people need that kind of care and she's saying that she's um going to be able to provide that for them uh so sorry i keep making that mistake um so she uh she also she was known for taking tough cases. Like all the social workers were like you, if it's a person that can't get placed anywhere, you can take them to Dorothea's.
She will take them in. Um, and she collected their monthly mail, um, before they saw it, she paid them in stipends and then she pocketed the rest of their like social security check or whatever their check was for expenses quote unquote you got a fucking so parole agents uh would go to visit her um and she had been ordered to stay away from the elderly and to refrain from handling government checks oh my god um uh but no violations ever noted.
And they think it's because she was known in the social welfare circles as being so good that they would go in and check and be like, you can't be around old people. You can't stay away from social security checks, but nothing official would ever go in.
Well, in May of 1988, neighbors started complaining of a sickly sweet smell. So she blamed the aroma on applications of fish emulsion on her perfectly tended lawn.
And tended to the point where if people walked on her lawn, she would scream at them and swear like a sailor. So she was very protective of her lawn and she did a lot of gardening um so so there was a man that stayed at the house and people around the neighborhood knew him as chief he was schizophrenic and he was an alcoholic and he was homeless when he went and stayed with dorothea um she made him her handyman and she cleaned him all up, made sure that he took a shower all the time, like made him presentable, made him come and eat dinner with everybody, made him take his his antipsychotic medication or his meds.
So she had him digging in the basement and carting soil and rubbish away with a wheelbarrow.

And he basically, there was a concrete slab on her basement floor. He was basically digging up the basement floor.
What do you need it for? So he soon afterwards disappeared. And so when there so when, uh, there was an, a second, uh, tenant disappeared, a, a developmentally disabled man who had schizophrenia when his social worker reported him missing, his name was Alberto Montoya.
Um, the police came and realized this is this, this keeps happening here. So they were looking around and they noticed in the backyard that was there was some ground that was had been recently disturbed so these investigators went to the car got this shovels that were in their car and they started digging and quickly turned up what looked like shreds of cloth and beef jerky.

Oh, God. Is the report.
Ew. And so as they're trying to dig and find out what's under there, one of the investigators said that he thought that he hit a tree root.
And so he was whacking at it and jabbing at it with his shovel and it wouldn't move. so he decides to climb down into the hole where

that they had dug up to pull it out.

And he wrapped his hands around it, braced himself, started pulling,

and it broke loose, and it was a leg bone out of the socket.

They had to suspect that at that point, or they wouldn't have been digging, right?

Yes.

So why are you fucking yanking bones?

He thought it was a tree root.

I'm not going to be there okay so if i'm sure that they've done stuff like that before and it's like yeah i mean that would be there 20 of the time but most of the time it's that okay um and also i think when bodies that aren't that are buried just straight into the ground they turn black and brown so it would have probably looked like a tree room too um so then they start digging up her whole backyard holy shit and uh oh she came out when he was down in the hole and he had this bone. She came out and when they turned around, they were like, we just found a human bone.
She did. They said they, she did this thing where she slapped her hands on her face, like really over the top.
And in like trying to act like she was surprised and they immediately were like there's something going on like that's the weirdest like straight up home alone style home alone style exactly that's where they got that from um and apparently neighbors said that she always talked about wanting to be an actress and planning on moving to los angeles she's a bad actress i guess yeah Yeah, She needed to take some classes. So this body that they eventually, um, dug up was, uh, a woman named Leona Carpenter, who was 78 years old and one of her very Dorothy is very first victims that stayed in that house.
Um, they basically had the coroner's office came in with heavy machinery and a whole work crew and just started and forensic anthropologists and started digging up this entire backyard and that i've seen the news footage that's basically taken from the angle of um because they couldn't get in yeah so it's basically taken from our back porch holy shit i mean not literally i don't know because it was 1988 but they shot it over the fence and you see these cops walking around and it's just like you see a lot of sheets and like when they put out the string and the stakes you know like this will be the next area it's it. So since Dorothea Puentes wasn't immediately Puente, singular, wasn't immediately a suspect.
What? I mean, like they didn't when they were doing that first digging, it wasn't like keep her right there. Yeah.
So she said she was going to go get a cup of coffee at the hotel up the street while they were doing that. And then she fucking hightails it to Los Angeles.
Well, now they know it's dude uh yeah but she i mean she left so she thought she was out of there yeah and she and she didn't think they were on to her yeah the way that they were so when she gets to los angeles she goes to a bar and she starts making friends with an old pensioner who's sitting at the bar she introduced herself as i think it was it was Donna Johansson. What bar do we know? It didn't, oh God, I wish.
How great. The articles I read didn't say.
It's gotta be something that we know. Something divy, maybe the frolic room.
Frolic room, that's exactly what I was thinking. Yeah.
But luckily, this old pensioner, probably been sitting at the bar watching the news a bunch for 50 years her from the news and called the cops. So they got her down in LA and brought her back up.
Eventually seven bodies were found buried in her backyard. She was charged with a total of nine murders because they uh they um traced back the apparent the apparent suicide of her old of ruth Monroe um and then uh the other guy the other uh the missing guy chief oh man do you think that grandpa the grandpa the frolic room got a The reward? I don't know.
The missing guy chief. Oh man, do you think that grandpa at the frolic room got a reward?

I don't know.

I bet he did.

Here's what's interesting.

When detectives were in that backyard,

they realized that they were only blocks away from the home of serial killer Morris Solomon,

where they had dug up from that house a bunch of dead bodies in 1987 who's he i don't know him i have never heard of him either whoa and sacramento i just gotta say i mean like i've talked about it i've complained about it but like i must be a little bit right because we've already had, I think four serial killers from Sacramento on this show.

It's chock full of murders.

It's nutso.

So basically at the end of the day,

she went to trial in February,

1993.

She was convicted of three murders sentenced to two life sentences um received life without the possibility of parole um she went to chow chilla the ladies facility um she always said that all those people died of natural causes and she just buried them there um and uh that she herself at age 82 March 27 2011 died of natural causes in prison wow yeah that's our girl girl dorothea that's our hometown girl she would take their checks walk across the street to that dive bar and get her money they cash checks at dive bars they cash checks it there's Oh, yeah. Certain bars that are so divey, they will cash your Social Security check for you.
So they're like second Friday of every month is like, you got to get a couple bartenders on staff. That's right.
Because, well, and also it's Sacramento. Literally the state capitol was blocks away.
So they know they're getting their money if it's a government check. Yeah.
They know that thing is good. So if it's that little old lady that runs the boarding house of course they're going to do her a favor she brings everyone over and she takes her portion and that's right she's so nice she's taking care of all those people inside that building what did it smell like in that fucking building oh in that dive bar too i mean the whole block I bet it was carpeted.
That house? No, the dive bar. Oh, yes, for sure.

Like dark maroon? Yeah, like thin dark maroon, like bowling alley carpet. I bet they had like a, it was a pretty small and they had a pool table that was too close to one wall.
So then they had to cut a pool cue in half so that you could shoot from that side of the table. Is that what they do? I've never seen that seen that i've seen it in dive bars i guess i have not been in like real dive bars then you gotta become a full-blown alcoholic it is so fun i went to one full-blown like real real dive bar in um savannah georgia but like on the outskirts of it and i was like oh this isn't a charming LA dive bar.
There's a Confederate flag on the wall

and I'm the only Jew who's ever been in here.

They should have taken your picture

and put it up behind the bar.

That was terrifying.

Wow.

Yeah.

That's so sad.

I mean, it's crazy.

And when you saw her on the news,

like she was on the news all the time.

I want to see her picture.

I totally remember it.

She looks like a cartoon of a little old lady.

No,

like not even big glasses.

She's really short,

gray hair,

the whole thing.

You would never think.

How did she kill everyone?

Just,

she just poison them or poison.

I mean,

I think so.

Wow.

Yeah,

man.

Well,

that's fucked up.

Pretty fucked up.

Okay, so now we're ending the show on, we're ending on a positive now. That's right.
One really great thing that happened to us this past week. Right.
Right. So, do you have yours? Do you have yours? Sure.
A really great thing is that I hung out Sunday evening with a girlfriend that I like a lot. And we've gotten to know each other a lot.
But we had this great deep conversation. We hang out with a lot of people together.
Her name's Crystal. But she and I sat at a bar and just fucking talked.
And we're like, I'm not very happy. And just like, we're very open with each other in a way that's like hard to find when you're an adult is someone to like be really open with and, and just, you know, who understands you and you guys can get each other.
And that's, that's hard to do. And we just had this really great conversation and I felt a lot better after it and kind of feel like I've made a friend.
Oh, nice. I don't have for a long time.
It's like kind of a deeper connection. And it was nice.
That's great. Yeah.
That's very good. It's yours.
It's all that matters. Yeah.
They say in human connection is really, it's nothing else makes people actually happy except for connecting with other human beings. Really? Yeah.
Bullshit. Um, I guess mine is that.
I don't, well, I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about that because it sucks because all I've been doing is working. So most of mine are work-based, which is a little bit lame.
But, well, you know what? It's okay. You're proud of yourself.
Yeah, yeah. No, yeah.
You just can't. But I mean, it's like when you have one thing to talk about, whereas people are like, hey, what's up with you? It's like, just don't bother asking.
It doesn't matter. But there's a guy that's a guest star.
I guess I just won't say his name. And then when the show's actually on, I can say it.
But he's on my episode. And he's so funny.
It's like the most delightful thing in the world. I mean, everybody on this show is really good.
And I'm very for this show to come out. Cause I think people are really going to like it, but this one guy is hilarious and he looks like the guy that I adored in high school.
So it makes it even more fun to watch him. Cause it's like, it almost looks like a weird Nick, like a mashup, like you're rooting for him already because yes.
But then on top of that, it's the kind of thing where thing where you can't it's like single camera like you can't laugh out loud when things are happening

because they need like perfect quiet and i have to keep my hand over my mouth he's so funny wow

and that's the shit you've written too uh yeah some of it yeah i mean some of it but um but at

one point i went up i had to finally introduce myself because i was actually he was so funny

that i was nervous to i didn't want to be like hey what's up on the right or whatever i was just

Thank you. But at one point I went up, I had to finally introduce myself because I was actually, he was so funny that I was nervous to, I didn't want to be like, hey, what's up on the road or whatever.
I was just kind of like trying to stay away. And when I finally did go up to introduce myself, I said, I, in my head, I thought I was going to say, you know, like, you're great or today's been so great or something like that.
But what came out was you're being so funny. And the second, the last word of that sentence came out of my mouth, I just turned and walked away.
So I was just like, I hopefully I just won't have stopped. I can't wait till this cuts and I get to find out who it is.
Yes. It's I mean, it's some people may have seen him before, but it's not, he's not well not well known okay i feel like i'm not telling you until it airs either you won't tell me yeah we'll keep

it a huge secret until next spring because it's a mid-season replacement um well thanks for

listening you guys this is oh we never introduced what the show was this is no one knows oh that's

too bad this is my favorite this is what the fuck with mark maron thanks for listening i'm maron

Thank you. introduce what the show was this is no one knows oh that's too bad this is my favorite this is what the fuck with mark maron thanks for listening i'm maron um go to twitter my fave murder instagram my favorite murder we're on facebook at uh mfm podcast our shirts my favorite murder shirts.com everything thank you so much for listening and supporting being active, involved people.
We love it. It's very fun.
You guys are the best. And this is so great.
Stay sexy. Don't get murdered.
Elvis, you want a cookie? Want a cookie? Awesome. The answer is yes.
Bye. Okay, we are back from your story.
Karen, any updates on Dorothea Puente? Well, I do have an update, which is that I'm blown away that I started this by saying that my sister is the show's newest listener and number one fan, and she's the one that suggested this story. Yeah.
My sister has to this podcast really no not once i think she used to listen the beginning when we were just chatting but she has so much anxiety she cannot listen to true crime like she can't do it and so that's just really funny because there's like i will have full conversations with multiple people and she'll just be sitting there like smiling where i'm like you could get in here you. You could support me at any time.
No, thank you. I know you.
Yeah. I'll never give you that satisfaction.
The other one is that I just want to update this for my own credit. Okay.
When I was talking about the person that I was working with on the show that I was working with, and I had to keep my mouth covered because he was so funny that I didn't want you can't laugh out loud on set obviously that whole story was about Tim Robinson from I think you should leave oh my god and what show is it it was the show called making history I think there was only five episodes on it was very very short run I was lucky enough to be the writer on the episode where he showed up as Al Capone oh wow my God. It was a true hang with Tim Robinson before I Think You Should Leave came out.
You were probably also covering your mouth because you hadn't had your teeth fixed yet. Remember that? I was very demure, a demure giggler because my teeth were insane Irish teeth.
How crazy is that? Your life is so different now because you have these beautiful pearly whites. I can't wait to see Tim Robinson again.
And show him. Be like, look at these motherfuckers.
Look at my guffaw now. Big fan, big fan.
But then there are also case updates. So for the Dorothea Puente case, which is kind of my college hometown, there was a real joy.
And that conversation went on forever on Twitter, like people from Sacramento being like, why do you have to be like this to us? And there was a lot of emotion. That was where the beef from Sacramento started.
Yeah. I started and ended that beef all by myself.
And people in Sacramento are like, we don't care about you. Shut up.
So in 2010, Dorothea Puente's house was sold at an auction. So this was the house, a boarding house where she was killing the boarders and taking their social security checks and cashing them across the street at the diviest bar my eyes have ever set their eyes upon.
The house was sold at auction for $226,000. Wow.
2010. That still sounds cheap.
It's a bargain. Yeah.
According to the Sacramento Bee, the couple who purchased it outbid one other contestant in a packed room. Oh, and everyone was like, stay away from them.
Yeah. They're like, so you do want the house where the buddies were buried in the backyard.
You're going to fight someone over winning it. Over living in a haunted house.
Oh my God. So today the homeowners lean into the house's macabre history and there's, you know, they basically have made it a little bit of a museum.
There's framed photographs on the wall documenting Puente's history there. There's like a mannequin that looks like her on the front porch.
I've seen that. Yeah.
But the owners are very clear. they think she obviously was an awful, horrible person, but it's like a mannequin that looks like her on the front porch yeah but the owners are very clear they think she obviously was an awful horrible person but it's like people are gonna they're gonna come by they're gonna come by yeah I like that they're like look we know this is weird and we're gonna go with it instead of like just pretending everything is fine la la la right you know because you can't have a story like that and I think that was you know obviously what I was talking about when I told it, where it's just like we always hear those kinds of horror stories.
But when it's two doors down, like when these things happen, the block is affected. The neighbors are affected.
The price of their homes are affected. Yeah, that's like I saw recently like a whole slideshow on Instagram of this person going like house to house in L.A.
of like the Brady Bunch house, the E. Yeah.
That's like, I saw recently like a whole slideshow on Instagram of this person going like house to house in LA of like the Brady Bunch house, the ET house, the Wonder Years house. And, you know, people in that neighborhood have to get so sick of that probably.
And I wonder if, I don't think I'd move into a house that people would be taking photos in front of all the time. I don't think so.
I don't want to. Unless the windows were all in the back.
Right. And it was really cheap, in which case this was.
So good for them. I mean, and I think it's a great area.
I think now it's an even better area. Yeah, good for them.
Yeah. All right.
Let's stop talking about ourselves. Let's stop talking about ourselves through Dorothea Puente.
Yeah. And instead, rename this episode.
I love liminal space, though. The idea of it is fun.

But if we were naming it today, perhaps we would call this episode Back From Camp, because that's what we had joked about in the beginning.

Oh, right.

So Back From Camp.

Yeah.

We're going to the normal format that bought me these teeth.

Yeah.

Or we could rename it Daddy Wants to Come Home, which is what I said to you when I was complaining about having two jobs and wishing I had more time for this podcast. You're going to have more time for this job, and it's going to be the most time-consuming job you've had, like, more than having three jobs at once, it turns out.
So true. I had to hire people to help me live the rest of my life so I could get this stuff done.

It's not I want to warn her.

It's not going to get better.

Oh, she knows. She can feel it in her bones.

She'll have the money for new teeth.

So that's really the.

Here's the.

Yeah.

The teeth have always been the goal.

Yeah.

Huge piece of Dorito in the corner of my mouth.

But I had to say this.

And I'm I hope and I'm pretty sure you feel the same exact way. What an insanely rewarding experience.
Like all of it has been. But to now have a job on par with the job I used to have for a different person, all of the energy, all of the creative ideas, all of the everything getting poured into somebody else that just walks away like here's my thing which is what a writer does for a living that is what you agree to but to sit there kind of broken-hearted like I wish it could have been me yeah and then now to be here you're hustling for yourself it makes it like truly a lovely joyous thing and then to be able to hire people that it's like yeah let's not hire the people we've worked with in the past that permanently traumatized us yeah let's give the jobs to the people who are like other versions of ourselves right people that you know like danielle kramer who is georgia's recommendation knowing her from like meltdown COO.
And like, couldn't have been a better match.

It's like.

And we want her to not feel like she's hustling for someone else.

And it's like fucking, she hates it.

We want it to be like fun for her and to feel like she's getting something out of it.

Yeah.

That's bigger than just like this fucking guy is walking away.

We want to control her and everyone else around us's feelings. And we're going to.

And we do.

And we will.

And thank you for listening. And we do.
And we will.

And thank you for listening.

And yours too.

And stay sexy.

And don't get murdered.

Goodbye.