MFM Minisode 455

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Hello, and welcome to my favorite murder, The Mini Sode.

Hi.

There you go.

We're going to read you your story.

There you go.

There you go.

Want to go first?

Sure.

This first email, the subject line is, when winning bar trivia means outing yourself as a murderina.

Hello all.

It will soon be clear that this podcast is very important to me.

So for now, I will skip over the compliments and pleasantries.

On a recent vacation to a small tourist town, my extended family decided it would be a great idea to attend a weekly trivia night held at a bar in town.

Once we arrived, it was clear that we were the only out-of-towners, so we tried tried to discreetly seat ourselves at a corner table.

As the evening continued, we realized that our team was actually doing pretty well.

Our initial desire to stay under the radar disappeared.

Suddenly, we were there to win.

Then it came to the last question, worth a grand total of 20 points.

Oh, my gosh.

We knew it would decide the game.

The question: Before his identity was known, what nickname did the media give notorious serial killer Richard Ramirez?

Oh, that's so easy.

Easy, I thought.

The Nightstalker.

I was about to whisper the moniker to my family when I realized that answering this question would reveal a secret that I had kept from my parents for eight years, that I am a murder memo.

Let me back up briefly.

I was 15 and on a road trip with my parents.

With a not even close to fully developed brain, I thought it would be a great idea to play an episode of this new podcast I'd been listening to called My Favorite Murder

to liven up the otherwise boring drive.

15.

What could go wrong?

I mean, with this fucking podcast,

my mom got me hooked on Agatha Christie before I could read, and my dad starts every conversation with, so I was listening to this podcast the other day.

So it seemed like the natural thing to do.

We listened to about 15 minutes of an episode of MFM, during which I could, all caps, feel the tension in the car growing with every new gory detail of the case being described.

Suddenly, my mom paused the episode, and my parents glanced at each other before my dad turned turned to me in the back seat.

He said in a very serious tone, promise us to never listen to this again.

I, being an incredibly sensitive child, flushed red from embarrassment and agree.

I don't know if I'm proud or horrified by this.

I think the combo feeling is great.

It's a weird feeling to be like, I want to apologize and tell someone to fuck off at the same time.

Here's the thing.

It's just a reality that's waiting for that 15-year-old when they're 20 or 25 or whenever you think it's appropriate, but it's already happening.

And you're doing us a favor by saying that to a teenager because all she's not going to do is listen to every fucking episode that we've done.

I mean, that is.

Thank you.

That's the marketing we're looking for, for sure.

Yes, parents not disapproving of us.

Okay, go.

That says, then started eight years of deception, or maybe I should call it lying by omission.

I have continued to listen to your podcast religiously, despite my parents' obvious and rather dramatic reaction to two lovely and hilarious women talking about their not uncommon but slightly strange passion.

I listened throughout high school, college, and then in parentheses, it says, shout out to everyone else who started college in fall 2020.

I did not have a good time.

Boy.

So sad.

And I still keep up now as I'm working on my master's in biology.

Wow.

Fancy.

During this time, I never needed to reveal that I continued to listen to the podcast despite being highly discouraged from doing so by my parents until trivia.

So there I was.

Do I reveal my interest in true crime by answering a question about Richard Ramirez, or do I willingly let my family lose bar trivia?

I decided that I could no longer live in this world of deception.

I answered the question and when asked, revealed how I would possibly know anything about a murderer who was caught more than 15 years before I was born.

I was correct and we won trivia thanks to my sacrifice.

And what did I get for this selfless gesture?

A concerned look from my mother, an offhand judgment from my father, something like, I can't imagine wanting to learn about that kind of thing.

Oh my God.

And the evening's grand prize, a $2 miniature ping pong set with instructions in a language I don't understand.

You didn't even get a pint for like a fucking pitcher of beer.

I'm sure it's like, here's this fun prize.

Right.

Stay sexy and risk it all for bar trivia, M.

That was a great story because I do love bar trivia.

I love it.

It's so fun.

And sometimes it's so hard.

It's so hard.

That's why I stopped playing it.

I was like, last time I played it, I was like, I am the stupidest person in this room.

I did that once, and I was with friends, and one of the friends was a guy I liked and I knew he was really smart.

And I was like, this is where we bond over being smart.

And I was like, I've just been telling myself I'm smart.

I'm one of those fake smart people that doesn't know what the fuck she's talking about.

Hurtful.

I also learned that on this podcast.

That's right.

At least we have alcohol.

Okay.

This is called Hitman in the News.

Hello, Georgia, Karen, and Sundry staff.

I'm so glad to finally be sharing my hometown story.

While I no longer live there, this happened in my place of birth about 30 years ago.

The dates aren't well known and there was almost no press coverage of what happened, so I couldn't get exact dates for you.

With all this ambiguity and uncertainty, you might be wondering how I know this even happened.

And you would be right to wonder.

I know because it happened in my aunt and my sister saw it on the news.

I'm leaving out the wear to protect the innocent and my rather extended family that still lives in this small Midwestern city.

As the story goes, my aunt in her 50s at the time, let's call her Gladys Jones, was in a relationship with with a guy.

It had gotten serious enough that they were cohabitating.

While most of the family didn't care for him, it was known that she was considering marrying him.

Then one evening, she was watching the five o'clock news and heard something like, and then it says, Georgia puts on her newscaster voice.

Police have arrested a local woman after she allegedly attempted to hire a hitman to kill her ex-husband's girlfriend, only to unknowingly contact an undercover police officer.

The intended victim was Gladys Jones.

Oh, shit.

Yes, that's right.

My aunt learned she was nearly the victim of a hitman on the evening news.

Oh my God.

Like here's her own name.

Here's your

like they shouldn't have put out her name for sure.

They used to do that shit all the time in the news, right?

It's like, here's, and here's her address.

Where were the police contacting her to be like, hey, this just happened?

They weren't.

It seems the ex-wife had gotten wind of the potential marriage and did not approve.

We'll just have to leave it at that since her motivations were never explained.

I had a chance to speak with my aunt about it recently.

I asked if it had really happened because all I had was a story from my sister and family gossip.

She explained that the reason I couldn't find anything about it on the internet was because she never gave a single interview or comment to a journalist about the incident.

They would call and she would pretend that Gladys wasn't home.

Eventually, one of them asked, You're Gladys, aren't you?

Her reply, I don't know.

It will come as no surprise to anyone that she did not end up marrying the guy.

She noped out of that relationship right quick.

Many years later, she would marry her dead sister's first husband, turning my cousins into sibling cousins.

But that's a story for another time.

Yes, it does.

Except for right now, I need to hear this.

What a cliffhanger.

Tell us everything.

Thank you for your attention to this matter,

Dawn,

D-O-N.

Oh, wow.

I want people to write in their weird, like, marriage, awkward marriage stories of like, my cousin married the second, you know, like the

awkward, like, oh no, everyone everyone was at the wedding being like, what the fuck is happening?

Yeah.

A little family drama.

Family drama wedding edition, my favorite murderer Gmail.

I want people to write in more scripts for you to read as a newscaster.

I think you should do that more often.

I do all right.

Yeah.

That's great.

Very serious.

Yes.

Got to be.

This is crazy.

I'm not going to read you the subject line.

It says, so check this shit out.

Circa 2007.

I was going to school at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo.

My friend had just moved to Santa Barbara from the East Coast, and I drove down one weekend to help her unpack her pod.

Oh, yeah.

That's like a name check, the POD.

The next morning, I set off back up the 101 toward home.

I was driving my good old dark purple 98 Dodge Neon and rocking out as one does on a solo road trip.

I can't remember exactly what I was listening to, but I do remember I was bopping around and singing at the top of my lungs.

At some point, I noticed an SUV coming up behind me.

The car moved over into the passing lane and came up alongside me.

I continued, unfazed, to bop around and sing.

As the car came alongside me, I briefly looked over and noticed the driver, a middle-aged white dude, was full-on staring at me, which, okay, fine.

I'm sure I looked ridiculous.

However, instead of passing me, he slowed down and got behind me again.

Well, that was weird, I thought.

Then he started flashing his lights like he wanted me to pull over.

Since I was driving an old crappy car, I immediately thought there must be something wrong and he was trying to warn me.

Did I leave my trunk open?

Is my hood unlatched?

Did I forget to put my gas cap back on?

All things I've done before.

There was a rest stop coming up and I almost took the exit when I started having this gnawing feeling that I shouldn't stop.

Thank God.

I did a quick assessment of the car.

It was driving fine, no smoke, no warning lights on the dash.

The hood and the trunk both looked secure as far as I could tell, so I ignored him and kept going.

At that point, he got more aggressive, flashing his lights rapidly and tailgating tailgating me.

If you're familiar with this section of the 101 just north of Santa Barbara, you know it's one of the most beautiful drives in California, but it's largely unpopulated.

And it's also where the Zodiac killer did this exact thing and pulled over a woman.

That woman.

Yeah.

I had my cell phone.

I'm not sure why I didn't call 911, but the rational part of my brain was telling me that I was being paranoid.

I did, however, open it.

This was flip phone era and pre-dial 911, so if shit got real, all I had to do was hit the call button.

That's very smart he stopped flashing his lights but for the next 15 miles he continued to tail me if i slowed down he slowed down if i started speeding he started speeding other cars passed us but no one else tried to gesture to me that something was wrong with my car at this point i'm freaking the out if i call the police what do i say some guy is refusing to pass me no matter what i do i can't even really tell them where i am other than heading northbound somewhere on the 101.

So I just continue to drive, hoping that he'll get bored with this game and move on.

We finally approach the exit for Solving.

I turn on my blinker and started to take the exit.

I look in my rearview mirror and see that he's doing the same.

Quickly I veer back onto the 101 and put the pedal to the metal.

To my relief he continues up the off-ramp to the light.

I figure now's my chance to make my getaway and I start going over 90 miles an hour

towards home.

I decided that getting a speeding ticket at this point would be the best case scenario, which is very smart because that also involves police.

Yeah, but what if you got in a car accident?

There's a lot of minuses to this situation.

I spent the next 40 plus miles staring in my rearview mirror and praying not to see that car again.

By the time I reached Santa Maria, there was still no sign of him and I was nearly out of gas.

I decided I had to stop.

Remember, I am in a purple car.

If he's still looking for me, I don't exactly blend in.

So instead of getting gas right off the exit, I decided to go further into Santa Maria.

As I was fueling up, I did a once-over of my car.

Nothing was wrong with it.

As soon as I had pumped enough gas to get home, I got the fuck out of there, and I never saw him again.

To this day, I wonder what he was doing, or was I just being paranoid?

Was he playing with me, or did I escape the clutches of a serial killer?

Whatever the case, I'm just happy I am still here to tell the story.

Jesus.

Anyway, stay sexy and don't pull over for creepy dudes on the 101 Amber.

Oh my God.

It was totally nefarious.

There's no, what, what was the other point of that besides that?

Like, that is

a textbook.

How many times has your like trunk been open and no one gives a shit?

No one gives a shit.

Like, and you would know.

And it also doesn't matter.

Yes.

It wouldn't matter.

You would know.

And that idea.

If someone's, yeah, tailgating you to convey information.

Yeah, to intimidate you to pull over.

Yeah.

Don't like it.

Yeah.

Okay.

Twin telepathy, nightmare, and Long Island mother-in-laws.

Oh.

Hi, MFM crew.

Hello, Murderinos.

Longtime listener, first-time sender, and apparently part of a paranormal two-for-one deal.

For context, I have a twin sister who also happens to be my absolute best friend.

She also listens to every episode of this podcast, and we have our weekly debriefs.

Oh, thank you.

We're fraternal boy and girl twins, but when we were toddlers, a university wanted to study us because our connection was more like identical twins, full-on communicating without speaking, matching bruises, psychic weirdness territory.

that's fascinating.

Twin telepathy, absolutely real.

It doesn't happen as often now that we live apart, but last week we had one of our creepiest ones yet.

Ooh, adult.

I'm assuming.

Yeah.

What if this was a three-year-old riding

using AI to ride out?

I had a restless night's sleep and one of those dreams I feel more like a memory.

In the dream, I'm walking through the woods at night with a woman whose face I can't quite see.

I only know she's just ahead of me, like she's leading me somewhere.

We reach a black, slow-moving river.

I slip, crash into the water, and when I stand up, I feel a stabbing pain.

I lift my feet and find dirty syringes sticking out at every angle.

Oh my god.

The next day, I tell my sister of this horrifying dream, and she gasps.

She had the exact same dream.

Same faceless woman, same river, same filthy needles in her feet.

What?

We were both horrified, but admittedly impressed that our telepathy still works.

I mean, that's why I.

I know.

For additional context, our mother was scheduled to visit in a couple weeks, but we didn't think much of that detail until I was at dinner with my mother-in-law one night, who had it all figured out.

I tell her the dream we both had, wondering what it all meant.

And without hesitation, in her perfect Long Island accent, which I can't do.

Just give it a whirl.

She says,

Then it says, read in a thick Long Island accent.

Fuck.

New York.

New York.

Oh, that one's easy.

Your mother's coming to visit.

You're walking on pins and needles.

Perfection.

Long Island medium thank you all those hours i watched of that helped she can hear you right now

oh my god

i told my sister we laughed so hard we cried turns out our psychic powers weren't warning us about death danger or the supernatural just a visit with mom stay sexy and don't let your psychic twin connection drag you into the river corey

wow that's fascinating like i love that email yeah just as an experience yeah because like it's something that is so fascinating the twin connect like from those unsolved mysteries of like twins from across the country.

And I it's just like so fascinating.

Yes.

I always wanted a twin when I was a kid.

That's that, yeah, from that book series where it's like a daughter cuts her hands and a mother feels it.

Do you have a telepathic fucking vibe with anyone?

Oh my God.

Would you like to?

This is.

I'm not going to read you half of this title, but the back half is colon, a latch key kid's last stand.

Hello, friends.

Growing up as an 80s, 90s kid, I proudly held the title of latchkey kid, at least until one wintry Colorado afternoon brought that era to an embarrassing end.

Here was the after-school protocol in our house.

My sister, a kindergartner, and I, a third grader, would hop off the bus at our neighborhood stop and walk a few blocks home.

I was then responsible for retrieving the hidden key from the hook behind the bench on our front porch and unlocking the front door.

Just picturing my nephews who are like that age fucking taking themselves home from school.

Bye.

Bye.

You're in charge because you're a little bit older.

Good luck on the next two blocks, seven-year-old and five-year-old.

What the fuck?

What were we thinking?

So crazy.

It was, I think it was like ignorance is bliss.

Yeah.

Partially.

Yeah.

Once inside, I'd make a snack for the two of us and wait for our mom to get home about an hour later.

An hour?

Nothing.

No, we'd be home for like fucking midnight alone.

For real.

Fend for yourself.

I'm like, like, need to get that tattooed on my lower back.

Fend for yourself.

Simple, efficient, foolproof.

Except the lock and I had a complicated relationship.

I'd had issues with it before and told my parents.

My theory, the lock got sticky when it was cold.

They allegedly tested it and said it was fine and told me to proceed as normal with the routine.

Too bad.

Deal with it.

I'm sorry.

I understand that it was time and place, but that's bullshit, parent-wise.

Fix the fucking lock.

Yeah.

The whole thing falls apart if the latch key doesn't work.

Right, right.

Proceed as normal with the routine until one day it wasn't fine.

It was freezing, and yet again, the key wouldn't work.

I tried everything, gentle jiggles, forceful yanks, whispered threats, nothing.

And of course, to make matters worse, I really had to pee.

Did I knock on the neighbor's door for help?

Absolutely not.

We knew them to some extent.

I was far too embarrassed to explain that I'd been defeated by a doorknob and that I was about to pee my pants.

We were cold, snackless, and I was seconds away from disaster.

So I did what any panicked third grader might do.

I yelled at my sister to serve as lookout, ran to the backyard, rushingly fumbled to unhook my Oshkosh overalls, and peed in the winter brown grass.

There was no fence, no landscaping, just our brand new house backing up to a public golf course and my public shame squat.

An hour later, my mom came home to find us shivering on the porch bench.

I still couldn't get the door open.

And my sister, I had planned to carry that backyard secret to my grave, but the snitch routed me out instantly.

My mom was horrified.

Needless to say, our latchkey privileges were revoked.

I'm sorry.

Your mother's privileges should have been revoked.

Yeah, that's right.

All on her.

That's parents' privileges.

To be like, we don't have to worry about them for these three hours.

And the lock's broken, but we don't care.

Like, we're here to blame the parents.

We're here to squarely blame our own parents through this story any way we can.

Always.

Because also, it's so frustrating in your little kid mind.

You're like, like, I should be able to handle this.

It's like, why?

Because someone told you to handle it.

I've never done anything like this before.

We were promptly enrolled in an after-school program, and I was officially relieved of key duty.

Looking back, I probably wasn't truly in trouble, but at the time, it felt like I'd failed the family.

And while my parents may have veered into light trash territory by giving their nine-year-old such responsibility without any real way of knowing if their kids even made it home each day, they were and still are amazing parents.

In fact, my mom's my hero, and I hope to be just like her when I grow up.

I'm a day one listener and since your very first episodes, I've gone from teacher to assistant principal to the principal of a large public high school.

I just want to say thank you for your humor, your hearts, and your fierce love for public education and the people in it.

Amy, P.S.

My quote-unquote favorite murder is the John Bonnet Ramsey case, what we know as your firstest murder.

Growing up as a Colorado kid in the 90s, it was both terrifying and fascinating, and this case definitely sparked my lifelong interest in true crime.

It wasn't until much later that my dad casually mentioned that his brother, my uncle, was one of the many people questioned in the investigation because he had done handyman work for the Ramsays.

Wow.

Now, to be fair, my dad is known for being a bit of a gossip, and I've definitely never had the guts to ask my uncle directly.

So, this is an unconfirmed story, but still, sheesh.

Wow.

Yeah.

Amy.

Amy.

Amy.

You nailed it.

Just mind your family's drama and fucking nailed it.

You just spilled.

Good luck at Thanksgiving.

Okay, my last one's called shitbag stories.

Question mark, question mark, question mark, question mark.

Hello, murder fam.

I'm a murder podcast junkie.

I listen at work while I'm cleaning, showering, driving, and everything in between.

Showering.

I recently discovered MFM, and I just love it.

This is from my mom.

I just love it.

And I just love it.

I just listened to an episode where I believe someone wrote in about being shitbag sisters and prank calling as kids.

It made me think of my younger days and the phone pranks I used to pull.

In my small town in Kentucky, there used to be a rural mobile phone provider.

It was pretty small in comparison to ATT, but it was the only service provider for a country-ass town.

When you signed up for this provider, this is so brilliant.

When you signed up for this provider, your voicemail password was set to the default of pound 9999.

Everyone's was.

This kid figured it out.

Yes.

So on weekends, when there wasn't much to do, we used to call random numbers.

And if the voicemail picked up, we would enter the default password to see if they had changed it.

Yes.

Brilliant.

Yes.

Brilliant.

This is how you have to pass the time in the country.

Yeah.

Yes.

Oh, that makes sense.

If not, we would then change their voicemail greeting to sex sounds, animal noises, and random obscenities.

Some of these poor people had previous greetings ending in God bless and have a beautiful day.

Oh, you just fucked with so many people.

Looking back, I still find it comical and would totally do it again.

You've come to the right podcast.

That's right.

I guess I'm still a shitbag.

LOL.

Stay sexy, don't get murdered.

Rebecca C.

Rebecca C.,

we're with you entirely.

For a second, I thought that that meant that they could listen to other people's messages.

That's what I thought too, but I think it's even more mayhem by leaving

a new outgoing message.

Sex sounds like for children.

Shit.

Shit.

Damn.

Hang up.

Tell us your shitbag stories at my favorite murder at Gmail.

And as two shit bags, I'd like to say, on behalf of Georgia and I, 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 Spolachi.

Email your hometowns to myfavorite murder at gmail.com.

And follow the show on Instagram at MyFavoriteMurder.

Listen to MyFavorate Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And now you can watch us on Exactly Right's YouTube page.

And while you're there, please like and subscribe.

Goodbye.

Bye-bye.