MFM Minisode 461

Speaker 1 This is exactly right.

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Speaker 1 Goodbye. No one brings out your inner monster like a bad neighbor.

Speaker 2 Claire Danes and Matthew Rees find that out for themselves in The Beast in Me, a new eight-episode drama from the team that brought you homeland. Danes plays Aggie Wiggs, a grieving writer.

Speaker 2 Reese plays Niall Jarvis, her new neighbor and possible murderer.

Speaker 1 But who's the monster and who's the bad neighbor? That's another story.

Speaker 2 It's a game of cat and mouse that sets them on a collision course with fatal consequences.

Speaker 1 The Beast and Me, now playing only on Netflix.

Speaker 2 You will not want to miss this. Goodbye.
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Speaker 2 Goodbye. Goodbye.

Speaker 2 Hello, and welcome to my my favorite murder.

Speaker 1 The mini sod. Yeah.
Do you know what we do here? Well, we're about to show you.

Speaker 2 We're going to show you and tell you. We're going to tell you, but first show you.

Speaker 2 Yes, those things. I'm first, right? You're first.
Okay. I'm not reading you.
This subject mine.

Speaker 2 This email has been sitting in my drafts folder for forever, but you guys just asked for fucked up bone stories, basically calling me out.

Speaker 2 This sounds fake. I promise it isn't.
Let's get into it, shall we? I grew up in South San Jose. Hey, NorCal.

Speaker 2 In a suburban neighborhood of tract homes that were built in the early 70s. I was in second grade at the time of this incident, making it about 1991-2-ish,

Speaker 2 1991 or 2. It was a Sunday, and my dad was setting about to transplant a bush from the front yard to the backyard.

Speaker 2 I scampered off down the street to play with friends before I could be roped into any sort of forced labor.

Speaker 2 Apparently, the proper procedure for transplanting a bush involves digging around the roots and attempting to leave the plant with enough root material that it's able to survive in its new home.

Speaker 2 Got it? Sure. The first shovelful or two passed uneventfully, but something small and white came up with the third.

Speaker 2 My dad picked up the object to examine it more closely and found himself holding a bone.

Speaker 2 Maybe a previous owner of our home had buried a beloved family pet in the front yard. In true dad fashion, he set the bone aside and went back to the task at hand.

Speaker 2 The next shovelful of dirt, however, cleared up any pet cemetery questions. There, peeking out from under the damn bush, was a human skull.
Holy shit. There was a whole dead person in our front yard.

Speaker 2 It's worse. I looked up from playing down the street to find a cop car in my driveway.
Lots of police came. A coroner came.

Speaker 2 They dug up the rest of the skeleton, which was about a foot and a half below the surface and curled in a fetal position around the roots of the bush.

Speaker 2 The first bone that had been set aside was a finger bone.

Speaker 2 After much examination, it was determined that this was no recently buried body.

Speaker 2 In fact, it had been there for a very, very very long time and beknuns to us or anyone else in our neighborhood our unassuming tract homes had been built unceremoniously upon a traditional native burial ground no this is the plot of poltergeists yes it is is this person lying they just moved the headstones yeah that's why they said it sounds like a lie but it's not yeah the skeleton that had been unearthed in our yard was that of a mwekma alone man in his 30s who had passed hundreds of years before wow as a second grader i was thrilled that ours was the most interesting house on the street for a while.

Speaker 2 We even made it into the newspaper. A group of archaeology students from San Jose State spent the summer combing through the rest of our yard, looking for other artifacts.

Speaker 2 I'm not sure if they ever found anything. We were informed that it was very probable that there were other bodies buried within our property lines and advised not to dig too deep.
Ugh.

Speaker 2 Once it had been thoroughly examined, the fate of the skeleton had to be determined.

Speaker 2 His descendants, current tribal members, informed my parents that the remains could be moved to the graveyard at Mission San Jose or or be reburied in our front yard.

Speaker 2 Since it was his place before it was ours, the remains were returned to where they had been found. He remains there to this day.
Nice.

Speaker 2 Stay sexy and maybe don't build houses on someone else's sacred ground. Marissa, she, her.
That's wild. I know.

Speaker 1 And then what a beautiful thing that they did. Yes, that's where that person belongs.

Speaker 2 Like,

Speaker 2 oh my God. Yeah, so wild.
Okay.

Speaker 1 I won't read you the subject line, but it does say Bay Area hometown. Okay.
Okay. This is the effects of we were just in Oakland, right?

Speaker 1 It just says, what's up, MFM fam? I grew up in a small suburb of the Bay Area named Millbray. I tried to think of something cool to rep about our town, but sadly nothing comes to mind.

Speaker 1 Anyways, on to the story. Well, let me just stop you there because here's what reps Millbray.
Almost all of my cousins grew up in Millbray.

Speaker 1 Millbrae was where like three or four of my uncles and aunts settled after they moved out of San Francisco. Wow.
We spent lots of time in Millbridge growing up. So

Speaker 1 I think your town is cool. Okay, so at some point, you've asked for stories about people hiding in houses/slash ceilings, and boy, do I have one for you.

Speaker 1 At my high school, once you hit your senior year, you get to elect for all the cool classes like cooking, leadership, yearbook. You know, the classes with no homework.

Speaker 1 The leadership class was the coveted class to get into and was taught by Mr. L, who was always full of energy and fun.

Speaker 1 Everybody wanted to to be in his class because he was always thinking of insane things to create for rallies or murals to paint around the school. You had to apply and get accepted into the class.

Speaker 1 That's how many seniors wanted to be there. As the school year came to its halfway point, we noticed Mr.

Speaker 1 L disappearing a lot from class at random times until that fateful week that we all became aware of what he was doing when we couldn't find him.

Speaker 1 Turns out, he was crawling around in the ceilings of the school, installing cameras above the stalls in the girls' bathrooms.

Speaker 2 Ew,

Speaker 2 what a creep.

Speaker 1 He first convinced the yearbook teacher to switch storage closets with him, which was conveniently located next to the bathrooms, cut an entry point into the ceiling, and would crawl in there during class, passing periods, and at lunch.

Speaker 1 He also installed a camera on the underside of his desk to film girls unknowingly in class. Ew.

Speaker 1 I remember all week girls getting pulled into the principal's office to be made aware that they were on the table. Oh, Jesus.
You could see the small holes above the stalls for months after.

Speaker 1 That's so fucking good.

Speaker 2 And they didn't fill them in. They didn't.

Speaker 1 Because don't you just have to replace that one tile?

Speaker 2 Just leave them.

Speaker 1 Fuck. And we even saw the entry into the ceiling in the storage closet.
Whoa.

Speaker 2 It turns out Mr.

Speaker 1 L wasn't the energetic cold teacher. He was a child predator whose energy was, in fact, fueled by meth.

Speaker 2 Fuck.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 2 Second shoe drop.

Speaker 1 After he was arrested, his YouTube account got leaked.

Speaker 2 Oh, this is recent then. I was picturing like the 70s.
So he was posting this shit.

Speaker 1 No, he wasn't posting that. It doesn't look like.
After he was arrested, his YouTube account got leaked, to which we found videos of meth-fueled ramblings. Oh, dear.

Speaker 2 Those are the worst kind of ramblings.

Speaker 1 I thought our content was cringe.

Speaker 1 So we should definitely do some meth-fueled ramblings.

Speaker 2 Absolutely. Fan Colt.
Hey, Fan Colt. This one's just for you.

Speaker 1 It's us in the 90s.

Speaker 2 Fan Cult exclusive. Matthew Ramble.

Speaker 1 I have some more insane stories from my wife who grew up in a religious cult that tried to resurrect a teenage girl for three days after she had passed. But I'll save that for another time.

Speaker 1 Stay sexy and hug the nurses in your life because they probably need it these days. Sarah.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 2 That's just so fucked up. I was like, that's from the 70s or 80s.
Like, that shit doesn't happen anymore.

Speaker 1 And it's like, nope, that's from recently.

Speaker 1 That's a recent one and it's a real problem and now that they have those weird google glasses that can record you and they just look like glasses but they they're video recorders have you heard of those yeah but i don't want to know too much about them okay well just know that if somebody's like what did you just say with glasses on don't say anything stupid then you just start singing any disney song oh right because you can't so smart

Speaker 2 Every holiday season, it's the same. You've got one person who's impossible to shop for and another who, quote, doesn't need anything.

Speaker 1 Great.

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Speaker 2 Well, I got some underwear from them, but I also got a second pair, my second pair of their Italian leather bow ballet flats. I have one in black now and one in almond because I'm obsessed with them.

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Speaker 2 Okay, here's my next one. I'm not going to read you the title.
Hey, besties. I'm here today to tell you a story from my family history.
This is all about fucking the witch trials.

Speaker 2 In the year of our Lord 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts, my great, great, great, great, and then it says, that's 11 greats. I'm not going to read them all.

Speaker 2 Grandmother, Mary Town SD, was accused by a neighbor girl of witchcraft. She was likely accused in the first place, of course,

Speaker 2 actually by this poor little girl's father, her uncle, who had a real problem with ladies owning land due to how hard she was fighting back against the witch trials happening around her.

Speaker 2 She actually wrote an incredible petition directly to the governor of Massachusetts, begging him to come and end the persecution.

Speaker 2 She was unfortunately hanged on September 22nd, 1692, after being convicted of witchcraft. And the governor returned to Salem only weeks after to put a stop to all this madness.
Isn't that crazy?

Speaker 2 Like there were people in the state who like could have done something and didn't believe in what was happening. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Also, just it's so sad that he didn't come in time, but then what she did actually saved a bunch of other women.

Speaker 2 Well, here you go.

Speaker 2 I have known about Mary and my connection to her for several years, but what I recently learned on a trip to Salem is that she had two sisters also accused of witchcraft.

Speaker 2 Rebecca Nurse, the oldest sister, was hanged the same day as Mary, and the younger sister, Sarah Cloyce, was saved from execution, likely partly in thanks to Mary's petition.

Speaker 2 Several years after the Salem trials, Sarah Cloyce was given three sovereign coins in reparations, which would be about four US dollars then in 1700s money. So today...

Speaker 1 four dollars in the 1700s

Speaker 2 would be around

Speaker 1 $80,000.

Speaker 2 $3,000. Oh.

Speaker 2 Says, so yeah, sorry, the state murdered your sisters, but here's 3K about it.

Speaker 2 Which I love. Anywho, three sisters, witches in Salem.
Sound familiar? That's right. My ancestors served as the real life inspiration for the Sanderson sisters from the legendary Hocus Pocus.

Speaker 2 Holy shit. I know.
Girl. I know.
Then it says, fuck the patriarchy for real.

Speaker 2 I love you ladies and all you stand for, and I'm happy to continue my family legacy of being a loudmouthed bitch who has to be hung to shut up and submit.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 2 Allie, she, her.

Speaker 1 That's right, Allie.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. That's right.
What a, oh my God. I know.

Speaker 1 What a

Speaker 2 legacy. Yeah.
I mean, dang, Allie. That's a great one.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 The subject line of this email is stop storming off when you're drunk.

Speaker 2 Ooh, I've done that.

Speaker 2 You just brought some bad fucking memories up real quick. I mean, you brought some bad, like, I'm so lucky I'm not dead memories up.
Well, here we go.

Speaker 1 And away we go.

Speaker 1 This says, ladies and Stephen, infrared disease.

Speaker 2 Stephen. Stephen.

Speaker 1 Look, listen. I was not a well-behaved teen.
You know how it is. My sister and I are less than two years apart, very close, and got up to all kinds of trouble in our youth.
More on that another time.

Speaker 1 When I was 16, my sister, a few friends, and myself decided we should go to San Francisco for my birthday and get into trouble. And then in parentheses, it says, why were we so dumb?

Speaker 1 And it's like, I'll tell you. Because wherever you lived around San Francisco had nothing going on.

Speaker 2 Absolutely nothing.

Speaker 1 The only place to go. San Francisco was about a three-hour drive.
Oh, no. Where did she live? Monterey or some shit?

Speaker 2 That's like Sacramento, too, isn't it? Sacramento would be like two.

Speaker 1 Maybe they lived in like UK or something. San Francisco is about a three-hour drive from where we lived and it was doable so we did it.

Speaker 1 Wanting to go out and drink but only being 16 years old we came up with a plan.

Speaker 1 We hypothesized that if we were to stroll into a busy bar all dressed up and cute and just take a seat, eventually some drinking age type gentleman would buy us ladies a drink.

Speaker 1 I'd love to tell you we were wrong.

Speaker 1 Unfortunately, we were, all caps, exactly right. I don't remember a lot of what happened that night, but I do remember my sister throwing up in the bathroom.

Speaker 1 I also remember getting into an argument with one of my girlfriends and storming off down the street by myself. Parentheses, I know, I know, but live and learn, right?

Speaker 1 I didn't even make it to the next streetlight when I was approached by a man. He asked me if I wanted a ride or something to that effect.
I declined, but he didn't like that.

Speaker 1 He swiftly swooped me up, threw me over his shoulder, and hastily began to walk towards a nearby parking garage. She's a drunk teenager.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God. Alone.
God.

Speaker 1 A drunk teenager alone.

Speaker 2 Yeah, in a big city. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Luckily, I had enough sense to begin kicking and screaming. Even luckier, though, my friends were not that far and heard the commotion.

Speaker 1 They ran up to the man and screamed at him to put me down with so much force and veracity that they drew the attention of other people nearby. Then he set me down and ran to the parking garage.

Speaker 1 Broke, scared, and completely wasted, we flagged down a taxi that was passing by and explained the situation to the driver.

Speaker 1 This kind man picked up four drunk as fuck teenage girls girls and dropped us back off at our hotel and didn't charge us for the ride.

Speaker 2 Oh my god.

Speaker 1 I was lucky, all caps. Lucky that my friends were nearby and lucky that they had the courage to verbally assault my would-be kidnapper, forcing him to flee.

Speaker 1 I'm a grown-up now with an adult nursing job and adult bills, as well as two children of my own at home.

Speaker 1 I'm also a helicopter parent because I know the kind of shenanigans kids get up to when they leave the house without supervision, and I also know what kind of predators lie in wait.

Speaker 1 Thank you both so much for what you do. Listening to your dynamic makes me feel like I'm talking to my little sister.
She is still my best friend to this day.

Speaker 1 Recently, I convinced her to listen to the pod as we were both enamored with true crime. And then in parentheses, it says, she loves, of course.

Speaker 1 I love you both dearly and listen to the podcast while my 12-hour night shifts drag on and on at the hospital. Holy shit.
Hope to meet you both someday.

Speaker 1 Stay sexy and don't, all caps, walk off by yourself like ever.

Speaker 1 Love always, Jess.

Speaker 2 I can't even blame mine on being a teen. I was in my 20s, and guess where? I walked off alone at night, drunk.
New Orleans. Oh.

Speaker 2 And lucky, the person who came after me was a friend, this dude who saw me leave, and he was like, oh no, and walked me back to my hotel room.

Speaker 1 Like, fucking thanks, dude. I mean, also in towns like that, where the tourism is based on tourists getting drunk, there is a whole

Speaker 1 sub-business of like picking off drunk tourists. Totally.
In all different kinds of ways.

Speaker 2 Totally.

Speaker 2 Oh.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God. Fucked up.
Tell us your stories. So we can't feel so bad.
I know.

Speaker 1 Yes, exactly. We can all collectively shudder about the stupid things we did when we were drunk and 16.

Speaker 2 And then 29.

Speaker 2 Really? Oh, and 29.

Speaker 1 Well, we're always

Speaker 1 16.

Speaker 2 Yeah, in our hearts, we're 16. That's right.

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Speaker 2 Goodbye.

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Speaker 2 Goodbye.

Speaker 2 Okay, this is called My Toddler Sees Dead People.

Speaker 2 Greetings, accolades, and whatnot. This is the story about the time my son outed grandma's secret lover.

Speaker 2 And then it says, or so I thought. And then Molly reminded us that we asked for, or so we thought, theme stories.
Yes,

Speaker 2 we still want them.

Speaker 1 Yes. Or so we thought.

Speaker 2 Talked to my grandma's secret lover, or so I thought.

Speaker 2 In 2018, my husband tragically lost his mother to cancer. Even though she passed before our son was born, we always talk fondly about grandma Sheila to our now three-year-old to keep her memory alive.

Speaker 2 Our son adores looking at pictures of his grandma and hearing stories about her life. One day, while digging in his sandbox, my toddler, unprompted, announced, grandma's with Kevin.
Kevin? I asked.

Speaker 2 Yeah, he replied. Who is Kevin, you ask? We have no idea.
I asked my husband if he knew who our son could be talking about, but nothing rang about.

Speaker 2 He has never met anyone named Kevin in his short life. The son, not the husband, and is only familiar with Kevin McAllister from home alone.

Speaker 2 Is this who he meant, or did grandma have a secret companion she was reunited with in the afterlife? I tried to think back to her funeral.

Speaker 2 Were there any mysterious figures standing inconspicuously in the back of the cemetery, secretly mourning her death? I don't think so.

Speaker 1 Can I just make a guess?

Speaker 2 No, no, you can't. Okay.

Speaker 2 Don't. Our son continued to bring grandma and Kevin every so often, but the mystery of Kevin endured.
Don't say anything. I won't.

Speaker 2 Fast forward a few months when we lost my beloved grandpa, who we affectionately called Bubba. We explained to our son that Bubba had passed away and was now with Jesus.

Speaker 2 Shortly after this, while driving to daycare, my son announced from his car seat that grandma and Bubba are at Kevin's.

Speaker 2 Again, I thought, who the heck is Kevin? And then it hit me. Buddy, I asked, do you mean grandma and Bubba are in heaven?

Speaker 2 To which he raised both his hands into the air and replied, Yeah, up in the sky.

Speaker 2 He thought I was Kevin.

Speaker 2 I have never felt more dumb. Of course, my son was not channeling grandma's secret lover or referencing Macaulay Culkin's iconic character.
He was just a little off with his pronunciation.

Speaker 2 Love the pod, and all you do, stay sexy, and do Kevin's mission.

Speaker 2 Corine rhymes with chlorine.

Speaker 1 My guess was that, did he mean Jesus?

Speaker 2 But that's kind of a crazy because it doesn't sound like Kevin and Jesus. No, but you could, yeah, I see it.
I mean, I don't know.

Speaker 1 That's so good.

Speaker 2 He's with Kevin. He's with Kevin.

Speaker 1 I told you that when Nora was really little, and for some reason, this memory really embarrasses her. But now that she's an adult, I can embarrass her.

Speaker 1 One time they were driving down this little street in Petaluma, like where Copperfield's Books is, Kentucky. It was just like a little main drag with all the businesses on it.

Speaker 1 And there was a couple walking, an old couple, like walking hand in hand. And Nora looked at them and goes, oh, they're walking in Jesus's love.

Speaker 2 And my sister's like, what the fuck?

Speaker 2 Wow, where did she get that from?

Speaker 1 From her Catholic grammar school that she went to. Right.
Uh-huh. They're walking in Jesus'.
And every time I say it, I think she's going to laugh with me. And she's like, Yeah, that's embarrassing.

Speaker 1 You were super Christian when you were four.

Speaker 1 Okay, I'm not going to read you the subject line. It just starts.
My parents parents were high school sweethearts and married young after my dad joined the military, moving us to Florida.

Speaker 1 13 years later, the marriage ended bitterly when I was nine, and a few years later, they married other people.

Speaker 1 Fast forward to my senior year of college, my dad, now living in Corpus Christi, got the much-needed therapy he needed to begin the journey of overcoming his PTSD from serving in the military and began to address his demons.

Speaker 1 One day in September, he had a panic attack at work so bad he thought he had a heart attack. And I rushed to Corpus from San Antonio in record time.
He was fine but shaken up.

Speaker 1 The next morning my mom texted me and asked how he was doing. I texted back, he's great, take a look, and sent her a photo.
She replied, wow, he looks really good.

Speaker 1 I told my dad about this exchange and her comment. He grabbed my phone and looking at the text, looked like a teenager who was just told his crush liked him back.

Speaker 2 Shut the fuck up.

Speaker 1 They began texting and a few months later in December, reunited to watch me walk the stage with my bachelor's degree.

Speaker 1 Turns out they had been reconnecting via text for months and went out on their first date, just dinner, the weekend I graduated.

Speaker 2 Oh my god.

Speaker 1 End of story, right?

Speaker 2 Wrong.

Speaker 1 My dad had divorced his second wife, but my mom was still married. Two months later, my stepdad's cancer,

Speaker 1 which we thought had gone into remission four years earlier, had come back with a vengeance.

Speaker 1 I was on the first flight back to Florida and was able to have one conversation with him before he passed a week later.

Speaker 2 Oh my God.

Speaker 1 My mom was racked with guilt because she had intended to leave my stepdad to go back to my dad.

Speaker 2 So messy, so messy.

Speaker 1 So messy. A few months later, my dad flew to Florida and helped her pack up and move to Texas.
A year later, they had a small apartment together.

Speaker 1 And less than a year after that, they were remarried in a small courthouse ceremony a few miles from where they met.

Speaker 2 Oh my God.

Speaker 1 And just so you know, the subject line of this email is, I parent-trapped my parents.

Speaker 1 I found your podcast in 2022, shortly after I gave birth to my daughter, and postpartum depression and anxiety had me in a chokehold.

Speaker 1 I went all the way back to the first episode, and your voices got me through one of the worst periods of my life as I cared for my newborn.

Speaker 1 It took me two years to catch up, and I now listen religiously. My husband and I just went to see your live show in Austin a few weeks ago.

Speaker 1 Like many others have said, thank you so much for speaking so vehemently about mental mental health.

Speaker 2 A. What? I've always thought that's such a trip.
Like as someone whose parents divorced when I was five, there was one, they didn't like each other, they never talked.

Speaker 2 There was one moment in time in high school where they suddenly got along and I'd see them together and it was just so fucking weird. Like,

Speaker 2 to see your parents together and that be weird is a weird feeling. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 Right, because it just wasn't the norm for you.

Speaker 2 No. Yeah.
But yeah. Oh, that's a trip.
Oh, I'd love for

Speaker 2 reuniting stories, but I don't like that this poor stepdad.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's the kind of thing where like that mother must have, it's not just guilt. I bet she was overwhelmed with the synchronicity where it's like,

Speaker 1 it's just the thing that's happening. And it's almost like you didn't want that to happen.
No, you just,

Speaker 2 oh, yeah. God, messy.

Speaker 1 So messy.

Speaker 2 Send us your messy family stories at my favorite murder at Gmail. The messier, the better.
The messier the better.

Speaker 1 I remember seeing a woman who was, there was a boy in my class who I liked, and so I paid way too much attention to what he was doing. And his parents got divorced.

Speaker 1 And then his dad started dating a woman who looked literally exactly like the mother. And that woman was the like worker in the place where me and my dad just were.

Speaker 1 So when we got into the car, I go, that's so-and-so's dad's new girlfriend. And the girlfriend looks exactly like the ex-wife.

Speaker 1 And I was like, isn't that weird? And my diagram goes, Karen.

Speaker 1 You never know what people are going to do. Like he gave this thing as if he had been waiting to talk about it forever, but it was just a super general thing.
Like people are nuts.

Speaker 2 or everybody has a type and they stick, even adults.

Speaker 1 Yeah, oh my god, you never know what people are gonna do.

Speaker 2 I was like, oh, that's very true.

Speaker 2 Well, we know what you're gonna do, and that's having listened to this already.

Speaker 2 We appreciate you having listened. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 And send us your stories if you have anything related to anything you just heard and you would like to add to the conversation. Yeah, anything at all.
My favorite murder, gmail.com.

Speaker 2 Stay sexy and don't get murdered. Come on,

Speaker 2 Elvis. Do you want a cookie?

Speaker 1 This has been an Exactly Right Production.

Speaker 2 Our senior producers are Alejandra Keck and Molly Smith.

Speaker 1 Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.

Speaker 2 This episode was mixed by Liana Squolachi.

Speaker 1 Email your hometowns to myfavorite murder at gmail.com and follow the show on Instagram at myfavorite murder.

Speaker 1 Listen to MyFavorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 2 And now you can watch us on Exactly Right's YouTube page and while you're there please like and subscribe. Goodbye.
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