142 - Live at the Durham Performing Arts Center

Summary

Podcast Summary: My Favorite Murder – Episode 142, Live at the Durham Performing Arts Center (Oct 11, 2018)

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Overview

In this lively live show from Durham, North Carolina, Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark bring their signature blend of true crime storytelling and sharp, self-deprecating humor to a packed house. The duo covers two notable North Carolina-centric murders: the tragic 1929 Lawson Family Murders and the multi-generational “Bitter Blood Murders.” The episode also features a hometown murder story from an audience member, lots of tangential banter, and insightful musings on life, family, and the unique quirks of North Carolina.

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Opening Banter & Tour Life (02:20–22:55)

Key Points:

• Karen and Georgia humorously lament the “Mint Challenge” (02:32), a pre-show tradition gone wrong.
• They discuss tour travel quirks, hotel rooms, buying expensive Durham fashion online, and misconceptions about North Carolina weather and natural disasters (03:08–06:53).
• “We know earthquakes. I know an earthquake. ...But we don’t know hurricanes.” – Karen (06:12)
• Family anecdotes: Karen’s cousin in the audience, Georgia’s dad house-sitting mishaps, and stories about childhood mishaps with medication (08:42–13:28).
  • “You gotta get a little poison in the kids.” – Georgia (12:11)
• Lighthearted fashion chat about dresses, shapewear, and owning your look on tour (13:48–17:58).
• Local food shout-outs to Durham barbecue and fried green tomatoes (18:14–19:17).
• They address first-time audience members, explain the podcast’s mix of comedy and true crime, and gently roast their Gen Z relatives and the crowd (21:33–23:17).
  • “Generation Z don’t give a...They don’t. ...We’ve ruined the planet for them, and they’re like, ‘Guess what? I’m gonna wear a white dress every day. You did this to me’.” – Georgia (22:24)

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Special Note: Phoebe Judge Shout-Out (23:48–24:22)

• The hosts riff on inviting “Criminal” podcast host Phoebe Judge, who couldn’t attend due to “interview[ing] a mobster.” (24:13)
• “That’s the coolest excuse I’ve ever heard.” – Karen (24:16)

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Main Story #1: The Lawson Family Murders (Georgia) (26:39–65:08)

The Crime

• Charles “Charlie” Lawson, a tenant tobacco farmer in North Carolina, murdered his entire family (wife Fannie, six of their seven children, and their baby) on Christmas Day, 1929.
• The family had recently taken a formal portrait (decidedly rare and expensive for the time), and all wore new store-bought clothes—an uncharacteristic luxury (32:27–34:43).
  • “My children don’t need Christmas presents. They have everything they need.” – (32:27)
• On Christmas morning, after holiday chores and a layer cake (noted for its garnish of raisins), Charlie methodically killed his family with a shotgun and bludgeoned them to ensure death. He then arranged their bodies with arms crossed and stones under their heads (38:10–41:52).

Aftermath and Investigation

• Only Arthur Lawson, the eldest son, survived—sent on an errand for ammunition, he learned about the murders from townsfolk (43:18–44:54).
• Charlie fled to the woods, walked in circles, and eventually killed himself, leaving two cryptic suicide notes: “Troubles can cause” and “No one to blame.” (46:35–47:23)
  • “Quick reminder, you’re to blame.” – Georgia (47:18)
• The family, dressed in their new portrait clothes, were buried together; 5,000 people attended their funeral (47:54–49:03).
• In the immediate aftermath, the house became a “tourist attraction,” with 25¢ admission and visitors stealing raisins from the infamous Christmas cake, which had to be put under glass for protection (50:30–52:09, 53:03–54:35).

Theories & Legacy

• Possible motives: head trauma from a pickaxe injury, mental illness, or dark family secrets (notably, incest and Marie’s pregnancy by Charlie as revealed decades later by a relative) (57:05–59:03).
• Local rumors included mob involvement—debunked with humor (“It’s never the mob.” – Karen, 55:15).
• The murder site’s materials were eventually used to build a haunted bridge, spawning local ghost stories (61:49–62:39).
• The cake's final fate: bought at auction by Myrtle Brown, who summarily chucked it into the woods. “That’s when the satanic raccoon was born.” – Georgia (64:52)
• Song “The Murder of the Lawson Family” (by the Carolina Buddies, 1930) immortalized the incident in local culture (52:50–53:55).

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Main Story #2: The Bitter Blood Murders (Karen) (66:50–109:20)

The Crime

• A convoluted, intergenerational, and interstate saga of murder, mental illness, familial dysfunction, and doomsday prepping.
• Susie Newsome Lynch – privileged, volatile, with a controlling mother (Florence) and a penchant for drama and obsession (70:01–71:59).
• Susie’s disastrous marriage to Tom Lynch, eventual custody battle, and return to North Carolina after living in Albuquerque and even China.
• Reacquaintance with cousin Fritz Klenner (doctor’s son, apocalypse prepper, pathological liar who posed as a CIA agent and Green Beret) (80:06–88:30).
  • “Turns out he’s a fucking lying liar who lies.” – Karen (81:55)

The Crime Spree & Murders

• The duo (now lovers) spiral deeper into paranoia, isolating Susie’s sons from their father and feeding them vitamins and anti-family propaganda.
• 1984: Tom Lynch’s mother (Dolores) and sister (Janie) are found murdered in Kentucky (95:27–97:04).
• 1985: Florence and her husband Bob (Susie’s parents), and grandmother Hattie are killed in Winston-Salem, NC (98:00–99:28).
  • “There’s not enough cold water in the world.” – Karen (98:00)
• Police track Klenner and Susie—who, after a high-speed chase, die in a fiery standoff, along with the two boys, who had been given cyanide and then shot (103:14–108:10).

Aftermath and Analysis

• The full horror emerges: Susie likely participated in the earlier murders. Two shots before the explosion matched the boys’ fatal wounds.
• The family’s social standing, legal wrangling, and mental illness all intersect in this deeply tragic, uniquely Southern story.
• Tom Lynch ensured his boys were laid to rest in New Mexico, “the last place they were truly happy.” (108:48)
• “It’s so much more fun when the doomsday preppers just keep on prepping and everything’s just kind of okay.” – Georgia (109:29)

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Hometown Murder: Audience Story (Anna from Scotland Neck, NC) (111:09–116:28)

• Anna shares about a distant cousin, Libby, who embezzled money from her husband's business and killed him during July 4th fireworks to mask the gunshots.
• The body was hidden in the backyard; Libby was caught after failing to keep her story straight and is currently serving time. Her justification: she "wanted to save him from the embarrassment of her embezzling." (114:51)
  • “I won’t make her sound any worse than a murderer.” – Anna (116:16)
• Karen and Georgia express appreciation for the crowd’s stories and the Murderino community.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “You gotta get a little poison in the kids.” – Georgia (12:11)
• “I love it when my cousins come out because... she goes back and tells my family, ‘Georgia’s not a loser.’” – Karen (08:10)
• “Maybe all of this is fake. Maybe this is a dream.” – Georgia (28:30)
• “Generation Z don't give a...We've ruined the planet for them, and they're like, ‘Guess what? I'm gonna wear a white dress every day.’” – Georgia (22:24)
• “You knew [the cake] was foreshadowing.” – Georgia (51:54)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Opening / Banter & Tour Life: 02:20–22:55
• Introduction to Night’s Murders, Format Explanation: 21:33–23:17
• Shout-out to Criminal and Phoebe Judge: 23:48–24:22
• Georgia’s Story: Lawson Family Murders: 26:39–65:08
• Karen’s Story: Bitter Blood Murders: 66:50–109:20
• Audience Hometown Murder Story: 111:09–116:28

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Tone & Style

Informal, irreverent, and conversational; both hosts blend macabre details with comic relief. They riff on Southern culture, poke fun at their own neurotic habits, and share a strong sense of empathy for victims and survivors of true crime while playfully skewering small-town rumors and family dramas.

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Closing

Karen and Georgia thank the Durham crowd for kicking off their fall 2018 tour, express deep gratitude for the Murderino community, and highlight a local fundraiser. In signature style: “Stay Sexy and Don’t Get Murdered.” (118:19–118:27)

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For fans of true crime and comedy, this episode is a quintessential “MFM” mix of deeply researched storytelling and hilarious, insightful banter—set against the background of North Carolina’s most chilling crimes.

Transcript

[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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What's up, daryl?

Wow.

Shit.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I almost choked on my mint.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Karen has this habit of putting a mint in as she walks like out the green room. And I was like, I'll do it too. And no, it's a huge mistake because it's still in my mouth.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I forgot to tell you, I call it the Mint Challenge.

[Karen Kilgariff]

The Mint Challenge.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You have to finish your mint before you start talking. It's really hard because a lot of mints are very solid and they're very spicy.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's kind of like life. It's a metaphor.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You know what's crazy.

You guys?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Hi.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Listen, when they said, where do you guys want to kick off your fall 2018 tour? We said, we said, is there a place that's like hip and cool but also has a lot of natural disasters?

That's right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

We want a little over the radar, a little under the radar. We want there to be radars, surroundings.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I actually, I can't ever bring myself to leave my hotel room when we're on tour. But if I did, what I really wanted to do was go out and buy huge galoshes and wear them on stage.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, too soon.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No way.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Just right. Not for this podcast.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Perhaps three minutes late. People are like, it didn't really affect us here. This comedy doesn't matter to us at all. Don't group us in.

It affected her. Yeah.

Scream if you barely made it here tonight.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But not just because you were tired and didn't want to get out. There we go.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We should have both started screaming.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Me too.

Vince and I went for a walk when we got into town yesterday and I have never been, I have never met. So murder many murderinos in a like three block radius. Yeah.

Represent.

All lovely.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's cool.

[Karen Kilgariff]

One gal was like, come to my restaurant tonight. And I was like, that's how you talk to me?

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's what I'm looking for.

[Karen Kilgariff]

All I want in life is to be invited to restaurants.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's funny. You know what I did is I saw the stores, the really cool stores that we passed as we drove into town. And then I shopped at them online.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Are you serious?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes. There was one store, Georgia, like, we have to go there. And then I was like, I'm not going there. Then I looked up, oh my God, what wonderful pieces they had. Everything cost 500 fucking dollars. Is this a Richie Rich town and we just don't realize it?

[Karen Kilgariff]

No.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay, then how does vert and vertical stay in business?

Because everything there was five to $700.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I will go.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And I was going to buy it too.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I will go in a store that has shift dress on the mannequins. Linen. Like, like when it's like lineny and it looks not super form fitted. Which in my mind is like, well, not a lot of work went into this. Then. Then it's like, no, this is the most expensive, like hand dyed linen.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's like we imported it from the other side of Durham. And.

So there's a. There's a $400 linen tax on it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And you were going to get something new because you. We thought it would be cold here.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And we didn't know. See laugh at us on the news.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Where I'm the news where George and I live on the news. It seems to be very cold and wintry and stormy here. So I was like, see, we don't.

[Karen Kilgariff]

We know earthquakes. I know an earthquake. You know what I mean? But we don't know hurricanes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No, it's not. That's not our specialite. So I was like, so we see.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Rain and we're like, that's cold.

Fucking. No, not Kidding.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Not on the new Earth.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Earth version 2 point.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's fucking hot. Hurricane time, everybody.

Donate to Greenpeace. We're fucked.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It'S for real.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's no joke.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No, it's not a joke, but so funny. Anyway.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Speaking of, this is my favorite murder of the podcast.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, yes. Hello.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Thank you.

That's Karen Calgara.

[Georgia Hardstark]

This is Georgia Hardstark.

Your hands are sticky.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Your hands are a little clammy.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You know what I did along with the mint challenge? I like to do the throw on some nail polish two minutes before you walk challenge. Right? And then you're like. Then immediately I'm like, oh, I need something at the bottom of my purse.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You know what I did? I painted my nails a little. Or like, sooner. I was like, I got this. I'm not going to freak out. And then I put my hands through my hair. So now I have nail polish here. There's nail polish on my story.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Sure.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's not blood.

And there's probably nail polish in my hair a little bit.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You have a light ombre. It's cool. We're going to bring it back.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's right. Oh, my baby cousin is here.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You're not her. Don't raise your hand.

Maybe she knows her. She's not a baby, though. Don't worry. She's 19. But what if she had on the, like, baby headphones still and her friend.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Lifted her over his head? She's here.

[Karen Kilgariff]

She's right here.

[Georgia Hardstark]

She loves your work.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I love it when my, like, my cousins will come out because, like, it's, you know, she's in college here and everything. And so then she goes back and tells my family, like, georgia's not a loser.

[Georgia Hardstark]

She's a big.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And she came back. She's like, people have your face on their shirts. That's right. I don't think she's ever listened to the podcast.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You're like, could you call my mom and tell her, please, I'm a success?

Oh, don't include the crying in the call.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Can I tell you, speaking of my parents.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Do you want to know what my dad did? Yes. And why he's just lost his house watching privileges. Uh.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, that was fast. We've been gone for a day.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

Yeah. Every time.

My dad. Sometimes my dad will watch the house. Sometimes Steven will. Steven's actually taking over tomorrow. Thank fucking God. Not because I'm kicking my dad out. Steven.

He's not here.

[Georgia Hardstark]

He's not here.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So he always, like. My dad will, like, break something always. Whenever he stays like, that's the price you pay, which is you don't pay a price because you don't pay him.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You put all your good stuff way up high on the high shelves so Marty can't get to it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. And he'll leave it out with, like, a note that's like, sorry, I broke.

[Georgia Hardstark]

This.

So I don't know how to use mugs, Marty. Put your fingers through that handle part and. Well, forget it. Just break it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Don't try to explain.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Just break it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So Elvis gets these pill pockets with his heart meds in them. And they are like cute little pill pockets.

[Georgia Hardstark]

But what's a pill pocket for all the people who are not, who don't know cat shit.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's a cat treat with a hole in it that you pay a shit ton of money for. Just a fucking cat treat with a hole in it. And then you put the pill. Cause cat's like, jesus, have you ever tried to pill a cat?

Nothing has ever stressed you out more in your life than fucking opening the jaws of cats and dramming a pill in there.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Have you ever opened his jaw too wide like a boa constrictor? It just detaches and comes apart.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You're never watching the cats.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So we put it. We make all his pills for the weekend and we're like, okay, give him one a day, dad. Like, we put him in a drawer. Because Elvis, I guess my dad doesn't know this is fucking insane. And he's knocked a sandwich out of someone's hand before to get to it. No fucking joke.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I love that guy.

[Karen Kilgariff]

He's out of his mind. So you have to, like, hide the pill pockets or he'll eat them. He'll open the bag with his teeth and eat all the pill pockets. Guess what? My dad left the pill pockets on the counter. He ate them all. He's fine. Everything's fine.

[Georgia Hardstark]

How many days worth of three. Oh, shit.

[Karen Kilgariff]

He's fine. I've talked to the vet, I've yelled at my dad.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Everything's fine. It's all been settled. This might make you feel a little bit better. When I was 4 years old.

Oh, yeah, it's the same exact story, but there were no. It wasn't like there was a treat around my dad's heart medication.

No, I just ate them because they were pink.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I can't blame you.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And because no one watched me ever, any time of the day, day or night. Everyone had their own shit going on. I was like, fine, I'll go into the bathroom and eat some bathroom candy.

[Karen Kilgariff]

How many?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Well, my mom wasn't sure because she came in and I was sitting on the counter with like one hanging out of my mouth. And she immediately screamed and took me to the emergency room and she was like, I was positive you were gonna die. It's fucking adult heart medication, dude.

[Karen Kilgariff]

100%.

[Audience Member / Guest]

But.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That'S right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Just fucking. I'm telling you.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And she has the strongest heart. To this day, my heart is that.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Of a L.

I actually do think though, that is the thing about kids these days being like helicopter parented is that I think we're making them very weak internally.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh. By not poisoning them on the regular.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You gotta get a little poison in the kids.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You know, Leave out a sip of detergent.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, no, just a half a Tide pod.

[Karen Kilgariff]

What?

Send your emails to my favoritemurgmail.com complaints and concerns too. Child welfare. Don't worry, we don't have children ever. Ever.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's our guarantee to you.

For you or our children.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Don't worry. I actually ate.

Each one of you has to take care of us.

[Georgia Hardstark]

When we are poor and confused later. It'll be for me for like 10 years. Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's why I just eat all my birth control pills in one day.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yep, you just power 30 down.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's right. Like Elvis.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I mean, I'm kind of proud of him, but my dad. Not my dad, my cat. Yeah, my dad is in big fucking trouble.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Here's the thing. If I were, I'm gonna devil's advocate for Elvis right now and be like, hey, guess what? For the past three years, you've been tempting me with a cookie every fucking Thursday and Sunday. Oh yeah, and you set me up to love this shit.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, it's totally my fault, 100%.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I was gonna take part of that blame with you.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, you can have it.

Yeah.

Thank you.

[Georgia Hardstark]

But in doing so, I was gonna attack you verbally as a cat. I'm sorry, it got confusing.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, verbally. They don't know the difference.

[Georgia Hardstark]

With my silver nails. That's it. Oh, bye.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Tell us about your dress.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Guys, listen, I forgot to lose some weight.

I do it.

I've gone on several tours in a row now.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's hard to remember. You got a couple months off.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I lay around and then I stand up and I go to try on dress. I'm like, what's happening? But here's the thing. I don't care anymore. I just.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And I don't mean that insincerely. I mean it like it's Time to have a good time. Yeah, it's really. This couldn't be a more ideal situation in every way. And as I was pulling this fucking, essentially black tube sock of a dress on tonight, because I didn't go shopping before I left, I was like, I'll just bring that black one. And so I tried it on my hotel room, and now I do. Here's the thing about me. Like the owners of Vert and Vertical, I love a large shift. I love something that looks almost like a hospital gown.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And so a muumu of sorts.

[Georgia Hardstark]

A muumu with no pattern, right?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Monochromatic mumas are my jam.

So when I pulled this on, I was like, this is rough stuff for me.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That is the furthest from a muumu I have ever.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's pretty tight. But what I did was I took the dress and then I just stretched it over the back of a large chair in my hotel room.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You mean you, like, put it over the chair?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Pulled it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Holy shit. Oh, my God.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It was like, all the way out like this.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Thank you.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, thank you so much.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And this is why. Yeah, you shouldn't spend $500 on a dress yet in your life.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I should only shop at Target for dresses?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Why wouldn't one?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Essentially, they should be disposable. But anyway, I'm feeling pretty good about it. Even if there's no pockets, I like it. Thank you.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Thank you.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I'm here representing girls with huge tits and big butts.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Look, we're everyone. We're everywhere.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We're all around you. I don't know why I'm yelling at them about.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Let them know. Make it known. Have it known.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I got really threatening. Now let's take a look at your dress.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay. This is a cute. I love that someone sent me this. You guys, sometimes you get shit for free when you're a podcaster.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's Beyonce stuff. Are labels asking Georgia to wear their clothes?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes. Fancy free?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, my back.

Joanie Clinton. Joanie Clothing gave me this dress.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So cute.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I am so cheap. This thing probably cost 50 bucks. And I'm like, I'll be your spokesperson forever, but I don't care. I really love it. It's great. I also, for the first time in, like, two tours, put on my Spanx. For the first time.

[Georgia Hardstark]

How do I feel?

[Karen Kilgariff]

I feel good about it. I feel fine about it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You said, I feel good about it, but you couldn't get the air out of your luggage.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I feel very good. I like it. I like my girdle. This is how long it's been.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It feels good to constrict my entire midsection.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I'm lightheaded yet skinny. That's all that matters.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Remember that noise that you heard when I was in the bathroom and you were putting on makeup? Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It was this. It was Karen's getting ready. And then it was a. Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And what that was was my knee hitting the wall as I was pulling on this weird bathing suit I have underneath this to smooth out my shape and really make me look like a harbor seal.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I was just like, ugh. Did you hear in the bathroom? I went to bathroom to get ready. Which shared a wall. Did you hear me scream? No, I wasn't sure if you did because when I was pulling mine on and doing an elbow up thing while I had wet nails, by the way, I did triggered the sensor for the paper towel dispenser and it went at me and I went like. It just scared the ever loving shit out of me.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Guys, we're so excited to be on tour again. I can't tell you.

[Karen Kilgariff]

He's the best.

There's all kind of movements about it. We're feeling good.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We're going to get so flexible.

[Karen Kilgariff]

We're going to get. By the end of this tour, we're going to be flexible. And I feel like at the end.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Of this tour, I haven't eaten any.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Barbecue yet, but I really want to.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, yeah, we got to do that.

[Karen Kilgariff]

We've only.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We've only gotten 15,000 recommendations where it's like, listen, I know other people have told you where to eat barbecue. Eat barbecue. Or I say barbecue and you're right, and we will.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I do love that. I've looked at like three menus so far at different places, and every single one of them has fried green tomatoes on them. Yeah, this is my pimento cheese. I didn't know. Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Both great movies from the 90s.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I mean, pimento cheese was the sweet corn.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Fried Green Tomatoes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's just. It's a series of movies where they just make a blt. Yep. A really good blt.

[Georgia Hardstark]

A really good one.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Delicious.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Hear us out.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Look.

I'm trying to really quickly name. It got quiet for a second. So everyone's like, I'll yell now.

I was trying to really quickly name the third movie which would have something to do with like, center cut bacon.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I just got. My brain got tired.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Let's do maple bacon.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Maple bacon. Okay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

All right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

See? Shouldn't have done it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Baby Jim Lettuce. Forget it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

The Third movie, Baby Gem Lettuces. Hold on, hold on. The third movie, garlic Aioli. Oh, it's not a funny joke to begin with. So why would the third version of it be good at all?

[Karen Kilgariff]

And they just named salad sandwich toppings. I don't know where I am.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Good. Great. Oh, they shipped out our very special oriental rug. That's good. We have that.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. We got it cleaned for the evening.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We demand a rug rug from Cost plus at every show.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's right. That's right. Otherwise, Stephen gets fired. We should sleep on it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I wonder. This is your new apartment, Steven. I wonder if for this tour we should get a different floor covering. A more irritating, bigger pain in the ass floor covering.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's a little like a. Like a geometric shape. Let's give someone a seizure from just the shapes happening in the pattern.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Like a puzzle rope.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Like a little kid's puzzle rug.

[Georgia Hardstark]

This is the personal side where we were just essentially talking to each other.

[Karen Kilgariff]

We're working out the plans of this tour. Right now.

Our tour manager's on speakerphone, listening.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Hello. Any notes?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Should we sit down? Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Thank you so much.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Thank you. We love sitting down. Oh, it's our favorite thing.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Thank God it's a low, high chair.

[Karen Kilgariff]

We have our sweat towel.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Sometimes the high chairs are fucking high. Oh, look. And unstable.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Surprise. Mint. What? No, I wouldn't do that.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, that's the mint you spit out earlier.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

I hope.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I always bring my glasses in case something good happens out in the office. I want to be able to see it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And our Evian. We won't drink anything else.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. We have a deal with Evian.

Just kidding.

[Karen Kilgariff]

We have a deal with the TV show that we just watched. What's it called?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Evian.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Where she puts vodka in that Evian bottle.

Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Sharp objects.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Thank you.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Got it. I got it. I didn't hear anybody say it. I got it by myself.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You get no credit. This is a true crime comedy podcast.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, that's right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's right. We talk about horrible things. Horrible in all different ways. It's complex. It's all contextual. So sometimes we're laughing, and sometimes we're very serious. If you've never been here, if somebody has forced you to this show against.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Your will, like my cousin.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Apologize.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Like Eliza.

[Georgia Hardstark]

My cousin. Like George's cousin.

[Karen Kilgariff]

What if she walks out?

[Georgia Hardstark]

That'd be kind of amazing. I know. What if that was the goal of the 2018 Fall Tour, is to infuriate family members? I've got some people.

[Karen Kilgariff]

She wore a white dress. To my wedding. So she.

Help you out? It's okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

She's young.

[Karen Kilgariff]

She'll know how horrible that was.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Generation Z don't give a. They don't. They owe nothing to anyone. Anyone. We've ruined the planet for them. And they're like, guess what? I'm gonna wear a white dress every day. You did this to me. I can't get a job. There's no money left. Everyone's a douchebag.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I'm gonna wear a white dress.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

God, I didn't realize how much I love Generation Z.

I'm gonna marry into Generation.

Get a nice, nice fucking 24 year old up in my house.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Do it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That might be what I need. Tell your friends.

Spread the word.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Next is our college tour, but it's just Karen's husband tour. Karen's future husband tour.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Then we go into high school tour. What?

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's not allowed. I want you to have a husband who's under 21. And he can't come into our shows that we do in clubs. He has to wait outside.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I make him wait in the hotel room every weekend. Yeah.

Mommy's gonna go do a show.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay. You're first.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We were in the middle of apologizing to people who've never heard this podcast. But I mean, at this point.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Pretty right on.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Why not join us? Don't fight us.

Oh, people were kind of talking about this. There was a little excitement in there. I just wanted to disabuse anyone of the notion.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Do it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Phoebe Judge could not come tonight. We invited her. She was very excited, but she said in a message, not to me personally, but it was on social media. She said I have to fly out of town and interview a mobster.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Interview a mobster? That's the coolest excuse I've ever heard.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It also could be so fake, but still. I love her so much.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Of course you do, Phoebe Judge.

[Georgia Hardstark]

But because she's not here, I just want to say, I'm Phoebe Judge. And that is criminal that she's not here tonight. What the fuck?

[Karen Kilgariff]

We came to your town.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

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[Georgia Hardstark]

Learn [e-mail] this show is sponsored by MIDI Health.

[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

Goodbye.

[Georgia Hardstark]

The murder that I'm going to do tonight I first heard on the podcast Criminal.

Which I know I've been doing a lot lately. I swear to God, Phoebe, I'm gonna stop. I'm stop biting your style very soon.

But because we're here, I'm doing the Lawson family murders.

Now this is a North Carolina specialty, but it actually took took place on the coast. But I'm doing it here tonight because it's kind of one of your oldest and most infamous murders.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I'm not doing that one. No. I don't know why. It sounded familiar and I was like, I got this cold chill. Like I asked Steven if I could do this one right. No. Okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No. Steven's supposed to be in charge of that. Making sure that we don't do the same ones at the same time.

[Karen Kilgariff]

He did.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Although at a Certain point, it's just going to overlap. And who. Who really gives a shit at the.

[Karen Kilgariff]

End of the day?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Generation Z.

Okay, so let's see. This starts out. Charles Lawson was born in 1886. So it's not the same.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Right?

[Georgia Hardstark]

No. Year's 1980s. Right. Okay, 1886 in Lawsonville, North Carolina. Now, this morning, when I reread this document, I was like, did I just write Lawsonville? Because his last name is Lawson and there's no such place. But I looked it up, and Lawsonville does exist. It's north of here. So he was born in Lawsonville, North Carolina, into a family of 11 children.

[Karen Kilgariff]

The town named after. Why am I even asking?

[Georgia Hardstark]

I mean, doesn't matter. I wish I knew that. The family history. But it doesn't seem like he comes from the kind of family that they name a town after them. And you'll see what I mean later.

In 1911, at the age of 25, he marries a woman named Fanny Manning.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Does he?

[Georgia Hardstark]

He does, yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Cool.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Maybe all of this is fake. Maybe this is a dream.

They start a family. They eventually have eight children. This is what everybody did back then. Their kids were Arthur, Marie, Carrie, Mabel, James, Raymond, and Mary Lou was the baby. They had one son in 1914. He died shortly after birth, which was not uncommon back then, because back then, 67% of children died by age 5.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Holy shit.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So you want to know what all the haunted shit is about? It's probably numbers like that.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Where people are like, oh, if ghosts were real, why don't we have them all the time? Because there used to be a 67% mortality rate.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Jesus.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Sorry to yell at you. 1920.

Charlie's brother Marion decides to move to Stokes county. Near Germantown, or Germanton.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Germanton.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Germanton, she said. The girl from the theater department.

The.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Only one with the courage to correct us.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Germanton.

I can project two.

So they move on down to Stokes county to work as tenant tobacco farmers. So Charlie and Fannie, they decide that this is his brother Marion. He does it first. Charlie and Fanny are like, we want to go, too. So in the next, they move down. And then in the next seven years, Charlie Lawson works hard. By 1927, he saved enough money to buy his own tobacco farm out on Brook Cove Road. And I think we have a picture of the house. Oh, we get to do it ourselves.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Love this Control. Now we got a lot. You sing. Look at that.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That looks like it sucks to live in. Look at this. Just chicken wire. Yep. It looks. You know, someday Chicken wire is going to become like the hip, new cute trend. Yeah. And then I'm gonna. Then I'm done.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And then they'll be like, could. I'm gonna knock my house down and redo the Lawson family home in the style of. The shabby chic style of the Lawson family home.

[Karen Kilgariff]

This was back before paint, artisanal chicken wire.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It also looks like it was before windows, too. I was just like, we need a house, but let's not go crazy with the extras. We'll take a chimney and that's fucking all.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Looks like it was before happiness.

[Georgia Hardstark]

The architect. I was thinking of unhappiness when I built this.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's prejoy. It's a prejoy civilization.

Okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

A prejoy home with a short porch.

The mortgage payment on this home was $500 a month, which seems a bit steep when you look at the fact that it looks like there's huge spaces between every board.

Where brats just go in. Did the house come with spiders or did you have to bring your own? Was it a BYOS situation? Okay, so $500, of course, back then, was a shit ton of money. The equivalent, I don't know, $7,000 a.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Month, probably a lot.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So he barely makes the mortgage every month. He's a tobacco farmer. So they live a very simple, no frills life. No extra money for anything. Not even birthday presents or Christmas presents. And in fact, one time a neighbor offered to give Charlie Lawson money so he could buy his children Christmas presents. And he replied, my children don't need Christmas presents. They. They have everything they need. Well, clearly, Charlie, we see.

The extreme luxury your children live in.

[Karen Kilgariff]

The word need and Christmas presents.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I mean, no, they've got that board that I nailed up on the porch that they can lean against, and that's plenty for my children. They have all the slivers they could want at our house.

So still, friends and family would sneak candies and fruits to Fanny so that the children could have a little something on Christmas morning. But it was tough, a tough life. And also, Charlie was a very strict father. And he. Of course, back then, whipping children was a very common practice, and he apparently enjoyed it. He liked to beat, especially his oldest son, Arthur, and he beat Arthur until Arthur was a teenager. And then in the classic story that we've all heard once, Arthur was taller than him. Then he came at him with the whip, and Arthur took the whip and broke it over his knee and said, that's the last time you're gonna beat me, dad. And right. Charles is like, okay, that's fine. I'll just go over to the girls and beat them. So.

Right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Boo.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So he, you know, he's, he's a strict, old timey farming North Carolina dad. So sometime around late November, early December of 1929, Charlie Lawson tells the family they're going in into town for a surprise. And once they're there, he buys them all brand new store bought clothes, which was like unbelievable. And he also buys the younger children toys, which of course they've never had. And it's a huge deal. They're all kind of freaking out, but that wasn't it. Then he walks them over across the street to the portrait studio and he has a family picture taken. And this was, was back then, you know, photography was incredibly expensive. It was basically for the rich. So, you know, no, everyone's like, portrait studio, what are you doing? And here is the family photo. Wait, that's on me. Here's the family photo that the Lawsons took late November, early December of 1929. Okay, that's Arthur on the far left. The. That's Arthur.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You won't be whipping me anymore, dad.

[Karen Kilgariff]

He's kind of hot.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's Marie, She's.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Arthur's kind of hot, right?

[Georgia Hardstark]

No, he's hot.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. Yeah. I didn't know if we were all gonna say it or not or if that's really.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No, he's legit hot.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay. Here.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I mean, it's exciting when a guy wears a three piece suit. It seems like something's gonna happen.

But if you look closely at this picture, like when you go home tonight, the way this picture turned out, his eyes are, are white. So he also looks like he has laser beams for eyes. Even hotter.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Maybe he did.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Maybe he did. And that's why his father stopped whipping him. That's Marie. She's 16.

[Karen Kilgariff]

She's.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, she is now. They talked a lot on that episode of Criminal about how like she looks so pretty and she's so basically hip and, you know, beautiful.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Happy?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes, more than anything, happy compared to everybody else.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That joy seeped in through those boards.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's right. She stole it from her friend's house, brought it in herself.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Jesus.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's Charlie Lawson, the father. He's a 43 in this picture. And that's Fanny Lawson. She's 37.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh my God. I'm 38, everyone.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I'm 50.

Actually, I'm 48. I just like saying 50.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's easier.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I. But yeah, when I saw that picture, I was like, why do I have low self Esteem. Look at fucking Fanny Lawson.

We shouldn't tear each other down to build ourselves up.

[Karen Kilgariff]

This is not a race or a competition.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's not a competition, but if it happened 100 years ago, then you're allowed to do it. Okay, then on the bottom, that's Carrie. And the little boy there, that is Raymond. He's two years old. Look at how cute. And that's Maybelle. She's seven.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Love her haircut. And I'm not being sarcastic.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No, that's a really good. Yeah, that is a legit bowl cut.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's a mod. A little mod page boy thing doing it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's when children held still because they were so scared.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. And then that's James. He's four. So that's the Lawson family. And. And so this was a very big deal that they got this picture taken.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Chicken.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So I'm gonna leave that picture up.

A couple weeks later, On Christmas morning, 1929, Fanny got up early, and she was making everybody breakfast. It's Christmas morning. Obviously, it's a big deal. Charlie and Arthur were out doing chores so they can get everything done for the day.

And Marie is rolling her hair by the fire. She has a date later that day with a young man who was taking her to the cruise. Christmas celebration at church. So she was all excited. Fanny then made a layer cake, which was a very, very big deal to this family because it was Christmas. And she iced it and she tops it. She sprinkled raisins on top of it, and she put it on the table.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Raisins on a cake.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I know, I know.

But, like, in 1929, raisins were like Raisinets.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Maybe if it was a carrot cake. I'm on board still. If you were to see it, if someone's like, I made you a cake. Like, what? Raisins on it would make you go.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Why'D you let a mouse shit on my cake? It's the first thing I would say to someone giving me a cake right out of my mouth. Okay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So after the chores are, the little kids are down playing by the fire with their new toys, the chores are done. Charlie and Arthur decide they want to go rabbit hunting because the forest is right behind their house.

[Karen Kilgariff]

House.

[Georgia Hardstark]

But then Arthur notice, he notices he's low on ammo. And so he says, do you have any. He asked the dad if he has any ammo. Dad says no. He goes, okay, well, I'm gonna walk into town. And I think he did a little. He did a little target practice first, then realized he Was running out of bullets. And he said, okay, I'm gonna walk into town and get some more.

So he heads into town and. And Charlie walks into their barn, the tobacco barn.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Charlie is the dad.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Charlie's the dad. Arthur is the son. Even though he has a dad name, he's the son.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay, got it, got it, got it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And Charlie has a boy name, but he's the bad dad. Okay.

So Charlie's up in the tobacco barn where he also, just, by the way, by chance I'll tell you this now, is where he keeps his shotguns. And so he's up in there. Now, the two middle girls, Carrie and Mabel, they're going to go over to their aunt and uncle's house for the Christmas visit. So they leave the house and they go walking down the road to their aunt and uncle's house. And this is where Christmas Day takes a horrifying turn for the Lawsons. What the girls don't know is that as they walk past the tobacco barn, that their father is lying in wait for them. With his two shotgun guns, he shoots both girls. Then he walks over to their bodies laying in the snow and bludgeon them both with the butt of his shotgun. Holy. To make sure that they're dead. Yes. Then he pulls their bodies into the tobacco barn and he crosses their arms over their chests and he places flat stones under their heads like pillows, and he takes his shotguns and then he walks over to the house. Now, because there was so much gunfire that day, and it's a normal thing on a farm, especially back then, it wasn't alarming to hear gunshots.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, my God.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So when Charlie. So Fanny was out on the porch getting wood, and she sees Charlie walking toward the house with his two shotguns. And it isn't until she sees he's close enough that she sees this wild look in his eyes that she realizes something terrible is happening. And she turns to run into the house and he shoots her in the back. And she falls dead in the doorway of the house.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So just by looking at him, she was like, something's fucking off?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Well, I mean, that's what this story said, but that's a first person experience that I'm not sure how the author of the story would know.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That is a good point.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And everyone involved in that moment of the story is dead. So it could be conjecture, but it sure is a fun picture to paint.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, because.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, you just don't want that guy with a wild look in his face. You don't want that coming at you.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So it's easy to imagine. All right, so.

Again, he steps into the doorway and he does this with all the family members. It's awful and really horrifying, but he bludgeon. After he shoots them, he bludgeons them with his gun. So he is like, it's overkill, like crazy. He's making sure they're all dead. So he does that to Fanny in the doorway while Marie is inside the house. And she sees all of this, she starts screaming and he shoots her as well. Does the same thing, bludgeons her. The four year old and the two year old run and hide. One hides under the crib and one hides under the stove. He shoots them both and bludgeoning them both. And he also kills the baby. It is horrifying, mayhem. And it's the beginning, like, of every horror movie you've ever seen.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So he again drags the bodies over to the fireplace and he crosses their arms over their chests and puts stones under their heads.

[Karen Kilgariff]

The.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, and then he. But he actually Raymond's body stayed behind the stove. So when Charlie Lawson was walking back up to the house to kill his family, what he didn't realize was there was a little neighbor boy who had been there playing with. With the kids, and he had just walked out of the house. So as he's like walking up the road, he sees Charlie shoot Fanny and he. And then he hears the screaming and everything and so he just takes off running and he gets to his house and he tells. Tells his parents, Charlie Lawson is killing his family.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh my God.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Immediately, like the neighborhood posse. Everyone grabs their shotguns and everyone gets together. Yeah. Thank God. Thank God. I.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Can you imagine your little kid running in and be like, what's up, mom, dad? Yes, this dude's killing his family.

[Georgia Hardstark]

But it's Christmas morning, so his mom's like, honey, why won't you put your jacket on? And she's like, no, I'm busy with raisins on cake.

The first thing he says is, mom, dad, they put raisin on a cake. No, no. Also, wait.

But there's something else.

Okay, so then all of this happens so fast. And of course you. As fast as you would imagine when the. When the gossip is not someone fucked somebody else, but in fact, Charlie Lynn Lawson just killed his whole family. Everybody hears about it immediately. So Arthur, in town buying his bullets, overhears people saying, oh my God, Charlie Lawson just murdered his whole family. And Arthur Lawson says, it can't be. I just saw all of them. And so he. Someone takes him and they rush back out to the house. So Charlie's brother, who had also been out hunting, also was told hold of this. So he rushes over to the house, and he jumps up on the porch.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And you've seen the porch.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You've seen the porch. He gets up on the porch, and he actually has to keep all these people from entering the house because everybody wants to go inside. And he stands on the porch with his shotgun and. And keeps basically everybody at bay until the police arrive. Now, another neighbor, who actually entered from a different direction where he passed the tobacco barn first, is walking. Now, remember, it's Christmas Day, so there's snow. He's walking, and he sees a huge pool of blood in the snow that has drag marks and tracks all the way to the tobacco barn. So this neighbor, this poor person, goes in, opens the barn door, and finds Carrie and Mabel lying inside dead, also with their arms crossed over their chest and stones under their head. And this is about the same time that the sheriff finally arrives. So the sheriffs.

And the deputies. I don't know how it broke down back then. Sheriff and a couple of his good, good friends.

That he trusted.

They show up, and they enter the Lawson house. And of course, it is like a scene out of everyone's worst nightmare and include incredibly bloody. There is apparently blood everywhere. So Arthur finally gets back from town, and as he's approaching, he can see his mother's feet through the doorway. And he starts freaking out. He tries to fight through the crowd to get into the house, and all of the neighbors keep him from going inside so he doesn't see what's in there. And it's around this time that everyone realizes that no one knows where Charlie is. And so they gather up, up all their. What I would imagine to be 65 shotguns, and they start searching for Charlie Lawson. Yeah, so Charlie Lawson, once he finished laying out his family, went out the back door and walked into the woods with his dogs, and he took his. One of his guns. He had beaten his family so terribly with one of his shotguns that the barrel was bent, so he left that on the floor. And he took the second good shotgun out into the woods with him and wandered around for a while. And apparently he ended up landing at this tree. And he ended up walking in circles around the tree, over and over, it said, talking to himself. But again, I believe that might be a bit of illustration, but it would make sense. You'd just be like, holy fuck.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I know.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Insane.

His dogs, they could tell afterwards from when they found the area that his dogs just laid in the snow watching him as he did that. And he actually, at one point, tried to set up a contraption in the tree so that he could shoot himself in the heart, but he ended up not using it. Then he tried to write two suicide notes on the backs of receipts that he had in his pockets. And they were both just, you know, half written. One had the phrase troubles can cause on it, and the other had the phrase no one to blame. What?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Those are so much more creepy than, like, an actual sentence. Yeah. Would be somehow.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Well, and also. And that second one, Charlie.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Sorry, I know.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Quick reminder, you're to blame.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

This is all on you, 100%.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

So.

[Georgia Hardstark]

He finally pulls the trigger and kills himself. And when the search party. The way the search party ends up finding him is they see these dogs coming running out of the forest, so they just track the dog's path back to the body of Charlie Lawson at the base of the tree. So at the funeral, the Lawson family is dressed in their brand new new clothes that they had worn in their family portrait. Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Is that why he bought them? What do you think that's why he bought them?

[Georgia Hardstark]

I mean, I don't know. There's a lot of theories because.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Know, everyone, you know, they talk about that everyone looks so unhappy and so uncomfortable in this picture. So you don't know if that's because it's lately. And we'll get into, like, the theories of why it happened, but one of the theories is Charlie Lawson, when he was working on the tobacco farm, hit himself in the back of the head with a pickaxe and gave himself. This was like a couple months before the murders and gave himself a head injury. And of course, as we've heard 1,000 times, after that, his personality changed and he became really volatile and really violent. And so that there's a possibility that, like, that from that moment, something, you know, it could have been that, but we don't. There's just no way to know. Or if, you know, he spent the morning with his son, like, you know, doing target practice. So that would really be such a split if he was able to just kind of hang for a little while and then, like, who knows? That's the mystery.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

They were laid out in a family plot that was 9ft by 21ft, so it could hold everybody in the Browder cemetery. And Fanny was buried holding Baby Lou, baby Mary Lou in her arms. Yeah. And they also exhumed the body of the son that had died in 1914. And they buried him with the family as well. It said that 5,000 people attended the Lawson family funeral. So of course it's. It's somebody killing their whole family. It was the most infamous thing that had happened in the area in a long time. And of course because of that, people start showing up at the Lawson family home because murderinos have been around forever.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We didn't start this, guys. It's been. Is a long held tradition of looky lose and what the fuck, I need to see that shit for myself.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And this is kind of inappropriate, but like, don't tell me what you know is interesting.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right? Exactly. I'll go find out for myself. Don't we.

At first, Charlie's brothers were stood on the old porch and again guarded the house because people of course were trying to go in and take like memorabilia from the house.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Chicken wire.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. I want a sad board from this horrible house.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You know what would make my house look great? A sad board.

[Georgia Hardstark]

This horror board.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

But then they realize that somebody has to keep paying this 500amonth mortgage. So they end up putting a fence around the house. And they put advertisements in the statewide papers saying that it's a tourist attraction. You can come and look at the murder house. And they charge people 25 cents a head. What? Now you're against. Against it. You love this shit. Make that noise.

They charge 25 cents a head and let people walk through the murder house. Now here to me, this is one of the.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Of.

[Georgia Hardstark]

One of the creepiest stories I've ever heard. This is one of the creepier aspects of it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That when they went to clean up the house, the brothers had to do the crime scene cleanup themselves. And there was so much blood and it. Because it was December, it had frozen to the floor. So the brothers had to go in with a hammer and break up all the blood and shovel it out. And then they buried it in the backyard.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh no. Like it's brittle or something. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And then a black rose bush grew. Wouldn't that be. That's the horror movie. That's when we fictionalize.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Gee whiz.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Everything inside the house, aside from that blood, everything in the. Inside the house was exactly as it was the day of the murder. Including the cake no one had yet cut into. That's why I talked about the cake so much.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You knew.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You knew that was foreshadowing.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I didn't.

You didn't know? No.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You didn't see it coming.

And just.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Thought it sounded gross. Okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Here's what you're gonna love.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay?

[Georgia Hardstark]

People start. Start stealing the raisins off the top of the cake. Yeah, they have to put that fucking cake under glass.

Because everybody wants a little horrible piece of memorabilia from this horror house.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Literally. A raisin is a horrible.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's bad enough that it's a raisin from anywhere. Why did I zero someone's hand, a pocket, A cake?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, my God.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Isn't that insane?

The only. Oh, I said that already. In 1930, the year after the murders, this was, of course, huge. A band called the Carolina Buddies, which I know is on your Spotify playlist right now.

They released a song called the Murder of the Lawson family. And it was. What was it about? One of them.

She said, what was it about?

Sorry, you really understand. Underplayed that. It was good.

What was it about?

It was one of the most popular songs in the nation. So, like, it's. And it was one of those, you know, old country songs. It was like they came.

[Karen Kilgariff]

They just tell the story.

[Georgia Hardstark]

They literally just read off this paper. They're fucking. He was born in Moss in 1908.

[Karen Kilgariff]

What if this was just the lyrics of that. The story she's told from here.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I printed up the lyrics of the Carolina Buddies. They're one of my favorite bands. I like them before you did.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And.

[Georgia Hardstark]

But basically, that's how everyone got to know this story. And the people in the area, that's how they passed the story down from generation to generation. They sang this song to the children, and in this.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, you want a lullaby? Oh, you can't sleep. You want mommy to sing you a song? Is it nighttime? Okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

They came from her.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Mommy, please stop singing.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay, Mommy, I'll go to sleep now. I promise.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, my God.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So listen to this episode of Criminal. It's called the Portrait, and they play the original song by the Carolina Buddy, the fucking Carolina Buddies. Someone needs to remix it. It, please. That's my step. It.

Okay, so basically this. The story of the Lawson family murders has lived on for a long time, at least in this area. So there's of course, a lot of town gossip as to why it happened. And one of the more insane rumors was that Charlie Lawson had gotten caught up with the mob.

[Audience Member / Guest]

Mob.

[Karen Kilgariff]

They have the big mob back then.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Around here in North Carolina? Yes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It was the. The Gambini family ran that part of Gambono family ran.

That they. People said that Charlie had seen something that he wasn't supposed to see, and so they staged the entire murder.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's never the mob.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's not, it doesn't. They don't do it that way. No, I don't think the mob is super that into bludgeoning unless they have to.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Right. And like children, but it's not their stuff.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, exactly.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, I'm defending the mob.

I'm like, please don't hate me.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Could we please be nice to the mob for once? They do protect people.

The theory, I think people came up with that because it was explain how all of a sudden he had all this pocket money to be like toys for you and dresses for you. But there's absolutely no proof of it. And it's really written, it's written off as town gossip. The head injury of course is also a theory. But after.

You know, after the. After when the autopsy was performed is what I'm trying to say, the doctor removed Charlie's brain and inspected it to see if there was actually actual brain trauma from that accident that would explain the attack. But there was nothing found. And so he preserved the brain and sent it to Johns Hopkins to see if they could find what was wrong with his brain. And the doctors there said it was inconclusive, that there was nothing overt on Charlie Lawson's brain that explained why he would suddenly snap and attack.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I mean aside from that giant pickaxe hole in the middle of it, there was nothing.

[Georgia Hardstark]

There was happening. Inch of pickaxe still in there, but.

[Karen Kilgariff]

They said, man, inconclusive. What about like chemicals from the tobacco? Did tobacco probably had chemicals in it then, right?

[Georgia Hardstark]

No, that was back when tobacco was really green and when it was just.

[Karen Kilgariff]

American spirit brand everywhere, hippie style.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Vegan. It was all vegan. It was gluten free.

Now this is fascinating. There was a dark family secret that no one knew and didn't come out until 60 years later when Stokes county locals, Trudy Smith and her father, M. Bruce Jones, they had heard the story for so long and they knew people, they knew people that had gone to the funeral, they knew people who had gone and taken a tour of the house. And so they decided to collect the up all the information, verify it and write a book about the Lawson family murders. And right before they were going to go to press.

It was a member of the Lawson family. It's anonymous as to who did it. Called them up and said, I know why it happened. And this was in 1990. And she told them that 16 year old Marie Lawson was pregnant and the father was Charlie Lawson.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I mean the part I don't like about this is when they're Like, I mean, obviously, aside from.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Look, we don't have to pick just one thing we don't like about this story.

[Karen Kilgariff]

What I'm saying, aside from that is that they were about to go to press and their publicist was like, this is kind of boring. We need more information. And they're like, well, we just happened to get a call last night, a ring. Ring from the Lawson family who were like. But here's the thing. Yes, I'm.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Are you calling bullshit on Trudy? Because is. I. I will let her know, however.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Well, he looks like a dick. So.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Well, here's the thing, though, that because they were. They are consummate professionals, they had this co. Corroborated. Marie's best friend was a woman named Ella Johnson. And she had a sleepover with Marie, like two weeks before the murders took place. And Marie confessed to Ella May that not only was she pregnant by her father, but that Charlie told her if she were to tell anyone about the baby, quote, there would be killing done.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Ella May is like, I wish you hadn't just told me that.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We're trying to have a sleepover, smoke some butts out the window, curl our hair.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So that is fact. Fact.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay. I'm sorry I called the. That family alone.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You're sorry? Say. Say I'm sorry, Trudy.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Sorry, Trudy.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay, so don't worry about Trudy. Because Trudy Smith and her father self published the book. They called it White Christmas, Bloody Christmas. Amazing. Self published it in 1990. They originally published 5,000 copies, immediately sold out of all 5,000. So then they published, I think 10,000 more. 10 or 15,000 more also. All sold out. It's. It was such a popular book, and it's a story that so many people you know, are interested in, and it's a part of the history of this area. The book is now out of print, but you can get it on Amazon for 165.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Holy.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, you. I'm only talking to the rich people right now. You can get it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Wow.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Now these are just a. I'm just Three more factoids that I find of interest.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Give it to me.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay. Arthur, the only remaining living original Lawson family member, he got all that money from the house tours, so that's cool.

He then. But here's the. Some sad things. He fell in love with a girl, asked her to marry him, and the girl's family would not allow her to marry him because of the murder and because he was from the Lawson family. But he later found someone else, fell in love, got married had kids and then tragically, he died in a car crash in 1945. He was really young. I think he was in his 40s. Okay. Less sad, more interesting. In the 70s, the Lawson house collapsed.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Took that long, huh?

[Georgia Hardstark]

No, that architect did a pretty good job with that sadness.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, you just wouldn't believe how architecturally sound despair is. Yeah, it'll just.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's cement, like at times, but we can chip away.

[Karen Kilgariff]

All right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It collapsed. I just like the idea that people are like standing in that farmyard and.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Just in one fell swoop.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Paula Abdul video where the whole pyramid goes down at once. I'm 50.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Woo.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay, so they haul off all the wood that goes with the house. And they took down the barn as well. Because they're like, that's about to collapse. They take all that wood, they build a bridge on a place called Payne Road.

The Internet argues is also called Edwards Road or maybe now is called Edwards Road.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Now it collapses.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No, but the bridge is haunted.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Of course it is.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So. So claims the locals who drive across it and say that if you drive across, or if you did drive across this bridge and turned your car off and whistled Dixie, the car would not turn back on. And sometimes you would hear either. A woman screaming, children laughing.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Nope. Nope.

[Georgia Hardstark]

How about this? No condensation on the windows. And then little child's hand prints. No showing up in the black and moisture.

[Karen Kilgariff]

If you had to pick one of those, what would you pick? What are those are gonna happen to you? What would you pick?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, handprints.

[Karen Kilgariff]

100. Really? Yes. Because it's the scariest.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Why do it if you're not gonna.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I have a question. What the is whistling Dixie? I thought it was just a saying.

What is it?

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's like a long we.

I'll do it for you later. But we can't do it in a theater. That's bad luck. That's right. I am from the theater.

Okay. The bridge has since been torn down.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I know you guys are going to drive out there, huh?

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's where the meetup afterwards is. Rave on. The haunted bridge.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Also Payne Road. I think some people were cheering because Payne Road, there's other stories around that area. There's some other murdery family shit that happened around there.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Change the name of that. I've already.

[Georgia Hardstark]

They changed it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You mean from pain? Yeah.

Okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

To Pleasure Road.

Here's my favorite. That infamous Christmas cake.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Jesus.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That was on display inside the house under glass was eventually auctioned off when people stopped going to the Murder House and a woman named Myrtle Brown bought it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Myrtle.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And she reportedly took it and threw it into the woods.

She'd had it with that cake.

I fucking hate families getting murdered.

[Karen Kilgariff]

What if when she got home after that, the cake was sitting on the.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Fucking table and all the rain raisins had come back?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Every last raisin in a fucking satanic thing on it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

A pentagram.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Thank you.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Pentagram of raisins appeared. This is now my new ending to the story. And a pentagram of raisins appeared on Myrtle Brown's cake. So she took it and threw it into the woods. That's not a solution, Myrtle. It's just gonna lay like 15ft away from you in the woods and some.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Poor animal's gonna come eat it. And it's been sitting out for so long, you're gonna. It's gonna.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And that's when the satanic raccoon was born. I'll kill you. I'll kill your garbage cans. And that's the legendary story of the Lawson family murders.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Great job.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Thank you.

Goodbye.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I'm scared to.

All right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Sorry, I left that up the whole time. That was kind of heavy.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Great job. Great job.

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[Georgia Hardstark]

Learn more at PayPal.com streaming December 11th on Paramount. It's the new limited series Little Disasters.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Based on the book by the author of Anatomy of a Scandal and starring Diane Krueger and Joe Joyner, Little Disasters is a gripping story of unraveling secrets and fractured relationships that will leave you on the edge of your seat.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Bella magazine declares if you loved Big little lies, then this psychological drama is for you.

[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

So don't just feed them, fuel them with Hill's pet nutrition.

[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

Science does more Find the right [e-mail] iheart goodbye.

Okay. I actually wanted to. This is, like, on my very long list of murders I've wanted to do on the show before. So when Stephen sent us the email where he just has to list murders for us. Cause we just can't.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We make him.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Please. This was on it. And I was like, well, I'm gonna do this one. I just hit myself in the face with the mic.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I've done it, like, three times on my team.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's really fun.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Microphones are fun.

[Karen Kilgariff]

This is the Bitter Blood Murders.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I have never heard of this.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's known as America's most bizarre story of crime. And the book that a lot of this information is from is called Bitter Blood by Jerry Bludsoe. And he's the one who, like, coined the name of it. This is, like, the Bitter Blood. But he made that up.

[Audience Member / Guest]

Okay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, and I also got a lot of information as I did my makeup tonight and listened to a podcast on Double Speed because I was running late. It's a podcast called Once Upon a Crime by Esther Ludlow. Nice.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I listen to that one. That's good.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And she had all this info in there. Like, where'd she get.

[Georgia Hardstark]

She's a really good researcher, and I respect that, but I don't do it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So this is a crazy story of a crime spree that involved wealth, power, mental illness, and Karen's favorite, incest.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes.

That's my jam.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And it ends in the violent death of four generations of people. And it took place over 30 years ago. So let's start with Susie Newsome. So she's this smart, beautiful girl. She's born in Reidsville, and she.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Amazing place.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And so she's from this super prominent family. Her dad was a tobacco executive.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Tonight's theme is tobacco.

So they're rich as they're like this prominent family. Like, you know, stuff that we just don't understand in California. Richness. No, like, you know, like, family wealth.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, yeah. Shit.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That you just find. Find in the South. I guess it's just like, right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Like generations and generations of rich people.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Did you know she's from the Kilgaris family? Like, we don't have that. No way.

[Georgia Hardstark]

They're like, we hear the Kilgarish are here. Lock up the beer is usually what happens around my last name.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So everyone's like, you know, her aunt, for example, is. And it's also her namesake, Judge Susan M. Sharp, who had become the first woman in the country to be elected the head of the state Supreme Court.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Hell yeah.

Susan Sharp.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. Anti judge Susan Sharp. She's widely recognized as one of the most respected women in America. And so Susie's named after her. But Susie, little Susie is just spoiled as fuck. When she was born, she had a little heart murmur. So the doctor was like, don't let her cry or her heart will go crazy. So they just like gave her whatever she wanted so she wouldn't cry, which.

Has to be fun for the parents.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's second only to eating a pentagram cake as to making someone evil.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's exactly right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's bad.

[Karen Kilgariff]

During her childhood, she grew up in Winston Salem.

You know, she would have these fucking insane temper tantrums. Probably because she's used to getting whatever the hell she wanted to.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So her heart was fine. Really?

[Karen Kilgariff]

I think so.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Like, we all have a heart murmur. Yeah, Right? Yeah. But so her mother. This could not have been good for her heart. So her mother, when she'd have these, like, crazy temper tantrums, her mother, to get her to calm down, to not upset her heart, would just douse her with cold water.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Dude.

[Karen Kilgariff]

What? Just, I think douse her with cold water in the face. I don't know where, but let's say the face.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Well, you know, my sister always said that her trick with Nora, when Nora was a baby, she said, when you have a crab, put him in water. So anytime that Nora was crying, she just put her in the bathtub. And she said it worked.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I doubt it was ice cold water.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No, I bet it wasn't. She's not like that. And she's not rich.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay, so. But Susie is beautiful and smart. She goes to wait and cold freezing all the time. But she's very demanding. She becomes obsessed with the royal family and had these fantasies of being royalty. And it says that, like in the. In this stuff, like it's a bad thing. But, like, all of us did that pretty much. So it's not that bad.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You had no Choice in the 80s, right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But I think she became obsessed. This isn't the 80s yet. This is the 70s. So it's quite crazy.

[Georgia Hardstark]

She was an early adapter to the royal family. That's amazing.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So Susie goes to Wake Forest University in Winston Salem.

There she meets the fighting Wake Borders.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes.

God, they're such a good team.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's exactly right. She meets a dude, she marries him. His name's Tom Lynch. Tom's two years younger than her. But she sees him in his basketball uniform and she's like, gotta have that.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's cuz you know they had those tiny shorts then too. So you're like. And like knee high socks, that's gonna be mine.

[Georgia Hardstark]

She's like I want that silky motherfucker for my own.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And she's into younger dudes like you. Yes, like that's mine. But he also came from a prosperous family new near Louisville, Kentucky.

So Dolores was Tom's mom and she didn't like. Okay. There's a made for TV movie called in the best of Marriage, Pride and Madness. And in it. Yes, I don't want to talk ill because I don't really know. This is a made for TV movie which means some of it might not be true.

[Georgia Hardstark]

What?

[Karen Kilgariff]

But Tom's mom comes off as a like major cunt and hates Susie right away.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Do you?

[Karen Kilgariff]

But I know I can't speak for that.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Do you know any actresses or who played who?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Well, as a matter of fact.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Thank you.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Turns out I know you well and know what you like.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You know what I want to know.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So Susan is Susie's played by Kelly McGillis.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes. Of top Gun fame. You know her.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And Tom is played by Keith Carradine. A nice young. A young Keith Carradine.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So hot.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So yeah, so. But, but whatever. The point is whoever was a continent, Dolores and Susie did not like each other from the fucking get go. And they showed open disdain for each other. And after they married though they married anyways because they were like but we're in love, you know, they get married, they move to Kentucky so Tom could attend dental school. And Susie soon becomes pregnant with the first child, James, who's born in 1974. And Susie tells her step. Her mother in law Telloris who comes into town to see her grandchild that she needs to make an appointment with her if she wants to see her grandchild and go stay in a hotel room.

Goodbye.

Closes the door. Oh sh. Okay, there's like they don't like each other.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And Dolores did not throw a cup of cold water on Susie after she said that she didn't know the cold water trick.

[Karen Kilgariff]

She didn't know it yet, unfortunately. And a year later they have their second child, John. And actually I think I have a photo. Let's see what this first photo is. Okay. Okay, so that's, that's Susie and those are the sweet boys. Look at, look at her haircut. Okay. And then. Oh, and look at this fucking rattan chair they're sitting.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. It's kind of amazing.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Truly it is the 70s. Is it the 70s or not the 70s?

[Georgia Hardstark]

We were all on Fantasy Island. It was fucking nutso.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay? They move. Okay, okay. So they have the kids, and then Tom decides to move. Moved the family to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to start his dental practice, but they move there, and Susie's like, fuck this place. Don't they know who I think I am? I think I'm royalty. Hates it there. Because she's not being, like. Used to being, like, you know, I'm a newsome and people know and care what it is. So she hates it there. And at one point, she starts to lose her shit, and she lashes out at one of her sons. Sons who require. Requires hospitalization for two days after that, but we don't know exactly what she did, and it's kind of conjecture that she did something to him, so.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Well, you don't get hospitalized for yelling. We know that.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Like, did he just fall? She said that the other kid knocked the. The food chair, futon.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No. You know that we're with that big rattan chair.

[Karen Kilgariff]

No, high chair. Thank you.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Over.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But we don't.

[Georgia Hardstark]

What if the high chair was a big rattan chair? Just picture it in your mind. Real high, small, but with a big round back and flammable.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay. It's the 70s after all. But no charges are ever filed. In 1979, Susie's like, you know what? I'm gonna BRB back to North Carolina for a minute to visit my family. I'm taking the kids. I'll be right back. Gets there and is like, jk, Tom, I want a fucking divorce. We're not coming back.

And then she. And she also says she wants full custody of the kids. And Tom is all the way in Albuquerque. It sounds like he was a good dad, but he agreed to sign over custody of the kids. They're now 4 and 3. Wanting to not, like, fight with her about it.

Okay, then. All right. So Susie's also obsessed with China for some reason. Not for some reason. Like, China's lovely, I'm sure, but we don't know why she's obsessed with China.

[Georgia Hardstark]

The place.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The dishes, the place. Okay, great question.

So she decides I want to move to China and teach English out of nowhere. And some speculate that maybe she was in a manic episode and was just like, later date because she fucking just took the kids and moved to China. Wow. Yeah. And then after six months, realized she had hates it there too.

This is.

[Georgia Hardstark]

This is like me in my first five apartments in Los Angeles.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, me too. I don't like it here. It's not my fault.

So she comes home after six months, but when she gets home, her mom is. Her water flinging mom is freaked out because she's like, she's dirty, malnourished, and like, like something ain't right, you know what I mean? So she, she's like, you need to see a doctor. Like something's wrong with you. Well, it just so happens that they have a doctor in the family. Okay? Dun, dun, dun.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's how rich people do it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. So Dr. Fred Kleiner is a well known and widely respected doctor in town. Again, fucking family people in townies. Townies is what we like to call them. He depending on who you ask, though, he's either a fucking lunatic quack or a total genius. And it was one of those things where like, he in the like 70 or like really early on gate helped birth triplets and then the mom didn't die and the babies didn't die, which was like a feat back then.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So everyone's like, he's amazing.

And in the 40s, which is a.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Thing that's been happening for 2,000 years, but okay, okay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So.

In the 40s, he experiments with absorbic acid, which is vitamin C, becomes obsessed with it as a treatment for a ton of illnesses, including. And he starts to use it on every patient, including patients with polio, multiple sclerosis, even a toothache. He was like, everyone gets vitamin C. Vitamin C. And it sounds like he was a little bit like vitamin C and wouldn't give them any other medications. Oh. So he was like obsessed with it and he did it work? I don't know. Because he became world renowned for his treatments.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, but he didn't cure polio.

[Karen Kilgariff]

No, he did not.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And his over reliance on vitamin C also made other doctors be like, this fucking dude, you know, they like, didn't like him. They. They called him a fraud all the time behind his back. Oh, at the doctor's club? Yeah. Yeah. And then he had some real problematic practices, including he wouldn't. He would use a needle sterilizer instead of using new needles every time he used them. So he'd just throw them in the old, like, you know, I don't know.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Like the combs and the blue liquid at the barbershop.

No, sir. He just like, I'm just gonna dip these in vitamin C. They'll be fine.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So he would use a needle, like for up to 12 patients? No.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Me and all the heroin addicts agree that you shouldn't do that.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And he was a doctor and. And then you're like, well, Maybe it was this old timey thing. He also had a segregated. Segregated waiting rooms. And you're like, well, that's what it looked like during that time. Nope. Into the 80s.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Both of these things he did. No, no, no. So this was the uncle that Susie was like. Like, I'm not doing well. Let me see this dude.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, it's him. Okay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's him. That she goes to her mom's like, go see this guy. Let him straighten you out.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And he's cutting up oranges. Susie, welcome. I've got the perfect solution.

[Karen Kilgariff]

He's crushing and snorting vitamin C pellets tablets.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Lining up Flintstones all across the thing. I've got a whole treatment system for.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You, 10 million strong and growing and growing. You guys remember?

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We're not above it. Not above making commercial references.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's absolutely right. Okay, so she goes to this doctor. He starts treating her. And while she's there, she starts to get reacquainted with her cousin, who is the doctor's son. And he. He's known. He's Frederick, but his name is Fritz. And he's known as young Dr. Kleiner. They call him that because he's like his dad. He's like his dad's sidekick. He's going to fucking medical school. He wants to be doctor, too. And, like, everyone loves him. I have a photo of him. There he is.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Stephen said he looks just like Henry Zabrowski. He does.

[Georgia Hardstark]

If Henry Zabrowski was a Greek fisherman. That's what. That's. Look at that. Jesus.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Arm. Amount of arm hair, hand hair. I mean, not that there's anything wrong.

[Georgia Hardstark]

With that, but are we sure he's not a gorilla?

[Karen Kilgariff]

I love you, Dr. Zayas.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You know how he got all that hair? Vitamin C.

[Karen Kilgariff]

All right, now, was he.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wearing the doctor's jacket before he actually became a doctor?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Well, let's talk about that.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Or did he work for Lancome?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Shit.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I mean, Clinique. Shit.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You know this one. Okay, my slip is slipping the wrong way, and I feel like I'm dangerously close to.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We just readjust it.

Thank you so much.

[Karen Kilgariff]

All right, well, so, yeah, he essentially walks around the clinic with his dad in his lab coat, like, being his assistant, taking blood and shit because he wants to do blood studies.

Turns out he's a fucking lying liar who lies. What.

About everything? So Fritz, like, Fritz, Dad, Uncle Doctor, it gets really confusing. So I think it's helpful to. Uncle Doctor.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Uncle Doctor.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Fritz is a little. Fritz and Uncle Doctor believe that the Apocalypse Is nigh. And, like, they're totally survivalist.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Hold on, hold on, hold on. I was. Was just getting okay with the vitamin C.

[Karen Kilgariff]

No, these are fucking crazies. Unless they're right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

But their timing is off a little bit. If they're right. So. Okay, sorry.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Uncle Dr. Even, like, had a date that he thought the end of the world was coming. And they were like, survivalist preppers. And they had a visceral hatred of communism and they had a fixation with Hitler. Especially Fritz.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Fixation, plus or minus.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, that's a good question.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Fixation like that damn Hitler.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I don't know if they're just like, I need to know everything. I feel like a fixation. I feel like if you hate Hitler, great. But you, like, wouldn't brag about that. So if you have a fixation with Hitler, it might be positive.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's going to be positive, right?

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's a great question, though.

[Georgia Hardstark]

A lot of problems here.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Lots.

[Georgia Hardstark]

But now we know how they decorate the bunker.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So Fritz did go to the University of Mississippi, but he never graduated. And his dad was like, what the fuck? And he was like, well, the. The German club I was in turned against me and, like. And like, did this whole thing about, like, the communists. And his dad was like, okay, I believe you. We hate, you know. Ah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's what I told my dad when I dropped out of Sac State.

Germans. But then he was.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Was like, but don't worry, Dad. I am going to go to Duke University for my medical degree.

[Georgia Hardstark]

A very prestigious university.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Duke University. You know the screaming? Their mascot? The screaming.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, the screaming.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's hard.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I'm so sorry. Cause I was about to say hillbillies, and I didn't. I really.

I don't want to.

That's just fucking rud.

I come from the poorest of the poor. I don't.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And it's also, like, one of the best colleges.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's very, very prestigious. Not only could I have never have gotten into it, but no, they wouldn't have let me touch the, like, entrance application.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So. Well, maybe it's very fitting that I call them the Screaming Hillbillies.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's fine. They're like, you're double not allowed to come here now.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Shit.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Just causing problems wherever we go. International incident.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Why don't I stick to animals?

[Karen Kilgariff]

It just stick out and stick to animals.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Improv, Panic. Improv, panic.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's hard, right? Yeah, it's scary. I'm sweating. Okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You did good with the wake borders.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Thank you. But that's because wake was in the name of this college.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I disagree.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So the. I swear that it was in the name of the college. I swear.

Sidebar. Okay. Okay. So Fritz was like, don't worry, dad, you went to Duke. I'm gonna go to Duke and get my medical degree, and it's fine. And I'm going to school to be a doctor, so I'm going to wear this lab coat around your office and get blood from you. He's not going to. He got kicked out of fucking University of Mississippi, and now he's absolutely not going to Duke.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I feel like. Like, you should have to get a license for a doctor's coat in the same way you have to get them for any other thing that could trick people into trusting you.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Like a pet, an anxiety pet thing that they get.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You know what I'm talking about. Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You can't just bring your dog in here. And I still have a doctor's coat on.

[Karen Kilgariff]

No, I meant, like.

I like. I like a dog in a doctor doctor's coat better.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I mean, that would relax you if you saw a dog. If you're on a plane, you're a brick. And you look over and there's a corgi with a little doctor's coat on.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You're fit.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You're fine. Oh, you're done. Stethoscope.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But he. But they're like, huge beard.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Large watch.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, okay. Okay. So Fritz. Well, when he's saying he's going to Duke University, what he's really doing is hanging out all day at everyone's favorite place to hang out. Gun stores.

Wow. And I was just thinking about the guys who work in the gun store who were like, that. Fritz is the crazy one in this. Like, you don't even. Like, you have to be sick of working in a gun store. I just want to work here. And there's, like, the crazy dude who hangs out there all day. Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

In a doctor's coat.

[Karen Kilgariff]

In a fucking doctor's coat.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Doctor's coat with the thickest beard you've ever seen.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So everyone at the gun store hears these crazy stories from Fritz, including him telling him that he was a Green Beret in Vietnam and that he's also working for the CIA.

Guess what?

Spoiler alert. Those things aren't true.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. I feel like the second someone starts talking about working for the CIA in a gun store, they should be like, oh, and we close right now, actually, so we're gonna go ahead and pull down these metal window coverings, and you can go ahead and get the fuck out.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Dr. Vitamin C. There's a panic button, and there's a I just said I work in the CIA button.

[Georgia Hardstark]

CIA button that actually contacts us. The real CIA.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Come get your boy. CIA. It's a gun store. It's very dangerous.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So he totally believes in the apocalypse. He stockpiles weapons and other items for the end days. And then.

So, okay, so Susie. Susie. Cousin Susie starts hanging out with her cousin Fritzi all the time. And they, like. They become friends again. Like, they had known each other when they were kids, but didn't really have any much in common because she wasn't into guns and ammo, maybe. And she starts spending a lot of time with him. She starts. Starts bringing him around the kids to spend a long time with him. They kind of admire him because they think they believe his story is going in the CIA. And being a Green Beret and being a doctor, she believes all of it. They take the kids camping, all this crazy shit. And then Aunt Judge Susan Sharp is like, I'm gonna look this guy up and finds out that he's bullshitting. All of it.

And then the family's like, you know, we don't. Why is he spending so much time with his cousin? And why is he spending the night all the time? That's right. They fucking.

So they're like. The family's like, you guys. And also, like, they're already like, are.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You sure this isn't a creepypasta? This is fucking out of control.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I know. I know. Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I'm positive. Okay, so I'm positive.

[Georgia Hardstark]

She says, with her doctor's coat on, I assure you, this is a real.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And I'm in the CIA.

The family is already, like. That's like, out of a family of famous people. Like, those are the crazy ones. Like, we all know them. Eliza.

No, she's like. She knows I'm the crazy one. Beep, boop, bop. The family is like, susie, you gotta stop hanging out with him. And she's like, fuck you. I'll do what I want. Moves into her own out. That's Susie. And she, like, doesn't believe them. She thinks they're all lying. And Fritz is like, you know, kind of making her really paranoid about stuff because he's like, I'm in the CIA. I know things. And, like, tells her things.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I don't know what.

He'S like, underground is better. Stuff like that.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. Oh, he's played by Harry Hampton Hamlin.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Who's that?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, did you watch Mad Men?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You know, later on when the guy with the big glasses came and he's kind of like good looking and a dimple in his chin.

[Karen Kilgariff]

What did he play?

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's Lisa Rinna's husband.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, next door neighbors. No.

Real.

Nope. Real Housewives.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Nope.

[Karen Kilgariff]

He's. He's a real housewife.

[Georgia Hardstark]

He's like most interesting house husband.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's who plays him. So Kelly McGillis and Harry Hamlin are. And then I want.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I wish I had my phone. If I showed you a picture of Harry Hamlin, you know exactly who it is.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay. Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay. He's. Sorry. Can one person just say the TV show that he is known best for?

[Karen Kilgariff]

La la.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Thanks. You guys actually were very organized with that and I really appreciate it. It was like the eight strongest people in the front were like, I'll take it. LA Law. Nailed it. Fucking nailed it. They did it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And too bad for them. I don't know what the fuck.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I remember my mom watching it as a kid and being like, this is the most boring show. And it had the word law in it and it was in a courtroom. And I was like, I don't want to. I want to watch Pee Wee's Playhouse.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. It was very like, this is what adults do while you're at school. Like, who gives a shit? But Harry Hamlin is. You would recognize him because he's insanely beautiful. Almost like a woman. But his eyes are very small.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Sounds great.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Those tiny eyes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Tiny, tiny eyes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Karen loves a guy. Love a guy with a great head of hair and teeny, tiny, beady little eyes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Just little. The smallest possible eyes on a man.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Does he look like our doctor?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Not really.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay.

Okay. Doesn't matter. In made for TV Movieville.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay. So Fritz's paranoia starts to spread to his cousin, lover Susie. She.

She becomes convinced that her ex husband, husband Tom lynch, is going to take her sons away from her. Which isn't wrong because he's trying to get visitation rights for them. And to see them, I would hope.

[Georgia Hardstark]

He was doing something.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. I don't think anyone kind of realized what was going on yet because he was keeping. She was keeping her kids from Tom all the way over in Albuquerque. And she. So she even further limited contact with the boys than there already had been. Phone calls are super brief. Any letters and packages that Tom or Tom's mother remember, who hates Dolores, who hates her, were thrown right into the trash. And they would say to the kids, like if they. If the mom. If the grandma like sent cookies, she'd be like, they might be poison and would like, throw them away.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, real shitty.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Really shitty.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And Susie then made all these legal hurdles so that Tom couldn't see the kids. It's rumored that Aunt Judge Susan put some of those, you know, into place.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, no.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's just like, a little bit like.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I thought she was the voice of reason in this story.

[Karen Kilgariff]

She's. There really isn't one.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Shit.

If there's a voice of reason, I think it's Tom's family. So because Dolores wasn't wrong, it turns out, in hating Susie.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You know what I mean?

So Tom, like, the court made it so that when. When the boys would fly to Albuquerque to stay with their dad that they wouldn't travel alone and made them him buy Susie a plane ticket there to drop them off there to get back there to pick him up again. And he was, you know, paying out alimony and child support as well and starting his dental practice. So it was really hard to see them, but he wanted to see them more. But under the agreement that he had already signed way back when, before went cuckoo, he could only see them on holidays and several weeks each summer, which is hard on a kid. That's what we did. And it was not fun. You guys.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That sucks.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And we didn't have to fly anywhere. My dad lived across the street.

And it sucked.

Okay.

[Audience Member / Guest]

All right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You'll read all about it in our book.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Good plug.

[Audience Member / Guest]

Good plug.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Thank you. It's real depressing. No, it's not. It's fun. Okay, so. So by the time Tom is able to actually spend time with the boys, he has a new wife named Kathy. And they see the kid, I think kids after, I think, like, two years of not seeing them, and they're like, holy. Like, these kids look fucking underweight, dirty hair, they're unkempt nails. Kempt, unkempt. Oh, thank you. And then when they get to Albuquerque to spend time with them, they're like, these are the vitamins that uncle that Fritz makes us take. And we have to take them or we get in trouble.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So they have to take vitamins. But Mon makes them take a shower.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, yeah. Because Fritz is fucking obsessed with vitamins. Vitamins, too. And he would carry them around in his doctor's bag. And anytime someone's like, I have a, you know, sprained ankle, he'd be like, take these vitamins. Which I think, like, nowadays is okay. I have a bit like a good friend. Whenever I'm like, what's wrong with me? She'll, like, take these vitamins. And she's right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

But does she wear a doctor's coat?

[Karen Kilgariff]

She doesn't. And I also go to the doctor, the real doctor.

So where am I, kids then, Then. Okay, so Tom's like, okay, fuck this shit. I'm gonna, I need to like work harder to get these kids in my custody and.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes, you do, Tom.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Things have gone on long enough. He finds out about this cousin Fritz and that they're spending a lot of time together. And all this shit meanwhile. Okay, so meanwhile, doctor, the real Dr. Kleiner, Fritz's dad dies, which sends Fritz fucking even further off the edge of Lunaticville.

So June 1984, here we are. The bodies of Tom's mom, Dolores. Remember her?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes, I do.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And Tom's sister Janie are discovered by a friend in their home in Prospect, Kentucky. So Dolores is found.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That was sad.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Also, anyone who's new to this, she's not applauding because the bodies are found dead. She's applauding for Prospect.

[Georgia Hardstark]

She loves Prospect, Kentucky so much.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes. So Dolores is found in the driveway shot in the back and then in the head at close range. Almost like someone was like laying in wait for her. Because when she got home from I think church, and then.

Her body had.

Been there for at least a day. And then the cops followed a trail of blood inside and found James Dolores, 39 year old daughter, who by the blood trial could see where she was running and hiding like she was being fucking chased. It's bananas. But finally she had been shot in the neck and killed. And there had been, there had been. It made to look like a robbery as they do. But one of the detectives took a look at the scene and said that this was a hit. The pro took these people out.

But it looked like a robbery. But months went by and the detectives couldn't figure out who had killed the women. And during one of the visit to the house, investigators found several palm leaves arranging crosses spread around across the floor. So someone's fucking crazy.

Okay, so Tom of course is fucking devastated by the murder of his mother and his sister. And Susie's mother Florence, the cold water lady, she feels awful about it too. So she gets in touch with her former son in law and sends her condolences. And they kind of start exchanging notes on the shit that they've been separately dealing with with Susie because Susie's been crazy to her family too. And they start exchanging notes and Tom's just like, I just want to get. I just want to see my children. I know that with divorce a really important thing is for the parents to get along and for the, the kids to have, you know, the mother and father. And Florence, Susie's mom's like, absolutely. So they start to team up together a little bit. And Florence Newsome and her husband Bob, Susie's mom and dad, then agree to testify in court on Tom's behalf. Oh, which Susie isn't okay with.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's temper tantrum time.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Exactly.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

There's not enough cold water in the world.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Suddenly, suddenly, after 40 years, that heart murmur is back with a vengeance.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's right. Okay, so, okay, that, but. But Susie insists that she needs to keep sole custody of the boys because as the cop said, she thinks that Tom's family is involved with the mob. The cop said it was a hit. And she was like, so Tom's family was involved with the mob? I. Tom can't have the kids. And she, she also. Fritz convinces her that Tom over in Albuquerque is doing drug running shit and the kids can't be with him. She's just paranoid as fuck and believing all this crazy stuff. And she knew all of that because Fritz told her about it. So the hearing is scheduled for the week of May 26, 1985. But about a week before, on May 19, three more bodies are discovered in northwestern Winston Salem. So the first two bodies were Bob and his mother Hattie, who had been shot. So Bob is Susie's dad and his mother. They had been shot. And then the third victim, who the killer had shown far much more hatred and killing was Florence Coldwater. Florence, right, the mother, yes. So she had been shot and stabbed and her neck had been slit. God. So yeah, someone was fucking pissed at her. So she was discovered she had been posed in a praying position.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Too creepy.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So creepy. So fucking little bit of trivia. The next door neighbor was just like, how could this happen to the newsoms? The next door neighbor was Maya Angelou.

[Georgia Hardstark]

What?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Don't worry, she didn't do it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

This story, yeah, is left turn central. I have never in my life taken so many left turns. What in the living is going on? And still I rise. That's when she wrote in, Still I rise, right? Because out of tragedy comes art.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay, so the cops are investigating. They find out about. About these other parents in the same family like, family area who had died the year before. They were like, this is fucking weird. And they find a friend of Fritzi's who also lived in the area named Ian Perkins. So he's questioned by the winsome Stanley detectives. And he was like, okay, I have something to tell you. And this is weird.

[Georgia Hardstark]

He goes, Everybody said it in that voice, too.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay, I have something to tell you.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay, look, I have something to tell you.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Listen, I'm gonna level with you, Fritz. Turns out, he says, Fritz is in the CIA and I helped him with a hit he had to do.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No, he fell for the CIA bullshit. Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And he also immediately cracked when, like, local cops questioned him too, which is like. And he wanted to be in the CIA so badly, which is why he helped Fritz. But, like, I think he immediately lost his membership when he cracked.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I was gonna say, I hope he knows you don't get into CIA from your hometown. It usually doesn't work that way.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Snitches. The saying isn't snitches get into the CIA.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's something else. I can't remember. Yes, I can. So, da, da, da, da. Okay, so Fritz had confided with Ian that he worked for the CIA and that he needed Ian to help him. He had given him. He had been given an assignment to wipe out a communist cell. So basically what he told Ian is that he needed to get him to drop him off at a location and come back and pick him up an hour later. And he was going to make the kill. And if he did it, he would put in a good word for him at the CIA.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Because it's mostly. It's a merit based system, but they do take strong recommendations.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

At the CIA.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So basically, Ian drives Fritz to the old town neighborhood of Winston Salem, drops him off a half a mile from where Bob, Florence and Hattie lived, and an hour later picked him up and said that the mission was a success. And that was the night that that shocker he killed.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Got it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Got it. Yeah. Okay. So Ian was like fucking flabbergasted when he found out that Fritz is in a doctor or in the CIA. And so he agrees to wear a wire talking to Fritz. So he does it a couple times, and Fritz doesn't admit it, but he essentially is like, everything's fine, don't worry. And then he met with him on June 3rd, the final time. And he told Ian that he would write out a statement for him saying he had nothing to do with the murders, which essentially was the only real confession he gave. And then he said, Fritz said before he left, I've got things to do. I won't see you again. And he fucking drives off in his blazer.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And then he pulled his doctor's coat over his head and just stood there pretending he was gone. Because this Is insane.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay, now.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I don't see. I'm gone now.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Did it work? Now she gets bananas.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay, now.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Is my Angelou coming back? Please, God.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay, Fritz dropped drives off in his blazer. Yeah.

Right.

And of course a bunch of unmarked police cars follow him. They've been following him. They've been eyeing Susie's house, Susie's apartment. It's in Greensboro.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wonderful area.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Friendly Avenue.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Best Street.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Tell them your address. What? What'd you say?

[Georgia Hardstark]

In Greenboroughs.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes, yes. Everyone knows that. So detectives has staked the place out. And when fucking Fritz gets home, they see Fritz and Susie running back and forth in their apartment, loading up supplies into the blazer. And then detectives see little John and Jim, who are 9, 11 years old, taken into the blazer. They're wearing camo.

Scary. So I mean.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And fashionable.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, I mean, I have to say, in the 80s, every night, 9 and 11 year old boy I had ever met in my life wore camo all the time. It was kind of a thing.

[Georgia Hardstark]

But it's. Yeah, but there's a CIA element to it that we don't like.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's problematic.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's problematic.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So the blazer takes off at the family in it and the fucking law officers are like pursue him. And finally when they try to get the car to stop, when they're at an intersection, Fritz spins the blazer around, Fucking later days in the other direction. Before they know it, he's pulling a fucking 9 millimeter Uzi submachine gun from the window and firing it. One officer gets shot in the shoulder and the chest. But his wife, I'm sure at one point he was like, my wife's such a nag. She makes me wear a fucking bulletproof vest all the time. And then later he was like, I love you. I'm sorry.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I'll do everything you say from now on.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, that's amazing. So he's shooting at the fucking everyone in pursuit of him. There's civilians all over the place. One lady fucking apparently dives off her lawnmower.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Maya Angelou. It was Maya Angelou. Please, just for the sake of the movie we're writing together.

[Karen Kilgariff]

What is. What poem does she write when she's hiding?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Never mind me and my lawn mower. Thank him. I don't know. Yeah, that wasn't a good one. I wasn't going to bring hillbillies back up though, so.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay. Chase continues. And they head toward the farm that his family had near Eden. And he kept that place stocked with weapons and explosives like that was their Fucking end of days bunker that they were headed towards. The officers remain in close pursuit. And so later, what's said is that they see some commotion or struggling in the cap of the vehicle. And then two shots went off, followed quickly by the entire Blazer blowing the.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, my God.

[Karen Kilgariff]

The blast is so powerful that the Blazer was lifted off the ground as high as the telephone poles.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, shit.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Before slamming back down. So Susie had been sitting on top of this bomb. And it's hard to tell if they detonated themselves or. Or if the shots that were fired was.

What, maybe.

I don't know. Does anyone know? Bombs. It blew it up, triggered a thing.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I bet it was number two.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. And I bet, like, he sucks. He can't make great bombs probably, you.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Know, that was the one thing he was good at doing.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So her. She was sitting on the bomb. So her.

But.

So her lower body is gone. She's fucking dead, Cliff. Obviously. Do you want it? This isn't gory, but do you want to see the.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Well, I mean.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, see, this is when I'm scrolling late at night going, what murder should.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I do this week?

[Karen Kilgariff]

I don't know what murder. Like, looking at photos and I see this and I'm like, what the. I have to do that murder. How bananas is that? That's insane. And that's like a. Like a street that people. That's like.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's a street. Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

There's the record crate. Okay.

It's awful. Fritz is thrown. Dan Davidson, who's the lead detective from Kentucky, runs him and he tries to get a confession from him, but he can't get him anything before he dies. Sorry.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Fritz lived.

[Karen Kilgariff]

He got no. He dies, but he was alive.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And when you. Oh, yeah, like on the scene.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Like, shit.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Fuck.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's crazy.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So he dies too.

Jim and John are found dead. They each had a shot in the head. Those two shots that were fired. But even before that, it was determined that they had been given cyanide.

And Susie before this had said to her friends, like, I don't know what I'll do without Fritz. I have cyanide. So if anything ever happens to him for me and the kids, like, she was so obsessed with him and like, he had been. Have. He'd been like, had other girlfriends. One of them of whom he, like, had when she dumped him, when he tried to get her to do a suicide pact with him. So, like, he was fucking nuts and so was she.

So it was discovered that their mother Susie was the one who shot them. But that seems Debated and hard to tell. Detectives later found evidence that Susie had participated in the murders of Dolores and Jane lynch, her ex mother in law.

There's lots of people who criticize any and all of the four jurisdictions that were of law enforcement who were working the case for not stopping Fritz sooner. Like when they saw the kids walk into the car. But when they looked in Susie's house, I mean, there were guns everywhere. So this could have ended up this way no matter what.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right? That's worst case scenario, actually.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Right.

So aunt judge Susan is also criticized because she made it harder for Tom to intervene with the boys welfare. That's just conjecture. I don't know if that's true. And to her death, she denied that her niece had anything to do with it and was just a victim of Fritz. But even with the evidence to the contrary, she wouldn't listen to it. Finally, Tom lynch, the dad, refused to let John and Jim be buried in North Carolina. So they were laid to rest in New Mexico, where he said was the last place they were truly happy. And that's the bitter blood murders.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Unbelievable. Oh, my God.

It's so much more fun when the doomsday preppers just keep on prepping and everything's just kind of okay. It's so much better.

[Karen Kilgariff]

There's gotta be a large percentage of them that just happens with. Right, right. They just prep forever.

[Georgia Hardstark]

They just keep on prepping.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

Hey, do we have time for our hometown?

[Georgia Hardstark]

It has to be fast.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Vince, is it looked up signal? Vince went.

Eh.

We kind of have time.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Let's say hi to Vince really quick.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Hi, Vince. There he is. Yeah, our tour manager.

Okay. We have a.

We have a.

Let's keep it tight.

[Georgia Hardstark]

He is managing this tour.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Thank you. Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And are you taking that mic?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Keep it tight. All right. So who's the least drunk person here who has a hometown? I guess the person who's swinging her sweater around probably isn't it?

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's her shirt.

Should we put.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Should we. How are we gonna do this? You guys know the rules.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Just do it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You know the rules. You can't be too drunk. It needs to be a good story worth listening to. And you needs to be short tonight. It has to be really quick.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So if you have some long thing. Zip it. It has to be a quickie.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's her. Yeah. Okay. You're f. You are. I said, is it quick? And she goes, I promise. And double finger cross. So you're in trouble. If it's not, you're.

[Audience Member / Guest]

It's her fault.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay. Uhoh. Oh, she's drunk. No, she's not. Here, let's sign this.

Been drunk. Yeah. Right. Okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Still.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Hi. Hi. Hug me. What's your name?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Hi.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Anna.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Anna.

[Audience Member / Guest]

Oh, my God. So amazing to be guys.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Amazing.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Turn your phone off.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You're not allowed to read.

[Audience Member / Guest]

I'm a mom.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You're not allowed to read.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Do you need that?

[Audience Member / Guest]

Ah, no, just.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Well, maybe we'll know.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Wallet.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Do you not trust those guys? You got to carry everything. Okay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

All right. Where are you from?

[Audience Member / Guest]

I'm from Scotland. North Carolina.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay.

[Audience Member / Guest]

Tiny town.

[Georgia Hardstark]

What's it?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Tiny.

[Audience Member / Guest]

Scotland. Neck.

[Georgia Hardstark]

They're all Scotland Neck. Scotland Neck. Up in the balcony. Okay. Quickly. Yeah.

[Audience Member / Guest]

This is terrifying, isn't it?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So crazy.

[Audience Member / Guest]

Sorry. Hearts being fast?

[Georgia Hardstark]

No. All right, well, mine too.

[Audience Member / Guest]

So, long story short.

My mother's first cousin, cousin.

Elizabeth, known as Libby House in Scotland.

Well, she. She got hitched and she moved down to Georgia. And this was kind of like a debutante lady. Very Southern, very sweet lady. She moved on down. And.

Husband, you know, I don't know. Their relationship was weird.

[Karen Kilgariff]

They were.

[Audience Member / Guest]

Was some sort of rumors going around saying they had a very open marriage that was kind of very.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Not done. Yeah.

[Audience Member / Guest]

Not done in this area at all. And so that was going on. And then he had a business, and she was.

Part of the bookkeeping.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And.

[Audience Member / Guest]

So she started embezzling money.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Without him now.

[Audience Member / Guest]

A lot of money.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, a lot of money.

[Karen Kilgariff]

$2 million.

[Audience Member / Guest]

So she's embezzling money and.

He goes missing.

So everyone's like, where is he? And they're asking her, and she's going.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, you know, he's in the hospital.

[Audience Member / Guest]

And he's taking some time. Mary's coming back, back sometime. They don't know when he's coming back. And so that's kind of where she screwed up there. So she. She didn't have her story straight. Turns out during fourth of July during the fireworks, she went and shot him in the head a couple times.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Like, during fireworks to, like, hide the noise. Yeah.

[Audience Member / Guest]

Yes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

This is.

[Audience Member / Guest]

I'm telling you guys, this is from a really small town. Okay. This is a place that were. This kind of thing doesn't happen. Like, so she definitely. I mean, this was. I don't know if it was planned. It couldn't have been planned.

[Georgia Hardstark]

How could anyone do this?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Well, the $2 million had to be planned, so. Okay.

[Audience Member / Guest]

Yeah, probably had something to do with it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Audience Member / Guest]

But anyways, so. So three shots in the head. So everyone's wondering where this guy is, and the police are absolutely Asking her now, at this point, her. His family's wondering, everyone's wondering, where is this guy? And turns out he is buried in the backyard.

This woman was five foot five. She was 115 pounds. This her husband? Six five, something like that. 240 took her.

This is a terrible, terrible thing.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's all terrible.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's why we're here. It is terrible.

[Audience Member / Guest]

But it took her two days and two trips to Home Depot to get her. Get him.

[Karen Kilgariff]

She dug it herself.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay, so what. How did she get caught?

[Audience Member / Guest]

So she. She got caught because her story. Her story wasn't straight.

[Karen Kilgariff]

The.

[Audience Member / Guest]

The police realized that, yes, the. He's not around, he's not coming back, there's $2 billion missing. What's happening? And so they zeroed in on her, basically because her story was a street. People were asking where he was, and she was sitting in the car. And the worst part about it was when they went to ask her, why. Why did you kill him? What happened? She said, I wanted to save him from the embarrassment of me embezzling the money. So I just killed him and then buried him. So it's fine now.

[Georgia Hardstark]

In a way. Is she in jail? She's in jail for life.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Audience Member / Guest]

Well, I don't know what her sentence is looking like, but I called my mom.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's your aunt and it's your mom's sister.

[Audience Member / Guest]

Yeah, well, my. Yes, my mom, but my. My actual mom, who I call my mom today. This is my mom who has passed away. That is related to her. Anyways, I called her my mom, who. My mom, who I call my mom now. Who's the town gossip?

[Georgia Hardstark]

She knows what's up.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Love it.

[Audience Member / Guest]

I was like, hey, I was like, give me some more on Libby because I'm going to this cool podcast show.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Tonight, and I gotta know the deets.

[Audience Member / Guest]

And she was like. She was like, yeah, yeah, don't make her sound bad.

And I was like, I won't make. Make her sound any worse than a murderer.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, my God, that's amazing. You're welcome.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Great job.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You guys are. You guys are awesome.

[Audience Member / Guest]

Awesome.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Thank you.

[Audience Member / Guest]

Thank you, Victoria, for getting me a.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Seat to this show. You're the best.

[Audience Member / Guest]

And thanks to my husband for watching my baby tonight. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Thank you, Dangle.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Sir, we're giving you a poster. These. These posters look. You get a present. Thank you so much for doing such a good job.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Thank you.

So cool. Ye.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I think this should be the new.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Thing in the rules is what.

Jesus. Wallet.

Sorry you guys were scaring the out of me.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I honestly thought you were yelling walrus. I swear to God.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Wallet.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Does she have her phone?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. All right, you guys. The first night of our fucking fall community, Tara, which has been amazing.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You guys.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Thank you so much.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You have been a truly. A truly perfect crowd. Honestly, Durham, you nailed this shit.

What a great kickoff for us.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. And we know you've had a rough week, so we appreciate you coming out and supporting us. Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Thank you so much for making it. Thank you so much for being here here. And honestly, we were just saying in the dressing room before you got ready. Now, we know we have to hurry up, but we really love this job and we're so grateful that you guys like this podcast so much. We're so grateful for your constant support and we're grateful how much you guys love each other. It means so much to us to watch these murdering our communities grow up and that you're all meeting each other and hanging. It's just the fucking coolest thing in the world. Oh, and they're. There's a hangout tonight after the show.

[Karen Kilgariff]

At the Layers of Dignity is they're holding a fundraiser at the Full Stream Brewery. So let's go fucking go there after.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And raise some money for a great cause. And also stay sexy and don't.

Bye, you guys.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Thank you.

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

Tis the season to stock up on holiday groceries from Aldi on Uber Eats. From now until December 31st, get 30% off Aldi orders of $40 or more.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So if you've got the who family in town and a small army to feed, you can get all your Aldi favorites delivered right to your door.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We're talking everything from quality meats, savory cheeses and fresh produce to holiday treats like eggnog and Candy Canes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Get 30% off all your holiday grocery orders of $40 or more from Aldi through December 31st. Order now on Uber Eats.

[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

From their award winning foundation to their nourishing skin care line, Crunchy is raising the bar.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's so true. So I've been putting on more makeup than I ever have in my life because we've been doing videos and live shows and so I am really, really careful about what I put on my skin because I break out easily.

So I love that.

Crunchy is so clean and so nourishing. I'm actually wearing makeup that's good for my skin and makes my skin look better instead of hiding all the imperfections, which is usually what I use makeup for, honestly.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Visit crunchy.com to shop clean beauty that performs and take 20% off your order with code MFM.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's code MFM and at C R U N C H I com the real clean beauty.

Goodbye.