481 - $8 Million in Today's Money

Summary

Podcast Summary: My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

Episode: 481 - $8 Million in Today's Money
Release Date: May 22, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 481 of My Favorite Murder, hosts Karen Kilgarith and Georgia Hardstark delve into two gripping true crime stories: the harrowing case of Phoenix's serial shooter and the mysterious disappearance of lighthouse keepers from the Flannan Isles. Throughout the episode, Karen and Georgia intertwine personal anecdotes, insightful discussions on societal issues, and reflections on the broader impact of these crimes.

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Story 1: Phoenix's Serial Shooter

Overview

Karen and Georgia recount the terrifying spree of random shootings that plagued Phoenix, Arizona, between 2005 and 2006. This case, often overshadowed by more widely publicized incidents, highlights the vulnerability of marginalized communities and the complexities of law enforcement tackling multiple violent offenders simultaneously.

Timeline of Events

1. Initial Attacks (May - June 2005):

   • May 17, 2005: Tony Mendez, a construction worker, is randomly shot while delivering candles to a family without power. ([16:42])
   • May 24, 2005: Reginald Remillard, a Vietnam War veteran struggling with schizophrenia, is fatally shot at a bus stop. ([18:51])
   • June 29, 2005: David Estrada, a 20-year-old high school athlete, is murdered while camping under an overpass. ([19:24])

2. Escalation and Pattern Recognition (November 2005 - December 2005):

   • November 11, 2005: Nathaniel Schoffner, an unhoused man with prior police encounters, is killed using a small gauge shotgun. ([20:15])
   • December 29, 2005: A series of shootings occur in one night at the ABC Bartending School in Tempe and nearby areas, targeting both people and animals. Clarissa Raleigh survives a shooting attempt, providing a crucial description of the gunman's vehicle. ([22:40])

3. Investigation and Breakthrough (2006):

   • Detectives connect 35 shootings over 14 months, identifying a pattern of attacks from a moving vehicle using .22 caliber rifles. Simultaneously, law enforcement deals with the Baseline Killer, an active serial rapist and murderer in the area, straining resources. ([27:54])
   • July 2006: A tip leads police to Sam Diedemann and Dale Housener, who admit to engaging in "random recreational violence" while under the influence of methamphetamine. ([28:46])

4. Arrests and Convictions:

   • August 3, 2006: Police arrest both men after recording conversations incriminating them in multiple crimes. Dale Housener faces 88 charges, including six counts of first-degree murder, and is sentenced to death. He later takes his own life in 2013 while on death row. Sam Diedemann pleads guilty to murder and conspiracy, receiving life imprisonment without parole. ([35:42])

Notable Quotes

• Karen on the simultaneous serial killers:
  "...in one year, a brutal chapter in Phoenix history finally ends." ([41:20])

• Georgia reflecting on the victims' trauma:
  "...for the victims and their families, there finally is at least a little resolution. But the trauma lingers..." ([42:10])

Discussion and Insights

Karen and Georgia use this case to highlight the often-overlooked stories of victims from marginalized backgrounds, such as the unhoused and undocumented immigrants. They discuss the societal tendency to dehumanize these individuals, making it easier to rationalize or dismiss their suffering. The hosts emphasize the importance of supporting mental health services and social welfare programs to prevent such tragedies.

Georgia: "...if you need to understand, like, where someone is in their life, that they're doing that, it's not. They're not a bum. They're a human being trying to live their life the only way they can." ([43:40])

Karen: "...those problems, we wouldn't have to be moralizing. You wouldn't have to listen to your Republican dad rant..." ([44:05])

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Story 2: Flannan Isles Lighthouse Mystery

Overview

Shifting gears, Karen and Georgia explore the enigmatic disappearance of three lighthouse keepers from the Flannan Isles in Scotland during December 1900. This cold case has fascinated historians, paranormal enthusiasts, and conspiracy theorists for over a century.

Case Details

1. The Setting:

   • Flannan Isles: A remote, desolate Scottish island known for its sheer cliffs and a solitary lighthouse built in 1899. The lighthouse, Eilean Moore, is situated on the largest island, Eilean Moore, about a quarter-mile across with 150-foot cliffs resembling those in The Princess Bride.

2. Disappearance (December 1900):

   • December 15, 1900: Two ships, the Fairwind and the Ark Door, approach the lighthouse expecting to see its beam. Instead, they encounter darkness. The Ark Door sustains damage in a storm, crew reports no signs of the lighthouse keepers.
   • Boxing Day, 1900: A relief boat, the Hesperus, arrives with Joseph Moore, a familiar lighthouse keeper. Upon investigation, he finds the lighthouse deserted—bedrooms tidy, kitchen clean, one chair knocked over, clocks unwound, and a starving canary in a cage.

3. Investigation and Theories:

   • Official Account: The superintendent attributes the disappearance to a massive storm, though inconsistencies such as the unpaid light weeks before the storm and the coordinated disappearance of all keepers suggest otherwise.
   • Alternative Theories:
     • Paranormal Activity: Legends speak of fairies, phantoms, and mysterious original inhabitants with unusual physical traits.
     • Personal Conflict: Potential disagreements among the keepers; Donald MacArthur's known dislike for the job.
     • Extreme Weather: Unlikely one storm could account for simultaneous disappearances without evidence.
     • Extraterrestrial Intervention: Aliens intervening, though culturally implausible in the historical context.

4. Cultural Impact:

   • The mystery has permeated pop culture, inspiring songs by Genesis, a 2019 film starring Gerard Butler titled The Vanishing, and episodes of shows like Doctor Who.

Notable Quotes

• Georgia introducing the mystery:
  "This is the Flannan Isles lighthouse mystery, a tale shrouded in fog, fear, and unanswered questions." ([51:56])

• Karen pondering the nature of the lighthouse keepers:
  "They're not waking up one day and it's mayhem and they have to run all over and forget to wash the dishes because they have to run out and do a thing. It's like, normal day." ([66:56])

Discussion and Insights

The hosts discuss the human aspect of isolation and the psychological toll it can take, drawing parallels to their own lives and broader societal issues. They explore how remote jobs, like lighthouse keeping, can become breeding grounds for mystery and folklore due to the inherent isolation and challenging environment.

Georgia: "...there have to have been multiple massive waves to wash all three men away. So we're not believing that one." ([66:02])

Karen: "It's like a movie where it's like, the profiling that they talk about, where it's like they're in it for the glory and the same." ([38:28]) — reflecting on the serial shooter story.

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Conclusion

Episode 481 of My Favorite Murder masterfully intertwines two distinct true crime stories, offering listeners a deep dive into both modern and historical mysteries. Karen and Georgia not only narrate the events but also provide thoughtful commentary on the societal factors that influence how we perceive and respond to such tragedies. Their blend of storytelling, humor, and critical analysis ensures that even those unfamiliar with the episode's content can engage with and understand the gravity of these true crime cases.

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Notable Mentions: While primarily focusing on the two main stories, Karen and Georgia briefly highlight other podcasts within the Exactly Right network, such as Buried Bones, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, and This Podcast Will Kill You, emphasizing the network's diversity in true crime and storytelling.

Listener Resources: For more detailed information and sources referenced in this episode, listeners are encouraged to check the show notes available on the My Favorite Murder website or their preferred podcast platform.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Karen Kilgarith]

This is exactly right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgarith]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgarith]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgarith]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgarith]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgarith]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgarith]

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[Karen Kilgarith]

Goodby.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Hello, hello and welcome to my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hardstark, that's Karen Kilgarith, and.

[Karen Kilgarith]

This is that True Crime podcast that your sister told you about 10 years.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Ago that you finally listened to. Or haven't.

[Karen Kilgarith]

If you haven't, how are you hearing this right now?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Do we sound funny? Is this funny?

[Karen Kilgarith]

It's a Zen cone.

[Georgia Hardstark]

She said we were funny. She said we were supposed to make you laugh. But too bad. How's it going?

[Karen Kilgarith]

Good. How are you?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Good. I just binged Ione Sky's new memoir, so say Everything. So I'm in that kind of this 80s mentality, like 80s tell all everything mentality.

[Karen Kilgarith]

And how is that mentality affecting your life?

[Georgia Hardstark]

I think very vulnerable, I think. And I want to sleep With John Cusack, but that's it.

[Karen Kilgarith]

I think that's the way to go, though.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right?

[Karen Kilgarith]

When I first saw Better Off Dead, when I was, like, 14 years old, it was like the humor where I was like, oh, there are other people that think weird shit is funny. And then him in the middle of all that, because he had. I had first seen him as a nerd in Sixteen Candles, and I think this was right after that.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Because he's a little older, a little taller, and I was just like, this guy is it. He is. I think many, many girls in the 80s were just. It was like, he was cute, but he wasn't Rob Lowe intimidating cute, and he was super funny and super real. And he seemed a little sad. It was like, all the things you love.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. It's, like, accessible. However, it's hard to look at. I mean, she tells all. You would love it. I think it's a really good, vulnerable, like, honest book. And she's really weird, too, so I feel like it speaks to me in a I want to be a cool girl way.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yeah, don't we all?

[Georgia Hardstark]

I mean, she is us.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Wasn't she married to. Talk about cool girl. Wasn't she married to. Was it Diamond Mike D from the Beastie Boys or was it Adam?

[Georgia Hardstark]

She was married to Mike D. Yeah.

[Karen Kilgarith]

I mean, like, her and Kathleen. Hannah get cooler than that. How much cooler do you want to be? God.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. What about you? Anything you're binging?

[Karen Kilgarith]

Well, it was just my 55th birthday, which is this Sammy Hagar birthday.

[Georgia Hardstark]

What does that mean?

[Karen Kilgarith]

I can't drive 55. It's the Sammy Hagar hit. Got it. Speaking of the 80s, if you want to talk about the 80s, happy birthday. Thank you. It was nice. I went to Petaluma. It was on Mother's Day, so.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oof.

[Karen Kilgarith]

I have a holiday birthday. It happens.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's hard.

[Karen Kilgarith]

And it's not great when your mom's dead. So there's. There's a little. You know, you're getting flowers and you're like, is this positive? Is this negative? But I've said this to you before. The older you get, the less your birthday. You do definitely stop doing that. Like, it's my birthday week, and we have to go to dinner on Tuesday and this on Friday. Whatever. It truly becomes this thing of, like, I just don't. I just don't want to talk about it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I know, but everyone else wants to, so you don't have to do it for them.

[Karen Kilgarith]

That's true.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Which isn't. You don't have to do anything for them, I guess.

[Karen Kilgarith]

I mean, ultimately, no. But you have to be able to receive. So you can't. I can't say. I should say, like, just ignore it, because people want to let you know that you matter to them and that they love you and they're glad that you lived yet another year.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right. And it's kind of the only, like, acceptable time during the year for them to say that. You can't just randomly bust that out. You shouldn't, you know, on a Tuesday.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Oh, my God, I'm so glad you survived.

[Georgia Hardstark]

What?

[Karen Kilgarith]

Nothing. Nothing.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I have a really funny gift for you, but visual, and you have to touch it. And we're not in the studio right now, so next week we're in the studio. You're gonna get a belated, hilarious birthday gift that I bought months ago when I saw it on Instagram, and I was like, I have been holding it and waiting for your birthday.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Oh, nice.

[Georgia Hardstark]

But now it has a lot to live up to, so it better fucking be funny.

[Karen Kilgarith]

You know what? Also, that just reminded me that we took last week off for a much needed break, but we didn't do our briefcase presentation, so now we really have to do it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I am glad, because I can't fucking find one. Can you?

[Karen Kilgarith]

Did you really look?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, my God, I've looked so much. And I went through my own closet, and I was like, this might work. Is this. You know, I. I have looked, and it's harder than I thought it would be.

[Karen Kilgarith]

It is very obscure.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It is. It is.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Is there such thing as a business thrift store?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Ooh.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Filled with ties and suits and briefcases. That's sexist.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And dresses and working dresses with shoulder pads, the whole thing.

[Karen Kilgarith]

And unisex jumpsuits, you know, Ooh, let's not be so gendered at work all the time. Come on, guys, stop. Guys, stop it. Do you want to talk about. There is some sad news in the true crime journalism world.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's right. We must say, an rip to the incredible British crime reporter who we have sourced many times for this podcast. Duncan Campbell. He died at 80 after a very admirable career in true crime.

[Karen Kilgarith]

A huge name. He worked for the Guardian. He was a huge name in Brit journalism. Married to the actress Julie Christie, which is, you know, Jesus, a huge accomplishment all in itself. If you haven't seen Shampoo, it's one of the greatest movies of all time.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, we've used him many times. And, you know, he was a source in the story I told about the Great Train Robbery. And in the Hatton Garden heist story, you know, R.I.P.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yeah. True crime journalists are the reason we're all here in true crime podcasting. It's a direct line, truly. Thank you for to all the true crime journalists that make these conversations possible.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yep. All right, should we do some highlights of our podcast network called exactly right Media?

[Karen Kilgarith]

Let's do it. So over on the Knife this week, Hannah and Patia share Meg Richter's story. Meg was labeled a troubled teen and sent to Mountain Park Baptist Boarding Academy, a Christian reform school, but was actually more like a juvenile detention center. And they talk all about the corporal punishment and the cult like atmosphere it is. Those are some of my favorite stories. Stories of like, what were they getting away with back then? It's so crazy.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I mean, it's wild. And the knife. Please follow them. They're doing some incredible work. We're so proud to have them newly.

[Karen Kilgarith]

On the network and they're doing really well. That show is becoming a true hit and people are really responding to not just how good it is, like in terms of the topic that everyone's interested in, but how good Hannah and Paisha are as hosts. And their conversations are incredible.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes. Thank you guys so much for supporting that. And then over on Buried Bones, Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul holz head to 1855 Ohio, where a farmer died under suspicious circumstances. The investigation starts out standard with suspects, motives, a few twists, but what unfolds is anything but ordinary. So make sure you check that out.

[Karen Kilgarith]

And then over on do youo Need a Ride? Chris and Karen welcome the hilarious Martha Kelly.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, my God.

[Karen Kilgarith]

We have a two parter with Martha Kelly. You know Martha from the television show Baskets. She played the character Martha. She's also on Euphoria. She's been in a bunch of movies. Martha is a standup comic who is basically one of those comics comics that everyone loves. She's one of the funniest people. So we ended up doing a two parter because it was just, we just were like, let's just keep going and our work is done here. But she also, if you haven't seen her on TikTok, she's hilarious. And you should definitely check it out if you are on TikTok.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And over on I said no Gifts, Bridger remains gracious as ever when Mary Elizabeth Ellis, our friend from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and a man on the inside shows up with an unapproved gift. They talk swamp tours, LA rabbits, and the dangers of chicken Caesar salad. I love Mary Elizabeth. She's the best.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Speaking of gifts, we've got some merch news. The MFM crow's pullover hoodie is here. Just in time for summer.

[Georgia Hardstark]

What?

[Karen Kilgarith]

I think Allison was being sarcastic when she wrote that. Just in time for summer.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yay.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Wear it to a freezing cold movie theater or just store it away for winter if you want to, but they are some pretty I love this design. I love the way they made this sweatshirt. So go take a look at it and see if you don't love it too.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And also, we've restocked the I Shall Never Submit tease inspired by the Pearl Heart story from episode 370. You guys love that piece of merch, so check that out. It's available now in both ladies and unisex, and you can see all of our [e-mail] Yay.

[Karen Kilgarith]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgarith]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgarith]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgarith]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgarith]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgarith]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgarith]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgarith]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgarith]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgarith]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgarith]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

You're first, right?

[Karen Kilgarith]

I am first. And I'm here with a classic true crime story. I was not familiar with it when I first heard about it, and then I think it was Maren probably found it and pitched it. But then I was like, as I read her research, I was like, oh, that's why I thought I heard of this before. And you will see what I'm talking about. So if you want to watch a TikTok about this case, there is a creator named Zevi Universe. So it's E V I Capital U Universe, and they talk all about this story. If you want to watch a TikTok version, and just for anybody that is sensitive to it, there are very brief mentions of violence against animals in this episode. There's very long mentions of violence against humans. So this story starts in 2006, and while this is not a story entirely about Mike Tyson, it does begin at his boxing gym. So this was when Mike was based in the Phoenix area of Arizona, long past his championship years. He is in an enormous amount of debt. Remember when Mike Tyson used to live with fully grown live tigers?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes.

[Karen Kilgarith]

When he lived in Las Vegas and was married to Robin Givens.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Absolutely.

[Karen Kilgarith]

I mean, like, he really went for it. So he's in debt, but he's still one of the most famous boxers of all time. So to help pay off his debt, he's gearing up for a world tour. His team's focused on promoting the matches and boosting ticket sales, and that includes him doing interviews here and there with sports reporters. So today at his gym, Mike's set to meet with a local boxing journalist for a quick chat and for some photos. Tyson will later describe this man as a small, polite white guy. Their time together goes smoothly. Nothing happens. And before the man leaves, he asks to get a photo with him and Mike together. Of course, Mike Tyson agrees. That's that. The guy leaves. Mike Tyson never really thinks much more of it. And then one morning a few weeks later, Mike is again at his gym working out, when a SWAT team surrounds the place. Mike has had run ins with the law, kind of infamously. He also grew up in a horrible part of New York City over in Brooklyn. You know, he's no stranger to the police, so he's totally freaked out, has no idea what's going on, and immediately starts apologizing. He's confused, but he's like, what did I do this time? Basically, yeah. So a sergeant steps forward, shows Mike Tyson a photo, the one with the boxing journalist from a few weeks earlier. And the sergeant asks how he knows this man. Of course, Mike can't remember anything going wrong during the interview or why this would be an issue, but he apologizes anyway and says, I must have said something to him. I must have offended him. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do that. End quote.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow.

[Karen Kilgarith]

It's like basically, he's like, they're coming for me, right?

[Georgia Hardstark]

I need to start Immediately apologizing. Trying to fix this so quickly.

[Karen Kilgarith]

The officer makes it clear to Mike Tyson. Mike Tyson's not the one in trouble here. He explains the photo was pulled from that man's website, which is what led the SWAT team to Mike's gym. And then the Sergeant says, quote, Mr. Tyson, he liked you, but he didn't like the 28 people he shot or the eight he killed, end quote.

[Georgia Hardstark]

What?

[Karen Kilgarith]

Alongside his accomplice, the man in the picture with Mike Tyson spent 14 months terrorizing Phoenix, Arizona, with horrific and random acts of violence. This is the story of Phoenix's serial shooter case.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Holy shit.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Right?

[Georgia Hardstark]

I don't remember this yet.

[Karen Kilgarith]

It's crazy.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Which sounds horrible.

[Karen Kilgarith]

It's horrible.

[Georgia Hardstark]

In crazy 2006. Yeah.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Like, basically a later version of the DC shooter, which we all were very aware of, and it was, like, on the news all the time. It's like Phoenix's kind of version.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. And everyone there knows the story perfectly, probably, but somehow I'm sure it's less in our minds. Okay. Wow. Tell me everything.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Okay, so the sources used today are journalist Michael Kiefer's reporting for the Arizona Republic, Gary Grotto, and Nick Martin's reporting for the East Valley Tribune, and an interview Mike Tyson gave during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, where Mike Tyson tells the story himself, which is crazy. Holy shit. And the rest of the sources are in our show notes. So we're gonna go back one year before the SWAT team invasion of Mike Tyson's boxing gym to May 17, 2005. A man named Tony Mendez, he's a construction worker in his late 30s, is on his bicycle delivering candles to a family who just lost their power at their house. Tony's been struggling with his sobriety, but he's starting to turn things around. Trying really hard to turn things around. A big source of inspiration to do this work are his four children, who he wants to strengthen his relationships. Tragically, on his way to help the family, Tony is shot to death by an unknown gunman with what investigators ultimately determine is a.22 caliber rifle fired from a moving vehicle.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, my God.

[Karen Kilgarith]

A week later, on May 24, 2005, another man named Reginald Remillard is randomly and fatally shot with a.22 caliber weapon while in a public space in Phoenix. Reginald was a Vietnam War veteran in his mid-50s who had struggled for years with schizophrenia. He was sleeping at a bus stop when he was shot, and he died of his injuries just a few days later. And then almost exactly one month later, on June 29, a 20 year old man named David Estrada is randomly shot to death. 20.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, baby.

[Karen Kilgarith]

David is remembered as a star high school athlete and a beloved member of his family. He's camping under an overpass in Tolleson, Arizona, about 12 miles from Phoenix on the night he's murdered. His body is found with gunshot injuries to his chest consistent with a.22 caliber weapon. So then a few months pass from this murder, and then on November 11, 2005, a man in his mid-40s named Nathaniel Schoffner is killed. Basically according to this exact same MO we don't know much about Nathaniel personally, aside from the fact that he was unhoused at the time that he was murdered. He had had a few run ins with the police over the years. Nathaniel's body is found in an alleyway in downtown Phoenix. But unlike the three previous victims, investigators determined that Nathaniel was killed with a small gauge shotgun.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Well, now you can immediately see why we didn't hear as much about this as we did the DC sniper. It's because it was unhoused. Less fortunate people.

[Karen Kilgarith]

That's right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And so it gets less coverage.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Right. It's people on the street who it's much easier to rationalize or right off as if they want to live on the street or be on the street.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Or if they deserve bad things because they can't help but live on the, you know.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yes. Yeah. All the moralizing that goes along with it. Yeah, good point. So after Nathaniel's murder, weeks pass, the holidays come and go, and then at the very end of December on the 29th, around 7:30pm, shots are fired at a car parked outside of the ABC Bartending School in Tempe, about 10 miles away from Phoenix. No one's injured in this shooting. It seems like just this one car has been targeted, which is very weird. But of course, everyone at the bartending school is completely rattled. And the shooter, believed to be firing from a car, immediately disappears before anyone can get a good look. So later that same night, several people and a few animals are shot at random throughout the Phoenix metro area. Two victims are unhoused and believed to be undocumented immigrants. Again, another reason we didn't hear about it. So we don't know very much about their lives, but we do know their names. They are 44 year old Jose Ortiz and 28 year old Margot Carrillo. They're both killed in separate locations not far from each other. And these shootings take place within minutes of each other. And this leads investigators to believe the gunman was firing from a moving car. Once again, the gun used in both attacks appears to be a.22 caliber rifle. So just one block away from where Marco Carillo is killed, another man is shot as he's getting off a bus. His name is Timmy Tordai and He's in his 30s. Timmy survives this shooting and he manages to get help. But by the time police are looped in, the shooter's already gone and the hunt continues. So around 1am the same night, a 24 year old Phoenix woman named Clarissa Raleigh is walking down the street alone. She sees a four door silver car pass her, then pull an abrupt U turn and come back in her direction. As the car gets closer, Clarissa watches as someone puts the barrel of a shotgun out the window and fires at her.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Holy shit.

[Karen Kilgarith]

She instinctively shields her face with her hands and her hands take the brunt of the blast.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh my God.

[Karen Kilgarith]

And thank God. A passerby sees Clarissa, like almost immediately after the attack and rushes her to the hospital. So she survives.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow.

[Karen Kilgarith]

So it doesn't take police long to connect these December 29th shootings. So all of that happened in one night.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Jesus. And so they definitely connected them immediately.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yeah, because they're so close to each other. The weapon was the same every time, and every time it appeared to be shooting from a moving car.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right. Wow.

[Karen Kilgarith]

But Clarissa surviving and being able to give a description of the gunman's vehicle now gives investigators a real lead. So when they check surveillance footage near where Jose, Marco and Timmy had all been murdered, they see the same silver Toyota Camry in that footage that matches her description.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow.

[Karen Kilgarith]

It's a huge lead in this horrifying case. But then the shootings stop. There are no reports of any shootings that fit this M.O. in Phoenix for the next five months. But then on May 2, 2006. So the following year, around 10pm, a 17 year old named Kabili Tambuto is walking home after picking up a few groceries for his mom at a Phoenix convenience store when he's shot with a small gauge shotgun. Kabili's father was shot and killed back in their native war torn Sierra Leone. But miraculously, Kabili survives this attack and he manages to get help from staffers at a nearby hotel.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow.

[Karen Kilgarith]

So scary.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, that's just like you can't even fucking walk down the street. Like, come on.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So frustrating.

[Karen Kilgarith]

And then 15 minutes after Cavilli's attack, a 20 year old woman named Claudia Gutierrez Cruz is walking home in nearby Scottsdale, Arizona. Claudia just moved to the area a few months before from her native Mexico. And she's just clocked out of work from a nearby restaurant. So, you know, it's that kind of thing. She just did a long shift and she's walking home and she is shot with a shotgun from a movie. A good Samaritan stops and rushes her to the hospital, but she does die not long after she gets there. Between May 30 and July 22, 2006, 15 more people are attacked at random in the greater Phoenix area.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Holy shit.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Most of them are shot with small gauge shotgun from a moving car. Fortunately, all of them survive their injuries.

[Georgia Hardstark]

How terrifying to like know that if you walk home you might get shot and maybe you don't have any other option to walk home, you know, like, because your shift is late and you don't have a car.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's terrifying.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Or like, I think it was Timmy who was getting off the bus.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Somebody was just basically got a ride home and was probably like a block away.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Totally.

[Karen Kilgarith]

It's horrifying.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. You want to be like, I wouldn't leave the house, but a lot of people don't have that option, so.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Right, right. Exactly.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Awful.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yeah. And especially unhoused people who are like, I'm just trying to survive out here.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgarith]

So the victims of these additional attacks include cyclists riding their bikes, a man listening to music in his parked car, people standing outside their houses and apartments, a woman who decided to walk home after getting into an argument with her husband. That one is, thank God she lived because, oh my God, the tragedy. The guilt. The guilt and horror. A man who's walking down the street to buy cigarettes and then just random pedestrians just walking down the sidewalk.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Fuck.

[Karen Kilgarith]

So now it's July 30th, it's around 11:15 at night, and a 22 year old woman named Robin Blasnak has just left her parents house in Mesa, Arizona, that's also in the Phoenix metro area, and she's walking over to her boyfriend's house. This kills me because this is the kind of thing where it's just like, here's just a description of a regular person. Like you're leaving your place, you're gonna go over to your boyfriend's place.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Everyday life, right?

[Karen Kilgarith]

She's wearing pajamas and fuzzy slippers and talking to her friend on the phone as she walks down the street.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh my. Like that's how normal and casual this is. Oh my God. Yeah.

[Karen Kilgarith]

So after a neighbor hears a gunshot and goes and looks outside, they find Robyn lying on the side of the road and she does end up dying. From her injuries.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, honey.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Investigators believe that those injuries were caused by a small gauge shotgun. Robyn's bereaved parents are now forced to endure the grief of her death, having lost another daughter 10 years earlier in a car accident.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oy vey.

[Karen Kilgarith]

It's horribly tragic for the Blasnaks and for all the victims, families and their friends, but it just keeps happening. By this point, it's been more than a year of random shootings. And the residents of Phoenix, of course, as we're saying, are completely on edge. People don't want to leave their houses for fear of being targeted. And by now, the gunman's being referred to as Phoenix's serial shooter. So a police task force has already been set up. They're putting all their energy into identifying the suspect. And investigators and forensics experts have collected and analyzed ballistics evidence, surveillance footage, eyewitness testimony, and any other evidence they can find from the crime scenes. So far, they've connected 35 shootings that include multiple fatalities to this so called serial shooter.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Unfortunately, it's an extremely busy time for investigators in Phoenix because there's also an active serial rapist and murderer operating in the area. It's the Baseline Killer.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Holy shit.

[Karen Kilgarith]

So not only are the citizens of Phoenix totally overwhelmed by all of this violence and murder all around them, but of course, law enforcement would be too, because they're not a gigantic city having to have multiple task force for multiple serial killers at one time.

[Georgia Hardstark]

For violent criminals, that does seem a little overwhelming.

[Karen Kilgarith]

It's a bit much.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgarith]

So In July of 2006, a man named Ron Horton leaves a message on a secret witness tip line, and he says that his friend, a guy named Sam Diedemann, has been bragging about shooting at random people and animals in public.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Dude.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Ron says that Sam referred to it as quote RVing, which he said stood for recreational violence.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, my God.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Sam is 31 years old. And you might remember the secret witness tip line from my story about Shirley Landreth on the tipster killer. Yeah, it's the same one that they have set up there. Yeah. So again, it's a tip line that really works.

[Georgia Hardstark]

But he's not secret, so maybe.

[Karen Kilgarith]

No, he's not secret. Cause he then went to court.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgarith]

So he's now on record.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Good. Don't keep secrets.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yeah. So this tip comes in around the same time Robin Blasnik is murdered. So officers reach out to Ron Horton to get more information from him. So Ron agrees to set up a meeting with Sam Dietemann at a local bar so that the police can actually lay some eyes on him and take a look at him. And it's good that they did because Sam gets a ride to that bar in a silver Toyota Camry. Police identify the driver as Sam's 33 year old friend and former roommate, Dale Housener.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Damn. You know they were losing their minds when that happened.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Oh God. That kind of stuff where like, especially for stakeouts and stuff where you're sitting there for like 14 hours and then finally it starts happening.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Like the exact thing you need and want. Oh my God, what a relief.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Wake up. Wake up. Don't spill your 711 coffee. Neither Dale nor Sam has ever been on the investigators radars. Sam's a divorced father. He's an electrician by trade. He has addiction issues. He spent stretches living on friends and family's couches. Dale, meanwhile, is described as a doting father of a young daughter. And Dale had his own horrible tragedy in his life. Years earlier. He lost his wife and his two sons in a terrible car accident where he was the only survivor.

[Georgia Hardstark]

What? No. Why the. What? Why do. Oh my God. That's just like confounding because why put other families through the thing that you know exactly how it feels that's just so depraved?

[Karen Kilgarith]

Or is that part of it? Feel what I feel. Why do I have to be alone in this pain? Everybody else needs to feel what I feel.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Sure. Yeah.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Dale works as a janitor at the Phoenix airport. He dabbles in sports journalism and promotions and he's a boxing super fan.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Ah.

[Karen Kilgarith]

He actually even has a local public access show about boxing. And it is Dale who lands the interview with Mike Tyson just weeks before he drops Sam off at that bar in his silver Camry.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow. So that already happened, right? Holy shit.

[Karen Kilgarith]

So on the surface, these men don't send up any glaring red flags to the investigators. But behind closed doors, Sam and Dale like to get. This is what they do for fun. They get incredibly drunk and then they get high on meth. And then they gamble, shoplift, vandalize anything from cars to businesses and commit acts of arson. Turns out they're responsible for two unsolved arson cases at different Arizona Walmarts on the same day where six people were sent to the hospital for smoke inhalation. And Walmart racked up $5 million in damages, which is how much in today's money? It's only 2006.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Eight mil. Eight.

[Karen Kilgarith]

That's exactly what you've done it. It's finally happened.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That is crazy. That's never happened before.

[Karen Kilgarith]

It's never happened.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Is there a thing?

[Karen Kilgarith]

There is. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Look, there it is.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That was it.

[Karen Kilgarith]

So during these fires, the water damage is mostly from the emergency sprinklers, and also it's Walmart. $8 million is literally like when you drop $5 on the street and you kind of bum out for two seconds.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Totally.

[Karen Kilgarith]

So these two men are basically just a horrible, rampaging, drug fueled who do not give a shit about anybody else.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I want to say, like, fucking meth, but I didn't do that shit on meth. I like, painted watercolors for hours with my friends. Like, it's not meth.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yes, exactly. There's different ways to go about things, but, yes, what you do on drugs is your responsibility.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right.

[Karen Kilgarith]

And you cannot just be like, oh, point to the thing that a bunch of other people are on but are not doing what that is. Don't be crazy.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Also, again, if there's any theme of this podcast, it's please don't do math. We beg you.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Truly.

[Karen Kilgarith]

So back at the stakeout bar, the police decide they're gonna discreetly follow Dale out of the parking lot, and they tail his Camry to a local mall. And when Dale heads inside, they slap a GPS device on his car.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes. Love it.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Right. So when Dale eventually heads back to the bar to pick Sam up, the police are now able to track their movement.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Amazing. Great work.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Great work for a police force that basically is like. There's also normal crime. There's the baseline killer. There's these assholes. Right. There's just the standard shit.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. There's other people on meth all over the place.

[Karen Kilgarith]

There's mething. Meth. There's mething around all over town.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I'm not. It's terrible.

[Karen Kilgarith]

We're not laughing at five finger discounting. No, we are not. We're laughing at other things.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, this is. I'm just thinking about the sister who's listening to this for the first time and just, like, horrified that we're cracking up about Matthew.

[Karen Kilgarith]

You're like, they thought drugs were funny. It's like they kind of are in other situations.

[Georgia Hardstark]

They can be very funny.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Okay. So that night, the Camry leaves the apartment complex, and they start to just drive aimlessly around town throughout random Phoenix neighborhoods. They slowed down as they approach pedestrians or cyclists, and sometimes they loop back around to pass the same person again.

[Georgia Hardstark]

But they didn't stop them.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Hold on.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Cause they could have shot them.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Hold on. Okay. As the camry circles the block. The undercover officers then slow their car down and then yell out the window to these oblivious pedestrians. Take cover. Get the fuck out of here. Basically like, go, go, go.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Holy shit. Okay, that's good.

[Karen Kilgarith]

So they did without blowing their own cover. They basically were telling those people, okay, there's somebody that's gonna shoot you. Thank you for telling me. But I bet you it was literally like the window rolled down, like, get out of here. That's the shooter.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And.

[Karen Kilgarith]

And people ran because this had been going on for so long. And those were the people that were exposed.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right. Or like, if you see someone slow down near you in a car and you're a pedestrian, you probably just run anyways because. Yeah. You know what's going on.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yeah, because of what's been going on.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Sure.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Luckily, no one is attacked during this drive this night. Police follow the men back to Dale's apartment, and they hear a bit of the two men's conversation, alluding to their disappointment, quote, because of the rain. It's unclear what they're talking about, but the police assume that. That they're mad that they couldn't find a good target because of the weather.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgarith]

So shortly after this, investigators secure a warrant to bug Sam's phone and Dale's apartment. And not long after that, on August 3, 2006, investigators are able to record the two men talking and joking about some of the shootings. And minutes after that, a SWAT team bursts into their homes and arrests both men.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, man, that had to feel so good. I mean, this is a movie. Like, this has to be made into a movie movie. It's like, yeah, perfect.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay.

[Karen Kilgarith]

And it can't be made into one of those movies where suddenly they're the anti heroes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No, no. Oh, no.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Just putting that out there. So Sam and Dale are interrogated by police separately. Dale shuts down and says nothing. But Sam spills. You're only as strong as your weakest link. So according to Michael Kiefer's reporting, quote, he and Dale, he told police, were engaged in what they called random recreational violence. There were muggings, stabbings, palm trees ignited, stores set on fire, tires slashed. And the shootings, essentially, they were playing video games in real time while smoking meth.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Christ.

[Karen Kilgarith]

End quote. So Sam gives context to several of the shootings. For example, he claims they murdered Nathaniel Schoffner, for example, because he'd thrown a can at them as they were about to shoot a stray dog. So Nathaniel saves the stray's life and is killed in turn.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, yve, I Can't handle that one yet. I'm not processing it right now. Yeah.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Sam also implicates Dale's brother Jeff in at least one unsolved random stabbing that they committed. He also admits that after one drive by shooting, they'd circled back to look at the victim's body and got caught at the scene when police showed up. So they end up giving false witness statements to the officers and are never suspected of being involved.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, someone got raped. Reprimanded for that for sure. Right. Like, that's kind of.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Oh, God. I mean, but also, as those cops, like, you wouldn't be able to live that down. It would be horrible.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Luckily, the victim in that shooting is a man named James Hodges, who was also a Vietnam veteran. And he, although critically injured, does survive.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Sam also tells police Dale had committed several shootings before the two had become friends, which police do believe is true. And Dale is soon considered to be the ringleader in these serial shootings. More damning evidence is found at his apartment. There are several firearms, including a small gauge shotgun and records showing that Dale used to own multiple.22 caliber rifles. They presume he'd either recently destroyed them or gotten rid of them somehow. They also find.22 caliber shell casings in his Camry, as well as scrapbooks containing cutout newspaper articles about the serial shooter.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Scrapbooking, like, that chills.

[Karen Kilgarith]

I mean, it's just like a movie where it's like, it really is the profiling that they talk about, where it's like they're in it for the glory and the same. They're in it for that part. It seems like hacky, but it is real.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. And, like, I could make a joke about how, like, tedious scrapbooking is, and, like, I can't even do it with my own happy life and these fucking monsters are doing it.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Like, I wanted to make a joke about Joanne Fabrics and, like, where those guys standing around in the aisles, like, no one noticed these two guys on.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Meth scrapbooking getting, like, measured of bow ribbon cuttings. I don't know what you do there, but we're not gonna do that.

[Karen Kilgarith]

We're not. We don't really do that anymore. As investigators pour through Dale's things, including his computer and his website, they also find that photo of him with Mike Tyson, which eventually leads the police to Mike Tyson's gym.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Did those guys just wanna meet Mike Tyson? Cause he has nothing to fucking do with it. Clearly, he's in one photo.

[Karen Kilgarith]

I mean, why did they have to go in with The SWAT team, right?

[Georgia Hardstark]

I' yeah, I don't think. Just wanted to meet Mike Tyson for sure.

[Karen Kilgarith]

And kind of maybe scare Mike Tyson.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I don't know. Or get their own photos with him. I don't know. It's questionable.

[Karen Kilgarith]

So the State of Arizona ends up filing 88 charges against Dale Hener, which span murder and arson. Sam Dman, meanwhile, continues cooperating with the authorities. He pleads guilty to murder and conspiracy to commit murder, and in doing so, ends up avoiding trial himself and the potential death penalty. So Sam agrees to testify against Dale at his trial, which begins in late 2008. And survivors Timmy Tordai and Clarissa Rowley both give their testimony in this trial, as does a man named John Kane, who crossed paths with Dale at Tempe's ABC Bartending School, where Dale had taken courses a while back, and where that parked car was shot at back in late December of 2005.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So there was a weird connection there.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yeah. And John Kane made that connection for everybody. He testifies that he'd been accused of sexual harassment by a woman affiliated with the school, and Dale had offered to help him out with that situation.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Jesus.

[Karen Kilgarith]

John asked Dale what he meant by that, and Dale told him, don't worry about it. You'll know when it happens. So then, a few nights later, on December 29th, this woman's car is shot at in the parking lot. John testifies. He confronted Dale the next day and asked him, what the fuck are you doing? And Dale simply replied, taking care of business.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, my God. So it was her car. Holy shit.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Problem is, John didn't report Dale to the police.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgarith]

So testimony like this, as well as the overwhelming amount of evidence presented to the jury, undeniably points to Dale's guilt. Guilt. So In March of 2009, Dale Hausner is convicted on 80.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yikes.

[Karen Kilgarith]

80 of the counts against him, including six counts of first degree murder.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow.

[Karen Kilgarith]

He's handed six death sentences. And in June of 2013, while on death row, he takes his own life. He was 40 years old.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow. How the fuck have I not ever, ever heard of this? I hope none of it.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Sam Diedemann, meanwhile, is sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole. And he remains there to this day. So with the convictions of Dale Hausner and Sam Diedemann, and the capture of the baseline killer, Mark Gadot, the same year that all happened, in one year, a brutal chapter in Phoenix history finally ends. For the victims and their families, there finally is at least a little resolution. But the trauma lingers, and this includes Kabili Tambudu, who was just 17 years old when he was shot walking home from the convenience store. He has scars from the attack on his arm and on his back, and several of his fingers are permanently paralyzed. And Kabili remembers the moment he found out his attackers had been caught. They had, like, a breaking news cut into normal tv, and basically they announced that the serial shooters have been arrested.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Ugh, what a relief, right?

[Karen Kilgarith]

And Cabilli says his first reaction was, man, get those bastards. And then later, he tells reporters, quote, after I was shot, I was scared of the world. I'd walk down the street thinking, am I gonna get shot right now? Now I can take a breath of fresh air. And that's the story of Phoenix's serial shooters who terrorized the city over 14 brutal months in 2005 and 2006.

[Georgia Hardstark]

David Fincher, get on that for real. Can you imagine? At the same time, he's also like, it's that slash the serial killer that's going on at the same time. And there's overlap.

[Karen Kilgarith]

And what. What portal to hell opened up in the desert outside Phoenix and crawled into the city in the fucking spring of 2005, where it's like, wow.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Holy shit.

[Georgia Hardstark]

There was lead in the air. God. Oh, my God. Great job. That was, I don't know, like, the whole. Unhoused. It's hard for people to empathize with that, and I understand. So the thing I always think about, that I think is important, but my dad lived in his car for periods of my life when he had to. And you just have to remember, like, think of Marty. If you need to understand, like, where someone is in their life, that they're doing that, it's not. They're not a bum. They're a human being trying to live their life the only way they can. And, you know, you just have to remember that, right? And, like, humanize that.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Humanize it. And also remember that those people would not be there if there were services in this country that Ronald Reagan took away in the 80s. Such needed services. And every time I see people walking down the street talking to themselves and looking ragged and skinny, I just think to myself, it was my mom's whole career to make sure that that guy got his meds three times a day.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Because it was so important how needed it was.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yeah, it's so needed. And that kind of maintenance, where it's like. It's a very difficult thing when you have mental illness to take care of yourself correctly. You need to need support. You need it all the Time and that support costs money. That's social well being.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's a great point.

[Karen Kilgarith]

It's what taxes are for. A couple billionaires could kick down instead of buying their 30th yacht.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Kick down some tax money. These problems, we wouldn't have to be moralizing. You wouldn't have to listen to your Republican dad rant about unhoused people because we should be better people and we should be taking care of our own. We should see them as our own and take care of them literally.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. You know, and my dad is, you know, as mentally healthy as I am, which is not saying a lot. But he also is a college graduate and he still had to resort to living in his car at times because.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Life can be not what you expect.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right.

[Karen Kilgarith]

And really hard.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Who doesn't know that these days?

[Georgia Hardstark]

I mean, Jesus, I think about all the time, like my old apartment, if things were the way they were, I would not have been able to afford it. I would have been couch surfing, which is like, oh, absolutely.

[Karen Kilgarith]

I would be living with my dad eight years ago. I think we have talked about that a lot. But it's like, it's easy to go underwater in this country.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgarith]

God forbid you fall down and break your leg.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh my God. You're one bill away from fucking destitution for sure.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Horrible.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. So let's just all remember that, you.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Know when your timer goes off in your dryer, so you go to pull your clothes out, but they're still wet.

[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgarith]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgarith]

And if the covered item can't be fixed, they'll help replace it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgarith]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgarith]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgarith]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

Goodbye. Hey, Karen. I want you to picture Yourself going for a drive. What comes to mind?

[Karen Kilgarith]

Not ever being able to merge on any freeway in Los Angeles in potholes in and crying.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, yeah. Well, the truth is the road can feel like it's out to get you at every turn. But Karen, it doesn't have to be this way.

[Karen Kilgarith]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgarith]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgarith]

This is needed. Hyundai vehicles are equipped with a standard driver attention warning system which constantly monitors your attention levels. Oh my God. Once detected, it sounds alerts and visual cues to help bring your focus back to the road.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh my God.

[Karen Kilgarith]

I mean, get this for me right now.

[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgarith]

Learn more about [e-mail] or call 562-314-4603 for complete details.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's H Y U N d a I usa.com or call 562-314-4603. Goodbye. Goodbye.

[Karen Kilgarith]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgarith]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgarith]

God, I need to learn how to care for plants. I would love to get this service and just have somebody like teaching me as I have like a beautiful tree or plant in my house, like actually do this today. This is how you don't kill it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

When do I water it?

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

What season do I trim it? I don't know and I don't want to ask my mom because then I get a lecture.

[Karen Kilgarith]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgarith]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgarith]

Use MFM to save today. Offers valid for a limited time. Terms and conditions may apply. Goodbye.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay, are we back? Cuz I have a very important corrections corner.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Oh, okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Before this episode's even over, I went out to pee and Vince corrected me. I didn't know he was listening, but okay.

[Karen Kilgarith]

He's a fan.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I know he is. He's the best he. Okay, here's. I'm gonna phrase it like this. ADD rocks down with the Ione. We said Mike D. Mike Diamond.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Mike D. Because that's just my favorite name of all of rap.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It sounded not right, and I think I hesitated, but at. It's like in one of the songs.

[Karen Kilgarith]

I know. Well, I did. I threw it out there.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You did?

[Karen Kilgarith]

I think I said Adam Youch, which is very nerdy of me.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes. And I didn't. But it's Adam Horror Horowitz. Y is the other guy. Oh, is it two Adams. Vince. What's Y's first name? Mike. Mike D. What? Michael Y. Adam Horowitz. Forget it.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Wait, it's what?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Vince? What is it? Say their names again. Adam Y. Mca Adam. Ad Rock is. AD Is. Ad Rock is Adam Horowitz. Say the last one again. And Michael diamond is Mike D. Oh, God. You can delete your Instagram comment.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Telling us how dumb we are about Beastie Boys. We love Beastie Boy.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Vince is standing by. I've never said I love the Beastie Boys.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, you know I do.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Well, I appreciate them. And I got it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Intergalactic is one of my favorite, favorite experiences to have.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay, but that first album. Yeah. That means you don't like them. If that's your favorite out of Beast, the Beastie Boy catalog, that means you.

[Karen Kilgarith]

But remember, the Beastie Boys broke when I was, like, a sophomore in high school, so it never wasn't fucking playing. And it was like. Like you're on the baseball bus. The softball team and the baseball team had to take the bus together. And then you're just like, we have to listen to this for four hours. I get it. Like, really torturous. And not for me. I was more of like, can we listen to Suzanne Vega?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right, right. Okay. That's fair.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

All right. Well, I'm devastated we're not in studio right now because I Have a vintage sweater I was gonna wear that goes with my story perfectly. It's got a ship.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Put it on.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's too hot. It's got a ship. It's got seagulls and an ocean view. And here's my story. So. So today we're on a desolate Scottish island. Karen. We're doing a fucking 360, by the way. 180.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

The island is deserted, aside from a lonely lighthouse and three lighthouse keepers, until they vanished without a trace. You know this one? You're nodding. Oh, yeah, you gotta know this one.

[Karen Kilgarith]

I think. I think I've seen the movie.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I feel like your grandma must have told you this story, Jen. There's no wreckage. There's no struggle. There's no signs of anything where or how these three experienced lighthouse keepers could have disappear from a rocky outpost in the North Atlantic. This is a favorite topic for paranormal investigators and conspiracy theorists. This is the Flannan Isles lighthouse mystery, a tale shrouded in fog, fear, and unanswered questions. Thank you, Allie, for that line. It's perfect. All right. Well, the main source for this story is a 1999 article from a journal called 14 A Studies called the Vanishing Lighthouseman of Iliane Moore by Mike Dash, the fourth Beastie Boy. And the rest can be found in our show notes. And this journal, Allie tells me, is about anomalous events. She says it's approached in a practical way with a lot of research. So that sounds really interesting. And also, this fourth Beastie boy, Mike Dash, was also one of Maren's big sources on the Spring Heeled Jack story. So. Right up your alley.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So It's December of 1900, and we're off the northern coast of Scotland, where I'm gonna be this summer. Summer on a chain of tiny islands called the Flannan Isles. There's a much bigger chain of islands called the Hebrides off the Scottish coast, and they're known for their obvious, stunning beauty. They're popular with outdoorsy travelers. Not it. But the Flannan Isles are the farthest west. They're still considered part of the Outer Hebrides, but practically speaking, they're more like big rocks in the middle of the ocean. So island is in quotes. You know what I mean? Like, you wouldn't go summer there.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yeah, you would. Unless you want to go rappelling.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Sure. So the Eilean Moor is the biggest island off the Flannan Isles, and it's only of a quarter of a mile across. That's what Ali put. And then I was like, what does that mean to me and Karen? A quarter mile across, you know what I mean? Because I can't guess. So I looked it up. It's 13, 20ft or three football fields.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Oh, okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Or a five to ten minute walk. Walk.

[Karen Kilgarith]

All right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So the sides of the islands are sheer cliffs dropping off into the ocean, the tallest of which are on the westernmost point. And these are 150ft tall. So very like, picture the Princess Bride Cliffs.

[Karen Kilgarith]

The Cliffs of Insanity.

[Georgia Hardstark]

The Cliffs of Insanity. The island has kind of always given people bad vibes for many generations. It's one of those, like, you know, storytelling islands. People have always described a strong sense of foreboding about the whole place. It's home to a tiny stone medieval church with crumbling mossy roofs. Spend a night there. I dare you. And there's some lore about the church, that the pilgrims would first crawl into the church out of superstition before entering it. So it's got, like, creepy vibes.

[Karen Kilgarith]

I mean, a lot of churches have creepy vibes. Anyway. Also, it's like. It's so funny because I was thinking about. That's basically driving around Ireland, that's all you see are, like, the walls of churches from the 1300s that no longer have roofs. And it is. It's creepy. But then it's like. But if you're in the right mindset, maybe like, have a couple Guinness aboard. You're like, ah, the history. But then if you're like, on an island and there's like crazy rocks and crags, you're like, this is horrifying.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right? Like, no one wanted to be there. You know what I mean? Like, they had to make a pilgrimage there, probably.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yeah, right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's not like they could go to the gift shop afterwards or anything fun.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yeah, exactly.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So the island chain, which is sometimes called the Seven Hunters, it's been steeped in legends about a phantom and of course, about fairies who live there. There's also stories about a strange and mysterious group of people who once inhabited the island with, like. Then they say they had different body types and customs than those on the mainland. So just kind of lore, you know.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Body types. I know.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's like, were they like, hippie? I don't know.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yeah, they were really broad shoulders and everybody talked about it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Exactly. Their knees were just weird.

[Karen Kilgarith]

They bent backwards.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right. But this is going back hundreds of years, of course, but at the turn of the century, so the 1900 turn of the century, there's nobody living there. And aside from the Tiny crumbling church. There's nothing on the island. That is until 1899, when a brand new lighthouse is built and in comes three lighthouse keepers. Seems like a lot, right? Like, I feel like you become a lighthouse keeper to be alone maybe.

[Karen Kilgarith]

I mean, I feel like that's how we've always been introduced to lighthouses is like there's just one guy up there. And that's kind of the whole story. But I bet it's a tough job.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It seems really tough. But I guess it makes sense that if, like, it's not like you are the lighthouse keeper and then you go to your house, you're like staying in the lighthouse. There has to be two people at all times. At least that makes sense. I answered my own question.

[Karen Kilgarith]

You just had to sound it out a little bit. You just had to just sit with it for a second.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I had to show my work. Okay, so here we are on the night of December 15, 1900. Two ships are sailing along the coast. One is called the Fairwind. The other is called the Ark Door. And this is an area known for big storms and massive waves. These the Scottish weather, especially since the islands are essentially the peaks of an underwater mountain in the middle of the Atlantic. So it's not smooth sailing. And the captain of the Ark Door says the weather has been a bit stormy lately. But the weather tonight is not particularly noteworthy. As they approach the island island, they are expecting to see the bright beam from the lighthouse. It has 140,000 candle power, which is a unit for measuring brightness. Did you know that? And it should be visible from 24 nautical miles away, which is about 27 land miles away, which is fucking far. It should be shining bright at them. Instead, they're greeted only with more darkness.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Oof.

[Georgia Hardstark]

The sailors know something is wrong. Even more curiously, and this is more according to legend, some sailors apparently report seeing a rowboat near the island, although how they see it is unclear. And they say that they see men in it, which we can take that part for a grain of salt. It seems that the Fairwind does not actually report anything. So all we know for sure is a report made from the Arcturus captain. So in the stormy darkness, the Arctur actually hits a rock, winds up taking on water, which is the whole fucking point of a lighthouse being there is that wouldn't happen. So the captain has to beach the ship and it's a whole thing to get it fixed, it takes forever. And so it isn't until 10 days after that that the captain's finally able to make make the official report about what he saw, that the lighthouse on Eileen Moore was not lit. And this puts us at Christmas Day. So then it isn't until Boxing Day, which is, we all know, the day after Christmas over there, is it? Yeah.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Okay. I don't know.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Always good to learn about the Brits.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You gotta know when to take another day off. So it isn't until Boxing Day in the year 1900 when the Northern lighthouse board, it's like the board of the Lighthouse Lighthouse, finally send a boat to the island to see what's going on. This boat is called the Hesperus. And on it is a lighthouse keeper familiar with the island named Joseph Moore. So there are a total of four lighthouse keepers assigned to this lighthouse. So those three that are there and another one, they each take two week shifts away from the island. So the other three who are supposed to be on the island are named James Duckett, who's 43, Thomas Marshall, who's 28, and Donald MacArthur, who's 40.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Real quick.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Would you ever take a job on a lighthouse island if it was just you, a, B, if it was you and two other people?

[Georgia Hardstark]

If I had to choose one of those two options, you can either choose.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Or you can talk about A and then talk about B.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay. I guess it depends on the other two people. What if they're fucking annoying?

[Karen Kilgarith]

True.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right, right.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Two old sailors. How about that? That's who it is. Would you do that?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Hell yeah.

[Karen Kilgarith]

And. Or would you do it by yourself.

[Georgia Hardstark]

As a female, 40 year old female? No. As another old timey Scottish lighthouse fisherman. Yeah.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yes. They won't hurt you.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay, okay, okay.

[Karen Kilgarith]

They're decent human beings. True gentlemen, fun. They play cards. They love Uno and drinky.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, my God, stop it. Giant Jenga. I'm there, right?

[Karen Kilgarith]

Okay. I'm just saying, to me it does sound like a little vacation y where it's like you're just saying I get to post up for two weeks and I kind of don't have to do anything at all.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And there's whiskey. Yeah. Like good whiskey.

[Karen Kilgarith]

And you're helping ships.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, that's okay. Yes, that's my answer. I'm assuming yours is too. So Joseph, the guy who's coming over, knows these three men very well, obviously, since he spent a lot of time, weeks, long shifts with them on the island doing exactly what we just said, playing Giant Jenga in Uno. And James is in charge and he's a veteran lighthouse keeper. He has a wife and four children. But Thomas is unmarried, one of the guys. Donald is also married, but it's unclear if he has kids. And he's said to really dislike his job posting there. At the lighthouse, he's considered an occasional keeper, only filling in when the schedule demands. So it seems like it's the other two guys who like actually want to be there.

[Karen Kilgarith]

I wonder if it was like really good pay cuz it's a pain.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. Oh yeah, that's a good point. Like fishing in Alaska kind of a thing.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Pays well, but you might die.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yeah. Or go crazy from just being just sitting somewhere.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Like podcasting.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yeah. Pays well, but you might die just from sitting somewhere. Just from sitting and talking.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's dangerous. Typically when a northern lighthouse board boat approached the dock at Eileen Moore, the lighthouse keepers would come down the long staircase from the lighthouse to the dock at the bottom of the cliff. Like they could see a BO coming from far away. Then they knew that meant to go downstairs, the staircase has to make a hairpin turn because the cliff is so steep. And as the Hesperus approaches, they can clearly see that no one is coming down the stairs to greet them. The boat fires a rocket, which ordinarily, of course, would elicit a reaction from the lighthouse keepers. But it is like eerily quiet. Not a sign of a person.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Not cool.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Joseph gets off the boat to see what the hell's going on. He leaves behind the captain and the small crew. He goes up there alone. No, thank you. And he starts making his way up the stairs to the top of the cliff. And Joseph is gripped by a terrible sense of foreboding while he makes this long climb up the steep hill.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Me too. During cardio. Every time.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. Makes you lightheaded.

[Karen Kilgarith]

It's like, this does not feel right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

This is bad. This shouldn't be happening.

[Karen Kilgarith]

This is going to turn out bad.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I have a bad feeling about this. When Joseph gets to the top of the cliff, he enters the men's living quarters at the base of the lighthouse. The doors are closed inside, the beds are made. The kitchen is clean. This is almost like creepier than it had been. Totally overturned. There's one chair knocked over. Just one. That's the only fucking weird thing. You know what I mean? That's creepy.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

All the clocks are unwound, which suggests that no one's been in the residence for at least a week because that's how often the clocks need to be wound.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Huh.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So there's some deduction. So then Joseph goes up to the lighthouse tower and sees that the light itself is full of fuel. It's clean, it's functional. He also finds a canary in a cage which was kept at the top of the tower. For some reason, the canary is starving, but still alive. And then I wrote, peachy, peachy.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Bitter little bird.

[Georgia Hardstark]

A bitter little bird.

[Karen Kilgarith]

I wonder if that they're kept there for some kind of a. Like if there's a gas escaping.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. Like a canary in a coal mine.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yeah. Type of thing. I mean, I guess, I don't. That's really weird. Or maybe they were just keeping a bird.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Maybe it's just company.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Although I think that thing was probably really loud.

[Karen Kilgarith]

You know you're in a bad spot when you need bird company.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right. When you need bird company or a bird to tell you if the air is safe to breathe.

[Karen Kilgarith]

That's like extreme living.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Get a dog.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Get a dog. At this point, Joseph is like, oh, fuck. Runs down the stairs, summons more people from the boat to come help him search the island. Two men return to the island with Joseph while the captain takes the boat back to the mainland to send telegram to the northern lighthouse board. The telegram opens with, a dreadful accident has happened at Flannan's. So they're already like, there's nowhere they could have gone. Something's wrong.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yeah, it's bad.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Joseph and the two other men stay on the island to keep the lighthouse lit and to keep trying to figure out what's going on on the western side of the island, where the steepest cliff face is. So there's a little tramway that was built to haul supplies from the ships. This tramway has iron railings. And the men find that the iron railings have been bent fully in half On a path that runs along the same cliff near the tramway, there's usually a canvas life preserver attached to a bow bolt in the rock face, like really high up and that's been ripped away. And a scrape of canvas is still connected to the bolt. Almost like a monster came and just fucking flung everything. There's also a very sturdy bolted down box which usually contains supplies that's gone. And there's a larger boulder on the island that's always been in one specific spot, seemingly immovable, and that's been dislodged and rolled away.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Wait, where is it? Is it further away or do we know? Or is it gone?

[Georgia Hardstark]

I don't know. It says rolled away, meaning maybe it's still there. So probably still there.

[Karen Kilgarith]

God, yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Now all of this points to obviously, as you said, an extreme storm. However, the weather on the day the lighthouse was first reported to be dark. December 15th was maybe a little stormy, but not super remarkable. Also, the people who put in those things, the tram and the supply box and the rock, probably did. So having known what the strongest storm was going to be.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yes, common. Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right. They didn't just, like, put it in there and be like, I hope no storm is worse than a normal storm.

[Karen Kilgarith]

I hope nothing crazy and big and windy happens out here in the middle of the ocean.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right, exactly.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Fingers crossed.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. You'd think there'd be plans, but there was a massive storm a few days later. But that wouldn't explain the light being out days before. Right. So giving further credence to this having happened before the big storm, Joseph can pinpoint when during the day. On the 15th, something must have happened. Based on the chores around the lighthouse, they've clearly been done. They do things at a certain time, probably, and make beds and have a. Like, they're organized, right?

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yeah, I hope so.

[Georgia Hardstark]

They're not living in chaos. He knows when the men completed all of their morning work and that whatever happened to them must have happened in the afternoon because that morning work had been been completed, Which I love the deduction there. Yeah.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Like, they're not waking up one day and it's mayhem and they have to run all over and forget to wash the dishes because they have to run out and do a thing. It's like, normal day. As far as you can tell, they're not like us.

[Georgia Hardstark]

There's not, like, you know, chip bags next to their beds until they decide to clean them up three days later.

[Karen Kilgarith]

If someone came into this office I'm in right now, they'd just be like, oh, things are not okay with her. She's is. She's hoarding. She's lightly hoarding, like, printer paper, and she's got a lot of clothes that she wants to drop off at the Goodwill, but she's simply not doing it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

There's no way. She's a lighthouse keeper.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Essentially, they not qualify. She's not qualified.

[Georgia Hardstark]

She's never done it, and she needs to stop asking. Okay. So then back in the lodging quarters, James and Thomas's waterproof coats are missing from their hooks, but Donald's coat is still there. So that kind of explains some, but not totally. What's going on? Joseph turns his attention.

[Karen Kilgarith]

While you're describing this to me.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgarith]

I'm gonna write down my theory.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Sorry, I just do it. Something popped into my head.

[Georgia Hardstark]

If you write the word wave down, I'll be very angry. Rogue. You write rogue wave.

[Karen Kilgarith]

And then Recommend the band Rogue started.

[Georgia Hardstark]

A band called Rogue One Wave.

[Karen Kilgarith]

There is a band called Robot. They're the best.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I know. So then Joseph's like, let's go to the log book. There's a log book, turns out, and there he finds some strange entries. So the log is generally supposed to be about weather conditions and practical matters. It's not your fucking love life. You're just supposed to be like, here's what happened.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Fog rolled in, fog rolled out.

[Georgia Hardstark]

The end.

[Karen Kilgarith]

The end.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Dear Diary. But in the days leading up to the disappearance, there's one entry that simply says, james Ducat irritable, And another says, MacArthur crying. So what the fuck? That is, to me, the creepiest part of this, like, and the most, like, something else is going on story.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

The Last entry from December 15th says, quote, Storm ended. See, Calm God is over all. End quote. Uh oh, so that, like, now we're talking about, like, why I'm telling the story on the podcast. Like, that's fucking creepy.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Because the idea of, like, the threat of a terrible storm is kind of argued in the logbook because there shouldn't.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Be any logbook entries about people crying or someone being irritable or something going wrong. It's supposed to say this storm, that storm. Maybe some fucking longitudinal. Longitudinal numbers. There's, you know, basic stuff that you and I wouldn't really understand or think is interesting.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yeah, I got you. It's technical. It is not personal.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes.

[Karen Kilgarith]

That whole thing. That's why we were saying it's not Dear Diary in any way. Also, especially back then, I think it's a pretty big goddamn deal to write down that a man is crying.

[Georgia Hardstark]

A man's crying and irritable. And also those men would have access to the log books and would have seen that someone wrote that about them. So it's just kind of weird.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Now, I will say, and I'm. I have to say this in fairness. Some people think these entries were forged. And also they appear to have first come into public consciousness and pulp magazine articles after the fact. But they are always mentioned in every retelling of this story. So it's up to you if you want to believe them. I think it's true.

[Karen Kilgarith]

We might as well believe everything at this moment.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Let's.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Let's do it, and then we can change our mind later.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right. So the most popular working theory. Let's get into some theories. Is that some kind of bad weather or waves that started damaging the box of supplies that was ultimately washed away. Like, they went after that supply box so James and Thomas, whose coats were missing, ran out to start securing the box and then something happened. And then Donald ran out without his coat, which is why it was left behind to help them. And people believe that they were all swept away by a massive wave. When the superintendent of the Northern Lighthouse Board visits the island to make his own inquiry, this is the conclusion he comes up with. Sure. Makes sense. After the disappearance, a photographer visits the island in bad weather and documents the massive waves that can reach up and over the top of the cliffs. Which fuck can you imagine? Like, take me home.

[Karen Kilgarith]

And also when, if the storm is that bad and the waves are that big, then you can assume there's some nice strong gusts of wind that are whipping all over that island as well.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's right. This is. What's wrong with me is I don't think about stuff like that. So I bring a dumb cute jacket and then I'm fucking freezing and soaking wet wherever I go.

[Karen Kilgarith]

I've been with you when it's been 13 degrees in Washington D.C. and you're like, I've got this leather jacket and that's it. A bare. And a dress and bare legs and I'm just gonna do this thing.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I definitely. I'm real cocky.

[Karen Kilgarith]

California view, Real cocky.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So it is possible, just strange, that it happened on the 15th when no one seems to have noticed particularly bad weather. Like, they would have noted it and other sailors would have noted it if there were bad weather. And it's also highly unlikely that all three men went out at one time because someone always had to stay back at the lighthouse. So this would mean that there had to have been multiple massive waves to wash all three men away. So. So we're not believing that one.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Oh, okay, great.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Now we can, but we're not. Then we start getting into other theories about disagreements between the men that led to some sort of violence. Remember there was that one chair knocked over. People point out that MacArthur had hated working at the lighthouse and was actually known to have a history of fighting. But there's really no hard evidence that points to anything having happened between the men. And then, of course, we have to get into the paranormal, the fun stuff. Stuff. What was that show when we were kids? Amazing Stories.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Oh, I don't think I ever saw that.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, my God.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Amazing Stories. I'm going to look that up.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So when we talk about the paranormal, there are the legends about the fairies and the phantom and the group of original islanders. Those all come up, of course. And then the theory is that one of these Forces was resentful for the new lighthouse because, remember, it had just been built.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Oh, yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And so it took out the three lighthouse keepers for that reason. And of course, you can't escape the theory of fucking aliens.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Aliens.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Aliens. And actually, this is Scottish aliens.

[Karen Kilgarith]

No, no, the lighthouse keepers aren't aliens.

[Georgia Hardstark]

The aliens come down.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I just don't think they'd go to Scotland.

[Karen Kilgarith]

I just don't. I think that that's where they're gonna get the most resistance. The most fist fighting.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Hell, yeah.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Anywhere. Scotland, Ireland. You just don't mess with those island people.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You absolutely should not.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Don't do it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And actually, that theme is explored in an episode of Doctor who. That.

[Karen Kilgarith]

That's. Something really disappeared. That's hilarious.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. So the lighthouse continues to operate with lighthouse keepers without an incident until the 1970s, when it becomes automated, which is, like, you know, tragic. Yeah. And it's inspired lots of retellings in pop culture. The band Genesis, I thought you'd love this. Recorded a song called the Mystery of Flannan Isle Lighthouse in the late 60s. Oh, your favorite band.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Love that band.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And in 2019, Gerard Butler starred in a very loose retelling of the mystery called the Vanishing.

[Karen Kilgarith]

The Vanishing, yeah. If Gerard Butler stars in it, I've definitely seen it because that was my friend Jacob and I, we would watch Gerard Butler movies as they came out on Amazon together. Like, we would hit play at the same time and then text each other during the movie. I have literally not missed a Gerard Butler movie for, like, five years. It's.

[Georgia Hardstark]

What do you recommend? What's the best one?

[Karen Kilgarith]

I mean, it depends on what you're looking for. There's one. Where is it? Aliens attack or it's like the end of the world kind of situation, and he has to go. Jared Butler's always playing like a rock like character where he's like a very noble father who has to go get his family and maybe his wife who's trying to leave him, but he convinces her to stay because he rescues them.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Ooh, like a Pedro Pascal kind of a thing.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Love it. Well, that wraps up the story of the Flannan Isle Lighthouse mystery.

[Karen Kilgarith]

I didn't get a chance to give my theory.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, yeah, what was it?

[Karen Kilgarith]

Gigantic gust of wind. So the guy that stays behind, whose jacket is there, watches the two guys get blown off the cliff and into the ocean.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right. Like, you're gonna be like, protocol.

[Karen Kilgarith]

You're going to go down there and be like, at least could I throw them that life preserver that's stuck to the side of the cliff or something, like in a panic, but the wind would still be going.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right?

[Karen Kilgarith]

And then he gets out there and just also gets blown off. I like that one. That was good. All right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Thank you. Yours was great. Mine was a stretch, but let's just keep it.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Listen, we want to sometimes talk about things that are more fun to talk about and maybe mysterious, but not, you.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Know, a total downer.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Not the worst thing you've ever heard, but just try to turn it every once in a while just to bring it up before we leave you hanging, before you leave for the rest of your week. Right?

[Georgia Hardstark]

And you made it and you did it, and we're proud of you.

[Karen Kilgarith]

We're so proud of you. You are the lighthouse keeper of our souls.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You really are. We would never automate you. We would never.

[Karen Kilgarith]

No, we can't.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We can't. We can't and we won't.

[Karen Kilgarith]

We need you, a real human in that lighthouse. The lighthouse of podcasting.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's right.

[Karen Kilgarith]

And so thank you for doing it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Thank you. And stay sexy and don't get murdered. Good night, Elvis. Do you want a cookie?

[Karen Kilgarith]

This has been an exactly right production.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Our senior producers are Alejandra Keck and Molly Smith.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.

[Georgia Hardstark]

This episode was mixed by Liana Squillace.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Our Researchers are Maren McGlashan and Ali Elkin.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Email your hometowns to my favorite murdermail.com.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Follow the show on Instagram at My favorite murder.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Listen to my favorite murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Karen Kilgarith]

And now you can watch us on exactly right's YouTube page while you're there, please like and subscribe. Goodbye, foreign. I'm Soledad o' Brien, and on my new true crime podcast, Murder on the Towpath, I'm taking you back to 1964 to the cold case of artist Mary Pinchot Meyer. She had been shot twice in the head and in the back. It turns out Mary was connected to a very powerful man. I pledge you that we shall neither commit nor provoke aggression. John F. Kennedy. Listen to Murder on the towpath with Soledad O' Brien on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Imagine you're scrolling through TikTok. You come across a video of a teenage girl and then a photo of the person suspected of killing her. It was shocking. It was very shocking. Like, that could have been my daughter. Like, you never know. I'm Jen Swan. I'm the host of a new podcast called My Friend Daisy. It's the story of how and why a group of teenagers turned to social media to help track down their friend's killer. Listen to my friend daisy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Hi, I'm Kristen Davis, host of the podcast Are you a Charlotte? Sarah Jessica Parker is here and she is sharing stories from the very beginning, like the time she forgot we filmed the pilot episode.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I remember some things about shooting the pilot. Right.

[Karen Kilgarith]

I have some memories I can fill in and that.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You're going to fill me in.

[Karen Kilgarith]

Yes, but then you forgot about it in the very long time they took about it. Listen to Are youe a Charlotte? On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.