500 - Knot for Naught

Summary

My Favorite Murder – Episode 500: "Knot for Naught"

Date: October 2, 2025
Hosts: Karen Kilgariff & Georgia Hardstark

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Overview

Episode 500 marks a major milestone for My Favorite Murder—a true crime/comedy hybrid podcast that mixes deeply researched stories with sharp-witted banter and personal introspection. In this celebratory episode, Karen and Georgia reflect on their podcasting journey before diving into two quintessential true crime stories: the harrowing case of suspected serial killer John Arthur Ackroyd ("Ghosts of Highway 20") and the infamous Bling Ring celebrity burglary crew. The episode is packed with genuine emotion, nostalgia, gallows humor, cultural critique, and gratitude to listeners and collaborators.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Reflections on 500 Episodes

[02:09 – 03:33]

• Karen and Georgia express disbelief and pride at reaching 500 episodes.
• Reminisce about the early days: recording in Georgia’s Hollywood apartment, agonizing over funny episode titles, feeling simultaneously like five and 500,000 episodes have passed.
• Lighthearted banter: “And then we're both raptured.”
  Georgia: “Wait, I'm a Jew.”
• Recent tour updates and gratitude for the fans and cities visited.

Notable Quote:
“It feels like five and it feels like 500,000.” – Karen Kilgariff [02:14]

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2. Movie & Crying Chat: “Atonement”

[03:33 – 08:53]

• Georgia shares a personal milestone: finally having an “crying on a plane while watching a movie” experience with "Atonement."
• Discussion of why cathartic cries are important and often hard to access.
• Karen recommends “Truly, Madly, Deeply” for Georgia’s next emotional airplane viewing.
• Insights into how films portray war and trauma differently than books.
• Book and movie recommendations: Kate Morton novels, “Pride and Prejudice” (Joe Wright), and “The English Patient.”

Notable Quote:
“I felt like, finally, I'm a real girl. I felt real for the first time in my life.” – Georgia Hardstark [04:39]

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3. Fan Connection: Seeing MFM Bumper Stickers

[10:29 – 12:20]

• Karen describes the delight of seeing a “SSDGM” (Stay Sexy Don’t Get Murdered) sticker “in the wild” alongside a Bigfoot decal in Burbank.
• She tries to get the driver's attention, humorously recounts aggressively waving and honking.
• Georgia suggests listeners let them know if it was them.

Notable Quote:
“I was like, this is my person. This is my friend I've never met before.” – Karen Kilgariff [11:01]

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4. Exactly Right Network & New Offerings

[12:20 – 14:15]

• Announcement of new My Favorite Murder YouTube channel, MFM Animated shorts, and other Exactly Right Media podcasts.
• Fan cult membership perks: exclusive content, Discord server, and VIP live show packages.
• Playful urging for listeners to support the YouTube channels so content and “lip liner and contouring is not for naught.”

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MAIN STORIES

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5. Story One: The Ghosts of Highway 20 – The Case of John Arthur Ackroyd

Told by Karen Kilgariff
[16:35 – 44:11]

Summary:

An in-depth, multi-decade investigation into John Arthur Ackroyd—an Oregon highway mechanic, sexual predator, and suspected serial killer operating along Highway 20.

Key Points:

• 1977 – Marlene Gabrielson: [17:34]

  • Marlene, Inupiaq, is raped at knifepoint after hitchhiking. She preserves forensic evidence, but police disbelieve and polygraph her instead of pursuing Ackroyd.
  • Marlene’s later quote on not being believed: “But they made me feel like a smelly, drunken native, so I just shrank…” [21:06]

• 1978 – Kaye Turner: [23:02]

  • Kay goes missing on a run. Initial investigation is more thorough due to her being a white woman.
  • Police misfocus on her private life; Ackroyd is overlooked.
  • Ackroyd later “finds” her bones and jogs police suspicions, fails polygraph, but slips through for lack of evidence.

• 1990 – Rashonda Pickle: [26:29]

  • Ackroyd’s stepdaughter, 13-year-old Rashonda, vanishes after disclosing his abuse to her biological father.
  • Ackroyd’s behavior and statements deeply implicate him, but again, police lack direct evidence.
  • Chilling statement: “87 pounds is nothing for somebody to carry. You hit him over the head. And they have no fight.” [29:04]

• Other Victims:

  • Melissa Sanders and Sheila Swanson: [33:07]
    • Two teens who vanish while camping; later found murdered. Ackroyd is a strong suspect but never admits involvement.
  • Overarching MO: using access, familiarity, and official capacity to prey on vulnerable women and teens, exploiting holes in law enforcement attention and empathy.

• Prosecution and Legacy: [36:23 – 44:11]

  • Ackroyd finally convicted for Kaye Turner’s murder (1993); his accomplice convicted as well.
  • In 2013, pleads no contest in Rashonda’s murder—ensuring he never gets paroled, but he never reveals her body’s location.
  • Dies in prison in 2016, likely responsible for even more unsolved disappearances.
  • Recent developments: Swamp Mountain Jane Doe, a possible Ackroyd victim, identified as Marion McWhorter using genetic genealogy [42:23].

Notable Quotes:

• “These investigators immediately doubt her story… They're built in cultural excuses why people don't have to care, don't need empathy...”—Karen [21:11]
• “I always thought that's why these people get paid to protect you. ...But they made me feel like a smelly, drunken native, so I just shrank.”—Marlene Gabrielson (via reporter) [21:27]
• “If he had never been convicted, he and maybe Beck would have done more crimes and killed more women. For sure...He managed to get through that whole thing without ever getting caught. Not because he was all that smart, but because he slipped through.”—Bill Hanlon, lead investigator [39:32]
• “I'm Marlene K. Gabrielson. I'm Inupiac. I'm a strong woman.” – Marlene Gabrielson [44:02]

Themes and Reflection

• Deep critique of systemic police disregard for marginalized victims.
• The enduring trauma for survivors and victims’ families.
• Why women, especially, are drawn to true crime: the ongoing cultural devaluation and imperative to bear witness and care.
  • “We have to care 10 times as much because we're cared about...10 times less.”—Georgia [45:09]

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6. Story Two: The Bling Ring

Told by Georgia Hardstark
[48:08 – 86:29]

Summary:

A fast-paced recounting of the “Bling Ring”—a loose crew of high schoolers who burgled the homes of Hollywood’s “it crowd” in the late 2000s.

Key Points:

• Celebrity Paparazzi Culture Setup: [51:02]

  • The toxic, image-obsessed media ecosystem of the early 2000s, birth of “famous for being famous.”
  • How this fostered a sense of entitlement and fantasy among affluent LA-area teens.

• Rachel Lee & Nick Prugo: [55:33]

  • Both outcasts at Indian Hills High in Calabasas, find kinship and begin burglarizing.
  • First hit: a classmate’s house, netting thousands in cash—leads to impulsive Rodeo Drive shopping sprees.

• Escalation (“Checking Cars”): [61:05]

  • Start rifling unlocked luxury cars for cash and cards, building confidence and thrill-seeking behavior.

• Targeting Paris Hilton & Others: [61:39]

  • Obtain celebrity addresses online; monitor stars’ social media to ensure homes are empty.
  • Paris’ house robbed multiple times—so lax, they use a key under the mat.
  • Their method: take wads of cash, jewelry, designer goods, sometimes drugs.
  • Group expands, includes “Johnny Dangerous” (promoter/fence), Roy Lopez Jr., and reality show aspirant Alexis Neiers.

• Getting Caught:

  • Security footage and tipping off by acquaintances leads to arrests [78:35].
  • Nick confesses everything; group’s social media bravado and lack of discretion accelerate their downfall.
  • Reality show “Pretty Wild” captures Alexis Neiers’ actual arrest for the pilot.

• Trial & Aftermath: [82:45]

  • Most plead no contest, serve short prison terms or probation (conflicts of interest with LAPD and consulting on the Coppola film undermine prosecution).
  • Today: most live quiet lives, but Alexis maintains an Instagram presence.

Notable Quotes:

• “By the grace of God, there goes moi…not burglarizing, just doing really fucking stupid, stupid shit in a time when stupid shit sticks to you.” – Georgia [59:56]
• “I deserve this. Everyone else in my affluent community has everything they want. I get made fun of for not. Not I fucking deserve this. Which clearly isn't true. But I was a child so that it made absolute sense to me…” – Georgia [61:05]
• “It’s a bit muddy regarding when each of the members of the Bling Ring get involved...it's not actually a group.” – Georgia [69:10]
• “It works despite us, not because of us.” – Georgia [87:36] (on the success of the podcast/team)

Themes and Reflection

• The collision of youth, affluence, surveillance culture, self-esteem, and media: how these young adults justify their actions in the vacuum of real consequences.
• The difference between material and emotional trauma for victims.
• How a cultural obsession with fame and status can be both cause and effect.

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Memorable Moments & Quotes (with timestamps)

| Quote | Speaker | Timestamp | |-------|---------|-----------| | “It feels like five and it feels like 500,000.” | Karen Kilgariff | 02:14 | | “Finally, I'm a real girl. I felt real for the first time in my life.” | Georgia Hardstark | 04:39 | | “Why wouldn't everything be content? Look around.” | Georgia Hardstark | 04:52 | | “I was like, this is my person. This is my friend I've never met before.” | Karen Kilgariff | 11:01 | | “These investigators immediately doubt her story.” | Karen Kilgariff | 21:11 | | “But they made me feel like a smelly, drunken native, so I just shrank...” | Marlene Gabrielson (read by Karen) | 21:27 | | “Why do women love true crime so much? ...Because this is how little we have mattered for so fucking long.” | Georgia Hardstark | 44:11 | | “We have to care 10 times as much because we’re cared about as women 10 times less.” | Georgia Hardstark | 45:09 | | “It was so toxic. It just...created a generation of women with eating disorders, myself included." | Georgia Hardstark | 54:52 | | “I deserve this. Everyone else in my affluent community has everything they want...I fucking deserve this. Which clearly isn't true. But I was a child so that it made absolute sense to me.” | Georgia Hardstark | 61:05 | | “We checked the podcast industry's doors. A couple of them were unlocked. And we broke in.” | Karen & Georgia | 87:57 |

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Start & 500th Episode Reflections: 02:09
• Tour, Movie/Plane Cry Chat ("Atonement"/Truly, Madly, Deeply): 03:33 – 08:53
• Fan Sticker Story: 10:29
• Network Announcements/YouTube: 12:20
• Ackroyd/Highway 20 true crime story (Karen): 16:35 – 44:11
• Meta-discussion on true crime & women’s interest: 44:11 – 46:01
• Bling Ring Burglars (Georgia): 48:08 –86:29
• Podcast gratitude & legacy: 86:29 – 88:46

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Tone & Language

• Authentic, empathetic, and direct, with darkly comic asides.
• Banter with quick turns from levity (pop culture, self-deprecating humor) to earnest advocacy for victims and survivors.
• Candid about the difficulties and joys of producing a long-running show.
• Occasional f-bombs and colloquial LA references, maintaining their signature style.

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In Summary

The 500th episode of My Favorite Murder brings listeners everything that has kept the podcast’s cult following alive for a decade: brutally compelling crime stories, reflection on cultural and social failures, self-aware humor, and sincere connection with fans. Karen's tragic and detailed retelling of Highway 20’s horrors is paired with Georgia’s sharply observed, tragicomic take on the Bling Ring—two stories revealing very different faces of crime and society’s response. The co-hosts weave in pop culture, personal anecdotes, and a deep appreciation for listeners, wrapping their milestone in candor and community.

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Stay Sexy and Don’t Get Murdered.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

That's Georgia Hartstar.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's Karen Kilgariff.

[Karen Kilgariff]

This is our 500th episode.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's so bananas I can't even come to grips with it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It is. It feels like five and it feels like 500,000.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It does both. Both.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Did you ever think we'd get to this number when we start when we were making single digit puns back in my old apartment in Hollywood.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Taking so much time to name these shows. Really. A couple days worth of Wait, wait.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I thought of one.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Here's a better one.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. No, it's pretty wild.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It is. Cheers.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Hey. Cheers.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Good job. 500.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Great job.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And that's it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And goodbye.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And that's the last one.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And then we're both raptured.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wait, I'm a Jew.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Wait, don't take me.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wait, wait, wait.

[Karen Kilgariff]

No, no, no.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I don't want to go there. I want to go somewhere else. Please. I want to go to Ireland.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Do they have any. That's a different kind of rapture. The Guinness Rapture.

[Georgia Hardstark]

What's going on?

[Karen Kilgariff]

God, nothing. I mean, we had incredible shows in Boston. Very tight. Two shows in one night.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. By the time this episode goes up, we'll have been in Salt Lake City and then tonight we'll be in Oakland.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Wow.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Which is exhausting to just think about the future. Hopefully you guys are enjoying the shows. Go to my favoritemurder.com live to get your tickets.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And thank you, Boston, for just a delightful, power packed evening of all kinds of things. I mean, everything happened in those two shows.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Speaking of, I have a movie recommendation because it made me cry, which I don't do.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes, you do.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You start too. I know, I know. Once in a while I like there's certain things, but I really need those, those good cries. And there's this thing that all my girlfriends talk about and agree upon, which is that when you're on a plane, you cry harder at movies. And it's a good cry. And airplane movie cries are the best cries. And I've fucking never ever had one. And I've always been like, that sounds nice to have in your life. And it never happened until we were on our way home yesterday from Boston and I found myself sobbing in my seat from a movie that I think you'll love. I'm sure you love this movie. It's a British fucking epic World War II love story. Atonement.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Ugh. So good.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh my fucking God.

[Karen Kilgariff]

The typing keys soundtrack as she runs around that.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Everything about that. Yes, incredible. Until the end. I have video of it. I'm gonna make a video. I just was sobbing in my seat.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I'm sorry, you have video of yourself sobbing?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, because it was so good. It felt. I was like, finally, I'm a real girl. I felt real for the first time in my life.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You gotta get you to the place where you do it. And then it' why wouldn't it be content?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Why wouldn't it be content?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Why wouldn't it be?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Why wouldn't everything be content? Look around.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So wait, can you do a little reenactment of what? So you start to cry? Oh, this is really sad.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And I was like, oh, my God, I'm crying. I was like, I felt like, oh my God. I have emotions. This is so cool.

[Karen Kilgariff]

They're in there. Yeah, they're in there.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So either things are going really well and I'm, like, breaking through, or things are going really poorly and I'm crying a lot.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Either way, the rapture's coming. I mean, when I learned that it's very good to cry because it is one of the ways the body releases cortisol. Because I always had, like, not as much shut down feelings. It was more like, you're not allowed to do this and no one has time for this.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I have part of that too.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So it's kind of that thing of, like, I start feeling it and then I just, like, fully muscle it down.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I think that's what it is. Or it's almost like this isn't gonna do anything, that you're wasting your time and everyone else is.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Stop it. Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

What will come of this? Nothing. Exactly. Stop. But then, like, learning that, where it's like, no, no, it's for you. You get to release some of that goddamn cortisol.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. There are times when I'm like, I know that if I fucking started bawling right now, I would feel so much better in 20 minutes. But I can't do it. And I don't want to do the things that I know will make me do it, like think sad thoughts. Because I'm trying so hard not to do that anyways.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, you gotta. I don't think that's the way to do it. I think you just have to be open when it really comes. But that's a hard thing. It's all easy to say and hard to do.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. Well, Atonement. The movie atonement. It's like 2013, I think. Oh, Keira Knightley. And what's his adorable face from James Mac McAvoy.

[Karen Kilgariff]

McAvoy. Oh, my God, he's the greatest.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And Sorosi.

[Karen Kilgariff]

How do you say that of the liver?

[Georgia Hardstark]

How do you say her name?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Saoirse.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Saoirse.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Saoirse Rona.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Thank you. And fucking little. What's her face from the fucking. The football.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Keira Knightley.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No, Juno Temple. Yes, thank you. Juno Temple.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, from. I almost just said Ed Hardy. This is the saddest conversation we've ever had.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I just edit this all out.

[Karen Kilgariff]

This is the 500th con. No, no, no, it's good, it's good. This is exactly our kind of podcast.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay, great, great, great, great.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You can't. We. We were basically up for 48 hours straight. So this is the result. This is what podcasting looks like when you're doing it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

When you overdo it. When you commit too much, just too much stuff.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I'm gonna give you a recommendation for your next crying movie.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Great.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Cause it's a crying.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes. Everyone, give me airplane crying movies.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Karen, go ahead.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay, this movie, first of all, I was about to say Atonement again. This movie stars Alan Rickman and Juliet Stevenson. British movie, very art housey, but an amazing director. It was one of his first big ones, and I can't remember what director. It's like, a great director. And it is called Truly, Madly Deep.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay. I've heard of it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's really brilliantly. It's like one of those things where I bet the person who, when they decided to make it, read the script and was like, holy shit. It's like, great. Beautifully written, very real and true, but then also a little bit magical.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay. Because it's so funny. With Atonement, I was like, this is like a book I would read. And normally I'd been like, I wish I read the book. But this is like the first time I've been like, I'm so glad I watched the movie because there's so many little details. Like, I get cinematography now with the typing being part of the. And the music and the little moments that you just can't see when you're listening to or reading a book.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Then actually, if you love the movie Atonement, I highly recommend the author, Kate Morton. She does very similar style that World War II.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Like, epic, kind of historical.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. And like seeing Dunkirk, the way they show it. Like, I. You know, you can't. You can picture it all you want when you're reading it, which I fucking love. But it was just done so well that I just don't think I would have. My. My imagination would have never taken me there.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And I think you're so right. Those war scenes in that movie are so gigantic and, like, really put you there and realistic.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And then they, like, slice in real fucking footage from the time. I mean, it was just, I think, one of my favorite movies I've seen in a long time.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Now, Molly, please correct me when I'm wrong, but I'm almost positive that it's the same director as Pride and Prejudice. Am I wrong about that?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

God Damn it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Same 500 episodes the first time, you're wrong about anything. Can you believe it? Joe Wright directed Pride and Prejudice, the new one. Anthony Minghella directed Truly, Madly, Deeply.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, no, no, no. But Atonement.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Atonement. Oh, Atonement. Wait, okay, you might not be. Hold on.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, my God. Second chance.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay, I'm wrong.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You're right. Oh, my God.

[Georgia Hardstark]

500 episodes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, my God, it feels so great.

[Georgia Hardstark]

How do you feel?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Here.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Congratulations.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Thank you so much. Oh, my God. I guess the first. I'd like to thank the rapture.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I have to kick the box.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I guess I have to thank Georgia because she's the reason I'm here.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Stephen Ray Morris.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Steven R.I.P.

[Georgia Hardstark]

He'S not dead. We love you, Steven. Good job. Congratulations.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Thank you so much. But, Anthony, it's because when I watched it, loving the Pride and Prejudice so much, I was like, this man is unbelievable. But Anthony Mingela is the director of Truly Madly, Deeply, went on to direct the English Patient.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, such a good book. So, of course I read the book.

[Karen Kilgariff]

She always brags about the book.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay, I'm gonna get rid of these.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Good idea. All right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Well, that was amazing. Thank you, Molly. Thank you. And thank you for your honesty and your vulnerability. Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And you're producing all these episodes. Not 500, but.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But a lot.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It probably feels like.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It probably feels these. There's three, so. Oh, you know what I was gonna say for the 500th. And this. I don't know if this has happened to you. We've probably talked about it before, if it has, but I. I think it was the first time it happened to me. When I was driving to work last week before we left for tour. I got off the freeway. I had just never seen a bumper sticker. I'd seen pictures of a bumper in the wild.

[Georgia Hardstark]

On your own.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, exactly. So not from my own car.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And so I pull up, and it's SSDGM on the right side in the little talking bubble. And on the left side, there's just a sticker of Bigfoot. And I was like, this is my person. This is my friend I've never met before. And I'm just sitting there, and I was like, hong Kong. Yeah, just like. Like that. And the person. I was looking at them through their own rear view mirror, and they kind of weren't turning around. So I think they were just like, why is this honking at me? So then I was like, hong Kong. Honk. Hong Kong Hong. And I Then I rolled my window down and stuck my arm and my whole head out the window. And I was like that. And they were like. They kind of look horrified.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Like, I borrowed my best friend's car. And I don't know who this woman is who's waving her whole body. She must also be my friend who loves that fucking podcast. This must be another Person who loves.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Or loves Bigfoot or loves Bigfoot, loves.

[Georgia Hardstark]

But did she finally did it Dawn?

[Karen Kilgariff]

I think so. I think at the end.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Well, if you have a SSC jam sticker and you're in Burbank, like, hey, what's up, Karen? Wave said hi to you. Was that you? Let us know.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It was. Yeah, let us know. But also it was really exciting. Even though I know that people like this podcast and people support this podcast.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No, they don't.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's a. Do they get real. But to see it like that in the wild, it truly was kind of like. Oh, almost like being able to see it through the eyes of the other. That's what this kind of looks like.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's always exciting.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, it was cool.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Cool. Well, besides having a podcast and 500 episodes of it, we also have a podcast network.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, thousands of episodes on that thing.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. It's called Exactly Right Media. And here are a few highlights.

[Karen Kilgariff]

My Favorite Murder now has a brand new YouTube channel.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So you can watch full episodes of this podcast, miniso shorts and more at My Favorite Murder video or by searching My favorite murder on YouTube.

[Georgia Hardstark]

They're holding us hostage and making us fucking 40 plus women make videos.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So please not YouTube. We really like YouTube.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No, not YouTube. Just in general. Molly, please go watch them. So they're not for naught.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes, exactly. All of our strivings and lips liner.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Lips liner, lip liner and contouring is not for not. And for all your other favorite Exactly Right shows like this podcast will kill you. Ghosted by Roz Hernandez. Buried bones. I said no gifts. You can still find them [e-mail] exactlyrightmedia.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And that's also where you can find MFM animated. That's right. Our MFM animateds are over at exactly right media's YouTube page. And this week we have a brand new clip from the one and only Nick Terry featuring my iconic. And I'm only saying that cause it's written here. Drunk Karen voice from Minisode 63.

[Georgia Hardstark]

My absolute favorite. It's so good. Go watch it. And if that's not enough content for you, then you and the crying content that I make, then you should join the fan [e-mail] for ad free episodes of My Favorite Murder, exclusive audio and video merch discounts and access to our private Discord server.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Also, one last thing. As we said, we are on tour and there are still some gold VIP packages available that include exclusive merch bundles, a signed poster and more. So check your city availability and grab tickets at my favorite murder.com live and.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Thanks for doing all of that and.

[Karen Kilgariff]

More and carrying it all about any of it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, we appreciate you so much.

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[Karen Kilgariff]

Why is this taking so long? This thing is ancient.

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[Karen Kilgariff]

Whoa. This thing moves.

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[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay, okay. You're first, right?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes, I am. This is a straight up true crime story and just as a trigger warning, it includes mention of sexual assault. It also takes place in and around one major roadway in the Pacific Northwest, Highway 20 in Oregon. That highway Cuts across the state, west to east, running from the Pacific coast to Idaho, often through very remote areas. So this story is about six victims, all women whose lives were either ended or torn apart on this highway. They were all different ages and came from different walks of life. And we know more about some of these cases than we do about others. But what we will learn is that one psychopathic man who knew Highway 20 better than most is presumed to be responsible for what happened to all of them and potentially many more women who have gone missing in the state of Oregon. This is the story of suspected serial killer, convicted murderer, and Oregon state highway mechanic, John Arthur Ackroyd.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, my God.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Marin basically got most of the research for this story from an award winning multi part series called Ghosts of Highway 20. Produced by Oregonian journalists Noel Crombie, Dave Killen, and Beth Nakamura. We begin in 1977 with 20 year old Marlene Gabrielson. Marlene is originally from Alaska. She's a member of the Inopiac tribe, But now she lives in the town of Lebanon in northwestern Oregon with her husband and their brand new baby daughter. So one night the couple decides to drop their baby off with a sitter and head out to the rodeo in sisters, Oregon, which is like an hour and a half away. And Baron left me a note, but I think it's a note worth reading, which is that Marlene is ID'd in this research because she very intentionally and very powerfully identifies herself in the Oregonians reporting.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Which is really amazing for what she has been through. So at some point that evening when they're at the rodeo, Marlene decides to head home alone. She said that she doesn't really remember the specifics here, but it seems like this happened because her and her husband got into an argument. What we know for sure is that Marlene's husband stays behind with the car and she goes. And because it's the late 70s, she's like, I'll just hitchhike home.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Totally.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It was very common in the late 70s. She's hitchhiking. And before long, a car pulls over and inside a stranger introduces himself. Nothing about him rings any immediate alarm bells for Marlene. He says he's in his late 20s, he's back in town after spending time in the army, and he works for a local welding company. So Marlene does get a ride home from John along Highway 20 towards Lebanon as promised. And this highway basically, at certain parts are just long, dark, isolated stretches of road that are surrounded by dense evergreen forest. That's all that's out there. And there's some Old logging roads that cut off from the highway. But that's basically it. So out in the middle of all of that, suddenly John pulls over and violently drags Marlene out of her seat and puts a knife to her throat, threatening to kill her unless she does what he says. He then tears her clothes off, using his blade to cut her underwear and her boots off of her. And then he rapes her. After the attack, he tells Marlene, quote, now what do I do with you?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh my God.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So she knows what this means. He's considering killing her. But even in these horrific circumstances, Marlene comes up with an ingenious plan. Somehow she starts to act and very convincingly act like she's charmed by John. And it actually works. So much so he asks her to be his girlfriend. And of course she says, yes, and I'll be your girlfriend as long as you take me home right now. And he drives her home, knife still at hand. When they get back to Lebanon, Marlene is able to to get out of his car alive and go home.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, my God.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So the first family member she encounters when she's there is her mother in law. And her mother in law is shocked to see the state that Marlene is in. So she urges Marlene to get in shower and go clean herself up. And Marlene says, no, that would wash away evidence. I need to go straight to the hospital to get a rape kit.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh my God. Incredible.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. And she even gives her clothes to the police from that night with all the information that she can remember about John Arthur Ackroyd. But it's the late 70s, so it's not surprising. But it's always heartbreaking hearing these stories instead of protecting her. These investigators immediately doubt her story.

[Georgia Hardstark]

The fuck? They cut her boots? Yeah, like, what the fuck, dude?

[Karen Kilgariff]

But also, she's a native woman. So these are these built in cultural excuses why people don't have to care, don't need empathy, or why they can be lazy. And also just that, that energy and attitude around rape victims at that time.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Woman at the time.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, it's so bad, they actually make Marlene take a polygraph and they decide she's lying about the sexual assault. So ultimately, they choose not to prosecute John Aykroyd. And years later, Marlene will tell reporter Noel Crombie, quote, I always thought that's why these people get paid to protect you. They care. That's what I thought. But they made me feel like a smelly, drunken native, so I just shrank. If they had only listened to me. End quote. So John Ackroyd never faces any legal consequences for Marlene's brutal assaults. Although, and this is obviously cold comfort and eye for an eye, he does get his ass kicked by Marlene's husband.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Great.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But the problem is that it's not just Marlene who suffers because of these investigators. Dereliction of duty. It will lead to deadly consequences for many other women.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right. Cause now he knows, like, oh, I can't let them live. Right?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. And also that. But maybe it won't be that big of a deal. Whatever I decide to do. So fast forward about a year and a half from Arlene's assault, and now it's late December 1978, and John Aykroyd is employed by the state of Oregon as a highway mechanic. So in this job, he drives up and down Highway 20, usually between Bend and Newport, helping stranded motorists, repairing equipment, clearing wrecks, and maintaining remote stretches of road. This is literally a horror movie.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Like, you've been given this power and a position of trust. Not even just trust, but like you have no other choice but to trust this person or like, rely on this person.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes, the good faith that this person that's gonna show up in a tow truck is helping you and not going to hurt you totally doesn't seem like it should be that much to ask. This job also gives him unique access to and familiarity with this highway as he navigates it alone in his work truck with little to no supervision. So on Christmas Eve, 1978, 35 year old K. Kay Turner, who's a public health manager from Eugene, is on vacation with her husband and some friends in Camp Sherman, which is about 15 miles from Sisters, which is where Marlene and her husband went to the rodeo. Kay decides that she's gonna go out for a run. She's a serious runner. She doesn't think twice about going and doing her workout routine. She tells her husband she'll probably be home in about an hour. After two hours pass and she still isn't back, her friends start searching for her. And soon the police join them and comb the area, wondering if maybe Kay somehow got lost out in the wilderness. And then they find some Nike running shoe prints that they think are Kay's. But there's also a large boot print there and signs of a struggle in the nearby dirt. In stark contrast to how Marlene is treated, though, the police immediately take Kay's case very seriously. She's a white woman. They immediately start to interview locals, and as they do, one name keeps coming up. John Aykroyd. He's interviewed on January 11, 1979, a couple weeks after Kay goes missing. And he admits that he did see her running the morning of Christmas Eve. But the police get sidetracked when they dig into Kay's private life. They learn that she's had extramarital affairs. So they focus on those leads, and they start scrutinizing her grieving husband.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Dude.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But this is all a dead end. And John Aykroyd manages once again to not be investigated. Eight months later, John Ackroyd reinserts himself into Kay's still active case. One afternoon, he walks into a store in Camp Sherman where Kay went missing and claims that he's just gone hunting and found bones and a pair of jogging shorts in the woods. He insists that these clothes must be Kaye Turner's. So when investigators arrive at the scene and they speak to John, they immediately feel like he knows more than he's letting on. And when he's eventually polygraphed, he fails a question about whether he'd ever touched Kay. And he starts spinning a whole new theory. Now, he suddenly claims that he'd first found Kay's body back in February, two months after she went missing. And he says she was lying in know with her throat cut and several visible bullet wounds. He tells police that he didn't report it then because he was afraid of becoming a suspect. Investigators smell a rat, and finally John Aykroyd is on their radar. But they don't have any hard evidence, so they have to let him go. 12 years go by, and now it's 1990, and the investigators assigned to the Kaye Turner case get a call from the Linn County District attorney. So to give you a sense of location, to get to Linn county from Camp Sherman, where Kay was last seen, it's an hour's drive west on Highway 20. Linn county is also where Marlene lives and sisters Oregon is in nearby Deschutes County. So all of these areas are in the same general swath of Oregon, and they're all connected by Highway 20. So when the DA asks investigators if they've heard of a Linn county resident named John Arthur Ackroyd, of course they say they have. The DA then explains that John's stepdaughter, 13 year old Rashonda Pickle, has just been reported missing.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Hmm.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Rashonda is a young girl. She's playful, she's silly. She loves animals. She's very close with her big brother Byron, who's a year older than her. Rashonda's mother, Linda, describes her as, quote, wonderful and adds, quote, you couldn't ask for anything sweeter but life is not safe at home for Rashonda, because in the mid-80s, her mom marries John Aykroyd, believing that he's a good man, that she's providing stability for herself and her children. Instead. Instead, John reveals himself almost immediately as violent and abusive, particularly towards his stepchildren. Rashonda's in the fifth grade. She starts showing up to school with clear signs of physical abuse. She'll then confide to her friends that her stepfather is also sexually abusing her. Rashonda tries to stay with relatives or friends as much as she can. She's in fifth grade.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. No. That's just heartbreaking.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So she doesn't have to live under the same roof as him, and she does everything she can to avoid being alone with him. She and Byron lean on each other during this time. They just focus on turning 18, when they can finally escape his abuse and his household once and for all. In July of 1990, Rashonda finally tells her biological father about this abuse she's been suffering at the hands of John. And he, the biological father, lives in a different part of Oregon. So he calls the mother, Linda, and threatens to get the police involved. The next day, Rashonda vanishes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So the police learn that John was alone with Rashonda the day she vanished, which was frightening, knowing how desperately Reshonda tried to avoid ever being alone with him. But her mom was at work. Her brother was out of town visiting their father. John was supposed to be fixing a snowplow at his job. He'll later tell police that he'd taken the day off because he was waiting for parts to come in. But according to Noel Crombie's reporting from the Oregonian, that made no sense to his supervisors because John had a lot of other work he could have been doing that day.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

John claims that he invited Rashonda out into the woods to take pictures of deer. This is a claim that baffles everyone in the family because he's never shown an interest in wildlife photography. According to him, Rashonda turned down his offer and stayed behind at the house. And when he returned later that day, after going to take pictures of deer by himself, she was gone. Of course, there's a ton of immediate suspicion around John. And while under interrogation, the mask begins to slip. He offers up a bizarre theory about a stranger coming to the door and abducting Rashonda, saying, Almost casually, quote, 87 pounds is nothing for somebody to carry. You hit him over the head. And they have no fight.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, my God. How fucking chilling. Like to be in that interrogation room. And hear that.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. And just knowing it's like, that's the thing that I think is amazing. Cause psychopaths work very hard to be smart, but they always think they're the smartest people in the room. And it's that when you watch, you know, any true crime show and you see what bad liars they are.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. Not even bad liars. Like, they think, too, that, like, this. The person. They're telling this thing that, you know, they think is totally normal to. But, like, to hear that, but you're not a psychopath hearing that is fucking chilling.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's chilling. And then also, if you're not that person talking, like. And you clearly. This is. You're saying one thing, but what's actually coming through is, oh, my God, you know how much she weighs. Picked her up.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Like, you know how to.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You're giving yourself away, and you don't realize it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

The red flag of him knowing his stepdaughter's exact body weight is raised even higher when John tells investigators, unprompted, that on the night Rashonda disappeared, he and Linda had great sex.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Ew. Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

As Noel Cromie reports, this is, quote, significant because they almost never had sex. Ackroyd's low libido was the source of such open conflict that Linda's teenage son, Byron, knew of their troubles. Oh. Not healthy. Not okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Most disturbingly, though, John seems fixated on describing his stepdaughter's body in sexualized terms to the police.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Dude, he's so. Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Can't control it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No.

[Karen Kilgariff]

He even tells officers her exact bra size at one point.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, my God.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And when he's eventually shown a pair of pants that police find in the woods and believe are Rashondas, he becomes sexually aroused in front of them.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Are you fucking kidding me?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. Just a complete animal like this.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's the most. I. Wow.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay. Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

How. I never heard this.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Well, we're gonna take a little break when everyone else.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So we can go wash our fucking hands.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Leech bath. But again, the evidence against John Ackroyd is entirely circumstantial, so they have to let him go.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No, no, no.

[Karen Kilgariff]

The police are doing everything they can to build the strongest case they can against him, not only in Rashonda's case, but in Kay's, which is now picking up steam after being cold for several years. And that's because investigators on Kay's case are going back through the case file, and they are looking for new avenues to explore. And when they do that, they find the Name? Roger Dale Beck. Now. Now, Roger was close friends with John Ackroyd, and he claimed to be with him the day that Kay was reported missing. And Roger's then wife, Pam provided their alibi for that morning. But police never looked into Roger's potential involvement in Kaye's murder. Until now. So as they dig, police finally find the lead they've been waiting for. They learn from members of Roger's own family that on different occasions, he'd bragged about raping and killing a jogger back in the late 70s. Yeah, to who? I mean, for real, like, can you.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Imagine casually having beers with a friend or an acquaintance and them fucking like, what? Oh, my God. Like, this is psychotic.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Well, and it's also like, can we get a little perspective here? Where it's like everything that people called political correctness in, like, the 90s was trying to correct shit like this, where it's like, hey, if your bro brags about raping and killing someone, fucking around, I don't know, make a phone call. Yeah, pick up that phone.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No, he likes to brag about things. He makes up stories. He's still my very best friend. Like, what the fuck?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Insane. So when investigators try to reconfirm Roger and John's alibi for the day Kay went missing, Roger's now ex wife, Pam, completely falls apart and tells them she lied. Both men had actually come home covered in blood on Christmas Eve 1978. Roger made her burn his clothes, destroy his brand new boots, and threatened her into covering for him.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And John, I'm sure he was terrifying. Like the terror of. And then. What are you gonna do? Stand up.

[Karen Kilgariff]

He'll know it was you, right? I mean, they just. So now it's May 1992. This is two years after Rashonda goes missing. She still hasn't been found. But investigators working Kaye Turner's disappearance have managed to put together a really strong case. And there is a sense that John Ackroyd could be charged at any moment. But before the authorities can close in, two more young women from the same area in Oregon go missing. They are 17 year old Melissa Sanders from Sweet Home, Oregon and 19 year old Sheila Swanson of Lebanon. So Melissa and Sheila disappeared during a family camping trip with the Sanders family to the Oregon coast town of Newport.

[Georgia Hardstark]

They were together. Mm.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And the family was there, too. The girls share a tent that night. But early the next morning, when Melissa's family wakes up, they find both girls are gone. At first, their families think they hitchhiked home because Melissa and Sheila did sometimes spend Days away from their families in their late teens, and they'd actually even called their respective boyfriends to tell them they were going to leave the family camping trip. But when days pass with no sign of either of them, they're reported missing. Weeks later, In June of 1992, John Arthur Ackroyd is finally arrested for the murder of Kaye Turner. Roger Dale Beck, his presumed accomplice in Kaye's murder, is also arrested. This is 14 years after Kay went missing from Camp Sherman back in 1978, and 15 years since John's first known act of sexual violence against women, which was when Marlene was sexually assaulted in 77.

[Georgia Hardstark]

God, imagine like being their families or Marlene in this case and waiting that long to even have movement in your. Like, I just.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But also waiting that long knowing that this monster is walking around.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Which is such a cliche. But when you think about the fact.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Of it, where it's like, yeah, it's not like we don't know who it is. We haven't found, you know, a suspect yet. It's like it is. Is clearly to everyone, this fucking person.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's this person and his fucking friends.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Like, it's horrifying. So. So right out of the gate, what? Police wonder that if John knew he was about to get arrested and decided to kill more women while he still had the chance.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Jesus.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But when he's pressed about Melissa and Sheila's disappearances, he doesn't admit anything. Several months later, In October of 1992, hunters find Melissa and Sheila's bodies in the woods outside Eddyville, Oregon, off Highway about 20 miles from the campsite in Newport where the girls were. At the scene, police discover a rivet, which is something a mechanic might have. But they don't have much else to go on. Eventually, Melissa and Sheila's case goes cold. So the year after John's arrest in 1993, he's tried for the murder of Kaye Turner. The case against him is largely circumstantial, but prosecutors lean into a few key pieces of evidence. Kay's Timex watch, her clothes, and her skeletal remains. So the watch is important because it stopped ticking the morning she disappeared, and it's presumed it stopped working at the time of the attack. It was broken. This gives police a pretty strong sense of the exact time she was killed, which that timeframe dovetails with. When John told police he had spoken with her, he told them that.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. Didn't he find her body too, like.

[Karen Kilgariff]

He claims to have? Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

On top of that, forensic testing shows that Katie's clothes had been cut off. Which calls back to the MO of Marlene Gabrielson's assault, which they didn't fucking believe happened happened. So much suffering with that kind just because of an ego move like that.

[Georgia Hardstark]

But don't worry, it's just women who are suffering.

[Karen Kilgariff]

They just. Yeah, that's right. So prosecutors also have John's own words, which are damning in and of themselves because John did tell police he found Kay's body two months after she was killed. He thought she looked like she'd been slashed and shot. And the prosecution hammers home that he could not have known these things given how badly the body had been decomposed, unless he was the man that killed her. The jury deliberates for four hours and comes back and convicts John Aykroyd on two counts of aggravated murder and three counts of murder. His accomplice, Roger Dale Beck, is also convicted. Again, this is one conviction when John Aykroyd is suspected of many crimes against women. Still, it's a huge victory for the investigators who work to get him off the streets. One of those investigators is a man named Bill Hanlon, who championed Kay's case and is arguably the man who secured John Aykroyd's conviction. And he will later tell the Oregonian, quote, it saved women's lives. If he had stayed out, if he had never been convicted, he and maybe Beck would have done more crimes and killed more women. For sure, he managed to get through that whole thing without ever getting caught. Not because he was all that smart, but because he slipped through, end quote. Here's my edit to that line. But because the police didn't do their job right, Fast forward to 2010. At this point, John has served nearly two decades in prison and he's eligible for parole soon. I mean, 20 years. So because of that, detectives dig back into Rashonda's disappearance with renewed vigor. They're hoping they can create a strong enough case to bring charges and ensure John stays in prison for the rest of his life. But when they press him for information on Rashonda, he doesn't give anything up. Meanwhile, cold case investigators are also looking at the 1992 double murder of Melissa Sanders and Sheila Swanson. And in 2012, they pieced together information that had inexplicably gone overlooked in the 90s, probably because of sloppy police work. They learned that John Aykroyd was a regular at a 24 hour restaurant called Sherry's, which was frequented by local teens. And he had earned the nickname the Perv because of how creepy he was about all those teenage patrons of Sherry's restaurant. Among those patrons were Melissa and Sheila, who John had been seen interacting with at the restaurant. So witnesses come forward and tell police that they saw two teens hitchhiking and entering a state truck that matched the description of John's work vehicle. And the rivet found near the scene is determined to match the kind commonly carried by the highway workers. Most damningly, one of John's co workers will later report seeing John covered in blood around the exact time the girls go miss. At first, his co worker dismissed it because John said he hit a deer with his truck and got bloody clearing out the remains so the whole incident goes unreported. But John never admits to any involvement in Melissa and Sheila's deaths. And because of that, there's still a lot we don't know about what happened to them. But the theory is that after talking with them at Sherry's, John knew the girls were camping at the coast that weekend and probably lied and say he'd be in the area if they wanted to get a ride home from him, they could could just let him know. And clearly they took him up on that offer. As investigators continue working Melissa and Sheila's case, there's movement in Rashonda's case. In 2013, 23 years after she was last seen alive, John Aykroyd pleads no contest to Rashonda Pickle's murder. This means that he neither admits nor denies having anything to do with her death. And in exchange for this no contest plea, which effectively closes Rashonda's case, he agrees to never pursue being paroled.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow. Like a literal deal with the devil.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. The plea is sealed for a long time. So we still don't know the details on why he does this, but it means he'll live the rest of his life behind bars.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It just feels so like this little girl was not important enough to pursue justice. It's like, let's use this as a throwaway bargaining chip. But unfortunately, it's the best possible. Well, yeah, because everything's been so fucked. It's the best possible, you know, resolution.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. And it's not. It's a bargaining chip, but it's not a throwaway. Cause it actually works.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So there is that. But yes, the idea that he is not in some way forced to tell.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Them where her body is, what he did to her. Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

The answers for both Melissa and Sheila just don't have to be given.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And they've just been completely discarded by society.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's just horrifying.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It Feels like that whole metric needs to be readjusted to not, like, what do we do just to keep him behind bars? Cause we have to do whatever it takes. And it's like, no, just do whatever it takes to actually get the information out of him. Just a few Years later, in December 2016, John Arthur Ackroyd dies in prison at age 67, taking many secrets, presumably including the location of his own stepdaughter's body to the grave. So today, investigators suspect that John Arthur Ackroyd might be behind other unsolved cases in Oregon, many of which involve remains found near Highway 20.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

This includes the 1976 cold case involving a victim found near the highway who was only known at the time as Swamp Mountain Jane Doe for decades. Cause where she was found just days before this recording In September of 2025, police have announced genetic genealogy has now identified this person as Marion McWhorter.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Holy shit.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So they just figured out who this Jane Doe was?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, my God. Chills.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. Yeah. So for the families of his victims, the wounds will never heal. Rashonda Pickle's beloved brother Byron, never stopped fighting for justice for his little sister. He keeps her memory alive by telling his children about Aunt Janney, which was her nickname, and he has a tatt tattoo of her on his arm. Byron, Sheila's brother Bart Swanson, has also been her biggest advocate over the years, helping to keep interest in her case alive. And he tells the Oregonian that he sometimes visits the location where her body was found, saying, quote, I go up there to, you know, pretty much remind myself that I still haven't let it go and to let her know that I haven't let it go. Marlene Gabrielson has had to live with the trauma of being sexually assaulted and not being believed by the people who are supposed to fight for her after her attack. She tells the Oregonian, quote, I figured it was because I was nothing. I wasn't ever going to amount to anything. I was brown and I was ugly. So, you know, you're not going to amount to anything. You don't think you are. I think that's why I cowered so much back then. My first thought when I read that message, and she means from Noel Crombie's, the reporter that reached out to her was, why would she care? Because that's the whole mindset that I've had about this thing from the kids gate. But that's what made me come, because there was somebody who actually cared. This makes me feel really good because there's a Reason I am here. And I guess I am not that ugly. And I'm not worthless. I'm Marlene K. Gabrielson. I'm Inupiac. I'm a strong woman.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, my God.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And that's the story of the investigation into John Arthur Ackroyd and those cases linked to Highway 20.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's these. When everyone is just in the media, like, why do women love true crime so much? It's so like, what's wrong with you that you're interested? And it's like, because this is how little we have mattered for so fucking long. If you think it's that different now, then you're not paying attention.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Then please log on to any website and check out what our bodily autonomy status is. But also, we're interested because we care.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Can you imagine caring that much?

[Karen Kilgariff]

But also, we're interested because it's about us. And especially like in Marlene's case, the more marginalized you are, the more you're affected and the less people help you. So we as white women care and get upset. But it's like, but as you go and you're more marginalized and you're less represented and you're less empowered, people care less and less until people literally are like, oh, you came here to report a rape and we're going to fucking polygraph you, right?

[Georgia Hardstark]

You're throwaway full of shit. It's like, we have to care 10 times as much because we're cared about as women 10 times less.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Well. And also it's like, guess What? Women are 50% of the fucking population, if not 51. So our caring is like, everybody can just stop asking that question. Just accept the fact that women are concerned and care and it's about themselves as much as it's about other women. Because we have to for each other, right? That's the idea.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Exactly. We're the target. Wow. I don't want to do my story now because it is so different from that. Great job.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Thank you. What do you mean? This is what we do. Have you seen the big lit up, lit up number? Come on.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Balloon.

[Karen Kilgariff]

We got balloons, for God's sake. Ah, come on. Why is this taking so long? This thing is ancient.

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[Karen Kilgariff]

Whoa, this thing moves.

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. Great job. That was an incredible story I'd never heard before, and I'm shocked and horrified.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I mean, it's so horrifying. I really liked. You know, our producer Molly suggested, like just doing straight up true crime.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. For a 500th.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. And just, you know, like a classic. And. And Maren did an amazing job.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. That was incredible.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

All right, well, mine is not. Well, mine is true crime.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Really? Oh, yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. You know what? It is because we're gonna start in Sherman Oaks or Beverly Hills, depending on who's fucking arguing about zip codes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Do people in Sherman Oaks think they in any way live in Beverly Hills?

[Georgia Hardstark]

No, but there's like a weird zip code dispute going on that we're not getting into.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I'm gonna get into it myself.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay. We're in Sherman, okay. Oaks, technically, at 5am on the morning of December 20, 2008. Remember 2008?

[Karen Kilgariff]

I do. A very innocent time.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, very stupid. A security guard in the gated community of the Mulholland Estates has just realized that something is amiss at one of the mansions in the neighborhood. When the guard gets to the front door, he sees that it's opened. No one appears to be in the house, but he can tell the house has been ransacked. He calls the police. And once they arrive, it becomes clear that burglars have taken a whopping $2 million worth of jewelry and watches from this estate. In today's money, that $2 million would be.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You said it was 2008, so that was 20. A little less than 20 years ago.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

2 mil in today's money. 3.53.

[Georgia Hardstark]

But great job.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I mean, I'm getting close.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. Police look at surveillance footage which shows what appears to be a man in a sweatshirt. You know, who's the burglar? And they say the person seems to know the house. Well. What police do not know yet is that this burglar is not a professional who's been casing the joint. And also, the mansion doesn't belong to just any old person. It's Paris Hilton's home. Oh, and it's been hit three times before by the same group of burglars.

[Karen Kilgariff]

The Bling.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's right, Karen. That's why I was like, I can't do this now. It's literally called the Bling Ring.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes. No, this is what we like.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's a.

[Karen Kilgariff]

We do hot and cold, yin and yang, back and forth.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

The full scope of life.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We're a fucking paradox. This group, mostly teenagers, would go on to burglarize their homes of celebrities for close to a year before finally being caught. This is a story about obsession with celebrity and status, but maybe also a story about how our teenage selves aren't necessarily the people we are forever, but our mistakes sure are. This is the story of the Bling Ring.

[Karen Kilgariff]

The Bling Ring.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Did you ever watch the documentary about it?

[Karen Kilgariff]

No, I just watched the movie. Movie.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay, got it. Well, the main sources for the story is a Vanity Fair article that was written by a woman named Nancy Jo Sayles called the Suspects wore Louis Vuittons. And that was the basis for the Sofia Coppola movie the Bling Ring. And there's also a 2023 HBO documentary called the Ringleader. And then another documentary that I watch called the Real Bling Ring Hollywood Heist. And then also a short lived e. Reality show called Pretty Wild. And the rest of the sources can be found in the show notes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

This movie, when I saw it, it's like that kind of thing where you. I don't like thinking about other people's families sometimes because I'm like. It's just very Irish Catholic of me. But I'm like, they're not doing it right. It's not how you're supposed to do it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So you think, like, the teenagers were raised wrong or what?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes. Leslie Mann plays this mom, and she's so amazing.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Like, you don't even have to say more about what Leslie Mann played, because I fucking know who she. You know what I mean?

[Karen Kilgariff]

But there was a part where she's like, she doesn't care if the girls go to school. She just wants them to work on their, like, affirmation manifestation boards.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Mother, you're literally talking about. I know who you're talking about. And I watched a little bit of, like, the reality stuff, and I felt the same way about her.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You're just like, get the stomach in.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, no.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's either they don't have a chance in the world, or the world doesn't have a chance against people like this.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Totally. Yeah. It very much made me go, wow, I'm so glad I don't have teenage daughters. Like, I just. Yeah, I love that Leslie Emmantling, the mom. Okay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

She's really good.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, she's so good. Okay. To understand the Bling Ring, we really have to go back to the celebrity media landscape of the early 2000s, because it is so fucking different than it is now. And thank God there's, like, kind of a reckoning happening. But it was so trashy and so. So awful and so insidious and so, you know, damaging to our psyche back then.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes, for sure. Horrifying.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right. So, like, at this time in the early 2000s, US magazine goes from being a monthly industry focused magazine to being a weekly magazine focusing squarely on celebrities. So actually, Sofia Coppola cites this as the inciting incident that fomented the culture that resulted in the robberies. Because of this magazine, that makes the magazine and most. The ones that quickly copied it was full of paparazzi photos of celebrities, some of them actual movie stars, some of them reality stars, some people whose names you know. But you're. You're not even sure why. Like, this is when Paris Hilton became famous for just being Paris Hilton, and which, you know, launched just so many just celebrities who were just.

[Karen Kilgariff]

They didn't really do any. It wasn't like they were talent. Yeah. It wasn't like, oh, my God, what a great actor. Now I want to see this at the gas station.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It was just fame, which also meant to a lot of younger people that they could possibly do that as well.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Absolutely.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You know what I mean? Like, there was an opportunity just to be famous for being famous.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. That was simultaneous with, like, American Idol kind of TV shows where literally it was Just like, you can. You can go stand in line out in front of CBS and see if you can totally. I remember getting a job in the late 90s writing those. They used to do, like, basically Fashion Police. I think it was called Fashion Police.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And it was just like, they would show a picture of a celebrity with a fucked up outfit on. And then there was all these commentators.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I remember, just tearing them apart.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And I did it. I did it, like, for three different times. I think I did it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And you would write, like, each celebrity picture they'd give, you had to write, like, five jokes. So they'd pick one from each.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I remember this.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And the only place you could go was mean and meaner and meaner. And I remember on the third one, I went, what the fuck am I doing? And then I just didn't turn it in. And I never got asked to do it again. Where I was like, this is not like, yes, it's good to have $150. But like, what the fuck is this for?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Well, that's exactly it. Because I was also gonna say they did things like who wore it better?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Where they'd show a photo of two women always wearing the same outfit and then tear one of them apart and say the other one looked amazing. You couldn't choose both being, like, looking great. No, who wore it better? There was stars without makeup, and then there was best and Beach Bodies. It was so toxic. It was just. It just, you know, created a generation of women with eating disorders, myself included, entirely.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And it's the launching pad for the Facebook's Hot or Not world, where women absolutely were primed to be like, oh, wait, I guess I either I need to figure out if I'm hot or not, and then try to get hot so that I'm not a not.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Otherwise I don't have worth at all.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It was everything.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes. And so, yeah, there's this frothing paparazzi culture who is just making so much money off of this. That's what it was like. And it's in this environment in 2006 that a girl named Rachel Lee and Nick Prugo first find each other as sophomores at Indian Hills High School, which caters to kids who have struggled in more traditional schools in Calabasas.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Rich juvie kids.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Rich kids who can't. Yeah, I mean, essentially, I went to one of those schools in Irvine, you know what I mean? Which, like, it was called Self, and it was the. Like, you hate school and you're not doing well and your family doesn't force you to go to school. So this is what you have to do now to, like, get to graduate. Oh, so big. It was like the alternate school where PE was ping pong. So I'm pretty good at ping pong now. I only went there for, like, a semester and went back to regular school because I was just like, I gotta this. I have to do something with my life.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

But it was. Yeah, it was all the kids. Basically, it was any kid in this affluent neighborhood that had broken families.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Wow.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Like, really? That's all we had in common and became friends is because none of us had supervision. We were neglected. We didn't have the money that everyone else had. And so we didn't really give a shit about school.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And we were fucking teased there. We were made fun of there. We were like. Like, I didn't want to go there. I was out. I was a total outcast, so why would I go? Instead, you go to south where people.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Are actually nice to you and you get to play some ping pong.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Fucking hardcore ping pong. Yeah. So I get it. And also, I became, eventually, when I was like, in my early 20s, I was a lunch lady in the Valley at one of these schools myself for elementary through high school. And these were the sweetest, most wonderful kids who couldn't hack it in the LAUSD school system in the Valley. And I'm telling you, more than half of them were living in group homes. So it wasn't. These were not bad kids. They just didn't have the resources that everyone else had.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. Or the support. And also, it's weird because there's some kids who have nothing but resources.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And it's not a good thing.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's also where I met Uncrustables because the kids loved them. And I was like, I'm gonna try this.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Lived off of them. Okay, enough about me and Uncrustables. So this girl, Rachel Lee and Nick Prugo, they meet each other at this school and they both have issues getting along with their families. Rachel had been kicked out of Calabasas High School for stealing something from another girl. And Nick was kicked out of Calabasas High School as well for excessive absences. Which is like, the fact that you're just, like, punished for that instead of, like, what's going on in his life that this. That he's not coming to school.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Is so horrifying to me.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. It's like. So basically, there's clearly a lack of support.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right. And you're A child. And you're being held responsible for the fact that you.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That no one will get you to school.

[Georgia Hardstark]

There's no follow through. Yeah, like maybe you have some, you know. And also he had been a troubled kid. He had been diagnosed with adhd. So he probably wasn't taken care of the way he needed to be, you know, So I just. These kids, I feel for them. So Nick and Rachel, they feel like outsiders and then they meet each other and just fall immediately in friendship. Love. Nick is gay. During a time when the average high schooler hears gay slurs multiple times a day. It was very casual then. Rachel's Korean and has always felt out of place in her majority white town. And it's at a time when the beauty standard is blindingly white and being beautiful is seen as a teenager's highest duty. So it's really depressing for them. They're both very into fashion and celebrities and the very luxury brand focused aesthetic of the era. You remember Jisu Couture, you had a whole wardrobe.

[Karen Kilgariff]

My whole ass was covered in that brand. But also I think there's, you know, especially in the Valley. Yeah, I mean that's like the Valley in Beverly Hills.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Totally.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's the center of like materialistic, kind of like, here's what anybody cares about. Like, what kind of car do you drive?

[Georgia Hardstark]

And it's aspirational. You could easily become part of that world if you place your cards right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You know, as Rachel will put it many years later, quote, I felt this insatiable energy to have as much as I could have. But that was kind of the energy back then. End quote. And so Rachel and Nick quickly form a deep, all consuming friendship. Remember those fucking friendships from high school that were so amazing? They're always talking or texting or IM ing each other and they just find this like kindred spirit in each other. So sometime in 2007, Nick and Rachel. Rachel. Start burglarizing homes. I just, I. I don't know why. Like, I feel for them and I feel like by the grace of God, there goes moi. You know, not burglarizing, just doing really fucking stupid, stupid shit. In a time when stupid shit sticks to you.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Permanent records.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Exactly. Early 90s, you can't track my shit.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But hold on, how did they get to that?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay, here's what happened. It's kind of brilliant. They find out that a classmate is going to be out of town with their family. It's a rich as fuck family. And so they go there when they know no one's going to be home. And they break in at this classmate's house. They find a box with thousands of dollars of cash in it. It's originally reported as $8,000, but it gets bandied about. Maybe it was over $20,000. In today's money, it could have been worth about $40,000. But they find it and they take it and they go on a shopping spree on Rodeo Drive with it. And I fucking get this thing of like, how come everyone I. Cause I used to shoplift when I was a kid. I will say that right now. You can't fucking come get me or come fucking get me if you want, but I was underage. I used to shoplift. And it was this. This feeling of like, I deserve this. Everyone else in my affluent community has everything they want. I get made fun of for not. Not I fucking deserve this. Which clearly isn't true. But I was a child so that it made absolute sense to me that.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Like, it'll solve the problem.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, like this is how I get mine too. So I get that. I wrote about it in our book. So they do that hit and then they take up this hobby that they call checking cars. And so they basically just walk by luxury cars in their neighborhood and see if the doors are unlocked. Lock your fucking doors. Right? Like as we always say, when they find one that is open, they plunder it for cash and credit cards and then go on more shopping trips with it. By their senior year of high school, the fall of 2008, they hatch a plan to start robbing celebrities houses and decide they're going to start with Paris Hilton.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Why not?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, it's so easy for them to do this. They find a subscription based website that lists celebrity home addresses on it, and then they go to Google Earth to kind of map out the house, like see routes to get into the house. And then they go on social media and like TMZ and see the celebrity themselves saying, I'm in Ibiza. I'm in New York filming this thing. I'm gonna be out tonight at this fucking bar. And so they just know when the celebrity's gonna be out of town. They know where they live, they know how to get in.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yep, they can track it all. Thank you, Us magazine.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, it's creepily easy for them to do this.

[Karen Kilgariff]

The innocent days of the early Internet, right?

[Georgia Hardstark]

So they study TMZ and Paris Hilton social media and know she's gonna be out of town for a few days in October. They look at her gated community on Google Earth and they find A hill in the back of the house where they think they can get onto the property without being noticed. And it works. When they approach the front door of Paris's 8,000 square foot Mediterranean style mansion, they find a key under the mat. That's how safe she feels in her community.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Also, she doesn't have a house sitter.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I know, I know.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Is she just a Richie Rich person that doesn't just have someone there?

[Georgia Hardstark]

I don't think they think about it then.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I guess they didn't.

[Georgia Hardstark]

They do now. Right. When we go out of town at all for touring, my friend stays at our house. Not just because we have pets, but because I don't want to leave a home completely unattended. There's never not someone at my house.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, we get it. We get it. No one can rob you.

[Georgia Hardstark]

They find a key under the mat and they let themselves in. On this first visit, they kind of just explore her house. They go into the nightclub room. Like, this is a very wealthy woman. Then they do. They do this brilliant. Not brilliant. They do this very smart thing where they fish through all of her purses. Cause she has hundreds of beautiful purses and she goes out all the time. And so there's just crumpled bills in every purse from all her nights out.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's really smart.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Hundreds and hundreds and fifties that they just. She just crams back in her purse, puts her purse back on, eventually she'll grab it again and, you know, like, she doesn't care that there are all these wadded up dollars.

[Karen Kilgariff]

She is literally filthy rich.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Exactly. So they take all of those. They say they take a lot of coke. Like, they find, you know, baggies of coke in the purses. But we're like, we don't. That's allegedly. We don't want Paris Hilton, who's the victim of this crime. We don't want to be, like, saying that she's a fucking cokehead. Seems like they were careful to make it not totally obvious that someone had been there. Like, so she. I don't know if she knew at first.

[Karen Kilgariff]

She has a nightclub room. She noticed.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Exactly. So they take little things like a bottle of Grey Goose on the way out. That's. They return to Paris's house two more times that fall. And they also start bringing some of their other friends and associates into the scheme, which is a bad idea. It feels a little less like a scheme, though, and more like the way teens like to break into abandoned buildings that are just kind of trying their luck, in a way. And they're so unaware of the consequences that your stupid fucking actions as a teenager will bring.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Especially when what's really taking up most of your attention is, can I get a Chanel purse? Can I get a label? Fill in the blank. Blank.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And I'm not good enough unless I have those things. Absolutely. Part of this includes stealing many thousands of dollars worth of clothing and jewelry for them to wear. Like they just want to dress the part. In the expanded group, there are some other kids from their school, some friends of friends. It kind of becomes this, like, unorganized group of people who are all doing this together. And there are a couple older adults, though. This includes a man named Roy Lopez Jr. Whom one of the group knows from her job at a restaurant, and a man named Johnny Ajar, who goes by your favorite name ever.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Johnny Dangerous.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Johnny Dangerous. You had the first part right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Well, yeah, well.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Cause his name is Johnny.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Johnny Dangerous.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That is ridiculous.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And what's Johnny Dangerous? Deal.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You're gonna be shocked to hear this.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

He's a Hollywood promoter. What? I don't think any. Everyone who doesn't live in LA knows, like, promoters. Hollywood nightclub promoters, especially back in the early 2000s and like late 90s, were just this like, breed of dude.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Toothpick dude.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, they were like slimy. But they could probably get you into the club for sure. Especially if you were underage.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Slimy but not unattractive. Yes, kind of. There's a charisma there.

[Georgia Hardstark]

But also because they're like businessmen.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes, they are.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Or they're like marketing people.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I told you. This is one of my favorite memories. And I'm gonna try to do it quickly. I was turning. Remember the old DMV that used to be off of vine above, between Sunset and Hollywood? And there's like a DMV there. I'd always go there because there was rarely a line. So I was driving in that neighborhood and I was taking a right hand turn in my old car. Simultaneously, there was this dude taking a left. So our cars were passing and our. We were. Our window, you know, we were passing each other and he was super good, like, but he was like, shaved head.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. Very clean cut.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Like, well, this guy was like super tan. And he had a V neck silk shirt that was open, like way open down here. And he had a big necklace and he had like a big ring. He had a toothpick in his mouth. And I was just like. And I was just staring at him. Cause I was like, who is this guy? Like, as we're passing each other and he just very Slowly puts his arm out the window and points at me. So as we're passing, he just, like, does one of those as we go by.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, my God, like, acknowledging your existence.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And I was like, I love the idea of, like, this. He looked like a nightclub owner or a promoter.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Promoter. It's a totally different thing.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And I'm like, his nerdy comic girlfriend. Like, it was this idea of, like, how hilarious. But then he'd also, like, give me coke.

[Georgia Hardstark]

He would absolutely give you coke. He would get you into Ledoux, which is the nightclub of the time. Like, seriously. So Johnny Dangerous was a promoter for the Hollywood nightclub Ledoux. Remember Ledoux? Ledux. Ledoux, Ledoux, Ledoux.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I remember it, but I just. I don't know what it looked like.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It was on the hills all the time. Like, that's where they all went to or worked around. So it was a big deal. And he'd get these underage kids who are not famous people into Ledoux. He was the promoter, the big Hollywood promoter.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It feels like a lost. The culture is being lost.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I'm sure it's still there. We could go to Hollywood right now and meet four promoters within 20 minutes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And we'd be like, hey. And they'd be like, I can't see you. You're over mom 25.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No, you're a mom.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You're not invited.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, there's no milfs. Okay, so Roy, the other guy, is actually the one captured on security footage in the December Paris Hiltonburg, and that ends up being the one to first be publicized. Johnny Dangerous mostly acts as a fence, like, buying the stolen goods to sell them because the kids can't. What, are they gonna go into a pawn shop with Paris Hilton's fucking, like, heirloom family jewelry and sell it on the market?

[Karen Kilgariff]

No, I just thought about Paris Hilton coming home from Ibiza or whatever it is and being like, hey, I put $8,000 in this purse.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Pretty sure.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Wait a second.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Did Nikki bar this purse? And then Nick later says, sweet Nick. He says, quote, he gave us $5,000 for, like, 10 Rolexes, which I guess is a ripoff, now that I think about it. End quote. How much is a Rolex worth?

[Karen Kilgariff]

$50,000. Aren't they?

[Georgia Hardstark]

So 10 Rolexes? That just shows how naive and young they are. He was like, here's $5,000. And they're like, oh, my God, thank you so much. That's so incredible. Yeah, exactly. It's a bit muddy regarding. Like, when each of the members of the Bling Ring get involved, it's very loose. It.

[Karen Kilgariff]

There's no official history.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. You're not going to believe it. It's clear that the network expands quickly between Rachel and Nick's first burglary in October and the fourth one in December. Since Rachel and Nick didn't actually really even know the guy, Roy, the one who was in the security footage.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's almost like some guy heard about it too.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. So it's not actually a group. And then the burglaries continue over the course of the entire school year and into the summer with various members of this group, but always Rachel and Nick. So they kind of are. Are the ringleaders, I guess you could say.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

In February of that year, Rachel and Nick robbed the home of Adrina Patridge, one of the stars of the Hills.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Adrina Partridge.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It says Partridge in everything I've read. And I always thought it was Partridge.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It is Partridge.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I think it's Partridge.

[Karen Kilgariff]

What was she on?

[Georgia Hardstark]

The Hills. The Hills have Eyes. Iconic TV show, the Hills. Heard of it? I did. I watched the shit out of it, literally until I read this research by Ali. I would have said Partridge. And then I saw that. I saw it in the Vanity Fair article. It's spelled Partridge, by the way. I want to leave all of this in. And Audrina, if you're a murderino, we are so sorry. I wouldn't dare edit it out. Thank you, Molly.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's clearly gold.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And she says, quote, they took bags and bags of stuff. They took my great grandma's jewelry, my passport, my laptop, jeans made to fit my body to perfect shape, which, like. Can I get that done? I didn't know that was a thing you could do.

[Karen Kilgariff]

No, you can't. The answer's no.

[Georgia Hardstark]

God damn it. The estimated value of her stolen property was $43,000. But more than that, she is terrified from this. And I think. I've never think fucking God had a break in, but I think the sense of security that you lose when that happens is just psychologically so fucked up, especially from a reality star. Like, she's not, you know, a movie star that agreed to this life. I mean, she did because she's a reality star.

[Karen Kilgariff]

She was, like, in high school when she agreed to it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Is she the one that lived in that very glass boxy house that was up above Sunse down by, like, Sunset Junction?

[Georgia Hardstark]

I don't know. How do you know that?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Because I remember. I spent a lot of time.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, I know. The fancy house. Yes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And I remember them. The video with the guy with the, like, A hooded sweatshirt and people jumping over the fence.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes, totally.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. And it's like that's when I realized, like, oh, that's right, you're totally exposed if people know where you live.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right, exactly. Actually. And she shares the footage of this robbery right away with the police and media. And it's pretty clear, you can see Nick and Rachel in it. But nothing comes of that until later. So the group hits Rachel Bilson's house in May from the OC they have a trend clear, right. Rachel Bilson's from the OC, right?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, I think so.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I'm from literally the OC And I don't remember where this is from. Then in July, they hit Orlando Bloom's house. Mostly because his girlfriend at the time is Miranda Kerr and she has really fucking good clothes. They had his house that night. They allegedly steal $500,000 in Rolex watches. Allegedly. Which is probably two Rolex watches.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, exactly.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Louis Vuitton luggage, artwork. I mean, it seems like they just have all the time in the world in these houses and they take advantage of it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And also all the choices in the world. Because this is like rich people like having too much money and collecting stuff.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And not having security.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. You know, or a house sitter.

[Georgia Hardstark]

A house sitter.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Security.

[Georgia Hardstark]

A fucking dog. A rottweiler with knives taped to it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Like anything plants that someone has to come and water twice a day. Like something.

[Georgia Hardstark]

The Orlando Bloom robbery is where 18 year old Alexis Niers claims she comes into the story and she's the daughter of the like secret manifestation mother.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So she claims this when she comes into the story. She says she's a drag along and it's like, I don't know. Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I mean, if there's a group of kids that are going around robbing celebrities house, you're gonna wanna tell all the kids at school that you're out in front and you're the leader of the gang. And once you get caught, you're gonna be like, I barely even understood what was happening.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Exactly.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And I do think. Sorry, but I do think that I remember them trying to turn that story with the Audrina Partridge break in. Because they were talking about how scared she was. Where it's like the times I've sat at my house in the middle of the night with the dogs barking, thinking someone is breaking in my house. And it is the fucking scariest thing. And of course it was raccoons or whatever. But like a horrible threat, a horrible thing to go to. Even if you're not home that means someone actually did it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And was there the violation of someone walking through this place that's like your sanctuary that you created, especially when you're a famous person, to get away from all of that and it's not safe and nothing's safe and they've taken your grandma's jewelry. Like I. Totally horrible. Can't imagine.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But then. Yeah, it's cute when you know it's these teenagers that are being rebels.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. Well, she initially was like, I couldn't believe it when I saw the footage because I figured, like, I was also terrified that it was these like big scary men. Yeah, it wasn't, but it was still confusing. Yeah. Yeah. So Alexis, this 18 year old, had known Nick and Rachel from Indian Hills High School, but she had dropped out to pursue modeling. And she's at the time being homeschooled by her mother, Andrea Leslie Mann. That's her specifically. Andrea says she's basing her curriculum around the movie, not the book, the Secret.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

The family believes firmly in the law of attraction and frequently says quote, and so it is. Wow, that's their like, hey, I want to be famous. And so it is. Which is so culty. Isn't it? Culty?

[Karen Kilgariff]

I mean, it's so la. It's so. And Cause sometimes it works. And it's like sometimes it works. And if you're delusional enough and to believe that's why. Petite and hot enough, I guess, or.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Whatever, and then think you earned it because you did that and they didn't. And it's like, well, you should. Yeah, it's just.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And so it is petite and hot.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And you live in the. One of those apartments, the Oakwoods. And you just like all you want is to make it, whatever that means.

[Karen Kilgariff]

God.

[Georgia Hardstark]

There's no negative in making it. That's the idea. It's like there's no. Like you can't do anything bad if it results in you making it because it was worth it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes. No matter what is it?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Alexis's best friend is a 19 year old named Tess Taylor, and she lives in. Andrea treats her like another daughter. And then they're the ones who end up having that reality show Pretty Wild for a short time. The way it's presented on the reality show, Alexis and Taylor are very focused on becoming famous. And Andrea, the mother is even more focused on this Leslie Mann. And it appears that Alexis is raised in a family that prioritizes fame and proximity to fame over everything else.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And we know this because it's all chronicled on pretty Wild. Which starts filming at the. Because they are following Alexis and Tess's life as little hellraisers in the Los Angeles club scene. Like going to Ledoux.

[Karen Kilgariff]

They're looking for the new Paris Hilton.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Exactly.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Nikki? No, that's her sister.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Richer.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Nicole.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Richer. Nicole Richie.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So it's about that at first, about their attempts at, you know, going to modeling additions and becoming famous. But it doesn't turn into that. But back to the summer. Over the summer, all the kids in the Bling Ring are pretty blatant with their spoils. They are photographed in celebrities clothes on their silver social media with like fucking Rolexes and shit.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So stupid.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I know, I know. They brag pretty openly about it among their peers. One day Rachel and Nick and possibly others spread out a blanket on Venice beach and start selling stolen goods from celebrities houses. Like they cry for help are teenagers doing dumbass teenage shit. Which is why I'm so glad I'll never have a teenage child. Just a nephew that I could be like the cool aunt to.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, that's right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So then at the end of July, TMZ re ups the security footage from the burglary back in February at Adrina P's house. For some reason she had shared it back when it happened, but for some reason now people are more interested in it. And Nick and Rachel are pretty identifiable in it. Set footage you've seen like they really barely try to cover their faces at all. They have like hoodies on and that's kind of it. So friends are calling them about it. Rachel decides to move in with her father who's an accountant and professional gambler who lives in, in Vegas to have like a low profile. But she cannot resist the pull to do that one last job. So classic. Like you're done, you're in a different state. Go fucking.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You got out.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, go be a. What's it called?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Dealer.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes. Not a drug dealer. If you couldn't. If you're not watching this on YouTube. I was doing cards, not.

[Karen Kilgariff]

She was doing poker. Dealer gestures.

[Georgia Hardstark]

One night in August, one of the members of the ring, we're not sure who, called and says quote, let's go steal. End quote. The intended target is Lindsay Lohan, who pretty much is the white whale for any fashion loving teenage burglar in the mid 2000s. Like she's the famousest of the famousest and the party the most like big party girl too.

[Karen Kilgariff]

She's a big party girl also. She, I think I read and this is alleged, so don't hold against me. But There was a lot of stories about her taking clothing, really expensive clothing from sets. Yes. And. And from places where she. I think she had probably this. She was famous and had been since she was a child. And she kind of had the same disease. It sounds.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's like entitlement disease. Yeah. Rachel makes the four hour drive to Los Angeles in order to participate in that. She's like, don't go. Wait for me. Here I come. So that happens. And then very shortly after this, the walls start closing in. Several people anonymously tip the police about the members of the Bling Ring. Because they fucking know them from Calabasas fucking High school or whatever.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. And one of them, probably, like, the boy she liked, liked them. And then she's like, you know what? I'm dropping a dime on you now.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Totally. Alexis Nier, as it turns out, is one of the anonymous tipsters, which is weird because she is actually part of the group, even though she insists that she didn't know what was happening and didn't participate. In September, Nick Prugo is arrested based on one of these tips. And he basically, he's a child. He confesses to not just everybody, but everything and stuff the cops don't even know is related to the Bling Ring. Like, that's how sweet and innocent he is. He's just like, yes, it was me. Here's what we did. I didn't know it was illegal or whatever it is. This includes a burglary from 90210 actor Brian Austin Green's house, which they broke into because he was dating Megan Fox, who's so fucking well dressed at the time. But the thieves also wind up stealing a handgun from him. Oh. Which is, like, scary. Nick turns in tons of stolen watches and jewelry and is photographed for his mugshot. And in the mugshot, he's wearing one of Orlando Bloom's T shirts.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Jesus.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Like, they're just children. I'm not saying that any of this.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Is okay, but they got away with it. I mean, like, there's a part of it that's kind of delightful.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Totally, totally. Nick calls Rachel after his publicized arrest. And even though rationally she knows he got arrested, and she's probably like, I shouldn't talk to him when he's calling. I bet this is being recorded. But she talks to him anyways. And Nick casually says to her, hey, remind me what your dad's address is in Vegas where you're staying? Moments later, the police bang on her door and, yeah, find her. They search her house and find, you know, a Bunch of stuff, including a nude personal photo of Paris Hilton that they had stolen, which is pretty shitty.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You know, when Alexis is warned, why.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Doesn'T Paris Hilton have a safe 100%? She's from the richest of the rich. Like, isn't there some sort of internal protocol with these people? I mean, the Calgary family version of that is. My dad had a big bowl that he used to put his spare change in and then we would go steal change out of the bowl.

[Georgia Hardstark]

My sister had one of those, like, children's lock boxes that all you had to do was like, find the opening and, you know, and then I'd go buy like fucking.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You're like pieces.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Exactly. In quarters.

[Karen Kilgariff]

My dad would be like, quit stealing.

[Georgia Hardstark]

My quarters and then quit putting them in them. It's literally called the stealing place.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oops. Okay. When Alexis Warrant is served, the e cameras are rolling, and her arrest winds up in the pilot of Pretty Wild. So suddenly they're like, thank fucking God we gave this girl a reality show. We have all of this. It's so cringe to watch. Like, I watched another scene and it's just cringe. The rest of the series follows her preparation for trial. While searching the house, police find one of Rachel Bilson's purses, among other things. At this point, the fact that this rash of well publicized Hollywood burglaries has been committed by a ring of teenagers from the Valley has in itself this hugely sensational story. No one can get enough of it. Vanity Fair writer Nancy Jo Sales covers the story mostly from Alexis's perspective as she navigates her court dates and notes that the family seems to be simultaneously treating her arrest like the scary problem it is, but also an opportunity to become famous and really lapping up the attention.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I mean, they manifested it, so you gotta live it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I mean, at the time too. Like, all of Those starlets had DUIs and all it did was make them more famous.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes. It was really like you were saying that it's weird because paparazzi, although I know they still exist, it's not the same as it was back then, where everything was being driven by that. So ugly it was out of control.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. The article goes on to be adapted into Sophia Coppola's 2013 movie, the Bling Ring, which is one of Karen's favorites.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Number one, that in atonement, that's what you cry.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's what you cry on a plane do is the Bling Ring. Why?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Why aren't these children so amoral?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Alexis pleads no contest and a sentence to 180 in the county jail, and she winds up serving 30 days. Nick also spends this time getting lots of interviews and doing lots of television news appearances at the same time. Rachel, the. You know, Nick and Rachel. Rachel is saying nothing. Her mom is a lawyer.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And so she almost isn't part of the public narrative anymore, which is so smart in that, like, way of don't fucking say shit and no one will care.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It'll go away.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Which is so true. The consequence of that is that in the cultural nature narrative, she is portrayed by all the other kids as the ringleader. They're able to point to her, and she's not denying it. So everyone goes with it. The way she tells the story now is that it was more of a F a deux type situation where she and Nick had a shared compulsion to.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Steal and justify to each other. Like, it's. We're doing it. It's fun, it's funny, It's. I mean, I'm sure it was fucking thrilling.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, my God. So fucking fun. Like, the stories that they tell about it was.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And then you have eight grand in cash in your pocket. Like, now I get to do. You're right. I get to have whatever lipstick I.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Want and the purest coke you've ever fucking smelled in your life. At the trial, many of the celebrity victims testify. The prosecution builds their case around the sense of violation and fear that they felt to have their homes broken into, as opposed to the actual material losses. Because hopefully they're all insured, too.

[Karen Kilgariff]

They were.

[Georgia Hardstark]

They were, for sure. That's why there was no security. Ultimately, all the members of the Bling Ring who are charged together plead no contest. Nick and Rachel get the stiffest sentences. Nick is sentenced to two years in prison and Rachel to four, and both serve about a year before being released on probation. Everyone else winds up getting probation. And this is partially because an LAPD cop who is a major figure in the investigation is just as enamored with celebrity as the kids are. He consults on the Sofia Coppola a film while the cases are still pending, creating a big conflict of interest that lessens everyone else's sentences. So it's not just teenagers.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You know, what makes me think of. Is I want to rewatch LA Confidential.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes. Such a good movie.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's such a good movie. But that whole part with the now reviled Kevin Spacey, but that whole thing is so la. It's like there are totally different rules here.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Totally.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And it is really acclimated to beauty and money. And, like.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And this achievement thing, status and fame, but.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So it's like, yeah, the cops. You cannot get a cop to show up anywhere for any reason in most of LA, but you will see 25 of them standing around a set if they're shooting on Melrose.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Totally.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And, I mean, that's just how you just learn that. Like, that's just how it works here.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Totally.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's so true. Such a weird town.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's so weird.

[Georgia Hardstark]

When Rachel does get out of prison, she moves back in with her mom and stepdad to a bedroom with a mattress on the floor and a small box of belongings. I mean, she's got some stories to tell, though, for the rest of her life.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

She says she remembers thinking, quote, this is all that I need in the world. Like, she was just.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Just so happy to be home.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. And done with the whole thing. Cause getting caught up in it, you know?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

All of the members of the Bling Ring now lead pretty quiet lives. Rachel is a hairstylist. It's unclear what Nick does professionally, but he's not clamoring for public. Alexis, though, is the kind of the only one who still maintains an Instagram presence. So maybe she's still looking for that elusive fame.

[Karen Kilgariff]

If I was getting my hair cut and my hairdresser was like, I actually was the leader of the Bling Ring, I would be overjoyed in ways that.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Where does she work? Because I'll leave my beloved hairdresser for her immediately. Sorry, Marissa, but, like, it's the leader of the Bling Ring.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's a great way to spend three hours of like. And then. What did you do with that watch?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Don't ask me about what I'm watching on tv. Tell me everything about your fucking incredible life, Rachel.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Fascinating.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And that is the story for our 500th episode of the Bling Ring.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Genius. Genius. That was great.

[Georgia Hardstark]

All props to Molly and Ali for suggesting the story. And I was like, I don't know. It's kind of vapid and dumb. Like, is Karen doing a really good true crime? I'll only do this if, like, legitimately it's a good episode. And they were like, it fucking is. You have to.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Molly's like, trust the process.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I'm like, all right, fine. I'll do the fucking Bling Ring.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Well, you know, it's interesting you say that now. Cause that's what I was gonna say at the beginning, is, it's our 500th episode. And from Steven Ray Morris, all by himself on the floor of your apartment to this incredible staff of almost 40 people that we now have at. Exactly. Right. Like, we would be nowhere. And we could not have done it. And we certainly couldn't have done it to the degree that we have done it absolutely. Without all these people that we work with. So, for our own team. Thank you. Molly and Liana and Aristotle and just everybody every week.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Thank you.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That makes this podcast possible. Thank you all so much. Because, you know, it's not the two of us. It's in the least. And now there's like, there's two other podcasts that go along with this podcast and there's video. And it's just like we have team after team and people after people that really work their ass off to.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It works despite us, not because of us.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I disagree. No, no. It just is like. It's just such a big old thing. It's very exciting after 10 years and 500 episodes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

10 years and 500.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's so wild the way it's grown. It's crazy.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Turn. We really bling Ring this. The podcasting industry, didn't we?

[Karen Kilgariff]

What we did was we checked the podcast industry's doors. A couple of them were unlocked.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's right. And we broke in. We stole some Grey Goose. We went through their shit. And we.

[Karen Kilgariff]

They don't need this. 40 grand in cash.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes. But what a joy. And of course, to the listeners, to the murder, to our fucking people, obviously, this couldn't have happened without you, but you've made it into this incredible thing that we could never ever tell you how grateful we are for the lives that we get to lead now because of you guys listening to this podcast.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And thinking that we're your best friends.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. Cause we are. We can fucking run you down on the street to honk at you.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's right. We will stick our whole arm and perhaps our head out the window to make sure you know that we see.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You and we appreciate it. Our lives 500 episodes ago were very different.

[Karen Kilgariff]

They were very different.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It really is a beautiful place to be. So thank you guys so fucking much.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes. It's magical.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Stay sexy and don't get murdered.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Goodbye.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Goodbye, Elvis. Do you want a cookie?

[Karen Kilgariff]

This has been an exactly right production. I.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Our senior producers are Alejandra Keck and Molly Smith.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.

[Georgia Hardstark]

This episode was mixed by Liana Squilacci.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Our Researchers are Maren McGlashan and Ali Elkin.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Email your hometowns to my favorite murdermail.com.

[Karen Kilgariff]

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 Kilgariff]

And now you can watch us on exactly right's YouTube page. While you're there, please like and subscribe. Give a us Bye.

[Georgia Hardstark]

The hit TV drama High Potential is Back. Season two stars Kaitlyn Olson as Morgan, a crime solving single mom with an IQ of 160. Every week, Morgan uses her unconventional style and exceptional mind to crack LAPD's most perplexing cases. This show is the perfect blend of humor and mystery. Watch as Morgan breaks the mold without breaking breaking a sweat. New episodes of High potential Tuesdays at 10, 9 Central on ABC and stream on Hulu. Goodbye.

[Karen Kilgariff]

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