Rewind with Karen & Georgia - Episode 24: …And Twenty Justice Four All

Summary

Podcast Summary: My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
Episode: Rewind with Karen & Georgia - Episode 24: …And Twenty Justice For All
Release Date: December 18, 2024

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Introduction

My Favorite Murder is a beloved true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Part of the Exactly Right Media network, the show delves into compelling true crime cases alongside personal stories from friends and listeners. In this special episode, titled “Rewind with Karen & Georgia - Episode 24: …And Twenty Justice For All,” the hosts take a nostalgic journey back to episode 24, originally released on July 7, 2016. This episode serves as both a recap and a reflection on past content, intertwining personal anecdotes and deeper discussions on true crime's impact.

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Recapping Episode 24: …And Twenty Justice For All

Episode Overview

Karen and Georgia, alongside co-host Derek and Natalie, embark on a "painfully" nostalgic recap of episode 24. The original episode, released on July 7, 2016, discussed significant true crime stories, including infamous serial killers and cold cases. In this retrospective, the hosts not only revisit the content but also share their personal growth and changes since the episode's initial release.

Notable Quote:

• Georgia Hardstark [01:47]: "It's fucking classic."

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Personal Reflections and Interactions

Anxiety and Perfectionism

The conversation naturally veers into personal territory as Karen and Georgia discuss their struggles with anxiety and perfectionism. Georgia highlights her proactive approach to tackling tasks despite anxiety, contrasting Karen’s perfectionism-induced paralysis.

Notable Quotes:

• Georgia Hardstark [03:51]: "I have extreme anxiety, which causes me to constantly do things."
• Karen Kilgariff [04:00]: "I just go, fuck it. I've spent my life saying fuck it, essentially."

Community and Support Systems

They emphasize the importance of community support in overcoming personal challenges. Georgia shares a heartwarming story about how a friend helped her gain perspective during a personal crisis.

• Georgia Hardstark [18:40]: "They were like, what's great about this documentary is it feels like this guy is kind of like the more I know, the closer I'll be to her."

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Unboxing and Creative Segments

The hosts humorously explore the idea of unboxing their P.O. box mail live on the podcast, contemplating the logistics and potential hilarity of deteriorating personal space into a consumer spectacle.

• Karen Kilgariff [12:19]: "I've been doing this since I was 12. So I'm just like, what?"

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Hometown Murder: The Case of Polly Klass

Karen’s Personal Connection

Karen delves deep into a traumatic event from her hometown, Petaluma, California—the kidnapping and murder of Polly Klass. She shares firsthand experiences, highlighting the tight-knit community's response and the lasting impact on her life.

Case Details:

Polly Klass, a 12-year-old girl, was kidnapped on October 1, 1993, during a slumber party. Eve, Polly's mother and Karen's boss at Biobottoms, was present but could not prevent the abduction. The community's frantic search culminated in the arrest of Richard Allen Davis, a man with a notorious criminal record. Despite confessing to Polly's murder, Davis remained elusive about the details, leading to his death sentence, although he remains alive on death row due to California's infrequent executions.

Impact and Legacy:

The case spurred significant legal changes, including the implementation of the three-strikes law and enhancements in police communication protocols. Karen expresses profound emotional ties to the case, underscoring the personal pain of recounting such a loss.

Notable Quotes:

• Karen Kilgariff [26:34]: "I just wanted to tell more people if people liked British procedurals like a Luther or a. I don't know, Dexter."
• Georgia Hardstark [54:43]: "I have to think about breathing more."

Call to Action:

The episode concludes with a heartfelt appeal for donations to the Polyclass Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to recovering missing children and promoting child safety policies.

• Natalie [56:00]: "If you wanna donate to the Polyclass foundation or learn more about them, please go to Polygon. The name Polly. P O L l y k l."

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Georgia’s Story: The Murder of Kitty Genovese

Revisiting a Classic Case

Georgia presents a detailed examination of the Kitty Genovese case, a cornerstone in true crime history that gave rise to the bystander effect theory. She critiques the traditional narrative, offering new insights and alternative theories that challenge long-held beliefs about the incident.

Documentary Highlight:

The hosts discuss the documentary The Witness, which re-examines the Kitty Genovese case from the perspective of her brother. They explore how initial police missteps and community reactions shaped public perception and policy changes, such as the establishment of the 911 emergency number.

Notable Quotes:

• Georgia Hardstark [58:17]: "I was like, yeah, absolutely fucking not."
• Karen Kilgariff [65:13]: "There's, no, but his lawyers actually tried to say that it's torturing him by making him wait to find out when he's going to be executed."

Discussion on Sociopathy:

The conversation transitions into a broader discussion about sociopathy and its portrayal in true crime. Karen and Georgia debate the prevalence of sociopathic traits in individuals and the importance of recognizing such behaviors for personal safety and societal awareness.

• Karen Kilgariff [72:27]: "People are sociopaths. And those people have no conscience."

Notable Quotes:

• Georgia Hardstark [75:02]: "I feel guilty all the time."

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Recommendations and Final Thoughts

Documentaries and Media:

Both hosts recommend the documentary Tickled and The Witness, praising their in-depth and unsettling explorations of bizarre and tragic true crime stories. They encourage listeners to engage with these films to gain a richer understanding of the complexities surrounding such cases.

• Georgia Hardstark [77:32]: "So, so amazing."

Closing Remarks:

Karen and Georgia wrap up the episode with light-hearted banter, emphasizing the enduring bond between hosts and listeners. They reaffirm their commitment to sharing profound and impactful true crime stories while maintaining their signature comedic touch.

• Karen Kilgariff [86:18]: "Stay sexy and don't get murdered."

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Conclusion

This episode of My Favorite Murder serves as a poignant reflection on past cases and personal experiences. By revisiting episode 24, Karen and Georgia not only honor the victims and their communities but also illustrate the profound impact true crime storytelling has on both hosts and listeners. The deep dives into the Polly Klass and Kitty Genovese cases underscore the show's commitment to uncovering the human stories behind the tragedies, fostering a space for empathy, awareness, and community support.

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Support the Foundations:

• Polyclass Foundation: polyclass.org
• Black and Missing Foundation: blackandmissinginc.com

Thank you for supporting our mission to shed light on important true crime stories.

Transcript

[Karen Kilgariff]

This is exactly right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

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[Derek]

Hello, hello and welcome to Rewind with Karen and Georgia.

[Natalie]

This and you may know this already, but this is our Wednesday episode where we travel back in time to recap old episodes of this podcast. Then we return to the present. It is a very painful process.

[Derek]

It is a painful process. Today we're recapping painfully episode 24, which we named and 20 justice for all.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's fucking classic.

[Derek]

This came out on Thursday, July 7, 2016.

[Natalie]

So get ready to defy the laws of space and time, because now we're all going to be day one listeners.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay, let's do it.

[Derek]

Let's listen to the intro of episode 24.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Do you want a podcast? Do you want to start a podcast?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Do you want.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Hey.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Do you want a podcast? Hey.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Hi.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Hi. We need a way to start this and end this. That's like.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's clean, distinctive. What if it was like 70s newscast? Kind of like, that'd be good, right? This just in.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Instead it's just me laying down on the love seat, you leaning back on the couch.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I leaned back on the couch like a. Kind of like an old drunk hobo leans on a park bench. Right. Steven. Steven had to put his hand over his mouth. It was that accurate.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's so true.

[Karen Kilgariff]

He's like. I'm seeing. It's as if my hat is tipped forward.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. And I'm leaning on this love seat like Mrs. Roper on a fucking.

[Karen Kilgariff]

If Mrs. Roper went and got some scissors and cut her caftan in half. Cause Georgia doesn't fuck around with full length anything. No, you're all about the leg.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, that's true. I do show a lot of leg.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Cause it's. You know why? That's Summer Georgia in full effect.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Summer.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Thank you, whoever made that. I. I did a kind of rude thing. I posted the picture Summer Karen in full effect on my Twitter page, and then after I did, it went, oh, I probably should have found out who made that.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I didn't have the name, man.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Fucking credit gives me so much stress.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I know.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Like, I won't. It's so hard to make sure that everyone gets credit and you don't want them to hate you and stop making shit.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Well, here's the thing. You have a job that you go to every day. You have dogs, which everyone knows is very stressful. I have no day job. I mean, I work from time to time.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You do stuff, though.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. I have extreme anxiety, which causes me to constantly do things.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Which is great.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Mine causes me to constantly not do things.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's interesting, because you're like, I can't do this. Right. I'm not even. This is going to suck. I won't do it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Exactly. I freeze up. I have perfectionism, and then I'm. Yeah. I just go, fuck it. I've. I spent my life saying fuck it, essentially.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow. Because I'm. I don't have perfectionism. So I'm like, let's fucking try this and see what happens. And then we'll learn from our mistakes and we can quit it if it sucks.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's the way to be.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. Like, if you do everything, like, if at a. At a B plus, you know, and. And no one else does anything else because they think they're gonna get a.

[Karen Kilgariff]

B, then that rounds up to an A.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Then I get a. A?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Hell, yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You know what I mean?

[Karen Kilgariff]

I like this.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I have to rely on other people's perfection, anxieties, and to just deliver mine.

[Karen Kilgariff]

God, that's really smart.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Did I tell you my grandma's. My grandma's saying bigger dummies than you.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, that's right. You know, it's so good.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's so good and bad at the same time.

[Karen Kilgariff]

My grandma's saying was, be quiet now.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Is she Romanian?

[Karen Kilgariff]

No, that's Irish. She was.

[Georgia Hardstark]

She was a vampire or something.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I'll be quiet now. She was a gypsy. I only saw her once.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I love it.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. Just try it. And if it sucks, you can just walk away from it, girl.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I'm about it. I mean, you were right about this podcast, but.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, let's walk away from it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

No, no. Like, just try it. Why don't we try it?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Let's just do one and see how it goes. That's my who motto. Yeah, let's do one and see how it goes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's very smart.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And now everyone's making these awesome crafts, which, by the way, I gave my fucking PO Box on the Facebook. Is that a mistake?

[Karen Kilgariff]

No, it's a P.O. box.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I know, but, man, what?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Do you think someone's going to go stand by the P.O. box and wait for you? Yeah, no, that's the. The whole point of P.O. boxes is there's someone that works there. And if someone just starts standing by a P.O. box, they're like, hey, right? Hey, weirdo with the kitchen knife, get the fuck out of here.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I'm just. I don't know why I'm just gonna always go with Vi. So anyone who's thinking about beating me up, I'm going. My big, tall husband who will probably do nothing.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I love the idea a P.O. box would make you this nervous. See, this is like, we're. Now we're opposite seas again. This is where I'm brave, where I would just be like, come at me. Give it your best.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I'm terrified.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I know, but who cares? I mean, you could take a nice swing at somebody.

[Georgia Hardstark]

What a stupid way to die, though. Like, what? I feel like if I heard that, like, this girl who has a true crime podcast put her PO Box up and got killed. What a fucking idiot.

[Derek]

Why did she do that?

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's what I would think.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I wouldn't. P.O. box is, like, the most vague. Like, if it's a city, you don't even know if the person lives in that city. You just got the P.O. box.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's true.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And also, this is Los Angeles. There's so many people here.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So, like, I almost want to say millions.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That sounds right. I just say that sounds right. Okay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

All right. And also, no offense, but there's better PO Boxes to stand next to.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Everything was great up until you just said that.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And now dummies than you.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So sad.

[Karen Kilgariff]

There's so many better dummies in this town. No, thank you. Don't be sick.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Makes me feel bad.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I meant that in the complimentary way.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Is there one?

[Karen Kilgariff]

No, but I mean, Justin Timberlake lives here somewhere. That's what I'm saying.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's what I mean.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Go kill. Don't kill Justin Timberlake. You guys. I was just gonna say, go kill him tonight. That's not okay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

The people who kill are not influenceable by these podcasts. We can't they're not gonna be like, with their murder kit under the passenger seat and then be like, you know what, girls? You show me the way.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No one diabolically listens to a podcast. People only, like, at least medium joyfully listen to podcasts.

[Karen Kilgariff]

No one's like, now we're baiting people. Like, I'm gonna show her.

[Georgia Hardstark]

There's no, like, Mr. Burns esque podcast listeners sitting at his desk going, you know, with his fingers and like, no, he doesn't listen. Marge listens Simpsons. This all this podcast always comes back to the Simpsons.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Lisa totally is a fan. Lisa's on that Facebook page.

[Georgia Hardstark]

NPR for sure.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, I saw. Can I recommend a Netflix series that I watched all of in one day?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Always Olive, Always.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, Olive. This is from our new section. Olives, Olives, always. All of you. It's called Marcella or Marcella. They pronounce it because they're British, so they'll do a fancy pronunciation. That baffles me, as we've. I've already proven it's with Anna Friel. It's super good. It's female homicide detective who's all screwed up, as all the good ones are.

[Georgia Hardstark]

They're always screwed up.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I watched the whole season, which I think was eight episodes, maybe more in a day, and it was so good. And there's a couple people on the Facebook page who have recommended it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

What's it called?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Marcella is how it's spelled. She watches you.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I want to watch it. I haven't seen it yet.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I totally. You should watch it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I've never heard of it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's really good. And it's like. I mean, do you like. Do you like those kinds of procedurals, like a Luther or a.

[Georgia Hardstark]

What? What? Country of origin?

[Karen Kilgariff]

England.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay. Yes and no.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It just depends. Sometimes I. Sometimes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

What do you need?

[Georgia Hardstark]

What would you need? Oh, you know what I loved is the one I'm not going to remember the name. The one with the woman.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, yes, that one. Was she dead?

[Georgia Hardstark]

No, she was a police detective and she was incredible.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, Happy Valley.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes.

[Derek]

I loved Happy Valley.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And then there was another one, and I was just like, I can't with this. I don't care. It's. I just don't know.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Maybe you need yours more character driven. Like, Happy Valley is almost more about her family.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Her trying to deal with just her shit.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. I guess it was, like, about her. I could legitimately see why she was fucked up and sad.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And it wasn't like, just go get a fucking coffee and cheer Up.

[Derek]

Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Or like, you don't have to talk like this. All like. I didn't do those, like, dramatic bullshit things like talking in dramatic voices and words that no one would ever fucking say. Not that I can understand everything was said on that show because there's some thick accents.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But you watched the second season, right?

[Georgia Hardstark]

I don't know if I finished it yet.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, it's the best.

[Natalie]

Okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Anyway. Sorry, go on.

[Karen Kilgariff]

No, no, no. That's just my recommendation. There was like one lone person was like, did anybody watch this? It's so good. So I found that on the Facebook page. I was like, I did. I loved it. There's. Maybe there were two people actually. Sorry. But I just wanted to tell more people if people liked British procedurals like a Luther or a. I don't know, Dexter.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Was that good?

[Karen Kilgariff]

I did not like Dexter.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Never saw it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It was super cheesy. It's a different type of procedural because it was very heavy handed. It was also narrated, which I almost always hate.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, interesting. Was it like csie?

[Karen Kilgariff]

It was actually. But yes, it was csie and. But Michael C. Hall is awesome. He's from six feet under.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, yeah. Of course. He's great.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And it's like, the storylines are interesting because it's serial killer stuff, but there was just a lot of like, I don't know. And it didn't do it the way I like it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I went to his house on 4th of July once.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Really?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's. Now this is a. We'll call this. This area is called Celebrity Center.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's called who to stock at a P.O. box. Besides Georgia. Let's talk about it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Michael C. Hall is a good place.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Michael C. Hall, for example. I know where he lives, you guys. If you're thinking of killing me at my P.O. box, let me know and I'll give you Michael C. Hall's address.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Good. Throw him under the bus or give. Why don't you have your mail sent to his mailbox? Okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I can't wait to see what, like, what we start getting, though. Like, as much as I'm scared of dying, I'm also excited for, like, presents for living. Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Someone. I. I don't even talk about it yet, but someone's made us lipsticks. What? Like our flavor of lips. Like a Karen Kilgariff lipstick and a Georgia Hart.

[Karen Kilgariff]

No, I can't.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Can you even fucking. I'm.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I couldn't be more excited.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I know. I don't even want to talk about it yet because I just want to open the Box with you. Should I open before and present to present to you however you like to do it. Or should I. Should we open the stuff together?

[Karen Kilgariff]

I have a feeling you have a very specific way you like to do things. A male situation. Well, I mean, yeah, probably things in general. Like, do you would. Do you like to have it be a surprise? Remember last time I was afraid moths were going to come out? That's like a thing I like a surprise. But probably because you. I knew you knew everything about it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Um, yeah. We can do either way. I guess. It depends. I don't know. We could do anything. It might be fun to open it together.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And neither of us know.

[Karen Kilgariff]

What if we open it and then we have to fake our response because.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We'Re not that stoked on it?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Or like, you know, I used to work at Biobottoms, which was a children's natural fiber clothing company in my hometown.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And the return BioBOTT. It was called BioBox. They made a ton of money, but the returns department used to come and tell us weird shit that they got.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Like what?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Like just dog. Like someone sent back a box that just had an old dried piece of dog in it. Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay. I'll open it first and then. I mean, as much as it would be fun to do that live now, let's do it live.

[Karen Kilgariff]

If we got. We should get, like, corners, like, goggles.

[Georgia Hardstark]

The full suit, gloves, hazmat.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Go Hazmat with it.

[Derek]

Or should we open it all on.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Video and post that somewhere?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, make people pay to watch us open mail.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's a good idea. I mean, why not pay to open free? Shit.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Come on.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, we should do it on video. Here I go again with my fucking plans and schemes. Plans and schemes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You're the architect of this high rise building that we're no living in.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We do this together. I'm just a conduit fueled by too much coffee and Adderall.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And the Invisalign.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I just took out of my mouth because I realized how awful it sounded.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I actually get great joy from watching you take your Invisalign out of your mouth because it looks like it's three times bigger than your mouth as you take it out.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Like, it's so.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's an event.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It is. I. I feel like. And then there's like a. Like a string of saliva attached to it. It's real sexy. So you know what? Some. Someone recently emailed me and said, I listened to your podcast and you. Thank you for talking about depression and anxiety. I have it And I've never done anything. Where do I even start to find a therapist? And I was like, so stoked this person wrote me because to me, it's like fucking second nature. I've been doing this since I was 12. So I'm just like, what? And so I gave them Psychology Today has a great. A great page. You put in your zip code and it tells you the psychologist in your area.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's how I found my therapist. Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I found most of my therapist through that.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And I love my therapist. I've been with her for like 12 years.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. Really? Wow.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. And that's. It was one day, I think I tried one other person because I told my friend who was a therapist, so I couldn't go to her. So she's like, just tell me what you want, I'll recommend. And I said, I need to talk to somebody that looks like Olympia Dukakis. Well, that was a mistake. You can't do it that way.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You can't cast it in your mind and pretend you're going to go act out scenes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

They do have photos on thing. And I've definitely been like, that's it. She looks like a hippie.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I don't want to go to her.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I don't want to go into a cloud of pot to talk about my problems. Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

She doesn't know what it's like to just wear all this makeup all the time.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I don't want someone who keeps interrupting my good stories or stories of Woodstock and the Doors. Yeah, no, that Psychology Today.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Is this shit that website?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. So in case you're too scared to ask.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Don't be scared. Everyone's in therapy and everyone needs to be in therapy also.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Psychology Today is the freaking best magazine.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, it's good.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You should get it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's all about understanding yourself.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, sure. I'm sorry. That was so condescending.

[Natalie]

Okay, we're back. Georgia, would you like to apologize to British procedurals right now or Olivia Colman, personally?

[Derek]

Personally, yes. My apologies to Olivia Colman. You are a fucking. The Queen of Queens, literally. And I'm fucking obsessed with you. British procedurals. Yes. It's still Karen's thing, but I. I support.

[Natalie]

I'm. I'm forcing your hand on that one. You're just. You're just being nice a little bit.

[Derek]

A little bit? Sometimes. Depends.

[Natalie]

We still have that P.O. box, right?

[Derek]

We still have that P.O.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Box.

[Derek]

And luckily I don't pick up that mail anymore, if you can believe it. So feel free to go and hang out at the P.O.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Box.

[Derek]

But also send us whatever the fuck you feel like sending us. We get wedding invites, we've gotten maple syrup, we've gotten hot dog earrings, paintings of Steven. So much. Like, I have a wall full of paintings of my cats, like, in my office right now. It's just my favorite thing.

[Natalie]

It's pretty great. You guys have been very generous over the years, but if you haven't been generous, you still have a chance. The P.O. box is my favorite. Murder Inc. At P.O. box 39585, LACA 90039.

[Derek]

So, yeah, the explanation I had to.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Give to the guy at the post.

[Derek]

Office to get my favorite murder, like, listed. He looked at me very strangely. And I had to get my dimples going to be like, everything's okay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's fine.

[Natalie]

Don't worry. It's about something else. That's cute.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Don't worry about it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You're like.

[Natalie]

And as if that would be the creepiest thing that's ever happened at a P.O. box. Come on, grow up.

[Derek]

All right, so this is when I first share my Grandma Molly's saying, Bigger Dummies Than youn, which makes me so happy. I was just in an episode of the therapy podcast, you, Mental Breakdown, and I talk about this saying specifically and how much it means to me that it's become part of our lore because it just, like, memorializes my grandma, and I love that.

[Natalie]

And it also just lets people know that you can have a little wider perspective when you're feeling insecure, when you're feeling like you have self doubt, that, like, you have to think about what's gone on in the world for the last couple thousands of years and how dumb a lot of people have been, and they.

[Derek]

They weren't insecure and they've accomplished everything. So, like, yeah, you can fucking do it, too.

[Natalie]

Get out there with your talent and your brains, please.

[Derek]

This isn't the same, but my friend Crystal is a Pilates instructor, and I had, like, this toenail surgery mishap. And, you know, I love my feet. They're so cute. And I was, like, bitching to her about how my toe is ruined. And she goes, georgia, have you not seen other people's feet? She's like, I see people's feet all the time. She's a flies instructor. I promise yours are still, like, on top. And I just stopped caring about the toe thing. Like, it really helped me. I forgot that other people have hideous feet. I love even mine. I mean, she really did it for me.

[Natalie]

Grandma Molly and Crystal, high fives. All around. Everyone's doing an incredible job. It's very important to have other people help you keep perspective. You can't do it for yourself all the time.

[Derek]

Yeah. Shame thrives in the shadows, right?

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's right.

[Natalie]

That's what Brown says.

[Derek]

So fucking scream that shit to the ceiling.

[Natalie]

Might as well.

[Derek]

And let your friends and your grandma talk you down. So, Karen, this is when you tell your, like, legit, classic, I mean, awful hometown.

[Natalie]

A true hometown of mine.

[Derek]

A true hometown. I mean, I don't know why, like, re listening and remembering that you worked with polyclass mother. I completely forgot that. I mean, this is such a hometown for you.

[Natalie]

Well, and it's that kind of thing where, like, when you thought of the idea of people sending in their hometowns, the idea is there's so many people that have, like, these kinds of connections. It didn't happen to you. It didn't happen in your family, but it happened in a way that affected you. It's like Michelle McNamara in I'll Be Gone in the Dark, where it's like, these things happen around us and it affects us. And watching how it affects other people affects us. And if you are an empathetic human being, you know, the fact that these senseless murders happen, there is a ripple effect. And that ripple effect matters. And people. There is the tragedy, and there's the part that shuts people down entirely. And then there's the part where then people become detectives, they become forensic scientists, they become victims advocates, like, you know, the ripple effect isn't. Sometimes can actually end up doing good, which is a pretty cool thing that I think as this podcast progressed, we started to get a handle on where it went less from the salacious kind of, oh, Ted Bundy, blah, blah, blah, you know, 90s attitude that we came up with. And then it turned into, like, this. This is real. These are human stories.

[Derek]

Yeah. And the fact that, like, for a lot of us, these stories have stuck with us in a way that we're not allowed to talk about because we're not involved and we're not, you know, it is the victim's story. It is their family. We're not that. We're not trying to say that, like, you know, boohoo, us, but, like, they've stuck with us and in our heart in a way that we've never been able to get out, because people don't talk about this. And I feel like we've given people a platform to talk about it and still acknowledge that they care about it, even though they're not directly involved.

[Natalie]

And I mean, there's no better proof of that than web sleuths. People that are online actually doing that work that could actually get cold cases sold. Like that's real. And that is has nothing to do with like the media aspect of it. It's like the people going and trying to help get the job done.

[Derek]

Like the DOE network. Yeah, all of that. It's incredible.

[Natalie]

It's incredible.

[Derek]

All right, well, let's listen to Karen's hometown story, the murder of Polyclass.

[Natalie]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

What?

[Derek]

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[Natalie]

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[Derek]

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[Karen Kilgariff]

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[Natalie]

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[Derek]

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[Natalie]

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[Derek]

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[Natalie]

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[Derek]

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[Natalie]

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[Derek]

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[Natalie]

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[Derek]

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[Natalie]

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[Derek]

That's shopify.com murder.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Goodbye.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Who's going first this week?

[Derek]

I think it's you, Skipper.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Times come back to us Skippers. Oh, if it's mine this week, if I go first, I've, oh, I've been, this past week has been quite crazed.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Do you want me to go first?

[Karen Kilgariff]

No, no, no, I can go. But I just want. I just need a little ramp up of. I had plans and schemes about what I was going to do and then realized I needed to do more work. Like really dig in and do some serious research. Because that's the thing is sometimes you go to talk about. So I want to do Ted Bundy because I'm 3/4 of the way through that Anne Rule book, the Stranger Beside Me, which is amazing. There's other people on the Facebook page reading it, so I love that, that we're reading it at the same time. But when I do it, it should be comprehensive and not, you know, half assed because he is. He's pretty much one of the most famous serial killers of our time.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Sometimes when you will pick a part of that story or pick, you know, you don't have to tell him from start to finish, but like, you know, the co ed murders that he did, like if you pick a thing from it or how Richard Ramirez got caught, I think that was an amazing story on its own.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I'll say what I'm passionate about about Ted Bundy, but no, when I do it, it's going to be a three hour presentation.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I'll just take a nap.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Just read the book on the podcast.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes, exactly. In kind of a slow low voice where people are just like, all right, I was trying to get through my workday, but whatever you feel like doing is fine.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, this podcast has changed.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's a bummer. No. So I figured I would go back to my roots and I'm going to do my hometown murder, which is the most famous murder from my hometown, which is the Poly Klass murder.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Ooh, girl.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And the other reason I'm telling this is because not only was it a firsthand experience, I didn't live in my hometown when she was kidnapped, but I lived in San Francisco and I would go home for holidays and I was back and forth all the time. But Polyclos's mother is a woman named Eve, and Eve was my boss at the last job I had when I lived in Petaluma, which was at bottoms, the natural fiber, children's clothing.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh my God. Dun, dun, dun. It comes back around.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So I actually didn't mean to make that reference, but then I was doing it and I was like, oh, I'm probably doing this on purpose subconsciously. But it was very strange because there's a lot of the times we look and we research these stories and it's these places that are like, you know, when we talk about like the police messing up an investigation or things, you know, things getting screwed up or whatever, a lot of times it's because it's towns that have never had a crime to that degree, a murder, a kidnapping or something where people don't have the experience. And most of their career as a cop is pulling people over, you know, giving people like DUIs and stuff.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Totally. And it's before the Internet, so you don't really experience. I mean, now we can read about other crimes in other cities ad nauseam.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. And people and all police stations are. And cops are more connected because of the Internet. So that's like that whole east area rapist, the Golden State killer thing where there were, you know, there were police departments who are keeping information from each other because they were the ones that wanted the collar. That's. It's like all of that in the way that, you know that criminal science is kind of developing because of the Internet.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So my hometown is Petaluma, California. And it is one of those towns where when I was growing up there, I think the population was somewhere around 32,000. So it was a small farm town basically. So the main town itself there was like the downtown area. The east side had like more of like the newer development tract homes, kind of. Everyone on the east side had like a two story house. But on my side on the west side, that was out where all the dairy and chicken ranches were. So that's. I grew up five miles outside of town. And so we basically were. It was the country. And so when we, like when I was growing up, we didn't have cable.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Holy shit.

[Karen Kilgariff]

We only had four channels. We only got four channels on our tv. And we couldn't get pizza delivered to our house because we lived too far out of town. And that was how a lot of kids I knew grew up. It was just country.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That just seems like I can't imagine being that far, like as someone who grew up literally with like shared walls with other apartments.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I just can't even imagine living in that much space.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. It's weird. It's like, you know, we didn't have sidewalks. We didn't have. We didn't have street lights.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Holy shit.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So at night, I think now they do on the street that I grew up on. But, like, at the time, like, there was. When you drove at night out where I grew up, it was pitch black.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I don't even know what that looked like. I have never seen the stars like that unless I'm camping or something.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's so fun when I go to my dad's house for, like, holidays. I get out of the car and I stand in his driveway and they'll be like, come on. Crazy. Like, it's like. It's stars from, like, horizon to horizon. Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

People who aren't in LA or New York or a big city don't. There's no stars because there's so much light pollution that you just can't see.

[Karen Kilgariff]

We can never see stars here.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Never.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And the. And people that live in, like. Oh, my God. If you live in, like, Kansas or like somewhere that's like kind of low population and. And no light pollution.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Totally dang dang, dude.

[Karen Kilgariff]

We used to lay out at nights in the summertime. Our next door neighbor, the Withingtons, had a pool and we would sometimes have like a slumber party where we'd all lay in sleeping bags next to their pool and we would lay on their chaise lounges and look up and there would just be shooting stars all night long. That's all we did was go, there's one, there's one, there's one. It was awesome.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's amazing.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So anyway, that's basically the feel of this town. This was the kind of town where. And I think I've told the story before in the show, but in my town that one time a guy on the street tried to purse snatch a lady's purse and everyone on the sidewalk chased him up the street.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's that everyone knows each other. Everyone's from there. People like, stay there, grow up there, stay there, raise their kids there. There's generations and generations of like, ranching people of all kinds of people. So it's cool. It's. I feel now I feel lucky. When I was growing up there, I was like, get me out of here. I want to go to Manhattan.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So when this happened, it happened. It was a little house that was on a little Walnut park that was. I think it's Walnut Park. A little park that's in the kind of city center. And it's really cute. My friend Heidi Peterson's mom actually had a house. So it's basically a park in the center and then the, you know, four streets squaring around it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So it wasn't rural, it wasn't in the middle of nowhere.

[Karen Kilgariff]

No. They lived downtown Petaluma. Wow. So they lived walking distance. Like the main part of downtown is like Petaluma Boulevard and Western. And that's where like the really old buildings, the old two and three story buildings are. They lived probably 10 blocks from that part of town.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So. But still. And this was. This happened in 1993, but even then, this was the kind of town where people did not lock their front door.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You just didn't. There was.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No, no. I. It seems like such a. Like what everyone says, like you didn't lock your door, but like, we. I don't think you did.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

How like it was.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I think that's also. That's that thing of like, people as, as we get older and as this kind of like 20, 20 generation grows up, it's that thing of like now we just know what happens to other people.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right. Our parents didn't do it because they came from a time when you didn't have to. We do it as adults because we.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Because we know the possibility. They didn't understand the possibility as much, I think, but also in these small towns that it just didn't happen there. So it wasn't like you're like, well, we should be careful. Anyway, it'd be like, don't be weird. Like, there's no reason. So on October 1, 1993, Polly was having a slumber party with two of her friends. And Eve was in the front of the house. Her mom was in the front of the house. And somebody came in their back door, walked into her bedroom. And the rumor is that he said, which one of you lives here Now? I know a bunch of small town rumors about this case, and they could completely be bullshit, but I'm basically just telling you this.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, I want to hear those. Wait, so how old was she?

[Karen Kilgariff]

She at the time was 12.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay. And so were they sleeping already? They were all awake.

[Karen Kilgariff]

They were awake and like doing slumber party stuff.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And the mom was awake and everything?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Holy shit.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. So he tied the friends up first and put sleep pillowcases over their head. And they. Then he took her out of the house and that he told them to count to a thousand or kill them. Jesus. So they, once they heard him go, they got free and then ran to the front of the house and said, someone Took Paulie.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Good for them.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So the other thing is Dave Anthony, the co host of the Dollop, my first comedy boyfriend when we lived in San Francisco, he still worked at the bank in his hometown, which is Nevada, the town next, like the town next to my town, going south to San Francisco. And his boss at that bank, his daughter was one of those two girls. So when this shit kicked off, it was like everyone you knew was affected inside. Yeah, everyone you knew knew a person. Everyone you knew, like my sister's best friend, Adrian, who is basically like my sister too, she pulled out a. A photo album one time because she also worked at Biobottoms. That job was actually really awesome. It was like, paid you way more than minimum wage. And we basically just sat there from like six in the morning until two in the afternoon and took calls and took orders and so you could actually make kind of a good living and then have the rest of your day done. So she was like a young mother. She worked there with me. She pulled out a photo album one time of. There was. Somebody had a baby shower and everybody was there. And Eve brought Polly to that baby shower. So this girl was. It's that thing where it's not just, oh, a girl from our town. We all feel. So everybody knew this family.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Holy shit. That's like. That's so crazy that when there's this like. And I've noticed this with hometown murders that are all like my brother's best friend from college or it's always someone you know. It's not just the hometown murder, the thing that happened in their hometown. It's like a thing that could have been them or they knew the people or they affect, you know, it affected them somehow.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Totally.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So interesting.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Well, and that. I think that's also that thing that ties us into it is because, like, I remember the first time I went home, my sister called me to tell me that it happened. And the first time I went home, I drove. So to get off the freeway, I have to drive up Petaluma Boulevard. And then my parents now live it. My dad lives in town. They finally, of course, when we graduated from high school, moved out. That's when my parents moved into town and got cable and ordered pizza.

[Georgia Hardstark]

They didn't have cable until you left for college?

[Karen Kilgariff]

No, no, I. My. My friends would talk about the Brady Bunch. That was like on channel 44, which was like, oh, that's the San Francisco station that like other people have. Yeah, we just had dipshit Gilligan's Island.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Anyway, I'm not Shaming you. It's just like. It's such an interesting fact of your life.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, it's so weird. And also because my dad's a fireman, which is this classic move of firemen, which was, we have cable in the firehouse. We don't need that shit. So he saw all the terrible stuff that cable provided and he was like, I'm keeping that away from my kids.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And yet it didn't make a fucking difference. Look at you now.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Look at the things I'm talking about and how much I say the F word.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It has no. It had no bearing on your life at all.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I think it pushed me the other direction probably. And that's why I'm a Satanist. Just kidding, dad. He's not listening to this. So anyway. What. The first time I came home after my sister told me about it, I'm pretty sure was for Thanksgiving. Was it? Or maybe it was somewhere in the middle of November. The entire town. Because her Paulie's favorite color was purple. The entire town. And every fucking car had a purple bow on it. Like the. Like a purple ribbon. Like the yellow ribbon for soldiers. There was purple ribbons for waiting for Polly to get found.

[Georgia Hardstark]

How long had she been gone by that point?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Well, that. She got kidnapped on October 1st.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wow.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And so this was probably three weeks. It was everywhere and it was like. It gave me the chills. By the time I got to my parents house, I was crying. Oh no, it was so heavy. Then my sister, who loves to be this person, started telling me all the stuff that she heard. And apparently. So that happened the night of October 1st. The next day they had to tell all the kids at Petlima Junior High because she was in, I believe, seventh grade.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And the. She was. Is the beginning of seventh grade. Like it was October. She'd probably only been in school for a couple months. They made the announcement that she was missing and they had flyers that said, have you seen me? And they said, after school, we want you all to hand these out everywhere you can. The kids got. Took the flyers and all got up and left school right that moment and went out into the town. Are you crying that my sister told me that story? And I sobbed for like 10 minutes straight because it's like these kids, this was a girl that was their friend. This was the girl they had a crush on. This was like a real person, a human being that someone just took out of her room.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I mean, it's so brazen that it's.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's a nightmare. It's.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's even scarier that it's just, like, not other circumstances, like she was alone or, you know, her parents weren't home or something.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Exactly.

[Georgia Hardstark]

How do you protect yourself?

[Karen Kilgariff]

You can't blame anything. Yeah, exactly. And. And also that. Yeah. It's just. It's every parent's nightmare. It's every kid's nightmare.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So the young. The young children of that class in Petaluma High, at Petaluma Junior High, I've always had just this, like, the biggest warm spot in my heart for them. Because also, it was just like, we don't give a fuck. Like, put us on detention. What are you gonna do? We are gonna go do everything we can to help find her.

[Derek]

Yeah. And how can you sit through the.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Rest of the school day? I mean, I get it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I mean, I'm sure, you know, but it's just. It was kind of just a beautiful, incredibly sad thing, and the whole town took it that way. I mean, everybody. You know, they. They. So Winona Ryder is from my hometown, and she. I think she also grew up out in the country like I did, and she went to Petaluma Junior High and Petaluma High School, and she came back and she made the announcement when they were still looking for her. So they ended up finding her, or. No, they ended up making an arrest near the end of November, the beginning of December. So somewhere in there, like, at the end of November, Winona Ryder went on TV and made an announcement at national news saying, this girl's missing. If you've seen her, we love her. She's part of the community. This is my town. Like, all the shit where, you know, I'm sitting in an apartment in San Francisco watching it, being like, this is so weird. This is my. This is where I grew up. This is my whole life. And, like. And it's everyone going like, yeah, this is. This is our girl. Like, we have to find her. Someone has to do something. So the horrible part of all of it is these. The. The policemen. The Petaluma police actually immediately called in the FBI. They did all that stuff that we talked. We talked about, like, there's other. Or Nevado, that other murder, that young girl, where they just immediately call the FBI, like, they know they're in over their head. They do the whole missing persons thing. But the problem was the night that it happened, when the APB went out, it went out on the sheriff's channel, which was channel one. And that night, there was some Sonoma Valley police officers that found. So a woman was babysitting at her boss's house and she saw a car that was on her boss's private road. And so she called the police and said, I don't know who this guy is, but there's a car sitting down there stuck in a ditch and someone needs to come. So it was the. From what I saw on Wikipedia, it said Sonoma Valley Police. I'm not sure if that's accurate or what area they were in, but it was somewhere kind of in the rural part. So it all goes, kind of starts going by county. So it might have been Sonoma County Sheriff, Sonoma county police, whatever. But they call the police to go out there. And the police who went were on channel three. This was before they had united all of the APB channels.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh God.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So if the APB went out for the sheriff's department, it only went out to the other sheriffs on channel one. I guess now they have it because of this kidnapping and this murder. They changed all of that. So the second an APB goes out, a 911 whatever thing like that, everybody hears it on all of those channels. But it wasn't like that then. So these two cops go up and they check this guy out. They don't know. They don't like how he looks, they don't like where he is. They don't. He. They're asking him a bunch of questions. He's got an open container, he's clearly been drinking, he's got leaves in his hair, he's got shit on him. And. But they search the car, there's nothing going on, there's nothing in the car. So there's nothing they can do. They told, they really didn't like. They just the feel of it knowing nothing about what was going on. They didn't like him. But they told the. And this is going to sound blamey, but it's. It's one of those things where it's like you, it's better to overdo it than not do anything at all.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Definitely.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Because they told the property owner, you need to make a citizen's arrest so we can arrest this guy. Because we can't. There's nothing that's going on that we can do anything about because this is a private road, it's your property, so you need to come out and say I want. You're under citizens arrest. And then we can take him away. And the property owner was like, I don't want to do that.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So they.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Which is understandable because then he knows where she lives.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That's exactly right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

The minute she. You know, he gets let out.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. So. So they have to let him go.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But what they did was. They did. They basically did every little piece. This is like, now the opposite of most of the stories we hear. These co. Every little piece of paperwork they possibly could about this guy, they took his name, they took all the information about his car, where they were, the report and everything, and they filed the thing. It's called like an F1 file or something like that. And it was. The one thing that they could basically do was. Was fill out this. What is it called? It's called an. It doesn't really matter. It's like an F1 card or something like that that basically says this was an event that happened, that the police got called to, that we don't like, but there's nothing we can do, but it happened, and we want people to know.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So they did that immediately. And then when did they find out that that's who that was?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Sorry, it was an FI card, A field interrogation card.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So they have all his information. They have the car information. And what happened. Sorry, what was the question?

[Georgia Hardstark]

That makes sense. So when did they realize who it was? Or were you getting that? I thought that's what you meant.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, okay. So. No. So once they left, they don't know. On November 28th. So then it was basically two months later.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That same property owner is inspecting her property after loggers partially cleared the property of trees. And she discovers items that make her think that they might have matched those used in the kidnapping.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, no.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So the sheriff's department goes out there and they find a torn pair of ballet leggings that match by the FBI crime lab to the other part of the leggings that were taken as evidence the night of the kidnapping. So they basically, the. The theory is that he had already taken her out of the car and hidden her out in these bushes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Then went back to the car. Then the cops pull up and he's just like, yeah, you can look at any shit that I want, because she's tied up in the bushes over there. They don't know whether or not when they arrested this guy. So this guy's named Richard Allen Davis. He is on par with Charles Manson in how many times he has been arrested and been in jail. Like the worst record miles long. He wouldn't tell them anything. He wouldn't tell them that the events. Once he confessed that he's the one that. That killed her, he didn't. He wouldn't give them details of anything. So they would try to walk him through it and he just wouldn't say what happened or what he did or anything. He just admitted, like they had all the enough evidence to bring him to trial. And he basically was like, yeah, I did it. But he didn't, he didn't tell them. He didn't. They don't know if she was murdered that night. They don't know if he kept her for longer. But she wasn't found. Her body wasn't found there. Her body was found off of the 101 freeway pretty far north up in Cloverfield. Which is like. It's so weird too. Like when I. You hear all these things. Like these are the towns where we played. We played against them in softball in high school. It's like the town you would go to. We would go there on our way to Blue Lake, on our way to vacation every summer.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No, I'm picturing places in Orange county and I can make sense of that.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, so it's just like, you're just thinking as you drive up. It's also rural up there anyway, but as you drive up, you just look out and somewhere off the side of the highway there was a little girl's body buried.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I hate it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's really awful. Essentially, the three strike law was put into place after this case happened because this guy had such an insane record where it was like, you can't just get arrested for a ton of terrible shit like 50 times in your life and not have. And just keep getting out and keep doing stuff like this. Like he, he was, he was pretty awful. So he admitted to strangling her to death, but that's all the information that he would give.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I wonder why he wouldn't. Because he was toying with them. You would think that if he had gotten them. Sorry, am I interrupting you?

[Karen Kilgariff]

No, not at all.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You would think that if he had not killed her before the cops came, he would have wanted them to know that so he can like taunt them almost.

[Karen Kilgariff]

He was super weird. So when they, when they put him on trial, he did a bunch of weird shit. He flipped off like the jury like he was Manson y in that way where he. It was stuff like before they arrested him in my town, there was. The rumor was that the father did it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, fuck.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And it was because they were like, he's got, you know, he owes money to the. He owes money for gambling. He's this, he's that. And the father was on TV constantly. If you remember anything from his case, you remember Mark Kloss being on TV and talking about her. So I think a lot of people in my town, their reaction to that was like, it seems like you're enjoying this publicity a little too much.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Looking back. That poor guy.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

An awful thing to say.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, well, that's small town gossip, you know what I mean? Where everyone's looking for the answer. And so it's easy to get a target on your back.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Sure.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And also it just, it's, it's one thing to be on the news crying and being like, I need my daughter back. But I don't know there I. It was easy to kind of put that on him because I think it would. He, he was a zealot. But I mean, you know, that's, it's that thing of like we don't know how people grieve.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And he could be the kind of person that's like, I just need to do something with myself.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Sure. Look at Nicole Simpson and Ronald. Ron Goldman's dad.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You know, I went out of his mind.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, who's to say how, how you would act, how it would be. Here's the good news, if any. About any of that. There's a. There's. Now they took the. There was this little church that. In this weird part of the road where I go to go to my dad's house and they took that and that's now called the Polyclass center for the Performing Arts because she was big into theater and she wanted to be an actress. And that was why it meant so much that Winona Bryder came back and talked about her. It was all very sweet. So they've kind of dedicated that to like kids, you know, making sure kids like, I guess have a place to perform. And I don't know, it's. For that part, it's very sweet and positive. And the thing about they basically all the things that got up in the beginning with. Through communication, they actually did stuff about.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Sure. Yeah, that's great.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Like the APB thing and the three strikes law. They're like a lot of good things came out of that.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's amazing.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But also Richard Allen Davis actually had to get put into solitary because he was getting beaten up so much. So God bless. Like that jailhouse justice. Like they couldn't, they couldn't wait to beat this man up for killing this girl.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I mean, I want to say good, but at the same time it's. You can't, can't say that there's no.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

There's no conscience.

[Karen Kilgariff]

There's no good. But they actually. And he's on death row. He got the death sentence.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So he's still alive now.

[Karen Kilgariff]

He's still alive because California doesn't ever really execute anybody. So it's just. It's people sitting on death row. But his lawyers actually tried to say. They tr. They. They have tried to get. Where's this part? They basically tried to say that it's torturing him by making him wait to find out when he's going to be executed. Oh, they tried to make that argument that it's like. That it's.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

What do you call that?

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's called inhumane. What's it called?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. I don't know. Something like. It's something along those lines or. It's just like. When you. When I read the paragraph, I was just like, you gotta be fucking cute. Who would actually have the balls to say that out loud?

[Georgia Hardstark]

God, sometimes. Sometimes I get really mad at lawyers. I don't. I don't want to start the whole, like, shit talking that we do about cop sometimes because I know it's complicated and you promise to do these things and you're. And uphold the law, but sometimes I'm just like. I just don't know how they live with themselves sometimes when they're defending someone who's a monster.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Exactly.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And. And doing the best that they can to. To. To get them off. I guess it's not. I guess you just want to give them a fair trial.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. It must be hard. I would never want to be a lawyer ever. Oh. Cruel, unusual punishment.

[Georgia Hardstark]

There it is.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, that's the one we were looking. Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's sad.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So that's mine. I. I actually had a lot of guilt for not doing this story earlier because it was. It's my real hometown murder because I knew, like, I was. It was really a part of my life. But then also it feels bad to talk about. Like, I actually hesitated in saying her mom's name because I don't want it to seem like I'm trying to anything.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You started crying, and I don't think you've ever done that in any of them before.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You don't think.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You feel like it's important, and I don't think you should feel bad at all.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Okay. Also, there was. This is. There's another little girl that got killed in my town that no one talks about because she was black. Her name's Georgia Moses. And that story is really sad and awful. I'll do it a different time. But that actually gets brought up a lot in Tandem with polyclass. Because it's like polyclass was a beautiful little girl who was like the, you know, blonde. She was. No, she wasn't blonde, but she was.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I would say she was blonde.

[Natalie]

She was.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But it's that thing of like, you know, the press loves a beautiful little martyr like that. And then when it's a story of a girl who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and had all the worst in her life and then was just murdered, like, just thrown away. No one talks about it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Except for Tom Waits, who lives in my town, who lives way out in the country, wrote a song for Georgia Moses.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I bet you can find his P.O. box pretty easily. Is that terrible?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Not at all.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Thank you. Oh, Georgia Moses. I'm sorry. Yeah. But I'm all. Yeah, that's fucking bummer. I know, I know. How do you feel now? You know what?

[Karen Kilgariff]

I'm. I'm glad. I'm glad I said it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Do you feel cleansed a little?

[Karen Kilgariff]

No.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

No, I just think it's like, you know what, it's all around us. That's kind of the thing that.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That I feel like. Keeps coming up on this podcast. Just. It's like. This isn't special.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No, I know.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It happens. The people that it happens to are. And it's a full on tragedy in ways that you can't even take in. But it, it happens constantly.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, it's like a. It's a very normal part of life, which I think once you. The reason we're doing that is because like we're. We see that and we're freaked out by it and fascinated by it and like we could have a million episodes and not get to half the like everyday murders that just happen all the time that you haven't heard about or you haven't didn't know the details for real. It's just. Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yep.

[Georgia Hardstark]

People get fucking murdered.

[Derek]

Okay, we're back. I mean that like, close call where he gets like, you know, his car gets searched by the cops. There's just no way they could have known. But she wants so bad for her to have been discovered at that moment. It's just like such a fucking tragic detail.

[Natalie]

So horrible. So horrible.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Natalie]

I mean everything about this story is horrible. Obviously there are a few updates on this case. In May of this year, Richard Allen Davis attorneys argued that his death sentence should be recalled because of recent changes to California sentencing laws. A California judge rejected the re sentencing bid and Davis is still on death row. And the Polyclass Foundation, a national nonprofit focused on recovering missing children and promoting child safety policies, has assisted to this date 10,000 families in locating their missing children. That's incredible. If you wanna donate to the Polyclass foundation or learn more about them, please go to Polygon. The name Polly. P O L l y k l.

[Derek]

A-A-S.org Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

[Natalie]

Make a little donation to Polyclass Foundation. That'd be amazing.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I would love that.

[Derek]

10 grand to fucking polyclass.org the Polyclass Foundation.

[Natalie]

Yeah, that'd be great. Thank you. Oh, also, I talk about this. There was a kind of a parallel case that I brought up in this story, which is the murder of Georgia Lee Moses, which is, I believe, still a cold case. And Georgia Lee Moses was a young black girl. I think she was 13 years old or 12 years old, and she was found. I mean, I've already. You've heard me say it. If you just listen to that clip. But it didn't get really any coverage.

[Derek]

So should we also donate to the Black and Missing Foundation?

[Natalie]

Yes. Great idea. Beautiful.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay, let's go.

[Derek]

It's blackandmissinginc.com so 10 grand to them immediately.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Natalie]

We had Derek and Natalie Wilson on the podcast. I mean, when was that?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Was that like two years ago or.

[Derek]

That was during the pandemic, for sure.

[Natalie]

Oh, my God. But they were amazing. We got to talk to them about this foundation, about the work that they do. I believe there was a HBO docu series about them.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Definitely.

[Natalie]

Go watch that.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Incredible.

[Derek]

All right, let's move on to more fucking horribleness, shall we?

[Natalie]

Okay, now it's time for Georgia's story, and she tells the legendary story of the murder of Kitty Genovese.

[Derek]

This message is sponsored by Greenlight. We all know the old saying about teaching a man to fish. And as parents, we want our kids to learn the things that will set them up for success. So this holiday season, give kids money skills that last well beyond 2024 with Greenlight. Greenlight is a debit card and money app made for families where kids learn how to save, invest, and spend wisely with parental controls built in. Sign up [e-mail] Spotify greenlight.com Spotify.

[Karen Kilgariff]

What's your murder?

[Georgia Hardstark]

So my murder, okay. Like, a month and a half or two months ago, we got an email inviting us to the screening of a new documentary called the Witness. And it's a documentary about Kitty. Genevieve Genovese is how you say it, right? Kitty Genovese. And we couldn't go. And so the guy Sent us a screener to watch.

[Karen Kilgariff]

He did?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. Didn't see that. There's like a password and shit. Oh, yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I'm an email skimmer.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, okay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Constantly in trouble for it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's hilarious. I, like, read into every single word on the email. I'm like, what did he mean by that?

[Karen Kilgariff]

I just saw that invitation and I was like. It was a big, long thing about being invited, but there were no details where. I was like, what time? Like, where what? And then I just kind of gave up after that.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. I mean, and I was kind of like, okay, whatever about it. And this was like, a while ago. And finally I started watching it last night, and it's really fucking good.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, awesome.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. The narrator, the guy who's kind of the. The in the. In the of it. He's like the dude who you follow is Kitty Genovese. Little brother.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Wow.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

In real life.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Wow.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So he. Okay, so let me tell you about the murder a little bit. Okay. I say, so. Catherine, Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death outside her apartment building in Kew Gardens, Queens. Like, I feel like everyone knows the story, and that's why I was a little like, okay, like, I've heard the story a million fucking times. She's the girl that basically everyone is, like, she was being stabbed. There were 38 witnesses from an apartment building across the street, and no one did anything. And it kind of started the whole, like, the bystander effect. Bystander effect, where nobody. You know, the more people watching something, the less likely anyone's going to intervene. And it had. It had all these, like, these effects on New York and what's happening to the city and people are horrible and. And, you know, this kind of awful thing of nobody helping.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, it's in, like, every Psych 101 class.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Totally.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. And so I don't want to spoil the movie because I think everyone should go see it, but I'm going to talk about the murder so that people remember what it is. And also some of the interesting points from this movie without spoiling it, because I don't think I could do that. It's really fucking good. So on March 13, she finishes her shift at a sports bar. She's at a bartender, and she gets home and parks her car at three in the morning at, like, a side parking lot, which sucks. And I feel like she immediately saw her killer. Winston Mosley was, like, hanging out, clearly looking for a victim. So she gets home at, like, 3:15. She parks. It's about 100ft from her apartment door. Yeah. So she's walking towards her building. He starts to approach her. She immediately starts running and, like knowing something's going on, he overtakes her and stabs her twice right there on the sidewalk, right across the street from this huge apartment building. And so the story is that people came out and looked and no one fucking did anything. But in reality, it's so much murkier than that. What it sounds like is that most people thought it was a lover's quarrel. They look out the window, but she's. But she yells, oh, my God, he stabbed me. Help me. But most people didn't hear her cry out in the beginning. Most people thought it was a bar brawl or a lover's quarrel. And by the time a lot of people looked out, he was running away. And so she walks around the corner, stumbling to her apartment. And so people see her go around the corner and that's all they saw. And in reality, people did call. Oh, the police. But back then, you just called. You didn't call. There was no 91 1. And this is part of the reason there is a 911 now is because they needed. They need. You know, you can't just call the police precinct and get people there. Okay. The earliest calls to the police are unclear and weren't given a high priority by them. And it looks like some of them might not have even been logged. One witness said his father called the police after the initial attack and reported that a woman was beat up, but got up and was staggering around, so no one knew she was actually being stabbed. So he fucking runs away when someone yells out the window, let that girl alone. This like, you hear him in the documentary and he's like this salty old man. He's amazing. Let that girl alone. He runs away. She staggers off. He. Mosley leaves, comes back when he realizes that no cops are coming, and finds her again, which is the most fucking terrifying part of this whole story. So you can't. If someone had come out to see how she was, and there was a doorman in the apartment building right across the street, if someone had come out, you know, maybe they could have helped her, brought her into the house. Instead, she goes into the doorway of her apartment building, which has one. It's got one outside door and then a locked inside door, and she's dying, and so she can't get her keys or unlock that door. He fucking comes back and finds her in the stairwell just like a fucking deer that had been, you know, and what? And stabs her more, stabs her more. They don't mention. I haven't finished the documentary yet and they don't mention this. And maybe it's just because he can't fucking handle it, which is fair. But I read that he raped her after he stabbed her, after he, while she was dying, he raped her. I don't know if they're going to mention in the documentary. I'm sure they will because it's a huge part of it. But I heard that in the documentary it says that he attempted to. So I wonder. And the brother, it's so interesting because he's like, I've never been able to deal with. I. I haven't known the details of this until recently because I just couldn't handle it. And it seems like it was a really tight knit family.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, that's so understandable. I don't know how people deal with that when they find out the details of horrible things that happened to their, their, like those next of kin. I mean, it's awful.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I mean, they didn't. I guess the family didn't even go to the trial because they just couldn't even handle it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I bet.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You know, which is like, gee, what's great about this documentary is it feels like this guy is kind of like the more I know, the closer I'll be to her. And I need to find out what happened and know the truth, because this is the truth of that crime now is what everyone wrote about it and what people talk about it in sociology classes and shit, which is turning out not to be true. So, you know, the New York Times article said that it was 38 people who witnessed it and didn't know. But so, but the upstairs neighbor looks out into the stairwell, sees her being stabbed, closes the door and calls his girlfriend who said, don't get involved, but then later calls the police. So like, dude, you should feel like shit, right? Yeah, it's like.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But also, it's New York City.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I know.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Like, it's that thing where. Yeah, you don't. What are you gonna go out there and. Who knows what's actually happening?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Totally. Is it just the lovers quarrel? Do you really want to get involved? It's like, yeah. Not that I wouldn't get involved in the, in the. Not that the woman deserves it because it's a lover's quarrel, but.

[Karen Kilgariff]

But it makes sense in that city setting where like anything can happen and you just don't know. Yeah, right. You put your life at risk for a stranger who could turn around and be like, get the fuck?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Totally.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You don't know.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Well, here's a really interesting. One of the parts of the documentary that I loved is he's interviewing the kid, and the family never knew that their next door neighbor, who was Kitty's best, like one of her good friends, as soon as she found out what happened, put on her housecoat, ran out and held Kitty until the ambulance came. And the brother in the documentary was like, I wish. Why didn't my family know that? It would have meant so much to us to know that her friend was there while she died. And so the son is being interviewed, the friend's son, and is like, here's the thing about this neighborhood. A lot of people were Holocaust survivors, and a lot of people in that building were Holocaust survivors. And you don't. You don't intervene. You don't stick your nose. You don't, you know, get involved in what might happen within cops and police interrogations. You just leave it alone. Which is such a sad thing that you would never think about.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Right. You know, well, those are people that are like, I've had plenty of trouble. I'm not doing it anymore.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right. You mind your business.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, it's. It's. It's gross. But it's hard to. It's hard to argue. So Mosley gets. Gets caught a couple days later when he's burglarizing a house. He had no prior criminal record, and he was married with three children. And he got up the night of. Out of bed where his wife was sleeping to go find a woman to kill.

[Karen Kilgariff]

What?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah, but he had actually killed two other women and he had never been caught. And he did a bunch of burglaries as well.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, so he is like a burgeoning serial killer.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Totally. Absolutely. Let's see. He confessed. Confessed to 30 to 40 burglaries. It's a psychiatric examination suggested he was a necrophile. And then he said something. He said that he. His motive was simply he wanted to kill a woman. That was his motive. Yeah, it's pretty sick.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So I have to say I've seen the picture of that guy. He has very plucked eyebrows.

[Georgia Hardstark]

He looks a lot like Prince and Richard Little had a baby.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Richard Little.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I'm not Richard Little. Little Richard.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, my God.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Where am I?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, no, no, he does. That's exactly right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

He.

[Karen Kilgariff]

He looks like a drag queen at the end of her. Totally, like, washed it all off. Is ready to just, you know, high cheekbones. High cheekbones. Very plucked eyebrows or something. Like a cat like face.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes. Oh, I'M picturing seeing that face standing above me, stabbing me.

[Karen Kilgariff]

What is the deal?

[Georgia Hardstark]

What is the deal? So, all right, he confesses. Let's see, he's a necro. So in the 70s, he. Okay, so while in prison in the 70s, he gets a bachelor of arts in sociology, which is insane.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, good.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Like there's. You're not using that for, for good, dude. You're using that to understand.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

How you can take advantage of people.

[Karen Kilgariff]

That is Ted Bundy action. Right? Ted Bundy was a psychology major.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Son of a. Yep.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And they know. Oh, that's so mean.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And then during his. He was eligible for parole in 84, which is like, what the fuck? And at his first parole hearing, he told the parole, the parole board that the notoriety he faced due to his crimes made him a victim, stating, yes, he's the victim. Yeah, sure, for a victim outside, it's a one time or one hour or one minute affair, but for the person who's caught, it's forever.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah, much sadder. Yeah, much sadder.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, you get a minute of murder and I have to live the rest of my life in jail.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Well, you know what? How about you put your super sociological mind to that and say, then maybe don't stab people and you won't be so deeply victimized by your fucking shitty behavior.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You're correct. And that's why you don't.

[Derek]

Not.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's not the only reason. But that's one of the reasons you don't murder.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Well, this, this is the Brock Turner thing of like, this, this drunken girl is ruining my whole future. And it's like, no, rapist. Yeah, you ruined your future. Yeah, you did it, dummy. Like, they, it's. They, it's that it's very psychopathic. It's like you skip over the thing you did that made things happen.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Have you known people like that where you're like, how do you not see your role in this thing?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I asked that because I'm sure you stopped.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I have stopped participating with people like that for that very reason. The. If you cannot admit your own fault in your life that, that the behavior that you bring to the table is the thing that affects and, you know, creates this situation around you. If it's always other people.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Then you have a major problem.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's so, so weird to see those people and like, I mean, it almost feels like the art. An argument or the blame thing is like a game to win.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And so as soon as they can get you to not blame them and to take it all on you. Which I've fucking done many times with people. They win.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You have to read the book the Sociopath next door, because I think in the. I think the numbers are. It's one in four.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Jesus.

[Karen Kilgariff]

People are sociopaths. And those people have no conscience. Everything is a power game to them. All they want to do is beat you, and they will beat you in terms of money, in terms of sex, in terms of status. That's all they care about. And they don't have empathy. So you're constantly left going, I would never do this. But it's like, yeah, that's right. Because this isn't. This person is nothing like you.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Are you scared you're gonna, like. If you read that, you'll just like, like look for that in everyone? I mean, I guess everyone.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You should look for it in everyone. You should. Because then you know when you're being mind, you'll go, oh, my God, that's. Oh, now I realize why I'm so like, you need to know that information.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. Okay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You need to be able to spot a sociopath. I think that should be taught in high schools.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Can I put it in a comic book so Vince doesn't see me reading that and think I'm like, studying up on him.

[Karen Kilgariff]

This is not as.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I know he's not.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, you just don't want him to see you.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Paying attention to it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. Or like being like, why are you reading that?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Say I'm doing it for you, baby.

[Derek]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

This is for. This is for the marriage.

[Georgia Hardstark]

They say I'm a sociopath. I think our cats are sociopaths.

[Karen Kilgariff]

One in four. I mean, if we had one more person in this room, it would be one of us.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I'm thinking it's. It's so easy to like, like, put some of that on people I know.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Well also because sometimes people just piss you off. So it's like calling someone a sociopath is very satisfying. Yeah. It's like, well, this makes sense. But I do know people who, after being friends with them for a while and then being like, I cannot be friends with you anymore. You are like, you're basically a vampire.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Then when you. When you pull away and then you read this book, you go, holy.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I mean, there's like a step by step thing where it's like, is this a person who would never cop to anything? Is this a person who only ever wanted to take more for themselves? It's like, it's a very clear kind of defining thing.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Dude, read it. I think I over I over accept responsibility for things because I don't. I'm trying so hard not to. Not to let myself get away with shit.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes. Well, part of it. I do the exact same thing. And for me, part of it is an ego problem because I think the world revolves around me a hundred percent. So I like the idea of people of like, oh, my God, this person's doing this and that. Like, it. It adds to my egomania. Of like, I'm. Everybody's thinking of me all the time.

[Georgia Hardstark]

There is a certain something about, like, even being like, I feel so bad about this thing that happened where it's like, nobody. Why are you making it about you?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Right.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Not you specifically, but like.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Well, it's better to let it go. Like, the healthier thing is to be like, maybe I had 50% of that, maybe I had 0% of that.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Like. But look at it. Learn from it. Move on and let it go. But to sit around and be like, oh, I was so bad that time, it's like, yeah, yeah. You're just think thinking of yourself and not thinking of other people.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I'm a sociopath.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Are you?

[Karen Kilgariff]

I'm in video right now.

[Natalie]

One and three.

[Karen Kilgariff]

One and three, including Elvis.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's me. But what if it's me? No, it's not me.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Well, do you have a conscience?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And you're fine.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I mean, what's a. Can you. What's a conscience? No, I didn't hold you.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Guilt, I mean. Yeah, we got that covered.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Stephen.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Guilty.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Do you feel it?

[Georgia Hardstark]

I feel guilty all the time. We're all good. We just need the next person who walks through the store, which will probably be sociopath. Just play a game.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Your neighbor knocks on the door. Excuse me.

[Georgia Hardstark]

My mom just drops in and I'm like, yeah. No.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Hi. Hi. Welcome.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Hi. My therapist was right about you.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Did you answer some questions for me as I. Let me just pull this book out of my back pocket.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, Mom. Okay. What did I wanna. What was my. Let's see here. Holocaust survivors.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

None of the witnesses observe the attacks in their entirety because of. The layout of the complex was weird.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And it seems like she was attacked in two different places.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. And they. And as far as they knew, he ran away and she walked away and they couldn't see her anymore. And she was staggering. I mean, how do you. She only got stabbed twice, so how do you know. You couldn't even see that she was stabbed by the time you run to the window.

[Karen Kilgariff]

See, I remember that story from psychology class that she got stabbed like 35 times.

[Georgia Hardstark]

She got stabbed a lot more once he came back.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, oh, okay. So that was. Oh, I see. The initial attack missable part was two stabs.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Right. The initial, like when everyone saw it was two. And then he had a private moment, you know, private doorway in the doorway. So no one actually saw that.

[Karen Kilgariff]

So terrible. That's so nightmarish. There's a crime to remember about Kitty Genovese.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. And I just was like, okay. I didn't even watch it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You didn't?

[Georgia Hardstark]

No, I'm sure I watched it because I watched every episode of that show. It's. But there's also a girls episode where they, like, talk about it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, really?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Like one of the guys is in a play where they reenact the whole thing. But of course there's a lot of girls drama going on, so they don't really talk about it. But I love that show. I'm not making fun of it. Let's see. So it became known as the Bystander effect or the Genevieve Genovese syndrome. And. But people are now questioning what really fucking happened.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So, okay, so everyone go to YouTube and you can watch the trailer. Trailer. It's called the Witness. And if you go to the witness-film.com you there, it's in the theaters right now. If you have an art house theater in your town. And it's. It's going to be at a lot of small towns, so it's not like random. And then hopefully it'll be on Hulu or something at some point. Yeah. And then it's unlikely that she was able to scream at any point after she got stabbed the first time anyways. Because they stabbed her. Because they stabbed her in the lungs. Oh, that's right. Yeah. They punctured her.

[Derek]

He punctured.

[Georgia Hardstark]

They. He punctured her lung. So after that second stabbing, she probably wasn't screaming anyways, so it's not like a bunch of people ignored that as well.

[Karen Kilgariff]

This whole murder is like, worst case scenario.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Worst. Like she would have died from the initial attack, it sounds like, because he punctured a lung and she died from asphyxiation. But. And so if the cops had been called and at that point they took her to the hospital and she died. It. It wouldn't have been the same thing as if he fucking ran away and came back and was like, nobody cares. Yeah, I can continue this.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's so awful to think about.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. It's dark.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. But the universal emergency phone number was created after this. And yeah, Today, it's used all the time, but. So, yeah, the Witness is the movie. It's by James Solomon, and it's a really fast. Just watch the. I feel like anyone who listens to this podcast will watch this trailer and definitely want to see it. Yeah, it's really good.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And it's such a classic case. I feel like even if you've never been interested in true crime, you've heard the Kitty Genovese story. It, like, it's, like, prerequisite in college and stuff, but I guess it's an interesting thing to be like, yeah. You know, this thing that you've heard about your whole life, it's not the way you heard it.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's what I love about it. So I hope it's not boring that I did this case, but I just thought it was the stuff that you'd never. You never knew about it. And I really was. It's one of those cases where I was like, I've heard that a million times. I know about it. You fucking totally don't. And then to see it from the brother's point of view, who also is, like, kind of a badass dude himself.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. Where it happened in the Bronx and Queens.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Queens.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Queens, yeah. People from Queens are kind of the greatest.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, yeah. The Voice. You listen to it just for the interviews he does with the people who live around there. They're incredible. The accents are incredible. There's a lot of. There's, like, a beautiful illustrated element of it that they use as, like, interstitials or to. To. To show what was actually going on with this gorgeous illustration.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Wow.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah. Very simple line drawings, but it's super beautiful.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I haven't seen this movie, but I also recommend the Crime to Remember episode about her.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Kidding.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Genovese, because they put out some other alternate theories that are very interesting.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Wasn't one, like, the downstairs neighbor might have done it?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. They didn't seem convinced he did it, but. But I did. None of that information of that he'd already killed two other women was in there. They focused a lot on how racist the NYPD was back then, and so that they basically would grab up black people. Black men.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And just be like, were you in the neighborhood? It's you.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It sounds like way different than it is today.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, so, so different. I would just like to say, because I saw a documentary. Is yours done?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Sure, yeah. No, totally.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Oh, okay.

[Derek]

No, it totally is.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. Well, I just saw. I'm gonna bring yours to an end. So I can recommend my documentary that isn't True crime, but. Well, it is, because it's crime.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's called Tickled. And it is unbelievably amazing because it starts out there about this online tickling competition. Tickling league. Professional tickling league, I think it's called.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Already need a fucking shower.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes. Except. Except for it's not what you think. It's not some weird, like, can you believe these people exist? It goes into the craziest, darkest, scariest fucking thing. And it's this one New Zealand reporter who went. Who went looking into it because he's basically a human interest reporter for the local news. And he immediately started getting threatened. And so instead of being like, whoops, better close this up, he starts investigating. And it's amazing. And. And interestingly enough, and not to talk about them all the time, but our friends the Dollop, who did a very, very popular episode about these tickling competitions very early on, like, this guy did. This New Zealand reporter did the story. Dave and Gareth got sent the story, I think, by people in Australia or New Zealand saying, you guys have to talk about this. It's crazy. And so then they did that. That episode of the Dollop was super popular, and it's actually featured in the documentary. Shut up. Yes. They have audio clips of the Dollop talking about this.

[Georgia Hardstark]

He's made it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And it's the very beginning of the movie. And then it goes into, like. He basically is like, yeah, I thought this was this kooky, crazy thing. And then I started researching it, and it is edge of your seat. It was one of those things. We saw it at the Sunset, Sundance, whatever theater, and there was only, like, 10, 15 people in the theater. And a bunch of us were all sitting in one row, which was kind of funny. Basically, there was like, nine people in one row, and then like, four people outside of our row. But by the end, we were all talking to each other. It was one of those, like, so upsetting and like, oh, my God, what's happening?

[Georgia Hardstark]

What channel is it on? I want to watch it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

No, it's a movie. It's a documentary movie that's in, like, art house theaters right now. Like the Witnesses.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Oh, man. We gotta have a double feature.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I wonder if we could host a double feature. We should email this guy. Feel like we want to do this another.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Everything that comes up. You got an idea?

[Georgia Hardstark]

Man, I love it. What is that?

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's the best. It's. You're. You're the reason. You're the reason it's all happening.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I always think of Myself as such a lazy person, and I'm, like, constantly berating myself for being lazy. And then, like, sometimes I'll have to write a list of things I'm doing to just be like, just look at this. Everything is okay.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. No, you're doing a lot of stuff. I liked when we were watching the Simpsons and we were on the same episode, and then you were like, we've got to watch episode five together and live tweet it. And I was like, you might want to watch the other episodes before you decide we should live tweet this. It's kind of a bummer.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I know. Like, we can. What if we do this? What if we do that? We can do this. We do that. And like, sometimes, like, when you just got here, you were like. You kind of had a. Like, we had a conversation about something regarding the podcast, and you kind of had to, like, talk me down from it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I couldn't breathe.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I get it, though. Yeah, you get. I can tell when you're excited or, like, there's a lot going on because you're.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It almost looks like you're slowly drowning and you're trying to tell me something before you go under. It's kind of what.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's like, take a deep breath. It's happened my entire life.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Like, I. I have to yawn. I yawn a lot because I have to catch my breath, and so I get so worked up. That's funny that you've noticed it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

You have to think about breathing more.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Because that's what yawning is about. Yawning is about low oxygen levels, and you have to, like, your body goes, take this. Take as much oxygen in as you can.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's so, like, I've gotten up in the middle of the night and, like, wrote a blog post about how, like, it's. You really feel like you're drowning and you can't breathe.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And it. It's just anxiety, and then that perpetuates itself, and you just still can't breathe. And anyways.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah. So a lot of great ideas, guys. A lot of great. Oh, there was someone that made my favorite piece of art that got made, that got posted on the Facebook page last week, is someone did a freehand drawing that was a picture of the forest that said, get a job. Make. Buy your own shit. Stay out of the forest. But with these banners. Did you see that? It's so beautifully done. And it was someone who said their friend did it, but they're not. They don't want to Be on the Facebook page.

[Derek]

Come on.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I got an email from a girl that I know today who was like, I just started a new job, and I overheard my co workers saying, oh, my God, I'm obsessed with this new podcast. And they were like, me, too. And. And they were like, what's it called? My favorite Murder. And my friend Kelsey was like, I was trying. I wanted to tell them so bad and brag that I knew you, but I. It's a new job. And I was like, tell them. Look at a raise.

[Karen Kilgariff]

She's like, I'm gonna hold it for four more days.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yeah.

[Karen Kilgariff]

And then drop the bomb and be like, guess what? Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I love it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It makes me happy that a lot of people say they feel like we're best friends.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Totally not with each other. Best. There it is. That's it.

[Karen Kilgariff]

We're done. Stay sexy.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No. Are we?

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Okay. Go do it again.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Stay sexy.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Don't get murdered.

[Karen Kilgariff]

I always want a cookie.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Want a cookie? That's a yes. Bye.

[Natalie]

Okay, we're back. Are there case updates on a story this old?

[Derek]

Yes, actually. Well, first of all, I love the detail, and I think these are the things we look for now in stories that this case created. The universal Emergency phone number 911, which is, like, just fascinating to me, you know? Okay, this is early on, episode 24. I did not mention when my story took place. When. Yeah, that little detail.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's.

[Natalie]

A journalist would have caught that. You know, the who, where, when, what, how, you know, you know what.

[Derek]

Smarter people than me have covered this, and you should go read and listen to their shit. I am covering their coverage. And I forgot to mention that this took place in 1964.

[Natalie]

I was sitting across from you, and I didn't ask.

[Georgia Hardstark]

So ridiculous.

[Derek]

And also, the man who killed Kitty Genovese, Winston Mosley, died in a New York prison in 2016. So fucking recently. He served almost 52 years and was one of the state's longest serving inmates. And it's so terrifying when you. When I was telling the story that he was trying to get parole, and you're just like, absolutely fucking not.

[Georgia Hardstark]

You know?

[Natalie]

All right, well, that was it. That was the boiled down version of this episode. So now we'll talk about what we could have entitled it instead of 20 justice for all.

[Derek]

And the number, the word for is F O U R. You know, it's not visual.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yes.

[Natalie]

This is an auditory situation that we were doing written jokes, like, page jokes for lots of mistakes.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We were.

[Derek]

We were very tired and working very hard and very surprised. That anyone was listening to this podcast.

[Natalie]

We meant very well.

[Derek]

We did. We still do.

[Natalie]

And we still do. And also, that's the thing. We'll say it again and again. We're just people doing a podcast. That's all.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yep.

[Natalie]

That's all.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Yep, that's it.

[Derek]

All right, so let's see. We could call it obst. We could call this episode Obstetrician of T shirts. Because I don't even know. Yeah, merch.

[Natalie]

Because I'm saying that that's what you are by being the merch girl. We could also call it Plans and Schemes, which was all the ideas we had about doing unboxings.

[Derek]

I like that. Plans and schemes. It's so funny. Like, way back then we were like, maybe we'll do video. And it's like, now we have to do video. It's like, it's like required in today's world. Today's modern world.

[Natalie]

Gotta compete. Gotta get out there. Gotta do podcasts on video.

[Derek]

We're on YouTube and TikTok and fucking Instagram and fucking all the shit.

[Natalie]

It's fun to be middle aged on fucking all those websites.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Yeah.

[Derek]

Like, and this. When this episode recorded, I was 36 and I was like, not yet, video. No. Let me be 40 fucking 4 before I have to be on video. Let's wait a minute.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Let's.

[Natalie]

I'm gonna dig my 11 lines down a little deeper. I wanna have way more stress and then see what that does to my old face, you know?

[Derek]

I wanna wait until this filler migrates before I get fucking lit from below and fucking on camera. Let's just wait until it's in the wrong places.

[Natalie]

We should have actually done flashlights under our chins for the Halloween episode. Now that I think about it, now.

[Derek]

That you say that, it all feels like flashlights under the chin when you're on video.

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's tough.

[Natalie]

But also what we have to remember is no one gives a shit anymore.

[Derek]

No one gives a shit.

[Natalie]

No one gives a single shit.

[Georgia Hardstark]

No.

[Derek]

And I'm learning contouring finally. So I think I'm gonna be fine.

[Natalie]

Can't wait until I'm sitting. From Kim Kardashian. What a joy. Okay, thanks, everybody, for listening back then. Now, were you there? Are you here now? Oh, my God, that's so nice of you.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Thank you.

[Natalie]

You must be so patient.

[Derek]

Stay sexy and don't get murdered.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Goodbye, Elvis. Do you want a cook?