My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
Rewind with Karen & Georgia - Episode 24: …And Twenty Justice Four All
Wed, 18 Dec 2024
It's time to Rewind with Karen & Georgia! This week, K & G recap Episode 24: …And Twenty Justice Four All when Karen discussed the tragic murder of Polly Klaas and Georgia detailed the killing of Kitty Genovese. Listen for all-new commentary, case updates and much more! Whether you've listened a thousand times or you're new to the show, join the conversation as we look back on our old episodes and discuss the life lessons we’ve learned along the way. Head to social media to share your favorite moments from this episode! Instagram: instagram.com/myfavoritemurder Facebook: facebook.com/myfavoritemurder TikTok: tiktok.com/@my_favorite_murder Now with updated sources and photos: https://www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes/rewind-with-karen-georgia-episode-24-and-twenty-justice-four-all My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories, and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. The Exactly Right podcast network provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics, including true crime, comedy, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more. Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/3UFCn1g. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This is exactly right.
Miami Metro catches killers, and they say it takes a village to race one. If anyone knows how powerful urges can be, it's me. Catch Dexter Morgan in a new serial killer origin story. There's hunger inside of you. It needs a master. Featuring Patrick Gibson, Christian Slater, special guest star Sarah Michelle Gellar, with Patrick Dempsey and Michael C. Hall as Dexter. I wasn't born a killer.
I was made. Dexter Original Sin. New series now streaming on the Paramount Plus with Showtime plan. Go to ParamountPlus.com to try it free. Terms apply. 70,000 people are here and Bob Dylan is the reason for it. Inspired by the true story.
If anyone is going to hold your attention on a stage, you have to kind of be a freak.
Are you a freak?
Hope so. And starring Timothee Chalamet as Bob Dylan. He defied everyone. Turn it down! They lied. To change everything. Make some noise, BD. Timothy Chalamet. Edward Norton. El Fanny. Monica Barbaro. A complete unknown. Only in theaters Christmas Day. Rated R. Under $17.99 without parent.
Hello. Hello. And welcome. To Rewind with Karen and Georgia. 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.
It is a painful process. Today, we're recapping painfully episode 24, which we named and 20 justice for all. Yeah. Fucking classic. This came out on Thursday, July 7th, 2016. So get ready to defy the laws of space and time because now we're all going to be day one listeners. Okay, let's do it. Let's listen to the intro of episode 24. You want a podcast? Do you want to start a podcast?
Hey, do you want a podcast? Hey. Hey. Hi. We need to wait. Start this and end this. That's like... That's clean.
Distinctive. What if it was like 70s newscast kind of like... That'd be good, right? This just ends...
Instead, it's just me laying down on the love seat. You leaning back on the couch.
I lean 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. Because it's so true. He's like, I'm seeing, it's as if my hat is tipped forward. Yeah.
And I'm leaning on this love seat like Mrs. Roper would on a fucking... If Mrs. Roper went and got some scissors and cut her caftan in half.
Because Georgia doesn't fuck around with full length anything. You're all about the leg. Yeah, that's true. I do show a lot of leg. Because it's, you know why? That's summer Georgia in full effect. Full effect. Thank you, whoever made that. 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, I probably should have found out who made that. Oh, right. I didn't have the name.
Man, fucking credit gives me so much stress. I know. 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. That's right. 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. You do stuff though. Yeah.
I have extreme anxiety, which causes me to constantly do things.
Yeah.
Which is great. Mine causes me to constantly not do things. 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.
Exactly. I freeze up. I have perfectionism. And then I'm, yeah, I just go fuck it. I've spent my life saying fuck it, essentially.
Wow. Because 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. That's the way to be. Yeah.
Like if you do everything like at a B plus, you know, and no one else does anything else because they think they're going to get a B. Then that rounds up to an A. Then I get a fucking A. Hell yeah, girl. You know what I mean?
I like this.
I have to rely on other people's perfection anxieties to just deliver mine. God, that's really smart. Did I tell you? My grandma's saying, bigger dummies than you. Yeah, that's right. You know? It's so good.
It's so good and bad at the same time. My grandma's saying was, be quiet now. No. Is she Romanian?
No, that's Irish.
She was a vampire or something. I'll be quiet now. She was a gypsy. I only saw her once.
I love it. Yeah. Yeah. Just try it. And if it sucks, you can just walk away from it. Girl, I'm about it. I mean, you were right about this podcast.
Oh, let's walk away from it. No, no. Like, just try it. Why don't we try it?
Let's just do one and see how it goes. That's my whole motto. Yeah. Let's do one and see how it goes. It's very smart. And now everyone's making these awesome crafts, which, by the way, I gave my fucking P.O. box on the Facebook. Is that a mistake? No, it's a P.O.
box. I know, but man. What do you think? Someone's going to go stand by the P.O. box and wait for you? Yeah. Yeah. No, that's the whole point of P.O. Boxes is there's someone that works there. And if someone's just start standing by a P.O. Box, they're like, hey. Right. Hey, weirdo with the kitchen knife, get the fuck out of here.
I'm just I don't know why I'm just going to always go with Vince. So anyone who's thinking about beating me up, I'm going my big, tall husband. Who will probably do nothing.
I love the idea of a P.O. box would make you this nervous.
This is like 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. I'm terrified. I know, but who cares? I mean, you could take a nice swing at somebody. 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 P.O. box up and got killed. What a fucking idiot. Why did she do that? That's what I would think.
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. And also this is Los Angeles. There's so many people here. So like I almost want to say millions.
sounds fucking right i dare say that sounds right okay all right and also no offense but there's better p.o boxes to stand next to everything was great up until you just said that and now i'm dummies than you so sad there's so many better dummies in this town oh no thank you don't be sad i meant that in the complimentary way is there one No. But I mean, Justin Timberlake lives here somewhere.
That's what I'm saying. Okay. That's what I mean.
Don't kill Justin Timberlake, you guys.
I was just going to say go kill him, but that's not okay. The people who kill are not influenceable by these podcasts. They're not going to be like with their murder kit under the passenger seat and then be like, you know what, girls? You show me the way.
No one diabolically listens to a podcast. People only like at least medium joyfully listen to podcasts. No one's like... Now we're baiting people. Now people are like, I'm going to show her. There's no like Mr. Burns-esque podcast listeners sitting at his desk going, you know, with his fingers. No. He doesn't listen. Marge listens. Simpsons. This podcast always comes back to the Simpsons.
Lisa totally is a fan.
Lisa's on that Facebook page. NPR for sure. Oh, I saw, can I recommend a Netflix series that I watched all of in one day? Always, always, always. Oh, Olive. This is from our new section, Olives. Olives time. 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 I've already proven.
It's with Anna Friel. It's super good. It's a female homicide detective who's all screwed up, as all the good ones are. They're always screwed up. 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. What's it called? Marcella is how it's spelled. Did you watch it, Steven?
Yeah.
I want to watch it. I haven't seen it yet.
I totally you should watch it. I've never heard of it. 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. What what country of origin?
England. OK. Yes. Yes. And no. Okay. It just depends. Sometimes I, sometimes. What do you need? What? What do you need? Oh, you know what I loved is the one, I'm not going to remember the name, the one with the woman. Oh yes, that one.
Was she dead?
No, she was a police detective and she was incredible. Oh, Happy Valley.
Yes.
Yes. I loved Happy Valley. 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. Maybe you need yours more character driven. Like Happy Valley is almost more about her family. Yeah. Her trying to deal with just her shit.
Yeah. I guess it was like about her. I could legitimately see why she was fucked up and sad. Yes. And it wasn't like, just go get a fucking coffee and cheer up. Yes. Or like, you don't have to talk like this. 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 that was said on that show because it's just some thick accents. But you watched the second season, right? I don't know if I finished it yet.
Oh, it's the best.
Okay. Sorry, go on.
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? Was that good? I did not like Dexter.
Never saw it. 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. Oh, interesting. Was it like CSIE? It was, actually. But yes, it was CSIE. But Michael C. Hall is awesome. He's from Six Feet Under. Oh, yeah, of course. He's great. 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. I went to his house on Fourth of July once. Really? Yeah, that's now this is a we'll call this this area is called Celebrity Center.
It's called who to stock at a PO box besides Georgia. Let's talk about it. Michael C. Hall is a good person to stop. Michael C. Hall, for example. I know where he fucking lives, you guys. If you're thinking of killing me at my PO box, let me know and I'll give you Michael C. Hall's address.
Good. Throw him under the bus. Or give, why don't you have your mail sent to his mailbox? Okay.
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. Yeah. Someone, I don't even want to 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 lipstick.
No, I can't.
Can you even fucking go? I couldn't be more excited. I know. I don't want to talk about it yet because I just want to open the box with you. Should I open before and present to you like I did? However you like to do it. Or should I, should we open the stuff together?
I have a feeling you have a very specific way you like to do a male situation. Well, I mean, yeah, probably things in general. Like, 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 I knew you knew everything about it.
Yeah, we can do either way. I guess I don't know. We can do anything. It might be fun to open it together. Yeah. Yeah.
And they never snow. What if we open it and then we have to fake our response? Because we're not that stoked on it? Or like, you know, I used to work at Bio Bottoms, which is a children's natural fiber clothing company in my hometown. And the returns department... Bio Bottoms? It was called Bio Bottoms. They made a shit ton of money. I bet.
But the returns department used to come and tell us weird shit that they got.
Like what?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay, I'll open it first.
I mean, as much as it would be fun to do that live. No, let's do it live. If we got, we should get like corners, like goggles, the full suit, gloves. Hazmat.
Go hazmat with it. Or we should be open it all on video and post that somewhere. Yeah. Make people pay to watch us open mail. That's a good idea. I mean, why not? Pay to open free shit. Come on. Yeah, we should do it on video.
Here I go again with my fucking... Plans and schemes.
Plans and schemes.
You're the architect of this high-rise building that we're living in. No. We do this together.
I'm just a... Conduit? Fueled by too much coffee and Adderall. And the Invisalign. And the Invisalign. I just took out of my mouth because I realized how awful it sounded.
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. So it's an event.
It is. I feel like. And then there's like a string of saliva attached to it. It's real sexy. It's fun. Yeah. So you know what? Someone recently emailed me and said, I listened to your podcast and 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. That's how I found my therapist. Yeah. I found most of my therapists through that.
And I love my therapist. I've been with her for like 12 years. Yeah, really? Wow. 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. No. You can't cast it in your mind and pretend you're going to go act out scenes.
They do have photos on thing. And I've definitely been like, that's it. She looks like a hippie.
Right. I don't want to go to her. I don't want to go into a cloud of pot to talk about my problem.
She doesn't know what it's like to just wear all this makeup all the time.
I don't want someone who keeps interrupting my good stories. There are stories of Woodstock and the doors. Yeah. No, that psychology today. Yeah. Yeah. Is this shit that website?
Yeah.
So in case you're too scared to ask. Don't be scared. Everyone's in therapy. And everyone needs to be in therapy.
Also, Psychology Today is the freaking best magazine.
Yeah, it's good.
You should get it.
It's all about understanding yourself. Yeah, sure.
I'm sorry. That was so condescending.
Okay, we're back. Georgia, would you like to apologize to British Procedurals right now? Or Olivia Colman personally?
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 support. I'm forcing your hand on that one. You're just being nice. A little bit.
A little bit sometimes depends. We still have that P.O. box, right?
We still have that P.O. box. 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. box. 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 Stephen. So amazing.
Like, I have a wall full of paintings of my cats, like, in my office right now. It's just my favorite thing.
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.
Yeah, the explanation I had to give to the guy at the post office to get My Favorite Murder, like, listed. He looked at me very strangely and I had to, you know, get my dimples going to be like, everything's okay.
It's fine. Don't worry. It's about something else. It's cute. Don't worry about it. You're like, as if that would be the creepiest thing that's ever happened at a P.O. box. Come on. Grow up.
All right. So this is when I first share my grandma Molly's saying bigger dummies than you, which makes me so happy. I was just in an episode of the therapy podcast, Your 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's just like memorializes my grandma. And I love that.
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 of thousands of years and how dumb a lot of people have been. And they weren't insecure.
And they've accomplished everything.
So like you can fucking do it too. Get out there with your talent and your brains, please.
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? I see people's feet all the time. She's a plies 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 Crystal.
And so even mine, I mean, she really did it for me.
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.
Yeah. Shame thrives in the shadows, right?
That's right.
That's what Brene Brown says. So fucking scream that shit to the ceiling.
Might as well.
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. A true hometown of mine. A true hometown. I mean, I don't know why, like, re-listening and remembering that you worked with Pauly Class's mother, I completely forgot that. I mean, this is such a hometown for you. Yeah.
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're 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 die.
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 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.
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 solved like that's real and that is has nothing to do with like the the media aspect of it it's like the people going and trying to help get the job done like the dough network yeah all of that it's incredible it's incredible all right well let's listen to karen's hometown story the murder of poly class
Did you know that most people think they spend $60 a month on subscriptions, but it's actually closer to $300 a month? Well, Rocket Money can help you fix that. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so that you can grow your savings.
See all of your subscriptions in one place and know exactly where your money is going. And for the ones you don't want, Rocket Money can help you cancel them with just a few taps. Their dashboard gives you a clear view of your expenses across all of your accounts. Rocket Money will even try to negotiate lower bills for you, sometimes by up to 20%.
They automatically scan your bills to find opportunities to save. Then you can ask them to negotiate for you. They'll deal with customer service.
Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions, saving members up to $740 a year when using all of the app's premium features.
Stop wasting money on things you don't use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.com slash murder. That's rocketmoney.com slash murder. rocketmoney.com slash murder. Goodbye. The holidays can be overwhelming for everyone. Shoppers want convenience and retailers need to stay organized. That's where Shopify Point of Sale comes in. You can turn your holiday rush into...
Shopify's point of sale system is a unified command center for your retail business. It seamlessly integrates in-store and online operations, even across more than a thousand locations. Imagine being able to guarantee that shopping is always convenient with features like endless aisle, ship to customer, buy online and pick up in store.
Shopify POS makes it simple for customers to shop how and where they want. Plus your staff will have the tools they need to close the sale every time. And let's face it, acquiring new customers is expensive. With Shopify POS, you can keep existing shoppers coming back with consistent, tailored experiences and first-party data that will give your marketing team a competitive edge. Want more?
Check out at shopify.com slash murder, all lowercase, and learn how to create the best retail experiences without complexity. That's shopify.com slash murder. Goodbye. Who's going first this week? I think it's you. Skipper times, come back to us, Skippers. Oh. If it's mine this week, if I go first, I've been, this past week has been quite crazed.
Do you want me to go first?
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 uh, like really dig in and do some serious research.
Cause that's the thing is sometimes you go to talk about, so I want to do Ted Bundy because I'm, uh, three quarters of the way through that and rule book, the stranger beside me, which is amazing. There's other people on the Facebook page reading it.
Um, so I love that, that we're reading it at the same time, but I, when I do it, it should be comprehensive and not, you know, half ass cause he is, he's pretty much one of the most famous serial killers of our time.
Well, I like sometimes when you will like 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. Yeah. Like if you pick a thing from it or how Richard Ramirez got caught, I think that was an amazing story on its own.
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. Okay. I'll just take a nap. Okay. Just read the book on the podcast. 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. Yeah, this podcast has changed. 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 Pauly Class murder.
Oh, girl.
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. Um, but I lived in San Francisco and I would go home for holidays and I was back and forth all the time. Um, but Polly Klaus'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...
The natural fiber children's clothing. Oh my God. Dun, dun, dun. It comes back around. So I actually didn't mean to make that reference, but then I was doing it. I was like, oh, I'm probably doing this on purpose subconsciously. But it was very strange because it's, there's a lot of, a lot of the times we look and we research these stories and,
And it's these places that are like, you know, when we 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 or 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.
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 nauseum.
Yeah. And people and all police stations are and cops are more connected because of the Internet. Yeah. So that's like that whole East Area Rapist, the Golden State Killer thing where there were, you know, there were police departments who were 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. 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 and Um, kind of everyone on the East side had like a two story house. Um, 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, uh, so we basically were, it was the country.
And so when we, like when I was growing up, we didn't have cable. Holy shit. 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 live too far out of town. And that was how a lot of kids I knew grew up.
Yeah. It was just country. 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. Oh, yeah. I just can't even imagine living in that much space.
Yeah. It's it's weird. It's like, you know, we didn't have sidewalks. We didn't have we didn't have streetlights. Holy shit. 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.
I don't even know what that looks like. I have never seen the stars like that unless I'm camping or something.
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. It's stars from like horizon to horizon.
Yeah, 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.
We can never see stars here. Never. And people that live in like... Oh my God, if you live in like... kansas yeah like somewhere that's like kind of low population and and no light pollution totally Dang. Dang, dude. 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. That's amazing.
Yeah.
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 like in my town, um, it one time a guy on the street tried to purse snatch a lady's purse and And everyone on the sidewalk chased him up the street. Yes. 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. I was like, get me out of here. I want to go to Manhattan.
Right.
Um, so when this happened, it happened, it was a little house that was on the, uh, a little Walnut Park that was, I think it's Walnut Park. Um, 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. So it wasn't rural.
It wasn't in the middle of nowhere.
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. So, but still, and this was, this happened in 1993. Yeah.
But even then, this was the kind of town where people did not lock their front door. Yeah. You just didn't. There was no reason to.
No. It seems like such a like what everyone says, like you didn't lock your door. But like, I don't think you did. Right. Until like...
It was I think that's also that that's that thing of like people as as we get older and this kind of like 2020 generation grows up. Yes. It's that thing of like now we just know what happens to other people.
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 because we know the possibility right we didn't understand the possibility as much I think yeah 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 1st, 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. Oh, I want to hear those.
Wait, so how old was she?
She at the time was 12. Okay. And so were they sleeping already? They were all awake. They were awake and like doing slumber party stuff. And the mom was awake and everything? Yes. Holy shit. Yeah. So he tied the friends up first and put pillowcases over their head. And then he took her out of the house. And he told them to count to a thousand or he'd kill them. Jesus.
So once they heard him go, they got free and then ran to the front of the house and said someone took Polly. Good for them. 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 Novato, the town next to my town.
Oh, shit.
Going south to San Francisco. And his boss at that bank, his daughter was one of those two girls. Oh, shit. So when this shit kicked off, it was like everyone you knew was affected in some way. Everyone you knew knew a person.
Everyone you knew... Like my sister's best friend, Adrienne, who is basically like my sister too, she pulled out a photo album one time because she also worked at Bio Bottoms. 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 like, it's that thing where it's not just, oh, a girl from our town. Yeah.
Everybody knew this family.
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 affected them somehow. Totally.
So interesting.
Well, and 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... My dad lives in town.
They finally... Of course, when we graduated from high school and moved out, that's when my parents moved into town and got cable. Okay. And ordered pizza constantly. They didn't have cable until you left for college? No. No, I... 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.
Anyway. I'm not shaming you. It's just like it's such an interesting fact of your life.
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. And yet it didn't make a fucking difference. Look at you now. look at the things I'm talking about and how much I say the F word.
It has no, it had no bearing on your life at all. I think it pushed me the other direction. 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 it was for Thanksgiving. Um, Or maybe it was somewhere in the middle of November. The entire town, because Polly's favorite color was purple.
The entire town and every fucking car had a purple bow on it. Like a purple ribbon, like the yellow ribbon for soldiers. There was purple ribbons for waiting for Polly to get found. How long had she been gone by that point? Well, she got kidnapped on October 1st. Wow. And so this was probably three weeks later. 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 Petaluma Junior High because she was in, I believe, seventh grade. Yeah. And she is the beginning of seventh grade.
Like if 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 in. to hand these out everywhere you can. The kids took the flyers and all got up and left school right that moment and went out into the town. Are you crying? Yep.
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 fucking took out of her room. I mean, it's so brazen that it's... It's a nightmare.
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.
Exactly.
It's just like...
How do you protect yourself? 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.
Yeah.
So the young, the young children of that class in Petaluma High, 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 going to do? We are going to go do everything we can to help find her. Yeah. And how can you sit through the rest of the school day.
I mean, I get it. 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, so Winona Ryder is from my hometown. Okay. 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... they ended up like 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 and 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, uh, we talked, we talked about like, and there's other store Novato, uh, 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.
Mm-hmm.
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 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. Yeah. But it was it was somewhere kind of in the rural part.
Um, cause so it all goes kind of starts going by County. So it might've 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. 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. Um, They changed all of that. So the second an APB goes out in 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.
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 searched 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, um, 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. Definitely. Because they told the, uh, property owner, um,
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 citizen's arrest and then we can take him away. And the property owner was like, I don't want to do that.
Yeah. So they... Which is understandable because then he knows where she lives. That's exactly right. The minute he gets let out.
Yeah. So... So they have to let him go. Yeah. 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 cops did 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 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. So they did that immediately. And then when did they find out that that's who that was? Sorry, it was an FI card, a field interrogation card. So they have all his information. They have the car information. And what happened? Sorry, what was the question? That makes sense. So when did they realize who it was?
Or were you getting that? I thought that's what you meant.
Oh, okay. So once they left, they don't know. On November 28th, so then it was basically two months later, 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. Oh, no.
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 theory is that he had already taken her out of the car and hidden her out in these bushes while and 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 he when they arrested this guy. So this guy's named Richard Allen Davis. Okay. He is on par with Charles Manson in how many times he has been arrested, been in jail, like the worst record, miles long. He wouldn't tell them anything.
He wouldn't tell them the events. Once he confessed that he's the one that killed her... 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 to like when I you hear all these things like these are the towns where we played basketball.
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. Right.
Like every summer. No, I'm picturing places in Orange County and I can make sense of that.
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.
I hate it.
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 just keep getting out and keep doing stuff like this he was pretty awful so he admitted to strangling her to death
But that's all the information that he would give. I wonder why he wouldn't because he was toying with them.
He would think that if he had gotten them. Sorry, am I interrupting you? No, not at all. 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. Yeah.
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 Mancini 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. Oh, fuck. And it was because they were like, he owes money for gambling. He's this, he's that. And the father was on TV constantly.
If you remember anything from this 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. Wow. Looking back, that poor guy. Yes. What an awful thing to say. 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. Sure. And also, it's one thing to be on the news crying and being like, I need my daughter back. But I don't know. It was easy to kind of put that on him because I think he was a zealot. But I mean, you know, it's that thing of like, we don't know how people grieve. Right.
And he could be the kind of person that's like, I just need to do something with myself. Sure.
Look at Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman's dad.
Yeah.
You know, I went out of his mind.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, who's to say how you would act or 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's this little church that in this weird part of the road where I go to go to my dad's house and
And they took that and that's now called the Polly Kloss 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 Ryder 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 um and the thing about they basically all the things that got fucked up in the beginning of with through communication they actually did stuff about sure yeah that's great like the APB thing and the three strikes law they're like a lot of
Good things came out of that. It's amazing. 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.
I mean, I want to say good, but at the same time, it's you can't. Can't say that. There's no... Yeah, there's no... Clean conscience. There's no good.
But they actually... And he's on death row. He got the death sentence. So he's still alive now? 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 tried... They have tried to get... Where is 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, please. They tried to make that argument that it's like... What do you call that? It's called the inhumane...
What's it called? I don't know.
Something along those lines. When I read the paragraph, I was just like, you got to be fucking kidding. Who would actually have the balls to say that out loud?
Sometimes I get really mad at lawyers. I don't want to start the whole shit talking that we do about cops sometimes because I know it's complicated and you promise to do these things 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. Exactly. And doing the best that they can to get them off.
I guess it's not. I guess you just want to get them a fair trial.
Yeah. It must be hard. I would never want to be a lawyer. No. Oh, cruel and unusual pun. There it is. Yeah. That's the one we were looking for. Wow. Yeah. That's sad. So that's mine. I actually had a lot of guilt for not doing this story earlier because it's my real hometown murder because I knew it was really a part of my life. But then also it feels bad to talk about.
I actually hesitated in saying her mom's name because I don't want it to seem like I'm trying to do anything.
Well, Karen, you started crying and I don't think you've ever done that in any of them people.
I don't think I have either.
So I feel like it's important and I don't think you should feel bad at all.
Okay. Also, there was, this is, there was 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 Poly Class because it's like, Poly Class was a beautiful little girl who was like, you know, she was...
No, she wasn't blonde, but she was. Let's say she was blonde. But it's that thing of like, you know, the press loves like a beautiful little martyr like that. Yeah. 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. Yeah.
Except for Tom Waits, who lives in my town, who lives way out in the country, wrote a song.
for georgia moses yeah i bet you can find his p.o box pretty easily is that terrible not at all thank you oh georgia moses i'm sorry yeah but i'm all yeah that's fucking bummer i know around i know how do you feel now you know what i'm glad i'm glad i said it do you feel cleansed a little no okay
No. I just think it's like, you know what? It's all around us. That's kind of the thing that I feel like keeps coming up on this podcast. It's like, this isn't special. No, I know. 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 happens constantly.
Yeah. It's a very normal part of life, which I think the reason we're doing that is because we see that and we're freaked out by it and fascinated by it. And we could have a million episodes and not get to half the 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. Yeah. People get fucking murdered.
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.
So horrible. So horrible. Yeah. 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's attorneys argued that his death sentence should be recalled because of recent changes to California sentencing laws. A California judge rejected the resentencing bid, and Davis is still on death row.
And the Poly Class 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 want to donate to the Poly Class Foundation or learn more about them, please go to poly.org. The name Polly, P-O-L-L-Y, K-L-A-A-S.org.
Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Make a little donation to Poly Class Foundation. That'd be amazing. Let's do it. I would love that.
10 grand to fucking polyclass.org, the Poly Class Foundation.
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 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.
So should we also donate to the Black and Missing Foundation? Yes. Great idea. Beautiful. Let's go. It's blackandmissinginc.com. So 10 grand to them immediately.
Yeah. We had Derrica and Natalie Wilson on the podcast. I mean, when was that? Was that like two years ago? That was during the pandemic, for sure. 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 an HBO podcast. docu-series about them. Definitely go watch that. Incredible.
All right, let's move on to more fucking horribleness, shall we?
Okay, now it's time for Georgia's story, and she tells the legendary story of the murder of Kitty Genovese. This podcast is sponsored in part by Midi Health.
For many women, approaching menopause can be a mystery. If you're feeling moody or struggling to sleep, you might be wondering, is this menopause or something else? Midi's expert clinicians, shout out to Nurse Wendy, can help you solve your mystery symptoms.
Right now, they're offering Prove hormone test kits free to the first 200 My Favorite Murder listeners who sign up for a MIDI virtual visit like Georgia clearly did.
Your MIDI clinician will use your Prove test results to determine where you are in the menopause journey and support you with safe, effective FDA-approved medications plus supplements and lifestyle coaching.
And yes, MIDI health services are covered by most major insurers.
So you can get the expert care you need, plus your free approved 15-day hormone test kit from Midi. Just tell them it was my favorite murder who referred you when you sign up at joinmidi.com. That's joinmidi.com. Goodbye.
In the summer of 1994, four teens entered an abandoned building in Gravesend, Brooklyn. It was the last time they would be seen alive. With few clues and no witnesses, the case went cold. But for Anthony Brewer, the brother of one of the victims, the search never stopped. In 2024, he acquired evidence from the police that contained DNA samples that didn't match the teens.
That discovery put his life and the life of his family in grave danger. Goosebumps. The Vanishing. All episodes available January 10th on Disney Plus and Hulu on disneyplus.disney.com. Rated TV 14 LV.
What's your murder? 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 Genovese. That's how you say it, right? Kitty Genovese. Um, And we couldn't go. And so the guy sent us a screener to watch. He did? Yeah. You didn't see that? There's like a password and shit.
Oh, yeah. I'm an email skimmer. Oh, okay. Constantly in trouble for it. That's hilarious. I like read into every single word on the email. I'm like, what do they mean by that?
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? Yeah. What? And then I just kind of gave up after that.
Yeah. I mean, and I was kind of like, OK, whatever about it. This was like a while ago. And finally, I started watching it last night. And it's really fucking good. Oh, awesome. Yeah. The narrator, the guy who's kind of the in the in the shit of it, he's like the dude who you follow is Kitty Genevieve's little brother. Wow. Yeah. In real life. Yes. Wow.
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 interview Veen. 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, you know, this kind of, this kind of awful thing of, of nobody helping. Yeah. It's in like every psych one-on-one. Totally.
Yeah.
So, yeah. And so I don't want to spoil the movie cause I think everyone should go see it, but yeah, 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 13th, she finishes her shift at a sports bar.
She's 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. Um, so she gets home at like three 15. She parks. Um, it's about a hundred feet from her apartment door.
Yeah.
Yeah. So she's walking towards her building. He starts to approach her. She immediately starts running, 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 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 the police. But back then you just called, you didn't call, there was no 911. 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.
Um, 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. Um, 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. Hmm.
So he fucking runs away when someone yells out the window, let that girl alone. 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 mostly 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 their 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 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, well, 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 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.
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... Like those next of kin. I mean, it's awful.
I mean, they didn't... I guess the family didn't even go to the trial because they just couldn't even handle it. I bet. You know? Which is 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 and I need to find out what happened and know the truth because...
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 anything.
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... But also it's New York City. I know. It's that thing where, yeah, you don't... What are you going to go out there and who knows what's actually happening?
Is it just the lover's quarrel? Do you really want to get involved? It's like... Yeah.
Yeah.
Not that I wouldn't get involved in the, not that the woman deserves it because it's a lover's girl, but.
But it makes sense in that city setting. Yeah. 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 out of here. Totally. You don't know.
Well, here's a really interesting, one of the parts of the documentary that I loved is he's interviewing the kid who, And the family never knew that their next door neighbor, who was Kitty's best, like one of her good friends, the soonest she found out what happened, put on her house coat, ran out and held Kitty. until she, until the ambulance came.
And the brother in the documentary was like, I wish my, 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 fucking leave it alone, which is such a sad thing that you would never think about. Right. You know?
Well, those are people that are like, I've had plenty of trouble. I I'm not doing it anymore. Right. You mind your fucking business.
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.
What?
Yeah. But he had actually killed two other women and he had never been caught. And he did a bunch of burglaries as well. Oh, so he is like a burgeoning serial killer. Totally. Absolutely. Let's see. He confessed to 30 to 40 burglaries. A psychiatric examination suggested he was a necrophile. Fuck. And then he said something. He said that his motive was simply he wanted to kill a woman.
That was his motive.
Yeah, it's pretty sick. I have to say, I've seen a picture of that guy. He has very plucked eyebrows.
He looks a lot like Prince and Richard Little had a baby. Richard Little? I'm not Richard Little. Little Richard.
Where am I? Oh, no. No, that's exactly right. He looks like a drag queen at the end of her shit. 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. Yes. Oh, God.
weird picturing seeing that face standing above me stabbing me because what is the deal what is the deal so all right he confesses um let's see he's a fucking necro so in the 70s he okay so while in prison in the 70s he gets a bachelor of arts in sociology sociology Which is insane. Oh, good. You're not using that for good, dude.
You're using that to understand how you can take advantage of people better.
That is Ted Bundy action. Ted Bundy was a psychology major. Son of a bitch.
Yep.
And they know...
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 board that the notoriety he faced due to his crimes made him a victim stating. Yes, he's the victim for 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. Yeah.
Much sadder.
Yeah. Much sadder. Oh, you get a minute of murder and I have to live the rest of my life in jail.
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 shit.
shitty behavior. You're correct. And that's why you don't fucking not. That's not the only reason, but that's one of the reasons you don't murder.
Well, that's this is the Brock Turner thing of like this. This drunken girl is ruining my whole future. It's like no rapist. Yeah. You ruined your future. Yeah. You did it, dummy. Like it's they it's that it's very psychopathic. It's like you skip over the thing you did that made things happen.
Have you known people like that where you're like, how do you not see your role in this thing?
Oh, yeah. I asked that because I'm sure you... I have stopped participating with people like that for that very reason. If you cannot admit your own fault in your life, that the behavior that you bring to the table is the thing that affects and creates... The situation around you, if it's always other people, then you have a major problem.
It's so weird to see those people. And like, I mean, it almost feels like an argument or the blame thing is like a game to win. Yes. 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.
You have to read the book, The Sociopath Next Door. Yeah. Because I think the numbers are, it's one in four 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 person is nothing like you.
Are you scared you're going to like, if you read that, you'll just like look for that in everyone? I mean, I guess everyone has those traits.
You should look for it in everyone. You should because then you know when you're being mind fucked, you'll go, oh my God, that's, oh, now I realize why I'm so, like you need to know that information. Yeah, okay. You need to be able to spot a sociopath. I think that should be taught in high schools.
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 Vince is not a sociopath I know he's not oh you just don't want him to see you yeah paying attention to it yeah or like being like why are you reading that say I'm doing it for you baby yeah this is for this is for the marriage should I say I'm a sociopath I think our cats are sociopaths one in four. I mean, if we had one more person in this room, it would be one of us.
I'm thinking it's, it's so easy to like put some of that on people I know. Oh,
Well, also because sometimes people just piss you off. So it's like calling someone a sociopath is very satisfying. Yeah. 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. Yeah.
Then when you when you pull away and then you read this book, you go, holy shit. Yeah. 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.
Fuck, 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?
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 100%. So I like the idea of people of like, oh my God, this person is doing this and that. Like it adds to my egomania of like, everybody's thinking of me all the time.
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? Right. Not you specifically, but like...
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. 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, you're just thinking of yourself and not thinking of other people.
Yeah.
I'm a sociopath. Are you? I'm in video right now. One in three, one in three, including Elvis. It's me. But what if it's me? No, it's not me. Well, do you have a conscience?
Yeah. And you're fine.
I mean, what's a conscience?
No, I'm totally... Guilt. I mean, we got that covered. Yeah. Steven. Guilty.
Do you feel it?
I feel guilty all the time.
Hi.
Hi, welcome. Hi, my therapist was right about you.
Could you answer some questions for me as I, let me just pull this book out of my back pocket.
Oh, mom. Okay. What did I want? What was my... Let's see here. Holocaust survivors.
Yeah.
None of the witnesses observed the attacks in their entirety because of the layout of the complex was weird. And it seems like she was attacked in two different places. Yeah. 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? Yeah.
See, I remember that story from psychology class that she got stabbed like 35 times. She got stabbed a lot more once he came back. Oh, okay.
So that was... Oh, I see. The initial attack. The witnessable part was two stabs. Right. The initial, like when everyone saw it was two. And then he had a private moment, you know, private in the doorway. So no one actually saw that.
So terrible. That's so nightmarish. There's a crime to remember about Kitty Genovese.
Yeah. And I just was like, okay. I didn't even watch it. You didn't? No, I'm sure I watched it because I watched every episode of that show. There's also a girls episode where they talk about it. Oh, really? 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's syndrome. But people are now questioning what really fucking happened. So, okay. So everyone go to YouTube and you can watch the trailer. It's called The Witness. And if you go to thewitness-film.com, it's in the theaters right now.
If you have an art house theater in your town and it's going to be in 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, yeah.
That's right. Yeah, they punctured her. 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. This whole murder is like worst case scenario. Fucking 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 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. Yeah. That's so awful to think about. Yeah, it's dark. Yeah. But the universal emergency phone number was created after this incident.
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 fat, like just watch that. I feel like anyone who listens to this podcast will watch this trailer and definitely want to see it.
Yeah.
It's really good.
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'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.
heard it that's what i love about it so i hope it's not boring that i did this 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 yeah where it happened in the bronx in queens queens yeah people from queens are kind of the greatest
Oh, yeah. 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 show what was actually going on with this gorgeous illustration. Wow. Yeah. Very simple line drawings, but it's super beautiful. Yeah.
I haven't seen this movie, but I also recommend the Crime to Remember episode about her, Kitty Genovese, because they put out some other alternate theories that are very interesting.
Wasn't one like The Downstairs Neighbor might have done it?
Yeah. They don't they didn't seem convinced he did it. But I did none of that information 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. Yeah. And just be like, were you in the neighborhood? It's you. It sounds like way different than it is today. Oh, so, so different.
Um, I would just like to say because I saw a documentary. Is yours done? Sure. Yeah, no, totally. Oh, okay. No, it totally is. Well, I just saw this. I'm going to bring yours to an end so I can recommend my documentary that isn't true crime. But well, it is because it's crime. Yeah. 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.
Already need a fucking shower.
Yes. 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 looking into it because he's basically a human interest reporter for the local news. He got in too deep. he immediately started getting threatened.
And so instead of being like, whoops, better close this up, he starts investigating. And it's amazing. 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, uh, Very early on, like this guy did this New Zealand reporter did the story.
They 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 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. He's made it. And it's the very beginning of the movie.
And then it goes into like... He's 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 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 like basically there was like nine people in one row and then like four people outside of our row yeah 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 what channel is it on i want to watch it
Uh, no, it's a movie. It's a documentary movie that's in like art house theaters right now.
Like the witnesses, man, we got to have a double feature. Yes. I wonder if we could host a double feature. We should email this guy. I feel like we want to do this.
Another. Everything that comes up, you got an idea. Man. I love it. What is that? It's the best. It's, you're, you're the reason, you're the reason it's all happening.
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 store chat.
Everything is okay. 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. I know.
I was like, why don't we do this? Why don't we do that? We can do this. We can do that. And like sometimes, like when you just got here, you were like, you kind of had a talk, like we had a conversation about something. regarding the podcast and you kind of had to like talk me down from it. Yeah.
I couldn't breathe. 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, it, 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 it's like.
Take a deep breath. It's happened my entire life. Yeah. 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.
You have to think about breathing more. Yeah. Because that's what yawning is about. Yawning is about low oxygen levels. Yeah. And you have to like your body goes take this take as much oxygen as in as you can.
It's so like I've gotten up in the middle of the night and like wrote a blog post about how it like it's you really feel like you're drowning and you can't breathe.
Yeah.
And it's. It's just anxiety. And then that perpetuates itself and you just still can't breathe. And anyways.
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 on the that got posted on the Facebook page last week is someone did a half.
freehand drawing that was a picture of the forest that said um get a job make it buy your own shit stay out of the forest but but with these banners or did you see that yeah 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 right
Come on, man. Bless their souls. I got an email from a girl that I know today who was like, I just started a new job and I overheard my coworkers saying, oh my God, I'm obsessed with this new podcast. And they were like, me too. 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 it's a new job. And I was like, tell them, look at her raise.
She's like, I'm going to hold it for four more days and then drop the bomb. And be like, guess what?
Yes. I love it.
It makes me happy that a lot of people say they feel like we're best friends. Totally. Not with each other.
Best. There it is. And that's it. We're done. Stay sexy. No. Are we? Yes. Okay. Go do it again. Stay sexy. Don't get murdered. I just want a cookie. Want a cookie? That's a yes.
Bye. Okay, we're back. Are there case updates on a story this old? 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 just fascinating to me. Okay, this is early on, episode 24. I did not mention when my story took place. When? Yeah. That little detail.
A journalist would have caught that, you know, the who, where, when, what, how, you know.
You know what? 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.
I was sitting across from you and I didn't ask.
So ridiculous. 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, you know.
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.
And the word for is F-O-U-R. You know, it's not visual.
Yes, this is an auditory situation that we were doing written jokes, like page jokes for. Lots of mistakes.
We were very tired and working very hard and very surprised that anyone was listening to this fucking podcast.
We meant very well. We did. We still do. 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. Yep. That's all. Yep. That's it.
All right. So let's see. We could call this episode Obstetrician of T-Shirts because I don't even fucking know.
That was you. Yeah, merch. That's me saying that that's what you are by being the merch girl. We could also call it Plants and Schemes, which was all the ideas we had about doing unboxings.
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.
Gotta compete. Gotta get out there. Gotta do podcasts on video.
We're on YouTube and TikTok and fucking Instagram and fucking all the shit.
It's fun to be middle-aged on fucking all those websites.
Yeah, like when this episode recorded, I was 36 and I was like, not yet, video. No, let me be 40 fucking four before I have to be on video. Let's wait a minute.
I'm going to dig my 11 lines down a little deeper. I want to have way more stress and then see what that does to my old face.
You know, I want to 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.
We should have actually done flashlights under our chins for the Halloween episode, now that I think about it, now that you say that.
It all feels like flashlights under the chin when you're on video.
It's tough. But also what we have to remember is no one gives a shit anymore.
No one gives a shit.
No one gives a single shit.
No. And I'm learning contouring finally. So I think I'm going to be fine.
Can't wait until I'm sitting across 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. Thank you. You must be so patient. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye.
Elvis, do you want a cookie?