The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)
Day 33: Locusts, Darkness, and Death of the Firstborn (2025)
Sun, 02 Feb 2025
In today's reading from Exodus 10-11, Fr. Mike explains how the ten plagues reveal that God is far greater than the Egyptian gods. We also discover more about how God wants to be worshipped through Leviticus 8 and Psalm 50. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/bibleinayear. Please note: The Bible contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.
Coming to ABC and Hulu. Amanda Riley was a mother, wife, speaker at her church. And then she got diagnosed with cancer. A beloved young Christian woman fighting a battle undeserved. We thought she was God's gift, but she was a liar.
Why would somebody fake cancer?
From the number one smash hit podcast. It was only a matter of time until Amanda's whole world came tumbling down. You're not going to believe this. Scamanda.
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My Savior Lord
Hello and welcome to My Favorite Murder. That's George, the mini-sode. Yeah.
Yes. I forgot what we did. Hometown, mini, that's Karen, that's Georgia.
You know, it's like, should we run you through it again? We're going to start at the beginning, we're going to read, we'll come to the end. Is this our first video of the hometown?
In studio, I mean. Is it? Off Zoom. Take to your camera. I wore something. Is it? Could it be? I wonder. I wore something special. For the occasion. Oh.
Oh. Mimi. It's Mimi's shirt. It's Mimi. It's Mimi and it says bad bitch at the bottom.
Bad bitch Mimi. Wait, have you worn that one before? I've worn the cookie one. All right. Do you want to go first? Sure. Hardcore classic hometown. This is called My Dad Was a Detective in the Crimes Against Persons Unit. Classic hometown with family connection. Three minute read. Okay. Hey, gang. I'm a day three listener, but an OG murderino, and I adore you all. Let's jump in.
In my hometown of Fort Collins, Colorado, my dad was a detective in the Crimes Against Persons Unit. Murders, kidnapping, assaults, you name it, he responded to it. I could write you a lot of emails. I recently realized I've been professionally interrogated my whole life, but he also let me read old case files in middle school, so there were perks, too. On to the story. Right?
Late at night on September 9th, 1998, the police were called about a domestic dispute involving 23-year-old Nicole Holm and her boyfriend. Her boyfriend was arrested for an outstanding traffic violation. Nicole didn't have a working phone and went knocking on doors at her apartment complex for a phone to contact help to bail her boyfriend out of jail.
While doing so, Nicole encountered 25-year-old Tibis Kenep. The two were seen together at a convenience store where Nicole may have gone for help. That evening, Nicole was found brutally attacked, sexually assaulted, stabbed and murdered in her apartment. Like what an insane just series of events. While frantically filling the scene, Kenneth was pulled over by, you guessed it, my dad. Oh, wow.
He had been called for backup as Kenneth was acting suspicious and sweating profusely. There was a gold chain hanging out of his pocket. The police ran Kenneth's ID and took a photo, but because Nicole's body had yet to be found, there was no crime to tie him to or known reason not to let him go. Right. Kenneth fled immediately, and the trail went cold when his car was last found in New Mexico.
As a prime suspect, he eventually appeared on an episode of America's Most Wanted. Fast forward nine months. A lady who employed Kenneth at a pizzeria in a tiny town in Livingston, Guatemala, became suspicious of him, possibly because of the notable tattoo that spelled out fear on his knuckles.
It was 1999, so though she struggled to find Internet access, when she did, she did verify Kenneth's identity on the FBI website and called the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala.
Wow. Like, what a badass.
Yeah.
Although I can't find her name, I consider that woman a hero. According to my dad, Kenneth had hitchhiked there, no air travel or official transportation. That is approximately a 45-hour drive. Oh, wow. And it says, which in 2024 time is still 45 hours. Kenneth was extradited back to Colorado. My dad was the co-lead investigator on the case at the time.
With Kenneth's DNA at the crime scene, graphic police interrogations, and the gold chain noted by the police during the traffic stop suspected to be Nicole's necklace, the self-described sicko was convicted of first-degree sexual assault and first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole. He later died by suicide in prison.
Stay sexy, trust your gut, and check the FBI Most Wanted list. A. Wow, eh?
I know. That was classic. Also, just like, how long, did it say how long the trail went cold? Just for a little while, right? Nine months, yeah, yeah, yeah. It wasn't like a, yeah.
Thankfully. God. I know.
It happens so much. I know. Okay, here's my first one. It's MFM listener story. They gave it its own kind of little bucket to put it in. This is a listener story. Okay. What do you call it?
It's a listener.
It's a listener story. The time my dad lived in a serial killer's house. What? Hi, all. I had written the story a while back, but I realized I didn't fact check properly and I wanted to give it another shot. Hope you enjoy it. If only like we were throwing things out because of fact checking. It's like truly you're you're just sitting in the middle of a very tall pile.
Yeah, that's not it.
Don't be upset. Okay. But I love the kind of like, that's a lot of self-accountability where it's just like, I'll take care of this. Yeah. And look, it worked.
Yeah, it did.
When my dad was in college in the 80s, he and a few of his friends rented an old house that was only $50 a month per person. Oh, my God. Which in today's month, which is in today's month is worth roughly $200 a month. I think they meant math, but I love that. Or maybe they didn't. Still a major steal, if you ask me. Yes. Insane. Apparently, every bedroom in this house had their own fireplace.
And the gas used for the kitchen stove had to be turned on by crawling underneath the house. Oh, my God. So microwaves only. I'm not sure how the mechanics of this process works, but this sounds like a hard pass. This house wasn't just any old house. This house was the childhood home of the notorious serial killer Pee Wee Gaskins. One of the worst.
One of the, you can't even, like, you start to read about it, and he's like a torturer. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just truly dark, dark. Horrific. When my dad told me about his time living there, he remembered the neighbors telling stories about seeing Gaskins on the roof, hanging out by himself. My dad also remembers finding a large pile of shoes in the crawl space when turning on the stove. Shoes.
Shoes in the crawl space would be like... Large amount of anything is bad, but shoes is like definitely on that list. Hidden shoes. Why don't those people have their shoes anymore?
Okay.
I really hope they were just some old shoes left by him and his siblings, but my murdering brain thinks some of these shoes might have belonged to Gaskin's victims. I think you're right. Most true crime podcasts don't cover this case because of how gruesome his killings were, but I still wanted to share this wild connection with you all. Thank you for everything you do.
I love how you normalize mental health and therapy, although my therapist might be worried about my true crime obsession sometimes. She's taken notes on some of the things that you ladies have opened about. Have opened up about. You've got me through the pandemic, finding my life partner and finishing my master's in data science. So smart. Jesus H. Come on.
Stay sexy and maybe don't live in a serial killer's house, regardless of how cheap it is in this economy. Nicole, she or her.
Data and science are two words that like I don't wouldn't don't cross my mind. And she's studying science. Both of them.
Both together. Both together. And they're going to help. That's like what the world is becoming is.
The other red flag for me is that I don't think people should have personal fireplaces. I think there should be a community fireplace in the living room. Right. But I don't trust anyone else with like a bedroom fireplace.
Where they're burning their evidence? Yeah. Yeah, I agree.
No, but they're just like going to put it out properly. Oh, right.
You know what I mean? Yes.
Or like going to fall asleep and forget that there's, I just don't trust personal fireplaces.
Unless you live in a hotel like Eloise, there's no reason to have your own. The whole point of a fireplace is everyone gathers around and stares together. Yeah. Don't go individual with fire. No.
It's a community thing that we can all remember. Please. In case someone forgets.
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accidentally uncovered my in-laws family secret at my first Christmas with their family. Let's get to it. I married into a pretty traditional and religious family. Our first year married, I decided to be creative and make my husband's grandmother a beautiful family tree. I got photos of everyone and tracked down dates of birth and wedding dates to put together the family tree.
There were a few dates I wasn't sure of, like the date of my husband's grandparents' wedding. On Christmas Day, I was running around asking relatives to fill in the missing date for me. Everyone seemed back and forth on the grandparents' wedding date. Was it 1969 or 1968? The confusing factor was that they were married in December.
Everyone agreed it must have been December 1968 because my husband's father was born in July 1970. And babies aren't born at less than seven months, big and beautiful with no complications, especially in the 60s. Except you know where this is going.
Later that day, we found an actual newspaper clipping of their wedding announcement stating that they were indeed married December 1969 and my father-in-law was born July 1970. Everyone looked at each other with glances saying, oh my gosh. It seems very likely that his grandmother was pregnant on their wedding day.
My husband and I still talk about how I unknowingly uncovered a family secret I love, like just so nosy without knowing it. First holiday. Just fucking coming and shredding that pit.
It's me.
The new element you have to deal with in this family. That's right. It's just like clear the dance floor, everyone. We're talking about it.
I've got some fucking moves. There we go.
My husband and I still talk about how I had known the Uncovered Family Secret just three months after joining his family. Because the math is just a little too close, if you ask us. If you're wondering what his grandmother thought about all of this, she played the I'm just as surprised and confused as you card, which is totally her right and pretty badass in its own way. Always do that. Yeah.
Play the confused grandma your entire life.
Why not? Just keep saying what over and over. You'll just drive people insane. Yeah.
Don't get too much Botox here because you always want to be furrowing your brow. Truly, realistically furrowing. Yeah. I loved her since I never knew my own grandparents very well. She was a young widow and one time a real life cult leader tried to date slash marry her in the 80s. But that's a story for another time. Please send it. Such a good cliffhanger.
Stay sexy and maybe toss out the newspaper evidence. Emily.
Emily, that happened in my family too. I don't want to be too specific, but we did that one day where we were just like, well, wait a second, and did the math, and then we're just like, Because it is. It's always religious families too that that happens in. Yes. Because like we don't give a shit, you know.
And actually it happens so much that it's like people should know if that's a discovery, it should not be. No one should be like, what a dirty secret. Because it's like probably 70% of marriages are like that.
And don't bring it up, especially like in the 60s. I feel like that was just pretty par for the course.
Yeah. It was just you go and do the right thing. Yeah. Don't bring it up. Don't make a family tree about it. Don't run around from new relative to new relative. The subject line of this email is that time I was a nun. Karen, Georgia, and the whole team. I was listening to Minnesota 419 and you asked for nun stories. Okay. When? It's just, and it just so happens, I was a nun. Wow.
It's my favorite story to pull out at parties to surprise people or if the conversation is getting a little boring, especially because most people wouldn't pin my outgoing tattooed F word saying true crime loving self as the nun type. So cool. I grew up very loosely Catholic. Shout out, Karen. I love all your Catholic references.
Meaning my parents were raised Catholic but didn't really practice but sent me to Catholic schools. That's rough.
Yeah.
Mixed in with that and some textbook childhood trauma, you know, alcoholic parents, divorce, severe parental mental illness. The kind that gets you lots of points on the ACE scale and many healing years in therapy. Hi. Welcome. Hi. I ended up getting really involved in my charismatic new high school youth group. I could have done a lot of other things as a teenager to act out.
Drugs, alcohol, boys. No, I chose high control religion. I mean, there's worse things. There is. I mean, but it's funny because on the face you think, well, at least you're being this. At least you're safe or something. Yeah. I got very active in the Catholic faith and a young faith group in the area, and it was all very consuming and in some ways almost cult-like. Okay, so back to the nun part.
Usually when I drop that information, I get a ton of questions. Could you have sex? Why did you go? Did you change your name? After years in youth groups and religious settings, I truly believed there was no higher calling than to, quote, live my life for only Jesus. End quote. So I entered the convent at 21 years old. Wow.
After about nine months, I decided to leave, which is fairly common in the first couple of years as young women are figuring out if it's truly a good fit. It takes seven to ten years total, depending on the order, to be a fully vowed religious sister in the Catholic Church. About 90% of my days were spent in silence, prayers, and work around the convent.
Meals were eaten in silence, sometimes with a reading, unless it was a special celebration day.
That's my out. I can't eat in silence.
No way. It's giving me agita just describing Nicole's experience. In the order I entered, it's a teaching order, so all the sisters teach in schools around the country. You keep a really rigid schedule of prayers, reading, and recreation, which is sometimes playing sports like Ultimate Frisbee outside. What?
What? Nuns playing Ultimate Frisbee. They're like, you absolutely have to. You have to pray. Jesus loves Ultimate Frisbee.
And you can see right over there, he's playing. Or board games. Overall, there was a lot. See, now I'm back in for the board games. Overall, there was a lot of beauty in the life. As a person who likes alone time, I don't mind not talking to people all day. But I ultimately decided for many obvious reasons that the life wasn't for me.
And years later, decided high control religion wasn't for me either. For more obvious reasons. Thank you, ladies and the whole team, for making a podcast that makes me and so many people feel understood and like they're talking to a friend. You've gotten me through bouts of postpartum, cross-country moves, raising four kids. Wow. And then in parentheses it says, yes, it's a lot of kids.
Religious deconstruction and so much more. Wow. You've done so much good in the world with wit, humor, and discussing hard topics. Thank you for being you and sharing it. Stay sexy and don't enter the convent. Oh, my God. Nicole.
What does Nicole do now, I wonder? It's just such a vast array of life experience. Yeah. It's fascinating.
Yeah.
Wow, that is, I love that we asked for that and then someone was like, here, I'll tell you all of my personal business. I love it. Thank you kindly. Good job.
My last one is short. It's called My Klepto Dad. A very, very short read. After the mini-sale with the klepto-grandma, remember there was a grandma who kept fucking putting shit in her purse, I am officially joining the Finally I Have Something to Write In About Club.
In the first 10 years of my life, I received various trinkets from my dad, things from shops, airplanes, anywhere and everywhere, and he always told me that the ladies gave them to him. The ladies. I was really fond of these nice ladies until I got older and realized that all this stuff was stolen. Oh, no.
What?
We have many, many airplane blankets, various sets of airplane spoons, and other random items from the ladies. Yeah. Love you. Blah, blah, blah. Aggie from Hungary.
Aggie, hi from Hungary. Hi. All the way to Hungary. First of all, amazing and cool. Secondly, the last time I was on a plane, I was getting ready to steal. Maybe it was a spoon or something that was so distinct and cool. And I was like... As I was like, don't do it, do it, don't do it. Do it. The flight attendant came and took my tray away. I was like, okay, she can tell.
Like, I think people probably get these all the time. But you deserve it. I mean, I earned it. You did. But that feeling of like... There's a real, Aggie just really like drew a little, wrote a little short story about like when your heart first breaks as a child because you're like, oh, I thought you guys were superhuman.
Yeah. And you've been lying to me.
You've been lying and stealing.
Okay, here's my last one.
For weddings, one bride, all drama. Hey ladies, I've written in a few times with no luck, but when you asked for wedding slash family drama stories, I knew this was my moment. My oldest cousin, Jen, and then in parentheses it says names changed, has been married four times. And each wedding has had its own special crises and a lot of drama.
I can already tell this is going to be a long one, so I'll just get into it. Four times. Four times. No judgment, but... That's a lot. That's very optimistic. Yeah. It's very like non-cynical, keeping it clean. Totally. Just keeping it running. Fine. Okay, fine. Goodbye. Next. You there. Wedding one. At the first wedding, I was the drama. And then it has a little devil face emoji.
I love the admittance of that. Yeah. But I still maintain that it was not my fault. For context, I was two. The wedding was in Jamaica. It was my first time on a plane and my mom was staying home with my newborn sister, making it also the first time I'd been away from her.
There's no reason for a fucking two-year-old to travel for a wedding.
Without her primary. No, absolutely not. According to multiple sources, it says my dad, grandma, aunts and uncles, I was a nightmare the entire time and through a full temper tantrum during this ceremony.
Oh, God.
Over 20 years later, my relatives will still make fun of me for ruining the wedding, even though the marriage didn't even last long enough for the marriage license to make it back to the States.
Oh, my God. Immediate divorce.
Oh, you got to wonder. And then it says, I don't think that's on me. No. Wedding two. Clearly, I hadn't been too big of an issue at the first wedding because guess who got to be a junior bridesmaid at the second one? I can't confirm this, but I'm pretty sure that this wedding was the final straw in my aunt and uncle, like a different aunt and uncle's divorce.
Uncle John had a bit too much to drink and was dancing very close to several women, none of whom were his wife. They left early, divorced soon after, and Uncle John never came to another family gathering except for to pick up his kids.
Ooh.
They had been on the outs for a while, so no real surprise, but the timing and the kind of drama of it kind of overshadowed the new marriage, which also did not last long. Wedding three. This wedding was actually very pleasant. It was on a river ferry that took us all on a nice cruise with the ceremony, dinner and dancing all on board.
We all thought Jen had finally had a drama-free wedding until their divorce a few years later when we learned that it wasn't a wedding at all. They had never filed the paperwork to get legally married and had lied to everyone to get a bunch of gifts and make it less of a thing. And then in parentheses, Catholic family. Whoa. When they started having kids. Got it. Wow.
Needless to say, my family was pissed with some relatives even demanding their gifts. Damn. You want the ice bucket back, really? That Cuisinart.
Yes, I want my fucking Cuisinart back.
You already have one, but okay.
Jesus wants me to have my fucking Cuisinart back.
Jesus is pissed, and I'm on behalf, on his behalf, waiting for. Oh, God. After the scam that was wedding number three, everyone was understandably very, I fucking love this woman.
She's just like, okay, yes, that happened. But this one I promise is real.
Get up every morning and go try to get married again and just figure it out. After the scam that was wedding number three, everyone was understandably wary of wedding number four. The fact that Jen and hubby four decided to move forward with a wedding in the summer of 2020, despite the whole pandemic thing, didn't help matters either.
She and hubby four are very conservative and they don't believe in vaccines, despite both working in the health care industry. Right. What?
When Jen found out that my parents and some other relatives would not be attending largely because of safety, but also because we all had long since fulfilled our familial wedding duties, she wrote us all an email explaining how none of her three divorces were her fault. And then in parentheses it says, not true. Yeah. And then number four would be different. Parentheses. It wasn't.
Oh, God, I love family drama.
She failed to change any of our minds and had a much smaller wedding than anticipated. You can't, after the act on wedding three, you cannot expect people to go in on wedding four.
No. Attending is a favor. And then don't expect gifts. I've gotten you three gifts already.
Go to a beach with two friends and a deacon and get it done. Send everybody a picture. Okay. She failed to change any of our minds and had a much smaller wedding than anticipated. She is still mad about this and will bring it up passive-aggressively whenever she can at family gatherings.
Oh, I love her.
I love her. The audacity. Yeah. It's really an unapologetic life. Yeah. God bless. Whatever, Jen, I can be passive-aggressive too and air my grievances on my favorite podcast. Yes. I mean, why not? Yeah. Also, Mystery Jen, it's not Jen's real name, is totally free and welcome to write in, say, their side of the story. Yeah. Just argue for love. Thanks for listening to all that.
Also, what am I doing in 2025? I'm getting married. You heard that right. The screaming toddler turned junior bridesmaid turned non-attendee is all grown up. My fiance is the kindest, most emotionally intelligent, wonderful man I know, and I can't wait to marry him. That's really nice.
Though I have every expectation to be one and done with my own wedding, I'm sure I'll still have plenty of drama for my next email. Thank you for all you do to advocate for victims and tell important stories in a fair and balanced way. Katie, she, her. Wow, Katie. Katie, you nailed it.
Your aunt's probably fun to party with, though.
I mean, I think that's a big part of all of it.
Have you seen those videos from like the holidays where they're like, they go around the room and say, hey, if you were bringing someone new to the family gathering, who would you warn them about? And everyone says one person. It's always the one person.
Jen.
Yep, it's Jen. That's the energy it gave me.
Completely. I mean, and it is the thing of, you know, in families when there's like there's the every go, everybody goes into their roles and then there's the scapegoats and all the family psychology. So we'll leave it open door for Jen. And what if she's just in the most fucked family and she's actual that actually the true.
The one who doesn't get believe in vaccinations. Right. I'm going to guess no. What's there to believe in? It exists, and whether or not you believe in it.
It exists and has been working for 100 years and is the way. And now that people have stopped doing it, immediately there are bad results from that, a.k.a. science.
It doesn't need you believing in it. Okay. Hey, send us your stories at MyFavoriteMurder at Gmail. Hey, choir that we love to preach to.
You know us. Hi.
Thanks for listening.
Thanks for your family. Any kind of small time family drama, I'm telling you.
Tell us about the person that you would warn other people about if they came to your family party and tell us why. Yeah. Everything about like what they've done. Yes. All the things they've ruined. Like lightheartedly.
Yes. Fun times. Fun, but hilarious. Casey, one of the producers here who's also now a co-host on Dear Movies, I Love You, told the story on the staff meeting about his uncle who used to carry a bird in his pocket.
Remember that? I was like, this is the best story I've ever heard in my life.
Okay. We got to hear those stories. Yeah. And also stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye.
Elvis, do you want a cookie?
This has been an Exactly Right production.
Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck. Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo. This episode was mixed by Liana Squalacci.
Email your hometowns to myfavoritemurder at gmail.com.
And follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at My Favorite Murder. Goodbye.