February 8, 2021 • 23 mins
This week’s hometowns include a near-death experience in a bounce house and another Lizzie Borden connection.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Love. Hello, Hello, and welcome to my favorite Murder the minisode.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
That's Karen kil Geraff. That's Georgia Heartstar. Hi.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Are you ready to hear your emails read back to you?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Biosh? Let's do it? Can I go first?
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Sure?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Okay?
Speaker 3 (00:31):
The subject lind of this is I have a Lizzie
Borden thing you might not know. Hi, Karen and Georgia
and Stephen and Pets. I just finished listening to MINNISO
two eleven and knew I had to write in with
my own Lizzie Bordent tie because there's a part of
her story that never gets told and I'm freaking obsessed with.
I was born and raised in New England and grew
up surrounded by creepy graveyards, which museums, and countless stories
(00:56):
of gory, supernatural happenings in the shadows of play I walked.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Past every day. Dude, I take me there.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
I love it here and I love our macabre legacy.
Ever since I was a little child, my grandfather has
enthralled me with tales of our family's own twisted history,
going all the way back to the sixteen hundreds and
Thomas Cornell, a common ancestor, I happened to share with
confounding figures like Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon and Bill Gates
(01:23):
and Lizzie Borden. But I'll get there in a second.
So this is just name.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Drop brag, name drop brag. Okay.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
In sixteen seventy three, Thomas's wife, So we're talking about
Thomas Cornell, their distant relative. Thomas's wife, Rebecca was found
dead before the fireplace, apparently burned to death. Rebecca was
an old crow at this point, apparently apparently disliked by many,
including her own son, Thomas Junior. The story goes that
that very night, she had refused to dine with the
(01:53):
rest of the family because she heard they were serving
fish kell.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
When Thomas found her later to a crisp on the floor,
it was widely assumed that she had fallen asleep too
close to the flames and an emberor had ignited her clothing. Oops,
but believable enough, that is, until Rebecca's brother was visited
by her ghost in a dream. He then demanded her
corpse be exhumed and re examined, and as it turned out,
(02:20):
the original examiner had failed to notice a huge gash
in Rebecca's stomach. Suddenly the story changed. Rather than falling
into the fire in her old age, Rebecca had been
viciously murdered by her own son, desperate to get an
early grab at his own inheritance. He must have burned
the body to cover up his crimes. The case went
(02:40):
to court and Thomas Junior was convicted of matricide, the
very first.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Case in American history.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Whoa He was sentenced to hang on the testimony of
a ghost, and not even a ghost who showed up
for the trial, but who supposedly visited her brother in
a dream. About twenty years later, this case would be
referenced in support of spectral evidence for use in court
cases during the Salem Frickin witch trials. No, that's really funny.
(03:06):
I didn't even think about the fact that this case
was before the Salem witch trials.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
That's how old it is. That's crazy.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
After Tom Junior was hanged, his wife gave birth to
their seventh child, a girl she named Innocent in honor
of her husband, who she believed to be innocent. Innocent
Cornell would grow up to marry Richard Borden, and together
they had six children, including Lizzie's dear grandmother. My grandfather
has spent his retirement compiling evidence from both Thomas Junior
(03:36):
and Lizzie Borden's court cases and will tell the story
to literally anyone he meets, a true old fashioned murdering out. Yes, Grandpa,
so Lizzie wasn't the first in the family to be
put on trial for murder. She was the first to
get away with it though, and yes, I fully believe
she did it. Sorry this was so long, but I
hope you enjoyed the story. Stay sexy and don't murder
(03:58):
your mother.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Alex. Wow, what a crazy story.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
I mean, we learned so many things, But why can't
like someone else just be like, well, I had a
dream last night where the ghosts of so AND's Okay,
like everyone could do that then, which is probably why
they don't think it could.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
But well, I mean they could, but then, yeah, that's
that's probably why.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
But then, having exhumed the body.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
And actually sound evident, I think that's that was really
the keys. Okay, you can't just go like I had
a dream I was in my old high school and
it turns out I'm innocent.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Doesn't work that way. That was a that was a
good one. Okay, this one is I was. Yeah, this
one's I nearly died in a bounce house. Oh shit,
high murder and mayhem, Queen's and associates. When I heard
your request for ballpit stories, I knew I had to
share this cautionary tale. I too was a childhood ball
pit treasure hunter. Mostly mostly used band aids down there.
(04:54):
Oh no, that's a great little to admit. However, this
is not a story of up all pits, but rather
their more dangerous cousin the bounce house. When I was
in my early twenties, I had an older friend see
who had the most epic backyard parties bonfires, music, free
flowing booze and weed. It was great. One summer, he
(05:15):
rented a bounce house for his young son's birthday party.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
That night, the.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Birthday boy was at his mom's house, so she thought
it would be a great idea to throw another rager
with the bounce house as the main attraction for the adults.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Nice. Sure, I was stoked.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
I hadn't been in a bounce house since childhood, so
after a few drinks, I decided to check it out
with some friends. By this time, the bounce house had
seen quite a lot quite a lot of action and
had started to deflate. It was also pretty dark outside,
and that, combined with a couple beers and a touch
of pot, made it a disorienting experience. Before I knew it,
I was thrown face first into the deflating space between
(05:50):
the wall of the bounce house and the inflated surface.
I was a scrawny twenty three year old weakling and
was completely pinned face down. On was at my side.
As much as I struggled, I could not pull free
or shout for help. As I struggled for air, my
vision began to dim and the panic set in. Just
(06:11):
as I was about to resign to my fate of
death by bounce house, an arm shot out of nowhere
and yanked me back to the surface. My dear sober
friend Ben had noticed my legs sticking out of the
crevice and literally sprang into action, likely saving my life.
Safe to say, that was my last bounce house adventure.
Not sure what ended up happening with the bounce house,
(06:32):
but I'm pretty sure See did not get his deposit back.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Love you, ladies.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
I started listening to MFM at the start of the
pandemic and just caught up today. Thank you for all
that you do. Stay safe and don't bounce drunk, Alex
she hers.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
That's all. That's two alex is in a row. Oh weird.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Very good advice though, Yeah, because I it was making
me laugh because it's bad. I've been in bounce houses
with kids, like someone saying, come with me, and then
you kind of get in there, but you stand on
the side like a weird adult, like I didn't want
to be in there, but it was like probably Nora.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Or someone like that.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
But yeah, there is a spot where you just should
not go near it because the sides are the dangerous
and then you kind of have no one really says that.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
You have no control really over like you just want
to stand there, but you can't.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
It's I'm not.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
No, you gotta It's almost like you gotta jump around.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
That's the safest.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Yeah, you can't hang and act like casual and like
be a wallflower and be cool.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
You can't be cool about it or you'll die.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Like the idea that that person was going to drown,
Yeah in a bounce house, can you imagine?
Speaker 2 (07:40):
And no one would like know by drowning.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Yeah, no, and but then your body's found, it wrecks
the whole party. Okay, I'm not going to read you
the subject line of this one. It just starts MFM crew,
longtime listener, first time writer, blah blah blah. Since we're
sending all types of stories at this point, here you go.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
So it was two thousand and fourish.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
I was in high school and it was MLK Day,
so naturally, my parents were working and I was home
with my probably ten year old brother and his best friend,
who was our neighbor. In typical teenage girl fashion, I
was up in my room, which was hot pink and
lime green gross, I disagree, talking on the phone with
(08:26):
one of my friends casual, when all of a sudden,
my brother runs into the room and says, and then
it's in all caps, I need the phone. Without even
turning my head to look at him, I just said, no,
I'm on it. Also, it was clearly my cell phone
and we had a house phone. He could have just
used that whatever. I'm clearly over it anyway, he persisted.
(08:47):
So I turned to look at him, and he is
covered in soot, to which I replied, what did you do?
Before telling him my friend I gotta go. It was
then that I noticed the soot footprints led up the
stairs and followed them into the living room, where it
looked like he had paced six circles around the room
before coming to tell me that he had all caps
(09:09):
lit the neighbor's yard on fire. I was real, okay,
soot footprints everywhere. He and his friend were playing with fireworks.
Of course parentheses. Clearly I was a great babysitter, and
one shot two yards over and immediately burst the very
(09:33):
dry grass into flames.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
It's so dangerous, But children playing with fireworks was just
the norm at summit like this.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
It's what they're fucking for you.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
It's to make fireworks and then be like, kids aren't
allowed to play with them, So what old people are
supposed to play with fireworks?
Speaker 2 (09:54):
It's four kids.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
They're about kids, Their children are drawn to them. But
the idea that they lit off like a fucking piccolo
pete thinking they knew exactly the depth and breadth of
the power of this thing, and then it just flew away.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
My favorite, i mean favorite visual of this is the
footprints of the kid clearly going what.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
Do I do?
Speaker 2 (10:14):
What do I do? What do I do circle head
beat me.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Up lighting a cigarette. Uh So the fire engulfed three
quarters of their backyard, but didn't get to the house
because my brother and a bunch of other neighborhood kids
brought out all their hoses to put the fire out themselves. Yes,
they banded together. By the time the fire department got there,
the only remnant was a big black circle of soot.
(10:42):
My dad had to take my brother to a weekly
fire prevention class after that, and the neighbor had the
greenest grass next year. You're welcome, stay sexy, and don't
play with fireworks at least in the winter.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Kendall, Oh my god, that's so good.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
My cousin, my older cousin, Mitch, when he was a kid,
so he's older than me though, he like set his
family's kitchen on fire. They were doing the trick where
you flick matches, you know, you'd light them and flick
them at the same time. Yeah, fucking dishtowel burst into flames.
The whole kitchen up, burn down. They had to like
completely gut the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Oh my god. Like they had to escape from where
they were standing.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
And now he sees financial advisor, so he got a
shit together at least.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Or did he?
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Or did he could still be a pyromaniac who knows
it could be a complete Yeah, all right, this is
a surprise in the wall story. Hi, MFM fan. I
started listening to your podcast at the beginning of Quarantine
last year, and this week I came upon the episode
where you asked people to send in things they found
hidden in walls. I have a non murdery but still
spooky finding for you. Some important dates and details. My
(11:49):
mom and dad moved into my childhood home in nineteen ninety,
divorced in two thousand, and my dad passed away in
two thousand and three. Even though they were divorced, my
dad just happened to be at my mom's house formerly
their shared house, visiting with us when he died suddenly
from a heart attack, which my sisters and eye witnessed.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Super traumatic. Yeah, so awful.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
In twenty fourteen ish, my mom's house flooded and they
had to rent o everything, floors, walls, mental capacity, et cetera.
My mom decided to turn her laundry room into another bathroom,
and when they got to the dry wall, they found
a note that my dad had written in sharpie that
read my dearest Andrea, may there never be any walls
between us? I love you, Wendel, I don't know, and
(12:34):
is dated November twenty third, nineteen ninety one, along with
some artistic scribbles from me at age two. So he
like brought his daughter in, was like, let's you leave
mammy a note.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
What did the mom do?
Speaker 1 (12:47):
The date on it, November twenty third, was the same
date that he died in the same house twelve years later. No,
we were all mind blown. The date being the same
just made it so much crazier. I hope this gave
you some chills and fuzzy feelings. Thanks for your company
during this lonely year.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Aubrey.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Oh, I didn't want to spoil those sad Oh. Sorry,
but I just thought as a woman who went through
all that and then found that, I just would think
she would have totally broken down.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
She probably did, God damn.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Yeah, it's possible tear jerker in the letter, but I
didn't want to spoil it. Total tear drink sweet. Yeah,
that's fine, beautiful. Yeah, I always write notes in walls everyone. Sorry,
that's why I didn't end on it.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
No, that's okay. I'm going back to a ball pit story. Yes, yes,
I love it. So we're going this is the sign
wave of the average.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Last one's funny too, so okay, but this is the
subject line is ballpits and accidentally justifying my mother's paranoia.
I was just listening to the hometown about ballpit scissors
and wanted to share my own ballpit story. For my
entire life, my mother has had this irrational fear of
people hiding dirty needles in random locations, hoping that someday
(14:10):
some unsuspecting victim would accidentally.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Get poked by one.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Dirty needles were potentially stashed everywhere and anywhere, and in
the bristles are the fuzzy things at the base of escalators.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Oh my god, that's just really funny.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
In the eighties, specific that like that these were hidden places.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Okay, go on dirty needles, because it was it was
a kind of aftermath of the AIDS epidemic, whereas like
that was another way you could get it. But the
idea of that they would be how much time do
you spend in the fuzzy things at the bottom of escalators?
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Like that's when you're said, it's like half your mall
trip is trying to figure out how the escalator works.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Yeah, that's true. True, So they're in coin returns lots. Yes,
the slots, the slots between section, those plastic slides, the
demo shoes you could try on at the store.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
You guessed it. Ball pits. Those are so fucking specific.
I love it. The poor mom was just like, didn't sleep.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
She just didn't want a surprise, bad thing to happen.
That's really what I'm reading from all this. For little
kid me, this was a real buzzkill, as I've had
quite a few as I have quite a few memories
of sitting out and watching my friends play and a
potentially needle infested ballpit that my mother so graciously protected
me from. Fast forward to me being fifteen working my
(15:29):
first job in the Midwest at an all in one funplex.
Oh my god, you know the big warehouses laser tag
and bowling and roller rinks and bad pizza. Anyways, this
warehouse had a massive ballpit that had a big jungle
gym in the center and you could jump from it
into the ball Oh my god, that's amazing. Once a year,
the whole staff would come in on the day that
(15:50):
we were closed and we would empty the ball pit
to clean it, so at least this place cleaned it
once a year.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
What I said, No, that's not enough friends for Christmas,
for Christmas, to get a Christmas bonus? Is there's change
at the bottom of a fucking ball pit? Ye, and
keep it whatever you can pick up? Yeap coins? You
heard me once a year?
Speaker 3 (16:14):
And then in uh, what are those little things called
at gags?
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Yeah, have two asterisks gags? Completely correct.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Well, guess what we found at the bottom of the ballpit?
Not one, not two, but three dirty needles, only two
of which were capped. I, given my history, was horrified,
even more so when my manager told me not to worry,
they usually find a few every year. I ended up
telling my mom thinking it was a fun Oh hey,
I guess you're right that dirty needles could be in ballpits.
(16:44):
And boy was that a mistake. Now her irrational needle
phobia has only been validated. No chance needles could have
fallen from someone's pocket into the ballpit by accident. She
is sure it was malicious, and she's on the lookout
now more than ever. Fast forward in a five years
and some friends of mine bought a facility with a
ball pit, and since I had previously told the story,
(17:05):
I was the first person alerted when they too emptied
the ball pit and found an uncapped needle. This this
second instance was not shared with my mother. So yeah,
ballpits danger game Lynn.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Who Wow, Like I would think maybe one in ten
ballpits once a year would have one.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
But that and all the time, that's fucking bananas.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
I mean it's like best case scenario, it's children with diabetes, yeah,
and that are just being irresponsible. But I would think
at that age the mom would be kind of standing by, like,
don't keep that in your pocket.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
All hold it, no, child, we don't keep your insulin
pen and you and you're just run.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Around with but who we don't know.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
And then but then then it's like that maybe also
there's just some heroin addicts that are like living free
and like.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Were when like goth kids would go to like the
play area or like I want saw like a dizzeyland,
like the goth kids were having their goth day. It's
like maybe they just went to a bault like a
chuck e Cheese once and played in the ballpit.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
But so you're saying goths are heroin.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
I'm saying, a goth kid with insulin with an insulin issue.
Oh oh, I don't know what I'm fucking saying. What
I'm saying is here's my last hometown. Okay, Okay, it
says hello, ladies, and then with a bunch of s's,
and then it says snake trigger warning. I just finished
listening to the Minnesota where the family was living on
top of a snake den and had to share my
(18:34):
snake story featuring my fearless and insane mother. I grew
up in Atlanta near the Chattahoochee River, which meant, particularly
in the warm months, that snakes were a pretty regular occurrence.
My mother, particularly my mother, considered herself a friend to
most snakes because they kept mice and vermin out of
her garden. True, but always had an eye out for
(18:56):
copperheads when we were children, because they had enough venom
to kill me and older brother.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Hi, does that mean me? Dottie's like, are we talking? Snake?
Next time? Come here?
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Dontia did try to fucking jump off the balcony to
It was very traumatic.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
So do do do do?
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Do?
Speaker 2 (19:17):
They were they were they could kill us?
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Anyways, Her favorite snake disposal method was chopping their heads
off with a shovel.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
If you think you wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Want to meet my mom in a dark alley, you
are correct. When I was in fourth grade and my
fancy as private school decided it was smart to dedicate
to entire months to a live action Oregon Trail game
where students were split into families that were that were
trying to travel from the east coast along the treacherous path.
(19:45):
You would roll the dice and see if your wagon
hinge broke or if you were facing a deadly snowstorm
or dying of dysentery.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Oh did you guys play that yet? Or was not yet?
Speaker 1 (19:56):
No?
Speaker 3 (19:56):
It was too old, so I missed. Orgon Trail was
like the like group behind me.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
That's me anyways.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
One way to win points that you could exchange for food, clothing,
or medicine was to make arts and crafts at home
to bring in and present to the class. Think wooden
spoon dolls or corn husk skirts. Then it says in parentheses,
I don't know if those are things, but I ran
out of examples. Someone on my team had recently suffered
a rattlesnake bite and I was in desperate need of
(20:25):
points to buy an elixir, so I went home begging
my mom to help.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
So that was like the dice they were.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Was pretend, okay, exactly good, good, good, being a sensible person.
My mom was pretty pissed off that instead of learning fractions,
this expensive school was teaching us how to be proper
domestic wives in the eighteen fifties.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Yeah true.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
She decided that the appropriate craft was actually not a
craft at all. Earlier that week, one of our dogs
had killed a copperhead, and trash day hadn't come around,
so that dead snake was sitting in our compost pile still.
My mother proceeded to chop its head off with a shovel,
put it into a piece of tupperware, and send it
(21:06):
to school with me the next day. I, being a
big fan of my mom's in a naive eight year.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Old thought this was a fabulous plan.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
You can imagine the scene when I stood up in
front of my entire fourth grade class and presented a
severed snake head to the teacher in charge that day,
proudly declaring that I brought the head of a snake
that bitten my had bit my teammate and pretend yeah,
the team makeup bitten by a rattle snake. She ran
Alixer yes, and the elixir was basically like the mom, going,
(21:35):
you want Alixer. I mean, here's little reality for you
in the organ trail. That's right, thank you. I'll leave
the chaos that ensued to y'all's imagination. But all in all,
I got the maximum number of points, a tea yes,
a teacher who threw up in the trash can, and
a strongly worded note sent home for my mother regarding
(21:56):
school policy on dismembered animals. Mom, she sounds rad but hey,
we successfully crossed the Oregon Trail. Thanks so much for
all that you do. I'm trying to work up the
courage to begin virtual therapy, and hearing both of you
discuss it so frequently and with such openness is deeply
meaningful to me.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Oh, stay, just.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Do it, Just just do it. It's fun, you'll love it.
Just do one and see how it goes, and bring
a snakehead with you.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
You'll be fine. You'll be fine.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
They're like, read this letter to her and she'll understand
what your childhood was like exactly.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
You don't have to sell the letter. Yeah, then that's it.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
My best friends told me to read you this letter
about my childhood. So to hear you, go stay sexy
and don't forget to terrify your teacher with a severed snakehead.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
E K.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Yes, yeah, tell.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
Your mom, we say hi, and that great parenting. Just
rad mom action. Also, it's like it's she's basically saying
that you get some reality into this strapid game. If
you're gonna do it, do it for real.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
I'm not sewing you some fucking stupid handkerchief that says
like them sucks on it. I'm fucking breaking off the
head of a rattlesnake. I'm teaching my daughter how to
do that for future happenings and sending it to.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
School her to make a teacher.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Yes, I mean that is mothering, which is probably why
neither of us have children.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
That's the real deal. All right, Well, that's that was
a great batch.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
I mean, that's it was everything you need to know
about surviving real life, whether it's staying away from the
walls of a bounce house, staying out off the bottom
of a ballpit.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Keep your needles out of your pockets. If you're going
to go in the ball pit, put them in the
safe needle before you go in.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
These are all great examples of the kind of stories
you want to hear from you too, So email us
at my Favorite Murder at Gmail, on our website My
Favorite Murder.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
We want to have your oh and don't get murdered. Goodbye,
bye Elvis. Do you want a cookie?
Love. Hello, Hello, and welcome to my favorite Murder the minisode.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
That's Karen kil Geraff. That's Georgia Heartstar. Hi.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Are you ready to hear your emails read back to you?
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Biosh? Let's do it? Can I go first?
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Sure?
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Okay?
Speaker 3 (00:31):
The subject lind of this is I have a Lizzie
Borden thing you might not know. Hi, Karen and Georgia
and Stephen and Pets. I just finished listening to MINNISO
two eleven and knew I had to write in with
my own Lizzie Bordent tie because there's a part of
her story that never gets told and I'm freaking obsessed with.
I was born and raised in New England and grew
up surrounded by creepy graveyards, which museums, and countless stories
(00:56):
of gory, supernatural happenings in the shadows of play I walked.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Past every day. Dude, I take me there.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
I love it here and I love our macabre legacy.
Ever since I was a little child, my grandfather has
enthralled me with tales of our family's own twisted history,
going all the way back to the sixteen hundreds and
Thomas Cornell, a common ancestor, I happened to share with
confounding figures like Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon and Bill Gates
(01:23):
and Lizzie Borden. But I'll get there in a second.
So this is just name.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Drop brag, name drop brag. Okay.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
In sixteen seventy three, Thomas's wife, So we're talking about
Thomas Cornell, their distant relative. Thomas's wife, Rebecca was found
dead before the fireplace, apparently burned to death. Rebecca was
an old crow at this point, apparently apparently disliked by many,
including her own son, Thomas Junior. The story goes that
that very night, she had refused to dine with the
(01:53):
rest of the family because she heard they were serving
fish kell.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
When Thomas found her later to a crisp on the floor,
it was widely assumed that she had fallen asleep too
close to the flames and an emberor had ignited her clothing. Oops,
but believable enough, that is, until Rebecca's brother was visited
by her ghost in a dream. He then demanded her
corpse be exhumed and re examined, and as it turned out,
(02:20):
the original examiner had failed to notice a huge gash
in Rebecca's stomach. Suddenly the story changed. Rather than falling
into the fire in her old age, Rebecca had been
viciously murdered by her own son, desperate to get an
early grab at his own inheritance. He must have burned
the body to cover up his crimes. The case went
(02:40):
to court and Thomas Junior was convicted of matricide, the
very first.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Case in American history.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Whoa He was sentenced to hang on the testimony of
a ghost, and not even a ghost who showed up
for the trial, but who supposedly visited her brother in
a dream. About twenty years later, this case would be
referenced in support of spectral evidence for use in court
cases during the Salem Frickin witch trials. No, that's really funny.
(03:06):
I didn't even think about the fact that this case
was before the Salem witch trials.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
That's how old it is. That's crazy.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
After Tom Junior was hanged, his wife gave birth to
their seventh child, a girl she named Innocent in honor
of her husband, who she believed to be innocent. Innocent
Cornell would grow up to marry Richard Borden, and together
they had six children, including Lizzie's dear grandmother. My grandfather
has spent his retirement compiling evidence from both Thomas Junior
(03:36):
and Lizzie Borden's court cases and will tell the story
to literally anyone he meets, a true old fashioned murdering out. Yes, Grandpa,
so Lizzie wasn't the first in the family to be
put on trial for murder. She was the first to
get away with it though, and yes, I fully believe
she did it. Sorry this was so long, but I
hope you enjoyed the story. Stay sexy and don't murder
(03:58):
your mother.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Alex. Wow, what a crazy story.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
I mean, we learned so many things, But why can't
like someone else just be like, well, I had a
dream last night where the ghosts of so AND's Okay,
like everyone could do that then, which is probably why
they don't think it could.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
But well, I mean they could, but then, yeah, that's
that's probably why.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
But then, having exhumed the body.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
And actually sound evident, I think that's that was really
the keys. Okay, you can't just go like I had
a dream I was in my old high school and
it turns out I'm innocent.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Doesn't work that way. That was a that was a
good one. Okay, this one is I was. Yeah, this
one's I nearly died in a bounce house. Oh shit,
high murder and mayhem, Queen's and associates. When I heard
your request for ballpit stories, I knew I had to
share this cautionary tale. I too was a childhood ball
pit treasure hunter. Mostly mostly used band aids down there.
(04:54):
Oh no, that's a great little to admit. However, this
is not a story of up all pits, but rather
their more dangerous cousin the bounce house. When I was
in my early twenties, I had an older friend see
who had the most epic backyard parties bonfires, music, free
flowing booze and weed. It was great. One summer, he
(05:15):
rented a bounce house for his young son's birthday party.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
That night, the.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Birthday boy was at his mom's house, so she thought
it would be a great idea to throw another rager
with the bounce house as the main attraction for the adults.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Nice. Sure, I was stoked.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
I hadn't been in a bounce house since childhood, so
after a few drinks, I decided to check it out
with some friends. By this time, the bounce house had
seen quite a lot quite a lot of action and
had started to deflate. It was also pretty dark outside,
and that, combined with a couple beers and a touch
of pot, made it a disorienting experience. Before I knew it,
I was thrown face first into the deflating space between
(05:50):
the wall of the bounce house and the inflated surface.
I was a scrawny twenty three year old weakling and
was completely pinned face down. On was at my side.
As much as I struggled, I could not pull free
or shout for help. As I struggled for air, my
vision began to dim and the panic set in. Just
(06:11):
as I was about to resign to my fate of
death by bounce house, an arm shot out of nowhere
and yanked me back to the surface. My dear sober
friend Ben had noticed my legs sticking out of the
crevice and literally sprang into action, likely saving my life.
Safe to say, that was my last bounce house adventure.
Not sure what ended up happening with the bounce house,
(06:32):
but I'm pretty sure See did not get his deposit back.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Love you, ladies.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
I started listening to MFM at the start of the
pandemic and just caught up today. Thank you for all
that you do. Stay safe and don't bounce drunk, Alex
she hers.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
That's all. That's two alex is in a row. Oh weird.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Very good advice though, Yeah, because I it was making
me laugh because it's bad. I've been in bounce houses
with kids, like someone saying, come with me, and then
you kind of get in there, but you stand on
the side like a weird adult, like I didn't want
to be in there, but it was like probably Nora.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Or someone like that.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
But yeah, there is a spot where you just should
not go near it because the sides are the dangerous
and then you kind of have no one really says that.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
You have no control really over like you just want
to stand there, but you can't.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
It's I'm not.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
No, you gotta It's almost like you gotta jump around.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
That's the safest.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Yeah, you can't hang and act like casual and like
be a wallflower and be cool.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
You can't be cool about it or you'll die.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Like the idea that that person was going to drown,
Yeah in a bounce house, can you imagine?
Speaker 2 (07:40):
And no one would like know by drowning.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Yeah, no, and but then your body's found, it wrecks
the whole party. Okay, I'm not going to read you
the subject line of this one. It just starts MFM crew,
longtime listener, first time writer, blah blah blah. Since we're
sending all types of stories at this point, here you go.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
So it was two thousand and fourish.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
I was in high school and it was MLK Day,
so naturally, my parents were working and I was home
with my probably ten year old brother and his best friend,
who was our neighbor. In typical teenage girl fashion, I
was up in my room, which was hot pink and
lime green gross, I disagree, talking on the phone with
(08:26):
one of my friends casual, when all of a sudden,
my brother runs into the room and says, and then
it's in all caps, I need the phone. Without even
turning my head to look at him, I just said, no,
I'm on it. Also, it was clearly my cell phone
and we had a house phone. He could have just
used that whatever. I'm clearly over it anyway, he persisted.
(08:47):
So I turned to look at him, and he is
covered in soot, to which I replied, what did you do?
Before telling him my friend I gotta go. It was
then that I noticed the soot footprints led up the
stairs and followed them into the living room, where it
looked like he had paced six circles around the room
before coming to tell me that he had all caps
(09:09):
lit the neighbor's yard on fire. I was real, okay,
soot footprints everywhere. He and his friend were playing with fireworks.
Of course parentheses. Clearly I was a great babysitter, and
one shot two yards over and immediately burst the very
(09:33):
dry grass into flames.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
It's so dangerous, But children playing with fireworks was just
the norm at summit like this.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
It's what they're fucking for you.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
It's to make fireworks and then be like, kids aren't
allowed to play with them, So what old people are
supposed to play with fireworks?
Speaker 2 (09:54):
It's four kids.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
They're about kids, Their children are drawn to them. But
the idea that they lit off like a fucking piccolo
pete thinking they knew exactly the depth and breadth of
the power of this thing, and then it just flew away.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
My favorite, i mean favorite visual of this is the
footprints of the kid clearly going what.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
Do I do?
Speaker 2 (10:14):
What do I do? What do I do circle head
beat me.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Up lighting a cigarette. Uh So the fire engulfed three
quarters of their backyard, but didn't get to the house
because my brother and a bunch of other neighborhood kids
brought out all their hoses to put the fire out themselves. Yes,
they banded together. By the time the fire department got there,
the only remnant was a big black circle of soot.
(10:42):
My dad had to take my brother to a weekly
fire prevention class after that, and the neighbor had the
greenest grass next year. You're welcome, stay sexy, and don't
play with fireworks at least in the winter.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Kendall, Oh my god, that's so good.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
My cousin, my older cousin, Mitch, when he was a kid,
so he's older than me though, he like set his
family's kitchen on fire. They were doing the trick where
you flick matches, you know, you'd light them and flick
them at the same time. Yeah, fucking dishtowel burst into flames.
The whole kitchen up, burn down. They had to like
completely gut the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Oh my god. Like they had to escape from where
they were standing.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
And now he sees financial advisor, so he got a
shit together at least.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Or did he?
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Or did he could still be a pyromaniac who knows
it could be a complete Yeah, all right, this is
a surprise in the wall story. Hi, MFM fan. I
started listening to your podcast at the beginning of Quarantine
last year, and this week I came upon the episode
where you asked people to send in things they found
hidden in walls. I have a non murdery but still
spooky finding for you. Some important dates and details. My
(11:49):
mom and dad moved into my childhood home in nineteen ninety,
divorced in two thousand, and my dad passed away in
two thousand and three. Even though they were divorced, my
dad just happened to be at my mom's house formerly
their shared house, visiting with us when he died suddenly
from a heart attack, which my sisters and eye witnessed.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Super traumatic. Yeah, so awful.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
In twenty fourteen ish, my mom's house flooded and they
had to rent o everything, floors, walls, mental capacity, et cetera.
My mom decided to turn her laundry room into another bathroom,
and when they got to the dry wall, they found
a note that my dad had written in sharpie that
read my dearest Andrea, may there never be any walls
between us? I love you, Wendel, I don't know, and
(12:34):
is dated November twenty third, nineteen ninety one, along with
some artistic scribbles from me at age two. So he
like brought his daughter in, was like, let's you leave
mammy a note.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
What did the mom do?
Speaker 1 (12:47):
The date on it, November twenty third, was the same
date that he died in the same house twelve years later. No,
we were all mind blown. The date being the same
just made it so much crazier. I hope this gave
you some chills and fuzzy feelings. Thanks for your company
during this lonely year.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
Aubrey.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Oh, I didn't want to spoil those sad Oh. Sorry,
but I just thought as a woman who went through
all that and then found that, I just would think
she would have totally broken down.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
She probably did, God damn.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Yeah, it's possible tear jerker in the letter, but I
didn't want to spoil it. Total tear drink sweet. Yeah,
that's fine, beautiful. Yeah, I always write notes in walls everyone. Sorry,
that's why I didn't end on it.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
No, that's okay. I'm going back to a ball pit story. Yes, yes,
I love it. So we're going this is the sign
wave of the average.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Last one's funny too, so okay, but this is the
subject line is ballpits and accidentally justifying my mother's paranoia.
I was just listening to the hometown about ballpit scissors
and wanted to share my own ballpit story. For my
entire life, my mother has had this irrational fear of
people hiding dirty needles in random locations, hoping that someday
(14:10):
some unsuspecting victim would accidentally.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Get poked by one.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Dirty needles were potentially stashed everywhere and anywhere, and in
the bristles are the fuzzy things at the base of escalators.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Oh my god, that's just really funny.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
In the eighties, specific that like that these were hidden places.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Okay, go on dirty needles, because it was it was
a kind of aftermath of the AIDS epidemic, whereas like
that was another way you could get it. But the
idea of that they would be how much time do
you spend in the fuzzy things at the bottom of escalators?
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Like that's when you're said, it's like half your mall
trip is trying to figure out how the escalator works.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Yeah, that's true. True, So they're in coin returns lots. Yes,
the slots, the slots between section, those plastic slides, the
demo shoes you could try on at the store.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
You guessed it. Ball pits. Those are so fucking specific.
I love it. The poor mom was just like, didn't sleep.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
She just didn't want a surprise, bad thing to happen.
That's really what I'm reading from all this. For little
kid me, this was a real buzzkill, as I've had
quite a few as I have quite a few memories
of sitting out and watching my friends play and a
potentially needle infested ballpit that my mother so graciously protected
me from. Fast forward to me being fifteen working my
(15:29):
first job in the Midwest at an all in one funplex.
Oh my god, you know the big warehouses laser tag
and bowling and roller rinks and bad pizza. Anyways, this
warehouse had a massive ballpit that had a big jungle
gym in the center and you could jump from it
into the ball Oh my god, that's amazing. Once a year,
the whole staff would come in on the day that
(15:50):
we were closed and we would empty the ball pit
to clean it, so at least this place cleaned it
once a year.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
What I said, No, that's not enough friends for Christmas,
for Christmas, to get a Christmas bonus? Is there's change
at the bottom of a fucking ball pit? Ye, and
keep it whatever you can pick up? Yeap coins? You
heard me once a year?
Speaker 3 (16:14):
And then in uh, what are those little things called
at gags?
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Yeah, have two asterisks gags? Completely correct.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Well, guess what we found at the bottom of the ballpit?
Not one, not two, but three dirty needles, only two
of which were capped. I, given my history, was horrified,
even more so when my manager told me not to worry,
they usually find a few every year. I ended up
telling my mom thinking it was a fun Oh hey,
I guess you're right that dirty needles could be in ballpits.
(16:44):
And boy was that a mistake. Now her irrational needle
phobia has only been validated. No chance needles could have
fallen from someone's pocket into the ballpit by accident. She
is sure it was malicious, and she's on the lookout
now more than ever. Fast forward in a five years
and some friends of mine bought a facility with a
ball pit, and since I had previously told the story,
(17:05):
I was the first person alerted when they too emptied
the ball pit and found an uncapped needle. This this
second instance was not shared with my mother. So yeah,
ballpits danger game Lynn.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Who Wow, Like I would think maybe one in ten
ballpits once a year would have one.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
But that and all the time, that's fucking bananas.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
I mean it's like best case scenario, it's children with diabetes, yeah,
and that are just being irresponsible. But I would think
at that age the mom would be kind of standing by, like,
don't keep that in your pocket.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
All hold it, no, child, we don't keep your insulin
pen and you and you're just run.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Around with but who we don't know.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
And then but then then it's like that maybe also
there's just some heroin addicts that are like living free
and like.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Were when like goth kids would go to like the
play area or like I want saw like a dizzeyland,
like the goth kids were having their goth day. It's
like maybe they just went to a bault like a
chuck e Cheese once and played in the ballpit.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
But so you're saying goths are heroin.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
I'm saying, a goth kid with insulin with an insulin issue.
Oh oh, I don't know what I'm fucking saying. What
I'm saying is here's my last hometown. Okay, Okay, it
says hello, ladies, and then with a bunch of s's,
and then it says snake trigger warning. I just finished
listening to the Minnesota where the family was living on
top of a snake den and had to share my
(18:34):
snake story featuring my fearless and insane mother. I grew
up in Atlanta near the Chattahoochee River, which meant, particularly
in the warm months, that snakes were a pretty regular occurrence.
My mother, particularly my mother, considered herself a friend to
most snakes because they kept mice and vermin out of
her garden. True, but always had an eye out for
(18:56):
copperheads when we were children, because they had enough venom
to kill me and older brother.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Hi, does that mean me? Dottie's like, are we talking? Snake?
Next time? Come here?
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Dontia did try to fucking jump off the balcony to
It was very traumatic.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
So do do do do?
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Do?
Speaker 2 (19:17):
They were they were they could kill us?
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Anyways, Her favorite snake disposal method was chopping their heads
off with a shovel.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
If you think you wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Want to meet my mom in a dark alley, you
are correct. When I was in fourth grade and my
fancy as private school decided it was smart to dedicate
to entire months to a live action Oregon Trail game
where students were split into families that were that were
trying to travel from the east coast along the treacherous path.
(19:45):
You would roll the dice and see if your wagon
hinge broke or if you were facing a deadly snowstorm
or dying of dysentery.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Oh did you guys play that yet? Or was not yet?
Speaker 1 (19:56):
No?
Speaker 3 (19:56):
It was too old, so I missed. Orgon Trail was
like the like group behind me.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
That's me anyways.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
One way to win points that you could exchange for food, clothing,
or medicine was to make arts and crafts at home
to bring in and present to the class. Think wooden
spoon dolls or corn husk skirts. Then it says in parentheses,
I don't know if those are things, but I ran
out of examples. Someone on my team had recently suffered
a rattlesnake bite and I was in desperate need of
(20:25):
points to buy an elixir, so I went home begging
my mom to help.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
So that was like the dice they were.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Was pretend, okay, exactly good, good, good, being a sensible person.
My mom was pretty pissed off that instead of learning fractions,
this expensive school was teaching us how to be proper
domestic wives in the eighteen fifties.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Yeah true.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
She decided that the appropriate craft was actually not a
craft at all. Earlier that week, one of our dogs
had killed a copperhead, and trash day hadn't come around,
so that dead snake was sitting in our compost pile still.
My mother proceeded to chop its head off with a shovel,
put it into a piece of tupperware, and send it
(21:06):
to school with me the next day. I, being a
big fan of my mom's in a naive eight year.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
Old thought this was a fabulous plan.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
You can imagine the scene when I stood up in
front of my entire fourth grade class and presented a
severed snake head to the teacher in charge that day,
proudly declaring that I brought the head of a snake
that bitten my had bit my teammate and pretend yeah,
the team makeup bitten by a rattle snake. She ran
Alixer yes, and the elixir was basically like the mom, going,
(21:35):
you want Alixer. I mean, here's little reality for you
in the organ trail. That's right, thank you. I'll leave
the chaos that ensued to y'all's imagination. But all in all,
I got the maximum number of points, a tea yes,
a teacher who threw up in the trash can, and
a strongly worded note sent home for my mother regarding
(21:56):
school policy on dismembered animals. Mom, she sounds rad but hey,
we successfully crossed the Oregon Trail. Thanks so much for
all that you do. I'm trying to work up the
courage to begin virtual therapy, and hearing both of you
discuss it so frequently and with such openness is deeply
meaningful to me.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
Oh, stay, just.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Do it, Just just do it. It's fun, you'll love it.
Just do one and see how it goes, and bring
a snakehead with you.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
You'll be fine. You'll be fine.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
They're like, read this letter to her and she'll understand
what your childhood was like exactly.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
You don't have to sell the letter. Yeah, then that's it.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
My best friends told me to read you this letter
about my childhood. So to hear you, go stay sexy
and don't forget to terrify your teacher with a severed snakehead.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
E K.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
Yes, yeah, tell.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
Your mom, we say hi, and that great parenting. Just
rad mom action. Also, it's like it's she's basically saying
that you get some reality into this strapid game. If
you're gonna do it, do it for real.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
I'm not sewing you some fucking stupid handkerchief that says
like them sucks on it. I'm fucking breaking off the
head of a rattlesnake. I'm teaching my daughter how to
do that for future happenings and sending it to.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
School her to make a teacher.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Yes, I mean that is mothering, which is probably why
neither of us have children.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
That's the real deal. All right, Well, that's that was
a great batch.
Speaker 3 (23:19):
I mean, that's it was everything you need to know
about surviving real life, whether it's staying away from the
walls of a bounce house, staying out off the bottom
of a ballpit.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Keep your needles out of your pockets. If you're going
to go in the ball pit, put them in the
safe needle before you go in.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
These are all great examples of the kind of stories
you want to hear from you too, So email us
at my Favorite Murder at Gmail, on our website My
Favorite Murder.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
We want to have your oh and don't get murdered. Goodbye,
bye Elvis. Do you want a cookie?
Hosts And Creators
Georgia Hardstark
Karen Kilgariff
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