June 13, 2022 • 21 mins
This week’s hometowns include a mom named Lorraine and baby teeth.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Hello, and welcome to my favorite Murder the miniesode, the
minisode that's being videoed for the fan cult.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
If you are part of the fan cult, you can
see what we're doing.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
You can see why the staccato style of speaking makes
perfect sense right now.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
It does. This is how we always talk. You've just
never known it because you don't get to your normally
see it.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
We're doing kind of like a eighties music video. Hand
gestures looks almost cheerleader ish. It's definitely like a Vogue
the type of thing. Oh yeah, I want me to start. Sure, Okay,
I'm not going to reach you. The title what's good?
MFM crew?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Fuck? Yeah, you're young. You asked for Found Drug Stories
a few minisodes, agh, and I've got a good one
for you. Oh awesome. I'm twenty six and still living
with my parents as I pursue my master's an illustration.
I worked from home over the course of the pandemic
and rarely left the house. So when my mom asked
(01:14):
if I'd like to get groceries with her, I don't
hesitate at the chance to have a change in scenery.
We live in a small town in Georgia where your
grocery store options are Walmart and the other Walmart. I
follow her into the bread aisle and my mom starts
reaching for a loaf when she kicks something with her foot. Ooh,
what's this, she exclaims as she reaches for the object
(01:35):
on the floor. As she stands up straight, I see
that she is holding a small, tightly sealed baggy full
of a white substance in her hands.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Now, I am the most vanilla wafer looking bitch on
the street, and I have never seen coke in my
whole life. But as I saw what my dear sweet
mother was holding, my inner murderina took over. As my
brain screamed cocaine. Before I could say anything, I slapped
the bag out of her hand and kicked it under
the shelf. My mom looked a little hurt with me,
(02:08):
but I grabbed her by the shoulders and steered her
out of the aisle as people started to stare at us.
But what was that? Why are you being that way?
She said loudly. Mom, that was straight up in eight
ball of cocaine. Hush, I hissed at her. We finished
our shopping and headed home for my mom to proudly
tell my dad she had seen cocaine, but the first time,
(02:31):
as she put the groceries away, the cops never came knocking.
So I guess slapping my mom's hand was the right move. Yes,
stay sexy and don't let your mom pick up drugs
at Walmart.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Kara, cocain, cocaine. Hush, hush, it's cocaine. See, that's kind
of genius, because that's the best possible thing you could
have done. It is just like, do not get involved.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah, I'd say, on the out, tell a worker where
it was so that a kid isn't the next person
to find it otherwise, and then keep walking. You'll just
stick around like someone else's problem.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
At this point, you could also walk around and find
the chill is looking cashier and then just be like,
we're pretty sure we found a bag.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Of coke and the red aisle. Hey man, you look cool.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Hey man, you seem chill, but also that you have
experienced with white drugs. Okay. My subject line is in
memoriam murdering No Grandma. My beloved and badass grandma Eleanor
recently died and my mom won't let me tell the
story at her memorial service, so I'm telling it here.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
This is the place to tell inappropriate fucking memorial stories, guys.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
And these are the people. We will sit in black
clothing with you know, nets across our face and our hands,
abrost in our laps and listen politely while you spill it.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Oh, that kind of makes me feel proud. Is like,
this is totally We have created a safe space to
tell inappropriate memorial stories that would be told at people's memorials. Yes,
I think that's lovely.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
That the rest of the family's like, let's not talk
about that.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Save it for your podcast, your podcast, friends, that's right,
Hush hush.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
But then members of your family that secretly already like
the podcast you like and they will hear it too,
that's right. That's how you'll know they're cool. When my
mom was fourteen, her family lived on a large lot
with a second, smaller house that they rented out in
between tenants. My grandpa placed a classified ad in the paper,
and a family husband, Jerry, wife two kids moved in.
(04:38):
Jerry was pretty friendly with the neighbors, dropping by to
talk at the front door parentheses, which Grandma found annoying.
Hanging out at the house of the local police officer
and going out of his way to make friends with
the officer's dog. He paid my mom twenty five cents
an hour to babysit his kids on several occasions and
would walk her home afterwards. Grandma put a stop to
(04:59):
the baby's eventually, as she thought my Mom was being underpaid.
The family moved out suddenly a few months later, and
Grandma thinks they may have even skipped out on their
last month's rent. Grandma and her friend June were tasked
with cleaning up the house for the next renters and
found some odd things, women's dresses and shoes too big
for the wife, various household goods, and pictures in a
(05:22):
kitchen drawer. June found these first and said, eleanor, these
are dirty pictures. They were flustered and worried that their
kids would see them, so they quickly threw the pictures
into the trash. I think they assumed they were run
of the mill porn, but Grandma later remembered seeing a
naked girl with her arms behind her back in one picture.
(05:43):
Six months later, the FBI came knocking on Grandma's front door.
Turns out Grandma's tenant was Jerry fucking Brutos, the serial
killer you covered in episode seventy nine, which one is
he He's the one that had the women's shoes, and
he had the bodies like his family was the house,
and he had women's bodies downstairs in the freezer, like
(06:04):
they weren't allowed to go downstairs, and he was obsessed
with feet and shoes. They're gonna tell us a little bit.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
About her right here, Okay, great, Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Other awful things. He dressed up in women's clothes to
lure women into his car, took pictures of his captives,
and kept body parts as souvenirs. The FBI dragged the
pond behind the house. Grandma always felt guilty that she
let her kids watch that process. Luckily, they didn't find
anything and gave Grandma a stern talking to about laws
requiring landlords to keep tenant property for at least six
(06:35):
months after they moved out. Guess they weren't happy that
all that evidence wound up in the trash.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Yeah, Grandma.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Grandma was pregnant with my youngest aunt at the time
all this happened. So when we reconstructed the timeline, it
appears Brutos lived on their property in between the last
known person he killed and when he was finally caught.
Not sure if this was when Grandma's interest in true
crime started, but I remember spending my teen summers at
her house, reading her true crime books and making my
(07:04):
own mental list of ways to evade killers. She was
a huge part of my life and inspired me to
live my best life and create my own best family.
As a badass single mom, stay sexy and give your
grandma's an extra hug, tam she her. Wow, that's too
close for comfort. I mean, a serial killer is your tenant? Yeah, horrifying.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Ooh. And that he's trying to make friends with the
police dog. Yeah right, it's gotta be like there was
a reason ooh yeah, yeah, crazy. This is called they
are watching us. Hello. Everyone who makes this podcast. Animals
included being an adult with ADHD. I'm going to do
(07:48):
my best to make the short and direct.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
You don't have to.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
You don't have to. They don't. By the way, it's okay.
Around twenty fifteen, I was living in an apartment in Pittsburgh.
I rented an apartment on the bottom floor of a
three apartment building. There were exactly three parking spots for
each tenant, so after a couple months of living there,
I was keen to the vehicles of the other tenants.
One day, after returning from work, I noticed a random
(08:14):
car in one of the tenants parking spots. I didn't
think much of it and went to get ready to
meet my boyfriend at the bar. After a couple hours
of drinking shitty beer and Jamison shots, I decided it
was time to go home. My boyfriend decided to stay,
so I ubered home and put myself to bed. At
around three am, I woke up to a man about
six feet tall who I had never seen before, standing
(08:35):
at the end of my bed, yelling we have to go.
They're watching us. I was completely disoriented and thought he
was telling me there was a fire. I for some
reason trusted him and followed him into the laundry room.
When we got there, he started pointing at different parts
of the room, saying, there's a camera there, a camera there,
a camera there, they're watching us. Realizing there were no cameras,
(08:58):
I suddenly snapped out of my phone and realized the
man was either on drugs or mentally ill. I ran
in my apartment, slammed the door, and realized the dead
bolt was actually not working. I sat in front of
the door and called the cops and my boyfriend while
the man knocked on my door yelling, they're gonna get you.
I was so terrified. I just sat there and shock.
Of course, my boyfriend got there before the cops and
(09:20):
saw the man and told him the cops were coming.
The man got into the random car I saw, meaning
he had been in the building for hours, and took off.
When the cops got there, the only thing they did
was let my dog out, which ran away due to
all of the drama, so after all of it, I
ended up running through the streets with no shoes on
to rescue my pup, while the cops proceeded to tell
(09:42):
my boyfriend they couldn't really do anything except write up
a report. Thanks anyway, Stay sexy, and always check to
make sure your locks actually work. Aarin, God, that's so scary.
It's so scary to think like she went with him
because she thought he was trying to help her, you know,
like kind of understandably.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
And also how did he get in there? It just
like because the dead bull didn't work, or did he
open it and break it.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
I don't know yeah, maybe, yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Scary, scary, scary. Yeah, I'm glad that turned out the
way it did, where it's just like and then you
could go back to your apartment and shut the door
and it's just a person who's clearly mentally ill. Right, that's.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Subject line of this one is a sinkhole story. Yeah, again,
just starts. I used to work for a haunted theater.
And then in parentheses it says plays in musicals.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Okay, haunted plays and musical. Got it.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
But that's not the craziest story the building has. The
building is over one hundred years old. In the eighties
and nineties it became a comedy club. A lot of
now famous comedians performed there. The entire theater was painted
and filled with homemade gadgets, almost like a chuck e cheese.
The former owner would be the opening act for every
comedian who performed. It's very common, very common. Unfortunately, what
(11:05):
that entailed was him performing a fifteen minute hip hop
breakdance woo yeah, local jokes, get local work. Apparently he
had won a dance competition in the eighties and decided
to ride that for everything that was worth sure. He
eventually got to the point where he was not running
(11:26):
the club properly and the business dwindled, so he turned
to the only logical solution, heroin. At one point, he
decided to burn the theater down for the insurance money.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Logic logical thoughts. Logical Heroin brings logical thoughts.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
That's right. He set the fire. It burned a hole
through the wall, and then caught the building next door
on fire and burned that down instead. By this point,
the business was obviously dead. He eventually disappeared and was
never heard from again. Soon after, a delivery semi truck
pulled into the parking lot behind the building, and then
(12:04):
the entire parking lot collapsed and turned into a fucking sinkhole.
It turns out the old owner had lost his house
but not the club, so he decided to dig tunnels
and rooms under where the parking lot was, and was
living there for a while and no one had any idea.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Holy shit.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
The city eventually came to fill the hole. Their solution
was to fill it with sand and then put a
piece of plywood over the hole. He used as the
entryway in the theater's basement, So if you ever moved
the piece of Plywood, which was not looking very stable
even when I worked there. Goodbye parking Lot. And then
it's just signed R.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Wow. I mean I didn't even need a sinkhole. That
was a really interesting story. And then sinkhole was like
the big the ending number of the song.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Yes, it was. It was kind of like if somebody
was telling me that story in a bar, I'd be like,
when they got to the sinkhole part, I'd be like, really,
come on.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
That's ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Are you just enjoying telling this story and just having attention?
Speaker 2 (13:10):
I wonder where he is now, crazy wild heroin.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
He's in a side tunnel that no one knows.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Waiting, yeah, waiting for his big break to come back,
dancing his ass off. Yeah. Okay, this one, my last
One's called nine year old saves neighborhood from local kidnapper.
And then it says under three minute read in the
subject line to like, let it know its perfect. It's
(13:38):
very smart, okay that it says, y'all are great. This
is long, but worth it. It's nineteen ninety two, I'm
around nine years old. We're in a suburb of Houston.
Think large trees, small starter homes built in the seventies.
The sound of cicadas and humidity is so dense you
can taste it. I rule the neighborhood with my turquoise
tense speed Huffy Massamo shirt and banged so thick I'm
(14:00):
practically sporting a bullet. One evening, as summer was slipping
into that false fall Houstonians get fooled by every year,
I found myself at Aaron's house, a friend who lived
across the street and about a dozen or so homes
down from mine. My parents had called and said it
was time for me to come home. I begrudgingly said
my goodbyes, headed outside and hopped helmetless onto my trusty
(14:23):
Huffy and wrote off. It was just past dusk. Street
lights had been on for a while. My usual que
to come back home, so I picked up the pace
a little as I contemplated whether or not I needed glasses,
I did. The street lights hazy and most objects ill defined.
I noticed in the distance the unmistakable, however fuzzy outline
(14:45):
of a man approaching from the other side of the street.
As he got closer, I could see he was wearing
a hoodie, carrying a flashlight and a small jacket a
budding murderino. I immediately thought, he's out looking for kids
to kidnap, and he's going to use that jacket to
disguise them, which makes sense. Put another jacket on them.
They're looking for a kid with a different outfit.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
On and there it's like, nope, just sweaty kids wearing
two jackets.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
At this point, he was still about ten yards ahead
of me, but was now making his way to the
middle of the street, as if to cross to the
other side and of course intercept me. No sooner had
I had this thought popped into my head, did he
look up lockeyes with me, lift his flashlight under his
face like he was going to tell me a ghost story,
and whisper, slash holler in a sickly sweet, dripping with
(15:35):
honey voice. Come here, little girl. I screeched that huffey
to a stop, whipped it around, and started pedaling as
fast as I could back to my friend's house, screaming
at the top of my lungs. Kidnapper, kidnapper, kidnapper, like
I was Paul fucking Revere. As I got to Aaron's
(15:55):
front yard, I flew off my bike, I recall it,
continuing to a roll. After my disc out and smashing
into her garage, I ran up to the front door
and started banging wildly while screaming, tears of fear welling
up in my eyes. Let me in, He's gonna take me.
The door swung open. I ran inside and went straight
to the phone, because not only did everyone have a
(16:16):
landline in the nineties, we all knew where our friend's
landlines were located. Ignoring Aaron's mother's questions, I confidently dialed
nine one one. I wasn't about to waste any time
telling the rain any details. I had my body an
entire neighborhood to protect. As the operator answered, I heard rapid,
forceful knocking on Aaron's front door. He's here, I shouted,
(16:40):
while clutching the phone with both hands, the receiver pressed
against my face like I was in a poorly written
horror film. He's here, I repeated through sobs. The nine
to one one operator on the other end of the
line asking for information. I was emotionally unavailable to give
so much for saving the neighborhood. I don't recall exactly
what happened next, only that in a matter of seconds,
(17:02):
my father was hugging me and repeating his apology over
and over and over again. Oh, apparently he realized I
would be riding home a little later than was normal,
and with the false fall chill in the air, he
thought I might need another layer as well as some company.
What a prince. Not realizing the frenzy his horribly ill
(17:24):
conceived prank come here, little Girl would set off, he
figured it would be funny too, I don't know, pretend
to be a napper of kids. Maybe subconsciously he was
testing me to see how I would react. Who knows.
My parents wore three kids deep, only in their late
twenties at this point, and flying by the seat of
their goddamn pants SSDGM. And don't assume kidnappers are too
(17:49):
dumb to follow you your friend's home and knock on
their front door.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Natalie, Oh, Natalie, I.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Hope you bring that up all the time at family dinners.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
It's so funny because also it's like, if you think
about it for one second, like a kidnappers not gonna
be like it's it's almost like a it's so beyond
creepy that you should have gotten it real time.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
A mere little girl.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
He's assuming you can see his face, and.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
I'm sure she went to the optomologist after this, and
I was like, yeah, she needs glasses, she needs glasses
and therapy actually now too, and that to the bill.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Ah, that's really fun.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Okay, here's my last one. Okay, the subject line is
baby teeth, short and haunting, and then it just starts.
I talk to the same five people almost every day.
Those aren't necessarily conversations, but just the furious exchange of
kookie things found on Instagram. One of these people is
my mom. The content of these messages will usually range
(18:53):
from a picture of a mushroom slash plant I think
that she might like, in which she may return. A
video of an ostracized with scoliosis that finds acceptance amongst
a pod of whales. You know, Mom's stuff.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
This is like describing social media to a tea entirely.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
That's completely how my sister and I communicate. It's just
her sending me TikTok videos. One day, I sent a
video of a couple who sprinkle wildflower seeds indigenous to
the environment, of course, around town to help save bees
and restore beauty to the land. Oh my mom's response.
Last year I was cleaning out the drawers of y'all's
old rooms and I found multiple containers of y'all's baby teeth.
(19:33):
I didn't want to throw them in the landfill. I
decided to sprinkle them around the neighborhood on one of
my walks. Sprinkle bit, okay, go on, and then it
just says, all gaps not the same thing. Mom. Well,
it's nice to have a mom who finds my rotting
baby teeth to be too precious to be put in
a landfill. I do have sympathy for the people who
(19:55):
may stumble upon three kids worth of baby.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Oh that's so true. I keep finding baby teeth in
my neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
So scary going on? It's so out of the blue.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Or what if someone's looking out their window and saw
her this, like older woman's been sprinkling baby teeth. Do
I call the cops.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
It's also so many teeth. It's almost a hundred teeth.
That's a lot of teeth. Stay sexy and save the bees,
not your kid's baby teeth. Shannon Wow epic, Oh, Wow.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
What's the weirdest thing you found that like didn't belong
in your neighborhood? Or like somewhere like you went to
pick something up and you thought it was this, and
it actually was that, and then now something nefarious is
going on. Send us your stories.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
People are like I saw a red balloon come out
of the.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Sewer, so I clumb down there and there's a big
spider alien. Life's been real rough since then. Sen us
any story you want at My Favorite Murder at gmail,
and thanks for writing and just listening. Even if you
don't send stories, we still like you.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
You can withhold for the rest of your life and
we'll still love you the same as Shannon and everybody
else that's sent in emails, but only as long as
you stay sexy.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
And don't get murdered. Goodbye, Elvis, Do you want a cookie?
Speaker 1 (21:23):
This has been an exactly right production.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Our senior producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Our producer is Alejandra Kak.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
This episode was engineered and mixed by Stephen Ray Morris.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Our researcher is Jemma Harris.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Email your hometowns and fucking horays to My Favorite Murder
at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at my Favorite
Murder and Twitter at my favor Murder goodbye,
Hello, and welcome to my favorite Murder the miniesode, the
minisode that's being videoed for the fan cult.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
If you are part of the fan cult, you can
see what we're doing.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
You can see why the staccato style of speaking makes
perfect sense right now.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
It does. This is how we always talk. You've just
never known it because you don't get to your normally
see it.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
We're doing kind of like a eighties music video. Hand
gestures looks almost cheerleader ish. It's definitely like a Vogue
the type of thing. Oh yeah, I want me to start. Sure, Okay,
I'm not going to reach you. The title what's good?
MFM crew?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Fuck? Yeah, you're young. You asked for Found Drug Stories
a few minisodes, agh, and I've got a good one
for you. Oh awesome. I'm twenty six and still living
with my parents as I pursue my master's an illustration.
I worked from home over the course of the pandemic
and rarely left the house. So when my mom asked
(01:14):
if I'd like to get groceries with her, I don't
hesitate at the chance to have a change in scenery.
We live in a small town in Georgia where your
grocery store options are Walmart and the other Walmart. I
follow her into the bread aisle and my mom starts
reaching for a loaf when she kicks something with her foot. Ooh,
what's this, she exclaims as she reaches for the object
(01:35):
on the floor. As she stands up straight, I see
that she is holding a small, tightly sealed baggy full
of a white substance in her hands.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Now, I am the most vanilla wafer looking bitch on
the street, and I have never seen coke in my
whole life. But as I saw what my dear sweet
mother was holding, my inner murderina took over. As my
brain screamed cocaine. Before I could say anything, I slapped
the bag out of her hand and kicked it under
the shelf. My mom looked a little hurt with me,
(02:08):
but I grabbed her by the shoulders and steered her
out of the aisle as people started to stare at us.
But what was that? Why are you being that way?
She said loudly. Mom, that was straight up in eight
ball of cocaine. Hush, I hissed at her. We finished
our shopping and headed home for my mom to proudly
tell my dad she had seen cocaine, but the first time,
(02:31):
as she put the groceries away, the cops never came knocking.
So I guess slapping my mom's hand was the right move. Yes,
stay sexy and don't let your mom pick up drugs
at Walmart.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Kara, cocain, cocaine. Hush, hush, it's cocaine. See, that's kind
of genius, because that's the best possible thing you could
have done. It is just like, do not get involved.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah, I'd say, on the out, tell a worker where
it was so that a kid isn't the next person
to find it otherwise, and then keep walking. You'll just
stick around like someone else's problem.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
At this point, you could also walk around and find
the chill is looking cashier and then just be like,
we're pretty sure we found a bag.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Of coke and the red aisle. Hey man, you look cool.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Hey man, you seem chill, but also that you have
experienced with white drugs. Okay. My subject line is in
memoriam murdering No Grandma. My beloved and badass grandma Eleanor
recently died and my mom won't let me tell the
story at her memorial service, so I'm telling it here.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
This is the place to tell inappropriate fucking memorial stories, guys.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
And these are the people. We will sit in black
clothing with you know, nets across our face and our hands,
abrost in our laps and listen politely while you spill it.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Oh, that kind of makes me feel proud. Is like,
this is totally We have created a safe space to
tell inappropriate memorial stories that would be told at people's memorials. Yes,
I think that's lovely.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
That the rest of the family's like, let's not talk
about that.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Save it for your podcast, your podcast, friends, that's right,
Hush hush.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
But then members of your family that secretly already like
the podcast you like and they will hear it too,
that's right. That's how you'll know they're cool. When my
mom was fourteen, her family lived on a large lot
with a second, smaller house that they rented out in
between tenants. My grandpa placed a classified ad in the paper,
and a family husband, Jerry, wife two kids moved in.
(04:38):
Jerry was pretty friendly with the neighbors, dropping by to
talk at the front door parentheses, which Grandma found annoying.
Hanging out at the house of the local police officer
and going out of his way to make friends with
the officer's dog. He paid my mom twenty five cents
an hour to babysit his kids on several occasions and
would walk her home afterwards. Grandma put a stop to
(04:59):
the baby's eventually, as she thought my Mom was being underpaid.
The family moved out suddenly a few months later, and
Grandma thinks they may have even skipped out on their
last month's rent. Grandma and her friend June were tasked
with cleaning up the house for the next renters and
found some odd things, women's dresses and shoes too big
for the wife, various household goods, and pictures in a
(05:22):
kitchen drawer. June found these first and said, eleanor, these
are dirty pictures. They were flustered and worried that their
kids would see them, so they quickly threw the pictures
into the trash. I think they assumed they were run
of the mill porn, but Grandma later remembered seeing a
naked girl with her arms behind her back in one picture.
(05:43):
Six months later, the FBI came knocking on Grandma's front door.
Turns out Grandma's tenant was Jerry fucking Brutos, the serial
killer you covered in episode seventy nine, which one is
he He's the one that had the women's shoes, and
he had the bodies like his family was the house,
and he had women's bodies downstairs in the freezer, like
(06:04):
they weren't allowed to go downstairs, and he was obsessed
with feet and shoes. They're gonna tell us a little bit.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
About her right here, Okay, great, Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Other awful things. He dressed up in women's clothes to
lure women into his car, took pictures of his captives,
and kept body parts as souvenirs. The FBI dragged the
pond behind the house. Grandma always felt guilty that she
let her kids watch that process. Luckily, they didn't find
anything and gave Grandma a stern talking to about laws
requiring landlords to keep tenant property for at least six
(06:35):
months after they moved out. Guess they weren't happy that
all that evidence wound up in the trash.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Yeah, Grandma.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Grandma was pregnant with my youngest aunt at the time
all this happened. So when we reconstructed the timeline, it
appears Brutos lived on their property in between the last
known person he killed and when he was finally caught.
Not sure if this was when Grandma's interest in true
crime started, but I remember spending my teen summers at
her house, reading her true crime books and making my
(07:04):
own mental list of ways to evade killers. She was
a huge part of my life and inspired me to
live my best life and create my own best family.
As a badass single mom, stay sexy and give your
grandma's an extra hug, tam she her. Wow, that's too
close for comfort. I mean, a serial killer is your tenant? Yeah, horrifying.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Ooh. And that he's trying to make friends with the
police dog. Yeah right, it's gotta be like there was
a reason ooh yeah, yeah, crazy. This is called they
are watching us. Hello. Everyone who makes this podcast. Animals
included being an adult with ADHD. I'm going to do
(07:48):
my best to make the short and direct.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
You don't have to.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
You don't have to. They don't. By the way, it's okay.
Around twenty fifteen, I was living in an apartment in Pittsburgh.
I rented an apartment on the bottom floor of a
three apartment building. There were exactly three parking spots for
each tenant, so after a couple months of living there,
I was keen to the vehicles of the other tenants.
One day, after returning from work, I noticed a random
(08:14):
car in one of the tenants parking spots. I didn't
think much of it and went to get ready to
meet my boyfriend at the bar. After a couple hours
of drinking shitty beer and Jamison shots, I decided it
was time to go home. My boyfriend decided to stay,
so I ubered home and put myself to bed. At
around three am, I woke up to a man about
six feet tall who I had never seen before, standing
(08:35):
at the end of my bed, yelling we have to go.
They're watching us. I was completely disoriented and thought he
was telling me there was a fire. I for some
reason trusted him and followed him into the laundry room.
When we got there, he started pointing at different parts
of the room, saying, there's a camera there, a camera there,
a camera there, they're watching us. Realizing there were no cameras,
(08:58):
I suddenly snapped out of my phone and realized the
man was either on drugs or mentally ill. I ran
in my apartment, slammed the door, and realized the dead
bolt was actually not working. I sat in front of
the door and called the cops and my boyfriend while
the man knocked on my door yelling, they're gonna get you.
I was so terrified. I just sat there and shock.
Of course, my boyfriend got there before the cops and
(09:20):
saw the man and told him the cops were coming.
The man got into the random car I saw, meaning
he had been in the building for hours, and took off.
When the cops got there, the only thing they did
was let my dog out, which ran away due to
all of the drama, so after all of it, I
ended up running through the streets with no shoes on
to rescue my pup, while the cops proceeded to tell
(09:42):
my boyfriend they couldn't really do anything except write up
a report. Thanks anyway, Stay sexy, and always check to
make sure your locks actually work. Aarin, God, that's so scary.
It's so scary to think like she went with him
because she thought he was trying to help her, you know,
like kind of understandably.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
And also how did he get in there? It just
like because the dead bull didn't work, or did he
open it and break it.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
I don't know yeah, maybe, yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Scary, scary, scary. Yeah, I'm glad that turned out the
way it did, where it's just like and then you
could go back to your apartment and shut the door
and it's just a person who's clearly mentally ill. Right, that's.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Subject line of this one is a sinkhole story. Yeah, again,
just starts. I used to work for a haunted theater.
And then in parentheses it says plays in musicals.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Okay, haunted plays and musical. Got it.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
But that's not the craziest story the building has. The
building is over one hundred years old. In the eighties
and nineties it became a comedy club. A lot of
now famous comedians performed there. The entire theater was painted
and filled with homemade gadgets, almost like a chuck e cheese.
The former owner would be the opening act for every
comedian who performed. It's very common, very common. Unfortunately, what
(11:05):
that entailed was him performing a fifteen minute hip hop
breakdance woo yeah, local jokes, get local work. Apparently he
had won a dance competition in the eighties and decided
to ride that for everything that was worth sure. He
eventually got to the point where he was not running
(11:26):
the club properly and the business dwindled, so he turned
to the only logical solution, heroin. At one point, he
decided to burn the theater down for the insurance money.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Logic logical thoughts. Logical Heroin brings logical thoughts.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
That's right. He set the fire. It burned a hole
through the wall, and then caught the building next door
on fire and burned that down instead. By this point,
the business was obviously dead. He eventually disappeared and was
never heard from again. Soon after, a delivery semi truck
pulled into the parking lot behind the building, and then
(12:04):
the entire parking lot collapsed and turned into a fucking sinkhole.
It turns out the old owner had lost his house
but not the club, so he decided to dig tunnels
and rooms under where the parking lot was, and was
living there for a while and no one had any idea.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Holy shit.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
The city eventually came to fill the hole. Their solution
was to fill it with sand and then put a
piece of plywood over the hole. He used as the
entryway in the theater's basement, So if you ever moved
the piece of Plywood, which was not looking very stable
even when I worked there. Goodbye parking Lot. And then
it's just signed R.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Wow. I mean I didn't even need a sinkhole. That
was a really interesting story. And then sinkhole was like
the big the ending number of the song.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Yes, it was. It was kind of like if somebody
was telling me that story in a bar, I'd be like,
when they got to the sinkhole part, I'd be like, really,
come on.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
That's ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Are you just enjoying telling this story and just having attention?
Speaker 2 (13:10):
I wonder where he is now, crazy wild heroin.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
He's in a side tunnel that no one knows.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Waiting, yeah, waiting for his big break to come back,
dancing his ass off. Yeah. Okay, this one, my last
One's called nine year old saves neighborhood from local kidnapper.
And then it says under three minute read in the
subject line to like, let it know its perfect. It's
(13:38):
very smart, okay that it says, y'all are great. This
is long, but worth it. It's nineteen ninety two, I'm
around nine years old. We're in a suburb of Houston.
Think large trees, small starter homes built in the seventies.
The sound of cicadas and humidity is so dense you
can taste it. I rule the neighborhood with my turquoise
tense speed Huffy Massamo shirt and banged so thick I'm
(14:00):
practically sporting a bullet. One evening, as summer was slipping
into that false fall Houstonians get fooled by every year,
I found myself at Aaron's house, a friend who lived
across the street and about a dozen or so homes
down from mine. My parents had called and said it
was time for me to come home. I begrudgingly said
my goodbyes, headed outside and hopped helmetless onto my trusty
(14:23):
Huffy and wrote off. It was just past dusk. Street
lights had been on for a while. My usual que
to come back home, so I picked up the pace
a little as I contemplated whether or not I needed glasses,
I did. The street lights hazy and most objects ill defined.
I noticed in the distance the unmistakable, however fuzzy outline
(14:45):
of a man approaching from the other side of the street.
As he got closer, I could see he was wearing
a hoodie, carrying a flashlight and a small jacket a
budding murderino. I immediately thought, he's out looking for kids
to kidnap, and he's going to use that jacket to
disguise them, which makes sense. Put another jacket on them.
They're looking for a kid with a different outfit.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
On and there it's like, nope, just sweaty kids wearing
two jackets.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
At this point, he was still about ten yards ahead
of me, but was now making his way to the
middle of the street, as if to cross to the
other side and of course intercept me. No sooner had
I had this thought popped into my head, did he
look up lockeyes with me, lift his flashlight under his
face like he was going to tell me a ghost story,
and whisper, slash holler in a sickly sweet, dripping with
(15:35):
honey voice. Come here, little girl. I screeched that huffey
to a stop, whipped it around, and started pedaling as
fast as I could back to my friend's house, screaming
at the top of my lungs. Kidnapper, kidnapper, kidnapper, like
I was Paul fucking Revere. As I got to Aaron's
(15:55):
front yard, I flew off my bike, I recall it,
continuing to a roll. After my disc out and smashing
into her garage, I ran up to the front door
and started banging wildly while screaming, tears of fear welling
up in my eyes. Let me in, He's gonna take me.
The door swung open. I ran inside and went straight
to the phone, because not only did everyone have a
(16:16):
landline in the nineties, we all knew where our friend's
landlines were located. Ignoring Aaron's mother's questions, I confidently dialed
nine one one. I wasn't about to waste any time
telling the rain any details. I had my body an
entire neighborhood to protect. As the operator answered, I heard rapid,
forceful knocking on Aaron's front door. He's here, I shouted,
(16:40):
while clutching the phone with both hands, the receiver pressed
against my face like I was in a poorly written
horror film. He's here, I repeated through sobs. The nine
to one one operator on the other end of the
line asking for information. I was emotionally unavailable to give
so much for saving the neighborhood. I don't recall exactly
what happened next, only that in a matter of seconds,
(17:02):
my father was hugging me and repeating his apology over
and over and over again. Oh, apparently he realized I
would be riding home a little later than was normal,
and with the false fall chill in the air, he
thought I might need another layer as well as some company.
What a prince. Not realizing the frenzy his horribly ill
(17:24):
conceived prank come here, little Girl would set off, he
figured it would be funny too, I don't know, pretend
to be a napper of kids. Maybe subconsciously he was
testing me to see how I would react. Who knows.
My parents wore three kids deep, only in their late
twenties at this point, and flying by the seat of
their goddamn pants SSDGM. And don't assume kidnappers are too
(17:49):
dumb to follow you your friend's home and knock on
their front door.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Natalie, Oh, Natalie, I.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Hope you bring that up all the time at family dinners.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
It's so funny because also it's like, if you think
about it for one second, like a kidnappers not gonna
be like it's it's almost like a it's so beyond
creepy that you should have gotten it real time.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
A mere little girl.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
He's assuming you can see his face, and.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
I'm sure she went to the optomologist after this, and
I was like, yeah, she needs glasses, she needs glasses
and therapy actually now too, and that to the bill.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Ah, that's really fun.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Okay, here's my last one. Okay, the subject line is
baby teeth, short and haunting, and then it just starts.
I talk to the same five people almost every day.
Those aren't necessarily conversations, but just the furious exchange of
kookie things found on Instagram. One of these people is
my mom. The content of these messages will usually range
(18:53):
from a picture of a mushroom slash plant I think
that she might like, in which she may return. A
video of an ostracized with scoliosis that finds acceptance amongst
a pod of whales. You know, Mom's stuff.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
This is like describing social media to a tea entirely.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
That's completely how my sister and I communicate. It's just
her sending me TikTok videos. One day, I sent a
video of a couple who sprinkle wildflower seeds indigenous to
the environment, of course, around town to help save bees
and restore beauty to the land. Oh my mom's response.
Last year I was cleaning out the drawers of y'all's
old rooms and I found multiple containers of y'all's baby teeth.
(19:33):
I didn't want to throw them in the landfill. I
decided to sprinkle them around the neighborhood on one of
my walks. Sprinkle bit, okay, go on, and then it
just says, all gaps not the same thing. Mom. Well,
it's nice to have a mom who finds my rotting
baby teeth to be too precious to be put in
a landfill. I do have sympathy for the people who
(19:55):
may stumble upon three kids worth of baby.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Oh that's so true. I keep finding baby teeth in
my neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
So scary going on? It's so out of the blue.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Or what if someone's looking out their window and saw
her this, like older woman's been sprinkling baby teeth. Do
I call the cops.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
It's also so many teeth. It's almost a hundred teeth.
That's a lot of teeth. Stay sexy and save the bees,
not your kid's baby teeth. Shannon Wow epic, Oh, Wow.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
What's the weirdest thing you found that like didn't belong
in your neighborhood? Or like somewhere like you went to
pick something up and you thought it was this, and
it actually was that, and then now something nefarious is
going on. Send us your stories.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
People are like I saw a red balloon come out
of the.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
Sewer, so I clumb down there and there's a big
spider alien. Life's been real rough since then. Sen us
any story you want at My Favorite Murder at gmail,
and thanks for writing and just listening. Even if you
don't send stories, we still like you.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
You can withhold for the rest of your life and
we'll still love you the same as Shannon and everybody
else that's sent in emails, but only as long as
you stay sexy.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
And don't get murdered. Goodbye, Elvis, Do you want a cookie?
Speaker 1 (21:23):
This has been an exactly right production.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Our senior producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Our producer is Alejandra Kak.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
This episode was engineered and mixed by Stephen Ray Morris.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Our researcher is Jemma Harris.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Email your hometowns and fucking horays to My Favorite Murder
at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at my Favorite
Murder and Twitter at my favor Murder goodbye,
Hosts And Creators
Georgia Hardstark
Karen Kilgariff
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