Rewind with Karen & Georgia - Episode 32: Just the 32 of Us

It's time to Rewind with Karen & Georgia!

This week, K & G recap Episode 32: Just the 32 of Us. Georgia talked about the life and death of pop singer Selena and Karen gave the lowdown on the Zankou Chicken Murders. Listen for all-new commentary, case updates and much more!

Whether you've listened a thousand times or you're new to the show, join the conversation as we look back on our old episodes and discuss the life lessons we’ve learned along the way. Head to social media to share your favorite moments from this episode!  

Instagram: instagram.com/myfavoritemurder  

Facebook: facebook.com/myfavoritemurder

TikTok: tiktok.com/@my_favorite_murder

Now with updated sources and photos: https://www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes/rewind-with-karen-georgia-episode-32-just-the-32-of-us

My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories, and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921.

The Exactly Right podcast network provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics, including true crime, comedy, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Last Hello, welcome to rewind with Karen and Georgia.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
That's right. That means it's Wednesday, and that means we're
recapping one of our old shows with all new commentary,
updates and insights.

Speaker 3 (00:26):
And today we're recapping episode thirty two, which we named
just the thirty two of Us. I thought we were
done with the number puns.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
I mean, I can hear myself and this may not
have happened, but I can absolutely hear myself in my
memory going yeah, but it's so funny. We have to
go back just for this one.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
Yeah, like you know, you can't. Don't throw the baby
out with the bathwater.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
There's a good one. If there's just the thirty two
of us gouts pretty funny.

Speaker 3 (00:51):
It's so good.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
So join us today as we take you back to
September one, twenty sixteen, when Sausage Party who was still
in theaters.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
Classic. It's a classic, and now we can all be
Day one listeners.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Okay, here's the intro of episode thirty two. Hello, Welcome
to My Murder. My name's Karen, and I sure love murder.
How about you Girl over there?

Speaker 3 (01:23):
This week? Girl over There is played by Georgia Heartstar,
George's Heart Stark and g I love Murder too.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
And of course engineer Stephen is here standing by with
his mustache and his.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
His uh stuff, his equipment, his general style, general style.
You're more reporting of the per cast.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Oh thank you?

Speaker 3 (01:47):
Yeah, welcome who tonight this so so trapped in? Yeah, Vince,
So we have our murder reinos. That what we call
people who listen to this podcast. I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
We didn't make that.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
No, we didn't put that's what people call it. And
Vince said that, So Stephen has the perk cast about
Kat since been said that the people who listen should
be called pervert three rs.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
You got to do that.

Speaker 4 (02:10):
I'm going to start doing it.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
And I said you can have it.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
He said, tell me, you know that's a free one. Cool, Hi, everybody,
it's episode thirty two. Was up. I'm going to bring
up back I have already threatened to do that was up.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
And that sound she got murdered.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
She was so hacky. The town killed her, the city
kills her.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
She she got killed.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Do you have a housekeeping I mean I have.

Speaker 3 (02:40):
Things I just generally want to talk about.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
Well, I'll say mine that our internet specifics that are
important Forrester, just battling quiet because it's mine.

Speaker 3 (02:50):
How much I hate TV?

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Oh did you watch the last night?

Speaker 3 (02:54):
I fucking I just I don't. There's a block and
I mean to and I haven't. No fans.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
No, Well, then you don't want his DNA inside you
and you'll never get to have it. He was also
on Colbert. We actually watched it at work because enough
people at my work like him that we were all like.

Speaker 3 (03:12):
Let's watch Is he cute? And well, he is perfection.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
It's there's something like disney Esque about the scale of
the size of his eyes to the rest of his face.
His nose looks like he got a nose job, it's
so perfectly shaped. And then in general he just has
the he has the charisma, but he's very low key,
like he's smart enough to know not to overplay it.

Speaker 3 (03:34):
We're talking about rism Ed.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
We're talking about Britain zone.

Speaker 3 (03:39):
And he's got the British accent man like the like
the like street British accent.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
Yeah, stop it, but he can do any British.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
Well, I guess I only heard. I only heard him
speaking in a British accent when he was rapping, so
I was like, yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
He was trying to he's turning it a little bit
on but okay. But also I saw him in the
The Unwilling Fundamentalist. What's that movie? He stars in a
movie about an a fundamentalist that doesn't want to be
who doesn't The word is an unwilling No, sorry, it's
part of the title. I'm his number one fan. But

(04:12):
in that when he had like a posh.

Speaker 3 (04:14):
British accent in and I want it to be dirty, please.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
Jesus keep it dirty. Hi, Vince, it's this Karen. She
said more gross stuff about Rizam at this time. The
thing I wanted to mention was a woman named Liam
Moffatt made us this amazing animated opening to our podcast

(04:39):
theme song. You can see it on the Twitter page.
You can see it on the Facebook page.

Speaker 3 (04:43):
I'll put it on the I'll put it on the
We have a new Facebook fan page because some people
told us that that's how you're supposed to do things.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
Don't be closed off all the time. Maybe open some
stuff up.

Speaker 3 (04:53):
Yeah, so we have a new Facebook fan page. I
will post it on there. It is. It's your like,
how do you how did you feel watching it with
your music and your voice.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
I couldn't breathe. Yeah, and but also it's that weird
thing of like it's very strange when someone holds up
something you did and goes, now, here's something I did
to match it. Like, it's just magical. I love it.
Gorgeous and it's the cutest. Like the style of it
is so like there's a little skeleton in every scene,
and it's.

Speaker 3 (05:21):
So moves the way everything flows, its moods.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
But it's creepy, very creepy. It's all perfectly done. Celianne Moffett,
thank you so much for Thank you doing that and
thinking of us and participating in that very creative and
cool way.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
Thanks to everyone who creates, Like there's so many cute
drawings of us, even though we berated them.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
Last week, they like it. I know.

Speaker 3 (05:42):
I keep posting them on Insta. We have an instagram
my favorite Murder, and I just them constantly. I like,
can't stop posting all day, and I feel like I'm
getting annoying because there's just so much cool shit to post.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
Well, it's fun to be able to go like, well
here's here because the people like it. Yeah, you notice
their shit.

Speaker 3 (05:58):
It's you know, favorite one from my last episode is
you know the part where I go dough A dead body,
a female dead body. Someone took a photo of my
face and put it over the face in sound of
music Sound of music where she's singing on this on
the hilltop to all the children, and it's just my
little face, like a perfect photo of me with my

(06:20):
mouth open, like looking like I'm singing, and it says
do it, oh, Stephen, showing it to Karen right now.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
I will, really who did it, Jessica Pe?

Speaker 3 (06:32):
Thank you, Jessica Pe.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
Well done, Jessica Pee. That is hilarious because also the
George's face, her mouth is open, it looks like she's
going hi, but she's holding a guitar. That's hilarious.

Speaker 3 (06:43):
So much good shit good.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
You know. Sadly, somebody put my face inside of Selena's face. No, no, no,
it's not not truly sadly. Oh this is this comedy podcast.
But it was a picture of me before I stopped drinking.
You can find such range of hideous pictures of me online.
It's hilarious.

Speaker 3 (07:03):
I hate it.

Speaker 2 (07:04):
It's not cool at all.

Speaker 3 (07:05):
When your weight fluctuates, you just and you get photographed.
First things, A lot.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
Yeah, and you just you just kind of have to
separate and you just I like, my thing is just
like whatever, I know what I look like. That's not
Oh my god, this one where they put my face
and just I'm pretty sure it was Selena's picture. It
was like big eighties hair with the pink background. Did
you see that? So yet it was I was like,
is that Charles Bronson wearing a wig? Like? It looked horrifying.

(07:33):
I hate that. But of course I'm not complaining because
of course all the people who saw it were like,
oh my god, this is so cute, where you're just
like what. Anyway, I had to complain, and also just
we looked it up. This was in oh wait this
if it if it was from the Minnesote, then you
might not know what we're talking about. But last week's

(07:55):
mini corner, what's.

Speaker 3 (07:56):
That we have to say?

Speaker 2 (07:57):
Correction corner, direction corner yo, yo, Know, Georgia talked about
a lady who had a disease and many doctors frighteningly enough,
listen to this podcast. Yeah, because those are the people
or medical students, I'm not sure people who know how
it's actually pronounced.

Speaker 3 (08:13):
Well, sorry, not sorry, I'm not a doctor or a
medical student.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
Never say sorry, not sorry, just don't be sorry.

Speaker 3 (08:20):
Okay, yeah, I thought you were a berating me for
trying to bring that back when you're trying to bring
what was it with?

Speaker 2 (08:25):
Oh good point, No, throw that right in my face.
I accept that you're one hundred percent right, but I
hate sorry, not sorry, because you don't have to be
sorry at all. I saw that crop up in like
girls talking, where it's like girls, look sorry, that's not sorry,
where it's like no, no, no, what you start out
as look motherfucker, and then you say your actual opinion. Sorry,

(08:47):
I'm kneeling.

Speaker 3 (08:48):
Don't apologize.

Speaker 2 (08:49):
I'm so tired. Oh you're right, I'm so tired. Here's
how you pronounce it.

Speaker 3 (08:59):
Well, con sizure jesus, well, I got it.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
There's like that's a sound clip from some guys on
the radio or something in England who also didn't know
how to say gian barre syndrome Kean barre. Well, so there, well,
consider me wrong again, consider me always wrong.

Speaker 3 (09:22):
Correction, Conda, I'm correcting, Conna. What else? How are you?
What are you gonna say anything?

Speaker 2 (09:29):
I wish you guys could see Georgia right now her
legs are so far up in the air. She is
the most casual person I've ever seen in my life.

Speaker 3 (09:35):
This is the loungiest You're fucking lounging in your home,
lounging so hard as is your American right, Stephen. Can
you take a photo of me lounge right now? I'll
put it on the vent. It takes my sweat. I'm
also sweating.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
That's cool. Sweat lounge.

Speaker 3 (09:49):
And I got a meme cat on the took one
photo just happened. Check it on the well. Let's plug
our places Instagram dot com, slash my paper murder.

Speaker 2 (09:58):
Oh the face like a picture, only a picture of myself.

Speaker 3 (10:00):
I'm not mad mad. Look at those cheekbones, Karen.

Speaker 2 (10:03):
I wasn't even really sucking the mall. You part's a
bit off. Look at you.

Speaker 3 (10:07):
Hilarious, that's my entire butt. Also, that's gonna end up
on That's gonna end up on Wiki feet. I promise
you can. I have a Wiki feet page. I mean,
look at my feet. They're pretty fucking cute. Let's be honest.
You deserve it, thank you. Yeah, I'm going to own it.
You know why, because I don't have a Wikipedia page.
So I'm okay with wiki beats, So you're gonna be fine.
Here we go.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
You got to break in somehow.

Speaker 3 (10:28):
You know what else pisses me? Well, I'm not gonna
tell you. Never mind, I am hissed off that my
high school they have like a list of like alumni
who have done things not on there.

Speaker 2 (10:39):
Where's the list on Wikipedia?

Speaker 3 (10:41):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (10:42):
Please, will someone who's good at computers go on to
Wikipedia and edit that page. What's the high school name?

Speaker 3 (10:47):
Woodbridge High School in Irvine, California.

Speaker 2 (10:50):
Woodbridge High School, Irvine, California.

Speaker 3 (10:51):
Also, let everyone know I hate I hated them all.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
I hate them. No, don't put that phone in now,
this is your high school wiki feet page.

Speaker 3 (11:01):
Okay, the fan page, Okay, here's this is hilarious. So
I try to start the fan page. We can't use
the word murder in the title because Facebook is like,
we recognize a word that you can't fucking you can't
say because you're not you're a grown adult, and you
know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (11:15):
I'm fine.

Speaker 3 (11:16):
So it's MFM podcast. It's the name of the Facebook fanpage.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
Cool. So you kind of have to be an insider
to know that it's the just the initials.

Speaker 3 (11:26):
Like winky wink. And then I think that means also
that maybe your your family and friends won't know that
you're part of a murder group. I think that's say MFM. Yeah,
I think that's what people are worried about until they
see the logo again grown adults.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
Yeah. I mean that's the other thing too. Of all
the people we know that that say I'm not weird,
I'm not alone. You know, all that excitement, Well, now
it's turning into because then the second wave seem to
be people at work keep catching me listening to this
and giving me baby looks, are seeing my the logo
and giving me a weird look. But we just got
a tweet from somebody who sent a picture that said,

(12:06):
was it on the Facebook page or Twitter? I can't
remember where they hang up a sign on the door
that says murder time, Do not come in and then
listen to the podcast at at work all together.

Speaker 3 (12:19):
Like the whole crew does.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
Yeah, well, I mean she didn't. She was very vague
about all of it, or shouting her I should find
the name. But if you guys hear this, will you
please send us at least slightly more information so we
can give you a legit shout out because I it
made me laugh so hard when I saw that, or.

Speaker 3 (12:35):
Send us a photo of all of you listening secretly listen.
And also I love that I've I've been noticing in
the Facebook page likes. I'll like look at some comments
sometimes late at night, and it'll be like comment, comment, comment,
and then someone will comment to someone who already comments,
and it'll be like, Alex, you're in this group, Like,
oh my god, what's that? I can't believe it. We're like,
we're totally like it's people keep recognizing their friends in there,

(12:58):
and it's like, hilarious.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
I love it. Well, the same thing happened to me
with my sister's best friend, Adrian, who I talked about
I think on the very first episode.

Speaker 3 (13:05):
She had a hometown.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yeah, well, she loved Richard Ramirez, so when I said
who should I talk about, it came out of her
mouth so fast that that's when I discovered she was
a murderer. Yeah, before the podcast had even started. And
it was shocking because I've known her since she was
twelve years old and I was ten years old, so
Anne never knew that that was an interest of hers.
So she recently started listening. She'd went backwards through it

(13:29):
and has been texting me constantly of like, dude, I
love this podcast so much. And Adrian and my sister
were two of the most evil teenage girls anyone could
have had the nightmare to grow up with. They were
sullen and sulky, and I the only way they would
let me hang out with them when she spent the
night on the weekend. She would come and stay the

(13:49):
whole weekend with us, but they would lock the door
and leave me out of the room. And what I
had to do to get in the room with Laura
and Adrian was makeup a lip sync dance routine to
a PAP and tar songs.

Speaker 3 (14:00):
Well, we're not moving forward right now in this podcast,
and tell you fucking do that. Let's relive your nightmares.

Speaker 2 (14:07):
We just basically play a pat pantor. But then yeah,
and then you'd be like, right now, she's lifting her
legs straight above her.

Speaker 3 (14:16):
Head, Oh my god, that's so big, sisters man.

Speaker 2 (14:19):
Well, and also, just if you're younger and you hate
your sister, just know that's going to change around when
you're like twenty two, and then you're gonna be besties
for the rest of your life.

Speaker 3 (14:26):
You're gonna become the cool one exactly. My sister knows
what's up well.

Speaker 2 (14:29):
And also I have my sister and aid room to
think for like all of my training, because that's pretty
much the most professional training I got.

Speaker 3 (14:36):
And then oh yeah, on stage, it was pretty exome.
I think, my I'm scared. I think my dad might
start listening to.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
This because what I thought he was already.

Speaker 3 (14:46):
I don't think so, because he was like I was
hanging out with him over the weekend and he was like,
tell me about your thing, like they don't understand it's
a thing. And I was like, oh, it's this thing,
and I'm like, well, he doesn't know how to download podcasts.
And then he was like, looked at this phone and
he like showed me the podcast and it was like
the and I was like, uh huh, yeah, no, it's okay.
He's cool.

Speaker 2 (15:05):
He doesn't care about the Efford, does he?

Speaker 3 (15:07):
Oh my god? No, my god. You can't have me
as a child and care about the Efford. Care about
a lot of things. Honestly, I think he's happy that
I'm alive, survived my own I mean that I'm alive
that you're alive of us me too.

Speaker 2 (15:22):
It was supposed to be a compliment.

Speaker 3 (15:24):
Oh thank you. All right, you guys, we're going to
get into our favorite murders. Yes, we're gonna take a
quick pee break. We'll be right back for my favorite
murder skippers.

Speaker 2 (15:37):
This is your time to come on home, Come on home,
be right back. All right. That was a big, long one.
Did you really not ever finish the Night of? You've
never seen the end? I didn't never finish it.

Speaker 3 (15:52):
I just I'm so impatient with shows like I just don't.
I can't get through anything. I get through a series,
it should get an oscar immediately because it's good.

Speaker 2 (16:04):
Can you think of an example of a series you
got through because you liked the lead actor the way I,
of course, was returning week after week for my friend Resimmon.

Speaker 3 (16:13):
No, but I can think of one that I got
through even though I don't like the lead actor, and
that's how good it was. But this might get us
in trouble because it's Ozark.

Speaker 2 (16:23):
Oh you're not a Bateman fan.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
I love Jason Bateman. Thing is a great actor. He
just does this thing that drives me crazy. And you'll
you'll never not see it again if I tell you,
or he goes okay at the end of every sentence, okay, okay, okay, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (16:39):
He's being he does that. He's been casual, improvisational, real.

Speaker 3 (16:44):
Talking exactly, and I know that and knows what he's doing.
But I can't ignore it, and I can't be like
that's a character because Jason Bateman keeps fucking doing that. Yes,
that's right, but it was such a good show that
I was able to get past that. Wow, So yeah,
I think we can leave that in.

Speaker 2 (17:03):
Okay, Okay, his hands on his hips, Okay, yeah, no,
leave it.

Speaker 3 (17:08):
Let's fucking let's get some fucking drama. Yeah, that's podcasting.

Speaker 2 (17:12):
Come on, cross cross podcast rivalries.

Speaker 3 (17:17):
Well on, they've never heard of us.

Speaker 2 (17:19):
Let's fucking here's yeah, exactly. Well, here's how they will
hear of you. Do you know that, uh you talked
about that. You didn't make it on your high school's
Wikipedia page.

Speaker 3 (17:29):
You are?

Speaker 2 (17:29):
You are now on your high school's Wikipedia page.

Speaker 3 (17:32):
I know, some beautiful murdering. No fucking went and added
in me, I don't, I wonder if it's still there
and said that she hates it's Georgia attended high school
da Dad and she hated every minute of it.

Speaker 2 (17:42):
Hey yeah, Hey, that was an honor.

Speaker 3 (17:45):
That was definitely one of those moments in the podcast
where I was like, Wow, this is like, this is real,
this is huge, this is like cool, it's huge, and
I was so appreciate of it.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
What I think is funny is that it's the Wikipedia
page for your high school. It's not even like your
Wikipedia page. It's like you were bummed about something that's real,
sub sub sub you know.

Speaker 3 (18:10):
No, because every high school Wikipedia page has people who
of note, who attended every single one of them, including
this one, and had like these random like you know,
sports fucking commentator or whatever. And I'm like, can I
I think I think I've reached that excuse me cooking channel?

Speaker 2 (18:28):
Can I please have it?

Speaker 3 (18:30):
You know?

Speaker 2 (18:30):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (18:31):
So, I mean but yours has one too? Did we
ever look at up?

Speaker 2 (18:34):
I doubt it. I mean no, I don't think it's
a high school that has like literally two hundred kids
at it in a small town in northern California has
a Wikipedia page.

Speaker 3 (18:45):
Yeah, this was a big one too.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah, we may have done unless we broke the law somehow,
which or like because we got a nice new football
field or something, but I don't think so. Yeah, yeah, okay,
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (18:57):
It's okay. It's like you got your high schoo like
low key and mine is like, you know, high key,
high keyhig in the highest key. I think we should
post the photo on the when we post this episode
on socials of the couch. Photo of us one of
my favorites.

Speaker 2 (19:16):
One of the great casual photos. What's the real word
I'm looking for? Ass shot?

Speaker 3 (19:21):
Just complete butt shot of me yep, Georgia's feet.

Speaker 2 (19:26):
Wearing her hot pants. Yeah, with me with kind of
my weird bald spot of like my calic, my calic
bald spot that's always been there.

Speaker 3 (19:37):
What's noticeable. And this is your cheekbones. Every time this
gets posted, people comment on your cheekbones.

Speaker 2 (19:42):
I'm very blessed, very blessed. Thank you, Pat. That's all
Pat Kilgariff's doing.

Speaker 3 (19:47):
At those feet. I don't know who those are on
mean you, Dad? I think those are Marty's.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
It would be amazing if you found out you were
making so much money on wiki feet right now.

Speaker 3 (19:58):
Man. Honestly, if if fans only whatever it's called existed
in my twenties, I would have made some serious cash
on those feet. Yeah, but what are you gonna do?

Speaker 2 (20:09):
All right, well, let's get into Georgia's story right now
about the murder of Selena.

Speaker 3 (20:21):
Hey we're back, skippers, Hi, hey friends. All right, my
favorite murder this week is Selena Kutina horrez No. And
the reason I'm doing it is that it is audio
engineer Stevie raymore so the percast favorite murder tributes.

Speaker 4 (20:40):
I yeah, no, I you've been sending me ship.

Speaker 2 (20:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (20:42):
I was like sing and I was like, oh my god,
I'm watching it. And then see this Aaron Brockovich did,
like a true crime.

Speaker 3 (20:48):
Crazy that I watched. Watched it.

Speaker 4 (20:50):
Well, I grew up listening to Selena because I'm half
my Yeah, I'm half Mexican, and so that music was
always playing and I remember like even listening to music
just feeling really sad for.

Speaker 3 (20:59):
Were you when she died? So you didn't know?

Speaker 4 (21:01):
Yeah, I mean I knew it affected because I would
still go over to my family's houses.

Speaker 2 (21:06):
And stuff, like she was huge. She was like Madonna
times twenty.

Speaker 3 (21:10):
Well, I'll tell you all about it. Oh, oh did
I Stephen Kintinia Quintinia?

Speaker 4 (21:17):
Oh I don't, I mean Mexican but I don't know
how to speak Spanish.

Speaker 3 (21:20):
I wrote it down like I was very I.

Speaker 4 (21:21):
Didn't notice speak Spanish either.

Speaker 3 (21:23):
I know, I know. You shut up. Oh, Karen, your
doorbell phone is ringing. Selena Quintinia Perez was born on
April sixteen, nineteen seventy one, in Lake Jackson, Texas, and
was called the Mexican American Madonna.

Speaker 2 (21:42):
Oh, I must have known that. I've watched the movie
with Jayla.

Speaker 3 (21:45):
I haven't seen it. Wonderful, Gosh, she's beautiful. They were
both beautiful, and she was poised to become a crossover
success when her death turned her into a legend. Selena's
father discovered Selena's quote per fit, timing, and pitch and
helped his kids form a band. And she was like
nine years old when I started performing Wow the band

(22:06):
Once his parents her parents lost their family restaurant. The
band became the family's main source of income and they
were in poverty. And this career, Selena's career just took
them out of poverty because they were evicted from their
home during the Texas oil bust of nineteen eighty two
and they moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, which sounds very hot,
doesn't it.

Speaker 2 (22:26):
Yeah, I think it's super southern in Texas, like down
on the golf maybe right, don't yet I know I
was like right, so I want to Well, my cousin
Cheryl lived in Corpus Christi when I was like in
junior high. Okay, but why do I ever say anything?

Speaker 3 (22:42):
Is that a big military town? I think it is.

Speaker 2 (22:44):
Yes, In fact, it has twenty five that.

Speaker 3 (22:46):
Ian Corpus Christie for the rest of this So then
the family band began recording music professionally, and in nineteen
eighty four, when Selena was I think thirteen, the band
released its first LP, Selenau Lostinos Fuck I hope, I.

Speaker 2 (23:02):
Hope it's Selena and Fred Flinstone's dog Dinosaur.

Speaker 3 (23:09):
Hate mail can be sent to Karen Kilgarath. I'm just
translated Karen K's apartment or house at the address is so, yes, Stephen,
you are correct. Selena was a third generation Texan of
Mexican descent, so she didn't grow up speaking Spanish, so
she didn't know any but she learned all her songs phonetically,
and when her popularity grew, she had to.

Speaker 2 (23:31):
Learn it and she did it very quickly.

Speaker 3 (23:33):
Just like Roxette. Like what the band Roxette? What were
they German?

Speaker 2 (23:38):
Uh? Yeah, are Swedish or something?

Speaker 3 (23:39):
Oh they had to learn English.

Speaker 2 (23:41):
Well no, they just sang phonetically. They didn't know what
they were saying. That's funny. Must have been love. But
it's all that she had no clue without.

Speaker 3 (23:49):
Song how but it's so powerful. But it sounds so.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
The ignorance makes it powerful.

Speaker 3 (23:55):
That's what it is like, because that's what love does too.
Nice's a stupid idiot, that's right, Okay. Grew in popularity
in the year nineteen eighty seven. She won the Tonaho
Oh God, I Hannah to Hano Music Award. I like,
I was watching videos to get this correctly and I'm

(24:16):
just screwing it all up to Hannah Music Award for
Female Vocalist of the Year, and then she landed her
first major record deal with Capital Latin in nineteen eighty nine.
So she performed several times at the Houston Astroderm Dome
to sold out crowds of more than sixty thousand people,
and after her death, Time described her as the embodiment

(24:38):
of young, smart, hit Mexican American youth from a tight
knit family and a down to earth personality, a Madonna
without the controversy. Essentially, she was a huge Mexican American
star in her community and was poised to become a
mainstream sess and that community was obsessed with her and
proud of her and felt like she was one of

(25:01):
their own. Yeah, and she was a big fucking deal yea.
And she seemed like a very sweet person. Everyone in
her band was her family except the guy the guitarists
they hired who she ended up marrying. Oh, like they were.
They seemed like good people.

Speaker 2 (25:15):
It's like a Jackson five situation, totally a super talented
young kid.

Speaker 3 (25:19):
Yeah, but not creepy. And her dad was the manager,
so they were very more like a Partridge family. But
there we go. But actually, yeah, or like a Manson family. Fuck,
cut that out, don't cut that out?

Speaker 2 (25:35):
Not sorry?

Speaker 3 (25:36):
All right? Where am I cut to? Mid nineteen ninety one,
Yolanda Saldivar. She was so you see all these photos
of her and videos of her. She was when she
got arrested. She was thirty five years old. What that's
quote unquote my age. She's thirty five. She looks like
a fucking grandma. Yeah, Okay, So ninety one. Yolanda Saldivar

(25:59):
was around thirty and she was an in home nurse
for patients with terminal cancer and just a fan of
Tahano music. Just a fucking random woman. She had a
history of stealing money from her employers as well as
trying to become intertwined with the lives of other performers,
and she attended one of Selena's concerts and became a

(26:21):
fucking psychotic fan with the intent of starting Selena's fan club.
She started obsessively calling Selena's father, leaving almost fifteen messages
until he gave her permission in June of nineteen ninety
one to be the president of the fan club, which
sounds like, okay, you know what, take this run with
it to your thing, right.

Speaker 2 (26:41):
Right, because you're harassing us. Yeah, So I mean that's it.
It's the thing that they didn't know back then that
people know nowadays, which is don't engage, right.

Speaker 3 (26:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:51):
Fifteen calls to anybody at any time is too many. Yeah,
I don't care if, like, you have a flat tire
and you're going she's.

Speaker 3 (26:58):
Many assistant, and she wants to run this thing and
make us more money. And it's a thing that we
haven't started, and maybe it'll help her with her Like
this is what I'm thinking, was there, you know what
I mean? Like I'm just saying that's three calls totally
in a day, totally totally. Also like you don't need
to have contact with her after that. Okay. So as
president of the fan club, she was responsible for membership benefits,

(27:18):
collecting money, and promoting Selena all that kind of thing.
And she actually didn't meet Selena until December ninety one,
but they became close friends and Yolanda became a trusted
trusted by her whole family. In ninety four, she became
Selena's assistant and quit her job as a nurse.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
Oh I didn't know that. Yeah, I did not know that.
I thought she was just the fan club.

Speaker 3 (27:42):
No, she became her assistant. She quit her job as
a nurse, even though she's making more money as a
nurse than she was doing this. Like she was just
so obsessed and had posters all over her house and
people come over, she would just make them watch Selena videos,
talked about nothing else and was just like kind of
like crazy about Selena.

Speaker 2 (28:01):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (28:02):
Yeah, I was.

Speaker 2 (28:03):
Kind of that way about kids in the Hall for
a little while, but it was a dark period of
my life. Yeah, I was just I had flunked out
of college and I was just weirdly obsessed. It was
when they were running them on Comedy Central, and I
just it was the only thing that made me happy.

Speaker 3 (28:17):
The laugh was the creepiest that was. I've never heard
that laugh before.

Speaker 2 (28:20):
I just realized, I mean, every we all have the potential.
Everybody likes a thing, sure like crazy.

Speaker 3 (28:25):
And wants some like has this feeling of like ownership
and like yeah, and like no one understands it the
way I understand it. It's almost made for me kind
of thing. Yes, but have you met them and told
that that?

Speaker 2 (28:35):
See? My thing is that. And maybe it's just from
working in TV. I really don't like celebrities. Like there's
nothing more disappointing. And I think most people know it
these days from reality TV and stuff. Celebrities are very
disappointing in real life except for us. Yeah, No, they're
just I mean, the most they'll be is slightly pleasant.

(28:58):
But for the most art you will you will have
regretted trying to be like, hey, can I get a picture?
I'm or whatever you're not.

Speaker 3 (29:06):
In and it's some obscure thing and they'll don't care.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
They don't care. It's super weird. It's like, you know, yeah,
it ruins it almost.

Speaker 3 (29:14):
So yeah, good luck everybody, Good luck in life. You're
sucking cute little fantasies, all right. Well then, so in
ninety four, Selena starts opening fashion boutiques. She has two
of them opening up. It's called Selena et cetera.

Speaker 2 (29:32):
I didn't know about that.

Speaker 3 (29:33):
Yeah, I didn't either, because she has this crazy style.
It's very nineties and very like on point, like you know,
almost madonnay, but a little more hip, real cute.

Speaker 2 (29:44):
It's those huge well from what I remember in the movie,
there's like a lot of ruffles, yeah, and a lot
of like you know, shimmery velvety pants and stuff.

Speaker 3 (29:52):
Like that, hoop earrings and red lipstick and yeah, it's
totally pretty fucking sweet. So so she she's opening these clothing,
these fashion stores and asks Saldivar to become the manager
of the botiques. So Saldivart, because of doing this, is
authorized to write and cash checks, had access to the
bank accounts associated with the fan club and the botiques,

(30:16):
and Selena gave her an American Express card for the
purpose of conducting company business.

Speaker 2 (30:21):
So she put her stalker. She made her stocker the CEO.

Speaker 3 (30:24):
Oh of doody know that she's the stalker though, oh right,
Oh yeah, Selene has no idea that she's the stalker.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
She just thinks she's a good friend of hers. That's
like willing to do all this.

Speaker 3 (30:35):
Hard Yeah, that's like, you know, Selene's in this bubble
of becoming famous and touring and all these things, and
this person is becoming a trusted confidante and is a
huge fan.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
And clearly is an intelligent woman if she's a nurse.

Speaker 3 (30:51):
Yeah that other yeah, totally okay, Yeah, and everyone said
she was very manipulative and good at you know, being manipulative.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
Yeah, so Tine calls. That's all I have to say.

Speaker 3 (31:03):
Yeah, it worked somehow. So within a year Saldivar had
mismanaged the boutiques and they were failing. And then upon investigation,
the family finds out that Saldivar had embezzled more than
I saw sixty thousand, but I also saw one hundred
thousand dollars wow, and forged checks from both the fan
club and the boutiques. But Selena refused to believe it.

(31:25):
She was like, no way, that's my friend. Like even
her father, who was a manager, and her husband and
brother were like dude. They were like dude, probably not
like that. But eventually Selena kind of sees some shit
going on and believes it and the family fires. Hor
tells her not to come near Selena, but Selena still

(31:45):
wanted to become friends, stay friends. She was like, you
don't work from anymore, but let's stay friends. So at
this time, Saldivar purchase is a snubnose thirty eight caliber revolver.
And here's what I think is the fucked up thing
is is wet caliber hollow point bullets. Then the bullets
were designed to cause more extensive injuries than normal bullets,

(32:06):
which like throws out. Later we'll talk about it. So
on March thirty first, in nineteen eighty five, she convinces
Selena to meet You'll not her alone in a day's
in motel room, promising to restore to return financial documents
that she had stolen, and telling Selena that she had
to come alone and that she had that Yolanda had

(32:26):
been raped and needed someone to talk to. And this
she has to make up this lie because three other
times in the past couple of weeks, Yolanda had tried
to get her alone and it had been foiled every time,
and her husband had come or did they had met
in a parking lot or something like that. So, so
Yolanda was trying to get her alone. Yeah, So in
the hotel room, they kind of they kind of fight

(32:50):
over the documents, and as they're doing that, the gun
comes out and Selena turns to run and out the door,
and Saldivar shoots her in the back as she's running out,
severing an artery leading from her heart and it came
out the front of her chest on the other side,

(33:10):
so it's kind of like a shoulder shot. And Selena's
running towards the motel lobby as she's bleeding, and Saldivar
comes there. Was witness said that she chased after her,
pointing the gun at her and calling her a bitch.
Selena around one hundred and thirty yards to the motel's
lobby and collapsed on the floor. And meanwhile Yolanda's now

(33:33):
trying to escape in her car, and it was theorized
that she's heading to the recording studio where the rest
of Selena's family is to kill them too, that's what
they thought. But a police officer who was around the
corner responded stopped her, and instead of getting out of
the car, she pulls the car into a parking space

(33:54):
and gets kind of blocked in in this parking spot.
So she's in her car in a parking spot with
a gun, won't come out. In the meantime, the motel
staff is trying to help Selena. An ambulance comes in
less than two minutes, but Selena's pronounced dead at one
oh five from loss of blood and cardiac arrest. Her

(34:16):
last words were this fucking makes me want to cry.
Her last words your Yolanda Salavad salev Saldivar, Room one
fifty eight. Those were her last words, like not tell
my family I love them, and she was just trying
to make sure they knew. Yeah, which makes me so sad.
It's just like the last words out of your mouth
are about your killer's name. Well yeah, I mean I know,

(34:38):
like I know, like you should get them out, but
then it's just wish it could then be like something sweeter.
And she was only twenty three years old. Oh no, no, baby, Well,
an autopsy's performed, and this is what I thought when
I heard about her running after getting shot. She died
of heart failure. Wait, though we realized Selena's heart fueled

(34:58):
by adrenaline, and I think from running pumped all the
blood out of her surflatory system. So I feel like
if she hadn't run, she either might have gotten shot
again by Yolanda, but or the blood might.

Speaker 2 (35:12):
Not have It's those hollow point bullets.

Speaker 3 (35:14):
Yeah, I mean, I don't think you can get shot
and it comes out the other side and you can
survive that, right.

Speaker 2 (35:19):
No, because isn't that part of it? Is like they
explode inside you and so when they come out, they
just instead of a bullet hole size coming out, it
like rips out. I mean those things are evil.

Speaker 3 (35:30):
Yeah, well eats. The thing is so event So Sealda
ours trying to say, I was just trying to say
that it was an accident, that she was going to
kill herself, But it's like, well, why did you buy
those bullets then? Yeah, like you clearly had a motive.
So meanwhile, there's a nine hour standoff with Yolanda in
which she is in her car with the gun to
her head hysterically on the phone with the hostage or

(35:53):
with the negotiator, trying to say that she didn't mean
to kill her, she was an accident, she was trying
to kill herself, and all these other excuses. But ultimately,
let's see, da da da, she gave herself in and
she got arrested. She's tried for first degree murder and
claimed that the gun quote accidentally went off, and all

(36:15):
these other excuses, but ultimately it didn't work, and the
jurors deliberated for less than three hours, and on October
twenty third, nineteen ninety five, they found Saldevar guilty. She's
sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole
in thirty years, which is going to be March twenty
twenty five. But everyone's like, she is so incredibly hated

(36:37):
in Texas. She will be murdered and she has to
be in solitary confinement because of that, because.

Speaker 2 (36:43):
The rest of everybody wants to kill her in jail.

Speaker 3 (36:45):
Yeah, everyone in jail who is huge Selena fans her
whole life, wants to fucking murder her.

Speaker 2 (36:49):
Yeah that's I mean, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (36:52):
So she's she spends every day twenty four hours a
day alone in a nine by six foot cell. Let's see.
So the case has been described as the most important
trial for the Latino population, and it was compared to
the oj Simpson murder trial. It was one of the
most publicly followed trials in the history of Texas. Wow,

(37:14):
her posthumous nineteen ninety five crossover album Dreaming of You
debuted at number one on the Billboard charts and became
triple platinum.

Speaker 2 (37:22):
That just gave me time.

Speaker 3 (37:24):
She was the first Hispanic artist to have a predominantly
Spanish language album debut and peak at number one.

Speaker 2 (37:30):
That's so fucking cool. I know, I mean terribly sad,
but also because I remember that being in the movie
where it's like the it's a tragedy anyway. Yeah, but
this was someone who was poised on the verge of
crossing over at a time before that was like before
j Low, before any of those things.

Speaker 3 (37:51):
We remember like in the late You and I and
people are our agel remember in the late nineties, like
this huge, this huge Latin explosion and yeah, that was
like the first time it became mainstream. So Selena's doing
this in the early nineties.

Speaker 2 (38:06):
Yeah, So she's for Ricky Martin for like any of
that where it was kind of like the sexy you
know Kira any.

Speaker 3 (38:14):
That wasn't that wasn't on American pop radio. Yeah, like
that was not on there at all. So she was
kind of a trailblazer and seemed like a good person
and this fucking psycho bitch fan like I didn't, I
didn't know. I always pictured it differently and it's just

(38:35):
like so fucking tragic.

Speaker 2 (38:38):
Well, it's also fascinating that thing of like when you
can it's like when you were saying, you know, she's
just this random person, but you do trace those things
of like a person who embezzles, a person who like
those kind of smaller crimes. That's how every story goes
like this, where it's like they always have a background
where they're trying to get anything they want at any price.

Speaker 3 (39:02):
And they have like gray area morals too. Yeah, like
I don't like, yeah, someone, if I knew a friend
embezzled money, I would not trust that person.

Speaker 2 (39:13):
Even though I'm allowed to steal money from other PEO.
It's not your money. No, No, you don't get to hat.

Speaker 3 (39:18):
You need to buy my water unerals in life and
not screw other people over.

Speaker 2 (39:22):
And you don't want to be that person. Like I
remember there was a cafe I was working at when
I was a teen, and I had it in my mind.
I decided that I could take a twenty dollars bill
when I was closing at night so I could buy
beer because they only paid me minimum wage. This whole
rationalization totally, and I did it two times. Was racked

(39:44):
with guilt about it. And then the manager told me,
did I tell you this? Or the manager who was
also my friend, like someone I hung out with, He goes,
I don't I something's going on. We're always short. I
think it might be the janitor. And then I was like,
oh my, because that's what happened. You steal somebody else
could go down for, or like, I mean the idea
that he even would suspect this person who has nothing

(40:05):
to do with it.

Speaker 3 (40:05):
It.

Speaker 2 (40:06):
Then I thought maybe he told me that because he
knew what it was saying, because it was always me,
or it was me the two times, and that was
just a manipulation, which God bless you genius move Yeah,
but also like and then I like the next week,
I was talking to my dad on the phone and
we were talking about something else, and then he goes, Karen,
there's some people out there that just can't keep their
hands out of the till. And then I almost threw

(40:28):
up because I was like, I almost wanted to go.

Speaker 3 (40:31):
That's me, my dad, My sweet dad is talking about
bad people.

Speaker 2 (40:36):
And I'm the bad year. You don't want to be
the bad person, don't. You don't need whatever the thing
is you think you need, You don't, And get your own,
get your own, get your own. You can.

Speaker 3 (40:46):
Yeah, keep your hands out of the kiddie.

Speaker 2 (40:50):
That's super weird that I talked about thought, sure, so weird.

Speaker 3 (40:53):
Sorry, I no hip hair. It's super like we've never
talked about her before, not at all. That is super weird.

Speaker 2 (41:03):
All right, Wow, that was a big story to cover.
Do you have updates?

Speaker 3 (41:07):
Yeah? I do so. Selena's music and legacy, of course,
continue to live on after her death. In nineteen ninety five,
a wax statue of Selena was unveiled at Madame Tussaude's Hollywood,
and she was inducted into the Texas Women's Hall of
Fame at Texas Women's University. Netflix, of course released Selena

(41:27):
the series and in twenty twenty three, Rolling Stone ranks
Selena at number eighty nine on its list of two
hundred greatest Singers of all Time, which is incredible. Also,
mac released a limited edition Selena makeup line. And it's
been thirty years since Selena was murdered, which is crazy.
That's been so long, and that means that Landa Saldivar
is eligible for parole this year. Her file will be reviewed,

(41:51):
including letters of support and protest, and a case summary
will be prepared for the board voting panel. Her parole
review date is March thirty of this year, twenty twenty five,
So that's something to keep an eye on. It's such
a high profile case. You know, I can't imagine she's
going to be pearled, not that that's what it's about.

Speaker 2 (42:10):
But no. But I mean that was such a that
story of like a person so inside turning on her
is such a nightmare story. It's like, it's not this
woman was not a serial killer. She was not like
this a hardened criminal in this way. It was something
horrible happened, and it doesn't feel the same as the

(42:32):
story of the usual stories that we tell of you know,
a man being out there trying to kill every woman
that he sees.

Speaker 3 (42:39):
Right, but she took advantage of this vulnerable person in
a way that was so ugly and then killed her
when that person found.

Speaker 2 (42:47):
Out about it.

Speaker 3 (42:48):
It's just so cold blooded to me, that and just horrible. Yeah,
let's keep an eye on that. And so this is
another kind of epics story that you've done that gets
brought up a lot. And uh so, let's hear Karen's
story about the Zanku Chicken murders. Did I talk about

(43:12):
your murder yet?

Speaker 2 (43:15):
What's interesting it?

Speaker 3 (43:16):
Now?

Speaker 2 (43:18):
All right, Karen, but you've lived near it. I'm sure
you've heard about it, Okay, because it's the Zanku Chicken murders.
And there's one on my way from work driving here.

Speaker 3 (43:35):
There's one here. I drove by one. Y, let's tell everyone,
let's give everyone directions from Sanko Chicken to my apartment.

Speaker 2 (43:41):
That's why I got real vague. But yes, so my
mouth is watering.

Speaker 3 (43:48):
Zanko Chicken is so good.

Speaker 2 (43:49):
Zanko Chicken is legendary. And Los Angeles. If you've ever
visited here, if you have friends that live here, and
you're not wealthy, you've probably eaten here because Sanku chicken
is the best food that you can get for a
decent price, ye, and everybody knows it and everybody talks
about it. It's up there with Rosco's chicken and waffles

(44:12):
in that way of like, if you're here, you have
to go try.

Speaker 3 (44:14):
This, definitely. And Pinks Pinks hot dogs that kind of.

Speaker 2 (44:17):
Thinks is shit. It's so shit, but it's fun to
stand in line drunk, So go there.

Speaker 3 (44:23):
Not gonna lie. I have fucking chomps some chili dogs
my day.

Speaker 2 (44:25):
But I've for twenty years I've driven by Pinks and
watched people standing in line at three in the morning
to get those hot dogs. So the first time I
went there, I was like, this is going to be crazy,
and it was just hot dogs.

Speaker 3 (44:35):
It's just hot dogs. But yeah they're gross in a
good way.

Speaker 2 (44:39):
Yeah, it's like greasy, it's drunken food. Total totally okay.
So there. I got most of my information from this
awesome article from Los Angeles magazine that was written by
a guy named Mark Ahrax and it's from April first,
two thousand and eight. There's way more information than I
could even entertain. So if this interests you at all,

(45:00):
look at that you can google it and it'll come
up right away. And I remember reading this probably five
years ago, because when this murder happened, everybody knew about
it all of a sudden, and everybody was crazy freaked
out about it. It'd be like your local mom and pop cafe,
like some terrible thing happening there. But the story behind
it is kind of fascinating because it's like, so in

(45:21):
Los Angeles, there's a there's a city that's right behind
the hill that says Hollywood on it. Right behind that
city is both Burbank and Glendale. I mean right behind
that mountain is Burbank and Glendale. And Glendale has the
single largest population of Armenian people that isn't Armenia in

(45:43):
the world. Wow, it's huge. And Armenians came there after
they were there was a Turkish genocide, which there we
see parades about and flags about. And it's like, it's
weird because I never heard of anybody being Armenia until
I moved to LA And now I feel like I
know a ton of stuff about the Armenian culture simply

(46:04):
because like I live in Burbank, I live close to Glendale.
So anyway, this is this restaurant, Zanku Chicken was started
originally in Beirut Lebanon by a man named and the
pronunciation on this is going to if you're a Armenian
or if you're just not a valley girl, it's going

(46:27):
to offend you. Vartkiss Iskenderian and his family started the
first Zanku Chicken in Beirut in nineteen sixty two, and
then they brought it over here in nineteen eighty three,
and it was the chain actually was opened by Mardiros

(46:47):
who is the son and his parents were not interested
in having a restaurant in America. They wanted to do
dry cleaning, maybe go into the suit business. They looked
into all these other businesses that were more kind of
reliable than a restaurant. But uh Mardiro's believed that this.
He looked around and he saw how few Middle Eastern

(47:10):
restaurants there were with so with such huge populations of
people that would appreciate the food, there was almost no
food to feed them that was like from their home totally.
So they opened their first restaurant at the corner of
Sunset and Normandy in East East la Hey.

Speaker 4 (47:30):
And.

Speaker 2 (47:32):
The La Times said it's the best roast chicken in
town at any price, which is kind of really saying
something for the littlest Shishi restaurants they have here. The
Zagat Guide would say that Zanku was one of America's
best meal deals America, not just La, which is cool.
Jonathan Gold, who is a very famous food writer he

(47:53):
adores Zanku Chicken, reviewed it and said it the chicken
was superb, and nothing in heaven or on our compares
with the garlic paste.

Speaker 3 (48:02):
Oh my god, that garlic paste.

Speaker 2 (48:03):
The garlic paste is what everybody talks about. And it
was invented by Marduros's grandmother Shot and his mother makes it,
made it all by hand, so it was a secret recipe.
People still don't know what's in it. It's this white
paste that you get with your chicken and your rice
and your hummus and your pedas.

Speaker 3 (48:24):
It's a little top, it's like a sigh on the side.

Speaker 2 (48:26):
And it is tangy and pungent and garlicky, but there's
something else going on. It's kind of like butter, like
you can't figure out. All you want to do is
eat it and put everything that you eat into it.

Speaker 3 (48:39):
Then for the next day you're belching garlic.

Speaker 2 (48:41):
Yes, if you're killed with garlic, you reak. It's quite
an experience. So that was kind of their secret weapon,
aside from the fact that they figured out that other
rotisserie chicken places, they realized you have to move the
chicken itself, and you have to play with the temperatures,
just keep it on one temperature all the time. So

(49:02):
they basically kind of went in there and tried to
figure out how to give people who wanted to eat
authentic Middle Eastern food the best version of that food
and not just go like here, yeah, here's whatever, which
is amazing. Apparently one time on Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry
David referred to it as chicken so good it could
end the rift in the Middle East, so like everybody

(49:25):
in La knows about.

Speaker 3 (49:25):
It was also in a song that's right, that's right.

Speaker 2 (49:30):
There was there's a list on Wikipedia of all the
popular culture things. There was somebody on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
I wou'd also like to eat there. So they started
as this hole in the wall chicken place, and after
I think like over two years, they were making two
million dollars a year, and half of that was pure profit.

Speaker 3 (49:52):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (49:53):
So they they were doing obviously great. So there were rumors.
Oh so in this article, it's one of my favorite things.
In this article, this guy Mark, the writer talks starts
out by talking about the Armenian culture and everything, and
he says, there's a saying that little old Armenian ladies

(50:14):
say in Armenian, which is let's sit crooked and talk straight,
which totally made me think of us. Isn't that the best?
Let's sit cook, crooked and talk straight. That's basically let's gossip.

Speaker 3 (50:26):
That is us to a tee, and I'm flucking in
lot with it.

Speaker 2 (50:30):
It's the best. So, of course in the Armenian uh,
I keep saying culture, but what I mean is community.
They uh this family rose to prominence obviously because there
all of a sudden started making this tons of money
and their food was crazy popular. But they also were
huge philanthropists and gave so much back, so they were

(50:53):
kind of famous within that community because they were a
huge part of it. So there was gossip. It was
never confirmed that Pepsi was offering the company thirty million
dollars for the chain and the trademark.

Speaker 3 (51:06):
Holy shit.

Speaker 2 (51:08):
And this was when it was kind of like peeking
in its popularity. And at that same time, even though
Madeiros's parents did not want to expand, they just wanted
to keep that one the first shot. He was like,
he kept fighting to expand, He's like, we have to
do what we have to do it. So finally they
agreed to split. And what they agreed to do was

(51:32):
I think it's Mardiro's sorry if I know I'm pronouncing
his name wrong, but they agreed that he would take
the concept and he would build the chain and any
stores that he opened doing that, whether they failed or succeeded,
would be on him, because that's basically what the family
was afraid. Don't let's not lose all our money. We

(51:54):
got a good thing. Let's just keep this good thing going.
And in return, he would sign over his stake of
the original in Hullo to his parents and his two sisters.
But they weren't splitting. It wasn't they weren't they weren't
you know? It was they were still completely together as
a family. The garlic paste was still made by his mother.
At all the Zancuds, which I just can't get over,

(52:15):
is this woman who was probably at the time in
her I would say probably late sixties or early seventies.
And they say in this article they talk about how
this mother what I think your name is Margaret spelled
with rit. She worked. She got up at seven thirty
every morning and went into work and worked till seven

(52:38):
o'clock at night. And when she was done cooking for
the restaurant, she would start to cook for the people
that worked at the restaurant. Oh my goodness, like cook
people their home, you know, food from home that they liked.

Speaker 3 (52:47):
Take a break, honey.

Speaker 2 (52:48):
No, she couldn't do it. She was like obsessive, which
I love.

Speaker 3 (52:51):
Oop.

Speaker 2 (52:52):
Sorry, that's that reminds me of my grandma. Like my
grandmother's index fingers were both bent at almost like right
angles because how much she cleaned, because she was She
came over here from Ireland when she was seventeen and
she was a maid for most of her life until
she met my grandfather. So it's like those old country
people are just like, we're here to earn it, we're

(53:13):
here to buck and get.

Speaker 3 (53:15):
It.

Speaker 2 (53:16):
Yeah, that's right. And also if you start a business,
you got to put give it your all so you
make it into something. And they really did they were
this amazing family success story. And Mardiro's well, he would
constantly say to the whole family, success means nothing if
we don't stay as one. Greed must never rear its head.
There's plenty for all of us. And So he had

(53:38):
a sister and she had two sons, and they loved
all of each other. They were cousins, but they were
they felt more like they were each other's you know.
He had four boys, she had two sons. They were all,
you know, very very close. In fact, his wife was
quoted as saying, before we married, he told me, I'm

(53:58):
going to live with my parents my life. I will
never leave my mother. She was queen of the house,
not me, next to God, it was his mother. Holy So,
just to give you a sense of that, So Madeiro's
is diagnosed. Sorry I don't have the date on this,

(54:20):
but I believe it was in like two thousand and one,
I think or so. He gets diagnosed with inoperable bladder
and brain cancer.

Speaker 3 (54:32):
Holy shit.

Speaker 2 (54:33):
So he basically felt like he knew something was wrong.
He had pains and places, but he didn't go to
the doctor. He avoided it. And so by the time
he went in and had spread. So he holds a
family meeting and he tells his mother and his sister
and his wife that he's dying and that when he dies,

(54:53):
he wants the Zanku business to go to his four sons.

Speaker 3 (54:57):
My goodness.

Speaker 2 (54:58):
Now, the problem there is that his four sons were
at the time and had been for a couple of
years fuck ups and in ways where the oldest son
had been caught trying to cheat on a law school
entrance exam and so had been a top student at

(55:18):
I think it was a Woodbridge university and so he
basically got kicked out and was like barred from ever
taking the test because he was gonna cheat. So after
that he became an evangelical Christian. He was like one
of those guys that stands on the street with a bullhorn.
The second oldest son was tried for attempted murder when

(55:40):
the pimp of the sex worker that he had just
visited stole money from him and he ended up chasing
him up the freeway and shooting at his car, and
he ended up getting tried for attempted murder and it
turned out to be a miss trial, so he never

(56:02):
had to go to jail, but of course that mark,
and of course you know, if this is the richest
family in the community and sit like this starts popping off,
everyone's talking about it. Then the two younger were basically
just on drugs. But when I was reading this article
it sounded so harsh, But it's like that's a thing
of like, I feel like you can't get rich quick

(56:25):
like that and have things just go great, because once
you start getting all the money you want and you
can buy all the things you want, and you start
wanting the things you can't have, and it gets a
little nuts like.

Speaker 3 (56:37):
That, Oh I got it. You can look at my riches.

Speaker 2 (56:41):
I just please watch your behavior, is what I'm saying. Okay,
So when he makes this announcement, the room goes silent
because that's he's saying, they're the ones that should get it.
And his sister and his mother are both just staring
at him, and let's see it's as his mother sat stonefaced,

(57:01):
she didn't ask what kind of cancer he had or
what the prognosis that the doctors gave him. Instead, she
blurted out, in Armenia, and your son's the shadow they
cast is not yours. And then she got up and
she walked up the stairs and shut the door.

Speaker 3 (57:15):
Holy shit.

Speaker 2 (57:16):
Now she lived with him, as he had said, him
and his wife Rita. She wouldn't speak to him. So
she would get up at seven thirty every morning, go
to work, come home. They'd be standing in the kitchen.
She'd get a glass of water and go upstairs and
shut the door.

Speaker 3 (57:36):
Your son's dying.

Speaker 2 (57:37):
Yes, And as he was getting chemotherapy, as he was
losing his hair, he ended up losing sixty pounds. He
was he was dying of cancer silent treatment.

Speaker 3 (57:47):
That's so sad.

Speaker 2 (57:48):
It's really fucked up. And it's it's very old country.
I mean, it's how some people are. It's hard and
obviously I think knowing at least based on what the
wife says, the relationship that he had with his mother,
this was breaking him.

Speaker 3 (58:08):
It was.

Speaker 2 (58:08):
It was terrible.

Speaker 3 (58:09):
Sure.

Speaker 2 (58:11):
So after a year of the silent treatment, he went
into his mother's room and he took down that there
was a picture of him as a child in Beirut
with her when he was like four years old, that
she had kept up on her dresser. He took it down,
He took out the picture, he ripped it in half.
He burned the half with her on it, and he
crumpled up the half with him on it and threw

(58:32):
it away and then put the frame back up. And
two days later their house catches on fire. Now yeah, yeah,
and their house they him and his wife almost get
caught in the house. They have to get rescued by fireman.
The house burns down. The mother takes you know, her

(58:52):
stuff or whatever. I don't know how much she had
loved and moves in with the sister. So she's gone.
And that's the last house ketch on fire. We don't know, no,
but he as he's going into his sickness and on
you know, I'm sure tons of painkillers, and in a
weird place. He's telling his son Steve, that the fire

(59:13):
is his mother's doing, that she knew based on what
he did to the picture, that that's that was her
And I can't stop doing that, Stephen. We need a
new setup. Sorry. Uh So, yeah, he's hallucinating basically and
saying that, uh that it was somehow her doing. He

(59:40):
believed that his mother and her sisters and his sisters
were plotting against him.

Speaker 3 (59:45):
They are to not give your fucking kids this goddamn business.

Speaker 2 (59:50):
Well, yeah, I mean I mean, yeah, yeah, they were.
It's it's everybody's worst nightmare. It's kind of like, oh,
so this, this is actually what it comes down to
really at the end. So Steve, having to hear this
and of course loving his grandmother and being in the
middle of it, said can't you ever forgive her? And

(01:00:10):
Mardiro's was quoted as saying, God will forgive the devil
before I can forgive my mother. Really shit, and then
he said, because this is a mother, not a devil,
which is super sad. It's like, yeah, ultimately, your mother
turned her back on you when you were in your
worst place. And also it's that thing of I'm sure
after years and years of busting her ass to make

(01:00:33):
this restaurant work, he was going to come in and
be like, here's how it's going to happen. So it's
like giving bad news and bad news like you.

Speaker 3 (01:00:40):
Could also be like, you know how some people get
mad at someone who's sick because it's easier than the
sadness you can feel. Yes, so she might have been
mad at him that she had to watch her son die. Yes,
And it's easier.

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
Than it's a thousand percent easier. Yeah, yeah, that's it's
a stage of grief. But she yeah, it's it's hard, yeah,
because when someone else has a disease, then it's all
about them and how hard it is for them. You
can't be mad at them, like I'm sure she had
tons of guilt. It was just this impacted problem.

Speaker 3 (01:01:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
So anyway, on January fourteenth, two thousand and three, Mardiros
who had been bedridden and was dying, gets out of bed,
puts on a white silk suit that he hadn't worn
in twenty years. Who gets a nine millimeter handgun and
a thirty eight caliber revolver and walks down the stairs

(01:01:40):
of his house. His wife Rita couldn't believe what she
was seeing, dude, and she said, in the way it's
written in this article, for a man so near death cancer, everywhere,
he looked beautiful. So he's having some weird last Later
on in the article, they went, he does not have
that outfit on, Okay, So they think that she's remembering

(01:02:03):
it because it's this crazy moment and she's remembering him
basically as his beautiful young self that she fell in
love with, because it's a really beautiful story. But she
they lived across the street from each other in Beirut,
and he was nineteen and she was twelve, and he
was like no, no, no, no, they did. That's not when
it started. That's when she first noticed him because he

(01:02:25):
was like the high roller. Yeah, don't be freaked out.
It's actually very sweet. And then when she got older,
like she was eighteen and he was like twenty six. Yeah,
they started dating. So it's very sweet, like she was
in love with them all her life. So she said,
you're two weeks to go anywhere. Please get back in bed,
and he said, I feel better, don't worry. I'm just

(01:02:47):
going to go down to Zanku and see my friends.
So she to see an old friend and so she,
you know, was like, all right, I'll see you soon.
But he didn't go to Zanku.

Speaker 4 (01:02:59):
Goddamn it.

Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
He didn't get to Zanku. He went to his sister's house.
The housekeeper lets him in, She sits at the table.
Housekeeper gives him lemonade. His sister comes downstairs, she was
in the shower. They sit and have a pleasant conversation
and share some lemonade. Then Margaret, the mother, comes home

(01:03:20):
from work around two pm, and she greets him. She
says hello to the daughter first, then she says to
loa to him, puts her stuff down, sits at the table,
and the housekeeper goes downstairs to her apartment because she
knows that they need to talk to each other. So
they talk for about five minutes and it's just normal

(01:03:43):
chit chat. And then he reaches into his waistband for
his gun and he shoots his sister across the table,
then shut the point blank. And then his mother screams
and runs for the door, and he runs after her
and he blocks the door. He stands in front of
her about like fifteen feet away from the door, it said,

(01:04:04):
and he raises the gun in armenia and she says,
don't shoot me, please, and he shoots her eight times.
He shoots her once. She goes down on the ground,
and then he stands over her and shoots her.

Speaker 3 (01:04:15):
Silly shit.

Speaker 2 (01:04:17):
He looks around the room and sees his twenty three
year old nephew is on the stairs. No no, and
he just turns around, goes over into the living room,
sits on the couch and shoots himself on the head.

Speaker 3 (01:04:29):
Holy fuck, are you serious? So? Oh my god?

Speaker 2 (01:04:40):
Now, Rita the wife well at least at the time
of this article, had to be in charge of all
the Zancas. And it was this hole. They were in
court about the trademark and who owned the rights to it.
It's this huge thing and I didn't even get into it.

(01:05:01):
There's so much more to this article.

Speaker 3 (01:05:04):
The poor woman after year, maybe years or maybe however
long taking care of her sick husband. Yeah, that's fucking stressful.

Speaker 2 (01:05:12):
As hell, and raising four boys.

Speaker 3 (01:05:14):
Who are not doing who are fuck ups?

Speaker 2 (01:05:17):
Who were rich kids? You know, who were like who
were rich kids. And she was a very traditional kind
of old school wife where she didn't work, she didn't
go to the store, she stayed home and was a
housewife and took care of that family, and suddenly just
got thrown into this.

Speaker 3 (01:05:33):
I would never want to raise rich kids, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:05:36):
No, Well, but also because that's not anything you've experienced with,
so like they're having a whole life that you don't even.

Speaker 3 (01:05:41):
Know whatever they want.

Speaker 2 (01:05:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:05:44):
So then then after taking care of her sick, dying husband,
then this happens and she has to be in charge
of so much shit she didn't expect to be in
charge of. Yeah, that poor woman.

Speaker 2 (01:05:56):
Yeah, so I don't know that's that's that rough story
behind the best restaurant in LA.

Speaker 3 (01:06:05):
Who owns it? Now?

Speaker 2 (01:06:06):
I think they still do, but I'm not sure. I
didn't get like once the murder part was over, that
article goes on forever talking about all that part. So
I figure, if people are super interested and who owns
the rights to Zaco chickens? But you can go for it, But.

Speaker 3 (01:06:24):
I want to a My stomach is growling. I know,
are you hungry?

Speaker 2 (01:06:27):
Now?

Speaker 3 (01:06:28):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:06:28):
That's I want to eat four chickens.

Speaker 3 (01:06:30):
I do show. I'm like already thinking about what I'm
gonna order tomorrow when I go there. Okay, we're back, Karen.
Do you have any updates?

Speaker 2 (01:06:41):
There are a couple so, And I've actually thought about
this a lot because the line that journalist Mark Ayrex
used when he wrote this article for Los Angeles Magazine
about the Zancu chicken murders that sit crooked and talk straight,
which is an Armenian saying, as I learned from Mark
Aras in that article has basically people love that line

(01:07:05):
and they love it for this podcast. So it's been
brought up in relation to this podcast. So I just
want it to be very clear that we didn't make
it up. Mark Araks actually didn't.

Speaker 3 (01:07:14):
But he did.

Speaker 2 (01:07:15):
He found it and he you know, that's that like
beautiful long form journalistic work that someone does where they're
like building out this world, not just like you know,
the hard and fast true crime journalism, but like this
beautiful story of fully fleshed out of what's this family
is all about and where they come from. So yeah,

(01:07:38):
I thought about that a lot afterwards because it was
just like, man, that one part of an article got
so kind.

Speaker 3 (01:07:43):
Of popular doc it totally stuck.

Speaker 2 (01:07:46):
So thank any older ar meeting and lady you see
the next time you see them if you like that saying,
because that's who probably her mother said it first. Anyway.
In two thousand and six, a court ruled that the
trademark that they were basically all fighting over for zanku chicken,
something I eat literally twice a week minimum, just have

(01:08:08):
to the trademark four that belonged to both sides of
the family. That's what the court ruled. So Rita Iskendarian
and her four sons own the zankus that Madeiros opened.
The surviving nephews inherited their mother's share. The first zanku,
the one in Hollywood, and they still co own it

(01:08:31):
with their aunt. Though they all still battle over the trademark,
both sides have continued to basically expand the franchise.

Speaker 3 (01:08:40):
Yeah. One thing I love about this podcast is I
think a lot of people who listen ended up when
they come to La for a vacation go to Zanku
now and Taco, And I'm fucking proud of that. Hell, yes,
you know, if we've given anyone any like good tips,
that's one of the best I think. I mean, I
got to say.

Speaker 2 (01:09:00):
Yes and go to Zanku because the Armenian culture in
Los Angeles is huge, Definitely, it's the second largest densest
population of Armenians outside of this country of Armenia.

Speaker 3 (01:09:14):
Yeah. Actually that photo that we took is in taken.
My first apartment in Hollywood was in Little Armenia and
it was such a pleasant neighborhood and the shops and
I just I loved it.

Speaker 2 (01:09:24):
Yeah, And that's Little Armenia, and then Big Armenia is Glenna.

Speaker 3 (01:09:29):
It's called Glendell.

Speaker 2 (01:09:30):
Get over there with the Kardashians over at the Carousel restaurant.
But I think it's kind of cool because it's like
this story. This restaurant is such a huge part of
the city, and the background of the restaurant is just
as much a part of Los Angeles as movies and
anything else. It's like, if you're going to Zanku on

(01:09:50):
your trip out here, you're doing yourself right and you're
really getting a true taste of la I think, yeah,
absolutely all right. This episode was originally titled just the
thirty two.

Speaker 3 (01:09:59):
Of I mean, it's classic, but just to humor us,
let's see what we name it these days based on
something we said in the episode. So I'd like this one,
consider me wrong again, which I said during corrections Cornery, Like,
you know, that could be tattooed on my fucking gravestone.

Speaker 2 (01:10:19):
It's a real exercise in humility. Yeah, corrections Corner. As
a practice, I think we've really we've set ourselves up
really nicely to just do that in our work every week.
How do we fuck up? How did we fuck up
in public?

Speaker 3 (01:10:32):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:10:32):
For sure. Also there's Skippers Come On Home, which is
us joking that Skippers should come back. Listen to the
episode after they finish the intro.

Speaker 3 (01:10:41):
Yeah start now, yeah, press plane now, Skipper right, Well,
thank you for not skipping. We appreciate you guys sticking
with it, even if you did skip in the beginning
and maybe don't skip now, like cool, well, thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:10:51):
I feel like people listening to rewind are the opposite
of skippers. They're just like, we want to hear every dirty,
fucked up thing you've ever done. We're going to be
here for all of it. Yeah, we're gonna hear every story.
We're gonna hear every horrible thing.

Speaker 3 (01:11:07):
Every anecdote, every corrections corner.

Speaker 2 (01:11:09):
All right, thanks you guys, Stay sexy and don't get murdered.

Speaker 3 (01:11:14):
Good Elvis, do you want a cookie?