April 24, 2023 • 22 mins
This week’s hometowns include hiding cash around the house and a song about Mount St. Helens.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Hello, Hello, and welcome to my favorite murder the minisode.
That's right, you write them, reread them.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
It's so standardized at this point. It's an American tradition.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
It fucking records itself essentially so easy. It's so easy.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Sure, speaking of an American tradition, how about this. Okay,
this is a Nascar I survived, And then in parentheses
it says first hand account. It says, hello to my
favorite cult leaders. My name is Alexandria Alex and unfortunately
I'm typing this email from the unfortunate state of South Carolina.
(00:58):
And then it says, see what I did there? Please
pray for us. In the last few weeks, we've seen
everything from the horrors of Alex Murdoch and the complete
stripping of women's rights. As a pharmacist, I make sure
to stockpile generic plan be and educate as many people
as professionally possible on the ever changing landscape of women's
health and what options are available.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Amen to you.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yeah, thank you for that, But god damn it, I
want us all to stop adjusting and fucking take our
rights back. Okay, that's a great point, quick sidebar, But Alex,
you're doing God's work, don't stop. Okay, enough about my
current role. I same here. I wrote in to share
my own I survived NASCAR story after listening to episode
(01:42):
three sixty eight about the Leman's Motor Race disaster. This
story takes place in May two thousand, when I was
eight years old. My uncle, who worked as a regional
manager for a cable company, was gifted box seats to
a NASCAR race and conquered North Carolina at Lowe's Motor Speedway.
This was presented as my birthday gift that year as
(02:03):
it would be a fun, fancy event with my aunt, uncle, mom,
and older cousin. I say older as in forty years older,
so he wasn't there to hang out with me. My
dad had to work and was unable to attend. Since
I was eight, I paid no attention to the race
but to the complimentary cheese tray and unlimited soda. To
be honest, at thirty years old, the same would apply
(02:23):
as NASCAR is not my preferred choice of entertainment a man. Again,
to be lucky enough to be in a box at
any event is so exciting you do not have to
care about the whatever event is taking place.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
The boss so true, is the shit?
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Anyways, after the race, as everyone was exiting, the concrete
pedestrian walkway that went over four lanes of traffic collass.
It injured over one hundred estimates very from ninety to
one hundred and seven people and at least sixteen critically. Luckily,
there was no traffic at the time under the walkway,
(03:00):
or the injuries would have been much more severe. My
cousin fell the entire seventeen feet to the ground. Oh
my god, my mom, aunt and I slid down the
concrete and my uncle who was following behind us, fortunately
missed the collapse.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
This section.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Oh, that must have been horribly manhit his whole family.
He watched them all go oh, and they were right
there when it happened.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
That is wild.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
The person talking was on the kway, I mean they
were on it. Yeah, that is first hand for sure.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
It says the section that collapsed was thirty feet long.
Several victims were airlifted to hospitals and Conquered and Charlotte.
The injuries ranged from bruises and broken bones to head
and spinal injuries. Hospital officials said. Witnesses said bodies were
lying on the ground and people were helping emergency workers
attend to the injured. As far as I know and
(03:53):
have researched, since, no one was fatally injured, so thank
god no one died. My cousin's injury were severe and
he is still unable to work to this day.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
My aunt had broken vertebrae in her neck but has recovered.
My mom has a slip disc in her back and
has mostly recovered, but they both have flare ups of
pain every now and again. I was lucky and only
suffered concrete burns on my left arm and knees. The
scars aren't too noticeable unless I get a tan. We
were so fortunate. After the accident, my parents took me
(04:29):
every other week to a psychiatrist, but those visits didn't
last more than six months, as I never wanted to
talk about the trauma of the bridge colapse, only my
petrifying fear of snakes.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
That's cute, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I fucking oh, I saw
that my life flashed.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
In front of my eyes anyway, But what I really
need to talk about is the thing that you really
can't control, right, fucking snakes And then it just as
kids ps.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
I'm no longer afraid of snakes, but have a healthy
you can stay over their feeling towards them. It's been
about twenty three years, and I often forget that I
was involved in the accident. I don't live in the
area and I don't watch Nascar. I did go back
and run a color run in graduate school and I
had to walk over the new bridge. I almost had
a panic attack, but I did it. I kicked the
(05:19):
bridge's ass. Congratulations. It was a traumatizing event, but luckily
kids are resilient, and I didn't realize how lucky I
was to have survived the collapse. Most of the victims
were adults. Thank you, ladies so much for all you do,
especially being open and honest when talking about mental health. Unfortunately,
as a healthcare provider, I still see stigma among patients.
(05:42):
But I love counseling them and saying I take medication
like this and it's really helped me, or even mentioning
going to therapy in combination with taking medication. Kisses to
your four legged children, Stay sexy and don't attend professional
racing events.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Alex Wow. Alex is a that is a good one.
That's a heavy, a heavy one, and good heavy and
we love a survival story. Sure, wow, I was like traumatizing.
I guess not.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
But yeah, well maybe when she was talking about those snakes,
she was really talking about other feelings.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Snakes as a metaphor. Sure, okay, this one's called the
first ever ghostly testimony. Karen, Georgia, Stephen, Alejandra, Hannah Pets,
and anyone else who may read this covering all their bases. Yeah,
thank you for everything you do. Blah blah blah. I'm
trying to look busy at work and decided to write
in about my family murder slash ghost story. Buckle up,
(06:39):
it's a long one. Way back in October of eighteen
ninety six, my great great great question Mark aunt Zona
Hester pronounced like Easter with an ah heaster. Oh so Heaster,
was living with her mother, Mary Jane, in Greenbrier County,
West Virginia, when she met a man named ersmus stribbling trout, shoe, no, yes,
(07:04):
no erase his first time selt E. R Asmus Erasmus, Erasmus.
This one's hard. Erasmus was a blacksmith who had recently
come to town, and nobody really knew a lot about him.
They quickly fell in love and got married four months later.
In January eighteen ninety seven, Erasmus was at work in
the Smithery question mark Smithery it spelled differently question mark forge.
(07:28):
I don't know. He was a blacksmith and he was
working anyway. He and Zona had basically an errand boy
I can't remember his name, who worked for them. Erasmus
sent the errand boy to check on Zona, and the
boy found Zona laying dead at the bottom of the
stairs in their home. He ran to tell Erasmus. Erasmus
told the boy to get the doctor and then go home,
(07:49):
and then he took off to the house. The local
doctor got to the house to find that Erasmus had
moved Zona's body up to their bedroom and was cradling
her head in his lap. Mary Jane also came to
the house and was watching the doctor an Erasmus interaction.
The doctor was trying to examine the body and determine
a cause of death, but Erasmus wouldn't let him examine
the head and neck and wouldn't let him move the
(08:10):
body suspicion that was me, not the letter, So the
doctor ruled that the death was caused by child birth.
Which is bullshit because she wasn't pregnant, and if she
had been, she wasn't far along enough. And also why
would her body be at the bottom of the stairs.
M h old, timy man. So anyway, Mary Jane is pissed.
They have the funeral, where Erasmus is acting shady and
(08:32):
won't let anyone close and keep shoving stuff around Zona's
head and neck in the casket. Mary Jane later said
that she thought Zona's head looks quote unusually loose. Oh no, yes, shiver.
So they bury her and Erasmus goes back to living
life like normal, well all caps. Mary Jane was visited
by Zona's ghost three different times, telling her she was murdered,
(08:57):
and according to Mary Jane, even showing her as of
her own murder.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
I wish we could see a little old timey clip
of the vision.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
So Mary Jane goes to the town lawyer and the
town doctor and tells him about Zona's ghost. They agree
to exhume the body and do an autopsy. They found
out that she had been violently strangled, her ligaments torn,
two of her cervical vertebrae had been dislocated, and her
wimpipe crushed oh, there were finger shaped bruises on her neck.
Erasmus was arrested immediately, and during the trial, the prosecutor
(09:27):
tried to dance around the whole ghost vision thing. When
Mary Jane testified Erasmus's tourney, was quick to bring it
up to try and discredit Mary Jane and make her
look crazy. But that strategy bit him in the ass
because the jury was even more convinced by the ghostly testimony. Yeah,
that's right. Erasmus was convicted and taken to the town
jail to wait to be taken to prison. A lynch
(09:50):
mob formed and they tried to kill Erasmus, but the
sheriff stopped them and they got Erasmus out. He died
three years later in prison from tuberculosis. Oh. I've been
working on script for this story for about three years,
so hopefully I can finish and get the movie made
so I can tell her story to the world. She
was nicknamed the Greenbriar Ghost, and there are books, plays,
and even a drunk history about her. Anyway, sorry for
(10:12):
the super long email. Even if this doesn't get read
on the show, I just hope I can spread her
story to one more person. I appreciate all that you do.
You've kept me company on many long car rides, throughout
long days at work and through college. Anyways, stay sexy,
and if you get murdered, visit your mom as a
ghost so she can get your murderer convicted.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Love Lydia, Lydia, listen to me. That is a scary
ass movie you're trying to write right now. Yeah. I
hope to God that that mother the first time she
sees that ghost is right in her face, right right,
Because that's how you would feel if you were, like,
did all that work to come back to tell your mother, Like, YO,
don't accept this story.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
The subject line of this email is I was Arkansas
woman murdered by Mormons, and then in parentheses it says
for Disney, Hello, thank you all for the work you do.
I've been listening since twenty twenty and your podcast has
been a great companion through in quotes unprecedented times. Regarding
your last episode about the Meadow Mountain massacre, I was
(11:18):
able to live it. I'm a stunt woman and worked
on a mini series called Under the Banner of Heaven.
Oh yes, yeah, they did flashbacks and I didn't realize
that that they were doing flashbacks too. It's about the
investigation of a double murder within the Mormon community in
the nineties, paralleled with the history of the Church of
Latter day Saints and would be up any murder, you know,
(11:40):
Zali shout out to Disney plus.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
No, no, we don't do that on this.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
No birthdays and no streaming service shadows.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Yeah, this is not the place for your streaming wards.
Although they are an employee, that's true.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
The series was shot in Alberta, Canna, and I was
one of the Arkansas women with the wagon train fleeing
and succumbing to the Mormon attack. And because this is
my favorite thing to talk about right now, I did
stunt work on the Last of Us, also filmed in Alberta.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Oh my god, a stunt woman. I love it.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
This stunt woman is very good. Being on that set
with so many amazing people was a highlight of my
career and it's extremely rewarding to see the end result.
Fucking hooray for chasing your dreams and working with wonderful teams.
Thank you for creating a community of badasses and telling
so many important stories. SSDGM Selene, Oh my god, Selene
(12:37):
that's incredible. Thank you for writing in. Yeah, that's very cool,
and I mean that kind of stuff where like you
don't I rarely think about that.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
But like the people in.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
The background that are like either the zombie fungus zombie people,
but that are doing attacking or being attacked or shot
or whatever. Those are stunt men and women, stunt people
that are thoroughly skilled and qualified tonally just busting ass
to be like yet another dead mushroom person in the background.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Do we have Santorina's Please write in and let your
presence be known. Sun do reinos? Is that what you
call them? Yeah, for a second.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
I thought you were saying a word that had something
to do with mushrooms.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
I was like, oh, I've never heard of. Oh, it's
really good for your brain. You should try it.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Do we have pour de to bell a renos out there?
Let us know if you have.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Ever been Maybe we have mushroom foragers. Who knows lions
Maine arenas mushroom forgers?
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Has your brain been completely re hauled by Lion's main Let.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Us okay, things in walls? Grandparents and treasure Hi friends.
So my grandparents, Don and Janet grew up during the
Great Depression. This being said, they were not very trustworthy
of banks even into their later years. Sadly, my grandma
passed away in twenty sixteen and my grandpa in twenty
(13:59):
two twenty. They had lived in the same house for
over sixty years, a house that they had built themselves.
So when my grandpa passed, my dad and his two
sisters had a quote Easter egg hunt around the house. However,
they were not looking for actual eggs. They were looking
for hidden money, and boy did they find it. After
a weekend long excursion, they finally called a quits, thinking
(14:22):
they had searched every nook and cranny. But it's over
two years later and we are still finding hidden treasure
throughout the house. Since this house was built by my grandparents,
they created and knew about every single possible hiding space.
They had money inside secret drawers, behind cupboards, holes in walls,
and between pieces of two by fours in the shed.
(14:43):
They really should have made a list of these in
a map where maybe they were trying to be fun.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
I think there should be a central list always for
things like this. Definitely, also, just because you forget I
hid cash in like a Manila envelope at the beginning
of quarantine. Yeah, because I was like, what's going to happen?
Got a bunch of cash, and then I was like,
where'd that Manila envelope?
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Go? Like, yeah, I mean it's there someday if you
need it, you know, I hope, so yeah, hopefully. Perhaps
my favorite part of this, though, is that all of
the money was tightly wrapped up in a tinfoil ball.
Oh so at least their money wouldn't burn. If the
house coll I don't know, it wouldn't burn, it would
(15:23):
roast corn on the be a nice roaster. All in all,
the grand total from Hidden Treasure is about twenty thousand
dollars shit. Yeah, oh my god. It's safe to say
Don and Janet didn't want anyone messing with their money anyway.
I am an ice you nurse who frequently sees some
shitty things, and your podcast always makes my drive home
(15:45):
after a long night shift better. Thanks for all you do,
stay sexy and hide your cash and tinfoil balls. Much love,
Sid she her.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Oh my god, I would love to be a part
of the team of people going over your grandparents' house, yes,
to try to find anything tin foil balls. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Yeah, I live in an old house and there's got
to be secret passageways in here somewhere, like a secret
drawer or something like that. Yeah, I'll find something one day.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
You should start like knocking on the walls or you know, Yeah,
have you been in the attic?
Speaker 1 (16:22):
No, I haven't. It's more like a crawl space. Get
up there. But the basement is definitely like a terrifying
site to behold. Is there really a basement a California basement? Yeah,
I mean it's it's almost more like a dirt pile
with water heater in it.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
It's not like, yeah, legit, great place to hide. Twenty
grands Okay, my last one is a Mount Saint Helen's
hometown high to all. I was so excited to hear
Karen tell the story about Mount Saint Helens last week.
My family is from a tiny town on the Oregon
and Washington border, about thirty minutes from the mountain. My
mom and her sisters love to tell the story of
(16:58):
the eruption. I think my mom was fourteen. They loved
to recite the song they wrote about the eruption. She blew,
she blew, she blew her top.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Just writing that out. It's so funny.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
I wonder what it was too, like what tune I know?
Was it their own too, their own original? Was it
a ballad? I've learned to tune it out so I
don't remember the rest. They do it a lot, They
must do it a lot. Another story I've heard is
about a man named Harry Truman who owned a lodge
at the base of the mountain and refused to leave
when the evacuation order was put in place. He became
(17:37):
a local celebrity during this time and ended up dying
as a result of the eruption. So he was one
of those people we talked about that like was warned,
but then they basically all pushed back, and then it
all went down in a way no one expected. Growing
up and hearing all these stories created a sense of
pride and a little panic, knowing how close we were
(17:57):
and what our little hometown mountain was capable of. The
mountain is always looming in the distance from my hometown,
and I vividly remember a beautiful spring day in two
thousand and five when my friends and I were at
track practice and look to the mountain to see a
huge cloud of steam and ash coming from it. Our
track coaches panicked and rushed us all inside because they
had no idea what the extent was going to be.
(18:20):
Seconds later, we felt the small earthquake that accompanied the
small eruption, the ash fell, and we were sent home.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
It wasn't nearly as serious.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
But locals don't mess around anymore when it comes to
Mount Saint Helens. Most locals who have been in the
area for a while have a story to tell about
the mountain. My grandpa still has little vials of ash
and he loves to tell about how they were trapped
at home for a week because of it. Mount Saint
Helens is our little local pride and joy, and it
signed Britney.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
I love that. I want to go there now I
do too. Pretty great. There's nothing better than the first
person story.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Ye of like you wouldn't think of it, but it's
like that track practice story is so compelling because they
were actually there, Like what would that feel like to
watch a volcano bow up near you?
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Fuck the ooh? Okay. My last one is titled do
we Still Do? Subject lines Hello and welcome to my
first email. I've been a long time listener, but my
mom never had no shade. She just never got into
the podcast world. She started Chemo back in October, and
she said, you should put on your murder girls. It
(19:29):
would be fun to listen because you're always laughing at
them and keep me distracted. We did. Obviously, you won
her heart over instantly. Hey, it was in Minniso. She
realized why you two have been my escape for so long.
I told her that I'm kind of bummed that I've
never had anything crazy happen to me, so I've never
been able to write in And then she said, oh, wait,
(19:50):
did I ever tell you about the abandoned house story?
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Here we go. Yeah. It was nineteen seventy seven in Massachusetts.
My mom was around eleven, and her and her friends
decided to go into this old abandoned house that people
said was haunted. Fuck. Yeah. As they went through the rooms,
they stumbled across an old suitcase. When they opened it,
they came across women's lingerie and clothing completely covered in
(20:14):
fresh blood. Oh. They ran out of the house, screaming
to their friends in the neighborhood what they had found.
About ten minutes later, they went back in to show
the neighborhood friends and the suitcase was gone. No no,
no no, meaning the killer was probably in the abandoned
house watching them. I asked her if they called the police,
and she replied, oh, hell no. It was the seventies.
(20:37):
We didn't even tell our parents. Our asses would have
been beaten and grounded for the rest of the summer.
My mom sadly lost her battle with aggressive cancer in December,
nine weeks after her diagnosis. Jesus wow wow. When she
took a turn for the worst. One of the last
things she said to me was quote your murder. Girls
will get you through this. No no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
I know.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Thank you for the comfort you bring to me, especially
during this impossible time in my life. Stay sexy and
hug your mama and find out all the tea she
knows before she's gone. Shana, Oh, Shana, Shana, sending you hugs.
That's tough. Yeah, we got her story, which.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
I know I was gonna say, SHANEA, forgive me, but
I was gonna say, you're like, the murder was still
in the house.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
It's like or the bleeder.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
It really it could have been like a perverted twelve
year old that was like that cut his finger on the.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Suitcase there are or paint maybe I mean, but I
only say I say that.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
QUALIFIED say that because the suitcase was gone, which means
it wasn't an innocent thing inside that suitcase.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Now someone was actually there. That's what that means, and
that is horrifying.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Yeah, you know, life is horrifying sometimes, so truly, truly,
it means a lot to us that this podcast of
us reading people's emails and telling horrible true crime stories
actually does anything for anybody. It's very, very beautiful to us,
and it means a lot to us.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
We appreciate that we get to be part of your lives.
It's really weird and lovely and we're honored, we really are.
So stay sexy and don't get murdered. Good Bye, bye, Elvis.
Do you want a cookie? Ah?
Speaker 2 (22:30):
This has been an exactly right production.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Our producer is Alejandra Kek and.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
This episode was engineered and mixed by Stephen Ray Morris.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Then email your hometowns and fucking horays to My Favorite
Murder at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at my Favorite
Murder and Twitter at my Fave Murder.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Gyobye
Hello, Hello, and welcome to my favorite murder the minisode.
That's right, you write them, reread them.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
It's so standardized at this point. It's an American tradition.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
It fucking records itself essentially so easy. It's so easy.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Sure, speaking of an American tradition, how about this. Okay,
this is a Nascar I survived, And then in parentheses
it says first hand account. It says, hello to my
favorite cult leaders. My name is Alexandria Alex and unfortunately
I'm typing this email from the unfortunate state of South Carolina.
(00:58):
And then it says, see what I did there? Please
pray for us. In the last few weeks, we've seen
everything from the horrors of Alex Murdoch and the complete
stripping of women's rights. As a pharmacist, I make sure
to stockpile generic plan be and educate as many people
as professionally possible on the ever changing landscape of women's
health and what options are available.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Amen to you.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yeah, thank you for that, But god damn it, I
want us all to stop adjusting and fucking take our
rights back. Okay, that's a great point, quick sidebar, But Alex,
you're doing God's work, don't stop. Okay, enough about my
current role. I same here. I wrote in to share
my own I survived NASCAR story after listening to episode
(01:42):
three sixty eight about the Leman's Motor Race disaster. This
story takes place in May two thousand, when I was
eight years old. My uncle, who worked as a regional
manager for a cable company, was gifted box seats to
a NASCAR race and conquered North Carolina at Lowe's Motor Speedway.
This was presented as my birthday gift that year as
(02:03):
it would be a fun, fancy event with my aunt, uncle, mom,
and older cousin. I say older as in forty years older,
so he wasn't there to hang out with me. My
dad had to work and was unable to attend. Since
I was eight, I paid no attention to the race
but to the complimentary cheese tray and unlimited soda. To
be honest, at thirty years old, the same would apply
(02:23):
as NASCAR is not my preferred choice of entertainment a man. Again,
to be lucky enough to be in a box at
any event is so exciting you do not have to
care about the whatever event is taking place.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
The boss so true, is the shit?
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Anyways, after the race, as everyone was exiting, the concrete
pedestrian walkway that went over four lanes of traffic collass.
It injured over one hundred estimates very from ninety to
one hundred and seven people and at least sixteen critically. Luckily,
there was no traffic at the time under the walkway,
(03:00):
or the injuries would have been much more severe. My
cousin fell the entire seventeen feet to the ground. Oh
my god, my mom, aunt and I slid down the
concrete and my uncle who was following behind us, fortunately
missed the collapse.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
This section.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Oh, that must have been horribly manhit his whole family.
He watched them all go oh, and they were right
there when it happened.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
That is wild.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
The person talking was on the kway, I mean they
were on it. Yeah, that is first hand for sure.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
It says the section that collapsed was thirty feet long.
Several victims were airlifted to hospitals and Conquered and Charlotte.
The injuries ranged from bruises and broken bones to head
and spinal injuries. Hospital officials said. Witnesses said bodies were
lying on the ground and people were helping emergency workers
attend to the injured. As far as I know and
(03:53):
have researched, since, no one was fatally injured, so thank
god no one died. My cousin's injury were severe and
he is still unable to work to this day.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
My aunt had broken vertebrae in her neck but has recovered.
My mom has a slip disc in her back and
has mostly recovered, but they both have flare ups of
pain every now and again. I was lucky and only
suffered concrete burns on my left arm and knees. The
scars aren't too noticeable unless I get a tan. We
were so fortunate. After the accident, my parents took me
(04:29):
every other week to a psychiatrist, but those visits didn't
last more than six months, as I never wanted to
talk about the trauma of the bridge colapse, only my
petrifying fear of snakes.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
That's cute, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I fucking oh, I saw
that my life flashed.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
In front of my eyes anyway, But what I really
need to talk about is the thing that you really
can't control, right, fucking snakes And then it just as
kids ps.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
I'm no longer afraid of snakes, but have a healthy
you can stay over their feeling towards them. It's been
about twenty three years, and I often forget that I
was involved in the accident. I don't live in the
area and I don't watch Nascar. I did go back
and run a color run in graduate school and I
had to walk over the new bridge. I almost had
a panic attack, but I did it. I kicked the
(05:19):
bridge's ass. Congratulations. It was a traumatizing event, but luckily
kids are resilient, and I didn't realize how lucky I
was to have survived the collapse. Most of the victims
were adults. Thank you, ladies so much for all you do,
especially being open and honest when talking about mental health. Unfortunately,
as a healthcare provider, I still see stigma among patients.
(05:42):
But I love counseling them and saying I take medication
like this and it's really helped me, or even mentioning
going to therapy in combination with taking medication. Kisses to
your four legged children, Stay sexy and don't attend professional
racing events.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Alex Wow. Alex is a that is a good one.
That's a heavy, a heavy one, and good heavy and
we love a survival story. Sure, wow, I was like traumatizing.
I guess not.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
But yeah, well maybe when she was talking about those snakes,
she was really talking about other feelings.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Snakes as a metaphor. Sure, okay, this one's called the
first ever ghostly testimony. Karen, Georgia, Stephen, Alejandra, Hannah Pets,
and anyone else who may read this covering all their bases. Yeah,
thank you for everything you do. Blah blah blah. I'm
trying to look busy at work and decided to write
in about my family murder slash ghost story. Buckle up,
(06:39):
it's a long one. Way back in October of eighteen
ninety six, my great great great question Mark aunt Zona
Hester pronounced like Easter with an ah heaster. Oh so Heaster,
was living with her mother, Mary Jane, in Greenbrier County,
West Virginia, when she met a man named ersmus stribbling trout, shoe, no, yes,
(07:04):
no erase his first time selt E. R Asmus Erasmus, Erasmus.
This one's hard. Erasmus was a blacksmith who had recently
come to town, and nobody really knew a lot about him.
They quickly fell in love and got married four months later.
In January eighteen ninety seven, Erasmus was at work in
the Smithery question mark Smithery it spelled differently question mark forge.
(07:28):
I don't know. He was a blacksmith and he was
working anyway. He and Zona had basically an errand boy
I can't remember his name, who worked for them. Erasmus
sent the errand boy to check on Zona, and the
boy found Zona laying dead at the bottom of the
stairs in their home. He ran to tell Erasmus. Erasmus
told the boy to get the doctor and then go home,
(07:49):
and then he took off to the house. The local
doctor got to the house to find that Erasmus had
moved Zona's body up to their bedroom and was cradling
her head in his lap. Mary Jane also came to
the house and was watching the doctor an Erasmus interaction.
The doctor was trying to examine the body and determine
a cause of death, but Erasmus wouldn't let him examine
the head and neck and wouldn't let him move the
(08:10):
body suspicion that was me, not the letter, So the
doctor ruled that the death was caused by child birth.
Which is bullshit because she wasn't pregnant, and if she
had been, she wasn't far along enough. And also why
would her body be at the bottom of the stairs.
M h old, timy man. So anyway, Mary Jane is pissed.
They have the funeral, where Erasmus is acting shady and
(08:32):
won't let anyone close and keep shoving stuff around Zona's
head and neck in the casket. Mary Jane later said
that she thought Zona's head looks quote unusually loose. Oh no, yes, shiver.
So they bury her and Erasmus goes back to living
life like normal, well all caps. Mary Jane was visited
by Zona's ghost three different times, telling her she was murdered,
(08:57):
and according to Mary Jane, even showing her as of
her own murder.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
I wish we could see a little old timey clip
of the vision.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
So Mary Jane goes to the town lawyer and the
town doctor and tells him about Zona's ghost. They agree
to exhume the body and do an autopsy. They found
out that she had been violently strangled, her ligaments torn,
two of her cervical vertebrae had been dislocated, and her
wimpipe crushed oh, there were finger shaped bruises on her neck.
Erasmus was arrested immediately, and during the trial, the prosecutor
(09:27):
tried to dance around the whole ghost vision thing. When
Mary Jane testified Erasmus's tourney, was quick to bring it
up to try and discredit Mary Jane and make her
look crazy. But that strategy bit him in the ass
because the jury was even more convinced by the ghostly testimony. Yeah,
that's right. Erasmus was convicted and taken to the town
jail to wait to be taken to prison. A lynch
(09:50):
mob formed and they tried to kill Erasmus, but the
sheriff stopped them and they got Erasmus out. He died
three years later in prison from tuberculosis. Oh. I've been
working on script for this story for about three years,
so hopefully I can finish and get the movie made
so I can tell her story to the world. She
was nicknamed the Greenbriar Ghost, and there are books, plays,
and even a drunk history about her. Anyway, sorry for
(10:12):
the super long email. Even if this doesn't get read
on the show, I just hope I can spread her
story to one more person. I appreciate all that you do.
You've kept me company on many long car rides, throughout
long days at work and through college. Anyways, stay sexy,
and if you get murdered, visit your mom as a
ghost so she can get your murderer convicted.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Love Lydia, Lydia, listen to me. That is a scary
ass movie you're trying to write right now. Yeah. I
hope to God that that mother the first time she
sees that ghost is right in her face, right right,
Because that's how you would feel if you were, like,
did all that work to come back to tell your mother, Like, YO,
don't accept this story.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
The subject line of this email is I was Arkansas
woman murdered by Mormons, and then in parentheses it says
for Disney, Hello, thank you all for the work you do.
I've been listening since twenty twenty and your podcast has
been a great companion through in quotes unprecedented times. Regarding
your last episode about the Meadow Mountain massacre, I was
(11:18):
able to live it. I'm a stunt woman and worked
on a mini series called Under the Banner of Heaven.
Oh yes, yeah, they did flashbacks and I didn't realize
that that they were doing flashbacks too. It's about the
investigation of a double murder within the Mormon community in
the nineties, paralleled with the history of the Church of
Latter day Saints and would be up any murder, you know,
(11:40):
Zali shout out to Disney plus.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
No, no, we don't do that on this.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
No birthdays and no streaming service shadows.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
Yeah, this is not the place for your streaming wards.
Although they are an employee, that's true.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
The series was shot in Alberta, Canna, and I was
one of the Arkansas women with the wagon train fleeing
and succumbing to the Mormon attack. And because this is
my favorite thing to talk about right now, I did
stunt work on the Last of Us, also filmed in Alberta.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Oh my god, a stunt woman. I love it.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
This stunt woman is very good. Being on that set
with so many amazing people was a highlight of my
career and it's extremely rewarding to see the end result.
Fucking hooray for chasing your dreams and working with wonderful teams.
Thank you for creating a community of badasses and telling
so many important stories. SSDGM Selene, Oh my god, Selene
(12:37):
that's incredible. Thank you for writing in. Yeah, that's very cool,
and I mean that kind of stuff where like you
don't I rarely think about that.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
But like the people in.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
The background that are like either the zombie fungus zombie people,
but that are doing attacking or being attacked or shot
or whatever. Those are stunt men and women, stunt people
that are thoroughly skilled and qualified tonally just busting ass
to be like yet another dead mushroom person in the background.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Do we have Santorina's Please write in and let your
presence be known. Sun do reinos? Is that what you
call them? Yeah, for a second.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
I thought you were saying a word that had something
to do with mushrooms.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
I was like, oh, I've never heard of. Oh, it's
really good for your brain. You should try it.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Do we have pour de to bell a renos out there?
Let us know if you have.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
Ever been Maybe we have mushroom foragers. Who knows lions
Maine arenas mushroom forgers?
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Has your brain been completely re hauled by Lion's main Let.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Us okay, things in walls? Grandparents and treasure Hi friends.
So my grandparents, Don and Janet grew up during the
Great Depression. This being said, they were not very trustworthy
of banks even into their later years. Sadly, my grandma
passed away in twenty sixteen and my grandpa in twenty
(13:59):
two twenty. They had lived in the same house for
over sixty years, a house that they had built themselves.
So when my grandpa passed, my dad and his two
sisters had a quote Easter egg hunt around the house. However,
they were not looking for actual eggs. They were looking
for hidden money, and boy did they find it. After
a weekend long excursion, they finally called a quits, thinking
(14:22):
they had searched every nook and cranny. But it's over
two years later and we are still finding hidden treasure
throughout the house. Since this house was built by my grandparents,
they created and knew about every single possible hiding space.
They had money inside secret drawers, behind cupboards, holes in walls,
and between pieces of two by fours in the shed.
(14:43):
They really should have made a list of these in
a map where maybe they were trying to be fun.
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
I think there should be a central list always for
things like this. Definitely, also, just because you forget I
hid cash in like a Manila envelope at the beginning
of quarantine. Yeah, because I was like, what's going to happen?
Got a bunch of cash, and then I was like,
where'd that Manila envelope?
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Go? Like, yeah, I mean it's there someday if you
need it, you know, I hope, so yeah, hopefully. Perhaps
my favorite part of this, though, is that all of
the money was tightly wrapped up in a tinfoil ball.
Oh so at least their money wouldn't burn. If the
house coll I don't know, it wouldn't burn, it would
(15:23):
roast corn on the be a nice roaster. All in all,
the grand total from Hidden Treasure is about twenty thousand
dollars shit. Yeah, oh my god. It's safe to say
Don and Janet didn't want anyone messing with their money anyway.
I am an ice you nurse who frequently sees some
shitty things, and your podcast always makes my drive home
(15:45):
after a long night shift better. Thanks for all you do,
stay sexy and hide your cash and tinfoil balls. Much love,
Sid she her.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Oh my god, I would love to be a part
of the team of people going over your grandparents' house, yes,
to try to find anything tin foil balls. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Yeah, I live in an old house and there's got
to be secret passageways in here somewhere, like a secret
drawer or something like that. Yeah, I'll find something one day.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
You should start like knocking on the walls or you know, Yeah,
have you been in the attic?
Speaker 1 (16:22):
No, I haven't. It's more like a crawl space. Get
up there. But the basement is definitely like a terrifying
site to behold. Is there really a basement a California basement? Yeah,
I mean it's it's almost more like a dirt pile
with water heater in it.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
It's not like, yeah, legit, great place to hide. Twenty
grands Okay, my last one is a Mount Saint Helen's
hometown high to all. I was so excited to hear
Karen tell the story about Mount Saint Helens last week.
My family is from a tiny town on the Oregon
and Washington border, about thirty minutes from the mountain. My
mom and her sisters love to tell the story of
(16:58):
the eruption. I think my mom was fourteen. They loved
to recite the song they wrote about the eruption. She blew,
she blew, she blew her top.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Just writing that out. It's so funny.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
I wonder what it was too, like what tune I know?
Was it their own too, their own original? Was it
a ballad? I've learned to tune it out so I
don't remember the rest. They do it a lot, They
must do it a lot. Another story I've heard is
about a man named Harry Truman who owned a lodge
at the base of the mountain and refused to leave
when the evacuation order was put in place. He became
(17:37):
a local celebrity during this time and ended up dying
as a result of the eruption. So he was one
of those people we talked about that like was warned,
but then they basically all pushed back, and then it
all went down in a way no one expected. Growing
up and hearing all these stories created a sense of
pride and a little panic, knowing how close we were
(17:57):
and what our little hometown mountain was capable of. The
mountain is always looming in the distance from my hometown,
and I vividly remember a beautiful spring day in two
thousand and five when my friends and I were at
track practice and look to the mountain to see a
huge cloud of steam and ash coming from it. Our
track coaches panicked and rushed us all inside because they
had no idea what the extent was going to be.
(18:20):
Seconds later, we felt the small earthquake that accompanied the
small eruption, the ash fell, and we were sent home.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
It wasn't nearly as serious.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
But locals don't mess around anymore when it comes to
Mount Saint Helens. Most locals who have been in the
area for a while have a story to tell about
the mountain. My grandpa still has little vials of ash
and he loves to tell about how they were trapped
at home for a week because of it. Mount Saint
Helens is our little local pride and joy, and it
signed Britney.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
I love that. I want to go there now I
do too. Pretty great. There's nothing better than the first
person story.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Ye of like you wouldn't think of it, but it's
like that track practice story is so compelling because they
were actually there, Like what would that feel like to
watch a volcano bow up near you?
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Fuck the ooh? Okay. My last one is titled do
we Still Do? Subject lines Hello and welcome to my
first email. I've been a long time listener, but my
mom never had no shade. She just never got into
the podcast world. She started Chemo back in October, and
she said, you should put on your murder girls. It
(19:29):
would be fun to listen because you're always laughing at
them and keep me distracted. We did. Obviously, you won
her heart over instantly. Hey, it was in Minniso. She
realized why you two have been my escape for so long.
I told her that I'm kind of bummed that I've
never had anything crazy happen to me, so I've never
been able to write in And then she said, oh, wait,
(19:50):
did I ever tell you about the abandoned house story?
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Here we go. Yeah. It was nineteen seventy seven in Massachusetts.
My mom was around eleven, and her and her friends
decided to go into this old abandoned house that people
said was haunted. Fuck. Yeah. As they went through the rooms,
they stumbled across an old suitcase. When they opened it,
they came across women's lingerie and clothing completely covered in
(20:14):
fresh blood. Oh. They ran out of the house, screaming
to their friends in the neighborhood what they had found.
About ten minutes later, they went back in to show
the neighborhood friends and the suitcase was gone. No no,
no no, meaning the killer was probably in the abandoned
house watching them. I asked her if they called the police,
and she replied, oh, hell no. It was the seventies.
(20:37):
We didn't even tell our parents. Our asses would have
been beaten and grounded for the rest of the summer.
My mom sadly lost her battle with aggressive cancer in December,
nine weeks after her diagnosis. Jesus wow wow. When she
took a turn for the worst. One of the last
things she said to me was quote your murder. Girls
will get you through this. No no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
I know.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Thank you for the comfort you bring to me, especially
during this impossible time in my life. Stay sexy and
hug your mama and find out all the tea she
knows before she's gone. Shana, Oh, Shana, Shana, sending you hugs.
That's tough. Yeah, we got her story, which.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
I know I was gonna say, SHANEA, forgive me, but
I was gonna say, you're like, the murder was still
in the house.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
It's like or the bleeder.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
It really it could have been like a perverted twelve
year old that was like that cut his finger on the.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Suitcase there are or paint maybe I mean, but I
only say I say that.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
QUALIFIED say that because the suitcase was gone, which means
it wasn't an innocent thing inside that suitcase.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Now someone was actually there. That's what that means, and
that is horrifying.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Yeah, you know, life is horrifying sometimes, so truly, truly,
it means a lot to us that this podcast of
us reading people's emails and telling horrible true crime stories
actually does anything for anybody. It's very, very beautiful to us,
and it means a lot to us.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
We appreciate that we get to be part of your lives.
It's really weird and lovely and we're honored, we really are.
So stay sexy and don't get murdered. Good Bye, bye, Elvis.
Do you want a cookie? Ah?
Speaker 2 (22:30):
This has been an exactly right production.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Our producer is Alejandra Kek and.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
This episode was engineered and mixed by Stephen Ray Morris.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Then email your hometowns and fucking horays to My Favorite
Murder at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at my Favorite
Murder and Twitter at my Fave Murder.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Gyobye
Hosts And Creators
Georgia Hardstark
Karen Kilgariff
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