This is exactly right. This episode of My Favorite Murder is brought to you by the new Showtime documentary series, Love Fraud, Volk says it's like the jinx, but better so true crime fans listen up. For years, Richard Scott Smith, a real life con man, has preyed on dozens of unsuspecting women. Now his victims have banded together to seek revenge. And with a tough as nails bounty hunter on their side, a crazy cat and mouse chase unfolds in real time.

Love Fraud premieres Sunday, August 30th at 9:00 p.m., only on Showtime. Goodbye. Hello, hello and welcome to my favorite murder, the Minya Soad. We read you your stuff back. That's Karen Kilgariff, that's Georgia Hard Stark. We're your hosts and the hired readers for this production. They hired us to read to you. We audition and we beat out all the other girls. Yeah, yeah. We got a callback. We we got a callback.

Then we had a network test.

Ten. Can you believe it?

It's hard. We both went totally dry, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. So nervous still. We got it still even at your worst. You got it. You got it. Got it. What should we drop it? Should we drop the concept? The only we know right now, which is that we're about to come out with T-shirts that say this is terrible, keep going. Yeah, well, because I'm so excited about those shirts.

They're so good. Don't tell them what it's like. Kind of looks like it's just you're going to like it. Yeah. And also how timely. Yeah. I don't usually I'm not a big March plugger but I'm excited about this shirt. I am too. I am too. That's a that's a that's an upcoming surprise for all you many listeners. Some call it an Easter egg.

I see. Admitting that we were cast for this podcast is an Easter egg, even though it's not true at all.

That's a it's not true.

It's so it's we call it a line behind the scenes, whereas us fibbing, which is what we like to do, but also it takes you back behind the scenes a little bit real, like you're saying like, are they lying or are they not lying?

I feel like also behind the scenes, you just you see where we decide. Right. What reality is.

Anyway, here's your what line.

Are you ready for this? Yes. I think I'm going to read you the title because it's simply John Dillinger saved my grandma. Beautiful. Oh, hi there. Not too long back, well before the pandemic. So it feels like more like years ago, my incredible grandma Alma and then in parentheses, jackpot grandma name Yoda was the oldest of six on a remote farm not too far from Hicksville, Ohio. One day in nineteen thirty three, a nice looking car pulls down the long dirt road leading to the house.

My great grandpa is already outside doing farmer stuff, so he approaches the car as four very well-dressed men step out. The main guy introduced himself as John and politely asked my grandma, my great grandpa, if they could pay him to fill up their car with gas. Apparently this kind of thing wasn't too uncommon since this was around the time that gas powered tractors and farm equipment had become normal. So almost all farms would retain their own large supply of gas.

The men stood to the side as my grandma, great grandpa agreed and began filling up the tank.

As he was filling the car, he glanced into the back seat and saw four submachine gun.

You had a submachine gun back then. You in 1930.

You've never seen anything like that. It would be it would look like a laser from Star Trek.

Totally, totally horrifying. It just it just an old farmer, you know, he was wearing overalls. Oh, my gosh. OK, force submachine guns probably in the backseat. The man he was filling up the car for was. No, none other than John Dillinger, I guessed it. Yeah, you knew right from the title, right.

You're looking, looking, looking at the timeline and location of John Dillinger's whereabouts. This was most likely one of their first stops right after Dillinger's first escape from jail in Lima, less than an hour and a half away. My great grandpa, is it Lima or Lima, I wonder? My great grandpa stayed calm and continue to be polite and unassuming as the to the men as they did the same. When he was all finished, John walked over to my grandpa, thanked him and handed him a fifty dollar bill and simply left my grandma, great grandpa, or any of the family had never seen a bill that large.

This was in the middle of the Great Depression and times are getting tougher and tougher to feed a family of six and keep the farm maintained enough so that they could keep it. My great grandpa knew if he called the police. The only proof he'd have in this event was the single fifty dollar bill, which is about seven hundred and seventy dollars in today's monthly shit.

Yeah, hi. And they would have had to take it as evidence. So he made the call to keep quiet and use the money towards saving the family and the farm. Because of this, my grandma had far more opportunities to go to bed with a full stomach and mind. My grandma Alma passed away two years ago. I lived twelve hours away from her. So when we heard she was in bad health, we planned a trip as fast as we could see her.

We let her know when we'd be in town and were able to make it in time to have a great visit with her as if nothing was wrong. She passed away two days later and I truly believe that she held out until she was able to see us one last time. Thank you, girls, for all of your fun energy. Stay sexy and tip your farmers.

Well, Audrey. Yeah, that's about. Alma, one shout out, yeah, this one just starts, hello, ma'am.

BFS that's clever.

I was it was September of nineteen ninety four and I had just started my senior year at high school.

In an acquaintance of mine, Dominic, who was a junior, got pulled out of class the morning of September 22nd to be given the news that his mother, Mary, had been found dead near their home.

Dominic and his mother lived alone together, his father being estranged. Apparently, Mary had been found on a forested path that connected to cul de sacs in an upper class neighborhood. She had been stabbed multiple times. Another also interesting connection to the story. My third grade teacher and longtime family friend was the one who found her. Oh, no. So small town. This was devastating and scary news to Dominick and our school during that time. Sleepy, safe town with little crime that I remember as a teen.

A few days went on and Mary's funeral ensued, which I attended with some friends. Dominick was there receiving condolences from family and friends. I gave Dominic a hug and apologized for the loss of his mom. All caps, but then, yes, always. But then just waiting for that.

But then on October 5th, 1994, Dominick was arrested for Mary's murder. The real story is that Dominick planned to murder his mother the night of September 21st and suggested they go for a walk. That evening, he concealed a large butcher knife with him and stabbed his mother twenty nine times even after she was dead. He then drove out to the country and disposed of the weapon. He placed his bloody clothes in his backpack and took them to school. The next day, just throw away in the dumpster.

A search warrant of the home revealed Mary's blood throughout the house and on Dominic shoes, which were soaking and bleach. So he was arrested and logged in a juvenile detention facility. Here's the kicker, though.

Since he killed his mother before Measure Eleven, he was not tried as an adult. He was sent to MacLaurin School for Boys, where he was released in nineteen ninety nine at the age of twenty one.

In fact, he doesn't even have to report to a parole officer or get mental health treatment. He can get a concealed weapons permit and can answer that. He has never been convicted of a crime on job applications.

Why? Because he was a juvenile. Oh OK.

He has since changed his name and I think he's been arrested for fraud in the last few years or something like that. He never said why he did it, although he did admit to causing Mary's death. I did find him on Facebook, if you're interested, and then gave us a link to his piece, could go or stay away.

What do you do? Don't do that. And I took all the names in this and I took them out. Stay sexy and don't hug a mother murderer. Tonight I finish because I'll be gone in the dark. And I've been crying for hours. So good, so dark, so sad. And yes, George, I agree that Karen looks great in purple. I love you both so much.

Robin Young Robin Robin tried to even that out at the end with a nice compliment, but that was a horrible story, was horrible.

But it is so crazy that you can just get out and like live your normal life, which is what the Miksad like. That's what the point of juvenile arrest or whatever.

You would hope, though, that.

That level of overkill might be treated differently than the other kids that are in juvie for stealing cars and or doing drugs or something like that, because premeditated murder, I think maybe that's what it is.

I didn't look it up, but premeditated murder is.

Yeah, I mean, crazy, but what do we know right here?

We'll take it. Nice. We'll take a nice left turn into the into a light hearted area. The time my mom almost accidentally killed my dad. Hey, Mepham. Last Sunday, I was playing cards with my parents and my newlywed husband, and my mom said that she had a story for me. So my dad wears a C Pap machine at night and there's a filter system for for it where you put distilled water. And my dad ran out of water, so he asked to borrow some from the gallon.

My mom was used for ironing.

Oh, no.

Well, I didn't want to go upstairs and get their downstairs and get know we'd have to leave the house. So she had the oatmeal. She had her own distilled water stash of special ironing. Got it. He didn't want to have to go down to the CVS. Okay. So from the gallon my mom used for ironing until he could go out and get his own. So the first few nights he started sneezing and coughing really badly, but only at night my parents couldn't figure out what was going on with him, worried it might be covered related.

The next time my dad went to fill his water to see pop machine, he noticed the water looked weird, like milky and not clear. He took a closer look at the gallon. It was the bleach water that he had mixed for cleaning. My mom had accidentally given him a gallon bleach, all mixture instead of her distilled water.

Luckily, my dad caught it and cleaned it out and he thinks he didn't use any.

We really gave my mom a hard time since she's always watching shows like Snapped. And yes, we joked we joked that this was her clever way to poison him to death all as well.

My dad is alive and is not sick anymore. We told him to be extra nice to my mom just in case. Thank you for bringing humor and joy in these tough times are in my fucking hurry is that covid-19 did not stop me from getting married. We had a very small, beautiful outdoor ceremony and I got to marry the love of my life. That's lovely. Stay sexy and label your bleach water correctly.

My she could I wonder if that would have killed him if he had. Absolutely would have.

Just inhaling bleach night after night. You wouldn't be able to do that for that long. Dr. Renaults, let us know how long are you daring me because I have to step out machine and I could totally do it.

OK, tell us, what is life like?

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This one just starts just called a hometown story and starts while my murder story is not from my hometown, it does involve my family member, my great great grandmother. Her name was Selma, and she was murdered in Brooklyn, New York, in July.

Nineteen twenty seven. Wow. Selma had owned a boarding house on Prospekt, place that she lived in with her family. When she and her family moved out, she entrusted the boarding house to her friend Sarah, 76 years old. And I looked it up. So this is this sounded so far fetched to me that I looked it up and it's all fucking true. So this woman was 76 years old, Sarah Brown. Well, so she entrusted the boarding house to her friend Sarah, a handyman was hired to work in the boarding house.

Ludwig Halvorsen Lee. He was a Norwegian immigrant who received free room and board at the boarding house in exchange for keeping up with the maintenance for no salary. One day, a neighbor noticed something strange. Water was leaking from the cellar of the boarding house and flooding her yard. Come to think of it, she had also heard some strange noises from that same cellar the night before, when she knocked on the boarding house door to talk to Sarah, the owner.

She was greeted by Ludwig. He explained that Sarah was, quote, out of town and he would take care of the leak in the cellar. Several days passed and the water problem was not fixed. The neighbor called my great great grandmother, Selma, since she was the former owner and explained the issue. The neighbor watched as my great great grandmother entered the boarding house and never came out. Soon, mysterious packages started appearing around Brooklyn at Prospect Park, a train station, a church, etc.

. Each unfortunate person who opened these sacks was greeted by a different severed body part.

I fucking swear I looked it up. It's all true.

Even the crazy name of the dude. Well, the police noticed that some body parts were missing from the collection. They could tell that it was the body parts of two different women as they started to put two and two together, the disappearances of Sarah and Selma, the water problem in the cellar, the packages of body parts, they realized they needed to investigate the boarding house.

As the police entered the cellar, they were greeted instantly with the smell of death. They found the remaining body parts of Selma and Sarah stuffed in the cellar pipes causing the water leak. They also discovered several bottles, bottles of lye that had been emptied over the body parts in order to dissolve them faster. The receipt for the bottles was found, and when police checked the store clerk, he recalled Ludwig buying the bottles. The police eventually found my great, great grandmother's ring in a box in Ludwig's room.

My great great grandfather had the unfortunate job of identifying the remains of his wife. Oh, the story came together at the trial.

Ludwick had wanted to return to Norway but had no money since he worked at the boarding house for free. He knew that rent day was coming up and he accosted Sarah. He killed her with an axe in order to procure the money. When my great great grandmother Selma came to investigate the water leak, she either happened upon Ludwig chopping up Sarah's body or the already chopped up body of Sarah. The she ended up becoming an unintended victim to Ludwigs axe. The defense tried to cross examine my great grandfather, Selma's son, and accused him of murdering the lady since he still lived at the boarding house.

However, my great grandfather denied this and the evidence against Ludwig was strong. Ludwig was charged with the murder and died by the electric chair in nineteen twenty eight. And then there's no signature.

So there's no opening and there's no signature. Someone just so there you go. Crazy. His hometown is that. That's it. Goodbye.

They passed out of the end of that letter. Wow. Can you imagine like my limited lineage that that happening.

It's so horrible also. So so do I get this right that somebody watched their great great grandmother walk into that boarding house and she just never returned? Yeah. So I think the next piece of information I would want to hear in that story is how quickly did that witness go to the cops?

I don't think they must not have been like they must just have seen them go in. And one went about their business, you know, they were like, oh, she's taking care of it. Yeah. There's nothing to check back in with in any way. I'm not. Yeah, I'm not going to knock on that door.

I guess I just went home. No thanks for any kind of results on what happened there with the flood. No, no flood in my neighborhood. No further questions. I'm out. All good, actually. Let's talk about something else right now.

Have you been watching the new season?

Oh, the nineteen thirty three version of the Great Depression. Have you watched the new season?

Oh, my God, it's so depressing. OK, you ready for this?

Yeah, my finals. Hello. Well, I'm finally doing it.

After years of listening to other people's stories, I'm finally sharing my own. What my I really put a lot of drama into that. My grandpa. Parents Helena, who went by Tutty and D'Wayne, who went by day one. This is why we ask you to always give your fucking grandparents names.

Lee legendary Dick INTUITY didn't did anyone's grandparents use their real names? They were married for 60 plus years, had five kids and a slew of grandkids. They were everything. Grandparents should be sweet, loving and cute as buttons. They were always together. My grandma never got a driver's license, so always together. And my grandpa loved to do puzzles in his retirement. Big puzzles. I'm talking thousand plus people.

He said he'd work on them for days on end with no help from Grandma until it was time for the very last piece. He always gave her the last piece of every puzzle so she could finish it because, well, he adored.

Oh my God. Yeah. Let's just take a quick break.

Oh, for crying dimes. This is how love is supposed to work. I love you too much.

You know what I did last night, speaking of relationships and trying to make the last 60 years, I was changing my pillowcase and so I got another one for him and then just threw it on his pillow for him to do later. And then I was like, you know, what? If this were Vince, he would put the pillow case on my pillow for me. So maybe take that extra fuckin step and put the pillow case on Vince's pillow instead of just.

Yeah.

Tossing it on his side of the bed. Oh, yeah. Well, here you go. There it is. Feels good, right? It did look like it's it was your idea. You did it. And of course I told him so I get credit for it.

Well yeah. Yeah, yeah. Hell yeah. Go ahead. I love it. No, no that's great. That's so sweet. Yeah. Talk about let's do some readjusted goals. How about not just not just meeting someone that text you back. How about someone that gives you the last piece of their puzzle that they work done or put a pillowcase on. Right.

Or like George or more so puts the your pillowcase on. OK, cut to my grandpa passed away, leaving my grandma and all of us devastated. This person had been her true partner in every sense for practically her entire life. Grandma gave away all the puzzles Grandpa had in the house as she didn't like doing them. And then one day, months after Grandpa's passing, my grandma was at her dresser, looked down and saw one puzzle piece.

She saw every puzzle in the house had been given away and the room had been cleaned and vacuumed many times during the passing months.

But there it was. She knew it was my grandpa reminding her of how much he loved her.

Oh, uh huh, yeah. In the years since, Grandma actually had this occur one more time. So when she passed away and we were burying her ashes under a tree next to my grandpa, the two puzzle pieces went in with her and she was back with the missing piece to her puzzle. Thanks so much for taking the time to read my story. As many have said before, thank you for bringing true crime, obsession, anxiety disorders and self acceptance to your millions of faithful listeners.

A special shout out to Karen for sharing British Nordic Canadian Crime Procedurals suggestions. Seriously, I barely watch anything made in this country say sexy and find a cute way to haunt your loved ones when you go Darah. That was gorgeous. How am I supposed to follow that one? That was awkward, I guess. I guess all I have to say is in your face with someone else's puzzle competition after all.

Oh, we didn't. This is like this is a true crime. Comedy competition show, comedy competition show. It's a lot like America's Got Talent, but without the talent, no talent.

Not a lot of America represented in the way that think like beautiful.

That was lovely to see. And Dick forever too into be. And Dick, let's go over to Taye Diggs for drinks before we go over to the Fourth of July parade.

Know the tutti dicks before before the sentiment. Terry and Dick are making popcorn and then we're going to go over to them. I can hide candy in my purse in my enormous grandma purse like candy for the movie.

Go tell Dick to get grandma's purse, OK?

Oh, that was beautiful. This wasn't isn't as beautiful, but I really like it. I got going to read you the title. Hello, Good Friends of the podcast. A few years ago, my wife and I bought our very first home in Los Angeles. The house is old, originally built in the 1920s as a hunting cabin, which is crazy. That fucking Los Angeles was that rural. That is so awesome.

With several renovations and additions in its near hundred year history. Fucking awesome. Out of curiosity, because the house was so old and because we needed to do some renovations ourselves, we searched for old building and renovation permits on the Lady Department of Building and Safety website. We discovered that in the nineteen thirties, a woman named Winifred and then it says a great name. Winnifred filed several building permits for the property, including one for a quote, new private goat house.

We both thought, what an independent lady to own a home and maybe a goat farm to in the nineteen thirties.

She must've been really cool and ahead of her time. How wrong we were. Fast forward to a few weeks ago, we were face time with a friend who works for the L.A. Public Library and she mentioned how she's been searching all digitized L.A. articles about badass women through the library database. We asked her to search Winifred's name, thinking if we were thinking, if we were lucky enough, there may be an article mentioning her prized goat rearing or something of that nature.

Nope. Instead, we found six articles detailing how Winnifred strangled her elderly mother in our house. Oh, most likely our bedroom. No, because she saw, quote, an evil spirit gleaming in her mother's eyes, Winnifred. Fortunately, it doesn't seem our house is haunted, but still pretty shocking to discover a grisly murder took place here over 70 years ago. Also, if an evil gleam in her mother's, I was enough to drive Winnifred to murder.

I'm glad she didn't live long enough to see a lesbian couple by her house from a drug dealer.

That's why I say this wasn't the last.

Oh, I guess I'm glad you did, but I'm glad you didn't live long enough to see a lesbian couple by her house from a drug dealer anyways. Did you hear that?

The drug dealer, real estate agent. I love it. People people hustling in L.A., probably one of those four for sale by owner.

And the guy is just like, can I I just need to get rid of this list.

You can buy this house. I also got those really good cat mushrooms, mushroom's, people like we're doing a little bit of ecstasy. It's is throwback.

Anyway, stay sexy and maybe check if your house is the site of a murder before you buy an El Camino. Congratulations on your haunted house.

Sounds fucking rad. Can you invite us over for preshow cocktails when this covid is over?

I mean, I feel like you maybe make friends with a Catholic priest, if only for the blessing ceremony ritual, you know, do it's up to you.

But I think that's a if they already haven't gotten bad vibes, I think they're in the clear I mean, 100 year old house. You don't know what else has been going on. I mean, what did the drug dealer do there? You know, is he can't he or she. I don't want to be sexist. It we don't know. Yes. The drug dealer for getting it to for making his investments and interest. What's that called divesting it.

Yeah. You know, it's he's not completely. Yeah. Just depending like a crutch on cocaine. Right. He's also selling home, diversifying. He's diversifying. Diversifying his portfolio. That's right. Yeah. Send us your stories of haunted houses and fucking drug dealers and fucking tell us a story about a drug dealer getting out of the business. Yeah, that's fun for Percovich. Yeah, I think Uplift.

Are you a drug dealer and how did you get out of it and like, tell us how great your life is now that you can you can you can inspire other drug dealers to. That's right.

At your life. Or you can be like I made a parallel move into Amway and it's pretty much the same thing or drug dealing. Save your life.

We don't know, please, to keep it together. Not especially not drink covid you don't want for everything else that's going on. You don't want to be addicted to some terrible drug. Now, it's hard enough. It is. Don't go looking for problems. You already have plenty.

As my sister likes to say to me time and again. I love it.

Stay sexy and don't get murdered by my Elvis. You want a cookie and.