474 - It Cleans Ducks - My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Hello, and welcome my favorite Murder. That's Georgia Hartstar, that's
Karen Kilcara. We're just here to talk about a couple
personal things that we're gonna get right into crime. We are.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
You guys love true crime.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
You love hearing about it. Visa vi our povs Hey, OMG,
that was hello, it's TVD.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Hey, you're just telling me something and I told you
to hold it for the podcast because I can't believe it.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
So we have a senior accountant HR person kind of
like office guru, Jovanna, and she came to me the
other day because we get to go to Chicago with
our friends at iHeartRadio for the podcast Movement and it's
like kind of a podcast weekend that we get to
go to. And Jovanna came in and said, I don't

(01:07):
like that you and Georgia fly on the same plane.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
That is so bananas.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
And I go, no, no, that's how we do it.
It's like and then she was no, no, no, you
should not be on the same plane.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Co owners of a business, probably right, and co owners
co host of a podcast that's like next level.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
We've level up made We've made it, We've made it.
My friend, who's it gonna be? Who going? Oh my god,
isn't that crazy? I was like, that's because at first
I was like, that's so dark, and then I was like, oh,
that's for the c suite, that's for the exacts.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Hey, hey, that's so I just can't that boggles my mind.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
So who's changing? So see you later. Well, what I
said is Georgia and Vince love to go on like
the first flight out often. Yeah, so that's no problem
for me.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
There's a later flight you could totally take.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
Yeah, And I sometimes have had to because I missed
the flight you guys were on. That's happened before. Also
the last time when we flew to Austin, I walked
on and you literally had to reach out to touch
me to say hi.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Because walking past me and you like wouldn't even.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
I'd have to go into my airport tube. Yeah, or
I like really lose it. Yeah, It's like I was
in the tube from wherever I was sitting near the
Guy Fieri cafe or whatever. Like I get myself mentally
to walk up, shit, give my ticket, walk on in
my seat, and I'm like, I'm not here to make friends.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Right, Otherwise you'll end up like on the wrong plane,
sitting next to fucking Guy Fieri himself.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Or like making eye contact with a guy that looks
like Guy Fieri, and then I'm in a silent fight
and I don't know why.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
Oh my god, you know what I did?

Speaker 1 (02:43):
That remind So then you're like, hey, hi, you know me?

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Do you know what I did? So over the weekend,
Vincent I went to Vegas really quickly, just for a thing,
and then we were going.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
Back, say what you were doing.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
We went with his niece who's in the FBI, to
a hockey game, like Detroit Right Wings Hockey.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
To arrest the star forward. Yes, and we were okay.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
We took Jet Sweet X, which is like a quick
trip from living so it's like really easy and like
fucking yeah, she she pinkies out rag.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
But but not crazy, not crazy, It's really not.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
It's not no, and it's yeah. Fucking Lisa vander pomp
was on my flight, oh in the fucking waiting area,
and I was like freaking out because I love that show.
And so I did this thing that later my friends
told me every fucking celebrity knows about, which is I
pretended to take a selfie and just took a photo
of her instead, and yeah, they were like, she knew

(03:37):
what you were doing.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
You're like no, no, I was so subtle and like
I was.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
Smiling and doing a piece sign like I was taking
a selfie and they were like no, yeah, she hates you.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
Yeah, she hates you forever.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
Yeah, she had a dog with her. It was just
the whole experience was amazing. She owned shares in JSX.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
So probably she has to show up once a month
to like get the selfies out there. There's no way
she doesn't like having her picture taken that way.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
I mean, she looked incredible, like eleven am on a Sunday.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
What is she originally like from? Why would she get
a reality show? Real Housewives?

Speaker 2 (04:08):
She's oh og Real Housewives of La, I think, which
I never watched, but then I started watching Banner Pump
Rules and I'm just obsessed.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
Yeah, so yeah, some crazy stuff happens in the later season.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
She's actually like not a piece of shit, which is
like you know you'd see in Real Housewives.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
Yeah, it's kind of nice. No, I've seen a couple
of clips of her. She seems really smart and really well.
She's a British lady, make it, make it, and America,
can I just really quickly explain because we're on video listeners,
you don't have to worry about this, viewers. My apologies.
I died my roots this morning, and then only when
i'd mixed up the color I was about to apply
it did I realize I don't have any plastic gloves.

(04:44):
So it looks a little wild.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
It looks like even gardening, which is nice.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
Yeah, except for that I haven't even gardening.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
Yeah, because that sounds like classy.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
It doesn't look glass.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
Have you ever tried taking plastics like zip bags, like
sandwich bags. I've done that. It works a little bit.
You just put your hands in plastic baggies.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
Yeah. At least it's something, and it's something I just
didn't even think about it at all because I was like,
I just need to get this shit on my roots
and get out of here.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
Hair spray sometimes helps a little. Cover your hands in hairspray,
because I've done that many times, including with pink. So
I had bright, pink fucking hands and I'm supposed to
be on video that day.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
Yoh shit.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
Yeah, okay, So you spray the shit out of your
hands with hairspray and then wipe it off.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
Okay, I'll try that. Yeah. I was also thinking because
I've don dished detergent, which seems to be a part
of every recipe of clean steals.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
Yeah, it cleans oil off ducks. It's got to clean
fucking die off your hands.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
Clean ducks. I can clean these shit hands.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
I have a book. Oh yeah, that I'm so excited about.
So my friend Jane Borden wrote a book about cults.
Oh yes, yeah, you know her. I'm so impressed in
a way that was like, oh no, I can't hang
out with her again.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
Oh no, she's great.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
She's so too smart for me.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
You gotta aim high. You got to get those people
around you that get you going.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
I think about all the things I've said in front
of her, and I'm like, oh no, it's called cults
like us. My doomsday thinking drives America. I fucking love it.
It is basically about cult thinking and how it drives America,
starting with the original American or US cult puritans.

Speaker 1 (06:19):
So impressed.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
I think it's going to be really good for people
who grew up very religious and are questioning it, or
have you transitioned out of it. And kind of want
some somewhere to go. Yeah, and like something to show
them that they were right about it. Like so, if
you have a friend or a sister like that, I
highly recommend Cults like Us by Jane Borden. It's going
to make you smarter.

Speaker 1 (06:40):
I'm definitely gonna read it.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
It's a fucking hot take and.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
Just a little insider information. I basically inserted myself into
when Kurt Broniller and Scotti Landis we're writing the pilot
for one of Kurt's old pilots, and Jane was one
of the writers. I didn't have a job at the time,
so I was like, well, I'll swing by and just
like kind of like went and wrote along with them.
It's really hilarious. But she was actually the other official writer. Yeah,

(07:05):
she's awesome. Yeah, what you got anything? No, I think
let's just get into business. Let's do it.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
We have a podcast network that's just growing every day
in every possible.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
Way, every way. We launched the Knife so last week.
It's so exciting, it's so great. It's doing so great. Yeah,
those guys really rule. Please listen to it, please do so.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
Here's some highlights from our network over on Deer Movies,
I Love You, Milli and Casey are diving into the
brilliant brain of Bong June Hoe from his past work
like Parasite and The Host.

Speaker 1 (07:35):
Like come on, if you haven't seen the movie The Host,
it's so great. It's like an adventure monster movie from Korea.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
So good to his brand new film Mickey seventeen. And
they're joined by comedian and film obsessive This guy is
the best unsung He's one of the funniest fucking comedians
I've ever seen.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
And a friend Josh Fatum. Josh Fatum should be more
famous than all the comments.

Speaker 2 (07:57):
He was in Better Call Saul as like the weird
ideographer guy. And he was also the lawyer in thirty
Rock and it's like fucking starter. He's just he's so good. Yeah,
So check out Dear Movies, I Love You.

Speaker 1 (08:09):
And also Josh Fadom's on TikTok Now he has like
a he put together, like this talk show that he's doing. Yeah,
he's out there. I love him. Then over on Ghosted
by Roz Hernandez. Roz stumbles through a secret trapdoor and
lands directly in the presence of Bridger Weineinger, the writer, actor,
and host of I Said no gifts. They talk about
the legendary nineties pseudo doc alien autopsy. You remember that

(08:30):
when they were like, we've got a body and we're
going to do an autopsy. It was all fake and
a bunch of other spooky stuff. They're just a couple
of pals getting spooky.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
I love it. I love the aarm crossover. This week
on The Knife's companion show, Off Record, it's like their
mini They take you behind the scenes of making a
true crime podcast and Patia shares the details. This is
fucking such a great episode of a missing person's case
in Tennessee. If you are like me and you like
cold cases getting solved and you have a theory about it,

(08:58):
I'm not going to give it away. Oh my god,
this episode's so fucking good.

Speaker 1 (09:02):
Yeah, and it's something Patia researched and like discovered on
her own.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
I'm so glad they got to put it out, Like yeah, and.

Speaker 1 (09:09):
It's really great because The Knife is the main episode.
Are those you know, deep dive interview shows. It takes
a long time to assemble. It's like it's a lot
of work. So Off Record is basically their rest in
between shows where they're like, you can write in, ask questions, yeah,
make comments, say hey that was my aunt's neighbor type
of stuff, and it's like a talkback show. But then

(09:31):
they get to talk about the stories that are too
short to be a full episode, right, which they are
still obsessed with.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
I mean, I'm so fucking happy they're on our network.

Speaker 1 (09:40):
I'm very proud. We're proud of all of our podcasts,
and especially this podcast will Kill You. They have had
this amazing four part pregnancy series and they're wrapping it
up this week with a big picture look at how
childbirth has changed over the past century and what those
changes mean for new parents. They explore the fourth trimester,
which is one of the most common least discussed postpartum conditions,

(10:02):
which is postpartum depression.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
So true.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
You can listen wherever you get your podcast, or you
can watch that entire series on our YouTube channel over
at YouTube dot com slash exactly right Media.

Speaker 2 (10:12):
Please follow that as well, and while you're on YouTube,
don't forget to check out I Said No Gifts Bridgers
five year anniversary special.

Speaker 1 (10:18):
It's now up.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
It's featuring the delightfully chaotic Chris Fleming he's so funny.
It's two hours of betrayal, celebration and special surprises. Watch
it at your desk while you're being paid to work.
That's right, I dare you available now at That's right
YouTube dot com slash exactly right Media.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
It's such a delightful episode. I watched a couple minutes
and Bridgers wearing the most insane outfit and his white
gift gloves. I love it, and Chris Fleming is just
sitting over there being the ultimate talk show guest. It's
really a delight And finally, do to Doo. We have
a merch update our iconic fuck yourself mug which listeners
just you know in real life we're holding up right

(10:56):
now the viewer, so if you go to YouTube you
can see us holding our adorable we'll go fuck yourself,
fuck your sol and old fashion last night, Yes, so
ol fashion Las Vegas. I love it, so we re
released it for episode eleven of Rewind and we're going
to do it again because you loved it so much
that I think they sold out, so we're re releasing it.
This was designed by the amazing Ginny and Tonic Ji

(11:17):
Ni and Tonic and they're available now at the Exactly
Right Store dot com.

Speaker 2 (11:25):
Okay, this is one of those stories that I just
kept adding stuff to and wanting to research more and tell.
Like I literally had to stop to go and get
in the shower to get ready for this. Yeah, because
I am so like this case is ah, it gives
me chills. It has been burning my head since I
saw it twenty seven fucking years ago on Forensic Files. Yeah,

(11:47):
and you'll probably remember it too. Today's story is a
Soco hometown that I remember from my childhood as well
as at Forensic Files. It's a chilling case from the
nineteen eighties, one that could have easily slipped through the cracks,
turning into a cold case. But instead, something incredible happened.
Dozens of women, trusting their instincts came forward and they

(12:07):
brought the truth to light and help bring down a
monster and take a potential serial killer off the streets.
This is the story of the murder of Kara not Okyott.
The main sources for the story are a two thousand
and four episode of Forensic Files and reporting from the
Escondido Daily Times Advocate by David Ogle, and the rest

(12:28):
can be found in the show notes. So it's December
nineteen eighty six. We're in the San Diego area. Kara
not is twenty years old and she's a junior at
San Diego State University. She's super smart, she graduated with
honors from high school. She runs tracks. She's setting to
be a teacher. Just a fucking good person, yea. Kara
has been with her boyfriend Wayne since they were in

(12:50):
high school. They're very much in love. Wayne also goes
to San Diego State, and everyone who knows them say
they're a beautiful couple. Over the school's winter, right, Kara
and Wayne each go home to their families in southern
California and the San Diego area, but Wayne comes down
with the flu, and so in December twenty sixth Kara
goes to visit him in Escondido, driving from her family's

(13:11):
home in Elkahomee. It's about a forty minute drive, and
while she's at Wayne's, Kara repeatedly calls her mother for
advice about how to take care of a sick person. Oh,
which is so like, I'm twenty and I'm still learning
about life kind of a thing.

Speaker 1 (13:25):
It just immediately made me think of this to my
parents're on vacation. I had to call my aunt Jane
and ask her how long you saw a turkey? Right,
because we were trying to do a like friends giving. Yeah,
and my friend had like a twenty five pound turkey
and she was like, oh, you should probably take that
out about twelve hours before and we were like, oh,
we're supposed to serve it in four hours. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:47):
You just don't know a life yet.

Speaker 1 (13:48):
You just don't know what you're doing.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
Like the first time I went to like pump my
own gas, I was like, Fuck, I don't know how
to fucking do this.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
Like I just realized I don't know how to do this.
Where's the button?

Speaker 2 (13:58):
So just like this little detail that like kind of
breaks your heart and.

Speaker 1 (14:02):
Also puts you in this time. And you know, nineteen
eighty six, I was sixteen years old, and so Kara
was at college, not new to college, like, but right,
so she's a little bit more adult than the average.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
Yeah, she's been in a long term relationship. Yeah, she's
not like a probably partying or anything like that.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
But also, like so many people from Northern California, you
go to San Diego State and that's like you're really
busting out and you're on your own totally. Everything about
it is very California in the eighties exactly.

Speaker 2 (14:32):
She stays over that night and hangs out with Wayne
all day the next day, and it's his family home
as well, so she takes care of him, and by
the evening of the twenty seventh, Wayne is starting to
feel better, and Kara decides to head home to her
family house. She calls her parents at about eight pm
and tells them she's about to hit the road that
time of night with light traffic, she should be home
before nine pm, not more than an hour. But by

(14:55):
ten pm, the normally punctual Kara still isn't home, and
her father, Sam Sam Not has a horrible feeling that
something is very wrong. Kara's parents call Wayne. He says
he hasn't heard from her since she left at eight,
and so the dad gets in the car to drive
the whole freeway between his home and Wayne's house and
Escondida to look for Kara. You know, maybe she just

(15:18):
ran out of gas or something happened to her car.
There's no cell phones, so it's possible. At the same time,
Kara's mother starts calling every hospital and police station along
the route, to see if there had been an accident,
which has to be every parent's fucking nightmare, absolutely is.
Friends and family join in the search with Sam, the father,
and as the police say, they can't do anything at

(15:38):
the moment, which is one of those you have to
wait twenty four hours. And I feel like nowadays a
missing twenty year old college student driving. Hopefully that doesn't
happen anymore, but you don't know. I don't think it's
I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (15:51):
Hopefully it's gone the way of their just a runaway waited.

Speaker 2 (15:55):
Out, or she'll come home when she's ready. Yea, yeah,
that kind of thing. The family and friends search team
check every exit for over eight hours. Right around dawn,
they find Kara's car. It's a white VW Bug and
the picture of it sitting in this desolate area was
seared into my mind. In this forensic files, the car

(16:18):
is at the bottom of an off ramp off the
I fifteen, which is pretty desolate. It's just about the
midway point between Escondido and Alcohol, about twenty miles from each.
The freeway at that point runs over an overpass and
the off ramp leads down to a sparsely wooded area.
There's nothing around. It's not like there's gas stations and stuff.

(16:38):
It's kind of very remote. It's a desolate spot, and
her white beetle looks completely out of place in the
photo back then. I'm sure it's all built up in
the area now, but there were some desolate spots.

Speaker 1 (16:51):
Along the road oh California.

Speaker 2 (16:53):
In southern California, Kara's car is found with the driver's
seat window rolled halfway down, her purses on the front seat.
Her keys are in the ignition, which is super suspicious.
There's also a receipt from a gas station about fifteen
miles further north on the freeway, so not far from
where she had left an Escondido. At this point, with
her car being found, san Diego Police in California Highway

(17:14):
Patrol officers arrive at the scene and they begin searching
the area. About two hours later, they make a devastating discovery.
In a dry, dusty creek bed at the bottom of
a seventy foot bridge, not far from where her car
had been left. Kara's body has been found seemingly tossed.

Speaker 1 (17:34):
Over the bridge.

Speaker 2 (17:36):
The photo of the bridge has stuck in my mind.
It's one of those beautiful arching bridges like super Duscolate.
It doesn't it look like the place where in the
eighties you would have gone in high school with your
friends to go drink. Yes, like it's one of those places, right,
And then above on the road of the bridge, investigator
see fresh tire marks and take impressions and photographs with those.

(17:58):
So Kara's father, Sam is on the scene when authorities
discover his daughter's body, but he doesn't see her for himself.

Speaker 1 (18:05):
Good.

Speaker 2 (18:05):
Yeah. He can tell though that something has happened, and
he approaches the sheriff and asked if they found Kara.
When the sheriff tells him they have and that she's dead,
Sam says, quote, I wish you could have known her.
She was an angel end quote. I know almost cried
writing this.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
What a horrible thing to be there, obviously, like I
got to go out there and find my daughter, and
then it's like the worst possible, the worst possible.

Speaker 2 (18:32):
So for the first couple of days after Kara's death,
police say they have some leads but no suspects. Of course,
Kara's boyfriend Wayne has looked into but he's quickly ruled
out because he hadn't left his family's home. Later, Wayne
will tell a reporter quote, we plan on being ninety
years old together, one hundred years old together, sitting in
our little rocking chairs to crotchty old fogies, holding hands.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
Oh, I know every one of these stories is as
heartbreaking as the last. Yeah, it's just I don't know,
it's just so sad. Yeah, totally.

Speaker 2 (19:05):
When Kara's body is examined, there are no signs of
sexual assault. There are ligature marks around her neck, and
there are two bruises on her face, one on her
eyebrown one on her cheek. The medical examiner rules her
cause of death to have been strangulation. There's a little
bit of other physical evidence recovered from Kara's body. A
single drop of blood is found on her shoe that

(19:27):
doesn't belong to her. It's nineteen eighty six, so DNA
isn't you know, a thing that's available to everyone. But
the blood type is tested and it's AB positive, which
is not her blood type, and it's one of the
rarest blood types as well. Additionally, a single gold fiber
is pulled off of Kara's sweatshirt and it's unique in
that it's been colored gold with a pigment rather than

(19:49):
a dye, which is so forensic files back then of right,
I can hear it narrated in my head.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
Also that kind of thing where when another fascinating piece
of like that kind of forensic in investigation is that
you think things are like, oh, if you're on the beach,
it's just sand, it's just rock, right, And then it's
like no, no, no, because the only you know silica
is here and not there. All that stuff, like you
learn about how investigable some areas can be.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
Or like decomposition and bug life and it's amazing. Yeah,
and coloring fiber with this pigment is an antiquated technique
that's very rarely used in nineteen eighty six, so they
know it's significant. And then investigator visit the gas station
Kara had gone to the attendants remember seeing her pumping
gas not long after eight pm. They say she was alone.

(20:37):
They didn't see her speak to anyone, and she.

Speaker 1 (20:38):
Drove off and she had a full take of guess right,
So it wasn't that, you know exactly.

Speaker 2 (20:44):
That was a little bit after Christmas, like December twenty seventh,
and then through the end of the year and then
to January of nineteen eighty seven, the police say publicly
that they're at a loss and they ask the public
for help in figuring out what happened to Kara, and
a ten thousand dollars reward is issued by the family
for information leading to an arrest, which in today's money
fifty thirty close. San Diego police also asked the public

(21:08):
to call either their office or the Crime Stoppers tip
line with any information that might help the community around
San Diego is understandably on edge after this seemingly unexplained
murder of a college student who was just driving home,
and we got a lot of emails from murderinos in
our email box of like my mom, my grandma, that
everyone was just like, like San Diego was very quiet

(21:30):
then and suburban it still is, I think. So this
was just like terrified. Yeah, this is just unheard of.
And then right after Kara's body is discovered, the local
news runs a segment about what drivers can do to
stay safe on the freeways at night. The reporter actually
rides along with the California Highway Patrol officer who warns

(21:51):
that drivers who have car trouble, especially at night, should
stay in their car with the doors locked. He says, like,
you know, women could get raved, men could get mugged,
or you know, I won't get It's like very scary.
You should stay in your car, even if you spend
the night. Don't like, don't get out of your car.
And then if someone approaches to help, the driver should
ask that person to go get help rather than letting

(22:12):
them help. And this is still to this day something
you should absolutely.

Speaker 1 (22:16):
Oh do right, it's good advice. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:18):
He warns never to get in the car with someone
else or to let another person in the car.

Speaker 1 (22:21):
Sorry. Someone has a story of Oh, it was our
family friend Priscilla who her car broke down. I think
it was in the rain, and she was like nine
months pregnant or like eight months pregnant. And so this
guy pulls up, No, no, no, the Zodie had Killer
pulls up. Jesus Christ. No, it's the it's the opposite.
This guy's car is broken down in the rain. She

(22:42):
pulls up and gets out to help him, and he goes,
what are you doing get back in that car? Why
would you do that? And loves her like get out
of here, yes exactly. He was like, why would you
ever risk your life, like, don't help men like this,
don't do it, stay in your car.

Speaker 2 (22:59):
Yeah, so this would all be very standard and unremarkable
this segment that this journalist made. But after this segment airs,
something strange starts to happen. Over at the tip line
that the police had opened up, people especially women, start
calling in and saying that that same highway patrolman who
had been in the news segment had pulled them over

(23:21):
at the exact same exit where.

Speaker 1 (23:23):
Kara's car had been found.

Speaker 2 (23:26):
And they say that this highway patrolman had pulled them
over for like mostly trivial things that didn't really warrant
being pulled over off the freeway. For example, a murderino
named Hannah had emailed in that her grandma had gotten
a fix it ticket from this highway patrol man for
a missing license plate, and he tried to meet up
with her after to get signed off so that she

(23:46):
wouldn't have to pay the ticket, and she was like no,
thank you, and got it signed by someone else.

Speaker 1 (23:51):
But he was like it was him, yes, okay, he was.
This was like his strip of the highway. It seem right.
No men coming forward to say they also were pulled
over right, just a bunch of women exactly.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
And this officer would direct them to exit freeway at
this place it was called Mercy Road in one instance,
even having the driver reverse on the freeway against traffic
to get back to that exit, and then told them
to drive to the bottom of the secluded, unlit off
ramp where Kara's white beetle was found.

Speaker 1 (24:21):
Please tell me that in this modern day, everybody hearing
Georgia say that recognizes the insanity and would not do it.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
And then he actually had been questioned about this behavior,
like people in the department were aware of it, but
he had been commended on it because he said it.
He did it to avoid a potentially dangerous stop on
the freeway. So one woman actually came forward and told
the Times Advocate newspaper pretty much right after Kara's murder

(24:48):
was reported that based solely on the location where her
body was found, she thought that the person responsible was
a California Highway patrolman who had pulled her over.

Speaker 1 (24:57):
Nine months earlier. Ooh, She's like, fuck, you know, she.

Speaker 2 (25:01):
Didn't know his name at the time she told the story.
She says that he flashed his lights and used his
loudspeaker to direct her down that same remote off ramp,
and then once she was in that remote area, he
started accusing her of driving a stolen vehicle. But she
says his demeanor was strange, like he was like flirting
with her, maybe trying to ask her out. And she

(25:21):
says that then he abruptly let her go after a
San Diego police car passed that spot, so suddenly he
fucking skidaddled. Man, I know, and this fucking badass chick
was like.

Speaker 1 (25:34):
Hello, excuse me, I have a story to tell.

Speaker 2 (25:36):
Yeah, that happened to me. So she tells this story
to the paper and then she sees the ride along
footage on TV of this highway patrol man and she's like,
that is the fucking guy I told you about.

Speaker 1 (25:50):
That's the psychopathic tendency where they're smarter than everybody. Yeah,
and they can't let it go. They have to be
the face of the thing. They have to be out
in front playing this part, and they basically get themselves caught.

Speaker 2 (26:02):
He calmly was in this segment and you can watch
it online.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
Playing the part of the kindly peace officer that's there
to help concerned about what's happening in his community.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
So creepy and so yeah, so she's sure it's the
same guy. Double check, She's like, this is Kim. So
the man is thirty six year old Craig Pyre, a
thirteen year veteran of the California Highway of Patrol. And
all told, about thirty women come forward saying that Pire
had pulled them over in that same spot.

Speaker 1 (26:33):
Thirty yeah, count to thirty right now? Feel how many women?

Speaker 2 (26:37):
That is?

Speaker 1 (26:38):
That? Right? It's wild, wild, so bold.

Speaker 2 (26:41):
Many of the women said that he proceeded to get
in the passenger seat and try to question them when
he pulled them over, but that the questions he asked
were inappropriate and he was actually just sexually harassing them.

Speaker 1 (26:52):
Good god. And then this is the creepiest like is
this a movie? What are you talking about? Thing?

Speaker 2 (27:01):
A bunch of people point out that after a closer
examination of the local news segment featuring Pyre, it appears
that there are some scratches on his face. Oh and
this is days after Kara's murder. This segment had been
shot very shortly after Kara's murder, and people suspect that
those scratches were from Kara. Trying to defend herself. In

(27:22):
the video, you can see scratches on his face.

Speaker 1 (27:25):
Imagine the nineteen eighty six murderinos that know all these things,
but that are still to that point like by themselves alone,
being like, I like a weird thing that I shouldn't
paying attention to what we all used to believe. And
they're recognizing all of these things that you would have
to be reading Agavin de Becker book or some Anne

(27:47):
Rules stuff to really be aware of totally, and they're
just like cold chills, being like, oh my god, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
I'm sure so many people called it and was like,
why does he have scratches on his fucking face?

Speaker 1 (27:58):
Also, can we see the rest of the footage? What
else can we see in the rest of the footage? Wow?

Speaker 2 (28:03):
So chilling. And then also Kara's mother, Joyce, comes forward
to tell police that she and Kara had taken a
self defense class recently and one of the things they
were taught was to scratch at an attacker's eyes and
the scratchers are like ripe by his nose.

Speaker 1 (28:18):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
Yeah, I actually like text myself sign up for a
self defense class.

Speaker 1 (28:23):
I want to do? You want to hear? Oh, that's
a great idea, wouldn't it be cool? Yeah, just like
seven o'clock one night, everyone's done with work. If you
want to stay for a self defense course, yep, hell yeah.
It's just kind of weekly, so it's kind of like
working out a little bit, but it's also like punching
and kicking. I want to do it. I'll be here, Okay,
you can believe it.

Speaker 2 (28:42):
I'm never here.

Speaker 1 (28:43):
I don't even have an office. Okay.

Speaker 2 (28:45):
So that on Friday, January fifteenth, Craig Pyre is arrested
for Kara's murder, which actually there's a murdering now who's
like Pire's wife was my mom's best friend, and she
was at the fucking house when the police arrested the
husband and then asked her to be a character witness
for him at his trial. And she was like hell
fucking no.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
Really, yeah, I mean what a nightmare? Like, Yeah, you're
living this life and you think you know exactly where
everything's lined up and what's going on with everything, and
just one day there's a knock on the door and
everything gets ripped apart.

Speaker 2 (29:19):
Your husband because he had children from multiple marriages and
they have a young baby. Your husband is a monster, nightmare, nightmare.
His neighbors are all utterly shocked when this story comes out.
People who know him say he was extremely proud to
be a highway patrolman, which we know is like wanting
to involve yourself in law enforcement.

Speaker 1 (29:40):
But actually passing the tests, which usually these stories are
about people that want to do that can't pass the test,
and that.

Speaker 2 (29:47):
Right, right, yeah, I mean those are the ones we
know about, though I know how many we don't know about.
I mean, and they said it was a huge part
of his personality. And of course the women who Pyre
pulled over were on the highway are not surprised or
shocked at all to hear about him. Right now, the
neighbors are, these women are like, he gave me.

Speaker 1 (30:08):
The ach well, and also why do I have to
say out loud that it gave me the to get
pulled over off the highway down into a fucking ravine. Yeah, Like,
it's like the first time that got reported, it should
he should have been removed from the entire area. Absolutely,
what could you have been doing? Right? And then you
did it thirty minimum thirty times right right, I'm yelling

(30:29):
at you so irritating.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
No, no, it's fine, You're exactly right. So Craig Pyre's
log from the night of Kara's disappearance shows him making
a traffic stop in a totally different area at the
exact time Kara is killed, of course, but surprise, surprise,
it's written in pencil and the entry has clearly been
erased and rewritten. So and the people who he did
actually pull over at that time were like, that wasn't

(30:51):
what time it was, and he was fucking disheveled and
something was wrong, like no, yeah, yeah, So on examination
of Pire's patrol car, the distance, you know, the tires
match up essentially, blah blah blah. Forensic investigators matched the
gold fiber on kara sweatsher to the embroidery thread that
was used to make the gold border on the California
Highway patrol shoulder patch on Pyre's uniform.

Speaker 1 (31:14):
I remember that part of the Forensic File's episode. Yeah,
Craig Pires blood type is ab positive.

Speaker 2 (31:19):
Sam as the drop that was on kara shoe. You know,
it goes on and on.

Speaker 1 (31:24):
It's just clear.

Speaker 2 (31:25):
So police believe, essentially that Pire had seen Kara filling
up her car with gas at the station near Escondido,
and I bet that was his stocking point. Oh yeah,
you're a fucking lion and you're looking for your prey.
I bet he stayed there until at night, women alone
in a car, and then followed them.

Speaker 1 (31:42):
Yeah, to the spot. Well, because you get out, you
have to pump the gas, you have to walk around.
So it's just like they're on parade. For him to be.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
Ting, it's just so chilling. And then that he followed
her until they neared his preferred remote off ramp, and
then he likely did what he had done to all
the other women his lights, used his loud speaker to
direct her off the ramp. And then they believed that
Pire tried to get in the car with Kara or harasser.
Remember her window was halfway down. She's like, yes, officer,

(32:12):
and she possibly refused to let him in or threatened
to report him, or some combination of that. And they
believe that pyre ordered Kara out of the car and
Kara fought back after possibly he touched or threatened Kara
in some way and she fought. Yeah, she is just incredible,
And at that point she scratched his face and the

(32:34):
thought is that he hit her twice in the face
with his flashlight and then killed her by strangling her
with some rope he had in his trunk. And then
he did so to deny or cover up anything she
could have said, which.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
Is fuck you, yeah, fuck you yep.

Speaker 2 (32:51):
So Pire's tried in nineteen eighty eight. His first trial
results in a hungry don't fucking ask. He's retried, found
guilty of first degree murder and sent to life in prison.
He has always maintained his innocence. He's still alive, but
he's had opportunities to have his DNA tested against the
DNA and the blood drop from Karashu like Buy Innocence

(33:12):
Project people, which matched his blood type, and he refuses to.

Speaker 1 (33:16):
Get good for me that day. I can't make it.

Speaker 2 (33:18):
Oh, this is my cheek hurts. You can't swab it.

Speaker 1 (33:21):
I'm so sorry. It's inside where that one vein is.

Speaker 2 (33:23):
Right, ve can't pluck my hair. Let's just keep going
with DNA possibilities.

Speaker 1 (33:28):
Well, but also that to me and I could be
wrong about this, but by memory, psychopaths also never admit
that's the whole thing. Is that that that idea is. Oh,
I'm not going to admit it. I'm to continue to
quote unquote trick you.

Speaker 2 (33:40):
Well, he's probably also like, no, you can't take my
DNA because you'll plant it, you know what I mean,
Like he just will deny, deny, deny.

Speaker 1 (33:46):
Yeah. Right.

Speaker 2 (33:48):
He's had the opportunity to apply for parole that each
time has refused to answer why he won't give his DNA,
and so far he's been denied each time. And he'll
be eligible again in twenty twenty seven when he he
is seventy seven years old. So let's stop talking about him, okay. So,
Kara's father Sam lobby to get the desolate area where

(34:09):
his beloved daughter's body had been so callously discarded. Lobby,
do have that area dedicated as the Kara not Memorial
Oak Garden, which it was, and then he changed it
to the San Diego Crime Victims Memorial Garden.

Speaker 1 (34:24):
This is fucking rough.

Speaker 2 (34:27):
His aim, according to find agrave dot Com, was to
quote turn the bleak wasteland where Kara died into a
flourishing nature preserve dedicated to Kara and fellow crime victims.
He did succeed, as the small garden has flourished into,
according to Hidden san Diego dot Com, quote an oasis
where the lives of dozens of victims of crime and

(34:48):
violent death are commemorated and quote. But tragically, in two thousand,
at the age of sixty three, Sam Kara's father suffers
a fatal heart attack while he he is at the
memorial site attending a memorial for Kara, and it's not
far from where she was killed fourteen years earlier, so
he dies there too. I have a heart attack, which

(35:11):
is just a broken heart.

Speaker 1 (35:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:12):
Right. Kara's family, including her mother, Joyce, and three siblings,
continued to fight for victims' rights, including working with law
enforcement to create better ways of keeping track of their
officers while on duty. Very good, huge, and also to
keep her killer behind bars. They also donate the acorns
from the native oaks that Sam had planted and dedicated

(35:36):
to Kara at the Flourishing Memorial Site to nonprofit groups
to plant and grow their own memorial trees, so her
trees are growing all over the country.

Speaker 1 (35:46):
I know, that's beautiful.

Speaker 2 (35:48):
Yeah, And it's like this like beautiful, serene place where
you can go as a memorial garden. Yeah, let's turn
it into that. Sam is buried next to Kara at
the Singing Hills Memorial Park and Alkohoan, California. Her headstone
reads quote, you are our morning and evening star. Now
you are startus and will live forever end quote. And

(36:10):
that is the story of the murder of Kara Not Wow,
great job, thank you.

Speaker 1 (36:17):
That is a tough one.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
Like I hadn't covered this even though it's been in
my head for so long because it just seems so
small and simple and sad and awful. But I feel
like this stuff at the end with her family and
father just felt right to share.

Speaker 1 (36:31):
Yeah, you know, no, I think you're so right, And
I do think that it's sad. There's forty years of
forensic files we could to be talking about a million cases.
That is I think white people talk through true crime.
It's like there's the things that are the exact same.
Then there's the things of like listening and watching for
how they catch people listening and watching for what you

(36:52):
should keep your eye up for.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
How many women have not pulled over on the side
of the freeway or in a desolate spot, or have
known to get off the free to go in a
public place and getting pulled over or stayed in their
car with their doors locked when they needed help. Because
they watched this episode and because of kar story. I
bet there are people who are alive today because they
knew and know Carera story and will forever yep, you.

Speaker 1 (37:16):
Know, yeah for sure. Yeah, well great job. That was
really good, thank you, and really sad and then also
really like I do think it is interesting, like you
naming old forensic files, and then it's like, yep, I
know that one. I have these stories in my head.

Speaker 2 (37:34):
They don't go anywhere, which is why we talk about them.

Speaker 1 (37:37):
I know it's interesting, it's sad. I'm going to turn
it around. I've got a one eighty.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
I would love a one eighties.

Speaker 1 (37:43):
Okay, good because Women's History Month just ended this week,
and yet it feels to me like we should continue
remembering women, shouldn't we in case we're wiped off the
face of the planet here in America, you know, in.

Speaker 2 (37:56):
Case we're Handmaid's Tales.

Speaker 1 (37:59):
There's so much much going on in the world, and
I think talking about the women whose shoulders we all
stand on is a good idea. Love it no matter
what the story is, definitely, And I like the idea that,
you know, sometimes there's people who listen to our podcast
and they do have you know, their young daughters in
the backseat. Here's a story you can let them listen to.

(38:20):
We'll try not to say the F word very much.

Speaker 2 (38:22):
I'm gonna try. Let's see I can get through an
entire story without.

Speaker 1 (38:24):
Cursing haha, or without saying fuck. Okay. So I'm going
to tell you the story today of an American icon who,
by boldly chasing her dreams, made an indelible imprint on
our culture. But despite her extraordinary life, she's most famous
for the mysterious circumstances surrounding her death, arguably one of

(38:47):
recent history's greatest unsolved mysteries. For nearly a century, searchers
have tried to force a satisfying conclusion to her story,
and they've always come up short. But because all the
focus has been on how she died, the way she lived,
including her many accomplishments and her advocacy, is often forgotten.
So today I'm going to tell you the story of

(39:09):
pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
Yes right, oh my god, I've been like following the stories.
I just always click on the stories of they think
they found this, they think they found that, right, here's
the next, Like I cannot not click on those.

Speaker 1 (39:22):
Yeah, because it's fascinating. It's like they have to find
something someday that's conclusive.

Speaker 2 (39:27):
It's a legit mystery. Okay, tell me everything. Okay.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
So the sources for this story today are writer Doris L.
Rich's book, a biography Amelia Earhart, which is a primary
There's also a PBS documentary series that's American Experience that's
all about her.

Speaker 2 (39:41):
Fucking love American Experience, and they're one of the best shows.

Speaker 1 (39:44):
If you're just looking for something of like, if you've
an empty day and you're trying to feel enriched while
still being completely entertained, American Experience will do the job
for you.

Speaker 2 (39:54):
Yeah, I don't care if you don't give a shit
about the fucking dust ball, You'll be fascinated by the
dust ball while you do your nails.

Speaker 1 (40:00):
And I have to say home, Jim. I was raised
by my father forcing me to watch PBS material and
so furious where we'd be, like, right after Happy Days
would end, turn it over, let's see what's ONBS, and
then we'd have to watch an opera. We'd have to
watch Carl say again.

Speaker 2 (40:17):
And is it a coincidence that you're here? Owning your
own fucking business today.

Speaker 1 (40:21):
Probably not, probably not. I think PBS enriched my life.
Did my father ever give them a diamond donations? Not
only not once, and I'm sure I shall do this.

Speaker 2 (40:31):
He sued them for money? Oh no, Wan sued PBS
for damages.

Speaker 1 (40:37):
Oh my god. But my mom would always like walk
through and he'd be watching something and really enjoying it,
you know, like a documentary on the automap or whatever.
Had to watch that the last.

Speaker 2 (40:47):
Time I went home, amazing.

Speaker 1 (40:48):
But my mom would always go, Jim, you have to
give them money, and he would go, bullshit, they're not
getting a dime out of me. And that was like
his proud stance. And he refused to give them money.
It's the ultimate, like he's going to finally rip somebody
else's right, you're fighting the wrong fight, bro. Meanwhile, he
has absolutely given them money and it was just a

(41:09):
bit basically he's doing to piss my mamaf pheww Right, Okay,
he's not really a douche bag, because truly, with the
kill Garrett family has gotten their absolute pill from people
from free toe bags?

Speaker 2 (41:21):
Do you guys have from them?

Speaker 1 (41:23):
That's how you know? Yeah, that's right, So anyway, there's
also a two part national geographic podcast called Overheard. Did
you know there was a national geographic podcast? I love it.

Speaker 2 (41:34):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (41:34):
I also sorry this should go oup into the top,
but since we didn't do it, I'll just say it now.
On TikTok this morning, I learned that the Southern Poverty
Law Center has just launched their own podcast, just at
the beginning of this month, and it just covers all
the stories, all of the things that they're like, basically
them fighting for Americans in every way, the fact that

(41:56):
they've been doing it for one hundred years, all these things.

Speaker 2 (41:58):
I'm not giving them a fucking should we give them
ten thousand dollars?

Speaker 1 (42:02):
Let's do it. Let's do that's a great idea. I
love it. We'll give them money on our side. Listener,
you go listen to the Southern Poverty Law Centers podcast.
Get them some numbers, share it with friends, get that
thing going. Because it sounded great the little like clip
and what I heard, I was like so excited that
they're starting.

Speaker 2 (42:17):
That amazing, great, that feels good. Now let's start your store.

Speaker 1 (42:20):
Good bye. Now to the story. Here's my writing. When
I go in and edit Marin's writing. The story of
Amelia Earhart story begins in late July eighteen ninety seven. Okay,
she was born in the northeast corner of Kansas in
a town called Atchison. Okay, it looks like it's I
would guess two hours north of Kansas City. Way up

(42:42):
there in the corner. There's the Amelia Earhart dot org
website and they have a museum there that I think
is built in her house. Oh wow, but they have
the best hope bags that I'm absolutely gonna get. It's
weird that just I brought up tope. Yeah, that's right
because I was just looking on the website and it's
just a pain of the house and that's the toe bag.

Speaker 2 (43:02):
Okay, we all need those murderinas.

Speaker 1 (43:05):
Yeah, let's buy all the merch at the Amelia Earhart Mate, how.

Speaker 2 (43:08):
You can spot a marderino in the wild at the
farmer's market. Is that she's a fucking always said the
word she's a random.

Speaker 1 (43:15):
I'm still on page one.

Speaker 2 (43:17):
I thought it, stop it. I've had too much fucking rose.

Speaker 1 (43:19):
Let's go. Okay, let's really focus on what we're supposed
to be doing. Okay, So she's born in Atchison in
July of eighteen ninety seven. Her father, Edwin, is a
lawyer from humble beginnings. Her mom, Amy comes from a
very prominent local family and a fun fact, actually like
a badass fact. Amy Earhart was the first woman to
hike to the top of Pike's Peak Wow in Colorado. Cool.

(43:42):
So she's from adventuring DNA makes sense, So things aren't
always smooth sailing for the Earhart family. Edwin has good
and bad years financially. He takes job opportunities wherever they come.
We later learned that it's because he's an alcoholic, and
that's way my mom grew up, where it's like he
does good for a little while he's a lawyer, and

(44:04):
then he blows it and then has to and then
goes off the wagon and then has I can't say
that that's exactly what happened in this family, but I'm
recognizing it from what my mom told me about when
you have like the long term alcoholic that then gets
better for a long time and then goes back. It's awful.
So they move around a ton, and then when Amelia

(44:27):
isn't moving around with her parents and they're just trying
to go get him another job. She stays for long
stretches at her grandparents' home. So Amelia does have a
younger sister named Muriel. They're just about two years apart,
so they're very, very close, and they're not your typical
turn of the century girls because like of course, at
the time, girls had to wear long skirts. But Amelia

(44:49):
and Muriel spend their weekends in bloomers because it's easier
to play in them love it, and these girls love playing.
Amelia is the daring ring leader, and she can often
be found with her little sister climbing over fences, shooting rifles,
collecting bugs. Doris L. Rich, Amelia Earhart's biographer, writes about
an incident when Amelia is seven years old and Muriel

(45:12):
is four and they are going sledding. So Amelia is
about to head down a big snowy hill, so she
does something most little girls would be conditioned not to do.
Instead of sitting up on the sled and holding like
this string like that, she lays down on her stomach.
She pushes off first, face first, just do it, So

(45:33):
she pushes off. She starts racing down the hill, flying down,
and then she sees here comes a horse drawn carriage
that's coming directly down her path, across her path, I
should say, she starts yelling out to the driver because
she can't stop. So she's yelling, but he can't hear her,
he can't see her. So up on the top of

(45:54):
the hill, Muriel is watching her sister as she is
about to crash in so Amelia at the same time
is like I'm about to die. So instead of panicking,
what she does is she puts her head down as
low as she can, and somehow the timing works out
perfectly and she just goes right under the wagon.

Speaker 2 (46:11):
Like Christmas Vacation when they go under the fucking semi truck.

Speaker 1 (46:14):
Yes, exactly like that. Or like when I was about
six years old and I was riding my bike in
front of my parents and their friends, and I went
up in the O'Hara's big old gravel driveway that was
like a quarter of a mile long, and I was
coming back down, racing back down, and my parents can
hear a car that's going eighty miles an hour and

(46:35):
they watch as I just go directly in front of
the car, like the car's going so fast it didn't
have time to put on the brakes. So I just
went like that, and as I came into our driveway,
my dud just picked me up off my bike and
slapped me on the ass and I ran into the house.
They never spanked us, and he like, basically they all
thought they were going to watch me die. Yeah, Amelia

(46:55):
Earhart stuff pet cemetery right for real?

Speaker 2 (46:59):
Okay?

Speaker 1 (46:59):
Soh Basically she goes under, she comes out unscathed, and
when she finally comes to a stop, Amelia jumps up
and smiles and waves at her sister. And years later
she looks back on this moment and she'll say, quote
that condemned tomboy method saved my life. Had I been
sitting up, either my head or the horse's ribs would
have suffered in contact, probably the horse's ribs. So by

(47:22):
Amelia's teenage years, she's attended so many different schools that
she basically doesn't have any friends at all. In one
of her yearbooks, this makes Me So Sad, There's a
photo of her and the caption reads, quote AE the
girl in brown who walks alone. Oh, just like cause
you have this fuck up dad, right, You're gonna have

(47:44):
to leave anyway, so you might as well not get
to know people at home. Amelia's father has developed a
serious drinking problem. I spoiled that one, but he struggles
to hold down any job. PBS reports quote Amelia adored
her father, but he let her down so often. She
learned early on to be self reliant.

Speaker 2 (48:03):
Yikes.

Speaker 1 (48:04):
So she starts keeping a scrap book with cutouts of
newspaper and magazine articles about women with successful careers that
are in traditionally male only fields. It's like she's proving
to herself that she can find success without relying on
a man and manifesting that future for herself. Essentially. When
she graduates high school, it's the thick of World War One,

(48:26):
so she drops out of finishing school. They sent her
to finishing school. Finish what ye finish walking around with
the book on your head. Finish this. So she leaves
to go ten to wounded soldiers in Canada, which is
so bad us. She's like, thanks for the thanks for
the manners lessons. I've got to actually go do something

(48:47):
about back yourself. I'm going to work with the Red Cross.
During this time, she briefly considers a career in medicine,
and then one day she goes to a flying exhibition
in Toronto and she watches a stunt pilot do their
tricks a colorful plane, and she's captivated. She'll later say quote,
I did not understand at the time, but I believe

(49:07):
that little red airplane said something to me as it's
swished by. It's just such a cool I never thought
about this. And I'm sure that my sister has like
books that she's read aloud to her class that's like
Amelia Earhart that I'm sure she knows all the details.
But I've never really thought about that fact of like
when women are born early and they go through life

(49:29):
with like say an adventurer spirit in a time where
they're like you better put that skirt on and go
to finishing school. Right, It's almost luckier that she had
to move around a bunch and had like an irregular
family like her.

Speaker 2 (49:42):
She wasn't paying attention and enforcing rules, so she could
kind of get away with a lot more.

Speaker 1 (49:46):
And it was kind of like, yeah, fuck it, because
what am I going to do? Go to finishing school
find a man? And then this happened to me, like
I'm going to go do my thing.

Speaker 2 (49:54):
Also, like can we just props to the baby sister
or the younger sister who's always like she doesn't get
enough credit, Like the older sister always gets credited, like
she showed her how to do it, But like if
you didn't have someone to show how to do.

Speaker 1 (50:04):
It, yeah, I'm clearly giving us. It's it's about it,
it's about it.

Speaker 2 (50:09):
But like, if you didn't have someone to show off to, Yeah,
then what would you have done?

Speaker 1 (50:12):
You would have never had that adventure, spirit nothing, If
you didn't have a baby crying and saying I need
to go to the bathroom all the time, there would
be no nothing to fight again.

Speaker 2 (50:21):
So you're welcome, You're well, Laura and lee Emilee.

Speaker 1 (50:25):
So by nineteen twenty, Amilia is twenty three years old.
She's living back with her parents again. They're now in
southern California, so they really have moved all over the place.
One day, her dad takes her to an event at
a long Beach air field. Once again, Amelia's transfixed by
the stunt pilot. So this was like a big thing
that was happening at the time. She sees they're offering
plane rides for the low price of five dollars each.

Speaker 2 (50:48):
That's a lot of money.

Speaker 1 (50:49):
Worth about today. What you're twenty twenty, twenty twenty, sorry,
twenty plain old twenty nineteen twenty, nineteen twenty is what
I should have said. Yep. And it's five dollars and nineteen. Oh,
that's a lot of money.

Speaker 2 (51:02):
I'm gonna go sixty.

Speaker 1 (51:04):
Eighty very close, but eighty bucks.

Speaker 2 (51:06):
That's a fuck ton of money.

Speaker 1 (51:08):
She somehow, I get it again. I'm so bad. It's
just it's a fudge. It's a fudge worth of money.
So she somehow collects up and gets that money. A
couple days later, she goes back to the airfield and
she takes a ride for the first time in a plane,
and she will later say, quote, as soon as we
left the ground, I knew I had to fly. A

(51:28):
little quote within the quote says, I think I'd like
to fly. I told my family casually that evening, knowing
full well I'd die if I didn't. She's like her dream,
that's her passion. Yeah, that's beautiful. So a year later,
Amelia meets with a young female pilot named Netta Snook
the best name of all time. Ned is an aviation

(51:51):
pioneer in her own right, and she agrees to teach
Amelia how to fly. She's charging a dollar a minute,
which would be basically sixteen dollars a minute in today's money,
so it would be like paying nine hundred and sixty
dollars for an hour's flying. So it's very expensive.

Speaker 2 (52:09):
Yeah, snookies after.

Speaker 1 (52:10):
It, Snookie's like, hey, then go find another woman to
teach you how to fly a plane. So to pay
for her lessons, Amelia takes on a bunch of odd jobs,
including hauling gravel for a local trucking company and working
as a stenographer. Okay, she's like anything I can do.
Within six months, she manages to buy her own small,
bright yellow biplane that she names Canary.

Speaker 2 (52:33):
That is so wild.

Speaker 1 (52:34):
Mm hmm, she's in it.

Speaker 2 (52:35):
I mean I bought a Vespa when I was young
because I was like, I gotta stop writing on the
back of douchebags vespas and.

Speaker 1 (52:42):
Get your own.

Speaker 2 (52:43):
I need my own or I'm gonna keep dating assholes.
So I got my own.

Speaker 1 (52:46):
Yeah. And then did you go see Quadrophenia at the
midnight show? Oh? Yeah, I mean I was obsessed. Yeah,
when the Vespa kids would come in for Quadrophenia. Yeah,
that was my very favorite one. I'm like, I can't
get these outfits together, but I'll pick you of all this.
I'm not picking rocky horror, and I'm not picking heavy metal.
I'm picking Quadrafini helly. Yeah, you are those acid washed genes. Yeah.

(53:08):
So she gets her pilot's license in late nineteen twenty one,
and she begins flying in derbys and setting all kinds
of records.

Speaker 2 (53:15):
How old is she?

Speaker 1 (53:16):
So she's twenty three and twenty so she's twenty four, Okay.
I like the idea that they just start air derbys
where it's like, can you fly a plane then come
and do a race? Yeah, hilarious, it's so good. So
she sets all kinds of records, like becoming the first
woman to fly at an altitude of fourteen thousand feet.
But actually she wasn't trying to break that record. She

(53:36):
just wanted to see how high the canary could go. Later,
she'll write, quite modestly, quote, although my figure of fourteen
thousand feet was not extraordinary, the performance of my engine
was interesting. I had gone up much farther than some
of the higher powered planes, which should have been more efficient.
So her and the canary are like getting in there

(53:56):
and got a vibe. Yeah. In nineteen twenty five, or
Amelia's life changes again as her father continues to struggle
with alcoholism, her parents get divorced. Now she's twenty eight,
she and her mom moved from California to Massachusetts to
move in with Muriel, who's studying to be a teacher
there in Boston. So Amlie gets a job there as

(54:17):
a social worker. She gets paid sixty dollars a month,
which is roughly how much in today's money, six hundred
and ninety one thousand dollars a month. Wow. Okay, So
she's now supporting herself and her mother on this modest income.
So basically her expensive hobby of flying planes has to
be paused. But she does find a local flying community

(54:39):
and she's a vocal part of it, and local newspapers
start writing about her fierce advocacy for women in aviation.

Speaker 2 (54:46):
Amazing.

Speaker 1 (54:47):
So even though she can't do it, she's still like, yeah,
but we should get to do it. Yeah. The good
news is she loves her job as a social worker.
She works with immigrant families and children, mostly from China
and Syria, and she really feels like she's found her calling.
Author Susan Butler tells National Geographic Quote. If anything, she
was obsessed with being a social worker. She took it

(55:08):
as her role in life to act as an agent
for social change for women. Wow. Yeah, that's amazing. So
I kind of like that, you know. Yeah, she was pivoting,
doing what she could when she could, and then also
making a life doing other stuff that was also very important.

Speaker 2 (55:24):
Her moral compass was there no matter what she was doing.

Speaker 1 (55:26):
Yeah, she was like, I'm going to do good and
make change and fight for women. Yeah. Very cool. So
then in nineteen twenty eight, a man named George P.
Putnam reaches out and that changes everything in her life
once again. Putnam is a wildly successful publisher who is
behind one of America's more notable fascist Charles Lindberg's smash

(55:48):
hit autobiography We of course, Lindberg was a huge aviating star,
very prominent. You covered his baby's kidnapping. I was gonna
say you covered that, but okay with you in episode
one nineteen Fingers Everywhere. Of course you remember that episode.
So Putnam is now on the hunt for his next
aviation superstar. He's been given a short list of female pilots,

(56:11):
hoping one of them will have that elusive and lucrative
it factor. So he sets up a meeting with now
thirty one year old Amelia, and when he does, she
walks in and he can't believe it. She looks a
lot like Charles Lindbergh, so he's immediately convinced that she's
the one. So George pitches Amelia the opportunity of a lifetime.

(56:33):
He wants her to take a transatlantic flight, not as
the pilot but as a passenger, and like, it's all
for a publicity, but still the trip would make her
the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. Can
you imagine I get so nervous when we fly to
like on tour to Europe and stuff, because you're just
like or to Hawaii when you're just like, so, we're

(56:53):
just gonna be like on open ocean for like four
or five hours.

Speaker 2 (56:56):
Yeah, but imagining the first woman who gets to do that,
and you're gonna know that and it's never going to
be changed because you're the first woman to do it.

Speaker 1 (57:05):
Yeah, you know. And she's kind of like, look, I
survived that sled, I'll be fine. Yeah, I'm sure that
is a part of it, right. She's like, get me
out there. It'll be good if I do it, okay,
So she's all in. Of course she thinks it. Miren
wrote it sounds like a blast, but of course she
also knows there's risks. Writer Anthony Brandt notes quote it

(57:29):
was still a very dangerous thing to fly the Atlantic Ocean.
In the year after Charles Lindbergh flew the Atlantic, which
was nineteen twenty seven, eighteen planes made the attempt, only
three succeeded.

Speaker 2 (57:40):
Holy shit.

Speaker 1 (57:41):
Airplanes were a mere quarter of a century old. The
North Atlantic is famously stormy. Fog banks are common. Wheather
reports at the time were primitive, and navigation was often haphazard.
The plane she flew in was made mostly of sheet metal.
It rattled and roared like an old steam engine.

Speaker 2 (57:59):
I that it was so yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:01):
The cabin door had to be tied shut with a
small rope. Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (58:05):
And the fucking farting. I was gonna say meal service, but.

Speaker 1 (58:11):
Yeah, because it's a tri motor seaplane, it's a little
guy with three people in it. Okay, so all that
in mind. On June seventeenth, nineteen twenty eight, Amelia takes
off in the seaplane, piloted by a man named Wilmer
Stoltz and Co, piloted by a man named Louis Gordon.
But after twenty hours and forty minutes of flight time,

(58:33):
when they finally land in Wales, it's Amelia who steps
off the plane and into instant celebrity. Hey girl, thousands
of people are there waiting to catch a glimpse of
the daring AVI. Eight tricks is what they call her,
Amelia Earhart.

Speaker 2 (58:47):
Do you think she slept a moment of that twenty
hours in forty minutes.

Speaker 1 (58:50):
Probably well, no, probably not, because she was probably thrilled
out of her mind, scared shitless. Yeah. And it was
super loud yeah, and cold, yeah, and windy, and there's
no barkhar She just has a little flask that she's
sipping out of chem a straw. So newspapers run countless
glowing features, newsreels declaring her the quote Lady Lindbergh. It's

(59:11):
the exact type of publicity George has worked so hard for.
Because now he wants Amelia to write a memoir that
he can then turn into the bestseller. So this is
my experience doing it? Got it? George urges her to
quit her job back in Boston, move into his New
York home and crank out this book. That's exactly how
Lindbergh did it, so he wants her to do it
the same way. Amelia knows that if she does that,

(59:33):
she can parlay all the attention into some real money,
which then she can use to support her family and
pay for her expensive flying lessons.

Speaker 2 (59:40):
She's the original aviator influencer.

Speaker 1 (59:43):
Yes, hashtag for sure. And also you see these let
me show you some of these early pictures. She's a
gorgeous young woman. She has freckles and her bob hair
or whatever, but she's like, oh, she's the cutest. She
truly has that face card yeah, that they're all looking for.
And on top of all that, it's going to give
her a platform to share the message she's carried within

(01:00:05):
her since childhood, which is that women can do anything,
men can do awesome. In the twenties, when no one
was trying to say shit, they were like, I'm going
to smoke a cigarette, jazz cigarette jez. So Amelia up
ends her entire life in Boston and starts writing a
book that will eventually be titled quote twenty hours forty minutes.

(01:00:25):
In it, there's a section titled Women in Aviation, and
in that Amelia writes, quote, while this chapter is called
women in Aviation, just as appropriate a title might have
been women outside of Aviation. There should be no line
between men and women so far as piloting is concerned.

Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
Got it like a female pilot? Nope, just a pilot,
Just a pilot.

Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
Yeah, yep. Amelia's sister Muriel will later say that Amelia
was embarrassed that her claim to fame was being a
passenger on that transatlantic flight, which seems backed up by
Amelia's own words. She was quoted as saying, the boys
did all the flying. Yeah, that is embarrassing. Yeah for her,
who is a pilot. Yeah, get your own, vespa, get

(01:01:05):
your She also describes herself on that flight as quote,
just baggage, like a sack of potatoes. Oh God, that
had a sting. Well, I think it's She's the kind
of person that's like, if you're gonna applaud for me
this much, just wait until you write and fly right,
this is nothing. Yeah. She also teases her dream of
the future by saying, quote, maybe someday I'll try it alone.

(01:01:26):
So now it's nineteen thirty two. Amelia's in her mid
thirties and America's in the throes of the Great Depression.
But Amelia has done extremely well for herself over the
past few years. She's gotten paid endorsements from brands like
Lucky Strike, and she's become the aviation editor of Cosmopolitan magazine.

Speaker 2 (01:01:44):
That's made up.

Speaker 1 (01:01:45):
Yeah, that is what I love it. But that's how
much of a trend flying was at the time, which
is great.

Speaker 2 (01:01:50):
You got to get those sponsorships, man, that's right me
and podcasting understand.

Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
You're truly right about her being the original plain influencer.
So at that point, she'd made enough money to buy
herself a brand new plane, which is the now iconic
fire engine red Lockheed Vega. Amelia is also still devoted
to empowering women. She is the founding member and the
first president of a group called the ninety nines, which

(01:02:16):
is the first ever organization for women in aviation. The
ninety nine refers to the number of the group's charter.

Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
Members amazing so good. Yeah, what if it was like
twenty three? The twenty threes doesn't sound the same. The
ninety nine is fucking almost a hundred.

Speaker 1 (01:02:32):
On a more personal level, Amelia's father Edwin has passed
away of cancer, and George Putnam, her publisher, has divorced
his wife. He professes his love for her and proposes.

Speaker 2 (01:02:46):
I wish I could have seen that.

Speaker 1 (01:02:47):
She says no. He asks again, and he ends up
proposing to her six different times.

Speaker 2 (01:02:54):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:02:54):
Wow, love him, love her, love it. Amelia has been
skeptical of marriage all her life life for very good reason,
but she genuinely cares for George, so she eventually accepts,
but she has her conditions. She tells him she's going
to keep her own name, which at that time was
unheard of.

Speaker 2 (01:03:12):
I'm just that's incredible, Yeah, someone who kept her own name.
I want to thank her for fucking blazing the way.

Speaker 1 (01:03:17):
She blazed it. And then on her wedding day, she
won't wear a traditional bridal gown. She wears a brown suit.
What just like fisk. She's like, let me just go
to work today. She's like, here's the thing. I'm not
wearing your stupid fucking dress. And she also, the morning
of their wedding, writes him a letter which I really

(01:03:38):
love that says, quote, I may have to keep someplace
where I can go to be by myself now. And
then I cannot guarantee to endure at all times the
confinement of even an attractive cage.

Speaker 2 (01:03:50):
Oh my god, Like she loved that about her then
you know that's like why he loved her is like,
that's so incredible.

Speaker 1 (01:03:58):
I think. So, this is my opinion. When you are
raised feral, it's hard to even want to have anything traditional,
even when the pressure to do it is so oppressive,
because it's like it was literally she had the kind
of household where it's like, go outside and play for
eighteen hours because everything is so fucked in here. Yeah,
and so then it's like, yeah, I don't want to

(01:04:19):
go back.

Speaker 2 (01:04:20):
I hid myself back to this that structure that I
can't trust.

Speaker 1 (01:04:23):
If I couldn't trust my own father, how can I
trust you completely? I don't, And George Putnam's like, I
get it. I'll just keep asking you. Yeah. But also,
a brown suit on your wedding day is just like
badass to a degree where she's like that isn't just
like I'm not going to be traditional, She's like fuck yeah,

(01:04:44):
finishing school professor.

Speaker 2 (01:04:45):
Yeah, apologies to anyone who thought they were actually going
to play this for their children. In the backseat of
the car like.

Speaker 1 (01:04:50):
It was never going to happen. We were lying to you,
but more importantly, we were lying directly to.

Speaker 2 (01:04:55):
Your children, and you were lying to yourself.

Speaker 1 (01:04:58):
Thought we screamed fuck you. Yeah. So, around the same
year she gets married, which is nineteen thirty two, she
publishes her second book, that one's called The Fun of
It Kio. I Love that one, Kiki. She also announces
with that that she's going to fly across the Atlantic again,
but this time as a pilot, and this time by herself.

Speaker 2 (01:05:17):
No at the.

Speaker 1 (01:05:18):
Time, no one, no man or woman, aside from Charles
Lundbard back in nineteen twenty seven, had ever completed a
solo NonStop transatlantic flight, although ten pilots had died trying. No.

Speaker 2 (01:05:31):
Yeah, don't like those odds.

Speaker 1 (01:05:32):
So she's like, uh, a ten male pilot step but wait, yes, exactly.
So immediately Amelia's inner circle, including her husband George Putnam,
start wondering if she's experienced enough to pull off this stunt.
Her own mechanic gives her quote a one in one
hundred chance of surviving. Cool dude, way to fucking be supportive,

(01:05:54):
reminds me of then the fucking Eagles were like, we
don't want to tour with Linda Ronstadt. We're going to
start her own band. Like fuck you go ahead, see
how it fucking goes. Good luck, she's selling out fucking stadiums. Anyway, God,
that documentary. I loved it so much, but it filled
me with a fury that will never go.

Speaker 2 (01:06:11):
That was the point.

Speaker 1 (01:06:12):
Yeah, she wasn't good enough.

Speaker 2 (01:06:13):
You need it, you need that theory.

Speaker 1 (01:06:15):
Yeah, So the idea of making a transatlantic flight alone
makes Amelia Earhart feel alive.

Speaker 2 (01:06:21):
Oh, I was gonna be like take a beta blocker notes.

Speaker 1 (01:06:25):
She's like, I can't this day to day bullshit isn't
good enough. I need to get up and over there.
What did she do to hype herself up before?

Speaker 2 (01:06:32):
Because before I came in here to record, I put
on yes and by our Grande, Like.

Speaker 1 (01:06:37):
Just to record a podcast that.

Speaker 2 (01:06:39):
I've done for fucking nine years.

Speaker 1 (01:06:41):
I still need that, Like I a little secrets being revealed. Yeah, okay,
go well here's I can tell you. She writes a
poem that says, quote, courage is the price that life
extracts for granting peace. H think about it. I can't
you gotta pay you must so on a warm May

(01:07:01):
morning I added in warm, I don't know why. On
a May morning in nineteen thirty two, Amelia takes off
from Canada's East coast in her Lockheed Vega. From the start,
it's an exhausting, difficult journey. Author Doris L. Rich writes, quote,
she was four hours out when she ran into a storm.
She would go high and the plane would ice. Then

(01:07:22):
she'd go down until she could see the waves to
get the ice off.

Speaker 2 (01:07:25):
How fucking scary, terrify.

Speaker 1 (01:07:27):
She had no radio contact with anyone. The manifold on
her engine broke and the flames from the backfire from
it were coming out. There was a gas cage over
her head that began to leak, and the gasoline was
dripping down over her forehead and into one eye end.

Speaker 2 (01:07:41):
Quote, just crash the whole thing into the sea.

Speaker 1 (01:07:43):
Yeah, that's what I would do. I mean. Well, after
fifteen grueling hours of flight time, Amelia Earhart lands her
plane safely in Northern Ireland. Amazing, and this solo flight
launches her to all new levels of worldwide stardom. She's
mobbed by fans in London and pair and when she
comes back to the United States, her success is felt

(01:08:04):
as a much needed moment of national joy because it's
still a great depression. She even gets her own ticker
tape parade in New York City. INFLUENCERR have you ever
seen ticker tape parade footage? It looks so messy, it
looks so awesome. Yeah, like if you're down there and
everyone's just throwing shit out the window and like it's
just such a true moment of glory. Yeah, everybody got

(01:08:25):
to focus on that. Then the guy has.

Speaker 2 (01:08:27):
To clean it up.

Speaker 1 (01:08:28):
Yeah, true, Why do I think that way? Go on?
Some people like cleaning. Okay, So a few months later,
she then becomes the first woman to fly across North
America and back. Amelia is now a global icon through
and through. I also wonder how much of that is
like I'm proving I'm not a passenger and over again.

Speaker 2 (01:08:47):
Sure that's like the best way to get yourself to
do something for me. It is like, oh you don't
think I can't do that, Yeah, I think I'm a passenger, or.

Speaker 1 (01:08:54):
To myself of like, oh, you're really ashamed because you
had that one comedy set that was terrible that you're
remembering from a seven years ago, but then got there
be the best. I think shame work.

Speaker 2 (01:09:04):
Shame is a great motivator.

Speaker 1 (01:09:07):
But being a career aviator, even when you're a famous one,
takes a ton of money. So Amelia hits the lecture circuit.
She goes on tour, making exhausting back to back town
by town appearances. Tell me about it, Ted talks, og
Ted talks. She's got like the head bike, but it's
not connected to anything.

Speaker 2 (01:09:27):
It's no thirty.

Speaker 1 (01:09:30):
Like what's that thing by her mouth? Sometimes? She earned
twenty four hundred dollars in a single week Day's Money
nineteen thirty two. How much would twenty four hundred dollars
a week be seventy six thousand, fifty five thousand, but
still in the area fifty five thousand dollars a week.

Speaker 2 (01:09:49):
Insane, that's insane. She started the first podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:09:53):
Yeah. She's also using her platform to campaign for women's empowerment,
not only in aviation, but she's trying to get the
Equal Rights Amendment passed. All like, don't rest I love it.
She's invited to the White House in nineteen thirty three.
She becomes tight with the Roosevelts. Bragg brag oh fucking cool.
A not so fun fact about the Equal Rights Amendment.

(01:10:15):
Though advocates have been fighting to ratify the Equal Rights
Amendment since the twenties, even though it's already met the
required number of state ratifications, for some reason, it still
has not been added to the US Constitution.

Speaker 2 (01:10:29):
Imagine being invited to the White House and wanting to go,
and being proud to go. Yeah, can you like the Roosevelts? Fuck, yeah,
I'd go.

Speaker 1 (01:10:38):
Imagine it's just such the end of an era. Yeah,
but it's an end of an era. And what I'm
talking about is democracy. Fucking Jesus. Oh right, god, okay.
Nineteen thirty three is a big year for Amilia also
because she breaks her own speed record on a second
flight across North America. She's just getting it done. Nineteen

(01:11:00):
thirty five, thirty eight year old Amelia has set records
for solo flights from like Honolulu to Oakland, California, or
LA to Mexico City. That's just a couple of them.
I've done those, right and solo you mean you just
weren't talking events. She's also campaigning for FDR, and she
launches her own fashion line called Amelia Fashion Brown Suits

(01:11:23):
called brown Suits Only. She explains, if.

Speaker 2 (01:11:25):
You could find one of those in the vintage shop
if you're like doing vintage shopping, and then something you
see fucking Amelia Earhart fashion.

Speaker 1 (01:11:31):
By Amelia dude. So the theory was that all flight clothing,
of course, had been made for men up to that point.
So when you had your nice jotnipers or your weird
white shirt or whatever, leather jacket, yeah, like horsewritings. Yeah,
So the idea was they were supposed to be And
of course she always preferred pants anyway. So I looked
up on Amelia Earhart dot org and they had pictures

(01:11:54):
from the newspaper of the ad of it, and it
said sports clothes designed by Amelia Earhart. But then every
single picture in that ad was models wearing dresses. There
was not one pair of pants, which I was.

Speaker 2 (01:12:08):
Like, she never got to say in that she sold
her name.

Speaker 1 (01:12:11):
That's true. As busy as she is, Amelia still gets
the itch to make another big flight. So she writes
to her friends saying, quote, I have the feeling there's
just one more good flight left in my system, and
I hope this is it. It is my swan song
as far as record flying is concerned. My frosting on
the cake.

Speaker 2 (01:12:28):
God, rest on your beautiful laurels.

Speaker 1 (01:12:30):
Sometimes, guys, sorry, I can't joined adult children of alcoholics.
So I'm going to go ahead and keep on flying across.

Speaker 2 (01:12:37):
It's a nice little nap on them.

Speaker 1 (01:12:40):
Laurels can't do it. So the next year, nineteen thirty six,
Amelia announces her plan to fly around the world. If successful,
she'll be the first woman to ever do it. Obviously,
she and George fundraise for a brand new plane that's
built specifically for this journey. They pay for it too,
but there it's so expensive. It's eighty thousand dollars, so

(01:13:01):
they need to fundraise eighty thousand dollars back then is
about how much in today's money. Three hundred and fifty
one point eight million.

Speaker 2 (01:13:09):
Dude. Yeah, I've learned nothing.

Speaker 1 (01:13:12):
Your scale just went like that a little bit.

Speaker 2 (01:13:13):
I know what's happening.

Speaker 1 (01:13:14):
So she calls this plane her flying laboratory because it's
outfitted with all the latest technology, but she never learns
to use much of it. Doris l Rich writes, quote,
Amelia did not like radio communication. There's absolutely no doubt
about it. That's like me and emails. It's so bad
for business. She not only didn't bother to learn it.

(01:13:37):
She didn't really find it necessary. There's a hint here
of the ego that all great explorers and adventurers have.
They have a certain faith that they're going to make it.

Speaker 2 (01:13:48):
I mean, you spend one point something on a fucking plane,
you hope it like flies itself just.

Speaker 1 (01:13:51):
A little bit. Yeah, you would hope there's an automated
aspect to it.

Speaker 2 (01:13:55):
Something.

Speaker 1 (01:13:56):
Amelia wants to do the trip by herself, but it's
eventually decided she will need a team, being that she
doesn't like radio communication at all, so she hires three men,
a technical advisor named Paul Mantz, a marine navigator with
radio operation experience named Harry Manning, and a former pan
m navigator named Fred Noonan. So on March seventeenth, nineteen

(01:14:17):
thirty seven, they take off from Oakland, California. They land
in Honolulu. Then on March twentieth, they take off for
the second leg of this trip, but something goes wrong.
The plane skids off course at the end of the
runway and it crashes. It's a big enough accident that
the plane has to be sent in for extensive repairs.
So this is a deeply stressful moment for Amelia. She's

(01:14:40):
basically gambled everything on this extraordinarily expensive flight during a
national financial crisis. Yeah, so, Doris l Rich writes, quote,
after she cracked up the plane in Honolulu, she felt
fear for the first time. The immensity of this project
suddenly hit her. She knew that if she lost that
plane or failed in this, she and George were dead

(01:15:01):
broke both of them. End quote. You can tell Doris
el Rich is writing from like it's probably nineteen forty
five or something. Yeah, that's the vibe I get. This
is gonna happen. Dead broke both of them. So the
krash in Honolulu also rattles Amelia's loved ones. According to Babs,
friends urge her to abandon this mission. They also express

(01:15:23):
concern over her exhausted and anxious mental state. Yeah, so
it seems like she's kind of pushing it anyway, even
though she's scared or she's worried totally. This includes her
husband George, who writes her a letter promising that they'll
figure things out should she abandon the flight. Yeah, there's time,
It's okay, but Amelia won't give in. Give in and

(01:15:43):
regroup a little bit and then come back stronger than ever.
I feel like this is that kind of thing. You know,
there are people who are like, if you're a serious workaholic,
you just can't consider taking a nap during the day.

Speaker 2 (01:15:53):
That thing of like rest is for the week, and
it's like, actually, it's a beautiful thing to give to yourself,
and it's okay.

Speaker 1 (01:16:00):
It is okay, But sometimes you just can't because if
you rest, that means like your momentum will slow, even
if it's just your mental momentum. And clearly she's still
on that sled, still going under that horse drawn carriage. Yeah,
but then it won't go away.

Speaker 2 (01:16:15):
You can still come back after it and like you're
gonna be more clear headed and you're gonna be older
and smarter and like, give yourself a fucking break sometimes. No,
that shows why Karen's CEO and I don't have a
fucking office at exactly right Media.

Speaker 1 (01:16:30):
It's not good. It's not it is not good. And
she has two podcasts. Yeah, I'm having to start a third,
and it's called It's Fine to do this to yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:16:42):
It's fine.

Speaker 1 (01:16:43):
It's fine. That actually would be funny. It's fine. A
podcast called It's Fine, and you just have people come
on and talk about shit that is so not okay,
it's fine.

Speaker 2 (01:16:53):
It was fine.

Speaker 1 (01:16:53):
I was fine, fine, No, I liked it. It was fine.
By the time the plane is repaired, Amelia's team has shrunk.
The technical advisor Paul and Harry, the marine navigator, the
only guy with radio experience, both back out. They were
like later days, They're like, read the fates. Yeah, let
go take a nap. Yeah, it's naptime.

Speaker 2 (01:17:13):
Mercury is in retrograde, so.

Speaker 1 (01:17:16):
Now it's Amelia and Fred Noonan. Thanks to changing weather patterns,
they're forced to come up with a whole new flight plan,
so instead of leaving from Hawaii, they're now taking off
from Miami, Florida, and on June first, nineteen thirty seven,
they do just that, this time without a hitch. And
then they start on this forty day, twenty thousand mile trip,

(01:17:38):
making several stops to refuel along the way. They soar
over Africa, through the Middle East, over Southeast Asia, onto
New Guinea. They have another stop before a very long
stretch over the Pacific Ocean. They are the first people
who have ever seen this from the fucking air, Like,
how so wild but believable on July second, nineteen thirty seven,

(01:18:00):
Amelia and Fred take off from New Guinea. At this
point they've completed nearly three quarters of this journey, and
the goal is to now get to a tiny sliver
of land called Howland Island, roughly halfway between Australia and Hawaii,
truly out in the middle of the Pacific, and it's
only about a mile and a half long island and

(01:18:20):
a half a mile wide. That's a hard target, that's
a little tiny one. Tragically, Amelia and Fred struggle to
find Howland Island. We know they arrive in the general
area because Amelia starts radioing the Coastguard, who have a
ship called Itasca nearby, and they're receiving her messages. Some
of these transmissions are so crystal clear that the men

(01:18:40):
on the Atasca rush to the decks thinking that the
plane will be overhead. In one of her transmissions, Amelia
says that she thinks she's close by, but she's lost
and she only has about half an hour of fuel left.
But because she doesn't know much about radio transmission, she's
sending these messages while on an improper frequency on the radio,

(01:19:01):
so the Coastguard is only able to respond to her
with Morse code, which neither she nor Fred understands. That's
an important one, a lot of crucial elements. Let's not
criticize a mil or not. You know where the story
goes from here. The messages stopped coming in thirty nine
year old Amelia Earhart and forty four year old Fred

(01:19:24):
Noonan and the plane that they're flying in together disappear
almost immediately. FDR dispatches a huge crew to go look
for them. It's made up of ten ships and sixty
five planes, and that causes a lot of controversy because
it costs millions of dollars. It's still the depression. So

(01:19:44):
after two weeks of combing a vast swath of the
Pacific Ocean near Holen Island with no results, this search
is called off. But George Putnam has his own search going.
I forgot that, Yeah, okay. He funds an independent search
himself and it goes until October of nineteen thirty seven.
Oh my god, so he just kind of never stopped

(01:20:06):
searching for her. That also turns up nothing. In January
of nineteen thirty nine, two years after vanishing, Amelia Earhart
and Fred Noonan are legally declared dead.

Speaker 2 (01:20:17):
They turn up nothing, not a scrap, So they were
like looking in the wrong area.

Speaker 1 (01:20:21):
Well, okay, we'll talk about that one second. They're countless.
Theories of what happened during those final moments of Amelia's
last flight all have devoted supporters, as they usually do,
because of the disappearance happened in the lead up to
World War Two. Some people think that Amelia and Fred
were captured by the Japanese military after crash landing on
a Japanese controlled island, and they were either executed for

(01:20:44):
being American spies or they were turned into spies for
Japan and sent back to the US with new identities.
That one's a little wild, Yeah, but what if now
we write that movie. Another theory is that Amelia wound
up on an island called Nika Mororo sorry for that pronunciation,

(01:21:05):
a four hundred miles south of Howland Island. Is this
where they found her compact? All done? Wait?

Speaker 2 (01:21:10):
Wait wait?

Speaker 1 (01:21:11):
They think they might have lived as castaways there before
dying of thirst or starvation. Some people believe this theory
then take it one step further, suggesting that massive coconut
crabs could have consumed their remains and scattered their bones,
making their bodies harder to find.

Speaker 2 (01:21:28):
Okay, those fuckers are big.

Speaker 1 (01:21:30):
I mean, it's such a creepy idea. The island had
been inhabited in the past, but it was uninhabited at
the time of this flight. Despite this, intermittent radio signals
were reported from that general area around the time they disappeared,
as if the planes radio had remained intact and accessible
and they were calling for help. On top of that,

(01:21:51):
in nineteen forty bones are found on Nica Moreauro. They
have since been lost, so the DNA has never been tested.
Come on and uh yeah, but again, that island had
been inhabited, so they weren't necessarily there's Searchers has found
on that island a single shoea a piece of aluminum,

(01:22:12):
and a jar of freckle cream freckle cream, which certainly
points to a person and maybe a woman having been there.
And for what it's worth, Amelia Earhart had freckles that
she was reportedly very self conscious about.

Speaker 2 (01:22:27):
Oh person all it breaks my heart that she is
so self conscious that she brings freckle cream on this
like adventure. But then I'm like, I wonder if that
was like bare SPF at the time, where it's like
you had to cover your freckles with this cream.

Speaker 1 (01:22:39):
And maybe yeah, it was maybe like a two for
one where she's like, I need moisture because this wind's
gonna whip around my face.

Speaker 2 (01:22:46):
Sunscreen, it's an early sunscreen. Okay, yeah, I mean yeah,
it's her, it's theirs.

Speaker 1 (01:22:52):
Since you imagined you're just on this island, it's mostly
coconut crabs, and then you're just like pons pons cold cream.

Speaker 2 (01:22:59):
If cold cream was like a sponsor of the flight,
I think since we had to bring.

Speaker 1 (01:23:03):
In it was a sponsor of this podcast. Freckle cream.
Freckle cream. Amelia Earhart uses it, and you can too, No,
because now they love freckles so much that they have
little freckle stamps.

Speaker 2 (01:23:16):
And they have tattoos of freckles on your fucking face.

Speaker 1 (01:23:19):
The kids these days, with their big butts and their
freckles and their attitudes. Okay. Theose items are never confirmed
as belonging to either Fred or Amelia, and modern day
efforts to search the surrounding ocean near that island have
turned up nothing. Of course, many people think Amelia's plane
simply ran out of fuel and crashed into the open ocean.

(01:23:40):
Because of the sheer size and depth of the Pacific,
it hasn't been found. Amelia's sister Muriel thinks this is
what happened. Quote, I'm not happy with some of the
dramas about Amelia where they went into fiction. So essentially,
of course, that's how it always is, where it's like
actually simple fearizing. The hard truth, which presumably was much

(01:24:02):
harder for Muriel, Amelia's mother, Amy and her husband George,
is that we simply do not know what happened to her.
George Putnam died in nineteen fifty at age sixty two
of kidney problems. Amy, Amelia's mother, died in nineteen sixty
two at age ninety five, and her sister Muriel passed
away in nineteen ninety eight at the age of ninety eight.

(01:24:24):
Wow searchers continued to hunt for any signs of Amelia
Earhart or her plane. As recently as twenty twenty three,
a deep sea exploration group released an underwater sonar image
of what they thought was the plane, but in twenty
twenty four they discovered it was just a bunch of rocks.
Oh no, uh huh, plane shaped rocks. All that in mind,

(01:24:45):
instead of focusing on the mysterious ending of Amelia's story,
we can always relish in what we do know about
her life and her bold approach to living it. As
writer Anthony Brandt has said, quote, it wasn't that Amelia
was wilful, rather than she was free, calm, fearless, cheerful
in the face of life, and she attracted everybody. She
believed that women should live lives rich in experience and

(01:25:08):
have careers if they possibly could. Can you imagine? And
she lived her belief. She was a remarkable human being,
a historic figure, one of those people who, skirting the
farthermost edges of experience, open up possibilities for us all.
And that is the story of pioneering aviatrix Amelia Earhart Boom.

(01:25:31):
High five for Amelia Earhart. Good job you wow had
to be done. If you're in the fifth grade and
you heard anything I said that was wrong, please write
in at my favorite murder at gmail dot com because
we know you all to have done reports on her.

Speaker 2 (01:25:45):
Yeah, we're open to corrections always.

Speaker 1 (01:25:48):
Women should live free. It's insane, can you imagine? But
it really is the truth. It is ah. That was
its own fucking hurray. I feel like I do too.
Yeah that was pretty great. Yeah, pretty great.

Speaker 2 (01:25:58):
I still send us your fucking her and comment THEMB but.

Speaker 1 (01:26:00):
Please, that was it. Yes, this week, we've done all
the work we need to do. I agree. Great, Then
stay sexy and don't get murdered.

Speaker 2 (01:26:08):
Goobbye Elvis, do you want to COOKI?

Speaker 1 (01:26:18):
This has been an exactly Right production. Our senior producers
are Alejandra Keck and Molly Smith. Our editor is Aristotle
oce Veto.

Speaker 2 (01:26:25):
This episode was mixed by Leona Squalacci.

Speaker 1 (01:26:27):
Our researchers are Maaron McGlashan, and Ali Elkin.

Speaker 2 (01:26:30):
Email your hometowns to My Favorite Murder at gmail dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:26:33):
Follow the show on Instagram at my Favorite Murder.

Speaker 2 (01:26:36):
Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts and now.

Speaker 1 (01:26:41):
You can watch us on exactly Right's YouTube page. While
you're there, please like and subscribe. Goodbyebye

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474 - It Cleans Ducks

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Georgia Hardstark

Karen Kilgariff

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