MFM Minisode 503

Hello.

And welcome.

To my favorite murder.

The Minnesota.

We read you, your stories.

And emails.

And emails. And stories of emails.

Stories where you're writing emails to us.

Thoughts and feelings about email. You're first, I'm first.

Whatever you want. I'll go first. Okay.

So this was an email that I found when I was researching back for episode 544, where I covered the Paul Fronczak disappearance, the baby who was kidnapped as a literal, like, two-day-old from the hospital. Yeah. So it's called, Was My Dad Adopted or Stolen at Birth? Wow. Hey, best pals. I've been putting this email together in my head for months now, so here we go. My dad, Jeff, was a wild dude and lived life fast and extreme. When I was young, I would ask him to tell me his craziest stories. He'd paint beautiful pictures of his younger self, convincing the cops to buy him and his friends beers and smoking doobies on their way to their fifth Rolling Stones concert. Just regular bedtime stories every father tells his daughter, right?

As I got older, and because I've always been a murderino at heart, these stories slowly became more murdery. Like how his friend Ray was acquitted for the murder of his wife in 1996, but everyone in town knows that he probably did it. But that's not the story I'm here to tell you today. Sadly, my larger-than-life dad died of colon cancer complications this past February. At his celebration of life, we were all telling stories with tears in our eyes. Then out of nowhere, my dad's cousin Donna says, I always remember us making fun of Jeff for being that stolen baby from Chicago. Man, he hated that. Come again, first cousin once removed, Donna? What came next was the unfolding of my dad's final wild story, the one that

was so good he didn't want to tell me in person. He wanted me to do the digging myself. So it says, everyone knew my dad was adopted. This is something that he never really cared about. He would always say in a very South Side Chicago accent, my ma's my ma and dad's my dad. That's all that should matter to you guys. My dad was born and adopted on April 24th, 1964, by my grandparents. On that same day, Paul Joseph Franzak was stolen from a Chicago hospital by a woman dressed as a nurse.

Same day.

Same day. And then he was adopted. So it's so suspish. Like, look at all the people who adopted babies on that exact day who were born there, and you'll find who took it.

The turnaround, though. Yeah, yeah.

Turnaround.

That's very true. But that turnaround is like, wouldn't you think that the person.

Yeah, exactly. Well, it's not. This launched a huge manhunt and baby search. The FBI tested and examined over 10,000 babies, one of which was my dad. They came back multiple times to examine my dad and took multiple hair and blood samples. The authorities were highly suspicious of my grandparents as they weren't my dad's biological parents. And their lawyer was under suspicion of black market adoptions. It says, OK.

And then it goes on to say it's clearly not him. It dried up. Another baby was found to be him, but it wasn't. It's a story I told.

Obviously, it wouldn't be him because you would have told that during your actual story. Right. I don't know what the hell I was thinking. I'm just like, wait, so it isn't him? It's suspicious.

So episode 544 is where you can read, you can hear about that story. And then this email goes on to say that she's been reading Paul Fronczak's book called The Foundling, which he wrote. And then she says, this has been such a comforting way for me to cope with the loss of my dad. Only murderinos get it.

Thank you for giving my dad's story a voice. It means more to me than you will ever know. I've been on the hunt for my dad's bio family because in my grief, that's just what feels right. So murderino fam, if you know anyone born in that time frame with a last name Schwerer, S-C-H-W-E-R-E-R, hit me up. Wow. And of course, a huge you rule for normalizing mental health issues And everything that comes with it. If Prozac is your bestie, say hey.

Hey.

Stay sexy and hug your dad for me, Allie. So it's Allie Schwerer. Check it. I mean, if you know something, look her up.

Get onto our Discord.

Or message me, yeah. Solve this. Message us.

559. Call the hotline. We've just had it installed.

Isn't that crazy?

Yeah, that's wild.

So thank you, Allie, for your info and then. Obviously, I had to read that as well.

Yeah, that's great. Okay, well, we'll just do a quick pivot over to this subject line, which is Children of the Corn, a Nebraskan child labor story.

Okay.

Right?

Okay, L-A-H. Oh, no. You said Nebraska.

Oh, it could have been so perfect. Could have been so perfect. Hi, Karen in Georgia. While most seventh graders were gearing up for summer pool days, my friends and I were applying for summer jobs as detasslers. For people outside of Nebraska and Iowa, detassling is the process of pulling the pollen-producing top off of a corn plant to prevent self-pollination. Giant machines do the first pass, and then crews of teenagers walk the rows of seed corn to pull whatever was missed.

Those tiny little young hands? Wow. Yeah.

In the Midwest, this is basically a rite of passage.

Wow.

Every July, thousands of teenagers spend about three weeks working in the cornfields. I love this information. A typical day looks like this. I woke up at 4.30 a.m. and put on my uniform, a hat, mosquito net, safety goggles, long sleeves, long pants, tall socks, galoshes, and gardening gloves. You do not want exposed skin unless you wanted corn rash.

Corn rash is a thing that I've never heard of.

Wow. At 5 a.m., I boarded a yellow school bus with a bunch of other kids my age to head to whichever cornfield we'd been assigned to that day. This is just like child labor in a very real way. Once we got to the field around 6 a.m., we spent the next 10 to 12 hours walking row by row pulling tassels. It took a trained eye to recognize the tassels, so we lived by the cardinal rule. When in doubt, pull it out. Rain or shine, we were out there. The fields were often wet and muddy, which added to an extra challenge. Sometimes the cornfields were so tall that at 5'2, I had to jump for each and every tassel I pulled.

That's a good workout.

For 10 to 12 hours.

No, fuck you. No. Suburbia is not that bad now that I think about it.

But we got paid by the acre. By the acre. It's so big. Yeah. So the goal was to be as efficient as possible. No excuses, eyes on the prize.

Yep.

This is farm life for sure. Of course, since we were teenagers with minimal supervision, there was also plenty of tomfoolery. The most memorable was corn bowling, where someone would sneak into your row and shove you over just to see how many corn stalks your body could take out on the way down. I fucking love corn bowling so much.

It's the best.

Despite the bugs, mud, and intense heat, I actually loved it. All my friends were there. And since we didn't have smartphones yet, we were forced to interact and invent ways to entertain ourselves. That's right.

Yeah.

The amount of teens that fell in love in the corn stalks pulling out tassels, detasseling.

Fell in love or did it? Don't fall in love. You're too young.

No, no. Like, sorry, let's keep it on the crush level.

You don't want to be like weirdly staying back in your hometown for your corn crush.

No. What if your crush is corn? Then what do you do? Anywho, all caps. I love the show and I listen while getting ready for work every morning. I'm now a middle school teacher and MFM has inspired me to sneak little safety lessons into my classroom. We talk about appropriate boundaries between kids and adults. I mean, the idea that it took this long. Yeah. It's so fucking nuts.

The difference between secrets and surprises and all kinds of other random things. Hopefully, I'm planting seeds that help kids trust their instincts when something feels off. Fuck yes.

I love it.

Stay sexy and make your teen work a grueling summer job to build character and teach them the value of a dollar.

Oh, my God.

Cassidy. And here's Cassidy. When Cassidy was 14 years old.

That outfit.

Getting those galoshes.

Yeah. You're going to get sunburn or ticks. You got to look out for everything.

Yes.

That's amazing.

I know. It's so good.

Look at that.

I really want to know the dangers that why the sleeves had to be so long. Because if you've walked in corn.

Which I haven't.

It's not that intense.

Scratchy or anything?

I mean, I'm not the one to say, especially to a person that lives in Nebraska or Iowa.

That's a great outfit. I want to be that for Halloween.

Yeah.

Who are you for Halloween? D-Tassler. Well, I'm a D-Tassler.

Cassidy to the D-Tassler.

I'm a teenage D-Tassler.

Oh, sorry. It says, this is a picture of me excitedly showing off my D-Tassling outfit at age 14. The photo was taken on a razor flip phone and immediately posted to Facebook.

Yes. Great one.

Nice.

Okay. This is St. Paddy's Day of the St. Paddy's Day story. Hi all, it's been a minute since we've heard any things in wall stories, so it's time I shared mine. Five years ago, I bought my very first house, a small old farmhouse that needed a lot of work. Renovation started, and one winter night, I was talking to my mom on the phone. I noticed something gray sticking out of the brick fireplace on the wall. I assumed it was drywall paper or something since we'd just barely removed the old wood paneling in that area. A few moments later, I noticed this gray thing had actually moved.

I paused the conversation so I could focus, squinted real hard, and said, Mom, I gotta go. There's a snake in the fireplace. Luckily, it was just a harmless baby garter snake.

Oh.

One fishing pole, a shoelace, a cardboard box, and an hour later, the snake had been relocated to the backyard.

Sorry. Let me just think about it for a second.

Because you can't just spray it with fucking ant spray.

No. Jesus.

Like, we found fucking black widows in our backyard recently, and Vince just, like, emptied a whole bottle of, but you can't do that with a snake in your house.

No, first of all. Then the snake's angry at you. Right. And also this is a baby garter snake. So there's, I think I would feel comfortable picking up a baby.

I'd call someone.

And just throwing it. Or like, because they're good for outdoors. They're going to eat rodents. They're going to help you in all other ways.

But I have no experience with snakes. Like, suburbia also didn't have snakes. So, like, you probably met some snakes back.

In your life. Met a snake a time or two.

Married him.

My first husband. But just don't kill things.

No, I would never kill it. I would just make someone else do it. A month later on St. Patrick's Day, chatting with my mom on the phone again, I looked up at the fireplace and there it was, a snake poking its head out of the wall. Want to see a picture of it?

Yeah.

Oh, no. I mean, it's beautiful. That doesn't look like a harmless snake. Like a pattern like that and yellow is not what I would think of as a– like I don't know what a fucking harmless snake looks like, but that doesn't look like it.

No, and it's not gray. They said gray.

It's yellow and gray. So you can imagine how concerned my mom was becoming with my new big financial investment. The snake was caught, relocated much further away this time, and the house was snake-free for the rest of the year.

I also don't understand how they were using a fishing pole, a shoelace, like that list of things in a shoebox or whatever.

Totally.

So that was kind of like.

Maybe a hoop around the fishing pole, and then you fish it, you get it, you tighten the shoelace, put it in the box. Okay. I would do that.

That makes sense.

I wouldn't touch it, but a fishing pole, I think I would. deal with.

That almost sounds like a game at the fair and then you could win a huge stuffed animal.

I mean, PETA would get mad, but okay. Snake breathed for the last year. But the next year on St. Patrick's Day, sitting in my newly renovated living room and enjoying the warm fireplace, I looked up to see a snake again. It made multiple visits and proved impossible to catch this time. They were getting smarter. It's not one guy.

I'm sorry.

It's a fucking nest of snakes.

If you've seen three now. And then it said, so we started cocking every entry point I could possibly find. And eventually the snake stopped coming back for the rest of the year. But sure enough, the next year, and every year since, a snake has found its way into my house on St. Patrick's Day.

That's crazy.

Then it says, they might make a visit on other days of the year too, but like clockwork, there's a snake coming out of some wall in my house on St. Patrick's Day. And then it says, Karen, as a good Irish Catholic woman, understands the irony of the situation. St.

Patrick is this saint. He's a saint because he drove the snakes out of Ireland.

Holy shit.

So that's, it makes me go, what? Prove it. Every year?

I believe it.

So the ghost of St. Patrick is caught in her chimney.

No, she just has a house with a fucking snake nest.

She just has 50,000 snakes under her house.

And she's paying more attention that day because it's happened once or twice. And so it happens every fucking day.

They're doing it constantly.

It says, I keep plugging every entry point I find. But a few years back, while in the crawlspace doing some plumbing work, piles of snakeskins were discovered. Leading us to believe there is, in fact, a den beneath the house. The Nick Terry Den of Snake episode. Go to YouTube and find it immediately. It's fucking hilarious. So every spring when the babies start hatching, they make their way out and into the walls of my house. Yay for country living.

I believe I found.

You don't have to live like that just because you're in the country.

I believe I found all of the entry points for now, but we'll see if San Patrick will do me dirty again this year. Stay sexy and pray to St. Patrick, Jessie. And then it says, in case you want to see... Do you just want to see the video?

Yes.

Okay, here we go. I mean, I'd burn my fucking house down. We've had multiple... Excuse me.

Do you have any butter?

Happy St. Patrick's Day. You're not wearing green and it comes and bites her.

Pinch.

He's cute. He's kind of cute. Also.

That's not caulking holes. We need entire bricks.

Yeah, that was an entire brick.

Brick it and then a piece of metal.

Okay.

Wow, that was amazing. Also, who put that music on?

One of the girls did.

Was that you guys?

The listener sent it in with music and we weren't sure if it was cleared. So I think Clark picked that for dramatic effect. I love it. It's like robbing a bank with music.

Sneaky little snake.

Okay.

Okay. The subject line of this email is a dog story, and then in parentheses it says happy ending, just so everybody knows.

Okay, thank God.

Because these days we need to know that. Truly. It just starts, I've been thinking about writing in with this story for literally years, so I won't keep you waiting a moment longer. Thank you. Almost 20 years ago, and then in parentheses it says, Jesus Christ, that math makes me want to cry. I feel you. That happened. Me and Nick Schwartzen went to lunch the other day, and then we were like, We have to figure out how many years it's been since we've seen each other, and it was literally like 16 or something.

That's impossible.

Insane. Okay. My husband and I were living in Texas, about 40 minutes northeast of Austin, when our next-door neighbor's dog, a beagle-healer mix named Junior, started escaping his yard and showing up on our front porch. We would take the dog back to his house, work with the neighbors to fix the fence, etc., but it just kept happening, and the owners did not seem to give a shit. We finally just stopped bringing him back, and again, they did not give a shit. Nicely. Unfortunately, it was quickly apparent that our dogs wanted nothing to do with this poor boy who was not properly socialized. So I started working on finding him a new happy home. I was thrilled when a colleague and his wife said that they would

take Junior and that they understood the commitment they would need to make to work with his adorably destructive behaviors. Big win. Fast forward about five years, and we had moved to upstate New York when my old coworker called me out of the blue. Well, he said, I wanted to tell you what happened with Junior. My heart started to sink. He confirmed that the pup was no longer living with him and his wife and wanted to tell me the story that I was certain I didn't want to hear. There was a family living in their neighborhood that they spent a lot of time with, frequently heading to the other family's cabin in the hill country for weekends of fishing, grilling, and hanging out. On one such weekend,

they brought Junior along for the trip. He zeroed in on the other family's five-year-old son who was autistic and nonverbal. We'll call him Tim. Tim would run around the yard. Junior was constantly nipping at him and grabbing at his shorts, pulling him around. When the families were enjoying a bonfire and s'mores, the dog repeatedly knocked Tim down, sometimes holding him in one place by lying on his legs. Late in the night, Junior stood at the front door, barking frantically until the entire house was awake. My heart continued to sink. I could just picture this crazy pup running riot over what was supposed to be a fun family weekend in the country. and the stress that it must have caused everyone. But as he wrapped up the story

about this fateful weekend away, where Junior harassed the crap out of this poor family and their little boy, he closed with, so they asked if they could have Junior, and we said yes. Plot twist. The family recognized that Junior's pulling on Tim's shorts was his way of trying to keep the boy away from the street. And knocking Tim down and lying on his legs was keeping him from getting too close to the fire. Oh. the incessant barking in the middle of the night, there was a rattlesnake behind the couch. What? So Junior, the dog who had been fed by his previous owners just throwing handfuls of dry food into the backyard, who was never allowed in the house or provided with love and affection, was

now going to school to become a support dog. Did we get you? I think so.

Yes.

Can we zoom in on Georgia's eight tear ducts, please? Because it's actually finally happening. It only took 501 of these fucking episodes to get you, and we got you. When Tim started elementary school the next year, Junior went with him. I literally couldn't believe my ears. It was all so beautiful and so unexpected. Even now, close to 20 years later, I still see saving this dog from that gross backyard and And being a link in the chain that brought him to Tim was one of the best things I've ever had the privilege to be a part of. Stay sexy and endeavor. Oh, now it got me too. Stay sexy and endeavor to deserve dogs.

Rebecca.

Oh, my God. Perfection, Rebecca.

That's even better than be the person your dog thinks you are.

Yeah. So good.

That was so beautiful.

That's like a dog that's found his calling.

Purpose.

Yeah, a real purpose.

Oh, my God. Oh, there's another one. The dog having a purpose. Yes. Hi, all.

Loved the show.

I moved to L.A. two and a half years ago and loved listening to your L.A. pre-show talk to hype me up for the move. I digress back to the point of this email. Speaking of LA things, I've seen many celebrities and influencers in my short time as an Angeleno, but one sticks out to me as an all-time favorite interaction because it happened twice. I lived near a very popular hiking spot for two years. Has to be Runyon Canyon. Probably. Right.

And I would walk my dog on the same two routes, routes, every morning in that area.

Routes. I think routes.

I think routes. Mostly uneventful, except for one fateful morning when my dog ran straight up to this very attractive, fine wine-aged man with a thick beard and slightly peppered, slightly wavy hair and beautiful blue eyes getting out of the passenger side of a car. The dog ran up. I was stunned because I had truly just rolled out of bed, straight out of a rom-com, I swear. He politely laughed and petted her. I apologized. We smiled at each other, and I continued my walk when it hit me.

I know those beautiful blue eyes. Then I thought, surely not. I had to throw away my dog's waste bag up the sidewalk a bit, which meant I had to double back to go back to my building when we passed each other again. We made eye contact for a second time when I saw a different look in his eyes, this time a little more anxious. Do you recognize me?

Are you going to say anything? Freak out. What's about to happen? I again politely smiled because I knew that he knew that I knew who he was, that he was clearly trying to enjoy his morning. So I just smiled and kept on all caps. It was Gerard Butler. Oh, listen, I didn't not have to Google. I'm not going to lie.

Well, but you know who he is.

Yeah, as soon as I saw him.

That name does not suit him.

No.

He's a Jerry Butler, but he's Gerard always throws me.

Gerard is a sexy name. You don't think so?

Yeah, but it doesn't, he's, although a very sexy man, he's also like, hey guys, like he's Mr. Regular.

He's Scottish, I guess. It doesn't fit that character, but good God, he's gorgeous. He's from 300, what else?

Well, every movie I watched in COVID. Greenland, fucking, my wife is trapped somewhere and I'm going to punch my way to her. Like, that's every movie of his.

Okay. Barely recognizable under the beard and long hair, but it was most definitely 2000s rom-com and 2010s period war drama heartthrob Gerard Butler. I was starstruck but somehow still functional, so much so that I never expected to run into him again on our same route a couple weeks later.

Uh-oh.

This time, both he and the man he was with appeared to remember my dog's sweet face and looked happy to see her again. Then it says, good girl.

Yeah.

They both said good morning and the Irish accent proved my suspicions correct. So he's Irish.

He's not. He's Scottish. Okay.

Although I told the story to friends on my block and said he introduces himself as Jerry, smiley face.

Thank you.

That's amazing. Either way, I'm glad my interactions with him were positive. Stay sexy and get a dog who introduces you to your celebrity crush, Steph, she, her. Gerard, we want to hear the story from your point of view about this girl stalking you on Runyon Canyon.

You've got to have your say.

Despite your fake beard.

I mean, because that's the kind of thing that, like, for somebody like that, he sees somebody once, then they see her, and then it's just like, do I call security now or do I have to wait for a third time?

But if you're an actor and you're going to Runyon Canyon, it's kind of because you want to be seen.

You're asking for it and you want it, Jerry.

Jerry, let us know. We don't know.

Jerry, you have to have a say.

Yeah.

Jacob Tierney and I, all through COVID, that's what we would do is if a new Gerard Butler movie came out, then we'd be like, whoa, we got it. And we would act like we had to see it on the day it premiered. So like I've seen every... questionable choice that man has made for like the last, I guess, six years or so.

Do you want to hear Karen's opinion about it, Jerry? She'll give you some feedback about your career.

Jerry, I went to acting school for a year and a half.

That's right. I've done level one of improv twice.

We have feedback.

What more could you want?

Here's the thing. I get a feeling about Gerard Butler that's very similar to Russell Crowe. Yes. Which is you want to go to a bar in the daytime with these people. Right.

Wow, especially when they're Irish or Scottish or anything, English, whatever.

Gaelic, Australian. Sure. Get in there.

Totally.

Because there is a certain, they're just not the typical Hollywood actor type.

Totally.

They're kind of like, hey, look, I'm way more good looking than most of the people on my island, so I get to be here. But other than that, this is crazy. That's the vibe I get.

Are we done? Is that it? Do you have one more?

Here's my last one. The subject line is stories about your landline. Greetings, pals and gals. Greetings, gals and pals. Same diff. You asked for stories about our landline phones. And then in quotes it says, you know, the one that used to hang in your kitchen before smartphones? I guess that's what we said. I grew up in a house of yellers. Our house wasn't particularly large, but with a basement and three bedrooms, my parents often found reasons to scream across the house. To each other, to us kids, to our cat, you name it. One day my dad, and then in parentheses it says Kurt, Kurt. Kurt. Came home with a marvelous new contraption, a set of rechargeable cordless phones for all the major rooms of our house. Kids'

rooms were sadly not included in that list. The most exciting feature, he proclaimed, was an intercom function that turned each phone into a not-quite-walkie-talkie.

That's smart.

Do you remember those? Yeah. The cordless phone?

Yeah. They were, like, gray and bulky. Yeah. And you'd have to pull the cord up.

That's right.

Yeah.

If you hit the button for the intercom and then dialed the single-digit number of whichever other phone in the house you were trying to reach, the other phone would bleat out a special ringtone that indicated someone was trying to page you.

Is that more annoying to be paged than to be yelled at and go, what? Yes. Getting paged is annoying, too, probably.

I think it's all a little bit. But it's like, if they just yell it, first of all, it's what you're used to. Yeah. And then it's also just like, then you just know what's going on.

I don't know. I think Vince and I... The most annoyed we've ever been with each other or ever are with each other is when one of us is trying to yell something to the other one and they can't hear it.

And no one's coming closer.

Or like they're brushing. I can't hear you right now.

Yes.

And you're going to be mad at me because I can't hear you. But you're the one yelling.

In our aunt and uncle's house, our cousins were raised, which my sister and I, the first time we stayed there, we were both like, wow, that's intense. But they weren't allowed to say what. They'd have to say coming. Wow. If someone was like.

Did the parents have to fucking do that too?

No way. Fuck that shit. Well, that's because the kids were downstairs and the parents were upstairs. Okay. I like that. And older and paying for everything.

Okay. So anyway.

So that way we didn't have to yell across the house to each other anymore. My dad explained excitedly, dear reader, it did not work. My mom, Sue, who has always been a hyper-efficient type A person, That's right. The screaming was never going to end.

Oh.

After a few months, the intercom function saw no more action except for when my brothers or I would prank each other with it or show it off to our cousins. My parents still have a landline to this day but have shrunk the number of phones in the house to just two. It's a good thing, though, because some of my bank or credit card accounts that I opened in high school or college are still linked to that phone number.

I'll only know which ones when my parents finally disconnect it and I'm unable to log in. I'm sure there's no other way to know. Dot, dot, dot. Anyway, thanks for all you do at Exactly Right. You're lovely people who light up my life with your content. Keep up the good work. And it's just signed A, they, them.

Thanks, A.

Thanks, A. Wow.

Those were fun.

I know.

Yeah, write us your stories at MyFavoriteMurder at Gmail. We want to hear all of them.

Any kind of slice of life that you want to report, whether it's a complaint about your childhood or just fun times.

Yeah.

Or this is what made my family different than the rest of the families in the neighborhood.

This is the thing we always fought about. The one thing we always fought about.

Yes. Yeah. Yelling in phones is so relevant for 80s people. Totally. So fun. Yeah. All right. Well. Thanks for writing those in. Everybody did a great job.

You did.

And stay sexy.

Coming. And don't get murdered. I had to.

Nice one.

Goodbye.

Elvis, do you want a cookie?

This has been an Exactly Right production.

Our managing producer is Molly Smith.

Our consulting producer is Kate Schellenbach.

Our creative lead is Allison Agosti.

Our associate producer is Tessa Hughes, and our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.

This episode was mixed by Liana Squalacci.

Email your hometowns to myfavoritemurder at gmail.com and follow the show on Instagram at My Favorite Murder.

Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Or watch new episodes every week on Netflix. Search for My Favorite Murder, Add us to your list and hit the double thumbs up button.

Goodbye.

MFM Minisode 503

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