Every October I embrace life's dark side. A new storm of horror movies hits the theaters, skeletons hang from shelves in grocery stores — with Halloween and longer, darker days, the death-loving vibes are hard to escape. And this year, thanks to my new obsession with a podcast called My Favorite Murder, my horror appreciation has been especially focused on all of life's real monsters — serial killers, cannibals and Lululemon employees who've snapped.
Hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark, My Favorite Murder is a weekly discussion dedicated to some of history's most fascinating murders and murderers. Sometimes the shows have a theme — crimes involving cannibalism, the JonBenét Ramsey case (IT WAS TOTALLY HER BROTHER) or murders that happened in the ’90s or in the host's respective hometowns — and other times they just discuss whatever murder they've been recently obsessed with (along with other important life lessons, like smashing the patriarchy and giving the middle finger to being polite, because sometimes being polite will get you murdered).
I can't stop listening to it and then investigating each case further on the internet. (And yes, my husband is growing more and more concerned by the day.) With all these gruesome stories on my mind, I started to wonder about some of Nashville’s most famous murders. It’s a topic I've never really explored before because, honestly, I got my fill of horror while growing up in the Pacific Northwest. Washington state breeds some of the worst murderers. We have horrifying serial killers — Billy Gohl, Gary “Green River Killer” Ridgeway, Robert Lee Yates ... even Ted Bundy got his start there! — and there are also some very heartbreaking one-off murders, including the Capitol Hill Massacre, the Cafe Racer shooting, the South Park murder and that time in 2009 when Maurice Clemmons gunned down four police officers while they sat at a coffee shop, just a month after Seattle police officer Timothy Brenton was ambushed in his patrol car on Halloween night. That was a strange, heavy couple of months. 206 pride I guess or whatever!
Down here in my new home, though, I still know very little about the city's history. Having moved here only three years ago, I've picked up a few pieces here and there — I've heard a bit about the Holly Bobo murder, which sounds sad and terrifying, and I learned Steve McNair was killed in Nashville. Some recent Googling also lead me to the very twisted murder of Janet March, carried out by a her husband and father-in-law and I only just today learned of The Fast Food Killer. Shudder.Â
So tell me, are you a fellow murderino? And what’s your favorite Nashville murder?
