MFM Minisode 501

**Karen Kilgariff** (0:16)
Favorite Murder Hello and welcome to My Favorite Murder, the mini-sode.

**Georgia Hardstark** (0:20)
Let's do it.

**Karen Kilgariff** (0:22)
Let's read emails from the world.

**Georgia Hardstark** (0:25)
You go first.

**Karen Kilgariff** (0:26)
Okay. This email is a response email to a thing I said one time. We love those ones.
The subject line of this email is, The real Transylvania University has a professor buried in the administration building.

**Georgia Hardstark** (0:40)
What? That's from the Kentucky meat shower, right?

**Karen Kilgariff** (0:46)
Yes, I believe so. I think they say it here. It starts, hello lovely ladies. I've been listening since well before COVID, and then in parentheses, it says, not quite day one, but close enough to feel like we're friends.
That's nice.

**Georgia Hardstark** (0:59)
I like it.

**Karen Kilgariff** (0:59)
We're COVID friends. I thought about writing in so many times, then I heard episode 539, It Keeps Getting Ruined, and Karen asked if Transylvania University was actually real. That's my alma mater, so naturally I had to shoot my shot. Transylvania University is a real tiny liberal arts school in Lexington, Kentucky, with only about 1,100 students. It was founded in 1780, making it the first university west of the Appalachians.
And despite what every person I've ever met immediately asks, no, Dracula did not attend.

**Georgia Hardstark** (1:35)
Why is it called that?

**Karen Kilgariff** (1:37)
Hold on. The name comes from the Latin, Transylvam, meaning across the woods, Transylvam.
When the school was founded, Kentucky was basically one giant forest. Nothing creepy in those woods.

**Georgia Hardstark** (1:53)
Nope. Everything is non-cryptoid.

**Karen Kilgariff** (1:56)
Camp away.

**Georgia Hardstark** (1:57)
Let's keep going.

**Karen Kilgariff** (1:59)
Now for the fun part. Every student quickly learns about Constantine Samuel Raffinesque, an absolutely brilliant naturalist, a botanist, and by all accounts, an eccentric menace. Yes.

**Georgia Hardstark** (2:10)
Love them.

**Karen Kilgariff** (2:11)
Legend says that he was so angry after leaving the university that he cursed the school. That's my energy entirely.

**Georgia Hardstark** (2:17)
Hell yeah.

**Karen Kilgariff** (2:18)
Naturally, instead of just letting go, alumni decided decades later the best solution was to dig him up and bring him back to campus. This is Shades of Widows Bay.

**Georgia Hardstark** (2:28)
Wow.

**Karen Kilgariff** (2:29)
Today, he's entombed inside Old Morrison, our main administration building.

**Georgia Hardstark** (2:33)
That's like, yeah, he got bit by that animal and he became that animal.

**Karen Kilgariff** (2:37)
He's been the animal every relationship I've ever had. Except there's a very real possibility they dug up the wrong person.

**Georgia Hardstark** (2:44)
What?

**Karen Kilgariff** (2:45)
This keeps getting better.
Now, no one's entirely sure the remains in the tomb are actually raffinesques, which somehow makes the whole story even better. Very true. We embrace the weird. Every October, there's Raff Week. Students can enter a raffle to spend Halloween nights sleeping in the tomb.

**Georgia Hardstark** (3:03)
Oh, my God.

**Karen Kilgariff** (3:05)
Our campus cafe is called the Raffskeller, and our mascot is raffinesques, big-eared bat.

**Georgia Hardstark** (3:11)
They just like double down on saying fuck you to him.

**Karen Kilgariff** (3:13)
Yes.

**Georgia Hardstark** (3:14)
Like triple down.

**Karen Kilgariff** (3:16)
They're like, we'll move your body wherever we want.

**Georgia Hardstark** (3:18)
Yeah.

**Karen Kilgariff** (3:18)
We're going to theme you out like Mickey Mouse.

**Georgia Hardstark** (3:20)
Everything after you.

**Karen Kilgariff** (3:22)
Get ready. If cursed professors aren't enough, the campus is also forever connected to the tragic 1961 murder of student Betty Gail Brown. She was killed after leaving a late night study session, and despite decades of investigation, it's still one of Kentucky's most infamous unsolved murders.
Walking past Old Morrison at night definitely hits a little differently once you know the history. Oh, and because apparently the universe decided one bizarre story wasn't enough for our little school, our library became the site of the infamous 2004 rare book heist. Remember, I did this.

**Georgia Hardstark** (3:56)
You did?

**Karen Kilgariff** (3:57)
The rare book heist that inspired the movie American Animals.
Wait, will you check if I did it? I'm looking right now. I could have just seen that movie.

**Georgia Hardstark** (4:06)
You should do it. Like write it down to do it if you have it.

**Karen Kilgariff** (4:09)
I think I did because it was, remember it was like big boys that kept going in to ask to look at the books that were behind the glass?

**Georgia Hardstark** (4:15)
I'm going to say yes and then Molly's going to say you didn't cover it, and I'm going to look the stupidest.

**Karen Kilgariff** (4:19)
And then, that's right, that's how I do it, is that I put my ass out there, but yours is the one in the sling. That's right. Yours is the one in the jackpot.