Overview of Rewind with Karen & Georgia — Episode 104: “Garden Party”
This installment of Rewind with Karen & Georgia revisits the original My Favorite Murder episode 104, “Garden Party” (originally released January 18, 2018), which also happened to be the show’s two-year anniversary. Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark re-listen to the episode, reflect on how the show evolved, share listener corrections, and break down two memorable stories: Susan Kuhnhausen’s self-defense survival case and the cult tragedy of the Order of the Solar Temple.
What the Rewind Episode Covers
Show introspection and anniversary talk
- The hosts celebrate the podcast’s two-year milestone and joke about how much their on-air dynamic and audience interaction had grown.
- They reflect on how the show had moved from looser early episodes into a more collaborative, listener-responsive format.
- A recurring theme is how the podcast’s “call and response” culture became one of its defining strengths.
Listener corrections and side conversations
- They revisit corrections from earlier episodes, especially:
- Cow breeds and the “Jersey/Guernsey” mix-up.
- Montessori school memories, including Georgia’s “dirty feet” story.
- A lot of the episode’s charm comes from their tangents: beauty mirror anxiety, neck hairs, hotel-room-only close-up mirrors, and the absurdity of aging and grooming.
Main Story 1: Susan Kuhnhausen
The setup
- Susan Kuhnhausen was an ER nurse in Portland, Oregon.
- She had separated from her husband, Mike Kuhnhausen, but had not yet changed the locks or alarm code in their shared home.
The attack
- When Susan came home from work in 2006, she found a man lying in wait in her bedroom.
- He attacked her with a claw hammer.
- Susan fought back using instincts from her nursing training:
- She stayed close to reduce the force of the hammer blows.
- She wrestled the attacker to the floor.
- She bit him, choked him, and ultimately overpowered him.
- Her line, “When I realized I was not going to ever regain the hammer, it came to me that I needed to become the weapon,” becomes the story’s defining moment.
The bigger plot
- The attacker, Edward Haffey, was not a random intruder.
- He had been hired as part of a murder-for-hire plot arranged by Susan’s estranged husband, Mike.
- Haffey had a criminal history and a cocaine problem, and investigators found evidence tying him to Mike.
- Mike later pleaded guilty to soliciting Susan’s murder.
Aftermath and impact
- Susan survived, but the emotional aftermath was intense.
- She later became an advocate for victims’ rights, a motivational speaker, and a self-defense resource.
- She helped develop Case Companion, an online portal that keeps crime victims updated on offenders and court proceedings.
- The episode emphasizes how extraordinary it was that Susan survived physically—and how hard it was to survive the legal and emotional aftermath.
Main Story 2: The Order of the Solar Temple
The cult and the deaths
- Karen’s story explores the Order of the Solar Temple, a secretive cult active in the 1980s and 1990s.
- The episode opens with a shocking 1994 fire in Quebec, where investigators find multiple bodies in a burned condominium, including a family with a murdered infant.
- More deaths follow in Switzerland and elsewhere, revealing a pattern of ritualized killings and staged mass suicides.
How the cult worked
- The group was founded by Joseph Di Mambro and later shaped by Luke Jure.
- They blended:
- Knights Templar mythology
- New Age spirituality
- occult symbolism
- claims of reincarnation and cosmic destiny
- Members were told the world would end in an environmental apocalypse and that only the chosen would travel to a planet near Sirius.
Manipulation and control
- The leaders demanded money, obedience, and control over relationships and reproduction.
- They built an illusion of supernatural power using lasers, holograms, fog, and theatrical staging.
- As members began to question the group, the leadership escalated toward violence.
Final deaths and legacy
- The cult was responsible for 74 deaths total across Canada, Switzerland, and France.
- Some deaths were suicides, but many were murders.
- The story touches on the disturbing possibility that the cult may still have remnants or sympathizers today.
- The episode also notes a later documentary exploring the cult further.
Key Themes and Takeaways
Survival and trauma
- Susan Kuhnhausen’s story is about more than self-defense:
- It’s about survival under extreme pressure.
- It shows the emotional cost of violent self-defense, even when justified.
Cult psychology
- The Solar Temple story highlights how cults exploit:
- loneliness
- spiritual longing
- wealth
- secrecy
- authority
- It also shows how cult violence can unfold slowly, then all at once.
The power of listener corrections
- The episode celebrates the fan community’s role in fact-checking and enriching the show.
- Karen and Georgia treat corrections not as embarrassment, but as part of the ongoing conversation with listeners.
Memorable Moments
- “Vintage DNA” and old medicine-cabinet razor slots
- Neck-hair and beauty-mirror jokes
- “I needed to become the weapon”
- The cow correction email: “You’re absolutely right about the Jersey and Guernsey cattle breeds… but a little not right about what those cows look like.”
- The cult’s bizarre blend of occult symbolism, Hollywood-style special effects, and apocalyptic delusion
Updates Mentioned
- Susan Kuhnhausen / Case Companion
- The victim-notification portal she helped inspire is still active in Multnomah County, Oregon.
- Order of the Solar Temple
- A 2024 BBC Four docuseries, originally French, revisits the cult: Sirius, an Apocalyptic Order.
Bottom Line
This Rewind episode combines comedy, nostalgia, and grim true-crime storytelling. It revisits one of My Favorite Murder’s most iconic survival stories and one of its most bizarre cult cases, while also showing how the podcast’s community, corrections, and evolving chemistry became central to its appeal.