Overview of Rewind with Karen & Georgia 106: “Courage Shoulders”
In this Rewind episode, Karen and Georgia revisit a 2018 My Favorite Murder installment and react to how different their show used to feel: longer intros, more off-topic banter, and a lot of cereal talk before the actual cases. The episode’s title, “Courage Shoulders,” comes from a joke inspired by The Alienist—the idea that a woman’s dramatic shoulder pads could somehow hold her “courage.”
The main episode covers two unsettling crimes: the 1948 murder of Teresa Catherine Foster in Boulder, Colorado, and the bizarre 1981 killing linked to Luigi Longhi, a man with a hair-washing fetish. The recap also includes listener follow-up about true-crime writer Earl Stanley Gardner and a few “good things” recommendations.
Main Case 1: Teresa Catherine Foster
What happened
- Teresa Catherine Foster, an 18-year-old engineering student at the University of Colorado, disappeared in November 1948 after leaving a rosary meeting.
- Her body was found days later near Boulder, dumped in snow and showing signs of brutal assault.
- Evidence indicated she had been raped, beaten, and strangled.
The investigation and trial
- The Denver Post turned the case into a sensational media spectacle, even bringing in Perry Mason creator Earl Stanley Gardner to “investigate” in a highly public, semi-fictional way.
- Newspapers speculated heavily, often presenting theory as fact and encouraging the public to call in suspicious names and tips.
- Joe Sam Walker was eventually arrested after his wife reported him: he allegedly came home bloody, burned his clothes, and destroyed evidence.
- At trial, prosecutors relied on physical evidence and witness testimony, but there were major problems:
- The semen evidence was never tested.
- Pretrial publicity was overwhelming.
- The media coverage likely poisoned the jury pool.
- Walker was convicted, but decades later the Colorado Supreme Court overturned the conviction because the trial had been unfairly influenced by the press.
- He maintained his innocence until his suicide in 1982, leaving the case unresolved.
Why it matters
- The case is a strong example of how sensational journalism can distort investigations and undermine due process.
- Karen and Georgia highlight how the media essentially treated a murder like serialized fiction.
Main Case 2: Luigi Longhi, the “Shampoo Killer”
The bizarre fetish and crime
- Luigi Longhi, born to Italian parents in Switzerland, had an unusual fetish from childhood: he stole women’s wigs and shampoo.
- As an adult, he would hire women to let him wash their hair, usually without sexual contact.
- In 1981, he picked up a hitchhiker named Heike Freiheit and offered her a train ticket to Copenhagen if she’d let him wash her hair.
The murder
- At first, he shampooed her hair normally, but after she fell asleep, he wanted to continue.
- When she resisted, he tied her up and kept washing her hair for hours.
- After shampoo ran out, he bizarrely kept going with honey, salad dressing, and cottage cheese.
- She struggled, and he tightened a noose around her neck to stop her from moving.
- She died of asphyxiation.
Aftermath
- He hid her body in a wall and covered it with lime.
- Nine months later, workmen found her remains during renovation work.
- Longhi was found criminally insane and confined to an institution indefinitely.
Why it stands out
- The case is remembered for how specific and unsettling the fetish was.
- Karen and Georgia riff on how the crime reveals that this wasn’t really about “washing hair” so much as control, touching, and ritual.
Listener Follow-Up and Corrections
Earl Stanley Gardner note
A listener who researched Earl Stanley Gardner wrote in to explain:
- Gardner wasn’t just the creator of Perry Mason.
- He also wrote a true-crime column, The Court of Last Resort, which helped exonerate several wrongfully convicted men.
- The listener emphasized that Gardner should be remembered for helping free people, not just for his famous fiction.
Other discussion points
- Karen and Georgia talk about:
- early episodes being much more rambling,
- the rise of AI in cold-case speculation,
- and how dangerous it is when technology or media get treated as infallible.
Good Things of the Week
Karen’s pick
- The Man from the Train by Bill James
- The book connects a series of axe murders and argues they may have been committed by the same traveling killer.
- Karen praises it for being deeply researched and very readable.
Georgia’s pick
- Spending time with her cats
- She says being home and hanging out with them is one of the things making her happiest.
Key Takeaways
- Sensational media can wreck a fair investigation.
- Old cases can look very different with modern standards for evidence and due process.
- True crime has always involved storytelling, but the line between reporting and fiction can get dangerously blurry.
- Sometimes the strangest crimes are driven by obsession more than violence alone.
Episode in One Sentence
A nostalgic Rewind episode that revisits two disturbing crimes—one tangled up in reckless media coverage, the other in a horrifying fetish—while reflecting on how far the show has come.