Table of contents for April 2020 in Reader's Digest

A FEW MONTHS AGO, I became enthralled by a podcast series so dark I hesitate to recommend it to you. Every commute for days, Root of Evil filled my car with the voices of two sisters, Rasha and Yvette, as they uncovered four generations of terrifying secrets within their clan, the Hodels. I’ll spare you the details here, some of which (only some, thankfully) you will learn from our cover story (page 56). But I won’t hold back on my own secret: I can’t get enough of well-told stories about unfathomable evil like this. I was rapt when my catechism class turned to the first Biblical murder, of Abel by Cain. In college, I devoted my senior thesis to In Cold Blood, Truman Capote’s attempt to make sense of the…

FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL WE WERE FIVE minutes into the worst turbulence I’d ever experienced—approaching Boston’s Logan International Airport in a severe winter storm—when I turned to the woman next to me and said, “Hey, would you mind chatting with me for a few minutes? I’m really nervous.” We hadn’t spoken much during the flight, other than the usual pleasantries. But my seatmate seemed friendly. And I suddenly felt desperate for a human connection. “Sure. My name is Sue,” the woman replied, smiling warmly. “What brings you to Boston?” I started to explain that I was on a business trip. Then the plane lurched violently, and I blurted out, “I might need to hold your hand too.” Sue took my hand in both of hers, patted it, and held…

KEMIRA BOYD HAD just jumped in the shower when she heard her stepmother, Tammy Boyd, banging on the door. Kemira’s 12-dayold daughter was choking. Having fed and burped baby Ryleigh just 30 minutes earlier, the 24-year-old new mother burst out of the bathroom and began patting her daughter on the back. Ryleigh was usually quick to cry. Now she didn’t make a sound. “I’d been told to raise their arms when babies are choking, so I tried that, but she still was hesitating to breathe,” Kemira told Today. She knew Ryleigh needed to get to the hospital fast. The trio had barely made it out of their Summerville, South Carolina, neighborhood when the flashing lights of a police cruiser appeared behind them. Deputy Will Kimbro figured that the speeding driver…

The best gender-reveal party I’ve ever been to was the one where I gave birth to a baby. — @2QUESTIONABLE After my beloved dog Lucky passed away, my daughter tried to explain to her four-year-old son what had happened in terms he might understand. “Remember that baby bird we found on the sidewalk the other day?” she asked. As the truth sank in, Ian grew alarmed: “Lucky fell out of a tree?” —LAURIE NAVIN Lincoln, Nebraska A local lumberyard was having an open house, and my mother really wanted to go. Dad, though, had no interest. After badgering him with no luck, she finally said, “If you don’t go, I’ll be the only woman there.” Dad shrugged. “If I go, you’ll still be the only woman there.” —GERALD E. BRONNENBERG…

FOR TWO YEARS, from the summer of 1979 to the summer of 1981, African American parents in Atlanta were terrified. During that span, at least 24 black children and teens vanished from the streets only to turn up later as corpses. The first two, 14-year-old Edward Smith and 13-year-old Alfred Evans, were found by a woman rummaging through roadside woods for aluminum cans and bottles. Seven-year-old LaTonya Wilson, one of six children who disappeared over the summer of 1980, could be identified only from her teeth and clothing when her remains were found nearly four months after she went missing. “Every day, every night, it seemed like they were finding bodies,” Sheila Baltazar, whose stepson, Patrick Baltazar, 12, was killed in 1981, told the New York Times. “And we were…

FROM THE SATURDAY EVENING POST Every year, I circle the vernal equinox on our refrigerator calendar so the first day of spring won’t slip by unnoticed. I’m not sure why I depend upon the calendar to announce spring’s arrival, since it has so little bearing on the matter. Spring comes when it’s good and ready; sometimes well before its appointed day, sometimes well after. For years, spring in our town was heralded by Leon and Jo Martin, who owned the Dairy Queen. Every year, after their winter sojourn to Florida, they would post the words “Now Hiring” on their sign. I would walk past, see the sign, see Leon and Jo readying for their spring opening, and feel winter’s icy veil lift from around me. It was as accurate an…

FROM THE BOOK NERVE: ADVENTURES IN THE SCIENCE OF FEAR In the last moments before I climbed into the Cessna, I turned and faced a young bearded man who was pointing a video camera at my face. I wore a jumpsuit made of panels of fluorescent orange and green fabric, the colors faded by years of sun and wind. A pair of goggles and a leather helmet were strapped on my head. “Why are you here?” the man asked me. I took a deep breath. “My name’s Eva,” I said, speaking to the camera lens, “and I’m here to face my fear of falling from heights.” The small crowd that had gathered around me oohed and cheered as I crawled into the tiny plane, awkward in my elaborate harness. Only…

Splitting Hairs I work with kids, and I’d recently gotten my hair cut. A little boy named Jaiden asked, “Miss Joanne, did you get a haircut?” Trying to be funny, I replied, “I got ’em ALL cut.” He looked at me quizzically and asked, “What’s a mall cut?” —Joanne Rivera RAMONA, CALIFORNIA TO READ MORE true stories or submit one, go to RD.COM/STORIES. If we publish yours in the print magazine, it could be worth $100. Truth in Advertising In front of the grocery store, a bubbly Girl Scout stood beside a table full of cookies. “Please buy some cookies from me!” she begged. “How much are they?” I asked. “They’re $5 a box, except these two kinds over here. They’re $6 a box.” Figuring there must be something special about the…

An elderly couple had just learned how to send text messages. The wife was a romantic type, and the husband was more of a no-nonsense guy. One afternoon, the wife decided to send her husband a text. She wrote, “If you are laughing, send me your smile. If you are crying, send me your tears. And if you are sleeping, send me your dreams. I love you.” Her husband texted back, “I’m on the toilet, please advise.” —FRIARSCLUB.COM A market researcher approached me and said, “Can I ask you ten questions?” “Go on,” I said. “Question number one: Have you ever blacked out?” “No.” “And finally, question number ten.” —LEE MACK, comedian In the foyer of a church, a young boy was looking at a plaque with the names of…

1 THOSE EXTRA pounds should be avoided at all costs, right? Actually, while being overweight isn’t generally good for our health, not all fat is created equal—some may even be beneficial. 2 THERE ARE two major kinds of body fat. White fat, the most abundant type, is what you feel when you “pinch an inch” on your midsection. Brown fat, found mainly in the neck region, burns energy rather than storing it the way white fat does, according to Scott Kahan, MD, director of the National Center for Weight and Wellness in Washington, DC. 3 BROWN FAT may also ward off diabetes. According to a study in Cell Me tabolism, individuals with higher amounts of brown fat had smaller fluctuations in blood sugar and thus a reduced risk of developing…

BRAD GASSNER, age 34, St. Clair, Missouri This was your first major contest. What made you want to enter? I whistled “Danny Boy” in a St. Patrick’s Day talent show, and I won. That was the first indication that I could go on to an actual whistling competition. But here you went with the third movement of Mozart’s Horn Concerto no. 4. That’s a lot to take on, isn’t it? I’m a French horn player and I had performed several of Mozart’s horn concerti in the past, so I was pretty familiar with the music. Were you nervous? Generally I do pretty well with stage fright, but I got dry mouth—that’s a common side effect of stage fright. It is extremely difficult to whistle when you don’t have a wet…

WHEN A GROUP IN MINNEAPOLIS– St. Paul started an Ultimate Frisbee team, it could have chosen a name to honor the two cities, like the Twins. Or something about the region’s heritage, like the Vikings. Or a celebration of the great outdoors, like the Timberwolves or the Wild. Instead, the Minnesota team in the American Ultimate Disc League is called the Wind Chill. It’s a curious thing, that some professional teams choose names not from their city’s best features but instead, arguably, from their worst. It doesn’t seem as if the windchill, which regularly dips deep into negative territory in the Twin Cities, would be a local selling point. Ben Feldman, a team co-owner, has an explanation: “In Minnesota, we experience some of the most brutal windchill temperatures in the…

THE MOST HATED man in Skidmore, Missouri, was a thief, a bully, an arsonist—a jack-of-all-horrible-trades. He had no qualms about sticking a gun into an innocent man’s belly and pulling the trigger, which he did. And he always got away with it. That is, until July 10, 1981. Ken Rex McElroy, 47, once described as “a big brute of a guy with slicked-back hair like Elvis,” was a short-tempered man with a long rap sheet. His criminal résumé listed live-stock rustling, assault, harassment, and attempted murder. He rarely faced time, thanks to the talents of a cunning lawyer, Richard McFadin, and a loyal cadre of friends always ready with an alibi. If none of that worked, a little bit of intimidation would do the trick. Once, a farmer who caught…

9 Pages TO SHARPEN Your Mind While out shopping for Christmas presents in 2018, I bought myself a jigsaw puzzle on a whim. It was an unusual buy, one that I now recognize as an attempt at dealing with that particular stress many of us experience during the holidays. Don’t get me wrong—I love seeing my family. But holiday get-togethers have a way of putting any personal shortcomings at center stage. This cheery pink puzzle had everything I felt I needed to distract myself in one box. And at $20, the price was right. Why not? As soon as I started on my puzzle, I knew I’d found exactly what I was looking for. Instead of my usual late-night Netflix binge, I was sorting its 1,000 pieces well into the…

—Kevin Hart, COMEDIAN In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt. —Margaret Atwood, AUTHOR They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself. —Andy Warhol, ARTIST The sky isn’t the limit—the sky has no limit. —Sarah Barker, ASTROPHYSICIST I used to justify my terrible relationships thinking I could get good songs out of them. —Kacey Musgraves, SINGER I like to stumble my way into things because that’s the only way you can challenge yourself. —Colbie Smulders, ACTOR I stink at meditation. My first two minutes are great, and then I’m like, “Oh crap, I need butter. And almond milk. And eggs.” —Soledad O’Brien, JOURNALIST My best ideas come to me when I’m bored. I’d love to be bored more,…

✦ Why does everybody sing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” when they’re already there? —Larry Andersen, PHILLIES PITCHER ✦ You want proof baseball players are smarter than football players? How often do you see a baseball team penalized for too many men on the field? —Jim Bouton, YANKEES PITCHER ✦ Baseball statistics are like a girl in a bikini—they show a lot, but not everything. —Toby Harrah, RANGERS SHORTSTOP Little League is a very good thing because it keeps the parents off the streets.—Yogi Berra, YANKEES CATCHER SOURCES: GOODREADS.COM, QUOTABULARY.COM, BLEACHERREPORT.COM…

1 Dry Shampoo Your Dog PETS When you can’t give Fido a proper bath with soap and water (in cold weather, for instance), a dry shampooing will at least keep him smelling fresh. Use baking soda or a commercial dry pet shampoo. If you go the baking soda route (it’s generally cheaper), massage it into your dog’s coat, let it sit for a few minutes, then brush his fur until all the baking soda (plus the oil and odor) is gone. There, now you can scrub away the ground-in dirt later. 2 Pack a Power Strip TRAVEL Having multiple sockets at your disposal comes in handy during a trip, especially abroad. Pack a power strip and you’ll need only one travel adapter. You’ll also be able to charge multiple devices…

Soon after arriving at basic training, we were marched to the base barbershop, where we were told we’d find a clipboard with our names on it. “Next to your name,” the sergeant said, “initial it.” Everyone seemed OK with this order except for one confused recruit. “Sergeant,” he said, “what if we don’t have any initials?” —MATTHEW NAZARIAN Ocala, Florida While serving as chief medical officer at Fort Ritchie in Maryland, I attended a nearby wedding. Since it was a formal affair at a country club, I went in my officer’s dress blue uniform. Once at the club, I drove up to the entrance, where the doorman promptly came to the passenger door and assisted my wife out of the car. He then made his way to my side. But…

ON MAY 1, 2001, Chandra Levy, a 24-year-old college student who’d just ended an internship with the Federal Bureau of Prisons, left her Washington, DC, apartment building and disappeared. Five days later, after not hearing from their daughter in all that time, Robert and Susan Levy called the DC police from their home in Modesto, California. As police searched Chandra’s apartment, Susan looked through her daughter’s phone bills, which she and her husband paid. One number kept coming up. They called it and were soon connected with the office of Gary Condit, their congressman. Chandra met Condit, 53 at the time, while visiting his office with a friend. He was warm and friendly, going so far as to personally give them a tour of the Capitol. By the end of…

The death of a beauty queen is guaranteed to make big news, and the murder in the Ramsey house was especially shocking. It happened on Christmas in 1996, in an upscale neighborhood of Boulder, Colorado. The Ramseys were a picture-perfect and prominent local family of four. John Bennett Ramsey owned a successful software company. His wife, Patsy Ramsey, was a former Miss West Virginia. But she was not the beauty queen who was found dead in the basement, her mouth covered with duct tape, her wrists bound with an electrical cord, her body wrapped carefully, almost lovingly, in a white blanket. The murder victim was the Ramseys’ six-year-old daughter, JonBenét. The cause of death was a broken skull and strangulation with a macabre weapon called a garrote. The fact that…

At around six on the morning of April 19, 1995, the area around the nine-story Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in the heart of Oklahoma City began to come alive as hundreds of people—workers, visitors, folks with government business—converged on the downtown area. Among those heading toward the building that day was a man driving a large yellow truck, its sides emblazoned with the black lettered logo Ryder. Inside the 20foot truck were 4,800 pounds of a ghoulish, volatile mixture of diesel fuel oil and gray ammonium nitrate fertilizer, which filled as many as two dozen 55gallon blue plastic barrels. The entire truck was a lethal bomb. Shortly before 9 a.m., the man pulled the yellow truck up to a parking spot on the street in front of the Murrah…

April Fools’ EASY To get in the spirit of April Fools’ Day, place these terms in the grid. SPOOF PARODY JOKE COMEDY SATIRE MISCHIEF QUIP STUNT JEST CAPER Hidden Produce EASY The names of five different fruits are hidden between consecutive words in the silly story below. Can you find them all? Example: Washington, DC, and Lima, Peru, are on the same longitude. (melon) A man goes to a lumberyard. He has little money, so he’s looking for cheap lumber. But the prices are too high. Suddenly feeling really cheeky, the man decides to steal the wood he needs and, like a skilled escape artist, manages to slip away without arousing suspicion. Sum-thing Special DIFFICULT Each letter from A to I has one of the nine values listed below. No…