Pod Insights Serial Killers & Murderous Minds BEST OF CRIME HOUSE 2024: The Tylenol Murders About this episode As the end of the year approaches, we're revisiting the best episodes of 2024 from Crime House. On Murder: True Crime Stories, Carter Roy examined the case of the Tylenol Murders. In the fall of 1982, seven people in Chicago were killed by poisoned Tylenol pills. In the first of three episodes, learn how the murders unfolded, the early steps investigators took... and how the killer eluded them. Murder: True Crime Stories is a Crime House Original. For more, follow us on Tiktok and Instagram @crimehouse. To hear the conclusion of this gripping true crime story, check out Murder: True Crime Stories on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-true-crime-stories/id1745145932 or Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/4fsW5D9rKYycsP2hgKtvCk?si=64c4df885921456e.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Vanessa Richardson? Hi everyone. Before today's episode, there's another show I want to tell you about. It's called What the Fact with Connor Tomlinson from Netflix's Love on the Spectrum and Carter Roy. Every week, they take three unbelievable true facts from history and tell you the full story behind them. Plus, Connor's infectious energy that'll make you realize history is the most fascinating thing on earth. Follow What the Fact wherever you listen, or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact Pod.
0:36 Speaker 01 This is Crime House.
0:43 Vanessa Richardson? Hey there, it's Vanessa Richardson. It's been an incredible first six months for Crime House. It's been an honor seeing the community grow, and it's all thanks to you. We've covered some jaw-dropping stories. As the year comes to a close, the Crime House team behind the scenes picked the most impactful episodes from all our shows this year. Today, we're sharing a series from Murder: True Crime Stories about the Tylenol murders. In the fall of 1982, a string of shocking deaths from poisoned Tylenol pills plagued the city of Chicago. As law enforcement struggled to find the killer, people couldn't help but wonder, how safe was their medicine?
1:24 Vanessa Richardson? At Crime House, we want to express our gratitude to you, our community, for making this possible. Please support us by rating, reviewing, and following Mind of a Serial Killer and Murder: True Crime Stories wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly matters. And to enhance your listening experience, subscribe to Crime House Plus on Apple Podcasts. You'll get every episode of Mind of a Serial Killer and Murder: True Crime Stories ad-free. And instead of having to wait for each episode of a two-part series, you'll get access to both at once, plus exciting bonus content. Earlier this year, we covered the story of the Tylenol murders over the course of three parts, and now, we've put the first two into
2:09 Vanessa Richardson? one episode for you. After this, join Carter Roy as he covers the murders that had an entire country on edge.
2:27 Speaker 01 September 29th, 1982 was a special day for Adam Janis. The 27-year-old postal worker was celebrating a big occasion with his wife Theresa. So after Adam picked up their four-year-old daughter from preschool, he stopped at the store to pick up a bouquet of lilies and a couple steaks. Unfortunately, he was also feeling under the weather, so he grabbed a bottle of Tylenol, too. Adam then drove back to the family's house in Arlington Heights, a suburb on the edges of Chicago. It was a modest home, but for the Janises, who were both Polish immigrants, this house symbolized the American dream.
3:12 Speaker 01 Adam walked inside with his shopping bags, said hello to Theresa, and got their daughter settled in. He probably wanted to feel better for their special night, so he told Theresa that he was going to lie down for a bit, then went into the bathroom to take a couple Tylenol. But as he walked out of the bathroom, Adam started clutching his chest. Theresa knew something was wrong and called for help. EMTs quickly arrived and determined that Adam was having a heart attack. It made no sense. Adam was young and healthy and had no history of heart issues, but this wasn't the time for questions. Once Adam had been transported to the hospital,
3:57 Speaker 01 Theresa called Adam's brother Joe and told him that Adam had a heart attack. Joe rushed to his brother's side. He also called their third brother Stanley. Stanley and his wife Terry dropped everything and joined them at the hospital. The Janis family didn't wait for very long before Dr. Thomas Kim, the hospital's chief of critical care, entered the waiting room. He had terrible news. Adam was dead.
4:30 Speaker 01 Teresa, Joe, Stanley and Terry were in disbelief. Adam was only in his twenties and in great shape. He wasn't the kind of person who suffered from sudden cardiac arrest. All they could do now was return to Adam and Teresa's house in Arlington Heights so they could all grieve together. At some point, Stanley excused himself. He went down the hall and into the bathroom. A minute later, he stumbled back into the room where the family was gathered and fell to the ground. He was foaming at the mouth. Joe noticed a cloudy, white color in his eyes.
5:13 Speaker 01 Once again, the Janus family called paramedics to the home. The same crew who had responded to Adam's call were dispatched. This time, Fire Lieutenant Chuck Kramer joined them at the scene. As soon as he arrived, a medic told him that they were dealing with the exact same situation as before. Kramer had heard about Adam's call, and he was skeptical that it really was a heart attack. Some of Adam's symptoms, like his chest pain, tracked with cardiac arrest, but others didn't. Adam's breathing had been shallow and rapid, and his eyes were fixed, dilated and non-responsive. Now Stanley appeared the same way.
5:58 Speaker 01 The entire crew seemed bewildered as one EMT worked to keep Stanley alive. While he worked, Stanley's wife Terry cried out for her husband. In her dismay, she clutched Lieutenant Kramer's arm. Suddenly, Terry's screaming stopped, and she let go. She let out a small groan, then collapsed. Lieutenant Kramer wasted no time. He shined a light in her eyes. They were fixed and dilated. Whatever this was, it wasn't a heart attack.
6:40 Speaker 01 Just hours after Adam Janis died, Stanley and Terry were loaded into ambulances and rushed to the same hospital. When they arrived, Dr. Kim, the same doctor who tried to save Adam, was on his way out. But when he saw Stanley and Terry on stretchers, he stopped in his tracks. He raced back up to the ICU and told the nurses he wasn't leaving. Dr. Kim couldn't understand why three people from the same family, all young and healthy, would suddenly be at death's door. He considered carbon monoxide poisoning, or even botulism poisoning,
7:22 Speaker 01 but their symptoms didn't quite align with those possibilities. Still, he didn't want to take any chances. After stabilizing Stanley and Terry, Dr. Kim decided to quarantine everyone who had come in contact with them, including the rest of the family and the medics. He put everyone in a conference room and told medical staff to watch them. No one could leave until he ruled out a virus. Chuck Kramer felt helpless. He was a fire lieutenant. It was in his blood to help people. He figured if he couldn't do anything, he knew someone who could.
8:02 Speaker 01 He picked up the conference room's phone and called his friend Helen Jensen, Arlington Heights' only public health official. Helen was a nurse, and she handled everyone's basic health needs in the suburban enclave. Kramer knew she'd be able to help investigate. When he explained the situation to her, Helen dropped what she was doing and headed over right away. She arrived at the hospital intent on speaking with the only person who had witnessed every moment of mayhem that day: Adam Janis's wife, Teresa.
8:39 Speaker 01 Through a translator, Teresa explained everything. Adam feeling unwell, picking up their daughter, buying flowers and steaks, then taking a couple Tylenol and clutching his chest. Helen knew something unusual must have caused Adam's sudden death, something neither he nor Teresa may have even noticed. She needed to search the Janises' house for clues. Once there, she noted how clean the home was. She walked through and noticed some home-jarred fruits, the lilies Adam had bought, a pot of black coffee, and some cherry juice. She looked through the fridge, and nothing was spoiled.
9:22 Speaker 01 Then Helen went into the bathroom. That's when she spotted a bottle of Tylenol and a receipt from that day. Every bottle had the same amount of pills, and six were missing from this one. Two for Adam, two for Stanley, and two for Terry. And Helen's assumption was right. When Stanley and Terry arrived at Adam's house earlier that day, they both took some Tylenol, the same Tylenol that Adam took when he returned home from his errands. Helen later said, quote, "I knew it had something to do with this bottle. That was the only thing in common for all three of them."
10:06 Speaker 01 She said as much to an investigator from the Medical Examiner's Office, but he didn't think that was it. People took Tylenol every day. Plenty of people had surely taken it that day. That couldn't be it. Fire Lieutenant Chuck Kramer, however, agreed with Helen. He thought she was on to something. It was scary to think, but Tylenol was the only thing that the members of the Janis family had in common. His gut instinct intensified. There was something seriously wrong. Soon, Dr. Kim ruled out a virus, just as Kramer expected, but the danger wasn't over yet.
10:52 Speaker 01 Later that night, Kramer got a call from a fellow fire lieutenant, a man named Phil Capitelli. Phil had heard about the Janus cases on the dispatch radio, and he had some bad news to share with Lieutenant Kramer. That day, Phil had seen another case like the Janus's, and the patient was dead.
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12:39 Speaker 01 Hi, I'm Connor Tomlinson. You might know me from Love on the Spectrum. History is my thing, and I have been waiting my whole life for a show like this one. And I'm Carter Roy, and this is What the Fact? Every week, three facts, each one with a whole story behind it. The worst years anyone has ever lived through, the golden age of pirates, the movies that almost never got made, the discoveries that rewrote everything we thought we knew. Carter sets the scene. Connor brings the facts, the tangents, and the genuine belief that this is the most interesting subject in the world. It is. The wildest stuff is real, and the real stuff is wilder than you'd think.
13:20 Speaker 02 New episodes every Wednesday. Follow What the Fact on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact Pod.
13:37 Speaker 01 On the night of September 29, 1982, Arlington County Fire Lieutenant Chuck Kramer spoke with his colleague Phil Capitelli about the mysterious deaths in the Janis family. Not only did Phil agree that the deaths were bizarre, he told Chuck he'd seen the same thing that day, less than 10 miles from where the Janises lived, and it had ended just as tragically. That morning, in a neighboring suburb known as Elk Grove, a 12-year-old girl named Mary Kellerman woke up with a sore throat. At some point that morning, Mary went to the bathroom to take some Tylenol to ease the pain. Her mother had purchased it just the
14:21 Speaker 01 day before, so Mary was the first one to take a pill from that bottle. Minutes later, her father heard a thump. He ran to the bathroom door and asked Mary if she was okay. She didn't answer. He called her name again, and still, nothing. That's when he pushed the door open and found his daughter unconscious on the floor. Mary was rushed to the hospital, and shortly after, doctors pronounced her dead.
14:56 Speaker 01 When Chuck Kramer heard this story, he became certain that Tylenol was the cause. But he refused to panic. Instead, he fell back on his training. First, he phoned the medics who responded to Mary Kellerman's call, and they confirmed all the same bizarre symptoms as the Janises. Kramer then called the hospital and told them, quote, "There's something wrong with the Tylenol." Kramer didn't even know yet that there were two more victims. The first was Mary Reiner, a 27-year-old, brand-new mother. She died shortly after taking some Tylenol for her postpartum recovery. The second victim was 31-year-old Mary McFarland, who took Tylenol
15:41 Speaker 01 for a headache at work. She died shortly after as well. By nighttime on September 29th, 1982, Adam Janis, Stanley Janis, Mary Kellerman, Mary Reiner, and Mary McFarland were all dead. Terry was on life support. Joe Janis and his sister were still quarantined at the hospital. It seems they didn't know about the Tylenol connection yet. They were still afraid that whatever had killed their family members would get them next. Joe and his sister were taken to a hospital room for monitoring. They laid in their beds, frozen and afraid, staring at each other but not speaking.
16:25 Speaker 01 Medical staff kept an eye on them throughout the night. In the meantime, Dr. Kim furiously searched for an answer. The Tylenol connection was striking, but the active ingredient in Tylenol was acetaminophen, and the symptoms he was dealing with didn't look like acetaminophen poisoning. He paced in his office and pored through medical books. Nothing provided an explanation. But then a light bulb went off in his head. What if the pills had been tampered with? What if there was something else in them? If that were the case, then the deaths wouldn't stop here. Dr. Kim wasted no time.
17:10 Speaker 01 He took samples of Stanley and Terry's blood and rushed them off to an overnight lab for testing. Meanwhile, the medical examiner's office worked on getting corroborating evidence. They didn't know what the lab results would show, but they probably didn't want to wait and find out. The deputy chief medical examiner for Cook County, Dr. Edmund Donahue, caught wind of the Tylenol theory. Donahue thought of one poison that could kill someone so quickly: cyanide. According to Stacy St. Clair from the Chicago Tribune, cyanide only takes a few minutes to kill someone when ingested. Her colleague, Kristy Gatausky,
17:53 Speaker 01 described such a death as, quote, "A life interrupted and stopped."
18:00 Speaker 01 All the victims' deaths fit the profile of cyanide poisoning. And there was a relatively easy way to check that theory. Cyanide has a unique odor. It's often described as bitter almonds. So Donahue instructed one of his investigators to open one of the victims' Tylenol bottles and smell it. Sure enough, the investigator smelled bitter almonds. They rushed the pills to a toxicologist, who found that each tampered capsule contained almost three times the amount of potassium cyanide needed to kill someone. Dr. Kim also got his lab results back.
18:42 Speaker 01 The Janus's blood samples contained lethal amounts of cyanide. There was no doubt about it. The victims had been poisoned.
18:56 Speaker 01 It didn't take long for the story to capture national attention. Within hours, the entire country was on high alert. A simple, over-the-counter pain medication had resulted in six deaths. No one knew how many pills had been poisoned, why it was happening, or who would be next. In drugstores and supermarkets, clerks removed boxes of Tylenol from the shelves. The FDA issued a temporary warning against the use of Tylenol. Chemists tested samples of the drug in their labs. Public health workers went door to door and told people to throw out any Tylenol in their homes.
19:39 Speaker 01 And they plastered flyers with the same warning. Police officers drove through the streets with bullhorns to spread the word. The message to throw out any Tylenol was broadcast on the radio. Johnson & Johnson, the manufacturer of Tylenol, recalled millions of bottles. Not only that, they also tested capsules for potassium cyanide. This process would take a long time, but in the end, the company recalled 31 million bottles and tested more than 10 million capsules. According to the Chicago Tribune, this was the first mass recall in US history.
20:22 Speaker 01 Considering the massive scope, it should come as no surprise that President Ronald Reagan wanted the FBI involved in the case. The Illinois State Police were also assigned to the investigation, and officers from each town where a poisoning occurred joined them. That's how the Tylenol Task Force was formed on September 30th, 1982, just one day after Adam Janis died. A command center was set up in a suburban police station, and almost 100 people attended the first meeting. The task force first had to answer one crucial question: When did the cyanide get into the bottles?
21:06 Speaker 01 This question stoked a lot of fear. The thought of an everyday pain reliever causing people to suddenly die was already anxiety-inducing, and Tylenol was a popular drug, a trusted drug. If the bottles were contaminated during manufacturing or distribution, that would mean the whole country was at risk. So the task force looked at the lot numbers on the four bottles known to have caused deaths so far. This number identifies when a batch of medicine was made and where. The task force found that the bottles came from two different factories, one in Texas and one in Pennsylvania.
21:47 Speaker 01 That meant that the contamination did not occur during manufacturing, because the pills came from two different batches. Next, they looked into each factory's shipping and warehousing. None of the contaminated bottles ever crossed paths, so the contamination couldn't have occurred during the distribution phase either. This was a major revelation. It meant that the pills were tampered with while they sat on store shelves.
22:19 Speaker 01 Keep in mind, this was 1982. Over-the-counter medication was packaged differently then. Nowadays, a bottle of Tylenol is sold in a box which is glued shut. The cap on the bottle is sealed with plastic wrap. The mouth of the bottle is sealed with foil. A cotton ball is stuffed into the bottle. Back then, there was just the cotton ball and a box. Plus, Tylenol pills used to be made from two gelatin half shells with powder inside, as opposed to the solid pills of today, which made them easier to tamper with. So, the good news: the poison capsules were contained to the Chicago area.
23:02 Speaker 01 The bad news: there was at least one more poison bottle out there.
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23:45 Speaker 01 After the shocking revelation that someone in Chicago was poisoning bottles of Tylenol, the entire city was on high alert. But after the first six deaths were reported on September 29, 1982, it seemed like maybe the worst had passed. But on October 1, investigators on the Tylenol Task Force learned that the killer had claimed another victim.
24:12 Speaker 01 On the night of October 1st, two Chicago police detectives Charlie Ford and Jimmy Gilday were called to investigate a mysterious death at a high-rise downtown. When Ford and Gilday walked into the lobby, a frantic-looking woman approached them. She introduced herself as Jean Levingood and told the detectives she was the one who'd called them. Ford and Gilday learned that on the night of Wednesday, September 29th, 1982, the same day Adam Janis died, Jean was supposed to meet up with her friend, Paula Prince. Jean and Paula were incredibly close. They were both in their mid-30s and worked as flight attendants for United Airlines.
24:57 Speaker 01 They had known each other for 15 years and even lived in the same high-rise. On the night of the 29th, Jean's last flight of the day had just landed at Chicago O'Hare International Airport, and she'd been expecting Paula to be waiting for her at the gate. Most nights after work, the two friends went out for drinks. So it was a surprise when Paula was a no-show at the airport. Instead, Jean found a note Paula had left in her locker that said she'd already landed and asked Jean to call her when she got home. In the note, Paula also said she had exciting news.
25:38 Speaker 01 When Jean got home that night, she'd called Paula right away, but her friend didn't pick up. Jean called again, and still no answer. It went on like that for two days. Then Jean explained to the detectives that earlier that morning, October 1st, Jean went into work hoping to run into Paula, but Jean's coworkers told her that Paula wasn't there. She hadn't even stopped by to pick up her paycheck. Jean had been really worried. It just wasn't like Paula to go off the radar like that. Not only did she and Jean talk almost every day, but she almost never missed work.
26:20 Speaker 01 When Jean got home, she went down to their building's parking garage to look for Paula's car. If it wasn't there, Jean thought that might mean Paula took a spontaneous getaway. But the car was right where Paula had left it. At that point, Jean was in full-on panic mode. She knew something was seriously wrong and she needed help. But she hadn't been ready to call the police yet. Instead, she called Paula's sister Carol and filled her in on everything. That's when Jean learned that Carol also couldn't get in touch with Paula. They were supposed to meet for dinner that night, but Paula wasn't answering her phone. Jean had a spare key to Paula's apartment.
27:05 Speaker 01 She told Carol she wanted to go over there and make sure everything was okay. But Carol told her not to go in by herself. If something terrible had happened, she didn't want Jean to be alone. So she told Jean she'd be there soon and to wait for her. Once they arrived at Paula's apartment, Jean pulled out the key. And when she opened the door and looked inside, her worst fears came true. Because just down the hall, Paula's body lay across the floor.
27:43 Speaker 01 The two women feared their friend and sister had been murdered, and they were afraid the killer was still inside. So they ran down to the lobby, called the police, and waited. A few minutes later, Ford and Gilde arrived. The two detectives were longtime friends turned police partners. They had gone to college together and had worked the same part-time security job at the start of their careers. By the time Paula Prince died in 1982, they were full-fledged detectives in the Chicago PD, used to handling multiple murders a week. After so many years working together, they were completely aligned in how they handled police work.
28:27 Speaker 01 And the moment the detectives stepped foot in Paula's apartment, they noticed it didn't look like a typical crime scene. Gilde described Paula's apartment as looking "neat as a pin." There was no sign of a struggle, but the way her body lay across the floor stuck out to him. Paula was on her back, with her head and shoulders in the hall and her legs on the bathroom tile. It looked like she'd fallen straight backward from the bathroom into the hallway. The detectives carefully moved around the body and entered the bathroom. They noticed cotton balls and cold cream on the counter.
29:10 Speaker 01 It looked like Paula had been removing her makeup when she just fell. Then something else caught their eye. A bottle of Tylenol, the cap still open. The detectives looked at each other. They suspected immediately what they had just become a part of. But they needed to confirm it. Next, Ford and Gilde went into Paula's kitchen, where they discovered an open Tylenol box and a receipt next to it. According to the receipt, "On the night of Wednesday, September 29, Paula Prince went into a Walgreens
29:51 Speaker 01 and paid $2.39 for what she thought was a standard pain reliever."
29:58 Speaker 01 Paula had no idea she was holding her own murder weapon. And that the killer was still at large.
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31:22 Speaker 01 On September 29th, 1982, 27-year-old Adam Janis died after experiencing sudden chest pain. Adam's brother Stanley and his sister-in-law Teresa died in a similar manner. The deaths didn't end with the Janis family. 12-year-old Mary Kellerman, 27-year-old Mary Reiner, and 31-year-old Mary McFarland also met the same fate. Their deaths were sudden and perplexing, but medical investigators quickly determined that each victim had taken Tylenol pills laced with cyanide.
32:06 Speaker 01 On September 30th, a team of local, state, and federal investigators was formed. It was known as the Tylenol Task Force. By tracing lot numbers on the four bottles known to contain contaminated pills, the task force quickly determined that they were tampered with on store shelves right in their Chicago-area neighborhoods. This was a key revelation, but investigators knew it was only a start, because they still had no idea who the killer was or where they might be. In order to find that person, the task force had to narrow down motives.
32:48 Speaker 01 That task fell to FBI Special Agent Roy Lane Jr.
32:54 Speaker 01 Lane was twelve years into his FBI career. Throughout his twelve-year career, Agent Lane had investigated crooked judges and mob bosses. So he knew that finding a motive was essential, and that it wasn't always obvious. Lane considered every possibility. Maybe the killer was a disgruntled store employee, or an angry customer. Maybe they had specifically targeted all the victims. Or maybe they only targeted one, and the rest were a cover-up. Or maybe it was totally random. He and other members of the task force interviewed everyone they could think of
33:38 Speaker 01 with ties to the stores and the victims. They even set up a tip line, and on the first day, they received one-hundred-and-seventy-seven calls. But it was like searching for a needle in a haystack. Nothing stood out to them. To narrow things down, they attended the victims' funerals and observed the attendees, but they didn't notice any suspicious behavior. It all felt like throwing pasta at the wall to see what would stick. In need of new leads, state authorities convinced Johnson & Johnson, Tylenol's parent company, to offer a one-hundred-thousand-dollar reward
34:22 Speaker 01 to anyone with information leading to an arrest. Meanwhile, the pile of tips only grew. In all, there'd be about six thousand to go through. And still, nothing. No leads. Agent Lane was at a loss, and his problems were about to grow.
34:45 Speaker 01 On October 1st, Paula Prince, the flight attendant whose worried coworker called the police, was found dead in her apartment. That brought the victim count to seven, and the number of contaminated bottles to five. Plus, Chicago PD now had jurisdiction in the case. Detectives Charlie Ford and Jimmy Gildea, who'd been called to investigate Paula's death, joined the Tylenol Task Force. Ford and Gildea were longtime partners and experienced officers. It might seem like their added manpower and resources were a blessing, but in fact,
35:27 Speaker 01 their entry into the case dredged up a deep-seated feud between the Chicago PD and the FBI. The rivalry peaked that same year when the US Department of Justice convicted 10 Chicago police officers in Marquette County of accepting bribes from big-time heroin rings. The feds proved that the officers warned dealers about raids and even assaulted their competitors, all in exchange for money and goods. Because of this, Ford and Gildea felt like Agent Lane and others on the task force viewed them as "crooked thugs."
36:09 Speaker 01 And they had a reason to feel scrutinized, because Lane knew about something they didn't. The FBI was currently running another undercover investigation into the Cook County Police and Court Systems, which Ford and Gildea were a part of. So it wouldn't be surprising if Lane was skeptical of them. And it didn't help that Ford and Gildea weren't exactly easy to get along with. They also didn't like working with suburban police officers, who they saw as amateurs who had never worked serious cases like this. That got under the suburban cop's skin.
36:50 Speaker 01 Then, according to a deputy coroner on the task force who spoke to the Chicago Tribune, all the tension eventually crept up between the suburban cops and the FBI as well.
37:03 Speaker 01 Without input from the other departments on the task force, Blaine and other FBI agents asked a Chicago Tribune reporter to write a piece about the 12-year-old victim, Mary Kellerman. They wanted to lure in the killer, so they told the reporter to include the site of Mary's grave and the Kellermans' home address. They thought the killer might use that information to contact the Kellermans. When the paper hit the stands, one of the task force's suburban police officers read the article and could tell it was planted. But no one had told him about this plan beforehand.
37:46 Speaker 01 He felt like his own team members undermined him. He confronted the FBI agents about it, and they apologized, but the officer's trust was already broken. The lack of communication only reinforced Detective Ford and Gildea's belief that everyone else was incompetent and unprofessional. And it didn't help that the dysfunction also reached the very top of the investigation. The Illinois State Attorney General, Ty Fainer, was one of the leaders in charge of the task force. He was also running for reelection. He had about five weeks of campaigning left when the murders occurred, and he was down
38:31 Speaker 01 in the polls. As the task force's leader, Fainer conducted at least one press conference a day. To Ford and Gildea, his speeches were just fluff. After all, the task force still didn't have a suspect. As city cops, they prided themselves on keeping their heads down and doing the work. So in their eyes, Fainer was putting on a show to win over voters. The detectives weren't having it. They were so annoyed, they packed up their things and never returned to the task force's office in the suburbs.
39:10 Speaker 01 Instead, they drove back into the city and began investigating from their own station. All of this conflict stalled progress. By October 6th, eight days after Adam Janis died, the task force still had no leads.
39:30 Speaker 01 But they were about to get one. And it would only add more questions to an already troubled investigation.
39:45 Speaker 01 The Tylenol Task Force couldn't get along. Their infighting didn't help the fact that they had no leads in the case. Maybe the killer themselves got sick of waiting for them to make a break. Because on October 6th, 1982, a week since the first wave of deaths, something fell into investigators' laps. The day before, Johnson and Johnson had received a letter in the mail. It was neatly handwritten in all caps. It read in part, "As you can see, it is easy to place cyanide, both potassium and sodium, in the capsules sitting on store shelves. It takes so very little.
40:31 Speaker 01 So far, I've spent less than fifty dollars, and it takes me less than ten minutes per bottle. And since the cyanide is inside the gelatin, it is easy to get buyers to swallow the bitter pill. Another beauty is that cyanide operates quickly. There will be no time for countermeasures. If you don't mind the publicity, then do nothing. If you want to stop the killing, then wire one million dollars to bank account 84-49-597."
41:11 Speaker 01 The letter was immediately passed on to Agent Lane. He knew this was a huge break. But the letter's contents raised lots of questions. First, Lane worked with the US Assistant Attorney Jeremy Margolis to figure out who the bank account belonged to. Both men agreed that the owner of the bank account, the person who wrote the letter, and the killer weren't necessarily the same person. In other words, each new discovery could send them down a new rabbit hole. Fortunately, it wasn't hard to find the bank account's owner. It belonged to a man named Frederick Miller McKehe.
41:53 Speaker 01 More specifically, it had belonged to McKehe's company. McKehe had owned a local travel agency called Lakeside Travel. About six months earlier, before anyone swallowed a poisoned Tylenol pill, Lakeside Travel went out of business. It's not clear why the company folded, but there were rumors that McKehe had used company money for personal benefit. Lane and his team needed to hear more from McKehe, and he was happy to talk to them. Almost as soon as he opened his mouth, the investigators had a gut feeling he wasn't the killer. Something about his demeanor earned their trust.
42:38 Speaker 01 McKehe also pointed out that because the company was closed, the bank account mentioned in the letter wasn't even active. So if he was extorting Johnson and Johnson, why would he have them send the money there? This wasn't their man. But, the person they were after might be connected to him.
43:04 Speaker 01 Investigators knew about the rumors surrounding McKehe's shady business dealings. They figured that any former employee would be resentful that they lost their job because of his poor choices. The task force started speaking with McKehe's former employees at Lakeside Travel, but they knew they needed to narrow things down. A thought crossed their minds. Only certain employees would know the company's bank account number. Not only that, but the envelope the letter came in had the company's unique postage ID on it. Not every employee would have access to that number, but investigators were able to find one who did.
43:49 Speaker 01 The company's former bookkeeper, a woman named Nancy Richardson.
43:56 Speaker 01 If anyone could have known the truth about how McKehe mishandled Lakeside's funds, it would have been Nancy. And there was even more reason for her to be angry with him. After the business shut down, everyone's final paychecks bounced. But after Nancy received her check on April 23, 1982, she'd been able to cash it at a currency exchange. She walked out with about $500 in cash. It wasn't until later that the exchange realized the check was bad. They wanted their money back, and they sued Nancy for the full amount.
44:36 Speaker 01 So not only did Nancy lose her job and paycheck, but now she was dealing with legal troubles too. And likely when investigators spoke with the company's other employees, they learned that Nancy had taken a stack of envelopes with the Lakeside's postage ID on them. So that meant she could have been the one to send the letter. But Nancy wasn't actually the biggest suspect. It was her husband, Robert Richardson. Apparently, Robert seemed angrier about the company's closing than any of the former employees.
45:20 Speaker 01 He was especially furious that Nancy's check bounced. He rallied the scorned employees and filed grievances with the Illinois Labor Department. A hearing was conducted on August 3, 1982. Robert argued that the money owed to the employees should come out of McKehe's personal account. But Robert lost the case, leaving him and Nancy empty-handed. All of this backstory caught investigators' attention, but they needed to know if Robert was angry enough to frame McKehe for murder. And to do that, they needed to talk to him.
46:01 Speaker 01 They found an address for Robert and Nancy on the north side of Chicago and made their way there. But when they arrived, the place was empty. And no one had heard from the Richardsons in over a month.
46:23 Speaker 04 The police closed my sister's case in 2019. Last month, her killer commented on my post.
46:30 Speaker 05 On Reddit, true crime doesn't come from journalists. It comes from the victims, the witnesses, and sometimes the suspects themselves.
46:38 Speaker 04 People post the things they'd never say out loud, anonymous, unfiltered, and completely real.
46:43 Speaker 05 And every Tuesday, on Crimes of Reddit, we read them out loud.
46:47 Speaker 04 I'm Sabrina Deanna-Roga from Two Girls, One Ghost.
46:50 Speaker 05 And I'm Alexis Linkletter from The First Degree.
46:53 Speaker 04 Each week, one of us brings the most unhinged true crime stories the internet has to offer.
46:58 Speaker 05 And the other goes in completely blind, no prep, no spoilers, reacting in real time, same as you, and then we swap.
47:06 Speaker 04 And we pull every thread until the whole twisted picture comes into view.
47:09 Speaker 05 It's dark, it's messy, and the scariest part is that these are real stories posted by real people.
47:16 Speaker 04 New episodes drop every Tuesday. Listen to and follow Crimes of Reddit, available now wherever you get your podcasts.
47:28 Speaker 01 Once the Tylenol Task Force identified Robert and Nancy Richardson, it seemed like maybe they'd cracked the case, especially when they found out that the Richardsons had skipped town. Investigators talked to the couple's neighbors and learned that about a month prior to the murders, on September 4th, the Richardsons announced that they were moving to Amarillo, Texas. We don't know exactly when the Richardsons moved out of their building, but we do know that investigators followed a painstaking paper trail that led them nowhere. It was a huge blow to Agent Lane and the other investigators, and to add insult to
48:13 Speaker 01 injury, the Chicago detectives had just uncovered a new lead of their own.
48:22 Speaker 01 Around the same time that investigators stood defeated on the steps of the Richardson's five-story building, a few men sat talking at a pub in Chicago. Two of the men were regulars, and the third man, Marty Sinclair, was the pub's owner. The two regulars pulled up their bar stools and, in hushed tones, explained to Marty that they were worried about another regular, a man named Roger Arnold. It all started about six months earlier, when Arnold started acting what the two men described as "erratic and despondent."
49:02 Speaker 01 And then, Arnold apparently told the two other men that he purchased some cyanide for a project. At the time, the men didn't think much of it. Arnold was the kind of guy who was always up to some unusual hobby or another, and cyanide is used for non-lethal purposes, like manufacturing paper and various plastics. But when the news broke about the Tylenol murders, the two men thought back to that conversation and realized that maybe Arnold's project was more sinister than they thought. After they shared their suspicions with Marty Sinclair, he immediately picked up the
49:44 Speaker 01 phone and called the Chicago PD tip line being manned by Charlie Ford and Jimmy Gildea. Marty called Chicago PD on October 6, 1982, the same day the Tylenol Task Force learned about the J&J extortion letter. So as the other investigators racked their brains to figure out how to find Robert and Nancy Richardson, Ford and Gildea told Marty to call them the next time he saw Roger Arnold. But Marty never had to.
50:19 Speaker 01 Detectives Ford and Gildea didn't want to just wait around for his call. So for the next five days, they had officers patrol Lincoln Avenue, where Marty's Pub and multiple other bars were located. Officers dug up a photo of Arnold and showed it to the employees of various bars along the street. And on October 11th, five days after Marty first contacted them, Ford and Gildea were at their desks when they got a call. Someone from one of the bars said that Arnold was there, right now. The detectives sped over, and when they confronted Arnold, he seemed a little off.
51:03 Speaker 01 The detectives told Arnold that someone had called in about him. They told him what the caller said, that they thought he might be the Tylenol Killer. Then, they handcuffed him and brought him into the station. Once they had Arnold in an interrogation room, their strategy was to "schmooze" Arnold, as Ford put it. They said that the Tylenol Killer was a genius and a criminal mastermind. Perhaps they pegged Arnold as someone who would be flattered by these descriptions. Arnold did admit that he had purchased cyanide a few months prior. However, he claimed that he'd thrown it away well before the deaths occurred.
51:49 Speaker 01 But Ford and Gildea weren't convinced he was innocent. Over the next couple of days, as they looked into him more, the detectives became increasingly certain that he was the killer.
52:05 Speaker 01 It turned out that Arnold worked at one of the stores that had sold a poisoned Tylenol bottle. The detectives spoke to his manager, and he told them that Arnold had been in an angry mood lately. Apparently, he told his coworkers that he wanted to hurt someone. Specifically, he wanted to throw acid on them, or poison them.
52:33 Speaker 01 It turned out that Arnold's anger likely stemmed from a recent divorce. A few months prior, likely around the same time he purchased cyanide, Arnold and his wife split up, and it wasn't amicable. Upon questioning employees at the grocery store, detectives learned that one of Arnold's coworkers was the father of one of the victims, Mary Reiner, who had given birth just days before she died. It's hard to think of how or why Arnold could have targeted Mary, but his connection to her father was too much of a coincidence for detectives to ignore.
53:16 Speaker 01 Ford and Gildea needed to check Arnold's claim that he no longer possessed cyanide. They put Arnold in the back of a cruiser and drove to his home. Arnold willingly handed over the key, which was surprising, considering what the detectives found inside. First, they sifted through order forms for chemical companies, then they went down to the basement and spotted beakers and vials. They also found a book titled "The Poor Man's James Bond," which explained how to make potassium
53:57 Speaker 01 cyanide, the ingredient used to poison the Tylenol capsules. Next, Ford and Gildea came across a one-way ticket to Thailand, scheduled to depart on October 15th, just a few days away. Finally, they found four handguns and a rifle. Detective Ford was convinced that Roger Arnold was the Tylenol killer, and he didn't think Arnold's motive was very complicated. He told the Chicago Tribune that Arnold probably just wanted to prove he was a "criminal mastermind."
54:37 Speaker 01 Ford and Gil Day arrested Arnold and brought him back to the station. However, Arnold wasn't charged with any of the murders. The state's attorney decided that the detectives had solid circumstantial evidence, but nothing concrete enough to charge Arnold for murder. But Arnold was charged with failing to register the guns found in his home. Then, on October 13th, two days after his home was searched, Arnold was released on bond. And that evening, Ford and Gil Day's rival, Agent Roy Lane, got a break in his investigation.
55:18 Speaker 01 On the night of the 13th, Kansas City Police Sergeant David Barton sat at home, watching the news as he wound down after a long day. At one point, headshots of a man and woman flashed onto the screen. The anchor explained that the couple was wanted by the FBI in relation to a million-dollar extortion letter sent to Johnson and Johnson following the Tylenol murders. The couple's names were Nancy and Robert Richardson. Barton jumped up from his seat. He recognized Robert Richardson. But he knew the man by a different name: James Lewis.
56:00 Speaker 01 And Lewis was on Barton's radar for serious crimes, including murder.
56:15 Vanessa Richardson? Thanks so much for listening to this special presentation of Murder True Crime Stories. To hear the final episode on the Tylenol murders, just search for Murder True Crime Stories wherever you get your podcasts. The third part aired on June 25th, 2024.
56:32 Vanessa Richardson? Murder True Crime Stories is a Crime House original. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you liked what you heard today, reach out on social media, at Crime House on TikTok and Instagram. Don't forget to rate, review, and follow Murder True Crime Stories wherever you get your podcasts. And to enhance your listening experience, subscribe to Crime House Plus on Apple Podcasts. You'll get every episode of Murder True Crime Stories ad-free, along with early access to each thrilling two-part series and exciting bonus content.
57:08 Speaker 01 Murder True Crime Stories, a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios, is executive produced by Max Cutler. This episode of Murder True Crime Stories was sound designed by Ron Shapiro, written by Sarah Bachelor, edited by Alex Benedon, fact-checked by Catherine Barner, and included production assistance from Kristin Oscevedo and Sarah Carroll. Murder True Crime Stories is hosted by Carter Roy.
57:44 Speaker 01 Before today's episode, I want to tell you about The Unbelievable, a new podcast from the History Channel and Rewind Studios. Adapted from the hit TV show, each episode opens a cabinet of curiosities to uncover history's strangest but true stories. Like the woman who survived a two-mile fall by landing in a nest of fire ants. When it comes to history, the truth is always more unbelievable than you think. Follow The Unbelievable, available now on your favorite podcast app.
58:19 Vanessa Richardson? If you're looking for your next podcast, check out What the Fact with Connor Tomlinson from Netflix's Love on the Spectrum and Carter Roy. Every week, they take three unbelievable true facts from history and tell you the full story behind them. Follow What the Fact wherever you listen, or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact Pod.
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