Pod Insights Stuff You Should Know SYSK’s Fall True Crime Playlist: The Tylenol Murders, Part II About this episode The panic that began in Chicago spreads and begins to change the world. The investigation into the murders turns up leads and suspects, but still no one has ever been charged with the murders. It remains unsolved to this day. Find out the extent of what we know in this classic episode.
See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.
0:04 Josh Clark? Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability, and it starts with a great deal on an off-road-ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's longest-lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures, and style in between. And they're built on a reputation for quality and reliability, which is why Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places. Let's be real, eating is a huge part of our lives. It fuels us, it brings us together, and yes, it's one of life's great pleasures. But once a meal's over, we don't think much about what happens next unless something starts
0:46 Josh Clark? to feel off. Introducing Eating Interrupted, a new podcast from iHeart Ruby Studio, hosted by longtime journalist and Crohn's patient Cynthia McFadden. Listen in to unpack what it means when your body doesn't always respond to food the way you expect, and what science is now revealing about why. Listen to Eating Interrupted on the iHeart app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:08 Speaker 02 Parents, Brilliant just made personal math tutoring affordable for everyone. Brilliant is the digital tutor that gives your kid expert one-on-one help. It's the kind of support only the wealthiest families used to be able to afford. And Brilliant's available whenever you need it, 24/7, so there are no scheduling headaches. Brilliant is the go-to for millions of math students in thousands of schools, so it knows how to help your kid excel in math. To get started for free, just go to brilliant.org/tutor. That's brilliant.org/tutor.
1:39 Josh Clark? In part two of our episode on the 1982 Chicago Tylenol murders, we look at the suspects in the case and really zero in on one of them. But to this day, it's not clear if they were behind it. And although there was a lot of weird evidence around him, it's all circumstantial. I hope you enjoy finishing up on the Tylenol murders.
2:01 Speaker 00 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works.
2:11 Josh Clark? Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W., Chuck Bryant. There's guest producer Josh over there. I guess enough with the pleasantries. Let's get back to it Chuck.
2:21 Speaker 03 Tylenol murders, part two.
2:23 Josh Clark? Part two.
2:24 Speaker 03 If you did not listen to the first part, in 1982, seven people were murdered by ingesting Tylenol tainted with cyanide.
2:35 Josh Clark? All on the same day.
2:37 Speaker 03 All on the same day. America and much of the world is super freaked out. Johnson and Johnson is the manufacturer. And part one of part two has to deal with Johnson and Johnson and how they handled this in a public relations sort of way.
2:53 Josh Clark? Right.
2:54 Speaker 03 Because they're were and are a huge company. Like you said, in the episode one, they held 37% of the market share, which was many hundreds of millions of dollars of Tylenol that they're selling every year.
3:07 Josh Clark? And that's in 1982 dollars.
3:09 Speaker 03 Right. Which is like gazillions now. So it was a very big deal for that company. And the way they handled it is taught in colleges and PR classes all over the world as exactly how to handle a big public relations crisis like this.
3:26 Josh Clark? Like, it's literally called a textbook example of how it's done.
3:31 Speaker 03 Yeah, they did a good job. Because as you remember from the last episode, they found out pretty sure early on that this had nothing to do with Johnson and Johnson.
3:43 Josh Clark? Right.
3:44 Speaker 03 Like, it wasn't in their factory, it wasn't in their supply chain that it happened, almost certainly. And that it probably happened by some crazed person taking them out of the store, tainting them maybe in the store, in the parking lot, then putting them back on the shelf. But Johnson and Johnson can't come out on the news and say, hey, wasn't us.
4:01 Josh Clark? Right. Well, at first, though, and this gets overlooked and left out of the college business courses and the PR courses. At first, Johnson and Johnson was not in favor of a massive recall.
4:13 Speaker 03 Sure, because that looks. Well, it looks good in one way, but bad in another.
4:17 Josh Clark? And they actually didn't recall anything until Mayor Jane Byrne held her press conference on Friday, calling for a recall of the Tylenol in Chicago. And Johnson and Johnson did a little facepalm.
4:31 Speaker 03 Mm hmm.
4:32 Josh Clark? And went, yes, we're recalling all of the Tylenol in Chicago.
4:35 Speaker 03 Yes, what she said.
4:37 Josh Clark? Right. So by Friday, the 31st of September, is there 31 in September, was this October 1st?
4:46 Speaker 03 I have no idea.
4:47 Josh Clark? I think it was October 1st. Anyway, by the Friday, two days after the death.
4:53 Speaker 03 Yeah.
4:53 Josh Clark? The deaths, Johnson and Johnson recalled all of the Tylenol in Chicago. And that should have been enough. To them, that was enough. But this PR crisis was so massive and spread so fast. And like we said earlier in part one, became global almost overnight. It was not enough.
5:12 Speaker 03 Yeah.
5:12 Josh Clark? And so Johnson and Johnson, within a week of the deaths, recalled every bottle of extra strength Tylenol in the United States, which is worth about $100 million at the time, took it back to their factories and destroyed it.
5:28 Speaker 03 So they say.
5:32 Speaker 03 Yeah, both Johnson and Johnson.
5:34 Josh Clark? Right.
5:35 Speaker 03 I wonder if one of them was like, I don't know about this.
5:38 Josh Clark? They're, one of them said, okay, I'll take all the states west of the Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota, and some Wyoming. I mean, you take all the other states. That's a, that's a part one joke.
5:48 Speaker 03 Uh, they even got an award, uh, the, the Public Relations Society of America, which is a real thing, uh, believe it or not. They awarded them their Silver Anvil Award for how they handled the crisis.
6:01 Josh Clark? The Tylenol poisoning.
6:02 Speaker 03 That's right.
6:03 Josh Clark? Okay.
6:03 Speaker 03 And, um, high-grade foods, remember we talked about the, the bad wieners?
6:09 Josh Clark? Yeah.
6:10 Speaker 03 In the first episode.
6:11 Josh Clark? Yeah.
6:11 Speaker 03 The ballpark franks that supposedly had razor blades, but did not.
6:15 Josh Clark? Right.
6:16 Speaker 03 That still created a public relations crisis for them, even though they were just these little jerks in Detroit.
6:21 Josh Clark? Mm hmm.
6:21 Speaker 03 And, uh, they won the Golden Anvil.
6:24 Josh Clark? Right.
6:25 Speaker 03 Which is one higher than silver.
6:27 Josh Clark? Because of how they handled the PR crisis brought about by the copycats of the actual Tylenol crisis.
6:34 Speaker 03 Which was in fact, really brought about by two jerk kids in Detroit.
6:37 Josh Clark? Right.
6:38 Speaker 03 Really not even copycats.
6:40 Josh Clark? Not the Tylenol crisis.
6:41 Speaker 03 I wonder where those kids are today.
6:44 Josh Clark? Probably in the Senate.
6:45 Speaker 03 I bet one of them was the guy who did our, uh, our lighting at our Detroit show.
6:50 Josh Clark? He wants a smoke. I'll give him some more smoke.
6:53 Speaker 03 Yeah, guys, we, we did a show in Detroit a few years ago and, um, very famously, we still use that as the standard bearer for bad crew.
7:02 Josh Clark? Bad.
7:02 Speaker 03 We had a guy that looked like a, a former roadie for Uriah Heap that was running like a light show basically during the middle of our podcast and like smoke came out. We were like, we had to stop the show almost. Like dude, what are you doing?
7:17 Josh Clark? Yeah. Well, the lighting was so bad that your highlighter had turned like brown and you could no longer see the words. And you asked him, we had to stop the show and you had to ask him to use a different color light.
7:29 Speaker 03 Uh huh.
7:30 Josh Clark? And his response, because Yumi was hanging out and our friend Chris Bowman was hanging out in the sound booth with the guy.
7:35 Speaker 03 Yeah.
7:36 Josh Clark? His response, according to them was, you want smoke? I'll give him some more smoke. And we got some more smoke.
7:42 Speaker 03 Like a smoke machine.
7:43 Josh Clark? Yeah.
7:44 Speaker 03 Man. And people ask us why we haven't been back to Detroit.
7:47 Josh Clark? That's a big reason.
7:48 Speaker 03 It's a big reason.
7:48 Josh Clark? Not the only reason.
7:52 Speaker 03 Okay. So they won the golden anvil for the, the Weiner, uh, PR moves. Um, McNeil Consumer Products, which is a subsidiary of Johnson and Johnson.
8:03 Josh Clark? They actually make Tylenol.
8:04 Speaker 03 Yeah. They make the pills. Again, the way this, all this supply chain works is really convoluted. Um, and, uh, like you said, they didn't want to recall Johnson, Johnson and everything at first. They want to kind of take it a little slower, I guess.
8:17 Josh Clark? Well, sure.
8:18 Speaker 03 Because they'd found out the drugs are actually fine.
8:20 Josh Clark? Right.
8:20 Speaker 03 Thanks to Pinky McFarland.
8:22 Josh Clark? This is a hundred million dollars worth of stock that they were kind of feeling the pressure to recall.
8:27 Speaker 03 That's right.
8:28 Josh Clark? So they were kind of reluctant at first, especially if they were convinced that there was nothing wrong with the rest of them.
8:34 Speaker 03 They had no choice.
8:35 Josh Clark? No.
8:36 Speaker 03 That was the only way to do it was to lose a lot of money in favor of future gains.
8:43 Josh Clark? Yeah, but even at the time, a lot of people were like, this is it for Tylenol.
8:47 Speaker 03 Sure.
8:47 Josh Clark? The public has lost faith in Tylenol. So when Tylenol recalled 31 million 50-count bottles of extra strength Tylenol and destroyed it all, there was a chance that not only were they losing $100 million, but that they were losing $100 million of a brand that had already lost the public trust and would never regain it.
9:08 Speaker 03 Mm hmm.
9:08 Josh Clark? So.
9:09 Speaker 03 Which wasn't true, but yeah.
9:10 Josh Clark? No, but they didn't necessarily know that at the time. It was still up in the air. So it was basically 31 million sacrificial lambs that were killed to show the public, this tainted Tylenol is gone forever.
9:24 Speaker 03 That's right.
9:25 Josh Clark? Your chances of dying from taking extra strength Tylenol are now gone. You can go back to taking Tylenol now. That was one thing. That was a big gesture.
9:34 Speaker 03 Yeah.
9:35 Josh Clark? Which is what it amounted to. It was a gesture on behalf of Johnson and Johnson. But they did other stuff, too. They started to do things right. Out of their reluctance, once they finally said, we have to just go with this to save face and to win back public trust, they started to do things right, like including like setting up a hotline.
9:53 Speaker 03 Sure.
9:54 Josh Clark? Putting out $100,000 reward for information.
9:57 Speaker 03 Jump change, considering how much they had lost already.
10:00 Josh Clark? It's $1982.
10:01 Speaker 03 Well, still jump change.
10:02 Josh Clark? It's, it is.
10:03 Speaker 03 Yeah. And that remains unclaimed.
10:05 Josh Clark? It does. But because of all of this, Johnson and Johnson managed to regain the public trust and actually managed to position itself as a victim.
10:17 Speaker 03 Yeah.
10:17 Josh Clark? In all of this, like, yes, there were the.
10:19 Speaker 03 Which they were, I mean.
10:20 Josh Clark? Seven murder victims.
10:21 Speaker 03 Yeah.
10:22 Josh Clark? And Johnson and Johnson, I don't think ever tried to push them out of the spotlight. But they also managed to portray themselves as the victim of a mad poisoner who may or may not had something out for them. But either way, their brand was taking a huge hit because of this and they were a victim and were able to generate public sympathy.
10:39 Speaker 03 That's right.
10:39 Josh Clark? Which is part of the road to regaining the public trust.
10:44 Speaker 03 Right. Which is why it's taught in PR classes.
10:46 Josh Clark? Yeah.
10:46 Speaker 03 So we'll take you back to 1982. If you weren't around then or old enough to be taking OTC pills and pain relievers.
10:56 Josh Clark? OTC is over the counter, by the way.
10:58 Speaker 03 That's right.
10:58 Josh Clark? Okay.
10:59 Speaker 03 You down with OTC?
11:00 Josh Clark? Yeah, you know me.
11:02 Speaker 03 So dumb. I love that you played along, though. I appreciate that.
11:06 Josh Clark? Sure, buddy.
11:06 Speaker 03 You could have made me feel stupid.
11:08 Josh Clark? We've been partners for 11 years almost now.
11:12 Speaker 03 Yeah, that'd be when? Next month or this month?
11:14 Josh Clark? Yeah.
11:15 Speaker 03 Right? Unbelievable. So.
11:18 Josh Clark? Unbelievable.
11:19 Speaker 03 Not in that way.
11:20 Josh Clark? Okay.
11:21 Speaker 03 So here's how it used to happen. If you wanted to take a pill like a Tylenol, you would get your bottle. You would pop it open with your thumb.
11:31 Josh Clark? Well, first, first it came in a little box.
11:33 Speaker 03 Sure, but the box wasn't even glued shut.
11:35 Josh Clark? No.
11:36 Speaker 03 You would pop it open with your finger. You would take out the cotton in there and you would take your pill. It was that easy. There was no tamper-proofing.
11:43 Josh Clark? No.
11:44 Speaker 03 There was no, the cotton was completely superfluous at this time.
11:48 Josh Clark? Yeah, cotton originally was introduced to keep Bayer aspirin, like the hard tablets.
11:53 Speaker 03 Yeah.
11:54 Josh Clark? From getting crushed in transport.
11:56 Speaker 03 Yeah.
11:56 Josh Clark? And since they started using capsules and other stuff and figured out how to strengthen tablets, there was no reason for the cotton any longer, but because consumers expected it.
12:06 Speaker 03 I know.
12:07 Josh Clark? Still today, you'll find cotton in your, in your pills. There's no reason for it to be there, except because the companies know that you want it to be there. You would be weirded out if there wasn't cotton in your pills.
12:19 Speaker 03 I imagine the cotton lobby had something to do with that, too.
12:21 Josh Clark? Oh, I'll bet they're not, they're not complaining.
12:23 Speaker 03 You know? So.
12:25 Josh Clark? Big cotton.
12:26 Speaker 03 They should, new fancy OTC pills should have Micro Modall in there.
12:31 Josh Clark? Right. It just comes with a pair of me undies stuffed into your pill bottle.
12:35 Speaker 03 That'd be a bonus.
12:36 Josh Clark? You're like, these have been worn.
12:39 Speaker 03 So this was a time, it was a very innocent time previous to this where you could like, and you pointed this out, I remember seeing this in grocery stores, like I remember seeing mothers in grocery stores opening food products and smelling them.
12:54 Josh Clark? Yes. That's what you could do.
12:57 Speaker 03 And then closing it back and putting it back on the shelf.
12:59 Josh Clark? Yeah. Oh, there's a little mold in this one.
13:01 Speaker 03 Yeah.
13:01 Josh Clark? I'll just leave it for the next person.
13:03 Speaker 03 Forget poisoning, like they could be spitting in this stuff. It was allowed.
13:07 Josh Clark? That's just the way it was. Like there was, America was innocent enough that that was fine. That's how we lived. And that sets up this Tylenol poisoning. It really shows how much of a jarring experience it was for America. Because all of a sudden, like it's finally sunk in in a couple of days. There's something wrong with the Tylenol. Somebody has gone out of their way to poison the Tylenol in order to randomly kill people. And the reason they were able to do this is because it's easy to get into the Tylenol.
13:43 Speaker 03 Super easy.
13:44 Josh Clark? Tamper with it, put it back and no one will be any more the wiser. And wait, it's not just Tylenol. Milk doesn't have anything that keeps it tamper resistant.
13:54 Speaker 03 Yeah.
13:55 Josh Clark? Neither is orange juice. Neither is cereal. Neither does cottage cheese. Nothing does. And America freaked out. And this is the reason why this Tylenol poisoning is considered widely the first incident of domestic terrorism in the United States. Because it was terrorism, pure and simple. America was terrified. They were petrified not only to take Tylenol or any over the counter medicine now. They were petrified to drink milk or give milk to their kids. Paula Prince, the flight attendant who was the last one to die in Chicago. She had a coworker who said like, everything looked tainted now. I was afraid to give my kids milk. I was afraid to give my kids cereal. If they could get to the Tylenol, they could poison anything.
14:39 Josh Clark? And that was really emblematic of the attitude, the shock that everybody went through. And as a result, within six weeks, Tylenol said, we got this covered.
14:48 Speaker 03 Yeah. And I have a feeling.
14:51 Speaker 03 They did this so fast, there had to have been this idea in place already.
14:54 Josh Clark? Yeah, it was. I saw, I saw a reference that it was.
14:56 Speaker 03 And I imagine it was not done because they were like, well, it's a lot of money and why, why would we bother? It's like, it's not like someone's gonna poison the medicine.
15:04 Josh Clark? Right.
15:04 Speaker 03 And then that happened. So within six weeks, they had a box that was actually glued shut. Uh, so if your little box had been opened, you would be able to tell.
15:13 Josh Clark? Yeah, that was, that was part one of three of this tamper resistant packaging.
15:17 Speaker 03 Uh, that little plastic seal over the, the top of the bottle after you open it. Uh, or no, no, the, the plastic is over the, the cap on the outside of the bottle.
15:25 Josh Clark? Yeah, like the plastic foil.
15:27 Speaker 03 And then the, uh, the actual foil was over the mouth of the bottle that you all have to poke through now to pull out the cotton and whatever still uses cotton.
15:36 Josh Clark? None of that existed until the beginning of 1983.
15:40 Speaker 03 So all three of these are put in place within six weeks. Uh, not only that, they said, you know what? We're gonna introduce the caplet, which everyone knows now, it was, we didn't have them back then. Everything was a little capsule that you could literally pull apart.
15:54 Josh Clark? Mm-hmm.
15:55 Speaker 03 And you could snort the Tylenol if you wanted to.
15:57 Josh Clark? Sure. I'm quite sure some people did.
15:59 Speaker 03 I'm sure someone did. Uh, but the caplet is, you know, a tablet coated with a easy to swallow gelatin. It's solid. It's, um, I imagine you could tamper with it. And even, I even saw with all these things in place, they said, nothing is tamper proof.
16:14 Josh Clark? Right.
16:15 Speaker 03 But these measures really went a long way to restore the public, uh, you know, well, uh, like the good feelings about what was going on.
16:22 Josh Clark? Yeah, within about a year, Tylenol or Johnson and Johnson managed to win the public's trust back in Tylenol.
16:29 Speaker 03 That's hard to believe.
16:30 Josh Clark? A year.
16:31 Speaker 03 That was really fast.
16:32 Josh Clark? But it also goes to show like just how perfectly they did everything from that, from the time they committed to it on.
16:38 Speaker 03 Yeah, and I feel like I remember like commercials with CEOs and stuff addressing the public.
16:44 Josh Clark? Uh-huh. He became, I can't remember his name. I wanna say Jeffrey Beamer. It's like a shoe brand.
16:49 Speaker 03 Gabby Johnson?
16:51 Josh Clark? No.
16:53 Speaker 03 Bill Johnson?
16:54 Josh Clark? No.
16:55 Speaker 03 Howard Johnson?
16:56 Josh Clark? Yes. I can't remember his name, but Jimmy Johnson is way far away from that. But he became a public face. He would, you know, go on to 60 Minutes and he talked to Dan Rather and Ted Koppel and all those cats. Like, he was out there like showing how much the company cared.
17:16 Speaker 03 Yeah.
17:17 Josh Clark? And it had a huge effect.
17:19 Speaker 03 And then in 1983, Congress got involved. They passed what they dubbed the Tylenol Bill, which basically says if you do something like this, it's now a federal offense. A few years later, in 1989, the FDA actually established guidelines for all manufacturers of any product, really, to make it tamper-proof.
17:38 Josh Clark? Yeah, because it wasn't just the OTC manufacturers that started doing this. They followed suit very quickly once Tylenol came out with it because they kind of had to if they wanted to keep up with Tylenol. But also, the manufacturers of everything, like every product, every consumer product, started putting their products in like tamper-proof packaging.
17:59 Speaker 03 They had to.
18:00 Josh Clark? Dial soap started coming wrapped in cellophane inside the box.
18:04 Speaker 03 To trap the chemicals in.
18:06 Josh Clark? I guess. But also to show like, nobody's injected this with lye or something like that. Although lye is used in the making of soap, isn't it? If I remember my Fight Club.
18:19 Speaker 03 That's pretty funny. Someone injected soap into the soap. All right, let's take another break and we'll come back and talk a little bit more about the profile of the supposed mad poisoner, right after this.
18:44 Speaker 04 Hey everybody. If you've been thinking about securing your home, there's no better time to protect it with SimpliSafe. Right now, you can save 70% on a new system, their biggest savings of the year. You've heard us talk about SimpliSafe before, and you know it's designed to keep threats away from the door and your loved ones safe in the first place. If you thought about SimpliSafe at all, now is the time to finally secure your home.
19:03 Josh Clark? Yeah, unlike traditional security systems that only alert you after a break-in is already underway, SimpliSafe is built to stop it before it starts. Their agents intervene in under 30 seconds, speaking through the camera to stop an intruder in their tracks and calling for urgent 911 dispatch when it's needed most.
19:20 Speaker 04 That's right, and SimpliSafe has an offer for our listeners now with their biggest savings of the year, 70% off your new system with professional monitoring when you visit simplisafe.com/stuff. That's simplisafe.com/stuff, and when you order, write in the code STUFF at checkout. It tells them we sent you, and it really helps the show. SimpliSafe, ahead of crime, in real time.
19:47 Speaker 04 Hey, everybody. The holidays are coming up, so let us throw this out there. Are you prepared to host friends or family? Like, really prepared? Because there's a difference between having people stay at your house and properly hosting them.
19:58 Josh Clark? Yeah, that's what we thought. So maybe it's time for a little refresh. Well, we have a tip. For all things hosting, Wayfair delivers high-quality, customer-trusted products for your home so you can host and celebrate without the stress.
20:12 Speaker 04 That's right. Whether you're just swapping out a busted appliance or going all-in on a top-to-bottom home makeover for the holidays, Wayfair has you covered. Thousands of products, every style, every budget.
20:21 Josh Clark? And it's all built for real life. Every item is hand-vetted by specialists with a 10-point quality inspection. And on top of that, with over 20 million verified 5-star reviews, you can have total confidence in all the picks you make.
20:33 Speaker 04 So remember, when refreshing your home this holiday season, Wayfair delivers exactly what you need. Just head to wayfair.com to shop all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R dot com.
20:50 Josh Clark? Hey everybody. The best pieces in your closet are the ones you can count on. Whether you're heading to work, or going out, or keeping things casual. And this time of year, Quince makes finding something great for everyone else just as easy. This holiday season, it's where you want to shop for yourself and everyone on your list.
21:07 Speaker 03 That's right. And you know what? Quince focuses on high-quality staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, 14-karat gold, and Italian leather. All timeless, versatile pieces that feel special to unwrap and become everyday favorites long after the holidays.
21:22 Josh Clark? Yeah, plus, everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen, so you can give luxury-quality pieces without the luxury price tag.
21:35 Speaker 03 So give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to quince.com, where you can get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK as well. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was stuff you should know. It's the best way to support the show.
22:10 Speaker 03 All right, so this was a very big case at the time. Obviously, like we've been saying, it was a landmark case. So of course, you're going to get psychological profiles, which, you know, we should do one on profiling, actually. Have we done that?
22:25 Josh Clark? I don't think so.
22:26 Speaker 03 That'd be a good one.
22:26 Josh Clark? Yeah.
22:27 Speaker 03 Because it always, like, seems like the trope in movies and TV, but it is kind of like that.
22:31 Josh Clark? No, it is a thing, for sure.
22:33 Speaker 03 It's not like they just make this stuff up, but in the end, they said, you know, "This is probably a man in his 20s or 30s, who was sort of a Jekyll and Hyde type. During the day, he's very ordinary. He could be in the desk cubicle next to you, and you wouldn't even know it."
22:47 Josh Clark? Every once in a while, you just hear him go, "Moo."
22:49 Speaker 03 Yeah, exactly. But deep in the recesses of his brain, everyone, he's plagued with self-doubt and has an illusion that a random killing can boost his sense of self-worth. Self-worth?
23:04 Speaker 03 Which is just, it sounds like it's straight out of a movie.
23:06 Josh Clark? It sounds like a psychiatrist saying, "I want to be on TV."
23:10 Speaker 03 Yeah.
23:10 Josh Clark? Listen to me.
23:11 Speaker 03 Uh, they also speculated, and this is just completely like conjecture, uh, was that he had probably already taken his own life, uh, after the killings.
23:21 Josh Clark? That was one specific person who said that.
23:24 Speaker 03 Was it?
23:24 Josh Clark? Yeah.
23:25 Speaker 03 Yeah.
23:25 Josh Clark? It was, uh, I think like, uh, the medical examiner for Cook County. Yeah.
23:30 Speaker 03 He probably already, uh, jumped off the bridge, so don't worry about it.
23:33 Josh Clark? Don't worry, everybody.
23:35 Speaker 03 Yeah.
23:36 Josh Clark? Uh, yeah, he just threw that out there. I don't know if it was to calm people or not, but, or maybe he's just throwing his two cents in. But, um, I, I, I think you kinda said it earlier. I don't remember if it was part one or part two, the whole thing's just blurred and become a haze by now. But, um, no one has ever been charged with the Tylenol murders.
23:59 Speaker 03 Yeah, that's the ending.
24:00 Josh Clark? But there has been a lot, there were a lot of suspects. Remember Tylenol set up a hotline and this Tylenol task force, 140 person strong task force investigating this, chasing down leads, taking calls on the hotline, thousands and thousands of calls that were coming in.
24:19 Speaker 03 Yeah.
24:20 Josh Clark? They were trying to whittle those down into actual tips that were worth pursuing. And out of all of them, they, they, they deemed 1,200 tips or 1,200 leads worth checking out.
24:33 Speaker 03 Right.
24:33 Josh Clark? That's a lot of leads for a case, um, even, even considering you had 140 people working them. And I, I read somewhere that they started out with like 20,000 suspects or something like that, uh, and whittled it down to 400.
24:47 Speaker 03 Yeah, and the sort of the sad part is, as quickly as they sort of figured a lot of this out, uh, and had that 140 person task force, they almost just as quickly, within a few months, realized that like, We don't have a very good chance at finding this person.
25:02 Josh Clark? Yeah, it became clear very quickly.
25:04 Speaker 03 Yeah, they whittled that down. By the last week of October, the task force was down to 40 people. By the end of the year, it was down to 20. And it was a situation, again in 1982, where you didn't have security cameras everywhere. You didn't have credit cards and debit cards, creating paper trails. It was a lot easier back then to get away with something like this, to be completely unknown, to walk into a store, maybe slip some Tylenol into your pocket, go out to the parking lot and come back in and slip them back on the shelf.
25:36 Josh Clark? Yeah, if you're cheap.
25:36 Speaker 03 It was really easy.
25:37 Josh Clark? You won't even go to the trouble of buying it.
25:40 Speaker 03 Yeah, I guess that's a good point.
25:41 Josh Clark? You just steal it and then put it back.
25:43 Speaker 03 But, you know, people were using cash. If there were cameras in a place, they were probably trained on employees. I worked at a Golden Pantry in college, and the only camera we had was directly above us, pointing down at the cash register.
25:56 Josh Clark? It was the one at Alps in Atlanta Highway?
25:59 Speaker 03 Uh, Alps? No.
26:04 Josh Clark? Okay.
26:04 Speaker 03 The one on the east side, College Station Road, I think?
26:07 Josh Clark? Okay.
26:08 Speaker 03 Yeah, very interesting job. That's the one where I got a job. I needed a job. I got a job at McDonald's. And I showed up, I took the one-hour training video, and they got my uniform number. I went home, and I was supposed to show up the next day, and I was just like, I can't do it. I can't go work at McDonald's. And I got the Golden Pantry job later that day.
26:27 Josh Clark? There you go.
26:27 Speaker 03 Which, hey, man.
26:28 Josh Clark? Sure.
26:29 Speaker 03 It's like, sign me up.
26:30 Josh Clark? From Golden Arches to Golden Pantry, that's like a rags-to-riches story.
26:34 Speaker 03 I was selling beer and cigarettes.
26:36 Josh Clark? Nice.
26:36 Speaker 03 It was pretty great.
26:37 Josh Clark? You're like, one for you, one for me.
26:41 Speaker 03 Oh, I would never do that. Um, all right, where was I? Oh, yeah, I was at Golden Pantry. So the cameras trained on the register, they're not, you know, you could come and go in a store and no one even knows in 1982.
26:53 Josh Clark? Right.
26:54 Speaker 03 So the cops have nothing to go on. Most importantly, no motive.
26:58 Josh Clark? That was a big one because remember, this is just a Jekyll and Hyde type who you'd never suspect.
27:04 Speaker 03 Who's probably at the bottom of the Chicago River.
27:06 Josh Clark? Right. Who also is engaged in some senseless, random killings of people, anonymous poisoning killing, not even shooting. It just made zero sense whatsoever. So like we said earlier, the cops figured out within about a month, within the first month of the investigation that this was, they were not going to have a break in this case. But it's not to say that they didn't have some suspects. Some people definitely did kind of come to, come to the fore, but not many of them.
27:34 Speaker 03 Yeah, but these two are really interesting sub stories in and of themselves.
27:38 Josh Clark? For sure.
27:39 Speaker 03 Uh, the first guy's name was, last name Arnold.
27:43 Josh Clark? First name Roger.
27:45 Speaker 03 Roger, that's right.
27:46 Josh Clark? I call him Richard.
27:46 Speaker 03 That's all right.
27:47 Josh Clark? But for good reason.
27:49 Speaker 03 Oh, sure. Because you said he was like the Richard Jewell of his day.
27:52 Josh Clark? Yeah.
27:53 Speaker 03 The Olympic bomber who was not the bomber.
27:56 Josh Clark? Right. But whose life was ruined because he basically was implicated as the Olympic bomber.
28:02 Speaker 03 Right.
28:02 Josh Clark? Same thing happened to this guy.
28:03 Speaker 03 Yeah, he was one of the first named suspects, 49 year old guy.
28:08 Josh Clark? So, so put yourself in the position, okay? The media is going berserk on the story. Everybody hears about it. It's a mad anonymous poisoner. And now all of a sudden, there's a name and a face associated with it who's a suspect, but he's the first person named.
28:23 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah.
28:24 Josh Clark? It's like people going crazy, like trying to get to this guy to interview him.
28:29 Speaker 03 Yeah, I have my doubts about this guy. Not that he did that, but there are a lot of hinky things that they found out about him.
28:36 Josh Clark? Sure.
28:36 Speaker 03 And then how it all ended up.
28:38 Josh Clark? Yeah.
28:38 Speaker 03 As you're about to see. So he was a DIY chemist.
28:41 Josh Clark? It's a big one.
28:42 Speaker 03 There's a big thing right there.
28:43 Josh Clark? Because.
28:44 Speaker 03 Into chemistry.
28:45 Josh Clark? Yeah, they said he's a Jekyll and Hyde type who's probably into chemistry.
28:48 Speaker 03 That's right. Uh, he was a dockhand at Jewel Foods at a warehouse west of Chicago.
28:54 Josh Clark? And Jewel Foods, there are a couple of different Jewel Foods are where the Tylenol was bought. It's like a grocery store, a food market.
29:02 Speaker 03 It's all checking out so far.
29:03 Josh Clark? Yeah.
29:05 Speaker 03 So the cops look into him and go to his house. He has a book. A handbook, rather, on methods of killing people.
29:14 Josh Clark? How to kill people, A to Z. I don't know if that's the title, but that's a good one.
29:20 Speaker 03 He had five unregistered guns.
29:23 Josh Clark? It's a big one.
29:24 Speaker 03 He admitted to having cyanide.
29:27 Josh Clark? Once.
29:28 Speaker 03 Yeah, but he said, I threw it out like at least six months before these murders.
29:32 Josh Clark? He's like, when were the murders again? Oh, yeah, six months before that. That's one of them.
29:36 Speaker 03 And then his wife said, you know, they're investigating her and interviewing her. She was like, you know what? Actually, I did take some Tylenol and felt really sick and threw up one time. But again, I was, it was probably due to overeating and it was just that once.
29:52 Josh Clark? That was a fact of the podcast.
29:54 Speaker 03 So like, you can't blame cops for saying this guy's a pretty good lead.
29:58 Josh Clark? Yeah, cuz you can kind of start to see, like, if you add all the other stuff together and then hear about the wife throwing up from Tylenol, be like, could, could you see this guy? Like toying with his wife, like testing it out on her, just enough to make her sick, but not to kill her, to see what happens, you know? See if she would notice. Who knows?
30:17 Speaker 03 Right.
30:17 Josh Clark? But the cops thoroughly investigated this guy and cleared him. There, there's not a, there's not a person associated with the story that I came across who
30:28 Speaker 03 That thought he did it.
30:28 Josh Clark? I actually think this guy did it.
30:30 Speaker 03 Yeah, for sure.
30:31 Josh Clark? I didn't find one person who thought Ronald, Roger Arnold actually did it. But in very short order, he proved that he was more than capable of murder because six months after he was cleared as a suspect, he was brought in for the murder of somebody else, a guy named John Stanislaw. Stanislaw.
30:48 Speaker 03 Stanislaw, I would say.
30:49 Josh Clark? Yeah, I'm going with that, too. Son's Slovak or something.
30:53 Speaker 03 Yeah, he was 46. He was a Chicago computer consultant.
30:59 Josh Clark? Which is, that's saying something in 1982.
31:01 Speaker 03 Yeah, probably so. So here's what happened. Arnold.
31:05 Speaker 03 There was this bartender name, or bar owner named Marty Sinclair, who Arnold had thought had initially turned him in to the cops and ruined his life essentially.
31:14 Josh Clark? Yeah.
31:15 Speaker 03 So he goes to kill who he thinks is Marty Sinclair, and it's actually this just completely innocent, random guy
31:21 Josh Clark? Yeah.
31:22 Speaker 03 who gets shot point blank. And so he, in fact, did kill somebody.
31:26 Josh Clark? He did.
31:27 Speaker 03 Because of what had happened to his life.
31:28 Josh Clark? It was premeditated murder, even though it was the wrong person. He was definitely, he created an intentional homicide. He killed somebody on purpose.
31:37 Speaker 03 Mistaken identity killing, though.
31:39 Josh Clark? Right. And because of this, because it was directly related to the Tylenol poisonings, John Stanislaw is frequently considered an eighth victim of the Tylenol killings.
31:50 Speaker 03 Yeah.
31:50 Josh Clark? Kind of like an honorary victim
31:54 Speaker 03 Right.
31:54 Josh Clark? in this case. But it is kind of appropriate that he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, a victim of mistaken identity.
32:03 Speaker 03 Yeah.
32:04 Josh Clark? You know? It would have like a slightly different ring to it if it had been the right guy. The fact that it was the wrong guy
32:10 Speaker 03 I know.
32:11 Josh Clark? and this poor dude just happened to be in the wrong bar and happened to look like the owner. That's just, it's just, it's perfect for this, for this saga.
32:19 Speaker 03 Yeah, I wonder what Marty Sinclair thought about all that.
32:22 Josh Clark? I'll bet he was not very happy.
32:24 Speaker 03 Probably not. But probably also very relieved. And probably also guilt.
32:28 Josh Clark? Yeah, I would guess there's a touch of that.
32:30 Speaker 03 A range of emotions, I would imagine.
32:32 Josh Clark? Yeah, all over the place.
32:33 Speaker 03 So Arnold ended up serving 15 years of a 30-year sentence, was released in 99, and died nine years later.
32:41 Josh Clark? Yep. So Chuck, before we go on to the main attraction as far as the suspects go.
32:47 Speaker 03 Yeah.
32:48 Josh Clark? I propose that we take a break.
32:50 Speaker 03 Agreed.
32:50 Josh Clark? Okay, we'll be right back.
33:04 Speaker 04 Hey everybody. If you've been thinking about securing your home, there's no better time to protect it with SimpliSafe. Right now, you can save 70% on a new system, their biggest savings of the year. You've heard us talk about SimpliSafe before, and you know it's designed to keep threats away from the door and your loved ones safe in the first place. If you thought about SimpliSafe at all, now is the time to finally secure your home.
33:23 Josh Clark? Yeah, unlike traditional security systems that only alert you after a break-in is already underway, SimpliSafe is built to stop it before it starts. Their agents intervene in under 30 seconds, speaking through the camera to stop an intruder in their tracks and calling for urgent 911 dispatch when it's needed most.
33:41 Speaker 04 That's right, and SimpliSafe has an offer for our listeners now with their biggest savings of the year, 70% off your new system with professional monitoring when you visit simplisafe.com/stuff. That's simplisafe.com/stuff, and when you order, write in the code STUFF at checkout. It tells them we sent you, and it really helps the show. SimpliSafe, ahead of crime, in real time.
34:08 Josh Clark? Hey everybody, the best pieces in your closet are the ones you can count on. Whether you're heading to work, or going out, or keeping things casual, and this time of year, Quince makes finding something great for everyone else just as easy. This holiday season, it's where you want to shop for yourself and everyone on your list.
34:25 Speaker 04 That's right, and you know what? Quince focuses on high-quality staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, 14-karat gold, and Italian leather. All timeless, versatile pieces that feel special to unwrap and become everyday favorites long after the holidays.
34:41 Josh Clark? Yeah, plus, everything at Quince is priced 50% to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen, so you can give luxury-quality pieces without the luxury price tag.
34:53 Speaker 04 So give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or go to quince.com, where you can get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK as well. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was stuff you should know. It's the best way to support the show.
35:28 Josh Clark? All right Chuck, so this dude, there was basically two suspects in this whole case. Over all these years, there were basically two people. And again, no one was ever actually charged with the murders. But this guy came awfully close and his name was James Lewis.
35:43 Speaker 03 Or was it?
35:45 Josh Clark? It turns out it was. But James Lewis came under the attention of the Chicago PD and the Tylenol Task Force when a letter showed up at Johnson & Johnson headquarters. And it was from allegedly the Tylenol poisoner, the mad poisoner. And in the letter, it said basically like, "I've spent $50 so far and the whole thing has taken me about 10 minutes per bottle and I've already killed seven people. I basically see no reason to stop. Pay me $1 million and then I will stop the killings."
36:19 Speaker 03 Why, he gave a bank account number?
36:22 Josh Clark? Right.
36:22 Speaker 03 It said, "Wire me this money."
36:24 Josh Clark? Very, very presciently. No, that's not the right word.
36:28 Speaker 03 Stupidly?
36:29 Josh Clark? Maybe, but is it? No, it's not. So this letter has a New York postmark, but the bank account is associated with a travel agency in Chicago. And so the cops go, "Okay, this seems like it was dropped in our lap, but let's go check it out." And they find the owner of this travel agency that had closed up, had gone under. And this guy is like, "Oh my God, you're kidding me." He's like, "No, I didn't write this letter, but I can guarantee I can tell you who did." It's a guy named Robert Richardson. And Robert Richardson, it turned out, was the husband of a woman named Nancy Richardson, who had worked at the travel agency. And when the travel agency went belly up, Nancy lost her job and never got her last
37:14 Josh Clark? paycheck. Well, Robert Richardson was the type of guy who would fixate on this.
37:19 Speaker 03 Right.
37:19 Josh Clark? And was even more so, the type of guy who would write a letter to frame the owner of the travel agency for the Tylenol murderers in retaliation for that last paycheck. He was that kind of dude.
37:30 Speaker 03 Right.
37:30 Josh Clark? And so the cops started sniffing into this Robert Richardson cat. And they figured out pretty quickly that Robert Richardson didn't actually exist, that he was actually somebody else, a man named James Lewis.
37:41 Speaker 03 Right. So when we joked earlier about, is that his real name? And you said it was, it was.
37:47 Josh Clark? It was.
37:48 Speaker 03 His name was not Robert Richardson, though. That was an alias. So what they found out was that Robert Richardson was a tax consultant.
37:57 Speaker 03 He had, and this is just a strange ironic twist, when he was 20 years old, he tried to take his own life by swallowing aspirin.
38:05 Josh Clark? Thirty-six of them.
38:06 Speaker 03 Yeah. So that's just neither here nor there, but an interesting little side note.
38:10 Josh Clark? Yeah, the fact that, like, most people don't have that as part of their past.
38:14 Speaker 03 Yeah.
38:14 Josh Clark? It is interesting that it came up.
38:16 Speaker 03 So he had a pretty long rap sheet. He was wanted by postal inspectors for credit card fraud in Kansas City. He was indicted in 1978 for, and this one is just mind blowing.
38:29 Josh Clark? Yeah.
38:30 Speaker 03 He's indicted for murder after police found remains of one of his former clients in bags in his attic, and he got let loose because it was an illegal search.
38:41 Josh Clark? But he was caught with the body of one of his clients.
38:44 Speaker 03 Yeah.
38:45 Josh Clark? Just dismembered in his attic with no good explanation, as far as I've ever heard.
38:48 Speaker 03 Yeah, so, well, what explanation would be good?
38:52 Josh Clark? Well, we were playing poker and one thing led to another and yada, yada, yada.
38:56 Speaker 03 Started juggling swords and, yeah. So his wife's real name was Leanne, the one who worked at the travel agency and went unpaid. They fled Kansas City in December of 81, and this was as US postal inspectors were converging on them about this credit card scheme.
39:16 Josh Clark? Right.
39:16 Speaker 03 So they're like, just bad people.
39:19 Josh Clark? Not the postal inspectors.
39:21 Speaker 03 No, no, no.
39:21 Josh Clark? The Lewis's, sure.
39:22 Speaker 03 They're great.
39:23 Josh Clark? Yeah.
39:23 Speaker 03 So they moved to Chicago. They changed their names to Robert Nancy Richardson. He got that job as a tax preparer, but then he was fired after a violent outburst in his office against his coworkers. And then she lost her job, went unpaid. They they left Chicago. And this turns out, this is what got them exonerated from the Tylenol thing is they left Chicago and moved to New York before this happened.
39:49 Josh Clark? Right before those same month.
39:51 Speaker 03 Right. But if the theory held up that this person went around, most likely in one day and did all this stuff, then it couldn't have been them.
40:00 Josh Clark? No. And here's why, because the cops had decided that it was done locally. And one of the other things that supported that local MAB poisoner theory was because the cyanide ate through the gelatin capsules eventually. So it had a very, very short shelf life before the whole bottle just turned into a mush of cyanide powder and melted gelatin. So like you said, it had to have been done basically the day before the 29th, on the 28th. They could not, no matter how hard they tried, they could not put James Lewis or his wife in Chicago that day.
40:35 Speaker 03 Right.
40:36 Josh Clark? They just couldn't. And for his part, James Lewis said, Yeah, I wrote this letter. I wrote the letter to Johnson and Johnson framing that travel agency guy, but I did not, I did not poison the Tylenol. He's always been adamant about that. He's never toyed around with it. He's never messed around. He's never been coy. He's always been adamant that he did not poison that Tylenol. Although, the Tylenol task force tried to trip him up once. I guess to just get this on the record that he'd done this. But they asked him like in an interview, okay, let's say you had done it. How would you have done it? And he actually
41:13 Speaker 03 He pulled an OJ.
41:14 Josh Clark? He showed them how he would have done it.
41:16 Speaker 03 Right.
41:16 Josh Clark? Yeah, he just didn't write a book about it. He just showed them in an interview.
41:19 Speaker 03 Yeah. And he defends this later on by saying, it was just a speculative scenario. I could tell you how Julius Caesar was killed, but that doesn't mean I was the killer.
41:29 Josh Clark? Right.
41:30 Speaker 03 I think the answer for me would have been, I don't know, man.
41:33 Josh Clark? Yeah.
41:34 Speaker 03 I'm innocent. I can't figure this out. But he was like, here's how I'd do it.
41:38 Josh Clark? I've been waiting for you to ask me that.
41:40 Speaker 03 Uh, he's eventually found in New York City. Uh, he's at the public library.
41:45 Speaker 03 With a reference book copying names and addresses of newspapers. I would imagine to send them letters like Zodiac style.
41:53 Josh Clark? Yeah, because so we got to say this. So the cops figured out. Who James Lewis was before they found James Lewis. And it became part of the national media. Circus.
42:04 Speaker 03 It was a manhunt.
42:05 Josh Clark? While they were looking for James Lewis.
42:07 Speaker 03 Yeah.
42:07 Josh Clark? This guy was writing letters to newspapers. He called in a radio talk show.
42:12 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah.
42:12 Josh Clark? He was really relishing the, the fact that the, that there was a national manhunt out for him.
42:18 Speaker 03 Who like?
42:19 Josh Clark? That's, that's what I'm saying. On the one hand, you gotta kind of feel a little bit bad that this guy was kind of being railroaded into. You know, the rap for these murders.
42:29 Speaker 03 After his extortion attempt?
42:30 Josh Clark? That's where the feeling bad for him just, you're like, oh yeah, that's right. He totally brought this on himself.
42:35 Speaker 03 Yeah. So they hauled him out of the New York Public Library. Uh, he was sentenced to 10 years for extortion attempt and 10 years for credit. That original credit card fraud, uh, and served 13 years and lives in, uh, the greater Boston area today.
42:49 Josh Clark? So it's still today, there, I think there are a few people who are like, I could see this guy. He maybe, maybe he could, he could be it. Some, some detectives maintain that the Tylenol murder could have flown into O'Hare, rented a car, done that circuit.
43:05 Speaker 03 Sure.
43:05 Josh Clark? Flown or driven back to O'Hare and flown out all in the same day, the day before. But they could never put James Lewis in Chicago at all that day.
43:14 Speaker 03 Right.
43:15 Josh Clark? So he was cleared finally, although he did serve two consecutive 10 year sentences. Or he served 13 of the 20 years for that credit card fraud that the postal inspectors wanted him for. And for the extortion letter. Um, and like you said, he lives in Cambridge, Mass. Now. But then in 2009, the case after basically having gone dormant in the early eighties was reignited by the F. FBI because they worked up, they thought a DNA profile from the capsules and they raided James Lewis's house, demanded a fingerprint and DNA sample. James and Leanne Lewis fought it in court. The judge is like, no, you have to do this. Before leaving the courthouse,
43:57 Josh Clark? they gave him the samples and nothing has come of it. So I guess that means tacitly that the Lewis's were cleared once and for all of the Tylenol murders.
44:08 Speaker 03 Yeah. And you know, the DNA thing is an interesting piece because they still have some samples of the cyanide. I guess that the capsules have worn away by now if it had the cyanide in there. But there was and still is hope that DNA could, could crack this case. Just like eight or nine years ago, the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, is that a two parter?
44:33 Josh Clark? No.
44:34 Speaker 03 No? It's just a one parter. Good podcast, though.
44:36 Josh Clark? I don't think so.
44:37 Speaker 03 It was a good episode.
44:38 Josh Clark? Sure.
44:39 Speaker 03 He grew up in Chicago and his parents were living in the greater Chicago area in 82. And he is the Unabomber. So they said, we might as well get a DNA sample and talk to him.
44:50 Josh Clark? Right.
44:50 Speaker 03 And he, he was cleared. I don't think he was ever a super strong suspect.
44:55 Josh Clark? No.
44:55 Speaker 03 And he, he probably would have admitted it. So he was like, no, this is not me.
45:00 Josh Clark? Right. So the Unabomber has been cleared.
45:04 Speaker 03 That's right.
45:04 Josh Clark? From the Tylenol murders. But that remains, the case remains unsolved to this day. I think they also have a fingerprint workup that they found on one of the bottles. And that and some DNA is, they're just sitting around with that. There's, there are no suspects. There, every suspect has been cleared. And there's nobody on the horizon. It's just an unsolved, random series of killings that happened.
45:29 Speaker 03 Yeah, they're still working on it, though. There's a police sergeant named Scott Winkelman, who has been on this task force for a long time. And he says, he thinks it's solvable. And his department did just solve a 45 year old murder case, cold case.
45:45 Josh Clark? Man, if they solved this one, that would be
45:47 Speaker 03 I know.
45:48 Josh Clark? The biggest cold case ever solved.
45:50 Speaker 03 I think so. I think.
45:53 Speaker 03 I mean, who knows, but I could see maybe finding like a deathbed letter or something one day.
45:57 Josh Clark? Maybe.
45:58 Speaker 03 Like, I don't know if they're gonna catch someone and-
45:59 Josh Clark? At the bottom of the Chicago River?
46:02 Speaker 03 And haul them off to jail, but I could see the truth coming out one day. I hope so for the families because Monica Janis, she's the niece of Adam Stanley and Teresa. She said her family to this day, this is from an article like last year, I think, said that they have still not gotten over it. She said her grandparents have passed now, but she said literally every day for the rest of their lives, they just cried about the fact that they didn't know who did it. She grew up, has been to therapy, therapy her whole life because they were all victims, you know, that this post-traumatic stress disorder kicks in.
46:39 Josh Clark? Sure.
46:40 Speaker 03 Where she grew up fearing that any of her family members could die at any time. Joseph Manis, her dad, says that he still has dreams like, you know, on the rag about these murders. He said he had one recently where everyone involved was in a room in the case, and then two black men in suits and glasses were laughing about how they got away with murder.
47:05 Speaker 03 Michelle Rosen, she's the daughter of Mary Reiner.
47:09 Josh Clark? Right.
47:09 Speaker 03 She has dedicated her life to investigating this on her own, and she doesn't agree with the lone, the mad poisoner theory at all.
47:17 Josh Clark? No, this is, this is interesting.
47:19 Speaker 03 Yeah, she thinks it had something to do with the supply chain.
47:22 Josh Clark? And that Johnson and Johnson knew this and covered it up.
47:25 Speaker 03 Yeah.
47:26 Josh Clark? One of the things, one of the things that people who believe this point to is that Johnson and Johnson recalled all of that Tylenol, 31 million bottles, and then destroyed them, allegedly without testing any of it. So we will never know whether it was-
47:43 Speaker 03 Pinky had the day off.
47:44 Josh Clark? Right. Whether, whether it was beyond Chicago or just local to Chicago.
47:48 Speaker 03 Right.
47:48 Josh Clark? Seems like it took long enough that other people would have died in that week before the national recall was undertaken.
47:55 Speaker 03 Yeah.
47:56 Josh Clark? But there was something very, very interesting that was a postscript to all this that does undermine that mad poisoner theory.
48:03 Speaker 03 Yeah, it was just a few years later, in 1985, a woman in New York named Diane Elsroth took two extra strength Tylenol capsules. And died from cyanide poisoning. But they found, I mean, it's just completely unrelated. Was it another copycat case? Well, or the original poisoner, maybe, but different cyanide.
48:27 Josh Clark? Right. The cyanide was definitely not the same cyanide from the same batch. It was chemically different, but there was another bottle found around the block from where Mary Elsworth bought hers in Yonkers that did match that cyanide. So there were two bottles of extra strength Tylenol, two years later, in another state that had been tampered with.
48:48 Speaker 03 Yeah.
48:48 Josh Clark? The problem is, this was after the three-pronged tamper-resistant packaging had been introduced.
48:56 Speaker 03 Which means it was an inside job, right?
48:58 Josh Clark? I guess, because the tamper, the thing had not been obviously tampered with. Then Tylenol was never able to explain what happened.
49:06 Speaker 03 Yeah, and then, within five days of her death, eight states outright banned the capsules, Tylenol capsules.
49:13 Josh Clark? Right, and Tylenol, for its part, was like, we've been trying to get everybody to take caplets anyway, but they keep taking capsules, so we're making it.
49:20 Speaker 03 And then a guy wrote a book, right?
49:23 Josh Clark? Scott Bartsch.
49:24 Speaker 03 Yeah, a former Johnson & Johnson employee, wrote in 2011, a self-published book on the Tylenol poisonings. And he said, what we were talking about earlier, he's like, this supply chain is so convoluted.
49:38 Josh Clark? Right.
49:40 Speaker 03 Basically, like, it definitely could have happened at any point.
49:43 Josh Clark? Right.
49:43 Speaker 03 Along the way.
49:44 Josh Clark? And his, his idea is that Johnson & Johnson knew that it was in their distribution network and they covered it up.
49:52 Speaker 03 Self-published book.
49:53 Josh Clark? Yeah. You gotta, you gotta note that, for sure.
49:56 Speaker 03 I'm not knocking it.
49:57 Josh Clark? No.
49:58 Speaker 03 But it's noteworthy.
49:59 Josh Clark? It does. If there's like, any hint of journalistic integrity in us, that feels like we have to note that.
50:04 Speaker 03 Sure.
50:06 Josh Clark? So that's the Tylenol poisonings of 1982 in Chicago. Changed America, changed the world, but definitely changed America. It was the end of some form of innocence that we still had.
50:18 Speaker 03 Absolutely.
50:19 Josh Clark? If you want to know more about the Tylenol poisonings, go online. There's stuff all over the place, and you can go down that rabbit hole, and it's deep and wide. Since I said that, it's time for listener mail.
50:32 Speaker 03 Uh, this is from Jen from Brunswick, Maine.
50:35 Josh Clark? Okay.
50:36 Speaker 03 Hey, guys. Been listening for several years and never thought I'd have a, uh, never thought a perfect time to write in would be related to synthetic farts. Remember the disgust episode?
50:47 Josh Clark? Yeah.
50:48 Speaker 03 We talked about synthetic farts.
50:50 Josh Clark? Yeah.
50:50 Speaker 03 It's a real thing. When I was in high school, my dad came across this stuff online called Liquid ASS.
50:58 Josh Clark? That is horrible.
50:59 Speaker 03 Not allowed to curse, right?
51:01 Josh Clark? No.
51:01 Speaker 03 Is that a curse word?
51:02 Josh Clark? We can spell it out, though.
51:03 Speaker 03 Sure.
51:05 Josh Clark? Or I guess maybe you should have said like, A asterisk asterisk?
51:10 Speaker 03 Yeah, there you go. Uh, good name for a product, though. She said, "He found it on a joke website and ordered some, and I have to tell you, it is the worst thing you've ever smelled. I can't even describe it. It makes you want to not breathe anymore. The tiniest little drop is deadly. So, of course, I took it to college with me to play pranks, and, boy, did it backfire. I thought I was pretty funny putting a couple of drops in the radiator by my across the hall friend's room, not even thinking about what would happen when the heat turned on. Well, the heat turned on, and the whole floor of the dorm was amazingly disgusting and made us just about gag. Smell took almost a week to finally go away and have not used it again in the 10 years since."
51:52 Josh Clark? That's probably, it's called learning your lesson.
51:55 Speaker 03 But she, like, still has the bottle. She's like, "But I kept it."
51:57 Josh Clark? Right, just in case.
51:59 Speaker 03 Uh, "Thank you for your interesting and entertaining podcast. This is the first podcast I've ever listened to, and it's still always on the top of my download list."
52:06 Josh Clark? Thanks.
52:07 Speaker 03 Uh, "Thanks for giving this 28-year-old woman a platform on which to tell a story of synthetic farts that is not completely out of place."
52:13 Josh Clark? Signed, anonymous.
52:15 Speaker 03 That is Jen Green.
52:16 Josh Clark? Thanks, Jen Green. Very brave of you to put your name on that one. Especially, I wonder if you stepped up and said, "That horrible smell. That was my bad."
52:25 Speaker 03 Right.
52:26 Josh Clark? Uh, "If you have a great story about college pranks, we want to hear about it. You can get in touch with us via our social links by going to stuffyoushouldknow.com, or you can send us an email to [email protected] ."
52:43 Speaker 00 Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
52:59 Josh Clark? Buy smart, drive for less and trade for more. That's Toyota Fordability, and it starts with a great deal on an off-road-ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's longest-lasting trucks, combining power for work, tech for adventures, and style in between. And they're built on a reputation for quality and reliability, which is why Toyota trucks are known for holding their value, which could mean big savings when it's time for your next Toyota. So get a great deal today and a great value tomorrow. Shop toyota.com for more. Toyota, let's go places.
53:30 Speaker 05 Sponsored by GSK, the makers of Extenture, Depamocumab ULAA. If your asthma keeps interrupting, it may be time to try something else. Extenture is an ultra-long-acting prescription-maintenance treatment for severe asthma, eosinophilic type, ages 12 and older. It isn't for sudden breathing problems. Extenture is the first and only add-on treatment that can help deliver protection from asthma attacks with two doses a year. Just one dose every six months. That's a lot of time for everything in between. Serious allergic reactions can occur. Get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. Don't change or stop medicines, including steroids, unless told by your doctor. Report if you have a parasitic infection, common cold, sinus infection, inflammation
54:15 Speaker 05 in the nose, blue or flut-like symptoms, joint pain or sore throat may occur. Carry on with fewer attacks and ask your doctor about Extenture. Learn more at extenture.com or call 1-833-393-3678.
54:31 Speaker 06 Hello?
54:32 Speaker 07 Hey, it's me, your wallet.
54:34 Speaker 06 Oh, hey.
54:35 Speaker 07 I was just wondering if we could maybe take it easy this week?
54:38 Speaker 06 Absolutely.
54:39 Speaker 07 Really?
54:40 Speaker 06 Yep, I'm shopping at Food Lion.
54:41 Speaker 07 Wait, you mean low prices?
54:43 Speaker 06 And MVP savings.
54:45 Speaker 07 Oh, you do care.
54:47 Speaker 06 Obviously.
54:48 Speaker 07 Okay, I feel better.
54:49 Speaker 06 Good, now let's go get some snacks.
54:53 Speaker 08 At Food Lion, low prices and MVP savings make it easier to shop for what you need without spending more than you have to. When your wallet needs a little TLC, head to your local Food Lion or shop at foodlion.com. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.
Previous SYSK’s Fall True Crime Playlist: The Tale of the Bloody Benders Next SYSK’s Fall True Crime Playlist: The Chowchilla Bus Kidnapping Page updated November 1, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated