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foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
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listening I'm your host Nick and here in the garage we don't tolerate nonsense of
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any kind in fact we've had five consecutive days since our last nonsense and here to crush that is the captain
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every day we have nonsense he just doesn't pay attention it's good to be seen it's good to see you thanks for
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listening thanks for telling a friend [Music] this week we are very excited to be
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featuring Mama's little yellow pills by Oscar Blues Brewing Company this is a delicious Bohemian pilsner unlike most
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Mass Market pilsners that are diluted with corn and rice mamas is built on pilsner and honey malt then double
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hopped this pills is very rich in flavor with an ABV of 4.7 percent that makes it
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luxurious but a low dose refresher garage grade three and three quarter bottle caps out of five and here's a big
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cheers to some of our cool and refreshing friends first up at cheers to Nicole and her son captain in Arkansas
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oh poor kid a big shout out to Jen B and Malibu and here's a we like your jib to
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Christine from New Fairfield Connecticut and a big cheers to Ginny and Post Falls
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Idaho next Captain we have a big cheers from our friend Amy our neighbor from down the street and last but not least
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we have Dustin and beautiful Butte Montana everyone we just mentioned well they helped us out with this week's beer
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run and for that we thank you that's right say it with me bwr-u-n beer run thanks for listening
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make sure you subscribe to the show make sure you tell a friend and that is enough of the business all right kitties
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everybody gather round grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music]
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[Music] [Music] thank you imagine it's a normal Wednesday a work day a school day a day in the
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life but you don't feel normal you have a headache a cold or a fever you do the most normal thing in the
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world you take your preferred pain reliever pills with a sip of water knowing that soon you'll feel like
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yourself again only you don't within minutes of taking the pills you experience respiratory failure
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seizure cardiac arrest and death this is what happened in the greater Chicago area in Illinois
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several people took over the counter pain medication for everyday ailments purchased at their neighborhood pharmacy
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only to die inexplicably within hours what in the world happened here How could a medication the very essence
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of something intended to make people better kill them so suddenly and efficiently it is the very rare but very
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real crime of product tampering someone some ones or maybe even a group of people were poisoning the General
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Public killing indiscriminately shopping at the grocery store was like playing Russian roulette
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but what was the motive the how was clear but the why and what for is anyone's guess
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was the motive simply just to kill was this a form of public terrorism or mass extortion or both
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and what kind of monster uses a painkiller as a vehicle for murder this is true crime garage
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and this is the case of the Tylenol murders [Music] September 29th 1982 Mary Kellerman was 12 years old the
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middle schooler lived in Elk Grove Village Illinois she wasn't feeling well that day and had stayed home from school
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she told her dad that she had a headache and a sore throat and he went to the medicine cabinet and brought her an
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extra strength Tylenol capsule he took from a bottle his wife purchased the day before at a Jewel Osco store in Elk
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Grove Village Mary dutifully swallowed the pill went into the bathroom and then she collapsed by the time paramedics
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arrived they found Mary in full cardiac arrest she was rushed to the hospital where she
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was pronounced dead around 10 A.M doctors could only guess that she had suffered an aneurysm she was her parents
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only child that same morning postal worker Adam Janus of nearby Arlington Heights Illinois age 27. went
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to his local Jewel Osco store on Vale Avenue in Arlington Heights and purchased steak flowers and a bottle of
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extra strength Tylenol capsules he had lunch with his new wife Teresa and then not feeling well took two capsules from
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the bottle he had just purchased and swallowed them down he went to bed but immediately started
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convulsing and passed out Teresa called 9-1-1 when the paramedics arrived around two o'clock they rushed
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Adam to the ER where he was pronounced dead at 3 15. Dr Thomas Kim at Northwest Community Hospital told Adams Family
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quote nothing seemed to help he suffered sudden death without warning it was most
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unusual end quote devastated Adam's family including his 25 year old brother Stanley and Stanley's wife also named
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Teresa age 19 gathered in the Janus home to be with loved ones and make funeral arrangements for their loved one
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in their distress they both developed headaches and were handed a bottle of Tylenol the same one
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that Adam's pills came from both Stanley and Teresa soon dropped to the floor and
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started convulsing Adam's wife Teresa called 9-1-1 for the second time that day Dr Kim was still on
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duty at the hospital when the second batch of Janus family members were brought in with inexplicable symptoms
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they were both in full cardiac arrest and soon died confounded at the mysterious deaths of
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several family members in one house Dr Kim decided that poison control centers should be contacted
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Dr John Sullivan of Rocky Mountain poison Center told Dr Kim that what he was describing sounded like cyanide
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poisoning meanwhile nurse Helen Jensen spoke to the remaining members of the Janus Clan and determined that the three
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dead people had all ingested extra strength Tylenol prior to dying she went to the Janice home
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where nurse Jensen found the Tylenol bottle on the kitchen counter and the receipt for its recent purchase in the
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trash Jensen counted the pills remaining in the bottle and noted that six pills were missing six pills missing three
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people inexplicably dead Janice brought the bottle to the administrators at Northwest Community
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Hospital and voiced her concerns but didn't feel that she was listened to after all Tylenol was the number one
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selling pain reliever worldwide it made people feel better it didn't kill them nurse Jensen wasn't the only one who saw
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a pattern firefighters in Elk Grove and Arlington Heights Chuck Kramer Richard keyworth and Phil capitelli noticed the
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9-1-1 calls and quickly surmised that something was up with these unexplained deaths in the neighboring towns
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guessing that they might be somehow related they reported to police that it seemed that all the victims had taken
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Tylenol right before suffering fatal symptoms but while some people were just starting to observe similarities in the
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four strange deaths in the area on September 29th more people continued to take Tylenol for various ailments well
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Tylenol had 35 percent of the market share of pain relievers in 1982. it was the number one selling brand worldwide
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on the afternoon of September 29th think about how fast all of this stuff is happening all of this these terrible
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distress calls coming in people collapsing being rushed off to the hospital this is all the same day well
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back to one thing that you said before the the doctor that was communicating you know to go hey find this bottle how
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many pills are left one of the things that they're able to do is to smell the bottle and that smell like almonds
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because cyanide has a almost a almond smell a bitter almond smell Mary Reiner 27 of Winfield known as Lynn was home
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from a hospital after having just given birth to a baby boy four days earlier now she went out to Frank's Finer Foods
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in her town about 25 miles from Arlington Heights to buy some regular strength Tylenol
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but she didn't take these from what we can tell instead she took two extra strength
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Tylenol capsules that is believed to have come from the hospital that gave these to her to take home and use as
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needed I do want to throw something out here Captain before we move on but in this particular incident there are two
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sources that I was looking for information on the death of Mary Reiner one comes from a book called Thai MERS
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which is by Scott Bartz in his version of this portion of the story it's unknown where this extra
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strength Tylenol came from that she in fact purchased regular Tylenol that day right when you look at John Douglas's
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books where he briefly discusses the case in two of his books one being mind Hunter and the other the anatomy of
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motive he says that it was found that she took two extra strength Tylenol pills that
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were from a bottle that she had purchased at some point we don't know when right but this bottle was found in
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her purse these are two very completely different stories I do not know which one is in fact correct so I wanted to
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make sure we pointed that out here well didn't they surmise that all these victims would have had to buy the the
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product within the last day because cyanide would have been able to eat through the capsules it would it would
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corrode the gelatin capsule that encapsulates the powder and yes it would corrode that so these whoever was
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constructing this and putting together The Poisoned capsules had to do it relatively soon before they were
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purchased and then ingested because it would destroy them to the point where nobody in their right mind would look at
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what was now in the bottle and and consume it so we're not exactly for sure where she got the extra strength Tylenol
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but we're sure that she took the extra strength Tylenol that's what both of these sources do in fact State she took
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these in fact Captain right in front of her husband her mother-in-law and three of her children
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now Lynn went into convulsions and collapsed almost immediately within two hours she died at the same hospital
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where she had birthed her son just days before wow Mary McFarlane 31 of Elmhurst
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worked at the Illinois Bell phone center in the Yorktown mall in Lombard 10 miles
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east of Winfield she told her co-workers that she had a headache and she took two
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extra strength Tylenol capsules from a supply she kept in a container in her purse the pills came from a 50 count
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bottle that she purchased the previous day at the Woolworths she had already consumed five of the
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pills from that same bottle but she died within minutes of taking these last two so pointing out here
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captain that in this particular case right where this woman passed away from being poisoned obviously not all of the
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pills inside that 50 count bottle were contaminated doctors assumed that she had had a stroke or some type of
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aneurysm late on September 29th flight attendant Paula Prince age 35. she was just back in Chicago after an East Coast
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shift she stopped at a Walgreens on North Wells Street in Chicago's north side of extra strength Tylenol two days
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later she was found by her sister dead on her bathroom floor with an open bottle of Tylenol sitting on the sink
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and one capsule missing from this bottle so now we have seven total victims that's correct and it was determined in
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this investigation captain that even though Paula Prince wasn't found until several days later right they were able
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to determine that she had been dead since that Wednesday night since that September 29th again all of this
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happening in just a matter of a short period of time and just three days seven people died yeah and what was difficult
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here is if you look at how much it would take how much cyanide it would take to kill
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somebody these people were receiving a hundred percent to a thousand percent of a lethal dose yeah and I think that's
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one thing that we need to keep in mind as we're going through this case so what we can already determine is that we got
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multiple bottles that have been contaminated that have been laced with poison right
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and not every capsule in every bottle seems to have been contaminated with this poison it's almost like this
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murderer is pulling out a couple pills filling it back up with a couple poisonous pills and then moving on to
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the next bottle well and even even the capsules themselves do not seem in all of these incidents to contain the same
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amount the same level of poison right now all seven of these victims were all exhibiting the same symptoms at the time
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of their passing these are seizures convulsions and quick deaths seven people who lived within just a few
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miles of each other in five different towns around the Chicago area seven people who had one thing and one
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thing only in common they had all taken Tylenol from bottles that were purchased
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very recently the coroner's office and cook in DuPage counties where all the deaths occurred
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did not think to test for cyanide poisoning or in fact any poisoning of any kind no foul play was suspected this
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was at first Tylenol was at the time the most popular pain reliever on the market with 450
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million dollars in annual sales and 37 percent of the over-the-counter pain reliever Market
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the concept that it could harm people was really truly Unthinkable at this time based on his conversations with the
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Poison Control Center we're going back to Dr Kim he was the one that was on duty when all three of
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the members from the Janus family came into the hospital suffering the same symptoms right all passing
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Dr Kim sent blood samples from the Janus family to the lab and had them tested for cyanide
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the test showed a lethal level of cyanide in these samples so much that the lab tech wasn't certain that the
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test was even accurate Dr Kim collected the extra strength Tylenol bottles taken from the Janus
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family home by nurse Jensen and the one taken from Mary Kellerman's home brought to him by an Arlington
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Heights police officer who heard about the Janus family desk right he called The Cook County medical
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examiner's office at 3 A.M and asked them to test the capsules in these bottles for Cyanide the chief
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toxicologist for the Cook County Medical examiner's Office his name is Michael Schaefer examined the capsules from the
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seized bottles of extra strength Tylenol as soon as he opened the containers he knew what he would find the smell as you
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pointed out captain of bitter almonds was evident and obvious to this man potassium cyanide has an odor like
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bitter almonds but it is only detectable by a portion of the population reports vary but it's between 30 and 40
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percent of the population can detect this smell Dr Schaefer noted that about 10 of the capsules
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were slightly swollen and discolored and contained potassium cyanide at a level toxic enough to provide thousands of
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fatal doses only Trace Amounts of Tylenol were found in these capsules and Dr Shaffer also determined something
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else and this is important the cyanide used would have been strong enough to degrade the gelatin-based
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capsule shells very quickly but these pills were only in the beginning stages of this degradation they still looked
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almost normal what this means as you pointed out earlier captain that someone had filled
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these capsules very recently likely within just a handful of days someone had opened new bottles of extra
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strength Tylenol opened individual capsules inside emptied them filled them with cyanide
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which would resemble like a white powder closed the capsules back up and replaced
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them into the bottles it then appears that the bottles were placed back on store shelves for consumers to purchase
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at this time there's no seal on these when you went to buy a pain reliever you got a bottle when you open it up I think
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they had the cotton swab at the beginning but they didn't have a seal there was no seal of of any kind and now
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we got a whole Community that's all of a sudden wondering wait a second how many deaths recently just in the
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past few days could be attributed to Tainted Tylenol as you pointed out Captain 37 percent of
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the over-the-counter pain reliever Market this Chicago is a large area a lot of people yeah one of the biggest cities in
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the United States well cyanide poisoning is poisoning that results from exposure
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to any of a number of forms of cyanide early symptoms include headaches dizziness fast heart rate shortness of
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breath and vomiting this phase may be followed by seizures slow heart rate low blood pressure loss of consciousness and
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cardiac arrest um onset of the symptoms usually occur within a few minutes some survivors have
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long-term neurological problems the Cook County Medical examiner's Office held a press conference on
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September 30th 1982 stating publicly that the Mary Kellerman and all three of the januses
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had definitely died from consuming extra strength Tylenol laced with cyanide when the press conference occurred no
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one had attributed the deaths of Lynn Reiner or Mary McFarland to Tylenol and Paula Prince's body had not yet been
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found right this is going to cause all kinds of shock fear and panic about the poison
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medication throughout the entire country the Tylenol poisonings became the most extensively covered news event since the
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assassination of John F Kennedy well just like you said I I mean the report I have is 35 percent of the market share
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but you said 37 so we're talking about the most popular pain reliever on the market
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I mean it's they're backed by Johnson and Johnson right mm-hmm people barrage poison hotlines with
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calls and flooded Hospital ERS the Food Drug Administration issued warnings to Consumers not to ingest extra
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strength Tylenol until the source of the poison could be identified close to the epicenter of the poison
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outbreak police in Illinois roamed the streets with bull horns warning residents not to consume the drug
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after a press conference by the mayor Chicagoans turned all of their home supplies of Tylenol into the police
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along with any records that they may have of when and where it was purchased by Thursday September 30th both Jewel
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Osco and chicago-based Walgreens ordered the removal of all Tylenol from their shelves Nationwide
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retailers across the country pulled extra strength Tylenol from Lot number mc2880
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the lot number the Janus and Kellerman bottles were part of which was the only Lot number in which
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cyanide had been identified the two tainted bottles had both gone through a warehouse in the Chicago
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suburb of Franklin Park and had been manufactured in Fort Washington the manufacturing facility was tested
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and was found not to be contaminated with Cyanide and they end up finding out that all the bottles were bought at
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different locations yes they were all purchased at different drug stores and and you're saying that two of the
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bottles came from the same distribution Factory that is correct distribution warehouse
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that's correct but keep in mind at this time in the ball game these are the only
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two bottles that they have decided were contaminated with cyanide right so while
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investigators and Johnson and Johnson the parent Corporation of the company that manufacture Tylenol we're still
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determining the potential scope of the tainted medicine the autopsy was being performed on Lynn Reiner in DuPage
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County the medical examiner there was informed of the Tylenol poisonings in other towns and also that Lynn had taken
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some Tylenol capsules just before dying foreign [Music] [Music] a big shout out to jib Jiggler from
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Parts on them there you go get out of our town so now very quickly we have a new
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suspected case of cyanide poisoning this with the autopsy of Lynn Reiner so naturally law enforcement went to the
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Reiner home they found a bottle of regular strength Tylenol that Leonard purchased that day this was Lot number
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one eight three three MB it's still sitting on the kitchen sink but they also found some extra strength Tylenol
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capsules which they believe were given to Lynn by the hospital when it discharged her
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in her bottle of regular strength Tylenol upon testing the capsules the assistant
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chief toxicologist for the Illinois Department of Public Health determined that they were filled with potassium
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cyanide an inexpensive low Purity grade that is typically used in manufacturing in heavy industry let it taken two extra
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strength Tylenol capsules one of which had contained cyanide the other apparently did not
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of the other six extra strength Tylenol capsules found in her bottle four were poisoned none of the regular strength
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pills in the bottle that she had purchased were tainted at all although authorities suspect that it is
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possible that Lynn's poison pills came from the hospital Johnson and Johnson removed all the pills from area
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hospitals and destroyed them without testing any of them so we will never really know it's easy to say to have
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them test them all now because how big this crime became correct and you also have to wonder how much work and effort
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are they putting into motion to just get the capsules off the shelves and and collect all of them so nobody else gets
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harmed or killed yeah it's just this is not these are not easy tasks and these are things that you need to do
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immediately with the quickness so we still have law enforcement looking into these other unexplained deaths so
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investigators looking into the Unexplained death of Mary McFarland the the Bell Telephone store worker began to
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question whether her death could also have been caused by Tylenol they found 10 extra strength Tylenol capsules in
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the container in her purse five of which were determined to contain cyanide these apparently came from the
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bottle that they found in her apartment this was Lot number 1910 MD this bottle contained 33 capsules one of
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which was filled with cyanide this was a new Lot number and then a fourth the pills consumed by Paula Prince the
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bottle bore the lot number one eight zero one m a which had not been listed by the company
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among the known contaminated Lots interestingly the extra strength Tylenol bottle in Paula's bathroom was a 24
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count bottle unlike the 50 count bottles used in the other depths right cyanide was found in one of the remaining
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capsules but six other capsules were discolored they had been corroded by the cyanide leaking from that one tainted
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pill from Johnson and Johnson the parrot company what ensued is considered the birth of Crisis management the corporate
00:29:02
method of handling a PR disaster right Johnson and Johnson announced at first a localized recall of just pills from the
00:29:11
tainted Lots but by October 5th they expanded that recall to a complete Nationwide recall of their painkiller
00:29:18
capsules at 31 million bottles that's exactly correct 31 million bottles were pulled from retail locations this is
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estimated to have cost Johnson and Johnson about 100 million dollars they offered a reward of a hundred thousand
00:29:35
for any information one hundred thousand dollars reward for information leading to the arrest of the person or persons
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responsible for the cyanide poisoning the recall I believe is what cost over a hundred million dollars you'd think
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maybe we would offer a little bit more money than a hundred if it was my company and
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we just lost 100 million I go hey I'm offering a million I'll pay I'll pay the one percent of
00:30:03
what I just lost to figure out what what [ __ ] did this what murder is out there they flew in
00:30:12
hundreds of chemists to assist in this testing process they worked hand in hand with the FBI and other investigators and
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Johnson and Johnson examined the three distribution centers through which the tainted Tylenol bottles were processed
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all of these were looked at and they publicly said that they found nothing nor was anything found at the one
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Distribution Center in Pennsylvania that all the bottles had passed through the pills have been manufactured at
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different plants so this is troubling because this means that they were not tainted during the manufacturing process
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nor knowing what we now know about Cyanide and how it would react in that capsule and corrode everything
00:31:00
I think there was there's little reason to believe that anyway yeah you're moving a little fast let's let's slow
00:31:06
down for a second so we have seven victims seven victims that we believe we're all poison three of them took
00:31:13
pills from the same bottle correct so we have a total of four different bottles and that you're saying
00:31:21
that all the bottles came from different stores but how many came from different
00:31:28
distribution centers okay so we have yes we have seven victims who would have consumed capsules from
00:31:36
see therein lies a big question in this whole case with one of the victims we're
00:31:42
not really 100 certain where she obtained the poison capsules right so we could be talking about a situation of
00:31:50
seven victims with five different tainted bottles of Tylenol or four and then somehow she received
00:31:59
these poison pills from either the hospital or elsewhere we we can't say for certain but what we can say is given
00:32:06
the lot numbers on the bottles that we know tested positive for cyanide that they it seems like they had come
00:32:14
through similar from the same Distribution Center what is also determined is that they were
00:32:20
manufactured at different plants and from my understanding there was a plant in Texas and a plant in Pennsylvania
00:32:26
probably other plants as well but determined that pills came from those two plants manufactured at those two
00:32:34
plants which again points that it's not tainting the pills during the manufacturing process right
00:32:41
whoever did this did this at a later time after they had been manufactured packaged up and shipped off to be sold
00:32:49
yeah it almost seems like this individual is walking into the store maybe had a couple pills in his hand the
00:32:56
the cyanide pills opens up the Tylenol because we have no safety precautions at this this point and
00:33:05
just replaces a couple pills moves on to the next bottle or maybe does several bottles at that location
00:33:13
or just maybe one and then moves on to another drugstore doing the same process over and over that's exactly right the
00:33:21
the other thing that was quickly determined too Captain by Johnson and Johnson and investigators was that all
00:33:28
of the pills from these bottles or the bottles themselves had been manufactured the previous
00:33:34
spring so if they were contaminated during the manufacturing process they would have
00:33:40
been extensively corroded by September late September when people were consuming these things right now
00:33:47
that is one it's going to be horrific for the general public because now it seems like
00:33:54
we got some Rogue person out there who is in a very evil indiscriminate way killing Unknown People to the Vic to the
00:34:04
suspect or a group of people that are doing this to terrorize the community but it is a good thing for Johnson and
00:34:12
Johnson because it's not a mix-up in the manufacturing process it's not they are in fact
00:34:20
responsible but not to the level of that it's going on when the pills are made right and so if we do have a disgruntled
00:34:28
employee that they're still having to go around store by store they're not tampering with the medication during the
00:34:37
the initial processes correct someone's doing this after these these pills have already made it through the
00:34:47
distribution centers so either somebody's taking them off of a truck somewhere or off of multiple trucks that
00:34:53
would deliver these kind of goods or their I mean they could even be actually purchasing them from stores
00:35:01
taking them home and then putting together their poisoned bottle and then returning them to the store right did
00:35:10
you just show up at the store and you put it back on the Shelf yeah pull it out of your pocket put it at the front
00:35:15
of the Shelf where someone's going to grab it and and purchase it and take it home it's also a safer way because if I
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go into a drugstore and I purchase this product I need some extra strength Tylenol I got a headache my co-workers
00:35:28
driving me nuts and they give me this bottle of pills while they also give me a receipt
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so then when I come back in with the tampered pills and I maybe I go to put it back on
00:35:42
the shelves but I get caught right and if they say something I go oh no no this is my bottle here's my receipt
00:35:50
and so it would it would protect me when I went back to putting the the tampered with or the
00:35:58
poison back on the Shelf yeah yeah you wouldn't want to be leaving a paper trail of returning that that bottle you
00:36:08
would want to go around and purchase these from different stores at different times maybe even well in advance of you
00:36:17
doing this or again take them off of a truck or multiple trucks depending on where you
00:36:25
work or your accessibility to said trucks well it's 19. and you you want to just go back in there and place them on
00:36:32
the Shelf yeah which nowadays would go hey pull up the the horrible camera footage pull up that horrible camera
00:36:40
footage that we're not going to be able to make out who's in that picture but it's 1982
00:36:46
most stores do not have surveillance so I believe every place that they believe that these were purchased at
00:36:53
there was no surveillance cameras so they couldn't do anything about that but what they did do was all these stores
00:37:00
went back and I I'm I'm assuming this this came from law enforcement hey go back to the last week or so of any
00:37:09
shoplifters that you had and to re-question them the reaction from law enforcement to these Tylenol deaths
00:37:18
which came quickly to be known as the Tylenol murders or timers as the FBI called the case was well it
00:37:27
was Swift and immediate investigators from various agencies went to work forming a task force of 140 law
00:37:35
enforcement personnel officers from the five different towns were involved and because the case also
00:37:41
fell under Federal jurisdiction because of the United States Commerce laws the FBI jumped in as well sending 32 agents
00:37:51
to the area within hours of the murders coming to light a young within hours of the murders coming to light a young John
00:37:59
Douglas who would go on to be known as a legendary criminal profiler and FBI agent and more importantly friend of our
00:38:07
show was on a plane to Illinois we'll discuss his conclusions in a bit the task force looked into every angle
00:38:17
imaginable in this situation task force members examined a possible manipulation
00:38:23
of Johnson and Johnson's stock prices by some kind of crime syndicate right because you're looking for a competing
00:38:31
company yeah who who has something to gain out of this out of this Mass hysteria that has
00:38:37
been caused yeah they examine foreign terrorist groups they examined angry employees or
00:38:45
ex-employees at each location where the tainted Tylenol was manufactured stored or sold these people were interviewed
00:38:53
and evaluated shoplifters as you pointed out previously arrested for shoplifting from these drug stores they
00:39:02
were looked at a second time and spoke to in regards to this crime recently released inmates and mental
00:39:11
patients in the vicinity were profiled and interrogated as well police ran checks on every car receiving a traffic
00:39:19
ticket in the areas around the stores during September 29th during that whole time frame agents man the task force
00:39:27
hotline logging each tip no matter how crazy it seemed when it came in they also questioned every family member and
00:39:35
close friend of each victim I'd like to hear a top 10 list of the the craziest calls that came in on this on this case
00:39:43
yeah so you're interviewing all of the family members and close friends one because you're trying to fill out the
00:39:50
whole timeline on you know when and where it was purchased and in that jazz which seems to be fairly known by this
00:39:57
point in our investigation right but you're also doing that because you want to make sure that one of these victims
00:40:03
wasn't actually a targeted victim an intended victim whoever perpetrated that murder
00:40:10
was camouflaging that murder with the crime in the other deaths right investigators on the case were
00:40:17
conflicted between those who suspected that the tampering had occurred in the distribution process and those who
00:40:24
believed that it happened at the retail level authorities obtained lists of all employees of retailers and
00:40:34
the distribution chain as well you know anybody that would have had access to these Tylenol bottles or the cases that
00:40:43
they came in of course this list was massive this was a bunch of people to pour through
00:40:50
Illinois Attorney General Tyron Farner excuse you initially said that they were investigating disgruntled employees and
00:40:57
had already had 20 to 30 potential suspects in this case but the focus changed to retail level
00:41:05
tampering because it just seemed too implausible that the pills could have been messed with at a distribution
00:41:12
center and then put back into the supply chain right in large part Captain as you
00:41:17
pointed out that they're put on the front of shelves in different but proximate towns all kind of at the same
00:41:26
time so the timing was suspected to be very recent and almost simultaneous because
00:41:32
of the belief that the cyanide would corrode the capsules very quickly causing them to distort and change color
00:41:38
people would notice people would not ingest them experts advise that the cyanide would
00:41:44
eat through the pills within hours or days this is a little tricky here Captain because
00:41:50
I read the results of several tests and this was run by the Cook County Medical examiner's Office no corrosion
00:41:59
was found within 48 Hours of the induction of the cyanide the possibility expanded the time frame meant that no
00:42:06
one was really sure when or how the tainted pills had been placed on the shelves although
00:42:13
they had all been purchased within hours of causing death so basically what you're saying is is we know that all
00:42:21
these victims purchased or received their bottle of extra strength Tylenol within 24 hours of their death so even
00:42:31
though the cops were saying hey if you you add cyanide to these capsules they would disintegrate within a day
00:42:40
once they actually did some tests on these Cooks County they come back and say well actually once we uh you know
00:42:48
applied the same method to put the poison into these capsules we actually see no corrosion after 48 hours no
00:42:56
corrosion within 48 hours so yes it's it's a little bit messy because you have the experts the quote-unquote experts
00:43:04
saying one thing that the cyanide would eat through the pills within a matter of
00:43:09
just hours or a couple of days the Cook County their experiment showed differently that that it would be
00:43:17
possibly well after 48 hours before corrosion corrosion starts to take place so this doesn't really help to narrow
00:43:24
down the window of time of when whomever put the poison in these bottles and then put them back on the shelves
00:43:31
yeah basically the the purchase and the ingestion we have that all figured out we don't have when they were actually
00:43:39
tampered with because now we're looking at a a lot larger window than a eight hour window yeah and the thing that's so
00:43:48
tricky here too is how little would one be paying attention to other shoppers in these stores you know you see
00:43:57
somebody putting something on a shelf you might think that oh they just looked at the back of it they read the
00:44:02
ingredients or read the possible side effects or whatever and decided to put it back on the shelf or maybe it was a
00:44:10
dollar or two more than they were willing to pay and they they might buy a different product yeah or they didn't
00:44:15
what explosive diarrhea but what was interesting here Captain is that all in all
00:44:20
it was determined that 160 tainted capsules were found in eight bottles of extra strength Tylenol purchased at
00:44:30
seven different locations this is after people start turning in their Tylenol after they pull them off the shelves
00:44:36
they're testing ones that that were either purchased and not you know consumed or bottles that were still on
00:44:44
these shelves two bottles were found on the shelves at Osco Drug and Woodfield Mall in
00:44:51
Schaumburg Illinois two more bottles containing tainted pills were turned in by Chicago
00:44:58
residents these four bottles were in addition to the Janice Kellerman Prince and McFarland bottles so eight bottles
00:45:07
total we still aren't certain as to where Lynn Reiner's pills came from 100 and of
00:45:13
course we have no idea how many bottles were just thrown away without being tested
00:45:19
a survey later found that 60 percent of Chicagoans had destroyed or discarded their capsules during the first week
00:45:26
after the poisonings and Johnson and Johnson was permitted to collect and Destroy collected bottles of
00:45:33
Tylenol without inspecting them for tampering all in all a very very small percentage of extra strength Tylenol
00:45:41
bottles Nationwide were tested the fact is that likely no one will ever know how
00:45:47
many pills were actually poisoned well and here's the other weird thing too again it's 1982 so let's remember this
00:45:55
is going to cause the industry to change the way they do things this is the reason why we're going to have seals put
00:46:03
on items and protective measures but we don't have security footage but we have these bottles
00:46:11
and what do they not find on these bottles they don't find fingerprints or any other form of physical evidence yeah
00:46:18
so let's dive into this uh here Captain the how the poisoning was actually done so if it was done at the retail level as
00:46:29
most investigators seem to believe and of course Johnson and Johnson is going to back this belief
00:46:36
it meant as we said the killer had purchased bottles of extra strength Tylenol stole them whatever probably just
00:46:44
purchased them because again you're not wanting to create a paper trail you're not going to want to get caught stealing
00:46:49
Tylenol leading up to this event if it were me trying to do this administer this Mass hysteria I would probably be
00:46:58
purchasing these bottles well in advance weeks in advance in case there is security footage we know that a lot of
00:47:05
places will recycle their recordings and maybe after a week or two weeks they are recording over old footage if they
00:47:14
in fact even have any type of surveillance at their their building but somebody would have obtained the
00:47:21
bottles and then had to doctor them somewhere elsewhere right and then put the capsules back into the bottles and
00:47:29
then drive around or what have you you can place these on these shelf fronts at the different retail locations but again
00:47:38
this this seven different locations this makes it also more difficult because if
00:47:42
you look at a town like Boston or you look at a town like New York and even Chicago ones that have public
00:47:51
transportation where you can get through the major city and jump from point to point pretty quickly
00:47:59
right if you're on foot so for a individual to have these let's say eight bottles that they tampered
00:48:08
with and then to go throughout the city and drop them off at new locations because
00:48:14
that's one thing that they never could tell you they could never tell you if if these bottles were in the inventory of
00:48:21
that said store so we don't know if the individual bot eight ten bottles and then took them you
00:48:29
know from one location and took them home and then tampered with them and then distributed them out right that's
00:48:36
correct what we do know is that these retail locations seven of them this person or group of people would have
00:48:44
sprinkled these bottles around the Chicago area and the western suburbs of Chicago
00:48:51
and whoever did this likely had to have done this very soon prior to September 29th right as pointed out if you know
00:49:00
you just put them back on the Shelf you put them at the front of the line you whoever did this would have some
00:49:08
knowledge of cyanide and would know that it probably would corrode these other pills and therefore
00:49:14
if they want the Sinai to have the effect that it's intended for in this case you're going to put those bottles right
00:49:23
at the front of the line for people to grab them purchase them and hopefully ingest them very soon after purchasing
00:49:30
which we know unfortunately happen in all these cases well again it's also it's a weird thing because I have when
00:49:41
I've been at the store oh I need some migraine medicine or something right I'll pick some up I think I'm running
00:49:48
low but it's normally an item that you pick up after you've already run out correct or you're picking it up because
00:49:56
you need it right now right then yeah so I mean it's a very the level of sophistication
00:50:06
of uh attack again we we know pretty much how they did it or we can assume look I'm with you it makes more sense
00:50:16
that they would buy the bottles take the bottles home manipulate the situation there
00:50:23
um and then take them back it doesn't make any sense to me that they would be able to to do this with with inside of a
00:50:31
store no no you immediately someone would be would notice that you were up to something well obviously not like
00:50:40
inside the store but you could get the bottle and go to the bathroom or something and I don't think it would
00:50:45
take that long of time because the the measuring out that's what gets me is the lethal doses could be anywhere from like
00:50:54
they said a hundred percent uh or a hundred percent the lethal dose or even a thousand percent a lethal dose meaning
00:51:04
that this individual is not measuring them out he's just filling the capsules back up but that's also because I don't
00:51:12
think it takes much you don't have to have much to have a lethal dose one thing that we know that he did not do as
00:51:18
far as the information we currently have is he never underestimated how much to put in to the capsules so whether it be
00:51:27
100 or a thousand percent it worked 100 of the time right that it it was ingested well it's like Sex Panther like
00:51:36
60 percent of the time it works all the time so through this a little more in depth
00:51:43
because not everybody uh is as old as we are here in the garage but in 1982 the bottles available for
00:51:51
purchase by the public as you pointed out Captain were not safety sealed nowadays if you buy a bottle of Tylenol
00:51:58
or other medication the bottle Tylenol specifically has a silver foil safety seal and closing it in the Box
00:52:09
is glued shut back then you just untucked the Box lid and then screwed off the cap of the
00:52:16
bottle this timer's case is the FBI called it changed the packaging process in the
00:52:23
United States forever forever when extra strength Tylenol was returned to the market in late 1982 it
00:52:32
was reintroduced with a triple seal tamper resistant packaging a bottle encased in plastic wrapping inside of a
00:52:41
glued shut box and the federal anti-tampering act of 1983 changed the way that Food and Drugs were to be
00:52:50
packaged Nationwide it made consumer product tampering a federal crime well and these deaths also like we've talked
00:52:58
about before they're violent deaths yeah so how does the Sinai kill a person potassium cyanide acts very quickly to
00:53:07
prevent the blood from absorbing oxygen from the lungs which essentially starves
00:53:13
the body of oxygen this causes convulsions cardiac arrest and then death both potassium and sodium cyanide
00:53:23
are used in jewelry manufacturing and in mining amongst other things and this was
00:53:28
incredibly surprising to me Captain apparently they're both readily available [Music]
00:53:49
for more a true crime garage for your ear balls check out our bonus show called off the Record it's on Stitcher
00:53:57
premium you can find that by going to truecrime garage.com and clicking on the off the Record link that's right and we
00:54:05
released a new off the Record episode this week make sure you check that out join us back here tomorrow for the rest
00:54:12
of the story until then be good be kind and don't let her thank you foreign