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free [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
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[Music] brand today we are still sipping on a delicious beer from the good folks over
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yeah b e r u n beer run for more True Crime garage for your earballs check out our bonus show called off the Record and
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SiriusXM Stitcher app everywhere you listen to podcast and that is enough of the freaking business all right
00:03:45
everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music]
00:04:12
[Music] [Music] shortly after the Tylenol murders Chicago columnist Bob Green wrote The Following article which
00:04:39
appeared in multiple newspapers in and around the area as well as across the country the article was titled message
00:04:48
to the Tylenol killer if you are the Tylenol killer some of this may matter to you or it may
00:04:55
make no difference at all if you are the Tylenol killer you're whole murderous exercise may have seemed beautiful in
00:05:03
the flawlessness of its execution you doctored the capsules and the people died and you put fear in the
00:05:11
hearts all over the nation if you are the killer the success of your mission may be sustaining you if you are the
00:05:19
Tylenol killer though you may be harboring just the vaguest Curiosity about the people on the other end of
00:05:27
your plan the people who were unfortunate enough to purchase the bottles you had
00:05:33
touched if you are curious come to a small house on a quiet winding street in Elk Gro Village
00:05:40
Illinois the people who live there Dennis and Gina Kellerman feel you have already been inside
00:05:48
anyway maybe the names don't mean anything to you you killed their daughter she was 12 her name was Mary
00:05:58
Kellerman and her crime was that she had a cold you might be interested in hearing
00:06:05
what you have done to her parents they are still numb alone in the house Gina Kellerman blames herself you
00:06:15
see she came home from work on the day before her daughter died and on the way she stopped to pick up some
00:06:23
medicine Mary Kellerman was a child who didn't like to take medication she would
00:06:29
go yuck when her mother offered her cough syrup so on that afternoon Mrs Kellerman purchased a new bottle of
00:06:37
cough syrup with a flavor that Mary might like a little better and she picked up a bottle of Tylenol At first
00:06:44
she was going to buy a small bottle then because she suffers from arthritis and she thought that she might need a pill
00:06:51
soon she changed her mind and bought the next bigger size she bought your bottle
00:06:58
you ought to see her now crying her eyes vacant as she sits in the family room and talks about what her life might be
00:07:06
like only if she had stuck with the first bottle that afternoon you might be interested in Mary's father too he woke
00:07:15
up the next morning and went into Mary's room she told him that her throat was sore he said he wanted her to stay home
00:07:22
from school for the day he remembers exactly quote I heard her going went to the bathroom I heard the door close then
00:07:32
I heard something drop I went to the bathroom door I called Mary are you okay there was no
00:07:39
answer I called again Mary are you okay there was still no answer so I opened the bathroom door and my little girl was
00:07:50
on the floor unconscious she was still in her pajamas you might be interested in knowing that Mary's mother and father
00:07:59
when they returned from the hospital returned without Mary who as you know was dead they looked in the
00:08:07
refrigerator in the refrigerator was a brown paper sack with a sandwich and a piece of pie inside Mary had packed her
00:08:15
lunch the night before she thought she would be going to school so she made herself the sandwich she could not have
00:08:22
known about you on the front of that refrigerator are a number of funny furry little
00:08:30
animals with magnets fastened to their backs they are used to attach notes to the refrigerator door maybe you would
00:08:39
care Mary made those for her mother they were gifts if you are wondering whether
00:08:45
Mary's parents talk about you you don't have to wonder anymore they do you have never been in their house and yet they
00:08:54
cannot walk into a room without feeling you are there you don't know them but you have changed their lives forever
00:09:03
they feel as if they can't get away from you although they realize that they make
00:09:10
no difference to you they find themselves caught in an awful game of making tradeoffs in their
00:09:17
mind if you had only wanted to steal their car they think if you only had wanted to burn
00:09:24
down their house anything they would have said yes to anything anything but this do you
00:09:33
want to know what they are thinking about you quote I would pay anything if whoever did this would walk up to my
00:09:41
front door right now that's what Mary's father said I would give everything I own because once he walks through that
00:09:50
door he's mine as it is you should know Mary's parents are too shattered even to
00:09:58
visit the cemetery Mary is buried at St Michael the Archangel in nearby Palatine
00:10:05
Illinois and they wish they could go to her grave but they can't the hurt is too
00:10:11
deep and you are keeping them even from that if you are the Tylenol killer you should know one more
00:10:20
thing Mary's mother can't have any more children Mary was her only baby you might be interested Ed in knowing that
00:10:30
Mary was born one month premature and that as she entered the world her mother was scared because she
00:10:38
was not crying but the doctor smiled and said it's okay she's only sleeping and she was she was a quiet child and
00:10:48
because the Kellerman's knew she would be their only child she was especially precious to them you should know that
00:10:56
Mary's mother has not gone into Mary's B bedroom since her daughter died her clothes are still there and her school
00:11:03
books and papers the door is closed Mary's mother and father have to walk past it every time they go
00:11:13
upstairs Mary's father has gone inside but just once he went in to pick out the clothes
00:11:20
for Mary to wear at her funeral if you are the Tylenol killer you might want to know that Mary's parents always consider
00:11:28
themselves to be overly protective Mary always had to be home by dark even when she was out with friends
00:11:37
she had to call home frequently just to say she was all right the reason Mary's parents were like that was that they
00:11:44
knew something that a 12-year-old girl could not know they knew that the world at times can be a cruel place and that
00:11:52
parents have a duty to protect their child from dangers the child might not even know are there
00:11:59
they thought they knew about every danger that could possibly touch Mary but they did not know about
00:12:09
[Music] you in one of his books FBI agent John Douglas discusses the painstaking
00:12:24
investigation that occurred in the weeks following the murders task force members
00:12:29
interviewed employees from each affected store they went door too with police sketches of persons seen near the stores
00:12:38
they tried to lift fingerprints from the contaminated bottles that were found still on the store shelves only a single
00:12:45
smudge was lifted from one of the bottles they scrutinized security camera video such as it was in 1982 police were
00:12:55
able to uncover one photo that bore scrutiny an ATM machine automated camera had taken a still shot of a store
00:13:05
checkout counter line at exactly the moment that Paula Prince was paying for her Tylenol this grainy photo was
00:13:13
eventually publicly released by the Chicago Police Department in the photo several people are visible standing in
00:13:20
line including one bearded tall man standing maybe 10 ft behind Paula and staring directly at her police have said
00:13:30
that they believe that this man might be the poisoner it's very possible but like
00:13:35
we said in the last episode the time frame of when this individual could have tampered with the Tylenol pills and
00:13:44
returned them to the stores is days I'm not exactly sure Captain what makes police say that this you know that
00:13:53
crafted their statement to be that we believe this guy could be the poisoner seen in this ATM M camera security
00:13:59
camera footage that's clear they're their bias against people with beards probably um but yet they didn't pick out
00:14:06
the two-lane guy with his beard so we have one two three four five six people in the photo that I can see one of them
00:14:16
is or would be victim and again potentially the man in the very back of this photo he could in fact be the
00:14:25
poisoner then in another possibly helpful piece of evidence we have one witness who comes forward who may have
00:14:34
some significant information this was an elderly woman who told police that she saw a man in a drugstore take something
00:14:42
out of his jacket pocket and place it on the drugstore shelf she at the time assumed that he was possibly a
00:14:51
shoplifter who had returned an item and second guessed himself right if she was correct in her recall it meant that the
00:15:01
theories about the murderer operating at the retail level were spoton well and also there's been plenty of times I've
00:15:08
been shopping and I throw something in my pocket not thinking about it oh crap I don't need to have that in my pocket
00:15:15
so it could it could be something as simple as that but like you said and I think we both agree on it's more likely
00:15:23
this individual took the pills somewhere else tampered with them and then brought
00:15:27
them back as we mention John Douglas was brought in to create a profile of the poisoner he believed that the killer was
00:15:35
one single man acting alone poisoning tylenol at the retail level he described the Tylenol murders as a form of
00:15:44
terrorism and the crime one of psychological distance committed by a cowardly non-confrontational person he
00:15:52
concluded that the murder had not targeted a specific person or store intending instead to generally terrorize
00:16:00
and cause panic in Mayhem the killer he believed was a man driven by rage in Anger someone with a history of personal
00:16:10
failures this would be someone who had many instances in their life where he believed he'd suffered injustices and
00:16:18
unfair treatment he may have a military background would have trouble keeping a job and likely had a psychiatric
00:16:27
record he would have had periods of depression and hopelessness and he was probably set off by some stressful event
00:16:34
immediately prior to the late September murders of course without a crime scene or targeted victim it would prove very
00:16:42
difficult to apprehend the killer Douglas says in his book quote we don't know if the subject was getting back at
00:16:50
the manufacturer the stores that distributed the drugs the victims themselves or Society in general the
00:16:57
killer could have no connection to Tylenol all selecting it simply because it was so popular and cyanide of the
00:17:05
type used was readily available and cheap John Douglas wasn't the only one to suspect that the killer was an
00:17:12
outlier Time Magazine said that psychologists called the killer so strange that their normal guidelines
00:17:19
just don't work and a Chicago area investigators stated publicly that they were looking for a Madman well they in
00:17:28
ation is going to be very difficult too because during the whole time they're trying to find whoever did this you have
00:17:34
to be worried that that same individual is going to do this to another product and at the same time this is happening
00:17:42
just within the next 30 days of the initial investigation they had over 270 copycats yeah and we'll dive into that
00:17:51
in a minute but I wanted to point out here captain that in the traditional John Douglas style of investigating and
00:17:59
potentially apprehending a suspect he is going to push these agencies to put forward some
00:18:08
precautionary methods for drawing the killer out to challenge the killer to come forward in some form or fashion to
00:18:17
present himself to law enforcement and he had several different tactics which he suggested that they use
00:18:25
at the time of the Tylenol murders one being that the local stores had beefed up security and nobody could tamper with
00:18:33
any of the products that they were selling there almost challenging the killer to either want to look and view
00:18:42
the space for themselves or to test them to see if they would tamper with a product and try to put it on one of the
00:18:49
shelves there they he also had several different methods and tactics but one that was very interesting is the article
00:18:57
that we read at the top of today's story if you read between the lines there are
00:19:04
some very interesting pieces of information that were included in that article now yeah come come visit our
00:19:11
house correct they do not give the address of the Kellerman's but they give a very good description of where one
00:19:17
might find the Kellerman's home M second they give a very good description of where little Mary Kellerman's body was
00:19:26
buried what cemetery she was bu married in Douglas and the FBI decided what they
00:19:32
were going to do was to pair up team up with a local columnist and Douglas wanted a columnist because he wanted
00:19:39
someone that the community was already familiar with that the community already trusted and had some type of
00:19:46
relationship with now he said he did not want to tell this person the journalist
00:19:54
columnist how to write the article so he simply sat down with Bob Green who Bob Green came forward and said I would love
00:20:02
to write the article he says we just simply told them what our strategy would be and let him as the writer construct
00:20:11
his own column when John Douglas comes into town all law enforcement should cheer because you're going to get hours
00:20:20
and hours of overtime Duty sitting in front of somebody's house waiting for somebody to come back
00:20:29
or at a grave site I can't remember what the actual number was but I think they had surveillance on her grave site for
00:20:37
like 24/7 for weeks yeah I don't know if it was in fact weeks I I don't have the
00:20:44
exact timeline but I do know that when the article came out they were already prepped to do 24-hour surveillance on
00:20:51
both Mary Kellerman's home and the gravite yeah ch- Ching here here here's my issue though too with this crime is
00:21:02
this does not have to be a local individual we have this time frame where somebody could have came into the city
00:21:08
took the items went went to a hotel went down the street tampered with him return
00:21:15
all the items and then head out of town yes that's correct that is certainly a possibility here in this case and the
00:21:22
reason why I bring that up is don't you think that law enforcement and John Doug
00:21:28
were kind of assuming that this individual is more local well I mean we have it in the profile that we just gave
00:21:36
where he he says that he believes that the tampering took place at the retail level and so what that means is no one
00:21:45
can say for certain if this if the perpetrator is in fact local or not if they had a way of determining that we
00:21:52
probably would have a solved case we wouldn't be sitting here 30 years later right but what you're saying is that the
00:21:58
retail stores they're technically local level so the person would have had to get the those items we know they were
00:22:06
local at one point right in the commission of these crimes it's just like what we spoke about when we talked
00:22:12
about the the Zodiac Killer we don't know who he is there's been all these suspects over the years but one thing we
00:22:19
can say for certain is that those three letters were all mailed on the same day from San Francisco so we don't know
00:22:28
where he lives where he works who he is but we know on that day on that one particular day the Zodiac Killer had to
00:22:36
be in the city of San Francisco same situation here Captain as you're pointing out if you're targeting this in
00:22:44
commissioning these crimes at the retail level that means at some point you were
00:22:49
local you had to physically be there to place these items on the Shelf so therefore you go all right if the
00:22:57
perpetrator was local on that day whatever the time frame is he may still be here or he may be local permanent so
00:23:06
we're going to run these uh these tactics and try to draw him out now there's an interesting story that comes
00:23:14
from this is that after a couple of nights they you know they're surveilling Mary Kellerman's home and her gravesite
00:23:22
hoping that the killer may want to catch a glimpse of the home or visit the grave
00:23:27
site May may even show some type of remorse and go to the grave site yeah I I don't know if you reported on this yet
00:23:34
but uh they also publicize all the victims funerals as a as a way to say hey maybe he'll show up to one of the
00:23:41
funerals yeah Douglas also suggested I mean like I said there were there were probably six or seven different methods
00:23:47
that he suggested that they they do at the time one would be to have Candlelight vigils and to take down the
00:23:54
names and license plates of the people attending right he also suggested you know as you said publicly announcing the
00:24:01
the funerals which is which is very typical of any type of crime it's you know often the funerals are publicly
00:24:10
announced anyway regardless of how someone dies M um so it's not it's not out of bounds by any means at all but
00:24:20
one thing that he suggested was putting like special markers decorative markers on the graves themselves
00:24:28
and maybe this guy might want to go and take one as some type of souvenir right or tamper with them on some level so
00:24:36
something physical that you might be able to catch this person with in their possession at some point in time and and
00:24:43
I keep saying he I I think you're saying he as well I I think we we believe but also law enforcement believes that this
00:24:50
was done by a male yes um that seems to be the general consensus and certainly seems to be John Douglas's thoughts I
00:25:01
know that typically females are poisoners but typically females kill people that they know it's right it's
00:25:10
very rare it's much more rare that a female would kill strangers compared to a male killing strangers so one story
00:25:19
that comes out of this this tactic of surveiling the home and the grave site is that after a few nights of this the
00:25:27
stake in the Boneyard at the the cemetery a guy approaches the grave site in the middle of the
00:25:35
night so police move in because they want to hear what this guy's going to say and does he smell like bitter
00:25:41
almonds he says something to the effect of you know he's apologizing saying um I didn't mean to
00:25:49
do this uh the man's crying and apologizing and said that it was an accident I never meant to kill you the
00:26:01
problem then becomes that police hear the man say Susan I never meant to kill you Susan right we're not sure who Susan
00:26:09
is but it's quickly determined that oh she's somewhere in that graveyard Susan's grave was right next to Mary
00:26:17
Kellerman's grave the man was going to her grave to Susan's grave to apologize to her because Susan was killed in a hit
00:26:27
and run oh situation this was the man that was responsible for killing Susan so hold on
00:26:33
did got him yeah got him so What Becomes of this is they never got Mary Kellerman's killer but they did get this
00:26:42
man who was involved in this hit-and run accident with this Susan victim and not
00:26:48
only did they get this guy off the streets and solve that crime but it also in a way proves Douglas's theory that
00:26:57
this is actually a thing yeah that it actually happens and it's a way that they can be more proactive rather than
00:27:04
just sitting on their hands waiting for the killer to either strike again or or show himself in some manner yeah but if
00:27:13
if you're a fan of Mind Hunter and you believe somewhat the storytelling in mind Hunter then John Douglas was the
00:27:21
guy that people would talk [ __ ] to and so at some point somebody's going we're
00:27:26
paying all these stops all these extra money and nothing's turned up and this is John Douglas's way of saying how well
00:27:33
one my theory is correct but two we got a bad guy off the street because we had law enforcement there at the grave sites
00:27:42
in early 1983 the Cook County Medical Examiner announced that they had reexamined 17 unexplained deaths that
00:27:50
occurred around the time of the Tylenol murders and that three of them appear to
00:27:55
have resulted from Cyanide and all three cases lethal doses of cyanide as well as
00:28:00
acetaminophen were found in their blood but it was too late to discern whether these people were definitive victims of
00:28:08
the Tylenol murder any extra strength Tylenol in their homes had long since [Music]
00:28:20
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shopify.com slmp podcast free [Music] [Music] all right we're back cheers mates cheers
00:30:19
crazy to think the Chicago Tylenol murders 1982 September 29th tyl all goes from 37% of the market
00:30:29
share to 8% after the murders surprising they got 8% yeah sadly the tampering inspired hundreds of CopyCat incidents
00:30:40
across the US the FDA recorded more than 270 different incidents of product tampering in the months following the
00:30:49
Tylenol deaths some of this was for the most part no no no that's 270 Within the
00:30:57
first month well we have we might have different information here the large part of this 270 number regardless of if
00:31:05
it was in a 30-day time period 45 days or 90 days is most of these are pretty small time acts these are not people
00:31:14
trying to kill people or kill people on a mass level a lot of this is people trying to collect some kind of money
00:31:21
from manufacturers or from stores for items that they can take something as simple as maybe spaghetti sauce and put
00:31:30
some you know a dead bug in it or uh they had found dead rats in some food products they also found things like
00:31:39
pills tainted with everything from rat poison to hydrochloric acid that actually did in fact get some people
00:31:46
sick around the country and as said some copycats branched into food tampering that Halloween parents reported finding
00:31:55
sharp pins conceal in candy corn and candy bars in some communities ban trick-or treat all together I mean this
00:32:04
would be a very scary time because once look the the initial thing you go okay there's a Madman out there but like you
00:32:12
said two 70 within the next couple months now you're going there's multiple mad people and they're not just trying
00:32:18
to poison Tylenol capsules they're trying to tamper with other food products and and medical products there
00:32:27
is one portion of this case that is absolutely terrifying the quote Tylenol murders expanded out of the state of
00:32:34
Illinois to take on a new shape in the state of Washington around the greater Seattle area and this case starts on
00:32:43
Wednesday June 11 1986 when 40-year-old Susan Snow got up early you know just like she would any other workday both
00:32:54
Susan and her husband Paul Web King aged 45 were going to go about their normal workday routines Susan was the assistant
00:33:04
vice president of pett sound National Bank typically Paul would leave for work before Susan and that would be the same
00:33:13
on this day as well so Paul heads off to work Susan is going to finish up getting
00:33:18
ready and then leaves leave the house as well however Susan's daughter Haley would soon find Susan unconscious on the
00:33:27
bathroom floor Haley called 911 and the paramedics were sent to the house when the paramedics arrived on the scene they
00:33:36
found Susan still lying unconscious on the floor but she was still alive she was quickly transported to a Seattle
00:33:44
hospital now unfortunately Susan was brain dead and eventually she was taken off of life support and passed on during
00:33:52
her autopsy the medical examiner detected that tell tail bitter almond smell associated with Sinai poisoning
00:34:01
and sure enough after further investigation The Examiner determined Susan had died of cide poisoning now
00:34:08
that morning Susan and her husband Paul both took two extra strength Excedrin pills this is your basic
00:34:15
over-the-counter headache SL pain reliever in fact this is one of the major competitors for Tylenol at the
00:34:22
time and Susan and Paul for whatever reason preferred this brand it was quickly determined that Susan
00:34:29
took two pills full of cide and the two extra strength Etc en capsules that Paul took on that same day
00:34:39
had no cide in them at all Susan was dead about six or so hours later Paul was lucky enough that the pills he took
00:34:48
were not tampered with Susan of course not so lucky now after a public campaign two more tainted bottles were found on
00:34:57
stor shelves this is the whole Tylenol murder Chicago experience 2.0 taking place now in Seattle I wonder
00:35:07
if that's why they're Sleepless then on June 17th 42-year-old Stella nickel called Seattle PD to report that her
00:35:17
husband Bruce who had died suddenly two weeks before on June 5th 1986 that she believed that he had taken
00:35:27
exedran two extra strength Excedrin tablets shortly before he died now at the time the King County Medical
00:35:35
Examiner listed Bruce's cause of death as pulmonary empyema now armed with this new
00:35:41
information it's starting to look like his death wasn't natural but it was a murder the bottle that Bruce took his
00:35:49
pills from was from the same Lot number as the pills ingested by Susan Snow mhm by now of course Bruce has been buried
00:35:58
for some time but the hospital still had some of Bruce's blood because he was an
00:36:03
organ donor and sure enough there was cyanide in the sample it looked like Bruce was another unlucky victim of
00:36:12
product tampering and this time it's not going on in Chicago but 2,000 Mi away and four years later in the greater
00:36:19
Seattle area now the super strange thing here is the authorities were able to figure out that there were a toal of
00:36:27
five bottles that contain cide somehow of these five bottles two of them managed to end up at Bruce and Stella
00:36:36
Nichols household what a quinky dink so of the five adulterated bottles of extra
00:36:41
strength Etc authorities found in Seattle two came from the Stella's from Stella's home and we think there was
00:36:49
eight now look Johnson Johnson didn't test all of them but we believe there was eight bottles of the Tylenol so five
00:36:57
here that they know of but possibly another few that they didn't catch so the lab test on her two bottles showed
00:37:06
traces of fish tank algae cleaner in the doctor pills the traces match the fish tank cleaner in Stella's home Stella had
00:37:15
poisoned her husband and planted additional tainted bottles around town killing Susan snow in the process so she
00:37:24
could hide her crime and collect insurance to open up a fish store of her own remember that was one of the
00:37:34
suspected possible theories in the Chicago case right is that somebody would want to kill someone they knew
00:37:40
directly but cause other deaths to camouflage the murder well this is definitely a high level high
00:37:48
sophistication level of crime it could be looked at as such but I think in the Chicago case and again here in the
00:37:55
Stella nickel case it might seem that way on the surface but it's actually not very difficult to
00:38:01
do at all uh especially in the Chicago case when there was no real tampering proof seals on those actual bottles if
00:38:10
the cide is readily available and someone just needs a general knowledge of cyanide then all they need to do is
00:38:17
take the bottle open pull the capsule apart with their fingers and refill it with Sinai the problem for the
00:38:24
perpetrator of this crime and this is something that will see often with bomb makers as well is that with poisoning
00:38:32
and with bomb making there's the same risk involved for the perpetrator that you end up
00:38:37
harming or killing yourself in the process of creating these devices to kill others cide is not only lethal as
00:38:46
ingested but can also be lethal um to the touch and I don't want to go too far into that because I don't have a
00:38:52
complete understanding of it and I don't want to try to pretend that I do but but
00:38:56
from the information provided to me it seems like it's risky Behavior to even be handling right this type of um poison
00:39:06
we'll get used to it cuz I just ordered a bunch of it off of Amazon but what's interesting here in this case Captain
00:39:13
the Stella nickel case is that I mean she's actually a really terrible murderer because one her horrific crimes
00:39:24
I mean this is not just a situation of white kills husband but wife kills husband and is willing to kill at least
00:39:30
one if not several other people in an attempt to cover up and get away with the murder of her husband so completely
00:39:39
willing to kill total strangers just to get away with this crime but two killing
00:39:46
her husband to get money so this murder plot was fueled by greed Stella took out two life insurance
00:39:54
policies on her husband and Stella was such a slave to her greed that she would have got away with this murder but she
00:40:02
couldn't get out of her own way so check this she had two insurance policies that
00:40:07
she took out on her husband Bruce unbeknownst to Bruce fishy she purchased two $20,000 policies that she was the sole
00:40:16
beneficiary on then Bruce had life insurance through his work for $31,000 okay so with these two forged
00:40:26
signature policies of $220,000 were at 40 Grand now add the 31,000 from his work policy Stella
00:40:35
stands to make $71,000 from Bruce's death so if Stella would have been okay with
00:40:43
$71,000 mhm she would have never been caught the medical examiner ruled the death a natural
00:40:50
death nobody was any the wiser until Susan Snow died later from ingesting the extra strength eedan and then Stella
00:41:01
nickel informs the police hey my husband Bruce who died of natural causes weeks ago he took Excedrin right before his
00:41:12
death as well now that is because Bruce's work policy paid out $15,000 more if Bruce's death was
00:41:23
accidental opposed to Natural and this is a big and what was going on in the spring of
00:41:33
1986 it was national news at the time big news as I like to say the families of the seven dead Chicago Tylenol
00:41:41
victims were suing mcneel consumer Products Incorporated a division of Johnson and Johnson eventually they
00:41:47
would settle with these families for millions and millions of dollars Stella not only wanted an accidental death
00:41:55
benefit of Bruce work plan but she wanted to be able to sue a Big Brand a household name for Millions right this
00:42:03
agreed so for that Bruce couldn't be the only one to die from product tampering SLP poisoning so in a way she outed
00:42:10
herself M instead of becoming a widow with an extra $71,000 she ended up arrested and convicted receiving 2
00:42:18
99-year terms under the new federal tampering law Stella nickel was the first person in US history to be
00:42:26
convicted of murder through product tampering from my understanding captain that is a federal offense that's a
00:42:33
federal crime and she was convicted on the federal level of product tampering that resulted in Murder so
00:42:41
technically the state of Washington could still charge and then convict her with murder at a later date she's still
00:42:49
alive she's living in some low security prison uh in got senten and the the judge said two 90 90e sentences you said
00:43:02
she said so you're saying there's a chance right am I I still could get out now during the first four days of the
00:43:09
investigation in the tyol case back in Chicago in 82 the task force interviewed over 1,000 people and amassed thousands
00:43:18
of pages of documentation and created a suspect list of 24 names by week out this list was down to four individuals
00:43:28
one was a loading dock worker at Jewel a massive company operating warehouses distribution center and packaging plant
00:43:37
in the Chicago area this man this suspect 48-year-old Roger Arnold was known to possess and use Sinai and rant
00:43:47
about killing people with Sinai capsules he was also known to carry illegal weapons and during the course of this
00:43:55
invest investigation refused a lie detector test the other strange thing here too Captain is it looks like Roger
00:44:03
Arnold actually may have known or through a separation of a few degrees known one of the victims in the Ty all
00:44:12
case seven degrees of Kevin Bacon he worked with the father of Lynn Riner right one of the victims and her
00:44:21
father's name was Howard Fen and apparently this Arnold guy was in possession of two recently purchased
00:44:29
one-way tickets to Thailand when he was arrested in early October what they did was he's a suspect
00:44:38
in this case he was also a suspect in a June 1982 assault so we're going to arrest him on charges of assault from
00:44:47
that incident in June hold him in investigate him in this Tylenol case this will allow us to search his home in
00:44:56
his home they find weapons making manuals including a book about how to encaps encapsulate
00:45:05
cide for a Time authorities suspected that Arnold was in cahoots with fron in the Tylenol murders they also suspected
00:45:15
riner's husband Ed for a time but both he and fron passed polygraph test they were cooperating with the investigation
00:45:26
it's not really clear why Roger Arnold was eventually cleared but he went on to shoot a man to death whom he suspected
00:45:34
had turned his name into the police as a potential suspect in the Tylenol murders
00:45:40
case he was convicted and sentenced to prison in 1984 for 15 years for that murder and then he later died in the
00:45:48
year of 2008 again according to the information I saw it sounds like they cleared this
00:45:55
Roger Arnold guy so they clear him of murder and then he commits murder because somebody turned him in for the
00:46:03
FBI to look at him That's How The Story Goes criminals are pretty stupid well I think that you have to be of a certain
00:46:13
type to even land on the list of potential suspects in the Tylenol murders and you can see how his
00:46:20
personality played out in the long term another suspect was a Chicago man who was mentally unstable and made threats
00:46:28
against some of the stores where the tainted Tylenol was eventually found mhm this was Kevin Masterson Masterson's
00:46:36
ex-wife had settled a lawsuit against juel remember that juel Osco company her employer for mistreatment in connection
00:46:44
with a shoplifting case and Kevin had ranted about getting even with some of the retailers who ended up selling
00:46:52
Tylenol that killed people so he's in this whole dispute with his wife's employer he under this theory is seeking
00:47:01
Revenge to attack the stores maybe even put them out of business because they end up selling this Tylenol that's
00:47:08
killing people yeah so it's not so it's not essentially attack on the people per
00:47:15
se or attack on Johnson and Johnson these are both byst standards and the fact that
00:47:21
you want to shut down the store correct that would be the motive if in fact he is the perpetrator however he too it
00:47:30
looks like was investigated quite thoroughly and then dismissed at some point as a viable suspect well again
00:47:37
what you said in episode one it's just they're not being investigated just by local detectives or local law
00:47:45
enforcement we have a lot of hands on deck at the time 30 o over 30 some FBI agents helping with this investig ation
00:47:56
from the onset that's a lot back in 1982 yeah and a task force of almost 200 law
00:48:03
enforcement members looking in and investigating this case there was Vernon Williams Jr of New Jersey
00:48:13
he saw this as an opportunity to try to extort $100,000 from Johnson and Johnson
00:48:19
by threatening to taint more pills he was jailed for attempted extortion but clearly
00:48:26
had nothing to do with the murders per law enforcement yeah then well I thought this when I first heard about him this
00:48:33
seems to be a good one at the time be because in 82 is when we hit a very bad recession so I thought well maybe
00:48:42
somebody's you know when your whole country is in crisis financially you go okay well maybe somebody would try to
00:48:49
take advantage of the situation and and get money through through crime and then there was James William
00:48:58
Lewis on October 6th 1982 Johnson and Johnson received a handwritten all caps letter with a New York postmark that
00:49:08
read Johnson and Johnson parent of McNeal Laboratories gentlemen as you can see it
00:49:15
is easy to place cide both potassium and sodium into capsil sitting on store shelves and since the cide is inside the
00:49:23
gelatin it is easy to get buyers to swallow the bitter pill another beauty is that cide operates quickly it takes
00:49:32
so very little and there will be no time to take counter measures if you don't mind the publicity
00:49:40
of these little capsules then do nothing so far I have spent less than $50 and it
00:49:46
takes me less than 10 minutes per bottle if you want to stop the killing then wire $1 million to bank account number
00:49:56
84495 N7 at Continental Illinois Bank Chicago Illinois don't attempt to involve the FBI or local Chicago
00:50:06
authorities with this letter a couple of phone calls by me will undo anything you
00:50:12
can possibly do know how this guy sounds like a mad man he sounds like a good suspect I mean you have motive but also
00:50:19
you have the guy coming out and he's confessing to the crime yeah so the FBI lifted fingerprints from this letter and
00:50:27
then noted the metered postage with the identifying Pitney Bose's number and an old date yeah Pitney Bose that's a
00:50:36
pre-sort it's a machine that helps you put together mail the envelope was stamped April 15th 1982 so well before
00:50:47
any of these Tylenol murders the meter was traced to a company called Lakeside Travel the bank account referenced with
00:50:55
which was no longer opened at that point belonged to Frederick Miller mcah heir to the Miller Brewing Company
00:51:05
Fortune although he owned Lakeside Travel police quickly determined that mahe had not written the letter and he
00:51:12
gave authorities a list of disgruntled employees or Associates of his business on that list were the names
00:51:20
Robert and Nancy Richardson Robert Richardson was an I used by James William Lewis M who was
00:51:29
wanted by police in another state which we will get into in a minute investigators initially thought that the
00:51:36
extortion letter sent to Johnson and Johnson by Robert Richardson was just a hoax to embarrass mcah but after they
00:51:45
did some digging into James Lewis's past they discovered that he had been charged
00:51:50
with murder and was suspected of business and tax fraud so they began to put a little more stock into the
00:51:58
possibility that the letter was really sent by the actual poisoner but they couldn't find Lewis
00:52:06
meanwhile he continued his pattern of sending ranting letters all postmarked from New York City Lewis sent the
00:52:14
Chicago Tribune and the Kansas City Star letters denying that he and his wife had
00:52:20
committed the Tylenol murders in another letter Lewis attacked police handling of
00:52:26
the murder and had been charged with the Raymond West case so he is telling these
00:52:34
newspapers that he and his wife had nothing to do with the Tylenol murders and he's complaining that the police in
00:52:41
the Raymond West murder case had bungled that whole investigation and that he was trying to
00:52:48
get that case reopened for some time Lewis began signing his real name at some point and even put his right thumb
00:52:55
print on one of the letters the letters were written in strange militaristic vengeful
00:53:04
language here's an excerpt from John Douglas that I found interesting quote we are not armed unless one means in the
00:53:13
anatomical paraplegic sense we shall never carry weapons domestically weapons are for two quite similar types of
00:53:21
mentality one criminals and two police we are neither Douglas noted that this personality seemed to mesh with what he
00:53:31
had profiled a cowardly type that would be saddled with inner rage and preferred
00:53:39
indirect attacks Lewis also sent some letters to President Ronald Reagan in October of 1982 threatening to murder
00:53:47
him with a remote control airplane and poison more people with Sinai laced Tylenol if certain tax policies were not
00:53:57
changed this seems like a a man that fancies himself a bit of a Robin Hood to try to change things for the good or the
00:54:05
good as he says it but threatening violence if you don't give him his way yes Robin of luxley I'm going to cut
00:54:13
your hat out with the spoon before becoming a suspect in the Tylenol murders Lewis owned and operated a
00:54:21
Kansas City business tax service called Lewis and Lewis this is where they befriended an elderly client whose name
00:54:31
was Raymond West we've already mentioned his name this man completely disappeared
00:54:37
in 1978 Raymond's body was found in an attic in his own home about 3 weeks after he
00:54:46
disappeared the body was found dismembered he had been cut up wrapped in sheets and trash bags and somehow
00:54:53
hoisted to the storage area using pulley and rope he was too badly decomposed to
00:54:59
determine the cause of death or even actually who he was at the time later they determined that it was in fact
00:55:07
Raymond West now what leads them to this James Lewis guy he's a client of Lewis's
00:55:14
in Kansas city and police found a check from West Bank account made out to James
00:55:21
Lewis for $5,000 dated on the last day that Raymond West was seen alive after discovering this they searched Lewis's
00:55:31
car which yielded additional evidence including rope trash bags and more checks from Raymond West well $5,000
00:55:39
back then was a lot of money it's like $10 million today no now they charged him with the murder of Raymond West
00:55:48
however this trial that was set for late 1979 it was actually tossed out it was dismissed by a judge who ruled that the
00:55:57
arrest and the search of Lewis's home and vehicle were illegal so Lewis is going to get lucky
00:56:05
in this situation now Lewis once he's free and clear and doesn't have to worry about these murder charges he goes back
00:56:13
to work what's interesting and I find this to be interesting here Captain is that he did a startup company which he
00:56:20
co-founded with an Indian pharmacist to import Industrial pill making machines from India Police
00:56:29
continue to investigate Lewis for anything they were so convinced that he did this murder that they wanted to
00:56:36
catch him on anything that they could find you know tax fraud falsifying credit card applications swindling
00:56:43
clients anything that they could possibly find and some of the things they suspected him of too were maale
00:56:49
fraud by the end of 1981 it sounds like local authorities in Kansas City had enough evidence to charge Mr Lewis with
00:56:58
something but before they could James Lewis decides he and his wife are going to go on the Run where do they go they
00:57:08
went to Chicago H so this guy has a history of potentially murdering people he has a history of potential
00:57:17
falsifying documents tax fraud mail fraud swindling his clients out of money and possibly land deals he's on the run
00:57:27
from authorities in Kansas City who have warrants out for this guy now he's in Chicago oh and he has experience in pill
00:57:36
making yeah which again like you said it puts him the area he's definitely fits all the profiles and a lot of people
00:57:44
that look into this case or have looked into this case this becomes their number
00:57:49
one suspect and what's weird too is that let's say this guy was out for Revenge by all appearances it looks like
00:58:02
the Revenge he was seeking might have been against this Fred mcah the the very wealthy man that stands to inherit the
00:58:09
Miller Brewing Company fortune that is because remember you pointed out the Pitney
00:58:16
Bose envelope that police were able to trace back to sometime in April of 1982 I used to I used to work on a Pitney
00:58:25
bows machine yeah we had them at uh some of the places that I worked as well now
00:58:31
what happened here Captain is not only did they trace that to that date but they also traced the account to that
00:58:39
Lakeside Travel company owned by that Fred mcah who Lewis's wife had that big pay dispute with right this mahe fella
00:58:51
supposedly owed her $500 maybe $600 it was not that big amount of money I expected it to be a large amount of
00:58:59
money considering that seven people died in this Tylenol murders case but those that envelope was stolen along with a
00:59:08
stack of other envelopes from that travel company on the last day that his wife worked there so maybe he used it as
00:59:18
it was convenient that the envelope was already there postage already paid or was heying try to purposely give this to
00:59:26
law enforcement and maybe get them to lead them back to this Fred mcke guy so basically this would be him framing Fred
00:59:35
for the Tylenol murders yes or again maybe just a way of covering his own tracks and sending them on a wild goose
00:59:44
chase now remember Douglas said that this person the murderer probably would have experienced some type of stressor
00:59:53
disruptive life event leading up to contaminating the bottles and then killing these innocent people well James
01:00:01
lost his job that he had in Chicago in August of 1982 this could be the stressor but what
01:00:10
we do know is that the the jameses left Chicago on September 4th 1982 using the names William and Karen Wagner this is
01:00:23
where you get into that really gray area right Captain where because there's a lot of people that believe that Lewis is
01:00:30
the best suspect that maybe he is in fact the actual poisoner but we talked about the delicateness of the gelatin
01:00:40
capsules in relationship to the cide that was placed inside of them right could one have contaminated all of these
01:00:48
products put them on the shelves back in early September and then they're not purchased until late September and
01:00:56
consumed then it seems a little difficult to believe but we know he's still he's still involved very much
01:01:05
involved and active in this case even after the fact that he leaves maybe he thought I can poison these people leave
01:01:14
and throw some other people under the bus after the fact and they'll never catch me cuz I'm not even in the area
01:01:19
anymore maybe that's maybe as you pointed out the perpetrator not local so he couldn't have gone to Mary
01:01:27
Kellerman's grave could not have gone to her home or this guy was once local was
01:01:32
not local after people started dying I know he's a lot of people's top suspect or favorite suspect in this case my
01:01:41
problem with it is the type of criminal he is the the Chicago Tylenol murders or
01:01:48
what do you call them the timers yep the timers that's a goofy sounding name but
01:01:56
uh to me it's it's an act of terrorist it's so it's to create Terror and fear into not just
01:02:05
Chicago but you're doing it in Chicago because it's one of the biggest cities but you're maybe somehow connected to it
01:02:12
so but it's going to it's it's about the overall fear of the nation basically or
01:02:18
setting a bomb or setting this trap and then once the things are um once the events start taking place you're off in
01:02:26
a distance watching it happen admiring your work that to me is the way a terrorist would work this guy just does
01:02:34
not fit that profile to me I think this uh again I think this is less about money and more about and Ste stealing
01:02:45
fear where I think a lot of his crimes were connected to money um yeah so I just think
01:02:53
uh good suspect but it wouldn't be my number one well and the thing about him as well and the other thing that makes
01:03:01
this case very difficult is you cannot it's too hard to determine if this is supposed to be public terrorism or mass
01:03:09
extortion because correct Lewis yes he tried to extort money from Johnson and Johnson but so did some other guy in New
01:03:17
Jersey who had nothing to do and was proven to have nothing to do with the case so does that mean that
01:03:25
Lewis didn't have anything to do with the case potentially we can't say for certain but what we don't have other
01:03:31
than this situation is we don't have someone coming forward that we believe to be the actual poisoner saying you
01:03:38
know what I'm going to keep doing this I'm going to keep killing people unless you pay me off right
01:03:46
so it might not even be extortion at all it might be as you said just public terrorism the other problem with that
01:03:53
though then two becomes often terrorists have an agenda or they have something that they need to bring into the
01:04:02
spotlight of how they've been wronged in some form the problem is usually someone claims responsibility
01:04:11
for these terrible acts we don't have that either nobody coming forward saying you know we are
01:04:19
this group and this is why we committed these acts against the people of Chicago
01:04:26
mm so there's nobody really coming forward trying to gain from this or claiming responsibility it's just really
01:04:36
falls under what could be just a a really confusing crime yeah we don't have anybody coming forward and saying
01:04:44
we're a small foreign faction yeah so what you do have with this Lewis character he eventually is charged with
01:04:52
extortion stemming from the time law murders case he ends up serving about 12 years in prison on the extortion charge
01:05:02
he was released in 1995 but he's one of these he's one of these real pain in the
01:05:09
ass types that while he's in prison he's granting interviews and he's talking about you know I was not the Tylenol
01:05:17
killer but if I was this is how I would do it right this is how I would uh contain inate the capsules this is how I
01:05:25
would place them in the stores you know saying all the all the stuff that make you
01:05:31
go okay I cannot clear this man I cannot get it out of my mind that he could be in fact the Tylenol killer in January of
01:05:41
2010 both James William Lewis and his wife were asked by the FBI to submit DNA samples and fingerprints to the
01:05:51
authorities Lewis stated quote if the FBI plays it fair I have nothing to worry about Lewis continues to deny all
01:06:00
responsibility for the Tylenol killings so are you saying that he submitted DNA I said he submitted DNA yeah so in 2009
01:06:10
the FBI came forward and said hey we're going to use all new technology to reexamine the evidence in the Chicago
01:06:16
Tylenol murders case asking then Lewis for DNA and then a year later they ask the famous Ted kazinski for his DNA the
01:06:29
unibomber the unibomber now he said he would give it to them but he had one condition he wanted there was going to
01:06:38
be an auction of his belongings and he wanted for the auction to stop and not be held he wanted to keep his
01:06:45
possessions saying that he did if he did give them his DNA that maybe his DNA would partially match and he would need
01:06:54
need his items from his cabin to prove that he never owned potassium cyanide as for the murders they remain unsolved the
01:07:02
case remains open and the $100,000 reward still unclaimed quote one of the most Sensational murder cases this
01:07:11
Century has gone unsolved because the person who did it randomly killed seven people said Dan Webb the US attorney
01:07:19
during the investigation he goes on to say if you have no motive if all you're doing is killing people for no reason
01:07:27
whatsoever then that is likely to be the most perfect murder because there won't
01:07:32
be any ties back to [Music] you for everything true crime check us out at true Crim garage.com and make
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01:08:01
Colonel do we have any recommended reading for this week we all need a little Escape once in a while so this
01:08:07
week we are recommending a fictional novel by friend of the show Christopher Ferris his new book called The Fountain
01:08:16
is out and available everywhere deep in the Ozark's holler lurks an ancient source of power called the Mountain it
01:08:24
drives men and women mad and leads them to do strange and terrible things it is growing in strength only an invisible
01:08:31
wall held in place by centuries of sacrificial magic protects an unwitting Mountain Community from a descent into
01:08:40
Bloodshed and Madness check out the fountain by Christopher Ferris we will have that listed on our recommended page
01:08:48
at true Crim garage.com for you and until next week be good be kind and don't litter
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