Episode 87 - The Tylenol Murders

0:14 Two crumbesties. We're here for episode 87 and

0:18 it's been a day. It's been a day.

0:21 We've had a good day though. Very good day.

0:23 Big sporting day for the kids. We're recording this on a

0:26 Sunday, so in between or after two games of footy.

0:31 Yeah. Basketball yesterday, yeah, big

0:34 night out for me last night as soon.

0:37 As I saw you at the footy this morning, I was like, oh.

0:40 Wow. Oh wow.

0:42 It's like this is too early. Oh, shabby as.

0:45 Yeah, shabby as. Hence the the coke connects to

0:48 your computer there rather than a wine.

0:49 That's true. No wine.

0:52 And I'm even past water at this point.

0:54 I'm like, I need the caffeine, I need the the bubbles.

0:57 I need the bubbles. Soak up that.

0:59 Yeah. Alcohol.

0:59 Yeah. Mm.

1:00 Hmm. Mm.

1:01 Hmm. You had fun though.

1:03 Great night. Great.

1:04 Lots of fun. Worth it.

1:06 It it was it was really good. It was really good.

1:08 Just don't recover like we used to.

1:10 Not even close. Not even close.

1:12 No, that's OK. That's you know.

1:14 That's still good. You can just paying for that

1:16 tomorrow I reckon still too. So I reckon I'll be just tired

1:19 tomorrow 'cause I also, we got home really late.

1:23 I then couldn't get to sleep straight away.

1:25 Yeah, and we were up at 7:00 for sport this morning, so I think

1:29 I've probably had about four hours.

1:31 Yeah, that's the killer on it. Yeah, because I find like this

1:35 age day drinking's great love. Me a day drinking set.

1:39 Unreachable hours still like pre midnight, Yeah and get you know

1:43 that good 6 to 8 hour minimum. Still, you'll still have a

1:47 massive hangover, don't get me wrong.

1:48 But you, you'll be right. Be fine.

1:50 Yeah. So I think for me, it's like a

1:52 sleep. And then after recording this,

1:54 we're actually off to a family friend's birthday dinner.

1:58 Yeah. So I'm like, we're gonna have to

2:00 just not be late. I'm gonna need to come home.

2:02 I'm gonna go to work tomorrow, actually for work.

2:06 No, I've gotta actually pretend to, you know, do stuff tomorrow.

2:10 Yeah. That sucks.

2:11 Yeah, it's the. Worst.

2:12 It's hard. God, how do we do it, as you

2:15 know? I I don't know where you go out

2:16 night after night. Oh my God.

2:18 Yeah, I don't know. Or you'd, you'd go out and wake

2:21 up still at 8:00 the next morning to go to work that day

2:24 or something. Oh my God.

2:25 They just. Well, the young ones don't do

2:27 like what we used to do, which I I mean, so impressed with.

2:30 Me too. Out with some people during the

2:31 week with that sort of thing. And one of the, the younger

2:33 boys, he's, Oh my God, he's 19. And he actually had had.

2:37 It was his first more than one drink that he'd ever had.

2:41 Wow. Yeah, kids.

2:42 Just don't had like a beer or something or whatever.

2:44 And yeah, he actually had five beers and this evening that

2:46 we're all out for. It was quite hilarious.

2:50 But kids it is. It's true.

2:51 They don't really drink like we used to.

2:53 Like we just from the minute you turn 18.

2:57 Oh, Mum, totally. Eighteen from exactly 18.

3:01 Yeah. Never.

3:02 Not one day before. Yeah.

3:05 Yeah. You know, drinking's like a big,

3:07 big thing. Yeah.

3:08 But I I like that there's a cultural shift away from it.

3:11 I really like that. I do.

3:13 Too, As long as it's not shifting to somewhere where I

3:14 really don't want it to go like. Yeah, to something else.

3:17 Yeah, that's very true. Yeah, that's really true.

3:20 It's. Expensive that to be able to go

3:21 out and drink all the time like that.

3:22 That did exactly I. Mean it felt expensive when we

3:24 were kids like you know, you always like.

3:25 Yeah, but you could afford it with your part time job.

3:27 I don't know that you'd be able to these days.

3:29 God. No, no, I mean $14.00 at times

3:31 for a glass of wine. Forget it.

3:34 And then some sometimes, like, yeah, it's crazy.

3:36 Yeah, yeah, it's mental gorgeous.

3:39 How's your week been though otherwise?

3:42 Yeah, it's, oh, it's back, getting back into the routine

3:45 and stuff, which I mean, this week it's hard to judge by.

3:48 I've had a bit of a week, but yeah, you know, it's, it's I

3:50 think good to get back into routine.

3:52 Yeah, Yeah. No.

3:53 How about you? I'm about, I'm about the same.

3:55 So like 8-9 weeks ago I had a surgery and I meant that I

4:00 couldn't exercise for for that amount of time and I went back

4:04 to the gym this week and Oh my God.

4:06 Yeah. You know when you're so sore you

4:08 can't even sit down on the toilet?

4:09 You kind of have to just freefall onto the toilet.

4:13 This muscle that I'm really, it's killing you.

4:15 Yeah, that's where I'm at. That's where I've been at.

4:17 So I actually feel like that's contributing to how I feel today

4:20 because all my muscles sore. So we're actually talking about

4:23 you and our game because we're separate footy games today and

4:26 one of the girls was saying like about running the doing the

4:29 trainer and stuff. And we're saying that our poor

4:30 trainer was having to run out a fair bit today.

4:32 And, and she goes, you know, but at least at least Emma, she's

4:35 fit. And I said, well, actually,

4:36 she's she's not been allowed to be at the gym.

4:38 So yeah, she's probably feeling it that with a hangover.

4:41 I mean, we'll give you some empathy.

4:44 Thanks for going around and telling everyone I had a

4:45 hangover at the other gap ground.

4:47 We'll. See from Mr. Standard well.

4:51 It is Sunday. Just shared it with a few, yeah.

4:56 Yeah, I, I was actually pretty lucky today.

4:58 I didn't have to run out and we had to run out once and it

5:00 wasn't even terrible. So it was.

5:02 We had a fairly physical game, I said.

5:04 My son's ended up with a black eye like.

5:06 Yeah, I mean not. Nothing purposeful, obviously,

5:08 but yeah, very physical, very getting in there.

5:10 So Oh my God, I don't know if I like this, but then now.

5:12 It starts getting really rough. Really, really rough.

5:15 Yeah, Yeah. Crazy.

5:17 Aside from that, what has my week been getting back into the

5:20 routine of school, as you said, because we're sort of this is

5:23 we're sort of at the end of week one of the next term now of term

5:27 two. Yeah.

5:28 And it just made me realize, again, we've said this before on

5:33 the podcast how much I hate washing lunch boxes.

5:39 Yep. I just hate it.

5:41 But at least we're back in a routine.

5:43 The kids are back doing what they need to be doing, and it's

5:46 all good. Yeah.

5:46 Yeah. Yeah.

5:48 I mean, as I say, the sports all that.

5:49 I mean, now we're into double season with the winter.

5:51 It's like it's every night after the week.

5:54 Every time there's something, it's.

5:56 Kind of good though, having the routine.

5:57 I do like it and it's good that the kids are out there being

5:59 active. I just keep thinking, you know,

6:01 it's absolutely worth it this coming weekend.

6:04 Like you and I are actually not recording another episode this

6:06 week. But don't worry, there's going

6:07 to be no break for you guys. You guys won't even know, but

6:12 we're going to Halls Gap to the grape escape.

6:15 Yeah, so to a wine festival. So I'm really looking forward to

6:18 that now. Hopefully I won't be.

6:20 I was gonna say hopefully I'll be feeling much better by then,

6:24 but I'm really looking forward to that.

6:25 We're gonna be away for the weekend so the kids will miss

6:27 sport, but looks like the weather is gonna be really nice.

6:29 And what is doing good doing this?

6:31 That'd be lovely low. 20s kind of mid 20s stuff.

6:34 It's nice a bit. Of Sunshine week.

6:35 Me too, Yeah me too. Good.

6:37 We have got so many shout outs for today so going.

6:40 On that. Moment let's we've got a lot

6:42 going on so. It's T-shirt that you're

6:43 wearing. Oh yeah?

6:44 Well, I was gonna get to that in a moment.

6:47 So first of all, let's do our shout outs.

6:49 We've got some new Patreons that I'd love to give a special shout

6:53 out to. We've got Kylie Bellman, Haiti

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7:16 Absolutely. We have then had so many coffees

7:19 bought, wines bought for us through Buy Me a Coffee.

7:23 So we had Rayna, Alessio, Ashley, Lauren, Miss Tan,

7:28 Victoria Janicek and one of my friends, Erin Hollis.

7:32 So thank you very, very much for that, all of you.

7:35 Yes, thanks Erin. She's like, she knows what I

7:38 need. So thank you very, very much,

7:41 Very much appreciated and love all the comments that keep

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7:48 about sometimes you get the odd shitty comment in there we had.

7:52 One this week, yeah, Tim, just right back to you, but.

7:55 I just can't be thought. Of it.

7:56 Yeah, but overwhelmingly, yeah. Really lovely comments.

8:01 So thanks to everybody who's reached out.

8:02 We've had heaps on, I've noticed like heaps and heaps on Spotify,

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8:33 Yeah. Now what you were alluding to

8:35 before, what are you wearing? We are wearing merch.

8:41 We are wearing merch. So we launched it on the socials

8:45 this week and it has taken on it.

8:49 Directly. When, when I was when we were

8:51 sort of setting it up, I'm like, I wonder how many people will

8:54 actually, yeah, buy stuff because friends and family, I

8:57 fully assumed it, although come on, friends and family get on

9:00 it. But I've really assumed that

9:06 that maybe we'd, you know, we'd get a few because they've been

9:09 people who've been asking for it.

9:10 So I, I assumed those people would go for it.

9:13 Oh my God. Yeah, overwhelming.

9:14 Yeah, totally. Every time it pings up, I'm

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9:25 And I was like, oh. My.

9:26 God, and she bought an absolute piece of shit T-shirt.

9:29 Oh, I loved it. I loved it so good.

9:31 Oh. God, so good.

9:33 Love that. Yeah, yeah.

9:34 I mean, it's exactly what people have been saying they want to

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9:36 And now people can thank. You.

9:39 Thank you so, so much So in light of the launch of our

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11:11 OK. So we are today we are

11:14 discussing the Tylenol murders. Yeah, this one is.

11:20 I mean, I knew a fair bit about it, I think sort of in the lead

11:23 up. I've watched documentaries

11:25 before and it's definitely something that I think because

11:28 this case was so instrumental in changing a lot of things that we

11:34 just now take for granted in day-to-day life.

11:37 Yeah, I think that's that kind of plays into what I knew about

11:42 it and why I knew about it, yeah.

11:44 It's hard to think that like those things that we just I just

11:46 like to take for granted weren't in place.

11:48 Like it's almost like what that you could just open anything.

11:51 I. Know it's crazy yeah.

11:53 Meanwhile, my kids. Yesterday, buddy, Chemist

11:55 Warehouse were trying to like fighting each other and who can

11:58 open the childproof lock on one of the containers and I'm like,

12:00 I'm not buying that. I don't need that.

12:03 Stop, stop, stop. It God because I'm.

12:06 Sure, they could get into Childproof buddy.

12:07 Oh. Yeah, probably by now it's not

12:09 really stopping a 12 year old or 10 year old from getting into

12:14 getting into things. It's more of your toddlers the

12:16 way we're looking out for, I guess.

12:18 True. So anyway, for, for those of you

12:21 who don't know much contextually about this, the Tylenol murders

12:26 were a literally it was a a day, basically a series of murders

12:31 took place that just by pure chance really played out over

12:35 about a 24 hour period on the 29th of September in 1982 in

12:40 Chicago, in Illinois, in the USA.

12:43 And as we go through and we talk about, we're going to talk about

12:47 the victims and we're going to talk about the suspects and all

12:50 of that kind of thing. I think it's, you know, keeping

12:52 the back of your mind what Meg was saying, the fact that

12:56 anybody could open any medication and we're not just

12:59 talking Tylenol, all medications was kind of like open on the

13:03 shelf. There was no tamper evident

13:05 sealing seals or anything like that.

13:07 So, you know, in terms of mechanisms for delivery for

13:11 these kinds of things, like you can kind of see how it happened.

13:13 And I'm so surprised that it hadn't happened before.

13:16 Yeah. Yeah, something that sort of

13:18 like LinkedIn with this a little bit like I didn't, I actually

13:21 didn't realise this until I read this was that you know how like

13:24 everyone gets nervous about Halloween and lollies and stuff.

13:27 There's actually never been any issue and anything linked to a

13:31 Halloween of, of anything being tampered with.

13:35 Yet we get really nervous about lollies being handed out.

13:37 And apparently it is a, a correlation between the fact of

13:41 this case and the Tylenol being tampered with that people have

13:45 just assumed then that people would tamper with something else

13:48 that we have free access to. And that's, I think that's that,

13:51 you know, yet being able to access it freely was what has

13:56 what then created this, you know, like is here.

13:57 Do you think it's more that, you know, it's OK?

14:00 Access is absolutely one thing, but the fact that people would

14:04 do it is another thing because like, I think before this, you

14:07 wouldn't think that somebody would tamper, necessarily tamper

14:10 with medication. So true.

14:12 And you don't think people are gonna tamper with children's

14:15 lollies, But there are fucking psychos in the world, I think.

14:17 Yeah, people just. And there are people, yeah,

14:19 there are people who will do that shit.

14:21 I think there's kind of almost two sides to it in that way.

14:24 Yeah. And yeah, I, I absolutely

14:27 wouldn't let my kids eat a lolly that wasn't, you know, in a

14:30 sealed bag or in a rapper. Yeah, I mean, hygienically, but

14:34 also because you don't know what kind of weird people are out in

14:37 the world and what they might try to do to you.

14:39 Weird. People that we come across with

14:41 this, yeah, Yeah, People are. It's possible that people could

14:45 do this stuff. Yeah.

14:46 Or weirder stuff. Crazy.

14:48 So let's start with patient zero.

14:51 The first the first patient. This is so incredibly tragic

14:55 because just awful. The first victim in this

14:57 situation was a 12 year old girl by the name of Mary Kellerman.

15:03 Before we even get into this, could you believe how many Marys

15:05 are in this story? I was like.

15:07 First I was like, you know, because trying to work out

15:09 what's going on here. Yeah.

15:10 Did they ever kind of go? Are they targeting Mary?

15:12 Yeah. I I literally thought the same

15:14 thing. I'm like, how coincidental.

15:16 Yeah. That there are out of all of you

15:18 know, there's not that many people who who died over these

15:21 couple of days. Yeah.

15:22 Three of them are named Mary anyway, so don't get confused

15:25 like I did when I was doing my research.

15:27 But Mary Kellerman, first victim, 12 years of age.

15:31 Yes. So she woke up on this pit on

15:33 the morning of the 29th of September in 1982, and she had a

15:36 bit of a cold. Apparently she'd been sort of

15:40 coming down with something for a few days and her dad, she woke

15:45 up said to her dad, I'm really not feeling very well.

15:47 And he's like, look, stay home from school today.

15:50 I'll give you some Tylenol and go back to bed and sort of, you

15:55 know, we'll, we'll ride out the day.

15:57 We've all done this with our kids.

15:58 You know, she had a bit of a fit, very low grade fever.

16:01 I would have done exactly the same thing.

16:03 So Tylenol. For those who don't know, an

16:07 equivalent in Australia would be Panadol.

16:09 Like in terms of a brand name. The actual drug is acetaminophen

16:12 or Paragon. Sorry, acetaminophen.

16:16 Yeah, good. 1. Yep, and all paracetamol.

16:23 It's exactly acetaminophen. Paracetamol. 2 names for the

16:26 exact same drug. Yeah.

16:28 So Tylenol though in the US was their leading brand of of pain

16:36 relief medication, so much so I think it accounted.

16:39 So the company was owned at this point by Johnson and Johnson and

16:44 I believe they had 30% market share for pain relief

16:50 medication, which is huge. By far they were the biggest and

16:56 use I think there was like, you know, millions and millions and

16:59 millions of homes in in the America had yeah, a bottle of

17:03 Tylenol. It was their.

17:04 Biggest product that they produced in terms of financial,

17:08 what they got, you know how big that product was for them, It

17:11 was their biggest one. Biggest.

17:12 Money earner and I I believe to this day it's very, very similar

17:16 yeah it's it might not be their biggest, but it oh, actually,

17:18 no, I actually think it still is yeah, I mean.

17:20 They'll be more expensive drugs, yeah, but as in terms of volume

17:23 and how much they sell of it and what?

17:25 Yeah, that I believe it is still their leading drug.

17:29 Yeah. OK, so Mary Kellerman was 12

17:33 years old. She was a 7th grader and she was

17:35 the only child of Dennis and Jana Kellerman.

17:39 So as we said, she was feeling not amazing on this morning.

17:42 Her dad's given her a Tylenol extra strength and sent her back

17:46 to bed. Now she was described as a

17:50 really bright young girl and she was really looking forward to

17:54 Halloween and it was something she'd already started to try and

17:59 organize her, her costume. Her mom was making a costume for

18:03 her, as you would anyway. So she took the pill from her

18:10 dad. She's then gone to go to the

18:12 bathroom and she collapsed on the bathroom floor.

18:16 So her mum and dad were down the hallway and they just heard this

18:19 thud and, of course, race to her.

18:22 And by the time they got to her, she was completely like, her

18:28 pupils were fixed and dilated. She was she.

18:31 I think she had some very shallow breathing.

18:34 Yeah, but she was completely out of it.

18:37 They, of course, dialed 911. Emergency services attended and

18:42 performed CPR on her. And they actually kept her alive

18:45 until she arrived at the Alexian Brothers Medical Center, where

18:49 they pronounced her dead. They they they could not sustain

18:52 her life. And the the doctors at the

18:57 Medical Center were absolutely baffled.

18:59 Yeah. They sort of were like some

19:01 symptoms of like almost like a heart attack kind of symptoms I

19:04 was seeing, but it wasn't a heart attack and very confused

19:07 by such a young girl to just. Yeah.

19:11 So I think they thought it might have been a stroke.

19:15 Yeah. Because she did have some, like

19:18 drooping and other sort of anomalies in terms of her facial

19:21 features. But then they also thought,

19:25 well, maybe it was like a congenital heart defect that had

19:27 never been diagnosed or something like that.

19:29 Because of course, I mean, 12 year olds don't just drop dead,

19:33 you know, it had to have been. It had to have been something.

19:36 Yeah. So.

19:36 Very unusual and really threw them for a six in terms of what

19:40 has caused this, like, yeah, just.

19:43 Really, really unusual. Really unusual.

19:45 Yeah, Let's park Mary there for now.

19:49 Yeah. Because on the same day, this

19:52 one, this next lot of people is so incredibly tragic.

19:57 This is the. Janice family.

19:59 Yeah. So this family ended up.

20:04 It's just absolutely tragic. Let's start with Adam.

20:07 Adam. Yeah.

20:08 Adam was a 27 year old postal worker and Ellington Heights.

20:13 Yeah, and he was a family man. He had a son and a daughter.

20:17 Yep. And apparently he was just such

20:20 a lovely, lovely person. Like he was a very much a family

20:25 man. He had emigrated from Poland to

20:28 the United States and really made a go of his life.

20:32 They lived in a very sort of modest 3 bedroom home, but it

20:36 was their home. You know, they'd saved and

20:37 bought that house and they were living a really lovely life as a

20:42 family unit. Apparently Adam was a very

20:45 sensitive man and really gentle and kind.

20:49 And anyway, on this particular day, he had the day off work,

20:52 but he actually also wasn't feeling 100%.

20:55 And so his daughter had preschool that day.

20:59 And because he was off work, he was able to go and pick her up.

21:02 And on the way home from preschool, he decided to drop

21:06 into the local supermarket because for two reasons,

21:10 actually. He wanted to get some steaks for

21:11 dinner, and he wanted to get some flowers for his wife, which

21:16 was something that he did like often.

21:19 Isn't that beautiful? So he bought her gladioli eyes,

21:22 right? I think it was good.

21:24 They're a plant, are they? I assume, like flower?

21:27 Oh my God. Meg.

21:28 Oh mate. They're pretty.

21:32 They'd be pretty yo. So anyway, so while he was

21:37 there, because he wasn't feeling 100%, he's like, I'll pick up

21:40 some Tylenol while I'm here. He goes to the shelf, picks off

21:43 a bottle of extra, extra strength Tylenol and goes home

21:47 and gives his wife the flowers and starts to sort of set

21:52 himself up for the night. Obviously he was planning on

21:54 cooking these steaks for dinner. Now he I guess he'd gotten to a

22:00 point where he was like, oh, actually I really am not feeling

22:02 100%. I'm going to take that Tylenol

22:05 and, you know, hopefully I'll feel better.

22:07 I'll be able to then spend the rest of the night with the

22:09 family and it'll all be good. Now he takes 2 Tylenol, extra

22:15 strength. Yeah.

22:15 And almost immediately just drops to the floor.

22:20 It's like, again, same. In fact, I believe the same

22:24 wording was used by his wife. He dropped with a thud.

22:26 Yeah. Like it's that don't like

22:28 complete just Yeah. Out of it.

22:30 Yeah, of course she calls 911-A neighbor actually came to assist

22:37 because the neighbor heard the absolute terror screaming.

22:41 So a neighbor came to assist. They were performing CPR.

22:44 I think the fire brigade got there.

22:47 They did. Is that right?

22:48 That's. How on the phone she was like

22:51 they they again thought like heart attack kind of thing.

22:53 They were definitely so because that was sort of mentioned of

22:56 like the kind of instant how he had dropped so quickly in those

23:00 moments. Yeah, fire brigade can attend

23:03 first if they're the closest. Whoever's closest, they'll just

23:06 get someone there. So you have Fire Brigades to

23:08 arrive first. But then again, they walked into

23:11 this scene of this, you know, young man, I mean healthy.

23:14 Apparently he was really like someone described him like he

23:17 was sort of strong as an ox. So he wasn't like thin, but he

23:19 wasn't overweight. He was just, you know, he was a

23:22 fit, strong, healthy 27 year old man.

23:27 Like you don't expect, no, a 27 year old to just dropped dead,

23:31 but I guess that was kind of the thing that fit his symptoms,

23:36 yeah. Yep.

23:37 Now, yeah, they attempted CPR, continued on him, the paramedics

23:41 arrived and they did the same, but unfortunately they could not

23:45 revive him, no. They did take him to the

23:47 hospital and the local hospital and he was pronounced dead on

23:52 arrival there. Yeah, So absolutely tragic.

23:57 And what that meant was, you know, his wife and the extended

24:00 Janice family then gathered back at their house after.

24:04 I mean, you just can't imagine the devastation and the shock of

24:07 that. Yeah.

24:08 For such a young family, you know, it's just, it's actually

24:12 unfathomable. Absolutely.

24:13 So of course everyone wants to rally around and there's

24:16 obviously different arrangements that probably need to start

24:19 being made or even just being with each other and it's.

24:21 Almost, it's just the shock, the show just coming together to

24:23 kind of be together. Yeah, yeah.

24:26 Because Adam had two brothers and so they've come around to

24:30 kind of go like speak, you know, make to see his wife and be like

24:33 what's going on here and all start grieving together in terms

24:35 of getting their heads around what has just taken place.

24:39 I mean, they've all, I'm guessing standing around kind of

24:40 going like, what the hell? Like how did this happen and

24:43 what has caused this? And in that sort of grief and

24:47 feeling, you know, uneasy and all of that.

24:49 I think obviously as Adam wasn't well and with a cold and things,

24:52 it's probably others were feeling a bit the same.

24:54 And in doing that, Stanley Janice, his brother, who was his

24:58 younger brother of 25, and Teresa, his wife, Janice.

25:02 Teresa Janice, who was 19. And also they'd only be married.

25:06 Was it seven months 7? Months or something.

25:07 Yeah, that sounds right. It was only briefly that they'd

25:09 very early, very early days, I mean.

25:11 You can see photos from their wedding at So that it was so

25:16 early in their marriage that they actually didn't have their

25:20 professional photos back yet. They'd only just seen proofs.

25:23 They hadn't actually gotten their wedding album back.

25:26 But obviously, you know, in the course of over the course of

25:29 time, the photos have come. Yeah.

25:31 And there's this beautiful photo of, of Stanley and Teresa as the

25:36 bride and groom with Adam's family, so with his wife and the

25:43 two kids. And it's the the six of them

25:45 together. And it's a really, really

25:47 lovely, like everyone's dressed up, everyone's really happy,

25:50 lovely, lovely, lovely. But then tragedy.

25:54 Yeah, I suppose a dozen, two of them have, you know, kind of

25:57 gone well, not feeling very well and have gone and taken some

26:00 Tylenol that they saw in the bathroom thinking that would be

26:04 which was. Actually on the kitchen counter,

26:06 so it was left. Out like I was sitting there in

26:08 front of them they kind of went oh actually that's probably what

26:10 I need at the moment I'll take some Tylenol, extra strength

26:12 Tylenol to sort of see if it'll help me make me feel better well

26:15 for. Sure.

26:16 Because like, you know, in that grief, like you've probably got

26:19 a headache. I mean, you're so emotional.

26:21 Whether it was that they was coming down with something like

26:23 with a cold or something, or whether it be just the grief and

26:26 feeling, you know, yeah, just say headaches and things.

26:29 They just, they decided to take a Tylenol and unfortunately,

26:32 Stanley collapsed first pretty much immediately after taking

26:36 it. And again, then the family

26:39 called paramedics back, which I mean, they'd only just been

26:43 there. Like literally it was hours

26:44 just. Just left there.

26:46 They've gone back to the house and they started, just started

26:49 to work on Stanley when all of a sudden from behind them, Teresa

26:54 collapses as well. Have you?

26:56 Heard the so again the fire fire department attended and it was

27:00 the same the same people returned yeah because I mean

27:03 they were still on shift like that's how soon is happening so

27:05 the. Fact of like, we're just there,

27:07 like what the Hell's going on with this?

27:08 Because that was weird enough that, you know, that Adam had

27:11 passed away. The 27.

27:12 Now we've got a 25 year old and a 19 year old.

27:14 Yeah. Well, I mean, the 1919 collected

27:16 once that when they got there in front of them, which I mean,

27:19 there's interviews with many of the paramedics and the fire,

27:22 fire firefighters that were there that, you know, they said

27:26 they commented saying like it was just they're in disbelief.

27:28 Like when it's particularly when she dropped down.

27:30 Well, that's what that's what this one that.

27:32 I'm in particular that I'm thinking of this.

27:34 I think he was a, a firefighter, yeah.

27:38 And obviously trained in emergency response and he was

27:43 saying he they were working on Stanley.

27:46 And next minute, he felt Teresa grab him and she, he thought it

27:51 was because she was so in, like, so desperate to.

27:54 Yeah. For hit, for something to

27:55 happen. And then so it kind of took him

27:58 a beat to turn around to see her because he was focused on

28:01 Stanley. Yeah.

28:03 But when he did, as soon as he turned around, she collapsed.

28:06 Yeah, and they're. Like, what the fuck is going on?

28:08 They say something environmental, like what's

28:10 happening anyway? But obviously in the immediacy

28:12 of what was going on, they needed to sort that situation

28:15 out and get these two people to hospital.

28:18 Yeah, but. That's the thing.

28:18 It immediately triggered that whole idea of, you know, well

28:20 what what is going on here and what's created this like is

28:24 there monoxide poisoning in this in this house?

28:26 They actually, they got obviously, well, Stanley, they,

28:30 they did take him to hospital, but he passed away.

28:32 Teresa was on life support for a little bit longer, but she

28:35 survived. Until the next the next day.

28:37 Yes. So they, they, she was holding

28:39 on, but they but didn't. Sorry.

28:40 Two days, but two days. Yeah. 1st of October.

28:43 She passed away. Yeah, right.

28:45 Yeah. But yeah, so they were kind of,

28:46 they thought they might be able to get her through, but that was

28:49 they. But what they did was they

28:52 segregated her so because they were like, what's is, is this

28:55 something? Is there some sort of something

28:57 in the airborne? Is there something airborne?

28:59 Is it something that's contagious then that, you know,

29:00 people are catching from each other and, you know, this is,

29:04 you know, pre COVID that we're also more aware of those things

29:06 like pre COVID, you know, yeah. So but that people were sort of

29:09 thinking, is this something that we could all be, you know,

29:12 infected with as well and more people are going to drop.

29:13 So, so they've, they've isolated her as well as the people who

29:18 were in working with on her and Stanley because they weren't

29:22 sure if there was cross contamination between them all.

29:24 So that that happened, but that meant that they couldn't then

29:28 investigate kind of and look at what was happening.

29:31 So this was a point where a particular nurse was contacted

29:34 who was a phenomenal nurse that they sent her in to sort of look

29:39 at. What do you think has gone on

29:40 here and start start looking into this because thank.

29:44 God, thank God they sent this woman in.

29:46 Yeah. Yeah, she.

29:48 Is, I think if it weren't for her.

29:51 Oh. They could have been all sorts

29:52 of trouble. This could have been it was

29:55 really bad, but it could have been worse.

29:58 I. Agree.

29:59 Yeah, I think that this meant that they actually connected

30:02 dots quicker. Very.

30:04 Quickly. Yeah.

30:06 So what she did was so she had the fire brigade come in to do

30:10 the carbon monoxide testing. That was something that they

30:12 could do. They had instrumentation to be

30:14 able to do that. Yeah, that was ruled out.

30:17 And so then she decided to go around and look at potential

30:22 contaminants within the home. Like she said, you know,

30:25 sometimes it might be something foodborne.

30:27 They didn't know if it was like, a Botulism or something from

30:29 food they'd eaten or. Anyway, So she's gone and

30:33 started looking around the house now.

30:34 She made a couple of comments. The first comment she made was

30:37 that the house was immaculately clean.

30:39 Like it was very clean. So she's like, it's not like

30:42 they were living in squalor and there's, you know, disease, like

30:45 a disease ridden home. There were no animals in the

30:48 house, which again, they can bring in different diseases that

30:50 you may not know about. There was no evidence of rodents

30:54 or anything. So she said sometimes that, you

30:57 know, in rodent feces there can be different things that are

31:00 carried. She's like, so no evidence of

31:02 that. So she's then looking through, I

31:06 guess the less conspicuous things.

31:09 You know, she's ruled out all of the things.

31:10 They're like, Yep, there's no poo, there's no nothing filthy.

31:13 She's looked in the fridge and she's like everything gas you.

31:16 Know like that sort of stuff. That's it and.

31:18 In the fridge, all of the food was fresh, nothing is off.

31:21 Everything smelt OK. Like she she was very, very

31:24 thorough. Yeah.

31:25 Anyway, so she's found this bottle of Tylenol extra strength

31:29 on the kitchen bench and she's like, oh, that's interesting.

31:32 Let me count how many pills there are.

31:35 So she did, and she discovered that there were 6 pills missing

31:38 and she's like 6 pills missing. Three people dead, you take.

31:42 Two at a time? Yep.

31:44 That and she's like I just knew in that instance it was this.

31:47 She said I didn't know what it was to do with this, but I knew

31:50 it had to be this and she was pretty adamant because when she

31:55 took this to so I believe it was the police chief had asked her

31:59 to go and do this. Yes.

32:01 Or was it the Fire Chief? It was the police chief, was it?

32:04 And when she took it, when she anyway, when she took it to the

32:07 superior, he said to her, it's Tylenol.

32:10 Like, no, Yeah. And she's like, but there is

32:13 literally nothing else. Oh, that's the other thing.

32:16 In the bathroom, she found the receipt for the Tylenol and saw

32:20 that it had been purchased that day.

32:22 And so she's like, so it was. It was purchased.

32:24 It's brand new. It was purchased today.

32:26 And six pills are missing today. And we've got two people.

32:28 Three people dead. Yeah.

32:29 Each having taken 2, likely having taken two of these these

32:34 pills. So he's like, okay, bring it in

32:36 and we'll get the medical examiner to have a look at it.

32:38 Edmund. Donahue was the medical

32:40 examiner, chief medical examiner in the area.

32:42 And so he immediately like took a smell of it and he could smell

32:47 there's this almond type smell to cyanide and he smelled that

32:52 immediately. Apparently only 50% of the

32:54 population can actually smell it.

32:56 Yeah, Right. Yeah.

32:57 That's so interesting. It's.

32:58 It's one of those weird genetic things.

32:59 Yeah. Like being able to curl your

33:01 tongue. Well, I believe.

33:02 He then got someone else to smell it, to check it, and they

33:04 both could smell it. So at least the two of them were

33:07 50% of the population that could, yeah.

33:11 Yeah, yeah. So that's really interesting.

33:14 So he's like, right, well, he, I think he said, or maybe it was

33:18 the other person he got to smell it actually said as soon as they

33:21 even released the lid is like, I could smell it immediately.

33:24 Yeah. So and we know what that smell

33:27 is in. Relation.

33:27 You don't know that that's, you know that smell you're not

33:30 thinking about looking at, you're not feeling very well.

33:32 And you open a bottle of that and take two.

33:33 It's not just immediately. I wouldn't go.

33:36 Hmm. So I can smell almonds and not

33:38 take my Tylenol. Yeah, no.

33:39 No. Well, we would now.

33:40 No. Well.

33:41 Probably. Probably not.

33:43 I don't know. Probably you can learn shit from

33:45 this. They started to start.

33:47 Take note. Yeah, please take note.

33:50 All right, so we've got the, you know, we're looking now that at

33:55 the source of this. And, yeah, so they don't know

33:58 how the cyanide got there, why the cyanide got there, but

34:03 they're like, OK, let's run this now through an analyzer to be

34:08 100% sure that what it is, what we think it is, is actually what

34:11 it is. Now, unfortunately, that took a

34:14 bit of time. Yeah.

34:15 When I say a bit of time, it was still very fast, but it wasn't

34:18 fast enough to then save the remainder of the victims, I

34:22 don't think. If it could have been because

34:23 they'd already been purchased, you know what I mean.

34:25 Or yeah, but. I mean, I guess if you if they

34:27 were able to get that message out in that instance, not to

34:29 take them, we don't know whether it would have reached the right

34:32 people in the right time or not. But anyway.

34:35 So the next victim was another Mary by the name of Mary Reiner

34:41 Raina. She was 27 years of age.

34:44 And look, this is absolutely, absolutely heartbreaking.

34:49 I think, you know, the death of a 12 year old girl is tragic,

34:53 but this one kind of really got me.

34:55 But I guess it got me in the fields because of the position

34:58 in her life that she was in. And I just found it so

35:01 incredibly relatable. Absolutely.

35:03 So she was living in Winfield, IL, and she was a mother of four

35:09 children, the youngest of which was six days old.

35:14 On this particular day and back in the day and still to to this

35:19 day, Panadol has always been considered or paracetamol,

35:23 Tylenol, sorry, has always been considered a safe drug to take

35:29 in pregnancy. Now, I know we all try not to,

35:31 but there's days where you have no choice.

35:34 You've got a headache, whatever, Take it if you need it.

35:36 You take it if you need it. Yep.

35:37 And it is considered safe to take in pregnancy and in your

35:42 very early postpartum days as well when you're breastfeeding

35:45 and all of that kind of thing. So she's obviously had a

35:47 headache. Well, so her husband said that

35:50 she was like physically and emotionally just exhausted, 27

35:54 years of age with four children. Six days ago you gave birth.

35:58 You're coming home to three other kids.

36:00 I would be exhausted and burnt out too and probably have a

36:03 permanent headache and would need to be taking paracetamol.

36:07 Absolutely. So she did just that.

36:12 So they also bought extra strength Tylenol and she took 2

36:20 tablets. And again, in exactly the same

36:24 way as everyone else that we've spoken about to this to this

36:27 point has collapsed. Yeah.

36:29 So her husband's name was Ed, and he did exactly what all the

36:35 other victims families did and called an ambulance.

36:38 And she was actually rushed to the Central DuPage Hospital,

36:41 which was about a 2 minute drive from their house.

36:44 Like, So it's not like it was far.

36:46 She they, you know, tried to save her.

36:49 They performed CPR again, they're looking at this 27 year

36:53 old woman, the fact that she'd just given birth, they thought

36:56 that like maybe it was like a massive blood loss or that it

36:59 was something relating to having just given birth, which is a

37:02 really tumultuous time in the life of a woman.

37:04 Absolutely. I can understand why they did.

37:07 Yeah, but they but couldn't find any connection to that once they

37:10 not. At all.

37:10 There was no bleeding, nothing like that.

37:13 She passed away in the hospital a little bit later on that

37:16 afternoon. Yes.

37:17 So it's it's it was again, the so we're talking now three

37:25 different hospitals for these five victims.

37:27 Yeah. So, and at the time there wasn't

37:30 like a centralized system or anything like that.

37:32 I mean, they were still doing paper charting and we didn't

37:35 have the computers like we have today.

37:37 No. So nothing was being.

37:39 They weren't. Connecting the dots between

37:40 those, I mean, obviously three in the 11 family that got things

37:43 moving, whereas these between the the three of those and then

37:46 the sort of poor Mary Kellerman and and this Mary, they weren't

37:52 the those those three separate occasions of this were not being

37:55 connected at that point. Yeah.

37:57 Yeah. Yeah.

38:00 Yeah, it's just absolutely horrific.

38:02 And you know, to have a baby, a six day old baby left without

38:07 his. Absolutely.

38:08 I mean the other children as well, but particularly the fact

38:10 that they didn't even get a chance to to bond, you know,

38:14 make that connection there as as strong as.

38:18 So sad. So, so sad.

38:20 Yeah, OK. The next victim was another Mary

38:27 by the name of Mary McFarland. Her death happened in a sort of

38:34 a more public setting. Yeah, in a way.

38:36 And look, so sorry. So her name, she went by the

38:40 name of Sue, not Mary. She was 31 years of age.

38:43 She was a divorced single mum raising two sons at the time.

38:47 So Ryan was 5 and Bradley was three at the time of her death.

38:50 So another young mum. Like, it's just, you know what?

38:54 It actually makes me think young mums really need Panadol.

38:58 Fuck yeah. At least, at least.

39:02 Yes, at least apparently she came home.

39:05 So yet late afternoon she'd been working and oh, no, she was at

39:11 work, wasn't she? And she developed a throbbing

39:13 headache. Oh, my God, we've all been

39:14 there. She was sitting at her desk at

39:16 the time and she's like, oh, I'm gonna gonna grab some extra

39:20 strength Tylenol and knock this, you know, knock this headache

39:23 out. Yeah.

39:24 To the horror of her Co workers, she was in like the main area of

39:30 their office. And again, in exactly the same

39:32 way as the other victims, she just collapsed.

39:35 Yeah. She was rushed to Good Samaritan

39:38 Hospital in Downers Grove, where she was pronounced dead later

39:41 that night. Just.

39:42 Awful SO. Even despite, you know, many of

39:47 these victims arriving at hospital alive, what had

39:52 happened to them? They there was no, they weren't

39:54 able to sustain life like from what from all of the reports

39:59 I've read and things I've listened to about this.

40:03 Their pupils were fixed and dilated.

40:05 Their breathing was extremely shallow.

40:09 It was that they just couldn't get it back.

40:11 And it's just absolutely horrific.

40:13 And when we know about what you know, they obviously figured

40:17 out, especially with the Janus family initially, that it was

40:21 due to cyanide. The way that cyanide works, it

40:24 is it actually blocks oxygen from getting into your blood

40:27 cells. And so, and it can be immediate

40:29 like it can be so so fast if you immediately knew.

40:33 That like I don't cyanide. I don't think that changes it

40:36 doesn't Nah Nah, yeah. Because even like when I look

40:39 think of like all the victims here and you look at that

40:41 Teresa, who was, you know, they was literally paramedics on hand

40:44 at the time she collapsed even from that entry point of like.

40:49 Is there like an antidote to cyanide?

40:51 Yeah. Or just even don't know.

40:52 Yeah. Knowing like, you know, OK, we

40:53 know what that effect is that it does.

40:55 Well, if we do this, it might counteract that.

40:57 Yeah. Oh, there.

40:59 Is a apparently there is a drug. I don't know whether there was

41:01 back then. Yeah, whether, but apparently

41:04 there is an antidote. Mm.

41:05 Hmm, there is now, but I'm assuming it would have to be

41:08 administered pretty pretty. I mean, obviously it does.

41:11 Work very fast cyanide like especially in the levels which

41:14 we'll get to that that's. What we know from the Janus

41:18 family is that each capsule contained enough cyanide to kill

41:22 3 adult humans. So if they're taking two of

41:26 those capsules, that's enough to kill 6 people.

41:28 And so it obviously just worked in an instant.

41:32 Yeah, really, really fast. Oh God.

41:35 Okay, so I guess in this oh sorry one.

41:38 Was one more victim that sorry that were you going?

41:41 Yeah, sorry. That's all right.

41:43 Go go, you're doing. Very well, I'll leave you to it,

41:45 okay? So the next victim is a woman by

41:48 the name of Paula Prince. She was 35 years old and was a

41:52 flight attendant and apparently amazing at her job, like

41:56 friendly, loved travelling, had an absolute zest for life.

42:01 She was single, but she lived in a really lovely apartment on her

42:04 own and she was just in in one of the like Chicago's Old Town

42:09 apparently. And she was beautiful, like

42:13 absolutely stunning woman and a real had a real zest for life.

42:17 And I heard, I think it was her. I want to say it was her sister.

42:22 It might have been her friend speaking about her in a

42:26 documentary I watched about this.

42:28 And I really, I don't know. I, I felt like I'd like to be

42:33 her friend. The way that she was spoken

42:35 about. I'm like, she just sounded like

42:37 so much fun. Yeah.

42:38 So kind, really thoughtful, always giving to other people.

42:43 And she had people in her life who had kids, and she'd always,

42:46 like, do everything for them. And just a really, genuinely,

42:50 solidly lovely person. So she was a flight attendant

42:55 for United Airlines. And she did well.

42:58 She did actually international and domestic travel for part of

43:02 that. And I think she was really,

43:03 really good at what she did. Yeah.

43:06 So she landed at O'Hare Airport on the 29th of September.

43:11 She'd just flown from Las Vegas. And then she had some time off

43:15 work, few days off work. She said that apparently on the

43:19 way home she was exhausted and she had a had a bit of a

43:24 headache. She stopped off at a Walgreens,

43:27 which is a chemist, a pharmacy chain over in the United States

43:31 and she purchased some extra strength Tylenol.

43:36 This is the most tragic part of this story because she was

43:40 actually her sister was trying to get in contact with her.

43:44 And two days later this, her sister phoned the police and

43:50 asked them to do a welfare check on her because she hadn't heard

43:53 from her, wasn't able to get her by phone.

43:55 And the police did that. They went into her home and they

43:59 found her collapsed on her bathroom.

44:01 Well, she was kind of half in, half out of her bathroom.

44:04 She was they found a bottle of extra strength Tylenol near

44:11 nearby near her body. One pill was missing and also

44:15 the receipt was found in her apartment.

44:17 So they know it was purchased that day and that's what I.

44:19 Think with that one, I find really, really hard that she

44:22 only took one like whereas the others were taking two, that

44:25 then you wonder, OK, if she'd taken that kind of a dose and

44:29 someone had been home with her, say, was there a chance maybe

44:33 she would have made it? But the fact she was home alone,

44:37 I mean, meant that there was no intervention for her whatsoever.

44:41 And the fact that her body was found two days later, it just

44:44 makes me feel so. Sad, that is.

44:46 I mean, that's just awful, yeah. Yeah, what about Mary Weiner, 27

44:54 years old. And so she was the 6th victim in

44:59 terms of like the the, you know, the the process of all of this

45:07 and similar thing. So she also had a headache, took

45:14 some extra strength, Tylenol collapsed.

45:16 Now, very, very luckily, she was also taken to the Central

45:21 DeBarge Hospital, which is the same place Mary Rayner had been

45:24 taken that day, earlier that day.

45:27 And because they now had two victims at the same hospital

45:31 that had the same symptoms and died in the same way, they

45:36 started to that hospital then started to be like, OK, there's

45:40 something actually going on here.

45:44 What's what's the go? Let's see if they started to

45:48 then reach out to other hospitals in the area to see if

45:50 they'd seen anything like this. Because these two things were

45:53 so, so bizarre. Yeah, yet unique.

45:59 They'd never really seen anything like this before.

46:01 And this is what started the hospitals talking.

46:03 So the Doctor Who treated both of these Marys reached out to

46:10 colleagues in the other emergency like emergency

46:13 departments in the hospitals around.

46:15 And then that's how they found, Oh my God, we've had a patient

46:19 like this and we've had three patients where this has

46:22 happened. And this is where at that time,

46:27 the police chief's like, Oh my Lord, we need to get the mayor

46:32 and the, I don't know, the health department involved in

46:35 this and sort of start, started the ball rolling in terms of

46:38 like, what the fuck are we going to do about this?

46:41 And because of the Janice family connection and the fact that

46:44 they'd within the day figured out that there was cyanide in

46:48 their Tylenol bottle, yeah, they were able to basically go put

46:52 all this together. And everyone's like, I mean,

46:54 obviously autopsies had to happen to be 100% sure, but

46:57 looking at the symptoms, looking at the way these people died,

46:59 they were pretty certain they. The one, the thing that

47:02 connected very quickly was that the Kalerman bottle, the bottle

47:05 from Mary Kalerman and the bottle from the Janice family

47:07 was from the same lot number. Yeah.

47:09 So that they kind of actually jumped to a conclusion there a

47:12 little bit of that, OK, it's that lot number that's been

47:14 affected thinking that, I mean, because at this point still

47:18 they're going, OK, it's Tylenol, They're thinking this has got to

47:21 have happened in manufacturing, immediately gone back to the

47:24 source of it because as we said at the start, no one's thinking

47:28 about something's gone wrong in the manufacturing stuff.

47:32 This is a lot number issue. So they decided to recall that

47:37 lot number. So basically thinking that

47:39 removing that lot off the shelves would then fix.

47:44 This because there was some error in manufacturing which

47:46 basically meant that something in that lot got.

47:49 Into that somehow. Yep, and.

47:52 They'll address that, but let's get all that lot number off the

47:55 shelves now. Johnson and Johnson were

47:57 immediately on board with this. It wasn't that they were, you

48:00 know, proactive. They didn't sort of do the whole

48:03 no, no, no, our products fine, push it out in the shelves.

48:06 They were very, you know, instantly.

48:08 Well, they immediately issued a recall, Yeah, just at the time

48:13 they. So initially they only issued a

48:16 recall of the extra strength Tylenol.

48:18 Yeah. And the batch was like M-288-O

48:21 or something like that. Yeah.

48:24 And OK, so they MC. 2880 OK. Yeah, that wasn't bad, Emma.

48:29 Well done you for remembering that.

48:31 And they, yeah. So they've obviously got people

48:35 to they're like, you can either hand it in to where you

48:37 purchased it from, you can hand it to the police station, or

48:40 please, at the very least, just discard it.

48:42 Yeah. But then very soon after that

48:45 when they started then looking at there was more, once they

48:47 kind of started linking these other cases up and so connecting

48:49 those dots, they very quickly realized that there's more lot

48:53 numbers that have been hit. So originally there was lots

48:57 number 1910 MD and MB 2738 were also identified from the Callum.

49:04 I'm sorry, not from, I'm from Mary Macfarlane's pill bottle as

49:08 well. So they realized to what that

49:11 actually meant to once they started putting them all

49:13 together, it wasn't just the lot numbers that were many, many, it

49:16 was also two different factories.

49:19 So originally it was a factory that was quite localized to

49:22 Chicago that they pinpointed where these were from.

49:25 But as they started looking at some of these lot numbers, one

49:28 of them in particular came from Texas.

49:30 So it didn't mean that then Texas were going to be

49:33 necessarily, you know, that was sort of concerned then it could

49:35 be something that could show up. These cases could shop elsewhere

49:38 because the Texas factory was bigger even than the one that

49:41 was out from Chicago. So then it became of even bigger

49:44 concern of like how far this could go if it was coming

49:48 directly from factories. But at the same time they were

49:51 like there is if there this is they realized that it couldn't

49:54 be. There's nothing that Johnson and

49:56 Johnson was saying there's no cyanide in their factories at

49:59 that point, but there was number cyanide that they were going OK,

50:03 this is somebody who is working. If this is someone working for

50:06 Johnson and Johnson tampering with the bottles in the

50:08 manufacturing process, that's not happening then at 2 separate

50:12 factories, that's got to be at 1 factory.

50:15 So the fact that it's now lot numbers from multiple factories

50:18 almost really made them realize this is not a manufacturing

50:23 issue in that there's something happening there.

50:25 This made it then go, then realize holy crap this is

50:29 happening after they've left the factories.

50:33 But at what point they didn't know this is.

50:34 It so because they. Then the these bottles then go

50:37 to distribution centres before they're then sent out to

50:40 different pharmacies and and supermarkets and all of that

50:43 kind of thing. Yeah, so they had to, they had

50:47 to make a pretty big call. And the call that they had to

50:49 make was, do we actually now just recall all Tylenol

50:52 products? So they did.

50:55 They absolutely did that. And I can't tell.

50:57 Me anyway that if you know as a consumer of that product that

51:00 you would like go hang on a minute.

51:02 I think there's products that being recalled.

51:04 I wouldn't touch any of their products until I felt very safe.

51:07 I think the. Only way Johnson and Johnson

51:10 could have gotten out of this the way that they did.

51:12 Yeah. And by that, I mean, getting

51:15 back to the point where they're the number one selling analgesic

51:20 products in the US Yeah, the only way they could have done

51:25 that is by doing exactly what they did.

51:27 And that was recalling all Tylenol products around the

51:31 States. Yes.

51:31 So they recalled, I think it was 100 million bottles.

51:37 Yeah, it was. Oh no.

51:38 Was it 30 million? 31 million for 100. $1,000,000

51:41 value something like that. That was a. 100 million in.

51:45 In 1982. The value of that now is

51:48 something like. Probably 253. 100,000,400

51:52 million. I calculated it out to Wow, it'd

51:55 be worth today's money. 400 million, yeah.

51:58 Yeah, it's it's widely considered like that.

52:02 Their recall of this is widely considered as like one of the

52:05 best. Gold.

52:07 Standard. Kind of moves of what you do,

52:10 the gold. Standard of what you do, they've

52:11 never Johnson. And Johnson up until this point

52:13 had never had to recall a product on mass scale before.

52:17 And so this was absolutely unprecedented for any drug

52:21 company anywhere. The fact that they were willing

52:24 to take the hit is, I mean, of course they did because there

52:30 were people dying and they didn't know what was going on.

52:33 But reputationally, the fact that they played it the way that

52:37 they did meant that people still had faith in them as a brand.

52:41 And they were able to, we'll talk about this in a minute, to

52:44 how they got there. But they were then able to get

52:47 that loyal, those loyal consumers to come back and buy

52:51 their product again eventually, yeah.

52:53 So I mean, coming from a place of like, you know, from I guess

52:57 the consumers point of view that were doing the right thing, but

52:59 they also like protecting their own asses.

53:01 Of course they would come back, of course.

53:02 So it's true fold, but it got it got the right action like it

53:06 needed to happen. They also.

53:07 Announced a $100,000 reward. Yeah, to anybody who was able to

53:14 come forward with information pertaining to how this happened,

53:17 or if they knew anybody or any information that would lead to

53:21 the solving of this problem, they came out with that straight

53:24 away as well. I mean, $100,000 to them,

53:26 obviously peanuts in relation to the 100 million.

53:30 Yeah, the 100 million at the time.

53:34 But you know, again, they were putting their money where their

53:36 mouth was and they really did want to have this solved.

53:38 Of course, their livelihoods were at stake.

53:40 This was such a massive portion of their of their revenue, yeah.

53:44 I mean, so it highlighted to them at this point like, well,

53:47 how are they going to get a product back on the shelves that

53:49 people are going to trust? And that was when they started

53:52 implementing these tamper proof seals, the full packaging and

53:57 triple seal systems that they have to this day to ensure

54:00 people can't get that access without a consumer knowing that

54:04 that bottle's been opened before they've purchased it.

54:06 So I mean, it brought something in that well and truly, I mean,

54:10 we're grateful for today. It's just that it was needed.

54:13 We just take it for granted, don't we?

54:16 You wouldn't even. Of course it would look weird if

54:18 you got a bottle that didn't have something tamper like a

54:21 tamper evident pill packet or a tamper evident, you know, sealed

54:24 to a bottle. But we know no different, no.

54:30 No, yeah, this is it. I mean, it also the other thing

54:33 was that the capsules that were in these bottles were able to be

54:38 opened up and things put inside and reclosed to the so that you

54:43 you had no idea that had previously been done.

54:45 And so it basically it created a new product too that we know it

54:51 today is being a caplet rather than a, a capsule or a tablet,

54:54 but the combination of the two, which I thought I think was

54:57 pretty interesting. So that's less tampering, being

55:00 able to be made of a product, you know, be able to open solid.

55:03 Put the product. That's solid, yeah.

55:05 And and swallowed that way that which is interesting.

55:08 I never thought about it until doing this that I was like, oh,

55:10 that's why they do that. Amazing.

55:12 Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. Yeah.

55:15 God, cause yeah, just take it for granted.

55:16 Absolutely. So what happened, I think it was

55:21 a little bit later that year, is that it became a federal law.

55:28 It was the federal Anti Tampering Act of 1983 became

55:33 official and it became against the law to interfere with

55:40 products that like that were being, you know, sold to

55:42 consumers. So up until that point,

55:45 tampering, tampering with a anything that a consumer was

55:51 purchasing was not actually a crime.

55:54 Well, I find that really, it's really interesting, isn't it?

55:56 Because you just assume it would be in that because it should, it

55:59 shouldn't be done. But at the same time, there's

56:01 been no need for there to be a law about it.

56:03 It was common sense not to. Yeah.

56:06 Like that's, it's a really interesting turn of events of

56:08 like society, isn't it? Totally.

56:10 Totally, totally. Oh, wow.

56:13 Yeah. But then obviously if you're

56:15 putting cyanide into a pill, that's an extra.

56:18 It's not like you were just replacing the acetaminophen

56:20 with, I don't know, like talcum powder or something.

56:24 That's something. Or bacon powder, something

56:25 that's not harmful, you know? Yeah.

56:27 Yeah. The fact that they will cyanide

56:28 you would still be. You're definitely going to get

56:32 caught for murder. Yeah.

56:32 But yeah, tampering in general is now legal.

56:36 Is now illegal. Yeah, interesting.

56:39 It's. Really, really interesting.

56:40 So, OK, we need to now maybe have a bit of a look at who

56:44 might have done this. Yeah.

56:45 Well, I mean, they were at a loss because, well, there's no,

56:47 no CCTV of these, you know, places where these things were

56:51 bought as to know who was in there that could have done it at

56:53 that point. There was no CCTV of, you know,

56:56 depots where trucks were leaving and, you know, carrying these

57:00 products. There was a photo taken of the

57:03 flight attendant of Paula in the supermarket where she purchased

57:08 hers, right. There's there is a photo of her.

57:10 They so they didn't have CCTV. No, but they, they did have

57:15 cameras that took still photos once every X amount of minutes

57:19 or something. Yeah.

57:20 And there is, But there is this photo, and she's lining up and

57:24 she's kind of looking away from where the camera is looking at

57:28 something. And it's haunting because you're

57:33 like, she's literally standing there about to buy the thing

57:36 that will kill her tonight. Yeah.

57:38 Isn't that fucking awful? It's.

57:39 Fucking awful, yeah. Like you're going to the

57:43 supermarket and buying. Yeah, I.

57:45 Literally had Panadol this morning like.

57:48 Many I think you've had today, yeah.

57:50 But like, you don't. Think twice about it.

57:52 No, I said. Even even though we're recording

57:54 this today, I didn't. It is.

57:57 I did. I did pop it out of a blister

57:59 pack, Yeah, and a tamper evident blister pack, but didn't think

58:02 anything of it. This.

58:03 Thing you just don't. No, not at all.

58:05 And why should you? You shouldn't these people,

58:09 yeah. So basically there's sort of a

58:10 bit of a loss to try to find suspects at this point.

58:12 However, they've got their reward and hoping that someone

58:14 might come forward with that money.

58:16 Can be very motivating but. All of a sudden, a ransom letter

58:19 appears. This is.

58:21 Just. So this is like on the 1st of

58:23 October. So this is only two days.

58:25 This is 2 days after this is all occurred so.

58:27 There were victims who hadn't even died yet.

58:29 There was. We didn't even know that Paula

58:31 had died yet. And.

58:32 Yeah. So nothing really much like it

58:34 had been obviously was out in the media that this occurred,

58:36 but there wasn't great details that we're getting out through

58:39 the media. This is early days of this

58:41 occurring. So when putting it together,

58:43 yeah, I. Think this is an important point

58:44 too. When they said that there was a

58:46 recall, they didn't actually say why at the time.

58:49 Because they could. They couldn't.

58:50 They didn't. They didn't definitively know.

58:52 They, I just knew that there was something in these Tylenol

58:56 bottles that was killing people. Yeah.

58:58 So that's all that was really broadcast out there.

59:00 And I mean, they did a lot. Even the local mayor for

59:05 Chicago, she got police to go around with loud speakers, do

59:10 door knocking to tell people, throw your Tylenol in the bin,

59:13 like public service announcement it was on.

59:15 Like they got media involved so people knew but they didn't know

59:19 why no. And so, sorry, I didn't mean to

59:23 interrupt you, but you are keep going before no.

59:25 You're doing all good. Yeah.

59:26 So this ransom letter arrives at Johnson and Johnson, so I'll

59:31 read it for you. Oh.

59:32 Yeah, go. OK this.

59:34 Because the start of which pisses me, I.

59:35 Know right so. Sign of the times, gentlemen.

59:38 Gentlemen, because there wouldn't be a woman in charge at

59:41 the pharmaceutical company. What?

59:45 Home with the children cooking dinner.

59:47 Sorry. Sarcastic enough?

59:49 Sorry. As you can see, it is easy to

59:55 place cyanide, both potassium and sodium, into capsules

59:59 sitting on store shelves. And since the cyanide is inside

1:00:04 the gelatin, it is easy to get buyers to swallow the bitter

1:00:08 pill. Another beauty is that cyanide

1:00:12 operates quickly. It does not take long for

1:00:16 victims to die. So far I have spent less than

1:00:21 $50 and it takes me less than 10 minutes per bottle.

1:00:28 If you don't mind the publicity of these little capsules, then

1:00:32 do nothing. If you want to stop the killing.

1:00:37 Why A1 $1 million to the following bank account?

1:00:42 Now that bank account, obviously it was then looked at very, very

1:00:46 carefully. That bank account belonged to a

1:00:50 man who ran a travel agency. What?

1:00:56 Sorry, what that? Whole ransom letter, I know.

1:01:00 I. Know.

1:01:02 I mean, it's beyond creepy in that they know.

1:01:07 They know everything. Yep, they.

1:01:09 Do they know what's been done? What's been used what how much

1:01:14 money that would cost, like what cyanide would cost to and it.

1:01:18 Was out of church like it was checked out and that was exactly

1:01:20 right all spot. On how long it would take to

1:01:23 carefully undo each capsule and fill it with some cyanide and

1:01:27 put it back together and put it into the bottle.

1:01:30 They, the police were very thorough and looking at that,

1:01:32 those sorts of things are like, you know, they made that sort of

1:01:35 shit up. You know, they were very like,

1:01:36 you could do it in 10 minutes, it could be done.

1:01:40 What? Especially if you had a pill

1:01:41 press, which, you know, Yeah, even without one, actually,

1:01:46 yeah. Yeah.

1:01:50 So they looked into obviously this very, very carefully and

1:01:54 found the man who owns the bank account that was listed there.

1:01:59 Now they went to him, as I said, he owned like a travel agency

1:02:04 and he was a regular run-of-the-mill bloke.

1:02:07 No, nothing like untoward. They did full backtrack check on

1:02:10 him of like to kind of go, what's his deal?

1:02:12 Before they even approached him, they couldn't see anything that

1:02:16 this man would connect to any of this.

1:02:18 He had no priors, nothing, you know.

1:02:22 Yeah, very much travel agency. Now I'm trying to like what?

1:02:25 Kill people with cyanide pills? Like what He was his business

1:02:28 was doing well, you know, So it wasn't like he was he

1:02:31 necessarily. I mean anyone could do with

1:02:32 $1,000,000 but like. I can Yes, please.

1:02:35 Yes, please. But you know who he wasn't

1:02:38 needing? He wasn't needing the money.

1:02:40 You know, like he wasn't in some sort of dire straits who was

1:02:42 desperate for money that would need him to be going.

1:02:44 I'll be, I'll do this to get ransom money.

1:02:49 So with talking to him, though, they found the only person that

1:02:54 this man could think of that would do something like this was

1:02:58 an ex employee's husband. This ex employee had they'd had

1:03:05 some issues in terms of her work and she had left the company.

1:03:10 And when that occurred, her husband was not happy about it,

1:03:14 not at all. Now, he went by a name that was

1:03:20 not his birth name at this time, as the husband and I couldn't

1:03:24 find out. Could you find out much about

1:03:26 why that is why he used that other name?

1:03:28 I'm not. Sure.

1:03:29 No, I couldn't find anything. I I certainly, I didn't come

1:03:32 across it in any of my research, no.

1:03:34 No. So he went by name.

1:03:36 Oh, Richard. Something, wasn't it Rich?

1:03:38 God isn't going to find it, but he's.

1:03:39 But in looking into him, they very quickly found this Richard

1:03:42 actually was James Williams Lewis.

1:03:46 Yeah, So who was James William Lewis then?

1:03:50 Well, he was a very. Interesting, man.

1:03:54 Interesting. Doesn't even cut the far out,

1:03:58 Yeah. So he was already had some

1:04:04 dealings with police at from immediately looking into him

1:04:07 were like, well yeah, he's odd and very unusual in that he had

1:04:13 been arrested previously and tried for a murder.

1:04:19 Not only that, he had such a long standing rap sheet with the

1:04:23 police, he. He.

1:04:25 He was one of those people who'd been, I don't know, I feel like

1:04:29 he'd he'd in everything a serial pest because he'd always kind of

1:04:33 reached just under the threshold to be convicted or tried of

1:04:39 certain things. Like it's like he was constantly

1:04:41 pushing this little boundary across the the years, never

1:04:45 quite tipped over into unfortunately.

1:04:47 We'll get to some of the more specifics in a second.

1:04:49 Yeah. But never quite pushed over into

1:04:51 him spending any time in prison. Well, not at this point anyway.

1:04:54 Yeah. Spending any time in prison or

1:04:56 anything like that. Yeah.

1:04:58 So, yeah, Serial Pest I think is fair, but he was doing some

1:05:01 really fucking dodgy shit and and really damaging to other

1:05:04 people. He was a con artist.

1:05:06 He like, committed like credit card fraud.

1:05:09 Yeah. He opened credit cards in all

1:05:12 these different people's names. And I think he even opened one

1:05:14 in the name of the travel agent who his wife.

1:05:17 So his wife's name was Leanne. I think he they were.

1:05:20 Like we want to get rid of her, but I think a lot of it was more

1:05:23 to do with him, you know, in in wanting them out of like being.

1:05:26 And she, Leanne was. So, so, so loyal to her husband.

1:05:34 Like to. Yep, that I can see that.

1:05:41 If he said to her, oh, you need to find me like his Social

1:05:44 Security number so I can buy a get a credit card in his name,

1:05:47 she would have done it. Oh, yeah.

1:05:48 She was just like one of those people.

1:05:51 She just did everything he said. Yeah.

1:05:54 And she never once, never once said a word against him to the

1:05:59 police, to anybody in all of this.

1:06:01 No. So to me, I feel like she would

1:06:05 have known what was going on. She's culpable.

1:06:08 Yeah, I. Agree.

1:06:10 As well. Yeah, I mean, he's obviously

1:06:13 anyway, let's, let's get into that a little bit more.

1:06:15 He's 100% next level. Very.

1:06:17 And I have to admit, straight up, I've watched that more

1:06:20 recent documentary and he is interviewed in that and at the

1:06:23 time of him being looked at, he became quite vocal in media and

1:06:27 was quite out there just loving. So sick, loved a.

1:06:31 Bit of media back then, he then dropped off the radar and

1:06:35 wouldn't be involved in media for quite some time in between

1:06:38 and then. So then when it came to this

1:06:39 newer documentary, I think he was like, bring it, you know,

1:06:44 I'll have a chat with you. And I have to admit, I slightly

1:06:46 got sucked into this guy for a minute.

1:06:48 For a minute. OK, I yeah, he told this story.

1:06:53 He started to tell the story of how he was linked to this

1:06:55 murder, which part of it broke my heart.

1:06:59 Same so. Basically, him, James and his

1:07:02 wife Leanne, had a daughter, and his daughter happened to have

1:07:07 Down syndrome. And the way he spoke about her

1:07:10 in this documentary was really loving.

1:07:13 Yeah. That he wanted to do everything

1:07:15 and anything for her. You know, growing up, I mean, in

1:07:17 the 80s and having a child with Down syndrome, I don't know how

1:07:20 much support would have been out there and how much sort of a lot

1:07:23 of people could have been quite, you know, unhelpful to a family

1:07:27 in that kind of situation. I feel unlike today in the 80s.

1:07:32 People born with with Down syndrome were still being

1:07:34 institutionalized. Like that is it?

1:07:37 It blows my mind that basically within our living lifespan that

1:07:42 that was still happening. Like I can't believe that.

1:07:45 Thank God things have changed and I.

1:07:47 Think that immediately got me sucked in because I was like

1:07:49 immediately this is a dad who was like that's not happening to

1:07:52 my daughter and I'm raising her and I'm you know this is for us

1:07:57 and this is my daughter when I was.

1:08:00 In, yeah, I mean, look, I think. Even the worst of the worst of

1:08:06 people, surely they, I mean, there are people who are all

1:08:08 bad. But yeah, we've all got our

1:08:10 things right. And obviously I I agree with

1:08:14 you. I agree that the way he spoke

1:08:15 about her, but then you look at him and you're like, oh, he's a

1:08:18 con artist. He would know it wasn't He would

1:08:20 know that this looks really makes him look really

1:08:23 sympathetic and. Yeah, and what do I?

1:08:26 Actually think like if we're looking at this critically.

1:08:29 Yeah. Where's the motivation makes you

1:08:31 flip? The the other I.

1:08:32 I hope, but I hope that it was genuine.

1:08:36 I really do. But unfortunately when she was,

1:08:38 I think she was two years of age, she had a hole in her heart

1:08:41 and she died during the surgery where they were trying to repair

1:08:44 it. So.

1:08:45 Yeah, she she passed away. And something they knew about

1:08:49 too isn't something they weren't aware of.

1:08:51 Yeah, they knew that she had this heart condition, which is

1:08:54 quite common with people, Down syndrome.

1:08:57 So, yeah, when it happened, it was heartbreaking.

1:08:59 And he teared up in that documentary, and so did I along

1:09:03 with him kind of going, oh, my God, this poor man's being

1:09:05 accused of, you know, poisoning people.

1:09:07 And here he is. He's had, you know, all this

1:09:09 going for him. Like, how awful.

1:09:12 No, no, no. He's a piece of shit.

1:09:14 He's a piece of shit. I mean.

1:09:16 Both things can be true. It can be true that it's really

1:09:20 sad that his daughter died, and it can be true that he's also a

1:09:23 fucking piece of shit who's potentially allegedly

1:09:26 perpetrated all these other things against other people.

1:09:29 Definitely. So basically when his daughter

1:09:33 passed away, he had this very good friend, now this good

1:09:36 friend of his who was who absolutely adored his daughter

1:09:39 and spent lots of time coming around and visiting her.

1:09:42 Oh, my God, I'm just trying to find Raymond W, isn't it?

1:09:44 Yeah. So he's, look, they, they, they

1:09:47 had an interesting friendship. And I, it was interesting to

1:09:49 hear his perspective of like this great mate of his that came

1:09:52 to his house all the time and everything.

1:09:53 And then you hear Raymond West's daughter, I believe it was.

1:09:56 I think I've heard her interviewed and how her

1:09:58 perspective of Raymond West's relationship with James Lewis

1:10:02 was a bit more like, oh, look, he's weird and a pain in the

1:10:05 ass. But my dad was a very kind

1:10:06 person and was friends with people.

1:10:08 Yeah. So it's very interesting seeing

1:10:10 both perspectives of that. Yeah.

1:10:11 So they would spend a lot of time together, according to

1:10:15 James Lewis. And at one point though Raymond

1:10:19 W, he had, well, interestingly, he disappeared.

1:10:24 But James Lewis said he went on holidays and he even to the

1:10:29 point of he went to his house and put a card on the door of

1:10:32 his house saying I've gone to X so and so for this time.

1:10:37 And so if you come to knock at my door, basically I won't be

1:10:40 there. I'm not here.

1:10:41 I've gone away back in the. Days before mobile phones,

1:10:44 people. Oh, and that.

1:10:45 And worrying about people robbing your house because, you

1:10:47 know, basically telling the world, you know, I'm not home.

1:10:50 Like actually that's. A good point.

1:10:52 I actually hadn't even thought about that, but yeah, I thought.

1:10:54 You're doing the good friendly neighbor thing of like, you

1:10:57 know, putting this note on the door, but you're just telling

1:10:59 everyone like, you're not there. Like, I'm not home at this

1:11:01 point. OK.

1:11:03 All right. But yeah, according to to James

1:11:05 Lewis, he had spoken to Raymond West, and he had decided to go

1:11:09 on this trip. And so James took it upon

1:11:11 himself to put this note on the door, but he, Raymond W didn't

1:11:16 appear. He, again, he was missing.

1:11:18 His family, you know, rang the police and reported him missing,

1:11:21 and they couldn't find him. And really, tragically, they

1:11:25 ended up finding his body in the attic of the house.

1:11:30 His body was dismembered. It was quite horrific, what had

1:11:34 been done to him prior to death and after death.

1:11:38 He, yeah, was not, not good. And obviously the last person to

1:11:44 have seen him alive was James Lewis.

1:11:47 Interestingly enough, isn't it? Yeah.

1:11:50 I'm sorry, no, go, go. I was going.

1:11:51 To say the police obviously brought James in for questioning

1:11:55 as they do. Yeah, absolutely the right thing

1:11:57 to do. Last person to see him alive.

1:12:00 And unfortunately, before interviewing him, they didn't

1:12:06 read him his Miranda rage. Yeah.

1:12:08 And so, I mean, I haven't. Have you actually, were you able

1:12:13 to watch any of that interview? Have you watched?

1:12:15 Any of it? No.

1:12:16 I read some transcripts. I was.

1:12:17 Going to say I read some transcripts but I don't know if

1:12:20 the video is actually available. No, maybe, maybe not actually,

1:12:23 because I feel like I would have come across it when researching

1:12:26 it, but it it was pretty fucking damning.

1:12:31 It was pretty damning. And so the police have then

1:12:34 charged him with the murder and dismemberment of this body

1:12:38 because there's. No question.

1:12:39 This man was murdered. Oh yeah.

1:12:41 You can't commit murder and then cut your limbs off.

1:12:43 No, you. Know you're committing suicide

1:12:46 here and, like, you know, in his attic, he he was murdered, no

1:12:49 question. Yeah.

1:12:49 Someone else has done this too. Yeah.

1:12:51 Yeah. So anyway, they've charged James

1:12:54 with the murder and it's gone to court and unfortunately.

1:13:00 He. Had a really good lawyer and the

1:13:02 lawyer figured out through, and I believe it was through these

1:13:05 written transcripts that he was never, it was never documented.

1:13:08 There was never assigned documentation with regard to him

1:13:12 having been read his Miranda rights.

1:13:14 And so the judge had no choice but to throw the case out.

1:13:19 Yeah. There was not enough evidence

1:13:20 without it without. It and so that's it.

1:13:23 It literally he walked away from that.

1:13:27 He's. Free.

1:13:28 Of course he does. Didn't.

1:13:30 Kill him and has another story of that of like what he thinks

1:13:33 happened, which is just doesn't make sense.

1:13:34 Of course. Yeah, but I mean, we're pretty

1:13:39 confidently can say he probably got away with murder of that

1:13:44 there. And some people do believe it's

1:13:46 because maybe Raymond W was like, mate, I can't do this

1:13:50 anymore. Yeah, because he.

1:13:52 Sorry. He had also stolen his credit

1:13:54 card details too and was using Frame and West's credit card as

1:13:58 and things. So there was that was that was

1:14:00 the evidence they did have. But that doesn't prove murder.

1:14:02 Like kind of that's all they had on top of what these tapes were.

1:14:06 Yeah. So these interviews.

1:14:08 So yeah, that was basically they had to throw it out that they

1:14:11 had no choice in that matter. But it did leave James Lewis as

1:14:15 being someone who is just who's obviously I think got a, you

1:14:18 know, a past that doesn't rule him out from being potentially

1:14:22 someone who might do this to Cyano tablets, but.

1:14:26 Also like the fact that he's written this extortion letter

1:14:29 for the $1,000,000, to me that's like.

1:14:32 He. Knew something that wasn't

1:14:34 publicly known. Like there's just so many things

1:14:37 that just really line up well. The thing on.

1:14:40 That is that the police sort of feel it like they, the bit of

1:14:44 evidence with this that they feel is a bit of a clincher is

1:14:46 that this letter arrived at Johnson and Johnson on the 1st

1:14:50 of October. Yeah, and, and he, James Lewis

1:14:53 says like he, so we should say he admits to writing that

1:14:56 letter. He wanted the travel agent who

1:14:59 you know, that his wife worked for.

1:15:00 He was pissed with him. He wanted him to pay for that.

1:15:04 So he thought he would write this letter to Johnson and

1:15:06 Johnson and get him in the shit. That's what his story of it is.

1:15:09 He admits I wrote it. That's why I wrote it.

1:15:11 I wanted him to be the person they were looking at for all

1:15:15 these Tylenol murders. However, he wrote that letter

1:15:19 and like it was postmarked on the 1st of October and he says

1:15:23 it took him three days to construct that letter.

1:15:27 And thinking about it now, if that's the case, 3 days prior

1:15:31 the media and the public did not know about this, no.

1:15:35 In fact, the first victim had only just died.

1:15:38 Yeah. So how on earth does he know

1:15:40 enough about this to go no, I'm going to?

1:15:43 Write a letter. So yeah, that that bit of

1:15:46 evidence there, it's. Everything gets.

1:15:49 Me for everything, but then I have to do the whole OK.

1:15:52 He did actually didn't admit that until further

1:15:55 investigations in, like, the 2000s.

1:15:58 Yeah. So is that a memory lapse of how

1:16:00 long it took it? I mean, it's not like it's a

1:16:02 long ransom letter. There's not too much to it, no.

1:16:06 So did he actually take three days to write it?

1:16:10 And that's my only thing of like, my brain goes, OK.

1:16:13 Is he overestimating how long he thought about this?

1:16:15 You know why? Why do you feel the need to give

1:16:17 him that? Because because I just don't

1:16:22 know if he did it. Really.

1:16:24 No. I don't know.

1:16:26 OK. All right.

1:16:28 Should we talk about another? Yeah.

1:16:30 But what about. OK, actually, let's talk a

1:16:32 little bit more about like later on in the 2000s when the when

1:16:35 the FBI got involved. Yeah.

1:16:38 And they basically conned him. They conned the con man.

1:16:42 Yeah. Well.

1:16:43 Done. Well done so.

1:16:44 They they. This to me, speaks to his

1:16:47 personality. I'm assuming he's got a

1:16:50 personality disorder. Oh.

1:16:51 Yeah. And his narcissism, to be

1:16:54 honest, because he, the FBI basically said, oh, because you

1:17:00 know so much about all this stuff.

1:17:04 So they didn't say they were the FBI.

1:17:06 They said they were journalists. They posited themselves as

1:17:09 journalists. And they're like, we want to

1:17:10 write a story about all of this. And we want you to because

1:17:14 you're so good. And, you know, I mean, we know

1:17:16 you wrote that letter and we know it wasn't you who did it.

1:17:19 So, but because you seem to know so much about this, how about

1:17:24 we're going to do a story about this, like an expose about all

1:17:27 of this. Can you be our expert?

1:17:30 And can you tell us like, you know, theoretically how somebody

1:17:35 would have done this, right? And he literally draws them

1:17:41 diagrams, he draws them. He's got formulas, he's got

1:17:46 amounts you would need to fill. I mean, I think the Tylenol

1:17:50 bottles had 30 capsules in them. I think he knew exactly how much

1:17:53 cyanide he needed to 60 was it? So 30 doses?

1:17:57 Doses. Sorry, You're right.

1:17:59 He knew exactly how much cyanide was needed to put into the 60

1:18:04 capsules per bottle. He knew how to, like, cut the

1:18:07 cyanide so it looked a little more powdery.

1:18:09 He literally drew diagrams. He literally had formulas.

1:18:12 Right. So he's showing off to these

1:18:17 journalists who are actually FBI agents, and he's saying to them,

1:18:23 if if it was me, this is what I would have done.

1:18:25 This is what I would have done. Yeah.

1:18:27 And the the main journalist who was a woman, a female FBI agent,

1:18:33 she says to him, So why do you reckon the perpetrator of this

1:18:38 would have put the cyanide into the extra bottles?

1:18:43 Is it because, you know, if someone's really sick and

1:18:46 they're going to take the extra strength Tylenol and then maybe

1:18:50 they'll die quicker because they're already sick and it

1:18:53 might. Get covered up by that it might.

1:18:55 Get covered up right? And he goes, it's a joke, don't

1:18:59 you get it? There's extra in the Tylenol.

1:19:06 And she, she says when he said that, she had absolute chills

1:19:10 and she was like, oh, I know he did it.

1:19:12 I know he did it. Anyway, they ended up this was

1:19:15 like subsequently to that they're like, yeah, we we've got

1:19:17 to nab this guy again. OK.

1:19:24 Or is that one of those things where like some people are just

1:19:27 more logical and more you're? Going down the Lucy let me path

1:19:31 with this. Are you think I am?

1:19:32 Yeah, No, I do get that. I actually do get that because.

1:19:36 So I've been listening to a lot of this Lucy let me stuff lately

1:19:38 and about how, you know, we've talked about it in our episode

1:19:41 where she writes on the notes I'm bad, I did this, I it's my

1:19:45 fault, blah, blah, blah. Which at the time, not knowing

1:19:48 different things, I'm like, OK, of course you read that as a

1:19:51 literal interpretation of she's guilty, right.

1:19:55 Without any nuance. Yeah.

1:19:57 I'm not saying she is or isn't OK.

1:19:59 But in this instance, I can see how you could have a similar

1:20:03 approach because he's theoretically saying that he's

1:20:08 like he's sorry, not theoretically, hypothetically

1:20:10 saying that he's done it. Yeah.

1:20:12 To go along with a story. To a journalist, because he

1:20:16 thinks he's feeding them information about what would

1:20:19 happen if if he were the Tylenol murderer, I get, I do get that.

1:20:25 Yeah, but it's also that really like like the interpretation of

1:20:32 things like being, you know, like the the old, you know why

1:20:35 the chicken cross the road joke, you know, of like the different

1:20:38 like different people's interpretation of to get to the

1:20:41 other side. Whereas I as a kid believed that

1:20:44 to be the other side of the road, whereas the joke was

1:20:48 originally and people got it of being like to the other side as

1:20:51 in death. Yeah, right.

1:20:53 That just never that never landed with me, right.

1:20:59 Yeah. That I'm wondering whether it's

1:21:01 just to the way his brain works, which.

1:21:03 I do believe. He has a narcissism or you know,

1:21:06 something along those lines. And is there something a little

1:21:09 bit autistic in there of like that just that the.

1:21:11 Black and white like. You or something like you know

1:21:13 his idea of extra when he hears that, well, there's something

1:21:16 added, there's something extra that his brain just works

1:21:19 differently, but. Why would he?

1:21:21 I guess that maybe he doesn't have the insight then to think

1:21:24 other people's brains don't work that way.

1:21:26 Yeah, Yeah, OK. I don't know.

1:21:29 I know I should be defending him at the end of the day.

1:21:32 I do think that. I mean, I do think he's an

1:21:33 asshole of a man. Oh, he's.

1:21:34 A He's a shit person at the end of the day.

1:21:36 Yeah, this is not. The only thing he did in terms

1:21:38 of like pissing people off, there's a number like as I said,

1:21:41 there's a list of mile long of things he's done that are pretty

1:21:44 shit. So I think he's a Dick and an

1:21:47 asshole. I just don't know that he did

1:21:50 the Tylenol murders should. We talk about the other

1:21:53 potential suspects. Yep.

1:21:55 Sure. Who do you want to go with next?

1:21:59 What about Arnold? Roger.

1:22:01 Yeah. Roger Arnold.

1:22:02 Yeah. So he was a dock worker at the

1:22:05 warehouse that supplied the stores.

1:22:07 So he worked at a basically the distribution center, so the the

1:22:12 ships shipments would come in to where he was working and it was

1:22:16 his job to then distribute them to all the different like the

1:22:20 different pharmacies and as we were saying, supermarkets and

1:22:23 wherever, wherever the Tylenol is going.

1:22:25 Yeah, there was no evidence that linked him specifically to those

1:22:32 bottles. So I think when they looked into

1:22:35 it, certain lot numbers had passed through his distribution

1:22:39 centre, the one that he worked at, not.

1:22:44 All, not all those lot numbers, no.

1:22:47 So. He did have a link to Mary

1:22:50 Rhyner's father. Well, that's.

1:22:52 That's the other thing it. Was like, yeah, some sort of

1:22:57 revenge on him. Yeah, so.

1:23:02 So he became the prime suspect because he worked at a warehouse

1:23:08 with Mary Renner's father at one point, but the police could

1:23:13 never prove that he was the killer.

1:23:15 No, the pressure of him being under investigation for this

1:23:21 broke him as a human. He then went on to murder a man

1:23:26 by the name of John Stanisha. Yeah.

1:23:30 He just he missed because. He thought that now this is so

1:23:33 fucking tragic and and you look at this and you think this is

1:23:36 this really honestly is yeah, another victim of the Tylenol

1:23:41 murders, isn't he? So this this John was a another

1:23:45 a family man, lovely guy, upstanding member of society got

1:23:52 muddled into this whole mess. It was kind of a case of

1:23:54 mistaken identity. Yeah.

1:23:57 And Arnold killed him because he thought that, well, someone who

1:24:03 looked like him anyway, had ratted him out to the police and

1:24:07 said that Arnold was the was the the Tylenol murderer.

1:24:11 But. They did find at his house a

1:24:13 book by the name of. It's the poor man's James Bond,

1:24:16 it's called. And in it explains how to make

1:24:20 potassium cyanide. Yeah, like, oh.

1:24:24 Just it's probably worth noting as well, when they searched

1:24:26 James Lewis's house, they did not find any cyanide, no.

1:24:29 But they did find a book again that did actually.

1:24:32 It was like. The what was it?

1:24:34 I can't remember. What book it was, but it was

1:24:36 definitely one that clearly identified what cyanide was.

1:24:39 That's how much it would need. There was all that was in there.

1:24:41 It was like something it's. Like The Alchemist something,

1:24:43 yeah. Yeah, yeah.

1:24:45 So there was definitely a link there of like having information

1:24:48 at his house that would help in doing it.

1:24:49 Yeah. The other thing with Lewis that

1:24:53 I think is my, maybe my key thing of like going, I don't

1:24:57 know if he did it. There's actually, he lived in

1:24:59 New York, right? He didn't live in Chicago.

1:25:02 He was not from the area. He there was no evidence of him

1:25:08 even being in Illinois, in Chicago at the time.

1:25:11 Yeah. So that's probably my.

1:25:14 He can't be placed there whereas bottles were clearly.

1:25:16 Tampered with like in that they were in.

1:25:18 Purchased. Taken home and then put back on

1:25:20 shelves after purchase. I assume that's what you do.

1:25:23 I in the shop, I don't think you could stand there and do it.

1:25:25 No, in the shop I couldn't. No, I'm, I'm fairly certain that

1:25:28 whoever did this must have purchased them, taken them home,

1:25:30 done this and then, you know, substitiously put them back on

1:25:34 shelves after that, which at the time they could do because they

1:25:37 were. Yeah, all those tampering things

1:25:38 weren't there on the bottles to and there's no.

1:25:40 CCTV or anything like that so. That's how I believe it would

1:25:43 have happened and there's no evidence of him being in the

1:25:45 area to have done it. That's probably my that's where

1:25:49 I kind of because. When when you plot on a map all

1:25:52 of the places where cyanide was found in these extra strength

1:25:58 Tylenol bottles, they're all fairly within a 20 minute drive

1:26:02 of one another, basically all within sort of the outer city

1:26:06 limits of Chicago in Illinois. So it was.

1:26:09 Contained to that it was. Contained to a very quite a

1:26:11 narrow area really yeah The the thing that I I think you're

1:26:17 right I think that some the the perpetrator has done exactly

1:26:21 what you said like bought some Tylenol taking it home.

1:26:24 What I think is tough for me to get around my mind, but but I

1:26:29 can also see you could absolutely do it because was it

1:26:32 like 7 or 8 different places where they found it?

1:26:35 Yeah. Wouldn't have been that many,

1:26:38 not could have been. You're right, like so, so the

1:26:41 what I'm saying is the perpetrator would have then had

1:26:42 to have driven to all those places and placed the bottles.

1:26:45 But if you're trying to look for maximum impact, that's kind of

1:26:48 maybe what you would do. Yeah, it's.

1:26:50 Spread it like spread it. Out because you.

1:26:51 Kept it at one shop, it kind of it means you like and they're

1:26:54 going to look around that area for somebody whereas by doing it

1:26:56 multiple shops. Yeah.

1:26:58 It grows the the where you're looking for the.

1:27:00 Scope, yeah, but that's where. I mean, he lived in New York.

1:27:03 Yeah, well. Arnold lived in New York.

1:27:05 Yeah. No, no.

1:27:05 No, no, no, Lewis. Oh, Lewis.

1:27:08 Yeah, Yep. Sorry, yeah.

1:27:10 Yeah, Oh, God. But the other person they did

1:27:12 look at for this was actually the Unabomber.

1:27:15 So they did do Adna. So in later years.

1:27:18 So when we've really looked at this case in the 2000s, I think

1:27:20 it was around about 2010, I want to say.

1:27:22 Yep, they did. They did go to well, Arnold

1:27:26 died, so they consumed his body to remove DNA so they could test

1:27:31 him. They did get DNA from Lewis at

1:27:33 that time he was still alive, only he only passed away in

1:27:36 2023, I think it was. So yeah, they took DNA from him

1:27:39 and they took DNA from the Unabomber because he was

1:27:43 operating that area as well. So they kind of, that was one

1:27:46 they had on their their list of being, well, it was this maybe

1:27:48 one of his as well. And that that, but no, none of

1:27:52 them of their DNA matched the DNA that they did find on these

1:27:55 bottles that was that were tampered with.

1:27:58 So that's another little. Bit of a It's just another weird

1:28:04 thing I think. But then if you were doing this.

1:28:08 Would. You wear gloves, probably

1:28:09 because you don't want to get cyanide on your hands.

1:28:11 Cyanide on you, that's true. But then, but they did find

1:28:14 common DNA they. Did that is true so.

1:28:17 Yeah. I mean, they found the DNA of

1:28:19 the victims who'd obviously handled the bottles.

1:28:22 They found unknown DNA, which is likely to be that of shopped.

1:28:25 Is putting on shelves that's but they.

1:28:26 Yeah, it certainly didn't match any of the the suspects at the

1:28:29 time. Yeah, there was one other guy

1:28:32 whose name was sort of mentioned briefly, but he was ruled out

1:28:37 fairly quickly. His name was Kevin Masterson.

1:28:40 He had a very, very well known grudge against this.

1:28:45 The grocery chain Jewel or Jewel Osco.

1:28:48 It was called Osco. Yeah.

1:28:49 And a lot of the pills were bought at a Jewel store, but not

1:28:55 all. So yeah, it was pretty quickly

1:29:00 ruled out that it probably wasn't him, but he certainly was

1:29:04 very, very vocal. They, he felt that so his wife

1:29:07 had worked there and they, he felt very strongly that they had

1:29:12 mistreated her as an employee. But, and also, I think he was a

1:29:16 bit, he had some issues of his own going on.

1:29:20 And so he kind of really took this and ran with it and was

1:29:24 incredibly vocal about how awful they were.

1:29:28 So people, you know, members of the community thought, well, you

1:29:31 know, maybe he would want to get back at them by doing this.

1:29:34 But anyway, he got, he got ruled out.

1:29:37 There was definitely no physical link there to, to, to, to link

1:29:43 them together. Yeah.

1:29:43 The other theory, though, is so Michelle Rosen, who is one of

1:29:47 Mary Rayner's daughters. Yeah, So victim Mary Rayner's

1:29:51 daughters had a theory that the tampering didn't happen in the

1:29:54 stores at all. Her theory is that there was

1:29:58 somebody in the distribution centres that did this because

1:30:01 because of the way that they ended up randomly in different

1:30:05 places. So when the recall happened, a

1:30:08 lot of the bottles, especially from the stores where known

1:30:12 cyanide was tablets, were purchased within the bottles.

1:30:16 Scientists went through and checked all.

1:30:19 Like literally. They went through hundreds of

1:30:22 thousands of capsules, broke them open, checked 31.

1:30:25 Million bottles, yeah. Checked whether there was

1:30:29 cyanide present and so not all of the ones on the shelf contain

1:30:35 cyanide. So yes, they were like, well,

1:30:38 was it that somebody in these distribution centers has put a

1:30:44 random 1 bottle here that I've tampered with?

1:30:46 One bottle in that box, 1 bottle in that box.

1:30:49 But to me, but to me, I don't think that's right, because not

1:30:54 all of those bottles would have gone onto the shelves on the

1:30:56 same day, no. You know it's been back for me.

1:30:59 That's right, for weeks. Or, you know, someone sells more

1:31:03 than the other person. To me, that is completely not

1:31:07 even a thing. I think it had to have been

1:31:09 placed there by a person on the same day.

1:31:11 The person would have had to have driven around all these

1:31:13 stores, paste the bottles back, but.

1:31:15 One thing that I want to hear your thoughts on this too, Like

1:31:18 Johnson and Johnson, there's, there was some talk around the

1:31:22 fact that like from Johnson, Johnson's perspective, they're

1:31:24 like, we do not have cyanide in our factories.

1:31:26 You know, like turns out they did.

1:31:28 But when it was investigated further and that they, that

1:31:31 Johnson and Johnson then had to come out and say, Oh yeah, yeah,

1:31:34 no, we do actually. But it's kept behind lock and

1:31:36 key. No one has access to it without

1:31:38 these protocols. That's not actually true.

1:31:41 They didn't have all these protocols and it was pretty

1:31:43 accessible by staff. They didn't really keep it away

1:31:46 that much. Until after this.

1:31:48 Yeah, exactly. And then with this like their

1:31:52 proactiveness in terms of fixing this, which is applauded it all

1:31:58 levels on what they did. However, I can't come at the

1:32:02 fact that they were investigating themselves as part

1:32:06 of the police operation. I can understand as a company

1:32:09 you want to make your own, you know, like investigation to what

1:32:11 happened. That's absolutely Yep, good.

1:32:14 But I can't agree with them being the people who were

1:32:17 actually invited by the police to do the investigation of

1:32:22 themselves of these bottles, because I think that's so fair.

1:32:25 Yeah, all this stuff was basically they were like, oh,

1:32:27 we've got the labs, we've got the ability to do this, which

1:32:29 absolutely they do. Yeah, because they do their.

1:32:33 Own. They do their own.

1:32:34 That's what you see. And that's right.

1:32:36 They need to check what you know, make sure that they're

1:32:38 what they're putting out there is what they say they're

1:32:40 putting. Yeah.

1:32:41 And how much faith can we then have as a Society of like, what

1:32:44 it wouldn't? It wouldn't happen today that

1:32:46 that would never happen today because independent testing

1:32:49 would be happening for them just for what they're putting out

1:32:52 anyway. Yes, they wouldn't be able to do

1:32:54 just in house testing for that to in order to get accreditation

1:32:57 to be able to actually put these products on the shelf.

1:33:00 Yeah, but I I fully agree with you.

1:33:03 The police gave them way too much robe in terms of the scope

1:33:08 of what they were investigating in relation to this.

1:33:11 And it's like, it's like the police put blind faith in them

1:33:13 to be like, oh, yeah. Well, no, we know it wasn't you.

1:33:16 Yeah. But we, I mean, I don't look, I

1:33:20 don't think it was, I don't think it was somebody in the

1:33:22 manufacturing process. I don't.

1:33:24 Either I don't think that's what happened, but you're not

1:33:26 actually there's. Nobody impartial saying that

1:33:28 counting. Yourself.

1:33:29 Yeah, I feel like then there's this shadow over that.

1:33:31 Yeah. Because of the fact that, well,

1:33:34 who is to say that you, you haven't botched the outcome to

1:33:37 cover it up for yourselves. And it'd be like you who has

1:33:40 medical background in terms of labs and stuff are like looking

1:33:43 at, you know, things in a you have access to a lab.

1:33:45 You know that you went and murdered Peter and the police

1:33:48 turned around and went, well, you do.

1:33:49 You do all the lab work for us because you know what you're

1:33:51 doing. And then come back and tell us

1:33:52 and then. I'll come and I'll come and get

1:33:53 like DNA from my mortal enemy and be like, Oh my God, it's

1:33:56 this person. Me after all.

1:34:00 Good news, it's literally the. Same thing.

1:34:04 Yeah, on a smaller. Scale, yeah, I mean, just

1:34:06 because they're a big company and they are trying to protect

1:34:08 themselves, they have the money to protect themselves and.

1:34:11 You know what? So they should be protecting

1:34:13 themselves. I understand that that's

1:34:14 business. But yes, I couldn't agree with

1:34:16 you more. The police definitely gave them

1:34:18 a lot of scope, but they shouldn't have been given it.

1:34:21 At the end of the day, I do I I don't think that's how it

1:34:24 happened. I agree with you in that it's

1:34:25 with someone driving around putting it back on shelves.

1:34:27 I really agree. I think that to me.

1:34:29 That's logically, that's the only way it could have happened

1:34:31 in terms of because it was such a narrow time frame.

1:34:36 Yeah. That the people bought them,

1:34:38 yes. That it was all on the same day.

1:34:40 I can't come it any other way that they could have all ended

1:34:44 up on the shelves on the exact same day.

1:34:45 No. Yeah.

1:34:46 So. So we're looking at the moment

1:34:49 there. We've got we've got a few

1:34:50 suspects, you know, stand out being Lewis, but they just I

1:34:55 mean, as I said, he can't be proven to be in the area.

1:34:57 So they really couldn't get him on this on the on the media.

1:35:01 Have you? Seen though they did have like a

1:35:03 really really shitty grainy photo That could have literally

1:35:08 been me like you can't even you're honestly judging by the

1:35:12 body shape of this person, I'm like I actually can't tell

1:35:15 whether it's male or female they've got short hair, but the

1:35:18 body like you can't even really tell because it the the photo's

1:35:22 kind of on like a bit of an angle, so you kind of are not

1:35:24 seeing their full stature if you know what I mean OK really

1:35:28 blurry front and they're like Yep, that's him that's.

1:35:30 Him. That was him.

1:35:31 That was him putting. That's it, right?

1:35:33 Yeah, it's not really. I'm like.

1:35:34 No, that's not no, Yeah, OK. Can't go to court with that.

1:35:38 No, but what they could go to court on was the extortion

1:35:41 letter. Oh, yeah.

1:35:42 So they did get him on that. And he did get 13 years for

1:35:46 writing that letter. I mean of which?

1:35:48 He served 10, I think in the end, yeah, but I mean.

1:35:51 At least I could get him on that.

1:35:53 I mean, he admitted to doing it. He did do it like he wrote the

1:35:56 letter, but whether or not. But he he was charged with

1:35:58 extortion, not with anything. No murder.

1:36:01 No, he was. Just charged with extortion.

1:36:03 Yeah, rightly so, because absolutely.

1:36:07 OK, If you can't get him on the murder, get him on something.

1:36:09 We've got him on that. But he had to let him walk on

1:36:11 the Tylenol thing. And so to this day.

1:36:15 No one's been charged. No one's been charged.

1:36:18 Gosh, but we did have some copycats.

1:36:21 Yeah. I mean, well, just say.

1:36:23 That. Could it if if that's not him,

1:36:25 then who is it and are they still wandering around and doing

1:36:27 this? That's an.

1:36:28 That's a very, very fairpoint. Look, I think in the aftermath

1:36:33 of this, So in Chicago, definitely in other states of in

1:36:39 the United States, so this happened late September, early

1:36:42 October. So Halloween was coming up.

1:36:45 A lot of counties cancelled their Halloween, said kids

1:36:48 weren't allowed to go out and do trick or treating.

1:36:51 That lasted for years in some areas, Yeah, because people were

1:36:55 so scared. But in the weeks, like in the

1:36:59 literal 3 or 4 weeks following these Tylenol murders, there

1:37:03 were 270 reported incidents of product tampering.

1:37:09 Now that they don't know whether it was just not reported before

1:37:13 this and not widespread as in, you know, people would bring

1:37:17 products back to a store and say, oh, I found this unit.

1:37:21 And then it wasn't kind of really going anywhere.

1:37:24 And only because the tampering of these pills have been made,

1:37:27 this become a reportable thing now because it's illegal now to

1:37:31 tamper with consumer products. So they're not sure whether this

1:37:34 was in reaction to or was always happening.

1:37:39 But it was, you know, people were finding razor blades in

1:37:44 candy, like in lollies. They were finding there were

1:37:47 pins and needles placed in fruit.

1:37:51 And so, yeah. Was it that these things were

1:37:55 just starting to get documented now because of the Tylenol

1:37:58 murders and the fact that that, you know, tampering with things

1:38:01 is, you know, illegal? Or were people now getting ideas

1:38:08 to tamper with things with that? We don't don't really know.

1:38:10 But anyway, the copycat, The copycat or, you know, was it the

1:38:14 same person? We don't actually know.

1:38:17 They started pretty quickly after these Tylenol murders.

1:38:21 Yeah, they. Say there was hundreds.

1:38:23 Yep. Literally hundreds.

1:38:25 Which ones have you written any down to talk about?

1:38:27 There's a. There's a few, I've got one.

1:38:30 Oh, there was 3 deaths that occurred in 1986 from gelatin

1:38:34 capsules. Mm hmm.

1:38:36 So that was that happened in Yonkers, in New York, Yep.

1:38:41 Not in it. Back in Chicago.

1:38:43 Yep. Which to me is like, hmm,

1:38:46 curious, yes. Ever I that I that did stand out

1:38:49 to me too. Yep.

1:38:50 So a young woman by the name of Diane else Roth was 23 she died

1:38:56 and they the capsules were laced with cyanide again.

1:38:58 It was it was very much the same sort of thing.

1:39:01 So that's. Not good.

1:39:04 The interesting thing about this one, though, so this happened in

1:39:07 1986, so a couple of three years later, yeah.

1:39:11 By this stage, there were triple safety seals.

1:39:14 So there was a foil plastic wrap and the box was glued.

1:39:17 The box that the bottle was containing was glued.

1:39:19 They were all intact when she bought them.

1:39:21 Yeah. So what that says is that

1:39:24 something must have happened in the manufacturing process.

1:39:29 Which that's for it to. Be in there and that's.

1:39:31 Where you kind of go but wait, but wait, wait.

1:39:34 How does that happen? Yeah.

1:39:35 And it was extra strength Tylenol again, Yeah.

1:39:39 Very bizarre. But then other ones would occur

1:39:42 in different products all together, as in like more like

1:39:45 pain relief kind of medicine still.

1:39:46 But so there's one called, I mean, Excedrin.

1:39:49 I think you can get Excedrin. That was in Washington state.

1:39:52 They'd been tampered with and resulted in the deaths of of two

1:39:56 people, Susan Snow and Bruce Nichol.

1:39:59 Again, cyanide poisoning was what they passed away from.

1:40:03 There was, though, a conviction for that.

1:40:05 Oh, this one's. This one's so interesting.

1:40:08 That was. Bruce Nichol's wife, Stella.

1:40:13 So she ended up being convicted of that for she had

1:40:17 intentionally tampered with those bottles, but unfortunately

1:40:21 did murder her husband. And but then also a stranger

1:40:25 with doing that. Yeah.

1:40:26 I mean, that's she. Wanted his hundred and I think

1:40:30 it was a roughly $180,000 payout and decided well, might as well

1:40:34 off him and get that rid of him, yeah.

1:40:36 And then but someone else got caught in the crossfire, too.

1:40:38 That's horrible. That's just terrible with that.

1:40:41 Yeah. Oh my gosh.

1:40:44 Awful, yes. But there were many of them that

1:40:46 occurred. As you said, there were hundreds

1:40:48 that the FBI attribute to being copycats or not necessarily even

1:40:53 copycats. But you know, we're informed by

1:40:58 in some way the Tylenol murders. And yeah, yeah, it's just crazy.

1:41:02 Yeah, it was another one where they've been silent.

1:41:04 Cyanide had been laced on some Sudafed tablets too, so that it

1:41:10 sort of shifted across to different, a slightly different

1:41:12 product. Yeah, but that's just, I don't

1:41:15 know, It's crazy. It's.

1:41:16 Crazy. Why people do the things they

1:41:18 do, I will never know. No, whoever did this, whoever

1:41:22 did this, look to me. Lewis is my front runner.

1:41:25 He is. My front runner, I just want

1:41:27 evidence he was actually, I mean, that photo maybe, but by

1:41:30 the sounds of things, not I want evidence he was a pen in the

1:41:33 area because he's definitely fits a whole lot of the profile

1:41:37 of someone who would do it. I definitely can, you know, come

1:41:41 to that. Yeah.

1:41:42 I, I, I he seems like the fact that he's, his letter was

1:41:46 written and he's saying it. He started that letter prior to

1:41:50 even any knowledge supposedly of this occurring means what I

1:41:54 mean, even if you went OK, this is where I think more so to the

1:41:58 fact of like, OK, there's hearing this in the news and

1:42:03 then going why can I use this to my advantage to get back at that

1:42:08 just. Fucked as it is anyway, the

1:42:10 thought. Process of that I believe could

1:42:12 take him three days. Not the actual construction of

1:42:14 the let him so much, but the thought process of like like to

1:42:19 get that letter written and sent out and be postmarked by the 1st

1:42:23 of October is very quick thinking A.

1:42:26 Plan. There's a lot of planning that

1:42:28 probably had to go into it to get it to that point.

1:42:30 Yeah, I get that. Yeah, that I.

1:42:31 Do think it did take longer than and then, you know, time that he

1:42:35 would have had the information. Genuinely, I can come at that

1:42:39 for sure, yeah. Same and.

1:42:41 His past of, you know, potentially, well, allegedly, I

1:42:45 don't know, he killed, he killed.

1:42:48 He's just so. Lucky that those coppers fucked

1:42:51 up. Oh God, yeah.

1:42:52 And everyone else in the world's potentially so unlucky that that

1:42:55 happened. That's.

1:42:56 Where I think he's, well, he thinks he's smarter than

1:42:59 everyone else. Oh, yeah.

1:43:00 And I I think he was fully aware that that they hadn't given him

1:43:03 his misread his Miranda rights. And I think that's why he said

1:43:06 what he said, because he knew he could be, he could be used in

1:43:10 court. Yeah.

1:43:11 I don't think he would have said that.

1:43:12 Yeah. He's quite, quite possibly,

1:43:16 yeah, Absolutely. Quite possibly, yeah.

1:43:20 What a piece of shit. What?

1:43:21 An absolute piece of shit for a T-shirt.

1:43:23 This. Is absolute piece of shit.

1:43:27 Well, do we know the girls for you?

1:43:29 We will actually put links in our show notes to where you can

1:43:33 buy our merch. By the way, I meant to mention

1:43:34 that earlier. Look, I think the thing that we

1:43:37 need to remember as a society is that there is nothing.

1:43:41 Nothing is tamper proof. Things can be tamper evident,

1:43:46 but that's nothing is 100% foolproof in in the world, in

1:43:50 this life. And there are people who will go

1:43:52 to extraordinary lengths sometimes to for whatever

1:43:56 reason, for whatever motivation, people really try and fuck shit

1:44:00 up and don't think like the rest of us.

1:44:02 That's it. And you know, it's, it's a sad

1:44:07 thought, but it's true. It's reality, the.

1:44:09 Thought of like these bit the victims of this crime.

1:44:12 I mean, seven people dying within 24 hours, completely not

1:44:19 known to this person. This was not targeted, as I said

1:44:23 jokingly, basically that were they targeting Marys?

1:44:26 There were so many Marys that were murdered.

1:44:28 It was so random how to put them on a shelf and not know who's

1:44:31 going to take that as it could have been a child.

1:44:34 It was young as 12 to and 8090 year old person it's I.

1:44:40 Heard an argument though that whoever did this maybe they put

1:44:44 it in the extra strength because children wouldn't take it.

1:44:47 I'm like the person who did this did not give a fuck about

1:44:51 children. No and obviously someone has

1:44:55 given their their. Well I think you know with most

1:44:58 medications 12 is seen as an adult dose anyway.

1:45:00 But yeah, a girl as young as 12 times see you.

1:45:07 You're giving them. It's in an everyday medication

1:45:09 that we give to this day. We give to children, people of

1:45:14 any age to rectify the smallest of pain that we were, you know,

1:45:20 these are not people going and seeking out pain medication

1:45:23 because they have chronic pain or, you know, severe things.

1:45:26 This is the minor headache. The, you know, the mum

1:45:29 recovering from having a baby, you know, with just those

1:45:32 niggling, you know, things that are, you know, that are still

1:45:35 there, you know, presiding after six days of having a birth.

1:45:38 Giving birth. Yeah.

1:45:38 I mean, you're just taking something that will help you get

1:45:41 through to that little bit, getting over a cold, I mean, and

1:45:46 that's the result of it. What?

1:45:48 Kind of, yeah. Something seemingly so innocent

1:45:50 is just hip Suno so catastrophic for all these family.

1:45:53 I mean the Janice. Family I could not feel more for

1:45:55 them, I just was every. One of these victims had

1:45:58 something that I was like, fuck me.

1:46:00 Like, that's horrible. Like the young mum, the young

1:46:02 girl, the three members of one family.

1:46:04 Yeah, just, you know, the flight attendant who was just on her

1:46:07 own, like I just all of them had something just awful.

1:46:11 Awful. Absolutely.

1:46:12 Those poor families and you know, they still have no answers

1:46:15 as to why that would occur. I mean, I know there's children

1:46:17 of these victims now who are who are adamant they still want to

1:46:21 find who did this. And I get that absolutely,

1:46:23 because I don't know how you go through life knowing, you know,

1:46:26 I mean, you know, the, the how they died, the why you've got no

1:46:30 why, why were they these why was it done?

1:46:33 And who fucking did it? Who got up one that one morning

1:46:36 and went oh this will be good fun.

1:46:38 Tell us what you think. Yeah, who do you think did it?

1:46:41 Do you? Really.

1:46:41 There's someone we're missing? Is there someone that I have we

1:46:43 haven't found in our research or is or do you really?

1:46:46 Do you think that Lewis is the is the one?

1:46:49 I mean, he's dead, but doesn't mean we can't find out that he

1:46:52 did it. And yeah, we're feeling better

1:46:56 for knowing some sort of outcome.

1:46:58 Yeah. Because.

1:46:59 Oh, God, as I say, I felt like a Dick, like watching that that

1:47:03 interview with him. It was one of the first things I

1:47:05 watched when we're doing this. OK.

1:47:06 And I looked at it and just went, oh, Oh no, that poor guy.

1:47:10 Like but I. Think I think they set it up

1:47:12 hoping, hoping for everyone to feel that way and then be like

1:47:16 wait, what? Hey, you murdered.

1:47:19 Somebody hold on a minute. Hold on a minute, you're

1:47:21 actually a really bad dude. Yeah, I thought, oh God, I

1:47:25 really honestly thought, oh, OK, he's done a few, you know, not

1:47:27 so good things in his life, but he's genuinely a good going.

1:47:30 No, we ain't. No, no, no, no.

1:47:33 All right, well, thank you everybody for joining us for

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1:48:27 Stay curious to crime besties. Bye.

1:48:47 That's why we still do tests. That's.

1:48:48 Right. Oh God test.

1:48:50 Not do tests, testing always, Yeah, no, we're recording here.

1:48:55 We are tests. We're recording.

1:48:57 Yeah, we've already done that test.

1:48:58 I'm testing.