The Tylenol Murders, Part I

Canada on July. Yea. Then we're gonna take a month long nap and wake up, and on Thursday, August twenty nine, we're gonna take ourselves to Boston, Massa our beloved Wilbur Theater. The next night, we're going to a new city, first time ever, in Portland, Maine at the State Theater. I'm so excited about that one. Me too. And then Chuck, we're gonna take a nap for another full month, wake up again, dust our selves off, and go to Orlando, Florida for the first time ever. We're gonna be at

Plaza Live. Yeah, man, first Florida show, and then we are finishing up that mini leg in New Orleans, yep, Thursday, October tenth, at the Civic Theater. We're returning, So prepare the city for partying, everybody. That's right, and we're gonna wrap it up at least for now at our beloved Bell House in Brooklyn, New York, for three shows October again, folks. Tickets for all these shows go on sale this Friday today am your local time, and just go to all

of these venue websites for ticketing. Yep. Thank you for coming to see us in advance, everybody. We're excited. Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey you, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh. There's Chuck. There's Josh, not me, Chuck. Guest producer Josh is back in the house. Yeah, and there's little Chuck in your pockets, remember a little I was just about to say that you got that right, Tony. Oh man, what a great sketch it really was. That

was Nicholas Cage, wasn't it. Yeah? Man, did you ever see Mandy? Yes? It was terrible. I don't care what anybody else says. It terrible, terrible, movie. Yeah, Nolan, I talked about it on movie Crush. He's seen it like four times, thinks it's the best thing ever. Come on. He was like, people love it or hate it, and now it's like, actually, I was kind of in the middle. Were you really? Yeah? I mean I told him young Chuck, like twenty two year old college Chuck would have probably

liked it a lot more. But today Chuck was kind of like, I get it. Like, sure, sure, parts of it, we're fine. Sure to me. Spending an hour doing character development, huh, but not successfully making you care about the characters just really irked me. Wow, you had structural issues. Yeah, that was really the big thing. I also thought Lenis Roach was very very odd for casting, but that was the

main bad guy that that was weird, very weird. I don't even know him, but he's from Law and Order and like some other stuff, you gotta get into law. See how much you're missing out on that's becoming a bit. So did we start recording yet? I think so. I already welcomed everybody the podcast. Um so, Chuck, we are this is some true crime stuff. For getting into here, that's right, But I feel like we need to set the tone right, because this isn't This didn't happened just yesterday.

This happened way back in two in Chicago, Illinois. And I remember this and I was like six at the time. It was one of my favorite years because of this, the opposite of that, right, mainly because of movies that was so great about two. Look at up man? Well, I was kind of hoping, Oh yeah, okay, yeah, that was Do you know I didn't see Blade Runner until I was forty. That's not true. Yes, the original, the original Blade Runner. Did you like it? That was good.

I like the second one too, You're like, but they spent way too much time on character. Um. Yeah. And I just did a little poking around about two and it was it was a good year for an eleven year old, but it was an uneasy time in America. Uh well for a bunch of awful things happened that year. Uh And I don't know if it was any more or less than other years, but uh, air Flight ninety crashed into into the Potomac River, remember that in Washington,

d C. The plane crash in the river. Didn't hit a bridge maybe, but there was there was like a daring, icy river rescue. Yeah, seventy eight people died. Though that same day a metro train in d C de Rail killed three people. Uh. February was when Wayne Williams was convicted, and that was just the end of a lot of uneas you know for years. Uh, Klaus Vambu Law was found guilty of attempted murder of his wife in March. I didn't make it to the end of reversal of fortune,

so I honestly didn't know what happened to class guilty. Uh. In June was the murder of Vincent Chen, who was a Chinese American who was beaten to death by two men in Michigan thinking he was a Japanese and they were like stealing his their auto work. I know, right, Uh. And then July nine, pan Am flight seven nine goes down in Louisiana, Louisiana kills all one forty six people on board, plus eight more on the ground. And then in September, early September was when I know, man, remember

planes used to just crash a lot. Yeah, that never happens now, Uh, not as much. But yeah, weird that we're recording this in the midst of more plane gradges and then early September was when that paper boy and Iowa, Iowa was kidnapped and never seen again. Johnny ghosh M. I don't know that one. That was a big deal too, because it was you know, the paper boy, and there was this false story about a pedophile ring from politicians and that turned out not to be true, but he

was never found again. So basically everything that's going on today is just a rehash of two It sounds like I just remember being about that age and they're just the nightly news sort of just being a horror show and not politically speaking, you know, like real bad incidences occurring.

Well yeah, plane crash, like just about it at any age, like that'll that'll bring you down if you see that on the news for sure, Yeah, um, because you know, when you get on a plane, you think maybe this plane will go down while I'm on it, and that

would be terrible. Although I wasn't flying at eleven. So all of those things you just mentioned sweep them totally off the table, because come the end of September of that year, nothing else mattered but what we're about to talk about now, that's right, Nothing nothing came close to taking the over the national psyche like the deaths of seven people beginning on September two in Chicago, Illinois. Yeah, and one of the articles I read about this, I mean,

are we trying to keep it a secret? It's a show title, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think they're gonna have to figure it out. So yeah, go ahead, the thailantal murders. Okay, you're like, oh no, no, but that's that comes up in part two. Oh yeah, this is a two parter. Yeah, as well so Buckling and everybody. Uh So. I was doing some research though, and I saw one article that said something about, you know, the first domestic terror incident United States that nobody has ever

heard of? Like what? Who hasn't heard of this? A millennial wrote that headline. Well, I have to say it. Josh on the way in here. Yeah, I told him thailandle murders and huh he goes, what's tail and all? You old Kadr, we should probably say what Thailand all is? Huh Okay, yeah, I guess just in case you are a MILLENNI only you've never heard of Thailand all but tail and all was and still is and over the

counter pain reliever. It's like you have eggs and pains and apparently what's crazy people would take thaile and all whatever was wrong with them because now you can go get like you know, aspirin and um adville and and a lead. There was no leave back then. That was a nineties drug. There's way more over the counter pain relievers now than they we're back then. Back then, Thailand All was basically it. Yeah, it's a sea of menafin, which is different than aspirin, and I think a lot

of people just think those are interchangeable. Right. The reason I believe thailand All became so big is because aspirin upsets a lot of people's stomachs tail and all does not, or it's not supposed to, And that's why it came out of nowhere and just took over the aspera market. I think by two Thailand All had thirty seven percent

of the market. It's pretty good cornered. Yeah, yeah, almost half, especially since like some of the other like aspirants have been around since you know, nineteenth century, right, So it makes sense then that when a little girl named Mary Anne kellerman Uh complained that she had a sore throat and wasn't feeling too good at like seven am on Wednesday, September two. Her parents said, just take an extra strength to tail and all and go back to bed man

first sore throat. Imagine the guilt. Oh no, these parents feel well, don't blow it. We haven't said what happens to Marianne Kellerman yet. I think everybody knows. Uh. Yeah, she got up, said I'm sick. He said, take this. The father said he heard her go into the bathroom and close the door, then heard something drop and went to the door, saying, are you okay, you're okay? Uh no answer, opened the door and there she is on

the floor. Um. Taken to the hospital, but died very quickly. Yeah, probably was dead when she went to the hospital, was pronounced there Um and she they suspected this is just a little twelve year old girl of middle school. Girl into Jane Adams Middle School. Um. She they think she died of a stroke. That's what they thought happened to her. They were just so baffled that they're like, it had to have been a stroke. That's the only thing that can come on like this. Yeah. So that's seven am.

Just the day is just beginning, and one atrocity has already happened. Yeah, this is a this is a very bad day in the history of Chicago September. Yeah. Absolutely, and it started early Adam Janice, who uh will detail his story, but put a pin in this one too, because he figures in even more prominently in a minute. But a little bit later that same morning, Uh, this gentleman, Adam Janese's twenty seven years old and lived in Arlington, it's another Chicago suburb, and he died. Uh. And they

think that this is a heart attack. Uh. He complained of chess pains after he had driven his daughter's neighbor home from school. Uh said, I'm gonna take the day off, comes home, eats a little lunch, takes two extra strength tile and all that he bought from a local drug store. Collapses in front of his wife, and by you know, a few minutes later, when the paramedics arrived, he was dead. Right.

And again, like you said, they said heart attack because he's been complaining of chess pains, which had nothing to do with it. But just like Marianne Kellerman took an extra strength tile and all for a sore throat, he took some extra strength tile and all for some chest pains. This is just what people did back then. Yeah, and that's what complicated it a little bit at first. Um was that you know, if you take the tile and all,

it means you felt bad already. So obviously you know they're gonna be saying like, wait a minute, chess pains or some throat like, how does that figure in? Yeah, and it didn't. Plus, also, what made this even more baffling is that Marianne Kellerman's twelve even healthy. Adam Janis was twenty seven and healthy, and all of a sudden they just dropped up. People don't just drop dead, no matter what you see on TV or in the movies or whatever. Dropping dead inexplicably is a really bizarre thing.

When you're a healthy person. That doesn't happen. Uh. Next we have Mary Reiner, same day, same day. This is still all on the same day. Um, she's twenty seven years old. She's feeling a little dizzy. She had just come home from the hospital. Uh, after having given birth to her fourth kid a couple of days before. Super super sad. All of these are, obviously, but being a just a brand new mom for the fourth time, it's just so tragic. Uh. And then by three forty five.

She was so ill she was rushed back to the hospital and again died very very quickly. Yeah, and like Adam Janis collapsed in front of his wife, she collapsed in front of her young eight year old daughter. One of her children sare um and Yeah, when she was taking the hospit it all, they pronounced her dead as well.

This is mid afternoon. Mary McFarland was up next. She was over in um the the suburb of Lombard, and she worked at the Illinois Bell Phone Center where you remember, like you go get your phone, like the rotary phone, you know, you would actually lease your phone. I wasn't involved in that process, but we had them in our home. Okay, well your parents bought that stuff. No, there was like a store where you would go It's like the phone company's retail store, and you would go and be like

that pink one. It's like smartphones today, kind of same model. Kind of Um, yeah, I guess so, but this was with a big, clunky rotary phone and you had to pay extra for the extra long court. Well. Mary McFarland worked in one of these stores, and at about four o'clock UM at the Illinois Bell Phone center. She was She had a massive headache that just came on out of nowhere, and she went back and got some extra strength tile and all out of her purse, took a

couple of them, and within minutes collapsed in the store. Yeah, she was young as well. She was thirty one years old, mother of two. And then remember I was talking about Adam Janice a few minutes ago. Um, his family goes to the hospital. Obviously, everyone converges there, he passes away, and so the family makes their way home UM to begin morning and just sort of trying to reconcile what

had just happened. His brother, Stanley, he was only five, and then his wife Teresa, who was only nineteen, are both just overcome and worn out and have headaches. So they're at Adam's house. They got to his medicine cabinet, get out the tail and all that he took completely unknowingly obviously, and uh, Stanley hits the ground, Foam comes from his mouth, his eyes rolled back in his head. Everyone's freaking out, and a few minutes later his wife

collapses and they called the ambulance. By the time and the ambulances get there, I think Stanley died that day, and Teresa somehow managed to live a couple of days. Yeah, she hung on. And I don't know if like her dose is lesser or what, but but she she survived for a couple of days after that. Yeah. I mean my guess is that, uh, there just wasn't as much cyanide and the capsule she took. Did I just give

something else away? But the so Stanley took his tail in all first, and then Teresa's oo curs and one of the paramedics noted, like Teresa was the one that called the ambulance out to come out for Stanley. And when they get there, they're they're both like on the ground and they're like, what's going on? And one of the paramedics said, everything that was happening to the guy happened to the woman like a couple of minutes later, like she was just following him through this process of

like basically systemic organ failure. And this is the same day that his brother had passed away. Yep, this is about five six hours, six hours after Adam Janis had Then finally, I know this is all tough to go through. Everyone. We almost selected this as our next live show I'm really glad we did, because, I mean, can you imagine trying to liven this up with some jokes? I thought the whole time I was like, no, we can do that. But yeah, the more I got into it, I was like, yeah,

it's probably not good live material. We should have a rule of thumb that any story that begins with the death of a twelve year old girl probably not live show material. I think you're right. So finally we have Paula Prince. Paula Jeene Prince. This is a couple of days later. This is not the same day. This is

on Friday evening. She was a thirty five year old flight attendant and she was found dead in her apartment after police responded for a welfare check that her sister called in saying, hey, you know, I know she's a flight attendant and all, but no one knows where she is. Can you go check on her welfare check up? And they finally found her and she was gone. Yes, very very sad. She was found in her bathroom with a bottle of Strength of Title and all still open on

the counter, and she uh. They looked into um her receipts and found that she had purchased it on Wednesday September. That's right. Uh So, at the end of this very short span of time in the Chicago area, we have seven people dead, and I feel like that's a good time to take a message break. Yeah, yeah, all right, stop stop, okay, Chuck, So you said cyanide. How did

you know that? Because I was eleven years old and I watch the nightly news like all eleven year old state you just called it just me and broke off Dan Rather, Yeah, Copley? Who else? That was it? Peter Jennings He came a little later, but sure, yeah, yeah, he came after somebody. Well, I mean Cronkite wasn't still around, was he? Or was he? I don't know. I don't think so. I was. I was going to be into the news as a kid a little bit. Oh yeah, I mean that was that was where you got your

news back then. Yeah, you would watch the evening news. It's very strange to think about now with the with the up to the minute news cycle. So oh yeah, I know how much more innocent things were back then. Um, So remove yourself from the benefit of hindsight or the benefit of Dan Rather's insight, and put yourself in the shoes of the people in Chicago. Right, these are five These are seven different deaths. Um, I think from five

different townships in the greater Chicago area, including Chicago. Paula Prince, the last person to die, lived in Chicago. These people aren't talking. These people have no idea what's going on. It's just that there were five, seven separate, baffling deaths. If you want to if you were people to be dead, yeah I do. That's good. My voices aren't working though. Um. It just so happens that the ambulance, the paramedics that showed up to attend to marry Mary Anne Kellerman, the

first girl to die. Um, they were just logging everything because it was such a baffling thing, and they logged her tile and all, yeah logged isn't collected, right, Yeah, took it as evidence to maybe look into who knows, But they took the extra shrink tile and all that she had taken, not thinking anything of it, but just basically throwing anything at the wall to see what stopped. Yeah, I'm sure the dad was like, you know, she went in,

took some tile and on and dropped dead. So it probably made sense even though it's just tail and all to say like, well, hey, let's at least take this in yes, and that title and all that, right, you know, because that bottle of tile and all made its way into the hands uh of a medical examiner um whose name was Safer and Michael Schaefer tested the tile in all and it was rather surprised to find that some of the capsules had not tile in all in it,

but sixty five milligrams of potassium cyanide. And it takes about fifty milligrams to kill a healthy adult. Yeah, I mean some of them. I don't think they were all exactly the same, but some of them had been completely emptied of any staminafin and completely filled with cyanide. With cyanide, right, yeah, I mean it was it was someone intent on for

sure killing people. Yes, because cyanide is no joke. It's a it's a really really small molecule um and it normally attaches to metals outside of the body, which is why you have or minerals, I guess, which is why you have potassium cyanide um when it goes into the body when you ingest it, however you ingested, whether it's from a tile in all capsule or breathing cyanide gas like they used to use to execute people with, Like they stopped using it for executions because it was such

a brutal death. Yeah, it's a very cruel, painful way to die. Um in the body. It detaches from its its mineral or metal, and it attaches to a protein in the body called um cytochrome c oxidase, which doesn't sound like could be a big problem, but it turns out that that's about the worst protein that cyanide could attach itself too, because we really need cytochrome c oxidase

to breathe. Yeah, basically it I mean, this sounds like such a cruel thing because it's just rapid cell death and it's not like your throat closes up and you can't breathe, like you're inhaling oxygen and you you are technically taking breaths, but the oxygen is not getting in the cells. No, it's not because that c or that cytochrome c oxidase is what helps transport the oxygen and get and allows the oxygen to be used for energy.

So if the potassium is clinging to it, the oxygen, can't it just stays in the bloodstream and it doesn't get used by the cells. And since your central nervous system is the most oxygen hungry system in your entire body, it starts to shut down first. And when your brain and your spinal cords starts shutting down, all sorts of things happen. Your long start shutting down. Your heart, God bless it keeps beating for minutes after the rest of your body is shut down, so you're not technically dead.

And they're not sure exactly how long the pain and excruciation of dying from cyanide lasts, but they think you're probably conscious in a way and freaked out for about a minute at least, and your heart may continue beating for three or four minutes after that. So it's not a pleasant death at all. No. I mean, you're you're gasping for air, You're breathing in air, and nothing's happening. Like I said, um Stanley Janice, he was foaming at the mouth and his eyes rolled back in his head

in front of his family. It's just like it's awful, like writhing on the floor gasping for air. You're breathing, but it's not doing anything. It's just I can't imagine anything more horrifying, right, Because your central nervous system has kind of fallen out of its um out of controller rhythm. Convulsions are usually a hallmark of cyanide poisoning. And then

you turn bright red at the end of it. Yeah, a skin a chair, you read, they said, Because when your body has gotten rid of oxygen to your cells and the oxygen becomes depleted, um, your your skin kind of turns like a rusty brownish red. But because it can unload that oxygen when you're dead, it stays a bright red and your skin turns bright red. And then the other real telltale sign is your breath will smell a bit like almonds. Yeah, I mean not a bit.

I mean these bottles supposedly were really pungent with bitter almond, And unless you know what that means, then you're probably not clued in, you know, Like I wouldn't. I wouldn't have known. So I opened a bottle of Thailand on it smelled like better almen. I'd probably be like, huh, right, it's a nice smell. Actually, yeah, I like this tail

and all. Yeah, I guess they have a new almond flavor. So, Michael Schaefer, that medical examiner has just realized that this this little girl has been poisoned, but he he knows nothing about these other deaths. There's nothing like that. Um it's not entirely clear how everything became connected or who

connected it. But what I find just particularly astonishing is that within just a few hours, by that evening, by the evening of September twenty nine, people were saying, there's something up with the Thailand all in these mysterious deaths that have been going on all around Chicago. Yeah and not. I mean, we'll get into the dragnet they cast. But within a few days they had kind of solved everything. But who did it and how it may have happened? Who done it? Who done it? Um? So, yeah, very

quickly they figured out the tailand on. There are a couple of different stories, um on, Like you said, on who who was the first person to point this out? Um? One story is that a reporter for the City News Bureau in Chicago was doing the reporter thing and doing some deep diving and investigating and called up a deputy corner and said, hey, I think this is what's happening. They told the police. Another story is that too, people who didn't know each other kind of came together independently

to um let people know. One was a fire captain name uh, Philip Capitelli. I knew it. I knew you were going to do that. There was like a chance, you know why, because we got a lot of support from people that wrote in saying I'm Italian and I love it. Keep doing it. And only one guy who hated it. But ironically it was fire captain Philip Capitelli and said no, so he uh here here was his deal. His um. His mother in law was friends with Mary Kellerman,

the victim's mother. Yeah, the first of the little girl, and she said, hey, would you mind looking into this because I'm friends with this little girl's mom and it's weird that she dropped at it. And he's a fire captain and they're all connected to you know, the police, into the medical community. Everybody knows you want something done, ask a fire captain, um, because they'll bust into the room with an ax get everybody's attention. UM. So he's

he's investigating. And then there's this, uh there's a nurse named Helen Jensen and she i don't. Do you know why she was so into this case was just no, no, no. She was the public health nurse for Cook County, I believe. Okay, so she had an official designation to investigate. Yes, but unfortunately no one would listen to her because this is nine two and she was a nurse. Even though she was like a public health director, she was still a

nurse and people wouldn't listen to her. And she recalled in an oral history I read about this that she was stomping her feet out of frustration, saying like, there's something wrong with the tail and all, like the tail and all is behind all this, and people wouldn't listen to her. Supposedly, she and Philip got together and um joined forces and I guess we're able to convince everybody that no, there's something wrong with the with the taile

and all. And by this time people started talking and you know, the the idea that Michael Shaffer had identified tail and all. I don't know if it was the same day or the day after something like that, but all this is within a span of thirty six forty eight hours. Top said, all of this is going on, that the dots are being connected, right, so uh, then what follows is um, Cook County's Deputy Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. Edmund Donohue holds a pressor. I've either watched this one

or one of the other ones. Like I remember specifically seeing this press conference on the news. Probably saw Jane Burns. That would have been the nationwide one, I guess, yeah, And I was like, how would that have been nationwide? And then I looked it up. W g N was a superstation starting in night. Oh you know it, man, So everybody saw it because wg N could broadcast nationwide. By I watched Cubs games a kid just because it

was on. That was it like that embraced games were all you can So Dr Donohue UM has a pressor, a local pressor. Um, of course there is panic initially, Yeah, he scares the s out of everybody because he comes out of nowhere and says stop taking the taile and all, oh yeah sure, and so anyone. I mean, imagine how many people in Chicago had taken time and all within two hours of that press conference and are thinking like

should I go to the hospital? Right, And as a matter of fact, Um, the poison control lines for basically every in every city where somebody saw this started to light up right after that, and people are like, I just took tile in all, Am I okay? Or gave my kid? Can you imagine? And the the what came to be the pat response was if you are still standing and talking to us, you're probably okay, which is sort of a double edged sword, right, It's like, don't worry,

you die super fast kind of so just relax. So just hold the line for five minutes and then I'm gonna come back and check on you. And if you're still talking, you're fine. Oh man, um alright. So then the Chicago Mayor's office gets involved, Like you said, Mayor Jane Byrne, she gets says, you know, print a bunch of flyers, print them in a bunch of languages, maybe on Golden Rod and corn flower blue. Sure, why not

really catch people's attention? Uh that she had police drive through um with loud speakers on their car, literally saying like, don't take tile in all, re enacting that scene from The Blues Brothers. Whether I was thinking slacker and that's funny, two different movies. But do you remember they're driving through in the police car with the loudspeaker talking about their their show. Yeah, same as Slacker. I don't remember. I don't I guess I didn't make it to the end

of Slacker either. It was in the middle ish. There was no Dazed in confused huh oh, just different movies. Um, so they're they're posting flyers, cops are driving around blaring it through neighborhoods uh. And then she has a press conference, she has all Thailand all removed from the Chicago area. She calls for it. Well, sure she didn't go around with her her basket, right, No, I'm not a hundred percent clear if she was actually able to demand that

the Thailand all be removed. I think she was more warning. Yeah, I mean I doubt if there was any law she could invoke. I wonder though, it seems I would imagine that's you know, we'll talk about that later. So, um, the TV and the radio. You know, obviously everyone picks us up, not just in Chicago or the United States. It goes worldwide, and so you know there's people in Europe and Asia pulling Thailand all off the shelves. So this is a big deal, And there was a lot

of attention lavished on this. There was a poll that was taken the next month in October that found that this was in cities all over the country, that found that respondents were aware of this thail and all poisoning story. Some some press agency like a news clipping service said that it's the number of the number of stories dedicated to it were second only to the number of stories dedicated to the assassination of JFK. That's how big this

story became overnight. And again one of the reasons why is because everybody took Thailand all for everything, all the time. That's just what you did. It was just something everyone took, and that same product was now killing people. So the most chilling part of all this to me, and this is all chilling, uh, maybe the copycat stuff because almost immediately, UM copycat incidences started popping up all over the country.

Um there were two d seventy reports of product tampering in the month after thirty six were quote hardcore true tamperings. And that's what's the most chilling to me, is like there were that many people, at least thirty six, let's go on the low end, thirty six people across the country that wanted to kill people and just saw an idea and I'm like, oh, that's what I'll do now. I should have thought of that myself. I mean that's scary, man. Yeah.

What's what's scary but also infuriating is that there's such terrible self starters that they had to be a copycat murderer in that, you know what I'm saying, Like, it's bad enough that they're trying to kill somebody, randomly kill somebody, anonymously kill somebody. They didn't even think of it themselves as a pathetic murderer right there, it's pretty pathetic. Put

my foot down. Exceedrian extra strength Excedrian capsules UM were found poison with mercuric chloride uh, and that almost killed a man in Colorado. His name was William Sinkovich and he got he had liberal and kidney failure, but he did survive. Uh. This one gets me so more than one person thought, Oh, well, you know people spray and like drop things in their eyes and nose, I'll put acid in there. So tampered sin X and tampered vizine both turned up after they had burned people with acid.

Chemical burn up your nose. Unbelievable. Yeah, that's a bad one. So food was also on the list of things being tampered with um orange juice, chocolate milk. Very high profile incident with ballpark hot dogs. They pulled a million pounds of wieners off the shelves and ran them through a metal detector. Yeah, because this was a scare all of you know, the old urban legend of razor blades and Halloween candy. I don't Did they actually find pins and

needles and things for sure? Yes? Okay, because I thought that had literally never happened. It hadn't. It was an urban legend that became true. But nothing in in the wieners. No, some boys I think in Detroit claimed to have found razor blades in their ballpark wieners, and like you said, a million pounds were recalled and then the boys were like, wow, we were just kidding. Yeah. And ballpark, well we'll talk

about how ballpark was treated after that. But they were put on shoulders and carried around for how great they handled everything. Uh, And you know, there are a lot of hoaxes. There were a lot of UM tips called in about other tampering and it had to really like it if the purpose of this was to induce panic and fear and terror. Then it absolutely worked, absolutely should be taken another break, I think. So, man, we're gonna come back and talk about the investigation. Stop stop, okay,

chuck um. I also want to point this out Time magazine. You know how I'm like super into uh like going back and reading contemporary news articles about an event this one. I mean, it's all over the place. But Time wrote about the copycat incidents back in two and they said that the copycats were trying to quote emulate their demonic hero. There's still unknown poisoner their demonic hero. That's what the journalists from Time decided to go with. That's funny, I guess.

I mean that seems like a very two thousand nineteen thing to write. That's what I'm saying. I feel like we're reverting back too right now, I guess. So after that intro of yours, I'm now convinced. So everybody's freaked out there. There are whole towns that canceled Halloween because remember this happened like a month before Halloween, and everyone was very scared about candy tampering because of the urban legend. In some places that turned out to be true, a

self fulfilling prophecy. There are all these hoaxes, there are all these actual true product tamperings, copycats. People were freaked out and the cops needed to do something. And initially these seven different deaths in five different towns in the Chicago area, we're being treated as five different investigations. Um, that didn't last for very long. Within two days, by Friday, by the time Mayor Burne holds her press conference on w g n UM, what came to be called the

Thailand All Task Force was formed. All five those investigations got folded into not just local investigations, the FBI, the Illinois State Police, UM, FDA of course, Yeah, the FDA was involved that, and then the whole thing was led by the Illinois District Attorney's office, who was the nominal head of the investigation. Yeah. So they figured out pretty quickly that um, you know, like I said earlier, they

cast their drag net. They come up with about a fifty mile radius of where all this stuff was bought and sold, and go investigate drug store after drug store, and they did find more more bad thaile in all that, I'm still sitting on the shelves thankfully. Yeah, yeah, I don't. I don't want to skim past that. They found more Thilent, all waiting to be bought, that's right, like just sitting there like, hey, come by me. Within two days of of these first deaths, these first murders that we keep

calling them deaths, these were murders, that's right. Uh. And they name their their case there's they're always code names for all these cases. This one ranks pretty low in my opinion. Timers T Y m U R S short obviously for Tilent all murders. At the very least, the s should have been a Z timers. Yeah, yeah, let's give it a little flavor. Agreed. Uh. So the cops

are um there. There was some confusion about how this went down because they're trying to figure out, you know, did it happened at the factory, did it happen after the factory? What's the supply chain? Like, well, that's that's huge, it's like the crux of the investigent. Yeah, absolutely, Where did the tainting occur? Yeah, So they found out that all of the containers were from Lot number MC, which was pushed out in August. Again, this is the end

of September. Uh, in states east, all states east of the Mississippi, plus the Dakotas, Nebraska, in a bit of Wyoming. Just just to touch a Wyoming for flavor. That's right, that mesquite flavor. Uh. However, they were from different production plants and they were sold in different drug stores, which is weird. It's tough to wrap your head around that because it's the same lot, but they came from different plants. And it turns out Thailand all has also a really

weird convoluted distribution network. I think that's every company. I have a friend that works in supply chain management and I was like, huh, so supposedly they'll they'll take boxes and open them up and repackage them in smaller boxes. And it happens at like different different companies at different points around the country. It's pretty complicated from from a product from factory to your mouth, like what happens to

kind of everything. Um, I would think simplicity would be safer much, you know, probably not cheaper, though you're probably right. So what they finally figured out was, here's what we think happened is this stuff was not tainted at the factory.

This stuff was not tainted in the supply chain, but this stuff was tainted, it from the store and then returned back to the store because these pills were sold in different stores, which is a big one, because not only could it have been like part of the factory, it could have been one of the local stores distribution centers where there was somebody messing with it. But since they were sold in Jewel food stores and Walgreens and other places too around the Chicago area, that didn't make

any sense. It couldn't have just been like the jewel distribution center. And also because they were coming from different production plants, it really couldn't have been the production plant or the factory where it came from. It had to be, like you said, happening at the stores. Yeah, And there were a lot of initial theories, you know. Was it someone who like a former disgruntled employee of Johnson and Johnson?

Was it someone uh? Was it it just a serial killer who just picked tail on all and wanted to randomly kill people? Right? And this is that's weird, that's a weird idea at the time, like now it just seems normal, like yeah, probably, but this but this was two years before the Sanya Cidro McDonald's massacre, which is one of the very one of the next random killings of people who just happened to be in the wrong

place at the wrong time. This was kind of the first of that, but it was still so new and remote. An alien that that's that didn't seem like a realistic idea at the time. Yeah, some of the other ideas they thought, um, maybe this was someone that was targeting a specific person or people and then randomly poisoned other people to cover their tracks. One of the weird um one of the weird theories that came out later after an spoiler alert, we now have tamper proof medicines. Sure

everyone's noticed. It was one theory that it was someone who had a financial steak and tamper proof technology. Yeah, I saw something like that too. I don't think there was ever a ton of credence put into that one, But the point is there were a lot. I mean, they were flying blind basically because it was just such an unexpected, odd, random thing that we're basically coming up

with kind of any idea they could think of. But the one that the cops settled on and the one that Johnson and Johnson also settled on too, because they went back and tested samples from Lot MC and found that there was no no, there's no taining of the of the lot that there's their samples were pure. So the cops and Johnson and Johnson both decided they settled

on what's called the mad poisoner theory. That somebody went around this fifty mile radius in in the Chicago area UM in about seven hours is what the cops calculated. It would have taken either bought a bunch of tile in all and then took it back to their house and poisoned it, repackaged it and then drove around and redistributed it, or went from store to store, went in, bought some tile and all, took it out to the car,

poisoned it, and then repackaged it and brought it back in. UM. But that it was local and it was specific to Chicago. That was the mad poisoner theory. And again why still no one has any idea why. Um. It could have been random, they could have been targeting somebody. It could have been a disgruntal Johnson and Johnson employee. But the main theory for the Thaile and all killings in Chicago is the mad poison er theory. Yeah, and do you know how they tested that the rest of that lot.

They got Detective John Pinky McFarland, who had the best drug pinky and all of Illinois. And he went around and dipped that pinky in, touched it to his tongue. He said, it's good. He's like, I can't feel my face right now. The guy's a legend. Yeah, he's his pinky is his pinky ring is so significant and barely lift his finger. He only lifts to test drugs. I told you we'd find some jokes. So by mid October,

this is sort of the final bit of part one here. Um, there was another bottle that people that they found another tainted bottle that was purchased on September twenty nine, so it fit the bill. And it was a woman who uh was feeling bad and went to go get that tail in all and her sister was like, no, I've got some buffering right here, just go ahead and take that. And the lady presumably said, well, I really prefer see

a benefit, but I guess I'll take an aspirin. So yeah, her sister in law saved her by offering her buffering instead. She was steps away from dropping dead at a family gathering. Unbelievable. That is a good place to stop. Huh. Yeah. So that's part one of the Thailand All Murders or Timer's with an S, and we're gonna come back with part

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