Hi everyone, this is Deb from Dying to be Found. Before we get started, I just wanted to say that
episodes contain disturbing discussions on harmful acts and crimes against animals and or humankind.
Recordings are not intended for young or sensitive audiences due to the content nature of this podcast.
Listener discretion is strongly advised.
It sounds like you're busting at the seams. You want to say something.
I'm going to save that for just a little bit, Beth. I do have something to tell you.
And yeah, so we're late on this recording, but I'll catch you up to speed. How about that?
Okay.
Okay. Hi everyone, this is Deb.
And I'm Beth.
And we want to welcome you to, oh gosh, Beth, I didn't write it down. Oh, episode 30. We want to
welcome you to episode 30 of Dying to be Found. We are so glad that you are here today.
And Beth, what were we talking about a second ago?
I don't remember. And that was only like two minutes ago, literally.
Oh, I know what it was. You and I were talking about how serious we are. I was going back
listening to a couple of our episodes and I'm like, oh my gosh, we are serious.
I know. I really noticed it in the last podcast.
Yeah. I think it is our nature.
It is. And even though I'm serious, I have a lot of fun at work and I dance in the halls
and I put my music on and I whoop my arms to people to say hello.
How do they react to that?
They love it.
Oh, see, you know what? You made somebody's day and that's amazing.
They do.
That is really good. Yep. I do that sometimes too, when I'm just walking down the hall and I think I
just have a smile on my face and it's amazing when you make eye contact with somebody and you
already have that smile on the face, they smile back.
Wonderful.
Yep. There you go. All right. Are you ready for my picture?
I don't know. I'm kind of nervous and excited at the same time.
Okay. Why don't you take a guess what I did? I did a thing. It was a impulsive move.
What do you think I did?
Maybe something for mom's big celebration.
Yeah. I got her Chili's cards.
Okay then.
She won't tell me what she wants.
So she won't tell me too.
I know, right?
And I told her that I'm going to get her something she doesn't want.
Oh yeah. Well, I told her I don't want to get her anything that she needs.
She needs to get something that she wants. Okay. Are you ready?
I'm ready.
I haven't told you about this because I want you to be surprised.
Here we go. It's going in front of the camera right now.
Not that red one.
Is it?
Yes, ma'am.
Get out of here. What is it?
It's a little red convertible.
Oh my gosh. I love the color.
Did I not tell you about that accident I was in?
Yes. That was pretty bad.
It was. Okay. You all, just in case you don't know the story,
I bought a little pull starter dirt bike and I had a little wipe out in the neighborhood
because I was feeling the wind in my hair and just feeling the freedom. It was delicious.
I just wiped out my life flash before my eyes and I don't want to get on a motorcycle anymore.
No.
So guess what I did instead?
You bought that beautiful red convertible.
I did. It's a two seater and I told John I'll be happy to follow him up in the mountains
behind him on that motorbike.
So is this going to be your vehicle every day?
No, it's just my weekend vehicle.
Oh my gosh.
So did you tell the other family?
I did not. You know, we keep secrets.
I know we do.
I did not because it's frivolous. It was impulsive by, I actually did my homework on it though.
And I was trying so desperately to surprise John.
And did you?
No.
Why?
Because I had the worst experience. They were, they called me an hour before delivery.
This was two weeks ago.
They called me an hour before delivery to say that they were washing the car and they found
a leak in that roof. And then this past weekend, two hours before delivery this weekend, they
call me again and tell me they couldn't get some kind of gas card that they needed in
order to get the vehicle to me.
Crazy.
Okay. Long story short, I am very patient until I'm not. Guess what I did?
What did you do?
I called the local news. Did you?
Well, I emailed them.
Get out.
Yeah, I did. And they called me today. The producer called me today from the news station.
Oh, cool.
And they said, if this does not get resolved, because I basically told them, look, I have
gone through all of this for the last two weeks and they're supposed to deliver today.
And they were like, okay, if they don't deliver today, you call us back. We will.
Call us back. We will take care of it.
Things worked out.
Yeah, things did work out.
Because we're friends with everybody, surrounded in peace.
Because Canadians are known to be nice.
We are.
Okay. So let's travel back into America where I live because people are not so nice here,
especially with the story we're about to talk about.
Okay.
Are you ready?
What do you have for us today?
Okay. So today we're going to talk about the Tylenol murders. Have you heard of it?
Well, is this something that has happened like in the seventies?
No, it happened in the early eighties.
I'm not quite sure.
Okay. Well, I mean, this is pretty close to the time that I moved to the States. All right.
Well, we'll just get right into it. How about that?
Yeah.
Okay. So I'm actually going to start off by talking about the victims because there were
seven victims who died from Tylenol being tampered with.
And Beth, when I was doing my research, it was all so coincidental because all of the
occurrences that happened on September 29th of 1982, it was just way too coincidental
that all of the victims who, spoiler alert, unfortunately there were seven deaths in all
from this incident.
Oh boy.
Back on September 29th of 1982, there were seven victims that died from the Tylenol tampering.
And the first one, Beth, this is so unfortunate. The first person that died was Mary Kellerman,
who was only 12 years old.
Oh, that's so young.
She was a seventh grade student living in Schomburg, which is a Northwest suburb of
Chicago. And just as a caveat, the entire incident happened in and around the Chicago
metro area, but it was a national sensation. And I knew it as the Tylenol scare back in
the day.
I think now that I do remember this.
Well, Mary Kellerman had woken up at 6.30 that morning feeling sick with a runny nose
and a sore throat. So she stayed home from school that day. She ended up taking some
extra strength Tylenol that morning around 6.30 and within minutes, Beth, her father
found her collapsed in the bathroom.
Wow.
Yep. She was rushed to the hospital and pronounced dead at 9.56 AM the same day. Medical personnel
believed at the time that Mary had possibly died of a stroke. I thought that was for her
only being 12 years old. How could they come up with such a diagnosis?
Yeah, that's what I was wondering too. I've never heard of such a thing.
Well, later that day, Adam Janice was age 27 and he was a postal worker living in Arlington
Heights in the Chicago area. He called in sick to work because he felt a cold coming
on. It sounds to me like Mary was feeling the same way, like she was catching a cold.
Well, Adam just went about his day. He went to go pick up his kids from the preschool.
Then he stopped at a grocery store. It was the Jewel grocery store in the local area
and he had picked up Tylenol that day. Around noon, he ate lunch and then told his wife
that he was going to go take some Tylenol and lie down for a nap because he wasn't feeling
well, right?
Right.
Then afterwards, Adam collapsed and was comatose. He was rushed to the hospital where doctors
determined that he had died under unknown circumstances. Of course, it came on suddenly.
Where do you go from there? To me, Beth, honestly, the medical field is all a guessing game anyway,
right?
Yes.
Our immunity systems are amazing, but how do they ever come up with diagnosis?
Well, we could ask our sister.
Although the doctors determined that Adam had died under unknown circumstances, they
felt it could have been related to cardiac issues. So they thought it was maybe something
to do with his heart.
I was going to say that 27 seems to be pretty young.
Well, moving on, Mary Lynn Reiner, she went by the name Lynn. She was also age 27 and
had recently given birth to her fourth child. She literally came home from the hospital
with the baby. Post-birth, there is discomfort involved. So at 3.45 PM, Lynn said that she
was not feeling well and then took some Tylenol for her post-birth discomfort and collapsed
shortly afterward. Mary's daughter, Michelle, witnessed her mother's poisoning. So she saw
her mother take the Tylenol and she saw her mother collapse. Lynn's husband, Ed, had just
walked in the door right when Lynn collapsed and immediately called an ambulance.
How tragic.
Stanley Janice, and if you notice, Beth, if you were paying attention, this is Adam Janice's
brother. He was 25 years old and he was at Adam's house with the rest of his family members
making funeral arrangements for Adam who had just passed away. And at 5 PM that day, Stanley,
who suffered from chronic back pain, asked his wife, Theresa, to go get him some Tylenol.
So that would have been the same bottle that Adam took Tylenol from.
Yes. Well, Theresa, Stanley's wife, who was age 19, went to retrieve the Tylenol bottle
that was in Adam's medicine cabinet. So yep, you are right on. She went to go get that
same bottle that Adam had just picked up that morning while he was going to pick his kids
up from daycare. Both Stanley and Theresa took two capsules.
That is so sad. So tragic in one family.
I know. Oh my gosh, three. Absolutely. Stanley and Theresa ended up collapsing within minutes.
And Stanley's father, Joseph, remembers Stanley grabbing his chest before falling to the floor,
Beth, and foaming at the mouth.
That would be scary.
Do you know of anything that, any kind of poison that would do that to you?
No, I'm not too familiar with any poison.
Well, Theresa ended up going into a coma. And remember, this happened on September 29th
of 1982. Stanley passed away immediately, unfortunately, but Theresa went into a coma
and eventually died on October 1st of 1982. Stanley was pronounced dead at 8.15 PM on
the same day that he had taken the medication. And because of the unusual circumstances of
all three family members dying suddenly, medical staff speculated that Adam's home may have
been giving off carbon monoxide poisoning.
That sounds reasonable.
It does. Now, I will tell you, Beth, there was one time I was living in North Carolina
and I had the cutest little house. Well, it had a space heater in there, but it also had
a gas line that went into the fireplace. So it wasn't a wood fireplace, it was a gas line.
And I started getting a headache and I was talking to one of my friends, I was like,
I have got the worst headache. They're like, you need to get outside right now and go for
a walk in fresh air because it sounds to me like you've got carbon monoxide poisoning.
Wow. How would they know that?
I don't know the onset of a headache, I guess. I'm not sure. All right. So the family members
were placed under medical observation for a bit, but they all turned out to be just
fine. We have that mystery of what's going on. Stanley grabbed his chest, medical personnel
was thinking Adam and Stanley had some kind of cardiac related attack of sorts, but poor
Teresa was in a coma for a little while.
That's funny that how she ended up in a coma and didn't die.
I know because if she took two pills, you would think, I don't know, I don't know what
size they were, what their weight was or anything like that. But yeah, you're right. It's just,
I guess how the body can fend things off. Well, Mary McFarland, age 31, was a single
mother of two sons and worked at the Illinois Bell store. So Bell Telephone, right?
At 6.30 PM that night, Beth, Mary told her coworkers that she had a bad headache and
she left her work area to go take some Tylenol and collapsed within minutes, just as the
others did before her. Gosh, this poison really must have been pretty harsh for people to
be collapsing so quickly. Yeah. And it's all on the same day. Everybody I have talked about
thus far is all on the same day. That is really funny. Like not funny, haha, but very curious.
Very intriguing. Yep. Well, lastly, Paula Prince, age 35, was a flight attendant with
United Airlines and a resident of Chicago. And she had landed at the O'Hare airport for
her last flight of the day. I mean, I'm here to tell you, Beth, I have a little bit of
everything and a whole lot of nothing on my resume. And one of those things is a flight
attendant. Why are you laughing? Because you're just so funny the way you put things.
So, back in the day when I was a flight attendant, I sometimes flew across the entire country
and there were other times where I would take a flight and be back the same day. And you
could be literally, you could be on four different flights in one day. Geez. She flew in for
her last flight of the day to the O'Hare airport and on the way home, Paula stopped at a Walgreens
to pick up some Tylenol to relieve the onset of cold symptoms. Okay. Another thing here
too is that I'm noticing several of these people were taking Tylenol pain reliever for
cold symptoms. Was it pain reliever or was it maybe? It was, it was extra strength Tylenol.
Yeah. Well, I mean, I guess if you got aches and pains, I mean, that to me sounds like
the flu, but again, I'm not a medical doctor, so I'm assuming they were probably feeling
aches and pains and of course headache. I don't know how you feel whenever you get a
cold, if you get a headache or not. No, and I certainly don't take Tylenol for symptoms
of a cold or... Yeah. Well, surveillance video captured Paula making the purchase of her
Tylenol as she was found later in her apartment with an open bottle of Tylenol found on her
bathroom counter. So all seven victims in one day had taken Tylenol. Yeah. I just find
that to be highly coincidental. It is. Because you would think it would happen over time,
you know? So I'm very interested in hearing what you have to tell us. Well, obviously
there's going to be an investigation of these deaths because if these people are being taken
to the hospital, then of course the medical staff is going to think, Hey, something's
fishy. I mean, all these people are coming in and it's a mystery as to why they're dying.
So they started an investigation pretty quickly and John Milner, a police commander of detectives
with the Eimshurst police department, went to investigate along with investigator Fishoes
who paid a visit to Adam Janis' home on the same evening of September 29th. And of course
the family members said, of course, take a look around. I mean, they were thinking at
the time it was that carbon monoxide poisoning, but Fishoes made his way to the basement where
he saw a work area set up for metalworking. So possibly a welding area and Milner, the
police commander of detectives that had gone with Fishoes to the residence had mentioned
that sometimes in metalwork cyanide was used to polish the surface of the metal. And this
made Milner wonder if maybe Adam had come in contact with some of the cyanide. If he
was using it in metalwork, he could have been exposed. For sure. And the turning point of
this case, Beth, came when police investigators linked one common thread between all of the
deaths. Every one of the victims had taken Tylenol. Well, that didn't take them too
long to figure that out, did it? No, thank goodness. I'm so glad that it was rapid. Now,
interestingly enough, two firefighters, one of them's name was Richard Keyworth and the
other was Lieutenant Philip Capitelli. Well, these two firefighters were the first to come
up with a theory that linked Tylenol to the seven deaths. And they went ahead and passed
that information on to Dr. Thomas Kim, who had treated the Janus family victims at the
hospital, all three victims. Good for them. Yeah. So while these deaths were being investigated,
authorities from Cook County compared Tylenol bottles found at the Janus's residence with
a bottle that was found at Mary Kellerman's residence. Now, Mary was the 12 year old Beth.
Oh, okay. Yeah. So they started to piece things together and both had the same control number
on the bottle, which I'm going to assume is similar to a lot number. So they know where
it was manufactured, right? And the same control number was stamped on both bottles. When Nick
Fischow's, the investigator on the scene, contacted the medical examiner's office, he
was told, now get this, I thought this was interesting. He was told to take a whiff of
the contents of the bottles. So basically the medical examiner said, Hey, can you just
like open the bottle and just smell it and tell me what you smell? And what would it
smell like? Well, I'm glad you asked. Both bottles smelled like almonds, which is a common
odor with cyanide. Is it? It is. I guess this is kind of going back to, okay, I've heard
this before. I mean, I don't know a lot about cyanide. I think it may have been used during
World War II in some incidents. Yes. But I do recall that cyanide does smell like almonds.
Well, that's new to me. Yeah. Let me go ahead and tell you about the elements of cyanide
Beth, since we're on that topic. Okay. Cyanide has certain properties that does give off
the smell of burnt or bitter almonds. Do you ever toast almonds when you bake? Yeah. So
think about how that aroma goes off, right? Yes. Cyanide is a chemical asphyxiant, which
blocks oxygen in the bloodstream. So even though you think that you are breathing, Beth,
it's just got a blocking chemical in there that blocks the oxygen in your bloodstream.
And even though you are breathing plenty of oxygen in the air, your red blood cells cannot
pick up on oxygen. So basically you suffocate to death and very, very quickly. Oh, that
is really brutal. Lethal doses can kill you within 15 minutes of ingesting a cyanide laced
product. Once cyanide was discovered to be the poison used in the Tylenol murderers,
Beth, blood tests were run on all of the victims and investigators found high levels of cyanide
in their systems, which was found to be anywhere between 100 and 1000 times the lethal amount.
Gosh. So I'm thinking possibly in Teresa Janice's case, that might've been a hundred and then
other pills, who knows? I mean, somebody put some thought into putting the poison into
these tablets. And they certainly knew what they were doing by making it such a concentrated
amount that he was set on killing people. Oh yes. Yeah. Well, wait till you hear how
they think they did it. But before we go on, I did just want to mention that a contaminated
bottle of Tylenol was found at Paula Princess's home and she was the flight attendant that
had picked up Tylenol on her way home from her last flight of the day. And between the
hospital staff and police, they basically linked all seven deaths to cyanide poisoning.
Now, let me tell you this, this is really what I just, wow, I'd have to dig into this
a little bit further. And to be honest with you, I wasn't thinking about it at the time,
but remember when I told you that the detective was told to smell the contents of the Tylenol
pills, the medical examiner told the investigators that they had caught an extremely lucky break
in this case because not everybody has that ability to smell that almond smell, Beth.
Really? Yeah. Only about 50% of the population can smell that almond smell of when that cyanide
gives off. Remember now, I've said this a few times, all of this occurred on September
29th of 1982, but by October 1st of 1982, this is basically the day that panic set in.
And yeah, I'm going to say, I mean, it was all over the news because investigators discovered
that Tylenol capsules were pried open and put back together. So think about this. Do
you take vitamins, Beth? No, but I do know what you're getting at. Yeah. So easy to be
taken apart. Basically back in the eighties for our listeners, back in the eighties, they
would take two little tiny pieces of plastic and they would put the powder inside of that
plastic and then basically put them together. So it looks like a capsule. Like if you see
a red and white capsule ever today, you'll notice it's literally one pill. But back in
the day, it was a powder put inside a capsule. And Beth, I am not kidding you, after I was
researching this, I've been, I take vitamins and some of my vitamins are in capsule form.
Who regulates vitamins? True. Yeah. So I might have to revisit that. And of course this is
a one time incident that did happen quite some time ago, but holy cow, you just can't
be too careful. No. Well, Johnson and Johnson is the maker of Tylenol and they instigated
what is known as the recall that started them all. Think about it, Beth, how many recalls
do you hear? You hear recalls on several different products any given day of the year. Yes. Oh,
for sure. Yeah. Now I'm going to say they really stepped up because they recalled all
Tylenol boxes in the Chicago area. I don't know what the population is there, but I'm
going to say it's probably comparable to Toronto or Atlanta. I would think so. Yes. So think
about how many Tylenol bottles you see on the shelf. This recall occurred on October
1st and by October 5th, a nationwide recall was issued. And that is what I remember in
the news because media outlets, which would be news and radio, they announced the recall
and police also drove through the streets of Chicago warning people over their loudspeakers
not to take Tylenol. Wow. Loudspeakers. I know. They also went door to door collecting
Tylenol bottles and announcements were also made at school not to take that product. I
mean, kudos to them, Beth, that they stepped up and got the Tylenol off the shelf so quickly.
They did, didn't they? Approximately 100,000 news articles were circulated on this Tylenol
scare across the United States. And this is when the panic set in. I'm not going to say
I panicked because at the time I don't think I took a lot of painkillers, pain relievers,
anything like that. But I do remember this being in the news and people began flooding
hospitals and calling poison control worried that they had been poisoned as well. Well,
I don't think they would be poisoned because nobody lives long enough. Yeah. So I mean,
I can understand that though. I shoot. There was a time when Shelby was little. Okay. You
know those little smelly things that go in your, that you plug into the wall because
it makes the room smell nice. Yes. I use them. Okay. So those ones that you just push down
and they have the liquid in it. Yeah. Shelby decided that, Ooh, it smelled good. Must taste
good too. No, she did. I call poison control and they just talked to me like I was crazy.
I was like, no, I'm scared. But yeah, I don't think she liked the taste after she'd tasted
it. She liked the smell. Oh boy. Yeah. Shelby, I'm talking about you right now. You ate one
of those was an air wick, something like that. A plugin, an air wick plugin. That's what
she ate. All right. In the meantime, poison controls, average call volume within an hour
is usually around 40 to 60 calls. When the Tylenol scare occurred and this story went
nationwide, calls skyrocketed to 800 calls per hour when the story broke. Oh my gosh.
That's a lot. Even the 40 to 60 calls per hour. What's happening folks? How many calls
do you take in a day? Too many. Okay. So there was a national recall and Johnson and Johnson
acted very quickly and did not hesitate to issue that nationwide recall on the Tylenol
product across the entire board. And this recall consisted of pulling 31 million bottles
off the shelf, costing Johnson and Johnson over $100 million. Oh my gosh. And reputation.
Yes, absolutely. And see, that's the bad part is when you have psychos like this targeting
a company who is just as innocent as the victims themselves. I mean, shame on them, but still
look at how Johnson and Johnson reacted. They did not hesitate to do the right thing. So
good for them. Yes, I agree. Yeah. And look, they're still in business today. They could
have completely ignored the whole situation, but somebody in there, I mean, that is, what
is that called? Common sense. Yeah. Common sense and social responsibility. Yes. Well,
corporate executives set up a national hotline to help out with that volume that poison control
was getting. And they offered full refunds to customers for any of their Tylenol purchases.
Yes, they offered to replace every bottle that was on the shelf throughout the entire
United States. They were willing to take every Tylenol bottle off the shelf and replace it
with new ones. That's very good of them. Yeah. Cause that's on top of that hundred million
that they, it already cost them. Johnson and Johnson ended up testing over 10 million Tylenol
bottles for cyanide poisoning. Wow. That's a lot. I can't even imagine 10 million. I
know. That's tedious. It is. In the lab, don't you think? Oh, for sure. Yeah. Well, 50 pills
contained cyanide that were found in eight bottles. So out of the 10 million bottles
that they tested, they found 50 more pills in eight bottles. Jesus. A good thing nobody
bought those. Oh yeah. You're right. Because one of the contaminated bottles came from
a drug store in Schomburg, which is a suburb of Chicago. And Beth, this bottle happened
to be still sitting on the shelf. It was never sold to the public. Oh my gosh. Five of the
bottles belong to the victims and two were shipped back to Johnson and Johnson. One bottle
still remained on the shelf when they pulled the products off the shelf. Johnson and Johnson
was praised, Beth, that you had talked about their reputation and Johnson and Johnson was
praised for how they handled this public panic event. Fantastic. Originally their stock did
take a drastic dive because in any of these situations, Beth, you know, stocks go up and
down, especially if there's a crisis. Right. In this incident, their stock did take a drastic
dive but rebounded stronger than ever in less than a year because of how they handled this.
However, family members of the victims did sue Johnson and Johnson stating that the company
could have done more to prevent the tampering in the first place. Well, that's a little
unfair because nobody had plastic seals over bottles and ketchup and there just wasn't.
Exactly. Boy, you're getting ahead of me here, Beth. Have you been reading this before we
came along to record today? No, I said I wanted to be surprised when you told me. Oh yeah.
I mean, seriously though, I mean, what you're talking about is common sense. Absolutely.
And I will talk about that in just a little bit, but I did want to mention that by October
2nd of 1982, just a few days later, Chicago's mayor had banned all Tylenol sales across
the entire city to ensure that no more bottles had leaked out to the public. Good for him.
Authorities determined that Tylenol bottles were tampered with approximately 36 hours
before their first death in this case. So on September 29th, probably, I don't know,
two days beforehand, somebody decided that they were going to tamper with these bottles.
What does that lead you to believe? Do you think it was done in the factory or do you
think it was done in local stores? I think it was done by somebody walking in and grabbing
bottles or buying bottles and putting them back on the shelf. Yeah. Well, police never
found evidence of tampering or fingerprints on any of these bottles. So when I'm saying
that there was no evidence of tampering, remember the capsules could easily be pulled
apart and that's where the powder was put. Right? Right. There was no tampering on that,
no fingerprints and it did not look like anybody had pulled those capsules apart whatsoever.
Police were also unable to connect the contamination because back in the eighties, there were little
to no surveillance cameras or CCTV. What CCTV? Close caption television. Everybody has a
camera doorbell now. Everybody has cameras on the side of their house. Oh yes. They didn't
have all of that in the eighties. They had some, but they didn't have near as many surveillance
cameras as they do today. Police did find it very difficult to pinpoint where the Tylenol
was manufactured because each of the victims purchased their products from different stores.
Now they did have that lot number on there, but I mean how many manufacturing plants do
they have for the product and each store received their product shipment from different manufacturing
plants. So it was really, really hard to pinpoint where the contamination was coming from. Oh.
And there was one manufacturing plant in Pennsylvania and another in Texas coming from those bottles
that they had collected. But again, it was highly, highly difficult to even pinpoint
anything because there was no cameras. Police did however believe that whoever laced the
Tylenol capsules with cyanide did so by purchasing the bottles. Like you said, Beth, taking them
home, contaminating them and then nonchalantly walking back into the store and returning
the bottles to the shelf. That's a lot of planning. It sure is. Now I will tell you
this. I mean, it's an unsolved mystery here. What? Yeah. They never found out who it was.
You're kidding me. Really? You didn't know that? No. Yeah. I mean, they had some suspects,
but they never ever found out who did it and nobody's come forward. Well, let's hear about
those suspects. Yeah. The first one is Roger Arnold, age 48 at the time, who was a dock
worker and was directly connected to at least two of the victims. Roger was overheard talking
one time about the Tylenol case while he was out bar hopping. You know how people like
to brag? For sure. People were thinking he was bragging about the situation. He worked
at the same warehouse with Mary Reiner's father. Mary Reiner was the mother. She went by Lynn
and that was the mother that had just given birth to her fourth child. I'll go back to
calling her Lynn because I had mentioned she was Lynn earlier. Lynn had bought her bottle
of Tylenol from the store directly across from a hospital where Roger's wife was admitted.
Basically he was around the same location where Lynn had picked up her bottle of Tylenol.
Then Roger could be connected to the location where his wife was in the hospital. Police
also found incriminating evidence in Roger's home, which included do it yourself chemistry
books along with some lab equipment. I mean, I don't know what he was doing for experiments
on the side on the weekend in his parents' basement or what he was doing. Yeah. It certainly
sounds suspect to me. And Roger refused to take a polygraph test. I mean, you and I've
talked about that. It's not admissible in court. So, I mean, you can't really force
somebody to take it, but it does look suspect if you refuse it, right? Right. However, he
eventually had a nervous breakdown due to all of the media attention that he was receiving
over this case. So that to me, I was like, okay, is he really a suspect in this if he's
going to have a mental breakdown because of the attention that he's receiving? That's
true. Because if somebody's doing this, they want the attention. They're seeking it. Yeah.
So true. Charges were never brought up against Roger and he died in 2008. So if he was connected
to this case, Beth, he took his secrets to the grave with him. But in my opinion, it's
just my opinion now. I can't really say, I mean, he might've had a hobby of whatever
he was doing with his do it yourself chemistry books. I mean, I'm a nerd in my own capacity.
So maybe he was too. Yeah, you are. Thanks. Okay. Now, James Lewis, on the other hand,
now he's a little more suspect. James Lewis was somewhere around the age of 34. I couldn't
get an exact age. So I said 34 ish maybe he was a tax accountant who took a particular
interest in this case. And this guy seems to have the most connections to not only this
case but several of the victims, Beth. Oh, yep. James sent out a copy of a handwritten
letter to Johnson and Johnson executives, explaining in detail how easy it was to poison
people with Tylenol that were out there on the shelves. Basically, his fingerprints were
found on that letter and that's what gave him away. He went on to say he had only spent
$50 on tampering with the product, then demanded $1 million in ransom money. Oh my gosh. You
know how you have these wackadoodles that come out and say, Hey, I'm the one that did
it. Yes. I mean, he is like giving it up right now. He wants the fame. Yep. He wanted the
fame. So just kind of backtracking a little bit at the age of 19, James had chased his
own mother with an axe and was later committed to a state mental hospital where he was later
diagnosed with schizophrenia. Although he later claimed that it was all just a farce
to avoid being drafted to Vietnam. I don't believe that. No, that's a little odd. Not
too many people run around the house after your mother with an axe. No. Well, James was
also charged with but acquitted for a murder in 1978. And after his acquittal, James and
his wife got into the exporting business and attempted to ship pill making machines overseas.
Interesting. Isn't that a quinky dink? Yes, it is. And business, unfortunately for them
went bust rather quickly. So nothing really came of his business of pill making or you
know, whatever he had to do with pill making overseas. James had also bought a train ticket
that placed him in the area of where the cyanide laced Tylenol bottles were placed or were
found. One surveillance video did capture somebody on the recording who resembled James
in the Chicago area around the time of the murders. But remember back in the day, Beth,
if you ever see an old commercial on YouTube from the 80s, you know the videos very grainy.
Yes. Yeah, that's pretty much what the circumstances were. And police could not make a positive
ID as if that were James Lewis on the video or not. So they were never able to bring charges
up against him. However, James did end up getting charged with a 20 year sentence where
he served 13 years for that extortion letter that he had written. That's a funny turn of
events. I mean, he wanted the fame. Yeah, he got it all right. Yep. He has always maintained
his innocence to tampering with any of the Tylenol bottles, stating that he was just
being a good Samaritan by providing police with information on how easy it would be to
tamper with medication on store shelves. Okay, that makes sense. All right. In 2010, James
was ordered by a judge to provide a DNA sample because remember now back in the 80s, there
was no such thing as DNA sampling. But in 2010, he was ordered to provide a sample.
But again, they were never able to bring charges up against him. And at some point in time,
he had started a website where he again always maintained his innocence. And even Lynn Reiner's
daughter does not believe James has anything to do with these murders. Now remember, Michelle
witnessed her mother take the medication and collapse. Yes, she witnessed the whole thing,
but she doesn't believe that James had anything to do with it. So over the next four years,
many copycat poisonings occurred with Tylenol and etc. But were never linked back to that
original Tylenol scare. Now that's pretty sad having copycat poisonings for goodness
sakes. I know. I mean, everybody wants their claim to fame. They sure do. But could you
not like maybe pay it forward and do something kind? Yeah. So Beth, because of the Tylenol
scare back in the 80s, this ultimately is what made all changes in packaging. Okay. And you
had mentioned this earlier, how you have the cellophane over even food. Yes. Anything that's
related to FDA Food and Drug Administration. So the FDA quickly made changes. I mean, they
immediately made changes to how pharmaceuticals are packaged, and they instilled stricter
guidelines in quality control. So yeah, what is that 40 years ago? Around 40 years ago,
all of a sudden, think about it. And if you can think back this far, Beth, they just had,
I don't know, Tylenol on the shelves, they didn't have them boxed, right? Geez, it's
hard to imagine, isn't it? They placed tamper resistant safety measures into effect. And
like I just mentioned, I mean, you've got the bottle inside of a box with the cellophane
wrapping around the lid, plus the foil underneath the lid. So you have to go through multiple
steps to even open the bottle now. Yes. And it's all because of this Tylenol case. Product
tampering became a federal crime, which imposes a sentence of up to 90 years in prison if
you are caught tampering or committing copycat crimes. That's a long time. Yeah. Capsules
were replaced with pills because it's more difficult to contaminate the product. And
between September 29th of 1982, when the first deaths occurred, and December 6th of 1982,
tamper resistant packaging was released for distribution. So only within three months,
two and a half months, it went from what it was to let's seal this, double seal it, triple,
quadruple seal this. That was quick. It was. And think about how much that would have cost
to put into place. I know, eh? Drug manufacturers were ordered to remove all non-compliant packages
from the shelves by no later than February 6th of 1984. So they had about a year and
a half or two years to replace everything with a newly developed tamper resistant packages.
But because everybody back in the day were very socially responsible, most manufacturers
didn't even wait that long. They went ahead and pulled all of their products from the
shelf way ahead of the deadline and made sure that their tamper resistant packages were
on the shelf. Fantastic. The aftermath of this case, Beth, if you're thinking about
in today's terms in 2022, most witnesses or suspects from this case are either elderly
or have passed away. And also any detectives that were working on this case have since
retired. However, the Tylenol Murders case is still considered an open case with probably
a somewhat small Chicago task force still working on trying to solve the problems or
trying to solve the case, but not really making much headway. I mean, too much time has passed,
unfortunately. One of the victims family members, Monica Janice, makes the sign of the cross
every time she has to take medication. And this is 40 years after Beth, she was highly
traumatized about this. Poor lady. Yeah. Because she lost three members of her family that
day. She lost Adam, Lynn, and Stanley Janice. And Monica was their niece who was only 10
years old at the time. She was with her cousin, Michelle, when they witnessed Lynn die. Yeah,
that's tragic. Yep. So Monica has suffered post-traumatic stress over her aunt's death,
but has since come to terms with it. And she does believe, I mean, if you're going to make
a rainbow out of a storm, Beth, Monica does believe that this entire situation happened
to save other people by changing how medication is packaged today. And oh my God, do I have
goosebumps? Yes. Yeah. I can't believe they never found anybody. That just blows my mind.
I know. Because they did it for a reason. And always it's part of fame. Usually, yeah,
like you said, they want that recognition. They want that celebrity status, regardless
on how sick it is. They still want it. So why would somebody not give a reason behind
it? Exactly. There's no satisfaction in that psychological mind. No. Well, that's the story
of the Tylenol murders from the 1980s, Beth. Well, I think that's very interesting story
that you have for us. It's always good to learn new things and how things are packaged
and where it came from. Yeah. One of those, how it's made moments, if you've ever seen
that show. Yeah. So that's it. That's all I got from the Tylenol case. But wait, do
you have a teachable moment? I do, but I don't really have a long one today, Beth. I only
want to say that you need to be mindful of the packaging that anything you consume comes
in. And just because the makers of Tylenol changed how they manufacture and package their
product, it doesn't mean that all food and drug manufacturers do the same thing. And
in today's world, you can't be too careful. So if something doesn't seem right when you're
opening a container, don't use it. And I'll give you an example, Beth. Have you ever bought
dented cans from the grocery store because they're on sale? No. Well, some people do
and the grocery stores tend to mark those down because they still want to get rid of
them. But did you know that dented cans have been known to cause botulism? Yes, believe
it or not. Yeah. So I mean, that's just one of those things. And then also check your
vacuum sealed containers. I mean, I'll give you an example like baby food or even canned
foods. Sometimes you have that seal like did you use to can? Yes, I did. Yeah. So you know
how it forms that seal? Yes. Press the top. If the top pops when you're pressing on it,
the jar was never sealed properly. And that could be an issue where somebody contaminated.
I mean, anybody can go through the grocery store, open a jar, drop something in and then
be on their way. Medications should at least be double sealed minimum with that cellophane
wrapping and tin foil. So in a nutshell, basically just pay attention to the packaging. If it
doesn't look right or feel right, it's simply not right. So that's my teachable moment today,
Beth. Well, thank you very much for that. Sure. I'm just so happy to see you on camera
today. I know it's highly unusual. We, Deb and I have had this issue for months. It's
really my issue. She suggested one day, maybe it is your camera. So I set up another camera
and sure enough, she can see me. I sure can. It's lovely to see you. You too. Yeah. Well,
with that being said, Beth, I think that we are done with today's episode and we are glad
that our listeners took the time to be here today. We always try to find stories that
you can relate to and leave the content up to you. If you have a story that you would
like to hear, please email us at dying the number two, the letter be found at gmail.com
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request. If you would like to know more about our podcast or your hosts, please visit dying
to be found.com spelled just like you see it on our logo. And that's all we got Beth.
So thanks everyone. We will talk to you next Thursday. Bye. Bye.