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The Chicago Tylenol Murders · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

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  Discretion is advised. This is ten minted murder. We hear about crimes and
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  murders every day. The wife that found out her husband was having an affair
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  and she shot him. The driver that get robbed making a delivery in a
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  neighborhood known for shady activity. The man that let his anger get the best
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  of him and pulled someone out of their car in a fit of road rage
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  after they cut him off. Every incident, while terrible, both plays on
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  our fears and gives us a false sense of security. We know what to
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  expect in those situations. The who, what, where, and why they
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  can all be answered. But what about when? The why was simply to
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  create chaos? What about when the who, what, when, and where
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  didn't make any difference. More than likely you've watched the Batman movies. The
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  Cape Crusader that was able to solve every crime and figure out the riddles.
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  His mental capabilities even exceeded his physical strength. But even he met a criminal
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  he just couldn't make sense of. In the movie The Dark Night, Alfred,
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  who always seemed to know the right thing to say, no matter the
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  circumstances, made an observation, while bone chilling, It's true, he said,
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  some men just want to watch the world burn. Four decades ago,
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  Chicago was rocked by seemingly senseless crimes. The Chicago thailan All murders took place
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  in nineteen eighty two. Seven people died in the area as a result of
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  thailan All extra strength gelatine capsules being laced with potassium cyanide. The first death
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  reported was a twelve year old girl. Her parents gave her tailan all because
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  she had a sore throat, which is what most would do. She was
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  dead by the next morning. Of course, no one knew the cause of
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  death in that moment. Luckily, no one else in her house took the
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  tailan All before the paramedics got there and bagged it up. But not every
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  family was that fortunate. A twenty seven year old polster worker took thailan All
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  at home, and initially his death was thought to be a heart attack.
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  His brother and sister in law were distraught. They rushed over to the house
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  upon hearing the news, and that day's events had their heads throbbing. The
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  stress of it caused them to have headaches, so they did what any of
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  us would do. They took Taylan All. They both died. Arlington Heights.
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  Only public health official was sent to the crime scene to look around.
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  She found the bottle on the counter and counted the capsules. There were forty
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  four. Six had been taken, probably two by each of the three victims
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  in that house. The bottle made its way to the Deputy Chief Medical Examiner.
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  He immediately noticed that it had an almond like scent common with cyanide.
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  He asked the chief toxicologist to test the capsules. All forty four capsules tested
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  contained fatal amounts of cyanide. Every single capsule in that bottle was potentially fatal.
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  Police watched the graves and the funerals and hopes that whoever committed the crime
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  would show up at one of the scenes, but no one that raised red
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  flags did. The bottles purchased could not even be linked to a single store.
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  The contaminated bottles had been bought from different businesses. Originally, they thought
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  the bottles were all from the same lot, but soon they realized that they
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  were multiple lots involved. A recall was issued on every bottle of thailan Al
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  extra strength gelatine capsules in the Chicago area. It was one of the largest
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  pharmaceutical recalls at the time. Johnson and Johnson, Thailanall's manufacturer, warned hospitals
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  and distributors of the evolving crisis. They even stopped production of the product until
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  more was learned. Then a new case popped up in California that was a
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  long way from the cases they thought were contained to Chicago. This time,
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  the thailand All had STRYCT nine in it. Johnson and Johnson made the decision
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  to recall the product nationwide on October fifth, nineteen eighty two, and estimated
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  thirty one million bottles were in circulation at the time. The cost of the
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  product recall was over one hundred million dollars equivalent to well over three hundred million
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  today. They even did some advertising to discourage people from consuming the product while
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  the source of the poison was being investigated. Market shares collapsed. The list
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  of side effects and warnings on most medications is alarming, and yet with all
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  the negative possibilities, they're promoted, advertised, and often praised. Maybe they're
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  amazing, maybe they're not, but the manufacturers have no plans to slow down
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  productions and sales. Now, obviously, the situation was different since they couldn't
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  pinpoint the cause of the poison and peop were dying. But for Johnson and
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  Johnson to actually put out advertising against their own product it seemed like financial suicide.
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  Yet they were praised for their response to the crisis. Their honesty through
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  public relations was something rarely seen. They demonstrated how a major business could properly
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  handle a devastating disaster, and within a few years they once again held the
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  highest market share for over the counter analgesus in the United States. The investigation
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  led to the conclusion that the bottles had been tampered with after they had already
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  been placed on shelves, not during production. They hypothesized that someone took them
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  from the shelves, added potassium cyanide through the gelatine capsule, and returned them
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  to be purchased and consumed by unknown customers. Now, if someone had been
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  trying to buy Thailand all and return it all over town, someone would have
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  noticed and questions would have been asked. So had the person or persons been
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  stealing the bottles then casually placing them back into locations. A man named James
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  William Lewis sent a letter to Johnson and Johnson, claiming responsibility for the deaths
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  and demanding a million dollars to stop. He lived in New York City and
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  the police couldn't connect him to the crimes. He was, however, charged
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  with extortion and spent some time in prison. A bar owner named Marty Sinclair
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  reported that one of his patrons could be the suspect. Roger Arnold, frequented
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  the bar and had made comments that led Sinclair to believe that he was guilty
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  of the crimes. When the police searched Arnold's house, they found a book
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  called The poor Man's James Bond, which contained instructions for making potassium cyanide,
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  but they didn't find anything linking him to the actual crime. After the investigation,
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  Arnold waited with a gun in hand for Sinclair. When he stepped out,
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  he shot and killed him. Only it wasn't Sinclair, it was a
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  random, innocent man. So both possible suspects ended up in prison, but
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  neither for the crimes the police were originally investigating. With no one in custody,
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  who's to say that the crisis had ended. Over the next few years,
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  hundreds of copycats emerged involving over the counter medications perhaps all the perpetrators were
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  hoping that the original individual would take the blame for another crime committed. I'm
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  sure to them it seemed like a good plan, But instead, many of
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  those murders were solved and quite a few scorned lovers ended up in prison.
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  When thailand All Extra Strength was finally reintroduced to the market, it was triple
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  sealed to prevent tampering. A terrifying string of events led to reforms and packaging
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  over the counter drugs and federal anti tampering laws. In nineteen eighty three,
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  it was made a federal offense to tamper with products meant for consumption. In
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  nineteen eighty nine, new guidelines for packaging of products meant for consumption were put
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  into place. In nineteen ninety one, Johnson and Johnson reached an undisclosed sum
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  to be paid out to the family of the individuals that died in Chicago.
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  The agreement was not the business taking responsibility for the deaths, but rather wanting
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  to help the families and encouraging everyone to put the terrible events behind them.
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  In twenty ten, with new DNA testing methods available, they once again tested
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  the DNA from Arnold and Lewis against the DNA found on the taylan All bottles.
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  They were not a match. Not only was it disappointing that they didn't
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  match, but if the person that committed the crime had ever been convicted of
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  another crime, their DNA should be in the system. So to have the
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  DNA on the bottles but never being able to link it to a person is
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  a mystery in itself. Did the individual never commit another crime or did they
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  become more careful with their methods to not leave any evidence behind. It leaves
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  the big question what was the motive behind the Chicago murders? Was therein intended
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  victim and all the other casualties were just unfortunate mishaps. There's still not a
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  definite answer, though it does raise other questions. How many items are in
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  our cabinets, pantries and refrigerators that could have been tampered with without us even
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  knowing. They never did charge anyone with the crimes. When we think about
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  what it takes to get a product from production to market, there could be
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  endless possibilities. The product starts in a facility, goes through a warehouse and
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  packaging, and get shipped and delivered and stocked and picked up and put down
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  by consumers until finally purchased and handed to a cashier. It makes you stop
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  and think that our society must be extremely trusting in people when we think about
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  the amount of hands that have contact with any given product. Maybe we should
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  just hope that most people are good and honest, because it seems that the
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  hands that caused the Chicago tail in all murders just wanted to spark chaos and
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  watch it burn. That's ten minute Murder for today, brief and bingeable true
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  crime. My name is Joe. I'm the host of this podcast, and
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  I really appreciate you taking the time to listen and stop right now what you're
• 10:07
  doing for a moment. Take a look at where you're listening to this podcast.
• 10:11
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• 10:15
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  back and listen to previous episodes of ten Minute Murder. Now. If you're
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  an og listener of this podcast and you're not subscribed, I don't know what
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  you're doing things wrong. Instead of searching for the podcast every time you want
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  and if you've been listening for a long time and you're already subscribed,
• 11:03
  I will love you for the rest of my life. The end, And
• 11:07
  quickly, let me talk about something that was on my mind during the majority
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  of me telling that story. Just now, what keeps us, us normal
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  human beings from doing bad things to other human beings? Because most of us
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  don't necessarily calls harm to other people intentionally on a day to day basis,
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  But why what keeps us from doing that? For some of us, it's
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  religion. For others, it's just because it's bad karma. For me personally,
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  I think I just feel empathetic when it comes to other people, even
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  if you're a piece of trash. I feel bad that you're a piece of
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  trash. And there is a religious element in there for me, and there's
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  also a karma element for me. And that's where I'm getting to when I'm
• 11:50
  talking about what was going through my head, this entire story that I was
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  telling it, and it's one line from a song. I was singing the
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  whole song in my head, but one line of it is the reason karma
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  is a relaxing thought. And yes, that's a Taylor Swift song, but
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  karma is a relaxing thought because if you believe that karma is a real thing,
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  and you actively try to be a decent person, then karma is a
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  relaxing thought. You don't have to get even with other people. You don't
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  have to go out of your way to ruin someone's day because they harmed you
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  in some way. Karma is a relaxing thought. Okay, now that I'm
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  quoting Taylor Swift, I think it's probably time to end this episode for today.
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  Thank you so much for listening to ten Minute Murder