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Selects: The Tylenol Murders, Part II · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey there, everyone has promised. It's me again, Josh. And
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: for Part two of this week's s Y s K Select,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: we talked about Johnson and Johnson's response to one of
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: the biggest PR crises ever to grip an American company,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: and we meet the suspects and talk about the effects
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: of the senseless Thailand All Poisonings. I hope you enjoy
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Part two of two of this week's special two parts
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Select Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Josh Clark. There's Charles W Chuck Bryant, there's guest producer
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Josh over there. Because enough with the pleasant trees, let's
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: get back to it. Chuck Thailand All Murders Part two.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: If you did not listen to the first part, seven
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: people were murdered by ingesting Thailand, all tainted with cyanide
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: on the same day, All on the same day. America
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: and much of the world is super freaked out. Johnson
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: and Johnson is the manufacturer. And part one of part
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: two has a deal with Johnson and Johnson and how
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: they handled this in a public relations sort of way,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: because there were and are a huge company, Like you
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: said in the episode one, they held thirty seven percent
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: of the market share, which was many hundreds of millions
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: of dollars of Thailand all that they're selling every year,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: and that's right, which is like gazillions now. So it
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: was a very big deal for that company. And the
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: way they handled it is taught in colleges and PR
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: classes all over the world as exactly how to handle
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: a big public relations crisis like this. It's literally called
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: a textbook example of how how it's done. Yeah, they
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: did a good job because, as you remember from the
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: last episode, they found out pretty sure early on that
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: this had nothing to do with Johnson and Johnson, right, like,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: it wasn't in their factory, wasn't in their supply chain.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: That happened almost certainly, and that it probably happened by
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: some crazed person taking him out of the store, tainting
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: them maybe in the store in the parking lot, then
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: putting them back on the shelf. But Johnson Johnson can't
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: come out on the news and say, hey, wasn't us
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: right well at first though, and this this gets overlooked
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: and left out of the college business courses, in the
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: PR courses at first Johnson and Johnson was not in
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: favor of a massive recall. Look well, it looks good
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: in one way but bad in another. And they actually
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: didn't recall anything until Mayor Jane Byrne hells her press
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: conference on Friday calling for a recall of the Thailand
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: all in Chicago, and Johnson and Johnson did a little
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: face palm and yes, we're recalling all of the Thailand
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: all in Chicago. Yes, what she said. Right. So by Friday, uh,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: the thirty one of September is their thirty one in September?
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Was this October one? I have no idea. I think
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: it was October one. Anyway, By the Friday, two days
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: after the death the death um, Johnson and Johnson recalled
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: all of the Thailand all in Chicago. And that should
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: have been enough to them, that was enough. But this
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: PR crisis was so massive and spread so fast, and
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: like we said earlier in Part one, became global almost overnight.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: It was not enough. And so Johnson and Johnson, within
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: a week of the deaths, recalled every bottle of extra
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: strength Thailand all in the United States, which is worth
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: about a hundred million dollars at the time. Took it
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: back to their factories and destroyed it. So they say, right, uh, yeah,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: both Johnson and Johnson, right. I wonder if one of
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: them was like, I don't know about this. They're one
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: of them said Okay, I'll take all the states west
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: of the Mississippi North Dakota, South Dakota in some Wyoming,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: and you take all the other states. That's a that's
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: a part one joke. Uh. They even got an award
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: the Public Relations Society of America, which is a real thing,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: I believe it or not. They awarded them their Silver
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: and Bull Award for how they handle the crisis the
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Thailand all poisoning, that's right, and um high grade foods.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Remember we talked about the bad Wieners in the first
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: episode the ballpark Frank sip Um supposedly had razor blades
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: but did not. That still created a public relations crisis
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: for them, even though they were just these little jerks
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: in Detroit. And Uh. They won the Golden Anvil, which
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: is one higher than silver, because of how they handled
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: the pr crisis brought about by the copycats of the
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: actual Thailand all crisis, which was in fact really brought
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: about by two jerk kids in Detroit really not even copycats,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: not the tile in all crisis. I wonder where those
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: kids are today, probably in the Senate. I bet one
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: of them was the guy who did our our lighting
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: at our Detroit show. There was a smoke Yeah, guys,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: we we did a show in Detroit a few years
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: ago and um, very famously we still use that as
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: the standard bearer for a bad crew bad. We had
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: a guy that looked like a former roadie for your
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Riyah Heap that was running like a light show basically
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: during the middle of our podcast, and like smoke came out.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: We were like, we had to stop the show, almost
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: like dude, what are you doing? Yeah, well the lighting
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: was so bad that your highlighter had turned like brown
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: and you could and you asked him, we had to
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: stop the show and you had to ask him to
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: use a different color light. And his response, because Umi
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: was hanging out and our friend Chris Bowman was hanging
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: out in the sound booth with the guy, his response,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: according to them, was they wants smoke, will give them
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: some more smoke, And we got some more smoke like
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: a smoke machine man. And people ask us why we
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: haven't been back to Detroit. It's a big reason. It's
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: a big reason, not the only reason. Uh. Okay, So
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: they won the Golden Anvil for the Wiener pr moves
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: um McNeil Consumer Products, which is a subsidiary of Johnson
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: and Johnson. They actually make Thailand on. Yeah, they make
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: the pills again. The way this all the supply chain
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: works is really convoluted. Um. And uh, like you said,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: they didn't want to recall Johnson Johnson everything at first.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: They want to kind of take it a little slower,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: I guess, um, because they found out the drugs are
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: actually fine, right thanks to Pinky McFarland. This is a
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: hundred million dollars worth of stock that they were kind
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: of feeling the pressure to recall. It's right, So they
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: were kind of reluctant at first, especially if they were
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: convinced that there was nothing wrong with the rest of them.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: They had no choice, No, that was the only way
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: to do it was to lose a lot of money
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: and in favor of future gains. Yeah. But even at
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: the time, a lot of people were like, this is
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: it for thaile and all the public has lost faith
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: in Thailand all. So when Thailand all recalled thirty one million,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: fifty count bottles of extra strength Taile and All and
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: destroyed at all. There was a chance that not only
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: were they losing a hundred million dollars, but that they
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: were losing a hundred billion dollars of a brand that
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: had already lost the public trust and would never regain it.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: So which wasn't true. But no, but they didn't necessarily
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: know that at the time. It was still up in
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: the air. Um so they it was basically thirty one
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: million sacrificial lambs that were killed to show the public
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: this tainted tail and All has gone forever. Your chances
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: of dying from taking Extra Strength Thaile and All are
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: now gone. You can go back to taking Thaile and All. Now,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: that was one thing, and that was a big gesture,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: but which is what it amounted to. It was a
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: gesture on behalf of Johnson and Johnson. But they did
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: other stuff too. They started to do things right out
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: of their reluctance. Once they finally said there, we have
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: to just go with this to save face and to
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: win back public trust, they started to do things right,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: like including like setting up a hotline, putting out a
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollar reward for information change how much they
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: had lost already still jump change it's it is yeah,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: and that remains unclaimed. It does. Um, but they But
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: because of all this, Johnson and Johnson managed to regain
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: the public trust and actually managed to position itself as
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: a victim in all of this. Like, yes, there were
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: they were seven murder victims, and Johnson and Johnson I
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: don't think ever tried to push them out of the spotlight.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: But they also managed to portray themselves as the victim
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: of a of a mad poisoner who may or may
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: not have something out for them. But either way, their
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: brand was take a huge hit because of this, and
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: they were a victim and we're able to generate public sympathy,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: which is part of the road to regaining the public
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: trust right, which is why it's taught NPR classes. So, um,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: we'll take you back to two. If you're if you
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: weren't around then or old enough to be taking uh
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: O t C pills and pain relievers is over the counter,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: by the way. That's right, Okay, you're done with OTC.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah you know me so dumb. Uh. I love that
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: you played along that I appreciate that you could have
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: made me feel stupid. We've been partners for eleven years
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: almost now, Yeah, that'd be when next month or this month? Right, Yeah, unbelievable.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: So uh, I'm believing that, not in that way. Okay.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: So here's how it used to happen. If you wanted
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: to take a pill like a tail and all, you would,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: um get your bottle. You would pop it open with
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: your thumb. Well first, first it came in a little box, sure,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: but the box wasn't even glued shut. Um. You would
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: pop it open with your finger. You would take out
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: the cotton in there, and you would take your pill.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: It was that easy. There was no tamper proofing, There
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: was no The cotton was completely superfluous at this time. Yeah.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: Cotton originally was introduced to keep baar aspirin like the
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: hard tablets from getting crushed in transport. And since they
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: started using capsules and other stuff and figured out how
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: to strengthen tablets, there was no reason for the cotton
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: any longer, but because consumers expected it. Still today you'll
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: find cotton in your and your pills. There's no reason
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: for it to be there except because the companies know
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: that you wanted to be there. You might be weirded
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: out if there wasn't cotton in your pills. Imagine the
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: cotton lobby had something to do with that too. Well,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: I'll bet they're not. They're not complaining, you know, so
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: um big cotton. They should uh new fancy OTC pills
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: should have micromodl in there. Right. It just comes with
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: a pair of me undy him bottle. You're like, these
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: have been worn so uh. This was a time. It
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: was a very innocent time previous to this, where you
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: could like and you pointed this out. I remember seeing
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: this in grocery stores, like I remember seeing mothers and
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: grocery stores opening food products and smelling them. That's what
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: you could do, and then closing it back and putting
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: it back on the shelf. There's a little mold in
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: this one. Yeah, and I'll just leave it for the
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: next person. Forget poisoning like that. These they could be
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: spitting in this stuff. It was allowed. That's just the
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: way it was like there was. America was innocent enough
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: that that was fine. That's how we lived. And that
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: sets up this tile and all poisoning. It really shows
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: how much of a jarring experience it was from America
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: because all of a sudden, like it's finally sunk in
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: in a couple of days, there's something wrong with the
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: tile and all. Somebody has gone out of their way
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: to poisoned the Thailand all in order to randomly kill people.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: And the reason they were able to do this because
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: there it's easy to to get into the tail and
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: all tamper with it. Put it back and no one
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: will be any any any more. The wiser and wait,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: it's not just taile and all. Milk doesn't have anything
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: that that keeps the tamper resistant. New there's orange juice,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: there's cereal, new there does um cottage cheese. Nothing does.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: And America for wreaked out. And this is the reason
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: why this tile and all poisoning is considered widely the
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: first incident of domestic terrorism in the United States, because
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: it was terrorism, pure and simple. America was terrified. They
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: were petrified not only to take tail in all or
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: any over the counter medicine, now they were petrified to
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: drink milk or give milk to their kids. Paula Prince,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: the flight attendant who was the last one to die
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: in Chicago, she had a coworker who said like everything
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: look tainted. Now. I was afraid to give my kids milk.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: I was afraid to get my kids cereal. If they
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: could get to the tile tile and all, they could
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: poison anything. And that was really emblematic of the the attitude,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: the shock that everybody went through. And as a result,
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: within six weeks, Thailand all said we got this coverage. Yeah.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: And I have a feeling they did this so fast.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: There had to have been this idea in place already.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: It was I saw I saw a reference that it was,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: and I imagine it was not done because they're like, well,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: that's a lot of money, and why why would we bother.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: It's like, it's not like someone's gonna poison the medicine.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: And then that happened. So within six weeks they had
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: a box that was actually glued shut, so if your
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: little box had been opened, you would be able to
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: tell yeah, that was That was part one of three
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: of this tamper resistant packaging. That little plastic seal over
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: the top of the bottle after you open it. Uh
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: oh no, no, the the plastic is over the cap
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: on the outside of the bottle. Yeah, like the plastic foil,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: and then the the actual foil was over the mouth
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: of the bottle that we all have to poke through
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: now to pull out the and whatever still uses cotton.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: None of that existed until the beginning of ninet. So
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: all three of these are put in place within six weeks. Uh.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Not only that, they said, you know what, we're going
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: to introduce the caplet, which everyone knows now it was
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: we didn't have them back then. Everything was a little
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: capsule that you could literally pull apart and you could
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: snort the Thailand all if you wanted to. Quite sure
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: some people did. I'm sure someone did. But the caplet
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: is you know, a tablet coated with an easy to
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: swallow a gelatine. It's solid, it's um I imagine you
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: could tamper with it. And even I even saw with
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: all these things in place, they said, nothing is tamper proof.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: But these measures really went a long way to restore
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: the public, uh you know, well, like the good feelings
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: about what was going on. Yeah, within about a year
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Thailand all Or Johnson and Johnson managed to win the
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: public's trust back in Thailand. All that's hard to believe. Yeah,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: that was really fast. But it also goes to show
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: like just how perfectly. They did everything from that from
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: the time they committed to it on. Yeah, and I
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: feel like I remember like commercials with CEOs and stuff
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: addressing the public. He became I can't remember his name.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: I want to say Geoffrey Beam and it's like a
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: shoe brand. Getty Johnson, No, um, Bill Johnson Johnson, Yes, this,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: I can't remember his name, but he Jimmy Johnson is
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: way far away from that. UM. But he became a
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: public face. He would, you know, go on to sixty
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: minutes and and he talked to Dan Rather and take
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Copple and all those cats. Like he he was out
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: there like showing how much the company cared. Yeah, And
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: it had had a huge effect. And then in Congress
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: got involved. They passed what they dubbed the Thailand All Bill,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: which basically says, if you do something like this is
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: now a federal offense. A few years later, in nine UM,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: the f d A actually established guidelines for manufacturers of
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: any product really to make it tamper proof. Yeah, because
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: it wasn't just the O. T C manufacturers that that
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: started doing this, they followed suit very quickly once Thailand
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: All came out with it, because they kind of had
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: to if they wanted to keep up with tile and all. Um.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: But also the uh, the manufacturers of everything, like every product,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: every consumer products started putting their products in like tamper
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: proof packaging. Dial soap started coming wrapped in cellophane inside
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: the box trap the chemicals in, I guess. But also
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: to show like nobody's injected this with lie or something
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: like that, although lie is used in the making a soap,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: isn't it. I remember my Fight Club. It's pretty funny
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: someone injected soap into the soap. All right, let's take
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: another break and we'll come back and talk a little
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: bit more about the profile of the supposed mad poisoner
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: right after this stop. All right, So, uh, this was
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: a very big case at the time, obviously, like we've
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: been saying, it was a landmark case. Um, so of
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: course you're going to get um psychological profiles, which you
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: know we should do one in profiling. Actually have we
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: done that? I don't think so it'd be a good
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: one because it always like seems like the trope in
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: movies and TV. But it is kind of like that.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: It is a thing, for sure. It's not like they
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: just make this stuff up. But in the end they said,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: you know, this is probably a man in his twenties
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: or thirties who was sort of a Jekyl and Hide
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: type during the day. He's very ordinary. You could be
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: in the desk cubicle next to you and you wouldn't
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: even know it. Every once in a while you just
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: hear and go, yeah exactly. But deep in his in
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: the recesses of his brain, everyone, he's plagued with self
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: doubt and has an illusion that a random killing can
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: boost his sense of self worth self worth. Um, which
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: is just sounds like a straight out of a movie.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: It sounds like a psychiatrist thing. I want to be
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: on TV. Yeah, listen to me. Uh. They also speculated,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: and this is just completely like conjecture was that he
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: had probably already taken his own life after the killings.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: That was one specific person that Yeah, it was I
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: think like the medical examiner for Cook County. Yeah, Um,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: he probably already jumped off the bridge, So don't worry
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: about it. Don't worry everybody. Uh. Yeah, he just threw
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: that out there. I don't know if it was the
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: calm people or not, but or maybe he's just throwing
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: his two cents in. But um, I think you kind
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: of said it earlier. I don't remember if it was
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: part owner, parts two. The whole things is blurred and
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: become a haze by now. But um, no one has
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: ever been charged with the Thailand All murders. Yeah, but
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: there has been a lot. There were a lot of suspects.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: Remember Thailand. I'll set up a hotline and this Thailand
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: All task Force, a hundred and forty person strong task
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: force investigating this, chasing down leads, taking calls on the hotline.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Thousands and thousands of calls that were coming in. Um,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: they were trying to whittle those down into actual tips
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: that were worth pursuing, and out of all of them,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: they they deemed twelve hundred tips und leads worth checking out.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of leads for a case, um, even
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: even considering yet a hundred and forty people working them.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: And I read somewhere that they started out with like
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: twenty thousand suspects or something like that and whittled it
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: down to four hundred. Yeah, And the sort of the
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: sad part as as quickly as they sort of figured
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: a lot of this out and had that hundred and
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: forty person task force. They almost just as quickly, within
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: a few months, realized that, like, we don't have a
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: very good chance at finding this person. Yeah, it became
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: clear very quickly. Yeah, they whittled that down. By the
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: last week of October, the task force was down to
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: forty people. By the end of the year it was
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: down to twenty. And it was a situation again where
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: you didn't have security cameras everywhere, you didn't have credit
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: cards and debit cards um creating paper trails. It was
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: a lot easier back then to get away with something
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: like this too, um to be completely unknown, to walk
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: into a store, maybe slip some Thailand all into your pocket,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: go out to the parking lot and come back in
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: and slipping back on the shelf. If you're really easy,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: you won't even go to the trouble of buying it. Yeah,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: I guess that's a good point. Steal it and then
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: put it. But you know, people were using cash. If
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: there were UH cameras in a place, they were probably
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: trained on employee is. I worked at a golden pantry
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: in college and the only camera we had was directly
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: above us, pointing down at the catch register. It was
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: the one of alps in in Atlanta Highway. Alps No,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: the one on the east side College Station Road. I think, yeah,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: very interesting job. That's the one where I got a job.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: I needed a job. I got a job at McDonald's
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: and I showed up. I took the one hour training
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: video and they got my uniform number. I went home
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: and I was supposed to show up the next day
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: and I was just like, I can't do it. I
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: can't go work at McDonald's. And I got the Golden
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: Pantry job later that day, which, hey man, sure, it's
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: like sign me up from Golden Arches to Golden Pantry.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: That's like a rags richest story. I was selling beer
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: and cigarettes. Nice. It was pretty great. You're like one
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: for you, one for me. Oh I would never do that. Um,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: all right, where was I? Oh? Yeah, I was at
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Golden Pantry. So the cameras trained on the register, they're
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: not they're not. You know, you could come and go
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: in a store and no one even knows it was
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: cops have nothing to go on. Most importantly, no motive.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: That was a big one because remember this is just
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: a jekylin Hyde type who you'd never suspect, who's probably
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: at the bottom of the Chicago River, right, who also
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: is engaged in some senseless random killings of people, anonymous
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: poisoning killing, not even shooting. It just made zero sense whatsoever. So,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: like we said earlier, the cops figured out within about
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: a month, within the first month of the investigation, that
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: this was they were not going to have a break
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: in this case. But it's not to say that they
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: didn't have some suspects. Some people definitely did kind of
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: come to come to the four, but not many of them. Yeah,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: but these two are really interesting sub stories in and
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: of themselves. The first guy's name was last name Arnold,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: first name Roger, Roger, that's right, I call him Richard.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: That's all right, But for good reason, Oh sure, because
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: you said he was like the Richard Jewel of his day,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: the Olympic bomber, who was not the bomber, right, but
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: whose life was ruined because he basically was implicated as
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: the Olympic bomber. The same thing happened to this guy. Yeah,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: he was one of the first named suspects, forty nine
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: year old guy. So so put yourself in the position. Okay,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: the media is going berserk on this story. Everybody hears
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: about it. It's a mad anonymous poisoner, and now all
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: of a sudden there's a name and a face associated
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: with it. Who's a suspect, but he's the first person name.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: It's like people going crazy, like trying to get to
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: this guy to interview him. Yeah. I have my doubts
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: about this guy. Not that he did that, but there
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: are a lot of hinky things that they found out
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: about him and then how it all ended up as
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: you're about to see. So he was a d i
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: y chemist. It's a big one. There's a big thing
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: right there, because into chemistry. He said, he's a Jacqueline
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Hyde type. He's probably into chemistry. That's right. He was
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: a dock hand at jewel Foods at a warehouse west
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: of Chicago. Jewel Foods, a couple of different jewel foods
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: are where the was bought, like a grocery store, food market.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: It's all checking out so far. Um, So the cops
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: look into him and go to his house. He has
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: a book, a handbook rather on methods of killing people?
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: How did kill people? A dizzy? I don't know if
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: that's the title, but okay, that's a good one. He
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: had five unregistered guns. It's a big one. He admitted
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: to having cyanide once. Yeah, but he said I threw
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: it out like at least six months before these murders.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: He's like, the murders again, Oh, yes, six months before that.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: That's and then his wife said, you know they're investigating
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: her and interviewing her. She was like, you know what,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Actually I did take some tile in all and felt
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: really sick and throw up one time. But again I
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: was it was probably due to over eating, and it
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: was just that once. That's the fact of the podcast.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: So like he can't blame cops for saying, this guy
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: is a pretty good lead, yeah, because you can kind
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: of start to see, like if you add all the
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: other stuff together, and then hear about the wife throwing
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: up from Thailand, all we like, could you see this
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: guy like toying with his wife, like testing it out
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: on her just enough to make her sick, but not
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: to kill her, to see what happened, you know, see
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: if she would notice? Who knows. But the cops thoroughly
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: investigated this guy and cleared him. There there's not a
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: there's not a person associated with the story that I
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: came across who said I actually think this guy did it.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: I didn't find one person who thought Ronald Roger Arnold
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: actually did it. But in very short order he proved
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: that he was more than capable of murder because six
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: months after he was cleared as a suspect, he was
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: brought in for the murder of somebody else. A guy
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: named John Stenishaw Stanisha would say, yeah, I'm going with
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: that too, sons Slovak or something. Yeah, he was forty six,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: he was a Chicago UM computer consultant, and that's saying
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: some yeah, probably so um. So here's what happened Arnold.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: There was his bar gender name or bar owner named
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Marty Sinclair, who Arnold had thought had initially turned him
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: into the cops and ruined his life essentially. So he
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: goes to kill who he thinks is Marty Sinclair, and
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: it's actually this just completely innocent random guy who gets
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: shot point blank. And so he in fact did kill somebody.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: He did because of what had happened to his life.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: It was premeditated murder, even though it was the wrong person.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: He was definitely he created an intentional homicide. He killed
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: somebody on purpose, mistaken identity killing though right, and because
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: of this, because it was directly related to the taile
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: and all poisonings, John stanisha is Um frequently considered an
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: eighth victim of the tie in all killings, kind of
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: like an honorary um victim in this case. But it
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: is kind of appropriate that he just happened to be
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: in the wrong place at the wrong time, a victim
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: of mistaken identity. You know, it would have like a
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: slightly different ring to it if it had been the
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: right guy. The fact that it was the wrong guy
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: and the poor dude just happened to be in the
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: wrong bar and happened to look like the owner, that's
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: just it just it's perfect for this for this saga. Yeah,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: I wonder what Marty Sinclair thought about all that. I'll
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: bet he was not very happy, probably not, but probably
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: also very relieved and probably also guilt. Yeah, I would
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: guess there's a touch of that, a range of emotions
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: I would imagine, yeah, all over the place. So Arnold
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: ended up serving fifteen years of a thirty year sentence,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: was released in ninety nine, and died nine years later. Yep,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: so chuck. Before we go on to the main attraction,
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: as far as the suspects go, I propose that we
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: take break. Okay, we'll be right back. Stop alright, Chuck.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: So this dude, there was basically two suspects in this
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: whole case. Over all these years, there are basically two people.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: And again no one was ever actually charged with the murders.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: But this guy came awfully close and his name was
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: James Lewis, it turns out it was. But James Lewis
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: came under the attention of the Chicago p D and
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: the Thailand All Task Force when a letter showed up
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: at Johnson and Johnson headquarters and it was from allegedly
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: the Thailand All Poisoner, the Mad Poisoner. And in the
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: letter it said basically like I've spent fifty dollars so far,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: and the whole thing is taking me about ten minutes
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: per bottle, and I've already killed seven people. I basically
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: see no reason to stop. Pay me one million dollars
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: and then I will stop the killings. And he gave
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: a bank account number. He said, wire me this money
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: very very presidently. No that's not the right word. Uh,
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: stupidly maybe, but is it. No, it's not. So this
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: letter has a New York postmark, but the bank account
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: is associated with the travel agency in Chicago, and so
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: the cops go, Okay, this seems like it was dropped
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: in our lap, but let's go check it out. And
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: they find the owner of this travel agency that had
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: closed up and gone under um. And this guy is like,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: oh my god, you're kidding me. It's like, no, I
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: didn't write this letter, but I can guarantee I can
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: tell you who did, as a guy named Robert Richardson.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Robert Richardson, it turned out, was the husband of a
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: woman named Nancy Richardson who had worked at the travel agency,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: and when the travel agency went belly up, Nancy lost
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: her job and never got her last paycheck. Well, Robert
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: Richardson was the type of guy who would fixate on this,
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: and was even more so the type of guy who
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: would write a letter to frame the owner of the
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: travel agency for the thaile and all murderers in retaliation
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: for that last paycheck. He was that kind of dude.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: And so the cops started sniffing into this Robert Richardson
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: cat and they figured out pretty quickly that Robert Richardson
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: didn't actually exist, that he was actually somebody else, a
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: man named James Lewis. So when we joked earlier about
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: is that his real name, and you said it was,
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: it was, it was. His name was not Robert Richardson though,
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: that was an alias. So what they found out was
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: that Robert Richardson was a tax consultant. UM. He had
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: and this is just a strange, ironic twist. When he
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: was twenty years old, he tried to take his own
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: life by swallowing aspirin thirty six of them. Yeah, so
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: that's just neither here nor there. But an interesting little
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: side note, Yeah, the fact that that, like most people
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: don't have that as part of their past. Yeah, it
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: is interesting that it came up. So he had a
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: pretty long rap sheet. He was wanted by postal inspectors
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: for credit card fraud in Kansas City, UM. He was
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: indicted in ninety eight for and this one is just
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: mind blowing. He's indicted for murder after police found remains
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: of one of his former clients in bags in his
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: attic and he got let loose because it was an
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: illegal search. But he he was caught with the body
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: of one of his clients was dismembered in his attic
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: with no good explanation as far as I've ever heard. Yeah,
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: so Joe, well what explanation would be good? Well, we
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: were playing poker and one thing I do another started
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: juggling swords and yeah, uh so his wife real name
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: was Leanne, the one who worked at the travel agency
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: and went unpaid. They fled Kansas City in December of
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: eighty one. Um, and this was as US Postal inspectors
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: were converging on them about this credit card scheme. So
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: they're like, just bad people, not the postal inspectors. No. Great,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: So they moved to Chicago. They changed their names to
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: Robert Nancy Nancy Richardson. He got that job as a
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: text preparer, but then he was fired after a violent
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: outburst in his office against his co workers. Um. And
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: then she lost her job, went unpaid. They left Chicago,
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: and this turns out this is what got them exonerated
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: from the time. All thing is they left Chicago and
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: moved to New York before this happened before same month. Right,
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: But if the theory held up that this person went
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: around most likely in one day and did all this stuff,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: then it couldn't have been them. No, And here's why
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: because the cops had decided that it was done locally.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: And one of the other things that supported that local
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: mad poisoner theory was because the cyanide eight through the
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: gelatine capsules eventually, so I had a very very short
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: shelf life before the whole bottle just turned into a
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: mush of cyani powder and melted gelatine. So, like you said,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: it had to have been done basically the day before.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: They n they could not, no matter how hard they tried,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: They could not put James Lewis or his wife in
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: Chicago that day. They just couldn't. And for his part,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: James Lewis said, yeah, I wrote this letter. I wrote
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: the letter of Johnson and Johnson framing that travel agency guy.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: But I did not. I did not poison the title
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: at all. He's always been adamant about that. He's never
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: toyed around with it. He's never messed around, he's never
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: been coy He's always been adamant that he did not
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: poison that title at all. Although the title in all
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: task force tried to trip him up once. I guess
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: to just get this on the record that he'd done this,
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: but they asked him like in an in an interview. Okay,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: let's say you had done it, how would you have
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: done it? And he actually pulled an o J. He
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: showed them how he would have done it. Yeah. He
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: just didn't write a book about it. He just showed
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: him in an interview. Yeah. And he defends this later
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: on by saying it was just a speculative scenario. I
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: could tell you how Julius Caesar was killed, but that
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean I was the killer. I think the answer
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: for me would have been I don't know, man, Yeah,
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: I'm innocent. I don't I can't figure this out. But
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: he's like, here's how I do I've been waiting for
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: you to ask me though. Uh. He's eventually found in
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: New York City. He's at the Public Library UM with
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: a reference book, copying names and addresses of newspapers. Uh.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: I would imagine to send them letters like zodiac style. Yeah,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: because so look, we gotta say this. So the cups
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: figured out who James Lewis was before they found James Lewis,
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: and it became part of the national media um circus.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: While they were looking for James Lewis, this guy was
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: writing letters to newspapers. He called in a radio talk show.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: He was really relishing the fact that there was a
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: national man hunt out for him. Who like, that's that's
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: what I'm saying. On the one hand, you gotta kind
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: of feel a little bit bad that this guy was
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: kind of being railroaded into, you know, the rap for
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: these murders. After his extortion attempt, that's where the feeling
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: bad firms. You're like, oh, yeah, that's right. He totally
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: brought this on himself. Yeah. So they hauled him out
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: of the New York Public Library. He was sentenced to
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: ten years for extortion attempt, in ten years for credit
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: that original credit card fraud, and served thirteen years and
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: lives in the Greater Boston area today. So still today there,
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: I think there are a few people who are like,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: I could see this guy he maybe maybe he could,
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: he could be at some Some detectives maintain that the
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: Thailand All murder could have flown into O'Hare running a car,
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: done that circuit, flown or driven back to a hair
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: and flown out all on the same day the day before,
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: But they could never put James Lewis in Chicago at
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: all that day. Um, So he was cleared finally, although
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: he did serve two consecutive ten years sentences, reserved thirteen
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: of the twenty years for that credit card fraud that
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: the Postal Inspectors wanted him for and for the extortion letter. Um.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: And like you said, he lives in Cambridge, mass now.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: But then in two thousand nine, the case, after basically
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: having gone dormant in the early eighties, was reignited by
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: the FBI because they worked up they thought a DNA
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: profile from the capsules, and they rated James Lewis's house.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: UM demanded a fingerprint and DNA sample. James and Leanne
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: Lewis fought it in court. The judges like, no, you
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: have to do this. Before leaving the courthouse, they gave
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: him the samples and nothing has come of it. So
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: I guess that means tacitly that the Lewises were cleared
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: once and for all of the Thailand all murders. Yeah,
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: and you know, the d n A thing is an
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: interesting piece because, Um, they still have some samples of
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: the cyanide. I guess that the capsules have have worn
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: away by now if it had the cyanide in there,
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: But there was and still his hope, UM that DNA
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: could could crack this case. Um, just like eight or
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: nine years ago, the unibomber ted Kazinski. Is that a
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: two parter? No, no, it's just one parter. Good podcast,
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: So I don't think so that was a good episode. Uh.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: He grew up in Chicago and his parents were living
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: in the Greater Chicago area in eight two, and he
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: is the UNI bomber. So they said we might as
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: well get a DNA sample and talk to him, and um,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: he was cleared. I don't think he was ever a
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: super strong suspect and he probably would have admitted it.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: So he was like, no, this is not me right. So, um,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: the UNI bomber has been cleared. That's right from the
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: talent on Merbers. But that remains the case remains unsolved
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: to this day. I think they also have a fingerprint
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: work up that they found on one of the bottles
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: and that in some DNA. It's is they're just sitting
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: around with that. There's there are no suspects there. Every
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: suspect has been cleared, um, and there's nobody on the horizon.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: It's just an unsolved random series of killings that happened. Yeah,
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: they're still working on it though. Um, there's a police
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: sergeant named Scott Winkleman who has been on this task
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: force for a long time, and he says he thinks
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: it's solvable. UM and his department did just sawve a
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: forty five year old murder case cold case. Man, if
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: they solved this one, that would be the biggest cold
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: case ever solved. I think so. I think. I mean,
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: who knows, But I could see maybe finding like a
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: deathbed letter or something one day, like I don't know
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: if they're going to catch someone and at the bottom
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: of the Chicago River in all wo to jail. But UM,
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: I could see the truth coming out one day. I
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: hope so for the families because Um Monica Janie, she's
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: the niece of Adam Stanley and Teresa. She said, her
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: family to this day, this was from an article like
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: last year. I think, UM said that they have still
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: not gotten over it. She said. Her grandparents have passed now,
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: but she said, literally every day for the rest of
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: their lives, they just cried about, uh, the fact that
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: they didn't know who did it. Um. She grew up.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: It has been a therapy therapy her whole life because Um,
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: there were all victims you know that this post traumatic
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: stress disorder kicks in where she grew up fearing that
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: any of her family members could die at any time. UM.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: Joseph Manus, her her dad, says that he still has
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: dreams like you know on the rag about these murders. Um.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: He said he had one recently where everyone involved was
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: in a room in the case. Uh, and then two
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: black men in suits and glasses, we're laughing about how
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: they got away with murder. UM. Michelle Rosen, she's the
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: daughter of Mary Reiner. Um. She has dedicated her life
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: to investigating this on her own, and she doesn't agree
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: with the loan the mad poisoner theory at all. No,
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: this is this is interesting. Yeah. She thinks it had
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: something to do with the supply chain and that Johnson
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: and Johnson knew this and covered it up. UM. One
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: of the things, one of the things that people who
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: believe this point to is that Johnson and Johnson recalled
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: all of that Thailand, all thirty one million bottles, and
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: then destroyed them allegedly without testing any of it. So
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: we will never know whether it was Pinky had the
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: day off right, whether whether it was beyond Chicago or
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: just local in Chicago. Seems like it took long enough
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: that other people would have died in that week before
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: the national recall was undertaken. But um, there was something
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: very very interesting that was a post script to all
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: this that does under mind that mad poisoner theory. Yeah,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: it was just a few years later a woman in
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: New York named Diane h ells Roth took two extra
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: strength tile in all capsules and died from cyanide poisoning. Um,
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: but they found I mean, it's just completely unrelated. Was
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: it another copycat case well, or or the original poisoner? Maybe?
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: So this different cyanide, right, the cyanide was definitely not
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: the same size some from the same batch. It was
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: chemically different. But there was another bottle found around the
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: block from where Mary ELL's Roth bought hers and Yonkers
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: that did match that cyanide. So there were two bottles
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: of extra strength tileent all two years later in another
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: state that had been UM tampered with. The problem is
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: this was after the three pronged tamper resistant packaging had
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: been UM introduced, which means it was an inside job, right,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: I guess because the tamper the thing had not beenbviously
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: tampered with. Then Thailand all was never able to explain
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: what happened. Yeah, and then within five days of her death,
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: eight states outright band the capsules, Thailand all capsules, right,
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: and Thailand All for its part, was like, we've been
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: trying to get everybody to take capulets anyway, but they
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: keep taking capsules, so we're making it. And then a
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: guy wrote a book, right, Um Scott Bart's Yeah, a
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: former Johnson and Johnson employee, UM wrote in two thousand
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: eleven a self published book UM on the Time of
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: All Poisonings, and he said what we were talking about earlier.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: He's like, the supply chain is so convoluted, Um, basically
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: like it could definitely could have happened at any point
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: along the way. And his his idea is that that
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: Johnson and Johnson knew that it was in their distribution
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: network and they covered it up self published book. You
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: gotta you gotta note that for sure. I'm not knocking it, no,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: but it's noteworthy. It does if there's like any hint
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: of journalistic integrity and us that feels like we have
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: to note that. Sure. So that's the Taile and all
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: poisonings of nineteen eighty two in Chicago, changed America, changed
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: the world, but definitely changed America. It was the end
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: of some form of innocence that we still had. Absolutely,
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: if you want to know more about the tile and
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: all poisonings, go online. There's stuff all over the place
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: and you can go down that rabbit hole and it's
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: deep and wide. Since I said that, it's time for listener,
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: ma'am uh. This is from Gin from Brunswick, Maine. Hey, guys,
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: been listening for several years and never thought I'd have
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: a never thought a perfect time right to write in
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: would be related to synthetic farts. Remember the discussed episode
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: talked about synthe synthetic parts. It's a real thing. When
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: I was in high school, my dad came across the
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: stuff online called liquid a s s as horrible. Not
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: allowed to curse right, no occur would spell it out though,
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: um or, I guess maybe you should have said like
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: a asterisk asterisk. Yeah, there you go, good name for
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: a product, though. She said he found it on a
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: joke web website in ordered something and I have to
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: tell you it is the worst thing you've ever smelled.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: I can't even describe it. It makes you want to
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: not breathe anymore. The tiniest little drop is deadly, So
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: of course I took it to college with me to
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: play pranks, and boy did it backfire. I thought it
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: was pretty funny putting a couple of drops in the
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: radiator by my across the friend across the hall friends room,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: not eating, thinking and not even thinking about what would
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: happen when the heat turned on. Well, the heat turned
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: on and the whole floor of the dorm was amazingly
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: disgusting and made us just about gag. Smell took almost
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: a week to finally go away, and I have not
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: used it again in the ten year since. It's probably
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: it's called learning your lesson, But she still has the
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: bottle she's like, but I kept it just in case.
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: Thank you for your interesting and entertaining podcast. This is
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: the first podcast I ever listened to, and it's still
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: always on the top of my download list. Thanks for
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: giving this twenty eight year old woman a platform on
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: which to tell a story of synthetic farts that is
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: not completely out of place. Signed anonymous that is Jen Green.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: Thanks Jen Green, very brave you to put your name
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: on that one. Especially I wonder if you stepped up
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: and said, uh, that horrible smell. That was my bad. Right.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: If you have a great story about college pranks, we
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: want to hear about it. Um. You can get in
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: touch with this via our social links by going to
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: stuff you Should Know dot com, or you can send
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: us an email to stuff podcast at i heeart radio
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.