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Transcript

Tylenol Murders · PNW Haunts & Homicides

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to rainy day rabbit Holes, where we take the
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: history of the West off the rails.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: If you like your history unhinged, you are in the
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: right place. I'm shy and I'm Jody. Let's fall down
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: the rabbit hole.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: It begins with a throbbing in the temples, maybe a
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: feeling like an ice pick behind your eyes. You rub
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: the bridge of your nose, but it's getting worse.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: So what do you do, Jody? Get some tile and
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: all that's right? You pop a tail and all, oh,
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: I was right, you were right. Yeah, good old assema. Uh,
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: let's see, how do we say this? A ceda menafin Jesus,
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: a ceta metaphin. Look, it's not that hard, guys, it's
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: a ceda menaphin. So Thailandl's name is being dragged through
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: the mud by a bunch of claims made without real
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: scientific backing.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: But you know that's never stopped. Captain Cankeles or doctor
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Brain were before.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Nope.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: And even though this shifts blame onto women once again
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: and once again restricts their choices, you know, let's just
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: put the current nightmare that is our country aside for
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: a moment. Let's travel back in time to another nightmare,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: a darker time when taking a tailanol for a simple
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: headache was like playing Russian roulette, a time when an
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: innocuous bottle of tailanol could kill Jody.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: That's your cue. Oh, dun't dun't du I was like thinking,
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: in my head, I was here. I mean, I remember
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: this all going down. I already know where you're headed,
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: and I was remembering it all in my head.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: It's September nineteen eighty two in Chicago. The hair was big,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: the pizza was deep. There wasn't a Federal National Guard
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: person to be seen. Ice wasn't snatching people off the street,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: and a series of terrifying deaths would grip the nation
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: and lead to massive changes in the United States. In
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: the early morning of September twenty eighth, twelve year old
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Elk Grove resident Mary Kellerman had a bit of a
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: sore throat and a ready nose. No big deal, normal
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: type of complaint, the beginning of a little cold, so
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: her mom gave her a single extra strength tile and
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: old capsule to soothe her aching throat. Mary collapsed on
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: the bathroom floor and was dead by seven am.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Wow, how long after she took it.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: It's very short. They didn't give an actual time, but
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: I think it's within minutes.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: The same day as well, however long it would take
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: for that gelatine capsule to dissolve in your stomach.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Minutes, yeah, for sure.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: The same day, less than ten miles away, in Arlington Heights,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: a twenty seven year old postal worker named Adam Janis
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: took two extra strength tilnal capsules. He hadn't been feeling
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: well when he woke up for work that day, so
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: on his way home, he stopped at the jewel Oscar
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: store in Arlington Heights and bought a bottle of pain reliever.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: He took the pills and began to feel strange Very
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: shortly after. He went to lay down, but when he
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: became unresponsive, he was rushed to the hospital. He died
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: that afternoon. Doctors told his grieving family that it had
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: been a heart attack. The family wept over Adam's body
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: and then went back to Adam's house. His brother, Stanley Janis,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: twenty five years old, and Stanley's brand new wife, Teresa,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: twenty years old, both in shock and feeling terrible with
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: massive headaches, found a bottle full of tilnyl capsules in
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: the house and took a couple each. A third brother, Joe,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: watched in horror as his brother Stanley fell to the floor,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: white foam coming out of his mouth, eyes rolled backwards, words,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: and Joe called an ambulance. When the paramedics were loading
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Stanley into the ambulance, Teresa stumbled after them, calling her
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: husband's name and collapsed. Both were taken to the hospital
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: and later died. At their funeral, both caskets were carried
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: into the same church where they had been married just
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: three months earlier.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: Three months Sorry, I had like all of a sudden
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: got me choked up.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: It was just as so tragic, both caskets being carried
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: in one after the other.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: Just can you imagine.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Over the next few days, three more strange deaths would
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: rock the community. Thirty five year old Mary McFarland of Elmhurst,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: thirty five year old Paula Prince of Chicago, and twenty
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: seven year old Mary Reiner of Winfield, who had just delivered.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: Her fourth child.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Besides dying tragically young and living in the Greater Chicago area,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: what did these three women have in common? Well, they
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: all took tylanol shortly before dying. At this point, investigators
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: were making the connection between the deaths, thanks in part
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: to some savvy people, firefighter Chuck Kramer and plucky nurse
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Helen Jensen. She worked in Arlington Heights Village, and they
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: both worked to put two and two together. Tylanol was
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: at the time the most popular non aspirin pain reliever
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: in the United States, and these gelatin capsules were especially
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: popular because they were easy to swallow. Helen visited the
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Janus's home and noticed the almost full bottle of Tylanl
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: extra strength capsules sitting on a counter. She counted the
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: capsules and noticed that six were missing, two for each death.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: She immediately brought this to the attention of the medical
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: examiner and the police, but they laughed at her. Kramer,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: the firefighter, tracked down a pair of medic who had
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: responded to the twelve year old Mary Keller's death, who
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: said she had also taken Thailand all. He also reported
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: his findings, but nobody believed him either, so they both
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: just kept hounding the police and the medical examiner, who
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: eventually agreed to look into it, and shortly it was
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: discovered that the capsules in the bottle contained lethal doses
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: of potassium cyanide powder enough to kill a person many
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: times over. Wow, And so do you know was it
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: the whole bottle or just was it a Russian roulette situation.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: I don't think every single capsule was I was contaminated.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: I can't remember. That's a lot of you know, product,
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: And you know that you had to take each of
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: those pills apart, dump them out, put them back together,
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: a lot of eff Yeah.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And there's so when I was looking into this story,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: I listened to an amazing podcast all about the Thailand
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: All murders, and it was done by the Chicago New Tribune,
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: So an incredible investigative journalism. Yeah, and we'll get into
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: it later. But the one person that they really were
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: focusing on as a suspect later on, at one point
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: was saying that he was helping the investigators and describing
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: how they might contaminate the capsules by using like he
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: called it the breadboard method, where it was something about
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: creating a channel in a plank of wood and putting
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: the capsules in there, and you could dump the cyanide
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: on the board and just scrape it into this channel
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: with a knife. And it would fill the capsules.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: Oh got it.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: I mean yeah, it's time consuming to fill all those capsules,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: but you know it was doable.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, for sure. So a nation, if you're if
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: you're if you're dedicated to your mission, it probably is
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: not a problem at all. Right, you know, if you're
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: really serious about what you're about to do and you
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: need the result that you're after, right.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: Right, A nationwide panic ensued. Obviously, law enforcement drove through
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: neighborhoods with loud speakers telling all of the residents to
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: throw any tail in. Johnson and Johnson recalled at least
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: thirty one million bottles. It was the first mass recall
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: in American history.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: Oh really yep?
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: And it started a murder investigation that would span over
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: forty years and had more twists and turns than an
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: Agatha Christie novel, which we will get into after this
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: quick break. Seven innocent people were now dead, all after
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: ingesting deadly cyanide tainted tailanl capsules. But how did the
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: cyanide get in there? Both law enforcement and Johnson and
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: Johnson were digging into the case. Jay and j quickly
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: established that the cyanide lacing happened after the tilanol left
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: the factory, and police found receipts for the purchase of
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: tilanol by several of the victims, Jewel food Stores in
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Arlington Heights and Elk Grove Village, Walgreens in Chicago's Old Town,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Oscar Drug at the Woodfield Mall, Dominic's, Finer Foods in
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Old Town, and Woolworth's in Lombard. The police hypothesized that
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: the bottles had been taken off the store shelves, most
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: likely stolen the capsules laced with cyanide, and then the
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: packages returned to the shelves. So for our younger listeners,
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: you may not know this, but back in the day,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: there were no safety seals on bottles, right, that's a
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: new invention because of this.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: I remember as a child that they had to add that.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you had a flimsy paper cardboard box, most likely
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: not glued shut. It was just a flap that you
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: could pull open and then you just screw off the top.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: And all that is in there protecting your medicines from
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: the rest of the world is a ball of cotton.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: That's it.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: And these gelatin capsules were popular because they were easy
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: to swallow, unlike you know, your regular tablets, they get
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: stuck as soon as they get sticky when they get wet,
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: and it's harder to swallow. So these were popular. But
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: they were just a gelatine capsule that you could just
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: break open and dump all the contents out.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's just a recipe right there
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: for disaster exactly. In early nineteen eighty three, at the
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: FBI's request, a trap was set to lure the killer.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: In Chicago Tribune columnist Bob Green published the home address
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: and grave location of twelve year old Mary Kellerman, and
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: then they kept a twenty four hour surveillance on the
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: Kellerman's home and Mary's gravesite for several months, just hoping
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: that the killer would show up, but to no avail.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: And I am really surprised that the family of Mary
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: Kellerman went along with this. It was their home address
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: that the question in the paper, so anywheredo so oh,
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: and they were part of it. I was wondering when
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: you said it, like ooh, like that is not kind
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: to the family. But they were aware of it, huh
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: they went away.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean they went along with it, which is
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: very surprising. I mean, yeah, of course they want to
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: know why this happened to their daughter and catch the
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: person responsible. But you know that's that's scary.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: Boxing meant something different back then. Maybe it didn't see
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: miss Scary. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, but remember back in our research, back in
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: the olden days, when somebody was reporting on a story
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: and somebody just you know, they interviewed somebody on the street,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: they would.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: Publish their name and address. Oh yeah right, they're like according.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: To miss ethel Hefferman, who resides at one two eight
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: six five Grove Courts, Northwest and Tacoma, Washington, and the
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: blue house with the red shutters, you.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: Know, and legitimacy to the story by having exact details.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Right, we didn't make her up. You could just go
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: to her house and knock on the door and ask
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: her if she said these things, and like, I just
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: can't imagine that right now, you know. So there was
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: also one surveillance photo of another victim, Paula Prince, that
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: she was purchasing her bottle of tail and al at Walgreens.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: There's this bearded man in the video be just behind her,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: and they surmised that maybe that was the killer. But
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: that was literally it that's all they had to go on.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: They had nothing, just real guesses, is all they're walking with. Yeah, exactly.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: But then in October of the same year, law enforcement
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: received a chilling letter. It included details of the investigation
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: that had not been made public, and it demanded one
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: million dollars to stop the killings. It was signed by
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: a man named Robert Richardson, and here's what it said, gentlemen.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: As you can see, it is easy to place cyanide,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: both potassium and sodium into capsules sitting on store shelves.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: And since the cyanide is inside the jelatine, and it
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: is easy to get buyers to swallow the bitter pill.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Another beauty is that cyanide operates quickly. It takes so
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: very little and there will be no time to take countermeasures.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: If you don't mind the publicity of these little capsules,
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: then do nothing. So far, I have spent less than
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: fifty dollars and it takes me less than ten minutes
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: per bottle. If you want to stop the killing, then
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: wire one million dollars to bank account number eight four
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: four nine five seven at Continental Illinois Bank, Chicago, Illinois.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Don't attempt to involve the FBI or local Chicago authorities
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: with this letter, a couple of phone calls, Buy me,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: will undo anything you can possibly do?
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: Wow? Ballsy right? So, and do they look into this
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: bank account? It feels like that'd be very easy for
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: them to identify someone.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: This was really interesting. So Robert Richardson owned a travel
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: agency called Lakeside Travel and One, and they had recently
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: shut down. One of the people he used to work
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: there was a woman named Leanne Lewis, and when Lakeside
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Travel closed its doors, it had a lot of back
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: pay owed to its employees and never paid them. Leanne
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: was an accountant at Lakeside Travel, so she would have
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: had access to their bank account information.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: And where that money went or write if there is any.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: So this letter led them back. Obviously they looked into that,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: and they looked into the employees. That bank account belonged
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: to Lakeside Travel, but it wasn't Robert Richardson. He didn't
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: do this and sign his own name like that would
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: be very dumb. But it led them to the husband
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: of Leanne, James W. Lewis, and they linked him through
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: handwriting and fingerprints on the let When they talked to
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: James Lewis about this. He said that it was an
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: attempt to embarrass his wife's former employer because you know,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: they didn't pay her her back pay, and also to
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: bring attention to Johnson and Johnson's vulnerability. He denied any
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: involvement in the title murders, but he was convicted for
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: attempted extortion and served twelve years in prison for this.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: But they at that time were not able to link
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: him to the title of murders.
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: But you could he was just trying to make money
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: off this. Well, but they haven't ruled it out that
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: it wasn't oh got it, okay, They just didn't have
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: enough evidence to actually tie him.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: All they had was this letter. Sure, But something interesting
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: that they found out. James Lewis's daughter, who was born
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: with Down syndrome, was born with a lot of heart defects,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: had a lot of surgeries, and she passed away in
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four from complications from this congenital heart defect.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: And it was found that the sutures used in her
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: heart during this most recent surgery had ripped, and those
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: sutures were under a patent held by Jay and.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: J Okay Yep so suture business.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: To this day, right, So they suspected that maybe this was,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: you know, some retribution for the death of his daughter,
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: though he denied it forever. So Lewis was the investigator's
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: main suspect for decades, but they were never able to
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: pinant on him. The case went cold. No, remember this
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: was nineteen eighty two that this happened. It was reopened
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine by the FBI, but despite
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: having a search warrant for James Lewis's house and seizing
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: a ton of potential evidence, including computers and documents and
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: DNA analysis, they were still not definitively able to tie
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: him to the murders. And unfortunately, to this day, we
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: will never know if James Lewis was indeed the title
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: and all killer because he died in July of twenty twenty.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: Three, oh recently ish.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but side note, it's not that he was just
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: an innocent bystander. Like obviously we already know about the
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: extortion letter that he served twelve years for. He was
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: also convicted of mail fraud, so he dabbled. Yeah, he
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: sent a threatening letter to President Reagan threatening to use
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: a radio controlled model airplane to interfere with Secret Service
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: operations at the White House. In two thousand and four,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: he was arrested in charge with multiple felonies, including rape, kidnapping, assault,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: at administering drugs with intent to commit a crime. So broad, yeah,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: area of illegal criminalidations.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: So in that one, he allegedly lured a young woman
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: into his home, drugged her with and assaulted her don't I.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: Don't know, obviously not potassium.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: It wish she would be dead. Yeah. He was held for
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: three years and released when the charges were dismissed because
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: the woman refused to testify. He was also this was
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: very interesting. He was also charged with the murder and
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: dismemberment of one of his tax clients in nineteen seventy eight,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: but that case was dropped because the original arresting officers
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: failed to properly mirandize him and therefore all of his
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: testimony and everything that came after that was not admissible. Insane, Yeah,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: so the DA had to just drop it loopol. That
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: was a really sad part of this story. It was
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: this old man who James Lewis was his tax man,
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: and like everybody in the town knew this old man
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: and he had been talking about how like, man, my
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: tax guy just keeps hanging around, he keeps showing up
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: in my house like he's getting in my business in
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: a way that's that I don't like. And then this
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: guy just disappeared. Nobody could get a hold of him.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: They went to his house and there was a padlock
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: on the door. They couldn't find him anywhere. And then
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: finally they went up into the attic and there was
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: this like his dismembered body in the attic.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: What go ahead? Like, just who was this body?
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: Like this man that I'm talking about, this old man,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: his body was in his own attic. Okay, And a
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: few days after he disappeared, a five thousand dollars check
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: made out to James Lewis was attempted to be cleared
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: through his bank.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: Wow, there was a.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: Lot of evidence tying this guy to this murder. But
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: because these officers were so gung ho and they did
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: not that's unfortunately William randize him. This poor guy. They
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: had to just ano family who won't ever see any consequences. Right,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: But back in nineteen eighty six, James Lewis was on
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: the radar but hadn't been just you know, he was there.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Nothing really had happened. The case was still open, so investigators,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: even though they suspected James Lewis, they still did not
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: know for sure who had committed the murders. Maybe it
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: was Lewis, but maybe the real killer was still out there,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: and maybe the killer had moved to the misty forests
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: of the Pacific Northwest.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: Maybe maybe. Yeah.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: But before we go on and come to our region,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: let's take a quick break before we get back to
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: the story. If you're listening to this episode before Christmas
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: of twenty twenty five, we want to announce a special
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: gift we're giving to our listeners for the holiday season.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: We're going to choose one lucky listener to get their
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: own piece of bespoke fan fiction. Now, normally this is
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: reserved for our Patreon supporters, but we want you to
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: do on the fun. If you listen to some of
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: our recent episodes like Tacoma's Cursed ghost Ship, Haunted Brothels
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: of the wild West, you can hear some of our
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: past fan fiction stories. All you have to do is
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: go to our website and sign up for a newsletter.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: We'll pick a random winner in early December, and you
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: can tell us who it'll be about. Is it you,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: is it a friend? You want to do this as
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: a gift for somebody, Then you can also tell us
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: what story of ours you want it to be based on,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: or just let us pick it. So it's a fun,
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: unique gift to give somebody to have their own little
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: story all about them. And uh yeah again, you can
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: just go to Randy Day rabbit holes dot com and
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: we'll have a link there to sign up. All right,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: let's get back to the story. So it's nineteen eighty six, Auburn, Washington.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: The hair is still big, although slightly more damp. A
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: young Jodie King is emptying a bottle of aquinet on
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: our bangs for sure.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: Actually it was an Ausi sprune spray probably, Okay, a
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: bottle of a rapey preparing to go out and dissipate
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: some poor little girl in the soft ball field. Yeah,
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: hit with a pitch, for sure, if you're nasty.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: On June fifth, Stella Nickel called the fire department. Her husband, Bruce,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: a heavy machinery operator, had collapsed. Emergency personnel rushed to
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: their single wide trailer in Auburn, where the unconscious Bruce
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: lay on the floor. He was rushed by helicopter to
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: Harbor View Hospital in Seattle, but died shortly after. The
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: autopsy declared the cause of death to be Emphysima. Stella
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: said that Bruce had come home from work that day
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: with a headache. He took four extra strength et CE
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: cap lets with capsules, which I think is more than
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: the recommended doses.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: That seems like, I mean, if they're the same as
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: they are today, Yes, that's twice the dose. Yeah.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Well, and when't is extra strength so that you can
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: just take one?
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: Yes, but max dos is their five hundred milligrams each
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: and max dos is one thousand at a time. Yeah.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: So anyway, so he popped four of these puppies, walked
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: out onto the back deck to watch the birds, and
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: collapse within minutes. Then six days later, on June eleventh,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: fifteen year old Haley Snow found her mother's Sue unconscious
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: on the floor of the bathroom in their Auburn home.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: She was also taken to Harbor View by helicopter, but
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: tragically died, But this time pathologists had a clue. They
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: could smell bitter almonds during the autopsy, so tested for
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: cyanide poisoning. Soon, the FDA announced that cyanide laced extra
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: strength in cedron capsules had been found in her home.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: The FBI was notified and at that point they took
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: over the investigation. So, just like in nineteen eighty two
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: with the Tail and all deaths, the Bristol Myers company
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: initiated a nationwide recall of the drug and halted production.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: At this point, the drug manufacturing conglomerate was also really alarmed,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: so they banded together to offer a three thousand dollars
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: three thousand, three hundred thousand dollars. Yeah, three thousand's not
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: that much.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: I don't remember. I didn't realize the price difference.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, inflation really is no three hundred thousand dollars. So, uh, Jody,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: what is in nineteen eighty six three hundred thousand dollars?
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: What would that be today? That's got to be at
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: least double, if not morking now, maybe more like a
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: million dollars. Oh, very close.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars, That's what I'm gonna guess.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: Are you serious? But it's eight hundred and eighty six
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: thousand dollars, seven hundred and ninety five. I'm good. I
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: guess it. That is real good. You were off by
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: thirty six thousand, seven ninety five dollars and sixty two cents.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: So specific all right. So a sweep of grocery and
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: pharmacy shelves in King County produced another bottle of tainted
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: pills from Johnny's Market in Kent. So this was put
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: out on the news. You know, don't take etctern throw
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: it out. And the next day, Bruce Nichols's widow, Stella,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: called the FBI to tell them that she too had
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: bottles of etceterron and that Bruce had taken some right
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: before collapsing. When investigators showed up at her home to
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: collect the bottle, she produced two bottles, saying that she
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: had purchased them on two occasions from two different locations.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: Both bottles contained tainted capsules.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: Whoa.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: Blood tests showed that Bruce, like SEUs Snow, had died
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: from cyanide poisoning. And by the way, I've just got
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: to insert something here. So one of these articles I
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: read it said one of Stella's neighbors character rised her
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: as a washed up honky tonk girl.
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: Oh my god, so picture a burn, so this was suspicious.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: It's pretty unlikely that she could have purchased two contaminated
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: bottles from two different locations, given that there were only
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: four known four or five by the end of this
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: known contaminated bottles. One more tainted bottle was found a
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: bottle of a Nassin three in the same store that
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: she had bought one of her bottles of etceterron, so
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: a different brand, but same store that she had bought
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: this extceterron from. So although investigators were suspicious of Stella,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: they needed more evidence. They were also suspicious of Sue
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Snow's husband, Paul Webking, as he claimed to have taken
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: two pills from the same bottle as Sue when he
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: left for work, but he was fine. Both Stella and
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: Paul Webking brought wrongful death lawsuits against Bristol Myers. Now
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: When examining the cyanide powder in the poison bottles, they
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: found these flecks of some unknown green substance, and it
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: turns out that it was an algaeicide called algae Destroyer,
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: which is used in home aquariums to you know, help
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: with algae problems. Now, knowing that the deaths were now
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: characterized as murder. Investigators turned their attention to their two
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: prime suspects, Paul Webking and Stella Nickel. Both were asked
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: to take polygraph tests, which Paul agreed to, but Stella
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: was a bit more cagey. She had started drinking heavily
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: after Bruce's death, and she said she was too shaken
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: up to take the test.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: Well, drinking also will make it, so it's not an
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: accurate test. I mean as accurate as it already is, right,
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: but I mean it will impact those physiological things. So
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure if it would have changed anything. But
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: it is suspicious when people say nope, I don't want
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: to do it.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: Well, no, I don't actually think it. It is well
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: maybe back then, but today not agree to a polygraph
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: test ever.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: Well, I have actually taken one for a case. I
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: was not the accused. I was the victim, and when
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: I gave my testimony, it said that I was not
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: truthful and I was telling the truth should never and
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: I was not the one accused. So it's like I
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: didn't have much to Yeah, and there were certain sections
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: I think really what it was I'd put myself in
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: a position to be a victim and so I felt
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: guilty about that, and so it was coming across on
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: the machine that I was not being truthful about the case.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: That makes sense. It's not reading, it's not picking up
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: the right story. Yeah, it's there is a physiological change,
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: but it's not what you think. No, don't.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've watched enough true crime to not do not
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: if you, yeah, don't ever take a polygraph test. It's
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: junk science. It's not admissible in court, but it can
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: certainly taint the investigation. And if people are like, if
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: you're not, if you're innocent, why wouldn't you take a
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: polygraph test, It's like, because they fail all the time.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: It's junk science. I'm not going to do it anyway.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: That's either here nor there. So with more digging, detectives
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: turned up incriminating evidence against Stella. Prior to the death
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: of her husband, Bruce, she had taken out a seventy
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: six thousand dollars life insurance policy on her husband, and
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: here's the kicker, it paid out an additional one hundred
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars if the death was accidental. So even before
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: Sue Snow died and gave investigators some idea that the
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: deaths were linked. Stella insisted that Bruce's death was suspicious,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: he had no history of inmphysima. And then detectives found
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: two insurance policies with Bruce's forged signature. And what about
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: the flex of algaecide in the cyanide? Well, Stella had
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: an aquarium. Now, she insisted up and down that she
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: had never purchased an algaecide, But investigators talked to the
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: owner of the local pet store who said that Stella
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: had ordered such a large amount of algae destroyer that
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: he had to make a special order for it. Yes,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: so it was speculated that Stella used the same container
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: to crush the algaecide as she did to crush the cyanide,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: hence the contamination. Now, Stella finally consented to a polygraph
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty six, but failed. However, as we all know,
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: polygraphs are junk science, so that means the thing they
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: couldn't prove that she had purchased the cyanide or tained
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: to the capsules, even though there were those suspicious insurance policies.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: But finally, in nineteen eighty seven, something crazy happened that
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: broke the case. Don't doudge Me, which we will get
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: into right after this quick break back to nineteen eighty seven,
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: Stella's grown daughter, Cynthia, went to the police with information
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: about her mother. Now little history. Stella and Bruce both
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: had checkered backgrounds. Stella had her first child, Cynthia, at
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: the age of sixteen. Not long after, she became pregnant
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: with a second child by a different man, and knowing
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: that it would be tough to attract a husband with
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: two kids from two different fathers, she gave up the
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: new baby for adoption.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: She was for that reason, so that she could attract
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: a man in the future. Oh my golly.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: Now, according to her children and other people who knew her,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: she was a neglectful and sometimes cruel mother to Cynthia.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: When Cynthia was nine, Stella beat her legs with a
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: curtain rod, and when Cynthia reported her to the police,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: she claimed that the child was lying. At one point,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: she just abandoned her child to one of her husbands.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: She's a lovely lady. Yeah, she's great.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: So she spent a lot of time not actually having
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: Cynthia in her life. Stella also, yeah, they weren't close.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: It wasn't until Cynthia was a teenager that she actually
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: went back to live with her mother. She had a
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: long history of fraud, forgery, and drinking. So she met
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: Bruce in nineteen seventy four and they bonded over going
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: to bars. When Bruce decided to get sober some ten
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: years later, Stella found herself bored with the marriage. They
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: used to have so much fun together going to bars. Yeah,
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: now they had nothing in common, and her own drinking
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: became much worse.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: She picked up what he dropped off.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: Exactly according to Cynthia, Stella told her that if Bruce
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: was out of the picture, she and Cynthia would have
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: enough money to open a tropical fish store or maybe
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: a ceramics store.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, why don't she have all these algae or
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: aquarium supplies yet? She Oh, my god, but want store
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: opened a tropical fish store, right, But no, I don't.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: I would never order that. That's great.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: So she checked out several books from the Auburn Library
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: that included information about poisonous plants. She even confided to
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: Cynthia that she had tried to poison Bruce in the
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: past with fox glove hidden in capsules, but all that
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: happened is he got suddenly very sleepy. Records from the
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: Auburn Public Library showed that Stella had checked out several
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: books about poisons, including human poisonings from Native and cultivated
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: plants and Deadly Harvest. That should be a book that exists.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: I know, That's what I like. Anybody who checks that out,
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: you should be suspicious. How to kill people with what's
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: in your yard?
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: Right? That sound like a terrible book.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Well, the other thing is she'd never returned the book
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: to the library.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: And Stella's fingerprints were found on several books she had
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: checked out, and she had also left fingerprints and palm
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: prints on entries about cyanide poisoning in three encyclopedias at
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: the library.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: This woman was meant to commit crime. Clearly she was
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: meant to get caught. Yeah.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: Stella was indicted in federal court and found guilty of
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: product tampering, not murder.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: WHOA and was sentenced to ninety years in prison just
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: from product tampering. I think it was product tampering that
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: caused death, was the sentencing. Yeah, okay, and we'll get
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: we'll get to that. So not murder, but kinda.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, her own daughter, Cynthia, was a star witness against
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: her own mother, and she received two hundred and fifty
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars of the Drug Industry Award.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: Oh wow.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: Now, this of course led to some speculation that perhaps
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: it was a conspiracy between Cynthia and Stella to get
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: that money, but that was never verified.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, why would you have a conspiracy where you
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: go to prison? Right now?
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: Stella maintained her innocence, insisting that her daughter lied on
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: the stand in exchange for the reward money. Now, I
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: mean I think Stella, I mean, Stella is obviously guilty, yeah,
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: but do I also think that maybe this woman who
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: was raised by somebody who has a is not an
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: honest person, could have maybe come forward to capitalize.
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: On that sure genetics and environment, yeah, provided by her mother,
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: right either.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: So I don't know, but yeah, it is Stella did this,
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: I mean allegedly. No, she was convicted of it.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: She didn't, right, No, no longer a legend. So over the.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: Years, she's filed multiple appeals and even petitioned for compassionate release,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: but all have been denied, so she remains incarcerated at
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: FCI Hazelton in West Virginia with a projected release date
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: of March seventh, twenty forty three.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: Wow, twenty forty three, so that's yeah, seventy years then
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: ish before she can even seek release. That's crazy. Well good,
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: twenty forty three now less than less than twenty years.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: No from nineteen eighty seven.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Both the Thailand al murders and the Exceeddron
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: poisonings had a profound impact on product safety regulations and
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: how tampering cases are handled in the United States. Before
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two, over the counter medications like Thailand or
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: Exceedron were packaged, like I said, in simple plastic bottles,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: often with nothing more than a thin cardboard box and
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: a water cotton stuffed inside the neck of the bottle
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: to protect earpills.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: There were no.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: Seals, no shrink wrap, no real way to know if
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: a product had been opened or altered. You know, it's interesting,
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: we've become so used to this, Like all our products, toothpaste,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: whatever it is, anything that we're going to put in
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: our body or on our body, have some sort of seal,
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: right that when it doesn't, you are immediately suspicious. And
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: I ordered a bunch of stuff from Korea and they
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: just have different product packaging regulations. And when I got
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: the products and they didn't have that little foil seal
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: over the the like skincare product thing, I was like
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: And then I got online and read and they're like, yeah,
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: they just don't do that with this brand. And I'm like, Okay,
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: I guess I'm gonna take the chance of rubbing. But
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: Arsenic come so far, so good.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: I'm fine. I mean, look at this, Look at this skin. Yeah,
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: you can definitely tell you've been using Korean skincare.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: All of this changed after the Thailand All Murders. Working
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: with the FDA, Johnson and Johnson pioneered tamper evident packaging,
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: introducing foil seals, shrink bands, and other security features that
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: made it immediately obvious if a product had been opened.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: The company also redesigned its capsules to make them more
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: resistant to tampering. These innovations quickly became the industry's standard,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: and in nineteen eighty three, Congress passed the Federal Anti
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: Tampering Act, better known as the Tailanyl Bill, making it
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: a federal crime to tamper with consumer products. This new
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: law gave federal authorities the power to investigate and prosecute
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: such crimes, carrying penalties of up to life in prison
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: if deaths occurred. So when Stella Nicol placed cyanide laced
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: eccedrin capsules on store shelves in nineteen eighty six, prosecutors
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: used this very law to bring her to justice. The
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: Tailanyl build allowed federal jurisdiction over her case and made
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: the product tampering resulting in death a serious federal offense.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: It was one of the first major tests of the
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: law and set the standard for how similar cases would
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: be handled in the future. And thanks to these tragedies
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: and the lessons learned from them, today's consumers can buy
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: medications with far greater confidence in their safety. Foil seals,
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: shrink wraps, and safety caps might seem like a small annoyances,
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: but they exist because people once really did have reason
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: to fear what was in the bottle.
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember, because I was, like, you know, eighty six,
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: I was fourteen ish. That is terrifying to think that
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: you could go pick up this bottle at the store
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: in a box, take it home and somebody's tampered with it.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: So it was scary.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: And while today tail and all and asked me to Oh, no,
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: I did it.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: I see Amitavan It's because you got you got autism
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: from taking it.
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: I did well today, Thailand all, And.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: I can't say it all. I'm just ceda menaphon. I'll
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: do it for you. You say, Thailand, I'll say.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: And while today, tail and All and a Ceda medafin
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: are being demonized in some corners of the Internet and
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: the press, despite the flimsiest of despite the flimsiest of evidence,
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: because like, who needs facts anymore? Right, sciences for krommies.
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: I just feel like it. You know. That's vibes, Yeah,
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: that's vibes.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: There was a brief moment in the nineteen eighties when
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: that fear was actually kind of justified a little bit.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: For a few terrifying years, reaching for a bottle of
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: painkillers really could end all your pain forever.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: Bom bom boom.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: Definitely Okay, And so if you guys haven't guessed yet,
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: this was my shameless attempt to take advantage of the headlines.
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: You're welcome, nice work. Well, I mean it is a
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: hot topic right now, so well, and it does have
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: link to where we live, I mean, right, now we
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: are literally sitting probably fifteen minutes away from where this happened.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the Auburn ones not Chicago obviously. So this
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: is one of those things. If you're a true crime
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: nut and you live in the Pacific Northwest, you know
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: this story like you saw you you like knew immediately.
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: I knew immediately. I forgot it was Aburn though, Yeah,
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: right here, because at the time I lived farther away
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: from Auburn.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: You guys probably have been to the same bars that
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: Stella Nickel has been to.
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll have to talk about yeah.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we need to figure that out.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: So I want to thank all of our Dedicade listeners.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: We appreciate you so much, and thank you to our
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: amazing patrons, You guys rock. And a big thank you
• 41:24
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• 41:28
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• 41:31
  Speaker 1: talented Coral and Logan Hine who have been making some
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: killer videos for our YouTube and social media. And if
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: you want a website as gorgeous as ours or some
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: great social media content, head on over to LEITHA. Davis
• 41:44
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• 41:47
  Speaker 1: v I s and reach out to Letha. This website
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: design is mind bogglingly good, especially for podcasters.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's crazy. She is so talented.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: I don't even to understand how she made this happen.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: It's full of all these automations and like AI tools
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: that you just like copy and paste a couple of things,
• 42:08
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• 42:11
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• 42:13
  Speaker 2: I just I don't know what happened the player embedded
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: in it.
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: It's great, It's it's incredible. It's so good. And if
• 42:20
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• 42:23
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• 42:56
  Speaker 2: It's funny here.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: Guess what.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: I delete the the crappy comments because I don't like
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: seeing them. It makes me feel bad. She feels like
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: there's people pointing at her, yelling shame, shame.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: Look, I will shame myself enough. I don't need you
• 43:15
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• 43:17
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• 43:19
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• 43:23
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• 43:27
  Speaker 1: see it a ravel perfect