WEBVTT - The Chicago Tylenol Murders and Their Aftermath 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:04.399 Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:11.520 with iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.760 --> 0:00:15.880 Thailanol is and has been, for decades, the best selling 0:00:16.079 --> 0:00:20.040 non prescription pain reliever sold in the United States. Unlike 0:00:20.079 --> 0:00:24.119 today's thailanol, some pills used to come as gelatin based capsules, 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:27.360 which were popular because they were smooth and easy to swallow. 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:31.080 But it was also possible to open those capsules, and 0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:34.680 that meant anyone could remove its active ingredient a set 0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:39.120 of minifin and replace the contents with anything else, and 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:42.519 someone did, resulting in the deaths of seven people by 0:00:42.560 --> 0:00:47.080 cyanide poisoning. The killings happened in the Chicago area and 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:51.720 shocked the nation. They changed how American consumers buy over 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:56.760 the counter medications and influenced consumer packaging. But more than 0:00:56.800 --> 0:00:59.760 forty years later, the identity of the person who tampered 0:00:59.800 --> 0:01:03.920 with TILANL extra strength capsules is still unknown and the 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:09.199 case has never been closed. Welcome to Criminalia. I'm Maria Tremarki. 0:01:09.040 --> 0:01:12.960 And I'm Holly Frye. The Chicago Tailanol murders, as they've 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:16.640 come to be known, began on September twenty eighth, nineteen 0:01:16.680 --> 0:01:20.080 eighty two with the death of twelve year old Mary Kellerman, 0:01:20.480 --> 0:01:25.000 an Elkgrove Village, Illinois resident. Mary was not feeling well, 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:28.000 and early that morning her parents gave her tilanl to 0:01:28.040 --> 0:01:32.919 help relieve her cold symptoms. Recalled her father, Dennis Kellerman quote, 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:35.560 I heard her go into the bathroom. I heard the 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:38.760 door close, then I heard something drop. I went to 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:42.039 the bathroom door. I called Mary, are you okay? There 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:45.600 was no answer. I called again, Mary, are you okay? 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:49.240 There was still no answer. So I opened the bathroom 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:52.240 door and my little girl was on the floor, unconscious. 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:54.600 She was still in her pajamas. 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:58.280 Later that same day, a twenty seven year old postal 0:01:58.280 --> 0:02:01.640 worker named Adam Jannis, who lived in Arlington Heights, which 0:02:01.680 --> 0:02:05.760 is less than ten miles away from the Kellermans, also 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:09.400 died shortly after taking tylan All to ease a muscle ache. 0:02:09.560 --> 0:02:14.639 He collapsed almost instantly and could not be resuscitated. That afternoon, 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:18.360 Adam's brother, Stanley, aged twenty five, and Stanley's wife, Teresa, 0:02:18.440 --> 0:02:21.799 aged twenty also took tylan al capsules from the same 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:25.440 bottle as Adam. Both were hoping to relieve their headaches, 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:28.240 which had developed as the family gathered to mourn Adam 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:32.880 Stanley died that same day. Teresa died two days later. 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:36.919 Three more deaths linked to tainted tyland All were reported 0:02:37.040 --> 0:02:40.680 very soon thereafter, thirty one year old Mary McFarland, a 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:44.399 phone center operator who was raising two boys, thirty five 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:48.040 year old Paula Prince, a flight attendant, and twenty seven 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:51.000 year old Mary Reiner, who had just delivered her fourth 0:02:51.120 --> 0:02:52.600 child about a week earlier. 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:57.800 The first person to see what connected the victims tylan 0:02:57.880 --> 0:03:00.960 All was Helen Jensen, who was then a public health 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:04.640 nurse based in Arlington Heights Village. She visited the Jenis 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:08.400 home after the deaths and while investigating, noticed that six 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:12.840 capsules were missing from the same taileanol bottle, two for Adam, 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:17.519 two for Stanley, and two for Teresa. In multiple interviews, 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:20.880 she has stated quote, I went into the bathroom and 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:23.840 found a bottle of tilanol left out. I brought it 0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:26.120 out to the kitchen with one of the police officers. 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:28.799 I opened it and counted the pills, and there were 0:03:28.880 --> 0:03:32.840 six pills missing, and then three people dead. I said 0:03:32.960 --> 0:03:36.000 it has to be the taileanol. Though she may have 0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:39.960 figured out that the tailanol was somehow lethal. First responders, 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:43.840 police and the medical examiner weren't really buying into her theory, 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:48.240 at least not at first. She continued, quote, they weren't 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:50.520 going to listen to me. I was a woman and 0:03:50.560 --> 0:03:53.640 I was a nurse. I understood the attitudes of that time. 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:56.000 But I was proven right by the next day. 0:03:56.800 --> 0:03:59.880 Medication bottles found in the homes the victims were sent 0:03:59.880 --> 0:04:02.960 for testing, and when the results came back, it was 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:06.720 found that the acedominifin pills in those containers had been 0:04:06.800 --> 0:04:12.600 swapped with pills that instead contained lethal doses of potassium cyanide. 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:16.400 Cyanide is so powerful a poison that, in twenty nineteen, 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:20.120 an article in the Journal of Medical Toxicology warned that 0:04:20.160 --> 0:04:24.680 it's quote the ideal chemical weapon because it's readily available, 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:27.440 it's easy to use, and it's highly lethal. 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:30.760 Let's talk about the weapon of choice in these murders. 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:36.040 Cyanide is a naturally occurring chemical compound, and it exists 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:39.920 in things that we interact with all the time. For instance, 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:44.240 apple seeds contain a compound that releases cyanide, which, though 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:47.080 that means apple seeds are toxic, you'd have to consume 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:50.200 a whole lot of them to have symptoms of cyanide poisoning, 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:55.480 but cyanide can also be manufactured in several highly lethal forms. 0:04:56.240 --> 0:04:59.640 Potassium cyanide, for instance, was the poison added to punch 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:02.560 that would drunk by more than nine hundred members of 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:06.080 the Jonestown cult in the mass murder suicide of nineteen 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:10.279 seventy eight. Analysis of the deadly talanol capsules in Chicago 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:14.440 determined they were laced with crystals of potassium cyanide at 0:05:14.440 --> 0:05:17.800 a dose lethal within fifteen minutes of ingestion. 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:19.960 We're going to take a break for a word from 0:05:20.000 --> 0:05:22.880 our sponsors, and when we're back, we'll talk about the 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:26.680 investigation as well as the impact on Americans and the 0:05:26.800 --> 0:05:39.560 United States pharmaceutical industry. 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:43.800 Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk about the search for 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:46.599 a suspect and how this case changed the way the 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:51.000 pharmaceutical industry packaged over the counter medications, changes that we 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:52.280 benefit from today. 0:05:53.200 --> 0:05:56.240 Things were moving quickly and within forty eight hours of 0:05:56.279 --> 0:06:00.200 the murders, which happened very close together Chicago marriage bain 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:04.280 Burn in cooperation with local law enforcement, public health officials, 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:08.120 the Federal Bureau of Investigation, An Johnson, and Johnson, the 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:13.120 pharmaceutical company behind thailanol, had all tailanol products pulled from 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:16.920 local stores and pharmacies in the Chicago area and sent 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:21.760 to nearby laboratories for integrity testing. This confirmed that the 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:26.000 pills were filled with poison. Authorities also discovered that the 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:31.080 capsules the victims had ingested had been manufactured in different locations, 0:06:31.760 --> 0:06:35.159 establishing that the pills had been tainted. After cases of 0:06:35.240 --> 0:06:40.359 tailanol left the pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities, the Chicago Department of 0:06:40.400 --> 0:06:44.640 Health was tasked with examining thousands of bottles containing about 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:49.680 eighty thousand individual tailanol capsules. That sounds tedious, but in 0:06:49.760 --> 0:06:53.960 nineteen eighty two there was no chemical test for spotting cyanide, 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:58.000 which meant the staff had to visually inspect each capsule 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:02.720 for tampering. Employee Michael Petros told Jeffrey Behar in an 0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:06.279 interview with the show Chicago Mysteries, quote, we were looking 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:10.160 for these heavy crystals, almost like rock salt, but a 0:07:10.240 --> 0:07:13.360 little bit smaller, that were put in those capsules because 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:16.640 at the time they could be just pulled apart. Later, 0:07:16.800 --> 0:07:19.400 Petro stated, quote, I never looked at the over the 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:21.880 counter medicines at the stores the same. 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:26.760 Way, knowing it didn't happen at the plant. Authorities next 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:31.040 envisioned to scenario more like this. Someone must have removed 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:35.520 tailanol bottles from store shelves, pulled apart the gelatine capsules 0:07:35.560 --> 0:07:40.240 to add the potassium cyanide, reassembled the packaging, and then 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:43.520 placed the poisoned pills back on the shelves for unknowing 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:48.400 consumers to purchase. Between five to seven milligrams of potassium 0:07:48.440 --> 0:07:53.080 cyanide can kill a person, and the toxic tileanol pills 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:56.240 contained as much as forty five milligrams each. 0:07:57.360 --> 0:08:02.160 A nationwide recall of tailanol soon fought. On October fifth, 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:06.280 McNeil Consumer Products, the subsidiary of Johnson and Johnson that 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:10.640 manufactured tailanol, halted production at a cost of one hundred 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:14.800 million dollars and also recalled thirty one million bottles. 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:19.680 At home, people were instructed to throw away any taileanol 0:08:19.720 --> 0:08:23.080 products they had. At the time, there was no social media, 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:26.640 smartphone alerts, or other forms of mass communication that were 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:31.280 accustomed to today, which meant communities relied on police cars 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:36.040 slowly driving through neighborhoods their loud speakers blaring quote, do 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:40.679 not take tilanol until further notice. Warnings to prevent anyone 0:08:40.679 --> 0:08:43.680 else from taking the popular over the countermdication were also 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:46.920 given by authorities and volunteers, going door to door and 0:08:46.960 --> 0:08:51.320 disseminating flyers as quickly as possible. The recall was also 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:54.360 announced on television news stories about the poisonings, as well 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:55.400 as in newspapers. 0:08:55.840 --> 0:08:59.520 The media quickly dubbed the unknown killer the quote tailanol 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:03.400 terror rists. Once the story broke, the call volume at 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:07.440 the Illinois Poison Control Center approached eight hundred calls in 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:11.040 twenty four hours. In a similar time period, they would 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:16.320 normally average about forty to sixty calls. Mass panic caused 0:09:16.360 --> 0:09:20.000 a considerable amount of chaos in the Chicago area and 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:24.480 across the nation, and it went beyond pain relievers. Days 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:28.960 away from Halloween, many towns canceled trigger treating, fearing that 0:09:29.120 --> 0:09:32.040 candy could and would be tainted in the same way 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:36.720 as those tailen all pills. The mayor of Chicago distributed 0:09:36.880 --> 0:09:41.800 one million leaflets encouraging residents to give trigger treats money 0:09:42.000 --> 0:09:47.000 or small toys instead of candy. One suburban homeowners association 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:50.640 asked its residents to hand out coupons for candy that 0:09:50.720 --> 0:09:55.640 kids could redeem at local stores. Nationwide, fear caused candy 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:58.960 sales to drop by as much as twenty percent that year. 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:03.800 And all tampering had a profound impact on Americans, but 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:08.880 it also impacted the United States pharmaceutical industry. In those days, 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:13.160 there was no such thing as tamper proof packaging. That 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:16.160 changed in nineteen eighty three when Congress passed what was 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:19.840 known as the Tailenol Bill, legislation that made it a 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:24.440 felony to tamper with consumer products, which included food, drugs, cosmetics, 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:28.400 among other items. A few years later, in nineteen eighty nine, 0:10:28.520 --> 0:10:32.040 the United States Food and Drug Administration updated their policies 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:36.240 as well, making medications more tamper proof by requiring tamper 0:10:36.280 --> 0:10:40.480 evidence seals on all over the counter medications. They also 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:44.120 set into motion a change in drug manufacturing, producing pills 0:10:44.120 --> 0:10:47.240 in what they called a caplet, a hard tablet that 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:49.720 looked like a capsule but could not be pulled apart 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:52.960 like a capsule. The new formula was difficult to tamper 0:10:53.000 --> 0:10:56.559 with compared to old medications. Next time you get frustrated 0:10:56.559 --> 0:10:59.080 when you encounter and over the counter medication with the 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:02.920 cardboard box. The cap and the bottle itself all tightly sealed. 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:05.720 It's these measures keeping you safe. 0:11:06.120 --> 0:11:08.040 We're going to take a break for a word from 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:11.760 our sponsors. When we're back, we'll talk about the suspects 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:27.840 in the murders and why one man stood out among them. 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:31.040 Welcome back to Criminalia. They may have had a good 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:34.719 theory as to how the capsules were poisoned, but investigators 0:11:34.880 --> 0:11:38.560 still had no idea who did it and why. So 0:11:38.679 --> 0:11:40.920 let's talk about the suspects in this case. 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:46.240 During the investigation, three suspects emerged, one of whom remained 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:51.120 on investigator's radar for forty years right up until his death. 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:55.559 One suspect was Roger Arnold, aged forty eight, a dock 0:11:55.640 --> 0:11:59.360 worker at Jewel in Melrose Park. Jewels, a regional supermarket 0:11:59.440 --> 0:12:03.320 chain in the Chicago area. Investigators were tipped off about 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:06.160 Arnold from a Lincoln Park bar owner who had told 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:09.160 police that he'd heard two customers say Arnold had purchased 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:12.600 a large quantity of cyanide about six months before the 0:12:12.640 --> 0:12:16.880 poisonings happened. During a search of Arnold's apartment on October eleventh, 0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:22.000 authorities found weapons, books about poison and poisoning, and lab equipment, 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:26.760 including vials and beakers. Arnold confessed he had cyanide in 0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:30.600 his home, but investigators never found any. He denied any 0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:33.240 connection to the taileanol murders and refused to take a 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:38.080 lie detector test. Ultimately cleared as a suspect, he went 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:40.920 on to murder a man he thought told the police 0:12:40.960 --> 0:12:44.040 he was the tailanhal terrorist, and he was incarcerated. 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:49.959 Then there was suspect Kevin Masterson, aged thirty five, of Lombard, Illinois. 0:12:50.760 --> 0:12:54.800 Masterson reportedly had a long standing grudge against the Chicago 0:12:54.880 --> 0:12:58.480 grocery chain Jewel because security guards had found his wife 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:04.000 shoplifting Allegedly. He blamed the company ultimately for his divorce, 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:07.760 and after the tailanol killings, he turned himself into the 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:12.320 FBI in Los Angeles, but there was no connection between 0:13:12.400 --> 0:13:13.480 him and the debts. 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:18.040 And then there was the third suspect who was the 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:24.679 investigator's primary suspect, James Lewis. Lewis hit their radar after 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:28.040 he sent a handwritten extortion letter to Johnson and Johnson 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:32.880 headquarters demanding they pay one million dollars to quote stop 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:36.120 the killings. It turned out to be a great clue 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:39.760 to work with investigators, hoping this letter would connect them 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:42.839 to their killer, were able to eventually trace it to 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:45.960 Lewis through the postage meter he used to send the mail. 0:13:47.120 --> 0:13:50.880 As the investigation expanded from the extortion letter to Lewis's 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:56.040 possible involvement in the Tailanol murders, investigators used coded messages 0:13:56.040 --> 0:14:00.319 in advertisements that they placed in the Chicago Tribune, using 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:03.600 as the letter's recipients in order to communicate with him. 0:14:03.960 --> 0:14:06.679 That was a method he had requested in his letter, 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:09.760 and it was when a librarian in New York City 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:13.400 spotted Lewis and contacted police that he was arrested. 0:14:14.160 --> 0:14:17.319 Lewis claimed the extortion letter was his attempt to draw 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:22.320 attention to his wife's employer, Lakeside Travel, after her paycheck bounced, 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:25.240 and he used the postage meter in their office as 0:14:25.240 --> 0:14:29.239 a way to call authorities attention to their alleged shady practices. 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:33.080 He told investigators that quote he waited for the first 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:36.000 national tragedy to occur that he could use to put 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:40.320 an investigative spotlight on that agency. He also stated he 0:14:40.400 --> 0:14:43.560 never actually intended to collect money, and that he just 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:46.640 wanted to embarrass his wife's former employer. 0:14:46.720 --> 0:14:51.080 But some investigators didn't believe that story. They had another 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:54.280 theory that Lewis was trying to extort Johnson and Johnson 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:57.200 for the death of his five year old daughter, Tony Ann, 0:14:57.600 --> 0:15:01.280 who had down syndrome and a heart condition. To boost 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:04.560 that theory, there were earlier reports in which Lewis claimed 0:15:04.600 --> 0:15:07.920 her death was the result of medications that had been 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:10.000 manufactured by Johnson and Johnson. 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:15.120 Lewis consistently denied any role in the poisonings. Though he 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:18.600 was never charged with the Tailanhol murders, he did stand 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:21.720 trial for extortion for writing and mailing threatening letters to 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:24.880 Johnson and Johnson. He was convicted and sentenced to ten 0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:29.320 years in prison. He served his full sentence, and while incarcerated, 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:33.120 he volunteered to help investigators solve the case of the 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:36.840 Taileanhol killings, and he had numerous theories as to how 0:15:36.840 --> 0:15:40.960 the crime could have been committed. For many that further 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:44.880 raised suspicions of his guilt. He defended his assistance in 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:48.440 the case in a nineteen ninety two CNN interview, saying, quote, 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:50.600 if I were going down the street and your house 0:15:50.680 --> 0:15:53.440 was on fire, not my problem, but I would stop 0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:54.320 and try to help. 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:59.280 Lewis had detailed theories about the circumstances surrounding the deaths 0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:04.160 and invited highly detailed drawings, diagrams, and manuscripts as to 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:07.119 how the murderer may have gone about filling the capsules 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:12.680 and distributing them. Investigators were quote thunderstruck by the specificity 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:15.880 of the drawings that he created and the quote many 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:19.160 many hours of painstaking work that it would have taken 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:24.560 him to prepare such materials, stated Jeremy Margolis, former assistant 0:16:24.680 --> 0:16:28.680 US attorney who worked on the investigation of Lewis's detail. Quote. 0:16:28.960 --> 0:16:32.040 He made a drawing which he called the drill board method. 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:36.240 Someone could drill holes into a plywood contraption, put the 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:39.480 bottom capsule into the hole, put cyanide on top of 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:42.920 the board, scrape it across with a bread knife. Clean 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:45.560 up the excess, put the tops of the capsules in, 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:48.440 load them into the tailenal bottles, and put them on 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:54.600 store shelves. Still, despite his cooperation, investigators found Lewis to 0:16:54.640 --> 0:16:58.720 be quote arrogant, haughty, and condescending. 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:03.200 Said Margolis of Fluid assistants. Quote, it was nothing short 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:07.359 of bizarre. Here's a guy who was facing many years 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:11.800 in the federal penitentiary, publicly accused, although not formally charged, 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:15.880 with the Tailanhal murders, who volunteers his assistance to law 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:19.560 enforcement to help them solve the Tailanal murders and then 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:23.080 provided us with dozens and dozens and dozens of pages 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:27.320 of manuscripts speculating on how it might have happened. Lewis 0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:30.359 later said of his work, quote, I was doing like 0:17:30.400 --> 0:17:33.000 I would have done for a corporate client, making a 0:17:33.080 --> 0:17:37.080 list of possible scenarios. And he called the Tailanhal terrorist 0:17:37.200 --> 0:17:41.320 quote a heinous, cold blooded killer, a cruel monster. 0:17:42.280 --> 0:17:46.719 Chuck Gowdy, a Chicago based investigative reporter, interviewed Lewis over 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:49.960 the years and has said of James quote, he was 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:52.240 one of those criminals who thought that he was the 0:17:52.320 --> 0:17:55.880 smartest guy in the room. He would call me angry 0:17:55.920 --> 0:17:59.080 about stories that we aired. Did like that we presumed 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:01.760 he was the tailand Al killer, even though he put 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:04.920 himself right in the middle of it and explained the 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:06.879 entire series of attacks. 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:11.520 During their investigation, authorities discovered that Lewis had a violent 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:15.679 criminal past, and just four years prior had been charged 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:19.200 with killing and dismembering seventy two year old Raymond West, 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:22.119 who had hired Lewis as an accountant. Lewis had then 0:18:22.200 --> 0:18:24.840 tried to cash a check forged in the victim's name. 0:18:25.600 --> 0:18:29.840 He was not convicted, though, despite plenty of compelling evidence 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:33.639 of his guilt. A judge dismissed the charges on a 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:37.760 few reasons. Some evidence had been illegally obtained, and Lewis 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:40.480 had not been read his miranda rights upon arrest. 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:46.040 Going back long before the Tailannol murders in nineteen sixty six, 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:49.720 they discovered that Lewis tried to kill his adoptive mother 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:52.199 with an axe, and that he was placed in the 0:18:52.240 --> 0:18:56.479 Statemental Hospital. In nineteen eighty one, he was convicted of 0:18:56.560 --> 0:18:59.520 six counts of mail fraud in a credit card scheme 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:00.560 in Cansas City. 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:05.680 More recently, and therefore not part of the initial Tailanl investigation, 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:09.600 in two thousand and four, Lewis was charged with rape 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:13.479 and kidnapping. He spent three years in jail awaiting trial, 0:19:13.640 --> 0:19:16.280 but the case was dropped when the victim wouldn't testify. 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:21.240 In two thousand and nine, FBI agents searched Lewis's apartment 0:19:21.359 --> 0:19:26.159 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, removing boxes of evidence, but whatever they 0:19:26.200 --> 0:19:29.800 were looking for, nothing came of what they found. In 0:19:29.880 --> 0:19:34.960 twenty ten, Lewis self published a novel titled Poison The 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:39.359 Doctor's Dilemma. The story was about people drinking lead poisoned water, 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:43.560 but in this novel he directly referenced the tailanol murders. 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:48.760 As recently as September of twenty twenty two, investigators reinterviewed 0:19:48.800 --> 0:19:52.920 Lewis about the Taileanal case, but again to no avail. 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:58.040 In the long term aftermath, authorities have continued to investigate 0:19:58.080 --> 0:20:02.200 the murders and have collected DA samples from Lewis and others. 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:05.960 In recent years, they even looked into Ted Kaczinski, the 0:20:06.000 --> 0:20:09.440 so called unibomer, who used homemade bombs and killings from 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:13.679 nineteen seventy eight to nineteen ninety five, but the tailan 0:20:13.760 --> 0:20:17.560 All case remains unsolved, although it's never actually been closed. 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:21.879 When he died in twenty twenty three, headlines across the 0:20:21.920 --> 0:20:25.920 country continued to cite Lewis as the prime suspect in 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:28.240 the Chicago tailanol murders. 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:32.800 The murders, reported the Safety Science Journal, were quote something 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:37.359 never seen or thinkable for someone until it happened, and 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:41.280 that the concept of safety culture has largely developed since. 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:46.080 Helen Jensen, who pinpointed tailanol as the murder weapon, has 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:49.960 stated perhaps the most poignant comment of their impact, quote, 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:54.159 we lost our innocence. We have become less trusting of 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:57.520 everyone else. It's an odd question I'm going to have 0:20:57.560 --> 0:20:58.159 to get used to. 0:20:59.040 --> 0:21:02.520 That's so true. Would you like to step inside the cooler? 0:21:02.720 --> 0:21:04.000 Let me grab my jacket? Hang on. 0:21:04.920 --> 0:21:09.400 This one is so weird because I have a memory 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:11.360 of this all playing out. I was a kid when 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:13.560 it happened, and I remember seeing it on the news. 0:21:13.920 --> 0:21:16.040 Me too, But this is one where I'm going to 0:21:16.119 --> 0:21:22.120 invoke my own specific happy memory sort of related to it, 0:21:23.119 --> 0:21:27.359 because I have since I was a child, loved those 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:32.879 pull apart gelatin capsules. There's just something oddly magical about them. Yes, 0:21:33.400 --> 0:21:36.440 and there are some ways you can still get those, 0:21:36.520 --> 0:21:39.920 Like there's some products that still use them, Like there's 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:43.240 a supplement I give my cats that uses it, like 0:21:43.280 --> 0:21:46.760 you're actually supposed to pull it apart and sprinkle it 0:21:46.800 --> 0:21:48.800 on their food, And there are things that use them. 0:21:48.840 --> 0:21:51.320 And I just remember as a kid, I got in 0:21:51.440 --> 0:21:55.080 trouble for taking a bunch of part and like just 0:21:55.200 --> 0:21:57.359 kind of playing with them, and so I kind of 0:21:57.400 --> 0:22:00.760 wanted to make a drink that references back to that. 0:22:01.400 --> 0:22:04.320 I love the duality of the two colors of the 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:08.000 ends that slid apart. It was like a little toy 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:10.439 because they were gelatin, but they felt like plastic in 0:22:10.480 --> 0:22:10.920 your hands. 0:22:11.000 --> 0:22:13.119 Yes they did, and we were both very like we 0:22:13.160 --> 0:22:14.520 were kids. We were small. 0:22:14.920 --> 0:22:17.840 Yeah, but obviously this is also tragic. So I made 0:22:17.880 --> 0:22:21.000 a drink that I debated calling this the poison pill, 0:22:21.040 --> 0:22:23.399 but instead I want to call it tamper proof. Okay, 0:22:23.720 --> 0:22:26.960 because I am very thankful that a lot of safety 0:22:27.000 --> 0:22:29.199 measures were put in place, even though I hate that. 0:22:29.720 --> 0:22:32.119 I can't get into them anymore, but I like that 0:22:32.119 --> 0:22:33.840 they're right. 0:22:34.280 --> 0:22:39.639 It's fine. I will use tools like a grade ape. Really, 0:22:39.760 --> 0:22:43.280 I'm just you know, applying sharp items until I can 0:22:43.320 --> 0:22:44.040 get into. 0:22:43.800 --> 0:22:47.320 It, because I'd rather have the safety measures than like 0:22:47.440 --> 0:22:49.439 crying myself with the knife tire to get into it. 0:22:49.560 --> 0:22:54.240 Yes, and this drink, because of one of the ingredients, 0:22:54.359 --> 0:22:57.240 you can customize it to your own taste a little bit. 0:22:57.359 --> 0:23:01.200 So this starts with three quarters of ounce of grenadine, 0:23:01.960 --> 0:23:05.120 three quarters of an ounce of lime juice, a half 0:23:05.200 --> 0:23:07.320 ounce of orjaw and if you're like, is that a 0:23:07.400 --> 0:23:10.760 lot of syrup? You'll see why in a minute an 0:23:10.760 --> 0:23:13.760 ounce and a half of vodka. I'm gonna be honest. 0:23:13.800 --> 0:23:15.840 I put more than that in it initially, and I 0:23:15.840 --> 0:23:17.919 think it was a little too slappy. But if you 0:23:17.960 --> 0:23:21.639 really love vodka and you want to drink one drink 0:23:21.680 --> 0:23:23.679 for the night, go ahead and bump it up to 0:23:23.680 --> 0:23:26.439 two if you wish. And then just a splash I 0:23:26.520 --> 0:23:29.880 mean a little splash of red wine or port. It's 0:23:29.920 --> 0:23:32.760 there for color more than anything else, but it's also 0:23:32.800 --> 0:23:34.920 a good way to use up any wine you got 0:23:34.960 --> 0:23:38.160 lying around the house, and it adds a bass note 0:23:38.160 --> 0:23:40.080 to the whole thing and makes it nice and heavy, 0:23:40.119 --> 0:23:42.240 which is what we want. So you are gonna shake 0:23:42.320 --> 0:23:46.560 that in a shaker with ice, strain it into a 0:23:46.600 --> 0:23:50.679 clean glass with clean ice, and then we're gonna do 0:23:50.720 --> 0:23:55.400 a layering effect because you're gonna take your barspoon. Everybody 0:23:55.480 --> 0:23:58.359 likes to do layers a little differently. For me, the 0:23:58.400 --> 0:24:00.639 best way is to have a bar that has a 0:24:00.680 --> 0:24:05.560 flat end and carefully pour the last ingredient down that 0:24:05.760 --> 0:24:08.840 spiral of the bar spoon to let it kind of 0:24:09.320 --> 0:24:12.880 hit the You want to place that flat end kind 0:24:12.920 --> 0:24:16.159 of right on the meniscus of your existing drink and 0:24:16.240 --> 0:24:18.280 let it kind of spread out from there instead of 0:24:18.320 --> 0:24:22.760 pouring into it. And you're gonna use hard seltzer, and 0:24:22.800 --> 0:24:25.359 you're gonna top it with I don't know, two to 0:24:25.440 --> 0:24:28.320 two and a half ounces of hard seltzer because what 0:24:28.400 --> 0:24:31.399 this does. And I used a strawberry hibiscus one that 0:24:31.440 --> 0:24:34.920 I had on hand. But if you have another flavor, 0:24:35.040 --> 0:24:38.280 that's great, like mine came from a pack that I 0:24:38.320 --> 0:24:41.600 got at the grocery store that had like four different flavors, 0:24:41.640 --> 0:24:45.320 including like grape, and one of them is pineapple, and 0:24:45.440 --> 0:24:48.719 one of them is like a lime flavor. So you 0:24:48.760 --> 0:24:51.199 have some options there. And then what you get is 0:24:51.200 --> 0:24:54.439 a drink that looks about half bright red and about 0:24:54.480 --> 0:24:57.840 half clear, kind of like those pills were bright red 0:24:57.920 --> 0:25:03.160 and white in many ca or sometimes yellow in my memory. 0:25:03.400 --> 0:25:05.000