Speaker 1: Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership
Speaker 1: with iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Thailanol is and has been, for decades, the best selling
Speaker 2: non prescription pain reliever sold in the United States. Unlike
Speaker 2: today's thailanol, some pills used to come as gelatin based capsules,
Speaker 2: which were popular because they were smooth and easy to swallow.
Speaker 2: But it was also possible to open those capsules, and
Speaker 2: that meant anyone could remove its active ingredient a set
Speaker 2: of minifin and replace the contents with anything else, and
Speaker 2: someone did, resulting in the deaths of seven people by
Speaker 2: cyanide poisoning. The killings happened in the Chicago area and
Speaker 2: shocked the nation. They changed how American consumers buy over
Speaker 2: the counter medications and influenced consumer packaging. But more than
Speaker 2: forty years later, the identity of the person who tampered
Speaker 2: with TILANL extra strength capsules is still unknown and the
Speaker 2: case has never been closed. Welcome to Criminalia. I'm Maria Tremarki.
Speaker 1: And I'm Holly Frye. The Chicago Tailanol murders, as they've
Speaker 1: come to be known, began on September twenty eighth, nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty two with the death of twelve year old Mary Kellerman,
Speaker 1: an Elkgrove Village, Illinois resident. Mary was not feeling well,
Speaker 1: and early that morning her parents gave her tilanl to
Speaker 1: help relieve her cold symptoms. Recalled her father, Dennis Kellerman quote,
Speaker 1: I heard her go into the bathroom. I heard the
Speaker 1: door close, then I heard something drop. I went to
Speaker 1: the bathroom door. I called Mary, are you okay? There
Speaker 1: was no answer. I called again, Mary, are you okay?
Speaker 1: There was still no answer. So I opened the bathroom
Speaker 1: door and my little girl was on the floor, unconscious.
Speaker 1: She was still in her pajamas.
Speaker 2: Later that same day, a twenty seven year old postal
Speaker 2: worker named Adam Jannis, who lived in Arlington Heights, which
Speaker 2: is less than ten miles away from the Kellermans, also
Speaker 2: died shortly after taking tylan All to ease a muscle ache.
Speaker 2: He collapsed almost instantly and could not be resuscitated. That afternoon,
Speaker 2: Adam's brother, Stanley, aged twenty five, and Stanley's wife, Teresa,
Speaker 2: aged twenty also took tylan al capsules from the same
Speaker 2: bottle as Adam. Both were hoping to relieve their headaches,
Speaker 2: which had developed as the family gathered to mourn Adam
Speaker 2: Stanley died that same day. Teresa died two days later.
Speaker 1: Three more deaths linked to tainted tyland All were reported
Speaker 1: very soon thereafter, thirty one year old Mary McFarland, a
Speaker 1: phone center operator who was raising two boys, thirty five
Speaker 1: year old Paula Prince, a flight attendant, and twenty seven
Speaker 1: year old Mary Reiner, who had just delivered her fourth
Speaker 1: child about a week earlier.
Speaker 2: The first person to see what connected the victims tylan
Speaker 2: All was Helen Jensen, who was then a public health
Speaker 2: nurse based in Arlington Heights Village. She visited the Jenis
Speaker 2: home after the deaths and while investigating, noticed that six
Speaker 2: capsules were missing from the same taileanol bottle, two for Adam,
Speaker 2: two for Stanley, and two for Teresa. In multiple interviews,
Speaker 2: she has stated quote, I went into the bathroom and
Speaker 2: found a bottle of tilanol left out. I brought it
Speaker 2: out to the kitchen with one of the police officers.
Speaker 2: I opened it and counted the pills, and there were
Speaker 2: six pills missing, and then three people dead. I said
Speaker 2: it has to be the taileanol. Though she may have
Speaker 2: figured out that the tailanol was somehow lethal. First responders,
Speaker 2: police and the medical examiner weren't really buying into her theory,
Speaker 2: at least not at first. She continued, quote, they weren't
Speaker 2: going to listen to me. I was a woman and
Speaker 2: I was a nurse. I understood the attitudes of that time.
Speaker 2: But I was proven right by the next day.
Speaker 1: Medication bottles found in the homes the victims were sent
Speaker 1: for testing, and when the results came back, it was
Speaker 1: found that the acedominifin pills in those containers had been
Speaker 1: swapped with pills that instead contained lethal doses of potassium cyanide.
Speaker 1: Cyanide is so powerful a poison that, in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: an article in the Journal of Medical Toxicology warned that
Speaker 1: it's quote the ideal chemical weapon because it's readily available,
Speaker 1: it's easy to use, and it's highly lethal.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about the weapon of choice in these murders.
Speaker 2: Cyanide is a naturally occurring chemical compound, and it exists
Speaker 2: in things that we interact with all the time. For instance,
Speaker 2: apple seeds contain a compound that releases cyanide, which, though
Speaker 2: that means apple seeds are toxic, you'd have to consume
Speaker 2: a whole lot of them to have symptoms of cyanide poisoning,
Speaker 2: but cyanide can also be manufactured in several highly lethal forms.
Speaker 2: Potassium cyanide, for instance, was the poison added to punch
Speaker 2: that would drunk by more than nine hundred members of
Speaker 2: the Jonestown cult in the mass murder suicide of nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy eight. Analysis of the deadly talanol capsules in Chicago
Speaker 2: determined they were laced with crystals of potassium cyanide at
Speaker 2: a dose lethal within fifteen minutes of ingestion.
Speaker 1: We're going to take a break for a word from
Speaker 1: our sponsors, and when we're back, we'll talk about the
Speaker 1: investigation as well as the impact on Americans and the
Speaker 1: United States pharmaceutical industry.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk about the search for
Speaker 2: a suspect and how this case changed the way the
Speaker 2: pharmaceutical industry packaged over the counter medications, changes that we
Speaker 2: benefit from today.
Speaker 1: Things were moving quickly and within forty eight hours of
Speaker 1: the murders, which happened very close together Chicago marriage bain
Speaker 1: Burn in cooperation with local law enforcement, public health officials,
Speaker 1: the Federal Bureau of Investigation, An Johnson, and Johnson, the
Speaker 1: pharmaceutical company behind thailanol, had all tailanol products pulled from
Speaker 1: local stores and pharmacies in the Chicago area and sent
Speaker 1: to nearby laboratories for integrity testing. This confirmed that the
Speaker 1: pills were filled with poison. Authorities also discovered that the
Speaker 1: capsules the victims had ingested had been manufactured in different locations,
Speaker 1: establishing that the pills had been tainted. After cases of
Speaker 1: tailanol left the pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities, the Chicago Department of
Speaker 1: Health was tasked with examining thousands of bottles containing about
Speaker 1: eighty thousand individual tailanol capsules. That sounds tedious, but in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two there was no chemical test for spotting cyanide,
Speaker 1: which meant the staff had to visually inspect each capsule
Speaker 1: for tampering. Employee Michael Petros told Jeffrey Behar in an
Speaker 1: interview with the show Chicago Mysteries, quote, we were looking
Speaker 1: for these heavy crystals, almost like rock salt, but a
Speaker 1: little bit smaller, that were put in those capsules because
Speaker 1: at the time they could be just pulled apart. Later,
Speaker 1: Petro stated, quote, I never looked at the over the
Speaker 1: counter medicines at the stores the same.
Speaker 2: Way, knowing it didn't happen at the plant. Authorities next
Speaker 2: envisioned to scenario more like this. Someone must have removed
Speaker 2: tailanol bottles from store shelves, pulled apart the gelatine capsules
Speaker 2: to add the potassium cyanide, reassembled the packaging, and then
Speaker 2: placed the poisoned pills back on the shelves for unknowing
Speaker 2: consumers to purchase. Between five to seven milligrams of potassium
Speaker 2: cyanide can kill a person, and the toxic tileanol pills
Speaker 2: contained as much as forty five milligrams each.
Speaker 1: A nationwide recall of tailanol soon fought. On October fifth,
Speaker 1: McNeil Consumer Products, the subsidiary of Johnson and Johnson that
Speaker 1: manufactured tailanol, halted production at a cost of one hundred
Speaker 1: million dollars and also recalled thirty one million bottles.
Speaker 2: At home, people were instructed to throw away any taileanol
Speaker 2: products they had. At the time, there was no social media,
Speaker 2: smartphone alerts, or other forms of mass communication that were
Speaker 2: accustomed to today, which meant communities relied on police cars
Speaker 2: slowly driving through neighborhoods their loud speakers blaring quote, do
Speaker 2: not take tilanol until further notice. Warnings to prevent anyone
Speaker 2: else from taking the popular over the countermdication were also
Speaker 2: given by authorities and volunteers, going door to door and
Speaker 2: disseminating flyers as quickly as possible. The recall was also
Speaker 2: announced on television news stories about the poisonings, as well
Speaker 2: as in newspapers.
Speaker 1: The media quickly dubbed the unknown killer the quote tailanol
Speaker 1: terror rists. Once the story broke, the call volume at
Speaker 1: the Illinois Poison Control Center approached eight hundred calls in
Speaker 1: twenty four hours. In a similar time period, they would
Speaker 1: normally average about forty to sixty calls. Mass panic caused
Speaker 1: a considerable amount of chaos in the Chicago area and
Speaker 1: across the nation, and it went beyond pain relievers. Days
Speaker 1: away from Halloween, many towns canceled trigger treating, fearing that
Speaker 1: candy could and would be tainted in the same way
Speaker 1: as those tailen all pills. The mayor of Chicago distributed
Speaker 1: one million leaflets encouraging residents to give trigger treats money
Speaker 1: or small toys instead of candy. One suburban homeowners association
Speaker 1: asked its residents to hand out coupons for candy that
Speaker 1: kids could redeem at local stores. Nationwide, fear caused candy
Speaker 1: sales to drop by as much as twenty percent that year.
Speaker 2: And all tampering had a profound impact on Americans, but
Speaker 2: it also impacted the United States pharmaceutical industry. In those days,
Speaker 2: there was no such thing as tamper proof packaging. That
Speaker 2: changed in nineteen eighty three when Congress passed what was
Speaker 2: known as the Tailenol Bill, legislation that made it a
Speaker 2: felony to tamper with consumer products, which included food, drugs, cosmetics,
Speaker 2: among other items. A few years later, in nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 2: the United States Food and Drug Administration updated their policies
Speaker 2: as well, making medications more tamper proof by requiring tamper
Speaker 2: evidence seals on all over the counter medications. They also
Speaker 2: set into motion a change in drug manufacturing, producing pills
Speaker 2: in what they called a caplet, a hard tablet that
Speaker 2: looked like a capsule but could not be pulled apart
Speaker 2: like a capsule. The new formula was difficult to tamper
Speaker 2: with compared to old medications. Next time you get frustrated
Speaker 2: when you encounter and over the counter medication with the
Speaker 2: cardboard box. The cap and the bottle itself all tightly sealed.
Speaker 2: It's these measures keeping you safe.
Speaker 1: We're going to take a break for a word from
Speaker 1: our sponsors. When we're back, we'll talk about the suspects
Speaker 1: in the murders and why one man stood out among them.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Criminalia. They may have had a good
Speaker 2: theory as to how the capsules were poisoned, but investigators
Speaker 2: still had no idea who did it and why. So
Speaker 2: let's talk about the suspects in this case.
Speaker 1: During the investigation, three suspects emerged, one of whom remained
Speaker 1: on investigator's radar for forty years right up until his death.
Speaker 2: One suspect was Roger Arnold, aged forty eight, a dock
Speaker 2: worker at Jewel in Melrose Park. Jewels, a regional supermarket
Speaker 2: chain in the Chicago area. Investigators were tipped off about
Speaker 2: Arnold from a Lincoln Park bar owner who had told
Speaker 2: police that he'd heard two customers say Arnold had purchased
Speaker 2: a large quantity of cyanide about six months before the
Speaker 2: poisonings happened. During a search of Arnold's apartment on October eleventh,
Speaker 2: authorities found weapons, books about poison and poisoning, and lab equipment,
Speaker 2: including vials and beakers. Arnold confessed he had cyanide in
Speaker 2: his home, but investigators never found any. He denied any
Speaker 2: connection to the taileanol murders and refused to take a
Speaker 2: lie detector test. Ultimately cleared as a suspect, he went
Speaker 2: on to murder a man he thought told the police
Speaker 2: he was the tailanhal terrorist, and he was incarcerated.
Speaker 1: Then there was suspect Kevin Masterson, aged thirty five, of Lombard, Illinois.
Speaker 1: Masterson reportedly had a long standing grudge against the Chicago
Speaker 1: grocery chain Jewel because security guards had found his wife
Speaker 1: shoplifting Allegedly. He blamed the company ultimately for his divorce,
Speaker 1: and after the tailanol killings, he turned himself into the
Speaker 1: FBI in Los Angeles, but there was no connection between
Speaker 1: him and the debts.
Speaker 2: And then there was the third suspect who was the
Speaker 2: investigator's primary suspect, James Lewis. Lewis hit their radar after
Speaker 2: he sent a handwritten extortion letter to Johnson and Johnson
Speaker 2: headquarters demanding they pay one million dollars to quote stop
Speaker 2: the killings. It turned out to be a great clue
Speaker 2: to work with investigators, hoping this letter would connect them
Speaker 2: to their killer, were able to eventually trace it to
Speaker 2: Lewis through the postage meter he used to send the mail.
Speaker 1: As the investigation expanded from the extortion letter to Lewis's
Speaker 1: possible involvement in the Tailanol murders, investigators used coded messages
Speaker 1: in advertisements that they placed in the Chicago Tribune, using
Speaker 1: as the letter's recipients in order to communicate with him.
Speaker 1: That was a method he had requested in his letter,
Speaker 1: and it was when a librarian in New York City
Speaker 1: spotted Lewis and contacted police that he was arrested.
Speaker 2: Lewis claimed the extortion letter was his attempt to draw
Speaker 2: attention to his wife's employer, Lakeside Travel, after her paycheck bounced,
Speaker 2: and he used the postage meter in their office as
Speaker 2: a way to call authorities attention to their alleged shady practices.
Speaker 2: He told investigators that quote he waited for the first
Speaker 2: national tragedy to occur that he could use to put
Speaker 2: an investigative spotlight on that agency. He also stated he
Speaker 2: never actually intended to collect money, and that he just
Speaker 2: wanted to embarrass his wife's former employer.
Speaker 1: But some investigators didn't believe that story. They had another
Speaker 1: theory that Lewis was trying to extort Johnson and Johnson
Speaker 1: for the death of his five year old daughter, Tony Ann,
Speaker 1: who had down syndrome and a heart condition. To boost
Speaker 1: that theory, there were earlier reports in which Lewis claimed
Speaker 1: her death was the result of medications that had been
Speaker 1: manufactured by Johnson and Johnson.
Speaker 2: Lewis consistently denied any role in the poisonings. Though he
Speaker 2: was never charged with the Tailanhol murders, he did stand
Speaker 2: trial for extortion for writing and mailing threatening letters to
Speaker 2: Johnson and Johnson. He was convicted and sentenced to ten
Speaker 2: years in prison. He served his full sentence, and while incarcerated,
Speaker 2: he volunteered to help investigators solve the case of the
Speaker 2: Taileanhol killings, and he had numerous theories as to how
Speaker 2: the crime could have been committed. For many that further
Speaker 2: raised suspicions of his guilt. He defended his assistance in
Speaker 2: the case in a nineteen ninety two CNN interview, saying, quote,
Speaker 2: if I were going down the street and your house
Speaker 2: was on fire, not my problem, but I would stop
Speaker 2: and try to help.
Speaker 1: Lewis had detailed theories about the circumstances surrounding the deaths
Speaker 1: and invited highly detailed drawings, diagrams, and manuscripts as to
Speaker 1: how the murderer may have gone about filling the capsules
Speaker 1: and distributing them. Investigators were quote thunderstruck by the specificity
Speaker 1: of the drawings that he created and the quote many
Speaker 1: many hours of painstaking work that it would have taken
Speaker 1: him to prepare such materials, stated Jeremy Margolis, former assistant
Speaker 1: US attorney who worked on the investigation of Lewis's detail. Quote.
Speaker 1: He made a drawing which he called the drill board method.
Speaker 1: Someone could drill holes into a plywood contraption, put the
Speaker 1: bottom capsule into the hole, put cyanide on top of
Speaker 1: the board, scrape it across with a bread knife. Clean
Speaker 1: up the excess, put the tops of the capsules in,
Speaker 1: load them into the tailenal bottles, and put them on
Speaker 1: store shelves. Still, despite his cooperation, investigators found Lewis to
Speaker 1: be quote arrogant, haughty, and condescending.
Speaker 2: Said Margolis of Fluid assistants. Quote, it was nothing short
Speaker 2: of bizarre. Here's a guy who was facing many years
Speaker 2: in the federal penitentiary, publicly accused, although not formally charged,
Speaker 2: with the Tailanhal murders, who volunteers his assistance to law
Speaker 2: enforcement to help them solve the Tailanal murders and then
Speaker 2: provided us with dozens and dozens and dozens of pages
Speaker 2: of manuscripts speculating on how it might have happened. Lewis
Speaker 2: later said of his work, quote, I was doing like
Speaker 2: I would have done for a corporate client, making a
Speaker 2: list of possible scenarios. And he called the Tailanhal terrorist
Speaker 2: quote a heinous, cold blooded killer, a cruel monster.
Speaker 1: Chuck Gowdy, a Chicago based investigative reporter, interviewed Lewis over
Speaker 1: the years and has said of James quote, he was
Speaker 1: one of those criminals who thought that he was the
Speaker 1: smartest guy in the room. He would call me angry
Speaker 1: about stories that we aired. Did like that we presumed
Speaker 1: he was the tailand Al killer, even though he put
Speaker 1: himself right in the middle of it and explained the
Speaker 1: entire series of attacks.
Speaker 2: During their investigation, authorities discovered that Lewis had a violent
Speaker 2: criminal past, and just four years prior had been charged
Speaker 2: with killing and dismembering seventy two year old Raymond West,
Speaker 2: who had hired Lewis as an accountant. Lewis had then
Speaker 2: tried to cash a check forged in the victim's name.
Speaker 2: He was not convicted, though, despite plenty of compelling evidence
Speaker 2: of his guilt. A judge dismissed the charges on a
Speaker 2: few reasons. Some evidence had been illegally obtained, and Lewis
Speaker 2: had not been read his miranda rights upon arrest.
Speaker 1: Going back long before the Tailannol murders in nineteen sixty six,
Speaker 1: they discovered that Lewis tried to kill his adoptive mother
Speaker 1: with an axe, and that he was placed in the
Speaker 1: Statemental Hospital. In nineteen eighty one, he was convicted of
Speaker 1: six counts of mail fraud in a credit card scheme
Speaker 1: in Cansas City.
Speaker 2: More recently, and therefore not part of the initial Tailanl investigation,
Speaker 2: in two thousand and four, Lewis was charged with rape
Speaker 2: and kidnapping. He spent three years in jail awaiting trial,
Speaker 2: but the case was dropped when the victim wouldn't testify.
Speaker 2: In two thousand and nine, FBI agents searched Lewis's apartment
Speaker 2: in Cambridge, Massachusetts, removing boxes of evidence, but whatever they
Speaker 2: were looking for, nothing came of what they found. In
Speaker 2: twenty ten, Lewis self published a novel titled Poison The
Speaker 2: Doctor's Dilemma. The story was about people drinking lead poisoned water,
Speaker 2: but in this novel he directly referenced the tailanol murders.
Speaker 2: As recently as September of twenty twenty two, investigators reinterviewed
Speaker 2: Lewis about the Taileanal case, but again to no avail.
Speaker 1: In the long term aftermath, authorities have continued to investigate
Speaker 1: the murders and have collected DA samples from Lewis and others.
Speaker 1: In recent years, they even looked into Ted Kaczinski, the
Speaker 1: so called unibomer, who used homemade bombs and killings from
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight to nineteen ninety five, but the tailan
Speaker 1: All case remains unsolved, although it's never actually been closed.
Speaker 1: When he died in twenty twenty three, headlines across the
Speaker 1: country continued to cite Lewis as the prime suspect in
Speaker 1: the Chicago tailanol murders.
Speaker 2: The murders, reported the Safety Science Journal, were quote something
Speaker 2: never seen or thinkable for someone until it happened, and
Speaker 2: that the concept of safety culture has largely developed since.
Speaker 2: Helen Jensen, who pinpointed tailanol as the murder weapon, has
Speaker 2: stated perhaps the most poignant comment of their impact, quote,
Speaker 2: we lost our innocence. We have become less trusting of
Speaker 2: everyone else. It's an odd question I'm going to have
Speaker 2: to get used to.
Speaker 1: That's so true. Would you like to step inside the cooler?
Speaker 2: Let me grab my jacket? Hang on.
Speaker 1: This one is so weird because I have a memory
Speaker 1: of this all playing out. I was a kid when
Speaker 1: it happened, and I remember seeing it on the news.
Speaker 1: Me too, But this is one where I'm going to
Speaker 1: invoke my own specific happy memory sort of related to it,
Speaker 1: because I have since I was a child, loved those
Speaker 1: pull apart gelatin capsules. There's just something oddly magical about them. Yes,
Speaker 1: and there are some ways you can still get those,
Speaker 1: Like there's some products that still use them, Like there's
Speaker 1: a supplement I give my cats that uses it, like
Speaker 1: you're actually supposed to pull it apart and sprinkle it
Speaker 1: on their food, And there are things that use them.
Speaker 1: And I just remember as a kid, I got in
Speaker 1: trouble for taking a bunch of part and like just
Speaker 1: kind of playing with them, and so I kind of
Speaker 1: wanted to make a drink that references back to that.
Speaker 1: I love the duality of the two colors of the
Speaker 1: ends that slid apart. It was like a little toy
Speaker 1: because they were gelatin, but they felt like plastic in
Speaker 1: your hands.
Speaker 2: Yes they did, and we were both very like we
Speaker 2: were kids. We were small.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but obviously this is also tragic. So I made
Speaker 1: a drink that I debated calling this the poison pill,
Speaker 1: but instead I want to call it tamper proof. Okay,
Speaker 1: because I am very thankful that a lot of safety
Speaker 1: measures were put in place, even though I hate that.
Speaker 2: I can't get into them anymore, but I like that
Speaker 2: they're right.
Speaker 1: It's fine. I will use tools like a grade ape. Really,
Speaker 1: I'm just you know, applying sharp items until I can
Speaker 1: get into.
Speaker 2: It, because I'd rather have the safety measures than like
Speaker 2: crying myself with the knife tire to get into it.
Speaker 1: Yes, and this drink, because of one of the ingredients,
Speaker 1: you can customize it to your own taste a little bit.
Speaker 1: So this starts with three quarters of ounce of grenadine,
Speaker 1: three quarters of an ounce of lime juice, a half
Speaker 1: ounce of orjaw and if you're like, is that a
Speaker 1: lot of syrup? You'll see why in a minute an
Speaker 1: ounce and a half of vodka. I'm gonna be honest.
Speaker 1: I put more than that in it initially, and I
Speaker 1: think it was a little too slappy. But if you
Speaker 1: really love vodka and you want to drink one drink
Speaker 1: for the night, go ahead and bump it up to
Speaker 1: two if you wish. And then just a splash I
Speaker 1: mean a little splash of red wine or port. It's
Speaker 1: there for color more than anything else, but it's also
Speaker 1: a good way to use up any wine you got
Speaker 1: lying around the house, and it adds a bass note
Speaker 1: to the whole thing and makes it nice and heavy,
Speaker 1: which is what we want. So you are gonna shake
Speaker 1: that in a shaker with ice, strain it into a
Speaker 1: clean glass with clean ice, and then we're gonna do
Speaker 1: a layering effect because you're gonna take your barspoon. Everybody
Speaker 1: likes to do layers a little differently. For me, the
Speaker 1: best way is to have a bar that has a
Speaker 1: flat end and carefully pour the last ingredient down that
Speaker 1: spiral of the bar spoon to let it kind of
Speaker 1: hit the You want to place that flat end kind
Speaker 1: of right on the meniscus of your existing drink and
Speaker 1: let it kind of spread out from there instead of
Speaker 1: pouring into it. And you're gonna use hard seltzer, and
Speaker 1: you're gonna top it with I don't know, two to
Speaker 1: two and a half ounces of hard seltzer because what
Speaker 1: this does. And I used a strawberry hibiscus one that
Speaker 1: I had on hand. But if you have another flavor,
Speaker 1: that's great, like mine came from a pack that I
Speaker 1: got at the grocery store that had like four different flavors,
Speaker 1: including like grape, and one of them is pineapple, and
Speaker 1: one of them is like a lime flavor. So you
Speaker 1: have some options there. And then what you get is
Speaker 1: a drink that looks about half bright red and about
Speaker 1: half clear, kind of like those pills were bright red
Speaker 1: and white in many ca or sometimes yellow in my memory.
Speaker 1: I looked up pictures I did.
Speaker 2: Too, sometimes blue, but the red was always there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So that it kind of has the same visual effect,
Speaker 1: but with safety, we hope, so that that is the
Speaker 1: tamper proof. If you want to do this as a mocktail,
Speaker 1: it's pretty easy. Instead of vodka, you're gonna do this
Speaker 1: is where I would probably do like a club soda,
Speaker 1: and I would not put it in the shaker. Obviously
Speaker 1: you're gonna just mix that into your drink. Go ahead
Speaker 1: and mix it in the glass in this case, and
Speaker 1: then instead of a splash of wine, just use like
Speaker 1: a grape juice or a pomegranate juice, whatever you have
Speaker 1: on hand that is dark in color. This is the
Speaker 1: one time where I will say, not your white grape juice,
Speaker 1: and then you will do. I would do like a
Speaker 1: non alcoholic seltzer on top, and if you have one
Speaker 1: with a flavors, so much the better. I love flavored seltzer. Man.
Speaker 1: When I was a kid, that was the sat and
Speaker 1: that is the tamper proof. This is one of those
Speaker 1: things that I periodically throughout my adult life, my brain
Speaker 1: has just gone.
Speaker 2: Right for like these disappearances and murders from when.
Speaker 1: We were kids, Like, yeah, are they just floating around out.
Speaker 2: There because one piece of critical evidence has not been
Speaker 2: found and they're just hanging it doing their life right.
Speaker 1: So, once again, cold case is not so easy to
Speaker 1: want to think about drinks for it, but we're doing it.
Speaker 1: And I love hearing about them because it is fascinating
Speaker 1: to know how many things have happened that we haven't
Speaker 1: figured out.
Speaker 2: Yet and what people think might the reason be for that? Yeah,
Speaker 2: whatever crime was.
Speaker 1: So tragic, but hopefully, uh, you know, nothing in your
Speaker 1: life has ever been or will ever be tampered with.
Speaker 1: We are so grateful that you've spent this time with us,
Speaker 1: and we will be right back here next time week
Speaker 1: with another story and we will have another cocktail and
Speaker 1: mocktail to go with it. Criminalia is a production of
Speaker 1: Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: Shondaland Audio, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.