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