WEBVTT - Selects: The Tylenol Murders, Part II 0:00:00.600 --> 0:00:03.120 Hey there, everyone has promised. It's me again, Josh. And 0:00:03.240 --> 0:00:06.200 for Part two of this week's s Y s K Select, 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:09.720 we talked about Johnson and Johnson's response to one of 0:00:09.760 --> 0:00:13.160 the biggest PR crises ever to grip an American company, 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:16.720 and we meet the suspects and talk about the effects 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:20.240 of the senseless Thailand All Poisonings. I hope you enjoy 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:23.320 Part two of two of this week's special two parts 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:29.960 Select Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:38.639 I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm 0:00:38.720 --> 0:00:41.720 Josh Clark. There's Charles W Chuck Bryant, there's guest producer 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:45.440 Josh over there. Because enough with the pleasant trees, let's 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:48.760 get back to it. Chuck Thailand All Murders Part two. 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:54.440 If you did not listen to the first part, seven 0:00:54.520 --> 0:01:01.440 people were murdered by ingesting Thailand, all tainted with cyanide 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:04.399 on the same day, All on the same day. America 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:08.240 and much of the world is super freaked out. Johnson 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:12.120 and Johnson is the manufacturer. And part one of part 0:01:12.160 --> 0:01:15.800 two has a deal with Johnson and Johnson and how 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:19.080 they handled this in a public relations sort of way, 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:23.760 because there were and are a huge company, Like you 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:26.959 said in the episode one, they held thirty seven percent 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:30.120 of the market share, which was many hundreds of millions 0:01:30.120 --> 0:01:32.800 of dollars of Thailand all that they're selling every year, 0:01:32.880 --> 0:01:38.480 and that's right, which is like gazillions now. So it 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:40.920 was a very big deal for that company. And the 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:44.760 way they handled it is taught in colleges and PR 0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:49.400 classes all over the world as exactly how to handle 0:01:49.560 --> 0:01:54.520 a big public relations crisis like this. It's literally called 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:57.560 a textbook example of how how it's done. Yeah, they 0:01:57.920 --> 0:02:01.400 did a good job because, as you remember from the 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:05.880 last episode, they found out pretty sure early on that 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:09.720 this had nothing to do with Johnson and Johnson, right, like, 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:11.919 it wasn't in their factory, wasn't in their supply chain. 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:16.640 That happened almost certainly, and that it probably happened by 0:02:16.800 --> 0:02:19.240 some crazed person taking him out of the store, tainting 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:21.440 them maybe in the store in the parking lot, then 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:24.240 putting them back on the shelf. But Johnson Johnson can't 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:26.720 come out on the news and say, hey, wasn't us 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:30.079 right well at first though, and this this gets overlooked 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:33.280 and left out of the college business courses, in the 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:37.040 PR courses at first Johnson and Johnson was not in 0:02:37.120 --> 0:02:41.720 favor of a massive recall. Look well, it looks good 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:43.799 in one way but bad in another. And they actually 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:48.720 didn't recall anything until Mayor Jane Byrne hells her press 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:53.120 conference on Friday calling for a recall of the Thailand 0:02:53.120 --> 0:02:56.440 all in Chicago, and Johnson and Johnson did a little 0:02:56.639 --> 0:03:00.480 face palm and yes, we're recalling all of the Thailand 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:06.000 all in Chicago. Yes, what she said. Right. So by Friday, uh, 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:09.680 the thirty one of September is their thirty one in September? 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:13.320 Was this October one? I have no idea. I think 0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:18.240 it was October one. Anyway, By the Friday, two days 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:21.800 after the death the death um, Johnson and Johnson recalled 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:24.360 all of the Thailand all in Chicago. And that should 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:27.280 have been enough to them, that was enough. But this 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:31.880 PR crisis was so massive and spread so fast, and 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:35.840 like we said earlier in Part one, became global almost overnight. 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:39.680 It was not enough. And so Johnson and Johnson, within 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:45.520 a week of the deaths, recalled every bottle of extra 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:48.920 strength Thailand all in the United States, which is worth 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:51.440 about a hundred million dollars at the time. Took it 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:58.040 back to their factories and destroyed it. So they say, right, uh, yeah, 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:01.600 both Johnson and Johnson, right. I wonder if one of 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:04.600 them was like, I don't know about this. They're one 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:07.119 of them said Okay, I'll take all the states west 0:04:07.120 --> 0:04:10.160 of the Mississippi North Dakota, South Dakota in some Wyoming, 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:13.280 and you take all the other states. That's a that's 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:16.160 a part one joke. Uh. They even got an award 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:20.640 the Public Relations Society of America, which is a real thing, 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:24.600 I believe it or not. They awarded them their Silver 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:27.279 and Bull Award for how they handle the crisis the 0:04:27.400 --> 0:04:31.800 Thailand all poisoning, that's right, and um high grade foods. 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:36.080 Remember we talked about the bad Wieners in the first 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:40.320 episode the ballpark Frank sip Um supposedly had razor blades 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:43.960 but did not. That still created a public relations crisis 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:46.000 for them, even though they were just these little jerks 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:51.080 in Detroit. And Uh. They won the Golden Anvil, which 0:04:51.120 --> 0:04:54.719 is one higher than silver, because of how they handled 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:57.840 the pr crisis brought about by the copycats of the 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:01.320 actual Thailand all crisis, which was in fact really brought 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:05.880 about by two jerk kids in Detroit really not even copycats, 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:07.800 not the tile in all crisis. I wonder where those 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:11.960 kids are today, probably in the Senate. I bet one 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:14.480 of them was the guy who did our our lighting 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:20.080 at our Detroit show. There was a smoke Yeah, guys, 0:05:20.120 --> 0:05:21.720 we we did a show in Detroit a few years 0:05:21.760 --> 0:05:24.720 ago and um, very famously we still use that as 0:05:24.760 --> 0:05:28.840 the standard bearer for a bad crew bad. We had 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:32.720 a guy that looked like a former roadie for your 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:36.960 Riyah Heap that was running like a light show basically 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:39.400 during the middle of our podcast, and like smoke came out. 0:05:39.400 --> 0:05:41.440 We were like, we had to stop the show, almost 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:43.920 like dude, what are you doing? Yeah, well the lighting 0:05:43.960 --> 0:05:47.600 was so bad that your highlighter had turned like brown 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:51.159 and you could and you asked him, we had to 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:53.479 stop the show and you had to ask him to 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:57.560 use a different color light. And his response, because Umi 0:05:57.680 --> 0:05:59.599 was hanging out and our friend Chris Bowman was hanging 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:02.480 out in the sound booth with the guy, his response, 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:04.919 according to them, was they wants smoke, will give them 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:08.479 some more smoke, And we got some more smoke like 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:11.479 a smoke machine man. And people ask us why we 0:06:11.480 --> 0:06:14.040 haven't been back to Detroit. It's a big reason. It's 0:06:14.080 --> 0:06:18.880 a big reason, not the only reason. Uh. Okay, So 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:22.800 they won the Golden Anvil for the Wiener pr moves 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:28.480 um McNeil Consumer Products, which is a subsidiary of Johnson 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:31.000 and Johnson. They actually make Thailand on. Yeah, they make 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:33.840 the pills again. The way this all the supply chain 0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:37.680 works is really convoluted. Um. And uh, like you said, 0:06:37.720 --> 0:06:39.960 they didn't want to recall Johnson Johnson everything at first. 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:41.719 They want to kind of take it a little slower, 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:45.200 I guess, um, because they found out the drugs are 0:06:45.200 --> 0:06:48.120 actually fine, right thanks to Pinky McFarland. This is a 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:51.480 hundred million dollars worth of stock that they were kind 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:54.040 of feeling the pressure to recall. It's right, So they 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:56.719 were kind of reluctant at first, especially if they were 0:06:56.760 --> 0:07:00.000 convinced that there was nothing wrong with the rest of them. 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:02.640 They had no choice, No, that was the only way 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:05.080 to do it was to lose a lot of money 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:09.840 and in favor of future gains. Yeah. But even at 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:12.040 the time, a lot of people were like, this is 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:14.760 it for thaile and all the public has lost faith 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:18.480 in Thailand all. So when Thailand all recalled thirty one million, 0:07:18.800 --> 0:07:21.360 fifty count bottles of extra strength Taile and All and 0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:24.720 destroyed at all. There was a chance that not only 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:26.960 were they losing a hundred million dollars, but that they 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:29.600 were losing a hundred billion dollars of a brand that 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:33.720 had already lost the public trust and would never regain it. 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:37.880 So which wasn't true. But no, but they didn't necessarily 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:39.360 know that at the time. It was still up in 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:43.040 the air. Um so they it was basically thirty one 0:07:43.320 --> 0:07:47.840 million sacrificial lambs that were killed to show the public 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:51.800 this tainted tail and All has gone forever. Your chances 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:54.320 of dying from taking Extra Strength Thaile and All are 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:57.760 now gone. You can go back to taking Thaile and All. Now, 0:07:58.000 --> 0:07:59.960 that was one thing, and that was a big gesture, 0:08:00.760 --> 0:08:02.600 but which is what it amounted to. It was a 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:05.160 gesture on behalf of Johnson and Johnson. But they did 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:07.880 other stuff too. They started to do things right out 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:11.280 of their reluctance. Once they finally said there, we have 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:13.960 to just go with this to save face and to 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:17.000 win back public trust, they started to do things right, 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:20.080 like including like setting up a hotline, putting out a 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:24.600 hundred thousand dollar reward for information change how much they 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:29.360 had lost already still jump change it's it is yeah, 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:34.079 and that remains unclaimed. It does. Um, but they But 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:37.800 because of all this, Johnson and Johnson managed to regain 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:42.000 the public trust and actually managed to position itself as 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:44.920 a victim in all of this. Like, yes, there were 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:48.839 they were seven murder victims, and Johnson and Johnson I 0:08:48.880 --> 0:08:51.079 don't think ever tried to push them out of the spotlight. 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:54.280 But they also managed to portray themselves as the victim 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:56.640 of a of a mad poisoner who may or may 0:08:56.640 --> 0:08:59.240 not have something out for them. But either way, their 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:01.520 brand was take a huge hit because of this, and 0:09:01.559 --> 0:09:04.720 they were a victim and we're able to generate public sympathy, 0:09:04.960 --> 0:09:08.960 which is part of the road to regaining the public 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:13.480 trust right, which is why it's taught NPR classes. So, um, 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:16.360 we'll take you back to two. If you're if you 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:20.040 weren't around then or old enough to be taking uh 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:23.400 O t C pills and pain relievers is over the counter, 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:25.800 by the way. That's right, Okay, you're done with OTC. 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:30.439 Yeah you know me so dumb. Uh. I love that 0:09:30.480 --> 0:09:32.800 you played along that I appreciate that you could have 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:35.640 made me feel stupid. We've been partners for eleven years 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:42.599 almost now, Yeah, that'd be when next month or this month? Right, Yeah, unbelievable. 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:47.160 So uh, I'm believing that, not in that way. Okay. 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:49.280 So here's how it used to happen. If you wanted 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:51.760 to take a pill like a tail and all, you would, 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:55.960 um get your bottle. You would pop it open with 0:09:56.000 --> 0:09:59.040 your thumb. Well first, first it came in a little box, sure, 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:02.280 but the box wasn't even glued shut. Um. You would 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:04.600 pop it open with your finger. You would take out 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:06.960 the cotton in there, and you would take your pill. 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:10.080 It was that easy. There was no tamper proofing, There 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:13.880 was no The cotton was completely superfluous at this time. Yeah. 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:18.040 Cotton originally was introduced to keep baar aspirin like the 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:23.839 hard tablets from getting crushed in transport. And since they 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:26.480 started using capsules and other stuff and figured out how 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:29.440 to strengthen tablets, there was no reason for the cotton 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:34.040 any longer, but because consumers expected it. Still today you'll 0:10:34.040 --> 0:10:37.000 find cotton in your and your pills. There's no reason 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:39.680 for it to be there except because the companies know 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:42.920 that you wanted to be there. You might be weirded 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:45.319 out if there wasn't cotton in your pills. Imagine the 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:47.200 cotton lobby had something to do with that too. Well, 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:50.600 I'll bet they're not. They're not complaining, you know, so 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:55.640 um big cotton. They should uh new fancy OTC pills 0:10:55.640 --> 0:10:58.839 should have micromodl in there. Right. It just comes with 0:10:58.920 --> 0:11:02.600 a pair of me undy him bottle. You're like, these 0:11:02.640 --> 0:11:07.520 have been worn so uh. This was a time. It 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:10.560 was a very innocent time previous to this, where you 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:12.800 could like and you pointed this out. I remember seeing 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:16.240 this in grocery stores, like I remember seeing mothers and 0:11:16.240 --> 0:11:21.920 grocery stores opening food products and smelling them. That's what 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:24.079 you could do, and then closing it back and putting 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:26.360 it back on the shelf. There's a little mold in 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:28.080 this one. Yeah, and I'll just leave it for the 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:31.480 next person. Forget poisoning like that. These they could be 0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:34.280 spitting in this stuff. It was allowed. That's just the 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:38.480 way it was like there was. America was innocent enough 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:43.160 that that was fine. That's how we lived. And that 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:46.439 sets up this tile and all poisoning. It really shows 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:51.280 how much of a jarring experience it was from America 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:55.000 because all of a sudden, like it's finally sunk in 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:57.640 in a couple of days, there's something wrong with the 0:11:57.640 --> 0:11:59.640 tile and all. Somebody has gone out of their way 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:03.760 to poisoned the Thailand all in order to randomly kill people. 0:12:04.520 --> 0:12:06.360 And the reason they were able to do this because 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:09.199 there it's easy to to get into the tail and 0:12:09.240 --> 0:12:12.240 all tamper with it. Put it back and no one 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:15.679 will be any any any more. The wiser and wait, 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:18.520 it's not just taile and all. Milk doesn't have anything 0:12:18.559 --> 0:12:21.720 that that keeps the tamper resistant. New there's orange juice, 0:12:22.160 --> 0:12:26.400 there's cereal, new there does um cottage cheese. Nothing does. 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:30.880 And America for wreaked out. And this is the reason 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:34.160 why this tile and all poisoning is considered widely the 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:38.360 first incident of domestic terrorism in the United States, because 0:12:38.440 --> 0:12:42.679 it was terrorism, pure and simple. America was terrified. They 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:45.280 were petrified not only to take tail in all or 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:48.319 any over the counter medicine, now they were petrified to 0:12:48.400 --> 0:12:51.439 drink milk or give milk to their kids. Paula Prince, 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:53.440 the flight attendant who was the last one to die 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:56.680 in Chicago, she had a coworker who said like everything 0:12:56.720 --> 0:12:59.280 look tainted. Now. I was afraid to give my kids milk. 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:01.200 I was afraid to get my kids cereal. If they 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:03.520 could get to the tile tile and all, they could 0:13:03.520 --> 0:13:07.319 poison anything. And that was really emblematic of the the attitude, 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:10.280 the shock that everybody went through. And as a result, 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:14.280 within six weeks, Thailand all said we got this coverage. Yeah. 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:17.840 And I have a feeling they did this so fast. 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:20.280 There had to have been this idea in place already. 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:22.240 It was I saw I saw a reference that it was, 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:24.920 and I imagine it was not done because they're like, well, 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:27.000 that's a lot of money, and why why would we bother. 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:30.160 It's like, it's not like someone's gonna poison the medicine. 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:33.520 And then that happened. So within six weeks they had 0:13:33.600 --> 0:13:36.839 a box that was actually glued shut, so if your 0:13:36.960 --> 0:13:38.960 little box had been opened, you would be able to 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:41.120 tell yeah, that was That was part one of three 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:44.640 of this tamper resistant packaging. That little plastic seal over 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:47.400 the top of the bottle after you open it. Uh 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:49.959 oh no, no, the the plastic is over the cap 0:13:50.080 --> 0:13:52.600 on the outside of the bottle. Yeah, like the plastic foil, 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:56.600 and then the the actual foil was over the mouth 0:13:56.640 --> 0:13:58.400 of the bottle that we all have to poke through 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:02.000 now to pull out the and whatever still uses cotton. 0:14:02.240 --> 0:14:06.000 None of that existed until the beginning of ninet. So 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:10.440 all three of these are put in place within six weeks. Uh. 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:12.760 Not only that, they said, you know what, we're going 0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:16.040 to introduce the caplet, which everyone knows now it was 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:18.559 we didn't have them back then. Everything was a little 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:21.280 capsule that you could literally pull apart and you could 0:14:21.320 --> 0:14:24.640 snort the Thailand all if you wanted to. Quite sure 0:14:24.720 --> 0:14:28.040 some people did. I'm sure someone did. But the caplet 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:29.960 is you know, a tablet coated with an easy to 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:34.400 swallow a gelatine. It's solid, it's um I imagine you 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:37.160 could tamper with it. And even I even saw with 0:14:37.240 --> 0:14:40.160 all these things in place, they said, nothing is tamper proof. 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:43.640 But these measures really went a long way to restore 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:47.080 the public, uh you know, well, like the good feelings 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:49.680 about what was going on. Yeah, within about a year 0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:53.280 Thailand all Or Johnson and Johnson managed to win the 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:56.720 public's trust back in Thailand. All that's hard to believe. Yeah, 0:14:56.760 --> 0:14:59.280 that was really fast. But it also goes to show 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:02.640 like just how perfectly. They did everything from that from 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:04.840 the time they committed to it on. Yeah, and I 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:08.720 feel like I remember like commercials with CEOs and stuff 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:12.200 addressing the public. He became I can't remember his name. 0:15:12.240 --> 0:15:14.080 I want to say Geoffrey Beam and it's like a 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:23.800 shoe brand. Getty Johnson, No, um, Bill Johnson Johnson, Yes, this, 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:27.000 I can't remember his name, but he Jimmy Johnson is 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:30.000 way far away from that. UM. But he became a 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:33.080 public face. He would, you know, go on to sixty 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:36.000 minutes and and he talked to Dan Rather and take 0:15:36.080 --> 0:15:39.240 Copple and all those cats. Like he he was out 0:15:39.240 --> 0:15:43.280 there like showing how much the company cared. Yeah, And 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:46.680 it had had a huge effect. And then in Congress 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:49.240 got involved. They passed what they dubbed the Thailand All Bill, 0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:52.200 which basically says, if you do something like this is 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:57.200 now a federal offense. A few years later, in nine UM, 0:15:57.320 --> 0:16:01.480 the f d A actually established guidelines for manufacturers of 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:04.280 any product really to make it tamper proof. Yeah, because 0:16:04.320 --> 0:16:07.160 it wasn't just the O. T C manufacturers that that 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:10.560 started doing this, they followed suit very quickly once Thailand 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:12.560 All came out with it, because they kind of had 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:15.479 to if they wanted to keep up with tile and all. Um. 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:20.560 But also the uh, the manufacturers of everything, like every product, 0:16:20.760 --> 0:16:23.920 every consumer products started putting their products in like tamper 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:29.400 proof packaging. Dial soap started coming wrapped in cellophane inside 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:33.400 the box trap the chemicals in, I guess. But also 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:36.840 to show like nobody's injected this with lie or something 0:16:36.920 --> 0:16:40.800 like that, although lie is used in the making a soap, 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:45.920 isn't it. I remember my Fight Club. It's pretty funny 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:49.880 someone injected soap into the soap. All right, let's take 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:52.160 another break and we'll come back and talk a little 0:16:52.160 --> 0:16:56.520 bit more about the profile of the supposed mad poisoner 0:16:56.640 --> 0:17:23.040 right after this stop. All right, So, uh, this was 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:25.800 a very big case at the time, obviously, like we've 0:17:25.800 --> 0:17:28.480 been saying, it was a landmark case. Um, so of 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:33.560 course you're going to get um psychological profiles, which you 0:17:33.600 --> 0:17:35.399 know we should do one in profiling. Actually have we 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:37.160 done that? I don't think so it'd be a good 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:39.920 one because it always like seems like the trope in 0:17:39.960 --> 0:17:42.280 movies and TV. But it is kind of like that. 0:17:42.600 --> 0:17:44.280 It is a thing, for sure. It's not like they 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:46.400 just make this stuff up. But in the end they said, 0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:49.720 you know, this is probably a man in his twenties 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:52.520 or thirties who was sort of a Jekyl and Hide 0:17:52.520 --> 0:17:55.600 type during the day. He's very ordinary. You could be 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:57.679 in the desk cubicle next to you and you wouldn't 0:17:57.680 --> 0:17:59.080 even know it. Every once in a while you just 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:03.080 hear and go, yeah exactly. But deep in his in 0:18:03.119 --> 0:18:06.640 the recesses of his brain, everyone, he's plagued with self 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:09.560 doubt and has an illusion that a random killing can 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:15.200 boost his sense of self worth self worth. Um, which 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:17.240 is just sounds like a straight out of a movie. 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:19.560 It sounds like a psychiatrist thing. I want to be 0:18:19.640 --> 0:18:24.360 on TV. Yeah, listen to me. Uh. They also speculated, 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:28.320 and this is just completely like conjecture was that he 0:18:28.359 --> 0:18:32.240 had probably already taken his own life after the killings. 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:36.679 That was one specific person that Yeah, it was I 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:41.160 think like the medical examiner for Cook County. Yeah, Um, 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:44.080 he probably already jumped off the bridge, So don't worry 0:18:44.080 --> 0:18:48.000 about it. Don't worry everybody. Uh. Yeah, he just threw 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:49.520 that out there. I don't know if it was the 0:18:49.600 --> 0:18:52.840 calm people or not, but or maybe he's just throwing 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:57.760 his two cents in. But um, I think you kind 0:18:57.760 --> 0:18:59.679 of said it earlier. I don't remember if it was 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:01.840 part owner, parts two. The whole things is blurred and 0:19:01.880 --> 0:19:05.800 become a haze by now. But um, no one has 0:19:05.840 --> 0:19:11.359 ever been charged with the Thailand All murders. Yeah, but 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:14.840 there has been a lot. There were a lot of suspects. 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:18.439 Remember Thailand. I'll set up a hotline and this Thailand 0:19:18.480 --> 0:19:21.840 All task Force, a hundred and forty person strong task 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:27.560 force investigating this, chasing down leads, taking calls on the hotline. 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:31.240 Thousands and thousands of calls that were coming in. Um, 0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:34.560 they were trying to whittle those down into actual tips 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:37.800 that were worth pursuing, and out of all of them, 0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:43.640 they they deemed twelve hundred tips und leads worth checking out. 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:47.439 There's a lot of leads for a case, um, even 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:50.480 even considering yet a hundred and forty people working them. 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:53.199 And I read somewhere that they started out with like 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:57.000 twenty thousand suspects or something like that and whittled it 0:19:57.040 --> 0:19:59.320 down to four hundred. Yeah, And the sort of the 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:02.240 sad part as as quickly as they sort of figured 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:05.000 a lot of this out and had that hundred and 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:08.560 forty person task force. They almost just as quickly, within 0:20:08.600 --> 0:20:11.840 a few months, realized that, like, we don't have a 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:14.160 very good chance at finding this person. Yeah, it became 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:17.240 clear very quickly. Yeah, they whittled that down. By the 0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:19.399 last week of October, the task force was down to 0:20:19.440 --> 0:20:21.399 forty people. By the end of the year it was 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:25.879 down to twenty. And it was a situation again where 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:30.639 you didn't have security cameras everywhere, you didn't have credit 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:35.000 cards and debit cards um creating paper trails. It was 0:20:35.080 --> 0:20:37.639 a lot easier back then to get away with something 0:20:37.680 --> 0:20:41.200 like this too, um to be completely unknown, to walk 0:20:41.200 --> 0:20:44.200 into a store, maybe slip some Thailand all into your pocket, 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:45.639 go out to the parking lot and come back in 0:20:45.680 --> 0:20:48.159 and slipping back on the shelf. If you're really easy, 0:20:48.280 --> 0:20:51.360 you won't even go to the trouble of buying it. Yeah, 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:53.040 I guess that's a good point. Steal it and then 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:55.600 put it. But you know, people were using cash. If 0:20:55.640 --> 0:20:59.119 there were UH cameras in a place, they were probably 0:20:59.160 --> 0:21:02.080 trained on employee is. I worked at a golden pantry 0:21:02.080 --> 0:21:05.080 in college and the only camera we had was directly 0:21:05.080 --> 0:21:07.240 above us, pointing down at the catch register. It was 0:21:07.720 --> 0:21:14.080 the one of alps in in Atlanta Highway. Alps No, 0:21:15.080 --> 0:21:19.720 the one on the east side College Station Road. I think, yeah, 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:22.080 very interesting job. That's the one where I got a job. 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:24.360 I needed a job. I got a job at McDonald's 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:27.639 and I showed up. I took the one hour training 0:21:27.720 --> 0:21:30.359 video and they got my uniform number. I went home 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:31.800 and I was supposed to show up the next day 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:33.919 and I was just like, I can't do it. I 0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:36.520 can't go work at McDonald's. And I got the Golden 0:21:36.560 --> 0:21:39.920 Pantry job later that day, which, hey man, sure, it's 0:21:39.960 --> 0:21:43.000 like sign me up from Golden Arches to Golden Pantry. 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:45.760 That's like a rags richest story. I was selling beer 0:21:45.840 --> 0:21:49.200 and cigarettes. Nice. It was pretty great. You're like one 0:21:49.240 --> 0:21:54.600 for you, one for me. Oh I would never do that. Um, 0:21:54.640 --> 0:21:56.239 all right, where was I? Oh? Yeah, I was at 0:21:56.240 --> 0:21:59.000 Golden Pantry. So the cameras trained on the register, they're 0:21:59.040 --> 0:22:01.159 not they're not. You know, you could come and go 0:22:01.200 --> 0:22:05.760 in a store and no one even knows it was 0:22:05.800 --> 0:22:08.639 cops have nothing to go on. Most importantly, no motive. 0:22:09.280 --> 0:22:11.640 That was a big one because remember this is just 0:22:11.680 --> 0:22:15.359 a jekylin Hyde type who you'd never suspect, who's probably 0:22:15.480 --> 0:22:18.040 at the bottom of the Chicago River, right, who also 0:22:18.280 --> 0:22:22.800 is engaged in some senseless random killings of people, anonymous 0:22:22.840 --> 0:22:27.920 poisoning killing, not even shooting. It just made zero sense whatsoever. So, 0:22:27.960 --> 0:22:31.000 like we said earlier, the cops figured out within about 0:22:31.000 --> 0:22:33.199 a month, within the first month of the investigation, that 0:22:33.320 --> 0:22:35.400 this was they were not going to have a break 0:22:35.400 --> 0:22:38.240 in this case. But it's not to say that they 0:22:38.240 --> 0:22:41.560 didn't have some suspects. Some people definitely did kind of 0:22:41.600 --> 0:22:45.400 come to come to the four, but not many of them. Yeah, 0:22:45.440 --> 0:22:48.320 but these two are really interesting sub stories in and 0:22:48.359 --> 0:22:53.800 of themselves. The first guy's name was last name Arnold, 0:22:54.600 --> 0:22:57.520 first name Roger, Roger, that's right, I call him Richard. 0:22:57.600 --> 0:23:01.040