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Speaker 1: Okay, you got a nasty headache, so you run to

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Speaker 1: your stash of OTC meds, or you stop by a

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Speaker 1: store to pick up some motor and leave Thailand all whatever.

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Speaker 1: Then you're driven nuts by trying to open the childproof wrapping.

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Speaker 1: But there's a reason they superseale these things. I'm Patty Steele.

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Speaker 1: The tail in All Murders changed everything. That's next on

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Speaker 1: the backstory, The backstory is back. Well. First of all,

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Speaker 1: I want to thank backstory fans Steve Kingston for this

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Speaker 1: episode idea. Seven deaths and almost forty four years and

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Speaker 1: it's still a who done it? Okay? Ever tried to

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Speaker 1: deal with opening a package or a bottle of over

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Speaker 1: the counterpane relief only to break a nail or, god forbid,

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Speaker 1: cut yourself on the quote unquote childproof packaging. Why in

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Speaker 1: the heck do they do that? Well, there's actually a

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Speaker 1: really good reason, and it all started back in the

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Speaker 1: early nineteen eighties. We head to a suburb of Chicago.

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Speaker 1: It's September twenty ninth, nineteen eighty two. That morning, twelve

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Speaker 1: year old Mary Kellerman woke up not feeling too good

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Speaker 1: in Elk Grove Village, Illinois. Her parents gave her a

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Speaker 1: capsule of extra strength tiland All, no big deal, millions

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Speaker 1: of Americans used them every day for headaches, fevers, all

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Speaker 1: sorts of pain. But this time, within hours, Little Mary

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Speaker 1: was dead. At first, doctors thought it was some sort

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Speaker 1: of medical condition, maybe a rare infection or an allergic

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Speaker 1: reaction to something. But later that same day, something else happened.

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Speaker 1: In nearby Arlington Heights, a man named Adam Janis took

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Speaker 1: tailand All for a minor cold. Short time later, he

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Speaker 1: collapsed and died at his house. Later that day, family

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Speaker 1: members got together to mourn him, and two relatives, Stanley

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Speaker 1: and Teresa Jannis, took some tyland All from the same bottle.

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Speaker 1: Within hours, both of them were dead too, three sudden

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Speaker 1: deaths in one family. Investigators knew something was very very wrong.

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Speaker 1: This wasn't some experimental drug, not something rare. It was

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Speaker 1: just thailand All, one of the most common OTC meds

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Speaker 1: in America. And pretty quick they'd learned the most shocking part.

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Speaker 1: The poison hadn't come from the tilin All factory. Somebody

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Speaker 1: had clearly placed it in there on purpose. Now medical

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Speaker 1: examiners had to quickly run toxicology tests. They were horrified

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Speaker 1: the dead victims had swallowed pills containing potassium cyanide, a

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Speaker 1: fast acting poison that shuts down the body's ability to

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Speaker 1: use oxygen. Even a tiny dose can kill within minutes.

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Speaker 1: They started testing the tailanol capsules from the victims' homes.

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Speaker 1: Inside the capsules cyanide, but it didn't appear to come

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Speaker 1: from the manufacturing process. Instead, it looked like somebody had

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Speaker 1: opened the capsules, filled them with poison, and sealed them again.

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Speaker 1: That meant the killer had tempered with the bottles after

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Speaker 1: they were already on store shelves. You can imagine the panic. Suddenly,

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Speaker 1: millions of people across the country were asking the same

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Speaker 1: terrifying question, is the medicine in my own home safe?

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Speaker 1: The fear became nationwide. Cops in the Chicago area warned

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Speaker 1: people to stop taking tylanol immediately. Stores pull bottles from shelves.

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Speaker 1: Of course, hospitals and poison control centers are flooded with

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Speaker 1: calls parents throw away medicine from their cabinets. The manufacturer,

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Speaker 1: Johnson and Johnson, faces a nightmare scenario. Tilan All accounts

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Speaker 1: for a massive portion of their business, and the product

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Speaker 1: had always been considered one of the safest medications available,

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Speaker 1: but now it was associated with death. So instead of

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Speaker 1: waiting for the situation to escalate, the company makes a

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Speaker 1: dramatic decision. They recall every bottle of thailanol in the

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Speaker 1: entire country. More than thirty million bottles are pulled from

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Speaker 1: store shelves across the United States at the same time.

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Speaker 1: The recall cost the company over one hundred million dollars,

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Speaker 1: which was a huge amount in nineteen eighty two, but

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Speaker 1: the move helps prevent additional deaths later. It's widely praised

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Speaker 1: as one of the most responsible crisis responses in corporate history.

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Speaker 1: But how thorough was it? Investigators from all sorts of

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Speaker 1: agencies start searching for the perp. It's a difficult case

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Speaker 1: to solve because the poisoning likely happened after the product

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Speaker 1: reached stores. The killer could have bought bottles, tampered with

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Speaker 1: them at home, and then quietly returned them to store shelves.

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Speaker 1: Who that gives you a chill, right? But years later,

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Speaker 1: the daughter of one victim says her mother had just

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Speaker 1: given birth to her and was given thilanol by the hospital,

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Speaker 1: which ultimately killed her. Where did that batch come from?

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Speaker 1: Had somebody come into the hospital, taken them home, tampered

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Speaker 1: with him, and brought him back. This all meant there

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Speaker 1: was pretty much no clear crime scene. Meantime, cops tested

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Speaker 1: tons of tailand All bottles from across the Chicago region.

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Speaker 1: They found several more contaminated bottles, but incredibly, no witnesses

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Speaker 1: ever reported seeing somebody tamper with them. At one point,

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Speaker 1: a man named James Lewis sends a letter to Johnson

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Speaker 1: and Johnson demanding a million dollars to stop the killing.

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Speaker 1: Of course, he becomes the main suspect, but eventually investigators

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Speaker 1: say he's not our poisoner. He's just trying to profit

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Speaker 1: from everybody's panic. There never was any evidence linking him

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Speaker 1: to the actual murders. So here we are decades later

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Speaker 1: and the case is still unsolved. The identity of the

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Speaker 1: killer who puts cyanide into those tailand All capsules has

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Speaker 1: never been confirmed. Now here's the thing. The violin all

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Speaker 1: murders put a spotlight on something the public never even

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Speaker 1: really had to consider before. In nineteen eighty two, most

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Speaker 1: meds were sold in simple little bottles with caps that

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Speaker 1: popped off or screwed off. They were easy to open.

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Speaker 1: There were no tamper proof seals, rarely even any protective packaging.

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Speaker 1: You could open a bottle in a store aisle, mess

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Speaker 1: with the contents, close the lid, put it back on

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Speaker 1: the shelf, and be on your way. Before the murders,

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Speaker 1: the idea that somebody would actually do something like this

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Speaker 1: seemed pretty unthinkable. Afterwards, folks saw it as a glaring vulnerability.

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Speaker 1: Within a few years, new safety standards transformed the industry. Today,

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Speaker 1: most meds use multiple layers of protection, sealed bottles, plastic

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Speaker 1: neck wraps, foil seals under the cap, tamper evident packaging.

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Speaker 1: And it's all because of the tragedy known as the

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Speaker 1: Chicago Tiland all murders. As far as the case itself,

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Speaker 1: it's been almost forty four years and it still haunts investigators.

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Speaker 1: The poisonings seem to have been random. There was no

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Speaker 1: connection between any of the victims. Was the killer trying

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Speaker 1: to send a message cause chaos, or weirdly, just test

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Speaker 1: whether they could get away with it. Nobody knows, but

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Speaker 1: the crime permanently changed how companies protect consumers and how

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Speaker 1: investigators think about product safety. Before nineteen eighty two, most

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Speaker 1: folks never thought twice about opening a bottle of medicine.

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Speaker 1: After the Thailand all murders, the country learned a chilling lesson.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes the most frightening crimes aren't the ones that happen

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Speaker 1: in dark alleys or hidden places. Sometimes they happen in

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Speaker 1: the most ordinary location of all your medicine cabinet. Hope

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Speaker 1: you like the Backstory with Patty steel Please leave a

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Speaker 1: review and I'd love it if you'd subscribe or follow

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Speaker 1: for free to get new episodes delivered automatically. Also feel

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Speaker 1: free to DM me if, like Steve Kingston, you have

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Speaker 1: a story you'd like me to cover. On Facebook, It's

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Speaker 1: Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele.

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Speaker 1: The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the Elvis

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Speaker 1: Durant Group and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser.

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Speaker 1: Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday

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Speaker 1: and Friday. Feel free to reach out to me with

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Speaker 1: comments and even story suggestions on Instagram at Real Patty

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Speaker 1: Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening

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Speaker 1: to the Backstory with Patty Steele. The pieces of history

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Speaker 1: you didn't know, you needed to know,