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Speaker 1: Now Up is one of my favorite of our true

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Speaker 1: crime episodes on the poisoning deaths of at least seven

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Speaker 1: people in the Chicago area back in nineteen eighty two.

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Speaker 1: What makes this case so unsettling is that there doesn't

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Speaker 1: seem to be any connection whatsoever between the victims and

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Speaker 1: the killer. The murderer just seems to have been a

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Speaker 1: mad poisoner. Like most good true crime mysteries, this one

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Speaker 1: is also unsolved. Enjoy.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of Iheartradios

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Speaker 2: How Stuff Works.

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Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh. There's Chuck.

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Speaker 1: There's Josh. Not me too, Why Chuck? Guest producer Josh

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Speaker 1: is back in the house. Yeah, and there's a little

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Speaker 1: Chuck in.

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Speaker 3: Your pocket, Remember little Elvis.

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Speaker 1: I was just about to say that you got that right, town.

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Speaker 3: Of Oh Man, what a great sketch. Really?

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Speaker 1: That was Nick Cage, wouldn't it.

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Speaker 4: Yeah?

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Speaker 3: Man, did you ever see Mandy?

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Speaker 1: Yes? It was terrible. I don't care what anybody else says.

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Speaker 3: You hate it.

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Speaker 1: Terrible, terrible movie.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Nolan and I talked about it on movie Crush. He's

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Speaker 3: seen it like four times, thinks it's the best thing

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Speaker 3: ever come on. No, he was like people the love

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Speaker 3: it or hate it? And now it's like, actually, I

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Speaker 3: was kind of in the middle.

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Speaker 1: Were you really Yeah?

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Speaker 3: I mean I told him young Chuck, like twenty two

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Speaker 3: year old college Chuck sure would have probably liked it

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Speaker 3: a lot more. Yeah, But today Chuck was kind of like,

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Speaker 3: I get it, Like, sure, sure parts of it were fine.

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Speaker 1: Sure to me. Spending an hour doing character development, uh huh,

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Speaker 1: but not successfully making you care about the characters just

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Speaker 1: really irked me.

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Speaker 3: Wow, you had structural issues.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that was really the big thing. I also thought

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Speaker 1: Linus Roach was very very odd for casting. But is

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Speaker 1: that which one was the main bad guy that called later?

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Speaker 3: That was weird, very weird. I don't even know him, but.

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Speaker 1: He's from law and like some other stuff you gotta

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Speaker 1: get into. Wa see how what you're missing out on?

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Speaker 3: That's becoming a bit.

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Speaker 1: So did we start recording yet?

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Speaker 3: I think so?

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Speaker 1: Oh, I already welcomed everybody the podcast. That's right, So Chuck,

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Speaker 1: we are. This is some true crime stuff we're getting

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Speaker 1: into here, that's right. But I feel like we need

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Speaker 1: to set the tone right because this isn't this didn't

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Speaker 1: happen just yesterday. This happened way back in nineteen eighty

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Speaker 1: two in Chicago, Illinois, And I remember this yea though

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Speaker 1: I was like six at the time.

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Speaker 3: It was one of my favorite years.

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Speaker 1: Because of this, the opposite of that, right, mainly because

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Speaker 1: of movies. What was so great about nineteen eighty two?

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Speaker 3: Look it up? Man? Well, I was kind of hoping

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Speaker 3: to tea Blade Runner?

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Speaker 1: Oh really?

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Speaker 3: Yeah? Okay, yeah, that was the best movies.

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Speaker 1: Do you know I didn't see Blade Runner until I

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Speaker 1: was forty.

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Speaker 3: That's not true, Yes it is? Oh really, yes, the original.

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Speaker 1: The original Blade Runner?

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Speaker 3: H Did you like it good?

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Speaker 1: I like the second one too, you like?

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Speaker 3: But they spent way too much time on characters. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: And I just did a little poking around about nineteen

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Speaker 3: eighty two, and it was It was a good year

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Speaker 3: for an eleven year old, but it was an uneasy

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Speaker 3: time in America. Well for a bunch of awful things

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Speaker 3: happened that year. And I don't know if it was

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Speaker 3: any more or less than other years. But air Flight

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Speaker 3: ninety crashed in into the Potomac River, remember that. No,

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Speaker 3: in Washington, d C. The plane crash in the river.

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Speaker 3: Didn't hit a bridge maybe, but was there was like

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Speaker 3: a daring icy river rescue. Oh really yeah, seventy eight

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Speaker 3: people died. Though. That same day a metro train in

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Speaker 3: d C derailed, killed three people.

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Speaker 1: Geez.

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Speaker 3: February was when Wayne Williams was convicted, and that was

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Speaker 3: just the end of a lot of unease, you know,

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Speaker 3: for years. Yeah, klaud savan but Law was found guilty

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Speaker 3: of attempted murder his wife in March.

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Speaker 1: I didn't make it to the end of reversal of fortune,

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Speaker 1: so I honestly didn't know what happened to Klaus guilty.

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Speaker 3: In June was the murder of Vincent Chen, who was

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Speaker 3: a Chinese American who was beaten to death by two

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Speaker 3: men in Michigan thinking he was a Japanese and they

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Speaker 3: were like stealing his their auto work. Oh my god,

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Speaker 3: I know, right. And then July ninth, pan Am flight

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Speaker 3: seven five nine goes down in Louisiana, kills all one

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Speaker 3: hundred and forty six people on board, plus eight more

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Speaker 3: on the ground. And then in September, early September, this

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Speaker 3: was when I know, man, remember planes used to just crash,

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Speaker 3: yeah a lot.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that never happens.

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Speaker 3: Now, not as much, but yeah, weird that we're recording

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Speaker 3: this in the midst of more plane gratches. And then

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Speaker 3: early September was when that paper boy in Iowa was

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Speaker 3: kidnapped and never seen again. Johnny Ghosh, I don't know

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Speaker 3: that one. That was a big deal too, because it was,

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Speaker 3: you know, the paper boy, and there was this false

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Speaker 3: story about a pedophile ring from politicians and that turned

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Speaker 3: out not to be true, but he was never found again.

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Speaker 1: So basically everything that's going on today is just a

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Speaker 1: rehash of nineteen eighty two. It sounds like I.

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Speaker 3: Just remember being about that age and they're just the

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Speaker 3: nightly news sort of just being a horror show. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: and not politically speaking, you know, like a real bad

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Speaker 3: incidence is occurring.

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Speaker 1: Well yeah, plane crash like just about at any age,

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Speaker 1: like that'll bring you down if you see that on

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Speaker 1: the news, for sure, Yeah, because you know, when you

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Speaker 1: get on a plane, you think, huh, maybe this plane

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Speaker 1: will go down while I'm on it, and that would

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Speaker 1: be terrible.

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Speaker 3: Although I wasn't flying at eleven.

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Speaker 1: So all of those things you just mentioned sweep them

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Speaker 1: totally off the table, okay, because come the end of

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Speaker 1: September of that year, nothing else mattered. But what we're

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Speaker 1: about to talk about now, that's right. Nothing nothing came

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Speaker 1: close to taking the over the national psyche like the

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Speaker 1: deaths of seven people beginning on September twenty, nineteen eighty

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Speaker 1: two in Chicago, Illinois. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: And one of the articles I read about this, I mean,

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Speaker 3: are we trying to keep it a secret? It's a

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Speaker 3: show title, right, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think they're going to have to figure it out.

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Speaker 3: So yeah, go ahead, the tailan all murders.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, you're like, oh no, no, but that's that

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Speaker 1: comes up in part two.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, this is a two parter.

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Speaker 1: Yeah as well, so buckle in everybody.

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Speaker 3: So I was doing some research though when I saw

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Speaker 3: one article that said something about, you know, the first

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Speaker 3: domestic terror incident United States that nobody's ever heard of?

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Speaker 3: Was like, what, who hasn't heard of this?

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Speaker 1: A millennial wrote that headline.

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Speaker 3: Well, I have to say, Josh on the way in here, yeah,

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Speaker 3: I told him Thailand murders and he went, huh.

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Speaker 1: He goes, what's the tailand all? You old coger, we.

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Speaker 3: Should probably say what tailandill is?

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Speaker 1: Huh oh okay, yeah, I guess just in case you

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Speaker 1: are a millennially you've never heard of Thailand All, but

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Speaker 1: tailand All was and still is an over the counter

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Speaker 1: pain reliever. It's like you have aches and pains and

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Speaker 1: apparently what's crazy? People would take tailand All whatever was

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Speaker 1: wrong with them, right, because now you can go get like,

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Speaker 1: you know, aspirin, and you can get advil and a leave.

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Speaker 1: There was no leave back then. That was a nineties drug.

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Speaker 1: There's way more over the counter pain relievers now than

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Speaker 1: the we're back then. Back then, tailand All was basically it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a set of minifin, which is different than aspirin,

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Speaker 3: and I think a lot of people just think those

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Speaker 3: are interchangeable.

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Speaker 1: Right. The reason I believe Thailand All became so big

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Speaker 1: is because aspirin upsets a lot of people's stomachs, right,

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Speaker 1: tailand All does not, or it's not supposed to, And

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Speaker 1: that's why it came out of nowhere and just took

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Speaker 1: over the asper market. I think by nineteen eighty two,

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Speaker 1: tailand All had thirty seven percent of the market. It's

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Speaker 1: pretty good cornered. Yeah, yeah, almost half.

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Speaker 3: Especially since like some of the other like aspirins have

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Speaker 3: been around since you know, nineteenth century, right.

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Speaker 1: So it makes sense then that when a little girl

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Speaker 1: named Mary Anne Kellerman complained that she had a sore

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Speaker 1: throat and wasn't feeling too good at like seven am

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Speaker 1: on Wednesday, September twenty ninth, nineteen eighty two, her parents said,

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Speaker 1: just take an extra strength title and all and go

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Speaker 1: back to bed man her sore throat.

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Speaker 3: You imagine the guilt. Oh no, these parents feel.

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Speaker 1: Well, don't blow it. We haven't said what happens to

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Speaker 1: Mary Anne Kellerman yet.

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Speaker 3: I think everybody knows. Yeah, she got up, said him sick.

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Speaker 3: He said, take this. The father said he heard her

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Speaker 3: go into the bathroom and closed the door, then heard

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Speaker 3: something drop and went to the door, saying, are you okay,

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Speaker 3: You're okay? No answer, opened the door and there she

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Speaker 3: is on the floor. Taking to the hospital. But died

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Speaker 3: very quickly.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, probably was when she went to the hospital. Was

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Speaker 1: pronounced there and they suspected And this is just a

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Speaker 1: little twelve year old girl of middle school girl into

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Speaker 1: Jane Adams Middle School. They think she died of a stroke.

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Speaker 1: That's what they thought happened too. They were just so

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Speaker 1: baffled that they're like it had to have been a stroke.

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Speaker 1: That's the only thing that can come on like this.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so that's seven am. Just the day is just beginning,

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Speaker 3: and one atrocity has already happened.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a very bad day in the history

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Speaker 1: of Chicago. September twenty ninth, nineteen eighty two.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, and it started early. Adam Janis, who will

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Speaker 3: detail his story, but put a pin in this one too,

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Speaker 3: because he figures in even more prominently in a minute.

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Speaker 3: But a little bit later that same morning, this gentleman,

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Speaker 3: Adam Janis, he's twenty seven years old and lived in

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Speaker 3: Arlington Heights, another Chicago suburb, and he died. And they

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Speaker 3: think that this is a heart attack. He complained of

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Speaker 3: chest pains after he had driven his daughter's neighbor home

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Speaker 3: from school, said I'm going to take the day off,

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Speaker 3: comes home, eats a little lunch, takes two extra strength

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Speaker 3: tile and all that he bought from a local drug store.

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Speaker 3: Collapses in front of his wife and by you know,

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Speaker 3: a few minutes later, when the paramedics arrived, he was dead.

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Speaker 1: Right, And again, like you said, they said heart attack

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Speaker 1: because he'd been complaining of chess pains, which had nothing

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Speaker 1: to do with it. Right, But just like Marian Kellerman,

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Speaker 1: took an extra strength tilent all for a sore throat.

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Speaker 1: He took some extra strength tilent off for some chest pains.

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Speaker 1: This is just what people did back then.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's what complicated it a little bit at first,

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Speaker 3: was that you know, if you take the tile and all,

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Speaker 3: it means you felt bad already. So obviously you know

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Speaker 3: they're going to be saying, like, wait a minute, chest

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Speaker 3: pains or sore throat, Like, how does that figure in? Yeah,

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Speaker 3: and it didn't.

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Speaker 1: Plus, also, what made this even more baffling is that

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Speaker 1: Marian Kellerman was twelve and healthy. Adam Janis was twenty

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Speaker 1: seven and healthy. Yeah, and all of a sudden, they

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Speaker 1: just dropped dead. People don't just drop dead, no matter

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Speaker 1: what you see on TV or in the movies or whatever.

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Speaker 1: Dropping dead inexplicably is a really bizarre thing. When you're

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Speaker 1: a healthy person, it doesn't happen.

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Speaker 3: Next, we have Mary Reiner, same day, same day. This

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Speaker 3: is still all on the same day. She's twenty seven

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Speaker 3: years old. She's feeling a little dizzy. She had just

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Speaker 3: come home from the hospital after having given birth to

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Speaker 3: her fourth kid a couple of days before. Super Super Sad.

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Speaker 3: All of these are obviously, but being just a brand

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Speaker 3: new mom for the fourth time, it's just so tragic.

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Speaker 3: And then by three forty five she was so ill

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Speaker 3: she was rushed back to the hospital and again died

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Speaker 3: very very quickly.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and like Adam Janis collapsed in front of his wife,

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Speaker 1: she collapsed in front of her young eight year old daughter.

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Speaker 1: One of her children saw and Yeah, when she was

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Speaker 1: taking the hospital, they pronounced her dead as well. This

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Speaker 1: is mid afternoon. Mary McFarlane was up neck. She was

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Speaker 1: over in the suburb of Lombard and she worked at

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Speaker 1: an Illinois Bell phone center where you remember, like you

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Speaker 1: go get your phone, like the rotary phone, you know,

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Speaker 1: you would actually lease your phone.

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Speaker 3: I wasn't involved in that process, but we had them

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Speaker 3: in our home.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Well your parents knew that.

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Speaker 3: Play figured they just bought that stuff.

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Speaker 1: No, there was like a store where you would go

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Speaker 1: it's like the phone company's retail store, and you would

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Speaker 1: go and be like that pink one that's.

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Speaker 3: Like smartphones today, kind of same model.

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Speaker 1: Kind of yeah, I guess so, but this was with

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Speaker 1: a big, clunky rotary phone and you had to pay

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Speaker 1: extra for the extra long court. Well, Mary McFarlane worked

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Speaker 1: in one of these stores, and at about four o'clock

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Speaker 1: at the Illinois Bell Phone Center, she had a massive

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Speaker 1: headache that just came on out of nowhere, and she

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Speaker 1: went and back and got some extra strength tile and

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Speaker 1: all out of her purse, took a couple of them,

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Speaker 1: and within minutes collapsed in the store.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, she was young at well, she was thirty one

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Speaker 3: years old, mother of two. And then remember I was

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Speaker 3: talking about Adam Janis. A few minutes ago, his family

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Speaker 3: goes to the hospital. Obviously, everyone converges there. He passes away,

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Speaker 3: and so the family makes their way home to begin

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Speaker 3: morning and just sort of trying to reconcile what had

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Speaker 3: just happened. His brother, Stanley, he was only twenty five,

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Speaker 3: and then his wife Teresa, who was only nineteen, are

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Speaker 3: both just overcome and worn out and have headaches. So

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Speaker 3: they're at Adam's house. They got to his medicine cabinet,

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Speaker 3: get out the tile on all that he took completely unknowingly, obviously,

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Speaker 3: and Stanley hits the ground, Foam comes from his mouth,

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Speaker 3: his eyes roll back in his head. Everyone's freaking out,

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Speaker 3: and a few minutes later his wife collapses and they

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Speaker 3: call the ambulance. By the time the ambulances get there,

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Speaker 3: I think Stanley died that day and Teresa somehow managed

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Speaker 3: to live a couple of days.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, she hung on and I don't know if like

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Speaker 1: her dose was lesser or what, but she survived for

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Speaker 1: a couple of days after that.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I mean my guess is that there just wasn't as

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Speaker 3: much cyanide and the capsule she took, right, did I

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Speaker 3: just give something else away?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you did it. But so Stanley took his titlan

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Speaker 1: off first, and then Teresa's occurs, and one of the

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Speaker 1: paramedics noted like Teresa was the one that called the

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Speaker 1: ambulance out to come out for Stanley. And when you

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Speaker 1: get there, they're both like on the ground, like what's

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Speaker 1: going on, And one of the paramedics that everything that

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Speaker 1: was happening to the guy happened to the woman like

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Speaker 1: a couple of minutes later, right like she was just

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Speaker 1: following him through this process of like basically systemic organ failure.

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Speaker 3: And this is the same day that his brother had

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Speaker 3: passed away.

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Speaker 1: Yep, this is about five six hours, six hours after

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Speaker 1: Adam Janis had died.

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Speaker 3: Then finally I know this is all tough to go

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Speaker 3: through everyone. We almost selected this as our next live show.

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Speaker 1: I'm really glad we did.

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Speaker 3: He'll be a good cause.

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Speaker 1: I mean, can you imagine trying to liven this up

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Speaker 1: with some jokes?

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Speaker 3: I thought the whole time I was like, nah, we

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Speaker 3: can do that. But yeah, the more I got into it,

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Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, it's probably not good live material.

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Speaker 1: Right, we should have a rule of thumb that any

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Speaker 1: story that begins with the death of a twelve year

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Speaker 1: old girl probably not live show material.

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Speaker 3: I think you're right. So finally we have Paula Prince,

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Speaker 3: Paula Jean Prince. This is a couple of days later.

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Speaker 3: This is not the same day. This is on Friday evening.

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Speaker 3: She was a thirty five year old flight attendant and

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Speaker 3: she was found dead in her apartment after police responded

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Speaker 3: for a welfare check that her sister called in saying, hey,

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Speaker 3: you know, I know she's a flight attendant and all,

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Speaker 3: but no one knows where she is. Can you go

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Speaker 3: check on her a welfare check up? And they finally

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Speaker 3: found her and she was gone. Yes, very very sad.

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Speaker 1: She was found in her bathroom with a bottle of

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Speaker 1: extra strength tile and all still open. On the counter

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Speaker 1: and she They looked into her receipts and found that

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Speaker 1: she had purchased it on Wednesday, September twenty ninth.

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Speaker 3: That's right. So at the end of this very short

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Speaker 3: span of time in the Chicago area, we have seven

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Speaker 3: people dead, and I feel like that's a good time

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Speaker 3: to take a message break.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, all right.

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Speaker 4: Stop, you know, stop stop stopping here, shouldn't no, no, stop?

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Speaker 1: Okay, Chuck, So you said, Cyan, I how did you

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Speaker 1: know that?

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Speaker 3: Because I was eleven years old and I watched the

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Speaker 3: nightly news, like all eleven year old stead He just

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Speaker 3: called it right, just me and broke off. Dan Rather yeah, Copple, yep.

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Speaker 3: Who else?

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Speaker 1: That was it?

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Speaker 3: Peter Jennings.

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Speaker 1: He came a little later, but sure was he? Yeah? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he came after somebody.

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Speaker 3: Well, I mean, Cronkite wasn't still around, was he? Or

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Speaker 3: was he? I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I don't think so. I was.

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Speaker 3: I was kind of into the news as a kid

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Speaker 3: a little bit.

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Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I mean that was that was where you

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Speaker 1: got your news back then.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you would watch the evening news. It's very strange

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Speaker 3: to think about now, right with the up to the

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Speaker 3: minute news cycle.

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Speaker 1: So, oh yeah, I know how much more innocent things

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Speaker 1: were back then.

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Speaker 4: I know.

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Speaker 1: So remove yourself from the benefit of hindsight or the

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Speaker 1: benefit of Dan Rather's insight, and put yourself in the

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Speaker 1: shoes of the people in Chicago. Right, Yeah, these are five.

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Speaker 1: These are seven different deaths I think, from five different

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Speaker 1: townships in the greater Chicago area, including Chicago. Paula Prince,

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Speaker 1: the last person to die, lived in Chicago. These people

360
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Speaker 1: aren't talking. These people have no idea what's going on.

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Speaker 1: It's just that there were five, seven separate, baffling deaths.

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Speaker 3: You keep saying five. You want to fewer people to be.

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Speaker 1: Dead, Yeah, I do.

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Speaker 3: That's good.

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Speaker 1: My wishes aren't working though. It just so happens that

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Speaker 1: the ambulance, the paramedics that showed up to attend to

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Speaker 1: marry Mary Anne Kellerman, the first girl to die, they

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Speaker 1: were just logging everything because it was such a baffling thing,

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Speaker 1: and they logged her tail in all.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, logged isn't collected.

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Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, took it as evidence to maybe look into

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Speaker 1: who knows sure, But they took the extra strength tile

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Speaker 1: and all that she had taken, not thinking anything of it,

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Speaker 1: but just basically throwing anything at the wall to see

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Speaker 1: what stopped.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm sure the dad was like, you know, she

377
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Speaker 3: went in, took some tilan on, dropped dead, right, So

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00:18:40,800 --> 00:18:43,119
Speaker 3: it probably made sense, even though it's just tilent All

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Speaker 3: to say like, well, hey, let's at least take this in.

380
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Speaker 1: Yes, and that tilent all that right, you know, because

381
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Speaker 1: that bottle of tail and All made its way into

382
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Speaker 1: the hands of a medical examiner whose name was Michael Shaffer,

383
00:18:58,640 --> 00:19:01,720
Speaker 1: and Michael Shaeffer tested the tile in All and was

384
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Speaker 1: rather surprised to find that some of the capsules had

385
00:19:05,119 --> 00:19:08,359
Speaker 1: not tile in all in it, but sixty five milligrams

386
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Speaker 1: of potassium cyanide. Yeah, and it takes about fifty milligrams

387
00:19:12,680 --> 00:19:13,879
Speaker 1: to kill a healthy adult.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean some of them. I don't think they

389
00:19:16,840 --> 00:19:19,720
Speaker 3: were all exactly the same, but some of them had

390
00:19:19,760 --> 00:19:23,840
Speaker 3: been completely emptied of any aced of menifin and completely

391
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Speaker 3: filled with cyanide.

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Speaker 1: With cyanide right.

393
00:19:26,119 --> 00:19:29,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it was someone intent on for sure

394
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Speaker 3: killing people.

395
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Speaker 1: Yes, because cyanide is no joke. No, It's a really

396
00:19:34,480 --> 00:19:40,240
Speaker 1: really small molecule and it normally attaches to metals outside

397
00:19:40,240 --> 00:19:43,120
Speaker 1: of the body, which is why you have or minerals,

398
00:19:43,119 --> 00:19:45,600
Speaker 1: I guess, which is why you have potassium cyanide right

399
00:19:46,359 --> 00:19:49,040
Speaker 1: when it goes into the body when you ingest it. However,

400
00:19:49,080 --> 00:19:51,080
Speaker 1: you ingest it, whether it's from a tile in all

401
00:19:51,160 --> 00:19:54,480
Speaker 1: capsule or breathing cyanide gas like they used to use

402
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Speaker 1: to execute people with.

403
00:19:55,840 --> 00:19:58,959
Speaker 3: Yeah, like they stopped using it for executions because it

404
00:19:59,000 --> 00:19:59,960
Speaker 3: was such a brutal death.

405
00:20:00,040 --> 00:20:03,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a very cruel, painful way to die. In

406
00:20:03,240 --> 00:20:06,520
Speaker 1: the body. It detaches from its its mineral or metal,

407
00:20:06,840 --> 00:20:10,399
Speaker 1: and it attaches to a protein in the body called

408
00:20:11,560 --> 00:20:15,200
Speaker 1: cytochrome c oxidase, which doesn't sound like could be a

409
00:20:15,240 --> 00:20:17,480
Speaker 1: big problem, but it turns out that that's about the

410
00:20:17,520 --> 00:20:21,760
Speaker 1: worst protein that cyanide could attach itself to, because we

411
00:20:21,840 --> 00:20:25,000
Speaker 1: really need cytochrome c oxidase to breathe.

412
00:20:25,440 --> 00:20:28,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, basically it I mean, this sounds like such a

413
00:20:28,520 --> 00:20:33,760
Speaker 3: cruel thing because it's just rapid cell death and it's

414
00:20:33,800 --> 00:20:36,120
Speaker 3: not like your throat closes up and you can't breathe,

415
00:20:36,240 --> 00:20:41,440
Speaker 3: like you're inhaling oxygen and you are technically taking breaths,

416
00:20:42,119 --> 00:20:44,920
Speaker 3: but the oxygen is not getting in the cells.

417
00:20:45,160 --> 00:20:49,040
Speaker 1: No, it's not because c or that cytochrome c oxidase

418
00:20:49,440 --> 00:20:54,600
Speaker 1: is what helps transport the oxygen and allows the oxygen

419
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Speaker 1: to be used for energy. So if the potassium is

420
00:20:58,480 --> 00:21:01,080
Speaker 1: clinging to it, the oxygen can it just stays in

421
00:21:01,119 --> 00:21:03,840
Speaker 1: the blood stream and it doesn't get used by the cells.

422
00:21:03,960 --> 00:21:06,720
Speaker 1: And since your central nervous system is the most oxygen

423
00:21:06,840 --> 00:21:08,639
Speaker 1: hungry system in your entire body, it.

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Speaker 3: Does a lot of work.

425
00:21:09,400 --> 00:21:11,720
Speaker 1: It starts to shut down first, and when your brain

426
00:21:12,000 --> 00:21:15,080
Speaker 1: and your spinal cord starts shutting down, all sorts of

427
00:21:15,119 --> 00:21:19,480
Speaker 1: things happen. Your lungs starts shutting down. Your heart, God

428
00:21:19,560 --> 00:21:22,960
Speaker 1: bless it keeps beating for minutes after the rest of

429
00:21:23,000 --> 00:21:25,960
Speaker 1: your body's shut down can so you're not technically dead.

430
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Speaker 1: They're not sure exactly how long the pain and excruciation

431
00:21:31,520 --> 00:21:35,480
Speaker 1: of dying from cyanide lasts, but they think you're probably conscious,

432
00:21:35,520 --> 00:21:38,639
Speaker 1: in away and freaked out for about a minute at least,

433
00:21:38,680 --> 00:21:41,000
Speaker 1: and your heart may continue beating for three or four

434
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Speaker 1: minutes after that. So it's not a pleasant death at all.

435
00:21:44,680 --> 00:21:48,280
Speaker 3: No, I mean, you're gasping for air, You're breathing in air,

436
00:21:48,320 --> 00:21:53,639
Speaker 3: and nothing's happening. Like I said Stanley Janis, he was

437
00:21:53,720 --> 00:21:55,800
Speaker 3: foaming at the mouth and his eyes rolled back in

438
00:21:55,880 --> 00:21:57,800
Speaker 3: his head in front of his family. It's just like

439
00:21:58,320 --> 00:22:02,320
Speaker 3: it's awful, like writhing on the floor, gasping for air.

440
00:22:02,359 --> 00:22:04,879
Speaker 3: You're breathing, but it's not doing anything. It's just I

441
00:22:04,880 --> 00:22:06,760
Speaker 3: can't imagine anything more horrifying.

442
00:22:06,359 --> 00:22:08,840
Speaker 1: Right, because your central nervous system has kind of fallen

443
00:22:08,880 --> 00:22:12,520
Speaker 1: out of its out of controller rhythm convulsions are usually

444
00:22:12,560 --> 00:22:14,919
Speaker 1: a hallmark of cyanide poisoning.

445
00:22:15,040 --> 00:22:17,199
Speaker 3: And then you turn bright red at the end of it.

446
00:22:17,320 --> 00:22:21,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, your skin a cherry red, they said, because when

447
00:22:21,200 --> 00:22:24,560
Speaker 1: your body has gotten rid of oxygen to your cells,

448
00:22:24,600 --> 00:22:29,399
Speaker 1: and the oxygen becomes depleted, your skin kind of turns

449
00:22:29,400 --> 00:22:33,280
Speaker 1: like a rusty brownish red. But because it can unload

450
00:22:33,359 --> 00:22:36,760
Speaker 1: that oxygen when you're dead, it stays a bright red

451
00:22:36,800 --> 00:22:39,240
Speaker 1: and your skin turns bright red. And then the other

452
00:22:39,359 --> 00:22:42,400
Speaker 1: real telltale sign is your breath will smell a bit

453
00:22:42,520 --> 00:22:43,520
Speaker 1: like almonds.

454
00:22:43,840 --> 00:22:46,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean not a bit. I mean these bottles

455
00:22:46,080 --> 00:22:50,280
Speaker 3: supposedly were really pungent with bitter almond, And unless you

456
00:22:50,400 --> 00:22:55,119
Speaker 3: know what that means, then you're probably not clued in,

457
00:22:55,520 --> 00:22:58,639
Speaker 3: you know, Like I wouldn't have known. I opened a

458
00:22:58,640 --> 00:23:00,480
Speaker 3: bottle of eiland on and it smelled like or almend.

459
00:23:00,480 --> 00:23:02,879
Speaker 3: I'd probably be like, huh right, it's a nice smell.

460
00:23:02,880 --> 00:23:05,400
Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, I like this tilant a. Yeah, I guess

461
00:23:05,440 --> 00:23:07,360
Speaker 1: they have a new almond flavor.

462
00:23:07,640 --> 00:23:08,000
Speaker 3: Awful.

463
00:23:08,320 --> 00:23:12,080
Speaker 1: So, Michael Schaeffer, that medical examiner has just realized that

464
00:23:12,520 --> 00:23:16,120
Speaker 1: this little girl has been poisoned, but he knows nothing

465
00:23:16,160 --> 00:23:19,960
Speaker 1: about these other deaths. Yeah, there's nothing like that. It's

466
00:23:20,040 --> 00:23:25,879
Speaker 1: not entirely clear how everything became connected or who connected it.

467
00:23:26,280 --> 00:23:30,240
Speaker 1: But what I find just particularly astonishing is that within

468
00:23:30,359 --> 00:23:32,800
Speaker 1: just a few hours, by that evening, by the evening

469
00:23:32,880 --> 00:23:36,359
Speaker 1: of September twenty ninth, people were saying, there's something up

470
00:23:36,359 --> 00:23:39,080
Speaker 1: with the tail and all in these mysterious deaths that

471
00:23:39,119 --> 00:23:40,720
Speaker 1: have been going on all around Chicago.

472
00:23:41,040 --> 00:23:41,280
Speaker 4: Yeah.

473
00:23:41,640 --> 00:23:44,600
Speaker 3: I mean, we'll get into the drag net they cast.

474
00:23:44,680 --> 00:23:49,600
Speaker 3: But within a few days they had kind of solved everything.

475
00:23:49,640 --> 00:23:52,520
Speaker 3: But who did it and how it may have happened?

476
00:23:52,560 --> 00:23:53,160
Speaker 1: Who done it?

477
00:23:53,320 --> 00:23:57,840
Speaker 3: Who done it? So yeah, very quickly they figured out

478
00:23:57,840 --> 00:23:59,879
Speaker 3: the tilent on. There are a couple of different stories

479
00:24:00,920 --> 00:24:02,880
Speaker 3: on like you said, on who who was the first

480
00:24:02,920 --> 00:24:06,240
Speaker 3: person to point this out. One story is that a

481
00:24:06,280 --> 00:24:10,240
Speaker 3: reporter for the City News Bureau in Chicago was doing

482
00:24:10,280 --> 00:24:12,520
Speaker 3: the reporter thing and then doing some deep diving and

483
00:24:12,560 --> 00:24:16,720
Speaker 3: investigating and called up a deputy coroner and said, hey,

484
00:24:16,720 --> 00:24:18,600
Speaker 3: I think this is what's happening. They told the police.

485
00:24:19,320 --> 00:24:22,120
Speaker 3: Another story is that two people who didn't know each

486
00:24:22,119 --> 00:24:26,240
Speaker 3: other kind of came together independently to let people know.

487
00:24:26,320 --> 00:24:30,160
Speaker 3: One was a fire captain named Philip Capitelli.

488
00:24:30,480 --> 00:24:32,480
Speaker 1: I knew it. I knew you were going to do that.

489
00:24:32,920 --> 00:24:34,679
Speaker 1: There was like a ninety percent chance.

490
00:24:35,119 --> 00:24:37,199
Speaker 3: You know why, because we got a lot of support

491
00:24:37,240 --> 00:24:39,439
Speaker 3: from people that wrote in saying I'm Italian and I

492
00:24:39,480 --> 00:24:41,880
Speaker 3: love it. Keep doing it right, And only one guy

493
00:24:41,880 --> 00:24:42,479
Speaker 3: who hated it.

494
00:24:43,200 --> 00:24:47,119
Speaker 1: But ironically it was fire captain Philip Capitelli written in

495
00:24:47,119 --> 00:24:47,680
Speaker 1: and said no.

496
00:24:48,040 --> 00:24:53,560
Speaker 3: So he uh here was his deal. His His mother

497
00:24:53,640 --> 00:24:58,560
Speaker 3: in law was friends with Mary Kellerman, the victim's mother. Yeah,

498
00:24:58,600 --> 00:25:00,360
Speaker 3: the first of the little girl, and she said, hey,

499
00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:02,960
Speaker 3: would you mind looking into this because I'm friends with

500
00:25:02,960 --> 00:25:04,160
Speaker 3: this little girl's mom.

501
00:25:04,240 --> 00:25:06,760
Speaker 1: And it's weird that she dropped it at twelve and.

502
00:25:06,720 --> 00:25:08,920
Speaker 3: He's a fire captain and they're all connected to, you know,

503
00:25:09,160 --> 00:25:11,920
Speaker 3: the police, into the medical community.

504
00:25:12,080 --> 00:25:14,959
Speaker 1: Everybody knows you want something done, ask a fire captain.

505
00:25:15,040 --> 00:25:18,439
Speaker 1: I would sure, because they'll bust into the room with

506
00:25:18,480 --> 00:25:20,560
Speaker 1: an axe. Get everybody's attention.

507
00:25:23,119 --> 00:25:26,000
Speaker 3: So he's he's investigating. And then there's this, Uh, there's

508
00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:30,520
Speaker 3: a nurse named Helen Jensen and she I don't do

509
00:25:30,560 --> 00:25:32,720
Speaker 3: you know why she was so into this case?

510
00:25:33,320 --> 00:25:35,399
Speaker 1: Was she just a no no? No? She was the

511
00:25:36,640 --> 00:25:39,880
Speaker 1: public health nurse for Cook County I.

512
00:25:39,800 --> 00:25:43,240
Speaker 3: Believe, Okay, so she had an official designation to investigate.

513
00:25:43,359 --> 00:25:46,080
Speaker 1: Yes, but unfortunately no one would listen to her because

514
00:25:46,119 --> 00:25:48,640
Speaker 1: this is nineteen eighty two, and she was a nurse, right,

515
00:25:48,920 --> 00:25:51,320
Speaker 1: even though she was like a public health director, she

516
00:25:51,440 --> 00:25:53,240
Speaker 1: was still a nurse, and people wouldn't listen to her.

517
00:25:53,240 --> 00:25:56,240
Speaker 1: And she recalled in an oral history I read about this, yeah,

518
00:25:56,280 --> 00:26:00,359
Speaker 1: that she was stomping her feet out of frustration, saying like,

519
00:26:00,400 --> 00:26:02,919
Speaker 1: there's something wrong with the tail and all, like the

520
00:26:03,040 --> 00:26:04,879
Speaker 1: tail and all is behind all us, and people wouldn't

521
00:26:04,920 --> 00:26:05,320
Speaker 1: listen to her.

522
00:26:05,400 --> 00:26:06,040
Speaker 3: It's amazing.

523
00:26:06,080 --> 00:26:10,720
Speaker 1: Supposedly she and Philip got it, Teddy got together and

524
00:26:11,680 --> 00:26:16,160
Speaker 1: joined forces, and I guess we're able to convince everybody

525
00:26:16,200 --> 00:26:18,520
Speaker 1: that no, there's something wrong with the with the tail

526
00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:21,359
Speaker 1: in all. And by this time people started talking. Sure,

527
00:26:21,640 --> 00:26:24,800
Speaker 1: and you know the idea that Michael Schaeffer had identified

528
00:26:24,840 --> 00:26:26,480
Speaker 1: Tylan All. I don't know if it was the same

529
00:26:26,560 --> 00:26:29,040
Speaker 1: day or the day after something like that. But all

530
00:26:29,119 --> 00:26:34,119
Speaker 1: this is within a span of thirty six forty eight hours, toss.

531
00:26:34,200 --> 00:26:36,119
Speaker 1: It was really fast that all of this is going on,

532
00:26:36,240 --> 00:26:38,720
Speaker 1: that the dots are being connected, right.

533
00:26:39,080 --> 00:26:44,280
Speaker 3: So then what follows is Cook County's Deputy Chief Medical Examiner,

534
00:26:44,320 --> 00:26:49,119
Speaker 3: doctor Edmund Donahue, holds a presser. I've either watched this

535
00:26:49,160 --> 00:26:50,959
Speaker 3: one or one of the other ones. Like I remember

536
00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:53,760
Speaker 3: specifically seeing this press conference on the news.

537
00:26:54,040 --> 00:26:56,320
Speaker 1: Probably saw Jane Burns.

538
00:26:56,600 --> 00:26:59,280
Speaker 3: That would have been the nationwide one, I guess.

539
00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:01,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I was like, how would that have been nationwide?

540
00:27:01,359 --> 00:27:04,160
Speaker 1: And then I looked it up. WGN was a superstation

541
00:27:04,320 --> 00:27:07,000
Speaker 1: starting in nineteen eighty. Oh you know it, man, So

542
00:27:07,880 --> 00:27:11,760
Speaker 1: everybody saw it because WGN could broadcast nation Why by

543
00:27:11,840 --> 00:27:12,840
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two.

544
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:15,879
Speaker 3: I watched Cubs Games kid just because it was on.

545
00:27:16,080 --> 00:27:18,720
Speaker 1: Yep, that was it, like that embraced games where all

546
00:27:18,720 --> 00:27:19,040
Speaker 1: you can.

547
00:27:19,040 --> 00:27:23,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, man. So doctor Donahue has a presser, a local presser.

548
00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:28,120
Speaker 3: Of course there is panic initially.

549
00:27:28,320 --> 00:27:33,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, he scares the s out of everybody because he

550
00:27:33,080 --> 00:27:35,400
Speaker 1: comes out of nowhere and says stop taking the tile

551
00:27:35,440 --> 00:27:35,879
Speaker 1: and all.

552
00:27:35,840 --> 00:27:39,040
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, sure, and so anyone. I mean, imagine how

553
00:27:39,040 --> 00:27:42,000
Speaker 3: many people in Chicago had taken tiland all within two

554
00:27:42,040 --> 00:27:44,679
Speaker 3: hours of that press conference, right, and are thinking like

555
00:27:45,200 --> 00:27:46,360
Speaker 3: should I go to the hospital?

556
00:27:46,440 --> 00:27:46,600
Speaker 4: Right?

557
00:27:46,680 --> 00:27:51,280
Speaker 1: And as a matter of fact, the poison control lines

558
00:27:51,320 --> 00:27:54,440
Speaker 1: for basically every in every city where somebody saw this

559
00:27:54,880 --> 00:27:57,000
Speaker 1: started to light up right after that, and people were

560
00:27:57,040 --> 00:27:58,639
Speaker 1: like I just took tile and all, am I okay?

561
00:27:58,840 --> 00:27:59,520
Speaker 3: Or gave my kid?

562
00:27:59,720 --> 00:28:00,000
Speaker 4: Yeah?

563
00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:00,800
Speaker 3: Can you imagine?

564
00:28:00,840 --> 00:28:03,840
Speaker 1: And what came to be the pat response was if

565
00:28:03,880 --> 00:28:08,840
Speaker 1: you are still standing and talking to us, you're probably okay.

566
00:28:08,160 --> 00:28:10,520
Speaker 3: Which is sort of a double edged sword. It's like,

567
00:28:10,760 --> 00:28:14,359
Speaker 3: don't worry, you die super fast, right kind of, So

568
00:28:14,600 --> 00:28:15,160
Speaker 3: just relax.

569
00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:16,919
Speaker 1: So just hold the line for five minutes and then

570
00:28:16,960 --> 00:28:18,440
Speaker 1: I'm going to come back and check on you. And

571
00:28:18,480 --> 00:28:19,720
Speaker 1: if you're still talking, you're fine.

572
00:28:19,800 --> 00:28:23,879
Speaker 3: Oh man, all right. So then the Chicago Mayor's office

573
00:28:23,880 --> 00:28:27,920
Speaker 3: gets involved, Like you said, Mayor Jane Byrne, she gets says,

574
00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:29,800
Speaker 3: you know, print a bunch of flyers, print them in

575
00:28:29,840 --> 00:28:31,359
Speaker 3: a bunch of languages.

576
00:28:31,119 --> 00:28:33,880
Speaker 1: Maybe on golden Rod and cornflower blue.

577
00:28:34,000 --> 00:28:37,840
Speaker 3: Sure, why not really catch people's attention that she had

578
00:28:37,880 --> 00:28:43,560
Speaker 3: police drive through with loud speakers on their car, literally

579
00:28:43,640 --> 00:28:46,360
Speaker 3: saying yeah, like don't take tyl and all.

580
00:28:46,480 --> 00:28:49,920
Speaker 1: Re enacting that scene from The Blues Brothers where I.

581
00:28:49,880 --> 00:28:52,200
Speaker 3: Was thinking Slacker and that's funny. Two different movies.

582
00:28:52,560 --> 00:28:54,440
Speaker 1: But do you remember they're driving through in the police

583
00:28:54,440 --> 00:28:57,520
Speaker 1: car with the loud speaker talking about their show.

584
00:28:57,640 --> 00:28:58,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, same and Slacker.

585
00:28:58,920 --> 00:29:00,840
Speaker 1: I don't remember. I don't. I guess I didn't make

586
00:29:00,880 --> 00:29:02,080
Speaker 1: it the end of slack Er either.

587
00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:04,240
Speaker 3: It was in the middle.

588
00:29:04,120 --> 00:29:07,240
Speaker 1: Ish, it was no days inconfused, huh oh.

589
00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:11,040
Speaker 3: Just different movies. Okay, so they're they're posting flyers, cops

590
00:29:11,040 --> 00:29:14,560
Speaker 3: are driving around blaring it through neighborhoods, and then she

591
00:29:14,800 --> 00:29:18,960
Speaker 3: has a press conference. She has all Thailand All removed

592
00:29:19,480 --> 00:29:21,400
Speaker 3: from the Chicago area.

593
00:29:21,640 --> 00:29:22,719
Speaker 1: She calls for it.

594
00:29:22,920 --> 00:29:26,640
Speaker 3: Well, sure she didn't go around with her.

595
00:29:25,840 --> 00:29:29,600
Speaker 1: Basket, right, No, I'm not one hundred percent clear if

596
00:29:29,640 --> 00:29:32,680
Speaker 1: she was actually able to demand that the tail and

597
00:29:32,760 --> 00:29:35,560
Speaker 1: all be removed. I think she was more warning.

598
00:29:35,960 --> 00:29:37,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I doubt if there was any law

599
00:29:37,880 --> 00:29:38,600
Speaker 3: she could invoke.

600
00:29:38,920 --> 00:29:41,720
Speaker 1: I wonder though, seems like you would afterward.

601
00:29:42,000 --> 00:29:44,560
Speaker 3: I would imagine, yeah, that's you know, we'll talk about

602
00:29:44,600 --> 00:29:48,520
Speaker 3: that later. Okay, So the TV and the radio, you know,

603
00:29:48,520 --> 00:29:51,200
Speaker 3: obviously everyone picks us up, not just in Chicago or

604
00:29:51,240 --> 00:29:54,880
Speaker 3: the United States. It goes worldwide and so you know

605
00:29:54,960 --> 00:29:57,920
Speaker 3: there's people in Europe and Asia pulling Thailand all off

606
00:29:57,920 --> 00:29:58,400
Speaker 3: the shelves.

607
00:29:58,480 --> 00:30:01,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is a big deal and there was

608
00:30:01,600 --> 00:30:06,240
Speaker 1: a lot of attention lavished on this. There was a

609
00:30:06,280 --> 00:30:10,440
Speaker 1: poll that was taken the next month in October that

610
00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:13,360
Speaker 1: found that nine this was in cities all over the country,

611
00:30:13,760 --> 00:30:16,440
Speaker 1: that found that ninety percent of respondents were aware of

612
00:30:16,480 --> 00:30:18,160
Speaker 1: this tile and all poisoning story.

613
00:30:18,320 --> 00:30:18,840
Speaker 3: Yeah.

614
00:30:19,000 --> 00:30:23,560
Speaker 1: Some press agency like a news clipping service said that

615
00:30:23,880 --> 00:30:28,320
Speaker 1: it's the number of the number of stories dedicated to

616
00:30:28,360 --> 00:30:31,440
Speaker 1: it were second only to the number of stories dedicated

617
00:30:31,480 --> 00:30:35,080
Speaker 1: to the assassination of JFK. That's how big this story

618
00:30:35,120 --> 00:30:38,600
Speaker 1: became overnight. And again one of the reasons why is

619
00:30:38,640 --> 00:30:43,280
Speaker 1: because everybody took tail and all for everything all the time.

620
00:30:43,720 --> 00:30:46,480
Speaker 1: That's just what you did. It was just something everyone

621
00:30:46,560 --> 00:30:50,719
Speaker 1: took and that same product was now killing people.

622
00:30:51,320 --> 00:30:54,440
Speaker 3: So the most chilling part of all this to me,

623
00:30:55,040 --> 00:31:00,360
Speaker 3: and this is all chilling, maybe the copycat stuff, because

624
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:05,640
Speaker 3: almost immediately copycat incidences started popping up all over the country.

625
00:31:06,600 --> 00:31:09,680
Speaker 3: There were two hundred and seventy reports of product tampering

626
00:31:09,760 --> 00:31:14,240
Speaker 3: in the month after thirty six were quote hardcore true tamperings.

627
00:31:15,200 --> 00:31:18,080
Speaker 3: And that's what's the most chilling to me, is like,

628
00:31:18,680 --> 00:31:21,920
Speaker 3: there were that many people, at least thirty six, let's

629
00:31:21,960 --> 00:31:24,360
Speaker 3: go in the low end, thirty six people across the

630
00:31:24,360 --> 00:31:27,800
Speaker 3: country that wanted to kill people and just saw an idea.

631
00:31:27,800 --> 00:31:29,880
Speaker 3: And I'm like, oh, that's what I'll do now.

632
00:31:30,320 --> 00:31:32,040
Speaker 1: I should have thought of that myself.

633
00:31:32,160 --> 00:31:33,360
Speaker 3: I mean, that's scary, man.

634
00:31:33,920 --> 00:31:39,120
Speaker 1: Yeah. What's what's scary but also infuriating is that there's

635
00:31:39,200 --> 00:31:41,680
Speaker 1: such terrible self starters that they had to be a

636
00:31:41,760 --> 00:31:44,800
Speaker 1: copycat murderer in that, right, you know what I'm saying. Sure,

637
00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:47,320
Speaker 1: Like it's bad enough that they're trying to kill somebody, Yeah,

638
00:31:47,640 --> 00:31:51,640
Speaker 1: randomly kill somebody, anonymously kill somebody. They didn't even think

639
00:31:51,680 --> 00:31:54,440
Speaker 1: of it themselves. I know that is a pathetic murderer

640
00:31:54,520 --> 00:31:54,800
Speaker 1: right there.

641
00:31:54,800 --> 00:31:55,640
Speaker 3: It's pretty pathetic.

642
00:31:55,720 --> 00:31:56,600
Speaker 1: Put my foot down.

643
00:31:57,280 --> 00:32:03,240
Speaker 3: Etceterrin extra strength etcrin capsule were found poison with mercuric

644
00:32:03,320 --> 00:32:07,480
Speaker 3: chloride and that almost killed a man in Colorado. His

645
00:32:07,600 --> 00:32:11,640
Speaker 3: name was William Sinkovic and he he had liver and

646
00:32:11,720 --> 00:32:13,360
Speaker 3: kidney failure, but he did survive.

647
00:32:14,880 --> 00:32:20,000
Speaker 1: This one gets me so more than one person thought Oh, well,

648
00:32:20,040 --> 00:32:22,520
Speaker 1: you know people spray and like drop things in their

649
00:32:22,560 --> 00:32:25,680
Speaker 1: eyes and nose, I'll put acid in there. So tampered

650
00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:29,360
Speaker 1: CinEx and tampered vizine both turned up after they had

651
00:32:29,400 --> 00:32:32,000
Speaker 1: burned people with acid. Chemical burn up your nose.

652
00:32:32,480 --> 00:32:33,160
Speaker 3: Unbelievable.

653
00:32:33,240 --> 00:32:34,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a bad one.

654
00:32:34,680 --> 00:32:37,120
Speaker 3: So food was also on the list of things being

655
00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:42,480
Speaker 3: tampered with, orange juice, chocolate milk. Very high profile incident

656
00:32:42,560 --> 00:32:46,000
Speaker 3: with ballpark hot dogs. Yeah, they pulled a million pounds

657
00:32:46,040 --> 00:32:47,760
Speaker 3: of wieners off the shelves.

658
00:32:47,560 --> 00:32:50,440
Speaker 1: And ran them through a metal detector.

659
00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:52,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, because this was a scare all. You know, the

660
00:32:52,760 --> 00:32:57,600
Speaker 3: old urban legend of razor blades and Halloween candy. Don't

661
00:32:57,720 --> 00:33:00,600
Speaker 3: Did they actually find pins and needles and things for sure?

662
00:33:00,760 --> 00:33:01,080
Speaker 1: Yes?

663
00:33:01,440 --> 00:33:04,160
Speaker 3: Okay, because I thought that had literally never happened.

664
00:33:04,200 --> 00:33:07,080
Speaker 1: It hadn't. It was an urban legend that became true.

665
00:33:07,240 --> 00:33:09,720
Speaker 3: Okay, But nothing in the wieners.

666
00:33:10,440 --> 00:33:13,160
Speaker 1: No, some boys I think in Detroit claimed to have

667
00:33:13,240 --> 00:33:16,120
Speaker 1: found razor blades in their ballpark wieners, and like you said,

668
00:33:16,160 --> 00:33:19,040
Speaker 1: a million pounds were recalled and then the boys were like,

669
00:33:19,400 --> 00:33:20,360
Speaker 1: we were just kidding.

670
00:33:20,560 --> 00:33:20,840
Speaker 4: Wow.

671
00:33:21,480 --> 00:33:25,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, and ballpark. We'll talk about how ballpark was treated

672
00:33:25,960 --> 00:33:28,640
Speaker 1: after that, but they were put on shoulders and carried

673
00:33:28,680 --> 00:33:30,800
Speaker 1: around for how great they handled everything.

674
00:33:32,040 --> 00:33:33,640
Speaker 3: And you know, there were a lot of hoaxes. There

675
00:33:33,640 --> 00:33:37,640
Speaker 3: were a lot of tips called in about other tampering

676
00:33:38,440 --> 00:33:41,360
Speaker 3: and it had to really like it. If the purpose

677
00:33:41,440 --> 00:33:45,200
Speaker 3: of this was to induce panic and fear and terror,

678
00:33:45,240 --> 00:33:46,600
Speaker 3: then it absolutely worked.

679
00:33:46,640 --> 00:33:47,280
Speaker 1: Absolutely.

680
00:33:47,880 --> 00:33:48,880
Speaker 3: Should we take another break?

681
00:33:49,000 --> 00:33:51,000
Speaker 1: I think so, Man, we're gonna come back and talk

682
00:33:51,000 --> 00:33:52,160
Speaker 1: about the investigation.

683
00:33:54,760 --> 00:34:07,480
Speaker 4: Stop, you know, stop stop stop, No, no.

684
00:34:16,160 --> 00:34:21,000
Speaker 1: Okay, Chuck. I also want to point this out Time magazine.

685
00:34:21,440 --> 00:34:24,600
Speaker 1: You know how I'm like super into like going back

686
00:34:24,640 --> 00:34:28,160
Speaker 1: and reading contemporary news articles about an event. Yeah, this one,

687
00:34:28,320 --> 00:34:31,440
Speaker 1: I mean, it's all over the place. But Time wrote

688
00:34:31,440 --> 00:34:34,880
Speaker 1: about the copycat incidents back in nineteen eighty two, and

689
00:34:34,960 --> 00:34:39,640
Speaker 1: they said that the copycats were trying to quote emulate

690
00:34:39,680 --> 00:34:45,080
Speaker 1: their demonic hero, the still unknown poisoner, their demonic hero.

691
00:34:45,680 --> 00:34:48,520
Speaker 1: That's what the journalists from Time decided to go with.

692
00:34:49,160 --> 00:34:50,880
Speaker 3: That's funny, I guess. I mean, that seems like a

693
00:34:51,000 --> 00:34:54,000
Speaker 3: very twenty nineteen thing to write, That's what I'm saying.

694
00:34:54,200 --> 00:34:56,480
Speaker 1: I feel like we're reverting back to nineteen eighty two

695
00:34:56,560 --> 00:35:00,520
Speaker 1: right now. I guess. So after that intro of yours.

696
00:35:00,520 --> 00:35:05,399
Speaker 1: I'm now convinced. So everybody's freaked out. There are whole

697
00:35:05,440 --> 00:35:09,360
Speaker 1: towns that canceled Halloween because remember this happened like a

698
00:35:09,400 --> 00:35:14,480
Speaker 1: month before Halloween, and everyone was very scared about candy

699
00:35:14,520 --> 00:35:17,280
Speaker 1: tampering because of the urban legend. Sure in some places

700
00:35:17,280 --> 00:35:19,640
Speaker 1: it turned out to be true, a self fulfilling prophecy.

701
00:35:19,960 --> 00:35:22,040
Speaker 1: There were all these hoaxes, there are all these actual

702
00:35:22,160 --> 00:35:26,040
Speaker 1: true product tampering copycats. People were freaked out and the

703
00:35:26,080 --> 00:35:30,680
Speaker 1: cops needed to do something. And initially, these seven different

704
00:35:30,680 --> 00:35:35,080
Speaker 1: deaths in five different towns in the Chicago area were

705
00:35:35,160 --> 00:35:40,840
Speaker 1: being treated as five different investigations. Yeah, that didn't last

706
00:35:40,960 --> 00:35:43,680
Speaker 1: very long. Within two days, by Friday, by the time

707
00:35:43,760 --> 00:35:49,520
Speaker 1: Mayor Byrne holds her press conference on WGN, what came

708
00:35:49,560 --> 00:35:52,160
Speaker 1: to be called the Tailan All Task Force was formed.

709
00:35:52,680 --> 00:35:55,520
Speaker 1: All five of those investigations got folded into not just

710
00:35:55,640 --> 00:35:59,920
Speaker 1: local investigations, the FBI, the Illinois State.

711
00:35:59,680 --> 00:36:02,800
Speaker 3: Police, FDA of course, Yeah.

712
00:36:02,600 --> 00:36:05,600
Speaker 1: The FDA was involved, and then the whole thing was

713
00:36:05,680 --> 00:36:09,399
Speaker 1: led by the Illinois District Attorney's office, who was the

714
00:36:09,520 --> 00:36:11,160
Speaker 1: nominal head of the investigation.

715
00:36:11,760 --> 00:36:15,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, so they figured out pretty quickly that you know,

716
00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:17,680
Speaker 3: like I said earlier. They cast their drag net, they

717
00:36:17,680 --> 00:36:20,760
Speaker 3: come up with about a fifty mile radius of where

718
00:36:20,840 --> 00:36:26,200
Speaker 3: all this stuff was bought and sold, and go investigate

719
00:36:26,400 --> 00:36:28,799
Speaker 3: drug store after drug store, and they did find more

720
00:36:30,160 --> 00:36:32,440
Speaker 3: bad tile and all that are still sitting on the

721
00:36:32,480 --> 00:36:34,240
Speaker 3: shelves thankfully.

722
00:36:34,520 --> 00:36:38,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I don't want to skim past that. They

723
00:36:38,080 --> 00:36:41,440
Speaker 1: found more tailentol waiting to be bought, that's right, like

724
00:36:41,719 --> 00:36:44,600
Speaker 1: just sitting there like, hey, come buy me. Within two

725
00:36:44,680 --> 00:36:48,720
Speaker 1: days of these first deaths, that's right, these first murders,

726
00:36:48,840 --> 00:36:51,560
Speaker 1: we keep calling them death These were murders.

727
00:36:51,239 --> 00:36:55,680
Speaker 3: That's right. And they name their case. There are always

728
00:36:55,760 --> 00:36:59,040
Speaker 3: code names for all these cases. This one ranks pretty

729
00:36:59,080 --> 00:37:04,000
Speaker 3: low in my opinion. Timers T Y m U R

730
00:37:04,200 --> 00:37:06,440
Speaker 3: S short obviously for title mall murders.

731
00:37:06,960 --> 00:37:08,759
Speaker 1: At the very least, the s should have been a

732
00:37:08,840 --> 00:37:13,600
Speaker 1: Z timers Yeah, you know, yeah, just give it a

733
00:37:13,600 --> 00:37:14,280
Speaker 1: little flavor.

734
00:37:14,440 --> 00:37:20,000
Speaker 3: Agreed. So the cops are there was some confusion about

735
00:37:20,000 --> 00:37:21,919
Speaker 3: how this went down because they're trying to figure out,

736
00:37:22,520 --> 00:37:24,680
Speaker 3: you know, did it happen at the factory, did it

737
00:37:24,719 --> 00:37:27,640
Speaker 3: happen after the factory? What's the supply chain?

738
00:37:27,840 --> 00:37:30,239
Speaker 1: Like, well, that's that's huge. It's like the crux of

739
00:37:30,280 --> 00:37:33,120
Speaker 1: the investigation. Oh yeah, absolutely, Where did the tainting occur?

740
00:37:33,320 --> 00:37:36,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, so they found out that all of the containers

741
00:37:37,160 --> 00:37:41,960
Speaker 3: were from lot number MC twenty eight eighty, which was

742
00:37:42,160 --> 00:37:44,840
Speaker 3: pushed out in August. Again, this is the end of

743
00:37:44,880 --> 00:37:49,359
Speaker 3: September yep in states east, all states east of the Mississippi,

744
00:37:49,440 --> 00:37:52,680
Speaker 3: plus the Dakota's, Nebraska, and a bit of Wyoming.

745
00:37:53,000 --> 00:37:57,279
Speaker 1: Just a touch of Wyoming for flavor, like the z for.

746
00:37:57,360 --> 00:37:58,360
Speaker 3: That mesquite flavor.

747
00:37:58,480 --> 00:37:58,680
Speaker 1: Right.

748
00:38:00,520 --> 00:38:02,920
Speaker 3: However, they were from different production plants and they were

749
00:38:02,920 --> 00:38:04,800
Speaker 3: sold in different drug stores.

750
00:38:04,440 --> 00:38:06,560
Speaker 1: Which is weird. It's tough to wrap your head around

751
00:38:06,560 --> 00:38:09,040
Speaker 1: there because it's the same lot, but they came from

752
00:38:09,120 --> 00:38:11,960
Speaker 1: different plants, right. And it turns out Tailanol has also

753
00:38:12,040 --> 00:38:16,200
Speaker 1: a really weird convoluted distribution network.

754
00:38:16,320 --> 00:38:17,800
Speaker 3: I think that's every company.

755
00:38:18,000 --> 00:38:18,280
Speaker 1: Okay.

756
00:38:18,360 --> 00:38:20,400
Speaker 3: I have a friend that works in supply chain management

757
00:38:20,480 --> 00:38:22,239
Speaker 3: and I was like, huh.

758
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:26,000
Speaker 1: So supposedly they'll take boxes and open them up and

759
00:38:26,040 --> 00:38:28,880
Speaker 1: repackage them in smaller boxes and it happens at like

760
00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:31,680
Speaker 1: differ different companies at different points around the country.

761
00:38:31,719 --> 00:38:34,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's pretty complicated. It is from a product from

762
00:38:34,680 --> 00:38:38,560
Speaker 3: factory to your mouth, like what happens to kind of everything. Yeah,

763
00:38:40,440 --> 00:38:42,880
Speaker 3: I would think simplicity would be safer.

764
00:38:43,160 --> 00:38:46,759
Speaker 1: Much, you know, probably not cheaper, though, you're probably right.

765
00:38:47,239 --> 00:38:51,040
Speaker 3: So what they finally figured out was, here's what we

766
00:38:51,120 --> 00:38:56,280
Speaker 3: think happened is this stuff was not tainted at the factory.

767
00:38:56,400 --> 00:38:59,279
Speaker 3: This stuff was not tainted in the supply chain. But

768
00:38:59,360 --> 00:39:03,920
Speaker 3: this stuff was tainted it from the store and then

769
00:39:04,000 --> 00:39:05,360
Speaker 3: returned back to the store.

770
00:39:05,480 --> 00:39:10,479
Speaker 1: Right, because these pills were sold in different stores, which

771
00:39:10,520 --> 00:39:12,799
Speaker 1: is a big one, because it not only could it

772
00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:15,440
Speaker 1: have been like part of the factory, it could have

773
00:39:15,480 --> 00:39:18,200
Speaker 1: been one of the local stores distribution centers where there

774
00:39:18,280 --> 00:39:21,280
Speaker 1: was somebody messing with it. But since they were sold

775
00:39:21,280 --> 00:39:24,640
Speaker 1: in Jewel food stores, in Walgreens and other places too

776
00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:27,880
Speaker 1: around the Chicago area, that didn't make any sense. It

777
00:39:27,920 --> 00:39:30,920
Speaker 1: couldn't have just been like the jewel distribution center. And

778
00:39:31,040 --> 00:39:34,759
Speaker 1: also because they were coming from different production plants, it

779
00:39:34,800 --> 00:39:37,760
Speaker 1: really couldn't have been the production plant or the factory

780
00:39:37,760 --> 00:39:40,160
Speaker 1: where it came from. It had to be, like you said,

781
00:39:40,520 --> 00:39:42,160
Speaker 1: happening at the stores.

782
00:39:42,920 --> 00:39:45,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, And there were a lot of initial theories, you know,

783
00:39:45,360 --> 00:39:49,080
Speaker 3: was it someone who like a former disgruntled employee of

784
00:39:49,120 --> 00:39:53,279
Speaker 3: Johnson and Johnson? Was it someone was it just a

785
00:39:53,480 --> 00:39:56,520
Speaker 3: serial killer who just picked til and all and wanted

786
00:39:56,560 --> 00:39:57,920
Speaker 3: to randomly kill people.

787
00:39:57,840 --> 00:40:00,280
Speaker 1: Right, and this is that's weird. That's a weird idea

788
00:40:00,280 --> 00:40:03,080
Speaker 1: at the time, Like now it just seems normal, Like, yeah,

789
00:40:03,080 --> 00:40:06,280
Speaker 1: probably that's sad, but this but this was two years

790
00:40:06,320 --> 00:40:10,880
Speaker 1: before the Sanuel Sidro McDonald's massacre, which is one of

791
00:40:10,920 --> 00:40:16,080
Speaker 1: the very one of the next random killings of people

792
00:40:16,120 --> 00:40:17,520
Speaker 1: who just happened to be in the wrong place at

793
00:40:17,520 --> 00:40:20,600
Speaker 1: the wrong time. This was kind of the first of that,

794
00:40:21,239 --> 00:40:24,000
Speaker 1: but it was still so new and remote. An alien

795
00:40:24,080 --> 00:40:27,759
Speaker 1: that's that didn't seem like a realistic idea at the time.

796
00:40:28,320 --> 00:40:31,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, some of the other ideas they thought maybe this

797
00:40:31,640 --> 00:40:35,000
Speaker 3: was someone that was targeting a specific person or people

798
00:40:35,719 --> 00:40:39,000
Speaker 3: and then randomly poisoned other people to cover their tracks.

799
00:40:40,080 --> 00:40:43,799
Speaker 3: One of the weird one of the weird theories that

800
00:40:43,840 --> 00:40:48,160
Speaker 3: came out later after an spoiler alert, we now have

801
00:40:48,520 --> 00:40:53,680
Speaker 3: tamper proof medicines. I'm sure everyone's noticed. There was one

802
00:40:53,719 --> 00:40:56,120
Speaker 3: theory that it was someone who had a financial stake

803
00:40:56,200 --> 00:40:58,000
Speaker 3: in tamper proof technology.

804
00:40:59,040 --> 00:41:01,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, I saw something like that too.

805
00:41:01,360 --> 00:41:03,240
Speaker 3: I don't think that was ever a ton of credens

806
00:41:03,280 --> 00:41:05,719
Speaker 3: put into that one. But the point is there were

807
00:41:05,719 --> 00:41:08,120
Speaker 3: a lot. I mean they were flying blind basically because

808
00:41:08,640 --> 00:41:11,719
Speaker 3: it was just such an unexpected, odd, random thing, that

809
00:41:11,800 --> 00:41:13,719
Speaker 3: were basically coming up with kind of any idea they

810
00:41:13,760 --> 00:41:14,239
Speaker 3: could think of.

811
00:41:14,480 --> 00:41:16,480
Speaker 1: But the one that the cops settled on and the

812
00:41:16,480 --> 00:41:19,200
Speaker 1: one that Johnson and Johnson also settled on too, because

813
00:41:19,239 --> 00:41:22,520
Speaker 1: they went back and tested samples from lot MC twenty

814
00:41:22,560 --> 00:41:25,880
Speaker 1: eight eighty and found that there was no no, there

815
00:41:25,920 --> 00:41:28,920
Speaker 1: was no taining of the of the lot that their

816
00:41:28,920 --> 00:41:31,920
Speaker 1: samples were pure. So the cops and Johnson and Johnson

817
00:41:31,960 --> 00:41:35,880
Speaker 1: both decided they settled on what's called the mad poisoner theory.

818
00:41:36,360 --> 00:41:40,120
Speaker 1: That somebody went around this fifty mile radius in the

819
00:41:40,200 --> 00:41:44,440
Speaker 1: Chicago area in about seven hours is what the cops

820
00:41:44,440 --> 00:41:47,839
Speaker 1: calculated it would have taken either bought a bunch of

821
00:41:47,840 --> 00:41:49,640
Speaker 1: tile and all and then took it back to their

822
00:41:49,640 --> 00:41:53,160
Speaker 1: house and poisoned it, repackaged it and then drove around

823
00:41:53,239 --> 00:41:56,759
Speaker 1: and redistributed it, or went from store to store, went in,

824
00:41:57,040 --> 00:41:59,960
Speaker 1: bought some tile and all, took it out to the car, poisoned,

825
00:42:00,280 --> 00:42:04,080
Speaker 1: and then repackaged it and brought it back in. But

826
00:42:04,120 --> 00:42:07,200
Speaker 1: that it was local and it was specific to Chicago.

827
00:42:07,600 --> 00:42:13,040
Speaker 1: That was the mad poisoner theory. And again why. Still,

828
00:42:13,280 --> 00:42:16,440
Speaker 1: no one has any idea why. It could have been random.

829
00:42:16,440 --> 00:42:18,600
Speaker 1: They could have been targeting somebody. It could have been

830
00:42:18,600 --> 00:42:22,440
Speaker 1: a disgrunel Johnson and Johnson employee. But the main theory

831
00:42:22,520 --> 00:42:24,600
Speaker 1: for the tail in all killings of nineteen eighty two

832
00:42:24,680 --> 00:42:27,440
Speaker 1: in Chicago is the mad poisoner theory.

833
00:42:27,600 --> 00:42:29,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, and do you know how they tested that the

834
00:42:29,600 --> 00:42:34,759
Speaker 3: rest of that lot. They got Detective John Pinky McFarland,

835
00:42:35,200 --> 00:42:39,040
Speaker 3: who had the best drug pinky in all of Illinois,

836
00:42:39,600 --> 00:42:42,320
Speaker 3: and he went around and dipped that pinky in, touched

837
00:42:42,320 --> 00:42:44,479
Speaker 3: it to his tongue. Yeah, he said it's good.

838
00:42:44,600 --> 00:42:46,279
Speaker 1: He's like, I can't feel my face right now.

839
00:42:46,280 --> 00:42:47,080
Speaker 3: The guy's a legend.

840
00:42:47,280 --> 00:42:50,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, his pinky is his pinky ring is so significant

841
00:42:50,400 --> 00:42:53,360
Speaker 1: and barely lift his finger. He only lifts it to

842
00:42:53,440 --> 00:42:54,160
Speaker 1: test drugs.

843
00:42:54,400 --> 00:42:55,680
Speaker 3: I told you we'd find some jokes.

844
00:42:55,760 --> 00:42:56,160
Speaker 1: Sure.

845
00:42:56,480 --> 00:42:59,959
Speaker 3: So by mid October, this is sort of the fine

846
00:43:00,360 --> 00:43:04,200
Speaker 3: bit of part one here there was another bottle that

847
00:43:04,480 --> 00:43:06,920
Speaker 3: people that they found another tainted bottle.

848
00:43:07,040 --> 00:43:07,840
Speaker 1: This is so crazy.

849
00:43:07,920 --> 00:43:10,160
Speaker 3: That was purchased on September twenty ninth, So it fit

850
00:43:10,239 --> 00:43:15,280
Speaker 3: the bill, and it was a woman who was feeling

851
00:43:15,320 --> 00:43:17,560
Speaker 3: bad and went to go get that tail in all,

852
00:43:17,960 --> 00:43:20,480
Speaker 3: and her sister was like, no, I've got some buffering

853
00:43:20,600 --> 00:43:22,600
Speaker 3: right here, just go ahead and take that. And the

854
00:43:22,680 --> 00:43:25,800
Speaker 3: lady presumably said, well, I really prefer seat of benefit,

855
00:43:25,840 --> 00:43:27,080
Speaker 3: but I guess I'll take an aspirin.

856
00:43:27,239 --> 00:43:30,000
Speaker 1: See. Yeah, her sister in law saved her by offering

857
00:43:30,000 --> 00:43:32,640
Speaker 1: her buffer instead. You believe that she was steps away

858
00:43:32,640 --> 00:43:35,120
Speaker 1: from dropping dead at a family gathering.

859
00:43:35,239 --> 00:43:35,879
Speaker 3: Unbelievable.

860
00:43:35,960 --> 00:43:38,840
Speaker 1: Yeap, that is a good place to stop hun Yeah.

861
00:43:38,920 --> 00:43:42,080
Speaker 1: So that's part one of the Thailand All Murders or

862
00:43:42,280 --> 00:43:45,160
Speaker 1: Timers with an S, and we're going to come back

863
00:43:45,160 --> 00:43:47,120
Speaker 1: with part two after this. If you want to get

864
00:43:47,120 --> 00:43:49,480
Speaker 1: in touch with us in the meantime, you can go

865
00:43:49,520 --> 00:43:51,480
Speaker 1: on to stuff youshould Know dot com and check out

866
00:43:51,480 --> 00:43:53,879
Speaker 1: our social links, or you can send us a good

867
00:43:53,880 --> 00:43:58,359
Speaker 1: old fashioned email. Nineteen eighty two version to stuff podcast

868
00:43:58,760 --> 00:43:59,760
Speaker 1: at iHeartRadio.

869
00:44:03,760 --> 00:44:06,000
Speaker 2: Stuff you Should Know is a production of Iheartradios How

870
00:44:06,080 --> 00:44:09,759
Speaker 2: Stuff Works. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

871
00:44:09,840 --> 00:44:12,480
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872
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