May 28, 2019 • 45 mins
On one terrible day in Chicago in 1982, seven people died suddenly and mysteriously. In just a matter of hours, it becomes clear, someone has poisoned bottles of Extra-Strength Tylenol, one of the most trusted and widely-used products in America.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, friends, before we get going, we are super excited
to announce our true thousand nineteen live tour. Yes, we're
still alive, and we're gonna come prop ourselves up on
stage in front of you and cities around the country
and Canada. That's right, everyone. Tickets go on sale this
Friday at ten a m. Your local time wherever these
(00:20):
cities are, and we're gonna kick things off in the
great City of Chicago in July at the Harris Theater,
followed the next night at the Danforth Theater in Toronto,
Canada on July. Yea. Then we're gonna take a month
long nap and wake up, and on Thursday, August twenty nine,
we're gonna take ourselves to Boston, Massa our beloved Wilbur Theater.
(00:42):
The next night, we're going to a new city, first
time ever, in Portland, Maine at the State Theater. I'm
so excited about that one. Me too. And then Chuck,
we're gonna take a nap for another full month, wake
up again, dust our selves off, and go to Orlando,
Florida for the first time ever. We're gonna be at
Plaza Live. Yeah, man, first Florida show, and then we
are finishing up that mini leg in New Orleans, yep, Thursday,
(01:06):
October tenth, at the Civic Theater. We're returning, So prepare
the city for partying, everybody. That's right, and we're gonna
wrap it up at least for now at our beloved
Bell House in Brooklyn, New York, for three shows October again, folks.
Tickets for all these shows go on sale this Friday
today am your local time, and just go to all
(01:28):
of these venue websites for ticketing. Yep. Thank you for
coming to see us in advance, everybody. We're excited. Welcome
to Stuff you should know, a production of I Heart
Radios How Stuff Works. Hey you, and welcome to the podcast.
(01:48):
I'm Josh. There's Chuck. There's Josh, not me, Chuck. Guest
producer Josh is back in the house. Yeah, and there's
little Chuck in your pockets, remember a little I was
just about to say that you got that right, Tony.
Oh man, what a great sketch it really was. That
was Nicholas Cage, wasn't it. Yeah? Man, did you ever
(02:09):
see Mandy? Yes? It was terrible. I don't care what
anybody else says. It terrible, terrible, movie. Yeah, Nolan, I
talked about it on movie Crush. He's seen it like
four times, thinks it's the best thing ever. Come on.
He was like, people love it or hate it, and
now it's like, actually, I was kind of in the middle.
Were you really? Yeah? I mean I told him young Chuck,
like twenty two year old college Chuck would have probably
(02:31):
liked it a lot more. But today Chuck was kind
of like, I get it. Like, sure, sure, parts of it,
we're fine. Sure to me. Spending an hour doing character development, huh,
but not successfully making you care about the characters just
really irked me. Wow, you had structural issues. Yeah, that
(02:55):
was really the big thing. I also thought Lenis Roach
was very very odd for casting, but that was the
main bad guy that that was weird, very weird. I
don't even know him, but he's from Law and Order
and like some other stuff, you gotta get into law.
See how much you're missing out on that's becoming a bit.
So did we start recording yet? I think so. I
(03:17):
already welcomed everybody the podcast. Um so, Chuck, we are
this is some true crime stuff. For getting into here,
that's right, But I feel like we need to set
the tone right, because this isn't This didn't happened just yesterday.
This happened way back in two in Chicago, Illinois. And
I remember this and I was like six at the time.
(03:38):
It was one of my favorite years because of this,
the opposite of that, right, mainly because of movies that
was so great about two. Look at up man? Well,
I was kind of hoping, Oh yeah, okay, yeah, that
was Do you know I didn't see Blade Runner until
I was forty. That's not true. Yes, the original, the
(04:04):
original Blade Runner. Did you like it? That was good.
I like the second one too, You're like, but they
spent way too much time on character. Um. Yeah. And
I just did a little poking around about two and
it was it was a good year for an eleven
year old, but it was an uneasy time in America.
Uh well for a bunch of awful things happened that year.
(04:27):
Uh And I don't know if it was any more
or less than other years, but uh, air Flight ninety
crashed into into the Potomac River, remember that in Washington,
d C. The plane crash in the river. Didn't hit
a bridge maybe, but there was there was like a daring,
icy river rescue. Yeah, seventy eight people died. Though that
(04:47):
same day a metro train in d C de Rail
killed three people. Uh. February was when Wayne Williams was convicted,
and that was just the end of a lot of
uneas you know for years. Uh, Klaus Vambu Law was
found guilty of attempted murder of his wife in March.
(05:08):
I didn't make it to the end of reversal of fortune,
so I honestly didn't know what happened to class guilty. Uh.
In June was the murder of Vincent Chen, who was
a Chinese American who was beaten to death by two
men in Michigan thinking he was a Japanese and they
were like stealing his their auto work. I know, right, Uh.
(05:31):
And then July nine, pan Am flight seven nine goes
down in Louisiana, Louisiana kills all one forty six people
on board, plus eight more on the ground. And then
in September, early September was when I know, man, remember
planes used to just crash a lot. Yeah, that never
happens now, Uh, not as much. But yeah, weird that
(05:53):
we're recording this in the midst of more plane gradges
and then early September was when that paper boy and Iowa,
Iowa was kidnapped and never seen again. Johnny ghosh M.
I don't know that one. That was a big deal too,
because it was you know, the paper boy, and there
was this false story about a pedophile ring from politicians
(06:14):
and that turned out not to be true, but he
was never found again. So basically everything that's going on
today is just a rehash of two It sounds like
I just remember being about that age and they're just
the nightly news sort of just being a horror show
and not politically speaking, you know, like real bad incidences occurring.
Well yeah, plane crash, like just about it at any age,
(06:36):
like that'll that'll bring you down if you see that
on the news for sure, Yeah, um, because you know,
when you get on a plane, you think maybe this
plane will go down while I'm on it, and that
would be terrible. Although I wasn't flying at eleven. So
all of those things you just mentioned sweep them totally
off the table, because come the end of September of
(06:58):
that year, nothing else mattered but what we're about to
talk about now, that's right, Nothing nothing came close to
taking the over the national psyche like the deaths of
seven people beginning on September two in Chicago, Illinois. Yeah,
(07:20):
and one of the articles I read about this, I mean,
are we trying to keep it a secret? It's a
show title, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think they're gonna
have to figure it out. So yeah, go ahead, the
thailantal murders. Okay, you're like, oh no, no, but that's
that comes up in part two. Oh yeah, this is
a two parter. Yeah, as well so Buckling and everybody.
(07:40):
Uh So. I was doing some research though, and I
saw one article that said something about, you know, the
first domestic terror incident United States that nobody has ever
heard of? Like what? Who hasn't heard of this? A
millennial wrote that headline. Well, I have to say it.
Josh on the way in here. Yeah, I told him
thailandle murders and huh he goes, what's tail and all?
(08:01):
You old Kadr, we should probably say what Thailand all is?
Huh Okay, yeah, I guess just in case you are
a MILLENNI only you've never heard of Thailand all but
tail and all was and still is and over the
counter pain reliever. It's like you have eggs and pains
and apparently what's crazy people would take thaile and all
whatever was wrong with them because now you can go
(08:24):
get like you know, aspirin and um adville and and
a lead. There was no leave back then. That was
a nineties drug. There's way more over the counter pain
relievers now than they we're back then. Back then, Thailand
All was basically it. Yeah, it's a sea of menafin,
which is different than aspirin, and I think a lot
(08:44):
of people just think those are interchangeable. Right. The reason
I believe thailand All became so big is because aspirin
upsets a lot of people's stomachs tail and all does not,
or it's not supposed to, And that's why it came
out of nowhere and just took over the aspera market.
I think by two Thailand All had thirty seven percent
(09:06):
of the market. It's pretty good cornered. Yeah, yeah, almost half,
especially since like some of the other like aspirants have
been around since you know, nineteenth century, right, So it
makes sense then that when a little girl named Mary
Anne kellerman Uh complained that she had a sore throat
and wasn't feeling too good at like seven am on Wednesday,
(09:29):
September two. Her parents said, just take an extra strength
to tail and all and go back to bed man
first sore throat. Imagine the guilt. Oh no, these parents
feel well, don't blow it. We haven't said what happens
to Marianne Kellerman yet. I think everybody knows. Uh. Yeah,
she got up, said I'm sick. He said, take this.
(09:49):
The father said he heard her go into the bathroom
and close the door, then heard something drop and went
to the door, saying, are you okay, you're okay? Uh
no answer, opened the door and there she is on
the floor. Um. Taken to the hospital, but died very quickly. Yeah,
probably was dead when she went to the hospital, was
pronounced there Um and she they suspected this is just
(10:12):
a little twelve year old girl of middle school. Girl
into Jane Adams Middle School. Um. She they think she
died of a stroke. That's what they thought happened to her.
They were just so baffled that they're like, it had
to have been a stroke. That's the only thing that
can come on like this. Yeah. So that's seven am.
Just the day is just beginning, and one atrocity has
(10:33):
already happened. Yeah, this is a this is a very
bad day in the history of Chicago September. Yeah. Absolutely,
and it started early Adam Janice, who uh will detail
his story, but put a pin in this one too,
because he figures in even more prominently in a minute.
But a little bit later that same morning, Uh, this gentleman,
(10:56):
Adam Janese's twenty seven years old and lived in Arlington,
it's another Chicago suburb, and he died. Uh. And they
think that this is a heart attack. Uh. He complained
of chess pains after he had driven his daughter's neighbor
home from school. Uh said, I'm gonna take the day off,
comes home, eats a little lunch, takes two extra strength
(11:17):
tile and all that he bought from a local drug store.
Collapses in front of his wife, and by you know,
a few minutes later, when the paramedics arrived, he was dead. Right.
And again, like you said, they said heart attack because
he's been complaining of chess pains, which had nothing to
do with it. But just like Marianne Kellerman took an
extra strength tile and all for a sore throat, he
(11:37):
took some extra strength tile and all for some chest pains.
This is just what people did back then. Yeah, and
that's what complicated it a little bit at first. Um
was that you know, if you take the tile and all,
it means you felt bad already. So obviously you know
they're gonna be saying like, wait a minute, chess pains
or some throat like, how does that figure in? Yeah,
and it didn't. Plus, also, what made this even more
(11:57):
baffling is that Marianne Kellerman's twelve even healthy. Adam Janis
was twenty seven and healthy, and all of a sudden
they just dropped up. People don't just drop dead, no
matter what you see on TV or in the movies
or whatever. Dropping dead inexplicably is a really bizarre thing.
When you're a healthy person. That doesn't happen. Uh. Next
we have Mary Reiner, same day, same day. This is
(12:21):
still all on the same day. Um, she's twenty seven
years old. She's feeling a little dizzy. She had just
come home from the hospital. Uh, after having given birth
to her fourth kid a couple of days before. Super
super sad. All of these are, obviously, but being a
just a brand new mom for the fourth time, it's
just so tragic. Uh. And then by three forty five.
(12:45):
She was so ill she was rushed back to the
hospital and again died very very quickly. Yeah, and like
Adam Janis collapsed in front of his wife, she collapsed
in front of her young eight year old daughter. One
of her children sare um and Yeah, when she was
taking the hospit it all, they pronounced her dead as well.
This is mid afternoon. Mary McFarland was up next. She
(13:07):
was over in um the the suburb of Lombard, and
she worked at the Illinois Bell Phone Center where you remember,
like you go get your phone, like the rotary phone,
you know, you would actually lease your phone. I wasn't
involved in that process, but we had them in our home. Okay,
well your parents bought that stuff. No, there was like
(13:30):
a store where you would go It's like the phone
company's retail store, and you would go and be like
that pink one. It's like smartphones today, kind of same model.
Kind of Um, yeah, I guess so, but this was
with a big, clunky rotary phone and you had to
pay extra for the extra long court. Well. Mary McFarland
worked in one of these stores, and at about four
(13:50):
o'clock UM at the Illinois Bell Phone center. She was
She had a massive headache that just came on out
of nowhere, and she went back and got some extra
strength tile and all out of her purse, took a
couple of them, and within minutes collapsed in the store. Yeah,
she was young as well. She was thirty one years old,
mother of two. And then remember I was talking about
(14:12):
Adam Janice a few minutes ago. Um, his family goes
to the hospital. Obviously, everyone converges there, he passes away,
and so the family makes their way home UM to
begin morning and just sort of trying to reconcile what
had just happened. His brother, Stanley, he was only five,
and then his wife Teresa, who was only nineteen, are
(14:34):
both just overcome and worn out and have headaches. So
they're at Adam's house. They got to his medicine cabinet,
get out the tail and all that he took completely
unknowingly obviously, and uh, Stanley hits the ground, Foam comes
from his mouth, his eyes rolled back in his head.
Everyone's freaking out, and a few minutes later his wife
(14:58):
collapses and they called the ambulance. By the time and
the ambulances get there, I think Stanley died that day,
and Teresa somehow managed to live a couple of days. Yeah,
she hung on. And I don't know if like her
dose is lesser or what, but but she she survived
for a couple of days after that. Yeah. I mean
my guess is that, uh, there just wasn't as much
(15:19):
cyanide and the capsule she took. Did I just give
something else away? But the so Stanley took his tail
in all first, and then Teresa's oo curs and one
of the paramedics noted, like Teresa was the one that
called the ambulance out to come out for Stanley. And
when they get there, they're they're both like on the
ground and they're like, what's going on? And one of
(15:40):
the paramedics said, everything that was happening to the guy
happened to the woman like a couple of minutes later,
like she was just following him through this process of
like basically systemic organ failure. And this is the same
day that his brother had passed away. Yep, this is
about five six hours, six hours after Adam Janis had
(16:00):
Then finally, I know this is all tough to go through. Everyone.
We almost selected this as our next live show I'm
really glad we did, because, I mean, can you imagine
trying to liven this up with some jokes? I thought
the whole time I was like, no, we can do that.
But yeah, the more I got into it, I was like, yeah,
it's probably not good live material. We should have a
(16:20):
rule of thumb that any story that begins with the
death of a twelve year old girl probably not live
show material. I think you're right. So finally we have
Paula Prince. Paula Jeene Prince. This is a couple of
days later. This is not the same day. This is
on Friday evening. She was a thirty five year old
flight attendant and she was found dead in her apartment
(16:41):
after police responded for a welfare check that her sister
called in saying, hey, you know, I know she's a
flight attendant and all, but no one knows where she is.
Can you go check on her welfare check up? And
they finally found her and she was gone. Yes, very
very sad. She was found in her bathroom with a
bottle of Strength of Title and all still open on
(17:02):
the counter, and she uh. They looked into um her
receipts and found that she had purchased it on Wednesday September.
That's right. Uh So, at the end of this very
short span of time in the Chicago area, we have
seven people dead, and I feel like that's a good
(17:22):
time to take a message break. Yeah, yeah, all right,
stop stop, okay, Chuck, So you said cyanide. How did
(17:50):
you know that? Because I was eleven years old and
I watch the nightly news like all eleven year old
state you just called it just me and broke off
Dan Rather, Yeah, Copley? Who else? That was it? Peter
Jennings He came a little later, but sure, yeah, yeah,
he came after somebody. Well, I mean Cronkite wasn't still around,
(18:12):
was he? Or was he? I don't know. I don't
think so. I was. I was going to be into
the news as a kid a little bit. Oh yeah,
I mean that was that was where you got your
news back then. Yeah, you would watch the evening news.
It's very strange to think about now with the with
the up to the minute news cycle. So oh yeah,
I know how much more innocent things were back then. Um,
(18:34):
So remove yourself from the benefit of hindsight or the
benefit of Dan Rather's insight, and put yourself in the
shoes of the people in Chicago. Right, these are five
These are seven different deaths. Um, I think from five
different townships in the greater Chicago area, including Chicago. Paula Prince,
(18:55):
the last person to die, lived in Chicago. These people
aren't talking. These people have no idea what's going on.
It's just that there were five, seven separate, baffling deaths.
If you want to if you were people to be dead,
yeah I do. That's good. My voices aren't working though. Um.
It just so happens that the ambulance, the paramedics that
(19:19):
showed up to attend to marry Mary Anne Kellerman, the
first girl to die. Um, they were just logging everything
because it was such a baffling thing, and they logged
her tile and all, yeah logged isn't collected, right, Yeah,
took it as evidence to maybe look into who knows,
But they took the extra shrink tile and all that
she had taken, not thinking anything of it, but just
(19:40):
basically throwing anything at the wall to see what stopped. Yeah,
I'm sure the dad was like, you know, she went in,
took some tile and on and dropped dead. So it
probably made sense even though it's just tail and all
to say like, well, hey, let's at least take this
in yes, and that title and all that, right, you know,
because that bottle of tile and all made its way
into the hands uh of a medical examiner um whose
(20:03):
name was Safer and Michael Schaefer tested the tile in
all and it was rather surprised to find that some
of the capsules had not tile in all in it,
but sixty five milligrams of potassium cyanide. And it takes
about fifty milligrams to kill a healthy adult. Yeah, I
mean some of them. I don't think they were all
(20:23):
exactly the same, but some of them had been completely
emptied of any staminafin and completely filled with cyanide. With cyanide, right, yeah,
I mean it was it was someone intent on for
sure killing people. Yes, because cyanide is no joke. It's
a it's a really really small molecule um and it
(20:44):
normally attaches to metals outside of the body, which is
why you have or minerals, I guess, which is why
you have potassium cyanide um when it goes into the
body when you ingest it, however you ingested, whether it's
from a tile in all capsule or breathing cyanide gas
like they used to use to execute people with, Like
they stopped using it for executions because it was such
(21:06):
a brutal death. Yeah, it's a very cruel, painful way
to die. Um in the body. It detaches from its
its mineral or metal, and it attaches to a protein
in the body called um cytochrome c oxidase, which doesn't
sound like could be a big problem, but it turns
out that that's about the worst protein that cyanide could
(21:26):
attach itself too, because we really need cytochrome c oxidase
to breathe. Yeah, basically it I mean, this sounds like
such a cruel thing because it's just rapid cell death
and it's not like your throat closes up and you
can't breathe, like you're inhaling oxygen and you you are
(21:46):
technically taking breaths, but the oxygen is not getting in
the cells. No, it's not because that c or that
cytochrome c oxidase is what helps transport the oxygen and
get and allows the oxygen to be used for energy.
So if the potassium is clinging to it, the oxygen,
can't it just stays in the bloodstream and it doesn't
(22:09):
get used by the cells. And since your central nervous
system is the most oxygen hungry system in your entire body,
it starts to shut down first. And when your brain
and your spinal cords starts shutting down, all sorts of
things happen. Your long start shutting down. Your heart, God
bless it keeps beating for minutes after the rest of
(22:29):
your body is shut down, so you're not technically dead.
And they're not sure exactly how long the pain and
excruciation of dying from cyanide lasts, but they think you're
probably conscious in a way and freaked out for about
a minute at least, and your heart may continue beating
for three or four minutes after that. So it's not
a pleasant death at all. No. I mean, you're you're
(22:52):
gasping for air, You're breathing in air, and nothing's happening.
Like I said, um Stanley Janice, he was foaming at
the mouth and his eyes rolled back in his head
in front of his family. It's just like it's awful,
like writhing on the floor gasping for air. You're breathing,
but it's not doing anything. It's just I can't imagine
anything more horrifying, right, Because your central nervous system has
(23:14):
kind of fallen out of its um out of controller rhythm.
Convulsions are usually a hallmark of cyanide poisoning. And then
you turn bright red at the end of it. Yeah,
a skin a chair, you read, they said, Because when
your body has gotten rid of oxygen to your cells
and the oxygen becomes depleted, um, your your skin kind
(23:35):
of turns like a rusty brownish red. But because it
can unload that oxygen when you're dead, it stays a
bright red and your skin turns bright red. And then
the other real telltale sign is your breath will smell
a bit like almonds. Yeah, I mean not a bit.
I mean these bottles supposedly were really pungent with bitter almond,
And unless you know what that means, then you're probably
(24:00):
not clued in, you know, Like I wouldn't. I wouldn't
have known. So I opened a bottle of Thailand on
it smelled like better almen. I'd probably be like, huh, right,
it's a nice smell. Actually, yeah, I like this tail
and all. Yeah, I guess they have a new almond flavor. So,
Michael Schaefer, that medical examiner has just realized that this
this little girl has been poisoned, but he he knows
(24:22):
nothing about these other deaths. There's nothing like that. Um
it's not entirely clear how everything became connected or who
connected it. But what I find just particularly astonishing is
that within just a few hours, by that evening, by
the evening of September twenty nine, people were saying, there's
something up with the Thailand all in these mysterious deaths
(24:45):
that have been going on all around Chicago. Yeah and not.
I mean, we'll get into the dragnet they cast. But
within a few days they had kind of solved everything.
But who did it and how it may have happened?
Who done it? Who done it? Um? So, yeah, very
quickly they figured out the tailand on. There are a
couple of different stories, um on, Like you said, on
(25:08):
who who was the first person to point this out? Um?
One story is that a reporter for the City News
Bureau in Chicago was doing the reporter thing and doing
some deep diving and investigating and called up a deputy
corner and said, hey, I think this is what's happening.
They told the police. Another story is that too, people
who didn't know each other kind of came together independently
(25:31):
to um let people know. One was a fire captain
name uh, Philip Capitelli. I knew it. I knew you
were going to do that. There was like a chance,
you know why, because we got a lot of support
from people that wrote in saying I'm Italian and I
love it. Keep doing it. And only one guy who
hated it. But ironically it was fire captain Philip Capitelli
(25:53):
and said no, so he uh here here was his deal.
His um. His mother in law was friends with Mary Kellerman,
the victim's mother. Yeah, the first of the little girl,
and she said, hey, would you mind looking into this
because I'm friends with this little girl's mom and it's
weird that she dropped at it. And he's a fire
(26:14):
captain and they're all connected to you know, the police,
into the medical community. Everybody knows you want something done,
ask a fire captain, um, because they'll bust into the
room with an ax get everybody's attention. UM. So he's
he's investigating. And then there's this, uh there's a nurse
named Helen Jensen and she i don't. Do you know
(26:37):
why she was so into this case was just no, no, no.
She was the public health nurse for Cook County, I believe. Okay,
so she had an official designation to investigate. Yes, but
unfortunately no one would listen to her because this is
nine two and she was a nurse. Even though she
was like a public health director, she was still a
(26:58):
nurse and people wouldn't listen to her. And she recalled
in an oral history I read about this that she
was stomping her feet out of frustration, saying like, there's
something wrong with the tail and all, like the tail
and all is behind all this, and people wouldn't listen
to her. Supposedly, she and Philip got together and um
joined forces and I guess we're able to convince everybody
(27:23):
that no, there's something wrong with the with the taile
and all. And by this time people started talking and
you know, the the idea that Michael Shaffer had identified
tail and all. I don't know if it was the
same day or the day after something like that, but
all this is within a span of thirty six forty
eight hours. Top said, all of this is going on,
that the dots are being connected, right, so uh, then
(27:47):
what follows is um, Cook County's Deputy Chief Medical Examiner, Dr.
Edmund Donohue holds a pressor. I've either watched this one
or one of the other ones. Like I remember specifically
seeing this press conference on the news. Probably saw Jane Burns.
That would have been the nationwide one, I guess, yeah,
And I was like, how would that have been nationwide?
(28:08):
And then I looked it up. W g N was
a superstation starting in night. Oh you know it, man,
So everybody saw it because wg N could broadcast nationwide.
By I watched Cubs games a kid just because it
was on. That was it like that embraced games were
all you can So Dr Donohue UM has a pressor,
(28:29):
a local pressor. Um, of course there is panic initially, Yeah,
he scares the s out of everybody because he comes
out of nowhere and says stop taking the taile and all,
oh yeah sure, and so anyone. I mean, imagine how
many people in Chicago had taken time and all within
two hours of that press conference and are thinking like
(28:51):
should I go to the hospital? Right, And as a
matter of fact, Um, the poison control lines for basically
every in every city where somebody saw this started to
light up right after that, and people are like, I
just took tile in all, Am I okay? Or gave
my kid? Can you imagine? And the the what came
to be the pat response was if you are still
standing and talking to us, you're probably okay, which is
(29:15):
sort of a double edged sword, right, It's like, don't worry,
you die super fast kind of so just relax. So
just hold the line for five minutes and then I'm
gonna come back and check on you. And if you're
still talking, you're fine. Oh man, um alright. So then
the Chicago Mayor's office gets involved, Like you said, Mayor
Jane Byrne, she gets says, you know, print a bunch
of flyers, print them in a bunch of languages, maybe
(29:38):
on Golden Rod and corn flower blue. Sure, why not
really catch people's attention? Uh that she had police drive
through um with loud speakers on their car, literally saying like,
don't take tile in all, re enacting that scene from
The Blues Brothers. Whether I was thinking slacker and that's funny,
two different movies. But do you remember they're driving through
(30:00):
in the police car with the loudspeaker talking about their
their show. Yeah, same as Slacker. I don't remember. I
don't I guess I didn't make it to the end
of Slacker either. It was in the middle ish. There
was no Dazed in confused huh oh, just different movies. Um,
so they're they're posting flyers, cops are driving around blaring
it through neighborhoods uh. And then she has a press conference,
(30:23):
she has all Thailand all removed from the Chicago area.
She calls for it. Well, sure she didn't go around
with her her basket, right, No, I'm not a hundred
percent clear if she was actually able to demand that
the Thailand all be removed. I think she was more warning. Yeah,
I mean I doubt if there was any law she
(30:44):
could invoke. I wonder though, it seems I would imagine
that's you know, we'll talk about that later. So, um,
the TV and the radio. You know, obviously everyone picks
us up, not just in Chicago or the United States.
It goes worldwide, and so you know there's people in
Europe and Asia pulling Thailand all off the shelves. So
(31:06):
this is a big deal, And there was a lot
of attention lavished on this. There was a poll that
was taken the next month in October that found that
this was in cities all over the country, that found
that respondents were aware of this thail and all poisoning story.
Some some press agency like a news clipping service said
(31:30):
that it's the number of the number of stories dedicated
to it were second only to the number of stories
dedicated to the assassination of JFK. That's how big this
story became overnight. And again one of the reasons why
is because everybody took Thailand all for everything, all the time.
(31:50):
That's just what you did. It was just something everyone took,
and that same product was now killing people. So the
most chilling part of all this to me, and this
is all chilling, uh, maybe the copycat stuff because almost immediately,
UM copycat incidences started popping up all over the country.
(32:13):
Um there were two d seventy reports of product tampering
in the month after thirty six were quote hardcore true tamperings.
And that's what's the most chilling to me, is like
there were that many people, at least thirty six, let's
go on the low end, thirty six people across the
country that wanted to kill people and just saw an
(32:34):
idea and I'm like, oh, that's what I'll do now.
I should have thought of that myself. I mean that's scary, man. Yeah.
What's what's scary but also infuriating is that there's such
terrible self starters that they had to be a copycat
murderer in that, you know what I'm saying, Like, it's
bad enough that they're trying to kill somebody, randomly kill somebody,
(32:56):
anonymously kill somebody. They didn't even think of it themselves
as a pathetic murderer right there, it's pretty pathetic. Put
my foot down. Exceedrian extra strength Excedrian capsules UM were
found poison with mercuric chloride uh, and that almost killed
a man in Colorado. His name was William Sinkovich and
(33:16):
he got he had liberal and kidney failure, but he
did survive. Uh. This one gets me so more than
one person thought, Oh, well, you know people spray and
like drop things in their eyes and nose, I'll put
acid in there. So tampered sin X and tampered vizine
both turned up after they had burned people with acid.
(33:37):
Chemical burn up your nose. Unbelievable. Yeah, that's a bad one.
So food was also on the list of things being
tampered with um orange juice, chocolate milk. Very high profile
incident with ballpark hot dogs. They pulled a million pounds
of wieners off the shelves and ran them through a
metal detector. Yeah, because this was a scare all of
(33:59):
you know, the old urban legend of razor blades and
Halloween candy. I don't Did they actually find pins and
needles and things for sure? Yes? Okay, because I thought
that had literally never happened. It hadn't. It was an
urban legend that became true. But nothing in in the wieners. No,
some boys I think in Detroit claimed to have found
(34:20):
razor blades in their ballpark wieners, and like you said,
a million pounds were recalled and then the boys were like, wow,
we were just kidding. Yeah. And ballpark, well we'll talk
about how ballpark was treated after that. But they were
put on shoulders and carried around for how great they
handled everything. Uh, And you know, there are a lot
of hoaxes. There were a lot of UM tips called
(34:43):
in about other tampering and it had to really like
it if the purpose of this was to induce panic
and fear and terror. Then it absolutely worked, absolutely should
be taken another break, I think. So, man, we're gonna
come back and talk about the investigation. Stop stop, okay,
(35:23):
chuck um. I also want to point this out Time magazine.
You know how I'm like super into uh like going
back and reading contemporary news articles about an event this one.
I mean, it's all over the place. But Time wrote
about the copycat incidents back in two and they said
that the copycats were trying to quote emulate their demonic hero.
(35:47):
There's still unknown poisoner their demonic hero. That's what the
journalists from Time decided to go with. That's funny, I guess.
I mean that seems like a very two thousand nineteen
thing to write. That's what I'm saying. I feel like
we're reverting back too right now, I guess. So after
that intro of yours, I'm now convinced. So everybody's freaked
(36:10):
out there. There are whole towns that canceled Halloween because
remember this happened like a month before Halloween, and everyone
was very scared about candy tampering because of the urban legend.
In some places that turned out to be true, a
self fulfilling prophecy. There are all these hoaxes, there are
all these actual true product tamperings, copycats. People were freaked
(36:32):
out and the cops needed to do something. And initially
these seven different deaths in five different towns in the
Chicago area, we're being treated as five different investigations. Um,
that didn't last for very long. Within two days, by Friday,
by the time Mayor Burne holds her press conference on
(36:53):
w g n UM, what came to be called the
Thailand All Task Force was formed. All five those investigations
got folded into not just local investigations, the FBI, the
Illinois State Police, UM, FDA of course, Yeah, the FDA
was involved that, and then the whole thing was led
by the Illinois District Attorney's office, who was the nominal
(37:16):
head of the investigation. Yeah. So they figured out pretty
quickly that um, you know, like I said earlier, they
cast their drag net. They come up with about a
fifty mile radius of where all this stuff was bought
and sold, and go investigate drug store after drug store,
and they did find more more bad thaile in all that,
(37:38):
I'm still sitting on the shelves thankfully. Yeah, yeah, I don't.
I don't want to skim past that. They found more Thilent,
all waiting to be bought, that's right, like just sitting
there like, hey, come by me. Within two days of
of these first deaths, these first murders that we keep
calling them deaths, these were murders, that's right. Uh. And
(37:59):
they name their their case there's they're always code names
for all these cases. This one ranks pretty low in
my opinion. Timers T Y m U R S short
obviously for Tilent all murders. At the very least, the
s should have been a Z timers. Yeah, yeah, let's
(38:20):
give it a little flavor. Agreed. Uh. So the cops
are um there. There was some confusion about how this
went down because they're trying to figure out, you know,
did it happened at the factory, did it happen after
the factory? What's the supply chain? Like, well, that's that's huge,
it's like the crux of the investigent. Yeah, absolutely, Where
did the tainting occur? Yeah, So they found out that
(38:42):
all of the containers were from Lot number MC, which
was pushed out in August. Again, this is the end
of September. Uh, in states east, all states east of
the Mississippi, plus the Dakotas, Nebraska, in a bit of Wyoming.
Just just to touch a Wyoming for flavor. That's right,
(39:04):
that mesquite flavor. Uh. However, they were from different production
plants and they were sold in different drug stores, which
is weird. It's tough to wrap your head around that
because it's the same lot, but they came from different plants.
And it turns out Thailand all has also a really
weird convoluted distribution network. I think that's every company. I
(39:25):
have a friend that works in supply chain management and
I was like, huh, so supposedly they'll they'll take boxes
and open them up and repackage them in smaller boxes.
And it happens at like different different companies at different
points around the country. It's pretty complicated from from a
product from factory to your mouth, like what happens to
kind of everything. Um, I would think simplicity would be
(39:48):
safer much, you know, probably not cheaper, though you're probably right.
So what they finally figured out was, here's what we
think happened is this stuff was not tainted at the factory.
This stuff was not tainted in the supply chain, but
this stuff was tainted, it from the store and then
(40:10):
returned back to the store because these pills were sold
in different stores, which is a big one, because not
only could it have been like part of the factory,
it could have been one of the local stores distribution
centers where there was somebody messing with it. But since
they were sold in Jewel food stores and Walgreens and
other places too around the Chicago area, that didn't make
(40:34):
any sense. It couldn't have just been like the jewel
distribution center. And also because they were coming from different
production plants, it really couldn't have been the production plant
or the factory where it came from. It had to be,
like you said, happening at the stores. Yeah, And there
were a lot of initial theories, you know. Was it
someone who like a former disgruntled employee of Johnson and Johnson?
(40:57):
Was it someone uh? Was it it just a serial
killer who just picked tail on all and wanted to
randomly kill people? Right? And this is that's weird, that's
a weird idea at the time, like now it just
seems normal, like yeah, probably, but this but this was
two years before the Sanya Cidro McDonald's massacre, which is
one of the very one of the next random killings
(41:22):
of people who just happened to be in the wrong
place at the wrong time. This was kind of the
first of that, but it was still so new and remote.
An alien that that's that didn't seem like a realistic
idea at the time. Yeah, some of the other ideas
they thought, um, maybe this was someone that was targeting
a specific person or people and then randomly poisoned other
(41:44):
people to cover their tracks. One of the weird um
one of the weird theories that came out later after
an spoiler alert, we now have tamper proof medicines. Sure
everyone's noticed. It was one theory that it was someone
who had a financial steak and tamper proof technology. Yeah,
(42:06):
I saw something like that too. I don't think there
was ever a ton of credence put into that one,
But the point is there were a lot. I mean,
they were flying blind basically because it was just such
an unexpected, odd, random thing that we're basically coming up
with kind of any idea they could think of. But
the one that the cops settled on and the one
that Johnson and Johnson also settled on too, because they
went back and tested samples from Lot MC and found
(42:30):
that there was no no, there's no taining of the
of the lot that there's their samples were pure. So
the cops and Johnson and Johnson both decided they settled
on what's called the mad poisoner theory. That somebody went
around this fifty mile radius in in the Chicago area
UM in about seven hours is what the cops calculated.
(42:51):
It would have taken either bought a bunch of tile
in all and then took it back to their house
and poisoned it, repackaged it and then drove around and
redistributed it, or went from store to store, went in,
bought some tile and all, took it out to the car,
poisoned it, and then repackaged it and brought it back in. UM.
But that it was local and it was specific to Chicago.
(43:14):
That was the mad poisoner theory. And again why still
no one has any idea why. Um. It could have
been random, they could have been targeting somebody. It could
have been a disgruntal Johnson and Johnson employee. But the
main theory for the Thaile and all killings in Chicago
is the mad poison er theory. Yeah, and do you
(43:34):
know how they tested that the rest of that lot.
They got Detective John Pinky McFarland, who had the best
drug pinky and all of Illinois. And he went around
and dipped that pinky in, touched it to his tongue.
He said, it's good. He's like, I can't feel my
face right now. The guy's a legend. Yeah, he's his
pinky is his pinky ring is so significant and barely
(43:57):
lift his finger. He only lifts to test drugs. I
told you we'd find some jokes. So by mid October,
this is sort of the final bit of part one here. Um,
there was another bottle that people that they found another
tainted bottle that was purchased on September twenty nine, so
it fit the bill. And it was a woman who
(44:20):
uh was feeling bad and went to go get that
tail in all and her sister was like, no, I've
got some buffering right here, just go ahead and take that.
And the lady presumably said, well, I really prefer see
a benefit, but I guess I'll take an aspirin. So yeah,
her sister in law saved her by offering her buffering instead.
She was steps away from dropping dead at a family gathering. Unbelievable.
(44:43):
That is a good place to stop. Huh. Yeah. So
that's part one of the Thailand All Murders or Timer's
with an S, and we're gonna come back with part
two after this. If you want to get in touch
with this in the meantime, you can go on to
stuff you Should Know dot com and check out our
social links, or you can send us a good old
fashioned email version to stuff podcast at i heeart radio
(45:06):
dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my
heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H
Hey, friends, before we get going, we are super excited
to announce our true thousand nineteen live tour. Yes, we're
still alive, and we're gonna come prop ourselves up on
stage in front of you and cities around the country
and Canada. That's right, everyone. Tickets go on sale this
Friday at ten a m. Your local time wherever these
(00:20):
cities are, and we're gonna kick things off in the
great City of Chicago in July at the Harris Theater,
followed the next night at the Danforth Theater in Toronto,
Canada on July. Yea. Then we're gonna take a month
long nap and wake up, and on Thursday, August twenty nine,
we're gonna take ourselves to Boston, Massa our beloved Wilbur Theater.
(00:42):
The next night, we're going to a new city, first
time ever, in Portland, Maine at the State Theater. I'm
so excited about that one. Me too. And then Chuck,
we're gonna take a nap for another full month, wake
up again, dust our selves off, and go to Orlando,
Florida for the first time ever. We're gonna be at
Plaza Live. Yeah, man, first Florida show, and then we
are finishing up that mini leg in New Orleans, yep, Thursday,
(01:06):
October tenth, at the Civic Theater. We're returning, So prepare
the city for partying, everybody. That's right, and we're gonna
wrap it up at least for now at our beloved
Bell House in Brooklyn, New York, for three shows October again, folks.
Tickets for all these shows go on sale this Friday
today am your local time, and just go to all
(01:28):
of these venue websites for ticketing. Yep. Thank you for
coming to see us in advance, everybody. We're excited. Welcome
to Stuff you should know, a production of I Heart
Radios How Stuff Works. Hey you, and welcome to the podcast.
(01:48):
I'm Josh. There's Chuck. There's Josh, not me, Chuck. Guest
producer Josh is back in the house. Yeah, and there's
little Chuck in your pockets, remember a little I was
just about to say that you got that right, Tony.
Oh man, what a great sketch it really was. That
was Nicholas Cage, wasn't it. Yeah? Man, did you ever
(02:09):
see Mandy? Yes? It was terrible. I don't care what
anybody else says. It terrible, terrible, movie. Yeah, Nolan, I
talked about it on movie Crush. He's seen it like
four times, thinks it's the best thing ever. Come on.
He was like, people love it or hate it, and
now it's like, actually, I was kind of in the middle.
Were you really? Yeah? I mean I told him young Chuck,
like twenty two year old college Chuck would have probably
(02:31):
liked it a lot more. But today Chuck was kind
of like, I get it. Like, sure, sure, parts of it,
we're fine. Sure to me. Spending an hour doing character development, huh,
but not successfully making you care about the characters just
really irked me. Wow, you had structural issues. Yeah, that
(02:55):
was really the big thing. I also thought Lenis Roach
was very very odd for casting, but that was the
main bad guy that that was weird, very weird. I
don't even know him, but he's from Law and Order
and like some other stuff, you gotta get into law.
See how much you're missing out on that's becoming a bit.
So did we start recording yet? I think so. I
(03:17):
already welcomed everybody the podcast. Um so, Chuck, we are
this is some true crime stuff. For getting into here,
that's right, But I feel like we need to set
the tone right, because this isn't This didn't happened just yesterday.
This happened way back in two in Chicago, Illinois. And
I remember this and I was like six at the time.
(03:38):
It was one of my favorite years because of this,
the opposite of that, right, mainly because of movies that
was so great about two. Look at up man? Well,
I was kind of hoping, Oh yeah, okay, yeah, that
was Do you know I didn't see Blade Runner until
I was forty. That's not true. Yes, the original, the
(04:04):
original Blade Runner. Did you like it? That was good.
I like the second one too, You're like, but they
spent way too much time on character. Um. Yeah. And
I just did a little poking around about two and
it was it was a good year for an eleven
year old, but it was an uneasy time in America.
Uh well for a bunch of awful things happened that year.
(04:27):
Uh And I don't know if it was any more
or less than other years, but uh, air Flight ninety
crashed into into the Potomac River, remember that in Washington,
d C. The plane crash in the river. Didn't hit
a bridge maybe, but there was there was like a daring,
icy river rescue. Yeah, seventy eight people died. Though that
(04:47):
same day a metro train in d C de Rail
killed three people. Uh. February was when Wayne Williams was convicted,
and that was just the end of a lot of
uneas you know for years. Uh, Klaus Vambu Law was
found guilty of attempted murder of his wife in March.
(05:08):
I didn't make it to the end of reversal of fortune,
so I honestly didn't know what happened to class guilty. Uh.
In June was the murder of Vincent Chen, who was
a Chinese American who was beaten to death by two
men in Michigan thinking he was a Japanese and they
were like stealing his their auto work. I know, right, Uh.
(05:31):
And then July nine, pan Am flight seven nine goes
down in Louisiana, Louisiana kills all one forty six people
on board, plus eight more on the ground. And then
in September, early September was when I know, man, remember
planes used to just crash a lot. Yeah, that never
happens now, Uh, not as much. But yeah, weird that
(05:53):
we're recording this in the midst of more plane gradges
and then early September was when that paper boy and Iowa,
Iowa was kidnapped and never seen again. Johnny ghosh M.
I don't know that one. That was a big deal too,
because it was you know, the paper boy, and there
was this false story about a pedophile ring from politicians
(06:14):
and that turned out not to be true, but he
was never found again. So basically everything that's going on
today is just a rehash of two It sounds like
I just remember being about that age and they're just
the nightly news sort of just being a horror show
and not politically speaking, you know, like real bad incidences occurring.
Well yeah, plane crash, like just about it at any age,
(06:36):
like that'll that'll bring you down if you see that
on the news for sure, Yeah, um, because you know,
when you get on a plane, you think maybe this
plane will go down while I'm on it, and that
would be terrible. Although I wasn't flying at eleven. So
all of those things you just mentioned sweep them totally
off the table, because come the end of September of
(06:58):
that year, nothing else mattered but what we're about to
talk about now, that's right, Nothing nothing came close to
taking the over the national psyche like the deaths of
seven people beginning on September two in Chicago, Illinois. Yeah,
(07:20):
and one of the articles I read about this, I mean,
are we trying to keep it a secret? It's a
show title, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think they're gonna
have to figure it out. So yeah, go ahead, the
thailantal murders. Okay, you're like, oh no, no, but that's
that comes up in part two. Oh yeah, this is
a two parter. Yeah, as well so Buckling and everybody.
(07:40):
Uh So. I was doing some research though, and I
saw one article that said something about, you know, the
first domestic terror incident United States that nobody has ever
heard of? Like what? Who hasn't heard of this? A
millennial wrote that headline. Well, I have to say it.
Josh on the way in here. Yeah, I told him
thailandle murders and huh he goes, what's tail and all?
(08:01):
You old Kadr, we should probably say what Thailand all is?
Huh Okay, yeah, I guess just in case you are
a MILLENNI only you've never heard of Thailand all but
tail and all was and still is and over the
counter pain reliever. It's like you have eggs and pains
and apparently what's crazy people would take thaile and all
whatever was wrong with them because now you can go
(08:24):
get like you know, aspirin and um adville and and
a lead. There was no leave back then. That was
a nineties drug. There's way more over the counter pain
relievers now than they we're back then. Back then, Thailand
All was basically it. Yeah, it's a sea of menafin,
which is different than aspirin, and I think a lot
(08:44):
of people just think those are interchangeable. Right. The reason
I believe thailand All became so big is because aspirin
upsets a lot of people's stomachs tail and all does not,
or it's not supposed to, And that's why it came
out of nowhere and just took over the aspera market.
I think by two Thailand All had thirty seven percent
(09:06):
of the market. It's pretty good cornered. Yeah, yeah, almost half,
especially since like some of the other like aspirants have
been around since you know, nineteenth century, right, So it
makes sense then that when a little girl named Mary
Anne kellerman Uh complained that she had a sore throat
and wasn't feeling too good at like seven am on Wednesday,
(09:29):
September two. Her parents said, just take an extra strength
to tail and all and go back to bed man
first sore throat. Imagine the guilt. Oh no, these parents
feel well, don't blow it. We haven't said what happens
to Marianne Kellerman yet. I think everybody knows. Uh. Yeah,
she got up, said I'm sick. He said, take this.
(09:49):
The father said he heard her go into the bathroom
and close the door, then heard something drop and went
to the door, saying, are you okay, you're okay? Uh
no answer, opened the door and there she is on
the floor. Um. Taken to the hospital, but died very quickly. Yeah,
probably was dead when she went to the hospital, was
pronounced there Um and she they suspected this is just
(10:12):
a little twelve year old girl of middle school. Girl
into Jane Adams Middle School. Um. She they think she
died of a stroke. That's what they thought happened to her.
They were just so baffled that they're like, it had
to have been a stroke. That's the only thing that
can come on like this. Yeah. So that's seven am.
Just the day is just beginning, and one atrocity has
(10:33):
already happened. Yeah, this is a this is a very
bad day in the history of Chicago September. Yeah. Absolutely,
and it started early Adam Janice, who uh will detail
his story, but put a pin in this one too,
because he figures in even more prominently in a minute.
But a little bit later that same morning, Uh, this gentleman,
(10:56):
Adam Janese's twenty seven years old and lived in Arlington,
it's another Chicago suburb, and he died. Uh. And they
think that this is a heart attack. Uh. He complained
of chess pains after he had driven his daughter's neighbor
home from school. Uh said, I'm gonna take the day off,
comes home, eats a little lunch, takes two extra strength
(11:17):
tile and all that he bought from a local drug store.
Collapses in front of his wife, and by you know,
a few minutes later, when the paramedics arrived, he was dead. Right.
And again, like you said, they said heart attack because
he's been complaining of chess pains, which had nothing to
do with it. But just like Marianne Kellerman took an
extra strength tile and all for a sore throat, he
(11:37):
took some extra strength tile and all for some chest pains.
This is just what people did back then. Yeah, and
that's what complicated it a little bit at first. Um
was that you know, if you take the tile and all,
it means you felt bad already. So obviously you know
they're gonna be saying like, wait a minute, chess pains
or some throat like, how does that figure in? Yeah,
and it didn't. Plus, also, what made this even more
(11:57):
baffling is that Marianne Kellerman's twelve even healthy. Adam Janis
was twenty seven and healthy, and all of a sudden
they just dropped up. People don't just drop dead, no
matter what you see on TV or in the movies
or whatever. Dropping dead inexplicably is a really bizarre thing.
When you're a healthy person. That doesn't happen. Uh. Next
we have Mary Reiner, same day, same day. This is
(12:21):
still all on the same day. Um, she's twenty seven
years old. She's feeling a little dizzy. She had just
come home from the hospital. Uh, after having given birth
to her fourth kid a couple of days before. Super
super sad. All of these are, obviously, but being a
just a brand new mom for the fourth time, it's
just so tragic. Uh. And then by three forty five.
(12:45):
She was so ill she was rushed back to the
hospital and again died very very quickly. Yeah, and like
Adam Janis collapsed in front of his wife, she collapsed
in front of her young eight year old daughter. One
of her children sare um and Yeah, when she was
taking the hospit it all, they pronounced her dead as well.
This is mid afternoon. Mary McFarland was up next. She
(13:07):
was over in um the the suburb of Lombard, and
she worked at the Illinois Bell Phone Center where you remember,
like you go get your phone, like the rotary phone,
you know, you would actually lease your phone. I wasn't
involved in that process, but we had them in our home. Okay,
well your parents bought that stuff. No, there was like
(13:30):
a store where you would go It's like the phone
company's retail store, and you would go and be like
that pink one. It's like smartphones today, kind of same model.
Kind of Um, yeah, I guess so, but this was
with a big, clunky rotary phone and you had to
pay extra for the extra long court. Well. Mary McFarland
worked in one of these stores, and at about four
(13:50):
o'clock UM at the Illinois Bell Phone center. She was
She had a massive headache that just came on out
of nowhere, and she went back and got some extra
strength tile and all out of her purse, took a
couple of them, and within minutes collapsed in the store. Yeah,
she was young as well. She was thirty one years old,
mother of two. And then remember I was talking about
(14:12):
Adam Janice a few minutes ago. Um, his family goes
to the hospital. Obviously, everyone converges there, he passes away,
and so the family makes their way home UM to
begin morning and just sort of trying to reconcile what
had just happened. His brother, Stanley, he was only five,
and then his wife Teresa, who was only nineteen, are
(14:34):
both just overcome and worn out and have headaches. So
they're at Adam's house. They got to his medicine cabinet,
get out the tail and all that he took completely
unknowingly obviously, and uh, Stanley hits the ground, Foam comes
from his mouth, his eyes rolled back in his head.
Everyone's freaking out, and a few minutes later his wife
(14:58):
collapses and they called the ambulance. By the time and
the ambulances get there, I think Stanley died that day,
and Teresa somehow managed to live a couple of days. Yeah,
she hung on. And I don't know if like her
dose is lesser or what, but but she she survived
for a couple of days after that. Yeah. I mean
my guess is that, uh, there just wasn't as much
(15:19):
cyanide and the capsule she took. Did I just give
something else away? But the so Stanley took his tail
in all first, and then Teresa's oo curs and one
of the paramedics noted, like Teresa was the one that
called the ambulance out to come out for Stanley. And
when they get there, they're they're both like on the
ground and they're like, what's going on? And one of
(15:40):
the paramedics said, everything that was happening to the guy
happened to the woman like a couple of minutes later,
like she was just following him through this process of
like basically systemic organ failure. And this is the same
day that his brother had passed away. Yep, this is
about five six hours, six hours after Adam Janis had
(16:00):
Then finally, I know this is all tough to go through. Everyone.
We almost selected this as our next live show I'm
really glad we did, because, I mean, can you imagine
trying to liven this up with some jokes? I thought
the whole time I was like, no, we can do that.
But yeah, the more I got into it, I was like, yeah,
it's probably not good live material. We should have a
(16:20):
rule of thumb that any story that begins with the
death of a twelve year old girl probably not live
show material. I think you're right. So finally we have
Paula Prince. Paula Jeene Prince. This is a couple of
days later. This is not the same day. This is
on Friday evening. She was a thirty five year old
flight attendant and she was found dead in her apartment
(16:41):
after police responded for a welfare check that her sister
called in saying, hey, you know, I know she's a
flight attendant and all, but no one knows where she is.
Can you go check on her welfare check up? And
they finally found her and she was gone. Yes, very
very sad. She was found in her bathroom with a
bottle of Strength of Title and all still open on
(17:02):
the counter, and she uh. They looked into um her
receipts and found that she had purchased it on Wednesday September.
That's right. Uh So, at the end of this very
short span of time in the Chicago area, we have
seven people dead, and I feel like that's a good
(17:22):
time to take a message break. Yeah, yeah, all right,
stop stop, okay, Chuck, So you said cyanide. How did
(17:50):
you know that? Because I was eleven years old and
I watch the nightly news like all eleven year old
state you just called it just me and broke off
Dan Rather, Yeah, Copley? Who else? That was it? Peter
Jennings He came a little later, but sure, yeah, yeah,
he came after somebody. Well, I mean Cronkite wasn't still around,
(18:12):
was he? Or was he? I don't know. I don't
think so. I was. I was going to be into
the news as a kid a little bit. Oh yeah,
I mean that was that was where you got your
news back then. Yeah, you would watch the evening news.
It's very strange to think about now with the with
the up to the minute news cycle. So oh yeah,
I know how much more innocent things were back then. Um,
(18:34):
So remove yourself from the benefit of hindsight or the
benefit of Dan Rather's insight, and put yourself in the
shoes of the people in Chicago. Right, these are five
These are seven different deaths. Um, I think from five
different townships in the greater Chicago area, including Chicago. Paula Prince,
(18:55):
the last person to die, lived in Chicago. These people
aren't talking. These people have no idea what's going on.
It's just that there were five, seven separate, baffling deaths.
If you want to if you were people to be dead,
yeah I do. That's good. My voices aren't working though. Um.
It just so happens that the ambulance, the paramedics that
(19:19):
showed up to attend to marry Mary Anne Kellerman, the
first girl to die. Um, they were just logging everything
because it was such a baffling thing, and they logged
her tile and all, yeah logged isn't collected, right, Yeah,
took it as evidence to maybe look into who knows,
But they took the extra shrink tile and all that
she had taken, not thinking anything of it, but just
(19:40):
basically throwing anything at the wall to see what stopped. Yeah,
I'm sure the dad was like, you know, she went in,
took some tile and on and dropped dead. So it
probably made sense even though it's just tail and all
to say like, well, hey, let's at least take this
in yes, and that title and all that, right, you know,
because that bottle of tile and all made its way
into the hands uh of a medical examiner um whose
(20:03):
name was Safer and Michael Schaefer tested the tile in
all and it was rather surprised to find that some
of the capsules had not tile in all in it,
but sixty five milligrams of potassium cyanide. And it takes
about fifty milligrams to kill a healthy adult. Yeah, I
mean some of them. I don't think they were all
(20:23):
exactly the same, but some of them had been completely
emptied of any staminafin and completely filled with cyanide. With cyanide, right, yeah,
I mean it was it was someone intent on for
sure killing people. Yes, because cyanide is no joke. It's
a it's a really really small molecule um and it
(20:44):
normally attaches to metals outside of the body, which is
why you have or minerals, I guess, which is why
you have potassium cyanide um when it goes into the
body when you ingest it, however you ingested, whether it's
from a tile in all capsule or breathing cyanide gas
like they used to use to execute people with, Like
they stopped using it for executions because it was such
(21:06):
a brutal death. Yeah, it's a very cruel, painful way
to die. Um in the body. It detaches from its
its mineral or metal, and it attaches to a protein
in the body called um cytochrome c oxidase, which doesn't
sound like could be a big problem, but it turns
out that that's about the worst protein that cyanide could
(21:26):
attach itself too, because we really need cytochrome c oxidase
to breathe. Yeah, basically it I mean, this sounds like
such a cruel thing because it's just rapid cell death
and it's not like your throat closes up and you
can't breathe, like you're inhaling oxygen and you you are
(21:46):
technically taking breaths, but the oxygen is not getting in
the cells. No, it's not because that c or that
cytochrome c oxidase is what helps transport the oxygen and
get and allows the oxygen to be used for energy.
So if the potassium is clinging to it, the oxygen,
can't it just stays in the bloodstream and it doesn't
(22:09):
get used by the cells. And since your central nervous
system is the most oxygen hungry system in your entire body,
it starts to shut down first. And when your brain
and your spinal cords starts shutting down, all sorts of
things happen. Your long start shutting down. Your heart, God
bless it keeps beating for minutes after the rest of
(22:29):
your body is shut down, so you're not technically dead.
And they're not sure exactly how long the pain and
excruciation of dying from cyanide lasts, but they think you're
probably conscious in a way and freaked out for about
a minute at least, and your heart may continue beating
for three or four minutes after that. So it's not
a pleasant death at all. No. I mean, you're you're
(22:52):
gasping for air, You're breathing in air, and nothing's happening.
Like I said, um Stanley Janice, he was foaming at
the mouth and his eyes rolled back in his head
in front of his family. It's just like it's awful,
like writhing on the floor gasping for air. You're breathing,
but it's not doing anything. It's just I can't imagine
anything more horrifying, right, Because your central nervous system has
(23:14):
kind of fallen out of its um out of controller rhythm.
Convulsions are usually a hallmark of cyanide poisoning. And then
you turn bright red at the end of it. Yeah,
a skin a chair, you read, they said, Because when
your body has gotten rid of oxygen to your cells
and the oxygen becomes depleted, um, your your skin kind
(23:35):
of turns like a rusty brownish red. But because it
can unload that oxygen when you're dead, it stays a
bright red and your skin turns bright red. And then
the other real telltale sign is your breath will smell
a bit like almonds. Yeah, I mean not a bit.
I mean these bottles supposedly were really pungent with bitter almond,
And unless you know what that means, then you're probably
(24:00):
not clued in, you know, Like I wouldn't. I wouldn't
have known. So I opened a bottle of Thailand on
it smelled like better almen. I'd probably be like, huh, right,
it's a nice smell. Actually, yeah, I like this tail
and all. Yeah, I guess they have a new almond flavor. So,
Michael Schaefer, that medical examiner has just realized that this
this little girl has been poisoned, but he he knows
(24:22):
nothing about these other deaths. There's nothing like that. Um
it's not entirely clear how everything became connected or who
connected it. But what I find just particularly astonishing is
that within just a few hours, by that evening, by
the evening of September twenty nine, people were saying, there's
something up with the Thailand all in these mysterious deaths
(24:45):
that have been going on all around Chicago. Yeah and not.
I mean, we'll get into the dragnet they cast. But
within a few days they had kind of solved everything.
But who did it and how it may have happened?
Who done it? Who done it? Um? So, yeah, very
quickly they figured out the tailand on. There are a
couple of different stories, um on, Like you said, on
(25:08):
who who was the first person to point this out? Um?
One story is that a reporter for the City News
Bureau in Chicago was doing the reporter thing and doing
some deep diving and investigating and called up a deputy
corner and said, hey, I think this is what's happening.
They told the police. Another story is that too, people
who didn't know each other kind of came together independently
(25:31):
to um let people know. One was a fire captain
name uh, Philip Capitelli. I knew it. I knew you
were going to do that. There was like a chance,
you know why, because we got a lot of support
from people that wrote in saying I'm Italian and I
love it. Keep doing it. And only one guy who
hated it. But ironically it was fire captain Philip Capitelli
(25:53):
and said no, so he uh here here was his deal.
His um. His mother in law was friends with Mary Kellerman,
the victim's mother. Yeah, the first of the little girl,
and she said, hey, would you mind looking into this
because I'm friends with this little girl's mom and it's
weird that she dropped at it. And he's a fire
(26:14):
captain and they're all connected to you know, the police,
into the medical community. Everybody knows you want something done,
ask a fire captain, um, because they'll bust into the
room with an ax get everybody's attention. UM. So he's
he's investigating. And then there's this, uh there's a nurse
named Helen Jensen and she i don't. Do you know
(26:37):
why she was so into this case was just no, no, no.
She was the public health nurse for Cook County, I believe. Okay,
so she had an official designation to investigate. Yes, but
unfortunately no one would listen to her because this is
nine two and she was a nurse. Even though she
was like a public health director, she was still a
(26:58):
nurse and people wouldn't listen to her. And she recalled
in an oral history I read about this that she
was stomping her feet out of frustration, saying like, there's
something wrong with the tail and all, like the tail
and all is behind all this, and people wouldn't listen
to her. Supposedly, she and Philip got together and um
joined forces and I guess we're able to convince everybody
(27:23):
that no, there's something wrong with the with the taile
and all. And by this time people started talking and
you know, the the idea that Michael Shaffer had identified
tail and all. I don't know if it was the
same day or the day after something like that, but
all this is within a span of thirty six forty
eight hours. Top said, all of this is going on,
that the dots are being connected, right, so uh, then
(27:47):
what follows is um, Cook County's Deputy Chief Medical Examiner, Dr.
Edmund Donohue holds a pressor. I've either watched this one
or one of the other ones. Like I remember specifically
seeing this press conference on the news. Probably saw Jane Burns.
That would have been the nationwide one, I guess, yeah,
And I was like, how would that have been nationwide?
(28:08):
And then I looked it up. W g N was
a superstation starting in night. Oh you know it, man,
So everybody saw it because wg N could broadcast nationwide.
By I watched Cubs games a kid just because it
was on. That was it like that embraced games were
all you can So Dr Donohue UM has a pressor,
(28:29):
a local pressor. Um, of course there is panic initially, Yeah,
he scares the s out of everybody because he comes
out of nowhere and says stop taking the taile and all,
oh yeah sure, and so anyone. I mean, imagine how
many people in Chicago had taken time and all within
two hours of that press conference and are thinking like
(28:51):
should I go to the hospital? Right, And as a
matter of fact, Um, the poison control lines for basically
every in every city where somebody saw this started to
light up right after that, and people are like, I
just took tile in all, Am I okay? Or gave
my kid? Can you imagine? And the the what came
to be the pat response was if you are still
standing and talking to us, you're probably okay, which is
(29:15):
sort of a double edged sword, right, It's like, don't worry,
you die super fast kind of so just relax. So
just hold the line for five minutes and then I'm
gonna come back and check on you. And if you're
still talking, you're fine. Oh man, um alright. So then
the Chicago Mayor's office gets involved, Like you said, Mayor
Jane Byrne, she gets says, you know, print a bunch
of flyers, print them in a bunch of languages, maybe
(29:38):
on Golden Rod and corn flower blue. Sure, why not
really catch people's attention? Uh that she had police drive
through um with loud speakers on their car, literally saying like,
don't take tile in all, re enacting that scene from
The Blues Brothers. Whether I was thinking slacker and that's funny,
two different movies. But do you remember they're driving through
(30:00):
in the police car with the loudspeaker talking about their
their show. Yeah, same as Slacker. I don't remember. I
don't I guess I didn't make it to the end
of Slacker either. It was in the middle ish. There
was no Dazed in confused huh oh, just different movies. Um,
so they're they're posting flyers, cops are driving around blaring
it through neighborhoods uh. And then she has a press conference,
(30:23):
she has all Thailand all removed from the Chicago area.
She calls for it. Well, sure she didn't go around
with her her basket, right, No, I'm not a hundred
percent clear if she was actually able to demand that
the Thailand all be removed. I think she was more warning. Yeah,
I mean I doubt if there was any law she
(30:44):
could invoke. I wonder though, it seems I would imagine
that's you know, we'll talk about that later. So, um,
the TV and the radio. You know, obviously everyone picks
us up, not just in Chicago or the United States.
It goes worldwide, and so you know there's people in
Europe and Asia pulling Thailand all off the shelves. So
(31:06):
this is a big deal, And there was a lot
of attention lavished on this. There was a poll that
was taken the next month in October that found that
this was in cities all over the country, that found
that respondents were aware of this thail and all poisoning story.
Some some press agency like a news clipping service said
(31:30):
that it's the number of the number of stories dedicated
to it were second only to the number of stories
dedicated to the assassination of JFK. That's how big this
story became overnight. And again one of the reasons why
is because everybody took Thailand all for everything, all the time.
(31:50):
That's just what you did. It was just something everyone took,
and that same product was now killing people. So the
most chilling part of all this to me, and this
is all chilling, uh, maybe the copycat stuff because almost immediately,
UM copycat incidences started popping up all over the country.
(32:13):
Um there were two d seventy reports of product tampering
in the month after thirty six were quote hardcore true tamperings.
And that's what's the most chilling to me, is like
there were that many people, at least thirty six, let's
go on the low end, thirty six people across the
country that wanted to kill people and just saw an
(32:34):
idea and I'm like, oh, that's what I'll do now.
I should have thought of that myself. I mean that's scary, man. Yeah.
What's what's scary but also infuriating is that there's such
terrible self starters that they had to be a copycat
murderer in that, you know what I'm saying, Like, it's
bad enough that they're trying to kill somebody, randomly kill somebody,
(32:56):
anonymously kill somebody. They didn't even think of it themselves
as a pathetic murderer right there, it's pretty pathetic. Put
my foot down. Exceedrian extra strength Excedrian capsules UM were
found poison with mercuric chloride uh, and that almost killed
a man in Colorado. His name was William Sinkovich and
(33:16):
he got he had liberal and kidney failure, but he
did survive. Uh. This one gets me so more than
one person thought, Oh, well, you know people spray and
like drop things in their eyes and nose, I'll put
acid in there. So tampered sin X and tampered vizine
both turned up after they had burned people with acid.
(33:37):
Chemical burn up your nose. Unbelievable. Yeah, that's a bad one.
So food was also on the list of things being
tampered with um orange juice, chocolate milk. Very high profile
incident with ballpark hot dogs. They pulled a million pounds
of wieners off the shelves and ran them through a
metal detector. Yeah, because this was a scare all of
(33:59):
you know, the old urban legend of razor blades and
Halloween candy. I don't Did they actually find pins and
needles and things for sure? Yes? Okay, because I thought
that had literally never happened. It hadn't. It was an
urban legend that became true. But nothing in in the wieners. No,
some boys I think in Detroit claimed to have found
(34:20):
razor blades in their ballpark wieners, and like you said,
a million pounds were recalled and then the boys were like, wow,
we were just kidding. Yeah. And ballpark, well we'll talk
about how ballpark was treated after that. But they were
put on shoulders and carried around for how great they
handled everything. Uh, And you know, there are a lot
of hoaxes. There were a lot of UM tips called
(34:43):
in about other tampering and it had to really like
it if the purpose of this was to induce panic
and fear and terror. Then it absolutely worked, absolutely should
be taken another break, I think. So, man, we're gonna
come back and talk about the investigation. Stop stop, okay,
(35:23):
chuck um. I also want to point this out Time magazine.
You know how I'm like super into uh like going
back and reading contemporary news articles about an event this one.
I mean, it's all over the place. But Time wrote
about the copycat incidents back in two and they said
that the copycats were trying to quote emulate their demonic hero.
(35:47):
There's still unknown poisoner their demonic hero. That's what the
journalists from Time decided to go with. That's funny, I guess.
I mean that seems like a very two thousand nineteen
thing to write. That's what I'm saying. I feel like
we're reverting back too right now, I guess. So after
that intro of yours, I'm now convinced. So everybody's freaked
(36:10):
out there. There are whole towns that canceled Halloween because
remember this happened like a month before Halloween, and everyone
was very scared about candy tampering because of the urban legend.
In some places that turned out to be true, a
self fulfilling prophecy. There are all these hoaxes, there are
all these actual true product tamperings, copycats. People were freaked
(36:32):
out and the cops needed to do something. And initially
these seven different deaths in five different towns in the
Chicago area, we're being treated as five different investigations. Um,
that didn't last for very long. Within two days, by Friday,
by the time Mayor Burne holds her press conference on
(36:53):
w g n UM, what came to be called the
Thailand All Task Force was formed. All five those investigations
got folded into not just local investigations, the FBI, the
Illinois State Police, UM, FDA of course, Yeah, the FDA
was involved that, and then the whole thing was led
by the Illinois District Attorney's office, who was the nominal
(37:16):
head of the investigation. Yeah. So they figured out pretty
quickly that um, you know, like I said earlier, they
cast their drag net. They come up with about a
fifty mile radius of where all this stuff was bought
and sold, and go investigate drug store after drug store,
and they did find more more bad thaile in all that,
(37:38):
I'm still sitting on the shelves thankfully. Yeah, yeah, I don't.
I don't want to skim past that. They found more Thilent,
all waiting to be bought, that's right, like just sitting
there like, hey, come by me. Within two days of
of these first deaths, these first murders that we keep
calling them deaths, these were murders, that's right. Uh. And
(37:59):
they name their their case there's they're always code names
for all these cases. This one ranks pretty low in
my opinion. Timers T Y m U R S short
obviously for Tilent all murders. At the very least, the
s should have been a Z timers. Yeah, yeah, let's
(38:20):
give it a little flavor. Agreed. Uh. So the cops
are um there. There was some confusion about how this
went down because they're trying to figure out, you know,
did it happened at the factory, did it happen after
the factory? What's the supply chain? Like, well, that's that's huge,
it's like the crux of the investigent. Yeah, absolutely, Where
did the tainting occur? Yeah, So they found out that
(38:42):
all of the containers were from Lot number MC, which
was pushed out in August. Again, this is the end
of September. Uh, in states east, all states east of
the Mississippi, plus the Dakotas, Nebraska, in a bit of Wyoming.
Just just to touch a Wyoming for flavor. That's right,
(39:04):
that mesquite flavor. Uh. However, they were from different production
plants and they were sold in different drug stores, which
is weird. It's tough to wrap your head around that
because it's the same lot, but they came from different plants.
And it turns out Thailand all has also a really
weird convoluted distribution network. I think that's every company. I
(39:25):
have a friend that works in supply chain management and
I was like, huh, so supposedly they'll they'll take boxes
and open them up and repackage them in smaller boxes.
And it happens at like different different companies at different
points around the country. It's pretty complicated from from a
product from factory to your mouth, like what happens to
kind of everything. Um, I would think simplicity would be
(39:48):
safer much, you know, probably not cheaper, though you're probably right.
So what they finally figured out was, here's what we
think happened is this stuff was not tainted at the factory.
This stuff was not tainted in the supply chain, but
this stuff was tainted, it from the store and then
(40:10):
returned back to the store because these pills were sold
in different stores, which is a big one, because not
only could it have been like part of the factory,
it could have been one of the local stores distribution
centers where there was somebody messing with it. But since
they were sold in Jewel food stores and Walgreens and
other places too around the Chicago area, that didn't make
(40:34):
any sense. It couldn't have just been like the jewel
distribution center. And also because they were coming from different
production plants, it really couldn't have been the production plant
or the factory where it came from. It had to be,
like you said, happening at the stores. Yeah, And there
were a lot of initial theories, you know. Was it
someone who like a former disgruntled employee of Johnson and Johnson?
(40:57):
Was it someone uh? Was it it just a serial
killer who just picked tail on all and wanted to
randomly kill people? Right? And this is that's weird, that's
a weird idea at the time, like now it just
seems normal, like yeah, probably, but this but this was
two years before the Sanya Cidro McDonald's massacre, which is
one of the very one of the next random killings
(41:22):
of people who just happened to be in the wrong
place at the wrong time. This was kind of the
first of that, but it was still so new and remote.
An alien that that's that didn't seem like a realistic
idea at the time. Yeah, some of the other ideas
they thought, um, maybe this was someone that was targeting
a specific person or people and then randomly poisoned other
(41:44):
people to cover their tracks. One of the weird um
one of the weird theories that came out later after
an spoiler alert, we now have tamper proof medicines. Sure
everyone's noticed. It was one theory that it was someone
who had a financial steak and tamper proof technology. Yeah,
(42:06):
I saw something like that too. I don't think there
was ever a ton of credence put into that one,
But the point is there were a lot. I mean,
they were flying blind basically because it was just such
an unexpected, odd, random thing that we're basically coming up
with kind of any idea they could think of. But
the one that the cops settled on and the one
that Johnson and Johnson also settled on too, because they
went back and tested samples from Lot MC and found
(42:30):
that there was no no, there's no taining of the
of the lot that there's their samples were pure. So
the cops and Johnson and Johnson both decided they settled
on what's called the mad poisoner theory. That somebody went
around this fifty mile radius in in the Chicago area
UM in about seven hours is what the cops calculated.
(42:51):
It would have taken either bought a bunch of tile
in all and then took it back to their house
and poisoned it, repackaged it and then drove around and
redistributed it, or went from store to store, went in,
bought some tile and all, took it out to the car,
poisoned it, and then repackaged it and brought it back in. UM.
But that it was local and it was specific to Chicago.
(43:14):
That was the mad poisoner theory. And again why still
no one has any idea why. Um. It could have
been random, they could have been targeting somebody. It could
have been a disgruntal Johnson and Johnson employee. But the
main theory for the Thaile and all killings in Chicago
is the mad poison er theory. Yeah, and do you
(43:34):
know how they tested that the rest of that lot.
They got Detective John Pinky McFarland, who had the best
drug pinky and all of Illinois. And he went around
and dipped that pinky in, touched it to his tongue.
He said, it's good. He's like, I can't feel my
face right now. The guy's a legend. Yeah, he's his
pinky is his pinky ring is so significant and barely
(43:57):
lift his finger. He only lifts to test drugs. I
told you we'd find some jokes. So by mid October,
this is sort of the final bit of part one here. Um,
there was another bottle that people that they found another
tainted bottle that was purchased on September twenty nine, so
it fit the bill. And it was a woman who
(44:20):
uh was feeling bad and went to go get that
tail in all and her sister was like, no, I've
got some buffering right here, just go ahead and take that.
And the lady presumably said, well, I really prefer see
a benefit, but I guess I'll take an aspirin. So yeah,
her sister in law saved her by offering her buffering instead.
She was steps away from dropping dead at a family gathering. Unbelievable.
(44:43):
That is a good place to stop. Huh. Yeah. So
that's part one of the Thailand All Murders or Timer's
with an S, and we're gonna come back with part
two after this. If you want to get in touch
with this in the meantime, you can go on to
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