The Backstory: The Tylenol Murders

We’ve all had a nasty headache and run to grab some OTC pain relief, only to get thwarted by the childproof wrapping. But 7 still unsolved murders explain why our meds are wrapped so tight feel free to DM me if you have a story you’d like me to cover . . on Facebook it’s Patty Steele and on Instagram real Patty Steele

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Okay, you got a nasty headache, so you run to
your stash of OTC meds, or you stop by a
store to pick up some motor and leave Thailand all whatever.
Then you're driven nuts by trying to open the childproof wrapping.
But there's a reason they superseale these things. I'm Patty Steele.
The tail in All Murders changed everything. That's next on

(00:22):
the backstory, The backstory is back. Well. First of all,
I want to thank backstory fans Steve Kingston for this
episode idea. Seven deaths and almost forty four years and
it's still a who done it? Okay? Ever tried to
deal with opening a package or a bottle of over

(00:44):
the counterpane relief only to break a nail or, god forbid,
cut yourself on the quote unquote childproof packaging. Why in
the heck do they do that? Well, there's actually a
really good reason, and it all started back in the
early nineteen eighties. We head to a suburb of Chicago.
It's September twenty ninth, nineteen eighty two. That morning, twelve

(01:06):
year old Mary Kellerman woke up not feeling too good
in Elk Grove Village, Illinois. Her parents gave her a
capsule of extra strength tiland All, no big deal, millions
of Americans used them every day for headaches, fevers, all
sorts of pain. But this time, within hours, Little Mary
was dead. At first, doctors thought it was some sort

(01:28):
of medical condition, maybe a rare infection or an allergic
reaction to something. But later that same day, something else happened.
In nearby Arlington Heights, a man named Adam Janis took
tailand All for a minor cold. Short time later, he
collapsed and died at his house. Later that day, family
members got together to mourn him, and two relatives, Stanley

(01:52):
and Teresa Jannis, took some tyland All from the same bottle.
Within hours, both of them were dead too, three sudden
deaths in one family. Investigators knew something was very very wrong.
This wasn't some experimental drug, not something rare. It was
just thailand All, one of the most common OTC meds

(02:14):
in America. And pretty quick they'd learned the most shocking part.
The poison hadn't come from the tilin All factory. Somebody
had clearly placed it in there on purpose. Now medical
examiners had to quickly run toxicology tests. They were horrified
the dead victims had swallowed pills containing potassium cyanide, a

(02:36):
fast acting poison that shuts down the body's ability to
use oxygen. Even a tiny dose can kill within minutes.
They started testing the tailanol capsules from the victims' homes.
Inside the capsules cyanide, but it didn't appear to come
from the manufacturing process. Instead, it looked like somebody had

(02:58):
opened the capsules, filled them with poison, and sealed them again.
That meant the killer had tempered with the bottles after
they were already on store shelves. You can imagine the panic. Suddenly,
millions of people across the country were asking the same
terrifying question, is the medicine in my own home safe?

(03:19):
The fear became nationwide. Cops in the Chicago area warned
people to stop taking tylanol immediately. Stores pull bottles from shelves.
Of course, hospitals and poison control centers are flooded with
calls parents throw away medicine from their cabinets. The manufacturer,
Johnson and Johnson, faces a nightmare scenario. Tilan All accounts

(03:43):
for a massive portion of their business, and the product
had always been considered one of the safest medications available,
but now it was associated with death. So instead of
waiting for the situation to escalate, the company makes a
dramatic decision. They recall every bottle of thailanol in the
entire country. More than thirty million bottles are pulled from

(04:07):
store shelves across the United States at the same time.
The recall cost the company over one hundred million dollars,
which was a huge amount in nineteen eighty two, but
the move helps prevent additional deaths later. It's widely praised
as one of the most responsible crisis responses in corporate history.

(04:27):
But how thorough was it? Investigators from all sorts of
agencies start searching for the perp. It's a difficult case
to solve because the poisoning likely happened after the product
reached stores. The killer could have bought bottles, tampered with
them at home, and then quietly returned them to store shelves.
Who that gives you a chill, right? But years later,

(04:50):
the daughter of one victim says her mother had just
given birth to her and was given thilanol by the hospital,
which ultimately killed her. Where did that batch come from?
Had somebody come into the hospital, taken them home, tampered
with him, and brought him back. This all meant there
was pretty much no clear crime scene. Meantime, cops tested

(05:12):
tons of tailand All bottles from across the Chicago region.
They found several more contaminated bottles, but incredibly, no witnesses
ever reported seeing somebody tamper with them. At one point,
a man named James Lewis sends a letter to Johnson
and Johnson demanding a million dollars to stop the killing.

(05:32):
Of course, he becomes the main suspect, but eventually investigators
say he's not our poisoner. He's just trying to profit
from everybody's panic. There never was any evidence linking him
to the actual murders. So here we are decades later
and the case is still unsolved. The identity of the
killer who puts cyanide into those tailand All capsules has

(05:56):
never been confirmed. Now here's the thing. The violin all
murders put a spotlight on something the public never even
really had to consider before. In nineteen eighty two, most
meds were sold in simple little bottles with caps that
popped off or screwed off. They were easy to open.
There were no tamper proof seals, rarely even any protective packaging.

(06:19):
You could open a bottle in a store aisle, mess
with the contents, close the lid, put it back on
the shelf, and be on your way. Before the murders,
the idea that somebody would actually do something like this
seemed pretty unthinkable. Afterwards, folks saw it as a glaring vulnerability.
Within a few years, new safety standards transformed the industry. Today,

(06:43):
most meds use multiple layers of protection, sealed bottles, plastic
neck wraps, foil seals under the cap, tamper evident packaging.
And it's all because of the tragedy known as the
Chicago Tiland all murders. As far as the case itself,
it's been almost forty four years and it still haunts investigators.

(07:05):
The poisonings seem to have been random. There was no
connection between any of the victims. Was the killer trying
to send a message cause chaos, or weirdly, just test
whether they could get away with it. Nobody knows, but
the crime permanently changed how companies protect consumers and how
investigators think about product safety. Before nineteen eighty two, most

(07:29):
folks never thought twice about opening a bottle of medicine.
After the Thailand all murders, the country learned a chilling lesson.
Sometimes the most frightening crimes aren't the ones that happen
in dark alleys or hidden places. Sometimes they happen in
the most ordinary location of all your medicine cabinet. Hope

(07:50):
you like the Backstory with Patty steel Please leave a
review and I'd love it if you'd subscribe or follow
for free to get new episodes delivered automatically. Also feel
free to DM me if, like Steve Kingston, you have
a story you'd like me to cover. On Facebook, It's
Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele.

(08:15):
The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the Elvis
Durant Group and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser.
Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday
and Friday. Feel free to reach out to me with
comments and even story suggestions on Instagram at Real Patty
Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening

(08:38):
to the Backstory with Patty Steele. The pieces of history
you didn't know, you needed to know,