E284: MURDER - The Tylenol Murders (part I)

Fresh Hell Podcast

freshhellpodcast

True Crime

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 6 June 2025

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In September of 1982, a 12-year-old girl in suburban Chicago took a Tylenol for a cold—and never got back up. Within days, six more people would die the same way. The connection? A bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol and a horrifying dose of potassium cyanide.

In this first part of our two-part series, Johanna and Annie walk through the events that stunned the nation: who the victims were, how investigators started piecing it together, and how Johnson & Johnson handled the situation.

It’s a case that changed how we trust what’s in our medicine cabinets…

Tylenol murders, 1982 Chicago, Mary Kellerman, Janus family, Mary McFarland, Mary Reiner, Paula Prince, potassium cyanide, poisoned Tylenol, Johnson & Johnson, product tampering, over-the-counter safety, unsolved true crime, corporate crisis response, FDA history, cyanide cases, public health scare, 1980s murders, Fresh Hell Podcast

Transcript

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0:00.0	You are listening to the Fresh Hell podcast.
0:14.6	Fresh Hell contains stories of a disturbing and often graphic nature and is intended for a mature audience.
0:20.6	Please don't let your kids listen to this,
0:22.4	or they might turn out like us. Hi, I'm Annie from Boston, and I'm Johanna from Rainy, Austria,
0:35.4	and you're listening to your favorite international podcast.
0:40.6	The podcast hosted by two women who never met in real life, but who still have one common goal.
0:47.3	And that's to prove that the past is never as dead as it seems to be.
0:51.4	That's right.
0:52.5	Welcome to another episode of Fresh Hell,
0:55.4	where true crime, history, and the delightfully macabre are always on the menu.
1:02.7	Before we jump in, we have a quick but sincerely heartfelt shout out to our newest patrons.
1:10.6	Thank you to Lil Syke, great username, J.S., Sean Gibbs, and Aaron Beverage.
1:20.1	Thank you so much.
1:21.9	We have more.
1:22.4	I have more for you.
1:23.1	Yeah.
1:24.1	Victoria Rodriguez, Samantha Lark, and Linda Volensky.
1:30.7	Thank you so much.
1:31.7	Thank you.
1:32.2	You just joined yesterday and today.
1:34.6	Thank you.
1:36.2	Sincerely, our patrons keep the lights on, the coffee flowing, the newspaper subscriptions paid and the dark tales coming.
	...

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