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, Tylenol, whatever. Then you're driven nuts by trying to open

the childproof wrapping. But there's a reason they super seal these things. I'm Patty Steele.

The Tylenol murders changed everything. That's next on the

backstory. The backstory is back. Well, first of all, I want to thank backstory fan Steve Kingston

for this episode idea. Seven deaths and almost 44 years, and it's still a whodunit. Okay, ever tried to deal

with opening a package or a bottle of over-the-counter pain relief, only to like 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 1980s. We head to a suburb of Chicago.

It's September 29, 1982. That morning, 12-year-old Mary Kellerman woke up not feeling too good

in Elk Grove Village, Illinois. Her parents gave

her a capsule of extra strength Tylenol. No big deal. Millions of Americans use 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 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 Janice

took Tylenol 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 and Teresa Janice, took some Tylenol 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 Tylenol, one of the most common OTC meds in America.

...