The Tylenol Murders

Who Killed...?

Bill Huffman

True Crime, Society & Culture, History

3.8 • 595 Ratings

🗓️ 21 February 2025

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In September of 1982, a 12-year-old girl and six adults in and around Chicago died suddenly and mysteriously. The victims of this product tampering case were Mary Kellerman, age 12, of Elk Grove Village; Adam Janus, age 27, of Arlington Heights; Stanley Janus, age 25, and Theresa Janus, age 19, both of Lisle; Mary Reiner, age 27, of Winfield; Mary McFarland, age 31, of Elmhurst; and Paula Prince, age 35, of Chicago. All seven were determined to have ingested cyanide-laced Extra Strength Tylenol capsules on or shortly after September 29, 1982. Additional information about this investigation can be found on the FBI’s Internet website, www.fbi.gov. Sources: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/cyanide-laced-tylenol-kills-seven https://www.newspapers.com/clip/95086875/ https://www.newspapers.com/clip/95087191/ https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2013-09-29-ct-met-tylenol-investigation-20130929-story.html https://abcnews.go.com/WN/james-lewis-tylenol-killer-suspect-1982-murders-innocent/story?id=9531812 https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/chicago/press-releases/2012/search-for-tylenol-killer-continues-as-30th-anniversary-of-poisonings-approaches https://www.ou.edu/deptcomm/dodjcc/groups/02C2/Johnson%20&%20Johnson.htm https://apnews.com/article/c501b46c160c342222d3414c286b74a1 https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/2018/01/05/260121/how-the-tylenol-murders-fundamentally-changed-the-way-we-all-take-medicine/ https://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/cold-cases/chicago-tylenol-murders/ https://www.newspapers.com/clip/95086729/north-bay-nugget/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNOHWrAbX2w Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Slow Burn Media and Evergreen Podcast presents Who Killed, a podcast that provides a voice for the voiceless.
0:17.0	As we know, the children's tyanol, the chewable, have not been implicated yet.
0:24.2	Exactly what is going on right now.
0:26.1	They're just assuming that it could be the cyanide lace capsule also.
0:32.7	The phone has been ringing off the hook at Rush Presbyterian St. Luke's Medical Center in Chicago.
0:38.1	It's the regional poison control center for the entire Chicago area.
0:42.1	Poison Specialist, Lane O'Liff.
0:43.6	We've been receiving calls about once every 15 seconds.
0:47.1	At Rush Presbyterian St. Luke's, we only have three poison lines, and they're lit up constantly, ever since yesterday morning.
0:59.0	Right now, they're telling people which lots of Tylenol are known to have contaminated capsules and checking to see if colors have displayed any symptoms of cyanide poisoning.
1:03.0	If they have it, tell me going to an emergency room, if they don't have that, and they took it yesterday,
1:07.0	we just tell them you're probably going to have no problem with it, just hold on to the bottles.
1:12.1	Don't take any Tylenol extra strength through the time being until you hear otherwise.
1:15.6	Most of what's going on here is informational.
1:18.1	Officials here say, if anyone has taken a cyanide-laced Tylenol capsule,
1:22.4	they probably wouldn't be able to make it to the phone to call.
1:25.3	I'm Jeff Locke, CNN at Rush Presbyterian State Luke's Medical Center in Chicago.
1:32.3	It's been almost 30 years now since that Tylenov scare gripped this nation.
1:36.3	The cyanide tampering of those bottles was deadly, and today we learned of a major development in this cold case.
1:42.3	FBI investigators are now looking at a possible link to the Unabomber.
1:46.6	Pierre Thomas explains why.
1:49.3	It was a national nightmare.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Bill Huffman, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Bill Huffman and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.