← America's Most Infamous Crimes with Katie Ring
America's Most Infamous Crimes with Katie Ring
The Tylenol Murders: Two Suspects, Two Investigations, Zero Answers. Pt. 2
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This is Crime House. Means, motive, opportunity. It's almost cliche at this point, but if you want to figure out who committed a crime, those are the three key things you need. Miss out on any of them and your case could fall flat. That was exactly what was frustrating the Tylenol task force. As their investigation dragged on for days and then weeks, they figured out how the killer turned five ordinary bottles of painkillers into murder weapons. They knew when it was done, but what they didn't have yet was a motive. Without that, the investigation stalled until a couple of well placed tips looked like they might just bust the case wide open. Hi, I'm Katie Ring and this is America's Most Infamous Crimes. Every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, I'll take you deep into cases that have a lasting imprint on society and still haunt us today. If you haven't subscribed yet, be sure to hit that button so you never miss an episode. Let's get into the chaotic search for the Tylenol killer and why personal grudges threatened to tear the investigation apart before it even got going. Every crime tells a story about the people involved, the system that tried to stop it, and the nation that couldn't look away. Some cases are so shocking, so deeply woven into who we are, that decades later, we're still asking, how did this happen? I'm Katie Ring and this is America's Most Infamous Crimes. Every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, I'll take you deep into cases that have a lasting imprint on society and still haunt us today. I want to thank you for being part of the Crime House community. Please rate, review and follow America's Most Infamous Crimes wherever you get your podcasts and to get all episodes at once ad free. Subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. Before I get started, please be advised that this episode contains descriptions of murder and poisoning, so please listen with care. This is the second of our three episode series on the Tylenol murders. Today we'll follow the task force into the streets of Chicago as they search for the person who killed seven people with poisoned Tylenol and why personal grudges threatened to tear the investigation apart before it even began. With Plan B, emergency contraception. We're in control of our future. It's backup birth control you take after unprotected sex that helps prevent pregnancy before it starts. It works by temporarily delaying ovulation and it won't impact your future fertility. Plan B is available in all 50 US states at all major retailers near you with no ID, prescription or age requirement needed. Together We've got this. Follow plan B on insta at Plan B. One step to learn more. Use as directed. On September 29, 1982, 27 year old Adam Janis died after experiencing sudden chest pain. Shortly afterward, Adam's brother Stanley and his sister in law Terry died in the same way. At first, public health officials were worried that the family had contracted some kind of virus. But the deaths didn't end with the janices. 12 year old Mary Kellerman, 27 year old Mary Reiner, and 31 year old Mary McFarland. Three people who had never met each other or anyone in the Janus family also met the same fate. There was only one thing that connected them all. Just before their hearts stopped, each victim had taken what they thought was a dose of Tylenol. But medical investigators quickly determined that those pills were laced with cyanide. On September 30, a team of local, state and federal investigators came together to form what became known as the Tylenol Task force. By tracing lot numbers on the four bottles known to contain contaminated pills, they quickly reached a chilling conclusion. The bottles had been tampered with on store shelves right there in the Chicago area neighborhoods. That was a key revelation. But the Tylenol investigators knew it was only a start because they still had no idea who the killer was or where they might be. So in order to find that person, the task force worked towards narrowing down a motive. That job fell to FBI Special Agent Roy Lane Jr. Throughout his 12 year career, Agent Lane had investigated everything from crooked judges to mob bosses. He knew that finding a motive was essential to making a case and that it wasn't always obvious. Lane considered every possibility. Maybe the killer was a disgruntled store employee, maybe an angry customer. Maybe they specifically targeted all of the victims for some reason. Or maybe they only targeted one and the rest were collateral damage. Or maybe it was totally and completely random. To try and narrow things down, Lane and the rest of the task force interviewed everyone they could think of with ties to the stores or the victims. They set up a tip line and on the first day alone, they received 177 calls. But it was like searching for a needle in a haystack. Nothing stood out. They even attended the victims funerals, hoping to spot someone suspicious in the crowd. But that didn't lead anywhere either. Before long, it started to feel like they were just throwing pasta at the wall. In need of new leads, state authorities convinced Tylenol's parent company, Johnson and Johnson, to offer a $100,000 reward to anyone with Information leading to an arrest. It was a pretty big carrot to chase. And after that, the pile of tips only grew. In all, there'd been about 6,000 to go through, and still nothing. Agent Lane was at a loss. But while his search for a motive kept coming up empty, his list of victims was about to get longer. On October 1st, Paula Prince, a flight attendant whose worried coworker had called the police, was found dead in her apartment. That brought the victim count to seven and the number of contaminated bottles to five. It also meant Chicago PD now had jurisdiction in the case. Detectives Charlie Ford and Jimmy Gilday, who had been called to investigate Paula's death, joined the task force. You'd think their added manpower would be a blessing. Many hands make light work, right? But Ford and Gilday's entry into the case dredged up a long running feud between the Chicago PD and the FBI and brought all of that bad blood right back to the surface. The year before, the U.S. department of justice had convicted 10 Chicago police officers in Marquette county of accepting bribes from big time heroin rings. The feds proved that the officers had warned dealers about incoming raids and even assaulted their competitors, all in exchange for money and goods. Because of that, Ford and Gilday felt like Agent Lane and the rest of the task force viewed them as, to use their own words, crooked thugs. And if the two detectives felt like they were under the microscope, it wouldn't have just been paranoia, because the FBI was currently running another undercover investigation into the Cook county police and court systems, which Ford and Gilday were a part of. So it wouldn't be surprising if Lane was keeping them at an arm's length. It didn't help that Ford and Gilday weren't exactly easy to get along with either. They didn't like working with suburban police officers who they saw as amateurs who'd never handled serious cases that understandably got under the suburban officer's skin. Now, if there was a chance the FBI and the suburban cops would at least band together in an enemy of my enemy is my friend sort of way, what happened next would make that unlikely. Without telling anyone else on the task force, Lane and the other FBI agents were asked a reporter from the Chicago Tribune to write a piece about the 12 year old victim, Mary Kellerman. They wanted to lure the killer in, so they told the reporter to include the site of Mary's grave and the Kellerman's home address. The thinking was that the killer might use that information to contact the victim's family. And when they did, the FBI would be ready. But when the paper hit the stands, one of the suburban police officers on the task force read the article and knew right away that it was planted. No one had told him about this plan, a plan involving victims in his jurisdiction. He confronted the FBI agents about it, and they apologized. But the damage was done and the trust was broken. The lack of communication only reinforced Ford and Gilday's belief that everyone else was incompetent and unprofessional. And on top of all of this, there was dysfunction at the very top of the investigation, too. The Illinois State Attorney general, Ty Fener, was one of the leaders in charge of the task force. He was also running for re election. With about five weeks of campaigning left when the murders occurred, and when people started dropping dead from contaminated Tylenol, he was losing in the polls. As the task force's leader, Feener conducted at least one press conference a day. To Ford and Gilday, his speeches were just fluffy. The task force still didn't have a suspect, and here was this politician grandstanding. As city cops, they prided themselves on keeping their heads down and doing the work. To them, Feener was putting on a show to win over voters. Let's just say the detectives weren't having it. They got so fed up that they packed up their stuff and never returned to the task force's office in the suburbs. They drove back into the city and started investigating from their own station instead. All of this conflict stalled any meaningful progress, and by October 6th, eight days after Adam Janus died, the task force still had no leads. But a break was coming. They were about to get their first really promising tip, even if it would only end up raising more questions than answers. DraftKings casino is changing the game with Flex Spins. New players play $5 and get 1500 Flex spins 50 a day for 30 days. Then you choose how to play across your favorite games like Huff and More, Puff, Cash, Eruption and more. Download the app now and sign up with code infamous to claim 1500 Flex spins on your choice of slots. The crown is yours. In partnership with DraftKings Casino Gambling Problem call 1-800-GAMBLER in Connecticut. Help is available for problem gambling. Call 888-789-7777 or or visit ccpg.org Please play responsibly. 21 plus physically present in Connecticut, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia only. Void in Ontario eligibility restrictions apply. Non withdrawable spins issued as 50 spins per day for 30 days. Valid for select games only and expire each day after 24 hours. See terms@casino draftkings.com promos ends April 30th at 11:59pm Eastern Time. This episode is brought to you by. Prime Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice off campus. Elle every year. After the Love Hypothesis, Sterling Point and more slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. Just one week into the investigation, the Tylenol task force was in disarray. Nobody trusted each other. Everyone felt undermined. One side of the task force was actively investigating another. And all of this infighting wasn't helped by the fact that they had zero leads. Maybe after eight days, the killer got sick of waiting for the cops. Because on October 6, 1982, something landed right in the investigators laps. The day before, Johnson and Johnson had received a letter in the mail. It was neatly handwritten in all caps. It read in part. As you can see, it is easy to place cyanide, both potassium and sodium, in the capsules sitting on the store shelves. It takes so very little. So far, I've spent less than 50. $50, and it takes me less than 10 minutes per bottle. And since the cyanide is inside the gelatin, it is easy to get buyers to swallow the bitter pill. Another beauty is that cyanide operates quickly. There will be no time for countermeasures. If you don't mind the publicity, then do nothing. If you want to stop the killing, then wire $1 million to bank account A4 Dash 49 597. The letter was immediately passed on to Agent Lane. He knew this was a huge break, but its contents raised a lot of questions. Lane teamed up with US Assistant Attorney Jeremy Margolis to figure out who the bank account belonged to. And they agreed right away on one essential truth. The owner of the bank account, the person who wrote the letter and and the killer weren't necessarily the same person. In other words, every new discovery could send them down a completely different rabbit hole. It wasn't hard to find the account's owner once they started looking. It belonged to a guy named Frederick Miller McCahey. Or more specifically, the McCahey's company. McCahey had owned a travel agency in the Chicago area called Lakeside Travel. About six six months earlier, long before anyone swallowed a poisoned Tylenol pill, Lakeside Travel went out of business. Nobody knew exactly why the company folded, but there were rumors that McCahey had been dipping into the company's Funds for his own personal use. Lane and his team wasted no time getting in touch with McCaughey. And to his credit, he was happy to talk. But as soon as he opened his mouth, the investigators had a gut feeling that he wasn't the killer. Something about his demeanor just didn't fit. McCahey also pointed out something obvious. Because the company was closed, the bank account mentioned in the letter wasn't even active anymore. If he was trying to extort Johnson and Johnson, why would he have them send money to a bank account that couldn't receive it? So this wasn't their man. But he might be connected to the person who was. Investigators knew about the rumors surrounding McCaughey's shady business dealings. They figured that any former employee would resent losing their job because of his poor choices. They wondered, could someone be trying to frame their old boss? The task force started talking to McCahey's former employees, but they knew they needed to narrow things down. They started with what they could prove. Only certain employees knew the company's bank account number. And the envelope the letter came in had the company's unique postage ID on it. Only a few people had access to both of those things, and one of them was the company's former bookkeeper, a woman named Nancy Richardson. If anyone knew the truth about how McCaughey mishandled Lakeside's funds, it was Nancy. And she had plenty of reasons to be angry with him. After the business shut down, everyone's final paychecks bounced. Nancy had managed to cash hers at a currency exchange. She walked out with about $500, but it wasn't long before the exchange realized the check was bad. They wanted their money back, and they sued Nancy for the full amount. So not only did she lose her job and her paycheck, she was now dealing with legal troubles on top of it. As the investigation continued, officers learned that Nancy had taken a stack of envelopes with Lakeside's postage ID on them when the company closed. That meant she could have been the one to send the letter. But Nancy wasn't actually the task force's biggest suspect. Her husband, however, was. Robert Richardson had been angrier about the company's closing than any of its former employees. He was especially furious that Nancy's check had bounced. He rallied the other scorned employees and filed grievances with the Illinois Labor Department. A hearing was held on August 3, 1982, where Robert argued that the money owed to employees should come out of McCahey's personal account. But Robert lost the case. And he and Nancy were left with nothing. All of this caught investigators attention, but they needed to know if Robert was angry enough to frame McCahey for murder. And to do that, they needed to talk to him. They found an address for Robert and Nancy on the north side of Chicago and made their way over. But when they arrived, the police place was empty. The investigators talked to the couple's neighbors and learned that about a month before the murders, on September 4, 1982, the Richardsons had suddenly announced they were moving to Amarillo, Texas. Nobody knew exactly when the Richardsons left their building, but investigators followed a painstaking paper trail that led them nowhere. It was a huge blow. And to add insult to injury, the Chicago detectives had just uncovered a promising lead of their own. What they did to your family. You're lucky to make it out alive. Streaming on Peacock These men are going to come after me. Taking them out. It's my only chance. Put a bullet in her head. From the co creator of Ozark. Looks like a family was running drugs. Execution style killing. It's rare for the keys. Any leads on who they might have been running for? The cartel killed my family. I'm gonna kill them. All of them. MIA Streaming now only on Peacock Girl. Winter is so last season. And now spring's got you looking at pictures of tank tops with hungry eyes. Your algorithm is feeding you cutoffs. You're thirsty for the sun on your shoulders that perfect hang on the patio sundress. Those sandals you can wear all hand all night. And you've had enough of shopping from your couch. Done. Hoping it looks anything like the picture when you tear open that envelope. It's time for a little in person spring treat. It's time for a trip to Ross. Work your magic. Around the same time that investigators were standing on the steps of the Richardsons empty building, a few men sat talking at a pub in Chicago. Two of them were regulars and the third, Marty Sinclair, was the pub's owner. The two regulars pulled up their barstools and in hushed tones, they told Marty they were worried about another regular, A guy named Roger Arnold. It had started about six months earlier when Arnold started acting what the two men described as erratic and despondent. And then Arnold told them something that stuck with him. He said he'd bought cyanide for some sort of project. At the time, they didn't think much of it. On Arnold was the kind of guy who was always tinkering with some unusual hobby. And cyanide is used for non lethal purposes like manufacturing paper and various Plastics. But when the news broke about the Tylenol murders, the two men thought back to that conversation. And it hit a little different this time. After they shared their suspicions, Marty immediately picked up the phone and called the Chicago PD tip line. On the other end, Charlie Ford and Jimmy Gilday were more than happy to listen to Marty called on October 6, the same day the task force learned about Johnson and Johnson's extortion letter. So while the FBI and the suburban cops were racking their brains trying to find the Richardsons, Ford and Gilday kept their lead to themselves. They told Marty to call them the next time Arnold showed up. But the detectives didn't just sit around waiting. For the next five days. They had officers patrol Lincoln Avenue, where Marty's Pub and a bunch of other bars were located. They dug up a photo of Arnold and showed it to employees up and down the street. And on October 11, five days after Marty first called, Ford and Gilday were at their desks when their phone rang. Someone from one of the bars told them that Arnold was there right now. The detectives sped over. When they confronted Arnold, he seemed off. They told him someone had called in about him and that the caller thought he could possibly be the Tylenol killer. And then they cuffed him and took him to the station. Once they had Arnold in the interrogation room, their strategy was to schmooze him, as Ford put it. They told Arnold that the Tylenol killer was a genius, a criminal mastermind. Maybe they figured Arnold was the type who'd be flattered by that kind of talk. But Arnold didn't really take the bait. However, he did admit he'd go purchased cyanide earlier that year, but he claimed he'd thrown it away a long time before the murders happened. Ford and Gilday weren't buying it. Over the next couple of days, as they dug deeper, they became more and more convinced that Arnold was their guy. It turned out that Arnold worked at one of the stores that had sold a poisoned Tylenol bottle. The detectives talked to his manager, who told them Arnold had been in a dark mood lately. He'd even told a co worker that he wanted to hurt someone. Specifically, he wanted to throw acid on them or poison them. All that pent up rage likely came from his recent divorce. Arnold and his wife had split up right around or before the time of the poisonings. And let's just say it was not amicable. Then came something that really got the detectives attention. While questioning other employees at the grocery store, Ford and Gilday learned that one of Arnold's coworkers was the father of one of the victims, Mary Reiner, who'd given birth just days before she died. It's hard to say how or why Arnold would have targeted Mary specifically, but this connection to her dad was too much for the detectives to ignore. Ford and Gilday needed to verify Arnold's claim that he had tossed the cyanide. So they put him in the back of a cruiser and drove to his home. Arnold willingly handed over the key, which was surprising considering what they found once they opened the front door. First they saw reams of paper, and most of them were order forms for chemical companies. Then they went down to the basement where they found beakers, vials, and a book called the Poor Man's James Bond, which explained how to make potassium cyanide, the exact substance used to poison the Tylenol capsules. They also found four handguns, a rifle, and a one way ticket to Thailand, leaving on October 15, just a few days away. At this point, Ford was convinced that Roger Arnold was their man. And he didn't think that the motive was all that complicated. Ford told the Chicago Tribune that Arnold probably just wanted to prove he was a criminal mastermind. Ford and Gilday arrested Arnold and brought him back to the station. Here's the thing. Arnold would never be charged with any of the murders. The state's attorney decided that while the detectives had solid circumstantial evidence, it wasn't concrete enough for a murder charge. They did charge Arnold with failing to register the guns found in his home. But on October 13, just two days after his place was searched, Arnold was released on bond. You can imagine how crushing that was for the detectives. And. And to make matters worse, that same evening, their rival agent Roy Lane, got a big break in his investigation. On the night of October 13th, Kansas City Police Sergeant David Barton was sitting home watching the news as he wound down from a long day. At one point, headshots of a man and a woman flashed onto the screen. The news anchor explained that the couple was wanted by the FBI in connection with the million dollar extortion letter sent to Johnson and Johnson following the Tylenol murders. Their names were Nancy and Robert Richardson. Barton jumped up from his seat. He recognized Robert Richardson, but he knew the man by a different name, James Lewis. And Lewis was on Barton's radar for some very serious crimes, including murder. At the end of each episode, I like to share my thoughts and answer any questions, so feel free to comment below. Did the dysfunctional relationships on the task force hamper the investigation? Or would the cops have been stymied by this case even if they were all best friends? The amount of lives lost purely because of egos actually makes me so mad. And we definitely see that dynamic here. It becomes a competition where instead of collaborating, they gatekeep key information so they can be the ones to solve the crimes. But many times the pieces of information they have together could fill in the blanks needed to actually solve cases. Obviously, I can see how another department coming in and taking over your case would be frustrating, but at the end of the day, catching the killer should be everyone's top priority. Even if that means collaborating with people you may not like very much and not getting the credit for the entire case. At this point, who's more likely to be the killer? The Richardsons or Arnold? It's hard to say because at this point they are both very strong suspects. However, in tomorrow's episode one definitely pulls ahead for me. So I won't give away too much information and tomorrow I will also get into some additional theories that again, I won't give away too much. But stay tuned for tomorrow's episode cause we'll really dig into those then. Do we agree with the state's attorney that there wasn't enough evidence to charge Arnold? How frustrating must it be for law enforcement to feel like this is your guy, you just can't prove it? I think it would be extremely frustrating for any detectives that think they have their guy and feel like they're being stymied just because they don't have direct evidence. So there was circumstantial evidence. But in the end, I do agree with the state's attorney that there was still a lot of reasonable doubt in this case. For the most part. This could be a weirdo who purchases a lot of chemicals, not just the cyanide. As the people said, he has all these projects always going on. I think the poor man's James Bond book likely also contains more recipes than just the one for potassium cyanide. I think that the most significant piece of evidence was the fact that he worked at the pharmacy that sold one of the bottles of Tylenol. But again, without any direct evidence or witnesses, I think that a good lawyer could poke a lot of holes in that case. Again, as a cop, I understand how it would be extremely frustrating feeling like you have the guy and you're only being held back because of technicalities. And we will also see in tomorrow's episode that that feeling will get even worse. But I totally understand the feeling. I agree, though. That this case at this point was not strong enough. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode. Make sure to rate, review and follow America's most infamous crimes so we can keep building this community together and to get all episodes at once. Ad free. Subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. Come back tomorrow for our last episode on the Tylenol Murders.