SYSK’s Fall True Crime Playlist: The Tylenol Murders, Part II

Summary

Stuff You Should Know – SYSK’s Fall True Crime Playlist: The Tylenol Murders, Part II
September 26, 2025 | Hosted by Josh Clark and Charles W. "Chuck" Bryant

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Episode Overview

Part two of the SYSK deep dive into the infamous 1982 Chicago Tylenol Murders focuses on the aftermath of the poisoning, Johnson & Johnson’s crisis management, how the murders changed consumer safety, and the decades-long investigation into suspects. The hosts break down the public’s psychological aftermath, the PR response, and why – over 40 years later – the perpetrator’s identity remains a mystery.

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Key Themes & Discussion Points

1. Johnson & Johnson’s Response: A PR Textbook Case

• Initial Reluctance: At first, J&J was hesitant to issue a full recall, believing their supply chain was not compromised (03:02).
• Public Pressure: Only after Chicago mayor Jane Byrne’s press conference did J&J take action, first recalling all Tylenol in Chicago, then extending nationally (03:48–04:59).
  • Quote: “Johnson and Johnson did a little face palm and went, yes, we’re recalling all of the Tylenol in Chicago.” – Josh Clark (04:06)
• Mass Recall: Within a week, all Extra Strength Tylenol nationwide was recalled ($100 million loss), destroying 31 million bottles (04:59–08:14).
  • Quote: "There was a chance that not only were they losing $100 million, but that they were losing $100 million of a brand that had already lost the public trust and would never regain it." – Josh Clark (08:14)
• Regaining Trust: Hotlines, rewards, and increased transparency helped J&J position themselves as victims and restore public trust (09:27–10:14).

2. How Consumer Safety Changed Forever

• Lack of Tamper-Proofing in 1982: Pills were easily accessible—no seals, no glued-shut packaging (11:03–11:18).
• Nationwide Panic: The attack shattered public trust in product safety; people feared all consumables could be poisoned (12:38–14:19).
  • Quote: “That was really emblematic of the attitude, the shock that everybody went through... America was terrified.” – Josh Clark (13:33)
• Rapid Packaging Innovation: Within weeks, tamper-evident packaging (sealed boxes, foil inner seals, plastic wrap) was introduced; the caplet format was born (14:19–15:53).
• Regulation:
  • Tylenol Bill (1983): Tampering became a federal crime (16:50).
  • FDA Guidelines (1989): Industry-wide requirements for tamper-resistant packaging (17:08).

3. The Investigation: Psychological Profiles and Dead Ends

• Profile: Psychologists speculated the poisoner was an ordinary “Jekyll and Hyde” man in his 20s/30s, plagued by self-doubt, seeking worth through random killing (20:19–20:52). Many theorized the person killed himself after the attacks (21:08).
• Sheer Scale: 140-person task force, whittling 20,000 suspects to 400; as leads dried up, the force was periodically reduced (21:46–22:33).
  • Quote: “As quickly as they... had that 140 person task force, they almost just as quickly... realized that, like, we don’t have a very good chance at finding this person.” – Charles W. Chuck Bryant (22:33)

4. Main Suspects: The Saga of Arnold and Lewis

⭐ Roger Arnold:

• Why a Suspect: Chemist, owned unregistered guns, had “handbook on methods of killing”, cyanide experience; wife felt sick after taking Tylenol (26:15–27:38).
• Cleared: Cops found no credible link, but later Arnold murdered a man in a mistaken identity rage (28:16). Victim, John Stanisha, is considered an “eighth victim” linked indirectly to Tylenol case (29:24–30:05).

⭐ James Lewis (aka Robert Richardson):

• Blackmail Letter: Sent to J&J, demanding $1 million or the killings would continue; provided bank account info from a travel agency (32:47–34:34).
• Complex Backstory: Violent history, previously indicted but acquitted on a murder charge due to a technicality; history of credit card fraud and assumed identities (35:09–36:25).
• Not Physically Present: He and his wife left Chicago for NY before the poisonings, couldn’t be physically placed at the scene during the required time window (36:53–37:04).
• Odd Behavior: Admitted to writing the extortion letter but denied involvement in poisonings; simulated how he’d commit the crime (38:17–38:44).
  • Quote: “I could tell you how Julius Caesar was killed, but that doesn’t mean I was the killer.” – Charles W. Chuck Bryant, paraphrasing Lewis (38:23)
• Manhunt & Aftermath: Captured after taunting media, served 13 years for extortion and fraud, currently resides in Boston/Cambridge area (39:16–39:53).
• Later FBI Attention: In 2009, was forced to provide DNA and fingerprints; nothing further resulted (41:11).
• Other Notables: Even conspiracy theories emerged tying the Unabomber (Ted Kaczynski) to the case, but he was cleared (41:40–42:08).

5. Theories, Copycats, & Lingering Mysteries

• Unsolved: All suspects ultimately cleared; no charges ever filed (42:08).
• Family & Survivor Trauma: Family members share ongoing pain, PTSD, and their struggle for closure (43:53–44:21).
  • Quote: “[My grandparents]…literally every day for the rest of their lives, they just cried about the fact that they didn’t know who did it.” – Charles W. Chuck Bryant (44:01)
• Alternative Theories: Some, including investigator family members, suspect a supply chain sabotage and company coverup (44:23–44:46).
• Copycat in 1986: In New York, two more tampered Tylenol bottles killed one, despite new packaging; the event remains unexplained, fueling further conspiracy (45:08–46:10).
• True Crime Rabbit Hole: Discussion of Scott Bartz’s self-published book asserting an inside-job theory, which the hosts flag as unsubstantiated (46:27–47:10).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Like, it’s literally called a textbook example of how it’s done.” – Josh Clark, on J&J’s crisis PR response (02:57)
• “That’s how we lived. And that sets up this Tylenol poisoning. It really shows how much of a jarring experience it was for America...” – Josh Clark (13:32)
• “Within about a year, Johnson and Johnson managed to win the public’s trust back in Tylenol.” – Josh Clark (15:53)
• On public trust: “It was the end of some form of innocence that we still had.” – Josh Clark (47:10)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Johnson & Johnson PR Response: 02:06–10:14
• Before Tamper-Proofing: 11:03–13:33
• American Panic & Product Safety Revolution: 13:33–15:53
• Legislation & Industry Change: 16:50–17:34
• Investigation & Suspect List: 21:45–22:33
• Psychological Profiling: 20:19–21:08
• Suspect: Roger Arnold: 25:20–30:27
• Suspect: James Lewis: 32:47–41:11
• Family Trauma & Conspiracy Theories: 43:53–47:10
• Final Thoughts/Unsolved Status: 42:08–47:22

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Tone and Style

As always, Josh and Chuck balance deep factual dives with humor and humanity. They’re empathetic to the victims and families, skeptical of wild theories, critical of media missteps, and at ease with each other’s banter. Their conversational tone, curiosity, and accessibility shine, even when the topic is grim.

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Summary

This episode closes out the Tylenol Murders two-parter by highlighting how the events forever shifted American consumer culture, corporate PR strategy, and public safety expectations. Despite massive investigation efforts and media scrutiny, the Tylenol Murders remain unsolved, and the trail is cold. But the ripples are still felt—in how all of us open our medicine, check for tamper seals, and trust the products we buy.

Transcript

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

In part two of our episode on the 1982 Chicago Tylenol murders, we look at the suspects in the case and really zero in on one of them. But to this day, it's not clear if they were behind it. And although there was a lot of weird evidence around him, it's all circumstantial. I hope you enjoy finishing up on the Tylenol murders.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Welcome to Stuff youf Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio's How Stuff Works.

[Josh Clark]

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. There's guest producer Josh over there. I guess enough with the pleasantries. Let's get back to it.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Chuck, Tylenol Murders, Part 2. If you did not listen to the first part, in 1982, seven people were murdered by ingesting Tylenol tainted with cyanide.

[Josh Clark]

All on the same day.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

All on the same day. America and much of the world is super freaked out. Johnson and Johnson is the manufacturer. And part one of Part two has to deal with Johnson and Johnson and how they handled this in a public relations sort of way, because there were and are a huge company. Like you said in the episode one, they held 37% of the market share, which was many hundreds of millions of dollars of Tylenol that they're selling every year.

[Josh Clark]

And that's in $1982, right?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Which is like gazillions now. So it was a very big deal for that company. And the way they handled it is taught in colleges, in PR classes all over the world, as exactly how to handle a big public relations crisis like this.

[Josh Clark]

Like it's literally called a textbook example of how it's done.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, correct. They did a good job because as you remember from the last episode, they found out pretty sure early on that this had nothing to do with Johnson and Johnson.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Like it wasn't in their factory, it wasn't in their supply chain. That it happened almost certainly. And that it probably happened by some crazed person taking them out of the store, tainting them maybe in the store, in the parking lot, then putting them back on the shelf. But Johnson and Johnson can't come out on the news and say, hey, wasn't us.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Well, at first, though, and this gets overlooked and left out of the College of Business courses and the PR courses. At first, Johnson and Johnson was not in favor of a massive recall.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Sure. Because that looks. Well, it looks good in one way, but bad in another.

[Josh Clark]

And they actually didn't recall anything until Mayor Jane Byrne held her press conference on Friday calling for a recall of the Tylenol in Chicago. And Johnson and Johnson did a little face palm and went, yes, we're recalling all of the Tylenol in Chicago.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yes. What she said.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So by Friday, the 31st of September, is there 31 in September? Was this October 1st?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I have no idea.

[Josh Clark]

I think it was October 1st. Anyway, by the Friday, two days after the death, the deaths, Johnson and Johnson recalled all of the Tylenol in Chicago. And that should have been enough to them. That was enough. But this PR crisis was so massive and spread so fast and like we said earlier in part one, became global almost overnight. It was not enough. And so Johnson and Johnson, within a week of the deaths, recalled every bottle of extra strength Tylenol in the United States, which is worth about $100 million at the time, took it back to their factories and destroyed it.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So they say, right? Yeah. Both Johnson and Johnson.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I wonder if one of them was like, I don't know about this.

[Josh Clark]

One of them said, okay, I'll take all the states west of the Mississippi, North Dakota, South Dakota and some of Wyoming. And then you take all the other states. That's a Part one joke.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

They even got an award, the Public Relations Society of America, which is a real thing, believe it or not. They awarded them their Silver Anvil award for how they handle the crisis.

[Josh Clark]

The Tylenol poisonings.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That's right. And high grade foods. Remember we talked about the bad wieners in the first episode? The ballpark franks that supposedly had razor blades but did not. That still Created a public relations crisis for them, even though they were just these little jerks in Detroit. And they won the Golden Anvil, which.

[Josh Clark]

Is one higher than silver, because of how they handled the PR crisis brought about by the copycats of the actual.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Tylenol crisis, which was, in fact, really brought about by two jerk kids in Detroit.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Really. Not even copycats.

[Josh Clark]

Not the Tylenol crisis.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I wonder where those kids are today.

[Josh Clark]

Probably in the Senate.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I bet one of them was the guy who did our lighting at our Detroit show.

[Josh Clark]

Do you want some smoke? I'll give him some more smoke.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Guys, we did a show in Detroit a few years ago, and very famously, we still use that as the standard bearer for Bad Crew Bad. We had a guy that looked like a former roadie for Uriah Heep that was running like a light show, basically, during the middle of our podcast. And smoke came out, we were like, we had to stop the show. Almost like, dude, what are you doing?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, well, the lighting was so bad that your highlighter had turned, like, brown and you could no longer see the words. And you asked him, we had to stop the show. And you had to ask him to use a different color light. And his response, because Yumi was hanging out and our friend Chris Bowman was hanging out in the sound booth with the guy, his response, according to them, was, they want smoke. I'll give them some more smoke. And we got some more smoke.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Like a smoke machine. Yeah, man. And people ask us why we haven't been back to Detroit.

[Josh Clark]

That's a big reason.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It's a big reason.

[Josh Clark]

Not the only reason.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Okay, so they won the Golden Anvil for the wiener. PR moves. McNeil Consumer Products, which is a subsidiary of Johnson and Johnson.

[Josh Clark]

They actually make Tylenol.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, they make the pills. Again, the way all this supply chain works is really convoluted. And like you said, they didn't want to recall Johnson, Johnson, everything at first. They want to kind of take it a little slower, I guess.

[Josh Clark]

Well, sure.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I mean, because they'd found out the drugs were actually fine. Thanks to Pinky McFarland.

[Josh Clark]

This is $100 million worth of stock they were kind of feeling the pressure to recall.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

So they were kind of reluctant at first, especially if they were convinced that there was nothing wrong with the rest of them.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

They had no choice. No, that was the only way to do it was to lose a lot of money in favor of future gains.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. But even at the time, a lot of people were like, this is it for Tylenol. The public has lost faith in Tylenol. So when Tylenol recalled 31 million 50 count bottles of extra Strength Tylenol and destroyed it all, there was a chance that not only were they losing $100 million, but that they were losing $100 million of a brand that had already lost the public trust and would never regain it.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Which wasn't true, but.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, no, but they didn't necessarily know that at the time. It was still up in the air. So it was basically 31 million sacrificial lambs that were killed to show the public this Taina Tylenol is gone forever.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

Your chances of dying from taking Extra Strength Tylenol are now gone. You can go back to taking Tylenol now. That was one thing, and that was a big gesture, which is what it amounted to. It was a gesture on behalf of Johnson and Johnson. But they did other stuff, too. They started to do things right out of their reluctance. Once they finally said, we have to just go with this to save face and to win back public trust, they started to do things right, including setting up a hotline, putting out $100,000 reward for information.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Chump change, considering how much they had lost already.

[Josh Clark]

It's $1982.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Well, still chump change.

[Josh Clark]

It is.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And that remains unclaimed.

[Josh Clark]

It does. But because of all this, Johnson and Johnson managed to regain the public trust and actually managed to position itself as a victim in all of this. Like, yes, there were these, which they were. I mean, seven murder victims. And Johnson and Johnson, I don't think ever tried to push them out of the spotlight, but they also managed to portray themselves as the victim of a mad poisoner who may or may not had something out for them. But either way, their brand was taking a huge hit because of this. And they were a victim and were able to generate public sympathy, which is part of the road to regaining the public trust.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right. Which is why it's taught in PR classes.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So we'll take you back to 1982 if you weren't around then or old enough to be taking OTC pills and pain relievers.

[Josh Clark]

OTC is over the counter, by the way.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

You down with otc?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. You know me.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So dumb. I love that you played along, though. I appreciate it.

[Josh Clark]

Cheers, buddy.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

You could have made me feel stupid.

[Josh Clark]

We've been partners for 11 years almost now.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. That'd be when? Next month or this month, Right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Unbelievable. So unbelievable. Not in that way. Okay, so here's how it used to happen if you wanted to take a pill like a Tylenol, you would get your bottle, you would pop it open with your thumb first.

[Josh Clark]

First it came in a little box.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Sure. But the box wasn't even glued shut.

[Josh Clark]

No.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

You would pop it open with your finger, you would take out the cotton in there and you would take your pill. It was that easy. There was no tamper proofing?

[Josh Clark]

No.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

There was no. The cotton was completely superfluous at this time.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Cotton originally was introduced to keep Bayer aspirin, like the hard tablets, from getting crushed in transport. And since they started using capsules and other stuff and figured out how to strengthen tablets, there was no reason for the cotton any longer. But because consumers expected it. I know today you'll find cotton in your pills. There's no reason for it to be there except because the companies know that you want it to be there. You would be weirded out if there wasn't cotton in your pills.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I imagine the cotton lobby had something to do with that, too.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, I'll bet they're not complaining. Big cotton.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

New fancy OTC pills should have Micromodal in there.

[Josh Clark]

Right. It just comes with a pair of meundies stuffed into your pill bottle. That'd be a blast. And you're like, these have been worn.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So this was a time, it was a very innocent time previous to this, where you could, like. And you pointed this out. I remember seeing this in grocery stores. Like, I remember seeing mothers in grocery stores opening food products and smelling them.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. That's what you could do.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And then closing it back and putting it back on the shelf, maybe.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, there's a little mold in this one.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

I mean, I'll just leave it for the next person.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Forget poisoning like these. They could be spitting in this stuff. It was allowed.

[Josh Clark]

That's just the way it was. Like there was. America was innocent enough that that was fine. That's how we lived. And that sets up this Tylenol poisoning. It really shows how much of a jarring experience it was for America because all of a sudden it's finally sunk in. In a couple of days. There's something wrong with the Tylenol. Somebody has gone out of their way to poison the Tylenol in order to randomly kill people. And the reason they were able to do this is because it's easy to get into the Tylenol. Super easy. Tamper with it, put it back, and no one will be any more the wiser. And wait, it's not just Tylenol. Milk doesn't have anything that keeps it tamper resistant. Neither is orange juice, neither is cereal, neither does cottage cheese. Nothing does. And America freaked out. And this is the reason why this Tylenol poisoning is considered widely the first incident of domestic terrorism in the United States. Because it was terrorism, pure and simple. America was terrified. They were petrified not only to take Tylenol or any over the counter medicine, now they were petrified to drink milk or give milk to their kids. But Paula Prince, the flight attendant who was the last one to die in Chicago, she had a coworker who said, everything looked tainted now. I was afraid to give my kids milk. I was afraid to give my kids cereal. If they could get to the Tylenol, they could poison anything. And that was really emblematic of the attitude, the shock that everybody went through. And as a result, within six weeks, Tylenol said, we got this covered.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And I have a feeling they did this so fast. There had to have been this idea in place already.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it was. I saw, I saw a reference that it was.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And I imagine it was not done because they were like, well, it's a lot of money and why, why would we bother? It's like, it's not like someone's gonna poison the medicine.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And then that happened. So within six weeks they had a box that was actually glued shut. So if your little box had been opened, you would be able to tell.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that was, that was part one of three of this tamper resistant packaging.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That little plastic seal over the top of the bottle after you open it or. No, no, no, the plastic is over the cap on the outside of the bottle.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, like the plastic foil.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And then the actual foil was over the mouth of the bottle that we all have to poke through now to pull out the cotton and whatever still uses cotton.

[Josh Clark]

None of that existed until the beginning of 1983.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So all three of these are put in place within six weeks. Not only that, they said, you know what, we're going to introduce the caplet, which everyone knows now. We didn't have them back then. Everything was a little capsule that you could literally pull apart. And you could snort the Tylenol if you wanted to.

[Josh Clark]

Sure. I'm quite sure some people did.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I'm sure someone did. But the caplet is a tablet coated with an easy to swallow gelatin. It's solid. I imagine you could tamper with it. And I even saw with all these things in place, they said nothing is tamper proof. But these measures really went a long way to restore the public well like the good feelings about what was going on.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Within about a year, Johnson and Johnson managed to win the public's trust back in Tylenol.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That's hard to believe. A year that was really fast.

[Josh Clark]

But it also goes to show just how perfectly they did everything from the time they committed to it on.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And I feel like I remember, like commercials with CEOs and stuff addressing the public.

[Josh Clark]

He became mistaken. I can't remember his name. I want to say Joffrey Beam, but it's like a shoe brand.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Gabby Johnson?

[Josh Clark]

No.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Bill Johnson?

[Josh Clark]

No.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Howard Johnson.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. I can't remember his name. But he. Jimmy Johnson is way far away from that. But he became a public face. He would, you know, go on to 60 Minutes and he talked to Dan Rather and Ted Koppel and all those cats. Like he was out there, like, showing how much the company cared. And it had a huge effect.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And then in 1983, Congress got involved. They passed what they dubbed the Tylenol Bill, which basically says if you do something like this, it's now a federal offense. A few Years later, in 1989, the FDA actually established guidelines for all manufacturers of any product. Really? To make it tamper proof.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Because it wasn't just the OTC manufacturers that started doing this. They followed suit very quickly once Tylenol came out with it, because they kind of had to if they wanted to keep up with Tylenol. But also the manufacturers of everything, like every product, every consumer product, started putting their products in tamper proof packaging. They had to dial. Soap started coming wrapped in cellophane inside.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

The box to trap the chemicals in.

[Josh Clark]

I guess, but also to show, like, nobody's injected this with lye or something like that. Although lye is used in the making of soap, isn't it? I remember my fight club.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It's pretty funny. Someone injected soap into the soap. All right, let's take another break and we'll come back and talk a little bit more about the profile of the supposed mad poisoner right after this.

[Josh Clark]

Stop. You know, stop. Stop. You should know. No, stop.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

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[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

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[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

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[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

All right, so this was a very big case at the time. Obviously, like we've been saying, it was a landmark case. So of course you're gonna get psychological profiles, which, you know, we should do one on profiling, actually. Have we done that?

[Josh Clark]

I don't think so.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That'd be a good one.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Because it always, like, seems like the trope in movies and tv, but it is kind of like that.

[Josh Clark]

No, it is a thing for sure.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It's not like they just make this stuff up. But in the end, they said this is probably a man in his 20s or 30s who was sort of a Jekyll and Hyde type. During the day, he's very ordinary. He could be in the desk cubicle next to you and you wouldn't even know it.

[Josh Clark]

Every once in a while you just hear him go, yeah, exactly.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

But deep in the recesses of his brain, everyone, he's plagued with self doubt and has an illusion that a random killing can boost his sense of self worth. Self Worf, which is just sounds like it's straight out of a movie.

[Josh Clark]

It sounds like a psychiatrist saying, I want to be on tv. Yeah, listen to me.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

They also speculated, and this is just completely like conjecture, was that he had probably already taken his own life after the killings.

[Josh Clark]

That was one specific person who said that. Yeah, it was, I think, like the medical examiner for Cook County. County. Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

He probably already jumped off the bridge, so don't worry about it.

[Josh Clark]

Don't worry everybody. Yeah, he just threw that out there. I don't know if it was to calm people or not, or maybe he's just throwing his two cents in. But I think you kind of said it earlier. I don't remember if it was part one or part two. The whole thing's just blurred and become a haze by now. But no one has ever been charged with the Tylenol murders.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's the ending.

[Josh Clark]

But there has been a lot. There were a lot of suspects Remember, Tylenol set up a hotline and this tylenol task force, 140 person strong task force investigating this, chasing down leads, taking calls on the hotline, thousands and thousands of calls that were coming in. They were trying to whittle those down into actual tips that were worth pursuing. And out of all of them, they deemed 1200 tips or 1200 leads worth checking out. That's a lot of leads for a case, even considering you had 140 people working them. And I read somewhere that they started out with like 20,000 suspects or something like that and whittled it down to 400.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And sort of the sad part is as quickly as they sort of figured a lot of this out and had that 140 person task force, they almost just as quickly, within a few months realized that, like, we don't have a very good chance at finding this person.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it became clear very quickly.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, they whittled that down. By the last week of October, the task force was down to 40 people. By the end of the year, it was down to 20. And it was a situation again in 1982 where you didn't have security cameras everywhere. You didn't have credit cards and debit cards creating paper trails. It was a lot easier back then to get away with something like this, to be completely unknown, to walk into a store, maybe slip some Tylenol into your pocket, go out to the parking lot and come back in and slip them back on the shelf. It's really easy.

[Josh Clark]

You won't even go to the trouble of buying it.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I guess that's a good point.

[Josh Clark]

Just steal it and then put it back.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

But, you know, people were using cash. If there were cameras in a place, they were probably trained on employees. I worked at a golden pantry in college, and the only camera we had was directly above us pointing down at the cash register.

[Josh Clark]

It was the one at Alps in Atlanta Highway.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Alps? No, the one on the east side. College Station Road, I think.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Very interesting job. That's the one where I got a job. I needed a job. I got a job at McDonald's and I showed up. I took the one hour training video and they got my uniform number. I went home and I was supposed to show up the next day. And I was just like, I can't do it. I can't go work at McDonald's. And I got the golden pantry job later that day.

[Josh Clark]

There you go.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Which? Hey, man.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It's like, sign me up.

[Josh Clark]

From golden arches to golden pantry. That's like a Rags to riches story.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I was selling beer and cigarettes.

[Josh Clark]

Nice.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That was pretty great.

[Josh Clark]

You're like. One for you, one for me.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, I would never do that. All right, where was I? Oh, yeah, I was at Golden Pantry. So the camera's trained on the register. They're not. You know, you could come and go in a store and no one even knows. In 1982.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

These cops have nothing to go on. Most importantly, no motive.

[Josh Clark]

That was a big one because remember, this is just a Jekyll and Hyde type who you'd never suspect, who's probably.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

At the bottom of the Chicago River.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Who also is engaged in some senseless, random killings of people, Anonymous poisoning, killing, not even shooting. It just made zero sense whatsoever. So like we said earlier, the cops figured out within about a month, within the first month of the investigation, that this was. They were not going to have a break in this case. But that's not to say that they didn't have some suspects. Some people definitely did kind of come to come to the fore, but not many of them.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, but these two are really interesting substories in and of themselves for sure. The first guy's name was last name Arnold, first name Roger. Roger, that's right.

[Josh Clark]

I call him Richard.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That's all right.

[Josh Clark]

But for good reason.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, sure, because you said he was like the Richard Jewell of his day, the Olympic bomber. Who was not the bomber.

[Josh Clark]

Right. But whose life was ruined because he basically was implicated as the Olympic bomber.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

Same thing happened to this guy.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, he was one of the first named suspects. 49 year old guy.

[Josh Clark]

So put yourself in the position, okay. The media is going berserk on the story. Everybody hears about it, it's a mad anonymous poisoner. And now all of a sudden there's a name and a face associated with it who's a suspect, but he's the first person named.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

It's like people going crazy like trying to get to this guy to interview him.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I have my doubts about this guy. Not that he did that, but there were a lot of hinky things that they found out about him and then how it all ended up, as you're about to see. So he was a DIY chemist.

[Josh Clark]

It's a big one.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

There's a big thing right there into chemistry.

[Josh Clark]

They said he's a Jekyll and Hyde type who's probably into chemistry.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That's right. He was a dockhand at Juul Foods at a warehouse west of Chicago.

[Josh Clark]

And Jewel Foods, there are a couple different Juul Foods. Are where the Tylenol was bought. A grocery store, a food market.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It's all checking out so far. So the cops look into him and go to his house. He has a book, a handbook, rather, on methods of killing people.

[Josh Clark]

How to kill people, A to Z. I don't know if that's the title, but that's a good one.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

He had five unregistered guns.

[Josh Clark]

It's a big one.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

He admitted to having cyanide once. Yeah, but he said, I threw it out, like, at least six months before these murders.

[Josh Clark]

He's like, when were the murders again? Oh, yeah, six months before that. That's when it was.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And then his wife said, you know, they were investigating her and interviewing her. She was like, you know what? Actually, I did take some Tylenol and felt really sick and threw up one time. But again, it was probably due to overeating, and it was just that once.

[Josh Clark]

That's the fact of the podcast.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So you can't blame cops for saying this guy's a pretty good lead.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Because you can kind of start to see, like, if you add all the other stuff together and then hear about the wife throwing up from Tylenol, be like, could you see this guy, like, toying with his wife, like, testing it out on her just enough to make her sick, but not to kill her, to see what happens, you know, see if she would notice. Who knows? But the cups thoroughly investigated this guy and cleared him. There's not a person associated with the story that I came across who I actually think this guy did it.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure.

[Josh Clark]

I didn't find one person who thought Roger Arnold actually did it, but in very short order, he proved that he was more than capable of murder, because six months after he was cleared as a suspect, he was brought in for the murder of somebody else and a guy named John Stanisha. Stanisha.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Stanisha. I would say.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I'm going with that, too. Sounds Slovak or something.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. He was 46. He was a Chicago computer consultant.

[Josh Clark]

That's saying something in 1982.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, probably so. So here's what happened, Arnold. There was this bartender name or bar owner named Marty Sinclair, who Arnold had thought had initially turned him into the cops and ruined his life, essentially. So he goes to kill who he thinks is Marty Sinclair, and it's actually this just completely innocent, random guy who gets shot point blank. And so he, in fact, did kill somebody. He did, because of what had happened to his life.

[Josh Clark]

It was premeditated murder. Even though it was the wrong person. He was definitely. He created an intentional homicide. He killed somebody on purpose.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Mistaken identity killing though.

[Josh Clark]

Right. And because of this, because it was directly related to the Tylenol poisonings. John Stanisha is frequently considered an eighth victim of the Tylenol killings. Kind of like an honorary victim in this case. But it is kind of appropriate that he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. A victim of mistaken identity. It would have a slightly different ring to it if it had been the right guy. The fact that it was the wrong guy and poor dude just happened to be in the wrong bar and happened to look like the owner, that's just. It just is perfect for this saga.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I wonder what Marty Sinclair thought about all that.

[Josh Clark]

I'll bet he was not very happy.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Probably not. But probably also very relieved. And probably also guilt.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I would guess there's a touch of that.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

A range of emotions, I would imagine.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, all over the place.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So Arnold ended up serving 15 years of a 30 year sentence, was released in 99 and died nine years later.

[Josh Clark]

Yep. So, Chuck, before we go on to the main attraction, as far as the suspects go.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

I propose that we take a break.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Agreed.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. We'll be right back.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

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[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And for a limited time, save [e-mail] with code Fall25.

[Josh Clark]

Bring the Boom X Boom. Alright, Chuck, so this dude. There was basically two suspects in this whole case. Over all these years, there were basically two people. And again, no one was ever actually charged with the murders. But this guy came awfully close. And his name was James Lewis.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Or was.

[Josh Clark]

Turns out it was. But James Lewis came under the Attention of the Chicago PD and the Tylenol task force. When a letter showed up at Johnson and Johnson headquarters, and it was from, allegedly, the Tylenol Poisoner, the mad poisoner. And in the letter, it said basically, like, I've spent $50 so far, and the whole thing has taken me about 10 minutes per bottle, and I've already killed seven people. I basically see no reason to stop. Pay me $1 million, and then I will stop the killings. And it.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

He gave a bank account number, even said, wire me this money.

[Josh Clark]

Very, very presciently. No, that's not the right word. Stupidly maybe, but is it? No, it's not. So this letter has a New York postmark, but the bank account is associated with a travel agency in Chicago. And so the cops go, okay, this seems like it was dropped in our lap, but let's go check it out. And they find the owner of this travel agency that had closed up, had gone under. And this guy is like, oh, my God, you're kidding me. He's like, no, I didn't write this letter, but I can guarantee I can tell you who did. It was a guy named Robert Richardson. Robert Richardson, it turned out, was the husband of a woman named Nancy Richardson who had worked at the travel agency. And when the travel agency went belly up, Nancy lost her job and never got her last paycheck. Well, Robert Richardson was the type of guy who would fixate on this and was even more so the type of guy who would write a letter to frame the owner of the travel agency for the Tylenol murderers in retaliation for that last paycheck. He was that kind of dude.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

And so the cops started sniffing into this Robert Richardson cat, and they figured out pretty quickly that Robert Richardson didn't actually exist, that he was actually somebody else. A man named James Lewis.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right. So when we joked earlier about, is that his real name? And you said it was. It was.

[Josh Clark]

It was.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

His name was not Robert Richardson, though. That was an alias. So what they found out was that Robert Richardson was a tax consultant. He had. And this is just a strange, ironic twist. When he was 20 years old, he tried to take his own life by swallowing aspirin.

[Josh Clark]

36 of them.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So that's just neither here nor there. But an interesting little side note.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, the fact that most people don't have that as part of their past. It is interesting that it came up.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So he had a pretty long rap sheet. He was wanted by postal inspectors for credit card fraud in Kansas City. He was indicted in 1978 for. And this one is just mind blowing. He's indicted for murder after police found remains of one of his former clients in bags in his attic. And he got let loose because it was an illegal search.

[Josh Clark]

But he was caught with the body of one of his clients dismembered in his attic with no good explanation as far as I've ever heard.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, so. Well, what explanation would be good?

[Josh Clark]

Well, we were playing poker and one thing led to another and yada, yada.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yada, started juggling swords and. Yeah, so his wife's real name was Leanne, the one who worked at the travel agency. And went unpaid. They fled Kansas City in December of 81. And this was as US postal inspectors were converging on them about this credit card scheme. So they're like just bad people, not the postal inspectors? No, no, no.

[Josh Clark]

The Lewis's, sure.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Great. So they moved to Chicago. They changed their names to Robert Nancy Richardson. He got that job as a tax preparer, but then he was fired after a violent outburst in his office against his co workers. And then she lost her job, went unpaid, they left Chicago. And this turns out this is what got them exonerated from the Tylenol. Thing is they left Chicago and moved to New York before this happened.

[Josh Clark]

Right before the same month.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right. But if the theory held up that this person went around most likely in one day and did all this stuff, then it couldn't have been them.

[Josh Clark]

No, and here's why. Because the cops had decided that it was done locally. And one of the other things that supported that local mad poisoner theory was because the cyanide ate through the gelatin capsules eventually. So it had a very, very short shelf life before the whole bottle just turned into a mush of cyanide powder and melted gelatin. So like you said, it had to have been done basically the day before the 29th, on the 28th. They could not, no matter how hard they tried, they could not put James Lewis or his wife in Chicago that day. They just couldn't. And for his part, James Lewis said, yeah, I wrote this letter. I wrote the letter to Johnson and Johnson framing that travel agency guy, but I did not, it did not poison the Tylenol. He's always been adamant about that. He's never toyed around with it. He's never messed around. He's never been coy. He's always been adamant that he did not poison that Tylenol. Although the Tylenol task force tried to trip him up once. I guess to just get this on the Record that he'd done this, but they asked him, like in an interview. Okay, let's say you had done it. How would you have done it? And he actually.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

He pulled an oj.

[Josh Clark]

He showed them how he would have done it, right? Yeah. He just didn't write a book about it. He just showed them in an interview.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And he defends this later on by saying it was just a speculative scenario. I could tell you how Julius Caesar was killed, but that doesn't mean I was the killer.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I think the answer for me would have been, I don't know, man. Yeah, I'm innocent. I can't figure this out. But he was like, here's how I do it.

[Josh Clark]

I've been waiting for you to ask me this.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

He's eventually found in New York City. He's at the public library with a reference book copying names and addresses of newspapers. I would imagine to send them letters, like Zodiac style.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Because we got to say this. So the cops figured out who James Lewis was before they found James Lewis, and it became part of the national media circus.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It was a manhunt.

[Josh Clark]

While they were looking for James Lewis, this guy was writing letters to newspapers. He called in a radio talk show.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

He was really relishing the fact that there was a national manhunt out for him. Who. Like, that's what I'm saying. On the one hand, you gotta kind of feel a little bit bad that this guy was kind of being railroaded into the rap for these murders after his extortion attempt. That's where the feeling bad for him, you're like, oh, yeah, that's right. He totally brought this on himself.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So they hauled him out of the New York Public Library. He was sentenced to 10 years for extortion attempt and 10 years for credit, that original credit card fraud, and served 13 years and lives in the greater Boston area today.

[Josh Clark]

So still today, I think there are a few people who are like, I could see this guy. Maybe. Maybe he could be it. Some detectives maintain that the Tylenol murder could have flown into o', Hare, rented a car, done that circuit, driven back to o', Hare, and flown out all on the same day the day before. But they could never put James Lewis in Chicago at all that day. So he was cleared finally. Although he did serve two consecutive 10 year sentences, or he served 13 of the 20 years for that credit card fraud that the postal inspectors wanted him for and for the extortion letter. And like you said, he lives in Cambridge, Mass. Now, but then in 2009. The case, after basically having gone dormant in the early 80s, was reignited by the FBI because they worked up, they thought, a DNA profile from the capsules. And they raided James Lewis's house, demanded a fingerprint and DNA sample. James and Leanne Lewis fought it in court. The judge is like, no, you have to do this. Before leaving the courthouse. They gave him the samples and nothing has come of it. So I guess that means tacitly that the Lewis's were cleared once and for all of the Tylenol murders.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And you know, the DNA thing is an interesting piece because they still have some samples of the cyanide, I guess that the capsules have worn away by now if it had the cyanide in there. But there was and still is. Hopefully that DNA could crack this case just like eight or nine years ago. The Unabomber. Ted Kaczynski. Is that a two parter? No, no, just a one parter. Good podcast though.

[Josh Clark]

I don't think so.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That was a good episode.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

He grew up in Chicago and his parents were living in the greater Chicago area in 82 and he is the Unabomber. So they said we might as well get a DNA sample and talk to him. And he was cleared. I don't think he was ever a super strong suspect.

[Josh Clark]

No.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And he probably would have admitted it. So he was like, no, this is not me.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So the Unabomber's been cleared.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

From the Tylenol murders. But the case remains unsolved to this day. I think they also have a fingerprint workup that they found on one of the bottles and that and some DNA. They're just sitting around with that. There are no suspects. There are. Every suspect has been cleared and there's nobody on the horizon. It's just an unsolved random series of killings that happened.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, they're still working on it though. There's a police sergeant named Scott Winkleman who has been on this task force for a long time and he says he thinks it's solvable. And his department did just solve a 45 year old murder case. Cold case.

[Josh Clark]

Man, if they solved this one, that would be the biggest cold case ever solved, I think.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I mean, who knows? But I could see maybe finding like a deathbed letter or something one day, maybe like, I don't know if they're gonna catch someone at the bottom of the Chicago river and haul them off to jail, but I could see the truth coming out one day. I hope so for the families because Monica Janis she's the niece of Adam, Stanley and Theresa. She said her family to this day. This is from an article like last year, I think, said that they have still not gotten over it. She said her grandparents have passed now, but she said literally every day for the rest of their lives, they just cried about the fact that they didn't know who did it. She grew up, has been to therapy her whole life because they were all victims. That this post traumatic stress disorder kicks in where she grew up fearing that any of her family members could die at any time. Joseph Manus, her dad, says that he still has dreams, like, you know, on the reg about these murders. He said he had one recently where everyone involved was in a room in the case and then two black men in suits and glasses were laughing about how they got away with murder. Michelle Rosen, she's the daughter of. Of Mary Reiner. She has dedicated her life to investigating this on her own. And she doesn't agree with the Mad poisoner theory at all.

[Josh Clark]

No. This is interesting.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. She thinks it had something to do with the supply chain and that Johnson.

[Josh Clark]

And Johnson knew this and covered it up. One of the things that people who believe this point to is that Johnson and Johnson recalled all of that Tylenol, 31 million bottles, and then destroyed them, allegedly without testing any of it. So we will never know whether it.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Was Pinky had the day off.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Whether it was beyond Chicago or just local Chicago seems like it took long enough that other people would have died in that week before the national recall was undertaken. But there was something very, very interesting that was a postscript to all this that does undermine that mad Poisoner theory.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. It was just a few Years later, in 1985, a woman in New York named Diane Ellsroth took two extra strength Tylenol capsules and died from cyanide poisoning. But they found. I mean, it's just completely unrelated. Was it another copycat case? Well, or the original poisoner maybe, but different cyanide.

[Josh Clark]

Right. The cyanide was definitely not the same cyanide from the same batch. It was chemically different. But there was another bottle found around the block from where Mary Ellsworth bought hers in Yonkers that did match that cyanide. So there were two bottles of extra strength Tylenol two years later in another state that had been tampered with. The problem is this was after the three prong tamper resistant packaging had been introduced.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Which means it was an inside job. Right?

[Josh Clark]

I guess because the thing had not been obviously tampered with then Tylenol was never able to explain what happened.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And then within five days of her death, eight states outright banned the capsules. Tylenol capsules.

[Josh Clark]

Right. And Tylenol for its part was like, we've been trying to get everybody to take caplets anyway, but they keep taking capsules. So we're making it.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And then a guy wrote a book, right?

[Josh Clark]

Scott Bartz.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. A former Johnson Johnson employee wrote in 2011 a self published book on the Tylenol poisonings. And he said what we were talking about earlier, he's like, this supply chain is so convoluted, basically. It definitely could have happened at any point along the way.

[Josh Clark]

And his idea is that Johnson and Johnson knew that it was in their distribution network and they covered it up.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Self published book. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

You got to note that for sure.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I'm not knocking it.

[Josh Clark]

No.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

But it's noteworthy.

[Josh Clark]

It does. If there's like any hint of journalistic integrity in us that feels like we have to note that.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

So that's the tylenol poisonings of 1982 in Chicago. Changed America. Changed the world, but definitely changed America. It was the end of some form of innocence that we still had.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Absolutely.

[Josh Clark]

If you want to know more about the Tylenol poisonings, go online. There's stuff all over the place. And you can go down that rabbit hole and it's deep and wide. Since I said that, it's time for Listener Man.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

This is from Jen from Brunswick, Maine. Hey guys. Been listening for several years and never thought I'd have a. Never thought a perfect time. Would write. To write in would be related to synthetic farts. Remember the disgust episode? Talked about synthetic farts. It's a real thing. When I was in high school, my dad came across this stuff online called Liquid Ass.

[Josh Clark]

That's horrible.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Not allowed to curse, right?

[Josh Clark]

No.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Is that a curse word?

[Josh Clark]

Spell it out though.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

Or I guess maybe you should have said like a asterisk. Asterisk.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. There you go. Good name for a product though. She said he found it on a joke website and ordered some. And I have to tell you, it is the worst thing you have ever smelled. I can't even describe it. It makes you want to not breathe anymore. The tiniest little drop is deadly. So of course I took it to college with me to play pranks and boy, did it backfire. I thought I was pretty funny putting a couple of drops in the radiator by my. Across the friend. Across the hall friends room. Not even. Not even thinking about what would happen when the heat dropped turned on. Well the heat turned on and the whole floor of the dorm was amazingly disgusting and made us just about gag. Smell took almost a week to finally go away and I have not used it again in the 10 years since.

[Josh Clark]

That's probably it's called learning your lesson.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

But she like still has the bottle. She's like but I kept it.

[Josh Clark]

All right just in case.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Thank you for your interesting and entertaining podcast. This is the first podcast I ever listened to and it's still always on the top the of of my download list. Thanks thanks for giving this 28 year old woman a platform on which to tell a story of synthetic farts that is not completely out of place.

[Josh Clark]

Signed Anonymous that is Jen Green. Thanks Jen Green. Very brave of you to put your name on that one. Especially I wonder if you stepped up and said that horrible smell. That was my bad right? If you have a great story about college pranks, we want to hear about it. You can get in touch with us via our social links by going to stuffyouchouldknow.com or you can send us an email to stuffpodcastheartradio.com.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Stuff youf Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite show.

[Josh Clark]

Hey guys, it's Chiquis from Chiquis and Chill Cleaning Today.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

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[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

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[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

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[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

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[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

It's time to level up your game.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And bring the boom. Hit the town with the ultra durable LG X Boom portable speaker and enjoy vibrant sound wherever you go. Elevate your listening experience to new heights because let's be real, your music deserves it. The future of sound is now with LG x boom and for a limited time save [e-mail] with code fall25 bring the boom x Boom.

[Josh Clark]

There's a lot going on in Hollywood.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

How are you supposed to stay on top of it all?

[Josh Clark]

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[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

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[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

The only constant in Hollywood is change. Open your free iHeartradio app, search daily.

[Josh Clark]

Variety and listen Now.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

This is an iHeart podcast.