[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
If you dig the twisted, admire the outlandish, and are enamored by the unusual, you're in the right place. True crime, the supernatural, the unexplained. Now you're speaking our language. If you agree, join us as we dive into the darker side. You know, because it's more fun over here.
Welcome to Total Conundrum Warning. Some listeners may find the following content disturbing.
Listener discretion is advised.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: You take Tylenol to feel better, to ease a headache, to chase away the aches and pains of everyday life. You don't take Tylenol to die.
[00:01:10] Speaker A: But in 1982, seven people in the Chicago area did just that. They took a capsule that was supposed to help them.
And within minutes, they collapsed. No warning, no explanation.
[00:01:25] Speaker B: What followed would change the way we trust medicine, packaging and even the world around us. A crime so random, so terrifying, it shook the entire nation.
And to this day, it remains unsolved.
[00:01:40] Speaker A: This is the story of the Tylenol murders.
[00:01:43] Speaker B: It's late September in the suburbs of Chicago. The leaves are just starting to turn.
Kids are back in school. The Cubs are finishing out their season. There's no social media, no 24, seven true crime podcasts. Just the news, a cup of coffee, and a medicine cabinet full of trusted brands.
[00:02:03] Speaker A: Tylenol, Johnson and Johnson's golden child.
One of the most widely used over the counter pain relievers in America. By 1982, they own 35% of the market.
Extra strength Tylenol wasn't just a staple. It was a go to for nearly every household in the country.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: People didn't question what was in their pills. There were no tamper evidence seals, no foil to peel back, no sealed for your protection warnings. You just popped the top and swallowed a capsule.
[00:02:36] Speaker A: And why wouldn't you? It was Tylenol.
[00:02:38] Speaker B: But within just two days, that trust would shatter, one capsule at a time.
Seven lives lost. Dozens more forever changed. A little girl with a sore throat. A newlywed couple mourning a brother, a young mother. A flight attendant, a postal worker. All of them took something they thought was safe. And all of them were poisoned.
[00:03:02] Speaker A: We're not just telling you a story about a crime. We're telling you a story about Mary Kellerman, Adam Janis, Stanley Janis, Teresa Janis, Mary Reiner, Paula Prince and Mary McFarlane. Real people, real families. Real heartbreak.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: These victims weren't famous. They weren't rich or powerful. They were just people. People like us. Like you.
[00:03:31] Speaker A: There were no patterns. Most of the victims didn't know each other. They didn't all shop at the same place.
But what they did have in common was the bottle of Tylenol.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: Someone out there had taken bottles off the shelves, opened them and laced the capsules with potassium cyanide, a poison so lethal it can kill in less than a minute. And then they put them back.
[00:03:55] Speaker A: It wasn't just murder. It was terror. Prepackaged, unpredictable and horrifyingly effective. And once it started, nobody knew where it would strike next.
[00:04:06] Speaker B: In this episode, we'll take you through the entire case, from the first collapse in a suburban bathroom to the chaotic ers, the stunned detectives and the nationwide panic that followed.
[00:04:20] Speaker A: We'll walk you through every victim's story as it unfolded. Every public warning, every suspect, every dead end. And will ask the question that still haunts investigators, journalists and grieving families to this day.
[00:04:36] Speaker B: Who would do something like this? And why did they stop?
And how did they get away with it?
[00:04:43] Speaker A: So grab a drink, preferably one you opened yourself, and settle in.
[00:04:48] Speaker B: This is total conundrum. And this is the chilling, heartbreaking, still unsolved story of the Tylenol murders.
[00:04:57] Speaker A: It started like any ordinary morning. A 12 year old girl in Elk Grove Village had the sniffles. Nothing serious, just a sore throat, a little congestion, and the kind of thing any kid might wake up with after the season change.
[00:05:14] Speaker B: Her name was Mary Kellerman. She was a seventh grader at Adams Junior High.
Bright, sweet, full of life. She was into horses, had just gotten a new bike a few weeks earlier. The kind of kid who made her parents proud without even trying.
[00:05:32] Speaker A: On the morning of September 29, 1982, her parents gave her one extra strength, Tylenol before school.
Just something to ease the symptoms and get her through the day.
She took it, went to the bathroom to finish getting ready. A few minutes later, they heard a thump.
[00:05:52] Speaker B: Her father, Dennis Kellerman, rushed in. Mary was lying on the floor unconscious. He called 911 immediately. By the time the ambulance arrived, she wasn't breathing.
[00:06:05] Speaker A: Paramedics attempted to revive her en route to Alexian Brother Medical center, but it was of no use.
Mary Killerman was declared dead at just 12 years old.
[00:06:16] Speaker B: Doctors were baffled. There was no known illness, no allergies, no trauma. Her heart had stopped, but the why was a complete mystery. They ran tests, checked for infections. They even considered congenital heart issues.
[00:06:34] Speaker A: But nothing made sense. She'd been fine the night before.
The timeline didn't match up for a viral cause and there were no signs of internal damage, trauma or pre existing conditions.
[00:06:47] Speaker B: Her parents were absolutely devastated and worse, left without answers. They had lost their daughter in the most abrupt, terrifying way imaginable. And no one could explain how it happened.
[00:07:00] Speaker A: It's important to remember at this point, nobody was thinking foul play.
This was still seen as a bizarre, isolated medical event. One tragic death. No pattern, no panic. Not yet.
[00:07:14] Speaker B: But behind the scenes, something sinister had already begun. While the Kellermans were mourning their daughter, other families were unknowingly walking into the same trap.
[00:07:25] Speaker A: It was like a ticking time bomb was already counting down in medicine cabinets across the Chicago suburbs.
And Mary's death, It wasn't an isolated case. It was the opening shot.
[00:07:37] Speaker B: I can't even imagine the pain of waking up thinking your kid has a cold. And by noon they're gone.
[00:07:45] Speaker A: It hadn't even been in the house for 12 hours. A brand new bottle sitting there like it was nothing. And by morning, it had taken her life.
[00:07:55] Speaker B: It's horrifying. And worse, there was no way for them to know. No tamper seal, no warning. And while cyanide sometimes smells like bitter almonds, most people can't even detect it. To them, it was just a pill, like every other pill they ever trusted.
[00:08:14] Speaker A: And they weren't the only ones. In fact, while doctors were still trying to explain what happened to Mary, another family would soon lose not one, but three loved ones in the span of hours.
[00:08:28] Speaker B: And that's where we're heading next.
[00:08:30] Speaker A: Arlington Heights. The Janice family.
[00:08:33] Speaker B: What happened in that house would crack this case wide open and turn Chicago into the epicenter of one of the most terrifying mysteries in American history.
[00:08:45] Speaker A: Just a few hours after Mary Kellerman's shocking death, another life was quickly unraveled. Only a few miles away, Adam janis.
[00:08:54] Speaker B: Was a 27 year old postal worker, a quiet, dependable guy living in Arlington Heights, Illinois. On the morning of September 29, he wasn't feeling well. Maybe a cold coming on, maybe just a little worn down. So he called in sick. Later that morning, he went to a nearby Jewel Osco pharmacy and picked up a bottle of extra strength Tylenol hold. Hoping it would help him feel better. He brought it home, took two capsules, and within hours, he was dead.
[00:09:25] Speaker A: Just two capsules? That's all he took. He collapsed not long after and was rushed to the Northwest Community Hospital.
His family followed in shock, watching as doctors tried and failed to resuscitate him.
[00:09:39] Speaker B: They were told he died of a massive heart attack. No warning signs, no pre existing conditions, just sudden cardiac arrest.
It made no sense. But if that wasn't tragic enough, the worst was still coming.
[00:09:55] Speaker A: The Janis family was in complete disbelief. Adam was Young, healthy. How does a man in his 20s just drop dead? His younger brother, Stanley Janis, and Stanley's wife, Teresa, affectionately called Terry, were at the house grieving with the rest of the family.
[00:10:13] Speaker B: In the chaos and shock, Stanley's head was pounding from stress. He took two capsules from the same bottle Adam had used.
[00:10:22] Speaker A: And Terry. She took two as well.
[00:10:25] Speaker B: Within minutes, Stanley collapsed in the kitchen. Terry screamed. Paramedics were called again to the house.
[00:10:32] Speaker A: At the Arlington Heights firehouse. Paramedic Chuck Kramer heard the call come over the radio. Man down. Same address as earlier that day. It was the Janus residence.
[00:10:44] Speaker B: Again, that was a red flag. One man collapses in the morning, and now someone else in the same house just hours later.
Kramer didn't hesitate. He ordered a fire engine to follow the ambulance, sensing something was seriously wrong.
[00:11:01] Speaker A: As they arrived at Janice house, they heard screams coming from inside.
Stanley had gone down, collapsed on the kitchen floor. Paramedics rushed into his side and began emergency intervention.
[00:11:14] Speaker B: Terry was grieving, overwhelmed, starting to feel dizzy herself. She turned to Chuck Kramer. Grabbing his shoulder for support.
She screamed, stanley. Stanley. Then she groaned and collapsed right there.
[00:11:29] Speaker A: Kramer thought maybe she just fainted. Maybe. Maybe the stress was too much. But when he turned her over, he knew her eyes were fixed and dilated. This wasn't fainting. This was something much more serious.
[00:11:42] Speaker B: Two people, both young, both healthy, went down within minutes.
Same symptoms, same house, same bottle of Tylenol.
[00:11:53] Speaker A: And with that, everything changed. Stanley was transported to the hospital but never regained consciousness. He died that same evening. Terry was taken to a different facility, Lutheran General, but dies two days later. Three family members, all gone within days.
[00:12:13] Speaker B: What kind of tragedy hits a single family like that?
Even seasoned doctors were shaken. At first. They wondered, could it be carbon monoxide? A gas leak? Contaminated food? But those theories fell apart under scrutiny.
[00:12:30] Speaker A: One of the people who stepped in to look more closely. Nurse Helen Jensen.
[00:12:34] Speaker B: Helen was a public health nurse working for Arlington Heights. She was assigned to help investigate what happened at the Janice household. She wasn't a cop or csi, but she had instincts, and she trusted those instincts.
[00:12:48] Speaker A: While standing in the bathroom, she noticed the open bottle of Tylenol.
Something clicked. She remembered. Adam's wife had said he took some Tylenol before he collapsed. She counted the capsules. There were six missing.
[00:13:03] Speaker B: That was her red flag. She not only collected the Tylenol bottle, she also found the receipt from that very day's purchase in the trash. It confirmed the timeline. She placed the bottle and the receipt in the Ziploc bag and handed them over. To investigators.
[00:13:19] Speaker A: And in that moment, something clicked. This stark realization confirmed her suspicion. She looked at the officers and said, it's gotta be the Tylenol.
[00:13:30] Speaker B: But instead of taking her seriously, they brushed her off.
[00:13:34] Speaker A: Despite bringing forward the only solid lead, a brand new bottle, missing capsules, a matching receipt, Helen Jensen was ignored.
[00:13:44] Speaker B: Later, she reflected on that moment with frustration. She. She said she believed she was dismissed because she was a nurse. A woman in shorts standing in a room full of male police officers and medical examiners.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: She wasn't wrong. They didn't listen, not at first. But they would. Because her instincts, they were absolutely right. Dr. Edmund Donahue, a Cook county medical examiner, ordered full toxicology on the Janus victims.
Within hours, the results confirmed their worst fears. The Tylenol capsules had been laced with potassium cyanide. Enough to kill not one person, but multiple. In fact, the doses were so strong that some pills contained 100 to 1,000 times the lethal amount.
[00:14:32] Speaker B: This wasn't bad manufacturing. This wasn't an accident. This was murder.
[00:14:38] Speaker A: You think about the randomness of this, right?
Adam wasn't feeling well. His brother and his sister in law were grieving. It's like fate handed them the bottle, but it was rigged.
[00:14:50] Speaker B: And can we take a second for Helen Jansen? Like, seriously, she saved lives by trusting her gut. That Tylenol bottle could have easily been overlooked. Who thinks, hey, maybe this random bottle of over the counter meds killed three people today.
[00:15:09] Speaker A: She connected the dots before anyone else. And because of that, the warning went out.
[00:15:14] Speaker B: Unfortunately, it was too late for the Janice family. But just in time for what comes next.
[00:15:20] Speaker A: With three deaths in one family and the same bottle of Tylenol now confirmed as the delivery method, authorities moved fast. Police, health officials and the FBI scrambled to pull Tylenol bottles from the shelves, alert hospitals and notified the press.
[00:15:38] Speaker B: But the damage had already began spreading. More bottles, more victims. This was no longer a mystery. This was a full on emergency.
[00:15:48] Speaker A: And the next few victims, they had no idea their time was almost up.
[00:15:53] Speaker B: Next up, we'll walk through the stories of Mary McFarlane, Paula Prince and Mary Reiner. Each killed by a capsule from a different bottle in a different place.
[00:16:04] Speaker A: Because this wasn't an isolated event.
[00:16:06] Speaker B: This was a coordinated act of terror. And the entire nation was about to wake up to the horror of it. By now, hospitals were on alert. The public health system was sounding the alarm. Three members of the Janus family were dead. And toxicology confirmed cyanide in the Tylenol capsules. But even as the news was breaking.
[00:16:29] Speaker A: More people were dying. Mary McFarland was 31 years old, a single working mom from Elmhurst, Illinois.
On September 29, the same day as the Janis family tragedy, she started to feel a little under the weather. While at her job at the Illinois.
[00:16:46] Speaker B: Bell, she went on break, walked into the employee lounge, and popped a couple of extra strength Tylenol capsules from a bottle she kept in her purse.
She never made it back to her desk.
[00:16:57] Speaker A: She collapsed in the break room right in front of her co workers.
Paramedics were called, but it was already too late. By the time she reached the hospital, she was gone.
[00:17:08] Speaker B: Co workers were stunned. One minute she was joking with them, the next she was unconscious on the floor. It felt like lightning striking twice. But now, in totally different suburbs, Miriam.
[00:17:20] Speaker A: McFarland's bottle came from a completely different lot number than the Janice family bottle. And that changed everything.
[00:17:27] Speaker B: The next victim is maybe the most haunting, not just for how she died, but for how investigators traced her last moments.
[00:17:35] Speaker A: Paula Prince was 35 years old, a flight attendant for the United Airlines. Beautiful, confident, independent, she lived in downtown Chicago. She had just gotten home from a flight. On the evening of September 29, she.
[00:17:49] Speaker B: Stopped at Walgreens on north well street to pick up a few things.
Security footage shows her cool collected, walking the aisles, grabbing a bottle of extra strength tylenol and heading to the register.
[00:18:03] Speaker A: She paid in cash, thanked the cashier, and left.
[00:18:06] Speaker B: That security video would become one of the most chilling pieces of evidence in the case. It was the last footage ever taken of her alive.
[00:18:15] Speaker A: Paula was found dead in her apartment two days later, on October 1st. The Tylenol bottle was on her bathroom counter, opened with several capsules missing.
[00:18:26] Speaker B: And just like the others, the capsules were laced with cyanide.
[00:18:31] Speaker A: Mary Lynn Rayner was just 27 years old, living in winefield, Illinois. She had recently given birth to her fourth child and was still recovering, adjusting to life with a newborn.
[00:18:44] Speaker B: On the morning of September 30, she was at home with her children when she started to feel unwell. Like so many others, she reached for the Tylenol, the same red and white capsules trusted by millions.
[00:18:56] Speaker A: She collapsed almost immediately. Her older children ran to her side. Her husband called 911. But again, by the time help arrived, it was already too late.
[00:19:08] Speaker B: She left behind four children, including a baby who would never remember her mother's voice or touch.
One moment she was caring for her family, and the next, she was gone.
[00:19:19] Speaker A: Let's just sit with that for a second. These weren't political figures. These weren't celebrities. These were normal people living normal lives.
[00:19:28] Speaker B: They were mothers, sisters, co workers, neighbors. They were the people in line next to you at the pharmacy. And they died because they trusted a product on the shelf.
[00:19:40] Speaker A: And it wasn't just that they died. It's how they died. Violently, suddenly, with no warning and no idea what had happened.
[00:19:48] Speaker B: And for every person who died, there were dozens of witnesses. Husbands, kids, co workers who watched in horror as their loved one collapsed before their eyes.
[00:19:59] Speaker A: There was no pattern, no logic. The poison didn't discriminate.
[00:20:03] Speaker B: And worst of all, nobody knew how many more bottles were still out there.
[00:20:08] Speaker A: I don't think we can overstate how terrifying this was. This wasn't someone coming after you. This was someone coming after everyone.
[00:20:17] Speaker B: Exactly. This was universal vulnerability.
I mean, think about how many times we've taken Tylenol in your life without a second thought.
[00:20:27] Speaker A: And back then, there were no safety seals, no click if seal is broken warnings. You just twisted off the cap and. And hoped for the best.
[00:20:36] Speaker B: And now, with multiple victims from different cities, different stores, and different lot numbers.
[00:20:43] Speaker A: It was obvious this wasn't just a fluke. It was a deliberate, calculated act of product tampering.
[00:20:51] Speaker B: Coming up, we'll talk about what happened next. How hospitals, investigators and Johnson and Johnson scrambled to pull the bottles off the shelf and warn the public.
[00:21:02] Speaker A: But by then, the damage was already done.
[00:21:05] Speaker B: By the time Mary McFarlane, Mary Reiner, and Paula Prince had collapsed, the medical community was already on high alert.
[00:21:12] Speaker A: Three deaths in one family on September 29 had set off alarm bells. And it was all thanks to one woman who trusted her instincts. And now the question was, how many more bottles were still out there?
[00:21:25] Speaker B: The bottle from the Janice home carried a lot number MC2880.
Investigators immediately use this to track its manufacturing and distribution history.
[00:21:37] Speaker A: It had been produced at Johnson and Johnson McNeil plant and shipped out to multiple retailers in the Chicago area. But here's the kicker.
[00:21:46] Speaker B: Not all of the tainted capsules came from that lot.
[00:21:50] Speaker A: Exactly. When investigators pulled Tylenol from other victims homes, like Mary McFarland, they found that her bottle came from a totally different lot.
[00:22:00] Speaker B: That meant the problem wasn't at the factory. It was happening after the bottles left the plant. In stores, on shelves, or in someone's hands, that revelation changed everything.
[00:22:14] Speaker A: Once the cyanide connection was made public, the medical system went from confused to completely overwhelmed.
[00:22:21] Speaker B: Almost overnight, hospitals across the Chicago area were suddenly flooded with people convinced they'd been poisoned.
[00:22:28] Speaker A: Emergency rooms were jammed. Parents brought in their kids. People showed up with bottles of Tylenol, begging the doctors to test them. It was a full blown public health panic.
[00:22:39] Speaker B: There were so many false alarms that triage nurses had to sort patients by whether they were actually showing symptoms or just panicking.
[00:22:48] Speaker A: And honestly, who could blame them?
[00:22:50] Speaker B: Paramedics, nurses and ER staff were now not just saving lives, but also collecting evidence. Every bottle of Tylenol was treated like a crime scene.
[00:23:01] Speaker A: Some EMTs refused to touch over the counter meds. Hospitals started begging and tagging every single bottle brought in.
[00:23:09] Speaker B: Meanwhile, public health agencies were desperately trying to trace which stores had sold the lot numbers and and how far the contamination had spread.
[00:23:18] Speaker A: They didn't just check the pharmacies. They checked gas stations, convenience stores, supermarkets, anywhere that sold Tylenol.
[00:23:26] Speaker B: And it was spreading from Schomburg to Arlington Heights, from Winfield to Chicago proper. Victims were dying in different neighborhoods, different counties, and from different bottles.
[00:23:38] Speaker A: Can you even imagine being a nurse during this week?
Every headache, every stomach bug suddenly looks like cyanide poisoning.
[00:23:47] Speaker B: Seriously. And you have to be on edge because you're not just treating the sick now. You're also trying not to be the next victim.
[00:23:55] Speaker A: It wasn't just about patient care anymore. It was also about containment.
[00:24:00] Speaker B: Contain the fear, contain the poison. And somehow try to keep the city from falling apart.
[00:24:07] Speaker A: It became clear that this was bigger than any one hospital or police department.
[00:24:12] Speaker B: So the Cook County Health Department, the Illinois Department of Public Health, the fda, the cdc, they all stepped in. The FBI soon joined the investigation as well.
[00:24:24] Speaker A: It was all hands on deck. And they weren't just trying to stop the poisoning. They were also trying to figure out who was doing this and how.
[00:24:33] Speaker B: Coming up, we we'll walk you through the massive product recall, how Johnson and Johnson handled the nightmare unfolding around their best selling product, and the ripple effect that shook the entire pharmaceutical industry.
[00:24:47] Speaker A: Because what happened next wasn't just damage control. It was a race against time to prevent even more deaths. By the morning of October 1, 1982, it was clear that something unprecedented was, was unfolding. People were dying, and the killer wasn't holding a weapon.
[00:25:07] Speaker B: It was already in their homes, in their purses, their bathrooms, their medicine cabinets. It came in a small red and white capsule in a bottle that said Tylenol.
[00:25:19] Speaker A: Within 48 hours of the first confirmed deaths, public health officials and investigators had reached a terrifying conclusion. This wasn't a contained event.
This was widespread product tampering.
[00:25:32] Speaker B: And the target wasn't one person. It was the public.
[00:25:36] Speaker A: Johnson and Johnson, the maker of Tylenol and one of the most trusted pharmaceutical brands in the country was now facing the biggest crisis in its history.
[00:25:46] Speaker B: Their best selling product, a hundred million worth of Tylenol extra strength, was now a suspected murder weapon.
[00:25:54] Speaker A: Executives at JJ had two choices.
Try to spin it or pull everything everywhere, no questions asked.
[00:26:03] Speaker B: To their credit, they didn't hesitate.
[00:26:05] Speaker A: On October 5, 1982, Johnson and Johnson issued a nationwide recall of 31 million bottles of Tylenol capsules. It became one of the largest and most expensive recalls in US history, costing the company over 100 million.
That's more than 300 million in today's money.
[00:26:25] Speaker B: Stores were ordered to pull every bottle, not just in Chicago, but coast to coast. Entire shelves were stripped bare. Pharmacists dump inventory into hazmat bins. And public officials went on record.
Do not take Tylenol. Not any Tylenol.
[00:26:45] Speaker A: For many, the warnings came from loudspeakers in local grocery stores. Attention, customers.
Please bring any Tylenol products to the front counter. Do not consume any capsules. Discontinue use immediately.
[00:26:58] Speaker B: People were lined up outside of the pharmacies, Some just returning bottles, others begging doctors to test the ones that they'd already taken.
[00:27:07] Speaker A: Parents dump their kids medicine. Households cleared cabinets into trash bags. Some even flushed it down the toilets. Trust in the over the counter medication, which was completely shattered.
[00:27:19] Speaker B: Newspapers dubbed it the Tylenol panic. And it wasn't just about taking medicine anymore. It became about every sealed product on store shelves. People questioned shampoo, lotion, mouthwash, even food.
[00:27:33] Speaker A: To put it bluntly, America lost its mind.
[00:27:36] Speaker B: In some towns, Halloween was canceled. Parents refused to let their kids trick or treat. Rumors of poison candy swirled even though there were no direct links. But the mood had shifted from cautious to paranoid.
[00:27:50] Speaker A: Schools sent home flyers warning families to inspect everything and anything consumable. Neighborhood watch groups formed overnight. Chicago suburbs like Schonberg, Elk Grove Village, and Arlington Heights practically shut down.
[00:28:06] Speaker B: Some communities even banned all capsule medications, requiring pills to be destroyed or returned to pharmacies.
[00:28:14] Speaker A: The recall didn't just shake consumers, it sent a thunderclap through the entire pharmaceutical industry.
[00:28:21] Speaker B: Stores were losing money by the day. Other brands began pulling similar products. Excedrin, Datril, Anacin. Anything in a capsule form was suddenly suspect.
[00:28:32] Speaker A: Before, this, tamper proof packaging wasn't a thing. Now it became federal law.
[00:28:38] Speaker B: But that came later.
At this moment in 1982, the country was terrified. And rightfully so.
[00:28:46] Speaker A: You know, it's easy now to see the blister packs, the foil seals, and think, yeah, this is just normal packaging. But before this happened, none of that existed, right?
[00:28:58] Speaker B: You could Just pop open a bottle at the store. No cotton, no plastic ring, no seal. Just unscrew the cap and go. It's wild how we didn't think twice.
[00:29:08] Speaker A: It took seven innocent people dying for for the system to admit it was vulnerable.
[00:29:13] Speaker B: And J and J knew that if they didn't act fast, there'd be more.
[00:29:18] Speaker A: Coming up, we'll explore the hunt for the killer, how the FBI chase leads across the country in the bizarre letter that demanded a million dollars to stop the murders.
[00:29:29] Speaker B: Because while J and J was recalling pills, someone else was watching it all unfold and trying to cash in.
[00:29:37] Speaker A: By early October 1982, the country was in chaos.
Seven people were dead. Tylenol had been pulled from every shelf, and the public wanted answers.
[00:29:48] Speaker B: Someone had poisoned those capsules. Someone had taken ordinary bottles from store shelves, filled them with cyanide lace capsules and returned them untraceable. And now that someone had a nation.
[00:30:03] Speaker A: Gripped in fear, the question was, who would do something like this? And why?
[00:30:10] Speaker B: We'll be back after these messages.
Hey, Conundrum crew, have you ever listened to an episode and thought, wow, I wish I could wear this level of chaos?
[00:30:20] Speaker A: Well, now you can. That's right, Total Conundrum officially has merch.
[00:30:25] Speaker B: Hoodies, T shirts, mugs, stickers, everything you need to rep your favorite mystery loving, banter filled podcast in style.
[00:30:35] Speaker A: And the best part, Our signature cute pink brain is front and center, scratching its head just like the rest of us trying to figure out life's weirdest mysteries.
[00:30:45] Speaker B: Honestly, it's the perfect representation of our show. Smart, a little confused, and totally adorable.
[00:30:53] Speaker A: Just like me. Yeah.
[00:30:57] Speaker B: Sure, Jeremy, let's go with that.
[00:31:00] Speaker A: Anyways, if you want to grab your official Total Conundrum merch, head to bonfire.com store total conundrum, and get yourself something spooky, stylish and absolutely conundrum worthy.
[00:31:15] Speaker B: Because nothing solves a mystery quite like retail therapy.
[00:31:19] Speaker A: Available now while supplies last.
[00:31:27] Speaker B: And back to the show, enter James William Lewis. On October 1, 1982, just days after the deaths, Johnson and Johnson received a handwritten letter postmarked from Chicago.
[00:31:40] Speaker A: It was short, cold and chilling. If you want to stop the killings, wire $1 million to this bank account listed below.
[00:31:49] Speaker B: The letter included precise details, like specifics on putting cyanide in the capsules and returning the products to the store shelves and claim responsibility for the poisonings.
[00:31:59] Speaker A: It was signed simply Tylenol Killer.
[00:32:02] Speaker B: They traced the extortion letter to a bank account belonging to Frederick Miller McCahey, a former employee of Leanne Lewis. James Lewis's wife, as it turned out, before leaving her job at the travel agency, Miller Leanne had pre posted a batch of envelopes using the office's postage meter. One of those envelopes was later used to send the extortion letter. Even more suspicious, the bank account number listed in the letter belonged to McCaughey. But the account had already been closed, and investigators believed it was used to frame him.
[00:32:38] Speaker A: James and Leanne were eventually tracked down, not in Chicago, but in New York City in a library reading room. They were using fake names and living off the grid.
[00:32:49] Speaker B: Lewis was arrested and charged with attempted extortion. But here's the twist. He was never charged with the murders.
[00:32:57] Speaker A: He and his wife were living in New York at the time of the Tylenol deaths.
[00:33:01] Speaker B: Still, investigators weren't convinced he was innocent. They believed he knew more than he was admitting.
[00:33:07] Speaker A: He had an impressive knowledge of chemistry, worked as an accountant, a tax advisor, and had a rap sheet longer than a conspiracy forum thread. Fraud, forgery, identity theft, you name it. And the worst part with all of that, he may have gotten away with murder more than once.
[00:33:25] Speaker B: Oh, you're talking about Raymond west, right?
[00:33:28] Speaker A: Exactly. Back in 1978, four years before the Tylenol murders, Lewis was suspected in the death of 72 year old Raymond. Raymond west, an elderly man from Kansas City.
[00:33:40] Speaker B: West had hired Lewis to do some bookkeeping. And then, poof. Raymond disappears. And Lewis, he turns up trying to cash forged checks from the guy's account. Then police found Raymond's dismembered body in his own attic, hacked apart with a saw.
[00:33:56] Speaker A: When police questioned Lewis, he admitted to forging the checks, but denied having anything to do with the murders.
And somehow he got off on a technicality. He was not read his Miranda rights.
[00:34:09] Speaker B: So let's add this up. Raymond west, dead and dismembered. Tylenol victims poisoned with cyanide. And James Lewis is right there in the shadows of both. Not charged in either death, but tied to both cases.
[00:34:24] Speaker A: It makes you wonder, how many lives did he touch in the worst possible way? And how many times did he just slip away?
[00:34:31] Speaker B: Over the years, Lewis had written multiple disturbing letters. Some threatening violence, other extorting money from businesses. One of those letters was sent to Frederick Miller McCahey, demanding payment for Leanne's final paycheck, which had bounced due to insufficient funds when she tried to cash it.
[00:34:50] Speaker A: He served 13 years in prison for extortion, but again, no murder charges were ever filed.
[00:34:56] Speaker B: In 2023, just months before his death, Lewis appeared in the Netflix docu series Cold Case, the Tylenol Murders. And it was his final interview. And in it, he continued to deny having anything to do with the poisonings. James Lewis gave more than one explanation for why he sent that letter to Johnson and Johnson. And depending on which version you hear, it's like he was living in two.
[00:35:21] Speaker A: Different realities, right back in 1983, when he was actually on trial for the extortion charge. His lawyer told the court that the letter had nothing to do with the Tylenol murders. Instead, they claimed it was this twisted little scheme to embarrass his wife's former boss, Frederick Miller McKay, the guy whose bank account he used in the letter.
[00:35:44] Speaker B: Apparently because McCahey had bounced Leanne's final paycheck when she left her job at the travel agency. When Lewis was trying to frame McCahey, according to his defense lawyers, to make it look like he was the one behind the poisonings.
[00:35:58] Speaker A: Yeah, totally normal reaction. Someone stiffs you on a paycheck, and the first thought is, let me write a fake murder confession and tie it into your name. That'll show him.
[00:36:09] Speaker B: But then fast forward a few decades later, he's older, softer spoken, and sitting down for the Netflix docu series, and suddenly a whole different story.
[00:36:19] Speaker A: Now, he claims the letter was written out of grief. He says he blamed Johnson and Johnson for the death of his daughter, who, according to him, died after a malfunctioning heart patch made by the company.
[00:36:31] Speaker B: And he said that's why he wrote the letter. Not for the money, not to frame anyone, just to lash out at the company he held responsible.
[00:36:39] Speaker A: His final words were, it wasn't about money. It was about pain.
[00:36:44] Speaker B: Except in both stories, he. He's still shifting the blame. First it was his wife's boss, then it was the pharmaceutical giant. But never once did he take any responsibility for what that letter unleashed.
[00:36:58] Speaker A: Two stories, two motives. One guy who always seemed to be pointing the finger somewhere else.
[00:37:04] Speaker B: Then there's the other guy people don't talk enough about. Roger Arnold.
[00:37:08] Speaker A: Arnold lived in Chicago, not far from where some of the poison Tylenol was sold. He had access to cyanide, meaning he understood toxic ingredients.
[00:37:18] Speaker B: He was brought to the attention of the police by a bar owner named Marty Sinclair, who told detectives Arnold had been talking openly about the Tylenol case and about people dying.
[00:37:28] Speaker A: Police raided Arnold's home and found chemicals, beakers, lab equipment, and a disturbing amount of technical reading material on poisons.
[00:37:38] Speaker B: He also had a grudge against the world, it seemed, but there was no direct link between him and the tainted bottles.
[00:37:45] Speaker A: Months later, in an absolutely bizarre twist, Arnold murdered John Stanish, a man he wrongly believed, and reported him to the police during the Tylenol investigation.
[00:37:56] Speaker B: It was a revenge killing. Cold, calculated, and completely unrelated to the original investigation.
[00:38:03] Speaker A: He was arrested, charged with second degree murder, and sentenced to 30 years.
[00:38:09] Speaker B: Investigators kept a close eye on Arnold for years after that, but again, they could never link him to the Tylenol poisonings.
[00:38:17] Speaker A: Which leaves us with the most frustrating status of all suspicion. But no proof.
[00:38:23] Speaker B: Some theorized early on that the poisonings may have been a result of contamination at the manufacturing plant. But that idea quickly fell apart.
[00:38:32] Speaker A: The victim's bottles came from multiple plants with different lot numbers, and the they were sold at different stores across Chicago. So unless someone contaminated them at the distribution level, which was unlikely, it had to be post manufacturing tampering.
[00:38:48] Speaker B: Which meant this was done by hand in the wild, in stores. Someone had bought the Tylenol, opened the bottles, laced the capsules and returned them to the store shelves.
[00:38:59] Speaker A: And that meant this killer had to be methodical, mobile, and absolutely unhinged.
[00:39:04] Speaker B: After the Tylenol killings, the country saw a wave of copycat poisonings. From Excedrin to Lipton cup of soup.
[00:39:11] Speaker A: In 1986, Stella Nickel was convicted of murdering her husband and another woman by poisoning Excedrin capsules with cyanide. She did it for the insurance payout, but used the Tylenol murders as inspiration, hoping her crime would blend in.
[00:39:28] Speaker B: But it wasn't just pills people had to worry about. After the Tylenol murders, even everyday comfort foods weren't safe.
[00:39:36] Speaker A: Yeah, Lipton cup of soup. You know, the kind you sip when you're sick, wrapped in a blanket, watching reruns?
[00:39:43] Speaker B: In 1986, a woman in the Bronx opened a packet of cup of soup, took a sip and immediately knew something was wrong.
[00:39:52] Speaker A: She'd been poisoned. The soup had been laced with a caustic substance. With likely lie, she suffered severe chemical burns to her mouth and throat.
[00:40:02] Speaker B: Tess confirmed it wasn't a fluke. That packet had absolutely been tampered with. Lipton yanked cup of soup from the store shelves and the public freaked out.
[00:40:11] Speaker A: And to this day, no one knows who did it. No motive, no suspect, no justice. Just a burnt mouth and a memory that every time you tear open a packet, you're trusting it won't try to kill you.
[00:40:24] Speaker B: But none of the later cases were ever tied to the original Tylenol killings. This was something else, something darker.
[00:40:31] Speaker A: What haunts me is that this person or people might have walked into These stores tampered with the capsules and walked right out completely unnoticed.
[00:40:42] Speaker B: No fingerprints, no cameras, no one questioning someone standing in an aisle for a few minutes. It's 1982. Nobody was watching.
[00:40:51] Speaker A: And whoever did it may have never done anything like it again. Or maybe they did. We just haven't connected the dots.
[00:40:59] Speaker B: Coming up next, we'll shift from the suspects to the aftermath. How this crime didn't just change public safety. It rewrote the rule book on how medicine is made, packaged and trusted.
[00:41:12] Speaker A: Because even though the case remains unsolved, its impact is still sitting on your shelf. Every time you crack open a new bottle of pills, the seal is there for a reason. The poisonings were horrific enough on their own, but what really made this story explode was the media.
[00:41:29] Speaker B: The Tylenol murders dominated headlines across the country.
Every paper, every news station, every nightly broadcast was reporting the same terrifying message. Someone is poisoning Tylenol. People are dying, and the killer is still out there.
[00:41:47] Speaker A: From October 1st through the entire month, it was the lead story on every major outlet. NBC, cbs, abc, the Chicago Tribune, New York Times, Time Magazine, you name it.
[00:42:00] Speaker B: Panic spread faster than facts. As we mentioned earlier, there were rumors of poison candy, other tampered products, and nationwide conspiracies exploded.
People didn't just stop taking Tylenol. They stopped trusting anything sealed in a bottle.
[00:42:18] Speaker A: There were reports of people dumping all medications in the trash, switching to homemade remedies, even refusing to buy shampoo or mouthwash.
[00:42:27] Speaker B: And amid the hysteria, there was one company standing right in the middle of the storm. Johnson and Johnson.
[00:42:34] Speaker A: Here's where things get interesting.
When most companies are hit with a scandal, they hide, they spin, they protect the brand at all cost. But Johnson and Johnson, they did the opposite.
[00:42:47] Speaker B: They pulled 31 million bottles of Tylenol from the shelves. They stopped all production of Tylenol capsules. They issued public warnings on live TV and radio.
[00:42:58] Speaker A: They even ran full page ads in national newspapers listing the affected lot numbers and telling people not to use their own products.
[00:43:06] Speaker B: J J also offered to exc any Tylenol products for tablets or a different form. No questions asked, no receipt needed that transparency.
[00:43:17] Speaker A: Their refusal to cover it up actually saved the company in PR circles. Today, it's still called a textbook case of crisis management.
[00:43:26] Speaker B: Still, it wasn't enough just to recall the product. J and J had to reinvent the product to make sure nothing like this would ever happen again.
[00:43:34] Speaker A: So they came back with foil seals, childproof caps, tamper evident packaging, and eventually a complete shift away from the capsules to A newer, harder to tamper with format caplets.
[00:43:47] Speaker B: Capsules had been popular because they dissolve faster. But after Tylenol, they were seen as vulnerable, easy to pull apart and contaminate.
[00:43:56] Speaker A: The capsule, once a symbol of convenience, now looked like a security risk. And the shift, though it cost millions, saved lives.
[00:44:05] Speaker B: All of this pressure, public, corporate, and political, led to one of the biggest changes in FDA regulation history.
[00:44:14] Speaker A: In 1983, the Congress passed the Federal Anti Tampering Act. It made it a federal offense to tamper with consumer products punishable by up to life in prison.
[00:44:25] Speaker B: It also gave the FDA and law enforcement more power to regulate packaging and issue recalls and hold companies accountable for security lapses.
[00:44:34] Speaker A: The law required all over the counter medications to include at least one tamper evident feature. But most added two or more.
[00:44:43] Speaker B: And today, every time you open a bottle and see a plastic neck band glued on foil, a clicking safety cap, you're looking at the legacy of the Tylenol murders.
[00:44:54] Speaker A: It's kind of wild to think that before 1982, you could just walk into a store, twist off a pill bottle, and that was it. No seal, no warning.
[00:45:03] Speaker B: Now if the seal is broken, it's like DEFCON 1. We don't even think twice. We just throw it away.
[00:45:10] Speaker A: Exactly. The Tylenol case changed how we shop, how we trust, and how the government watches out for us.
[00:45:17] Speaker B: And it all started with a handful of red and white capsules that looked harmless, but were anything but.
[00:45:23] Speaker A: Up next, we'll bring into the modern era how the case was reopened decades later, what new technology brought to light, and why the killer may still be out there.
[00:45:34] Speaker B: Because even with all the safety laws, all the changes, and all the years.
[00:45:38] Speaker A: That have passed, one thing hasn't changed. No one has ever been held responsible for the Tylenol murders. For over 25 years, the Tylenol murders haunted Chicago in the entire nation without answers. The initial investigation had turned up suspects, theories, and headlines. But no charges, no arrests, no justice.
[00:46:00] Speaker B: And so the case went cold. By the mid-1990s, it was mostly shelved. Investigators retired, files gathered dust. Families tried somehow to move on.
[00:46:13] Speaker A: But the grief, the anger, the fear that never faded.
[00:46:18] Speaker B: Then, in 2009, a glimmer of hope. The FBI officially reopened the case, launching a new task force to reinvestigate the poisonings using modern forensic technology, including DNA analysis, which hadn't existed in 1982.
[00:46:35] Speaker A: This wasn't just a paperwork reread. Federal agents began reviewing evidence from every case crime scene, pulling out capsule remnants, packaging, bottle caps, anything that might carry DNA. Even after all those years.
[00:46:50] Speaker B: And the goal? Compare it against a database of known offenders and the prime suspects.
[00:46:56] Speaker A: Naturally, James W. Lewis was once again front and center.
[00:47:00] Speaker B: He was living in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the time, still maintaining his innocence. But the FBI wasn't ready to let him go.
[00:47:08] Speaker A: In February 2009, agents served a search warrant on his home. They seized computers, files, chemical books, and even dusted his personal items for DNA.
[00:47:19] Speaker B: They also collected a fresh DNA sample directly from Lewis, comparing it to any potential profiles they could lift from surviving evidence.
[00:47:28] Speaker A: But it came up empty. No match.
[00:47:30] Speaker B: Frustrating, yes, but the FBI wasn't done.
[00:47:34] Speaker A: Remember Roger Arnold, the man with the cyanide access and a background in chemistry? A murder conviction for killing the wrong guy.
[00:47:43] Speaker B: Well, by 2008, Arnold had passed away, but the FBI still considered him a potential suspect.
So, in an extraordinary move, they exhumed his body to retrieve a DNA sample.
[00:47:56] Speaker A: His remains were tested against the evidence. Capsule, packaging, bottle seals, anything that might have preserved genetic material.
[00:48:04] Speaker B: And again, no match. Nothing definitive. Nothing to tie him physically to the crime.
[00:48:10] Speaker A: Two suspects, one still alive, one six foot under. Both left the case in exactly the same state, unsolved.
[00:48:19] Speaker B: In the middle of it all was the Janis family, who had suffered the worst blow of anyone. Three members dead in one day from one bottle.
[00:48:28] Speaker A: But it wasn't just loss. It was injustice.
Decades had gone by, and still no one had been held responsible.
[00:48:36] Speaker B: So when the case reopened, Joe Janis, the surviving brother, stepped forward. He publicly supported the renewed investigation, gave media interviews, and worked closely with the task force, hoping for a closure before his own time ran out.
[00:48:52] Speaker A: He told the Chicago Tribune, I just want the person who did this to be known. I want my family's names to be cleared of rumors.
I want to stop wandering.
[00:49:02] Speaker B: Imagine that. Spending 30 years haunted by the same question and still not having a single answer. No trial, no confession, just silence.
[00:49:12] Speaker A: And you're not only dealing with grief. You're living in a world where your loved one's death is a mystery. On Wikipedia, people debate it like it's a trivia question. But you buried three siblings.
[00:49:24] Speaker B: That's the weight of an unsolved case.
It doesn't just hurt, it suspends you in time.
[00:49:30] Speaker A: One of the biggest challenges in this case is that so little usable evidence remains. Cyanide doesn't leave behind a residue. The capsules were thrown out. Many of the bottles had been touched by dozens of hands, and most security.
[00:49:44] Speaker B: Footage from 1982, grainy, if it exists at all.
[00:49:48] Speaker A: Unless the killer left a print, a hair, or confessed, there may never be enough to prosecute.
[00:49:55] Speaker B: As of today, the Tylenol murders remain officially unsolved.
[00:49:59] Speaker A: Johnson and Johnson still offers a $100,000 reward for information. There is still an open case file, but there's no new suspects, no active leads, no charges, no closure.
[00:50:12] Speaker B: But what the families, investigators and journalists do have is the knowledge that this case changed everything.
[00:50:19] Speaker A: Coming up next, we'll take a look at the legacy of how seven deaths transformed medicine, shaped safety laws and remained etched in American history.
[00:50:29] Speaker B: Because even if we never know who did it, we all live in the shadows of what they left behind.
It's been over 40 years, since the fall of 1982, since seven people in the Chicago suburbs took a pill to feel better and never got back up.
[00:50:45] Speaker A: In those four decades, medicine changed, packaging changed, laws were rewritten. Safety became a priority because it had to be.
[00:50:55] Speaker B: But some things, they never changed. The grief, the unanswered questions, the family still waiting for closure.
[00:51:03] Speaker A: Let's go back for a moment to the Janis family, to Cassia, the little girl who lost her father, her uncle and her aunt all on the same day.
[00:51:13] Speaker B: She was just a child when her home turned into a triage scene, when, when laughter turned into sirens, when a bottle of Tylenol shattered her entire world.
[00:51:23] Speaker A: In interviews years later, she said, I still don't use Tylenol. I just can't.
[00:51:28] Speaker B: She's grown now. She's a mom, a wife, a survivor. She attends memorials. She speaks out. She goes to therapy. Because the pain, it didn't stop after the funeral. It became part of her DNA.
[00:51:42] Speaker A: We've said the names throughout this episode, but now let's say them one more time, not as a headline, not as a victim, but as people.
[00:51:51] Speaker B: Mary Kellerman, age 12, a seventh grader who took Tylenol for a sore throat before school, never made it out of the bathroom.
[00:51:59] Speaker A: Adam Janice, age 27, a postal worker, a husband, a brother. He took two capsules and collapsed at home.
[00:52:08] Speaker B: Stanley Janis, age 25, Adam's younger brother.
[00:52:12] Speaker A: He.
[00:52:12] Speaker B: He died after grieving Adam and unknowingly sharing the same bottle.
[00:52:16] Speaker A: Teresa Terry Janis, age 20, Stanley's wife, vibrant, full of life. She collapsed beside her husband.
[00:52:25] Speaker B: Mary Lynn Reiner, age 27, a new mother. She had just given birth. She took Tylenol for post delivery pain and died on her kitchen floor.
[00:52:35] Speaker A: Mary McFarland, age 31. She collapsed at work during her break. The last thing she ever took was a capsule from her purse.
[00:52:44] Speaker B: Paula Prince, age 35, a flight attendant seen on surveillance video Buying Tylenol. Her unopened mail sat next to her body. They weren't celebrities. They weren't targets. They were everyday people living ordinary lives, caught in an unimaginable moment.
[00:53:03] Speaker A: And yet, from their tragedy, the country learned. The deaths triggered a fundamental shift in how we handle medicine, consumer goods and public trust.
[00:53:14] Speaker B: Seals, bands, pop tops, blister packs. You see them every day, probably without thinking. But they weren't there before 1982.
[00:53:22] Speaker A: Those safety features, their legacy. That's what those seven people left behind without ever choosing to.
[00:53:30] Speaker B: Before the Tylenol murders, tamper evident packaging was rare. Afterwards it became law.
[00:53:37] Speaker A: The Federal Anti Tampering act gave the FDA real power. Companies were forced to rethink everything from packaging to pr.
[00:53:45] Speaker B: Public trust took a hit. But it also got smarter. We started looking at our bottles, listening for the clicks, checking the foil, asking more questions.
[00:53:56] Speaker A: In that sense, the victims changed all of us. Even if we don't remember their names, we feel their impact every day. Next time you open a bottle and hear that click, think of them.
[00:54:07] Speaker B: Because that click isn't just a seal. It's a reminder of what was lost and what we learned.
[00:54:14] Speaker A: So here we are, 40 years later. Seven people dead. One of the biggest product recalls in history. Laws rewritten, lives shattered, A nation shaken.
[00:54:25] Speaker B: And still no one has been held accountable.
[00:54:29] Speaker A: This one sticks with me. Not just because it's unsolved, but because of how random it was. There's something chilling about the idea that you didn't have to be a target to be a victim, right?
[00:54:42] Speaker B: You didn't need to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. You just needed a headache.
[00:54:47] Speaker A: And what really hits me is the ripple effect. The families, the co workers, the. The paramedics, the nurses, the survivors like Kasha Janis, who still avoid Tylenol to this day. They don't get closure. They just get endurance.
[00:55:03] Speaker B: And even now, the questions are still there. Was it James W. Lewis, the extortionist with a rap sheet longer than a CVS receipt and twice as suspicious?
[00:55:13] Speaker A: Was it Roger Arnold, the chemical savvy local who went on to kill someone else?
[00:55:18] Speaker B: Was it someone else entirely? A disgruntled employee? A chemist? A person we've never heard of?
[00:55:25] Speaker A: Or was it a one time act of domestic terrorism? A test run? An experiment?
[00:55:30] Speaker B: What if the killer is still out there now? Still walking free?
Maybe they're retired.
Maybe they're dead.
Maybe they're listening.
[00:55:40] Speaker A: Creepy thought, but yeah, we don't know. And that's why it's so hard to walk away from this story.
[00:55:46] Speaker B: Do we think this case could ever be solved?
[00:55:48] Speaker A: I want to say yes. DNA tech is better now. Surveillance is better. But the evidence, it's old. And cyanide doesn't leave much behind.
[00:55:57] Speaker B: Unless someone confesses, or unless new forensic methods can pull something we missed, it may stay unsolved forever.
[00:56:06] Speaker A: And that's why these stories like this matter. Because they're not just stories. They're still open files. So.
[00:56:13] Speaker B: So Conundrum crew, we want to hear from you.
[00:56:16] Speaker A: Do you think James Lewis was the Tylenol killer? Do you believe it was someone else? Do you think the case will ever be solved?
[00:56:23] Speaker B: Hit us up on socials or email us your theories. And if you're listening on Apple Podcast.
[00:56:28] Speaker A: Or Spotify, rate, review and subscribe. It really helps us out. And if you learned something today, share this episode with someone. Someone who loves a good mystery or just someone who's ever taken Tylenol.
[00:56:42] Speaker B: Also, check your pills. Like actually that safety seal. It's there for a reason.
[00:56:48] Speaker A: This case didn't just scare people. It changed the world.
[00:56:52] Speaker B: And while the killer may never be caught, the victims won't be forgotten.
[00:56:57] Speaker A: We'll see you next time for another deep dive into the unexplained, the unsolved, and the unbelievable.
[00:57:03] Speaker B: Until then, stay safe, stay curious, and keep on creeping on. We love you.
[00:57:10] Speaker A: Bye.
Thanks for hanging out with us here at Total Conundrum. Please make sure to check out our website and
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Sam.
