5 ms·

Poison Pill: Is the killer behind 1982 Tylenol poisonings still on the loose?

55 points by TMWNN 1y ago

andrewinardeer 1y ago
A colleague has no evidence but vibe feels it was Ted Kaczynski.
- john-h-k 1y ago
  I used a similar defence when someone mysteriously broke a school computer years back
  - account42 1y ago
    Don't be so dismissive, the FBI has also considered this possibility - from the Wikipedia article [0]: > On May 19, 2011, the FBI requested DNA samples from "Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski in connection to the Tylenol murders. Kaczynski denied having ever possessed potassium cyanide. The first four Unabomber crimes happened in Chicago and its suburbs from 1978 to 1980, and Kaczynski's parents had a suburban Chicago home in Lombard, Illinois, in 1982, where he stayed occasionally. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Tylenol_murders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Tylenol_murders
    - john-h-k 1y ago
      It was mean to be a lighthearted joke more than dismissive, apologies. Very interesting though
RedCardRef 1y ago
Recently watched the Netflix docu series on this, J&J claimed that cyanide was not present in the factory, so there is no way the pills could have been contaminated at the factory. Then later on one of the doctors asked J&J if a test for cyanide is done for each batch in QA at the factory. J&J said yes, each batch was tested for the presence of cyanide. The doctor then asked, "Why were they testing for it(cyanide)?", kinda blew my mind. Implying that J&J knew cyanide contamination was a possibility at the factory itself.
- refuser 1y ago
  What was the answer? I can understand why it might seem suspicious, but I’d also hope that (non-exotic?) substances capable of killing at doses small enough to fit in a Tylenol pill would be in their test matrix.
  - colechristensen 1y ago
    Cyanide is really simple and can easily be a side product of many organic chemistry reactions, testing for it is just obvious. The ion is just one carbon and one nitrogen which can combine with many different things to make many poisonous salts. Testing for it isn't suspicious and there was very strong evidence that it wasn't a factory mistake.
- closewith 1y ago
  > "Why were they testing for it(cyanide)? Precursor contamination, sabotage, etc. Lots of potential innocent reasons.
  - rvnx 1y ago
    It is good that they check, imagine Sigma-Aldrich doing a mistake between two products, or a product accidentally contaminated during manufacture, considering the large amount of things they produce it is not impossible
- calrain 1y ago
  I would expect a broad spectrum quality test, of which cyanide would be one of the components tested for.
- dalben 1y ago
  This is my brother's job, testing for contaminants. He says it can be very boring. For example, they always test for lead, and it's always negative. But it's a necessary precaution when you're making medicine.
  - 1y ago
rvnx 1y ago
There are common DNA traces on the bottles, could be good to use services like MyHeritage or 23andme to help solve the mystery.
- farmdve 1y ago
  Didn't 23andme go bankrupt?
  - macintux 1y ago
    Their data will never go away.
    - meepmorp 1y ago
      real glad I never gave into the temptation to get a test kit
      - slumberlust 1y ago
        Aye, but are you certain none of your relatives did it?
chris-orgmenta 1y ago
> While in custody, she took a lie detector test, which revealed deception in two key responses[...] It did not. It revealed that the police failed to trick a confession out of her using pseudo-science. > James Lewis refused a polygraph. Sensible move - Especially when journalists interpret LDTs as per above. > They tried enlarging the pharmacy surveillance photo, but the bigger it got, the grainier it got. What did Fahner and Zagel actually tell Michael here? Surely not that, verbatim. Interesting piece otherwise. Our global supply chain is just so fragile and insecure. We may need to rethink everything. For a start, is it not ridiculous that we have unsealed/re-sealable products? I do not want Ibuprofen etc. to be moved to behind-counter, but perhaps a better 'discard if tampered with' seal should be implemented. Will we get to a point where we have to sell fruit in tear-open cardboard mailers? Sounds ridiculous, but depends on what happens in the next decade re: terrorism in general.
- tecleandor 1y ago
  I'm surprised that there is anybody still taking seriously "lie detectors". It's just stress provoking tricks. About ibuprofen, here in Spain (and I think the whole Europe), it's BTC (no prescription) until 400mg. Over 400mg you need a prescription. And when it's pills/capsules, it's sold in pill sheets (is that the name?) individually sealed. I think everything register as a medicine in Europe has to be BTC. Of course, as you say, everything else is on the other side of the counter, so you could be poisoning bananas or chocolate.
  - chris-orgmenta 1y ago
    Agree. I suppose I should clarify that I am aware that the incident was from '82 and that LDTs are no longer admissible in many jurisdictions, and new legislation came in for tamper-proofing medicine which affected not just the US. But regardless, argument being "things haven't moved on enough - lie detectors are still used in some places, people still misinterpret what they are, and our supply chain still only discourages, rather than prevents, mischief"
  - xmodem 1y ago
    This was something that surprised me traveling in Spain a few years back - that I had to ask a pharmacist to buy paracetamol. This wasn't the case anywhere else I've been in Europe (Germany, Poland, Netherlands, Sweden).
woodstrips 1y ago
OT but are there any decent services that'll turn this text into decent speech or podcast?
- presentation 1y ago
  elevenlabs is pretty good for me - their app is simple to use for this. some occasional mispronunciations or weird pauses here and there though.
- 59nadir 1y ago
  I use Speechify for this. For this particular page it actually can't detect the text automatically (on most pages it can, so you just click "Play" on the text and it will read from there on) but marking/selecting it and pressing play (Alt+A) will read the marked text without issue.
re 1y ago
A few pieces of additional context: It's undated but I believe that this article/essay is from 2022. There apparently is a recently released Netflix documentary about this case. James Lewis died in 2023.
- DamnInteresting 1y ago
  > It's undated I really dislike this trend of leaving off the publication date. It's a key piece of context, especially for nonfiction, where the known facts may have changed since the story was published (as is the case here). I get that they want the content to seem evergreen and unmoored from the tyranny of the calendar, but unless they intend to constantly monitor/update the facts of the nonfiction, the date ought to be clearly visible.
john-h-k 1y ago
> When Pishos smelled an almond-like scent, Donoghue asked the county's chief toxicologist, Michael Schaffer, to test the capsules, and Schaffer's team determined that four of the 44 remaining capsules from the Janus' bottle contained nearly three times the fatal amount of cyanide (From the wiki page) This is super interesting, because there was a NileRed video testing this and finding that cyanide doesn't really smell like almonds at all (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYagO-nup6c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYagO-nup6c).
- spauka 1y ago
  One additional fact to keep in mind - the ability to smell hydrogen cyanide has a genetic component and 1 in 4 people will not be able to smell the "bitter almond" odour [1]. I do wonder how similar the smell of sweet and bitter almonds are, they are apparently different [2]. [1] https://academic.oup.com/occmed/article-abstract/67/9/662/4782194 https://academic.oup.com/occmed/article-abstract/67/9/662/47... [2] https://www.thespruceeats.com/what-are-bitter-almonds-1806996 https://www.thespruceeats.com/what-are-bitter-almonds-180699...
- b112 1y ago
  Differing people have differing scent capabilities. In other words, it doesn't smell like that to him. A few thoughts: * It's also "bitter almonds" apparently. * Fresh almonds, canned, and older almonds all have different strengths of smell. Almonds can also be dried by a variety of means, some chemical
- jeroenhd 1y ago
  The description of that video includes: > NOTE 3: After posting this video, I got a few messages from people saying that in their experience, cyanide DOES smell like almonds. So, I spent an hour tonight doing some tests, and I think the results are interesting. I did some direct comparisons and the smell of cyanide is distinctly different from the smell of almonds. However, if I EAT the almonds, there is sometimes a faint taste of cyanide. I think this is because sweet almonds still have a very small amount of amygdalin in them, which can release HCN. I don't think it's enough to smell in open air, but in your mouth it can be concentrated enough to be detected at the back of the nose. It's subtle, but it is definitely part of the flavor profile. So, while I still don't think it's accurate to say that it smells like almonds, for some people, it might be similar to the taste. To make that connection though, the person needs to a) be able to smell HCN and b) be particularly aware of that part of the flavor. > I can smell the HCN, but I never noticed it in the flavor of almonds, so I didn't make the connection. I was even looking for a similarity and eating almonds at the same time, but never noticed it. It was only when I became very familiar with the smell of HCN that I started noticing it in almonds. What's interesting too, is that now after noticing it, I feel like I've started to associate the smell with almonds. It's no longer just a "chemical" smell and it feels more almondy. However, on the flip side, I feel like almonds taste worse and are more "chemically." > But either way, I still don't think that saying it smells like almonds or bitter almonds is accurate or helpful. However, based on the messages I've received, some people are naturally associating cyanide with almonds (sometimes without knowing that this was even a thing and not even knowing they were smelling cyanide). This has piqued my interest and I think it could be fun to get to the bottom of this and to do a trial with a lot more people. My take from the video's description is that some people definitely do associate the smell with almonds even though for people like Nile that may not be the most present profile. I think the association will differ from person to person, with some people definitely associating the smell with almonds while others barely see the resemblance.
xxxthrowaway 1y ago
I can no longer find the source but someone could with enough research. A person on Reddit knew that their uncle committed and confessed to these crimes. They have since died, if I recall correctly. Like decades ago.
- TonyTrapp 1y ago
  Happens all the time on Reddit. I wouldn't believe a single word without credible sources.
metalman 1y ago
I looked, but could find no link to a much greater death toll involving vitamins made from a poisionous pre cursor, 90's?, factory that made the vitamins was in Austrailia, but by the time investigators moved in it has been striped and the paper work was faked, no "leads", deaths in the US....made the news, but totaly swept under the rug
- joshstrange 1y ago
  Maybe you are thinking of the contaminated L-tryptophan which happened in 1989. But that was a Japan-based lab. From the FDA [0]: > FDA issues a nationwide recall of all over-the-counter dietary supplements containing 100 milligrams or more of L-Tryptophan, due to a clear link between the consumption of L-tryptophan tablets and its association with a U.S. outbreak of Eosinophilia Myalgia Syndrome (EMS), characterized by fatigue, shortness of breath, and other symptoms. By 1990 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirm over 1,500 cases of EMS, including 38 deaths, and FDA prohibits the importation of l-tryptophan. I’m having a hard time finding a good article/document to link to but apparently the lab (Showa Denko) destroyed production report and reconfigured the production line to hide what happened. They were apparently using a new method to create L-Tryptophan and it had a flaw. This seems to fit your comment except for the Australia part. I can find other articles about a large Australian vitamin recall, but it’s not related. [1] [0] https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/fda-history/milestones-us-food-and-drug-law https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/fda-history/milestones-us-food... [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1125922/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1125922/
TonyTrapp 1y ago
> At one point a psychic called in saying he’d had a crystal clear vision of a 46-year-old Japanese woman who was angry at J&J for refusing to hire her. She’d bought a jar of olives at the store before dropping off the poisoned Tylenol, he said. The specificity of his details made his story seem plausible until police asked how he came upon his visions and he told them his magic pen wrote the details out for him whenever he picked it up. These days they could be asking an LLM instead and get a similarly convincing response.
- 59nadir 1y ago
  Or the equally unhelpful amateur sleuth who's given everything they know to an LLM and thinks the output is of any use to police.
KevinMS 1y ago
Ruined Halloween for kids in the 80's. After this happened the streets were empty for the rest of my childhood. He should get the witch treatment if he's ever caught.
- IAmBroom 1y ago
  Turned into a newt?
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

55 points by TMWNN 1y ago

andrewinardeer 1y ago

A colleague has no evidence but vibe feels it was Ted Kaczynski.

john-h-k 1y ago
I used a similar defence when someone mysteriously broke a school computer years back
- account42 1y ago
  Don't be so dismissive, the FBI has also considered this possibility - from the Wikipedia article [0]: > On May 19, 2011, the FBI requested DNA samples from "Unabomber" Ted Kaczynski in connection to the Tylenol murders. Kaczynski denied having ever possessed potassium cyanide. The first four Unabomber crimes happened in Chicago and its suburbs from 1978 to 1980, and Kaczynski's parents had a suburban Chicago home in Lombard, Illinois, in 1982, where he stayed occasionally. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Tylenol_murders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Tylenol_murders
  - john-h-k 1y ago
    It was mean to be a lighthearted joke more than dismissive, apologies. Very interesting though

RedCardRef 1y ago

Recently watched the Netflix docu series on this, J&J claimed that cyanide was not present in the factory, so there is no way the pills could have been contaminated at the factory. Then later on one of the doctors asked J&J if a test for cyanide is done for each batch in QA at the factory. J&J said yes, each batch was tested for the presence of cyanide. The doctor then asked, "Why were they testing for it(cyanide)?", kinda blew my mind. Implying that J&J knew cyanide contamination was a possibility at the factory itself.

refuser 1y ago
What was the answer? I can understand why it might seem suspicious, but I’d also hope that (non-exotic?) substances capable of killing at doses small enough to fit in a Tylenol pill would be in their test matrix.
- colechristensen 1y ago
  Cyanide is really simple and can easily be a side product of many organic chemistry reactions, testing for it is just obvious. The ion is just one carbon and one nitrogen which can combine with many different things to make many poisonous salts. Testing for it isn't suspicious and there was very strong evidence that it wasn't a factory mistake.
closewith 1y ago
> "Why were they testing for it(cyanide)? Precursor contamination, sabotage, etc. Lots of potential innocent reasons.
- rvnx 1y ago
  It is good that they check, imagine Sigma-Aldrich doing a mistake between two products, or a product accidentally contaminated during manufacture, considering the large amount of things they produce it is not impossible
calrain 1y ago
I would expect a broad spectrum quality test, of which cyanide would be one of the components tested for.
dalben 1y ago
This is my brother's job, testing for contaminants. He says it can be very boring. For example, they always test for lead, and it's always negative. But it's a necessary precaution when you're making medicine.
- 1y ago

rvnx 1y ago

There are common DNA traces on the bottles, could be good to use services like MyHeritage or 23andme to help solve the mystery.

farmdve 1y ago
Didn't 23andme go bankrupt?
- macintux 1y ago
  Their data will never go away.
  - meepmorp 1y ago
    real glad I never gave into the temptation to get a test kit
    - slumberlust 1y ago
      Aye, but are you certain none of your relatives did it?

chris-orgmenta 1y ago

> While in custody, she took a lie detector test, which revealed deception in two key responses[...] It did not. It revealed that the police failed to trick a confession out of her using pseudo-science. > James Lewis refused a polygraph. Sensible move - Especially when journalists interpret LDTs as per above. > They tried enlarging the pharmacy surveillance photo, but the bigger it got, the grainier it got. What did Fahner and Zagel actually tell Michael here? Surely not that, verbatim. Interesting piece otherwise. Our global supply chain is just so fragile and insecure. We may need to rethink everything. For a start, is it not ridiculous that we have unsealed/re-sealable products? I do not want Ibuprofen etc. to be moved to behind-counter, but perhaps a better 'discard if tampered with' seal should be implemented. Will we get to a point where we have to sell fruit in tear-open cardboard mailers? Sounds ridiculous, but depends on what happens in the next decade re: terrorism in general.

tecleandor 1y ago
I'm surprised that there is anybody still taking seriously "lie detectors". It's just stress provoking tricks. About ibuprofen, here in Spain (and I think the whole Europe), it's BTC (no prescription) until 400mg. Over 400mg you need a prescription. And when it's pills/capsules, it's sold in pill sheets (is that the name?) individually sealed. I think everything register as a medicine in Europe has to be BTC. Of course, as you say, everything else is on the other side of the counter, so you could be poisoning bananas or chocolate.
- chris-orgmenta 1y ago
  Agree. I suppose I should clarify that I am aware that the incident was from '82 and that LDTs are no longer admissible in many jurisdictions, and new legislation came in for tamper-proofing medicine which affected not just the US. But regardless, argument being "things haven't moved on enough - lie detectors are still used in some places, people still misinterpret what they are, and our supply chain still only discourages, rather than prevents, mischief"
- xmodem 1y ago
  This was something that surprised me traveling in Spain a few years back - that I had to ask a pharmacist to buy paracetamol. This wasn't the case anywhere else I've been in Europe (Germany, Poland, Netherlands, Sweden).

woodstrips 1y ago

OT but are there any decent services that'll turn this text into decent speech or podcast?

presentation 1y ago
elevenlabs is pretty good for me - their app is simple to use for this. some occasional mispronunciations or weird pauses here and there though.
59nadir 1y ago
I use Speechify for this. For this particular page it actually can't detect the text automatically (on most pages it can, so you just click "Play" on the text and it will read from there on) but marking/selecting it and pressing play (Alt+A) will read the marked text without issue.

re 1y ago

A few pieces of additional context: It's undated but I believe that this article/essay is from 2022. There apparently is a recently released Netflix documentary about this case. James Lewis died in 2023.

DamnInteresting 1y ago
> It's undated I really dislike this trend of leaving off the publication date. It's a key piece of context, especially for nonfiction, where the known facts may have changed since the story was published (as is the case here). I get that they want the content to seem evergreen and unmoored from the tyranny of the calendar, but unless they intend to constantly monitor/update the facts of the nonfiction, the date ought to be clearly visible.

john-h-k 1y ago

> When Pishos smelled an almond-like scent, Donoghue asked the county's chief toxicologist, Michael Schaffer, to test the capsules, and Schaffer's team determined that four of the 44 remaining capsules from the Janus' bottle contained nearly three times the fatal amount of cyanide (From the wiki page) This is super interesting, because there was a NileRed video testing this and finding that cyanide doesn't really smell like almonds at all (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYagO-nup6c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYagO-nup6c).

spauka 1y ago
One additional fact to keep in mind - the ability to smell hydrogen cyanide has a genetic component and 1 in 4 people will not be able to smell the "bitter almond" odour [1]. I do wonder how similar the smell of sweet and bitter almonds are, they are apparently different [2]. [1] https://academic.oup.com/occmed/article-abstract/67/9/662/4782194 https://academic.oup.com/occmed/article-abstract/67/9/662/47... [2] https://www.thespruceeats.com/what-are-bitter-almonds-1806996 https://www.thespruceeats.com/what-are-bitter-almonds-180699...
b112 1y ago
Differing people have differing scent capabilities. In other words, it doesn't smell like that to him. A few thoughts: * It's also "bitter almonds" apparently. * Fresh almonds, canned, and older almonds all have different strengths of smell. Almonds can also be dried by a variety of means, some chemical
jeroenhd 1y ago
The description of that video includes: > NOTE 3: After posting this video, I got a few messages from people saying that in their experience, cyanide DOES smell like almonds. So, I spent an hour tonight doing some tests, and I think the results are interesting. I did some direct comparisons and the smell of cyanide is distinctly different from the smell of almonds. However, if I EAT the almonds, there is sometimes a faint taste of cyanide. I think this is because sweet almonds still have a very small amount of amygdalin in them, which can release HCN. I don't think it's enough to smell in open air, but in your mouth it can be concentrated enough to be detected at the back of the nose. It's subtle, but it is definitely part of the flavor profile. So, while I still don't think it's accurate to say that it smells like almonds, for some people, it might be similar to the taste. To make that connection though, the person needs to a) be able to smell HCN and b) be particularly aware of that part of the flavor. > I can smell the HCN, but I never noticed it in the flavor of almonds, so I didn't make the connection. I was even looking for a similarity and eating almonds at the same time, but never noticed it. It was only when I became very familiar with the smell of HCN that I started noticing it in almonds. What's interesting too, is that now after noticing it, I feel like I've started to associate the smell with almonds. It's no longer just a "chemical" smell and it feels more almondy. However, on the flip side, I feel like almonds taste worse and are more "chemically." > But either way, I still don't think that saying it smells like almonds or bitter almonds is accurate or helpful. However, based on the messages I've received, some people are naturally associating cyanide with almonds (sometimes without knowing that this was even a thing and not even knowing they were smelling cyanide). This has piqued my interest and I think it could be fun to get to the bottom of this and to do a trial with a lot more people. My take from the video's description is that some people definitely do associate the smell with almonds even though for people like Nile that may not be the most present profile. I think the association will differ from person to person, with some people definitely associating the smell with almonds while others barely see the resemblance.

xxxthrowaway 1y ago

I can no longer find the source but someone could with enough research. A person on Reddit knew that their uncle committed and confessed to these crimes. They have since died, if I recall correctly. Like decades ago.

TonyTrapp 1y ago
Happens all the time on Reddit. I wouldn't believe a single word without credible sources.

metalman 1y ago

I looked, but could find no link to a much greater death toll involving vitamins made from a poisionous pre cursor, 90's?, factory that made the vitamins was in Austrailia, but by the time investigators moved in it has been striped and the paper work was faked, no "leads", deaths in the US....made the news, but totaly swept under the rug

joshstrange 1y ago
Maybe you are thinking of the contaminated L-tryptophan which happened in 1989. But that was a Japan-based lab. From the FDA [0]: > FDA issues a nationwide recall of all over-the-counter dietary supplements containing 100 milligrams or more of L-Tryptophan, due to a clear link between the consumption of L-tryptophan tablets and its association with a U.S. outbreak of Eosinophilia Myalgia Syndrome (EMS), characterized by fatigue, shortness of breath, and other symptoms. By 1990 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirm over 1,500 cases of EMS, including 38 deaths, and FDA prohibits the importation of l-tryptophan. I’m having a hard time finding a good article/document to link to but apparently the lab (Showa Denko) destroyed production report and reconfigured the production line to hide what happened. They were apparently using a new method to create L-Tryptophan and it had a flaw. This seems to fit your comment except for the Australia part. I can find other articles about a large Australian vitamin recall, but it’s not related. [1] [0] https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/fda-history/milestones-us-food-and-drug-law https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/fda-history/milestones-us-food... [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1125922/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1125922/

TonyTrapp 1y ago

> At one point a psychic called in saying he’d had a crystal clear vision of a 46-year-old Japanese woman who was angry at J&J for refusing to hire her. She’d bought a jar of olives at the store before dropping off the poisoned Tylenol, he said. The specificity of his details made his story seem plausible until police asked how he came upon his visions and he told them his magic pen wrote the details out for him whenever he picked it up. These days they could be asking an LLM instead and get a similarly convincing response.

59nadir 1y ago
Or the equally unhelpful amateur sleuth who's given everything they know to an LLM and thinks the output is of any use to police.

KevinMS 1y ago

Ruined Halloween for kids in the 80's. After this happened the streets were empty for the rest of my childhood. He should get the witch treatment if he's ever caught.

IAmBroom 1y ago
Turned into a newt?

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]