Arnold Questioned, Home Searched
Homicide Sgt. Monroe Vollick said that after questioning Arnold at the police station on Monday, detectives searched his home (on Chicago's south side) a second time on Tuesday. Arnold's automobile (parked under the "L" train on Chicago's northside) and work locker were also searched he said.
Items confiscated during search of Roger Arnold's home
Evidence confiscated included survivalist magazines, unconventional warfare manuals, chemistry and chemical agent manuals, chemicals, laboratory equipment, The Anarchist Cookbook, weapons, and ammunition.
The INCENDIARIES, BOOBYTRAPS, UNCONVENTIONAL WARFARE DEVICES & TECHNIQUES, and MILITARY CHEMISTRY AND CHEMICAL AGENTS manuals confiscated from Arnold's home were published in the mid 1960s by the United States Department of Defense for use by U.S. Army Special Forces. Much of the content in these manuals came straight from the "Poor Man's James Bond" (vol. 3), written by right-wing survivalist and former member of the Minutemen, Kurt Saxon (aka Donald Sisco).
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the U.S. Army's 113th Military Intelligence group, located in Evanston, IL, supplied the Legion of Justice with money, electronic surveillance equipment, tear-gas, MACE, training, and training materials.
Arnold used cyanide for unspecified projects
Police Area Commander Kenneth Curin and Lt. August Locallo said a "series of coincidences" surfaced when Arnold talked with investigators and they had no choice but to investigate further. During questioning, Arnold admitted that "some months ago" he had purchased cyanide for unspecified "projects," but he said he'd discarded it sometime in August* (Arnold and his wife divorced in July). Police said that Arnold had purchased the cyanide in Racine, WI.
* The Tylenol found to have been laced with cyanide was shipped to Illinois in August.
Arnold was held without bond from Monday to Wednesday night while city detectives pursued what they said was circumstantial evidence that led them to consider him a possible suspect in the poisoning homicides, said Vollick.
While searching Arnold's home, Chicago Police turned up five unregistered guns, ammunition, chemicals, and two one-way tickets to Thailand. A stash of Soldier of Fortune magazines was also found in Arnold's apartment, along with The Anarchist Cookbook, which contains recipes and instructions for making explosives, a survivalism manual titled The Poor Man's James Bond written by survivalist Kurt Saxon, and drug manuals that contained instructions for encapsulating cyanide.
Police also turned up a suspicious-looking plastic bag of white powder in Arnold's apartment. The powder was turned over to the Chicago Health Department laboratory Tuesday and test results were expected sometime today (Wednesday), Gildea said.
But on Wednesday, health department spokesman Reggie Jones said that the lab had received no such samples and police declined to say where the samples had been sent.
On Thursday, October 14, Detective Marty Ryan said police arrested Arnold because of a tip that Arnold had two bottles of cyanide, but said none of the poison was found in the man's South Side home. "There was some white powder labeled potassium carbonate, and that's being tested, in the lab now," Ryan said. Later that Chicago authorities said that a lab test had found that the powder was a harmless carbonate.
Arnold told reporters, "I'm not saying what the chemicals were used for, but it was nothing illegal."
According to Detective Gildea, Arnold "said he was a closet chemist," and he had "a knowledge" of chemicals and compounds.
Arnold had purchased two one-way tickets to Thailand in late September and planned to leave the country Friday, October 15, 1982.
Arnold said he went to Thailand every year at this time, but his lawyer said he had never been to the country.
The press reported that Roger Arnold had agreed to "postpone" his trip to Thailand.
As it turns out, Thailand is a haven for expatriots on the run from the law.
Popular "Thai Coyote Bars" are frequented by bikers, businessmen, and expatriots from around the world.
Expatriots flee to Thailand, not only for the night life, but because it's home to some of the most beautiful beaches in the world....
...and many very beautiful and very available Thai women
Thailand Expatriot website
Arnold is Charged and Released
Arnold was charged with 5-counts of unregistered firearms and one count of aggravated assault. Bond was set at $6,000 Wednesday night and Arnold was released after posting $600 cash bond. Arnold was not a "strong Tylenol suspect," Gildea said.
Detective Jerry Beam said the assault charge stemmed from a recent incident involving Arnold and a bartender at a local tavern. Beam said the bartender had provided police with the tip that led to Arnold's arrest, but declined to elaborate.
It was later revealed that the tip came from Tavern owner Marty Sinclair, who informed Chicago police that Arnold kept cyanide in his South Side Chicago home.
Upon leaving jail Arnold said, "They can say what they want, I am not a suspect."
"This is more circumstance than anything," Arnold said of his arrest. "It just happens that they blew it out of proportion."
"I was willing to take a polygraph but my lawyer advised against it," said Arnold. "I knew the family, unfortunately, but not the suspect" (the "suspect" Arnold referenced was, I assume, Mary Reiners' father).
NBC News reported on Monday, October 25, that Arnold's Attorney, Thomas Royce, met with Tyrone Fahner over the weekend. The network quoted an unidentified high-ranking investigator as saying Royce was "trying to make a deal for Arnold." NBC quoted Royce as saying he only met with Fahner to try to find out why investigators are interested in Arnold.
Royce described Arnold as a "soldier of fortune type of guy." He told reporters that Arnold should either be charged with the murders or the police should back off. The police did in fact back off.
Arnold was never charged in the Tylenol murders.
Roger Arnold admitted to buying and using cyanide for unspecified projects, he worked at the Jewel Foods loading dock from where the poisoned Tylenol had been shipped, he kept 5 unlicensed guns in his home along with chemicals commonly used to make bombs, he owned bomb-making manuals and manuals that explained how to put cyanide into drug capsules for use as murder weapons, he'd recently assualted someone, and six months after the murders Arnold shot and killed a man he mistakenly thought had fingered him as a suspect. Yet Tyrone Fahner and his Tylenol task force insisted Arnold was not a suspect in the Tylenol murders.
Roger Arnold Arrested for Murder
A man that Arnold beleived was bar owner Marty Sinclair was leaving a Lincoln Avenue bar after last call on the morning of June 18, 1983 when Arnold ran up to him and yelled, "You turned me in," shooting him dead at point-blank range. Sinclair had given police information that caused Arnold to be considered a suspect in the Tylenol murders.
Eight months earlier, when Arnold was brought in for questioning about the Tylenol murders and then arrested on five-counts of failing to register handguns and 1-count of assualt, Chicago Police Sergeant Monroe Vollick, a Tylenol task force member said:
"I consider him (Arnold) a goof. One of those macho types who is into guns and making poisons, but not the Tylenol murders."
"A goof?" Not capable of committing the Tylenol murders? It seems that murder came awfully easy to Arnold.
Roger Arnold, center, with his attorney, right, and an unidentified
man, walks into police headquarters in Chicago Saturday to
surrender in the shooting death of a man Friday night.
It appears that when Arnold was arrrested and charged with possessing five unregistered firearms, he got to keep the guns.
As it turned out, Arnold killed the wrong man. Arnold shot and killed John Stanisha, a man he mistook for Marty Sinclair.
In January 1984 Arnold was convicted for the murder of Stanisha, and sentenced to 15 to 30 years in prison. Prosecutors said Stanisha, 46, resembled Martin Sinclair, an informer who had told police that Arnold kept cyanide in his home.
Arnold served 15 years of his term, and was released in 1999. Arnold died on June 16, 2008.
ROGER R ARNOLD | 07/29/1934 | 06/16/2008 | CHICAGO | | COOK | 60632 | Illinois |
982 - 286
Roger Arnold leaving court after his appearance on gun charges
The NBC footage above was shot after Arnold's court appearance on October 25, 1982. What struck me as odd was that the number on his hand - 982 - can be read as the 9th month of 1982 - 9/82 - the month and year of the 1982 Tylenol murders. I don't know why that number was written on his hand, but after looking at the picture more closely I realized that I was reading it upside down.
982, when turned right-side up, is actually 286. The number 982, when turned right-side up, is actually 2/86; the month and year of the February 1986 Tylenol murder.
9/82 2/86
Roger Arnold's home on South Hoyne Ave on the south side of Chicago was searched by Police
Tylenol Murders Report by Illinois State Police investigator Richard Tetyk
Half a year after the shocking deaths of seven Chicago-area residents from cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules, Illinois State Police investigator Richard Tetyk wrote up his nine-page synopsis of the probe. Authorities had narrowed their search to three suspects, but the investigation essentially had stalled.
Tetyk said Roger Arnold worked at a Jewel warehouse in Melrose Park, where he reportedly told his supervisor he was "mad at people and wanted to throw acid at them or poison them.''