THE TYLENOL MURDERS

THE TYLENOL MURDERS     Crime Scene     The Cover-up     The Players     Persons of Interest     Mafia Ties     Posse Comitatus     Marketing Tylenol     Tylenol Lawsuits     J&J Liability     News      
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Louis Zahn Drug Company
Melrose Park
The Retail Stores
Villa Park
THE CRIME SCENE
 
 
 

If you consumed Extra Strength Tylenol capsules purchased from a store at one of these locations on September 28 or 29, 1982; you're lucky to be alive.  But it wasn't a madman who delivered cyanide laced Tylenol to these stores.

 

 

James Burke, J&J's CEO in 1982 knows who delivered Tylenol to these stores.  Wayne Nelson knows too.

 
 
 
 
THE 1982 TYLENOL MURDERS - THE STORES
 
Investigators determined that the poisoned Tylenol found after the 1982 tampering came from seven pharmacy outlets.
 
 
A.) Dominick’s Finer Foods - 424 W Division, Chicago, IL 60614
      The "seventh" bottle of cyanide laced Tylenol was returned here, unopened, within a week of the Tylenol murders.
 
B.) Walgreen Drug Store - 1601 N Wells St, Chicago, IL 60614
      Paula Prince bought the cyanide laced Tylenol that killed her at this store on the evening of September 29.
 
C.) Jewel-Osco - 122 N Vail Ave, Arlington Heights, IL 60005
      The cyanide laced Tylenol that killed Adam, Stanley, and Theresa Janus was purchased here around noon on September 29.
 
D.) Jewel Foods - 948 Grove Mall, Elk Grove Village, IL 60005
      The cyanide laced Tylenol that killed 12-year-old Mary Kellerman was purchased at this store on the evening of September 28.
 
E.) Osco Drugs Store - Woodfield Mall, Schaumburg, IL 60173
      Two bottles of un-sold cyanide laced Tylenol were pulled off the shelves of this Osco Drugs store on September 30.
 
F.) Frank’s Finer Foods - N40 Winfield Rd, Winfield, IL 60190
     Mary Reiner was said to have purchased the poisoned Tylenol that killed her at Frank's Finer Foods. But this is not true.
 
G.) Frank’s Finer Foods - 1101 W. Butterfield Rd. Wheaton, IL 60187
     The "eighth" bottle of cyanide laced Tylenol, said to have been purchased here, may have been planted into evidence.
 

 

 

MODUS OPERANDI

 

 

James Burke, Tyrone Fahner, Dan Webb, Jeremy Margolis, James ThompsonThomas Schumpp and other officials from the Tylenol murders task force claim that some madman traveled in a random fashion to various stores in the Chicago area and put cyanide laced Tylenol capsules into bottles of Tylenol that were sitting on the shelves of local stores.
 

I say that a local truck driver who worked for Jewel Foods followed his normal Monday delivery route, unknowingly distributing poisoned Tylenol to customers up and down the route 83 corridor.

 

Someone is lying to you.

 

 

 

ROUTE 83 CORRIDOR

Two weeks before the Tylenol murders, Mark Husted died in Des Plaines,IL, of Cyanide poisoning; the source of the cyanide was never determined/revealed. His Father, former Illinois State's Attorney Richard Husted, suspected murder.

A.)    Poisoned Tylenol was delivered to Jewel-Osco in Arlington Heights on Monday, Sept. 27, 1982.

 

B.)     Poisoned Tylenol was delivered to Osco Drugs at the Schaumburg Mall on Monday, Sept. 27, 1982.

 

C.)    A pile of white powder and hundreds of empty Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules were found in the Howard  Johnson parking lot by Lake county Sheriff Deputies on Tuesday Morning, Sept. 28, at 2:32 am.

 

D.)  Poisoned Tylenol was delivered to Jewel Foods in Elk Grove Village on Monday, Sept. 27, 1982.

 

E.)     Poisoned Tylenol was delivered to Dominick’s in Villa Park on Monday, Sept. 27, 1982.

 

F. )     Poisoned Tylenol was delivered to the "Undisclosed Location" on Monday, Sept. 27, 1982.

 

 
(A) Elk Grove Village Jewel Foods; (B) Schaumburg Jewel-Osco; (C) Arlington Heights Jewel Foods; (D) Louis Tedesco home; (E) Osco Drug Distribution Center
 
 
 
Roger Arnold, a dockworker at Jewel Foods distribution center in Melrose Park, lived in Villa Park for some period of time. It's unclear when he moved to the S. Hoyne avenue home on the southside of Chicago that was searched by Chicago Police on October 11 and 13, 1982. Maybe he moved around the time of his divorce in July 1982.
 
Roger Arnold (October 1982)
 
 
Arnold frequented Lincoln Park taverns on the north side of Chicago. One evening he produced a bag of white powder and made some barroom chatter about the Tylenol murders that gave observers pause. Someone dropped a dime.
  

A.) Lincoln Park tavern       B.) Walgreens where Paula Prince bought cyanide laced Tylenol

 
 
 

 

I wonder if Roger Arnold, a follower of Posse Comitatus ideology, visited another tavern on the north side of Chicago - the Smokey Hollow Tavern?

 

The owner of the Smokey Hollow tavern was Steve Telow. Steve Telow was a member of the Posse Comitatus right-wing terrorist group, the Legion of Justice.

 

 

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,  BOOBYTRAPSUNCONVENTIONAL 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.

 

  

 

 

RIOTS, CIVIL AND CRIMINAL DISORDERS
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 5, 1970
U.S. SENATE,
PERMANENT SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS OF THE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS
Washinton DC (IL Sen. Charles Percy sat on this committee)
TESTIMONY OF DONALD E. SISCO (KURT SAXON) 

 

 

Some of Saxon's manuals were printed for him by Mike Murray, leader of the Arizona branch of the American Nazi Party.

"I am not prejudiced by a man's race, creed, or color. I don't care as long as he does a cheap printing job," said Saxon.

 

 

 

THE LOGISTICS PROBLEM

 

 

 

Villa Park: the epicenter

 
 
 
 
Does this look like the random route of a madman?
 
A driver, starting at Jewel Foods distribution center (E), his truck already loaded with adulterated Tylenol, might drive east to Chicago (B), northwest to Arlington Heights (C), southwest to Winfield (D), then east through Villa Park, back to Jewel Foods (E).
 
This route covers about 71 miles and has an estimated driving time of 2 hours 15 minutes.
 
 
 
Even with a dozen or more delivery stops, this route could easily be completed in one day by a person who had extensive knowledge of the local roads and local stores. On the other hand, it would be nearly impossible for a "madman," without intimate knowledge of the local roads and store locations, to complete this route in one day while also parking his car and entering each store and covertly putting poisoned capsules into 8 or more Tylenol bottles in seven or more stores.
 
 
A route driver would have driven right up to the stockroom door at each store where a store employee would have helped him quickly unload the shipment. The goal of the truck driver would have been to complete his route as quickly as possible.
 
The overriding objective of a "madman" bent on poisoning capsules in eight or more Tylenol bottles at seven or more stores, would have been to not get caught. This would require the killer to spend a considerable amount of time at each location to carefully park his car, walk into the store, and track down the location of the Tylenol bottles. To avoid suspicion, the killer would have had to wait until no one was within eyesight before replacing the Tylenol capsules with cyanide laced capsules. In addition, this scheme would require the killer to elude security cameras located inside several of the stores.
 
 
ATM camera footage of Paula Prince buying Cyanide laced Tylenol at Walgreens on Wednesday evening, September 29.
 
 
Frame 1: Paula Prince. Frame 2: Paula, a store employee, and - in the background - a man the media tried to pawn off as James Lewis. Frame 3: Close-up of the man authorities hoped was James Lewis. Shortly after publicizing the photos of the mystery man, it was determined that the man could not be Lewis. Furthermore, at the time these pictures were taken, Lewis was in New York City.
 
 
 The theory that a lone madman was able to walk into eight stores and adulterate Tylenol capsules in one or more bottles at each of seven or more stores in just one day, without attracting the attention of anybody, and without being caught on one single security camera, is farfetched. Tyrone Fahner conducted his entire investigation on the basis of a ridiculous premise.
 
It was reported without question that only eight stores received poisoned bottles of Tylenol, that only one bottle of contaminated Tylenol was found at each store, and that all bottles of poisoned Tylenol were recovered (At least two unpurchased bottles of cyanide laced Tylenol were remove from the Osco Drug store in Woodfield mall, although the bottle count was later changed, inexplicably, to one).
 
 
 
Jewel Foods Distribution Center, Melrose Park, IL (October 1982)
 
 
 
 
 
The Tylenol Murders Crime Scene
 
 
 
 
 
THE "UNDISCLOSED LOCATION" (The Smoking Gun that exposes the cover up)
 
The undisclosed pharmacy is where the cyanide laced Tylenol that killed Mary Reiner was dispensed. Authorities kept secret the name and location of this one pharmacy, because the truth would have destroyed the premise of their theory that the Tylenol capsules were laced with cyanide by some madman after the Tylenol bottles were placed on retail store shelves.

The "Undisclosed Location" is the smoking gun in the Tylenol murders cover-up. When I reveal the identity of this pharmacy, the "
approved theory" will be exposed as a fraud perpetrated on American consumers by J&J, the FDA and FBI to cover-up the truth about the Tylenol Murders.
 
 
 
What Are They Hiding?
 
 
Why have officials kept secret, for 27 years, the identity of one of the outlet where cyanide laced Tylenol was dispensed to one of the victims? What is the name and location of the undisclosed outlet?
 
I know the answers to these questions.
 
 

 
 
THE DISTRIBUTORS
  
Tylenol task force investigators claimed that Jewel Foods distributed Tylenol to just two of the stores where cyanide laced Tylenol was found (the Jewel Foods stores in Arlington Heights and Elk Grove Village). I've determined that all of the cyanide laced Tylenol from all of the stores was handled by Jewel Foods.
 
 
 
 
 
J&J shipped Tylenol, later found to have been laced with cyanide, to one of the following two Jewel warehouses (1a, 1b). It was at one of these facilities, probably the first (1a), where the Tylenol was bottled and packaged. It was not bottled and packaged at the manufacturing plant as was claimed by J&J and the FDA.
 
 
1a.) Jewel Companies Manufacturing* & Wholesale** Facility - Franklin Park, IL. 
This building is no longer occupied by Jewel Foods. 
 
* "manufacturer" means a company that carries out at least one step of manufacture "manufacture" means all operations of production, quality control, release, storage and the related controls
** "wholesale" means sale to a person who purchases for the purpose of selling again and includes sale to a hospital or dispensary, or to medical, educational or research institute.
 
 
Right next to the Jewel Manufacturing & Wholesaling facility is a metal finishing company. The company has been in existence since 1904 and uses potassium cyanide for electroplating various metals as decorative coatings.
 
 
Cyanide Compounds for Metal Finishing/Plating: Cyanide compounds are used in plating baths because they accommodate a wide range of electrical current, remove tarnish or other undesirable films from surfaces to be plated, and cause an even metal deposit to form that has lower sensitivity to impurities present in the the bath. Metals coatings of cadmium, iron, gold, and zinc often use cyanide compounds. Cyanide is typically found complexed with plating metals, or as sodium cyanide or potassium cyanide, which is added to the bath. Cyanide exposure pathways include inhalation, ingestion, or absorption through skin or mucous membranes. Most cyanides are acutely poisonous. Overexposure interferes with the operation of the metabolic system and can cause rapid death. Cyanide is not bioaccumulated or stored in humans or animals.
 
 
 
1b.) Jewel repackaging* and distribution center - Franklin Park, IL.
 

* "repacking" means all operations involved in the transfer of a drug from a larger container or packing into smaller containers or packings including filling, packing and labeling with a view to make it ready for retail sale or wholesale, but does not includes any compounding, or processing with a view to formulate it in any dosage form;  "retail sale" means a sale other than wholesale

 

 

2.) Jewel Foods HQ and Distribution Center - Melrose Park, IL

 

The building in the background is Jewel Foods' (aka Jewel-Osco) main distribution center. The building in the foreground was the Jewel Foods corporate headquarters until the spring of 2008.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lawrence Foster, the Public Relations Vice President for Johnson & Johnson, said the contaminated Tylenol purchased at the Jewel and Osco stores probably had been shipped directly from Pennsylvania to Jewel's warehouse in Franklin Park, and then directly to the stores.

 

Jewel Foods vice president Jane Armstrong said Tylenol products for all Jewel stores come from the company's central warehouse in Melrose Park. She would not speculate on how many employees might have been in contact with the suspected batches of Tylenol. "At this point we have no reason to suspect any of our employees," she said.

 

The only reason the Tylenol would have gone through two Jewel Foods facilities (Melrose Park and Franklin Park) is because the Tylenol was distributed through one facility (Melrose Park) after being packaged at another (Franklin Park).

 

It's likely that the actual delivery of the Tylenol to many local stores was contracted out to local companies like The Louis Zahn Drug company, for example.

 

 

Johnson & Johnson delivered the bulk shipment of Tylenol to the Jewel Foods Manufacturing & Wholesaling facility (A) that was at some point in time laced with cyanide.

 

 
 
 
A Cyanide-like substance and empty Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules were found in the Howard Johnson parking lot in Elgin one day before the murders.
 
It's a little hard to see, but the name on the shipping container sitting right next to the Jewel Companies Manufacturing & Wholesale facility in Franklin Park (1a), is ELGIN STORAGE & TRANSFER CO. The company, which was founded in 1884 and sold to Allied Trucking in 2000, delivered a variety of products to Chicago area retailers. The company was based in Elgin IL.
 

 
 
 The Elgin Storage & Storage and Transfer Company was headquartered at 300 Brook St. Elgin, IL; just seven miles south of the Elgin Howard Johnson's parking lot where Kane county Sheriff's deputies found boxes of Tylenol bottles, empty Extra Strength Tylenol capsules, and a pile of white powder one day before the Tylenol murders.
 
(A) - Elgin Storage & Transfer Company     (B) Elgin Howard Johnson's

 

 

Kane county Sheriff’s deputies Al Swanson and Joseph Chavez pulled into the Elgin Howard Johnson's in separate patrol cars at 2:32 a.m. on Tuesday September 28, 1982. They were meeting there for breakfast.

 

 

In 1982 the motel & restaurant was called Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge. It had plenty of parking for large trucks, and was a poplular stopping point for truck drivers. Interestingly, Howard Johnson's was founded in 1925 as a small corner drugstore.

 

 

When the deputies got out of their cars they found the parking lot was littered with two boxes, about four inches by four inches by six inches, and hundreds of capsules were strewn on the pavement.

 

In between the boxes and empty red and white capsule parts, which were labeled with the 500 milligram Extra Strength Tylenol dosage, was "a big pile of powder that looked as if it was dumped," Chavez would say later.

 

This was 28 1/2 hours before the first victim died, 14 miles away.

 

 

DISTRIBUTION CONNECTION? It's quite possible that the same company that delivered Tylenol to Chicago-area stores, would have also delivered Tylenol and other products to the Elgin Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge.

 

 

The Elgin Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge is now a Days Inn. The Restaurant was demolished, leaving only the parking lot.

 

 

The company that owns the building right next to Howard Johnon's has an interesting history.

 
 
ABC News footage of boxes of Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules, filmed at Louis Zahn Drug Co. on October 6, 1982
 
 
 

The boxes "said Tylenol on them and one of them was open," said Chavez. "I picked up the powder. It looked like hundreds of capsules had been emptied. We looked at them and found a couple of capsules had been put together.''

 

 

Chavez said he and fellow officer Al Swanson became dizzy and ill about 30 minutes after handling the materials. Officer Chavez became so violently ill that he was relieved from his shift. Officer Swanson also became ill and did not return to work for five days.
 
The symptoms reported by the officers are consistent with cyanide poisoning, said Barry Rumack, of the Rocky Mountain Poison Control Center in Denver. But other substances could have caused the illness, such as sodium nitrite and some morphine-based narcotics, such as heroin, he said.

 
On September 30, when the deputies learned about the Tylenol murders, they went back to the parking lot, but the boxes were gone and only a few empty capsules remained.
 

Attorney General Tyrone Fahner told reporters,

"They found these red [and white Extra-Strength Tylenol] capsules all over the parking lot" and "manually and physically picked them up. The next day, the officers were ill."

 

Cyanide "can go right through the skin," said Fahners' spokesman, Paul Zemitzsch. "They were sick for several days — nausea, headache, syndromes that can be associated with a very, very mild type of cyanide poisoning."

 

But two days after Faner told reporters that the incident in the Howard Johnson's parking lot was one of the "very substantial leads," in the case, he changed his tone dramatically.

 

Fahner's new take on the severe symptoms experienced by the deputies after they'd handled the evidence in the Howard Johnson parking lot was that investigators were:

"reasonably certain these were not symptoms of cyanide poisoning.”

 

On October 3, Fahner told reporters that he was “reasonably certain these were not symptoms of cyanide poisonings.

 

How is that possible?

 

Barry Rumack of the Rocky Mountain Poison Control Center stated that the symptoms reported by the officers are "consistent with a sub-lethal dose of cyanide poisoning."

 

On October 1, Fahner had this to say about the two officers who became sick after picking up capsules they found scattered in a parking lot:

"The medical people tell me that if you don't ingest cyanide, just getting it on your skin or in your system by breathing it (cyanide) could cause the kind of illness these two people have experienced."

 

But just two days later, on October 3, Fahner dismissed the entire incident as insignificant.

"'That' appears to be a total washout," he told Cable News Network (CNN).

 
Why did Fahner characterize the Howard Johnson's evidence as a total washout?
 
When he made that claim, the evidence from the Howard Johnson's parking lot had not yet been examined. In fact, it appears that the evidence from the Howard Johnson's parking lot had been covertly diverted to some unknown location, and as of October 6, the evidence had not yet arrived at the Chicago lab where it was to be tested.
 
Six days? Six days after sending the Howard Johnson evidence to a lab, just 20 miles from the crime scene, the evidence had not yet arrived?
Let me take a wild guess here. Was this critically important evidence sent to an FBI lab?
 
On October 6, Fahner said authorities had not yet received a shipment of Tylenol capsules found last week by Kane County Sheriff's deputies. The sheriff's department had sent the capsules by certified mail to Chicago for testing.
 
I'm beginning to notice a familiar theme of, "Don't worry, its in the mail," - which inevitably leads to the never stated, but always ready follow-up answer of, "The evidence was lost in the mail." - A somewhat more believable response than, "My dog ate it."
 

 

News clip from March 8, 1958

 

Pharmacists to Meet

MEDIA, PA — Frederick Else, sales training manager for McNeil Laboratories, will address the Delaware County Pharmaceutical Association at its meeting Monday at Howard Johnson's at 10:30 p.m. His topic will be "communication between manufacturer, pharmacist arid physician."

 

 
 
 
MELROSE PARK, IL
 
 
 
 
 
THE 1986 TYLENOL MURDERS
 
 
 
 
 
THE STORES
 
Two bottles found with cyanide laced Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules came from two stores in Bronxville NY. 
 
 
A&P - 12-14 Cedar St. Bronxville, NY.
The cyanide laced Tylenol that killed Diane Elsroth was purchased at this A&P store the first week of February 1986.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Woolworth - 86 Ponfield Rd. Bronxville, NY
The second bottle of cyanide laced Tylenol was found at the Bronxville Woolworth store on February 13, 1986.
Value Drugs now leases the old Woolworth location.
 
 
 
 
Aerial veiw of Woolworth (A) and A&P (B) in Bronxville, NY.
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ADDITIONAL ITEMS OF INTEREST

 

 

Howard Johnson bought a small corner drugstore in 1925, which marked the beginning of the Howard Johnson's Restaurant and Motel empire.

 

 

Below, is a Howard Johnson's Restaraunt franchise from the 1950s.

As of 2002, only fifteen Howard Johnson restaurants and two ice cream shops remain in the United States and Puerto Rico, mainly due to increased competition from fast-food restaurants and their low prices. Menu items and the original-recipe ice cream can still be purchased in various supermarkets and in all Howard Johnson restaurants. There are nearly five hundred hotels in fourteen countries. In the 1980s, the restaurant chain separated from the franchised hotels when the Howard Johnson Corporation was sold, in 1979, to the Imperial Group. In addition, the contract that had allowed Howard Johnson to be the "King of the Road" expired and was not renewed. This allowed fast-food chains to claim space on the nation's highways and turnpikes. Nevertheless, Howard Johnson made it possible for travelers and families on the go to eat nutritiously and enjoy a higher standard in all aspects of hospitality than was previously available.

 

 

DISTRIBUTION CONNECTION?

 

It's quite possible that the same company that delivered Tylenol to area stores, would have also delivered products to Chicago-area Howard Johnson restaurants.

 

In 1979, Howard Johnson's was acquired by the Imperial Group, a corporation known primarily as an international tobacco company. Imperial Group sold Howard Johnson's in 1984 to the Marriott Corporation.

 

In 1973 the Imperial Tobacco Company, having become increasingly diversified by acquisition of restaurant chains, food services and distribution businesses, changed its name to Imperial Group. - Imperial Group company history