The Tylenol Mafia (10 page)

A glaring problem with the approved theory of the Tylenol murders was the implausible assumption that there were only eight bottles of cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules in the Chicago area, and that seven of those bottles were purchased within a 24-hour period. The idea that a madman could plant eight bottles of poisoned Tylenol in eight different stores without being caught was somewhat believable. That such a person could plant hundreds of bottles in dozens of stores was not. This hypothesis would have become less and less plausible with each new bottle of cyanide-laced Tylenol recovered.

Officials from the Tylenol task force admit today that consumers probably destroyed many cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules after being told to do so on September 30
^th
. Several months after the murders, NBC reported that authorities involved in the investigation felt that some contaminated capsules were lost due to the statement by Tyrone Fahner suggesting that people flush their Tylenol down the toilet.

FBI Special Agent, Thomas
Biebel
, a member of the Tylenol task force, said, “We don’t know how many other stores were involved. Probably a lot of people flushed [poisoned] Tylenol down the toilet.”

A survey conducted on October 8, 1982 by Audits and Surveys Inc., found that 60 percent of Chicago area residents had in fact destroyed or discarded their Tylenol capsules during that first week after the poisonings. The Survey’s authors noted that “probably more Tylenol had gone down the
toilet than did Tidy Bowl cleaner.”

Authorities intrinsically understood that there must have been many more than eight bottles of cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules in Chicago area stores, but they never followed through on the simple logic that should have led them to conclude that the “approved theory” was thus invalid. A simple statistical analysis of the evidence would have told investigators very quickly that the “madman” who supposedly planted bottles of cyanide-laced Extra Strength Tylenol capsules in Chicago area stores did not exist at all.

*****

Of the seven Tylenol murder victims, Mary McFarland was the outlier. She was the only one who did not die from the very first dose she took from a bottle of cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules. McFarland had purchased her 50-count bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol probably on Tuesday, September 28, 1982. None of the first five Tylenol capsules she took contained cyanide. When she took the sixth and seventh capsules in one dose on Wednesday evening, the odds caught up with her. One of those capsules contained cyanide.

There were seven cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules in McFarland’s 50-count bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol capsules. The calculations to determine the probability that any one of the first seven doses taken from McFarland’s Tylenol bottle would include a cyanide-filled capsule are shown below:

1st dosage (1 capsule) = 7 / 50 = 14%

2nd dosage (2 capsules) = (7/49) + (7/48) = 14.3% + 14.6% = 29%

3rd dosage (2 capsules) = (7/47) + (7/46) = 14.9% + 15.2% = 30.1%

4th dosage (2 capsules) = (7/45) + (7/44) = 15.6% + 15.9% = 31.5%

The probability that one or more of the first seven capsules taken from McFarland’s 50-count bottle would contain poison was 68 percent; calculated as follows:

43/50 x 43/49 x 43/48 x 43/47 x 43/46 x 43/45 x 43/44 = 86% x 86% x 85% x 85% x 85% x 85% x 84% = 32%;
    
100% - 32% = 68%

There must have been others like McFarland who also consumed Tylenol capsules from a bottle containing cyanide-laced capsules, but who took only the non-poisoned capsules and then heard the alerts and took no more. There also must have been people who bought bottles of poisoned Tylenol, but never even opened their bottles.

The first five Tylenol capsules that McFarland took from her Tylenol bottle did not contain cyanide. That was a reasonable outcome since the probability that one of those first five capsules would contain cyanide was about 54 percent (86% x 86% x 85% x 85% x 85% = 45.95%; 100% - 45.95% = 54.05%)

Conversely, it was extremely improbable that the very first dose taken from each of the other Tylenol victims’ four bottles would all contain cyanide - but they all did. This was a nearly impossible outcome – unless there were many more bottles of cyanide-laced Tylenol in the Chicago area that the public never knew about.

Mary Kellerman and Paula Prince had each taken just one Tylenol capsule from their brand new bottles of Tylenol, whereas Lynn Reiner and Adam Janus each took two capsules. The probability that the first dose consumed by these four victims would contain a cyanide-laced capsule can be determined from the available data, which includes the number of cyanide-laced capsules in each bottle, the total number of capsules in each bottle, and the number of capsules consumed by each victim. The probability that the very first dose taken from those four bottles would all contain cyanide is just 1 in 1,828, or 0.0547 percent, and is calculated from the following data:

Kellerman: 5 poisoned capsules in her 50-count bottle

Probability
that the first dose (1 capsule) taken would contain cyanide = 10%:

(50 / 5) = 10%

Janus: 9 poisoned capsules in Janus’s 50-count bottle (
6 cyanide-laced capsules were found in Janus’s bottle. Adam, Stanley, and Theresa Janus each swallowed 2 capsules. Medical examiners determined that each had swallowed one cyanide-laced capsule, so the bottle initially contained 9 cyanide-laced capsules).

Probability
that the first dose (2 capsules) taken would contain cyanide = 36%:

(9 / 50) + (9 / 49) = 36%

Reiner: 5 poisoned capsules in her 50-count bottle

Probability
that the first dose (2 capsules) taken would contain cyanide = 19%:

(5 / 50) + (5 / 49) = 19%

Prince: 2 poisoned capsules in her 24-count bottle

Probability
that the first dose (1 capsule) taken would contain cyanide = 8%:

(2 / 24) = 8%

The Probability that the first dose taken from all four of the Kellerman, Janus, Reiner, and Prince Tylenol bottles would contain a cyanide-laced capsule was 0.0547 percent, or said another way: 1 in 1,828, calculated as follows:

10% x 36% x 19% x 8% = 0.0547% = 1 in 1,828

There was about an 18 percent probability, on average, that the first dose taken from the Kellerman, Janus, Reiner, and Prince bottles would contain cyanide. Using this average probability of 18 percent to calculate the odds that the first dose taken from all of those four bottles would contain cyanide produces a slightly more conservative result of 0.105 percent:

18% x 18% x 18% x 18% = 0.105% = 1 in 952

There was a 99.895 percent to 99.945 percent probability that the first dose taken from all four of the Kellerman, Janus, Reiner, and Prince Tylenol bottles would
not
all contain cyanide. It is simply not plausible that the first dose taken from all four of those bottles would all contain cyanide,
unless
there were many other people who consumed Tylenol capsules from many other bottles of cyanide-laced Tylenol, but avoided the poisoned capsules.

If twenty Chicago area residents each purchased one bottle containing cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules, and there was an 18 percent probability that the first dose taken from each of those bottles would contain cyanide, then the probability that the first dose taken from four of those 20 bottles would contain cyanide is about 50 percent, calculated as follows:

Binomial Distribution Calculation: Where the probability that the first dose taken will contain cyanide = 18%; the number of bottles opened and a dose consumed = 20; and the number of successes (i.e., the dose taken contains cyanide) = 4; then the probability that the first dose taken from 4 or more of those 20 bottles would contain cyanide equals 49.7 percent.

A reasonably conservative estimate is that about twenty Chicago area residents each bought a bottle of cyanide-laced Tylenol and then took the first dose from those bottles during the 24-hour period when the victims’ cyanide-laced Tylenol was purchased and the victims died. In addition, there were certainly other people who also bought bottles of cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules but did not consume any capsules from those bottles. If 50 percent of the Chicago area residents who bought bottles of Extra Strength Tylenol capsules during the relevant 24-hour period did not consume any of their capsules, then Chicago area residents must have purchased about 40 bottles of cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules:

20 bottles / 50% = 40 bottles

This estimate of 40 bottles of cyanide-laced Tylenol purchased from Chicago area stores tells only a portion of the story. There were certainly other bottles of cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules that were not purchased. Officials said they recovered just one unsold bottle of cyanide-laced Tylenol from Chicago area stores, but there certainly were many more.

Video footage shown on network news programs in the days following the murders showed between about one and three dozen bottles of Extra Strength Tylenol capsules sitting on the shelves of various Jewel-Osco stores. The front row typically held 4 to 12 bottles. Some Jewel-Osco store managers told NBC News that they were selling one or two bottles of Extra Strength Tylenol capsules per day. Tyrone Fahner suggested that one bottle of poisoned Tylenol had been placed at the front of the display in each of a number of Chicago-area stores. The odds of someone purchasing the one bottle of poisoned Tylenol from such a store were around 1 in 6, or 17 percent. In this scenario, the estimated number of bottles of cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules in the front row of the Tylenol display shelves in Chicago area stores on the day of the Tylenol murders was about 235 bottles, calculated by dividing 40 (the estimated bottles of cyanide-laced Tylenol purchased) by 17 percent:

Bottles of cyanide-laced Tylenol on the shelves of Chicago area stores = 40 / 17% = 235

Could one man really put hundreds of bottles of cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules on the shelves of dozens to a couple hundred Chicago area stores in just one day without being caught?

This implausible hypothesis was not blindly accepted by everyone. Dr. R.J. Cowles, Administrator of the Des Moines County Health Unit, told a reporter for
The Hawkeye
newspaper in Burlington, Iowa, that because cyanide had been found in capsules manufactured in Tylenol plants in Pennsylvania and Texas, the poison had probably been added at a warehouse or distribution facility in the Chicago area
.

Jim Adamson, a spokesperson for the FDA’s regional office in Kansas City, Missouri, said authorities believed that the recalled bottles were tampered with during the distribution process.
 

In June 1983, Philip Corboy, the attorney who had filed product liability lawsuits against J&J on behalf of Mary Kellerman and Mary McFarland, said, “The media did an excellent job of informing the public that a madman was out there, but I don’t know of any evidence of that. Where along the line it happened is something a jury will decide.” Unfortunately, a jury never got the opportunity to decide that issue.

As of October 8, 1982, Chicago Police Superintendent, Richard Brzeczek, had also not accepted the tampering in the retail stores theory as an established fact. “We’re still in the process of trying to understand the scenario of events as to how the cyanide got into those bottles,” he said. “That’s what you need to do to tie it in with a specific person.”

Cook County Medical Examiner, Dr. Robert Stein, said the Tylenol killer struck him as more of a “rational evildoer.” Stein criticized officials for concentrating their efforts on the tampering in the retail stores scenario, and he rejected the contention that the tamperings occurred after the Tylenol bottles were delivered to the stores. He said the Tylenol capsules could have been poisoned at their distribution point or at the plant where they were produced.

In 1986, Bob Fletcher, a spokesman for the Illinois Department of Law Enforcement, commented on the failure of investigators to understand how the killer got away with the crime without leaving a trail. “Of course, the killer could have been operating on a completely rational plan that we simply don’t perceive yet,” said Fletcher. “It’s enormously frustrating.”

To track down the facility where the tamperings had actually occurred, it was critically important to gather all of the Tylenol capsules from all of the Chicago area outlets. At the very least, authorities needed to confiscate every bottle of Tylenol capsules from Chicago area stores so they could be tested for cyanide. But they actually did the exact opposite of that.