The Tylenol Mafia (22 page)

“This is the case that does not fit the pattern,” said Polk. “Winfield is a village 30 miles from downtown Chicago, and even the food store is hard to find. Lynn Reiner came here [to Frank’s Finer Foods] at 3 p.m. that day – as usual, she bought Regular Strength Tylenol. At home, Mrs. Reiner took one of these capsules (video showing Lynn’s Tylenol capsules being handled by a lab worker at the Illinois Department of Health in Wheaton) and it killed her. Mixed in with these gray Regular Strength capsules were red and white Extra Strength capsules - five laced with cyanide.”

“Investigators think Winfield may not have been chosen at random - that someone in a deliberate effort came here to make the switch at Frank’s Finer Foods,” said Polk. “The grocery is directly across the street from the entrance to Central DuPage Hospital. The FBI has asked for the records of all patients who have been through the psychiatric ward here.”

Investigators were clearly working on the assumption that Lynn Reiner had been the target of a premeditated murder plot. Un-named investigators told NBC that the killer had made a deliberate effort to poison capsules at the Frank’s Finer Foods store in Winfield on the same day Lynn Reiner went to that store, where, “as usual, she bought Regular Strength Tylenol.” This NBC report revealed that the authorities assumed that the Tylenol killer knew in advance that Lynn Reiner was going to buy a bottle of Regular Strength Tylenol at Frank’s Finer Foods on Wednesday afternoon. This was going to be the story that prosecutors would use to explain how eight red and white Extra Strength Tylenol capsules (five laced with cyanide) had gotten into Lynn’s bottle of gray and white Regular Strength Tylenol capsules.

Just when it looked like authorities were closing in on one of Lynn Reiner’s relatives as the prime suspect, a man who called himself a “closet chemist” entered the picture and muddled everything up.

21

________ 

On Saturday evening, October 9, 1982, Roger Arnold, a 48-year-old, wiry, chain-smoking warehouse worker, stopped off for a few drinks at O’Rourke’s Tavern, an Irish pub located in Lincoln Park on Chicago’s North Side. Arnold entered the tavern carrying a plastic bag of white powder that he said was cyanide. He then allegedly made comments about killing people with cyanide.

Tavern owner, Marty Sinclair, picked up the phone and called the Chicago Police. He told them Arnold was a peculiar bird who worked with the father of one of the Tylenol victims and kept test-tubes, guns, and two vials of cyanide in his house.

Two days later, Roger Arnold was in Lilly’s Bar, just down the street from O’Rourke’s Tavern, when Chicago police entered the bar at about 7 p.m. and picked him up on an outstanding arrest warrant for aggravated assault. With Arnold’s permission, the police searched his house on Chicago’s South Side. Police confiscated one bolt-action rifle, four handguns, and a stockpile of ammunition. Arnold was arrested and charged with failing to register the weapons and the prior charge of aggravated assault. The assault charge stemmed from a June 1982 incident when Arnold had gotten into a violent argument with Marty Sinclair - the same man who provided Chicago police the tip that led to Arnold’s arrest in the Tylenol case. During that altercation, Arnold had pointed a gun at Sinclair. The Chicago police held Arnold for questioning about the Tylenol murders.

Roger Arnold was born on July 29, 1934 to Alice Beam, who put him up for adoption through the Cradle Society of Evanston, Illinois. Arnold was adopted by Mable and Walter Arnold of Chicago in September 1934. Mable was a stay-at-home mom, and Walter was a supervisor for Butler Brothers, Inc. Arnold lived with his parents in a Pearl Court apartment in Chicago until he was 18. He had dropped out of school in the seventh grade and worked various jobs. At age 18, he got a job working at the Kemper Insurance warehouse in Chicago. Arnold entered the Army in 1957, and achieved the rank of corporal. He was discharged from the Army in 1959 and resumed his job at the Kemper Insurance warehouse.

In 1969, Arnold took a job as a warehouse worker for Jewel Companies and was still employed there when he became a suspect in the Tylenol murders case. Arnold was a foreman and union steward in Jewel’s salvage operation at the company’s Melrose Park distribution facility.

Prior to the aggravated assault charge in June of 1982 and his arrest in the Tylenol case in October, Arnold had a couple other brushes with the law. In 1968, Arnold was arrested in Chicago for aggravated assault and unlawful use of a weapon, charges later dismissed.
 
In 1981, Arnold was arrested in DuPage County and charged with possession of marijuana. He was found not guilty of that charge.

Of special interest to Chicago police was that Roger Arnold had recently stored cyanide in his basement and used it for unspecified “projects.” After arresting Arnold, authorities handcuffed him to a chair and questioned him Monday night and again on Tuesday.

Chicago Police Detective, James C. Gildea, said Arnold called himself a “closet chemist.” He apparently has “a working knowledge” of chemicals and compounds, said Gildea. Arnold said he had purchased cyanide “some months ago” but then discarded it in August 1982 – the same month that the Tylenol from some or all of the lots linked to the poisonings were shipped to Illinois.

On Tuesday afternoon, Chicago Police Detectives, Donald Eddy and Robert Rebholz, both members of the Tylenol task force, arrived at precinct headquarters on Chicago’s North Side at 4:00 p.m. They spent an hour and a half sifting through a stack of worthless tips from conspiracy theorists and psychics before Lieutenant August Locallo asked them to follow up on a lead. “You can read whatever you want into this,” said Locallo, but there are “a lot of suspicious coincidences” surrounding Arnold. Arnold had cyanide in his house, said Locallo, and he also worked at Jewel with the father [Howard Fearon, Sr.] of one of the victims [Lynn Reiner].

“At first [Arnold] denied that he had any cyanide,” said Locallo, “and then admitted that he did have some cyanide ... but got rid of it.” Arnold said he had previously kept cyanide in his basement for “experiments,” added Locallo. “He dropped the comment that he’s interested in catching the killer of this Tylenol case,” said Locallo, “that a friend of his is a truck spotter at the Jewel parking lot, and this friend of his daughter was the one [Lynn Reiner] that died in the Winfield incident.”

Locallo said they had received a tip that Arnold’s former wife had been hospitalized at the psychiatric ward at Central DuPage Hospital, right across the street from Frank’s Finer Foods. Locallo then stated incorrectly (a presumption it appears) that one of the victims [Lynn Reiner] had purchased cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules at Frank’s Finer Foods. “I want you to check out [Arnold’s] ex-wife and see what she knows.”

The detectives took a squad car and headed toward the North Side home of Arnold’s ex-wife, Delores Keas. A few minutes later they turned onto North Monticello Avenue and drove around the block twice before pulling into Delores’s driveway. She lived in the house with her 74-year-old brother, Philip Keas. Delores invited the detectives into her cluttered living room where they casually interviewed her for more than an hour.

Arnold had married Delores in 1970, and they moved into an apartment in Forrest Park, a Western suburb of Chicago. In 1981 they bought a house in nearby Oakbrook Terrace, but Arnold moved out the following year when Delores filed for divorce. The divorce was finalized in July of 1982.

Delores could not believe that her ex-husband was “goofy enough” to get involved in anything like the Tylenol killings. She said her husband had become interested in chemistry about six months ago, and chemicals were delivered to the house in Oakbrook Terrace. She said on one occasion, a number of years ago, Arnold had given her a Tylenol pill and she vomited, but that “was probably due to overeating,” she clarified.

Detectives Eddy and Rebholz finished questioning Delores and then took a break for dinner. On the way back to Headquarters, they received a call from dispatch with instructions to head down to Chicago’s South Side to stake out Roger Arnold’s house on the corner of South Hoyne Avenue and 34
^th
Street.

For nearly two hours, Eddy and Rebholz sat in their car and watched Arnold’s small brown house. Finally, at 11:07 p.m., five police cars pulled up. A team of investigators from the forensic laboratory had a search warrant for Arnold’s residence. Chicago police, with Arnold’s consent, had searched the house Monday night, but now investigators went inside with vacuum cleaners to conduct a second, more thorough search. Warrants had also been granted to search Arnold’s car and work locker at Jewel. Eddy and Rebholz drove back to the North Side to keep an eye on Arnold’s red Chevrolet, which was parked on a street under the tracks for the “L” train. A forensic team arrived just before 1 a.m. and searched Arnold’s car.

While searching Arnold’s house, investigators found two one-way tickets to Thailand. Arnold’s reading material included a stash of
Soldier of Fortune
magazines,
The Anarchist Cookbook
of “recipes” for making explosive devices, and
The Poor Man’s James Bond
, a handbook written by right-wing survivalist and former minuteman, Kurt Saxon (aka Donald
Sisco
). Police confiscated several training manuals published in the mid-1960s by the United States Department of Defense for use by U.S. Army Special Forces. These training manuals were:
Incendiaries
,
Boobytraps
,
Unconventional Warfare Devices & Techniques
, and
Military Chemistry & Chemical Agents
. Police found lab equipment and various chemicals, including large quantities of a particular type of hair gel used in some of the bomb-making recipes found in
The Anarchist Cookbook
.

Police also turned up a suspicious-looking plastic bag of white powder, and a book that contained instructions for encapsulating cyanide. The white powder was turned over to the Chicago Health Department laboratory. A spokesperson for the Chicago police later said a lab test found that the powder was a harmless carbonate.

Arnold was held without bond while city detectives followed up on the “circumstantial evidence” that had led them to consider him a possible suspect in the Tylenol poisonings. Lieutenant Locallo said a “series of coincidences” had surfaced when Arnold talked with investigators, and they had to investigate further. The press reported these coincidences were that Arnold had told police that he had kept cyanide at his house until August; he allegedly had threatened to kill his estranged wife with cyanide capsules; he worked at a warehouse that officials said was a distribution point for some of the poisoned Tylenol; and he worked with the father of one of the Tylenol victims.

Arnold was released from jail on Wednesday night, October 13
^th
, after paying $600 to a bondsman who then posted the $6,000 bail bond: $1,000 for each of the unregistered gun charges, and another $1,000 for the charge of aggravated assault.

Chicago Police Detective Jerry Beam said the assault charge stemmed from a recent incident involving Arnold and a bartender at a local tavern. Beam also said the bartender (Marty Sinclair) had provided police with the tip that led to Arnold’s arrest as a suspect in the Tylenol murders case.

Detective Marty Ryan confirmed that police had arrested Arnold because of a tip that he had two bottles of cyanide, but none of that poison was found in his South Side home. “It doesn’t appear the man [Arnold] is linked with the Tylenol poisonings,” said Ryan. Nevertheless, Chicago police immediately put Arnold under around-the-clock surveillance.

Arnold’s lawyer, Thomas Royce, a well known Chicago defense attorney, said later that the scrutiny was relentless and continued for weeks. Surveillance was so heavy, said Royce, that he and Arnold began meeting in McKinley Park, near Arnold’s home, to keep from being overheard. Even there, a detective walked up one day and demanded Royce’s identification.

Lieutenant Locallo said Arnold, on the day he made bail, had refused for the second time to take a lie detector test, saying the furor over the Tylenol case made it an inopportune time for him to do so.

The reading material confiscated from Arnold’s home, his recent order of cyanide, and his purchase in late September of two one-way tickets to Thailand were all suspicious. The tickets had a departure date of October 15
^th
, for what Arnold said was going to be a 28-day vacation.

Arnold said he went to Thailand every year at this time. But Thomas Royce, who described Arnold as a “soldier-of-fortune type of guy,” said Arnold had never been to the country. He also said Arnold cancelled his Thailand vacation before posting bail.

Upon leaving the jailhouse on Wednesday, Arnold declared, “They can say what they want, I am not a suspect. I had nothing to do with this Tylenol thing at all. This is more circumstance than anything.”

Regarding his possession of cyanide, Arnold said, “It just happens that they blew it out of proportion. I’m not saying what the chemicals were used for, but it was nothing illegal. “I was willing to take a polygraph,” Arnold added, “but my lawyer advised against it.”

Arnold then said something that didn’t seem to make sense: “I knew the family, unfortunately, but not the suspect.” The relevance of that statement would become clear two weeks later.

Officer
Jaye
Schroeder, speaking for the Chicago Police Department, said of Arnold’s arrest, “There are too many coincidences to rule him out, but not enough evidence to say for certain it is him.”