S1: The Tylenol Murders (From "Crimes of the Centuries")
Strangers! We're taking a break this week, but we wanted to share the FASCINATING AND TERRIFYING TALE of the "The Tylenol Murders" from another Obsessed Network podcast: "Crimes of the Centuries" When 52-year-old Bruce Nickell suddenly dropped dead in Washington state, investigators at first thought he'd died of a heart attack. But then a second person collapsed, and police realized that the two victims had both taken the painkiller Excedrin. Suddenly, they realized they were dealing with a copycat of a case that had haunted federal investigators for nearly 15 years. In that earlier case, seven people died when someone randomly tampered with the over-the-counter painkiller to replace some of the powder inside capsules with enough cyanide to kill an entire family. Those deaths changed how medication is packaged nationwide and made it a federal crime to tamper with such products -- a legal change that years later came back to bite Nickell's killer. If you enjoyed this episode, you can find and subscribe to "Crimes of the Centuries" wherever you get your podcasts.