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The Tylenol/Excedrin Murders
75 Plays2 years ago
The Chicago Tylenol murders took place in Chicago in 1982. Seven people were killed after multiple pills containing cyanide were placed in extra strength Tylenol bottles and sold to an unsuspecting public. The Tylenol murders were never solved, but thanks to a speedy response from manufacturers, the public was able to return to taking over-the-counter medications once again. However, in 1986, 52 year old Bruce Nickell came home from work with a headache. According to his wife, 42 year old Stella Nickell, Bruce took four extra strength Excedrin capsules and, minutes later, collapsed. Though it was years later, someone was once again tampering with over-the-counter pain medication. Only this time, the case of the Excedrin murders would not go cold, and the mystery of who was placing poison on store shelves would be solved.
Sources:
The Tylenol Murders
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Tylenol_murders
https://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/cold-cases/chicago-tylenol-murders/
https://www.chicagohistory.org/tylenol-murders/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tylenol-murders-investigation-new-dna-tests-40-years-later/
pbs.org/newshour/health/tylenol-murders-1982
The Excedrin Murders:
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/woman-convicted-for-tampering-with-excedrin
https://www.insider.com/woman-told-how-her-mom-was-killed-by-cyanide-poisoner-2022-11
https://murderpedia.org/female.N/n/nickell-stella.htm
https://www.lung.org/lung-health-diseases/lung
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Transcript
Introduction to True Crime and Punishment
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, I'm Kaylee. And I'm Sierra. And this is True Crime and Punishment. Episode 6.
Overview of Tylenol and Excedrin Murders
00:00:06
Speaker
Today, Kaylee will be giving us a two for one special with the Tylenol murders and the Excedrin murders. That's right. The Tylenol murders and the Excedrin murders took place about seven years apart, but they are intrinsically connected. One is solved and one is not, which might seem a little strange considering that they are connecting cases, but that'll make sense by the end of today's episode.
Chicago Tylenol Murders: The Tragedy Unfolds
00:00:29
Speaker
but we're going to go ahead and start off with the Tylenol murders and then we'll lead right into those eccentric murders. The Chicago Tylenol murders, this is just a brief look at this case, maybe one day we'll do a deep dive into it, but considering that it's unsolved, it's mostly speculation, and I'm not comfortable really just speculating on a normal episode, so we're just going to give you the facts here. The Chicago Tylenol murders took place in Chicago
00:00:51
Speaker
obviously in 1982. Seven people were killed after bottles of Tylenol were tampered with and pills inside the bottles were replaced with new capsules of medication containing cyanide instead of acetaminophen. The story starts on September 28th when 12-year-old Mary Killerman had been complaining of a sore throat and was given extra straight Tylenol. She was hospitalized after taking a contaminating pill and collapsing and she would pass away the next day on September 29th.
00:01:20
Speaker
On September 29th, six more people would take contaminated medication and ultimately succumb to cyanide poisoning. Through these people, we have 27-year-old Adam Janus. He was a mailman, and he passed away after taking the contaminated Tylenol. Unfortunately, two more members of his family, his brother Stanley Janus,
00:01:39
Speaker
and his brother's wife Teresa Janice, who they were 25 and 20 respectively, would also pass away after taking medication from the same bottle.
Corporate Response and Legislative Changes
00:01:48
Speaker
It's reported that the couple had come to Adam's home to gather with the rest of his family following his sudden and tragic death. They also took the medication and also collapsed and ultimately ended up passing away to decide on Paul's name.
00:02:03
Speaker
After that, 31-year-old Mary McFarland, 35-year-old Paula Prince, and the 27-year-old Mary Rainer would all ultimately die from cyanide poisoning. Following an investigation, it would be discovered that all the victims had recently purchased and consumed extra strength Tylenol. Kellerman and Janice both had a bottle from the same lot, specifically, lot MC2880. Now the manufacturer of Tylenol is Johnson & Johnson.
00:02:30
Speaker
and they would issue a recall for all time off from that specific lot initially. However, it would be discovered that multiple lots have been tampered with. And so points to Johnson and Johnson, they had a good response, a quick response of
00:02:45
Speaker
cutting production and advising the public to turn in their bottles and get a refund or to just stop taking it and to stop taking in acetaminophen products because they obviously they took a massive hit from this because their company, it's only Tylenol, it's not like this is just random medications, it's these Tylenol medications have been tampered with and people obviously aren't going to trust them but they had
00:03:07
Speaker
an immediate reaction, an immediate response of concern, and recalled everything. Which means it's honestly probably one of the reasons that their company is still around today because of this immediate reaction and not handling things poorly or putting a money-first approach.
James Lewis and the Tylenol Case Mysteries
00:03:22
Speaker
They put a public safety first approach first, which ultimately ended up saving people's lives. Unfortunately, the Tylenol murders are completely unsolved. There have been several leads in the case. One man has been arrested in connection to the case. It will get him a minute in a little bit. But he ultimately was not found to be responsible for the actual poisonings himself.
00:03:41
Speaker
But usually with things like this, when we see a widespread, terroristic kind of attack or something that's meant to stir fear into the public, there's someone who's going to come forward and say, I did this and here's why I did it. I did it for this reason. It was very odd that no one ever claimed this action. No one ever attempted to profit from this action who would ultimately be proven to be guilty.
00:04:03
Speaker
We do not know who tampered with these medications. However, a man in New York named James Lewis, and remember these murders took place in Chicago, claimed to be responsible for the murders and demanded a million dollars in exchange for stopping killings. However, it was swiftly determined that he was from New York. He was not in Chicago. There's no reason that it would have been him that this was just an extortion attempt. He was arrested and charged and served 13 years in prison.
00:04:33
Speaker
on top of other multi-year sentences for unrelated crimes. So he was ultimately not found culpable, but he did take credit for it. And recently there has been a push, I believe in January of 2023, there was more DNA evidence. They were trying to link to him because he did confess to it. But now he is saying that he did not do this. He just wanted to use the deaths of seven people to gain money, which... That's awful.
00:05:01
Speaker
Right, the punishment did definitely to the crowd without in prison time. Several things changed because of these Tylenol murders. One thing that happened was in 1983, Congress passed what was known as the Tylenol Bill, which made it a felony to tamp with consumer products.
Impact on Consumer Trust and Safety Improvements
00:05:16
Speaker
Later on in 1989, the FDA would update their policies to make medication more tamper-proof. So when you buy meds now, you can see that there's that plastic ring that goes around the outside.
00:05:27
Speaker
Um, they have that seal on the inside that you pull off to be able to actually get into the medication. And one thing that's changed, that's actually, I think the most interesting part of this change is the actual pills themselves. It used to be that Tylenol would come in a capsule and a capsule is two pieces of, usually it's some sort of gelatin or a substance that can break down, formed into a pill shape that can be put together. Powder can be put inside. You put the two ends together and there you have a pill.
00:05:56
Speaker
If you get prescription medication, it'll oftentimes look like this, where you can kind of pull that pill apart. If you've ever had a pill break and there's powder everywhere, it's because the end of the capsule has broken. Nowadays Tylenol and acetaminophen, which is the generic form of Tylenol and then ibuprofen and things like that.
00:06:11
Speaker
They don't come in capsules anymore. They come in a hard packed pill, which can be broken, but it's not a powder. There's nothing that you can put into it. So to replicate a pill, like a Tylenol pill, you would have to try a lot harder. You'd have to compact a poison into a disc. You'd have to coat it with some sort of gel. You'd have to put
00:06:30
Speaker
specific numbers that the company uses, it's not impossible to impersonate Tylenol, but it is much harder because now you have to make a different pill. You can't just fill random capsules with powder. You can't just go into stores, take bottles, empty them out
Excedrin Murders: A New Chapter
00:06:44
Speaker
and put them in. No one's any the wiser. You'd have to replace that seal, you'd have to replace multiple seals, and it would just be much more difficult. So a good thing didn't come out of this, which unfortunately that's a theme. Something terrible has to happen before something good
00:06:55
Speaker
can come in and promote public safety. Well, they probably never imagined that someone would do that to the medication they were selling. Yeah. Do you remember the Blue Bell ice cream scandal from a couple of years ago where a teenage girl was going into Walmart, pulling lids off of ice cream and just licking it and putting it back? Yes, it was so good. I think that's a crime because you're tampering with a consumer product, and this is why it's a crime, because of these murders.
00:07:21
Speaker
Oh, interesting. Tylenol to Blue Bell ice cream pipeline, I guess. Yeah, so we try to think the best of people. We don't think someone's going to go in and replace a bunch of Tylenol capsules for people who already, they're taking Tylenol because they don't feel good. And you're going to poison them with cyanide for no reason. No one's ever claimed this action beyond James Lewis, who was ultimately proven to be a liar and an extortionist. So it was just, it was a random act of violence and the city of Chicago was shaken.
00:07:50
Speaker
Like I'd be here to say that the United States was shaken because no one would have thought someone would do something like this. So it damaged trust in consumer products. It damaged trust in over the counter medications. It was just a scary time to take a medication. I can't imagine like wanting to take a pain pill after that. I feel like I personally would want to stay away from that and just kind of avoid that kind of medication even if I needed it because some sick person had decided to
00:08:18
Speaker
do this act of cruelty for no understandable reason. So that is a brief, brief overview of the Tylenol Mergers from 1982.
00:08:27
Speaker
We're going to jump forward to 1986 now into the Excedrin murders. This is a few years after the Tylenol murders. People have slowly regained trust. There's been a couple of things done in order to improve public safety when it comes to taking over-the-counter medication that could potentially be tampered with. So in 1986, 52-year-old Bruce Nichol came home from work with a headache.
00:08:52
Speaker
According to his wife, 42-year-old Stella Nicole, Bruce took four extra-strength Excedrin capsules. And Excedrin is a migraine medication. I believe it's acetaminophen mixed with caffeine. I'm going to fact-check myself. So Excedrin contains
00:09:10
Speaker
acetaminophen, caffeine, and aspirin. It's a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, also known as an NSAID, that it helps with pain, inflammation, and swelling. It's typically used as an anti-migraine medication. That's what I've always known it as. My family takes that because migraines run in my family. So we always have a bottle of Excedrin. Migraine really for just Excedrin in our hall closet. So this is a little bit terrifying to think about. But according to Stella, he took those four extra strength Excedrin and minutes later collapsed.
00:09:39
Speaker
He was taken to Harborview Medical Center and given treatment and attempts were made to revive him. Unfortunately, these attempts ultimately failed and Bruce Nickel was pronounced dead.
00:09:51
Speaker
medical officials initially ruled his death to be of natural causes. Specifically, emphysema was blamed. So according to Lung.org, which is my new favorite website domain name, emphysema develops over time and involves the gradual damage of lung tissue, specifically the destruction of the avioli.
00:10:10
Speaker
or tiny air sacs within the lungs. Gradually, this damage causes the air sacs to rupture and create one big air pocket instead of many small ones. This reduction in the lung surface area traps air in the damaged tissue and prevents oxygen from moving through the bloodstream. Additionally, this blockage causes the lungs to slowly overfill and makes breathing increasingly more difficult.
00:10:34
Speaker
Um, this is typical of smokers. It's not caused only by smoking. Sometimes lung infection can cause this to happen, but it makes breathing more difficult and can ultimately lead to death because of lack of oxygenation in the blood. So that's what medical professionals that happened to Bruce. Is he a smoker or anything like that? I believe so. It was reported that he was a smoker. So this diagnosis made sense. Hmm.
00:11:01
Speaker
However, medical professionals would be forced to reconsider this as Bruce's official cause of death because on June 11th, six days after Bruce, 40-year-old Susan Snow, an Auburn bank manager, took two extra strength Excedrin migraine capsules for an early morning headache. Later, Susan's husband, Paul Webking, took two capsules from this bottle as well for arthritis pain and left the house for work. Around 6.30,
00:11:31
Speaker
Snow's 15-year-old daughter found Susan collapsed on the floor of her bathroom unresponsive and with a very, very faint and weak pulse. That moment was called and paramedics transported Susan to the same hospital, Harborview Medical Center, but she died later the same day without regaining consciousness. Paul Webking suffered no ill effects.
00:11:56
Speaker
Really? Yes. Despite taking medication from the same bottle, he suffered no ill effects from this medication. Now this was odd. Because of Susan's sudden and tragic death, where she'd been fine that morning just had a headache, an autopsy was performed on Susan because there was no immediate obvious cause of death.
00:12:15
Speaker
Headaches were not uncommon for Susan. She was known to take this medication when she had a headache. It was not a strange warning. Assistant medical examiner Janet Miller, when performing this autopsy, detected the faint smell of bitter almonds. Now that sounds a little odd, like why is she performing an autopsy and she can smell almonds? Well, bitter almond scent is associated with cyanide. Ah.
00:12:42
Speaker
So this is coming less than five years after those Tylenol murders. There's the obvious scent of cyanide present and so more testing was performed to see if she had died of cyanide poisoning and that ended up being the case. She had died of what was called acute cyanide poisoning. Now they knew that she'd taken that medication that morning so they examined the bottle that she had used. Three capsules that remained in the 60 capsule bottle
00:13:12
Speaker
were found to be lysed with cyanide in toxic quantities. So not every pill was poisoned, but there were three more within that bottle and she had taken two.
Investigation Focus on Stella Nichol
00:13:23
Speaker
Whoa. So her husband was kind of playing like Russian roulette. Exactly. Now this was of course a sensation in Washington because not five years before Chicago had had a
00:13:36
Speaker
massive national news cycle about tainted medication. They did a search for this medication. Another bottle of unpurchased tainted Excedrin medication was found in Kent, Washington on a store shelf. The manufacturers of Excedrin, which is Bristol-Myers, not Johnson & Johnson this time,
00:13:54
Speaker
They responded as well quickly and said immediate recall. We want all this medication off the shelf. We want all the extra strength, etc. products in Seattle, Washington to be recalled in that area. And then a group of drug companies actually came together to say, hey, if you have any information,
00:14:14
Speaker
that will lead to the capture of the person who has done this, we have a $300,000 reward for the capture of the person who's done this. In response to the public outcry about these Excedrin poisonings, Stella Nicholl was thinking about it and she said, hey, my husband recently passed away suddenly after taking those four Excedrin migraine pills. That's
00:14:38
Speaker
That's suspicious to me now. So she went to police, and she said that her husband had recently passed away. Her husband had recently passed away very suddenly. In the morning of his death, he'd taken four extra-strength Excedrin pills, just like Susan Snow, who had taken two of those pills. So she brought with her her 40-count bottle of Excedrin extra strength, and it was in the same lot number as the one that had killed Susan Snow. So in response to this, an autopsy was done.
00:15:08
Speaker
Andrus Nichols on his remains and they found that there was cyanide present in his remains as well as in the two bottles of Excedrin that Stella Nichols had in her home at the time of his death. So she had not one but two bottles of tainted Excedrin in her home.
00:15:28
Speaker
Examination of those contaminated cyanide pills also found that their reflects have been unknown random green substance within the pills as well. Further testing showed that this was an algaecide, something that you would use in home aquariums. It was unfortunately named algae destroyer. And it was found in these cyanide capsules as well. So these pills have been hit with both cyanide and an algaecide.
00:15:57
Speaker
So they were a lethal combination of multiple things. Yikes, I'm glad she wasn't taking any. Yeah, initially suspicion was directed at the manufacturers of etc. And that somehow this had happened in the manufacturing process because it all came from one lot. Remember with those Tylenol murders, it was from multiple lots in multiple stores.
00:16:18
Speaker
Both Paul Webking, which was Susan Snow's husband, and Stella Nichol filed lawsuits against Bristol Myers, the manufacturers of Excedrin, for, they filed wrongful death lawsuits.
00:16:29
Speaker
After this, the FDA inspected the Morrisville, North Carolina plant, which the specific lot number was lot 5H102. So this is the plant where that lot of medication had been created. And so they did an inspection of where it had been packaged to see if there were any traces of cyanide at the plant that could say that unsafe manufacturing processes caused this. Or maybe an employee went rogue and decided to start poisoning people. That's what I was wondering. However, they found no traces of cyanide
00:16:59
Speaker
And there was no reason to suspect that the plant had anything to do with it. So this was just completely random. And it did look like someone outside of the plant had contaminated these bottles and then placed them back on the shelves for our consumers to purchase and ultimately be murdered by. Was this before there were the special seals on pill bottles? This was before they were mandated by the FDA that it had to be done. I believe I saw in one source that, et cetera, at that time did have a foil seal and did have a plastic ring around the neck.
00:17:29
Speaker
but not every medication was required to have it. So this is purely speculation on my part. This is not confirmed by anyone who was actually there in 1986. But I would imagine that either it was something that was overlooked because it was not required for every medication. And so it may not have been strange to have a bottle of non-prescription painkiller without that seal on it. And if you live in a multi-person household, maybe you think somebody else has opened it. Maybe you just didn't catch it.
00:17:53
Speaker
that I do believe at this time, Excedrin did have that seal around the neck, at the very least. But that would make sense living in a multi-person household. And like with the one couple, the husband used some and it didn't affect him. Exactly. So who's to say that was even the first time they'd used this medication. But when it was found that it was not the plant that had been responsible for either intentional or accidental cyanide poisoning, Bristol Myers made the decision on June 18 to recall
00:18:20
Speaker
all Excedrin capsules in the United States. So they pulled them from the stores. They warned consumers not to take any if they already bought it. And then a couple of days after that, beyond just Excedrin migraine or Excedrin extra strength, they recalled all of their non-prescription capsule products. Wow. Good for them, because that's a lot of money to lose. Exactly. I'm glad they responded that way. I am too, because that's a lot.
00:18:45
Speaker
And then on June 24th, after this recall of all of their products, a cyanine-contaminated bottle of extra stinks, Aniston was found in the same store where Susan Snow had bought her contaminated Excedrin. What is Aniston? That is, um, it's aspirin, but it's a brand name aspirin. So Aniston is aspirin and caffeine, just how essentially Excedrin is acetaminophen and caffeine. It's used for headaches and stuff like that. But yeah.
00:19:12
Speaker
It's basically aspirin with a fancy name. Is it from Bristol-Myer as well? No, it's not. It's from Prestige Consumer Healthcare. That might have been a bought-in name, but it was not produced by Bristol-Myer. It was just another medication. Interesting. So that kind of rules Bristol-Myer out. So it was found in the same store that Susan Snow had bought her Excedrin from. And then on June 27,
00:19:40
Speaker
Washington state put into effect a 90-day ban of the sale. It was banned to sell non-prescription medication that came in those capsules because of this. So now we've got Exhedrin being poisoned from the very source. It's been ruled out. That's not what's happening here. Investigators need to focus their investigation on the people who have now bought the product or people who have been buying the product because it's not the manufacturer. It has to be a consumer at this point.
00:20:09
Speaker
So of course they're going to look close to home, they're going to look at Paul Webking, and they're going to look at Stella Nichols. Both of them have filed lawsuits, wrongful death lawsuits against Bristol Myers, so they have something to gain as unfortunate as that sounds from the death of their spouses.
00:20:24
Speaker
they were both Paul and Stella were given polygraph examinations, which polygraphs are kind of, they're not admissible in court, but they are a good basis to determine if someone's lying. Usually from a failed polygraph test, you can kind of open another door to questioning. So even if someone fails a polygraph test, it doesn't mean that they're guilty. So just keep that in mind. Oh. Webking did take the
00:20:52
Speaker
a polygraph examination, although he did in the media claim that it was unjust because he was innocent. However, Nicole refused to take it. She did not want to take it. She declined through her lawyer that she had retained for the wrongful death suit, that she did not want to take it as she was too shaken up from the death of her husband to take this exam.
00:21:16
Speaker
So after this, examiners kind of veered away from Paul and started to look more at Stella. Stella, remember, had two bottles of that contaminated, et cetera. Now, in that total recall, I don't think I mentioned this earlier, five bottles of contaminated medication overall were found in the Seattle, Washington area.
Conviction and Aftermath of Stella Nichol
00:21:37
Speaker
But Stella had two of them.
00:21:39
Speaker
Now, that is a little odd because investigators thought it was a little bit odd that she would buy two bottles of the same medication at the same time. That didn't quite make sense to them. But to have two of the five poison bottles that were found in entirety, if you bought them off the same shelf, maybe that makes sense. You know, you just you'll tragically grab two bottles. However, Stella told investigators that she bought them from two different stores. So what is the likelihood of one woman
00:22:10
Speaker
buying two bottles of the five bottles of contaminated Excedrin pills in the entire city of Seattle. Not very high. I wouldn't say it's very high either. And investigators agreed. So they started to look into that. And they discovered some pretty damning circumstantial evidence. Stella had taken out about $76,000 worth of insurance coverage on her husband's life. A little bit strange.
00:22:40
Speaker
In addition to the life insurance, she had a payout of $100,000 coming if his death was ruled accidental. Now, remember when Bruce passed away? It was not ruled accidental from an accidental cyanide poisoning. It was ruled as emphysema, which is not an accident. That's right.
00:23:01
Speaker
And it was Stella that went to police and said, my husband died suddenly. And now we have all these Excedrin murders happening. So let's take a second look at him, please. So it's already looking not so great.
00:23:14
Speaker
She also had been known before Susan Snow's death. She had kind of pushed back against doctors when they said he died of natural causes. She didn't think that to be the case. Now, had she not bought two contaminated bottles of the same medication from two different places, maybe that is very odd and she thinks it's very strange that her husband randomly collapsed and she should fight back.
00:23:34
Speaker
However, with that insurance money in the two bottles and refusing to take a polygraph, a case is starting to slowly build. Everything is circumstantial, but it's not looking great for Stella. Right. And add to that, if she were to win the lawsuit on top of that life insurance money, like. That's a lot of money that she has potentially coming down the pipe towards herself. You're right. It's looking very, very much like she has motive. So they decided to do not only further research into Stella, but into the pills themselves.
00:24:02
Speaker
The FBI investigation showed that Bruce Nichol, his signature was on two of the insurance policies that she had, but they appeared to be forged. They did not match with other writing. Oh, no. Handwriting analysis, again, isn't always the most perfect way, but usually forgeries can be picked out. And it was proven that it looked like two of his signatures on these life insurance policies had been forged. Oh.
00:24:43
Speaker
Now, remember that it wasn't just cyanide in these pills. They also found that algaeicide, the algae destroyer. Investigators were able to prove that Stella Nicole had purchased algae destroyer from a local fish store. Did they have any fish? I believe they had an aquarium. Now, the algaeicide was a little bit strange because I don't think that would technically kill humans. It wouldn't be good for them, of course. But in the home, they found a container.
00:25:10
Speaker
that they speculated that Nickel would have had to use to crush cyanide capsules, as well as this algaecide. And she just hadn't washed the container between uses, which makes her a terrible fish owner as well. After all the speculation and mounting pressure, Stella finally consented to the polygraph in November. Now remember, this happened in June. We are going all the way out to November. So she's had time to prepare herself mentally for this polygraph test.
00:25:38
Speaker
She did, but she ultimately failed the polygraph. And this caused investigators to focus solely on Stella Nicole. However, they did not have any proof that Stella had purchased cyanide. They could only speculate that this algaecide had been mixed in with the cyanide because she used the same container to mix bulk substances. So they really had no concrete evidence. She had done this even though they were sure in their dumbness in order to kill her husband for that insurance money.
00:26:08
Speaker
Killing her husband makes sense, right? Of course, you know, she wants that money. She's connected to this man. I don't believe they've been married for very long before this had happened, despite their both, you know, in their forties and fifties. But how would Susan Snow tie into this? How would the five bottles of poison medication tie into this?
00:26:27
Speaker
The answer to that question also lies in why it ties into the Tylenol murders as well. Stella Nickel desperately needed her husband's death to be ruled as an accident. True. And when it was ruled as emphysema, meaning that it was not an accident, it wasn't of no outside. Oh no. Oh no. She could remember five years prior the Tylenol murders.
00:26:55
Speaker
So what would help her get her husband's death ruled an accident? She's already talked to medical professionals who are staunchly of the opinion that her husband died from emphysema. She knows it, was it? Because she killed him. Oh, no. If other people were to start dying from cyanide poisoning after taking Excedrin migraine medication as her husband had, well, that would prove her husband's death as an accident. She'd have probable cause to get an autopsy on her husband's remains. And therefore, she'd be one step closer
00:27:25
Speaker
to getting her insurance money and being able to file a wrongful death lawsuit against Bristol Myers, the Excedrin medication corporation. So all it would take was a few more people buying tainted Excedrin, just like seven people had taken tainted Tylenol five years prior. This is all speculation on the police part, of course, as we don't have solid evidence for this. So we have to go back to the investigation.
00:27:52
Speaker
We're going to introduce a new character into this situation. Stella Nichol had a daughter, not with Bruce Nichol. Her daughter's name was Cynthia Hamilton. In January of 1987, Cynthia Hamilton approached police with information. Apparently, Stella was not secretive about her wish for her husband's death. Oh. Cynthia said that she had told her, her mother had told her repeatedly. Bruce was boring. He was sober now and he wasn't as much fun. She just wanted him dead. She wanted him gone.
00:28:21
Speaker
All he wanted to do was stay home and watch TV. He didn't want to go out to bars anymore since he'd gotten sober. Which I don't know about you, but I don't think that's reason enough to kill somebody. No, not at all. She even told Cynthia that she had tried to poison Bruce previously, but it had failed. She tried to poison him with foxglove. But when that had failed, she looked into other ways that she could kill him and she found cyanide. Her daughter also claimed that Stella had spoken
00:28:52
Speaker
about what they could do with that insurance money when Bruce was finally dead. Oh my goodness. She said that she looked up that information about cyanide. She also went to the public library. Remember, this is 1989, one of the best places to go for the internet, your public library. So, records from the Auburn Public Library were subpoenaed.
00:29:12
Speaker
and it showed that Nicole had checked out numerous books about poisons, including Human Poisonings from Native and Cultivated Plants and Deadly Harvest. The first book that I mentioned, Human Poisonings from Native and Cultivated Plants, was marked as overdue in her library records.
00:29:32
Speaker
So she'd borrowed it, but she'd never brought it back. And librarians never forgot. They found the book in Nicole's home, and they found other books that she checked out about poisons. And the FBI was able to identify Nicole's fingerprints, Stella Nicole's fingerprints, on pages related to cyanide. In multiple works, she checked out from his public library. So things were not looking so good for Stella Nicole. On December 9, 1987, she was officially indicted by a grand jury
00:30:02
Speaker
on five counts of product tampering, one for each bottle of pills she allegedly tampered with, including the two bottles that had officially killed Susan Snow and Bruce Nichol. She was arrested the same day and didn't go on trial until April 1988, where she was found guilty of all charges on May 9th after just five days of jury deliberation. Nichol's legal team tried to claim that there had been, you know,
00:30:26
Speaker
misconduct in the trial, things like jury tampering and just official misconduct, they said it occurred. They motioned for a mistrial and that was ultimately denied. The courts found that there was nothing that could be considered tampering with a jury or misconduct within this court and a mistrial was not given. Stella Nicole was ultimately sentenced to two 90-year terms, one for Bruce and one for Susan.
00:30:52
Speaker
And then she also received three 10-year terms for the other product tampering charges. So two 90-year terms and then three charges for those other three bottles that have been tampered with, but no one had taken those medications and been killed by them. Which I do really appreciate the fact that those charges were still levied against her, even though at that point she's got two 90-year sentences. It doesn't really matter, but just acknowledging the risk that those put on the public. Yes. Do you know in your research, did you find if Cynthia testified at the trial?
00:31:22
Speaker
Yes, Cynthia did testify to her. She specifically testified that her mother spoke repeatedly of wanting Bruce Nichols to be dead because, you know, all the things I mentioned before, he was sober, he was boring, and she wanted money from his insurance policy that he likely did not even sign. Yikes. Yeah, if I were a jury member, I would find that pretty compelling. Since she wasn't Bruce's daughter, she was just Stella's daughter, but she still testified about that. Yeah, because, you know,
00:31:52
Speaker
There are a couple of other, um, people who have initially testified to police that she would talk often of wanting Bruce dead. Um, there was a couple, there was like a family friend that I didn't mention because I don't believe she testified in court. Um, I believe there was a, according to an ABC news article, I found, um, the friend kind of dropped off the face of the planet because she was convinced that Stella had hired someone to harm her, to kill her, to keep her from testifying. And she was too scared to testify after that.
00:32:20
Speaker
which I believe that friend also had lived with them at one point and was also going to testify to her buying the medication, which they already knew that she bought the medication. She admitted to buying the two bottles. So her testimony wasn't necessarily needed to convince the jury. So of course, after a life sentence, she had some appeals. She was eligible for parole in 2018. However, she was denied parole in 2017. And as of 2022, which is the latest I found on it,
00:32:49
Speaker
she was still in prison. So why was her parole denied? The process of parole, parole specifically is early release. So she's not filled her sentence and they don't find her to not be a danger to society, or they don't find her to be suitably
00:33:06
Speaker
reformed or quite frankly have been punished enough to be released into society. I do know that in 2017, she was denied parole because they did not feel that she served enough of her 90 year sentence or her other 90 year sentence or her three 10 year sentences on top of that. But they also she's eligible for release in 2040, but she'll be like 96 because I believe her sentences are running concurrently like they're all running together. So she's yeah. But then in April 2019,
00:33:36
Speaker
She's old now. She's housed at a really low, it's low security, like a minimum security federal prison at this point in California. So she was also petitioning for compassionate release in 2022 because her health is failing. But this was also denied because I believe they don't want her out there because they don't feel that she is.
00:34:00
Speaker
not a dangerous society that she's not been incarcerated long enough. I mean, she killed her husband, she killed a random woman, and she was willing to kill many more people. Because for her plan to work, she only needed one other person to die. But she needed something to happen in order for her to go forward. So she's a danger to society on top of just being money hungry. Yeah. So her appeal has been denied a couple of different times. She also claims that her daughter
00:34:24
Speaker
Cynthia, also believe Cynthia goes by Cindy, you'll find a couple sources where she'll be listed as Cindy, but her name is Cynthia. She claims that her daughter sold her out essentially or lied because she wanted that $300,000 from the Excidrant company, Bristol-Wires, because remember they were giving that reward.
00:34:46
Speaker
I think that could potentially have some merit, as Cynthia did get $250,000 out of that $300,000. But there again, there's all that circumstantial evidence on top of her daughter's testimony. There's also the testimony of the other woman who eventually did not testify. There's more than just her daughter right here.
00:35:06
Speaker
Nicole has continued to claim her innocence, but courts have continued to find her guilty and find her ineligible for parole.
Regulatory Changes and Public Safety Impact
00:35:15
Speaker
So that is the case of the Tylenol murders and then the Excedrin murders. Now a couple of the good things we've gotten out of this of course have been those regulations with the plastic going around the neck of bottles and security seals tampering and then
00:35:27
Speaker
You know, the capsule is being changed out as well, but ultimately we don't know why the Tylenol murders occurred. Unfortunately, there's no other than just public mayhem and murder, but we do know that the Excedrin murders were a copycat murder of the Tylenol murders in order for Stella Nichol to be financially compensated for the death of her husband.
00:35:47
Speaker
That's really sad. It is. And I would like to applaud the medical companies for their swift response to pulling their product and being willing to take a hit, which it sounds stupid to say, oh, well, they did the right thing. But they did. And I mean, that was really, really important. And it saved people's lives because with Excedrin acting so quickly, or Bristol-Myer acting so quickly, they were able to get three other bottles off of shelves. Or I guess at that point it was two, because Stella had two of them.
00:36:17
Speaker
But there were medications on the shelves just waiting for someone to purchase. And it's unfortunate that through these whole cases, nine people lost their lives. Yeah, it's very sad. It's interesting. I never knew the story behind the regulations that we have for those pill bottles. So I'm glad we have those today, although obviously it's very sad. The reasons that we have them are very sad.
Conclusion and Upcoming Episode Teaser
00:36:37
Speaker
It's always whatever you think of something that's so commonplace nowadays. Something as simple as I would never buy medication.
00:36:44
Speaker
didn't have a safety seal on it that if i bought a bottle of cold meds and the safety seal was damaged i'd bring that back immediately and it's crazy that some things like this had to happen or to happen but i'm i'm glad that it's a thing yeah so people are crazy and i really really hope that the tylenol murders resolved one day just because that's got to be such a question i mean near half the victims were from one family yeah and
00:37:13
Speaker
Yeah, it's wild and it's crazy what people will do to gain financial, just to gain money. It's crazy. This has been the case of the Chicago Tylenol murders and the Seattle, et cetera, murders. Next week, Sierra is going to be talking about Dorothea Puente and that is going to be a doozy and a half.
00:37:32
Speaker
Yes, it's definitely one of those cases where you can't judge a book by its cover because, in my personal opinion, she does not really look like someone that you would picture committing murder. So join us next week to hear about the exploits of Dorothea Puente. Alright, well we will see you next week. Until then, be aware, take care, and we'll see you next week! Bye!