The Tylenol Murders

And still unsolved.

Maggie from Falcon Crest was our voice of reassurance and calm amid the hysteria. She deserved that presidential medal.

I was concern that shit could happen anywhere, so I brought a transistor radio to work. Beautiful dirty, crazy NYC, 1982.

The new safe packaging was very reassuring. The box-bottles and capsules became very well sealed.

And yet any of us can walk into a grocery or drug store today in 2025, pull a cleaning liquid product like PineSol off the shelf, and simply unscrew the solitary cap and take a gulp. Priorities, I guess.

Seek professional help, r6

Tylenol survived because of their immediate response including ads where the CEO talked about the new tamper-proof packaging.

The incidents did ruin Halloween for a lot of kids that year.

someone is fucking around with the pump tops on skin cream!

Love the popped collar and oversized shaker-knit sweater on the young lady in OP'S pic. Nothing like the little hussy outfits of today!

R10 She's the epitome of Kate and Allie chic!

[quote] I don’t see how any of you from that area were able to ever buy over the counter meds again.

They instituted sealed packaging for OTC medications nationwide within just a few weeks of the murders.

The only time I've ever seen enormous safety procedures instituted on such a grand scale nationally in an even shorter space of time was after 9/11.

The Walgreens where this originally happened is still there in Chicago's Old Town, directly across from Second City.

This was a thread last year and you bitched about how stupid it was. Now you make a thread about it? Enough.

We studied Tylenol’s response to this attack in my college PR class as what to do to restore brand trust.

So many companies (and politicians) could use a refresher course on how to head off a PR crisis and restore brand trust

R15 They’re PR strategy was brilliant. However I will say this. If that crazy nut from New York didn’t do it, then I think Tylenol manufacture was responsible. This documentary revealed so many aspects I never knew. Tylenol lied about not having cyanide onsite at the plant. They also were allowed to do their own recall, meaning they simply destroyed other cyanide laced bottles after receipt. There was no law enforcement or 3rd party agency as part of the recall testing. There were likely other bottles in the larger Midwest area that Tylenol simply destroyed. As part of this conspiracy I believe they paid two Chicago cops to claim they discovered a bunch of open Tylenol bottles in a back alley a day before the initial victims died. Remember that revelation wasn’t made until 3 weeks later. You would think those Cops would have come forward asap about their revelation, including the fact that it made their heads hurt, because the shit made national news that very same week. By the end of the week, the nation was in a panic.

Perhaps the greatest PR fix of all time or the greatest conspiracy cover up of all time.