400: What if you suspected your father was the infamous Tylenol Murderer?

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High listeners. Today we reach an incredible milestone on the show,

celebrating our 400th episode. When I first started this work,

I thought I'd be lucky if I made it to 50 or maybe 100 episodes.

And here we are 14 years after the show was launched.

With still many, many more stories to come.

With each episode, each season, and each year,

my gratitude for being able to do this work and for all of you only continues to grow.

We have a very special episode today to mark this occasion.

But it requires a little context as it involves the infamous Tylenol murders of 1982.

In September and October of that year, seven people died after ingesting over the

counterpills of Tylenol that had been laced with potassium cyanide.

This led to a nationwide panic and immediately after the introduction of sweeping regulations

mandating temper-proof safety seals on all pharmaceutical packaging,

which are still required today.

Despite extensive investigation, the case of who poisoned the pills remains unsolved.

And it's considered to be one of the most consequential unsolved crimes in American history.

But today's storyteller, Joseph Chebele, believes his father was to kill it.

He's written a book about it called The Tylenol Murders,

a father's confession to his son.

And you'll hear him piece together some of the key details on the episode today.

While it's very convincing, we make no claims here on the show about the veracity of his evidence,

as there hasn't been any official conviction.

But this story of his relationship to his father and the possibility of how dangerous he

truly was is haunting and powerful.

And I hope in the end it may lead to some resolution and justice for the victim's families.

You can find more details about the history of the murders themselves,

as well as some deeper reflections on Joe's story,

by going to my recently launched sub-stack at witmissaldine.substac.com.

But now onto our 400th episode.

What if you suspected your father was the infamous Tylenol murderer?

We get up to the top of the stairs, and he looks at me.

He kind of crouched down to me, and he's holding my brother,

and he looks me in the eyes, and he says,

if you ever talk about what went down today,

I will kill you, I will kill your mother,

and I will kill your brother and sister.

And then it was two days later when everybody started dying.

From audible originals, I'm witmissaldine.

You're listening to this is actually happening.

Episode 400.

What if you suspected your father was the infamous Tylenol murderer?

My father was a thug, by all accounts.

He was a little gangster, a little thug, a little punk,

living in Cicero, Illinois, the home of Al Capone,

and my granny, that's what I call his mother, was my granny.

Granny said, you know what, you're out, you gotta go.

So my dad ran off, and he was living under a bridge,

in Willow Springs, Illinois, that would have been about,

in like 1963, it would have taken.

So in comes my grandma, my mother's mother,

she was a good Christian woman, and somebody had told her,

her name was Arlene, and they said, you know, Arlene,

there's a kid living under the bridge over there.

I don't know what to do about this, this isn't right.

So my grandma went down, got my dad from out from underneath the bridge,

brought him home.

He's the same age, approximately, as my mom,

and so they were 13 when they met.

So he is all that my mom knew.

They were dating seriously, and then my father went off to Vietnam,

and at that point, they had broken up.

My mom had started dating somebody else.

My dad came back into the picture, and my dad beat him up,

and basically said, you know what, your mind were getting married.

So in 1970, they got married,

had an apartment, and then they moved to Lyons,

which is where I grew up.

He was working for a company called Electromotive,

and they became an EMT, and his time went by,

then he joined the police force in Lyons as well.

And then in 1976, we bought the house on Gage Avenue.

Life was actually in 1976, was really kind of normal,

and it was what I would call just like a regular childhood.

But 1978, something happened with my father.

The first big thing was my cousin Karen was killed in a car accident in Missouri.

It had a deep profound effect on everybody in the family,

and it was mostly because after Karen was killed,

we were not allowed to really talk about Karen.

It's like she didn't exist.

She's gone now, and we need to move on,

and don't mention her name ever again.

So that happened on September 30th of 1978.

October 15th of 1978, my brother was born,

so I went from being a seven-year-old only child to having a sibling,

and I was excited about that.

But it was at that time when my father really started to change.

I think my father did not want to be a dad,

and have kids, and a mortgage, and a family.

I think he wanted to live that military life,

and he liked anything that was a high adrenaline rush.

That was his thing.

Not long after my brother was born, in November of 1978,

the people's temple murder happened in Jonestown with Jim Jones,

and he killed over 900 people.

I was seven, and I could watch my father watching the news stories about that.

And I thought he is really interested in this story.

This story is really speaking to him on a level that I don't

think it should.

Even at seven years old, I thought he should not be that interested in this case.

So I just watched my father, and I saw my father devolve from this point.

He was just a different person, his personality had changed.

The loss of Karen, the birth of my brother, and then Jonestown happening,

that mentally changed who he was as a person.

He became dark.

He retreated.

He went into himself more.

And it was after that point when he built his lair.

It was in our basement.

And our basement in that house was his little workshop space,

because it would have always been referred to just as his workshop.

A wall went up, a door went up, a deadbolt went on the door.

And from that point forward, my father was in that lair more than he was out.

And from the age of, say, seven years old, I started watching him.

And I saw him devolving through the lair.

We went from this light filled life to this dark secret with a deadbolt on it.

I would sit there and look at that door that was locked.

No, something is going on in there.

So as I'm watching my father, he became extremely volatile,

which he was not always like that.

My father could be nice and he could be kind.

And now he was volatile.

If you just booked the wrong way, if you breathed the wrong way,

you would get a hand across the face or a punch or something thrown at you.

And I had seven years without that kind of circumstances in my life.

And then it, all of a sudden, it went from one way to a complete opposite way.

So I learned at a very young age that I needed to keep my eye on him,

moment to moment to know, okay, is it safe to go in that room?

Do I need to grab my siblings?

Because my sister was born in 1981.

Do I need to grab them and run out of the house?

What is going on?

So I had to learn to gauge that I'm an early, early age.

And it progressively got worse and worse and worse.

And the worse that it got, the more time he spent in that lair.

We lived in a constant fear of not knowing what was coming at us.

And there came a time when I think my mom knew that I could possibly halt.

I was 10 years old and she looked me in the eyes and said,

if he starts beating on me tonight, I need you to call the police.

So apparently, I mean, my mom must have known some damn was about to break.

Because, you know, that night, it happened.

I was in my room in the basement.

And I heard yells and screams and glass breaking.

And then there was this sump.

And I knew that was my mother hitting the floor.

I'm thinking like she wants me to call the police.

If I call the police and they show up, he's going to kill me.

And I'm thinking, you know what?

I don't care at this point.

This has got to stop.

So I did.

I called the police and I said, I need help.

And I said, well, it's true, my mom needs help.

And she's like, what's going on?

I said, my dad is beating her up bad.

And she asked my mom's name.

And she said, are you Danny's son?

They said, yeah.

And she's like, somebody's already on the way.

Like, they didn't need the address.

They knew where they were going.

The officer showed up and was like, looking in the door and he's like, Danny,

whatever's going on, they're just knock it off.

Just knock it off, cut it out.

And every time I had to call the police to intervene,

that was it.

I mean, people are like bruised and bloody.

They're like, just, just cut it out.

You know, they don't want to be bothered with it because he was an officer.

He was a police officer and they protected him.

He could get away with whatever he wanted.

And that only emboldened him.

And in fact, it was kind of put to me by my father, you know,

you keep calling the police like this.

They're going to end up taking you and your brother and sister away

and you're going to be in an orphanage and you'll probably never see them again.

There's a seven-year gap between myself and my brother and then there was a 10-year gap

between me and my sister.

And, you know, I tried as much as I could to protect her.

My father would come after her and I would get between them and be like, you know what?

I don't think you're going to do this.

You know, I would stop him and I did not flinch.

And my mom would come down and she'd like, it's okay.

You know how he gets.

You just have to stay out of his way.

And I was like, I want to kill him.

You know, at my mind, I had honestly thought like, how can I take him out?

So back when I was probably about eight years old,

my father started taking me on, I would call them a mission.

It was some kind of a hiking expedition.

And it started out pretty simply.

We would be walking in the woods and he would teach me how to walk through the underbrush

and not make any noise, how to very quietly walk.

So nobody would hear you.

But these excursions started getting darker.

We would take our excursions through the woods and he would show me plants in the woods

and what was edible, what was not edible.

And that I think is a great life skill to have to understand this.

But my father took it to another level to where he would show me plants that were poison and say,

if you're ever going to have to use this to poison somebody,

you know, you take these leaves and you dry them and you put them into tea.

And that will knock somebody out and they'll be gone.

You know, he taught me about killing people with antifreeze.

He taught me how to kill somebody with a pen.

He taught me how to follow people in the woods.

And that's where it really gets.

It takes a turn there.

There was an incident that my father took me to the woods.

I'm eight years old.

We parked the car.

We're in the car and we see a young couple.

It's a male and a female walking towards the trail head.

And he had a like a stare when he would go into something like this.

There was a look that you got and it was it was dark.

It was soulless and it was very purposeful.

This look, it was very intentional.

My father taught me how to read and break ciphers and codes.

And he had also taught me basic sign language.

So my father made the symbol for a tea and he pointed at the people.

And I thought, okay, tea must mean target.

That's the target.

So he's he's stalking these people and I'm I'm with him.

So I looks like I'm stalking them too.

He had packed a bag and we got out of the car.

I've never seen anything like this because he was completely silent.

It was almost like he was hovering along.

He did not make one noise as he was walking.

We let the people get about a hundred feet away from us.

When we started creeping up in the woods, we were walked very, very quietly.

And there was a tree that had fallen and it was off the side of the trail.

We went behind that tree and out of his bag, he took an army green wool blanket.

My father had named the blanket, which is odd.

He named the blanket itchy brother.

So he takes itchy brother out of the bag.

Lays itchy brother on the ground behind this tree.

Holes me back there.

We're crouched down.

We're hands and knees now.

And you could just barely see over this log.

And I'm like, what is he doing?

He pulled out camouflage netting that you could put over yourself.

You can see through it, but it's completely camouflage.

He puts that over us and we sat there.

And he kept telling me he'd put his finger over his mouth like quiet.

My guesstimate was we were there about 20 minutes and we just sat there and quiet and stillness.

And then I heard the couple walking back down the trail back to the parking lot right past this log.

Well, we were hiding behind it with the netting on.

He left over that log with the netting on.

The netting pulled off of me and he was on the trail behind these people with the netting on.

Right up behind them, he did not make a noise.

The whole time where he left over the log in the time that he was running down the trail behind them.

Absolute silence.

He got up behind them.

He had the netting on him, which it's a terrifying sight.

Your heart's going to skip a beat.

He puts his arms up and he makes this noise.

And it is the only way I can describe it as it sounds like a wild boar, like a

and it was 10 times as loud as that.

Probably not even four feet behind them.

They both turn around.

They look and they scream bloody murder.

And they go charging out of the woods.

They took off.

They ran out into the parking lot and I could just hear them screaming.

And my dad was running behind them.

100% silence.

Not a word.

They got in the car.

I could hear the car engine start.

And I heard that the car popped into reverse and I heard the tires squeal out.

So I'm thinking to myself, we got to get out of here.

These people are going to be out waiting for us or the police are going to be there.

I mean, I'm going into a panic.

My father comes back just slow and casual.

Takes the netting off, kind of shakes it out.

Shakes it she brother out, fold them up, puts it all back in his bag.

Not rushing, nothing like there was no fear in him.

And he looked at me right in the eyes and he said,

that is how you stalk your prey.

When a birthday party in suburban San Jose turns deadly,

18-year-old identical twins are arrested for suspected murder.

One of them spends nearly two years in jail before the truth comes out.

Authorities locked up the wrong twin.

How could one brother let his twin take the fall?

And why would the other give up his freedom for a crime he didn't commit?

Blood will tell is a modern day shake spirit saga about what we're willing to sacrifice

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Listen to Blood will tell a new series from Audible and Campside media wherever you get your podcasts.

The most terrifying part of this whole thing, this whole episode with him,

was yes the fact he was hiding under camouflage netting and yes he was chasing people through

the woods and stalking them, but the most terrifying thing to me was his calm.

So after that excursion with my father it was not even 10 days until my father and I and my

brother who was not even four yet. My father took us to a baseball game and on the way back from

the baseball game we drove past Lincoln Park Zoo and I had said to him I've never been to the

zoo and he's like oh well you know a couple of weeks we'll go with your brother while I'm like

one of a day. My father went to this gas station and he pumped gas, nothing under the ordinary.

When he was dump pumping gas he stood there at the edge of the gas station,

staring across the street. I can see the sun and the setting in the background and I'm watching

my father just this dead blank stare across the street like what is he looking at?

He finishes with the gas, comes gets me, grabs me by the hand. We walked down to wells and almost

on the corner of walls in La Salle is Walgreens. My father took me into the Walgreens on Wells

Avenue, he bought us each a can of coke and then we left. We crossed the street, we went back to

the car and at that point I said to myself I'm thinking why didn't he just buy us a can of coke at

the gas station? A few weeks go by, my father takes me and my brother like I said who was not even

for it this time till Lincoln Park Zoo. So I'm kind of me under through the zoo for a while and my

brother at this point he wanted a balloon and my dad's like oh yeah look at him a balloon and I will

always remember this my father was wearing a red jacket and it was his lion's fire department

jacket. He reaches into his pocket and he pulls out his wallet and he goes oh shit I didn't bring

any cash today he's like Joey stay here with your brother he said right down the street there's a

dominix I can run into dominix and cash a check and I'll be right back. So my dad ran off he was

gone about 45 minutes and you know four decades from this point go past and I realized then that

that dominix is next door to the Walgreens on Wells Avenue in Chicago. The next week I had a day off

of school and my father took my brother and myself to Busy Woods and Busy Woods is a big forest

preserve outside of Chicago. We had itchy brother with us and he had packed some other things and

we're walking down a trail and he kind of set my brother and myself in the spot and he put out

the blanket and he said you know what you're going to have to stay here with your brother and I'm

like what is going on we're in the woods I'm 11 years old he's not even four and you're going to

leave me here again right after you left us at the zoo. I would say probably 50 feet away there was a

pavilion there and there were bikers at the pavilion they're out there they're having a good

time and my father's like that to be quiet those people over there those are dangerous people you

cannot say a word you have got to keep your brother calm because I've had to go do something.

Do you remember how I've been teaching you how to use a watch as a compass yeah he said here's my

watch I want you to stay here with your brother and you watch that watch you do not leave these

woods for one hour and then you use my watch as a compass to find your way back to the parking lot

I'm 11 I got not even a four year old here I'm watching with the bikers I got dangerous

bikers right here and I kept an eye on the watch and I was like oh my god it's only been five

minutes it's only been 20 minutes it's only been a half hour and this is the second time within

just a few days that we were left alone and I'm sitting there thinking like what is my father doing

we start heading back to the car and when I got to back to the parking lot it was over an hour

and 20 minutes that we had been left there so my father gets back and I was pissed and it was really

the first time I ever stood up to my father I was like you know what there is nothing right about

what you did why did you leave us in the woods and he said you know what you were fine I was testing

you to see if you could get back to the parking lot you did you made it back okay so what's the

problem and I was like the problem is you left us in the woods alone with these bikers and he's

like okay you know what I think everybody's hungry we got to eat so we pull into the Howard

Johnson's we go in we have pancakes it's a completely uneventful afternoon we finally got home

everything in my life changed we got back from busy woods my brother was sleeping my dad's

carrying him up the stairs we get up to the top of the stairs and he looks at me he kind of

crouch down to me and he's holding my brother and he looks me in the eyes and he says if you ever

talk about what went down today I will kill you I will kill your mother and I will kill your brother

and sister and then it was two days later when everybody started dying

now you have to remember 1982 we did not have 24-7 news we did not have a social media feed we did

not have any kind of news popping up on our cell phones it was a different era so all around us

at this point you're hearing about people dying and then it came out when people were dying from

taking Tylenol and I just remember I was realizing at this moment that my father was capable of

killing people like I had no doubt about that and not only was he capable of killing people I had

an epiphany I guess you could say up in 11 year old can have an epiphany I think he's doing this

that day like something in my whole life kind of changed I was out riding my bike I'm like I got

to get home I have to dump Tylenol because I think what if we have poison Tylenol in the house so

I got back home going the medicine cabinet there's two bottles of Tylenol in there and at the time

you know those boxes were not sealed the tops were not sealed there was no nothing so I popped the

top off pulled out the cotton and I dumped the Tylenol 11 years old I dumped it it was not long

after the murders I believe it was October 5th I was in the living room with my father and anytime

that he was around I would try to figure out how I get out of this room that was after he had

threatened me and said you know he'll kill me my mother my brother and sister I ended up I was

in the living room with him we're watching ABC 7 news Chicago on the TV there was a clip from

the funeral for the three members of the Janus family who died from the Tylenol they're showing

Joseph Bernadine he was I think the archbishop at that time and he's sprinkling holy water

onto their caskets and saying a prayer and I felt this reverence for these people in the suffering

that was going on in that church it was palpable to me through the airwaves I could feel it

in my father's behind me and he wanted to watch this my father was not a news watcher he insisted

this night to watch the news he's sitting behind me and I can hear his breathing change

and I know when I hear that I know something's brewing they were getting their caskets sprinkled

with holy water and my father says great three fucking holy Catholic martyrs to me that was like

somebody hit me in the head with an axe I mean I've been always been a very sensitive person I

am very in tune to what people thinking what people feel and I'm feeling this through the airwaves

this sense of sadness and sorrow and dread so at that I just turned around and I mean I was I was

so pissed I mean I could feel like the veins in my neck popping out and I was like what does that

even mean what are you saying and he's like none of your business and I said no honestly like what

does that even mean what kind of a person I'm 11 what kind of a person says this and he just looked

at me and he said if you're so fucking smart you'll figure it out one day what it means

I was taking the side of these people who were murdered and in his mind I was betraying him

that was such a profound moment in my life that my whole life after that it's been burned into my

being my brother's birthday was October 15th so we were playing to have a quote-unquote birthday

party at the house which was just like something in the theater of dry it is what I would say

my mom asked me to clean my room so my room is in the basement right across from the

layer I go down there in the layer drawer is wide open all the lakes run the shades were up

there were sunshine in the layer and I was watching my father in what I would now say a hypomanic

mode he was throwing things into a barrel and he had stolen these barrels from where he worked

in there a shell oil drum that's what I can picture yellow with red writing and it had

shell oil on there I'm watching him like I'm standing there watching him he's got like no idea

me even watching him I mean he's in this mode throwing papers and throwing stuff in so I creep up

on there and I look in the barrel in there was a pink cup and there's a watch in there that I had

found on a hike with him he was making me look for something and I found this watch the watch was

in there and I'm just watching him throwing all this stuff into the barrel and for the first time

ever the layer is like spotless clean it's like it was like he bleached it down

so I'm upstairs and I'm in the kitchen looking out the window at him and then I hear him dragging

the barrel out through the basement door we get an outdoor fireplace and he doused this thing with

gasoline and lit it on fire he destroyed everything so after 1982 life in our house it was always

pretty hellish there were periods were just escalated and got worse and then there was also times

where it faded there were times I mean in our family that we did laugh and we did have fun

but it was always overshadowed by the darkness so in about 1988 I was 16 going on 17 and I was

figuring out my own life like how do I you know I can I can have a life outside of this house now

so you know I had my little group of friends and I was getting ready I was waiting for my

friend Tina and Tina was always late and I'm stuck downstairs with my dad he just had decided to

plop down and have a conversation with me my whole life after the bussey woods incident where he

said I'll kill you and your mother and your brother and sister I just stayed out of his way I didn't

want to be anywhere near him and then I think my father had been drinking and he was not a big

drinker but I feel like he was drunk this day and he basically sat me down and he said you know

I did it's good I think it's good for you that you're going out with your friends and you're

meeting people and he's like I've never been real social so in my mind I'm like oh yeah you know

most psychopaths aren't you know and he's like you know I've never been right in the head so I'm

thinking okay I'm gonna sit back down now because I got to hear this so we had this conversation

and he says that he had ingested poison medication when he was a kid

it wasn't technically poison medication but he was allergic to it and he told me that he had

died that day he's like I don't know if it happened you know when I drink that medication

I don't know if it's from my time in the military I don't know if I'm just not wired right but

you know he said you know I've never really been right in the head and it was at that point like

Prozac was starting to come out you know it was one of the first we're heavily used antidepressants

and I said you know there's medication for that now you can you know you can go see a therapist and

talk about this and get some medications like no no no I can't do that because my work found out

they'll fire me we go into this conversation and he says yeah you know what you don't want to end

up like me he's like you know I've killed people time the city there I'm 16 I'm like oh my god

what are you gonna tell me when you say you've killed people I felt like I was doing an interview

on TV so when you say you've killed people do you mean while you were in Vietnam no no no not there

he's like you know I was really more saving lives there with what I had to do there and you know

I learned a lot of stuff but no not there and I was like so when did you kill people and who did

you kill he's like you know it's not important so he would kind of change his subject I'm going

to something else and I'd be like no I want to go back to what you said you just sat here and you

told me you killed people I want to know who and I want to know when and again he admonished me

with what he had said before he said you know what if you're so smart you're gonna figure it out

someday and I have that with me the rest of my life so at this point then you know I'm in high

school I got my friends you know I'm living my life and I just learned to have a life outside

of that house I started working I was involved in student government I was involved in plays at

school I was you know anything I could possibly do to just not be in that house on gauge avenue I

would do and then as soon as I was done with high school I was like you know I got to do something

because I want to get out of here so I went to beauty school so at this point I'm working

doing hair make good friends and honestly I took everything that had ever happened to me in my

life and in that house and just stuck it away I never dealt with it I'm really great with people

and people would be attracted to me and want to be involved in my life and I would only let people

get in so far I mean I can't tell you how many people in my life that I've kind of pushed away

because they were starting to get into close you they were getting too close to the fire

and I would go into therapy in the second we started getting into deep I'd be like up

gotta go I would never let anybody in past the zineer we were taught in that house like when you

walk out that door everything's perfect I don't care if you have a black eye you know what I mean

you left that house and everything was just fine and funny and rosy and happy and you know

happiest place on earth and I lived my life that way I lived my life behind a façade

so I always refer to my father like he was a black hole in a black hole will suck anything into it

and it will just literally suck the light in the life out of that and I was stuck in that orbit

like I was still in the orbit of this madman and I found myself in friendships in relationships

defending this man who abused the shit out of me and his whole family and murdered people

I mean I never would even broach that subject I was like nope that is hands off you know

one out of fear because if I was to ever say anything he would have offered me

in two I just didn't want people to know that part of me I mean there was no way I was going to go

diving into this I just I wasn't ready to I was not able to because I was still in the orbit

and while I was in that orbit I mean like I enjoyed my life I had you know like the best times

it met the best people and I started traveling you know I was working really hard but I also would

play hard I would take these amazing trips and go off to Europe for a month or I went to Australia

for a month and I was trying anything I could possibly do to be out of that orbit and take

put this out of my life but it was never possible that was always there I did hair for three and a

half decades and then you know as I was doing hair for a long time I bought salons I had sold

salons I had a really great life doing that and then I bought my first condo I'm like okay I'm

away from it now no I was that black hole was still the center of my life no matter how much I

didn't want it to be I could never tell anybody about any of the abuse we went through you know I

didn't want to look at the ugly I didn't want to look inside of that black hole I just wanted to

get away from it it played out in my life in so many ways I never really got into drugs and I was

never really even a drinker I was more of the control freak type because we had to be constantly

aware so for me if I'm out in a club or something and I'm drinking and I'm getting drunk that

can't happen because I have to be in control you know I was always the one in my friend groups who

would drive places because I didn't want to be left anywhere you know I have to be in control so

you know I didn't drink and I'd be a total dick to people because I didn't want them getting too

close to me because I was worried they were going to discover what I was hiding which was you

know nothing that I had done but in my own way I always felt culpable because I knew what he was

capable of and I didn't do anything and I didn't want anybody to get too close to me because I didn't

want them uncovering what I knew I know that my father's a criminal like I was angry and then I

started kind of turning that anger towards my spouse because I thought you know what you're smart

you know what was going on and you did nothing you know and I give myself that grace because I was

11 but I still I I've carried that my whole life you know I've gotten through my 20s and in my mind

I just always thought like well you know what when I'm 30 that seems like a good age to you know

find somebody so I was exactly 30 when I met my husband we kind of hit it off right away

but from the very beginning of our relationship I would take out stuff from my father on him even

though he had nothing to do with it in the what kept us together was he's kind my husband is the

kind and he is a gentle man and I did not know how to deal with that it was very difficult for me

because that is not what I was used to I'm like there's got to be a motive behind

what are you really looking for what are you after what are you really up to and it's like no my

husband didn't have a layer in the basement my husband wasn't you know leaving people in places

so he could go murder people you know it was it was just a whole different experience having

this kind and general person now at the center of my life where the other man that was the center of

my life was my father who was a black hole my husband's name was Craig and we were sitting on a

couch one night and he just looked at me and he said I don't know what you're carrying but you're

carrying something and I was like everything's fine you know no no no no no I'd probably just

tired you know and we kind of kept going down that path so we were in our kitchen one day

and Craig is telling me about his father and his father by all accounts was such an amazing decent

great man and he's telling me you know oh my dad worked for this company and every year for a

bonus they'd get new snowmobiles and you know he's like oh yeah we go out the whole family is out

on the snowmobiles and we be out having a good time and then we get home and we'd sit in front

of a fireplace and drink hot chocolate he's like oh my dad was such a great guy and I'm like I think

my father was a serial killer he's like wait you think your dad the serial killer like where did

that come from and so from that point forward I slowly started to let him in I slowly started to

talk about what had happened behind the closed doors I slowly started to talk about what I saw

what I heard what I knew and I mean he would just ball he would just be like I had no idea it

was like this I had no idea with this bad at this point my sister had gotten engaged

and I loved my sister my sister I mean for a 10-year gap like we were so close and she got married

they bought a house four doors away from my mom and dad and my sister just refused to move into

the house and I set my sister down and I said you know why is wrong what is going on why aren't

you moving into your house and she just told me she's like I can't leave mom alone with him

and she told me she said there's things that you don't know about she says nobody knows about

she never even told her husband some of the things you know I had noticed with my sister

a little bit of a darkness emerging you know she had gotten some surgery and then she was hooked

down pain killers and you know I mean it was manifesting in ways that I was not expecting

so I watched my sister kind of devolving and my sister had attempted a few times to take her own

life there was a time where she was in a lockdown facility and she had joined a therapy group

and in that group you know she made new friends and with those new friends she was able to express

what had happened to her and her life and then she was kind of starting to get on the right track

she was very smart she graduated college she she was a teacher and you know everything seemed like

it was going in the right direction and the morning of June 6 2013 and I'm in the kitchen I'm

making coffee the phone rings it's Craig's phone he's like oh it's your mom and when he picked up

the phone I could hear her and I just knew something wasn't right I just heard Craig saying oh my

god Mary no not Liz she had a pulmonary embolism and died that morning just out of the blue like no

warning one minute she's standing one minute she's down I was very close with my sister I have

described her as my writer die you know she was just an incredible person so when she died my life

changed completely I went off the rails I wanted to get out of Illinois so Craig and I ended

up moving to California and Craig kind of sat with me one day and he's like do you remember the

time we saw your sister when she was in lockdown and she was there was something she wanted to say

but she wasn't ready yet and I said yeah he's like do you think that your father could have

molested her your condition to protect the abuser I'm like there's no way I mean he's a horrible

person but no that just ate it me and I knew who to call she had a friend named Sandy I called

Sandy and I was like okay what's the deal and she goes I have been waiting for this call and I

said what do you know she said imagine my surprise when I walked into your sisters memorial service

and there he was meaning my father pontificating in front of the room and she said I have journals

with her writing in it about the abuse she suffered at the hands of your father she was not ready

for anybody to know this and it was unfortunate we found out about this after she died

I had asked Sandy I said can you send me those books and so I got the proof I have it in my

sister's handwriting my father raped my sister from the time she was six until the time she was

13 so when you look back at that I'm 10 years older than she was so the time I was 16 as soon as

I had a driver's license I was out of that house and she was stuck there with him and you know my

mom always worked like a three to 11 she was a nurse at that point and you know so my sister was

there with him and it just like it kills me because I'm like I left for there you know I knew this man's

a monster but I left my sister there with him so I went off the rails I mean like I laid on the

floor in our house and I was shaking and I'm like I swear to God I'm getting on a plane I'm going

there and I was like no you can't do that so I called them and I told him I said I know what you

did he's like fuck you and I was like no why don't you tell me what you did to my sister

fuck you fuck you you don't know anything yeah really I have it right here in her own handwriting

and I said and I'm gonna expose you my father he got very involved in their church he was a

deacon and he was the treasurer and then they made him an elder in the church when I found out

100% certainty my father raped my sister I reached out to that church and I had said you know what

you have got a monster in your leading your congregation and they did nothing this guy raped his

daughter I have it in his dead daughter's handwriting and you're making him an elder he has never

once been held accountable for anything he's done all of this happened and nobody would listen

he turned my brother against me he was trying to make my mom choose because I was in California and my

mom was like I'm not choosing and I think at that point people were like okay this guy is crazy you

know I was the one who looked like I was nuts and that's a horrible position to be in is when

you're telling somebody a story about something that's happened and you look like you're the crazy one

so that was 2015 you know I had to kind of work on this and put myself together 2019 comes around

I cut him out of my life and I changed my last name he found out and he's like oh yeah you're

gonna strip my name from you guess what I know what you're thinking you're putting this together and

I'm not going down for this about 1986 I started keeping track of this man I started writing down

places we were at things I saw things I heard anything I could think of I wrote it down in this

journal okay we went to the woods today and stuck with somebody you know what I mean it was it was

long those lines and he found it and he must have thought that was a prep and that journal went

disappeared he had stolen it out of my room in 88 and he held on to it and I think by 2019 I had

already figured out what he had done to my sister and he was worried I was figuring out about the

Tylenol murders because all those dates or we went to bussy woods and we went to the zoo I had

all of that in this journal and I think the biggest detail is if you go on Google maps and you look

at bussy woods from the air and you plug in the addresses of where those bottles were in that area

one was in Elk Grove Village literally right on the border with bussy woods would field mall there were

two tainted bottles founded osco drug there you can stand at bussy woods and look across the highway

and there's wood field mall and also from bussy woods north is Arlington Heights the jewel and Arlington

Heights where the bottle was found that killed three people is also right on the perimeter with

bussy woods if you look at bussy woods from the air and plug these three addresses in it's literally

like they are all along the perimeter of where he left us

it August of 23 Craig told me your mom messaged me and told me your father was dying I called my mom on

the phone I said okay Craig told me she didn't want to tell me until she knew for sure like this

was the stage four pancreatic cancer so I had to kind of figure out like what do I do I'm like I

I'm not going to fly out there and sit with him so I said you know I'm going to write him a letter

so I send it as a text because I had no other way to send it to him because he wouldn't have

opened mail for me so I send him this is a text and I go into you know I have had a good life

I've become a good man I've had great accomplishments and I want you to know that I did this

not because of you but in spite of you and I want you to know that the poison that you put out

into the world did not kill me and that was about 10 days prior to him making his confession on

his deathbed when I found out my father was dying and even though I you know we had no relationship

I wanted him to still have the best care I'm like you know whatever you did in your life when you're

at that point you deserve some dignity so my husband's business is actually end of life care so we

had reached out to a friend of ours in Chicago who was running a hospice and she got it set up for

my dad and I mean he was treated like a VIP and there was a day when there was a nurse there

and in front of the nurse he said cyanide pills I did it and they had thought that my father was

saying like keep with the cyanide in his own pills it was a mystery at that point and then my

brother is with my father and my father sat up in bed just out of the blue and said again cyanide

pills I did it it was me and then he said my my father sat there he was just kind of steering down

and then my my father said the three marries should still be here one of them was so young

and my brother was like what the fuck are you even talking about

and there were three marries who were victims of this crime there were three marries who died

one of them was 12 years old when she died thus one of them was so young

when my brother told me this I almost dropped the phone because I was like all along I thought he

did this when he said cyanide pills I did it it was me I knew exactly what he meant but this

was such a key to the whole thing when he said the three marries should still be here

right after my father said that about the three marries he said my my dad was just kind of

staring down the hall again kind of blank and my dad was talking to somebody that you couldn't

see he was talking to some entity that was not there but he was seeing somebody there and he's

looking down the hall and he said if you know what I did and you didn't do anything about it you

would be the monster I feel like all of that was my father's reply to my letter that I sent him

and I took that as a personal challenge that if you knew this and you're not going to do anything

about it you're the monster not me you're the problem so I was at work at the salon had a client in

the chair I had to run out to my car to get some clippers out of the trunk I had put in the trunk of

the car and there's Craig and he's walking up the parking lot towards me he's got a box of cookies

and he's like I want to tell you your dad died this morning your mom called me which my mom always

does whenever something she calls him and lets him break it to me so he's telling me this and he

brought me these cookies and I will not ever forget these cookies they were a lemon cookie and

they're soft and they were covered in powdered sugar and it was just something about those cookies

that day these lemon cookies brought to me to tell me my dad died and I go inside with the cookies

and like I I don't really know how to feel right now should I feel happy would that be horrible

should I feel sad would that be just a bunch of BS and I just kind of drifted that day just like

not knowing how should I feel I felt like I was at sea like I really should be happy but I'm not

you know I'm not happy that he died in my mind you know I'd always thought you know what he's

gonna come to his senses he's gonna see what a dick he is and he's gonna like try to make things

right and you know you hold on to that as a child and you take that into your adulthood with you

so up until that day that he died I carried that with me honestly thinking like you know we're

gonna get to sit down and have a conversation we're gonna sit down and discuss things and we're

gonna get to hash things out even a little bit before he died and I didn't get that opportunity

the day after he died I thought this is the first day in my life ever that I've woken up on this

planet without him breathing the same air and I wasn't sure how I felt about that I was a little

sad even though he was horrible and even though I know his crimes and I know his demons you know there

was always that hope that we would have some kind of a father-son moment you know I've I've

had to move on in my life and I tell people I'm like you know what I forgave him a long time ago

I had to because it wasn't hurting him that I held on to it it was hurting me like it was

creating chaos in my life and I finally just had to say you know what I'm done with this I forgive

you it's over and that's kind of how I felt that day when I found out he died I felt a little bit

lost and I thought I'm not gonna get that opportunity to ever cash any of this out with him so I've

just I've got a lot to go and I also had put into letter that I wrote to him you know I talked

about my life was good you know I I've done these things not because of him but in spite of him

and even though he put this poison into the world it didn't kill me and I told him in there too you

know that I'm gonna leave this family now with love and truth your reign of tears over now and

I hope to see you on the other side my bachelor's degree was in criminal justice which I was fascinated

with and that kind of led me into forensics psychology and I will tell you with 100% certainty the

reason that I chose forensics psychology is because I have spent my life since the age of six or

seven trying to unravel my father's brain and I still to this day I'm trying to figure him out

I don't think I'll ever have an answer of why he was the way he was why he did what he did

it will always be a question to me and it's a question that I never got to ask him

I mean even if I would have been able to ask him I would have not gotten an answer

if you ask him a question you didn't get an answer you got something to decode

and so you know I pursued forensics psychology so I could try to unravel him and I just you know

I don't think that's gonna do it either you know it really it's helped for things to make sense

but I'm never gonna understand why he did what he did and I don't think I will fully understand

everything he did I honestly thought you know what I mean I thought like I'm gonna be done with

my PhD I'm gonna be done with law school you know I'm gonna go into law practice I'm gonna do

this I'm gonna do that well I honestly feel like I'm gonna probably spend a big chunk of the

rest of my life kind of decoding my father and trying to make sense of it I went back to Chicago

after he died and I was like you know what I need to understand what was in that layer

and I went up into the attic and now my father was a hoarder he would have boxes like if he was

gonna clean his car out he would just take everything out of the car put it in a box and put it

in the attic he didn't throw stuff out so I start looking through cardboard boxes I open up a box

and sitting right in the middle of those papers and junk is a small sample size bottle of extra

strength Tylenol with an expiration date the same year of the expiration dates from the poison

bottles so I'm rummaging through boxes there was the anarchist cookbook which in itself is pretty

awful there was another little manual in there called how to kill and then these pamphlets called

the poor man's James Bond these are things you had to mail order for you know you didn't just go

to the store buy them so I had to as an adult research these things and you know the anarchist cookbook

is definitely it's sort of terrifying but it's nothing like the poor man's James Bond is dark it's

dark and it's sick and it's twisted the Tylenol murders it's laid out in those books the poor man's

James Bond quite literally says if you want to take somebody out get into their medicine cabinet

take capsules and put cyanide in them and he had those in his in his layer so you know I'm reading

this and I'm reading my father's material it all makes sense the other thing that was pro sound

in there revolves around the people's temple you know my father was obsessed with that I explained

that earlier about Jim Jones in the cyanide in the coolade there's a conversation that my father

had with me one day and he said you know Jim Jones was a merciful man because you know originally

he had planned to put anaphrase in the coolade and anaphrase is cruel anaphrase is a long painful

death where cyanide was fast in instance so this story I feel like my father's praising Jim Jones

he's praising the cyanide and as I'm reading through the poor man's James Bond there it is

there's a whole story in there you know if you want to be a real hit at a party dump some

anaphrase into the coolade and it was like my father took the time to tell me that Jim Jones made

a conscious decision to use cyanide as opposed to antifreeze because he was merciful you know

you're reading that and that's some dark shit there were days where I just had to kind of close

the book and just walk away because I was I was like I don't know what I'm going down like what

rabbit hole am I going down now at this era my mom was going to nursing school so she was in class

and she was working and she was running a house and then when I started to put this together and I

had to have this conversation with her and I mean she's devastated as you can imagine because

she does not disbelieve what I'm saying I mean she's she's right there with me but it's devastating

to her she's like I took the abuse from him so that my kids could have something better and she's

like I was not aware of what was happening to my children I have had some resentment before like

come on you did it now you didn't know and then when I was putting things together I made the

realization that when my father did all these horrible things to us it was when she wasn't around

she's at school thinking that she is going to make a better life for everybody and this monster

just came out and did whatever he wanted she's just mortified she doesn't know which way to turn

like I said in the beginning they were 13 my mom's wish will be 76 in December you know her whole

life has been spent with him and she's like I feel like everything I did in my life everything

I've worked for everything I've accomplished was part of a big lie you know like I feel like I'm

complicit in this because I contributed to this I felt bad for my mom I mean I witnessed what she

went through being married to him when I started to put this all together I was not planning to

write a book all I wanted to do was stand there and look at this disaster area that was my life

and try to piece it together but there's crimes that were committed and there's things that happened

and I'm not the person who can like look at these things and not do something about it

Craig my husband had said if you want to write this as a book I will support it but I'm going to

insist that you be in therapy while this is going on because it's dark so I started in the therapy

and as I was going through therapy and unraveling all this and putting all of this together I mean

it really did help because there was so much darkness so with therapy like I'm constantly coming

into these revelations about my life and myself because you know I feel like this curse that was

on my family which is really silence I have carried that in me and I carried it in my own personal

inner layer like I had my own layer of darkness and secrets and lies locked up behind my own

personal door and by writing the book and doing therapy I've been able to open up that layer door

and put it all out for everybody to see and you know there's no more secrets behind it now and it's

an exhilarating place to be in my life and it's also terrifying it's terrifying because this is my

normal you know carrying this with me and now I mean I've decided and it was a conscious decision

I'm not carrying this anymore I'm putting it out there for the world to see and I feel honestly

for the first time in my life I feel like I'm happy I feel like I've let this darkness out and you

know what I let the darkness out and I didn't die you know if I had let this darkness out all my

father was still alive chances would be he'd be trying to kill me I know what it feels like to not

be listened to the police didn't listen to me adults didn't listen to me and even now people

you know authorities are still not completely listening to me in a way I feel like I've betrayed

my father because I'm telling all of these secrets but at the same time that betrayal feels right

and it feels like it was time for me to do this and for myself it's the best thing I could have done

I feel completely satisfied in my life now and every day I'm kind of looking at that and like

my god this this layer door my own personal layer door is now gone like I took the door off the

hinges it's not there and it's like I have this openness in me and I'm like what am I going to do

with that and where am I going to go with this and you know that's to be determined that's to be

determined but I want to be able to use my voice to be able to help people where I want to take

my father's horrible legacy and I want to turn it into something beautiful

today's episode featured Joseph Chebele Joe is a former salon entrepreneur turned

author legal scholar and forensic psychologist he wrote the Tylenol murders a father's confession

which investigates the 1982 Chicago Tylenol murders if you like to contact Joe you can find his

socials email address and website in the show notes from audible originals you are listening

to this is actually happening if you love what we do please rate and review the show you can

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them you help us bring you our show for free I'm your host wit missile dine today's episode was

co-produced by me and drew weights and Jason Blalock with special thanks to that this is actually

happening team including Ellen Westberg we'd also like to thank head of creative development at

audible Kate Nathan head of audible originals north america martial lily and chief content officer

Rachel guiazza copyright 2026 by audible originals llc sound recording copyright 2026 by audible

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