Starting September 18, 1966, three high tech families were attacked, rape nor robbery were the motives. The motive appeared to be murder. What linked the families were the the husbands/fathers were all involved in high tech.
The Percy home was attacked September 18, 1966, and it is very likely the entire family would have been killed, but Valerie’s screams caused the mother to hit the burglar alarm, causing the attacker to flee.
The Bricca family, Monsanto chemical engineer Gerald Bricca, wife Linda and daughter Debbie, were likely killed on September 27, 1966. Three years later Zodiac would attack Shepard and Hartnell, and 16 years later, someone, very likely Ted Kaczynski, would place Tylenol bottles filled with Cyanide on suburban Chicago store shelves. On October 22, 1966, nationally recognized computer expert Sims and his wife and daughter were killed. based on information I gave them, the Bricca detectives issued a press release naming the Zodiac Killer as a new suspect in the Bricca case.
The company Gerald Bricca worked for, Monsanto, is one of the very few companies specifically named by Ted Kaczynski as being a major target. Ted identified Monsanto as the leading firm for biotechnology and genetic engineering, which Ted viewed as the biggest danger to humanity. He advised fellow primitivist anarchists to "hit were it hurts", by targeting biotech firms, specifically mentioning Monsanto as the leading target. He notes how difficult it is to train engineers, so they should be "discouraged" from going into the biotech field. By "discourage" he means murder.
Robert Sims was a "nationally recognized" "computer expert". Like Gerald Bricca, his wife and daughter were also murdered, and both families were tied by household objects and gagged with socks in their mouths.
MODERATOR
16 years later, someone, very likely Ted Kaczynski, would place Tylenol bottles filled with Cyanide on suburban Chicago store shelves.
This may not be the appropriate forum to discuss this, but Author Scott Bartz provides a compelling case that the cyanide-laced tablets were introduced somewhere on the production/distribution line. He argues the bottles were not tampered with nor subsequently placed on shelves by the perp. Any thoughts on this?
"Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas." Albert Einstein
16 years later, someone, very likely Ted Kaczynski, would place Tylenol bottles filled with Cyanide on suburban Chicago store shelves.
This may not be the appropriate forum to discuss this, but Author Scott Bartz provides a compelling case that the cyanide-laced tablets were introduced somewhere on the production/distribution line. He argues the bottles were not tampered with nor subsequently placed on shelves by the perp. Any thoughts on this?
I read Scott Bartz book. He has excellent coverage of the 1986 Cyanide Tylenol deaths. I have communicated with him.
My main point was the Zodiac attacked Shepard and Hartnell on September 27, 1969, the 3 year anniversary of the Bricca murders, and the Tylenol Murderer placed the Cyanide tainted Tylenol in stores on September 27, 1982, the 16 year anniversary of the Bricca murders and the 13 year anniversary of the Zodiac attack on Shepard and Hartnell.
I specifically make the detailed argument for placement in stores here: viewtopic.php?f=102&t=1018 . I note that the Zodiac Killer, the Unabomber and the Tylenol Murderer all used the criminal signature of Nature, Water, Animals, Trees and Wood.
The Kaczynski family home was at 463 North Ridge Ave, Lombard, IL. The Cyanide Tylenol was placed at the Woodfield Mall, the Jewel-Osco, the Elk Crossing Shopping Center, the Walgreens in Chicago and the Jewel store on Winfield Road.
All the Cyanide placements are consistent with a person at the Kaczynski family home taking a bus or car and going directly vertical and directly horizontal for all the placements.
OTHER POSSIBLE EVIDENCE
There was a very grainy photo printed in Chicago and New York newspapers of a bearded man who was apparently watching flight attendant Paula Prince purchase tainted Tylenol in 1982. This bearded man may have no connection to the case, or he may have been the Tylenol Killer watching to see the person who purchased his poisoned capsules. The man was wanted for questioning as suspect in the Tylenol Murders. FBI serial killer profiler John Douglas, who worked on the case, states in his book The Anatomy of Motive the FBI did suspect that the man in the picture was the UNSUB (Unknown Subject) likely responsible for the Tylenol Murders.
The man in the photo was first compared to the bearded James Lewis, and they do share some characteristics, but they did not appear to be the same person. The bearded man in the photo does have some very strong and interesting similarities with the bearded Theodore Kaczynski. (Unfortunately, Lewis and Kaczynski do look somewhat like each other).
We must remember that Kaczynski used disguises when he purchased bomb parts. In one instance he records in his journal he wore several shirts to make himself look heavier, stuffed the shirt for the same reason, put cotton balls in his cheeks, wax in his nostrils to make them larger, gum under his lips and cut and dyed his hair and beard. The man looks very much like a moderately disguised Kaczynski, if Kaczynski also cut his hair back to give the appearance of a more receding hairline. Perhaps a better version of the photo can be obtained, or other photos examined to see if Kaczynski is in any of them.
A photo of the man and photographs of Kaczynski are attached. The only major difference is the man in the photo has a more receding hairline, which Kaczynski could easily have implemented as a disguise action, in effect making himself look older. There are many strong similarities between the two: Bearded white men of the same approximate age, height, weight, same basic facial structure, eyes, nose, flat hair on the sides, bigger hair on top, beard, even the gray spot at the bottom of the beard matches. See the photo below.
Close up on man who is a Tylenol Murders suspect 1982 and TK 1981.
Another look at the Tylenol suspect watching airline stewardess Paula Prince buy the tainted Tylenol which would kill her and Ted Kaczynski.
MODERATOR
my main point was the Zodiac attacked Shepard and Hartnell on September 27, 1969, the 3 year anniversary of the Bricca murders, and the Tylenol Murderer placed the Cyanide tainted Tylenol in stores on September 27, 1982, the 16 year anniversary of the Bricca murders and the 13 year anniversary of the Zodiac attack on Shepard and Hartnell.
Understood, thank you. To be honest, I’d need to revisit the Bricca murders. I haven’t explored Kaczynski as a possible Tylenol suspect, but not because I don’t believe he isn’t a good POI. As per John Douglas, "The country was witnessing a form of terrorism." (à la Unabomber, Zodiac). I’ve now read your full Tylenol article which is excellent and equally compelling.
As mentioned, Scott Bartz presents a fairly solid case that the bottles weren’t tampered with at the retail store end. Among other things, he focuses on batch numbers, expiry dates, and manufacturing plants and distribution sites. (The Howard Johnson parking lot incident you reference is discussed). There’s also a whole chapter devoted to the speculation over the source of the Tylenol capsules which killed Mary "Lynn" Reiner, who had just checked out of hospital after giving birth. It is entirely plausible that, as part of the established patient discharge routine, "the Extra Strength Tylenol capsules had been dispensed in a unit-dose package at the hospital, and thus would not have been in a bottle."
The media widely reported that the killer had put the cyanide-laced capsules into the bottles after they were delivered to the stores. Initially, J & J’s vice president of public relations, Larry Foster, admitted the tampering may have occurred in the distribution channel. Of course, J & J would be in legal peril if this was the case, and therefore the PR machine lurched towards in-store tampering, removing J & J from direct liability for the deaths.
As you are aware, at the end of 1982, Tylenol was repackaged with three layers of tamper-proof packaging. When the New York Tylenol poisoning occurred in ’86, this new safety packaging showed no sign of tampering. Does this add weight to the possibility the tampering occurred during supply and distribution?
Interestingly, the FBI denied any link between NYC and the ’82 Tylenol murders in Chicago. But, as Bartz writes, "There was…at least one curious similarity between the two cases—a similarity that was never disclosed to the public. The expiration date on [New York victim] Elsroth’s bottle of cyanide-laced Tylenol was May 1987—the same as the expiration date on the bottle that had contained the cyanide-laced Tylenol capsule that killed Mary McFarland in Chicago in 1982."
None of this precludes Kaczynski from being behind the poisonings. I’m just curious as to how he may fit in with the NYC poisoning, and what new light may be shed on his involvement in Chicago if we were to accept the bottles weren’t tampered with in-store.
Reference:
Scott Bartz.
TYMURS: The 1982 Tylenol Murders (TYMURS, Book 1) 2012
TYMURS NYC: The 1986 Tylenol Murder (TYMURS, Book 3) 2012
"Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas." Albert Einstein
