Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : War -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Carolyn who wrote (8567)	11/14/2001 6:04:40 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23908

Re: or all we know, it could be another situation similar to the Tylenol deaths. Fat chance... The Tylenol case doesn't fit with the rather sophisticated anthrax one: (Plus: the Tylenol victims were random whereas the anthrax letters were sent to specific targets --that's what blackmail is all about) THE POISON The poison used in the Tylenol Murders was a cyanide compound. Such compounds, which include potassium cyanide and sodium cyanide, are available to those in certain industries, such as gold and silver mining, fertilizer production, steel plating, and the film processing/chemicals industries. Workers in these industries have anonymous access, but then so do a variety of other people who are obliquely associated with these industries, such as truckers and college students. The specific form of cyanide used in the poisonings has been reported to be potassium cyanide, according to then Illinois Attorney General Tyrone Fahner, in an article in the Chicago Tribune dated Oct. 3, 1982. The level of purity was not publicly reported, but in the 1986 incident, which also involved potassium cyanide, the purity was reported as 90%. Potassium cyanide is commonly used in the metal electroplating, metal extraction, photographic and cinematographic film processing industries. THE TAMPERED CAPSULES The amount of cyanide inserted in each capsule was reported as 65 milligrams but was probably 100 milligrams or more since the fatal dose for NaCN is about 150 milligrams. Other doses reported in the newpapers (5-6 micrograms) were clearly incorrect. The killer completely emptied each of some 20 or 30 capsules, and then refilled them with the grayish crystalline potassium cyanide. The capsules that were recovered all appeared deformed or bulky. This crude, clumsy work would have been obvious to a careful eye, but such a cruel and pusillanimous act could not have been anticipated in 1982. The rather imprecise work indicates an amateur of limited skills -- probably someone incapable of performing quality work even in his own field or employment. This young man was no chemist, no biologist, no computer programmer, no precise professional of any sort, but more likely a facile, inexperienced amateur in his early twenties with pretensions to real knowledge. [snip] personal.psu.edu