Sept. 23 (UPI) — Authorities in Idaho have identified a man found dead from cyanide poisoning in a Boise church more than four decades ago and believe he may be connected to the infamous Chicago Tylenol murders of 1982.
The man known as the Unknown Wanderer has stumped detectives for years. He was found dead Dec. 4, 1982, inside Sacred Heart Catholic Church with no identification, an envelope containing 19 $100 bills and a typed note signed Wm. L. Toomey and two key rings with nearly 30 keys. His hair had been dyed, his nails were finely filed, his skin was unseasonably tanned and his pants were either brand new or recently pressed.
The case went cold until 2019 when Ada County Detective Tim Cooper reopened the case after a member of the church asked him about it while he was sitting in his car drinking cheap gas station coffee in a parking lot.
On Wednesday, Cooper identified the Unknown Wanderer to reporters during a press conference as Dr. Mathew Betkouski.
Cooper said the break in the case came from one the keys they found on Betkouski’s person, which indicated it was from a Jacksonville, Fla., hardware store. Etchings on a second key led detectives to Jacksonville’s Mills Court road.
After acquiring the property deeds for the street going back to the 1970s and 1980s, one person stood out to detectives — a man who had been pronounced dead in absentia in 1989. The Ada County Sheriff’s Office contacted the decedent’s only living relative who said that his brother had gone missing in 1982.
A DNA sample collected from the man showed that there was a “very high probability” that they shared the same father, Cooper said.
“So, the Unknown Wanderer was determined to be Dr. Mathew Francis Betkouski,” Cooper said, adding that amid the investigation they learned that he had worked at two drugstores during his undergraduate studies and had a history of volatility, including a documented fascination with cyanide and explosives.
In the late 1970s, while Betkouski was working for a flavors and fragrances company in the Jacksonville area, colleagues became concerned about him after he discussed “the perfect crime” and how “cyanide could be used as a less messy means of taking one’s life,” Cooper said.
“Dr. Betkouski was observed talking to himself on occasions and had fears that he was being tracked,” Cooper said.
Writings by Betkouski found by detectives show that he tried to manage schizophrenia and depression and feelings of euphoria brought on by imaginary thoughts of violence.
In late 1979, he was hired by Lockheed where a fellow employee recalled Betkouski stating that poison could be introduced into over-the-counter capsules, according to Cooper, who said Betkouski was fired in March 1982 after creating an unspecified disturbance at a Las Cruces, N.M., area pharmacy as he tried to acquire some kind of pills or capsules he said were for an experiment.
Betkouski’s whereabouts after that date are not fully known and Cooper said they have not been able to place him in Chicago in September 1982, when at least seven people, including a 12-year-old girl, in and around the Windy City died after consuming potassium cyanide-laced Tylenol.
Detectives found pictures of Betkouski in Chicago, but they believe they were likely taken in December 1981. He was last known to be in Las Cruces on Oct. 15 and was next found dead at the Boise church.
“So, where this leaves us is while our office may have identified some possible connection between Dr. Betkouski and the 1982 events, we’re not naming him as a suspect and we cannot say he was in Chicago during the final week of September 1982,” Cooper said.
“More information does exist in this case that we won’t be releasing today.
While Cooper was restrained, Dr. Park Dietz, renowned forensic psychiatrist who was consulted during the initial Tylenol murders investigation and who was brought into the reopened case in 2021, was confident that Betkouski was likely responsible.
“It’s an extraordinary thing to have been around at the beginning in 1982 and now, today in 2026, see very likely closure, that the identity of the Tylenol killer from 1982 can be shared,” Dietz said.
Dietz told reporters that they presented information about Betkouski to groups of forensic psychiatrists, forensic psychologists and criminal profilers, who overwhelmingly considered Betkouski to be a viable suspect, while some “were as convinced as I that Detective Cooper had solved the most important unsolved murder of my lifetime, the Chicago Tylenol murders.”
The Ada County Sheriff’s Office said it has shared its findings with the Chicago Police Department and is calling on members of the public with information about Betkouski to contact the office as investigators seek to determine his whereabouts from Oct. 15 to Dec. 4, 1982.
The developments and yet-to-be-released connections between Betkouski and the Tylenol murders are to be the subject of an Unsolved Mysteries documentary titled Unmasking the Tylenol Killer, which is to air on Roku Oct. 9, saidAda County Sheriff Matt Clifford said during the press conference, explaining that authorities are hoping the exposure will generate more leads.
“Detective Cooper has done amazing work, but there’s still a lot of questions we don’t have answers to,” Clifford said.
“And that’s part of why we’re standing here today. I’m not going to beat around the bush with everybody, but this isn’t over.”
Source: U.S. News
You must be logged in to post a comment.