An Idaho sheriff’s office believes that a man who died in a Boise church 44 years ago could be linked to the 1982 case in which several people were killed after taking tampered Tylenol.
The Ada County Sheriff’s Office said that a man who killed himself inside a Boise Catholic church was Dr. Mathew Betkouski, according to a news release. When the man was found in December 1982, he had no ID, only a large amount of cash and a typed letter with a false name.
Sheriff’s office cold case Detective Tim Cooper began looking at the case in 2019. He determined through photos and DNA that a Florida man who disappeared in 1982 and Betkouwski were one and the same.
Betkouski, who had worked in two drugstores in college, had discussed the use of cyanide to kill without being detected.
The 1982 Tylenol killings involved cyanide being substituted for the medicine in several Tylenol capsules. Seven people were killed in the Chicago area before the product was pulled from shelves.
Dr. Park Dietz, a forensic psychiatrist, said that by 2021, he believed Cooper was making connections that linked Betkouski to the Tylenol case.
More details will be released on the “Unsolved Mysteries” TV series episode titled “Unmasking the Tylenol Killer.” The show will appear Oct. 9 on The Roku Channel.
Terry Dunn-Meurer, director of the show, said it includes “ never-before-seen evidence about this new possible suspect in the Tylenol murder case.”
The Ada County Sheriff’s Office has shared what it knows with the Chicago Police Department.
The biggest case in Unsolved Mysteries history, uncovered.
Unmasking the Tylenol Killer—the newest documentary, coming exclusively to @TheRokuChannel on October 9th. https://t.co/k21QUXm1Ty
— Unsolved Mysteries (@Unsolved) September 23, 2026
“Mathew Betkouski lived in five states over the course of his life — California, Texas, New Mexico, Ohio and Florida,” Cooper said. “We’re hoping that getting his story out generates new leads, not just for this case, but for others we may not even know about yet. I’m especially interested in learning more about his movements between Oct. 15 and Dec. 4, 1982.”
Cooper said Betkouski was a brilliant man, but he struggled to connect with people in life, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
“Dr. Betkouski had a documented fascination with chemistry and the use of explosives from a young age, and did put others at risk on more than one occasion,” he said.
“In 1974, Dr. Betkouski sustained a traumatic brain injury, which caused some of his problems to manifest in more concerning ways than they had before,” Cooper said.
“In 1975, Dr. Betkouski worked for a flavors and fragrances company in the Jacksonville area, and after about three years, concerns mounted after co-workers reported Dr. Betkouski discussing the perfect crime and how cyanide could be used as a less messy means of taking one’s life,” he said.
Betkouski was fired by Lockheed in 1982 “following an incident at a local pharmacy,” Cooper said, in which Betkouski “attempted to obtain some type of pills or capsules … for an experiment.”
As noted by Chicago History, seven deaths were reported in the Chicago area in a short time in the fall of 1982, all from taking Tylenol in which potassium cyanide had replaced the medicine in the capsules.
No suspect has been identified. One person who came forward was later dismissed as a fraud and jailed for trying to extort money from Tylenol’s parent company.
The case led to widespread recalls of the medication, as well as regulations requiring over-the-counter medications to have tamper-evident seals.
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