JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A recent discovery in one of American history’s most infamous cold cases, the 1982 Tylenol Poisonings, has just been linked to a house in Jacksonville.
Detectives with the Ada County Sheriff’s Office in Idaho have identified the man known as the “Unknown Wanderer” for over 40 years as Dr. Matthew Francis Betkouski.
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His next-door neighbor? A Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office officer.
Bill Chappell said he bought his house off Mills Court back in 1976, completely oblivious that his neighbor would later be linked to such an infamous cold case.
RELATED: 1982 Tylenol murders cold case leads investigators to Jacksonville, identity of ‘unknown wanderer’
“They tracked this guy to different locations,” Chappell said. “One of them just happened to be next door to me.”
Betkouski was a chemist working in a fragrance shop in Jacksonville. Dr. Park Dietz, said in a news release from the Ada County Sheriff’s Office that the wanderer, now identified as Betkouski, is a “viable suspect” in this 44-year-old cold case.
Betkouski is now believed to be the man who inserted cyanide into Tylenol capsules in Chicago in the early ‘80s, claiming the lives of seven people — one just 12 years old.
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The man referred to as the “Unknown Wanderer” died by suicide in a Boise, Idaho, church just a couple of months after the killings.
That man was found with 30 keys on him. One of them led to a house in Jacksonville, right next door to Chappell.
“I had the take-home police car that was parked in my driveway next door to his house all the time,” Chappell said. “We’d wave and say hello, you know, that kind of thing. He was friendly like that, but he wasn’t like, ”Hey, come on over for dinner.’”
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Chappell showed Action News Jax a map he drew that shows the shed in Betkouski’s yard where detectives suspect he may have kept chemicals.
“There was a concern from this detective about maybe something being buried back there,” Chappell said. “Being in law enforcement for 33 years, and my wife, 26 years, and both my kids turned out to get on the same police department — it was very strange.”
You can read the full press release from the Ada County Sheriff’s Office here.
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