Authorities Identify ‘Unknown Wanderer’ From ‘Unsolved Mysteries,’ Link Him to Tylenol Murders That Killed 7

An Unsolved Mysteries case has not only been solved, but linked to another murder mystery that has baffled authorities for decades.

In a press conference held on Wednesday, September 23, the Ada County Sheriff’s Office in Idaho confirmed the identity of a man known as the “Unknown Wanderer.” The man was found dead back on December 4, 1982, inside the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Boise. His case appeared on a 1990 episode of the true crime series, but went unsolved for decades.

That man was formally identified during the press conference as Dr. Mathew Francis Betkouski, a man authorities believe is also behind the 1982 Chicago Tylenol Murders. At the time, at least seven people were killed after taking Tylenol laced with cyanide, after someone went into drug stores and replaced the capsule powder with poison.

While Betkouski died by suicide via cyanide, no link was previously made between the two cases until now.

Per authorities, the mystery man was identified after the case was reopened in 2019, thanks to a ring of keys he had on him at the time of his death. They were linked to a property in Florida, before a DNA swab from Betkouski’s brother confirmed his identity.

During the presser, Ada County Sheriff’s Office Detective Tim Cooper prefaced their findings by saying that “this is a case that involved mental illness and there were many who tried to get Dr. Betkouski help during his life.”

Hailing from Los Angeles, Betkouski was an organic chemist and, per Cooper, “a brilliant man who struggled to connect with people in life.”

“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,” said Cooper, adding that he sustained a traumatic brain injury in 1974, “which caused his problems to manifest in more concerning ways than they had before.”

While working at a “flavors and fragrances company” in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1975, coworkers reported Betkouski for “discussing the perfect crime and how cyanide could be used as a less messy means of taking one’s life.” He also exhibited signs of paranoia and received treatment, though it doesn’t appear his condition improved.

The sheriff’s department said he later worked at Lockheed Martin’s White Sands test facility in New Mexico, with a fellow scientist recalling Betkouski making a comment about “how poison could be introduced into over-the-counter capsules if a person wished to do so.” At the time, safety seals for medication didn’t yet exist.

Betkouski was let go by Lockheed after an “incident” at a nearby pharmacy where he “attempted to obtain some type of pills or capsules…for an experiment.”

“Where this leaves us is while our office may have identified some possible connection between Dr. Betkowski 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.”

Per the sheriff’s office, Betkowski also “took intentional steps to conceal his identity, his cause of death, and the reason for his death.” Authorities are calling on anyone with information about his whereabouts in the months leading up to his death to come forward.

At the end of the press conference, Sheriff Matt Clifford also thanked the team at Unsolved Mysteries, which was on hand covering the event.

“Without your help, we wouldn’t be where we are today,” he said, before announcing that a new Unsolved Mysteries documentary, Unmasking the Tylenol Killer, will debut October 9 on the Roku Channel.