Police ID ‘Unknown Wanderer’ found dead in church, probe possible tie to 1982 Tylenol murders

BOISE, Idaho (KBOI) - Police in Idaho said they have identified a man found dead under a church pew more than 40 years ago.

Dr. Mathew Francis Betkouski was known as “the Unknown Wanderer” and had poisoned himself with cyanide, according to police.

A suicide note and $1,900 were found with his body at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church.

“He didn’t appear to be a man that had been living on the street. Whoever he was up until the moment he walked into that church, he’d clearly been taking care of himself, but none of that told us his name. Additionally, his fingerprints didn’t match anything on file, locally or with the FBI,” Ada County Sheriff Matt Clifford said Wednesday.

Police said they were able to identify him using a property deed related to a key found on his body and a DNA swab from his brother.

Betkouski came from a prominent Los Angeles-area family, according to Detective Tim Cooper, with the Ada County Sheriff’s Office. His grandfather was president of the Los Angeles City Council and interim mayor. His father was a Los Angeles Department of Water and Power official.

“With elements of dye detected in his hair, it’s believed that Dr. Betkouski took intentional steps to conceal his identity, his cause of death and the reason for his death,” Cooper said.

Possible Tylenol murders link examined

Police have wondered about a possible link between Betkouski and the Chicago Tylenol murders in 1982, which killed seven people.

Among Betkouski’s personal items found in his brother’s home was a map of Chicago made in the 1970s and homemade sodium cyanide. That cyanide was different than the type used in the murders.

“This was sodium cyanide. This was not potassium cyanide as was used in the Chicago area deaths of 1982,” Cooper said.

According to the sheriff’s office, Betkouski worked for approximately three years at a fragrance company.

“Concerns mounted after coworkers reported Dr. Betkouski discussing the perfect crime and how cyanide could be used as a less messy means of taking one’s life. Dr. Betkouski was observed talking to himself on occasions and had fears that he was being tracked,” Cooper said.

Additionally, Betkouski worked for Lockheed Martin on a NASA-related project in New Mexico, according to detectives. Fellow scientist colleagues said Betkouski mentioned how poison could be put in over-the-counter pills.

“It was said that Dr. Betkouski attempted to obtain some type of pills or capsules from a pharmacy in the Las Cruces area. He said this would be for an experiment. For reasons not fully understood, Dr. Betkouski created a disturbance at the location and the police were summoned. It should be noted that Dr. Betkouski was conducting experiments in his home garden at the time. It’s unknown if these experiments would have required the use of pills or capsules,” Cooper said.

Betkouski has never been named a suspect in the Tylenol murders.

“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.