Boise’s Unknown Wanderer Identified After 44 Years

Ada County, Idaho, identified Boise’s “Unknown Wanderer” as California-born organic chemist Dr. Mathew Francis Betkouski, who died by cyanide poisoning beneath a pew at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in December 1982 and used the alias Wm. L. Toomey. Investigators said evidence may connect Betkouski to the unsolved Chicago-area Tylenol poisonings, which killed seven people in 1982, including his reported knowledge of poisoning capsules, chemistry-related incidents, a Chicago map and likely homemade cyanide found at his childhood home. Authorities also cited an unsolved cyanide death at a laboratory where he worked and unverified reports of a confession before his suicide. Detective Tim Cooper said investigators could not definitively identify Betkouski as the Tylenol killer, and the cyanide found at his former home reportedly differed from that used in the poisonings. The Tylenol case remains officially unsolved, although it led to tamper-resistant drug packaging and federal anti-tampering legislation.