Professor Quaalude | Criminal Podcast | Forensic Files

There really wasn't any place for his lemurs at Yale. In 1959, an anthropologist named John
Buettner-Janusch started making trips from New Haven to Madagascar to collect lemurs. And there are all these very
funny stories, local stories in the New Haven Register about the lemurs getting out of their cages or the labs and
climbing up to the top of some of those beautiful buildings and crying out. So, people were getting very impatient with
all of his lemurs. We're hearing about John Buettner-Janusch, everyone called him
BJ, and his lemurs from author Peter Kobel. According to one story in the New Haven
Register, a pregnant lemur once escaped and crawled out the window. She climbed up a drain pipe to a
fourth-story ledge. BJ tried to lure her down. He was terrified. Eventually, the fire
department was called and she was rescued. Lemurs are only found in the wild in Madagascar.
Many lemur species have become extinct and in 2012, they were named the most endangered mammals in the world.
There are more than 100 species of lemur. They can be as little as 1 oz or as 20
lbs. Some have long, black and white striped tails. Some are kind of bald. Every lemur I've seen has round,
expressive eyes. BJ was one of the first Americans to study lemurs and he's inspired
generations of lemur researchers since. In 1964, he visited Duke University in Durham,
North Carolina to give a talk about lemurs. A biologist named Peter Klopfer attended
that talk. Back then, he was a newly tenured Duke professor. His field of study was
mother-infant bonding, mostly in goats and deer. Peter Klopfer says he didn't even know
what a lemur was. So, he was surprised how much he enjoyed BJ's talk. He was so intrigued that he
introduced himself to BJ after. The two men hit it off. They talked about research. Peter
invited BJ to visit the land where he studied his goats and their babies. BJ was amazed that Duke gave Peter so
much space to keep his animals. All he had for his lemurs at Yale were cages. And he knew that they weren't
behaving normally in the cages. And he'd seen them in the wild in Madagascar. The aesthetics of a caged
animal that you've known in the wild are not pretty. And he said, "Wow, you've got all this
space. I've got these animals in tiny little cages because Yale won't let me have any space for proper facility.
If I let you use my lemurs for your study, will you let me have space to house them?"
He wanted to give them some freedom. Exactly. Peter Klopfer and BJ came up with a plan
to work together. It took about a year to put in motion. BJ got a job teaching at Duke, and Peter
continued researching mother-infant bonding, but in lemurs instead of goats. BJ brought about 90 lemurs to Durham and
put them in a goat barn on Peter's research land. Then, they had to figure out a way to
make the land safe and workable for 90 active primates, a much harder challenge than dealing with a bunch of goats.
Lemurs are good climbers, which makes them very good at escaping. And some, like mouse lemurs, are so
small they can easily slip through cracks. Took almost a year. We got the facility built with sizable runs
both indoors and outdoors and fencing that allowed us to let the larger lemurs loose all together in the
forest which we were able to properly fence and lemur-proof. That was the beginning of what is now
called the Duke Lemur Center. A sanctuary dedicated to research and preservation of lemurs complete with a
breeding program. Peter Klopfer has been there since the very beginning in 1966.
He's still there. These days, he studies sleep patterns in fat-tailed dwarf lemurs.
He's hand-raised generations of lemurs, some the galagos, in his home. Well, back in the day before
the federal regulations on animal care and use became as strict as they now are,
uh I would walk down the corridors with lemurs on my shoulder. Uh we had bushbabies running loose in my house. My
children grew up with them as playmates. Well, that sounds fun. Oh, it was great
fun. Although it was also costly fun. Uh the galagos are urine markers. They When
they urinate, they put their hands in the urine and then mark. You really like lemurs. Oh, well,
totally sold on lemurs, yes. Peter Klopfer says that he and B.J. were building something extraordinary. It was
exciting. But, B.J. was not an easy person to get along with. Peter describes him as
egoistic and says B.J. tended to dominate conversation. According to author Peter Kobel, B.J.
stood out at Duke. He dressed up for everything. Bright suits from Saks Fifth Avenue, huge horn-rimmed glasses, his
short hair was dyed blonde. He often wore a large button that read, "I'd rather be in Paris."
Here's Peter Klopfer. He was the sort of person who captured your attention and was always on center stage. Loud,
ebullient, conspicuous. He dressed in a very flashy manner. You never saw neckties as brilliant as his.
Uh, and one day it would be in conjunction with a formal three-piece suit, and the
next day he would be wearing a Nehru jacket with a brightly colored sash. Uh, he was colorful.
During his time at Duke, B.J.'s career took off. He wrote two successful anthropology
textbooks. Students loved him, voting him among the best professors on campus. He sometimes signed his letters,
"Lemurlogically yours." Things were going well for him at Duke, but B.J. didn't like living in Durham
much. He said it was a cultural backwater. His wife, Veena, agreed. They got out of town as much as they
could, often flying to New York just to see an opera. The relation with Veena was more akin to the relationship
between two Siamese twins. You almost never ever saw them except together. Vina and B.J. met in school.
She'd always outperformed him. She went on to become a biochemist. She'd published some papers on her own,
but most of her work appeared to be behind the scenes in her husband's lab. Author Peter Klopfer wonders
if Vina was in fact doing most of the work that B.J. got credit for. B.J. himself gave her credit for the
success of his most famous textbook. She supervised all of the research in his lab. Some of his students said he was
rarely there. Some of his students said B.J. seemed much more interested in having a social
life. Vina was the one who kept the work moving forward and kept her husband in check.
Peter Klopfer remembers that B.J. had one of the biggest personalities imaginable.
That he would dramatically demand money from the department, even banging his fist on the table. Banging on the table
and saying, "I need another half million dollars or I'm going to leave this place."
And uh he did that once too often he went to uh Professor Roberts, who was head of the
anatomy department, said, "I've gotten this offer of this the chair of the anthropology department at New York
University unless you give me such and such, I'm going to go." And uh Robertson had heard this once too often and
I am told responded by saying, "Well, John, I'm sure we all wish you well at your new job."
In 1973, B.J. left Duke. He and Vina moved to New York. Taking the job at NYU meant leaving the
lemurs behind. He would still study them from a distance and would occasionally return
to Duke to collect blood samples for his research. B.J. and Veena got an apartment
overlooking Washington Square Park. They hosted elaborate parties and were regulars at the New York Philharmonic.
By all accounts, their life was where they wanted it to be. So, when Veena had a
abdominal complaint that couldn't be diagnosed and it was suggested that she undergo an exploratory surgery
from which she did not recover. It was a stunning, stunning event. I mean, all of us were
shocked because Veena gave every impression of being hale and hearty. She just had an abdominal pain that wouldn't
go away and no one thought it was anything really serious and then she died on the table.
What was he like after she died? Well, that that's that that's where I think the problem
arose. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. After Veena died, B.J.'s research nearly
slowed to a halt. The National Science Foundation withdrew funding. B.J. was furious.
His work in the lab at NYU continued, but now on a much smaller scale. On paper, B.J. was still studying lemur
blood, but in practice, no one working in the lab was quite sure what he was doing.
One of his graduate students described him as a social gadfly. He started spending a lot of time in
Greenwich Village going to gay bars. As hours at work became unpredictable, and when he did come into work, his
behavior was odd. One of B.J.'s research assistants was an undergraduate student named Richard
Mackris. One day, B.J. asked Richard Mackris to meet him at the lab. It was a Saturday.
There weren't many people around. When Richard got to the lab, B.J. announced that they'd be making
something called an acetylanthranilic acid. B.J. said it was for lemurs. Richard didn't believe him.
He started taking detailed notes of the goings-on in the lab. He told another professor what B.J. was
doing, and that professor, Clifford Jolly, snuck into the lab to take photographs
and collect chemical samples. He sent them to the DEA to be tested. B.J. was making methaqualone, better
known by its brand name, Quaaludes, a sedative that was very popular in the 1970s.
Sometimes people called them disco biscuits. The DEA immediately began an investigation.
Besides Quaaludes, they found traces of LSD, including something B.J. allegedly planned to sell as a {quote} chemically
pure form of synthesized cocaine. He'd been using NYU's lab to make party drugs, and his students were helping
him. Some knowingly, others not. B.J. knew his students would be interviewed by law enforcement, so he
gave them some advice. He called us students together and said, "If you are quizzed by the
prosecutor, before he interrogates you, go ahead and take some tranquilizers because then you can deny charges
without giving yourself away even if you're taking a lie detector test. Well, one of the students was wired.
The student wearing the wire got B.J. on tape. Which meant that B.J. was now not only
charged with manufacture and possession of illicit substances, but also with obstruction of justice.
He denied everything. Here's Peter Kobel. He spread the story that he was making, {quote} neurotoxins,
{unquote} to experiment on his lemurs. And they were going to be used for behavior modification.
So, basically, when B.J.'s caught, he'd say, "Well, what's the big deal? I'm making drugs
for lemurs." Yeah, that's That's what he said. And the whole Ludes and lemurs defense strikes me as
patently ludicrous. No one had agreed to allow him to test uh his drugs with lemurs.
The whole thing just doesn't hold water for me. B.J. continued to stick to his story and
said he had planned the experiments with his Duke Lemur Center co-founder, Peter
Klopfer. I wasn't exactly delighted at being implicated. But at the same time, I figured, well,
okay, they caught him with illegal drugs. He needed an excuse. What do you think was going through
B.J.'s head? I think that um he was able to justify just about anything he did. The sense of entitlement
was overwhelming. He thought he was a genius and could get away with whatever he wanted. I I think he did. Yeah.
And not even that he was a genius, but he was a man of privilege beyond reproach
and uh above suspicion. Over the years, BJ's former colleagues and students have come up with all kinds
of theories about why he did what he did and how he became so self-destructive. Some say he just wasn't himself after
Vina died. He became too overwhelmed with grief. Others have suggested that after she
died, he realized she'd been the one doing all the work. That she'd been the real genius.
But others say he was just trying to make money and have fun. A brilliant widower trying to entertain
himself. You just have to um pick pick your explanation. BJ was convicted of conspiracy, making
illegal drugs, and lying to federal investigators. Federal Judge Charles Bryant presided
over the trial. He sentenced BJ to 5 years in federal prison at Eglin Air Force Base in
Florida. BJ worked on the prison newsletter called The Doing Times. Peter Kobel writes that BJ turned his
cell into a tiny office. He reviewed book manuscripts for friends and continued to work on scientific papers.
When a friend visited the prison, B.J. introduced his fellow inmates as his colleagues.
But B.J. continued to say he'd done nothing wrong. He wrote many letters to friends
outlining the ways in which he believed he'd been wronged. In one letter, he wrote that upon his
release, quote, "I will certainly take the most awful revenge upon certain people.
The Greeks are correct. Blood is a corrective for many wrongs." B.J. was released from prison on parole
in September 1983. He went back to Wisconsin, where he grew up. He wrote in letters to friends that he
spent his time baking cakes, gardening, and taking trips to Lake Superior. He wrote that he planned to return to
Madagascar and that he was applying for a grant. But no university would hire him.
And for some time, he was sort of an intellectual hobo, sleeping on people's couches, house-sitting pets.
And then, about 4 years after his release, this is the second crime. On February 19th, 1987,
B.J. went to an opera at the Met. He saw Mozart's La clemenza di Tito, an opera about revenge and attempted
murder. After it ended, he headed home. He was house-sitting for a friend in Greenwich
Village. When he arrived at the door, he was met by a group of police officers and arrested.
A few days earlier on Valentine's Day, a woman had received a box of Godiva chocolates in the mail.
They were addressed to her husband, Federal Judge Charles Bryant. Inside the package, there was a Hallmark
card signed only with a question mark. The judge's wife ate four pieces of chocolate and became extremely sick.
She lost consciousness and wasn't found until Judge Bryant came home from work and rushed her to the emergency room.
She was in critical condition for several days, but survived. The FBI determined that each piece of
chocolate in the box had been poisoned with a different toxic substance. One piece uneaten by the judge's wife
could have killed her. And when the FBI tested the outside of the Godiva box, they found a
fingerprint. He started making these candies and he always fashioned himself as a gourmet
cook and he made these candies. He also fashioned these poisons from fairly esoteric substances
and he made these candies and put them all in a Godiva chocolate box and sent them to the judge out in
Westchester on Valentine's Day in 1987. So, it'd been about 4 years since he'd been released.
Uh so, it just goes to show you know, how long he could hold grudges. Police later learned that B.J. had sent
boxes of chocolate to several other people he felt had wronged him, including someone who'd once denied him
tenure. In the end, everyone recovered. At B.J.'s arraignment, The New York Times reported he was weary-looking,
apparently ill, and wearing a hearing aid. He pled guilty to the attempted murder
of Judge Bryant. Peter Cropp for wonders if this was all part of some kind of plan.
Do you think that he wanted to get caught? Oh, I I think there's no doubt in my mind. He was inviting I mean, this
was a This is a brilliant man, whatever else you may say about it. You don't send poison chocolates to a
federal judge and stay free on the street to talk about it. Not if you send them in a way that
invites discovery and arrest, which is what he did, of course. He practically had his return address on the parcel.
In the apartment kitchen, all of the poison paraphernalia and the chocolates, they were all laid out as if on display.
That furthermore, the package was mailed from a mailbox at the corner where his apartment was.
Why did he want to get caught? My guess is that he just Lena's dead, my life is over.
Let Let's Let's end it. And so, he sends these poison chocolates, knowing that that's going to send him up
for life because he did it in a way which invited discovery and arrest. This is not a mistake.
B.J. was sentenced to 40 years in prison. He was sent to the supermax prison in Marion, Illinois, the prison that had
been built to replace Alcatraz. He started working on a new book about the lemurs of Madagascar.
And like before, BJ stayed up to date on the latest scientific journals, subscribed Opera
News, and exchanged letters with his friends, especially with Peter Klopfer. What was his mood in those letters?
He was clearly despondent, but mind still actively working. Still coming up with ideas, kept asking
me to look up particular papers, summarize the contents for him. Uh I did ask him,
"What on earth led you to do this?" And he said, "I really don't have any recollection of having done it.
But if I did do it, I deserve to be in the prison." Even though BJ had tried to implicate
Peter in his Quaalude-making scheme, and had attempted to murder a federal judge,
Peter says he wasn't angry at his friend. He felt sorry for him, and says BJ needed to be protected from himself.
They'd write long letters reminiscing about their trips to Madagascar. Peter would update BJ about what the
lemurs were up to in Durham. One day, Peter got a different kind of letter from BJ. And so he wrote to me one day
and said, "I've just discovered that I'm HIV positive and probably have AIDS." This was back when there was
no antiviral medication. When you had AIDS, you had a death sentence. BJ died at the age of 67 in a prison
hospital. He was cremated, and his ashes were spread on Cranberry Lake in Wisconsin,
near where he grew up. When was the last time you heard from him? Just about the time he entered the
hospital with his final bout of pneumonia. Just before he died. What was What did he say?
He was He knew he was dying. He said, "I have a I have severe pneumonia and I don't expect to
recover." And then he went on to talk about some one of the scientific issues we'd been
discussing. You know, there the people throughout your lifetime, there may be five or six
that are real characters that you come across. Would you say that that he's up there as being one of the
Oh, he's the most egregiously colorful character of any of the many I've known. No, no doubt about it.
BJ's obituary ran in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. It's almost two pages long.
Almost all of it speaks to BJ's professional accomplishments. The strides he made in the
anthropological world, the love his students felt for him, his award-winning textbooks and
articles. It only briefly mentions his two convictions. The obituary ends by saying that BJ, quote,
"made a strong impression, sometimes good, sometimes bad. Some of his actions were
and will remain unfathomable to us. The world is a sadder and duller place without him."
Today, the Duke Lemur Center is home to the world's largest and most diverse collection of lemurs outside of
Madagascar. You can visit and take a tour. >> Criminal is created by Lauren Spor and
me. Nidia Wilson is our senior producer. Susanna Robertson is our assistant producer.
Audio mix by Rob Byers. Special thanks to Ben Sfiola. Julian Alexander makes original
illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com
where we'll also have a link to Peter Kobel's book, The Strange Case of the Mad Professor.
Criminal is recorded in the studios of North Carolina Public Radio WUNC. We're proud member of Radiotopia from
PRX, a collection of the best podcasts around. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.
Radiotopia from PRX

John Buettner-Janusch was one of the first Americans to study lemurs. He held prestigious faculty positions at Yale, Duke and NYU, before surprising everyone with a series of increasingly bizarre crimes.

Peter Kobel’s book is The Strange Case of the Mad Professor (https://www.globepequot.com/9780762773770/strange-case-of-the-mad-professor/).

You can learn more about lemurs at The Duke Lemur Center (https://lemur.duke.edu/), which Peter Klopfer and John Buettner-Janusch founded together.

Criminal is a show about people who’ve done wrong, been wronged, or gotten caught somewhere in the middle. Hosted by Phoebe Judge. Part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

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Episode 122 originally published September 13, 2019. https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-122-professor-quaalude-9-13-2019/

Music in this episode: “Dusting” by Blue Dot Sessions “Beignet” by Blue Dot Sessions “Daymaze” by Blue Dot Sessions “Copley Beat” by Blue Dot Sessions “The Crisper” by Blue Dot Sessions “Speed Reader (Original Music for Criminal)” by Blue Dot Sessions “The Spring Instrumental” by Chad Crouch “Oriel” by Blue Dot Sessions

Brief Summary

John Buettner-Janusch's life shifted from lemur research to crime, culminating in attempted murder and his eventual death in prison.

Key points

The Lemur Escape. A pregnant lemur escapes and climbs a drain pipe, leading to a dramatic rescue.
From Lemurs to Drugs. BJ transitions from studying lemurs to manufacturing drugs in a university lab.
The Poisoned Chocolates. BJ attempts to murder a federal judge with poisoned chocolates, leading to his arrest.
BJ's Final Days. BJ dies in prison after battling AIDS, leaving behind a legacy of controversy.
BJ's Legacy. BJ's obituary highlights his professional achievements and the mixed impressions he left behind.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Wow, you've got all this space. I've got these animals in tiny little cages.

BJ expressing his frustration about the lack of space for lemurs at Yale.

3:09WatchJul 22, 2026

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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