The lone suspect in the Tylenol murders has been found dead at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, shattering officials’ hopes of one day convicting him of the murders that changed the way over-the-counter drugs are produced and sold.
James Lewis, 76, was the only person convicted in connection with the seven poisonings after he attempted to extort $1 million from Tylenol maker’s Johnson and Johnson to stop the murders — but he was never found guilty of the actual murders.
The murders of four women, two men and a 12-year-old girl sparked global panic and sparked reforms in the way over-the-counter drugs are packaged as the FDA introduced new tamper-resistant packaging, such as foil seals.
Although he always denied it, police believed he was behind the killing spree and Lewis was not questioned until September, while authorities tried to find the person behind the murders 40 years later.
“I was saddened to learn of James Lewis’s death. Not because he’s dead, but because he didn’t die in prison,” said former assistant attorney Jeremy Margolis, who prosecuted Lewis for racketeering.
James Lewis, the sole suspect in the 1982 Tylenol murders, has been found dead at his Massachusetts home
Mary Kellerman, Mary McFarland, Mary ‘Lynn’ Reiner, Paula Prince and Stanley, Adam and Terri Janus died after taking Tylenol pills laced with potassium cyanide
The murders sparked global panic and sparked reforms in how over-the-counter drugs are packaged as the FDA introduced new tamper-resistant packaging, such as foil seals.
“I always hoped that justice would be served, and this short-circuits,” retired FBI Special Agent Roy Lane added.
Chicago residents Mary Kellerman, Mary McFarland, Mary “Lynn” Reiner, Paula Prince, and Stanley, Adam, and Terri Janus died after taking Tylenol pills laced with potassium cyanide.
Someone had opened the capsules and replaced some of the paracetamol with cyanide and put them back on the shelves. Back then, the pills were in a container guarded only by a cotton ball.
Lewis, a former accountant, was arrested, charged, and convicted of writing extortion letters threatening that the murders would continue unless $1 million was transferred to a bank account.
In a jailhouse interview, he explained an elaborate plan the killer “said to have used” to poison the pills using a drilled pegboard.
Police have said they believe Lewis acted in revenge against Johnson & Johnson after his five-year-old daughter, Toni, died in 1974. The girl died after stitches from a subsidiary of the company were used to treat her congenital heart defect and they ruptured.
The first to die from Tylenol poisoning was 12-year-old Mary Kellerman of Elk Grove Village. Her parents gave her a capsule and the next morning she was dead.
On the same day, Adam Janus of Arlington Heights, Illinois, 27, also died mysteriously after taking a Tylenol pill.
As he went to mourn the 27-year-old, his brother Stanley, 25, and sister-in-law Theresa, 19, took tablets from the same bottle. Stanley died that day and Theresa two days later.
Three others were subsequently killed: 35-year-old Mary McFarland of Elmhurst, Illinois, 35-year-old Paula Prince of Chicago, and 27-year-old Mary Weiner of Winfield, Illinois.
It was at that point, in early October 1982, that researchers made the connection between the poisoning deaths and Tylenol, the best-selling over-the-counter pain reliever sold in the United States at the time.
The tampered bottles came from different factories, which prevented sabotage in production.
Instead, it is believed that someone visited drugstores, opened bottles and added a deadly potassium cyanide compound.
In a jailhouse interview, he explained a complicated plan that the killer would have used to poison the pills using a drilled pegboard
Although he always denied being the killer, Lewis was not questioned until September
The murders sparked global panic and sparked reforms in how over-the-counter drugs are packaged as the FDA introduced new tamper-resistant packaging, such as foil seals.
DailyMail.com reported in January that police gathered DNA evidence from several sources, including relatives of the victims and a family who survived the deadly attack.
The Morgan family were among those approached to assist in the police investigation.
Laura Morgan was a toddler when her mother Linda bought a broken bottle of Tylenol at the grocery store for leg pain. She survived, but only by chance.
Linda was 35 at the time and told the outlet that she was going to take the Tylenol, but opted for an alternative instead.
The Arlington Heights Illinois Police Department (AHPD) has continued the investigation as it investigates the deaths of three members of the same family: Adam Janus, Teresa Janus, and Stanley Janus.
Joe Janus, who lost his two brothers and sister-in-law, said his dying wish is for DNA to help police apprehend those responsible.
Before the 1982 crisis, Tylenol controlled more than 35 percent of the over-the-counter painkiller market, but that number plummeted to less than 8 percent just a few weeks after the murders.
The case led to reforms in the way over-the-counter medicines are packaged. Working with the FDA, they introduced new tamper-resistant packaging, including foil seals and other features consumers are now familiar with.
A new version of the pill, known as the caplet, was also introduced, in which a tablet was coated in easy-to-swallow gelatin.
Within a year, and after an investment of more than $100 million, sales of Tylenol rebounded and it enjoyed a renaissance as the country’s preferred over-the-counter pain reliever.
In 1983, the US Congress passed the so-called “Tylenol Act,” making it a federal felony to tamper with consumer products. In 1989, the FDA issued federal guidelines for manufacturers to make all such products tamper-resistant.