Original subtitles

[audio logo]

[tense music]

The Tylenol murders were a horrible, horrible,

horrible incident.

There aren't many unsolved crimes in American history

but it is impossible for me to have been the Tylenol killer.

Tylenol murderer is still out there.

[dramatic music]

Hello and welcome to How It Really Happened.

I'm Jesse L. Martin.

On September 29, 1982, seven Chicago

area residents are suddenly stricken with a deadly illness.

At first, doctors are at a loss.

But they soon discover a sinister connection

launching an investigation that has

lasted more than four decades.

Now, advanced DNA testing may be closer

than ever to closing this tragic case

that changed America forever.

[tense music]

[stirring music]

TERRY ANZUR: 1982 was a great time in the Chicago area.

We had art fairs and street cafes.

And you felt like you just knew your neighbors.

And it was just a great place to live.

[tense music]

CHUCK GOUDIE: And then on that September day in 1982,

there was widespread concern.

And in many households, there was fear

because people didn't know what was happening

or whether they would be next.

Clearly, whoever was behind this was intent on creating

fear and panic.

[tense music]

CHUCK KRAMER: Elk Grove is a suburban community about

30 miles outside of Chicago.

JOY BERGMANN: On September 29, 1982,

in the morning, 12-year-old Mary Kellerman was home.

She was feeling sick.

She wanted to stay home from school.

WENDI FRIEDMAN TUSH: And she asked her parents

if she could take a Tylenol.

JOY BERGMANN: She took it and collapsed on the bathroom floor

and died soon after.

[somber music]

[suspenseful music]

In Arlington Heights, Illinois, a 27-year-old

postal worker named Adam Janis was on his day off.

He was a very good person, a very good family person.

MONICA JANUS: Adam was a very humble man.

He was such a sweetheart.

JOY BERGMANN: He went to the store that day,

picked up some flowers for his wife, and a bottle of Tylenol.

Not feeling too great, he took two capsules.

[tense music]

WENDI FRIEDMAN TUSH: He came home and told his wife

he was going to lie down.

MONICA JANUS: My aunt Theresa noticed something was wrong,

his breathing and everything.

And she called 911.

And the ambulance came and took him.

CHUCK KRAMER: They got him in but he was pronounced dead

later on in the emergency room.

[dramatic music]

JOSEPH JANUS: We didn't know what was happening.

But everybody thought he died of heart attack.

And he was a very healthy person, you know, Adam.

MONICA JANUS: So they were all in utter shock,

wondering why would he even have a heart attack

when he was such a young man.

[tense music]

JOY BERGMANN: In Winfield, another Chicago suburb,

a new mom, Mary Lynn Reiner, had just delivered her fourth baby

and was recuperating at home.

Wasn't feeling so great.

So she took some Tylenol.

WENDI FRIEDMAN TUSH: She collapses, and has a seizure,

and ends up in the hospital.

Dies shortly thereafter.

[dramatic music]

[tense music]

JOY BERGMANN: After Adam Janus died in the hospital,

the whole Janus family reconvened back at the house.

MONICA JANUS: My uncle Stanley and his wife,

they met at Adam's House.

They were all gathered at the house and they were all crying.

They were all very devastated.

They couldn't believe the fact that Adam died.

And then my uncle Stanley was like, I have a headache.

CHUCK KRAMER: Everybody has headaches.

These people are under tremendous stress

going back to the house to plan a funeral for a young guy.

JOSEPH JANUS: And then I see my brother

Stanley coming towards us.

He tried to say something, you know, to us.

And all of a sudden he's falling down.

MONICA JANUS: And he grabbed his heart.

And he's like, oh, my god, my heart.

And he fell to the ground.

And he had like, kind of like a seizure.

And my aunt immediately with my dad,

they were, like, hovering over his body.

I see he's foaming out his mouth.

When I see that, I say, oh, my god, He's dying.

[dramatic music]

[alarm beeping]

CHUCK KRAMER: The tone went off for an ambulance

out and gave the same numeric address as the one just

before noon.

[siren blaring]

There was something really weird about this second call

at the same address on the same day.

When I pulled up in front of that building,

I could hear screaming coming out of that house.

I went running in there and there were paramedics working

on this young guy on the floor.

And one of the guys looked at me, a seasoned paramedic,

and I could see fear in his face.

He said, lieutenant, this is the same thing

as we had this morning.

We lost that guy.

And we're losing him.

He was foaming.

Like, all this foam started coming out of his mouth.

And his eyes flipped back.

[dramatic music]

CHUCK KRAMER: Stanley's wife was holding on to my shoulder.

And she's calling to her husband, Stanley, Stanley.

And the next thing I heard was a groan

and she collapsed at my feet.

And when I turned her over, I could see that her pupils were

already fixed and dilated and her breathing

had changed to this rapid, shallow breathing.

Stanley passed away at the hospital.

Teresa they put on life support.

But there was no chance to recover.

As soon as they took her off life support, she passed away.

I had no idea what we were dealing with.

All I know is this is not normal and we can't figure out

what's killing these people.

[dramatic music]

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[dramatic music]

JOY BERGMANN: These deaths were a giant mystery to paramedics,

medical investigators.

What possibly could have happened to these very young,

very healthy people to cause them to die

so suddenly in such an odd way?

It was a medical mystery.

What was happening here?

MONICA JANUS: They thought that my family had a disease.

And so they quarantined them and they kept them there.

They thought that something horrible happened because three

family members died.

They were running tests because they

didn't know what was going on.

JOSEPH JANUS: They called me and my sister to emergency room.

Priests came in to give us last rites, you know.

[dramatic music]

And then that's how we stayed over there waiting to die.

[tense music]

EDMUND DONOGHUE: When you have multiple deaths

inside a building, the most likely

thing is that they've been poisoned with carbon monoxide.

It's very common.

In the case of a home, it would come from a defective

heating system.

We do get carbon monoxide calls.

But those symptoms, we can spot that right away.

This was not that.

[dramatic music]

We have a health department in Arlington Heights.

Helen Jensen was our Health Expert.

And I called her.

And I told her, I said, Helen, I don't

know what we're dealing with here

but these people are going down.

HELEN JENSEN: I went over to the hospital immediately.

And I saw Theresa Janus, that was Adam's

wife, standing to the side.

She told me what had happened.

After Adam died, the family had gathered to discuss the funeral

and the brother, Stanley, had back pain, chronic back pain.

So he asked his wife to go get him a couple of Tylenol.

And then a few minutes later, she took two Tylenol.

And he went down.

And then she went down.

Both collapsed.

I heard Helen Jensen interviewing these people.

And I know they all took Tylenol.

[dramatic music]

HELEN JENSEN: I felt very strongly that I had

to go and look at that house.

And two police officers and I went out

and looked through the house.

I went into the bathroom and found a bottle of Tylenol.

And then I took it out to the kitchen,

and emptied the container, and counted the pills.

And there were six pills missing.

And there were three people dead.

And I said that it has to be the Tylenol.

Something's wrong with the Tylenol.

[dramatic music]

JOY BERGMANN: Another Chicago suburb, Lombard, Illinois.

Mary McFarland's at work and develops a headache.

So she takes a break, goes into the break room,

gets some Tylenol that she had in her purse,

takes two capsules, and collapses

in front of her coworkers a few minutes later.

She too would die.

[device beeping]

All of a sudden, somebody in your family is dead.

Why did she die?

NANCY ELIASON: Mary's friend had told us she had a headache.

And Mary went downstairs, bought Tylenol at the Walgreens,

came back upstairs, took it immediately,

slumped to the floor.

[tense music]

EDMUND DONOGHUE: The paramedics and the fire department

think there's something wrong with Tylenol.

And they had the container from the Janus's residence

at the hospital.

HELEN JENSEN: We went back to the hospital.

And I presented it to the medical examiner,

and poured the pills out, and counted

them again in front of him.

And I said, there are six capsules missing.

There are three people dead.

This is the cause.

That house is clean.

There is nothing in there that could have

caused this kind of an instantaneous death

except for these pills.

We've got to get the Tylenol off the shelves in this town.

It's poisoned.

And it could be contaminants and all of the bottles.

And we said, you know, there are only

two poisons that cause a rapid demise

and that's cyanide and nicotine.

We decided that we're probably dealing with cyanide.

[dramatic music]

Officials are now starting to connect

the dots between the similar deaths of the Janus family

in Arlington Heights and the death

of Mary Kellerman in Elk Grove.

They have the bottle of Tylenol from the Janus family.

Now they need the bottle from the Kellerman home.

EDMUND DONOGHUE: They said, have the Elk Grove Village people

bring in the other container and call

me back when they get there.

And they dispatched Nick Pishos, who was an investigator.

One of the interesting things is that cyanide has a smell.

That it smells like bitter almonds.

CHUCK KRAMER: Now they've got the bottle of Tylenol

from the Janus home.

They've got the bottle of Tylenol from the Kellerman home.

EDMUND DONOGHUE: I asked Nick to take the caps off the bottles

and to smell them to see if he could smell cyanide.

And he opened the containers, sniffed the contents,

and he says, doctor, I can smell cyanide

in both of these containers.

CHUCK GOUDIE: Cyanide doesn't end up in pain relief

capsules accidentally.

It was intentional.

[dramatic music]

[audio logo]

[tense music]

EDMUND DONOGHUE: Cyanide is a chemical asphyxiant.

And it kind of smothers you or cuts you

off from your oxygen supply.

You get a rapid heart rate, your blood pressure drops.

CHUCK KRAMER: It suffocates you.

It prevents the hemoglobin in your blood

from absorbing oxygen. You can be

pouring 100% oxygen on a person, it's not going to accept it.

So the brain dies.

EDMUND DONOGHUE: So we called the toxicologist and said,

we think you better come in because we think somebody

has put cyanide in Tylenol.

BRIAN TODD: The toxicologist worked all night

analyzing the bottles from the Janus home

and from Mary Kellerman's home.

Then he found that it was cyanide in both

of those bottles.

EDMUND DONOGHUE: They said we're going to have to have a press

conference because we have now got cyanide in Tylenol

from two communities 10 miles apart.

So we have a public health problem.

NEWS ANCHOR: The day began with Cook County Medical examiners

issuing what amounted to a nationwide Tylenol alert.

Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Edmund Donoghue.

The only safe course here is that people should

refrain from taking extra strength Tylenol,

the 500 milligram capsules.

We scheduled a second press conference

where we announced that Adam and Stanley Janus and Mary Kellerman

had died of cyanide poisoning.

NEWS ANCHOR: People across the country

are being warned not to take it just to be safe.

Until further investigation, until we can perhaps determine

where the contamination took place, if it were me,

I wouldn't take them.

CHUCK GOUDIE: Within a day, the confirmation of cyanide

found in the Tylenol said to everybody,

this was a criminal act.

[tense music]

JEREMY MARGOLIS: Don't forget, this

is prior to the kind of protective,

tamper-proof packaging.

Back in those days, take it out of a little cardboard box,

you unscrew the plastic top, and you dump the pills out.

It was very clear that there was foul play

at work, to say the least.

And the authorities were intent on making sure that they didn't

end up with any more victims.

Five people are dead after taking

extra strength Tylenol capsules that

had been laced with cyanide.

A sixth victim is not expected to survive.

The public definitely is nervous, scared, insecure.

MAN: It seems that people don't want capsules of any kind.

Tablets they seem to go for.

But the capsules they try to stay away from.

I'm staying away from capsules.

I'd rather buy the regular pill.

WENDI FRIEDMAN TUSH: All of a sudden,

there is a threat that's coming from the most benign place.

And really, nobody knew how to handle it.

I was horrified by the pure evil that was out there.

There's a lot of weirdos about.

REPORTER: Are you frightened enough to do anything about it?

And if so, what?

[dramatic music]

Just to check when I'm, you know,

buying stuff, making sure it hasn't been opened before.

[tense music]

We were hopeful that since we had gotten the message out

and the message was quite clear that maybe there

wouldn't be any more deaths.

DOCTOR: We've been receiving calls

about once every 15 seconds.

We only have three poison lines.

And they're lit up constantly ever since yesterday morning.

CHUCK KRAMER: The calls coming in were unbelievable.

Then people wanted us to come out and check their Tylenol.

If they think they do have cyanide poisoning

to go to an emergency room immediately.

REPORTER: At the city's poison control center

at Rush Presbyterian Saint Luke's hospital,

hundreds of calls have come in.

POLICE OFFICER (ON LOUDSPEAKER): Don't take

Tylenol until further notice.

And that's when they started deploying police cars

and ambulances in the neighborhoods warning

people not to take Tylenol.

NEWS ANCHOR: Police have done everything

possible to make sure everyone knows

about the Tylenol problems.

[siren blaring]

And in Chicago, all city ambulances have been equipped

with a cyanide antidote kit.

If you have it in your house, don't take Tylenol.

[tense music]

NEWS ANCHOR: Health officials say their biggest

worry now concerns.

The other over-the-counter capsule

drugs still on the market.

Like Tylenol, many are in packages that are

easy to open and tamper with.

You would look at your medicine cabinet, your shelves.

People were looking in the refrigerator.

Well, if it's capsules today, what about my milk?

All these things went through my mind.

Magnify that by a couple of hundred million people

all around the country and many, many millions

more around the world.

It was a very frightening time.

[tense music]

[audio logo]

Welcome back to How It Really happened.

Six people in the Chicago suburbs

are dead after taking extra strength Tylenol pain reliever.

Investigators discovered the victims

were poisoned by Tylenol capsules laced with cyanide.

Now the hunt is on to find the mad man who did this.

As authorities quickly spread the word not to take Tylenol,

there is a fear that the killing isn't over.

[dramatic music]

[tense music]

I was a flight attendant for United Airlines.

Paula and I met flying together.

And it was just one of those things,

we became instant friends.

We both loved to laugh.

And we'd go out drinking together

and just spend lots and lots of time together.

[dramatic music]

JOY BERGMANN: On September, 29 Paula Prince

had stopped at a Walgreens on her way home

to pick up some Tylenol and then heads

up to her high-rise apartment on the North side of Chicago.

JEAN LEAVENGOOD: By that point, the news

had not broken about the Tylenol being tainted with cyanide.

As she's taking off her makeup,

she takes two Tylenol and collapses

in her bathroom hallway.

When Paula didn't show up for her next flight,

her friends became very concerned.

[dramatic music]

JEAN LEAVENGOOD: I call Carol, Paula's older sister.

And I said, Carol, there's something wrong.

Paula missed her trip yesterday.

I said, I'm going to go up to her place.

And Carol said, well, wait till I get there.

We went up to Paula's door.

And I opened the door.

And Paula was lying on the floor.

And she was orange.

We were absolutely hysterical.

We just clung to each other.

Our top story, authorities in Chicago

have officially confirmed the death of a seventh victim

from Tylenol capsules laced with deadly cyanide.

NEWS ANCHOR: Paula Prince bought cyanide-loaded extra strength

Tylenol at a nearby drugstore.

A TV security camera snapped a picture of her

in the checkout line.

That photo sent a chill up my spine

because you saw Paula Prince, the young flight attendant,

standing in line to buy some Tylenol, the safest headache

remedy you could possibly imagine,

not knowing that it would be the thing that would kill her.

[tense music]

A deadly pattern emerging in Chicago

has prompted a nationwide recall of a top-selling pain reliever.

Officials do not know how the poison got into the capsules

but they are investigating the case as a possible homicide.

BRIAN TODD: On October 5th, Johnson & Johnson

recalls all Tylenol capsules.

That's 31 million-plus bottles of Tylenol.

It's the first mass recall in American history.

[dramatic music]

CHUCK KRAMER: Johnson & Johnson did an unbelievable thing.

I understand it cost them $100 million in 1982 dollars.

DAVID WILLIAMS: Johnson & Johnson told people

that anyone who had Tylenol in their home in capsule form,

they should get rid of it.

The task force was formed very quickly.

Then the next question is, who, what's

the reason, who was the target.

We now have over 100 agents and teams out on the street

that are investigating leads along the line from the time

that the drugs would hit Illinois until they

hit the ultimate customer.

DAVID WILLIAMS: There was a time when

we thought that any one of the seven victims

could have been targeted.

JEREMY MARGOLIS: We clearly surveilled the funerals.

Compared photographs of people who there might

be a common thread, some stranger

who was at a Janus funeral and the Paula Prince funeral.

We were able to discount that, I think, pretty quickly.

There are so many theories swirling around.

JEREMY MARGOLIS: Maybe Tylenol was the target

and the victims were just a means to an end.

Could there possibly be an issue with a disgruntled current

or angry former employee?

Could it be somebody who was somehow harmed

by some other Tylenol product?

But nothing came of the disgruntled employee theory.

ROBERT REIFMAN: So my guess is it's not a disgruntled employee.

It's just a guess it's not.

And my guess is it's somebody who

has been harboring sadistic fantasies for many years.

[tense music]

DAVID WILLIAMS: There were questions about could it have

happened in the manufacturing.

So that was looked at very carefully.

The bottles that were recovered from the victims' homes,

if you look at a pill bottle that you

have even today, there is-- on the bottom of it

is often a number.

They call it a lot number.

And it describes where it was manufactured.

WENDI FRIEDMAN TUSH: These pills came

from two different locations in two different states.

DAVID WILLIAMS: There was no information despite hundreds

of interviews and examination that this could

have happened during the distribution

and manufacturing process.

The most logical conclusion is that someone bought Tylenol

from drug stores, took capsules out of the bottles,

replaced the Tylenol powder with potassium cyanide,

and returned those bottles to drug stores.

GREY STEED: In 1982, you didn't have surveillance

cameras everywhere.

You also didn't have any type of packaging protections.

It would have been very easy to either purchase

or steal a few bottles and then put them back on the shelf.

This wasn't just about tampering.

It was about evil.

It was about knowing that someone out

there would be perfectly willing to hurt a stranger.

It was crazy.

[tense music]

[audio logo]

[tense music]

After a week of chaos and frenzied investigatory efforts,

investigators got an interesting new lead.

The author of the letters claimed

to be the Tylenol killer.

WENDI FRIEDMAN TUSH: He writes he doesn't like President

Reagan's proposed tax laws.

And he writes a letter to President Reagan saying,

you heard about those Tylenol killings.

Well, I have lots of airline tickets.

I can go other places and do this.

But I won't do that if you change the tax laws.

CHUCK GOUDIE: And the letter to Johnson & Johnson

demanded $1 million to stop the killings.

TERRY ANZUR: It was huge news when the extortion

letter was made public.

It's addressed to Johnson & Johnson,

parent of McNeil Laboratories, the maker of Tylenol.

"Gentlemen, as you can see, it is

easy to place cyanide, both potassium

and sodium, into capsules sitting in store shelves.

And since the cyanide is inside the gelatin,

it is easy to get buyers to swallow the bitter pill.

If you don't mind the publicity of these little capsules,

then do nothing.

If you want to stop the killing, then wire $1 million to bank

account number 84-49-597."

[dramatic music]

JEREMY MARGOLIS: The bank account

number led back to a company called Lakeside Travel.

We learned that in minutes.

Lakeside Travel was out of business

but it had been owned by a man named

Frederick Miller McCahey who lived in a Chicago

North Shore suburb.

Investigators went to Mr. Miller McCahey and said,

do you know anything about this letter?

And he did not.

So they asked him, do you have any enemies,

people who might want law enforcement

to be looking at you?

And he said, yeah, there actually

are a couple of people like that,

Robert and Nancy Richardson.

Nancy Richardson had worked for Miller McCahey at Lakeside

Travel, his travel agency.

Unfortunately, that agency went right into the ground

and went bankrupt.

The final paycheck bounced.

She and her husband were really angry, as were other employees.

TERRY ANZUR: The police put out the word to the public

that they were looking for Mr and Mrs. Richardson.

At that point, the focus of the Tylenol investigation,

this information was broadcast nationwide.

And in Kansas City, police Sergeant David Barton

saw the report, saw the picture of the man known as Richardson,

and realized, hey, that's James Lewis.

[dramatic music]

NEWS ANCHOR: This is Robert Richardson and his wife Nancy.

And this is Robert Richardson and his wife

Nancy known in Kansas City as James and LeAnn Lewis.

[tense music]

TERRY ANZUR: We started pursuing the story in Kansas City.

James and LeAnn Lewis had lived there.

They had been under investigation for

some other scams in Missouri.

We were able to get more information about other things

he was accused of, including the murder

of Raymond West, the man whose body was

found dismembered in an attic.

He had been a client of James Lewis' accounting firm.

NEWS ANCHOR: Lewis made headlines

in 1978 when he was arrested for the murder of Raymond West.

The old man's body was found cut up

and hidden in the attic of his house.

[tense music]

JOY BERGMANN: Investigators had a forged check for $5,000

to James Lewis from Raymond West on the day

that Raymond West went missing.

So they arrested Lewis because he was the obvious suspect.

But they didn't read him his Miranda rights

before they questioned him.

And therefore, the search, everything that came after

was thrown out and they just couldn't convict him.

CHUCK GOUDIE: And he ended up getting away with murder

back then.

And the authorities figured this guy

has got to be a prime suspect at this point

in the Tylenol killings.

That was critical to be able to not only have

a name, an alias, but an actual identification

of who we were looking for.

CHUCK GOUDIE: There was also a face to this

when the authorities put out a photograph of Lewis.

It was heavy manpower.

It was a really laborious kind of operation for the FBI.

While the FBI is investigating the original two letters,

James Lewis mails letters to the Chicago Tribune

to try to communicate through the Tribune to the FBI.

GREY STEED: Chicago Tribune helped us

in the sense of communicating with Lewis

and keeping him writing letters.

Well, Lewis engaged in a letter war.

He liked the attention but he also

kept trying to defer the fact that he was being wrongly

accused, slammed the FBI for labeling

him as the Tylenol killer.

[tense music]

JEREMY MARGOLIS: We knew that the letters had

been postmarked in New York.

And so we targeted and focused on every single location

in New York City where you could either

buy or read a Chicago Tribune.

We were eventually led to Lewis who was identified to us

as sitting in a New York Public Library

reading a Chicago Tribune.

NEWS ANCHOR: An FBI manhunt bears fruit.

James Lewis is arrested in New York.

He's wanted on a fugitive warrant

for allegedly trying to extort a million dollars

from the makers of Tylenol.

Chicago investigators also want to question

both Lewis and his wife in connection with seven

Tylenol poisoning deaths.

So when the police arrested James Lewis for the extortion

letter, naturally, he was considered among their suspects

for the actual murders as well.

James Lewis never denied writing the extortion letter.

I had nothing to do with the Tylenol murders.

JOY BERGMANN: His alibi was he was

in New York City from early September

until he was arrested in December.

The murders happened at the end of September.

And James Lewis said, hey, I was in New York City the whole time.

It is not physically possible to be in Chicago and New York

at the same instance.

They're too far apart.

And I'm not possessed of magic or I can't fly like Superman.

Since you didn't have to show identification

to travel on a train, travel on a plane,

we were never able to prove that he had come back

to the Chicago area at the time that the pills had been planned.

[dramatic music]

NEWS ANCHOR: Lewis is charged with sending a letter to Johnson

& Johnson, the makers of Tylenol,

demanding a million dollars be deposited in an account

at Chicago's Continental Bank in order to, quote,

"stop the killings."

I prosecuted James Lewis for the crime

of sending extortion letters through the United States mail.

NEWS ANCHOR: Jurors hurried out of the court building

after the verdict that took them less than three hours to reach.

Judge Frank McGarr read their decision,

guilty of attempted extortion.

And the judge sentenced him to 10 years in prison.

NEWS ANCHOR: Earlier, US attorney Dan Webb

had called him vicious, mean, evil,

depraved, a premeditated manipulator and opportunist.

JEREMY MARGOLIS: After Lewis' conviction,

he made arrangements to be interviewed

by Roy Lane, the FBI, Richie Tetyk of the state police,

and me for hours and hours on multiple occasions

to assist us in solving the Tylenol killing.

GREY STEED: And he started offering

his various theories as to how it could have been done.

Even drew out a device that could have been used to fill

the capsules with cyanide.

[tense music]

JEREMY MARGOLIS: During that period of time,

he created manuscripts, and drew pen and ink drawings,

and speculated about how the Tylenol killer might have done

what he did, who the Tylenol killer might have been,

what the motivations and motives might have been.

INTERVIEWER: You made the point, I think, that private citizen,

you felt compelled to try and help in any way.

But you didn't have any involvement in it.

Why would you try to help in such a way?

For the same reason that if I were going down

the street and your house was on fire, not my problem,

but I would stop and try to help.

If you were out in Lake Michigan and crying for help and I'm

walking along the beach, not my problem.

But I would try to jump in the water and help you.

And I think there was four, maybe five interviews

and a massive amount of written detail

that Lewis provided speculating on every aspect

of the Tylenol killings, never admitting that he was the one.

BRIAN TODD: James Louis does his time for extortion.

He is released from federal prison on October 13, 1995.

That's when he and his wife, LeAnn, move to Massachusetts.

But it's certainly not the last time that the FBI

hears from James Lewis.

[audio logo]

[tense music]

[siren blaring]

Over the years, investigators started

to look at other suspects for the Tylenol murders.

Chicago Police were very interested in a man

named Roger Arnold.

He's kind of a local barfly in Chicago

who has talked about having cyanide in his home

for some kind of a project.

But he's never arrested for any of these crimes.

The FBI even considered Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber.

NEWS ANCHOR: It's one of the FBI'S

most notorious unsolved cases, the 1982 Tylenol murders.

Seven people in the Chicago area died after taking Tylenol

laced with potassium cyanide.

Now, the Bureau's hinting at a possible link

to one of America's most feared domestic terrorists,

Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber.

Ultimately, there was no evidence ever

linking the Unabomber to any of the Tylenol murders.

[tense music]

NEWS ANCHOR: A real life cold case reopened after 25 years.

The FBI is again investigating a man who has already served

years behind bars in connection with the 1982

Tylenol poisoning case.

JEREMY MARGOLIS: The initial task force

simply stopped functioning because there

was no more credible leads.

Years later, a second task force was established and actively

pursued the investigation.

The FBI isn't really saying much about this,

only that tips they received last year on the 25th

anniversary of the killing and new

technology prompted them to gather possible new evidence.

When police reignited the Tylenol investigation

and revisited James Lewis, doing a whole new search of his house

in 2009 when he was living in Cambridge, Massachusetts,

it baffled me.

I said, what are they looking for?

NEWS ANCHOR: The FBI removed several boxes from his apartment

and an old Macintosh computer.

The FBI just isn't talking about this

but they say they have this new technology

which may make them able to better examine this evidence.

But it's strange that there would

still be evidence in this man's apartment after all these years.

[tense music]

JOY BERGMANN: By 2010, James and LeAnn Lewis

had been on the radar of investigators for close

to 30 years.

And they said, here, take our DNA.

We didn't do this.

And so the FBI has been in possession of a full DNA profile

of both of them since 2010.

After the case was re-examined in 2009, no one was charged.

So ultimately, the second Tylenol task force

was dissolved.

In 2013, the Arlington Heights Police department,

that's where three of the victims died,

they assumed primary responsibility for the case.

[tense music]

In 2020, the Arlington Heights Police

begins a coordinated effort with Othram Labs, that's

a small biotech company in Texas,

in the hopes that some new DNA technology can

help in this case.

KRISTEN MITTELMAN: There is no case that is too cold

or no piece of DNA that is unusable.

If you've touched something, you've left DNA.

It's on your body.

It's on your sweat.

It's very difficult to commit a crime and not leave DNA.

Othram's specialty is extracting

small and degraded pieces of DNA from samples.

We get the question of how old can the DNA be?

We've been able to identify victims from 1881.

I call our DNA sequencing forensic-grade

genome sequencing.

We extract the degraded DNA.

So we take all of the information that you can get.

We get a really detailed biogeographical ancestry

of the person that left the DNA at the crime scene.

And so you can go back to the investigators

and give them very clear information that could help them

exclude suspects on their list.

And it leads to that one person that actually left

the DNA at that crime scene.

JEREMY MARGOLIS: There is more advanced,

much more profound DNA technology

and matching capability today.

There's a hope that science will provide an answer.

I'm optimistic that it'll be solved.

BRIAN TODD: And then on July 9, 2023, something very

unexpected happens.

James Lewis suddenly dies at his home

in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

He's found unresponsive there.

The cause of death was later determined

to be a pulmonary embolism.

He was 76 years old.

[tense music]

Well, it's extremely difficult.

Extremely frustrating.

People die and take the secret to their grave.

[dramatic music]

BRIAN TODD: One month after his death,

the FBI releases multiple hours of taped interviews

that it had conducted with James Lewis.

These interviews were conducted between 2007 and 2009.

Lewis discussed how the Tylenol capsules

could have been tainted.

I still believe James Lewis did it.

And it's based upon what I saw the way of evidence, what I saw

in the way of his past history.

The cooperation and things that he said to Roy Lane and others

in the cold case.

And I think he got away with something

that was a horrendous crime.

[tense music]

JOY BERGMANN: 40-plus years after the Tylenol murders,

we are still somewhat in the same position

as we were in 1982-1983.

There's a cadre of investigators that

think James Lewis is their man and yet

charges haven't been brought.

This case file remains closed.

It's an open investigation, which means family members,

media, private investigators cannot

get their hands on the records.

So we don't know what's been missed and what's been done.

And that's really the crime at this point.

I do believe that it's a matter of time

before all these cases get solved that have DNA.

The science here at Othram is getting

better at assessing information from the evidence

every single day.

And I feel like when something seems hopeless, it's not.

POLICE OFFICER (ON LOUDSPEAKER): Do not take

Tylenol until further notice.

JOY BERGMANN: September 29, 1982,

is a day that really changed history

and represents a real loss of innocence for people.

MONICA JANUS: I think about how big of an impact

that day made on the entire planet.

We lived in a lot of fear.

We were scared to take any type of medication.

And because of our family, the three members that passed away,

the world is now In a better and safer environment.

BRIAN TODD: Starting on November 11, 1982,

tamper-resistant packaging was in effect

for all Tylenol bottles.

NEWS ANCHOR: Capsule concern aside, it's

virtually impossible to get to the new Tylenol capsules

without anybody noticing.

The box is sealed, the bottle top is sealed,

and the bottle itself is sealed.

And that has made a difference to many Tylenol users.

I remember I was so surprised at how hard

it was to open the package.

Now we're so used to it.

Every package is like that.

JOY BERGMANN: An entire industry of tamper-resistant and

tamper-evident packaging rose up in the wake of these poisonings.

And today, we don't have to fear this kind of contamination.

[stirring music]

[dramatic music]

There are, I suppose, many unsolved crimes in history.

And I'm not smart enough to solve those, let alone this one.

I think the Tylenol murderer is still out there

dancing in the streets.

Four decades have passed since the Tylenol murders.

And in that span of time, several suspects

and investigators close to the case

have died, leaving many to wonder if time has run

out on solving this mystery.

But one thing is certain, time stopped on September 29, 1982,

for the victims and their families.

I'm Jesse L. Martin.

Thanks for watching.

Good night.

[dramatic music]

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