Hello everybody and welcome to the second installment of Cold Cases with Rohith Koneru. In this episode, we will be covering the poisoned Tylenol pill murders, a case which at the time, was completely unheard of and caused a national media frenzy. Let’s get started

Do you know where the seals on medicine bottles came from? Well, these murders were actually the reason for the

implementation of safety seals on all medicine bottles. On September 29th, 1982, 7 people in the Chicago area ingested poisoned Tylenol pills and passed away a few hours later. The victims include a 12-year-old and a young married couple who lived in LISLE, I LIVE IN LISLE, this is way too close to home. With that out of the way, let’s go over the victims.

During the early morning hours of September 29th, Mary Kellerman, a 12-year-old girl from Elk Grove Village, awoke with a sore throat and a runny nose. Her parents proceeded to give her an extra-strength Tylenol, however, she would die a couple hours later due to cyanide poisoning. 

Later that day, Adam Janus, a 27-year-old postal worker would also die of cyanide poisoning. As Adam’s family was grieving his death at his house, his brother and sister-in-law, Stanley and Theresa Janus from Lisle, both experienced a severe headache, a common side effect after a death in the family. They both took an extra-strength Tylenol from a bottle in Adam Janus’ house and tragically died in the following days due to cyanide poisoning. This means that one family experienced three deaths on the same day. How tragic.

Over the next 3 days, 31-year-old Mary McFarland from Elmhurst, 35-year-old Paula Prince from Chicago, and 27-year-old Mary Reiner from Winfield all died of cyanide poisoning after consuming an extra-strength Tylenol. It was clear that something fishy was going on in Chicago.

The case of the Janus’ was a big clue for investigators; 3 deaths in the same house on the same day was unheard of. Cook county investigator Nick Pishos was able to piece together the clues and compared the Janus’ bottle of Tylenol to Mary Kellerman’s bottle. He found that they both smelled like almonds, and as you might know, cyanide smells like almonds. Autopsies performed on the victims showed that they had taken 100% – 1000% of the lethal dose of cyanide. A little unnecessary from the killer if you ask me. 

On October 1st, only a couple of days after the murders, authorities were certain that the victim’s Tylenol bottles were intentionally poisoned with cyanide, which lead to Johnson & Johnson, the parent company of Tylenol, pulling all Tylenol bottles off the shelves. In total, Johnson & Johnson recalled 31 million bottles of Tylenol and took other precautions to satisfy customers. In the end, this cost Johnson & Johnson over $100,000,000 and their share in the non-prescription pain reliever market dropped from 35% to 8%, which is crazy.

Before I continue with the case, I just want to say that I think I know who the culprit is: it has to be ADVIL. Think about it, Advil started to be sold over the counter in the 80s and these murders happened in 1982, only two years later. From the start, Advil must’ve known that Tylenol ran the entire pain reliever market, and to get their product to sell, they had to bring Tylenol down. Here’s what I think happened, Advil’s founder realized that not having seals on the bottles was a safety hazard, but instead of just telling the media about it, he saw an opportunity to get rid of Tylenol for good. So he strategically went to Chicago, one the biggest cities in America, poisoned several Tylenol bottles in multiple stores, and left without leaving any evidence behind. Smooth Criminal.

Clearly, Advil’s plan worked better than expected as money wasn’t the only thing Johnson & Johnson had to worry about. A media frenzy ensued, US newspapers ran over 100,000 separate articles about the incident and the FBI did not hesitate to get involved. As news about the murders spread across the country, people started to panic. People who believed they were poisoned packed into hospitals and call centers, causing the entire healthcare system to be backed up. On top of that, in the month following the murders, there were around 270 copycat murders. Great job Advil.

Even though the media was going crazy and everybody was acting like a zombie apocalypse started, investigators were actually able to make good progress on the case. Authorities were initially confused because the poisoned bottles were bought from different stores and each store got its Tylenol from a different production plant. Very Spooky indeed. Eventually, labs were set up and scientists started testing the over 10 million recalled pills. 50 capsules across eight bottles were found to be poisoned. Five of the bottles belonged to the victims, two bottles were sent back in the recall, and the last bottle was found on a shelf, unsold. No evidence was found on the last bottle and investigators could not get a look at the culprit as security cameras were not common back in the 80s. Using these clues, investigators determined that there was either one person or a small number of people purchasing Tylenol bottles, poisoning them, then putting them back on the shelves.

It is important to note that the Tylenol bottles would have been returned within a day of September 29th as the cyanide would eat through the capsules after some time. With the case overview out of the way, let’s get into the suspects

The prime suspect at the time was James Lewis, a tax accountant that lived in Chicago. A mere one week after the murders, Johnson & Johnson received a letter that had Lewis’ fingerprints on it, it read 

Gentlemen:

As you can see, it is easy to place cyanide (both potassium and sodium) into capsules sitting on store shelves. And since the cyanide is inside the gelatin, it is easy to get buyers to swallow the bitter pill. Another beauty is that cyanide operates quickly. It takes so very little. And there will be no time to take countermeasures.

If you don’t mind the publicity of these little capsules, then do nothing. So far I have spent less than 50 dollars and it takes me less than 10 minutes per bottle. 

If you want to stop the killing then wire $1,000,000.00 to bank account #84-49-597 at Continental Illinois Bank, Chicago, Illinois.

Do not attempt to involve the FBI or local Chicago authorities with this letter. A couple of phone calls by me can undo anything you can possibly do.

I actually have no clue why these serial killers keep sending letters to the police, first the axeman, now this guy? Stop it, you’re not cool, you’re just dumb. 

Anyway, Johnson & Johnson didn’t listen to the letter as a warrant for Lewis’ arrest was issued and he was eventually arrested on December 13th at a New York library. However, this was all for nothing as Lewis had NOTHING to do with the Tylenol murders. The bank account number listed in the letter belonged to a man who Lewis believed stole $500 from his wife. In short, Lewis only sent the ransom letter so he could expose the $500 theft and he had absolutely nothing to do with the case. This is so stupid that I don’t even have anything to say about it.

Another suspect is someone you might already know, Theodore Kaczynski, or the Unabomber. Kaczynski is currently serving a life sentence for killing 3 people and wounding many others by sending bombs in the mail. If there is a hall of fame for killers, he is definitely on there. Kaczynski is from Illinois and all of the Tylenol deaths occurred in Illinois, however, there is an unofficial Tylenol death that occurred in Sheridan, Wyoming two months before the Chicago killings. This is important because Sheridan, Wyoming is a town on the way to Kaczynski’s cabin in Montana. This means that he could’ve used Sheridan as a test run before moving on to a big city like Chicago. 

On top of that, many of Kaczynski’s victims involve wood, for example, one of his victims was named Frederick Benjamin Isaac Wood who lived at 549 Wood St. in Woodlake, California. Another victim was Percy Woods who lived in Lake Forest, Illinois. However, the cherry on top is the fact that two of the founders of Johnson & Johnson have the middle name Wood.

Ok, I know that it is kind of a reach to say that the Unabomber is responsible, but I have to report possible theories and suspects. With that being said, there is absolutely no chance that this theory is true.

Even with all these amazing theories and suspects, the crime was performed cleanly and no evidence was left behind. Since cameras weren’t common back then, authorities have no way of knowing what the killer looks like, and because of this, the Tylenol murder mystery remains unsolved. Before I go, I just want to say one thing: Advil did it.

SOURCES:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/tylenol-murders-1982