In late September of 1982 seven people were killed after an unknown suspect placed cyanide laced Tylenol pills in store bottles. Within a week, her death would panic the entire nation. Photo by Yvonne Hemsey/Getty Images. Another theory was that whoever poisoned the medication did it at home or in a car, then placed the bottles back on the shelves. As a result of the crime, makers of Tylenol developed new product protection methods. Chicago police Superintendent Richard Brzeczek talks about the Tylenol investigation on Oct. 7, 1982, about a week after the seven deaths. Subscribe to our Science Newsletter to explore the (Charles Osgood / Chicago Tribune). But before Sept. 29, 1982, consumer products had few defenses against a person bent on sabotage. For example, Johnson & Johnson quickly established that the cyanide lacing occurred after cases of Tylenol left the factory. From the start, Detectives Ford and Gildea didnt understand the purpose of driving out to Des Plaines each day in rush hour traffic when they had a murder to solve back in the city. We also are still were looking at emerging forensic technology, Sgt. Hearing that threat, the detectives said, they banged on the door and announced themselves as police. Seven people died in 1982 after taking painkillers from bottle someone - police do not know who - had slipped cyanide pills into Ramon Antonio Vargas Sun 2 Oct 2022 02.00 EDT Forty years after the. Fahner ordered his staff to work through the night, calling local police, sheriffs, coroners, the FBI, the FDA, prosecutors and public health officials. (Don Casper / Chicago Tribune), People were terrified, Fahner said. Two main suspects in this unsolved case are James Lewis and Roger Arnold, who had both been linked to this occurrence in some way. The 50-count bottle, which the woman told police she purchased at Franks Finer Foods in Wheaton, contained seven capsules filled with potassium cyanide, records show. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. We had gloves in our car and basically used them on decomposed bodies. Security cameras were scarce in 1982, but investigators checked the images that existed, including this photograph from a drugstore camera showing Paula Prince, center, buying a bottle of tainted Tylenol. (Ovie Carter / Chicago Tribune). Bottles that werent tossed out were sent to J&J, the FDA and various government laboratories for testing. Forty years later, investigators still cant say with certainty. At first, the story focused in the Chicago/Cook County . The program went far beyond any database previously used by law enforcement in Illinois. . They knew the weapon. Among those questioned was a clerical worker who was fired for repeatedly missing work. As a state crime, murder fell under the purview of local law enforcement. Severns, who had two young children, heard the undeserved guilt in her voice. A native of the south suburbs, Gutowski received a master's degree in public affairs reporting from the University of Illinois at Springfield and is a graduate of Southern Illinois University. And Fahner wasnt the only source of tensions. Congress eventually criminalized tampering with medications and other consumer products, classifying that as a federal crime that could carry up to life imprisonment in cases involving a death. Three months earlier, 10 Chicago officers from the citys West Side were convicted of taking bribes to protect heroin rings. The likelihood that the same person could have put cyanide into different batches manufactured at different times in different places was logistically zero.. She also laments that her dad never got to meet her and her husband, her son, her stepson and her step-grandson. As weeks went by without an arrest, detectives started using different doors to avoid the cameras. Investigators express frustration, anger even. The Tylenol Murders Victims Mary Kellerman On September 29, 1982, 12 year old Mary Kellerman woke up feeling ill. And as soon as we got the word out that Tylenol had been laced, people said, What do we do? I said, Well, if youve got any in your medicine cabinet either put it in a plastic bag and keep it or throw it away. Fahner had worked for James Thompson in the U.S. attorneys office, handling some of the citys biggest federal corruption cases. A casket is carried out of St. Hyacinth Roman Catholic Church after the funeral Mass for three members of the Janus family in 1982. The Tylenol murders: The story of a 40-year-old unsolved case begins with a terrifying medical mystery. President Reagan wanted the FBI in the investigation, retired FBI Special Agent Roy Lane Jr. told the Tribune. We locked him up.. And 35 years later, this murder mystery is still . I think hes nothing but a class act, said McQuaid, a retired state police captain. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration then cautioned the public against taking the pain reliever in capsule form. What was he like in school? Thats because nobody was keeping track of who was buying cyanide, Wolnik said. Wherever they stand, everyone wishes they had achieved a different result. The couple were later pronounced dead, too. He also laid the foundation to get Extra-Strength Tylenol off store shelves statewide, going beyond the single batch the pain relievers manufacturer had recalled that day. In an attempt to paint a more detailed portrait of the killer, the FBI turned to a relatively new technique at the time called criminal profiling, in which agents try to identify the personality and behavioral characteristics of an offender based on an analysis of the crime. The substance was grainier than the untainted Tylenol on the left. And you know, some agents are better than other agents and can really do a good job. The police investigation into the Tylenol murders has centered around prime suspect James Lewis for decades. Forty years ago, cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules led to the deaths of seven people all around the Chicago area. Simply put, the feds entry into the investigation hinged on the admittedly preposterous notion that the manufacturer intentionally put poison in the pain reliever and then committed a misdemeanor crime by not including it on the label. As Fahners team made calls, a DuPage County deputy coroner named Pete Siekmann sat in an office at the Illinois Department of Public Healths toxicology lab in Chicago and waited to see if the Tylenol capsules taken by Mary Lynn Reiner and Mary Sue McFarland were poisoned. There was no clear leader. Ford, a Vietnam veteran with a classic Chicago accent and an Irishmans love of storytelling, died of a heart attack a few days after speaking with the Tribune. And you had a lot of very experienced, very intelligent, very resourceful people thinking about this all the time, thinking about angles, thinking about ideas, testing them and implementing them wherever we possibly could. The Tylenol case, however, would loom largest over his professional life. (James Mayo / Chicago Tribune). Ford said he quickly interrupted. The Unsolved Tylenol Murders of 1982: The Unabomber Theory Written by C.W.S. Many people who handled potential evidence in 1982 didnt wear gloves because it wasnt protocol at the time. He hangs up, opens the door and we come in like gangbusters, Gildea said. Jose Rosa, right, was one of hundreds of Chicago city employees and volunteers to distribute warnings about cyanide-laced Tylenol in fall 1982. The task force opted to work out of an Illinois state police bunker in Des Plaines, a central location that would be home to a tip line, twice-a-day investigator briefings and news conferences for the scores of reporters camped outside the building. Severns confronted people at both agencies, who blamed each other for keeping him in the dark. NBC News has not reviewed that evidence. In 1989, the FDA established federal guidelines for manufacturers to make all such products tamper-proof. So I stopped by the house on the way home, introduced myself and tried to answer any questions they had, he said. Other copy-cat poisonings, involving Tylenol and other over-the-counter medications, cropped up again in the 1980s and early 1990s but these events were never as dramatic or as deadly as the 1982 Chicago-area deaths. Arlington Heights police Chief Rodney Kath, second from left, works with other members of the Tylenol task force at its Des Plaines headquarters in 1982. And, in the decades since, scientific advances have allowed investigators to detect DNA profiles on at least three of the tainted bottles and the capsules inside. (Michael Budrys / Chicago Tribune). Editors note: This report has been updated to remove the reported amount of cyanide used. By 2011, the FBI was ready to reexamine the evidence. In reality, some task force members still accuse their colleagues of secretive behavior 40 years later. None matched. Investigators first considered whether the tampering could have occurred at the manufacturing plants. John Fellmann, whose last name was misspelled on his ID from 1980, was a young Arlington Heights police detective when he was assigned to the Tylenol murders. Paramedics came and took Adam Janus to a nearby hospital, where doctors pronounced him dead from what they suspected may have been a heart attack. The new timeline suggests Lewis wrote the letter before the public knew the deaths were linked to the tainted Tylenol pills, according to the Chicago Tribune. Reports would be written in triplicate so each member would get a copy. Here, he offers a Spanish-language flyer to Luisa Acevada. The task force didnt know who or why.. Was Charles Dickens the first celebrity medical spokesman? The substance was grainier than the untainted Tylenol on the left. In 2000, Joy Bergmann revisited the story in "A Bitter Pill" . And it took over my life.. Seven people between the ages of 12 and 35 years old died in 1982 after ingesting extra-strength Tylenol capsules that were found to have been laced with cyanide, a deadly chemical. Shari Kouba, shown in July at an FBI office in Mount Prospect where she used to work, ran a tips desk as part of the Tylenol task force. Now Fahner had to win the job for himself, and he faced a formidable opponent in Democrat Neil Hartigan, a vote magnet from Chicagos North Side. We felt kind of creepy doing it, retired FBI agent Bob Gibson said of his graveyard duty. He needed to be there, no matter how much he hated campaigning. She told investigators that, in retrospect, she deserved her termination and swore she would do better at her next job. All of them, it turned out, took Tylenol shortly before they died. The 18-page investigative summary also provides key evidence, including the names of the three main suspects, during the first seven months of the case. But their deaths did inspire a series of important moves to make over-the-counter medications safer (albeit never 100 percent safe) for the hundreds of millions of people who buy them every year. Investigators quickly dismissed the possibility that the killer was targeting a single victim and the other bottles were contaminated to make it harder to solve that murder. . But she said years of therapy and yoga have helped her overcome her anger and guilt, and shes hopeful there will be justice in the killings of her father as well as her aunt and uncle. The man hurriedly told the Hormel operator that he had to go and he would call her back later. he answered. Testing found cyanide in the Extra-Strength Tylenol capsule on the right. Fahner stepped off the stage and ducked behind a blue velvet curtain, where a state police officer briefed him. Pero quin fue el asesino? Early on, the task force decided to instruct the public to get rid of their Tylenol by either turning it in to police departments or throwing it away. Still, in his opinion, Fahner was exactly what the task force needed. He regaled reporters with all kinds of stories during that final interview, but none seemed to amuse him more than the unhappy Hormel ham man. Stacy St. Clair joined the Chicago Tribune in 2007. In the meantime, Kasia Janus has said shes dealt with occasionally overwhelming sadness because of the graduations her father couldnt attend. You werent there. Arlington Heights police Chief Rodney Kath, second from left, works with other members of the Tylenol task force in an old state police bunker in Des Plaines. Forty years later, Ford shook his head at the memory. Written by a high-ranking Illinois state police supervisor in April 1983, the document describes the wide net authorities cast in the hopes of solving the mystery. Seven people between 12 and 35 died after ingesting cyanide-laced Tylenol pills in the Chicago area in 1982. Product tampering would become a crime in 1983 as a result of these murders, but in 1982 there was no federal law against it. Relatives, including two who took polygraph tests, were quickly eliminated from suspicion. But no one has ever been arrested in connection with the spate of poisonings that shattered the families of Janus and the others. Every agency imaginable attended, many of them represented by their top leaders. They came up with nothing. Everyone who had access to the box including the judge and his wife provided fingerprints for comparison. They can account for the differing DNA profiles. As everyone left that first meeting Friday morning, DuPage deputy coroner Siekmann, who hadnt slept in more than 24 hours, looked around the room and wondered how it would all work. Four decades later, task force leaders downplay accusations of tensions among the agencies, suggesting history has been revised in an effort to explain why no one has been charged with the murders. Dr. Howard Markel writes a monthly column for the PBS NewsHour, highlighting momentous historical events that continue to shape modern medicine. Several victims families told the Tribune they didnt hear much from investigators after those initial interviews. The Soviets were willing to assist, but their satellites werent trained on the Chicago suburbs at the time. He held news conferences, sometimes twice a day, to meet the insatiable media demands. The White House, however, had ordered the FBI to find a way into the case amid growing public panic. But on Oct. 1, 1982, he had been a detective for only a year. I thought, well, this is rather impressive, Siekmann said. It was standing room only inside the Arlington Heights Police Department for the first meeting of what would become the Tylenol task force. Johnson & Johnson initially recalled only those products with the same batch number as the Janus and Kellerman bottles. Others found Fahner the obvious choice. The Chicago Tylenol murders were a series of poisoning deaths resulting from drug tampering in the Chicago metropolitan area in 1982. But I didnt have the gray hair yet.. Im absolutely sure about that. Forty years later, it still bothers him. James Thompson, Illinois Secretary of State James Edgar and shook his head. Lewis, who now lives in the Boston area, has long denied any involvement in the murders and has never been charged. Three of the deaths occurred in Arlington Heights, where police told NBC Chicago last year that they still have the pills, bottles and boxes as evidence. Dr. Howard Markel Local police departments and states attorneys offices have been trying to crack the case for 40 years. Some expressed surprise at how casually other people treated the poisoned bottles. The FBIs involvement puzzled some because, as far as anyone knew, the federal agency didnt have jurisdiction in the case. J.J. Bittenbinder a tough-talking, mustachioed detective who would later gain fame as a TV safety expert served as a liaison to Fahners task force in Des Plaines. Michael Petros, DrPH Wednesday, September 29, 1982 at 6:30am CDT, the nightmare that was to be known as the "Tylenol Murders" began 1. It was the first of two such trips he made that day, initially with the Reiner bottle and later with the one that killed McFarland. Former Illinois Attorney General Ty Fahner stands on the former site of the Tylenol task force headquarters in Des Plaines, now an empty parking lot. Security cameras were scarce in suburban Chicago in 1982, but investigators checked the images that existed. Whoa, whoa, he recalled. (Phil Greer / Chicago Tribune). While I was not born yet and don't personally remember the Chicago Tylenol Murders of 1982, I do feel like I have experienced some of the anxiety that has never gone away. In one instance, someone reported that a chemistry professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago had been bragging about access to labs with cyanide. Other task force members, it should be noted, werent particularly fond of Chicagos efforts either. Nearly three weeks after the murders, for example, the FBI asked Chicago Tribune columnist Bob Greene to write a column about Mary Kellerman and include specific details such as the familys home address and the location of the little girls grave, with her parents permission. A new book by a former Johnson & Johnson employee suggests the Tylenol poisonings, which killed seven people in the Chicago area in 1982, took place in the company's production or distribution. Daniel Walker and several Chicago aldermen convicted in Operation Silver Shovel. Tylenol Ty, Ford said. 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