I mean, theres 10,000 reasons why people compete with each other. In the meantime, Kasia Janus has said shes dealt with occasionally overwhelming sadness because of the graduations her father couldnt attend. She also told CNN she had invited many people to a memorial service and celebration of life luncheon honoring her father in hopes that shed learn things she never got the chance to because of the murder. They came up with nothing. Nothing has come of that January 2022 meeting. I dont know what he thought. Relatives, including two who took polygraph tests, were quickly eliminated from suspicion. 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. (Michael Budrys / Chicago Tribune). The tips were written up on 3x5 index cards. A decadeslong investigation has centered around Massachusetts man James Lewis, 76, who was 36 at the time of the murders. (Chicago Tribune), Look, like any other series of government bureaucracies, theres always tension between agencies, he said. Security cameras were scarce in suburban Chicago in 1982, but investigators checked the images that existed. And neither does the DNA. 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. As a result of the crime, makers of Tylenol developed new product protection methods. Rosen's theory is that the tampering did not happen on store shelves, but at the manufacturing plant before the product was shipped out. You understand? Ford said he told Stein. Among the earliest priorities was 24-hour surveillance outside the victims homes, on the assumption that someone who killed anonymously would want to see the results of their work and might drive by the house. What was he liked as a boss?, She added: Good and bad, I want to hear those stories, because its a reflection of who I am., Hurricane Ian: South Carolina and Florida comb wreckage to assess deadly toll, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. Retired FBI agent Roy Lane Jr., shown in August, is the only member of law enforcement who has been part of the Tylenol investigation in its entirety. Johnson & Johnson initially recalled only those products with the same batch number as the Janus and Kellerman bottles. See where the eight tainted Tylenol bottles were purchased or discovered. 3: A Nightmare on Halloween: With Molly Jean Brandenburg, Carter Roy. So, the theory was the tampering took place at the store, said FBI agent Lane. (Carl Wagner / Chicago Tribune). But I didnt have the gray hair yet.. The tainted bottle from the Schaumburg pharmacy contained three partial prints on the capsules, but (they) were not suitable for comparison, the memo states. She has received numerous national honors for her work. Illinois Attorney General Ty Fahner talks about the Tylenol deaths on Oct. 1, 1982. He also would have a history of animal cruelty, Lane told the Tribune. If you are curious, come to a small house on a quiet, winding street in Elk Grove Village. FBI agent Shari Kouba, one of the few women on the task force, ran the tips desk. I knew how to organize things.. After eliminating the possibility that the poisonings happened at the plant level, investigators scoured the backgrounds of workers at trucking companies and storage warehouses involved in the distribution of the tainted bottles, as well as other company records. 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. I realized I was in the deep end of the pool, he said. (Don Casper / Chicago Tribune), Obviously, Johnson & Johnson didnt put cyanide in their own product. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune), John Fellmann at his home in Huntley in September. And my next thought was that there are too many cooks in the kitchen.. They were particularly concerned that something happened during the manufacturing or the shipping or storage, Wolnik said. Whoa, whoa, he recalled. To this day, however, the perpetrators of these murders have never been found. 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. Tylenol murders investigators pursue new charges in 40-year case. Chicago police Officer Sam Barsevich, left, takes inventory of Tylenol bottles that residents turned in at his station on Oct. 2, 1982. 1: Poisoning the Well: Directed by Travis Clark. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/tylenol-murders-1982, Why Eleanor Roosevelts civics book for kids is making a comeback. What was he like in school? His wife whom he had just married fell limp in the living room a short while after that. After just one or two task force meetings, Ford and Gildea told their boss they werent going back. Reporters from the Chicago Tribune tracked down Lewis last month as part of the investigative podcast "Unsealed: The Tylenol Murders" and asked him if he has any theories on who the Tylenol Killer might be. The FBIs counterintelligence unit even reached out to their Soviet counterparts to see if they had any spy satellite images that could help, according to former FBI agent Grey Steed. In work that would later be heralded in scientific journals, the scientists also tested the cyanide kept at the Tylenol plant to see if it somehow got into the production process. The state police memo indicates fingerprints were found on at least one of the bottles, as well as a full print on the inside of a different bottles box. The best suspect for the Tylenol murders has always been James William Lewis, who sent an extortion letter to Johnson & Johnson demanding $1 million to stop the murders. The Tylenol Murders Pt. As a state crime, murder fell under the purview of local law enforcement. I thought, well, this is rather impressive, Siekmann said. The task force didnt know who or why.. The dire situation, both in terms of human life and business, made it imperative that the Johnson & Johnson executives respond swiftly and authoritatively. Early on the morning of Sept. 29, 1982, a tragic, medical mystery began with a sore throat and a runny nose. Two main suspects in this unsolved case are James Lewis and Roger Arnold, who had both been linked to this occurrence in some way. It was 1982. Chicago police Superintendent Richard Brzeczek talks about the Tylenol investigation on Oct. 7, 1982, about a week after the seven deaths. (Chicago Tribune), If you are the Tylenol killer, though, you may be harboring just the vaguest curiosity about the people on the other end of your plan: The people who were unfortunate enough to purchase the bottle you had touched, Greene wrote. (Chicago Tribune archive). the fact remains, the Tylenol murders of 1982 . 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. What are you giving this story for? So they ran him off the stage and I got up there.. Investigators also collected more than 200 cyanide samples from Chicago-area businesses, facilities and institutions and sent them to an FDA research laboratory in Cincinnati. Her parents gave permission. Over the next several months, Fahners task force would do groundbreaking police work, generate 19,000 pages of investigative reports, be accused of playing politics and, ultimately, fail to hold anyone accountable for the murders. Someone, police hypothesized, must have taken bottles off the shelves of local grocers and drug stores in the Chicago area, laced the capsules with poison, and then returned the restored packages to the shelves to be purchased by the unknowing victims. The investigation would fork, taking the FBI and Chicago police down vastly different paths. 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. And so the Department of Justice just looked up a law and by a little bit of a hook and a crook said the FBI has jurisdiction because of an FDA law (about) truth in labeling.. Extra-Strength Tylenol, shown in a Tribune studio photograph, once was packaged in a paper box with an unglued lid. Several people had died within the last day in the Chicago suburbs after ingesting Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules laced with cyanide and the situation needed attention. The killer may have salted the bottles with cyanide-laced capsules while standing in the store aisle, investigators thought. Extra-Strength Tylenol bottles, for example, came in a paper box with an unglued lid. Bottles that werent tossed out were sent to J&J, the FDA and various government laboratories for testing. Perhaps he traded homemade bombs for poisoned pills. Thats clear, Margolis told the Tribune. It wasnt a grab for authority. 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. Here's what to know about the history of the case and the latest developments. The Unsolved Tylenol Murders of 1982: The Unabomber Theory Written by C.W.S. 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. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune), If you stopped a thousand people on the street, youd be lucky if one of them could tell you who Ty Fahner was. Her parents gave permission. Photo by Yvonne Hemsey/Getty Images. Manufacturer Johnson & Johnson recalled 31 million Tylenol bottles as panic spread nationwide. Severns worked on the case for three days before he realized no one had offered an update to young Mary Kellermans grieving parents. Some worked at the medical examiners office, which played a key role in figuring out the cyanide connection. He bought a rancid ham at Jewel and when he opened it, it was spoiled. They gave her one extra-strength Tylenol capsule that, unbeknownst to them, was laced with the highly poisonous potassium cyanide. Im not saying that the task force didnt work or thats why the case was never solved, Severns said. Police departments and fire stations began collecting bottles, as well. In 2010, DuPage County prosecutors filed a sealed affidavit stating investigators had found DNA on three bottles and the capsules inside, according to documents obtained by the Tribune. Adam Janus, a 27-year-old postal worker, wasnt feeling well and without having any way to know the mortal peril that the bottle posed for him, he took a pill from it before going to sleep that day. That box had been turned in, along with an unused bottle, a couple weeks after the murders by the wife of a DuPage County judge. Fahner left the dinner immediately and made calls throughout the drive home, taking advantage of his position as a statewide official with access to a car phone, then a relatively rare piece of technology. The White House, however, had ordered the FBI to find a way into the case amid growing public panic. 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. Ford and Gildea arrived at the campus with hopes of a break in the case, only to find out the so-called professor was a high school boy pretending to work at UIC so he could pick up college girls. But something more sinister was afoot when Kasias paternal uncle Stanley Janus and his wife, Theresa Tarasewicz Janus, each took pills from the same Tylenol bottle that Adam had bought in an attempt to fight headaches. Employees of the Chicago City Health Department continue to test Tylenol medication for the presence of deadly cyanide at the Department's lab on Oct. 7, 1982. The Tylenol Murders Remain One of the Nation's Biggest Unsolved Mysteries Popular belief is that the killer was James Lewis, the man imprisoned for 13 years for extorting Johnson & Johnson in the. Left: Elk Grove Village Detective Michael Severns said investigators were so intent on chasing leads that they at times lost sight of the grieving families. Extra-Strength Tylenol, shown in a Tribune studio photograph, once was packaged in a paper box with an unglued lid. Deputy coroner Siekmann recalled going to Winfield to pick up the Tylenol collected from Reiners house a few hours after her death. Christy Gutowski focuses her work on stories about criminal justice, public corruption and issues that impact the everyday man. At first, the story focused in the Chicago/Cook County . The Tribune interviewed nearly two dozen members of the task force, many of whom confirmed the reports veracity and added their own perspective. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration then cautioned the public against taking the pain reliever in capsule form. They can account for the differing DNA profiles. The bottle's cap was easily opened. The Tylenol Murders Pt. 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. The prints, however, dont match the prime suspect. The agencies, at times, clashed with each other. IE 11 is not supported. All Rights Reserved. The FBI put about three dozen agents on the case, under the premise that the agency needed to determine whether Johnson & Johnson had violated federal law by failing to list potassium cyanide among the active ingredients in Tylenol. Former DuPage County Coroner Pete Siekmann, who in 1982 was a deputy coroner, handled the Tylenol bottles from Mary "Lynn" Reiner and Mary McFarland. Over the next few days, three more strange deaths occurred: 35-year-old Mary McFarland of Elmhurst, Illinois, 35-year-old Paula Prince of Chicago, and 27-year-old Mary Weiner of Winfield, Illinois.. The task force knew the mechanism behind the murders, Fellmann said. Next week: Police investigate a poor mans James Bond, and an eighth person dies. The attorney general had no authority to intervene, but Fahner had been an outstanding federal prosecutor, a well-liked director of the state police and an effective leader of major criminal investigations. Some investigators on the case, including a few still involved with it, considered the rendered profile too vague to be of any real use. (Stan Policht / Chicago Tribune). You shove those up my nose again, youre going to get socked in the face. Some of those interviews may have gone to an agent who didnt do a good job., 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. He investigated the Tylenol poisonings in the Janus family and later served as police chief in Island Lake. And they had a very good theory as to when they were placed. 6 Amazon travel essentials for your next getaway, starting at $12. Stacy has a journalism degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia, with minors in American politics and Spanish. The victims had all taken Tylenol-branded acetaminophen capsules that had been laced with potassium cyanide. With no apparent motive and little evidence to go on, it was a tough task. Conspiracy theories about motives and suspects for all these heinous acts continue to be bandied about on the Internet to this day. Some of the investigators started using it privately, too. Testing found cyanide in the Extra-Strength Tylenol capsule on the right. The more she . The task force questioned stock boys, managers, disgruntled former employees and problematic customers at the hot locations, the teams name for the stores that sold the tainted Tylenol. Six suburbanites had already died from cyanide poisoning by that time, but this was Chicagos first and, in the end, only victim. 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. Whats going on? Later that morning, Siekmann drove to the northwest suburbs to share what he had learned with a group of law enforcement officials assembled by Fahners team. Sadly, the tragedies that resulted from the Tylenol poisonings can never be undone. The agents didnt bother to pretend that labeling rules were their true motivation for getting involved. Tylenols parent company, Johnson & Johnson, also saw its stock price drop after the news about the tainted capsules broke. Within a year, and after an investment of more than $100 million, Tylenols sales rebounded to its healthy past and it became, once again, the nations favorite over-the-counter pain reliever. She rarely heard how the tips panned out. Oct. 2, 1982: CBS 2's Phil Walters reports on the investigation into the Tylenol poisonings. Thank you. The poisonings spanned multiple towns and two counties. Manufacturer Johnson & Johnson recalled 31 million Tylenol bottles as panic spread nationwide following the deaths. Theories The first suspect is 48 year old dock worker Roger Arnold, who said some suspicious things about the Tylenol murders at a bar one night. 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. 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