History Book: The Tylenol tampering case

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday, July 17th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Next up, the WORLD History Book … for more than 40 years, Chicago’s Tylenol tampering case has officially remained unsolved. But the man many thought responsible died in his home last week. WORLD Radio Executive Producer Paul Butler has the story.

WGN NEWS: Well, the only suspect in the 1982 Tylenol murders has died. James Lewis was never charged in the deaths of seven Chicago area residents who took Tylenol laced with cyanide.

PAUL BUTLER, REPORTER: Last Sunday, Massachusetts police discovered 76-year-old James Lewis unresponsive in his home. Officials declared his death “not suspicious…” For four decades, Lewis had maintained his innocence. Even so, he remained the primary suspect behind the random Tylenol murders.

The first victim was hospitalized on September 28th, 1982. She died the next day.

CBS2: 12-year old Mary Kellerman was a student at Jane Addams Junior High in Schaumburg. She died yesterday morning at Alexian Brothers Hospital in Elk Grove village.

Paramedics noticed an Extra Strength Tylenol bottle at the Kellerman home. The next day, Adam Janus consumed contaminated Tylenol from the same production lot and died in his home. His newlywed brother and his wife came to comfort the widow. They took some of that same Tylenol to take the edge off—not knowing it was the cause of Adam's death. They were rushed to the hospital and later died as well. By October 1st, there were seven victims.

CBS 2: The death of 35 year old Paula Prince stunned her family and friends. Her body was discovered last night inside her apartment on Chicago's near north side. It is believed that Paula Prince took the Tylenol that killed her sometime Wednesday evening.

Investigators determined that the poisoning occurred after the capsules were in the Chicagoland area. Police believed the perpetrator brought the bottles home, carefully opened the packaging, added potassium cyanide to some of the capsules, then returned the packages to the store shelves.

CBS 2: In Chicago today city inspectors began checking stores to be certain all Tylenol was off the shelf. The supplies are all being tagged and will be taken to the labs for testing.

Besides the five known bottles, health officials soon discovered more contaminated Tylenol.

CNN: The phone has been ringing off the hook at Rush Presbyterian St. Luke's Medical Center in Chicago. It's the regional poison control center for the entire Chicago area.

Chicago Mayor Jane Byrne insisted on a city-wide recall:

MAYOR BRYNE: We would like them to get out of their home. That's number one. It would aid and assist the police in this investigation if they had the time and the place of purchase of Tylenol in the city.

Johnson and Johnson eventually recalled 31 million bottles of Extra Strength Tylenol capsules nationwide.

WAVY TV: If you have Extra Strength Tylenol at home and want to check the lot number, look on the box or right on the label of the bottle.

The company received an anonymous letter claiming responsibility and demanding a million dollars. Officials eventually arrested suspect James William Lewis on December 13th, 1982:

CBS 2: Lewis has denied any role in the poisoning of seven Chicago area residents in late September.

Lewis admitted to sending the letter but nothing more. He claimed that he was only trying to get even with the company after they had mistreated his wife—a former employee of the pharmaceutical company. At the time, police couldn’t find any physical evidence to connect Lewis to the poisoning, except the letter. A jury then convicted Lewis of attempted extortion. He spoke with CBS 2 Chicago’s Mike Parker after the sentencing:

PARKER: Don't you feel you exploited a lot of people's fears and made worse an already near hysterical situation with all of those poisoning deaths.

LEWIS: It was not my intention to do that. Number one. Number two, I did not release that letter to the public. The FBI released that letter to the public and injected it into that situation with the public.

PARKER: Did you commit the Tylenol murders?

LEWIS: I did not.

PARKER: Do you know who did?

LEWIS: I do not know who did. No. I have been the officially designated evil one by the Justice Department. When one is the focus of that much hatred. It is virtually impossible for a person to convince very many people that he is not as he has been described. It will take a while and I am working on that and I will keep working on that and I will keep fighting on that for as long as I can.

Lewis left prison in October 1995 and moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he lived until his death last week.

After the Tylenol murders, dozens of copycat attacks sprang up around the country—resulting in the widespread use of tamper-proof packaging:

WAVY TV: Safety seals are one way to prevent contamination if the seal has been broken and you know the medication has been tampered with, and it's already being suggested that safety seals will become a required part of medications packaging.

And it didn’t just stop with medicines. The Tylenol murders also led to snap-off ring seals on beverage caps, plastic seals around many edible products, and those foil tabs beneath condiment caps. Many in the pharmaceutical industry also chose to move away from capsules after the incident.

Johnson and Johnson lost more than 100 million dollars due to the recall and lawsuits.

TYLENOL EXECUTIVE: We are now pleased to announce that we are reintroducing tylenol to the city of Chicago in safety seal packaging.

Johnson and Johnson’s handling of the crisis is often cited as one of the best examples of how to respond to victims, manage a public health emergency, and express more concern about customer safety than one’s own public image.

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book, I’m Paul Butler.

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