Posted on 07/10/2023 8:51:45 PM PDT by Morgana
The sole suspect in the 1982 Tylenol murders was found dead Sunday, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Tribune investigative reporters Christy Gutowski and Stacy St. Clair, who conducted a long investigation into the mystery, reported that sources told them prime suspect James Lewis died at his suburban Boston home at the age of 76.
In Sept. 1982, fear gripped the Chicago area and the country after seven suburban residents died due to taking Tylenol that was laced with lethal doses of potassium cyanide. Copycat killings followed later in the U.S.
Lewis was a tax consultant who sent a letter to Johnson & Johnson and said he would stop the killings if the company paid him a million dollars. He was convicted of extortion and spent 12 years in prison. But investigators never found hard evidence to tie him to the poisonings.
“(The FBI) went through some of his stuff and found the handbook of poisons,” St. Clair told WGN News last September. “And in the years since, they have finger printed that book and on page 196, the page that includes information on how much cyanide is needed for a fatal diose in the average human, they found Jim Lewis’ fingerprint.”
At around the same time Gutowski and St. Clair spoke with WGN News last fall, they said the FBI just returned back from interviewing Lewis near Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The former federal prosecutor who put Lewis behind bars for the extortion told the Tribune he was regretful Lewis was never held accountable for the killings.
“I was saddened to learn of James Lewis’ death,” Jeremy Margolis told the Tribune. “Not because he’s dead, but because he didn’t die in prison.”
(Excerpt) Read more at wgntv.com ...
*** In Sept. 1982, fear gripped the Chicago area and the country after seven suburban residents died due to taking Tylenol that was laced with lethal doses of potassium cyanide. Copycat killings followed later in the U.S.***
Fear gripped the entire U.S. with the Tylenol murders.
Thank goodness we learned how to work around this in the subsequent years.
I just watched the video on this guy. There was a lot I didn’t know. He probably did it.
Because of him now every product has a tamper proof seal. I remember the days before that. Now if the seal is broken, we don’t trust it.
And tamper proofing has cost billions. Before this, no one thought of poisoning random people.
And settled in Cambridge of all places.
….
This monster had not a shred of human empathy. His Tylenol killing spree even killed three members of one family. I hope he rots in Hell.
Just think, his victims could be alive today.
Tip top work from America’s premier law enforcement agency, the FBI (they of, “we will never know” the motivation of Las Vegas shooter).
I guess he wanted to be among "birds of a feather".
To this day when I’m fighting with the tamper proof what ever no matter if it’s food or drugs I think back to that 1982 case. It’s like a dark cloud over everything.
There was actually several of these but this was the first. They caught the other ones. I had no idea this guy was even a suspect.
And yet, I bought a bottle of potassium cyanide the other day and there was no safety seal! Someone could have contaminated it with Tylenol and I’d have been none the wiser.
I mean what a headache for you.
Right?
He didn’t do it.
That really was such a terrible moment when it happened. Glad people worked around it with tamper proof seals.
“No respect I tell ya! Last week I bought rat poison. The girl said “Should I wrap it up or are you going to eat here?’’.
He killed a man as well prior to the other murders and his wife did not leave him after he was accused. I say he had help from her.
.
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