Report: Main suspect in 1982 Tylenol murders found dead

WGN9 CHICAGO ^ | July 10, 2023 | Andy Koval, Patrick Elwood

[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.”

[Wallace T.]

I do not trust any consumer products from China, especially medicine. This is the country that gave us COVID. If we ever get in a war with them, we would be the 21st Century equivalent of the Civil War South, with insufficient manufacturing to sustain a war. Cut off from Northern goods and blockaded from getting replacements from Europe, the Confederacy had too few factories to provide their army with munitions necessary to sustain a long war. We have allowed Red China and other countries to replace our industrial base, medicine included.

[Fido969]

I always thought the packaging industry did it.

[Leep]

This is back when the FBI mostly did its job.

[Dan in Wichita]

Many of us FReepers are old enough to remember the Tylenol scare of 1982.

Wow, 41 years ago. We were young then.

[wintertime]

Very cute! :)

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

I remember 1982 well. In one case of the death of a child, at the burial, a TV crew took film of the crowd. One young man, seeing the camera crew, covered his face and took off.

[Chode]

*

[LouAvul]

Yep. I never thought they would recover from that.

[TribalPrincess2U]

Some thigs nee to be forgotten. Giving home grown terrorist ideas. and there’s plenty of them.