The Mammoth Book of Killers at Large

through Chicago issuing warnings over loudspeakers and sending people rushing home to dispose of bottles. That evening the nightly news on all three US national television networks reported the deaths from the contaminated drug. A day later, the Food and Drug Administration advised consumers to avoid the Tylenol capsules, “until the series of deaths in the Chicago area can be clarified”. This caused a nationwide panic. A hospital in Chicago received 700 telephone calls about Tylenol in one day. In Washington state, Seattle’s Poison Control Center informed citizens that, if they had indeed been poisoned with cyanide, they would be dead before they were even able to make a telephone call to a hospital or the police. Nevertheless people in cities across the country were admitted to hospitals on suspicion of cyanide poisoning. Despite the panic, there were no further cases.

Officials at McNeil Consumer Products made clear that the tampering had not taken place at either of its plants, even though cyanide was available on the premises. Indeed, as the cyanide-laced Tylenol discovered so far came from different batches and in different shipments from both of the company’s plants, the contamination had not happened at the factory. And as the poisoned Tylenol had only been found in the Chicago area, the authorities concluded that any tampering must have occurred after the product had reached Illinois.

The lot numbers of the tainted Tylenol capsules were MD 1910, MC 2880, MA 1801, and MB2738. Clearly they had taken from different stores over a period of weeks or months. The culprit had then emptied out the painkiller, refilled the capsule with cyanide and returned them to the shelves of stores in the Chicago area. This was done relatively haphazardly. One of the bottles contained ten poisoned capsules; some five or less. One bottle each was left at the Walgreen Drug Store at 1601 North Wells, Chicago; Frank’s Finer Foods on Winfield road, Winfield; and the Jewel Foods store at 122 North Vail, Arlington Heights, and Jewel Foods, 948 Grove Mall, Elk Grove Village. Two were left at the Osco Drug Store, Woodfield Mall, Schaumburg, and two more bottles were recovered from one other retail outlet that was not identified.

The choice of locations for placement suggested that the poisoner drove along Routes 90/94, 290 and 294. That way, it would have only taken him a few hours to distribute his lethal packages. He could have done this in the evening without even taking time off from his day job. There was little risk. After all, stores were on the look-out for shoplifters, not people putting products back on the shelves. He picked stores in more affluent residential areas where those who picked the fatal product from the shelves were likely to have been local residents.

Investigators had no evidence as to who might have committed the heinous crime and there was continuing fear that more deaths might occur unless they caught the Tylenol Terrorist. They had no idea how many bottles had been tampered with, or whether the culprit would strike again. Thousands of bottles of Tylenol removed from the shelves had to be tested. Then, on 2 October 1982, the police discovered another contaminated pack among a batch removed from a drug store in the Chicago suburbs. In an effort to put an end to the senseless deaths, Johnson & Johnson offered a reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the terrorist.

The poison used in the Tylenol Murders was the compound potassium cyanide, commonly used in metal electroplating, gold and silver extraction, fertilizer production, and the photographic and cinematographic film processing industries. The poison could have been obtained relatively easily there.

The killer emptied each of the capsules completely, then refilled them with the grey crystalline potassium cyanide. The capsules that were recovered all appeared deformed or bulky. This would have been obvious to a careful eye, but no one was anticipating such an act in 1982.

There was no clear motive for the murders as no demand for money was made by the perpetrator. The poisoner could have made money on the stock market as Johnson & Johnson stock dropped dramatically after the plot was discovered. However, one would have to have had a detailed grasp of stock market trading to make money when a stock is going down. The shoddy work done on capsules themselves hardly revealed that level of competence.

None of the victims seemed likely to be the possible target of a murder plot covered up by further six random murders. All the victims were relatively young. They were not wealthy and carried no large life assurance policies. The crime bought the killer no fame or fortune. He could hardly boast about what he had done.

The police could only speculate that the perpetrator had a grudge against Johnson & Johnson, society in general, or perhaps just the stores where he had placed the poisoned Tylenol. Perhaps he had been caught shoplifting in these stores. Unfortunately, this line of investigation led nowhere. The only clear clue was that the distribution of the tampered bottles suggested that the Tylenol Terrorist lived in west Chicago.

A month after the poisonings, a 48-year-old dockhand who worked at a warehouse that supplied Tylenol to two of the stores where the contaminated bottles were sold became the prime suspect. He was an amateur chemist and the police claimed that he had admitted to working on a project that involved the use of cyanide. According to an article in Newsweek, a search of his apartment turned up a book that described “how to kill people by stuffing poison into capsules”, two one-way tickets to Thailand and a number of weapons.

Although there was no hard evidence connecting him with the poisoning, the police charged the dockhand with illegal possession of firearms. He went to jail, but was released on a $6,000 bond. Soon the focus of the investigation turned elsewhere.

Johnson & Johnson received a handwritten note, demanding $1 million to put an end to the poisonings. The police traced the note to a tax accountant and con artist named James W. Lewis who was already on the run after a jewel robbery and the murder of his boss in Kansas City. A warrant was issued and the FBI began a manhunt across four states for Lewis and his wife LeAnn.

In the last week of October, the Chicago Tribune received a letter from “Robert Richardson”—one of the many aliases used by Lewis. It claimed the he and his wife were not involved in the Tylenol murders and, should they be arrested, informed the police they were unarmed.

Meanwhile on 11 November 1982—just six weeks after the first Tylenol poisoning Johnson & Johnson put Tylenol back on the market, this time with a triple-seal tamper-resistant package. The product was advertised widely. A $2.50 coupon was given to purchasers and Tylenol quickly regained more than 98 per cent of its sales.

After a ten-week search, the FBI got a tip from a librarian in the New York Public Library who had recognized Lewis from a wanted poster the FBI had sent out. He was a regular reader. On 13 December 1982, the FBI agents surrounded the reading room of New York Public Library and arrested Lewis. His wife LeAnn turned herself into the Chicago police the following week.

Under interrogation, Lewis denied having anything to do with the poisonings. But he also denied writing the extortion letter to Johnson & Johnson, even though it was in his handwriting and his fingerprints were on it. According to Newsweek another extortion letter threatening more Tylenol deaths was sent to the White House demanding that Ronald Reagan changed his tax policies. Again this was in Lewis’s handwriting. Again he denied writing it.

A New York hotel register showed that the couple had been checked in there when the poisoned bottles had been planted. LeAnn Lewis worked in the city. She took no time off. Witnesses said that she had lunch with her husband every day and he met her after work. No train, bus or airline records put the Lewises back to Chicago during the time the bottles were tampered with. This ruled them out and the police had to admit the poisoner was still at large. Lewis was found guilty of extortion and six unrelated counts of mail and credit-card fraud. He served 13 years of a 20-year sentence and was released on parole in 1995.

A second man, Roger Arnold, was investigated and cleared of the killings. However, the media attention caused him to have a nervous breakdown and he blamed bar-owner Marty Sinclair for fingering him to the police. He shot and killed a man he believed to be Sinclair, but who was in fact an innocent man named John Stanisha. Arnold wound up serving 15 years of a 30-year sentence for second-degree murder.

The crime remains unsolved and the $100,000 reward, posted by Johnson & Johnson for the capture and conviction of the Tylenol Terrorist, has never been claimed.

However, the Tylenol killings set off a wave of copycat product tamperings afterwards. In 1982 alone, the US Food and Drugs Administration recorded 270 incidents—36 of them “hard core”. A 14-year-old boy in Minneapolis named Marlon Barrow became ill after drinking chocolate milk that had been contaminated and 27-year-old Harry Browning in Florida was sick after drinking orange juice laced with insecticide. Neither died. But Congress was so worried that, in May 1983, it passed the “Tylenol Bill” that made the malicious tampering of consumer products a Federal offence.

Then in February 1986, 23-year-old Diane Elsroth was visiting her boyfriend in New York, where she took two Extra Strength Tylenol capsules from a new “tamper-proof” bottle. She was dead within minutes. Again the