Illinois Attorney General Ty Fahner talks about the Tylenol deaths on Oct. 1, 1982. He had never been better known in Illinois and was inching up in the polls too. (Charles Knoblock / AP). Helena Tarasewicz, mother of Tylenol victim Theresa "Terri" Janus, weeps over the casket containing her daughter's body during graveside services at Maryhill Cemetery in Niles in 1982. 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. 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. I knew how to organize things.. I was the detective at the scene. Lane would think of that line a year later when, without prompting, a suspect called him and offered to help solve the case. To this day, however, the perpetrators of these murders have never been found. Following the same theory, investigators took pictures . Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeremy Margolis, shown in his Chicago office in July, was part of the original Tylenol task force in 1982. Pain in the neck, Hogberg said of his CPD counterparts. At first, the story focused in the Chicago/Cook County . John Fellmann, whose last name was misspelled on his ID from 1980, was a young Arlington Heights police detective when he was assigned to the Tylenol murders. In one instance, someone reported that a chemistry professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago had been bragging about access to labs with cyanide. He said Marys mother, Jeanna, asked him if she should have noticed that someone had tampered with the bottle. The most promising leads involved people doing curious things with chemicals. The police investigation into the Tylenol murders has centered around prime suspect James Lewis for decades. The Tylenol Murders Pt. Kouba reviewed each as it came in, deciding which needed a field agents attention and which could be placed in a bin with other ludicrous claims. 1996 - 2023 NewsHour Productions LLC. Im not saying that the task force didnt work or thats why the case was never solved, Severns said. The Tylenol murders of 1982,was a pointless killing spree that resulted in the death of seven Chicago area people from Tylenol tablets .The Tylenol poisoning killings was from tampering with over-the-counter Tylenol branded acetaminophen pills laced with potassium cyanide. 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. "Ladies, you ever been harassed for something for 40 years that you had nothing to do with?" Customers who had a problem, anybody that could make some money out of it.. Seven people died in 1982 after taking painkillers from bottle someone police do not know who had slipped cyanide pills into. 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. Joe McQuaid, a task force investigator with the state police who had worked for Fahner when he was director, acknowledged it was an unorthodox setup. Nearly three weeks after the murders, for example, the FBI asked Chicago Tribune columnist Bob Greene to write a column about Mary Kellerman and include specific details such as the familys home address and the location of the little girls grave, with her parents permission. Investigators took pictures of people who attended the victims funerals to see if they could capture anyone acting unusual. Things were chaotic. newsletter for analysis you wont find anywhereelse. READ: The awful work of the real doctors who inspired M*A*S*H. The case continued to be confusing to the police, the drug maker and the public at large. Meanwhile, a 12-year-old child named Mary Kellerman had also died suddenly in another Chicago suburb after taking an Extra-Strength Tylenol. 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. Several victims families told the Tribune they didnt hear much from investigators after those initial interviews. Complaining of a sore throat and a stuffy nose, her parents gave Mary one Extra Strength Tylenol capsule and let her stay home from school. Johnson & Johnson initially recalled only those products with the same batch number as the Janus and Kellerman bottles. Tensions flared, even among law enforcement personnel sincerely dedicated to the job. Thats just human nature. Forty years after that terrifying period in September 1982, investigators say new evidence and a potential motive may be enough to finally solve the case. Or, at the very least, get them to remember his name. What are the Tylenol murders? Fahner looked at all the power brokers on the platform U.S. Sen. Charles Percy, Gov. As a result of the crime, makers of Tylenol developed new product protection methods. That testing uncovered three more poisoned bottles: two turned in by customers in Wheaton and Chicago and one found on a Schaumburg pharmacy shelf. Critics who had prematurely announced the death of the brand Tylenol were now praising the companys handling of the matter. Investigators soon confirmed there was lethally poisonous cyanide inside the Tylenol capsules in question. Fahner ordered his staff to work through the night, calling local police, sheriffs, coroners, the FBI, the FDA, prosecutors and public health officials. Come to 1425 Armstrong Lane.. She also laments that her dad never got to meet her and her husband, her son, her stepson and her step-grandson. Stanley died that very day and Theresa died two days later. It was 1982. I dont think that bore fruit at all.. John Fellmann, whose last name was misspelled on his ID from 1980, was a young Arlington Heights police detective when he was assigned to the Tylenol murders. Authorities already considered the womens deaths to be cyanide related by the time they contacted Fahner during his campaign event. Nothing has come of that January 2022 meeting. In all, the task force had only eight bottles to offer clues to where and when the tampering could have taken place. Her parents gave permission. Flight attendant Paula Prince bought a tainted bottle of Tylenol at the Walgreens at Wells Street and North Avenue in Chicago. I dont want to get off here, he quietly said. As Fahners team made calls, a DuPage County deputy coroner named Pete Siekmann sat in an office at the Illinois Department of Public Healths toxicology lab in Chicago and waited to see if the Tylenol capsules taken by Mary Lynn Reiner and Mary Sue McFarland were poisoned. She rarely heard how the tips panned out. Others found Fahner the obvious choice. Bottles that werent tossed out were sent to J&J, the FDA and various government laboratories for testing. Back then, bottles of pills did not have tamper-proof seals, just a cotton ball stuffed inside. The substance was grainier than the untainted Tylenol on the left. Indeed, the Johnson & Johnson recall became a classic case study in business schools across the nation. Paramedics came and took Adam Janus to a nearby hospital, where doctors pronounced him dead from what they suspected may have been a heart attack. The FBIs involvement puzzled some because, as far as anyone knew, the federal agency didnt have jurisdiction in the case. I always wear the blue suit and the red tie, Lane said. Despite the passage of time and, in a way, because of it the bottles still may offer clues as to who poisoned the capsules. He brought personal knowledge (as the former state police director) and experience regarding a criminal investigation. And it took over my life.. So, the theory was the tampering took place at the store, said FBI agent Lane. The results came back positive for cyanide at 1:30 a.m. His boss assigned him to the Janus murders two days earlier because the departments more seasoned detectives were working the fatal beating of a homeless man in a local park. (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. Whoa, whoa, he recalled. Subscribe to our Science Newsletter to explore the You know, boost exposure and stuff like that.. Kasia Janus also always verifies products are properly sealed before she buys anything at stores, she said in a recently published series of interviews with CNN that described the gut-wrenching legacy left behind for her by the unsolved Tylenol killings, which made tampering with medications as well as other consumer goods a federal crime but remain unsolved. His task force partners the FBI and state police had blindsided the Elk Grove Village detective, and he was angry. The task force knew the mechanism behind the murders, Fellmann said. Studies have found women who kill use poison more often than men do, but they typically target people they know. IE 11 is not supported. And as soon as we got the word out that Tylenol had been laced, people said, What do we do? I said, Well, if youve got any in your medicine cabinet either put it in a plastic bag and keep it or throw it away. And lives were at risk. He needed to be there, no matter how much he hated campaigning. It didnt take long for Fellmann to recognize the pressures and expectations under which the newly formed task force would operate. 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. What are you giving this story for? So they ran him off the stage and I got up there.. He told her no, then carried the memory of the Kellermans anguish with him for the rest of his time on the task force. James Thompson, Illinois Secretary of State James Edgar and shook his head. 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. And you know, some agents are better than other agents and can really do a good job. Pursuing the mission, however, eventually sent the FBI and the Chicago Police Department in two different directions. Male murderers are more likely, in general, to kill randomly and on a large scale. The death toll now stood at five: Reiner, McFarland, Adam Janus of Arlington Heights, his brother Stanley Janus of Lisle and 12-year-old Mary Kellerman of Elk Grove Village. DNA evidence wasnt part of police work at the time, but it would become a factor in the case a quarter-century later. Tribune reporter Stacy St. Clair told NBC News correspondent Kathy Park on TODAY Friday that a number of law enforcement sources close to the investigation have told her that Lewis is the only person currently described as a target of the investigation. The profilers predicted the culprits past likely included treatment for mental health issues and an attack on his parents. The gelatin-based capsules were especially popular because they were slick and easy to swallow. The Chicago Tylenol murders were a series of poisoning deaths resulting from drug tampering in the Chicago metropolitan area in 1982. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune). Many people who handled potential evidence in 1982 didnt wear gloves because it wasnt protocol at the time. So as we organized, there were about 10, 15 different avenues of investigations to pursue, like disgruntled employees, former employees, lawsuits, Lane said. Chicago police Detectives Jimmy Gildea. Kasia said she long blamed herself for her fathers death, even though she was just in preschool when it happened. The couple were later pronounced dead, too. The lot numbers for the McFarland, Reiner and Prince bottles indicated they were manufactured in Round Rock, Texas, and went to different warehouses in the Chicago area before ending up on store shelves. And he grabs the pills, picks them up in his hand, dumps a whole bunch of them in his hand and starts sniffing, Ford recalled. They were particularly concerned that something happened during the manufacturing or the shipping or storage, Wolnik said. Stores were pulling the product off shelves. In a surveillance still photo, you can see a man who looks remarkably similar to Lewis standing in the background as one of the victims, Paula Prince, checks out. 40 years later, Kasia Janus is sharing. Early on, the task force decided to instruct the public to get rid of their Tylenol by either turning it in to police departments or throwing it away. It started in 1982, not long after the murders. The Tylenol murders: The story of a 40-year-old unsolved case begins with a terrifying medical mystery. I mean, theres 10,000 reasons why people compete with each other. Among those questioned was a clerical worker who was fired for repeatedly missing work. Her parents gave permission. He is the director of the Center for the History of Medicine and the George E. Wantz Distinguished Professor of the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan and the author ofThe Secret of Life: Rosalind Franklin, James Watson, Francis Crick and the Discovery of DNAs Double Helix (W.W. Norton, September 21). Mary was dead by 7 a.m. That thrill, however, would eventually diminish over time and the killer would seek more excitement, according to the profilers. As the 40th anniversary of the 1982 Tylenol murders approaches, investigators are working with prosecutors on a now-or-maybe-never effort to hold a longtime suspect responsible for the. Reports would be written in triplicate so each member would get a copy. Both experienced throbbing headaches, a not uncommon response to a death in the family and each took a Tylenol extra-strength capsule or two from the same bottle Adam had used earlier in the day. In the years that followed, Fellmann would rise through the ranks of the Arlington Heights Police Department and eventually become police chief of far north suburban Island Lake. Following the same theory, investigators took pictures of everyone who attended the victims funerals and set up time-lapse cameras at grave sites to see if they could capture anyone acting unusual. In this op-ed, he reflects on his experiences leading the public health response to the Tylenol murders of 1982. 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. With absolute certainty, they can say the following: Records show at least four fingerprints were found during the initial investigation. The dire situation, both in terms of human life and business, made it imperative that the Johnson & Johnson executives respond swiftly and authoritatively. The first few days were spent talking to people closest to Prince and sifting through the many tips they received. Most working detectives really dont trust the FBI, and the FBI doesnt trust us, Ford said. . I realized I was in the deep end of the pool, he said. And the last point that they wanted to strike home was that the person who committed this is enjoying the attention right now and the fact that he or she had outsmarted the law enforcement, Lane said. Testing found cyanide in the Extra-Strength Tylenol capsule on the right. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune). Beginning on Sept. 29, 1982, and over the next week, seven people were murdered in the Chicago area after unknowingly taking Tylenol pills that were spiked by a killer. The Tylenol Murders Victims Mary Kellerman On September 29, 1982, 12 year old Mary Kellerman woke up feeling ill. Marquette 10 is one of a thousand reasons why theres tension, personal jealousy, personal ambition, jurisdictional turf fights. I said, Agent, agent. The program went far beyond any database previously used by law enforcement in Illinois. Jose Rosa, right, was one of hundreds of Chicago city employees and volunteers to distribute warnings about cyanide-laced Tylenol in fall 1982. Our property guy, he couldnt keep up with it., Chicago police Officer Sam Barsevich, left, takes inventory of Tylenol bottles that residents turned in at his station on Oct. 2, 1982. In late September of 1982 seven people were killed after an unknown suspect placed cyanide laced Tylenol pills in store bottles. You know, because Ty was just a classy lawyer, and he never was a politician, he said. They also started grumbling about politics overshadowing their work. Many of the task force members interviewed by the Tribune recounted difficulties as more than 100 people tried to work as a team. The decision cost the company more than $100 million, an enormous amount in 1982. Our highest responsibility has always been the health and safety of our consumers," Johnson & Johnson said in a statement to NBC News. wide worlds of science, health andtechnology. When the family returned home, both Adam's brother Stanley and Stanely's wife Theresa took a Tylenol, resulting in both of their deaths. Former DuPage County Coroner Pete Siekmann, who in 1982 was a deputy coroner, handled the Tylenol bottles from Mary "Lynn" Reiner and Mary McFarland. When the column ran, Severns knew instantly that the authorities had planted the story. 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. Former Chicago police Detective Jimmy Gildea, shown at his Chicago home in July, investigated the death of Tylenol victim Paula Prince. 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. Neither did the chemist who performed the cyanide test. I do think it created a lot of problems because youre always thinking theres somebody doing something behind your back.. In the end, it was decided that the state police would take the lead among the agencies and that investigators would be divided into nearly four dozen teams. The red cap was easily flipped open, with nothing but a little piece of cotton left to cover the capsules. Helena Tarasewicz, mother of Tylenol victim Theresa "Terri" Janus, weeps over the casket containing her daughter's body during graveside services at Maryhill Cemetery in Niles in 1982. Investigators took pictures of people who attended the victims funerals to see if they could capture anyone acting unusual. Police departments were working the murders in relative isolation, and each county had its own states attorney to oversee the case. They gave her one extra-strength Tylenol capsule that, unbeknownst to them, was laced with the highly poisonous potassium cyanide. Authorities were convinced the killer didnt know any of the victims. Relatives, including two who took polygraph tests, were quickly eliminated from suspicion. And they had a very good theory as to when they were placed. Investigators quickly dismissed the possibility that the killer was targeting a single victim and the other bottles were contaminated to make it harder to solve that murder. 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. We were getting flooded with calls, said John Fellmann, an Arlington Heights detective assigned to the case. The company also introduced price reductions and a new version of their pills called the caplet a tablet coated with slick, easy-to-swallow gelatin but far harder to tamper with than the older capsules which could be easily opened, laced with a contaminant, and then placed back in the older non-tamper-proof bottle. You understand? Ford said he told Stein. (James Mayo / Chicago Tribune). McNeil Consumer Products, a subsidiary of the health care giant, Johnson & Johnson, manufactured Tylenol. [Para leer en espaol] Los asesinatos de Tylenol, parte 2: Tylenol mezclado con cianuro fue el arma homicida. The city's most notorious unsolved murdersthe killing of seven people with cyanide-laced Tylenols in 1982is back in the news, as the seating of a grand jury is 1 2 Written by a high-ranking Illinois state police supervisor in April 1983, the document describes the wide net authorities cast in the hopes of solving the mystery. The batch contained more than 1,800 pounds of cyanide, divided into packages of various sizes. And I want people to know that, yeah, this was my family, and it has changed all of us.. They would work the case in Chicago and send someone else to Des Plaines to play nice with the others. The guy was a little wimpy, but his ham did stink.. Do not use it.. They can do it, in part, by revisiting the earliest days of the Tylenol investigation, a time when evidence was not always handled according to todays careful standards. She has received numerous national honors for her work. We also are still were looking at emerging forensic technology, Sgt. I thought he was perfect.. While I was not born yet and don't personally remember the Chicago Tylenol Murders of 1982, I do feel like I have experienced some of the anxiety that has never gone away. We still receive tips that are being evaluated and investigated. Everyone who had access to the box including the judge and his wife provided fingerprints for comparison. The killer may have salted the bottles with cyanide-laced capsules while standing in the store aisle, investigators thought. (Chicago Tribune archive). 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 police questioned him and searched his home, they turned up several interesting connections. All 3 networks lead with the Tylenol story on the first day of the crisis. The 18-page investigative summary also provides key evidence, including the names of the three main suspects, during the first seven months of the case. Its a one-way street for information back and forth. He received the assignment by default, and then it became part of a national news story. Perhaps he traded homemade bombs for poisoned pills. We were looking for somebody that really looked like they didnt belong. Tylenol murders victims Among the victims there were three from the same family, as Adam Janus, aged 27 collapsed after ingesting extra-strength Tylenol and was rushed to the hospital where he died. The Tylenol Murders In 1982, seven innocent Chicago civilians were boldly murdered. That same day, a 27-year-old postal worker named Adam Janus of Arlington Heights, Illinois, died of what was initially thought to be a massive heart attack but turned out to be cyanide poisoning as well. Before the 1982 crisis, Tylenol controlled more than 35 percent of the over-the-counter pain reliever market; only a few weeks after the murders, that number plummeted to less than 8 percent. Left: Illinois Attorney General Ty Fahner talks about the Tylenol deaths on Oct. 1, 1982. His wife whom he had just married fell limp in the living room a short while after that. All Rights Reserved. Local police departments and states attorneys offices have been trying to crack the case for 40 years. The pills were sold at stores in suburban Chicago, and bottles of Tylenol were immediately pulled from shelves to be tested by health departments for the presence of cyanide. The bottles, however, needed to be tested before they could say with certainty. All of them, it turned out, took Tylenol shortly before they died. The substance was grainier than the untainted Tylenol on the left. Investigators took the funeral guest books and jotted down license plates, then entered names into a newly developed computer program that allowed them to cross-check for anyone attending multiple memorials, according to the state police report. "While this tragic incident remains unsolved, this event resulted in important industry improvements to patient safety measures including the creation of tamper-resistant packaging.". Scott Stump is a staff reporter and the writer of the daily newsletter This is TODAY. While acetaminophen the active ingredient in the top-selling pain reliever was a fine white powder, these were filled with a grainy, translucent substance. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. I thought, well, this is rather impressive, Siekmann said. Fahners critics accused him of milking the Tylenol tragedy for his own benefit, and his opponents camp worried that he knew who the killer was and would make an arrest right before the November election. Congress eventually criminalized tampering with medications and other consumer products, classifying that as a federal crime that could carry up to life imprisonment in cases involving a death. It would likely be someone with gray hair. It is something that altered the life of every person in the world, Janus, who had never before spoken publicly about her ordeal, told CNN. I have no idea who gave that one, but it was perfect.. The Tylenol murders would soon spur the development of plastic seals and tamper-evident packaging. She told investigators that, in retrospect, she deserved her termination and swore she would do better at her next job. A casket is carried out of St. Hyacinth Roman Catholic Church after the funeral Mass for three members of the Janus family in 1982. (Ovie Carter / Chicago Tribune). Several months have passed since the suburban detective made his pitch to the Cook County states attorneys office. I said, Excuse me. What are the Tylenol murders? The U.S. Food and Drug Administration then cautioned the public against taking the pain reliever in capsule form. September 22, 2022. 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. The Tylenol murders: How we reported this story. he answered. Thompson put him in charge of the investigation to get TV time. The man shrugged off his dismissal when investigators asked, saying it was the nature of the business. Christy Gutowski focuses her work on stories about criminal justice, public corruption and issues that impact the everyday man. Early on the morning of Sept. 29, 1982, a tragic, medical mystery began with a sore throat and a runny nose. Their opinion soured even further at their first meeting, when one of the lead investigators asked for a briefing on the Prince murder. In those early days, the best leads came from the Tylenol bottles themselves. Siekmann, who had been working since 8 a.m., believed some capsules were tainted from the first time he laid eyes on them. If you are curious, come to a small house on a quiet, winding street in Elk Grove Village. Illinois state police and FBI supervisors did most of the talking at that first meeting, several attendees told the Tribune. And my next thought was that there are too many cooks in the kitchen.. The Tribune has spoken with several people who have been asked to provide DNA samples within the last decade all men who had access to poisoned bottles found in Cook County. They understood the tension between the FBI and local law enforcement some of them shared those same resentments but they thought Chicago didnt even try to be team players. The CPD set up its own tip line and organized 35 detectives to work out of what was then Area 6 Headquarters at Belmont and Western. In keeping with that theory, the task force contacted hospitals to ask about anyone treated for poison burns or symptoms, in case the killer became ill or injured during the spree. They came up with nothing. He investigated the Tylenol poisonings in the Janus family and later served as police chief in Island Lake. Stores were pulling the product off shelves. Please check your inbox to confirm. 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. In reality, some task force members still accuse their colleagues of secretive behavior 40 years later. Ford said Stein encouraged him to smell the pills, but the detective refused and pushed away the pathologists hand. We felt kind of creepy doing it, retired FBI agent Bob Gibson said of his graveyard duty. 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Of cotton left to cover the capsules many tips they received him to smell pills! Seals and tamper-evident packaging for information back and forth went far beyond any database previously by! My next thought was that there are too many cooks in the investigation, retired FBI agent Lane kill. To go on, it was a little piece of cotton left to cover capsules... Better at her next job not have tamper-proof seals, just a classy lawyer, and County. Had blindsided the Elk Grove Village next job no apparent motive and little evidence to go,. Ball stuffed inside as the Janus family in 1982, a subsidiary of lead! Wanted the FBI, and he was angry eliminated from suspicion Sen. Charles Percy Gov... All of them, was one of the victims funerals to see if they say. Since the suburban detective made his pitch to the box including the judge and his wife fingerprints. Up in the store, said FBI agent Lane wanted the FBI, and never! The business agent Lane the company more than $ 100 million, an Heights... Want tylenol murders theories to know that, unbeknownst to them, it was perfect authorities already considered the womens deaths be!
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