Fatal Dosage: The Unsolved Tylenol Murders

(As heard on the #WeirdDarkness episode, “The Weird And Strange Side of True Crime” on August 01, 2024:https://weirddarkness.com/weirdstrangetruecrime/)

Mary Kellerman, a 12-year-old from Elk Grove Village in the outskirts of Chicago, took some Extra Strength Tylenol and died on September 29, 1982. Soon after, Adam Janus of Arlington Heights, IL, also died suddenly after taking Extra Strength Tylenol.

These were only the opening salvos in a spree of killings that would come to be known as the Tylenol murders. Between Friday and Sunday, seven lives were lost in the Chicagoland area. The pills, when tested, were laced with potassium cyanide—the same substance used in the Jonestown Massacre. Reporters and investigators had their theories of who poisoned the over-the-counter pain medication and how it was done, but no one has ever been charged with the killings.

Mary Kellerman had told her parents she was suffering from a sore throat and runny nose on the early morning of September 29, 1982. They gave her an Extra Strength Tylenol, but by 7 AM that morning, she had passed away. The same evening, Adam Janus had what seemed like a heart attack, but it was cyanide poisoning.

Following the deaths of Mary Kellerman and Adam Janus, other Chicago households began experiencing sudden deaths from cyanide poisoning. Two of Janus’ family members—his brother, Stanley, and sister-in-law, Theresa—died hours after grieving the loss of Janus. They had taken pills from the same bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol.

On the afternoon of September 29th, Mary McFarland from Elmhurst, IL, took Extra Strength Tylenol. She had delivered a baby several days earlier and, being a mother of four, said she was sore. She collapsed minutes later.

Flight attendant Paula Prince of Chicago, IL, purchased Extra Strength Tylenol after arriving at O’Hare International Airport that evening. She was declared dead at 3:15 AM on September 30th.

Mary Reiner of Winfield, Illinois, was declared dead shortly before 9 AM. Later it was determined that all seven victims had taken Extra Strength Tylenol hours before their deaths.

When the Janus family finally arrived at the hospital, a nurse named Helen Jensen was summoned. The next day, speaking with Adam Janus’s wife, Theresa, about his actions the previous day, Theresa recounted how Adam had bought a bottle of Tylenol after feeling ill at work. His brother Stanley and Theresa, who also took pills from the same toxic bottle later that day, had also perished similarly. This gave Jensen the idea that something had to be wrong with the Tylenol.

With that thought in mind, Jensen defied protocol and headed to the Janus’ residence. She saw a bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol there and counted the pills. Jensen told Patch, “I counted the pills and there were six capsules gone… with three dead people. I said, ‘That’s the Tylenol.'”

The police determined that cyanide had been added to the Tylenol pills. The containers emitted an almond-like aroma, a sign of cyanide’s presence.

The New York Times published on October 8, 1982, that Johnson & Johnson (maker of Tylenol) had already received a signed handwritten letter. The note said it was simple to lace the capsules with cyanide and would not cost much, while mentioning ‘more killings’ would occur unless they were paid $1 million.

Johnson & Johnson quickly brought this fact to the attention of authorities, and they soon uncovered where the letter originated. James Lewis was convicted of extortion in October 1983, nearly a year after the murders, and sentenced to 20 years. Lewis, who died on July 9, 2023, at age 76, was still considered a suspect in the killings but was never charged due to insufficient evidence.

James Lewis from Kansas City, MO, was the main suspect in delivering the Johnson & Johnson extortion note. He denied any involvement in the poisoning, and police could not gather enough evidence to arrest him. He remained a person of interest in the case, and his home was searched along with another residence when the investigation reopened in 2009.

The Chicago Reader published the most intense profile of Lewis in 2000. He declared that he was a “political prisoner,” a “scapegoat,” and an “all-purpose monster,” claiming that the Tylenol investigation was a bureaucratic blunder by Tyrone Fahner (then-Illinois Attorney General) and Daniel K. Webb (then-United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois).

Lewis, who passed away on July 9, 2023, in his home in Cambridge, was never charged with the murders.

Even the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, was later investigated and considered a suspect. Kaczynski had a history of random killings, lived near his parent’s property when the first poisonings occurred, and resembled suspect photos.

Their sleuthing produced a timeline indicating that Kaczynski was present at the time. Kaczynski also wrote that, in theory, he might have planned to poison the Tylenol, claiming, “imagine a society which subjects people to conditions that make them terribly unhappy… then gives [them] drugs…”, which likely fed speculation of his involvement in the crime.

Kaczynski has not been ruled out as a suspect. The FBI asked in 2011 for his DNA sample to be tested against hint fragments remaining on the tainted bottles.

Nine days after Mary Kellerman’s death from Extra Strength Tylenol in 1982, warnings about the dangerous pills being taken off store shelves were broadcast throughout America. Officers knocked on doors all over to gather bottles of the lethal painkiller, canvassing streets and warning residents via loudspeaker.

While this approach helped at home, it unintentionally served as an inspiration for countless other criminals. Within a month of the initial poisonings, the FDA and FBI were investigating nearly 270 separate incidents of product tampering.

More than a decade later, copycat crimes occurred. Susan Snow and Bruce Nickell died in 1986 from cyanide-laced Excedrin. They found containers of cyanide scattered around the site, leading to another probe. It turned out that Nickell’s wife, Stella, had tainted the bottles to collect life insurance money, and she was found guilty of murder.

Johnson & Johnson reacted swiftly, informing the media and recalling millions of bottles. More than 31 million bottles were removed from store shelves.

More contaminated pills showed up in the Chicago region, but fortunately, they were found before any more people ingested them. McNeil Consumer Products, the subsidiary that produced Tylenol, volunteered to provide replacement capsules for consumers who had already bought pills. Johnson & Johnson launched a $100,000 reward for the criminal’s capture.

Johnson & Johnson’s response to these tragedies is still taught in communication strategy courses as an example of good crisis management.

The initial probe discovered that the pills were being altered at the retail level—either poisoned in-store or bought, laced, and returned to the shelves.

To manage the case, a 140-person investigative task force was established. They were overwhelmed with thousands of tips, nearly all resulting in dead-ends. The investigation gathered 15,000 documents and conducted over 400 interviews. To this day, the identity of the poisoner remains unknown.

For Johnson & Johnson, protecting consumer safety was crucial. They introduced tamper-proof packaging for both containers and pills to create security for their products.

These moves restored Johnson & Johnson’s reputation, making Tylenol the bestselling over-the-counter painkiller.

Before 1983, tampering with a product was not illegal. In 1983, Congress passed the Tylenol Bill, which prohibited tampering with consumer products. However, it was not until 1989 that the FDA created federal guidelines to prevent such incidents.

(“Fatal Dosage: The Unsolved Tylenol Murders” source: Stefanie Hammond, Unspeakable Crimes:https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/5n8d7kzn)