Sole suspect in Tylenol murders case found dead at home
The sole suspect in the Tylenol poisoning murders that claimed seven lives and led to changes to how over-the-counter prescription drugs were manufactured and sold has died.
James Lewis, 76, was found unresponsive at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Sunday, and pronounced dead soon after, authorities said.
His death has frustrated law enforcement who had continued to pursue Lewis over the indiscriminate 1982 killing spree in the Chicago area that left six adults and a 12-year-old girl dead from cyanide poisoning.
Lewis was convicted of attempting to extort manufacturer Johnson & Johnson after sending a letter claiming responsibility for the deaths and demanding $1m to “stop the killing”.
He was questioned as recently as September over the poisonings, in which a suspect laced bottles of Tylenol with potassium cyanide.
But no-one has ever been charged over the deaths, which led to widespread panic and sweeping changes to the way prescription drugs were bought and sold.
Lewis was arrested in 1982 after a nationwide manhunt, and served 12 years in federal prison for trying to extort the drug manufacturer.
He later admitted sending the letter, and in a 1992 jailhouse interview with ABC 7 Chicago how the killer would have used a pegboard to drill holes into the Tylenol capsules and inject them with deadly cyanide.
Lewis always denied he had carried out the poisonings.
Former US Attorney Jeremy Margolis, who prosecuted Lewis for extortion, expressed regret he had avoided being held accountable for the murders.
“I was saddened to learn of James Lewis’ death. Not because he’s dead, but because he didn’t die in prison,” Mr Margolis said in a statement to the Chicago Tribune.
The victims were Mary Kellerman, 12, Mary McFarland, 31, Mary “Lynn” Reiner, 27, Paula Prince, 35, and Adam Janus, 27, Stanley Janus, 25, and Theresa Janus, 20.
All were hospitalised and died within the space of a few days in late September 1982, triggering a nationwide scare.
