Here, he offers a Spanish-language flyer to Luisa Acevada. That thrill, however, would eventually diminish over time and the killer would seek more excitement, according to the profilers. Arlington Heights police Chief Rodney Kath, second from left, works with other members of the Tylenol task force in an old state police bunker in Des Plaines. He investigated the Tylenol poisonings in the Janus family and later served as police chief in Island Lake. The Unsolved Tylenol Murders of 1982: The Unabomber Theory Written by C.W.S. The victims had all taken Tylenol-branded acetaminophen capsules that had been laced with potassium cyanide. 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. The Chicago detectives shared that worry. I dont know what he thought. All Rights Reserved. In 1989, the FDA established federal guidelines for manufacturers to make all such products tamper-proof. The original theory behind the crimes was a culprit who took the Tylenol bottles from drug and grocery stores in the Chicago area over a period of weeks, opened the capsules and added potassium cyanide, after which the culprit would return the bottles to the stores to be purchased. The agencies, at times, clashed with each other. Details about the seven victims, how they obtained the tainted bottles and their final moments were outlined in a confidential police memo obtained by the Tribune. We were looking for somebody that really looked like they didnt belong. So whatever fits or doesnt fit the storyline, that didnt happen. The operation was primarily staffed by female agents who answered phone calls and assessed information while their male counterparts worked in the field. Jose Rosa, right, was one of hundreds of Chicago city employees and volunteers to distribute warnings about cyanide-laced Tylenol in fall 1982. The publication reported this week that it has obtained video and thousands of documents outlining law enforcement's current case and a possible motive for the killings. The bottle's cap was easily opened. 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. (Don Casper / Chicago Tribune), Obviously, Johnson & Johnson didnt put cyanide in their own product. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. Illinois state police and FBI supervisors did most of the talking at that first meeting, several attendees told the Tribune. Authorities believed they offered clues about who could and who could not have poisoned the capsules. The evening marked an important shift in the tragedy, moving from a swiftly solved medical mystery into a massive criminal investigation. Investigators, however, are prepared should that question arise. And my next thought was that there are too many cooks in the kitchen.. Reports would be written in triplicate so each member would get a copy. The Tylenol task force may be no exception, he said, but the tensions didnt affect the overall effort. It all goes to them, and you get nothing in return., Chicago police Superintendent Richard Brzeczek talks about the Tylenol investigation on Oct. 7, 1982, about a week after the seven deaths. Three months earlier, 10 Chicago officers from the citys West Side were convicted of taking bribes to protect heroin rings. Police departments were working the murders in relative isolation, and each county had its own states attorney to oversee the case. President Reagan wanted the FBI in the investigation, retired FBI Special Agent Roy Lane Jr. told the Tribune. History's Greatest Mysteries looks into the theories regarding the Tylenol Murders in Chicago 1982. 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. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune). Elmhurst police Detective Herb Hogberg interviewed a chemist who had been laid off from the company in recent months. Stores were pulling the product off shelves. But the police chief of the Chicago suburb where Adam Janus lived, Joe Murphy, told CNN he hopes forensic technology used to analyze DNA could eventually produce the break they need to conclusively identify whoever was responsible for the Tylenol killings. James Thompson, Illinois Secretary of State James Edgar and shook his head. 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. He hangs up, opens the door and we come in like gangbusters, Gildea said. He needed to be there, no matter how much he hated campaigning. The red cap was easily flipped open, with nothing but a little piece of cotton left to cover the capsules. Seven people died in 1982 after taking painkillers from bottle someone police do not know who had slipped cyanide pills into. The dire situation, both in terms of human life and business, made it imperative that the Johnson & Johnson executives respond swiftly and authoritatively. After eliminating the possibility that the poisonings happened at the plant level, investigators scoured the backgrounds of workers at trucking companies and storage warehouses involved in the distribution of the tainted bottles, as well as other company records. But she said years of therapy and yoga have helped her overcome her anger and guilt, and shes hopeful there will be justice in the killings of her father as well as her aunt and uncle. Extra-Strength Tylenol bottles, for example, came in a paper box with an unglued lid. In Illinois, some towns began pulling bottles from the store shelves and sent police officers down the street with bullhorns encouraging people to throw out their Tylenol. The White House, however, had ordered the FBI to find a way into the case amid growing public panic. Wherever they stand, everyone wishes they had achieved a different result. As a state crime, murder fell under the purview of local law enforcement. Our highest responsibility has always been the health and safety of our consumers," Johnson & Johnson said in a statement to NBC News. The investigation would fork, taking the FBI and Chicago police down vastly different paths. wide worlds of science, health andtechnology. 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. The FBIs counterintelligence unit even reached out to their Soviet counterparts to see if they had any spy satellite images that could help, according to former FBI agent Grey Steed. Tylenol Ty, Ford said. But on Oct. 1, 1982, he had been a detective for only a year. 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. Her parents gave permission. 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. I said, Agent, agent. He didnt fit that profile, Hogberg said. 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. However, investigators believe circumstantial evidence is enough to make this a "chargeable" case, but that decision would have to come from prosecutors, according to documents reviewed by the Chicago Tribune. Several suspects did too. Extra-Strength Tylenol, shown in a Tribune studio photograph, once was packaged in a paper box with an unglued lid. But before Sept. 29, 1982, consumer products had few defenses against a person bent on sabotage. McNeill and Johnson & Johnson offered replacement capsules to those who turned in pills already purchased and a reward for anyone with information leading to the apprehension of the individual or people involved in these random murders. Mary was dead by 7 a.m. Mike Severns, a former Elk Grove Village police detective assigned to Mary Kellerman's murder, says it still bothers him that officials neglected to update her grieving parents in the early days of the investigation. . 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. As a result of the crime, makers of Tylenol developed new product protection methods. The coppers and the FBI guys that I knew all worked together. Extra-Strength Tylenol, shown in a Tribune studio photograph, once was packaged in a paper box with an unglued lid. 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 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. Whoa, whoa, he recalled. Agents interviewed the victims families, neighbors, co-workers and friends about any known enemies. No, Oscar Wilde probably didnt die of syphilis. Given the totality of the circumstances, some thought it unusual for the Illinois attorney general to lead the investigation. They knew the locations. 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). Learn more about Friends of the NewsHour. He already had a new job. The task force questioned stock boys, managers, disgruntled former employees and problematic customers at the hot locations, the teams name for the stores that sold the tainted Tylenol. They knew the weapon. 1996 - 2023 NewsHour Productions LLC. Left: Former Chicago police Detective Jimmy Gildea, shown at his Chicago home in July, investigated the death of Tylenol victim Paula Prince. He regaled reporters with all kinds of stories during that final interview, but none seemed to amuse him more than the unhappy Hormel ham man. 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. Later that morning, Siekmann drove to the northwest suburbs to share what he had learned with a group of law enforcement officials assembled by Fahners team. The new timeline suggests Lewis wrote the letter before the public knew the deaths were linked to the tainted Tylenol pills, according to the Chicago Tribune. Working with FDA officials, they introduced a new tamper-proof packaging, which included foil seals and other features that made it obvious to a consumer if foul play had transpired. The substance was grainier than the untainted Tylenol on the left. Nothing has come of that January 2022 meeting. It was so Dick Tracy to me, Steed 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. Ted Kaczynski had proven he was a revenge-seeking terrorist, and he had connections to Chicago. The investigators would then return around 5 p.m. to update everyone on the days developments. We used every single technique available to us. Who would be next? I think its pretty important, the aide replied. I mean, theres 10,000 reasons why people compete with each other. But no one has ever been arrested in connection with the spate of poisonings that shattered the families of Janus and the others. A lot of people who didnt like me or didnt like Thompson or my association were taking shots, Fahner said. We had an absolute tsunami of Tylenol bottles. There was no clear leader. The FBI put about three dozen agents on the case, under the premise that the agency needed to determine whether Johnson & Johnson had violated federal law by failing to list potassium cyanide among the active ingredients in Tylenol. 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. . There was little evidence to go on, no inkling of a motive and five people dead. Kasia said she still remembers hearing her mother scream when she couldnt wake her father up the next day, 29 September 1982. Tylenols parent company, Johnson & Johnson, also saw its stock price drop after the news about the tainted capsules broke. Seven people in the Chicago area were killed that year by Tylenol that had been poisoned with potassium cyanide. Conspiracy theories about motives and suspects for all these heinous acts continue to be bandied about on the Internet to this day. And I would wake them up just to say good night, you know?. 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. Stanley Janus soon collapsed on his late brothers kitchen floor. 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. The task force met each morning at the Des Plaines headquarters to discuss leads and get their assignments. Tainted capsules were discovered in early October in a few other grocery stores and drug stores in the Chicago area, but, fortunately, they had not yet been sold or consumed. Not just the hours, but the frustration. (Stan Policht / Chicago Tribune). Local police departments and states attorneys offices have been trying to crack the case for 40 years. He held news conferences, sometimes twice a day, to meet the insatiable media demands. The arrests came as the result of an undercover FBI operation, and The Marquette 10 as the disgraced officers came to be known remain an enduring symbol of police corruption in Chicago. According to the state police memo obtained by the Tribune, the FDAs work traced the cyanide from the tainted capsules to Fisher Scientific, a Massachusetts-based lab supply company, which distributed that particular batch in 1978. But if they kept the bottles in their medicine cabinets, more people could die. Retired FBI agent Roy Lane Jr., shown in August, is the only member of law enforcement who has been part of the Tylenol investigation in its entirety. The Tylenol murders have never been solved, though at one point, the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, was a suspect. Chicago police Detective Charlie Ford, assigned to the Prince murder, recalled being stunned when Cook County Medical Examiner Robert Stein showed up at the victims Old Town condo and immediately asked to see the Tylenol. Now Fahner had to win the job for himself, and he faced a formidable opponent in Democrat Neil Hartigan, a vote magnet from Chicagos North Side. This Oct. 18, 1982, column by Tribune columnist Bob Greene included specific details at the request of the FBI, such as the home address of Tylenol victim Mary Kellerman. The 50-count bottle, which the woman told police she purchased at Franks Finer Foods in Wheaton, contained seven capsules filled with potassium cyanide, records show. In 1983, the U.S. Congress passed what was called the Tylenol bill, making it a federal offense to tamper with consumer products. No one has ever been charged with the murders. 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. 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. Former Chicago police Superintendent Richard Brzeczek, shown in September, says he felt Ty Fahner was chosen to head the task force for political reasons. After a lengthy cat and mouse game, police and federal investigators determined that Lewis lived in New York and had no demonstrable links to the Chicago events. Stores were pulling the product off shelves. Fahner, as head of the task force, quickly became the public face of the investigation. But for something like this, for looking at a pill, it never would even cross our mind., Former DuPage County Coroner Pete Siekmann, who in 1982 was a deputy coroner, handled the Tylenol bottles from Mary "Lynn" Reiner and Mary McFarland. The tips were written up on 3x5 index cards. Forty years ago, cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules led to the deaths of seven people all around the Chicago area. They can account for the differing DNA profiles. I do think it created a lot of problems because youre always thinking theres somebody doing something behind your back.. When the column ran, Severns knew instantly that the authorities had planted the story. In those early days, the best leads came from the Tylenol bottles themselves. 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. Neither did the chemist who performed the cyanide test. Elk Grove Village Detective Michael Severns said investigators were so intent on chasing leads that they at times lost sight of the grieving families. The effort was Herculean, said Jeremy Margolis, a former U.S. attorney who was assigned to the task force. I said, Excuse me. Lewis admitted to the FBI that he sent a ransom letter at the time to Tylenol's parent company, Johnson & Johnson, according to reporting by The Chicago Tribune. The Tylenol case marked one of the earliest uses of the approach. You know, boost exposure and stuff like that.. Every Tylenol bottle had a lot number that offered specific details about the batch those capsules came from. 40 years later, Kasia Janus is sharing. Still, in his opinion, Fahner was exactly what the task force needed. And they had a very good theory as to when they were placed. In late September of 1982 seven people were killed after an unknown suspect placed cyanide laced Tylenol pills in store bottles. In 2000, Joy Bergmann revisited the story in "A Bitter Pill" . Introduction Heading link Copy link. Chemists working for the Illinois Public Health Department in Chicago test the contents of Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules. (Josh Reynolds/AP) The investigation into the 1982 Tylenol murders was pretty dormant when an FBI . 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. But thats not a problem, the investigators say. You shove those up my nose again, youre going to get socked in the face. 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. Siekmann didnt wear gloves. Several victims families told the Tribune they didnt hear much from investigators after those initial interviews. Im absolutely sure about that. That evening, Illinois Attorney General Ty Fahner sat on a dais listening to stump speeches at the Kane County Republican Organizations annual dinner. Ford and Gildea arrived at the campus with hopes of a break in the case, only to find out the so-called professor was a high school boy pretending to work at UIC so he could pick up college girls. Roger Arnold worked at a jewel warehouse with the father of one of the victims named Mary Reiner. So, the theory was the tampering took place at the store, said FBI agent Lane. Employees of the Chicago City Health Department continue to test Tylenol medication for the presence of deadly cyanide at the Department's lab on Oct. 7, 1982. And so the Department of Justice just looked up a law and by a little bit of a hook and a crook said the FBI has jurisdiction because of an FDA law (about) truth in labeling.. On that day, two unrelated things happened: A pub owner made a phone call to police, and an extortion letter arrived at a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary. The gelatin-based capsules were especially popular because they were slick and easy to swallow. Please check your inbox to confirm. Subscribe to Heres the Deal, our politics Lewis, who now lives in the Boston area, has long denied any involvement in the murders and has never been charged. What was he like in school? A theory emerged: What if the Mad Poisoner was actually the Unabomber? He didnt get in our way. Siekmann drove to a state laboratory in the city with the bottle on the seat next to him. We were getting flooded with calls, said John Fellmann, an Arlington Heights detective assigned to the case. The bottles traveled to various warehouses, including a final storage stop at a Jewel facility in suburban Franklin Park, before being delivered to different grocery stores on different days before the poisonings. And, in the decades since, scientific advances have allowed investigators to detect DNA profiles on at least three of the tainted bottles and the capsules inside. The bottles, however, needed to be tested before they could say with certainty. The guy was a little wimpy, but his ham did stink.. But when she opened the . I stepped off that dais, Fahner told the Tribune this year. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune). Investigators soon confirmed there was lethally poisonous cyanide inside the Tylenol capsules in question. Police departments and fire stations began collecting bottles, as well. Another theory was that whoever poisoned the medication did it at home or in a car, then placed the bottles back on the shelves. By the time he reached his house in Evanston, he was the de facto leader of what had quickly become the countrys highest-profile murder case. As the de facto leader of the task force, he would come to be known in the media as "Tylenol Ty.". I have no idea who gave that one, but it was perfect.. NBC News has not reviewed that evidence. Though the company expanded the recall the same day to cover the batch involved in McFarlands death, the piecemeal approach troubled Fahner. The bottle's cap was easily opened. They apologized, he said, but the trust had been broken. Arlington Heights police Chief Rodney Kath, second from left, works with other members of the Tylenol task force at its Des Plaines headquarters in 1982. Back then, bottles of pills did not have tamper-proof seals, just a cotton ball stuffed inside. 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. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune). The Tylenol murders launched a massive criminal investigation. The Tylenol case, however, would loom largest over his professional life. The Tylenol Murders In 1982, seven innocent Chicago civilians were boldly murdered. 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. Many people who handled potential evidence in 1982 didnt wear gloves because it wasnt protocol at the time. Here, he offers a Spanish-language flyer to Luisa Acevada. he answered. An FBI agent stood up and started to give a rundown of Chicagos case. Every agency imaginable attended, many of them represented by their top leaders. The task force didnt know who or why.. The results came back positive for cyanide at 1:30 a.m. We also are still were looking at emerging forensic technology, Sgt. 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. 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