The “Tylenol Killer” Main Suspect James W Lewis Dead

The man who lived under suspicion as the cyanide-laced Tylenol killer of the early 80s has died a “not suspicious” death, according to police.

Washington Post:

It was October 1982 in Chicago. Seven people had died after unknowingly taking cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules. No one knew how many others might die or who could be next. The Chicago area had been in chaos for days — pharmacists yanking Tylenol from shelves and officers ordering people to throw out what they had in their homes. People across the country feared they had unwittingly invited a killer into their homes.

James W. Lewis, the man long suspected of committing the infamous “Tylenol murders,” died Sunday, according to Cambridge, Mass., Police Superintendent Fred Cabral. He was 76. Officers, firefighters and other first responders found Lewis dead inside his Cambridge home around 4 p.m. while checking out a call for an unresponsive person. Investigators determined that his death was “not suspicious,” Cabral told The Washington Post.

The poisonings whipped the country into a panic and forced Tylenol’s parent company, Johnson & Johnson, to recall tens of millions of Tylenol capsule bottles. It led to major changes for the sale of over-the-counter drugs, including tamper-resistant packaging and the rise of tablets, which, unlike capsules, can’t be taken apart.

Before dawn on Sept. 29, 1982, 12-year-old Mary Kellerman complained of a cold, according to the Chicago Tribune’s multipart 40th-anniversary series, “The Tylenol Murders.” After persuading her father to let her stay home from school, the seventh-grader ducked into the bathroom to take an Extra-Strength Tylenol capsule.

Moments later, her father heard her coughing and the sound of something hitting the floor, according to the Tribune. When he opened the bathroom door, he found his daughter on the ground, her eyes fixed and dilated, her breathing shallow, the Tribune reported. She died within hours.

Mary and six others in the Chicago area died over three days as officials tried to figure out what mysterious force was killing them and, once they homed in on Tylenol bottles, raced to clear them off shelves and out of homes.

Amid the nationwide panic, Johnson & Johnson received a letter demanding $1 million to “stop the killing,” according to the Tribune.

“As you can see, it is easy to place cyanide (both potassium & sodium) into capsules sitting on store shelves,” the letter read, adding, “If you don’t mind the publicity of these little capsules, then do nothing…..”

Lewis, who was later found to have written the letter, was a suspect in the killings for more than 40 years. Although he was never charged in the deaths, he was convicted of trying to extort Johnson & Johnson, for which he served more than 12 years in prison.