IL IL - Chicago Tylenol Murders: 7 people dead from cyanide poisoning, 1982

[STANDREID]

I doubt that the killer is a name, as yet, on anyone's list. In my view, people who knew any of the victims should be checked out to see if any of them had something to gain (including vengeance) from that single murder. If that was what happened, then the other murders would have just been to lay a false trail.

 

[Misszeldazonk]

Michael Swango is the Tylenol Killer, in my humble opinion.

 

[STANDREID]

I saw some pics of Lewis too and I really can't tell

the nose would be a give-away if there was a clearer picture

the beard looks very much like it could be either

that receding hairline ... could be disguise or could be TK's natural look or could easily be JL's

The guy in the picture doesn't look like any of the suspects to me and he could be an innocent person but it's interesting that he didn't ever come forward if that was the case. He appears to be a heavy set man in his late 40s with an exaggerated Van Dyke type beard.

 

[freshwater]

Michael Swango is the Tylenol Killer, in my humble opinion.

I've thought quite a bit about Swango being the perpetrator. After all, he went to college in Illinois at the time (Southern Illinois University) and kept a demented scrapbook of all kinds of tragedies, including the Tylenol poisonings. However, Southern Illinois University is about as far away from Chicago as you can get and still be in the state of Illinois. (5 hour drive)

If he did it, he might as well confess, since he's going to be spending the rest of his miserable life in federal Supermax prison anyway.

If anything "triggered" Swango to do this, I know that his dad died in 1982, a few months before the poisoned Tylenol hit the shelves. Swango wasn't real close to his dad, from what I've read, but who knows?

 

[freshwater]

The guy in the picture doesn't look like any of the suspects to me and he could be an innocent person but it's interesting that he didn't ever come forward if that was the case. He appears to be a heavy set man in his late 40s with an exaggerated Van Dyke type beard.

When did this picture of "Tylenol Man" even get released in the press? Perhaps the guy in the picture has never even seen it, so he doesn't know to come forward and clear his name. (Or perhaps he's scared that the authorities might try to pin the crime on him?)

 

[kemo]

I just finished reading "Tymurs" by Scott Bartz. He may be a disgruntled ex-employe of J&J with an axe to grind and I do not agree with his belief that the tainted capsules entered the supply chain through the distribution system rather than through a reverse shoplifter at the retail level but I do find the book valuable in understanding the details and nuances of the case.

The book is very strong in exposing the questions surrounding the death of Mary "Lynn" Reiner and the question it raises.

Lynn, as she was known, had a child 4 days earlier and had left the hospital that morning. The hospital gave her a package of a few products a new mother might need. Included were some Extra Strength Tylenol Capsules. These came from the hospital pharmacy that was not open to the public and supplied with Tylenol in different packaging, through a different supply chain than retail stores.

That afternoon at 3:00PM (Wed sept 28th) she went to Franks Finer Foods in Winfield and purchased a bottle of Regular Tylenol. Soon after returning home, she became sick, went into convulsions and died of cyanide poisoning.

The next day, when the tylenol connection became know, police went to her home. They found a bottle of Regular Tylenol with six red and white Extra Strength capsules on top of the smaller grey and green Regular capsules. Four of the red and white capsules contained cyanide. I can think of three possible explanations for what happened.

1) Lynn realized,when she got home from the store, that she had some free tylenol from the hospital so she took one or two of them and put the rest in the Regular bottle she had just purchased before she became sick. This would mean it was the Tylenol from the hospital not the store that was poisoned.


2)The "mad poisoner" put tainted Extra Strength Capsules into a Regular Tylenol bottle before planting it on a shelf of Franks Finer Foods. Carelessness or deliberate?

3)Someone set about to murder Lynn. First they planted the tainted bottles in a number of stores, then they induced her to consume cyanide, then the staged the bottle found in her home with the idea of making her appear a random victim.

Bartz believes it was #1. Law enforcement thought it was #3 but after a rather thorough investigation concluded it was #2.

I have more questions than answers but I can't help but suspect there is more to the death of Lynn Reiner than meets the eye.

 

[STANDREID]

I think the unsolved case that most closely parallels this one is the Paraquat Killer in Japan.

 

[STANDREID]

3)Someone set about to murder Lynn. First they planted the tainted bottles in a number of stores, then they induced her to consume cyanide, then the staged the bottle found in her home with the idea of making her appear a random victim.

This could be the key. Who might have wanted Lynn dead and did they work at the hospital or were they someone who could have gotten into the Reiner home and planted the capsules there while she was in the hospital?

 

[kemo]

"This could be the key. Who might have wanted Lynn dead and did they work at the hospital or were they someone who could have gotten into the Reiner home and planted the capsules there while she was in the hospital?"

Per Bartz, Law Enforcement became very suspicious of the circumstances of the Lynn's death and they tried to make a case against her Father and her husband.

Her father worked with Arnold (an identified suspect who bragged to friends about being an amatuer chemist who had cyanide) at the Jewel distribution center (although there was no evidence they knew each other; it was a big place). Neither the father nor the husband were with her when it all happened but her husband's mother was, so there was a possible conspiracy. The husband requested a poly and passed and no motive could be found.

A fact that argues against the "targeted murder" theory is that the "planted" bottles were placed so far apart. It would make more sense to plant the bottles in a few nearby stores. Nothing would be gained by spreading them out over such a large territory and it would raise the chance of the deaths not being recognised as murders (something that might have happened if two family members of one victim hadn't also taken tainted pills). It has been estimated that someone would have had to drive at least 112 miles to plant all of the know bottles and would have taken over four hours. This would be a lot of time a conspirator would be unable to account for.

What is also interesting is that the store Lynn purchased her Tylenol from (Frank's Fine Foods in were Winfield) was different from the other know stores the tainted bottles were placed. The other stores were large , high volume retail outlets in Shopping Plazas or Malls while the store in Winfield was much smaller and very much "off the beaten track" on the main drag of a very small, obscure suburban town. This situation was also different in that two tainted bottles were placed there, one in the "wrong" type of bottle, the cyanide in one of the bottles had been "cut" with tylenol (all the other capsules contained only cyanide) and it was served by a completely different distribution network . These "differences" could be very significant or they could represent the sort of anomalies that show up in any criminal investigation.

The other location that is considered "different" was the Woolworths in Urban Chicago where Paula Prince purchased her fatal Tylenol. Since she lived alone and there is video proof that she made the purchase herself, her death is considered as part of the pattern and not otherwise unusual.

What little I could find about the "paraquat" killing in Japan is that there was one series of tainted drinks in Southern Japan and then two or more imitators elsewhere. It is believed that these were simply "kill for the sake of killing" situations with no other motive involved.

A lot of information has been withheld including the location where one of the tainted bottles was found, so it is hard to speculate on what really happened. The fact that the FBI is pressing hard on Lewis suggests to me that they really have nothing and he is just their "last best suspect" and if he doesn't pan out, the case will never be solved.

 

[STANDREID]

I don't know what the geographic profile was but to me the hub looks to be somewhere in the vicinity of Elmhurst. If the killer knew anything about geographic profiling, however, "he" may have skewed the pattern to leave a false impression.

Perhaps the killer had reason, at least in his own mind, to spread the bottles out, such as the fear of being recognized in his local area.

I haven't heard but I'm sure LE did a test run to see just how long it would take to make all the plants. My presumption would be that most or all the stores were open 24 hours so, if the plants were made at say 3 AM when traffic was light, the circuit might not have taken as long as one would think.

 

[kemo]

Standreid said: "I don't know what the geographic profile was but to me the hub looks to be somewhere in the vicinity of Elmhurst. If the killer knew anything about geographic profiling, however, "he" may have skewed the pattern to leave a false impression."

Geographical profiling was very much a part of the investigation. This case, where the Perp is presumed to have gone on only one "mission" would be different than a serial killer or a rapist. There was an assumption that the Perp started at a particular point and made a route to each of the "plant sites" and then returned to the starting point; probably his residence.

We know that 8 bottles were planted in seven different stores. Information on one of the stores has been withheld and it is likely that other tainted bottles were planted at other stores but they were destroyed by the distributer soon after the tylenol angle was discovered. Per Bartz, large retailers like Jewel Osco sold about tylenol two bottles of ES tylenol a day and most OTC pain killers are used soon after purchase.

From this, one could conclude that the first death would occur within a few hours of a plant. Mary Mcfarland died Tues evening shortly after purchasing a bottle. For this reason it was concluded that the "run" was made Tuesday afternoon.

A logical route would be to start with the Walgreens in Chicago Northside and then to Arlington Heights then south to Lombard and east to Winfield; or the reverse. Since the basic profile of the perp was a lower income, single, white male, and there is more appropriate housing in the Northside than out in the affluent low density suburbs around Winfield, it was speculated that the perp lived in a lower income neighborhood near the Walgreen's. Seems reasonable but by no means certain. (for what its worth, Lewis live in this general area) Why he chose a comparably small store in an obscure town like Winfield is a good question.

My own WAG (wild *advertiser censored* guess) is that the perp wanted to cause "wide spread panic", not just a local panic. He may have figured that suburban areas were easier to move "mall to mall" but to get real publicity, one of the deaths had to occur in Chicago proper. Again, why Winfield?

 

[kilahchris]

If my memory serves me correctly wasn't there a woman in Washington State who started to tamper with Tylenol bottles. Some people were killed and she was eventually caught. Her plan was to poison her husband and make it look like the husband was the victim of the serial killer who was lacing the medicine with Cyanide.

If the Tylenol murders of 1982 happened why didn't johnson & johnson put a seal on all bottles there after??

 

[kilahchris]

All of the Tylenol deaths occured on 9/29/82. Two of the bottles were known to have been purchased that day. At the time, Tylenol was the most popular pain reliever and would probably move rapidly from retailers shelves. I think it is probable that most bottles of pain reliever would be opened and used within 24 hours of purchase. Therefore, it would be highly unlikely that all of the poisoned tylenol could have been placed on the shelves prior to 9/4/82; the day the Lewis left Chicago for NYC. The FBI concluded they were placed 9/28/82.

One of the bottles was placed in a store a mile from the Lewis's old neighborhood of Lincoln Park. The others were placed in various stores over a wide swath of suburbs west of the city. While I'm sure someone could get from the city out to Wingfield, 25 miles to the west, then 20 miles up to Arlington heights by public transportation, it is improbable. Who ever did it must have had a vehicle. (It is very difficult to rent a car with fake id's)

While Lewis's alibi isn't rock solid, its a real stretch to believe he could have made it to Chicago and back during that timeframe without leaving any trace. Since they were obviously short of funds, it seems strange that he would would spend this much money on a caper that would only cause trouble for an enemy and not earn him any finacial gain. (The "extortion" letter clearly was intended to "frame" Frederick Miller McCahey as there would be no way for Lewis to actually collect any money from the account he instructed Johnson & Johnson to use)

James Lewis is a sociopath with an interesting (and not particularly sucessful) criminal history but I don't think he did the Tylenol Murders.

You can never underestimate the determination of socio\psychopath.
They will go to through great lengths to achieve what they aim to do.
I think it is very possible that James Lewis drove a car for miles to different pharmacies in the Chicago area to commit his crime. All in an effort to mask himself from authorities
His prior mental history and the fact that he was a suspect in a homicide which involves dismemberment creates all kinds of red flags in my mind.

 

[freshwater]

If my memory serves me correctly wasn't there a woman in Washington State who started to tamper with Tylenol bottles. Some people were killed and she was eventually caught. Her plan was to poison her husband and make it look like the husband was the victim of the serial killer who was lacing the medicine with Cyanide.

If the Tylenol murders of 1982 happened why didn't johnson & johnson put a seal on all bottles there after??

Stella Nickell is her name. She tampered with Excedrin, not Tylenol. And J&J DID put tamper-resistant seals on all of their bottles of capsules after the 1982 Chicago tamperings. The scary thing about that is that another Tylenol cyanide murder occurred in 1986 in New York, despite the tamper-resitant packaging being in place. In fact, I've read that there were NO signs of tampering in that incident. After that, Tylenol abandoned capsules entirely, and switched to caplets. Google "Diane Elsroth" for more info. on the 1986 tampering incident.

 

[Cubby]

http://www.dailyherald.com/news/20170928/can-tylenol-murders-still-be-solved-35-years-later

35 years and still unsolved.

 

[meanmaryjean]

http://www.dailyherald.com/news/20170928/can-tylenol-murders-still-be-solved-35-years-later

35 years and still unsolved.

Lived in Mt. Prospect at the time and it scared me silly. If memory serves, there was a Jewel milk salmonella outbreak concurrent with this. Which spelled the end of milk in the square paper-type container as well.

 

[kemo]

Lewis has been pretty well cleared. He's a great suspect with a real motive, a clear involvement in an extortion attempt involving the case and he fit the profile perfectly: a sleazy looser who thought he was real smart. But, all evidence places him in NYC during the time the tampered bottles were delivered.

It is very unlikely that the contamination occurred at the distribution center. The bottles containing of all of the pills that resulted in poisoning were purchased during a period of less than 24 hours. Had the contaminant occurred at the distribution level, the contaminated bottles would have been spread among many different distributors and jobbers and the bottles would have hit the shelves over a period of weeks. The distribution channels all operated differently. Even if thousands of tampered bottles were put into circulation, it would be statistically impossible for so many to appear in front of the shelve in those different stores during such a short time frame unless somebody went around delivering them directly to the front of those shelves.

Subsequent product tampering cases were motivated by a desire to manipulate the stock market, cover up the murder of one of the victims or to extort the manufacturer. In this case no obvious motive could be found.
It is possible that that whatever the guy was up to just didn't work out or he just wanted to cause widespread panic with no direct personal gain; a terrorist without an agenda.

 

[YESorNO]

Tylenol Murders Remain Unsolved After 36 Years

"ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, IL — It has now been 36 years since seven people in the Chicagoland area died suddenly minutes after ingesting cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules. In a case that shocked the nation, the Tylenol Murders were the basis for numerous "copycat" crimes in the years after the deaths. But while many of the "copycats" were caught, no one has ever been charged with the original crimes.

The case remains an open investigation handled by the Arlington Heights Police Department. It was in Arlington Heights that three of the victims, all members of the Janus family, died in the final days of September 1982.

Arlington Heights Deputy Police Chief Nathan Hayes says there haven't been any new developments from a year ago, when then Deputy Chief Miguel Hernandez said the case remains an "active" investigation with multiple suspects...."

Tylenol Murders Remain Unsolved After 36 Years
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BUZZFEED UNSOLVED - TRUE CRIME S2 • E8
The Mysterious Poisoned Pill Murders

(some foul language)

Sep 15, 2017

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[ilovewings]

every time i have to use a tool to open a bottle of something i think about the Tylenol case. Interesting that the perp was never caught and most likely never will be unless the person makes a death-bed confession.

 

[Laughing]

Somewhat OT: I remember a Halloween party during my college years. This was at a bar/dance club, and included a costume contest. The winner covered a dorm hallway trash can with paper-mache, painted it red & wore with white pants. Yep, Killer Tylenol. Ya'll know what year this was.