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. 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. I dont think that bore fruit at all.. Marquette 10 is one of a thousand reasons why theres tension, personal jealousy, personal ambition, jurisdictional turf fights. The lot numbers for the McFarland, Reiner and Prince bottles indicated they were manufactured in Round Rock, Texas, and went to different warehouses in the Chicago area before ending up on store shelves. Nothing was being solved.. "As you can see, it is easy to place cyanideinto capsules sitting on store shelves," he wrote in the letter. Meanwhile, a 12-year-old child named Mary Kellerman had also died suddenly in another Chicago suburb after taking an Extra-Strength Tylenol. Former Chicago police Superintendent Richard Brzeczek told the Tribune he believed Fahners selection was purely political, done specifically because of the November election. He didnt fit that profile, Hogberg said. He told her no, then carried the memory of the Kellermans anguish with him for the rest of his time on the task force. 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. We had gloves in our car and basically used them on decomposed bodies. Following the same theory, investigators took pictures . The state police memo indicates fingerprints were found on at least one of the bottles, as well as a full print on the inside of a different bottles box. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune), If you stopped a thousand people on the street, youd be lucky if one of them could tell you who Ty Fahner was. A decadeslong investigation has centered around Massachusetts man James Lewis, 76, who was 36 at the time of the murders. Tylenol murders: A nationwide panic, a family tragedy Transformed by tragedy Her dad, aunt and uncle died 40 years ago after taking poisoned Tylenol. 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). He didnt get in our way. You know, boost exposure and stuff like that.. 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. A theory emerged: What if the Mad Poisoner was actually the Unabomber? They understood the tension between the FBI and local law enforcement some of them shared those same resentments but they thought Chicago didnt even try to be team players. The attorney general largely stopped campaigning after joining the task force, but his face was on TV every night. What was my dads favorite color? What are you giving this story for? So they ran him off the stage and I got up there.. Written by a high-ranking Illinois state police supervisor in April 1983, the document describes the wide net authorities cast in the hopes of solving the mystery. Everyone who had access to the box including the judge and his wife provided fingerprints for comparison. Among those questioned was a clerical worker who was fired for repeatedly missing work. And there were a lot of bottles to come out of that lot.. (Stan Policht / Chicago Tribune). A lot of people who didnt like me or didnt like Thompson or my association were taking shots, Fahner said. I think hes nothing but a class act, said McQuaid, a retired state police captain. The Tylenol Murders Remain One of the Nation's Biggest Unsolved Mysteries Popular belief is that the killer was James Lewis, the man imprisoned for 13 years for extorting Johnson & Johnson in the. Christy Gutowski focuses her work on stories about criminal justice, public corruption and issues that impact the everyday man. Chemists working for the Illinois Public Health Department in Chicago test the contents of Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules. Johnson & Johnson initially recalled only those products with the same batch number as the Janus and Kellerman bottles. I had people dropping dead all over the place.. Police Officer Michael Miljan leaves an Arlington Heights pharmacy after making sure bottles of Extra-Strength Tylenol were being removed from shelves. And only months later, it changed the way we purchase and consume over-the-counter medications. Elmhurst police Detective Herb Hogberg interviewed a chemist who had been laid off from the company in recent months. The man shrugged off his dismissal when investigators asked, saying it was the nature of the business. I was the detective at the scene. And the last point that they wanted to strike home was that the person who committed this is enjoying the attention right now and the fact that he or she had outsmarted the law enforcement, Lane said. Over the next few days, three more strange deaths occurred: 35-year-old Mary McFarland of Elmhurst, Illinois, 35-year-old Paula Prince of Chicago, and 27-year-old Mary Weiner of Winfield, Illinois.. Investigators, however, are prepared should that question arise. He believed Thompson was behind the move, though Fahner denied it. The Illinois State Police told NBC News the investigation remains ongoing. The substance was grainier than the untainted Tylenol on the left. Flight attendant Paula Prince bought a tainted bottle of Tylenol at the Walgreens at Wells Street and North Avenue in Chicago. Other copy-cat poisonings, involving Tylenol and other over-the-counter medications, cropped up again in the 1980s and early 1990s but these events were never as dramatic or as deadly as the 1982 Chicago-area deaths. So, the theory was the tampering took place at the store, said FBI agent Lane. There was no clear leader. There was little evidence to go on, no inkling of a motive and five people dead. If you are curious, come to a small house on a quiet, winding street in Elk Grove Village. To this day, however, the perpetrators of these murders have never been found. The substance was grainier than the untainted Tylenol on the left. The Tylenol murders would soon spur the development of plastic seals and tamper-evident packaging. Security cameras were scarce in 1982, but investigators checked the images that existed, including this photograph from a drugstore camera showing Paula Prince, center, buying a bottle of tainted Tylenol. He hangs up, opens the door and we come in like gangbusters, Gildea said. . And my next thought was that there are too many cooks in the kitchen.. In fact, so many big dogs were present, Fellmann said he couldnt find a free chair inside his own 60-seat roll call room. He also would have a history of animal cruelty, Lane told the Tribune. Indeed, the Johnson & Johnson recall became a classic case study in business schools across the nation. 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. A casket is carried out of St. Hyacinth Roman Catholic Church after the funeral Mass for three members of the Janus family in 1982. It didnt take long for the Tylenol murders to become national news. Police reports mention several former Johnson & Johnson employees, though none was ever considered a serious suspect. Every agency imaginable attended, many of them represented by their top leaders. The task force didnt know who or why.. He brought personal knowledge (as the former state police director) and experience regarding a criminal investigation. Three of the deaths occurred in Arlington Heights, where police told NBC Chicago last year that they still have the pills, bottles and boxes as evidence. The police questioned him and searched his home, they turned up several interesting connections. 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.. That evening, Illinois Attorney General Ty Fahner sat on a dais listening to stump speeches at the Kane County Republican Organizations annual dinner. Tamper-resistant pill containers were introduced with packaging that allows consumers to notice if a bottle of pills or medication has been opened or altered. Siekmann, who had been working since 8 a.m., believed some capsules were tainted from the first time he laid eyes on them. And neither does the DNA. Within 48 hours of the murders, the task force used this information to conclude publicly that the pills could not have been poisoned during production. 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. And we were able to analyze the cyanide and show that it was not the same (cyanide at the plant) as cyanide in the capsules., Lab technicians Nlada Marzette, left, and Lynn Pilaggi inspect the contents of Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules for cyanide contamination at the Illinois Department of Public Health in 1982. 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. They would work the case in Chicago and send someone else to Des Plaines to play nice with the others. 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. And you know, some agents are better than other agents and can really do a good job. 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. Seven people died in 1982 after taking painkillers from bottle someone - police do not know who - had slipped cyanide pills into Ramon Antonio Vargas Sun 2 Oct 2022 02.00 EDT Forty years after the. I think after a day or two, the state police realized theyre on their own. Extra-Strength Tylenol bottles, for example, came in a paper box with an unglued lid. 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. Her parents gave permission. There wasnt that much tension, Fahner said. 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. We didnt get anything, but we were kicking around ideas like that.. Stacy St. Clair joined the Chicago Tribune in 2007. 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. I do think it created a lot of problems because youre always thinking theres somebody doing something behind your back.. With fears mounting, Johnson & Johnson recalled all over-the-counter Tylenol capsule products on Oct. 5, nearly a week after Mary Kellermans death. Even after he retired from the FBI in 1996, he didnt let it go. 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. I always wear the blue suit and the red tie, Lane said. 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. I dont want to get off here, he quietly said. Others found Fahner the obvious choice. Whats going on? If Fahner had any chance of keeping his office in November, he had to build enthusiasm among conservative voters in the suburbs. Members of the Illinois State Police join, as well. These other men were all worried about his chances. Local police departments and states attorneys offices have been trying to crack the case for 40 years. The latest Tribune poll showed he was down by about 20 points in the upcoming election. In 2010, DuPage County prosecutors filed a sealed affidavit stating investigators had found DNA on three bottles and the capsules inside, according to documents obtained by the Tribune. The Tribune has spoken with several people who have been asked to provide DNA samples within the last decade all men who had access to poisoned bottles found in Cook County. Finally, in late July, officials from both Cook and DuPage gather for a video conference. Every night, I would come home after my kids were in bed, he said. What are the Tylenol murders? Ford, a Vietnam veteran with a classic Chicago accent and an Irishmans love of storytelling, died of a heart attack a few days after speaking with the Tribune. Reports would be written in triplicate so each member would get a copy. 40 years later, Kasia Janus is sharing. And lives were at risk. Still, in his opinion, Fahner was exactly what the task force needed. Manufacturer Johnson & Johnson recalled 31 million Tylenol bottles as panic spread nationwide following the deaths. I dont know what he thought. 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. Severns worked on the case for three days before he realized no one had offered an update to young Mary Kellermans grieving parents. 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. And wherever they fell on the issue, that position hasnt changed much over the past four decades. All Rights Reserved. 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. 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. What the hell is this? Testing found cyanide in the Extra-Strength Tylenol capsule on the right. He already had a new job. Forty years later, Ford shook his head at the memory. At the time just four, Janus recalls being with her father, Adam, in their Chicago suburb when he bought an Extra-Strength Tylenol bottle that someone had slipped cyanide pills into. Shari Kouba, shown in July at an FBI office in Mount Prospect where she used to work, ran a tips desk as part of the Tylenol task force. I knew how to organize things.. These packaging protections soon became the industry standard for all over-the-counter medications. She rarely heard how the tips panned out. We locked him up.. Someone, police hypothesized, must have taken bottles off the shelves of local grocers and drug stores in the Chicago area, laced the capsules with poison, and then returned the restored packages to the shelves to be purchased by the unknowing victims. Three months earlier, 10 Chicago officers from the citys West Side were convicted of taking bribes to protect heroin rings. I realized I was in the deep end of the pool, he said. Why was this happening? Authorities wont discuss the potential theories or suspects they have amid an investigation that they insist remains open and unforgotten. the fact remains, the Tylenol murders of 1982 . Early on the morning of Sept. 29, 1982, a tragic, medical mystery began with a sore throat and a runny nose. 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. You understand? Ford said he told Stein. 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. The poisonings spanned multiple towns and two counties. Stanley died that very day and Theresa died two days later. They also started grumbling about politics overshadowing their work. Former Chicago police Detective Jimmy Gildea, shown at his Chicago home in July, investigated the death of Tylenol victim Paula Prince. Forty years after the infamous Tylenol murders killed her father and two other close relatives, a Wisconsin woman refuses to take the popular pain pills. (Fred Jewell/AP). I thought he was perfect.. Tensions flared, even among law enforcement personnel sincerely dedicated to the job. Fahner looked at all the power brokers on the platform U.S. Sen. Charles Percy, Gov. A photograph of a television screen shows the specific lot number for a batch of Extra-Strength Tylenol that was the first to be recalled. Lab technicians Nlada Marzette, left, and Lynn Pilaggi inspect the contents of Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules for cyanide contamination at the Illinois Department of Public Health in 1982. (Charles Osgood / Chicago Tribune). Pursuing the mission, however, eventually sent the FBI and the Chicago Police Department in two different directions. 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. Security cameras were scarce in suburban Chicago in 1982, but investigators checked the images that existed. In all, the task force had only eight bottles to offer clues to where and when the tampering could have taken place. Subscribe to our Science Newsletter to explore the Authorities already considered the womens deaths to be cyanide related by the time they contacted Fahner during his campaign event. When Thompson, a Republican, became governor in 1977, Fahner followed him to Springfield to lead the Illinois state police. They had a lot of questions and I didnt have any answers at all., 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. Illinois Attorney General Ty Fahner talks about the Tylenol deaths on Oct. 1, 1982. 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. Kouba reviewed each as it came in, deciding which needed a field agents attention and which could be placed in a bin with other ludicrous claims. The discovery, so far, has been more of a curse than a blessing for present-day investigators, who have spent years obtaining DNA samples from investigators, public health officials, scientists and medical professionals who came in contact with the poisoned Tylenol. For example, Johnson & Johnson quickly established that the cyanide lacing occurred after cases of Tylenol left the factory. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration then cautioned the public against taking the pain reliever in capsule form. Studies have found women who kill use poison more often than men do, but they typically target people they know. Thats just human nature. In those early days, there were so many agencies involved, so many people desperate to solve the case. Neither did the chemist who performed the cyanide test. Investigators took pictures of people who attended the victims funerals to see if they could capture anyone acting unusual. In reality, some task force members still accuse their colleagues of secretive behavior 40 years later. (Josh Reynolds/AP) The investigation into the 1982 Tylenol murders was pretty dormant when an FBI . DNA evidence wasnt part of police work at the time, but it would become a factor in the case a quarter-century later. Former Chicago police Superintendent Richard Brzeczek, shown in September, says he felt Ty Fahner was chosen to head the task force for political reasons. She has received numerous national honors for her work. Some expressed surprise at how casually other people treated the poisoned bottles. Several victims families told the Tribune they didnt hear much from investigators after those initial interviews. It was standing room only inside the Arlington Heights Police Department for the first meeting of what would become the Tylenol task force. Agents interviewed the victims families, neighbors, co-workers and friends about any known enemies. Another theory was that whoever poisoned the medication did it at home or in a car, then placed the bottles back on the shelves. No one has ever been charged with the murders. Simply put, the feds entry into the investigation hinged on the admittedly preposterous notion that the manufacturer intentionally put poison in the pain reliever and then committed a misdemeanor crime by not including it on the label. Two main suspects in this unsolved case are James Lewis and Roger Arnold, who had both been linked to this occurrence in some way. They gave her one extra-strength Tylenol capsule that, unbeknownst to them, was laced with the highly poisonous potassium cyanide. Medicare Pharmacy employee Mary Butler, right, shows a box of Extra-Strength Tylenol to Officer Michael Miljan in Arlington Heights. The Tylenol Murders" and asked him if he has any theories on who the Tylenol Killer might be. Come to 1425 Armstrong Lane.. (Stan Policht / Chicago Tribune). And 35 years later, this murder mystery is still . The first few days were spent talking to people closest to Prince and sifting through the many tips they received. Conspiracy theories about motives and suspects for all these heinous acts continue to be bandied about on the Internet to this day. Theories The first suspect is 48 year old dock worker Roger Arnold, who said some suspicious things about the Tylenol murders at a bar one night. Unfortunately, each victim swallowed a Tylenol capsule laced with A lethal dose of cyanide. Many people who handled potential evidence in 1982 didnt wear gloves because it wasnt protocol at the time. 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. The panic stemming from the Tylenol murders resulted in a permanent change in the packaging of medicine. Siekmann drove to a state laboratory in the city with the bottle on the seat next to him. The Tylenol case marked one of the earliest uses of the approach. Perhaps he traded homemade bombs for poisoned pills. We were getting flooded with calls, said John Fellmann, an Arlington Heights detective assigned to the case. he answered. Later, Lewis was arrested,. The agents didnt bother to pretend that labeling rules were their true motivation for getting involved. I thought, well, this is rather impressive, Siekmann said. But thats not a problem, the investigators say. We also are still were looking at emerging forensic technology, Sgt. By 2011, the FBI was ready to reexamine the evidence. Relatives, including two who took polygraph tests, were quickly eliminated from suspicion. Former Chicago police Superintendent Richard Brzeczek, shown in September, says he felt Ty Fahner was chosen to head the task force for political reasons. That wasnt there.. Scott Stump is a staff reporter and the writer of the daily newsletter This is TODAY. Michael Petros, DrPH Wednesday, September 29, 1982 at 6:30am CDT, the nightmare that was to be known as the "Tylenol Murders" began 1. She also laments that her dad never got to meet her and her husband, her son, her stepson and her step-grandson. The 20-year-old would be buried alongside her husband and her brother-in-law Adam in a triple funeral made even more heartbreaking when relatives had to pull Terris mother off her daughters casket before it was lowered into the ground. The Tribune interviewed nearly two dozen members of the task force, many of whom confirmed the reports veracity and added their own perspective. Thank you. The task force investigating the Tylenol killings doubted that James Lewis would be reckless enough to stay in Manhattan after mailing an extortion letter to Johnson & Johnson demanding $1 million . The Tylenol Murders Victims Mary Kellerman On September 29, 1982, 12 year old Mary Kellerman woke up feeling ill. (Chicago Tribune archive). 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