Seven people died after taking poisoned Tylenol in 1982, and though no one was ever charged in the killings, packaging for over-the-counter medicine across the industry was revamped.
James Lewis was convicted of attempting to extort $1m from Johnson & Johnson but never formally accused of poisoning spree that killed seven in Chicago in 1982
deaths attributed to cyanide treated extra-strength capsules today went to seven. the mayor banned the product, the fbi has been called in on the case and the makers of extra-strength tylenol have offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of the person or persons responsible for this deadly sabotage. we had a serial killer that was able to kill a lot of people in different geographical locations in a very subtle manner that didn t leave for a lot of clues or leads for us, so it was a new concept of investigating for a lot of us. the tylenol task force grows to more than 200 law enforcement officers. as part of their investigation they enlist the help of 40 chemists to examine thousands of recalled tylenol capsules, hoping to find evidence leading them to a killer. the toughest part, from my perspective of the tylenol investigation, was the lack of
it s 17 years between 1982 and 1998 when kaczynski got caught. whoever put the cyanide into the tylenol capsules would have had to handle the jar, the container and handle the capsules, so it s possible that dna was obtained. in 1982 when the tylenol cases occurred that was before dna was had been discovered as being useful for forensic work. but the nature of the kind of explosive devices that kaczynski was noted for and putting poison into tylenol capsules is so different that on first blurb it seems like a very long shot. martha: it s interesting. as you say ther they are such vy different methods of killing.
i want to go back to the dna discussion that you were mentioning. how would you go about trying to rule him in or out all of these years later? well, if in fact his dna is on those capsules, well, there has to be some explanation. i think it would be extremely unlikely, and they would know i think the f.b.i. should know whether or not he was in the chicago area, or had ab access o the tylenol containers in which the cyanide was put. originally it was thought maybe it would be somebody that was connected with a far pharmaceutl company that made the tylenol. they would have the best opportunity to substitute cyanide. if they can t connect kaczynski with ability to have access to the tylenol containers, the tylenol capsules then this is not a very likely occurrence.