James Lewis, suspect in 1982 Tylenol poisonings that killed 7 in the Chicago area, has died
- No one was ever charged in the deaths of seven people who took the over-the-counter painkillers laced with cyanide
- Lewis served more than 12 years in prison for sending an extortion note to manufacturer Johnson & Johnson, demanding US$1 million to ‘stop the killing’
The suspect in the 1982 Tylenol poisonings that killed seven people in the Chicago area, triggering a nationwide panic and leading to an overhaul in the safety of over-the-counter medication packaging, has died, police said on Monday.
Officers, firefighters and EMTs responding to a report of an unresponsive person on Sunday afternoon found James Lewis, 76, dead in his Cambridge, Massachusetts home, Cambridge Police Superintendent Frederick Cabral said in a statement.
“Following an investigation, Lewis’ death was determined to be not suspicious,” the statement says.
No one was ever charged in the deaths of seven people who took the over-the-counter painkillers laced with cyanide. Lewis served more than 12 years in prison for sending an extortion note to manufacturer Johnson & Johnson, demanding US$1 million to “stop the killing.” He and his wife moved to Massachusetts in 1995 following his release.
When Lewis was arrested in New York City in 1982 after a nationwide manhunt, he gave investigators a detailed account of how the killer might have operated. Lewis later admitted sending the letter and demanding the money, but he said he never intended to collect it. He said he wanted to embarrass his wife’s former employer by having the money sent to the employer’s bank account.
Lewis, who had a history of trouble with the law, always denied any role in the Tylenol deaths, but remained a suspect and in 2010 gave DNA samples to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He even created a website in which he said he was framed. Although the couple lived briefly in Chicago in the early 1980s, Lewis said they were in New York City at the time of the poisonings.
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In a 1992 interview with Associated Press, Lewis explained that the account he gave authorities was simply his way of explaining the killer’s actions.
“I was doing like I would have done for a corporate client, making a list of possible scenarios,” said Lewis. He called the killer “a heinous, cold-blooded killer, a cruel monster.”
The FBI seized a computer and other items from Lewis’ home in February 2009 after Illinois authorities renewed the investigation.
The FBI’s Chicago office at the time cited “advances in forensic technology” and said it, along with the Illinois State Police and local police departments, was conducting a “complete review of all evidence developed in connection” with the killings.
