James Lewis, the only person still suspected in the 1982 Tylenol murders, was discovered dead Sunday at his suburban Boston home, according to multiple law enforcement sources.
Lewis died after 40 years of strict police surveillance, during which Lewis engaged in a cat-and-mouse game with prosecutors. He was questioned by local officials last September as part of a renewed effort to press charges in the case.
It now seems doubtful that charges will ever be brought in connection with the poisonings that killed seven people and sparked a global panic because the only suspect in the investigation died.
Who was James Lewis?
James Lewis was the sole suspect in the Tylenol murders in 1982. He was 76 years old at the time of his death. The convicted con man infiltrated the Tylenol investigation by sending an extortion letter to the producer of the drug.
Lewis served nearly 13 years in federal prison for mail fraud in a 1981 Kansas City credit card scam and attempted extortion related to the letter. He joined his wife in Cambridge, Massachusetts after his release from prison in October 1995, where he spent the rest of his life.
Lewis once again ruled out his role as the Tylenol killer during a brief interview with the Tribune in August of last year. He also claimed that he had been treated unfairly. “Have you been bullied for something for 40 years that you had nothing to do with?” he asked him.
The term “Tylenol murders” describes a series of poisoning murders that occurred in the Chicago area in 1982. Extra-strength Tylenol capsules were poisoned with cyanide, and seven people who took them died. This episode is considered one of the best-known examples of product manipulation in the country.
Suffering from a headache, 12-year-old Mary Kellerman passed away on September 29, 1982, after swallowing an extra-strength Tylenol capsule. Within a few days, several more deaths occurred, all related to taking cyanide-laced Tylenol. Adam Janus, Stanley Janus, Theresa Janus, Mary McFarland, Paula Prince, and Mary Reiner were the other seven deaths.
After Lewis’s death, former FBI special agent Roy Lane, who worked on the case for decades, said: “I always hoped that justice would be done, and this short-circuits it.” Meanwhile, Jeremy Margolis, a former assistant US attorney who successfully convicted Lewis of an extortion attempt related to the case, lamented the fact that Lewis never had to answer for the murders.
“I was saddened to learn of the death of James Lewis,” he said in a statement. “Not because he is dead, but because he did not die in prison.”
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