KELLY: You interviewed him for the articles you wrote and the companion podcast. And you could get on a plane under a different name. We didn't leave sort of the digital footprint everywhere we went. ST CLAIR: It was the lack of physical evidence and the fact that they actually could never place him in Chicago that week, you know? It's - it was a different time. So was it just that lack of physical evidence we mentioned? Is that why murder charges were never brought? And what he did was draw pictures for the FBI and federal prosecutors of exactly how you would put the cyanide into the pills without poisoning yourself. He would have done it if you had done it. KELLY: He drew, like, all these little diagrams - right? - of how.
#TYLENOL IN LIQUID FORM FOR ADULTS SERIES#
I think I can help you find, you know, the, quote-unquote, "real killer." And he sits down for a series of interviews, and he waives his lawyer being present, and he begins to tell them what the killer would be thinking when he poisoned the capsules or put them on the shelves. After he gets convicted but before he's sentenced, he calls the FBI and says, I'd like to help you solve the case.
They never charge him with the murders because they couldn't place him in Chicago, and there were no fingerprints that matched. He gets convicted a year later of attempted extortion in that case. ST CLAIR: Well, as you said, it first begins with him inserting himself into the case with this blackmail letter, this extortion attempt where he admits to being the killer in the letter and says he'll stop the killings if he gets a million dollars. KELLY: So briefly explain a little more why investigators were so convinced that Lewis was responsible. Clair is part of a Chicago Tribune reporting team that delved into the Tylenol murders last year. Lewis was convicted of attempted extortion and spent 13 years in prison. They did have an extortion letter Lewis had written to Johnson & Johnson, the company that manufactures Tylenol, demanding a million dollars to make the killings stop. Authorities believed they had a case against James Lewis, but they did not have direct physical evidence. And now the man who law enforcement has focused on for four decades has died on Sunday at his home in Cambridge, Mass.
KELLY: Seven people died after swallowing Tylenol capsules that had been laced with potassium cyanide, and no one was ever charged with the murders. UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #4: And authorities there have moved to confiscate most of the city's Tylenol supply. UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #3: The Illinois attorney general has blamed a madman for the poisonings. UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #1: Medical officials in Chicago say some capsules of the pain reliever Extra Strength Tylenol have been laced with the deadly poison cyanide. In the fall of 1982, a panic gripped Chicago.
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