The agents didnt bother to pretend that labeling rules were their true motivation for getting involved. And you had a lot of very experienced, very intelligent, very resourceful people thinking about this all the time, thinking about angles, thinking about ideas, testing them and implementing them wherever we possibly could. I mean, theres 10,000 reasons why people compete with each other. He didnt fit that profile, Hogberg said. Product tampering would become a crime in 1983 as a result of these murders, but in 1982 there was no federal law against it. Illinois state police and FBI supervisors did most of the talking at that first meeting, several attendees told the Tribune. Seven people in the Chicago area were killed that year by Tylenol that had been poisoned with potassium cyanide. Some investigators on the case, including a few still involved with it, considered the rendered profile too vague to be of any real use. But for something like this, for looking at a pill, it never would even cross our mind., Former DuPage County Coroner Pete Siekmann, who in 1982 was a deputy coroner, handled the Tylenol bottles from Mary "Lynn" Reiner and Mary McFarland. Investigators assumed the culprit was a man, though records indicate they didnt automatically rule out anyone based on gender. A casket is carried out of St. Hyacinth Roman Catholic Church after the funeral Mass for three members of the Janus family in 1982. Tylenols parent company, Johnson & Johnson, also saw its stock price drop after the news about the tainted capsules broke. Mary was dead by 7 a.m. His boss assigned him to the Janus murders two days earlier because the departments more seasoned detectives were working the fatal beating of a homeless man in a local park. Our highest responsibility has always been the health and safety of our consumers," Johnson & Johnson said in a statement to NBC News. The Chicago Tylenol murders were a series of poisoning deaths resulting from drug tampering in the Chicago metropolitan area in 1982. Former Chicago police Superintendent Richard Brzeczek, shown in September, says he felt Ty Fahner was chosen to head the task force for political reasons. The Illinois Department of Law Enforcement, now called the Illinois State Police, wanted him to help. Johnson & Johnson initially recalled only those products with the same batch number as the Janus and Kellerman bottles. What was my dads favorite color? In the first year alone, the task force used it to track more than 35,000 individuals and 15,000 companies contacted as part of the investigation. Arlington Heights police Chief Rodney Kath, second from left, works with other members of the Tylenol task force at its Des Plaines headquarters in 1982. Fahner thought state officials needed to be even more aggressive, despite the consequences for the investigation. It was so Dick Tracy to me, Steed said. President Reagan wanted the FBI in the investigation, retired FBI Special Agent Roy Lane Jr. told the Tribune. It was at this point, early October of 1982, that investigators made the connection between the poisoning deaths and Tylenol, the best-selling, non-prescription pain reliever sold in the United States at that time. After just one or two task force meetings, Ford and Gildea told their boss they werent going back. She has received numerous national honors for her work. 40 years later, Kasia Janus is sharing. "Ladies, you ever been harassed for something for 40 years that you had nothing to do with?" I thought he was perfect.. Authorities wont discuss the potential theories or suspects they have amid an investigation that they insist remains open and unforgotten. Come to 1425 Armstrong Lane.. Here's what to know about the history of the case and the latest developments. Even after he retired from the FBI in 1996, he didnt let it go. He bought a rancid ham at Jewel and when he opened it, it was spoiled. There, research chemist Karen Wolnik and her colleagues established a trace element pattern a sort of chemical fingerprint for each sample to determine whether it was identical to the poison used in the Tylenol killings. Ford said he quickly interrupted. While acetaminophen the active ingredient in the top-selling pain reliever was a fine white powder, these were filled with a grainy, translucent substance. Former Illinois Attorney General Ty Fahner stands on the former site of the Tylenol task force headquarters in Des Plaines, now an empty parking lot. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune). . Forty years after that terrifying period in September 1982, investigators say new evidence and a potential motive may be enough to finally solve the case. He couldnt leave. NBC News has not reviewed those documents. Four decades later, task force leaders downplay accusations of tensions among the agencies, suggesting history has been revised in an effort to explain why no one has been charged with the murders. Eight of them would be three-member squads composed of a federal agent, a state investigator and a suburban detective from one of the towns where the victims lived or tainted bottles were discovered. A long-planned meeting with DuPage prosecutors also was pushed back in the spring. We used every single technique available to us. That testing uncovered three more poisoned bottles: two turned in by customers in Wheaton and Chicago and one found on a Schaumburg pharmacy shelf. Chicago police Detective Charlie Ford, assigned to the Prince murder, recalled being stunned when Cook County Medical Examiner Robert Stein showed up at the victims Old Town condo and immediately asked to see the Tylenol. Adam Janus, a 27-year-old postal worker, wasnt feeling well and without having any way to know the mortal peril that the bottle posed for him, he took a pill from it before going to sleep that day. Scott Stump is a staff reporter and the writer of the daily newsletter This is TODAY. So, the theory was the tampering took place at the store, said FBI agent Lane. 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. 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. Siekmann, who had been working since 8 a.m., believed some capsules were tainted from the first time he laid eyes on them. But I didnt have the gray hair yet.. 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. 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. Pero quin fue el asesino? Joe McQuaid, a task force investigator with the state police who had worked for Fahner when he was director, acknowledged it was an unorthodox setup. Many of the task force members interviewed by the Tribune recounted difficulties as more than 100 people tried to work as a team. Still, in his opinion, Fahner was exactly what the task force needed. So I stopped by the house on the way home, introduced myself and tried to answer any questions they had, he said. At first, the story focused in the Chicago/Cook County . One man, James Lewis, claiming to be the Tylenol killer wrote a ransom letter to Johnson & Johnson demanding $1 million in exchange for stopping the poisonings. As the 40th anniversary of the 1982 Tylenol murders approaches, investigators are working with prosecutors on a now-or-maybe-never effort to hold a longtime suspect responsible for the. The tip line received more than 6,000 calls within the first few weeks. Complaining of a sore throat and a stuffy nose, her parents gave Mary one Extra Strength Tylenol capsule and let her stay home from school. John Fellmann at his home in Huntley in September. But before Sept. 29, 1982, consumer products had few defenses against a person bent on sabotage. 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). So as we organized, there were about 10, 15 different avenues of investigations to pursue, like disgruntled employees, former employees, lawsuits, Lane said. Relatives, including two who took polygraph tests, were quickly eliminated from suspicion. Tylenol murders investigators pursue new charges in 40-year case. It was standing room only inside the Arlington Heights Police Department for the first meeting of what would become the Tylenol task force. Others found Fahner the obvious choice. All 3 networks lead with the Tylenol story on the first day of the crisis. "As you can see, it is easy to place cyanideinto capsules sitting on store shelves," he wrote in the letter. Severns confronted people at both agencies, who blamed each other for keeping him in the dark. [Para leer en espaol] Los asesinatos de Tylenol, parte 2: Tylenol mezclado con cianuro fue el arma homicida. (Michael Budrys / Chicago Tribune). Thats clear, Margolis told the Tribune. 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. Each person underwent a rigorous background check. Flight attendant Paula Prince bought a tainted bottle of Tylenol at the Walgreens at Wells Street and North Avenue in Chicago. Male murderers are more likely, in general, to kill randomly and on a large scale. 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. See where the eight tainted Tylenol bottles were purchased or discovered. 1: Poisoning the Well: Directed by Travis Clark. IE 11 is not supported. In those early days, there were so many agencies involved, so many people desperate to solve the case. Fahner looked at all the power brokers on the platform U.S. Sen. Charles Percy, Gov. (Phil Greer / Chicago Tribune). Both experienced throbbing headaches, a not uncommon response to a death in the family and each took a Tylenol extra-strength capsule or two from the same bottle Adam had used earlier in the day. Forty years ago, cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules led to the deaths of seven people all around the Chicago area. 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. (Carl Wagner / Chicago Tribune). Later that morning, Siekmann drove to the northwest suburbs to share what he had learned with a group of law enforcement officials assembled by Fahners team. The panic stemming from the Tylenol murders resulted in a permanent change in the packaging of medicine. He needed to be there, no matter how much he hated campaigning. I dont know what he thought. The pills were sold at stores in suburban Chicago, and bottles of Tylenol were immediately pulled from shelves to be tested by health departments for the presence of cyanide. We didnt get anything, but we were kicking around ideas like that.. . Members of the media the same people who were constantly pestering him for information nicknamed Fahner Tylenol Ty. It stuck. Fahner ordered his staff to work through the night, calling local police, sheriffs, coroners, the FBI, the FDA, prosecutors and public health officials. READ: The awful work of the real doctors who inspired M*A*S*H. 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