A Brief History

On September 30, 1982, 6 unsuspecting people took Tylenol brand acetaminophen capsules that had been filled with potassium cyanide, killing those unfortunates nearly instantly. A seventh person later died by the same unknown perpetrator and copy-cat crimes killed a few more.

Digging Deeper

The Chicago area was rocked when a 12 year old girl from Elk Grove Village, Illinois died after taking a tampered with capsule, and later a man from Arlington Heights, Illinois died the same way, this time at the local hospital. Tragically, the man’s brother and sister in law also died after consuming capsules from the same bottle. After 2 more deaths the link between tampered Tylenol capsules and the cyanide deaths was established and the public was notified as quickly as possible, including police cars driving down the streets with their loud speakers blaring a warning against taking Tylenol. A total of 7 people had died in the Chicago area, and Tylenol was taken off the shelves of stores all over the country, with 3 bottles of cyanide loaded capsules found on store shelves along with the 5 bottles that had led to the 7 deaths.

Investigators found that the bottles had come from different factories, leading them to believe the tampering was done by a person that took the bottles off store shelves, replaced the acetaminophen with cyanide and returned the bottles to the stores. It was not believed that the tampering could have happened at the factories or during shipping. By October 5, 1982, Tylenol maker Johnson and Johnson recalled every bottle of Tylenol in the United States. Consumers were offered tablet form Tylenol in exchange for capsules, but a wary public was leery of having anything to do with the product.

Although investigators followed up on some suspects, and one man was convicted of extortion for trying to bilk money from Johnson and Johnson pretending to be the poisoner, no person was ever actually charged with the crime. The man in the extortion plot, James Lewis, was named as the likely suspect, but a lack of evidence kept him from being charged, and he always denied involvement with the cyanide. Even “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski was suspected of the crime and was investigated.

Incredibly, Johnson and Johnson recovered from the cyanide scare and regained market share for their Tylenol brand by offering tablets and gel caps instead of capsules and by incorporating tamper resistant packaging, a technique that became the national norm which we still see today on all forms of ingestible products. Copy cat killers that spiked Excedrin capsules were later convicted after causing 2 deaths and other copy cats created hoaxes about other products being poisoned. The patent medicine industry pretty much completely did away with capsules for over the counter sales.

This horrible crime remains unsolved, and at least one former company employee has claimed the tampering took place in the distribution chain rather than at retail stores. We may never know who did this or how it happened, but the legacy of this crime means you should pay attention to the anti-tampering packaging on products you buy and do not consume anything that may have been tampered with. You do not want to appear in one of our articles!

Question for students (and subscribers): What could motivate sometime to commit such crimes as those described in this article? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.

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Historical Evidence

For more information, please see…

Bartz, Scott. TYMURS: The 1982 Tylenol Murders (TYMURS, Book 1). CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2012.