We felt kind of creepy doing it, retired FBI agent Bob Gibson said of his graveyard duty. Authorities believed they offered clues about who could and who could not have poisoned the capsules. Christy Gutowski focuses her work on stories about criminal justice, public corruption and issues that impact the everyday man. The death toll now stood at five: Reiner, McFarland, Adam Janus of Arlington Heights, his brother Stanley Janus of Lisle and 12-year-old Mary Kellerman of Elk Grove Village. But on Oct. 1, 1982, he had been a detective for only a year. There wasnt that much tension, Fahner said. Agents interviewed the victims families, neighbors, co-workers and friends about any known enemies. Investigators soon confirmed there was lethally poisonous cyanide inside the Tylenol capsules in question. (Carl Wagner / Chicago Tribune). FBI agents carry boxes out of the apartment building in Cambridge, Mass., Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2009. I dont want to get off here, he quietly said. Forty years later, these earliest days remain a point of pride for some and a source of frustration for others. Investigators quickly dismissed the possibility that the killer was targeting a single victim and the other bottles were contaminated to make it harder to solve that murder. What was he liked as a boss?, She added: Good and bad, I want to hear those stories, because its a reflection of who I am., Hurricane Ian: South Carolina and Florida comb wreckage to assess deadly toll, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune). I always wear the blue suit and the red tie, Lane said. They gave her one extra-strength Tylenol capsule that, unbeknownst to them, was laced with the highly poisonous potassium cyanide. 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. Given the totality of the circumstances, some thought it unusual for the Illinois attorney general to lead the investigation. He didnt fit that profile, Hogberg said. The man shrugged off his dismissal when investigators asked, saying it was the nature of the business. Others found Fahner the obvious choice. J.J. Bittenbinder a tough-talking, mustachioed detective who would later gain fame as a TV safety expert served as a liaison to Fahners task force in Des Plaines. In an attempt to paint a more detailed portrait of the killer, the FBI turned to a relatively new technique at the time called criminal profiling, in which agents try to identify the personality and behavioral characteristics of an offender based on an analysis of the crime. Kouba reviewed each as it came in, deciding which needed a field agents attention and which could be placed in a bin with other ludicrous claims. Manufacturer Johnson & Johnson recalled 31 million Tylenol bottles as panic spread nationwide following the deaths. 3: A Nightmare on Halloween: With Molly Jean Brandenburg, Carter Roy. Severns worked on the case for three days before he realized no one had offered an update to young Mary Kellermans grieving parents. His wife whom he had just married fell limp in the living room a short while after that. 6 Amazon travel essentials for your next getaway, starting at $12. He had never been better known in Illinois and was inching up in the polls too. And wherever they fell on the issue, that position hasnt changed much over the past four decades. He bought a rancid ham at Jewel and when he opened it, it was spoiled. Within a year, and after an investment of more than $100 million, Tylenols sales rebounded to its healthy past and it became, once again, the nations favorite over-the-counter pain reliever. He told her no, then carried the memory of the Kellermans anguish with him for the rest of his time on the task force. 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. McNeil Consumer Products, a subsidiary of the health care giant, Johnson & Johnson, manufactured Tylenol. Thank you. Only really frivolous things went in that other pile, she said. Seven people between the ages of 12 and 35 years old died in 1982 after ingesting extra-strength Tylenol capsules that were found to have been laced with cyanide, a deadly chemical. The FBI put about three dozen agents on the case, under the premise that the agency needed to determine whether Johnson & Johnson had violated federal law by failing to list potassium cyanide among the active ingredients in Tylenol. With no apparent motive and little evidence to go on, it was a tough task. Former Chicago police Detective Jimmy Gildea, shown at his Chicago home in July, investigated the death of Tylenol victim Paula Prince. He held news conferences, sometimes twice a day, to meet the insatiable media demands. Things were chaotic. Some of the investigators started using it privately, too. Chemists working for the Illinois Public Health Department in Chicago test the contents of Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules. Former Chicago police Superintendent Richard Brzeczek, shown in September, says he felt Ty Fahner was chosen to head the task force for political reasons. Ford, a Vietnam veteran with a classic Chicago accent and an Irishmans love of storytelling, died of a heart attack a few days after speaking with the Tribune. The Tylenol Murders Pt. Back then, bottles of pills did not have tamper-proof seals, just a cotton ball stuffed inside. (Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune). The Kellerman and Janus bottles contained Tylenol from lot MC2880, manufactured in Pennsylvania on April 26, 1982. They can do it, in part, by revisiting the earliest days of the Tylenol investigation, a time when evidence was not always handled according to todays careful standards. Kasia Janus also always verifies products are properly sealed before she buys anything at stores, she said in a recently published series of interviews with CNN that described the gut-wrenching legacy left behind for her by the unsolved Tylenol killings, which made tampering with medications as well as other consumer goods a federal crime but remain unsolved. The agents didnt bother to pretend that labeling rules were their true motivation for getting involved. He already had a new job. In 1989, the FDA established federal guidelines for manufacturers to make all such products tamper-proof. Jose Rosa, right, was one of hundreds of Chicago city employees and volunteers to distribute warnings about cyanide-laced Tylenol in fall 1982. She also laments that her dad never got to meet her and her husband, her son, her stepson and her step-grandson. Next week: Police investigate a poor mans James Bond, and an eighth person dies. 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. Later, Lewis was arrested,. They came up with nothing. These other men were all worried about his chances. And as soon as we got the word out that Tylenol had been laced, people said, What do we do? I said, Well, if youve got any in your medicine cabinet either put it in a plastic bag and keep it or throw it away. By days end, however, tainted capsules would be blamed for two deaths in neighboring DuPage County, broadening both the scope of the investigation and the threat to the public. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration then cautioned the public against taking the pain reliever in capsule form. And I want people to know that, yeah, this was my family, and it has changed all of us.. Relatives, including two who took polygraph tests, were quickly eliminated from suspicion. Employees of the Chicago City Health Department continue to test Tylenol medication for the presence of deadly cyanide at the Department's lab on Oct. 7, 1982. He investigated the Tylenol poisonings in the Janus family and later served as police chief in Island Lake. Former Chicago police Superintendent Richard Brzeczek told the Tribune he believed Fahners selection was purely political, done specifically because of the November election. So I stopped by the house on the way home, introduced myself and tried to answer any questions they had, he said. The White House, however, had ordered the FBI to find a way into the case amid growing public panic. Siekmann drove to a state laboratory in the city with the bottle on the seat next to him. In the end, it was decided that the state police would take the lead among the agencies and that investigators would be divided into nearly four dozen teams. A long-planned meeting with DuPage prosecutors also was pushed back in the spring. Seven people died in 1982 after taking painkillers from bottle someone police do not know who had slipped cyanide pills into. DNA evidence wasnt part of police work at the time, but it would become a factor in the case a quarter-century later. Ford and Gildea arrived at the campus with hopes of a break in the case, only to find out the so-called professor was a high school boy pretending to work at UIC so he could pick up college girls. 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. 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. They told stories of information hoarding, turf wars and glory seeking even when there was none to be had. (Stan Policht / Chicago Tribune). As everyone left that first meeting Friday morning, DuPage deputy coroner Siekmann, who hadnt slept in more than 24 hours, looked around the room and wondered how it would all work. What the hell is this? Several people had died within the last day in the Chicago suburbs after ingesting Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules laced with cyanide and the situation needed attention. Security cameras were scarce in suburban Chicago in 1982, but investigators checked the images that existed. These packaging protections soon became the industry standard for all over-the-counter medications. Simply put, the feds entry into the investigation hinged on the admittedly preposterous notion that the manufacturer intentionally put poison in the pain reliever and then committed a misdemeanor crime by not including it on the label. And they would remain apart for the next four decades. Tamper-resistant pill containers were introduced with packaging that allows consumers to notice if a bottle of pills or medication has been opened or altered. Kasia said she still remembers hearing her mother scream when she couldnt wake her father up the next day, 29 September 1982. To this day, however, the perpetrators of these murders have never been found. FBI agent Shari Kouba, one of the few women on the task force, ran the tips desk. She also told CNN she had invited many people to a memorial service and celebration of life luncheon honoring her father in hopes that shed learn things she never got the chance to because of the murder. (Chicago Tribune), If you are the Tylenol killer, though, you may be harboring just the vaguest curiosity about the people on the other end of your plan: The people who were unfortunate enough to purchase the bottle you had touched, Greene wrote. Before the 1982 crisis, Tylenol controlled more than 35 percent of the over-the-counter pain reliever market; only a few weeks after the murders, that number plummeted to less than 8 percent. Subscribe to Heres the Deal, our politics A casket is carried out of St. Hyacinth Roman Catholic Church after the funeral Mass for three members of the Janus family in 1982. Members of the Illinois State Police join, as well. Johnson & Johnson recalled 31 million Tylenol bottles as panic spread nationwide the... 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