- With each passing year, the chances of solving the Tylenol murders faded.

Tips slowed, witnesses passed, and police had to prioritize other crimes.

The task force's main suspect, James Lewis continued to grant interviews from an Oklahoma federal prison each time denying his involvement in the killings.

- I swear that those prosecutors don't give a damn about those Tylenol murder victims or their families any more than a a vial of aids.

- It would seem what those victims' families would most want would be for James Lewis to say, I did it.

- Well, why don't you admit doing it?

Well, I didn't do it.

Well, I didn't do it either.

- He appeared to enjoy the cat and mouse game, but basically James Lewis was one of those criminals who thought that he was the smartest guy in the room.

- Tylenol murder is still out dancing in the streets of this country, and the prosecutors in Chicago could care less.

Well.

- The prosecutors in Chicago think that he's not dancing, that he's here in Oklahoma behind bars.

- Well, every time they make statements like that, they're blowing big wet kisses to that Tylenol murder out on the streets, and they're the best friends that that Tylenol murder could ever have.

- Lewis was released from prison in 1995.

After serving about 13 years.

He rejoined Leann in Cambridge, Massachusetts where she ran an accounting business, but Lewis couldn't seem to resist his darker impulses.

He was arrested again in 2004.

- He was accused of kidnapping this neighbor and keeping her in his condo while Leann was out of town and committing of sexual violence.

And he spent three years in jail while the case was going through court, and ultimately, authorities had to drop the charges against him because the victim was so traumatized that she just could not go into court and testify against him.

- Though Lewis evaded punishment yet again, the FBI considered him an ongoing threat.

The Bureau and the Arlington Heights Police Department quietly revived the Tylenol investigation in 2006, calling the 25-year-old crime, a perfect cold case.

- And that is the beginning of Task force two.

- The task force considered other suspects, but all their evidence pointed to James Lewis.

The FBI brought back retired agent Roy Lane, who knew James and Leann better than anyone else in law enforcement.

Investigators suspected that after three years behind bars, Lewis would be willing to talk.

They were right.

- James Lewis wanted to be the center of attention.

He wrote me a letter saying I could interview him and I could ask any question that I wanted to ask.

- The task force set up a ruse hoping to catch Lewis in an elaborate sting operation.

Lane asked Lewis to help a journalist named Sherry Nichols, who was writing a book about the Tylenol case.

It would clear Lewis's name and make him the star, but Sherry Nichols was actually an undercover agent.

- The book's not real.

The journalist isn't real.

Sherry Nichols's name isn't real.

Nothing's real about it.

Jim falls for everything.

- Let's just talk about Monday.

Tuesday.

Agents met with James and Leann on more than 60 occasions in Boston, New York and Chicago.

The task force recorded their meetings as Lewis lowered his guard and suggested how the killer might have committed the poisonings - He could have bought a bottle a month before and played with it - In one stunning video, Lewis demonstrated how even a 15-year-old could use a paperclip to open a Tylenol box in a store without leaving fingerprints or DNA - One movement.

You got the paper clip opened up.

That's all bending you need.

There's your hook for picking up the cotton.

This will lift.

Reach underneath here, life this up, pull it out of the box - Lane says an even more incriminating moment occurred one month later near downtown Chicago, around the corner from the apartment where Paula Prince had died while removing her makeup.

- Well, we brought James Lewis here because we wanted to see his reaction.

This particular Walgreens, because of the picture of Paula Prince purchasing her extra strength Tylenol, became the face of the Tylenol investigation.

He was so excited he almost knocked over the handicap person trying to get in the store.

And then he had to stop because he had a pain in his stomach.

And he said, I haven't been this excited since I met my birth mother.

- And when he went into the store, he went directly to a back shelf where the Tylenol had been shelved in 1982.

It was no longer shelved there.

They kept something else there, but he went to the exact location - And then we went to the Tylenol where it currently was located.

He was so excited, picked up a Tylenol bottle and he said, you need to hold this with me too.

And he said, I can't believe I'm in here.

This is the epicenter of the Tylenol poisonings - For Lane.

The most telling moment occurred at a Chicago hotel in September, 2007.

Could I just move this just for a second?

- When friendly banter shifted to a pointed interrogation, I just charted out week in question.

- The big smoking gun was a videotape of Lewis talking about the timeline of when he wrote the extortion letter, and they caught him in a bit of a lie.

- Let's just back up.

When was the Tylenol letter done?

Lewis claimed he spent three days writing his extortion letter to Johnson and Johnson through technological advances.

The task force uncovered a postal date stamp.

It showed Lewis had mailed his threat on October 1st, 1982.

That meant he began writing the letter before the poisonings became public.

But that's the quandary.

- I see what your big puzzle is now because you clearly had that in mind.

I didn't have that in mind.

'cause I didn't have, I didn't until you pointed out that I didn't know that it was a conflict in my memory.

- Because basically if you would have written the letter the same day they were dying.

Yeah.

Well that, yeah.

Well, that didn't happen.

- He is very proud of that extortion letter.

And now he realizes that he made a big mistake by telling me, or admitting to me he wrote it before any of the victims died.

This was a big time admission.

- The slip up triggered a search warrant of James and Leann's home.

Agents removed a computer and several boxes of belongings on February 4th, 2009.

That's when Lewis, a convicted con man, realized he had been conned.

- Jim Lewis was not helping to solve the Tylenol murders.

Roy Lane was never his friend.

It was all a ruse.

- The search turned up several handwritten documents, including one entitled, yes, I am a killer, but I have 10 good reasons.

- Among the reasons listed are vengeance.

To get rid of scum and to teach a lesson, - Investigators kept pushing.

Thanks to scientific advances, DNA profiles were identified on three tainted Tylenol bottles and the capsules inside the FBI obtained fresh DNA from Lewis for comparison.

- And James Lewis is like, come and get it.

It's not gonna prove anything.

- Lewis was right on that score.

The DNA was not a match.

He taunted law enforcement on his website.

- How are you?

Thanks for calling in.

- Lewis also appeared on a community access program to publicize a crime novel he'd written.

The fictional story begins with a mass poisoning.

I got a question for Mr. Lewis, but callers wanted to discuss the real life Tylenol case instead.

- Mr. Lewis, have you ever reached out to the families of the Tylenol victims to apologize for exploiting their tragedy?

- Oh, I never exploited the the tragedy that affected them.

I feel for those people every day for the last 28 years.

- Have you ever?

- But I have nothing to do with it.

- He played the FBI like a fiddle, and I think that Louis just basked in the spotlight of being the suspect.

- With the 30th anniversary of the Tylenol murders approaching in 2012 and the clock ticking, the task force presented its case to prosecutors about 50 pages of evidence.

- They had 10 different points of why they thought James Lewis was the killer.

They called it a chargeable, circumstantial case.

- The task force offered several possible motives, including one linked to the tragic loss of James and Leann's 5-year-old daughter.

At 1974, surgeons had tried to repair a hole in her heart, but the sutures tore and she died.

- The theory was that James Lewis had done the Tylenol poisonings to avenge his daughter because the company that had trademarked those sutures, it was trademarked by Johnson & Johnson.

- It's a theme of revenge in his entire adult life where he thinks somebody slighted him.

He's gonna get even with them.

Though the task force had collected a wealth of circumstantial evidence, investigators knew there were holes in their case.

- There is no physical evidence connecting James Lewis to the Tylenol murders - And no records or eyewitness testimony placing Lewis in Chicago before the poisonings.

- The prosecutors whose names and reputations were on the line never felt confident enough to bring charges against him.

- All we got was a shutdown saying You don't have the case or we're not gonna prosecute.

And that was very difficult to deal with.