- [Narrator] It's one of the most infamous crimes in American history.

- [David] The Tylenol Murders scared the crap outta everybody.

- [Narrator] Seven people dead after taking Tylenol laced with poison.

- [Announcer] "It is tragic," she said.

"Insanity.

God help us all."

- [Joy] Something so banal as a medicine turned into a weapon of death.

- There still may be more deadly Tylenol out there somewhere.

- [Announcer] And law enforcement officials continued what is being called the biggest manhunt in Illinois history.

- The twists and turns in the Tylenol case are like nothing I've ever seen before.

- There are reports that an extortionist is behind the murders in Chicago.

- (Dan) And he says, "If you don't gimme $1 million, I'm gonna go kill a bunch more."

- [Tyrone] That son of a bitch, and I do believe he's the son of a bitch.

- [Narrator] An FBI agent who's fought over 40 years to bring the killer to justice takes viewers undercover and inside the investigation.

- I just charted out the week in question.

He said, "I can get you close to the person responsible for this."

- [Narrator] And a victim's daughter details her family's harrowing saga for the first time on television.

- It changed my family.

It changed my community.

It changed everybody.

- [Narrator] Inside the Tylenol Murders, next on "Chicago Stories".

(dramatic music) (music continues) (bells tolling) (bells tolling) - My family, they're from Poland, and they all came to the United States because they wanted a better opportunity, a better life for their children.

- [Narrator] Kasia Janus' family settled in Chicago, a city with one of America's largest Polish communities, and fit right in.

They gathered for mass and other celebrations at St.

Hyacinth Catholic Church on the northwest side.

- It is a grand church.

And my Uncle Stanley and my Aunt Theresa, they got married over the summer of 1982.

("Here Comes the Bride") (music continues) (officiant speaking foreign language) - I just remember lots of dancing.

(cheerful music) Everyone just happy.

A lot of dancing, that's all I remember.

We like to dance.

(laughing) - [Narrator] Kasia's father Adam worked for the post office in Arlington Heights, a middle class Chicago suburb.

The family of four blended into the leafy neighborhood while maintaining their Polish roots.

- It was a really loving home.

Both my parents spoke Polish.

My mom would always make Polish food, pierogis or golabki, stuffed cabbage, rosol, chicken soup, potatoes.

(chuckling) And my dad was all about the family.

He loved his family.

That was his world.

He used to spoil me a lot.

I was daddy's little girl.

It was great.

- [Narrator] Kasia's father picked her up from preschool on Wednesday, September 29th, 1982, his day off from work.

- And we went to Jewel to run some errands.

Picked up some flowers for my mom, which my mom would tell me that he was a romantic.

- [Narrator] Kasia still recalls the fateful moment her father, who wasn't feeling well, reached for a bottle of America's leading pain reliever.

- I remember him picking up the bottle, put it in his basket, and you know, it was time for us to go.

We went home, he gave her the flowers and I thought that was so sweet.

And that's when our lives just changed forever.

When I heard my mom screaming, I ran to him along with my brother.

I remember standing by him and just nudging him and just saying, "Wake up, Tata, wake up."

But he wouldn't wake up.

(ambulance wailing) - [Narrator] Charles Kramer was a young lieutenant in the Arlington Heights Fire Department when the emergency call came in.

- That's one of the calls that will go down and I'll never forget.

I can remember every detail.

Even though I'm 83 years old, I can still remember every single detail.

He responded to nothing we did.

The breathing was rapid and shallow.

His eyes were fixed and dilated like he was already dead.

- [Narrator] Paramedics rushed Adam to Northwest Community Hospital, just three blocks away.

The 27-year-old died later that afternoon from an apparent heart attack.

- [Kasia] Everyone was surprised for someone who was healthy to all of a sudden die unexpectedly like that.

- [Narrator] Kasia's extended family gathered at her home to grieve and make funeral arrangements.

Her Uncle Stanley and Aunt Theresa, back from their honeymoon in Hawaii, struggled to make sense of Adam's death.

- They were just so grief-stricken.

You know, here's my uncle who just lost his best friend and wanted something to relieve his headache.

And the bottle was sitting on the counter.

And then that's when it all happened again.

- [Dispatcher] Fire's responding to an address.

- And again, the same message, code one at 1262 South Mitchell for a man down.

The paramedics looked, they said, "It can't be, he's dead!"

Something's not right.

So we pulled up in front, and the screaming coming outta that house, the hysterics was unbelievable.

I get in, and there's four meds working on a young guy on the floor.

And this girl comes up and she's grabbing my arm and she's hysterical.

She's calling, "Stanley, Stanley."

She's pulling on my arm.

And all of a sudden she lets out a groan and goes down.

Talk about deja vu.

- [Narrator] They took the couple to the same hospital where Stanley's older brother had died just hours earlier.

Doctors were unable to revive the newlyweds.

No one understood what could have stricken three healthy young adults in less than six hours.

- I have never seen anything like this before with this rapid deterioration.

No matter what our men did, nothing seemed to work.

- [Charles] Helen Jensen is the village nurse, so I called her.

- And they didn't know if it was infectious, that if it was some sort of an Ebola or something.

So I went out to the house and it was spotless.

They checked for carbon dioxide and they checked for gas.

And going through everything, I found a bottle of Tylenol and I found the receipt in the garbage.

It was a brand new bottle and there were six capsules missing and there were three people dead.

And I said, "It's gotta be the Tylenol.

Something is in these Tylenol."

So we went back to the hospital.

And they said, "Oh no, it can't be, can't be Tylenol."

And I laid out the capsules again and counted them in front of them.

And I said, "There are six capsules missing.

There are three people dead.

It has to be the Tylenol."

- [Narrator] While Jensen argued her case, Lieutenant Kramer learned about another disturbing death in a neighboring suburb.

- [Anchor] At her home in northwest suburban Elk Grove Village, 12-year-old Mary Kellerman complained of flu-like symptoms.

- [Narrator] Mary Kellerman had stayed home from school that morning with a cold.

The seventh grader took Tylenol and collapsed on the bathroom floor.

- [Anchor] A half an hour later, doctors at a nearby hospital were treating her for unexplained heart failure.

- The girl was under our care for about two to three hours and pronounced dead.

- She was an only child to her parents, and she was really their world.

She loved to play Atari with her dad.

Her dad already had a Camaro in the garage that he was fixing up to give to her when she turned 16.

- [Narrator] A medical investigator collected Tylenol bottles purchased by the Kellerman and Janus families.

He alerted his boss, Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Edmund Donoghue, who suspected the pills had somehow been laced.

- I said, "Open the containers, and I want you to smell 'em and see if you can smell cyanide."

- Upon opening both of the bottles, a strong pungent odor emanated from the container.

- I was very lucky to have somebody out there who can smell cyanide.

It's a genetically determined trait, and only half the population is capable of smelling cyanide.

It has an odor classically described as bitter almonds.

- [Narrator] Cyanide is a fast-acting poison.

When ingested, it causes a sudden loss of consciousness, convulsions, and cardiac arrest.

- No one knew how big this was or potentially could become.

So there was a panic and an urgency.

- [Narrator] But the horror had only begun.

31-year-old Mary McFarland passed early the next morning.

She worked at Illinois Bell in Lombard, a western suburb, and collapsed after taking Tylenol for a headache.

- Her coworkers all described what a great mother she was to her two little boys.

She loved taking them to the local swimming pool.

She was an Irish girl.

She had a great laugh, red hair.

And she was just a girl's girl.

- [Narrator] Chicagoans who were just waking up had no idea that a common pain reliever was randomly killing people.

Including a sixth victim, Mary Reiner.

The 27-year-old was about to nurse her infant son when she took Tylenol and began convulsing.

- She was a young mother with four children.

In fact, she had just had a little boy six days before her death.

- [Anchor] Doctors called in reporters to spread the word.

They had found cyanide in the Tylenol Extra Strength capsule bottle.

- [Narrator] Donoghue called a press conference to warn the public.

- We don't know the extent of the contamination, so I think at this time it would be wise not to take Extra Strength Tylenol at all.

This information had to be gotten out because there were probably bottles out there with Tylenol still on the shelf.

- [Narrator] It was too late to save the seventh victim.

The family of 35-year-old Paula Prince hadn't heard from her in two days.

Chicago police responded to her apartment near downtown.

- [Jimmy] It's a beautiful apartment and a hallway to the bathroom, and Paula Prince was found dead lying on the floor.

- [Anchor] 35-year-old Paula Prince was found dead in her LaSalle Street apartment on Friday.

A bottle of tampered Tylenol was found nearby.

- She had a little bit of froth on her lips and her lips were in kind of a smile, a downward smile, which is a symptom of cyanide poisoning.

And it appeared to me that she was in the process of taking off her makeup.

- She was a single woman living in the city.

She was 35, a flight attendant, a hardworking Nebraska native.

She was just living her best life.

You know, it could have been any of us in the prime of our life, and just being snuffed out.

- [Narrator] Seven Chicagoans had dropped dead in just over 48 hours.

Chicago police superintendent Richard Brzeczek learned about Prince's death at a formal event with Mayor Jane Byrne.

- I went right to the lab at the morgue to verify that this was in fact cyanide.

And then I went over to the mayor's office and she decided to call a press conference.

- What we are announcing tonight is that effective first thing in the morning, city inspectors will be removing on orders or having the stores remove all Tylenol products from their shelves.

- [Christy] That image of Jane Byrne in her formal frilly dress is really one that's etched in so many of our memories in Chicago.

- We need your help and cooperation in getting the message out.

- We were a city about to change drastically, because something as simple as buying your 12-year-old daughter medicine for the flu could kill her.

And that worried everybody.

- [Anchor] Squad cars were dispatched to every conceivable place where Tylenol could be dispensed, ordering it removed from the shelves.

- It's just fate that it was those people and not me, 'cause that's where my wife shops.

- [Joy] As soon as the connection to Tylenol was made, police took to the streets, media took to the airwaves telling people, "Get rid of your Tylenol.

Take your Tylenol back to the store, take it to the police, flush it down the toilet.

Don't take it."

- [Anchor] Police cruised up and down residential streets warning all the citizens about the Tylenol danger.

- [Officer] Cyanide-contaminated Tylenol is responsible for three deaths in the Iron Heights area.

Do not take Tylenol until further notice.

- [Anchor] In the neighborhoods, police continued the door-to-door search for Tylenol.

- [Officer] Do you have any Tylenol in your house?

- [Narrator] Johnson and Johnson issued the first mass recall of a product in American history, more than 31 million bottles of Tylenol capsules, costing the company $100 million.

- And they were turning it into police stations all over the place, thousands and thousands of bottles of pills.

They were routing some to the ME's office and they were routing some to the Chicago Health Department, which was completely overwhelmed.

- [Anchor] Mayor Byrne ordered all the Tylenol analyzed by health department personnel.

- I'm opening up every single capsule to check for the cyanide.

- We probably looked at 80,000 individual capsules, which involved pulling them apart.

And acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, is just a very, very fine white powder.

And what we were looking for were these gross, heavy crystals, almost like rock salt but a little bit smaller, that were put in those capsules.

- Meanwhile, the count continues capsule by capsule.

The search for the deadly cyanide that has left seven Chicago area persons dead.

- [Narrator] Three more tainted bottles were discovered in the city and suburbs, making eight in all.

Authorities ruled out the possibility that the crime had occurred during the manufacturing process, suggesting someone had intentionally laced Tylenol with cyanide and put it back on store shelves.

- In 1982, there were no safety seals for over-the-counter medicines.

You'd just screw open the cap, maybe there'd be the cotton ball in there.

So any product in a drugstore was vulnerable to contamination or tainting, but no one thought anything like this would ever happen.

Something so banal as a medicine turned into a weapon of death.

- [Narrator] While it appeared the poisonings were limited to the Chicago region, fear gripped the entire nation.

- So far, the number of deaths from the contaminated capsules has been checked at seven.

But law enforcement agencies at the local, state, and federal level worry that there still may be more deadly Tylenol out there somewhere.

- [Anchor] Whoever he is, the Tylenol Killer has now succeeded in killing culture as well as people.

In Dudley, Massachusetts, they voted to ban trick or treating for this year.

- [Narrator] More than 40 cities banned Halloween trick or treating that October.

- This was really considered one of the first acts of domestic terrorism here, and there was a loss of innocence.

(bells tolling) - [Anchor] The bells tolling for three members of the Janus family, who died last week after taking what is now popularly called tainted Tylenol.

- [Narrator] Archbishop Joseph Bernadine and more than 1,000 mourners attended the funeral mass of Adam, Stanley, and Theresa Janus at St.

Hyacinth.

- [Kasia] It's where they got married, and a few months later they have their funeral.

So they start their lives together and they end their lives together.

- [Anchor] It was almost too much to bear for some of the family members, the music, the memories, the funeral mass held in both English and Polish.

- [Kasia] I was just following my mom's lead, making sure I was safe because there was just so many people.

- [Anchor] "It is tragic," she said.

"Insanity.

God help us all."

- So these are all newspaper clippings that my mom saved over the years.

So there's this photo of me.

And when I see this little girl, she's lost.

She's not sure if she should be scared or if she should be crying.

She's not quite sure what is happening.

It was never the same after this.

Our lives changed.

- [Stacy] That horrible moment for their family most certainly saved other lives and helped solve the medical mystery very quickly.

The next mystery, the criminal mystery, who did it?

That's taken a long time.

- [Anchor] The search for the cyanide killer is being coordinated from a northwest suburban storefront, where law enforcement agents are briefed on the latest evidence, then sent out to track down thousands of leads.

- It was an extremely difficult case to come at because of the randomness of the victims.

It didn't make any sense.

There wasn't anything tying them together.

The person who did this, he didn't know who he was going to kill.

- [Narrator] And detectives didn't know if the killer intended to strike again.

Within 24 hours of the poisonings, Illinois Attorney General Tyrone Fahner assembled the largest task force in state history to work the case.

- The number of people involved in the investigation was just big.

I mean, a couple hundred people when all's said and done.

- [Anchor] And law enforcement officials continued what is being called the biggest manhunt in Illinois history.

- They looked at known terrorists, known murderers that maybe had been released recently, mental patients, anybody that might have a motivation against this product, these companies, these families.

- What are they looking for?

He said, "We are looking for a madman."

- [Interviewer] Do you have any kind of a profile on such an individual type?

- No, we do not.

No, we do not, we don't know.

It's gotta be somebody who's a little bit nuts.

- [Narrator] The FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit built a criminal profile of the killer at a time when such methods were fairly new.

While some dismissed the report, a 34-year-old agent named Roy Lane found its predictions of the killer's next moves invaluable.

- There's a great likelihood the person who was responsible thinks he got away with this.

And it's very much a high.

But over time, that high is going to diminish, and he's gonna want to get involved in the investigation so that he can resume that high.

- [Narrator] Relentless media coverage ramped up pressure on law enforcement to solve the case.

- There was no bigger story than this back then, and it dominated not only the newsroom and all the people in it, but it also dominated air.

And every newscast was wall to wall with this.

- [Narrator] The Chicago Police Department set up its own task force to investigate Paula Prince's murder.

Homicide detective Jimmy Gildea found a tantalizing clue inside her apartment near downtown.

- And it was a Walgreens receipt.

The Tylenol was on the receipt, and it was timestamped.

So we knew where she bought it.

And eventually we got the pictures from the Walgreens.

- [Narrator] A security camera captured the moment Prince bought the Tylenol, a unique snapshot in an era before cell phones and surveillance cameras became routine.

- It's chilling.

You're literally watching her buy her own death.

- [Narrator] The photos didn't lead to any viable suspects.

Detectives looked into tips involving chemicals and got a lead from a local bar owner about a customer who claimed to possess cyanide.

- He told us, "I got a semi-regular customer who comes in here.

He's kind of an odd duck.

He's telling my patrons that it's easy to put cyanide in capsules, you could slip it to people.

You'd never get caught doing something like that."

- [Narrator] The customer was 48-year-old Roger Arnold.

Under questioning, Arnold admitted he had purchased cyanide for amateur experiments, but denied being the Tylenol Killer.

He agreed to let detectives search his home.

- [Jimmy] We find bunch of guns, a rifle, several pistols, all kinds of beakers and things in the basement, "The Anarchist Cookbook".

There are all kinds of books on making bombs.

We find detonators for explosives.

- [Narrator] Detectives didn't find any cyanide, but a look into Arnold's background aroused more suspicion.

He frequented bars near the Walgreens where Paula Prince bought Tylenol.

He worked at a Jewel warehouse, a grocery store chain where two of the tainted bottles had been purchased.

And he worked with the father of one victim.

- In this guy's case, he checked every box as far as possibly being the guy.

- [Anchor] Arnold was cooperative until the questioning turned to cyanide.

Arnold has refused to take a lie test that can clear him of any connection with the Tylenol Murders.

- [Narrator] After his name was leaked to the press, Arnold clammed up and demanded an attorney.

- So there was some glass thrown in front of the tire, that's for sure.

- [Narrator] With no direct evidence tying him to the murders, Arnold was charged with weapons violations and released on $600 bond.

He returned to his job under a cloud of suspicion.

- Roger Arnold was very angry that the finger had been pointed in his direction, and he was going to get his revenge.

And so he started stalking those bars, trying to find the guy he believed had turned him in as a possible suspect.

And one night he saw that person leave the bars.

- So he walks up to him and says, "You turned me into the police, didn't you?"

So the guy looks at him and says, "I'm sorry?"

Boom, he shoots him right in the chest.

- [Narrator] Gildea questioned Arnold at the police station afterwards.

- I had the driver's license of the guy that he killed and I showed it to him.

I says, "This is who you shot.

You shot the wrong guy."

- [Narrator] The victim, 46-year-old John Stanisha, had no connection to the Tylenol case.

He was a computer consultant with three daughters.

- I says, "This guy's got kids.

What did you do?"

He just collapses.

He just goes berserk, crying and everything else.

He realized that he killed the wrong guy.

- Some people call John Stanisha the eighth Tylenol victim because as a result of the Tylenol Murders, he ended up dead on the sidewalk.

- [Narrator] Arnold was convicted of murdering John Stanisha and sentenced to 30 years in prison.

He was never charged with the Tylenol poisonings.

- People say, "Do you think he did it?"

The only thing I can say is I can't say that he didn't do it.

It just leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

We took the best shot at it that we could.

You know, we always like to deliver for the family, you know?

But we weren't able to in this case.

- [Narrator] As days ticked by, Fahner's task force searched for any new leads.

It got a break on October 6th, a letter mailed to Johnson and Johnson from someone claiming to be the killer.

A single page that would turn the investigation on its head for years to come.

- There are reports that an extortionist is behind the murders in Chicago.

According to the "Chicago Sun-Times", the FBI is investigating a Chicago man who allegedly mailed the letter to the makers of Tylenol, demanding $1 million.

- [Narrator] The extortionist wrote, "Gentlemen, as you can see, it is easy to place cyanide into capsules sitting on store shelves.

It is easy to get buyers to swallow the bitter pill."

- And he says, "If you don't pay me money, I'm gonna do this again, because I know how to do it.

I did it."

- [Narrator] The writer warned, "If you don't mind the publicity of these little capsules, then do nothing."

- [Dan] "They're all gonna die immediately.

If you don't gimme $1 million, I'm gonna go kill a bunch more."

- [Narrator] Another letter addressed to the White House threatened President Ronald Reagan with more poisonings if he raised taxes.

Investigators traced the postage meter stamps on both letters to a Chicago area travel agency.

The owner was ruled out as a suspect.

- So the authorities asked, "Do you have any enemies?

Is there anybody who would want to put law enforcement on your doorstep like this?"

And he came up with a name, Robert Richardson.

- [Narrator] Robert Richardson was married to a former employee of the travel agency.

He was furious that his wife was still owed $500 in unpaid wages.

The couple lived in this Lincoln Park apartment building.

Richardson rarely worked, but fancied himself a writer.

The 36-year-old had contributed an essay to "The Chicago Tribune".

- [Christy] He was quite proud that it ran in "The Chicago Tribune".

One of the things that was really helpful was "The Tribune" ran his picture.

- [Narrator] The Richardsons had left Chicago on September 4th, three weeks before the poisonings, telling neighbors they were moving to Texas.

Authorities announced a federal arrest warrant, alleging attempted extortion, and circulated their photos.

- Authorities are mounting a nationwide manhunt in the case.

- [Narrator] A Kansas City police sergeant was watching the CBS evening news when a familiar face flashed across his screen.

- [Anchor] 36-year-old Robert Richardson is the man Chicago investigators suspected of-- - [Narrator] He identified the suspect immediately by his real name.

- I jumped out of the couch and I said, "That's goddamn James Lewis."

- [Narrator] Barton contacted the FBI and was on an airplane to Chicago the next day.

He told the task force all he knew about James Lewis, a fugitive also wanted in Kansas City with a lengthy rap sheet.

- He hails from a place called Carl's Junction.

And it is kind of the southern hill country of Missouri.

- [Joy] James Lewis grew up a very poor little kid who was abandoned by his parents and then later adopted.

As he grew into a teenager, he showed a lot of emotional problems.

- He tried to kill himself.

He chased his stepfather with an ax, broke several of his stepfather's ribs.

He ended up in a state psychiatric facility.

- By the time he was about 20, he seemed to be turning it around and went to college and met the love of his life, LeAnn.

They were two misfits that fit together.

It was a love story like no other.

- One of the things that bonded them was they had a little girl.

Her name was Toni, and she was born with Down syndrome.

She died in the early to mid '70s.

She had a hole in her heart.

- [Narrator] James and LeAnn ran a tax preparation business from their home in a working-class section of Kansas City.

One of their clients was a 72-year-old bachelor named Raymond West.

- He lived by himself.

He tended flowers.

The neighbors all knew him.

He had no enemies.

Just a retired guy just living his retired life.

- [Narrator] So it came as a surprise to friends when West vanished in the summer of 1978.

Police discovered a grizzly scene in his attic three weeks later.

- The body had been dismembered, then hoisted up into the attic by way of a triple pulley game hoist, a hoist that would be used by deer hunters to strip a deer in the field.

- [Narrator] Lewis became the lead suspect after trying to cash a forged check worth $5,000 on West's bank account.

- James Lewis was the only one with any kind of motive to kill Ray West, a financial motive.

- They also recovered out of his car boxes of canceled checks from Raymond West.

And the cords and ropes that were used to hoist the body up, they found a similar rope with similar knots in James Lewis' car.

- [Narrator] The case against Lewis appeared to be a slam dunk, but LeAnn came from some means and could afford Kansas City's best criminal defense attorneys.

They combed reports and unearthed a critical error.

Cops had failed to inform Lewis of his Miranda rights before questioning him.

Sergeant Barton was not involved in the procedural blunder.

- I think the prosecutor's office was outlawyered.

- [Narrator] The case was dismissed and Lewis walked, for the time being.

- There's never been any other suspect but James Lewis for this murder.

And he went away scot-free, and it's pretty shocking.

So James Lewis gets off on this technicality, but he doesn't go back to some law-abiding lifestyle, oh no!

He just embarks on a fairly widespread credit card fraud scheme.

- [Narrator] Lewis racked up more than $17,000 in charges on credit cards he took out in his tax clients' names.

Barton's team trailed Lewis for weeks and executed a search warrant at his home.

- [David] The fraud evidence was out in plain sight, scattered everywhere.

- [Narrator] When Barton moved in to arrest Lewis for fraud five days later, he discovered Lewis and his wife had fled town.

- And so it was like, "Oh crap, we missed him.

He's gone."

- [Narrator] Just 10 months later, Lewis was on the run again, but now the entire country was looking for him.

Fahner went public, identifying James and LeAnn as prime suspects in the Tylenol Murders.

- [Dan] Lewis was finished, dead meat, cold dead meat.

The entire law enforcement machinery in America was in a manhunt for him.

- [Narrator] Lewis evaded the dragnet for two months until a librarian spotted the now clean-shaven suspect reading in the New York Public Library.

FBI agents arrested Lewis on December 13th, 1982.

- [Anchor] A small army of cameramen and reporters jammed the Federal Building garage ramp, hoping to get a glimpse of LeAnn Lewis.

- [Narrator] LeAnn turned herself in the next day and was briefly held for using a false Social Security number.

- I wanted her to cooperate.

Our approach with LeAnn was to try to say, "Don't you think it might be good to flip on James Lewis?

Because he has not done you any favors in life and he's going to jail for a long time."

And she told us to go pound sand.

- [Narrator] Without LeAnn's cooperation, investigators struggled to unearth a key piece of evidence.

- One of the most frustrating parts of the investigation, we couldn't put James Lewis in Chicago at the time of the poisonings.

- They looked at plane tickets, train tickets, bus tickets, fake tickets.

They looked at everything.

They could not prove that James Lewis was any place but New York City during the month of September.

- Today, this would be solved in five minutes because of the cameras.

- [Narrator] While prosecutors didn't have enough evidence to charge Lewis with murder, there was plenty to move forward on attempted extortion.

- [Anchor] Under tight security that would remain so throughout his brief courtroom appearance, James Lewis, the accused Tylenol extortionist, arrived at the Dirksen Federal Building in a US Marshal's car.

- [Narrator] Lewis' attorney admitted Lewis wrote the extortion letter, but says he had intended to frame his wife's employer, not to extort Johnson and Johnson.

- He clearly tried to take advantage of this tragedy.

For someone to take advantage of that situation is the worst lowlife you could possibly imagine.

Who does that?

What kind of person does that?

- [Narrator] It took the jury just two and a half hours to convict.

While awaiting sentencing, Lewis reached out to FBI agent Roy Lane with a stunning offer to help with the Tylenol investigation, just as the FBI criminal profiler had predicted.

- I was very excited.

That was a big deal.

- [Narrator] Lane met with Lewis several times, getting a unique glimpse into the extortionist's mind.

- I didn't see psychopathic rage.

What I saw was a lack of concern for anyone other than himself.

I asked him, "Do you think the poisoner chose Extra Strength Tylenol so that it would avoid a child being a victim?"

And he broke out laughing.

And he says, "It's a joke.

Don't you get it?

There's something extra in the capsule."

- [Narrator] Lewis offered far more than just odd jokes, sharing dozens of manuscripts and detailed drawings with Lane and Assistant US Attorney Jeremy Margolis, speculating on how the perpetrator may have spiked Tylenol pills.

- He would suggest a number of different ways that the capsules could be filled.

The drill board method is one.

What on earth would possess a human being to spend this much time pontificating on these various methods of creating this diabolical murder scheme?

It's the moth being attracted to the flame.

- He said, "I can get you close to the person responsible for this."

And he wanted to eliminate anything he said could be used against him in a court of law.

We couldn't do that.

That's tantamount to giving a person immunity.

And that ended those conversations.

- [Narrator] The judge sentenced Lewis to 10 years in federal prison for attempted extortion.

But the Tylenol poisonings went unsolved.

- It's always bothered me.

And we're pretty sure it was Lewis, and we can never prove it.

I won't say a failure because I don't know what we could have done differently.

If we'd thought of it, we would've done it.

But it's how it ended.

- [Narrator] Within a year, Johnson and Johnson regained its position as the nation's top seller of over-the-counter pain relievers.

And nearly a decade after the poisonings, Johnson and Johnson settled with the victim's families.

The money was of little comfort to the Janus family.

The loss of three loved ones rippled through the generations.

- My grandparents blamed themselves for coming to the United States, because if they hadn't come, maybe they wouldn't have lost their kids.

Holidays were hard.

Birthdays were hard.

But Father's Day was probably the hardest holiday for me.

I always wanted to give him a card.

And so I used to buy him cards, but I didn't have anywhere to mail it to.

So I would just buy a Father's Day card and just write to him.

And then I would go to the cemetery and read it to him.

(melancholy music) - [Narrator] 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 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 Murderer is still out dancing in the streets of this country, and the prosecutors in Chicago could care less.

- [Interviewer] 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 Murderer out on the streets.

And they're the best friends that that Tylenol Murderer could ever have.

(mellow music) - [Narrator] 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 acts 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.

- [Narrator] 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 2.

- [Narrator] 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.

- [Narrator] 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' 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' name isn't real.

Nothing's real about it.

Jim falls for everything.

- Let's just talk about Monday to Tuesday.

- [Narrator] 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've bought a bottle a month before and played with it until he got it right.

- [Narrator] 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 the bending you need.

There's your hook for picking up the cotton.

This will lift.

Reach underneath here, lift this up, pull it out, pull it out of the box.

- [Narrator] 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 a handicapped 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 that 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."

- [Narrator] For Lane, the most telling moment occurred at a Chicago hotel in September, 2007.

- Could I just move this just for a second?

- [Narrator] When friendly banter shifted to a pointed interrogation.

- I just charted out the 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?

- [Narrator] 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, 'cause you clearly had that in mind.

I didn't have that in mind.

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

- Yeah, because basically-- - I would've still-- - You would've written the letter the same day they were dying.

- Yeah, well-- 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.

- [Narrator] 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.

- [Narrator] 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.

- [Narrator] 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."

- [Narrator] 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.

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

The fictional story begins with a mass poisoning.

- [Caller] I got a question for Mr.

Lewis.

- [Narrator] But callers wanted to discuss the real life Tylenol case instead.

- [Caller] 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 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 Lewis just basks in the spotlight of being the suspect.

- [Narrator] 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.

- [Narrator] The task force offered several possible motives, including one linked to the tragic loss of James and LeAnn's 5-year-old daughter in 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 and Johnson.

- [Narrator] It's a theme of revenge in his entire adult life.

Where he thinks somebody's slighted him, he's gonna get even with them.

- [Narrator] 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.

- [Narrator] 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 shut down, saying, "You don't have a case, or we're not gonna prosecute."

And that was very difficult to deal with.

- [Narrator] The FBI turned over the case to the Arlington Heights Police Department.

Authorities wanted nothing more than to give closure to the Januses and other families, but had no new answers.

- I do not follow the Tylenol investigations.

I don't want that to consume me.

Oh my goodness.

I wanna be in a place where I can just breathe.

- [Narrator] Kasia spent years blaming herself for her father's death, because she had led him down the grocery aisle where he picked up the deadly Tylenol bottle.

- I always felt like it was my fault.

If it wasn't for me to run down that aisle, we wouldn't have had that bottle.

None of this would've happened.

And I had no idea I was carrying this guilt.

I was really angry.

I was really angry at the world.

I was angry at Tylenol.

I was angry at God.

- [Narrator] While Kasia focused on healing, many Chicagoans still demanded justice as the 40th anniversary of the poisonings approached in 2022.

Authorities were frustrated too about a case they had struggled to solve for decades.

Time was running out, but no one had any idea just how quickly.

- The twists and turns in the Tylenol case are like nothing I've ever seen before.

- Well, the only suspect in the 1982 Tylenol Murders has died.

With the death of 76-year-old James Lewis, this case may never be solved.

- I was sad.

You know, I was sad because of the weird relationship we had for the 40 years.

And it was over.

- That son of a bitch, and I do believe he's the son of a bitch, I'm old and nasty and mean now, I wish I could grab Lewis and kill him over and over.

- When James Lewis died and the obituaries ran, it was almost as if they had convicted him postmortem.

He never got charged.

And I want the record to be clear that he never was charged in the Tylenol Murders.

- [Narrator] Former Chicago Police Superintendent Brzeczek and some victims' relatives are outraged the case is still technically open, preventing the public from reviewing evidence and drawing its own conclusion.

- They still won't release any of their files.

If you go to Arlington Heights and make an inquiry about something, they have to call the FBI to get permission.

Why does it have to continue to be a secret if their prime suspect is dead?

- [Narrator] There is one person who may be able to close this chapter in Chicago history, LeAnn Lewis.

- She holds a few clues, and she has never spoken.

She has never flipped on her husband.

And she does know things.

- [Narrator] Lewis did not respond to WTTW's requests for comment.

- In my mind, I am convinced that law enforcement agencies in this country have done everything humanly possible to give those seven families justice.

It's just that we don't live in a perfect world.

- [Narrator] Seven people in the prime of their lives suffered a heartbreaking tragedy on September 29th, 1982.

The poisonings terrorized a city, but a $2.29 bottle of Tylenol transformed the world in ways we now take for granted.

- Every time you open a yogurt, every time you open a bottle of medicine, there's that safety seal.

And the reason why that's there is because of the Tylenol Murders.

The impact endures to this day.

- [Narrator] The scars have lasted a lifetime for Kasia Janus and so many others who lost loved ones.

But she has found comfort and solace in her family.

- I am happily married and I have a son named Hunter.

They are my world.

- [Narrator] While her father, uncle, and aunt's deaths are painful, Kasia honors them every September.

- I wanted to celebrate who they were.

And I ended up getting the gladiolus flower as a representation of the last flower that my dad gave to my mom.

(peaceful music) I try to visit the cemetery because it is a place of solitude and reflection.

(music continues) And I really do like to have my conversations with my dad there.

Am I doing the right thing?

Are you proud of me, dad?

And hopefully he's saying yes.

'Cause I just want him to be proud of me.

I hope that he is.

I don't want people to forget, seven precious people died and it changed the entire world.

And so we need to honor them.

We need to tell their story.

(music fades) (no audio)