CHEM TERROR - Tylenol cases still unsolved 2 decades later

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Current News - Homefront Preparations : One Thread

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/320/nation/Chemical_terrorism_that_change:.shtml

Chemical terrorism that changed America the unsolved Tylenol cases, a generation before anthrax scare

By Andrew Buchanan, Associated Press, 11/16/2001 15:09

CHICAGO (AP) The first victim was a 12-year-old girl seeking to cure a morning headache. She was followed by a 27-year-old postal worker, his brother and his brother's new wife.

Three more people died as authorities made the unsettling connection: All the victims had taken cyanide-laced capsules of Extra Strength Tylenol. The discovery set off a national panic and created a murder mystery that remains unsolved.

Nearly two decades before anthrax killed four people and changed the way Americans handle their mail, the country learned that an everyday product could be turned into a killer.

''This was an outbreak of chemical terrorism,'' recalled Cook County Medical Examiner Edmund Donoghue, who investigated the 1982 killings as the office's chief deputy. ''It was kind of a ridiculous thought at the time that Tylenol, the world's greatest pain reliever, would have killed someone.''

John Fellmann, a captain with the Arlington Heights police in suburban Chicago who helped investigate the Tylenol killings, said the anthrax scare has given him a case of deja vu.

''Something you trust, the mail, is killing you,'' he said.

Johnson & Johnson, parent company of Tylenol manufacturer McNeil Consumer Products, recalled more than 20 million bottles of Extra Strength Tylenol and burned every one. Chicago Mayor Jane Byrne banned the sale of Tylenol products, and 1,300 volunteers canvassed the city to warn the public about the potential danger.

Across the country, everyone from school nurses to housewives rushed to turn in bottles to authorities. Investigators eventually recovered eight tainted bottles, five related to the deaths, two turned in by consumers and one pulled from a store shelf.

''Everybody was frightened if they had Tylenol in the house,'' said Chuck Kramer, the retired deputy chief of the Arlington Heights Fire Department who responded to the home where three members of the Janus family died. ''To this day I don't take any capsules. We have all the tamper-proof bottles today but I still check those.''

Like the anthrax cases, the Tylenol deaths set off an enormous and enormously difficult investigation.

A task force of 150 officers from local, state and federal agencies tracked down thousands of leads. No one was ever charged in the killings and officials said the crimes had no known pattern or motive. While there were later copycat cases in Washington state and New York, the Chicago-area deaths ended as abruptly as they began.

Two men were convicted for crimes related to the 1982 poisonings: Roger Arnold of Chicago for killing a man he thought directed investigators his way in the case, and James E. Lewis of Kansas City, who sent an extortion note to Johnson & Johnson threatening to poison bottles of the painkiller unless he got $1 million.

Some investigators believed Lewis was also the killer but it was never proven. Both men have served prison terms and been released.

The FBI says the case remains open. Fellmann said he used to hear from the FBI off and on, but not for about two years now.

But the case still haunts investigators and medical personnel alike.

Kramer recalled the Janus case, where grieving family members returned home from the hospital after the death of Adam Janus and began to pass around a bottle of Tylenol. Capsules from the same bottle had killed Adam.

Paramedics were called when Stanley Janus, 25, collapsed.

''While we were working on him his wife collapsed in the other room,'' Kramer said. Stanley and 19-year-old Theresa Janus were both soon dead.

''I have been on thousands and thousands of calls, but I'll always remember the Janus family,'' Kramer said.

While the slayings remain unresolved, the tragedy had at least one far-reaching consequence: the tamper-resistant packaging on most foods and drugs sold today. The deaths also led to tougher criminal penalties for illegal tampering with consumer products.

The product safety improvements provide little solace to relatives of the victims.

''It's a wound that has never closed,'' said Patricia Kellerman of Elk Grove Village, grandmother of 12-year-old Mary Kellerman, the first victim.

''It's so disheartening. I watch all these programs on television and it seems like they always find who did it,'' she said. ''It just seems impossible that someone's still walking around out there that's guilty of these crimes.''

-- Anonymous, November 16, 2001


Moderation questions? read the FAQ