James Lewis, the sole suspect in the 1982 Tylenol murders, died Sunday in Massachusetts, according to multiple reports.
Police in Cambridge told WBBM-TV that Lewis was found dead in his apartment on Sunday afternoon. His death was “determined to not be suspicious,” the news station reported.
He was 76, according to WLS-TV.
In 1982, seven people in the Chicago area died after taking extra strength Tylenol that had been laced with cyanide. The deaths triggered the largest product tampering investigation in history and led to the adoption of tamper-proof packaging, the Chicago Tribune reported.
After the deaths, authorities charged Lewis with attempting to extort $1 million from Tylenol makers Johnson & Johnson. Lewis admitted to sending a letter to the company demanding payment but said he never intended to collect the cash, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. He said he instead wanted to have the money sent to a bank account owned by his wife’s former employer to embarrass them, the newspaper reported.
He was released from prison in 1995 and long denied any involvement in the tampering incidents, according to the Sun-Times. No one has ever been charged with murder in connection with the case due to a lack of evidence, officials said. However, investigators have continued to dig into the case, interviewing Lewis as recently as September, the Tribune reported.
“I was always hoping justice would be served, and this short-circuits it,” former FBI special agent Roy Lane, who worked to solve the case for decades, told the newspaper.
Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeremy Margolis, who prosecuted Lewis in the extortion case, told WLS that he was sad to hear about Lewis’ death, “Not because he’s dead, but because he didn’t die in prison.”
The seven people killed by the 1982 Tylenol tampering incidents were 12-year-old Mary Kellerman, of Elk Grove Village; 27-year-old Adam Janus, of Arlington Heights; 25-year-old Stanley Janus, and 19-year-old Theresa Janus, both of Lisle; 27-year-old Mary Reiner, of Winfield; 31-year-old Mary McFarland, of Elmhurst; and 35-year-old Paula Prince of Chicago.
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